Photography by Tomas Heligr-Pyke · Bokeh
An unnamed detective follows an anonymous file into the cover-up surrounding Annabelle Klanders’s death.
From the 4671 story library. Read the story below, or explore its original reader and connected world.
The Room
I woke with my wrists chained to a chair.
The room was too dark to measure. A line of light beneath the door gave me the floor, my shoes and the first few links hanging from each arm. Everything beyond that line might as well have been open space.
I pulled once. The chair moved less than an inch.
Two days earlier, I had been in my office wondering how long I could keep pretending it was a business. Then an unfamiliar file appeared on my desk.
That was all it took.
One file. One dead student. One question I should have left unanswered.
Two Days Earlier
The folder had no return address, invoice or client name. Inside was a short note.
Annabelle Klanders died one week ago. They called it suicide. Something is wrong with the body.
The rest was copied from official records.
Annabelle was a young university student. Her computer had been wiped, and the storage inside it had been physically destroyed. She had been found at home with wounds across her wrists and a bloodied razor left beside her.
The authorities had accepted the scene.
Someone else had placed the file on my desk.
I should have taken it to the police. I should have thrown it away. Instead, I looked at the unpaid work stacked beside it and decided that an anonymous client could still become a paying one.
I began with the people who knew her.
They disagreed about almost everything except the conclusion.
Annabelle had been kind. Annabelle had been difficult. Annabelle kept to herself. Annabelle spoke to everyone. She was serious about her studies. She had been distracted. She seemed happy. She did not seem happy.
But no one expected her to die.
Clive was the last interview.
He sat opposite me with his hands locked together and stared at the space over my shoulder.
“She was my friend,” he said. “We were messaging on the day it happened.”
“About what?”
“People she wanted to meet.”
“What people?”
His hands tightened.
“Some call them rebels. The ones with the cuts.”
“Cuts where?”
“Their hands. Their fingernails. I do not know.”
“Was Annabelle joining them?”
Clive looked at me then. Whatever answer had been ready disappeared before he spoke.
“I do not know. She stopped replying.”
“You were talking to her on the day she died. What did she say before she stopped?”
He stood.
“That is all I know.”
It was not all he knew. I could hear that much. I let him leave anyway.
The Followers
The description led me away from political groups and into old rumours: private rites, artefacts, scars hidden beneath ordinary clothes, deep arrow-shaped cuts carved into fingernails.
The Followers.
Most references contradicted one another. Some called them a church. Others called them a criminal network, an invented enemy or an excuse for unexplained bodies. The only useful name I found was Zander.
I sent a request through a contact channel and promised anonymity. His reply named a park and a time.
He was already on the bench when I arrived.
“Sit,” he said. “Look ahead. Do not look at me.”
I sat at the other end of the bench. The path in front of us was empty.
“You know why I am here?” I asked.
“Annabelle Klanders.”
“Clive said she was trying to meet rebels.”
“They are not rebels.”
“Then what are they?”
“Followers. They do not care who governs your city. They care about things older than it.”
“Was Annabelle one of them?”
“She was trying to reach them. That is not the same thing.”
“Why?”
“You are asking the question that got her killed.”
I turned toward him without thinking.
“Look forward,” he said.
I faced the path again.
“Clive left something out,” Zander continued. “Annabelle had been asking questions about Iron Fist. Not stories. Names, decisions, things that were not meant to remain written down. Enough of what she found was true.”
“What does that have to do with the Followers?”
“Maybe she thought they had evidence. Maybe she wanted protection. Maybe she wanted to become one of them. It no longer matters. Iron Fist knew she was looking.”
“You are saying they killed her.”
“They followed her home. They destroyed what was on her computer and made the room tell a simpler story.”
The wounds. The razor. The clean official conclusion.
“Can you prove that?”
“No. Neither can you.”
“Then why tell me?”
“So you understand what happens next.”
Zander stood.
“Close the file. Forget Annabelle. Forget my name.”
“You said the Followers did not kill her.”
“I said Iron Fist did. I did not say the Followers were safe.”
He started down the path.
“Is that all?” I called.
He did not turn.
“It was already too late for Annabelle. Decide whether it is too late for you.”
The Car
I walked in the opposite direction and told myself the case was finished.
There was no evidence I could use. No client to report to. No witness willing to sign a statement. I had a destroyed computer, a frightened friend and the word of a man who would not let me look at him.
I reached the end of the park.
A car door opened behind me.
Someone caught my arms. Another hand covered my mouth. The pavement vanished beneath my feet, and the inside of the car swallowed me before I managed to shout.
Then came the room, the chair and the chains.
The Offer
The door opened.
Light crossed the floor and climbed the legs of my chair. A man entered, shut the door behind him and stopped where I could not see his face.
“You spoke to a Follower,” he said.
“I spoke to a source. I am a detective.”
“You spoke to a Follower about Annabelle Klanders.”
“I was hired to investigate her death.”
“By whom?”
“I do not know. The file was anonymous.”
He stepped closer. A blade touched the skin beneath my jaw.
“That answer makes you useless or dishonest. Neither keeps you alive.”
“I am telling you the truth.”
“Are you one of them?”
“No.”
“Did Zander give you names?”
“No.”
The blade pressed harder.
“What did he tell you about us?”
I thought of Annabelle’s destroyed computer. The wounds placed where people expected to find them. The razor completing the picture.
“Nothing I could prove,” I said.
For the first time, the man laughed.
“That is the correct answer.”
He lowered the knife but did not move away.
“You cannot return to your office knowing what you know. We can leave you here, or you can make yourself useful.”
“You want me to join Iron Fist.”
“I do not care what you believe. You will investigate when instructed. You will report what you find. You will speak to no one about this room, Zander or Annabelle Klanders. The details come after you leave.”
It was not an offer. It was a method of deciding whether I died in the chair or somewhere later.
“And if I refuse?”
The knife returned to my throat.
I closed my eyes.
“I accept.”
The blade lifted.
I had not joined them. I had chosen the only answer that kept me breathing.
Whether there was still a difference, I would learn when they gave me the next file.