The 200 Murders of 1977 (Murder Game Series Book 1)

Tainted Heart

September 1st, 1977

I ran a hand through my hair and rested my head on the desk that sat in my office. Moments ago I had been contacted by The Shadow Order saying they finally found Clara. It had been 3 days since she went missing and by the time we found her it was too late.

The love of my life was dead, I touched the ring I had planned on giving her the day she came home from work 3 days ago, only she never came home, and I never got to give her the ring or even say goodbye for that matter.

We had been tracking the Gorifiers for a year now only to find that they were preparing for something big. It started with a small murder originally in 1976 on October 13th, it was meant to scare us into thinking they were something more than human, though from studying them we found they were indeed nothing more. This didn't make them any less dangerous, they sent us many letters about how they would torture their victims in many ways right before killing them.

The Shadow Order was formed as a secret society to protect the people, and we had been doing a good job up until now. Clara had recently joined the Order and spent most of her days watching anyone who we believed was a target for The Gorifiers. Then she just didn't come home, and I had no doubt who it was that had her.

Clara was killed for being part of The Shadow Order, she wouldn't be the only one either. The Gorifiers had sent a letter that morning that they would be killing 200 people before they got caught, and before the end of the year. They said there was nothing we could do because they were already well ahead of us. They then went on to describe the things they did to Clara.

They told of how they tortured her for hours for information but she never said a word, they told her they would let her live if she told them what they wanted to know. She never did though because she knew they were lying and Clara died for it too.

I closed the box of the ring and got up from my cluttered desk knocking my coffee cup all over stuff but I just didn't care. I pulled on my coat and headed out the door and began a walk through town. I passed several Coffee shops and restaurants, Clara and I had tried every place in this town together it was our goal. It may have seemed stupid but it was something we did together and no one could take that away.

Our town sat just outside of a forest, a forest known as the aokigahara forest. It was like a "sea of trees" as we called it here in Japan, it was known as a place where people went to commit suicide, though with the way things are going currently you wouldn't need to go to the forest to kill yourself when the Gorifiers will probably do it for you.

I entered the forest looking around, it was truly once a beautiful place before it became haunted by tortured souls and broken people. I began to walk through it and after 10 minutes of walking, I soon found I wandered off the path and got lost. It would take me some time to find my way back but I guess I didn't have a choice otherwise. I was wandering around looking for the path and I swore I saw someone in a black hoodie moving around. It was a creepy thing all considering.

I looked up from the ground I had been staring at and saw it but this time it didn't run. Someone in a black hoodie had there back to me and that's what worried me the most.

"Hello?" I asked them but they remained unmoving as I cautiously walked towards them, "Who are you?" I questioned and before I could say anything they turned around and hit me with something and I stumbled back hitting the dirt and all I saw was the color red as the sticky wetness of blood flowed down over my eyes, and that was the last thing I remembered.

***

Now I stood here in a dark room that had a dimly lit black candle on a table. Nothing was interesting about this room at all. There were 4 black walls and the table sat pushed up against one of them and a door was at the far right but it was locked. So I stood there in the middle of the room waiting for I couldn't possibly guess what.

There was a large bump on my forehead but that didn't matter to me right now I felt as if I was about to find out something, and I scratched the back of my neck worried about whatever it was. The door swung open about this time and there stood a person in a black hoodie, but the strange thing was I knew this girl.

"I never would have guessed it was you," I said backing up against one of the walls and she smiled a wicked smile as she stepped towards me.

"Never break a woman's heart, or it gets tainted with revenge." The knife that I now noticed was in her hand rose in front of me, I now understood what The Gorifiers were made of, people who were broken and tainted by their past wanting to revenge, but no one would ever know till it was too late.

The knife stabbed through my neck so far it got stuck in the wall and the last thing I heard was her laugh as I died nearly instantly, blood pooled out of my mouth and neck and my body hung off the floor by inches, I was number 2 of 200.

"Have a good time in the afterlife George." The female said before leaving her victim to do just that.