FOR BETH! (Hugs Beth) Beth0987

This chapter was written by Beth. We will alternate the writers throughout.

Chapter 2: The Dead body…..

The body had washed up just outside Kalm. Aiden knelt down to have a closer look, wincing as mud squelched under her knees. The water at her apartment had been cut off after the second AVALANCHE attack, and it made washing clothes almost impossible.

The victim was a pretty young woman in her early twenties, with brown hair twisted up in an intricate braid only slightly unraveled by the water. Her pink dress was old, but several tears in the fabric had been neatly mended. It was the kind of clothing Aiden would have expected to see on someone from the slums, but the Ribbon that held back the girl's hair looked extremely expensive. Possibly one of the kind that some soldiers used to protect themselves from poisoning. One of the most interesting cases Aiden had had in the time she'd been here was a ShinRa officer who'd died of poisoning after the Ribbon someone had sold him had been fake.

'Is this our victim?' Aiden turned round and saw Yelina leaning over the body along with Holly, carefully keeping their clothes away from the thick mud. Yelina looked pointedly at the state of Aiden's jeans, which had thick brown dirt clinging to them from knees to ankles.

'Yeah.' Aiden shrugged.

'Apparently a fisherman came to check his lobster traps and she was just lying here,' Tim Speedle said, appearing beside them as if by magic. He'd just finished scanning some of the beach.

'Not a nice place to die,' said Yelina. Aiden shook her head. 'She didn't die here. No blood, and from the look of the chest wound even she had been here all night it couldn't have washed all the blood away,'

Aiden watched as Yelina pulled back the torn dress and exposed the massive gash beneath.

'That's almost definitely the cause of death,' Aiden pointed to the cut. 'It's on her back as well. Like someone ran a sword through her,'

Yelina looked skeptical. 'Pushing a sword straight through someone's spine, internal organs and solar plexus would take incredible strength. Superhuman, almost,'

Aiden nodded. 'Still, I can't think of anything that could have caused this kind of damage,' Absently she bent down and brushed a strand of hair from the girl's face. She couldn't help it. Even though she had been here for just over a month and had investigated at least twenty murders since then, there was something about this victim that seemed… special. Aiden thought she had probably been one of those people who was instantly likeable, who everyone loved. Even dead she still had an air of happiness around her. It was almost unreal.

Yelina's voice cut into her thoughts. 'Do we have anyone who can take her to the village?'

'One or two of the fisherman volunteered,' Aiden replied. Truthfully, all of the men in Kalm had been almost begging Aiden to let them do it, which was odd, but she wasn't surprised. Even though she usually had to beg and plead for people to help her and usually ended up carrying some corpse's feet herself, she thought the villagers would want to be near this girl.

This investigation would be her strangest ever.

Chapter 3 – An autopsy is conducted, and strange things are found…