Game on [ENGLISH]

Chapter twenty-four: Ellie

“***HERE IS A SMALL FACT***
You are going to die.”

― Markus Zusak, The Book Thief                                 

Ellie’s hand found a way to her face and she didn’t know what was happening around her. She didn’t know how her friend reacted to the terrible news they had just gotten. How were they able to find their best friend in two days, when they hadn’t got a clue or anything to begin with. Ellie didn’t know if she was screaming, crying or even do anything and she also didn’t know if she cared about such things. How could she find her friend in three days. He would probably die and that was probably something the killer had looked forward to all this time. The end was nearby and he was honest – soon they would all be dead.

Caleb touched her shoulder and Ellie got her sight on the world back. The video had stopped on the moment that the knife could kill Grayson with just one movement, and that was the thing that they were all looking at. Ellie turned around, so she couldn’t see the damn clip and she saw how her friends were looking at her, at the screen, at the new move of the killer.

‘This is the final,’ she said at the moment she knew it herself. ‘If we find him, we win. If we don’t find him…’

‘We lose,’ Joshua finished her sentence. They all knew what losing meant, but none of them wanted to say it out loud, because the idea of that, was almost destroying.

‘Where do we begin?’ Caleb said. Ellie didn’t know if she wanted to begin the last task. Then she remembered Grayson’s face and the knife on his throat and she knew that she needed to begin on the last task, because otherwise he would die. She could almost not speak the words in her head. How could she tell Grayson’s parents when he died. Yeah, we’re so sorry that we didn’t return your son at the right time, but yeah, he died and stuff happened. Sorry! That wasn’t only ridiculous, it was also pretty “killer-ish”.

‘I don’t know,’ she said, but she knew that no one really had an answer to Caleb’s question, because no one really knew what was happening. ‘That guy needs to give us some kind of clue, or beginning.’

‘Maybe we need to think easy.’ Joshua looked around him. ‘Why are we here. Why were you in coffins, why was I about to die?’

‘That isn’t really simple, buddy,’ Caleb said. ‘Let’s begin with something that really is simple: where are we?’

‘It seems as a hotel to me,’ Ellie said and she could almost smile, when she heard the song Motel California in her head. ‘Creepy as fuck, abandoned, like a cheap horror movie.’

‘That’s sure,’ Joshua said. ‘Let’s see if we can get out of this place and if there is someone close to us, or some kind of transportation thing around.’ That was something that Ellie didn’t think of. How were they going to get out of this place. It was probably miles away from every living village the world had ever known.

‘Sure,’ she said, in staid of  showing her inner panic to her friends. ‘That sounds like a great idea.’

They were seeking a hour for the door, but it wasn’t locked, so they could get out really quickly. The hotel was big, enormous and surrounded by gates, with plates on them, saying that they were going to shut this place down. The plate and the gates seemed really old, so this place really was abandoned. But there was something positive on the outside. They found the name of the hotel – hotel Primus Pub – and they found bicycles. Exactly at the moment Ellie was about to say that they needed to go back into the hotel, to get the keys of the bicycles, Caleb’s phone ringed. ‘You guys aren’t really smart, are you? Well, well, I will help you. Find the keys underneath your coffins and behind your door.’