Ridgecliff Police Department, 2:47 PM
Scott stared at the computer screen like it had personally offended him. The DNA confirmation was absolute: the mask belonged to the victim. His shoulders slumped as the finality of the result set in, a slow defeat soaking into his bones.
A second window blinked open: the forensic profile of the old prop artist from the 2022 case — now fully irrelevant. No matches, no links, not even the same blood type. The "jester mask" had been a red herring. A damn good one, though.
Scott swiveled in his chair and exhaled hard.
He clicked open the group chat again.
---
[RTPD Homicide – Core Team]
Scott:
"Update: Victim ID remains unknown. No dental, no belongings, no clothing. Face too burned. Only lead was the mask, and that's hers. We're at a standstill."
Judith:
"Nothing useful from the campers either. Locals are either clueless or hiding behind ignorance."
Sofie:
"Every direction I've pulled up is going nowhere. The CCTV logs past 5AM go quiet. As if someone cut a piece out of the town's morning."
---
Brendon didn't type anything. He just read, leaning against the side of the incident room wall, his arms crossed, his expression unreadable. Robert was off grabbing coffee — or pretending to avoid the silence building inside these walls.
Detective work wasn't always like the shows. Sometimes, it didn't move in bursts of revelation. Sometimes, it just stalled. Just a low hum of failure in your chest.
A ping broke the tension.
Not the group chat this time.
Private message.
Sofie [1:1]
"Brendon. Something's wrong. Urgent. You need to see this now."
He frowned, straightened up.
Brendon: "What happened?"
Sofie:
"A video just got uploaded online. A bodycam video. From our scene."
"It's… graphic. Someone leaked crime scene footage. It's all over Reddit and Discord already. Possibly TikTok."
Brendon's heart ticked faster.
Brendon:
"How the hell — Wait. Whose bodycam?"
Sofie:
"We don't use bodycams in forest ops. At least not standard. Which means this was planted."
---
2:52 PM – Brendon's Office
He slammed the door behind him and yanked his laptop out of its drawer. Within seconds, he was scouring Sofie's link: an unlisted stream mirror on a third-party site, already up to 13,000 views.
The title was innocuous: "Ashwood Ritual Site // Uncut."
No author. No watermark.
The thumbnail was a freeze-frame of scorched trees and the shimmer of police tape.
He hit play.
The footage flickered to life with a sickening clarity. Someone — likely the killer — had mounted a small bodycam onto their chest. The first few frames showed jerky movements through underbrush, approaching the clearing with a rhythmic, quiet crunch of boots over pine needles.
Then came the fire.
A figure, limp, masked, naked but for the white half-face jester mask, hung from a low tree by thick ropes. It was almost theatrical—the way her body swayed, illuminated by a ring of candles placed around the burn zone. A circle. No, a sigil. A symbol burned into the ground with meticulous care.
Then the match.
Then the fire.
Then the screaming.
And the figure behind the camera? They never flinched. Not once.
Brendon paused the video, bile rising in his throat. Whoever recorded this… had turned murder into performance. Had taken the sacred quiet of death and turned it into entertainment.
He snapped back to the chat.
---
[RTPD Homicide – Core Team]
Brendon:
"Everyone off outside comms. Now. Full lockdown on your devices. No apps, no group messages."
Brendon:
"Sofie, forward me the original leak links. Judith, see if IT can run trace on the host. Scott, flag this for Cybercrime. This is no longer just homicide case anymore."
---
Meanwhile — Sofie's Station, 2:58 PM
Sofie had her hoodie pulled over her head like a digital monk, eyes flickering between open tabs like she was piloting a spacecraft.
Everywhere she looked, the video was multiplying. Reuploads. Mirrors. AI-enhanced clips. Even parodies. Some influencer had already posted a video titled: "Is Ridgecliff Hiding a Cult Killing?" with red arrows and stock thunder SFX.
She muttered, "Screw the internet."
Then, her screen popped with a new result — a brief IP tag. The original upload had been routed through a VPN out of Slovakia… but the second upload pinged much closer.
Within Ridgecliff.
She typed furiously.
---
[RTPD Homicide – Core Team]
Sofie:
"Got a partial trace. One mirror upload routed locally. Using a burner ISP line linked to an abandoned studio property near Old Town Station. Building's registered to 'Eris Noir Films' — dissolved company. Could be a shell."
Tyson (finally chiming in):
"Brendon, Judith, Robert — go. I want that building locked down and swept. Take tactical if needed. This leak just became our only lead."
---
Old Town Station District – 3:47 PM
The abandoned film studio was wedged between a boarded-up diner and an alleyway that reeked of engine grease and regret. The sign over the front door had been burned out long ago, letters rusted off like teeth from a corpse.
Brendon, Robert, and Judith stood out front, gear on, sidearms holstered but ready. Tactical support was five minutes out.
"Eris Noir," Judith murmured. "That sounds made-up."
"It was real at some point," Robert said. "Did short horror films in 2010s. Local crew. Went under after some lawsuit. No one's touched the place since."
Brendon stepped forward and tested the door handle.
Unlocked.
He drew his sidearm and nodded at the others. "Let's move."
The air inside was stale and dusty, with the faint scent of mold and something else — ozone? Burnt metal?
They moved room by room. Empty set spaces. Decrepit makeup counters. Wires like vines across cracked linoleum.
Then they reached the back room.
A makeshift server rack buzzed faintly, its blinking lights the only sign of life. Stacks of hard drives littered the desk like a hoarder's collection. A laptop sat open, streaming the video.
There was no one in the room.
But on the wall, scrawled in red ink:
"THE STAGE IS NEVER EMPTY."
A mask pinned next to it — not the victim's. This one was jet black, expressionless, with a single vertical crack down the forehead.
Brendon stared at it.
"Another performer," he said softly.
---
Back at RTPD – 5:02 PM
Scott stared at the forensics pulled from the scene at Eris Noir Films.
No fingerprints. Not even on the keyboard.
But one drive was actively uploading files to a dark web node. He had it halfway intercepted, but encryption was strong — not brute-force crackable in less than a week.
Still, one filename stood out before the upload was killed:
"TRIAL_ONE.MP4"
Trial.
Not "victim." Not "ritual." Just… trial.
"Like an audition," Robert whispered.
---
Brendon's Apartment – 9:13 PM
He couldn't sleep.
The footage looped in his mind, the burning mask, the stillness of the killer behind the lens.
He opened the chat with Sofie privately again.
Brendon:
"You okay?"
Sofie:
"Barely. Still trying to scrub down the links. It's like chopping off Hydra heads."
Brendon:
"You did good. Without you, we'd still be lost in the woods."
A pause.
Then, Sofie typed:
"Brendon. Whoever this is… they didn't just kill her. They made a movie out of it. A show. That's not a murder. I think this maybe related to deak web."
Brendon sat back, staring at the ceiling. His chest felt heavy. Not fear exactly, but dread. The kind that settles when you realize you're already in the second act — and you didn't even know the curtain had risen.