Simon was laying in bed a quarter past midnight. The new semester was set to start the next morning, and unlike most students he was still sober. His apartment was far enough from campus that he only heard the occasional student passing by under his window, but he was still being kept up by his thoughts.

He was supposed to be entering his junior year, but had lost all enthusiasm for philosophy, his major. He never signed up for any classes this semester, because he saw no point until he thought of a new major. Now he was reduced to staying up all night, laying in bed and wondering if there was anything he could do to put his life back on track.

But his thoughts were interrupted when a golden light filled the room, and an angel appeared before him. It was a man with wings and flowing robes, with stern eyes and a severe expression. The light that emanated from the angel was bright, but gentle enough that Simon could still look at him directly. Just the angel’s presence filled Simon with a fearful awe.

“You have been chosen by God to fulfill a part of His plan.”

Simon was still trying to process the situation. I guess I should ask what purpose God could possibly have for a failed philosophy major. But all the words that came to his mind felt too presumptuous to say to this sort of being. The angel held itself with a grand presence, and Simon simply bowed his head, unable to bring himself to say anything.

“As we speak, a demon is appearing before another student in the guise of an angel. It is giving him the ability to grant the wishes of a girl named Marie Spencer, while instructing him to do so and to ‘make her happy.’”

Simon stayed with his head bowed, but as the silence dragged on he realized that the angel was waiting for him to speak. Maybe it could sense that he had questions. “Is that really an issue, if some girl’s wishes are grant- Actually, she’s probably just an especially evil person, right?”

“She is not much more evil than any other human. But human desires are disordered. It is for her own sake and that of everyone around her that the demon’s will be counteracted.”

“So God’s will is for me to stop her wishes from being granted?”

“There is more to your role than that. Your job is to guide her. Your end goal is for the girl to choose her own death willingly.”

Simon felt a sinking feeling, and looked up at the angel. The command he was being given felt so malicious that he almost wondered if this were the demon. But he could not imagine a demon having such a regal and graceful feeling to it. No, this was truly an angel of God. “…You want me to drive her to suicide? For her own sake?”

“Suicide is the wrong word. In time you will come to understand the goal and its necessity. For now, be satisfied with the answer that this is God’s will.”

Simon bowed his head again, this time in thought instead of politeness. Why would an angel want some girl to commit suicide? Could Simon really drive her to it? Maybe this was some sort of test, and he was supposed to refuse? He looked up and examined the angel again. This angel was clearly too great for petty tricks; this was no test.

Simon felt almost guilty as he said “I’ll do it. But if I may ask, why has God chosen me for this?”

There was no change in the angel’s stern expression as it replied, “There is no reason that you were chosen. God could have used anyone or anything for His purpose. Be glad, he has chosen you. If that is your only question, it is time to discuss certain details.”

The angel went on to describe the ins and outs of the other student’s power to grant wishes. Simon simply stood there, taking in the information.

After the details were ironed out, the angel said “Now, it is time for me to grant you a power of your own.”

Simon looked up. It never occurred to him that he might need his own power to counteract the wish-granting.

The angel spoke again, “I will give you the ability to convince Marie of things. Once per day, you will be able to persuade her of something. However, You will be unable to convince her of general principles or opinions unless she is already close to believing them. It will be easy to have her believe a small fact which is of no consequence, but changing her worldview would take many small steps. With this, you have all the information necessary. Farewell.”

Before Simon was able to process that the angel was leaving, he found himself alone in the room again. After several minutes of staring at a wall, trying to process what had happened, he realized that there was a lot of information in his head at once. He snatched up a notebook, and wrote it all down, attributing to God the fact that he still remembered everything in the first place.

After all the information was down on paper, he collapsed on his bed, exhausted. There was so much to think about that he no longer had any motivation to think at all, and he soon drifted into sleep.

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The next morning, Simon woke up, still tired from the night before. He looked over the edge of his bed and found the notebook sitting on the floor, still full of information. He knew he should be thinking ‘I guess it wasn’t a dream after all’ or something interesting like that, but the prospect of convincing some girl to commit suicide was grim enough that it felt wrong to think in cliches. Still, if God was personally asking him to do something, he should probably give it his all.

He slowly got out of bed and dressed himself. He had no classes this semester, so he was free to go straight to his computer and start researching. Sure enough Marie Spencer was a sophomore in the literature department. Some student would be trying to make her happy, and it was Simon’s job to make sure he failed.

Thinking about it, Simon realized that the angel had not given him nearly enough information. Who was the other student? Did the other student know about Simon? How does Simon use his new power? What about Marie? What sorts of things was she interested in? How could Simon make contact with her? And it would certainly help Simon’s motivation to know why she needed to die in the first place. As it was, just making a beeline for convincing her ‘Life’s not worth living’ felt wrong.

Simon would need to go about this smartly, and account for the various possibilities. First of all, how could he use his power? He decided to use ‘rain sometimes makes driving easier’ as an example. It was factual, and would not have any bearing on someone’s overall worldview. He imagined using his power, and felt that he could do it. He sensed the exact mental lever he could pull which would convince her of that, but decided not to pull it. Doing it in reality would be a waste of today’s use. It was enough to know that he could do it and how.

Now he needed a way to get in contact with her. He decided to start by hanging around the liberal arts building to see if he would run into her there. It felt like stalking, but if her suicide was the end goal, stalking almost seemed tame in comparison.

As he walked to the building and sat on a bench outside, he thought about how to start a conversation. His ability could give him an edge, but he still needed to plan carefully. It would be best to use something that could keep the conversation going for a little while. Even better if it could result in them doing an activity together regularly.

Simon also had no idea who the student trying to grant her wishes was. Luckily, the other student probably has classes, so if Simon did run into Marie Spencer here, it would likely be before the other student met her. He would need to do an activity which allowed him to make the other person reveal themselves.

He spent the next couple hours planning out exactly what he would do, and before he knew it he saw Marie Spencer walk out of the liberal arts building. He had never seen her walk in, so either she had entered through a different door or he had been too wrapped up in his planning to notice her. Either way, it was time to walk up and start the process.

“Hey, sorry to bother you, but I’m trying to figure out how the watermelon got on the bell tower last night. I was wondering if you saw anything?” It was a complete lie, there was never any watermelon on the bell tower. It was something he once heard had happened on some other campus a long time ago, and he decided to rip it off.

“No, sorry, I didn’t know that there was a watermelon on the bell tower.”

“Yeah, this morning people woke up and there it was, impaled on the spike at the top of the bell tower. It seems like an interesting mystery who did it and how, so I’ve been trying to solve it.”

This was the point where Simon used his power. He had spent a long time thinking about what to convince her of and landed on ‘it is an interesting mystery how the watermelon got on the bell tower.’ She already had no reason to doubt the watermelon story, so slipping that in as an assumption would be acceptable. She must have already found it at least a bit interesting, because convincing her of that was also allowed.

“Hmm… That is weird. I wonder how they did it. Do you think a drone? Or maybe a ladder?”

“I’m not really sure. I looked at the tower earlier and didn’t find anything, so I decided to start asking people. But that’s not turning up much either, so I think I’m going to go back and reexamine it.”

Here’s the risky part. If she’s busy or doesn’t offer to go with me for some other reason, this could fail.

“Is it alright if I go with you?” Marie asked “I probably won’t be much help, but I at least want to see the watermelon up on the bell tower.”

“Yeah, sure.” Except that there is no watermelon on the bell tower. How am I supposed to explain that?

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“Oh, they must have taken it down already” Marie said, to Simon’s relief.

“I guess so. Hopefully someone took a picture of it before they got it down.” Crap. I’m really lying myself into a corner. It’s only a matter of time before she finds out that there was no watermelon.

“Hopefully…” Marie seemed disappointed.

“Well, if you came all this way, want to look around and see if there’s any traces pointing to whoever did this?” Simon was hoping to get her involved, but even if she decided not to, they had talked long enough to break the ice by this point. “Even if you didn’t get to see the watermelon, at least you could help find out how it got there.”

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

“Alright, but I’m not really sure what to look for.” Marie said.

The power must have had an effect. I doubt most people would be interested enough to even come here, much less stick around when there’s no watermelon.

They both wandered in different directions, looking around the tower for anything that stands out. After a while, Simon could tell that Marie was starting to run out of places to look. He needed to think fast, and make up a clue to keep her interested.

Looking around, he noticed a tire track. The way the dirt was disturbed made it clear that it had been made by something traveling over wet ground, but the last time that it rained was several days ago, and there were no sprinklers in this area. Still, Simon was desperate for a fake clue, so he needed to hope that Marie was too focused on solving the mystery to notice.

“I think I found something” he said, waving her over.

“What is it?”

“Look at these tracks. Notice that they get deeper here before suddenly turning around. I think that means that whatever made the tracks stopped here for a while before leaving. This happens to be the perfect distance to view the spike at the top of the tower. I wonder if this was made last night when the watermelon was being put up there.”

Marie leaned in and looked at the tracks closely, “That’s a pretty good find. It’s nothing certain, but that definitely could be related.”

Good. She didn’t notice that the tracks couldn’t have been made last night.

As he stood up, Simon noticed the gardener’s truck in the distance. There was a mud-covered wheelbarrow in the bed.

Maybe I could point it out, and say that someone must have used the gardener’s wheelbarrow? No, it makes too much sense for the gardener to use it here, and there’s no reason someone would need a wheelbarrow to put a watermelon on the top of the tower. I should just guide her away from here before she sees it herself.

“Well, this could be useful” Simon said, “but there’s something else I want to look into. I think I heard about something similar happening at a different college a while back. Maybe we should try going to the library and looking into that story. If we know how they did it, it could give us some ideas.”

The fake clue must have brought Marie’s spirits back up because she agreed to go with him. Simon was not sure how much longer being convinced that the mystery was ‘interesting’ would keep Marie around. He needed a way to resolve this before she found out that he was making everything up.

When they arrived at the library, they started trying to find information about the other story. Simon was unsure where he had heard it, and they quickly stopped making progress and started just talking about their own case.

Simon thought about asking Marie to quiet down, but there were only a few other students and she seemed genuinely excited. As the conversation went on, Simon started to feel bad on several levels.

He had no way of resolving this. There were multiple leads which went nowhere because there was never any mystery in the first place. Why did I even go with ‘mystery watermelon’? I should have just invited her bowling or something. Furthermore, he felt bad watching Marie talk excitedly about something that he just made up, and then forced her to be interested in. And to top it all off, his goal was apparently to lead her to commit suicide. Why would God want that to happen? She seemed to be a decent enough person. This whole thing was starting to make him feel sick. He was almost ready to call if off and head home.

But just then someone walked up and said “Hey, nice shirt! I love that band.”

Simon looked at him. Simon and Marie had been around campus for hours and this was the first person to approach them. Not to mention, he seemed to want this to turn into a conversation.

I should give a short response. If this is the student visited by a demon, he’ll try to keep the conversation going no matter what. Otherwise, he’ll leave once I say ‘thanks’ the way most people do after complimenting someone’s shirt.

“Oh, thanks.”

Simon saw a slight flicker of annoyance pass the student’s face, before the student asked “What’s your favorite album?”

He’s still trying to continue the conversation. If God really wants me to do make the girl commit suicide, then it has to be a good thing somehow. Either way, I’ll need a way of thinking about the situation which allows me to stomach it. Driving a girl to suicide feels disgusting, but stopping a man who’s doing the will of a demon is something I can do. I’ll do one more test to see if you’re the enemy. If so, I’ll put all my efforts into defeating you.

“Did you see anything weird last night?” Right. This is why I went with the ‘mystery watermelon.’ I can ask people this to see their reaction, and outside of being a bit blunt, Marie won’t suspect that I’m asking about anything other than our ‘mystery.’

The other student looked shocked and blurted out a “What?” This level of surprise could only mean one thing. This was the one visited by a demon, and he knew nothing about Simon. It was time to clear up his surprise before he started to suspect anything.

“Well, you see, I’ve been trying to solve a mystery on campus. This morning a watermelon was found stuck on the spike at the top of the bell tower. We’ve been trying to figure out who did it and how.”

Simon tried to ignore the guilt when Marie showed her excitement and added “So did you see anything that could help explain it?”

The man thought for a moment before saying, “Actually, I did see something weird, but to be honest I drank a little too much last night, so I don’t know how reliable it is.”

Marie said “That’s alright, just tell us what you saw.”

“Well, I saw someone carrying something green, and placing it into a wheelbarrow, which had some sort of contraption in it.”

Simon tried not to laugh. He’s lying through his teeth! There never was a watermelon. And this wheelbarrow detail is very convenient. Maybe I could use this to make the tracks seem more like a clue. First let’s see if I can get him to make his story more specific.

Simon tried to kill the humor in his voice as he said “And that green thing was a watermelon?”

“I’m not sure, but it seemed to be the right color and shape, so it could be.”

“Did you see what the man looked like?” Marie asked.

“He was a tallish white student with short brown hair.” the student responded.

He was clearly trying to give a vague description so they would need him to identify the culprit. Simon decided to play along.

“That could describe a lot of people.”

“I guess his eyes were a bit small?”

“Hmm…” Simon could practically see the gears turning in Marie’s head. “Would you recognize him if you saw him?”

“Yeah, I think I would.”

“Okay,” Marie asked, “can we have your number so we can call you if we find someone that fits?”

She seems to be holding back from asking him to come with us. If he grants one of her wishes I want to be there too, that way they don’t end up becoming friends some other time without me. I need to be a part of the friend group so I can undo his plans. I guess I’ll throw him a bone this time.

“Actually, if you have the time, maybe you could just investigate with us?”

Simon could see the relief on the student’s face. “I don’t have any more classes today, so all I was going to do is find an excuse to study.”

“Awesome,” Marie said, “Time to get you caught up on the details of the case.”

“Wait, first, what are your names?”

“Oh, right, I’m Marie, and this is Simon.”

“Nice to meet you, I’m Jack.”

Simon nodded to Jack, his enemy.

After Jack was completely caught up on the details of the case, he said “Could the tire tracks have been made by a wheelbarrow?”

Simon decided to try to guide them back to the bell tower. Maybe he could make up a story about a student borrowing the gardener’s wheelbarrow and using a catapult. He could even pay a student who fit the description to say that.

“Possibly. I would need to see them again to be sure. I can’t believe I didn’t take a picture.”

“Well, let’s just go back and take another look.” Marie said.

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“It really does look like a wheelbarrow was set down here.” Marie said, examining the tracks.

“Yeah, I guess maybe what I saw was the culprit, after all.” Jack said as Simon tried not to laugh at the obvious lie.

Simon decided to run with it, if only to create a resolution to this fake mystery. “If a wheelbarrow was used, I’m going to guess that they carried a catapult in it. A drone could just be brought in a backpack, and something like a ladder wouldn’t be the right shape for a wheelbarrow.”

“But didn’t you say before that it would be hard to aim and keep the watermelon from splitting using a catapult?” Marie asked, obviously thinking hard about it.

“Yeah, but that helps narrow things down a bit more. Whoever did it must be well versed in the math needed to pull that off. So we just need to find a white tallish physics major with brown hair and small eyes.”

Marie started looking around as if she expected him to show up right away, “I hope we find him and solve this case soon. I have another class later and I don’t want you to solve it without me.”

After a few seconds a voice came up from behind “Hey, Jack! I just got out of differential equations.”

It was a white tallish student with brown hair and small eyes.

Jack said, “Oh, hey Jared.”

Immediately, Marie cut in “Your eyes are kind of small.”

The student named Jared was clearly confused “Oh, uh… Okay?”

If I press the issue, maybe he’ll say something I can construe as incriminating, then I can pretend I solved the case.

Simon asked “Did you put the watermelon on the tower?”

“I… How do you know that?” Jared asked, surprised.

Well, I was looking for something I could make sound incriminating. I wasn’t expecting something this good, though. I just need to pr-

“Wait, was it really you?” Jack asked.

No, don’t give him the chance to explain himself! Just say he did it and call it a day.

Jared leaned toward them all conspiratorially and said “Don’t tell anyone. I borrowed the gardener’s wheelbarrow last night, and used it to wheel over a catapult. Hilarious, right?”

Simon burst out laughing, unable to stop himself. It hit him all at once. When Marie said that she hoped they would catch the culprit soon, Jack must have used his power. The power needed a culprit to exist for that to happen, and so there was a culprit.

We just solved a mystery that didn’t exist. This is fascinating.

“I guess we did it! This was fun.” Marie said “I hope there’s another mystery some time soon. If there is, we should get together and solve it.”

Simon looked at Jack. He realizes it too. Now I just wait for Jack to use his power, and we can have another mystery to solve.