Day 3

  Finally the boy does something interesting. Three damned days of nothing but watching him fumbling through his live. Talking with his friends, doing stupid youth stuff and not having a care in the world for all the misery he's caused.

  If his mother wouldn't pay that much the detective would've laughed her out the moment she told him all this nonsense.

  Her son is doing something shady, she said. She wants to know what it is, she said. He and his bad friend are sure to do some crime, she said.

  And all he found was that the boy was living a normal life full of meaningless nonsense.

  Not that he was any better when he was young, but now he has to stalk around and watch that sad excuse of a life, when he could be doing something more respectable; finding a lost cat or something.

  But now, finally, the boy did something abnormal. Something truly heinous.

  He and his friends were breaking into some old warehouse in the harbour district. A warehouse, that was probably not in use for a decade or more. They were packing some bags filled with nonsense; occult nonsense. Books, candles and god knows what other nonsensical tools for "black magic" was stuffed in there.

  Like any of that would even do anything besides being expensive. But the boy and his stupid friends were some kind of black magic club.

  Why didn't they do drugs or rob some old lady like normal punks do?

  But at least now they did some kind of crime: breaking and entering.

  Not that anyone would care about that, because of where they entered, but at least they did something fun.

  It didn't take him that long to find another entry that would not be too obvious or loud.

  Once he was in and kind of in a place where he could see what happens the kids already had some kind of ritual going.

  Were they sacrificing themselves? Had the kidnapped a dog? Would they murder each other?

  Or would they start an orgy? That would be crazy; it would also make all that stalking around worthwhile.

  Unfortunately they did nothing like that. The kids were standing around, books in hand and... chanting.

  He could not understand a word, but he didn't even care about that. It was still just uneventful if you looked at the sum of it all.

  After a while someone started singing; actual singing.

  They've probably gone crazy now, but who was he to judge? The more stupid things they did the more he had to report.

  More and more of them started singing until the chanting was replaced by singing.

  It was still nothing really special, but at least they were decent at what they did.

  It was actually quite catchy.

  Not his type of music, but it was acceptable.

  It made the wait at least bearable.

  And waiting he had to do as the whole night nothing happened but some occult karaoke to no beat and no sound.

  Another night, pretty much wasted for nothing. At least now he could tell the boy's mother, that nothing too bad was happening, get the rest of his money and wash his hands of this nonsense.

  Day 4

  After a surprisingly good sleep he called the boy's mother to his office.

  She must've been like a banshee after the living with how fast she got there; not like he complained. The faster this was over the faster he could get to doing more interesting things.

  His monologue was over pretty fast. He had a few secret photos of the boy, his friends and even that occult thing they did in the warehouse. The later not that good in quality, because it was dark and he was trying to not be noticed.

  Nonetheless he delivered everything he had and demanded his pay.

  Of course the hag was not willing to just fork over the money and go away; no she demanded him to continue the snooping, give her more dirt, find out about that boy's friends, what that occult stuff was, and if he was doing drugs; it was always doing drugs; either drugs or crime. Never anything nice, like a secret lover or some such.

  But he had standards and demanded his pay for services done. If she wanted him to do more, she had to pay more. He was not a charity.

  Imagine that; a detective, snooping around, doing borderline criminal stuff to follow some completely boring boy from a nice neighbourhood just for the good of it.

  Like there would be any good of it. If that were to happen whoever that detective was should be immediately arrested.

  There are enough criminals as is.

  It took him a few more minutes - it felt like hours - to make that woman understand how society works and get his pay; but he did get it.

  Nothing better for a negotiation than a bit intimidation. She did not want him digging up her dirt.

  All in all a nice start for the day. He told her to come back another time, he would be busy for the rest of the day, as he had already planned ahead.

  He actually hadn't, but he wanted her gone for the day.

  Her screeching voice got really annoying after a while.

  Luckily he knew just the melody to soothe his tortured ears.

  Day 5

  He woke up, happy and actually quite refreshed.

  Not a thing he normally experiences, but what could he expect being either bored or stressed, depending on the client?

  Full of vigour he got to work, mostly doing paperwork, but he was happily humming away.

  The problems started once he had to actually interact with people.

  It's not that he hates people - only the annoying ones - but today somehow everyone got on his nerves.

  The lady was quite nice when she asked him for help, but her voice was kind of grating in his ear.

  Some people should not open their mouth.

  But he was a professional and he endured.

  Unfortunately the problem continued.

  Him waking up refreshed should have rang his alarm bells. It's a surefire way to know that the day would be full of misery.

  And misery it was. For some god forsaken reason he only met people with the most annoying vocal cords in the entire country.

  A lisp so sharp it could cut the air, a squeek, that would make every mouse proud; how about a voice so deep it made his teeth vibrate when the guy spoke?

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  He didn't even know that was possible!

  Once the day has ended he quickly closed his office.

  One of the worst days of his live.

  Day 6

  He woke up refreshed.

  After yesterday he knew he should stay in bed.

  And luckily he was his own boss, so stay in bed he did.

  He would make the best out of this day and his good mood and not interact with anyone.

  Normally it was not his image of a fun time staying at home and doing nothing - that's something for weird people - but he really didn't want a repeat from yesterday.

  He did spent some time thinking about his feelings; something that happens only rarely.

  In the end he concluded, that he must've been quite stressed out and was receiving some kind of backlash.

  Too long in this job; too little positive to show for it.

  He generally did like his work; sure, most of the time it was some boring nonsense, but sometimes - only sometimes - he experienced something wondrous, or scary, or at least memorable. Something he can talk stories about. That's what made him choose this line of work; that and movies, but he won't admit that to anyone.

  But there was always a time where people got fed up and needed a day of rest.

  And he chose today. It was a weekday. It was not a holiday. It was just a boring day that nobody ever would remember.

  But it would be his day today!

  So what to do when you don't even want to have the potential of interactinv with other people? When nobody was around?

  Sure, he could watch something, but there was some nice tune in his ear.

  So he did what he never did before: he decided to sing.

  It's actually not the first time he did so; that would be when he was younger and tried to impress his girlfriend.

  She said he had a nice voice, but was completely tone-deaf. He never did sing after that. Women can be cruel.

  But not today!

  Today he embraced the song and sang to his hearts content.

  And by god did it feel good!

  Day ???

  More people should just sing when they feel down.

  Singing does improve the mood, especially when you have such a nice song in your ear.

  He did not go to his work the next day, because he still did not want to talk to people, but he was in quite a fine mood.

  He was humming, he was singing; he was actually doing fine.

  And then he decided, he needed a break.

  A lengthy one.

  Not that bullshit like one or two days. No, he wanted a real time off.

  Like a week, or two. Maybe even three.

  That would help him; refresh him.

  And after that he would be the best man he ever was, fit for society, fit for his work and be so damned happy about it.

  So with this positive mindset he set out to make it a reality.

  He didn't want to make his friends worried - yes, even his grumpy old self has some friends - so he set out to send them a message.

  "I'm a little stressed out at the moment. Probably because of too many damn people getting on my nerves. So I'm doing a little vacation. I'll be out of touch for a week or two, so don't worry if I don't answer. I'm going to fully enjoy my time without anyone; recharging my batteries. If I'm bored of it, you will hear from me sooner. So have a good week, I definitely will!

  William"

  After sending the message to everyone that could potentially be worried about him - or bother him - he let out a sigh of contentment.

  It was done; he has finally some time for himself.

  A happy little laugh escaped his lips and continued forming into sounds.

  He was really enjoying singing recently; so he started to sing.

  He did not really see any reason to stop doing it.

  Song ???

  The singer sings the song. The song is sung by the singer. And the singer sings the song, so that the song is sung. There is only the song, for there is no other song but the song. The singer's eyes see the song. The singer's tongue speaks the song. The singer's ears hear the song. The singer's mind learns the song.

  The singer is the song, and the song is the singer. The song is all, and all is the song.

  For as long as the song is sung and the song is singing, the world is whole.

  ?!?

  The song stopped.

  It can not be, as the singer is still singing, but the song has stopped.

  The singer cannot hear the song with anything but his mind and memory, but he still hears it.

  The world is stopping the song, his song, the song, the singing.

  And the singer is singing louder.

  The silence is coming.

  And the singer is singing louder.

  The silence is coming.

  The singer feels the silence coming. It is coming. It is invading the song!

  The silence is invading his song! The silence is filling him!

  He is singing, to stop the silence, but the silence does not stop.

  The silence is filling him, smothering the song.

  It will not stop.

  The singer must stop it!

  The singer must let it out. Let the silence out.

  Sing and let the silence out.

  Let the silence out!

  Let the silence out!

  Let the silence out!

  LET THE SILENCE OUT!

  LET THE SILENCE

  The Death

  "Cause of death?"

  "Same as the others. Blood loss, caused by self inflicted wounds."

  "Probably as disgusting to look at as the rest."

  "Scratched himself to death"

  "So that's a yes. Do we know who he was?"

  "William Walls, private detective. Age 43."

  "That's surprisingly old for this case. The precious group was what? 15?"

  "18 to 20 actually."

  "Not that much of a difference. Still dead though."

  "Unfortunately."

  "Do we know if there is a connection to him and the other group?"

  "What we could find is, that he seemed to investigate the prior group."

  "Any reason why?"

  "The mother of one of the boys hired him to keep an eye out."

  "And he didn't catch the suicide, he became part of it."

  "We do not know the reason for that."

  "Yeah, that's our job to figure out! So anything else our guys could find?"

  "It is unclear when he disappeared, but we estimate between 2 and 5 weeks ago."

  "Why the big difference?"

  "He apparently messaged his contacts that he would be unavailable for some time. That happened shortly after the previous mentioned investigation. After that there was no more contact with him until he appeared on the files for this case."

  "So he probably knew, that something was up. Still no result on that blood test?"

  "We did not find any substances that may have lead to this behaviour."

  "Just because we did not find anything yet does not mean it does not exist! I'm positive there is some kind of cult out there creating raving drug addicts."

  "We will find the truth."

  "Yeah, we will!"