A/N: I have no excuse other than just forgetting to upload. Sorry. But we're nearing the end of the story, so things are speeding up! And I'm getting even more excited for your reactions.
Chapter 6: Werewolf, who will survive the night?
"I was completely frozen, Feliciano. I couldn't move. I heard them enter the room. I heard them use some sort of gas. And I couldn't move. It was only when I heard Gilbert being killed that I- I snapped," Ludwig is ranting to his boyfriend. He looks dishevelled. He looks like death warmed over. His normally carefully combed hair, sticking out to all sides and unkempt. His normally unwrinkled and clean clothes were thrown over his body as if they were a mere blanket. The buttons of his shirt are not even done.
The whole hall is silent. Not much sound to be heard. And I'm in a bad mood again. But at least we have a new lead. I now know for certain she uses a gas. What for, we don't know for certain. But I already speculated this. And I believe it's a mild sleeping gas.
After that, there's not much we can do. Every single night, our doors are locked. And every night it's like a game. A game where everyone goes to sleep and the next morning, one room has been chosen and the people inside have been slaughtered.
Werewolves. That's the game it reminds me of. A terrifying game to play in real life. A game where it's werewolves against villagers. The werewolves kill one villager each night. The villagers try to identify the werewolves during the day to try and survive. And that's exactly what our situation has now come down to.
The silhouette laughs to herself, this is too easy. Room 111. A Polish boy and a Lithuanian boy. A flash of silver. Gurgling. A stab. Three steps to the next bed. A repeat. And off she goes.
The second night, Feliks and Toris are done in. Ivan is getting really angry, three of his friends have now been killed. Everyone is angry. Everyone knew at least someone who has been a victim up until now.
"If that killer ever comes into my room. I will grant her the most painful death possible," I hear Ivan swear sinisterly to his two pseudo sisters and Yao.
"Toris promised us he wouldn't be killed," Raivis, a very childish looking boy from Latvia wails to Eduard. "He promised." And it breaks my heart. But we can only accept their fate.
Kiku, Laura and I think hard to make any more possible connections. We search for clues. For anything really. But the perpetrator is too smart, too skilled. And then we have to give up and go to sleep again. People are becoming scared. Laura crawls in bed with me again. The Nordics lock themselves together inside one room to protect each other. Some girls gather together again. And then comes night.
A group of students from Central Africa prays and gives each other courage by sticking close and believing in their respective religions. I can't help but feel hollow in a way as I look at them. I'm an atheist, I don't really follow any religion anymore. And now I wish I had some higher power or consciousness I could turn to and believe in. It's easier than believing in myself.
And outside, the storm is starting to brew and the wind is picking up speed. Right now, it's only some rain and wind, but everyone knows it'll get worse. Much worse.
The silhouette stands in front of room 001. She has unlocked the door. She can hear the voices from inside. But she can't open the door. They barricaded the door. The bastards. She doesn't have time for this. So, the silhouette locks the door again and moves onto the next room. Room 002. This door does open. There are three cats inside here. And two boys. One boy she recognizes, it's the boy that woke up on the second night. The other boy is bathed in the cats. She uses the gas. A flash of silver. Gurgling. A stab.
The silhouette smiles as the boy writhes under his sleeping cats. The silhouette doesn't bother the cats. She moves onto the other bed. The boy his shoulder is bandaged. She smiles. She did that. The silhouette softly strokes over the boy's cheek, she then grabs it to bare the neck. A flash of silver. Gurgling. A stab. And the silhouette is off into the night again.
On the third night, Herakles and Matthew are targeted. I'm devastated when I have to look at Matthew's blood-soaked body. And the three cats trying to get their owner to move. Even though he's just as bloody and lifeless as all of the ones before him. Why does everyone have to die? Why am I the only one who is surviving this hell? That murderer has come into my room already. She's stabbed me already. But why am I not dead? Why is everyone but me dying?
"Matthew," Laura sobs, crying into my chest. "How much longer is this going to go on?" she asks. "Why does everyone have to die?" she wails.
"This is going too far," Kiku exclaims.
"And we can't do a damn thing," I mutter, softly weaving my fingers through Laura's hair. She's still crying. I hug her tightly in comfort. In the hallway, the Nordics are awfully quiet. They're just standing there, and just watching in complete silence.
And outside, heavy rain and winds are coming down on the island, the storm is coming.
People are now really starting to become afraid. I hear some students mutter about how they are sleeping restlessly. Some don't sleep at all. Tim is demanding for Laura to come sleep with them. Laura refuses and says she feels safer with me. I secretly agree. I feel much safer when sleeping, knowing that Laura is right there, lying next to me.
Classes are being cancelled now, due to the storm and the murders. This only gives the students more time to worry and be focused on things they shouldn't. And since we don't even have to wear our uniforms during the day, some students just wear their pyjamas all day while staying in their rooms.
And then the fourth night rolls around. Laura and I hug each other tightly as we fall asleep. Outside, we can hear hail and a thunderstorm. We're scared. We're cold. But together we feel safe and warm.
The silhouette unlocks the door to room 115. Twins are sleeping in here. One she is reluctant to kill, he's openly gay. But the other is an asshole, and she will gladly kill him.
The silhouette throws the gas. Luckily, she still has plenty of the gas, without it she would have a lot of trouble. A flash of silver. Gurgling. A stab.
The silhouette pauses when she stands over the gay one. Would she do it? Is he really a villain? The silhouette shakes her head. Brothers share the same blood. He has to die too. A flash of silver. Gurgling. A stab.
The fifth night. Feliciano and Lovino are killed. This time, Ludwig snaps. He wails. He cries. Both Roderich and I have to stop him from spontaneously plunging his breakfast knife into his chest. He wails about wanting to cut out his own heart to stop it from hurting as he does so. In the end, Ivan slams a fist into Ludwig's face, making Ludwig fall off the bench in the process. The blonde comes out of his crazed state and calms down.
"I've always wanted to punch people," the Russian isn't smiling. "But this just makes me feel terrible," he admits. Ludwig has now lost both his only brother and his lover. Of course he reacts this way. I just silently help Ludwig sit back on the bench.
We don't find any evidence. Nothing. Nada. Zip. Zero. And the situation worsens. Roderich and Bash, the Swiss boy, decide to take Ludwig into their room that night; If only to know what he's rambling about in German.
Antonio is also devastated by Lovino his passing. They may not have been open about it, but everyone knew they were also sort of together. Lovino didn't want to admit it, so they kept quiet about it. But now that Lovino is gone, Antonio openly grieves for his lost love. João softly rubs his cousin's back as he consoles him.
Laura doesn't leave my side anymore. Kiku is becoming desperate. He's constantly hacking into everything he can, searching for traces of the camera footage that is consistently deleted every night. Eduard helps him, but they don't manage to get anything.
And then night comes again. And the storm rages on outside.
Room 205. The Iberian Peninsula cousins. According to the database anyway. The silhouette doesn't waste much time. She throws the gas. She kills the Spaniard first. A flash of silver. Gurgling. A stab.
When the silhouette looks at the Portuguese, she chuckles at their long brown hair. It looks like a girl's hairdo. A flash of silver. Gurgling. A stab. And the silhouette disappears into the night again.
The sixth night comes to an end with the Iberian cousins leaving us. There is no Lovino to grieve for Antonio's passing. So other people do it in his stead. The tension keeps growing. People are sleeping less. People are more anxious, twitchier. It's clear the students don't want anything to do with all of this. If their very obvious absence from our lives at the moment is anything to go by.
Laura has now officially started clinging to me. I don't mind at all. In fact, I'm glad. She keeps me sane in this hell where everyone is slowly going insane. Kiku clings to Ka Lung, his roommate, and Eduard. But when he's with us, he seems rather anxious. But he doesn't cling to us, he seems very reluctant to. Not that we would mind. But Kiku is clearly reluctant.
"I can't do this much longer, Arthur," Kiku confesses. There are gigantic bags under his eyes.
"No one can, Kiku." This is the only reply he gets as I slowly rub over the wound in my back that has started healing.
"But we have to," Laura still adds. "To stop this madness. We have to stop this," she desperately exclaims.
And the seventh evening comes like that. About ten minutes before the headteacher will come to lock the doors, Ludwig comes inside. He looks terrible. There are giant bags under his eyes. He has a stubble, premature as it is on the face of a sixteen-year-old.
"Hey, Arthur," he ignores Laura completely as he comes to stand in front of me.
"Hello, Ludwig," I greet him simply. I look him up and down. I have the urge to say, 'well, you have certainly had better days'. But I bite my tongue.
"I-I have to ask you something," he rubs with his thumb and index finger over the bridge of his nose.
"Sure, go ahead." I frown, what could he possibly ask me.
"The murderer-" Ludwig starts and already hitches. I sigh and gently guide him to the table in our room so he can sit down.
"Take your time, there's no rush," I comfort him as we take a seat. Laura stays a bit to the side; I think she doesn't want to interrupt or discourage Ludwig from talking.
"That murderer. What is their motive? Why are they killing people?" Ludwig finally seems to be able to form sentences. I look down at the table, where my hands are leaning on the surface. In my short silence, I listen to the rain barraging on the window.
"We don't know. We can only guess," I reply truthfully, looking back up at Ludwig.
"Then, can you make a guess for me?" The German looks at me intensely. I grimace and take a deep breath. Lightning strikes outside.
"The only thing I can think of would be hate." Now the thunder rumbles.
"Hate? Against whom? What have we ever done wrong?" Ludwig clenches his fists on top of the table and hangs his head a bit as he desperately asks me that.
"I don't know." I hate to have to say this to him. Ludwig sighs and I can see the tears well up in his eyes. A particularly harsh gush of wind makes the window rattle and I briefly look at it.
"Why did they all have to die?" the German asks no one in particular, hanging his head even lower and clinging with his hands in his hair now.
"Goodnight." The headteacher suddenly closes our door and locks it. Ludwig perks up and seemingly panics.
"Oh, no. I have to- this is not my room-" he stands up and reaches out with a hand, but Laura walks up to him and grabs that reaching hand.
"It's okay, Arthur and I can share a bed. You can sleep in Arthur's bed," Laura soothes him. Thunder rumbles again outside and I realize I missed the lightning.
When we're settled in bed and I reach to turn off the light, I can see Ludwig looking very sadly at us. Like he wishes Feliciano and he could lay like us. Like us? We aren't a couple. What am I saying? I turn off the light.
The door to room 009 is unlocked by the silhouette. The gas canister is already spraying gas as it rolls inside. A Swiss and an Austrian. And an empty spare mattress. The silhouette doesn't bother wondering why that mattress is there. She sneaks up on the Swiss first. She knows of his violent tendencies. The silhouette has witnessed it when the Swiss wanted to protect his sister.
A flash of silver. Gurgling. A stab. The silhouette also makes very quick work of the other boy. She accidentally crushes his glasses that were lying beside the bed. Well, it's not like the boy will need them anymore. And the silhouette disappears into the night once more. Thunder rumbling loudly outside.
The seventh night passes roughly. Ludwig is a light sleeper, and he constantly wakes up. He looks even worse in the morning. And when he finds out the room that he was supposed to be sleeping in that night was attacked, he broke down once more. It took Laura and me an hour to calm him down.
All of the surviving students are really teetering on the edge of mental breakdowns and depression. Every morning, I've been trying to be the first at the scene so I could clean the bodies with the janitors and keep other students away from these horrible sights straight out of horror films. The students don't even bother to go searching anymore. They aren't even curious anymore, when they see me standing by a closed room, they avoid me as if I were the bubonic plague itself.
Laura and I also decide to keep Ludwig in our room, he can't sleep alone anymore.
The weather forecast says the storm is going to start clearing up from tonight on, which means the police boats can almost depart.
That evening, Tim and Luca come to search for us once more. Luckily, Tim doesn't kick the door open this time, he just swings it harshly.
"Laura, if anything happens, shriek as loud as you can. I WILL kick down my door to come to help you," Tim says to his sister that night. Laura smiles happily at her brothers.
"I will, brother," she replies. Oh, the irony.
The silhouette unlocks the door of room 106. She's already throwing the gas inside before she enters. She waits for the canister to empty. And she enters. But when her eyes fall upon what have to be two occupied beds, she only finds empty ones. The silhouette's knives slip out of her sleeves in reflex. Good thing for her too.
The next thing she knows, a fist flies at her face. The silhouette should have known. Her martial arts safe her. She blocks the fist and kicks the tall blonde to the floor. A smaller blonde now swings at the silhouette with a branch. She catches the branch with one hand. The other hand slashes out. The boy's skin slices apart like butter under the razor-sharp knife. A flash of silver. Gurgling. A second stab.
"Luca!" the tall blonde has picked himself off the floor. The silhouette takes a fighting stance, ready to take him on too. The tall blonde growls at her. But then he seems to realize something. He lurches.
The silhouette strikes out with her knife. She misses the neck, that blue and white scarf is in the way. Why is that boy even wearing a scarf? Damn it! The boy latches onto her balaclava with his hands. He yanks. The thing comes clean off.
The silhouette isn't a silhouette anymore. Her face is bare. The boy's eyes widen.
"ARTHUR!" The boy calls out so loud the cleaning lady knows everyone can hear it. "IT'S THE OLDER CLEANING LADY! THE OLDER CLEANING LADY!" the boy bellows loudly. That's when the cleaning lady plunges her knife straight into the tall boy's chest. Straight into the lungs. And then the silhouette disappears into the night, forgetting about the balaclava clutched into the tall boy's hands.
I wake with a jolt when I hear very loud yelling. Someone is yelling my name very loudly. I jolt upright and wake Laura in the process too.
"IT'S THE OLDER CLEANING LADY! THE OLDER CLEANING LADY!" I can hear a loud male voice call out for the whole dorm building. Ludwig startles awake too in the bed on the other side of the room.
"Not again," Ludwig mutters.
"Tim!" Laura is alarmed and jumps out of bed. She runs to the door. She pushes at it, but it won't open. I quickly join her at the door.
"Out of the way, luv. I'm going to kick it down," I warn her before backing up. I then take a sprint towards the door. I jump and kick with both feet. The lock gives out under the force. The doorframe splinters. I come out on the other side, in the hall. I crash to the ground and grunt from the impact. My wound stings and pulls but I ignore it. I have other priorities right now.
"Come on!" Laura is already rushing down the stairs. I quickly pick myself up from the ground. I rush after her, my back stinging. I'm sure I just pulled my wound open again. And that when the stitches were just taken out yesterday. I curse but ignore it.
"Tim!" Laura cries out as she reaches the room of her two pseudo brothers. When I reach the first floor, I find Tim crumpled against the doorframe of his room at the far back of the hall. Laura is leaning over him. Her hands are hovering hesitatingly over a knife sticking out of Tim's blood-soaked chest.
"No, no, no. Please no." Laura's silent pleas are ignored by the tall blonde. He beckons me over weakly. I come to sit beside them. He hands me a black object. It's a balaclava.
"You were stuck- weren't- you?" Tim asks with a devious smirk. "Now- you kn- know who it- is." He croaks out.
"Why. Why did you do that, Tim? You should have escaped," Laura sobs as the light starts to leave her brother's eyes.
"To protect- you," Tim sighs out weakly. He then closes his eyes. And then the rising of his chest seizes. His hands go slack. His head lolls to the side. Laura cries again. I clench the balaclava in my hand. I don't bother going in to check on Luca. I already know what state the youngest of the three is going to be in.
Dead.
I softly pull Laura away from the body. I take her in my arms, shield her from the horrors. From this hell. She cries into my chest, clinging onto me as if I am the only thing keeping her alive. She weeps. And in between her sobs, she curses and begs. To whom, I don't know.
Endnote: Sooo, what do you all think? Comment your thoughts! I'm curious to know.
On a little side note, I never planned on having a nation be the bad guy, it didn't sit right with me because I knew people wouldn't like it. So instead, I let some choice-maker wheel choose a continent and then a part of the continent since it was Africa and then a country from that part. What country the person is from is in this way in no way connected to any beliefs or prejudices I have. It was purely by choice that this come to pass. But you'll have to see in the next chapter who they are and where they are from!