THE VOICES

these hands;

These hands

'Oranges and lemons
Say the bells of St Clement's
You owe me five farthings
Say the bells of St Martin's'

The rhythmic pattern of the soft piano playing through the silence kept you from going insane. Your eyes would only come to flicker when the air-dried the natural liquid, blinking harshly. You liked the sound of the music. Some people would call you chaotic because everyone knew there was some kind of war going on inside your head.

Your scalp was pulsing, blood rushing towards it. Although your head lay in the comfort of the feather pillow, hair in two singular braids, Peter's touch still fragmented on your skin, you were burning up on the inside. Lungs were heaving for some kind of refreshment, continuously performing for nothing to what they wished to receive came in.

It had been three days since you had last seen Peter. A lot can happen in three days.

A hard slam of files of Peter's work desk enabling a flinch to shudder through his body, eyes flickering up to see Office Randler standing before him. His face was stern, hand caressing the stubble on his chin as he looked down to the pile of sheets, "we got a good one this time, Parker"

Immediately Peter knew was Randler was talking about. Admittedly it had been a while since Lockjaws the last attack, so before anything, he had been expecting it. Peter swallowed, picking up the booklet and opening the sandy front page. His stomach twisted and gurgled as his eyes were fed nothing but blood and gore, severed bodies and decapitated limbs. Whoever this was, they were certainly going all out.

"Looks they really took their anger out on this one," Peter commented nervously, "where did you find them?"

"We found her just down the alleyway past the old mining factory, we were able to get some DNA from the body before it began decomposing. Her name was Joanne Griffin, 17 and harmless, and from what we can conclude she was murdered possibly just this morning." Randler pulled out a chair, taking a seat as Peter continued looking through the files. There was a photograph of her of which he recognised. She was just joining Midtown when Peter had graduated. And now, she was dead.

"Did... Did you get anything of who the attacker might be? Some their DNA, maybe?"

"Unfortunately, no," he sighed deeply. It had been months now, why was there still nothing? "however, we did find this" Randler reached into his pocket, pulling out a small piece sample shed between two small pieces of glass. The fingerprint was bloodied, sat beside a photograph of where it had been found.

"This morning the police and investigators did a search in the local area, they found the fingerprint on the keypad to one of the apartment buildings just down the street. We identified the fingerprint immediately, not suspecting to find Joanne's blood. The case was announced for another local murder, but we just tied another end." Peter took the photograph from the table, eyes flicking over it carefully, "don't you live in that apartment complex, Parker?"

Peter's eyes squinted as he looked at the pattern of the fingerprints. They travelled in order, the bloodstain growing thinner on each number showing which one was possibly first typed in and which one was last. 4751.

"Yeah, yeah..." Peter nodded, passing the photo back, "can I uh, can I see the actual print?"

"Sure" Randler nodded, handing him the two glass pieces. Whoever it was had a large gash down the middle of their index finger, or thumb, discombobulating the lines and cutting them apart halfway through the tracings.

"Surely that's something you could go off?" Peter's heart began to race, maybe he had found something.

"What?"