Amazing! I love your writing style.

oOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO this is so good! sorry darkvine…

Ahhhh i love the suspense! I keep reading the parts late though ahahaha 

@All the lovely amazing people who have commented so far: thank you so, so much! It means so much to me <333

Here's Darkvine's death avatar 🙂 Next part out tomm!! 

Last night I had a dream that I died in this ski lodge and was so confused for a minute.  Anyway, this is so interesting so far and the writing is beautiful!

{10 minutes before the murder of Darkvine}

“Hmm,” Writing said, cards fanned out dramatically in front of their face. Rat was sitting on one of the many chairs in the common room along with the other players, who were all seated in a circle.

“Just go already!” Tenney exclaimed, popping a bite-sized chocolate chip cookie in her mouth. She was dressed in an European middle ages outfit today, a velvet dress with detailed embroidery spidering through it and dangle gem earrings, hair in a braid crown around her head. “You’ve been thinking for, like, five minutes.”

“Okay, okay,” Writing conceded, picking a card from his hand and slamming it down on the table. The queen of spades. “Sorry, Pangolin.”

“Nooo!” Pangolin wailed, taking the stack of cards from the middle. “I have so many hearts in my pile, too. I’m totally gonna lose now that I have the queen.”

“Better luck next time,” Echo said good naturedly. Of course, she was winning with no hearts and the jack of diamonds in her pile.

The group played a few more rounds, and Pangolin, who had at this point resigned themself to losing, took more hearts into their pile.

“Last round,” Hawkstar said, placing her last card in the middle. The others followed suit and she picked up the cards and added them to her deck. 

Echo stretched, reveling in her win. “Good game, folks.”

Wildsong frowned and shifted through her card pile. “Wait a second- did anyone else other than Pangolin get any hearts at all?”

There was a quick moment of silence as everyone checked their decks before Amarillis said, “Uhh, nope.” The other players responded the same way.

“Hold on,” Pangolin said, counting her cards. “Yes- thirteen hearts and the queen of spades! I shot the moon! I win!”

“What?!” Echo shouted. “No fair! How did nobody realize that she was getting all of the hearts?”

“Pure skill,” Pangolin responded, which was a blatant lie, but no one needed to know that.

The group continued to laugh and chat as they cleaned up the cards and snacks. Storm was reading a book nearby, and she looked up and smiled at the fun that her guests were having. 

“Do you guys want to play a game of hide-and-seek?” Periwinkle asked. 

“Ooh, good idea!” Writing agreed. “Do you want to be the seeker first?”

“Sure. I’ll start counting now.” She closed her eyes and covered them with her hands. “One, two, three…” She could hear the other guests scattering and the pitter-patter of feet going up the stairs.

“Twenty-nine, thirty. Ready or not, here I come!” Periwinkle opened her eyes and started the climb up the stairs. While she was counting, she decided that she would start from the top floor and make her way down. She would get the few people hiding in the bedrooms (not a lot of places to hide in there) before the common room and outside, where most of the players surely were.

Peri reached the top bedroom a little out of breath, eyes peeled to find anyone crouching behind the dresser or on the top bunk. Of course, the first thing that she saw was the body of Darkvine, who was crumpled on the ground, blue-purple-black bruises all around her neck.

Unlike when she found Reuby, Peri did not scream. No, the white noise building in her ears muffled her own ragged breathing and left no room for any other sounds. She simply turned and ran.

And so began the chain of events that would lead Periwinkle down a path filled with strife to a most unfortunate end.

~~~

Dead: 2 (Reuby Moonnight, Darkvine)

Alive: 9 (Tenebrous, Periwinkle, Pangolin, Echo, Wildsong, Sterling, Hawkstar, Writing_in_the_dark, Amarillis)

Aaand I'm dead. Well at least I might get to haunt people 🙂

the story is amazing so far, and the art is so cool! keep it up! 😀 

I have a bad feeling that Peri will be the next to go….

Day 3, Part 1:

The next day dawned drearily, dark clouds hanging low in the sky forebodingly. The funeral for Darkvine was quite similar to Reuby’s, meaning that they both were horribly sad and also somewhat off-putting. In just a few days the entire atmosphere of the so called ‘vacation’ flipped from a mildly dangerous but fun adventure to some sort of murder hotbed. Everyone was on edge. Which was probably why Storm got them all up and out of bed first thing in the morning, corralling them in the common room.

“Good morning, my friends!” she said cheerily. “How is everyone doing?”

There was a faint chorus of negative sounding grumbles and mutterings in response. 

She frowned. “Oh come now, that won’t do.” Her tone shifted into something a little less forced, a little more serious. “I know that you all are nervous, what with the tragic circumstances of Reuby and Darkvine’s death. But listen: I am your host here, and it is my job that you all have a good time, no matter what. I promise I’m using everything in my power to figure out what is happening and stop it as soon as possible. You shouldn’t worry.”

Amarillis was worried. She was very worried. “Um, excuse me,” she piped up. “Why can’t you just send us home? Better safe than sorry, right?”

“Unfortunately, that is not within my power,” Storm responded. “But something that I can do is plan a little something fun for you all to do to raise your spirits. Let’s head outside, everyone!”

Amarillis did not at all like how vaguely her question was answered, even more so how quickly Storm changed the subject after. She didn’t know why more people weren’t being assertive about it, but scared people need reassurance sometimes, and maybe Storm was providing them with enough of that to make them feel safe enough to stay a little longer.

The group (feeling still a bit down but now slightly less so) migrated outside, feet thump-thump-thumping down the wooden steps. Now, for the most part we have been inside (with the exception of the funerals), so let me take a moment here to remind you what the island looks like: barren rock mostly, about the size of a few football fields, with vegetation such as short, weathered trees and weeds sticking out from a crack in the stone here and there. The flat landscape was occasionally disrupted by sharp outcroppings of rock bursting from the ground in uneven patterns. Of course, there was the wooden staircase that led down to the beach, but other than that, the edges of the island sloped steeply down into the water. Speaking of which, the sound of the waves striking the cliff faces was overwhelming and ubiquitous, and it took a few minutes for everyone’s ears to get adjusted to it.

“Out here, you will be doing a scavenger hunt. I have hidden fifteen seashells around the island; the team to find the most wins,” Storm said, voice pitched much louder than usual. Her words were overlaid with the screeching of the seagulls wheeling overhead. “The teams are as follows: Echo, Peri, Sterling, and Writing on team one and Hawkstar, Tenebrous, Wildsong, Amarillis, and Pangolin on team two.”

The guests gathered into their teams, now feeling a little excited.

“We’ll have to be faster since we have one less person,” Writing said. “Let’s split up to cover more ground.” The team nodded in agreement.

“Okay, everyone ready?” Storm asked.

There was a chorus of ‘yes!’ and ‘ready!’s from the crowd.

“Go!”

~~~

Dead: 2 (Reuby Moonnight, Darkvine)

Alive: 9 (Tenebrous, Periwinkle, Pangolin, Echo, Wildsong, Sterling, Hawkstar, Writing_in_the_dark, Amarillis)

~~

Please except this short and relatively uneventful part which is late because I got up super early to make it to school in time for 4+ hours of AP testing which I just got out of so i’m a little tired hahah

this is amazing! can't wait for more!

As soon as they were given the go-ahead, team one split up in different directions, running carefully as to not trip over the uneven ground. Sterling immediately went around to the back of the lighthouse, eyes roving over the landscape for anything out of the ordinary. There- a small flash of pink nestled next to the outer wall of the lighthouse in a dip in the ground. A seashell, perfectly whole and shiny, color reminiscent of cherry blossom petals.

“Yes!” fae exclaimed, stooping down to pick it up. 

On the other side of the lighthouse, Echo and Hawkstar spotted a seashell sitting on a low hanging branch at the same time. They locked eyes and both began sprinting towards it. They seemed pretty even before Hawkstar stumbled on a loose rock and lost a few precious seconds, giving Echo the opportunity to snatch the shell and run away grinning. 

The next twenty minutes were like a mash up between a scavenger hunt and tag; it was a miracle that no one tripped into each other with the amount of running around happening. Storm kept track of the amount of shells collected by each team, and after a considerable amount of time it was tied with seven each.

The nine CBers slowed down, checking and rechecking the nooks and crevices around the island, looking for anything that they might’ve missed. Tenney, who was dressed (unfortunately) in early 2000s fashion, and Echo decided to stay near Storm and wheedle the last shell’s location out of her with a variety of bribes and threats and pleas before ultimately seeing that their attempts were futile and leaving to go search with the others. 

Hawkstar was walking the premise of the island when she spotted something that she hadn’t seen before: a little pathway behind a large outcropping of rocks. It was only a few feet wide, and one side dropped off into the cliffs. It looked a little scary, but hey, if she was careful then she would be fine, right? 

She shuffled down the pathway with her back to the rocks, facing the ocean. Her gaze was tilted up to the sky, knowing that looking down at the drop in front of her would only make it worse. After a few minutes, Hawkstar finally spotted the coveted pink color of the seashell, perched on a curve in the rock. 

She reached out and grabbed it, taking a relieved breath and turning around to make her way (slowly) back to the others and claim the win for her team.

But, there was something blocking the pathway back. A person.

A person? What were they doing there?

They were smiling in a genuinely friendly way. “Oh, Hawkstar! You found the last shell.”

“Yeah,” she said. “Sorry, but I should get this to Storm now.”

“Right, right,” the person said, one hand shooting out and resting firmly on Hawkstar’s shoulder. “You should be careful, you know. It’s very slippery here; you could fall.”

“Oh,” Hawkstar said somewhat weakly. She thought it a bit strange that the other person was still smiling, especially after saying such a thing. “Don’t worry, I’ll be careful. You don’t have to help me.” She tried to shift out from under the person’s hand, but their grip was firm. 

“Can I go?” she asked, and her voice was very quiet now. Like the kind of tone you use to placate a wild animal.

“Yes, of course,” they said brightly, fingers digging into Hawstar’s shoulder. “You’re going alllll the way down.” 

<><><>

Writing was getting quite tired of funerals. Before this, they had only been to a few, and they had felt like important affairs. But these island funerals were shaping up to be a little repetitive. It was the same: body in the boat, dried flowers in the hair (although the color of the flowers varied a little for each person), Storm’s farewell (and regret for putting the last seashell in such a dangerous position, in this case), and crushing silence. It was hard to focus on having fun and adventuring when there was a funeral every day.

Of course, rat felt horrible for even briefly thinking these thoughts. People were dying, for crying out loud, and he could be the next. 

It was early afternoon by the time that they sent off Hawkstar’s body. She looked just as alive as the other two; that is, she looked as if she were sleeping (although there was a strange stiffness about her).

Storm spoke and once again silence swirled through the air. Writing thought their own little goodbye and hoped, with all of his heart, that he would not ever be one of those little coffin shaped boats ever again.

~~~

Dead: 3 (Reuby Moonnight, Darkvine, Hawkstar)

Alive: 8 (Tenebrous, Periwinkle, Pangolin, Echo, Wildsong, Sterling, Writing_in_the_dark, Amarillis)