Thanksgiving is next week. It was on a Thursday, the most inconspicuous day of the week. It was the day most murders were committed, the day offenders and murderers were caught. It was just… a very mysterious day.Draven thought about this day for a long time. When the teenage boy who tracked them mentioned it, it played in his head over and over again, but not in a bad way. He had no plans to kill his family. He hadn’t even thought about it that way at all. What he meant by avenging himself was just showing them that he was now better than them, that’s all.Right?Well the boy wasn’t around to explain all of this to you, so there’s no need to overthink it. He might not even visit them again, seeing as how the whole thing was going. Draven started to play music on the speaker at his home. There was a car waiting for him in his garage, a tank full of fuel to help him. He had money, loads of cash to set him up for life, a bunch of neighbors who would want to introduce him to their daugh
Draven stopped in front of the door. It was a fancy little house that seemed to have faded over the years. He wondered how long he had been gone and why they had moved. Was it a year ago? It felt like a year ago, though now that he has calculated it, it was actually seven months ago. He’s been in the game for seven long months, and he wasn’t sure when it would end, or if it would end anytime soon. He could be in the game for years, years, before he even won. And what did winning mean exactly? They had not explicitly explained that. If they were getting money now as little wins, does that mean the biggest win would be a full mountain of cash? Oh, what would he do to place his hand on that cash? And if it was a big mountain of cash, doesn’t it make sense that only limited people—if not everyone-would have access to it since they won it?Draven groaned as he brought his mind back to the door and the girlish giggle behind the door. He was subconsciously trying to avoid this moment but he
Draven laughed for such a long time that he didn’t even notice the weird silence that engulfed the room. His laughter soared high and fast, and with his drunken self, it sounded as mocking as he expected it to be. He was mocking his father, mocking the lives that they live now. When he stopped laughing long enough to look at their faces, the first place his eyes landed on were the twins. Holly and Dolly.Such silly names to give silly girls, but it sort of suits them. Their long, snobbish nose, their bleached hair, and their overdrawn eyes. They looked like clowns, and honestly they didn’t even need a stage name for their stripping jobs.“Holly and Dolly just sound right for you guys in your new field, you know that?” He asked them.They both grinned, clearly pleased by his praise. They were so stupid to see the sarcasm and insult laced underneath. Draven was not in any way disappointed; in matter of fact, he found it hilarious. He looked at his father, and then his stepmother, and t
Jerome Hampton stared at his son, unable to react. He had never been stunned by anything in the past years, until his son suddenly arrived at his door in full of glamour and wealth. Where had he gotten all that money from? Jerome kept wondering. It’s been six months… or was it seven? He couldn’t really remember. Everything had become a long blur for a very long while, but he always knew when the end was coming. The way Draven had tracked them down to their new environment did not bode well for him. How much did he know? How much was he going to take? Matter of fact, how ignorant was he?He would have known best how to react in these situations if he knew how ignorant Draven really was. But now that he knew nothing, absolutely nothing at all Jerome knew that his chances were slim. His eyes traveled from Draven’s wild ones to his daughters; the razz girls that he had adopted from Meredith, when they all came to live with him. Jerome thought he could be happy, but he’d never felt more pr
She hadn’t expected that question. Margret had never been fully accused outright of doing something before, much less of poisoning. She tried to control her breathing and her reaction to the accusation, but she was honestly so afraid and she couldn't tell. She thought the boy was gone forever and now he was back into their lives, looking like the very nemesis that they had been accorded. She hadn’t run so far away just to continue running again.Draven sighed heavily. Jerome was very still beside her, but he acted so naturally. He hadn’t asked her to do it, and they were so close. They were so very close; he would have popped a potato in his mouth if her husband hadn't interrupted him.“Did you poison this, Margret?” Draven asked again, his voice as smooth as usual.“Why would you even say that?” she whispered, her throat dry. “Why would you even think about that? It’s a full dish!”“It is, isn’t it?”Draven looked like he was considering her claims. He raised the large dishing spoon
Draven continued to watch them silently. As promised, it was a long ass dinner. They were still seated around the table and were unbearably quiet after Margret’s outburst. This was good; it gave Draven some time to rethink his decisions and options again. While coming here, he had thought about a lot of things but was still unsure of revenge. He wanted surety, he wanted love. How hard was it to ask for love from a family member? What were the chances that they would immediately recognize you and proceed to ask for forgiveness for their mistakes? What were the chances then? None. It was none. He’d set some things in motion, of course, and then come here in the hope that his family would have changed. He thought they’d be remorseful about abandoning him all the while, not trying to kill him.This whole poisoning saga opened his eyes to a lot of things; oh so many things. His father married Margaret a few months before his mother’s death, when he was twelve. She tortured him painfully, t
Jerome wasn’t sure if he was breathing well. His main suspicions were coming to life. Draven had mentioned his mother’s wealth; the very thing that he should not have known. How did he know of it? Who told him about it? He looked at Margaret, and she was looking at him. He wanted to say so many things to her, but now was not the time. Draven walked around the table, breathing down their necks. He looked like a grim reaper, the angel of death.“What is your true purpose here?” Jerome suddenly blurted. It was better to get this over with, just as he had said. “Why don’t you tell us why you’re here, truly, huh?”He stopped behind the girls and placed his hands on each of their shoulders. “Why am I here?" Father, you should already know that.”“I don’t know your purpose, but I also know that you won’t have just come in here for no reason than to reunite with us.”He raised a hand from Dolly and placed it on his chest. “Ouch, I’m hurt. You didn’t think that I was lost and suddenly came ba
“Now, tell me Jerome, what kind of poison was it?” He asked.Jerome had lost the respect of being called a father a long time ago, but now he’d certainly lost the catch of it. The girls kept staring boldly at their parents. They had been mean and wicked, yes, but they never came off as someone who’d kill other people—especially since the mother risked the life of the whole family just so she could kill Draven.“For you to understand me, you must hear the whole story,” Jerome said.“I’m not sure I’d ever understand your actions, but I have the whole night, man. Let’s get right into it.With that, Draven walked back to the seat. He bent it back and forth, mimicking a rocking chair. “Your mother was stubborn,” he started. “She would not give me any of her properties, not even one to be put in my name.”Draven clicked his tongue, disappointed. “You started off in such a way that people would be compelled to listen to you, Jerome, only for you to spill this rubbish. So greed moved you to
Draven couldn’t believe it was over. Three months later he was still thinking if he was making the right decision. Assistant David sat in his living room with a bunch of documents in front of him. He paced up and down, not sure what he would do.“You can just sign here,” the man said for the umpteeth time. “It’s not really that hard. You sign that you’ve taken ownership of the game and you decide what you want to do with it.”“But I don’t want ownership of the game,” Draven said again. He had repeated this exact words countless times but the guy didn’t seem to be hearing him.“You should have known what you were getting yourself into when you challenged late game owner Timothy—” David paused and looked to the heavens. “May his soul not rest in peace. You should have known that killing him would automatically make you the owner of the game. Those were his rules.”Draven rolled his eyes. He was sure that Timothy had made that rule because he didn’t believe anyone would be able to defeat
Timothy laughed. His laughter was vivacious and full of life. This was what he wanted, after all. The very end of judgement day where he would punish all those who failed him; those who went against him and those who was party to his torture.Here was Draven, the strongest man to ever grace his game. Timothy knew he was going to be a lot of trouble in the future and so he had specifically looked into him. Now that Draven has waged war with his full chest over a woman, he was ecstatic. This was historic, and he was living a historic time in the present. How many men brought knives to fight for their loves, anyways?Smiling, he snapped his fingers. A single door opened and his assistant ran to him carrying a box.“You’re about to experience an historic moment with me,” He said to Draven. “Diane will be our goddess Diana, and we will be the lowly men who are fighting for her love.”Diane scoffed. “You don’t have to do it, Draven. The guy is nuts. Let’s just get out of here.”“But darling
Draven panicked for a minute. He thought for sure that the darkness and pressure meant he was losing his consciousness, but that wasn’t the case. One minutes there was stark darkness and the next minute they fell into an extremely white room with hard cardboard. They fell through the sky, hitting directly on the wood and groaning in pain. The stark white color of the room blinded them. It was brighter than a sky or white paint. It was so bright that Draven closed his eyes and tried to regain his or he r senses. He knew there was a betrayal in the group—which wasn’t surprising as their group was made of weird, diverse people, but he needed to see who exactly did it.He won’t even be surprised if to was Lara. She was the one who had led them to the cage, after all. She was the one who offered to test the waters and make sure the portal was okay. Who in their right senses tests water and portal to make a point of the portal not working? Unless he or she was working with Timothy and knew
No one said anything after Diane’s statement. They were so tired and hungry and unsure of what to do next. Draven’s goods felt heavy to him. His sword even felt heavier than normal. He didn’t believe he came back to this game to be ridiculed and placed in a very unstable condition because of a silly fight that was going on between two lovers. When he looked at Diane, he wondered if she was toying with them again. Was she afraid to meet Timothy or what? He knew that the portal might likely take them to Timothy as the owner can easily manipulate events, but at least he was ready for that stage. He could exactly tell what Diane was thinking when she was looking her nose down on the portal.“We cannot just stay here,” Lara said. “Do you want us to keep waiting for him to keep finding opportunities to kill us? We’re certainly going to die of hunger if we keep waiting!”“She’s right,” Draven concurred. “We can’t keep lying about in wait like lambs to a slaughter. We must make the first move
Everyone was super awkward after the kiss. Leo avoided for the rest of the morning. He didn’t want to talk about it but it was too late; Draven had seen them and announced to the whole pack in the morning that the kiss was probably the most hottest he’d seen.“Whoa,” Diane said excitedly. “You two kissed? That’s great. Are you like a couple now or something?”“It’s nothing like that, okay? It was just a kiss, and a mistake at that,” Leo piped up.Even though he didn’t want to talk about the kiss or look at Lara’s face, he was glad that Draven brought it up. At least he’d air his opioid publicly about it so he won’t have to be in an awkward space with Lara.“Ouch, Leo, you’re a player!” Diane said, laughing. “You can’t say those kind of things to someone when you’ve kissed them!”“I didn’t kiss her, okay? She’s the one who kissed me,” Leo defended hotly.“It’s still hurtful that you say it that way. Have some feelings, pal,” Diane said, her laugh increasing.It sounded mocking and cont
Leo could not sleep. Draven had been out for close to an hour, yet he wasn’t back yet. Lots of thoughts assaulted his brain, but the one that stayed the most was Diane.Diane. Diane. Diane.He bet she was here to true their life again, and that bet was true. If Leo was the one to handle this, he’d definitely not want to help her out the way Draven was. It was as if the guy didn’t want to learn any lessons about why it’s dangerous to just not help anyone for too long. Draven was lenient when it came to Diane and he didn’t like it one but.He turned his head to the side and saw her sleeping peacefully.“Yeah, like you didn’t just send someone to their death,” he murmured to himself.He wondered if Draven was still talking to the game creator or if he’s been killed. If he was truly killed, Leo won’t honestly know how to handle that. He tried not to think about it because it was depressing enough. He sat up now, still watching Diane. If she had been careful, they won’t be in this shit hol
Draven waited until everyone was comfortable with him being their security for the night before he left into the woods. Diane was surprisingly quiet and compliant. It was like she was into her head too much to care about what Draven wanted to do. Seeing that all odds were in his favor, Draven waited a bit before withdrawing to the forest. He walked deeper and deeper, wondering if he should just sit on a log and wait for Timothy to appear.“Hi Draven.”He yelped and fell to the ground, startled. His shouts of surprise startled the forest a bit, and so Draven waited it out to make sure no one was coming to check what the noise was before turning his head slowly to the side. There was Timothy, standing under the moonlight. He looked attractive and mysterious and just too handsome to be standing there. Draven sat up as he brushed away the small dirts on his body.“You scared me,” he hissed at Timothy. “You know you should learn not to sneak up on people like that.”“I didn’t sneak up on y
They camped inside a cave, just as Draven wanted. He’d taken his time and made sure they covered a 12 hour distance just so he could find the perfect place for them to camp. Finding a cave was not just the problem—and caves were pretty scarce. The problem was finding one that was deep and big enough to accommodate more than three persons. When he finally found it, it was nearing dark. The blanket of darkness that fell over them was just the right thing Draven needed to carry out his plans. He’d been thinking for hours how he would get away with talking to Timothy without anyone noticing and this was the best part.“A cave?” Lara asked in disbelief when they stood before the place. “Isn’t this kind of weird, Draven? Some crazy monsters might be in there!”Draven nodded in understanding. “Leo and I are going to check it out and see if it’s free of monsters; how about that?”“I thought you said we were getting to the end of the game,” Lara moaned.Draven gave her a confused look. “Lara,
They walked a long mile, Draven and Leo leading the way while Lara and Diane walked behind. Diane stayed at the far end so she won’t walk on the same lane with Lara. There was something suspicious about the young girl that she didn’t like. Diane wasn’t usually suspicious of people but when she does, her instinct was definitely right—just as it was right with Draven and Lara. Leo cleared his throat and glanced at Draven. “So… were you lying?”“Was I lying about what?” Draven mumbled.“You know… about what Diane said?”“Why would I be lying about that?”Leo cocked his brows at him. “Don’t forget that I know you all too well, Draven. I know when you lie out of necessity and when you lie out of leisure. I usually don’t catch the leisure one but the necessity one is very obvious.”Draven glanced at him with an amused expression. “Really?”“Yup. You get all tense and defensive and violet most times if you’re pressured about it. It’ll make you want to protect that little lie of yours quite