Chapter Text
Grian J. Sparrow has always hated this part of his job. He takes a pushpin and pins a brand new missing poster to the town bulletin board. Decades of missing person's cases covered the thing and there was no open spot left. They had resorted to just posting over the oldest case on it. It was depressing to say the least. The town was small enough, but people still kept vanishing into the woods. He sighs as he lets his hand fall from the freshly posted missing person.
The police tried their hardest to keep people from entering the woods. They put up fences and signs—everything other than having someone watch it every hour of every day—and people still went missing. It was hard not to get discouraged, yet Grian was determined to figure it out.
He turns away, pulling his notepad from his pocket. He begins to scribble his theories and thoughts down onto the paper as he walks towards the woods. Whatever was happening, he knows that the key lies in the woods. Most people think it's something in the realm of the paranormal or supernatural, but Grian had never believed in such things. He believes that there is a rational explanation for everything.
He stands behind the fence, staring into the dark woods at the edge of his small town. The sun was setting, and the woods were eerily quiet. He couldn't even hear the crickets. An intense feeling of dread wells in the pit of his stomach as he gazes into the trees, and a chill runs up his spine. It was far more quiet than it usually was, almost eerily so.
He was only able to tear his gaze away when he gets a call. He pulls out his phone, turning his back to the woods, and holding it to his ear. "Hello?"
"Grian, have you gone home yet?" Martyn, the chief, asks him. It was then that Grian realises the sun had long set and that the moon was already high in the sky. "You haven't clocked out yet."
"No sir. My apologies. I lost track of time," he says, shoving his hands in his coat pockets. It was freezing outside, and he had finally realised his fingers were beginning to go numb. "I'll be by to clock out as soon as I can."
"No, please—Grian, don't bother. I'll take care of it for you, okay? Just get home and get some sleep."
"Will do, sir." It takes him a moment to register the dial tone before he puts his phone away and makes his way home. His breath billows in the frigid air.
His house was a cookie-cutter home—just like the others on the block. Red with white shutters and boxed out hedges beneath the windowsills and lining the pathway to his front door. It was a path burned into his muscle memory by now. One hundred steps from the end of the block to the pathway, twenty steps to the front door. He inserts the key into the lock, making sure to push it to the right so it lines up right. It had grown loose over the years of use, but he had become accustomed to the small adjustment. He enters and closes the door behind him, sliding the lock into place.
Exhaustion pulls at his limbs, and he heads straight for his bed. He doesn't eat or change first, he just collapses in his bed. He was asleep before his head even hit the pillow.
He jolts awake at the sound of his alarm, his heart pounding. He picks up his phone only to find it dead. He had forgotten to plug it in before he wen to sleep. He mutters a swear under his breath as he fumbles for the charging cord and plugs his phone in as he goes to get ready for work.
By the time he was finished getting ready, his phone had only gone up to three percent. He decides to leave it home instead. He didn't really need it—it was simply more convenient to have.
He exits his home, and the first thing he does, as is his routine, is look towards the woods and the signs. He then makes his way to the station, the chilly air waking him up more.
He pushes open the door to the station, and is greeted instantly by his friend Gem. He smiles when he sees her. It wasn't often that the coroner got to just chat with the rest of them. She was usually holed up in the morgue doing paperwork or looking over bodies.
"Wow, Gem. Finally getting some sunlight, eh? Thought I'd never see the day."
"Real funny, Grian. C'mon. Martyn assigned you a new case. We found one of the missing people." She was already leading the way to the morgue.
Grian's heart skips a beat. "Alive…?" He whispers, hoping beyond belief that he was right as he rushes to catch up to her. Gem's silence was answer enough. His heart sinks. "Same spot as last time then?"
She nods. "They're just being dumped there. Martyn's giving you the case against my advice. Clearly something supernatural is going on here."
"You know I don't believe in any of…of that…" he trails off when he sees the state of the body.
It was the body of a young woman, no more than 25 years old. Her body had been ripped apart, parts of the limbs picked clean, and there were large claw marks scouring the torso, and puncture marks that go straight through the body. The limbs had been removed with clinical precision, and according to Gem, it was done with a hatchet post-mortem. Every bit of mutilation of the body had been done postmortem. Every bit except the gouged out eyes. There was no DNA present that wasn't the victim's own.
"This is Ms. Talya Odrivera and this," Gem says, tilting the head to the side to show the caved in skull, blood dried and caked into the hair along with bits of brain matter. "Is what killed her. My best guess is that it was done with a hammer. The damage isn't consistent with blows from a hammer, but it's the most accurate."
"It looks like a giant wood pecker went at her skull," Grian comments, his eyes raking over the mutilated body laying out on the metal table.
Grian felt sick looking down at it. He can't imagine what sort of thing could have done this much damage, and frankly, he doesn't want to.
"Is that everything?" He finally asks.
"Yup. Good luck with this one, Grian. I think you're gonna need it."
He sighs and begins to take notes on the mutilation and how she was killed. He sketches out the claw marks and notes the clean cuts. "Thanks Gem," he says as he leaves the morgue. As he was leaving, he decides to investigate the dump site. It was the same as last time, so it was the ditch off of the south part of the woods. He looks down into the ditch, the dry dirt crumbling beneath his feet, sending him sliding to the bottom.
He surveys the ground for anything that could tell him what happened to the poor girl, but upon first glance he could find nothing. Upon looking more closely, he finds a large red feather the size of his arm. It was the same bright red as the feathers of tropical birds that he would see in the documentaries he likes to watch.
He crouches beside it and nudges it with his pen, lifting it just enough to look at the underside. It was coated in a dried crimson. Probably Ms. Odrivera's blood. He hums as he lets it fall. There was no blood here, meaning she wasn't killed here. His only guess is that she was killed somewhere in the woods.
He lifts his head to gaze into the trees, an eerie feeling instantly overwhelming him. He didn't believe in the paranormal, but if anything was to convince him of it, it would be these woods. He stands to his full height and only looks away when he hears someone calling for him.
"Martyn?" He says, climbing out of the ditch. "What are you doing here?"
"I should be asking you the same damn thing!" Martyn snaps, anger blazing in his eyes. "How many times have I told you? You can't go out investigating without your god damn phone! I've called you a dozen times now only for Gem to tell me you came out here! On your own!"
"I'm investigating."
"You know better than this!"
"My phone was dead."
"Do I look like I care? With the amount of missing people, I made it crystal clear none of my officers are to go out without their phone. If it's dead, you stay the fuck home till it's charged."
"Fine, I'll go get it."
"I'm walking you home," Martyn says firmly, arms crossed.
Grian rolls his eyes and they begin the walk back to Grian's home. It was silent other than the leaves crunching beneath their feet. He goes through the usual routine of opening his front door, and climbs the stairs to his bedroom where his phone lay charging. It was at seventy percent now, so he takes it off the charger.
"Happy now?" He asks his boss, sliding it into his pocket.
"I swear you're going to give me an aneurysm one of these days," Martyn sighs. "You aren't planning on going into the woods, are you? You know we put those signs up for a reason."
"I don't plan on it, but I don't think I'll find any concrete answers unless I do."
"Let me make myself clear, detective Sparrow," Martyn says. "I forbid you from going in those woods. You're my best detective. I don't want your face going up on the board next. Do I make myself clear?"
"Yes sir. No woods. Got it."
Martyn nods and takes his leave. Grian locks the door behind his boss and looks at his phone. Sure enough, there was a dozen calls from Martyn. He really should be more careful when he lives next to the woods that steals people. He'd lived here for a few decades now, though. If the woods wanted to take him, it probably would have done so already. At least that's how he rationalises it.
That night, when he finally goes to sleep, he can't help but notice an odd itch in the back of his mind. He changes from his work clothes to his pyjamas and climbs into bed. He hated these missing persons cases. They were always depressing and utterly exhausting. Everyone knows they go missing because of the woods, but he still had to investigate.
He jolts awake to find himself surrounded on all sides by trees. Snow covered trees. The sun was up, the snow was still falling, and his pyjamas were torn to shreds. They were barely covering him anymore.
Panic wells in his chest. He was in the woods. Why was he in the woods? Was he sleepwalking? He'd never sleepwalked before. Why now? Had the woods finally taken him?
He can barely breathe, and his chest was beginning to hurt. He doesn't even know that he's hyperventilating. Black spots begin to dot his vision, but then a there was a man kneeling in front of him, telling him to breathe, while putting a hand over his mouth to make him breathe through his nose.
"Breathe with me, okay? In and out," he says gently until Grian could breath normally again. "There we go."
Grian lifts his head to see a man with dazzling emerald green eyes and a scarred face kneeling in front of him. His hair was just a little past shoulder length but pulled mostly out of his face with a hair tie. He sheds his coat and drapes it over Grian's shoulders.
"Christ, how'd you get all the way out here? Even I don't go this far into the woods," the man says, tilting his head a little so his dangling gold earring catches the light. The man pulls him to his feet.
Grian can't take his eyes off of the man helping him, but he pulls the coat tighter around his shoulders. He was freezing cold. He didn't even have shoes on.
"So what's your name?" The man finally asked.
"Detective Grian Sparrow of the Hermitville P.D."
"Impressive. I'm Scar. Just a humble lumberjack. I'm assuming you aren't here to investigate if you're in pyjamas."
"We aren't supposed to be in the woods. So no."
The man hums as he ushers Grian towards a small cabin nestled among the trees. He pushes open the door and pushes Grian to sit by the fire. He does so willingly, letting the warm flames thaw his frozen limbs. He was still shivering, though, so the lumberjack drapes a large wool blanket over him before retreating to another room. He returns with fresh clothes for Grian to replace the tattered pyjamas that hung from his body and sets them beside Grian.
"Not many townsfolk come out here. Their all too scared of the woods."
"I didn't mean to. I just went to sleep and woke up here," he says, taking the tissues Scar offers for his now running nose.
"Isn't that how it always goes," Scar chuckles. "I'm kidding, don't worry," he adds when he sees Grian's alarmed look. "I know the stories and I wanted to mess with you a little bit."
"Ha ha, really funny," Grian replies dryly.
"I think humour's the best cure for anything," Scar retorts, pushing himself back up. "I was just about to make breakfast. Do you like rabbit?"
"Rabbit? Really? For breakfast?"
"I don't have that many options out here y'know. So what do you say?"
"Fine," he finally mutters, pulling the blankets tighter around his shoulders. "Say, have you seen a woman around here recently? Uh- short black hair, tan skin, about 170 centimetres tall?
"Can't say I have. Why?"
"Missing person's case. We found her body mutilated in a ditch off the south part of the woods, and well, you live here. Thought you might know something."
"Ah, well I wish I could be some help for you, birdie."
Grian looks over at him, and can't help but notice that he was still smiling. "Why'd you call me that?"
"You remind me of a bird! I mean that in a good way, of course. Besides, your last name is Sparrow! I think it fits."
Grian accepts the answer, and takes the clothes to change out of his ripped pyjamas. When he was done, there was a plate of roasted rabbit waiting for him at the table. He picks up the fork and nudges the rabbit around, not quite trusting the man who was giving him free food. He only nudges it around his plate to make it look like he'd eaten, when he really hadn't. He doesn't know why, but there was something about this smiling lumberjack that made him uneasy.
Scar helps him back to town, and he climbs over the fence to go home. He feels a chill run down his spine when he crosses the threshold. He turns back, only to see that Scar was already gone. He would be back to return the clothes later.
He swears under his breath when he realises he doesn't have his keys to get back inside his house. He tries the door, finding it was locked. He would call one of his friends to open it for him, but his phone was inside. He lets out an audible groan. He'd have to go to the station.
He trudges towards the station while wearing the clothes of a complete stranger. He pushes open the door, and points himself to the morgue, where Gem was most likely already at work.
"Gem?" He calls. "Do you have my spare key?"
"Why?" Gem asks, stepping out from her office. "And whose clothes are those?"
Grian explains quickly how he had been sleepwalking, and that he'd woken up in the woods. He tells her about the man he'd met, and that he'd been locked out of his house when he'd got back.
"My god," she mutters, pinching the bridge of her nose. "How the hell do you get yourself into these situations?" She digs through her desk and hands over his spare key.
He thanks her and heads back to his house, changing into his own clothes. He folds the borrowed clothes, and leaves them on the fence where Scar had left him.