A[U]CTOR

The mansion

A broken mansion. Your first day at work and a dead body covered with a curtain in the middle of the room.

It was only my first day and already the mansion has fallen apart. I was the new butler that came to fill in for Giovanni Altieri, he served the Ricci family for 25 years and he decided to take a well deserved vacation.

I saw the sculptures cracked, paintings of all shapes and sizes punctured or sliced in half, the tapestry torn to shreds, glass bottles of wine and whisky shattered on the floor and some of the curtains burnt to ashes. The stench of rotting food made me gag, I had to open the kitchen window because the stench was unbearable.

Once I made it to the middle of the room, it was nearly barren, save for the dead body that was wrapped in a white curtain, blood staining the thin fabric. When I unwrapped the curtain, I saw the corpse of a young woman that seemed to look like she was in her early twenties. The gaping wound looked fresh, it reached to her jugular down to her clavicle. She was beautiful too, her blonde hair had a lovely mane, like a lion.

"Get rid of it." A feminine voice commanded. I flinched before I turned around to see miss Ricci light a cigarette and smoke.

"How am I supposed to-" but before I could ask her she put a knife against my neck.

"Do as I say! Or you're next!" She threatened me while she pressed the blade down to my Adam's apple. As I covered the corpse, I hear miss Ricci cock the gun so I dragged the corpse out of the room.

How did Giovanni managed to put up with this lunatic was beyond me.

I saw her douse the corpse with cooking oil and lit a match. I ran from her as fast as I can, I didn't want to see how she burnt the corpse to a crisp, before I could reach the exit, she shot my leg and walked towards me. "Did I order you to leave?" No, she didn't. But I'd be damned if I stay one more second here. "Answer me!" She yelled.
"No!" I winced from the pain, before she looked down on me.

I see her wearing sunglasses, the cigarette discarded along with the corpse she cremated. "Exactly! I will not tolerate insubordination from a novice. If Giovanni hadn't gone on a two month vacation, I would've killed you without a second thought. It's for his sake that I'm keeping you alive, remember that." She spat.

I was limping from the injury for a whole month after that. I would've reported her to the authorities but she made sure she would make my family pay. Ricci knew where my family lived and she had no qualms blowing them up to bits if I tried to rat her out, she even bribed one of the sheriffs to report her if I happened to be near the police station.

So I was at her mercy for another month.

"Two down, one more to go." Ava smirked when she had her sight on another woman. I've noticed that her victims were female.

First she had killed a woman monikered, Luxuria. "Ever heard of the seven deadly sins?" She asked me as if I was some kind of idiot.
"Yes." I'm not an idiot.
"Then that girl I killed was a slut." She said nonchalantly, whoever that woman was didn't deserved to be called that, no matter if she was one.
"She's already dead. Respect that." I shouted, then she pointed the gun at me.
"Pay attention, moron! That was her title, it's basically an anagram of her vice."

S L U T
   L U S T

S for Sin, simple.

"Why do you need me anyway?" I asked her.
"I need you to testify in case I don't make it." She says to me.
"What are you talking about?" I asked.
"Stop the car." I pull over. "I'm gonna tell you a little secret." I see her take off her sunglasses, showing her green eyes have an eerie glow. "The bitch who gave me the stink eye is the one I'm after. That slippery serpent sin of envy jinxed me. She somehow got Giovanni to take a vacation." She said to me.

"Everyone deserves to take a vacation." I said.

"Giovanni was a raging workaholic! He worked for my family for 25 years and not once have I seen him go on vacation. He even chose to work on his sick days for crying out loud!" For the first time I see her for what she really is, vulnerable. Mostly mean and selfish, though I haven't seen this side of her. "I miss him! He's the only whose been around longer than my parents ever where. My family were my nonna and Giovanni. My nonna past away almost a year now, and since Giovanni is gone. I'm on my own now." She said to me.

"Well I'm still here." I say.

"For now." She put her shades back on. "Listen up because I'm going to say this once. The two women I killed are the vices of Lust and Gluttony. I'm Avaricia, the sin of Greed, this game doesn't end until one of us is left standing. If I end up the dead the next day, you will warn everyone about the Deadly 7. This testimony is the only thing I'm going to share." She said to me.

She told me how she heard about the game and how she got duped into playing. A wealthy business man coaxed her into playing without knowing the repercussions. The game would start out as harmless challenges before the dares become deadlier, during the 50th challenge they eliminate each other. They gathered into that mansion to play the game until it spiralled out of control.

They scattered to avoid getting each other killed, the winner had the choice to pass their vice unto their succesor or perish in order to bring the others back. To make the long story short there are no winners when it came to the Deadly Seven.

Ava got off the car to face the sin of envy, they faced each other, I drove off to the mansion to where the nightmare began. The next day, Ava's body was found floating in the shore.

Giovanni returned from his vacation to attend the funeral. The forensics had performed an autopsy on her corpse and they brushed her off her death as suicide by drowning.

I turned on the video camera on my phone to give her testimony, I also gave the authorities a recording on how she confessed the murders of Lucía X. Urías and Gertrude Ursula Lambert. Those women were just pawns of the wicked men that tricked them into playing the devil's game.