Dead of Night: An Investigation Of Peril

"Don't you think that it's kinda spooky out here? Like, it's the same street as always. But with all of this lurker stuff happening, and what happened to that priest." A woman with green hair spoke from behind a clenched fist. She couldn't help holding onto the arm of her boyfriend, a much larger man with a neat black ponytail. 

"Hah. Don't even sweat it. If a lurker comes up in our face, I'll crush em like a little-” A rustle of glass and paper echoed down the alley beside them, causing the man to jump and pull away from the girl. She stood with a deadpan look on her face, less impressed than she was moments before. Huffing and flipping her hair out of her face, she walked past the man. "Oh c'mon babe. Don't be like that. It was just a reflex, I wasn't actually scared." He threw his hands up, chasing behind her at a sluggish pace. 

The alley rattled once again. A dumpster sat with its contents scattered on the ground around it. Digging inside the bin, Irvyll looked for any potential oddities. This area was in the spot Silver had marked on his map, he'd promised to take his time exploring and scouting the area for any leads on the vampire case. 

This place is historically infamous for terf wars, murders, muggings, both organized crime and gang violence. With all that in mind, Irvyll wasn't going to come out here unprepared with the risk of vampires and or other potential threats. A cane stayed close to his side. He didn't require a walking aide, but using it made him seem both unassuming and harmless. A perfect weapon for keeping some distance between himself and an assailant.

When he was certain this alley didn't hold any significant clues, he stuck to the shadows. If these creatures lurked in the dark, so should he. It wouldn't be his first time exploring late in the night. But with an almost certain possibility of something unpleasant waiting to strike, he'd have to admit he was out of his depth. 

It was his morbid curiosity. Irvyll genuinely wanted to know what was going on, and with being recruited to this job by someone that claimed to be a vampire hunter. Someone that possesses research on supernatural and demonic entities, he'd be damned if he passed up something this interestingly terrifying. A real life horror game, and he was the main character of this story. 

Thinking all this over, Irvyll plotted through the map with a small black light. Just the right hue that it was almost indistinguishable from the darkness to anyone in the distance. Well, anyone with normal eyes. He wasn't fully sure what vampires were capable of perceiving.

This oversight would be his downfall. He didn't notice it at first. How eerily quiet it got. No sounds of dripping water, or people arguing in apartments, or loose Imps rummaging around in garbage and scurrying about. When he looked up from the map, he saw two dim red spots. 

Irvyll stared at them for what felt like eternity. They didn't make any sense. A voice spoke, but it felt like it was inside his head. Smooth and sweet. Like music. 

"That map is doing you no good. Perhaps you should ask for help. You're clearly lost. It's okay, I know where you need to go."

The spots narrowed, no, they got closer. A pair of barely distinguishable eyes. There was an immediate looming shadow that penetrated the light around those eyes. Like everything around those laser focused red dots ceased to exist. The floor below him felt like air. 

He didn't know what happened next. But he remained fully awake. He felt everything. But his mind and vision were choppy. Like his timeline was pieced together in the wrong order. He felt himself walking. Then he was being dragged. He drank. Something warm. He laid in the cold for some time. It was as if he could feel the world around him freezing, but his body couldn't even muster the energy to shiver.

Occasionally a voice would speak out to him. He would reply.

"I am okay Arrie. I just need to do some work for a while."

Wait. Why did he say that? The voices stopped. 

Irvyll wondered where he was sometimes. Was this the alley still? No, that was a long time ago. He wanted to find out what happened to those missing people. But he was so tired. Why couldn't he just wake up for a little while. He was kind of hungry. He was very hungry. He was starving.

A cellphone that was discarded in a drawer buzzed. The hundredth text notification. Seventeen missed calls over the last day. A text message that glowed at the bottom of the list. 

'Please call me! It's been days. Just let me know you're okay.'

The light of the phone flashes for one last time. A low battery symbol blinking red on screen before booting down to black.