Five Blue Birds

Always Here - Layla

It was the second night since they left, and I felt myself starting to lose sanity. The ever creaking wood in the log cabin, and the ever growing darkness of the body in the bathroom just brought shudders about me whenever I thought about it. I should've went with them, I don't know why I didn't, It was just too much for me to process at that time, I think that's why I stayed behind.

I paced around the cabin, and started to realize which boards were creaking and which ones weren't, trying to keep myself as entertained as possible.

Sometimes I thought that someone was watching me, but then again, I didn't really care for life much at this point. Everything was gone anyways. Or, Everyone was gone.

The ripped up small pieces of paper were still on the floor, and I took to making them my puzzle, and scotch taped them together one by one. I noticed items move around the log cabin every day or so, like a flower outside had been torn to shreds, the petals left lying around the cabin like little droplets of blood.

I didn't think much of this, and just busied myself with my "Puzzle". The boredom slowly and ever so slowly, starting to take over my mind piece by piece. 

I took up the habit of talking to myself since yesterday, as if someone could hear me. And, I never looked in the bathroom, as Noah was still there, and I didn't have it in me to see his broken body lying on the floor like a rag doll some little girl used to play with, lost away after a few years.

I wonder what brought Noah to do it, to think that it was a good idea to end it all, sometimes I still think that someone else had done it. But, who was it, when we were all secluded, alone in the cabin. In the middle of nowhere, how convenient.

Some of the edges of the paper were sharp, jutting into my skin every now and then, I found it sort of amusing, like a little game of who would win, me or this illiterate, not-alive object.

I slowly started to create the pieces, more and more together, before I realized that I had finished. I then proceeded to place the paper under the lamp on the desk, turning it on for some warmth, and just for the heck of it.

It wasn't long after that I came back to it, it drew me towards it, like some sort of magnetic force in the paper compelled me to read the words over and over in my head. What did they mean? What did they mean?

I gasped when I realized what it meant, slowly starting to put the pieces together not only physically, but mentally as well.

"Noah must've killed Naomi.." I thought to myself, "But the guilt-" I winced at the thought, know knowing that I would've done the same thing If I had ever killed someone. The eeriness of the whole situation soon became overwhelming, and I slept for a couple hours before returning back to the small piece of paper.

If Noah killed Naomi, who killed James? 

I created a mental list of everyone there, Me, Naomi, James, Mason, Emilia, and Noah. Six Suspects, which were including me. I could've done it, I mean, I wasn't myself and was beat up drunken but the others would keep reminding me that they had seen me that night, far asleep and gone into my own make-believe dream world.

I quickly crossed of Noah, he would've died faster from the guilt, since he had killed Naomi, and James wouldn't do it, everyone could see that he was waiting for the perfect time to tell Emilia that he loved her. I didn't do it, that left Naomi, Emilia and Mason.

Or someone else?

I looked at the paper to realize that in hidden ink on the back (only activated by a heat lamp, apparently, which was also convenient to the fact that I had placed it under it, and decided to remake it into my little form of entertainment, a puzzle.)

On the back of the paper was typed: "Time To Party."

I thought back to the party, and gave up since I couldn't realize who had killed James.

Before it struck me, Mason was the one to lend James his red attire for the party, and he never shares anything, we all know that, Noah was probably somewhere farther from the two, dealing with something else. Mason must've been so drunk that he accidentally shoved someone down the stairs or something, which led to her death, (That, and probably some alcohol poisoning interlaced between the two factors), he quickly told James what he had done and that's why they were in such a hurry to leave. 

But it wouldn't make sense as to we he had killed James would it?

I remember feeling so scared for the next few days, and I didn't even start to sober up for a long while, maybe he was scared of James telling everyone else that night, so somehow he sneaked out. Probably with Naomi, I now realized that the love he had for her was fake, and that he really loved Emilia, and everyday he could see her falling head over heels for James instead.

He then only planned to kill James, half out of terror of the situation, and half out of love for Emilia. But the anxiety of the whole situation gnawed at him as he figured that one of us would be smart enough to figure it out, so he just kept low the next few days before Noah had killed Naomi, and Noah then killed himself. 

That then left the rest of us, By me wanting to stay behind it must've gnawed at him too, he didn't want me to find out, with all the time on my hands what the letter really meant. 

I slept that night, peacefully, somehow, I don't really know how I did it, I just did.

That was, before I heard footsteps. 

It was the floorboard nearest to the bathroom, I noted under my breathe. 

I drew the covers up over my head as I realized that I had chosen a bottom bunk.

 All the more easier for someone to kill me in, "oh god not me", I thought to myself, shutting my eyes tighter, and tighter as if it would make the whole situation go away.

I felt a sharp pain shoot up my back, a sharp knife making itself at home in my spinal cord. 

I jolted, realizing I then couldn't move, and metallic tasting, oozing red blood flopped out of my mouth in sharp gasping coughs.

"Hi Layla, miss me?" A voice behind me said.

I couldn't bring words to my mouth, as it twisted further into me, not letting air reach my lungs, causing me to not struggle or have the air enough to even scream out something.

The figure then turned me around, laying me on the floor, jolting the knife further up my back as I watched, mouth gaping open as it walked around the room. It looked at the letter, proceeding to tear it up, then came back to me, kneeling down beside me, and giving me a quick kiss on the cheek, before I lost consciousness and died to the hand wielding the knife.

It was then that I knew who had killed James.