꧁ A̶ c̶h̶o̶i̶c̶e̶ t̶o̶ r̶e̶g̶r̶e̶t̶ ꧂
_____________________________

_____________________________

; WARNING ;
-Gory description

Inigo's POV

" Good morning, dear! Did you sleep well?,"
I simply gave him a tired nod and turned around in my bed.
"I could read you a bedtime story next time! Wouldn't that be nice? "
Hotaru asked, smiling with delight and excitement.

" ..no thanks.. I slept well last night "
I lied, smiling back faintly while shivers danced up and down my spine for each second that passed.
I didn't dare to tell him the truth at this point. I already lost every piece of faith in him, especially after investigating the kitchen last night.

" Eh? But you seem so tired.. "

I even occasionally wondered if he was hiding more from me.
Burying his darkest secrets deep down to the roots, keeping them from the light and preventing them from exposing more of him..

These thoughts only made me more curious. And it wasn't good at all.

" Iroha? Iroha? Can you hear me? Are you alright? "

I snapped back to reality and looked up at Hotaru with tired eyes. This made me realize I had spaced out while he was talking to me.
I wasn't surprised he didn't correct my name either. Hotaru had continuously called me by Iroha's name with no shame all morning.

" ..What? "
I looked him dead in the eye with a low tone of voice.

" Oh haha, nevermind! You just spaced out. That's fine! "

I didn't answer and simply gazed out of the window again, drowning in my own thoughts.

" Oh well! I will be gone most of the day. I have to collect some dry wood for tonight — we'll be having udon this evening! "

I turned and looked at him,
" Udon?.. how wonderful.. "
I said, tilting my head a little to the left while giving him a closed eyed smile.
" I will.. take care of the laundry "

Hotaru gave me his usual bright smile and nodded.
" Alright, thank you my daughter! I'll be back before sunset, I promise "
He pat my shoulder and walked towards the entrance of my room.

Either way, I could still feel his touch on my shoulder, just where his hand was placed just a few seconds ago. It was cold. Very cold. I could feel my breathing getting lighter and lighter until I began inhaling sharply while keeping on my fake smile on until he was out of sight.

" Take care, Iroha! "
He waved, leaving the room. I exhaled immediately, feeling my heart rate go down again.

. . .

I spent the entire day searching every room in the house, every single corner from one inch to another without hesitation.
I was tempted to find the rest of my notes from Kaiya, as Hotaru had kept the majority of them to himself in order to gain my trust.

But now I knew, and I was not pleased about it in the slightest either.

Hours and hours of investigation, still nothing. Absolutely nothing showed up, no notes, no nothing.
I could feel my blood boil little by little as I stormed outside in the yard, despite Hotaru's desperate claims about staying inside. I did not care at this point, and if I needed clues, I needed to hurry because Hotaru could come home at any moment by now.

I walked around the entire building for clues, yet nothing.

' God dammit.. all that searching for nothing? That isn't right.. '
I thought, narrowing my eyes a little to the ground. My guts kept telling me I missed something, that Hotaru still kept something from daylight. But what? And why?

Out of all sudden, my sight found place somewhere close to a bunch of wooden planks near the wall, and it truly made me wonder a lot. I had only seen that pile of planks a few times due to inactivity outside.

My legs automatically walked towards the planks as I began removing them one by one with my remaining strength and will to search for the rest of my letters.
Finally, I felt something cold underneath the palm of my hand. I held a tight grip around whatever felt like a handle and pulled as much as I could.
To my shock, a pair of small wooden doors swung open before me. I looked down, the darkness barely revealing a couple stairs leading down to a dark basement.
This was it. No doubt.
I looked around to make sure Hotaru hadn't arrived home and I ran inside, grabbing a candle and back again to the outside basement-doors in desperation. I could already feel my heart beating rapidly, almost all the way up in my neck.

I lighted the candle with a few matches and walked down the stairs with careful steps, as the stairs seemed to be very dusty and damaged. As I finally reached the end, a strong smell of rotten flesh filled my nose and I was on the edge of puking. I felt sick. Very sick.

Despite my disgust of this place, I placed my shaken hand on the handle to the door before me, slowly pushing the door open to see that it was surprisingly unlocked. As the door opened, the smell became stronger and stronger, giving me more and more of the urge to puke. But I hadn't eaten much the entire day, so the chance of me puking was kind of low either way.

The room inside this basement was almost pitch black, my eyes having a super hard time scanning my surroundings. The smell was now even more intense and it only grew stronger the further I walked into the room in curiosity.

My face expression remained motionless as my legs began to shake out of nervousness, but I didn't seem to mind it.
The entire room seemed empty with no furniture, just many dusty old clothes, toys, papers and some bowls out of dried bamboo. Nothing out of the ordinary.

My eyes navigated towards the corner of the room where the smell came from, and out of spite, I approached what seemed to be some curved figures covered in a dirty, brown and old blanket.
I felt horrible about it, and I began tearing up due to the smell that was so disgusting and horrible. Never in my life had I experienced some smell as disgusting as this.

It smelled even worse than my first time making ramen back at home, and Akari kept on insisting it was good despite her desperate face expression clearly saying,
' This is horrible, please let me puke already '

I chuckled a little at the thought of Akari's reaction, but I quickly brushed it off as I was focused on whatever the blanket was covering.
My hand made it's way towards the corner of the blanket, slowly pulling on it. It felt very dry and crusty and I used the candle's light to give me a better look at the blanket.

It was brown, cracked and it somewhat smelled a lot too.

' Could this be.. dried blood? '

My mind seemed to become more and more difficult to hold onto as I began jumping into all sorts of conclusions about Hotaru.

" No it's just a dead animal.. he could as well be a hunter for a living.. "
I reassured myself, feeling a little more confident about this situation. Either way, my heart was still racing like it was the end of the world.

I finally build up enough confidence inside myself and with one sweep, the crusty, dusty and old blanket flew off.

My eyes widened in an instant, meeting an unpleasant sight and the smell was now at it's limit.
I had the urge to scream as I could feel my heart go all the way up in my neck, but I just couldn't.
I was in shock and I dropped the candle onto the ground, the fire going out as soon as it hit the cold stoned floor.

There I stood.
Just starring at the terrifying sight before me in shock, disbelief and fear.

What was in front of me was something I knew I would never get rid of my memory. It was mercilessly and permanently clawed into my brain like a predator clawing their prey.

Four bodies of full grown men, sitting cramped into the corner with flies swarming all around their injured and rotten heads.

One of the men with elbow-length black, long hair had his head split in two, probably caused by some large, sharp object like a hatchet.

The second man had a large cut across his torso and gut, with his rotten organs spilling out of his body. The corpse was also missing an eye.

The third man was missing a leg, an arm and a hand, followed by a fatal cut, made horizontally at his neck as his head was almost struggling to stay attached to his body.

The fourth man had clawing marks caused by nails all over his neck, face, arms and torso with his upper clothes ripped open, probably by force.
The most fatal damage done to his body was probably the fact that his jaw was dislocated. Not as bad at the other three men though.

All four corpses seemed to be rotten over the span of a few months, not years. And not only that, this was possibly the bodies and remains of the four comrades Hotaru barely mentioned. The ones who let Iroha out of sight, which resulted in her death.

There was no doubt that it wasn't a demon who had done this, if I was guessing correctly. If it had been a demon, they would, according to Hotaru's description, have been murdered in different ways such as bite marks or missing pieces of flesh. Such a demon wouldn't be needing a weapon to kill if they had their regeneration, blood arts and nails along with their brutal, animal-like ways of killing.

No, this was caused by a human.
I was sure about it.
And the only suspect I had in mind was no other person than Hotaru himself. Now that I think about it, he was pretty well-built, probably able to take down a few men bare handed.

Why in the living world would he lie about them going missing if he had kept them in this dark basement?

Either way, it also reminded me how desperate and impatient he became whenever I didn't act like Iroha. If that was just a little bit of him, then Hotaru killing four men out of pure rage, because of the loss of his daughter, could seem possible..

I snapped out of my trance and I puked onto the ground next to the bodies in disgust, holding my hair up behind my head in order for it not to get dirty.

But I didn't seem to mind that at all.
I simply stared at the ground in disbelief once again, my eyes wide open and tears trailing down my cheeks.

I was scared for life. If Hotaru was capable of doing such brutal murders, was I even safe here anymore?

No. Hell no.

I quickly grabbed the blanket and threw it over the corpses, grabbing my candle and running out of the basement, up the stairs and outside, immediately closing the small doors again, covering it with the wooden planks like before.

Looking in all directions for Hotaru who hadn't seemed to arrive just yet, I ran into the house and entered my room, taking out some paper, brushes and ink, just casually painting and pretending I didn't see anything suspicious.. although that part was already difficult.
The messed up faces and bodies kept coming back into my memory, and the smell of the rotten flesh was still somehow stuck to my nose..

I suddenly heard a crack, realizing I accidentally broke the brush. I looked at the paper and saw nothing but black scrabble and doodles as I wasn't paying close attention to my movements.

" Oh.. "
I casually responded to myself, not being as shameful about it at this point. However, my heart skipped a beat as a familiar voice was heard outside my window..

" Iroha, I'm home! "

_____________________________
!TO BE CONTINUED!
_____________________________

A/N:
Hey y'all! Sorry for not updating in A LOOOOOOONG time, I kinda lost motivation :P
But I have risen from the dead and I shall now write again- better yet, I realized how my writing has gotten better, somehow :DDD (I think, lol)

School has started yet again and the homework kinda dropped on me like a bomb so I'll have to finish up that first, but I'll make sure to stay active here 💃💃💃💃💃

Cya in the next chapter, ayyy!

Word count: 2102