(no subject)
WHO: Devin (Bluebeard), Fatima (Lady Mary), OPEN.
WHEN: The wee hours of Thursday morning.
WHERE: Miles Brennan's hotel.
WHAT: Fatima makes a gruesome discovery.
STATUS: Started already, to be completed in thread.
RATING: R (violence, gruesome bloody mutilated corpses, Devin's language...)
NOTES: This is the start of the dead body plot! Everyone is welcome - witnesses, rubberneckers, cops.... Also, this thread should work something like the Byrons' party thread (so Devin-like to compare a murder scene to a party xD) - more than one person can reply, reply to each others' comments if you want to. That kind of thing.
It was Wednesday night - no, Thursday morning - and what was Fatima doing? Roaming around a hotel. Almost a week before she read about a party in a Mr. Miles Brennan’s entry that his younger sister was going to be hosting. He invited anyone in the tale community to show up, mostly as a way to keep tabs on his sister’s behavior. She didn’t plan to go, but there she was. As she expected, she didn’t enjoy the party much and stayed along the sidelines until she decided to take the opportunity to look around the hotel. It was a posh and elegant building, no doubt with large rooms, 24-hour room services and other such perks. Who knew when the next time she’d be in a hotel like this again? So she leisurely strolled through the lobby and eventually found herself on one of the many floors of rooms.
She stumbled upon an odd stench, one that seemed oddly familiar yet she couldn’t quite place her finger on. It wasn’t normal that was certain. She continued down the hall, finding nothing out of the ordinary, but the stench growing fouler with each step. Toward the end of the hallway she came upon a door slightly ajar and with a quick peek didn’t see anything out of the ordinary inside… except for the hideous smell. Fatima waited outside the door, stuck in a moment of indecision. Should she go in or should she report this to the front desk? In the end, curiosity won out over common sense and she invited herself in. In mere seconds, she learned just what that familiar odor was and why leaving would have been the smart idea.
The room was in shambles: bottles of different alcoholic beverages were scattered about, the coffee table was overturned, a lamp knocked onto the floor. There were also pieces of shattered glass littering the carpet with large splotches of dark red stain around it. That wasn’t the only place where such a stain was present, however. On the walls there were a couple smudged stains, probably from a hand but there was very little indication to determine whether it was or not. But that was hardly the worse of it.
Lying on the bed were two female bodies. One, aside from the obvious blood on her clothing and skin, seemed unharmed, but the other… the other’s head had been crudely severed from the body, a pool of drying blood around the gapping wound. Her naked body was systematically cut at random locations: one breast sliced off, her abdomen sliced open revealing the swollen mass of her intestines, her right arm nearly severed completely, amongst other more ‘minor’ wounds. Rigor mortis was already beginning to set in by that point, the woman’s legs seeming to twitch.
Fatima was in such a state of shock she didn’t even realize she’d screamed. She tried to leave, run away from the scene before the murder decided to return like Mr. Fox once did, but her legs wouldn’t move. She was just frozen there, staring at the gruesome scene.
From amidst the blood on the bed and the mass of bodies, somewhat entwined - almost like lovers, but in a twisted, gruesome embrace - came a groan and words, slurred together by a still-half-drunk voice. The words sounded something like, "oh for fuck's sake" and the body still owning a head stirred.
Devin opened one eye, saw nothing but red, and closed her eye again. By that time, though, her other senses were catching up to her - her sense of smell: there was the scent of metal and the stench of death heavy in the air. The smell of blood was almost overwhelming, like being buried in a pit full of copper. Then her sense of touch, recognizing that she was touching someone and that she was sticky all over, wet in some places and in others, there was that sensation of having some kind of liquid dried and stuck to skin.
Her eyes fluttered open again, and she found herself face-to-face with a corpse. Other people might've screamed, or thrown up, or panicked and jumped out of bed. Not Devin Kuhl, of course; she took a deep breath, pushed the air out of her lungs again, and shook her head.
"What the fuck," she said. "Shit." Sitting up, she had to literally peel herself off of the bed - she was barely dressed, in a wifebeater and her panties, legs almost coated in blood and her upper half hadn't fared much better. Red was smeared on her cheek, coating her hair, all over her hands and her torso, splattered everywhere. "Oh, shit." The reality of the situation was starting to settle in, and when she finally managed to sit up, she turned her attention to the woman, the one who'd screamed.
Devin was speechless. When she tried to recall where she was or how she'd gotten there, it was all completely blank. There wasn't even a blur of some possible memories that might emerge when poked at or pondered over them - nothing. She remembered going to the bar for drinks, and that was where her memory stopped. She was missing at least six hours and, apparently, those six hours were pretty damn vital.
"What the fuck," she repeated, pressing her fingers to her head. She was so fucked.
"Y-You're alive!" Fatima stuttered in disbelief, watching Devin peel herself from the corpse. While she didn't appear to have any visible wounds unlike the woman next to her, Fatima automatically assumed Devin's body was also a corpse. She hadn't moved when she entered and she was entangled with the mutilated woman, what reason did she have to belief she wasn't dead?
"Are you--? What ha--?" She attempted to question her, but she couldn't get her thoughts together enough to properly ask anything. This couldn't be happening. Fatima closed her eyes tightly, trying to focus her mind. "I need to call the police," she finally said, quickly beginning to rummage through her purse.
Devin groaned in agreement, holding her head for a moment. She sat perched on the end of the bed, bent and holding her head, which was pounding like there was an entire army marching off to war. Thump, thump, thump.
"I have no idea what the fuck happened," Devin finally said, rubbing her fingers into her temples for a second. There was a terrible sinking feeling in her stomach - fuck it all, she wasn't going to kill anybody this time around. That was her basic mission statement. No killing. She hadn't wanted to end up in jail.
She didn't know what to think - had she gotten too drunk, lost control to those constant urges bubbling under the surface? It was possible. And it was definitely somewhat her style.
"No, wait," she said, reaching up to motion to her. "Please," she added, the word foreign on her tongue. "I just need a minute to figure out what the fuck to do." She couldn't, of course, ask this perfect stranger to not call the police on a massacred body - and she couldn't run, because not only had she been seen, but there was probably more forensic evidence of her in this room than there was in her own apartment. She was pretty sure she'd even drooled on the pillow.
But the police were going to arrest her. She knew that much for sure. Passed out drunk person wakes up in bed with a corpse? Yeah, that's an arresting.
"Fuck," she added.
Fatima paused her search for her cellphone when Devin asked her to wait, gazing at her curiously. Why was she stopping? And for this complete stranger she just found in bed with a butchered body? Yet there she was, hand in purse waiting to see what she had to say.
It was about this time other curious souls peeked out of their rooms, wanting to know just what the scream was about. A man from across the way spied Fatima standing in the doorway, but was unable to see what was happening in the room. "Is everything all right, miss?" he questioned, before he called back to whoever was in the room something along the lines of the smell being worse.
Fatima spun around, her eyes wide. "Um, uh, uhm... police," she stuttered, once again greatly disoriented. She had to focus, she needed to focus. "Call the police. There's been a murder."
It was somewhat chaos, and it was only going to get worse from there. Devin wanted desperately to wash off, get a drink of liquor (hair of the dog) and sit down and think about this. Unfortunately, there were other people at the hotel and a corpse six inches to her right.
"Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck," Devin said - one of the few words she could actually manage at that point. Typically, she prided herself on keeping a somewhat cool head. Certainly not letting emotions get in her way. Typically, she wasn't one for feeling things, except this was primal. This was survival instinct.
That was when the laughing came. It was inappropriate, of course - kind of shocking, in a moment like that. But she couldn't help it, the stress of the situation was bubbling up, and she couldn't help but giggle. "I am so fucked," she managed. "Oh my god." The laughter kept bubbling.
Fatima let out a heavy sigh, listening to the man report the incident to the emergency operator on his room phone. She leaned up against the wall, trying to stay as composed as possible, but unable to stop the silent tears coming to her eyes. All of those nightmares were nothing compared to this. She must be cursed. Her self pity ended when the sound of laughter interrupted her thoughts.
She stared at Devin in disbelief, speechless. The woman was completely mad. But then, if she had woken up in such a situation as Devin had, wouldn't she have gone mad as well? Fatima wanted to say something, but she couldn't find any words. What were you supposed to say in a situation like this?
The man returned, this time followed by the lady he was sharing the room with who was trying to steal a peek at the room. There were others doing the same thing, bending this way and that to look beyond Fatima into the room as they tried to determine what was happening. This was complete chaos.