Red Discord

Chapter 8

One minute remained ticking of Kassy’s time. She thrashed and tore through her bed sheets, throwing them every which way. Tears streamed down her face like a rock falling to the ground. She felt like she couldn’t control them anymore, but it was the hair that stuck to her face from all the salty tears that really bugged her the most. There was no time to worry about such things, though. Finding nothing on her bed, her feet wobbled and finally gave out, letting her body float to the ground in defeat.

“There’s nowhere left,” she mumbled, her voice breaking. “I should have known. I should have known this house was too big for me to search on my own.” There was a particular doll on the ground that caught her attention. She rolled her eyes over to it, her eyebrows twitching. For no particular reason, she picked up the doll and held it in her hands. Kassy could feel the hate rising in her while her glare harshened, then, in a spurt of anger, she hurled it back to the ground. Her eyes grew wide with a stroke of realization. Kassy crawled on her legs over to the doll. Picking it back up, she ripped its head off. She found some difficulty in tearing it off from the beige strings that connected the head to the body. The inside of the body was filled with stuffing, a large contrast from the hardened exterior on the outside. She stuck her hand and searched around inside of the doll. Deep inside Kassy could feel something cold and hard, something metallic. From inside the doll, what she found was a small, black key with a clover decorated bow. The sight made her smile, victory wasn’t too far away now.

A static, screeching noise boomed throughout the house. It died down in a couple seconds and a voice appeared in its place. “The time limit is up. All are free to hunt. I repeat: the time limit is up; all are free to hunt.”

“Dammit!” Kassy muttered softly under her breath. Without a moment dely, she hopped off her her legs and onto her feet and bolted to the door. She wasn’t sure how many servants were in this place; she wasn’t bothered to find out when she came and she didn’t want to find out now. Out the door, she made her way quickly to the stairs.

Kassy stopped dead in her tracks at the stairs, one foot already placed on the first step down.The sight she saw straight in front of her left her motionless. The two butlers were squished together on the middle of the stairs, each pushing against the other to make way. Neither moved and it seemed to be a battle of the wits as they hadn’t noticed Kassy yet at all.

It was the skinny butler that finally pushed the heavyset butler off of him. He glared back at the man. “Move, you fucking niger! And stay out of my way.”

Quicker than he could account for, the bulky man grabbed his arm and pulled him back down and let him fall. The skinny butler rolled down the stairs. His head hit first—the corner of the steps—then his back—a couple steps—then his legs fell onto his body which kept him in a repeat as he tumbled down. He landed on the ground with a crack, laying back down on the tiled floor. There was blood that poured from the back of his head, oozing out like a full bottle of paint. The impact ejected blood from his mouth as well, causing him to spit it out with a loud hacking noise, the excess blood dripping from the corners of his mouth.

The black butler lowered his gaze one last time at his colleague. “Stupid, white trash.” He tore his gaze away from the man and continued up the stairs. It only lasted for two steps. The skinny butler had gotten up from the ground and raced up the stairs after him. He grabbed a knife from inside of his jacket and jabbed the knife into the man’s lower back, the impact of pulling the knife out almost caused him to lose his balance. The bulky butler turned around and grabbed the skinny butler by the neck. His feet rose off the step he was barely balancing on and dangled in mid-air. When the bulky butler began to squeeze at his neck, he grabbed at his gorilla hands and latched onto them. Using the man’s hands as support, he swung his legs up and kicked at his chest. The impact caused the bulky butler to release his companion, sending him spiraling back down the stairs, while he was pushed backwards against the stairs, clawing the walls for support.