The sky was gray and motionless, just like the figure who lay below it. A pool of black collected under his lifeless body. A shadow of a man towered over it, a knife in his hands, dripping with more black liquid. The fedora he wore did nothing to conceal his jolly grin, revealing a pristine set of teeth.
The shadowy figure looked to the sky and opened his mouth in a silent laugh.
Cory Ninad was clearly the victor, against some poor punter who probably hadn’t a single idea of what was going on, right up until the moment of his death. It had been almost too easy to lure the man out after one drink too many, and even easier to stick him once he had dropped his guard. Ninad almost felt sorry, but it’s a dog eat dog world, where the weak and careless would simply not survive. But that wasn’t him. Every day of the week, he was the predator, not the prey.
Crouching over the body, the man began a meticulous search of the figure’s corpse. Emptying the man’s pockets, he found only a few ordinary items, wallet, pocket knife, a tiny notebook... and an antique-looking pen. The man looked at the latter with a curious glance. Most people wouldn’t normally carry such an item, as the old nib pens had been replaced decades ago with roller-balls. Curious, he thought. A closer look revealed that the wallet was empty, no money, no notes, no credit cards, without even an ID card or Driver’s License, and the pocket knife could barely cut a sheet of paper from the small notebook, which was entirely blank...
Gah. That’s what you find when you rob the type of person who gets himself too deep in his cups to find the restroom when it’s right across from his own seat, Cory thought. At least you’d expect him to have some kind of identification, what with all the laws and regulations. If this guy was a mage, he’d probably have some form of identification or perhaps some kind of special item, or he would have his neck clapped in irons as soon has his powers were discovered, Cory reasoned, so I shouldn’t have to worry about any funny business like coming back to life or suddenly exploding or whatnot.
As he reached his hand down to pick up the pen, Ninad noticed something odd about the pool of liquid oozing from the dead man. The color, the scent...
Was that... ink? The murderer wondered what sort of crazy spell would cause a man to... bleed ink was the only possible explanation. First he thought it was simply the gray sky and the dark alleyway, but now that he saw it... this man shouldn’t have even be alive to begin with, he thought, yet there he was, clear as a Magilite’s beam! The killer suddenly took a nervous glance around, looking for anyone who might have taken the the opportunity to assault him, but the street was as still as the corpse lying in it.
Morbid curiosity getting the better of him, Cory dipped the nib of the pen in the liquid, and put it to paper, slowly beginning to scribble. After a few moments, he realised that he wasn’t scribbling, but writing on the blank page.
Cory Ninad
October 15, 2013
25th Street, Newhall, Illinois, United States
15:45:29
The liquid dripping from the man was just like ink. The thought of writing with a man’s blood made even Ninad shiver, but before he could write any more, he mentally slapped himself. What the hell was he still doing here, stooping over a dead body while writing inside a notebook stolen from said dead body? Why the hell did he write his name, the date, the address, and even the time, down to the very second? And why was the man’s wallet completely empty, without so much as a cent, credit card, or form of identification in it? Those questions would have to wait until he got home. If someone found the body with him bending over it... Well, who knew what could happen to him then? In any case, he had to get out of there before someone else arrived to summon the constables or take matters into their own hands. Picking up his pitiful treasures and standing up, Ninad began to slowly walk away from the scene of the crime, and soon he was just another member of a bustling crowd, although the troubled expression he wore was enough to make him stick out.
~~~~~~~~~~~
The sky was grey and motionless, just like the figure who lay below it. A pool of black collected under his lifeless body. A fedora was lying next to him and a pen could be seen sticking out of his chest, thrust right through his heart, but the person who had put it there was nowhere to be found--aside from the ghastly corpse and the pool of ink, the entire area was a colorless void.
Suddenly, the body began to breathe and move. Ninad sat up, eyes snapping open with confusion. They soon widened with fear when he noticed the pen sticking out of his chest and the pool of ink he had been lying in. Panicking, he grasped the pen with his hand and pulled it out only to be rewarded with the jagged edge of pain cutting through him...