mindcracklove | Pages | Chapter 1

Erin Wayne, private detective who specialises in the supernatural, is sent on an adventure of a life time when a mysterious case takes a turn and she ends up staring danger in face. Also a weird man in goggles, she also stared a weird man in goggles in the face.

Chapter 1. Mad Man in Goggles

Erin Wayne awoke disorientated and confused. The first thing she noticed was she was not in that church anymore, she was in a dimly lit room on what appeared to be a sofa. The second thing she noticed was that, save for a blanket, she was completely naked.

She carefully sat up, making sure to keep the blanket covering her. Mere milliseconds after sitting up a face appeared in front of hers, the person's nose almost touching her own. She was staring into a pair of eyes that were nearly completely concealed by green tinted goggles.

"Would you kindly back the hell off." Erin said coldly. The face stepped back a bit to reveal it was that of a black haired man, "Thank you."

The man reached behind him to grab a stool which he promptly sat down on with such vigour Erin feared he'd break the tiny stool.

"Sorry about that, I sometimes overstep boundaries," the man said with a chuckled.

Erin just glared at him, making the muscular man look quite sheepish. "Mind telling me who the hell you are, why I'm in your house and why I'm freaking naked!"

"I'm Vechs, and you're in my house because my friend and I found you butt naked in the forest near here."

"Right, well I'm Erin…" She paused, "Hang on, Vex? What kind of a name is Vex?" Erin asked wryly.

"A name that is my name. V-E-C-H-S, Vechs."

"That spells vetches." Erin replied sardonically.

"No, it's Vechs."

"It's a stupid name." The detective replied grouchily.

"Well it's my name so shut up."

Erin just rolled her eyes and decided to move back to more pressing matters, like her current state of undress, "So you found me naked in the forest?"

"Yep! Assumed you were some drunk who'd stripped off and run out into nature. Or a nudist."

"I can assure you I am neither a drunk or a nudist." Erin said quickly. She then frowned. The last thing she could remember before the hellfire that was shortly followed by her blacking out was the church. Craig's dog had led her to a slightly dislodged flagstone on the ground and just growled at it until Erin came to see what it was.

On closer inspection she'd seen a piece of paper sticking up from the crack. And being the nosey detective she was, Erin had carefully pulled the paper loose. Before she could even look at it though the dog had let out an almighty, ground shaking bark and the blue fire had enveloped her. Moments later, she blacked out.

Vechs was looking at her expectantly and she realised she hadn't spoken for a good three minutes. "Did I have anything with me?" Erin asked suddenly.

The man frowned, but nodded, "Yes, that necklace around your neck and a old piece of paper." So the paper came with me, Erin thought. Vechs stood up, walked to the other side of the room, grabbed something then sat back down on his stool. He handed her the paper she'd been examining before the weird ghoul fire.

She looked down at the paper and now noticed something peculiar about it, "The writing is all gibberish." She said slowly. Vechs looked down at the paper to see for himself.

"It's a code, clearly whoever wrote this didn't want just anyone reading it." He observed.

Erin rolled her eyes at Vechs stating the obvious. As well as the unreadable text there was also a coloured diagram of some sorts. Then it hit her, "This is my necklace." Erin exclaimed. She carefully unclasped her necklace, once again making sure her blanket covered her up, and looked at the metal disk.

It was roughly the size of a quarter with a small gemstone in the centre, Erin guessed it was a moonstone. On the front there were ornate cravings and on the back was a cross with symbols much like the ones on the paper.

"This sort of reminds me of a compass," Erin said slowly, "with the cross and all." She showed it to Vechs who pushed his goggles up onto his head to get a better look. She now saw that under those green lenses was a pair of handsome, sparkling blue eyes.

"I think you're right. I suppose the letters correspond to the normal letters on a compass?" Vechs suggested.

Erin nodded, "So that means we know N, E, S and W. We can use those to help decipher the rest of the page." She put her necklace back around her neck, again very aware of her nakedness, "Say, Vechs, you wouldn't happen to have any clothes I could borrow?"

The man seemed to only just remember that his guest was stark naked in his living room, "Yes, of course!" He quickly rushed off into another room. As Erin watched him go she realised that her vision was terrible. Of course, she already knew this. However, she normally wore contacts or glasses to counter it, but apparently her contacts had vanished along with her clothes.

Erin stood up and fastened the blanket around her in the same fashion she would a towel after a shower. It was then that she smelled cooking. Vechs had been with her for the past ten minutes, which probably meant there was someone else in the house. Vechs reappeared a few moments later with a bundle of clothes in his arms.

He handed them to Erin, "The bathroom is through that door and to the left." He said gesturing to the door he'd just come from.

Erin nodded then paused before going to put the clothes on, "Who's cooking?"

"My friend Chad, he's the friend who I found you with." Vechs explained, "He's making us dinner."

"Chad? That's a much more normal name. I've met a lot more Chads than I have Vechs."

"Vechs isn't a very rare name you know. I've met at least one other than myself." Vechs said defensively.

"Not once have I heard of someone called Vechs in all my years living in America, is it a European name? Scandinavian maybe?"

"Okay, you just sat three words I have never heard in my life."

Erin blinked, "What? Which words?"

"America and the other two, U-rop-ian and scan-dan-naven." Vechs stumbled over the words like a child did when they were learning to talk.

"European and Scandinavian." Erin corrected, "How have you not heard of any of them? You have an American accent."

Vechs shook his head, "No. I have a Athen accent."

"A what?"

"An Athen accent. You know, people from Athose?"

"Do you mean Athens?"

"No, have no idea what Athens is. Athose the country I'm from, although right now we're in Skol Prida," Vechs said slowly as if he was explaining it to a five-year-old.

"Okay, you're mad, I'm getting changed then calling to police." Erin said, making her way to the door.

"How are you going to call them from here? We're about a mile away from the nearest station." Vechs asked. completely confused.

"Mad as a hatter!" Erin said loudly before walking off to the bathroom. She was about to walk into the bathroom when she got a strong whiff of whatever "Chad" was cooking. She glanced into the kitchen to see a giant, slightly blurry, cat person and fainted.