I heard a clatter from the main house next door. Then the sound of a flushing toilet. He might be coming this way! Was he in the bathroom? Even so, it wouldn't even take 20 seconds to get out here. What do I do? Close it again now? Either way, he's definitely going to be suspicious! Panic! Faster than I thought possible, I heard the door of the main house open. He's only a few meters away!

  I dove under the car. The garage door flew open and someone stepped inside. I could only see his shoes, but it had to be him. He was moving cautiously, on high alert. Click. The garage lights flicked on. He walked around the garage. He started slow, but quickly shifted to a normal pace. I heard his hand smack the floor, and I scrambled out from under the car, moving in the opposite direction from him. I hid in the shadow between the tire and the car's body. Did he see me? Am I safe? The anxiety was peaking.

  I pressed the shutter button with The Hand. Screech—clank—gronk! The shutter started opening again with a loud, creaking groan. The man stood up and said something. He sounded panicked. The owner immediately pressed the button again, but about two seconds later, I pushed it one more time with The Hand.

  Clicking his tongue in irritation, the man ripped off the plastic cover and yanked the batteries completely out. The shutter stopped. The man pulled the shutter down to a certain point by hand and headed back to the main house. As he left, I heard him mutter, "...Might be better to replace the whole thing, not just the batteries..."

  That was too close. I thought my heart was going to stop! I was in a daze for a moment. I went to the garage door and listened closely. The door to the main house opened violently, and my heart nearly leapt out of my chest. Is he coming back to the garage!? I quickly hid myself.

  I stayed completely still. I heard a car door open and close, then an engine starting. He left! Now might be my chance. I waited until I was sure the car was gone from the property, then turned on the light and looked around the garage. There were large, wrapped boxes surrounding the parked car. What should I do? If I tear these open, he'll know it wasn't just the machine malfunctioning, right? I'm curious, but... I probably shouldn't.

  I looked inside the car. Something covered with a cloth was laid out in the backseat. A bad feeling. This shape. It looks like a person... I unlocked the car from the inside using The Hand. When I pulled back the cloth over the human-sized object, I found the corpse of a woman that looked like a wooden mummy. It looked a bit like the monster I saw back then. It had something like small horns coming out of its head. The texture was dry and woody.

  What is this? This is what was there before. The thirty-year-old me... I felt like he told me to check the passenger seat, the trunk, and the glove box on the dashboard. What's a glove box? Looks like it's the storage space in front of the passenger seat. I opened it and found a bunch of documents I couldn't understand. I didn't even feel like reading them. They looked too complicated for me. A car manual? There were also some insurance papers or something.

  Wait, an ID? It's the hitman's ID. And there are three driver's licenses? They all have different names. Fake IDs, huh. Even delinquent kids have these, but they're probably easier to forge than passports. I doubt you even need an ID in this city anyway. This hitman might be doing bad things over a much wider area, not just in this city.

  Inside the cup holder was a dirty paper napkin. He probably bought fast food and ate it in here. He just left the napkin he wiped his mouth with. I opened the center console between the driver and passenger seats and froze for a second.

  Money! So much money... How much cash is this? It was a stack of bills thicker than a Coke bottle. I've never seen anything like this! What kind of life could I have with this? What could I buy? I don't know, but... everything would be so much better than it is now...

  I want to take it! I want this money! I'm homeless, you know! And now I'm wanted! Dead or alive, framed for a crime I didn't commit! Who cares if I steal a little. It's fine to steal from bad guys, isn't it? I just want something good to happen in my life for once. I want to catch a break!

  ...Just then, I felt the fifteen-year-old me hug me inside my mind. It felt like he accepted everything—my desire for money, my wish to be rewarded. It gave me a ticklish feeling in my chest.

  Damn it! I really want this money! ...But... now's not the time. That's what he means. It's okay to feel this way. I'm allowed to acknowledge it. But... I won't touch the money. Because I shouldn't leave any traces. I'm investigating to find clues about Old Man Kumi's killer and to get that book back. That's why I didn't tear open the boxes earlier, even though I was curious.

  I popped the trunk and looked inside. The same kind of corpse as the one in the backseat. This one was a wooden mummy too. Also a woman. Besides that, several human heads wrapped in bubble wrap were rolling around. The wrapping looked similar to the boxes. So the boxes around this car... are they all these mummies? How many are there? Around 5?

  What the hell are these guys doing... It made no sense. What these idiotic criminals were doing easily exceeded my capacity to understand, and I even started to feel like they might be doing this for some incredibly stupid reason.

  ...I'm done here. I'm going to the main house. I left the garage. I could hear the radio playing from the main house. He left it on when he rushed out.

  I went to the door of the house and unlocked it with The Hand. Inside, there were two doors on the left and two on the right. I opened them all one by one. On the right was the bathroom and toilet. On the left was the bedroom and a storage room. The radio was coming from the left, either the bedroom or the storage room. Down the hall were the stairs. If I go up, I'll end up behind the shop counter.

  The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  I checked the bathroom and found a human corpse. Not mummified like the ones earlier. What the hell is this place! Something like an IV drip was connected to the laid-out body. Yellow liquid was inside the container... I probably shouldn't touch it. These guys are completely insane! Fear suddenly washed over me. If I get caught, will they do this to me too...? I could feel the fifteen-year-old me getting tense as well.

  I shook off the unnecessary thoughts and went to the bedroom. I opened the desk drawers. The radio wasn't in here. That means it's in the storage room. There was more cash in the drawers. Thinner than the stack earlier, but still a lot. Besides that, there were prescriptions and various capsules in bottles. There was also powder in plastic bags. Might be drugs. There was a PC. I booted it up, but it was locked. No good, I don't know the password.

  Next, I went to the storage room. The radio was indeed in here. When I opened the door, the volume was louder than I expected. The room was full of cardboard and color boxes. As I scanned the room, something unbelievable jumped into my vision.

  It was that man... The man who was supposed to have gone to the jewelry store. Tied up with rope and tape, duct tape over his mouth. Blindfolded. Completely exhausted. It makes no sense! Why is the guy who's supposed to be at the jewelry store tied up here...

  -PHONY

  Why is he tied up here!

  "Damn it!" I accidentally said it out loud! But the man didn't look my way. His consciousness seemed hazy.

  What do I do? Oh man, I can't think of a single good idea. A fake? Is this guy a fake of that guy? Or... What do I do? I stood completely still for a moment. Then, I pulled my knife from my inner pocket and started cutting his restraints.

  "A-uh... Who's there..."

  What do I do? I don't want to talk. I don't want to be seen. I untied him in silence, left the blindfold on, and prepared to get out of there. Right by his ear, I whispered, "Hurry up and run," and left the main house.

  The moment I stepped out the front door, a car pulled into the driveway. He came back! I quickly dove into the shadows, but did he see me? ...I don't know. What do I do? Panic. Panic. I need to move somewhere else... But wait, what's going to happen to that tied-up guy? He still has his blindfold on, and he's weak. He'll be caught immediately. And it'll be painfully obvious that someone snuck in and helped him.

  The car stopped violently, and the moment the man stepped out, he roared. He was looking right at me!

  "Come out, you little rat! What are you doing!"

  Just then, a crow swooped down from the sky, striking the hitman shopkeeper in the head with its wings. The crow! From earlier! Is it helping me? The man stumbled, spinning around and looking up to fend off the crow attacking from above. He was trying to figure out where the bird was coming from.

  Now's my chance! His leg was yanked up to his head in a split second with The Invisible Hand! He crashed down, slamming his head hard against the ground. I gave the crow a thumbs-up and bolted. The crow gave a single caw and followed me from the sky.

  Good job! I thought. I have to give it something else later! But I was still worried about that tied-up man. Hurry up and run already! I grabbed a palm-sized rock and threw it, shattering the window of the main house. After hearing the crash, I immediately left the property.

  I needed a place where I could see the first floor of the candy shop. I climbed to the roof of an apartment building up the hill. The crow landed on my shoulder. I patted its head, and we watched together.

  The man who fell hadn't gotten up yet. He might be unconscious. The front door of the main house opened, and he came out! He was stumbling badly. In a daze, he stumbled outside and noticed the unconscious hitman owner on the ground. He took the owner's belt and used it to tie the man's hands. He then used a rock to break the car window, pulled out a cell phone from inside, and started making a call. Who is he calling? The police?

  After a while, three black cars pulled up. They hauled the owner into a car and drove off somewhere. The tied-up man stumbled away from the scene just as they arrived. What do I do? Should I follow him? Or should I stay here and watch what these adults do next? I was curious about both...

  The other adults, who looked like the jewelry man's associates, began entering the house. They had a police-like vibe, but they were dressed in work clothes. I had no idea what kind of group they were. But one thing was crystal clear: their expressions were completely different from the corrupt cops.

  In the end, without figuring out who those adults were, I headed for the jewelry store with the crow. The intersection with the jewelry store and the restaurant. Maybe because the Fog was rolling in a little, there was absolutely no one outside.

  While I was waiting for the light to turn green at the crosswalk, a lady walked up and stood next to me. I glanced over, and our eyes met. She had red hair tied back and was wearing a cap. A lady in a green jacket. When our eyes met, she flashed a confident, toothy grin. She had a face like a cat. No, maybe more like a leopard. Her almond-shaped eyes were beautiful and suited her feline features perfectly. The way she looked at me was like an older sibling saying "Good job!" to a little brother.

  I timidly looked away. I just wanted to confirm what happened to the jewelry store guy who was supposed to be here.

  "Hey, kid. Aren't you trying to go see something interesting?"

  "Huh? No, I'm not..."

  "Really? You can watch a huge bust unfold right now, you know?"

  "A huge bust?"

  "Jeez! You're the one who did it, aren't you? I was watching right as you came out of the candy shop."

  Eh? Who is this lady? Since when has she been tailing me? I was so shaken my legs started trembling. If she's friends with the bad guys...

  "It's okay. You don't need to worry. Look. That's the guy you saved."

  I looked where the woman was pointing. The man was in front of the jewelry store. His steps were much steadier than before. The "jewelry store man I rescued" marched right up to the "man who looked exactly like him" and threw a massive punch straight into his face. It was an incredible punch. The fake went flying and rolled on the ground.

  "That's an acquaintance of mine, a former colleague. Now he's with the Imperial Capital Public Safety Commission."

  The face of the punched fake crumpled, morphing into something slightly inhuman. Letting out a beast-like hiss!, it tried to jump up, but the jewelry store man didn't care. He pulled a metal syringe-like object from his pocket and stabbed it into the fake. The fake's body mutated, twisting into some grotesque thing that was no longer human, and stopped moving.

  "What is that..."

  "If you want to know that, you'll have to make a contract with me."

  "A contract? What are you talking about."

  "This is a city where devils live. A city filled with extremely dangerous Fog that no one has solved. I'm staying here right now to investigate a bizarre series of serial murders. I need an accomplice. I'd kill for an accomplice with supernatural powers."

  "..."

  "You're the Homeless Killer, right? The wanted street kid."

  "...What if I say I'm not?"

  "...Tell me what you want. I'll get it for you."

  "What I want..."

  "Is there something?"

  "What I want is... a healthy life, the truth behind Old Man Kumi's case, and the culprit! And the keepsake book that guy stole!"

  I could feel the fifteen-year-old me and the thirty-year-old me giving the green light inside my mind. My life was about to change drastically.

  "I'm Phony. What's your name, lady?"

  ---The End.