The interrogation room was an eight per ten feet long cubicle, tiled in green with walls ambiguously painted in a color between yellow and brown, and it held a one-sided mirror in the wall opposing the door, behind which a tinier observation room lay. It was big enough to host about three people and was one out of three in Hollow Creek’s Police Department. Inside it, was a long table adapted for handcuffs, usually with a tape recorder and a security cam, both now missing, and three chairs thought for a suspect and two interrogators.

When Barnes and Daniel entered the room, a man was sitting in front of them, giving his back to the mirror, the other two chairs were in front of him. The places had been interchanged.

— Daniel, I was waiting for you —

Said gently the man suited black. He took a stand quickly, and holding formally his jacket, raised his hand for a handshake. Daniel rushed so that he wouldn't wait, and the three of them sat immediately. The man was branded by the protocol procedures.

— I’m afraid I don’t have the pleasure, sir…? — Daniel left the question in the air, giving him an opening to present himself.

— Sure, my manners. I’m David Specter, Special Agent from the AMAT National Protocol —

Daniel gave Barnes a look, and Barnes did the same with him.

— Excuse me —

Daniel repared.

— But I’m afraid I’m not familiar with the name —

— Well, that means we’re doing a good job —

Answered the AMAT Agent with a smile.

Specter was a tall black-haired man of about thirty-forty years, and the two only features remarkable about him were his tired sight and trimmed beard. He looked somewhat shady, but just in the same way every seasoned FBI agent usually did.

— And what would that be? If I’m allowed to ask —

Asked Daniel, maybe playing it farther than it should.

— That’s exactly why I’m here, Detective —

Picking up the big red book in the right corner of the table, the AMAT Agent proceeded.

There was certainly an elephant in the room, and at that point, neither Daniel nor Barnes had been able to avoid it. Since the moment they entered, and even before Barnes had met with Agent Specter, three objects stood up the table.

They were a sealed box, completely made of metal, like those in which heavily secret paperwork is carried. A sort of tribal object, consisting of a circular wood structure and cord, much like the dreamcatchers one can find in souvenir stores. And the book that now was held by Specter.

Immediately, Specter started to search through it, avidly with his expert eyes and vivid fingers, stopping after a few seconds at one of the pages. Then he smiled politely and handed the book, wide open on top of the table, so the two detectives could read what was inside of it.

— Come on, take a look —

Incited Specter, Daniel who had held back his curiosity since the very first moment, was the first one to accept the invitation, reclining himself to look better. Then he started reading.

Inside the book, on yellowish thick paper, a title written at the top said "Chapter 1: The Strange Case of Oliver Strange."

Moved by the same curiosity from before, Daniel kept reading.

"That night, Daniel couldn’t hold his sleep, he drove down to the Police Department of Hollow Creek, set up his cubicle, and started going through the whole paperwork of his last case. He was convinced that he had stepped into a rabbit hole.

It had been on his desk across the last week since a call was made from a peasant the night of July 28th, the security cameras from Hollow Creek's Playgrounds, a recreative area, had recorded the whole incident. The boy had entered the complex at midnight, trespassed the security fences, and planted himself in the middle of the Starlight baseball field. After about an hour, he alone had managed to go from one corner of the playgrounds to the other, leaving a track of destruction, all the way through the stands, to a total of 200.000 dollars in property damage. But the true problem wasn’t that, but the fact that it was impossible to prove that he had been responsible for it.

This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

That same night, Daniel went through the whole evidence of the case, including the security recordings provided by the Playgrounds manager that morning. Alone in the hall, he went part by part for the whole eighteen minutes of footage they had available, barely visible on the green-shaded screen of his PC."

Then he stopped reading, stranged by the whole situation. He looked at Barnes, and after him, Specter, then he asked.

— What is this? —

Specter seemed to have heard a joke.

— You don't know it yet? skip a couple of pages, enjoy yourself —

He insisted.

Daniel, intrigued by what could be ahead, did was he was told. He skipped a few pages ahead and chose a random paragraph.

"A couple of minutes before, while Daniel was waiting outside Oliver’s house, thinking about the moment he would get in, he didn’t want to accept it, but he was starting to believe in something.

Daniel, like everyone else of his time and age, had a reasonable disbelief for that related to the paranormal, metaphysics, and that type of stuff. Instead, Daniel was a fervent believer of God's truth and the Evangelium.

Every Sunday, he and his wife would go to church to praise the Lord, and even though he and Eve assured themselves to stay away from those few of the congregation who accused their problem of evil spirits or the acts of the Devil as religious fanatics often did, every morning he wore a cross around his neck, under his shirt, just to be sure.

He was no fool, but precisely because of that, he feared both the Lord and what evil could do to him and his loved ones, especially in his line of work.

That’s why that morning, in the waiting, he started wandering inside his head. He asked himself something:

“If we were dealing with an evil entity, and that happened to be a seventeen-year-old, how would you approach it?”

He stopped about when Oliver's interview started, still excited to read but too afraid to continue. It seemed he was in the middle of chapter three.

— How could you know? This isn't —

Daniel doubt.

— Possible? —

Questioned Specter

— We avoid believing anything that could ever endanger the perception of the world in which we live, Detective —

Stated Specter and Daniel realized instantly. He was quoting that morning's conversation.

Daniel didn't need to go back and check on the book's next page to know that it was like that, yet he was too afraid to confirm it. That book, and Specter as an extension of it, knew everything about their visit to Oliver, the time he spent searching through his case, and maybe even his conversation with Eve.

At the urge of that thought, Daniel felt especially tempted to go back and read, but he reclined himself on the chair instead, looking at the book, frightened. What else could be there about him? That book didn't only report on his deeds, it talked about his thoughts and his history, and it knew things that no one else should.

— You must be confused, Detective, let me help you to understand —

Said Specter friendly, taking back the book.

— Detective Barnes, could you help me with something? —

Barnes looked at him creeped out and said

— I'm not sure if I want, Agent —

— It's an order from your superior, also, you'll be safe I promise, it's only for demonstration porpoises, shut up and listen right? —

While he said that, Specter stood out of his seat, at what Barnes followed.

There Specter opened the book and went further, just a few pages from where Daniel stopped, till he found a half-written page. When Barnes read it, the last couple of paragraphs described their current conversation.

— Hold the book, Detective Barnes —

Said Specter, guiding Barnes and lending the book to him. Then he walked a couple steps back with his hands raised over the head.

— I’m going to pick a number —

Said Specter, making a few examples with his hands in such a way that none of them could see. Two, four, and six, the whole scene looked childish.

— You’ll be able to read my choice in the book —

He did so, putting his hands behind him, and finally chose the number seven. While reading it, Barnes's expression showed disbelief.

— It says seven —

No matter the less, Barnes followed along.

— Now look at the mirror back there —

The reflex, in fact, showed the number seven.

Daniel, reluctant but curious, stood to confirm it and took the book from Barnes's hands.

— But how can we know there’s no one watching to make this happen? —

It sounded and looked like a magic trick. In expenses of anything that Agent Specter could do. It even made Daniel remember the same cocky attitude with which David Copperfield presented his tricks on TV when he was still a child.

Many years before, the vanishing of the Statue of Liberty, crossing through China’s Wall, and the escapism from Alcatraz were some of Daniel's favorite arguments on behalf of the unknown. Back then, those types of things fed his faith in the incredible yet inexplicable things out there, one that had become less and less relevant with time.

When Daniel took a look at what the book was saying, he found himself in the middle of a paragraph that said:

"...it made Daniel remember the same cocky attitude with which David Copperfield presented his tricks on TV when he was still a child.

Many years before, the vanishing of the Statue of Liberty, crossing through China’s Wall, and the escapism from Alcatraz were some of Daniel's favorite arguments on behalf of the unknown. Back then, those types of things fed his faith in..."

At that moment, Daniel dropped the book, which fell and closed itself on the floor. That wasn't something a magic trick could do, the book... that goddam book was reading his mind, memories, story, everything about him. Suddenly, Daniel felt observed by something he couldn't explain. When he took a look into Specter, the Agent looked placed.

— Anything strange enough to our understanding would be indistinguishable from magic, Detective —

It wasn't only the tricks, nor the book, at that point, Daniel was overwhelmed by everything. The sleepless nights reviewing the case, the video, that morning's interrogation, his conversation with Eve, all. He questioned himself at that moment... "could it just... be true?"