Young Writers Society

The light of the full moon peers through the clouds. Rain droplets slam onto the ground, all combining together to make an orchestra of heavy pattering against the hundreds of rooftops throughout the city. The millions of stars in the night sky cannot be seen because of the radiating light of the city. The light makes a shield of colour around the large collection of buildings that can only be seen from far away, mostly consisting of green and yellow colours.

A vehicle moves along the road of a particularly dingy and run-down street, its legs, which look like a human’s if that human had been dropped in a vat of acid, stomp on the ground, holding up the body of the equally grotesque car. The doors, the seats, and everything else except for the windows are made out of flesh, very similar to human skin, meat and bone but still completely alien at the same time. The vehicle is easily seen in the green lights of the streetlamps which contain a bioluminescent green liquid and a human embryo.

Inside the car, the rain patters on the windows and squishes on the meat. David sits in the driver’s seat, his hands stuck to the skin-covered steering wheel as he looks at the lime green light shining on his face. His blue jumper has spots of blood on it, but that is to be expected from the car.

Vesper sits beside him, staring out the window at the water of the docks, barely able to even see the reflection of the moon’s light because of the lights of the city. Their trench coat is off and folded up in their hands. A droplet of blood drips from the roof of the car and lands on their face, slowly rolling down their cheek. They quickly grab a napkin and wipe it off as soon as they can before looking out the window once again. They don’t look anywhere else. They stare at their reflection, faintly seen in the glass, like a ghost standing before them.

“So,” David begins to speak to Vesper “what's this case all about? Like, who died and what not?” He speaks loudly to Vesper, with a heavy Southern accent, although he tries to hide it to the best of his abilities in an attempt to fit in with the general population of the city. Vesper continues to look out the window, they never look at David.

“You do not need to know that.” Vesper responds, “All you need to do is drive the car and make sure that I do not get killed, I will focus on the case.” They barely move from their position to talk to him. David gives a distraught look that goes unnoticed by Vesper before they look forward and continue to drive. David spits up blood into his hand, his face beginning to become pale, but Vesper takes no notice.

The vehicle's legs slam on the ground before it lowers its body. Vesper opens their door, and they walk out of the car as they put on their trench coat. They loudly close the door behind them as they look at the stares leading up to a grand wooden door. David opens his door, but before his foot can even touch the ground, Vesper yells from where they are.

“Stay in the car, you don’t need to go in as well.” They don’t turn around to look at David, they just keep staring at the door. David slams his door shut with anguish in his heart.

Vesper looks down at their hand as it opens up in a perfect circle, spiralling and morphing their skin into a hole in their hand. A squishy tower of clear flesh emerges from the hole, twisting and turning into something resembling a screen. A grided map appears on the flesh, showing a yellow flashing indicator on where Vesper stands. The strange material makes several sloshing sounds as it drops back into the hole and it closes it up once again.

“The right place.” They whisper to themself. They begin to walk up the stairs and Vesper knocks on the giant door. It quickly opens without a sound to reveal a small, old woman standing before Vesper.

“You must be the detective correct?” The woman asks politely. She gives Vesper a warm smile, even though it wouldn’t take a detective to realise that she was faking it through her overwhelming fear.

Vesper looks at the old lady, analysing her face before saying “Yes, now get out. I have to work alone.” She stares at the detective, shocked and appalled. Yet, despite this, she still does exactly what Vesper tells her to in fear of what might happen if she doesn’t. The woman quickly scurries away, grey hair blowing in the wind, or at least, as much as it can.

They walk into the building and shut the door as loudly as they can. Vesper continues to walk through the room before arriving at yet another door. This one opens as loudly as the first, that is to say, it can barely be heard.

Within the room, the first thing Vesper notices is a large full-length mirror, that was unfortunately smashed and is now covered in a green substance. The second thing they notice is the corpse of the only person running against Hugo Martin for mayor, Jonathan Umbra. Their body is mangled and torn. They are riddled with holes too big to be bullets and their head is crushed, with bits of their skull scattered across the floor. The only way Vesper knows who it is is that their name was in the case file, if not for that, they would have had a hard time figuring out who the smashed mound of meat smeared across the floor like a paste is. The only recognisable thing in the entire mess is a bag of drugs.

Vesper wanders over to the body as they put on their gloves. They try to be careful not to step on the evidence despite it being incredibly difficult due to it being all across the floor. Vesper delicately picks up the zip-lock bag and inspects it, moving it from side to side. Each grain of the substance looks like a tiny eye with an even smaller mouth on it. Every single one of the strange organisms makes up the dust-like narcotic. As Vesper pulls the bag closer to their face, they hear thousands of faint chattering noises coming from the drugs. They slowly place the bag back down into the crimson liquid.

They stand up and make their way over to Jonathan Umbra’s former mirror. It is smashed, the glass spread across the ground and mixed up with the blood of the victim as well as the neon green blood, dripping from the mirror.

“Clearly, Hugo Martin did this.” Vesper starts a conversation with themself “But the report states that he doesn’t have any implants or modifications, and green blood only comes from body mods, such as an extra arm.”

Vesper continues talking to themself, without noticing the door open and not seeing David standing behind them.

“He must have hired somebody to do his dirty work him, someone, who would have body modifications, but who?” Vesper looks back over at the body, still not noticing David standing in front of the door. “They planted the drugs in an attempt to dirty Mr Umbra’s image, so they were not completely overloaded with body modifications, because they could still think straight.”

Vesper continues to ponder their query, before noticing David at the worst time possible. David’s stomach begins to churn and move, his skin begins to crawl, and his entire body starts to snap and change. Suddenly, David’s stomach bursts open with an arm, dripping red and neon green blood, mixing the two liquids together. His skin tears as another arm shoots out of his mouth and into the air, his entire head splits, and his jaw dislocates. A waterfall of blood sprays into the air and scatters throughout the room.

His body slams onto the ground and starts to move around sporadically. His changed and tormented body hastily crawls towards Vesper and slams them into the wall. Blood releases from Vesper’s mouth and started to drip down their chin. The creature that was once David picks up Vesper by the throat and pushes them up against the window.

“D-Da-David.” This is all Vesper can get out in an attempt to communicate with him, but David isn’t listening. He starts to smash Vesper against the window repeatedly, over and over again, until it shatters and Vesper is thrown out of the building. Vesper falls into the water below.

David looks down at the dark green fluid, their extra arms still flailing about and does not see any sign of Vesper. After two minutes, they leave.

The water is quiet and still, before it is broken by Vesper, their previously hidden gills finally showing themselves. They throw off their coat and swim to the shore. In the horrible cold, they pull themself up and sit on the side of the docks.

They sit and stare at their reflection in the water, trying to comprehend what happened before they hear the screams of an old woman in the distance at the sound of meat being torn apart. Vesper waits in their wet state. They wait for the screams to finally stop. They wait for David to leave.

When all is quiet, and nothing else can be heard besides their thoughts, Vesper kicks the water. They kick their reflection; they try to kick themself. Vesper puts their frozen face in their shivering hands.

“Damn it!” They yell into their hands, the sound muffled by them. “I didn’t see him. I didn’t ever see him!” They continue to yell and sob.

Vesper looks up at the sky, the stares still going unseen by the city's population, including them. “I’m sorry. I’ll see you next time.” Vesper keeps talking to themself. “But next time, I’ll see you in a cell.” They stand up and walk away in the rain as it becomes hail.