Etched in Parchment

It Wasn't Them

A short story by @jemappelleyerdua, an acquaintance of mine and this is partially edited and co-written by me!

"Cheers!"

"Dance with us!"

"Happy Birthday!"

"Here's to a score and one!"

Glasses clink. So much laughter, 2's and 1's scattered on the confetti decorated floor. Sequins and glitter on faces. Phones dying. People dancing. Singing. Making out. A whole mess but a wonderful day nonetheless.

A really wonderful day.

Or so it was...

"OH MY GOD!" Aria cried, her whole body shaken to the core. She clinged to Matthew who was equally as shocked comforting his beloved partner. Julian was cursing up a storm, pacing around and destroying whatever was untouched in the room. And Phoebe... Phoebe was just standing, silently. One could mistake her to be a mannequin if not for the steady rise and falls of her chest or the slight tremble on her fingertips.

All four of them stared, not knowing what else to do they just stared... At the corpse of Nora Elizalde.

They knew she was dead. They knew how Nora slept and she definitely never slept with her eyes wide open, or with open wounds on her wrist. Or when she broke out in hives for her allergies. Or when she had a rope around her neck suited for hanging.

No... Happy Nora doesn't sleep like that.

Nora was paler than Matthew who practically never saw the sun. It can be presumed that the wound was responsible for that. Or the fact that her heart had stopped beating and blood circulation had ultimately ceased.

"Who..." Phoebe breathed, turning to the lot of her friends. Who gazed up on her earnestly. Eyes welled up with tears, make-up smeared. Bruises on each visible limb and an ambience that told everyone that everything is not what it seemed to be. "Who killed my sister?"

Nobody spoke. And before they knew it, police surrounded the entire place and the Elizalde House had officially become a crime scene. Aria's face contorted so much that you cannot even place what it is to be when she was met by her father, the chief of the homicide department in their city. Matthew, despite his mouse-like nature, was the one to speak to the lead investigators. And Julian, the hothead that he was, got himself cuffed for causing a fit because they won't let him call his father Governor Marcus Villanueva.

Phoebe was on the phone with her mother, telling her the news of her sister's demise to which Olivia Elizalde sobbed, from the east side of the world.

"Phoebe... What happened? You two were fine last night. Nora was fine last night, she was. You two just turned twenty-one. It was a happy occasion so what happened?" Phoebe had no answer because truthfully, she only knew so much but that information is not something God would even get out of her.

"Phoebe... Talk to me please." Olivia begged her daughter but Phoebe had nothing to say it would seem. "At least tell me how she died. Tell me your sister didn't suffer. Please."

Suffer?

Phoebe mentally scoffed. Remembering the scene she faced, she knew that her sister suffered. And she loved that she did yet Phoebe hated that too.

"I'll talk to you when I get the details mom." she said, ending the call so as to not hear another word from her. For if she did, Phoebe knew that she would break.

-

"Let me call my father!" Julian screamed trying to get the cuffs off of him to no avail.

"Nobody's stopping you buddy." The officer in charge of watching him said boredly. Clearly done with his little fits.