Page 72 of Mara
The game is only beginning, Little Reaper. Can you find me?
The words hung in the air, hanging between us like an invitation to something darker. The words, Little Reaper, scraped against my skin, leaving a trail of cold behind them.
What the hell?
My mind couldn’t piece it together. I felt dizzy, like the world was spinning too fast. The stranger came forward into the screen, but this time he didn’t show his face. He was blocking the camera, his back clad in black, obscuring my vision.
I held my breath.
Even without the capacity to truly hear audio without reading lips. Some things were undeniable, and Gianna’s scream of agony was clearly audible, even to me.
I choked on bile, and the man stepped to the side of Gianna. Her mouth gaped open in that awful smile carved into her jaw. She tried to hold her skin up with her hand.
The masked man in the video handed her the serrated knife, whispering something in her ear that made her stop fighting,and instead, fear clouded in her eyes so bright it broke me all over again.
I’m sorry, Mara. I love you. Keep him safe. Please, I beg you.
It was a message only for me.
And then her hand came up, and the blade sliced into her neck, spilling her blood. She gagged on the liquid, the life draining from her face little by little as I cried and my tears fell onto the screen. I barely noticed the screen flicker, but then an image more sickening than the last shown…
The masked man was…using her mouth. Her dead, carved, open mouth. I couldn’t stomach the disgust and mortification of the video. I vomited all over the carpet, unable to breathe as it kept coming.
The man was laughing, his voice filtered with some awful modulation as the video had been altered. I could hear his moan, the sound wrapping around me like a snake that refused to let go. He used one hand to hold her head up by her hair, and the other…he signed to me. Spoke to me in my own language while humiliating my poor sister even in death.
This is for you, Little Reaper.
He threw his head back, white liquid coating that sickening bloody smile my sister forever wore, and then he walked closer to the camera. I could just make out the background, a janitor’s closet at Wellard. The masked man took over the screen, his face now covered by a ski mask.
The coward.
My stomach lurched as come dripped off his fingers and he signed right into the camera.
You’re next. I can’t wait to feel your dead cunt on my cock. See you soon.
The video cut out, and static flooded the phone, the images disappearing into white noise.
I dropped the phone, the glass cracking more as it hit the floor with a soft thud.
For a moment, I just stared at the empty screen, feeling the weight of those words sink into me, a cold, clammy dread creeping over me.
What did he mean? The game was only beginning?
I looked back down at Gianna, her body lifeless, her face forever frozen in that look of horror, and something inside me snapped.
The tears came then, hot and fast, but they weren’t the release I expected. They only made the fear claw deeper into my chest. I stood up, stumbling back from her, my legs unsteady, and I felt that cold knot of dread coil tighter in my gut.
He did this. He made her say those words. This was a message to me. She was killed because of me, and he forced her to kill herself.
What had he whispered to her?
Did he threaten Jinx?
“Coward!” I screamed at the broken phone.
He was still out there.
The game hadn’t ended. It had only just begun.
