I walked back into the storage room. I knew what awaited me, but I still did it. Amy was still lying there.

What do I do now? What is there to figure out about this case by looking at the body? I crouched down to see everything better. Maybe I should confirm the murder weapon? If that label is correct, there shouldn’t be any symptoms.

I wasn’t sure what exactly I was supposed to do, but I lifted up Amy’s shirt a bit.

What if there’s a wound on her stomach? That would be very important, right?

Of course, there wasn’t anything on her stomach. My guesses were completely baseless and random.

I continued looking, although I avoided touching her body directly. I don’t see anything helpful… Did I build up all this courage just for nothing?

I checked her hands and legs, not seeing anything unusual on them. There really were no signs of the body being hurt.

I heard footsteps behind me and quickly turned around, taking the opportunity not to look at the body.

“Alex?”

“Oh, hey Petra. Are you feeling better? I heard that you decided to investigate the body, so I came to see if you’re alright.”

“Thanks, it took me time, but for better or for worse, I found the strength to do it.”

“I’m glad you’re back in shape, although you should leave this room.”

“I know, it’s hard for me to do this, but I have to!”

“You don’t. Naomi already investigated the body and she said that there isn’t a single clue on there. You won’t find anything and quite frankly, you look like you’re slowly going insane.”

“Then what should I do?”

“Well, I was on my way to investigate inside Amy's room, you could join me.”

“I’ll do it!”

I stood up and walked away from the body with nothing but disappointment. I’m sorry, Amy.

Alex and I began walking towards Amy’s room.

“Alex, do you know what everyone found while I was in my room? I talked to Evelyn while I was there, but she didn’t really tell me much about the investigation.”

“Well, Dante gathered a group to focus solely on Eden’s murder which left Naomi, Evelyn and I on Amy’s case. I don’t know what the group investigating Eden’s murder found, but so far we only found out one extra detail. From what Naomi told me, she was in one of the rooms on the right wing on this floor for some reason before she got put inside the storage room. I don’t know if anyone figured out anything else.”

“I remember one thing from earlier this morning that might help you figure something out.”

“Really? What is it?”

“When I was next to the storage room this morning, Amy still wasn’t dead, she only died after I went to get the key which means I got to talk to her then.” If only I knew to hurry up.

“Are you serious? What did she tell you?”

“She got locked in early in the morning by the traitor. Apparently, it was a guy and he wore Eden’s robe to cover himself. After she told me that, I tried opening the door to the storage room and figured out it was locked, so I ran to the bedrooms to get the key.”

“Wait, why would the key to the storage room be in one of the bedrooms?”

“Oh, you haven’t figured that out yet? The other groups weren’t given the key to their rooms. Instead, everyone in the second group got the key to the storage rooms.”

“Oh wait, Blake went to his room to get the key, and it was missing, so he went to Amy’s. I was on edge, so I didn’t really think about it. I see now! But wait, why would Blake’s key be missing?”

“That’s a rabbit hole in itself. It definitely makes him suspicious. I can’t make an argument against him with just that, but please keep that detail in mind in case it becomes useful. I’ll try to remember too."

“Got it.” I nodded.

"Still, everyone is suspicious in my eyes," Alex sighed, “I know that there’s only one traitor, but still, I’m so paranoid, I feel like my brain is going to explode.”

We went inside Amy's room. I started looking around and noticed that Blake had returned her key. After that, I couldn’t find anything else that sparked any interest.

“Hey, Alex! Do you know where we should look?”

“If I’m being honest, not really. I’m trying my best here, but I have no fucking clue about what I’m doing.”

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I sighed. He’s just like me when it comes to that.

“Well, me neither. Two negatives make a positive, right?”

“I guess…”

I didn’t know what else to say, so I stayed quiet and continued searching the room. Everything was neatly placed, organized. Amy’s bed was made, there wasn’t any noticeable amount of dust anywhere and the clothes in her closet were folded. There really wasn’t anything out of the ordinary.

“Goddamnit!” Alex was visibly frustrated. “I can’t find anything!”

“Neither can I!” I said in a slightly less upset way than Alex. “Is there any other place that you guys haven’t checked yet?”

“One room, there’s only one room. We don’t have enough info to find the bastard behind all of this, but that one room is our last hope!” Where did all of this energy suddenly come from?

“Alright, let’s go! What’s the room?”

“It’s on this floor, the room on the right wing.” I’ve never been there before, why would that place have anything to do with the case?

“What do those rooms have anything to do with anything here?”

“Actually, I have no idea, but don’t knock me for that! Evelyn said that Amy told her how she planned to investigate that area, remember. Considering it was probably related to Eden’s case, we’re bound to find something.”

“I see, I’ll check it out then. Feel free to go with me if you want to!”

Alex didn’t say anything, but he did follow me as I walked out of Amy’s room. What could be waiting for us? Maybe Amy left something there.

I made up ideas of what was in those rooms in my head until I reached it, walking through the giant hallway through the entire floor and then passing the main hall’s staircase, not running into a single person on my way.

The right wing had two doors that were in the main hall. Well, since Alex is with me, I could ask him to check one of the rooms while I check the other.

“Two rooms, huh? Alex, you go inside the one that’s right here and I’ll go into the one that’s further down the main hall.”

“Alright, let’s do it!” his energy was still a bit off-putting.

We opened the doors at the same time and walked in, not sure what to expect. Wait a second…

There weren’t two separate rooms, instead, both of the doors led to one extremely wide room. The room stretched in width through the entire right wing, but it was pretty short in terms of length. It makes sense, if the room was longer it would go into the right wing of the first floor. This architecture is really weird.

“Petra?”

“They made this entire section into a single room?”

Alex didn’t seem to care, he just began his search for clues without even looking around the room. There were loads of random things lying around, I couldn’t make out what the room was for as the only furniture in the room was a single chair and small table and everything in the room was on the floor, put into multiple piles.

I approached one of the piles and crouched down to see everything that was on it. It seemed like mere trash, there were scraps of metal covering things and rusty screws on the floor. Maybe I’ll find something if I dig deeper.

After moving some of the trash to the side, I saw something that seemed like a clue. A photo?

It was a black and white photo and it was turning yellow from its age. I took a look at it, curious as to what was there to see. It could possibly be a clue related to the murders, but it could also reveal the secret of this mansion.

A group photo? The photo showed twelve people sitting on a bench in a beautiful garden. For a second, I thought that I didn’t know anybody in the picture, but upon taking a closer look, I realized that the person sitting at one end of the bench was Lucia.

How am I supposed to interpret this? Lucia is here, in the present, she looks the same age here and then! Can you make an edited photo look so real and so old?

Then I remembered something. I remembered everything that I saw Lucia do so far. The way she mercilessly murdered Adam, the fact that she was always a step ahead of us, appearing where and when she needed to. I tried pushing what I saw away from myself, yet it was of no use, I had to face the fact that I was up against something that wasn’t human.

In the middle of my thinking I suddenly felt someone tap my shoulder.

“Petra, are you okay?” Oh, it’s just Alex.

I turned around to see what Alex needed, only to be surprised by Lucia who was standing right behind me. Her sudden presence made me scream for a moment before I realized what I was doing and stopped. Why the hell is she here?

I looked to the side to see where Alex was and I noticed that he didn’t even move from the pile of the trash he had been checking out, in fact, it looked to me as if he only turned around after hearing me scream. Did Lucia imitate his voice?

“What do you want from me?” I angrily asked.

“How rude, asking questions before even greeting me. I merely came here to check up on you guys, everyone seems to be in a horrible mood.”

I didn’t say anything because, as much as I wanted to, I was too scared. Lucia took one step towards me and grabbed my hand. Again, I was silent, I didn’t know what to do. Fortunately, she didn’t do anything to me, instead, she only grabbed the photo from my hand and took a step back.

“You found the old group photo? Ah, those were the days. I’d argue that the previous bunch was way smarter than this one, but I’d just sound like a grumpy old woman and I don’t want to seem like that after managing to look like a young lady all these years.”

“Wait, how old are you?” I finally got the strength to speak.

“Asking a woman her age, how impolite. If you manage to leave this mansion, you should learn some manners, it will really benefit you.”

She returned the photo to me and walked out of the room. The old group? The previous bunch? Were our ancestors also a part of something like this? This might be a clue to the secret of this mansion, I’ll have to remember it.

I glanced at the picture again. Yes, these are the same people whose photos were in the tunnel, there’s no doubt about it. My great grandfather is one of the people here as well.

I tried piecing everything together in my head, but it was useless, things were too disconnected because of one thing, Lucia. She was in the picture that was at least eighty years old and she was in the same room as me mere moments ago, still looking like she was in her twenties.

There’s no way she’s human. What the hell is she? A witch, vampire, demon, hallucination?

It was useless to try and figure it out, I had to find more clues and I also had to get back to looking for clues related to Amy’s murder.