Honkai Impact: The Serpent's Tale

Chapter 20: The Girl

"They've been gone for a month because they died a month ago."

Those words lingered in Alex's mind for a decent while as he tried to make sense of the whole thing.

"What? Died a month ago? Are you serious?" He asked.

"I have no reason to lie to you kid. I stumbled upon her body myself. When I saw that she laid motionless in her bed, I called the cops. They determined that there was no foul play, however at the young age that she was at I doubt it was natural causes. Either way her family came and retrieved her body, leaving everything in that room behind." Explained the landlord.

"If the police were involved then why hasn't this case been updated?"

"That's something you'll have to take up with law enforcement. Anyways, go ahead and feel free to poke around in there. It'll all be thrown away in a few days anyways."

With that, the landlord walked off as Alex tried to assess the current situation.

'This Jane Doe died a month ago suddenly with no apparent link to a murder. The police were contacted as well as her own family. They all knew that she died, yet her status remained as missing? Either they didn't care for her all that much or something else is going on here?' He thought.

Alex figured that he'd best go into the room again to take a second loom around in case he missed anything.

Mustering up the courage, he walked in again and tried his best to search the room without paying attention to the puppet on the floor.

Despite his efforts, he always found himself taking a peek at out from the corner of his eyes.

It felt like its mere presence alone was pratically calling out to him.

After having looked over every single thing possible in that room, Alex sighed as he approached and kneeled by the puppet, inspecting it once more.

As he had this second look, Alex noticed something in one of its hands as he grabbed and looked at it.

It was a simple show ticket akin to those used at theater plays as on the ticket it seemingly had the name of said play in question.

"Theater of Domination? That's................certainly a name for a play....."

As Alex stood back up, the stinging pain in his head again returned as he immediately dropped the ticket and placed his hand there.

The overall vibe of this room was just getting worse and worse for Alex as he quickly exited once more and just like last time, the pain immediately went away.

'Just what the hell is wrong with that room? Ugh.......I need to leave. No point in an investigation if they're already dead.'

The boy hastily left the apartment and quickly made his way back to Serpent Quarters.

Unknowingly, when he had dropped the ticket in the room, it landed back side up as on it was a message.

"The link has now been established. Welcome to our theater."

[A While Later]

Alex had returned to the base however mentally he was completely drained from what he had just gone through.

Sure he felt a ton of fear and dread when he had come face to face with Void back at Schicksal air HQ, but this was different.

Never had he felt so off putted and nauseous before like he was in that room.

Even though they said there wasn't a murder, Alex couldn't help but feel that there was concerning the mysterious circumstances surrounding her death.

Regardless, there wasn't much he could do anymore as there were zero clues in that room and he had no idea on where to begin looking.