Hello everyone and welcome back to HellFall!
So it's been a while. Luckily, this is an incredibly long chapter so you'll get everything you missed out on.
We moved silently through the dark hallways of the base we'd visited a mere month ago, where we'd lost more than one member. I never expected to be back here, especially not looking for dead people.
Those of us who'd been here already before knew to skip past most every room, despite the fact that AROW insisted that we check each one. All we found were dusty, rotten, or dead versions of everything we'd seen the first time. The rooms yielded nothing of interest or use, as expected.
The final room was left the same as we'd left it: the curtain pulled across the stage and rotten corpses littering the auditorium. All of AROW recoiled at the scent, reeling back into the hallway to puke or cover their noses. The stench was awful, but it was no less than what I'd expected. I walked straight in, fingers clasped around my nose. While I'd expected it, I wasn't unfazed.
"Come on, they went around here," I called to AROW. I was a little impatient after searching through so many empty rooms, though I figured I ought to have a bit more sympathy for these guys.
Al followed through first, his shirt pulled up to cover his nose as best it could from under his police grade armor. The others slowly followed him out, doing the same thing.
I reached the far wall and pointed to a particular spot. "Wintanweorth was here, wounded. He was gone when the fighting ended," I said, turning to look around the rest of the room. There was a path leading past the curtain to the storage rooms. I started towards it. "In here Octavia fought Cinder and chased Gale down there," I pointed down another pathway leading deeper backstage. "Ember followed her for backup, and we didn't see any of them after that." I paused for a second, recalling what I'd seen at the top. "The path leads to an open platform. There was a lot of blood and Octavia's arm up there. Otherwise we couldn't find much of anything." I shook slightly, trying to keep my emotions under wraps. I wanted to remain professional around these more professional people, despite the fact that they'd just exposed weakness a moment before at the stench.
No one reacted to my subtle crying, but instead set out in search of clues. One of them, Redmond MacGrory, a tall man with long red hair tied into a ponytail, left to return to the main auditorium. "I'll look into Wintanweorth," he called over his shoulder. Oxford Neville, a stout pale man with pitch black hair and eyes, followed after him. "I'll assist," he said.
"I'll look around here. Wisteria, go with Azure to the platform," Al said. A young woman, whom I assumed to be Wisteria Drake, approached me, Al went and began to observe a massive, oddly human-shaped crack in the wall.
"Can you take me to the platform?" She asked. Her voice was both soothing and comforting, and I figured that she had noticed what I was feeling and had empathy. While I didn't really wish for it right now, I was happy that she was caring enough to try. I nodded, refusing to say anything, and walking down the far path, ultimately reaching the platform. Veil joined us, just in case. None of us spoke, and I was grateful for it. I wasn't in the mood for talking or interaction of any kind really.
The platform was empty as far as I could tell. Octavia's arm was gone. There weren't even bones left. My guess was that it'd been picked clean by local birds or swept away by strong winds.
"Where was the arm?" Wisteria inquired, looking around the flat area. I pointed towards the left edge.
"Right around there," I replied, approaching it. Even all this time later, I could still vaguely make out where the pool of blood had been. "Her arm was around this area."
Wisteria followed after me, kneeling down and looking over the area. "Looks right to me," she said, likely noticing the faint outline of the blood as well. "Do you know anything else?"
I hesitated, not knowing what else to say. There wasn't anything, not to my knowledge anyway.
"I know it's hard," she started. "But if you have anything else, we could really use it."
It was clear by her tone of voice that she thought we didn't have much to go on. Whether she was suspicious of me hiding anything or not, it was obvious that we had very little information. Chances are this would be a case solved purely by luck.
I shook my head, knowing that there wasn't any more information that I could offer. The woman turned to face Veil, who did the same.
Wisteria sighed, "okay, well. Let's use what we can," she said, turning back to what was the location of the arm. She stared long and hard at it, ultimately pulling an ultraviolet light out from her backpack and running it over the blood. Why, I wasn't entirely sure. It wouldn't help a whole lot, or so I thought.
While she scanned the ground I decided to look around the platform, hoping that maybe there'd be more blood or something I could see from this vantage point. The sandy brown mountains were quite close by, protruding from the ground as if attempting to pierce the sky. Below were dust clouds and the sound of wind whipping through the valley. I couldn't see much else beyond that. The ground seemed to be obstructed by the storm.
"Azure," Veil called, somewhat quietly. I turned, and she gestured for me to come. I followed her to Wisteria, who was now, while in a squatting position, moving across the platform with her light, picking up on more and more blood stains.
"The arm bled here," she started, noticing that we had joined her. "And dripped off the platform. But, there was more blood here, spread somewhat thinly, as if something had been dragged across it and fallen." She looked up at us, "could've been your guys."
She continued moving along the platform, shining the light over the entire thing. She stopped at the north edge, staring intently at the ground. "This blood looks pretty thick," she said. "Looks to me like someone could've sat here, or at least been here. Maybe they fell off as well?"
Again, she glided across the ground effortlessly, as if she had done this a million times before. It was actually rather graceful to watch. She had so much control over her squatted body, something that I could never hope to achieve.
She stopped suddenly, though for what reason I couldn't exactly tell, and began to mumble to herself.
"What is it?" Veil asked, taking the initiative to ask when I couldn't.
"Well," she started, "these dots here. They kind of look like drops, but at the same time…" she moved the light around a bit more, "What are these smears?"
I crouched down and looked over the blood with her. Sure enough, there was a dot and a smear just next to it. "It's a shoe," I said after only a little thought. The shape very closely resembled one, there was no question.
"Well," Wisteria started, "heels, maybe. But who would wear heels to a fight?"
"Cinder Fall would," I replied. "She was backstage for a bit, who's to say she didn't come this way?"
Wisteria paused to take in the information, then shrugged, "I suppose so," she replied simply. She seemed rather rushed, as if this was just another case that she needed to solve. Maybe it was for her. Maybe she just wanted it over with. Or maybe this was just how she worked.
As suspected, she followed the now-established footprints across the platform. It was clear by now that they were from heeled shoes. They appeared to be walking and performing fancy footwork, as if engaged in combat. Sure enough, they led us to the backstage entrance.
"But where does she go after?" Wisteria muttered, retracing the steps again, ultimately being led backstage once again. "So she comes out, fights, and then leaves?"
"Where does she go from there?" Veil asked.
The prints led down the stairs in the storage room between the platform and backstage, but ultimately the blood faded out. Still, we found a door in the general direction that she went. It was behind what was a pile of boxes that had since been scattered, likely by Cinder. But when we tried, the door was locked.
"Allow me," Veil said, stepping forward and punching the door. Despite being made completely of solid metal, a significant dent was made in the center and it swung open easily.
Wisteria quickly made her way through and looked around outside as I followed. It was a staircase leading to the valley, which was at the time filled by a dust cloud.
And yet, something stood out amongst it all, something bright in color. It looked to be green maybe.
"Do you guys see that?" I asked, finding that I had to raise my voice above the sound of the wind, which wasn't terribly loud in the first place but just enough to make it difficult to hear others who were nearby.
Both women squinted at the dust, but neither seemed to be making any progress in locating the object. I covered my fox ears and started into the storm, hoping to confirm my suspicions.
Sure enough, there was something green in here. It was a long staff made up of green and silver contraptions and gears. I looked to be difficult to hold, but perhaps able to do amazing things. What with all the machinery, surely it had to.
I grabbed it and, upon pulling it out, noticed the ring at the top. The edges were sharped, and suddenly I recognized it. It was Gale's weapon.
I returned with it and guided everyone back inside so as to speak easier.
"This was Gale's," I said. "I'm guessing she lost it in the fight on the platform, which means-"
Wisteria cut me off, "which means that Gale fell off the platform." She said, "So we know that Gale fell off, but," quickly she shone the light on the ring of the weapon, noticing blood all over it, "cut off Octavia's arm first? That sounds right. Then Cinder came up, fought them off, maybe pushed Octavia off at the edge, then escaped through here." She gestured to the door. Again she paused to think, "but what about the other girl, Ember?"
The three of us fell silent for quite some time. What about Ember? Did she fall off too?
"Maybe she jumped?" Veil suggested. When her only response was both our confused faces urging her to go on, she did. "Octavia was pretty beat up, clearly. And so was Gale. But surely they would've survived the fall. What if Ember went down to help Octavia?"
"Then why didn't they come back in after?" I asked, referring to the door as an entrance.
"They didn't know about the door?" She suggested. "Gale held them up? Maybe Cinder was still up there and they didn't want to risk it?"
As we pondered this, the entire rest of team AROW entered the room, all carrying ultraviolet lights and gazing intently at the floor. Was this seriously how crimes were solved? Just follow the blood? How was it so hard to be a police officer then?
"You guys find anything?" Wisteria called, breaking my chain of thought.
"Yeah," Redmond replied, not removing his eyes from the ground. "It looks like, from the place you say Wintanweorth was, a blood trail leads here."
"He came here?" I asked, starting towards them at a relatively brisk pace. They kept moving despite how in their way I was at this point.
"Looks like it. There's blood all over here. It looks to be mixed with his footprints and just general bleeding"
"That would probably be the wound," Wisteria said, joining me near them.
The trail seemed to lead around a stack of boxes, then to the door where Cinder had likely exited from. The blood seemed to go randomly around at this point.
"Perhaps he stopped here?" Redmond said.
"We think Cinder came this way," Wisteria said. "We found what we believe are her footprints."
"So he ran into her?" Redmond suggested, "But then," he stopped, realizing that so did the blood at the door. He pushed it open and saw still more on the platform just outside the door, down the stone stairs, then nothing. Faintly, we could see Cinder's footprints leading down the stairs, along with Wintanweorth's blood.
Redmond looked around outside, then came back in. "The storm got rid of all the blood in the sand, I presume," he said.
"So," I started, taking Wisteria's light and shining it at the floor again. "Wintanweorth came through here, clashed with Cinder, and then moved on through the door? Did he win?"
"He must've," Redmond said.
"We didn't find any of her blood on the platform though," Wisteria pointed out, "at least I don't think we did. But she couldn't have been so weakened as to be defeated by a wounded man. And she returned during HellFall, didn't she?"
"So I heard," Veil said.
"So she was wounded?" Wisteria suggested.
"I don't see anything that could be her blood if she fell though" Redmond pointed out, searching the floor with me.
I wasn't focusing as much on what they were saying. I was looking at the blood for something entirely different than Redmond. Sure enough, there were those dots again. The smears themselves were hard to find amongst what I assumed to be Wintanweorth's blood, but the distinct dots were there.
"Hey, Wisteria," I said, not taking my eyes off the dots. She bent down and looked to where I'd pointed with my finger, seeing the dots as I had. "Don't these look like Cinder's heels?"
"Yeah," she replied, "but we know she came through here. That really only confirms that she was here with Wintanweorth."
"But," I said, sliding across the floor and shining the light near the door. "Her heels show up here too. Meaning she reached the door with Wintanweorth."
"But we can't tell which direction she went in," Redmond pointed out, "Maybe she was pushed to the door while fighting Wintanweorth?"
"But there were boxes covering the door and someone knocked them over," I said.
"They could've knocked them over while fighting. It's not definitive." Redmond said.
I pulled open the door and shined the light on the stairs outside. "There!" I said, pointing at a dot on the stairs, "she got outside. With Wintanweorth." I looked up at them. "She came outside with Wintanweorth."
"The fight continued outside?" Redmond suggested.
"The door was locked," Wisteria pointed out. "I doubt Cinder unlocked the door while fighting."
"So," Redmond started, "are you saying that they went out together?"
I stood to face the detective, confident that I'd found the truth. "I'm saying that Cinder probably beat Wintanweorth and carried him outside with her."
So there you have it. Pretty long, I know. But I feel like that's the most dramatic cliffhanger I've had in a while. Also been been like 3 weeks since I touched this thing so that's probably part of it.
I haven't written much else since this. I wrote a comedy sketch recently, so maybe I'll advertise that if it ever makes it to the internet. For now, it just kind of exists.
Anyways, that's really it. As usual, favorite, follow, review, tell your friends, tell your enemies, or don't if you don't want to, and I'll see you all in the next chapter!