#murder 8

“The problem in the mansion is me.”

“The problem in the mansion is me.”

“The problem in the mansion is me.”

Night fell quickly, and the four remaining guests made their way to the dining room with anticipation. Three of them were surprised to see the room empty, with only a familiar piece of paper resting on the bare table. The fourth did their best to hide a disgusted sigh.

“Where’s Shelly?” Lana asks, a worried look crossing her face. “He usually has dinner made by now. Who was supposed to prep with him tonight?”

“I was,” Alita says, crossing her arms. “But he said he had it covered, so I went back to sleep. Is he in the kitchen?”

Daryan peeks around the now unblocked kitchen door, scanning the room briefly. Returning to the others, he shakes his head. “Nope, and the pantry and freezer look empty too. Where the hell did he go?”

Mimi scowls at her unrepentant housemate. “Alita, why the hell did you not check on him? He could be poisoning our food!”

Alita scoffs. “It’s not a big deal. If he hasn’t tried to kill us all this time, why would he start now?”

“You don’t know that he isn’t the killer, Alita,” Lana replies, frowning.

“Then that’s all the more reason to feel safe! The killer is so attached to their stupid rules, they’re not going to kill us before the reveal letter is read, right?” Alita snaps.

“Speaking of that…” Daryan cuts in, eyeing the letter on the table. “What do we do about this? Shelly usually does this part.”

“Well one of us needs to read it, right? Flip a coin or something and get it over with,” Mimi grumbles.

After a brief moment of deliberation, it was decided that Alita would be the one to deliver the killer’s reveal while Daryan checked to make sure she didn’t leave anything out. With the issue resolved, Alita opens the letter and begins reading aloud.

Estela and Damien are the first to exit the dining room, nervous about getting eliminated, and upset that they’re so close to the end yet they may dead before the morning. The other three follow, excited that they’ve made it into the final four, the taste of victory on their lips.

“Let’s hope the killer takes mercy on us,” Damien says to Estela, a half hearted joke that doesn’t make him or Estela feel better.

“Yeah, let’s hope,” she gives him a small and sad smile.

“Well I really wish we could all make it to the final,” Lily says. “We’ve all worked really hard to get here.”

“Most of us,” Matt points out, the reminder of a killer among them sends shivers down their spines.

Without another word, the guests head to their rooms and get ready for bed. The manor becomes too quiet once more.

Damien, Kenji, Lily, and Matt enter the dining room. They sit next to each other, two by two, and their final dinner is served. They’re quiet, picking at their food and shaking their legs underneath the table. Kamilah finally enters, after what feels like years of waiting. She doesn’t need to gather their attention as they turn to face her. She gives them a weak smile and looks down at the letter in front of her.

“I first want to say congratulations on making it this far,” she doesn’t make eye contact with the guests. “You’ve all done well so far and you’ve proven yourselves worthy. That being said, the killer was not impressed by your theories, and has decided that none of you deserve the title of having the best theory.”

Lily, Matt, Damien, and Kenji eye each other, one of them deciding that the others don’t deserve to live. Without another word, Kamilah opens the letter and reads how it was done.

“Damien, Kenji, Matt, and Lily. Congrats on making it into the final four. Unfortunately for Estela Montoya, she was unable to make herself worthy. So, let me tell you how it was done. It began last night, like these murders usually do. I snuck into Estela’s room, where I injected her with an hallucinogenic drug; dextromethorphan, also known as DXM, found in medications like cough syrup like NyQuil. While cough syrup and the like won’t necessarily cause hallucinations, DXM in a constatrated dosage will cause some hallucinations. After injected her with DXM, I then woke her up. I didn’t bother to cover up my face, since she would be dead in a few moments anyway, and of course she was hallucinating. I informed her I knew a way out of the mansion, a way where we could all escape. She quickly jumped out of bed and followed me, her eyes wide, and her walk uneven. I lead her out of the mansion and into the backyard. Because of her walk, she dragged her feet in the dirt, making it look like there may have been a struggle, instead this murder was essentially hand free. The small forest in the backyard was perfect for hiding a trap, specifically a tree sprung trap. Walking by her side, she stepped right into the sprung trap which wrapped around her ankle and rose her up high on the tree. She hung upside down, her mind fuzzy from the drugs. She didn’t struggle much, her body more limb and relaxed. Her getting caught in my trap also triggered the gun I had set up that would hit her right in the head. The gun was attached to the string and when pulled would trigger the gun and shoot her in the head. I had estimated her head hanging too high and instead it hit her right in the neck. Hitting the artery, blood flowed out of her and ended up killing her. I hid the gun in the dirt nearby along with the bottle of DMX so no one would find it and walked away, without a drop of blood and leaving me relatively clean. Four of you are still alive, but only three will make it to the finale.”

Kamilah quickly hands out the spared or scared cards, her hands shaking as she does so. She nervously pushes a piece of hair behind her ear. The guests open their cards.

Lily: Scared

Damien: Scared

Kenji: Scared

Matt: Scared

They flash their cards to one another, everyone turning paper white as they turn their attention back to their host. But when they look in the spot she used to be standing in, she’s not there. In a frustrated state of mind, Damien jumps up and rushes for the door. He pushes on it, but nothing budges. The other three get up as well, trying the other three doors that lead to various parts of the house.

“Are we seriously trapped?” Lily asks as they all continue to push and pull on the door. Kenji finally gives up and grabs a dining room chair, throwing it against the window before it bounces off without a scratch on the glass.

“What the actual hell?” he asks in surprise.

Matt attempts to open the window without any success. Lily spots an air vent in the ceiling and stands on a chair to reach it. She tries to remove the grate but it’s stuck to the ceiling just like the rest of the exits in the room.

“Well hello mortals,” the lights dim as a muffled, deep, and overly processed voice fills the room. The voice is unrecognizable, the identity hidden from the guests. “Looks like you got yourseleves stuck, hm?”

The remaining four look at each other before they rush to the doors and begin banging on them, shouting for their host to help them. They push and pull, scream and cry, but their luck seems to be fading as the voice continues.

“I’m impressed by you four, but there is still a killer among you, a survivor, and two more deaths that must occur before your nightmare can end. But first, how about we turn off the lights and see who’s up next.”

The lights go out with a click and their screams become more intense. The doors finally swing open but they are greeted by darkness and a pair of glowing red eyes.

“Who in the f--” Kenji doesn’t have time to finish his thought as the glowing red eyes come to each of them and they are wrapped up in a sheet of darkness, their minds become fuzzy before they faint one by one.

There was nothing quite like the feeling of finally being able to hit back after you’ve been knocked down over and over again. Daryan had known this since his early days as a detective, and then as a blossoming rockstar. People were always out there ready to pick fights, and the rush of satisfaction you got from nailing a bastard down was incomparable. It was why he had been willing to throw away his career on smuggling- saving the kid was paramount, of course, but sneaking that cocoon into the country right under those snot-faced security guards’ noses felt pretty damn good. The system needed a good ass-kicking, and Daryan was more than happy not to pull his punches.

All this he thought of as he held the weight of a knife in his hands under the cover of darkness. He’d wasted no time arming himself after finding the weapons stash in the underground surgery. Luke seemed a little more hesitant to grab a weapon, but Daryan wasn’t sure if the guy had the guts to kill (wasn’t his case a crime of passion, or something?) even if their mystery killer was gunning for him.

Then again, it could have just been an act. Everyone was turning up two-faced in this house, anyway.

Daryan wasn’t sure if the other guests knew about the weapons, since they’d investigated different rooms. He could have sworn he saw Alita snooping around in the Parlor after the riddle last round, and Lana was certainly carrying herself like she was ready for a fight, but he didn’t ask and they didn’t explain.

Tucking the knife under his pillow, he rolled over to look out the window of his room. It was another cloudy night, with thunder rumbling in the distance. Some people might have taken it as an omen, but Daryan was never really into all that superstitious stuff. He supposed if Mimi had been in the bottom three, she’d be losing sleep right about now.

But it wasn’t like he was doing much better. New secret doors had been popping up ever since they had found that one in the library, and being armed again only made him more vigilant for any nasty surprises. The way each murder had gotten sloppier and more complex as time went on, it seemed like the killer was becoming unhinged. Maybe this was their plan all along- or maybe they were just getting a sick sense of enjoyment watching everyone run like rats.

Dragging a hand over his face, Daryan groaned- and was suddenly startled when he heard a faint creak coming from outside. He grabbed his knife and stood from his bed, watching the door to his room warily. Then-

CANNIBALISM is great my dude… i would totally eat someone if i had the chance and wouldnt get in trouble for it. other animals do it all the time so why cant humans. like raw cannibalism in guro art is :/ to me (biting off the skin + eating it raw) but i love It anytime else

ID Probably kill by myself because i dont want to worry about my partner being a Little Snitch™. you’d have to kill them too to make sure they dont tell