Seven For A Secret Never To Be Told

Yasmine loved her job to the point of unhealthy obsession.

Truth be told, it was a wonder to most who knew her. Who could have thought that she, a woman born and brought up in nearly nothing next to aristocracy, could find such contentment in just owning a cafe?

She didn't believe it herself, not until a car accident took her parents and left her with more money than she could make sense of and a little brother and a little sister to care for.

She learned to play fairly quick- to recognize the eyes of greed under the mask of compassion, to politely sidestep offers of adoption and care. She's had help, she wouldn’t deny it. But, in the end, it had been her, and not anyone else, who had won the game.

She still had a fortune that'd have her live the rest of her life in a mansion with three maids attending to her every day, but the feeling of owning something that was not money- more specifically, a place where people came to relieve their sorrows, find their happiness, bare their secrets- it was a temptation too irresistible to give up. And so, here she was, just short of being a millionaire and running a cafe-cum-bar.

Besides, her sister was off in a university of choice, and her brother dropped in at times purely to get on her nerves or to get her a date. There was nearly nothing she could have wanted more- well, maybe except for the date part.

This particular evening, the guys coming her way were almost determined to be shabby, with those century old, cheap pickup lines. Atleast they like to play, she thought. Well, she could play them all she liked, and they wouldn't have a clue.

Most of them, mostly, vented out secrets they would sell their souls for. She liked that, and though she overheard some things at times that sat on her mind for days to come, or had her sleepless at nights, she wouldn’t miss it for the world.

"I swear by God, Yas, if you reject one more guy, you're gonna end up single for life."

She looked up, passively, at her brother, somehow still intent on sending more unfortunate men her way. "You're one to talk, topless."

The look on his face made her evening, and she didn’t bother to hide her laughter when he stomped off, intent on getting his back.

Her phone beeped. There was a text from someone- the number wasn't on her contact list- but it refused to load. Giving over the desk to Luke, she went outside, thinking about banging on the management's door for the cell tower quality.

Her screen blinked again. Two texts now, from the same number, consecutive.

Is this the Star Cafe?

Is this Yasmine?

She wasn't surprised. A lot of people knew her name, and a lot of people had her number- though most didn't dare to text after the first impression. Leaning against the fence, she texted back.

Yes.

There was a pause of about half a second, then another text came in.

Do you remember last Saturday?

She tried to remember which guy had tried s pickup line on her. Her mind couldn't come up with a name.

Are you some guy who tried a cheap line on me?

The pause was longer, long enough for her to think the guy had backed off. Then the phone beeped again.

Did you think we didn't see you overhearing us?

She tried to remember, really did. But it was far enough back that she couldn't. Creeps weren't new to her, and she knew exactly what to do for them.

Well, that was my best guess, but like you can see, my last crap has flown.

Content with the lingering pause afterwards, she was about to put it back in her pocket, when the screen lit up again.

Money can't save you now, baby girl.

She scoffed at the guy's audacity. Calmly, she turned on the flash, and sent the guy the bird. She needed a drink. Now.

Taking out a bottle of her favorite- which she had conveniently forgotten to seal- she poured herself a glass. The cafe was nearly emptied, giving her plenty of room to put her feet up on a table next to the door.

"Hey, Yas? Could you take a look at this?"

She could've groaned at Luke's voice, but moved over to the back window, where he was pointing at a dead cat near to the fence- specifically, the side of the fence topped with live wire.

"What do you think?" He asked, " it wasn't here in the morning."

"We'll clean up tomorrow," she said, strolling back to her table, "I swear if you ask me to touch that now, I'm gonna puke."

A few sips in, her eyelids started to feel heavy. That was quick, she thought. Atleast her brother was too busy flirting with a girl to notice her getting drunk that quick. The flavor felt a little off, and she summed it up to not sealing the thing. Still, she sipped on, fighting the drowsiness.

By the time she realised something was wrong, it was too late. She could feel her breaths becoming shallow, and a part of her mind briefly registered how beautiful the ceiling of cafe looked. She remembered overseeing the designs and lights- she hadn't expected it to be her last sight.

Atleast it was painless, though surrounded by sirens, paramedics and voices. Yet the only thought that pierced her last moments was that single, damned text.

Money can't save you now, baby girl.

The first thing Clarke registered was breathing.

He was breathing, but something was off. Something about how his chest didn't move as it was supposed to. Something along how his heartbeat was all wrong. Something about how everything felt wrong.

The second thing was smell- scratch that, almost every one of his senses screaming in either agony or excitement, or purely because they were somehow supposed to- feeling moments away from sensory overload. Everything was too loud, too sharp, too poignant, too quiet.

He tried to piece together whatever he remembered, his mind laying down a plan of assumptions and strategies. Was he injured, captured, detained, or purely incapacitated?

The thought took a moment to cross his mind, like light piercing through a curtain of oblivion. But that didn't make it any simpler.

He shouldn't have been breathing.

He remembered. He remembered everything- the footsteps, the scream, the earth, the darkness, the lack of breath–

His eyes snapped open of their own accord, as if eager to run as far as possible from that image, those memories, those moments.

He shouldn't be alive.

Everything was large- impossibly large. For a moment, he wondered if he was in some sort of dream- or was he in the afterlife, whatever it was? The second sounded plausible- if afterlife granted you heightened senses bordering on overload, or tried to kill you again.

It was the same overload that alerted him of footsteps, which were quickly followed by voices.

"I swear, officer, this is the last place where I know Agent Emerson came to. He mentioned it a couple of times in the day, and I saw him ask the head for permission."

Agent Blake. Clarke could have cried of relief, even if that man had been at odds with him since the dawn of time. The footsteps were coming closer- it must be only moments before they notice him.

"Do you know the reason behind his interest in this place?" A different, deeper voice came, unrecognizable to him. Well, that wasn't a problem- he won't have to deal with him very long, because they will notice him.

They must.

Their footsteps and voices came closer, and closer, and closer............and passed right by him.

"Of course I do. The guy's been head over heels on those disappearances. Must think of himself as a Sherlock."

He couldn't believe it. He was here, right here, looking at them, directly in their path, and they didn't so much as look at him. This is a dream, he thought. But dreams didn't feel as real. Whatever restraint he had so far evaporated.

"I'm here, you blind moron!"

They didn't turn back. If he was angry before- more like frustrated, in pain, maybe even a little afraid- all of it morphed into rage. A string of colourful words escaped him, words that would've had him fired in he was anywhere in the job.

The words felt wrong in his throat.

The realisation came after a few seconds. Slowly, horrifyingly.

With all this yelling, all these words, nothing had come out except a string of angry meows.

He leapt to his feet- no, paws, - only to realise that the ground seemed impossibly close. His balance was off five ways from Sunday. There was something soft, warm on his body- fur?

This was a dream. He was certain of it. A ridiculous, absurd dream without meaning. He was going to wake up soon, to that sharp beep of the alarm, and continue his day like he always did. He was going to wake up, and get back on the case. All of this, the playground, the attack- all of it had been a dream. It must be.

But didn't people wake up if they died in a dream?

He was certain of it. Dream or not, he knew he had died. He knew it with a precision almost impossible to decipher. Then, had that been a dream?

A part of his brain refused to believe it. He was human. He had been human. And he had died, for real.

But the alternative was equally terrifying. Still, reality took over whatever comfort he had been trying to find in delusional thoughts, thoughts that didn't matter now.

He, Clarke Emerson, was dead.

He, Clarke Emerson, was a cat.

He knew being in his job meant that fear was no longer an option, and he tried to follow by it. Think, he told himself. But whatever was left to think?

Clarke hadn't known fear in a long while, and yet he felt it creep up his spine- feline or human- in a chill. He wasn't afraid.

He was terrified. For the first time in a very long time.

The voices of the officer and Agent Blake faded away, leaving him alone in the suddenly impossibly large playground, with a suffocating silence. The world seemed to watch on, heedless of the nightmare unfolding in some nameless place of it.

Heedless of him, who still couldn't bear to move from that rigid, loud, unbearable silence.

If anyone asked Ethan if he liked or hated his job, it'd take him a lot of time to answer.

For one, his job was the reason he found the best places to take Jane to for dates, and had a lot of knowledge about a lot of people in the town. On the other hand, his boss was an absolute ass.

Being a delivery boy wasn't the way he'd imagined living life, but it generated enough for all his study bills, and that was more than good. Even if it meant he spent more than half his day on the road with a massive bag upon his back, providing to the people who are either too lazy or too busy, or straight out incapacitated.

Fridays, as he had noticed, were the manager's personal favorites- because they were his busiest. Ethan didn't call himself whiny, or complaining- he's developed the patience of a Saint waiting at doors- but he sure had a few choice words for his boss by the time he got home.

Driving from home to home was easy- the bad part was the waiting. He didn't deprive himself of the pleasure of cussing at them wholeheartedly the moment he was out of earshot. Over time, however, he's found that the best, most satisfying way to vent out that frustration is to whistle till they're fed up and open the door just so he'd stop.

This Friday, however, even that Saint's patience was stretching beyond elasticity. He looked at his watch- it was already eight. And he still had three more homes to deliver to. The words he had reserved for his boss reached a new level of atrocious.

By the time he arrived at the last house- after a good deal of waiting at the previous one- it was ten. With half a mind, he wondered if they’re already asleep. The order was nothing spectacular- a couple of bulbs, some trip alarm and a hard disk. Putting on the best pleasant face he could, he walked up the steps and rang the bell.

No answer came. He sighed, half willing to just kick down the door. He tried again with the bell, and then moved to the window.

It was dark inside. Ethan didn't identify himself as skeptical, but something did feel a little.... off. Well, he thought, I'd believe it if an angel fell from heaven right here, right now. A little too still darkness wasn't even cutting the sack.

His patience reached its end after the third try. Just when he'd decided that the customer could just screw himself, he noticed something- something that screamed a little of Bad Idea in his head before being ruled out by the frenzy of his overworked brain just wanting to sleep.

The door wasn't locked.

Atleast I won’t be fired, he thought. No one could say he didn't deliver- no matter if the customer was too busy to pay, that was a sure card in excuse- and, taken by the idea, he walked inside.

The first thing he noticed was the smell- like something metallic. The second was the form draped over the sofa. Even in the dim light coming in from the streetlights, the angle didn't look very comfortable.

People sleep weird, he thought, before clearing his throat. "Mr. Williams?" He started, with that salesman voice perfectly masking the string of profanities moments away from leaving his mouth, "You have a parcel."

The silence stretched on. He rechecked the address. "Mr. Williams?"

Still, the form didn't move. He barely resisted the urge to throw the package at him. Waiting was one thing, but this? This was crime against humanity.

Taken by some wave of boldness, he confidently walked forward, a hand reaching for the switch of the table lamp.

The moment he switched it on, he froze. Mr. Williams' eyes were open. Hastily trying to form an explanation, he stammered out, "Uh, it was late and I saw the door open, so I-"

He stopped. The man seemed to stare at nowhere and nothing- before he realised that he wasn't breathing.

He didn't hear the soft scrapping coming from beyond the body.

Ethan wasn't one to be taken by surprise easily- he's seen many things he couldn't explain- but, man, this was new. The package hit the floor with a thud, but he didn’t care. Okay, he told himself, trying not to freak out, you’re gonna call 911.

He knew he should have already been dialing. But a morbid curiosity made the corpse look impossible to just walk away from. Bad idea. Taking up the lamp, he approached closer to the body. The light fell on a torn open jacket, and bloodied skin beneath.

Marks. There were marks on the body.

Taken up by that strange curiosity, the strange sense of suspense, he took a look closer- and immediately wished he hadn't.

The marks weren't marks- they were letters. Deliberately carved into the skin. But the jagged, bloody letters were not what filled him with horror. It was the words themselves.

SEVEN FOR A SECRET NEVER TO BE TOLD

He didn’t know why. The sight of the words sent a shiver down his spine, and for a moment, he couldn't decide what to do- run, scream, or call someone. Then his mind kicked back into action, and his hands found his phone faster than he could think. It didn't take very long do dial 911.

Within moments, a voice came in for the other end. "911, what is your emergency?"

The explanation was ready, every word formed- yet it never left his lips.

Something thick wrapped around his neck, and before he could react, it tightened just enough to crush his windpipe.

The struggle was brief, and futile. His last memory was of the light of his phone blinking under the shattered screen, and that voice from the other hand trying to reach someone destined to be out of reach- forever.

"Sir, are you alright? Can you tell us where you are?"