Nightmares Vs Magic

It's been a couple days since I dropped off Theo, and um, also after seeing what were the most gorgeous eyes ever, but we don't need to talk about that! I had trouble sleeping ever since I kept thinking about what Theo told me before he left to his car, about the mystery guy, probably because I was worried about him. The guy on the phone was trying to manipulate him into something but it seems like it failed? 

I try not to think about it, as thinking too much got me in a lot of trouble at one point, and it's not my business. Sienna's team is handling it now, if I ever get too curious, I can just ask them when they're done. For now, I've realized that I may have been letting go too much and having fun with the couple bits of cases Laurence had me go on. I should stop now.

"Why do you keep trying to get me to do these things?" Dove asked him calmly as she typed out her latest report on her laptop, describing the details she witnessed after he sent her to check on a graveyard that she recently learned has been watched over for a few years.

Laurence, who was only passing by, stopped and turned his head to her.

The sounds of his shoes on the floor are familiar enough now, I feel relaxed when I hear his footsteps.

"I don't want to end up disappointing you when you realize I'm not gonna make a great detective. All those others lucky guesses I've had so far, they were just luck, they don't actually amount to much. I'm sorry for upsetting you like this." She said without turning to look at him, otherwise she'd lose her courage. 

But, Laurence wasn't all that reactive to her statement. In fact, he just chuckled and tilted his head at her. 

"Well, I haven't fully given you a bigger test to know just yet. But trust me, I won't be disappointed, regardless of what the results will be."

"That's a nice thought."

Dove seemingly bit her tongue, and frowned as she finished typing her report, before going to send and print it, standing up and heading over to the printer. Laurence didn't pay much mind to her response; he just went back to the conference room where a new set of photos of and notes were put up on the whiteboard.

The printer hummed to life as it worked on printing hers along with some other papers, only to then act as any common printer, and start jamming up or refuse to work. 

Dove clicked her tongue, kneeling down and checking the amount of paper in the paper drawer, tapping on the screen to check the settings, and take a peek inside where the papers should come out. 

"This never happened before, did I do something?" She muttered to herself, hands on her hips as she looked in confusion at the stubborn machine. 

Briskly stepping beside her, Bence was holding a bottle of what appeared to be water. 

"Printer's not working?" He asked her casually, one hand on his hip. 

"Yeah, I'm trying to figure out what I did, it's never done this before."

"That's probably because I haven't gotten to fixing it yet." He said as he gently popped off the cork of the bottle, stepping forward. 

"Can I watch you fix it? So that I can remember for next time?" She asked him as she tilted her head for a better angle of what he might be doing. 

"Sure." He shrugged, before holding the bottle over the printer and pouring some water on the machine. 

Dove stared in bewilderment and wondered if the man had any coffee yet, before he slowly began explaining very nonchalantly, while the machine also surprisingly soaked up the water through the think gaps between its machine and plastic parts. He was expertly pouring it in intended places.

"Relax, it's holy water. I normally use this to fix the printer. It lasts a good while, so I rarely have to go through the trouble of bothering any of my religious buddies." He explains. 

And as expected of holy magic, the printer begins cooperating again, making much smoother noises. Bence pulls out a handkerchief and quickly wipes down the tray before pulling back and give Dove a clear view of freshly printed papers, sliding out with no issue. She stared with wide eyes and calmly thought out loud. 

"So, printers are, possessed most of the time?"

Bence shrugged again, putting the cork back on the bottle. 

"I honestly don't know, but this is the best way to fix it so..."

A camera's shuttering sound could be heard near them, causing both Dove and Bence to turn and see the photographer, an amused young woman who looked to be in her mid-twenties, excitedly and humorously holding her phone horizontally in both hands as she took more pictures of the now working printer. 

"Oh, no one is going to believe me but I'm posting it anyway!" She whispered to herself as she turned her phone vertically and began editing the photos and typing. 

Her phone with the pop-socket and the sunglasses hanging from the v of her V-neck shirt already gave me a clue of what type of person she might be. Now all she needs is a selfie stick and a bunch of dialogue making it clear she's talking to streamers. Interesting still, I didn't normally meet a lot of people like her in Vermont.

Dove carefully glanced up at Bence, slightly opening her mouth, her face already having a question that Bence already knew. 

"Right, almost forgot, this is a new client. I was just helping to guide her to this room after she seemingly got lost..." He said as his sentence drifted off, due to both of noticing how the woman continued wandering off on her own, exploring the rest of the place with her phone. 

"Trying to take a video of everything..." He said, trying hard to hide the annoyance in his tone, before shrugging it off as his annoyance was soon replaced with amusement when she found the conference room. 

Laurence had been standing there at his whiteboard with all his sticky notes as usual, going over all the cases listed in the other New England states. His thought process was interrupted by the woman who boldly walked into the room, looking at the place through the camera of her phone, startling him. 

"Bence!" He yelled out in annoyance, to which the Necromancer popped his head into the room and smirked. 

"Maybe next time pay attention to your surroundings, then you could've locked the door. Did you even sleep?" 

The detective groaned in annoyance. "Dove." He called out."

"Got it." She responded, rushing inside the room and grabbing the woman by both arms to pull her out. "Ma'am, you can't be in here."

"Wait! Why do you guys have a bunch of photos with nothing on them? Are all private investigator agencies like this?"

Dove, although not being a fighter type of person, was pretty sturdy and taught by her mother to be strong in whatever way one could. She easily pulled the eccentric woman out of the conference room, glancing at Laurence who came followed them out of the room, rubbing his temple at Bence before tipping his head at Dove. 

She sat the woman down in a seat with a bit of force, waiting to hear any objections or corrections from any of her peers as she stood up straight, standing next to the seated woman. 

Laurence walked over to the desk where she was seated, nodding his head to Dove as he put back on his professional mask, smoothing his hair and rubbing the bags underneath his eyes. 

"Good morning, and apologies but before we can help you or offer any services, I'm going to have to ask you to delete the photos and videos you took on your phone of everything in the conference room." 

The eccentric woman's mouth nearly fell agape as she let out a blasphemed gasp, clutching her phone to her chest.

"What? But I didn't take a picture of anything important, just some cool looking documents fit for mystery background aesthetic and stuff."

"Those documents, along with the photos I know you took of my whiteboard, are actually important to us. Please delete those, as I would really not want anyone to see the information on those. You especially should not share the videos you took of all the photographs I had lined up on the tables." 

"There wasn't anything in them! They were just blank, if it's important, you can just trust me to edit out anything you don't want. I rarely ever have any stock photos to use of legit detective offices."

Laurence, who clearly hadn't had his coffee yet to have the energy for this, looked to Dove standing next to her, rubbing his eyes as he gave her a look. 

"Think you can handle this client while I go drink the coffee, I left in the conference room?" He said softly, nearly as a murmur as he proceeded to slowly walk away from his desk. 

"Yes." Dove answered firmly, the gears of the past turning in her head again as she thought of how to deal with the client holding important and secret information. 

I never met a lot of people like her before, the ones who will shamelessly go around with their phones and record everything. I once met families who were taking model worthy photos for their daughter's quinces, or tourists asking for their photos to be taken.

The eccentric woman clutched her phone tightly as she looked up at Dove standing next to her. In the young woman's eyes, Dove appeared more stoic and colder than the girl had intended, or more not intended at all, it was mostly the suit and her eyes. 

"How about I pay for the photos I took? That sound good? It's like paying for copyright."

"You can't simply pay to leak our important data. Especially ones about certain people and places."

"And?"

Dove held a blank stare at her as she stood and gave a light bow at a good enough eye level. 

"Some people in our documents aren't very friendly."

The woman groaned, quickly swiping and tapping something on her phone, her nails making spine-tingling sounds each time her thumbs hit the screen. 

"May I ask if you've finally decided to delete them?"

"No! I can't lose these! Were you not listening? I rarely ever have stock photos of genuine detective offices; I could use these if I ever want to talk about criminal cases. Do you even know how hard influencers have to work to make quality content?"

I'll be blunt, four years ago and this woman would have ticked me off, making me want to use whatever sadistic methods I used to have to make her cooperate. But right now, I just see a stubborn influencer who has an eccentric job that has caused other influencers to lose a lot of feelings of shame or embarrassment for the sake of fans, popularity, content, or just because they had nothing better to do. I can handle this. Just gotta stay calm...

"I understand but you're gonna have to find them elsewhere or just do research to create your own scenes, we especially can't allow you to post the empty photos. They have certain, watermarks that we'd rather not let most people see."

She stared at Dove, dumbfounded and not understanding.

"I just said I rarely have stock photos of genuine detective offices! Are you even paying attention? Make my own sets? How is making my own sets going to help with photos? And what watermarks? They're just blank pictures. Are all private investigators this nitpicky?"

"Ma'am, please try and listen to me. Your content is not valid enough to use hidden information." 

She seemed to snap as she stood up, planting her heeled feet down as she shoved her very brightly lit phone into Dove's face, causing her to squint. 

"Excuse you?!"

The silver haired girl could only blink and squint, backing away from the very bright light source as the brunette continued to shove it in her face, also getting right up in her face as she began to talk in a less room appropriate volume.

"Do you know how many followers I have? How many subscribers? My content isn't valid you say? I make more money than you could ever imagine, and I bet I could do way better in researching true crime than whatever the hell any of you are doing! I'll even take a selfie with all my documents and photos, without gatekeeping them because I'm smart to let the people know what they need and want to know!"

Okay, that line made me snap. "Need and want to know"? This woman has no idea about the messed-up things people want.

Dove's eye suddenly twitched as she held back a snarled expression, only allowing the click of her tongue to be noticed by the extroverted woman, who paused in her rant, stopping in her track as she slowly recoiled her phone from the girl's face. 

The girl walked into the conference room, taking one of the photos with those creatures that only the haunted are cursed to see.

"I'm going to borrow this, I'll put it back." She told Laurence, who stood by the coffee maker, watching Dove's hand swiftly move to grab the now intimidated woman by the shoulders, pull her up and ushering her to a place down the hall. 

The woman ranted to make me stop, but something I really wish wasn't a part of me, was triggered and had a job to do.

Neither Laurence nor any passing coworkers seemed to stop her as Dove walked with intention, before finally finding the mirror room, opening the door, and ushering the woman inside, having her again to forcibly sit down.

One thing no one really taught me about the mirror room, but I just had a theory of, is that if it can help reveal people's inner selves through the mirrors, then maybe it can also help non-cursed people to, for at least a moment see what us haunted people see. That's why I did it, but I sort of regret it. 

Dove stood behind the woman who was now disturbed but still annoyed and with her pride, about to snap at the girl before she planted her hand on her shoulder, still holding the photograph facing down. 

"What do you see right now?" She asked first in a calm but stern voice. 

The woman, thoroughly on edge, breathed carefully as she stared at the reflection across from her with wide eyes, an almost quivering mouth as she began to speak. 

"M-me? Claire? My face? You? Did you, bring me here to compare us? Is this because I said I could do a better job? Are you offended?"

Dove shook her head at the shallow answers and questions, staring blankly next to her, before flipping the photograph up, and since the table was in the center of the mirror room, while they could both see it, it was at least from a good enough distance to not have too visible of a look at it. The room is small enough to make one feel claustrophobic if needed.

The woman looked confused at first, until she rapidly blinked and began seeing something appear in the photograph, like her eyes were losing their blurriness as Dove held the photo very still. 

When I first spotted the photo, it reminded me of when I read how Skinwalkers were described. From Indigenous culture, Skinwalkers are flesh takers who will normally take the appearance of eerie looking animals. They say you can tell whether an animal is a Skinwalker if you see a four-legged creature suddenly stand up on its hind legs, or if you notice how yellow their eyes are, and whether they are staring straight at you. 

Without having stolen any victim's skin yet, they are like skeletal beings, all fleshy and covered in the color fuchsia due to their exposed meat and bones, long claws to cut and tear skin, teeth made to rip it, and a body designed to lunge at their target and kill them. Yellow eyes, to glow in the dark as the only merciful warning one can have to spot them before running. It was the first photo I took, and seemingly the right one, as, Claire, wanted to look away, but I kept my hand on her head to prevent her from turning. I feel bad about that still. There probably was a better way. 

"Look." Dove said in a strong tone she had never used herself before but had heard from others many times before.

Claire's eyes were now shaking at the sight, eyes glancing to her right as if the photo is the actual creature itself, standing right next to her, when it is still only a photo.

"I get why you'd want to post this so desperately now." Dove continued in a low, almost taunting but serious voice, almost mimicking the tone Bence usually has for others.

"Imagine an account that posts an accurate photo of a Skinwalker. What else does she know about? What else can she find? Your fans will be begging you afterwards to bring more cryptid photos to show! You might get really famous this way. They'll be begging you to record yourself going to scary places at night, and something tells me they'll know if you fake it."

"I... I'll just say it's fake." Claire stammered. 

Dove swiftly took Claire's phone from her hands, it was thankfully still unlocked, ever the phone-addicted user she was, and so she swiped over to the gallery, finding more of the photographs she took, shoving the next one in her face, causing Claire to scream at sight.

A figure with nothing but a stretched smile, stitched closed eyes, its head appeared to be pale, but not naturally, pale white from the skin feeling immeasurable pain that it burns white. Hair greasy, the rest of its body like it's just in a black sack that looks like a cloak, all the way down to its feet. The figure is just peeking from behind a door frame from a distance. The face is aimed directly at whoever took the photo, the sack part of its cloak where it looks like the figure's feet should be, appear as though they were in the middle of shuffling towards the photographer in the process.

Claire has already jumped out of her seat, covering her face as backing away to one of the walls, the image already burned in her head. 

"Your fans might react the same way if you post people like this person." Dove told her, desensitized to the photo as she had already seen similar figures near her windows or in the kitchen of her parents' house at night. 

"They might either stay away out of fear and you lose followers, or, they'll want more, and you'll have to find more now that it'll turn into your new most popular content. You'll have to deal with seeing more of these things, so go ahead then, keep the photos, but good luck looking for more authentic ones to please your fans."

Dove walked closer to the woman who was peeking through her fingers at her and shutting her eyes again as Dove swiped for another picture, with a case file containing information about some criminals who went into hiding, photographs next to them of what they may have turned into based on speculation of where each one went. No longer human due to survival. 

"It'll just be your fault if anything or anyone comes after you for invading their privacy."

Claire shook her head intensely, sweating and panting. 

"No! No! I don't want to see it! I don't want to see anymore!" She softly whimpered out, cowering as she leaned against a mirror wall, keeping her eyes down to the floor yet still covering her eyes, assuming Dove may try to put another photo in her face. 

The silver haired girl didn't, instead observing the disturbed brunette and letting out a breath she didn't know she was holding, tapping on each of the photos and videos, deleting each of them, before kneeling down to the cowering woman. 

"Do you think you can still function? I deleted everything for you, so you don't have to look at them again."

Claire, no longer having any prideful or stubborn comebacks, hesitantly uncovers her face, reluctant to take back the phone from Dove, as if thinking her phone was now haunted with all the images she saw. 

Dove offered her a hand to help her up. 

"Sorry. I don't like being cruel, it's just something that happens even when I least expect it." Dove told her quietly, not really expecting Claire to believe her anyway.

To me, it's better to apologize at least, whether they accept it or not.

"I believe now that this issue is dealt with, we can now help you with whatever service you came her to ask for. But I understand that with all the discomfort I gave you just now, you might have changed your mind." The girl said, fully expecting the influencer to slowly recover before getting up and reassuming her personality. She prepared herself for any yelling and threats to sue for emotional damage, but it never came. 

Instead, the woman grabbed onto Dove's sleeve with her head hung down, like she was still afraid to look up, not in the way Dove grabbed her when ushering her to this mirror room. It was more desperate, comfort-seeking, like grabbing her arm would ground the woman mentally. 

"No. I really do think I need serious help now. I came here earlier because I had an excuse to make a video with a PI, but now I really do think I need help." Claire said in a stammer, dropping her phone in her lap as she looked at Dove with an almost now gaunt face from how disturbed she was with whatever she was thinking of. 

I recognized that face, Theo made the same one once. I was venting to him about the things I saw, thought it was fine, thought he'd forget, but he didn't just remember, he started seeing them too. These visions were something I swore to never share even with my worst enemy, and yet, here I forcibly showed her a glimpse of nightmares... I shouldn't have done that. Or was that perhaps not me but something inside resurfacing?

She composed herself and supported Claire in walking out, slowly taking her back to the detectives' area, seating her down at the seat across from Laurence, who appeared more awake and refreshed, nodding his head to Dove as he was ready to take over in talking to the influencer. 

Dove quickly let them be as she walked out of the area, and even out of ear shot, powerwalking to the nearest public restroom for women. 

"What did you do you miserable piece of shit?" She snarled and gritted her teeth at her own reflection in the mirror, gripping the edge of the long countertop sink. 

She began to splash her face with water, smothering herself as much as she could until she lifted her face up to the lights, letting her hands glide down as she took a deep breath, turning off the sink quickly and going back to stare at her reflection in the mirror. 

One of the stalls behind her, made a creaking sound, nearly sending a shiver up Dove's spine if she wasn't so absorbed in searching for whatever it was, she was looking for in her reflection of the normal bathroom mirror. 

That familiar woman with the stoic face that Dove had bumped into before, the one who opened the door for her at the stairs, walked out of the stall, noticing Dove but not paying much mind as she went to wash her hands. 

The girl quickly contained herself and went over to grab some tissue paper from the paper napkin dispenser, drying off her face, avoiding eye contact in a clever way by rubbing near most of her eye spots. 

"Problem? Girl?" The stoic woman said, clearly not planning to simply ignore Dove as she skillfully shook most of the water off her hands. 

Dove stood still, removing the paper towel from her eyes as she stared off into space, still avoiding eye contact but responding. 

"Maybe, it's nothing I can't get a hold of for now. Thank you for asking."

The stoic woman turned and began to head for the door, not prying into whatever Dove wasn't interested in sharing, but said something, since she was one of her peers and hence had to help in whatever way to guide the interns. 

"Your kindness already sounds like the type to get easily trampled on. Be cruel, it brings faster results." The woman reluctantly advised before shutting the door behind her, leaving Dove to contemplate. 

She reminded me of my mom. I mean that as neither a compliment nor an insult.

She left the restroom quickly after, putting back on her mask of blank face and polite manners, as she went back to the detective's area.

I was fully prepared to face whatever punishments I was gonna be given for whatever customer service policies I broke. I was prepared to apologize fully for everything, even if I have to lie even though I'm physically unable to. You can't tell verbal lies in the building. And yet, surprisingly all I got was Bence pulling me to the side as Laurence continued talking to the woman, who was speaking in a more serious tone.

"Figure it out yet?" Bence asked her out of the blue as they stood in the hallway together. 

Dove of course frowned at this.

"Please elaborate."

"You worked faster than expected, but I'm glad to see you do fight back at least. Did you already know what you were supposed to do?" 

Dove gave him another confused look, to which Bence looked at her patiently waiting for her to process his words. 

In the silence, Dove repeated his sentences in her head. 

"Come on, look back at the events." 

Her mouth then hung open as she realized, looking up at him in disbelief. 

"Was this another test?" 

"Nope." Bence answered with a shrug, holding a folder, containing all the photographs and file papers that were previously strewn about, now in separated envelopes.

"At least not a planned one. Just something I thought of, two birds one stone. I help Laurence see why he should quickly clean up his study room after a case closes, and I got to gauge your reaction to some of our, less than pleasant clients. Might not work for every client, what you just did, but I'm glad to know you have a backbone at least. I was a bit worried after hearing some recent events about an old friend of yours from Joon."

The necromancer brushed off a water droplet seem on Dove's forehead before casually handing her the envelopes and asking her to put them in the files room, casually walking away while Dove stood there, eye almost twitching in annoyance before she breathed in and out deeply, turning around to do her task.

"I thought things were going too kindly before." She muttered to herself.