Ouroboros, the snake devouring its own tail. Ironically, a symbol that referenced continuing life and fertility. And to some, a symbol that meant perfection through ever evolving change. Iliya didn’t think it was that deep. He bet the game maker just thought haha snake! Reptile lady and snake! Or maybe they were more clever than he thought.

Iliya decided to start by searching the main room he was in. Giving one last look at Mercedes’s picture, he decided to narrow down to whichever desk was hers first. At least, Iliya assumed her desk would be in the office. And if Mercedes didn’t have a desk in here, the murderer almost definitely did. Everything had to be done deliberately in a challenge like this.

There were four desks in the room, and the only common denominator on all the desks was a picture with six smiling people in zookeeper’s outfits. One of them was clearly Mercedes. Though it seemed like all six of these people were friends, Iliya also decided to give a good look to the people Mercedes had her arms around. On her left was another woman, who was easily half a foot taller than Mercedes, if not more. The woman tilted her head in Mercedes’s direction, and her eyes were scrunched up in a real smile. The man on Mercedes’s left seemed to be looking at something behind the camera. Though his arm was around Mercedes’s waist, it seemed perfunctory as opposed to affectionate.

The first desk Iliya went through didn’t look like it was important. He was able to open and sort through all the drawers, and there was nothing weird about any of them. They were filled with that Iliya assumed were zoo-typical papers and files, alongside a few family mementos. Mercedes wasn’t in any of them. The second desk also had a fully accessible desk, but the computer on the desk had an email that was password locked. Definitely something to go back to.

The third desk also looked insignificant, and it was on the fourth desk that Iliya hit the jackpot. It seemed as innocuous as the others on the surface, but when Iliya opened the file cabinet there were no papers inside. There was something much more malicious than even paperwork.

There was a severed hand sawed off at the wrist. Iliya could make out the pattern of an ouroboros coiled around its wrist. He had found a part of Mercedes.

Until then, he hadn’t realized he would actually be confronted with a body, let alone a part of it. It made him feel sick and anxious. He wasn’t sure he wanted to find the rest of the body.

Iliya pressed a hand to his mouth, nauseous. Oh man was it disgusting. The blood had congealed around the wrist, and he could see a bit of bone peaking out. Iliya forced himself to take deep breaths- he did not want to vomit all over the crime scene. Not again.

Then he noticed the fingers of the hand. They were curled into a ball. Clearly, as per the rules of murder mysteries, there would be something inside Mercedes’s severed hand. It could be something she managed to grab while she was being attacked, or even something the murderer gave her after death. Either way, there was something important in there.

But Iliya really, really didn’t want to touch it. It was bad enough just looking at it, the bone blinking bright against the steel of the desk. He grimaced, looking around the room for something like a stick. He was hoping he could poke at the hand until it unclenched. No such luck. He’d have to just buck up and do it.

Screaming internally, Iliya took a pair of rubber gloves from a box that was on one of the desks. At least he didn’t have to touch it with his bare hands. Steeling himself, he reached in the desk and brought Mercedes’s severed, bloody hand to the surface of what had probably been her desk in life. Oh, it was so gross. The flesh was stiff and cold, but Iliya could feel the ripple of skin even through his gloves.

Iliya decided to be thankful bugs hadn’t found their way to the hand before he did. If flies had been swarming, or maggots squirming under the skin… Iliya shivered. He wished he knew more about forensics. That could have helped him develop a timeline for when the hand was cut off.

With gentle, hesitant movements, Iliya managed to open Mercedes’s closed fist. Her grip was tighter than he thought it would be. Inside her hand was a small key. Perfect, just as expected. Disgusted, Iliya picked it up with his thumb and pointer finger and put it in his pocket. He would definitely be washing his pants as soon as he got home. Or to wherever his destination would be after completing this game.

He heard the Moderator snort. Iliya whipped his head around to glare at him. “What?” Iliya asked, miffed.

The Moderator just shook his head. He clearly enjoyed Iliya’s suffering. How rude.

Iliya bit the inside of his cheek. Be nice to the Moderator, he recited, be nice to the Moderator. He continued this mantra in his head as he looked through the computer on the desk where Mercedes’s hand had been found. As assumed, it was definitely Mercedes’s desk and computer. When he opened the email tab, it was connected to her work email, but all the messages inside had been purged. It made Iliya even more curious about the locked email.

Before returning to that desk and figuring out to unlock the email, he went through the rest of Mercedes’s desk. On the monitor of the computer, there was a sticky note reading “stay strong <3 love u!!” It had probably been given to Mercedes by a friend before she disappeared. But what would she need to stay strong over?

The rest of her desk had the same papers on zookeeping and notes on animals that the other desks had. But when Iliya crouched under the desk to go through its personal waste bin, he found another interesting item. Beneath crumpled papers and an empty disposable coffee cup was a shattered picture frame. Careful not to cut his fingers on the sharp edges and end up like Mercedes, he pulled out the picture inside.

The photograph showed Mercedes and the man who was on her left in the group photo. The man looked much more relaxed in this picture. The two were on a beach, with Mercedes in a bathing suit and the man in a t-shirt and shorts. They had their arms around each other and met in the middle for a sweet kiss.

Ew.

Together with the post-it note, Iliya decided to hedge his bets on this being Mercedes’s newly ex-boyfriend. The note was probably about their break up. And the shattered frame was Mercedes’s reaction. This made him wonder- who had broken up with who? The two things he had seen implied that the boyfriend had broken up with Mercedes, but Iliya was sure there would be more to uncover in this story.

Iliya stripped off the rubber gloves and threw them in Mercedes’s waste bin. He surveyed the room. He could check out the other two rooms, or he could start by looking at the monitors- until his eyes focused on a calendar that was hanging on the wall.

Perfect! Iliya went through the calendar, looking for anything specifically mentioned. There was a much larger feeding schedule on the wall, but this calendar looked more like it was meant for personal use. He managed to locate Mercedes’s birthday in April, then he flipped back. There was one other birthday on the chart. It belonged to a woman named Henrietta, and her birthday was on October 12th.

Iliya tried October 12th as the password for the locked email address. He was in. Iliya thanked anyone who might have been listening on the simplicity of the challenger games. Not only was there one address aside from Mercedes, it also pretty clearly belonged to her friend.

As expected, most of the emails were related to work issues. Feedings, visitors, stool samples, that kind of nonsense. Iliya decided to search for email chains that only included Henrietta and Mercedes. He skimmed through a few professional emails, until he found one with a not-so-professional bit at the end. It read:

Business aside, you should totally come out tonight with us! It’s been foreverrrr since you’ve had a girls’ night with us. :( We miss you!

Remarkably, it had a reply. The reply from Mercedes read:

I’m sorry, you know I can’t. <3 I have to take care of Andrew. You know how he gets mad if I stay out too late. Remember what happened last time?

What happened last time? Iliya quickly clicked to the response from Henrietta, but there was no mention of what happened “last time.” Damn. The game was easy, but not laughably so. It did whet Iliya’s appetite for more mystery though.