Atlantis I: Upheaval

Erwin's Chapter Act 1 Part 1: Hidden Malice

I sat on one side of the table in the interrogation room, waiting for the police to haul in the criminal suspected of instigating the suicide of sixteen high school boys a week before.

A minute passed and the door of the dimly lit interrogation room finally opened. Two police officers firmly held the arm of a young man quite possibly in his early twenties. He had neatly combed short brown hair and a clean-shaven face and wore a white long-sleeved shirt tucked inside a pair of black trousers.

The very moment our eyes first met, I felt my body stiffen with unease. His calm yet somehow energetic demeanor was frightening. I could hear my mind screaming about the imminent danger, begging me to escape, to shelter myself from his malicious gaze.

The man sat down across the table on the chair opposite mine. The police stepped back, ready to restrain the man if he tried anything.

I looked him in the eyes once more, observing his deep blue eyes before beginning the interrogation.

"You are Darren Wilson yes?" I questioned, searching for any sign of unease on his near expressionless face. Much to my disappointment, he nodded calmly, refusing to give anything away.

"Do you know why you were brought here?" I asked, raising my voice slightly. His reaction to my question was, without a doubt, another sign of the impending danger.

A full second passed after I asked the question, and a large, malicious smile replaced Darren's previously blank expression. He then proceeded to stare right into my eyes, not saying a word, almost as if he was about to begin laughing hysterically. Sweat flowed down my forehead as I struggled to calm myself. This man clearly wasn't one to meddle with. There was no telling what other atrocities he had committed before finally being arrested. Moreover, there was no clear evidence which could justify Darren's arrest, and he could very well be released back into the public.

I had to get him to confess.

"Are you in any way responsible?" I asked him directly. Darren shook his head, still smiling. I proceeded to ask him his whereabouts on that particular day, and his answers were proof that he had no contact with the boys that died. Despite that, the malicious smile on his face had me convinced that he wasn't perfectly innocent. But I had no way to prove that. As I feared earlier, we were forced to release him from custody.

***

A whole day had passed since the interrogation. I was sitting at my desk in my office back at HQ. As a recognized senior investigator of the force, I was given my own office within the building. I didn't work for the police despite being located in their HQ, but instead for the Night Eye, a detective organization working alongside the police.

I was still searching for any possible leads that could help me come any closer in solving the case. But any possible clue had continued to elude me.

Suddenly, the door opened and a young man in his late twenties walked in. He wore dark blue pants and coat over a white shirt and black tie. His short black hair was neatly combed to the side.

"Any leads?" he asked me with a slight sigh.

"None at all Jordan," I replied, burying my head into my hands.

Jordan was my assistant. We had solved countless cases together in the past and was an irreplaceable friend to me. Yet, this was the first time we had struggled so hard to conclude a case. Jordan was up more than half the night before trying to find any information to help advance the case, but even he hadn't found anything useful.

"Maybe we should just drop this one," He suggested. "We could spend this time better working on another case."

I shook my head in denial. I knew Jordan was right. But what kept me from doing as he asked was that man from yesterday. The unease I felt after recalling his malicious smile after being asked about the suicides didn't feel right. The more I thought, my suspicion grew further. A moment later, I had made up my mind to investigate him further.

I told Jordan about my plan and he nodded in approval. We decided to begin our investigation a few days later, as Darren could choose to lay low for a few days in order to completely avoid our suspicion. This city, Atlantis, had turned into a base of organized crime over recent years. A string of ill-timed disasters was mainly to blame for this catastrophe. Incidents that neither the Night Eye nor the police could do anything to avoid.

The first was the very public assassination of the mayor ten years ago as it proved the inferiority of the police within the city. This attracted many thugs and criminals looking to make a living out of underground transactions as they believed that they wouldn't be under much danger here. But this wasn't all. The attraction of so many criminals led to the formation of various mafia factions within the city, meaning that there was an increase in organized crime. These various factions struggled against one another to acquire full control over the city's underground.

Tensions were high between these rivaling factions and it escalated further six years ago when the different groups declared war against one another. Things were so bad that there were clashes out in broad daylight, as the police struggled to contain everything. Finally, the new mayor appealed for help from abroad and with the assistance of foreign forces, the war was forced to an abrupt end. Four years later, things were still bitter as it were then, with many looking for revenge from their enemies for killing their comrades.

But another disaster like that won't be allowed. Not as long as we from the Night Eye and the police were actively solving crimes and thinning down the fat list of law-breakers.

I watched Jordan leave my office and took a deep breath. Ever since yesterday, I felt the foreboding threat of something dangerous. My meeting with Darren had triggered an ominous presentiment that suggested that something terrible was about to happen very soon, but I shrugged it off as nothing more than my imagination.