“I’m uh… well, that doesn’t matter, but I’d like to know what happened this morning, with you and your brother,” the voice on the other end said. It was a strange voice, slow and strong yet somewhat uncertain, speaking in the way that an adult might do asking a child where they got that knife. Jessica could feel a seed of recognition in that voice, and as much as the voice seemed to demand that she listen, she had to know who she was talking to first.

“State your name, or I’m hanging up,” Jessica threatened, her ability to deal with bullshit having diminished too much for a subtle conversation.

“Wh-, okay, alright, I guess you can call me, uh… Bentley. Yeah, okay. And I know your name, so don’t worry about that, but, first, tell me about this morning,” ‘Bentley’ asked. It wasn’t a question. Jessica wasn’t the type to bow to authority, but, right now, she didn’t really feel like fighting anyone.

“...I barely know myself. One second we’re just running down the main street, the next, Adam’s chest just-, popped open? Like… you know, like those doors to old-western saloons? God, it just-... And then, he just… fell over,” Jessica explained, feeling a lump form in her throat. The other side of the line went dead.

“And… what else happened?...” the tired voice asked. Jessica debated if she should actually tell him what had happened, after all, what if he thought Adam had something to do with it?...

“...Are you a cop? Why do you want to know all this?!” Jessica had only really meant to ask the first question, but her suspicions boiled over and she had no choice but to inquire more about the mysterious stranger.

“I’m not a cop, and I’m not a reporter. I’m just… look, if you’ll tell me a little bit more about what happened, I’ll tell you, okay? Promise. Double dippy dog promise,” the voice said, using a familiar little line Jessica remembered all too well. Adam said that all the time. Only with her, always only with her, so… how did this person know it? She had to find out her secrets. A soul for a soul, she supposed.

“You… you saw that thing, right? Up in the sky? It was… it was inside him, and when it popped out, I guess he just… couldn’t live, y’know?...” Jessica admitted. On the other side, the mysterious stranger gulped loudly.

“So, you believe that I-, Adam is… dead?”

“There is no doubt about it, I… I saw it with my own eyes, and I will never forget it,” Jessica replied. The other side went quiet for a second.

“Look, Jessica, this is going to sound, um, a bit weird, heh, uh, but… I’m Adam. I survived,” the stranger declared. Jessica was dumbfounded. And, along with ‘Adam’, she slowly started laughing, and, in mere seconds, they were laughing in a loud, manic chorus, ‘Adam’ only slightly more hesitant then Jessica. And then, she suddenly stopped, said “Fuck off,” and slammed the phone back on the receiver, cancelling the call.

Adam, at noticing that the line had gone cold, slowly stopped laughing, before turning to Pete, who looked awed in that “I can’t believe you’re this stupid” way.

“Did… did I say something wrong?...” Adam asked shyly, the phone still in his hand. Pete facepalmed. ‘I can’t believe I was scared of this mofo,’ he thought as he groaned and grabbed the phone from Adam's hand.

“Yeah, yeah you did. But you got your answer, right? So? What’s your body up to?” Pete asked, smiling coyly.

“I-, uh… I might have burst out of it?...” Adam admitted, looking down at the carpeted floor in shame.

“You… WHAT?! So Adam of this world is like, dead or something?!?” Pete hollered, his eyes wide and desperate. Adam didn’t really know how to react, so all he could do was hunch together as if to try and hide within himself. He did not.

“You-, Jesus H. Christ, so… let me get this straight. You did something piss-weird over in whatever world you came from where you think you’re my best pal Adam, you come over here, MURDER my best pal Adam, burglarize my home, take me hostage, threaten me on my life, and here we are?!?” Pete recounted, growing increasingly hysteric.

“Well, I mean, yEAh, but!! I’ll say it again! I AM Adam, I swear! Look, I don’t understand my timeline any better than you do, but… I haven’t killed myself! I’m still here!” Adam tried to explain, but Pete wasn’t having any of it.

“You’ve been saying that all this time, but you still haven’t given me any concrete proof of it! You’re not similar in the slightest, and the only place where you’re equally proficient is in stupidity!!” Pete exploded in Adam's face.

“How can I prove it to you?” Adam asked genuinely.

“I-, you… I… I don’t know,” Pete admitted, shaking his head.

“And there you have it. You can grieve “my” death all you like, but… to me, at least, I’m still here. And now, I guess, I have to go convince my sister of the same thing, which will be even harder, I think, since I’ll have to try and explain why I suddenly look like this… heh, maybe I’ll blame Magick?” Adam mumbled to himself as he started to move for the door.

“H-, hey!” Pete exclaimed, reaching out a hand towards Adam.

“Hm?” Adam replied, turning around briefly.

“If… if she rejects you… you can sleep here, y’know, just for the night?” Pete suggested, smiling ever-so-slightly. They’d had sleepovers like this before, Adam could recall that, but to see him throwing out the idea to someone he considered a stranger, was… well, comforting.

“Thanks, we’ll see how it goes,” Adam replied with a smile and headed out the door. Behind him, Pete quickly came to realize that he had practically just given away some of his clothes for no reason, but before he could say anything, Adam was out the door and gone.

But, honestly, Adam had no idea where he was going. He wasn’t exactly sure how he had gotten to Pete’s Lair, everything before his evolution was as hazy as a forgotten dream, but if he just kinda wandered around, he should find his way, right? So, he walked down what he believed to be the main road, with all the shops and everything. However, things were a bit… weird. Off. Not many people were out walking about, and many shops had been closed for the day despite it being… what, a Thursday? Something like that.

He could see about five people about, and all of them looked like they’d seen a ghost or something. No, wait, they had seen something unnatural, hadn’t they? Yeah, just a few hours earlier, he’d been hanging in the sky like a limp bundle of sausages out for drying. And he had swatted that fly-, erm, helicopter, so it was no wonder that the situation looked a bit grim, despite the sun still shining brightly. The time seemed to be around 14 or so, which would usually mean peak activity, but…

Regardless. Down the road, in the entrance of a deserted little café, a man Adam could faintly recall having been called Mister something was being interviewed by a young reporter. Adam quickly moved past them, ignoring the Mr. something shouting at either him or the reporter. He didn’t really want to know which. Soon enough, his wanderings took him down the main road and into the suburbs. He started recognizing things in a weird way. A house here, a tree there… this was all the last things he’d seen before his transferral, as Pete had called it. And within minutes, he saw, oddly enough, a crime-scene. The body had already been removed, but wasp-coloured police-tape still hung in the air, and a sizable puddle of blood had pooled around some white tape that made up the outline of not only a body but also a couple of rough blobs that may or may not have resembled organs.

Adam could easily imagine the grisly, gory scene that had happened here, and although he was used to seeing dead human bodies by now, it felt weirdly real, with all the police-tape and all. Only two police officers still loitered about the scene, and Adam quickly realized that neither one was his dad. Of course, his father had just been given the news that his son was “dead”, so having him out and about doing crime-scenes would have been pretty harsh. Even so, Adam couldn’t help but recognize one of the officers. He seemed to be a bit older than the other one and considering his more every-day look with a rolled-up Hawaiian shirt and cargo shorts, the only thing assuring his status as a Detective was the silver shield by his hip and the gun hanging from one of those lace-vests on his chest. His face was rather young, although not as young as the officer, and he had short brown hair. His eyes were bright and full of motivation, yet at the same time tired and cynical, as if to say “I’ve seen it all and I want to see it again”.

Yup, Adam definitely recognized this guy. He just couldn’t tell where from. But he did want to find out more about this crime-scene, because, well, if he were to go by his memories and what his sister had said, this was definitely his very own crime-scene, where he was both the murderer and the murdered. Adam could remember having seen many such situations on crime-dramas or in novels, but he couldn’t recall any of them where the self-murderer was still alive…

“Hey, can we help you or something?” the youthful Detective asked, wandering over to where Adam stood staring at the pool of blood. ‘Huh? Me?’ Adam thought, his head spinning around to check if he was talking to somebody else. He was not.

“Oh! I, uh… What exactly happened here?” Adam wondered, pointing to the white silhouette. A shadow instantly fell over the detective’s face.

“Yeah, that’s… a young kid died. Currently, we don’t know much about what happened, as far as we know Jessi-, eherm, his sister was the only one who witnessed it since she left home with Ad-, the victim in the morning and should, therefore, have witnessed it. But, she ran on home before we could ask her anything. She is not a suspect, just so you know,” the detective said. Adam furrowed his brows as he digested what the detective had said. One thing was clear. This man definitely knew the Windsley household personally, which might not be too strange since he was a detective and John was a sergeant, but he definitely felt like a family friend of some sort.

Adam briefly considered shaking hands with him to learn his name, but… no. No human touch. Touch bad. What was a human movement used for a casual greeting that didn’t require touch?... Adam thought for a moment, causing the detective to feel a bit awkward. So, hoping desperately that it would work, Adam quickly did finger-guns at the cop, and said: “I’m Adam B. Windsley, what’s your name?”

“Um, uh… I’m sorry, what?” the detective asked, feeling a bit, no, VERY confused.

“What’s your name?” Adam repeated, still finger-gunning the policeman.

“Um, uh, my name is Dave, but… what did you say before that?...” Dave asked, nervously smiling. Realization dawned on Adam’s face. ‘Ohhh, yeahh, Dave! Right,’ Adam thought happily.

“You’re dad’s coworker, right? You should come back over for dinner sometime,” Adam said pretty much entirely on auto-pilot.

“I-, you, sir? Could you please repeat what you said before? Your name?” Dave asked, growing increasingly annoyed.

“Huh? Uh, my name? I’m Adam B. Windsley. You know, John’s son? That’s me,” Adam said, not really thinking about how insane he must sound.

Dave took a deep breath.

“Sir, I’m afraid I must ask you to come down to the station with me,” he said, stepping over the police-tape.

“The station? I’m not, well, uh, sure, but don’t touch me, okay?” Adam said, putting up his hands. Dave didn’t seem to take him too seriously, but since the stranger didn’t resist in any way, Dave was pretty alright with him walking without a leash.

“Hey, Mark? I’m taking this guy down to the station, so just you keep at it here, alright?” Dave told the officer who had been observing the situation in disbelief for a few minutes.

“Huh? Aw, man, I can’t believe you’ve done this,” he groaned but didn’t fight his superior in any other way. Dave nodded, happy to not have to stand around his friend's sons crime-scene.

The walk down to the station was unexpectantly quiet, with the stranger not really saying anything about anything. The only observation Dave could make was that he was most likely a stranger to Humbugg, his tired eyes flashing here and there to catch a look anywhere and everywhere. He seemed… excited. Especially once they got to the station, where he unconsciously made a “wooowwww” sound. Over-all, his rating on a sane-weird scale was currently “would-pour-milk-first”, which wasn’t very positive.

Once they entered, Dave quickly put the tall man in an interviewing room and left to call John.

“Yeah, hi, John? Oh, Jessica, there you are, we’ve bee-, oh, uh, hi, John! We need you down at the station, we got a WPMF down here claiming he’s, well… alright, this is going to sound really weird, because it is, but he says he’s your son. We found him at the scene, oh, right, you didn’t hear about that, did you?... Well, anyhoo, we thought you might like to know. No, he doesn’t look anything like him, and, plus, he doesn’t seem anything like him either. Oh, but he did invite me over for dinner, so that’s, uh… yeah, he knew your name. No, he didn’t mention Jessie. But you’d really better get down here. I'm going to get started on him, and if he says anything especially weird, I’ll call you, okay? See you later, John,” Dave said, sliding his cell into his pants and entering the room where the stranger was twiddling his thumbs.

Adam wasn’t too sure why he’d been brought in there, sure, he liked getting to see his father’s place of work again after so long, but like this? A bit odd, he had to admit. Dave was out for a fair bit, but once he returned, he looked grim, which countered Adam’s faint memories of him in a very curious manner, as if he’d been playing good-cop all his life and was finally trying out the bad-cop persona.

“Name, age, occupation?” Dave asked as he sat down, a paper and pen in hand. Adam didn’t really know how to respond. Should he tell the truth? No, he didn’t really want to live his old life again, and… well, if he had a choice to go back and live his life as he had been…. he’d take it.

“Adam B. Windsley, 17, I think, and student,” Adam lied with a straight back. Dave nodded and scribbled something down.

“And why do you say that?” Dave asked, glancing up at Adam with suspicious eyes Adam didn’t much like seeing on him.

“Well, because… I am him?” Adam answered truthfully, for the umpteenth time today, tilting his head like a puppy.

“I’m going to be frank with you, I don’t believe you for one second,” Dave said, putting his pen down.

“...Nobody has,” Adam mumbled, pouting.

“...You’ve told other people you’re Adam B. Windsley?” Dave asked, cocking an eyebrow at him.

“Yeah, I told Pete, you know, uh, my childhood friend?” Adam asked rhetorically. Dave nodded in confirmation. “Yeah, him. He didn’t believe me either,” Adam said, feeling a bit melancholic about the whole thing. Dave nodded.

And then, Dave had a great idea.

“Say, if you’re so adamant about identifying yourself… how about we just check it right now?” Dave asked, feeling the fires of curiosity burning within him.

“Huh? Oh, sure, but… how?” Adam asked. Sure, there were plenty of ways to measure and identify existing Magick within people and thus know who they are but… this world didn’t have Magick, did it? Dave gave Adam a “have-you-never-heard-of-fingerprints” kind of look before forcefully clearing his throat.

“Well, we’ll simply test your fingertips, take a blood sample, and, if need be, take a dental record,” Dave explained professionally.

“Oh, sure, let’s do that,” Adam conceded, without seeming too bothered about them doing a whole analysis of him. If he had a mouth, he must have blood as well, right? Trust in the humanification spell! Believe!!

A forensic worker was quickly summoned, who took tests of his fingerprints, but Adam was allowed to take his own blood sample since he didn’t want anyone touching him. He said it was a phobia of some sort. The forensic guy quickly left, and since this week had been pretty slow, he had the time to make this a priority. Dave was left with “Adam” once again. Dave didn’t know what to say. This guy was peculiar to the max, and even though Dave was filled to the brim with questions, he didn’t know how to ask them.

Eventually, after a few minutes of silence, there was a loud rummaging outside, and without any warning, the door was flung open, crashing harshly on the wall, and in rumbled the mild-mannered Sergeant John D. Windsley, his face flushed and his expression forced and tense. He didn’t even bother greeting the two inside, instead simply thundering over to the “suspect”, slamming his hand down on the flimsy table with a bang, and shouting: “SO YOU’RE THE GUY, EH?!”

Adam immediately shrunk. Visibly.

“Y-, yes sir,” Adam mumbled, cowering in fear for no specific reason Dave could see. Sure, it was weird seeing the kind-hearted John explode like this, but it made sense, considering what the stakes here were.

“What’s your name, coward?!” John continued, his title of sergeant suddenly gaining a more militaristic ring to it.

“A-, Adam, Mr. Father. Sir-,” Adam stuttered as he, completely by instinct, stood up to his full 190 cms of length, and did a salute. Just as papa taught him. John seemed a bit surprised by the sudden salute and stumbled back. Damn, that boy was tall…

“Either you tell me your full honest-to-God name or you tell it to Saint Per yourself, you spineless mollusc!!” John roared, Adam finding the insult to be a little bit too close to home, but… he did not fight it.

“Sir, my full name would be Adam B. Windsley, sir!!” Adam replied, still saluting, with his head held high and his back as straight as an iron rod.

John immediately jerked to, his eyes suddenly wide and filled with panic. His head whipped around to stare at Dave, who immediately looked away.

“You-, you said he was nothing like him!!” John roared at Dave, who was left dazed. John had never acted like this towards him. Sure, Dave knew he could have a temper at times, but he was usually quite timid and relaxed, especially so with Dave, making this exceedingly rare.

“He-, he isn’t! What in the world’s gotten into you, John?!” Dave shouted back, standing up as if to square off against his friend.

Adam didn’t know what to say. He didn’t even know why he was saluting in the first place, or why he felt so afraid of this man. His father, was it? All of this, the building they were in, this room, the clothing, the language… very strange. To think he’d ever salute to a human, truly, a strange situation. But he couldn’t stop. Even though that man - John - wasn’t looking at him, he still felt like if he didn’t salute him, he’d be a dead man. Slug.

John pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration, before turning back around to face Adam.

“Adam… was it? Look, sonny, if you’d just tell us what happened this morning, we’d all be done and home in just a moment,” John said as he sat himself down on the seat opposite Adam’s. At this, Adam slowly sat down as well, his gaze never once leaving his father. “So, what’ll it be?” John asked, since Adam hadn’t answered his urging.

“Huh? Oh, yes, of course dad,” Adam replied, nodding quickly to prove the truth of his words, causing his long, charcoal hair to whip about erratically.

‘...At least my son used to answer me when I asked him something,’ John thought to himself, ignoring the twinge of melancholy in his heart. Adam stared at John expectantly.

“So? Go on, what did you do this morning?” John reiterated, nodding at Adam for him to answer.

“Oh! Uh, well, at about Eight, my sister woke me up, we ran to school, and then, uhh…” Adam started, suddenly finding himself wondering what to tell them happened.

“How did she wake you up?”

“Huh?”

“How did your sister wake you up in the morning?” John asked, grim and serious.

“Ummm… my memory’s a bit hazy, but… she screamed

“Let’s get this… something?” I don’t remember the last part, but she screamed it in my ear, and then she spooked me from behind, but I didn’t have time to tell her not to do that before we had to leave. Uhm, you were sitting at the table, eating something… toast? No idea, but, uh, you were sad, because you had to do an interview later, and you hate interviews,” Adam recounted, thankful he’d had that dream so many time. Otherwise, there’d be no way he could remember such a minor detail.

John had grown pale. Dave could easily see all the blood rush from his face from the corner of his eye. “Adam” had been right on point, then. But there were many ways to fabricate this sort of scenario, it was just that… Dave had no idea why. No motivation. “Adam” didn’t seem too bad, if a bit scatterbrained, but…

“And then?” Dave asked in the frozen-stiff Johns place.

“Well, uh, we were running to school, and then… Well, honestly, I’m not too sure, but… when I came to, I was just wandering the streets, and then I bumped into you, and here we are,” Adam said.

“...You have no idea what you did for upwards of five, six hours?...” Dave asked, genuinely kind of amazed.

“Nope, no clue,” Adam replied truthfully. Sure, he’d done more things than wander around, but he hadn’t actually done much in the meantime, just evolving.

Dave wanted to ask more, but the door was once more slammed open with a bang, revealing that forensic dude from before. Apparently, he’d been hard at work, as not only was he out of breath, but his hair was pointing in all directions and his eyes looked hazy yet oddly focused.

“Sir! I’ve got the results back, and oh boy you won’t believe these results!” the nerdius maximum exclaimed, his arms carrying some sort of flat grimoi-, no, wait, that’s a “computer”, right? Right. With a strange sort of pride, the man put down the computer on the table facing him, Dave and John, and fiddled with it in strange ways Adam couldn’t understand.

“It’s all a match! Both blood and fingerprints are exact replicas! And we even got blood samples from the scene of crime, so this is undoubtable evidence! Sirs, if you’d allow us to, I-, we’d be delighted to check his dental records as well!” the man said enthusiastically.

John stared at the forensics guy as if he was an alien, and when he turned to face Adam, he gave him a similar stare, although this one was more of the “I’m-looking-at-some-sort-of-monster-and-I-don’t-like-it” kind, which was very familiar to Adam. Apparently, he’d been pretty much drowned in those gazes earlier this day, but he could hardly remember anything that’s happened in this world. John, for his own part, seemed just about ready to rip out his “sons” uvula, which wouldn’t have been very fatherly.

“Yeah, go ahead,” John growled begrudgingly. It’s not that he didn’t want his son to be alive, it’s just that he couldn’t believe this man-, this hobo, could be his son! This “Adam” character was just as similar to Adam as a carrot was to a hearty steak. Sure, he hadn’t done anything strange, but it was all in the air.

John couldn’t tell what it was, but to him, it was the eyes. Those were not the eyes of a man, of a young boy with his whole life ahead of him, ready to face the next day with a shout. Those were the eyes of a man who’d taken a life, and then a hundred or so more just for the sake of it. He was a monster. This creature was not the son of anyone except Death, and the more John looked at him, the more certain he was of his stance.

The testing of his dental record was done quite easily using a mould of sorts which “Adam” held himself, and then the forensic guy was off to ascertain the results. John stood up.

“I’ll be back when the results are back,” he stated blandly and left the room.

“Uh, I’ll follow him, do you wanna just stay here or would you rather stay in a cell?” Dave asked as he stood up as well.

“Uh, I’ll be fine here,” Adam replied, sinking into his seat, feeling somewhat dejected. He usually didn’t mind it when people looked at him with those eyes, but now that his friends and family did it…

...Was he growing soft?... He’d always been a bit of a softie compared to the other Evil Gods, but as of these last few months, it’d become a persevering problem of sorts. If he had to, would he be able to kill humans again?... Well, sure, he’d killed a few this morning, but he was half-asleep back then, so it didn’t count. Could he kill his father if he stood in his way? How about Dave? Pete? ...Jessica? Adam didn’t think so, but he really didn’t like the thought of it. Human morals had invaded his mental fortress, and were now staging war with his tendencies and norms as an Evil God.

Adam sat there for the next hour or so.

It was really boring.