“This is your shirt isn’t it,” I asked, hoping for some explanation that didn’t involve murder. It was a strange conflict- I wanted- needed- to find the explanation for Mason’s death. But now that we had some clear-cut evidence I shied away from its conclusions.

There was a small part of me that wanted to say it was all an accident- that one of these people wasn’t a murderer. 

Because it’s all well and good when the murderer is on TV or behind bars. But it’s another thing to know that one of the people that you interact with on a daily basis has killed someone. No matter what impression you had of them before you found out, something in the way that you treat them is going to change.

I didn’t particularly have any love lost between these people. But I had worked together with them for 52 weeks. I had been close to them for 52 weeks. And only now had I found out that one of them, one of the people that I interacted with on a daily basis, was a killer. A murderer.

Dan sat back up in his chair.

“It’s mine. From exactly where Allison punched me.”

There was no sarcastic retort. I could tell that it wasn’t just me that was having a hard time believing all this.

“You couldn’t have seen this just from the video- when did you notice?” I asked him.

“When I was allowed off the floor and onto my feet I glimpsed the red marks on my shirt front- I didn’t immediately correlate the cause- but I knew that public opinion wouldn’t likely be on my side. So that was why I got out of that room as quickly as possible.”

I did happen to remember Dan’s subdued form as he left the room- but I had assumed that it was resultant from the blow to his pride. Now I understood.

He spun his chair around to me entirely now.

“Later, when I got back to my sector, I immediately threw off the shirt and ripped out the stained section. There was no other reasonable explanation that I could think of- but I needed proof. And now I have it. I should be happy that the blame is completely off me. Or at least relieved by the sort of vindication that this video affords me. But I’m not – not now. This isn’t … this was never going to be a situation that we could solve logically- but I can’t- I can’t! I just can’t stop thinking that we will die on here, alone and no one ever knowing our fates! It’s not logical- I’ve tried, and I’ve tried to tell myself that- But I just can’t…” he confessed in a panicked voice. He was hyperventilating now, his eyes wide and hands shivering involuntarily.

I put a hand on his shoulder, not roughly, but firmly.

“Why did you only come now- why didn’t you immediately go back and check?” I felt sorry for him- hell I knew precisely what he was going through, but this small bit didn’t line up.

He took a few deep breaths to calm himself. The shaking in his hands had subsided, but I could tell from the tension in his shoulders that he was going to need a lot more time to calm himself down after this conversation.

“…because I’m terrified of her.” He replied in a small voice

My interactions with Allison weren’t exactly all 100% positive either- but this wasn’t a dislike- this was a real fear. That, or he was a fantastic actor.

“You couldn’t see her face! You don’t know Oliver! When she looked at me, I could tell… I thought I was going to die Oliver… I thought she was going to kill me right then and there!” He’d mistaken my indecision as some sort of chauvinistic disgust at being scared of women.

“No, Dan- you’re right to be scared of her. I don’t think a single one of us could beat her if we were to fight against her years of martial art training.” I said as I tried to comfort him.

“Is she the murderer? Is she going to kill us all?” he whispered, more to himself than me, I thought.

“I… I don’t know. I don’t know Dan; I just don’t know.” That was the truth. There was some pretty heavy evidence weighting the scales against her at the moment. But there was something I wanted to check first.

“Just don’t trust anyone,” I said, advising myself as much as I advised him.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

I turned towards the door, but just as I was about to leave him, Dan’s shaky voice was carried to my ears.

“How did he… Mason… How did he die?”

I swallowed. I knew that someone was bound to ask me- but that wasn’t enough to actually speak the describe the scene out loud. I clenched my stomach and steeled myself to answer.

“He was rammed into the edge of a table. No signs of a struggle.”

I waited for a few seconds, but he didn’t respond. I continued to the door and was almost out when I heard his voice again.

“He deserved better… he was one who I was …proud…. to be on a team with.”

A small chuckle escaped my lips- involuntary and with no actual humour behind it. But when I spoke, my words were choked with emotion. I grabbed the doorway, clenching it tightly.

“It wasn’t his time- he had so much ahead of him.”

I took a deep breath, not trusting myself to be able to continue without breaking down.

“But he made me as proud as any other person ever has, and ever will make me, to be able to call him my friend.”

I let go of the doorway, letting my arm drop to my side as I left him alone, surrounded by shattered glass.

It was time to check on a certain hunch.

* * *

Again, I hesitated in front of Mason’s sector. Of course, this time I knew exactly why I was hesitating, but that didn’t make it easier. On the contrary, it made it impossibly harder to go through that door.

It was still open, but I didn’t doubt for a second that either Saskia or Allison or both had at least come in to confirm that I was telling the truth. If Dan’s story was to be believed, he had stayed in his room, fretting about what to do with the blood stains on his shirt.

The smell hit me as I walked into the room- but it wasn’t the body- it was my vomit. Mason hadn’t been moved- and neither had my mess in the corner.

Perhaps it was guilt, or perhaps it was motivated by a desire to achieve even a modicum of normality I set about cleaning up my mess. The ‘clinic’ section of his sector- the sector that was accessible by all crewmembers didn’t hold anything in comparison to the medical equipment that would be in his private sector. However, I was sure that I would find something that might aid in cleaning up vomit in here.

A quick search revealed a thin janitor’s closest near to his desk which contained a bucket, mop and sponge among other things. Grabbing them, I set about cleaning up the corner of the clinic.

Satisfied that it was fairly clean, I finally turned over to Mason's body- still looking as unnatural as before.

The urge to turn away was almost overwhelming, but I held my ground and moved a little closer. He had died from the impact of his head on the desk. That was why he had the massive gash upon his forehead and remnants of blood upon the desk.

But I couldn’t see anywhere that the blood had splattered. There was only a pool surrounding his head, and what was left on the desk.

I walked around the desk, trying to see if any further drops had fallen that far. I placed my hand on his chair and pushed it out of the way. But instead of sliding away like I had expected it to, I heard a CLUNK, and the chair refused to move.

The chair was now on a slant, and I could see why. The chair design, I knew, had 5 legs, with wheels connected to the end of each. It was the same as mine because it was office standard for our sectors. But this one was missing a leg, explaining why it had fallen onto the side that was missing half a leg.

Ok.

It wasn’t a massive clue. But it was something.

The killer had killed Mason, taken the leg of his chair, and gone off to the monitoring room to destroy the evidence.

That order was important- the killer had taken the chair leg, likely knowing that they would need it in the monitoring room. They had guessed or known that the monitor room would be unlocked.

Dan would 100% have known that the door would be unlocked because he was in full control of those doors. However, he would have had to be very quick, and seeing as there was no visible struggle, likely quite subtle in order to kill Mason.

Saskia did know that Dan was likely going to come out- she knew that he was monitoring through the camera and thus his speech was a bluff. But it was unlikely she would know exactly when Dan would come out.

Allison… we didn’t know if she had worked out if Dan was bluffing. But it was very possible that she did know, but was hiding it from us to further throw us off the trail. And then there was the matter of the blood on her hand. Granted, the blood pattern on her hands didn’t seem to match the scene of the crime- but neither did she volunteer the information if it had been just some sort of accident.

Bottom line was; I couldn’t trust anyone. Exactly as I had told Dan.

But throwing accusations around that I wasn’t sure was true might hinder instead of harm.

It was like that game that we all played on camping trips- the werewolves (or mafia, depending on who was narrating) game. The aim of the game was for the townspeople or civilians to all band together and eliminate the werewolves through voting upon their suspected candidate. The werewolves (or mafia) would kill one townsperson per night, the game ending when one of the parties were all dead. But usually, the werewolves or mafia weren’t the most dangerous thing in the game- it was mostly the vote of the townspeople. More often than not, the person eliminated by voting chaos would be a townsperson, only aiding the werewolves in their goal.

And we didn’t have a doctor to stop the werewolves from killing anymore.

I looked back at Mason one last time, and somehow, I knew that this wouldn’t be the last time I’d be back here in these coming days.

As I walked back to my sector, I deliberately took the long way and went into the dining room. We didn’t have long left, but was that a good thing or a bad thing?

57:25 Hours Remaining