. . .
Date: January, 2001
Location: (redacted)
. . .
The moon was nowhere to be found by the time I managed to return to the seashore, waiting for Junior to show up.
Because come hell or high water, I swear I’m gonna get answers even if it is the last thing I’ll fucking do. Writing the story be damned, this motherfucker took my girl, I’m going to see to it that they’ll get what’s coming to them.
Be it in jail or in hell.
Closing my eyes, I took in a deep breath.
Calm down.
I have to calm down.
For Pearl.
For… Pearl…
Opening my eyes once more, I surveyed the scene.
Well, what do you know?
Junior’s deduction had been right on the bat too. Unlike how it had been in the morning, the place was no longer being swarmed by people. Despite everything that just fucking happened, even the authorities are lying low.
There was only one police car with two police officers having a midnight snack as they calmly watched the waves, their eyes blank, staring but looking almost unseeing.
I sneered.
No wonder this shit keeps happening.
A spark of resentment instantly flared back to life within me at that–so many people had died in this godforsaken place, way before my fiancé got included, right under their fucking noses and here these two morons are, looking like they couldn’t give a single fuck–but before my thoughts (as well as my temper) could escalate even further, I suddenly heard Junior’s car heading towards near where I was standing.
I managed to calm myself down, signaling for him to kill the headlights quick before the two cops noticed (somehow I doubted it) our presence here.
Out of respect to Wallace (because he was still a cop, mind you), I’ve never once lingered on the thought of the authorities are not really doing their best in regards to this case but once Junior and I stealthily made our way to the still-marked yellow tapes, I was a little perturbed and even dismayed at how little effort these people –who were supposed to keep all of us safe–put in doing one of the most basic things like, oh, I don’t know, like actually securing the same fucking spot where people are being killed for almost every single day.

The body has been already removed on the scene but the markings of the crime that had happened here where unusually left alone. A stark red, the blood of so many victims looked so dark against the sand… which had been left to stain.
I swallowed the lump forming in my throat.
I’ve seen my fair share of blood throughout the years of being an investigative journalist but knowing that I could still be looking at my fiancé’s blood had a shudder running through me.
“You okay?” Junior murmured.
I grunted, not giving him a verbal response at that because hell no, I am not fucking okay I’ll never be okay as I continued to scan the surroundings, not wanting to continue to stare at the tiny puddle of red that was just there, even walking in a full circle, then another over the scene.
I tried to look and think for an angle, something out of place, something that the authorities could have missed… a clue, or an evidence, just–please, God give me something to work with…!
Mindful of the pair of police officers not far from where we were, Junior and I unanimously decided to be quiet as we can manage as we continued to search for any sort of clue. Because even without a body on the scene, the place had never failed to give off a sinister air now, like the stench of death and gore was stuck here no matter how much the sea tries to cleanse it, erase the stains that have been left behind in the sand.
The fleeting moments of the dead, the grief and rage of the ones left behind had festered here–as if the sea knows that it had somehow aided in stealing lives that it shouldn’t have once more.
It probably wasn’t even an hour later when my foot caught in a piece of… something metallic? My eyes widened when I spotted a shiny piece glinting almost mockingly right back at me, half-buried within the sand.
Carefully, I knelt down to examine it.
A piece of the chain had torn off.
“Junior, I think I got something,” I murmured as I moved it this way and that, watching the way the moonlight made it gleam with a shiny silver here and there.
Strangely enough, unlike the other pieces of the chains I’ve caught a glimpse of, this one looked rusty along the edges but years of looking over crime scenes had made me well-aware that it wasn’t just rust that made the thing look like that.
As I gingerly propped open my flashlight to get a better look, my little hunch was immediately proven right.
There were bloodstains.
Junior quietly wandered close to me.
For a long moment, the waves were the only thing the two of us could hear as we both quietly stared at the tiny piece of chain, still covered in sand and dried, flaking blood.
“You think this could help the case?” I asked.
He sighed, shaking his head without a word.
I closed my eyes, hanging my head low.
No, of course not… what was I thinking? And even if it did, what would I even do? If I tell Wallace about what we had done, he will be mad at me for snooping around the scene especially when he just explicitly told me not to do from the get-go.
“We’re not going to find anything here, aren’t we?” I asked quietly, my voice almost lost to the sound of the crashing waves.
“…Let’s just head back,”
With my shoulders slumped, I glumly nodded, fidgeting with my engagement ring as I stood up and followed after Junior on the way back to his car.
Unlike my… Pearl, I usually didn’t wear my engagement ring because I liked having her reminding me to put it on whenever we wake up or for her to put it into my finger herself just as how she had done on our fifth anniversary but… but now that she’s gone… I wanted to cling to the smallest of things that I was supposed to become a married man; that I was already engaged with the nicest woman earth has to offer.
My thoughts were interrupted when I felt my phone vibrating within my coat pocket. Frowning, I took it out; at least it didn’t blare out my ringtone–the cops would have noticed us.
“Hello? Huh, Lorelei, what are you–?”
“Valiant, you’re not going to believe this.”
I frowned, “I better not.”
“What is it?” Junior demanded.
“Wait,” we’ve already made it back to his car, “…just wait a second, calm down geez, let me put it on speaker for a bit. I have Junior here with me.”
“Even better!”
Junior raised an eyebrow at the manic cheerfulness we can sense practically dripping within Lorelei’s normally dry tone. She almost sounded out of breath, “Hopefully you’re more successful with your investigation than us, you no-show? Where the hell are you?!”
”Ha! As if I said I’ll come along,” we can hear some pages being rustled, probably her messing around with some book or papers she’s holding, “Anyway, I just called Wall–”
“You did WHAT?!” I spluttered.
“Like hell something like that could possibly help!” Junior protested, looking just as outraged as I am beginning to feel, “Why did you even got the cops involved, you idiot?!”
“LET ME FINISH!” she snapped. I immediately bit back my tongue to keep myself from cussing out loud, “I’ve been looking through articles and newspapers all day long–and this is what I found: this thing has been happening ever since.”
I scoffed, “Yeah, like in the early 90s…”
“No you idiot!” she hissed, “Even way back!”
Junior’s eyes narrowed, “How far back?”
“Way back as in the mid 80s and late 70s, seven murders, all chained and left to drown at sea just like what’s basically going on right now. I found a pattern and managed to secure a lead. I know the exact time the next (and possibly last) murder is going to take place before this thing ends up rewinding all over again.”
“Did all of the murders literally happen in the same place, Lorelei?” I finally managed to ask as Junior gestured for me to get inside the car already.
“No, but look, this is where things get real creepy. I’ve made markings on the spots on the map where the victims have been found since as early as the late 70s and based on the dots from the locations where it all ended; I have somehow made a perfect circle surrounding the entire area of the town. Like a… a…”
“A protection circle,” Junior muttered.
I gave him a look, “Seriously?”
“Yes SERIOUSLY!” Lorelei huffed, “And surprise, surprise: the next murder is gonna happen somewhere around there so like any concerned citizen, I alerted the authorities and even hitched a ride with Wallace.”
My eyebrows shot up.
“I’m waiting for him to pick me up here as of now. Hopefully, they’ll catch the bastard. Anyway, I’ll see you guys there real soon.”
“Since when you two are on speaking terms?” I asked.
“Oh, shut up!”
“No wait!” Junior protested as he frantically started up the car, “You wait for us there. We’ll pick you up, Lorelei. You stay right where you are–“
“You’re welcome, by the way!”
The call ended.
Junior closed his eyes for a moment, a frustrated groan crawling out from the depths of his stomach, and I pursed my lips, suddenly feeling the slightest bit suspicious as the car made its way to the main road. Seriously, since when did Lorelei and Wallace even bounced back on speaking terms–?
A deer suddenly ran straight at us.
Wait… a deer….?
What is a fucking deer doing here?!
“What the fuck!” I cried as I shielded my face from the impact, the sound of crashing glass and the waves melding together as one and an earsplitting shriek practically roared in my eardrums.
Then, everything went black.
But the ringing took a long time before it faded.