Dark Alice in a Dark Wonderland

Sachiko

Halo Seven: Sachiko:

Body parts were found scattered all over Edogawa Park in the early hours of the morning. They were just tossed around without much care. Blood soaked the grass. A drunken salaryman discovered what looked like a lung and entrails laying on the ground. Boy that was enough to sober him up. Well, at first he wasn't sure what he was seeing. The poor man had the misfortune of walking closer to take a look. When he saw it, he made a call to the police.

-7:00 a.m.-

Detective Hisakawa Sachiko stood with Nakamura at the crime scene.

"One of your circles in hell?" she asked.

"Seems that way," he said. "A salaryman called in last night and reported about seeing a lung on the ground. Thought he was drunk at first but no. Here we are." The detective looked out on the blood-stained grass and shook his head.

"How many pieces so far?" Sachiko asked.

"Quite a few," Nakamura said. "The CSI's tried to wrestle away some part from the stray dogs who were looking for something to eat." He winced at the thought.

"The animal bites are going to make things more difficult to get any accurate results," Nakamura said. "I'm surprised that more of them haven't been eaten."

"Yikes," Sachiko said. The male detective looked over at his colleague.

"What about you? How is your case going?" he asked.

"Not much happening," Sachiko said with a shrug. "I think I might be stuck." Nakamura looked over at her.

"How do you mean?" he asked. She rubbed the back of her head.

"I don't know how to put this," she said. "It's just..." Sachiko shook her head.

"Never mind. I'll figure it out," she said.

"You sure?" he asked. The other detective nodded. They looked up when they heard a soft clicking noise. Sachiko and Nakamura turned to see a kid about fifteen taking pictures of the crime scene with their phone.

"Hey!" Nakamura shouted. The kid turned and ran away. The man sighed and shook his head.

"It's always got to be that one kid," he grumbled.

"You know how they are," Sachiko said. "True crime junkies just want to be close to the action."

"But it gets in the way of our work," Nakamura said. Sachiko blew her bangs out of her eye.

"I get it," she said. "Good luck on finding out who this poor bastard is."

"Yeah," he said. They turned back to see a CSI holding up an ear.

-1:18 a.m.-

Satsu opened her laptop. She promised Aoi that she wouldn't go back to DeathVine. She had been keeping that promise up for close to a month now. But the temptation grew to be too much. Just one little peek. One little peek. Satsu typed in the address in the address bar. She promised herself no gory rabbit holes. Just in and out. Aoi would be none the wiser.

The laughing skull popped up on the screen. Satsu clicked on it. There was DeathVine in its morbid and gory glory. Satsu looked around on the main page. She paused when something caught her attention.

"Huh? What's this?" Satsu asked. The page now had a live streaming section. The woman looked confused.

"Since when do they do live streaming?" Satsu whispered. She turned and looked behind her. Aoi was still sound asleep in their bed. She turned over and settled back into place. Satsu sighed in relief. Good.