Persona - Chapter 7
Chapter 7 – Trial Two
Begins
A few days had
passed since I last went out to that field and killed that boar. I knew that there would be some time in
between kills, but I didn’t realize that it would be this long. The anxiety was overwhelming. I found myself pacing back and forth for
hours at times, trying my best to avoid springing into action and doing
something foolish. I made another run at
the shooting range in that time and practiced my shots, this time switching off
between each hand in between each magazine.
I spent more time reloading than I did shooting, as I did before, but I
still ended up killing a bit of time letting some of my nerves and bullets fly
out before I had to go and kill again.
Whatever it was that I was going to have to kill next, I knew that it
wasn’t going to be easy. This would only
get more and more difficult from here on out.
I had to be ready for whatever it was that they needed from me and be
ready to leave at the drop of a hat.
I hated popping
smoke last time in the middle of the night while Uncle Freddy was out on call,
but it was the best time to be able to take on that trial, and it seemed like
the time that they would want me to keep under the cloak of darkness. I couldn’t see the faces of 27 or 3, but that
probably meant that they couldn’t see my face.
All that they heard was my voice.
If I could keep my full identity a secret, then I’d stand a chance at
getting in close with Invictus Persona.
It’s clear that none of them truly trusted each other and were only in
this arrangement in order to be able to go after their goal. That goal, what they were killing all these
people for, still eluded me. It would
take some time before I would be able to know exactly what that goal is. But if I wanted to figure out what they were
really after and truly understand what my brother was after when they killed
him off, I needed to get closer.
To take some
stress off my mind, I decided to call Jessie.
I hoped that talking to him would help to ease my mind.
“Hey,
Jessie! How are you doing.”
Jessie sounded
like he had just woken up. It was
already nearly noon and it sounded like I interrupted either a nap or a full
bout of sleep. His speech was slurred. He sounded like he had a full night of
drinking and was just now starting to wake up.
“Oh! Hey, Derrick! Good to hear from you! Your mom told me that you went out to your
uncle’s place. How’s it going over
there?”
I started to calm
down a bit after hearing him speak up.
At least he was still there and was helping my mom. Having people like Jessie around served to
remind me that there were still people who cared. It felt like losing my brother ripped my
entire world out from underneath me.
Speaking to him helped to clear my head a little. I decided to let him in on only the bare
minimum. “It’s going good over here,
man. I’m just cooking for my uncle and
trying to clear my head a bit. I’ve just
been trying to kill time over here. My
uncle is rarely home, so it’s just me most of the time.”
Jessie perked up
at the sound of that. “Ah, man! That has got to be the dream right
there! You’re living out of your uncle’s
place for the summer while you clear your head and get to make and eat whatever
you want! That sounds amazing. I wish that I could do that, man. I’ve just been drinking a lot. The restaurant is supposed to go to me soon,
though, so that’s a plus.”
He kept
mentioning the old restaurant that both he and my brother would work at. He mentioned before how he was supposed to be
taking over ownership of the restaurant soon.
Being the curious person that I am, I wanted to know a bit more about
it. “Oh?
What’s happening with Jimmy? Is he
handing the restaurant over or did he sell it to you?”
Jessie chuckled,
“Oh, you know how it is, man. Old man
Jimmy is getting too old to run the place and nobody else wants to run it. He owns it but can’t seem to find someone
better to lease it to, so he’s going to give it over to me.” I heard the tone in Jessie’s voice shift from
happy to somber as he explained a bit further why he was getting the
restaurant. “You see, it was supposed to
originally go to Derrick, and we were going to try and work out some form of
co-ownership of the place. We both loved
to cook, but your brother was always better when it came to the books, so I was
going to cover base for him when he needed to work on the books and fill in
with the cooking. It was a great
arrangement, but then your brother…”
“I know,
Jessie. I know. It’s weighing on me too. I hope that the police get some answers on
who did this to him soon.”
Jessie started to
grow a bit distraught. “It would have
been perfect, man! Why did someone have
to go and kill off Chase, man! He was
like a brother to me, you know that, right?
We were meant to cook together for the rest of our lives, man. We were meant to make some of the best food
in the world and run that kitchen. We
were going to be like the big shots out there, man! That restaurant was our big start!”
It was weird to
hear Jessie talk about a dream that seemed more dead than my brother. It sounded more like a pipe dream than
anything based in reality. I chalked it
up to him being delirious and dreaming about what could have been. I tried to reassure him so that he would calm
down.
“The last time I
got a call from the cops, they told me that it was going to be a while before
we get something, so we’re going to have to be patient.”
Jessie started to
get worked up. “Why can’t they just tell
us what happened, man? It should be
clear-cut. They have some of the best
people on the case, the most advanced tools in science, the biggest names in
the news all talking about it. They’re
all focused on trying to solve Chase’s death, but nobody can find these
clowns? What’s it going to take?”
I was struggling
to maintain my composure. I knew that if
I let Jessie know about anything that I was doing that it would compromise
everything and could lead to both of us ending up dead. I needed to keep my cool and try to get
Jessie to calm down. “Look, Jessie. Like
you said, they’ve got the best people on the case, and they’ll get new info to
me as soon as they can. For now, we just
need to wait.” I tried to distract him
with talk about my mom. “What did you
bring over to my mom’s place last for her to eat?
Jessie started to
calm down at the talk of food. There’s
almost nothing more that that guy loved more than to talk about than food. “Oh, you know. I brought your mom some of my best
cooking. She seemed to really appreciate
me bringing over some scampi from the restaurant. It was always one of her favorite dishes and
we were getting ready to clear out our freezer and almost tossed out some
perfectly good shrimp.”
There was nothing
that my family hated more. We hated to
waste anything and hated seeing things go to waste. I chuckled “Did you tell my mom that?”
Jessie perked
up. “Oh yeah! She was so excited to know that she was
getting fresh food man, especially stuff that would’ve been thrown out
otherwise. I forget how much your mom
values that sort of thing, man. It’s
nice to see.”
I laughed. “We’ve all been like that, man. We all are.
That’s how my family is. Never
let good things go to waste.”
“Yeah, man! That’s good stuff right there! I wish that my family was like that. We always threw stuff out the moment that it
so much as looked at us the wrong way, regardless of how good it was.”
There was a lot
of food thrown away at the restaurant my brother worked at. Part of the reason they never paid him more
was that they were throwing out food so often, food that was expensive and
still good. What a waste that restaurant
was. At least under Jessie’s guidance
and direction, it stood a better chance at being able to bring in more
customers and pay its workers better.
The people there deserved better.
That place was too high class and made the owners so much for them not
to pay my brother and Jessie better. My mind
immediately went to asking Jessie what his plans were for the restaurant, but
before I could say anything, I got a message on my laptop from the secure line
with Invictus Persona.
I needed to hang
up quickly. “Hey, Jessie! I need to hang up, man. Can I call you later? Maybe tomorrow? Something just came up and I need to go help
a friend.”
“Oh! Sure thing, man! Do what you need to do!”
Thankfully,
Jessie was an understanding person and was quick to hang up. That made things easier so that I could get
to quickly answering the message from Invictus Persona. I quickly went over to my laptop and clicked
on the message to see what it said.
Greetings,
You have done an
excellent job so far. We are very
pleased with your work on the first trial.
The second trial will begin soon.
Follow the path to these next coordinates and be prepared for your
second hunt. You will be provided
weapons and gear. As before, speak not
of what you have witnessed and, most importantly, come alone.
~IP
All the secrets
that these people were wrapped up in seemed to just go deeper and deeper. I needed to get to the bottom of this. I had no idea how many more challenges there
would be, but I felt like I was getting close.
I laced up my boots and got the same set of clothes and mask ready to
go. There was no time to make a
mistake. The coordinates for this one was
further out. I would need to head northwest
and head north above San Antonio. It was
nearly the same distance as heading back home, so it wasn’t too far. I packed my back with an extra set of clothes
and hopped into my car and made the drive over there. On the way over there, I saw something
strange. On the side of the highway on
the way out to the location, there was the symbol of Invictus Persona on the
corner of a billboard that was advertising for some convenience store. Whoever was part of the organization was
getting bold. It was turning from a
loosely connected group of killers into something bigger. They were growing in their presence, and it
wasn’t just in the media. They were
leaving their mark right where people could see it, almost as if they were
marking territory and making sure that people knew that they had a hold over
the area. It seemed strange to put a
symbol for Invictus Persona all the way out here, especially considering how
likely it would be to scare the locals, but that might be exactly what they
were looking to do. It was right
underneath my nose why they would leave their symbol up on my billboard and I
likely wouldn’t realize what it meant until later.
I kept a watchful
eye for the symbol from that point onward and tried to catch glimpses of it
elsewhere, but I didn’t see another one after that point. It wasn’t until I managed to arrive at the
coordinates set by my phone that I saw the symbol again. These people seemed to just flaunt their
symbol around everywhere. There was a
point to all of this, I just hadn’t figured it out yet. I proceeded to do the same as last
trial. I parked my car at a safe enough
distance to keep it from being shot at and close enough for me to run to, if I
had to make a getaway. This time, there
were three people waiting at this table by another clearing that parted ways to
another set of trees. I made my way over
them. I recognized 27 and 3, but I
didn’t recognize the third person. They
bore a stern stature, with their vision locked directly onto me. They wore a different mask from 27 and
3. Whoever this person was wanted to
make themselves known as being different.
The mask had vibrant colors on it and bore the initials of Invictus
Persona brightly on it. Their mask was
clearly fixated on me. If I had to get
out of there, I probably wouldn’t be able to avoid this person, so I had to do
my best to get on their good side if I wanted to get out of this alive.
3 spoke up first. “Good to see you again, 13. Ready for trial number two?”
I nodded my head.
“Yes. Who’s the new person?”
3 looked over at
the new person. They nodded to 3.
“This is 1. He’s the closest thing that Invictus Persona
has to a leader. If there were ever
someone that we could look to as a leader, it would be him.”
27 chimed
in. “He’s going to be observing you
today. The trap is already set. All you need to do is take out your target.” I moved towards the table and loaded up the
rifle and pistol. 27 looked to me
again. “Remember, we’re not looking for
a trophy. We’re looking for a
kill.” I started my march towards the
trees and looked back to see if they were following. This time, all three of them seemed to be
waiting by the tree. It looked like they
wanted me to go out and kill this thing without their complete
supervision. Something about going into
these trees on my own made me feel incredibly nervous, but I steeled those
nerves quickly as I started hearing rustling from beyond the trees. Not long into my march, I saw a clearing with
what looked like a pile of meat. On the
other end, I heard something running towards me. I wasn’t sure what it was, so I crouched down
and aimed the scope from beyond a tree to see what it was that had come out
from the woods. This time, it was a
bear, a black bear. It sniffed around
the pile and inspected it, almost as if it knew that this was a trap. I knew that I needed to try and make this
shot count. I set the rifle to semi-auto
and aimed down the sight. Once it was
lined up, I took my first shot straight into the left eye of the bear.
The bear roared
in pain, screaming, and began to run off.
I knew that I had to chase this thing down and kill it, so I started
chasing after it. There was something at
that moment that made me want to quit, but I knew that I needed to kill this
bear. I knew that this is what I came
out here to do and I needed to do it in order to gain the favor of 1. If anyone’s opinion of me mattered right now,
it would be his. I moved faster and
faster to catch up to this bear. I felt
the adrenaline coursing through my body as I chased this bear down. I knew that I needed to catch this thing and
kill it before it got away. It started
to circle around towards the clearing, looking for a place to hide. As I ran, I noticed that areas that looked
like large holes were covered up by tarps.
This wasn’t a coincidence. This
was a hunting ground, an Invictus Persona hunting ground.
I chased the bear
up until it ran into the clearing and back towards the pile of meat. It came to a stand and let out a roar from
its gut to try and intimidate me.
Unfortunately for the poor creature, that wasn’t in the plan. I pulled the rifle up to eye level and shot
it in the face, this time knocking the bear over and forcing it down. Keeping my distance, I put two more shots
into its head and waited for it to stop moving.
After a moment, the bear’s body stopped moving and went still. From the clearing, I saw 3, 27, and 1 all
emerge with what looked like a truck being backed up towards me from beyond the
trees. They were going to haul this
thing off and were waiting for me to bring it back around so that I could
finish it off and let them carry it off.
1 came up to meet
me directly. This time, he spoke to
me. “Great work, kid. You’re almost in. There’s one more challenge that you’ll need
to face before we can induct you in as one of our own and grant you the use of
our symbol. We’ll give you a message
when everything is set up. For now, do
as you’ve done before, stay silent about our work. We work in the shadows for a reason. Alone, we don’t stand a chance. Together, we can change the world.”
1 walked towards
the truck and ordered the two men inside to help 27 and him load the bear into
the back. These two men were different,
though. They didn’t have masks on. They looked like average people. It was becoming clearer to me now. Invictus Persona wasn’t an organization that
killed randomly. It was an organization
that had targets and clients. These
people wanted this bear killed off for a reason, and I wanted to know why. I approached 3 before leaving and asked
her. “Why did you have me kill a bear of
all things? I can understand a boar, but
why a bear?”
3 looked over to
me and looked over to the truck. “That bear
was trouble for this area. It would come
in and kill off crops, attack and kill livestock, and even killed one of the
farmer’s kids who got too close. It’s
not the bear’s fault that it did all those things, but it was killing too much
and stood in the way, so it needed to go.”
I started to feel
a bit sad. The bear didn’t need to be
killed off if humans weren’t encroaching on its territory. But the loss of someone’s life was also
something heavy to think about. No
wonder Invictus Persona had their symbol on a billboard back there. It wasn’t some fancier version of graffiti;
it was a symbol to mark their presence and favorability among the people of
this area. To the people who read news
headlines, Invictus Persona seemed like a cross-country serial killer or a cult
of copycat murderers. To the locals
here, Invictus Persona weren’t only allies, they were contracted hunters who
were ready to work directly with them and help them kill a child-killing bear. I started to grow nervous, as I realized now
that Invictus Persona was more than an organization of killers. It was a group that was growing in
influence…and they wanted more.
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