1 chapter 1 Help me, someone is trying to kill me
"Hello, this is the 911 Emergency Service Center. What difficulties are you encountering?"
"Officer, I've just gone through a breakup. Can you offer some comfort?"
"I'm sorry, but we cannot handle breakups here. Would you like me to transfer you to a mental health counseling hotline?"
...
"Hello, this is the 911 Emergency Service..."
"Hello, I'm feeling a bit of a headache..."
"I'm sorry, but we cannot handle headaches here. Would you like me to transfer you to the Emergency Medical Service hotline?"
...
"Hello, this is the 911 Emergency Service..."
"Officer, someone, someone is trying to kill me!"
"I'm sorry, but we cannot handle murder cases here—wait, what did you say?!"
"Someone is trying to kill me!"
"Who is trying to kill you?!"
At the 911 call center in Manhattan, New York, several dispatchers turned their heads towards the newcomer, Emily.
The once noisy police station fell silent.
Clumsily, Emily gripped the landline receiver, her voice urgent and trembling with nervousness: "Please speak clearly, where are you now, and what exactly is happening?"
As she listened to the frantic breathing on the other end of the line, she wanted to offer a few words of comfort, but feared it might cause the caller to miss the opportunity to report the emergency.
"Officer, you have to save me! I, I don't want to die... I don't want to die! Uh, uh, uh..."
"I'm, I'm..."
The voice on the phone belonged to a middle-aged man, who seemed to be desperately trying to suppress his voice, as if afraid of making too much noise. Yet his voice carried a distinct tone of crying, indicating extreme fear.
"I'm, I'm..."
"I'm..."
The man repeated himself, but after this sentence, Emily suddenly heard silence on the other end of the line!
"Hello? Sir, are you still there?"
Emily urgently asked, but there was no response from the other end. As time passed, she realized that the sound in the receiver was too quiet, eerily quiet!
Because there was not only no sound of someone speaking, but even the familiar sound of electricity she was accustomed to hearing was absent!
She hurriedly checked the network connection and found everything to be normal.
Just as Emily didn't know what to do, the sound on the other end of the phone suddenly resumed!
A sharp, piercing scream nearly made Emily drop the receiver!
"Ah!"
"He, he found me! He found me! Ahhh!"
"Officer, save me, help! Save my life—"
At that moment, Emily heard something being cut on the other end of the phone, accompanied by the splattering and dripping sound of liquid!
The mechanical sound was piercing, and Emily could still faintly hear the man's shallow breathing on the other end!
The sound of his breath brought a slight sense of calm to the young dispatcher. "Sir, are you still there?"
The "buzzing" sound continued, but the sound of breathing disappeared.
Emily's scalp tingled.
She tried asking several times, but there was still no response from the other end.
Just as Emily was about to hang up the phone to report the situation to her superiors, the voice of the man who had just disappeared reappeared!
"I'm at 123 Central Park Avenue, Manhattan, New York."
This time, the man's tone was not as extremely frightened as before!
It was calm, emotionally stable, giving the impression of tranquility!
Tranquil as if he were dead!
"Alright! Please wait, I'll arrange for officers to come over—"
"Goodbye!"
Before Emily could finish her sentence, the call was abruptly disconnected from the other end.
She listened to the busy tone in the receiver, her heart pounding, until a colleague bumped her, causing her to startle off her seat!
Without saying anything to her colleague, Emily immediately followed the procedure to issue an alert to the local law enforcement agency!
The alert was issued, and the police station broadcasted the alert. The on-duty officers received the alert and prepared to respond.
The entire process took only a few minutes. Two police cars rushed towards the scene!
A homicide case!
The first in nearly three years in the Manhattan area!
As several officers arrived at the scene, less than ten minutes had passed since the emergency call was made.
At 123 Central Park Avenue, Nathan led several officers with solemn expressions.
Taking a glance at the villa in front of him, Nathan hoped that this emergency call was just a hoax.
Having been in law enforcement for nearly thirty years, it had been five years since he last handled a homicide case.
However, the strong smell of blood emanating from the slightly ajar door of No. 123 made Nathan's heart sink. He put on shoe covers and said, "Stay calm, no matter what you see inside, keep calm!"
"If you feel like vomiting, find a place on your own, but don't disturb the scene!"
"We're not sure if the killer has left yet, so everyone be careful!"
"Yes, sir!"
He gestured for two male officers to go around the villa from both sides, while he himself led a male and a female officer to cautiously enter through the slightly ajar front door.
Inside the villa, the smell of blood became even stronger, causing the two young officers following Nathan to furrow their brows and cover their noses. Nathan remained composed, one hand on his waist holster, carefully surveying the interior.
The three cautiously walked through the villa's foyer, finding no abnormalities on the first floor.
Drip, drip!
Suddenly, the female officer heard the sound of dripping water. She turned to look, her face turning pale!
"Nathan!! The stairs, the stairs!"
Nathan and the male officer turned sideways, only to see fresh blood dripping down the stairs from the second floor, forming a small bloodstain about the size of a palm on the first floor!
"The second floor!"
Avoiding the bloodstain on the stairs, the three climbed to the second floor, following the slowly flowing blood trail to the door of a bedroom—
"Ugh!"
Even before seeing what was inside the bedroom, the female officer couldn't bear the increasingly intense smell of blood and ran out of the villa, vomiting into the flowerbed outside!
On the second floor, Nathan and the remaining male officer looked into the bedroom, their faces turning pale at the same time!
The male officer covered his mouth, visibly uncomfortable, "N-Nathan, m-my legs feel weak, ugh—"
...
Thousands of miles away, at New York Airport.
A plane landed smoothly, and passengers disembarked in an orderly manner.
In the crowd, a young man with a refined appearance, wearing gold-rimmed glasses perched on his nose, exuded an aura of scholarly elegance.
He wore a white silk retro-style shirt on the upper body, white linen trousers on the lower body, and a white shoulder bag hanging from his shoulder, with a string of wind chimes tied to the strap.
The entire person looked clean, refined, and delicate.
Dingling—
As the breeze blew, the wind chimes on the young man's bag made a pleasant and melodious sound. He stood in place, a smile appearing on his face, "Hey, little ghost, you've worked hard..."
At the same time, at the scene of the Manhattan homicide case, next to the living "human" that had been sliced apart, sat a person-shaped doll with a ghostly face, quietly sitting in the pool of blood. Beside it lay a blood-stained circular saw.
