Nathan woke up in a sweat, nightmares...not the first time he had them since his wife...pfft... Nathan glanced around his room and froze as he saw a silhouette standing right in his doorway... His breathing got quicker and quicker. Panic, as humans call it. That silhouette was familiar, a man... a tall man...

Where did he see that silhouette before...? Nathan rushed through the silhouette, knowing it was merely a hallucination from the fact he had not been sleeping as much as he should have. He entered the bathroom and opened the sink with a quick swing of his wrist. Nathan caught some water in his hands and threw it on his face as he regarded his reflection with his eye. Something was off about the reflection...it felt like something was watching. Oh, if he knew. Paranoia, am I right?

The landline phone suddenly rang out, bringing Nathan back to his senses as he quickly stumbled over to the phone without even drying his hands...ew... He quickly picked up the phone and brought it up to his ear. It was Gabriel Brooks. Of course it was him.

Brooks had an offer for Nathan, a chance to prove himself, to prove he had what Brooks was looking for... But it more felt like Brooks was using him, didn't it?

The offer was simple. All Nathan had to do was to come with Brooks to observe a crime scene. If he spotted anything before him. He would continue working with him. If not, he would burn the contract they had made together. Simple.

Nathan reluctantly accepted. He needed Brooks as much as he needed him. Without Brooks, there was no chance for him to find his wife.

As soon as Nathan went outside to go wait for the bus, he froze at the sight before him. Pfft, look at his face... He was utterly flabbergasted. Brooks was already there, waiting in his car with a small smirk. Of course he knew that Nathan would have accepted his offer... He didn't have much of a choice anyways...so was it even an offer?

Nathan sat down in the passenger seat, and before Brooks started the car, he handed him a sticky note that simply said...nothing? Why would he give him a sticky note? What was up with this weirdo...

Nathan let out an awkward chuckle and put the sticky note in his pocket, clearly thinking this was just one of the other tests made by this guy, who had finally begun to drive toward the crime scene they had been assigned to.

As they drove, Nathan seemed to simply just watch the road as it went... Man, that's boring... Why was he so mundane... Couldn't he do something other than just...look at the damn road... Whatever... The car arrived at their location about 20 minutes later.

Nathan and Brooks both got out from their respective sides of the car before walking over to the crime scene that was inside of a farmer's barn. The death looked accidental...too accidental, Nathan noted to himself. The body looked like it had fallen from the upper part of the barn from a simple stumble; the victim had probably stepped on his own feet and fallen backward to land on his head. "They did not land on their head," Nathan remarked as he crouched down to look closer at the victim's injury. He did not even seem to care about how gory this scene was, which piqued Brooks's interest. This guy was way better than he expected, and he expected a lot already.

Nathan requested a glove from Brooks, which he quickly gave him without even questioning him. This man was proving to be more interesting as time went by... Well, for Detective Brooks, that is... Nathan lifted the body's head, examining it before pausing on a particular mark on their neck. It was oh so small...but there it was, a puncture wound probably from a needle. Poison, perhaps? No...that would be too obvious...a diversion? Nathan glanced up at the place the body had fallen, according to the record. That wasn't high enough to kill someone, unless they fell on their neck, but he had already ruled that out, and the poison was way too obvious to him...then that left only two solutions.

One: The victim was dead before being brought here.

Two: The victim was killed before he fell off the ledge.

Gabriel tilted his head at the hypotheses made by Nathan; he was perceptive, that's for sure. Nathan glanced toward Brooks as he heard him approach with a soft hum. Brooks kneeled down to observe the body, and to his own surprise, Nathan was correct about everything.

Gabriel let out a small proud chuckle, which made Nathan's head turn quickly, out of everything that happened today. He did not think he would make someone proud... Well, it wasn't why he was here anyways; he only wanted to prove himself to the man so that he would actually help him find his wife.

Gabriel stood up and went back to his car to grab his phone to tell the actual authority that they had their verdict ready. That was Brooks's job. Figure out what happened...or at least get as close to the truth as possible so that the real authority can actually do their job...for once.

Nathan sighed and waited with Brooks for them to show up before explaining his verdict; they, of course, did not take him seriously at first until they saw the look on Brooks's face. They knew to not question him.

After about thirty minutes of talking to these mediocre cops, Nathan and Brooks went back to the car so that Gabriel could drive him back home, which he of course did. There wasn't a goodbye between the two. Nathan simply walked into his house and slammed the door to sit against it.

What the hell was he doing...? Why did he just file a missing person report instead of trying to do this himself...?