Killing Game Quarter

Chapter 5: Burnt Bodies with No Clear Motive Part 1

…  

It happened again. 

I stared at Jambo Adebayo. His corpse engraved itself into my mind, and I couldn’t think of anything besides that one fact.

It happened again.

“In here! Aka, what ha-” Urkstin ran in, crying out in desperation after hearing the announcement. But once he saw the expression of Poppy and my own face, he fell silent. Everyone else was behind him, and they slowly spilled into the room, checking in the vent and giving their own warranted reaction.

“...How?” Mia said, looking confused and concerned after seeing the body, “How did this happen?!” 

“I don’t know! He was with us in the showers, right?” Akira claimed, trying to rationalize what happened.

“He was… How did he disappear right under our noses?” Liam asked, staring at the vent. Unfortunately, we didn’t have any time to figure out this mystery, because soon after everyone gathered, the Loudspeakers went off again.

“Now that most everyone has gathered here at the corpse’s location, you may now begin the investigation. Remember to catalog your findings in your notebook for future use.” Was all that was announced, reminding me of the last time we had to do this.

“Who… who has the notebook?” Mia asked, sounding defeated yet again, mainly because her plan didn’t work.

“I… I have it.” I remembered, hollow from this whole ordeal. I reached into my back pocket and pulled out the small notebook and pencil, which helped to convict Jinju before. It was then that I realized something really bad.

“Also, we have… A problem with this investigation guys.” I spoke, staring at the vent.

“A problem?” Joseph asked. I responded with a nod.

“We can’t get… the body out of the vent.” I reported, pointing to the vent itself, “The vent is scorching hot.”

“Scorching hot, what in god's name do you mean-” Liam inquired, reaching for the vent, before stopping right above it. “Oh… oh my. She is right. I can feel the heat emanating from the metal from here.”

“How the hell are we supposed to do this investigation then?!” Akira called out, before looking at the Loudspeaker and waving her hands.

“What seems to be the problem?” They asked.

“We can’t do this investigation. The heated vent keeps us from accessing the body.” Mia explained, sounding much more agitated than usual.

“I see. Unfortunately, you will have to make do with what you have and can see.” The Loudspeaker announced, “My apologies. I will make sure this does not happen again.”

“Make do? How are we supposed to-” I started to call out, but the sound of the Loudspeaker shutting off stopped me.

“I guess… we don’t have a choice.” Risa acknowledged, quietly and defeated. Urkstin couldn’t even try to comfort her, since he was also extremely upset with this whole situation.

“Alright, listen up,” Mia’s voice boomed out over everyone’s silent sadness, making us all look up from the floor, “We don’t have a lot of time, and we have ground to cover. Ikana, Lombardo, you stick with Risa and I here. The rest of you, go back to the showers and look around there. We can reconvene after we ‘ve found any sort of evidence.”

“Uh, sure!” Urkstin chimed, trying to sound like he wanted to help. For the first time, I was grateful for Mia’s power complex, since it helped us pick ourselves up and head back to the showers.

Once we made it back to the showers, there was a new feeling of anxiety and regret from most of us, for not being able to stop Jambo from being killed. We started to look around, and almost instantly moved to the area where the vent was. From there, I could see two things that caught our attention.

“Hey, Aka, look!” Akira belted out, pointing to the floor directly in front of the vent, “There’s a small blood mark on the floor there!” 

“Oh, you’re right. Nice eye Akira.” I complimented, kneeling down to take a look at it. The mark was incredibly small, but the distinct color made it easily spottable. 

“How do you think this got here?” Urkstin asked, joining us in our investigation.

“No clue yet. But-” I started, dragging a finger through the mark. Just as I suspected, the blood came with my finger. “-This mark is definitely from this case. It’s fresh.”

“Well, glad that got cleared up,” Poppy remarked, not even looking at us, “Now when are we gonna talk about that.” Her words directed us towards the vent itself, which had yet another metal plate covering it. After seeing it, Poppy and I both helped kick it out of the way, revealing the other opening of Jambo’s grave. 

Right before we could do any investigating on that side though, the Loudspeakers suddenly came on.

“My apologies, but I almost forgot to give you all the autopsy report. I will be doing that now, so prepare to write this down.” They announced, admitting their own forgetfulness. As they talked, I prepared to write whatever was about to be said.

“Contestant Jambo Adebayo. Status: Deceased. Time of his death: 9:05 AM. Cause of his death: Unknown.”

“Unknown? What the hell do you mean ‘Unknown’?!” I called out, staring at the Loudspeaker.

“Unknown means that the cause of death will have to be determined by you all in your trial. I thought it would be a fun way to spice things up.” They explained, making me angrier and angrier with how little we had for this investigation.

“Spice things up? How the HELL could you say that about this kind of situation?!” I cried out, feeling my anger boil harder than ever.

“Good luck Contestants.” Was all they replied with, making me take a deep, angered breath, before slowly regaining my composure.

“This just got a lot harder.” Akira mumbled, running her hand through her hair, messing it up.

“We might as well try and see what we can find on Jambo, since we’ve got two ways to see him.” Poppy explained, lacking her usual cheeriness. I nodded in response, and took a careful look inside of the vent, to get a good look at Jambo’s front side.

The first thing I looked for came to me first.

“His forehead, is that an injury?” I asked, pointing to Jambo’s head, which was bloodied around the forehead.

“Yeah, looks like it” Urkstin said, kneeling down with me. “Do you think some blood dropped from his head and hit the floor outside of the vent?” He asked, proposing a possible theory.

“Maybe…” I responded, quietly, as I continued to look around at what I could see. I carefully peered my head into the vent, to try and see over Jambo’s right arm, and was alarmed when I saw a small pool of blood coming from his side. Furthermore, and I could see a sharp, broken piece of metal sticking out from his wound.

 I pulled my head out of the vent fast, shocked.

“What did you see?” Akira asked as I jot down notes.

“He… he got stabbed in the side with some kind of metal.” I answered, trying to think of where all this metal came from.”Do we know if there are any other vents anywhere? Or any source of metal?”

“Oh! I found a vent back in the room I woke up in!” Akira boomed, slamming her fist in her palm, “Maybe that’s where it came from!”

“Good eye, maybe we should go check.” I spoke, standing up, “Actually… Before that.”

“Hm? Something wrong?” Urkstin asked, as I turned slowly to him.

“Just out of curiosity Urkstin… What were you doing at the time of the murder?” I asked, remembering where I had seen him last.

“O-Oh! Well… I was in the bathroom stall.” Urkstin explained, looking away.

“Why?” Poppy asked.

“I was… I was using the bathroom, duh!” He shouted, turning red having to explain himself.

“Ohhh, my bad.” Poppy hastily replied, apologizing for prying. I couldn’t help but look at Urkstin though, as some thoughts went through my head.

“But, while I was going, I heard…something.” He added, getting our attention more clearly.