Greed

“Three more girls went missing this week. Been happening a lot lately.” Casey looked at the other cop. “Just another case I guess.”

We woke up in a dark room on a hard concrete floor. I started to sit up, but felt a hot liquid coming up my throat. A splitting headache crossed my forehead letting me know that my hangover had begun. This is definitely not Chloe’s or May’s room, so how did we get here.

A soft but manly voice came over a speaker next to the bed. “One of you lucky girls get to be my wife, but that’s not the main motivator here. 10 million dollars will be yours. All you have to do is finish my maze before your friends.”

That’s all Chloe needed to hear before she sprang up, opened the door, and ran out. She didn’t even pause to read the note on the door. I stayed in bed to get a grasp on my bearings when I heard an agonizing scream. May and I ran out the door only to see chloe trapped in a spider web of razor wire highlighted by her blood. As she struggled the wires went deeper into her muscles. I backed up and bumped into the door. The note fell onto the floor, “till only one remains.”

May let out a gasp. “It will be ok, we will find a way out." We left the room again, careful to avoid the blood soaked web as we walked down the long corridor. There were many doors and we tried every single one of them. All were locked. Leaving our final option at the end of the hallway. Behind the door, another row of possible paths to choose. Any one of them was potentially dangerous, though there were fewer doors this time. It was getting darker the farther down we went. At the end there were matches and candles, I warned May to not light the candle; it smelled strange, but she did it anyway. The whole candle went up in flames. She dropped it, but her hand was still burning. I did everything in my power to help put it out. I could hear her flesh popping and sizzling. She fainted from the pain, motionless on the floor. The flame eventually went out after I beat her arm with a rug to deprive it of oxygen.

I dragged her seemingly lifeless form down to the next doorway. This door had a peep hole. I looked into the room, but was met with only darkness. I turned the knob slowly. The next thing I could comprehend was being on the ground. I could only see out of one eye. Where my left eye used to be, there was now only a socket. Blood pooled on the floor beneath me. A sharp pain was shooting through the left side of my head. I couldn’t feel my right side, damn. With that, I passed out.

May started to stir. She knew she was in trouble, she needed to wake up. May rolled onto her back, all she saw were stars and galaxies. ‘Where’s trixie?.. Oh, I think I see her on the floor like me.’ May slowly made her way to trixie. ‘Ew, so that’s what a brain looks like.’ May pushed open the door next to Trixie. She stood up pulling Trixie into the room, whimpering as the skin on her hand slid off like a glove. May pushed the door almost closed behind them. And just in time too, Chloe was shambling down the hall in the opposite direction of the girls, with wire still sticking out of her not-so-attached skin. With a knife in her hand, she kept walking, not noticing the whimpers leaving May’s lips. But how could she, over her own heavy breathing and cursing? “I’ll kill ‘em, I’ll fucking kill them. It’s all mine.. MINE!” she continued to ramble less coherently as she rounded the next corner.

Shocked, May slowly and quietly closed the door, which left them in pitch black. She leaned against the door taking a moment to rest. ‘Fuck this, why this, all we did was have a drink. Were we drugged? What a sick fu…..’ a small light on the other side of the room illuminated a note.

“You made it. But to get out you need to make a sacrifice.”

With that a small drawer popped open. When May looked inside, she saw a small pill container. The label read arsenic. May looked at Trixie and back at the pill bottle. ‘Is life still worth living if you have no one left?’ May’s parents died when she was young and Trixie's parents took her in. 'There is no way Trixie would survive her injuries. I will die by her side' May looked at the pills and swallowed both. She wept loudly.

Chloe heard wailing and made a staggered beeline to the noise. When she opened the door, she charged in with her knife ready. As she rushed towards May, she lost her footing and fell, the knife’s resting place was amidst her torso. As Chloe’s last breath left her blood bubbled in her throat leaving her lips a crimson red that any whore would be jealous of.

When police arrived at the scene, several officers were left in awe. The elaborate measures taken by the mastermind were only comparable to those in films. Nowhere close to the rare gunshot wound or stabbing which were the only variety of murder in such a small town. This was well planned. The orchestrater of such a chamber would need to be wealthy, and of higher than average intelligence. It was in one of the obstacle-ridden rooms where the bodies of the three missing girls were discovered. May, Chloe, and Trixie. Though at first glance, each girl appeared to have been long since deceased, but a croak could be heard from the mouth of one of the girls- eye missing, brain exposed, the girl called Trixie by the missing persons’ fliers was barely clinging to life. The paramedics were called immediately, and Trixie was rushed to urgent care. The chances of survival were slim, but still there.

Trixie pulled through but would never be the same. The doctor recommended that she get a home health care worker to check in on her daily. 'How the hell am i going to pay for that' was the only thought that crossed her mind. When she was well enough to return home she found a manila envelope on her kitchen counter. In it was ten thousand dollars, a note slipped out. It read "Installment number one. I’ll see you again soon."