Obscurity

𝔓𝔯𝔬𝔩𝔬𝔤𝔲𝔢 ☾

She was sure..This night is the last night.

The terrifying silence of a room, illuminated with dim lights, surrounded her as electricity flickered. 

She lived alone, no animal to let outside or bring inside. But for safety reasons, she checked the locks of the remaining windows and the entrance door. Everything securely latched.

The unexplained feeling of fear enveloped her ability to think. 

No use. There was no use of running from the past, you desperately tried to be concealed. There's no room for fear. Her time has come. 

She hiked up the stairs as a bath was what she needed to calm the unstable nerves. The bottle, containing crimson in color liquid, gushed inside, filling the crystal-like water, two elixirs mixing up in harmony. 

The attire, that she wore, was neatly folded, put inside the clothes basin. She heaved a sigh, before stepping in the heated water, letting it sink her delicate features. The aroma in a room was of a mixed scent of fruits and flowers. A smile wrecked her facial expression, the same smile, of undeniable regret.

Dead silence, only the sound of water splashing on her skin.

Minutes passed, as she heard a distinct sound coming from the kitchen's window as if something scratching on the glass. 

It got louder and louder and louder.

What followed next, was barely audible sounds of creaking steps. 

He is here, she thought. Her eyelids gently closed, darkness surrounding the fragile body.

As the door of the bathroom opened up, a gust of wind tickled her hair's follicles, making the woman in the bath open her tired eyes.

There stood a man, dressed in all black, like a shadow lingering in a corner. His head was covered in darkness blinding mask, covering the entire face up, only vague sockets popping out. 

She shook her head.

"I swear, I didn't tell anyone..."

She tried to distinguish the shadow that was mere inches apart from her, pressing her body down to the suffocating water. She tried to stay calm, but her body had other things in mind, as she felt the water between her legs warming up, dyeing it in yellow. 

Death is not a thing she desired to accomplish in life. She wanted to live and be free. 

"Please... I don't want to die..." 

The young woman was pushed harder in the depth, as bubbles formed on the surface of the water, popping out as she tried to resist, swaying her arms out the evaporating water. 

She was stupefied as the killer was non-other than the man she knew, just before the consciousness left her body...

...

"Wei Wuxian, there is a new case for you." 

A man, in his mid-twenties, walked inside a room, which seemed to be an office. There stood a lean figure of a man, gazing through a window into a crowded street below him.

He turned around, clear dissatisfaction ruining the beautiful features of a man.

"Jiang Cheng, don't you know how to knock?"

Jiang Cheng, a close friend of Wei Wuxian, was of a dazzling beauty himself if not for his unique personality of being inhospitable and rude. 

"There's no time for that. We've got a killer on a loose." 

He placed the documents that were safely tugged in his armpit on the empty desk. The left hip leaned on the wooden object as he looked at the detective in front of him.

Wei Wuxian walked to his table, grabbed the documents from on top of it, opening the file in his palms.

"Woman. Thirty-seven. High school teacher. Lives alone. No relatives. Killed in her own bathroom?" 

He glanced at his only friend while the latter was already staring back at him. 

Jiang Cheng nodded. He straightened his back, turned around and trudged to the door.

"Yes, let's leave now."