Faceless Instincts

The Journalist

Dorian and I visited the library and went straight to the librarian asking for newspapers.

"You want newspapers from twenty years ago?" She asked in scepticism, "what are you even looking for?"

"A rare case study, Madame." Dorian turned on his charm mode and she smiled.

"Will I get any credit?" She asked and Dorian smiled, "in bold and capital letters." He said.

She hushed him shyly and asked us to follow her.

"What was so complimentary about it?" I asked in a low voice.

"Why, you don't enjoy academic credits? That is like a high compliment?" He asked and I looked at him with a frown making him laugh.

The lady lead us to an underground hall where there were thousands of newspapers stacked on racks after racks, "any particular subject?" She asked.

"A cult was formed in the town, we are researching on it," Dorian said directly and the lady looked at him with shock.

"You are researching on that cult?" She asked and Dorian nodded.

Her entire demeanour changed as she looked at us tastelessly, "F-17" she spat and walked past us.

Dorian and I shared a look then made our way to the section. After searching for ten good minutes we found the papers we were looking for.

"Look at this." I said as I spotted a small paragraph on the cult, "it says two boys were found brutally murdered in the woods."

Dorian nodded, "yes, there were many unexplained deaths around that time."

We searched for more and he found some good length of them, "severed heads, Missing organs, Mysterious accidents, and missing people." He pointed everything out.

"Missing organs." I said slowly, "they seem to have a fixation for organs."

"There were Tons of missing people reports too." He said as I pulled out another paper.

My focus got caught when I read a headline, "Psychiatric institutions overflow: The Cult is Driving People Insane."

"Yes." Dorian included, "psychiatric cases were abundant during that time. People were acting strange and started going crazy as there were rumours that whoever joins the cult loses sanity after some time."

"Doesn't that sound sketchy?" I asked looking up at him as he leaned in.

"It sounded sketchy to me even back then." He said, "it's impossible that every single one of them lost their mind or developed another disease."

"I think those were people who needed to be silenced." I said as I turned the next page and saw Sussanne's pictures, "is this your?"

Dorian nodded, "yes, that my mother, this is actually how I found out that they call my mother a witch."

I rubbed my forehead, "I am confused, what if your mother thought she would go crazy and that's why she was taking the psychiatric help from Mr Wembley?"

Dorian was deep in thought, "but she faced difficulties." He said to raise a point.

"Like seeing things differently, losing track of day and night and stuff?" I asked and he nodded.

"I know... I know.... that's what's boggling my mind." I read the headline again, "this piece of information has changed everything."

I looked at the papers and something caught my eye, most of the covered articles were written by the same journalist, "do you think this journalist would still be around?" I asked and Dorian smiled.