Of Monsters and Men: A Poetry, Short Story and Song Anthology

Through The Looking Glass

I go along cobblestone streets littered with numerous people all with different personalities and traits that make them human. Being human is something of a chore for some and at times some want to break free of this concept of "being human." So what is something that will break the cycle of keeping with the law, keeping with being the same as everyone else and trying not stand out.

Well it’s as simple as pulling the kill switch. I go along cobblestone streets littered with numerous people knowing that in just a short amount of time one of them will eventually show their inner malicious thoughts to the world around them. I know from my intellect and from years of being a detective that someone is going to slip up and starts following a young girl down the desolate alleyways that line each and every street.

 So I keep a lookout, I listen to each and every word that echoes down the bustling streets and hear every cry from a baby as mothers push their prams down the sides of the streets. I can hear from miles away a young girl, most likely the age of 15, yelling her mother's name, now confused and lost. She has become one of the crowd yet another searches desperately for her.

I start making my way through the crowd as I start to feel the aura of one who beckons for some fun, one who wants to break the "being human" concept. A older man, most likely in his 30's, dressed in a large, black leather trench coat, a brown hat, dark sunglasses, dark brown pants and brown leather shoes come up behind her.

As I make my way hastily through the crowd I start to hear words spit out of his venomous mouth, hissing at her that if she comes with him then he would help her find her parents. Being without a single option or choice the young girl would go with him, her long blonde hair glistening in the torchlight of the streets. That hair was the only thing I could go on trying to find her for she was the only young girl in the street to have long blonde hair.

 A single trace, a single stand out in the crowd, the girl's lifeline and my ticket to save her. I raced along the dark alleyways as the man and the girl quickened the pace of which they walked. Wherever the man was taking her it must be somewhere nearby because the man was quite sure of where he was going. This implied that he knew the district well and that somewhere hidden in the shadows of the alleys he had a hideout.

It was as simple to figure out like figuring out the meaning of a piece of art. The man's path was becoming more and more elaborate as he started going up staircases into abandoned buildings and up towards the rooftops of the city that was London.

 As I followed behind them, making sure to hide in the shadows and to be as silent as a wolf, waiting to catch its prey, I too headed up onto the rooftops. Above the twisted streets and dark alleyways lied a beautiful canvas that has already been painted with intricate architecture, people and the illuminating dwindling sunset that set the tone for the coming night.

I follow them as they easily moved from rooftop to rooftop without a stumble and with very close gaps it was simply a matter of making a long step to each roof to continue down the road. I kept on stalking, like the howling wind breezing through the twilight air. The girl was becoming uneasy and started to suspect that something was wrong, after all she was a teenager and not as innocent as a simplistic child.

No she knew that he had taken her far away from her parents and was leading her to somewhere much more sinister. I thought I had my chance to pounce on the prey however that's when the turn of events changed for the bitter worse.

The tear in the canvas, the drop of water that melts away the best part of the painting, the now revealing of the monster underneath the seemingly normal disguise. And so the man, deciding it was too difficult to take the girl back to his hideout, his prison of nightmares, decided to kill the girl here and now. You see I specialise in a very different type of police work. My job isn't in simply looking through the looking glass like many other detectives do. No my job is to seek people who have evaded the confines of the law, people who have committed crime for a long time.

These people have evaded capture by exploiting the rules and moving from place to place hiding his true identity. My job was not to arrest them but to bring them to justice and wiping the vermin out. By evading the law and consistently committing such vile acts of crime, the law simply states that the death penalty must be carried out.

I figured out this man's crimes ever since he murdered a girl called Lucy Buckingham. This man lures young girls away from their parents, deliberately letting them lose themself in large crowds before taking them away. After that he rapes and kills the girls then burns the body and throwing away the ashes in the night air.

Every single lure always starts at sunset and ends by the time the moon shines its radiant light upon the blackened world. Now having figured this out and having received clues and information based around loose rumours that the man is in London, I found him.

 I quickly pounce upon this man as he pulls out a knife from the pocket in his trench coat and quickly disarm him with a simple punch to the elbow. I dislodged the elbow with that punch before cracking two of his ribs with another punch. Following on from that I blocked a blow from his right arm and spun around him so that I was now behind the enemy.

After that I had him in the palm of my hands. I kicked his back hard enough to crack the upper part of his spine and with the force of that kick, pushing him off the flat ground of the roof. Now having lost his grip he simply fell off of the roof and towards the hard ground below.

 I covered the girl's eyes as the man's head cracked open and the alley turned red with his blood. Now with that ordeal over and the sentence carried out I assured the girl that I had come to save her from the criminal and that I am with the law.

With all that done all I had to do was return the girl back to her parents and bid them farewell with no harm done. That was how efficient I am at my work, not a single hair on that girl's head was hurt and no other girl would suffer from that trash of a man again.

To be a detective you must not simply look through the looking glass, you must be one with the world around you and know the inner workings of what makes a criminal tick and how they pull off their crimes. That's the only true way you will ever be able to save someone's life.