Chapter 1- Serendipity Inn (1)
Blue skies and fluffly white clouds, unmistakably a beautiful sunny day with the summer breeze mischievously caressing her glistening wet skin
The sun ray particularly seems to favor her, it's light served as a halo making her white silver hair glow like priceless strands of silk
She squinted her eyes, pure like the green waters of the forest river
She looked around in a somewhat amused manner, it was all red that greeted her sight
Bloody mangled pieces of flesh strewn across the grassy floor of the shady forest, it's crimson clashed with the vibrant green grass, like the breezy wind meeting with foul acrid scent of rot
A chuckle escaped her red lips, curving in a beautiful arc that signify her current mood
Her bare feet pressed against the bloody puddle before lifting it again, and watching with mirth as the blood dripped down from her round toes to the short the green grass, droplets slid down before hiding inside the soil underneath
She looked at the intestines lying beside her feet and the man it came from, his eyes wide and blank, his mouth open with his tongue slack inside
She used her blood soaked toes to subtly poke him as if innocently waking a man deep in his sleep
"You died quite the funny way"
Indeed
His heart, liver, lungs, intestines, dug out
His arms, legs, and torso skinned
His muscles slashed and scraped
Beneath the overwhelming bloody smell she could also faintly perceive a hint of alcohol
It must have been poured on the wounds
His bones broken and fractured
And from the ropes and barbed whips lying beside him
There seems to have been a bit of a 'foreplay' before they got to the main dish
And from the absent signs of struggle in the sorroundings, he might have been drugged and paralyzed
Only his handsome face remain relatively unharmed while the rest of his body.... can't really say
For his murderer to keep his face intact, they must have wanted to see his expression, to watch his reaction as his body got tortured while his mind remained clear and sane, unable to move, unable to make a sound only capable of watching
That sight....
She ran her hand through her wet hair, her body clad in pristine but slightly wet pajamas
Her presence in this bloody tranquil scene is jarringly out of place
She looked at her wet hair and remebered that she was just about to dry her hair before diving into the land of sweet dreams
"It picked out such an inconvenient time"
She grumbled softly, her beautiful eyebrows furrowed slightly forming creases on her smooth jade like skin
"I was just about to sleep"
She directed her gaze towards a floating blue panel infront of her somewhat resentfully, obviously blaming it for being such a bother
[SPECIAL TASK: GAIN THEIR TRUST 0/5]
[ADDITIONAL TASK: KILL THEM WHILE THEY TRUST YOU 0/4]
[SUPPLEMENTARY TASK: (PERMISSION TO FAIL) CHOOSE ONE TO KILL YOU 0/1]
"Ha"
***
5 people gathered around in a spacious bedroom
3 men and 2 women, one of them man wore a slighty cracked glasses, his bearing exhausted, his clothes wrinkled and disheveled
He looked towards one of the man, giving him a slightly strained smile
"I didn't see him, I wasn't with him, I was digging in the garden searching for clues"
The other man scoffed, an old scar ran from his temple to his cheek, he gave the glasses man a mocking grin
"Digging the garden? While digging you might as well have planted flowers, who knows when it bloomed you can pluck them and place them in his tombstone"
One of the woman looked worriedly at them, she then cast a pleading glance towards one of the man leaning against the wall, the shadows obscured his features making it hard to discern his current expression
After waiting for a while and not seeing a response the woman looked towards scar face and spoke somewhat nervously
"Chris you shouldn't say that, we haven't confirmed whether John is dead or alive, we should be thinking of ways to look for him and not argue within ourselves"
Chris gave the woman who spoke a look of contempt
"I haven't even got you yet you're speaking up, since you're so eager then let me ask you, John and you seem quite close aren't you? I saw you two whispering by the stairwell just yesterday, what were you guys talking about"
The woman took a sharp breath as if she couldn't believe what he was saying
"What do you mean by that? John was just telling me that my period blood leaked out and whispered it to me so that I wouldn't be embarrassed in case someone overhears"
The woman spoke without any embarassement that one would expect from a girl talking about her cycle with the opposite sex
She has seen in previous dungeons where people get picked and sacrificed or maliciously schemed against because of some little suspicion
Shyness? Embarassment? Those things wouldn't be able to save her ass once danger really stared her in the face
Chris: "Why are you being so defensive? It's as if you have something to hide"
"Chris that's enough" The other woman spoke up when she saw the woman on the brink of tears
"We shouldn't be arguing right now, let's look for John first"
Chris gave a humph before going quiet, he was irritable and frustrated, it's been 3 days since the dungeon started and each day is worse than the last and his individual task....
He gritted his teeth in anger just the thought of it
"Laura where did you last see John yesterday?"
Laura took a deep breath, forcing down her tears that gathered in her eyes
"At the stairwell in the afternoon when he reminded me of my menstrual blood leaking, I went back to my room to change my clothes and when I got out I didn't see him again"
The woman nodded then turned to the glasses wearing man
"Mark?"
"I saw him at the dining table during breakfast, he told me the innkeeper seemed quite attached to his garden and was quite protective of it, he proposed we search for anything suspicious and possible clues"
The woman asked "But it seemed the plan didn't fall through?"
Mark rubbed his temples before fixing his glasses
"He went back to his room and came out freaking out, he was speaking incoherently and was on the verge of tears, he was panicking so much I could only pull him to the side trying to calm him down"
Mark sighed as if remembering his bewilderment of seeing a grown man breaking apart
"He said his token is missing, that it was from his wife and was the only thing she left behind for him, I'm no psychiatrist but he seemed to regard that token as his spiritual pillar, obviously in his state we couldn't search together for clues in the garden so I left on my own"
The woman nodded thoughtfully, this was news to her, she couldn't imagine that such a stable and reliable man like John would have such a side
Putting a pin on this thought, she turned to Chris
Chris took a deep breath, he's been under a lot of stress lately, with a ball of unsettled frustration in his chest, he tried to calm down not letting his impulsiveness jeopardy his chances of making out of here alive
Though he didn't like his team mates in this round, one was a nerdy know-it-all, another was a prententious person trying to act cool and mysterious, one of the women was delicate and fragile like a useless piece of vase, completely worthless while the other woman, he just didn't like her, taking the lead trying to appear smart, who was she trying to impress?
But he couldn't argue, he still neeed these people to help him survive
"I saw him huddling inside his blanket taking an afternoon nap in our room, tried to wake him but his eyes just wouldn't open thought he died or something but he was just having a deep sleep, after that I didn't bother and left to look for clues"
The woman gave Chris a stare before nodding she paused before speaking her turn
"I last saw him coming out of the shared bathroom in the morning before breakfast after that I stayed in the study looking for clues and didn't go out"
They then turned to the quiet man leaning against the wall
The man spoke in a very calm and steady voice
"In the garden after dinner, he was squatting while searching in the shrubs"
The woman nodded thoughtfully
"Do you know what he was searching?"
The man thought for a moment as if he was recalling
"He didn't say what exactly, only said it's a token of love"