The Thief : Osiris
Chapter Seven
Aiden's Proof (cont.)

     After riding my bike back home, I locked all the doors and headed straight to my room and pressed my back on my bedroom door as I shut it behind me. I took in a deep breath but was still shaking. I feel like I have always imagined scenarios like this in which I come face to face with my enemy like Joe and Selena did at the end of the Evil Zombie Monkey book one. However, this was nothing that I had anticipated. This was real life and I was completely unprepared for that. Fortunately, he didn't seem to want to hurt me. With that said, he did manage to. Glancing in the mirror, I could see a few scratches on my face and neck from the bush he shoved me through. I reached into my pocket and grabbed my limited-edition survival kit and pulled out the band-aid with Selena on it. Perhaps I need to review the materials in the books and mentally prepare myself for the next time I decide to do something Hayden would.

The memory of the footage came back to mind and I leaped on my bed as I unlocked my phone and pressed play on the footage.

It began with me approaching the house slowly, but even on the brightest setting, the footage was still very dark. Once the camera was showing the inside of the house, I saw that everything looked completely underwhelmingly normal. No smashed furniture like the previous house, nothing. However, as the camera turned, I could see down a hall. I saw a tall figure exiting a room quickly, mask or not, I could tell he wasn't content. The camera couldn't zoom in on him and the lighting wasn't ideal in the yellow-tinted hall, however I could see his hand was in a fist. I screenshot the footage to review later and watched as he heard the other cop car arrive. He swiftly made his way towards the open window beside the door in the kitchen and like a cat, just jumped out and shut it closed behind him. The footage went on showing the house up until the two officers entered the home. That was when my father's voice was vaguely heard in the background of the footage. I quickly hit the pause button.

On my bed, I scooted back until I was in the middle of it and I just laid my head back on my pillow and closed my eyes for a minute before I sat back up and held my breath. Hopefully, I had something good to show for stupidly risking my life to go to an active crime scene! I pressed play again and watched the screen turn black as I held my phone down on the grass in an attempt to not let the light from the screen shine too bright to gain the attention of my father.

Now that I had my phone, I could hear the sound of leaves crackling behind me. How did I miss that? Then there was his voice.

"DO NOT MOVE." He whispered clear as day.

I shouldn't have listened, I should have done something. If I had fought him or even managed to slow him down, my father would have heard and run right over to catch him – but I didn't. I obeyed. I didn't say a word. I didn't move. I was weak, pathetic even. What was I even doing there? Why was I so intent on trying to figure out his identity? Was this all due to Hayden's propaganda and how much I've just heard about him this past week? I couldn't answer any of these, but in the back of my head, I knew I shouldn't have to yet. I pressed my fingers on the temples of my head slowly, but my attention was drawn back to the evidence upon hearing my father shout, "Hey! Stop!" The footage, however, remained black. I watched, knowing what would happen next.

I chased after him, but he was just so fast. While I was unable, the footage was fast enough to catch him. I had risen it up to eye level on the street and the light coming down from a street light was enough to luminate the figure of this criminal. I screenshot the video again. He was dressed head to toe in black. Still, I couldn't clearly see his face in the footage, just his backside. Even so, I did see his mask clearly. The image of it came back to mind and I stepped off my bed and ran to my desk to pull out a pen and on a sicky note I had lying about, I tried to draw what I saw.

It was a very simple white mask. In the dark, it was hard to make out what it was made of, however I could tell it was not a metal or plastic. It looked too dull to be shiny. It also had no holes for the nose. It was just an exaggerated shape that popped out of mask like half a cone. As for the eyes, they were just large circular holes. This was strange to me as I couldn't see his eyes at all throughout the encounter, meaning I didn't know what his eye color was. Ignoring that, I couldn't remember if the mouth was giving a closed smile or a toothy grin. I decided to draw the mask again, each one having a different smile on it so that I wouldn't forget.

Seeing as the footage was over, I went over to answer Hayden's copious missed messages. I wasn't in the mood to read out all his cries for attention, so in the group chat, I just sent: "I saw him. Tomorrow, I'll show you."

It didn't take but a minute for Hayden to reply: "WHAT?!"

I set my phone down to charge and pressed my lips together. I was feeling a sort of fatigue I don't imagine I've ever felt. It was a mixture of exhaustion, but also the inability to sleep due to the frightening events that had just arisen. I put the sticky notes in my notebook and pushed it back into my book bag before I headed back to bed and laid my head back on the pillow. What a day.