Broken Orbit | ONC

Stench

              No one answered the door. My teeth hooked my dry lip in concern. I called a few more times, but there was no answer. My gut sank. Either he was asleep or he wasn't home. Doran wasn't a light sleeper. He probably wasn't home. He'd left, probably in pursuit of the Ark. Well, his home would serve to house me for the night. I tested the knob and the door popped open. That confirmed it. Doran wasn't here.

   I stepped into the house and called Chance in. He trotted for the doorway. When his paws crossed the line, he paused. His nose twitched. Bizarrely, his ears flattened under his cap. His tail curled between his legs.

   I'd never seen him do that before. I shifted a leg in front of him, trying to assure him that he was safe, as I faced the dark hallway. A stench reached my nostrils. I'd smelled it before on the line of duty. The smell made the gut curdle and the heart skip a beat. Every human recognized it instinctively.

    It was the smell of rotting flesh: the smell of death.

   I almost stopped breathing. My heart leapt into my throat. All the thoughts I hadn't let myself think slammed past the wall I'd built. Worry raced through my blood veins like fire, searing my nerves. I lurched forward and bolted down the hall. Dread forced my lungs to squeeze my breaths out in pants.

      What if--?

    No.

   What if he--?

   Shut up.

   The scent originated from the master bedroom. The door banged against the wall as I threw it open. A frame on the wall fell to the floor and glass shattered. I rounded the small corner and every muscle in my body turned to stone. I stopped breathing.

   The room had been ransacked. Drawers were hanging open and clothes were scattered across the floor. A few boxes sat on the hardwood, emptied and on their sides. Someone had been looking for valuables. I'd investigated enough crime scenes to recognize this pattern on sight.

   The bed was the only untouched area. The covers were wrapped around the figure's body. Dark blue plaid with a fuzzy rim. The person in the bed was dead. They'd been dead for a while. The stench of death wrapped around me like a dark mist, turning my vision into a tunnel as my eyes rested on the blonde hair.

   The Webster blonde hair.

   The body had decomposed, but I knew what I was seeing. The glasses on the bedside table. The glass of water. The dark t-shirt. I'd always thought he was weird for wearing clothes to bed. The blonde hair – my hair used to be the same color, before the sun distanced.

   It wasn't difficult to put the pieces together. During the crime spree, someone – likely multiple someones – broke into the house. Doran didn't hear them. They found him in his room and shot him in the back of the head while he slept. Then they ransacked his house, stole his valuables, and left him to rot.

   I couldn't breathe. My lungs flexed to suck in air, but nothing came through the lump in my throat. My chest heaved. Water stung my eyes for the first time in years. No. No. I had to be dreaming. This is all a bad dream. It has to be. Doran can't be – not my little brother.

   The pain of my lungs screaming for my air said I wasn't dreaming. My hands curled into fists and I shook my head, wanting to get out of the room, but I was rooted to the spot. I couldn't move. I couldn't look away from the crater in his head from where he'd been shot.

   My little brother.

   Black spots danced in my vision. The lump in my throat unlocked and I gasped in air, my muscles releasing. My shoulders sagged and my head fell, breaking the stare at Doran. Ragged gasps tore up my throat as I heaved, water streaking down my face. The scarf stuck to my cheeks.

   How could – how could someone do this? Doran was an orphanage volunteer. He couldn't harm a fly. He'd always been the tougher son in the family, but he was still my little brother. Doran was still a good person. He'd never hurt anyone in his life. And these people had broken into his house and killed him before even taking a look at his face. They hadn't even cared.

   Bubbling rage poured from my heart and seared into my nerves. Red tinted my vision. I wanted blood. My brother – my harmless brother – was dead for a few hundred bucks-worth of stolen goods. Money didn't have any worth anyway. He was dead for nothing.

   Glass scattered slightly and a weight sat on my knee. I didn't realize that I'd fallen to sit on my knees until I felt it. An itchy eye cracked open.

   Chance sat in front of me and had dropped his chin onto my knee. His eyes scoured my face. He'd never seen me so torn up. When my eye met his blue ones, his coat wriggled and made thumping noises. He was wagging his tail.

   I reached forward. With my hand scooped under his torso, I pulled him to my chest. Chance's tail wagged faster, the thumping speeding up. I pulled off the damp scarf and buried my face into his back, a subconscious attempt to hide the water that leaked from my eyes. My chest started to heave again. A deep pain throbbed through my heart, stinging every time it beat. It made it difficult to want it to keep beating.

18,058 total words.