Chapter 4
Dorcas
There it was. The black top hat was sitting in the center of the fine glass table. Filled with the papers ready to be picked. So, one by one they all picked a piece. Waiting to see what their role in the game was. One murderer, and eleven that were innocent. Dorcas stares at her paper that reads: innocent. Dissapointment appearing on her face. She hated being innocent in this game. It's so boring, just waiting to be killed or winging it by guessing who the murderer is. She just likes the feeling of being the murderer. It’s not like it sounds crazy or anything, right? She waits for everyone to see their role and tries to guess who is what judging by the looks on everyone’s faces. No one was really showing any difference than just a blank face, trying to hide their reaction to not give anything away. She looks at her girlfriend, Marlene. Not really any different than before she picked her paper, just looking around at everyone, just like Dorcas was doing.
“So, everyone has their role yeah?” Barty asks, a hint of excitement creeping on his face. But nobody speaks, not a ‘yes’ or ‘no’, just knods around the room. “Good good, let’s get started then”. And just with that, the lights filcker off and the game begins. This part of the game was the long part, of course, but the interrogating was longer. People throwing accusations and pointing fingers, it was great. A few more seconds go by and the lights flicker back on. She looks around the room and there is Mary, lying on the floor dead. In the game of course. “well, well, well” Barty says, walking back and forth by Mary and looking at everyone as he does. “I wonder who did this disastrous crime. Was it you? Or you?. We do not know, but I will find out” He says again, looking like a complete idiot. But that’s just what barty does, act like an idiot.
“wait, is she okay, she isn’t moving at all” Peter says in a worried tone, staring at Mary with eyes wide open, not blinking once. He tries moving her and calling her name but she doesn’t move an inch.
“Oh my god what is happening, we need to call someone” Lily says, pacing back and forth, breathing heavy.
“Oh would you all calm down it’s part of the game. Um, Mary you can get up now ya’ know”Barty says, not a worry in his voice. Mary still doesn’t move. “Oh shit, what the fuck”.
“Am i supposed to be up yet?” Mary says, chuckling to her self, making some of the others jump. “Jesus fucking christ Man, what the fuck?” Evan says, scared to death. “You fucking scared the shit out of me, us”.
“Haha, i know. That was kind of the whole point dummy, being ‘dead’”. She pushes herself up and goes to exit the living room. “um James, you have a blender right?, so I can make a smoothie. You see, being dead made me a bit thirsty” She politely asks.
“uh yeah, it should be plugged in by the toaster next to the window” James replies, waiting for the game to continue.
“okay, thanks”. She walks to the kitchen and out of everyone’s sight. “Right, who do we think it is?” Evan says, looking around closely at everyone.
“I don’t know about everyone else but i think Dorcas has been a bit quiet over there” Barty says, throwing a look of suspicion at her.
“Oh fuck of it ain’t me, it’s probably Evan” Dorcas says,taking that look of suspicion and throwing it at Evan.
“Any proof Dorcas? Or are you just playing the blame game, taking a guess.” Evan bites back, refusing to look at her and looks at Barty instead.
“Woah why you looking at me like that for, infact you have been a little quiet over there. Did it feel good to kill Mary? Huh?” Barty says, giving Evan a dirty look back at him. For a few minutes they all interrogate each other, pointing fingers to try and catch someone out.
“Well i know I'm innocent so I'll just let you guys waste your time on me” Evan says, lying more back on the sofa and putting his feet up on the white pouffe. This fucking guy i swear to god she thinks, almost making her laugh out loud.
“AAAHHHHHHH”
A loud scream came from the kitchen, where Mary and only Mary was.
“umm, what the hell was that? Was that Mary? What the fuck!” Marlene says, panic clearly showing in her voice. The game is paused and everyone is starting to get up to go see what happened when all of a sudden. The lights flickered until they fully turned off. Hearing the storm making the trees bash into the window, making a few of them jump. The only thing lighting up was Peter, with his glow in the dark rings around his neck and wrists. What the absolute fuck is going on?
“I swear to god if this is someone’s stupid idea of a prank just cut it out already” Dorcas says, trying not to hit anything in the dark. “The game isn’t ready to continue yet Barty come on turn the lights on”
“Me! It isn’t me what the fuck?, I’m not even near the lightswitch so how can it be me, huh? Explain that” Barty says, clearly not happy that he’s getting blamed.
“Well it has to be fucking someone, doesn’t it?” She says back. She is so confused. Why would the lights turn off all of a sudden? Who knows, but that storm doesn’t sound like it’s stopping any time soon.
“Has anyone checked the weather on how long the storm is gonna go on for?” Lily asks, from wherever she is in the dark living room. “Plus has anyone going to go and check on Mary?”. “There’s no service on my phone, does anyone have any service?” Evan buts in, tapping furiously as his phone struggles to load.
“No, my phone doesn’t want to load either. What the fuck is happening?” Sirius says. Everyone has had enough now, it’s no time for games. And is Mary okay? She hasn’t said a word, and it’s not like Mary to be quiet in these situations.
“I’ll go check the kitchen with my phone flashlight, see if she’s still in there. You guys stay here and NOBODY moves” Dorcas says forcefully, getting it through to everyone that nobody leaves. But her.
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Evan
There he was. Evan Rosier. Sitting in the living room in James Potter’s house on a friday. Trying to wrap his head around what just fucking happened. Why would the lights randomly turn off? Might of been the strom now that he was actually thinking about it. He can’t be arsed for all of this spooky bullshit, he just wanted to chill and have a good time with his mates. He feels around in his jogger pocket and tries to locate his airpods. When he does, he get’s up and heads to the sports hall James ‘supposedly’ has. But of course someone notices a movement from his direction.
“Evan where the fuck are you going? We need to figure out what the fuck is going on” Barty says, shining his flashlight in Evan’s eyes. Bright as fuck.
“I need to get away from all this bs man, I’m going to find somewhere quiet. You know, so I can actually hear myse-” But he is cut off by a sudden voice.
“EVERYONE, COME INTO THE KITCHEN NOW!” Dorcas screams, sounding horrified as her voice shakes. They all turn on their flashlights and head to the kitchen, only to see something truly horrifying. Mary. Dead. Bleeding out everywhere, all over the marble kitchen floor. With a blade through her chest and a missing bloody hand. Literally. The blender was on the floor. Broken into peices with what looked like Mary’s blood splatted all over it. What the actual fuck. She was only gone for 10 minutes. How could all of this have happened in that short amount of time?. Well, it was clearly possible. It was right infront of all of them. Dead Mary. Ok, that’s enough saying that now. One more time though. Sitting infront of them, was Dead Mary.
“What do we do? Is it too late to call and ambulance?” Lily says, freaking out so much her whole body is violently shaking. “oh my god”
“Well obviously, she is literally dead right in front of us. God, is there anything we can even do?” Marlene replies, shining her touch on Mary. Inspecting what could of happened.
How could a blender cause this? Mary is dead in the kitchen. Blood everywhere they looked. He was panicking badly. Evan never usually panicked this bad. Was it an accident? It looked like one. No one would do this on purpose, would they? Even though they weren’t that close he did still feel terrible. Well, he had to didn’t he? Anyone would. He turns off his flashlight and tries to make his way to the sports hall, to clear his mind. To make his head go back to when the party just started. When nobody was dead. When Mary was alive. There was no storm, lights were working. He just wanted that back. He puts the flashlight on his phone on the lowest possible light setting. Making sure no one noticed him slipping away from such a horrific event. Would that make him look guilty? He hoped otherwise. He would never do such a brutal thing to Mary, she was nothing but nice to him. Well, except when he was a bit of a knobhead joking around but still, he wouldn’t wish it upon her. The image of Mary dead in the kitchen has stained his brain. No matter ho hard he tried to get rid of it, it just didn’t budge. At all.
Taking this walk to the sports hall made him realise how big the house was. He had already passed atleat ten rooms before finallu seeing the entrance to the sports hall. That was massive by the way. He opened the door and looked inside. It was huge;there were five tall basket ball hoops, two hanging on either side of the hall. Two large football nets left against the wall, a set of basketballs and weights. The walls were painted a navy blue colour with yellow stripes wrapping around the hall. It was amazing. It also looked like it had some yoga mats too, in different varietys of pastel colours. How lucky James must be to have all this to use when he’s bored. He walks over to the mats and grabs a pastel yellow one, lays it down and puts on his downloaded spotify playlist, as the power being out cut off the internet. As soon as the song starts playing, he closes his eyes and just lays there, trying to erase every single thought out of his head and relaxing.
The storm outside was growing bigger and bigger by the minute, trees bashing against the sports hall window, causing Evan to jump slightly as he can hear it over his music. He's lying there wondering what everyone else is doing. Are they still standing there staring at Mary’s body? Or have they settled down and are trying to work out a solution on how it all had happened. Who knows. All he knew is that he didn’t want anything to do with them or the fact that Mary is dead. Great. The image has returned, haunting his mind. Almost laughing at him for thinking he can get away from such a thing. The thing with Evan is that he runs away from every troubled situation. He can’t help it, but oh how he wish he could. It ruined his life, having a mindset like that. Not having the strength to help his friends when one of them has just been killed.
Why why why did this have to happen? He thought to himself, trying to not let the tears that were building up roam down his face. He just wanted to get out of here. In fact, he needed to get out of here. But he just didn’t know how to get back to his, because of the storm and having no wi-fi to get the sat nav up anyway. He was stuck. Massively fucking stuck. With no one to help him. Just himself. No one else.
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Marlene
Ok, what the fuck. It was only a few hours ago that Mary was laughing with all of them by the pool. Fucking about as teenagers do. Now there is no more of that. No more of her. Mary. She didn’t deserve that, not Mary. Why was she chosen? Marlene would’ve swapped places if she knew the future. Why didn’t she know the fucking future? Then they would all be still in the living room playing trapped in the dark. It's almost like the game knew who would be killed first. Predicted it. Well here everyone was. Still in the kitchen, still staring at Mary.
“Okay, everyone here are the rules; number one, nobody’s flashlight goes off keep them on. Number two, always stick with someone. No leaving by yourself as it is clearly not safe. Number 3, just try to survive i guess, yeah. Just be cautious.” Marlene says, a serious look on her face. If no one was going to say anything and just stare at Mary, she did. If they all were seriously worried about what happened they would be fighting to speak. I guess everyone here has different masks stored to pull out in different occasions. Lights start flashing on from every phone. Right, there should be twelve, wait no eleven people here. Including her and excluding Mary. She counts the lights one by one and finishes on ten. Nine? Who the fuck is missing?
“Right. When i shout your name you say ‘yes’ okay? Just checking whose here”. She ordered, lights everywhere in her face. She should hear eight people saying yes, not needing to count her at this moment.
“Okay, Dorcas?”
“Yes”
“Lily?”
“Yes”
“Sirius?”
“Yes”
“Barty?”
“yep”
“Um, weird new boy?”
“Xeno, yes”
“Pandora?”
“yes”
“Regulus?”
“yes”
“Remus?”
“yep, here”
“James?”
No reply. “James? Has anyone seen James?” She asks, searching around the room. No james to be seen. For fuck’s sake.
“Okay no James, Evan?”
Again, no reply. Where the hell are Evan and James? This can’t be happening right now.
“Does anyone know where James or Evan was last?” She asks, again, looking at everyone remaining here.
“The last time we seen James was when he stormed out of the living room, remember? because Peter spilled his juice on the sofa” Lily points out, fiddling nervously with her fingers. She was right, James did storm out because of the spillage. He was probably in his room trying to chi-
“Yo? Does anyone know what happened to the wifi? It ain’t working for me”. James appears, in different clothes. He was now wearing a white tank-top and black and red plaited pyjama trousers. “Hello?” He asks again, everyone’s eyes on him.
“Um, James” Marlene says, pointing her shaking finger at Mary. Dead Mary.
“Woah what the fuck! She was only making a smoothie right? Who did this?” He shouts, voice in a panic.
“We don’t know James. But what we do know is that Evan isn’t here, he must of snook off somewhere” Dorcas adds, just staring into space. Don't know how anyone can be daydreaming in a situation like this.
“Fucking hell” He mutters under his breath, staring in schock at was his once alive mate. Marlene get’s the pain she can see in James’ eyes. The pain of losing someone who mattered alot to you. She feels it. In that moment they all lost a friend. A bloody lovely one too.
I guess they just have to wait and see if they can figure out what happened.