My muscles felt extremely sore. As if I''d worked out at the gym for hours the night before. This keeps happening to me every so often nowadays. I press on my thigh and it hurt with stiff soreness. I massage them and avoided moving a muscle on my arms or chest as much as I could. There might be something wrong with me medically. It makes no sense to feel so sore when I didn''t even work out. So I did what anyone would do.


    I googled my symptoms.


    I just never seem to learn from this bad mistake.


    Chronic exertional compartment syndrome, Claudication, Dermatomyositis, Fibromyalgia, Lupus... the list goes on and I''m on the verge of hyperventilating because I have no clue what any of those mean and they all sound scary. Except I knew about Lupus. ''It''s never lupus''. At least that''s what the cantankerous but brilliant Dr. House taught me. House was better than Grey''s Anatomy and I''d fight anyone on that.


    Maybe this was a side effect if the sleeping pills I got recently. I''ve had trouble falling asleep so I bought them about two month ago and this pain started about two weeks ago.


    I close the webmd tab before I have time to look at the rest of the scary deferential diagnosis''s. Oreo jumps on the bed with his squeaky toy and starts terrorizing my ears with this screeching mess. I never regretted buying something more.


    I sit up on the bed and the pain almost doubled in intensity. I need to consult a doctor as soon as possible. I hope it''s nothing serious.


    Tomorrow is my deadline for submitting the next chapter of my story "Into the Night sky" but I haven''t finished half the chapter yet. My editor is going to kill me.


    At least I don''t have to move too many muscles when typing on my laptop. After washing up, I grab a bowl of corn cereal, poured some chocolate milk and brought it back to my room. I pull my laptop on my lap and read the last sentence to reorient myself inside my story. Between spoonfuls of the cereal and typing my heart out I found myself writing the last sentence. Hitting that send button felt like literally lifting a weight of my shoulder, at least until the next weeks weight is chucked back at me.


    I throw on a hoodie and grabbed Oreos dog leash and she, on instinct, runs down stairs to the front door and claws the door. I opened it before she could damage the wood more and I followed her outside.


    My mailbox was open. All the flyers and envolupes where scattered on the ground. What seems like a large paper, no cardboard was shoved inside. I almost never check my mailbox until it''s about to overflow and it seems like someone who knows that fact about me wanted to make sure I do check this time. A white card with blood red writing. Random letters of the english alphabet were put together in a seemingly haphazard manner.


    "Yzoiqy gtj yzutky sge hxkgq euax hutky haz


    cuxjy vokxik euax nkgxz. Cnu''y zu hrgsk cnkt boizosy zgqk znkox uct robky? O yngrr zgqk payzoik otzu se uct ngtjy. 2029,09,11."


    It seems to be some kind of code. I researched a bunch of different codes for writing mysteries before. This wasn''t one of the obvious, weird, but cool ones. I remember there was a type where you slide the letters one space or more ahead of its original order. So if it was one space up, A would be a B. Therefore writing the word apple in code would be bqqmf. The problem would be to figure out how many spaces he slid the letters and whether it''s up or down the alphabet.


    My phone rings.


    Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.


    I felt a little panic. This almost feels like the perfect time for the murderer to call me and watch me from afar like in those horror movies.


    "Let''s meet in the cafe we usually go to." he intoned without even saying hi. It''s Leon.


    I shrug of the feeling of being watched. "Perfect timing I have something to show you as well." I said and he hung up. He needs to work on his phone manners because it''s getting out of control.


    Oreo closes the door and ran up to me with a wagging tail and her tongue sticking out. She drops to the ground and started doing impression of a corpse; it was something Leon had taught her to do when she''s hungry. She makes it look like I don''t feed her but last time I took her to the vet she said Oreo''s on the verge of being obese and that I need to stop giving her so many snacks. I pet her and she wagged her tail in circles with a Sammie smile.


    Oreo and I have a mutual understanding; it wasn''t there at first. Back when she was fresh from the pound, just less than a year old, she was too shy and used to flinch violently if you try to pet her. It was alarming at first because Samoyeds are know to be friendly and social dogs. She must have been abused at some point so I wanted to get her out of that miserable cage.


    It took several month before she opened up to me but after that she gave me all her heart. She''s smart and all but will never learn stop chewing things. So many of my furniture and shoes have chew marks and the front door is clawed beyond repair. I have to replace every shoe I own and the carpet multiple times a year. Leon kept telling me to take her back and get a lap dog, but no way. She''s too cute and in a few months had become family. She leaves my stuff alone if I buy her raw-hide bones and frozen marrowbones. She always hogs the couch in the day and my bed at night. Four walks a day means she''ll let me sleep at night. In return she adores me, cuddles up while I write my stories and goes wolf mode on any intruder that comes near my house.


    I''ll walk her later. I go back inside and put the collar away. I filled Oreos food bowl and patted her head before putting on my coat. I grab the mysterious code, a pen and a notebook before closing and locking the door after me.


    It''s still early in the morning and the grass lining the side ways glimmered with the sparkles of morning dew. After walking a few blocks down, the café came into sight.


    I could see Leon from outside. Of course like he does eighty percent of the time he has a toothpick in his mouth for absolutely no good reason. He always has a bag of candy on him but he hates that they stuck to his molars so he started carrying toothpicks with him but now it''s become a habit.


    He''s practically glaring a hole into the paper he''s holding.


    The doorbell ringed to signal a new customer and a little girl sitting with her dad waved at me. Cute. I send her a little smile then headed towards my friend.


    I slump in the chair in front of him. "Look he''s taunting me." I slide the card on the table towards Leon. He jumps a little and settles back down when he realized it''s me.


    "What''s this?" He asks as he inspected the paper.


    I rest my chin on my palm. "What does it look like I know? You''re supposed to be the junior detective here."


    "What if it''s just some stupid joke?" Leon picks up the paper with his sleeves. Trying not to leave any fingerprints. I forgot about that and now my fingerprints are all over it. I mean they said they couldn''t find any fingerprints at the crime scene itself so doubt he would be careless enough to leave fingerprints on this code if it''s really from him.


    "I doubt that. This never happened before I have a bad feeling about this code thing I think it''s connected to the doll-maker murder."


    Leon nods, "I''ll get permission from Cain and send a copy to the forensic department."


    "Why do you need to get permission from this Cain guy? Do juniors not even have the authority to send a piece of evidence for review?" I honestly don''t like having to lesson to authority like that. My literary agent and publisher are already giving me a hard time I can''t imagine having someone as stuck up as Cain as my boss.


    "They won''t just work on anything we send for investigation so we need permission from the main detective on the case." He explained and picked up his phone, dialling a number. "Hey Det.Cain. Someone just sent Cameron a coded written message is it okay to bring it in to the forensic team?" he pauses and I try to pick up what he''s saying on the other side of the phone but it was too loud in the café to hear it. "Why?" Leon runs his fingers through his hair with his eyebrows shaped like checkmarks. "What if it isn''t just a distraction? What if gives us a clue to the real perpetrator?"


    "He hung up on me."