"Hester, are you under the influence of anything?" Elena's tone was calm, but the skepticism in her voice stung.
She looked across the table to see Jack all bandaged up. He was less injured than they initially thought.
His hands and arms were scratched up; shards of glass inside his skin needed to be removed before they could disinfect and bandage them up. But overall, he wasn't injured much. His scratches would heal up within a few days without leaving behind scars.
A normal, sober person would never think about shattering a window before crawling through it.
Not unless they were in mortal danger.
"Of course not," Jack said calmly.
Elena sighed, leaning back in her chair. "It's not that we don't believe you. But stress does funny things to the mind. Losing your job, your apartment—"
"Millions in debt," Jack added dryly, rubbing his temples. "Yeah, I get it. I'm a textbook case for a mental breakdown. But this wasn't in my head. It happened."
Jack silently sighed, disappointed that he was being asked these questions. Was it hard to believe there were ghosts and supernatural activities in this world?
But he was also relieved that they bothered to hear him out. From their tone, it seemed that he wouldn't be locked up in a cell or tested that he was infected.
It might have been because, as Elena said, there were plenty of reasonable explanations for why he saw what he did.
Honestly, his ghost problem might have removed some suspicion from him from the System's actions.
"There's always a silver lining in every storm cloud." Jack thought as he fell silent.
Seeing that Jack was remaining quiet, she nodded towards her partner, who wheeled out an old TV monitor.
"We asked for the security tapes from your apartment, and this is what we could find. No one had entered your room at any point or left."
"There could be blindspots that we don't know that the culprit escaped from, but with no clues on what they look like, we won't be able to identify them," Elena said as the TV turned on and quickly played the recording.
Slowing down when Jack's window was shattered with a hammer, he crawled out looking terrified.
Before the recording sped up again, two police officers dressed in black arrived at his apartment with his landlord, who had a resentful expression on his face at that point.
Before once again speeding up, it stopped at three in the afternoon when the officer asked for the security camera feed.
"I know what the culprit looked like. I can draw her for you if you give me a paper and pen." Jack said with shimmering green eyes.
Since the police wouldn't help him, he could get them to do something useful. If they could tell him who the little girl he saw was, he could better understand what kind of ghost she was.
"Please," Elena said with a smile as she gave him a piece of paper and pen she had already prepared beforehand.
Jack quickly drew the TV show and the little girl in detail before handing it to Elena, who had a surprised look on her face.
"Isn't this from the canceled kids show Felicia and Friends?" She muttered, which perked Jack's interest.
"Canceled? When was it canceled?" Jack asked with curiosity.
"A few years ago. The producers were all arrested for covering up a murder. Well, a series of murders all relating to kids." Elena said calmly as she handed the drawing to Lucas, who left the room.
"Murders," Jack gulped as he felt a shiver crawl down his spine.
"What about the little girl? Who is she? And what happened to her?" Jack asked carefully.
"She's Felicia," Elena said calmly.
"You know what I meant. Who's the actress?"
"I don't know. I was in the police academy when I found out the news." Elena said plainly.
Lucas returned with a few more papers. He handed it over to her, and she read it in silence.
"Her name is Rebecca Jones," Elena said softly, her tone grim. "She went missing years ago. They never found her body."
Jack's stomach dropped—a vengeful spirit. Of course. He clenched his fists under the table, suppressing a shudder.
"Why can't I catch a break?" He thought to himself.
"What are the solutions to getting rid of vengeful ghosts? I would need to figure out what is still tying her to this world."
"Or not. It's better to escape from her if that's an option." Jack's eyes glowed before he nodded his head.
"Thank you for telling me all this. Is there anything else you would like to know?" Jack asked.
"No, you're free to go. By the way, you'll have to pay for the broken window."
"Uh, you don't think you could cover for me. I'm kinda strapped for cash right now." Jack said with a depressed smile.
"No, sorry." Elena shook her head with an apologetic smile.
Jack was about to leave when he suddenly thought of something.
"Do you want to take the TV as evidence? If it's in the government's care, it might lead to a breakthrough."
"We have enough evidence collected. Thank you for being so cooperative." Elena said as she tried to restrain her eye roll.
Jack silently cursed in his head.
There was no way he was keeping a TV cursed by a vengeful ghost. He immediately planned to sell it off at a discount to get it off his hands as soon as possible.
Out of sight, out of mind.
If that ghost still reappeared, there would be only one solution. It was time for him to move.
Jack suddenly noticed a donation crate filled to the brim with random objects as he opened the door. He even saw a few cracked TVs neatly packaged up.
Jack's heart skipped a beat as a shiver crawled down his spine. He almost screamed for help.
Just as he calmed down since he knew he was in a safe location, his eyes sparkled as he turned back inside.
"Actually, can you tell me how to donate a TV to the police station?" Jack said with a slight smirk.
Elena's face fell as Lucas's eyes twitched. They were smart enough to know where he was going with this train of thought.
He didn't even bother to hide it.
"If you are planning on donating your TV, that's fine. But the process is that it will be sent to a different building and then auctioned if no one picks it up within a few days." Lucas said calmly as he didn't have a very amused look on his face.
"Auctioned? Does all the money go to the police station?" Jack asked with interest. Could he get some money from this?
"Partially. All the money goes to the district where it was sold, and then you can write ten percent of it as a charity on your taxes." Elena answered with a smile.
"Oh, so no money for me, I guess. I mean, I'm always happy to contribute to our local police." Jack said with a smile after catching himself.
"Just ask for the donation papers at the front desk and fill it out. Someone will pick up the TV today or tomorrow morning." Lucas said in an impatient tone.
"Yes, sir," Jack quickly answered and left the room.
As he left, Jack silently breathed a sigh of relief and turned towards the donation box. Seeing the cracked TVs made his heart race causing him to pick up his pace.
Watching Jack hastily leaving Elena turned to Lucas and asked,
"Does the city have a team for ghosts or the supernatural?"
Lucas scratched his chin and thought for a bit.
"I don't know about the federal or state level, but at least in the City, we don't have anything like that. The closest is the Creatures, Critters, and Flora Department, which, as you know, investigates, documents, and examines any strange creatures and plants."
"They might have a team that looks at these supernatural events and tries to find ghosts, but they probably haven't found much."
"Why do you think so?" Elena asked with curiosity.
"Well, this year, the department budget was cut by one percent. Although it isn't much when you compare it to how their budget increased every year prior, it's bad."
"If ghosts and spirits were discovered, the City wouldn't spare a single dime to make sure the ghosts and spirits are kept in check if not eradicated," Lucas explained.
Realization flashed across Elena's face as she agreed. In this strange new world, the appearance of ghosts was anything but bizarre.
It was one of the many reasons the City was extremely resistant to cutting the Creatures, Critters, and Flora Department's budget, even when other departments were desperate for more money.
"That makes sense. So we don't have to worry about this. If anything abnormal is found, it probably has already been reported to the CCF, not us." Elena uttered before having another thought.
"By the way, what about the Brothers of Abraham and the Sisters of Abraham? Do you think they are involved in the supernatural?"
Lucas rubbed his chin, "Possibly."
"Since they are a part of the military, they deal with many things. Investigating abnormalities that the police or CCF can't figure out is something they do daily. So ghost cases are not out of the question."
As Elena and Lucas chatted, they didn't notice that the two officers who visited Jack's apartment yawned behind the one-sided window. With disinterested expressions, they toss his file on the metal table beside them.
The first officer was a middle-aged man with a scruffy beard, pale skin as if he hadn't seen the light of day in years, and mucky yellow eyes.
The second officer was a younger man, somewhere in his late twenties. He had a freshly shaved face, a baby face, and slicked-back ink-black hair.
"This is ridiculous," the scruffy officer grumbled, slumping in his chair. "Budget cuts, and now we're cleaning up asylum cases. Do they think we're a joke?"
"I do not want to get made fun of by Jill's team again. It's better to focus our research and investigations on more concrete abnormal events." The baby-faced officer said with frustration in his eyes.
"Let's end the investigation and let this police station handle this low-level case. If this happens again, the police station will have the records anyway."
"We are doing the right thing. With a lower budget, we need to make some cuts somewhere. The police station will be able to handle it better than us anyway." The scruffy officer agreed wholeheartedly.
They were a part of the CCF's Supernatural Investigation Team. Their team was always made fun of and disregarded. Most of the budget cuts came from their team.
Due to the lack of manpower, they were temporarily moved from a case they had been investigating for months and were finally beginning to make progress. They came here to evaluate whether Jack's case had any interest in being taken on as an official CCF case.
At first, they compiled and did their due diligence, but they found nothing. There wasn't the slightest bit of evidence, nor was it related to any prior case.
In their eyes, Jack was having a terrible drug experience or hallucinations due to stress. Nothing that had anything to do with them.
They even had to listen to two regular police officers talk poorly about the team. How could they be in the mood to take this case? They decided to immediately lower the case's classification, which became a problem for the police station.