Chapter Two

“Who’s there?! Who are you?!” Jason shouted, kneeling in an endless sea of darkness.

No matter how hard he pressed his hands against his ears, he could not block out the sound of countless voices whispering to him. Half of the voices were completely incomprehensible, the rest repeated the phrases he had seen in Tim Jones’ home, as well as telling him to commit horrible, twisted crimes. These voices, he heard them with a depth that he had never before experienced. With normal noise, sounds met the ear and just stopped, but these whispers… it was as if his head was made of water and the whispers were ripples, able to move through every fiber of his being and leave no mental stone unturned.

“Kill them all.”

“Drown the world in blood.”

“Bask in eternal suffering.”

“Tear away your flesh and bleed forever.”

“Drink the tears of innocents.”

“SHUT UP!” Jason screamed, unable to bear the whispers violating the most secretive confines of his soul.

Pushing the whispers aside, a deafening crash like the snapping of a billion bones filled the darkness with such intensity that Jason thought his ears would bleed. At the same time, a bright red light shined overhead like a dying star. With it, blood began to rain from the sky, drenching Jason and the nonexistent landscape around him.

Jason bolted up his bed, soaked in a cold sweat and now hearing the beeping of his alarm. It was Thursday, the day after he had found that grisly scene in his neighbor’s house. It did not surprise him that he suffered a nightmare, but he had never experienced one with such vividness. As he reached out to turn off his alarm, his hand paused over the nail, the nail he had taken from Tim’s home. Four inches long with four flat sides, the spike of black iron looked like the kind of nail that would have been used in crucifixions by the Romans. If his parents knew he had taken something from the crime scene next door, they would freak out. He didn’t even know why he had taken it, but something would not allow him to leave it behind.

Reaching past the nail, he turned off his alarm and retrieved his cellphone. He had left an apologetic message on Christi’s phone and he was hoping she had replied before heading off to work. Being a Thursday, they were both off from classes, but only she had a job. His voicemail box was empty. Either Christi had not seen the message (unlikely) or she was ignoring him. Oh well, with the house empty, nowhere to go, and no homework to do, there was nothing left but a relaxing day of lounging.

Wearing the same clothes as yesterday, he left his room and sleepily made his way to the hall, but as he took the first step down the staircase, he realized that there was something in his hand. Gripped tightly in his fingers like a prison shiv was the nail. When had he picked it up? He didn’t remember ever even touching it. Turning back, he returned to his room and set the nail at its resting place on his bedside table. After staring at it a little longer than he should have, he left the room and closed the door, but acting in tandem with the click of the door latch, a dull thump echoed from Jason’s bedroom.

Thinking the nail had fallen off the table, he reopened the door and looked around. No, the nail was right where he had left it. But what if it did fall? What if it slipped behind the table and he couldn’t find it? He would spend the day tearing his room apart in search of it, or accidently step on it and hurt himself… Best to be safe.

With the nail in his pocket, Jason began his morning routine.

Even with the much-needed day off, Jason could not relax. The TV played show after show and he had the limitless possibilities of his laptop, but he just couldn’t get comfortable on the couch. Every thought in his mind drifted back to what he had seen the day before and to the nail in his pocket. He continuously adjusted its position, trying to get it to feel right, but no matter what he did, he always felt like he had to grab it and change its position.

Eventually, he found his way back to his favorite porn site. Scrolling down the front page, he started selecting any movies that piqued his interest. While the movies rolled on mute, Jason’s attention constantly shifted from the porn to the TV, and back again, not quite applying any real focus to either stimulus. In time, the graphic images sunk into his psyche and he felt the urge to rub one out. Moving upstairs to his bathroom, he got himself all positioned and ready and looked for a good video to jack off to.

He soon settled on a lesbian bondage video. Manhood in hand, he started the clip and carefully raised the volume to a soft yet audible level, knowing that there was no one home but always afraid of being heard. The scene started with a busty brunette milf secured in handcuffs to a brick wall. Long black hair, thick full thighs, a stomach kept as flat as possible no matter what the cost, colossal tits that were as fake as they were glorious, and a cute face that showed her age. The years had certainly been very kind. She was wearing a purple dress and had a gag in her mouth.

While the victim put up a fake struggle against her restraints, player no. 2 strolled into the frame. Slightly younger and with blonde hair, her glistening leather outfit broadcasted the part she was playing. The greeting was played out, the sexy blonde leaning over and grabbing the brunette’s face and murmuring how she was going to ruin her. The punishment began with the ripping away of the purple dress, letting her braless tits bounce freely. At the sight of those glorious fun-bags, Jason’s heart rate jumped into a frenzy as he imagined wrapping his tongue around her erect nipples. Goddamn, her skin looked softer than velvet, and imagining his cock resting between her tits, smothered by them, sent a shiver up his spine.

The brunette rolled her head from side to side, feinting disgust or humiliation as the blonde leaned down and fulfilled Jason’s fantasy, wetting the woman’s areolas with her tongue. She licked them both gently, humming to herself while reaching down and releasing the hold of the brunette’s panties. Lowering her head even more, the blonde traced her tongue down her toy’s stomach, letting it gently flick the lips of her experienced pussy. The brunette emitted a stifled whine of arousal as her mistress’ tongue rolled around in her interior. Jason couldn’t help but wonder how it tasted, if it was the same as Christi’s or any of his past girlfriends’.

Swinging back to get her goldenrod locks out of her face, the blonde smiled and began petting the brunette’s slit with her hand, polishing her fingers with a wet gleam. Biting her lip, she inserted her middle finger up into her slave’s pussy, spreading her lips and making her whine through her gag. Whether it was to cause her pleasure or pain, the blonde began forcing her finger into the brunette’s pussy with sadistic speed, moving her hand into a blur while her slave moaned and cried out.

Seeing how roughly she was being treated, how she screamed masochistically through her gag, the movements of Jason’s hand increased in intensity as he watched the brunette’s sexual abuse. After thoroughly loosening up the brunette, the blonde retrieved a large vibrator and secured it between the brunette’s legs. Powered by a wall socket, the bulbous head of the “neck massager” began to buzz with a deep hum. With the hard rubber shaking against the spread lips of her pussy, the brunette released a scream of ecstasy through her gag, while the blonde continued to toy with her. As the vibrator worked its magic, the blonde stood up and resumed sucking on the brunette’s balloon-like tits, stimulating her perfectly in two different points.

In time, the vibrator and gag were discarded and the brunette changed her position. Now secured with her face to the wall, she had her purple dress fully removed, granting the camera a perfect view of her peachy white ass. Again, she made a few pulls at her restraints, trying to make it look like she was being held against her will or some other shtick like that. After about a minute given to the viewer to admire the brunette’s cushioned milf ass, the blonde returned to the frame, now with a flayed whip in her hands.

Giggling to herself, she delivered a playful slap to the brunette’s rear end, letting the black latex strands lick the woman’s flesh like a hundred thin tongues. At the sting of the whip, the brunette cried out in another mixed bout of pleasure and pain. Again and again the short whip struck her, letting her yelps echo through the set, and while her cries were very sexy, Jason suddenly found himself unsatisfied. He wanted more; he wanted more pain, more cruelty. He didn’t know where this desire came from, but it was ravenous in its intensity.

Clicking the “rough” keyword link in the description, he scrolled down through the results until he saw a familiar video. It was the kind of video that almost everyone on the site had seen. Jason had certainly skimmed through it a couple times, though something of this level never aroused him. It consisted of about five guys brutally gangbanging a girl; slapping her around, spitting on her, stepping on her face, etc. The whole time she looked stoned out of her mind or terrified. A lot of people called it rape, but apparently the girl was actually a real porn actress and she did all her movies in this style. As expected, the comment section was a battlefield of

“It’s rape!”

“It’s not rape.”

“This is sick!”

“This is fake.”

“She’s a victim!”

“She’s an actress.”

“You’re all messed up in the head! Shame on you!”

“You’re watching it too.”

“Kik me at blah blah blah.”

“Why do people go to this page when there is this great porn site yadayadayada.”

“My girlfriend thought it would cool to cheat on me, check out these pictures I took of her at whatever.”

Jason only masturbated to girl on girl and skimmed through regular porn when he was bored, but he found himself watching this video intensely. He was no longer jacking off; he now had his chin resting on his hands with a hungry look in his eye. He imagined himself in that room, taking part in the abuse. Whether the “rape” was real or not, he imagined it as being authentic with him as one of the perpetrators. This was completely out of his character. Sure, what he did to Christi was a sleazy move, but he could never rape anyone or even fantasize about it. Yet here he was, dreaming of the role he would play.

He imagined himself pulling her by her ankles across the filthy wet mattress and forcing his manhood into her gaping anus, hammering her with all of his strength while the other guys took turns forcing her to suck them off until she vomited. He imagined pulling her hair and smacking her makeup-smeared face, calling her a filthy whore and ramming his cock into her mouth. The gargling sounds of choking she would make and the foaming bubbles brought on by her attempts to breathe made his muscles twitch. He imagined watching as the other guys took turns with her, punishing every orifice and humiliating her on camera. In his mind, he pushed aside the guy with the ridiculous beard and took her for himself, ramming her pussy as hard as he could with her hands around her throat.

He dreamed of forcing his manhood into her brutalized body over and over again, dominating her and turning her into a piece of garbage. He fantasized about spitting on her, insulting her, slapping her, and dragging her around by her throat. He imagined fucking her bruised body with his hands around her neck, always around her neck. But as the fantasy progressed, his hold around her neck became a growing choke, with his hands evermore tightening and making her gag and gasp for air. Whenever she was just about to pass out, he would wake her up with several hard smacks to the face, bruising her before stuffing his cock into her mouth while she was disoriented. Then he would sodomize her, holding onto her neck from behind and fucking her asshole in the doggy-style position. Biting his lip, he would move as fast as his body would allow, making her scream and beg for mercy and cry in pain and humiliation. To answer her, he would donkey-punch her repeatedly, shutting her up even though her pitiful cries excited him.

By now, Jason was so deep in the fantasy that he felt like he was standing in that room in real time, as if that were his reality. He was on the bed, shooting load after load into her anus while she cried out. The other guys were gone, there were no cameras; it was just him and the girl in this very real rape. Once he ejaculated, he grabbed her by the hair and pulled her over. Silencing her screams, he forced his cock once again into her mouth, with the head and shaft drenched in his semen and her ass fluid. Once she sucked him clean, he pulled his dick out and rubbed it across her face while spitting on her, further smearing her makeup.

Still not satisfied, he pulled back his fist and punched her square in the face, breaking her nose. She screamed in agony and tried to cover her face, but the resulting stream of blood running down her chest only excited Jason further. Holding her up by her hair, he again punched her, this time in the stomach. She buckled over with the air knocked out of her and Jason continued with another punch to the face, whipping her head back and painting his knuckles red. She fell on her back on the mattress and he was immediately upon her. While beating her senselessly with his left hand, he forced the fingers of his right hand into her bruised pussy. Grabbing ahold of the side of her slit from the inside and outside, he squeezed brutally hard and pulled, tearing her insides with his fingernails and causing her to bleed profusely.

Ripping his hand out of her, he returned to her face and continued beating her. Over and over again his fists struck her face, impacting with animalistic strength and inhuman cruelty. Every time he pulled his fists back to punch her, he would fling his arm and splatter blood across the walls and ceiling, both her blood and his. This no longer had anything to do with sex or rape. It was all about inflicting as much pain as possible and making her suffer. At last she passed out, her face completely unrecognizable, but Jason couldn’t let her go just yet.

Grabbing the sides of her head, he pushed down on her eyes with his thumbs. Quickly the pain woke her back up and she screamed as he steadily pushed harder and harder, grinding his teeth and nearly foaming at the mouth. With a satisfying crunch, he pulverized her eyeballs and gouged them out of her skull. Fountains of blood shot in all directions and her screaming reached new levels of volume. Deciding her agonizing screams were more annoying than exhilarating, Jason reached down and bit into the side of her neck as hard as he could, tearing through muscles and veins with his teeth.

Pulling away, he ripped her jugular vein and a mouthful of flesh out of her neck, and immediately the girl began to bleed out onto the bed. Jason took a few moments to chew on her flesh and savor the taste of the meat and blood, then swallowed and dove back in. This time, he clamped his jaws down around her windpipe and tore it out, robbing her of the ability to breathe. Now suffocating and bleeding to death at the same time, the girl couldn’t stop Jason from assailing her face with his teeth.

KNOCK KNOCK

The hard tap on the bathroom door nearly threw Jason into a heart attack.

“Jason? Honey? Are you in there?” his mom asked.

“Yeah… sorry. I was watching a movie and lost track of time!”

Looking down he saw the screen of his laptop had gone dark. He pressed the power button but nothing happened. Were… were the batteries drained? That’s impossible, he had at least three hours of energy when he went to the bathroom! And why was his mom home, she didn’t get off work until… Jason threw himself at the bathroom window, feeling the blood drain from his face as the dropping sun met his view, saying its final goodbye before setting early on this fall evening.

‘How is that possible? How could SIX HOURS pass by without me even being aware of it?!’

Was it true, had he been sitting on the toilet for six hours, not even aware of the passage of time, completely hypnotized by some twisted fantasy that made him sick to his stomach with guilt and self-loathing?! Never in his life, in his wildest dreams or nightmares, had he even thought of doing something so horrible. Rape, murder, CANNIBALISM?!

“What the fuck is wrong with me?!”

“So how’s Christi doing?” Colleen asked, speaking from across the dinner table. While her right hand was working a forkful of haddock, her left hand was under the table with her thumb tapping methodically on her phone.

“She’s ok, I guess. She and I had a fight and she’s been giving me the silent treatment.”

“Why is she mad? Did she find the playboys under your bed?” his sister teased.

“Colleeeeeeen…” their mom hummed warningly.

“Colleen, it’s 2016. The only people with playboys are those who don’t have access to the Internet or are holding onto them for the future collector value,” Jason shot back.

“Well I hope you two fix everything, I always liked that girl,” his father sighed.

“Dad, all this time you’ve said that she has the personality of plain Cheerios.”

“Well yeah, when you’re with her. When she’s gone, I see her as the possible mother of my grandchildren. You don’t know what you have until it’s gone.”

“Please tell me you don’t see me that way,” said Colleen.

“Of course not, if you get pregnant now, I’ll kill you, but once you’re done with college, I want more grandkids than I can count. I want you to start firing them like machine gun.”

“DAD!” Colleen screeched in embarrassment.

Before the conversation could continue, Jason’s mom cleared her throat loudly. “That’s ENOUGH. Let’s talk about something else. Oh, that reminds me, I saw…”

The conversation became muted, at least to Jason. He sat in his chair, chewing slowly with his face focused on his plate. Around him, his parents and sister’s mouths were moving but no words were being spoken. Everything was mute to him, even the food being mashed between his teeth. For some reason he felt very calm, as if he were a car running on cruise control. His body was moving automatically and there were no thoughts in his mind. In the lowest possible level of his hearing, so quiet that he wasn’t sure it was there or not, he heard something. He could hear a whisper, or even several whispers overlapping each other. He had no idea what they were saying, but as the seconds became minutes, they grew in volume until they filled the void left behind by the silence. Very soon, the whispers dominated his mind, as if he were wearing headphones plugged into a radio set to a static channel.

As this was going on, his hand was in his pocket, gripping the nail he had taken from Tim Jones’ house.

Jason was again on his knees, kneeling in a sea of darkness with a deafening choir of whispers forcing him to cover his ears in utter futility. Was this same dream going to happen every night? Was he going to be suffering nightmares for the rest of his life? This time, however, the whispers were clearer. Most of the whispers were just a general mash of commands for him to commit horrible crimes, but several seemed to actually be giving him directions.

“Capture a sacrifice.”

“Destroy the humanity.”

“Teach them despair.”

“Inscribe the horror!”

“Pierce their soul!”

“SPREAD THE CHAOS!”

“SHUT UP!” Jason screamed as the whispers suddenly jumped to an eardrum-rupturing howl.

The instructions were repeated over and over again, with the volume increasing with each sentence in the cycle before dropping back down to a whisper.

“Achieve death.”

“Achieve death!”

“ACHIEVE DEATH!”

“Please, just leave me alone!” Jason cried out in the darkness.

Just like in the previous dream, the voices were brushed aside by a new sound, the sound of a cataclysmic crash similar to the snapping of billions of bones. A bright red light flared in the black sky above, hovering as a beacon of both hope and despair. Without a cloud in sight, blood fell from the sky like rain, drenching Jason and the surrounding landscape in gore. He sat there, knowing that there was no place to hide and that there was nothing he could do but try and keep it out of his mouth and eyes. However, the intensity of the downpour only increased in power with the passage of time, quickly becoming a thundering deluge that hammered Jason into submission.

Within minutes, the blood had completely blinded Jason and was running down his throat, no matter how tightly he kept his mouth shut. The salty iron taste excited him for some reason that he did not understand, just like when he suddenly went berserk in his fantasy and started beating the girl from the porn video. The blood made him both happy and enraged. It made him want to rape, torture, and murder. It made him want to light the entire world on fire and slaughter every living thing in his path.

Without warning, something in the blood changed. Instead of exciting him, it filled him with absolute terror. He felt like something was standing over him, something abominable and unparalleled in its wrath, like it was staring straight at him and planning its first strike. Kneeling on all fours with his head bowed, Jason shivered as wave after wave of blood broke against his back, waiting to feel some hand grab him or a blade tear through his flesh. He could feel it closing in, wrapping around him like a straightjacket and weighing down upon his soul like his own tombstone. This evil, what in the world was it?!

The whispers now returned, but instead of giving him orders, they were now mocking him and calling him helpless.

“You can’t fight.”

“You can’t defy.”

“You will obey.”

“You will suffer until the end of time.”

“Your flesh will be pealed from your bones.”

“Your blood will fill the air.”

“Your bones will be crushed into shards.”

“You will drown in the tears of your agony.”

“Darkness will enslave you!”

“Your soul will be devoured for eternity!”

“ACHIEVE DEATH!”

Jason bolted up in his bed, finally awake and free of the nightmare. It was the middle of the night, and just like the night before, he was drenched in a cold sweat and shaking like a heroin addict going through withdrawal. He reached up to wipe the sweat from his face and realized something was in his hand. It was the nail, and he was gripping it so tightly that the edges along the four sides had cut his palm. Putting it down on his bedside table, he rushed from his bedroom and into the bathroom. Momentarily blinded by the activation of the lights, he squinted his way past the shower and to the sink, where he turned on the faucet and held his bleeding hand under the water.

Slowly becoming accustomed to the light shining through his eyelids, he opened his eyes and looked at himself in the mirror. The sight that greeted him was not pretty, and he found himself gasping in disbelief. Blood from his palm had completely plastered his body, as well as scratches and cuts across his torso from holding the nail. Beneath the dried gore, his face was deathly white while his eyes were horribly bloodshot. He looked back down at the sink and found himself staring at the nail standing straight up on its flat head on the counter, still wet with his blood.

No, that was impossible! He knew he had left it in the bedroom!

Jason staggered back in fear, realizing the truth now. These nightmares, these hallucinations… they were all brought on by the nail. That… thing, whatever it was, had to be cursed or something!

Grabbing the nail, he forced open the bathroom window and pulled his arm back, about to chuck the metal spike out into the night, but with the frigid air now nipping his skin, Jason couldn’t move. He was as still as a statue, trying to work up the nerve and the courage to throw the nail and be rid of it. Yet no matter how strong his will, his body would not obey his commands. In fact, with his own body resisting him, fear was building in his heart. This fear was familiar to everyone, the fear of being about to commit a death-defying stunt. This was the fear that held you in place instead of jumping off a cliff or into a lake, the fear that kept you from letting go of the swing as a child and seeing how far you could go, the fear that made you pull your hand away at the sight of a spider or snake. This fear should not have been ignited at this time; it should have been the driving force in making him dispose of the nail. It was as if his fear was being turned against him, harnessed as a weapon to weaken his resolve.

‘All right, I won’t get rid of it.’

His muscles immediately relaxed and he walked over the window to close it. However, just as his free hand was going to lower the glass pane, he forced his right hand out into the cold with the nail in his grip. Sweat poured from his face as he tried to get his fingers to unravel, but it was as if his hand had turned to stone. This nail was controlling him! It wouldn’t allow him to let go of it!

“What the fuck is going on?!”

Sleep didn’t come easy that night, his mind was buzzing nonstop about the nail. He should have never taken it from his neighbor’s house. Was this thing the reason why Tim Jones had gone crazy and killed someone in his kitchen? Were Jason’s dreams really tied to this piece of metal? At last he managed to get a couple hours of fitful sleep, and when he woke up, he was convinced that the whole thing was just in his mind. Of course the nail wasn’t cursed. He was just imagining it. The stress of the semester mixed with his shaky relationship with Christi and the horrible things he had seen in his neighbor’s home were just getting to him and making him irrational. Once he figured everything out with his girlfriend and got his shit together at school, everything would sort itself out.

For a reason he did not understand, he decided to take the nail with him. Of course weapons of all kinds were forbidden from the premises of SMCC so if anyone saw the nail they might think it was dangerous. He would just have to keep it hidden and hope that anyone who did somehow see it would not care or believe him when he said it was just a good luck charm.

Jason sat out in front of Christi’s home, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. If he didn’t leave soon, he would be late for class, but he couldn’t let this go. Christi hadn’t returned any of his calls or texts and her car was still in her parent’s driveway. Unless she had gotten a ride with her dad, she was here, and he would wait for her until she finally came out to ride with him to the university or tell him that it was over and she wanted him off her property.

At last, with clock approaching the minimum time either party would have to get to their classes, Christi’s front door opened up and she stepped outside. Jason stood up out of his car and watched as she approached him with a stoic look on her face.

“So are we going?” he asked, unsure of what else to say.

“I am, but not with you.”

“Come on, Christi. Don’t you think you’re overreacting?”

“Overreacting?! There was one thing I told you not to do and you did it, you did it without even asking me and after I had just warned you! And to think you actually had the nerve to pull that stunt when I was being so generous!”

She was choosing her words carefully, since her family was still inside going through their own routines.

“Look, I’m sorry, ok? I lost control and did something I shouldn’t have. If I could take it back, I would, but there is no excuse. But don’t let one incident end our relationship. Never have I lied to you, cheated on you, or mistreated you. Are you really going to break up with me over a single bad move?”

“It wasn’t just a bad move. I’ve been a very easy-going girlfriend and never complained, but you broke my only rule.”

“And I’ll never do it again! I know I crossed a line, and I’m going to spend the rest of my life as far from that line as possible! Please, give me one more chance!”

Christi bit her lip. “Fine, come on over tonight, I’ll call and tell you when. But I’m driving to school on my own.”

While fixing his relationship with Christi had certainly raised his spirits, Jason was still unable to stay awake in his first class of the morning. After the rough night he had gone through, a lecture about reincarnation wasn’t exactly firing him up. His notebook before him, Jason struggled not to fall asleep, but he could barely focus, let alone keep his eyes open. He would have given a kidney to just stop time for a couple hours, lay his head down on his desk, and take a much-needed rest.

To the ticking of the clock in the background, Professor Nelson’s lecture melted into a meaningless droning river. Jason’s eyelids were so heavy, he felt like his entire forehead was sliding down his face and enveloping his eyes, like a sheet of snow devouring everything in an avalanche. His body felt warm, warmer than it had been a few seconds ago. His brain was beginning to ignore physical sensations and his muscles were slackening, causing his head to hang with his chin against his chest. All movement ceased, his eyes closed, and all outer stimuli were rejected.

SCREECH!

The sound of chairs moving across the classroom floor shook Jason awake and nearly made him jump. Professor Nelson was hollering about the assignment due next Monday, but all of the students were already busy retrieving their things and walking out the door. Great, another class wasted. With how little learning Jason was able to do, he would be lucky if he didn’t fail this class. Looking down to put away his things, his blood gained an icy chill.

ACHIEVE DEATH

These words had been scribbled onto his notebook over and over again, plastering the opened page with machine-like similarity. Once every line of the page had been used, the words appeared in a much larger font, scrawled diagonally across the paper. Had he really done this? Had he been writing in his sleep, replying the words he was hearing in his dreams?! How was this possible?!

Getting to his feet, Jason hurriedly began stuffing his things into his backpack, only for Professor Nelson stop him. The only two people in the room, the professor approached Jason as the frightened youth crammed his notebook into his backpack.

“Are you alright, Mr. Stevens?” the teacher inquired.

“Huh? What? Oh… yeah. I’m ok. I’m just really tired,” Jason said nervously.

“I heard on the news what you found in your neighbor’s house, it’s a real shame that you had to see something so horrible. I heard that the police still haven’t found Mr. Jones or figured out the identity of his victim. Oh well, at least you didn’t have to see the murder itself or the body, right?”

“Uh… yeah… I’m glad I didn’t have to.”

“Though from what I heard about the scene, I don’t know if the presence of a body would even be any more terrifying. I can’t imagine what I would do if I walked in on something like that, though I hope I would be able to make the right decision… whatever that would be. Would you say you acted wisely?” Nelson continued, walking aimlessly through the rows of half-desks with his back to Jason.

Jason stared at him, feeling more and more anxious. What was he getting at? “Yeah, I would say so. Though I wish I hadn’t thrown up on the floor. I know I didn’t make any mistakes or do anything stupid.”

The professor then turned to him with a very grim look on his face and in his eyes. “Then you knew not to take anything from the scene, right? You knew not to touch anything or steal anything that could be evidence?”

The question pierced Jason’s heart like an icicle, chilling his blood and filling him with fear only equaled by that time he spent in his neighbor’s house, looking for the source of the smell of blood. Was it possible? Did Nelson know about the nail?! Was he somehow involved in the murder?! Jason shook his head from side to side, momentarily unable to speak from how tight his throat now was.

“No, I didn’t take anything.”

Professor Nelson’s demeanor did not change, but he did turn away from Jason. “Very well, good to know. Glad you didn’t make a bad mistake. I suggest you get moving before you’re late for your next class.”

Once Jason left and the professor became the only person in the room, he drew his cellphone and selected a number on speed-dial. “It’s Nelson, I think I found the nail. Let’s hope we’re not too late.”

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