13 Souls

Thirteen screams rung faster than the trees could flutter as the smoke danced tauntingly into the night.  

Their tattered breaths begged of desperation and struggle, but their suspicions cloaked them all the same. Amongst them they hoped was an angel that would deliver them away their souls intact, but amidst the scurry was the true flurry of vengeance of someone they thought they always knew.

One of them was going to die today.

Or so they each were told. One by one they tucked into their evening ignorance sipping a litany of a drinks all round. Clung to their fleeting existence and perfectly curated lives. And as they opened this here black envelope, they all believe it to be benign. A wayward penpal. A clever bit of advertising. Or even an internet trend that demanded ironically a journey back in time. But they were all met with paralysis as the letter, read

“One of your friends plans to kill you, and deep down, you know why.” 

But laugh they did mere moments later as it seemed almost too fantastical. A half-hearted prank with a bad punctuation that wouldn’t affect them any further. But like a sharp cutting truth that burrows into your mind, the laughs subsided, and quickly began to blossom into casual paranoia in the next coming days as they found many of their friends to be at best absent and at worst cryptic to say the very least.

And so one by one they all fell into a strange trap that seduced them from afar as they in synchronicity began to bargain for their own lives. Each of them reached out to one they believed they knew the least in hopes of meeting. In hopes of discerning. In hopes of uncovering truths, they could possibly not see. To peak underneath the rusty hood and plug through the smoke and mirrors. to unmask the boogey man that would ultimately set them free.

So that is how they ended up here on this foggy hallowed night. Deep into the thick of a sappy forrest overrun by secrets and wet green patches. The place they all went camping to some 25 years ago. But to their surprise they all began to realise they had all reached out to the same person. Possibly a devilish architect or an unfortunate placement alike. So when the campfire smoke had bellowed up following that last flicker of flames out they pulled each of their tools they hoped to they’d use to strike.  

And the thirteenth was killed first, even though they would never come to know he never received such a letter. But the night would have found its perfect close if the carnage was fairly to stop there. But a wrong step of a foot, and a loosely held axe led dangerously to a new wound and a unified deep scare. And so off they did into the night with blows and follies alike. Gutting and cutting stabbing and rutting. Unearthing a world wind of deep unapologetic ruthlessness unbeknownst to the human mind. One by one the 7 women and 5 men that remained took turns in the dark skinning and chopping anyone they could feel in sight. Blood rained down like manna from hell as the air began to take on a metallic scent. Cracks and slices and whimpering stole the sound from the owls and soon silence led to their ultimate end. And left it was merely the fog. The same fog that had remembered all those years ago

An interlocking of thirteen bodies 25 years younger. Clothes long far off and sweat akin glue as they’re cleaned the lust off of everybody in sight. Stout rods pushed in and out of every hole they could find. Lsd on the tongue and ecstasy in their mind as they fires burned round them orgies into the night. Heat, debauchery and fluids being shot deep into the depths of the many as they gave themselves to each other. Some 25 years ago. And so it was fitting they would. It was fitting they should find themselves here to meet and to a fro.

And even though he never met any one of them. Abandoned before he could have have a choice, a sinister man stood stoically in the distance hidden amongst the bush. And from behind the fog, he grinned with a sigh of relief as he watched their butchered bodies lay filthily in the night. he may have resembled all and none the same. and so he turned a final familiar page on their pursuits as the turned around and danced tauntingly into the night.