I stood in the doorway, my eyes scanning the carnage before me, and a deep sorrow tugged at my chest. The scene before me felt unreal, like something I'd only seen in distant nightmares.
Red was the dominant colour—blood had splattered across the walls, pooling beneath the lifeless bodies of the farmers. The furniture, once a symbol of comfort and home, lay discarded and broken, like the remnants of a failed dream. Chairs were overturned, tables displaced, and couches shredded to pieces as though they had been victims of an unstoppable rage.
The farmers, once vibrant and full of life, now lay motionless, their bodies sprawled on the cold, unforgiving floor.
For a long moment, I did nothing. The silence was deafening. I stood frozen, my mind struggling to comprehend the enormity of what had just happened. My beak trembled as emotions surged through me—grief, anger, confusion. I couldn't help it. A cacophony of squawks erupted from my throat as I vented my frustration, my sorrow. I flapped my wings in distress, unable to express my helplessness in any other way.
Then, just as abruptly as the outburst had come, I stopped.
I awkwardly perched on the table, my claws scraping against its surface as I stumbled toward the landline phone. My talons fumbled over the buttons, clumsy and inefficient, but I knew what I had to do. The urgency in my chest clawed at me as I struggled to dial the number for the police.
"444, what's your emergency?" The voice on the other end was calm, professional—too calm for the storm of chaos I was witnessing.
I snapped into action, flying up from the table in a panic, my wings flapping in wild desperation. I crashed into pans, pots, and chairs, creating a chaotic clamour of noise that echoed through the house. The clatter of metal against wood, the screech of furniture scraping across the floor—it was all a blur of frantic motion. I had to keep them on the line. I had to make them hear me, understand that something was terribly wrong.
"Hello, hello, are you alright?" The voice on the other end crackled, panic creeping into the woman's tone. She sounded almost as frightened as I felt.
I didn't know what else to do. With a desperate screech, I flew to the phone line, tearing at the cables with my sharp claws, my beak biting into the thick wire. There was a satisfying snap, and the phone line went dead. The room fell into a heavy, suffocating silence. I hovered there for a moment, my heart pounding in my chest. Hopefully, they'll come. They have to come, I thought.
I didn't leave the scene. Something in me told me to stay. I wanted to witness it all—the aftermath, the arrival of the authorities. I wanted answers, or at least the semblance of them.
Soon, the first officers arrived. Their faces paled as they took in the sight before them. One of them made the call to bring in a detective, and it wasn't long before a grizzled man appeared. He wore a worn brown coat and carried a suitcase that looked as if it had seen better days. His black top hat, scuffed and stained, barely sat atop his thinning hair. As he removed it, a gust of wind seemed to lift away the last shreds of youth from his face, revealing someone who seemed both ancient and childlike at once, as though time had taken a cruel pleasure in distorting his appearance.
"Good evening, Detective," one of the officers greeted him, voice laced with a mix of respect and wariness.
The detective nodded, offering an awkward, crooked smile that exposed a set of uneven, yellowed teeth. The officer's smile faltered, and an uncomfortable silence settled between them.
I watched from my perch on a nearby tree branch, my eyes following the detective's every exaggerated movement. He pranced around the room, scanning the scene with a strange air of detachment. Then, with an almost theatrical flourish, he plopped onto the couch.
"All signs point to an attempted robbery," he declared to no one in particular, his voice carrying an odd mix of confidence and uncertainty. "But... there are other elements that don't add up."
He paused, and his eyes fixed on the spot where my body had once lain. Now, it was just a pile of spent bullet casings scattered across the floor.
"Notice something odd?" the detective continued, pointing with a flourish. "All the bullets are used. Every single one. But why are there so many in a single location? What's the purpose? What's the reasoning?"
He bent over, pulling a magnifying glass from his pocket. As he whispered something under his breath, a purplish mist swirled from the glass, filling the room with an eerie glow. I watched in awe as the mist solidified, revealing traces of footprints and the shadowy, illusory projections of the event that had transpired—an eerily accurate replay of the moments that had led to the deaths of the farmers.
The scene unfolded before my eyes once again, but this time, I was a mere voyeur, unable to intervene. I saw the attack in full, each movement and sound amplified, as though I were living it through a different set of senses.
The mist slowly faded, and the detective, seemingly satisfied, straightened up.
"Aliens," he muttered, reviewing the information he had gathered. "I don't believe in them... but I can't deny the possibility."
He fell into a long silence, staring up at the ceiling. The room seemed to hold its breath with him. Finally, he clapped his hands sharply, the sound ringing out like a thunderclap in the tense silence.
"I hereby declare this a cold case," he announced, his tone flat, unwavering.
"Sir, you haven't even begun investigating!" One of the officers protested, incredulous.
The detective sighed, looking at them with weary eyes. "I could try all I want, but it would lead to nothing. This wasn't a robbery. This wasn't madness. This was... ruthless pragmatism. And I don't understand it. I can't."
He looked around at the officers, his gaze unwavering. "If you have a problem with this, feel free to lodge a complaint. Another detective will take over, and I won't care. This case is unsolvable, and I'm done with it."
Without waiting for a response, he tipped his hat back onto his head and left, his steps echoing in the empty room, unfazed by the stares of the officers who remained behind.
I couldn't breathe. My wings fluttered involuntarily, and a weight settled in my chest. For all the frustration, for all the action, for all the noise I made—was it all for nothing? What did it mean in the end?
I looked to the sky, my eyes tracing the countless stars in the night. I didn't have the answers, but in that moment, I made a solemn vow to myself.
It would amount to everything.
With a powerful beat of my wings, I took flight into the night, my shadow casting a long, dark shape over the scene below. I soared into the abyss, leaving behind the shattered world of human tragedy. Into the unknown, where I might find the answers—or perhaps more questions—awaiting me.
***
The detective returned to his dingy apartment in centre of Greance. The air was thick with the stench of pollution, and the city below seemed to pulse with a sick, toxic energy. People stumbled down the streets, lost in their own worlds of vice and despair—alcohol, drugs, smoke. It was all the same, always the same.
At first, he had blamed the stench on the city, but now he saw the truth. The city itself was a source of decay, feeding the corruption that seemed to seep from every corner.
He set his coffee aside and moved to the small study tucked into the back of his apartment. Walls lined with old newspaper clippings, strings connecting various points in a web that seemed to stretch far beyond his understanding.
"So much has happened in this city... and yet there's never a clear answer why." He stared at the mess of papers, rubbing his temples. "What if... what if there's no reason at all? What if someone just wants to watch the world burn?"
He chuckled darkly, placing the file about the farmers' deaths on the edge of his desk. "To be honest, I don't care about justice anymore. I just want to understand. So many people die. So many... and yet there's no link. No pattern. It's like someone's throwing darts at a wall and seeing who they hit next. And every death is executed with cold, methodical precision."
He sighed, his gaze drifting to the window.
"Human beings," he murmured to himself, "are cursed by the ability to learn, yet bound by an inability to apply the lessons they've learned. How tragic it must be... to be part of this relentless, inevitable cycle, and still remain helpless to change it."
He picked up a beer and took a long, weary swig. The taste did little to numb the ache in his chest. He collapsed onto the couch, his arm flung back, and the beer bottle slipped from his fingers, crashing to the floor and spilling its contents onto the already stained carpet.
His eyes fluttered shut, and a single tear traced the curve of his cheek. The silence was thick, and for a moment, he seemed to drift away from everything.
But then, from outside, the sound of shouting and drunken laughter pierced the stillness. The detective opened his eyes with a start, but the noise was nothing more than the idle sounds of the city—the never-ending chaos that wove its way through the streets.
He closed his eyes, but sleep refused to come. The hum of the city, ever-present and relentless, seeped into his thoughts, tangled with his frustration. No matter how hard he tried, peace remained just out of reach.
His mind churned with unanswered questions.
Sleep, like everything else, had become elusive—fleeing whenever he sought it, as if it, too, had given up on him.
In that moment, he wondered: Was peace ever meant for someone like me? Or is rest just another illusion, a jest, like justice—something we chase, but can never truly hold?
The city outside answered with the sounds of the living—noisy, untamed, and endless.