TSAIWOKI Chapter 3

Chapter 3

An embarrassingly high pitched scream of surprise, shock, and horror filled the air and echoed down the hallway for a good amount of time. Both Blake and Danny stood rigid in place, frozen to the floor. Blake was shaking and his eyes were clenched tight. Soon the screaming dies down and Blake took huge gulps of air, grateful that it stopped. It would take him until sometime later to realize he was the one screaming in horror.

Stiffly, Danny moved and pulled a phone out of his pocket, dialing for the police. He raised it to his ear and spoke in a voice that showed none of the confusion or surprise he was feeling, “Hello, this is Daniel Miano. There has been a murder at the Kings Square apartments on Vinewood Row. It happened in room 204.” Danny nodded to whatever response he got and slid the phone back in his pocket. He turned to his shaking roommate with a look of concern. “It’ll all be alright Blake. The cops are on their way, they’ll take care of it all, yeah? Just calm down and take a few deep breaths, alright? We’ll all be totally fine.” Despite Danny’s soothing words, the bodyguard had a tight grip on his holstered gun.

Blake nodded and stumbled back and little bit, crashing into the wall and using it for support. After a few more panting breaths he opened his eyes. They glanced around nervously, like he was that everything wouldn’t be fine. And to Blake’s credit, they wouldn’t be fine, not that he had anyway of knowing what awaited him in the future.

At the sound of a new voice, Blake visibly flinched and pressed into the wall while Danny turned and pulled his gun out, keeping his finger near, but not on, the trigger. “And here I thought you two were the upstanding sort, not the sort of people to murder Mrs. Sue. I assume that’s what happened, yes? You two might as well confess. And would you please lower that gun?! I’m not in the mood to have to explain to the landlord why there are holes in the walls.”

The woman who spoke was a blond lady in her forties whose hair was pulled back in a messy ponytail. Her face was sculpted into a perfectly stern expression that conveyed disapproval at anything a person could do. She stood in the doorway, leaning against it slightly with her arms crossed.

Danny brought the gun to the holster but left his hand on it in case something happened. “Wasn’t us. We just heard a scream and came running. We live on the floor below, so we kinda heard it through the ceiling.” Danny continued after seeing the woman’s continued glare, “Honestly, it wasn’t us! We’re like witnesses in all this.”

Danny’s protests fell upon deaf ears as the woman huffed and shook her head a little bit. “Excuses, excuses. How convenient that the murderers are also witnesses. Let me spell it out for you. You killed Mrs. Sue.  Then your partner ran out here, but he realized how heinous his actions were. He proceeded to scream and alert me. And now you were planning on leaving the scene when I caught you. That sums it up rather nicely, doesn’t it?”

Danny just sighed, “It would, if we actually killer! But we didn’t, alright! The cops are on their way, so just calm down and get back to your hundred or so cats you keep in that apartment.”

The woman’s eye twitches and she steps out, shutting the door behind her. Her voice takes on an authoritarian tone that had just the slightest hint of cold steel hidden in it, “I am not some crazy cat lady, I am Taylor Callow of the Superhero Registry. It is within my legal right to detain criminals like the both of you. Any attempt at fleeing will be taken as an obstruction of justice.”

Danny backed up and raised his hands above his head in surrender, “Yeesh, I get it, I get it. Don’t crush my brain with psychic powers or whatever, jeez. We didn’t do it, so don’t shoot or whatever, alright?”

Blake had been silently shivering along the wall during this whole exchange and just slides to the ground, wrapping his arms around himself. His voice was quiet and barely audible, “That- that could have been us. It- it was o-only a f-floor away. W-why the s-second floor instead of the f-first?” His face could easily be described as the definition of fear and terror as he realized how close he had been to death.

A few long and painfully silent minutes pass as the trio just stay in place and await the arrival of the police. Footsteps pounded up the stairs and slowly the door to the stairwell opened, revealing a pair of police officers. Both had a hand on their guns, but paused and glanced at each other as they witnessed the sight that was happening in front of the doorway. Hesitantly, they approached the scene. One of the officers stepped forward and spoke, “My name’s officer Quinn and this is my partner, officer Nicki. We received a call from a Daniel Miano detailing a murder in this room,” the officer gestured to the room in question with her thumb, “Would that happen to be any of you?”

Danny nodded, “That’s me.”

Officer Quinn went to open the door wides, unveiling to the whole hallway the murder scene. Taylor gasped at the brief glance of the body she got before the officer stepped inside and pulled the door closed behind her. That left Officer Nicki in the hallway with them. She cleared her throat a little and tried to sound confident and authoritative, but it was obvious by how she kept tapping her fingers against her sides that she was a rookie. “Hey, is he going to be alright? He doesn’t have any injuries, does he?” She gestured to the slumping Blake, who was muttering concerns to himself and shivering a little bit.

Danny frowned and offered the shaken up professor a hand, which was left floating in the air long enough that he just let his arm fall back to his side. “He’s just a bit shaken up about this whole thing. He’ll be better soon, I think. He’ll be fine in the morning anyway, if we’re lucky. We live on the floor below, so we heard a scream through the ceiling and found,” Danny waves a hand towards the door, “well, this.”

The officer winced slightly at the explanation, “Ouch. I can’t imagine just stumbling upon a body like that. Did any of you know her?” Officer Nicki coughed, “Wait, sorry! I shouldn’t have asked that. So both of you heard something happening and came to investigate, is that right? That only lea-“

Nicki was cut off by a loud, somewhat indignant, cough from Taylor. “That man is a liar,” she jabbed a finger towards Danny. “What really happened was that they murdered Mrs. Sue and afterwards that one had a nervous breakdown. The other one, Daniel, I guess, tried to get his partner moving so they could successfully get away with the murder. But I caught them before they could get away.”

Danny let out an exhausted sigh and Nicki turned to look at him. She pulled out a notepad and jotted down both their statements. “I can’t really defend you, sorry. That would be breaking a rule or two I think. However I can ask some questions. Miss, did you happen to see these two leave the room?” Taylor shook her head reluctantly. Nicki glanced back towards Daniel, “You did indeed call us, didn’t you?” Danny nodded and Nicki stepped past him towards Blake, crouching down to be closer to his level. “And lastly, did you murder Mrs. Sue?”

Blake shook his head vigorously, “I-I would n-never.”

Nicki nodded and stood back up, “I’ll just quickly add that to the statements and leave it at that.” She stepped away, leaning against the wall. For a few long moments she tapped her fingers against it. Suddenly, she stepped forward, remembering more that she had to do. She cleared her throat, “Almost forgot, I need your names and numbers. Just in case we call you in as witnesses or anything if we find the dude who did this.” She passed the notepad to Danny, who wrote his and Blake’s contact info down. In turn, Danny passed the notepad to Taylor.

“Wait, I just remembered something. I saw some guy in a black hoodie duck into the staircase over their when I came up. Couldn’t really see any features though. Good chance that’s the clown who did all this. Sorry that it’s not much.” Danny crossed his arms and yawned.

Dutifully, the officer nods and wrote down the brief description, “Oh no, that’s fine. That narrows it down a little bit. We’ll check whatever cameras are in the area to see if they caught anything. Might even be this one guy we’re after. I forgot the exact amount of bodies to his name, but apparently he only kills two supers in a small area before moving on.”

Officer Quinn steps out of the room with s clipboard in hand before Danny could reply. She glances at her partner, “All done with statements and everything else?”

“Yeah, I got everything. Stay safe guys and have a nice night, you hear?” The duo started to walk off with Officer Quinn leading the way. Suddenly, as if remembering something, Officer Nicki turns around and takes a few steps towards the group. “This is, uh, strictly off the records, but is there any chance you or a, um, family member has info related to this case? Or at least a way to, ah, obtain information?” The officer’s voice was quiet and had a hint of nervousness, as if speaking about a taboo subject.

Danny shrugged before shaking his head. “I don’t have a clue, sorry. They don’t really ever come around in this area though, so I kinda doubt it.” Danny’s voice carried louder then was intended and echoed through the hall slightly.

Officer Quinn stopped dead in her tracks before quickly backpedaling towards the group. “Officer Nicki,” her voice took on a hiss as she berated her partner, “we don’t talk about families unless they are relevant to the case! And we especially don’t talk about families to someone related to Switchy fucking Sabato!” Quinn turned to Danny and bowed slightly, “My partner’s actions do not reflect my intents or the will of the Police Department.”

Danny waved off the apologetic officers with a light laugh. Officer Nicki was a few considerable shades paler. “It’s fine, seriously. I haven’t seen Uncle Joseph in years and I won’t tell a soul. Now have a nice night officers. Bust a villain or two on the way out, like the landlord.”

With a collective sigh of relief the two officers left at a noticeably quicker pace. Taylor raised an eyebrow but maintained her glare, “I’ll be watching the both of you.” She stepped back into her room and left Danny and Blake alone in the hall.

Now, to a casual observer, both the Miano and Sabato families were outstanding folk who had immigrated from Italy some centuries ago. There was nothing wrong with either family. A few of them ran local stores and Danny’s uncle, Joseph Sabato was a barber. He was just a barber with a penchant for wearing suits and giving free neckshaves with a pocket knife or switchblade.



Sometime later in the night both Danny and Blake has made their way back to their room. Blake felt numb as he kept asking himself why this happened. Their didn’t even seem to be a motive behind it, it was just the random murder of an innocent person. And if his sluggish brain heard the officer correctly, that meant it wasn’t the first victim this maniac had killed. He couldn’t wrap his head around why they could do something like that to so many people. One morning someone wakes up and the next they never do. It was just so sudden, with no warning. And lastly, why Mrs. Sue, who lived on the second floor. Why not him and Danny, or anyone else who lived on the first floor. It just didn’t make any sense.

Distantly he heard Danny speaking to him, but the words just seemed so far away and unreachable. He vaguely remembered seeing... and now he was on the couch, maybe. He wasn’t quite sure if he was or not, it all blurred together after he opened the door and...

He tried to focus on his roommate’s words, even though they sounded as if they were far away and past a layer of water. “...be fine buddy, I promise. You don’t even have to grade papers or anything, just calm down and snap out of whatever funk you worked yourself into, alright? We’re perfectly safe in this apartment.”

Blake felt his mouth moving to speak, but it felt like someone else was speaking, as if we was too far removed from anything to do much. He barely recognized his own voice, which came out hollow and quiet, “But Mrs. Sue was too. And- and she’s...”

Distantly, Blake noticed Danny’s mouth tug up slightly in a smile, “Maybe, but unlike her I have a gun. Anyone knocks tonight and they eat a bullet, okay. I don’t care what the landlord will complain, I’ll take responsibility. I’m staying up all night, it’s no problem for me.”

Blake felt himself gun agreement before his eyes fell shut. He felt thoroughly exhausted and couldn’t resist the insistent call of sleep. Blake fell into a slumber on the couch.

Unfortunately for the exhausted professor, he was destined to be awakened. A brief, quick set of knocks on the door awoke Blake from his sleep. Hazily, his mind tried to pull together whatever wits he had left in him and remember what had happened earlier in the night. He shivered and regretted doing so as he remembered exactly what had happened that night. They most certainly weren’t enjoyable memories.

Blake remained frozen in place, curiosity warring with common sense. If he went out, he could become a victim. But if he didn’t go out he would end up regretting not knowing who had knocked at... 3 A.M. that was concerning. Who would knock on his door of all doors at 3 in the morning. That couldn’t bode well. But what if they were the victim of a stabbing? Could he really just leave them to bleed out? It could be anyone.

Blake’s eyes drifted down to the cluttered table. On it, the vague shape of a gun could be made out. Danny was nowhere nearby, probably sleeping in the bedroom. He could just answer the door with the gun in his hand. If he encountered any trouble he could just pull the trigger. It was a simple and safe solution. Pulling the trigger would undoubtedly awaken Danny too, which was a definite plus.

Blake waited a minute, gathering his nerves, before slowly standing. His limbs felt leaden, but he moved with a purpose. The gun felt cool in his hands and filled him with a grim sort of confidence. Hesitantly, he turned the doorknob and poked his head out of the frame.

The coast was clear. The hallway was dark with its lights off, but Blake couldn’t make out any sort of figure through his tired, squinted eyes. He scanned the hallway one last time and saw nothing. As he pulled his head out of the doorframe to close it, he froze. What he saw made his blood run cold and fueled a raging fire of curiosity with Blake.

A dirty letter was taped to the door. He could just barely make out evenly spaced lettering on it and he had no doubts it was addressed to Blake Ward. Just under the letter he could make out a sticky note written in equally spaced out neat lettering. He grabbed the both of them with a trembling hand and locked the door. He tightened his grip on the gun to fill himself with a semblance of confidence.

Moving his heavy limbs as quickly as he could, Blake flipped on the lights, briefly blinding him as he stumbled into the bedroom where Danny was. He jostled Danny, who stirred but kept his eyes shut. “Five more minutes, please.” Too filled with morbid curiosity to wait, Blake slapped Danny. Not hard enough to bruise, but not gently either. Danny bolted up and his eyes shot up. “I’m up, I’m up, geez!” He glanced at the clock and frowned at the time, “It’s 3 in the morning Blake, why’d you wake me up... Wait, something happened, didn’t it? What the hell happened?”

Danny followed Blake into the lightened room and once Blake was in the light, Danny’s eyes locked into the gun in his hand. “Why the hell do you have one of m guns right now? What happened while I was asleep Blake?”

Blake simply sat on the couch and stared at the dirty letter addressed to him and the sticky note. Danny stared at it too with an expression of disbelief, “Is that the same letter from before? But there’s not even an address on it...”

That sentence turned Blake’s blood to ice. It meant that whoever delivered this letter knew where he lived. He stared at it blankly for a few long moment before opening his mouth to speak, “I heard a knock on the door so I grabbed your gun and answered. The only thing out there was this,” Blake lifted the letter and note slightly.

“And you didn’t think to wake me up when you answered?” Danny sounded a little hurt as he spoke, “It’s not safe around here at night, you know that! Look- give me that-,” Danny snatched the gun out of Blake’s hand, “you didn’t ever turn the safety off! You could have died if any knife maniac was out there, you know?”

Blake didn’t have an answer for that. The two sat quietly as silence filled the air. Eventually, Danny sighed and read what was written on the sticky note.

‘I sincerely hope you weren’t intentionally rejecting my boss’s message to you when you dropped this letter out the window. I personally had to track it down and manipulate wind currents to find it for you. It was far more trouble then it was worth, but the boss seemed insistent that it got to you. Not quite sure why, you seem like a worthless loser to me. Anyways, if this is what I think it is, you better accept it. I don’t approve of this, but I’m getting paid for it so frankly I don’t give a fuck.

Your favorite terrorist,
Duststorm

P.S: I memorized your address just in case’

Blake stares blankly at the note, desperately pretending he didn’t understand and hoping it was all a malicious joke. Duststorm might be new to the supervillain scene, but he already had a budding reputation. Regardless, Blake didn’t want to run afoul of any super.

It was obvious Danny had finished reading too, because his grip on his gun had tightened and his head spun like it was on a swivel. His voice was quiet when he finally spoke, like he was telling a secret and didn’t want anyone else to hear, but it was edged with a hint of panic, “What the hell did you do Blake?! Duststorm‘s no joke, he’s an A-level terrorist! He’s the real deal and even I can’t and won’t tango with someone who can make a hurricane look like a broken air conditioner! This is serious!”

Blake has no response to the question, because even he didn’t know what he did to get the attention of a threat like Duststorm. A million and a half questions bubbled inside him, most of them variants of why and how. “I-I don’t know why the hell he’s after me, alright! I didn’t even do anything! Why the hell would he be after a public speaking professor? It doesn’t make any sense! And he knows where he live too! He can just waltz in here at any time if he felt like it! We need a new apartment Danny. Now.”

“We can’t afford a new apartment, but we can’t stay here. Look, let’s just... there’s that letter addressed to you. Someone wants you to read it pretty badly and they seem powerful as hell. Let’s just, not calm down and read it. Everything will be fine. We’re perfectly safe. We don’t even know if this is really Duststorm. Could be some lame imposter. Maybe.” Despite his words, Danny didn’t seem very convinced in what he was saying. It seemed he was trying to convince himself of his words alongside Blake.

Blake pondered what Danny had said for a few moments, turning it over in his mind. Could it really be an imposter? The idea seemed ludicrous, but it wasn’t too far fetched to be unbelievable. Blake was mildly successful at pushing his concerns out of his mind, leaving a faint but persistent nagging in the corner of his mind. He stared down at the letter, wondering who it was from. The neat handwriting looked vaguely familiar, as if he’d seen it before. He just couldn’t remember where he had seen it. The letter had been found in a textbook, left behind right after class. Blake was confident it hadn’t been lying there this morning, meaning one of the students in the class had wrote it. Or, at the very least, delivered it. It could theoretically be anyone, but he felt confident that it was an alumni, faculty member, or even, as absurd as the idea was, a student, who has wrote the letter. But they would have to have connections to Duststorm in some way, unless he was an imposter. Maybe it could even be one of the student’s parents or some stranger who had threatened a student to deliver it to him. There were too many possibilities and not enough answers. With trembling fingers, Blake lifted the letter away from him and into the air. It didn’t hurt to be too cautious with letters like this, they could be bidding anything. The seal came off easily, almost as if it had been opened recently and loosely sealed back together. Nervously, Blake slid the message out of the envelope and read the evenly spaced handwriting.

‘I hope this letter reaches one Blake Ward, Professor of Public Speaking at Starview College, in good health. I will be bluntly frank with you throughout this letter and any further encounters we may have, Ward. Firstly, I shall introduce myself, as is custom to humanity. I go by the name of N. I am a god. To clarify, I am the god of miracles. I am forbidden to name the creator god who created the universe and Existence due to the divine rules all gods must follow, but I am not him. The creator has long since left us. It seemed he was fed up with our petty squabbles and perhaps he left for an entirely new Existence. I wouldn’t put it past him, but his will is unknowable. Regardless, he is irrelevant. The world is ruled by gods of all different aspects, and we in turn are governed by divine laws set by the creator himself. The punishment for breaking these laws is unknown and I do not wish to find out what they are. I will not go over each and every nuance of the laws, but one of them is no direct intervention with humanity or any other lower lifeforms. We can answer prayers if a person prays specifically to the proper god, but otherwise we are forced to watch your petty struggles to survive from afar. Most of us are too weak to do much prayer answering even if we were prayed to. I am currently the most powerful of the remaining deities due to the laborious work of my champion. He will introduce himself to you at a later date. We cannot directly interfere with mortal life or even make a mortal aware of our existence except in two circumstances. The first is through a champion who carries out my will. The second circumstance is that I can reveal myself to anyone who is aware of me through my champion’s efforts. He is the one who wrote this letter, but I, N, am the one whose voice is speaking to you. He is simply a method of communication, a temporary divine messenger.

The power of miracles is a strong one to wield and my followers are numerous, even if they are not aware of my existence. Everyone who taps into my powers is a follower. What you mortals call a “superpower” is really just a fragment of a minute sliver of my power. I can grant superpowers to any follower who is aware of my existence with ease. You are now considered a follower, even if you choose to deny me. This means that it is within the laws and within my power to grant you a sliver of divine power and make you something greater. I won’t, however, force a power onto you. You have to ask for a power, and I personally get to decide what you receive.

I have revealed myself to you through my champion’s writings for three reasons: power, boredom, and pity. My power grows with every follower I have and empowering my followers leads to a greater belief in me, which in turn increases my power. I also do this because I am bored. Deities like me just sit and watch humanity and other civilizations perform mundane tasks like building superlasers or exiting the galaxy. Most of us are too weak to have anything longer then a short conversation with another deity every once in a while. Immortality is so dreadfully boring that even I find myself wishing for more work to do. In a way, you and all my other followers are my entertainment. I empower you and hope you do something useful with your brief life. Which brings me to my final reason; you are an utterly pathetic lifeform, even by mortal standards. You would happily continue your monotonous and boring existence of teaching other mortals how to speak slightly better without a care in your heart. It sickens me to think even a mortal could be so content with such a mindless and pointless task. I offer power to you in the hopes that you take it and make your life even marginally interesting. Your roommate, Daniel Miano, who is reading this alongside you, is the only person in existence who actually manages to perform the monumental task of dragging a mindless workaholic like you away from his work. That would make him the second person in Existence to manage such a feat. The first person would be Tiffany Myers, who never returned your affections throughout high school and left you pathetically heartbroken when you started college. You doing anything useful or interesting in your life would be a divine miracle, which is why this letter has been sent to you.

I will contact you at anytime I feel like it and answer all questions you ask that don’t make things more boring for me. You can simply ask for your pathetic life to be changed for the better and I will merrily do it.

I will proceed to end the letter here because my champion is starting to get exhausted of writing this dearly needed letter to you. Rather then continue I will end it because any more delays and you might die an uninteresting person. Your roommate losing it due to tomfoolery was fully unacceptable. I expect results of any sort from you, but my expectations are embarrassingly low.

With hopes to your life becoming interesting,
N’

Both Danny and Blake sat in wide-eyed, open mouthed astonishment at the contents of the letter. Neither quite believed or wanted to believe what they had just read.