It wasn't how he expected things to turn out. He first came to the small town of Tarika four years ago to investigate a case. He thought he would never set foot in the town ever again but the weird nature of the case had the town's mayor asking for his assistance. He was after all—initially—a part of it.

After informing the judge of what happened. He assisted the Miller family to have Alyssa admitted to the hospital. Leaving behind a few police officers to guard her room, detective Howe returned to the police station-his temporary home.

The police station of Tarika was not an ideal place to hold criminals or designed to house any fellon for any reason whatsoever. Though it is an 11000-square-foot building. The erection of it was a few decades ago. The cells which were supposed to keep criminals had iron bars that were rusted and weakened over time. The reception area desperately needed a new desk. Their computers were outdated and barely did the station receive appropriate funding.

Although the police facility was built for long-term service as claimed by its builders, it didn't need a genius to realize that the materials used for its construction were cheap. Not only that but it's also inadequate for actual departmental functions. The walls were littered with spider cracks. The tiles on the ground were most likely broken by the continuous amount of weight and footfalls that they received throughout the years. Detective Howe nearly drove himself insane when he first set foot inside the run-down station. It was a testament to how corrupt and dysfunctional the citizens and local government of Tarika was.

He was a highly decorated soldier before he decided to leave the army and tried to settle down. Although the demons of the battlefield kept waging war inside his tortured mind, he couldn't give up on the service. He needed to be a part of something. Being a detective may not offer as much thrill as when he rode the tides of bombs and endless flights to survive the stray bullets of enemies from offshore countries, but it still gave him a sense of belongingness. Unfortunately, being who he was topped with the scrutiny and judgment of other police officers when he first started in the force, he was given mundane tasks and was often thrown to God knows where to assist in an investigation.

The process was a new law. Officers were rooted in their district or town, and some detectives, like himself, were shuffled to different places.

***

His first case was in Tarika four years ago. He was asked to assist in the investigation of the disappearance of seven kids. His first impression? The town's people were a mess. They singled out a particular girl whom they claimed to be the last person who saw those kids alive. It was said that the kids were on an excursion when it happened and Alyssa was with them. It was said that the eight of them lingered in a dense part of the forest and after, only the Miller child returned.

Initially, he thought of their words as pointless and Ludacris. He never wanted to question the child but to end his task he went along and invited the Miller family to the police station. He found it weird that the parents of the child allowed him to question the girl without their presence or an attorney or even child services. But believing that perhaps her parents were on the same page as him—thinking nothing would come out of the interview and that perhaps she was a witness rather than the perpetrator—he proceeded. He thought that since Alyssa was only a child the interview would be nothing more than nursery rhymes and fluffy sheep.

He was dead wrong! What he got was something traumatic. Alyssa was a 12-year-old child back then but the way she answered him was beyond her age. She was smart... Too smart.

She made him feel like an inadequate man throughout their conversation. Whenever he asked her about her classmates she'd counter him with personal questions about himself. Although it was unnecessary, he humored her, believing she was just an innocent child, a victim of idiocy and lack of proper procedure—he was wrong. She poked at the things he said to her. Playing with his train of thought and knowing exactly which words and buttons to push. At one point it had gotten so bad, he had a flashback of his previous years. The question was simple but for someone such as him, it was taboo.

"How many people have you killed? How many of your companions did you abandon?"

When she asked him those, his mind reeled to the past and found himself once again standing on a battlefield. He heard the wails of his comrades. The dismembered bodies of the people he once called brothers lay scattered amidst smoke and fallen branches. The battlefield was not far from the portraits of hell. The cry of the dying man echoed all around the open field. Humans and their burning flesh brought about by the endless fires caused by bombs, released a foul smell in the air, mingling with the horizon like a suffocating poison, entering his lungs that gave birth to a constricting pain within his body. He almost saw their souls fading as their lives were drained by their wounds and by the bullets that were sheathed on the muscles beneath their skin.

At that moment, right in the presence of that child he felt his blood boiling, and straight away, the urge to kill clawed and slithered out of its dormancy, consuming every fiber of him until it finally broke free. Absent-mindedly, he pulled his gun out of its holster, raised it towards the kid, and slid his finger on the trigger.

But before he could pull on it, she screamed and the realization set in. The blood rush and blood lust slowly dwindled from his body, releasing his soul of the sinister thoughts which consumed him. The other officers inside the station immediately apprehended him and Alyssa ran toward her parents.

What truly bothered him was the smile on her face when she turned to face him again. He couldn't help but wonder, had she done that on purpose? Had she somehow formulated those questions when he said that he was a former soldier? He was reaching, he knew that. But it was weird.

Nothing came out of that investigation. They extensively searched the place those kids had disappeared from but ended up with nothing. The only thing they got was the statement from Alyssa Miller who said, "I was walking in front of the group and when I turned around, they were gone." Then that was it. It was a dead end. He left the small town wishing to God never to set foot on it again but faith played him wrong.

***

Seven days ago Detective Howe began his day with his usual routine. He got out of bed, took a shower, dressed, drove his car to his favorite doughnut stand, and grabbed a box before finally taking his seat inside the police station in Carmona. The day went on, as normal as it could be. It was almost six in the evening when he was called by the head detective and was asked to return to Takira proclaiming that the bodies of the seven missing children four years ago were found under a bridge. It wouldn't be an overstatement to say that he felt like cold water was poured over him because that's exactly how he felt. He had a feeling back then that the kids were already dead, but he found no evidence or body to confirm it.

He almost fell to his knees when his superior added that the Miller girl was once again accused by the town's people and that the teen specifically asked for him demanding it would be advantageous to have someone who once handled the case, handle it again. His first thought was to refuse, but since he haven't gotten a case in a long time, he felt that if he cracked the Tarika missing children case, it would gain him recognition and the respect that his companions refused to bestow upon him.

That same night he left the city and traveled to the small town. But everything he thought he would find and do was blown out of proportion when he was given the details of the corpse, the evidence, and everything in between. It felt to him like he was in some sort of weird cult movie where everything made no sense.

He could have turned back and left the small town when they all decided to try Alyssa Miller but Howe decided to stay. There was something about it that did not feel right. He sent his report to his superior in the city and requested for them to send help. He also tried to call some news people to have the case televised. He did everything to have the Miller case taken over by some authority other than the local government. Now, all he had to do was wait.

The town was weird.

The bones were questionable.

But most importantly, why was Alyssa Miller not denying anything? She answered simply with a smile, a nod, and riddles whenever a person came to question her. He couldn't help but wonder, was she playing with everyone's psyche as she did to him four years ago?

It was the twilight zone yet Detective Howe couldn't force himself to turn away. He also couldn't convince himself that Alyssa Miller was innocent. She knew something and he was determined to find out.