Leaves

Note: I cheated another prompt. It's not a lifelong dream but something that he is working on solving.

Author's Note: Ru gave me this prompt, kudos to her!

Link to her bio: https://blog.reedsy.com/creative-writing-prompts/author/r-k-d2defe/

PLEASE GO CHECK HER OUT!!

And here is the prompt she gave me: Start the story with a fun, bubbly line but by the time it gets to the end, finish it with that same line but this time it is creepy and chilling.

It was the leaves. It was June, but it was still nice to see the leaves blow around. I stood, looking out the window with a nice cup of cold water in my hand. I smile, take a step away from my window, and walk back into my kitchen where I set my finished cup of hot chocolate in the dishwasher. I hated working, especially on Sunday’s. But we had a homicide case we were working on at the police station, and I had to be there. I slowly get into my uniform and head out the door, still exhausted from yesterday’s shift. I head out, loving the amazing sight of the leaves blowing around in the wind as I back out of the driveway. I head off to work, looking forward to another long and endless day. 

I arrive at the station, to be greeted by some of my fellow co-workers in my office.

“We got a big day ahead of us!” one of them says excitedly. I groan. 

“What are we doing today?” I ask him. He smiles. 

“We have another murder case,” he says, suddenly turning serious.

“It happened last night,” he continues. I fall into my chair and put my face into my hands. I shake my head. 

“Can’t we just hand this over to a different team?” I ask them. My partner laughs.

“I wish we could, but we got two murder cases now. Let’s get to work!” he says enthusiastically as he walks away to his desk. I hear him curse as he sits down. I open my laptop and notice the bags under my eyes in the reflection of the computer screen. They looked a lot worse than they had before. I ignored it and signed onto my laptop. People all started to sit at their desks, getting right to work. I shake my head and reluctantly pull out the new files that were sitting on my desk. 

Hours seemed to go by and I was very hungry. I look at the clock to see if it was 12:15 yet so I could go on lunch break. To my shock, it was only 11. I groan and look back at my screen. I pulled out the evidence file which had multiple images of both crime scenes. I stare at all the photos for a few minutes, my eyes getting a little itchy. I was right about to put the pictures away when I noticed something on one of the images. 

“I think I found something,” I whisper and hurriedly shuffle through the first crime scene photos and found the picture of the murder weapon. I looked at the murder weapon on the second crime scene photo and the same symbol was etched into the knife handle as the first one. 

“I found something,” I say. The team gets up and rushes over to my desk. 

“What is it?” my partner asks me. I lay the images of the two murder weapons next to each other. 

“They are the same,” I say. I point to the symbols, and the serrated edge on the blade and explain. I could see this information click into other people’s heads. 

“Is this a lead?” someone asks me. I shrug.

“I don’t know yet for sure, but it’s a step in the right direction to find out who is behind these murders.” They nod and walk back to their desks, each of them pulling out their own copies of the photos that I had given them. I look outside the window my desk was by, and see the beautiful and colorful leaves floating through the air.

I dive back into my work, a newfound motivation pumping through my veins. I type away, checking off pieces of evidence and trying to get a better understanding of what was happening behind the scenes in these two cases. Soon enough, my supervisor approaches me. 

“Lunch break!” he says to me with a smile on his face as I get up. I pump my fists in the air.

“I’m starving,” I tell him and he laughs. I clock myself out and start to head over to the cafe. 

“Be back at 1!” my supervisor tells me. I spin around and salute him, then continue down to the cafe. I get myself a coffee and a slice of pizza. A few others were on their lunch break, but I decided to sit down by myself. I basically inhale my slice of pizza and my coffee, eager to get back to work. I get up, throw my trash away, and start to walk back into the office area of the building. I look out the window as I’m walking back and see leaves, swirling around next to the lamppost. I stop and watch the colorful leaves soar through the air. Someone taps me on the shoulder, and I crash back down to Earth. 

“What are you looking at?” he says. It was my partner, and he was heading off to lunch break. I smile.

“The leaves,” I tell him, pointing at the leaves swirling around the lamppost. He frowns.

“It’s mid june? And what lamppost?” he says, raising his eyebrows. 

“Get some water,” he says, and walks to the cafe. I scratched my head, and walked to my desk to get back to work. I sit down and open up the files which had all the other extra information besides the pictures of the murder weapons. Without hesitating, I throw it into the paper shredder and smile as I hear the satisfying sounds of the machine working it’s magic. I look back at my screen and see a leaf stuck on the top right hand corner of my monitor. I grab it, but then it vanishes. 

“You okay?” my supervisor asks me. I smile and nod. My supervisor looks at my desk.

“Uhh, where did the files go?” he asks me. I look around, honestly clueless. 

“They were just here!” I tell him, frantically looking around. He waves his hand. 

“No matters! We got a lead when you were on lunch break!” he tells me, not necessarily the most excited. He gets up and I follow him. We go into the laboratory center where he starts to explain the processes and efforts that are applied when looking at evidence. We were alone, thankfully as no one would have wanted to listen to that boring presentation.

He gets to the end of his eon long presentation and points to the end result, a fingerprint.

“You know what that is?” he asks me. I nod.

“It’s a fingerprint,” I tell him. He nods and his face turns serious. 

“It’s yours Johnny,” he says, with a slight sadness drawn onto his face. 

“Okay? I mean, I touch a lot of things here.” He shakes his head.

“Johnny, it was found at the crime scene.” I take a step back in shock. My supervisor goes on.

“Not only that, but that print was found at both crime scenes. We have concrete evidence that you killed them.” My jaw drops and I aggressively shake my head no. 

“No. It wasn’t me. I swear it I’m a cop I wouldn’t do that,” I tell him. He turns on the T.V. that was conveniently right next to him. It started playing security camera footage from the night of the first murder. I watched as I apparently took the dagger and mercilessly cut the victim, then repeatedly stabbing him. I looked at my supervisor and he had tears in his eyes. He switches the camera view to the front of the house and there it is, the squad car that I have. 

“No, that wasn’t me,” I tell him, anger in my voice. The supervisor looks at me. 

“But it was, because that same car and that same person was there on the second crime scene as well.” I start to shake out of anger. I truly did not remember committing two murders. 

“It wasn’t me!” I yell at him again. 

“Yes it was!” he shouts back, stepping right into my face. 

“You killed both those people! I don’t know why, but you did!” he shouts. I could’ve sworn my blood was boiling. 

“I wasn’t there last night! I went to bed at 8 because I knew I had to come in tonight!” I yelled at him. He shakes his head.

“Then why do you have bags under your eyes?! You got off at 6 last night! And you just said that you went to bed at 8, so why are you so tired?!” he shouts back at me. All these accusations, I couldn’t handle it. I start to walk out, but then pause. I turn around and punch him in the face. Blood covers my hand and starts to spurt out of his neck. I looked closer at his body, which was lying motionless on the floor. I had cut his throat! I look down,  to see the knife that was used in the murder cases in my hand. The same symbol, the same serrated edge, still covered in dried blood. There were leaves on my hand, “gluing” the knife to my hand, even as I tried to drop it. I look down at the supervisor. He was right. I did kill the two other victims, and now him. But it wasn’t me. It was something else. Or someone else.

It was the leaves.