TH𝜽TA|| Updates!

Chapter 1: embers of a crashed academy

I am Bartholemeu, a detective that is always last to the scene, inspecting and proving(or disproving) a multitude of fables and tall tales. Recently I was given a mission to inspect an old school that was of course said to be haunted. This school was my old high school, and I had unfinished business there. I wanted to head back so badly, there were so many things that happened there, but I forgot what they were, I needed to remember, I needed to find the truth. With my own past at stake, I decided to take the case.

I then went to my boss, the man in charge of my funding and my missions. Oddly enough, he still calls me rookie after working with him many a year. I asked him about my case, and he gave me a stern warning. “Careful newbie” he started, “Exploring is not only a dangerous task, but it could lead you down horrific stories and routes that you didn’t mean to step foot on. Ensure that you are constantly aware of your surroundings and safety. Understand?”. My head bobbed up and down uncontrollably. Yes, I was ready for whatever might cross my path.

With that, I left for the pile of stones and bricks that was once a flourishing school. Before entering, I always see what it’s like on the inside, so I looked through the window(which was more like a circle of fragmented glass. I noticed that the school had holes in the ceiling that allowed skylight to enter, gently lighting up the entrance. Water droplets fell from dented water pipes. Just like that leaky faucet in your bathroom, the water pipes leaked and poured water out upon the cracked tile floors that sit underneath it, that absorbed every droplet of water it could net. It certainly gave a new meaning to the phrase “beyond repair”. Stones were piled up on the sides of the building. All were no longer perfect rectangular prisms. Pipes stuck out of the walls like worms exiting the earth during a heavy rain. In fact, the entire school(if you wish to call it that) seemed to be leaning at an almost perfect 11.25 degrees, which is… odd.

I immediately rushed back to the vehicle that sat in an empty parking lot that was full of the items I would need to not only escape a deadly situation, but to investigate the school further: a flashlight, a pocket knife, my universal telephone, a rope, and 3 packs of batteries for my flashlight. I packed them all into a small brown satchel that I slung across my shoulder. This was to carry the smaller items that I need or acquire from this “expedition” as you would call it. I turned to the school, and walked across the road, but as my hand hovered over the entrance to the door, someone grabbed my shoulder. I whirled around to face my oppressor, taking a shaky breath.

“Sheesh scaredy cat, you don’t need to be that scared of me.” a familiar voice mocked. This was one of the members of the CSC, one of 2 prominent groups in the school. We tried to save it, they just kept coming… and I wasn’t able to stop doomsday from destroying the school. 

This entire story began with my thirteenth birthday coming around. I was in eighth grade, and was a good few months younger than my other friends. We loved watching detective movies and shows on our holo-screens. This device revolutionized the twenty-third century, giving many people the ability to have an entire gaming system on your wrist. In fact, we watched so many detective shows on it, that our hollow-screens started recommending different shows, as it was beginning to run out of detectives to show us. When we realized this we were hit by a pang of unhappiness, but all's well that ends well I guess

We then later decided to start our own mini-club where we investigate mini-crimes across the school. Things that were small like:”Can you figure out where my lunch box went”,”Can you find where Billy hid my lunch box”,”I forgot where I put my lunchbox, can you find it?”. There were plenty of lunchbox crimes to solve and many people only went to us for them. We were called the “Childhood solvers of crime”(Csc), though many people called us “the Secret Exemplary Crime-fighters”(Sec) which didn’t have much of a ring to it.