DEAR MURDERER: PLEASE KILL BOOKWORM ASAP THANKS

Oh hello thread.

WHAT ARE YOU DOING ON THE SECOND PAGE GET TO THE TOP RIGHT NOW.   

*Takes a deep breath* The world is going crazy and I am stuck here having to watch it...

WHHHHYY DID YOU BRING US HERE AGAIN?

Heh, I would do it again if I had the choice. I love TTT's abilities of writing.

BUT QUILL!

Sorry, Zeon. She'll have to live through it all.

Then I'll sit here and- wait, I have no wifi as a ghost, do I?

Nope. 

Gosh TTT, this last post gave me chills! Your writing is amazing!

Also, I have a sneaky suspision I know who the murderer is...

Happy birthday to meeeee!

Saphira: *shakes Shadowmoon* YOU ARE GOING CRAZY, YOU STUPID, WITLESS SHEEP!!!!! 

Ooh, is that a holographic cake?

Richard: IT'S NOT YOUR BIRTHDAY!!!!

I know! You're right!

I am?

We are?

It's my unbirthday!

*facepalms*

*groans* 

Day Fifteen

It’s raining. Not only outside, as that would be unpleasant enough, but also inside. Thick, grey thunderheads have gathered at the ceiling, rumbling ominously. Lightning crackles. It pours miserably.

Bookworm and Paris stand under an umbrella, rain running into their eyes, as they examine a piece of paper, scrawled in crude handwriting.

If you poke your nose where is doesn’t belong it’ll get bitten off.

Bookworm narrows her eyes at Paris. “You know, that looks an awfully lot like your handwriting.”

“What? I'm your trusty sidekick! How dare you think such things?”

Bookworm just narrows her eyes some more.

Thunder roars ridiculously loudly. “If this keeps up, l swear l'm going deaf.” Chary mumbles, glaring at the clouds from underneath a table, as there is no shelter other than that. Hallia sighs.

“You know, things could get worse…” The water level had been steadily rising over the last few hours, from a puddle to half a foot of water, and more on the way.

“What? Don’t say that. You know now that something bad is going to happen because of that over-used line--”

Unfortunately, Charity's future seeing skills are currently not very useful, as something worse does happen.

They find a chicken under the table.

How, in this four square feet of space they could have possibly missed it, we have no idea. But lo and behold, there it is, a very irate chicken.

Hallia nearly screams.

“No, no, why a chicken of all things?”

“It’s just a chicken.”
Hallia’s dislike of the rain is starting be usurped by the fear of this chicken. She huffs. “Why do you never understand? Chickens are deadly!”
The chicken suddenly fixes its beady eyes on Hallia. Outside of the table, it is literally flooding. Hallia glances back at the flood then to the chicken. The chicken advances. Chary is partly confused, partly fascinated. She didn’t think any of it could possibly be dangerous, after all it's just a chicken--
The chicken corners Hallia. She retreats, but is finally unable to. She looks at the water. Chary can nearly hear what she is thinking.
“HallIa! What are doing? She lunges for Hallia.
She is too late.
Hallia thrown herself backwards into the raging water.
The flood rushes on.
Hallia is gone.
“Stupid chicken” are the only words able to get themselves past Chary’s lips, nearly frozen with horror.
Daisy never knew so many things could float. I mean, just look at that. There goes enough orange photographs to furnish a country, a fish tank still very intact with goldfish, a few tennis courts…...her coffee-table raft bobs along serenely, as the rain soaks her, carrying her through some unknown, winding part of the hotel. And oh look, that’s Quill. Looks like she's drowning. Daisy waves cheerfully. Quill doesn’t wave back. How rude.
And there's Jarvis, desperately clinging on a deflated rubber dinghy for her life, Swummer too, who doesn’t seem to be exactly swimming.
Moon drifts by, attempting to dance the jig on top of a door to the pattern of the rain. She’s the only one who waves back to Daisy.
Her coffee table catches up with what appears to be a floating kitchen. She waves to Mirax abroad it.
“Would like like to taste my delightful cuisine for--”
“No thank you!” Daisy says, a little too eagerly, leaning so her coffee table swerves past Mirax.
A little later on, she comes across Sydney, floating serenely in the water.
“Hello! Would you like a lift?”
Sydney does not respond.
Daisy takes that as a yes and helps (mostly drags) her onto the raft. Sydney makes no comment, she slumps backwards, leaning on Daisy's shoulder. “Well that's a whole lot of thanks that l'm getting.” she grumbles.
The water starts to speed up. Daisy yelps, grabbing onto the edge of the table. Sydney is apathetic. When she realized what it it, it's too late.
“Aahhhhhh. A WATERFALL. Hang on--”
They are rocketed over the edge. For a single seconds, Daisy feels nothing but water and endless rushing water. She then breaks the surface.

“Sydney? Where are you? Sydney--Oh no.” Dasiy awkwardly paddles over the Sydney, floating serenely in the water. She attempts to take her pulse, before realizing how useless that is. Sydney is dead. As a doornail. And appears to have been so for quite sometime.
“They’re all dying.” she moans, rolling her eyes.
She seems to have landed in a pond of sorts, gathered at the base of the waterfall. Fortunately, it is not large and there is dry land.
She takes in her surroundings. The room is large, and high ceilinged. At one end, there is a hole in the wall where the water broke through. It looks to be some sort of meeting room, chairs a such are scattered all over the place. She hears whispered, hushed voices, suddenly. Cautiously, she heads towards the sound.
In an adjoining room, a few CBers, namely, Saphira, Ellak, Kestrel, H.A.B., Sandra, Mrs. Elton and Nova, are gathered around a table in mismatched chairs. Beth sit in the corner with a typewriter, apparently taking notes.
“This meeting has come to order.” Saphira declares from her king’s throne, slapping a number of files onto the desk with a thud. The other draw similar papers. Saphira steeples her fingers.
“Right then.” Nova says, from her dentist’s chair. “It was H.A.B. in the super-secretive-bomb-shelter in-in-the-middle-of-nowhere with a military's supply of freeze-dried ice cream. Can you prove me wrong?” She raise an eyebrow,
Silence.
“l….have no idea about this?” H.A.B. tries in his defense, on a chair from another dimension.
Daisy gasps quietly.
Sandra shuffles her papers, then passes one to Nova. She examines it for a few seconds, nods and passes it back to Sandra, perched on her barstool.
“Innocent!” Saphira shouts. “....or at least for now.”
“I accuse…..Mrs. Elton in the record shop with my neighbour's breakfast from last Monday.” Ellak says slowly, from his spaceship command chair.
“Hey!” Protests Mrs. Elton. “I did no such thing.”
“Oh yes you did--”
“Quiet!”
Ellak huffs, but complies.
Kestrel shakes her head. “I don’t have anything. I think she is guilty.” She spins idly in her office chair.
Mrs. Elton rolls her eyes. “l am innocent!”
Eyebrows are raised.
Actually all eyebrows are raised. At exactly the same time. Heads are leaned forward, mocking voices repeat, “Oh yes, yes you believe yourself to be innocent. Does everyone else?”
Mrs. Elton blinks, confused.
But a part of her is worried.
Will they find out?

Of course there was a portal reference. Why wouldn't there be a portal reference? But seriously though, someone kill Bookworm and Paris or I'll have to do it myself.

List of suspects:

Jarvis

Bookworm

Saphira

Paris

Quill 

hotairballoon

Hey, I don't remember adding that last one... 

Hallia died!!

I--I'm dead!! *cries*

Not a suspect. Not a suspect. Not a suspect. Not a suspect...... 

I've died. Great. Hello from the afterlife...that's sounds like an Adele song.

Hello from the afterliiiiiiife!

Paris! There you are! Avenge me, dear Paris-Watson!

Don't worry. Before long we'll solve the case. Anyway...can you BELIEVE I'm on someone's list of suspects? Would a murderer like line dances? Or lip gloss (both the item and the song)?

If the murderer was you they would. Still, I have faith in you. At any rate, there's no one else for me to have faith in. Fflewddur didn't attend this adventure.

Maybe I'll make him my sidekick-sidekick...So, what do you think? I know you weren't really serious about that, but I think you should dye the ends of your hair blue.

First of all, that was entirely non sequitur, and second of all, I'm dead, remember?

Oh. Right. I'll miss you!

Huh, Miles was right. There are dance classes in the afterlife. Be right back, Paris, I'm going to learn to waltz.

Without me?! How will I have magical ballroom-dancing fantasies now?

Solve the mystery and I'll find a dance class for you when this is all over.

Bookworm? Where are the case notes?

...What have I done. 

You know, it's really funny that I keep dancing jigs and reels and stuff, because I used to take Irish dancing, where I actually DID dance jigs and reel. And hornpipes and slip jigs and hardshoe and softshoe. It was quite fun, actually.

Saphira: ORDER!!!! ORDER!!!!! HAB, SHOW US THE ICECREAM!!!!! YOU ARE GUILTY!!!!!!

Considering you're one of the murder suspects, Saphira, I don't think it's very fair of you to say that.

TTT, keep it up!!!!!!!  

Luna says "baud" Bad? Bed? BA???? LUNA, ARE YOU A SHEEP????

*No, stupid. I EAT sheep.*

No comment.  

Day Sixteen

Words, maybe surprisingly, or maybe not, have power. They are the weapon, the voice of the mind. Which,means that every other lunatic with some time and a stick of graphite, scrabbling away in the middle of the night (e.i.: Me) can change the world. There’s a certain brand of people who try to do things with such powerful and dangerous words, and the just throw them around, and hope for the best. They try to do things, oh how they try. they never end up doing anything. Let me give you an example. Take here, Novelist.

She loves a good, story, who doesn’t? But her story is one far from a happy ending. Take here, mores sensible Nova, who does not try to do such silly things as throw words around. From day one, so many useless words put between two covers. From day one, all of this writing nonsense has amounted to nothing. It was child’s play, really. Nova cannot understand this, nor does she endorse such strange behaviour.

“This…..writing thing. I don’t like it.” she comments to Novelist one early day, while the two of them were at the hotel.

“Day after day, all of these useless words! I can’t stand it anymore. Heaven forbid if l was a story!” Needless to say, Novelist is rather shocked. After all, that's what she does. Write.

“l……
She is unable to form any sort of words for the subject. She just shakes her head. “Nova, since when did you think this? There is nothing wrong with stories and words!”

Nova laughs.

“You could be doing something far, far more productive with your time. Words mean nothing. No one read books anymore. There is a whole wide universe out there and you're writing? C’mon. Get real. “

Novelist is unable to summon a proper defense to Nova’s attack, and though she hates to admit it, it makes a little too much sense. You can’t live in your head forever, someday sooner or later reality is going to come crashing down on you.  

She is right.

And it hurts badly. This was her life, these words, these endless nonsensical words. And now she doesn’t know what to do with them. Words have failed her, and don’t hesitant to do so again.

Stupid, stupid words. Always trying to mimic reality, always trying to make sense even when they don't. Always just there, struggling along while the world marches on.

And these people, these…….writers, they try to do something with these words, they try to make people laugh, or feel joy or sorrow, they try to build up empires and actually make a lasting mark. Most of them fail.

Yes, you hear about the occasional one who mildly gets people’s attention, but what about the rest of them?

They’re hiding in the dark corners of the world, clacking away on their typewriters furiously, trying trying so hard just to do something, trying to give part of their mind to the world. It hurts, badly.

We are, truly, alone, trapped within our skulls, viewing the world from two windows of our craft, piloting through the stormy waters of life. We cannot touch another’s mind or view. We try, oh yes, we will try, writers the most of all, they try to understand people.

All of them fail.

Novelist has come to a decision.

She does not know if this decision comes out of Nova’s option, of their earlier conversation, or of herself, of the reality that has always been lurking over her shoulder, the elephant in the room that she would never address or even see. It may even have come around of this strange place, this hotel of sorts, and the people the occupy its halls, that wander ghost like and no reality is hidden from them. It may have even come around because of the simple cause and effect of events that makes the world go around. She does not know exactly. Perhaps it is all or none.

She does know that whatever it was, it has had a profound and deep impression on her, on the decision she is about the make.

Novelist has gathered a large pyre of paper, notebooks mostly, covered in her own handwriting. This has been the labour of her life.

She strikes a match, and stares at the sputtering flames for a few seconds.

“Are you sure you want to do that?”

She spins around, dropping the match on the floor.

A voice laughs dryly.

“My, my, you’re quite easily spooked, aren’t you?”

“Who’s there?”

“No, one, no one.” The voice echos, softly.

“Why shouldn’t l do this?” Novelist asks, trying a different tact. She spins in a slow circle, trying to locate the voice.

“Oh, l don’t know. Maybe because there’s more to live for. Open your eyes.”

Novelist is confused. “I have lived. I know what l'm doing.”

The voice laughs again. “Well then. I can’t very well convince you of anything, then can l?”

“No.” Novelist says stubbornly. She suddenly laughs. “Ah, look at this. I'm talking to myself now, am l not? Always knew l was going crazy…..”

This voice makes no comments.

Novelist strikes another match. This time the paper does not hesitant to burn. This time those useless words will burn, they will die in fire.

They will all end in fire.

A low laugh echos around Novelist and this time she can locate the source. Right behind her. She does not turn around.

“Somedays l wonder what l'll regret. I wonder if l'll regret it all.”

Novelist does not know what they are speaking of.

“I've done so many things. Not all of them good, mind you. I don’t regret any of it. I did them for a purpose. Life is a precious thing. You shouldn’t waste it.”

Novelist feels the heat of the fire, sees the beautiful, dancing flames.

She ses her life bruning before her eyes.

“Somedays l wonder if you’ll regret anything.” They say, quietly. “I don’t doubt the path that l've chosen for myself and everyone around me. You can call me evil, but really, in truth? There is no good or evil, in the end. There’s just death.”

Novelist thinks that she needs to touch, to walk into the fire.

“Join your comrades, victim.”

Open your eyes, killer.

What do you see?

Who do you want to kill next?

~~~~~~

End Day Sixteen. Death Toll: Novelist. Rest in peace.

(The sarcasm is strong with this one.)

Also, the pieces of paper in my hat grow lesser by the day. It makes me sad to think when there’ll be only name to pick out of there.