Nightmare Game
Copyright© 2025 by CaffeinatedTales
Chapter 69
The group clustered at her door, guts twisting from the metallic tang wafting through.
Their return had kicked up noise; no-show from the girls was bad enough, but this? It sealed the dread.
Irene and Zoe were gone.
Bracing themselves, Ethan gripped the knob, drew a steady breath, and shoved the door wide.
“Ahh!”
“Spider!”
Chaos erupted.
Shrill screams pierced from behind Ethan. Even steeled for horror, the sight inside shattered their composure.
In the gloom, two hulking shadows loomed like spiders, huddled side by side.
Ethan flicked the lights; harsh glow stripped the illusion bare.
“Not spiders,” he said, stepping in.
“It’s Irene and Zoe.”
Closer now: “Their eyes and mouths—sewn shut with spider silk. Backs sliced open, spider legs jammed in and stitched tight.”
“Posed postmortem, hugging like that. Not like Maya—they weren’t devoured.”
“Window web and spider? Vanished. No clue if it’s linked.”
“Bottom line: killer’s smart, twisted with a sick sense of humor.”
Tessa went ashen. “How? The spiders were nightmare enough—if they’ve got brains too, how the hell do we outlast them?”
Hazel’s legs buckled, barely holding it together.
One question gnawed at her: why them? Flashing back to breakfast banter, it sank in.
“Skipping the Ceremony ... it really kills you.”
That nuked any lingering what-ifs.
The day’s Darkgold Tree close call had them wobbling, tempted to bail on the whole gig.
But Irene and Zoe’s fate stared back, raw and final: sit out, end up like this.
Play along, risk the edge. Bail, and you’re done.
Death’s shadow hung heavy, a suffocating weight on every chest.
Ethan tuned out the gloom, eyes snagging on bloody runes etched at their napes—identical to the morning’s scrawl, same message.
Not the girls’ work; the killer’s tag.
But why leave a calling card? Some twisted memo?
He’d grilled the village head and randos on it earlier—blank stares all around.
“God’s script,” the head had shrugged. “Outsiders like you can’t crack it. We’ve kept to ourselves for generations, no outside chatter.”
Except Ceremony time: outsiders always show, primed to pitch in.
All thanks to Madam Arachne’s nudge.
No one stuck around the corpse room; after a grim huddle, they scattered to their bunks.
The day’s toll had frayed them raw—sleep was the only balm.
That night, Ethan crashed hard, slipping under fast.
Deep in the witching hour, a weird tap yanked him awake.
Cracking an eye toward the window, there it was: the Human-Headed Spider dangling on silk, pressed to the glass, peering in.
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