💀 One crown. Five contestants. One fair competition. Or not. 💀
Delta Heights School, an all girls boarding school has just gotten spine-chilling. A harmless blackmail turns deadly when one of the five contestants for the Ms. Delta crown, an annual...
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Kellan was already at the old storage tower; she had been there for hours. She hadn’t even made it to the memorial and had come straight there. Arms folded she paced back and forth in the hall of the ground floor of the two storey waiting for Hanna. She hadn’t been able to gather any evidence pinpointing ‘her’ as the culprit but a name was all Hanna needed, so that’s what she was going to get.
The air in the building was chilly and her thin uniform did nothing to prevent the goose bumps from materializing on her arms and legs. The chilly air wasn’t the only thing giving her goose bumps though, the atmosphere in the building itself was unnerving and the fact that her candle was the only source of the light in the entire building did nothing to help ease her anxiety.
The storage tower used to serve as a storehouse for Delta Heights’ foods and groceries, but was closed down due to a fire incident that happened years ago that gutted the entire left wing of the building and destroyed most of the items in store. Rumour around the school was that it was now haunted by the ghost of the caretaker who had died in the fire, probably the reason for the chill in the air even though the it was probably warm outside. Kellan shook the thoughts of a possible presence of a ghost where she was. She wasn’t one to entertain the thoughts of being in the same space as a ghost.
A small breeze blew into the room and snuffed out her candlelight. At the same time, she heard a bump from upstairs and her heart skipped a beat. Her first instinct was to run as fast as she could out of the place but then she remembered that the building had a back door that lead straight to the top floor of the building. Maybe Hanna used that route to get inside to prevent from being caught. On the other hand, it could really be the ghost of the caretaker roaming about upstairs.
Kellan reached out beside her with her right hand and touched the wall and feeling the area before with her free hand and feet she guided herself towards the grand staircase at the far end of the room. She had visited the building a couple of times and was lucky to have remembered the site where the staircase was. Upon reaching it, using the banister as a support, she climbed up the stairs to the top where thankfully the damaged windows allowed more than a little moonlight through.
It wasn’t a ghost of the caretaker; neither was it Hanna who had come to look for her.
Kellan placed her candle on the floor and gave the gate crasher a fixated stare. “What are you doing here? The memorial is on the field not here.”
“I could say the same for you. Where is Hanna?” The urgency in her voice was lost on Kellan as she absentmindedly answered her question.
“Probably at the memorial, where you should be.”
“But weren’t you supposed to meet her here? I thought she would have been here by now.”
Kellan’s nose itched whenever her gut was trying to point her to something and at that moment she felt the biggest itch she had ever experienced. And it was sending all sorts of signals to her brain. “How did you know that Hanna and I were supposed to meet? I didn’t tell anyone about it. And I highly doubt she told you about it either.”
The girl didn’t answer and looked anywhere but at Kellan while trying so hard to hide something which she held behind her. But hiding a designer shopping bag at your back isn’t at all easy, especially ones that have the Louboutin labels them.
And once Kellan saw that bag, the girl knew that she was doomed.
Kellan’s hand flew to her mouth, her eyes wide with surprise. She couldn’t even get her words out properly. “I-It w-was y-y-you? Y-you w-w-were t-the cul-culprit?”
The girl’s expression of fear turned to perplexity and then shock. “Wait a minute. I thought you said you knew who the culprit was.”
“I thought I did. Now I know I was very wrong. I have to tell Hanna about this now.” And without another word Kellan turned back and headed towards the stairs. She was a foot away from going down when a loud “Stop!” from behind her brought her to a standstill.
“Please, don’t tell Hanna. Don’t tell anyone for that matter.” The girl pleaded her voice drawing closer to Kellan with every word.
When Kellan finally looked back, she was right in front of her, her face an epitome of fear and worry. “Would you please keep this a secret for me?”
“You know I can’t. You murdered someone, and her memorial is being held right now as we speak. The best thing you can do right now is to turn yourself in and pay for what you did.”
“I know. I deserve to be punished.”
“Then tell me why you did it? Why did you steal the voting tickets, then murder Becca when she found out? Why?”
“I can’t, its complicated.”
“No matter how complicated it is, if you want me to keep your secret, the least you can do is to tell me. Why did you do it?”
“I really want to tell you but I can’t.”
“And why is that?”
The girl moved closer to Kellan and whispered in her ear, the same words Kellan had spoken that afternoon, to Hanna. “‘Remember what happened to Becca when she found out.’”
Kellan stood still for a few seconds before it dawned on her. The girl pulled away and looked into Kellan’s face. There was this mischievous glint in her eye that Kellan saw for a split second before she felt the push. It was small and unexpected, but enough to cause her to slip and fall back. Her arms flailed and she grabbed at the thin air before she finally rammed into the stairs and rolled down to the ground hitting her head against the floor. The impact was so hard that she immediately lost consciousness; in a few minutes she would be dead.
The girl ran down the stairs to meet a pool of blood at the feet of the stairs. Seeing Kellan sprawled on the ground tore at her heart but the deed was already done. She had to ensure her secret was safe if she didn’t want to rot in jail. As quickly as she could, she removed Kellan’s shoes and replaced them with the Louboutin stilettos. There was no way she was going to be able to get them to her room anyway, better keep them thinking the heels were an important factor in their deaths.
Few minutes after she had left, Hanna came barging in, her candlelight immediately being blown out by the gust of wind which met her inside. She paused at the door taking in deep breaths as she had just escaped as fast she could from the memorial. They were approaching the end and so she had just a short amount time before she would have to run back so no one would notice she had been gone.
“Kellan.” She called out. “Kellan, I know you’re in here. Hurry, we’ve got only a few minutes before everyone is sent back to their Dorms by Principal Knox. If we don’t get back in time Principal Knox is going to find out that we weren’t at the memorial and we will probably get suspended for not attending a school function.”
She paused for a moment and tried again. “Kellan, I’m serious. Culprit or no culprit I’m not getting suspended. Kellan!” Hanna, frustrated, kicked out in front of her and she felt her foot hit something on the ground in the dark. Curiosity got the better of her and she squatted and felt around in the dark for what she had kicked earlier. Her hands closed around some fingers and she squealed in panic and fell backwards. As if on cue a ray of moonlight shone through the room through the open door and Hanna was able to see Kellan’s lifeless and bloody body in front of her, her eyes pale and empty like the moonlight.
