Author Games: Town of Mayhem

Paranoic Mayhem | Elissa "Elsa" Ackley

Arsonist: Elissa "Elsa" Ackley

Mother, I'd talk to you, but the flames scare me now.

She hadn't heard her mother's voice in a while.

Elissa missed her, but after the events of the previous night, perhaps it was for the better; hardly could she look at a flame without being reminded of the smoke that blackened her lungs, searing heat that licked at her skin, crumbled wood that toppled the house, Easton trapped inside it while she fought to save her, Ean's pointed look of rage...

Her eyes skimmed over a man in a familiar suit, and a less than familiar face of fatigue, complemented by tousled hair. Gaze averting, she'd caught a glimpse of...disappointment in him. The woman seated at the bench was utterly avoided.

Quirks of the townies' heads revealed an alarming realisation—Teresa Robyn wasn't anywhere to be seen. And so, Elissa followed the town down a cobblestone path identical to the one she took to the square, and the ones everyone else used too.

Dizzy wasn't a word she could've used to describe herself then. She felt closer to disoriented, the town square she'd known almost all her life flitting past in motionless images. To her, the occasional bouts of darkness were calming, though more like a pause in time that kept storms at bay.

When the town members found the vigilante's burned remains from what had once been his charred cottage, Elsa's soul shattered to bits. Nothing else could've been recalled from last night, only the flames she sought comfort in, yet, the only thing she believed to be true wasn't at all. The arm that tightened around her shoulder, however, was the same one that had escorted her home. Amongst the swirling void of guilt, a single thought condensed: has he told him?

She doubted it. It was unlikely that Eustace would want to be aligned with her as soon as he found out what she'd done. Either way, her thoughts were concealed. Wind could kindle or extinguish a flame; if the town caught wind of her actions in any way, gone would be her flame of hope, of her ability to save her town.

Now that she remembered...a gust of wind brushed against her arm, a reminder of the tale Mary had recounted, a reminder of what she had to do. But could she trust the century-old ghost? What she'd been told was the right thing, turned out to be the opposite. Was it a ploy of the dead woman, or was the infamous witch up to her old antics once again?

She tried to join in on the search, she really did, but alas, the blind woman who'd seemingly disappeared off the face of the Earth had left no trail to her possible whereabouts. Certainly, they feared the worst, for the demises of their other town members, as well as the little history lesson from the last appearance of the moon, left them jumpy. Surviving this town had become an oddly grueling task.

Unfortunately, the shout that drew the small crowd of seven back to the door only proved their suspicions. A streak stained the wooden door, its unnatural copper colour prominent: too dark to simply be paint, too light to be the smudge of anything else. Dried blood. Elsa knew all too well. And it'd been there for quite some time for it to have dried that way.

Eyes darted, whispers echoed. It was crystal clear that Teresa wouldn't be anywhere to be found, and the only logical course of action then was to return to the square. Remaining in the house of someone who'd been presumed dead couldn't have been a good idea at all.

As they walked back to their original gathering place, the wind ruffled her hair again. She was sure that the town's secrets had been revealed to all. It now came down to a matter of what would happen and what they would do.

The lynching stand loomed, and Elissa swore the paranoia that kicked in was worse than the one she felt every day, the one that conjured up her five-year-old mind. Striking daylight didn't help, for the heat was reminiscent of flames.

Despite being thankful that Easton was alive, a part of her wondered how she'd survived the inferno. They'd spent forever inside the house before Eustace arrived. Maybe fire had helped her after all.

But you could've killed her.

She'd once thought that killing to save the innocents was the right thing. But in doing so, she'd forgotten that she'd become a murderer herself. The person who died wasn't guilty at all. Would that mean she was guilty instead?

Teresa Robyn's body didn't show that her death was peaceful in the slightest. Compared to the single bullet through Elizabeth Archer's skull and the panicked shots that riddled Myarria's, the lookout's had been mutilated, almost beyond recognition if it hadn't been for her hair that wasn't completely soaked in blood.

In Ean's hands was a piece of parchment, similar to the ones found on Elsa's table earlier in the week. Rather than the elegant scribbles she'd seen in both invitations, it was clear that this had been scrawled simply in a near-illegible writing with a red ink—the blood they'd found on the door, Teresa's.

She is only the first...all of you will fall.

Like lightning, it struck them: everyone had been at the house. Surely it was impossible for someone to run back, place the body and continue searching? There were only seven left, they couldn't have missed it.

Another gust of wind rippled through her. She no longer knew who it truly was.

Mother, where are you? I'm scared, what if she gets to me before the flames.

Then there was a new voice. Where Mary's sweet voice had grown scratchy with time, this one was just sweet—like a cake that had too much sugar in it, the kind she'd used to like as a child, but she now knew that anything too sweet would only leave a sickly note.

"I have returned...and I've come for my revenge."

When the darkness hit her, she welcomed it, for she didn't have to catch sight of another flame.