The X Files | Levi Ackerman

File 8: A Tormented Soul

        "I was quite happy back then," Levi grunted.  "Our little family was knitted close and we never really grew apart, even after I moved out for college.  I studied at TPrep, obviously, since it offers the best education in law and crime in the entire country.  It was also close to home, which I really liked.

        "I moved out into my own apartment because I wanted to experience the world for myself.  This cruel world, which I had to learn the hard way, rewarded me with the hardships of living solo.  The debts climbed up and all of my time was devoted to studying and working various part-time jobs.  My parents offered to help, they insisted on helping, but with my stubborn attitude, I declined the frequent pleas and toughed it out myself; alone.

        "I managed to survive the storm," Levi went on.  "I finished college in the top twenty, and my debts ended up being paid off by my parents anyways.  I continued to live in that apartment I had rented, and I refurnished it so it would fit my tastes better.  I got a job at the Survey Detective Agency, and Erwin was kind enough to give me my first few cases that would set me off into the career I've dreamed of since my freshman year of high school."

Levi pressed his lips into a thin line, a bead of sweat forming upon his brow and threatening to drip down into his lap, his face tilted down so that his jet-black hair shaded his glinting steel-blue eyes.

"Then came the Skull Ripper Case."

Aria just sat in her seat and listened, her face flipped over from her usual peppiness to the current serious state she was in.  With her hands in her lap and her eyes trained onto the devastated man before her, the intern leaned in eagerly, ready to comfort the man that would surely snap.

"I was zealous, and I briskly picked up the case," Levi murmured.  "It was the biggest case I've ever been assigned back then; and that's saying something, since I had solved about six cases in the past two years; all taking three months or under.  I read the descriptions of the case from police observations, and I was so excited about working on the case.

        "However, after a week and a half of following the previous trail of murders the Skull Ripper had left behind, it became more and more evident to who the killer was; it was about the fourth murder from the Skull Ripper when all of the evidence was tied together and pointed towards one man; the one man that raised me and loved me dearly as his own beloved son.

        "I refused to believe that he did it.  I refused to follow the evidence, which was hard and cold in not just tangibility, but also in spirit.  The evidence, as inanimate objects, didn't care about what I thought or what I did; they just sat there on the white linen cloth as the forensic scientists analyzed them, giving me solid, chilly results that still yet pointed to that single man."

Levi sat there, his hands trembling in his lap as he took a shaky breath.

"One thing led after another, and I tried to hold down on the arrest for as long as I could; but when a neighbor called the police about terrible muffled screams coming from the house beside them, the police went their way to the area with me in the car right behind them.  When they arrived at the house..."

The man's dark eyes glanced over quickly at Aria, who still sat patiently next to him, her glittering dark amber eyes dull and bleak, omniscient about what came next.  

Levi sighed.  "My father was leaning over a girl with a bloody scalpel in his hand, a massive gash ripping down from her left temple to the tip of her chin.  He had this sort of surprised look on his face, as though he didn't know what he was doing; the expertise of the cutting of the skin though said otherwise.

        "So, the police arrested him and the S.W.A.T team arrived, escorting my father to the prison where he would be held for the next few months, awaiting trail against all of the families who supposedly lost their loved ones under his hands.  He was found guilty of first degree murder, accountable for a string of a total of seven killings.  Ruled insane and irrational, my father was excused from the death sentence; instead, he was sent to prison for life...without the possibility of parole.