Chapter 189: “Disappearance” (1) |
Everly believed that since the cursed witch Natalie had given her the task of “finding the client,” then the original owner of the account Bianca was likely already missing.
The one currently using this account was probably some impostor from who-knows-where—and, nine times out of ten, the very culprit responsible for Bianca’s disappearance. After all, that’s how horror movies usually go.
Worried about alerting the enemy, Everly didn’t follow the account or interact with it in any way.
She saved a screenshot of Natalie’s private message, then switched to the chat interface and sent the image to her go-to hacker, Orff.
Everly: [Do me a favor—find out who owns this account, where it’s usually logged in from, and whether they’ve gone missing recently. Also, check if the account has changed login devices in the past four days, and whether the login locations have changed.]
Orff: [OK.]
After the time loop incident, Orff had stayed with Everly and Misha at the ranger’s cabin for a while to ride out a parasite crisis. During that time, the three of them often gathered to play board games and pass the time.
Friendships are built through shared experiences. After spending so much time together, the three had become fairly close friends. Whenever Everly needed information investigated, she would go straight to Orff for help, and he never refused—always doing whatever he could without complaint. Occasionally, when Orff needed someone to back him up, Everly would step in and handle things.
Hacking into a Chatter account was nothing difficult for Orff.
The data showed that the account “@Biance” belonged to a college student with the same name, Bianca. The university she attended was also in New Osebuch State, but it was more prestigious than Everly’s state university—Mouster College, located in the state capital, Concord.
Mouster College is a private university, one of the Ivy League schools. Its flagship program is business, and it is the best university in the entire state of New Osebuch.
According to the information provided by Orff, the account “@Biance” had not changed its login device at all over the past month, and its login locations had mostly stayed within the Mouster College campus area—there were no signs that the account had been hacked.
Looking at Bianca herself: she’s a freshman this year, studying economics at Mouster College. Her grades are fairly good, but her personality is introverted and dull. She has little presence on campus and hardly any friends. Perhaps because of this, Bianca had been b*llied by several male and female students in a campus club. The methods included, but were not limited to, verbal abuse, physical mistreatment, and financial exploitation…
Bianca likely turned to the cursed witch Natalie because of this.
Unfortunately, no matter how capable Natalie is, she is still only a witch, not a god. As the account “@Curse Witch” grew explosively popular, countless people went online every day to seek her help. Natalie had to sense out who truly needed help, then handle their requests one by one in order.
No matter how capable she was, she was only one person and couldn’t be everywhere at once. As a result, her clients often had to wait for some time before receiving her help.
By the order of requests, Bianca should have received help today and been freed from the b*llying. However, when Natalie tried to sense her through the account, she could no longer detect even the slightest trace of Bianca’s presence.
Orff: [But Bianca doesn’t seem to be missing? Or maybe she’s only just disappeared and the news hasn’t come out yet? Anyway, I couldn’t find anything like that online.]
Not long after he said this, Everly’s phone began vibrating again.
Orff: [Oh right—while I was looking into Bianca, I also came across a few news articles about Mouster College. Not sure if they’ll be useful to you, but take a look anyway.]
Orff: [(link) (link) (link) (link)]
Orff had sent over several news links—some written by students from the school’s own news department, and others published by external media outlets.
Everly opened them and discovered that Mouster College had been far from peaceful lately. One after another, several people had died.
The first death occurred at the end of January. A female student named Bethany had not been seen on campus for several days, and neither her family nor her friends could reach her. Worried, her family reported her missing to the police.
After receiving the call, the police sent an officer to Bethany’s off-campus studio apartment. As soon as the officer approached the door, he caught a faint but foul odor.
Having dealt with homicide cases before, he quickly recognized it as the smell of a decomposing body.
Sensing that something was wrong, and after knocking repeatedly with no response, the officer forced the door open and entered the apartment. As expected, they found Bethany’s body inside—she had already been dead for some time.
She was reclining lazily on the sofa, with a handheld mirror beside her. The television in front of her was still on, continuously playing a dull soap opera. If not for the advanced decomposition and the stench, one might have thought she was simply watching TV.
Because of the cold weather, the apartment had been tightly sealed with the heater running, which accelerated the decomposition. By the time the officers entered, half of the skin on her face had already decayed.
The wrinkled layer of skin sagged downward like a peeling, ruined poster, exposing the bloodied flesh beneath and the stark white bone underneath. Her body was also severely decomposed—fluids from the decay had soaked her sleepwear and the sofa, slowly pooling at her feet into a brownish puddle.
An autopsy later revealed that Bethany had died three days earlier. The cause of death was organ failure due to severe dehydration.
In simple terms, she died of thirst.
In forensic medicine, it is generally believed that under normal temperatures, a person can survive no more than about three days without any water.
The forensic examiner then examined Bethany’s stomach and found it completely empty. Only a pitiful amount of food residue and digestive secretions remained in her intestines. Laboratory analysis showed that this food had been consumed seven days before her death.
In other words, for at least three days, Bethany had neither eaten nor drunk anything. This left her both starving and severely dehydrated, causing organs such as her kidneys to fail to varying degrees, ultimately leading to her tragic death.
What’s strange is that Bethany came from a wealthy family and had no financial worries. Her apartment had a normal water supply, and her refrigerator was stocked with food and drinks. If she had wanted to, she could have simply stood up, taken a few steps, and opened the fridge to access everything she needed.
Under such circumstances, why would she die of thirst in her own room? Could someone have controlled her movements?
With these questions in mind, the police conducted a thorough investigation of the apartment and reviewed surveillance footage from the building’s entrance as well as from a shop across the street. The results showed that during the time of Bethany’s death, no suspicious individuals had entered the building. There were also no signs of forced entry into her room—it was a perfect locked-room case.
Additionally, the autopsy showed no signs that she had been restrained or controlled, nor were there any external injuries.
With no results from multiple lines of investigation, the police ultimately closed the case under the absurd conclusion of “s**cide.”
Not long after Bethany’s case, on February 3rd, another death occurred.
Unlike Bethany’s case, this one took place in a university dormitory.
In a shared bathroom, a girl named Cassandra slipped and fell while showering, hitting her head on the ground as foul-smelling blood spread across the floor.
It was a little after 4 p.m. At the time, besides Cassandra, there were two other girls in the bathroom.
Hearing the sound of the fall, the two girls ignored the soap still on their bodies and rushed over, trying to help her up.
However, when they grabbed her arm, what they felt was an icy coldness.
“She was lying there like that, half on her side on the floor. There was blood seeping out beneath her head—about the size of a washbasin. The color was very dark, almost black, and it had this indescribable foul smell. I saw she was still gripping the showerhead, so I tried to take it from her, but her hand felt extremely cold, and her joints were stiff—it was like touching a corpse. I was so scared I didn’t dare move… Oh, right, I also noticed a lot of purplish-red patches on her back. I don’t know if she had some kind of illness…”
This was the description given by a girl who had been at the scene, as interviewed by the school’s news department.
The two girls found Cassandra’s condition very strange—her body was ice-cold, and she didn’t respond when they called her. Remembering first aid advice that warned against immediately moving someone after a fall to avoid causing further injury, the two split up: one stayed with Cassandra, while the other hastily threw on some clothes, ran out of the bathroom, and called the school doctor.
However, they were still too late. By the time the school doctor rushed to the dormitory to examine Cassandra, she had already stopped breathing.
For this case, the police ultimately concluded that it was an “accidental fall resulting in primary brain injury.”
Cassandra’s death seemed to be only the beginning.
After her, on February 10 and February 16, two more female students died on campus.
One of them died suddenly during class. At the time, her friend was sitting beside her, head down taking notes, when she suddenly heard a crisp thud. Turning around, she saw the girl leaning forward, her head resting against the desk, completely motionless.
At first, the somewhat slow-reacting friend assumed the girl had stayed up too late and was just drowsy, so she didn’t pay much attention.
However, even when the class ended, the girl remained slumped forward, completely still.
The friend nudged her shoulder, but there was no response. She then tried to lift the girl’s forehead. As the head tilted back, beneath the messy brown hair, she was met with a pair of dull eyes—pupils whitened, the eyeballs sunken inward.
At some point, no one knew exactly when, the girl had already died in her seat.
For this case, the police publicly announced the cause of death as sudden death.
Next came the fourth victim, Abby. Compared to the first three, her death caused a much greater stir—Abby was very beautiful and a member of the school’s drama club.
On February 16, the drama club performed a modern adaptation of A Doll’s House on the school’s open-air stage, with Abby playing the female lead, Nora.
In the third act, Nora realizes her husband Helmer’s hypocrisy and comes to understand that in this marriage, she is nothing more than an insignificant accessory. In front of him, she deliberately messes up the doll’s hair, walks to the mirror, and says to her reflection: “Now I believe that first and foremost, I am a human being—just like you!”
This scene marks Nora’s ideological turning point and awakening. Abby performed it with deep immersion—her expressions, movements, and delivery were all highly compelling.
Just as the audience was captivated by her performance and began applauding, Abby’s body suddenly swayed violently from side to side. In the next second, with a soft thud, she collapsed face-first onto the stage amid shocked cries from the crowd.
The police autopsy report showed that Abby died of organ failure caused by severe dehydration.
Yes—just like the first victim, Bethany, she “died of thirst.”
Considering that Abby had appeared completely normal beforehand and showed no signs of coercion or restraint, the police could only hastily conclude in their report that the cause was “excessive dieting leading to dehydration,” and closed the case.