Adrian woke up to Ariza shouting "Wake up!" and banging on everyone's doors in a panic. He heard his twin sister groaning in irritation from her room. He knew her well enough that he knew she was trying to bury herself in blankets.

Adrian sighed and put on a shirt. It seemed all the females in their little group like sleep (Rin more so). The only difference was that Annie and Ann will be awake by the time they got to the bathroom. Rin is just dead to the world until she wakes up herself up.

Then he frowned, remembering the revelation last night. It was enough to make him tempted to lay down and sleep forever, oblivious of the dangers.

He shook his head out of his thoughts, and got up and stomped outside to see what's happening.

Ariza was still in her pajamas, but she didn't either didn't care or notice, because she continued banging on doors. Everyone was grumbling and stumbling out of their rooms, even people like Rin Dead-To-The-World Joanne Lycan were walking out of their rooms, rubbing their eyes. Adrian even spotted his sister peeking out the door.

Then Adrian saw Jesse looking around with worry and finally noticed that there was one person missing: Angelina Amari.

This worried Adrian. From what he heard, Angel was a morning person, the kind that is annoyingly cheerful when it's 4 AM in the morning. Not to mention, all the Order are trained to be ready to fight at the slightest shout. All her friends were alert and ready to fight with their weapons in hand (Adrian did not want to find out why Jace had a metal baseball bat) — there's no way she won't be awakened up by Ariza's shouting.

That's when Ann ran out of her office.

"Ariza, it's 6 AM in the morning, why on Earth are you banging on everyone's doors like this? She demanded. She was wearing nothing but gray sweatpants, black socks, and a blue bathrobe, so it was kinda hard to take her seriously until she starts shouting.

Ariza turned to her and rambled off so fast, Adrian had to ask her to slow down three or four times.

"Went to the kitchen to get some food, saw the door open, went to check, room a mess, blood everywhere on the floor, searching everywhere — Angel's gone!"

The last part woke everyone up in an instant.

"WHAT?!"


"What the hell do you mean she's gone?"

Jesse was panicking. It was bad enough that Maya died, but it was even worse that Angel vanished from her room last night. Jesse didn't know what to do. She's supposed to be the leader, she has to keep everyone safe and look what happened.

"Jesse, calm down! Shaking Ariza is not going to help this, you're just stopping us from getting answers!" Olivia shouted over the endless questions and shouts. "Ariza, please start over— what happened? How did you found out?"

"I told you!" Ariza cried, looking distressed. "I went to the kitchen to get some food, saw her door open, thought it was strange and decided to check inside, and she's gone! Her room is a mess! Go check!"

Jesse shoved her aside ("Sorry!") and look inside. Ariza was right. Angel's room was a mess. Her blankets were everywhere, as though she used them to try to stall whoever's attacking her. Her notebooks were tore to shreds (Jesse spotted drawings of Aiden and Maya together, beaming, and had to look away), her books were (thankfully not destroyed or Angel will throw a fit) scattered all over the bed and floor, and the all the furniture except her bed, which was only slightly bent, were completely destroyed. There was blood on the floor, trailing to the TV, as though a body was being dragged.

"Ariza…" Jace's voice said slowly. He sounded shaky and afraid, but Jesse didn't blame him. "D-Did you move anything…?"

To Jesse's increasing horror, Ariza shook her head. "No… The moment I saw the blood, I searched all over the lodge for any clues that Angel might run out of her room to escape her attacker… there wasn't any…"

No evidence of a fight outside her room, Jesse thought, realization dawning on her. Does that mean…?

Jesse shook her head and furiously wiped at her eyes. There was still hope that she might be buried under the broken furniture, stirring weakly at the voices. She turned to Axel and Petra. If there was a chance Angel's dead body wasn't anywhere in the room, she was going to take it.

Help me, Jesse wanted to say, her emerald eyes that Angel (her heart wrenched) would fondly call Potter eyes were sad and pleading. I can't do this alone...

She couldn't speak from shock, but thankfully, they got the message. The two nodded at her and headed inside. She followed them.

She, Petra, and Axel lifted up the broken drawer, which was where the largest amount of blood was. She laid eagle-spread, blonde hair spread out on the floor, stained with blood, wide, horrified, blank silver eyes stared up at them, her mouth open in a silent scream. They were staring at Angel's decapitated head

Jesse screamed and backed away so fast, she knocked into Lukas.

"Oh, my Notch!"

"What the hell?!"

"I never even got to apologize for—"

"Aiden, please breathe!"

"WHO THE FUCK KILLED HER—"

Jesse sobbed into her hands as everyone started screaming and crying. She couldn't bring herself to look at the rest of the body to see if it was in pieces as well. The head was enough to make her break down.

Her breath hitched as she felt a pair of strong arms wrap themselves around her in a hug. Breathing into the scent revealed that it was Lukas.

She buried her face in his jacket.

They just lost Maya. She spent the entire night in Lukas' room, crying and smiling over memories of Maya because she had nightmares of her getting murdered, each of them even more gruesome than the last. Now they lost Angel, and now Jesse doesn't know what to do without imagining her head under the drawer—

"Hey," Lukas said softly. "I'm here.."

She felt Lukas' hand slip off her back and take her hand and squeezed it, which made her feel better and not for the last time, grateful for his presence.

"Angel told me to toughen up and stop stuttering around you when we were driving, you know," he said. "She's a tough girl. She probably did as much damage to whoever killed her."

Jesse swallowed and squeezed back. In her opinion, there was only one thing good about being trapped in the lodge was getting closer to Lukas. They didn't kiss yet, but Jesse had hopes… if they get out alive at least.

When she pulled away, she saw Axel holding Angel's body, which covered up in Angel's blankets. Her face was uncovered, but this time, her eyes were closed and her mouth was covered, which Jesse was thankful for.

Jesse felt her hands form into fists. "Come on… I-I can't stay here any longer…"

She wondered if they noticed her stutter, but to her relief, they didn't say anything about it and began walking to the living room.

Jesse mused that the long-nosed man she and Angel have been seeing in their dreams would be disappointed that the one person who has the advantage over her is dead.


Rin: Angel's dead.

Aaron: You're joking. I thought she was already the victim of the first Hunting Game!

Rin: She wasn't a victim. She was murdered last night.

Aaron: What?!

Rin: I'm not even joking. She was in pieces under the drawer.

Aaron: What on earth happened?

Rin: Ariza went to the kitchen to get some food and noticed Angel's door open.

Rin: She went inside to investigate and saw the blood on the floor, then woke all of us up and told us what happened.

Rin: Jesse, Petra, and Axel went to search for any evidence of a body and found her head under the drawer. Jesse broke down, so Petra and Axel continued on and found her torso under the bed, her legs under the floorboards, and her arms behind the broken TV.

Aaron: Damn, I can't even imagine how her friends are feeling...

Aaron: Do you think it's her who killed Angel?

Rin: I'm positive.

Aaron: But what confuses me is why her? Jesse is the leader of the Order, not Angel. No offence to her of course.

Rin: I have a hunch…

Rin: Have I told you about Personas?

Aaron: You told me the basics.

Rin: Good, then you'll understand this even without the rest of information.

Rin: Angel and Jesse are both equally stubborn and a great believer in just

Aaron: ...Rin?

Aaron: Rin, are you okay?

Aaron: RIN?!


Jesse stared up at Aiden's white face as the giant ocelot prowled around him. It was cruel to put him in the same death trap as Maya. She wondered when she'll be ready to take her on...

But she wasn't ready yet. The long-nosed man said so. She could barely remember her dream with him, but she remembered that for some strange reason, he said fire blocks fire. He also said she won't be able to do much with her.

Absurdly, Jesse found herself thinking that Angel never ever thought much about the long-nosed man. Sure, they would discuss it during the intermissions, but Angel would be distracted by why she wanted to kill them.

She gritted her teeth and turned to Gill, whose leather jacket was the item they have to find in the lodge.

"We'll try our best," she told Gill. "We'll avenge him if we fail. Just hang in there."


"AIDEN! NO!"

"Jesse, we're too late, h-he's dead!"

"No! We just lost Maya—we can't lose him too! I don't care what Aiden did yesterday, he doesn't deserve to die!"

"He didn't even get to say anything…"

"That bitch! She knew that our grief will make us faster… she sent more of those monsters after us! Gugh—!"

"Axel—!"

"Oooh, good dodge~ But you might not be so lucky next time~"

"Grrrr…"

"How many more of us are going to die…? How many of us are going to be slaughtered until she's satisfied?..."

"I don't know, Seri… I don't know…"

"How cruel can she be to have him be murdered by the same thing that killed his girlfriend?!"

"Cruel enough to do this. Look, that body's already being dragged away."

"Did you have to point that out?!"

"The Order are already suffering the loss of three friends!"

"Pointing that out will make it worse!"

"And we don't want that."

"They're right, Mase. Come on. Let's get out of here. I need to discuss something with the twins and Rin."

"Huh? Oh right, that thing."

"..."

"Gill, are you coming?"

"Yeah, just give me a second."

"...alright then."


When she woke up in this strange, foggy, world, she wondered who she was and why she was here.

She heard her breathing and her grunts of pain, the headache that continued to pain her irritated her to no end. Her blood slowly dripped down her forehead, her hair stained with red.

As far as she knew, she had no name, no friends, no backstory, etc... None of which she remembered anyway. All she remembered was a face of a smiling woman that looked just like hers and a laughing man who picked her up and spun her around.

Her mother and father, Lyra and Luis. She couldn't remember their last names, but at least it was something. The memories of them were frustratingly dim, and they made her sad for some reason.

She didn't know why she was here, or why those monsters keep attacking her despite her efforts. All she knew (and that was after speaking with a strange long-nosed man) was that she needs to get out of this world and to find her true self, whatever that was.

Her hand reached for her weapon, an aqua green, thin, light, sharp-pointed sword used for thrusting. A rapier, she remembered. At least she remembered some things. The hilt was engraved to circle around her hand, like a small, elegant storm. It was stained with Shadow blood from the times she stabbed and slashed at monsters, cutting them in half and running away before the monsters reformed.

She stood up and faced the world that looked so familiar, but at the same time, not.

"Ready as I'll ever be…"