Babylon's eyes popped open. A new day has begun. He rolled out of bed, washed his face, brushed his teeth, and went for his morning poop.

When he was finished, he carried himself to the couch in front of the television and began flipping through the channels. His wife was behind him, in the kitchen, chopping onions for a bouillon later on. She grunted after a second of fiercely staring at him. He was aware of the grunt but ignored it.

They had been going through a shaky time in their marriage and little did he know she was going to serve him with divorce papers sooner or later. She was only waiting for him to screw up one more time. The papers were already printed and ready and were nestled in a folder in her handbag. She hoped that he would remind her of why she even married him in the first place before she gave them to him but he didn't have long.

At the moment, the television was plastered to a radio station in BerkVille who was covering the very little details of the story of DeeJay.

"The Devil's work!" his wife shouted "The Devil lingers in BerkVille! That poor child got caught in his crossfire! I ask God everyday to put a hand and guide and protect my family!"

Not wanting to engage in her superstition, he got up and began to get himself ready for work. When he was finished, he walked out of his room and into the living room, where he was looking for his leather side-bag. He discovered his daughter and wife eating breakfast at the table.

"Pap' can we have a family meeting?"

"Sure" he said looking up from his tie. He sat down.

"I feel like the two of you have gotten a rift lately. Like you two have been drifting away from each other!"

"Have we?"

"YES!" his wife threw in.

"I don't know what's going on but you two need to work on that because I miss having the two of you preparing dinner together every night" she said before getting up to get ready for school.

For a brief moment, the two sat silently staring at each other, hers more angry. They exchanged a few grins as they listened to the hands of the clock above them wondered around in a 360° angle. Finally, the sound of Babylon's alarm signaling him to leave for work every morning broke the silence.

7:31 a.m
Babylon arrived at work. He greeted his peers then prepared himself a cup of coffee, no milk and extra sugar to be exact. He sat down at his desk to begin trying to crack the case. Thats when his door was brought to a knock.

It was the forensic expert. They'd finally brought him the results of the fingerprint tests he'd sent in. And the outcomes had brought him one step closer to resolving his case. His grin was filled with relief and a sense of accomplishment. His desire to be the hero or simply the recipient of accolades was growing stronger the more the case was unraveled.

He rose from his desk, grabbed the file, and flew to his car. He rushed up to our school, which was perched on a cliff overlooking a beautiful sandy beach. He inhaled the fumes of the polish Mr. Flich was using to shine his shoes as he parked his car next to the basketball court. Babylon made a disgusted face as he walked past the car Flich stood next to letting him know that the smell was unpleasant to the nose.

He made his way to the principal office and notified the principal that he needed to speak to one of the students for a brief moment concerning the case of DeeJay. The principal made an announcement over the intercom that excused Dustin from his Information Technology class. Soon Dustin was seated at a desk in an empty class with Babylon sitting across from him.

"I'll keep this quick and simple Mr. Cooper" he opened the file and handed it to Dustin. "Can you explain why your fingerprints are on the gun that shot DeeJay Disso Junior after he died?"

Dustin's stomach sunk. He immediately went dizzy and his mind went blank. His neck began to scratch and heart began to race. He thought at first that it was a trick the police was using to try to incriminate him but Babylon's face didn't show any tricks, plus the evidence was right in his hands. He couldn't answer and stumbled over his tongue trying to find an explanation.

"No, no... don't say anything. I'm not here to get your confession as yet. Just let your mother know that you better get a lawyer as soon as possible. Because I WILL be arresting you in two days time. The warrant is being processed!" and with that he then exited the room and marched to his car.

    But he couldn't make it to his car before a call came to his phone. Once he answered he learned that it was Beth's father who was inviting him for a chat right this instance. His interest grew thicker and he immediately jumped into his car to drive to his house. And as he rode off he left a mischievous grin burned into Dustin's retina.

9:56 a.m
    Babylon arrived at Mr. Rainyman's house. Being that Mr. Rainyman was a very well-known man who owned one of the biggest houses in BerkVille mostly everyone knew its location. "Just look for the towering house through the clearing in the trees" was a regular saying his clients heard when given directions to his house.

   Mrs. Rainyman greeted him and led him to Mr. Rainyman's office, where the meeting would take place. Babylon let his gaze wander throughout the almost palace-like house, taking in the beauty. The house was beautiful and a sight for sore eyes, but it was only a glance to him. He never desired a large house or much in life; all he desired was for his name to be known and a simple life with a simple house and a simple wife.

    He wondered into the office and Mr. Rainyman immediately closed his files and pinned his undivided attention onto him.

"Can I offer you a Piton?"

"No, I'm fine. I would just like to know why you requested I come here"

"Oh you wanna get straight to it?" Mr. Rainyman uttered as he snickered. Babylon's face held a strong and hawk like look.

"I just wanted to talk to you about the case of that DeeJay kid"

"What about it?"

"Well, as you know, I have friends in all places..." they both shook their heads to each other "And my friend Phil told me that you're building a case towards my daughter and her friends. Am I right?"

"Yeah, you're right"

"Well, I'm wondering if you would like to make some edits to that case and trim some ends with the name of 'Kendra Rainyman'" Mr. Rainyman stated as he took a cheque from his suit breast pocket and slid it towards the sheriff.

    For a moment Babylon was silent. He unfolded the cheque and stared at it. Ten thousand dollars.

"And there's a lot more where that came from just so you know"

    Babylon laughed.

"Nah, nah. That's plenty, you just gave me another key detail I need to build my case" Mr. Rainyman's smiled dropped. "Oh... and I recorded everything" Babylon stated pulling a voice recorder from his pants pocket and dangling it in front of his face to tease him.

    And with that he left the office whilst placing the cheque into his pocket. He was even more pleased hearing an infuriated Mr. Rainyman bicker from inside the office whilst throwing around different items. Mr. Rainyman realized that he had made everything ten times worse and didn't like being pushed over and made out to look like a chump, especially from Babylon. Someone he always looked down upon in school.

7:34 p.m
    Before Babylon left the station tonight he packed up everything they had gotten on the case and hauled it back to his house. On his way in, his wife and daughter were leaving to go see a movie together. He was delighted that they were, considering he needed to be alone with his thoughts to crack this case before the sun got out of the pool tomorrow morning.

    In the living room, he laid out the folders and went through each individual detail. He would read through them for a bit, take a sip of coffee to stay awake and stimulate his mind, read some more, then stand up to refill his cup. He had some evidence but he didn't want to arrest us without having a strong case. Plus, he had seen the plot of friends killing their friend before in the media and he wasn't letting it go over his head.

He was genuinely curious about Carson's whereabouts this summer. An elderly woman who spends the day in her rocking chair on her balcony saw Carson enter Cole's home frequently. He inexplicably had to leave that summer and returned right after Deejay vanished. Everything seemed a bit too suspect.

He was also intrigued by Dustin. From their interactions, he came across as being a touch cold-hearted, and the fact that his mother hit him at the station felt a little too similar given his area of work. Also, the fact that Dustin's prints were on the gun was enough for him to detain him. But he wanted to be precise. Apart from Dustin's fingerprints on the gun there was nothing at the crime scene. No footprints. No tire tracks. Not at least one of blue's clues that could actually indicate that Dustin or anyone else was there.

He was also thinking about me. The summer completely changed who I was. I had changed my gender at this point and was a whole new person. To him, reinventing oneself always seemed like someone was trying to escape from the past. And what could I be trying to escape from?

Before now, Beth didn't have any reasons to suspect her. The fact that her father was wealthy and attempted to buy him off to have her name struck from the case is what truly set him towards her. Her father must have been aware that she had done something illegal because he sought to use his fortune to pardon her. That had to be it.

Mandy was the only one without suspicion on her, for now at least.

He stood up after taking a couple images of us from the files. He then searched his kitchen drawer till he came upon a pack of thumbtacks. He entered the living room, pinned the photos, and then stood there contemplating for some time.

To not forget not an ounce of his thoughts he got out his voice recorder. Most of what he was about to summarize about us were character specifications and traits our teachers told him about us. I'm just lucky he never went to me and Carson's literature teacher about us because she never has anything good to say about anyone. Especially ME.

"Tony. He or she or whatever is very creative, a bit reserved and very assertive" he said speaking into the voice recorder whilst pointing to my picture.

"Dustin. He is artistic, a jokester and a bit authoritative"

"Carson. He is smart, can talk his way out and into most things. He also has the tendency of being the one to light up the room with just his energy and smile"

"Beth. She's smart as well, persistent, and a crybaby"

"Mandy..." then his reason for suspicion finally hit "she is amazing at hiding stuff, silent but deadly not just by how nobody never knew what she was feeling but how she can completely change a story and make you believe it even if you saw what happened yourself" he smiled as he turned off the voice recorder and thanked our english teacher for that characterization. The case was slowly coming together and the handcuffs situated on his waist looked a little dusty.

He heard the door nudge open at that point. Thinking it was his wife and daughter he didn't look over and said "Hunny, I'll clean up these papers in a bit I'm close to cracking this case!"

    He had no idea that it would be people ten times scarier than his wife whenever she discovered he hadn't put down the toilet seat.

    There were four guys. Each was holding a metal bat while dressed in all black and wearing ski masks. There was bloodlust in their eyes, and a vein on one of their necks popped out.

They started hitting Babylon with their bats right away, until his arm was badly hurt, his knee was swollen and purple, and some of his teeth were laying next to him like soldiers on a battlefield. They ripped the papers, destroyed all the evidence, and poured his wife's favorite wine on them and his open wounds. To cap it all off, they shattered the wine bottle on his head.

11:15 p.m
Babylon's wife and daughter were laughing as they drove into the rocky driveway. As they hopped out of the car and inched over to their house they greeted their neighbor and discussed the movie they had just watched. The daughter was very observant and calculating, and she liked to break things down, so the movie's ending didn't make much sense to her.

But her words soon turned to screams as her mother pushed open the door to the scene of the Babylon. Her mother quickly ran to try to comfort and make sure he was alright whilst she tried to type in the number for the ambulance and police with shaky hands and teary eyes. What made making the call even harder was her mother shouting to her to call the police thus making her overstimulated. Not something a child should ever have to go through.

They both entered the ambulance when it soon arrived and sped off in the direction of the hospital. Unaware of what had happened, I watched as the ambulance sped through my neighborhood to take the shortcut.

As the EMTs burst through the hospital doors with Babylon strapped to a bed, his wife dropped her bag while attempting to catch up to them. She immediately tried to pick up everything that fell to try to get back to her husband and make sure he was okay. However, when she looked to her left, she discovered the divorce papers. Feeling guilty and ashamed, she recognized why she had loved him and didn't know what she would do without him,. and everything seemed trivial to her now. Her eyes welled up with tears. But she needed to be tough. So she got up, ripped the papers, threw them away, and made her way to her husband.