Perseverance [Complete]

Chapter 15

Arthit's POV

I slowly made my way out of the bathroom towards the disgusting box. I tried to take deep breaths to calm myself enough to figure out what and why was that package here. I was failing miserably. My hands were trembling as I reached inside to take a closer look.

It was a small green dress. Rune's dress. The one she had decided to not wear today morning for the picnic. It was filthy. It was covered in dirt and something else. Blood. It was caked all over the dress. But that was not what had made my stomach churn. Laying right in the center of the box were three dead birds, with their heads separated from their body, and their insides spilling out like they had been gutted.

There were small pieces of bread around them and they looked similar to the type of birds we had been feeding in the park today.

My heart was beating so hard that I felt my head spinning. I held onto to my desk tightly to prevent passing out. What did all of this mean? What was going on?

It took me a few moments to reorient myself to my surroundings before I started parsing through everything that sat in front of me on the desk.

Some psychopath had sent me dead birds. Had followed us to the park to know that we fed them today. Killed them and left them at my doorstep. Who would do that? Why would anyone do that? That is when I snapped to attention.

Rune's green dress. Not only had that person followed us but had also broken into my house today. Touched my Rune's things. No! This wasn't the first time that person entered into the apartment. The door, the glass, the juice, the books. They had entered my house many times before without me even knowing about it. I suddenly felt exposed. I felt violated. And most importantly I felt scared.

I sprang up from my chair and started packing an overnight bag for Rune. I don't know what is going on but I needed to first get Rune away from this apartment. I can't believe I was sleeping peacefully every night when some crazy person could walk into the house any time and hurt her.

Thankfully none of my emotional break down had woken her. I carried her in my arms and walked straight towards Kong's room. I knew he would care for her, he would keep her safe till I figured out what to do next. She would be ok as long as long as she was with him.

I knew I was shivering when I handed her to Kong. I could see he was worried but I didn't want to involve him yet. I didn't even know what it was. Right now I just needed him to keep Rune as far away from my apartment as possible.

I went back to my apartment, gathered the package and took it to the police. Which turned out to be the most useless and frustrating experience possible.

They had completely dismissed most of my concerns calling them household accidents that happen all the time and that I was overreacting because I was just stressed. Atleast they were willing to take the dead birds seriously. But instead of doing any actual investigation they kept focusing on the list of people that had my house keys. Which was nearly all my friends. Nearly anyone who has ever babysat Rune who she approved of had free access into my home.

I felt so foolish sitting there with them chuckling at my plight when the list grew beyond 15 people. Apparently according to them the only problem here was that I was too trusting. What else did I expect from a bunch of college boys. Someone wanted to play a prank and they found a perfect target. So their brilliant advice to my panic attack was to change my door locks and not hand out keys to anyone again.

I was ready to pull out my hair with frustration. It didn't help that I threw a huge fit at the police station that they weren't taking me seriously and then basically got kicked out. How stupid was it that unless someone actually got hurt they didn't care about someone freaking breaking into my apartment.

I made my way back to my apartment. I am not sure what to do right now. Perhaps I am overreacting. Maybe all of this really is some dumb prank with someone with a terrible sense of humor. But it didn't feel like a joke to me. I had glass lodged in my foot for heaven's sake. Rune could have died due to her allergic reaction. There is absolutely no way my friends would do anything like this. It wasn't any of them. It just wasn't. I was sure of it. But in any case not giving access to anyone to my home or for that matter Rune for the time being seemed like a good idea.

I was sitting on my desk again. Only this time along with fear I was feeling this massive sense of helplessness. I couldn't be next to Rune 24x7 and I didn't know who else I was supposed to trust right now. As much faith as I had in all my friends, was I really willing to risk Rune's wellbeing on that chance?

One thing was sure, I was not staying at this apartment until I found the psycho messing with me. As I was playing through the different options in my head, something kept nagging at me. Like there was something I should have noticed which I hadn't. My head snapped up when it finally dawned on me. I was such an idiot. That should have been the first thing I realized. My phone beeped flashing a message from a number I didn't recognize. I picked up the phone, my hand shaking with trepidation, and I felt my heart sink as I realized what that meant.