| forlorn hope
War Summoner“Haerin, are you listening?” Daehyun snapped to get her attention, breaking the female from her trance. “Are you okay? You seem so dazed these days.” Daehyun questioned, seeing how the girl’s attention was elsewhere in outer space the entire 5 minutes of his talking.
It was either that his speech was boring to the extent that it couldn’t keep her attention span on him, or she was just distracted by something else and not listening. Daehyun was sure it was most likely the latter.
“I’m fine. Just thinking.” Haerin mumbled, almost seeming as if she was ready to drift off again before immediately snapping her attention back to Daehyun. “So what was it?”
Daehyun raised an eyebrow at her behavior before continuing with the topic he had left off with. “Okay as I was saying,” he cleared his throat, “These days, there’s been some frequent crime scenes happening. Though the crime scenes seem almost normal, there’s something in all of them that the police from the department have found in every one of them.”
Daehyun opened up a new webpage, typing a few words into the search bar. After another few series of clicks, a page popped up as he showed Haerin the screen, pointing to a picture displayed on the page of the site. “See this? This logo had been left in some of the crime scenes happening. Whether it be somewhere on the victim, victim’s clothes or just a simple piece of metal placed on the ground next to the victim, there’s almost like this watermark left. The words spell out to be ‘Badman’.” Daehyun informed as Haerin nodded in understanding, eyes quickly scanning through the screen, taking in all the information provided.
“This has been playing on the news channel for several days now and cops are trying to find who the culprit is.” Daehyun added before his eyebrows furrowed slightly. “But whoever this ‘Badman’ is, they sure do a damn good job of cleaning up the scene.”
Haerin only nodded to his words, leaning herself on the edge of his office table. “No luck so far?” She questioned as he shook his head. “That’s why the head chief of the police apartment now assigned this case to us in hope of being able to find out who this person is.” A teasing smile pulled on Daehyun’s lips as he look at Haerin who almost knew what he was trying to say. “Think we can do it?”
Haerin raised her eyebrow at him, almost as if questioning his seemingly ridiculous question. “Well Mr. Jung Daehyun, this is Lee Haerin you’re talking to. What do you think?” Her response causing the said boy to slightly smirk, glancing at Haerin who seem very confident in this case - not that he minded. Daehyun had alway took a certain liking this confidence of hers. “Well, looking forward to be your partner in the future Ms. Lee Haerin.”
Haerin laughed in amusement, shaking her head as Daehyun sat there with a childish smile playing upon his lips. “You’ve already been my partner for the past month now idiot.”
“Haerin, urgent call from head office. We need you and Daehyun down here right now.” Haerin’s eyebrows furrowed hearing message from her fellow employee who’s, judging by the tone of his voice, seemed to really be needing some major backup right now.
“I’ll be down there in 2.” Her quick reply got cut off with the beep of the phone dial before Haerin slammed the phone down and rushing to the door. Making her way down the hallway, four doors to away to the left of her, she broke through the door of Daehyun’s office, slightly frightening the male. The young female looked almost like a madman who was ready to kill someone any second. “Daehyun, get your out of there. Major emergency down in headquarters. They need us.”
“Got the call. Coming.” Daehyun rushed outside, closing the door shut before running to catch up to the female walking a far distance ahead of him. “You got any idea on what it’s about?” Daehyun questioned as Haerin harshly jabbed at the elevator button. The crease of her eyebrows got deeper as her finger repeatedly pressed at the button before heaving a frustrated sigh. “No idea but seemed really urgent.” Haerin replied before rushing towards the stairways. “Let’s take this way. Save us some time of waiting for the elevator.”
Daehyun didn’t dare go back against her words - not that he needed to. Haerin had always been a great cop who took her jobs seriously and her brain was something Daehyun had quite admired for the past month. It took merely 1 minute for them to run down the stairway, arriving at the main headquarters in the police station.
“What’s up.” Haerin asked, implying towards the sudden urgent call for both her and Daehyun. A guy was sitting there at a table, brunette hair and in his police uniform. A relieved expression seemed to have spread across his face at the arrival of Daehyun and Haerin. “Hear this.” He played a audio clip on the phone, recording what had been a previous phone call dialed towards 911. “The person under hostage is Kim Hyun Shik. He’s a government official and has been helping out with some government ideals. The phone number used to dial 911 was tracked down to be his.”
Haerin’s fist tightened, clenching so hard it turned a ghostly shade of white as her teeth clenched together. “We’ve got him under hostage. You want him back, you come here yourself. We wouldn’t want to kill such a precious piece of information like this.” A person was speaking in a low, slightly husky voice - sounding as if a mask was there to block the clearness in his tone. In the background, Haerin could hear the muffled screams and cries of a helpless person in hostage, and though she wasn’t sure of who or what that person is captured for, the familiar sick feeling towards society rose within her stomach again.
“Have you tracked down the location of the phone call yet Youngjae?” The said male nodded, clicking away on the computer before a code popped up, leading to an address.
“Busanjin district. Got it. Daehyun, we’re heading out.” Haerin ordered as Daehyun nodded before giving Youngjae a pat on the shoulder and mumbling a word of thanks. “Are you going to need backup?”
Daehyun eyed Haerin who nodded, “A few backup should be fine. If it gets too seriously, watch out for our call for more backup.”
Youngjae nodded, confirming her order before went back to clicking away on the computer, alerting the others. “I’ll be keeping a lookout for the calls.”
Haerin nodded and in an instant, disappeared through the front door and out of sight. Daehyun shook his head in amusement, dispite the serious situation. The male couldn’t help it. Lee Haerin was just quite something.
“Fuck.” Haerin cursed, a low hiss emitting from as she stared at the image of a dead body displayed in front of her. His hands were tied up, mouth muffled with a piece of cloth, along with a deep cut of a knife slash across his neck. Just like that, his life was taken away. A few more curses came about while Daehyun stood there, ruffling his slightly damp hair in frustration.
They had came too late. He was dead now.
Haerin’s eyes grew dark for she was reminded once again of why she despised this society so much. People’s life were taken away within the blink of an eye, without even a proper reason behind the death.
Haerin had tried so hard to be the one bringing things to justice, enforcing laws that would get rid of - or at least reduce - these crimes that were happening. But it was all useless, and the event today proved her right once again.
“File out a report on this. We need to see who was responsible for this.” Haerin said and the response from the chief in command had shocked her beyond belief.
“No need to.” Haerin stared at him with wide eyes, taken aback by the response coming from such a person of such high authority.
“W-why?”
“The guy’s dead now. We have no time to waste our efforts on finding the murder, it’s no use. He’s dead already.”
Haerin’s eyes were instantly blurred with a storm of frustration and anger, entire figure trembling in such anger that was impossible for words to express.
“And such what cases should our efforts be used upon?” The girl asked, voice though maintaining as calm as possible, there was an obvious edge of harshness that hit upon the words.
“Cases such as Badman. I need you and Daehyun to be putting your efforts into that case and not wasting your efforts on a little thing like this.” The chief advised as Haerin felt immensely sick in the stomach.
So these were the true face behind police officers, they’re just filthy scumbags as compared to the criminals. A murder was not a big deal? Just because he died, bringing his death to justice was not important anymore?
Haerin fought back the urge to spit those words at her elder, instead keeping shut and obliging to the command. “Yes sir. Daehyun and I will be working on the Badman case.”
The chief nodded in satisfaction; Haerin almost wanting to scoff at his pathetic act.
Badman will never be found. Not when they had assigned the case to Badman herself.
Author's Note: School has been taking up a goddamn lot of my time and I'm here dying in a hell hole called school. I couldn't write even if I wanted to. The beginning was wrote on a free Saturday so it's detailed but I bullted over half the chapter tonight when I crapped up an essay page for English. My brain is fried but I was determined to post up an update in time for 9/11.
Prayers to those who died in the horrible terrorist attack. I wanted to update this on today.
As a side note, no I don't think badly about cops. Never, I actually really admire them. But keep in mind, this story is taking place in a world where society is just complete so it's for the sake of the story.
Sorry for the ty chapter (I'll probably have to go back and rewrite/revise) but otherwise, happy reading! Comments make me happy!
Comments