The Crow:
Silent Prayers
Prologue
The mourning wail of police sirens could be heard through the city as the moved through the crowded streets around the church. A single black crow landed on the wrought-iron steeple of the immense, gothic structure. The buildings around it were bathed in pulsing red and blue lights, which belonged to several ambulances and police vehicles. The side walk in front of the church was splattered in thick puddles of blood. It bore two chalk outlines of two different people. These two people now rested in black bags in separate ambulances. A beat cop stood in front of the church staring at the sidewalk. He took a drag of the lit cigarette in his hand, made a face of disgust, and extinguished it on the pavement.
"I'm never touching a pack of smokes again," he muttered. Another officer walked next to him, wiping sweat from his eyes. "The only witness is the girl in ambulance 3, Jennifer Morales, but she's so spooked she won't respond to anything ", he said.
"I feel sorry for the girl Jerry. Hell, I feel sorry for all of them." Jerry replied," She saw her best friend beaten and raped. The boyfriend struggled free, and tried to take out the attackers with a lead pipe. They didn't like it, so they tied them all up, slit the girl's throat in front of the boyfriend, and then they capped him in the back of the head. I wouldn't be talking much after seeing all of that either."
The cop, who was smoking before, pulled a rosary from his pocket and said a small prayer for the two deceased. He placed the rosary back in his pocket afterwards. "They gonna take the girl to the asylum?" he asked.
"Yeah. For now the case is cold. No leads, no DNA, witness is a vegetable, and to top it all off the captain fucked up and forgot to cordon off the press, so a lot of the evidence is a waste. Isn't life just grand, Harv", Jerry mused.
"Yeah…just grand," Harv said, "Just peachy." With that said Harv pulled a small crucifix in a clear box, out of his pocket and set it down on the first step to the church. It lay next to a bloodstained white rose the girl had dropped when she was attacked.
After the lights had disappeared, the crow flew down to the scene, its eyes taking in the sight of the blood, slowly drying on the sidewalk. It gave a loud caw, and then flew up, snatching the white rose and the cross.
