Prologue

“Don’t you get it? You all did this. You did it to yourselves! The lies, the backstabbing. The betrayals…”

I said, my voice hoarse, my anger out in the open, there was nothing to hide now, nothing to run from, this was their fault, all of their faults.

“If you hadn’t been such indecent human beings, there’d be nothing to expose about you, there’d be no reason for the damage cost. There would be no chaos. You all did it… all of you.”

What people didn’t understand was that, we lived in a society today where speaking freely was no longer an option, being honest was a rarity and it wasn’t because people were afraid to speak their mind no, it was because the lies they fed to others fuelled their hunger for destroying others. They fed on breaking lives, doing damage and creating destruction.

These people were no victims, they were monsters and they reflected their image onto me, though what I had done was no inhumane but merely justice, I was punishing them for their sins. They didn’t deserve to live without knowing what they had done wrong, I wouldn’t allow it.

“You go on and on and on about how you’re so tired of fake people and fake friends but have you ever tried to take one look in the mirror? Have you saw yourself? Ever really truly looked into your own eyes? Did you find any life in them? Because not only are you dead inside but there is no life on the outside of your layers of skin either, you are a phantom of destruction, you are a poison, a virus. You just keep on spreading and spreading and eventually, you drag everyone around you in and make them become just like you. You are a plague.”

I could feel my heart pounding in my chest as I relived the horror they put me through and allowed that anger take over me, allowed it to give me the push I needed to not give up, to not be human and forgive. Forgiveness was for the weak, forgiveness was a way of escaping your demons, it was a way of trying to move on with your life so you didn’t have to deal with the aftermath of the damage others had done to you but me, I was no coward, I would not forgive, I would not forget, I would wake up every morning and remind myself of what everyone had done to me so that I didn’t go to sleep relying on a person to be decent because I knew, there were no decent people out there and I would be a fool to believe in such fairytales.

Keeping my eyes open and zeroed in on my prey, I breathed in the fumes of my rage as I held up my knife, twisting it around to show how precious it was and what kind of damage it could do as I said;

“I am going to kill you because you deserve it, not because I’m a murderer.”

Itana-

Winter vacation. A ski resort. 6 of us. Who would’ve known that such an innocent plan would turn so deadly?

Nobody would’ve imagined that going away for the winter with a group of friends would set of a disaster, I had just met these people for a few months now and now I wasn’t so sure if meeting them was such a good idea. I wasn’t sure if I even knew any of them as much I had thought. The moment we arrived here things began to go wrong, first, the blizzard made it impossible for us to be able to leave the area, completely trapping us in this place without any signal or any communication to the rest of the world and then the rest of the damage continued…

“It’s ok don’t worry Itana, we’ll find a way to get into contact with the outside somehow.”

Sara said as she tried to reassure me but I wasn’t even sure if she even believed in her own words but instead of being a downer, I turned and smiled at her, nodding my head in response. Though I was afraid, this was just the beginning of a nightmare.

“This is Aiko’s place right? Does he not have any emergency ways of contacting authorities in the case of emergencies?”

I asked as I looked around the large wooden lodge, it was three floors and looked absolutely beautiful with its nature decorations, a large tree planted in the middle of the home that went up to the last set of staircase, every furniture was made of wood, everything just looked so immaculate, I wondered why anyone would create this place in the middle of no where without any form of protection, knowing that it was for winter vacations, clearly there should’ve been a certain way to contact the emergency line but no, nothing, we were trapped here.

Aiko, Andre and Jesse, the guys had gone to see if they can find some help, leaving us girls, me, Sara and Claudia here all alone to make use of the food supplies to make us some dinner.

“Yeah but I don’t think he thought about all of that and if he did have any way of contacting authorities, he would’ve called them by now. It’s just weird that we don’t have any signal, though I understand the weather isn’t great, I just didn’t think it could affect our signals like this.”

Sara said before she shrugged, turning her back to me to look over at Claudia who was no already starting to prepare everything for our meal.

“What the fuck!”

I jumped as I yelled out, looking towards the window, a shadow raced towards the left side of the house and it definitely didn’t look like any of the guys…

“What’s wrong?!”

Both Sara and Claudia rushed over to me, scared for their lives, they looked at me like I had horns on my head.

“There was a shadow, I saw someone out there, watching us from the window.”

My heart pounding into my throat, I felt ridiculous, this couldn’t have been real, it felt more like a movie than anything else, a group of friends in a remote location being stalked by a possible serial killer, yeah, I watched too many movies.

“Maybe the guys are back.”

Claudia said though I could see that she was unsure as she walked over to the window and began looking outside for the guys before she turned around and looked at us.

“No… there’s no one out there, the guys aren’t back.”

She shrugged before walking back over to me.

“Are you sure you saw someone out there?”

Annoyed that she was asking me it like I was a child incapable of knowing what I saw, I let out a frustrated sigh as I said;

“Yes Claudia. I really saw a person behind the windows, the person’s shadow was right there.”

I pointed towards where I had saw everything and both girls looked towards the place I was pointing at before they looked at each other, clearly mot wanting to believe that we were being watched.

“Ok guys… I won’t lie, I felt like I was being watched during my sleep last night, at around 3am, I woke up to someone in my room and as soon as I managed to clear my foggy vision, the person had ran out of the room. I didn’t want to say anything because I thought I was just tripping but I’m not so sure now.”

Sara said, her voice shaking, I could see the fear within the brown marbles in her orbs, she was afraid because maybe now she was starting to realise that something really wrong was happening here…

“Why didn’t you tell us this before Sara?”

Claudia retorted as she rolled her eyes before continuing to prepare the food. She clearly didn’t believe us and I wished that the guys would be back already because without them I didn’t feel so sake, even if I didn’t know the guys so well, I would’ve preferred if they were here with us.

“Because I didn’t want to sound crazy ok?”

Sara responded and before anything else could be said, a loud bang came from the front door, as if someone was trying to break the door down, the banging continued as the girls and I stood there frozen, afraid that if we moved, we’d be seen but that until the door smacked opened…

As it revealed….