There is something which has always bothered me.
I am Paris Chambers, and I happen to work at an investigation firm that solves mysteries, particularly almost impossible ones. I grew in the firm, which is called the Julian Page Institute, named after its founder.
I grew up in a village high in the mountains with other children of the families which worked for the Institute. I was raised by the community of investigators, workers, bakers, and everyone within.
I grew up hearing the tales of the investigators the Institute's investigators solved, and they were all so terrifying, yet my curiosity always needed more. The Institute didn't just investigate regular mysterious.
You see, they, I mean, we, investigate the paranormal.
In the summer of 2007, when I was fifteen years of age, I went missing for a month. I have no memory of what happened that month.
This bizarre gap bothers me to no end.
I simply remember the feeling of leaving my shared room and then nothing. A minute later I simply found myself at the local police-Institute station, confused. What makes it more unsettling is that in the weeks leading up to my disappearance is bizarre, impossible murders or the children inside their rooms and sightings of strange shadows.
But now it's time to find out what exactly happened that summer of 2007.
I arranged a meeting with the current director, Julian Page II. His father had created the first Institute, with operated in discreet secrecy with the government, which nicknamed the operation 'Project Angel'. Much of the project was lost to time, but it kept investigating, and now, recently it was open to the public.
That's why I decided to investigate my own mystery.
"Paris Chambers," a monotonic voice spoke over the speaker system all over the Institute. "Please report to the Director's Office." A closing tune played.
I finished up my meal at the restaurant floor in the Institute's Restaurant Floor, located underneath the main building.
A minute later, I payed and I exited the restaurant, which was an Institute Original called Bone Appetit, and headed for the office.
I arrived, pressing a doorbell on Julian Page's door, eliciting a soft chime. Through the blue tinted windows I saw Julian push up his glasses and motion for me to come in.
The door was unlocked, and I opened it.
"Lock the door, please," he told kindly. "The method will work better without interruption."
"Noted." I closed the door, and locked it. With the door closed, the mindless buzz of Institute Employees were almost silent, yet still there, as if to reassure me many people worked here.
"Paris!" Julian called, joyed. "It's been so many years since we've last seen one another."
"Yes, Julian," I replied, smiling distantly. Julian had also grown up in the Institute Village, and we were friends. Over the years, he had taken the mantle as director, and it had gotten harder to meet one another. Eventually, we stuck to distant texts.
"Anyway, you explained over text last week," Julian began, "that you wanted to solve the mystery in that summer of 2007." His eyes darkened with pain. He tried to hide his attachment to the case, but it was there.
"I am."
"Do you want to continue this small talk, or shall we begin?"
"We mustn't waste time," I reminded. "If we have time afterwords, we can catch up- but our priority is to solve this mystery."
"I too, must find out," Julian confessed. He pondered, thinking for a while. "Let's begin."
"Okay."
I sat on the sofa, and I saw Julian get up and bring a syringe. He walked in front of me and sighed deeply.
"I'm about to give you a small dose of-"
"I don't want to know."
"It'll bring back the memories- it should feel like you've returned to that summer."
I nodded. Julian injected the syringe; a small prick on my neck.
My vision slowed, blurring. Julian's voice counted backwards, with each number getting more distant, blurry, almost… unreal. The world began to ripple, twist and turn, grow dark and light.
I saw a flash of white light, and then I saw… me back in the summer of 2007. I then became me, but not quite me- like a passenger in a body.
"...did you hear about Jennifer?" I heard myself ask the girl next to me. Who was she? I had forgotten, yet she seemed almost familiar.
"I did," she replied. "Same as Deacon, all bloody and… just… dead."
I remembered. This was Tiffany Hydrangea. My girlfriend. We got back together every so often in cases, and romantically. I made a mental note to ask her later if she remembered anything else about the killings.
"I wonder what's causing it," I said, holding out a tray and seeing a machine expel mashed potatoes on it. I realized where I was- the school cafeteria.
"No clue," she replied. "But I bet its got to do with that wolf people's been seeing near the forests."
The Wolf! How could I have forgotten!
"Based on the rumours, I say it's a werewolf," I retorted, rolling my eyes.
"Yeah, but it's all dark and shadowy ain't it?" Tiffany responded.
We giggled at our indecisiveness of the situation and sat down at a nearby table. All around us were others, people I even recognized.
We sat and talked about the school for a while, and nothing much.
Nothing, until the television's that lined the walls began to display the news. Meanwhile, overhead on the speaker came an announcement.
"The school is on Code Blue Lockdown."
I remembered- that meant nobody was allowed to enter or exit the rooms they were in.
"I wonder what that's about," Tiffany moaned, annoyed. She complained of having to miss class again.
"No clue," I murmured.
"Look!" she suddenly called, alerting many in the cafeteria. "The news!"
A teacher turned up the volume. Memories began to flash back, so many memories.
On the news for the face of Jennifer Goissen, taken from her last yearbook photo. She smiling, happy, unlike the details the news recounted.
"...Jennifer Goissen is the next in the series of bizarre murders taking place in the dormitories of Angel Village. She was found dead like the others inside her room, alone. According to recent developments, we have learned that her roommate had went out that night for a walk and had returned to find her body." The woman on the news cleared her throat. "She was found dead, ripped apart, limbs strewn around the room like the first two killings, blood everywhere. According to her diary, which her parents have chosen to release- check your tablets, she tells us that… that she was seeing a strange figure at night, just at the foot of her bed. A Bipedal Wolf, in fact."
"Not a werewolf," Tiffany laughed.
"Not now, Tiff!" I argued.
"As this killer is targeting children, we have ordered that all children stay in pairs with their roommate." That was easy enough. My roommate was by luck, Tiffany. "Everyone is to be on guard at all times, and to do new developments- strange, muddy tracks all around the dead's room, there will be a curfew at exactly eight. At that time, security guards will not let anyone enter or exit. That is all."
And then, the news returned to normality, telling us about recent world events.
An hour later, we had an early dismissal from school, and the two of us returned to our room at the dormitory.
Or we were supposed to. We planned that, at least, but we went to the library to check out books.
There, I needed to use the restroom, and broke the rule of no splitting up. After all, it was the library- what could happen?
Except something did happen.
I walked out the restroom, hands wet, drying it on my hoodie and going to the fairy tales section of the place.
It was in the corner, and I was looking for a specific one I don't quite remember, the memory, fuzzy, even as I was 'there', inside the body of little me.
I turned back and out the corner of my eye saw this… this shadow.
"Careful there," it growled, the voice, old, and distorted. "Don't want to get eaten, do we?"
I focused on it- a wolf. A bipel shadowy wolf watching me in the corner. It's mouth which was shadow appeared to curve- a smile.
I screamed, and the wolf laughed.
I ran as fast as I could, straight into the arms of a confused librarian.
"What's got you all stressed out?" he asked. "No running-"
"Mister Greene, I saw a wolf!" I exclaimed, afraid.
His eyes darkened, his face, stopped smiling. "Show me- where?!"
I led him towards the corner. The wolf was gone.
"I-I don't understand!" I stammered. "It was right here!"
"Probably just shadows," Mr. Greene replied, relieved that there was nothing. "Stay with your roommate- who was it?"
"Tiff," I replied, reassuring the man. Still, I could hear the words of the wolf echoing in my mind, screaming Careful there a thousand times and it's warning of not getting eaten.
I gasped, and the world returned to normal. The blues and reds folded, mixed, the old world- the past melted and I was back sitting in the office of my old friend Julian Damien Page II.
"Paris!" he called, greeting me. "What the hell happened? Are you okay?!"
"I-It," I stammered, catching my breath. "It worked."
"What happened?"
I told him what happened, everything from Tiffany, to the wolf, to Mr. Greene. I missed no details, the memory within memory pure and clean in my mind like a knife, threatening to cut my thread of sanity.
"It… worked." Julian laughed distantly. "I can't believe it worked!"
"What the hell was that stuff- I'll need more!" I yelled.
"The recipe was given to me by an old tribe leader out in the Appalachian Mountains," Julian replied. "It's herbs and some hallucinogens."
"The memories were real though," I replied. "I can verify it."
"I know you can," Julian nodded.
He then proceeded to tell me what had happened in the hour I was in the… the past.
I spasmed and went limp on the sofa, and he found that my pulse had weakened. He tried to wake me up, and was about to call the medical department when I started speaking.
I started speaking, according to him, in tongues.
The recording he showed me had caused me to vomit onto his neat, carpeted floor. I apologized, thinking it was expensive, but he brushed it off. The voices, the noises I made were inhuman, disgusting, almost indescribable.
They were animallike, and I had never heard the speak ever before.
After the speaking in tongues, I, apparently began to recite the names of the dead. All fourteen children who vanished or were killed during the summer of 2007. Names, that some, I never knew. Names that were classified and replaced with placeholders.
And then, he said, my eyes began to blink wildly, and I fell limp, and finally, I woke up.
"This has been very interesting," he began, his voice, confused, "but I have a meeting."
"When should we-"
"We'll meet again tomorrow," he declared, sure and confident.
"But your schedule," I complained, not wanting him to sacrifice his precious time with investors, or cases.
"I'll make time," he decided. He was sure of this, I could tell. Julian's eyes were wild, yet had this… this true order to it. Logic, obstacles, and anything wouldn't stop him.
"Are you sure?" I argued. "This case is so old!"
"It's… important," Julian sighed. "I need to find answers too."
"Then tomorrow it is."
"I promise you, Paris Chambers- I will make time."
He would make time.
We both, it seemed, needed to solve this mystery