“The footage started with the image of a male detective with a long pigtail. Behind him were five different detectives as well.

“Can we enter now? We have things to ask of the inmates.” said the detectives.

“Yeah, yeah. Hold your horses” said Vernonia.

“I have Hori’s food here.” said Aldart.

The camera shifts to him holding a tray with fried meat, rice balls, soup and bread on top.

Vernonia went and opened up the door to Hori’s room. The camera turned to show a burnt black tarp in the center of the room.

“What the!” gasped Vernonia and quickly ran towards the tarp and pulled it up.

Under the tarp was a completely burnt black body. The face, neck had completely turned black with a reddish hue. The clothes were also burned to become completely dark gray as well. But you could tell it was some form of a uniform. The body was hard to identify as Hori. But the shape of the chest and the burnt long hair highly suggests that the body was a woman.

“The fuck happened?!” gasped Aldart.

There was bit of a silence.

“No time to waste. We need to check up on the other rooms!” yelled the pigtailed detective.

The detective rushed to the door, Vernonia, Aldart followed him. They entered room after room to find a similar crime scene where the body was covered by the burnt blanket and under the blanket was a barely recognizable corpse. The pig tailed detective and a round hatted detective lead the investigation each time, Vernonia and Aldart followed and discussed with them from time to time. The video soon ended.

“I heard that the pig tailed detective’s name is Rodrigos.” said Vernonia outside of the video.

“This is terrible.” said Hellen with sadness.

“Yeah, pretty much. But since we’re done with that video, let’s search the rooms. Maybe we’ll find something” said Fushichin.

Hellen examined the bed, Kyong the wardrobe.

Casey was quick to move and open the first drawer of the desk and pulled out shampoo, soap and a flashlight.

Fushichin opened the second and third drawer.

“Inside the second drawer are pens, pencils, erasers. Inside the third drawer were a bunch of toilet paper and in the fourth was dozens of hand sanitizers.” said Fushichin out loud for the others.

“When did you discover the bodies? At what time?” asked Dimitri.

“At around 8 am of September 16. I just arrived at work. Bunch of cops came to the hall. Showed me a bunch of badges and warrants and asked to talk with the inmates Hori, Fasha and Blaire. We gave out breakfast for the confinement inmates at around 9 am, so it was perfect timing. Vernonia and I prepared food for the inmates and opened the door and you all know what happened.” said Aldart with sadness.

“So, that’s it huh.” said Kyong and sat on the bed.

“Honestly you guys are kinda whack at your jobs. Smoke should have exited through the doors when a fire broke out. Why didn’t you guys do anything?” asked Fushichin.

Stolen novel; please report.

“We obviously have giant vents to prevent the inmates from dying by suffocating from the smoke. The smoke exited through that and probably didn’t exit through the door, so we wouldn’t know.” said Vernonia with contempt.

“Besides that, we only open the confinement rooms twice a day for daily meals. Otherwise, there is no need for monitoring. It is a punishment afterall. And don’t worry about security, the camera was there to look at the doors. I just go home around 19 and come here again at 8 am” said Vernonia with a snobbish tone.

“That’s so cruel. Locked up in there alone, having only two meals” said Hellen with sadness.

“Hey, don’t hate the player, hate the game! And besides, they are all criminals who dared to hurt others inside the prison as well. I think it’s a suitable punishment. If anything, them having private access to a bookshelf is almost a ridiculous reward, which I really don’t like.” said Aldart with a hiss.

Hellen only frowned at that statement.

Kyong pondered for a while and said “Well, it’s pretty easy to figure out how the fire was started. The fire starter was clearly the flashlight.”

“The flashlight?” gasped Vernonia.

“Huh, I guess it’s possible. But it couldn’t have been that strong.” said Aldart with confusion.

“Oh yeah? Let’s try it then” said Kyong.

He grabbed the flashlight from the drawer, went and pulled the bedsheet onto the floor and pointed the turned on flashlight onto the bedsheet. The heat of the flashlight was warm. But it wasn’t quite enough to set the bedsheet on fire.

“What am I missing here.” mumbled Kyong.

“A fire accelerator. And I know just the ingredient that helped the fire form and spread. It’s the hand sanitizer” said Fushichin as he viewed the back of the sanitizer carefully.

“Oh really? How does that work?” asked Hui Ying with confusion.

“Hand sanitizers are 60 percent ethanol. Ethanol burns really easily. There are even instructions here, warning that you shouldn’t put the sanitizer near sunlight, flame and heat.” said Fushichin.

Kyong got one of the hand sanitizers, poured it on the bedsheet then lighted that part with the flashlight. Quickly a fire started, spreading towards all directions of the sheet. But the fire was almost invisible.

“Oh, so it really does work.” said Kyong with a smile.

“Hey hey, turn that off! That’s a perfectly fine blanket.” cried Aldart and started stomping on the fire.

“So that’s how the fire was made. I guess it’s pretty easy for a single inmate to do it by themselves huh” said Casey enthusiastically.

“Still, it couldn’t just be a suicide, could it? I guess I can live with the idea that one or two of them decided to end it all by burning themselves with the flashlight and sanitizer. But why the hell would all five of them decide to kill themselves all at once?” said Hui Ying with anger.

The other detectives looked down contemplatively.

“Maybe the inmates communicated with one another and decided to commit mass suicide?” asked Casey as he looked at the others.

“There is no way to do that.” said Aldart.

“But there is a giant vent on the ceiling of this room. But I suppose it is too far to reach.” said Kyong

Fushichin smirked and said “Well…I don’t know if it’s a police secret or not, but I don’t really care to keep it a secret. I do remember something special called CycloniumX”

“Cyclonium, what now?” asked Casey.

“Oh, right. You were talking about that during lunch break. It’s from the Tenma case, right?” said Hui Ying.

“Yeah. Hori knew and had parts of CycloniumX. What if Hori used her knowledge to create more CycloniumX here?” said Fushichin with a smirk.

“That’s a wild tangent, Fushichin. Hori isn’t capable of that and you know it. She won’t be able to put anything in other people’s foods because she is a prisoner here.” said Hellen with a tired groan.

“Okay. Then maybe one of the jailors or the people here knew of CycloniumX. And they used it to drug the food.” said Fushichin.

“I don’t know of this PsychoX that you speak of.” grunted Aldart.

“Haha, it was just a fun theory. Nothing else.” said Fushichin playfully.

Hellen sat on the chair with seriousness and said “I don’t believe that. She wouldn’t commit suicide. I knew Hori. She had someone special to her outside, still does. She was sentenced to death but during the trial I could very well see that she wanted to live. These five burned victim incident is just too suspicious to be a regular suicide.”

“But its undoubtedly true that they all died in a locked room. You have to face the truth.” said Dimitri.

Hellen pondered for a while and said “How do you know the burnt body is Hori? The body’s face was entirely burned. We can only tell that the body was a woman’s and an inmate from the clothes. But that’s it. We don’t even have a way to identify her.”

“Even then, there is no way someone would be able to enter this room and swap her with a different woman’s body. It’s impossible.” said Vernonia.

Hellen looked up. And immediately her eyes fell upon something.