The murders continued. Yuri sighed every time she had to add to her wall. A 22 year old female, just outside the grocery store, a 24 year old male near the gym. A pair of 29 year old twins at the downtown coffee shop, Yuri just wanted it all to stop.
The thing was, the more she investigated, the more creepy it seemed. She was always there in the area just minutes before each murder. And somehow, it didn't seem like a coincidence. Cause Yuri had encountered each one of these people before, she just never knew their names.
The original two had been in her English and History classes respectively. The 22 year old girl had delivered pizza to her once. The 24 year old interned at the post office. And the twins had lived in the dorm next door.
Yuri was scared. What monster goes after people that she barely knew, just minutes after she passed by them. Was she overthinking what was obviously a coincidence? Or was there something darker at work?
Yuri wanted to belive it was just a coincidence, but she knew, it wasn't. Yuri had always believed in magic, she always knew it was there. She could sense it in ways that other people couldn't dream of, and now?
She felt it stronger than ever. But this magic was tainted. It wasn't as dark as she expected black magic to be, but it was dirtied, by the blood of innocent people.
Magic wasn't meant to be used in this way, though magic was a neutral creature. Magic, depends on it's wielder, it is neither evil nor good, it just is. Yuri needed this magic to stop, to leave her and these people alone. But she didn't know how to make it leave.
Yuri looked at the small plastic container on her desk, evidence she had collected. The original photo of the claw marks from the window that Afia had taken. The scratch marks on the second victim. Tufts of fur from the third site, and the most recent one, green scales found embedded in the skin of the twins.
Afia had warned her, someone new would die this week, so she would be prepared. Yuri was dressed in all black, hair pulled up into a bun, with her phone fully charged to take photos. She wore plasic gloves, and shoved plasic bags, vials from the chemisty lab, and a medical kit in her purse.
At sun down, Yuri left the dorms. The pattern was always the same, someone in their 20s, someone Yuri had encountered, always found dead in an alley. There were only 13 alleys in the town, each murder in a different one. That left eight other possible places for tonight's death to take place.
Yuri headed towards the last one she had been in, a dimly lit place in between a corner store and a coffee shop. She settled behind a tower of cardboard boxes and waited. She waited, and waited, and waited, and waited. For two hours, she sat there, but no one came.
Yuri sighed. Maybe Afia was wrong, maybe the person who died tonight didn't have anything to do with the murders. She got up and left, running as fast as she could in the silver light.
"Any luck?" Afia sat on her bed, nose in a book.
"No one was there."
"Strange." Afia set the book down. "Could have sworn it was going to be there." Yuri threw her bag on her desk, kicking off her shoes.
"Maybe you were wrong about the date?"
"I doubt it. Maybe I was wrong about the time." Yuri froze.
"The time?" She grabbed her bag, trying to put her shoes back on as she went back out the door. "Don't wait up for me!" she yelled. Yuri took the stairs two at a time, running back out into the night air. 'Each murder happened minutes after I left, whoever it was must have known I was there.'
She reached the alley, and stopped, surveying the mess. "No, no, no, no." She was too late. Blood was splashed over the walls, the boxes toppled and wet. The body, what was left of it anyways, was in the center of the alley, shriveled, like he, or she, had been aged very quickly.
"Looks like they've been freeze dried." Yuri jumped and whipped around to see Afia standing behind her. She relaxed.
"You nearly scared me half to death. Hey, I thought I told you not to wait up."
"I wasn't about to let you go to a murder scene all by your lonesome."
"Fia, I would have been fine."
"What if the murderer came back?" Yuri turned around and knelt next to the body.
"At this point, I'm not sure that the person who murdered these people was human. And if they were, they would have to have very powerful magic to do this sort of damage."
"You're right. Also, they would have to know who you were, in order to make sure you weren't at the sight when these people were killed."
"Fia, do you think they can sense me?"
"I'm not sure. Rather, I think they might be using your energy to kill their victims. Have you been tired lately?"
"What? I mean I have but that's besides the point, what?" Afia sighed.
"There's a spell, that can be put on a person, so that murders can be committed using the cursed person's energy. It drains the life force of other people, and the cursed one, but after the murders stop, the collective energy of all killed floods the cursed person."
"Wouldn't that be beneficial to the cursed person?"
"No. The feeling is so addictive, that the person tries to hurt themselves to replicate it. The person will kill about two dozen people, and then themself." Yuri nodded.
"Then I must die before I cause any more of this." Afia frowned.
"No! I'm not sure that this spell has been cast on you. Not to mention, I'm around you all the time so why am I not dead? Until we figure it out, this is only a theory. Isolate yourself as much as possible, we will get to the bottom of this."
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