Brodwin City, 19th March, 501
The next day, Alan finished his training and started making his way back to his apartment. Today, he plans to return to West Haven town to look for clues that exonerate Marcus. With his new ability, he may be able to find a clue.
While walking, he thinks of his last night's failure to hypnotise his body. It cannot be said that he completely failed after all; he can now fall asleep anytime and anywhere he wants. Not only fall asleep, but also get deep sleep. He didn't gain full control over his body, but still, he gained control over his sleep.
And if he continues, one day he will gain control over his body. But that to be now, as his body continues gets stronger, the consciousness controlling his would also increase in strength.
Alan suddenly comes to a halt. He looks around and sniffs the air. He smelled a similar scent of stench that was present in Marcus's house. He followed the scent and found himself looking at a woman.
The woman sits on a bench and looks statue-like without any movement, even blinking. Alan, from a distance, could tell the woman was dead. But what confuses him is how the woman died; her body is spotless without any sign of injury. She must have died by poison. While thinking about this, Alan pulled out his phone and dialled,"1-1-1."
After informing them about the incident, Alan stared at the serene face of the woman. He feels that if the woman is murdered, then her murderer is also the one who murdered Sofia or is somehow related. He waits, and a few minutes later, the authorities come and, after questioning him for a few minutes, Alan is allowed to leave.
Alan didn't return to his apartment but followed the foul odour out of the park and to a house. It must be the woman's house, as the smell of foul odour is strongest coming from the house, and from the house, there is a trail of foul odour leaving the house.
Alan to find Sofia's murderer follows each trial of foul odour one by one. Some hours later, he stands at a distance and looks at a mansion. Like the woman's house, the mansion is wrapped by the foul odour. It means that the murderer lives in the mansion or another victim's.
But the next question is what he will do about it? With the security around the mansion, he cannot sneak inside. To enter the mansion, he has to use his improved ability. He has gotten the ability only a day before, so first he has to master his ability. A wrong move and he would have to enter prison or worse, a lab to be experimented on.
He walks away to return to his apartment. Next, he drives to West Haven town, visits the police station first to inquire if they have found anything new that may help to prove Marcus's innocence. He doesn't get anything for them, but learned all the body parts have been found.
He visits where the rest of the body parts were found, and one of them was found in an abandoned building. This location is different from other locations, while the rest were places no one lived, but this abandoned building is the residence of a madman.
The madman is called by the town's people Old Gul. Alan grew up in this town, so he knows the story of Old Gul. And even tried his ability on Old Gul before and discovered Old Gul's thoughts were chaotic. His thoughts change from one moment to another, and no link between the thoughts.
He walks inside the abandoned building, wondering if he can get something from Old Gul with his improved ability. Finds Old Gul, sleeping in one of the rooms. He stands behind Old Gul and uses his ability on Old Gul.
Old Gul's mind is full of cracks and divided. His power of mind surrounds Old Gul's mind and enters it.
But what he finds astonishes him. He discovers the reason for Old Gul's madness. He finds every separate mind of Old Gul has given birth to a consciousness. There are six consciousnesses active in Old Gul's body, fighting each other for control over Old Gul's body. They are all of equal strength; if one wins control for a moment, the next it would be pulled down by the other five.
And this cycle would continue. His mind can be healed, and Alan can support one of the consciousnesses to devour the rest. But the question is how? He doesn't need to find the answer now. He didn't come to help Old Gu. He wants to see if he can peek into Old Gu's memory to find out if he saw who dumped one of Sofia's body parts inside the building.
But he doesn't know if his power of mind could do this to peek inside someone's memory. It improves then before, where he can hypnotise others in a moment, but peeking into someone's memory is another matter.
After repeated trying, he wasn't able to enter his mind. He starts wondering how he can know who dumped Sofia's body part here. The other way is for the Old Gul to tell him himself. But for that, he needs to heal Old Gul's mind. And for that, he needs to help of Old Gul's consciousness to devour the rest. But during that, Old Gul may lose some of his memory. And if the memory he needs is lost, then healing Old Gul would be a wasted effort.
For now, he has to improve his ability so that he can peek into someone's memory. To do that, he has to understand how someone's mind works. He comes out of the old building and enters his car to return to the city.
While driving, he hears on the car radio, four dead bodies of women were found in the morning in different places in Brodwin City. He kept in his mind to find out how the women died. The one woman he found looked like died because of some illness. As he didn't see any visible sign of someone harming her. He would have believed she died of some illness if he hadn't smelled the foul odour of rotting corpses coming from her body.
He returned to Brodwin City at late noon and then he went to the clinic to see his patients. He wants to experiment on his patients to find out how the mind works. But if anything happened to his patients inside his room, then he would be blamed one way or another. If he were a psychiatrist, he could enter the mental hospital in the city to experiment on the patients there.
Nobody would suspect him if anything went wrong. Their mind is already broken it wouldn't matter if he breaks them further anyway nobody can find out. If they don't have similar ability like him. So, he needs to get a degree of psychiatrist but it would need time, which he doesn't have.
He feels an urgency that he needs to understand the workings of the mind quickly. He doesn't know why he is feeling the urgency may be because of Marcus. Or it can be other reasons.
After seeing the last patient, he leaves the clinic while driving, and he starts to wonder if there are people in the town who are found dead or gone crazy, the authorities wouldn't care for them and wouldn't investigate further.
The answer came to him immediately: the homeless, the authorities wouldn't care about their dead. If they died without any injuries to their body, the police would think they died of some illness like the woman from before. As her death is reported by the news is because of a heart condition, and for the other three women is the same.
But experimenting on the homeless, he feels reluctant. They are already suffering, and he would make them suffer again. Then another answer came to him, criminals. Police would care about their death, but they would take their deaths in another direction. Because they have plenty of enemies who want to kill them.
And he knows where he can find the criminals in the city. Alan changed the direction his car was going, and a few minutes later, the sparsely populated road became full of people. He is now western part of the city, which is filled with nightclubs, gambling dens, and other such activities. The streets of the western part of the city are controlled by different gangs.
And they are his goal. If a gang member dies, the finger would be pointed at a member of another gang. Police would consider whether they died for any other reason. He walks into the alleys and back streets to find gang members to start his experiment.
He detects faint footsteps close behind him. Someone was attempting to sneak up on him, yet he remains outwardly oblivious. He recognises who it could be, knows their intent, and is, in fact, allowing it. This is on them, he silently concludes, the rationale solidifying in his mind: he is merely eliminating a threat. The initial contact is a chilling, hard prod, unmistakably a gun barrel against his back.
He hears a whisper," Keep on walking and don't stop. Or otherwise…"
Alan acts scared and says with a tremor in his voice," Who are you?"
He hears back:" Follow what I say, and then you can leave here with your body intact."
Alan nods, his body shaking with fear as he walks forward in the empty street. After a moment, he hears," Enter the alley at right."
Alan does what the man tells him and comes face to face with another man waiting inside the alley. That man also points a gun at him." Now, empty anything valuable on you."
Alan nods, raising his hand in surrender. He says with fear in his voice," I will do it. Please don't do…" his voice changes into calm," … anything to me."
Alan uses his ability on the man at his back and then moves with incredible speed that the man in front of him is unable to react, and the man's wrist is broken, and then turns back to take the gun from the second man's hand.
He bends down to pick up the gun on the floor and stops using his ability on the second man. An hour later, he comes out of the alley and throws the guns in a sewer while walking toward his car.
He wasn't able to peek inside the memory of the two men. His force intrusion shattered their mind, and they became brain-dead. To make the police or other gang member think that their death is gang-related, he sliced their jugular.
As he walks, he wonders, why doesn't he feel anything after killing two men? No remorse or whatever, he should feel something. Was he always like this, or did the reincarnation change him? He doesn't have answers to this question now, or he may never have. Tomorrow, he will continue his experiment, and more people will die in his hands.
Now, he has a chance to become something greater, and so his consciousness wouldn't be the one stopping him. He returns home and, after filling his stomach, lies on the bed. He starts to try to get full control over his body.