( ℬlood cw )

I do apologize for the lack of an ending to this verse. Real life got the better of me, and I was a bit too ambitious with this plot. There were several rather large plot twists I wanted to incorporate, and it’s really too much to write up drabble-style, so here is a basic overview of the rest of the plot (as best I can remember it), and general explanation of what really happened behind the scenes.

AFTER ANNA’S DEATH, things would have gone quiet. No more murders, no more kills. Everyone would have stayed together, waiting for the ferry in the morning. Sometime in the lull, Erin would have slipped off to go talk to Grace. While she was gone, an earring would have been discovered behind the shower curtain in Anna Jones’ bathroom. A brief investigation would reveal that it belonged to Regina Simmons.

General consensus would force a search of her room, despite strong opposition from Regina herself. In the process, her handgun is confiscated, and another piece of damning evidence is unearthed -- two bullets are missing. Two bullets used to murder the only police officer on the island.

Regina, of course, would deny this. She lost the earring, her gun wasn’t always on her. It’s purely circumstantial.

It would be then that Erin returned from talking with Grace to spill what Grace told her -- if she was going down for this, she wasn’t going down alone. She gave up Regina as her partner in crime.

Grace killed Dean first, and the next morning, happened upon Regina drowning Deyla. Rather than outing each other, they agreed to work together. Finnick and Taylor were something like a practice  run - a team building exercise a their first kills together. After that, they chose who to murder next as a team. However -- Grace murdered Laos without Regina’s permission, and they had a falling out.

At this point, Regina would have gone silent, rather than protesting, and simply asked for her lawyer.

Finally, with both murderers in custody, the night would have been safe. The ferry would have arrived the next morning, and the radio onboard used to contact law enforcement. Rudy would have taken the lead to gather everyone together and get them off the island, getting everyone on to the boat and safe. Grace and Regina would have been taken back to the mainland in a separate helicopter, and Rudy would oversee that everyone was safe before beind the last onto the boat. To close it out, Daisy was going to write a lovely drabble of Rudy looking back at the island as it shrank into the distance, thinking about all the loved ones they had lost.

I know this verse has somewhat died out, but the big reveal is yet to happen! SO, there are two options. Either we can try to push to get to the end of the verse (which will require activity from all remaining survivors) or the killer and I can do a write up of the rest of the events in drabble form, so that at least you can see the end. Please respond to this post with your preference, so we can at least let you all know who’s been murdering you!

@painreception / @perditioner, @askthegirldetective, @peaceific, @notamailman, @firstviceroy, @steiinerisms.

When: Day 6, evening. Where: The Candlewick

THINGS TO REMEMBER:

Anna Jones has been recently brutally murdered in her shower. Gabriel Simmons has discovered two bullets missing from Regina Simmons’ gun, but has elected not to tell anyone.

Track the new tag, #onebyonetheories, and post any thoughts ic or ooc on the killer’s identity in that tag.

Remember -- if you have been removed from the verse due to inactivity, this is your last chance to rejoin.

The remaining survivors are:

FOR NOW, there will be an IC chatzy set up at 5:30PM GMT on Friday evening, and it’ll be left running through the weekend. Feel free to play whatever you like in that time, but hopefully it will help to get things going once more.

THIS IS ONE FINAL CHANCE for those who have been removed to the group due to inactivity (not character death) to rejoin. We will simply assume your muse has been present, and write accordingly.

notamailman:

EVEN IF their lives descended into madness, some things never changed. One of those things was Gabriel’s thoroughness when it came to his guns; even as a CEO, he still prided himself with the fact that he knew his company’s goods from the inside out.

So, it was not surprising in any way that after the most recent horrible day after already too many horrible ones before, the man sat down to clean the two guns they owned while his wife took a prolonged shower. Accompanied by the soothing white noise of falling water, his aggravated mind found a way to calm during the familiar task – it not only gave him a sense of belonging, but also a sense of security. It was not only his OWN gun he took care of, but also Regina’s; and if there was anything he was more afraid of than losing his own life, it was losing the woman he had married. They maybe had their couple of problems – but he still loved her, and he always would.

No, it was not that Gabriel ever had forced Regina to wear a firearm, but as she finally had decided to, he had made sure to find the exact right model for her. Some saw guns only as a harbinger of death and destruction, but especially in a situation like they were in they were nothing short of a blessing – was their life already dangerous enough, this here was right out of a horror movie. Knowing that Annalynne, the remaining law enforcement on this island, had also become a victim of the second (???? most likely???) murderer had been a shock also for him, but now he knew that nothing could surprise them anymore. Everyone knew they still were in danger, and their murderer could still be one of the guests. Who knew, maybe Nancy, or Helena, or Rudy, or –

Gabriel stared at the magazine he had taken out of Regina’s gun. Bullets were missing. Precisely, two bullets were missing.

THE NIGHT IS SPENT IN SHOCK. Just when it seems as if the horror of the week is OVER, the survivors are proven horribly, terribly wrong. With the death of the last presence of LAW ENFORCEMENT on the island, the decisions must be made: who keeps her weapon? Where do the survivors stay? Who is to be trusted? With less than 36 hours left until the ferry arrives, the end is in sight. But who will SURVIVE to see it?

WELCOME TO DAY SIX. The remaining survivors are as follows:

peaceific (Noah Rebeiro) stardustveiins (Regina Simmons) notamailman (Gabriel Simmons) firstviceroy (Helena Vandenburg) steiinerisms (Rudy Steiner) painreception (Erin Mayor) professorcfx (Charles Xavier) germanfuckboy aka ichbinkeinfloh (Florian Kluglich)

and angelsencyclopedia (Grace McClain)

Please note that if you have not posted at least a small one-liner in the verse by 11:59pm on Sunday, September 13th, you will be removed from the verse.

Also note that Grace is still available for your muses to visit (especially since there is now a second killer!).

You now have a new tag to track! Since Anna is dead and Grace is in jail, there is obviously another killer out there. Share your suspicions and theories with the group! Whether your muse is accusing another directly, discussing it with someone, or you simply feel like posting your thoughts OOC, we’d all love to hear them!

Please track the tag #onebyonetheories

painreception:

    erin is alone. her friends are dead or locked in a jail cell, and those that remain are elsewhere; she would rather be elsewhere, too. however, regardless of a killer being locked up, it is still recommended by someone — all this time, and she still doesn’t know everyone’s names — that they stick together. they are trauma survivors, after all.

    the word survivor isn’t loosely banded around, now.

    erin has been given the task of seeking out anna to bring her downstairs for dinner, regardless of how lost their appetites truly are. others go to search for the various other people that haven’t showed up, but there is no edge of panic for people’s lacking appearance. there is no danger any longer.

    having climbed the stairs, erin knocks on anna’s room door. moments pass and the former bride finds her thoughts wondering, lingering on the question of whether archelaos had stood in the same place mere days before. no, that’s not right — SHE had gone to HIS room. right ?

    perhaps thirty seconds pass before erin knocks again, hearing running water and purposefully making the knock louder. it’s an odd time to take a shower; she knows dinner is now, and she knows they’re expecting her. that they would assume the worst if she didn’t show.

    when erin knocks a third time, the door dislodges under her knuckles, and opens slowly to reveal an empty room. a phantom of the fear that’s gripped her many times before in this week clings to her now, because the late shower is strange but the unlocked door is too strange.

    she walks inside delicately, heading to the closed bathroom door to knock again. ‘ anna ? ’ she calls, loud enough that her friend must hear her. ‘ ANNA ? ’ a mere pause and she opens the door, jumping to conclusions, assuming the worst, nobody could blame her if she’s wrong —

    — and erin is not wrong, and the sight she’s met with rips a scream from her parted lips.

    her hands cover her mouth and she takes a horrified step back, eyes raking over the naked, handcuffed form sprawled over the tiled floor. anna is face down, her arm twisting up where her wrist is cuffed to the rail above her. as the initial shock subsides, the stumbling backwards shifts into stumbling forwards, collapsing onto her knees under the still-running shower head to turn anna over and frantically check for a pulse. she hears another scream — ‘ HELP !’ — and, after a moment, realises its her own voice that hollers for aid. 

    the water is cold by now, but erin remains kneeling where she is, trembling in the icy shower with her fingers pressed against anna’s throat. the pulse never returns.

Modnote;

Grace is in jail. But there has been another death. Is this an isolated incident, or is there a second serial killer on the island?

Current survivors:

painreception - Erin Mayor peaceific - Noah Ribeiro notamailman - Gabriel Simmons stardustveiins - Regina Simmons firstviceroy - Helena Vandenburg steiinerisms - Rudy Steiner askthegirldetective - Nancy Drew @ichbinkeinfloh - Florian Kluglich professorcfx - Charles Xavier ( angelsencyclopedia - Grace McClain )

angelxmarwolaeth:

                            She’d excused herself during a peaceful lull in their idle, luncheon conversation, noting her need for incredibly  l o n g  and scalding shower. While she felt surprisingly rested, the last twenty-four hours having been welcomingly quiet, there was an unshakeable urge to SCRUB the week’s events from her skin. Lithe and cautious fingers lingered on her room door’s knob, whether or not to lock it behind her an active debate deep within her mind. Though it was the fact that Grace still sat behind the bars of the local jail paired with the faint and perhaps completely insane idea that Noah may wander in, that pulled her hand back, leaving the lock untouched as she made her way into the small, private bathroom.

Twisting the shower’s handle was her first order of business, allowing the water to fall over her fingers until STEAM began to drift from her skin. Shaking droplets from her hand, she finally slid from her clothing and prepared for her few minutes of heated peace. Though, as she reached for the curtain separating herself from the water, a blast of cold air prickled her skin and in a futile attempt to cover herself from  p r y i n g  eyes, her hands moved across her body instead of shielding her head– where were those finely tuned INSTINCTS when you really needed them?

An INTENSE AND BLINDING pain reverberated through her skull, white flashing before her eyes as an all too soft whimper fell from lips parted in agony. Not even a second passed before weakened knees buckled under her weight, her petite frame crumpling to the ground with a sickening THUD. Though all was calm and unnervingly quiet as she slipped into sweet, familiar unconsciousness.

When: Day 5, mid- to late afternoon. WHERE: The Candlewick

❝ Put your hands behind your head. ❞ 

She’d taken hold of her weapon the instant the other woman began her all too cliched rant.  Steady hands now pointed the barrel in the killer’s direction and of course,  while she wouldn’t use it unless one hundred percent necessary,  the girl had just confessed to killing all eight victims– who knew what else she was capable of. Taking one, cautious step forward, she caught the eyes of those she knew were capable of assisting in the case of a struggle. First Noah, then Rudy, finally to Regina and her husband. With a small nod, she tucked the gun back into  the  waistband  of  her  jeans and stepped behind the woman; firm and quick hands frisking for weapons before taking her wrists in her grip and pulling them back down.

❝ Grace McClain, you are under arrest. You have the right to remain silent, anything you say or do can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney, if you cannot afford an attorney one will be appointed to you. UNDERSTAND? ❞ 

She wasn’t going to apologize for being rough, for the anger seeping through every word. Eight people were dead at her hand.

But now, it was over. 

Modnote;

This verse is not yet over! Secrets have yet to be revealed. For now, let your muses take a breather. The killer is safe behind bars, and now they just have to wait out the two days until the ferry arrives.

Please do remember that Grace, while locked up in the Sheriff’s jail now, is still available to talk to and plot with!!!

painreception.

“grace — grace?”

erin stands behind her, now, a tremble in her voice. it could be passed as such from the cold, or the fatigue, but she knows it’s from the question on her tongue.

grace had saved her. grace had found her when she was tied up, when she was unable to even call for help. but … maybe she knew where to find erin because she had put her there in the first place. erin doesn’t know what to think anymore.

“we, um, someone found dean winchester. he’s dead. your — your room key was on him.”

angelsencyclopedia.

Grace looks up at the sound of her name, her stomach dropping at the tremor in Erin’s voice. Had something else happened? It wasn’t unlikely, with the fiasco of the last 5 days, but still, it was unusual for someone to seek her out directly.

Her stomach dropped farther. Dean Winchester– the first disappearance.

She’d been out late that night. There had been a group dinner and everyone had had more than a little to drink. She’d lost her room key earlier in the day, and never quite found it either. 

She encountered Dean Winchester on her way back to the hotel.

“Dean? I thought he left the island?” she put on a calm, confused demeanor and faced her old friend. “I guess that explains where my room key went though.”

painreception.

erin breathes out a sigh. it can’t be grace. she’s as clueless as the bride herself. running a hand through her hair — a stress habit she doesn’t recall actually starting, but it’s the least of her worries at this moment — she looks to the ground and then back up at grace, fingers moving to the hem of her shirt to fiddle as she replies hesitantly.

“yes, we — we all did. but, uh, it doesn’t … grace, you’re a suspect. you must have seen him last, after all, and — if you — i can’t believe i’m saying this, but if you didn’t kill him, why did you see him?”

angelsencyclopedia.

Grace watches and listens quietly. Erin is visibly distressed- and why wouldn’t she be? she’s confronting someone on the topic of murder- and Grace can’t help but feel tense. She’d have to choose her words carefully here. She clears her throat and speaks slowly.

“I was walking back from the restaurant, alone… I was a little buzzed, I’ll admit to that, and Dean was standing on the beach. I couldn’t see well, it was dark, but he seemed to have been standing there longer than if he had just left dinner..,” she paused and tried to gather her thoughts on the fly. “I didn’t end up staying in my room that night–”

Realizing how that might sound, Grace backtracked, speaking a little faster. “B-Because the machines were broken! I couldn’t get another key to my room so I had to stay out and…” She trailed off and watched Erin, trying to gauge her reactions. “I don’t know how he got my key.”

painreception.

every stutter, every hitch in her breath, every GLANCE reads that grace is hiding something. erin does not have to be a genius, nor a detective, to figure that out, and with a nature as blunt as it always has been, she confronts grace with more confidence now.

“you’re hiding something, grace. you don’t — what are you hiding? we are in the middle of a horror movie, here, stranded on a powerless island with someone ready to kill us all, it would seem! keeping secrets right now isn’t … it’s not wise, grace.”

her voice softens at the end, but her eyes remain staring, as defiant as she can muster at a time when she would rather give in to fear. “tell me what you know. please.”

angelsencyclopedia.

Grace knows she isn’t handling this as well as she should be. If she’d knownthat Erin was going to be meeting with her, then she’d be considerably more composed– more normal. She’d been caught off guard by this line of questioning and it wasn’t her fault…

It wasn’t supposed to BE this way. 

The brunette doesn’t meet her friend’s eyes, listening to her accusations and taking all of them. She deserves all of them, doesn’t she? 

Her voice is barely above a whisper as she meets Erin’s gaze, eyes soft, vulnerable, but there’s a cold hint of ice just beyond the surface, like it has ALWAYS been. 

“It wasn’t supposed to be this way, Erin.”

painreception.

there is a shift in the atmosphere, and not for the first time, erin is afraid. as grace’s eyes raise to meet her gaze, she can do nothing but stare back, eyebrows pulling together in confusion at her friend’s words. she swallows, looking at grace searchingly. 

“supposed to be … what way, grace?”

angelsencyclopedia.

She’s frustrated, that’s what she is. Her own words repeat in her head and more than anything she is frustrated. Hysteria that had started to set in from the beginning of this conversation was finally starting to come through and to her own surprise her voice shakes only slightly.

“The wedding, the people, the deaths… After everything that happened in high school I thought that all of this drama was over and now you think I killed someone? Th-There’s no way that I could’ve strangled Dean like that Erin!”

painreception.

she’s right. of course she’s right, it was stupid of erin to even ASK. grace couldn’t kill someone; grace wouldn’t kill someone. erin opens her mouth to apologize, lips parted and eyes sorrowful, and she pauses.

“grace,” she begins, and it’s calmer, quieter, “how did you know dean was strangled?”

angelsencyclopedia.

She’s blown it now, and she curses herself for it over and over in her head. There is no recovering from this, and the realization of it snaps something inside the small woman. There’s no need to hold back now. 

“Where did they find him?” Grace half grins. 

painreception.

something changes in grace after erin speaks, and the young bride is only given a moment to watch her warily before grace replies. there is nothing hidden now. erin swallows again, taking a step back — more of a shuffle, really — and clearing her throat in vain.

“in — in the — in the woods, grace, he’d been there for days.” a pause hangs over them. “… what have you done?”

angelsencyclopedia.

Grace knows what she’s done. If she’s honest, most of the people that have died here are people she didn’t know. People she barely remembers the names of. 

She doesn’t remember how many have died, only that Dean was one of the first.

“I did it because of you, you know. The power going out has been lucky, but the killings were because of you.”

painreception.

erin’s breath hitches. for a moment, she simply stares at grace, dumbfounded at this confession — and terrified by what she means. her eyes glance to distant friends, companions, strangers; the wedding party is too far away to hear their conversation. she could call out to them, but she’s scared to make a sound. 

“i — what do you mean, because of me?”

angelsencyclopedia.

“This trip was supposed to be different,” Grace grits her teeth, already losing herself to the rage she hadn’t fully realized had built up over the course of the week.

“In school– Erin, you were my ONLY friend,” the anger manifests itself in the welling up of tears in her eyes and she clenches her fists. “Everyone ignored quiet little Grace with the druggie big brother. I thought things were gonna bedifferent… Then you forgot about me too and then this wedding and the people who hadn’t even bothered to say hello–”

“Erin I hated you.”

painreception.

erin freezes, breath caught sharply in the shock of her friend’s revelation. each of these deaths, every time they have been forced to mourn someone who died far too young … it was her fault. all of it. archelaos’ death. 

“you killed these people because you were mad at me?” perhaps the jagged edge to her voice is from the desperate urge to be violently sick, crawling up her throat, but she doesn’t. tears cloud her vision, thick and fast, but this conversation is over.

she turns towards the rest of the party, now, to get away from grace — to tell them the name of their killer — to find somewhere to cry.

angelsencyclopedia.

“I’m mad because the world is not a fair place,” She says softly, knowing that Erin isn’t listening anymore.

Grace watches her go, and accepts her fate. She has been caught. Two days remain before this vacation is over, and who knows how long they’ll be forced to stay afterward.

“Erin, can I talk to you for a minute?” Nancy said quietly, not giving the bride much of a choice as she pulled her aside, checking to make sure no one else was close enough to overhear them. “I was out in the woods trying to get a signal and… I found another body.”

“It was Dean. I’m so sorry.”

painreception.

the hand on her arm is firm but gentle as nancy steers erin away from the main group. the childlike curiosity remains for only a minute before her eyes widen, lips parting in shocked horror.

“he shouldn’t even BE here, nancy. dean went home. ill. are you positive it was him?”

askthegirldetective.

“Positive; I checked his wallet to be sure,” Nancy nodded. “And I took some photos with my phone. He had obviously been there for a few days.” She hoped Erin didn’t ask how she knew that.

“But that wasn’t the weird part- someone left a room key on the body. I ran it through the computer system, and… it belongs to Grace.”

“Grace was the last person to see Dean alive.”

painreception.

“it was too good to be true, then — to believe that at least SOMEONE had gotten out of this mess, unharmed.”

she can’t mourn for him, though, just as she can’t mourn for any of the others who have fallen victim. especially not when handed such vital information.

“grace ? but — surely you can’t think that she’d — that she’s — ”

askthegirldetective.

Nancy held her phone up against the backdrop of stormy clouds, squinting at the screen in order to read the blinking icon that told her what she already knew; there was no available signal.

“Rats. Nothing.” With no readily available police backup, she’d decided to try again to contact someone outside the island, venturing further away from the inn in hopes of finding just a few bars of connection somewhere. The detective was hardly scared of going off on her own now, as staying with the safety of numbers hadn’t been helpful so far to the other victims. 

Still, her trek seemed to have been fruitless in regards to its original mission, and Nancy was turning around to head back towards the building and out of the creepy woods when it caught her eye- something poking out of the underbrush beside her.

An arm.

“Shoot.” Though not the first dead body she’d encountered, it still didn’t mean she was any more looking forward to doing what she had to do: stepping closer and examining the scene to figure out who it was.

“Oh goodness, the smell…” Whomever it was had clearly been lying beneath the leaves Nancy brushed away for several days now, given the discoloration and persistent odor. She had to turn away a few times to get a fresh breath before she revealed enough of his face to recognize Dean. 

Since she couldn’t very well carry the decaying corpse back to the others on her own, the detective settled for taking pictures of the body and the general area she’d found him in, as well as the obvious cause of death (the deep-cut strangulation marks around his throat). It was as she was flipping him back over that she noticed the key card for one of the guest rooms poking out from under his jacket. 

It seemed odd that he would’ve had it out if he was attacked outside the inn, so on a hunch Nancy dug through his pockets and located his wallet, still with a key card inside it. So it must belong to someone else-

“This must be the killer’s key card!”

She hurried back towards the lights of the inn, trying not to jump at every shadow along the way. Everyone else still seemed preoccupied, giving her the chance to slip behind the front desk and scan the card she’d found through the inn’s computer system.

Room_Number: 112

Room_Type: Standard Single

Guest_Name: MCCLAIN, GRACE.

“Grace…”

Modnote;