Serial Murder Case
"Hello, this is XX Street police station..."
The familiar voice of a woman spoke.
Ethan instantly recognized it was the real Chen.
When he heard her voice he exhaled at long last a breath he wasn't even aware he had been holding.
"Hello, I'm the caller from earlier," he stated, being as precise as possible with his words.
"Officer Chen... may I tell you a story?"
The voice on the other end stayed quiet.
"??? How did you know my last name...?" she asked without thinking.
"Once upon a time, there was a couple," Ethan went on, ignoring her question in a low, stern voice.
"They had a happy life. They had a son..."
"Then one day, the boy went missing."
"The parents reported they he was missing."
"The police searched for the next few months, and found nothing."
"Just when the couple was about to break they received a tip."
"A warehouse manager at a manufacturing plant clearing out scrap metal discovered a body."
"Barely human. Incinerated."
"When police examined the DNA from the incinerated body...."
"They confirmed it was the missing boy that they had searched for, for months...."
"When the parents saw what they did to their son .... what was left of him ...."
"The shock was unbearable. They collapsed."
"The factory was shut down because of the body - the inspectors discovered unworthy stock, careless practices...."
"And here is the coincidence."
"The parents of the killer worked at the factory."
"Some thought they may have had something to do with it, but there was no indication."
"When the parents of the victim regained consciousness...."
"They did the unimaginable."
"They signed a letter of forgiveness for the murderer."
"The crowd cursed them."
"Claimed they received blood money."
"They claimed they betrayed the memory of their son...."
"But then...."
"They did something even more unthinkable."
"Months later when the case had gone cold and had left the news...."
"They sedated the killer. Bound him."
"Took him to the abandoned factory...."
"And took their justice."
"...And then... the law condemned them to death."
Ethan stopped.
He could hear Officer Chen's voice, penetrating, professional:
"Sir, I know the case. Are you disappointed in the verdict?"
"Let me finish," Ethan said, and inhaled deeply.
Then his voice changed and became ragged and insistent, approximating the imagined suffering of the dead boy:
"In court, the parents said they felt no remorse. They spoke of their suffering. How they dreamed of their son. He was on fire. His face was distorted in pain; he screamed at them —"
"MOTHER! FATHER! IT HURTS!
COME TO THE FACTORY!
SAVE ME!
IT'S DEMONS!
ALL OF THEM!
EVERYONE HERE IS A DEMON!
THEY'RE BURNING ME!
THEY'RE KILLING ME!
SAVE ME!"
Ethan's voice broke, erupted into a desperate horrible scream.
"Sir, I..."
"OFFICER CHEN!" Ethan interrupted himself, finding himself nervous and calm again.
"I didn't know you before this call."
"But if you were..."
"Would you leave?"
"Would you save the boy from the demons?"
"The choice is yours."
Click.
He hung up.
He didn't wait for an answer.
He waited for her next step to be the answer.
He closed his eyes.
Now he waited.
Fate would decide.
It was real.
An event from eight years ago in his reality.
The "demon murder case"
The place?
The Lan Gang factory.
The parents killed the murderer.
The nightmares they talked about in court?
All fakes.
A story.
But this story is the code.
The message:
→ Surrounded by demons.
→ I am a human.
→ At the Lan Gang factory.
→ Dying.
→ Come and save me.
If Chen were a player like him...
Torn from reality...
She would see the underlying meaning.
He had stressed he didn't know her...
Yet, he had known her last name "Chen".
He never said "Lan Gang Factory"...
Yet all his words suggested it.
The last question –
"Would you save the boy from the demons?"
Was the key.
He couldn't bring himself to say "monster"...
Not while Director Zhang Qian could be listening.
"Demons" was the better word.
He had explained –
"EVERYONE HERE IS A DEMON!"
Proclaiming -
→ I am human.
→ They are not.
→ They are the monsters.
The humans felt.
Monsters have imitated.
Would Chen get it?
Would she come?
His only move.
A desperate appeal for help wrapped in a tragedy.
He checked his phone:
> 10:55 AM <
He would wait until
> 11:02 AM <
– as the Boomers' eyes refreshed.
If she did decide to come...
He may witness it in the next death replay.
Police Station | Dispatch Room
"Xiao Chen."
A man's voice interrupted the air.
There stood the Director, Zhang Qian, by the door, with an expression of ambiguity.
"That call, earlier, who was it from?"
"Oh."
The younger woman spun on her heel,
A rehearsed, disconcerting grin broke across her face -
The same grin was worn by all the creatures.
"Just a member of the public."
Her voice was slick like oil.
"He has chosen to express dissatisfaction regarding the verdict..."
"...in the eight-year-old demon murder case."
"Hmm." Zhang Qian said while nodding his head in seriousness.
"But always listen carefully."
"Some callers are in peril ..."
"They cannot speak of what has happened."
"Understood, Director Zhang!"
The grin never left Chen's side.
"Also, it did seem the caller was focused on a historical case."
"His emotional fluctuations ..."
"...didn't demonstrate anyone in close, unspeakable peril."
Zhang Qian was capable of monitoring all calls.
His question was a test.
Good.
If she had equivocated about the nature of the call,
She would have raised immediate suspicion.
"Good." Zhang Qian said while his eyes lingered.
"You don't need to entertain such calls in the future."
He turned,
He left.
The door was shut.
The smile vanished.
Like a switch had been pulled.
Her eyes narrowed.
Sharp.
Aware.
Her knuckles turned white where they clenched the edge of the desk.
The man on the phone...
His voice shouting...
The code in the story...
the unsaid place...
He sounded...
Human...?
Like me?