Another jumped off the bridge last week. That bridge had taken 34 in the last 5 years. If local legend was to be believed, the bay held fantastical creatures that granted you free passage to heaven if you were daring enough to jump. The theory was absolutely ridiculous, and it spoke volumes that it was the leading hypothesis.

Smith had been working as a detective at the police station for 26 years now, and in all that time, nobody had ever figured out how to tackle that bay. Anytime someone tried to measure, scan, or tamper with the bay for any reason, it went wrong. Equipment malfunctions, illogical readings, nothing had ever worked. And no bodies had ever been recovered.

The bay mystery had been Smith's pet project for months, but he'd made no headway whatsoever. It simply didn't make sense.

The most recent death had been one Matthew Enman, a law student visiting family for spring vacation. He had a well-off family, good friends, and a fiance that was to become a spouse in only a few months. Smith didn't claim to know about this boy's mental state, but by all accounts, he seemed to have been living a good life.

None of the deceased seemed to have anything in common. Wildly varying ages, backgrounds, and lives.

The bay was nothing if not a mystery, and Smith was set on figuring it out.

Smith was really unable to figure out anything at all.

He had gone to the ally more than once to check again and again, if he would find something that he was missing.

He waited for days together thinking and thinking about what was happening and was not still able to figure it out!

One fine morning he woke up and left his place went down to the alley kept searching! 10 miles away from the scene! What he found was another dead body that no one had even looked at for a long time. It was hanging from the bridge of the alley, that looked like a tiny piece of cloth. Smith thought what had happened suddenly and why was no one able to find this quick.

He called in the officers to check if this body was there since long and how was it missed! Smith was getting it clearer and found that there were many more dead bodies in and around the area. This body was of a rich woman who had multiple businesses. She was young and just 20 years old.

As the days became weeks, Smith reviewed and re-reviewed all of the information he had compiled. He had doggedly searched every possible source from information available in the public arena to sources reserved for law enforcement looking for some common thread. He interviewed every single family member, friend and associate of all souls who gave themselves to the bay in the last 12 months. He felt like he knew all of them personally, some even intimately after uncovering every possible detail of their lives and personalities. He had become invested in each of these people, gaining an understanding of who they were based on the stories relayed by those close to them, most happy but some unimaginably sad. He knew each of their likes and dislikes, their successes and failures, and had even uncovered a few of their secrets. Bad habits, quirks, kinks, lovers and one even living a double life with two complete families blissfully unaware of each other. It wasn't his place to divulge their secrets and he vowed to take them to his grave.

He was increasingly determined to make sense of what they had done and spent nearly all of his free time pouring over every detail about them. He couldn't find any reasons, obvious or concealed, nothing that indicated they weren't totally committed to living their lives for many years to come. There was nothing, in spite of the fact that his mind was constantly consumed with the question, there was no answer. He knew he was on the board of obsession, but he didn't care. It was just him and Meatball anyway.

Meatball was his devoted and beloved companion of 5 years in form of a 205 lb English Mastiff with a brindle coat and an attitude problem. Meatball didn't mind if Smith was obsessing, as long as he got his regular meals, walks and Smith didn't encroach on his side of the bed. So, there was nothing to stop him. No reason to give anything less than his all to understanding what had compelled these people to swan dive off of that damned bridge into that damned bay. He was at his wits end and could feel the panic creeping up when he realized he may never understand. He had done everything he could think to do and the only consistent answer was that some mystical force pulled them into the bay in hopes of experiencing whatever was on the other side. He didn't believe in that mumbo jumbo stuff though. When you die, you die. There's nothing after. It's just like Stephen Hawking said, the supposed afterlife was a fairy story for people afraid of the dark. And Smith wasn't afraid of the dark. He wasn't afraid of anything.

About 3 insomnia ridden weeks after he realized he had hit a stone wall and had no hope for a solution, it hit him. Sure, he hadn't slept more than 2 hours in a single night during the last 23 days. So what if he hadn't showered or taken Meatball for a walk in the last 6? He was of sound mind and tuned into this epiphany. It was the only way. He knew he had to jump to find out for himself what they were after. And whether they found it.