Mortis et Amor em Rosa

Chapter II : Doors and Handles

Of course, who am I lying to except myself? The warning signs were there. I chose not to heed them. If I hadn't chosen to be such a pretentious know-it-all, things would've been different.

That day, it started out like any other. Rose and I woke up and were going about our business, when she suddenly stopped. No words, no explanation. She just...froze. Yes, that's the word.

"Hey", she said, "why don't we just stay in today? I don't feel like moving out of the house."

I knew she had a deadline for a big report coming up, and in true Rose-like fashion, she was looking for ways not to get it done. How she ever landed up an investigative reporter, I will never know.

After I had recited the list of reasons that she had prescribed for such situations, she agreed to move ahead with the day. So, she went on her way to the outskirts of town for research material, while I made my way to the Rain City News Headquarters to get our equipment. The plan was to meet each other at the abandoned steel mill, seeing how we could get the usual junkies to give us interesting, if not informative, interviews.

Rose had been assigned to find out why several working professionals, especially women, had gone missing around the area. "Even if we can't find the missing people, at least we get a tour of the Mills. I've always wanted to go there, but never really had a reason, or permission, to actually visit. Maybe we'll find one of the homeless people keeping themselves warm with the missing people's bodies?" she said.

Her macabre sense of humour had always unnerved me.

After weaving in and out of traffic, I arrived at the Steel Mill. Once a glorious marvel of the production sector, it was now a remnant of the past decades, a home to the poorest sections of the population, who could afford no other shelter for themselves.

Looking at my watch I realised that I was two hours late. Rose would not be pleased.

As I looked around for Rose, I encountered an old man squatting near a makeshift fireplace. "Be careful," he said, "the bad man is back!"

Shrugging it off as the ramblings of a senile lunatic, I continued to the interiors of the Mill's infrastructure. Infested with vermin as it was, how anyone could think of living here, however desperate they were was beyond my comprehension.

It was eerily quiet in the interiors, and I could hear my own breathing. As I looked around for Rose, the lack of sound bothered me.

I spotted something glistening in the rubble up ahead. As I went closer, I realised it was Rose's set of house keys. My heartbeat raced. She would never be this careless. Something was amiss.

"Rose? Rose!!" I called out, to no avail.

As I quickened my pace to match that of my heart, I started hearing muffled noises. They were faint, but definitely there. Moving up to the second floor of the building, the sounds got clearer. It was unmistakeably the sound of someone begging for help. With a gasp, I realised that the voice sounded familiar.

Opening the first door I could find, I saw a horrific sight. There were rows upon rows of bodies - human bodies - wrapped in plastic. The only reason the stench hadn't pervaded the entire area was the fact that they were wrapped and kept with blocks of ice. The outskirts, being a cold place, helped the ice stay cold, and in turn, helped the bodies stay frosted.

Never one with the stomach for such things, I turned away and moved forward. The hallway was lined with doors, and I feared what I would find next. Almost every room had ice-packed cadavers, and I started feeling nauseated.

As I moved along the hallway, the voice kept growing clearer. As I reached the end of the room, I could hear the muffled screams - yes, they were screams - getting as clear as they possibly could.

Fearing the worst, I opened the door.