Half Blood and King Faith

The metallic black-painted cruise ship cruises leisurely along the Gordon River that cuts through the wilderness of Franklin National Park. The warm air and sunny weather in February this year are suitable for travelling, including some tourists who look engrossed in taking pictures against the backdrop of towering forest rows of Huon pines and eucalypts.

The calm flow of the river is decorated with the chirping of various birds endemic to the island of Tasmania: thrush birds, Periwrens birds that have a striking bright blue forehead, Tasmanian rosella, and Tasmanian parrots. In addition, the friction of the leaves between the trees seemed to add to the comfort of the tourists until suddenly, one of them screamed hysterically, startling everyone.

"What's wrong, Mary?" The chubby man looked at the woman beside him. "I'm so sorry; maybe she's daydreaming too much, ladies and gentlemen," he continued, feeling awkward seeing his wife acting impolite in public.

"Doesn't that rock look like a human, Freddy?" Marry-a blonde-haired woman whose face looked pale, pointed to the right of the river, trembling. "Why does it look weird?"

Freddy narrowed his eyes. "Hey, Man. Can we get close to that thing?" he shouted to the crew.

"No, sir. We have limited tour time," said the crew in black and white uniforms.

"I don't think it's just a rock," another passenger standing far from Mary said. "What if it's a corpse floating from the riverbed?"

Everyone shuddered in horror while whispering. Their eyes and minds could not deny the strangeness of the blackish-brown stone, which was very similar to a human in a sitting position. One of the other passengers even said that the stone was identical to a rock in Indonesia, with a prevalent Malin Kundang stone myth.

"You'd better call the police. I'm sure it's not just a rock," Freddy told the crew.

####

The discovery of chunks similar to humans has shocked residents in Strahan, Tasmania. The police, assisted by a forensic archaeology team, removed a 55-kilogram stone for investigation in downtown Hobart. At the same time, the location of the incident is given a yellow border for further research that allows the discovery of historical sites, including the remains of skulls of living creatures in ancient times and the ice age.

Initially, many thought that the boulder contained a murder victim until there was speculation of serial murder. Considering the past few weeks, many people have suddenly disappeared. However, the condition of the large gravel and the bodies found in general made some people guess that maybe he was not a murder victim. But the mummy remains of an Aboriginal woman who died drowned in a river for hundreds of years until silt and river currents brought her to the surface.

"The Gordon River doesn't have a strong current; what if the rock floats on its own?" asked one of the emaciated policemen when he saw the stone apparition in the forensics room. "Unless it's a huge pumice stone, I'm still unsure. It's impossible, isn't it?"

"Even if it's a corpse, it shouldn't be like this. Even an animal that drowns in a river gets oedema all over its body and doesn't immediately turn to stone. This is weird." another policeman argued. "This is a good sign if she is on the missing list. We can catch the culprit."

"Right, I hope so."

Then, a man wearing a plaid shirt and thick glasses with an ID that read 'Nicholas Houston' came. He approached the rock and touched it with a hand clad in a white glove. His eyebrows knit together to feel the soft texture of the human-shaped lump after being cleaned by a team of archaeologists with high-pressure water. Hesitantly, he pressed the side of the bow with a slight push.

What a surprise when Nicholas' hands squeezed a deep hollow. He frowned even more curiously and then tried to insert his finger to find something behind this strange object in front of him. As he wanted to touch it, he felt something chewier than the texture of hard rock. Nicholas removed the layer of silt that had begun to soften, and there was something pale white resembling human skin.

"Jack! Jack!" he shouted with wide eyes. "It's not a rock! It's a corpse!"

The two cops were shocked when Nicholas scraped the silt that wrapped the corpse. They were even more curious when Nicholas attempted to dismantle the mud layer covering the corpse's body. And it was even more shocking to know that behind the big lump was a naked ginger-haired woman with many scratch marks that looked very new.

"How could it be?" asked the skinny cop called Jack. "When we were at the site, the rock was not silt that would become mushy when exposed to water. Even a quarter of the rock was submerged in river water. Shouldn't it have been soft from the start?"

"Okay, now I'm sure she's one of the missing, Jack," said Jack's police friend with a pale face. "Psychopath or sociopath, I'm sure he will get the punishment he deserves for his murder."

Jack was silent, his irises still looking at the wounds all over the corpse. His brow furrowed, and many questions roamed his mind, but there seemed to be no common thread. But he also agreed with his police friend's statement, and maybe this was a serial murder involving a psychopath or sociopath.

"Interesting case," Jack muttered, turning to his friend. "We'd better take it to the Royal Hospital."

####

The Hobart Police Department was baffled by a discovery that started as a foreign rock and ended up finding a woman's body in a state that didn't decompose as if she had been murdered a few hours ago. A team of forensic doctors examined the traces of death on the body of a woman who was estimated to be sixteen years old. Miraculously, no trace of identity was left at the scene. Even on the missing person list, no physical characteristics are the same as the victims. It was as if the female corpse was new to Hobart.

"Do you believe in conspiracy theories?" asked Chloe-one of the investigators had blonde hair. He massaged his forehead, staring at the rows of data on the computer screen with his three colleagues. "How can he not be a citizen of Hobart or even a citizen of this country? Even if she's a foreigner someone smuggled in on purpose, immigration officials should have the data, right?"

"Yes, you're right," Oliver replied, taking a serious look at the photos of the female corpse labelled Jane Doe-the unidentified body on the board to Chloe's left. "But I don't believe in a conspiracy or anything like that, Chloe. Even though we know this corpse is very and very strange." The bald man with bright blue eyes looked at Chloe and pursed his lips. "I'm confused. My head feels like exploding on a case like this."

Chloe nodded her head while rubbing the back of her stiff neck. He had not slept for several days to solve this mysterious case. "What if animal attacks didn't kill the missing people, Oliver? And what if suddenly they would appear in the same pattern?"

Oliver laughed in a voice that sounded like he was mocking Chloe. "Oh, come on, how can that be? We've been down the river, Gordon, Chloe. And we've been on the case for almost six months. It's a big zero. They're gone like smoke, and I don't think it has anything to do with Jane."

Chloe's thick lips tightened with a clenched jaw. He was the same as Oliver; his head almost exploded in two equally confusing cases. On the other hand, doctors concluded that the body was not from Tasmania. If he was the best mummy, his skin should not be pale like the physical characteristics of Europeans, but a blackish brown typical of the Aboriginal tribes. They argue that the corpse also has a genetic abnormality in its irises, which have different colours that humans do not have.

The liver extraction results found a large amount of snake venom with animal scratches as deep as about five centimetres. However, no cracks were found in either the sternum or skull. They suspect that the body was killed by wild animal attacks and the bite of a giant snake, but they have not solved the problem of why its body could be wrapped in silt and turned into stone in the river. While waiting for further investigation by the Hobart city investigators team, Jane Doe's body was finally stored in a unique cabinet at a temperature of four degrees Celsius for further research.