Darkness of Isolation

by Undomiel5

December 2017. Kateri always joked, only half-seriously, that she was jinxed when she was split up from her usual partner and partnered with one of her other teammates while on a hunt. Here is one of the reasons why. In other words, the explanation of the first half of the December SNAFU of 2017.

4. Missing Scene: Kenny's Realization

The house was unnervingly quiet, save for his occasional call of "FBI." Clearing the house, or rather his half thereof, was familiar, and he completed the task with practiced movements. The house seemed deserted, and finally Kenny cleared the last room, called the all clear, and holstered his gun.

Keeping his head on a swivel—between the house and the creepy weather, Kenny felt on edge—he headed back towards the entrance way. He had thought he had heard his partner call the all clear, but the house was large, and there were enough halls and rooms to make it hard to hear. The entrance way was deserted, the door half-open as they had left it not long before.

Kenny waited for several minutes, but his partner did not appear. He frowned, tapped his foot semi-impatiently, and waited another minute. Finally, he bellowed, "Kat, you get lost or something?"

The silence was deafening, and his heart leapt into his throat. What the *** is going on?

Kenny redrew his gun and started re-clearing Kat's end of the house. Every room was clear and deserted. There were no signs of his partner or of anyone else being in the house. There was no clue of where his partner was, no dropped belongings, no signs of a scuffle. It was as if Kat had up and disappeared into thin air.

"Kat! KAT! Call out!"

No matter the number of times he hollered for his partner or checked and rechecked the rooms and even rechecked outside and in the garage, there was no sign of his partner, no sign she had ever been with him. Though he was just slightly disturbed by her horror movie-esque disappearance, Kenny's main emotion was anger, anger at himself for agreeing to split up, for not being there to watch her back and anger at whoever or whatever had caused her disappearance. There was no good reason for her to have just up and disappeared.

Finally, Kenny reluctantly admitted defeat, and fuming, anger simmering in his veins, he returned to the car. Pulling out his phone, he called his boss.

"We've got a big problem," Kenny said, trying to force his temper back under control.

"What happened?" Was Jess' immediate response.

"Kat. I lost her. We split up, and now I can't find her."