Fantasy Adelaide Hills (IC | CLOSED)

[MoriForestFire]

TW :: Mild Gore

The small house smelled damp. At first, Catherine attributed that fact to the rain outside but as she ventured deeper into the building, the more she doubted that. The rest, or at least most, of AHPD puttered around her. The beams of their flashlights slashed through the darkness sporadically. Cath shared a glance with Sheriff Heavensbee at her elbow before clicking on her own handheld light.

"Still no power?"

Cath asked as she stepped over what might've once been a vase.

Her light trailed over a china cabinet. One of the doors had been ripped from its hinges, it glass window shattered onto the ground below. Fine, delicate dishes lay strewn about, their displays tipped ad thrown. Any openable part of the house, furniture and structure, was in a similar state. Whatever it was, it had been looking for something.

"Got some fellas from Wrightwater Electric headed over here now,"

Heavensbee explained, his voice deep and booming.

"But I figured it's better to show it to ya now, rather than later, right?"

"Right."

Cath agreed readily.

"'M sorry to drag ya out of bed this late at night,"

the sheriff of Adelaide Hills continued in his thick accent.

"Know ya just got into town and all."

Yeah, less than an hour ago. Cath didn't bother vocalizing that sentiment. She came back to Adelaide Hills willingly after all. Well, as willingly as one can after getting a panicked call from their mother in the middle of the night. A murder, Meilin Song had sobbed into her phone. In town!

The news had shocked Catherine. Adelaide Hills was a strange place, filled with strange and unique people, not all of them necessarily human. But, as long as Cath could remember, it had been a safe place. The population was small enough that everyone knew each other, that everyone buried themselves in each other's business. It wasn't the place for a murder, especially an unsolvable one.

And so, without much preamble, Cath packed up her life in Chicago and rushed back to her tiny hometown. She arrived less than an hour ago, exhausted and ready to collapse into her hotel bed. And then the Sheriff called.

"It's just like the last'n,"

Heavensbee said as he gestured to the door leading into one of the bedrooms. Yellow police crossed it off.

Spoiler

Cath's eyes swept over the door, over the bloodied handprints marring the white paint. The victim had tried to escape. Cath looked down the hall, sweeping her light back and forth. There was no blood anywhere else in the ransacked house. Even the blood on the door seemed limited to that singular spot.

With practiced ease, Cath ducked underneath the tape, keeping her forensics kit close to her chest. She stopped just inside the doorway, her stomach lurching violently. This part of the job, it seemed, she never got used to.

The blood covered every surface in the bedroom. It stained the walls and the carpet, splattered across the furniture and soaked into the bedsheets. The body lay on the bed as if the victim had been asleep when they were attacked. Their limbs were thrown out, spread eagle, face tilted towards the ceiling.

Cath ventured closer as tugged on a pair of disposable gloves. She tilted her head, eyes sweeping over the body. Curiously, the toes of the left foot and the thumb of the right finger were missing. When she leaned forward, she noted the missing eyes and tongue, the rope burns etched into the skin of the neck. Cath swallowed thickly. They'd been alive when the removal occurred.

A sound caught Cath's attention. She whipped around, lifting her flashlight a little higher. A pair of shiny, curious eyes watched her from the darkness, animal in nature. She stepped a little closer. The rat continued to stare at her for a long, silent moment. The stare too intelligent to be creature. A twitch of the nose and it turned. Cath lurched forward towards it but it was already gone, no trace of it left behind.

"Can we hurry this up, Cath?"

Heavensbee asked from the doorway, his voice strained.

"Betcha that wannabe reporter's gunna show up any minute now."

"Right,"

Cath mumbled as she turned back to her work. Big city or small town, it seemed like the press was determined to mess with any crime scene.

Another officer approached, whispering urgently. Heavensbee cursed lowly under his breath.

"I'll be back. Someone decided to alert the whole damn neighborhood,"

he rumbled before he disappeared.

Cath started to pull items out of her kit, her flashlight gripped between her teeth, when her eye caught a flash of color. She crouched, reaching out and pulling out a sprig of lavender, fresh and untainted by the crime scene around it. She twisted the stem between her fingers and frowned.

"Lavender for luck,"

she whispered to no one in particular before she slid the flower into a sample tube.

She worked quickly, filling up samples and taking the best pictures she could in the relative darkness. She hoped they managed to get the power on soon so she could take better ones. But for now, it was all she could do. Still no sign of the Sheriff.

Cath stripped her gloves and slipped them into a trash bag before exiting the room and the house. She squinted against the flash of the police lights, noting the poorly controlled crowd. AHPD was not used to dealing with crowd control. They weren't used to crowds at all. Most seemed wise enough to at least keep back from the scene itself though.

Cath looked across the field of people, searching for the face of the Sheriff. But he was nowhere to be seen. She stepped further into the crowd.

the mundane

cath.

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♡coded by uxie♡

 

[Owlishnerd]

Hullen Shook was a man fresh out of college. He worked at the local one stop shop for all your car's needs. Whether it be it’s maintenance or it’s supplies.It was a quiet night until the sirens went off and made him curious as to what was going on. He looked outside and saw a bunch of cars headed down the road. In a small no man’s land town like this. This was not what normally happened. The most police would do is get involved with some cat stuck in a tree, stopping a house party from some rowdy teens, but a full scale several car raid on an investigation site? One that looked like it was recently ransacked. Things just got interesting.

Feigning the “concerned citizen” angle he’d close up shop for the night. Early as it was, it was the best action he could take given the circumstances. Close up, head home, keep his nose out of trouble. Even if it was “bad for business.” Most people cared for one another here. His boss would understand and more than likely agree. Truth be told he just wanted an excuse to go check out the scene. He wanted to watch some skater kid getting reamed by the police. However more and more people followed him to the place the cop cars went. A seemingly normal house. The police were already inside and the lights were out. No sign of them being turned on either. He waited around for a bit before thinking it must have been some old lady fell.

What came to his attention was much worse as he started back to his house.

Rumors flew through the crowd.

“Screaming…”

“Loud crashes…”

“Breaking and entering…”

This kept him still. Standing around much the same as the rest of the crowd. Rumors held power in small towns like these. Although nothing would probably be confirmed from the police. Better to keep the masses unknowing then spread fear. Fear was the true killer in small towns like this. It kept people in their houses, their doors locked, and people unable to handle the situations presented to them.

A woman emerged and caught his eye. She looked unphased… As was her profession. Whether it was her eyes adjusting to the lights and the upcoming crowd or what she found inside he had no idea. All he thought was “That was never a good sign.” Stoicism and lack of emotion led him to believe the masses might have deduced something dire. The more she came closer, she looked panicked. She was scanning the crowd to find someone. Were they not around?

No one really knew what was going on except for the lady.​

 

[Harrowhark]

MOOD: Studying

OUTFIT: Two degrees left of frat boy asshole

LOCATION: Diner

basics

INT:
Jo mogy

tags

TL;DR Adelaide is weird and Cyrus wants to study it in a lab

tl;dr

Cyrus

— Soda

Three things of note had happened since Cyrus left Harvard.

Number 1: Elera appeared in my car, out of thin air, and almost made me crash. By the time I swerved back onto the road, she was gone. With some doubt of this ghostly figure’s existence, I did pull over and call for proof of life. She seemed unamused at the least, but as someone who masters in hiding things, I am almost certain there is something she isn’t telling me.

Not that Cyrus had a problem with any amounts of secrets and untruths, but the least she could do was acknowledge it had happened. This however implied she knew of the event, whereas her participation was currently only suspected. Given her behavior though, the suspicion had some backing.

Number 2: I was using my tarot deck, not for anything special, just to see if the energy was larger in Adelaide. Elera, who has never had interest in these sorts of things and calls it a silly card game, made an offhand comment about me pulling the wrong card. Of course, curiosity got the best of me and I asked her to pull. With confidence she snatched up and turned over the death card. Afterwards, she sputtered some excuse about being late for work and left.

The rest of that afternoon, Cyrus had spent alone in her apartment. Mostly out of avoidance, though he wouldn’t admit it. It was enough to avoid his parents by staying with his sister, but by not leaving the apartment, he was avoiding the entire town or anyone he might recognize.

It was well into the evening when Cyrus had turned on the news. Normally for a small town, he didn’t expect much. Very little of note happened in Adelaide. A part of him missed that comfort of routine, but he knew it would become boring all too soon. Newsworthiness wasn’t the thing that made the town special. It was the energy, the other worldliness. That was what he’d really missed while he was away.

Number 3: There has been a death.

Further details were withheld, but Cyrus knew this was ultimately the most exciting thing that would happen all week. Normal obituaries were only given in print, so what was different here?

Murder?

Cyrus snapped the leather notebook shut. A labeling on the front was written in neat print.

Adelaide Hills Feild Notes
Property of Cyrus Korey

All he’d have to do is follow the crowd and he’d find the action. He snatched up the keys to his Ford Cortina and shoved them in his jacket pocket, before exiting the apartment. Cyrus could just aimlessly follow the streets until he found what he was looking for, but if his first suspicion was correct, he didn’t want his sister out alone, specially when she’d rode her bike to work instead of taking his car like he offered.

The diner wasn’t far, the drive only took him five minutes. Headlights shown into the window, reflecting back onto him. There was only one more car and a bike in the lot. Meaning Elera was alone with someone who was likely not a killer, but he couldn’t say for certain. Every sound echoed off the empty street, the slam of the door and the lock of the car.

The front door jingled as it opened. Cyrus let out a breath of relief as he saw the dining room was empty and someone who wasn’t his sister was behind the counter. Though, people were more likely to be killed by someone they knew, like a friend or a coworker. She wasn’t immediately in the clear, but he still let his shoulders relax just a bit.

“‘Lera still here?” Cyrus slid onto a bar stool, setting down the notebook face first to his side. He cut the first letter of her name off, making it sound more like they knew each other. Which they did, but communicating that by saying “I’m not some stalker, we’re related” was not the move he was looking to make.

In the span of two years, it was reasonable for some new faces to pop up, but that was another red flag for…

Jo

Easy and simple, Cyrus would be able to remember that without writing it down. Speaking of which, he put a hand on the leather notebook protectively. There may be little in it as of now, but at this point he wasn’t sure he was willing to share.

code by valen t.

 

[mogy]

MOOD: Something is going on.

OUTFIT: Diner waitress outfit.

LOCATION: Diner.

basics

MENTIONS:
Elera.
INT:
Harrowhark (Cyrus).

tags

TL;DR Josephine is getting used to her new life.

tl;dr

josephine

Josephine Hewes, more commonly known as Jo, hadn’t worked in the diner for a long time, but there were a few things that she picked up on in the short time she did.

No. 1: Most of the customers liked to come to the diner to talk, as if it had been a therapist’s office, but Jo didn’t mind. It was a good way of getting the good gossip in town. Even in her short time there, she probably knew more than her grandmother did, and her grandmother was the biggest chatter in town.

No. 2: Not a lot of people her age came to the diner, except on Fridays, when the milkshake demand would increase by an unbelievable amount. Especially the green mint cherry milkshake, the famously agreed upon flavor. Except it tasted like spoiled milk and chocolate pistachio was obviously the better flavor. On these Fridays, she managed to rack up more tips than any of the other days combined, which was why she always worked double shifts on Fridays.

And, finally, No. 3: Not all shifts were the same. Undoubtedly, the morning shift was the worst one you could take. The cook was always late, the people were cranky, and well, you were the only person they could take their crankiness out on. The afternoon shift, however, was the most boring one. There were hardly any people in or around the diner, and you would remain stuck behind the counter waiting, almost hoping that someone would come in and give you something to do. The last shift, the night shift, that one was the gamble. It could be a mix of the best parts of the other two, or the worst parts, and every night, things were different, but at least there were always people.

Except on this particular night shift, the diner was completely and utterly empty. Police cars with sirens passed by the diner not long ago, but that wasn’t even the weirdest thing. The weirdest thing was the way Elera was acting.

Now, it wasn’t a known fact that Jo was good at reading people, at least not in Adelaide Hills, but she was, and something had been going on with Elera, even if the other girl didn’t want Jo to notice.

More breaks than usual, more smiley and assured than usual. It was exactly what her mother did the night when Jackson, Jo’s brother, disappeared.

But, at the end of the day, and it was the end of the day, it didn’t matter. It wasn’t Jo’s life, and it wasn’t something Jo needed to explore or investigate. In fact, it was something she wanted to steer clear from because the last time she explored something like this, she found her brother dead in a ditch. So she just let Elera hang out in the back for yet another break, letting the girl go through whatever it was she was going through. It wasn’t like there were any customers waiting to be served in the diner.

Ironically, just as she thought that, a car pulled up, flashing its lights through the diner windows, grasping Jo’s attention rather quickly. So she sat up from the chair she promptly placed behind the counter where it couldn’t be seen, put her phone in her pocket, and started wiping the already clean counter before her.

The young man that walked in wasn’t a face Jo had seen before, so she didn’t know what to expect, but he did seem rather harmless, so she didn’t have to have her guard up just yet.

He asked a question about Elera, and not wanting to bother her, Jo responded.

“Uh, yeah, she’s in the back, I think. But I’m here. What can I get you?” She put the cloth around her arm after she was done fake cleaning the counter. “Something to eat? Coffee? I just made a fresh batch, and, you know, I make a mean batch.” She smiled at the guy in front of her.

Never did she expect to see herself as a waitress at a diner in a small town of all places, especially not wearing one of these over-the-top, colorful diner uniforms. But at least it made it easier to pretend to be a likeable person.

code by valen t.