Sterling's Blood

Prints Charming

"An artwork that my father once had made, when I was a young boy. Out of nowhere. He was never even interested in making artwork. But this... was made with such passion and precision. A bright, perfect circle, in the very centre, having many minuscule dark squares and rectangles following its circumference in a counterclockwise direction that made them form more perfect circles around. I never understood it. He never explained so I stopped asking. I never tried to make my own meaning of it, as I didn't want to be different from him on this thing that was one of life's strangest mysteries for me. I hoped one day I would see or hear something, and fully understand it, and be just a little closer to my loving father. However, this... This makes him and I almost identical."

6:00 AM

Christmas

I had stood there in front of my artwork, watched Sarah and the search teams search around the warehouse.

"Um, why is Homicide here?"

"We found a body."

"What?"

"Yeah, poor fella crushed the under the rubble. We believe the place was tampered with, hereby turning this into a murder.", she sipped her coffee and yawned.

Why didn't I check...? Why didn't I fucking check?!

"God..."

"Since when do you show so much compassion?"

"No... just curious. Who was it, anyway?"

"61 year old male, drug addict, homeless, and a thief with the amount of wallets we found on him."

That doesn't make it feel any better....

A few hours later, the report from the forensics arrived and I stood there, next to her desk with Lauren in front of me.

"The prints from the wood stuck inside him. They're the same ones but... smaller. I'm telling you.", said Lauren.

"But... smaller?", said Sarah while I raised an eyebrow.

"Yeah. I don't- I don't know how that's possible. These same prints, but larger, were found at that scene where those two unidentified men were slaughtered, in the, um, parking lot. And the prison too."

"What the fuck are we actually looking for?", said Sarah in an almost weak voice as I put my hand on her shoulder.

"And, you're here because...?", asked Lauren.

"She has barely slept. I'm here to make sure she is okay.", I replied.

"Detective, you should get some rest. We need it too. It's Christmas, after all."

"Yeah.", she was almost inaudible.

I made sure no one saw me as I took a picture of the report that had my fingerprints on it using Sarah's phone, while I made it look like I took a simple selfie.

"Hey, I'm going to the bathroom. Be right back.", I said as she just made a grumpy noise as an 'okay.'

I stared at my left hand to see that my prints were ordinary and human. I then focused on it to try and turn just that into its other form. A smile illuminated my face once I saw it was possible. Once it was large enough, I noticed that the pattern of my fingerprints had changed entirely and that they had extended all the way down to the start of each finger. Then I looked at the report to see identical prints.

I morphed my hand back to normal but noticed that the prints didn't follow. I then realized that the prints took longer to turn back than everything else.