▌│█║▌║▌║Chapter 44║▌║▌║█│▌

I walked up to the open door, and peered into the lit-up apartment. What I saw next will haunt my dreams for the rest of my life. My parents were sprawled out onto the floor of the living room, and their bodies were cut open, spilling blood everywhere. Their bodies were naked, and they were cut in half in the waist. They also had many cuts on other parts of their bodies, and they seemed to have a formation like they were on a cross. They were mutilated. I was frozen where I stood, and I went down to my knees. I couldn’t yell, and I couldn’t even say a word. I sat there with my mouth half open, and my eyes started to drip with tears. Who would do this?! Could it have been the terrorist group that attacked Crystal High yesterday? Did they come here looking for me to silence me, but since I wasn’t here, they killed my parents instead. Why would they mutilate them this much though? I eventually tore me eyes away from the bloody scene only to be greeted with a message. Written in blood on the wall was a message saying, “Leave Crystal High!!!”

I reached my shaky hand in my pocket to get my phone out. I was still barely in the door, and I turned my back from the scene and faced the walls of the apartment complex. I dialed the number for the police, and described to them the best I could of the scene in front of me. I broke down in tears twice while on the phone with them, and the person on the phone stayed and comforted me while the officers were on their way to the crime scene. When the officers finally got to my apartment building, I hadn’t moved from my spot facing the walls of the apartment complex. The officers rushed in, and I heard exclamations of, “Oh my God!” and “Holy Shit”, as they witnessed the scene for the first time. The officer on the other side of the phone finally hung up on me after telling me, “Go talk to the officers there. Tell them what happened.”

I dropped my hand holding my phone to the side of my body, but I didn’t move from my position staring outside of the room. I don’t think I can keep my sanity if I look at the scene one more time. My parents, the only people who always believed and encouraged me, died. One officer walked up to me and put his hand around my shoulders. He led me outside of my parent’s apartment, so we could talk out in the hall of the apartment complex. I told him exactly what I did today, and what I saw when I got home from school. As he was finishing off his notes, he asked me, “And what’s your power level?”

Why would my power level have anything to do with this? I asked him in an annoyed tone, “Why do you need to know mypower level?”

I can understand why he asked my parent’s power levels, but why would he need to know mine when it isn’t at all necessary for the investigation. His eyes didn’t leave his notepad, and he explained to me, “It’s just standard protocol. It determines a lot of things, so I just really need to know it. What is it then?”

I reluctantly and quietly said, “I’m a sagaru…”

“What was that?”

I again told him quietly, “I’m a sagaru…”

“What was that? Speak up son!”

This time I spoke up in a normal voice with a sense of pride rising in me and told him, “I’m a sagaru.”

The officer looked up from his notepad for the first time since the interview started, and he looked at me with bewildered eyes. He put his pen back in his chest pocket, and he went back in the apartment room as he told me, “Wait here.”

I waited patiently outside as the officers were inside the apartment. Soon after he went in though, he came out along with all the other officers that were inside investigating. He walked up beside me and told me, “The cleaners will be here in just a bit. Sorry for your loss. We’ll contact you later with what we found about the murder case.”

Were they just going to leave me here? They all left the apartment complex, and didn’t look back. Do they even know my contact info? They didn’t even ask the neighbors if they heard anything happen. I decided to ask them myself. I first went to the neighbor to the right of my apartment, and ask her if she heard anything happen over at my apartment throughout the day. The person that lives there is a freshman college student that moved in early this year. I never really see her come out of her apartment, so she has to have heard something. I knocked on her door, no answer. I knocked on it again a little harder, still no answer. “Is she asleep” I thought.

I knocked on it again as hard as I could, and I still didn’t hear even a stir come from her room. After this I gave up, she is clearly a deep sleeper. I will just come and ask her tomorrow. I went over to my other neighbor’s apartment, and went to knock on their door. In this apartment, a young couple lives there. They moved in three years ago, and I have seen and talked to them a couple of times before when I see them at the coffee shop near our apartment complex. I knocked on their door, and the husband opened the door. Before I could even ask him if he heard anything, he quickly told me, “Go away kid. You don’t know what you’re messing with right now.”

With that, he shut his door in my face. Right after he did that, the sound of footsteps could be heard marching up the steps to my apartment. I turned to the stairs and up walked the cleaners. The cleaners didn’t even acknowledge me as they marched into my apartment. They didn’t allow me in to see what they were doing. They were in there for about thirty minutes before they marched back out. They walked out in the same manner as they walked in. I hesitantly looked into my apartment room, and it was like a murder didn’t even occur. The room was spotless. Was this a by-product from one of their powers? How am I going to have a funeral for my parents though? I dialed the police again, but this time no one answered. I suddenly felt completely and utterly alone in this world. I didn’t turn the lights out, and I didn’t go to my room that night. I simply curled up into a ball on the rug in the center of the living room, and cried myself to sleep.

▌│█║▌║▌║To be Continued║▌║▌║█│▌