Adam Linden sat in the pews of his old church, the world moving noiselessly around him. He could not hear anything, and his blue eyes only looked on ahead seeing nothing.
He could not move and could only hear faint voices around him.
The tall man had sat this way earlier in his life in the very same church near the very same cemetry. It had been about five years before, and the atmosphere had seemed so much more intense back then.
When his world had first shaken to a degree where he had to shut off his thoughts completely to numb himself, he had not thought he would survive. His mother's passing had come so quickly and so suddenly. It had pulled the rug from under him and plunged him into an intense cold.
The funeral five years before had not been the same as the one he sits at now.
The first one had taken away his mother with no explanation. It had not been a death that had occurred naturally.
His hard-working and capable mother had left the world with fear in her eyes and anguish in her voice. Adam had long since shut off those thoughts from his mind completely. There was no other way he could get up and attend to his life.
The second was more of an understandable death. It was the death of Adam's father.
His father had also suffered a blow at the death of his caring wife. A blow the poor husband had decided that he did not want to recover from.
The death of Maria Linden, the reliable wife and mother of her family, had left two men incredibly crippled.
And while Adam Linden, the son, numbed himself and walked further into work and into school; the husband, Bart Linden, had drowned into alcohol. It had taken every passing second until it could take no more.
Bart Linden's coffin had been let down into the ground. Not many had sobbed. A few of the people at the funeral had patted Adam, the son, gently on the back.
Trudging back, Adam had wondered why such a looming and heavy dread enveloped the place when, clearly, not many had really grieved at the funeral of his father. It took him several moments to realize that the rain was still beating down at him.
Life was sometimes more dramatic than Adam preferred.
Soon, most of the funeral attenders had shaken Adam's hand and left. Not many had arrived. Bart Linden had not interacted with many since his wife's passing and most of his friendships and relationships had fallen away and deteriorated.
Adam Linden walked back into the church and made his way to the seats. He sat in the pews, unmoving.
Within the confines of his fortified mind, his thoughts were slowly beginning to form a clear line. The clouds of vagueness were leaving him slowly and a clarity entered his eyes.
Adam Linden blinked.
Something that he had heard at the funeral was gnawing at him.
It was a bunch of women who had huddled up at the very back when he had passed by them to leave the church. They had been whispering profusely with rather annoying expressions.
The first think Adam Linden had done, despite his tiredness, was block the whispers out of his head.
The last thing he wanted at his father's funeral was to listen to the gossip circling around in the mouths of women who had no care for him whatsoever.
But something that they had said had seeped into his consciousness.
Adam Linden sat up, frowning as he tried to focus. Something that they had said had rung bells in his mind when he had heard it.
What had that been?
Adam bit his lip and leaned forward as he thought long and hard.
A few seconds passed and it came to him.
Their voices had not been very loud, but he had made collections of their words form a general gist in his mind.
They had been speaking of the "unfortunate death of his mother and how that had led to all of this". Adam scrunched his eyebrows up trying to think. What else had the ladies said?
One of the women had mentioned the death of another lady who was a publicist in the entertainment industry and the whispering had gotten worse.
Adam got up.
The name they had been mentioning was "Leah".
Something possessed Adam to make his way to the doors of the church quickly. He was leaving the building with a strong purpose in mind.
A path ahead was forming itself and he was determined to see it fully through.
The first thing he had to do was to cement his suspicions.
Adam's steps turned into a sprint and then a full-speed run.
He was running to his apartment with one thing on his mind. He knew his mother had a close friend who was still in the industry. It had been years since Adam had seen her, but he needed to find her just to make sure he knew what was going on.
Adam ran past the honking traffic of his messy and noisy city.
All he had to do was look through the old things in his mother's room to see if he could find her friend's phone number.
If he did, there were several questions he needed to ask the old woman.
Adam stopped blocking the thoughts that concerned his mother's death from his mind. They flooded in like a raging sea.
His mother had been murdered and her body had been dumped in a forsaken alleyway behind one of the most posh and luxurious hotels in the country.
She had been missing for a week since she had attended a party in that very hotel for work. The police had investigated for weeks before shutting down the case after finding no proper leads.
Adam's mind was reeling.
All of the events from that night, five years before, came flooding into his mind.