END GAME

Chapter 12: The Garden of Death

This chapter contains gore, death, and various other dark and violent themes. Proceed with caution.

The acrid tang of smoke filled the frigid and gray pre-dawn air over the Chlorba District, hanging thick despite the persistent wind that sent the thick white clouds high above hurtling across the sky. A thick column of smoke still billowed upwards from the scorched shell of a warehouse, one where several emergency response vehicles had been stored. It had started burning in the early hours of the morning, around three o'clock. By the clock on Levi's watch, it was now nearly seven o'clock.

The firefighters were still spraying down the seared and still smoldering walls and interior of the building. The flames had burned so hot in some places that it had produced deposits of slag from where the brick and metal walls had begun to melt under the fury of the confined flames. They had managed to keep the fire contained to the single warehouse due to swift response, but a sudden wind change always brought the chance of carrying those few remaining live sparks to another building, one which would burn quicker and be more likely to spread the fire.

Levi leaned against a patrol car and watched as the firefighters finally began to slow the stream of water until no more came out. They began to wrap up the thick hoses as the last of the water splashed onto the ground outside of the warehouse. Part of the warehouse roof collapsed inwards, the screech of tin roofing and metal girders filling the air before there was a small ground-trembling shudder as it hit the warehouse floor. He would have to wait until the place was stable before anyone was allowed to go in and search the place for the three to six bodies he was already expecting within, buried beneath a thick layer of damp, lumpy ash and steaming metal, still hot to the touch.

A patch of yellow moved in his peripheral and Levi turned his head, watching as Irvin approached him. "As far as we know, no workers were in the warehouse when the fire started. The fire chief is thinking that vandals started the fire. I'm assuming that you have another idea, after all, this isn't something you typically come out for." Levi shrugged and ran his nail across the metal lighter in his pocket. "It seemed like something that would involve our case… Besides, it's not like I was asleep." White vapor ghosted from his lips, rising up into the soft gray light of dawn. "That is a strange case you're working, isn't it?" Irvin said, glancing over at the smaller man.

Levi gazed forwards, his eyes firmly fixed upon the burned shell of a building, his eyes grim and his mouth set into a thin line. "Irvin, something is happening. Something big is coming and I'm not sure what it all means."

By that afternoon two things had occurred; four small skeletons, charred and nearly unidentifiable, were pulled from the wreckage of the warehouse once it had been stabilized. The other thing was that two more children had gone missing during the night, both from the Chlorba District, by the names of Damien Twist and Karen Ramirez. The four skeletons that had been found were in the process of being identified. Dental records were necessary due to the distinct lack of DNA, but they had managed to locate all four skulls, all of them within feet of each other.

It was Friday, October the 11th, two days since the murders of David Smith and Eliza Elliot. There were no new clues, no new leads, nothing that could point them in the right direction. Whoever was behind this entire scheme was making sure that no traces other than the intentional ones were left behind. They were back to a standstill, trapped behind the barrier that came from the lack of knowledge. The case had gone from confusing to downright insane. Levi and Eren had gone over the note, the article and the Masters' document thousands of times, again and again and again until they were at the point of breaking from frustration.

The neighbors had all been interviewed and had all turned in with rock-solid alibis for the approximated times of death. Not only that, but the cameras in the halls had been tampered with; the new batteries had been replaced with dead ones, about twelve hours before the murders had occurred. There had been a slight power outage along that block at that time; when the lights came back on, the cameras did not.

As the days dragged on, smoke breaks for Levi became a thing more or less of the past, instead leading to both of them reaching for the coffee and various other caffeine-laced drinks whenever the need for a cigarette or to lapse into sleep arose. Levi had called Ilse numerous times, only to reach the woman's voicemail time after time again. Either she had no new leads for him or she was trapped in her lab living off of frozen meals while she dissected various things and experimented on others.

By five o'clock Saturday afternoon Eren was ready to scream and tear his hair out from frustration and despair. He couldn't tell whether those feelings had started to come when the case had started or whether they were simply overlaying the ones that were already there. It was hard to differentiate the moods now, especially when he spent so much time stressing over trying to find a clue, a hint, anything that could save these people, these children. The circle that they kept running in was infinite, stretching on with no end in sight. The document that he had found days earlier was one of the only glimmers of hope that they had, one of the others being the remaining files that were still coded, protected by numerous firewalls and an eternity code.

His computer was constantly on now, running through thousands upon thousands of passwords every hour on the hour, inserting every combination and string of words possible. Eren couldn't be sure how long it would take; hypothetically an eternity, hence the name. However, an eternity was not the amount of time they had. They had days, hours even, until the mysterious group could strike again, stealing away more children during the night, leaving people dead in their homes, and burning down buildings to dispose of the bodies once they were done with them, leaving behind no evidence of what they had done before the child's death.

Eren glanced up at the board that Levi had set up beside his desk, propped up on an easel-like structure. Blue thumbtacks represented the children that had been taken, green for where the bodies had been found, and red for the double murder. They were scattered all across the map of Eden, some close together and some far away. When it came down to examining the location of the victims there was absolutely no connection that Eren could see. Eren kneaded his pounding head with fingers stiff from going back and forth between flipping through papers and smashing, albeit gently, at his laptop.

He glanced up at the clock; 5:15. Mikasa and Armin would be at his apartment in about half an hour. Eren sighed and saved the documents before he closed them one by one, leaving the Breaker program open as he put the computer into sleep mode. "Levi, I'm heading back to my apartment." The other man didn't even glance up at Eren's words, too absorbed in examining the note and marking spots on the map where the next attack could possibly be. Eren almost felt jealous of the damn map which was foolish considering it was an inanimate object.

Eren sighed and slid the silent but still-warm laptop into his bag, flicking the flap into place before pulling it over his head. He spared one last glance at Levi, who was still focused intently on the map, before he pulled his eyes away and left, each step as heavy as sinking heart.

Mikasa and Armin knocked at his door ten minutes after Eren had returned to his apartment, Armin bearing a box of pizza and Mikasa clutching a brown paper bag and a book, the latter of which she handed to Eren when she entered. The cover was dark maroon, closer to black even, with the face of a woman, a lighter shade of red, with the title made of smoke-like characters; Doctor Sleep by Stephan King.

"That's the sequel to The Shining," Mikasa said as she pulled the small handful of white carnations from the paper bag. The withered carnations in the small green vase on the coffee table were taken out and replaced by the fresh ones before Mikasa dropped the older ones into the bag, sweeping the stray petals that had attempted to escape back into the bag.

The three friends crunched themselves onto the couch, invading each other's personal space with every other movement, resulting in an elbow to a ribcage here and a knee to the hip there. An episode of Doctor Who played, episode six of the 2005 series. "Do you have any new leads Eren?" Mikasa looked at him, an eyebrow raised as she waited for him to swallow so he could answer her question.

"There's been nothing new since I told you last," Eren said, "We're pretty much stuck right now with no hope of figuring this case out before some other kid gets taken or someone else is killed." Mikasa set her hand on Eren's shoulder, warm and gentle. He let it sit there for a few moments before it shrugged it off.

"You'll find something soon," Mikasa said, her voice soft, "I'm sure of it." Armin nodded in agreement on the other side of Eren. "Nobody is perfect and these guys sure aren't. They'll slip up soon. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but they'll mess up. It's human nature to do so. All you need is a single fingerprint or a drop of blood and you'll have them. You've just got to be patient. Don't lose hope yet." Eren glanced at his friends, both of whom offered smiles of encouragement. Eren smiled back at them, warmed by their solid belief in him and his success. "Thanks you two," he murmured after a moment. "I'm sure we'll get these guys soon."

Lights flashed red, blue, red, and blue, flickering off the stone brick and glass walls of the Trost Botanical Gardens. Several police officers milled around; Mike Zacharius and Nanaba Suzuki from their station along with several other officers from two of the police stations in Trost. They were calling out to each other, flashlight beams sweeping the ground as they searched the perimeter of the building for any hints of their murderers. A small, heavy-set man with thinning gray hair and small blue eyes behind circular glasses sat huddled on the pavement, wrapped up in a threadbare gray and scratchy wool blanket. He stared down at the ground, his eyes blank with horror.

Levi crouched down next to the man and put a hand on his shoulder. The man jumped beneath the touch and slowly inched his head up till he could look Levi in the eye. "Sir, what is your name?" The man shuddered and pulled the blanket closer around him, his eyes slowly focusing on Levi. "J-James Mitchell…"

"Can you tell me what happened?"

The man hesitated for a few moments before he swallowed nervously and nodded. "I… I came in to unlock the greenhouse, just like I do every morning. The doors were already unlocked though. I wasn't sure if Ernie had gotten here before me, he sometimes does that. I went in and… and there was this dark puddle on the floor. I wasn't sure what it was… Sometimes the pipes leak and it was still dark. I walked around for a few minutes, looking for Ernie, before I checked the tropical greenhouse and I… I saw them. Both of them, just lying there, dead." The man clutched his head, shaking like a brittle leaf in a gale, as he rocked slightly.

Levi hesitated before he gave the man an awkward pat on the shoulder and rose, motioning for one of the paramedics to come over. Levi set off, his feet quiet on the cold pavement, white steam flowing from his lips, as he pulled the door open, leaving Eren to slip through into the gardens behind him.

The floor was made up of pieces of light-colored stone that had been cemented together, giving it a cobbled look, much like how roads looked centuries ago before tarmac and asphalt had been created. Plants covered every surface, ranging from patches of earth actually set into the floor to metal wire shelves several rows high to baskets of vines and drooping plants that hung from the ceiling. Small fountains dotted the place, some twisted with vines, others void of plants. Several greenhouses were built into the building itself, set off to the right of the main entryway.

The pool of blood was twenty feet from the entryway There was too much blood for one person to possibly spill by themselves and there were two sets of marks, smears of blood leading away to the right, towards the greenhouses. Levi headed straight for the greenhouse, walking alongside the smeared trail of blood. The door to the greenhouse had been left open but no humid air was spilling out. The temperature and humidity controls in the greenhouse had been turned off as soon as the police had arrived on scene. An officer from the Trost District was standing at the door, his gun clutched in his hands. He stared straight ahead, unlinking and unmoving.

Levi pulled two pairs of gloves from his pockets, tossing the larger of the two at Eren before he slipped his own on. The two victims were had been dropped just inside of the doorway, their limbs askew and the cobbled stone beneath them was red with the watery blood. The sprinklers had gone off before the police had arrived, washing the blood off of the two women and leaving it to mix and dilute with the thin coating of water on the floor that slowly trickled towards the drainage slits. Nanaba was waiting inside for them, a notepad clutched in one hand while the other rested on the butt of his pistol. "Who do we have now?"

"The victims' names are Anna and Jamie Harper, sisters twenty-five and twenty-two years old respectively." He gestured towards each of the girls in turn, Anna being the one to the right of the door and Jamie the one to the left. We have already contacted their bosses. Both were at their respective jobs last night. We will have more information on them within a few hours." Nanaba flipped the notebook shut and edged a little further out of the way, pressed against a potted palm bush as Levi moved in closer to inspect the bodies.

Jamie lay on her back, her wide brown eyes staring up sightlessly at the ceiling. Her skin was too pale and her face had a bluish cast to it, like someone who had been starved of oxygen. Her light blue t-shirt was more of a dark red now, black under the faint lights. Her shirt had been slashed, revealing a pale abdomen covered in stab wounds, mostly concentrated around the lower half of her torso. A thick black cord was lying across her neck, the angry red indents from where it had dug into her neck still visible. A wooden baseball bat lay a few feet from her left hand, splotched with blood.

Levi cast his gaze to Anna, who was lying on her side, her limbs mottled purple and blue with bruises and jutting out at odd angles. Her left forearm had snapped, leaving a piece of bone pressing up into the skin, a rigid bump under pale flesh. There were finger-shaped marks around her throat, red and dark as the remaining blood settled into the places of injury. Her face was swollen, the left side a mask of bruises and cuts that rose up an inch further than the other side. A spot on the side of her head was coated with blood and water, plastering the blonde hair to her head. A gash was visible beneath the clumps of blood drying in her hair. She had been hit in the head, at least once, and numerous other times across the rest of her body. Hanji would be required to see the full extent of the damage, although the blow to her head was probably had had killed her.

There was something sticking out from Anna's right hand, the corner of a plastic baggie clenched between pale, rigid fingers. Levi shifted forwards in his crouch and slowly pried her fingers apart. They were thankfully loose, the humidity from the tropical greenhouse keep the stages of rigor mortis at bay for a while longer. Someone had put a small and clear waterproof bag into her hand, a small slip of yellow paper inside. Levi tugged it open, removed the paper, and pulled it out of its crisp folds. The note was typed, the black font screaming out at him.

Paradise is gone now, here is the cost;
Pieces will be taken, lives will be lost.
Midnight brings the flight of the crows
Tick, tock, the gears won't stop till the shops close.

There was another red slash beneath the text, taunting him with its mysteries. Levi fought the urge to clench the note in his hand and instead folded and slid it back into the bag before he sealed it and dropped it in his pocket. A scraping sound brought his eyes up. Eren held the bat gingerly between two gloved fingers that clutched the knob. Eren glanced up at Levi and turned the bat around. A 'C' had been carved into it, a straight cut under the bottom of it. They were being left a message, spelled out on the objects left at the scenes. Just what are they getting at? What the hell could the message be?

Zoe pulled the sheets away from the victim's bodies and began to read off of their charts, Anna's first and then Jamie's. "Anna Harper, she was bludgeoned to death. The marks on the right side of her head match up to that of the barrel of the bat. She was struck three times in the side of the head, numerous times on the rest of her body, and most likely someone had kicked or hit her in the face with their hands and feet. The blows to the head are the cause of death. The second one is the blow that actually killed her as it fractured her skull and sent several shards of the bone into her brain. One of her arms was fractured along with several ribs, not to mention the damage to her internal organs."

Zoe moved onto Jamie, picking up her chart from the metal bin. "Jamie was stabbed seven times in the lower torso, all in non-vital areas. She would have bled out over the course of an hour or two, possibly more depending on how much she moved. The cord around her neck was used to strangle her, probably while she was still living, judging from the marks on her neck and jaw from where she presumably tried to pull it away if she was conscious at the time. Strangulation is her cause of death."

She stepped back to let them search the bodies. Levi and Eren pulled Anna Harper's body into an upright position, shifting aside the thick blonde hair so that they could peer at her neck. It was void of scars, just like Elliot's and Smith's had been. It was the same case with Jamie's neck. Their cases were similar; they were too old to fit the pattern that the perpetrators had set, they had no marks like Masters had borne, and their blood types were not AB-. The only thing that continued to link all of the victims was the red slash, its meaning eluding them no matter what they tried.

"Levi, I received word from the coroners holding the found skeletons. They've ID's the bodies. I've printed off the information already, a copy for each of you." Zoe tugged the sheets back into place before she darted into her office, emerging moments later clutching two sets of paper, each bound together by paperclips. "You can look over those later when you get back to the station," Zoe said as she shoved them into their hands. "In the meantime I have another case to handle, so unless you want to stick around for a class of Autopsy 101, I advise you vamoose."

Eren looked at the woman, who had a grim set to her mouth but an excited sparkle in her eyes. She is so weird sometimes. Eren jerked backwards as a hand yanked on his sleeve, pulling him out of the morgue. "Come on you idiot," Levi muttered as he pulled him along, the back of his head facing Eren, preventing him from seeing the flush that raged across the man's face. "That is a special kind of torture. It should be reserved for one of the rings of Hell or something like that." When they burst through the doors to the cold gray world outside Levi dropped his hand from Eren's sleeve, using the hand to light a cigarette instead, which he smoked as they made their way back to the station.

Levi stopped outside of the station to light another cigarette. Eren hesitated beside of him, unsure of whether to continue inside or to wait on the other man. "Go on in," Levi said, waving his hand and sending the scent of lemongrass in Eren's direction. "Start getting a list of all of the victims together or something. I'll come in and fix the map in a few minutes." "Sure. I'll see if someone has left any information on the Harper's on your desk and go through it if they have." Levi jerked his head in response and Eren pushed his way inside, the warmth enveloping him. He dropped his jacket on the coatrack by the door and dodged his way past several officers before he threw the packet of papers onto the desk. He pulled a piece of paper and a pencil from one of the metal desk drawers and set to putting the list together. It was a little disheartening to put the list together, especially when he looked at the ages of the children who had either died or gone missing, never to be seen again.

Alice Benedict (9) – deceased

Diego Santiago (7) – deceased

Jenny Tripp (4) – deceased

Samuel Weiss (6) – deceased

Lilly Murray (2) – deceased

Kenny Snyder (5) – deceased

Antonio Gonzalez (10) – whereabouts unknown

Lucia Long (7) – deceased

Joshua Green (3) – deceased

Camilla Edwards (3) – whereabouts unknown

Bruce Springs (4) – deceased

Molly Whitney (8) – deceased

Damien Twist (4) – whereabouts unknown

Karen Ramirez (6) – whereabouts unknown

Eliza Elliot (29) – deceased

Daniel Smith (37) – deceased

Anna Harper (25) – deceased

Jamie Harper (22) – deceased

The questions still remained for the latter half of the list; why would they pick these people? Why would they suddenly change their pattern, what little pattern that they had? Why would they start leaving notes at the scenes of murders but not at kidnappings, where they could obtain ransoms? Eren glanced up; Levi stood in front of the board, staring intently at the map. "What about where the murdered victims lived leading up to their deaths?"

Levi glanced over at Eren, an eyebrow questioningly raised before a look of approval momentarily crossed his face. Eren could almost swear he had just seen a small smile tugging at the corners of Levi's lips before the other man walked away. Levi returned a minute or two later, a box of colored thumbtacks clutched in his hand. Eren watched as Levi shook the tacks out onto the desk, sorting through them till he found three yellow ones. Eren took that as his cue to call out the three addresses. The latest idea had given them nothing yet, but ideas were something.

At this point every single inch that they gained was a precious commodity, scarce and in high demand. Eren sighed as he looked back at the sheets of information, looking for anything that could help them. Nothing… there's nothing… these people are dying and we can't do anything to stop it. We need something, anything.

Chapter 12: End

Sorry it's a bit late, but I'd rather be passing Algebra than uploading. Haha, anyways, here is chapter 12 for all of you darlings. It's late so I'll keep this short. Also, I apologize for those who read the last chapter before I was reminded about a gore warning... I feel really bad about that. Also many thanks to calleyrose, a wonderful person who helped me rewrite the smut for chapter 9~

calleyrose: I am so, so, so, so, so, so, so sorry about forgetting that. I forget a lot of stuff. And you're letting a 2 year old read this...? Just making sure I read that right lol.
ichiruzuka: Understandably. The change is meant to be confusing, you know, how people will double back to try and throw people off their trail. It's kind of like that, but not. Don't worry, everything will start coming to light soon.