Death Game: Isolated

Chapter 4

Jiel entered a house but forgot to close the door as he went to the kitchen and look for something to use as a brace for his sprained ankle.

Then, from the living room, he heard hurried footsteps and immediately picked a butchering knife, he stood behind the door of the kitchen and waited for someone to enter.

"Jiel? Jiel... Where are you..." A lonely voice of a girl was heard and Jiel put down the knife, he showed himself from behind the door and saw Darell coming out from the other rooms of the house.

"El! You're safe..." Darell hugged him tightly after seeing the he has no injuries apart from his twisted anklw which doesn't seem to be so serious.

***

Ace sat on the bed facing Jiel who's seating beside Darell, Angel and Tomy were standing on the other side od the room

*c***k!

Ace twisted the area where the bones were misaligned, it was really painful but not to the point where Jiel can't stop himself from screaming.

At this moment, they were only waiting for the countdown to turn to 0 then leave. After just a few minutes...

*Toot!

It was over, the six people went outside the house.

The number on the monitor remained 48 while below it is another countdown of 18:00:00, it will turn 0 again when the time reached 12:00 midnight, that's when the game will start again.

"Let's go back..."

Ace was supporting Jiel as they made their way back to the tallest building. For the past 6 hours, they felt like it will never end because the time was running so slow.

When they arrived in front of the tallest building, the countdown on top of the closed door is at 17:30:00. It took them 30 minutes to go back.

The mood of the people gathered outside were heavy. Some were talking with each other but without any smiles and there were also some who stayed away from the rest while looking at the distance.

Tomy separated from the group and went elsewhere.

"Hey..."

Ace's face brightened when he saw Sofia coming over.

"I'm glad you're okay." He smiled but Sofia's reaction was different after hearing what happened to Jiel, she was also glad that the joint of his foot was just misaligned and was immediately fixed back although there's still the lingering pain.

At this moment, none of the masked men made an appearance, it's like they were already abandoned on their own after the night.

The group gathered in a restaurant where they ate yesterday and talked about what happened.

"Three people were killed, I guess those masked men only went out to get the corpse but not to clean the other mess." Jiel spoke.

"Yeah, if they can appear and disappear whenever they want, their hideout must be just around this place."

Jiel had told them that someone dragged him with a rope tied to his neck when the countdown turned to 0, they believed him because there's a red mark around his neck that looked like something was tied around it really tight.

"We didn't sleep last night, you must be so tired. We should take this time for rest first."

***

The 5 separated with each other but Jiel decided to stay in Darell's room for a while.

It was only at this moment that they realized how tired they were. The scenes that unfolded kept playing in their minds which are keeping them from sleeping for a few moment.

"I'm glad I didn't have a chance to use it..." Ace put the knife under the pillow and closed his eyes to sleep.

After a few hours, Ace just opened his eyes. He can feel something heavy on top of his left arm and when he looked at it, he saw Sofia sleeping behind him and using his arm as a pillow.

He gently moved aside to stand up and went to the restroom.

After a while, Ace went back and didn't get back to bed because Sofia already occupied the spare space when he was gone.

*Sigh

He watched the face of the girl sleeping and thought of many things.

'Jiel was dragged away while Sofia, she still did not tell me what happened. I can't ask which among Darell and Jiel has the King of Diamonds but...' Sofia said that one should not show his or her card to others willingly. Others should only know what card he or she is holding accidentally and not because they asked for it.

But why did Sofia show her card to him? Is it possible she has the means to hide this fact from the Game Master that she showed her card to Ace willingly?

Looking back last night, he saw a hunter with a "K-Diamond" sign on his mask and interpreted the sign as the card which he has. It was also the same for the others, Sofia has the Jack of Clubs and her mask would have the sign "J-Clubs", however...

'The 6 hunters gathered last night, I only managed to see the K-Diamond and Q-Spade. The other four's mask had smaller signs.'

It was only one of the reasons why Ace didn't recognize that Sofia was also one of the 6 hunters who appeared. The other reason was where her mask was stained with blood, to be precise, it was the sign on her mask that was stained with blood. Apart from K-Diamond and Q-Spade, the other hunters either had their backs facing the direction where Ace and his group were hiding or the light didn't reach them.

He was also confused about the identity of the K-Diamond hunter. If Jiel didn't have any proof about his words earlier, Ace would be sure that he is the K-Diamond hunter because when he picked the Ace of Spades card, there were only two face cards remaining, the King of Diamonds which belonged to either Darell or Jiel and the Jack of Clubs which is with Sofia.

'Still, there is a higher chance that Jiel has the King of Diamonds...'

He can't accept the truth that his friend became a killer. Well, he will observe tonight again. It doesn't mean that just because in case that Jiel is the K-Diamond, he is already a killer.

"Hmm..."

Sofia woke up from her sleep and saw Ace watching him that's why she immediately got up

"You might want to ask me something..." She said.

"Yeah. But it depends on you if you want to answer me or not."

"I was with them..." Her voice was trembling when a tear dropped from her eyes.

"Come here..." Ace hugged the pitiful lady and whispered...

"I know you didn't dirty your hands. As long as you're safe, it is only okay for you to do the needed thing. You're a hunter after all, you should act the same as what the others are doing."

Ace was now sure that the other female hunter last night was Sofia, as for his words that she didn't dirty her hands, it was only an assumption. She's a good girl, he's sure of it.

"Y-you are right, s-someone did it for me." Her trembling hands offered Ace a card. He didn't accept it, he only smiled.

"That hunter must be kind to give you the reward from eliminating a player."

"There were two of them at that time..."

Sofia began narrating what happened to her. From encountering the two players who almost killed her and the appearance of the K-Diamond hunter.

Hearing her words, Ace again thought about Jiel being the K-Diamond hunter but he is not completely sure because as what Jiel said, he was dragged away by someone. But, he didn't say what happened afterwards which was also doubtful.

"You must be thinking that it was Jiel but you're wrong. When the lights turned back on, I watched where you ran to with Darell and Angel. Jiel was also watching you but refrain from following because of the appearance of the hunters."

"So it is Darell who has the King of Diamonds."

"No, we still can't be su-"

"AAAAAAAAHHH!"

Sofia didn't finish her words when they heard the scream coming from the other room. There were only two rooms on the 7th floor of the building.

Ace immediately opened the door and in the hallway, he saw someone leaning against the wall with a frightened expression while looking through the door of the room in front of him.

Ace identified him as the one who occupies the other room in this floor.

"What's the matter?" He asked and looked inside the room only to close his eyes upon seeing it.

A man was laying down on the floor with a slit on his neck, his eyes are still open but his breathing already stopped.

The other players who heard the scream came running.

"Ah!"

They all have the same reaction as Ace, he stopped Sofia from seeing it and told her to go back and stay in his room.

"You fucker!"

From the crowd, someone rushed to Jin who just screamed and is staying in the room where the dead body can be seen.

He punched Jin's face and slammed his body against the wall, the moment he is going to throw another punch, Cleo snd Tomy, the nearest from them, pulled the two away from each other.

Ace's eyes caught a girl who's crying in the corner while looking at the dead player then someone comforted her, although it is not enough to calm her, at least someone tried. The players might not share deep relationships with each other but they easily got close because of their the same circumstances.

"Von, what's this?"

Someone asked from the crowd.

"I saw it! I saw Ronald go into your room!" The fuming Von pointed his trembling finger to Jin who's standing behind Tomy.

"Did that also mean I killed him!?" Jin roared with bloodshot eyes. Well, everyone can understand his feeling. He was just pointed as the killer just because he was in the same room with the victim.

"Who else could it be? I knew from the start that the relationship between you and Ronald was not good and since then, you always have s conflict against each other."

"What? Only because of that? I didn't even know he was in my room!" Jin replied.

"That's right, Jin was with me."

"I can testify to that..."

Two people stepped forward making Von quiet.

"Then I'm not the one you should suspect, you saw him enter my room right? Then it means you were also here."

"What?" Von was flustered. His own words were thrown back to him.

"That's enough, we can't say who is who. Von also can't be suspected." Cleo was the one who spoke.

"How can you be so sure?" Jin asked him.

"Von only managed to see Ronald entering Jin's room when I followed him and called him. Well, I also saw Ronald and if no one supported the claim of Jin that he was not in his room that time, I will also point my fingers to him."

"..."

So the culprit was not among the said names then...

Everyone shifted their eyes to Ace who is standing in front of his room, Sofia just got out after noticing that the atmosphere suddenly became quite.

"Why are they looking at us?" Sofia whispered.

Ace didn't answer.

"We can't jump to conclusions." A girl spoke, some players knew her as Fiona.

"Ace and Sofia already locked themselves and were sleeping, I think. Sofia went to Ace's room when the countdown was at 15 hours, the countdown now is already at 7 hours."

7 hours before midnight...

"They are asleep for 8 hours straight and only woke up when Jin screamed, it means that during their sleep, the culprit already killed Ronald." Fiona continued her words and Tomy raised his hand before talking.

"Apart from Jin, Cleo, and Von, no one came to this floor after Ronald. The culprit must have been waiting inside Jin's room so what we needed to identify now is who was the one who left the building last or who was still inside and didn't leave. The killing was just done a few minutes before Jin went back to his room and as everyone knew here, apart from Ace and his 4 friends, all of us are outside."

"Does that mean we are also considered as suspects?" Someone spoke and walked through the crowds, it was Jiel.

He then walked inside the room until he's standing beside Ronald. He squatted then raised Ronald's hand until it leveled Jiel's face before letting it go.

"He is not just dead for a few minutes because he's already dead for more than an hour." Jiel spoke. Just by looking at the pool of blood on the floor, he can tell that Ronald is already dead for too long. The blood flowing from his mouth became sticky like a jelly, blood stopped flowing from the slit in his neck and the pool of blood almost became completely dried.

"The rigor mortis commences from 2 to 4 hours from death, depending on the body. His body is already stiff enough, maybe he's already dead for more than an hour." Jiel stepped out of the room and looked at Von.

"Is there still a need for you to know who killed Ronald? What will you do if you knew who killed him? Do law and justice still apply in this place?" Jiel bombarded the players with questions. Von was not offended with his words because he spoke the truth.

"Right, but at least we will know from whom we should keep ourselves wary. Well, it can't be helped. Maybe someone knew this place better than us and planned his actions or, this place has secret places we are not aware of."

The players agreed, they also thought that the masked men are just around them. They just can't be found because they are in a place the players can't notice.

At this moment, the masked men entered the building, they were lead by the masked man wearing a white tuxedo.

They dragged the dead body of Ronald outside the building like it's not a human body.

"Hey! Where are you taking him?"

One of the masked men pointed his rifle to the one who just spoke causing her to immediately step back, she suddenly thought about what happened to Mike before.

"Whoa whoa! Relax..."

The man wearing a white tuxedo and one of his subordinates stayed outside the building until the masked men carrying the corpse of Ronald disappeared in the distance.

"Tsk!" Fiona clicked her tongue and left, the other also followed behind. The only ones left were Jin, Tomy, Cleo, and Ace's group.

If Jin didn't go back to his room until now, maybe they will not discover what happened to Ronald until another game starts.