Grimm

Grimm - Part 3 - The Fairest of Them All

My voice trailed off after those last words and I found myself staring blankly into the oblivion before me. As if subconsciously cleansing myself, my hands rubbed at one another; the feeling of the thick, crimson blood still ingrained in my mind. The blood that was continuing to be spilled as long as I continued to come up empty handed. Letting my thumb trickle across my palm, much like the blood had done itself, my fingers clasped around the ring tightly secured in place. With a little twist the ring slid off into my hand. Still staring ahead I did not look down to see the ring myself, but I could feel it turning and tumbling amongst my fingertips. The calloused skin of my palm would occasionally snag the engraved carvings in the otherwise smooth metal. Squeezing it tight within my grasp at last, my head nodded down to see the clenched fist in my lap. I could feel its edges pressing deeper into my skin, but I dare not loosen my grip for fear that I would lose everything to this monstrosity. Raising my knuckles to my lips I let my eyes close for a brief moment in hopes that somehow I would wake up from this awful nightmare that was plaguing the world around me.

"Detective Reid. . ." In such a daze I had been unaware of the fact that he had been trying to regain my attention for quite sometime as I had been so distracted with my own decrepit wedding band.

With a sigh of my own self ridicule I replied, "I do not mean to be so easily distracted Doctor, it just seems that reliving these events so vividly has strung up a nerve within me. It's quite unsettling and at times I find it hard to even continue on," Sliding the band back into its proper place I adjusted my posture much like I had before, "Not only must I watch others pass away to this demonic beast, but it seems as if I myself have been cursed with a deadly Midas touch. The longer I sit soaking away in my own remorse and sorrow, the longer this devil is capable of wreaking havoc our lives."

I rose from my chair, but Dr. Hamelin quickly sprung up and notioned that I return to my seat, "No no no. Detective please take a seat, you are in no condition to leave. You must finish the story, finish telling me of your troubles," With bony hands he nudged me back down onto the cushion, waiting on his feet for a moment to ensure that I would not try and escape once more, " The letters. The- the code. That's where you had left off. Continue Parker, it can only help you in the long run. Reliving through these things, they- they can only help you realize your mistake. It's constructive you see? A sort of proof reading of the entire investigation from start to finish."

Once again the Doctor had succeeded in blind siding me with a burst of unaccounted enthusiasm. He was a rather anxious man, and he almost quivered in his polished shoes with excitement at the thought of me staying to finish the narration. Returning to the seat of his own, he scrambled to reposition the notepad in his lap. Although on the outside his facial expressions were plain, you could make out spark of pleasure in his pale eyes. "The code and the snowflake, Detective Reid. Tell me what happened next."

I was hesitant to begin once more after such an unusual behavior, but with his look of intent drilling deep into my own look of confusion, my voice began to pick up speed once more. The letters and the snowflake, the gates to Hell. Whether or not my mind was merely tormenting me I do not know, but I swore could hear the faintest whimper of a distant child lost to darkness.

Only a few days more had gone by, but not a second did I spend away from the case. Every waking minute of the day was spent attempting to unravel the mystery that was that code. Notebooks of my own were beginning to overflow with the possible combinations of the letter, yet none of them seemed to be relevant to anywhere or anything. This was the most frustrating thing of all, the fact that I had they key to preventing the next murder but being unable to simply work with the tools given to me. Hardly ever did I sleep anymore. My wife, Catherine, would only find me at night to kiss her before she went to sleep herself. Unlike me, she was not haunted by the ghosts of the fallen, she was nothing more than a bystander looking out upon a morbid playing field. It funny actually, funny how we would always proclaim our love for one another yet in the time I needed her most I would not even give her the time of day; only a soft peck every night to show her that I was still there for her. Now that I think about it though, if anyone would have known the answer to this riddle, it would have been her. If only I had known.