“Are - are you okay?”

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 )

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.

She supposed it was common knowledge, but Grace didn’t realize just how difficult it was to transport a person from one place to another without help. It wasn’t Erin’s fault though, she’d spent the entirety of a day in the heat without food  or water tied to a chair.

When you think about it, it really does do a number on someone.

Grace looked to her right, where a hopefully conscious Erin stumbled along beside her, her arm over Grace’s shoulder. 

     Regina herded her group back to the Inn; it felt like      she might vomit, but they had only enough time to      get back before midnight. She wasn’t going to risk     anyone else’s life when there was no way they could     save Erin anymore - even if she felt she was a monster     admitting it to herself. Stumbling into the lobby in complete     and utter exhaustion, she froze, eyes alighting upon the two     figures therein as a cry of surprise and delight escaped her lips.

             “Erin!”

She rushed past Grace - she’d thank her in a moment - to grab the bride up in her arms, holding her closely, face buried in her shoulder. When she finally pulled back, tears were in her eyes, her hands shaking as she checked the other woman over for injuries.

It felt like the island was spiraling downward into chaos, or, at least, the wedding party’s side of it was.

People had left, gone missing, turned up dead. And now Erin.

Everyone had gone out searching, repacked their hardly unpacked bags. The letter was passed between all hands. It was like they been sent into their own personal horror movie.

No one noticed when Grace left her search group, just like hardly anyone had even noticed she was there to begin with. A bitter taste filled her mouth when she herself disappeared, but the attention stayed on Erin. It was familiar, but easy to ignore. It tasted like high school all over again.

She couldn’t help but shake her head at her thoughts—they were looking for Erin, this wasn’t about her!– but it was an old wound. And being back here, with old friends and old memories, had peeled back scabs that were long forgotten as scars.

Her search brought her to the source of the island’s recent drama; the beach.

The sand was soft, barely disturbed in the events of the last few days, smoothed by the steady tide, and Grace found herself following a trail of footprints. They lead like a pathway through the winding, craggy expanse of caves that wrapped around the island, and the way grew darker and darker as time passed and the trees grew denser.

After a while, the trail tapered off, but it wasn’t hard to guess where they led. Through the trees and back towards the beach, a massive, dark silhouette loomed. As she grew closer, the shape materialized into a rotted, stinking ship, half sunken and washed up onto the rocks.

The hull was cracked into pieces, a massive gaping hole in the front yawned at her from the treeline, and carefully, she climbed inside, covering her face from the smell of decaying wood and fish.

Before long, she’d made the discovery that everyone had been desperate to make themselves.

Hands closed gently around the bride’s blindfold and untied it, the makeshift gag and sturdy ropes soon following, and Erin slumped into Grace’s arms— the result of a day spent alone in the heat and confines of a cave.

There weren’t many words to be said, so she didn’t use them. The girl’s arm slipped around Erin’s waist, lifting up her hardly-conscious friend, and she toted her back to the mainland, towards the hotel. Back to safety.

That is, if this island was even considered safe anymore.

Modnote;