Michelle Spera - Phantoms

Time period and locale - year 2115 New York city. A local morgue filled with bodies piled high, all freshly killed. Poeple walking quickly by on a crowded city street, trying not to breathe in the scent of death. Books burned lay scattered and universities lay in ruins.

Develop a detective - a young man of about 20. A philosopher, a thinker, troubled by the murders. A true lover of Plato and just of life. As he sifts through a paper, wondering why 17 murders have taken place in the past 4 days. Sickened at the disregard for life and only wanting to get away from this land of the dead. He is too proud for this, he cannot be bothered by death. The young man, filled with life and filled with an intelligence beyond anyone else. He is determined to find this cause of this disrespect for life.

Outline the crime - about a month ago, people started to disappear and later be found in the local morgue. At first, newspapers were filled with the strange disappearences, but as time went on,, less and less were written as the deaths continued. A cause is not yet known, but it does not seem human. The twisted expressions and grotesque features point to something not of this world. So many deaths have taken place already and people are seeming to become oblivious. Our detective is the only one aware of the murders and he is desperate to find out who or what is killing people, beings with souls and emotions, the most sacred forms of life. No one is coming back from this morgue and very slowly, the population seems to be falling.

Clues - Other than unnatural facial expressions, there are not too many clues. this killer seems to be untraceable. Our detective is actually a clue himself and although he realizes this because he is still alive, there is something about him that sets him apart. Something about his mind and his interests will eventually lead him to a sickening realization.

MMO - This killer is not human persay, but it does have a motive. The motive of course, lies within our detective. It lays within his books and his mind. All those who are less than he and do not have the intelligence he does allows for the decay of the bodies and the pain of ignorance shows on their faces. The more intelligent our detective gets, the more he looks into the crime and dives into his philosophy, the more the opportunity arises.

Alibis - the only suspect is our detective as he is the only one survivng. It would make sense that the only survivor has to be the killer. However, his alibi only seems to set him free because he was reading amongst the books, salvaging whatever he could. Clearly not killing anyone, right?

Climax - Deciding the only way to know for sure what happened, the detcteive goes into the morgue. No one has ever entered, but what the detective sees confuses him even more. No one is there! There are no more bodies, the smell of death lingers, but there are none to be found. No one had ever really died, and the mogue was not a morgue. He enters an apartment containing his old bed and furniture. Nervous, he looks around the room searching for the bodies.

denouement - For our philosophical detective, none of these things ever existed. All was made up and as he tried to solve these muders, he was diving deeper into a world of thought, a very dangerous attribute for the year 2115. The world displeased him so, he killed himself and he created a world where ignorance killed them all and only he survived; ignorance which he knew nothing of. Since none of this existed, the morgue was really his home where he had died and was left alone to rot. He was too intelligent and the only way to go on in peace was to bring the others with him, even if it was only in his mind.

Summary - Living in this world where intelligence meant nothing was uninhabitable for our detective. Not really knowing he himself had died, he was lost in his oen world of thought. Private thought is of course another danger. He had to know why everyone had died and why he was the only one left. This sent him on his investigation against a murderer he could not overcome, thought. He had actually killed them all himself, but through his love of philosophy and reading. Then again, he didn't technically kill anyone because none of it existed. Only he had died, but we could all be dreaming and who's to say what is real? Then that raises the open ended question of, maybe it wasn't a dream and ignorance will kill us all in the end.