"What?"
"I said: We're going on your first mission."
"No, I got that, I just thought that it would take more time." I said with slight annoyance at the casual tone with which Marie said that.
Over the past few weeks, we've gotten to know each other a little bit, since we're coworkers. She was a very chill person, taking everything in stride, and not letting other people's opinions impact what she does or how she does it, and she always did whatever she wanted. A pretty good mindset, but it has its own set of flaws.
For an example, she wouldn't accept my nigh emotionless 'please no, I don't wanna die' for an answer to going on my oh so exciting mission.
So, she decided that I'm going no matter what I said. What a drag.
As we were walking to the place, Marie pulled out a small stack of files, opened it, and then looked through every page a bit.
"Our mission is to investigate a murder site, to figure out whether it was a ghoul or a human. The reason being that we have technology that the police doesn't have access to, and certain wounds on the body look slightly similar to nails, but there were also knife wounds identified. Huh." Marie surmised from the files,
I questioned Marie a bit more. "So, we're checking whether there are excessive dead RC Cells on the wounds? Why are we needed there then? Shouldn't it be the job of a special police force? Something like this shouldn't be a reason to call us, right?" I did it mainly to try and convince Marie to let me go, at the very least. I hoped I could push a bit on her humanity.
Unluckily for me, I did not manage to do it. Instead, she doubled down.
"First off: we are that special police force. And normally, we don't have even this much work, it's mostly filling out paperwork, developing new equipment, maybe answering a few questions to 'concerned civilians'. But then, around three to four months ago, a lot more cases that involved us started popping up all over the province, and we started being sent out to deal with possible ghoul crime cases. After you five joined, it has become a lot calmer, mainly because Thomas and Nicole are able to move on faster from every single case. Second off: We were given this mission, because it happened while those two are away from the city. Any more questions?"
I looked at her in horror, fear and disgust forming on my face. This was the most expressive I've been since I met her.
"I- I became a cop?!" The horror warping my lips, and making creases in my skin only deepened even more after my terrifying revelation. I wanted to gag, to throw up, but I had nothing to do it with other than the foul and bitter bile that I held back as much as I could. For a short second I was almost glad that I didn't eat breakfast today, but vomiting something that actually had more taste other than bitterness would certainly make this excruciating moment a better experience.
"Hah! I had the same reaction when I started working here! But don't worry, we mostly just investigate murders that could be connected to ghouls, nothing more." She laughed at my reaction to her previous words.
I answered in a tone I would consider threatening. "How dare you laugh at my suffering. I will have my vengeance."
She goggled a bit at that. And so it seemed, that she unfortunately picked up on the slight hint of playfulness, or my voice was not at all threatening. "Sure you will. Let's go now, we still have to do our job."
So I got up, and we walked to the crime scene. The scene was your typical one, that you'd expect to see on TV. A body covered by a white cloth, in the middle of a back alley, with a singular police car right beside it, and some markers to show where each piece of evidence was. There was an outline of the body too, though there was a pretty big pool of already dried blood. When we arrived, the guys who were there introduced themselves for us, gave us their numbers so we can call them when we figure more things out, and simply left. I hoped I wouldn't have to interact with them more than this.
Marie took the cloth off of the body, revealing the absolutely destroyed human under it. There was one giant gaping hole below her left shoulder, as if someone wanted to hit her heart and destroyed much more than that, and another slightly smaller hole was on the right side of her stomach. There was a lot of missing meat on her arms and legs, and the stomach hole looked as if it were ripped out violently multiple times by someone's hands, or, coincidentally, teeth.
"Disgusting. At least I didn't eat before this." Marie exclaimed as she stood up, staring at the body with an apprehensive look on her face.
"I don't know, I think I'll have a nice, big, meaty lunch right after we get back to base. Maybe some beef..?" I wondered aloud and ignored Marie's even further disgusting look, while I simply looked at the face of the victim, who's eyes were closed as if she just fell asleep, and was about to wake up, and maybe go to work or something.
"Well, just staring won't help solve the case, let's collect DNA samples or whatever it is we need to do. I still wanna go home today." I looked around, and then looked expectantly at Marie, for her to start doing her magic, and pulling out all sorts of things out of her, entirely too small to be practical, I don't know if I can call it that, pockets.
She nodded, and pulled out a device that could be called a TV remote at a first glance, and basically alien technology at a second one. She kneeled down next to the body, and put a small vial into the device, before putting the device itself into the wound on the stomach gently. After the sample was taken, she took the sample, and put another vial into the device, doing the same to the hole in the victims shoulder.
I instead looked around the crime scene, trying to figure out what happened. I may not be an expert but I'm good at noticing some things. I did notice that there were blood splatters on the ground, that were all circled with white chalk. But there were some on the wall, too, that were not circled at all, which I deemed as strange enough to investigate further.
So I looked up. I wanted to see just how far up the drops of blood went. And I was not disappointed with the results I got. The blood went right up to the top of the building, and maybe even over the edge of the roof.
"Okay, we'll start with the buildings around here, and if we don't find anything, we'll expand the area on which we'll be looking for the culprit. So which building do you wanna start with?" Marie interrupted my pondering, after gathering the samples.
I pointed at the building on which the blood splatters were, and she nodded and went to the other one.
I followed her lead, and went to the building I pointed towards. As investigators from the CCG, we are granted permission to enter buildings if it is during our work hours, so getting in there was no issue for me. I just had to state my name and the CCG, and they let me in.
Walking through the staircase, I had my suspicions for what may have happened, but I didn't let them sway my mind until I arrived at the top floor. There was even more blood on the floor and walls, as if someone injured was walking there. I wanted to get to the bottom of the case, so I started walking to the door to the only apartment there, but something interrupted me.
My work phone was ringing, so I took it out and saw who was calling me. It was Marie. She may have found something out too. I answered the phone, and greeted her.
"I see. I'll be there soon. I also found something interesting for the case, so I think this will be over soon."
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