“For the millionth time, we can’t just throw over the government, A.”

“Awwww come onnnnn, you know it would be fun! Like the good old days, when we did some crazy stuff every week.”

“Not anymore. A, you know I have work now. And so do you. We are literally partners in our work. We have the same freaking job.”

“When did you get so lame? You used to beg me to hang out. You smashed my house trying to convince me, haha.”

“I do remember. But you know what has happened since then. I’ve changed, and you’ve changed. Things are always changing and you can’t get used to them.” 

I sighed, loudly, so he could hear me. He begged to be my friend, betrayed me, and then begged me to come back. Now he never wants to hang out or do anything with me. If I weren’t stupid I’d say he either hates me or is so in love with me he doesn’t know what to do with himself. I kept thinking about that, and I kept giggling my butt off at my desk. 

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Aidrick asked me, a stern tone in his voice.”

“Nothing,” I rolled my eyes, “Sorry.”

I continued my work. I kept typing and organizing the old documents from past crimes, so intrigued by the randomness of some. For example, some guy from a country or state I’ve never heard of before (Florida) was arrested after kidnapping 27 people and forcing them to play “Yahtzee” for 36 hours straight. Like, jeez man, how lonely do you have to be? I kept giggling to myself because these crimes were just so ridiculous. I accidentally got too loud when I saw a picture of a cat, whose hair was shaved off the top of its head by a robber. It made me cackle like a witch I tell you, it was so hilarious. I ended up just bursting into a flame of teary laughter, I was crying, this was barely a crime even! 

“A!” Aidrick yelled, “What is wrong with you?!”

I couldn’t help it. I showed him the picture of the poor cat, and he looked at the picture, slowly looked up at me, tears on my face, then back at the cat, then back at me, his face getting softer and softer each time until he turned back to his desk, 

“Let’s, uh, let’s get back to work,” he shakily worded, obviously hiding his laughter. 

I kept laughing not just at the picture, but at him, and turned back to my computer.

We were often like this. We were detectives at our own firm, and because crime wasn’t as big a problem anymore, we mostly organized and looked through old crimes to see how new crimes should be worked through and punished. We were trying to fix the court and punishment system by making it fair and simpler. Aidrick, my partner in crime, we’ve known each other for thousands upon thousands of years, and we’ve roamed this universe as miniscule gods of creation and destruction. We have had a pretty rocky past, but nowadays we get along just swell. We laugh, we cry, and we fight bad guys with our super coolness. (I say this while wearing super cool awesome sunglasses and a clean slick suit, I swear). 

We usually do just sit inside all day, Clicking and dragging files to the beat of whatever elevator-type music is playing over some hidden speaker we can’t find or turn off. I mean it. It’s constantly playing. All day, all night, day shift, night shift, oh my god it’s CONSTANT. Usually, I’ll bring my own tunes so I don’t have to listen to the scratchy tickety crap. But today was different because I forgot my little earbud thingies. That was another reason I could not pay attention. I can’t focus on one thing, but focusing on many things actually helps my brain cool down. But in this boring place where there isn’t even a bug or spider to play with, it sucks. I’d much rather be on the field, searching for the robbers and murderers and the crazy people. 

“Hey, A,” He almost whispered, breaking the silence. “How would you like to go for a walk? It’s a super slow day and it’s nice out. It’s been a while, you know?”

His voice was almost nervous sounding, or angry? I was bad at reading people unless it was guilt. I read the guilt off of the pettiest crime-committers.

“Sure! Let me just wrap up this file and we can go. Sound good?”

“Sounds good.”

We gathered up our stuff and locked up shop, leaving behind the boring workplace. I looked back at the rackety building, with a funny feeling in my stomach.

“Hey, are you coming or what?”

“Oh! Yeah, sorry, I’m coming,” I replied, rushing down the porch steps. 

We walked all around town, looking at the little shops and stores, peering into the windows, and trying some of the delicious fresh food from street vendors. By the time we started to head back, it was getting pretty dark. We were laughing barely a block from our building before we heard a blood-curdling scream. We immediately shut up and sprinted to the sound. We walked up our own steps and busted through the door, prepared for anything. But what we saw was, well, it was horrific. Some animal, person, you couldn’t tell, was shred all over our walls and floor. Our computers were shattered and our file cabinets full of organized records were strewn everywhere, sticking to the disgustingly red walls. The floor was covered in holes in the shape of enormous punches. The blood on the walls seeped into huge claw marks, and lettering was gouged out, but we couldn’t make out the language.

We both just stood there, in shock, examining the room and its not-so-contents.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“OH MY GOD HOLY CRAP AIDRICK, LOOK AT THIS!!! A REAL CASE TOO! IN OUR OWN BUILDING!! Oh, this is going to take forever to clean up, who could have done this? WHAT could have done this!? Oh, this is so crazy, it’s absolutely insane. Where should we start? We should take some samples and look for leftover shreds. This is going to take ages to clean up. I’d better get paid for my overtime. I think that we shou- “

“A!” I interrupted, she kept shouting and making a fuss. I know she usually tells the story, but sometimes, I’d like you to see what I saw. What I saw was also, absolutely insane, but, also curious. The walls were in fact freshly painted with blood, but what we needed to figure out was whose and why. 

“Please, A, calm down. We do need to collect samples and then we have to look for clues. It does sound cliche, but it’s the basics. Then we’ll have to super-ultra clean and sterilize the room and re-organize. It’s going to take a while, and we have to get started now, at least get clues, because we don’t want the blood to dry and we need to make sure no one and nothing comes back to take any evidence. Okay? Are you even listening to m-”

She was just staring at the ground, crouched down, peering into one of the many holes in the floor. She kept tracing the outline of it and feeling the depth.

“What are you-”

“I trying to figure out what caused this hole,” she explained, “None of our cabinets were thrown and our computers are too light. It’s also too big for any hands or legs, from a person at least. This was the work of something huge. Some animal or creature.”

I had to agree. As we both looked in the hole, she picked up a gooey-looking piece of skin. It was a soft purple-y color, with a sheer and see-throughness to it. 

“A. What the hell is wrong with you? Not even a glove?! You know that’s disgusting.”

“Yeah, but come on Aidrick,” she teased, “Isn’t it evidence? Don’t we need to preserve it before it dries?” she continued, waving it around my face. I grabbed a glove and snatched it from her, and placed it in a biohazard bag, and we both watched its slimy self sliiiiiiiiiiiiide into the bag until it reached the bottom. We both shuddered and began to look for new clues. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

He always wants to talk but he never gives you enough action. It was pretty boring, but when we began to clean up, we found so many more pieces of skin and flesh and even a couple of bones. Most of the skin was from a person, but we did end up finding a couple more pieces of “It’s” skin. The bones were only shards, showing that whatever was there ripped our victim open, and had some very unsteady hands for the surgery. I mean, our poor victim was all over! I giggled. 

“What in the galaxy could you be laughing at? This is an entirely traumatic and serious profession, and we are cleaning a CRIME scene right now.” Aidrick scolded me.

“Sorry,” I squeaked and continued searching.

We kept on looking but only found shreds. We did find some fabrics under some of the blood and in the gouges on the walls. It was barely identifiable though as if our perpetrator was a blender with no lid. 

We began the dreary task of mopping, just as the sun began to rise. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Hey, do you wanna come up with a cool case name? Like it can be the monster’s name and the case name so it sounds super cool, ya know?” A said, ripping the mop from between broken floorboards. 

“Why?” I retorted with a chuckle.

“I dunno, It could be funny. Add a lighter mood to this gorey craze.”

“Uhh, I guess. It would have to be something cool, and related. Like Shredder.”

“See! There you go. Getting in on the fun. Shredder it is!”

She was adorable sometimes. I looked down with a smile and continued mopping. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Shredder. That’s just great, I giggled as I continued scraping the walls. We needed to hurry though. It was already noon-ish and we needed to find Shredder before nightfall, or even sooner! Because who knows how many more victims it can and will annihilate. Another question we hadn’t addressed was, who was killed? Who was in our locked-up building, and why? Were we being robbed, and they happened to be in the super wrong place, at the super wrong time? 

“Hey, Aidrick,” I called, getting his attention

“Yeah?”

“We need to also think about who was in here. Whoever was killed, wasn’t even supposed to be here. I’m not sure if they were robbing us, looking for a record, or even trying to get rid of some. It’s a problem we need to solve.” I explained.

“Oh crap, you’re right,” he sighed. “This case is going to be a long one. We’ll run a DNA test at the bigger facility tomorrow, but today, we need to work on finding Shredder so no one else gets hurt, and we need to finish cleaning so we don’t lure it back to innocent people.”

“Oh!” I exclaimed, “Aidrick!”

“What?” he asked, a bit concerned.

“What if we DO lure it back? Maybe not here exactly, but what if we lure it somehow and catch it? It seems as if it is like meat, so if we get a whole bunch, and put it in the middle of some abandoned house or some field, or something, we can lure it and catch it!”

“Hmm,” He pondered. “It’s worth a shot. It wouldn’t hurt to try. Unless it would, but that’s a bridge we’ll cross later.”

“Alright, then it’s settled! Tonight we being mission; Lure Shredder to us!”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I was really curious to see this creature. How could it cause so much damage and butchery so quickly? There’s no way whatever this thing was, was a person. We had to be prepared for anything. 

“Hey A?” I asked, nervously.

“Yeah?”

“Remember a long time ago when you had that super cool armor? Do you maybe still have it? Who knows what this monster could be and how dangerous it is.”

“Aidrick, we’re gods. Flick it on the forehead and it’ll probably go to sleep. You’re so paranoid sometimes.”

“I know but, I don’t want either of us getting hurt.” 

“I understand, but we’re too super ultra mega excellent superb dazzling remarkably marvelous magnificent wonderfully cool to get hurt. But in the rare case that we do, I’m sure we’ll be fine.”

“Yeah, probably,” I responded. I knew we probably would be okay but I have always been anxious after old, old events. I don’t know how she stays so happy all the time. She’s always so cheery and unbothered. It must be nice to live such an ignorantly blissful life. Or, I’m just such a mess that everything feels worse. But I don’t think so. I keep organized. I keep clean. Im tidy, punctual, creative and calm. I am a vision of perfection, as I was built and created to be.

That must be the problem.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I must be dying. Why else would I feel like this? Im all hot and horrified. I don’t know whats happening. This thing, whatever it is, must be nightmarish. How in the galaxy would you be able to kill someone, and have them spread 17x14x10 feet in a matter of seconds? How would you get rid of their body so fast? Were they eaten? I don’t know and it horrifies me. I hate not knowing things. I usually know everything. I need to know everything. I need to know everything without looking, so I never have to step out of my comfort zone, so Inever have to interact, so I never have to leave the dark. It’s how I was programmed, it’s why I was made. But after last night, nothing has ever made me so frozen, so petrified. 

Why am I such a problem?

We were getting ready to leave for town, to get meat, and get a DNA test for the blood and flesh that had given our house a makeover. I was going to be on watch duty, just in case Shredder came back while we were gone. I was going to make an outpost on the roof to watch every edge of the building. I had prepared plenty of camouflage so it wouldnt see me. I know itll be the dead of night but, who knows, our buddy Shredder might have dark vision.

Me and Aidrick finished our separate duties, and as the sun began to set and the air got colder, he left to the town, to get the ends of meat the butcher wouldn’t want. I jumped up to my post, and got settled in. Keeping eyes on all directions. The boundless skyline shined as the sun hid behind it, and it reminded me of the old days, when I rarely saw the sun. When I had to hide away alone. But then Aidrick came along. He truly, lit up my world. I remember everyone was horrified of me, they looked into my eyes with fear, and my world had fallen. I heard sounds within the forest, and grabbed my binoculars and sword. I stood my ground and looked out, and I seen it. I dropped everything once I realized what it was. It wasn’t so horrific. It wasn’t so scary looking. I stared into his eyes and he snapped his neck to look into mine. His eyes widened as he immediately spirited away. 

I was breathless as I saw who was behind this horrific murder. 

My Maker. My father.