“No! Where did they take everyone to?” gasped Hellen.

“Hey, stop yelling at my ear lady, how the hell am I supposed to know?” grumbled Polcart.

“Try to see the truck’s license plate.” said Kyong.

Polcart brought back the footage of the truck leaving the first floor and zoomed in.

“LP 5684” said Polcart.

“That’s good. Let’s roll!” yelled Hellen.

“Where are you going?” asked Dimitri with a frown.

“Not sure. I’ll decide it after calling Keinlee, the cyber investigators have access to the footage of the security cameras around the city. We can find out where that truck went!” said Hellen aggressively.

“Tch, whatever.” said Dimitri.

They decided to leave the area. Hellen brought out her phone and called Keinlee.

“Hello, miss Hellen. What is it?” asked Keinlee.

“Keinlee, I need you to find a red truck with the plate LP 5684.” said Hellen.

“Roger that.” said Keinlee.

After they had exited the prison and entered their car, Keinlee called back.

“I found it. The truck was last seen on September 16th, 18 pm, exiting Luvia district and entering Hakudo forest.” said Keinlee.

“Thanks. Please send the footage and location via the cop cloud system.” said Hellen.

Soon an indicator appeared in their truth files, signifying the place the truck was last seen as well as a video proof of the truck being seen by the last of the cameras in Luvia district, headed towards the forest.

The two police cars sped and arrived in front of the forest. The stone paved road had been exchanged by a muddy, dirt one. And above their heads loomed the large trees ever so creepily.

“Damn. How the hell are we gonna continue here on out?” pondered Casey.

“The track the truck made was most likely erased by the rain that occurred on September 24th.” said Fushichin.

“Besides, it’s been ten days since the truck arrived here. We’re out of luck.” said Kyong.

“I’m not going to give up here. We know for a fact that the truck headed into the forest. If the truck got out of the forest then Keinlee would have notified us. So, all we have to do now is comb the entire forest. The truck has to be still here.” said Hellen.

“You gotta be joking. Hakudo forest is the biggest forest in the country! Its size is that of a district’s!” grumbled Hui Ying.

“We have no choice! We’re already terribly late on time. This is a case that happened on the 16th. It’s already been ten days.” yelled Hellen.

“You’re rushing too much. And it’s dangerous to comb this entire forest with the six of us. Those people who kidnapped the inmates, they may be hiding more of their comrades in the forest.” said Fushichin.

“Even if we want more reinforcements, where are we going to find it? The supreme court didn’t give us the warrant or deployed us to this case officially. Klancy and the others don’t even want to help us. It’s a miracle that Keinlee did the search for us without asking much.” said Hellen with a frown.

“Let’s go inside. So long as we stick together, things should turn out alright.” said Kyong with a smile.

The two cars entered into the forest. The sun bathed brightly between the tree leaves. Hellen and Hui Ying observed their surroundings carefully as the car went. They strolled around the forest.

“Ugh, this ain’t good. The GPS ain’t working properly. And this forest is so darn big. This is so troublesome.” grumbled Kyong on the radio.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

“Don’t give up. There is no way the culprits traveled by water to a different country. If the truck exited the forest then Keinlee should have notified us of that. If we keep combing the area, eventually we’ll find them. There is no place to hide.” said Hellen confidently.

They searched through the forest for about 4 hours.

“Hey, it’s already 9 am. It’s so dark, let’s go back. This is boring and stupid.” grumbled Hui Ying.

“This isn’t stupid. We have to find what happened to the inmates and rescue them.” said Hellen.

“Rescue them and what? Put them back in prison so they would get executed?” asked Hui Ying with a frown.

“We’re not putting them in prison.” mumbled Hellen.

“Huh, then the hell are we gonna do?” asked Hui Ying.

“Give them freedom. That’s what I’ve come here for. I came here for my own sense of justice. I hope you did as well.” said Hellen.

“Ahh, I guess I did, in a way. I thought things would be more interesting. I thought that following you would be more meaningful than doing nothing but following orders and getting bills each day. Didn’t realize I would still be under someone’s order.” grumbled Hui Ying.

“You can leave if you want to.” declared Hellen with a frown.

“No, I can’t, you asshole. Are you gonna strand me in a dark forest? How the hell am I supposed to go home from here? God, this is shit. I’m so hungry and thirsty. There is no food or water or anything!” complained Hui Ying and crossed her arms.

“Hellen, I gotta agree with Hui Ying. It’s too dark. We can’t make out the culprit’s hiding spot even if we are close to it. Let’s try this tomorrow, maybe even interrogate those cops who found the bodies too.” said Fushichin from the driver’s seat.

Hellen’s confidence seems to wane. She sighed and said “Alright, let’s- “

“Wait, what is that?” yelled Kyong from the radio.

They briefly stopped. Fushichin peered to his right side into the distance and saw that there was a wooden barn just up ahead. It was outside of the road, surrounded by trees and bushes. The darkness made it almost obscure but it was indeed a round barn judging from its silhouette.

“What the hell, why is something like that here?” gasped Fushichin.

“Beats me. Be careful guys. I don’t think farming jobs are supposed to be done in this forest.” said Casey from the transmitter.

They all got out of their cars and arrived in front of the barn door, their gun and flashlight in their hands.

Kyong kicked the barn door and open, raising his gun and flashlight then entered. The others followed. The barn was empty. But there was an electronic control panel at the corner, at the end of the barn. Fushichin also examined the ground that he was standing on.

“Hey, look. There seems to be a small gap, a line shaped gap in the ground.” said Fushichin as he sat down.

“Yeah, so? What are you trying to get at?” grumbled Hui Ying.

Fushichin stood silent, only lighting his flashlight towards where the line went, which was forward and left side.

“I think the ground here might be able to be moved.” said Fushichin.

“Really?” asked Casey with curiosity.

Hellen quickly walked over to the control panel. It had a bunch of buttons and a lever. Frowning Hellen pulled the lever down. With a mechanic rumbling sound, the ground beneath them started to move sideways, revealing an entrance under the floor.

“Ahh!” gasped Hui Ying and jumped to grab a shelf. Kyong, Dimitri and Casey quickly walked back to get out of the barn before the ground beneath them slid away. The floor slid into the right side of the barn and a dark pathway that slowly curved down was visible in front of them.

“Yeah. Good job.” said Fushichin and walked forward, gun and flashlight in his hands. The other five followed after him.

“This path. It’s big enough for the truck to fit, isn’t it?” said Hellen contemplatively.

“Yeah. The captives definitely are here.” said Fushichin with a frown.

They walked down into a cold wide hall. The hallway stretched forward and, on their way, they encountered large cubic pillars, and cars between said pillars. The hallway was large that it wasn’t hard for hundreds of cars to be placed inside it.

“What the. This is insane.” said Hui Ying.

“Yeah. Almost feels like we discovered an ancient underground civilization.” said Kyong with a laugh.

At the end of the hall, they encountered a door.

Hellen took a deep breath and pushed it open. She quickly went past the door with the gun in her hand. What awaited her was a narrower hallway with walls painted in green and floors in white. The other five tailed after her ever so carefully. They were walking through the straight corridor speedily. Hellen turned around the corner carefully to immediately see two people approaching them.

She turned around to signal to her group, showing two fingers and pointing at the hallway. Kyong inspected his surroundings to notice a door behind Casey. Running up to it and opening it up, he quickly entered the room, the others followed. The room seemed to be vacant. Kyong left the door slightly open to see if the two people went away.

The others examined the place. There was a medical cabinet at one wall, on the next wall were handcuffs, ropes and blindfolds. There was another door at the left side of the room. Hellen opened it slightly and peeked. There seemed to be a bunch of beds in the room. Someone was sitting there, reading a newspaper.

Hellen quickly pulled back and signaled to the others that 1 person was there.

Kyong jerked his head to signal them to go out. They exited the room and continued their stroll across the hallway. The pathway forked into two. Hellen chose to turn right. In her mind, it was the opposite to the entrance. But there was no way to tell if this was the right way. But it didn’t matter to her.

They walked up the hallway until finally they encountered a bunch of doors in the sidewalls that had labels on them. The plates read studies, recroom, tech, chemical, specimen, experiment.

From the experiment room, a lady with a white lab coat emerged. The detectives couldn’t stop their movements and almost bumped into her. The woman was startled when she saw them. Hellen was quick to point her gun towards the woman’s head, raised her finger to shush her.