10:49, VOID Headquarters, Beach Road, 04 Jan 2075
“A split personality? So this ghost has psychological problems when he was alive?” Hai Yue asked as she and Shawn approached the female locker room on the second floor of the building.
“No, his personality literally split into two different entities after a botched exorcism. Hood used to be a firefighter when he was alive. There was a big fire in this building and he died here. No one really knew how it happened, but the area where he died in, his manifestation point, was converted into a female locker room during renovation,” Shawn explained.
“I can see where this is going.”
“Yeah. Initially, he would only pop up when there’s no one in the room and then go wandering, not affecting anyone, but some rookie female officers complained about him despite having never seen him before so Human Resources, despite our advice, tried to exorcise him. Since he’s an Earthbound ghost who is not an evil spirit, it backfired badly.”
“So that’s when his personality became two pieces.”
“Yeah. His first manifestation is like a normal ghost, just nonchalant and bored out of his mind. The other manifestation is, well, all the resentment he’s been bottling up from his life and after death. We call it his Burning Man form. They swap places every week, always disappearing once the week ends and then manifesting as the other the next day. This week’s his Burning Man form. You’ll see it soon,” Shawn explained before knocking on the door of the locker room, “Hood, you in there? We need your help.”
Silence was all Shawn got, who then knocked again to no response.
“Hood! It’s urgent! Need you for your abilities! Joel said he could not find Hood but the room’s door is locked from within, something Hood doesn’t do when he’s not around even when he’s in his other manifestation… Let me try something else: Oi, you chao-tah bastard! I know your barbecued ass is inside so open up!”
“Is that heat I feel?” Hai Yue asked as she tugged at the collar of her track jacket when the door to the locker room was thrown open so hard and so fast that Shawn ended up being pushed against the wall.
A hideous figure in a still-burning uniform of a firefighter began forming out of mist in front of Hai Yue. Whatever it was, it looked decomposed, with the lower half its face stripped to the skull and having only one eye, every remaining skin that was visible appearing charred and bloodied. The figure snarled at Shawn, its guttural voice shadowed by an unearthly echo, then turned to glare at Hai Yue, who merely stared back at the figure, unfazed by its appearance.
“Hai Yue, meet Hood, and Hood, before you get all pissy at me and start causing trouble, remember this: I tried being polite and you won’t respond,” Shawn said to the ghost.
“So, you’re called Hood. Nice to meet you,” Hai Yue greeted.
In an instant, the rage in the ghostly firefighter’s remaining eye seem to extinguish, the flames on his uniform dying out almost instantly, leaving just trails of smoke. He then straightened himself and bowed to Hai Yue in a respectful manner, the heat that was emitting from his body slowly lowering back to normal temperatures.
“Seriously? After all the times we had to spray you with extinguishers, you can actually put yourself out?” Shawn grumbled as he took a swipe at the ghostly firefighter despite knowing full well that he won’t be able to make physical contact with the latter whose torso unfurled and reformed like smoke as Shawn’s arm cleaved through it.
“I thought you said he was going to be a problem,” Hai Yue asked.
“Because I was not expecting him to behave himself in front of you. Most of the time, his Burning Man manifestation is fickle, unreliable, violent and bad-tempered. He’s thrown anyone trying to banish him out the window at least six times. I don’t blame him, though. Who won’t get mad about being falsely accused and then nearly forced to leave the only place you can call home?”
Hood nodded in agreement, but did a ‘I’m watching you’ gesture at Shawn who promptly gestured for the ghost to kiss his nether region.
“You two really don’t get along, do you?” Hai Yue asked.
“Of course not! He scorched my pants in front of a female assistant commissioner doing an internal inspection as a sick joke, so I cleared out the offerings left for him during the Hungry Ghost Festival and left him only salt. We’ve been trying to screw each other over ever since.”
Hood responded by sticking his middle finger out at Shawn.
“Anyways, Hood, we need you to look at some death memories, if you’re not so angry today.”
A guttural sigh escaped the skeletal remains of where Hood’s mouth used to be as he used sign language to ask how many.
“About five victims.”
Hood’s response was that he can’t do so many in a single day
“Well, what do you want me to do? There’s five victims and you know necromancy doesn’t work like they do in video games.”
Hood shrugged, then signed to Shawn that he better hope Hood gets lucky or they’ll have to wait until tomorrow for whatever answers they need to their questions.
“Yeah, yeah, whatever, let’s just go. We’ve wasted enough time trying to find your well-done butt.”
One more barbecue joke and I’m going to possess him and make him dance naked at the shopping mall, Hood signed to Hai Yue who, not really understanding human sign language, merely gave a shrug of her own before following Shawn down the corridor as a sulking Hood floated after them.
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11:10, Forensics Lab and Morgue, VOID Headquarters Basement, Beach Road, 04 Jan 2075
The forensic specialist, Dr Adam Moyo, has already left to attend to other matters, but had given his assistants instructions to allow The Third Investigation Squad access to the bodies of the five victims found at Jalan Mempurong.
Hood floated around each of the five slabs where the bodies had been placed on by the assistants. The lead assistant was particular about wanting the bodies back in the lockers within thirty minutes, and he was both fearful and resentful about the presence of the ghostly firefighter in the morgue: Shawn claims to Hai Yue that Hood once possessed the lead assistant and made him eat cockroaches in retaliation for killing a mouse the ghost had adopted as a pet.
Hood stopped at the slab of the corpse that was torn into two and pointed at it before hand-signing that this particular victim was the last to be killed.
“Well, what are you waiting for, get on with it,” Shawn replied.
Hood gave Shawn a sneer of disdain before floating over the corpse until he was parallel to it, then placed both hands, one with flesh and the other charred to the bone, on the head of the corpse before seemingly going into a trance.
“Reading the victim’s death memories?” Hai Yue asked.
“Yeah,” Shawn replied, “Sounds like you know about this. Do you do the same back over at the Other Side?”
“Most of the time. Some of our highest-ranking marshals are ghosts. How long will it take for Hood to read the death memories, though? On my side of the world, it requires between fifteen to thirty minutes.”
“I don’t know about that, but Hood’s got a lot of ectoplasm for some reason. I’ve heard exorcists claiming that Hood is the most powerful ghost they’ve ever encountered, yet all he does is play pranks and wander around Beach Road.”
“Guess it’s going to take less time than usual.”
“Depends on how deep he pokes around the death memories. Asked him to find out what killed a lawyer a few months ago. Hood took about twenty minutes to do so because he also found out that the dead lawyer was taking bribes to lose his cases.”
“I see.”
The two stopped talking for a moment, but Hood appears to be far from finished with his task, and after two minutes of silence, the awkwardness of the whole situation got to Shawn.
“So… About you. Why become a Marshal?” Shawn asked.
“Oh, that’s an interesting question. Why did I become a Marshal? Well, the Night-Sea used to be quite a lawless place. I was lucky to be born into nobility, but from where my family lived, we could see the suffering of the simple folks from marauders, swindlers, murderers and such. The King of the Night-Sea eventually formed the Night-Sea Patrol to protect the people, and when I came of age, I decided it was the right thing to join.”
“No particular reason? No, like personal history or something that got burned into your memories?”
“Why? Do you have to have some sort of history or tragedy to become a law enforcement officer?”
“Well, I mean… I’ve been to the Night-Sea once. Me and a squad of cops were given permission to enter one of the Boundary Gates to the Other Side to catch an escaped criminal. Kind of surprised that technology on your side of the world is what humans call ‘steampunk’. It’s almost like some kind of fantasy story.”
“Ah, yes, human fantasy stories about Othersiders. There’s always the brooding protagonist who wants to become a knight or a policeman because someone close to him got murdered and what not. I think that’s a dumb reason to be a law enforcement officer, though. In fact, the Night-Sea Patrol rejects applicants whose motive for wanting to join the Patrol is vengeance.”
“Ah, I see… That question might have been a bit offensive on my part.”
“Nah, I’m not going to be offended by such trivial stuff. Besides, these stories are very interesting, especially the ones from place called Japan. I would buy a collection of that country’s ‘light novels’ as souvenirs whenever I visit the Human Side. What about you? Why become a cop?”
“Me? Well, I was nineteen when World War Four broke out in 2060, not even three decades after the third one. Not sure if you Othersiders are aware of it, though there was a mass evacuation of Othersiders back to the Other Side around the world right before the war truly broke out. By the time the war ended, I was about twenty-one or twenty-two. Didn’t know what to do and with the country in chaos during the rebuilding, I just decided to join the police and help keep the peace. Joel and Shankar are veterans of the war too.”
“I thought Singapore was a neutral country?”
“Didn’t stop big powers from trying to take over. Southeast Asia was one of the main stages of the global conflict. ASEAN nearly got dissolved because some of the member countries were siding with different superpowers, but everyone eventually came to their senses and started retaliating.”
“So how bad was the fighting?”
“The first time I entered a battlefield… I killed three enemy soldiers. It was the Battle of Mersing. Singapore’s military is a strictly defensive force so most of the forces had to stay in Singapore to defend it, but I was part of a mixed detachment that was sent to help the Malaysians retake Mersing from the enemy. We won, but I, well, it took some time before I was able to get proper sleep and eat meat again.”
“And you fought in other engagements after that?”
“Yeah, I did. Defended Singapore twice from invasion, was deployed to Indonesia and the Philippines as well. I think we were in Vietnam when the Fourth World War finally ended in 2063. Three years of senseless fighting and over thirty million dead because a bunch of old men had a disagreement...”
“I see. Must be hard. I’ve never been in a war before so I can’t really say anything about it, but I can only imagine the horrors you might have seen.”
“Enough to make me wonder if the term ‘monster’ is better than ‘human’. Justifying acts of depravity, committing war crimes without a second word, it’s like war strips humans of their moral codes and capability to empathize.”
“Hearing you say that makes me not want to get involved in one.”
“Yeah… This is the eleventh year of my career as a cop. Whatever peace I’m protecting now, I sure hope it at least lasts until I’ve passed on.”
“That’s a nice thought. I’ve been a Marshal for the Night-Sea Patrol for fifty years and it’s starting to feel like an eternity.”
“Comes with being able to live a long life, I guess. You know, when the Night-Sea Patrol decided to attach some of their marshals to VOID so that they can operate of the Human Side, Ismail, Kobi and Kegan were the pioneers of the attachment squad, and they were really, how do I say it, cold? They don’t show much emotions, treat everyone in a nonchalant manner, even their discussion about work is completely business-like. By the time Rajma showed up, Kobi’s a full-blown party animal and Ismail’s become more relaxed.”
“And Kegan? Still his grouchy old self?”
“Yeah, still an ass, no offense.”
“He’s an old-timer, part of the first batch of marshals when the Night-Sea Patrol was formed. The Night-Sea Patrol… It expects its marshals to be serious and unflinching, with empathy to be shown through actions only and not words or expressions. We all ended up looking cold and unfeeling.”
“That sounds really harsh.”
“People respect and rely on us because they’re afraid of us, and it feels wrong. Kobi used to be the scariest person in my district but now he looks so happy. Ismail and Rajma are also looking more relaxed then usual,” Hai Yue continued as she pouted, “For me, I’ve always had difficulty trying to maintain a strict appearance and the commander was not pleased about it. I was told to keep that strict image up before coming here, but your shocked expression to my prank was so silly, I couldn’t maintain it.”
“Yeah, that was a bit messed up. I was strictly ordered to be careful about what I say around you, you know?”
“Yeah, sorry about that.”
Hood suddenly stirred from whatever trance he was in and backed away from the corpse like as though he had been shot, startling Shawn and Hai Yue.
“Hood, what is it? What is it?” Shawn asked, having never seen the tempestuous ghost so disturbed.
Hood merely shook his head before using hand signs to request for a paper, a pencil and a body to possess...