AS ABOVE (game thread)

20XX-03-13 07:56:59 | X355's sweep concluded prematurely. Psychotraumatic hotspot located in psych ward room.
20XX-03-13 07:56:41 | [S056 prepares to replace S012. It is too late to save them. Or perhaps too early. To step in would invite ontological fracture. This is how it must be.]
20XX-03-13 07:57:12 | [S012 suffers massive cerebral hemorrhage, immediate medical treatment begins. Expect time until return to duty: 6 days.]
20XX-03-13 07:57:40 | Psychic ghost of X355 concludes sweep of hospital: two police officers still unaccounted for. [ERR!:OR_HELP.ME.GOD.PLEASE]
20XX-03-12 07:59:56 | Bound sin ORION returns, clutching blooded autopsy report in teeth. Body is stained by yellowish, rotten-smelling liquid, but otherwise unharmed.

👁 Document review: Autopsy report. The report's fairly basic, and is incomplete. The corpse is Alan Thakkar. Cause of death is asphyxiation due to cerebral apoxia. Bruising around the neck indicates strangulation. The coroner notes that the corpse has begun decomposing faster than expected, and notes that the morgue freezers may be malfunctioning. Report ends here. Notably, the report bears spot of white mold on upper left corner.

As Orion trotted back to Erasmus with the documents, Erasmus teased them out of the Sin's jaws, muttering unintelligible praise in a soothing voice. Yet another handkerchief was spent on cleaning the gunk off of Orion, before he headed back to the others to share their findings.

"Seems like our friend was strangled. Perhaps our target wanted to make sure he was dead, or feed off of the kill, because Orion had to take a few bites out of...Something. That saying about there being two Ogres...May be not quite so implausible after all."

Bonham sighs, the old scars crisscrossing their body throbbing in response to their annoyance. Things just had to go off the rails for a moment, but they could still get on track with any luck. The situation wasn't FUBAR just yet.

The same rubbery, cautious tread carries them over to the receptionist, who is opening one of the shutters that leads deeper into the building. Erasmus and Salem are likely somewhere in the corridor in question.

"Good work, man. You can let us in from here. Now, where was Mr. Graves again? We still need to have a talk, so we'll just go ahead and meet him where he is. And...might you also be aware of where the investigating officers are? We'll probably need to compare notes with them, and they didn't pass SETH a phone number or anything."

Regardless of how many answers he yields, Bonham would proceed through the open shutter, with Lycaon in tow. "Agent Jones."

PAY NO ATTENTION TO SEER'S INTERNALS. HEAVEN EYES ARE EXPECTED TO BURN OUT. YOUR MISSION IS MORE IMPORTANT. THE GOOD HUNTER LOVES NOTHING. - ADMIN

xxx0961
7:59am
As above, so below

"They've, um, been around. In and out for the last week or so. I think a couple of them slept in their car last night. Not to spread rumors, or anything, ha. Anyway. Graves should be... uh, around here? One second, let me-"

A young man in scrubs passes through an intersecting hallway and out of sight. A second later, he backtracks, looking at Bonham with some amount of recognition.

"Oh, wait, that's him."

The young man, who seems to be the orderly in question, approaches, a sort of nervous, worried smile on his lips. He seems cheerful, but there are noticeable bags under his eyes. "Are you...?" He looks at Bonham and Creed.

"Of course. We've been looking for you, Mr. Graves." Bonham leans forward slightly as if expecting a handshake, but does not offer their hand. Instead, they tilt their hand back slightly, and a black spiral notebook with a pen in the binding slides into their palm.

The book appears to be standardized, but the pen is not. Thankfully, this time it is a half-full blue gel pen. Flipping open the first page, Bonham looks up to make eye contact with the orderly.

"Now, I know this is going to be difficult. Memories can shift surprisingly fast, get murky, whatever...but I'd like you to go over what you remember from the night of the incident once more. And especially, if anyone around you was acting strange. Staff, patients...whoever. Maybe they've had some kind of problem. You understand, we don't want there to be a culprit any more than you do, but we have to rule everything out."

"Oh... gosh... one second. I know an empty exam room we can use." Graves begins moving, talking as he does. "I really can't say anything about anyone else. Like, I mean, I wouldn't have any reason to be looking out for that. Only weird stuff I really pay much attention to is with the patients. I don't mean any offense by that, sorry, it's just with psychiatric patients, you know, there's... stuff happens. It's good to keep an eye out, inform people if I see anything potentially harmful. I'm not really wording that right. What I mean to say is that I don't think anyone was really acting out of the ordinary. I mean, the job's hard on people sometimes, but like... not to a murder-y degree. Definitely not with anyone in the wing on that night.
"I don't remember much. It was... a pretty typical night, I think. I heard a yell, went around the corner, and... I really don't know. It's all... fuzzy. That doesn't make sense. I remember that it was really cold. And- and the lights were flickering, but that's been an issue for a bit. And I saw Dr. Thakkar, and there was this... thing. I..."

He looks at Bonham, with the sort of manic desperation of someone who knows that what they're about to say will not be believed.

"It wasn't human. I don't think. It was like a fucked up baby. Like a fetus, it wasn't... like, not all formed. And it was all twisted up. And it smelled. I remember that it smelled so fucking bad. And it was big, like, almost the size of a person. I don't remember much else. It hurt to look at. And I woke up, and it felt like a fucking dream, but I know I saw something. I know it. I'm sorry, you probably think I've gone crazy. But I've never seen anything before, I've never had intense pareidolia, I don't have any family history of schizophrenia or psychosis or anything. The only thing I could think of is stress compiled with the case that had been going on already, but I didn't even know about her kid. I'm sorry, I just don't know."

Striding back towards the lobby, Salem will spot Lycaon and Bonham speaking to Graves.With a knock or two on the door, Salem will slip into the room. He smiles slightly in greeting to the group. "Sorry about the interruption. I'm helping with the investigation." Letting Bonham resume his interview, he leans in towards Lycaon and speaks in a whisper. "Erasmus' pet has made contact with something hostile in the morgue, and my money is on it being the sin. I'll be heading back to the lobby to speak to the others about our next move. I don't think things are getting loud yet, but we'll see how long that lasts. I'd like to get a little more prep work done before we really get the fireworks going."

He then leaves, and makes his way to the lobby before dropping himself onto a bench, knee bouncing in anticipation.