vatheon | Life's no fun without a good scare

It starts some time around 3am, Tuesday morning. Thin whispers of fog start appearing all throughout Vatheon, creeping through the narrow, winding streets, up the steps, and over the park. It starts in the lower district, but as the night progresses and daylight approaches, it spreads to the other districts as well, growing thicker and thicker as it does. By the morning rolls around, the mist is thick enough that visibility has been compromised greatly, and the temperature seems to have dropped a few degrees, an odd chill filling the air.

And on the walls, there are stains.

They are infrequent at first, just a odd ruddy brown smear and a oddly bright red drop here and there, but the closer to the Plaza, the more numerous they become. There is a large smear across the steps leading up to the Plaza, as if something big was dragged up them. In one place the blood -- for it is blood, there is no deny it at this point -- pools thickly as if whoever was responsible took a casual break there, leaving the poor victim to bleed out on the steps.

On the plaza, the mist is thinner, but that is no relief. Rather, it just functions to make the gruesome scene all the more clearer.

A woman is draped upside down on the coral. Or, well, woman. It was once a woman, certainly, but now it is nothing more than something straight out of a nightmare. The flesh seems to have been torn carelessly from her limbs here and there, showing the white gleam of her bones, her nurse outfit torn as if raked apart by giant claws and her head...

well, it isn't there anymore.

The ground in front of her is smeared with blood as well. But where the previous smears had been accidental, these are deliberate, long lines curving and meeting to spell out

hel pm e

But no help had been forthcoming, clearly. No, it seems that this murder, this brutal murder, was nothing more than a game to whoever did it. The walls of the buildings surrounding the plaza are coated in bloody, spelling out a long string of mocking 'HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA's and directly in the center, behind the coral.

Who is next?

The notice board seems to have been hit too. The killer did not tear down any of the notices on the board already, but they did cover the entire board with blood-stained sheets of paper, each adorned with the same text over and over and over again.

Chop chop, sweet Charlotte Chop chop till she's dead Chop chop, sweet Charlotte Chop off her hand and head.

For those brave enough to check, no, the poor girl still has both her hands. Was the killer just sloppy, or does this mean this is not Charlotte? So many unanswered questions, more born every passing moment.

Who had done this? Why? Where they going to strike again? And why had nobody heard anything?

[ooc note: Consider this your mingle log. Have fun, go forth, threadjack.

And as a further note, the fog does not seem to be clearing up as the week goes on.

]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ Kaito's eyes narrow as he glances back at the body. ] That is weird-most of surrounding scene also doesn't add up.

...Have you seen anyone besides me around the crime scene?

No offense, kid, but I don't know how anyting about tis is supposed ta add up.

[His ear twitches but he shakes his head.]

Not yet but give it a few minutes. Ting's like dis draw da press in no time. Sometimes before da police.

It's a murder isn't it? It's my job to piece together the clues and reveal the truth... [ He falters at that... Oh boy. Press. ]

The press are exactly who I don't want to deal with.

Dis ain't a murder...

[He frowns and just sort of glances at the scene then quickly back at Mr. Detective.]

It's a massacre.

No one wants to deal with the press, pal. But if yer looking for clues; why not start wit those funny letters.

[Yeah he noticed the weird spacing, but he isn't going to try anything further then that.]

The definition of murder is to forcibly take the life of something. And the spacing's not what concerns me-in fact it helps point to the idea that the woman did indeed write the message as I highly doubt she was concerned about the spacing of the letters while she knew her life was ending-

What do find strange is that she bothered to write out 'Help Me' at all. Why not scream? And if she couldn't then why not write a message to point us to the killer? It's possible that she did exactly that and the murderer realized this and covered up the true meaning of the message, but it's equally possible the murderer wrote everything-which bring me to another odd and disturbing fact-there is entirely too much blood spilled to have just come from one person.

Remind me ta never make poignant dialogues wit you.

[He doesn't want to think about people writing in blood or erasing it or that this is more then one person can hold. Nor does he want to suggest anything about screams or lack there of.]

Den take a closer look at her, maybe yer answer is der. Even I know dat humans can't scream if dey ain't got much of a throat.

[But can stay alive long enough to write something like that...then watch it get mangled.

Bugs visibly shudders and tugs his ears down low.]

Look, this isn't my sort of act. Detective work goes to sorts like Bogart or Wells. When people get stabbed in my world, they on'y get funny shaped holes. And they can walk away with just shake or two.

[ Kaito, ordinarily would back down. However, he's pretending to be Shinichi right now and even though he's a great detective Shinichi has no tact. ]

They also can't scream if they're missing a head-which might pose a problem if I don't find it soon-who ever did this might have wanted to be sure we couldn't easily identify the victim-the billboard would suggest 'Charlotte' as her name but the body, while decapitated- is not missing her hands.

...you tink der might be some others?

[Geez...he doesn't want to think about that. Some other poor slob getting hung up like a Picasso.]

Hey...she's a nurse so...wouldn't checkin' wit the hospital figure out who ain't there for woirk?

I think it'd be foolish to be foolish to think otherwise. The human body, surprisingly enough doesn't contain that much blood. On average- body holds about 5.2 liters- of course this varies depending on the weight and size of the victim.

As for the nurse outfit- yes, I fully intend to check the clinic's logs to see if anyone left early or missed their shifts due to unspecified reasons. Of course, I can't disregard the possibility that the victim isn't a nurse at all and merely dressed as one.

Unfortunately, with the head missing it'll be impossible to match dental records.

Tanks for the science lesson kid, now knock it off.

[He shudders at the idea of how many people it would take to make this mess.]

What about her hands?

[Now he's just going to be a jerk. He's irritated and as far as he thinks, this detective kid is just being a nosy Nancy now.]

Maybe she got a manicure and da salon's got a list a clients or a specific style. Sheesh.

Life's no fun without a good scare

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