18:03- Sicily O'Connor (Joy)
Hey Markel, it's me, Sicily (Joy). I think I found a lead.
19:32- Sicily O'Connor (Joy)
Mark? You okay?
19:46- Sicily O'Connor (Joy)
Mark, I'm calling you at 8 to discuss the lead.
Glancing at his phone in disinterest, Markel lounged beneath the large oak tree in the graveyard, hands knitted together behind his head as he gazed at the cloudless setting sky. It was now 7:58, and he had no intention of answering that promised phone call. However, when his phone hummed with vibration at 8:00, he still undid the knot he'd tied his fingers into and grabbed the small cellular device, accidentally elbowing the back of a headstone in the process.
'Sorry Ella,' he mumbled to the grave before pressing the small green Take Call button.
'Mark! Why haven't you been texting me back?' Sicily's voice, mildly shrill and interlaced with random bouts of static, came over from the other end of the line. Staring down at the screen, Markel's eyes narrowed.
'This is Denzle.' Pause.
'Huh?'
'M. P. Denzle. Unfortunately, due to the incompetence of the degree of accuracy built into DNA, I happen to be in the process of developing biotechnological softwares to prevent mutations in DNA replication, and will get back to you in probably 24 hours. Have a good day or night.'
Pause on her end. Markel allowed himself a self-satisfied smirk, then spoke into the phone again.
'Just kidding. Though if I really didn't pick up, yes, that does happen to be my voicemail. So, did you want something?'
'....Ah...haha... Mark, your sense of humor is just....' Sicily's voice crackled with static, but Markel was positive she was glaring awkwardly at his name on her Caller ID.
'Do you have a thing against my current voicemail? If so, pray that you'll never have to call me whenever I'm unavailable.'
'N-no, it's just that if I take a member of the general populace and tell them to listen to your voicemail, they'd probably just dismiss you as a teen with a false sense of grandeur. But, thankfully, I do understand this DNA replication reference.'
'So you really aren't that stupid.'
'Nope!'
Woah, that came out too loud. Wincing as his automatic reaction sent his hand- and his phone- crashing into Ella's headstone again, Markel glanced apologetically at where he liked to think her ghost was watching, and mouthed a guilty 'Sorry' before returning to the call.
'Right, so. You called me. What did you want to convey to me over this live session?'
'Mark-!' Exasperation was evident in Sicily's voice, though she sounded like she really tried to hide it.
'Yes?'
'Both of us have been having trouble with the last measure.'
'Yes.'
'I think I figured it out.'
'.....' Markel held the phone slightly away from his ear, staring off into the distance as he contemplated.
'Mark? Hey, Mark, you okay?'
'Y-yeah. I'm fine. So, talk to me about your recent findings.' He heard the sound of pages being flipped, and then, 'Right. Light's ending. Two octaves above the middle C, I'd say it's C, D, B, E, B, E, C, A, C, A, B, G, B, G, chord going from down to up is FAC, BDF, GBD, and ACE. How's that?'
'Yeah? Hmmm. Hang on, let me just... get to a place with a piano?' Even though he had perfect pitch and could probably sing the notes, Markel still wanted to check the Rhapsody's fit.
'What's wrong? Aren't you home?' The worry in her voice seeped through to the other end, and Markel brushed himself off as he stood.
'No, actually. Y'know the cemetery next to us? I'm sitting below the giant oak tree.'
'MARKEL!'
'What!'
'Do you know how dangerous that place is?'
'Uh, no.'
'Markel, there are grave robbers. They leave open potholes that they don't bother filling. And in especially the older areas, you can't even see where the potholes are in daylight, much less at night. And yet here you are, stumbling about the oldest section of the freaking graveyard at night! Do you have a death wish?'
The sudden crescendo in Sicily's volume startled the composer, who almost tripped over a low-lying headstone during his jog towards the gothic archway of an entrance.
'I'm coming out right now, geez. Besides, I can still see.'
'Well you'd better hurry up!'
'Yeah yeah, whatever.' Muttering crossly to himself, the irritated 18 year old vaulted over the closed gates, continuing at a steady jog towards his apartment.
Markel had a nightmare that night.
He dreamt that he was back in the cemetery, back underneath the massive oak tree, back next to Ella Bircher's grave.
This time, however, he was not alone.
'Hello?' Why am I here? I thought I was at the apartment...
'Anyone?' Propping himself up from where he lay in the unkempt grass, his elbow grazed by Ella's headstone- but of course, he didn't know because it was the dark of the night and whatnot, but his subconscious screamed at him to not have just done that.
'Hello, composer. It's nice to finally meet you in this place.'
Markel froze.
'I'm sorry, did I scare you?' Grass rustled, wind blew through fabric, and a pearly white form knelt down next to him.
His eyes met the soulless holes of Ella Bircher's.
'Oh, your eyes are really pretty.'
He blinked.
'Th-thanks?'
'Of course.' The apparition smiled, flickered, and disappeared for a moment.
'Stupid American disobedient twit, if my passport hadn't expired, you'd be 6 feet under and then some by now.'
'Huffman!'
'Shush, you good-for-nothing wanker.' A large, meaty hand clasped over his mouth and nose, stopping him from breathing as normal.
Markel panicked. He thrashed about, eventually managing to free himself from the suffocating mask of flesh, and immediately began sprinting down the hill in attempt to put as much distance between him and his wretched stepfather of his. However, even as he sped through the lines of graves, sounds of hot pursuit were already audible.
The fact that ghostly spirits were rising from graves all around him just made everything worse.
All right, Denzle, see that mausoleum there? Make it past that mausoleum, duck around it, and vault over the fence. Sure, it's high and pointed like all stereotypical gothic arches, but it's much faster than running all the way to the entrance.
But that's only if they can't catch you past the graveyard.
Wincing as the small, pessimistic voice dashed his hopes of escape, Markel yelped as his feet suddenly left the ground- and almost immediately began cursing as his descent down the hill became a roll.
God, freaking- that low tombstone's going to be the end of me, I swear!
As the slope lessened, Markel took the opportunity to roll onto his feet and resume his sprint towards the mausoleum.
However, as he neared the granite building, its double doors blew open with a strong gust of wind, and blew the composer straight into a sharp granite edge.
It must've been a while before he woke up, because the sun was already starting to cast its pinkish rays over the fog-choked cemetery when his eyes cracked open. As Markel, groaning from the cold and bruises of yesterday's ghost chase, sat up, he was met with the same pitch black holes of Ella Bircher.
Markel's fight-or-flight response once again initiated, he fell back with a surprised yelp and an amused finger wag from the ghost.
'Now, composer, that's not how you wake up daily, is it? I'd hope not; it seemed quite painful.'
'How else am I supposed to react to getting the living crap scared out of me when I decide to wake up?'
'Try rubbing your pretty blue eyes a bit. Then I'll tell you.'
Against his will, Markel found himself lifting a hand to his face, removing his glasses, and rubbing the remnants of sleepiness away.
When he opened his eyes, Ella was, once again, staring at him full in the face, smiling her mysterious and ghostly smile.
'Awake?'
'...Yeah.'
'I guess I'll tell you then. Sorry sweetie, but the blood test came back positive for you.'
'...what?'
'You're as dead as I am now.'
'I don't ever recall being dead.'
'I'll show you, since you're so adamant.' Following the ghost to the mausoleum entrance, Markel internally wondered when he'd started talking to the dead, but all that stopped when he saw the large marble coffin situated in the middle of the spacious room.
Ella pushed away the heavy stone as though it weighed nothing and whistled to get Markel's attention.
His blood ran cold.
Light brown glasses rested to the side of the man's head, no longer needed. Eyes forever closed, lips sealed, hair pulled back into a small bun, he could've been sleeping if there wasn't a thick sheet of glass over his body.
Markel scanned the rest of the recently-deceased with a critical eye, noting how his arms crossed over his chest, but there was one thing in particular that bothered him the most.
'Ella, why is this man's veins blacker than a usual corpse's?'
The ghost's chuckle sent shivers down his spine.
'Poison, love, poison. He was poisoned at Destiny Island. See, if you look on your own hand... you'd find veins of the very same colour.'
Raising his palm towards the skylight near the ceiling, the dark spider web of poisoned blood revealed themselves on the back of his hand.
'You're just as dead as I am now. Welcome to Crisis Island, Markel Peter Denzle.'
A/N: I got bored, so here's some foreshadowing for the future :) I really hate the way that the dream was written (so boring!) so when I go back and edit everything I might delete this entire chapter. A few regrets though; I couldn't resist the foreshadowing of both the Crisis and Destiny Islands (completely fictional, if you peoples hadn't had that figured out already).