Sherlock and Co: The text of the day.

Chapter 4

The park was unusually empty, despite the great weather. The whole park seemed to have been abandoned centuries ago. A swing hung on a lone chain as it swayed slowly in the wind, the slide was caked in mud and fallen leaves, the monkey bars covered in rust. It was as if the sun had decided to not bless this one park with its grace as puddles still filled the holes in the gassy floor. Little muddy footsteps still littered the concrete though only rarely accompanied by a larger footprint.

Putting his hands on his hips, John stands with determination and hope, "Alright - Let's start looking around, Sherlock has to have left some sort of clue-"

"But what are we even looking for? I doubt anyone's even been here. "

"Elementary Mariana- we can use the most basic detective skill in the book! Looking for footprints, as Sherlock would have said, the game is a foot! Ha get it- a foot like because it's afoot but since we are looking for footprints it's – ha – it's like a foot like one feet. Is that right? One feet can I say that- that sounds so wrong heh- you – you know what let's just eh let's just start looking-"

Mariana nods slowly as she makes her way to the bench on the side, "Oook how about you look at footprints while I look for literally anything else, so we can cover the ground and the not ground- that way if there's another puzzle or something, we won't miss it. "

They both nod and go off in opposite directions, John keeps his head down most of the time, his ruffled and unkept hair giving him the very vague appearance of a sniffer dog.

Just as John had thought he had picked up a potential trail he hears Mariana's worried voice call out for him.

"John- come over here, right now"

John runs over to her, standing next to her. "What, what's wrong?". Mariana's head is turned away from him starting directly in front of her. She gulps and slowly points her finger to match her gaze, "Look".

John turns his head to match her finger and gasps as he sees what caused her so much distress

There was a splotch of dull red dripping down the side of a tree, underneath which lay some sort of glass item that was also covered in the fluid. Next to the glass lay an item so unmistakable that it made all the warmth and hope that once consumed him vanish. His stomach churned as he noticed the unmistakable ear defenders, lying at the base of the tree, the SH intitals covered in the same sickening color.

It wasn't like John hadn't seen blood before, in fact, he had seen much much worse, yet somehow knowing that the blood came from someone he loved hurt more than anything he had experienced in his life.

John breaks into a sprint toward the tree, mouth still slightly open as he notices just how much blood coated the base of the tree. The glass item and the coat were covered in dirt – making it look like a pitiful attempt to hide the evidence of the crime, about a thousand ants crawled near the (supposedly) sweet substance. "Sherlock-", he whispers.

"John! Over here! There's a trail of blood up ahead-!"

John doesn't know when Mariana moved away from her spot when he was glad for the interruption. He runs behind Mariana, looking down most of the time to ensure that he doesn't miss any of the little red drops that litter the leaf-colored ground.

After a few minutes of running, he hears Mariana call out to him, to which he finally snaps his head up. He sees Mariana quickly point ahead of herself and he turns his head fully to match her gaze. They both slow down and eventually stop a few feet away from the thing in front of them, their hearts beating unbearably fast, whether it was because of the running or the events that just took place they didn't know.