Post by Annasiel on Jul 5, 2016 6:30:40 GMT
It was a quiet hour. The nightingale had long since taken wing to her nest, and the morninglark had not yet shaken the dust from his sleep-weary eyes. No noise broke the spell of this early time but for the quiet whisper of a wayward wind, sad and weary, lost in wanderance from some storm up in the far north. That, and another sound in harmony with the wuthering gusts. A low, solemn creaking coming from the city wall that seemed to sway in tone just like the ropes that made it. Five ropes, in fact, stretched taunt by the heavy weights hanging on the other ends.
When the guard found them, the crows had already overcome their fear and descended on the blackening corpses. It made it hard to identify the bodies without eyes and noses. But the guards of Etirath were devoted, and after a thorough investigation, the missing spots were mostly filled. The dead citizens were a diverse bunch, without any interests, occupations, or bloodlines relating them. There appeared to be no possible meaning, other than the obvious: Five completely random people decided to walk to the wall late at night, tie hemp ropes around their neck, and jump into the arms of death. They even hung at the same height, like some show of macabre art.
Jonathan Tilde. Sarah Filious. Jeremy Dimmers. Matilda Harness. Isaac Dorn.
A baker, an author, a guard, a priestess, and a beggar.
In any other context, it would seem like the setup for a bad joke. The idea of a serial killer was bandied, as the circumstances were so bizarre, but no leads were found. There was no sign of any struggle, no marks on the bodies other than the gashes and bruises on their necks, no suspicious activity besides the actual event itself. Some sort of deadly synchronized sleepwalking? The victims were awake. When they died, at least... it was chilling to think of waking up, unable to breathe, seizing in the final throes of strangulation as vision slowly returned to the darkness of sleep. Eternal sleep, this time. But barring such strange theories as that, suicide seemed the most plausible and the most believable. Just a mass coordinated suicide. Of unrelated people.
The hollow, bloody eyesockets of the corpses seemed to mock the idea with malicious chagrin.
When the guard found them, the crows had already overcome their fear and descended on the blackening corpses. It made it hard to identify the bodies without eyes and noses. But the guards of Etirath were devoted, and after a thorough investigation, the missing spots were mostly filled. The dead citizens were a diverse bunch, without any interests, occupations, or bloodlines relating them. There appeared to be no possible meaning, other than the obvious: Five completely random people decided to walk to the wall late at night, tie hemp ropes around their neck, and jump into the arms of death. They even hung at the same height, like some show of macabre art.
Jonathan Tilde. Sarah Filious. Jeremy Dimmers. Matilda Harness. Isaac Dorn.
A baker, an author, a guard, a priestess, and a beggar.
In any other context, it would seem like the setup for a bad joke. The idea of a serial killer was bandied, as the circumstances were so bizarre, but no leads were found. There was no sign of any struggle, no marks on the bodies other than the gashes and bruises on their necks, no suspicious activity besides the actual event itself. Some sort of deadly synchronized sleepwalking? The victims were awake. When they died, at least... it was chilling to think of waking up, unable to breathe, seizing in the final throes of strangulation as vision slowly returned to the darkness of sleep. Eternal sleep, this time. But barring such strange theories as that, suicide seemed the most plausible and the most believable. Just a mass coordinated suicide. Of unrelated people.
The hollow, bloody eyesockets of the corpses seemed to mock the idea with malicious chagrin.