Jungkook's POV

My sticky eyelids managed to sunder themselves leisurely from each other, exposing my eyeballs to the first ray of daylight penetrating through my room's linen curtains.

Honestly I wanted to have a serious discussion with Tae hyung about something very important. So, I had to move towards his room immediately after waking up.

I knew Tae hyung was sleeping in Namjoon hyung's room because he feared Namjoon hyung owning several important belongings and papers that might mean something valuable, which as a responsible best friend he decided to look after and protect. So, I made my way towards that room and found the door open.

But before I could pronounce his name, something very odd trapped my vision.

Bloody footprints!

I would probably have got to somewhere much sooner if I cared about examining those prints. But my ignorant, pessimistic and low self-esteemed traits took over.

I once thought of following those in the hope of finding some context. But I really don't know why I couldn't gain enough gut to do so even after being a cop. Therefore, I waited for the others to wake up and notice that as well. Furthermore, I ignored those prints for that very time and diverted my attention towards Tae hyung and the wide open door to his room.

I called Tae hyung's name few times, but he didn't reply. So I entered through the unlocked door and pulled off the blanket thinking he might be there.

But

Why was there only a pillow?

Where was Tae hyung?

I walked out of the room but didn't spot Tae hyung. I hoped he will be in the washroom, or maybe performing morning stuffs.

But no, I found him nowhere.

"Tae hyung?" I called out his name keeping my voice at its lowest, as the others were still slumbering.

"Hyung? Tae hyung?" I called out again.

But I heard no response.

"H-hyung? Tae hyung?" I called the name with a slight evident terror in my voice and heart this time.

None replied, no one responded.

I got too scared.

Is he okay? Wh-where was he?

I tried but failed to calm myself down.

But, I had to find him anyway. So, before fear and anxiety could cloud my logical thoughts, I immediately headed towards my and Jin hyung's room.

I knocked with a slight panic in my heart.

Jin hyung opened the door and came out of his room.

His eyes were swollen and red, I realized he has mewled all night long.

"Good morning Jungkook, did you sleep well?" He asked.

I nodded at his query vaguely and asked him "Have you seen Tae hyung?"

He turned goggle-eyed and perplexed.

"Tae?"

"Where is Tae hyung? Have you seen him?" I repeated.

"Uhh I don't know. I'm not sure where he is, but I might try him on the phone," he suggested and walked back into the room to follow his own words.

I approved walking away from our room and proceeded towards Tae hyung's own room.

On spotting the door being unlocked, I called out the names of both Tae and Yoongi hyung's name few times, but none of them responded.

After almost fifteen to twenty minutes, Yoongi hyung emerged out of the room.

"Jungkook?" He exclaimed.

"Yoongi hyung have you seen Tae hyung?" I asked him with a quaky voice.

My voice was getting more and more quaky, as no matter how much I tried, the anxiety didn't fail to get its grip on me.

"What? Tae? Didn't he sleep at Namjoon's room last night?" Yoongi hyung asked.

I nodded.

"He did, but after I woke up and went to look for him in Namjoon hyung's room, he was missing from the bed. I searched every place but he is nowhere to be seen!" I replied almost breaking down.

"Jungkook, relax! We will find him, I promise, calm down!" Yoongi hyung tried to solace me.

He rolled his sleeves down before I could notice anything and came out of the area he was in.

"Have you searched him in the other rooms?" He asked.

"I went to Jin hyu- I mean my room, he wasn't there!" I replied.

"And in Hoseok and Jimin's room?" He asked.

"No, why would he go there?" I shrugged.

"We can know that answer if we find Tae in that room, let's go now!" He held my hand and dragged me to Hoseok and Jimin hyung's room ignoring everything else, even those odd prints!

But before I could knock, I spotted that the door was already unlocked and a strong metallic stench of something was emanating from that room.

"Why is it unlocked?" I asked turning towards Yoongi hyung.

"I don't know, I think we should call one of them. We can't just enter without permission, right?" He asked.

I nodded and told him to call Hoseok hyung.

"Hos-" he was trying to call Hoseok hyung's name but was cut off.

We heard a sudden scream coming from the room. No, not scream, more like a screech, the scream of terror and panick,the scream of witnessing something horrible or unpleasant. The scream was too loud.

And we both were very much sure the scream was from Hoseok hyung.

Even Jin hyung came out after hearing that, and few other guests peeked through their panels and custom wooden doors.

We didn't wait a minute, and immediately pushed the door moving inside.

And the spine-chilling sight provided us all with several layers of goosebumps.

The others immediately either shut their eyes or looked away. Few of them were even close to regurgitate, but I was used to such scenes, so I stepped closer and kneeled down.

Jimin hyung's lifeless body was lying on the floor with blood all around him with the whole floor painted in red. A haunting sight which probably would remain sewed in the fabric of all the others' memories for the rest of their lives.

The very first thought that clicked my mind after I came across that scene was those footprints. My clairvoyance said that the footprints are indeed related to Jimin hyung's death. And that was exactly when I figured out to whom those prints belonged, on the basis of their texture, size and shape.

Probably the hyungs also would have cared about those footprints more than anything, if it wasn't for Jimin hyung's corpse and his sudden quietus.

"J-Jungkook, Jungkook, what is this? How did this happen? Jungkook, who killed him?" Hoseok hyung asked almost crying and holding my arms.

"You were with Jimin hyung last night, what happened to him?" I asked back.

"Jungkook trust me, I sleep very densely, I really don't know about a single thing that happened. I swear I didn't hear any noise last night!" He said with his tears rolling down his cheeks.

Well, he wasn't lying. I was also half awake and half asleep last night, and didn't hear any noise though.

I stood up and tried to calm him down.

"Hyungs, help me, please look if there's anything in this room, I mean any evidence related to Jimin hyung's sudden expiry! Oh well, ignore the bloody footprints for now! I'll come to those later because I'm pretty obvious about whom those footprints belongs to!" I said.

"But what if the footprints leads to something even more horrible?" Hoseok hyung questioned.

"If that is the case then I'm very sure that the horrible thing has already happened. And if we leave this place here without searching for evidences, those evidences might get destroyed in our absence! So, for now just do as I say," I instructed.

The hyungs nodded and started to search for evidences.

"Well, Namjoon died before Jimin, should we search his room too?" Jin hyung asked.

I gave the permission.

Jin and Hoseok hyung went to Namjoon hyung's room to search for evidences.

I and Yoongi hyung tried to search for evidences in Jimin hyung's room.

But sadly we didn't find anything except that same android model drenched in blood.

I tried to switch it on but it didn't work.

"What the fuck are you doing? Don't you know it doesn't work?" Yoongi hyung yelled.

"Hyung, if it doesn't work why is it here? An android can't walk by itself, right? It's neither Hoseok hyung's nor Jimin hyung's, so it clearly belongs to the killer, or why did he bring it here?

Probably it is his phone, so he was carrying it with him and didn't really care that it was in his pocket or something as we generally don't care about the normal things being in our clothes. And the phone was an abnormal thing to us but not to him, so after he was done with his job related to Jimin hyung, he maybe walked away but didn't notice that it dropped from his pocket."

"Jungkook" Yoongi hyung groaned.

"I know hyung, but", I sighed.

"Should we look for the SIM cards?" He asked me.

I nodded "Yes, we should!"

Jin's POV

I kept on thinking about several possibilities, about the calls, about the killer, about my love whom I've recently lost, about everything that happened and was happening alongside few possible explanations. But I was snapped out of my thoughts once Hoseok approached me seeming ambivalent and interrupted my thoughts.

"Hyung, I found Namjoon hyung's diary!" He exclaimed.

"Oh! Is there anything fishy? Did you read his entries?" I asked.

"Yeah, I read some of his entries but I didn't find anything odd though. He has just written about how his days went in school and what he did after coming home! Uh..and few times he has mentioned how much he wishes that he could be a successful actor" Hoseok replied.

"You should check the very last entry Hoseok, check it!" I ordered.

"I- I guess I'll just give it to Jungkook!" He said.

"No, give that to me. I want to go through his last entry, I have that right. I want to see if there's any clue in his entry! You look around and search for other evidences!" I told him.

"Okay!" He followed and got back to his work to find other evidences.

While he was searching for other evidences, I flipped through the pages of Namjoon's diary and stopped at the last one.

His last entry was written on the day we arrived in this motel, 11th of April.

He didn't write any more entries after that day, maybe because he was worried about the call and didn't feel like writing or maybe because he was sick, whatever the reason might be, the last entry he wrote was on 11th April.

I read his whole entry, and the entry wasn't even a complete one.

He only described our arrival and how we all were so happy in the first paragraphs, and at the end he wrote he didn't really want Jungkook to come with us.

He wrote he was worried about one thing, and didn't want Jungkook to join us because-

There he stopped his entry, he didn't even mention the reasons.

I got so curious, why did he not want Jungkook to come with us? Why was he worried? But there were none to answer my questions.

Hoseok came back and handed me Namjoon's phone.

"I didn't find anything else, sorry hyung! But there might be something helpful in his phone, let's give this to Jungkook!" Hoseok said.

I nodded and we walked back to Hoseok's room.

"Hyung! Did you find anything?" Jungkook asked us.

I handed him the phone and the diary.

"Did you two find anything?" I asked Jungkook and Yoongi.

They looked at each other's face and Jungkook replied.

"Only that android model!"

"Yeah, and the SIM cards!" Yoongi added.

"Y-you found the SIM cards?" Hoseok asked.

Both of them nodded.

"From where?" I asked.

"Tae hyung's room! Maybe Tae hyung found this cards before us but forgot to tell us!" Jungkook said sighing.

I couldn't limit my curiosity, so I simply asked.

"Jungkook, why did Namjoon not want to bring you with us?"

Jungkook didn't reply as he was scrutinizing the last page of Namjoon's entry.

I asked again but Jungkook didn't reply my question, rather he ordered Yoongi to insert the cards in the dead android.

Yoongi followed his words, and for the next few minutes Jungkook checked something.

"Well, okay!" He breathed.

He checked Namjoon's phone too and sighed again.

"D-did you find anything?" Hoseok asked.

Jungkook didn't reply, rather he asked back.

"Who is Jack?"

"Jack?" We all exclaimed.

"Yeah. I was checking Namjoon hyung's contact list, and I know all of them except Jack. And this is his private phone, so there's no way it can be someone from his school or workplace," he said.

"I have heard few times about someone named Jack but I don't know who that exactly is or how he looks like!" I said and Hoseok and Yoongi agreed with me.

No one vocalized any more thing, in fact none knew what was the correct thing to say or do at that very moment.

After several minutes, Yoongi took up the responsibility of breaking the hush.

"Footprints" He hummed

"Huh?" I flinched as I was almost zoning out.

Yoongi pointed towards the bloody floor "Now can we consider the bloody footprints? We can probably find Taehyung and find some context behind all these if we follow those!" He told.

"Okay! Fast everyone, get ready! We have to follow the footprints now. By the way, according to me those prints belongs to Tae hyung if I'm not too wrong!" Jungkook said and got off the floor grabbing his revolver.

We all were prepared to go out but Jungkook stopped before the exit and observed something.

"Why is this hoodie torn? It was perfect yesterday!" He said narrowing his lids at the hoodie.

Jungkook once again looked at the floor and mumbled.

"Two pairs of footprints? But of same size? Oh! He went into the room and then came back, and went into the room again and then came near this hoodie and then got out.

I guess the sharp weapon was in this hoodie, he was searching for that. Maybe, he placed it here in this hoodie last night but most probably forgot at morning because he was stressed about something.

So, he searched for it like a lunatic in and out of the room, and finally figured out that was in this hoodie and grabbed it and ran away. And as because he was in a hurry and in a nervous state, he dragged it out so violently which caused this scratch over this hoodie. Hurry up everyone, let's go!" He said tracing each footprint and dashed out.

We all kept following the bloody footprints ignoring few other guests' protruding curious noddles, and ran as fast as we could.

Finally, the footprints ended in front of a huge building and what we spotted was a ravine of blood coming out of it.

Luckily the place was a secluded one, so very little crowd were gathered there and none of them contacted the police station. Or maybe they did but as expected, in such an area the network must have caused huge complications, hampering their progress in informing. Over that, the police stations here delays in their every action and operation, at least that's what I've heard from several natives.

Jungkook loaded his gun pulling it out from his holster while we all walked in and spotted the blood streams cascading through the stairs.

We avoided the bloody parts of the stairs and went upstairs, allowing our steps to produce few audible squelches.

Ultimately we spotted a room from where all the blood was emanating, we ran towards that room and pushed the door.

And...

We discovered a lifeless Taehyung.

He was drenched in blood, the sharp knife of the killer was stabbed into his stomach and blood was oozing out of that major wound.

And he lied there lifeless.

Jungkook dropped his revolver and kneeled down, helding Taehyung's hand.

"H-hyung?" He exclaimed putting on his gloves and examining the corpse.

"Jungkook? Is he dead?" I asked panicking.

He didn't reply, and kept examining his dead body.

But suddenly we all heard footseps which were pretty faint and not in sync but still real. We didn't know where it came from, but we all surely heard it.

Jungkook's POV

I was continously examining his corpse until I found even a faintest context behind his death, but in vain.

Jin hyung asked several questions but I couldn't reply. My throat was choked with terror and regret on not being able to save anyone of my three friends even after being a cop and also partly because of ignoring Hoseok hyung's words when he feared about the footprints leading to something more horrible. I felt so guilty, so useless. At that moment I genuinely wanted to give up on own my life.

I was trying to pull out that knife and stab myself, but that's exactly when I heard footsteps, infact we all did.

I stood up looking at every direction but didn't find anyone.

"Who's it?" I murmured under my breath.

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Is Taehyung dead? Or is he not? You'll find out in the next chapter.

You'll soon find the answers.

Sorry for grammatical errors, typos and spelling mistakes. I hope you will forgive me for my inconveniences.

Love you all, stay happy, healthy and safe. See u in the next episode💜❤💜