I Am Here

I remember, I wandered down the street with a slight wind on my left cheek. The street was almost empty, with only a person here or there. The autumn leaves all crusty and scraping as they crossed the road. The sun was just about to set and a bright orange light lit up what seemed to be the whole of the town of Eden.

I took a left turn and then two blocks down turned right to the address that my friend had given me. I was looking for a job and at this point I was pretty desperate, I would seriously take anything that came up. I had moved to Eden from my parents farm in northern NSW hoping for a break from the monotony of rural life. So far, my exciting adventure had been nearly as dull as farm life. I arrived at a large building that sort of looked like an old pub, so I wandered in, I inspected it, just to make sure that I wasn't entering into something I may regret later.

I gave my self one last look over in the glass door before I pushed it open. As I entered I could feel my intuition buzzing, going crazy inside me, but I dismissed it as I thought it was just nervous energy.

I continued through the dimly lit corridor and came upon a lady who seemed to be painting. She must have sensed my presence as she turned around immediately. "You're Sophia Smith? Here for the job interview?"

I replied in my most business-like tone, "Yes that would be me". I had to get this job.

"I'm Francis Pierce. Follow me."

She lead me into a dark room where my eyes could only just make out the faint outline of piles of books lying along the floor. We took the seats that were placed at a small desk in the middle of the room, I braced myself for the necessary questions to see if I was the right person for this job. But she just stared at me for a couple of seconds and then she seemed to be smiling to her self probably thinking I wouldn't notice.

That was months ago now. If you had told me that day that I would now be working on Eden crimes I would have laughed in your face, but here I am.

Francis and I took up a new case that occurred down by the Eden river. It's a murder case from 1995. The police dropped it as they couldn't come to any conclusion, as the only witness went missing under mysterious circumstances. I asked myself, if the only witness went missing, how would we be able to find anything to solve the case? But here we were, in the Mazda, about to go and see if we could find anything about the case.

Sitting in the car with cold leather seats sticking to my warmblooded legs, my mind travels back in time to what had happened in my past years. It was like a film playing right in front of me, before I got to the end, we had arrived.

When we finally got to the river, the air was fresh. The sound of peace and quiet surrounded us.
We decided to split up to gather clues. I walked towards the east, against the flow of the river. I stopped about a half a mile up stream, watching the water and searching through the dense vegetation.

I looked at the water and saw a small piece of paper floating on the surface of the water. I reached into the water. It wasn't hand written, but computer generated. It read " I'm watching you, I'm mad and I'm coming".

I looked around to find Francis but couldn't see her. I was suddenly aware of my heart beating fast. I wandered towards the old broken bridge to inspect further and another note appeared on the water. I felt the cold water up to my knees as I reached across to get it but it moved further away, beckoning me into the water, now up to my chest. I caught the floating paper and it read " don't get stuck". I began to panic and scrambled to get out but my body seemed to be sinking into the mud beneath me.
"Francis!" I screamed. There was no reply.
The water had turned red and warm and smelt of blood. I started to panic but stopped short at the sight of thousands of tiny white pieces of paper surrounding me. I couldn't feel the bottom of the river anymore but I could feel something sharp brushing past my legs at this point the water was all red around me. Out of sheer curiosity I grabbed one of the papers. It read, "I am here."