•                          Kieoku

    A Romantic Thriller.

    By Garrett Williams.


     Stage 1: Saiken



    Night set in as the steady rain fell amongst the apartment window. Bright flashes of lightning emitted, scattering against the sky and falling to the ground in a violently elegant pattern. The thunder screamed loudly, preceding the sparks that fell from the clouds. Upon this sight, Alex peered out of the blurred window, exhaling a stream of smoke out of his mouth. The cigarette in his hand slowly shortened as he took another short hit from it and peered down to the floor. His apartment room was unorganized, with a variety of novels and law books laying amongst the ground, which was covered with ashes that disintegrated from the numerous cigarettes. He never was the kind of person that was neat. Before he left his previous house, his mother would always nag him due to his untidiness. On the other hand,  he was 21, and it was common amongst people his age to be a but untidy. 

        However, there were a lot of things about Alex that wasn't common at all. To describe in one word, he would be eccentric. However, it was in a good way. His diversity was in good nature. He owned a strong sense of Justice, and all through his high school years, he was known to be a guy who would help anyone in need. Regardless of this, he wasn't exactly the most popular. He had been suffering with panic attacks since he was a child, so, whenever he would be under a mass amount of stress, he would breath deeply and shake furiously. Because of this, he was constantly insulted whenever things like this would occur, usually before exams.

         Alex remembered his fragile state of mind in those past years and chuckled softly, smoke emitting out of his mouth. It was funny, how someone with such nervous habits would turn out like this, having the throbbing stress of another case in his mind. This abundance of pressure had been pinned against him ever since he graduated from law school, at the age of 20. As a prodigy, he was expected to be above average. Once in law school, he was constantly analyzed by his peers and professors. This would always add insult to injury to his panic attacks. However, there was one person who was keeping him sane.

         At this thought, a high-pitched ringing intruded his ear. The noise sprang up and down, mimicking a generic ringtone. He let out a light sigh and dug his hand into his pocket. Shuffling through miscellaneous items that were scattered inside, he finally got a firm grasp on his flip phone and slid it out of his pocket, bringing the top up when doing so. The screen flashed white, causing a dilation of his eyes. He peered away as the glare hit his pupils. The darkness of the room contrasted the bright light, and he had came use to the darkness of his chamber. After a minute of hesitation, he slowly peered back towards his cell. His phone was filled with an abundance of words, most vulgar in content. Seeing this, he peered up to the clock on his phone. It read 8:41. "Damn..." he cursed to himself in self disappointment. He had a previous promise to someone important to him that he'd call. He blushed nervously and peered back to his message, looking at who sent the violent rant. Sure enough, confirming his suspicion, it was Raine. He let out another deep sigh and pressed the 'okay' button on the middle of his phone, retreating the message into thin air. After a long pause, he began to dial numbers swiftly making sure not to anger Raine any further. Pressing the enter button, the phone began to ring. After a brief pause of ringing, a click was heard, and an instant amount of vulgar language erupted through his phone. 

        "What the hell Alex? Do you know how long I've been waiting for you to call? I've been waiting out of this place for almost twenty minutes!" 

         Alex sighed and let out a deep breath he hadn't realized he was holding.

         "I'm sorry....I lost track of time."

    He honestly had. He was too busy focusing on his current case to worry about, to him, minuscule things. Unfortunately, one thing that laid in the minuscule section of his brain had a great deal of importance to him. Even though she nagged and yelled at him constantly, Raine was a great friend to him. In fact, all through law school, she was his only friend. Even in the roughest of situations, Raine always managed to support him. For this reason, Alex held her in high importance, even though he'd never say it.

           "Lost track of time my a**." she replied sarcastically in a slightly angered tone. "I swear, you throw all of yourself into those cases. You're only 21. Live a little."

    That was her catch phrase. She would always say this whenever she though Alex was being a 'tight a**', which, according to her, was a lot. 'Live a little.' was practically engraved on his forehead. The sad thing was, that she was three years older than him, yet acted like a teenager in rebellion, for the most part at least. She wasn't a druggy or slept around, in fact, she was very well mannered, however, she had a lot of youth in her, and wasn't afraid to speak her mind. Unfortunately, during school, that would usually cause trouble.

             "I honestly did." he replied in a pitiful tone, "I'm really sorry. Maybe I can make it up to you tomorrow?"

    A mass amount of time passed and after a couple of minutes, Raine let out a soft sigh. 

          " Hmph. Fine." she began, "You're such an a*****e, ya know?"

    Alex chuckled and slouched into his chair, peering up to the ceiling, which appeared as a lite blur due to thick fog that was the result of the residue of the cigarettes.  Smiling up at the ceiling, he withdrew another hit from the cigarette and let out a long sigh.

         " Hmm. How about tomorrow, we get some sushi. I'll buy."

    Alex honestly didn't have an abundance of money, however, whenever he did have money, he usually spent it on miscellaneous things. Throughout his life, he never really had money problems. Both of his parents weren't rich, however, they were in a high middle class. Him having a full ride into Harvard also played a factor in his parent's wealth, due to them not having to spend a dime for his college fund.

       Alex heard a soft sigh being withdrawn from Raine through the phone and, in result, smirked with satisfaction. That sigh said all he needed to know. She had succumbed to his request of sushi, and, to his fortune, all had been forgiven, in his head at least.

           "Geez...you know I love sushi." she began, a playful tone being hinted in her voice. "Hmmmm. Only because of the sushi, I'll forgive you. But, you better tell me about this case that has been keeping you away from me." she remarked, letting out a soft snicker through the phone. At this remark, Alex grinned and couldn't help but to snicker as well. He was being cocky, and he knew it. He had yet to tell Raine of his current case, for multiple reasons, one being that it was strictly confidential, and another reason being that it was an extremely grotesque case.

       Their conversation was quickly interrupted with a flashing light appearing at the corner of his eye, following a familiar generic tone. Alex sighed softly into the phone, already knowing by the time the tone dispersed into the room what the source of it was. 

       "Excuse me for a sec." he mumbled to Raine, sighing softly as he turned his vision to the source of the light. He smiled warmly when his laptop came into his sight. His prediction was correct. In the screen of the laptop, a pixilated image resembling an envelope was radiating. This, of course, was the international symbol for an email. 

       "Ugh." Raine muttered softly, sighing heavily into the phone, annoyance being sensed in her voice. "I've actually got to go right now. The Cab's coming. I'll call you later, jerk." This was followed by a chuckle, from Alex. "Hmph. Don't stand me up again, Kay?" she warned, "Or I'll kick your a**!" this last comment was followed by the click of the phone, signaling that the call had been ended.

       Alex laughed playfully when the last remark entered his eardrum, and took a long drag out of his last cig. Out of curiosity, he began walking lazily to his laptop, which laid on a small wooden table, which matched the rest of the scenery in his vacant  room. In fact, the room itself was nothing special. Even though he wasn't exactly poor, the room was poor, health wise. The room had a rotten smell to it, an unpleasant mixture of alcohol and nicotine.  There were cracks amongst the wooden planks that covered the floor, and seeing as he was on the third floor, too much weight could make him descend to the ground, Definitly not gracefully. But, that wasn't something he liked to ponder about in his thoughts. In fact, the only reason he was staying in such a horrid place was because he was tired of feeling like a mooch of his parents, always needing their assistance to live. He wanted to feel independent, so, he gathered the little money he had himself to buy this rotten apartment.

       The thought of this made him smile proudly as he shrunk into the chair that sat in front of the laptop. He was proud of his independence, a quality he had always admired from many people he had met in the past, especially Raine. She always had great independence, never relying on anyone for anything. It was just one of her many traits that Alex treasured.

       Alex sighed softly and placed his finger on the mouse that laid lifelessly in front of his screen. He slowly dragged the mouse so that the cursor on the screen would lay on the pixilated envelope that laid bright on his screen, filling the room with a radiant light. Once the cursor was on the newly formed mail, he gave the mouse a quick click, making a bright white page full of words fill his screen. He squinted his eyes to decipher the message, due to the brightness from the computer screen that strained his eyes.

       It read;

    Dear Alex;

         You have a message from AngelWings.

       He sighed softly in annoyance when reading the source. The email was sent from an old MMORPG he use to participate in in his high school days, a game he hadn't played in years, however, stayed in contact in the game for the forums, and the many online acquaintances he acquired through it.

       He didn't even dare read the message. More than likely, it was completely pointless, well, at least in his opinion it was. At this, he closed his laptop, sighing softly, fatigue from tiredness overcoming him. At this sign, he realized it was about time he rested his eyes. 

       As his eyes slowly began to close, faint whispers were heard from beneath the wooden planks that lay beneath his feet. They were almost non existent, but Alex was able to capture a fair amount of the words said.

       "Have you heard....woman....Murders...men.....otakus?" one robust voice muttered, caution masking his voice,

       "Yeah...,Internet....cult...love...emails?" another voice replied, his voice a bit more timid the other.

       "Mhm......" 

    Alex's eyes widened as the phrases leaked through the cracks of the wooden floor. These details were almost identical to the case he was currently investigating. However, it was suppose to be confidential.

       "So it's already viral, eh?" He whispered to himself, closing his eyes and letting his thoughts put him to sleep.

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    End of Stage 1.