The Dead Story of a Birthmark

Chapter 6: A Day at the Library

The Friday event still had a couple more hours before ending, but we decided to best not to bother. I was annoyed by Flint's manic attempt to get Melissa to become interested in me, so I planned on doing a petty silent treatment until the next day. This didn't last very long since he turned on his console, influencing me to play at least a couple of rounds with him. We played the rest of the night and used the weekend opportunity to sleep in without needing to worry about classes. It wasn't until lunch the next morning that I finally voiced my troubles. 

"So you told Melissa we'll be in a study group?" I asked in between bites of my cafeteria salad. The cafeteria itself wasn't bustling since it was the weekend. Usually, people would go back home or spend time elsewhere over the weekend. Even though I can easily do that, I didn't want to deal with my dad's constant hassle.

"Yeah, but don't get all worked up about that. I'll be sure to stick around and make sure that you're not alone… and plus," he raised his eyebrow suspiciously. "I don't want you two getting too wild by yourselves." He winked and took a bite out of his lukewarm pizza. 

"There was no need for you to wink, ya know," I noted, faking a gagging noise. "But you're probably gonna ditch me halfway through the study sesh." He shook his head and swallowed his bite.

"Oh please, I'm a man of my word. I won't ditch you once the session starts." He gulped down the rest of his pizza and took a deep swig of his lemonade. "Anyways, it's time to get started."

"For what?" I was still barely halfway finished with my salad.

"Well, I was thinking today will be the day when we'll finally have some time to review any murder cases." He piled random trash on his plate and threw it away in a nearby trash can. "So far, we know that your past life had lived and died in Brixton. We also know that he used to work in an office building. It's not much, but we can very well work off that." I thought for a moment about anything else that might be helpful, then I recalled…

"The time I died was at least after 2001."

"What makes you say that? I thought you didn't have any more details on your life?"

"I thought so at first, but I remember that the patent I saw in the elevator told me the city and the year: Property of Brixton Mechanics 2001." Flint clapped his hands together.

"Well, it's settled then! We know where he lived and died, he worked in an office, and now we have a possible period!"

"Great, where do we start?" I wolfed down my salad and threw away the spare remains. 

"In the library, there's a whole section of true crime stories that we can look at. From how your visions sound, maybe we can find something there."

"Alright, well, there you have it." I wiped off my shirt and stood up. "Let's not wait any longer." We cleared off our table and left the cafeteria. As expected, there were very few students and even fewer staff on campus. Luckily the library is open every day of the week, regardless of the number of people who leave over the weekend. The overall walk there was pretty short due to the stressful weight of our backpacks not being a worry, but the midday heat was already causing me to perspire. Because of this uncomfortable heat, I intended to stay inside until it cooled down. Once we got to the library's automatic doors, the contrast of the cold inside air and hot outside air slapped against my face like whiplash.

"Damn, the a/c is working its ass off here," Flint shivered. I, too, was slightly shaking from the vastly different temperature. To readjust to the environment, I decided to head to the bathroom.

"Yo, Imma wash my face quick."

"Yeah, that's probably a good idea." We searched through the maze-like library corridors, looking for any signs or indication as to where the nearest bathroom was. After a moment of confused searching, I finally spotted the bathroom symbol associated with an arrow pointing down a hallway.

"Ugh, finally! Come on, it's over this way." We followed the sign's directions and ended up in our desired location. I immediately went up to a sink and turned on the faucet. "Some of the sweat is gone, but I need to refresh."

"Yeah, same here," Flint agreed. "But first, I needa piss bad." He walked over to the closest urinal, intending to complete his duty. "On second thought, maybe not." He quickly switched routes and went inside the stall instead, obviously having more problems than just peeing. Meanwhile, I cupped some cold water in my hands and splashed it on my face, immediately offering refreshment. It felt good to have some liquid life offering the sweet sensation of comfort… but as I paddled more water onto my face, everything went black. 

I had made the stupid mistake of rubbing my birthmark while washing my face. In a desperate attempt to release myself from the shackles of my mind, I did my best to force my way out of the black void and back to reality. My psyche ached as I pushed against the walls of this emptiness, but nothing would budge. "Wake up, wake up, wake up!" The flashing instances of bright colors and lights proceeded to the blank screen, only causing me further mental distress. Strangely enough, there was the uncomfortable addition of suffocation involved. It felt like I was drowning in a sea of running water, yet there was nothing I could do to stop it. "Shit, get me out already! Help!" The colors were getting brighter, the flashes felt more unbearable, and the suffocating feeling further took away my oxygen. My mind was swirling as my panicked attempts came to no prevail. I'm gonna die! The visions were just too much, and now I'm going to die!… but before I could enter the vision, a resounding painful clap tugged me out of the deep illusory spell. 

"But first, I needa piss bad," Flint said. He walked over to the closest urinal, intending to go through with his duty. "On second thought, maybe not." He quickly switched routes and went inside the stall instead. Meanwhile, I found myself panting heavily and grabbing at the sides of my face. Looking around I could tell that I was still in the bathroom, standing over the running faucet. It was as if hadn't gone under in the first place. Flint, for some reason, had just entered the stall, which confused me heavily. After a few moments of catching my breath, his strained voice called out from inside the stall.

"Yo, you good dude? You're wasting all of the California water out there."

"Huh? Oh, yeah." I shakily turned off the water. My entire body was quaking furiously; I seriously felt as though I had died. "Uh… Flint?" I turned around and leaned against the sink. "Why– why did you get out of the stall?"

"What?" he responded after a bit of silence. "Whatchu mean?"

"You– uh– just finished saying you were gonna pee but changed your mind."

"Yeah?" His voice obviously indicated his confusion. "What about that? I just realized that I needed to take a shit."

"B-but you did it twice." My mind was all sorts of vague and dizzy. "W-why did you go to the stall twice? Weren't you already inside?" A long pause followed this question. 

"Uhhh Marcus? Are you okay?" He now sounded even more befuddled. "What the hell is that water doing to you?" he joked.

"Um… nothing. Sorry, I just lost train of thought." I looked back at the mirror, observing every part of my face. Everything seemed normal… was it just a realistic daydream? Not wanting to repeat the same mistake, I stuck my damp hands deep into my pockets and exited the bathroom. I flopped onto a nearby bench, feeling too weak even to sit up. What the hell was that? Didn't he just go to the stall? Maybe I'm just having some weird-ass deja vu. A few minutes of this sort of questioning passed until Flint finally exited the bathroom.

"Man, that cafeteria is bad news," he grunted, taking tight hold of his stomach. "I have no idea how the hell you're still holding up fine. My stomach's killing me!"

"Okay, let's go," I said, ignoring his pained complaints. I walked towards the main section of the library, leaving Flint behind to suffer near the bathroom entrance.

"Alright, I might have to catch up with you in a bit." The door opened and slammed as he presumably re-entered the bathroom. The library wasn't very large, but this building has several floors, each with its respective assortment of books and technology, depending on classes and genres. Brixton's murder history is probably a subtopic of criminology, which, according to a building map, is one of the supported majors on the third floor. Rather than choosing the sensible option of using an elevator, I climbed up the stairs in a frantic rush. My mind was far too scrambled and excited for me to calm down. 

"Murder cases in the early two thousands," I thought out loud to myself. "Businessman… Brixton… true cases." I made it to the third floor without breaking a sweat. It looked nearly identical to the first floor, with a few exceptions being the labels on some signs. Next to the staircase entrance was a grouping of tables, which is where an older-looking woman was reading a book. She looked up in near surprise upon my entering the floor.

"Oh! I didn't expect a student to be here today!" she gave a kind smile and set her book down. "Do you need any help, young man? Criminology major I presume?"

"Hi," I smiled back. "Um, no ma'am– but I would appreciate your help. By any chance is there a book of records on Brixton's early two thousands violent crimes? More specifically murder cases?" The lady stroked her chin in thought.

"Nothing comes to mind… is this for a school report of yours?" she asked kindly.

"Uh– yeah! I have an essay topic all about real life over-the-top crimes– it's only natural to consider our city's history as well." The lady nodded understandably. 

"Hm, I see," she paused for another moment of thought. "Here, follow me. All sorts of books on local crimes are over here in this section." She shakily stood up from her chair and slowly made her way into the labyrinth of bookshelves. We passed a variety of law books and fictional detective stories until finally reaching a portion of shelves labeled Brixton's history of law and crime. Many of the books looked to revolve around the topics of recent crime reports and registered offenders. "I'll be over in the study section if you ever need me."

I thanked her and began rummaging through the book titles as she walked away. Strangest cases of Brixton, The Mysteries of Police finds, and Cold cases: Brixton's Dark History were among the main titles of interest. No book focused specifically on murders, but it was enough for me to work through. As I stacked up on books, Flint waddled around the corner into the aisle.

"Finally, there you are! This place is a damn maze; for the life of me I couldn't find where you were at." He watched me increase my already too-large stack of books.

"Here, hold this," I said monotonously, handing him the stack. He grabbed it reluctantly and strained under the weight.

"You taking the whole shelf or something? There's gotta be at least twenty books here." Unable to get a good handling on the stack, Flint set it on the floor. He began to disassemble the stack, reading out the titles of each book as he did so. "The Many Stories of Common Burglaries… Petty Crimes and the True Motives… Flint how the hell would any of these help us find a murder victim?"

"I don't know, Flint. Do you want me to magically find an article that'll immediately point us to my past life?" I fumed. 

"Woah, hit a soft spot! My bad…" he put the books back into a stack and hoisted them as he stood up. "Well, I'll take these to the study area and start looking around. I couldn't find anything on my phone, so I bet that…" he squinted his eyes and peered at one of the book titles in the stack. "...The Strangest Laws: Unusual Criminals will definitely help us find a killer." He smiled slyly then disappeared amongst the maze of bookshelves.

I scoffed, annoyed by Flint's sarcastic remarks. Nevertheless, he was right. Books on petty crimes and weird laws isn't going to help us find a possible killer. Plus, this library trip is reliant on a theory; there's no guarantee in the first place that we'll find any individuals who could've been a past life of mine. If anything, I should be more worried about my strange deja vu experience at the bathroom.

Wanting to find anything of use, I kneeled on the ground and sprawled books all around me. No title referred to anything regarding murders or early 2000's deaths, so I was starting to lose hope. Among the clutter of books, though, revealed a smaller, less noticeable book. It looked more like a short journal than a published work, but its title was what intrigued me the most: Matthew Whitlock, Brixton's Very Own Ghost. I picked it up and flipped through the pages, having brief glimpses of portraits of people and long paragraphs. Having finally found something of interest, I messily placed the books back on the shelves and jogged out of the aisle. It took some time for me to finally find the study section, but once I did, I found Flint talking to the nice lady from earlier.

"So you must have the same class as the other young man," she sweetly exclaimed. "Is he your friend?"

"Um, yes, but I don't have the same class as him," Flint replied. "Just wanted to help out is all." The lady examined the stack of books, which was now placed on the table like a giant block tower.

"I can see why you need some help." She giggled, then turned her head to see me walking up to them. "I'll get out of your hair now. You two have good luck on your studies." She smiled again, then walked off to the other side of the study area. Flint smiled back, but immediately turned serious when I approached the table.

"I already looked through the table of contents of a couple. Some of them don't mention anything about events over ten years ago. That way I'll make two piles where one is–"

"Don't worry about that right now… I found something that caught my eye." I held up the thin book, showing him the cover. He looked puzzled, not seeing the relevance of my showcase.

"And? What's so important about Matthew Whitlock?" he asked, puzzled. I pulled out a chair and sat next to him, opening the book excitedly.

"I don't know why… but I have a good feeling about this one. For some reason his name just sounds familiar to me." I opened the book to a page labeled Prologue and began to read aloud.

"Matthew Whitlock– a real-life case study of an individual who seems to have a variety of connections to suspicious, heinous activities. Dating between 2002 and 2004, Matthew has been suspected of twenty-three crimes; five of them murders. He has always been found suspiciously close to scenes or in relation to violent events in some shape or form… but what deems him unworthy of jailtime? There are several factors, the most important being that he is a known schizophrenic. Matthew has believed to have committed crimes before, yet upon speculation, no such crimes existed in the first place. This made him a target for being easily framed, since he legitimately believes to have committed the crimes he has been accused of. It was only until late 2004 that he was witnessed to have actually committed a crime, which was a homicide. The intent of this murder is unclear. However, he claims to have been responsible for the deaths of several individuals throughout that year. However, of those murder scenes had no evidence of his involvement. Matthew Whitlock remains in the outskirts of Brixton, the county asylum. He plans to live out the rest of his days with his delusions, but whether or not these delusions are true is up to you. In the next 156 pages, this book will present the magnitude of crimes and murders to which he has "confessed" to."

"The rest of the prologue just leads into the first chapter," I noted. "Anyways, his name sounds familiar, almost like I've heard it before."

"So you think he's the one that possibly murdered you in your past life?" Flint questioned.

"Possibly! Look, he was active between 2002 and 2004, which is obviously within the time range we expect my death to have taken place," I speculated. "He was obviously a crazy guy, and from what I remember in my vision, whoever was chasing me kept running around and flailing his arms randomly. Maybe he was having some sort of schizophrenic episode!" Flint nodded and raised his eyebrows.

"That honestly doesn't sound too crazy… well, let's start reading then." Flint scooted his chair closer to mine as I set the book on the table. We flipped through the pages until we found the book portion that focused on his confessed murders. Many of them were proven to be unrelated to Whitlock in many ways. Several of the victims were women, so we could count them out of the equation. Eventually, we were able to narrow down the possibilities to four different men, who were the ages 32, 38, 45, and 51. After double-checking that we didn't miss any others, we began to read.

"So, from what I remember, I was wearing a business suit in an office building," I commented. "I think I was in the same attire when I was getting killed, so maybe we can find some sort of relation." The first and youngest victim was named Flynn Murphy. His description made him out to be a carefree single man, who always hiked and traveled around the world. He was found slashed to death in the stomach behind a grocery store. His occupation was an independent journalist, so he was ruled out as a potential past life. The next victim was Richard Manuel; a construction worker found dead on an active construction site. He was observed to have suffered head trauma from a blunt force but had no other apparent injuries. I could vividly recall the injuries all over my body, so he was also ruled out. It was only until the third victim that something had clicked…

"Samuel Platt!" I exclaimed, causing Flint to jump and the library lady to look over at us. "Why does that name sound so familiar?"

"Let's find out," Flint cleared his throat. He took hold of the book and began to read the passage.

"Samuel Platt was a middle-aged office worker who was found badly beaten and lacerated in an empty office building. This building was home to three companies, one of which was a solar power company called 'Sunset Co.'. This was where Samuel worked, which was strange considering that his death was estimated to be during the weekend, which was an off day for all employees. Matthew Whitlock has confessed to this murder and allegedly claimed to have worked in one of the companies that were housed in the same office building. He stated to have had "great distaste against the opposing companies". Upon questioning the other businesses, however, Matthew Whitlock was found not to be an employee of either one…"

"So must be it," I vaguely stated. Flint looked up at me, having not finished reading the passage.

"How do you know? We still haven't gotten to the next person–"

"I just know," I interrupted. I took the book from Flint's hands and looked at the discolored portrait of Samuel Platt. His image depicted a handsome-looking man who seemed to be wearing a sleek black suit. "Samuel was my past life… and Matthew Whitlock was the man who ended that."