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Jeremiah rubbed his hand along his jaw, pausing a moment to lean on his garish umbrella (oh goodness he was thinking about it as his now). "She would have had to wrapped it and wouldn't have gotten far, not injured like that ..."

The detective leaned a moment longer, coming over to crouch next to Leila a moment and look at the foot under the bright light. Helidora's name was there in bold lettering, covered in some dirt and blood still. "The clean cut doesn't bode well," he murmured, raising his blackened-eyes to meet Leila's.

He could see that much himself. People always hesitated, it should have shown on the foot. "How long would she have?" Jeremiah did not know those kind of numbers off the top of his head. Never mind that he was already thinking they would need to start looking for some kind of blood trail.

Wait. Had there been footprints? He raised his head to squint, then got up (a quick nod to Leila; one she would have recognized as that look Mercer got when he wanted to check something for a case because in this situation he had no doubt of her abilities and deferred to her knowledge) to see if he saw any that lead away from where the foot had been found.

A bottle of water -- how thoughtful!

Asiya accepted the bottle with both hands and flashed Kalisha a brief smile and a nod of thanks. "You're very kind," she told her in a soft voice, unable to talk very loud after everything that had went down. There was enough yelling and arguing among the group of people to warrant the artist being on the hushed side of things. "Thank you."

Hazel eyes flicked over to both Chris and Alexis. How could they be arguing so much, given everything that was going on? She wanted to tell them both to be quiet. That there had been enough carnage the way it was, and that fighting between the group of them was not just unnecessary, but unwise.

All Asiya could manage was a quiet, "...You shouldn't speak ill of the dead. Given where we are and what has happened as of late...it does not bode well..." This was directed more at Alexis than anyone else, but it went for the rest of the group as well. The last thing they needed was for people in their numbers to come to blows. In this hellish place, they needed to stick together. Who knew what else was capable of happening?

To her credit, Erin didn't scream as the foot was uncovered, the bloody pools in the mud found, or even at the creepy sense that going into this forest was a mistake that came over her amid all the prodding forward. No, Erin was having enough of an issue with the fact that there was a group of people - she was in a group of people, oh god what did she do in this case ohgodohgodohgod broken circuits this was going to go so baaaad - that the actual stressful stuff flew complete past her. A potential dead body was nothing compared to the dread of having to actually interact with people.

Some started to argue, as people in horror movies are wont to do, and Erin decided it best to just not get involved. There wasn't a need to try to do that; no, she'd probably just make it worse and she'd be left to die when the monster came back and---

Ripjaws, Erin, calm down. You're not going to die. Most likely, you'll wake up tomorrow and go back to work and nothing will have changed. Breathe. She took a breath, like her therapist once told her to do, and wandered a few paces from the group to investigate the direction the owner of the foot may have come from. Maybe more blood to follow, or other.... parts.

Hopefully just soggy footprints, yeh. Cause this wasn't going to get her eaten at all. Nope. Not at all.

Autumn didn't seem to react to the yelling at first. She gave a few sniffles, still not looking at Alexis, and eventually pulled herself away from Chris. Bless whoever came up with waterproof mascara or she would've been more of a hot mess right now than she previously was. Wiping her eyes, she didn't quite smile at the stranger, but she held no malice either.

"You're right. I'm not doing much to help, am I?" She sniffed again, and turned to address Alexis more openly. "I'm not like you guys. I don't play scary games, I'm not used to this s**t. I'm not gonna say I'm sorry for caring, but I am sorry for fallin' apart like that. We're all strung out. It's just gonna make s**t worse."

Turning back to Chris, she offered him a weak smile and patted his arm.

"Don't let 'em see they get to you, honey. Thanks for sticking up for me, though." Then she abandoned the situation altogether, walking over to Asiya.

"And here I am being nasty selfish when you're the one who found the damn thing. You need any water? I'm sure all these nice people have you covered, but I'm trying to get my head out of my a** and be helpful." She laughed humorously.

"I'm no detective or cop or anything, so I'm s**t for that. But my purse has a ton of goodies if you need anything, okay?"

((Ooc: tags for Mriae, Daeki, PB, and whoever else wants to interact! Sorry for lack of quotes- I'm on my phone before my therapy sessions so I'm really bad at quoting and spelling names right. I'll update this to reflect real quotes around 11:30 CST))

Finn had just spent too much time reassuring all these spring chickens that they weren't inside a horror movie for it to all go sideways now. Yes, their find was grisly, but... he wasn't about to start treating everything in the Otherworld as being exactly what it seemed. Back in the real Ashdown, he would have quickly accepted that the foot was Heliodora's and moved on; the shoe fit, so to speak.

Here, he wasn't sure.

And if it was Heliodora's foot, what was here that had made so clean a cut, and then placed it here for them to find?

"Was Heliodora wearing black canvas sneakers when she disappeared?" he asked Jeremiah. The shoes were unseasonable for February. "Is-"

He turned towards Leila. "Is there a sock?"

He had, in fact, been getting at something. "Heliodora's been missing since early February," Finn clarified. "There was still snow on the ground then. Shoes like those - they're summer shoes. No insulation. Not water proof. To wear them in early February, you'd need socks with them. Something thick. Even if she didn't have real boots, she'd at least be wearing socks."

Maybe that was assuming too much. Finn shrugged, taking the authority out of his words. "It's the Otherworld," he added passively. "Yeah, it might be her foot. It might also be an illusion. We sure as hell don't have a picture of Sunny on the welcome sign at the real Waite State Forest."

Actually, what the ******** was up with that?

Actually, where the ******** was Sunny?

Jeremiah shook his head at Finn, looking up from where he was crouched. "The last picture we have of Helidora, as well as the description from her parents, did not include her shoes." The detective made a face which implied what he thought about that. It wasn't thorough and he could already see where Finn was going with his thoughts.

It was preferrable but he was not so certain.

"However, Ranger Derouen, would you look at these?" He was gesturing towards the markings on the ground. The silver-haired man was gesturing to the trail he had found. "Not quite sure if this is just foot prints but it looks like something." Finn was likely to know this sort of thing as a ranger, was he know?

Then again this was otherworld and real world rules did not necessarily apply. For a moment, he was looking away from both Finn and Leila and towards Algie. His eyes flicked to the book the man still had, the one he had brought with him, and then up to his face.

It was an idea but he would be loathed to do it. And, yes, Algie would totally pick up on that. These two were just that way. Especially with the way his lips twitched downward into a frown briefly before evening out.

He pulled himself from his thoughts and stood back up. "He's right. This place doesn't play by the rules we're used to." As in the real world. "It's got it's own set of rules of how things work." The detective nodded towards Zac.

"It may be bigger Zac. Some of us made deals," Jeremiah the one in deepest with promising to bring the kids home and now that was looking grim, "I don't think others did but ..." A hand flicked through the air. "If anyone thinks they noticed anything, know anything that may be helpful ... Share."

He meant while here or before they had ended up here.

The foot is wearing a thick sock that was probably white when the owner of the foot put it on. Now, in contrast to the relatively fresh blood in the puddles, it is a dingy orange-brown. The smell is sharply copper and ozone: dirt and blood.

The footprints lead deeper into the forest. Judging by their depth and rate of liquefaction, they aren't that old--maybe six hours?--and at least one footprint is deep enough to be Heliodora's. The other three sets are... Queer, to say the least: one of them appears to have been made by something with cloven feet.