While scampering across the linoleum floors of the B hallway to his sixth hour class, Arthur had loss his footing and plummeted onto the ground. Papers and folders scattered everywhere and Arthur was laughed at by passersby. As he quickly snatched all of the flown papers, he noticed the parchment taped to the nearby, olive wall in front of him. The sign had said:
**MYSTERY CLUB**
Come and solve the world's greatest enigmas!
First meeting: 19 Oct at 3:30 in the Detention Room
The nineteenth, Arthur thought, that's today! He rose with his papers and folders back in his grasp and decided to go since he had nothing to do this Friday evening. Then suddenly the late bell had rung its melancholy tune; dammit, Arthur thought, late again. He then sauntered up the stairs to his geometry class.
The room looked like any typical classroom: white cinderblock walls, math posters randomly placed, wooden cabinets to the farthest wall, a whiteboard to the right, desks aligned in horizontal rows to the left, bright florescent lights above, and the teacher's desk to the far right hand corner. The teacher, Mrs. Jones, was Alfred's mother. Alfred just happened to be Arthur's love interest even though the feelings were not reciprocated. In contrast to lovable Alfred, his mother was frankly objectionable. "Late again, Arthur?" Mrs. Jones sneered. Arthur honestly thought she actually enjoyed calling him out every day.
"Obviously, Mrs. Jones," Arthur responded meandered to the middle row and sat towards the left next to the brightest student, Sherlock Holmes. To the right of him was the nicest student, John Watson; they both seemed to be only a year older than him.
John whispered under his breath, "It's okay, Arthur. We're not judging you."
"Thanks," Arthur responded in a hushed tone.
"Well Arthur," Mrs. Jones scoffed, "why were you tardy this time? I'm sure you'll be able to think of a great excuse for your laziness."
Bitch, Arthur thought. "Well you see ma'am," he began, "as I was trying to make a ninety degree angle from point A, let's say the B hallway, to point B, upstairs. Instead of doing that, my slippery sneakers made friction fail making me actually fall ninety degrees to the ground at nine point eight meters per second thanks to gravity. This made my papers fly everywhere and fall at the same speed because that's how gravity works. Then as I tried to recollect all of my fallen items, I noticed the Mystery Club sign. This made me distracted for about five seconds because I'm a fast reader, college level to be exact. When I had finally gotten up from the ground, the bell rang. Is that good enough for you, Mrs. Jones?"
Mrs. Jones was flustered at the long explanation, "U-Um, yes that will suffice."
HA, Arthur thought, take that you bloody broad! She then continued class by beginning to give explanation for parabolas. As Arthur began to write notes in his notebook, he noticed that Sherlock did not write anything down. How is that even possible, Arthur pondered, was he just that smart? Sherlock realized Arthur's emerald eyes gawking at him and returned the glance with his ice blue ones. Startled, Arthur fidgeted and went back to jotting down annotations for parabolas. After what seemed like an eternity, the horrible class finally concluded. Arthur hastily left the classroom and went to his dark, forest green locker which was only a few paces away from the classroom. Once he had placed all his homework into his backpack, he headed downstairs towards the detention room. On his way there going through the narrow corridor, he bumped into people who were trying to exit the building. After saying excuse me, pardon me, and coming through so many times the words had lost their meaning, he finally found the big doors that had the sign Detention Room printed onto it. Arthur then pushed the weighty door open.
Inside the room, Arthur glanced around; he was the first one here. He had been in here multiple times due to his tardy record. The room was small and had three long, wooden tables that went from the large doorway to the head desk. The head desk near the furthermost wall was the same colour of the tables and was in front of a blackboard. Plastered on the blackboard was Mystery Club written in white chalk in all caps. The walls were the same, blank whitewash cinderblocks that surrounded the whole school. Arthur had taken a seat at the closest table near the far right facing the blackboard. He then put his head down and began to take a catnap. He was then awakened by the sound of the heavy door being slammed open. Arthur twisted his head to find John and Sherlock standing in the doorway.
"Oh Arthur," Sherlock said in his deep, unchaste voice, "I figured you would be here. I'm surprised you're not late."
"Lay off it Sherlock," John retorted in annoyance, "Don't listen to him, Arthur, he's just being an ass."
"I am not," Sherlock responded.
Arthur had interrupted, "Sherlock, are you the head of this club?"
"Um, yes I am."
"Then stop bickering with your husband and prepare for today's meeting."
John replied angrily, "I'm not gay!"
Arthur smirked as he sleepily glanced at John, "I never said you were." John's face reddened as he marched past him and headed towards the head desk. Sherlock soon followed. John pulled out a rather enormous packet and plopped it onto the desk; Sherlock pulled out his black Dell laptop and his odd, pink iPhone and placed it onto the desk. When Sherlock opened and booted up the laptop, his pale face was slightly illuminated by the light that radiated from the screen. Then the sound of a clicking keyboard had then filled the silent room. Arthur noticed no one else was showing up to the club meeting; he then went up to the front table like a ghost and sat down in the middle seat still facing the blackboard. "I wonder why no one else is showing up." Arthur thought out loud.
Sherlock backed away from his netbook and glanced at Arthur, "Because they only care about their superficial needs," his voice had gotten a sillier, girly tone, "like their boyfriends or girlfriends!"
John went behind Sherlock and wrote on the board in the white chalk below the writing already there; what was written befuddled Arthur: The Case of the Reigniting Candles. As John wrote it he responded to Sherlock's remark, "Oh come on, Sherlock. They're just kids having fun."
Sherlock turned to face John, "You call sucking face with another person fun?"
John turned when he finished writing with chalk still in hand, "Depends on which girl I'm sucking face with."
Arthur interjected, "So what's with the Case of the Reigniting Candles?"
Sherlock turned his laptop to face Arthur; a dead corpse surrounded by blood and candles in a devil's trap circle are what was displayed onto the screen. "The candles have been rekindling for two days and no one knows why. No one knows how the body had gotten there, either."
John added, "Yeah, we've found over twenty four pages of articles about this weird phenomenon. We were planning to discuss them today."
Arthur checked the analog clock above the blackboard, it was three thirty. "Well it's three thirty now," Arthur remarked, "I guess we can start with the first page of the packet."
"Not before we explain what we know about the case," Sherlock said.
"Okay," Arthur replied, "what do you know?"
Sherlock leaned back onto the blackboard, "Well we know the victim is a male Satanist who was experimenting with the supernatural. He was thirty five years old and faking to be on a date with someone due to his fancy attire. How the candles rekindle and why do they matter? We don't know, until now that is." He glimpsed at John, "Read the first page John."
John began to read the packet, "Um, okay. It says here that the candles are used for unknown supernatural activity. The person that initiates the supposed ceremony is killed right after, but no one understands why. People suggest that the ceremony is meant to summon a mythical monster of gargantuan proportions, but no one knows for sure what this monster or demon looks like. All they do understand is that the creature is only summoned for bad deeds a normal homosapien could not possibly accomplish." He looked up from the paper, "So maybe the one killed was a killer himself."
Sherlock stroked his chin, "Hmm…..maybe. May I have a look through the packet?"
"Um, sure." John slid the heavy packet to the left towards Sherlock.
Sherlock read through the packet's contents in record time, "They all say the same thing but in different ways." He then pushed the papers towards the middle of the table, "This is getting us nowhere."
"Wait," Arthur interjected, "my grandmother might know something about this. She's all into the paranormal."
John replied with satisfaction, "Good idea!"
"I agree," Sherlock added.
"Okay, I'll do that when I get home today, "Arthur said, "I'll also look through her book collection. She must have a Satanist book somewhere in her uncanny library of odd books."
"Alright!" John replied, "So next week on Monday, we'll discuss Arthur's finds, agreed?" Everyone nodded in unison and the meeting was dismissed.
As Arthur walked home to his grandmother's house, the only sounds were the occasional automobile passing by on the nearby road and Arthur's sneakers hitting the sidewalk. That was until he heard a snarl behind him, "Hey, kid." He quickly rotated around to find nothing there, "Behind you." Arthur turned around once again a black silhouette of himself. The figure had blood red eyes and his legs were connected to Arthur's shadow; he also had long skimpy arms with large hands that had long claw-like fingers. His narrow, razor sharp teeth gleamed white as he grinned at Arthur.
"Wh-Who're you?" Arthur asked.
"Ach ichs lisn digh."
"You're my shadow?" how did I know what he was saying, Arthur pondered.
"You could say that." The being then opened his mouth wide like a snake would and began to charge at Arthur. As in a reflex, Arthur had punched the inside of his mouth making him hurdle towards a nearby tree and disappear on impact.
"What the bloody hell." Arthur said indignantly.