WELCOME BACK

When she was finally freed from a loop of videos that replayed like a pointlessly bad dream, she had found her hands come free, rope burning her wrists like wounds and her eyes snapped open. Truly open. She was not all there but she was not all lost, and her fingertips had trailed the hallway as she walked to Giorgio’s room, knocking the door back with such joy that laughter tore through her small body like an earth quake, joy written all over her features, hands moving as she began to applaud, head lulling backwards, “Oh my goodness, that was great! I just watched Trevor die, a million times, you know, it wasn’t really satisfying the first time.”

Weren’t you the Queen?

Hazel Marks stared at that sentence as if it held the meaning to life. A life like hers. 

The note was weightless between her fingertips but she couldn’t tear her gaze away, each word written in scrawl she had never seen before. Even if she had seen it, she wouldn’t remember now. She peered through dark eyelashes, her face pale and her hair tied up behind her head, perfectly manicured fingernails running across it like it was Art. Perhaps it was, to her. The game had been a beautiful destruction that freed her from her own mind and in the course of her reign, she had ruined everyone, including herself. 

Hazel had not known what she had started, that she was the wind in the propellers of a trail of betrayal that daggered each person she had loved so dearly in the heart. Perhaps if she had then she would of buried that box. Perhaps if she had then she would of told Sam that she loved him even without his hand dirtied by the thing she loved so much. Perhaps if she had then she would of never betrayed her oldest friend Tyson King. Perhaps if she had then she would of survived. She had lived but she has not survived. Nothing had survived. 

It had been four years since her death and nothing truly remained of the girl she had once been, she did not remember half her secrets nor understand them. The greatest mystery that everyone wished to solve was entirely stripped of it’s pieces. They saw her as a puzzle, each piece meant to come together to form a picture but she was not. There was not a full picture. There had never been. She had been broken her entire life and not a single one of them had attempted to put her together. They had loved her. They had hated her. They probably still disagreed on which was the most powerful of those two feelings. 

I dare you to jump. Again.

The writer of the dare did not understand the weight of those words, for they could not have possibly known, for all they did, that Hazel did not remember jumping. She did not remember many things, she had not remembered them when she did them and she would not remember them now. It was not possible. If the writer of the dare had known, perhaps they would not have written it. They would have known that their revenge would only ever be bittersweet, because they were going to be the undoing of a girl who did not remember why she was being punished nor care for the consequence that it would hold.

The writer of the dare did not know because although they knew the location of the girl, they did not know who she was. They never had. Now they played with fire and they were going to get burned because Hazel’s death, a real one, would not correct a singular fact that had preceded it. It would not alter anything. They believed she was the catalyst but she had only ever been a pawn. 

You made the rules. PLAY by them. 

Hazel laid down the note like a precious artifact, a pen lifted between her fingers and she drew a tiny heart on the edge. That was a sign. She had accepted her dare. She had made the rules, as they said, she would never refuse to play by them. After all, perhaps if they had asked they would know, she never had before. 

It was a trap but no more of a trap than anything else she had experienced thus far. Life had a way of caging things that had once been beautiful. Like a flower, she had wilted. Everything void of it’s true purpose. A simple factor in a chain of reactions that she could of never ended nor began. 

The pane of her window slid beneath a grip that had once been gentle and white cascaded against her skin, pushing open to hot London air, nothing below of concern. The first time she would see outside of the walls that she lived within now and the last. 

Hazel Marks did not care about death. She had been there before, it had not scared her any more than this life. There was no breeze, only sweltering heat, the ledge disappearing beneath her feet, her eyes averting, and this time, when she jumped, there would be no hero to grab her hand, only the memory of a boy that had tried to save her and everything she had taken from him. 

For the second time in her life, Hazel Marks jumped.

On the other side of London, shrouded no more in the darkness of Whittemore than the darkness of their own heart, the writer of the dare would sit, their eyes dazzling like the night sky, thinking of the person they once could of loved and how she was now gone for good. They would not regret it, though. 

After all, in their opinion, she should of never played the game. 

The party had been a disaster. In fact disaster would be an understatement. The dares and the people involved with the box had been blown out of proportion to a point that she couldn’t even begin to comprehend. She just wished that her and Kirby had done their job, had destroyed the box and the dare’s with them as soon as they had the chance. 

Walking into Kenilworth, she had every intention of going to talk to Justin. Tyson wasn’t in a good place. He was refusing to talk to anyone, believing that he was the cause of all of this pain that had come from that dreaded box. When things got bad, she always seemed to levitate towards the boy. It was an unspoken understanding between them that if everything had fallen to pieces, she’d sleep over, sitting in comfortable silence before they both got restless enough to actually fall asleep.

The kitchen was eerily silent as she entered the room, seeing nothing but a white envelope laced with scrawled writing on what looked to be personalized stationery. Justin Moore. She squinted as she picked it up, turning it over to see the familiar family crest of the Kings, a golden crown. Why would Mr and Mrs King be sending Justin something? Had it something to do with the wedding?

Rose looked towards the stairs, tapping her fingers impatiently on the kitchen bench. Maybe the Kings would send something to Justin without an envelope. Maybe they just left a trusted messenger to send it. Fuck it. She let the curiosity get the best of her and she ripped it open, careful as to not damage the contents inside. Pulling out the slip of paper, she realizes straight away that it’s a cheque. A cheque for a lot of money. “God Justin,” she whispers, bracing herself on the bench as she re read it several times. “What have you done?”

RESOLUTION AESTHETIC: THE DARE BOX, ORIGINATION

X heard it like the thumping of the tell-tale heart, a terrible reminder of the game they had all came to start. In the early hours they heard ( what they thought ) was the voice of God compelling them to run, so they took the devil’s box and dug a hole beneath the rising sun. X dug for hours upon end, digging deep into the ground, finding a home for the box of sins that they hoped would never again be found.

The only problem was that A had seen them run, A had a thirst to continue the game they had begun. With tender hands A dug into the dirt, wasting no time, for, they had a plan to exert. When A reached the box they so desired, they looked upon each piece of paper, each dare they now admired. A would be the one to kick start it all, a wonderful rise that would cause an even more tragic fall. 

So A ran along and called out for B, for they were the only one that would see what this could be. A had a plan and A was so sure, B agreed happily, not asking for more. 

B was having so much fun they forgot what they were doing was wrong, A and B together had grown so powerful and strong. Until the day that Ella Sinclair didn’t do her dare, that was when A and B realised this game could no longer be fair. Of course when B crept in the middle of the night to cut the breaks of a car that would eventually cause a crash leaving Justin Moore with a scar, B had not truly thought about how this would end and as A abandoned ship on he dares, the laws of B’s world came to bend. B had to get rid of the box! They were no pink panther! No silver fox! They ran that night to a river so cold, praying as they sent it off that this story would grow old.

Except C had been watching and C had a plan, this story, in their opinion, had a much longer span. So from the watery depths they grasped the beautiful box, nothing was lost in their dampened brown locks. They were drawn to the beauty of silent despair, the design of the box drawing their stare. They knew that this was how they got even, karma would finally be able to free them. Each dare they penned in silent glee was the downfall of someone else that they could see. They did not play consequence but nobody challenge C, they were all still much too afraid of what they ( wrongly assumed ) was still B.

X was entirely frantic, they were losing their mind. Wasn’t this meant to be a chapter they left behind? They had stifled the box for everyone’s good and now they wanted to speak up but they didn’t think they could. Little did they know that B was close behind, also very frantic, but the box? They would never find.

C was in their prime and enjoying it too much, they were having too much fun, pushing their luck. That was when little D came along and ruined something, restarting the chorus of this unending song, D now saw that C had the box and for D, this was quite a shock and so D waited for a while to pass and then they clasped the box as if it was made of glass. Originally D had been feeling sorry for C but now? They were just confused, bemused, amused. They did not know what C had been doing all this time but now D saw this was their time to shine. So instead of handing over C, this was where it began for D. They drew up dares that ruined lives but this was no tale of backs and knives, no, D had a much more fun approach to school! All their dares, in comparison, came with prices that were small. 

C was slightly worried about where the box had gone, but where most would look for answers? They were cool with none.

D was getting hot, they were reaching fever pitch but suddenly in skidded freaking E and made the switch!

E was a different story and they had a whole different view on what was going down, they passed out dares that sent rumours flying around. The halls were longer safe and gossip was wild and free and a lot of that gossip? It included B. E wasn’t entirely sure what they were doing but for some reason they didn’t stop, they knew that nothing was good enough to turn back the clock. They had lost so much, so why give up the game? Compared to the others, E was entirely tame. In fact, there were some, the ones E loved most, that never even got their turn in the roast.

Whittemore burned down and E ended the never ending story, putting to rest Whittemore’s most outrageous fury. X, A, B, C and D were all at peace with what now came to be. 

Unfortunately the rebuild brought guilt for the ever prone E, so they dug the box back up ( not a good idea, as we all can see ). Except the problem was not that they were going to continue to give out dares but they wanted to tell a truth that was only theirs, that they had been the one to steal it from D, it was sad that someone would not let this truth be free. After Charles’ outrageous dinner they returned to their room to find the box, and were horrified to reveal it had been stolen by yet another sinner! Oh, E was distraught, they had no idea what to do, but then they realised… Wait, nobody knew? That meant they could get away and pretend they had no clue.

While all this unraveled and panic spilled free, this box had passed to F from E. F was not a player and had not enjoyed the game, they did not want this to be their claim to fame. F was tired and angry and caught up in unlimited chaos they could not escape, so instead they crafted a new version of fate. Oh, F wasn’t angry they were totally lost! They would make people understand that this all had a cost! F was determined, unapologetic and true, they didn’t care how this ended or who eventually knew. F hatched a plan that was worse than all before, because F was willing to make them beg and crawl. F thought they were idiots and watched them jump through hoops, F did not care that these were childish loops. 

As F sat now and reflected on what they had done, 

Her fingertips slid carefully over the folded note, heart racing a bit as she glanced up from the paper that’d been tucked into her favorite notebook for her to find. Whether it was fortunate or unfortunate, no one else seemed to be around or near the Dudley kitchen but her as she unfolded it, hands grazing the dare with her feather light touch. From the neat loops and curves of the scrawl to the gel pen ink it’d been etched into the paper with, the writing was painfully familiar. Breathing a sigh, she quickly folded the dare back up and slipped it into the pocket of her jeans, saving the words for later when she’d knowingly come to face the very person who’d sent them.

Waking up abruptly in the middle of the ground in the school house, floor littered with things, she pushed herself up from the pillow beneath her head that had not been there before and found that a note fluttered from where it had became entangled with her sling. Untwisting it with one hand, she stared at the carefully written note, the curve of each letter and a small smile met with her lips. 

Daisy stared at her phone in disbelief. It wasn’t possible. They couldn’t have found Charles…if they found Charles, they would have found Thomas too. Inhaling slowly, she regained some of her composure. This was probably a mistake, nothing more. They would go there, not know who it was and leave. Or maybe this would be a blessing in disguise, they could ID the body as Charles and no one would question it again. For once, maybe luck was on her side.