Chapter 34: In between

This must be heaven.

I can’t remember what happened, really. I remember that the murderer tore off her mask to reveal that she was Illy. Illy killed Yuki.

I remember how the bullet missed her because I jerked the gun…I remember the crates labeled high explosives. I remember Orange.

And then I don’t remember anything.

But this must be heaven. White, everything’s white; the floor, the wall, the ed. The bed is wonderfully comfortable and springy and –

A very familiar, bald, rainbow faced man glares down into my face. This must be hell.

“Not you,” I groan, trying to wave my arms in front of me. The Boss – a ghost or not I don’t know – shifts his seat back tentatively. As if my random waving motions can hit anything. “Don’t move, Evans,” he growls, and proceeds to bore me with an explanation of how I died and/or survived. I fall asleep again.

When I sleep, I dream. That, you realize, is quite a stupid statement. In my dream, I see Illy. She’s holding the same dagger as when we first met, dressed in her costume, but her mask is off. At first, her face is blank, like a clean blackboard. Then she smiles a little and shakes my hand. “Round three went to both of us,” she says. “Thanks for the game.”

When I blink, the person in front of me is no longer Illy, but Yuki. We are standing on the bridge where we first met, where Yuki got killed. Yuki is dressed in her white winter coat, her black hair flowing out behind her. She looks lovely.

I smile.

She smiles.


-Finis-

Chapter 33: Paradise

He shoots. I’ll let death embrace me, his chilly fingers creep around my back and around my neck. Yes. I’ve been wishing to die for so long.

***

Run.

You still have much more to live for. Just run.

***
I can feel my legs move involuntarily. I run, and run, as crate after crate explodes. And the further I go, the further I am from Evans. He can’t hurt me now.

And I can’t hurt him.

I watch from the docks as the warehouse is blown into pieces, and fireworks are blown off, filling the night sky with a vibrant display of colors.

Goodbye, Evans.

Enjoy your paradise.

Chapter 32: I hate decisions, especially if the wrong one could cost you your life

I have the longest title! This calls for celebrations! Although I don’t have time to celebrate because I’m hunting down a psychotic, deranged mass murder who has almost killed me twice and will definitely finish the job a third time.

All the same…there’s no time like the present. I take out my emergency champagne bottle and pop the cork. The cork hits the murderer on the head and she falls unconscious, and I save the day! Nah, not really. If I did that pigs would fly. And I’m not accepting ‘swine flu’ as an answer.

She runs into a warehouse and I follow. I don’t think, I always follow. Not a good trait for policemen to have, but why am I talking about this when I’m about to die?

Finally she reaches a corner with absolutely no way out. I smirk. “It ends here, doesn’t it?” I say. How very clichéd, especially when it’s a police officer saying it to a prisoner, gun and champagne bottle in hand. Scratch that champagne bottle.

I raise the gun, my finger on the trigger. “Take your mask off or I’ll shoot,” I threaten. She doesn’t comply. The pressure on the trigger increases.

I pull the trigger just as she pulls off the mask and reveals herself to be Illyasviel Medvedev.

My eyes widen and my hands jerk involuntarily. No. NO. “NO!” I shout, throwing the champagne bottle and gun away. The bullet has veered off to the left and has hit one crate. And suddenly, something I considered unimportant at first slips into my mind. On one of the boxes I saw in the warehouse were the words “CAUTION: HIGHLY FLAMMABLE EXPLOSIVES”.

I hate my job.

Chapter 31: Enter-Fate

Pain shoots through my entire body. Grabbing my chin, I feel a sticky liquid flowing from my jaw. James Evans. No, I can’t kill him. I flinch then take off as fast as I can.

***

Kill him, dear.

Kill. You love blood.

Blood. Remember your thorns. Bleed.

Bleed all those who touch you.

No. I am no longer…

***
I make off for the warehouses situated by the docks. I know that those crates contain explosives. Fireworks, to be exact. If Evans shoots – we’ll all blow up. I won’t kill him.

He’ll kill me. And himself.

Chapter 30: Her

I have tied for the shortest chapter title!

Anyway, today the boss calls for me and a couple of other blokes. Apparently the lab has identified the poison, and only a few pharmacies are authorized to sell it. Plus, whoever buys it has to write his or her name down on a list. He’s sending us to stake the various places out. He also says that whoever asks, Denvers died of a heart attack. I raise my hand.

“Didn’t you just say he died of poison?”

The Chief does his fishy charades thing again before dismissing us and calling for aspirin.

Back at my desk, I pick up a pencil and began to write another report – the technicians have refused to give me another keyboard, so the coffee has lost its best swimming pool. A voice suddenly screams into my ear, “Denvers? Dead?” and I am so thoroughly frightened that I drop the pencil and it breaks. A purse slams onto my table, the computer monitor squeaks and drops onto the floor with an ear-shattering crash. Not that my ears need anymore shattering. Illy can scream, by god.

“Heart attack,” I explain, picking up the broken ends of the pencil, leaving the monitor where it is. How come Illy was strong enough to make a computer fall without even touching it? “Now, if you’ll excuse me, Illy, sorry, but I need to work.” I realize I can’t work a moment later, because that pencil was my last one.

***

We experienced boys of stakeout know what that means.

It’s basically a night of eating donuts and watching people through binoculars, or playing poker and losing a lot of money.

This is pretty much what happens at this stakeout. We all file into the building opposite, wearing various civvy clothes. I’m wearing a red checked shirt and khaki pants, a lot better than some of my friends. I swear, they’ve been in police clothes so long they’ve forgotten how to dress normally.

Every hour two of us will go out and patrol the building discreetly. And on my watch, I have the pleasure of meeting her again.

My partner screams like a girl and dives into the nearest bushes. I pull out my gun, my eyes never once leaving hers, and shoot her. The bullet goes right through her jaw. She runs off without another sound and I give chase, thinking longingly, whatever happened to the donut-and-poker stakeouts of old?

Chapter 29: Run

The very next day, I walk into the office to hear chattering going all around. What is going on?

“Denvers? Dead?” I cry in fake surprise. Well, more like scream into Evans’ ear. I slam my purse onto my desk. “How?”

I sigh. My acting is rather good, however, I cannot mask the pain I feel in my arm. I flinch a bit and grab it.

---later that night---

I find myself out of that handy poison. Time to steal. I put on my gear and head out, creeping across roofs and alleys like a stray black cat.

I pick the lock to the back door of the pharmacist’s. The pharmacist has been brewing all sorts of poisons, new and old.

But a surprise awaits me there.

Bang.

***

The rose is bleeding.

And her petals are turning brown.

Her thorns? Sharper than before.

Chapter 28: Touchy, touchy

It isn’t the most fantastic piece of clothing I could wear, but judging from the other coffee stains on my colleagues’ shirts the coffee machines are staging a rebellion against mankind, so I feel find walking into Illy’s cubicle with a suspiciously brown patch on my last clean white shirt.

She is shouting a few words as I walk in and I cringe. Mother always said I was a good little church boy and I still am. I can’t swear and I can’t stand swearing, except when it’s the creator of the profane himself, my boss.

“Are you in a bad mood?” I ask tentatively. From the black face and the grumpy ‘what is it?’ I couldn’t have guessed.

She glares at me.

“Feeling touchy today, I see,” I call after her, my brain working overtime – which is normal time for most others. If she is the murderer, could Denvers have told her? Is that why she’s so grumpy, because everyone knows now?

I go back to the coffee machine and get another cup of coffee. But like I said, the coffee machines are rebelling, and I get squirted in the face with coffee instead.

Wiping everything off as best as I can without touching my nose, I follow Illy to the meeting room with my half empty cup.

“The strand of hair has been stolen,” Chief says, glowering. “No prizes for guessing who was on guard that night.”

Every face in the room turns to look at me, even the cleaner who isn’t supposed to be in here in the first place. Because I can’t intimidate anybody, I look at the cleaner. I can’t do it with him either so I suddenly find the floor very interesting.

“I give you forty eight hours.” I look up to see the boss, his rainbow colors on again. “Find the murderer, or you’re fired.”

Chapter 27: Heart Attack

I plop in my chair casually and groan. “Christ, I want to quit!” Just then, James walks into my cubicle. “What is it?” I grumpily ask. Don’t tell me that fat mouth Denvers decided to tell the whole office I am the murderer?

But I wonder. How did he deduce? I snap out of my daze and turn to glare at Evans. Getting up, I stomp out of the small, confined area and head for the meeting room.

I grin. I love being schizophrenic. Dear, innocent Illy, twirling the police department around her finger.

A black rose.

Chapter 26: Hate hospitals

I do not like being stuck in the hospital wing.

It smells of the Three Ds, for one. Detergent, Disinfectant and Dettol. You may have guessed, but I do not like any of these particularly.

For another, the nurse is a grumpy old hag (GOH). No one knows her age for sure but we’re guessing fifty to sixty, and she’s got more wrinkles than a bloke who’s spent three days in a pool.

Next, I visit the hospital wing very often so I’m sick and tired of seeing it, just like GOH is sick and tired of seeing me. “Not you again,” she groans when I enter. “What is it this time? Broken arm? Leg? Neck?” She sounds very hopeful on the last word. I try not to notice. “Nose,” I say. Disappointed, she sets about fashioning a splint for me.

So I’m sitting in bed while my nose heals and Illy comes in and asks me how I’m feeling. She’s clutching her arm and I wonder why. Last night, the murderer was clutching her arm at the same spot…and then Mr Adrian ‘I-know-it-all-and-no-one-can-top-me’ Denvers waltzes in and whisks Illy away for some stupid talk. I hope they’re not going out. Illy would have to have tremendously bad taste or be mad, just like the murderer last night.

“Stop comparing Illy with the murderer,” I tell myself. “She’s not the murderer.”

“I wish she’d murder you,” GOH whispers angrily. I did not hear that.

An hour later, I am sitting in front of the sketch artist. “Describe her for me please,” he says in a boring, monotonous voice. This guy should’ve been a hypnotist. Or the cure for insomnia. Or the world’s cheapest anesthetist. I stifle a yawn.

Half an hour Adrian Denvers drops by. “I think Medvedev is the murderer,” he says. I slop the coffee I’m drinking down my front, and the other bit starts to swim around their favourite keyboard in England.

Not again.

Chapter 25: Surreptitious

“Hi, Evans,” I disguise my pain with a smile. Holding my arm where it was wounded, by the gun.

“Feeling better?” I ask. At that moment, the office geek, Adrian Denvers, walks in.

“Medvedev! I need to talk. Shall we go out for some coffee?”

I groan. Well, it could be office matters. So I decide to follow him. If he does anything to me, however…

***

Sipping my cup of coffee, I stare at the sky, trying to avoid his creepy, pimpled face. I toy around with the packet of poison in my pocket.

“Medvedev. I need to talk to you about something serious.”

“What?”

“Are you the murderer?”

“You’re rather…not so tactful with your words are you?”

“Are you?”

“Tell me, who in their right mind would confess about being a murderer? No, I am not the murderer!”

I am mighty ticked. I wish to take my dagger out and spill his blood.

No. It is too risky. Suddenly, I spot him talking to the waitress. Flirting, more like. What a geek. He’s interrogating me and he has time to flirt?

Then I remember his history of heart attacks. Yes, I shall put in some poison. A good enough dose to make him die, a small enough dose to cause a heart attack in twelve hours.

I secretly add a pinch of the white powder to his coffee.

Chapter 24: Pretty Stars

When I open my eyes, I see her licking the blood off her arm. Then she says something strange and all cryptic, oooh, what’s Robert Langdon’s hand phone number again? Or rather, the number of the psychiatric hotline.

“You know, there’s a mental hospital just next door,” I say, my face a mask of pure hatred. I think. “I suggest you pop over and…”

Thump.

Pretty, pretty stars! Nice, shining, glowing bright –

Thud.

I wake up next morning with a huge bump on my head. Plus, there’s something wrong with my nose. I put a hand to my face and feel around.

“Evans!” the boss storms out of the building. “Where’s my hair?”

Good question. “I don’t know, sir. Didn’t you lose it twenty years ago? You were bald when I came alo –”

“Not my hair, the hair of the murderer!”

Oh. Realisation dawns on me like dawn in the morning. “The murderer was here last night. I shot her but she knocked me out.”

The superior opens and closes his mouth like a fish without water. “You’re a fish?” I ask, puzzled. Charades, now? “You need water?”

The boss, his face redder than the reddest thing on earth, storms back into the building without answering me.

“I’m fine, by the way,” I call after him. “I feel great. Thanks for asking.”

Chapter 23: I'm sorry

Bang.

I can feel the wet, sticky liquid flow out of my arm.

Damn. I turn, fixed on the guard’s face. Evans? I grit my teeth. I have left a trail of bloodshed behind me, but no, I can’t kill Evans. Wiping the blood off with a finger, licking it off, I whip my dagger out.

“Don’t you know? I love red. I love blood. It’s the wonderful color of roses,” I sneer.

I charge at him, knocking the back of his head with the flat end of my blade, and he falls unconscious.

I wrap my wound and clean up the blood, leaving a trail of dead bodies behind me.

***

The next morning.

I had bandaged the wound the night before. It still hurts. Like a thousand hungry rats gnawing at your arm.

“Looks like I’ll wear this long sleeved shirt to work.”

Chapter 22: Eeeeeeeeeeek.

I hate being a night guard.

Contrary to what you see at “Night of the Museum”, a night guard’s job sucks. The fact that in real life, dead things don’t come alive could be a contributing factor.

Basically, in a peanutshell, the job of the night watchman is to watch at night. Watch what? They’re supposed to watch for burglars and thieves, but most of us end up watching the stray cats fight over a piece of food. I quite like breaking the fights up, because I feel like a referee in a boxing match. And that’s when I remember what usually happens to a referee in a boxing match.

Twenty seven scratches later, the cats are finally satisfied with their piece of art and leave me to suck my thumb and scream for my mother. I crawl back to my seat and snore.

I dream of headless cats tearing me apart, which is not a very nice dream, so I wake up and look around for more cats. There are none.

But she’s there.

The woman who killed Yuki.

Eeeeeeeeeek. I’d like to run around like a headless chicken, but I’m rooted to the spot. So I take out my gun, close my eyes and pull the trigger.

Chapter 21: Strand-mission

My pupils narrow. How could I be so careless?

I draw a fake smile on my face. “I need to go do something, please excuse me,” I get on my feet and stride out of the room.

Later that night, I sneak out of my apartment my dagger and other…various equipment. That strand of hair…I must get it back.

***

I hate my hair. Why must it be blond?

Ashamed.

Yes, I feel ashamed of it.

Why do I bear this resemblance to my father?

He was nothing.

I am nothing.

Chapter 20: An emotional pansy's aftermath

For the past few weeks, the pile of tissue in my bedroom has been shooting up. I think it’s almost as tall as Mount Everest now. On a 1:3750 scale or something like that anyway. Every time the shop around the corner sees me coming, they hide all their tissue boxes and tell me they’re out.

I still don’t understand why the girl would want to kill Yuki. What did Yuki do? If I annoyed her she should have come after me. Me, you understand? Apparently the girl cannot tell the difference between an English bloke and a Japanese girl. She needs her eyes checked.

A week ago, however, someone came and turned my life the right side up again. Or at least tried to. The first time she walked in, I was drinking coffee while tying a report on my super slow computer. After I saw her half the coffee was slopped down my front and the rest was short circuiting the keyboard.

It was the girl from the café. Illinois?...Illythingy?...Illasviel. We had coffee to compensate for the stuff swimming around my computer. And we’ve been having coffee after work since. And I’ve been emotional every time we have coffee and my coffee becomes salt water. She always seems a bit uneasy around me, like today. Thing is, I’m going for the same meeting. Operation Rose Garden. Stupid name, if you ask me.

The superior greets me with his usual, friendly words and gestures which could turn this story into an R-rated movie. “Sit down,” I am told. So I sit and wait.

“We have found a single blond hair at one of the murder scenes,” he exults. “Not that it should matter, but I was the one who found it.”

I bet you I can ask ten other people at the scene and not one of them would agree.

“We’ve sent it to the DNA lab and the results will be in two days from now. So now all we’ve got to do is to figure out how to catch the murderer once we’ve got his identity.”

A picture of the hair is shown. Look’s like Illy’s, but it can’t be hers. I glance over at her. She doesn’t seem okay. But I’m sure she’s worried about something else. The hair can’t be hers.

…can it?

Chapter 19: One month later

“Ring…ring!” the alarm clock sounds.

Ugh. Why did I take up this job? Oh, right. To make murdering more fun. 4.30AM. Time to begin my day.

I drag my weary body to the bathroom. After cleaning and changing into my uniform, I head off for ‘work’.

“Hey, Evans,” I smile, and walk to my desk, situated right opposite his. “Stop being a damn emotional sob. Get over it already…” then I remember. I am the murderer. Guilt overwhelms me. “Got to go for a meeting! See you!” I hastily get up and head to the meeting room.

The moment I enter the room, I see the first case that I am supposed to investigate.

“Operation Rose Garden”

Yes. The code name for the murders I had committed. I am to investigate it.

Interesting.

It’s going to be fun.

Chapter 18: Bright side? What bright side?

I wake up in a pool of liquid, and I don’t want to know what it is. The phone is still in my hand and there’s something wrong with it. Not quite sure what. I’m plagued by a massive headache and feel like puking again.

Just for the record, because I said “puking again”, it does not mean that I woke up in a puddle of my own vomit. Although that…I’m not quite sure about that. Like I said, I don’t want to know.

My watch is not ticking. Fantastic. The sun’s still shining. So much for depression. I walk to the window and yell, “HELLO WORLD! I’M FEELING SICK TODAY!”

Thump. The window board from the unit above lands squarely on my head. I’ve been telling the man to get it fixed. Told him so. I’ll sue him, I will.

“WHAT TIME IS IT?” I yell, and sure enough a disgruntled neighbour throws a clock at me. That’s one way to find out what time it is, the other being…

The ground starts to shake. Ah, nine o’clock, then. I’m late for work, I realize. Wonderful. I throw on my uniform which is starting to feel kind of small and walk to work whistling “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life”. The song fails to warn you what to do if there isn’t. And in life, there rarely ever is a bright side.

Chapter 17: Police force

Monday. Back to work. Killing and killing just gets more boring. Then an idea pops up.

“This’ll make killing more fun,” I grin.

Grabbing my handbag, I head swiftly for the local police post. They have been recruiting due to the recent mass murders. Perfect, this will be the perfect job for me.

A rose among the daisies and one pansy called James Evans.

Chapter 16: Get over it

Strangely enough, I feel much lighter than just now, like I’ve come to terms in her death. Like she didn’t even die in the first place. In fact, I feel kind of…weird.

Just how much sugar did the guy put in my coffee?

I drink the rest, anyway. This is great coffee. Leaving a tip too generous for me to afford, I stumble off to a pub and boisterously order a beer with lots of sugar. It’s all gone in about ten seconds. I am now well and truly drunk and seeing double images of everything.

I walk out again and start giggling uncontrollably. There’s something hilarious about this all. Someone pushes me and I go sprawling on the road. There’s a nasty cut and bruise for tomorrow. “And a very good evening to you too!” I yell at the other drunk, who swears in an uncanny impersonation of the boss. Picking myself off the road, I wave down a cab. But it isn’t a cab, it’s just a very annoyed passerby. When I ask him where Kings Cross Station is, he points left. Or is it right? No matter, I’ll follow the arrow. I mean finger. “Merry Christmas!” I call. I don’t know if it’s Christmas yet, really.

Ten minutes of walking and I am confronted by a flight of steps. I take one step and fall over. “Who moved the steps?” I ask no one in particular. I take a step forward and trip on the steps. “Oh. Here they are.” I proceed to give them a good hiding.

After getting upstairs (a miracle in itself) I take out my keys and aim for the keyhole, but it isn’t my keys I’m holding. “Oops,” I say, as the stale piece of bread falls onto the ground and snaps.

It takes me another three near misses before I finally get the door open. The phone rings. “Hail >hic
“Evans, you ass. What’s wrong with you?” the Boss, or the Swear Man, says.

“Ass? Like Donkey? Hee-haw. Hic. Send someone to >hic< check my stairs, I think they move. Have fun at the club or wherever you ar…” thud.

Chapter 15: Coffee, chocolate, and a very depressed man

Dear me. This bumbling fool, depressed?

Impossible.

“Hello. My name is…er, Illyasviel Medvedev,” I speak in a higher pitched tone, to disguise my original voice. The waiter walks by and I order a hot chocolate.

“You look depressed. What’s wrong?”

The waiter serves my hot chocolate.

I wonder what’s wrong.

How very curious.

“Nice name,” I mumble. What a mouthful. “What say I call you Illy instead?

I turn to get my first good look at her. She looks familiar, though I’m not sure where I’ve seen her. And her eyes…her eyes are… are …different.

“I’m sad because I’m supposed to be depressed yet it isn’t raining and no one’s playing sad music,” I continue, my eyes never leaving hers. They’re like deep blue bottomless pits. “My parents are dead, my fortune is gone, my life’s gone down the drain, my girlfriend is dead…other than that, I’m very, very happy, thanks.”

“I can’t stand sarcasm,” I groan. Placing my cheek in my palm, “there has been a murder spree going around…did the murderer kill her? What’s her name?”

“Right. I’m sorry.” I feel like being even more sarcastic, but I’ve never had a vindictive streak in me. I sip my coffee. Brits usually drink tea. I’m an exception. “I don’t know about the murders, but I think it could be the murderer. Her name was Yuki. Yuki Yamashita.”

Yuki. Yukina. Yukina Yamashita.

I bow my head in shame. Although I know that I want to fool around with him, I never knew I’d kill a loved one.

I know the feeling of loss.

It rips you right through into half.

“If you need someone to talk to, call this number. I…I have to leave,” I finish my hot chocolate and depart hastily.

Chapter 14: The part where it's supposed to rain

I walk off the bridge, a picture of desperation and despair. I mean, I’m supposed to look like a picture, I’m not actually a picture. My hands are stuffed in the pockets of my long, black, well worn winter coat and they’re still freezing, although not from the cold.

This is usually the part in the movies where the sad music begins and the rain starts. It doesn’t look that way now. The sun’s shining, the sky is blue, kids are screaming happily, happy music that sounds suspiciously like Elmo’s Song is blaring from a radio. A snowball whacks me on the side of the face.

“Sorry, Mister!” the kid says. I give him my best withering glare and he turns and flees. I like to think I scared him off instead of him just getting bored of a depressed adult who can’t scare anyone to save his life.

It’s still not raining. “I’m supposed to be in depression!” I yell suddenly, unable to take it any longer. “Rain on me!”

Splosh. A flood of cold water douses me, drenches me right through. There go my only good clothes. I look up. A housewife waves sheepishly, empty bucket in hand.

I try not to think of what she poured on me. Moving on.

A café. I order a cup of coffee and put my cold hands around it and stare off into the distance. Someone, a girl, walks towards me and sits down opposite me. “Oh, hello,” I say, not really looking at her.

Chapter 13: Lady luck

Ah, Sundays. How peaceful, how glorious. No need to murder, just a day to rest and relax. I stash my tools and gear away into the hidden chest under my bed.

I put on a long sleeved white sweater, and some denim pants, then a windbreaker over it. Slipping on gloves and muffles, I step out of the house, taking in a fresh breath of air.

Where shall I go?

Maybe the café down the street, and have a cup of nice, steaming hot chocolate.

When I am there, I see someone familiar. Hunched over a cup of coffee is none other than James Evans.

What luck.

Chapter 12: No more Mister Nice Guy

The address of the makers of the Liberty Head is on the box it came in, and that’s where I head, lugging it down the streets and making a right fool of myself. After an hour of pleads and threats I find the most effective one is “If you don’t take this back I’ll come down here everyday.” I know it’s insulting, but it works, and I feel pretty darned good about myself as I step into the street.

My phone buzzes. “Hello! If you’re looking for James Ev – ”

“Shut up, James, and come down here now.” There’s a quavering note to my superior’s voice and it’s also the first time he’s called me ‘James’.

Half an hour of disputed taxi fares, missed buses and wrong trains later, I arrive at the bridge where Yuki and I first met. Good times.

But as I near the dead body on the ground, my heart stops and starts, going slower and faster, as irregularly as David Beckham’s appearances for LA Galaxy. Or, basically speaking, it was damned irregular.

Yuki is dead. My Yuki is gone. And I think I know who did it.

Up until now, I’ve been nice. I’ve told jokes, I’ve tried to be funny.

Up until now.

But she’s crossed the line. She’s violated the Rule. She’s killed a loved one. No more oh-what’s-for-dinner-pizza-drops-on-head slapstick comedy. No more a-guy-walks-into-a-bar jokes. No more Mister Nice Guy.

Round one went to me, I think. Round two went to her.

Round three will go to me, or my name isn’t James Bond.

I meant Evans.

Chapter 11: Moonlight

The moon is so full and red. Yes, the color of blood, what a beautiful color.

“Moonlight…” I sing, sitting on the railing of the bridge.

“That’s a beautiful song,” somebody says. I turn around. Standing in the middle of the bridge is a woman. She is pretty and petite, with full round eyes and long, willowy ebony hair. She looks like an Asian.

“I’m Yukina Yamashita,” she says, tilting her head slightly and smiling, “Nice to meet you.”

I have seen her before. I do not know when and where. I just know that I have seen her.

“The moon is beautiful tonight,” she says, her musical voice ringing through the still air.

“Yes, it is. It is like the color of blood,” I stand up, holding the dagger behind my back. I draw closer, and closer.

A scream. She drops like a ragdoll.

“The beautiful color of your blood.”

Chapter 10: Background check

This is the part of the story where I talk about my life, I take it?

The thing about me is that I don’t have a very interesting past. My parents were businessmen and women. It’s just a rumor, but I like to believe I was dropped on the head at birth. It would give me a legitimate explanation for my unequaled stupidity.

Yes, I know I’m stupid. I know my defence consists of flailing my arms around hoping to hit something. In fact, I’m so stupid I’m digressing, telling you about how stupid I am and not about my clichéd sob story.

My parents never had any time for me. We lived in a big house, had a butler and maid and everything. I didn’t have to do anything for myself. If I wanted to have fun, the maid would bend down and let me kick her into the dishwasher. If I wanted to fight, the butler would be my sparring partner. Of course, these bouts usually lasted one second and ended up with me in bed, ice pack on my head.

What I didn’t know was that my dad dealt with the Mafiya. He raked in millions of dollars. But dealing with the Mafiya is very risky and when I came home from Eton (Yes, I studied in Eton. Money can get you everywhere brains can’t) I found him dead, mutilated.

A police investigation was held. They found that the butler did it. Actually, he didn’t, but I just always wanted to say that. So, anyway, my mom broke down. Broke down literally. She died. She just died and I was left to cope for myself.

The first thing I did was finish my schooling. I think they let me graduate because they pitied me. My grades were that bad. I would have fit in better in a mental hospital, my classmates said. Or maybe back at preschool.

And then…I lost the family fortune in a huge, multi-billion dollar scam which a couple of other rich arses got into as well. One day the money was in my bank account, the next day the vault was as empty as Vault 713 in Gringotts the day after Harry Potter’s birthday. For those who don’t read Potter, it was as empty as a beggar’s pocket. For those who don’t understand similes, the vault was empty.

And that’s how I ended up in a tiny apartment that shakes like my dad when he’d had a pint too much, my only entertainment pressing the doorbell or watching termites scream through the air when a knife wielding stranger gets the wrong house and knocks down my door.

Chapter 9: Memory

Be like a flower, girl.

No.

Destroy, destroy all those flowers in the garden. Yes, destroy. Let them all turn brown, wilt. All the disgusting plants. No longer beautiful. No longer fragrant.

I have always hated flowers.

Then, the first time I spilt blood. Yes, that of my mother. My father, who came home drunk every day. He’d slap, pinch, kick my mother. And I, just a little girl, sitting, wedged between two armchairs watching the scene in horror.

My mother, she was slowly becoming angrier, more worried, reclusive. Her hair turned from a brilliant, shining red to a wretched grey. Wrinkles stretched across her face and she bore many scars on her body.

I was scared.

Then one day, she limped towards me. She looked like a hag. One of her sockets was empty, and blood flowed out like a stream. A toe was missing and she left a trail of blood.

“Come…to…hell…with…me…” Plunge. She drove a dagger into my arm. Screaming, I ran to the kitchen, grabbed any knife I could see and threw it at her.

“DIE! DIE! DIE!” I cried. There she lay, a gory sight in a pool of blood. I ran to my father’s room. There he lay too, against the wall.

He was dead. Blood was everywhere.

I was frightened. I started hating flowers; my mother had loved them. She always told me to be like a flower. They were beautiful and elegant. Like her. Her name was Rose. And she wilted. A fallen, blood red rose.

I had killed her.

So, I fled.

Chapter 8: All in all, not a good day

The deranged, mad murderer-to-be is very random. “You think you have the wrong house?” I splutter, forgetting I’m carrying things, and a plate drops onto the floor and shatters. The salesman said they were unbreakable…I want my money back. “Do you usually barge into people’s homes waving big knives and randomly licking them?” I pause and think for a while. Maybe she does.

Sproing. That’ll be the doorbell. It broke a couple of months ago and now serves as a nest for ants. I clear them out once in a while by pressing the button. It’s rather fun to see the black things flying everywhere.

The mailman opens the nonexistent door and barges in, carrying a huge box. “Ah, it’s the anti girl-carrying-big-bloody-knife-intent-on-murdering-me deluxe set I ordered,” I say, hoping that gives her a hint.

She leaves, with a cryptic clue. Yay, I love cryptic clues! I run around like Robert Langdon trying to solve them all the time! “Yeah, yeah, leave the door, vase and plate broken,” I call after her. “Thanks for breaking everything. Feel free to come by again.” Gives another meaning to ‘drop by’.

The mailman leaves too. The big box turns out to be something I didn’t order – some random head of the Statue of Liberty plus a three hundred thousand dollar bill which will take me twenty five years to pay off.

Definitely not a good day.

Chapter 7: Stupid. This guy makes me think I'm a genius.

I furrow my brows. I suppose Mr Evans will not be able to guess my emotions through my mask. It certainly is an amazement.

“I think I got the wrong house,” I say, ready to walk out.

“Is Mr Evans there? Got a package for him!” the mailman stumbles towards me with a huge box. I twitch.

This can’t be true right?

I’m a bloody deranged murderer, but this guy…he wins first place. I turn around, slowly.

He’ll be fun, I think.

I’ll just play around with him next time.

“Roses have thorns,” I say. I proceed to take my leave.

“It’s a clue for you.”

Chapter 6: Thoughts...no time for 'em

Even my vast arsenal of cartwheels and forward rolls cannot save my glass vase which is the most expensive thing in the room. I do manage to save everything else, though. Perhaps I should become an acrobatic instructor. Teaching old ladies how to crack their joints surely pays better than my current job. And the best thing is, you don’t get jailed if one of the oldies goes too far and breaks their neck.

The door opens – and that’s putting it nicely. Beyond the dust and screaming termites hurtling through the air I can see something like a female Jack the Ripper, carrying a big knife. She even goes so far as to lick it.

“It’s not bloody Halloween yet,” I say crossly. “Please. That door costs fifty dollars, do you know how much that is these days?

“And I don’t think you’re supposed to eat food coloring like that,” I continue. “It’s bad for your health. Don’t swing that thing around either. Rubber knives can still hurt, and God knows I don’t want red spots on my furniture.” Or what furniture I have left, anyway.

A train rumbles by and I start to wheel around. Plates, bowls, TV remote (the TV got stolen and I hope they can’t use it), toy trains. “Will you not just stand there?” I ask the weird person. “Can’t you see I need help?”

Here I am, being threatened with a dagger bigger than my head, wheeling around talking to my would-be murderer like I would to some random stranger. This is my defence mechanism. Apparently. Either that or I need the number to the nearest mental hospital.

Chapter 5: Thoughts in a...pigeon roost

“Oh?” I stare in disbelief. I am horrified. Sure, I am a cold-blooded murderer who killed her own mother, but I do not live in what seems to be the most shabby and run down apartment in London.

A train runs by, the ground shakes like an earthquake is happening.

CRASH!

I can hear a glass vase fall and break.

“Screw this,” I say, kicking down the termite infested wooden door.

“James Evans, hm?” I smile, licking my blood-stained dagger.

Chapter 4: Thoughts in a strange black house

By the time I get there my superior’s face is indescribable. It might be red, or orange, or black, or purple. Perhaps all of them. I’m not exactly sure.

“Looking good today, sir! Love the rainbow look. It’s the ‘in’ thing now, is it?”

Boss doesn’t say anything. He just points to the door of a black house.

“Looks gloomy. Is that why you painted your face like that? Nothing like a bit of cheer, eh?”

Before he explodes I run in and slam the door, figuratively speaking. I meant to slam the door, but if I was able to I would be representing my country in Olympic weightlifting.

The scene inside resembles one of my boss’s many face colors. There’s red everywhere – blood. Blood on the ground, blood on the walls, blood on the ceiling. I wonder mildly how it got up there.

“Interesting.” I go out. The boss is waiting, looking the same, looking like a balloon with too much air inside. “Well?” he manages.

“One thing bothers me. I don’t know how the blood got onto the ceiling. Cheerio.”

I get back onto the bus, which arrives right on cue. Not the pool cue, I mean, but the cue cue. As the bus draws out I can swear that I heard some rather unprintable words. The boss really needs to work on his vocabulary. How else is he going to talk to little children?

Chapter 3: Roses are Beautiful

I am a rose. You do not touch me. I may be pleasing to look at, but I have secrets that sting.

Chuckles. Maniacal laughter. “Yes, my pretties. I love red. Look at all the blood. I love it, I love it! Spill more. Spill more for me.” Walking towards the last cop, I brandish my dagger. “Smile, honey. Why are you shaking?”

“Why fear me?” Plunging the dagger through his heart, I allow the blood to shower my body.

“For I am a rose. A beautiful rose.”

Chapter 2: Policeman

My name is Evans. James Evans.

I know no fear. I know no danger. When enemies hear my name they shake. I was born to this duty. I save the world daily. That’s my job. I am powerful. I am fast. I am –

I am a twenty two year old kid fresh out of collage who’s a policeman and gets a thousand a month, just enough for a small apartment above a train station that shakes every time a train passes.

Now that we’re done with the introductions. A train goes by and I go through my daily – no, hourly – routine of performing acrobatics that an Olympic team would have been proud of to stop all my belongings from shattering.

My phone rings. It’s quite amazing I still have one. Anyway, I pick it up.

“Hello? If you’re looking for James Evans, that’s me. If you’re not, wrong number. If you’re looking for the pizza guy, I’m not him. The only thing I can make is burnt toast.”

“Evans, shut up and get your arse down here in fifteen minutes,” the voice of my superior crackles over the phone. “I’ve been calling for ten minutes. Where were you?”

Oh, crap. “The train, sir, it was – ”

“Train? You’re on a train? Good. Then I expect you here in five.”

Chapter 1: Murderer

“Why aren’t you smiling? Smile. The world is so much brighter that way,” I say, looming over the dead body. “The room is so pretty, look at all the red hues. I love red. I love roses.” Placing a rose next to her, I creep out of the room.

***

Be like a flower, girl. Flowers are pretty. Flowers are graceful. You must be a flower.

No. I hate flowers.

Look at this rose. How beautiful, how fragrant, how elegant.

It has thorns.

***

I am a rose. A beautiful one. But when someone touches me, I get mad. My thorns prick their finger.

And they bleed.

INTRODUCTION

This is a story.

It is a story about a dumb guy and a schizophrenic girl.

To go into more detail, it's about a dumb police officer and a schizophrenic murderer.

To go into even more detail, it's about a dumb police officer named James Evans and a schizophrenic murderer named Illyasviel Medvedev.

I'm not very good with details, am I?

Anyway. Throughout this story, you may find many strange things going on. You may think that James Evans is the dumbest guy on Earth (hence the address). You may think that Illy is the creepiest girl on Earth. You may think that the middle part of the story is just crap. You're entitled to your views, but please do leave some comments somewhere.

The same person will not be playing both Illy and Evans. Two different people are writing the story together. You do not need to know their real names. You may just call them James and Illy.

If this is starting to sound like an MI6 James Bond style briefing to you, then don't bother reading on, just start the story.

The summary of the story is:

Illyasviel Medvedev loves to kill. She loves blood. She thinks of herself as a rose with thorns (that was more obvious than a teapot wearing a top hat dancing on the kitchen table) and likes to kill. Basically, Illy likes to kill people. Except on Sundays.

James Evans is a twenty two year old collage graduate who knows he's the dumbest guy on Earth and doesn't do anything to stop people from thinking that. He is still wondering how he even got a job with the police. He has a girlfriend called Yuki.

When these two people meet, disaster happens.

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This message will self destruct in five seconds. Good luck, agent double oh nothing.