21 Murders | Harry Styles AU (discontinued)

LI. Hypothesis

hypothesis (noun):  a supposition or proposed explanation made on the basis of limited evidence as a starting point for further investigation

Listen to the song above: 9 Crimes by Damien Rice; it fits the story mood perfectly.

Noelle's POV

I can feel the constant contracting of my heart through the thin material of my long sleeve shirt as my palm comes in contact with the door's cold knob. Before I can even stop myself, I am facing a dull room with faint lighting. There is a wooden desk by the curtained window, a thin bed frame housing a white comforter, and a flower pot sat in the windowsill with dead, dried up soil.

The room's musky scent picks up the further I step through the doorframe; a heavy scent of sawdust, must, and warped wood - unlike the rest of the house from what I could tell smelled like scented air-freshener and previous stove use.

I can't help but look down at my hands and fingertips and make sure they are still attached to my body. Even though a thick cloud of fog hovers over my better judgment and the sense of calmness has overtaken my body, I do feel like a line on a heart monitor: steady but deadly.

In contrast to the somewhat tidy and old-fashioned room, I can't help but notice how one item in particular looks more bruised, more calloused than the rest of the furniture. In contrast of style, the flower-patterned rug beneath my sneakers with tangled fringe and knotted strings catches my eye. A crease under the carpet that starts at the tip of my toes and makes a sharp turn, to under the bed leads me down to a crouch, picking up the tangled flap of carpet and examining a basement-like door hidden beneath.

The latch is rusty and the wood surrounding it is splintered and cracked - just like the door to this room is. With unsteady fingers, I pull the latch and am surprised to find it isn't locked. The panel of wood comes completely off its hinges, making a crack sound when the heavy piece hits the floor by my side.

The only thing I can see is darkness, which forces me to quickly stand up and step away from the dark hole in the middle of the floor. Like Aurora to the spinning wheel, I feel as if it is calling me. That this could lead us to the end of this case or at least to another way closer to the end. Klara is busy and there is no one else here that I fully trust, so I can't ask the officer to help. I just have to do it on my own.

A small piece of my blurred state chips off as I stare down longer, twisting my head around in search for a candle or light of some sort. Stashed in the desk I find an old lighter. The flame flickers a few times inconsistently before the bright flame collects itself and floats above in swaying ribbons of smoke.

Taking a step at a time, I bring the collar of my shirt up to the bridge of my nose to try and block out all the suffocating dust that lingers in the air from the cement floor to the ceiling. Before my feet shuffle forward, I notice a cord that lines from the level ground to the crack in this tunnel's floor. That black cord extends all the way into the far as I can see, and has no purpose to me until my feet start moving and I descend down the hall, the flame flickering in front of my face.

I can feel a deafening silence hum in my ears the further I walk down this lonely corridor, yet it isn't enough motivation to blow the fog away from my mind and force myself to realize that what I am doing is extremely idiotic and deplorable.

Step after step, it feels like this one-way tunnel will never end. Maybe this is nothing and I am jumping to conclusions? If this were some type of lead, then the department would have already found it and discovered what I am convincing myself to be something important. I start to consider turning back, until the light of the lighter hits a wall and it illuminates to one side - telling me that the course changes direction and takes a sharp right turn.