Chapter 1: Semper, Infidis
Even in the most extreme possibilities, the falsest of fallacies, a kernel of truth lay at its heart. Without this truth, the lie, the possibility of lie, no longer exists.
Brightly lit corridors, walls of unmarred white, smooth slick floors, fill the building. A lone pair of stilettos clacks down the hall. The woman, tall, blonde, stops to examine an open door. She finds the sleep study patient in her bed, hair spilled along the dampened white pillow. The tall blonde checks her vitals, spots no trouble, and turns shutting the door. The woman comes to the end to the hall swiping her key card into the slot. The scanner beeps and she leans forward to scan her retina. Her identity confirmed she proceeds out the building and onto the street. Her car, a blue Prius is parked on the front walk. She steps in side and drives. Slowly brushing her hair out of her eyes she notices a quick movement behind her. She slams the brakes but knows she is far too late. A hand covers her mouth and the car screeches to a halt. The assailant presses something cold, metallic to her throat. Her muffled scream quickly dies out.
Mulder leaned back in his office chair, placing his feet on the desk top. He split another sunflower seed with his teeth and flicked his pencil up at the ceiling. It fell, missing the mark and striking his head. Mulder glared at the disobedient pencil. He glanced across his desk where Scully was supposed to be finishing their case report. Noticing she had dozed off, Mulder smiled. The number of times she had fallen asleep on duty. He chuckled slightly. He spat the sunflowers shell out in the trash, stood and retrieved the papers from Scully. He'd let her sleep, finish the paperwork, and pick on her when she woke. Mulder returned to his desk sitting up straight, that irksome pencil in hand and began to write.
"Hey Scully," Mulder whispered gently shaking her shoulder.
"Hmmm…?" Scully's eyes flickered open, the blurry room coming into focus. She stretched her arm out, nearly hitting Mulder's chest.
"You fell asleep on the job," he smirked, "Again." Scully rolled her eyes. She noticed the light blue glow and soft hum of the projector. She stood up facing Mulder,
"And what have we here, zombies? Warlocks?"
"Har-Har," he sarcastically grumbled. He clicked on the remote bringing to light the first picture. A young woman lain out on a medical exam table. Her long blonde hair was matted with mud and grit. Mulder studied Scully as she studied the picture.
"She was found in a ditch by a research facility in North Dakota. Her car was found two blocks away—wiped of trace evidence. When they found her the medical examiner approximated time of death to be around 8-12 hours earlier."
"And... what makes it an X-file?"
"Wait for it…" He clicked the next slide revealing the reason for investigation, "…hah-za!"
"What am I looking at?" inquired Scully, squinting at a new picture, "And how is it remotely related to the first picture?" The second picture showed a skeleton, on the same table, with signs of advanced decomposition, a body buried for several years. It was surrounded by a puddle of some kind of gelatin, or liquidized substance. Some of the liquid had dripped into a puddle on the white floor, revealing its color to be pale, flesh like. Another gruesome picture showed hair, near the skull of the woman, as if it had simply taken off a wig. The next was of her hand, a small unharmed silver ring on her finger.
"That," remarked Mulder, "Is the body two hours later, pulled from the morgue for examination before burial."
"I don't know what could have caused such a thing…" Scully muttered, inching closer to the projected image.
"Mulder, it's almost as if…" she winced slightly, "Her skin has fallen off… and muscle tissues… I don't know what could've…" She trailed off. "Was anything else found upon initial examination?"
"Yeah—uh just one sec…" He said fiddling with the projector's clicker. "It broke again," he sighed. He attempted throwing the projectile, missed the trash, and turned back to Scully.
"Well, I believe it's time for manual drive," he clasped his hands together and rubbed them. Mulder held his breath and pressed the next button on the machine.
The last slide was again, of the blonde girl intact, all limbs and flesh. Her hair wash brushed away from her throat revealing a three pronged puncture wound at the base of her neck. The holes looked deep and at their edges held a mucky brown/black color, almost burned, like meat. The girl herself was otherwise unharmed. No signs of any other harm. A slight mark on her forearm suggested a struggle, but if one had taken place it was brief and wouldn't have left any evidence to study, her fingertips, like the rest of her were now a puddle of goo.
Scully pressed her hand to her head. This was an X-File, as much as they all were. But it was new. Nothing quite like it existed. Unless, she thought, you counted the alien bounty hunter. She silently cursed herself for the thought. There are no such things as aliens. Or monsters. Monsters were only men, cruel, insane, twisted men. Monsters were conjured up to place blame somewhere, on someone. But now she reasoned, she would need to find this killer. The contact of Mulder's believed that the prong marks dubbed the case an X-file. She began to think aloud,
"This was their reason for contacting you?"
"Yup. Any theories?"
"Well, it's probably not an alien vampire raised from the dead to murder young women."
"And why not?"
"Because none of those things exist, Mulder."
"Ever the faithless."
"Well, fine. What is your brilliant theory?"
"I don't have one," he shrugged turning off the projector and heading for the door.
"You don't know," Scully dryly remarked, "Great. So where are you going?"
"We. We are going to North Dakota so that you can look at the remains and we can solve an X-file," he holds out his arm with plane tickets, disappearing out the door frame.
"Perfect," Scully mutters grabbing her coat and following him out the door.
AN: This is my first time writing fanfiction. I appriciate any constructive criticism but please try to be nice. Thank you for reading!