Chapter Text
Bright sunlight poured through the open window of the cluttered room. It shone into their eyes as they slipped objects out of the cardboard boxes surrounding them. Every item held a memory for them.
``Keep… Keep… Throw… Keep…`` they mumbled every word as the two piles of items in front of them increased.
``[Y/N]! I’m off!`` A voice called from downstairs.
``Okay! See you later Tay!`` they shouted back down to their housemate. They had both moved into the house only a week ago. After years of saving, they were both able to buy the house they had agreed was their dream home when they were younger. Although it didn’t take all that long with [Y/N] and Taylor both being pretty well off from the start. One thing was clear about the house, it was not as well made on the inside as it was on the outside, the friends were prepared for this though, planning out jobs for each other to do in fixing it up the house.
While the two friends could afford to pay others to fix up the house both of them wanted to prove a point, they could do this on their own. [Y/N] stood from the floor where the boxes sat, carefully stepping over the objects they had sorted.
``Where is…``they mumbled quietly as they looked around the room.
``Aha!`` they stepped over a few more items as they approached the windowsill, grabbing the small screwdriver that sat against it. Just as [Y/N] was going to turn back to their spot in the middle of the room something seemed to shine from the forest outside the window, making them turn back.
There outside something metallic seemed to be stabbed into one of the trees. [Y/N] stared at the tree for a moment before turning away from the window once more, but instead of returning to their seat they stepped out of the room and whistled. Two sets of loud footsteps came thundering up the old stairs of the home. ``You two done eating?`` they questioned the two floppy-eared dogs. One jumped up against [Y/N] making them stumble slightly back due to the large dog. ``You wanna go outside don’t you blue? Well come on you two``
The two dogs followed after [Y/N] as they walked downstairs to the back door. ``Sit.`` they commanded the two dogs. Although only one followed the order, sitting down quite quickly. ``Good girl Dumbo. Blue…. Sit`` They commanded once more this time getting the second dog to sit down. They quickly opened the door letting the two dogs run out into the large back garden. As the two dogs ran around the fenceless garden, [Y/N] stepped off the porch towards the tall silver birch.
Finally, they got a better view of the object, but it only confused them. A sharp jagged piece of curved metal was stuck in the tree, it seemed to be a part of something that had glass due to a few shards being on the ground underneath the metal. The shards were a slight yellowy-orange tint, they sighed slightly as they picked up the shards and quickly returned to the house to throw out the shards. As they returned to the tree they noticed something else, on the side of the tree was a smeared dark handprint.
``What even happened here…`` they mumbled as they tried to yank the metal out of the tree. It was so much of a struggle that they started to use the screwdriver, that they had still in their pocket, to pry it out. It eventually popped out of the tree landing on the ground with a soft thud. The metal had left a deep indent in the tree as if it had been stabbed into it on purpose. They whistled again and picked up the metal, now getting a closer look at it. The part that had been embedded in the tree was coved in what [Y/N] could only think was dried blood.
Both dogs had stopped at her feet staring up at her. ``Dumbo, smell this for me please, is it blood?`` they spoke to the larger of the two holding the metal down to her snout. Dumbo took two sniffs of the metal and raised its paw to tap at their leg.
``Hm, thought so… Inside.`` [Y/N] commanded the two dogs again, both following the order immediately. They followed after the two dogs, locking the back door.
They walked into the kitchen, grabbed an empty jar, and placed the metal inside, tightening it as much as possible.
``We just got this house and I'm already starting to believe there's a dead body in our damn back garden…`` [Y/N] quietly spoke to themselves, as they climbed back upstairs to continue unpacking.