“Where am I?”

My ability does not answer. Who is this woman? I tried to analyze my situation. This simulation goes deeper and deeper…

“So, love, how is the coffee?”

I drank it. I thought nothing of it, but my instincts kept pushing me.

“Hmm… tasty, but slightly bitter. Just to my tastes.”

“Good! But please, don’t overwork yourself. There’s still a lot to do.” She stood up and leaned to my ears.

"With this evidence, we will get them.” I had involuntarily said the words.

Who, exactly? I had no idea of anything at all. But still, my intuition tells me…

“Yeah. We will.” She, in turn, kissed my cheek. That startled me, but I went unfazed.

“Well, I just dropped by to check up on you. Take care of yourself!” She shut the door as she left. I’m now left to my own devices. The others might still be observing me, though, so I need to play with this situation as keen as possible.

I rummaged through the papers and skimmed them. Something about corruption in the military. ‘The high-ranking officials of this country are rumored to exchange information with the opposition with personal protection. They are giving notions that the war cannot be won by attrition, so they will just give up.’

A piece of information. Setting aside the fragile papers, I checked myself. I’m in my own outfit now, not in that military uniform just like what the woman wore.

So, am I solving a mystery with regards to this… military? There is so much information to take in, but it somewhat, in some way, condensed it all. I scanned the room for clues. Even as simple as a name would suffice. The room is poorly lit, but I see a stashed nameplate on one of the dressers. Picking it up, I tried to brush off the collecting dust to view the engraving.

Morgan, Phillip. Intelligence Officer.

Looking behind me, the table suggests so. Aside from the relative books, I see evidences and writings against this military. I am an intelligence officer… plotting against my own military? It is ironic, to say, but this finding begs for more questions than answers.

I called out for the voice again. My ability still ceases to reply. I did another look at the room, but much of the drawers won’t budge, the cabinets containing documents are locked, and I found no keys at my person. I was slightly afraid to open the door. I had a feeling it wont open, and I can’t leave this place without some kind of key to find.

With no other choice to go to, I tried opening the door. To my relief, the handle twisted. I was met with darkness. When I chose to get out, the door behind me closed itself along with a guttural creak made by its hinges.

Time passed by in the abyss…

…

…

I heard a blood-curdling scream. I had to open my eyes. When I did, I found myself in another room. It was a small concrete barracks, and soldiers were circling a small area. I eased past some of them, and what I saw made this simulation more surreal than I had expected.

The woman who gave me coffee. She was splayed on the ground in a display of gore, lifeless. Three stabs to the neck. Another in the chest. Her body was stiff, and the blood was starting to clot. I heard murmurs from the others.

“This is brutal…”

“Just after the party… What the fuck…”

“Is this the intelligence officer?”

Am I supposed to solve this? I have literally no experience in being a detective. Sure, those ‘films’ that kids used to watch in grainy television back at my town gave an impression, but this… This is a real as it gets.

“What happened here?” I said, trying to calm myself.

“You should have more info, officer. You’re intelligence.” A soldier remarked.

“I have no idea… But please, tell me exactly what happened, even before you all came to this place.”

I was pulled to a few distance from the crowd, and the man started to talk.

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“The higher-ups staged a party on the rec room, to celebrate our successful defense of the region. But when we went back here, the door wont budge. It was locked from the inside. When we busted inside, however, we just saw that girl… coldly killed…”

I looked around. The barracks was sealed tight, except for a ventilation shaft. The door was dented and dislodged from its position, and I found no trail of blood from the body leading to anywhere. I first checked the vent. It was too small for a person to go through. Only a child can manage to crawl inside, let alone reach it.

As I was searching for clues, the man followed me.

There were evidences of struggle: A column was chipped by some kind of knife, some beds were in disarray, and a general sense of unease grasped my throat. I tried myself not to, but as the situation required it, I checked the body.

“Sir… Be careful…” Another soldier remarked. I just nodded.

Three amateur stabs to the neck. Nearly dried blood poured out of the wounds and into the floor. The chest was moist with blood badly, and to my horror, I had to rip it open. Same amateur stab, it’s almost as if the suspect did these kinds of stabs on purpose. Most of the blood adhered to her clothes. As I reached out to her skin, however, my touch confirmed my sight. The woman was stiff, and almost freezing. It’s as if she was sent to a freezer before being killed, unnatural even for a lifeless body. However, if there were traces of ice or water, it was gone long ago. If I went for the suspect’s presence through footprints, it was saturated because of this crowd.

“Officer… Any clue?”

“What’s the weather today?”

“It’s been a blizzard all day, sir, but I don’t know why you wouldn’t know that…”

“Do we have a balcony, or a room, accessible to the outside?”

“There’s an observation post above sir. I’ll lead you.”

I had no choice but to follow this man. It was a short walk, and we went up to a ladder. As we neared the opening, I heard howling, and small licks of snow fell to my outfit as the man opened the hatch.

“Be careful, sir! The blizzard’s pretty tough!” He yelled as the howling of the wind covered his voice. I tried to hold on carefully to the steel ladder. It was slightly slippery. When we went up, the post was built like a tower, integrated into the concrete base itself. The space was large enough to fit two gun complexes on both sides, and the snow collected on its surface.

“This is it, sir! You’ll need to be fast, though! It’s freezing out here!”

“I will!”

I searched the area. There were no evidences of violence. In actuality, if someone was killed here, and died a long time ago, the evidence was swept away by the blizzard. The injuries were stabs; there’s no point to check the complexes for signs of blood. Coming here in the first place was uneventful. But I wanted to find a place like this because I have a theory on the murder, and it might still stand:

The victim was not killed on the spot, but the murder itself happened on another area. The murderer killed the victim where she might freeze. One stab incapacitated her, and she was forced to excruciatingly breathe her last. The suspect, now adamant that the victim is dead, waited for the body to reach some sort of threshold in freezing so that it won’t thoroughly be iced and can still bleed. They transferred it to the nearest barracks. Waiting for the body to thaw, the suspect removed any evidence of water through unknown means and set up the barracks to have some sort of disarray, hence the chipped concrete and misplaced bedding. At this point, the body is now near room temperature. They cut her neck three times amateurly and let blood spill. This might answer why the chest injury did not bleed as much as the spilt blood in the neck portion.

Or so my intuition said to me. My ability was still not there, and I have no consolation, so I have to rely on my own for a while.

But since when did I become this so intuitive?

As we descended the tower and back to the crime scene, I looked at the destroyed doors again. Another question posed in my head:

How did the suspect escape, as the door was locked from the inside?

It unusually sent chills. Whoever they were, they were especially crafty. But my assumptions were just observations. I’m still unsure on how to solve this.

The crowd was still there, so I decided to explain to them all of my observations. Little by little, their thoughts and mine connected, and everyone helped in discussion. Turns out, some doubted the higher-ups about corruption, and this woman, the victim, was an intelligence officer working against them.

So was Phillip Morgan.

The documents. Articles against the military. Information about the organization that were ripe for blackmail. The uneasy feeling of tension when these soldiers talk to me.

Wait…

So, this was an assassination. This locked room murder was a ploy to silence their opposition, which meant ‘me’ and her. She was the first to fall. Although I cannot solve this case by itself, I had to finish this. I grabbed some documents from a trench coat I surprisingly wore all this time in order to show it to the soldiers…

To my surprise, and to theirs, a key fell from one of the pockets. Its metal rings noisily to the impact, it stumbled and fell elegantly, and quite eerily, to the side of the woman’s body. I felt my gut wrench, even though I don’t know to what door that key fits.

Shit.

“Officer… What is that?” A soldier said. The one who followed me grabbed it and observed.

“This is a master key.” He said.

My mind froze. How did I not notice that?

“Master keys are used by our lieutenants on this base. How did you manage to grab one of these?!” He was furious.

“I don’t know…”

I really don’t know. I just wanted to finish this surreal simulation, but their words struck the rationale of my mind. I am really feeling for this situation, it’s as if it wasn’t mine.

“This man thought he could get away from his own murder… by solving it himself…”

Did I really just solve my own murder? I was very confused; my head shook itself. I’m dizzy.

“It’s-It’s not mine! It was maybe planted—”

“Shut up! We caught you red handed!”

“On what basis?! The key?!” I did not notice it, but my voice pronounced, my head banging, and my heart was pumping.

Without a flick, they raised their guns against me. I kneeled.

“Officer Morgan, turn yourself in!”

“Hey, call the others.”

“Wait! I can explain—”

“I told you to shut up!”

I am without evidence, without a way to defend myself. I stood up and presented myself to them. What choice did I have? If it was to escape this simulation, I had no other option. I took one last look at the woman’s body.

I did not notice it for a while but…

As I looked…

Her face eerily looked like Wizbette.