corpse kawrps (plural corpses)

noun

Definition: dead body: a dead body, especially of a human being

14th century. Directly or via French Latin corpus "body"

“Excuse me girl, you cant go in here.”

“But… I want to go…” Ariana’s lip trembled, her eyes filled with tears.

“Look, you cant get past us. Go back to your therapy.”

“But…. I…. Want to!” She almost screamed, and tears started flowing freely down her cheeks. “Let me go! Let me, let me, let me!” She was howling now, speech punctuated at intervals with sobs. “Let me go through!” she screamed as loud as she could.

All six of the men were now crowding around her, trying to figure out how to cease her crying without hurting her. While they were doing that, four teenagers sneaked past them, three of them against the wall and one almost running down the hall.

The one running didn’t stop when he saw the large man in front of him, nor did he try avoiding him.

“Outta my way.” Peter growled at the huge man that he had run into. The man stayed silent and stared at the teenager.

“What did you say…” he said in a flat monotonous growl, cracking his knuckles. Peter stared up at him, blinked, and burst into tears.

“Mean! Why are you tho mean to mee!” he sobbed with a childlike voice and exaggerated lisp. He furiously wiped the tears from his cheeks and fell the the ground, sobbing and hitting his fists on the floor. “Thtop being mean, mean man! Thtop, thtop thtop!”

The man looked shocked, and didn’t move, however staring at the boy. Doctor Valentino Glared in his direction and his mouth opened wide when he saw Peter. He scowled and walked towards them.

“Peter! Peter, what are you doing up here, away from your room?” He asked kindly.

“Mean man mean man mean man!” Peter shrieked.

“Now, now, Peter, he isn’t mean, he’s just doing his job…”

While the doctor was reassuring Peter, Indigo, Kassidy and Duke had arrived in front of the door where all the commotion was.

“Go, now!” Duke said. After checking for a split second whether there was anyone in the room or not the two girls opened the door swiftly, hopped inside and slammed it behind them.

“Oh. Shit.” Kassidy whispered when the two had taken a look inside the room.

It was a bedroom, quite roomy, with walls painted a pale sky blue. The room was furnished like every other in the hospital; the only thing being particularly different about this one was the fact that there was a corpse lying on the bed.

After recovering from the initial shock, Kassidy approached the bed stealthily, dragging with her a paralyzed Indigo. The two examined the body in mute horror for a moment.

“That’s Aurora.” Kassidy said flatly.

“Oh.” Indigo replied mechanically, too busy examining an accessory placed upon her head. “Kass, why is there a crown on her head?”

Aurora was lying on her bed as she normally would have been if she was sleeping. Her head was tilted on its right side, her golden curls sweeping over her face and the back of her neck. She was smiling peacefully, one arm draped over her chest with a hand in a fist, the other one by her right cheek. She was dressed in a robe the same colour as the walls of her room and of the sky outside, with her traditional silver locket around her neck. What was odd was the fact that upon her head was a novelty plastic crown, excessively decorated with plastic gems. On her pale left cheek was a bright red lipstick mark, and at the sides of her mouth there was remnants of white powder.

“No clue. What’s with the kiss?” Kassidy whispered back at her friend. Indigo circled the bed once, and noticed something. She leaned over, grabbed the stiff left arm and carefully, with horror and curiosity mingled on her features, uncurled the fingers that were in a fist. She grabbed the crumpled paper that was in the palm of her hand, and began to unfold it when she heard the sound outside.

The agreed signal to announce danger was three steady knocks on the door. Duke was frantically tapping on the door, a steady beat of hits. Indigo dropped Aurora’s arm quickly, shoved the paper in her pocket and rushed for the door.

“You’re taking pictures?” She hissed to Kassidy, that was fiddling with her phone.

“Oh come on. The guys would want to see this.”

Indigo growled, grabbed her arm forcibly and snuck out the door stealthily, before sprinting towards the nearest exit. There they met up with Duke, Ariana and Peter, the latter looking particularly pleased with himself.

“Wasn’t that a marvelous performance?” he said, wiping his cheeks.

“Brilliant, simply brilliant!” chimed in Ariana. Noticing the grim expression that bore two of her friends she stopped smiling. “Kass, what’s wrong?”

As an answer, she grabbed her phone and placed the pictures on slideshow, before passing them to the others.

While the two guys and Ariana observed with horror the scene that Kassidy’s phone had captured, Indigo took the opportunity to revise the paper she had found.

How sweet is this,

This sweet kiss of death

Layed upon this girl’s cheek,

Never roused from her sleep.

“You took something?”

Indigo snapped her head back up. She looked up guiltly at her friends and fiddled nervously with the piece of poetry.

“I can put it back…” she said.

“No you cant!” exclaimed Duke. “Your fingerprints are already all over it, they might think that you did it!”

Indigo looked down guiltily.

“Well, its not so bad.” Kassidy said helpfully. “At least we have one more clue than they do.”

“Clue?”

“You did say you wanted to investigate, right Peter? Well you got what you wanted.” Ariana said with a grin. Peter scowled.

“Alright then. Lets see what we have.” Kassidy said. “Aurora is dead. We know that much.”

“Aurora was depressive and had suicidal tendencies.” Duke said. “This might mean it was a suicide, there was some white powder on her lips…”

“You cant kiss yourself on the cheek.” Ariana snapped. “And no one gives her any sleeping pills.”

“Right. So lets assume she was murdered. How?”

“Sleeping pills, Genius.” Duke said to Peter. “Someone force fed her some sleeping pills. Then put that stupid crown on her head and kissed her.”

“With lipstick on. And theres only a few people that dare put on lipstick that bright.” Indigo said. “Like Scarlett.”

“Hmm that could work.” Kassidy said. “Scarlett bangs a nurse to distract them, gets some sleeping pills from the cabinets, gives them to Aurora, waits for her to stop squirming, then kisses her.”

“Sleeping pills are supposed to be swallowed. They don’t break into powder.” Ariana said.

“Maybe they were mixed to a drink or something.” Kassidy said. “There was an empty glass on her bedside table. When the liquid evaporated the powder was left on her skin.”

“So Scarlett did it?” Indigo asked.

“Maybe not, but theres a good chance she did. We should question her later on.” Peter said.

“Does Scarlett write poetry?”

“Doubt it. Why?” Duke asked Indigo. She handed him the note. He read it, passed it to Peter who passed it to Ariana then Kassidy then back to Indigo. They all stayed silent.

“Maybe it’s a reference from a book.” Kassidy said helpfully.

“But why would it be there?” Peter asked. “Not only does Scarlett never spend time at the library, but this whole set-up is making it seem as if she wants to be caught. Which is stupid.”

“I think the note is there to make it consistent with suicide. Although I don’t see the relation, im sure the lazy staff will, or they will just assume its suicide.”