How long have I been here? Each day in the mansion felt worse and worse. I must finish this soon. I need to go home.
I stretched my arms and forced myself to get out of bed. I was about to get dressed, but I realized that I didn’t take off anything before falling asleep the previous night. I went inside my bathroom and brushed my teeth.
I’m already getting used to this place… I hate that! I hate all of this!
Lucia’s clock rang, making me jump a bit as I wasn’t expecting it. Nine o’clock… I can’t believe I slept for that long. I should go to the dining room and eat something before the discussion begins. I went outside my room and walked towards the dining room.
With Amy’s help, this won’t be too hard, right? My body shook out of nowhere.
When I entered the dining room, I noticed everyone from the third group sitting at the table.
“When will everyone arrive?” Naomi asked me impatiently.
“Soon, don’t worry. They probably got woken up by the clock.”
She sighed and continued waiting while everyone else was silent. After around a minute, Blake and Dante entered the room.
“I have arrived. I shall show the traitor what demonic deeds lead to!” Dante loudly exclaimed.
Blake didn’t say anything, but something seemed off about him. He was sweaty and shaky.
Another minute passed before Alex entered the room. He was visibly nervous too. Without saying anything, he sat down and waited for the discussion to begin. We were supposed to start after everyone had breakfast, but everyone was too much on edge to even remember.
“Hey, Amy isn’t here,” I said as I looked around the room.
“This was her idea,” Naomi coldly said and then turned her eyes away from me.
We waited a couple of minutes for her, as she did have the most info about the murder after all. But, she never came.
“Shall we begin?” Naomi was impatient.
“We need to wait for Amy. If anyone knows who the traitor is, it’s her.”
Blake turned to me.
“Hey, we should go to the second floor to see if she is still in her bed.”
“Alright, I’ll go with you. Everyone, wait for us.”
Blake and I left the dining hall and climbed up to the second floor. Blake ran through the hallway towards the bedrooms, leaving me behind. I was going to start running too so that I could catch up, but before I could do that, I heard knocking sounds coming from the storage room. I came closer to it to see what was making the sound.
“Is anyone there?” The voice came from inside the storage room. It’s Amy!
“Amy? What are you doing?” I went to open the door, but it was locked.
“I woke up early to prepare for the discussion, but I got attacked and trapped inside this room.”
“By whom?”
“I don’t know. The only thing I’m sure about is that it was a man. He was wearing Eden’s robe and his face was completely covered, so I really have no clue who it was. All the guys here are a similar height and the robe covered every other feature.”
“Alright, don’t worry. I’ll find a key and get you out.”
“Thanks Petra, just hurry up, I need to piss.”
I ran to the bedrooms where I saw Blake again inside Amy’s room.
“Hey, could I borrow a key to the storage room?”
“Why would you need that now? Plus, nobody locked the storage room…”
“Amy is stuck inside. When you ran straight to here, I continued walking slowly and heard Amy from the storage room. She’ll explain everything during the discussion, but more importantly, I need the key to get her out.”
“Alright, just take hers since it’s closer. Let me get it.”
Blake reached to grab Amy’s key, but there was nothing on the nightstand.
“Huh? That’s weird,” he said in a frighteningly confused tone.
“Go get yours!” I shouted.
He ran outside Amy’s room and into his.
“Here,” he threw the key at me.
I sprinted back to the storage room.
“I’m back, I got the key!” I shouted, ignoring the fact that I didn’t get a response.
I unlocked the door and opened it to free Amy.
“Amy?”
I was met with silence and despair. It seemed that I had forgotten how cruel life was.
She was lying on the floor, motionless. Without thinking, I shook Amy's body.
“Are you there, Amy? Please say something! I got the key!” I got close to her face to check if she was breathing.
No way… No, this can’t be happening! Things were finally going great for us. This can’t be happening! No!
Without realizing it, I completely lost my cool. I fell to my knees and started bawling. I’m screwed. We all are. How did I allow this to happen?
I felt someone touch my shoulder and I jumped back out of sheer fear.
“No! Don’t kill me!”
“Petra!”
I looked up and saw Blake who reached his hand out so that I’d stand up. My entire body was shaking and I couldn’t think properly. I was usually the one comforting everyone else and making rational decisions, but I was too far gone in my sorrow. I was taught pain that I had been trying to avoid all this time. Amy was our hope, someone who knew what to do.
“Blake! What do we do? S-She, she’s dead!”
Blake couldn’t look at Amy’s body, yet he still tried to comfort me.
“It’ll all be okay, Petra, I got this. We need to go downstairs and tell everyone what happened before we start with anything. We’ll figure everything out.”
I didn’t say anything, but I stood up. I couldn’t move slowly to the dining room, some unknown force made me run down the hallway and stairs with my shaky legs. I almost fell down multiple times. Right in front of the dining room door, I tried to calm myself down and I wiped my tears with my sleeve. I can’t have everyone panicking right now.
Slowly, I opened the door and noticed that everyone was sitting in silence, waiting for the discussion to begin.
“H-Hey! We’re going to have to delay the discussion.” I said.
“What?” Naomi stood up, obviously upset. “Why?”
“Amy. She. She’s dead!”
“What?” She repeated, this time shouting.
Everyone quickly stood up and started aimlessly looking at each other, unsure what to think or do.
"I said Amy's dead!" I burst into tears again. I couldn't control my emotions, I couldn't do anything properly.
"Of course she is," Leon stared at me, "do you think anyone that honest can survive this hell? She earned her place!"
"You piece of shit!"
"What? Afraid of what I'm saying?” He shook his head. “Some people are truly hopeless."
"How dare you?" Without thinking, I ran up to Leon and pushed him to the ground with just my raw strength, completely ignoring any aikido move that I could use to make it less painful for him.
"Someone finally lost their cool. Hahaha, incredible! All it took was someone you knew somewhat better than the others dying to make you freak out!" He coughed from the excessive laughter. "What a weak mind you have!"
"You… Are you aware of what Amy meant for me? For almost all of us? She could've figured out everything better than any of you!"
"Now that's just rude." Leon said while he was still lying on the floor.
“Where is she?” Naomi asked.
“T-The storage room.” I’m stuttering. How pathetic can I be? Why? Why did everything have to go to shit right before we got the chance to find the traitor?
Without saying another word, Naomi walked out of the room.
“D-Do I have to do something? I’m scared!” Maya started crying. “Why do I have to go through this?” She covered her face with both of her hands.
I wanted to try calming her down, but to my surprise, Alex walked up to her first.
“It’ll be alright. Don’t push yourself too much.” His words somewhat motivated me too, so I left the dining room and headed back to the storage room. It’s time for investigating. I don’t know how I’ll do it, but it has to be done. What would Amy think if she saw me in this state? I get her, her sense of justice, but I’m not as strong as her.
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I had a weird feeling, a need to avenge Amy. Like an angel of justice whispering into my ears. Of course, escaping the mansion was my main goal, but now I felt an even bigger need to uncover the traitor and also to find a way to kill Lucia, no matter how godlike she seemed. Being responsible for all these horrors was something that no sane person could ever forgive.
I was still shaking, but I already made my mind up about starting the investigation, so I began thinking where to look first. Amy’s room? The storage room? The hallway? I’m not a detective, I’m not cut out for this. No, I can’t say that immediately! I’ll look everywhere.
As my thoughts were being crowded by bad ideas and insults, I came to a sudden realization, a harsh truth. The body, that’s what I had to investigate. Until now, Amy was the only one brave enough to come close to the bodies.
I slapped myself. Get your shit together, Petra. When I entered it, the storage room was still lifeless. Blake was no longer there and Naomi went somewhere else as well. Only Amy’s body and I. I felt cold, almost frozen by the overwhelming atmosphere. I burst into tears yet again. I couldn’t control them, but I had to try and stay strong for long enough to do a proper investigation.
After wiping my tears for what was hopefully the last time, I took a look around the room, unconsciously trying to avoid looking at Amy. At first, I didn’t see anything that seemed off, but after around a minute I actually managed to find something. There were blue shards of glass behind Amy’s body.
Poison? No, that isn’t possible. The poison only takes five minutes to kill someone. Wait… Maybe the poison from this room is different.
I quickly opened the mini fridge that was in the corner of the room, almost hidden by shelves that were filled with seemingly random items. I grabbed one bottle and turned it around to see the information about the poison.
Open the bottle to release the gas and immediately evacuate the area. Depending on the subject, the inhaled gas will take effect between 2 and 4 hours and kill the subject without any visible symptoms beforehand. The gas must be inhaled by the subject within two hours of it being released otherwise it will not leave any effect.
This is it! It seemed too easy to find, but it was definitely it. I finally felt like I had accomplished something. Without a doubt, the poisonous gas was the murder weapon. Did Amy know that she was poisoned? The text says that there are no visible symptoms before death, so I’m not sure.
I continued looking for evidence around the room, still avoiding the body. There’s bound to be more here! I kept searching without any success, albeit discovering the murder weapon gave me a bit of courage.
A couple of wasted minutes later, I realized that the only thing left to check was the body. Do I really have to do it? At the same time, I wanted to do it for the sake of finding the traitor and doing what Amy probably would’ve wanted, but I was also too scared. I’m too young for this! In the end, I ran out of the room, losing control of my emotions. I can’t take it anymore! I need a break!
I ran towards my room, tripping once on the way to it. What is happening to me? Why can’t I stay calm? I need to investigate!
When I entered, I locked the door and sat on my bed.
Am I sad because I lost someone or because I don’t think I have a chance of leaving the mansion alive? I didn’t know. Am I being selfish because I don’t have my shit together? I didn’t know. I completely lost track of time while asking myself such questions.
I heard a knock on the door.
“Don’t hurt me!” Why did I say that? Am I becoming paranoid?
“It’s Evelyn, you can open the door,” her soothing voice gave me a sense of safety, although I still wasn’t acting the same as usual.
“A-Alright, I’ll let you in.” I slowly stood up and unlocked the door.
What does she want? Evelyn walked inside and sat on my bed.
“Please sit down.”
Without a word, I sat down.
“I saw how stressed you are. I can still sense the negative energy flowing within you. I cannot bring myself to do much either, but I am much more familiar with my emotions than with yours, so I am not facing much of a dilemma. Still, I have something quite important to tell you.”
“Really? I’m interested!” I started talking more cheerfully again in hopes of regaining some of my energy.
“After you had gone to bed, Amy and I had a long conversation. At first, she was very cautious of me, but the more we talked the more open she was. Because of that, I managed to learn everything that she found out about Eden’s murder.”
“Really?” I’m glad that the information isn’t lost. Wait, am I that selfish? Was I closer with Amy than the others just so I could use her skills?
“Indeed. That’s not why I came here though. She talked about you too. Well, I would’ve talked to you myself, but Amy told me that you were tired and I didn’t want to bother you because of that. She mentioned how you were always calm, even when people were dying. Not in the psychopathic way, but in a detective-like way. I was in that one room on the third floor, unaware of what was happening, but I still panicked often and had to meditate so that I wouldn’t lose my sanity.” I guess everyone thought of me as a calm person… Well, it’s not like I’m not calm most of the time.
“Thanks, Evie.”
“Evie?”
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
“No, do not worry, I was merely surprised. You can call me Evie, I like it.”
“Alright then, I’ll call you Evie!”
“Okay, what was I saying? Oh, I remember. It was about your reaction to her death. Ugh, I feel quite uneasy bringing up the dead, I’ll have to bring candles here to cleanse the area later. Either way, your reaction was really out of character, I expected it, but not to the level that it happened. I’m not going to dare question what’s going on inside your head right now, although I do have a question for you. Did you meet Amy before you got trapped here?”
“No, I didn’t. Did we really seem that close?”
“From the way Amy talked about you and from your reaction to her death, certainly. I recognized that misery in you, it wasn’t merely the shock of finding a dead body, it was the despair of losing someone you wanted to spend more time with. It’s not that visible physically, but it can be felt strongly, even by an outsider such as myself.”
She said that she recognized it. Did something happen to her in the past? I don’t want to imagine it and I don’t think it’s a good idea to bring it up at a time like this.
“I don’t know. Maybe I just lost my cool with everything happening. None of us have been home for days, our lives have been constantly at risk! That’s not something I or anyone here is prepared for! We all just want normal and peaceful lives, don’t we? Don’t we want to explore the world, pursue our dreams? Nobody wants everything to end abruptly in a random mansion that is God knows where, killed by a stranger!”
“I know, I know. I mean, it is definitely possible that you lost your cool from that, but I think there’s more to it. Most people don’t listen to me when I talk about things like these, especially when they’re going through hard times, however this is truly a moment where I have to bring it up.”
“It’s fine, you can talk about whatever you want! Tell me, it might give me a new way of looking at things. I really need something right now to lead me to a new path.”
“I learned this around two years ago when I was in the hospital for a day by then. I had to get a surgery, though it was nothing major. I was woken up by something in the middle of the night and that usually meant I had to meditate for a couple of minutes, it’s a habit of mine. While I was meditating, I heard a voice that told me to wake up the person in front of me, and so I did.”
“You made a stranger wake up in the middle of the night because you heard a voice while you were meditating?”
“Point is, I woke up the person in front of me like the voice said. The voice wasn’t a stranger or anything that can even be observed, they weren’t my thoughts either. I cannot explain it, but listening to it always led me to good results. So, this guy wakes up, confused as to why I bothered him. I merely said that I wanted to talk and since I was only fourteen at the time and that was before my growth spurt hit, he didn’t want to be rude to a cute little kid, so we had a normal and somewhat long conversation. I wondered why I was supposed to have it, but either way, I returned to bed afterwards.”
“Interesting, but why tell me that? And I still think that you shouldn’t wake up random people in the middle of the night.”
“Just listen. I woke up and the boy that I talked to the night before was still asleep. It was early, so it did make sense. My surgery was scheduled sometime before noon, so my mind was more focused on that. I went and had my surgery, it lasted around three to four hours and after that time passed, I went back to my room. The other people I shared it with were still there, all of them except the guy I talked to the previous night. I assumed that he was still in the operating room. I forgot what type of surgery he had had, even though he did tell me, but it had been much more serious than mine. In the end, it turned out that he died during his surgery. I don’t wish to explain my precise reaction, but I had a horrible breakdown. I was looking forward to talking to him again, but the fact that I couldn’t did something to me.”
“So that’s why you wanted to tell me that story… I can see the connections between that situation and this one, but I don’t see how that can help. It’s normal to mourn people who aren’t close to you.”
“You and Amy were meant to be something bigger, but your fate was interrupted. That boy, whose name I never learned, he and I were supposed to be something bigger. Some people are fated to meet each other, but that does not mean that it will end well. If you met Amy in some other way, you two would have either been great friends, that’s what your sadness means. Your mind cannot understand that, but your soul is trying to tell you that, it’s weeping. Souls are much more powerful than brains, they know many things that we could never figure out as purely rational beings..”
“What are you saying?” Is Evie trying to make me feel better? Is she serious? Maybe both of those things are true, but I don’t think what she said makes any sense.
“I can understand your disbelief, but unless you want to dedicate years of your life to meditation and finding your true self, you won’t fully understand what I’m talking about. I apologize for that, but that’s how it is. Please don’t get upset, I just think that knowing more about a situation you’re in helps you overcome its struggles.”
“Listen Evie, I get that you want to use your knowledge to help, but what you’re saying is pure nonsense. Please don’t say those things while all of this is happening. You’re just rubbing salt on the wound.”
“I expected you not to believe me, so I’ll try to listen to you. Still, I do hope that you’ll have a change of heart sometime in the future. I know that you’re a good person and I hope that we can leave this mansion alive.”
“Thank you, Evie.”
“Also, there’s one more reason why I came here.” She stood up from my bed and approached my door, opening it and peaking outside. “Alright, you can come in!”
To my surprise, Maya came in, carrying a canvas with something painted on it.
“Here, take it!” Maya was way louder than I remember her being early, though her body was still shaking. “I can’t believe you made my ass wait outside until you finished your talk, Evelyn!”
I took the painting from Maya and looked at it. Evie mentioned how she had art supplies, so I assumed that she had made it. It was a painting of a landscape, the grass was painted red, trees black with purple leaves, the sky orange covered in pink clouds and a white sun in the upper right corner. The landscape was drawn beautifully, but the colors were really unusual. Evelyn turned to me to see my reaction.
“I painted this yesterday, but decided to give it to you. This ocher area doesn’t have anything interesting. Even things as simple as colors can impact someone’s mood.”
“Well, thank you, I love it!” I didn’t like it that much, but I didn’t think it was ugly.
I was more so confused and maybe even slightly disturbed. Still, I decided to keep it. I smiled at her and she smiled back at me before walking out of the room.
“I’m going to go investigate, I have Naomi as help, so we’ll see each other later. That reminds me, Naomi told me to tell you that we’ll have a meeting this evening at seven. Well that’s all, see you soon Petra.”
“Bye!” I waved as Evie left the room, leaving Maya and I alone.
Maya didn’t say anything, but she didn’t leave the room either. She simply stood in a corner and stared at her palms. Is she holding something? I walked closer to see if she was holding something. I don’t see anything. I don’t get why she’s staring at her palms like that, there’s nothing special.
I came close enough to Maya that she finally noticed me.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing? Back off!” She shouted at me out of nowhere and pushed me out of nowhere.
“What’s the deal with you?”
“With me? You’re the one coming too close!”
She burst into tears out of nowhere. Her crying and whining was loud enough that I instantly knew something was wrong with her.
“Maya, are you okay?”
“Go away!” She grabbed her hair and began pulling on it while shaking her head chaotically until she fell to the floor where she started rolling left and right.
What the hell is she doing? Is she completely losing her mind right in front of me?
I didn’t dare approach her during her meltdown, so I took a step back and waited. It took her almost two minutes to calm down, I counted the time in my head.
“What?” Maya’s voice was now way more monotone and depressing. “What am I doing? I need to go take my stuff.” She stood up and walked out of my room without saying another word. Is she pretending that nothing happened? What even happened?
I was alone in my room again. I had time to calm myself down and I also got to know more about Evelyn. I’m calm, I’m strong, I’m ready. I had to go to the bathroom, but I made the decision to go and investigate everything that I needed right after I finished.
I’m going to figure out the truth. I’m going to reveal the traitor. I’m going to beat Lucia’s stupid game. I’m going to do everything for myself, for everyone here with me and for everyone whose life was cut short by the monstrosities in this mansion!