Prologue A fantasy turned Dark
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The silent sounds of clacking parts silently permeate the air, coming from a womanly figure in formal dress. Her appearance seems to be more appropriate to funeral wear than public outings, and it hid her features very well. A large black hat with a wide rim served to hide her face as her standing height was not too tall. She moves through a small crowd, walking through the streets of a more suburban area of New Port City. Observing her surroundings, she noted the greys of the buildings contrasting with the dark blues of the sky, smoke rising from the streets as cars weave around potholes in the badly maintained roads. Litter flew about, trampled without a care by the citizens underfoot, before being caught in the corners of buildings. The fragrance of the air was stagnant, gasoline and tobacco overpowering most other scents.

The woman silently sighed. Under normal circumstances, she would never be seen in this part of the city. It was, after all, known for being one of the worst parts of town. Had she not been told this was the location, it would have never entered her radar.

The woman stops, turning right in a stiff yet elegant motion to look at a rundown apartment complex. The paint was chipping off the walls and the front yard gate served little purpose but to designate the property line.

Opening the gate, she walked into the complex, which boasted plenty of weeds and eroded dirt. It was clear to her that the owner of this complex was not aiming to win awards for appearance. But due to population congestion, they could still easily demand from their tenants insane amounts of rent.

She moved to the outdoors stairway, which were completely made of concrete, paint flaking off the walls and floor, exposing the cement below. She passed by a kid who looked to be busy drawing on the walls of the stairway, dressed in worn casual clothes; and chose to quietly ignored them. Closing her eyes, she focused on her objective.

Making a stiff right turn from the stairway, she moved towards her goal, looking to her left over the balcony. The view gave her a good look at the street she had just arrived from, and it was un-obscured by billboards or bus stop shelters. It gave her a better impression of who she was going to meet, in spite of all the negatives this location obviously had.

She stopped in front of a door with the number 314, and reached out with her right hand to push the doorbell.

It quickly became apparent that the doorbell did not work. It was quite clear, because as she removed her finger from the doorbell, the entire fixture fell from the hole in the wall, lightly clattering on the floor beside her. Taking only a moment to process what had happened, she instead opted to knock on the door with her hand.

*knock**knock**knock*

She then placed both her hands in front of herself, right hand holding the back of her left, preparing her to offer a bow in greeting.

The sounds of clattering came from inside, followed soon by the metal scrapings towards the lock, creating a clacking sound.

And soon after, the door opened.

What stood before her was an overly casual looking human male, perhaps in his early 20’s, wearing a grey tank top and frayed blue jeans. His eyes had obvious signs of exhaustion, dark rings surrounding them and giving him a raccoon-like look. His build was leaning towards the muscular side, but could easily be hidden by loose long sleeves. His eyes were a sharp green, which always seemed to be scanning and observing, and his hair was a simple brown, being at ear length and curly.

He looked at the woman before him, looking both tired and curious, signaling her to introduce herself.

“Greeting’s, Detective. I am Lumen, your new partner as of today. I do believe you were expecting me?” She said her greeting with a practiced bow. The faint sounds of a silent creak came from her, causing the Detective to raise an eyebrow.

“Of course, of course, I’m happy you made it here in one piece. My name is Kaihi. I’ll do the same with keeping our last names hidden. It’s a pretty smart move after all.” He said, waving his hand with a smile at her formality, opting to have a more casual atmosphere. “Please, come in. I just finished cleaning up the place for your arrival.”

Kaihi put his back to the wall, holding the door open with one hand and gesturing inside with the other; A gentlemanly move by someone in very un-gentlemanly clothes.

As Lumen obliged, she walked past him to see quite the typical bachelor pad. However, in stark contrast to the outside appearance of the complex, his apartment looked quite nice. It was not only clean, but well maintained as well. The only messy thing she could see was his workstation, which held many papers and notes; a curious and archaic way to work when computers are so much more convenient for storing information.

Kaihi brushed a hand through his hair, hoping silently that he didn’t miss a spot. First impressions were really important after all, and he’d never had a partner before. Especially a lady! Of course, this wouldn’t mean he and her would end up in those situations in novels where the man and woman team would fall in love. That was fiction after all. But he could think more about that later.

Moving swiftly, he prepared 2 cups of tea and walked over to place them on his coffee table, gesturing for her to take a seat on the couch opposite him.

Lumen obliged, moving with careful steps and carefully sat down. Once again, the sounds of silent creaking were heard as she did. Kaihi decided to probe into this, his curiosity now at the breaking point. He’d avoided the topic since he thought it might be a prosthetic, but it could also perhaps be a good way to break the ice so to speak. But first, he’d like them to speak face to face rather than face to mask, so to speak.

“So, I know we just met and all, but would you mind taking off your hat? I’d like to see my new partner in all her beauty.” He said in a casual way, deciding humor was the best way relax his guest.

Lumen hesitated. It didn’t take long for Kaihi to catch on to her suspicious actions, and she did not really plan to keep it a secret from her partner, especially since it was very obviously going to be exposed sooner than later. But she found it quite hard to expose herself so easily when she had lived her life so long with keeping her secret hidden.

But Kaihi was going to help her now, so she needed to not only trust him with her secret, but from this point on, trust him with her life. With these thoughts in mind, she slowly removed her wide rimmed black hat…

As soon as the hat was removed and stopped obscuring her face, a beautiful frozen expression of neutrality, with only her eyes moving, met his gaze.

This had marked the beginning of Kaihi and Lumen’s bizarre adventure!

Please leave your thoughts in the form of a review. Your input can help me improve as an author!

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