• “Damn, he was right,” I thought to myself as I glanced up at the shattered ceiling. Around me, glass was scattered across the floor, reflecting tiny little rainbows into the air. It was beautiful, if not slightly disconcerting; because that beautiful glass was stained red with blood. Everywhere around me, the maroon substance permeated. It seemed to spill from the walls and pool randomly across the floor, and yet, there was no human corpse. There was no sign that any beings had been here at all. And so, the only conclusion that seemed logical at this point and time was Darren’s. It had to have been a psychic. A very strong psychic with a power over 20g.
    Oh that’s right, I forgot to mention; my name is Aaron Carfield. I work with the Special Corps for Supernatural Cases, or S.C.S.C. for short. Of course, you could also just call me a Homicide Detective. It was basically the same thing, only, the situations and such that I dealt with were slightly different from that of your normal police force, who dealt with human crimes. I was called out, by Darren Noyse usually, when a case had an unusual, seemingly ‘supernatural’ side to it. Although, most of the time it was pure coincidence, and had a completely logical and human explanation for it, so it surprised me slightly that something so…gruesome had occurred so quickly, with nothing leading to it. And the victim. What about the victim?
    As in, where the hell was he or she? Or, why would their blood be all over the place here, if their body had never been? Now, I wish I had some kind of super-cool reasoning for how I knew the body had never been here, but it was as simple as the fact that the security cams would have caught something like that. You know, something like a murder? I think someone probably would have noticed that. But no, when the tapes were watched, and re-watched, rewound over and over again, there was nothing leading to what could have caused this tragedy. In one frame, everything was normal; no one was here, the moon shone through the once undamaged, glass ceiling softly, and then in the next, complete chaos had overrun the area. The moon hid beyond a cloud, and no light came in for a few frames, but you could tell the ceiling had shattered already. Then, as the moon revealed itself, so did the horrors of an obvious murder.
    As I grimaced and carefully stepped around the glass (not being able to avoid stepping in the blood) I reached into my bag and pulled out my P.E.R., Psychic Energy Reader, and scanned the area again, hoping to maybe get a little bit of insight as to where the actual attack had occurred. If I just get to where the energy was concentrated, I could probably tell how strong the attacker had been. But there was a problem. There was no one point where it was extremely concentrated. Actually, most of the energy was weak, and lingering, as if it had sat here for weeks on end. But that obviously was not possible. The research lab had been occupied earlier that day. People were inside, and conversed, and everything was normal.
    “Aaron, seen anything interesting yet?” I could hear Darren’s young voice through the walkie-talkie that was strapped to my gun belt. I pulled it off, held it close to my mouth, pushed down on a button, and responded.
    “Well, not really.” I coughed as I stepped through a particularly deep puddle. “I mean, unless you count the fact that the readings I’m getting aren’t nearly strong enough to be connected to this case in any logical sense.” I shrugged and took my finger off the button.
    “What are you talking about?” He asked, his voice getting slightly gravely as I started to lose the signal. I stopped walking and turned around, heading back to where I was standing before so I could talk to him.
    I sighed. “The readings the P.E.R. are giving me are too low. It might have been normal if the victim had been murdered about three weeks ago, but with this much blood, this fresh, and the fact that yesterday people were having a jolly ole time creating different strains of the Swine Flu to create another ‘epidemic’, the murderer had to have been here last night, and his power had to have been above 20g. I would be getting much stronger readings.”
    “What does this mean then, Aaron?” He asked.
    “I dunno,” I answered, sighing again and running my fingered through my newly darkened hair. I had recently dyed it. “I guess we could have someone who’s really good at concealing power levels on our hands, but that doesn’t seem too logical all things considered. I mean, why would someone go through the trouble to conceal their energy level if they’re going to cause this kind of disturbance, something like that shouldn’t matter. Plus, there aren’t any registered psychics around here who could accomplish something like this.”
    “You said it yourself, there are no registered psychics who could accomplish this…”
    “Well how in the hell am I supposed to find an illegitimate psychic, Darren, huh? I can’t just walk around New Orleans , knocking on people’s doors and ask if they just so happen to be illegal, murdering Psys. It doesn’t work that way.”
    “I guess you’re right.”
    “Of course I am, look, I guess just get forensics over here to check around. There’s nothing I can really do for this. After all, even if it was a Psy that did the killing, it was obviously a human who was murdered.”
    “How can you tell, psychics bleed too, ya know….”
    “That is true,” I nodded, even though he couldn’t see me. “They bleed, but the readings would be much, much higher on the P.E.R. if there were another psychic involved. And there is no way that they would be interested in concealing their energy if they were dying..." I sighed. As i did so, i heard a slight rustle come from the far side of the room.
    Furrowing my eyebrows together, I turned down the volume on the radio. Something was still in here. I stood perfectly erect, and perfectly still for about five seconds, hoping to get another clue as to what and where this thing may be. But nothing happened. The room was silent except for the high-pitched winds that came in through the broken ceiling.
    I sighed and turned the volume on the radio back up.
    “What’s going on?” I could tell Darren was worried, why?
    “I thought I heard something, but I guess not…” And yet, as I released my fingered from the button that allowed me to speak with Darren, I felt as if someone or something was watching me.
    “What’d it sound like?”
    “I dunno Darren,” I scoffed. “Like a rustle or somethin’.”
    “Alright,” He gave me a slight pause. “Well, I guess just come on back to the station. We’ll talk it over there. That place sounds dangerous anyway.”
    “Are you worried about me?” I asked, giving the walkie-talkie a smug grin. I started stalking across the room slowly, making sure not to step on any of the glass, and just as I was about to slip my security card through the lock to open the door, I felt something graze my shoulder. I turned around sharply and pressed my body to the door, inhaling sharply as I surveyed the human in front of me.
    He stood at about 5,11; Caucasian; tattoo of a phoenix on his right cheek; dark hair. I made sure to repeat it all in my mind. If this guy attacked me, I was ready. But there was no reason to freak out, right? I was only alone with a scary looking person towering over me. Everything was cool.
    “What is your name?” He asked, his voice gruff and demanding.
    I inhaled. What should I do? I decided to lie. “Ca-Casey…” Damn, I couldn’t come up with a last name fast enough.
    “Casey…what?” He asked, a low growl erupting in his throat as he leaned in a little closer. He seemed so much larger now.
    My eyes shot from side to side, trying to come up with something quickly. “Casey Bleen.” Bleen? Where the hell did that come from? He gave me a smug grin and slapped my face playfully, gently.
    “Well, Mr. Bleen,” He obviously knew that I was giving him a fake name. “What are you doing here?”
    “I…um…” Crap, what was I gonna say? This was going in the wrong direction.
    This time when he smacked me, it wasn’t gently. I fell to the ground, anger swelling up inside my chest. In one quick, fowl sweep, I knocked his legs out from underneath him and as he hit the ground, I climbed on top of him, punching him in the jaw, then the throat, then quickly getting up and swiping my key card again, and opening the door quickly, but he was faster than I was. He gripped me by the arm and threw me against the wall. I coughed out as his fingers wrapped around my throat, and tried to pry them away. But to no avail. Everything was getting blurry, and black. My lungs burned from the lack of oxygen. My eyes flurried open and shut quickly. Was this really it? I mean, seriously? I was going to die already?
    By this time, i could tell, Darren had been calling my name, and he'd been talking to me, but i couldn't respond. I dug my fingernails into the man's hand, wrist, and arm, and tried scratching him, but his skin was like diamonds now, unlike how his skin felt before. He grinned at me, it was the last thing i felt.