“Shiro…?”

Tsujiko stumbles through the dark. How has she managed to lose him…? They were right next to each other, only a moment ago…!

“Shiro!”

And yet, the darkness of the house remains indifferent. No response. No Shiro.

Only her.

And the dark.

“Sh—Shiro, this… This isn’t funny! Where are you…?”

A floorboard creaks behind her. She turns around. The hallway seems everlasting. For a moment, she swears she sees a pair of eyes peer from the other end. But there is no other end. None that she can see. There can’t be a pair of eyes, either, then.

It’s all in her head.

She’s tired. She’s lonely. She’s scared, as much as she hates to admit it.

She won’t give up now, though. She’s been offered a miracle. Shiro – the man she had longed for all those years ago – has come for her. He hadn’t forgotten their promise. He’s here. He’s going to save her. He’s going to take her away. He won’t die. She won’t let him die.

“Shiro!” her scream bounces off the walls, reaching out to her love.

Nothing.

One. Two. Three.

Nothing.

She swallows the saliva lingering under her tongue. “Shi… ro…”

“I’m here.” The darkness speaks.

“Shiro…? Wh—I can’t see you?!”

“Sorry.” the voice says. “I had to check something out.”

“What happened? Why did you leave me?”

“Had to check something out.” he says simply. “The lights aren’t working.”

“Oh, no. The generator must’ve gone out.”

“Guess it was only a matter of time. Anyway, stay right there. I’m coming over to you.”

The stairs in front of her creak.

“I was so scared.” She admits. “Please don’t do that again!”

“I’ve been thinking, Tsujiko. About this. About the island. About these dead people. About the locked rooms. I think I’ve finally found an answer. Frankly, I don’t know how we didn’t see it before. I guess the culprit had some good diversion tactics here and there.”

“You… know who did it? But—But we already—” she spoke weakly, trying to find some glimmer of her lover’s eyes. “The stranger and—and Ms. Hinata…”

“Let’s start with Kokone’s murder. That one’s the easiest of the bunch, at the end of the day. The whole trick relies on the belief that, when Izuru and I saw that door slam, it was the culprit slamming it, locking it behind them, and killing her. But that’s not how it happened. Not really.

“The murder happened way earlier. After killing Kokone, they locked the door from the outside with the key and broke it down from the outside. That was the first step – this way, the lock with the key would be broken. Next was the upper lock. The bolt. They took the key and wrapped a string around it. One end of the string was taped to one of the ends of the deadbolt. The key itself was lightly glued to the door. The culprit then simply left the door open and exited through the window.

“I always found it interesting. That the door slammed shut the moment Izuru and I had walked through the east hallway’s door. But it wasn’t a coincidence. The moment we opened it, we let a draft run through the open window in Kokone’s room, through the hallway. That’s what caused the door to slam shut. When it did, the key got loosened, falling down, turning the deadbolt in the process.

“And, finally, when we were breaking the door down, we caused the key to come flying off the deadbolt, landing on the other side of the room. If the string was thin enough, we wouldn’t have spotted it. And all the culprit would’ve had to do was get rid of it while looking around the room. How’s that, Tsujiko? How am I doing?”

“Why… are you asking me…?”

“Tsujiko. C’mon, now.”

“Sh-Shiro, stop that! You’re scaring me!”

“Who else would’ve been able to kill Makoto?”

“I—I don’t know! B—But she’s—she’s lying! You have to believe m—”

“But the first murder. The first murder’s the one that proves it.

“Let’s start with the alibis. Izuru and Kokone were at the door the entire time. You yourself made a pretty good case on why it would’ve been a bad plan if it were them. And they’re both dead. So, let’s take them off the list. What does that tell us? Nobody went past them. And the window was never used. Conclusion: the culprit was in the room when the door was locked, just before the club members walked in.

“The culprit’s now inside. The question is – how’d they kill six men while the lights were on, in the same room? Conclusion: they didn’t. I wasn’t putting much stock in the conga line theory, anyhow. No – if they were really in the same room that entire time – then the only answer is that they were all murdered in the dark.”

“B—But the lights—”

“Yessss. Funny how you remember that little problem only now. The lights WERE always on.

“…Or were they? It was interesting, that. Do you remember what Kokone had said back then, precisely? The lights had been REPORTED to not work properly earlier in the day. REPORTED. Not that they were. A simple lie, to make the murder more unbelievable. Now, whose REPORT would be taken at face-value? If it was any of the guests, the staff would’ve inevitably checked themselves. Which means…”

“Stop this! For—It’s me! I wouldn’t—! I’d NEVER… I-I don’t know what’s made you act like this, but I’m… I’m really not…!”

“Don’t interrupt.”

“Shi… ro…” Something’s wrong. Shiro’s voice sounds… it’s...

“Well. Anyway. In reality, the lights worked just fine. The old men turned them off, put on the black robes, and stood around the center table. The only source of light would’ve likely been one of the candles that were in that nightstand.

“And in that darkness, standing away from the table, wearing the black robes, would they have noticed someone circling around them, silently choking the life out of them? Probably not. The last man standing might’ve noticed something wrong. But by that point, it was easy enough.

“After the deed was done, the culprit took the robes off the bodies, shoved them in a closet. They hid the candles in the nightstand, figuring they wouldn’t draw that much attention, either way. Finally, they had six hours to figure out how to sabotage the lights. Easy enough, I’d bet.

“The escape itself? Trivial. Risky, but trivial. They just pretended to arrive after the door was broken down.”

“W—Wait!” she shouted. “Wh—Why not just leave through the window?! Didn’t… Didn’t we already talk about this?! Sh—Shiro, stop this!” Her voice grows unsteady.

The shadows on the walls feel like they move.

“That’s the best part, though.” In the darkness, Tsujiko makes out a smile. “Doing everything up to this point would’ve made for an impossible story. But people coming up with locked rooms and impossible crimes usually don’t WANT people to view them like that. The point is, in itself, to leave people with an obvious solution of some kind. A ghost? A witch? No real legends here. Unless we’ll argue a plane did it.

“Suicide? Well, the lights did suggest they would’ve seen their attacker and been complicit. But it couldn’t have been a simultaneous one. There’s nobody to kill the last guy! What do you do?”

That voice—

“What do you do, Tsujiko?”

It’s not Shiro.

It’s not Shiro!

“…Who are you?” she asks.

“Well, it’s simple enough. What if you just give them a suspect? What if they broke into that room, saw all the six people dead, and a stranger, hiding in the room, with them? What if the police saw a scene like that? Well, it’d be unbelievable, but they’d probably think there’s no other explanation: the old man had this stranger kill them, and just a little after he’d killed them, the door was opened, and he had no chance to really escape through the window. So, he had to hide. Maybe, say, under the bed? Nobody did check under the bed, did they? If they had, it would’ve been simple. Open-and-shut.

“But how do you engineer something like that? You don’t just have a convenient patsy lying around.

“Oh wait. You did. A convenient unconscious man. A convenient unconscious man you dragged into that Club Room, into that bedroom, and under the bed. He was supposed to be found. When he was, you’d say you’d dozed off, the poor thing – and when you woke up – he was gone! Would’ve made you look incompetent. All the better, right? Who would doubt the incompetent, stressed-out maid?”

“He wasn’t found, though. And when everyone had broken down the door, you’d already dramatically left the room, so ‘shocked’ at the sight of the scene. You had no real chance to go and point him out for everyone. Sucks, doesn’t it?

“Of course, it was a stroke of luck. After everyone cleared the scene and gathered in the parlor, you went off to make some tea. In the middle of that, you went to check on your patsy. He was still out.

“Good.

“Unfortunately, it was then that you realized it. I don’t really know how. But you did. You realized he couldn’t walk.

“Bad.

“Given that, you did the only thing you could. You dragged him back to the guest room and pretended you’d been with him the entire time.”

“No! No, no! I don’t know what you think you know, b—but—but—Look, what’s gotten into you?! The—The stranger is missing, isn’t he?! He can walk HE CAN WALK!”

“Oh, you killed him, too, I’m sure. Nobody checked up on him in a while.”

The footsteps stop.

“I think, my dear Tsujiko,” the voice says, “that explains just about everything, right? Oh, besides the book. ‘The Strange Tale of Beatnik Island.’ Oh, you poor thing. You couldn’t have known. You couldn’t have known that you’d accidentally recreated a fictitious murder beat-by-beat. You couldn’t have known Kokone had read the book and immediately noticed the similarities. Even before you did what you did.

“The names, the characters. It was all too perfect. She had every reason to believe those men would end up dead. After they did, the book might as well have been her Bible. She knew you were the culprit. Tsujiko is the culprit in the book, after all.

“And she told you, didn’t she? That’s why you killed her and got rid of this strange prophecy someone had written. Short-term, since the book itself still existed out in the world, but it was your only chance. You could only hope the book wasn’t that popular, right?

“That’s the one bit of hope you’ve still got left to hold onto.”

That’s not true.

It isn’t!

She still has Shiro…!

Tsujiko shrieked. “Stop it! Stop it, stop it! Where is he?! Where’s Shiro?! Who ARE YOU?!”

A match is struck.

Light shines upon the man’s face.

Tsujiko covers her mouth. “No. No, no. Who are you? Who are you…?”

Shrio sighs. “I could ask you the same thing.”