Chapter 5 FINDINGS

James woke up to find himself in a totally different place.

As a journalist and criminologist, he's been privileged to visit so many part of the world, but this, this was just too different to be the world he knew.

He got up from wherever he was laying on. He tried moving around the environment he was in. Taking proper notes of every valid characteristic of where he was, he found out the only thing he could note was how strange the place was; it definitely wasn't his earth.

It was wide and plain, it was all white; the walls, atmosphere and ground, strangely, it was bright even though there was no source of light anywhere that he could identify.

He kept on moving and it felt like he was moving in circles because every place was just like every other place.

He was still trying to understand his new environment and how he found himself there. He doesn't even know why he was here and what happened to Helen.

"oh my God Helen" he exclaimed just remembering his partner.

The last thing he remembered was the strange déjà vu he was experienced when they both had gone to the mayor's.

He was with Helen fighting some masked creatures. Then he saw the creatures whither on their own after which the cops barged into the mayor's and attempted dragging he and Helen out. Of course they refused and tried breaking free only to get knocked out. That was he remembered happen before waking up in this strange land.

He was still lost in his thought before he suddenly got startled by a voice.

Divisional Police Headquarters Mosan.

March 10th 07:30am

James Walker that was presently seated next to Helen wasn't the James Walker she fought alongside yesterday and have always known.

He looked different; he looked pale. Too pale to be alive. His eyes were no longer the usual dark ones, they were . He had series of eye bags beneath his eyes making him look monstrously sick, his lips though big, were still incapable of hiding his extra long canines. He still had the James Walker body structure but definitely not his face structure.

For the first time since she lost her mother, Helen felt unsafe.

She tried screaming for help but before she could do so, the James Walker looking like creature disappeared.

She really couldn't explain how it happened but all she knew was he disappeared.

He created something like a portal that he walked through so quickly, she never thought she would be able to see it.

She got so startled in shock, she didn't even hear her own scream.

Almost immediately, five police officers rushed into the interrogation room but was shocked to see just Helen in the room looking so terrified.

Benecdictha immediately rushed to the seat once occupied by James.

"where the hell is Walker?" she asked in a whisper before raising her voice to repeat the question.

Helen was terrified and confused to give a straight answer; "off to fairyland?" she unconsciously answered causing Benedictha to give her a weird stare.

The Infinity

Decade 18 of search for The Key

"Finally, you have come to claim your destiny" someone spoke out of nowhere jolting James out of his thoughts.

He was startled with fear. He was in a place he had never been to and knew nothing about and now there was someone here he doesn't see but probably sees him and did he just hear the other guy say destiny, what destiny?

"uuhh who.. who exactly are you and do you know a way out of here?, I need to return to my world for unfinished business" James prayed he would find a way to return home.

"world, but this is your world" the voice came again.

"what? What do you mean by that, I am a human and humans live on earth and I'm pretty sure this ain't earth. So please I'd really appreciate you showing me out of here" James stated growing impatient to leave this strange environment.

"oh, you are yet to remember. This is your world and you rule it. It is not as it seems, it hasn't always been like this. Well, not until the portal battle which we were victors. We rejoiced and totally forgot who we rendered victims and how dangerous they could be. Apparently, they were never ready to accept defeat and would do anything to gain on us. Unknown to us, we had a rogue amongst us. One who was ready to sell out his tribe just for power and wealth. His name; Judas. He was one of your most reputable steward but I guess greed was a higher god to him than you were. He sold us out and our opponents took over. Our people perished in slavery and suffering, a few turned to the side of our enemy and those who refused to were left to languish in pain and agony. Only I survived our past even you died but what really is the use when there is no one to live the past with and no one to build a future with. At the end of it all; vanity is all that remains until I found you. You see, you are a god here. In fact even on earth you are a god but after what happened in the past, only your soul remained so, you decided to reincarnate it. You believed it would be useful in the future. He believed in the prophecy of Haphita that one day, you would save man from our kind. So after his physical death, he sealed his soul in a container; it's dark and cold, empty and scary. It's called the infinity space; it's like a space in time between humans and our kind, earth and infinity and the two warring communities of infinity. And he sealed that container with a key; . The one that lies in your soul, it cannot be removed but can only die with you. Usually the key was supposed to move on to the next folk it desires but for it to have placed a permanent lock with you, you must have been special. And because you are that key, the infinity space shares a connection with you as it's master. You have been chosen to redeem your kind and our kind. You are still of the flesh until you accept the second soul that would live in your body; your new soul. It might be difficult but you have to be quick about it and if you choose not to, a lot would be at stake and that would be because of you, no one else. I strongly advise you do what's right at the right time if you really want to finish your unfinished business on earth."

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Divisional police Headquarters

March 10th 10:00 am

Benedictha could be seen pacing around in her little office.

She felt she was running nuts; everybody was too especially Helen.

" I mean there have to be a logical explanation for James' escape right? Of course yes, he wouldn't just disappear as Helen had claimed. But what if she was right and there was something more to this case?..." Benedictha kept wandering in wonders.

She still didn't want to believe in what Helen had told her even if she couldn't give a logical explanation either for the cases she's been handling as regards to the current situation of the town and the plus one that just hit her table.

FLASHBACK

"what do you mean fairyland?" Benedictha asked already pissed off.

" you were both in the same room together and now you are the only one in this room" She vibrated in anger pointing her index finger at Helen which got Helen mad.

" and what do you mean by that Benedictha. We were both sitting together and the next thing I know, he disappears. If you are trying to make a point, be clear about it." Now it was Helen's turn to get pissed.

Why won't anyone believe what just happened? Oh, she needed some kind of evidence right now that she wasn't lying, any kind of evidence.

" you have CCTVs in here right? How about you go in to check on them and see the truth for yourself." Helen advised with a yell.

" already had plans to have that done." Benedictha claimed even when in truth, she hadn't even thought of it.

" uh ma'am?" another officer called disrupting the staring contest of his superiors.

" yeah?" Benedictha responded refusing to lose in the staring contest between Helen and herself.

"You've got to see this." He added making Benedictha give him a sharp and long glare after which she stood up and followed him out of the interrogation room.

FLASBACK ended.

" it is yet again another blood bath but this time, of a whole household. The Michaels who were murdered in cold blood earlier today. This time, the killer left a sign for the cops......" the journalist reported directly from the crime scene.

" pause" Benedictha commanded the other officer who obeyed quickly.

" zoom in on the evidence" she commanded yet again and to her greatest surprise, the killer had left James clothes; the ones he had on when he was arrested.

This made her even more confused and furious, was someone trying to mess with her or what.

" get the CCTVs on now!" Benedictha yelled.

" to what part of the building ma'am" one of the workers asked. " and to what footage?" the other stated too making Benedictha feel embarrassed upon realizing that she screamed in vain.

" the ones in the interrogating room from yesterday's footage" she spoke rather calmly this time.

She felt her head spin twice after seeing what she just saw.

Interrogation Room

Helen was in a weird sitting position in the interrogation room.

She was seated on the floor, legs crossed and back against the wall thinking about how so quickly everything changed in the short time she met James Walker.

She was still in her thoughts when she suddenly heard noise outside the room and she was seriously itching to know what it was.

Back in the investigation room, Benedictha's mouth was still wide open with her sudden realization.

She hadn't even noticed despite her skills.

She last saw James Walker when she had gone to arrest him with his ally.

Immediately they were all in the police van, he had disappeared.

Why was she just remembering it? Helen was right horseshit's been going on in this town and nobody was noticing any thing strange.

That explains it, the victims of this sudden incident always behave strangely before their deaths. The town has been enveloped in 'strangehood'. And it was so strange one couldn't explain it nor even remember.

All the while, she was questioning Helen only because James wasn't even there and if he was, Helen was the only one who could see him before he totally disappeared.

She was still pondering on her thoughts when she was suddenly disturbed by an officer.

" really sorry to interrupt ma'am but there's a guy outside causing a scene" he rapped his words breathing heavily.

Benedictha rushed out with two other police officers only to meet a van trying to break its way into the station.

Despite the relentless efforts of the officers to stop it, it refused to stop moving.

What sicko tries breaking into a police station?

Well, Benedictha has seen too much to think sickos weren't normal people.

When the van stopped moving, she simply walked toward the driver seat.

"ahh" she screamed with both her hands over her mouth.

The officers inside the damaged station exchanged glances before going to see what she had seen. Immediately they all got to the the van, gasps flew in the air.

The van was freaking empty.