My Heart is Mine in the House of Hearts | Chapter 3 | Body Reveal
[cw: head trauma, chest trauma, fire, probably gore maybe]
This motive was… different. There was much less urgency, much less demand for action, compared to the first two. Some of you had dismissed it quickly, but others pondered on it… and pondered on it. There was relative silence, though, after one attempted murder and the resulting heavy-handed retribution, as everyone tried to process what had passed, repairing and breaking down alliances. Friends comforted each other all through the station.
Some of you, however, were busy.
[Please report to the Entry Stairwell on the Upper Concourse. A murder has been committed! The Benefactors wish for you to investigate and catch the culprit. Don’t waste time.]
Kayu’s forced cheerfulness was starting to sound a little less forced and more like she had been broken beyond what she had ever thought possible.
[♪♪♪]
As soon as you reach the Upper Concourse and begin making your way towards the far end of the hall, you start to pick up the smell of smoke. It isn’t overpowering yet, but something is definitely burning. Doubtless, you began to start sniffing the air and looking around, searching for the flickering of flames and the rising of smoke.
You find it as you pass the area where the Information Desk stands. Flames dance and lick at the surface of the desk, and are starting to crawl down a piece of twine that you step over on the way. That can’t be good…
Finally, you make your way past the security kiosk, deciding that the fire could wait for now. Who would you find around the corner?
For some of you, that answer was a relief. For others, it was a devastation.
As you turn the corner, the first thing you notice is blood. The smell is strong, and the sight is enough to churn all but the strongest of stomachs. You see at the base of the stairs… the motionless body of Atenemhet, the SHSL Egyptologist - the first of the Occult Club to fall.
He lays almost peacefully in a pool of his own blood, or at least as peacefully as someone whose head has been hit repeatedly enough to be undoubtedly, one-hundred percent dead, can be expected to lay. A bloody fire extinguisher lays a few feet away from his corpse.  For some reason, his shirt and bandages that had been wrapped around his chest were cut up the middle, and there’s an incision - or is it a hole? - in his torso just beneath his ribs.
You may not have known him well, or you may have considered him very dear. Regardless, there’s one thing you know for sure: He didn’t pass over into the afterlife peacefully. A murderer is once again in your midst.
It’s up to you to find them.
[Art by Dani!]
