When my gaze returned to him, the warmth behind his eyes had grown vacant... cold even. I had brought up a subject that was clearly one he had never wanted to speak of again and one he never thought I would ever ask him about. But it was one that had plagued from the very moment the creature whispered it into my ear before exhaling her final breathe.

How was I to know? I was merely doing my job as a detective and she was just caught in a misfire— one that was totally my fault. A foolish one, if I might add. It was accident, one slightly excusable for rookie, but not for a seasoned vet like myself. Questioning a witness in a dingy alleyway in downtown Cursed Street with a variety of shady characters pretending to mind their own business, while smoking a cigarette by the goblin pub next door or selling their merchandise, and making sure that this elf wasn’t doing anything stupid like running her mouth off about something she shouldn‘t.

Regardless, she was a possible lead in finding the main secret warehouse of the hot new illegal drug called “Winter.” A drug that was found in the pocket of the frozen corpse of Mayor Willowthorne. It could give a magical the kind of high that made the user feel invincible and give them a temporary ability of freezing time. However, the drug could also be used as a poison—aging and freezing the user in a matter of a few agonizing hours.

But how was I to know that, in addition of knowing where the warehouse was, the elf was the one who sold the drug to my new partner’s late wife. It was completely irrelevant to the case. I was questioning her in the open, like a rookie, and someone from high above me, shot her. What would you do if you were me?

I pulled out my gun, trying to figure out where exactly the shot came from, and the elf cried out to me for help. Calling for an ambulance on the walkie-talkie microphone attached to my shoulder. I wasn’t surprised given my surroundings that I wouldn’t discover who the culprit was, but as I kneeled, not caring that my newly washed pants got stained with blood, I was surprised at what the elf chose to say as her final words before death. For not only did she sell the drug to my new partner’s late wife, but that she was well aware that it was specifically bought for the wife’s suicide two years ago.

Again how was I to know? I was just trying to further the bond between me and my new partner. It was his right to know. Once rookie, always a rookie. Stupid, stupid me... oh what a hazy shade of winter—

#fanatasy #mystery #thesurpriseswritingcanbring #hazyshadeofwinter #thebangles #toriesenseny

sultry evening, late October

palms alive with golden leaves

waltzing breeze between our lips

slightly reddened, crimson sleeves

eyes once shone with an ocean’s depth

but laughed in stark depravity

heart strings pulled, a deathly grip,

twice the force of gravity

losing, reeling, sight of ourselves

two drunken fools in love tonight

hazy dreams of distant stars

hopes arisen at full height

but if the wine was never drunk

and if the rose had never bloomed,

could our future be preserved,

or would it, nonetheless, be doomed?

because you swore you’d never go,

but somehow left me anyway,

I could not withdraw from the game:

this awful game you tried to play

lonely midnight, late July

ashes scattered on a tomb

requiem, a mourning song

joyous days lost in the womb.