The Cage

prologue

Darkness surrounded him like a impenetrable curtain, absorbing all light of the lanterns. "Jasper? Where are you?" He wavered across the street, the flashlight of his mobile barely penetrating the fog. "Dude, this is not funny." He coughed, not knowing what expected him in the white nebula, inscrutable and mysterious.
Let's leave him alone for a bit and look over, to another part of the city a week before. Who is he, you may ask. Well, we will leave that for later, right? Since we left him now, we want to look at a man, standing in the police office. His hair is light brown and his leather jacket is wet from the rain, that is covering the street in coruscating splinters of water, making the grey asphalt reflect the bright lights in front of the police station. The boy – Lucas is his name – is standing in front of a serious looking policeman with glasses, grey hair and an outworn uniform with an impressive number of insignias on it. His name is Alistair McCormack, a Scottish inspector. "Well, Mr Carter" – he means Lucas – "you might want to tell us what exactly happened, will you?" Lucas nodded and the inspector told him to sit down since it might take a time, telling the story. "Mr McCormack, Sir, I was in the library this evening since I wanted to return a book I borrowed. After that I stayed there for a few hours – studying I believe – I slept in and as I woke up, it was almost midnight. Good ol' Miss Patell didn't look upstairs, I believe. Well, as I came down, I just wanted to leave right away, I swear, I stumbled over something and as I turned the light on, I discovered it was a bit of a corpse, an arm I believe. Well" Lucas paused, breathed in as he remembered that disturbing situation that made him feel sick in his stomach. "I found the head and the upper body in the thriller section and called the police immediately. I didn't touch the corpses at all, except for that one time I stumbled over the arm. Well – here I am." The inspector nodded and looked down at the taken notes. "Was the blood still fresh as you discovered Miss Waterstone?", he then asked. Lucas shook his head. He remembered the scene clearly, burned into his memory, he still saw Cleo's lifeless, dark eyes staring at the ceiling and still seeing nothing. He remembered the dryed blood all around her head and in her hair. He felt that sickness come again. "Excuse me", he said with wavery voice "May I have a..." He didn't get to finish his sentence and vomited right on the floor, before the inspector's feet.

"I am so sorry!", Lucas said for the hundredth time. "It's fine.", the inspector answered. "I shouldn't have asked that question. But I did and your memory about the corpse made you throw up. Happens. But if I would've asked in a more polite way, we'd waste time. And this is what you're doing right now. Instead of apologizing, tell me, did you only found her head, upper body and arm?" The dark-blonde answered, immediately remembering: "Oh no. After quite a while of searching through the library, waiting for you to come, I discovered another arm in the multilingual section. But the legs weren't there."
My God, Lucas thought. This is some really fucked up shit. What the heck happened to her?
"Did you found them?"
Inspector McCormack, who was expecting these reaction smiled to himself. "Yes. They were in the kids section. Our laboratory is examining them." He looked at the tan man in front of him, studying his posture. He seemed to be quite insecure himself and still, his eyes were filled with curiosity even if he was disgusted by the discovery of the corpse.
"What do you think happened to her?" Mr McCormack sighed. "We don't know exactly yet but...she couldn't have cut herself into pieces hence someone must've killed her. We didn't find any weapon so the killer either took it with him or didn't murder her at the library. It could've been a random kill as well as a personal one but I think the murder knew his victim very well. And now, can you please leave your phone number here so we can contact you in case of more upcoming questions?" The younger man nodded in agreement and the inspector brought him a few papers to fill out.

So this was Lucas, who obviously found the dismembered corpse of Cleo Waterstone. I am still sorry for her, every time I tell the story. I didn't know her very well, but she was a kind person, quite a drama queen, yes, but friendly. It shouldn't have ended like this. But nobody really deserves to die, do they? If I look back now, I know, I could've got the killer more than one time. But you can't judge that yet because I didn't tell you the story yet. That was just the beginning.
Hence, back to the boy in that foggy street, searching for Jasper. It was not the same night as the one where Lucas found the corpse, it was about a week later. The boy just wanted to get out of that alley, out of the dazing darkness, that makes him feel lost and confused. He finds the wall of a house and groped his way along through the fog. Suddenly, his hands feel something else than stone, something warm and liquid. "What the heck.", he looks at the red fluid with a shocked expression. "Dude, stop the pranking please. I'm getting seriously scared here." He heard something, someone walking away from him "Oi, Jasper! Ist that you?" The fog started to get clearer. The boy looks at the wall, his gaze went up to where the red liquid came down from. "Holy fuck."
Up there, he could clearly recognise Jasper's head. Just his head. And a bloody knife, sticking out of one of his lifeless eyes.