The silence surrounding the body had become almost suffocating.
Nobody spoke after Gregor pointed out how unnaturally light it felt. The five standing around the child simply exchanged uncertain glances, each trying to make sense of something that refused to make sense. The wounds looked genuine. The dried blood looked genuine. Even the pale skin and lifeless expression looked exactly as a corpse should. Yet there was no smell, no signs of decay, and now the body weighed far less than it possibly should have. Every answer they found only created two more questions.
Liam remained several meters away beside Leonid, his eyes never leaving the scene. His instincts had been screaming from the moment they found the body, and instead of becoming quieter as more clues appeared, they only grew louder. Something was wrong. Not strange. Not suspicious. Wrong. It felt as though they had unknowingly stepped into someone else's carefully prepared game.
Then everything happened at once.
