Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

It was late in the night when a black SUV halted with screeching tyres in front of Gwangju’s police station. Chief Kim JongWan was unusually tensed when he hurried over to greet his late guests. The quite short man of 48 years with normally soft features and a playful smile had grown pale over the eight murders that had shaken his town over the past three months. There had been a small light of hope once a new curfew had been established for six p.m. and no murders neither abductions had happened for the last four weeks. Until now.

Nervously wetting his lips, JongWan shook hands with a tall man shutting the driver’s door close. “Detective Jung?” he asked and sighed in relief when the younger nodded curtly. “So glad you could make it. Please come inside. We prepared a room for you and your team.”

“Pleasure’s all mine, Chief Kim.” A sympathetic smile scurried over the taller man’s lips. “I wish we could’ve met under different circumstances.” JongWan could do nothing but agree when he led the trio inside.

Drip

Drip

Drip

The sound was dull to his ears, all senses blurred and numbed. A soft groan slipped from his lips at the pain coursing through his skull. Shuffling joined the constant dripping, moving back and forth from one side to another. Another groan slipped past his lips, his eyebrows furrowed when he slowly but surely regained his consciousness.

He remembered working longer in the bar than the new curfew permitted and that JiHoon had offered him to stay for the night but he really didn’t want to impose on his kind boss. Well this and he definitely didn’t want to stay in the same apartment as his ex JaeKyung. Considering the pain in his skull and his heavy limbs it obviously had been a bad idea to decline.

What in the world had happened? And where was he? He didn’t know. All he could remember was leaving the bar, hurrying along the empty streets to hopefully reach his home safely and then …

Then what?

Drip

Drip

Drip

The dripping lulled his running thoughts back to the darkness. The shuffling was still there, reminding him of soft steps. It was chilly wherever he was and he shivered. He definitely was somewhere inside, but not a warm place.

Eyes still shut he tried to recall what had happened next before everything went black and became a blur. There hadn’t been anything unusual on his way home except … except the homeless man crouching at the edge of a side allay doubled over in pain. He had hurried over to help, but he couldn’t recall anything after that.

His eyebrows were furrowed now, his body shivering not just from the cold but the realization of him being in very big trouble. His consciousness now fully awakened he forced his eyes to open. He held his breath when he found the homeless man right across from him.

Absent-minded Detective Jung let his finger run along the edge of a photo whilst leaning against a whiteboard. A young male stared back at him, eyes dark-brown and figuratively sparkling with a broad smile. Dimples were showing around the young man’s mouth and inwardly he had to smile as well at the picture filled with life and happiness.

“YunHo?” Blinking down at the picture he traced a dimple before he turned around. He found his technical analyst by the door, the lanky man just a few centimetres taller than himself leaning against the door frame. Said one cocked his head aside, an eyebrow rising over the edge of his framed glasses when he noticed YunHo’s grip on the photo. He gestured with his head at it. “Kim JaeJoong’s family arrived.”

“Thanks, ChangMin. I’ll come right away,” YunHo replied, putting the photo back onto the whiteboard next to sixteen other photos with a last lingering look before he followed ChangMin into a spare office. He found Kim JaeJoong’s distraught parents inside, his mother weeping into the shoulder of her husband.

“Wasn’t there a younger brother as well?” YunHo wondered in a hushed voice when he clinked the door.

“Officer Park led him to the restroom.” YunHo nodded at ChangMin’s reply in an understanding manner. Heaving a deep breath, he opened the door. Meeting the family of a victim was never an easy task.

“Mr. and Mrs. Kim,” he addressed the couple upon entering, weary eyes falling onto him when both looked up. He held out his hand. “I’m Detective Jung YunHo and in charge of your son’s missing. I’m sorry that we have to meet under such circumstances.”

Mr. Kim accepted his hand with a soft grip when he rose from his seat. “Please find him.” There was nothing else he was able to mutter and YunHo didn’t expect any less. He motioned for the older man to sit back down. YunHo got hold of a chair and put it across from the couple before he sat down himself.

“I know this might seem unnecessary to you, but please, can you tell me about your son’s usual habits?”

Mr. Kim furrowed his eyebrows. “His habits?”

“Yes, his habits. His daily routine and his character, for instance. Would there be any reason why he stayed out so late even after the curfew? Especially on a Tuesday.”

“He-”

“He stayed a bit longer at the bar. The customers had left in a chaos and he insisted on cleaning up.” YunHo turned around at the soft voice and found a lanky boy standing in the door. There was no doubt that he was JaeJoong’s younger brother. They could have been easily mistaken as twins. He rose from his chair.

“You must be TaeYong then.” TaeYong barely nodded when he accepted his hand for a shake. Gesturing for the younger to sit down as well, he continued his inquiry. “Is there any possibility that he might stay at a friend’s place?”

TaeYong earnestly shook his head. “No. He messaged me that he will be late by thirty minutes. He promised.” He lifted his head and sternly looked YunHo in the eye. “He always keeps his promises.”

An understanding smile scurried over YunHo’s lips when he squeezed TaeYong’s fisted hands. “You love your brother very much, don’t you?” The sternness in TaeYong’s features immediately softened and unmasked fear washed over his eyes. YunHo saw the tears the younger tried to blink back when his father’s arm slithered over his shoulders and pulled him closer to his side.

“You need to find him.” YunHo was barely able to reply to TaeYong’s pleading whisper. Dealing with the heavy emotions of family members in such cases had him always assuring his best with a lump in his throat.

Anxiously JaeJoong stared at the back of the homeless man across from him. He was crouched over something that looked like a shabby table, shoulders shrugging slightly with each movement of his hands while handling objects JaeJoong wasn’t able to see. With a racing heart he dared to look away from the tattered coat enveloping most of the man’s figure and inspected his surroundings. The dim light coming from a single light bulb hanging from the ceiling didn’t really help much. He squinted his eyes to make out whatever he could. He registered that his ankles were bound to a dirty metallic table from a morgue.

His eyes travelled from the table to the right, greeted by a stony wall that looked grey, cold and clammy. The further he looked around and was greeted by nothing but the same structured walls, panic started to grow. He definitely was down in the sewerage and immediately was able to hear the occasional cheeping of rats and their paws scraping over the ground.

He shivered at the realization and swallowed when he looked further around. Above his head was a constellation of pipes and he registered then why his arms felt quite numb. He was chained to a thick pipe towering upright at the wall from where several smaller pipes originated towards another wall on the left. Right at the corner one pipe reaching through the wall caused the constant dripping that had lulled him to the darkness and had created a puddle on the floor. A quite uneven and crooked entrance divided the wall towards his left and led into another pitch black part of the sewerage.

He swallowed thickly when his eyes returned to where they had started, his breath ceasing when he stared into the furrowed face of the homeless man. His lips quivered in fear when his eyes locked with the other one’s pair gazing down on him from haggard and reddened sockets. The stern and icy look let him shiver more than his chilly surroundings, the eyes themselves letting his heart race in panic. He could only stare wide-eyed into the glooming bloody red eyes that were trained on him.

“Wakey, wakey.”

Every drop of JaeJoong’s blood curdled, unmasked fear washing over his features at the dark, quite croaky and calm voice. There was a notch to it that let every hair on JaeJoong’s arms rise and frightened him more than anything else. He felt a lump in his throat that kept him silent and felt a burn in his eyes from gathering tears. This wasn’t a typical voice. This was the voice of a lunatic, of a bad person – the voice of a murderer. It was nothing but inhuman.

JaeJoong felt a tear rolling down his cheek when the lips in front of him formed a creepy smile and bared a pair of yellowed uneven teeth.

One by one YunHo inspected the seventeen photos pinned to the whiteboard, his legs stretched and crossed as he sat right in front of it. His right index finger was placed atop his lips, eyebrows furrowed which gave him a rather strained expression. The thoughtful pose was completed with his left arm crossed over his chest balancing out his right propped arm. He had stared at the pictures for the past hour since he had awakened from a very short and restless nap on the sofa standing in a corner of the consulting room that had been currently altered to a new purpose. His blanket was still draped like a mess over the leathery furniture and his used pillow crumpled in a corner.

The whiteboard in the middle was without doubt the centre of the room, and every available desk was filled with case files to each of the nine missing victims. Eight of them had an autopsy report attached to them and YunHo really hoped that he and his team could find Kim JaeJoong before it would be added to his file as well.

He sighed deeply, closing his eyes when his fingers slithered over his chin in a slightly distraught manner. He needed to refocus for a while. He was certain that something linked all victims together and if he didn’t want to miss anything then he needed to take a break from staring at the photos every passing second of the investigation.

He lolled his head back when he heard the door towards the consulting room opening and found Detective Lee HyunAe entering with a cup of steaming coffee in her hands. She cocked her head at him and sceptically rose an eyebrow when he flashed her a grin upside down.

“Did you sleep at all?” she asked when she moved over to him and leaned against one of the desks next to him. He inwardly thanked her for saving him from the possible neck pain if he had stayed with his head down the backrest of his chair any longer.

He shrugged at her question. “Maybe two hours.”

HyunAe shook her head before she sipped on her steaming coffee. A low curse pearled from her lips when the beverage burned her tongue.

“As if you were able to rest,” he replied and stretched on his seat. Her hair still looked dishevelled and the dark circles around her eyes spoke of the same restless short nap he had forced himself to take.

She shrugged. “True that.” HyunAe sipped carefully on her coffee when she let her eyes wander towards the whiteboard. The first rays of the rising sun were shyly lurking through the window and crossing over its surface. “Any new inspirations on this case from your nap?”

YunHo shook his head. “None. You?” She reciprocated the act whilst sipping once more on her cup.

“Maybe we should take another look on what we have so far,” she suggested and put her cup down onto the table. She crossed her arms over her chest and gazed onto the pictures.

“I agree, we need to wait for ChangMin to wake up though. Maybe he found something new about the other victims.”

“Oh, he’s up already,” HyunAe interjected immediately and snorted when YunHo looked up at her with a raised eyebrow. “He’s raiding the in-house cafeteria for breakfast.”

YunHo gave a distraught sigh. He really needed to reconsider the idea of a personal chef that would accompany them on their countrywide investigations to keep their technical analyst full.

Speaking of the devil the lanky young man stumbled through the door with a plate of doughnuts, kimbap and two cups of green tea. “Mornin,” he greeted his colleagues with half of a glazed doughnut between his teeth whilst closing the door with his foot.

YunHo stared flabbergasted at him when he walked over to a chair close to his own. “I will never understand how you’re always able to eat under such circumstances,” he muttered when he declined the vanilla doughnut ChangMin had offered him.

The slightly taller one shrugged. “Just allaying my natural needs,” he retorted with a grin before he swallowed a kimbap. He sipped on his cup after putting the other one near YunHo. “Besides,” he continued, fingers already wrapped around another doughnut when HyunAe and YunHo simply raised an eyebrow at him whilst drinking, “My genius is charged with food, you know that.”

HyunAe shook her head with an amused smile when YunHo just sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “If you’re recharged, your genius might as well help us in brainstorming.”

ChangMin munched on his doughnut when HyunAe pulled a chair to YunHo’s right side and sat down. “Are we certain that Kim JaeJoong was taken by the same suspect as the others?”

“Definitely. We could rule out his boss and ex-boyfriend. Also, according to his family, friends and other acquaintances he didn’t have any enemies. Also the precise time and day of his missing is hinting at the same culprit,” ChangMin replied once he had swallowed his sweet serving.

YunHo crossed his arms over his chest when he stared at the whiteboard. “We know that the assaults don’t have any sexual background. Considering that our victims have different sexualities we can rule that out as a selective criteria.”

“This applies as well to the victims’ genders.” HyunAe rose from her chair and went over to the whiteboard where she pointed at the pictures one by one. “We have a wide spectrum. Males, females and a transgender woman. Our suspect doesn’t care for this criteria at all.”

ChangMin hummed when he went through a few autopsy reports. “We can definitely rule out any physical criteria. The victims were all in different physical and medical shapes. I’m certain though that the injuries inflicted on them during their capture have a special meaning to him. Something symbolic.”

“That’s what I thought as well. The way the injuries are arranged, and precisely match from victim to victim in depth, length and type,” YunHo halted for a moment to take a deep breath, “It’s a ritual.”

ChangMin inspected the reports once more whilst HyunAe let her eyes wander over the autopsy pictures on the whiteboard. They had to agree. Whatever the suspect did to his victims in their 48 hours of capture, he did it in a precise manner and each violation had its own timestamp.

Petrified no sound came across JaeJoong’s quivering lips. He vividly tensed when the homeless man closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Another set of tears rolled over JaeJoong’s cheeks when the smile widened and revealed more of his yellowed teeth. JaeJoong gulped at the pair of fangs in the corner of his mouth.

“Fear.” JaeJoong shivered at the delight in the other’s voice. Frightened he stared into the opening glooming eyes. “I can smell it in your veins.”

Another tear followed the thin trail on JaeJoong’s cheeks. “P-please.” He was barely able to hear his own shaky and breathy voice and was certain that the other didn’t catch it at all. Blinking the homeless man cocked his head a bit to the left in what JaeJoong realized with horror to be curiosity. Mortified he pleaded for his life, “I- Please, let me go. I-I won’t tell anyone you’re down here. I-” His voice cracked when another set of tears spilled from his eyes. “Please, don’t hurt me.”

The homeless man raised his eyebrows at that. “Hurt?” he repeated, a notch in his voice that spoke of the lack of understanding. An icy laugh echoed through the sewerage that froze every drop of JaeJoong’s blood. “I won’t hurt you.” Every fibre of JaeJoong was shaking. He didn’t dare to feel anything close to relief. Without restraint his tears kept falling from his eyes when an evil grin lit the other’s face. In the dim light and with his glowing red eyes he didn’t look human at all. For JaeJoong he resembled the epitome of evil.

“I will break you.”

“Was there anything new you were able to find out about the former victims, ChangMin?” YunHo stood in front of a second whiteboard they had organized to note down their findings.

ChangMin shook his head. “Nothing new. The information gathered by the local police doesn’t lack a thing. Guess for once it is good that in such a small community everyone knows everything about everyone. There are no secrets left that I could find.”

YunHo hummed in recognition. He tapped a black whiteboard pen against his thigh whilst letting his eyes wander towards the pictures of the victims in deep thought.

“Maybe we should focus onto the suspect for a while to get a new perspective,” HyunAe chimed in to overcome the pregnant silence. “Is there anything we can tell about him already?”

Dumbstruck for a second YunHo blinked at her before he grabbed his cup and sipped on his already cold tea. “This sounds like you put some thought to it already. Tell us about it.”

HyunAe leaned a bit forward and eyed YunHo and ChangMin intently by turns. “We already established that the injuries have no sexual cause.” Both men nodded in agreement. “Also the wounds in itself have a ritualistic pattern.” Another nod. “Have either of you considered that our suspect might have a medical background and an inclination to occultism?”

ChangMin brushed over his chin in thought. “I agree with the occultism. The injuries are too precise on each victim to not be of ritualistic meaning. I’m not perfectly sure about the medical background though. I rather have the feeling that our suspect had a lot of self-taught practice to be this precise.”

“To be perfectly sure we should have a talk with the pathologist. I’m certain he can tell more about the injuries despite his reports being very detailed.” YunHo focused his eyes on HyunAe. “I would leave this to you, HyunAe. Follow your gut feeling on this one.”

HyunAe nodded curtly. “Will do.”

Sighing YunHo turned back towards the whiteboard. “There must be something that links all of them. If we don’t find that we might never find out why or how he chooses these specific victims.”

ChangMin put his framed glasses back onto his nose after cleaning them before he inspected the whiteboard. HyunAe furrowed her eyebrows in deep thought as well. “Are there any surveillance videos of the victims? I mean, either of them went missing on their way from work, a friend’s place or home to go somewhere,” she muttered reading through the listed details they had collected under each set of pictures.

“There were a few, but none that captured them on precisely seven p.m. when they went missing.” YunHo tapped on the first picture. “Choi SunHee was last seen when she left the hotel she was working at. The hotel’s surveillance camera was able to follow her until 6:46.” His finger slipped to the second one. “There’s no surveillance material on Lee TaeBum. He left home to visit his girlfriend three streets further and never reached her. The same goes for our fourth and sixth victim. There is no material we could check.”

“How about surveillance material on Kim JaeJoong? When I’m not mistaken Chief Kim insisted to finally strengthen the surveillance on the streets after Park SangMi went missing. That was the sixth victim. He had tried after the third victim once but fell on deaf ears,” HyunAe suggested when she recalled Chief Kim JongWan talking about it the former night.

“Unfortunately for Kim MinSoo and till yesterday noon last known victim Lee MinHo, the mayor didn’t cooperate until they found Lee MinHo’s body. This time we might be lucky to find surveillance material on Kim JaeJoong from yesterday evening,” ChangMin retorted absently as he scanned through the interviews with the victims’ families and friends.

“We should include Chief Kim and Officer Park in this task. They know this case and their streets well,” YunHo declared and noted down their next steps onto the new whiteboard. “ChangMin, I’ll leave this material search to you.” He turned towards the technical analyst when he didn’t receive a reply. “ChangMin?”

The lanky man was completely lost in the files and switched from one to another in the split of a second. HyunAe blinked, surprised, at YunHo when ChangMin didn’t pay them any attention for another minute and shrugged her shoulders. YunHo squinted his eyes on him. Last time he had seen ChangMin in such a state, the technical analyst had come across a specific detail that had helped them to catch Kang DaeHyun, the certified Cannibal of Seoul.

“What did you find, ChangMin?” he addressed him when ChangMin circled something on each file with a pencil.

ChangMin’s eyebrows were furrowed. “I’m not perfectly sure if it’s really something,” he mumbled before he sipped on his cold tea. Expectantly YunHo and HyunAe looked at him when he rose his eyes at them. “The only connection I could find is a personality trait they all shared.”

“A personality trait?” HyunAe repeated a little sceptical and lifted a delicate eyebrow.

ChangMin nodded, deliberately ignoring her sceptical undertone. “Here, family members and colleagues of Choi SunHee described her as charming, social, friendly and kind,” he explained when he shoved the file towards HyunAe and YunHo. The two inspected the highlighted parts closely when ChangMin continued, “According to Lee TaeBum’s girlfriend he was quite a social butterfly, caring and kind as well.”

YunHo’s eyes lit with realization when he caught onto ChangMin’s theory. He got hold of another file. “Kim SooJi,” he muttered whilst skimming towards the parts ChangMin had highlighted, “Friendly, full of life, kind.”

“Lee SooYoung,” HyunAe followed after, “Social butterfly, helpful and kind.” She let the file drop back onto the desk. “I think this might really be our link, ChangMin. YunHo, you talked with Kim JaeJoong’s family. What did they say about him?”

YunHo didn’t need to look onto his notes to recall the most recent interview. “He’s a caring big brother, helpful, trustworthy, a little sensitive and very kind.” He put his hand onto ChangMin’s shoulder. “I believe our genius really found the connection between our victims.” ChangMin grinned widely.

The chains binding JaeJoong to the pipes rattled softly when every fibre of his body trembled in fear. A whimper came across his lips when he was unable to say a word. To his horror the homeless man seemed all the more delighted at his obvious fright. A palm came into his view, downright a claw he realized with horror, with long crooked fingers and sharp crusted nails.

The claw swiftly moved through the air, the movement so fast JaeJoong wasn’t able to actually see it. He barely felt a whiff of air across his cheek that was followed by a burning sting. Wide-eyed he stared at the homeless man when he felt a warm drop of blood running achingly slow over his cheek towards his chin.

JaeJoong winced when the action was repeated and clawed open his shirt and jeans. Several bloodied thin scratches were left on his arms, thighs and his chest. With a strangled cry JaeJoong closed his eyes when the claws breached the skin of his abdomen. He forced himself to peek through his eyelids, his chest rising and sinking fast in terror when he heard a satisfied mewl echoing through the sewerage.

A choked whine slipped past his lips when his eyes fell onto a long knobbed tongue of unhealthy purplish colour that licked over the few drops of blood left on crooked fingers.

“Mmmh, such pure fear.” JaeJoong held his breath when a terrifying grin was flashed at him. “This is going to be a very nice treat.”

Every colour vanished from JaeJoong’s face when a new wave of terror came over him. “Please, don’t eat me.” His whisper croaked into a stifled sob and his heart stopped to beat when another inhuman laugh broke from the other’s lips.

“Fool,” the homeless man laughed with malice and intently eyed JaeJoong’s trembling figure. “I do not feast on human flesh. It’s not very tasty.” His glooming eyes sparkled with mischief when he evilly cackled. “I feast on fear,” he declared and grinned coldly at JaeJoong, “and pain.”

A whimper slipped past JaeJoong’s lips at the outlook, his chains rattling when he tried in vain to escape from the man that literally scared him to death. His eyes burned with another set of tears. The homeless man just laughed hysterically at his futile attempts to get away from the torture the former eight victims had to endure before him.

A simple push to his chest knocked the breath out of JaeJoong and he gasped for air. Frightened he looked at the other who easily pinned him down to the morgue table with a crooked finger.

“Now, now. If you wiggle so much it will just hurt more,” he declared with a small but nevertheless creepy smile before he crouched over JaeJoong and buried him beneath the full length of his body. JaeJoong’s lips trembled when he writhed under the other’s weight, pleading whimpers echoing in his own ears whilst tears were running down his cheeks. “But then again, it intensifies the pain.”

An amused creepy grin revealed the yellowed teeth and with a terrifying chuckle the homeless man leaned down towards JaeJoong’s neck. A bloodcurdling scream hollered through the sewerage when he gouged his fangs into the mellow flesh of JaeJoong’s collarbone. The following high pitched cries of scrutinizing pain startled the rats in their respective holes throughout the sewerage and let them flee into another pitch black part under Gwangju.

YunHo was crouched over a detailed city map of Gwangju, several coloured pens next to him which he had used to highlight the locations of the victims’ missing spots and, for most of them, the location of their bodies. A buzzing of several voices and foot steps came through the door, reminding him that the police station had started its daily business.

Sighing he leaned back, blinking his eyes furiously to refocus them from staring intently onto the map for a possible geographical profile and sipped on his tea. The second serving of herbal tea had gone cold just like the first.

Subconsciously his eyes wandered towards the whiteboard and unerringly focused onto the picture of Kim JaeJoong. His gaze lingered on JaeJoong’s eyes and his smile. He took a deep breath before he rose from his chair and walked over to the picture. His finger traced over a dimple before he grabbed the corner of the picture and pulled it from the wall. His eyebrows were furrowed in deep thought when he gazed onto the picture in his hands and slowly moved back towards his chair.

He felt a strange connection towards the young man in the picture as if he knew him, which he was sure couldn’t even be possible. He had never seen the lad before yet it was Kim JaeJoong’s missing that bothered him the most among all other victims. He had a very strong urge to rescue Kim JaeJoong from the culprit before his time was running out and nervously checked any clock available.

He sighed deeply when he put the picture down onto the city map, leaning back in his chair with his arms crossed over his chest. Closing his eyes he pinched the bridge of his nose. This entire case was a mess and turmoil of emotions. “Focus, YunHo. Focus,” he mumbled to himself in an attempt to refocus onto the entity of the case and not a single victim.

He turned his head when the door of the consulting room opened. HyunAe hurried inside, a few papers clutched in her left hand. “I’ve brought something new from Doctor Jung.” To emphasize her words she waved the papers at YunHo whilst closing the door behind her.

A soft groan slipped from YunHo’s lips when he straightened on his chair and motioned for HyunAe to take a seat. “You’ve got my attention,” he declared and focused his eyes on her. He didn’t miss HyunAe’s quick inspection of the city map and a delicate eyebrow rising once her eyes spotted Kim JaeJoong’s picture.

“How’s your geographical profile going?” she asked before sitting down and YunHo inwardly thanked her that she left JaeJoong’s picture uncommented.

He shrugged his shoulders. “Not sure. The locations are completely scattered on the map. I wasn’t able to find something relevant thus far,” he muttered and glanced down onto the map. Several coloured spots and post-it notes were scattered on the map in a seemingly chaotic way. He interrupted HyunAe when she was about to reply, “We can focus on that later though. You said you’ve got something new from the pathologist.”

HyunAe nodded curtly on the shift of subject. “Yes, I asked your namesake Doctor Jung about the wounds and their specificness and whether he could give me a first impression on what he believes the culprit used as weapons.” She looked through her papers and shoved the first towards YunHo so that he could take a look on her notes. “He is certain that the burns were caused by a typical cigarette and that it was stubbed several times into the same wound to increase the wounding. He found particles of ash in each of them which strengthens his assumption.” YunHo nodded when he intently listened to HyunAe’s report and got hold of another paper she handed him. “The deep cuts result from a curved very sharp knife. You remember that the wounds are arranged in some pattern that assume to be symbols of some kind?” YunHo nodded once more and raised his eyes to look at her. “He assumes that the weapon we’re looking for has a ritualistic background. Something like an instrument that in old times was often used during sacrifices.”

YunHo startled when he gazed over a quick sketch of the weapon in question. His eyebrows furrowed at the strange feeling of familiarity. “Did the pathologist- What was his name again?”

“Doctor Jung JaeHyun,” HyunAe quickly retorted and caught onto YunHo’s question. “He drafted the weapon himself, if you were wondering about the sketch.” YunHo curtly nodded in agreement and motioned for her to continue. She got hold of another paper. “There is something very interesting about the scratches,” she declared and hesitated a moment to hand him the paper over.

YunHo looked at her with a raised eyebrow. “Well?”

She gnawed on her bottom lip. “He was actually a little unsure to tell me about his assumption to this one. You will understand if you see the sketch.” Without another word she handed the paper over to him.

A single sketch was drawn onto it, no further words of explanation to the wounds or the draft in itself. YunHo stared flabbergasted onto the fine pencil lines. It showed a downright claw with razor-sharp nails and he felt this pang of strange familiarity again.

“He is aware that this sketch might be a little too over the top, but from the arrangement of the wounds and their depths he is certain that they were caused by human nails,” HyunAe continued when she noticed YunHo’s surprise. “This brings me to our last revelation.” She handed YunHo the last paper when she regained his attention. “The bite marks were inflicted through the suspect’s own teeth. He must have some sort of sharp fangs, maybe sharpened them himself or had a dentist do it.”

YunHo stared at the dental profile Doctor Jung established. “We have a dental profile and no one looked through dental files yet?”

HyunAe shook her head earnestly. “They did, but this specific profile was nowhere to be found. It is non-existent.” YunHo blinked at her. “That’s not the only mystery these bite marks carry with them. Doctor Jung was able to find genetic material on them from the suspect. He ran them through any test available to filtrate as much DNA as possible.” YunHo held his breath at the revelation and clutched the papers in his hands tightly. “He was flabbergasted and confused, but the results are a given. Our suspect is not human.”

YunHo stared disbelievingly at HyunAe and she stared earnestly back at him. A pregnant silence came over them after this information made quite an impact. A strident ringing ripped through the tense atmosphere which let both startle in their seats.

YunHo took a deep breath before he answered the call, “Yes?”

ChangMin’s agitated voice vibrated through the speaker, “YunHo! You need to come down to the surveillance room immediately. Bring HyunAe as well. You both need to see this.”