10/X-A. Is God Asleep? (Remastered)

“Survival of the fittest?” The warmth of the sun continued to envelope the critters under the bridge as Johnny and Arthur explore the crime scene, swabbed and photographed by the forensics, and cleared out of the crime scene tape.

The twins surveyed the strong waves and the microorganisms under the bridge.

Sludge of blood reflected at the shiny waves became visible to Arthur as he continued observing around the crime scene with Matthew standing guard.

It was not that long enough that the police ripped off the yellow tape, and they were the first at the scene, after the police had comb through the place, examining and inspecting the location where they found the lifeless body of Jamie Lee.

There were traces of struggles indicative of the disturbed homes of the critters, and the rocks and stones that were way too far flung out at the scene.

Jamie wrestled to survive, her instincts to grab the first thing she saw was the kick of reflex, she didn’t pick up the largest stones that would guarantee her assailant’s death, it means, that she just wanted him/her knocked out, meaning, she knows the person who tried to kill her.

There were brushes of sand in the midst of the rocks that should have been there.

Upon checking her build on the picture showed on the television, there’s a good chance that she practiced martial arts or self-defense arts.

Arthur deduced that she hesitated in using those arts against the murderer, no, she picked up sand to incapacitate his sight so that she could get away.

“With these information, we can assume that the person who killed her was a guy, a man, and someone she knew, someone that can overpower her, someone close to her, she didn’t wish for the person to die nor be hurt fatally.” Matthew’s been listening to Arthur’s deduction intently upon his inspection of the crime scene as Johnny nodded along.

“There’s more…” He continued, judging by the blood-sludge on the rocks, and the blackened, muddy stones near the area, the killer took his time in silencing Jamie.

This was not homicide, and it was not a spur of the moment.

Arthur looked up from the beach as the tiny waves crashed at the stones underneath the pier, and he took notice of the long wooded area above him casts a long shadow on the beach that he, Johnny and Matthew were standing on.

He closed his eyes, and recreated the crime scene on the time of death, cloudy, humid, and most of all, even if there is moonlight, the shadow of the pier would be the salvation of the murderer.

The moonlight would have covered the murderer’s evil deed, and seeing that there are no cameras underneath the bridge, it means that the killer knows that the bridge will stop any light from illuminating that part of the shore, and there’s no camera that can record his premeditated murder.

What a convoluted mind.

He can only imagine the great effort of Jamie as she tried to get away from her assailant, not knowing that the criminal planned everything for her to dance the last dance of her life on this dark place.

Arthur squinted his eyes and darted from every inch of the shore he can cover.

“What are you looking for?” Matthew rushed up to his feet and enthusiastically asked if Arthur needs any help, at least, on the physical side of things, he can do something for the two kids.

“We are looking for a local man.” Matthew’s eyes suddenly brimmed with fear and excitement, though his initial reactions were blank and surprised, the kid’s words enthralled and pulled him into the mystery more.

“Okay, then… shall I look with you as well?” He froze waiting patiently for Arthur’s next words, like a puppy waiting for a command.

“No, you look too obvious. Walk with me, and we will talk to the locals.” Arthur, Johnny and Matthew paced towards the shop owners on the top of the pier and the lifeguard station about a mile from the crime scene.

“So… we’re walking straight to the killer? Is that-?” Arthur’s suggestion definitely worried Matthew.

When he came to the pier with the kids, he knew that the two would be involved with the investigation, but not as baits, just an onlooker or observer, he did not expect Arthur to take on the rough road.

“There’s no other way, there were no witnesses, no cameras, no one to say what happened, it means, we would need to get the confession through him ourselves.” Arthur brought out his flip-phone from his pocket and waved it at Matthew.

He really intended to catch the killer himself as they planned to go to the beach early that morning.

Matthew stopped in his tracks, only to flashback to the moments before they walked out of the mansion and into the car and into the beach as the two discussed about the murder case.

“Matt?” Johnny felt the absence of a fleeting presence, he checked his right side and left side, and anxiously searched for Matthew.

“Keep up!” Arthur shouted never looking back.

Arthur’s words alerted Matthew and it pulled out Matthew to the reality that they’re doing this now, and there’s no turning back.

The angel needed the adult as he was also bringing along his kid twin. He had been playing detective all his life as an angel, wandering around, checking Earth for what Samael may have caused damage to and fixing what was left of humanity.

He did not care for anyone, he was powerful enough for the Fallen to not face him one-on-one, but this time, even though, their opponent was only human, he now has his human brother, and human butler with him in the fight, and humans easily die, don’t they?

-------------------- // --------------------

“Son, I’m so sorry. It maybe that we were wrong about our interpretation of what the requirements were and…”

Adam caressed Cain’s back as he comforted the young lad. His fist shaking in wrath and envy, faced away from his father and mother, and the feeling of hatred continue to rise as Adam justified what happened at the altar.

“Adam, Eve, let’s leave Cain alone, don’t rub salt to his wounds any longer.” Michael peeked from outside the tent, but he knew this would happened, this was what happened, when the other seven Archangels tried to comfort him after the Rebellion of Samael.

Overwhelmed by hate and fear, and wrath and anger, words cannot comfort nor describe his feelings, but he continued to hear the voices, “Kill him, kill him, kill him!”

Cain thought he might be going crazy, because he was not given that, that high, that warmth he longed for, but this was different, completely opposite to the warmth that he felt, the darkness was trying to swallow him whole.

On the surface, Adam and Eve could only see the disappointment from Cain’s face and body language.

“What do you think went wrong?” Adam walked out of the tents and Eve followed Adam’s steps, Michael guarded the door as he waited for the two outside, but could only humor their question with another question.

“Maybe the blood was a literal connotation, the lamb that was killed, it was through a blood sacrifice that the altar was… was…”

Michael fluttered his wings and approached the two altars on the hill, the blood of the lamb covered Abel’s altar, while the plans and vines covered Cain’s altar.

Based from his further observation, the Almighty would not go close to Earth nor walk amidst the land because of sin, sin brought out the curse of death of every life on earth, but by death, the curse was lifted, temporarily, God shone a light amongst the human who sacrificed the best with blood and death.

A twisted fate, indeed. For sin to cause death and death was also the cure for sin, that’s what Father wanted to tell us, but the plans are living being as well, and once you have plucked them out of their roots… no, that’s different, even if you pluck them out, if you plant them again and nurture them, they could regenerate, it’s different from the lamb, the lamb could never regenerate when you kill it.

Adam and Even sprinted to the hill following Michael as he flew the short distance.

The Light that shone atop the altar, little by little, dimmed and as the two approached the Hill, God completely walked away.

“Mikhail?” Adam sounded concerned. He tried to read what’s on Michael’s mind as the angel gently touched the blood-covered altar.

“What is it? Where did we have gone wrong?” Eve’s voice exhibited a more of a worried mother, since two of her sons were put through a seemingly difficult test that even the two of them did not understand.

“The curse of sin, which is death, is also the answer.” Michael’s statement horrified the two parents

They were the ones that contrived the curse of sin. Doomed for all eternity, humanity has no other choice but to succumb to physical death at their appointed time.

Death, a concept new to the humans, coming out or driven out of the Garden of Eden. They only ever saw it from the trees and the plants as sin flourished in the lands.

Though they are the only humans on Earth, the Fallen had taken a liking in living on the lands.

“What do you mean by that, Mikhail?”

“If sin caused death, then death is also the answer. The lamb that was killed will never live or regenerate, but the plant that was taken off of its roots, once replanted, it will regenerate, hence…”

“So… the Light wanted actual blood.”

“The literal one.”

“Interesting… but now we know, we will help Cain pick up the pieces and make the sacrifice another time.”

“Thank you, Mikhail, for doing this.”

“You’re welcome.” He flew off of the horizon as the sun sets on that dreadful day, he didn’t make a fuzz about the bloody Oracle that he saw, he thought that maybe it was just the interpretation he had concocted, he’s not entirely sure, but the heavy burden lifted up a bit.

-------------------- // --------------------

“Ice cream!” Johnny shouted in excitement, an ice cream truck parked right in front of the pier and facing the beach enticing customers to taste the wonderful cold sweets as the truck has visual stickers glued on all sides for strawberry ice cream, mango ice cream, melon ice cream, and many more.

“Let’s start with him.” Arthur marched to the side of the beach to approach the ice cream man, his trucked, parked on the nearest vantage point of the under-the-pier location, attracted the detective further.

“Hi! I want two mango cones and one strawberry cone.”

“That’ll be three dollars.” A scruffy looking guy peeked out of the truck, in his twenties, looking like someone who wants to be put out of his misery. “Jack”, says in the name tag, and the truck shows that the ice cream truck is open at that part of the beach from twelve in the afternoon up to nine in the evening.

A possible suspect, Jack and his ice cream truck “Cold Sweets”, Arthur brought out his flip-phone and researched on the internet about the Cold Sweets company.

As Matthew handed out the payment for the ice cream cones, Arthur tugged his shirt, reminding him of the investigating part of their escapade to the pier.

The man slowly got his money and put it in the register and started working on the cones, he opened up his freezer for the mango ice cream and the strawberry ice cream cones.

“Hey, you know, I really like the Mango-flavoured one.” Matthew sparked the conversation.

He observed the guy’s movements, as he handled the money roughly, but not the freezer, not the ice cream.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, what kind of mangoes do you use there?”

“Oh!” One thousand customers per day, and this was the first time a customer strike a conversation about his ice creams, which was one of his earthly passion.

It startled him a bit, but he opened up, the glimmer in his eyes as he talked about the flavors of the ice cream reflected on the cold stone he worked with.

“These mangoes are imported, from the Philippines.”

“The Philippines?”

“Das’ why they’re sweet, Philippines has a variety of mangoes, but they have the sweetest mango there is.”

“Yeah, I agree, we tried other countries, we also tried the Cali mangoes, but nothing works like a charm with the Philippine mango.” The two started to hit it off.

“Are the strawberries, the same? From the Philippines as well?”

“Yeah, yeah, they’re from the North of the Philippines, Bagiuo.”

“I think your store really likes Pacific fruits, right?”

“You can say it’s like that.” The clerk scooped up the mango ice cream he had been rolling on the cold stone and handed it over to Matthew.

He handed one to Arthur, and one for him.

“And him?”

“Oh? This one? He likes strawberries.”

“STRAWBERRIES!” Johnny cheered on as Jack laid out the strawberry ice cream scoop at the cold stone.

“So… I was just wondering, I mean, I scouted the place for the kids in my school for a field trip, is… is this place safe? I heard there was a... ‘murder’ here last night.” Matthew whispered closer as to try to gossip the information out of the vendor.

“What? Field Trip? Yeah, no worries, it’s totally safe here, it’s rarely we have those kinds of events here at the pier.”

“That’s good, cause I’m bringing six year olds, tons of them next weekend.”

“Really?” For some reason, Jack showed high interest when Matthew mentioned tons of kids.

“Yeah, are you gonna be here all week? Cause I will have a ton of enthusiastic kids asking about ice cream as well.”

“Sure! I’ll be here.”

“That’s great, and thanks for this.”

“Here.” He handed out the strawberry ice cream to Johnny himself.

“Thank you so much! ICE CREAAAAAAM!!!” And the kid screamed with all his lungs.

“Wait, just wanna ask… were you… here yesterday? Did you… did you see anything weird?”

“Are you asking me that because you’re a teacher, or…”

“No, I’m serious, I just wanna look out for my students.”

“I didn’t see anything. I wasn’t here. My buddy covered for me, yesterday.”

“Oh! I see, thank you, bbye!”

The change in tone definitely worried Arthur and Matthew, the defensive answers and the lack of apathy to the dead were and are still signs of being a psychopath.

“That went down the drain.”

“Nah, don’t worry, we found out many things on that conversation.” They walked farther afar off as they were licking the ice cream cone, possibly promoting the cold sweet treat to everyone they’ve ran across the beach.

“Many things?”

“Ok, list, Johnny.”

“Ok, number one was the crime scene was a mess, but it was planned.” Johnny answered casually.

“Yes, number two was the crime scene was not done at the spur of the moment, all of it, the place and timing was planned.” Arthur followed in listing their deductions.

“Then, number three, the killer knows the location well enough to know that no one would see their crime.” Johnny added.

“Number four, he was a close companion of the deceased since the victim did not show hostility as she was being chased in the darkness of night.” Arthur replied.

“Number five, only the closest shops located underneath the pier will have the time to plan this murder.” Johnny inserted another deduction to the investigation.

“And lastly, the most likely suspects are in the age between fifteen to twenty-five, has to be a psychopath, or sociopath.” Arthur affixed his profiling of the criminal.

“Psychopath? Sociopath?” Matthew continued to gulped on the mango ice cream listening to the two blabber about the case.

“The murder was planned, and convoluted, and knowing that the victim is closed to the assailant, this means the murderer was able to manipulate the victim to walk in his trap.”

“That’s so sick, think I’m gonna barf.”

“Human tendencies, and their selfishness are always wicked and evil. I have witnessed it all history.” Arthur looked so disappointed as he licked his ice cream.

“Is that why you don’t care about humans anymore?” Matthew’s words took Arthur aback and he stopped chomping off the ice cream.

He stood in silence as the two were seating on a bench near the beach.

“I…” Arthur could not answer Matthew’s questions.

It’s as if, Matthew cornered him and forced him to look at a mirror of himself, all the filth of the humans he absorbed for about six millennia, before living as a human, and now that he’s here on Earth with the humans, he could not stop hating the humanity he once spoke in high regard.

“Come on! There are other two shops!” Johnny finished his strawberry ice cream cone, and rushed to the chocolate milk tea shop at the left side of the pier.

-------------------- // --------------------

Morning arrived like a flash, and Michael flew to the negative spiritual part of the Earth, a place where the Fallen had gathered disguised as humans and the society flourished under the rule of Lucifer.

The crowd cleared out as soon as he landed his feet on the land, every single one of the Fallen, bowed in reverence to the Prince of Seraph, the Captain of the Host of Heaven, and no one dared to look directly in his eyes as he stride along the pathways of the kingdom that the Fallen established on the Earth.

“Brother!” Lucifer stood apart from the Fallen as he walked out the window of his castle and called out to Michael, his twin.

Michael quickly created a wind vortex and teleported from the land to the castle windows where Lucifer called out.

“Visiting?” His twin faced him in a lavish clothes, silk produced by Hell’s worms and gold and silver mined at the gates of Hell.

“What are you doing here, brother? Father… this is Father’s territory. You shouldn’t be here.” He pointed out an obvious plot, yes, the Fallen were imprisoned in Hell, but seeing that the gates of Hell are directly underneath Earth, the Fallen tried sullying Earth with further negative spiritual energy by possessing animals without souls.

Whilst Lucifer has the power of Manipulation, he manipulated the animal’s bodies to appear human, making them looked like human.

“I taught the others how to possess the beings here without souls.” Lucifer stretched out his arms, his ego larger than anything in the world, pointed out to Michael that he hath created a kingdom, similar to what God has in Heaven.

“Is this the freedom you desire?” Michael pitied Samael, he started to mock the very thing that Lucifer was proud of, which is, hid freedom, his kingdom, and his rule.

“This is not freedom, you just replaced Father as the ruler for these Fallen, for our brothers and sisters who joined you.” He added to the insult.

“Hmpfh, you will see… with your own two eyes, that we, the Fallen, will be doing everything we want, and there’s no one stopping us!” He sounded an overlord, but with his arrogance, he only appeared to be a fool kicking a mountain rock with his bare feet.

“MICHAEL, WHERE ART THOU?” God was calling for his faithful Captain, the Telepathy worked and Gabriel teleported from the Earthly kingdom to the Heaven’s domain.

“Yes, Father?” He knelt trembling at the front of the Throne. He did not know what was the command for but he quickly arrived as soon as he was called.

“I DO NOT SEEM TO FIND ABEL, FIND HIM, AND BRING HIM TO THE ALTAR.” God requested a search party? What for? I thought He knew everything? No… there’s something else.

“Yes, Father.” Michael frantically left the Silver City, and flew down to the Earth to search for Abel. He remembered the Oracle he had the other day about splash of blood everywhere.

Just like a good detective, he visited everywhere that Abel had frequented on, the plains herding the sheep, the caves where he found a lost lamb, the river down the bank as he was tending to the sheep, everywhere, and he also asked around the kingdom of the Fallen if they ever saw a true human in the vicinity.

-------------------- // --------------------

“Nothing.”

“The other two shop owners closed their shop early because of the cloudy, a bit rainy weather yesterday. The owners are not also on our criminal profile. They both have families, and they’re not psycho or sociopaths.” Arthur, Johnny, and Matthew visited the milk-tea shop on the left side and the Hamburger grillers on the right side of the pier, but the owners and the staff did not meet the criminal profile, and the shops were closed so far from the time of death of the victim.

“Then, does this mean…?” Matthew wondered aimlessly.

“We only have one answer.” Johnny sternly replied as he chomped down the hamburger in his hands.

“Square one?” The butler seemed to be lost in their deductions.

“No, the ice cream guy.” Arthur corrected him before he trails far.

“Ice cream guy.” Johnny repeated, and sprang up to his feet and run towards the truck again.

“Ice cream!” He shouted excitedly as he ran back to the truck that’s directly in front of the crime scene.

Arthur was lost in his thoughts as he slowly walked towards the truck, while Matthew scurried along Johnny, saying sorry to the people laid in the sand that Johnny ran past from.

Johnny was about to reach the truck as he turned around to Arthur and back to the truck again only to bumped across Greg and Gale, holding their notes, dressed business casual with their badge at their belts.

The kid stumbled and fell down as they crashed to each other, and the notebook and pen that Greg held fell from his hands as well.

“Ah!” Startled, Johnny struggled to stand up, but eventually did with the help of Greg as he picked up his notebook and pen, he also assisted Johnny standing up.

“You should be careful, next time, and you shouldn’t run in these premises.” Greg patted the shirt and shorts of Johnny to remove the sand that stuck as he fell.

“I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry for that.” Matthew gasped for air as he spotted what happened and ran towards Johnny. He bowed continually until Greg’s and Matthew’s eyes met as Greg stood upright.

“You… Arthur?” Greg spotted Arthur nor far too far from Matthew’s back, and the gang walked back to the left side and ordered some smoothies.

“What are you doing here with the kids? This is an active crime scene.” Greg scolded Matthew intensely while the two kids noisily sipped on the smoothies, Gale also got her cup of milk tea shakes.

“Was… sergeant.” Arthur answered for Matthew as he stayed eerily silent seeing another policeman accompanying the sergeant.

Arthur averted his eyes to Gale, and to Greg again, signaling to get rid of the extra policeman to discuss the case, but the sergeant seemed to not receive the message clearly.

“You have any ideas with the case, Art?” He turned his eyes on the kid, clicked his pen, and opened his notepad.

“McMillan, are you seriously asking a baby or a child about the murder case?” Gale butted in the ridiculous notion.

“Art, stay quiet.” Matthew warned the kid since there was an unknown presence amongst them.

“I wanna know what the Sergeant thinks.” The child answered, Gale looked wide-eyed, and the other police officer did not welcome that thought quite good.

“We hit a dead end, we already talked to the store managers above the pier.” Greg reported the progress of their investigation to civilians.

“Are you seriously talking about the murder to the kid?” Another irritable question from her so-called partner.

“We only came here about two hours ago, after what I heard in the news. We also observed and checked the crime scene after the police examined it.” Gale’s jaw dropped at the sight of the kid telling Greg about what they did for the past two to three hours.

“By the way, where’s your other partner? What happened to that trainee? Was she scolded for going undercover with you the last time?” Arthur decided to involve himself once again.

Greg only sighed and redirected the questioning. “It’s nearing sunset and this is the hottest time of the day, what do you have for me?” Arthur grinned as Greg grew impatient, the barrage of questions only started there, and the mystery unfolded as they discussed their deduction to the policeman.

“So, our number one suspect is that guy, the ice cream guy?” Gale looked in curiosity.

“Don’t look. He has been observing us for a long time, he spotted your badges, and has been checking us out since about half an hour ago.”

SFX: Toot, toot, tiit, tiit, toot, toot [Cellphone dialling]

“Who are you calling?”

“The Intelligence Team, we need to check on that guy.”

“What, just because these kids suspect that that is the guy, does that mean you will believe them?” Gale still does not support getting the kids involved, and even though she heard their deductions first hand, she still does not believe the two can deduce such a complicated case.

“Oh, I haven’t introduced you, yet. Since time is of the essence, this is Gale, my temporary partner while my other partner recovers from the psychological trauma from that child kidnapping cases.”

“Gale.” She tried to reach out for a handshake to Matthew but he seemed distant, she tried the kids instead, but they had the same reaction.

“I’m sorry, they’re not too trusting. This is Arthur, Johnny, and Matthew, the two kids are classmates of my kid, and this is their Guardian.” Greg was the one to introduce the family to her temporary partner.

“By the way, Arthur was the one who solved the previous kidnapping cases, if he hadn’t helped me on that, we wouldn’t have located the kidnappers and the master-” He continued blabbering about the past case.

“Time is of the essence, and you told me that you will never involve my name.” Arthur gazed sharply at the sergeant and arrogantly stopped him.

“Right, fine.” Greg only smirked and stopped.

“Finally!” Someone answered the call to intelligence team.

“Hey, I want you to find out about the company Cold Sweets and see if they have an employee named, “Jack” stationed at the Santa Monica Pier, thanks.” He flipped out his phone and not two minutes later…

SFX: RING RING RING!

“Yeah?” Greg answered the phone, his facial expression changed from worried to surprised.

“What did he find out?” Arthur asked in curiosity as Greg flipped his phone closed.

“His full name is Jack Lee, brother of Jamie Lee, and the intelligence told me that the log yesterday, was filed by the other employee, but he stayed up to nine in the evening to close the truck.”

“He’s the one.” Arthur squinted his eyes as he tried to survey around Jack.

“Then… what evidence can we implicate him of this crime?”

“He is a psychopath, so I doubt he will confess.”

“His bloody clothes. You need a UV light, he’s wearing scruffy clothes right now, black leather that’s been broken down. Ninety-nine percent of the time, a criminal walks right back in their crime to either get rid of evidence or be proud of their crime, if he is a psychopath, he will be arrogant about it, as his attitude was earlier, and with that, he will be proud of the things attached to him as he was committing the crime.” Arthur tried to chime in his ideas.

The two sprang up to their feet and approached the truck, but it was too late, another employee manned the truck and just logged in a few minutes ago.

“Where could he be?”