Zarina finds herself in a chilling trial of survival at the snow-smothered Mount Ormond Resort. But, when one of her companions goes missing, Zarina will have to put her detective skills to the test to find him.

Zarina Kassir 
and the 
Brewing of Fear
Zarina Kassir Mysteries: Vol. I
~
Some years ago, an acclaimed documentary filmmaker disappeared from Hellshire Penitentiary here in Nebraska. There were no eyewitnesses, and no evidence left behind – save for an old, broken dictaphone. Although this dictaphone cannot record audio or even switch-on, recently, it has started to play back macabre recordings of mysterious tales from some unholy realm. These tales are something akin to murder mysteries, only ‘murder’ seems to be the least mysterious thing about them. Apparently, the voice on the dictaphone is that of the same filmmaker who disappeared from Hellshire all those years ago. I have taken to transcribing her words in hopes that I will one day find a way to help her.
These are her stories. 
These are the Zarina Kassir Mysteries. 
~
Is this fucking thing even on?
………..////….////……//////////……
Hellooo? Testing? TESTING?
////....//..../////........
Geez, you really put the dick in dictaphone you know that?...
........//////../////////...///.
Alright. This is Zarina Kassir, reporting live with another audio recording from Hell.
Take 1. 
Let’s make it a good one. 
...////....//......///.......////////..
And by the way -- before we start -- please ignore any screaming you hear in the background of this audio. Believe me, it just becomes white noise after a while.
.......//.....///.....///////////...////....
“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh”
Oh, that’ll be Dwight. Poor guy.... He’s a real shrieker!
…//……/////…..////……………///………..
Alright listen, I’m not an unfeeling person. I think these diaries can more than attest to that. But you’ve kinda got to make light of some things around here. Don’t they say laughter is the best medicine? Hell, it beats schlepping around one of those big, red medkits.
But speaking, or rather hearing, of Dwight, allow me to tell you the chilling story of the first time we met...and the first time his foolishness almost got me killed, in a macabre tale of mystery that I like to call: “The Brewing of Fear.” 
(I love you Dwight, but, in the interest of journalistic transparency, you’re gonna have to take the shame on this one.)
.......///////////....///............./////.....
“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!”
~
Now the story I’m about to tell you takes place at, what I’d call, a quaint, snowy, mountainside resort (to put it very kindly). The air was thick with cold and I was glad to be wearing my usual tan leather jacket, scarf and knee-high boots. I tell you now, the chill of that place could freeze ice a second, or third time over. It was snowing fairly light, but the caustic breeze cut through the air like knives. This was no New York City snow.
When I first opened my eyes, I found myself face to face with a snowman. Carved into its fucked-up looking head: a long frown and two crooked eyes that appeared like they’d been gouged in by someone’s thumb. Looming behind the snowman was a dangling meat hook that almost glittered with frost. I knew then why I was there.

Damn…as if there’d be any other reason.

It wasn’t until I turned around that I noticed what the snowman was frowning at: a tall, ramshackle ski chalet made of rotten wood that surely would have collapsed if it weren’t frozen in place by the frost. The place was derelict, surrounded by old picnic benches piled high with grey snow. Patchy tufts of dead grass poked out of the snow like untrimmed nose hair, and I made a mental note to have a frank conversation with that Bill Overbeck guy if I ever saw him again. To the right of the chalet, a broken ski lift towered over and beyond the dreary snowscape, its seats swinging stiffly in the breeze. The wires on some seats had snapped, leaving them dangling to one side, 20, maybe 30 feet above the ground where I stood. I hoped they wouldn’t snap. 
Mount Ormond Resort (as the flaking sign called it). 

Inside, there was a lobby. I tried to warm my hands on the grand hearth at the centre of the room, but the heat didn’t seem to emanate far past the rusted, crosshatch metal caging the fire. That’s the funny thing about this place - wherever you go, you’ll find fire: yet even in a blizzard, it won’t bring you warmth. Touch it and it burns, but never will it warm you. All it seems capable of doing is causing harm. 
(Sounds like one of my exes, am I right!? Haha, yeah....don’t worry, I’m here for all eternity, folks.)
But back to the chalet: around the hearth were old, threadbare sofas and a run-down bar surrounded by shattered glasses and broken and empty bottles. What I would’ve given for even a drop of whiskey. In fact, I did consider checking to make sure the bottles were all as empty as they looked. But, as usual here, my circumstances weren’t gracious enough to spare me the extra time.

The roof seemed to have caved, and snow fluttered down through the hole above. Snow or asbestos. Who’s to say? I remember looking around, hoping to spot someone - but I knew by now not to shout or make a racket. There were others here. That, I knew all too well. 

There were others here: both friends and foes.

I didn’t need to set out searching, because almost as soon as I had entered the building, so had two others. Both men, whose names I came to know as David King and Dwight Fairfax...or Fairweather. Or something. The men seemed to know each other and, lucky for me, they seemed to be more familiar with the set-up of the building than I was. They’d been here before.

David was well-built with an angry face that looked like it had taken some beatings, and weathered, clenched fists that seemed to have delivered plenty more. Through an innate snarl, his teeth jutted out, crooked like old tombstones, and I wondered if this was another result of an obvious history in fighting, or just an unlucky dip in the pool of British genetics. 

Dwight, on the other hand, was frail by comparison, and a little clumsy. He was scanning the place, eyes darting, altogether nervous as hell. And honestly, I couldn’t blame him. You don’t get used to this stuff overnight. I don’t think you ever get used to it.

He chewed his nails so much that I would’ve thought he were a child, had his five o’clock shadow not shaded his chin and had the lines over his brow not been so deep from strained, fearful face-pulling. Altogether, Dwight struck me as...kind of a dweeb. Yet, almost as soon as I met him, my investigator’s intuition started to kick in, and I picked up pretty early on that this guy wasn’t all fear and fret. Granted, he didn’t walk with as much confidence as David, but he took the lead, a few paces in front of his comrade. This guy had some boldness in him. Somewhere. 

“What are you standing around for?” David asked me with irritated concern. His English accent made him sound even more brash and assuming than he already was. Northern, I think. I recognised his blunt diction and the dropped consonants at the end of his words. I’d visited Yorkshire once when I stayed at the Old Swan in Harrogate, taking inspiration from the highly publicised vanishing of Agatha Christie (at a time when I myself needed to disappear). David’s accent echoed the Old Swan, and, for a moment, I wished I really was at a hotel, not this run-down, dilapidated death-shack.

I retorted with a nasty glance up-and-down, and David got the memo that I wasn’t to be fucked with. At the foot of the stairs in the lobby, there was an electric generator, and the three of us instinctively crowded around to begin repairs. Dexterity was an issue, of course, as the cold ate away at my fingers, but I persevered for fear of wasting time.

“Never seen you in a trial before.” David threw out. “Do you know what you’re doing?”
I responded with a passive aggressive nod and raise of both eyebrows.

And that’s when we heard it...

There’s always a calm before the storm at the start of one of these trials. A fleeting moment to get your bearings. And in that early moment, it seems we hadn’t expected such a sudden intrusion. We’d taken for granted that the crunch of a heavy foot in the snow or the expectant breath of primal bloodlust from whomever was out there might serve as an alert to their pursuit before they got here. But not this time. This time, what hunted us was too sneaky. Too scrappy. 

Its hands held no weapon, and its feet left hardly a print in the snow. It made barely a sound, save for a low, guttural growl. Not quite animal, yet not quite human either. My ears pricked up and somehow, deep in my bones, I felt a heavy sense of dread. The others did too.

The growling was getting closer, and we each stiffened, not quite sure what to make of it. Dwight looked at me, eyes bulging. And then, through me, almost. Something had petrified him, turned him half to stone. It was behind me. Whatever it was, it was standing right behind me. 

It was then, in the reflection of Dwight’s glasses, that I saw it. Cast over his wide, terrified eyes: the creature. The tiny, hideous creature. It shrieked, feral and shrill, and leaped over my shoulder, sinking its claws and horrendous teeth deep into Dwight’s neck. He screamed and began to flail. 

“GET IT OFF OF ME! DEAR GOD GET IT OFF ME!” Dwight pleaded, running in circles, desperately trying to get a grip on the snarling assailant. I looked over and saw that David, eyes now glazed with fear, was still repairing the generator. With a flash, the lights above our heads beamed on, and in the blinding glare, Dwight ripped the tiny beast from off his back and smashed it onto the ground. It seemed to disintegrate on impact, and just about melted into a slick puddle of fleshy sludge on the wooden lobby floor. I felt the urge to vomit but held it down for fear that if I did it once, I wouldn’t be able to stop. Let’s say I’ve had some bad experiences with that here.

    We all began to panic. “What was that thing?!” I yelled. It had looked almost human, with greyish-pink flesh and short, stubby limbs. But its teeth were sharp and stuck out like one of those fucked-up vampire bats that lived in my attic back in Bay Ridge. And its eyes were bloody red too, like one of those fucked-up rats that lived in the sewers back in Bay Ridge. (Ain’t it swell to be reminded of home?!)
In the orange flicker of the fire, and the yellow haze of the genlight, David’s face was starkly lit from both sides, and a bead of sweat rolled down his cheek as he stood up. He panted with fear and stared in horror.
“Shit!” he exclaimed. “What the bloody hell was that?” 

David was trembling now. He sure as hell hadn’t seen this thing before. 
“So” I quipped through heavy breaths, “do you know what you’re doing?”
~
The pair of us hovered over Dwight, who was now writhing in pain on one knee, and began haphazardly trying to soothe his wounds. But, as luck would have it, we didn’t have long to staunch the wounds. In the tense moment, my heart began to beat quicker. So did David’s and Dwight’s. A pulsating, collective throb of brewing fear. Low, quick and dull. I could almost hear the beating, and so could they. 
We turned to the open doorway which led through to the backroom of the ski chalet, and in its frame we saw, approaching, a tall, hunched woman, with broad shoulders and a domineering, leaden gait. Her hair, a mousy brown, was cropped short, with a scuffed hessian coif sitting on top. (What was she? Some kind of 17th century French peasant?! Well I’ll be damned they must really be running out of ideas at the psychopathic killer factory, I’ll tell you that.)

She had pure hatred branded across her face. Pure hatred. She wanted us dead, and she made no bones about it. Her brow was furrowed with rage and her dry skin looked like it was crumbling from the sheer attrition of mean-mugging. But it wasn’t her peasant garb or rancid scowl that caught my attention - it was her chest! (and NO – she wasn’t Quasimodo in the face and Elvira in the waist or anything like that. Don’t be so perverse, please!!). Jutting out from the right side of her torso, and I can’t believe I’m even saying this, was that tiny creature from before. Like an appendage. A conjoined twin that hadn’t grown out of infancy. There he was.

Her eyes were trained on Dwight. With his blood still pooling on the floor below us. He was the easy prey. Maybe it was the panic of the moment, or maybe it was just the fact that I couldn’t help feeling the need to protect Dwight, but in the split second between seeing the crazed killer with her conjoined gun dog in the doorframe and their reaching us by the hearth, I decided to grit my teeth and use my special little skill.
The woman swung a gnarly sickle down on Dwight and slashed a deep gash into his back. He yelped in pain, but he didn’t fall. Before anyone knew what was going on, the three of us were running away, out the door. The woman stalked after Dwight, following the pools of blood that dripped off his back and left pink pockmarks in the snow. Luckily, she didn’t notice my own blood. 
When we reached a safe distance, David looked me up and down and finally realised the state I was in. 

“You’re bleeding? How are you bleeding?” 

I explained as best I could. “These trials are about teamwork. You’ve got to work for the people, not for the self.”
He still looked confused, sort of like one of those pitbull dogs that tilts its head to the side when it doesn’t understand a command. Only less obedient. 

“I’ve got this thing I can do” I continued, sighing. “If someone is experiencing immense pain, you know, like flesh wounds from a deranged little monster toddler, for one example, I can take it away. I don’t know how, but I can. I can take their pain and keep it as my own. Hurts like hell most of the time, but if it means we can all stay alive for longer, then so be it.”

The guy looked altogether bewildered. He tried to start healing me, but I pushed him away. “You can’t do that right now” I told him. “I need some time to readjust. This takes a toll.”

That’s always the hardest thing to explain about this ability I’ve picked up here in the fog. Freeing someone from their agony is all well and good, but it wears you down. The pain hits you like a ton of bricks. And it's not just the physical pain. When I healed Dwight like that and gave myself his suffering, I didn’t just feel the throbbing sting of his wounds, I felt his heart too. His fears and worries from the exact moment before we were ambushed. For a little while, it feels like I’ve got the blood from someone else’s body pumping around my own, and I need to let it bleed out. 

“Fuck it” David whispered under his breath. “I’m heading out to find another generator. Come find me if you need my help.” He paused. “Or if you can get me a hot mug of tea. Fuck it, it’s dead cold out here.” He rubbed on his arms and walked away. Gosh, the British make stereotyping too easy.
Saying it out loud now, I realize what a dick move it was for him to just up and leave like that. But not in the moment. In the moment, I was seeing David King through a whole new pair of eyes. I was feeling what Dwight had felt, and as David walked away, like a primal instinct, it blurted out of me - “Thank you so much! See you soon!” 

He jogged off into the snow and disappeared behind a big yellow plow. I watched him walk away. Feeling admiration. Feeling awe. Feeling overwhelmingly embarassed for some reason. I was still suffering a case of the Dwights. 

From behind me, suddenly, came a voice. “He’s a real gentleman, huh?”

I snapped out of it and balled up a fist, ready to strike. I turned around and saw a young woman in a pink button-up and jeans, eyes bulging from behind a pair of thick, blue framed glasses. “WOAH!” she exclaimed. “I didn’t mean to scare you!”

I wish I had met Claudette Morel under better circumstances. She’s a sweetheart with a brain like no one I’ve ever met. Botany is her gig; plants, wildlife, bushes, shrubs, you name it. She can pick a few sprigs of what anyone else would think is just grass and use it to soothe even the nastiest of wounds. She even did it for me, once I felt well enough to let her. 

I learned very quickly that I could depend on Claudette, and she learned very quickly not to sneak up behind me. Hell, I feel bad about nearly knocking her block off, but even when I’m feeling someone else’s feelings, I don’t lose my instincts. You can take the girl out of Brooklyn...yadda yadda. You get the point. 
I stuck with Claudette for a while, and we fought through the bitter chill to work on generator repairs. We heard screaming from around the mountainside and cringed knowing our teammates were out there taking the brunt of that murderous woman and her conjoined brother. ‘The Twins’ is what Claudette called them. She’d come across them before in other trials and seemed to understand their M.O. “The Twins makes sense” I said. “But I think I prefer Dr. Sickle and Mr. Bite.” Claudette didn’t react to my attempts at humor, but I could see that the casual chitchat was enough to help ease both of our nerves. As a kid, my dad could calm my anxiety with the unfunniest of jokes. Here, in the fog, I was learning to do it for myself. 

While repairing a generator in a shack on the far corner of the grounds, she told me a little bit about the Twins. Their names were Charlotte and Victor. Someone Claudette had met here in this realm told her a story about conjoined twins born in Marseille, France in the 17th century. Their mother was accused of witchcraft for bearing them, and they were forced to survive on their own. Pillaging and killing to make ends meet. Pretty niche knowledge, right? But that person reckoned these two were those same exact Twins. In fact, as Claudette put it, this person’s appraisal made them almost sure of it - whatever that meant. Sounds like deception to me, but hey, I wasn’t gonna get into an argument while we struggled to get the power back on with these generators...I mean while we struggled to power...while we powered....power-struggled to......nevermind. I don’t want to be cheesy. 

After repairing two generators, we jogged covertly up to the north side of the gated resort and spotted Dwight crouched in front of a bush. While he seemed fairly unperturbed, a reddish hole in the back of his shirt was enough to tell me that he’d been skewered on one of those hooks not too long ago. Poor guy. Thankfully, in the chaos, it looked he and David had managed to power up another generator on their own. We were speeding through now, and I felt extremely hopeful that we would make it out of here alive.
But then, thats when we saw her. A few short meters away from Dwight, standing there, was the twin sister, Charlotte. Unlike before, she didn’t have her twin attached to her chest. Instead, there was a wide, open gash across her front where he had been positioned before. She swayed slightly in place and her head hung down like she was asleep standing up. What the hell?

My heart jumped to my throat and I gasped. But Charlotte just stayed there, seemingly unconscious. Getting a better look at her, I saw, strapped to her back with rough strands of rope, was some kind of big wicker basket, stuffed full of supplies. Sticking out of the top were tufts of dry hay, cushioning a grungy, old silver teapot, and secured to the side was a rusty pan and a massive hunk of meat. I dared not to guess what animal the meat came from... or if it had come from an animal at all.

“Psssssttttt” 
Dwight didn’t hear us. He was too busy picking leaves and stems off the almost dead bush he had crouched in front of.

“Psssstttttttttt, Dwight!” 
He kept picking.

“Psssssssssttttttt fuckhead! Turn around!”
Dwight turned with a start and shoved the sprigs he’d been picking into his pocket. We motioned over to where Charlotte was standing and Dwight fell backwards in fright, landing on his ass in the powdery, grey snow. He crawled over to us, and we formed a huddle behind a craggy snow mound, keeping the creepily motionless killer in our line of sight.

“I’m pretty sure we only need to power up one more generator and then we’re out of here” Dwight began, giving orders as if he hadn’t been wasting time over in the bushes not a few short seconds beforehand. “Looks like you guys haven’t taken too much of a beating, so we should be able to get this done relatively painlessly.” He sounded sure of himself, but, having felt Dwight’s emotions before, I knew it was a front. He felt the need to act as a leader, even if he himself was scared shitless. He wanted to put the people around him at ease. I admired that. 

We were all but ready to get this shit over with, when we noticed David sprinting towards us, breath heavy, panting; there was blood dripping from his neck and arms. Dwight stood to attention and rushed to David. The guy was panic-stricken, though none of us could see why. It wasn’t until Victor leapt through the sky with another shrill shriek, that we realised David was being pursued. The feral creature had landed mere inches in front of him and shook his scabby bald head in frustration (Victor, not David). Like a greyhound, Victor was off again in a flash, speeding towards David, stubby arms outstretched, ready to pounce. 

David darted around a snowman and tried to keep out of range from Victor’s attacks. Victor was faster, but, for all his brute force, David was light on his feet. Given all I knew, I guessed he must’ve been a rugby or soccer player in his day. Victor rushed him from the side and with a swift leap and piercing cry he bounded into the air again. David, with a grunt, ducked to the side and Victor narrowly missed grabbing a hold of his shoulder, landing on his feet in the snow, this time, right in front of us. 

I threw myself backwards and Claudette shielded her face with her arms. Surprisingly, Dwight was the only one of us who stayed put. Stayed still. Stayed determined. In the split second it took Victor to find his footing, Dwight lifted a leg and knocked a brutal kick right into Victor’s head. What. A. Shot. 

Like before, Victor seemed to disintegrate before our eyes into a fleshy puddle on the ground, which eventually seeped down, pink and gungy, into the snow. Dwight, without missing a beat, looked to David and called out: “Those rugby skills you taught me came in handy, huh!” David nodded with a short smirk, and Dwight’s head lifted with pride. If this were a horror movie, the two bro-buds would’ve patted each other on the back, having finally defeated the enemy, and made a quick getaway, joking all the way home about how they’d always known they would escape. If this were a movie, me and Claudette probably would’ve been dead by then (you know how horror movies are). But this wasn’t a movie. And we weren’t out of the woods yet. 

Shit, I wish we were in the woods...we could’ve hidden behind a tree. 
But we were out in the open now, shielded by nothing but the light dusting of acid snow that fell over our heads. And before anyone had a chance to celebrate, we heard the jangle and clank of that damn basket on Charlotte’s back. She was storming towards us in a rage. Her eyes stared daggers into all of us, and so did Victor’s. That’s right, the little shit, somehow, had regrown right back out of her chest cavity. Like a damn wart.

“There’s a generator half powered up over by that hill in the far corner.” David, announced. “Get there and finish it. Now!”

Ol’ geezer didn’t have to tell me twice. As I ran, the last thing I heard was a cry of pain, and David’s body hitting the snow with a thud. I didn’t know what became of Claudette and Dwight then, but there was no time to dwell on that. I sprinted to the hill David had pointed out in the far corner of the chalet grounds and with my hands still trembling slightly, I sparked wires and pulled levers until, after what felt like an eternity of bated breath, the lights above me flashed on, and a siren sounded from somewhere in the distance. 
I was sure at that stage that I’d heard all three of my teammates scream in pain, and I tried not to feel guilty about the fact that they’d taken the brunt of the brutish Twins. I was sure, not too far from me, David had been skewered on one of the dreaded meat hooks. I had pulled the switch that opened one of the exit gates and was standing there, in the freezing heat of snow and panic, waiting for the thing to fully power up, when Claudette and David, both badly wounded, ran towards me. 

The three gaudy lights had flickered on, and, with what felt like a miraculous jolt of energy and life, the gears above our heads began to turn and the shoddy iron gate hauled itself open. 

“Please tell me Dwight is with ya?” David asked. It was the first time he’d seemed to care about anyone but himself. I’d make a joke about personal growth here, but seeing Victor emerge from Charlottes chest that day has been enough to make me never want to think about any kind of “personal growth” ever again.
I told them I was alone. David cursed, and the three of us looked at each other, sharing a feeling of dread. “We can’t leave him.” Claudette said, and I had to agree. He’d taken too many sickles to the back for us to just give up on him now. In what was probably a dumb move, we shuffled away from our path to freedom, and over to the corner of the brick wall keeping us trapped in the trial. Hidden behind a shoddy, lone stone wall, we began trying to heal Claudette’s wounds. It took a while, but we managed to close up the gash on her back with some alcohol and loose bandages we had in our pockets. 

“Where would Dwight be right now?” Claudette asked, as we moved onto David’s wounds. “He wouldn’t just go off on his own like this. He’s a team player.” David looked frightened. None of us had heard a peep from Dwight, and, as I said earlier, the guy’s a shrieker. We would have known if he were in trouble. If he’d needed help.

“I have no idea.” David responded, a slight quaver in his northern drawl. The pair were obviously panicked; not thinking straight. Where the hell was he? 

As it tends to when the exit gates finally open, the ground around us had begun to take on a slight, agitated tremor. Through the snow, it looked like dull, fiery light was starting emerge from cracks forming in the ground. It was now or never, we had to get out, or we were as good as dead. I looked at my teammates terrified expressions, and I realized, much to my displeasure, I was the only one calm enough here to logically figure out where Dwight was. 

But how the hell was I supposed to find him? I didn’t know this guy from Freddy, Jason or damn Max Thompson Jr.! I didn’t have the insight David had. I stared at David and saw, in his eyes alone, that he cared about Dwight just as much as I now knew Dwight cared about him. So, David did have a heart after all. A nice realization, but I didn’t get to enjoy the romance of it, knowing that if someone didn’t do something, David’s heart would be ripped out with the rest of his entrails by Charlotte, Victor, or something else entirely. I had to put feelings aside, pick myself up and do what I do best: put my finely-tuned detective skills to work. 
I closed my eyes, and, in my mind, everything that had happened there at Mount Ormond Resort rattled like jigsaw puzzle pieces, falling in front of me in a pile.  I started to pull the pieces out one-by-one, and lay them face up in front of me. The faces of everyone I had met stared back at me.

The Twins. Charlotte’s bloodlust. Victor’s shrill shriek. The hessian coif and big wicker basket.

Claudette. Her kindness. Her vast knowledge of plants, and how to use them. 

David. His stiff upper lip, and the way it now trembled as he feared for Dwight.

And then there was Dwight himself. His pain. His embarrassment. His desperate desire to impress David.

 

Why did he want to impress David? Why was he so quick to jump into action and kick Victor to the ground? What was he doing...at that bush?

I looked at Claudette. “That bush from earlier. He was picking something off a bush.” 
Claudette looked down and thought to herself briefly. “Crispleaf amaranth” she responded. “He’d been asking me a lot about plants lately...I told him that that bush was an amaranthus crispus...or Crispleaf amaranth.” 
“What else did you tell him”

“Oh...” she paused. “Just that it's a bit of an anomaly for it to be growing up here in the snow. It usually only flowers in summer, people use it for remedies and tinctures and teas. That sort of thing.”
The jigsaw puzzle pieces began to move on their own now. Spinning. Clicking into place. I knew where to find Dwight. 

My lip curled. That insane son of a bitch.

I told Claudette and David to wait where they were. Claudette continued to heal David as I rushed off as quick as my patent leather boots could carry me. My eyes darted from side to side and my woollen scarf blew behind me as I bolted through the wind. If I wanted to get to Dwight, I’d have to be quick. With an intensifying speed, the ground was beginning to splinter and crack beneath me. I felt that foggy heat emanating up. Like the hearth in the chalet, it wasn’t warm, just vicious.

I ran a loop around the perimeter and passed the amaranth bush. I searched around the snowplow and the small cabin by the Mount Ormond signpost. But there was no sign. I vaulted across the chalet window and ran through the lobby. I was running out of time. There was only one place I hadn’t checked. I darted up the stairs and found what must have once been a guest bedroom. I was through the door before I even realised it. I had found who I was looking for.

Not even three feet away, towering over me, was Charlotte. I almost lost my footing but caught myself just on time with a sharp inhale of breath. By the grace of whatever unknown force looks over us here in this hellscape, Charlotte was stood stock still like before: somehow unconscious. Her fallow, idle head serenely swayed in the cold mountain breeze sweeping in through the shattered windows. I caught my breath and a tinge of hope returned to me. I knew that wherever Charlotte was, Dwight would be there too.
For all her brutality and violence, I saw somewhere in Charlotte’s lulled face the calm of a sleeping child. This isn’t the part of the story where I try to redeem The Twins by any means, but if you’ve made it this far, you’ll have realised that, by feeling the feelings of others out here in this realm, I’ve started to see certain things from new perspectives. 

My father taught me that it's better to have a thousand enemies at your door then to let even one in. When you look out the window, past your own reflection, and see your enemy standing outside...somehow, you get a chance to look beyond what makes them an enemy. Somehow, they’re just a person, separated by a pane of glass. And eventually, if you look long enough, don’t you see the enemy anymore. You just see the human. 
The story Claudette told me about Charlotte felt so vivid and so real now. As I stood back from my sleeping enemy, it was impossible not to believe that the tranquility across this dormant, weathered face wasn’t submerged in a deep, subconscious relief to just be asleep and to just forget all of the pain and fear, if even for a short moment. To hold onto what was already there, and to not feel threatened that it was going to be taken away. Because once sleep faded, that relief was going to vanish, and Charlotte would have to raise her guard again. To defend what was hers. 

Behind Charlotte, brazenly rooting through the wicker basket on her back, was Dwight. Just as I had expected.

“Take the teapot and let's get out of here!” I commanded, trying to maintain a balance of authority and calm. As much as I didn’t want to wake up the sleeping brute before me, I was breathless, and more than ready for all of this to be over.

“How did you-?” Dwight stuttered. 

Before he could finish, I grabbed his wrist and pulled him away from the basket. 

“Tea.” I said. “British people love tea...and clearly, you love a British person.”

We were just about out the door when we heard a light grunt behind us. Our spines stiffened and we both turned slowly, knowing exactly what was about to happen. 

The first thing Charlotte saw was her teapot in Dwight’s hand. Her nostrils flared and eyebrows furrowed in furious shock. It was as if the three of us were frozen in place by fear, dread and outrage respectively. That split second of stilted stillness held for one suffocating moment. Then, I squeezed Dwight’s wrist as calmly, and as tightly, as I possibly could, and under my breath I whispered: “Run.”

We turned on our heels and raced across the rickety landing. The floorboards creaked under our steps, and I nearly tripped over a loose floorboard right before the top of the stairs. Dwight, however, did trip, and with flips and clattering thuds he reached the bottom, his body breaking straight through the wooden railing at the bottom of the stairs where they turned at a ninety-degree angle.

In the throes of the fall, Dwight lost grip on the teapot, and it flew into the air with a keen glimmer of orange, reflecting the hellish, splitting earth beneath us. As I ran, I caught the teapot in midair and continued forward, barely looking back to see how close Charlotte was behind us. Dwight groaned, stumbling to his feet, and tried to hobble away on a limp and a prayer. 

He was hurt. Hindered. There was no possible way he could make it to the gate now before Charlotte sunk her weapon into his skin and slung him up one last time onto one of those ungodly hooks. Killing him.
It happens all the time here. You come to terms with it. It’s even happened to me. You feel that last tinge of hope you had get sucked out of your body and you ascend into the clouds, drained of all that had kept you running and repairing, frantic to keep yourself, and your fellow survivors, alive. Then you just sort of just wake up again, and feel like a little piece of yourself is missing. Taken.

But my hope wasn’t spent just yet. Something about Dwight’s frenzied hobbling had kept me grounded, I wasn’t content to let anyone meet that end. So, I kept running forward, forgetting the stairs completely. Charlotte was at the top of the stairs, about to descend, when I turned and flashed the teapot in front of her eyes. 

“You want it? Allez, bitch!” 

She sidestepped the stairs and advanced towards me furiously. I ran out onto the balcony that wrapped around the side of the chalet. Charlotte pursued, and, with barely three strides, she was right behind me. In touching distance. I heard her curved blade slice the air behind me as she swiftly raised it over her head. With a heavy grunt, she swung down. The sickle came at me with speed and force. I felt my body tense as the blade came to meet my flesh. The blade was halfway to my skull before it was halted. I threw down the wooden pallet resting against the wall and it whacked Charlotte’s face as it fell. She was thrown off for a moment, confused, but only for the few short seconds it took her to kick the wooden pallet and watch it smash to smithereens in front of her, clearing the path. I bolted down the stairs that led off the balcony and into the lobby. Lucky break. Now, I had a chance to sprint to the exit and get the hell out. I hoped that I had bought Dwight enough time.

But Dwight wasn’t at the exit gate. Neither was Claudette or David. There was no one. The ground was throbbing, pulsating infernal orange. With every step, the snow around me shook and fizzed. A deep hum coursed through my veins now, emanating out from the cracks in the ground. Had everyone left? It was like my head was a great bell that had been struck the moment the exit gates opened and was only now beginning to ring out in its full glory. Where were my teammates? All I could hear was the dissonance. What happened to them? My mind, ringing and panicked, was too overstimulated now, and as such there was no warning and no anticipation when Victor pounced at my head. 

I don’t know why we’re here, forced into these situations, but ever since that trial on Mount Ormond, I’ve become suspicious of things that are out of place or not quite right. Those things are the closest we get to our real enemies here. The bushes of crispleaf amaranth growing in the snow. The conjoined twin finally detached, free to run. The things that are just too good to be true. 

These things all seem to me like manifestations of false hope feeding whatever being has set this whole circus up. Creating hope and basking in its destruction. I’m starting to think that it’s those same manifestations of false hope that drive these killers to try and sacrifice the rest of us. It’s the exact same reason why we desperately try to escape.

Maybe this was why none of us truly ever ‘died’ here. Whoever, or whatever, is responsible for all of this suffering needs our hope to feed its hunger. But when I heard Victor’s shriek arc over my head, my teammates nowhere to be seen, I felt my hope vanish for a split second. Did Victor get all three of them? Why was that so easy to believe suddenly. 

Then I remembered my Dad telling me what his father had told him. “Don’t let the enemies in. That’s how they win.”

And isn’t it funny that right as that thought popped into my head, Claudette ran out and kicked Victor with an almighty thwack, straight in the nose. Then David emerged from his hiding place too, and finally Dwight, who had made it back just in time. They had waited for me. 

The hum was emanating more furiously than ever now, and I think we all felt as if our heads were about to pop.
“C’mon” said Claudette. “We’re free.”
We ran out of the gate, and the hum dimmed and died.
We got the hell out. All four of us. Together.
I turned around and saw the furious face of Charlotte, and her brother Victor, back attached to her chest. Claudette, Dwight and David kept on running, but I stopped briefly. I thought about the story Claudette had told me again, about the way these two had to fight so hard to survive. I thought about Charlotte’s face so close-up, and how every line or divet seemed to represent a hardship I knew, somehow, in my core, she had faced. Fuck it. 
I bent down and left the teapot on the ground for Charlotte to collect. She had been punished enough. Let her keep some hope. 
~
In the end, the hopes of a warm cup of tea weren’t all in vain. We managed to sanitize a toolbox and boil some water in it over the campfire. With the crispleaf amaranth Dwight had collected, the four of us were all able to enjoy some hot tea that warmed our blood and restored our spirits. Finally, some ACTUAL warmth. Finally, some hope that we could all just enjoy. 
Hope is contagious. Maybe that’s why the entity keeping us here has set things up the way it has. To keep creating and destroying hope. But you know what, I just so happen to think that if we can keep spreading hope like that between each other....maybe we’ll survive this place. Maybe, with enough hope, we can get out of here once and for all. So I’m gonna keep on being sappy and emotional, and keep holding onto hope. Maybe with enough hope, these audio recordings will eventually reach someone, somewhere. Maybe, with enough hope, we’ll live.
...../////...///...///................//..../....
Geez, Dwight, can’t you see I’ve been trying to record one of my macabre mysteries? Why are you shrieking?
////../////.......//......///.....////////....
What?
...
YOU SPILLED THE AMARANTH TEA ON YOUR ARM? ALL OF IT?
................Maybe there’s no hope after all.
~FIN~