Title: The First Four Doors
Author: Cassie Mun
Fandom: Fullmetal Alchemist
Characters: Greed, Frank Archer, Solf J. Kimblee and Cassie
Prompt: Ghostly Excursions
Word Count: 1042
Rating: T+
Summary: Frank Archer orders Solf J. Kimblee and Cassie to go with him to investigate a mysterious murder of a state alchemist and Greed joins them to protect his possession from Archer and Kimblee.
Notes: I am doing the 31 Halloween Writing Prompts this year, sounds like fun. And this has creepy scenes and it is not for the squeamish.
Disclaimer: I don't any of the characters from Fullmetal Alchemist, they are all owned by Hiromu Arakawa. I own Cassandra Lichtenberg.
It started simple and routine enough for the four of them. Actually three of them, Greed was hanging around to protect Cassie from Kimblee and Archer since he didn't trust either of them. The job was to do an investigation of a murdered alchemist that died via mysterious means. At first Archer and Kimblee didn't want Greed joining them, but that is when Cassie explained that Greed would be able to help because he might know things and find things their human senses couldn't. That was a good enough reason for Frank especially when Greed said he could pay for his own expenses on the trip.
As they took the train to South City, they read the reports and there are so many odd things that didn't fit and that wasn't counting the countless reports of military personnel that stated that the dead alchemist home was experiencing strange things that were quite bizarre. Frank thought that the men were pathetic scaredy cats, Kimblee was the same way but he was more of the skeptic thinking that the men were either imagining things or trying to get out of work. Cassie and Greed were on the other end and both of them believed that there was something going on, maybe on a supernatural level but they wanted to see to make sure.
Frank was glad he decided to take Cassie, Greed and Kimblee along. At least there was an even field of belief and skepticism in their group and the individuals' abilities and talents made the group better as a whole, and Colonel Archer wouldn't have it any other way. So on their way to South City they had a friendly debate about what was going on, what could be and what they had as evidence in the case so far. There were a couple of times that Frank told Solf to remove his fedora long enough to ask Cassie to hit Kimblee on the head with rolled up papers. All was all fun and games at first but when they got to the alchemist's home and started searching for clues, the first signs of whatever scared military men in the house started to show themselves to Archer, Kimblee, Greed and Cassie. And not in a very pleasant way either.
They decided to split up and check the first four rooms of the home. Splitting up they looked in all directions and inspected every nook and cranny in the hall before entering the first four rooms. The room Frank walked in to what looked like the living room with couch, loveseat and chairs. Everything looked fine and nothing was out of the ordinary, till something moved in the corner of Frank's left periphery. At first it looked like he assumed that a breeze from a window was causing the drapes to move. Walking up to the windows he realized that the windows were closed and there was no breeze, so he thought was imagining things, but then one of the walls looked like something was moving across it like some animal or person underneath a sheet. Seeing this, Frank's eyes widen as he quickly pulled out his pistol and looked around the room as his body shook as he was about to pull the trigger at any sign of movement on the walls.
The room Solf walked into looked like a study with various books and things. Kimblee was impressed by the room interior and the things in the room. Whoever this particular alchemist was, he knew his stuff, at least that what Kimblee was thinking as he looked around. Walking to the desk, he started opening drawers. All he could find was various research notes, bills and pay statements. Nothing out of the ordinary, but that is when he heard weird clicking sound in one of the walls. At first it he shook the sound off as the house settling one of the others, but that is when a black mass started to come out from behind a painting. At first Kimblee thought it was the sun hitting something outside causing the walls to cast shadows, and then he realized that the room was in the wrong angle to get any sunlight that time of day, especially from that part of the wall that the shadow was coming from. As he walked towards it Kimblee realized that the black shadow was more of a growing black mass of various centipedes, beetles and cockroaches.
Greed wandered into the dining room. He was impressed by the fancy dining set that was in various china cabinets in the room. He was seriously thinking of stealing them when he had the chance, but now he wanted to see if he could lift something smaller and less conspicuous from the room. As he looked around something told him something was wrong, something about this room told him it was more than it seemed. Looking around carefully Greed started to see the walls leak red. At first Greed thought that a pipe to the sewers from the upper bathroom started to leak shit, but as he walked closer to it, it didn't smell of shit, in fact it looked to red to be shit. Tasting it he realized it had a very familiar copper taste and soon figured out what it was. Backing away from the dining room Greed saw all the walls in the room start to bleed.
The last person was Cassie and she ended up in the first floor bathroom. Looking around things didn't look out of the ordinary. In fact things looked clean and nice. Nothing was out of place and it looked like it was recently cleaned. Looking through the cabinets and drawers she saw nothing out of place. Turning to look at herself in the mirror, she saw not just her reflection, but the reflection of a hideous monster as well. Seeing this Cassie ran straight to the door but the door slammed in front of her and locked her in the bathroom.
While the three men slowly walked back to the hallway they heard a blood curdling scream from Cassie from the shut bathroom door at the far end of the hall before a sudden creepy silence washed over the hall.
To Be Continued.