Too many Tragedies

Soft tunes emanated from a classic old record player that sat on a low wooden table at the edge of the room. The instrument itself, although far too old for this century, brought some sort of relief to its owner, a boy sitting at the edge of his bed in a single room apartment.

What was going through his mind or rather the cause of the sudden change in his demeanor was something no one apart from him knew. You see he or rather his Alter was currently digging, digging far deeper than he had ever dug before.

He was searching for something or rather, someone.

But before all that let's talk about this 'Alter.'

You see, the second person that dwelt in the young man wasn't always there. Some people claimed they had a dual personality and what not but for this young man, Chari, it was not as simple as that. This was far more than a dual personality, it was in fact a whole new person that dwelt in him, something like another him, but different.

When things turned sour and the walls of his mind threatened to crumble into bits and pieces his alter had been born. But what could drive a boy of his age to the brink of insanity?

Was it the death of his parents at the age of 7? His dad's head had been crushed by a truck when he attempted to cross the road to get he and his little sister ice cream. That he had requested…

And all they could do was helplessly watch as what was left of his head was smeared across the floor. But no, that wasn't the kicker.

His mother who slowly ran mad when memories of that day continuously played in her head non stop? No, he was still there for her.

At a young age with an already unstable mind he took on the role of the breadwinner, after all his sister was too young to do anything and his mother, well- she wasn't in the right state of mind.

No one would hire a 7 year old kid but he found his way around it having to work far below minimum wage to keep the family afloat.

Let's continue shall we?

Was it the time he came home from work one day only to see his mother in a tub of blood, her wrist slit up in an artistic pattern?

His mother did have a thing for art.

The young man laughed bitterly, his alter silently scolded him for making him lose focus.

Those things alone were enough to break anyone but not Chari, he persevered. But the breaking point was when he lost his last tether to life.

On his way back from school his sister without a care in the world was joyfully skipping across the pavement, it was already dark but they had to visit a nearby supermarket to get ingredients for dinner.

Only for her to bump into a tall man in a black trench coat. Immediately Chari saw the face of the man, he knew there was trouble. He had a wide smile on his face but everything about him was anything but friendly.

He screamed at his sister to get back and ran even, but it was all for naught. Before he could even reach her a dagger was already protruding from her back, her lifeless body plummeting to the floor.

The man walked up to him, patted him on the head and walked away, leaving him alone on the street. He was completely powerless to stop him.

The most irritating part was that he didn't fight, he didn't cry, he didn't move. He just stood there.

It was that very day, standing next to his sister's body that Chari finally snapped– he became hollow, his mind vacant and all he could hear was the sound of someone laughing mirthfully– was it him?

Something in him broke that day and was never mended up till this point. He remained like that for hours but suddenly his body began to move. He was not the driver, but it was somehow him at the same time?

Six months later he had taken back control of his body, the time he spent in stasis giving him the time he needed to get some semblance of self, but the person that drove his body for that six months remained, a voice in his mind sometimes and a second driver of his body when he didn't just like doing anything. It became a second 'Him'.

Then the visions began to appear. At the time he did not know if it was due to his intense desire to keep people he loved safe which he had already failed at or if it was just hallucinations brought about by his madness.

But they eventually turned out to be real and the source of these visions was his other self who he now resorted to calling his alter.

What was the point of having such a gift now when everyone he held dear was dead? The world was unrelentingly cruel.

***

10 years later Chari found himself working for the Enforcers division, a superior branch of the police that was tasked with dealing with cases the police was just too ill equipped to handle like high profile criminals, corrupt police officials and sometimes spies.

The Enforcers division valued skill far more than anything and after years of doing nothing but pouring his frustrations into martial arts he was sufficiently skilled. Coupled with his visions he was a perfect fit for the division.

He had now developed a relationship with this other self and discovered how independent he actually was. Although he was quite similar to Chari in a lot of ways they still had their differences, one of them being how the turn of events had affected them both, basically it was the nature of their insanity.

He wasn't sure if he could actually call it insanity but there was a particular way they both behaved at times or reacted to things that he didn't really have an explanation for. It was just like a sudden change in their attitude.

Apart from that his alter had a rather… um– unique way of seeing things.

As for Chari himself, his peculiarity was rather… well no one liked to talk about those things right?

They were both dark people on the inside just living, the only thing that kept him going being the promise he made to his mom to keep moving forward no matter what. It's ironic that she who made him promise this was now dead.

The premonitions his alter often saw made him an invaluable member of the enforcers, to them he was just a very good investigator, only he and his captain knew the real truth.

Although he loathed the circumstances that lead to the gift, he found solace in using it to find the most useless scumbags in society. He could always vent out his frustrations on their bodi– in bringing them to order!

In the office he was a loner, a terrible one at that, his anti person skills made everyone just simply avoid him altogether, everyone except for a stupid girl who didn't know how to mind her business. That girl was Vera.

Vera was the only Enforcer at his age in the agency, their IT specialist. That may be why she suddenly took interest in him, bothering him anytime he ate or wasn't on field, even when the comms were on during work she would still slide in her stupid jokes.

He would never admit it but that brightened up his otherwise dark life a little. But of course he couldn't have a moment of peace, she was now missing along with 10 other agents.

They had invited him to come along with them for dinner to celebrate a completed case but as usual he ignored them.

Maybe if he followed them this might not have happened? No, he couldn't entertain such thoughts right now. He needed to restrict his thoughts and let his alter focus on finding her.

What his alter saw shocked them both.