The Spirits of the Unknown

Short Story

Three decades ago, massive black clouds covered my city in a foggy shade of darkness, the skies never seem to discover the radiance of light. I lived in a moody town where it was incredibly dark as if you had seen the depths of an intimidating cave. Rain kept cascading down and splashed itself on the cars that were stuck in the traffic due to the horrendous weather. The streetlights flickered on and off, and the heavy storm worsened. The storm was thundering, roaring at us, it seemed like we did something dreadful towards the innocent environment, again. I dashed through a large crowd of people, shivering under the drenched umbrellas that were covering themselves from the torrented rain. It wasn't the kind of town you imagined, it was seriously burdensome and I felt so irritated that I had to go through this every day. I stopped for a moment and looked up to the glowering dark clouds, allowing the rain to drip and settle onto my face. I thought to myself, "God really did curse us with this monstrous and endless weather." I let out a sigh and quickly moved on.

I finally arrived at work at the police station. I'm working as a professional detective, but I wish I got assigned as a cop. I took my soaking jacket off and threw it onto the dusty clothing rack. As always, the place looked like a filthy landfill and it smelt like sweaty bikers. My detective team and I had to investigate a gruesome museum, it was one of our missions assigned to us. Rumors have been said that there were deadly or dangerous ghosts that were wandering around in there. I didn't believe it, not one bit!

"You guys ready? The big day is tomorrow." I sighed, exhausted.

One of my members, Marshall, responded, "Yep, this one is pretty difficult, not gonna lie, and we have a higher chance of dying." My crew nodded in agreement.

"Remember, we have to find it. We can't get distracted," Brun cupped his chin and continued, "-we have to focus on what we need to do."

"Yessir!" RJ said, punching his hand into his fist with determination.

"You're right, Brun. We have to stick together." I added more to Brun's statement.

Everyone smiled but it felt sad, somehow. No one was excited to do the mission, not even RJ. Of course, no one was excited. There was a 99.99% chance of a risk of losing your life, how could you be enthusiastic about that?

Marshall clapped his hands together to gather our attention, "Alright guys, time to sleep! We need lots of rest for tomorrow!" Marshall informed all of us to get us prepared.

"The next day was another gloomy misty morning like we were in a dark abyss."

My crew and I sat in an old black van. Brun was the driver who would bring his ruler everywhere with him because he likes hitting things, his clean bald head would show off my reflection clearly whenever I walked passed him. There was also RJ, the one who shows off and tries really hard to become the best, he's seriously immature. Then Marshall, he was the intelligent type but he was a weak man. Lastly, me. My name is Regen, it's a German name that means rain. I got assigned to become a detective because I needed to take my father's position since he passed away. My dad was very famous back in the day, he was the hero you would see in a superhero movie. The guy who would solve everything off his mind, basically an expert. He was the best crime solver, especially murder cases. Him and I used to get so compared so much, we had so, so much fun together! But sadly, my father got shot, the murderer was never found after these long years but - I'll find him.

As I stare out the window, there were droplets of rain, which slithered down endlessly. I thought about my father, I know it had been about three decades since his murder but, it's stupid. The mission that we were doing was difficult, there were many steps to this mission. We had to search for an ancient book that was secretly hidden in someone's home because they stole it. We have found a riddle that went along in the book. We had to find this mysterious item with this riddle that we found in the book. The book mentioned it would help us with reducing the abominable storms we have now. The riddle stated: