Chapter Four:
Termino v. To end; to finish something utterly and completely. Latin.

Duke took another gulp of wine, hunching over the table in exhaustion. He'd drunken one entire bottle and was moving onto the next. His eyes slid in and out of focus. The door rattled. He turned just as the door opened, eyes widening. Dark hair blew in a phantom wind and lightening crackled in the distance.

One swoop and an knife sliced through the air.

Harris and the Doctor were always together, watching their backs. Their faith had switched from the village to each other, though their trust was another story. They slept on different sides of the room, backs to the wall so as to see each other's movements. But they were awake now, staring dismally into the floor as if to create some sanity out of their bleak situation.

"Should we...?" Check who's dead this morning? The doctor nodded in reply, dark circles under his eyes. They both stood, walking slowly toward the door.

"When...?"
"Sometime in the night..." Manna whispered, eyes red and puffy from crying. "How?" The doctor laughed bitterly.
"How? How! Look at the knife in his back!" Manna burst into tears and Harris looked away, gulping. "I- I'm sorry." The doctor replied, shocked by his own outburst. "Sorry..." Harris put a hand on his shoulder and nodded, taking a deep breath.
"Suspects." The doctor nodded and they left, not wishing to disturb Manna further.

"Manna. Lillia. Elli. Saibara. Zack. And Won. Once again, neither of us could've done it. We stayed up all night. At least I did." A glint of suspicion entered the Harris' eyes as he heard the doctor.
"All night? What were you doing?"
"You think I could sleep!" He said in disbelief. "You've got to trust me then! I slept all night and you weren't-"
"Yes but then you'd be an obvious suspect. So you wouldn't, wouldn't you?"
"I'm a doctor! I've dedicated my life to the health of this village!" Harris looked down, his face turning red.
"I apologize. I just- I don't know who to trust any more."

Lillia took a sip of her tea, her face impassive. She had lost her two darlings, the only things she had in the entire world... she'd lost her daughter, who looked like her, and her only son... her only link to her lost husband. She stared on with dead eyes. She didn't even flinch when she realized the tea she was drinking was poisoned.
Zack ran down the road. He ran into Harris and, seeing the officer's uniform, began to scream.
"They're dead! Lillia, oh my Lillia I should've been there!" He crumpled to the ground, sobbing uncontrollably. Harris put his hand on his shoulder.
"They?" He questioned softly, looking up at doctor.
"Won... he's been murdered!"

"Alright... how did it happen?" The doctor stood over the crime scene, staring down at Won. It looked as though he were asleep. "Poison?" But no... the doctor turned him over and Harris gasped, the doctor flinching. His back had been stripped away and gutted out. They cringed in horror, the doctor swiftly turning him back over and covering his mouth with the back of his hand. He nodded. "Ok then how about Lillia?"

Once at her house, they knew.
"The tea..." Harris whispered, noting the cup cradled in her hands, stiff with rigor mortis. "Who's doing this?"
"That's been the question all along. But why can't we stop it? This is... this is... so..." A scream resounded and they fled the room.

Elli was cleaning the room, doors and windows locked. The dead bodies were in the back of the room, as she had insisted they be moved for health purposes. They had tags on them, ready to be moved to a freezer and eventually cremated. She was just about done cleaning when she heard something. It sounded like raw meat hitting the floor.

Slap. Slap. Slap. It was growing louder. She turned and her eyes widened.
"Why Elli... it looks as though you've seen a ghost."

She screamed.