Reborn

#lifecycle

Thump thump thump thump

Tick tock tick tock

The rhythmic sound of the clock on the wall gently whispered into his ears.

Some people didn't like the sound of a ticking clock.

He had never understood why.

The sun flooded the kitchen and bathed the man in its warmth. He looked down, to the cat that had taken its spot right next to his feet, looking at him expectantly.

"You hungry?" Hands quickly filled a little bowl, a routine from so many days.

The cat meowed and jumped on the counter, eyes zoomed in on the food. The man laughed and barely managed to save his morning coffee from being knocked over by tiny, furry paws.

The sound of a running shower upstairs accompanied him on his way through the hall, where he picked up his bag and grabbed his keys from the wall. "I'm leaving!" he called, a muffled voice replied from the bathroom.

He smiled and closed the door behind him.

The morning air filled his lungs and refreshed his senses, the last remains of tiredness disappearing in the little clouds that his breath created in front of his face. A new day.

The man hummed in his car, the way to work always seemed to take a little less time when the weather was good.

He greeted his colleague who was smoking a cigarette at the door, and entered the police building.

It wasn't until after a few hours filled with paperwork and small talk that the day became interesting. A suspect had finally given in to the investigators and revealed where he had hidden his girlfriend's body after he had killed her in a heated argument. Now they just had to find her.

When they arrived at the location, he gave the order to search. The dogs' barking cut through the silence of the forest as their handlers began to lead them between the trees.

Upon taking a closer look at his surroundings, he couldn't shake the feeling that this place felt weirdly familiar, even though he could not that he had ever been here before. He shuddered, and reminded himself why they were here. They had a body to find.

You know where they are buried-

A sound coming from his radio interrupted his confused thoughts.

They had found the girl just a few dozens of metres away from their starting point, buried in the shadow of a nearby tree. Just when they were about to secure the location, another call from the radio came in.

"I think we've got something over here!"

One of the search dogs had not stopped barking, despite its handler trying to calm him down.

The ground was still hard from being frozen in the night, but eventually they were successful. A bone, looking older than the ones they had discovered earlier, appeared under the layers of earth, leaves and dirt. It didn't take the forensic team long to determine that it was indeed human. He gave the order to expand the search and called for additional forces.

He could hear his heart starting to beat faster.

"There are more" he murmured, more to himself than to anyone else.

"What?"

He looked up, only to meet the confused look of his colleague.

"I don't know. It's just that feeling that we have something big here."

This is it-

The hours went by. When the dark was about to fall, they had recovered the remains of at least four people from the ground. And he knew that once they finished, there would probably be even more.

The next day, the office was buzzing. It wasn't every day that they found a mass grave. He tried to focus on his work, but he had to give up after a few hours of mindlessly staring at the screen. His thoughts would just not stop spinning.

Why did he feel so restless?

His team was fast. It only took a few days before they connected the bodies they had found to the murderer. A serial killer who had been active in the area some time ago. The media blew up with excitement. His phone wouldn't stop ringing, requests to interview him, he who had been in charge of the search, came flooding in. Headlines were printed in capital letters, the police director and the mayor gave press conferences, even the senator wrote a letter, addressing the families of the victims that had been identified.

At night, he couldn't sleep. His partner was laying close to his chest, their heartbeat calm and steady.

There was just a tiny thought, a voice that wouldn't stop whispering into his mind.

Whose work are you REALLY enjoying the attention for?

The end.