It’s already seven, I guess it’s time to figure things out. I crossed my fingers and walked into the dining room. The only person who came before me was Evelyn.

“Hey Evie!”

“Someone finally came! Help me prepare before the others arrive.”

“What do you need to prepare? Did you bring some of the evidence with you?”

“It’s not case related, we’ll do that when everyone’s here. I want to prepare this room for a discussion in a more spiritual way.”

“Spiritual way?”

“Worry not, I only have candles. It’ll make the atmosphere more relaxing and these specific ones bring good luck.”

I was unsure what to think about the candles, but there was probably no harm in it, so I decided to go along with it. Evelyn pointed her finger at the corner of the room, where I then placed one small candle.

It’s time. In a minute, this room will be full and we’ll discuss yet another murder. Why can’t this just end already?

I heard the door open and I turned around to see who was there. Naomi and Maya entered the room, soon followed by Alex, Dante, Blake and Leon.

“All that participate in this event filled with tragedy, sit.” Dante seemed prepared. “We shall show this demon, commonly known as the traitor, what occurs once you cross the holy family!”

Everyone listened and sat down, marking the beginning of the discussion.

“With whom do we start? Two separate murders occurred.”

“Well with Eden, dipshit! He died first, you know?” Maya shouted at him.

“Silence. Do not cuss.” Naomi, who sat next to Maya, slapped her upside the head.

“I’m so sorry ma'am, it won’t happen again!” Maya began crying, which made me uncomfortable. What the hell is up with them?

“Marvelous, my dearest brother must be helping us from above as we converse, starting this conversation with his tragedy will bring us glory, I assure you!”

Should I be the one to start? Yeah, I'll do it.

"I'll begin! I think the best place to start is discussing what happened prior to the moment when we found Eden dead."

"Good, continue," Naomi nodded.

"Well, I'll speak from my perspective, I have no idea where everyone else was at the time. It all started when Amy and I took a look at the tunnel that was inside the dumpster. Dante and Eden were at the top, holding the rope while we checked everything out. When it was time for us to leave, the rope was nowhere to be found and both of them were gone, leaving us stuck. After a couple of minutes, Alex arrived and got us out and that was when we realized that a blackout occurred. It didn't take long for us to gather everyone from the first two groups, however we couldn't find Eden. By the time we found him, he was already dead."

"The lady is not a liar, I assure you. When we were consumed in darkness, my dear brother grabbed me and ran out of the room, expecting the devilish traitor to already have his eyes on us. He was not mistaken, yet he couldn't save himself."

“No, no, that’s not what happened.” Leon decided to join the conversation. “I was snooping around at the time, that is not when he died.”

“What are you trying to say?” I looked at him, aware that he was probably making something up to mess with us. Is he really acting like this in such a tense situation?

“You heard me, Eden did not die then.”

“And how do you know that?”

“Because I didn’t see him die during that time! If I didn’t witness it, it didn’t happen!” What kind of logic is that?

“Leave.” Naomi turned to Leon. “Your input isn’t needed.”

“Oh shut up you pretentious snob, I’ll leave when I want to!”

“By the Gods, I beg of you two to put an end to the nonsensical arguing, so that we may continue with the miniscule peace that still remains.”

“What are you getting so angry about, tophat boy? I’m just fucking around a bit.”

Dante was visibly angry, but he sat in his place and held back. Even with Evie’s candles, the atmosphere became more tense. I should continue the discussion before they get angrier.

“Alright, we settled when the murder happened and I think I also cleared myself of any suspicion since I was stuck in that hole when Eden got killed. What should we discuss next?”

“Oh, the murder weapon,” Blake said with a sickly voice.

As I turned to look at Blake, I noticed that he looked like he was about to collapse.

“Blake, are you okay?” I asked.

“Yeah yeah, I’m fine, I just said that we should discuss the murder weapon.” It was obvious to me that he wasn’t fine, but the conversation continued.

“A knife was used, specifically a combat knife.”

Evelyn joined in.

“Where is your evidence?” Naomi didn’t seem to believe her. Wait a second, that reminds me of something. Amy showed me the knife shortly after the murder had occurred, yet I haven’t seen it after that, I don’t think it was in her room.

“Amy and I had a conversation last night and she gave me all the information she had about Eden.”

“I haven’t seen a combat knife anywhere inside this mansion, how can I know that you are not lying? You might be the traitor.”

“Hey, don’t turn your back on me now!” This was the first time I heard Evelyn yell, until now her voice had been very calm. “You’re the one who told me what to do during the investigation, do you think I’m capable of murdering anyone?”

“Silence. Everyone is guilty unless they can prove their innocence.”

“Ugh, fine!”

“Then prove your innocence. Or do you want to end this discussion now?”

“Calm down, calm yourself down Evelyn, this is important, show them that you’d never do anything evil.” She murmured to herself before calming down. “Alright, here we go. We can confirm that there’s only one traitor, right?”

Naomi was about to nod when she realized that we never made sure that there weren’t multiple traitors.

“That is not confirmed.” Her emotionless expression now expressed confusion and misery.

Could there actually be a second traitor? Maybe one of them killed Eden and the other Amy. This is bad, very bad.

Suddenly, I felt someone’s hands on my shoulders. Everyone else is around me, I can see them. That can only mean one thing.

With fear swallowing me, I turned around to see what I feared. Lucia. I barely managed to stop myself from freaking out in front of everybody.

“Sorry for interrupting your little talk, you may continue chatting in a minute, I just couldn’t help but notice that some of you are unsure about the rules of all of this. I thought I made myself clear about this, but I’ll forgive your stupidity because all of you are still kids in one way or another. Whenever I talked about the traitor, I always said the. The. Have you not heard that before? The is used only when you’re talking about one thing. With that, I made it clear from the start that there aren’t multiple traitors.”

“Is that all?” Naomi was still calm, even in front of Lucia.

“Yes, that is it.” Lucia smiled at her. “I mean, I didn’t expect to have to bring something that simple up.”

“Evelyn, continue.” Naomi got back to work and disregarded Lucia’s presence, who immediately after walked out through the door, this time not disappearing or doing anything unusual.

“Positive energy, positive energy, cleanse us with positive energy…” Evelyn mumbled to herself again before coming back to the topic of her innocence. “So, Lucia confirmed it, there is only one traitor. Since we know that that’s true, would it make me innocent if another person knew about the knife?”

Naomi thought about it for a little bit and then nodded. Wait, is Evie talking about me. Yes, she definitely is, I doubt that Amy showed the knife to anyone else. Did Amy tell her about what she showed me?

“I know about the knife!” I sharply slid my way into the conversation.

“Where is it?” Naomi asked me.

For understandable reasons, she wasn’t happy to hear about a knife who’s location nobody knew.

“I don’t know either.”

“Do not cover for Evelyn just because you don’t think she did it, we need concrete evidence.”

“I’m not lying! Amy showed it to me shortly after she started investigating Eden’s murder, I was the only one she trusted enough with that kind of information, at least at that moment.”

“She’s telling the truth, Amy never trusted anyone other than her.” Alex angrily agreed. Does he really have to still be angry about that even after her death?

“I don’t wish to waste more time on this. Evelyn, you’re innocent for now. Next topic.”

I should bring something up. I mostly investigated Amy’s murder, but I do have some details on what happened to Eden… Wait, I got it!

“The blood!”

“The blood?” Naomi looked at me like I was an idiot.

“Amy told me that the blood was fake!”

“Yeah, she told me too.” Evie confirmed my statement. “She put some of it on her finger and licked it.”

Naomi’s face showed visible disgust for a short moment. I wonder if she thinks we’re lying.

“Impossible. Eden was wounded. He bled out, so the blood is real.” That makes sense, but does that mean that Amy lied?

I looked around, taking a glimpse of everyone to see how they were reacting, what they were thinking. Most were nervous, not really focused on the discussion, Evie was confused, she had heard the same thing from Amy. The only other person whose behavior was unusual was Leon’s. He seemed to be chuckling, but I didn’t want to say anything as it would probably be followed back by a sarcastic and insulting remark, so I merely stared at him.

“What?” Leon yelled out. “You’re staring at me like you think I’m the killer or something!”

“I never said anything about suspecting you!”

“Quiet down.” Naomi stopped us before anything could go out of hand. “Leon, if you haven’t been accused yet, why say that?”

“What the hell do you want now? Pretentious bitch.”

“Silence. Prove your innocence.”

“And why should I do that?”

“Because we’ll assume that you’re the traitor and get rid of you.”

“So you’ll take the risk of assuming that I’m not insane enough to take someone to hell with me by pretending to be the traitor just for the fun of it? Hahaha, how amusing! I must say, you’re way dumber than you look.”

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

“Y-You!” Naomi lost her cool and stood up from her seat.

“Ooh, someone wants to be a badass.” Leon stood up as well. I have a bad feeling about this.

Naomi walked up to Leon while he just stood next to his seat and without saying another word, she tried to punch him. She aimed for Leon’s head and swung as hard and fast as she could. It wasn’t enough. I didn’t expect it because Leon looked way too skinny to be fit, but without any effort, he dodged Naomi’s punch and hit her in the gut hard enough to make her lose her balance, falling back into his chair immediately after.

“Did I prove my innocence to you now? Fucking bitch.”

Naomi stood back up while holding her stomach and sat down without uttering a single word. She still suspected Leon, as did everyone else, yet there wasn’t much to do about it at the moment.

“Miss bitch over here is still in shock from getting her ass handed to her, so I’ll take charge basically just the same thing she did. What are we discussing next?”

God, he’s annoying. I’ll play along with it for now unless he makes things too hard for me. If he really is the traitor, I’ll figure it out.

“We haven’t finished discussing the blood. Is it real or fake?” I didn’t want to drop that topic, I still had belief in Amy’s words.

“Boring… Next.”

“No, we’re discussing this.”

“Wow.” he yawned. “So, round two?”

I don’t want to fight him. I’m confident that I could beat him to a pulp if I wanted to, but that would create too many new problems.

“Fine, let’s just check who we can say is innocent from the information we know.”

“Sure, I guess…” Finally, he’s not complaining.

“I shall asseverate that Petra is innocent.” Dante decided to help me out. “During the time of my dear brother’s tragedy, she was stuck in that pit of litter. There is no way she could be the culprit!”

“Right, right, I get it. Continue, I already got bored with this.” Leon’s voice was way less energetic than before.

“I also believe that Evelyn is innocent!” I said. “Think about it, Amy considered it safe enough to share all the information she had with her and Amy knew what she was doing.”

“Petra,” Alex looked at me with visible disappointment, “you trust Amy too much. We can’t say that someone is innocent because you trust someone else’s decision for fuck’s sake!”

“Calm down, I get it.”

Alex is right, I need to think for myself here, although I still think that Evie is innocent. Who else is definitely innocent? I can’t think of anyone… Is the traitor really that good at hiding?

“Evelyn,” Naomi came to a realization after spending the last couple of minutes thinking in silence.

“Yes, is everything alright?”

“When was the last time you were in your room?”

“The shared room or the one where Lucia expected us to be?”

“The latter.”

“I haven’t gone in there since we decided on sharing that one giant room. We also agreed to share your and Maya’s bathroom so that we would reduce the amount of rooms we used.”

“I don’t trust you.”

“You literally told me that I’m innocent before! Why are you suspicious of me now?”

“The fake blood. There is still a chance that the blood is fake or mixed with something else.”

“And what does that have to do with me? Why would I curse myself by touching blood that isn’t mine?”

“The tap in your room. Remember it, a seemingly infinite supply of paint. Red is available.”

“You’re not being fair to me!”

“How so?”

“I spent all my time in our shared room, I trusted you and now you’re accusing me without a good reason! Anyone could’ve gone in there and gotten the paint!” Evelyn was becoming angrier. “Positive energy, bless us with nothing but positive energy, let me show my purity and innocence in a place rotten with bad vibes and violence,” she whispered to herself again.

“She has a point!” I was still on Evie’s side, “if she didn’t spend most of her time in her own room, then anyone could’ve gotten in. It might not sound logical to you, but we’re all scared here, and the traitor is most likely paranoid that they’ll get caught, which would lead to outlandish actions during the murders, such as adding fake blood simply for the chance of someone tasting it and accusing Evelyn! Plus, even though we don’t know whether Leon is the traitor or not, there might be a chance that he mixed in the paint, you’ve seen what his thoughts are like.”

Leon randomly licked one of his fingers.

“True,” Naomi started getting lost in her thoughts again.

“I’ll admit it, we can’t know for sure if Evie’s innocent, but it would be dumb to immediately assume that she’s the traitor when almost everyone is still a suspect.”

“T-Then what can we do?” Maya said. She was shaking and starting to cry. “C-Can we just let the traitor kill us all one by one? Knowing me, I’m next! No!”

“Begin discussing Amy’s case, focusing on Eden is useless. I’ll calm Maya down,” Naomi said before standing up from her seat and walking out of the room through the door that led to the kitchen.

“Where are you going?” I was slightly confused, but Naomi was already outside the dining room by the time I asked the question.

“Oh, don’t worry, she’s just going to grab some drugs I left in the kitchen,” Leon announced in a lighthearted tone.

I wasn’t in the mood to reply to his sick jokes, but it seemed that Maya didn’t appreciate it. She jumped up from her seat and quickly covered Leon’s mouth with her hand.

“Shut up!”

Surprisingly, Leon didn’t resist. In fact, he looked like he enjoyed the attention. As bizarre as the whole situation was, I had to focus on the task at hand and wait for Naomi to come back and calm Maya down. Where do I start? The way she was killed, or what information the others have? I’m not sure.

Suddenly, Naomi entered the room again and saw what was going on.

“Maya, come here.”

“No! I can’t let Leon talk!”

“Now!”

“Yes ma’am.” Maya quickly moved her hand away and walked towards Naomi.

“Take this pill,” Naomi handed her a small pill and a glass of water.

“T-Thank you,” Maya swallowed the pill and drank the water and then both of them sat back down.

Maya wasn’t shaking anymore, although she started to drool a little bit. She also stopped talking. What kind of pill is that? Maybe it’s better that I don’t ask them.

“Let’s get back to the discussion!” I loudly said.

I have hope that we’ll figure out who the traitor is, I don’t think anyone here can stand living in this damn mansion for even a day more.

“I agree. Petra, begin. You were the last to talk to her.” Naomi replied.

“Alright, I’ll explain what happened this morning when I found her. Blake and I went to look for her and while Blake looked for her in her bedroom, I heard Amy’s voice in the storage room which he ran past. She told me how she had been locked in there by someone.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know and neither did she.”

“How?”

“It’s confusing. She said how someone attacked her and that the person was wearing Eden’s robe. Their face was covered.”

“That is beyond the bounds of possibility, I have spent a lot of time near the soulless flesh that once belonged to my dear brother and I can confirm that nobody would be capable of doing that. That beautiful robe was unclean, tainted with blood, it would’ve left a trace and we would be aware that the scenery of the tragedy had been tampered with.”

“I object to that!” Maya spoke up again, her voice now completely clear and collected.

“What do you want to add, you witch? I already made it clear that nobody touched my dear brother’s robe.”

“Nobody touched that one, yes. Remember the closet dumbass! There are so many copies of the same outfit, the traitor grabbed one from there.” What did that pill do to Maya? She sounds like a completely different person.

“You could be right, although I’ve not checked Eden’s closet. His robe was specifically made for him as the new head of the Divinitas bloodline, having that merely lying around is almost impossible and certainly not allowed.”

“Look around you, you freak. What is normal? Nothing. Absolutely nothing! After everything we’ve been through, you think having some fucking robe would be impossible!”

“Silence wench! If that demon Lucia would stop watching over us, I’d punish you for your sins!”

“Enough.” Naomi hit the table hard enough to make sure that everyone heard her. That made both Maya and Dante calm down and it also made Maya drop any semblance of emotion from her face. “Good. Petra, continue.”

“Well, the only thing that we know from that is that the person is a man.”

“Perfect. Suspects already narrowed down to four.”

“Haha, dumbass. Took you this long to mention something that crucial.” Leon didn’t miss an opportunity to insult me.”

“Do you have anything else to add?” Naomi seemed to be satisfied with what I said.

“Well, I could mention the cause of death because I did investigate the storage room.”

“The gas.”

“Yes, that’s definitely what the traitor used. I think it was pretty obvious.”

“That’s why it might not be the murder weapon.”

“What?”

“Naomi could be right.” Alex interrupted our conversation. “The instructions on that bottle confused me. It takes two to four hours for it to kill the person who inhaled enough of it, yet the death is instant and there are no other symptoms. What kind of chemical could do something like that?”

I stopped to think. He’s right, I don’t think something like that exists. Could it be one of Lucia’s abilities? She did things way more bizarre than making a weird poison.

“God, I’m actually getting tired from hearing you guys talk!” Leon interrupted us. “This is Lucia’s mansion we’re talking about! Think numbskull, think! Is it that fucking hard?”

“Yeah, you’re probably right about that, but you don’t have to be an asshole about it.” Alex said.

“I don’t have to, but that doesn’t mean I won’t. It’s more interesting if I insult you, it gets more of a reaction. You catch my drift?”

“I don’t care, I’m already under enough stress.”

“I’d be too if I had your brain, it must be stressful being that stupid.”

“Silence!” Naomi shouted at Leon. “Only discuss the current topic, we do not have time for jokes or insults.”

“I think Leon actually has a point.” I said, returning back to the issue of Amy’s cause of death. “If this was a normal murder case or if this was investigated by professionals, it would be easy to figure it out, but we just can’t. Everything is too abnormal and I’m pretty sure nobody here is an adult. I doubt we can figure out if this poison is real, yet since we haven’t found anything else that could’ve killed her, we’ll have to take a risk.”

Naomi looked at me, but didn’t say anything. It was obvious that she didn’t want to risk things, especially with our lives on the line.

I can understand that she’s not happy, although I can’t change that. We’re just a bunch of stupid teenagers in a psychopath’s trap, of course we can’t get out without risking everything and letting people die. No, why does it have to be this way? I felt like I was going to cry, but I managed to stop myself.

“Petra, next topic. I am aware that Alex was with you during the investigation, yet you seem more fit for this discussion, so you will continue for as long as it’s needed.”

“Not you too!” Alex shouted. “I’m sick of you guys thinking I’m some incapable child.”

“Silence.”

“Fine, I’ll let you guys figure it out on your own.” Alex was visibly angry, although he knew that trying to argue with Naomi would be useless.

“Petra, go on.”

“Alright. After checking out the storage room, Alex and I went to Amy’s bedroom. We didn’t find anything there. It was creepy in a way, the room was completely clean, the bed was made, there was nothing unusual.”

“The pistol?”

“What are you talking about?”

“As you might know, Leon and I had watched over the other groups before you met us. All that time, Amy had a gun with her, a glock to be precise. It was not with her when we found the body.”

“I never saw that gun, not before or during the investigation. Are you sure Amy had one with her?”

“She’s not lying.” Blake said before coughing for a couple of seconds afterwards. “When Adam went to the second floor to meet Amy and me, he told me how she pointed a gun at him. I mean, my group agreed on grabbing a weapon from the storage room, but I just got a baseball bat. Until Adam came, I didn’t know what she took, but I do remember that Dante and Eden refused to take anything.”

“I see… Then what happened to the gun?”

“It was most likely disposed of.” Naomi thought about it.

“Yeah, that’s probably what happened. Either she left it in her room and the traitor stole it, or she brought it with her and the traitor took her by surprise to steal the gun, it could’ve even been left in the storage room, where it originally was. Either way, the traitor didn’t shoot because it would wake everyone up. Instead, he hid himself with Eden’s robe and got Amy inside of the storage room because he was able to lock it, meaning that she would have to inhale the gas. That’s how it all happened!”

Well, we pieced the case together, but I still have no clue who did it. Four suspects, Blake, Alex, Dante and Leon, one of them killed Eden and Amy and there are reasons to accuse and also trust any of them. I have to figure it out!

“Did you investigate anything else?”

“Well, I checked out the right wing of the second floor, but there was nothing related to the case there. I found a picture that could lead us to the secret of the mansion though. I could show you that later.”

“Do not go off topic. We need to find the traitor now.”

“I don’t know anything else, I told you everything and I even pieced all the information together.”

“Alright. Petra, thank you. I need someone else to speak up, new information related to any of the murders is needed.”

The room was silent. Does nobody have anything else to say? We’re so close! We need to get this over with!

“Well, I guess we didn’t figure it out, what a bummer.” Leon broke the silence.

“Oh please, you’re one to talk, you did nothing but make things harder for everyone!” Maya started arguing again, though Naomi didn’t have the energy to stop her. We were all too disappointed to act.

“I think this is it. It’s for the best that we leave for now and continue investigating tomorrow.”

Silence followed for the next couple of seconds and then everyone slowly stood up and walked out. After leaving the dining room and entering the main hall we noticed that it was getting late, the discussion took longer than we had anticipated. Everyone planned to go to their rooms and probably straight to bed, but Naomi stopped us.

“Attention. The traitor is still a threat, therefore there will be new rules to protect us.”

“The boss bitch is back at it again, I guess.” Leon yawned.

“Girls, first floor bedrooms. Guys, second floor. Quickly grab your things and move.”

“I can move away from your annoying ass? With pleasure.” Leon quickly took off towards the third floor.

It was obvious that she did this because we figured out the traitor’s gender, so there weren’t any complaints. Well, my room is already on the first floor, so I can go straight to bed.

“Petra,” Naomi stopped me.

“Yes? Do you need something?”

“I do. From tomorrow onwards, write down anything important that happens in case we need to remember something. There are notebooks in the storage room.”

“Alright, I’ll do that. Good night.”

“Good night.”

I went to my room and immediately laid down. This was a long day, I need to rest. How long will this go on for? I can’t take it, I feel like I’m going to die next, the traitor definitely has his eyes on me. I wish I could just figure out who killed them, it doesn’t have to be this hard. Maybe it’ll be easier with everyone moving rooms, I’ll be more protected from the traitor and so will all the girls, but the innocent guys are now at a higher risk because of that. Was that unfair of Naomi? I don’t know, I can’t think straight.

My mind was filled with scary thoughts and questions that I kept trying to answer to no avail. In the end, I couldn’t make any sense of anything and I fell asleep fully clothed, hoping to escape this mess as soon as possible.