cloudsarebeautiful
|• If there was one person who I would dedicate this whole book to, from the first word to the last, from every capital letter to full stop, it would be to you •|

A decades later, the mystery of the missing hundred unravelled. The case that had baffled even the greatest of minds. The case that had fought with logic.

Officer Russo Nigel was in charge of the investigation ten years ago. After five years of futile investigations, she had given up, reporting the hundred: dead. The world labelled it the biggest case of suicides, or better known as the 'mass mindless deaths'. They believed that all one hundred children had killed themselves. But why? For what? That they never questioned. They simply didn't care. Their lives twisted around their bodies, suffocating them amidst their own worlds; too nonchalant to realise that those children had the brightest minds, that they were the future of the world.

The debilitation of their parents didn't arouse suspicious either. They were all dead. Every parent except Ekon Zwane. Yet the world didn't seem to care - fewer mouths to feed - that's what they truly cared about.

If Tanisha Wells hadn't walked in through the glass doors of the office that morning, where the morning officer Nigel was preparing to resign, no one would have ever known what had happened. Ms. Wells stormed into the building, her complexions red with anger. She demanded an immediate search at the Cortex corporation building. She was adamant that the hundred were there. When Russo calmed her down, Ms. Wells handed her a piece of paper, a letter, addressed to 'Tan' from 'Lyra'. As officer Russo read the rushed words of the once sixteen-year-old Lyra, she despised herself. The taste of hatred sour in her mouth. How could she have just abandoned the lives of a hundred children like that? How could she have made them suffer for ten years?

Russo took a colossal force with her and tore down the Cortex building. She spared no inch, anger steering her path. Going deeper into the heart of the building, travelling below into the hidden and dark passageways in the basements, she eventually discovered the hideout. Russo cried silently as she trudged through the room, a room filled with pods holding innocent children captive.

Searching through the dimly lit rooms, Russo came across Candace, the dead body of Candace. It turned out that Candace Specimen had killed herself out of solitude, she died a tragic death due to a drug overdose. Beside her decaying corpse, Candace Specimen left an enclosed file. Ms. Specimen had ranked her crimes, surrendering to a multitude of them, some that seemed too bizarre to be real. She admitted to being guilty of murdering every parent of the one hundred children. She admitted to the act of kidnapping some of the children and to blackmailing others, but with what she didn't say. Candace had left a letter addressed to a 'Cathy', all it said was "Hope." A harmless message some would say. If only they knew the hidden meaning.

Officer Russo pushed the tip of her red-inked pen onto the page, this time, she wrote the words "case closed". Her fingers trembled as she dragged her pen, a tear cascaded down her face. Ten years. She closed the file and stared up at the light which dangled from the ceiling. With shaky hands, she ripped her resignation in half. She knew there was more to see. This was the first case she had solved but she knew there would be more; more mysteries to solve, more lurking in the shadows, more monsters like Candace Specimen - hidden within the very essence of life.

—

A light flickered on, the sudden invasion made Olivia's heart leap. "Help," she croaked. Her body was sore and dehydrated. Every vessel cried blood; every limb fatigued. "Please...help."

A little girl, no older than twelve, towered above Olivia's shadow, the rusted steel bars separating the two.

"Hello." She cast a smile down at Olivia.

Olivia was relieved, she scooted towards the bars on her knees and spoke, "Hi, I'm...Olivia."

"And I am Cathy. Cathy Specimen."

Olivia's face darkened at the mention of the surname. "I thought...you were dead."

"Like you said, I was dead. I am not anymore. It feels great to have a body." Cathy giggled. "You forgot to appreciate your limbs."

Olivia sensed a tingling feeling inside her heart - warning her - to stay away. But the urge to see her daughter, Lyra, was greater.

"Cathy, please help me get out of here. I need to find my daughter." Olivia reached out from the gaps between the bars, but her weak fingers didn't reach far enough to touch Cathy.

"It will happen soon. You will leave this place soon." Cathy paced parallel to the bars. "But first, we, need to bring back my sister. Candy didn't succeed with Duncan, in the end, she gave up, but...I am different. I am altered. A being yet quite not a being. I will succeed." Cathy paused she drilled her gaze into Olivia. "And this time, you will help me, just you." Without giving Olivia another glance, she walked away, leaving Olivia, alone, once again, in the dark depths of her mind.

Just like the Earth is a sphere hidden within the vast galaxy, there are countless secrets hidden within our hearts.

—

The end.