Player 2

Poisoned

"The killer clearly knows what they're doing. This whole setup was probably planned months in advance. The only thing I'm struggling to figure out here is a motive. Nobody here has any kind of motive for this level of mass murder. Sure, Bowser hates everyone but he has no grudge against Daisy or any Toads. DK is the same but without the hating everyone part. None of it makes any fucking sense." Wario explained. His thinking made sense.

"You sound like a murderer now, when did you become this logical?" Waluigi murmured, shifting his position on the top of the armchair around, slightly away from his brother who was proving smarter than everyone had initially thought he was.

"It's true, none of this makes any sense. But it only doesn't make any sense to us. All of makes perfect sense to the homicidal maniac that is sitting here, in this room, right now, probably laughing at us." Boo mumbled in his soft, eerie drawl. It was the first time he'd spoken since they'd got there. 

"Boo, you can float through walls, right?" Mario questioned, turning to the slightly transparent ghost boy.

"Not these ones. I can phase through walls but here, these walls don't let me. They must be too thick. It's strange." Boo said, floating over to the wall and attempting to phase through it. His ghostly body was repelled by it. "See? It just pushes me back. The only material I can't phase through is metal, and these walls aren't metal."

"What if they are metal?" Mario said, walking over to the patterned wall and running his gloved fingers over it. "We don't know what's underneath this wallpaper..." 

"But why metal? Surely sheets of metal are too expensive to line walls with. And, like, why put metal there anyway?" Peach asked, her pretty face a picture of confusion.

"To keep us in? They thought we would break down the walls but with good quality metal behind them, we can't. We don't have the tools to knock down metal." Mario suggested, sitting back down, holding his head in his hands.

The room was silent. Everyone was feeling the same thing. For once, all of them, enemies and friends, felt connected through the mutual feelings of pain, fear, loss and shreds of hope. All except the deviously fake, Player 2. Player 2 felt nothing except loathing towards everyone in the room. Player 2 felt the need to kill rising inside them. They wanted to spill more blood. Taking lives made them feel as if their life was lengthening, they felt as if the life force transferred to them once death set in.

"I'm gonna go, guys. I'll be with Luigi if anyone needs me. I'm sorry we have to go through this." Mario murmured, drawing his cap low over his brow and trudging dejectedly out of the room, his head hung low.

The remaining members of the group sat in silence until an ear-splitting scream that could only mean one thing. Another dead body.

The group sprinted to the room where the tell-tale scream of grief came from. They found a sobbing Mario, clutching the lifeless body of his only family member. Luigi's body was cold to the touch. There was no blood on his body yet he was dead as the heart of his killer.

"One of you fucking killed my brother and I am going to personally wring the neck of whoever did it!" Mario sobbed, tears flowing down his pale cheeks as he hugged the corpse of the person he'd secretly looked up to for his whole life. His world was shattered. He knew this moment would happen sooner or later but he couldn't have prepared himself for the tidal wave of grief.

"All this points back to you so far, I'm sorry." a concerned Wario whispered to his brother who was frozen as he calculated how many people would believe him over the beloved red brother. Probably nobody. He was starting to think maybe he had murdered 2 people and just couldn't remember. Was he a murderer? It was suspicious enough when Daisy had died first as she hated him but now, with her lover who was the man who had accused him of the murder, dead, he was practically in a jail cell already.

"How did he die? There's no blood. Did he suffocate himself? The door was locked...He  must have killed himself..." Mario mumbled to himself.

"Poison. He was poisoned." Kamek said, his eyes darting across the body's face.

"How do you know?" Mario asked, not fully trusting of the sorcerer. Kamek did work for Bowser, who was a rather untrustworthy person by himself. 

"I work with chemicals. I know a poison victim. Where's the poison though?" Kamek muttered, keen not to disclose the full extent of his work and instead find the toxic chemical used to take Luigi's life.

Kamek searched around the floor and in cupboards for any chemicals but to no avail. There was nothing even remotely toxic.

"There's nothing...Didn't you say that the door was locked when you busted in here?" Kamek questioned his wrinkled face expressing mass confusion.

"Yeah, I had to kick it open." Mario said, his sobbing having been ceased and replaced with empty silence.

"If he'd done it himself, there would be a spoon and bottle if it was liquid. If he ingested poison in the form of pellets, it's a completely different story. But this is liquid poison we have here." Kamek explained, pointing to a drop of orange liquid marring the pristine white bedsheets.

"How do you know that's poison?" Mario questioned.

"Assuming your brother didn't cry orange tears or had orange saliva, Shroomeliminite is an orange liquid form chemical that is toxic if you ingest it." Kamek snapped.

Mario didn't remark so he continued. 

"As there is no container for the poison, this was a murder. The question is, if the door was locked from the interior, how did our killer escape?" Kamek asked the group. No one answered for a few moments.

"Could a person fit into that vent?" Mona asked, gazing at the wall. The group followed her stare to a vent set into the wall.

"A particularly slim individual could probably fit through there. Someone such as Waluigi or Rosalina could easily twist their ways inside, Toad and Toadette could fit, you and Peach could fit in there. Yes, someone could fit in there. We need someone to test it though. Volunteers?" Kamek said to a silent audience.

"No fucken' way am I going up there!" Toadette immediately said, folding her arms.

"Someone just get in the vent or I will forcefully shove one of you up there." Kamek threatened. The group turned to look at prime suspect Waluigi.

"Of course I have to get in the vent..." Waluigi muttered, walking over to the vent and fiddled with one of the screws on the sides, pulling it off into his hand. "It's been messed with recently, this was our killer's exit." 

He pulled off the front of the vent and hoisted himself up into it with no trouble at all. "Jesus, this vent is huge!" 

"How huge?" Kamek called.

"Bowser could fit in here if he didn't have a shell. This ain't a normal vent for sure. And someone has definitely been here recently, the dust has marks in it. Can I come out now?" Waluigi said, marvelling at the sheer size of the air duct that was clearly used for other purposes than transporting air. It didn't have much headroom, but it was wide and Waluigi could crouch in it, which was confirmation that this was the killer's grand exit.

"Rosalina, go up there to check he isn't lying." Kamek ordered. Rosalina obliged, heading up into the air duct and calling down to the group to confirm that Waluigi wasn't lying before leaving the vent.

"So the killer can fit through the opening of an air vent, they're fast, they're strong and they clearly paid attention in chemistry. This is all we have to go off until..." Kamek said, leaving the end of his sentence hanging. They all knew what he meant. Until the next victim. 

And the next victim would be taken very soon. Very soon indeed...

Thank ya'll for reading. I'm pleased about the reaction to this book. I appreciate it. Who do you think is the killer based of these 2 chapters? Also, sorry for killing off 2 very likeable characters at the very start. Who do you think is going to be the next victim, how and why do you think they'll die next?