He held the knife.
Arden didn't know when, or why, or how that knife ended up in his grip, but it was there, and its handle was cold.
Sunlight spilled through a sliding window, catching its blade. It gleamed a shiny gray, but also ruby red; results of the fresh, uncongealed blood, flowing and dripping onto the marble tiles beneath.
His grip was tremulous, his jaw was shuddering, unable to close. His bloodshot eyes drifted toward the shadow by the window:
His wife sat lifeless, with a slit throat and blank eyes, wearing a bloodied white dress.
Her long blonde hair was dry, tangled, mingled with red.
Her throat was severely spiderwebbed by protruding magenta veins, but what flowed out was regular crimson.
THUD!
The door was kicked open abruptly.
But Arden barely reacted, he didn't even flinch. He was still shellshocked, distraught from the sight of a victim undeniably his, and unfamiliar.
"POLICE!"
…
Hans woke up, and found that he was asleep on his desk. His fingers quickly settled around the temples, squeezing; a headache, an unbearable one, but also an atypical one.
It wasn't the common headaches where the brain seems to be tightening, compressed by something that shouldn't be there. No, Hans felt a hollow in his skull instead; like his nerves were trying to reach a part of the head that wasn't there, stretching pointlessly.
Hans couldn't work out what was it that was missing. Contradicting the pain, Hans actually found an additional memory — more of an impression than a complete remembrance.
Impressions of keyboards, videos, videogames, social media...
Have I been transmigrated? Hans would think, but with no recollection of events from his past life. He could only recall blurry images of impossibly advanced technology.
His current life however, as Hans Kahnwald, he was very familiar with. After high school, he'd attend Aldesh Academy and graduate to become the star detective of Theater.
Somehow, the town of Theater which he grew up in, Hans suddenly felt it to be quite similar with Earth's 1970s.
What's Earth? Hans only had an impression of it. Unshakable, undeniable, but undecipherable.
When the headache gradually faded away, Hans's memories were still jumbled, convinced of a past life he cannot recall.
He looked up and found his typewriter, his 4999th entry to his journal sat there incomplete with only one sentence:
[Reasons To Kill, the journal, Part 4999]
[I've found an eleventh reason to kill. It's]
Hans couldn't remember what he was going to type, nor did he remember that there was an eleventh reason. Nonetheless, he would pick the paper up, fold it neatly and deposit it into a metal compartment nearby.
Then, the rotary phone on his desk rang.
...
Arden was instructed to wait by his couch in the living room while several professionals rummaged through the crime scene: his and his wife's shared bedroom.
It was a small apartment. The living room and the kitchen weren't separated. No dining room. Three doors, one to the cramped bathroom, the other to the shared bedroom, the last to the balcony, eleven floors elevated.
He was on the edge of the couch, hugging his own knees, while his ears registered none of the clanking from the search. Until, a series of footsteps, somehow more commanding than all others despite only being thumps, reached him.
"Hi." Hans Kahnwald arrived next to Arden, taking off his fedora and pressing it against his chest.
Arden looked up:
Hans was a tall, gloomy man with eerily ash blue eyes. His overgrown raven hair was neglected, while his attire clearly received attention: black trench coat over ivory shirt and gray trousers. The fedora was also tasteful: a mix of inky and dusky, adorned with a single elegant snow white feather.
Arden didn't respond, he just stared.
"Can you tell me what happened?" Hans asked gently, bending slightly at the waist.
"I… I didn't do this…" Arden muttered with his eyes trembling intensely.
"Okay." Hans nodded with no signs of suspicion, "How did you find the body?"
"I just woke up…"
"I see. My colleagues told me that you were holding the murder weapon. Did you wake up with it?"
"Yes…" Brown-haired Arden mumbled quietly, but Hans still caught it.
Hans straightened his body and reached into his pocket. He pulled out a paper box of cigarettes, drew one for himself before offering.
Arden waved the cigarette away.
Hans returned the box into one of the many pockets on his trench coat, before lighting the joint between his lips with a golden butane lighter.
"You have to believe me, Hans…" Arden dropped his head, tears began to cascade too.
Hans simply exhaled a spiral of smoke, "It's Detective, and I believe you."
Most other law enforcers around the crime scene were wearing badges, representative of their ranks and accomplishments.
Hans wasn't, not because he doesn't have any achievements to show, but because he has too many, so many that showing wasn't necessary; anyone in town knew who star detective Hans Kahnwald was.
Hans pulled the cigarette away from his lips, "Do you believe in fate?"
"H-huh?" Arden was caught perplexed.
"Fate. The idea that life's already entirely written. Nothing you do now or later would matter, because things are already set in motion."
"I... I guess I do." Arden agreed without sincerity.
"People find that idea pessimistic. But I think the opposite, I think it's the most optimistic way a person can think. Because with that belief, nothing could ever hurt you. You're not unlucky; it had simply already been decided. No laws, no acts of mere men can disobey the will of fate."
Arden's solemn expression gradually mixed with rage, apparent from the grinding of his molars.
High heels thumped on the marble tilings.
"Hey." Violet Qiu Qian, Hans's colleague, had arrived with her long dark hair neatly tied into a puffy bun.
Her brown jacket was decorated with six star-shaped badges. One was six-pointed, two was five-pointed and the remaining three four-pointed. Beneath that jacket was a white cotton blouse, tucked into fitting denim jeans, which highlighted the outline of her curvaceous thighs.
The brown jacket was also the uniform for law enforcers in the town of Theater. All the other officers were wearing it, all except Hans.
"Hi." Hans greeted simply.
"Are you okay?" Violet raised a brow with apparent concerns.
Hans frowned very subtly, "Why would you ask that?"
Gray-eyed Violet averted her gaze. Her lips were pressed tight, as if jailing words that were dying to escape.
In the end, she simply suggested, "You wanna see her?"
They'd approach the body in the bedroom. Violet trudged with caution, while Hans sauntered rather casually.
"Kahnwald." An officer greeted his arrival with a subtle nod before seeing himself out, giving space to their star detective to work his magic.
The rest of the bedroom was pristine and organised; it didn't seem like there was a struggle between the killer and the killed.
There was only one queen-sized bed, the blanket on top was clumped to one side; indicating a clear winner last night for the blanket tug of war.
There was also a closet and a dresser, but those didn't look suspicious for Hans to pay too much attention.
He turned his ash blue eyes down, to the floor where blood was printed; where Arden supposedly woke up.
"So he woke up knelt on the floor?"
"That's his story." Violet nodded, Hans didn't see it.
Hans was already engrossed in attempting to rehearse the killing, all while smoking. Yet, he couldn't do it.
From the blood stains where Arden woke up to the body itself, there were no blood trails.
If Arden murdered his wife, somehow without any struggles, left her by the window, and fell asleep a couple metres away, not leaving a trail is impossible.
If he had cleaned it up, then why would he be sleeping in blood, holding the murder weapon?
Hans squinted.
Only minor blood mist could be found on the face; and the most eye-catching part wasn't the blank eyes, but the lipstick hue; a unique bright pink.
The blood started from the neck and down, and they were congealed. Yet, the blood stains on the knife, now packaged inside plastic, was fresh.
"Hm." Hans hummed and approached closer towards the victim, whose face also indicated the absence of a fight; it was the face of someone peacefully asleep.
He paid extra care to the victim's throat.
Magenta network of veins over pale, cold skin.
They get less intense moving away from the throat, but more concentrated when nearing... a sigil of some sort.
All the veins seemed to connect to a single point: a small, metallic plate attached onto the victim's skin. On its surface: a pattern in bright magenta, that Hans assumed to be a sigil, something connected to a cult.
He'd rip it off the victim with gloved fingers to inspect it further.
Once out of the victim's skin, what remains was a swollen purple.
The plate was the size of a coin. It weighed a coin, and it worked like a coin. Nothing extraordinary, just a weird pattern.
"What do you think that is?" Violet questioned from behind, her back against the doorframe.
"A mark." Hans held the coin up to observe it under sunlight, "A serial killer's ritual mark. That's what I would've guessed if there were other similar cases, but there weren't."
"What about the veins?"
"It certainly originated from this mark, hence we should deliver it to a lab." Hans stood up, then dropped the magenta coin into a palm-sized plastic bag, sealing it tight.
"For now..." Hans continued scanning the floor, "I would give Arden the benefit of doubt. The blood tells a different story than a simple murder."
"What story do you read?"
"A new kind."
"Hmm..." Violet nodded slowly. "What are you thinking?"
Hans paced around the bedroom, looking for more clues. He'd see framed pictures on the dresser, mostly Arden with his late wife. One of them was shattered, but the missing glass shards were nowhere to be seen.
There was also makeup tools: face brushes, eye brushes, eyeshadow and mascara. Then, that bright pink lipstick.
Hans took one last long inhale of the cigarette, before removing it and putting it out on an ash tray, conveniently placed on the dresser.
"I'm thinking, life acknowledged me." Hans turned around to Violet, not with a calculating look, not with his usual cold expression, but with a faint satisfied grin, "It's given me a challenge."
Violet blinked in surprise.
Hans noticed how unfitting joy was for his current situation and erased it, "Let's talk to Arden Lionsworth."