Cold Case

Waxing Gibbous

(Chapter 1: "The Beginning of the End" recap: After getting evidence for the murder of Nate's parents, he gets to the murder scene only to see his mother and father laying dead in the same spot that they were originally found. Nate's friend, Michael, also reveals to Nate that all of the evidence is now missing. Nate tells Michael to gather more people to search for the evidence and starts searching on his own and finds his son and daughter names carved into a tree after firing at it from letting his emotions take over. After seeing their names, he heads back home but on his way there,  as before, he has a moment where nothing is how it should be. He takes his medication that he forgot before he left and he's back at the scene. Michael and Nate then heads into the forest and continue searching.)

            Michael stops me. "Nate, look. Someone was here and clearly shots were fired." He says. "Yeah that was me. When I was searching, I seen a tree that we carved our names into...Mom, dad and I." I tell him. Michael just stares at me. "What..? I let my emotions get the best of me." I say. "So you shot at the tree?" He asks. "Yeah. Let's not talk about it." I say in an upset tone. "Okay but how would we know if there was evidence as far as bullet shells, Nate?" He asks me. "By looking at the bullet shells..I fired with a pistol, they could've used another firearm." I answer.

            We start searching hoping to find different bullet shells and my heart sank after what I found. "M..Michael." I say. "Yeah, buddy?" He turns and look at me. "Well holy shit. Look at you, Detective Nate." He says. I just stare at the shell. Michael grabs it and looks at it. "You alright? You should be happy that YOU just found some evidence. Plus we didn't even have this last time." He tells me. "Michael, are you blind? Look at it." I say. "Uh, I see initials...I think." He says. "And that it's a shotgun shell but that's just stating the obvious." He adds. "What are the initials, Michael?" I ask. "Looks liiike..N.C? Yeah...Your initials are N.C also." He says. I just cover my face with my hand. "Michael, my dad had a shotgun and we're finding shells back here. Mind you, we're basically in the back yard. We're not even far from the house." I tell him. Michael turns back at squints to see the house and looks back at the shotgun shell. "Yeah. Sorry, I'm trying to think if it was suicide but there's no blood here and plus, how would your mom and him end up at the front of your house? Well, their house. It just wouldn't make sense." He explains. I get a notification on my phone and take it out. I got a message from Maria but the message is empty. Just a message box with nothing in it. "You okay?" Michael asks sounding worried. "Uhh, yeah. Come with me, I need to head home again but I need you with me." I say as I'm walking off. "It should be a quick run so don't think-" I turn around only to see that Michael is gone.

            I stop and stand there for a second. "Michael!" I call out. I hear nothing but my voice echoing. I turn back around running from the woods and straight for the car. I get back to the scene and stop running. My car isn't where I left it. In fact, it's not even here at all. I think about pulling my phone out to contact someone but I already know that no one is gonna show up on my list. I just walk around in a circle thinking about what I can do to get out of whatever the hell this place is. "Maybe if I close my eyes and open them, I'll be back where I was before." I say to myself.

            I close my eyes and keep them closed for a few seconds. When I open them, I see..something. It was too fast for me to identify what it was. I look around to see if I can see where it could've gone but there's no foot prints or no sound indicating what direction it went in. I turn around and whatever ran past before runs through my body. I can barely breathe and hardly even move. My body starts to feel weak and numb but when I look down...blood is just spilling from my stomach and my guts are just hanging. I slowly start to lose balance and I faint. As soon as I hit the ground, I open my eyes only to see Michael in front of me telling me to snap out of it.

            "Nate! Are you good?" Michael asks. I just look around instead of paying attention to him. "Nate, look at me. You're not okay right now." He says. I ignore him again. I'm not completely shocked but I'm right back in the forest, right where I was standing before I left reality. "Michael...I'm going crazy. Like seriously.." I tell him. "I see that. You said that we had to go to your house and started walking but then you suddenly stopped and just stood there. You were out for like an hour." Michael says. "An hour? That's not true, I was only gone for maybe 15 minutes. Maybe longer but I know it wasn't an hour." I think to myself. "It didn't feel like it was that long, Mic. Did anyone report to you about any evidence?" I ask him. "No. I haven't heard anything from anyone actually." He answers.

            I pull out my walkie talkie to reach out to the others that went searching. "This is Nate reaching out to anyone searching, over." No one responds. "This is Nate, can anyone else hear me? Over." Again, there is no response. I just look at Michael and he looks back at me. "I..nt..h...ou." someone tries to speak back through the walkie talkie. "Can you repeat that?" I ask. "I couldn't hear you. I think our signal became weak." Person responds. "Oh, okay. I understand you now. Who's this?" I ask. "Sorry, It's Xander." He responds. "Okay, are you and your crew okay?" I ask. "Yeah, we're fine. We haven't found any evidence though." Xander answers. "Yeah, I figured. It's getting dark, do guys have flash lights?" I ask. "Yes, we have  'em." He replies. "Okay, good. Report back to me if you find anything. Over and out." I end the conversation and continue on my own search.

            It's kind of quiet now. Michael isn't really speaking much any anymore. "Mic..You okay? You're real quiet." I say. "Yeah...it's just something's wrong with you Nate. For you to be like a little brother to me, I'm worried." He says. "Michael, I'm fine right now. Noth-" he cuts me off. "Okay, Nate, that's right now. You just zoned out completely back there for what felt like forever. How long has this been happening?" He asks. "Uh..It just started today..That's why I was late." I answer. "So? Are you gonna tell me what it's like?" He asks. "Well at first I thought it was nothing but first, I arrived at the scene and no one was there. So I walked around to see if I could find anyone but no one was in sight. After I closed my eyes and opened them, I was back in the car and everyone just appeared at the scene." I explain to him. "So that's why you said you'd pulled up a while ago." He says. "Do you know what's causing that to happen?" He asks. "No. I thought it was from me not taking my meds but it's still happening even I after I took them." I tell him. "Oh, right. Are your pills helping you? Are feeling any better?" He asks. "Yeah, I've been better for the most part. Of course, until the murder happened." I reply. "Yeah, I could imagine. How are Maria and the kids doing?" He asks.

            My body completely freezes after he asks that question. I got so sidetracked that I forgot I was supposed to be going back home. Hell, I even forgot we were searching for evidence on the murder. "No, Nate. Don't do this again." Michael says. "I'm fine Mic. I just forgot I was supposed to heading home to see why Maria sent that empty message." I tell him. "Damn, I forgot about that too. All because you walked into another world." He says. I just look at him. "It was a joke, Nate. Do you wanna head back now?" He asks. "It is pretty late. We can tell everyone to head back home and rest up for tomorrow." He adds. "Yeah, we can head back. I gotta lot of stress on me right now anyways." I tell him.

            We tell everyone to head back home and get ready for another search tomorrow. Meanwhile, Michael and I are heading back to my house to check on my family. I just need company so that I can feel more comfortable and relaxed. Michael parks and I park behind his vehicle. I get out and head over to his car.

            "You can stay here. I'll head in and check on them. I'll come back out and let you know what's going on." I tell Michael. "Alright, take your time bud." He responds. I walk over to the door and unlock it. I open the door, the lights are off but I expected that. I reach to turn the light on and I look around. What I see next, kills off every nerve in my body and I can't do anything but stare. I see Maria sitting on the couch with her throat cut open with blood over her body and the sofa.. "M..M..Maria?"