Second Thoughts?

Standing silently in his bedroom doorframe Ed stared at the second toy figure. It was looking right back at him just waiting for him to notice it. The toy had half a head along with some other scuffed parts. He must have missed it in the first sweep of the room, most likely since he was too panicked to notice something that small.

Even though Ed was sure of the existence of something more than humans he couldn't help but be stupefied by actual tangible evidence. Thinking about it more the only person that he even would tell is Mills. His case handler Mark is someone who has at least 34 different kids and young adults under his responsibility, so for Ed he had barely even talked to him, especially since Ed liked to be independent since he was a kid. Meaning even if he could get someone to believe him, the question is who? Besides the police who would take it at best as a break in, and Mills, no one else was in his life

Between the horror of the situation at hand and Ed's sudden realization of how little people he had in his life, he began to feel nauseated.

'To be honest if this was anyone else they would stop wouldn't they, like second Thoughts or something, but I don't think that's possible for me anymore.' Even with the knowledge of the recent scary event Ed plopped into bed snuggling up and falling asleep, too tired and genuinely unbothered by the pervasive feeling of your house being broken into.

Waking up everything was all the same, no more paranormal experiences or what not. Both the toy soldiers sat next to his bed on a desk with a lamp and a book titled 'A Grimm and Dark Tale.' Ed couldn't tell if his mind was playing tricks on him or not when he felt like the soldiers didn't seem to be in the exact spots he left them, being closer to edge than before. For some reason Ed felt like he should be afraid of that happening but he was excited and wanted to test a theory. Taking a marker he traced the soldiers bottom directly on his wooden side desk stand, not even caring he could be ruining the wood.

After Ed was satisfied he locked his door and left his apartment to take a walk. He thought about last night and wondered if that would be the last crazy thing to happen or if these situations will continue to persist. These thoughts scared him more than anything that has happened now as he didn't want this to be the height of his paranormal experiences.

Taking a few turns to get off the main streets and into less populated areas Ed followed train tracks that eventually led to a large degraded metallic structure that was used to process different types of animal products back when operational. The name of the factory has long rusted off being forgotten in time, meaning the entire building was a safety concern when exploring due to its age.

Ed was already quite familiar with this place as this is his first exploration of an urban building. Holes were riddled everywhere, red rust ate away at the metal without prejudice, and wood crates were clumsily left hanging on high ceiling beams waiting to accidentally fall on its next victim. All these things added to the charm of this building for Ed as he had his first huge adrenaline scare here.

While exploring the under part of the building which would be long hallways of storage and other utilities he looked up at a grate and 'BAM' wooden debris pushed by what was most likely an animal fell on it scaring him half to death.

Today though he was just here for relaxation and casual exploring. He looked at graffiti and went into dark areas looking for anything interesting. His flashlight that he always had on him flickered between room and room scouring for something Ed thinks would be cool.

Ed was feeling confident and good. He felt like he conquered some of the scariest things to happen to people, he felt like almost nothing can scare him now, besides a direct threat to his life maybe. Soon he thought he was going to be an infallible person, someone who will conquer all fears.

Ed was clambering through the dangerous metal factory, being loud and not watching his step added to his recklessness. Reaching another corner Ed rounded and continued his path.

Surprisingly Ed left the factory building not humbled in the slightest, in fact his confidence in his ability to explore even with freezing terror only grew bigger when he walked out unscathed.

Feeling like nothing could hurt him Ed had better posture heading home than he did coming to the factory. He walked greeting people and smiling at them, a change of pace than the usual Ed. It seemed like scary things for Ed gave him energy and purpose. Anything related with terror can be a joy for him and nothing can prove him otherwise.

As these thoughts and others continuously ran through his head he stopped at a cross walk with a happy family. The child was cute and was holding the hand of her mother and father on either side of her. Ed got lost eavesdropping in there jovial conversation about if she loves mommy or daddy more. Thinking about Ed's own life and how he never got to have parents depressed him, but interactions like these make him happy as he can still see this type of love in this world

The crosswalk light went green and Ed being polite let the family walk first in front of him, and as he went to take his first few steps he saw something flash in front of eyes really fast. Stopping abruptly as something clearly just happened he found that the family disappeared, like a magic trick they were gone all three of them. A distant screech and crash could be heard by Ed that sounded pretty far away, but that has nothing to do with the missing family in front of him, this is when Ed noticed something. He felt wet and sticky and he could only see red as he looked down. Tubes of pink flesh were hanging and wrapped around him.

Ed just couldn't understand what was happening as it was his first time truly in shock. Looking to the left of him he sees huge bloody skid marks with flesh interwoven in the concrete. Ed walked like a zombie would trying to piece together information as the environment changed suddenly, vicious and surreal cries rang out around him. There was some people gathering standing still being victim of the bystander effect, while others helped and went into action.

The people were gathering at this white expensive looking sports car, helping out these people from the car and making sure others weren't hurt, but Ed was confused. Why isn't anyone by Ed almost nearly a block away to help look for this family. At this point Ed pieced together what happened, that white sports car was speeding so fast it lost control and crashed, but why couldn't he figure out what happened to that family and little girl, his mind wouldn't let the idea of what actually happened wrap around it yet.

Well until he came across a bloody deformed looking hunk of meat. Almost in disbelief of what Ed was seeing he kneeled down and moved it. Flipping around to expose the shoulders and head of a little girl with half of it missing. One bloody red eye ball stared straight into Ed's soul almost like it was blaming and judging him.

Already seeing way too much Ed emptied his stomach next to the corpse. Not knowing what to do next his eyes settled on an injured man with hate clearly visible, he was clearly egotistical and annoying being belligerent and uncooperative even with the people that saved him.

Ed's new infallible attitude seemed to only last a singular morning before reality reared its ugly head. It opened its mouth and said things can always be worse. Maybe some second Thoughts wouldn't be too bad after all.