Memero | 5

38

The day of the accident was one that stayed with Cain. Although he wasn't the only one it had a lasting effect on. Outside of the bank minutes before the fateful crash a young man named Donovan sat in his car with a slip of paper tucked tight in his fist. His full name had been Donovan Bertrow, a maintenance technician at Arctic Systems. He was here outside of the bank...and didn't particularly know why. He found the slip of paper a few days back when it had been sitting in his mailbox. There was text printed on the slip in small black text:

Crash it. Burn it. Remember it.

Donny didn't know what it had meant when he walked back inside his house. He had the day off and was planning on going to lay around for a while, maybe do a little dope to relax on his day off. He lived alone so he could smoke up almost anytime he pleased. It was his day off after all.

He started come noon, he hadn't even changed out of his boxers from the night before, the half eaten bowl of cereal still lie on the table out in the dining room. He shrugged he grabbed the old bowl and lit up, finishing the cereal he started the night before. An hour passed and something caught his attention outside, he set the bowl aside and hunkered over toward the window, moving the curtain aside and letting light spill into the room. There wasn't anything outside, so he let the curtain fall back into place. Then the sound the caught his attention the first time rang in his ears again, he heard it more clearly.

It was the ringing of a bell. Then there were two, four, and they all echoed off one another. Where were they ringing from? He walked into his bedroom to see if he left an alarm on, but no luck. They didn't seem to be coming from anywhere, and then the ringing turned to a faint singing voice. He looked up to the ceiling and shook his head. The next day continued much of the same, he didn't even smoke then, convinced that he was just hearing things because of the dope. When that proved to be untrue it finally broke him inside, he could finally hear things in the songs that sang in his head. They were like instructions for his body, heavy persuasions he couldn't help but to follow.

He listened to the words that filled his ears, and before he knew it he was sitting in the Volkswagen with a black ski mask and a loaded gun in the passenger seat. He didn't know where either had come from, but he noticed he was gripping the slip of paper in his hands. The voices spoke to him louder and he looked back to the black mask beside him and slid it over his face. Crash it. Burn it. Remember it.

His body felt weighted as he entered the bank and fired the shots off. It was as if someone was guiding him along, he still felt stoned even though he had been days clean. This only changed when the car collided into the Gray family vehicle. His body burned inside as the stoned-smile never left his face. His body was eventually recovered by police after the Gray family were taken to the local hospital, but late in the night a shadow tall and fierce stole away the charred remains of Donovan Bertrow. The police never found out how such a thing could have happened, and since he was never identified on the scene, they had nothing to work with. The case was closed and Donny's personal effects at work were burned and his identity erased.