The skeleton cult

Chapter 1

A paranormal silence surrounded me as I swayed through the empty night, a chuckle echoed through the pitch dark space. I walked forward with wariness, until a jerky image of a campfire with incoherent words chanted by masked people were sighted, they laughed and smirked as a void opened swallowing in air and bones until none to be left. My mind shuddered with fright as I tried to run when all heads turned at me showing their poisonous black tongue "save yourself...if you can."

It was another Monday morning waking up with cold sweat by unpleasant dreams, life was quite tiring as new cases piled up everyday. Do killers even take a day off? Well if I find one, then I may ask them this in interrogation. I tried to fill my stomach with caffeine to last at least an hour from fainting as I stumbled down my boss Katie, she always gives me that annoyed look making me get worked up for no reason. All heads turned to the bright screen as a dramatic high pitched voice thundered "Recently two murders have happened this week back to back in a gruesome way putting the country under utter chaos, both of them were high school students, gender was female and age 15. The people need to know what the police is doing? Is the country even safe? So many unanswered questions as there is no limit to curiosity. 

Hope the police will reply with a solution soon" there was an awkward silence in the room as Katie roared "DO YOUR WORK EVERYONE, NO TIME TO DAYDREAM" she stormed with anger as she left by slamming the door. An amused voice spoke from the crowd "wow.. looks like someone woke up on the wrong side of their bed today, but anyways does that barbie doll think we are great saints or something as if we can give solutions to a murder happening by a random screw loose" said Sasha a colleague of mine. People do believe that the news reporter is good at caking up her face but she is also one of the best reporters to catch the spotlight. 

I tapped Sasha "about the case, were any evidences found around the area?" it would be a miracle if there were any. She thought for a while and looked at me with a blank face "nothing found, the bones were missing with only flesh left and it took us the whole day to find the identity of the victims" she gave me two records while walking towards the washroom with a pale face. Lara camellia and Suzzen shaw were from two different high schools except the age there was nothing in common, since the killer only took their bones and not their organs that means money wasn't his motive. I looked at the picture of Lara the recent victim, the murder happened yesterday in 3rdArcvill street about 6:00 sun dusk, it did seem atrocious as her hair was muddy with thin pieces of grass and the way her parts were scattered around the ground warned peril. I grabbed my car keys while dragging Sasha from the bathroom. 

"First lets go visit the victims school and then maybe grab some of your preferred meat" I tried to persuade her to keep me company and it worked out rather well. Sasha mumbled all of a sudden "do you think chat gpt will hold an answer, for finding killers, I mean it is getting popular in conveying solutions..." I paused for a second while gripping the gear to look at her chocolate brown eyes filled with expectations, "well sorry to break your heart but chat gpt isn't a detective, if he/she was really that great then why would we still have our jobs?" she understood her stupidity while frowning in a dazed state. We reached Athens high school, the campus was huge and it looked pricey the headmistress walked out with grace as she expressed her hatred while scanning down at us.

 Her tongue clicked with annoyance as she spoke in an adenoidal voice "welcome to Athens high school and I Natalie the schools principal will be answering all your queries about Ms. Lara camellia, I feel deeply anguished for what happened to Lara. She was a bright student with great grades and perfect character" we followed her as she started walking, the insides were more elegant with tranquil corridors and vintage interiors her heels stopped clicking as we reached a brown door made of strong wood. Natalie sat on one of the cushions while making gestures with her hand to lets us take a seat opposite to her, I can see Sasha looking a little terrified after all this women did seem majestic with overflowing dominance. 

The door creaked as an old lady entered with a tray occupying tea cups she placed it before us, while lifting the posh kettle slowly and tipping the boiling tea inside I looked at tea as it appeared to be in a humorous colour but the wariness vanished as the aroma spread. The room of gawky silence was broken by a quiet screech "please add extra sugar cubes in mine, I find myself sweet toothed at times" Sasha chucked embarrassly, I looked at her pleased she did a good job breaking the ice. Natalie raised her brows in displeasure, starting now with an apology is the only thing I can do "sorry ms. Natalie my partner tends to get excited at the sight of sugar we will start discussing the case instantly, Lara camellia was found dead while coming back from school as she was wearing her uniform we did suspect if it happened because of revenge, did you find any suspicious activity around the victim or any difference in her character for the past week?" Natalie didn't speak for a while but answered later with a monotone voice "she recently had continuous visits to the comfort room and the reason was her feeling dizzy that's all I know, the students love her so she has no enemies here" Sasha suddenly asked "did you give her any medicines?" Natalie smiled "no we didn't, we sent her home" she appeared to be hesitant while talking I felt there was something more to it. Ms. Natalie I have a search warrant so can you please let me check the comfort room she flinched form her graceful form while gesturing us to walk, she bought us to a white plain room with good air conditioning I looked at the record book while Sasha looked over the boxes. The notebook did have the name Lara frequently appearing in the recent week, but the medicine statement was blank. I flipped over the page but that column was empty for most children, there were only few boxes randomly filled with medicine names. "Sasha it looks like chat gpt is needed here after all" I smiled at her while she showed me her genius smirk "what did I tell you, chat gpt finds problems to solutions" I laughed at that idiot "you mean solutions to problems" she looked confused "didn't I say the exact same" I rolled my eyes as Natalie looked at as confused. I typed the names of the medicines used, to just check if they matched with the symptoms of the students, some of the names matched but few didn't. I checked on Natalie she seemed to unusually sweat a lot in a nice cool room. "Sasha take one of those bottles of medicine in the boxes for testing, by the way did Michal call from checking the victims backpack?"I stared at Sasha as she sighed "need to call him once for a reminder, that guy is growing old" she grabbed few bottles and started typing vigorously on her phone. I said goodbye to Ms. Natalie as we both walked out "when did you ask for a search warrant I though that witch hates you? It must have been hard to listen to her screams, I kinda feel sorry for you now" I stared at her for a minute and started laughing "who told you I got a search warrant it was fake, it's not fair to get scolded without my partner right?" Sasha looked dumbfounded "we will go visit the crime scene again to collect evidences, and then visit Ms.Suzzens school tomorrow after all I promised to get meat for dinner" I explained her about our agenda for the rest of the day as Sasha spoke terrified "Visiting that unavailing crime scene again isn't gonna do any good, all it makes me find is that my stomach cant handle eating anymore of my favorite meat" she made her infamous nauseous expression while clutching her stomach. I know she is being melodramatic but it still worried me as she really looked weak, I stepped on the breaks as we reached an old murky street. It was quiet from all the commotion yesterday making it weirdly irenic, the road was molded with cement holding appropriate trash cans it seemed as if no one got murdered here a day back. We started moving froward until the end, cryptically there was no sign of mud or grass. How did the victims hair get tangled up with dirt? I turned on my phone trying to open goggle maps as I fumbled the address on the keypad while zooming in places surrounding the street, a forest reserve close by was truly an extraordinary indication as it may hold the key to unseen evidences.