“What, a murder in our colony?”

“That’s the reason we have to run now. I’m sorry about your missing friend, but I don’t think our station will have any time now to take care of the case. It was already impossible with the mass disappearances, but now with the murder in the mix… it’s impossible I’ll say.”

The senior officer then spoke to this junior and started rushing out of the room, but I stopped them once again. I had a favor to ask.

“Actually could you both let me come with you?”

The senior officer’s face turned stiff when he heard me, his voice stuttered, but he still said no.

“So-sorry, but I can’t allow you onto my crime scene. I’m sorry but that’s how things are. Okay junior, let’s go.”

But I stopped him once again and politely asked him to let me come with them. “Actually, I have this feeling that I’ll get a clue about our missing friend there.”

The officer looked perplexed. At one hand he had told me that the station wouldn’t be able to handle our case and on other hand I was saying to let me help them. And there was also the pressure of me being the current hero and I was sure that they or the senior officer with a lot of years on his back and waiting in front of him surely understood what that meant.

We stared at each other for like a minute while the junior officer poked his senior two or three time, and after a stating contest between us, he finally took a step back and sighed.

"But...!”

The junior officer tried to disagree, but his senior cut him short and spoke, “Don’t worry you have done enough. Let me handle the rest.”

He looked at me as if he wanted to say something, but nodded his head instead. I smiled at him, but he didn’t agree to let me come until I promised him that I will do as he say and what not.

I asked them to let me tell my friends that was going with them.

“Three minutes.” The senior officer said, and I hurried to say my goodbyes to them once again.

Tiny tightly held my hand and started acting like a kid yelling, “But you only just came back!”

But upon me saying that it was to find Brooke he let go of me after telling me to come back soon.

While getting rid of Bill was a little bit more difficult than Tiny as unlike him, Bill didn’t wanted to stop me from going, but wanted to follow me to the crime scene instead.

I had to force him, and make him promise that he wouldn’t follow us, which wasn’t an easy thing. In the end I asked Tiny and the others to keep an eye on him and not to let him wander out alone. After all if someone could handle a full-fledged ranker, then what were a few novice ants to him or it?

Saying my goodbyes I returned back to the officers who had been patiently fuming.

“You took your sweet time. So shall we go now?”

I felt embarrassed for getting chewed out, and silently followed behind the officers.

Coming out of the nursery we took a left.

On route, I asked the senior officer if he knew something about the crime scene, and he shook his head before replying, “That is what we are going to find out.”

“So where did the murder happen?” I asked and he replied with, “According to the report I received, the witness or a common ant worker left her burrow to buy some of her favorite eyeballs, but instead of seeing the owner, she saw a decapitated head lying on the counter. She started yelling at the scene and the people from the shops nearby came to see what had happened. The call was made shortly after that.”

I asked him if he knew anything else and he shook his head.

“Well, that all we know for now.” Was all he said.

It took us ten minutes to run to the commercial sector, and the news which the authorities should have tried to conceal had exploded like a bomb and attracted all kind of bees towards it.

Upon reaching the site I saw that the whole area was jam packed with ants trying to become a part of the commotion.

While most of the onlookers looked horrified and devoid of expressions, there were some groups trying to find amusement amidst the chaos.

We had to try hard to reach the shop, diving into the crowd and making way wasn’t an easy thing to do. Well, the situation was understandable too. After all it was the first time someone had been murdered in our colony.

It took us some time but we were able to make way through the crowd and reach the front . Thankfully there were already quite a lot of patrols men working to secure the area and they had done a fantastic job at that. Thanks to the effort of almost 50 ant soldiers no one was able to enter the site without permission and temper the crime scene.

The senior officer talked with the ant in charge of barricading the shop, while I stared at the shop itself.

Turned out, I had been at the shop once with Tiny and the others. The day I had come to the commercial sector to play around, our group had savored quite a lot of dishes at this shop. But seeing the familiar place lashing out ominous vibes made me feel sad. The owner was a good cook and a good natured ant too.

Then I heard the senior officer’s voice and upon turning my head, I saw him gesturing me to enter the circle.

I gave the officer in charge a look and he nodded back. A serious ant he was, but the situation demanded seriousness and he played his part perfectly.

Senior officer asked his junior to question the prime witness. Giving the paper work to his junior, he went inside the shop and I looked around.

The civilians on the site looked at us with worried and scared expressions. I let the officers do their work and looked at all the people present to store their faces in my memory.

I had a reason to do so, I remembered hearing somewhere that most psychotic murders always return to the crime scene to see the drama following their ‘art’ unfold.

But other than seeing some fashioners and common worker ants, I couldn’t see anything useful or find anyone who looked suspicious.

I turned my head to hear the talk between the junior officer and the witness.

They had already moved on to the section where he was asking him to describe everything she saw and she cried out.

“I have never seen anything like that before. I am just his regular customer who like every day come to get her fix, bu- but who knew that something like this would…” and a river of tears started flowing out of her eyes.

Seeing her losing her composure the junior stopped his investigation and patted her back.

“It’s okay madam. Please take it easy. You have done what you could. Now let us officer handle the rest. And I assure, we’ll catch the culprit no matter what.”

The tense faces of the onlookers present relaxed a little hearing his assurance, but from what I understood it was just false hope, everything depended on how the investigation was done.

And by this time the senior officer who had gone inside the shop came out with a pale face.

He staggered a little on his way out, and greedily breathed air, as if he had been holding down his breath inside the shop.

The junior officer walked to help him, but he shook his leg and stood back up. The junior seeing his senior acting like that had the urges to see the scene past the door and moved to take a look inside, but the senior officer stopped him saying, “Trust me, you don’t want to look inside.”

Seeing that he was out of the shop, I started taking my steps towards the shop.

Senior officer saw me and tilted his head, but he didn’t stop me from going inside. The junior officer’s face turned stiff and he asked him why i was allowed and he wasn't and senior replied nonchalantly, “Because he has seen what war looks like. He will be able to stomach the scene inside better than me or you.”

I didn’t stay there long enough to hear what else he said to him, and entered inside the shop.

Inside, the shop looked like another room. It was a small cubical with very less space to do anything. But the shop owner had changed that small room into a working shop.

At the front was the counter, behind which was his cooking apparatus and the left corner of the room was the place where he stored the meat.

In usual times it would have looked like this, but at that time the counter didn’t have food displayed neither did the shelf behind the counter had any cooking apparatus.

Instead there was the decapitated head of the owner on the counter looking desolate, but fitting to the whole bloody and gory scene the murderer was going for.

The head also had no antennas or eyeballs, as if the murderer wanted to taste the eyeballs of the eyeball cook, he had dug them out of the head.

The eye less empty holes in the head looked and pierced through to my soul and asked me what he had died for.

As if all of his pain and anguish, his tears and his last moments sculpted on his face at the time of his death weren’t enough, his body was also lying in the corner; rampaged and mutilated.

His limbless body laid on the corner of the room, waiting for someone to come collect his broken memories and dreams and maybe even punish the sick fuck that had taken his aspiration as a joke, and turned him into the sad state that he was in, without letting him even beg.

His body which told the tale of the gruesome endeavor it had been through, made a charge full of excitement, dread and anticipation pulse through my spine and act like a wakeup call to the mayhem that was going to follow.

The thought about life’s agenda which doesn’t stop or listen to anybody made my knees weak, but I didnt flatter at the vomit inducing sight of blood and gore; I had a friend and a criminal to find..

I activated Inspection and perception or rather tried to activate them, but it turned out that the various side effects of the skill [Overdrive] weren’t over yet. Which meant no knowledge or Intelligence related skills for the next… there were still three hours left for its side effects to wear off.

I looked around and away from the body to catch a glimpse of something which the others had failed to notice, thanks to [Clarity] which fortunately was not a part of the skills blocked by overdrive.

“He did a good thing by not letting the junior officer enter inside.” I thought, seeing the gruesome way the owner had been murdered.

The blood stains on the floor gave in detail the narration to how the murder was probably staged.

The murderer had probably killed the owner on the counter, dragged him body to the corner and out of the colonies eyes, then feasted to his heart content, before cutting the head to eat the eye balls on the way out and then gone out after leaving the head on the counter for everyone to become witness to the legend that he had created.

To have the vision and not see this would have been the greatest disrespect to my skills and the angel who had played the greatest role in making me capable enough to have a stand in the ant world.

But unfortunately, as if the murdered although a sick maniac, but an intelligent life form didn’t leave behind any big clues, other than the body itself.

The thought that maybe the murdered wanted to create a mass hysteria came as the passing wind, before flowing to the back of my head. I knew there was something wrong with the whole situation, but I couldn’t find the link thanks to my overdriven brain.

Sighing, I turned around and started walking out of the room, but then I felt something fine and soft rub against my hands. Looking down on the shelf my hand was touching, I saw a fine line drawn on it, as if something was covering the top of the shelf.

I collected what I had first thought was simple dust, but upon further inspection, it turned out to be some kind of powder; something which I had definitely seen before.

I remembered the place I had seen it before and shuddered at the possibility of the dots connecting for real.

My face became devoid of expressions and my mind started panicking. The case became a cesspool of emotions and I knew one way or another I was bound to get hurt in the end.

As if trying to deny the evidence presented to me by the suspect in kindness, I clenched my fists and mumbled.

“Was it you… Brooke?”