Chapter Text
The aroma of the air around was pungent that day, the foul stench surrounding the area as the clouds shifted into place, creating a shadow over the crime scene and the detective that had just arrived. She greeted the police officers and lifted up the yellow police ribbons to enter the dimly illuminated alley, finding the body of a young man at the end, stuffed hastily behind a trashbin. The man hadn't been dead for long, his body was found when a woman working in the adjacent restaurant had gone to take out the trash.
Drift, the main detective assigned to the case, showed up shortly after the police had taped off the area and preserved all of the evidence that they could. One police officer followed her under the yellow tape and gave her a detailed description of the state that they found the man's body in, as his body had been taken away for an autopsy. He had suffered from deep scratches and bite marks, making drift concerned that a beast had attacked him, not a human.
As the police officer continued describing the scene, Drift listened and observed her surroundings, picking up on blood spatters covering the alley walls, pieces of skin and flesh stuck onto the ground, and finally a beautiful bright purple orchid covered in the smallest spatter of blood.
It was a beautiful thing really. It created a certain juxtaposition. Such a beautiful delicate flower at such a disastrous and disgusting scene.
After the police officer finished giving their report and drift was done with an overall observation, she pulled a pair of rubber gloves from one of her coat pockets and pulled them over hands. She then delicately picked up the orchid and stashed it into one of the evidence baggies that she carried with her before zipping it shut, and handing it off to another police officer.
As she finished her investigation, she kept thinking about the orchid. Not often did she see something like this at a crime scene. Usually it was the same old bleak nonsense, nothing beautiful about it at all. In most cases she dealt with it was easy to find the perpetrator of the crime. But this case was very unusual, Claw and bite marks that looked unhuman, but no reports of a wild animal nearby, and that flower that she couldn't get her mind off of. That beautiful orchid. What an unusual setting for it.
She returned to her office building and finished up her paperwork, swiftly and efficiently before leaving to walk home. The mostly cloudy day created a humidity that made her sandy brown hair a bit too frizzy for her liking, but created a shade that she enjoyed. Her unusual outfit got her some looks from passerbyers, she wore what some would consider outdated time pieces that reflected attire a Sherlock Holmes character might wear. But she liked to dress for the job, it got her into the mood and motivated her for work, and more than anything made her happy.
The walk from her office to her home wasn't a lengthy one, however she lived deep into the city and had to push her way through the crowded street and wait at stop lights often. She passed many blocks of the city with many shops and businesses around every corner on her walk. She found slight joy from looking into the window displays of each shop, and in most cases she just glanced over them before continuing her walk, But in this case she couldn't help herself from staring into the window of a flower shop.
She noted the usual bouquet lines on the walls, most containing all of the basic flowers like roses and lilies cradled with peonies and mums. She stopped her walk home and stared through the window, trying to think back on all of the times that she has received a bouquet, only to realize that she actually never has.
She continued window shopping until her eyes landed onto a familiar purple flower, well several to be more specific, joined by white baby's breath and wrapped in a light purple crepe paper, tied together with a bright red ribbon.
For a moment she couldn't take her look away from it. She stared at it like it was staring at her back, and it felt like it. Anxiety swelled in her stomach for a reason unknown to her. She felt like she was being watched.
She turned away and shook her head. This wasn't anything to be anxious about, she thought to herself. No need to fret over this, This is irrational. No one is watching you. But the anxiety was still sitting deep in her stomach.
She hurriedly walked home, and closed the door of her apartment building behind her. She approached her bed quickly and face planted directly into a huge pile of pillows and let out a large sigh. Safe, she was safe here. The feeling was not too distant from when one runs up the stairs after turning all of the lights off. She made it home safe and sound.
The day had been one of the few days where she got to do actual investigative work. Most of the time she was stuck at the office doing copious amounts of paperwork for her rotten coworkers. She was pretty young and a fairly new detective so she often was handed the easy cases, all the old farts taking the good cases for themselves.
Today was a good change of pace. She was handed a difficult case. A case that she could prove herself with. A case that she needed to prove herself with. She was both optimistic and fearful about it.
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Over the next two weeks she does what she was trained to do. What she needs to do to prove herself. She is meticulous and careful about her investigations.
It was midday, however it was difficult to tell the time without a clock due to the heavy late summer rain that was falling outside, blocking out the sun entirely. Shortly after her designated break she was suddenly called back to her superiors office and given some enlightening news. There was a new victim that matched the description of the one that she had found 2 weeks prior. One with beastly scratch and bite marks right next to a similar dastardly purple orchid.
At that moment, Drift realized that maybe the bright flower she found that day wasn't a coincidence. Maybe it was a killer's trademark…