Caen's Lair

Wordlessly, Caen jumps up to fetch a phone from upstairs, and you call for help. The paramedics confirm Cin's initial assessment, and after they leave, you're all a tad numb. No one feels like doing anything fun anymore, so you just go to bed with the door locked and your flashlights next to you, and while it doesn't necessarily feel like it, you survive the night.

"If it helps, you're not last," comes Cin's voice behind him as he's crouched over Red's body. He turns around so quickly he loses his balance, and it's what does him in.
She shoves the knife into his throat with so much force that she can feel it meet the resistance of his spine in the back.

He does gurgle loud enough to alert Caen, but she, too, doesn't suspect Cin and is easily disposed of.

He takes a deep breath and decides he isn't a damn fool. Their dorm room is right down the hall, and while he doesn't outright run, it's a damn close thing.

He locks the door, pushes the side table in front of it, and then calls the police. The operator is a bit alarmed at hearing how they reacted to a death in their midst, but at least the rather dire situation ensures he doesn't have to wait too long, stewing in his own panic.

Caen is peering into a room that wasn't locked when she hears footsteps behind her. She turns, spooked, but it's just Cin. Cin who is holding a kitchen knife.

Tump is the hardest, because by now he must have caught onto the fact that something is up: he is walking around at double the pace he set off at, hastily shining his flashlight into corners. He is probably alarmed at not having encountered anyone else in the last minutes, so she picks a spot and waits.

He sees her as he approaches, of course, but he doesn't see what she's carrying behind her back.

You decide to split up: Tump and Red will take the upstairs, Caen and Sylvi the downstairs, and after you've done a quick sweep of the building you'll meet back in the kitchen and decide how to cover the campus.

It goes well, which is to say it goes poorly: you don't find a damn thing. At every corner you expect someone to jump out at you, or maybe ram a knife into your back, but nothing happens.

Tump and Red are walking along the side of the math building, when behind them they hear Cin scream. They hurry back to where the groups parted and retrace the other two's steps, but to little success. After only about two minutes of frantic searching, Tump whips around at a rustling sound behind him to find that Red, too, has disappeared.

When the police do arrive a short amount of time later, they find no trace of anyone but Mess. In the morning the place is searched, and three more bodies are recovered. It's a PR nightmare for the department.

Together, you walk through the entire dorm in tense silence. Except for the corpse on the kitchen floor, there isn't a single thing amiss in the entire building. It's unsettling as all hell.

Later the police remark on how shaken you all look considering barely anything happened, but they're not the ones who waited in an empty building for half an hour, with your friend dead and no idea who did it.

And worse, you never do find out who did it.

You sit together quietly, the door locked and not speaking, until the police arrive. They do a sweep of the house, call you crazy, and leave with Mess' body and the promise to return to question you.

You decide you're being paranoid, and just call an ambulance. No one much feels like returning to your sleep over plans, but you're also all too far from home to leave this far into the evening.

Those who have contacts that will answer at this hour step out to call them, and the rest of you sit cooped up in the room, pissing away the time on your phones, trying not to think about the phrase 'sitting ducks'.

It's really very easy to pick you off one by one without anyone suspecting anything. Only two hours later, a distressed Cin calls the police to tell them about how something terrible must have happened to all of her friends.

You let another five minutes pass, before you seem to collectively come to the decision that something must be done. Grabbing your phones and flashlights, you set out to investigate.

As it turns out, you don't have to go far for answers: you discover Mess, unmoving, laying on the bottom floor under the banister of the gallery when you shine your lights down into the kitchen. While you're checking it for a pulse (hopeful despite the pool of blood gathering around its head), you hear the front door open.

You're on high alert immediately, but it's just Cin. Cin, who explains that she could make it after all before she realizes you're all just wordlessly staring at her.

You call for help and wait in the lobby for the authorities to arrive, and then you just. Go upstairs to sleep.

You exchange a meaningful look and wait for Red to return, at which point you convince them to stay in the (locked room) until the ambulance arrives, and then for the rest of the night. The second is a harder sell, but you manage.

Red looks at you oddly when the death is not ruled accidental.

Leaving your dead friend's side, you return to the room where Red is pacing, talking to an operator on the phone. You lock the door and push something against it, and Red looks at you aghast - when you explain about the open door their face turns ashen, and they quietly explain to the operator that they will have to hang up to call the police now.

"That was Cin," says Caen, breathless. She wasn't even supposed to be there today, so why is she here?

You hurry down the hallway, jumpy, your hearts going at the rate of a small rodent's.

It is this hyperawareness that saves you: when Cin comes at you with a knife from a shadowed corner, you both spot the movement immediately. There is only one conclusion to be drawn here, and it isn't pleasant, but together you have the upper hand. She scratches you up something awful, but you manage to disarm her.

Fight or flight kicks in at the sound, and flight wins out. You bound down the stairs and out through the lobby, and you don't stop running until you're at least 4 streets down and can barely breathe anymore. With no jackets, phones, or flashlights, you collapse against the pole of a streetlight and wait to have enough oxygen flow to your brains again to think of what to do now.