Binibelle and Jupo glanced at one another, but did not hesitate for long. The mysterious item was placed in the compartment indicated by Leton Nebulo–The screen of the monitor sparked to life with slews of grey haze, loud corrupted noises, until it finally showed an image… An extremely distorted image of what looked like a malformed humanoid figure sitting across a rotten table.

  Words manifested upon the screens, which the master-student duo assumed were supposed to be the words of the bizarre silhouette. The humanoid entity wore a blank, cracked white mask. The rest of its body was completely black like a shadow, only clearly fleshy… The body seemed to be held together by almost unnoticeable ropes due to them being just as dark as the body.

  ‘Hello. If you have found this message, you are probably not –*–... If so, listen carefully to what they and I have to say’

  The words and sentences seemed to appear randomly across the screen.

  ‘–*– is a difficult target. They and I will be the ones to take care of-’

  The image shown on the screen suddenly turned black, and with it, the words vanished as well. There was a worrying noise coming from the compartment the strange item had been placed in, but soon enough, everything stopped.

  A new image appeared on screen, it was slowly fading in.

  “...Huh… What the hell just happened?”

  “Mmh… I think something just tried to communicate with us… I don’t think this was supposed to be part of what we were going to see. Looks like some information was being censored, and they were swiftly cut off as well. If I had to make a guess, the reason that entity was unable to say much is because of our culprit’s eerie ability to interfere with those trying to solve their crimes”

  “Master… What was this entity, though? It might seem a bit shallow, but it looked as evil as something can be… And it kept referring to ‘they and I’ as well… It doesn’t really inspire confidence in me”

  “Don’t worry about this for now, and pay attention”

  The image on the screen seemed to fully fade in, revealing two squares on a black background. The square on the left was corrupted, showing nothing discernible–The one on the right, however… It showed a clear image of someone they recognised.

  It was the suspected accomplice. Adem.

  The thin voice of a man rang out from the monitor.

  “This… This is really bad! This wasn’t part of the plan at all! Why did you kill them?! Wasn’t the plan just to lure a few kids away and scare them? This would have been enough to really hurt the diner’s reputation!”

  They assumed it was Adem’s voice, and he had all but confirmed that he was indeed involved in the murders–Though it seemed like he had been a useful idiot.

  The person on the left responded, but their voice was just as corrupted as their image, making identification completely impossible.

  “Keep it down, Adem. Do you really think it is wise to shout about this?”

  “But… –*–! You killed those girls! You killed them all!”

  “I told you to shut up already! Shut the fuck up and think! The investigators have already interrogated you, haven’t they? What did you tell them?”

  “I lied, obviously…”

  “I see. You are definitely their prime suspect then. You couldn’t lie to save your own life, fool”

  “But… There is no proof, right? We disposed of all the automaton suits except for the decoy…”

  “With your inability to be convincing, they’ll definitely get a cleric from a church of truth–Or perhaps even just a simple torturer. It is not like forcing a confession out of you would be difficult… Now. Don’t start crying for fuck sake! I got rid of the Glown costume on my end. You just need to vanish from town for a while”

  “What about…”

  “I know what you are thinking. Don’t be a fool. Did you really think you had a chance?”

  “...And… Won’t Mister Wilston talk? The agreement I made with him on your behalf was supposed to be about letting him be the one to find the missing children–Alive! We were planning on growing a reputation from this… So-”

  “The fat lard will not say a word. You can trust me on this”

  “The corpses were found, though! It would be best for him to denounce me now that he knows the plan went horribly wrong”

  “I just told you. He will not say a word. Wilston is hanging from a rope right as we are speaking. He couldn’t handle the pressure”

  “...What…?”

  “Adem. You don’t seem like someone who can handle the pressure either”

  “Wait…! –*–, please don’t—!”

  The image flashed red, cutting to a dark room, where a man was struggling whilst suspended in the air, the faint noise of someone choking–Of someone being strangled resonated throughout the room as another figure, distorted, with dark, angular shapes covered their face, watched it all happen.

  The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  The figure watched in silence until the man stopped moving, making sure that their victim was truly dead and gone. Then, they left without another word.

  Jupo felt sick to his stomach. He had seen cadavers before–He had seen the remnants of people who were slain horrifically, but he had never seen someone die in real time. He had just seen a man fight for his life as he slowly lost consciousness before his body hung limp without anyone around to care for his demise.

  His only audience had been his killer.

  Adem had indeed been an accomplice to the killings, however. As was made obvious by the words and images recorded upon the item… He had been an oblivious tool. He had been completely and utterly fooled from beginning to end.

  “...I assume that the blacked-out person is the real killer in all of this, right? They are censored thanks to their ability to interfere with special means of investigation…”

  “That’s most certainly the case, Jupo. I am quite surprised that their ability functions even in this bizarre object that appeared out of nowhere… Is it a manifestation due to the tragedy as well, just like the two monsters were? If so, why? What is the point? And what was that entity at the start? The more we dig, the more pieces we uncover, but few seem to fit together neatly”

  Things did not stop with the murder of Adem, however. Instead, the images switched to what looked like an area of town where commoners lived. The ‘eyes’ they were looking through spun counter-clockwise, giving a good view of the surroundings before stopping on what looked like an empty plot of land in between two habitations–Unusual in town.

  At the bottom right of the screen, there was a date shown–The same year and month of the murders at Harvey’s Diner.

  Binibelle and Jupo saw the unidentifiable figure walk to the far end of the empty area. Grey haze covered the screen as the individual dug a deep hole, where they dumped the folded costume of Glown, The Clown Girl, before filling the hole, flattening the mound and dirt, and once again walking away.

  The ‘eyes’ spun counter-clockwise once more. The scenery subtly changed, and the date at the bottom also shifted slowly, until it was this very year, the month part continuously changing without ever settling down.

  When they returned to the place the hole had been dug, the empty plot of land had been built over. The hole itself had not been covered up by architecture. Instead, it now stood in a desolate, pitifully small garden which had clearly been left unattended for a long time.

  The ‘eyes’ focused. For several long minutes, nothing happened… Then, the dirt shifted slightly… Then slightly more… A hand reached out of the ground, followed by the arm it was attached to.

  An arm garbed in an ample, black and white sleeve. The hand and arm were incredibly frail, nearly bony.

  The hand looked around. Literally, it grew an eye in its palm, and soon spotted a hedgehog minding its business. The arm stretched out, grabbed the unsuspected animal, and consumed it. The hand twisted, wrapping around the creature, crushing its flesh and bones before seemingly digesting everything.

  The hand then plunged its fingers into the ground, forcefully pulling the rest of its body to the surface, revealing the true origin of the newest killer clown, and also its incompleteness when it first emerged.

  Only one arm was formed, only this one limb was black and white… The rest? It was the empty, colourful suit of Glown, The Clown Girl. As the foul creature consumed more and more small animals and insects, it became clear that it was feeding to form its body.

  As eventually, the suit had been changed, losing all colour, and now seemingly containing… Something.

  The killer clown wasn’t just a manifestation of negative energy as Binibelle had first assumed. It was literally the empty suit of Glown given life. The wearer had been so wicked that the accumulated negativity from the murders of the five girls had been infused into the suit, eventually coalescing enough into a malevolent being of its own.

  “Isn’t this like how some legendary artefacts are said to be formed? From the accumulation of energy by an individual?”

  Jupo spoke absent-mindedly.

  “Usually, either several conditions need to be met, or… The person responsible for it is exceptional…”

  It felt weird to call a heinous murderer ‘exceptional’, but it was the right term to describe what Binibelle had just witnessed. From what she had seen, no soul or mind had been part of this being’s birth. A living creature had been out of nothing but negative energy and an inanimate vessel.

  This was nothing short of a miraculous event. Archmages would slaughter whole villages to be capable of something like this once in their entire lifetime, and a random killer had accomplished it by accident? It was simply ludicrous.

  Without warning, the clown twisted her neck straight toward the two mages, her face suddenly appearing directly in front of the ‘eyes’, text flashing on the screen.

  It read:

  ‘I live. I am your shadow. Where are you? I am alive. I am like you. I know you will accept me. Why must we be apart? I will come to you. I will find you. I will shadow you’

  ‘I shall kill and feast. When we are united. I will be strong. I will be useful. Please do not reject me. You are my entire world. Without you, I don’t exist. Without you, I am nothing. Without you, I wouldn’t be. You gave birth to me’

  ‘I will not be a burden. I will not be a hex. Please, love me even half as much as I love you…’

  ‘Worry not. I am a natural born killer’

  The compartment containing the item opened up and ejected the object, which rapidly caught flames, turning into a melted mess within seconds.

  “...What the hell did we just watch?”

  Binibelle didn’t respond to this question, merely staring at the melted mess on the ground.

  “Let’s check out the hole she crawled out of. As immune to special means of investigation as our monstrous killers may be, I doubt they will be able to resist a spell cast using the very place of their birth as a catalyst”

  “Jupo. I will certainly be able to track her down once I do this. We’ll need all the help we can get to ensure that we don’t let her slip away. It can work once, but I doubt it will work twice… Judging by what I just read…”

  “You managed to read those walls of text so quickly?”

  “...She grows stronger when eating flesh, or at least, she hinted at the fact that she was growing stronger in some way. It is best we bring the hammer down before she can accumulate too much strength”

  The halfling looked awfully serious.

  “Listen, Jupo. If we can get her…Then, using her as a catalyst to cast my spells will likely allow me to not just figure out who the real killer under the costume of Glown was, but also find out where the monster who bit your arm off is”

  “We can’t mess this one opportunity up”