Room 4312

The moon rose to it's peak, surveying the eerie and cliched Victorian manor that lay below it's pale gaze.

The house was sleeping, all lights extinguished.

The tension could be cut with a knife. It was too silent.

All of a sudden, the expected scream rang true and short.

Someone had been murdered in room 4312.

Lily awoke with a start as the piercing scream silenced her dreams. She reached out for the lamp she kept burning all through the night, to find the flame almost out, the wick burned through.

Staying very still, she listened for anymore sounds throughout the house, trying to hear over the thudding her heart was making in her chest.

Rogan hadn't been able to sleep until 5 minutes prior to the scream. He awoke suddenly and sat up in bed, waiting for another sound.

There was no other scream.

Pulling on his pants, Rogan wandered out into the hallway of floor 4, seeing if anyone else had been startled and were investigating the source of the noise.

In the silence that followed the scream - when did silence start to sound so loud? - he listened only to his own breath. The sight of her, pale limbs licked so graciously with scarlet blood, darkening in pools in the bedsheets, the pure beauty of it threatened to overwhelm him. But small sounds broke through his consciousness, people stirring in other rooms, ripped from their sleep by the sudden scream. He stashed the knife in the bottom drawer of the dresser (it could be dealt with later) and slipped into the closet, just before frightened strangers reached the door.

Rogan listened for the door that was making no sound - Room 4312.

The door was locked. Pulling and tugging, he finally resorted to kicking. He could pay fines but if his suspicions were correct, those would be forgotten.

The door swung wildly open, crashing into the wall beside it.

The room seemed ethereal; light danced and swam in the dark puddles that clung to the sheets. The unnatural stillness was incredible. Nothing, absolutely nothing was moving or making noise.

She was beautiful. Lying on her side, eyes gazing eternally out.

His fiancee, Willamina, was dead.

Lily finally gathered her courage, and slipping into her brocade nightgown she tip-toed into the hallway. The lamps out here were flickering too, as if they were afraid to show the grim reality of this particular night. Noticing the door of the neighbouring room - belonging to her brother, Rogan - was open but nobody inside, she started more quickly to the next open door; room 4312.

Terrible thoughts raced through her head and her worst suspicions confirmed as she found her brother stilled in the open doorway. Her eyes followed his gaze and a sob chased away all breath as she spotted her brother's love in a pool of blood on the bed.

Lily reached for her brother, not knowing how to offer him comfort in this awful moment. She did her best, twining her arms about his shoulders and hugging him close, muffling her tears in her older brother's shirt.

Rogan couldn't feel anything but the heartbeats reverberating his head, pumping the tears out.

He fell to his knees and wept a low and guttural cry.

The ugly sounds of the most pathetic part of human nature slid muted through the heavy oak of the waredrobe. In the darkness, Mikael bit down on the flesh of his arm, to draw blood, and carefully tore artful rips into his shirt wherever her blood lay thickest on him as he waited for the bruise to purple. Then, heart pounding in the thrill of the moment (thrill so close to fear, no one could ever tell the difference) he cracked open the door of the closet, as if terrified, then let it swing open, as he gazed in wonderment - as good as shock - at the torn body of the charming Willamina. He didn't say anything yet; the good actor knew when to let others take the stage.

Amelia slowly opened her eyes, wondering what was going on. She had been dreaming she had been locked in the arms of a charming young man, and though she knew that would never happen, she dreamt it anyway. Her body still ached from the work of that day- washing and cleaning and baking. Her limbs felt heavy and she slumped back onto the bed, falling asleep instantly.

Being woken in the early hours did little for Victoria's mood and her thoughts scittered at once to the idea of some maid or server being in a place she oughtn't to be. Of things being broken, and drunken escpaids unflattering to the image. Her brow dug itsef into a well eached frown and she reached for her overgown with a self-suffering sigh.

The walk towards the west wing wing was a slow messured one. Little came of rushing, hot and bothered to a scene, brash and unpresentable. She smothed the fabric of her gown down unconciously before reatching for her hair, checking the knot had not losened in slumber. her shoulders squared as she prepared herself to meet the Disturber.

The proceendings she walked in on, however, were not the ones she had imagened.

Rogan stared blankly out at the world that was shattering around him

Lily helped her brother up. As she did so, she saw the door to the large wardrobe swing open and a battered and bleeding man stood inside.

"Who in God's name are you?" she demanded.

She heard footsteps behind them all and turned to greet their hostess, Victoria. Shock had given way to pragmatism, and Lily begged Victoria to send someone to fetch a doctor, and possibly a policeman.

"I - I heard - I tried to stop him... He - I tried to make him stop! I couldn't - He was so strong..." Mikael adopted a bewildered stare and an underclass accent and began to wind his seamless creation. He added tremors for affect, and then locked on the eyes of his questioner, as if steadying himself in the cold black spark of her pupils. "Stefan. I'm Stefan, I'm a servant to the lady - to Ms Victoria. I tried to help ... I tried to stop him ... I..." He stared in apparantly helplessness, his eyes reaching into hers, trying to catch that human flare of pity, of warmth.

Every sound was a distant murmur as if Rogan's head was plunged under water.

He was drowning.

The screams inside his head were silenced when he saw the man come out of the closet.

Rogan flew at the man, rage replacing blood in his veins, fists flying wildly, unable to think for the rage blinding all thoughts

Now this was fustrating. How simple would it be to repel the flailing idiot. But once he had taken on this visage of weakness, it wouldn't be wise to break it. Instead he made pale attempts to deflect the unaimed blows of the grief-struck man, and waited for him to give in, waiting for that little link to snap and for him to sink to the floor once more. The injuries he could endure, having felt much worse before. Prison he could not, not again.

All the time, he sought the eyes of his sister, knowing, if he could reel her in, she could stand in his defense.

"Rogan!" Lily screamed. "Stop it, please!"

She didn't dare get in the middle of her brother's rage and could only watch helplessly as he wrote his pain in fresh bruises across this man - Stefan.

Lily looked into the eyes of Stefan and felt cautious empathy; he did not seem to be quite who he described, but she couldn't bear to turn on him. Rushing to pull Rogan off the weaker man, she turned over her shoulder to the hostess, Victoria.

"Please, marm, please! Send somebody quickly, we can't do this ourselves!"

Rogan was pulled off the man from the closet.

He could see again, and he couldn't bear to look at his beloved.

he walked calmly out of the room and ran to his room, hallway stretching infinitely far in front of him, his legs carrying him mere millimeters at a time.

He reached his room. exhausted, he locked and barred the door, ramming the bed against the door.

He sunk slowly into the corner and rocked himself gently, tears silently meeting in a puddle on the floor.

The gibbering ape was pulled away, and stumbled off into the gloom beyond. Leaving Mikael with three women, one his, one almost his - and the other ... intriguingly unreadable, but they all fall away in time. His eyes were tugged back to the cooling figure on the bed, wrapped in her pools of congealing blood. Stupid bitch, why did she have to scream? It was so much easier when they were silent, slipping away from life with just that gasp, and then the choked exhale. And he would slip out into the night, he would be streets away by now, picking out his favourite constellations in the sky... He enreathed himself in manufactured shock once more.

"I tried - he was so strong ... almost ... not human ... like something..."

The servants had been roused in the wake of events. Runners had been sent for the doctor and detective. Further thought had seen it prudent to summon the Priest form the town chapel. By morning every neighbour and gossip in the county would know of the affair.

Feeling ill, Victoria returned to room 4312.

She arrived to the sight of the previously distort youth laying into a cowering figure whom she had not noticed earlier.


For a moment she was frozen in shock before rushing forward to help young lady remove him. Together with a male servant they managed to pulled him off. He struggled once more and attempted to extract himself from the girl’s clutches, before calming and sweeping from the room.

Now parted and with her perspective changed, she recognised his victim as the witless Stefan. Small, meek thing that he was. He had been hired on a whim by her sister and his place in the household was beneath her knowledge. He gibbered now, in a shocked, disconected manner. She returned her attention to the room’s other occupant.

The young lady and departured gentleman, siblings in memory, had arrived some days earlier. They had impressed her with their civility and good breeding. Further recollection recalled the mutilated creature on the bed to be the youth’s betrothed.

Pity swelled briefly within her, before she collected herself. Traumatised or not, there was no excuse for violence and impropriety.

The loss may be theirs, but this establishment was Victoria’s and order would be maintained. She drew herself up, voice stern.

“What” she demanded “is going on?”

Detective Beatrice Calley had been sorely disappointed when her slumber was interupted at some ungodly hour of the night, but being the the most senior officer in the small town she had to attend the big crime scenes, and this was most certainly big.

The call had come in some short time earlier that a disturbance had occured at the local hotel and a young lady was dead. Naturally the the young officer working the usually quiet night shift was not keen to visit such an important crime scene. Distraught from the very thought of a murder so nearby he called the Detective for advice, simple, stay where you are in case there are any other call outs.

The Detective entered the crowded room, 4312. Detective Calley was a broad woman, fondly referred to as Beat by her friends she was a respected, almost feared member of the community. She had seen a number of things in her time with the police force, but nothing quite like the image of the torn woman twisted on the bed.

"I'm Detective Calley, I'll be needing to hear statements from all of you soon but for now this is a crime scene."

Rogan felt something sticky slide down past the nape of his neck and trickle slowly down his back. Recoiling, he turned to see the walls were melting.

melting and turning red.

After clearing the concerned neighbours from the room, Detective Calley began the arduous task of photographing the crime scene and collecting evidence. It would be a few hours until a coroner would arrive from the city so in the meantime Calley carefully set up a cover over the body, thankfully the cool night air meant the smell would not be a problem.

Something about this crime scene didn’t seem right. From her preliminary questioning of the owner of the hotel Calley had gathered that she and the guests had been woken by the scream. Despite the relatively quick response, no one had mentioned seeing anyone leave the room. The only witness was an employee, Stefan, who had apparently been in the room trying to fight off the attacker. Calley doubted that the small, nervous man would be ready to speak any time soon, and there was no telling how reliable his account would be.

The situation was made more difficult by the presence of the victim’s fiancée who had been among the first on the scene. He had previously attacked the witness, Stefan and by the shouts coming from the hallway, had now barricaded himself in his room. Calley would have to speak to him soon, it was too soon to make judgements but in cases like this one must consider the role of the fiancée.

Amelia awoke again, frustrated with the racket that was going on on the floor above her. She turned over at looked at the clock on her bedside table. 4am?! She had to be up for work in 2 hours and wanted all the sleep she could get. The hotel owner had offered her cheap board if she worked in the kitchens but she really wished she could save up some money and get out of there. Her ex-boyfriend kept hanging around, threatening her and harrassing her for money and she really wanted to shift into another city to get away from him.

Pulling on her dressing gown and fluffy slippers, she stamped out the door and up the stairs to tell whoever was making all the clatter to shut the hell up. She came around the corner and stamped down the hall to where all the noise was coming from- Room 4312. Halting to a stop, she was taken aback to find a room full of people, a police woman and a suspicious looking sheet placed over something lying on the floor...

And... her ex-boyfriend Mikael...

*Fuck*, she thought and sprinted back down the corridor towards her room.

Rogan ran from the walls. He could hear them whispering about him. Mocking him quietly wiht childish insults and rhymes. His head hurt, pounding the juices out of his brain and through his tear ducts. The image of his Beautiful 'Mina pounded against his eyeballs: Torn, bloodied and mutilated. the only recognizable part of her was her pretty face; which had been separated from her head.

Rogan hid between the mattress and the bed. The springs cut into his skin and he stayed there, still and silent.

Then the bugs were conspiring with the walls, seeping under the mattress like a black tide, covering his body...

He opened his eyes and they were gone, but their bites remained in his fevered mind.

The detective's eyes washed over Mikael with that air his composition was created for; she regarded Stefan with a look of pendulous apathy, hanging right between scorn and pity. No-one would suspect a thing of that quivering, pathetic excuse for a man. But she did present him with something of a problem, he had been planning to fabricate some supernatural scapegoat for the murder, and allow the superstitious foibles of the common mind to run it's course. But this women didn't seem like she'd be so easily led by a ghost story, something in her aura expounded logic, and total disregard for the susperstitions of the proletarian likes of Stefan. An alternative solution would have to be found, but one was forming already, and he was in no fear of being unprepared when Detective Calley came to question the primary witness.

Then a harsh inturruption shafted through his formulations. Amelia appeared at the door.

Amelia that wretch! The idiot girl was supposed to have been part of his fabrication. Back in London, ((OOC: oh come on, it's a victorian murder mystery, it's gotta be set in the english countryside XD)), when kills were frequent and his fame was beginning to spread, he took to her as a passing fancy. Not beautiful enough to kill, perhaps, but enough to pass the time of day. And it quickly occured to him that a plain little wife would be the perfect accompaniment to his reputable public image, and would certainly be helpful in deflecting the suspicions of investigators, who finally felt the sheer frequency of the murders to mark them worthy of investigation. And so he wooed sweet little Amelia, with white roses and gold bangles, and sweet words and loving smiles. And she had been so close to falling right into the honey trap. But Mikael had been younger then, and rasher, less in control of his violent emotions. And so upon occasion, when her nonsensical prattling grew tiring, he shut her up. He never really hurt her, never broke the skin, just a few punches to cease that incessant noise for a moment or two. He should have known really, to watch himself until after the wedding at least. She broke off the engagement. And now it seems she was going to be a trouble for him.

But she had loved him, he was sure of that. And he was sure he could find a way to capitalise on that.

He feigned the sudden urge to vomit, and used it as an excuse to follow her swiftly from the room.