It was a beautiful day in the countryside. Though it was still chilly mid-February, the sun was high as were the hopes of the ten girls and one boy. It was February eleventh, the birthday of a tall, athletic and kind young girl Gabby, who was leading the rest of the group of teenagers away from the road to a house in the forest, where her good friend Zaina was hosting a party just for her!
"Gee," said Gabby, "It sure was nice of Zaina to hold this party for me!"
"Yeah," responded her friend Desiree, "kinda out of character for her though. She's never this nice."
"Well, not when it comes to you, or any of us except for Gabby!" said her companion Molly.
"Or Savannah!" added her comrade Katherine, resulting in laughter from the rest of the group. Gabby turned away to hide her reddening cheeks from her friends. She couldn't think about Savannah, her closest friend, without blushing. Barely watching the road ahead of her, she went over Savvy, who had gone out earlier to help with decorations, in her head: long blonde hair, flawless skin, perfect makeup and pretty fashion. Gabby didn't notice how distracted she had become until her friend-of-a-friend Mali gave her a sharp poke in the side.
"Hey buddy! You okay?"
"Oh, yeah, haha."
Finally they had arrived at the house. It was a massive building and, by the looks of it, multiple-storied. It was a beautiful mansion, the front lawn painted with bushels of flowers and multiple stone statues.
"Damn, Zaina must've really shelled out for this place!" said her friend Nora, rushing to her side to gaze up at the massive building. The doors of the building swung open suddenly, revealing Eric on the other side! She was one of Zaina's closest friends, a petite, nerdy asian girl, always either by Zaina's side or drawing. Strangely, she was wearing an elegant tuxedo and her hair was tied in a tight bun at the top of her head; quite different compared to her usual sweats, graphic tee and hair down below her shoulders. It was almost like she was in cosplay.
"Hey Eric!" Gabby exclaimed upon seeing her friend, "You look really nice! Any reason you're dressed so different than usual?" Eric flashed her usual wide grin.
"It's a special occasion, Gabby! Your 15th!" Gabby smiled and ruffled Eric's hair sweetly.
"You and Zaina are too kind!" She walked into the house, leading the ensemble behind her forwards.
As the rest of the gang walked in, there were multiple exclamations pointing out the beauty of the house's decor. Two rapier swords rested in the carving of a family crest; a graceful chandelier hung, static, from the ceiling; a humble fireplace crackled below a wall-mounted mantel, one that had been decorated with a poster board filled with pictures of Gabby with her friends, as well as pictures of her favorite characters from anime and novels. She beamed happily, both in reality and in every picture taken of her. Behind her, Eric slowly pushed the heavy doors leading outside shut. As her friend Julien walked up to talk to her, she declined the offer to converse with him and walked towards the exit out of the foyer.
"Hm? Where're you going, Eric?"
"I have some party preparations I need to finish, sorry!" Julien watched her walk out of the room, confused. How did Zaina get this massive house, but didn't get to finishing up all of the decorations? he thought.
"Hey, Eric, where's Zaina? She threw the party, after all!"
Turning back to the others, Eric donned an unusual, menacing smile, almost a snarl. Her voice went cold.
"You'll find out soon enough."
With that, she slammed the doors into the corridor shut. Lizzie, the oldest of the friends who had been looking at memes on her phone with Kailey, jumped at the noise and dropped her phone onto her lap. The friendly chatter that had filled the room stopped after the doors had been closed. Gabby's back shot up straight, and her fists curled instinctively. Before the unease introduced to the crowd could dissipate, all of the lights illuminating the room shut off, and there were three loud booms as the doors leading to seperate parts of the house shut quickly. There were multiple screams from multiple people; Gabby's friend Desiree cried out in alarm, clinging to the closest person nearbys sleeve; Sophie, who the sleeve belonged to, found it hard to prevent herself from doing the same in order to keep up her macho attitude. Mali's uninvited plus-one Ali grabbed her arm as soon as the doors closed; Mali responded by kicking her shins. Gabby didn't scream, but felt a cold chill run down her spine. Behind her, Nora cowered, terrified. Before anyone could speak, they were again interrupted by a sudden noise, this time a familiar voice.
"Nice house, huh?" she chuckled.
"Zaina, what's going on?" Gabby spoke upwards, not knowing where Zaina's voice was coming from. She assumed it came from a loudspeaker.
"Why do you sound so scared? You should be chill! It's your 15th, after all." Every word made her increasingly nervous.
"Is this a weird prank? Where are you?"
"Oh, calm down. It's just a party game!" Ali and Mali shot each other confused looks.
"Besides, there's a really nice prize."
"Oh yeah? What is it?" Gabby's mind was leaving the realm of terror and veering into skepticism. She was becoming increasingly more and more convinced this was an elaborate birthday joke.
"Not what, who." Gabby's face lost emotion. There was a pause while the room processed this information.
"...What do you mean?" Lizzie interrupted Zaina's conversation.
"Don't you remember who came over to help with decorations? Actually she can explain the rules!" Confused whispers filled the empty silence, but Gabby knew exactly what she meant. She felt her fists clench to the point of shaking. Another voice spoke. Savannah.
"You.." Gabby felt like screaming; her close friend's usually sweet and joyful voice was replaced with a trembling whimper. Her feelings of skepticism were slowly crumbling apart.
"You… I… I'm Z-Zaina's hostage… You have to come save me, in 24 hours, o-or-" she was interrupted.
"Or none of you get out alive! Fun, right?" Gabby felt her heart racing, not at the prospect of not making it past Thursday (though that didn't help her nerves) but at the amount of fun Zaina sounded like she was having, taunting her and her friends and hurting Savannah in ways she couldn't even see. Whether this was an elaborate joke or not, she was furious.
"Alright, you guys ready to get sprawled? Let's go!" All four doorways opened suddenly, their doors hitting the walls forcefully. Some jolted in surprise.
"Have fun!" For a moment things were silent, before panic swept over the room. People were shouting at each other at random, every single person terrified, except for one. Kailey yelled above the crowd:
"EVERYONE, STOP!" The room went silent once again. "Doesn't this seem a little artificial?"
"What is that supposed to mean?" Sophie responded.
"This really seems like some sort of weird prank and that we're all on camera or something, doesn't it?"
"If it is, it's a really sick joke to pull on your best friends. If it's not, we have a bigger problem on our hands than Zaina's gross sense of humor." Gabby stepped forward, prompting Kailey to stand down, retreating to the rest of the crowd. Nora followed closely behind Gabby, terror in her eyes.
"Either way, we should still try to find Zaina and Savannah. Either way, this is messed up and we need to stop whatever's going on." The crowd nodded in agreement. "I say we split into two groups, one to check the basement and one to work their way through the upstairs floors. I don't know what's going on right now, but I do know that in horror movies, it's always a bad idea to split up individually."
"This seems like a horror movie, doesn't it," whispered Desiree to Sophie.
"Besides, what's the worst that could happen to us? She's the same age and as smart as we are, what can she do that we won't be able to see coming? We should all-" Once again she was interrupted. This time not by the rough sound of the intercom, but by a choked sob behind her.
With both shaking hands covering her mouth, Nora looked up at the crowd in absolute dread. The tears on her face glinted in the light that shown through the windows. Gabby softened her demeanor and stepped towards the petrified girl. The rest of the band stepped around Gabby, either in an attempt to comfort her or to catch a glimpse at what was going on. Nora's panic only worsened under excess attention; the crowd's prying eyes felt like needles stabbing her brain. She stepped away, holding back sobs.
"Hey, Nora, it'll be okay! There's no need t-"
"How do you know it's gonna be okay?! Zaina said it herself, we're not gonna make it out of here alive! We can't do this!" She sobbed into her hands. Gabby was in shock, she'd never seen her usually calm and goofy friend act like this. Ali approached Nora, who struggled to glare at her past the tears in her eyes.
"Nora, calm down. We're all scared, but you're overreacting a little."
"How dare you."
"Excuse me?"
"How DARE you! How can you be so calm right now? Don't you realize what's going on?!"
Ali stepped back, confused and threatened. When she stood before the crowd, she suddenly realized what she'd done, shouting and crying like a child in front of all of her closest friends. Before anyone else could step forwards to console her, she turned and ran for one of the doorways, humiliated. Gabby went after her soon after, grabbing the back of her sweater, and twisting her around in a last ditch effort to comfort her.
"Nora, please! We have a plan! No one's going to die, everyone's going to be perfectly fine, ok? It'll be alright!" Nora struggled away from her grip, tears still falling down her face. Glancing upwards, she finally submitted, standing stiffly with her eyes on the ground. Gabby sighed and smiled gently at her, putting her hands on her friend's shoulders.
"You better now?" Nora stared at her blankly. Reaching her hand up, she disturbed the x-formation of rapier swords hanging just above the two girls heads. Gabby quickly stepped back with her hands up, eyes wide in fear. Katherine and Molly rushed towards the two to defend Gabby. Nora took a long, unsteady breath.
"Stay away from me." Molly stepped closer to her in an attempt to calm her down, which only resulted in Nora swinging the sword towards her arm. The blade cut through the sleeve of her shirt, and Molly stepped back towards Gabby before she could do any more damage.
"I said stay away!" The group looked on in shock at what their friend had become under extreme pressure. She had changed completely from when she had walked in.
"If you don't, I'll… I'll... " She couldn't force anymore words out of her throat. Before Gabby could grab her sweater, she turned and tore through the threshold into the corridor. Gabby sighed before signaling the rest of the group to go after her, giving Nora a few moments to get ahead of them.
"Nora…"
Four sets of footsteps echoed down an long hallway. Nora wiped her red, wet face with her empty hand. Behind her, Gabby, accompanied by Katherine and Molly, called out,
"Nora! Come on, we can get through this!" Nora cried into the empty corridor, struggling to breathe between sobs. Quickening her pace, she turned the corner and sped down the hall until turning again towards a stairway. Suddenly a white hot pain enveloped her right leg; crying out in distress, she involuntarily sent both hands to clutch her broken ankle. Her sword fell from her grip. Unable to keep her balance with the sickening pain in her ankle, she slipped and fell ungracefully down the steps. The grip of her sword hit the stair in front of her, tip pointing towards her descending body. With eyes wide open, she watched helplessly as the end of the rapier sped towards her face. There was no time to move. There was no time to scream. For a moment, blindness, then nothing. Two doors closed behind her.
Gabby kept running.
"Where is she? She's not that fast, she couldn't have lost us!" She turned the corner and stopped at a closed doorway. Molly stepped in front of her and jostled the door handles, to no avail.
"She must have locked the doors behind her." Molly sighed. Gabby furrowed her eyebrows and slammed the doors with her fists, patience running out. She shouted into the oak,
"Nora, open the damn doors! Do you want her to kill you?!" She had abandoned all motivation to approach her friend in a calm manner. The rest of the group approached the corner from behind.
"Hey, what happened to 'nothing's gonna happen'?" There was an air of sarcasm in Katherine's voice that masked her fear.
"Where did Nora go?" said Mali. Gabby opened her mouth to speak, but another voice answered.
"Woo! One down, nine to go!" It was Zaina. Gabby felt sick she was so angry.
"Zaina, what are you talking about?! Where's Nora?" The voice behind the intercom only laughed in reply to Gabby's worry.
"It doesn't matter now. You guys are bad at this game, hah! Oh well, you'll just have to keep playing until somebody wins!" The voice cut out with one final comment that sent shivers down the group's collective spines, "Or not."
Lizzie felt herself begin to panic.
"Oh God, what's happening? What's going on?" Gabby didn't answer. She wasn't looking at anyone. Without a word, she turned away from the doors and marched back to the foyer they began in. The group followed confused but for the most part, mindlessly. Gabby seemed like the only one who could make solid decisions in this situation.
When she stepped into the foyer, she went straight for the one remaining sword that rested in the family crest. Multiple confused voices surrounded her as she walked across the room, sword in hand, towards another door leading to the house's large dining room.
"Where is she going?"
"Why does she have the other sword?"
"Aren't we going to go back for Nora?" Finally someone approached Gabby to ask one of the main questions being whispered among the group. Desiree tugged on her sleeve.
"Gabby, what're you doing?" Gabby answered as if she were talking to herself.
"I'm gonna kill Zaina."