Descent into Madness (Semi Closed RP. Invite only)

"Crap i'm not gonna make it!"

Kyle was late.

“Damnit I gotta go! Can't be late twice in a row!”

He was really late.

“No more damn missions before class!” He shouted as he ran into Paragon University, to his class which was already in session. He could hear their grumbling and cleared his throat as he walked to the front of the class.

“Alright class, everyone settle down. Heh I know i'm a little late, but let's get started. Today we'll be talking about serial killers and how the media has influenced them.” He said as he brought up the view screen. “first, we can start with a recent case in the news, which had many a street-side heroes working furiously.” He flipped through the pictures of the news story.

“But it started out as only one murder, and he sent the pictures to the news.” One student said. He nodded.

“Exactly. Instead of running it as a random murder, they ran a scare piece. Using a shadowy intro with dark music and recounting the grisly murder. Talking about how he skinned his victims alive while keeping them conscious. It scared the people and made them what?”

“Made them all more susceptible to being a victim while giving him the fame he obviously wanted. Feeding into his vanity and lust for control.” Another student said.

He nodded. “Exactly.”

Another student looked up at him. “But didn't you use that same fame to catch him? So in a way the fame wasn't a bad thing. If it was just a random thing then he'd not have ever been caught.”

“That's true I did. It was simple. People like him were all about vanity and feeling superior. Showing he was smarter than the media, than heroes, than police. The more I solved his silly puzzles, the angrier he got and at the same time, he couldn't turn down the challenge. And he lost.” He said with a triumphant grin as he continued with the lecture for the rest of the hour.

“Alright, don't forget papers are due by the end of the week, try to get them all in on time this week people.” he said with a grin.

The class all moaned and groaned as they got up and exited the class. He turned around and began to sort through the various papers left on his desk, his brow with a slight frown on it as he did so, how he hated this part of the job. Grading papers.

Natalie Fox was older than most of the class, a mature enrolement in the Marks' class. Normally the older women who partook in the class were housewives indulging secret fantasies of a dark secret their husbands and neighbours would be shocked to learn, or spinsters who had read too many bland crime thrillers that masqueraded as stories of female empowerment when they were anything but.

Nobody would accuse Fox of either. She was a void of antipathy. Her presence didn't linger long enough in the minds of her peers for them to conjure up more than vague and fleeting feelings towards her. Opinions were completely lacking.

Fox crept down the stairs towards Marks at the bottom of the hall, somehow weaving between students pushing towards the exit without so much as a nudge of the shoulder. Like an oil spill on eventide waters, it was impossible to keep an eye on her as she travelled. It she simply appeared where she wanted to be and to anyone watching, it simply. made. sense.

"Professor Marks," she said, "the lecture was insightful. I've always liked a more practical approach to this topic. I have a still have few questions though."

As the class began to file out he gathered his papers and stuffed them into the briefcase. He only taught one class a day, it was all his schedule allowed for. He let out a small sigh at all the work he had to do in grading papers and going over the next class lesson, not to mention his other two jobs.

"No rest for the wicked, at least that's what they say." he said to himself.

"Professor Marks," she said, "the lecture was insightful. I've always liked a more practical approach to this topic. I have a still have few questions though."

He didn't bother to look up as he closed his briefcase and began to straighten his desk.

"Oh? Well glad you did miss?" He looked up and tilted his head. He didn't quite remember her name, but he had seen her in class before. She blended in extremely well with the class, like one of the many masses. Not like the over-achieving housewives or the student who wants to be the reporter behind the next "Watergate".

"Hmm i'm sorry, your name escapes me. But how can I help you?" He asked her with a pleasant smile on his face.

"Don't be sorry," she came her amicable reply. She didn't jitter as some were prone to do when standing before the expert who would be judging the merit of their semester's work.

"I wondered if we'd be penalised for arguing against your case. Korda, in one of the readings, suggests that people like your subject grow addicted to the noteriety. I was planning on arguing-"

At the top of the theatre, the doors swung open. A lurching crowd of students began to pour down the stairs and into recently vacated seats.

Natalie perked a brow, as if retorting to some voice only she could hear.

"Next class. Perhaps another time, professor?"

He stroked his chin as he picked up his briefcase and then shook his head at her.

"Of course not, by all means give me your own research and reasoning as to why I may be wrong in this instance or over all. You'll only be penalized for poor work, not for disagreeing with me." He said to her as he saw the second class begin to file in.

"I tell you what, come see me at the end of the day and i'll tell you if your argument is worth arguing about. I have a few things to do later so I won't be able to stay long. You've probably heard PPD is asking for my help with some things, but I always have time for my students." He said with a smile as the new group took their seats.

"If you'll excuse me, I have a final class to begin. Feel free to sit in on it if you want."

They had met in a campus cafeteria late in the afternoon, when the majority of classes were over and all that remained were nightowls and working students.

Fox had argued with almost every point Marks made, in the coy and subdued manner of a topic expert and in many cases, they had reached agreement. Marks had picked up on a rebellious streak in his pupil and rose to the challenge with every feint and strike of debate.

The argument had branched out from a discussion of the manner in which the Professor had apprehended the murderer that had made him famous and into a discussion of super-powered ethics. Again they disagreed, Marks held disdain for vain, flamboyant superheroes and Fox disagreed- but her argument did not seem rooted in principle.

Neither of them lost their temper. Fox in particular seemed barely invested.

Over the next few days she continued to appear in his classes, watching hawkishly from the crowd that barely seemed to notice her existance. Once let in on the secret of her existance, Marks no longer fell for her veil of anonymity. To him, Natalie Fox existed, always spying as he delivered his lectures.

Then, days later, the first body was discovered.

The withered body of a mid-thirties truckdriver, Jason Russo, was found in a basement apartment somewhere in King's Row, when a neighbour reported the ripe stench of decay rising up into a nearby alleyway. When police broke down the door they found him, mouth agape as if he had gasped in horror before dying all too suddenly.

His eyes, as wide as dishpans were as black as the hollow in his shrieking mouth and stared out into nothingness. The first police reports said that they were missing, but were later amended to say that the eyeballs had transformed into pitch balls of gelatinous tissue, like congealed motor oil.

The body was found kneeling forward against a post, as if he had fallen to his knees upon death and somehow, unnaturall remained there post mortem. The muscles in his lower back were seized, as hard as steel cable.

Between the shoulders was a gaping hole. Force had obviously been applied from the outside in, having caved in the upper portion of Russo's back. The outside of the wounds should atrophy and inside the body was a congealed mess that occasionally leaked out over Russo's yellow high-visibility shirt. The blow wasn't consistant with superhuman strength, Russo's body had rotted at the point of image and the strike delivered like a hammerblow to rotting fruit.

Russo's employer, a truck company based out of Houston, had reported the man missing in the state of Texas days earlier. It was suspected the truck, lacking a GPS beacon had been hi-jacked somewhere between Texas and its New York destination.

"Yeah I shouldn't even be talkin to you about this yet, it's not even known been released to the public." One detective said to Kyle who was looking over the crime scene photos. He was looking for anything out of place, anything which seemed to have been purposely placed in such a manner as to draw attention other than the body.

"Yeah well, you know this is what I do. Investigative reporters have a knack for being very good at our jobs." He said making note of how the body was posed, the wounds and eyes.

"Alot of this looks like post death trauma. Which tells me this killer did this to make a point of some kind. See the look on his face, he was most likely horrified, scared out of his mind and caught with such surprise he didn't have time to react. You see, no wounds from him trying to fight back on his hands or body." he pointed out as he looked over the pictures more. The eyes...

"and those eyes, were done purposely, to show despair, fear, hopelessness. I'd say the trucker picked up a woman most likely thinking she a ******, she got him to the motel then killed him to make a point." He said.

"we already got on the phone with the trucking company to get a track on the GPS of the truck." the detective replied.

"Good, I'd be willing to bet though, our perp sold the truck, and most likely is wandering truck stops looking for fresh victims." The detective nodded in agreement with him. Kyle took the pictures, and gave the man a nod.

"I need to mull over these a bit more, i'll get back with you." he said and left the police station to head home.

The next day after class...

As the class was leaving he spotted Natalie, as usual spying him out. He motioned for her to come to the front of the class.

"Ms. Fox! Care to come down here please!"

The students looked back and forth amongst eachother, unsure who Marks was referring to. Fox materialised from the gloom and descended the stairs from somewhere in the middle of the room.

"Professor Marks."

. . .

The body of the second victim was linked seemingly only by the unfortunate nature of his demise.

He had been found lost among the labyrinth of shipping containers haphazardly arranged in one of the more chaotic shipyards of north Independence Port. A librarian in life, his body had been located standing almost upright, if not for a slight lean against the shipping container, his face turned upwards and frozen in fright.

At the centre of his chest was a void, a hole filled with gelatinous flesh. In time forensics would reveal that the point of impact was slightly smaller than a man's fist. The impact superhuman if it had come prior to the decay, merely forceful to pentrate flesh that had been turned to goo.

The eyes were once again, dark but not pitch, like the first corpse. The blackness seemed to have receeded from the pupils, alowing a thin band of blue pupil to be seen through the shroud of discoloured tissue.

He motioned her down to him and sent the rest of the class away. The room was empty, eerily so, with no sounds but the projector and his voice. He turned his back to her and prepared a few files, sorting through them before turning back to face her.

“Well, you've shown a real interest in my work and in this class in general. So i'd like to offer you some extra credit. The serial murders i've been working on, they've picked back up. With another one fairly recently. I want you to help me on this. Your... unique outlook could serve to be quite useful to me.”

He said looking her up and down once.

Yeah, this could get me in trouble again, but the case is more important.

“So what do you say? It'll be a hell of a experience, and you'll be able to help me out drastically in my work.” He said to her, hoping she took the bait, cause he didn't have time to do a lot of the grunt work that'd be needed.

“And if anyone asks you're just my TA helping me out with some studies.”

He played a dangerous game, a pretty, young student working as his TA. That always raised questions with the faculty. But he had more important things to worry about. Liker a mass murderer.

The rattling of the projector irritated her, like the buzzing of a mosquito in a dark bedroom. The tendancy for people to tolerate a world full of such annoyances rather than fix them was yet another reason that Natalie Fox to stay away. Laziness in thinking infected action, which defined life, and lazy lives bored her virtually to tears.

Books held to her chest, she watched Marks' eyes flicker up and down. She doubted that a few papers, a few rudimentary discussions had convinced the professor she would be an asset in this case. He was a risktaker, and she had no doubt he would endanger his career for a simple fling, but Fox suspected this was not his reason for asking. Now that the veil of anonymity had been lifted, on some level, Kyle Marks could sense she was dangerous.

Did she want to be associated with this case? Why would she dare having her face appear in his mind whenever he thought about the murders? By simply refusing, she could strangle that neural connection before it began and simply return to her role as observer.

Of course, that would not nearly be as interesting.

"How much credit?"

"How much credit?"

She was daring. He knew she was despite her quiet demeanor, despite the seemingly anonymous nature of who she was, being able to simply blend in, disappear from a crowd with ease that she had a streak for excitement in her. And he'd guessed right.

He smiled and went behind his desk, turning his back to her a moment as he picked up on the file folders.

"Well we're talkin 30 extra points. Basically that amounts to a 3rd of your grade this semester." He said and turned back around.

"Here, read over this. It's the current case files I've put together on this particular set of murders, this will be a good starting point. I'll expect to get your thoughts on it tonight." he said matter of factly.

"And Ms. Fox, one more thing before you go. It should be fair to warn you this is not some reenactment, this is a real investigation alright. If you feel the slightest bit uncomfortable simply come see me and we'll talk about it."

(thread closed till further notice)