Prologue - Trails of blood

"No, this can't be happening", Kimberly thought desperately, pacing back and forth in her room while looking for her college notes. She knew she could study without them, but she would feel much more comfortable with them around.

When she gave up after spending half an hour searching, Kim settled down at her desk and mentally prepared herself to spend the entire morning studying for her journalism test.

***

Two hours had already passed since Kim had started her studies, but it seemed that all the material accumulated over weeks had no end. She stretched out in her chair and checked her cell phone. It was 3:30 am. She decided to take a break; she knew there was no point in studying so much without giving her mind a proper rest. She decided to go take a shower, needing something that would help her relax.

She got up and left her coffee cup on the kitchen table, deciding to refill it when she got out of the shower. With a change of clothes and towel in hand, Kim entered the bathroom eager for some hot water to run over her body. She hoped it would relax her sore muscles from the hard week of work, even if only slightly.

As the water slid over her skin, removing all the accumulated fatigue, a knock began to echo from the front door of her house, which could be heard throughout the house. It was a frantic beat, desperate.

Upon hearing the knock on her door, Kimberly quickly turned off the shower, dried off and got ready. "Who knocks on someone else's door at 3:45 in the morning?" she thought while confirming the time on her cell phone, heading towards the front door.

When Kim opened it, she found no one and began to doubt herself, thinking that the tiredness of the long night of studying was making her hear things. She looked around the entrance to her apartment one last time, to clear her conscience. She went back inside, locked the door and went to sleep.

***

It was barely past 7:30 in the morning when Kimberly heard a commotion outside her door. Without understanding anything and still a little groggy from sleep, she got up and went to check what it could be. Another fight from her next-door neighbors? Perhaps. This was an event that occurred from time to time, where Mrs. Foster always found a senseless reason to accuse Mr. Foster of cheating, something that would be very difficult to happen since he was totally in love and devoted to his wife. He saw her as a deity, just as the apostles saw Jesus. There was a bet among some residents of the New Castle Apartment Complex (Kimberly included) that the unfaithful person in the couple would be Mrs. Foster.

Upon opening the door to her house, Kim noticed an unusual crowd for a couple's argument so common in that building. That's when she spotted her mother, the deputy of the Three Lakes main police department, surrounded by a dozen other officers in the crowd. She started looking desperately around, trying to find the reason for the police commotion. That's when her eyes fixed on a trail near her door, the kind that looks like when a brush with ink passes through paper. But that in front of her was not paint. It had a metallic odor. Iron. She knew what that stain was, and it made her freeze.

It was a trail of blood. A trail of blood that stopped in front of her door.

When analyzing that crimson-colored path. Kim came across a small red glow coming from behind the plants placed in front of her door. When she moved them a little to the left, she found a bloodstain in the shape of a hand. Too big to belong to a child and too small to belong to an adult man. It was a woman's hand. She knew this because she was tired of sneaking into the room in her old house that served as her mother's office when she was little, and spending hours trying to retain as much knowledge as possible before her mother came in and kicked her out. Kimberly wanted to follow in her mother's footsteps but considered herself too fearful to be "on the front lines", as she put it. Because of this, she decided to pursue a career as an investigative journalist. She could make a difference like her mother, but in her own way.

Her attention was completely focused on that blood-stain on the wall when, suddenly, she heard a shrill scream. As she looked around, she noticed one of her neighbors pointing upwards while covering her mouth with her other hand. Everyone looked in the direction they were pointing, and when Kim did the same, she almost couldn't hold back a scream.

This was unlike anything she had ever seen in her mother's documents. It was a real body hanging from one of the railings on the fourth floor balcony. That was the limp body of Kim's neighbor, Mr. Foster.