Killing characters

There are plenty of authors who are never able to kill their characters, not at least the important ones. Killing a random character with no actual use will not cause any strong feelings in the readers. Killing important characters which really matter will matter.

Some authors feel sad when killing off characters. Some love it. Some take it so far, they write a story only to kill some characters.

Now one character is already dead. Did it make you sad?

Jay was sitting next to the corpse. Shot from close range, blood everywhere and the corpse looked like a mess. It was hard to guess what it had looked like before. First murder in this town, at least first one which anyone remembers.

We all are going to die of age of course, but this was the first unnatural death. Jay had been a detective for years now but doing mostly meaningless cases. Finding lost pets, following unfaithful spouses and such. Nothing which could help him solve a case like this.

The first uestion was, who would do anything like this and why? The second one, would it happen again? Who would be lost now.

The victim was mostly living alone, he preferred staying alone and didn't have that many friends. He had some relatives in town but he didn't keep contact with them regularly. Didn't travel much, some claimed he had traveled a lot in the past. According to some, he had lived in Finland in the past, but hadn't been around there for ages.

No clues which could help. Anyone could own a gun and in this town, they didn't have any laboratories to investigate this further.

Jay could only hope this wouldn't happen again.

What if someone more important dies?

One week later the corpse was found. The only detective from the town was found dead in an alley. He had been investigating the murder earlier and now he got murdered too. Shot from close range and the corpse left outside.

El had studied together with the detective and they both dreamed of being a detective. El didn't have the guts to follow his dreams, though ay had. Now he was dead.

When El heard the news, she was shocked. She couldn't eat or sleep properly for a few days and she had cried more than in years. Why did this happen to her friend? What had he done to deserve this?

She was no detective, but one evening she went to see the spot they had found his corpse. Most of the blood had been washed off, there was only some very deep red and brown color between the stones on the street. The district was mostly filled by drunkards and hookers, as the darkest and most popular bars and pubs were in the area.

Every now and then the local police officer had to carry someone to ail but mostly everyone were behaving well enough to avoid trouble.

One of the prostitutes kept on staring at El. She stared back, while the prostitute was taking a deep breath of her cigarette.

"You looking for something?" the prostitute asked while blowing some smoke out from her lungs.

"Wasn't this where the detective got killed?"

"It is. I had spoken to him on the evening he died. A really nice man he was."
The prostitute continued to smoke and looked in the streets, but no possible customers were to be seen.

"I could tell you what we talked about. You interested?"

She had got El's attention already earlier, but now El knew she had to talk to her.
"What do you know? Please tell me, the detective was my friend."

"Your friend? Well that changes everything. Please ust bring me $500 and I'll tell you everything."
"I don't have that kind of money with me."
"That's your problem. If you have any uestions, ust bring me the money. I'll be waiting here."

El was annoyed, but she knew she would have to pay the prostitute to know more.
"ust wait here, I'll bring the money. If you're not here, how can I find you?"
"ust ask for Ow, the other girls know where to find me."

El made a nod and started to swiftly walk home to get the $500. She had to get some money from her savings in her mattress and some from under the statue of esus. El wasn't religious, but the big statue was good for storing money under it.

At what point will the deaths make a difference? One more needs to die.

El ran t the street she had met the prstitute n. It was dead silent and the night was getting darker and darker.
El waited fr a few minutes n the street and when she culdn't find the prtitute, w, she decided t lk int the windws f the huses nearby.

She culd see in the dark bedrm f the huse, f which she had been standing. Even thrugh the darkness, she culd see bld n the flr and smene laying n the flr. It was her. w.

El panicked, as the killer culd still be nearby. She ran. h hw fast she ran away.
She culdn't slve this. It might be nbdy culd.

S she ran t the night, under the mn.

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