a murder most foul

the moment we stepped into the house, we know something was not right. the air was stiffling still. there was nary a sound, and eventhough it was all dark, something felt terribly wrong. gingerly, we stepped further into the house and turned on the light. the bright light flickered on and blinded us for a second. surprisingly, the house was neat and clean. nothing was out of place. strange.

still, we can't shake the strange apprehensive feeling that has come over us. slowly, we walked towards the playroom. a cold invisible hand slowly griped our hearts as we took each step, making breathing laborious and hard. when we looked down on the floor of the playroom, we understood why. there he lay, still on the floor, like a dead rat.

for a second, everything stood still. we didn't know whether to rush over and perform cpr, or to run out from the room screaming. fear kept us frozen in place. slowly, the brain digested the scene right infront of our eyes. so, he has died. looking from the condition of the body, he has died for quite a few hours. taking a deep breath to calm our frenzied mind, we approached the body. a quick check confirm our initial observation. he has been dead for a few hours, rigor mortis has set in. a horrible sight for his family members definitely. we must remove him immediately. however, the position of his body is most strange, sinister even. do we dare to contaminate what could be a crime scene? a large ball was lying on his body. the ball that we have seen him playing with from time to time. how could that be his cause of death? or could that be a murder weapon? surely a rubber bouncing ball could hardly be used as something so sinister. or could it?

trying not to leave any prints on the evidence, we took a stick to push away the ball from his body. how strange! his chest was curved downwards, almost as if the seemingly harmless ball had caused a major indentation on his body. impossible. the ball could not possibly be that heavy. or did we overestimate his body weight? underneath all the puffy exterior, he was a frail thin small one. still, it was hard to believe that the cause of death was the rubber ball.

there wasn't much left that we can do. we removed him from the scene and proceeded to make arrangements for the funeral. up till this day, we do not know what had killed him. perhaps it is best left to crime scene experts to analyse the evidence. the family members are devastated, to say the least. after all, blacky the hamster has been with us for a few months now.