My brother was carrying me on his shoulders, he was going as fast as he could.
"This is going to become quite a mess to look at. Try not to get inside, besides there are cops in the building, so don't worry about protecting me" I clarified. And then he said "Ok! But... Shouldn't you be the one that isn't going to look at anything? Since you are quite young, Mark" and then I told him "I got used to gore. Thank the deep web for that" and then he asked me "Deep web?" and I told him "A place where all the illegality takes place"
We finally arrived, and I went inside. The smell of roasted corpses is actually disgusting. And the corpses themselves... They left me unmobilized, eyes wide open, mouth almost opened.
The burns actually had secondary colours, all of them. Green... Orange... Purple...
And a sky blue memory I can never erase.
2006:
Mark Smith woke up thanks to our brother. "Good morning, Mark! I got some bacon and eggs waiting for you to show up and eat them!" he said, while Mark said "Oh, good morning Marlow! How are you doing?"
Then his brother, the drama king of our brother, exclaimed "OH MY GOSH, I'M SORRY I FORGOT TO SAY HOW ARE YOU DOING!" and then Mark told him "Oh, it's no biggie, thanks for waking me up!"
Then Mark got out of the bed, looked at a poster of a black being with only yellow eyes as a face, surrounded by sky blue light as if it was some sort of neon light, and his parents were waiting for them at the table so they could start eating. Mark said "Hello, mom! Hello, dad!" and then his dad said "Hello, champ!" and his mom "Hello, sweetie!" and then his mom kissed him on the nose.
Then we all went to the table, and started to eat their breakfast. Mark wanted eagerly for his family to go to the amusement park with him, but his parents had to tell him "Look, champ, I have some bad news, but we can't go today to the amusement park, I have a lot of paperwork to do" and then his mom asked "Sweetie, is it really necessary that you want all of us to go?" and he said yes, because the more people go, the more fun it is. However, he said "Aw, don't worry mom, dad, what's the rush? Work is more important right now" and he was right, work was more important.
But they should have kept working, and Mark should have forgotten about this amusement park idea. Or they should have gone today.
But would it still have changed anything?
The days would go by, and on the news, Sorz showed up, who was Mark's hero in the past. Back then he couldn't understand that killing criminals was, even with good intentions, still not ok. But then, he heard that his hero was starting to kill innocent people. He didn't initially believe that... But he should have.
My guess is his parents didn't know much about him, otherwise they would have told him "No" and such.
The days went by and finally, the four of them could go to the amusement park... They had a good time, doing typical things you do in an amusement park, go-karting, shooting gallery, hall of mirrors, that sort of stuff. But what goes up, must come down.
His mother wanted to show her husband something, so she left Mark and his brother alone. The two had fun, and eventually both brothers saw a black liquid with a sky blue light running. They both knew what it was.
Mark told him "I understand you have to do what you have to do, even if I think he's innocent, Marl" and his brother said "Thanks! Both of us will get to the bottom of this!" and he told his brother "Be careful!"
He went chasing after him. And then... The news spread like wildfire. And he had to see the news with his own eyes. Big mistake.
And when his eyes eventually locked up to his happy go lucky brother... They had water coming out of it. He hurried up and hugged him, and his brother, not knowing what happened, proceeded to hug him.
Much later, he told him that he actually defeated Sorz, and heard a "Crack" noise, but he disappeared. His tone of voice wasn't the usual self.
He disappeared for a very, VERY long time.
2008:
A cop got in the way of my view and asked me if I was alright. I responded with "Call another private detective. This... I can't help you out here. I'm sorry"
Emotions are getting in the way.
I went outside, and he was waiting for me, and asked me if I got any clues, but after noticing my face, he knew something was wrong with me, so he asked me "Mark? Are you alright?" and I said "Let's go home... Let's go home"
We went back to our apartment, and I went inside my room. It was a late reaction... But I made it.
I couldn't even go to school for a week. I couldn't even help... Nothing.
While these days were happening, the other private detective came to our door, to talk about what happened.
"Hello! Come in, Mr Geom!" said Marlow, and a slender body entered the apartment, carrying a Nintendo DS in his hand, and walking like Mario in the original 1985 game.
His full name is Davie Geom. I've heard of him before.
We both ended up at the table, and Davie Geom explained what he discovered while scratching his black, short, curly hair underneath a black fedora with a purple band, and playing with the DS.
"So... From what I could gather, there were lots of lives lost in the apartment, but one of them... He was a quite powerful dictator that escaped"
"Dictator?" I asked.
Then he elaborated that he made thousands of people angry, dead, and any of that stuff that usually comes with dictatorship, but he had the intuition that he was also a good father due to some clues he saw. And then he said that the other people were killed to leave no witnesses. All intuition, and not basing on facts that happened, that's what I've heard from him.
I didn't have the stomach to investigate this. But this weirdo is quite helpful.
Marlow offered him "Is it alright if you stay here and offer you some nice meal?" And he didn't respond while his eyes were locked playing whatever it was that he was playing. Marlow repeated the question, and then he replied "Oh, sorry, I wasn't paying attention. Something with sugar would be nice, it helps me a lot"
I... said "Thanks"
He didn't listen, but I didn't feel like repeating myself, so I went to the computer, trying to wash those bad thoughts away, trying to see if for a week I can become who I became in the past.
I just found it gruesome. I didn't have any emotional connections with the victims.
I hardly knew them. Therefore it's not the fact that men, women and children's lives were lost, it's because it reminded me of those corpses Mark Smith had to see.
Just... I found it disgusting. Nothing more. Nothing less.
I don't care for these victims.
I just don't.
I don't care.
Period.