00:40, Werner-Szeto Academy Of Fine Arts, Fort Canning Road, 31 Jan 2075
Professor Damien Mok lets out a breath of relief as he finally finished grading the last of the literature test papers the students of the Werner-Szeto Academy of Fine Arts had taken a week ago.
Putting down his pen, Professor Mok arranged the test papers and began packing up. As he did so, he found himself staring at a picture of himself with his students from ten years ago. He wondered how the students were doing. All of them studied literature during their time in the Academy, but only two out of twenty actually pursued that field.
Alvin Fernandez, a natural-born leader, currently serves in the Aerial Forces. Nurhaliza was the quiet one, and last Professor Mok had heard, she was now a theatre director. Ellen Han, who once dreamed of becoming an actress, surprisingly gave up an offer from Hollywood and joined the police force instead. Koh Yu Huat, the troublemaker of the class, has ironically delved into the education industry, currently teaching literature at a secondary school.
There were others in the class who wounded up leading normal lives. Professor Mok wondered how they were doing. He had happened to come across a few of them during his daily routine, but they seem to have lost the spark that once pushed them to pursue a subject most Singaporeans would consider not important: The idea that young Singaporeans only have a future if they become a doctor, an engineer or a lawyer used to be stereotyped as an ideology that only Chinese-Singaporean parents would have, but this ideology is already spreading to the other races of Singapore.
Professor Mok sighed. A combination of inflexible beliefs and the reality that not everyone succeeds is what destroys the dreams and goals of young people all over the world, not just in Singapore. They call it disillusionment, but Professor Mok also calls it despair.
Zipping his bag, Professor Mok left the office, making sure to switch off the lights before he left, but as he walked down the corridor towards the elevators, he thought he heard the sound of soft laughter. Dismissing it as his imagination, he continued on his way, unfazed, but then he froze in his steps when he heard it again, this time a lot more clearer.
“Who’s there?” Mok demanded as he turned around quickly, only to find himself staring at nothing, but the sight of one of the ceiling lights flickering does little to ease the feeling of discomfort he was now experiencing.
Damien Mok was not a violent man by nature, but he does have a carry permit and in his bag was a licensed revolver. Even now, he was slowly unzipping his bag, opening it just enough that he could reach in and pull out his weapon if he has to as he quickly walked over to the elevators.
Pressing the button to summon the elevator, Mok’s nervous feelings got worse as he began to sense a presence near him, one he could only decribe as malicious. He was seeing shadows flitting around just at the edge of his eyes. He was hearing whispers so soft that he could not tell if they were just voices in his head. Even thought it was a cold night, he felt sweat starting to flow down his forehead, and his arms were also starting to shake uncontrollably.
The sound of the elevator arriving at the second floor caused Mok to yelp in shock, but the doors opened to reveal Xun De, the Academy’s long-time security guard, who stared at the professor in confusion.
“Professor Mok, you all right? You look very panicked,” the security guard asked.
“Yes, I… I suppose my mind was playing tricks on me. Some of my students were sharing supposed ghost stories that originated from this building during the day, and since it’s so late now.”
“That’s why I tell my son not to speak such nonsense. Ghosts are attracted to such stories.”
“Yes, indeed. To think that even with the Other Side becoming public knowledge and the apperance of angels and demons into our world, scientists are still debating the existence of ghosts.”
“Will you be okay, Professor Mok? Want me to walk you to your car?”
“No, no, it’s fine.”
“I still need to open the gate for you wah… How you going to drive out if I don’t go down with you?”
“Ah, right, of course.”
Now that Xun De was around, Mok felt at ease. Whatever presence he felt was also gone, leading him to conclude that what he just experienced was most likely his imagination running wild. Xun De made sure to walk him to his car despite his refusal, and thankfully, the guard opened the gates of the Academy, allowing the professor to drive out, though the sight of a black van parked nearby on a road that does not allow parking did not escape the professor’s observation.
Xun De watched the professor drive off before sighed as he went back to do his rounds. Entering the elevator to go back to the second floor of the academy, he is unaware of a female figure with messy long hair and greenish-brown skin already standing in the elevator even though she was right next to him, and as the doors closed, she looked up at Xun De with baleful, yellowish eyes while lifting one of her hands, each of her fingers resembling a mantis’s forelegs, slowly reaching out towards Xun De’s throat…
01:15, Choa Chu Kang Cemetery, 31 Jan 2075
“This is too much fun!” Hai Yue cheerfully declared as she bashed what was left of a undead WW2-era Japanese soldier’s head into mush with her bare fists.
“And exactly how is it fun for you?” Shawn asked as he emptied his sidearm into a particularly bloated undead, the silver bullets quickly doing their job as the zombie started melting into a pile of rotten slime with a horrid smell.
“For starters, undead are already dead, so I don’t feel the need to hold back or the guilt to make me hesitate,” Hai Yue explained as she karate-chopped another undead on the head, splitting it into two like a melon, “Besides, what’s taking the others so long to find the necromancer?”
“That bloody munafiq is good at hiding, that’s why,” Zai replied as he destroyed two undead with a single swing of a sledgehammer.
Hai Yue and the Third Investigation Squad were assisting the First Investigation Squad who were hot on the trail of a notorious necromancer and serial killer who had been terrorizing the West Region of Singapore. After two years of investigation, the First Investigation Squad had finally cornered him at Choa Chu Kang Cemetery, having interrupted him in the middle of a ritual. In response, the necromancer had raised one-third of the cemetery along with corpses buried in unmarked graves while he hid himself in the nearby woods.
Having anticipated that he would do something like this, however, the First Investigation Squad had brought along multiple ‘anti-undead’ weapons. Not only that, to even up the numbers game, they were also accompanied not only by the Third and Seventh Investigation Squads but also a third of the entire Roving Unit, bolstered by Hai Yue’ and her fellow Night-Sea Patrol marshals Ismail and Kobi.
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“What’s this guy’s name again?” Hai Yue asked.
“Hamood Razali. Dude used to be a well-loved actor, but then he suddenly turned to the dark arts and murdered one of his co-stars on-screen during a live show. Worst incident in the history of Singapore broadcasting,” Shawn replied.
“Well, considering how heavily he’s involved in the dark arts, I doubt he looks as handsome as he did seven years ago,” Zai added.
“Better not underestimate him. He’s got a body count of twenty-five, including two bomohs, a black magic practitioner that tried to help the police, one of Hong Kong’s best Taoist priests and an exorcist from the Vatican. Dude’s probably a match even for you, Hai Yue.”
“We’ll see about that,” Hai Yue retorted as she formed ice spikes from her hands and threw them at an undead that was in a grappling match with an officer from the Roving Unit, with the latter shouting his thanks to Hai Yue as he proceeded to slam the undead’s head on the hood of his patrol car repeatedly while his partner was seen ripping off the head of another undead, albeit with some difficulty and the aid of a broken piece of glass.
“No, no, no, you’re taking too long! This is how you do it!” High Marshal Ismail said to that particular officer before grabbing another undead and effortlessly twisted its head off in less than half a second, causing the officer to flinch at witnessing the strength of the harimau jadian.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the cemetery, Joel, Ellen and six officers were trying to break into a shack which the necromancer, Hamood Razali, had taken refuge in while ten other officers, joined by the buaya jadian Deputy Marshal Kobi, fought off the approaching undead.
“Get out here, you little shit!” Ellen cursed as she struck the door repeatedly with her baton.
“I told you it was a bad idea to try and take him alive!” Joel said as he tried to kick the door in, only to find that the flimsy wooden door had been reinforced by the necromancer’s magic.
“Ah, shit, we better call Bento, see if he has any ideas on how to deal with reinforcement spells…”
01:23, VOID Headquarters, Beach Road, 31 Jan 2075
Benjamin Toh Zhi Bing, nicknamed ‘Bento’ by his colleagues due to his name and also because of his eating habits, yawned as he watched and heard his colleagues and the Night-Sea Patrol marshals somehow enjoying their brawl with the undead via aerial footage being captured by drones.
Being the youngest and most inexperienced on the team as well as the team’s main tech specialist and ‘Othersider encyclopedia’, Bento had not been allowed to go onto the field for situations as dangerous as an entire cemetery rising from the grave to fight the living. Instead, he was currently providing support to the team from the office, summoning reinforcements from other divisions as more undead were forcibly raised from the dead.
“Wow, this necromancer’s really going all out,” Bento said to himself as he adjusted his glasses, but then one of the office phones started ringing, causing Bento to grumble as he answered it.
“Bento? You there? Any idea how to deal with spells that makes doors harder than concrete walls?” Joel’s voice is heard asking.
“What kind of door is it?”
“Wood, but I don’t know wh- Get off me, you rotting basta-”
A shotgun blast is heard, then Joel’s voice came in again.
“Sorry, where were we? Ah, yes, it’s wood but I don’t know what kind of wood was used.”
“Any sigils on it?”
“Don’t think so- Ellen, behind you! (gunshots heard) Okay, everyone’s still around… Er, no, I don’t see any sigils carved or written on the door.”
“Is the shack fixed to the ground?”
“No, why?”
“Well, in that case, there’s two ways to deal with it. You can either pushed it over and expose the target, or you can just shoot through the door.”
“I say shoot through the door. What- No, Ellen, I don’t care about the reward for taking him in alive. Can you hear him chanting inside? What do you mean it’s a- Oh, shit!”
Two loud shotgun blasts could be heard, followed by a man screaming in pain.
“Joel? Did you get him?” Bento asked.
“Son of a bitch was trying to curse us! At least I blew one of his hands off… Shit, the number of reports I need to write up for this mess… Someone get a first aid kit here, on the double!”
The line was cut, and Bento placed the phone back down before turning his chair to see the footage of Drone No. 3 which showed Joel and Ellen pulling their target, now cradling his left hand, out of the shack. Another problem solved by the Third Investigation Squad, and he wasn’t even on the ground. For some reason, Bento wasn’t exactly thrilled about that thought, but another phone started ringing, distracting him from his thoughts as he answered the phone.
"Violent Othersider Incidents Division, Corporal Benjamin Toh speaking… What? Slow down, what’s going on? Okay… Look, my guys just went to clear out a cemetery crawling with undead so… Werner-Szeto Academy of Fine Arts, all right, got it, I’ll pass on the message to them.”
01:35, Choa Chu Kang Cemetery, 31 Jan 2075
Hai Yue, Shawn and Zai watched as the undead slowly collapsed to the ground, an indication that the necromancer who summoned them had been incapacitated. Cheers coming from the other side of the cemetery indicates that Joel and Ellen had managed to get or eliminate their target.
“Well, that wraps up our battle with the army of the dead,” Shawn commented as he dropped the now-inactive corpse of a well-dressed man with half his face gone that had tried to attack him just a few seconds ago.
“Yeah, I’m going to need a long bath. I stink of dead bodies,” Zai added as he joined with Shawn and Hai Yue as they trekked back to the FOB set up by VOID with the rest of the officers that were assisting them.
Shankar, who had been coordinating the operation from the FOB, greeted the trio as they walked into the FOB.
“You guys all right? Anyone get bit?”
“No, we handled it pretty well,” Shawn replied as Ismail arrived.
“Ah, this is a good work out. I should partake in more of these kinds of operations,” the harimau jadian commented as he stretched his arms.
“Are you not still working on that case where the werewolf got murdered at the Trenches?”
“Kegan, Kobi and Rajma took over that one. I must say, Bukit Timah is not for the faint of heart at night. I am also starting to understand why the entire district around that hill is nicknamed the Trenches,” Ismail admitted as Joel, Ellen and Kobi showed up, with the necromancer the First Squad had been trying to arrest looking utterly defeated and sobbing as he stared at a bloodied bandage crudely wrapped around what was left of his left hand and wrist.
“Please don’t tell me you shot his hand off?” Shankar asked Joel, who was the only person present armed with a shotgun.
“Honestly, I was trying to avoid that. I had no idea his hands were on the shack door’s handle.”
“Oh, I’m pretty sure you were not shooting through the door. I told you it was reckless to shoot from the side given the wood’s condition. Look at all the splinters in your arms,” Ellen chided Joel.
“Joel, take this dead-raising idiot and yourself to the paramedics over there, and be honest about how you all got your wounds,” Shankar ordered, to which Joel grabbed Hamood and made his way to where the paramedics stood.
“So, anything else we need to do, or we can just hand everything to First Squad and get back to the office? I could sure use a bath right now.”
“Yes, about that, I am afraid I have got a bit of bad news. Bento called two minutes ago and said there’s been a murder at the Werner-Szeto Academy of Fine Arts.”
“Werner-Szeto? That’s… That’s where I got my first degree,” Ellen revealed to the others.
“You serious? You, a Fine Arts student?” Zai asked, clearly in disbelief.
“You want to go a round or two?”
“All right, enough! This is no place for a quarrel and we’ve got more important things to do. Basically, Sergeants Ang and De Souza were stopped in the middle of the road while patrolling the Fort Canning area by a panicked burglar who witnessed something murdering a security guard at the building.”
“You sure it’s related to our line of work? VOID doesn’t deal with normal murders, only the paranormal ones which usually involves Othersiders.”
“My initial thoughts, exactly. Except when Ang and De Souza went into the building with the burglar to set up the crime scene for forensics investigation, whatever killed the security guard attacked all three of them They’ve pretty much confirmed the creature’s identity, since Ang managed to shoot her down before she could make her escape.”
“What is it, then?”
Shankar sighed, took out his phone and showed them a picture Bento sent to him not too long ago. White dress, greenish-brown skin, messy long hair, seemingly a default look for female ghosts, except her blood’s actually lime green in color instead of red.
“I’ve seen this before,” Zai said as a look of nervousness formed on his face upon seeing the picture.
“You know what this thing is?” Joel asked.
“Yes… It’s a pelesit.”