Beneath a sea of swirling gray clouds lay a monochrome city that remained stirring. Despite the stars shining between holes in the sheets of light mist, the city of Laslow refused to rest. The sparse neon signs and street lamps that illuminated the streets were easily outshined by the full moon. Although talks of superstition and murder were about, most were not overly worried, especially the ones locked up in cages. Within a dimly lit hallway, behind rows upon rows of iron bars, a single shadow sat counting the seconds until the next hour. A guard stationed at the prison marched through the quiet hall with a slow rhythm. The heavy clacks of his shoes against the cold tiled floor acted as a metronome to the tune he whistled to himself. Each cell he passed made him admire his job a little bit more. He finished his tune and arrived in front of a particularly lonely cell. A lump of bedsheets lay on the middle of the floor. When he saw a brown shoe poking out from under it, he chuckled.
“Wake up, sleepyhead!” the guard shouted. A flurry of bed sheets and panic erupted from the floor before abruptly freezing in place. The mass realized the reason behind the rude awakening.
“Quite the display of grace,” the man chuckled, “You may follow me now, Miss… er…” The guard glanced back down at the papers of the inmate’s release. “Flores Fortune. What an odd name.”
He slid a keycard into a panel embedded on a wall and pressed a button corresponding to her door. A loud click emanated from the lock before the iron door slid open. She remained motionless in spite of freedom begging from inches away.
“Well, aren’t ya gonna move?”
The mass of blankets shifted until she stood upright. If she had a piece of chalk, she would have tallied up a whole two months of staring into the endless gray of the concrete ceiling. Today was supposedly her last day spent in this jailhouse. She had slept on the floor against the back wall as it was genuinely more comfortable than the bed. At least the surface of the floor was completely flat even if it was a little cold. Her father’s old trench coat in tandem with the bedsheets made it more bearable.
As she walked through the quiet halls, she passed by the library she had spent most of her free time in. There would only ever be about six or seven other people that ever regularly visited. None of them were particularly intriguing. Some were tried and imprisoned for crimes they didn’t commit. Others were finally caught for the crimes that they did. There was hardly anything to do in her freetime besides reading every book of the limited selection in stock and stirring in her rue. Most of the books were barely bound together and the pages all had a sickly smell of yellowing paper. The rest of her day repeated monotonously. Wake up for roll call. Eat a stale breakfast. Head to work at the mail office. Don’t let the irony sink in too deep, Wait until the bell rings. Consume a barely palatable lunch. Escape yard time by working again. Visit the library, swallow down a lukewarm dinner before finishing with the evening roll call and lights out. Her only solace was her inexplicable inconspicuousness hiding her from the other inmates. Then again, there were far stranger locked behind bars. A dog-faced man in the male wing of the prison, genetically mutated individuals unaffectionately referred to as Teratomas, and the potential start of a cult, to name a few.
The guard stopped escorting her when they reached the parole office. The moment he stepped foot inside the room, he gave a swift “She’s all yours” salute before turning back to his post.
Another officer sat reclined in the crummy chair. He had nothing to do all day until the next batch of prisoners were released. Sitting upright again, he dug through the piles of folders until he found her name.
“Here. Your paperwork.” He slid the documents of her release along with the rest of her legal documents in a vanilla folder over to her. In return, she slipped the last of her remaining money discreetly to the officer at the front desk.
“There. My end of the bargain. Can I have my knife back now?” Her smooth, low, and monotonous voice echoed in her mind. She wondered how long it had been since she last spoke openly.
“I’ll be sure to buy a nice expensive pack of smokes with this,” the officer sneered as he counted the money, flipping through the thin wad. He handed her the knife she wanted from a small locked compartment under the desk. She took the matte-black knife and tucked it into her pockets where it belonged.
“Remember, it’ll be a thousand bucks next time. But, if you give us hardworking blue caps a little moral boost, then maybe just maybe we’ll forget to take the money.”
“Let that cigarette be the one that does you in,” she muttered as she pushed open the double doors of the jailhouse. The breezy cold air greeted her in the same manner that it did when she first stepped foot here. There was a bus waiting for her and the others by the side of the road.
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Snow covered the ground in soft layers of white sheets, signaling the end of autumn. The clouds overcast a dark blanket over the sky with the same numbing hue as the dreary cell she stayed in. She took a slight detour around an unfolding street brawl along her leisurely stroll. She silently betted on who would win in the end. It was none of her business to watch a street fight, but it was once her job to investigate what remained after. Fresh out of the prison system, she drifted as a spectator. At least a spectator could kick their feet up and relax. She, on the other hand, had to walk in a pair of old penny loafers. Her hands were in her pocket clutching her rather empty wallet. Every bus or subway station that passed forced a subtle twitch of her left eye.
“Might as well make the best of this and admire the sights,” she chuckled to herself. The slow-paced stroll through the rather scenic rows of towers became a bore after only a few minutes. Her feet begged for mercy and she ignored them. If people could bear to walk miles in such uncomfortable shoes in the nineteen-twenties then so could she. Getting used to the smell of the city's industry, however, she could not. Cigarette ash could’ve been considered an incense. Smoke, litter, and the occasional hint of sulfur bombarded her nostrils. The putrid odor of industrial processes hid the deeds of the unlawful acts well but not to her sensitive nose.
She continued to wander until she came across what she assumed to be a residential district. She breathed in the slightly fresher air with a sigh. A mixture of buildings, both modern and old, lined up as an exhibit of architecture through the era. Each building held within a bookshelf with untold stories. Everything from polished Bauhaus thrillers to old Gothic and Victorian dramas passed by. Most prominent was Art Deco. The entire era of jazz, noir, organized crime, and corruption was still alive and healthy in Laslow like any other city. Maybe not the jazz part, but certainly the corruption. She didn’t mind the dated buildings as she had an acquired taste for the bygone era. Too many nights spent sneaking into theaters that showed noir movies on repeat left her with a strong guess as to what her father was like. His old clothes were the only things keeping her memory of him alive.
To continue his legacy and uphold her promise, she had set up shop in a rather cramped, thin, single-story building near the outskirts that used to be a tiny post office as a private investigator. She already lived at the financial rock bottom so the only place she could go was up, or so she thought. Despite Laslow’s infamy, jobs rarely came through in the brief three months she was open. Another no-name hand for hire in a city oversaturated with others willing to do far more and far worse made finding work difficult as a freelancer. Worst still, none of the typical businesses wanted to hire someone with an impossibly short, almost non-existent resume. The few entities accepting her applications for part-time work were investigation firms looking for a disposable pair of hands.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
Five times she shook hands with the interviewer. Five times she clutched what was left of their hand in her own. Five times she had witnessed becoming a forgotten sole survivor. With each time she lived on, the corners of her vision had a less little color. The final case she took was supposed to be an easy one with a reliable partner at the helm. It only involved a lost dog belonging to a few sketchy figures. It was money and it was quick. Her only payment was the sight of the bloodied lump of what remained of her friend tied up to a chair. She herself lay slumped against the wall adjacent, unable to comprehend what she had witnessed moments prior. Everything happened in an instant. One moment, the cartel that kidnapped the dog had tied both sleuths up. The next, her colleague was disassembled piece by piece in front of her. Before they could get to Flores, a beast appeared and the lights went out. Her binding ropes were slashed and she was thrown against the wall. When they turned on again, nothing but bloody carcases of the cartel members remained. She had only been spared from the amount of viscera disguising her in a veil of death. Her heart attempted to claw its way up her throat as she caught a glimpse of the beast’s jagged glowing eyes. When it disappeared again, her mind spun slowly back up to speed. She limped away on an injured leg and a shattered spirit. All that played in her mind was the beast's hollow gaze boring into her skull. Its eyes matched her own.
The police were waiting outside with batons and service pistols at the ready when she escaped the old warehouse. She put up no resistance. With little evidence, the would-be enforcers of law wrote the situation off as a workplace accident and the blame was inherited to the only one left alive, her. Obviously, no one believed her deranged ramblings in court. She knew the beast her father hunted had crossed paths with her. There was no documentable evidence outside of intuition, but something ungraspable convinced her so. Maybe it was her mind desperately piecing together a jig-saw puzzle of a million mute gray pieces. Or maybe the ever ambiguous beast had truly been responsible for her father's disappearance. Whatever the reason was, it certainly did no favors in her drive to find out who the person whose identity was in the folder she held truly was. She was unsure if she wanted to laugh, cry, or scream at the fog that obscured her face in every mirror she stood in front of. What remained of her past culminated into a little photograph of what her father looked like. She pulled the photo out from her breast pocket before clutching it close to her still-beating heart.
“I know you’re still alive out there.”
A tired, worn trench coat draped over a stoic middle-aged man. The name, Arturo Fortune was written on the very back along with a heavily smudged date. All she could make out was that it was some time in April, her least favorite month. It was the same month she took the dreadful job that stranded her alone again.
“The beast hasn’t killed you. I know it hasn’t. I refuse to believe otherwise as what else would be left for me? What else would be left of me?” The sound of her own dreary voice mutinied against her attempts at blending in with the faceless sea. “I’ve definitely gone insane this time. Here I go monologuing to myself again. Tch. Can't wait for someone to gawk at me about how I really need a hug or somethin- Oof!”
The ground apparently wanted to. She had lost herself within her thoughts enough for her to not notice the lip in the sidewalk. With a sigh and a groan, she pushed herself off of the ground.
“Note to self, refrain from getting melodramatic while walking.”
She eventually passed by the city park and decided to pay a visit to admire her new cage. Setting her folder down on a nearby bench, she admired the rising sun. Something about the dawn provoked a thought experiment in her mind. The sun lay perfectly reflected upon the eerily still waters of the pond below. At this moment, she could not tell if it was dawn or dusk. Logical helpfully nudged that since it had been dark before, it must be dawn. Her other half objected, hoping for dusk to bring in the night. Her eyes wandered down to the pond again. It was the first time in a long time she could see her reflection clearly. What stared back was an anomaly, a beast. A thin long snout, two tan pointed ears, and no lips or smile to bear. Fortunately, no frown was found either. A pair of black cat-like pupils without irises searched for anything human in her reflection. Her deadpan gaze lacked the shine of a true hunter’s.
“What a hideous beast.” She spoke automatically and yet her mouth never opened.
She tossed a pebble into the water, scattering her reflection into ripples. With nothing else to do, she went back to grab her folder and continue on her hike through the streets. Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted a man wearing a white apron and a paper bag over his head dashing off with her documents in the distance.
“Hey!” Without a second thought, she sprinted off and gave chase.
The man looked back briefly before taunting in a triumphant voice, “Once again, The great Pretty Penny Pincher strikes!”
“Thief!” she yelled as she passed a police officer. She hoped to at least get a bit of help.
“Oh, so you think you can get the cops on me? You must not be from around here, hehe!” The man smirked as he ran, not even bothering to avoid the police. “They don’t care about me because they fear me!” Something about the officer’s eye roll told her that the first part of his sentence was true but the last part was about as much of a lie as his next claim that, “I’m the greatest thief in the world! Oof-”
The supposed greatest thief ran smack dab into a lamppost. As Flores caught up to him, he quickly shook off the impact and drew a knife from the bottom of his shoe.
“Why do you even store a knife down there?” Flores was distracted enough to forget about drawing her own knife.
“Do not question the ways of the great Pretty Penny Pincher!”
The police officer, now sick of this public display of idiocy, interrupted the petty thief’s words. “Just get to the fight already! I’ve had a long enough day and I wanna watch a scrap!”
“You aren’t going to stop this guy?” Flores asked, appalled.
“Not paid enough to. Unless,” the officer smiled.
“Too bad I have all your money!” the Pretty Penny Pincher taunted.
“That’s not even-,” Flores sighed, “Sure. As if I had any, to begin with. Just give me the folder back. The only thing valuable inside is a mugshot.”
“Your bluffs do not dissuade the great Triple P”
Flores shook her head before preparing herself for a knife fight. In any other case, she would’ve cut her losses and ran. Judging by the fact the thief held his knife awkwardly, she reckoned she had a chance albeit small. At the very least, she could hold her knife better than he could.
“En garde, foul beast!” The petty thief lunged forth with a slow and poorly-aimed slash.
Flores, equally unskilled, sluggishly dodge an attack for the first time in her life. She countered with her own attack, but her wayward stab missed by a wide margin.
“Hah, you missed! Pwah-!” In his brief taunt, Flores managed to elbow him before placing the knife against his throat.
“Don’t make me repeat my words a third time.” To Flores, the worst part was not the embarrassing fight, it was the pitiful stares from onlookers.
“Thou whilst need more than mere platitudes to convince thee!”
“Please?” She tilted her head to the side like a dog begging for treats. If her pride wasn’t dead before, it was thoroughly desecrated by now.
“Ack, my weakness! Curse thine adorableness! Fine, I yield! What art thou name?”
“Uh…” She thought for a bit as to what to say. The officer was still staring in mild amusement at both of them. Maybe it was best to say something equally as corny as the cornball in front of her to get away from questioning. “The Great… uh… Fox… Detective?”
“The victor of this round goes to you, oh great inquisitor of vulpines. Till we meet again!” the man yelled triumphantly as he was being put in cuffs by the officer, who failed to contain his bellowing laughter.
Walking away with shame draped over her, she kept her head lowered and her papers clutched securely in her quaking hands.