Wednesday's morning
An adult male, torn apart by multiple bites scattered across his flesh, lay on the hotel room floor. He was nearly unrecognizable, a mangled corpse drenched in blood, with chunks of him simply… missing. The room around him was chaos: furniture overturned, the stench of iron in the air, crimson stains splattered across the walls. The bathroom had been reduced to wreckage, shards of glass and porcelain tiles littering the floor like jagged snow. Burn marks blackened parts of the wallpaper, and two bullet holes punctured the wall—a silent testimony of a desperate fight.
Outside, the parking lot wasn't any better. One of the cars looked as if a massive tree had fallen on it, which would have been absurd, given that they were in the middle of the desert.
the strangest part? The silence.
There was no one else in the building. No staff, no guests, no receptionist. Yet several rooms still contained luggage and personal belongings—bags, clothes, shoes—as if their owners had simply vanished into thin air.
"Sheriff." The deputy swallowed hard before speaking. "The owner isn't at his house in town either. We checked the room records… nothing. It's like nobody ever stayed here.
There are two cars left outside. Both registered to middle-aged men. One's from another city." He hesitated, shifting uneasily. "Thing is… we found toys in the back seat. Could mean he had his family with him."
The sheriff grunted, staring at the carnage. I'm too old for this. He had seen terrible things before, but each year the world seemed to grow darker. "Doesn't surprise me. The owner of this place was scum. Of course he wouldn't bother keeping proper records, I'm surprised a family stays in this seedy hotel... Have you at least identified the victim?"
"The sketch artist is working on a composite, but with half his face torn off… it'll be difficult. No ID on him either."
The sheriff rubbed his temples, his voice lowering as if speaking more to himself than to his men.
"Unless a pack of wild dogs—or coyotes—stormed in and ate everyone in this hotel without leaving a single trace except for one old man, none of this makes sense. Maybe the others fled into the desert… but then why leave their cars behind? And what about the wrecked vehicle—did something attack it first, scare them off?" His eyes narrowed. "Or maybe someone wanted to leave this corpse as a warning."
He let out a weary sigh. Outside, the patrol lights painted the desert dusk in flashes of red and blue. Too many travelers had already seen the cruisers and his marked truck. By now, rumors would be racing down the highway toward Sun City. And with elections looming, the last thing he needed was blood-soaked headlines under his name. pff.. "If the crime had happened a few kilometers later, it would no longer be my problem".
"Keep digging into those cars. Find me anyone connected to them. Send the sketch to Sun City PD. And when the press shows up—God help us—we'd better have something to give them."
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Meanwhile, in Sun City…
Johan strolled out of the shopping mall, arms loaded with bags of brand-new clothes. A wide grin stretched across his face as he admired his latest prize—a sleek phone, the most expensive model on the market. Its polished screen reflected the golden blaze of the late-afternoon sun, and he couldn't resist checking it every few steps.
That was when he noticed her. Across the parking lot, his neighbor. A young woman, probably in her final years of university. Athletic, with that confident posture that only came from long hours on the volleyball court. She was beautiful—striking, even—but what stood out even more was the rebellious aura sh e carried, like she belonged to a different rhythm than the rest of the world.
Johan realized something embarrassing then: despite living next door, he had never spoken a single word to her. Not once.
Now, however, she wasn't alone. Two men stood a little too close, their body language aggressive, their persistence unwelcome. She looked annoyed, but not yet alarmed.
Johan's gaze dropped to his wrist, to the watch gleaming under the sun. Yesterday, someone helped me when I was in trouble, he thought. Maybe today… it's my turn to help someone else.