I wake up to the sound of voices outside. As I open my eyes, I'm blinded by the sunlight blasting through my window. Okay. I think that there's a chance it's morning. Seconds later, I hear the ding dong, bing bong of the morning announcement. Yup. Definitely morning.

I throw on some clothes and run outside to see Stolas, Caim, and Will standing by a tree at the front of the rows of cottages.

"Doesn't look like it was hit by lightning or anything. In fact, it's severed pretty cleanly," Caim says.

I then notice that he's actually in the tree, getting a closer look at where it looks like a large branch was cleanly severed off. Said tree branch sits on the ground right below it.

"Is that what made so much noise last night?" I ask as I join in the conversation.

Will raises an eyebrow. "That's the funny thing. I didn't hear it."

"Really? It was pretty damn loud," I insist.

Will points to one of the furthest cottages from our position. "I was sleeping all the way over there. There's no waking me once I'm out for the night, either."

"Yeah, I'm pretty far down, too," Caim agrees.

"Well, whoever's right here must've really heard it," I remark, gesturing to the cottages closest to us.

"I'm sure we'll hear a lot about it at breakfast, then," Will grunts.

We do, in fact, hear lots of conversation about the branch.

"I thought I'd imagined it," I hear Azrael saying to Zeben and Iris. "You guys really heard it too?"

"It was kind of hard not to," Zeben chuckles. "But I figured it could wait 'til morning. Once I'm up, I can't fall back to sleep, so I wasn't gonna take that risk."

"I'm the second-closest row to the tree where it happened," Iris grimaces.

"No one else was near the tree where it happened?" Zeben jokes.

Iris buries his face in his hands. Azrael is visibly conflicted as to whether or not he should laugh.

"Are y'all being theater kids without me?" Dana teases as she emerges from the kitchen, handing Azrael a cup before telling him, "Two shots of espresso, 'cause you need it, kid."

"I get that a lot. Do the bags under my eyes make it obvious?" Azrael takes a long sip of coffee.

"You look like you've never stood within a five-yard radius of a pillow in your entire life," I chime in.

The poet gives me a look. "Thanks a lot, Sophie."

"Oh, Sophie, perfect timing!" As soon as Dana realizes I'm here, she rushes into the kitchen and returns with a warm mug.

"Chamomile tea," she says as I take a sip. "I honestly wasn't quite sure this morning. My psychic abilities are a little wonky today."

"It still tastes delicious," I insist. It really does.

"Probably not as good as the shaved ice," Zeben remarks.

I process his words for a minute before turning to Dana. "When??"

Dana smiles guiltily. "The day you guys were off exploring the second island, I was kind of hot so I made homemade shaved ice. Zeben helped, so we just went down to the beach and ate shaved ice."

"And you never said anything about this why?" I exclaim. Not only did I miss an opportunity for shaved ice, but also the chance to go down to the beach and hang out with a beautiful woman? Is Zeben into Dana?? Did I miss my chance???

"I think Sophie's overheating," Azrael comments unhelpfully.

Dana waves a hand in front of my face. "Earth to blueberry. Blueberry, you look like a strawberry."

I turn away to hide my flushed face. Ugh. I hate loving women. They make it so impossible for me to figure out how they feel about me.

"This is why I stick with men," Zeben sighs dramatically. "They're so much easier to read."

"Sounds like you know Stolas really well," Azrael says sarcastically.

Speaking of Stolas, he, Will, and Caim emerge into the lobby at that very moment.

"...You know what would really be interesting? A class-wide game of spin the bottle," Zeben suggests.

"Honestly? I like my chances," Azrael shrugs. I think that comment is what really makes me realize the colors of his hoodie sleeves. Because they are, in fact, very familiar shades of pink, purple, and blue.

"I dislike your oddly intimate human activities," Flauros grumbles from where he's standing in the corner, leaning against the wall.  I notice he applied a little less of his eyeshadow today, and his eye bags look lighter.  Are those makeup too, then? 

"Did I hear something about spin the bottle?" Will asks, his eyes wide as he enters the conversation. "Those make the funniest videos."

"You still haven't filmed anything, have you?" Iris points out.

The videographer frowns. "Not since the dinner party, no.  I can never find a good moment.  Besides, I don't have any idea of what I'd want to film."

"Well, maybe we can all do a movie marathon at the theater some time," Caim chirps, reminding us that he showed up at some point but is small enough to slip past our radars.

"Movie marathon sounds great," I agree. "I mean, it's not like I have anything planned for today."

"What about a talent show?" Caim continues. "Like, everyone shows off a talent that we don't know about!"

"I mean, I can kind of play the drums," Will mumbles.

"I'm a f*ckin' awesome whistler," Dana boasts, whistling a quick tune flawlessly to prove her point.

"Oh, that reminds me!" Zeben jumps up from his spot on the couch and sprints into the kitchen.  After a minute, he returns with a tray of biscuits. "Dana let me help this morning!"

I exchange suspicious glances with Dana.  I'm not sure if she entirely understands what she was getting herself into by allowing Zeben free rein of the kitchen, but maybe he won't be that bad?  Even if I don't trust Zeben to cook anything besides fish, I do trust Dana's judgement.  So I carefully grab a biscuit- very bad idea, by the way, when the biscuits only came out of the oven five seconds ago- and nearly drop it from how hot it is.  After playing a panicked game of hot potato, I finally manage to actually grab it.  I blow some steam off of it and take a small bite.  It's... not that bad.  Could use some butter, but not the worst I've ever tasted.

"Is it okay?" Zeben prods.

"Yeah, it's good," I answer.  He looks relieved.

"Okay, so his cooking alone isn't gonna kill us," Will breathes, seemingly relieved before grabbing a biscuit of his own.

Once everyone has scarfed down a biscuit and those of us with a beverage have drained our cups, we come up with a game plan- have the morning to ourselves and then meet back here in the afternoon so we can figure out an evening activity to do altogether.  Not bad for a group of island gremlins.

"Hey, can I get you to help me in the kitchen?" Dana asks me as everyone begins to leave.

"Yes!" I respond instantly.  She wants to spend time with me?  Hell yes.

We enter the kitchen, where she promptly fills a bowl with ice and hands me a rolling pin.

"Use the end of the rolling pin to bludgeon the ice into small pieces," she instructs as she goes fishing through the fridge.

I do as I'm told, but it takes forever to break the ice into tiny fragments.  I'm not even a third of the way through when I notice that Dana is stirring something over the stove.

"What's that?" I ask. 

She winks. "Don't worry about it.  How'd you sleep last night, Soph?"

It takes me a minute to realize that she's asking me a question. "O-oh, yeah, I slept fine.  I got woken up by the branch falling but went back to sleep."

"Right, I've heard about that," she recalls, her brown gaze dancing back over to the pot on the stove. "I sleep like a baby, so I definitely didn't hear it.  But I guess a few of you definitely did, because that's the first thing I heard about when people started filing into the hotel this morning."

"It scared the sh*t out of me when it happened," I laugh. 

"I can imagine it did.  Can you grab two mugs from the cabinet?"

As I do so, I see her remove the pot from the stove and set it in the sink.  She then begins to fill the sink with cold water, judging by the way she pulls the handle.  

"So what is it?" I repeat, trying to steal a look at her mysterious mixture.

Dana gently pushes me away. "I told you!  You'll see.  Now get back to crushing the ice."

Fine.  I make sure to put on an exaggerated grumpy face as I return to my work.  Once the sink is full enough, she comes over and begins using a spoon to scoop the already-crushed ice into the mugs.  It takes me a second to realize that she's not only tightly packing in the ice, but also shaping it into a round shape at the top.  I stop crushing the ice as soon as I put two and two together.

"Really??" I squeal, and I can feel my face heating up again.

Dana smiles. "I saw how jealous you looked when Zeben and I brought up when we made shaved ice, so I immediately knew how we could spend the morning.  I figured you must really love shaved ice."

Nah, she knows.  There is no way this gorgeous-f*cking-witch isn't messing with me.

After she fills the second mug, she unplugs the sink and removes the pot.  She then holds it over each of the mugs and pours a red liquid into each.

"A simple strawberry syrup," she tells me. "It matches your face right now."

I don't respond as she hands me a spoon, just take a bite so there is no possibly way that anything stupid can come out of my mouth.  And oh my god, I don't care if the recipe is basic and not her own, but it's the best shaved ice I've ever had.  Dana scans my expression, and her grin widens.

"Not bad, eh?" She puts her hands on her hips proudly.

"So good," I manage to say through a mouthful of shaved ice.  I practically shovel it all into my mouth, even if I want to savor it, simply because it's just too good.

After Dana's eaten her shaved ice as well, we decide to go for a walk together.  We both agree that it wouldn't hurt to go see a film at the theater, and maybe it's another one of Will's.  After all, the one I got to see already was super good.  

But as we walk over, I hear something.  It sounds like... yelling.  Dana seems to hear it too, because her expression has become dead serious, and her gaze has turned towards something over my shoulder.  I look to see what appears to be Will waving frantically from near the front of the music venue, shouting.  I don't hesitate to run towards him.

As I draw closer, I can make out the words, "Get Stolas!  Get Stolas!"

"What's wrong?" I demand.

Will's face is pale, and his entire body is shaking. "I- I can't even say..."

"I'll go find Stolas!" Dana shouts to us before turning and running back across the bridge to the central island.

Meanwhile, I feel the need to know what the hell is going on.  I hurry past Will to see the door to the music venue wide open, and take this as a sign to go inside.  Zeben is standing in front of the storage room door, jiggling the door handle as hard as he can.

"It's broken," he explains as he hears me coming. "Something's really wrong, Sophie.  We need to get in there."

"How do you-" I cut myself off as I see it.

Stretching from a few feet away from the door and disappearing beneath of it is a massive bloody smear on the floor.  And sitting in the middle of it, directly in front of the door, is the chess board.  

With not one... but two... bloody pawns.  

My heart drops all the way to my feet.  I can't breathe.  There's no way.  I... There's... 

"What's going on?" I hear Stolas boom as he arrives.

"Just get the door open!" Will tells him urgently.

Stolas doesn't hesitate, and I watch him approach the door, stopping dead in his tracks as he sees the bloody smear and the chess board.  He then carefully pushes the board to the side, and Zeben gives him space.  The combat pro tries the doorknob once, and when that doesn't work, presses himself firmly against the door, and in one clean motion, breaks it off of its hinges.  He removes it from the doorframe and sets it aside, allowing everyone a look into what will now haunt my nightmares forever.

https://youtu.be/mHcKWWrbL1o

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