Nathan Ashcroft

A few minutes after having explained what had happened to the cops.

On a bench outside the office

As He waited for Brooks to come back, something left him more than confused. The way that the body they found in the barn and the way that the secretary was killed...were way different from the way that the killings of the Watcher in Rags... Was it someone else? Brooks never told Nathan after all, so why would he know about Ellis Craine? This meant...that the killer they had been chasing today was...someone else...so...the Watcher was still out there...? He raised his eyes for a moment to look around him and froze at what he saw right in front of him.

Someone had just gotten into a bus...but their face was way too familiar...the hallucination...oh god...HE had been watching everything unfold this whole time? He was truly back from the dead...oh god. Nathan rushed after the bus, trying to catch up to it, but of course. He never caught up to the bus. But the second before he was about to give up totally, the bus finally stopped about five roads ahead of him. Nathan ran as fast as he possibly could and was able to grab onto one of the opened windows as the bus started again; his shoes dragged across the ground as the bus kept on driving, not noticing him...but someone inside the bus sure did... The Watcher himself moved closer to the window with a huge terrifying smile on his face before slamming shut the window right on Nathan's fingers, making him fall off the bus right onto the hood of a car behind the bus.

His back felt like it was burning as he crawled off the car; he did not even care to talk to the civilian who was asking him if he was alright. He needed to keep running after that damn bus...so he grabbed the civilian by the face and pushed them out of their car before hopping in and driving after the bus as fast as he could without technically breaking more laws than simple theft.

The Watcher walked up to the back of the bus to watch him through the back window with a huge smug smile on his face. Nathan knew deep down he was playing right into his hands... But he had to stop him... Brooks was onto the barn killer right now; the cops were onto the case of the assistant's death, which also was the barn killer...no one knew where the barn killer truly was but himself right now; the barn killer was inside the bus! Again. Nathan doesn't know Craine and The Watcher aren't the same... But it was clear that deep down he knew something was off. But he was blinded currently... The way that the Watcher killed his victims was way too similar to the case of his wife...

Nathan drove after the bus when suddenly the watcher jumped out through the window and ran into the nearby forest, which made Nathan recklessly move his car onto the side of the road before he ran out of the door straight toward where he saw the man run into the forest from.

The run was short, as The Watcher seemed to be waiting for him inside of the forest; he was leaning against a tree, and next to him stood a single file cabinet. Nathan froze; he knew exactly that he had, in fact, fallen right into the Watcher in Rags's hands and that it was way too late to just turn around now. It was more than clear that he wanted to brandish the gun that Brooks had given him in the barn, but before he could even do so, the Watcher opened the cabinet and tossed one of the files at him, inviting him to read the content. A file on Brooks... Nathan glanced back at the cabinet and realized exactly what the Watcher was doing... He had just given him all the tea on Brooks. The only man he trusted.

Nathan gave out a small sigh and opened the case file. The mere words he saw shook him to his core... Brooks had lied on almost all his cases. He had opened fire on innocent people—just people he did not like. He was a racist... There were tons of case files in front of him that were all about Brooks shooting people of color just because...they looked at him? Jesus Christ...how did Nathan even like this dude... At least he isn't homophobic...right? Oh god, he definitely is, isn't he... Nathan lifted his eyes from the file to look back at the Watcher, but...he was gone? No. He had simply moved places; he was right behind him... His chin was right on his shoulder with a huge smirk on his face...

Nathan most likely wanted to jab this man's smirk right out of his damn face...but he did just...show him the truth about his mentor... Was this guy even a killer...? Or was he just an innocent man that Brooks profiled too?

At that single point in time, everything Nathan knew shattered into a million pieces. He couldn't trust anyo... No...There was a single person...wasn't there? ... Nathan turned to the Watcher with a hesitant look in his eyes. The Watcher's smirk grew bigger and bigger until it seemed to vanish into a mist. Nathan's eyes widened as he found himself back in the record room of the police station. ... He glanced down at his hands...and huh? The mark of the bus window was nowhere to be seen? ... Did he just hallucinate the whole meeting with the Watcher? ... But... looking down at the case file in front of him right now... it was the one the Watcher had shown him.

Nathan walked into the police station bathroom, still dazed by the sudden shift that had happened... He was just talking to the Watcher...in a forest...how was he back here...?

But as he looked in the mirror in front of him, his whole perspective seemed to change again. He was back in the forest, the Watcher sitting on the case files as they were burning. He was burning away the evidence...? What the hell was going on? Nathan thought to himself. Everything was weird... None of this made sense!

What did this mean... Nathan had already understood that he was most likely having a hallucination episode... But he knew damn well they meant something. The fire...the burning evidence...what could this all fucking mean?!

Maybe he had to...extinguish the fire? ...as he went to remove his coat to put it over the file cabinet, his hallucinations seemed to stop all of a sudden. His eyes widened as he realized he wasn't holding onto his coat...but a case file. A case file where a pedophile was found not guilty even though they had tons of evidence on him and...the one who had arrested him...was Brooks... Justice had failed...once more... It couldn't keep on failing... Someone had to put an end to this corruption... Someone had to make sure that the law was followed to the T...someone had to make sure that justice was served! But who...? Nathan gazed back up at the mirror and saw the exact person who could pull off his goal.

Himself.

At that single sentence...it felt like the Watcher in Rags seemed to approve of his decision.