Killing Game Quarter

Chapter 6: The Sleepless and the Broken Part 1

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“Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you!” Two voices sing out, as I stare into a brightly lit cake with the words ‘Aka 15th’ written on it.

“Happy birthday dear Aka, happy birthday to youuu!” As they finish singing, one of them… my dad, picks me up in his arms as I blow out my candles.

“Look at you! You’re growing up so quickly!” He says, smiling and laughing as he swings me around.

“Daaad, I’m not a kid anymore, you don’t have to treat me like one!” I complain, trying to wriggle my way out of his grasp. The other one… my mom, snaps a picture of us, and I can’t help but smile.

“You may be growing up to be almost on my level, but you’ll never stop being my Lil’ Einstein!” He exclaims, dropping me and giving me a peck on the forehead, “Now who’s hungry?” 

“I know I am,” Mom said, putting down her camera and walking towards me, “But I think the birthday girl should get the first slice. It’s her special day after all!”

“You’re right, you’re right.” Dad said, before picking up a knife to cut the cake, “How big of a piece do you want Aka?”

“Just a small piece, I can have some later.” I say, still smiling at the moment I was having with my parents.

“Alright, just don’t get upset when your mother eats the rest of it!”

“Kevin!” Mom said, jabbing Dad in the side as he laughs.

“Kidding, kidding.” He replies, before he brings the knife down to the cake. As I watch him cut a slice, the knife comes out of the cake… and it’s covered in some kind of deep red liquid.

“D-dad?” I question, before looking up at my father. When I look though, it’s not my father anymore. It was a masked, hooded figure, holding the knife out, smiling at me as they turned back to the cake. 

“Ak-aka…” I look down at the cake, and realize that it had been replaced with my father, who was being held by his collar, bloodied and bruised. In my shock, I stumble backwards, and bump into a cold, rusted wall. 

“Aaaakaaaa…” The hooded figure chants, slowly advancing towards me. The voice sounds familiar, but in my panic I couldn’t discern it. I try and run, but trip over something and fall flat on the floor. When I turn to see what I tripped on, I realize that it’s the corpse of my mother, lying on the floor, in a pool of death. 

“Akaaaaaa…” The figure chants again, before grabbing hold of my leg. I try and kick them off, but they grab and retrain my legs as they loom over me, grasping their knife in their hand. They raise it up, and bring it down to my chest, breaching contact with my skin.

“Meet me outside Aka.” Is the last thing I hear from them as I feel myself slipping away, farther and farther into the darkness…

Falling… 

Falling…

… 

Falling?

FALLING-

My face hit the ground first, giving me a terrible wakeup call, as I shot up in defense.

“Good morning.” Came from Poppy, who was carrying my mattress over her head.

“Did you…” 

“Flip you off your bed? Yes.” She replied, holding in laughter. I simply stared at her, with a look apparently too funny to hold in, as she burst into laughter at my expense. Admittedly I found it amusing too, once the pain had worn off.

“You are just getting more and more creative with these wakeup calls, aren’t you?” I asked, standing up and stretching. Poppy just nodded goofily.

“Pretty soon I’ll just set ya bed on fire!” She said, laughing to herself as we walked out. As she said that, I had thought back for a second about yesterday, but I soon forgot it again after seeing how cheerful Poppy was being. Poppy made her way out of my cell, and I was about to follow her, before I noticed the note on my table, drawing my back to the reality of the situation.

I approached the paper, and looked at the words I had written on it the night previously. 

‘IS MY FAMILY SAFE’ I couldn’t believe that I had written that, through my anger and panic. 

‘If you hurt them, or even TOUCHED them, I swear to god I will kill you.’ The whole situation just felt out of character for me, I couldn’t believe what I was reading. But after that, I realized that there was another statement written below it, whose handwriting was not my own.

‘I would like to see you try.’ Was the response, most likely from the Loudspeaker guy. I felt my blood boil, and my fists clench, but realized that I couldn’t do anything about it, so I simply ripped the paper in half and left my cell, catching up with Poppy in our walk and talk hallway.

“Sooo, how was your wet dream last night?” Poppy joked.

“Just wonderful. How about yours?” I quickly shot back, not wanting to get back into that joking pit.

“Well well well, why do ya wanna know so badly?” She responded.

“Why were you so intent on knowing about my dreams?” I questioned back, catching Poppy a bit off guard.

“Well… that’s simple, uh…” She stuttered, growing quieter.

“If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you have a thing for my dreams… or just me in general.” I quipped, leaning in in a mocking kind of way.

“I bet you’d love to hear my reasons, wouldn’t ya?” Poppy shot back, growing her old smirk.

“Only one way to find out.” I replied, as we smiled at each other. I genuinely had no idea what was happening here, but after a short while of staring each other in oddly bisexual silence, we started cracking up. And after cracking up, we both burst into laughter, while we continued to walk, oblivious to the recent events of yesterday. 

Thankfully we had finished our laughing session as we made it to the cafeteria, and we entered, feeling a much more depressing aura coming from everyone else. Poppy and I collected ourselves breakfast, and sat down, trying to think of ways to bring up the mood. Jambo and Joseph had died the day before, and we had condemned him for saving children.

Our group was slowly shrinking because of these motives, and another one was bound to be announced tomorrow. The Loudspeaker proved that they were good at motivating us, so the fact that there was another motive tomorrow must have made us all feel worse.