K-pop fans and the world at large are thrown into turmoil when the rising global sensation Bangtan Sonyeondan, better known as BTS, are kidnapped in the dead of night. As the world reels in confusion, the young men of BTS find themselves living a ni...
HAPPY (belated) BIRTHDAY (March 23rd) @jungshook! I hope it was a good one! I'm so excited someone knows where this story is happening at! *screams*
~oooOooo~
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
The hills of the sleepy town of Jackson were alive - with the baying of hounds and the shouting of ground stompers - their search severely impeded by the extreme weather they had been receiving and the low visibility caused by a nearby forest fire.
Teams of rescue members and the volunteers they were to lead stood around waiting for instructions or for other teams to come out for a break.
Dogs of every kind from two different states had been brought in, each team boasting a certain scent it could track: cadaver - which no one wanted a hit on, car - which meant they were out of the area, or air - which meant they were still somewhere close by.
But tracing a relative scent was much harder than the scent of a specific person, and with all of the rains and wind that had blown through the scent trail had blown out a good 40 yards in every direction, increasing the search area to the point some places could not be searched.
For hours the teams hunted, dogs coming in and out, finding a trail only to stall again at a dead end or the edge of a cliff.
Search lights were hung in the trees and hunters were let loose to look for wild animals but as mid-day turned to dusk and the sun began to set, the search was called off so a better plan could be made and the area could be more appropriately mapped out.
Everyone there knew they had a small window of time.
They just didn't realize their window of time had already passed.
~oooOooo~
The next day the gathered Search & Rescue teams divided into four groups: ground, mountain, cave & ropes, and swift water.
Ground and mountain teams took specially trained dogs while the other two teams roped up and dived in and down, searching every nook and cranny for the lost men.
By mid-day the swift water team had turned up no bodies, declaring that the waters were too uncertain and that if anyone had fallen in or been swept away their remains would now be miles away from the search area and would probably be held under by the swift currents for at least the next several days.
The caves & ropes team also returned empty handed although they swore on their impeccable reputation that there was no sign that anyone had slipped or fallen down the rugged terrain.
No cave had been left untouched and no cliff had been left without a drop.
None of the bodies were anywhere to be found.
By the evening even the ground crew had returned empty handed but the mountain crew was still going strong, their dogs pulling them through a ravine and into a clearing where an abandoned tobacco warehouse stood.
The dogs bayed and pulled, a cadaver dog hitting strong as everyone's stomachs dropped.
If their cadaver hound hit, someone - maybe many someones - was dead.
Holding the dog in place, two members went back to Incident Command and got a trooper, all of them hiking back into the woods for a good distance before they were all back at the entrance of the warehouse.
The detective introduced himself but no one replied as the search dog fought to get to what it was after, but there was no need.
Very clearly lying in the middle of the open warehouse room was a dead body covered in blood - a violent attack obvious by the splatter that had landed everywhere.
More blood was splotched and splattered around but on first sight it was impossible to tell if it was from the one victim they had found or if they were going to be looking for more.
"This guy doesn't look like he's Asian," one of the search members said. "Looks like he pissed someone off."
The officer dropped down beside the body, scanning with his eyes.
"He must have been one of the assailants then," he decided. "Which means there may be more. Search this building and then pull out. The others aren't here. We've found no leads. The search is off 'til we get more information."
It pained the officer to say as much but they had already searched every nook and cranny and the fires were burning too close to go any further into the woods.
For another hour they searched, thinking they had found remnants of the men but finding no living person or body to answer their lingering questions.
Where had the other four missing men gone?
Were they alive?
Grievously injured?
Dead and rotting away somewhere?
Had they walked back into the fires and perished that way?
Or had the monsters that surely hunted them captured them once more and taken them somewhere new?
