Bianca Garrick's death brought the Dominion down to its knees.

Two days after the harrowing night, no one inside that forlorn house dared speak. All eleven inhabitants under that roof walked by each other, silent and distant, parallel lines unwilling, or perhaps unable to meet. Like phantoms trapped under the same curse, they creeped up and down the hallways, mourning, dragging the chains they slowly accumulated with each new sin. Soon they all became phantasms, mirages of their previous selves, condemned to repeat their mistakes over and over again.

At times, Teddy wondered if something else might've died besides Bianca Garrick.

Out of all the Stags, and much to Teddy's surprise, it was Renata Rutherford who seemed the most affected by Bianca's suicide. The redheaded girl cried all through the day and well into the night after the party. Not even her dashing boyfriend, the heartbroken Tony, managed to calm her down and when it became clear he wasn't helping in any way, shape or form, he chose to leave her alone, locking her in her room.

Her sobs echoed in every corner of the Dominion, howls that brought new purpose to the house, feeding its darkness, quenching its thirst. The blood that dripped from these walls now threatened to drown them all and Teddy pictured them, adrift, castaways holding on to their last remnants of decency, fighting to stay afloat against a red tide that imperilled to take them down.

Since the fatal Halloween night, Teddy and Tripp had spoken not a single word. As a matter of fact, it seemed both actively avoided the other, something Teddy was perfectly okay with. He had not the strength nor the will to stand before Tripp and try to salvage their friendship, if it ever existed; he knew the consequences of confessing his love. For his part, the raven haired boy shielded behind Violet, whose fragile condition gave him the perfect excuse to lock himself in her room and ignore the rest of the world.

Emilia, for her part, took the girl's suicide deeply personal. The guilt of both Bianca and Stuart's deaths hit her like a storm and she too shut Teddy out, telling him she needed some time to process everything. As such, Teddy found himself alone again. With everyone voluntarily locked in their own prison of plaid, and classes cancelled because of the tragic chain of events, time became a currency he did not know how to spend.

And so he wandered the rooms of the Dominion, only he and a bone-chilling silence, the kind that becomes an involuntary friend after a while. Left alone with nothing but his thoughts and impulses, Teddy found himself sinking into a pit of thoughts, a trap of dreams, a maddening spiral of deserted longings and unfulfilled wishes that would undoubtedly lead to the same forsaken road that Bianca and Stuart had solitarily tread.

And he couldn't take it anymore. Grabbing the first coat he found, Teddy ran down the stairs and exited the Dominion. The refreshing autumnal wind crashed against him, cooling the fire that raged on his insides, pulling him out of the depths of the nightmare he and everyone in that house now shared.

With his mask off and his flesh now exposed, he walked around the deserted campus, dragging his feet, too weak and too unwilling to put any kind of enthusiasm into his behaviour. There was no point in pretending. No one saw him, nobody cared. He was but a stranger in the light of day, an erratic wanderer, an observer of realities who refused to take part in the thing they called life.

Before he noticed it, Teddy realized his aimless walk had taken him across campus, all the way to the grand gardens behind the Queen Elizabeth I dorms. Standing before the building that once housed Stuart, the sting of regret punctured his heart and brought the downpour to his eyes, which so far had managed to remain arid. Knees shaking, his hands involuntarily clench into fists, teeth chattering at the useless desire to touch the bespectacled boy's face once more.

Why do people kill themselves?

He was eight when death first brushed his face. Her cool touch, her dark figure and merciless ways stayed in his mind. She lurked in the shadows, patiently waiting for him.

"Hey! Hey, you!"

The voice was high-pitched and slightly off-putting. It took a few more tries before Teddy understood it was calling out to him and when he turned to face the owner of those cries, he couldn't help but be somewhat startled.

He had seen that woman before, during the Victorian Dreams Ball. Back then, she wore a grossly puffy dress and sported a face full of ghoulish makeup that made her look like the Queen of the Goblins. Now, out of all that paraphernalia and lit by the gentle glow of day, she might have looked like any other woman one might pass on the street.

Except she now wore a long black skirt and a white blazer that, paired with the flowery hat that crowned her head, made her look like someone's demented aunt at a Mary Poppins convention. The woman waved her right hand high in the air and Teddy's heart skipped a beat when he saw her holding a gun with her left one.

"Yoo-hoo!" she called again, toing and froing along with the soft breeze.

"Are you talking to me?" he asked, approaching the woman with hesitant steps.

"Yoo-hoo," she repeated, lowering her arm and letting out another cackle. "Hello, child. I remember you, You're the colourful young man who wore that whimsical costume during the Victorian Dreams night, aren't you?"

In spite of the gun in her hand, the woman's voice didn't seem threatening or even mocking. Instead, she seemed rather calm, happy even at the sight of him. Swallowing, Teddy nodded, his lips tightly shut, afraid of speaking the wrong word.

"How delightful to meet you here. I was certain the school would be deserted, you know," she lowered her voice into a whisper and approached him, her right hand covering the left side of her mouth, "because of the whole suicide affair."

Teddy quivered at the words, but the woman seemed to pay no attention to his discomfort and simply carried on.

"Oh, the other parents, they refuse to talk about the matter, but not me. If we refuse to talk about such heartache, how can we possibly face the hardships this cold world has to offer? I shudder at the thought."

Teddy's eyes travelled the woman's frame, trying to find something in her that proved slightly less unsettling. He couldn't. He watched as she walked over to a small table on her left and cleaned her gun, humming absentmindedly, hey eyes only paying half-attention to her hands.

Tremors punctuated every syllable in his words. "Forgive me, miss..."

She interrupted him with a piercing voice, her entire face lit up at the sound of his words. "Miss, oh bless your heart, child," she said, her free hand pressing against her inflated chest. "Mrs. Camilla Harley Rutherford. I'm the mother of your little friend, Renata."

Teddy thought he could actually feel the bile leaving his liver and travelling upwards, all the way to his tongue. The bitter taste took over his mouth and suddenly, the strong desire to throw up became far too obvious to ignore.

"Ah yes, Renata, such a sweet girl, indeed" he said, a fictitious smile accompanying his fictitious words.

"She is quite the cruel little bitch, isn't she?"

Mrs. Rutherford's words made Teddy choke on his own saliva. Coughing and bending, he tried to make sense of the woman's statement. His eyes went to her grinning face, searching for any trace of irony or deceit, but found only clarity and straightforwardness.

"What can I say?" She turned around and faced the open field in front of them. "Her father taught her well. I'm afraid kindness is a rarity in our family. But I can't say I don't understand Renata. A girl is only allowed to play so many games, and we can make up the rules in even fewer. Cruelty is often a girl's sole source of entertainment. Do you shoot?"

Teddy stumbled on his own words, too distracted by the woman's attitude to fully focus on her conversation. "I don't, I'm sorry."

She tilted her head, momentarily entranced by him, her light green eyes going straight through him. Then, seemingly bored with what she found, she shrugged and turned back to the field. Lifting her gun, she pointed it at the sky and screamed.

"Throw!"

A small, red disc flew through the air. Mrs. Rutherford took her shot but the bullet failed to land on the target. Instead, it merely graced it and the disc kept going, landing somewhere beyond the tree line of the forest that laid on the outskirts of school.

"Oh, bugger!" she lamented as her feet kicked the ground is a small tantrum. "One more time! Throw!"

Another disc crossed the sky and Mrs. Rutherford shot again. This time, the bullet didn't even come close to the flying target and it instead went straight ahead.

"This is useless," Mrs. Rutherford said, throwing the gun against the floor and releasing a loud grunt. She turned to see him, eyes squinted and mouth pouted in anger. "I need a real incentive. Bring out the ducks!"

As she bent to pick up her gun, three men appeared on the other side of the field, each carrying two large cages. Inside, a group of ducks fluttered their large, brown wings, moving around their confinement, loudly quacking, unsettling the roar of the wind. A short, plump man took the out the first duck and waited for Mrs. Rutherford's signal.

"Throw!" she yelled, her gun already in position.

The man released the duck and the bird flew across the sky, foolishly enjoying its newfound freedom. The woman pulled the trigger and her bullet landed straight in the animal's chest, stopping it mid-fight. The duck exploded in a cloud or smoke and crimson dust before falling to the ground, cold and meaningless, never to fly again.

Teddy's entire body shivered at the sight of the dead bird. His desire to throw up, now more powerful than ever, threatened to collapse him right there, in the middle of the field, but once again he pulled whatever strengths remained in his body to resist. His face must've contorted in an expression of disgust, because when the woman turned to see him again, her eyebrows meeting in the middle of her face.

"You don't hunt?" she asked, scratching the back of her head with the gun's muzzle. He silently shook his head, too nauseated to speak. "You disapprove."

"I dislike unnecessary animal cruelty," he replied, not wanting to disguise the contempt in his words.

Mrs. Rutherford snorted, throwing her head back. "Are you a vegan?"

Teddy frowned. "What?"

"Are you a vegan?" she repeated, her tone signalling impatience's arrival.

"No," he answered, momentarily forgetting his defiance.

"Then you're a hypocrite," she exclaimed in victory. "Have you ever been to a slaughterhouse? Do you know how the cows are treated? The chickens, the pigs? They're killed worse than this. Yet you don't care because you don't see, you just feast on their remains. But when Mrs. Rutherford shoots one lousy little duck, she's the fucking cruel cunt, huh? She's the one with the problem, she's the one with the gun and who on Earth let her have a gun in the first place, huh? Throw!"

Another duck left the cage and the woman fired twice in a row. Both bullets landed on the bird, disintegrating its entire body, leaving behind only a rain of feathers and blood.

Mrs. Rutherford cheered and turned back to see him, her features now loose, her body relaxed. She smiled again, kindly, softly, her demeanour back to its initial state.

"You seem like a sweet little boy," she said, approaching him and putting a comforting hand on his shoulder. "I was a sweet little girl once. The sweetest. Then I came to this school. Sweet doesn't last too long in here, sweet boy. You know what you should do? You should watch Old Yeller. You ever seen that film, Old Yeller? It's about this stray dog, Old Yeller, who's owned by this poor, sweet little boy named Travis, right? And they go on all sorts of adventures, they chase racoons and Old Yeller steals meat and cares for the cows. They're one fine pair. Throw!"

Still facing him, her green eyes growing bluer by the second, the woman fired without even looking. The faint last quack of the bird let Teddy know her bullet succeeded in finding its target.

"So this one day," Mrs. Rutherford went on, "a rabid wolf attacks Travis and Old Yeller bravely defends his owner but is bitten in the neck and so it too gets infected by rabies. Travis is then forced to shoot his Old Yeller and kills it."

She stopped talking, allowing silence to reluctantly spread through them. Her eyes went to the floor. Feet fidgeting, she played with the gun, her hands gracing and exploring every inch of the weapon.

"You know, when I first saw that film, I cried for a week. I couldn't believe the dog died. I mean, what kind of sick fuck kills a dog? I thought that perhaps I missed something, right? Some crucial fact that explained Old Yeller's death. So I saw the film again and found nothing. Only a dead dog in the end. I refused to accept it and so I watched the film a third time, foolishly believing that if I prayed long enough, I might be able to change the ending and the dog might survive the end of the picture. It didn't. And I just kept crying and crying and crying. And crying."

The whisper of the wind surrounded them, lifting every hair in Teddy's exposed arms, frosting his blood and bones, rattling him. He might've disappeared, had Mrs. Rutherford's domineering eyes, now back on him, not been nailing him to the ground.

"So you know what I did?" she asked, her voice warm and velvety.

He shook his head, his jaw quivering, tears reaching their arms out of his strangely unmovable eyes. "I don't."

She smirked, another grunt leaving her mouth. "I watched it again. And again. And again. And again. Until one day I watched it and no tears left my eyes." A smile, colder, terrifying, spread through her entire face and she turned back to the open space, pointing her gun again. "What we love kills us. Remember that. You are a sweet boy. The kind that chases after stray dogs, thinking that you can save them. But you can't. And you won't. So cry now, cry today, cry every single tear that you can. When you wake up tomorrow, a huge weight will have lifted from your body. And the next time you feel like you're about to cry, you'll see there's no need to. It's just another dog getting shot. Throw!"

Wings flapped and the delusion of freedom spread through the air, only to be stopped by a well-timed bullet. His eyes went to the ground but his nose couldn't avoid the smell of powder. Still, he didn't need to see to know what happened.

Another duck getting shot.