The Demon King

Chapter 4

Serena woke up the next morning with keys from her keyboard indented onto her face, and with an extremely stiff neck. She looked up in a daze at her computer to the unfinished murder story that she had been writing that night.

"Crap, I'm never gonna finish this before my shift."

She went to grab her flashdrive before glancing up at the wall in front of her desk. She shot up out of her chair so fast, it hit the floor with a loud bang. She starred in horror at the pictures and writing on the wall.

"I SEE YOU"

The writing was long dried and was written in some red paint. The pictures were things that a stalker could have taken. Some of her leaving her car to walk into her office, some of her inside her room. There was also a disturbing photo of her getting undressed in the bathroom, her shirt halfway over her head with her bra shown clear as day to the photographer. They were all organized into some sick collage.

Serena didn't dare touch the photos, but she did run out of her room to grab her older brother from the dinning room.

"Ethan!"

She fought back a laugh as she watched him spit his orange juice out through his nose, startled at her sudden outburst. But the memory of the wall quickly sobered her back up.

"What the hell are you freaking out about Rena?!" He grabbed a napkin to whip his face and blow his nose in.

"There's some creepy pictures on my wall! Some one posted pictures on my bedroom wall while I slept!" She was shaking in both fear and adrenaline. Adrenaline, because despite the circumstances, she had a sort of weird admirer. Fear, because they had somehow accessed her room while she slept.

Ethan was on his feet in an instant and nearly jogging to her room. But when they got there, they had very different expressions on their faces.

Ethan looked confused, Serena was now terrified.

"Rena, there's nothing here," and he was right. Everything that she had just saw was gone from the wall. Every picture, every bit of red paint. It was almost like she imagined it.

"What? No! It was here! There were weird pictures and writing on the wall! It was here!" She began to examine the wall, felling its surface, wondering where everything could have went in such a short amount of time.

Ethan ran his fingers through his morning hair, "Serena, you had a scare yesterday. You were up late last night, and not only that, you're in charge of a murder story. Your mind is playing tricks on you, there was nothing here," He began walking from the room, leaving her to look after him in bewilderment.

Was that all it was? was it just her mind playing tricks on her?

She sighed and went back to her morning routine. After eating breakfast in quiet embarrassment, she went to brush her teeth and take a shower. 

She quickly got undressed after tackling her death breath, and exhaled deeply once the hot water hit her back. She reveled in the heat of her shower, taking her time to wash up. When she finished, she grabbed her towel and stepped out, getting ready to do her hair.

She froze at the sight of the bathroom mirror.

"HELLO CUTIE"

Her red lipstick had been smeared on the mirror glass along with two photos. One of her getting undressed, one of her stepping naked into the shower.

Both looked as if they had just been taken.

          ~_~

The ride to her office was tedious and nerve racking. She had been a nervous wreck all morning. After finding the message on the mirror, she quickly went to her bedroom to get dressed, remembering Ethan's words and wondering if it was real. After returning to the bathroom to do her hair, everything was gone.

She began to run her fingers through her hair, but stopped, as she had always willed herself never to get into the family habit.

She pulled into her parking space, more than ready to put the morning's events behind her. After waving to the Graphics team as they walked into the break room to get a morning cup of coffee, she clocked in and went over to her desk to continue the story.

After a few minutes of staring at the screen, she finally decided to just show what she had to the editor for consultation. Serena got it printed and walked proudly to Arnold's office.

He skimmed through it for half a minute, and dumped the story into his trash bin next to his desk.

"Hey! What gives?" She bent down to retrieve the discarded story, but stopped when Arnold stood out of his seat.

"It's too bland, there's not enough information. It's just the beginning of the case, there isn't even a suspect yet. You need to get out there and find out more information. Do the thing you do where you annoy your brother, or maybe go back to the crime scene. Like you did that one time with the Holiday Hacker story."

The Holiday Hacker was a middle aged man who had hacked into the local stores and bank systems to leak money into his account. Serena had helped to take a look around the crime scene and it was her who discovered the breach in the software at the bank, but no one could track it's source. It worked, until Ethan decided to take a look at some of the accounts and found more than half a million just sitting there in this guy's account. Being an unemployed man living out of his parents' basement, it raised suspicion on how he was able to acquired all of the money. He was more than happy to confess once put under the pressure of interrogation. Serena came up with the nickname, due to the fact that the entire case was opened and closed around the time of Christmas. 

Despite what Ethan says about his sister, they make a pretty good team when it comes to solving cases.

"So I need more concrete information on possible suspects, if there are any, and try to identify victims? I could go back to the crime scene, but I'd hardly think there's anything left after the police force stripped the place from the ground up. Maybe I can get a statement from the guy who contacted the police, but again, he's already been questioned. I could try to help identify the bodies? That seems like a plausible thing I could do to help the investigation, but it was already confirmed that there wasn't any form of identification on the bodies," She stopped to think for a minute, "Hmm, I'll have to think about that, Arnold."

He smirked and sat back down, "Careful Andrews, your inner detective is showing."

Serena rolled her eyes and began turning towards the door, "Can't help it. I've had to listen to my dad and brother go over case files since I was 10. I'm naturally programmed to investigate, even though my job is to simply report those investigations."

He gave her a knowing look, "Maybe you chose the wrong field to work in?"

"Hell no."

Arnold chuckled and went back to reviewing the story he was reading when she walked in.

Serena walked back to her desk empty handed and stumped. She had thought it was a good starting point, at least, but her editor had obviously thought otherwise. 

After returning to her desk, she opened her computer back up, because it had turned to sleep mode. She instantly froze with her fingers hovering over the keyboard.

Her rough draft was opened and there was an obvious statement added to it at the bottom in large bold letters.

"SOMETHING WRONG MISS ANDREWS?"

Serena deleted the entire document and shut down her computer, determined to both find the source of these messages, and write the most intriguing story Saddenville has ever seen.

She grabbed her keys, and set off to find her info.

      ~_~

GUYS!! You don't understand how long it took me to write this simple chapter! I had so many ideas and ended up trashing most of them. Finally I was in school and I thought this up. I've been working on this since noon...

I'm gonna try to continue writing this story, but trying to make filler chapters, and not jump right into the main plot of the story is really hard DX

But I'm gonna try! So I hope this is enough for now until I get the next chapter out!

Thank you for sticking around and being so patient with me!