Annie Li stepped outside of the store, her skirt ruffling pleasantly around her knees in the spring wind. Confident in her purchases, she hitched her bag up on her shoulder and started walking. The sun was just going down, the streetlights just turned on. The street was fairly empty, while a few cars were haphazardly parked on the side. From her peripheral vision she caught someone walking, someone considerably larger than her. From this view they seemed to be walking towards her, so she started to walk a little bit faster, not daring a straight look in case they noticed she was nervous. It would be terrible if she turned out the be afraid of an old man with a cane.

Still nervous however, she kept up a pretty fast pace. It was when the figure got closer and closer that she started to half-jog, then reach into her bag for her phone. The figure still followed, not extremely close but too close for comfort. There was nobody else on the street, and the heavy thumping of the stranger's boots was nerve wracking. Just four more blocks. Come on Annie, you can make it four more blocks.

There was a hand on her shoulder. She screamed, but nothing came out; struggling, she elbowed her assailant, then whipped her head around. She barely got a chance to be shocked at the hooded figure that grabbed her, the one that looked exactly like the grim reaper, before she was hit over the head and everything went black.

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It's never a normal day at the Jeffersonian Institute forensics lab. Dead bodies arrive wrapped in tarps, then are displayed on a metal table in order to find out who they were, how they died, and who killed them. There's no shame at the Jeffersonian-- At least, not for the dead. The scientists have access to your love life, your sex life, your work life and your family life. They know things about you that would make you crawl into a hole forever if you knew they found out. But of course you wouldn't care either, because it would mean you were dead.

"Nigel, pass me the ten blade so I can match up the exact angle the blade entered the wound and make an analysis so we can find out what weapon killed her," Doctor Temperance Brennan said, leaning forward, her auburn hair up in a springy ponytail. The young assistant next to her jolted forward, grabbing the shiny knife and safely delivering it to his boss. Eager to please, he asked if there was anything else he could do.

"Yeah, get me and Bones some coffee, could ya?" A snide voice said as Agent Seely Booth entered, a sly grin on his face as he leaned forward on his toes, his thumbs tucked behind his "Cocky" belt.

"Booth, let Nigel be," Temperance said as she angrily stabbed a piece of raw chicken.

"Well, you can leave Nigel here to deal with this baby," Booth said, "Because we just got assigned to another case."

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"So Bones, what do you think?" Booth asked, the glare off his sunglasses blinding anyone within a ten mile radius.

"The head's been hollowed out in some sort of ritual," Brennan speculated, rotating the skull around in her hands. "There's a blunt trauma to the left side of the parietal bone, and scrapings along the left zygomatic suggest... cannibalism." She then stood up and placed the skull in an evidence bag. "Um, female. Low to mid twenties, most likely of Asian descent."

"Bones, what is that?" Booth asked, pointing at the ground.

Temperance Brennan looked to her left where she saw a small piece of paper on the ground. Upon picking it up, she saw a picture of the grim reaper giving a beating heart to a baby. It was a disturbing image, sending a chill down her spine. "I dunno Booth, it looks like some sort of.... trading card."

"When I was young the only cards we traded were baseball cards," Booth said. "Not these things. If I caught Parker with one of these--"

"Holy shit!" A voice exclaimed from across the small gully.

"What is it?" Booth demanded to know. He stood up out of his crouch to look across where people in white suits were scanning the area.

"We got more skulls back here!"

"How many?"

"A lot."

"How much is a lot?"

"Come see for yourself." Brennan quickly dropped the evidence back she was holding safely in the cooler and wiped herself off, then proceeded to where Booth was now standing, shaking his head.

Right in front of them was a crack in the ground surrounded by boulders, and filled inside that crack was the dull white color of bone. Empty eye sockets looked out at the forensics team, the threat of a serial killer looming over their heads.

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