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First Day Back

            The break of day cut through my window, and draped itself over my eyes. I groaned. It was the first day back at work, and I was hung over. I sat up in my seat and peeled a sticky note off of my face. It directed me where to go to get coffee, to help this god forsaken migraine of mine. I poured some coffee into my cup, and groggily opened a cabinet that contained Ibuprofen. I threw a few pills into my mouth, and went back to my office. I was a P.I. I was part of a smaller group that were in and out of the building. Some of them worked together, but I was always by myself. The others would slow me down, so I didn’t include them in my cases. I was the most experience one here, despite being a good 10 years younger than everyone here. I was only 22, a young man, but not a teenager. I’m 6’3”, I have blue eyes, and dirty blonde hair. It looks sloppy sometimes, but I keep it in a pony tail that touches just in between my shoulder blades. Currently, I had a 5 o’ clock shadow. I threw on my jacket, and sat down at my desk.

            There had been some murders going on lately. Or, unexplainable deaths one might say. The sheriff’s department had hired me to find out what’s happening. So I went to all of the deaths, and found almost nothing in common. The only thing I found in common were the markings on the walls. It seemed to be in blood, which didn’t seem odd for the victims. They all had a certain mental disorder. Depression. I felt bad for them. Having a depressing life, with a depressing end. The blood on the walls were clearly words, I just couldn’t depict what they said. I laid out the photos I had taken of the words. They all looked similar, but distorted. I ran my fingers through my hair, and sighed, because this was going to be a long case. I heard a knock at my door and slid my hand under my desk, and grabbed my 50 cal. Desert Eagle. I was paranoid, extremely at that. I yelled, “Come in!” and the door opened, slowly.

            “Hey Dalton. What’s up?” said a casual voice. It was my older brother, Jackson Stephens.

            I stood up as to greet him. “Hey bro!” I walked over and hugged him.

            “God, you look terrible. What’s up?” He said, concerned about me obviously.

            “Oh thanks, it’s a new cologne I’ve been trying. It’s called drunk and tired, by Heineken.” I said with a smirk on my face. We always joke with each other.

            “Still trying with the bad jokes. How’s that work with the ladies?” Our family was known for our bad jokes. “But seriously, how are you doing? You look like shit.”

            I sat there and pondered what to say. I’d been kind of depressed lately, so I hadn’t been out and about. “They love that one. Wait ‘til you hear my other jokes.”

            He gave me an annoyed look. He knew what I was doing. “Stop dodging the question. What’s wrong?”

            I stopped. “I have work to do. You should leave.” I said with a light shove.

            “What work?” I couldn’t tell if he was joking or trying to make small talk.

            “You know about those murders?” He gave a slight nod. “Well I’m trying to find links between them. So far the only thing is their depression, and one other thing.” I told him about the case, and he was perplexed.

            “There were words on the wall, in blood? That’s a severe case of depression. Maybe even insanity.” Jackson was a psychologist. We were so alike, it was almost scary.

            “Can you tell what it says?” The blood said Iam tempus impletum est. It was some weird language. My brother was multi-lingual, so he might know what it means.

            “It’s Latin.” He said with a confused look on his face.

            “What does it mean??” I urged him to tell me.

            “It.. It mean-.” He choked out. My mind came to a halt. I started getting annoyed. Does he know what it means? He left soon after, almost in a rush.

            What was he so, frightened about? I didn’t understand. I looked for his number on my phone, and passed my dad’s. He had just died a few months ago, but it was still fresh in my mind. The Alzheimer’s took hold, and he just went crazy. He didn’t remember anything, but he still looked people in the eyes and said “Tick tock goes the clock. Tick tock, tick tock.”

            Well I called my brother, and told him to meet me at his house. I needed to find out what he was so spooked about. A few hours went by, and I finally met him at his house.

            “What the hell were you doing earlier? I needed you to tell me what the hell that meant!” I shoved him into the wall.

            He looked down, ashamed and clearly down about something. “Well, when our dad was dying, he kept mumbling gibberish. Remember?” I nodded. “Well seconds before he died, he pulled the nurse close and whispered that into her ear. Then his heart just stopped for a moment. It started beating again, yes, but it exploded.” He looked up at me, terror in his eyes. “His nurse died just months later.”