Silver Lies Within the Hell We Created

Noon had arrived. The doors of the old tavern flew open and closed as several townsfolk stopped by to interact with Cypress. Ansel eyed each person who entered and left, trying to investigate the identity of the so-called spy sent to watch him on his mission. During his investigation, he hit a wall and completed a side request from the town's leader to pass the time.

With all his activities exhausted, he sat within the confines of the tavern. Standing at the tavern door, Cypress met with a man dressed in a similar outfit to Ansel. He was wearing an eye patch and carried a brown envelope in his hands. Without much time for conversation, he handed the package to a confused-looking Cypress and left the tavern.

"What in the hell is this?" Cypress approached Ansel with an irritated look on his face. Ansel said nothing and walked into the kitchen. Cypress followed, and he slammed the envelope on the table. A distant bell echoed through the walls of the tavern, telling the small town of Aldor that noon had officially passed.

Ansel took a seat at the table and looked at him with a bored expression. "Why the hell are you asking me that?" He looked at the seal on the front of the envelope. It was a depiction of a box with large angel wings. A spear pierced through both of the wings. The thickness of the envelope filled Ansel with a foreboding feeling. He never asked for an information request, which meant someone was pulling strings on this mission. The first person to come to mind was his operator.

"Alder told me that a package from the city would arrive for you, but who was that guy? Are all you city folks freaks?" Cypress huffed as she threw on a leather apron.

"Freaks is a harsh way of saying that we have endured a lot of shit." Ansel opened the package as Cypress started cooking.

He watched him from the corner of his eyes. The town of Aldor was prepping for a festival, but Ansel could not understand why they were celebrating being partnered with the City of Pandora. Cypress, from what Ansel could gather during his short trip through the town, was in charge of cooking the town's diner to kick off the events of the night. Given the number of ingredients and the oversized pot sitting over an open flame, either the town has many more people than Ansel had thought initially, or they eat a lot. Although the tempting aroma of the food made his stomach rumble, the pungent smell of the freshly butchered deer filled his nostrils and overwhelmed any other scent. It made him uneasy as he could not think straight.

As Ansel turned back towards the open envelope, he spilled the contents over the table. Several folders labeled 'Lustful Vixen.' He felt a passing gaze as the sound of wood creaking under the weight of heavy steps. Ansel itched for the dagger in his possession before realizing it was Cypress making the noise.

"Whoa there, you okay? You seem kinda pale." Cypress looked at him with a small amount of concern as he grabbed some smaller pots from around Ansel. He looked at the paperwork spread across the table. "I thought you city folks used those mobile device things."

"We do, not I rather not use them." Ansel took a deep breath after speaking. He needed to keep focus. "Information brokers and City Drones within the walls of the 'great city' would make a killing off the information that my association collects. We aren't good guys. So, we prefer to do something the old-fashioned way, as long as the city doesn't try to force us to disclose anything."

"Hmm…"

Cypress resumed cooking as Ansel shifted through the documents, looking for something that may become useful. A heavy silence pressed down on the room, and Ansel finally lowered the documents, his eyes drawn to the small folder labeled 'victims' that sat in the middle of the table. He opened the folder, and images of the victims before and after the crime were clipped onto several documents filled with black text detailing the case.

The killer had claimed 17 victims, and those 17 victims, they had only one common trait—being male. Their bodies were all torn to shreds by an unnatural pair of claws. This case was only recently sent to the Vindicta Association, which was a mistake on the city's part. Their ages ranged from 17 to 45, which did not help narrow down a potential target. Their races and body shapes also varied, leaving the attacks on the male victims as indiscriminate. The pieces of this puzzle failed to connect, leaving Ansel unable to formulate a plan. There was a connection; Ansel kept forcing himself to believe as he read the documents. He needed to believe that; otherwise, more victims would be lost to a horrible fate.

Needing an outside perspective, he looked at Cypress, who was mindlessly humming as he stirred the large pot over the crackling open flame. "So all the victims were young adults to middle-aged males." Shooting in the dark, he spoke towards him, keeping his usual mocking tone.

"Why are you telling me this?" Cypress looked back at Ansel with annoyance. He placed a lid over the pot and made his way towards Ansel. "Cypress held back the urge to vomit as he looked at the photos on the table. "Poor lads, meeting a fate such as that. I hope they were killed before-"

"They were still alive as their bodies were torn to shreds." Ansel interrupted Cypress's hopeful thoughts with the cold, harsh truth. Autopsies on all the victims showed that they all bled out to death.

"Asks me why I am telling him, then he walks over to see what I am looking at," Ansel said with a smug grin. He held out little hope for the man's assistance, but any clue could be the key to reopening the cold case, no matter how small. "But all these are the victims of the case I am working on." He then handed Cypress a summary of the case so far.

Ansel was a fool to involve an unrelated person in this case, but the person in question needed something to clear his name. The old blood on Cypress's hands could never be washed away, but Ansel can tell, based on his personality, that something horrible wrong happened, resulting in him taking action. Two wrongs could never make a right, but Cypress was taken advantage of from what Ansel could gather from his investigation of another person's request. If Cypress proved his worth to Ansel, he would help clear his name, but that would have to wait until he could prove this theory.

"Apart from the male aspect, those around the victims noted a sudden shift to happiness after prolonged sadness. What is that supposed to mean?" He asked as he handed Ansel the paper.

Hearing that part of the summary read aloud sounded different from how it did in his head. Ansel sunk into his chair, lost in thought. "No…that can't make sense." He aggressively shook his head as he looked at each of the victim files. "There has to be something else that caused it, such as being gifted or cursed."

"Umm…you lost me."

"Rrrright, this would be foreign to you." Ansel scratched his head as he thought of a way to articulate his ideas so that Cypress could understand him. "How about this?" Ansel used his hands to visualize his thoughts. "Let us say that our killer is a spirit that can possess people with negative emotions in their hearts and uses those emotions as a food source. Since the victims are having their negative emotions drained, they are left with nothing but an empty shell of happiness before they are axed from the stage of life."

Cypress looked at Ansel with a dumbfounded look of disbelief. A deep sigh left his lips as he turned back towards the pot. "I thought you were a detective, not a supernatural cultist believer."

Ansel's brow twitched at his harsh rejection of his thoughts. He could not be mad at him, though. After all, his ignorance on the matter is natural. He was not born in the city; he never had to see the hell that millions of people purposely subject themselves to just to see a tomorrow that's better than anyone else's. "Unfortunately, because of that storm that destroyed the old city, fiction has become a reality."

"The storm? You mean the Luciana Storm of '81?" Cypress asked with a suspicious look on his face. "I was alive when it happened, and it was simply a terrible cesspool of tornados that leveled the whole city."

"About fifty years ago, a woman named Luciana, a once-respected child prodigy, snuck into a secure vault by using her authority as a VIP to evade suspicion. What was hidden in the vault was a silver box whose origins were once told that it descended from the sky. Luciana, age 25 at the time, got curious and opened the box that humanity of years was too afraid to do. Upon doing so, the entire city was covered in a thick silver mist that blocked all communication from the outside for seven days. We refer to those seven days as a 'Hell week.' After those seven days ended, only a handful of people survived, including Luciana herself. They were covered in terrible wounds and ebon veins growing on their body. They stood strong, each of them forcing the box closed while an angel watched from the sky. Ever since then, things like ghosts, yokai, demons, and angels have roamed the earth. And with the seal on the box creaking, the effects of the silver mist are slowly leaking out of the city. It's our job as hunters to prevent that."

"Angels!? You expect me to believe that fucking angels exist!?" Cypress raised his voice. Ansel stood on guard at the sudden reaction. "All you talk about is some supernatural bullshit that has never happened before in our town. Now that we struck a deal with you city mutts, we have to worry about this shit?" Cypress grabbed a nearby knife and gripped it strongly. Ansel rested his hand on his dagger as a deterrent. "We are holding a festival to celebrate the hard work the people of this small town did, and you are hinting at someone harboring a spirit that is consuming them?"

Cypress approached Ansel with the knife in his hands. Rage blinded his eyes, and his veins looked as if they were about to burst. Ansel stood up and created distance. For once, he did not want to fight, but it seemed like he had struck a nerve. But it was fine, as it helped him understand the sin Cypress had committed.

"Get fucking real. I understand why he told me to be worried around you. All you do is spread lies and attract nothing but bad luck, you damned cursed."

"Cursed?" Ansel had enough. "Cursed!?" Ansel glared at Cypress with a bone-chilling stare. Cypress forgot to breathe as he dropped the knife he was holding on the ground. His legs trembled as Ansel waked with heavy steps towards him. "You don't know a fucking thing about me, and all you do is rely on the misinformation of a group of people that want to see me fucking killed for the shit I've been subjected to. I am out here in the middle of fucking nowhere, trying to stop more people from dying, and that is the thanks I get?" Ansel grabbed Cypress by the collar.

He looked at the fearful look in the grown man's eyes. He watched the reflection of himself, covered in crimson-colored veins that stretched across his body, staring at the old barkeep with pure hatred.

"Tsk!" Ansel effortlessly threw the large man, who was about double his size, into the chair. Look, there is more than just your small town." He spoke again, this time in a calm voice. Whether you can or cannot accept that is up to you, but things will continuously move forward, with or without you. The supernatural exists; I am proof of that, as you can see from just now and earlier this morning."

"…"

Cypress looked away with a guilty look. Ansel could tell that he felt he was in the wrong, but he also knew that what he acted on was for the people of the town. His loyalty was true, and he just wanted to know why all of this was happening. An answer that Ansel himself could not give as it would break Cypress's faith in the city. The deal for a new food supplier was nothing but a front, as there has been clear evidence that Omen have roamed this town. Cypress's reaction to the word angel was nothing but proof of his claim. As much as Ansel wanted to dig into Cypress's memories to figure out what happened, he could not sense his senses were being restricted by the thick stench of blood from the pot.

"Ash…" Cypress broke the long silence with a sorrowful tone. Ansel looked at him. Cypress's lips quivered, and tears streamed down his face. "It's my fault…I knew that from the start. After I orchestrated the death of his parents, he took on all their responsibilities. He also blames himself for letting his sister wander into the forest that day, leading to the death of his parents. Now and then, I can tell that he's thinking about that day, and every time he tries to bring it up, I would force him to forget it." Cypress looked at Ansel. "How? How can I tell that everything is gonna be alright when I am the one who killed his parents?"

Heavy sobs filled the kitchen as the man unpacked his sins in front of Ansel. It was not the first time he forced a grown man to tears, but every time he did it, it reminded him of how much of a shitty person he was. Everyone has lived through their own hells. His was just as bad as anyone else's. He lived the past 12 years hiding his sin and raising the children whose parents he killed out of a lustful desire.

"Hey…I'm sorry—"

"CYPRESS!!!!"

Before Ansel had the chance to apologize, a loud shook the tavern, and the door to the kitchen flew open. Out of the kindness of his heart, Ansel dashed in front of Cypress, blocking his face from the view of the very panicked man who stood at the door with a bloodhound in tow. The man at the door was Alder. He locked eyes with Ansel and breathed a breath of relief.

"Good, you are still here. Another body was found in the forest. Similar to the body you described yesterday, torn to sheds."