Faceless Game

Prologue

April 2015

Quebec City, Quebec  

There was deep red liquid splattered everywhere. Trickling down the white walls and spilling down from the crisp white, Egyptian sheets. It took a while for the four individuals in the room to register that it was blood. Another human's blood. When it finally dawned on them what they had just done, panic set in. If someone had to enter the room they would not only smell the metallic scent of blood heavy in the air, but also the fear emitting from them, they were guilty.

Each one of them.

"Shite. Shite." Wade cursed under his breath as he paced the room.

"Can you stop that!" Art's gaze shot daggers at him from the other side of the room. "I'm trying to think, and I can't do that with your frigging voice inside my head."

The boy's skin was ashen, as though he had just seen a ghost. Hot, sticky blood ran down his chest and soaked into his black T-shirt. His heart thumped so fast and loud in his chest, that he was afraid everyone in the room could hear it and could tell just how frightened he was. Sweat glistened on his pale skin and trickled down his brows and then, slowly down to his face. He licked his chapped lips, tasting the sweat in his mouth. It tasted like bad decisions and regrets.

He was a mess, they all were.

Wade spun around and marched over to where Art stood. "You don't get to tell me shite!"

"Wade. . ." Tania's gentle voice had a pleading tone to it.

"This" — He pointed at the corpse laying on the canopy bed and looked back at his best friend — "is all your fault. If you could just control your girl and your temper, none of this would've happened."

Art gritted his teeth and clenched his fingers into fists, ready to punch something in. Preferably Wade's face, but suddenly there was a loud wailing in the room, it sounded like that of a wounded animal, but as Art, Wade and Tania turned around to the sound, they found Didi tucked in a corner of the room. She sat on the cold, hardwood floor, hugging her knees to her chest. Her cheeks so pale and her eyes vacant.

At the sight of the distressed girl, Art and Tania rushed over to her, and without any words said, Art gathered Didi into his arms. She sunk into his embrace, another wail escaping her lips as she grabbed onto him like he was her life support. Tania watched the couple, tears threatening to spill from her own eyes.

How did they come to this?

She couldn't remember the events that led up to that moment, it was all a blur. A big, messy blur. She blinked, realizing that it was actually a blur, because she was crying, and her tears were blurring her vision. An ache settled deep into her stomach; it was so painful that it took the breath away from her, making her slump down next to Art and Didi. Seconds later, she felt familiar arms around her. She turned and buried her face in Wade's T-shirt, his familiar woody scent calming her nerves.

As the group of teens sat there, each of their gaze turned to the corpse lying on the bed. It was two hours since it happened; his breast wasn't moving, his jaws were wide open and his dead, soulless eyes stared up at the ceiling. The cells in his body had carried out their last work and his mechanisms had come to halt, and now he was not going to get any older, because he was dead, and it was all because of them.  

They all had demons of their own. Demons they've been fighting for the longest time and on their own, but in this, they knew that they needed each other to get through it, but little did they know that taking another human's life wasn't just something you did and left in the past. It always, always, had a way of haunting you.