The Party

Fergus,³ Zeke,⁹ and Bessie¹ battle the gale to reach the vehicles parked in the woods. Keys turn; engines refuse to catch. Zeke⁹ pops the hoods: starter motors on all four cars have been deliberately damaged.

Defeated, they wade back onto the submerged bridge, but halfway across, the ancient timbers groan and splinter apart, plunging them into the freezing, debris-choked moat. Bessie¹ swallows foul water before clawing her way to the bank, Zeke⁹ and Fergus³ hauling her out. Drenched and shivering, they stumble into the castle with nothing but bad news.

The bridge was their only crossing point; now they are completely isolated. The storm shows no sign of relenting. The generator sputters, the lights flicker. The castle, once a thrilling venue, has become a prison, and the invisible warden holds all the keys.

While searching the upper floors in pairs, Hugo⁵ and Odette¹¹ decide to split up to cover more rooms. Moments later, Bessie,¹ looking out a lower window, sees a dark shape plummet past the glass and land with a sickening thud on the waterlogged lawn. She screams.

Outside, Odette¹¹ lies face-down, her head twisted, arm shattered. Abbas¹⁰ collapses, howling. They carry her into the servants' kitchen, laying her on the cold flagstones. Hugo,⁵ pale and trembling, admits they separated. His guilt seems real, but the others fix him with hard stares.

This was no accident — the open window, the silence before the fall — and Hugo⁵ was the last one known to be near her. The group fractures further, the first explicit accusations muttered in corners. Abbas¹⁰ refuses to leave his girlfriend's body, sitting alone with her in the freezing dark.

Checking on Abbas¹⁰ some time later, they find the kitchen empty. The group fans out, calling his name. A gurgling scream draws them to a bathroom door upstairs. Fergus³ and Shen⁷ reach it first and try to block Hugo,⁵ but he shoves through, then staggers backward, retching.

In the bathtub, Abbas¹⁰ lies in a lake of his own blood, five or six deep stab wounds puncturing his torso. The white tiles are streaked crimson, the metallic stench choking. Hugo⁵ sinks against the wall, trembling.

The killer has abandoned all subtlety; this is pure, intimate rage. Bessie¹ notices blood on Hugo⁵'s shoe, a damning detail that she keeps to herself for now. The group's terror curdles into a desperate, angry resolve: they will hide and ambush the murderer when he returns for the bodies.

Bessie,¹ Fergus,³ Hugo,⁵ and Shen⁷ cram into cupboards and behind counters in the cold kitchen where Odette¹¹'s body rests. After an agonizing wait, the door creaks open. A figure in baggy dark clothing and a deep hood steps toward the body.

Fergus³ bursts out first, wrapping his arms around the intruder, but a long knife flashes. The killer shoves Fergus³ into Hugo,⁵ sending both crashing into the table, and bolts. By the time Bessie¹ scrambles free, the corridor is empty.

She glimpsed a pale hand during the struggle — not Zeke⁹'s darker skin, not Hugo⁵'s tan, perhaps Oscar's? But he is miles away. Fergus³ is accused of letting the killer go; he protests that the knife scared him. The failure infuriates everyone, and the cracks between them become canyons.

Searching the upper floor, Bessie,¹ Kash,² and Hugo⁵ discover a cabinet hinged like a door, revealing a steep staircase. At the bottom, a black backpack contains their stolen phones (all drained of battery), printed photographs of the castle grounds showing Fergus³'s car, and a folded sheet of paper.

The list, written in elegant cursive, catalogues the dead and the doomed: Jia,⁸ Odette,¹¹ Abbas,¹⁰ Bessie,¹ Kash,² Allegra,⁴ Zeke.⁹ Hugo⁵'s name is conspicuously absent. Kash²'s face hardens; she accuses him on the spot.

Bessie¹ defends him, arguing that a real killer would never leave his own name off such damning evidence. But the seeds of distrust are sown. The list reframes the murders as a choreographed sequence, and seeing her own name in ink makes Bessie¹'s pulse race with pure, primal fear.

After a blazing argument, Kash² storms off alone. Bessie¹ tracks her to a shower room where she finds Kash² catatonic, staring into a concealed chamber. Inside, the bodies of Jia,⁸ Odette,¹¹ and Abbas¹⁰ are heaped together like discarded dolls. The stench of decay clings to the air.

While coaxing Kash² to move, Bessie¹ notices a green granola bar wrapper tangled in the killer's bag — the exact organic brand Allegra⁴ eats obsessively. Back in the ballroom, Bessie¹ sees Allegra⁴ has placed more of those same bars on the food table.

The connection is a lightning strike: Allegra,⁴ the hostess whose meticulous planning made this weekend possible, may be the architect or the accomplice. Bessie¹ and Kash² resolve to escape with Allegra,⁴ but they know trusting anyone now is a gamble with their lives.

Allegra⁴ and Shen⁷ slip away to use the bathroom. While Shen⁷ stands by the sink, the frosted window explodes inward. A masked figure grabs Shen,⁷ jerks his head back, and slashes his throat in a single, brutal arc. Blood sprays across Allegra⁴'s face. She freezes, her limbs locked, unable to scream or move. The killer climbs back out the window and disappears.

When she finally stumbles into the corridor, she runs into Fergus,³ who claims he was attacked in the cellar and stabbed in the stomach. His clothes are saturated with blood, but something about his story does not sit right. Shen⁷'s death leaves Allegra⁴ shattered and the group reduced to five: Bessie,¹ Allegra,⁴ Hugo,⁵ Zeke,⁹ and a wounded, limping Fergus.³

Bessie¹ creeps through the darkened corridors to retrieve Kash,² who has been hiding alone. On the landing, she sees Kash² pinned against a man's chest, a blade pressed to her throat. The hooded figure shakes his head when Bessie¹ pleads, then deliberately stabs Kash² in the abdomen. Blood pulses between Kash²'s fingers as she crumples to the floor.

Her eyes lock on Bessie,¹ and she mouths for her to run. Bessie¹ sobs, hesitates, then bolts down the stairs, the sound of her best friend's dying gurgle chasing her. She screams for Allegra⁴ to go, but when she reaches the ballroom, the windows are filled with the silhouettes of two killers. There is no escape through the halls; the only path is through the storm outside.

In the ballroom, Bessie,¹ Allegra,⁴ Hugo,⁵ and Zeke⁹ stare at the two hooded figures. One lowers his hood: Fergus,³ his smirk a knife of betrayal. The wounds he claimed were faked.

He confesses to orchestrating the weekend's nightmare: he was driving the car that crashed last year, then swapped seats with the unconscious Raif⁶ to escape a DUI. To bury witnesses and claim the castle from his father, he manipulated Raif⁶ into becoming his executioner. Zeke,⁹ enraged, charges; Fergus³ thrusts the blade into his thigh, severing an artery.

Zeke⁹ bleeds out within seconds, his body crumpling onto the glitter-strewn floor. While Fergus³ is lost in his gloating confession, Bessie,¹ Hugo,⁵ and Allegra⁴ crash through the door and flee, plunging into the swollen moat.

Wet and gasping, Bessie,¹ Hugo,⁵ and Allegra⁴ scramble up the far bank and into the forest. Raif⁶ steps out from behind a tree, knife gleaming. He and Fergus³ explain their pact, their long-planned agenda, their intention to frame Hugo.⁵

But when Raif⁶ boasts of killing Allegra⁴ (who is alive, hidden behind a tree), Fergus³'s composure breaks. He shouts that Allegra⁴ was the one person he wanted spared, then stabs Raif⁶ in the chest. Raif⁶ crumples, gurgling. Hugo⁵ charges Fergus,³ wrapping his hands around his neck and squeezing until the body goes slack.

In his death spasm, Fergus³ plunges his blade into Hugo⁵'s side. Hugo⁵ collapses, his last whispered words urging Bessie¹ to run. She is alone now, the five bodies of her friends scattered in the castle, and three more cooling in the mud.

Bessie¹ bends over the dying Raif,⁶ not to help but to search his pockets. She finds his car key and, as he whispers pleas, tells him to go to hell, then walks away. The morning sun filters through the leaves as she trudges toward the road.

Without warning, a buried image unspools in her mind: she is behind the steering wheel, the car upside-down, her hands slick with blood. Shattered windshield glass glitters everywhere. The scream echoing is her own. Fergus³ swore she was not driving, but this memory — if it is a memory and not a trauma-induced hallucination — contradicts everything.

She cannot know the truth, and the ambiguity coats her survival in a layer of self-doubt. She stumbles toward help, the weight of the weekend pressing her shoulders down, the question of her own guilt an unanswered bell.