Love Letters Through Corpses

Chapter 27: Love, Corpse

"What is?" Agent Lucas asked but he was completely ignored by the two teens.

Seeing as they wouldn't answer, he decided to keep his mouth shut and continued to silently observe the two, who were now talking amongst themselves.

Daexoen carefully examines the foreign liquid, "This isn't any other poison I've encountered. Could it be hemlock?" he asked the female.

"No. Hemlock is not this thick, and hemlock usually has a quite lovely fragrance. It's usually mixed with tea or added with hot water in order to extract the poison well. This does not have any smell at all, plus the symptoms doesn't quite match Hemlock. It usually needs about 2-3 days for it to work with this little amount. It looked like she died within minutes of intake." The female rejected.

The other nods at her, "Right, plus it looks a little slimy, what is this?" the male asked, they handed the bottle to the agents who were already wearing gloves before receiving the evidence.

The three agents carefully examine the said poison as well, “I don’t know what this is.” Agent Brook said. Both Agent Lucas and Kleio had no idea either about the new poison.

"What were her symptoms again?" The female asked.

Daexoen took a minute to try and remember the victim's symptoms before passing, "She turned pale, in my observations, it looked like she was having trouble moving her body, indicating she was having muscle contraction or paralysis." He said, still trying to recall the events just minutes ago. "Uh, her breathing was also rapid which also indicated that her trouble breathing might have been because of the paralysis. She might have also been having an arrhythmia, when I caught her, her pulse was rising which meant her heart was also racing to irregular speed” Daexoen added.

“But that could be any other poison, noticed anything else?" Sage asked.

Unfortunately, that was all that Daexoen could remember. Sage then carefully flips the victim’s body where her back is lying on the ground, giving them a more clearer view of the victim’s face. Daexoen noticed a patch of saliva by the side of her mouth.

He taps the younger's shoulder, "Her mouth is watering, indication for salivation, you can still see the drools on the mouth." He said pointing towards the body.

Sage instantly knew what poison the victim was injected with. After slowly analyzing the symptoms and possible causes she trailed it down to one specific poison.

"It was Batrachotoxin," She said.

The agents instantly looked at the female, "What? But how?” Agent Lucas asked.

Daexoen gave a confused look, unfamiliar with the poison the female concluded. "Batrachotoxin? What's that?" he asked. Weirdly, for the first time he didn’t know what that poison was.

"It's a type of poison that is actually found on the skin of dart-poison frogs. It's also one of the deadliest poison in the world, it can kill a person within the time of 10-20 minutes once exposed to the human skin. In this case, she wasn't just exposed to it she ingested it making it reduce the time of effectiveness" Sage explained.

“How? Aren’t they only found in America?” Agent Lucas asked.

the female nods, "Yes, it is indigenous to South and Central America but that doesn't mean it can't be found in other places, for example in the Philippines. In history, it was believed that Magellan was killed with a Batrachotoxin-laced dart where the tribes were well-known to use the toxins produced by the birds on their weapons. Batrachotoxin isn't just found on the skins of the frogs but also birds since it's not produced by the animal itself but by their diet, specifically the melyrid beetles. But I'm not 100% sure it was Batrachotoxin, you can do a lab test to see if it really is." Sage answered, pointing towards the bottle.

However, when Sage continued to explain to the agents Daexoen notice a peculiar thing on the victim's body. Unfortunately, it was in a place Daexoen dared not to look at.

He winced before calling the female. "Sage, something is different."

The youngest raised an eyebrow, "What do you mean?" She asked as she slowly went near the older boy who was now kneeling beside the woman.

"I check the body out. There's something you need to look at." He said while pointing towards the victim’s chest.

She tilts her head at the boy with pure innocence and confusion, "Her chest? Don't mean to offend you or anything Daex but isn't quite perverted to look at a woman's breast" She said making the other blush.

"Crazy! I'm not a p*****t but I noticed something by umm, her chest. Can you just check it out?" He shyly said, before frantically turning towards the other direction.

The female glances at the victim, noticing a small black lining peeking out of her shirt. "Why? She must have just had a tattoo on her." she said.

Daexoen has his head still turned away from the female, "It's just isn't it weird for an underage female student to have a tattoo? Not to judge or anything. She looks quite young. I guess she could be around the age of 16 or 17. Just go and take a look. I'm quite embarrassed as it is." He said, his cheeks grew even redder as it was.

Seeing the boy's determination the younger female sighed. She went near the body and slowly undressed the top of the victim. Everyone in the hall started to avert their eyes away from the scene. Well, except for Styx who was still busy tapping away on his keyboard.

When she took it off leaving the undergarment of the victim she saw the tattoo Daexoen mention. She agreed with the male that the tattoo was truly different.

It was the same rose with the previous two first victims, the difference is this one wasn’t covered and instead of soul written on the bottom there was another name on top, or rather a phrase.

‘Love, Corpse’

She covers the victim before turning toward her still embarrassed friend. "You're right Daex. It's the same rose but ‘soul’ isn’t written on the bottom” She said .“It says Love, Corpse” She added

Daexoen immediately turned towards the younger, "Corpse? What--"

"Guys I found something" Styx intervened before Daexoen could finish his sentence.

The two stood up to approach the other. Sage however, approached the chief officer first, "Agent Lucas, I think you could move the body already" Sage told the agent, who instantly instructed the other agents to bring her to the autopsy lab.

The two stood behind the eldest, "What did you find?" Daexoen asked. The three agents follow them to see.

He points towards his monitor, “I didn’t see anyone coming in with her but there is this guy who walked in a few minutes before her." He said as he continued to point towards an unknown man. "I think he went to the second floor bathroom since I couldn’t find him in the other cameras. 20 minutes later, I see him going down the other staircase towards the lobby but this time he has a bottle of water in his hand, which is strange because he didn’t have that before and there isn’t anywhere on the top floor to get water from. There.” He stopped the video footage when the suspected man was standing behind the female victim.

“The girl was so focused on the person she was talking to on the phone that she didn’t notice the guy walking towards her. Watch closely.” Styx instructed as he started the video once again.

The footage shows the same guy walking up to the victim and bumped into her.

The agents looked confused at the footage, they didn’t understand what was happening except for the footage of them bumping into each other and dropping their things. But unlike them the three seemed to understand what was going on.

"So? What are we watching" Agent Lucas asked

Styx raised an eyebrow, "Didn't I just say watch closely?” Styx surly said.

"He switched the bottles" Sage and Daexoen at the same time.

The female points towards the fallen bottles on the monitor, "When they both fell he helped her get her things, he purposely did it to swap the bottles" Sage explained.

Daexoen had his hand on his chin as he tries to examine the man in the monitor. "This is a little hard though. His face is well covered, face monitoring devices and software will not be able to recognize him," he added.

Styx gave an approving nod, "You're right, those devices are used to scan 3 point bone structure ratio, it won't work when he's well covered." he said, before typing back on his laptop."I tried to scan the other surveillance cameras, lost him on 3rd street, their CCTV must have been ruptured." Styx added. He showed them the different camera footage of the man until it ended with one of the cameras turning pitch black.

"So we have no leads on finding this guy?” Agent Brook asked.

"We can't say that we haven't asked the people who were here. Isn't that usually what you do?" Daexoen answered. The three agents looked at them with wide eyes realizing what the student just said.

Sage sighed, before shaking her head in disbelief, "You were too hitched with the idea of us helping in this case you totally forgot there were other people during this crime." she told them, in which the three gave an embarrassed look.

Agent Lucas cleared his throat, "Right. Brook, Kleio you two talk to the civilians. I need to get back to the station" Agent Lucas said but before he left he faced the trio and gave them an apologetic look. "I’m really sorry about Agent Yuan. I heard about what happened. I'm glad you three are alright, and I'm also glad you're willing to help out." he sincerely said, giving them a slight bow before leaving.

"Well, that was eccentric," Styx whispered to the two, earning him a soft nudge by the other male.

Sage turns towards the two lead agents, "Guess we aren't needed anymore, agents. I think I should go to my aunt" Sage said, attempting to leave.

"We'll come with you" The two guys said in chorus. Daexoen carefully lifted Styx out of his chair, while Sage assisted him as they tried to walk away from the lobby.

"You don’t want to come with us?" Agent Kleio asked.

The three looked at them for a moment, "That's not our forte. We just observe and think. We'll wait for you to finish." Daexoen answered.

The three left to look for Sage’s aunt while the two head agents looked at the slowly fading figure of the three teens.

"I was worried. I still actually am.” Agent Kleio confessed.

Agent Brook sighed, but also answered the other a slight nod. “Me too. I’m amazed but worried” he admitted.

Agent Kleio continues to stare at the empty hall the three disappeared to, “Who would have thought? They’re different, Brook, the good kind but it’s scary to think to what extent they could do. I’m afraid that they'll be too far for us to reach, that we’ll suddenly lose them in the end.” Agent Kleio confessed.