Criminals Everywhere.
26 July, 2176
11.47PM
I woke up unbelievably aware of the time. The phone had been ringing for a while.
“Hello?”, I picked up sleepily.
“It’s happened again. We have to go investigate.17th street, Ellis district, 15 minutes. I’ll see you there” *click*
The line went dead, but the voice that had spoken was familiar and firm. Lxmi. I jolted awake and rushed out of bed. Now was no time for a shower. I put on my clothes and rushed down the narrow stairs of my apartment to my car and drove out. I barely had enough time and wouldn’t be able to stop for a hot chocolate to wake me up.
My city had come to ruins — crime on a steady rise, with an officer like me often called at ungodly hours to deal with lawbreakers. The government had put stricter laws in place ever since the uprising of the people, and we were obviously charged with enforcing them. I drove slowly and turned into Ellis District. A woman stood facing the wall; not an odd sight for the times we lived in. Most likely a miscreant being punished for some illegal activity. I pulled up on 17th , Lxmi wasn’t there yet.
Lxmi. My work partner. Not a day went by when I didn’t think of her. Or need her. No matter what went down at work, I couldn’t do it without her, and she wouldn’t do it without me. I stood by my car waiting for Lxmi. She was never late, and if she was, it wasn’t without good reason.
I saw a white sedan like car pull up. It wasn’t Lxmi, but I decided to check it out anyway. The driver wasn’t doing anything wrong, but with the state of the world, I couldn’t take any risks, so I walked up to her and asked to do a routine check.
“Papers?”, I growled sternly.
She diligently handed me all her papers. Everything was in order. But we couldn’t let someone go that easy. Government orders.
“Open your trunk”, I mumbled, noting down her details.
“Ma’am…”, she fumbled
“OPEN YOUR TRUNK”, I barked.
She tripped out of her vehicle and headed to the back, struggling to insert the key card into her ancient vehicle. With the newer vehicles you just had to wave your key card to pop it open, but not this piece of junk. She opened the hood of her trunk, expecting the worst. Luckily, there was nothing I could hold her against. The woman near fainted. Lawkeepers had a reputation of harassing even the innocent in these times, and everyone was scared of us.
“Nyla!”
I heard Lxmi yell from across the street and I nodded my head to let the driver go and crossed the street towards Lxmi.
“26–19?”, she asked, as she handed me a hot chocolate
“Yeah. Thanks”
“Anything on her? Don’t mention it.”, Lxmi pressed, as she gestured me to follow her to the crime scene.
“No, she was clean”
“Shame. Anyway, we have a case to handle. let’s go.”
We made our way through the back alley up the trashy neighbourhood from where we’d parked. Lxmi walked ahead of me, guiding me through the narrow paths stewing with rats and darkness. It wasn’t long before we reached the building and made our way to the house where the gruesome crime had been committed.
It was time.
—
27th July , 2176
12.26AM
There was pizza. Except, there was no pineapple on it.
I shut the lid of the cardboard box and walked towards the window to check for forced entry. We had scoured the entire apartment. Nothing.
“This isn’t just a crime, it is a statement”, Lxmi sighed, still looking at the oil stained box.
Ms. D broke out in tears and stammer, “I….I….I don’t know anything”, she sobbed furiously. Lxmi handed her some of the tissues that lay near the pizza delivery box.
“It’s alright Ms D. We’ll figure this out”, I remarked routinely, still looking around her apartment to see if I could find the smallest trace of the crime. It was relatively clean , small and filled with lots of small items. In the background a TV was playing old episodes of Turned, the popular late night television series. Several small vases held dried flowers around the apartment. A small bookshelf in an unused corner had been knocked over.
“Odd,” I thought to myself.
No one who lives in Ellis district really reads. Why would she have a bookshelf. It hadn’t struck me before, but now that I was looking at it from the window, it did look odd. It looked like it had been knocked over a while back and no one had bothered to pick it up, which was more odd, considering Ms D had kept her apartment relatively clean. The window itself didn’t do much for the place. It didn’t look like there was much sunlight or ventilation combing through here during the day.
Ms D was still sobbing. Lxmi was trying to console her. And I was getting distracted. I couldn’t focus.
Lxmi walked over slowly, “So this is the 5th case, this week”, and whispered, so not to interrupt Ms D’s bawling, before returning to her task of consoling Ms. D
“5th?!”, I mouthed silently. Lxmi nodded.
I let out a deep sigh and massaged the bridge of my nose.” Ms. D, let’s go over the details of what happened one last time, shall we?”, I said softly, as I sat down across her and looked at her mascara stained face and her hands rubbing her nose with free pizza tissues. She nodded violently as she gulped and composed herself.
“…I came home from work at around 8 pm. After I showered and cleaned up, I ordered my pizza. Then I fed Fergusson, my cat, and decided to do some dishes. My pizza arrived by around 9.30pm but I didn’t eat it right away. I put it on the table and went to finish the dishes and cleaning up the house. I changed my clothes and by the time I got done it was 10 pm. That’s when I noticed they were gone…”, she started sobbing again
I turned and looked at Lxmi
Ms D continued her stammering, “ ..I…I.. couldn’t believe it. I opened up the pizza box and there were no pineapples. They were all gone!I swear, I didn’t do anything!”
“ Don’t worry Ms D, we believe you.”, said Lxmi, in her most soothing voice.
—
You’d think in a world like ours where we got rid of all the men, crime would be at an all time low. Turns out that’s not the case. Criminals, everywhere.
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The second in my writing series from our writing group that gives us prompts. Today’s Prompt and rules:
For today, your challenge is to use all of these sentences in your story
1. “ S/he opened the hood of his/her trunk, expecting the worst”
2. “There was pizza. Except, there was no pineapple on it”
3. “I woke up unbelievably aware of the time”
4. “Not a day went by when I didn’t think of her/him”
5. “ A wo/man stood facing the wall; not an odd sight for the times we lived in”
Rules:
- Each of these sentences must appear at least once in the story, however, you are free to use any/all of the sentences multiple times, should it suit your narrative
- Sentences cannot be used in succession/combined with another sentence from the challenge.
- The sentence must be used verbatim and no words can be changed
- There is no order in which these sentences must appear in your story
- For creative purposes, genders alone are interchangeable to suit your narrative, use as desired.
- 1000 words minimum, please limit stories to 1200 maximum.
