By: Daiyu Tang
The first thing the Observer can confirm is the simplest and therefore the most frightening: a marked HPD SUV was found on the highway near the gas station, engulfed in flames, like someone tried to erase a chapter (two chapters really based on body ‘count’). The second thing we can confirm is what was not found with it: Koh Gausman, Lilura Gausman. Two officers who were present in town that morning and then… weren’t. We’ve featured Koh before, he always said he was a monster, but has the monster had pitchforks and torches applied to him?
Sources familiar with the initial response say the vehicle appeared deliberately torched. Not ‘engine trouble and bad luck‘, (although having Tori as a mechanic still blows my mind) not ‘Hathian bad luck lightning strike‘ (it happens more than you think), but a fire that looked built, fed, and finished. A gas can reportedly located semi-melted in the back seat. The kind of Hathian stage that says to me, “Daiyu, this isn’t an accident, this is punctuation. Sharp-fucking-punctuation.”
Then there’s the call. According to accounts passed around HPD like a bad rumour you can’t stop touching, a male voice phoned in and delivered a message that wasn’t meant for Porkins and the comedy-troupe of dispatchers so much as it was meant for everyone: “You kept fucking around after being warned.” No name. No claims. Just a line that sounds like someone who believes they’ve already won.
CCTV in this town is always just helpful enough to be maddening. Footage from the gas station reportedly caught distant figures moving away from the scene toward Battle Street, but too far out for any clean identification: shapes, not faces; motion, not certainty. It’s the kind of grainy almost-evidence that feeds paranoia for weeks and solves nothing. (I’d just like to say thank you to HIKVision for clear CCTV in another case – still no one has identified that arse though).
There’s one more detail that feels either related… or like Hathian’s favourite hobby (coincidence): Koh’s residence was reportedly ransacked around the same time. It’s unclear whether it was tied to the disappearance, for example a second ‘tap’ cleaning up loose ends, or simply opportunists smelling chaos and acting accordingly. If so, that would imply a leak in HPD though, which I think in the case of issues with their own is unlikely. Krystal, as she often reminds me, runs a tight ship. But, on the other hand ‘missing’ has a way of attracting scavengers.
Now for the part Stanley will want me to treat with kid gloves and I’m only willing to put down here, after most of you have stopped reading… Gangs. Some HPD personnel have reportedly questioned a small number of people, and yes, some residents have already started saying ‘Rejects‘ like it’s a spell that explains everything. But at the time of writing, the Observer has not seen anything that cleanly links the disappearance to any one group.
And that my dear readers is the story… Two officers go missing, a police vehicle becomes a bonfire, a warning comes in over a phone line, and the city keeps moving like it hasn’t just been told, very plainly, that badges do not equal safety. Again. Can I just add that I’m expecting an HPD Purge of Hathian soon? You guys are going at officers far too fast to last without significant retaliation.
