A Tale of Forgotten Gods

Chapter 135: The Hanged Man.

The train’s steam rose toward the sky as the whistle ran through the wind. The loud noise of its wheels reached the ears of the passenger inside.

Murphy Law sat on his seat, looking outside to watch the bird flying through the place. Nearby, a few people fed pigeons, and on a large board the five crows only watched the pigeons eat. One of them flew toward the garbage and picked up the dried bread, then swallowed it immediately.

The train soon passed the view and moved through a field of wheat where workers farmed the crops.

As the train passed through multiple places and entered a cave, the dark swallowed the train inside. Murphy blinked once and pulled away from the window, then grabbed a Chelsea bun to eat it.

His gaze landed on a spider who attempted to catch a fly that had entered the train without a ticket.

The small fly sat near the window, rubbing its hand together, careless of the predator behind. The spider only remained patient and moved slowly before grabbing the fly.

A natural cycle—maybe it was how the world worked; being careless could lead to larger things. At that moment, the fly could have survived if it didn’t choose to be here, but if it wasn’t there, then the spider would have died out of hunger... who was to blame?

Murphy narrowed his eyes at the spider before closing them up and glanced outside at nature.

Soon, the announcement occurred when the train slowed down toward a platform. ”Welcome to the Latvensa platform, passenger; please do not hurry.”

He pulled his casual suitcase and walked out of the train as it stopped at the station. Outside, the crowd was still similar, the same noise and the same chatting, completely lost in their own destination.

Murphy let an old couple move out first, towering over behind them to stop the passengers trying to push past.

He slowly exited next and looked at the new place where the board stated the name Latvensa. He pulled out a cigarette and flared it up and walked forward with a long breath.

After exiting the platform, he darted his gaze around and held the cigarette between his fingers. On a billboard was a warning that clearly stated to avoid Ethan Street at night; that was announced by the chief of this city.

Letting out a puff of smoke, Murphy stopped a carriage and moved toward the police station.

He stopped before the police station, which was a cramped, soot-stained building wedged between a textile mill and a condemned warehouse. Murphy pushed through the heavy door as the scent of stale coffee and wet wool hit him immediately. ℯℯ𝘭.

Inside, a sergeant looked up from behind a cluttered desk, his eyes bloodshot and weary. ”How can we help?”

Murphy flashed his detective badge from behind the long collar of his coat. ”Murphy Law, a Detective. I’m here about the suicides.”

The sergeant’s expression flickered, filled with a mix of fear and exhaustion. ”Ah, Detective Law, sit down then. Another one came in this morning, which makes thirty-one.”

Murphy sat down across from him. ”Tell me everything.”

The sergeant pointed toward a woman who sat on a seat nearby the window. The victim’s wife, her eyes red-rimmed and hollow. She clutched a handkerchief in her lap, twisting it between her fingers.

”He was happily doing his job, earning for the family.” She began. ”That’s what I don’t understand. Why did he do that? He had us, and he didn’t say if it was an external pressure.”

”Did he mention anything unusual in the days before?” Murphy asked gently.

She hesitated once before answering the question. ”He said... he said that he was feeling extreme anxiety, and when he tried to sleep, something made the room feel twisted. Like... he was hanging by his legs, and he felt a headache from those dreams.”

Murphy’s eyes narrowed. ’Dream of hanging down... why? Can it be connected with a spirit?’

”You mean he has dreams of it? What else did he see?”

”Someone forcefully feeding him a rusted metal card.”

Murphy stared at her for longer than a second, his mind racing with thoughts as he asked. ”What kind of card?”

”A card that is used as an entrance for the bell tower.”

Just then, a few people walked in and called out to her to retrieve her husband’s body as she walked away with a sorrowful look.

’Card for the bell tower...? There must be something related to this.

Another inspector walked toward an old-fashioned telephone, which seemed as if that technology had just been invented only a year ago. He strode to the oak telephone cabinet bolted to the precinct wall. He slowly unhooked the heavy rubber receiver, gave the brass hand crank a sharp, aggressive twist to alert the operator, and leaned his face close to the black funnel of the mouthpiece.

A metallic voice came through the telephone booth, which seemed slightly noisy due to the lack of technology. ”Midnight Wings, we have been reported the cases and we will arrive before late night.”

”Wait, you haven’t sent a Detective here?” The inspector looked at the investigator in confusion.

The voice spoke again with a bit of curiosity. ”A Detective? No. We haven’t yet sent anyone to investigate.”

”I see, we will wait for the arrival.

The inspector turned toward the Detective and asked in a deep voice. ”Sir, can we know why you came?”

Hearing that, Murphy pulled out his fedora as his wavy combed hair moved. ”As I said before, I’m a Detective who is doing my job with my choices; moreover, as a Detective I’m enforced by law, so don’t worry, the case is safe, and before the late night it’ll be over.”

With that, he walked toward reports and skim read through each of them before turning on his boots and walking out of the police station.

He entered Ethan Street, which was empty, where no people walked by. Alongside the roadside stand, the gas lamps flickered weakly as their light barely reached the cobblestones. The buildings on either side loomed tall and dark; their windows seemed like hollow eyes.

Murphy walked slowly. Resting his hand on the revolver, he stared at the whole empty street.

The place with emptiness was never the sign of presence, and when someone tried to break the rule, of course it would respond, and now it did as he heard his own voice speaking out his true name.

”Mo Fei.”

Although, the whisper was too low that he could have dismissed it as mere imagination, but right now he knew it couldn’t be.

He stopped as the whole street turned so cold that his own breath created mist. A storm wind rushed toward him, but he looked behind, remaining unfazed.

On a streetlamp, a long rope hung there, swinging gently as the wind blew by. It was a knot.

Just then the air thickened and turned into a thin white smoke that moved through the whole place.

As the sun hid behind the buildings and the night took over, hiding the street behind a curtain of shadows, a heavy silence occurred, broken by the churr-churr noise of the rope.

A shadow flickered where the rope hung, a shadow of a man as a crimson substance dripped from his body, and then the body snapped, leaving the head hanging on the rope as the body fell.