WARNING, IF YOU HAVE ISSUES WITH BLOOD, CHILDREN'S DEATHS OR A WEAK CONTROL OVER REGURGITATION, REFRAIN FROM CONTINUING.

well, you can continue after the next chapter, it'll be fine then.

~ YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED. ~

IF YOU GET NIGHTMARES, IT'S ENTIRELY MY FAULT. I DEEPLY APOLOGIZE.

HERE WE GO.

- A -

Booth had started barking orders at the officers before he even saw the scene. He noted with a grimace the gathering crowd of office workers that had stopped out of curiosity, and then did a double take at the look of horror on their faces. Not good, not good at all. Ordering the crime scene to be shielded from public view, Booth checked the faces of the officers, and decided that there was too much green for a normal murder. When was murder considered normal anyway, he chided himself. His mind reeling with every case that had caused him nausea, he steeled himself, and turned to look at the playground.

Whatever he was reprimanding the rookies then died on his lips.

To say it was a body dump was doing the crime scene an injustice. Where was the body anyway, Booth's mind noted with sudden clarity. He swallowed the primal urge to throw up this morning's toast, and really took in the ghastly display.

The first thing Booth noticed was the excessive amount of blood on the slide of the playground. It looked like soft cheese in some places where it had been left to dry and the blood had coagulated. His mind instantly made a connected to lumpy yogurt, and he fought a dizzy feeling. Some of the blood was still dripping onto the ground at the end, and it pooled in a gruesome puddle. The light was dancing off it in an almost mocking way, bright red like a pigeon-blood ruby. The light breeze pulled to him some of the sick, rusty odor and Booth could feel breakfast starting to rise. It smelled fresh, too fresh, his brain noted unwillingly, and Booth wondered if he had seen enough disgusting crime scenes to discern the smell of rotting blood and fresh one. He suppressed the cold chill that came.

He tore his eyes from the blood, with a decidedly off feeling about it. Shelving a mental note to ask Cam, he moved on the swings.

He nearly fainted.

There was a dead girl on the swings, no more than eight years old. Her feet had glittery red ballet flats, with the straps wrapping her ankles. The tips of the shoes barely touched the dirt, and she swayed gently in the breeze. Almost as if she were a fragile display. She was dressed in a weird, old, dirty pinafore, and she sat on one of the seats, head peacefully resting on one of the creaking chains. Well, as peaceful as she could with her neck sporting a huge gash halfway round in front. The blood had dried, but not before it had been spurted all over the ratty dress. Her hair had been brushed delicately, and braided into pigtails, with red rubber bands. The kind you would use to hold rolled-up newspaper with. Her face was frighteningly pale, with sunken sockets, eyes open, grey lips mocking him with a ghost of a smile. Booth noted, with the beginnings of an unwanted queasiness, that there was no blood in her hair, and it was way too neat. Almost as if the sicko had tied it up himself. He resisted the urge to scream, and continued his observation.

Then he spotted the skull, and fought for hold over his breakfast. The little girl cradled it in her small, delicate hands, resting on her lap. It was covered in a mass of maggots, flies thick in a cloud. Booth's mind suddenly snapped up the small detail that there were no flies around the blood on the slide, or on the girl's body. Everything that should be on a dead rotting corpse was fighting for a small spot on that freaky skull, still sporting flesh, empty sockets, and teeth. A cockroach darted over the maggots, and Booth could feel the fight to keep his toast down losing.

He hurried away and asked the closest officer for a barf bag. Now grumpy and stomach rather empty, he resumed his efforts in securing the scene as the forensic vans arrived, making extra care to avert his eyes from the body. He also noted that the officers were unusually quick to set up the shields around the crime scene.

Cam was the first from the Lab to look at the scene, and Booth's deep sense of dread turned into a visible shake when he saw Cam's face drain of color.

I hope that you haven't followed Booth reactions to the crime scene. I decided to break the crime scene into two chapters due to the amount of detail I ended up writing. The investigation of the crime scene will be less... disturbing.

All reviews, suggestions and follows are welcome. :)