Durchdenwald was busy working out at the gym in the basement. He’d been on the treadmill for about 30 minutes, now, and was ready to call it a day and head back upstairs to eat something. It was mid-morning and lunch was 2 hours away, so it wouldn’t have hurt to have a snack. He turned the machine off, and made a grab for his water bottle and his towel as he strolled towards the door. He wiped the sweat off his forehead using the soft, white fabric, took a swig of water, and walked up the stairs. Behind him, somebody was playing games in the arcade. Two people by the sound of their laughing. It sounded like the Lee-Park siblings, he thought, as he walked out into the ground floor hallway. 

He walked into the dining room. “Oh, hey,” he said, seeing Rickila and Greg at the table. Both of them had their heads down, as though they were sleeping, and they didn’t respond to his greeting. Durchdenwald glanced at them as he passed into the doorway of the kitchen, “That’s strange. Why are they asleep here?” he thought.

He shrugged and grabbed a handful of coco pops breakfast bars from the cupboard, and made a strawberry and banana smoothie for himself and Rickila, for when she woke up. He walked back out into the dining room. For all the noise the blender had made, neither of them had returned to the land of the living. He put the glasses on the table.

He tapped Rickila on her shoulder, “Hey Ricki, I made you a smoothie,” She didn’t stir. “Ricki?” A sense of urgency washed over him. He let the breakfast bars drop from his hands onto the floor, as he heaved Rickila by the shoulders so she was sitting up. 

“Jesus,” he breathed. A large gash ran up from her left cheekbone and swept across her forehead. Blood oozed from the deep wound. It wasn’t clean, it looked more like the attacker had bashed a bat or a piece of metal into her skull repeatedly until it had made a deadly enough dent. Her lips were sealed with duct tape, although he had a feeling she wouldn’t speak no longer. Durchdenwald checked her pulse just in case.

Nothing. 

He grimaced, striding towards Greg at the other side of the table, carefully pulling him up by the shoulders. His forehead was dented, to the point that his skin and skull had cracked open and a pinkish-white blob peeked through the cracks. He’d left a large bloodstain on the tablecloth. 

Durchdenwald cursed, why hadn’t he noticed when he walked in? He’d spent a whole 10 minutes in the kitchen.  What if they’d still been alive when he’d first walked in. 

He shook his head. His head was pounding, and he felt like throwing up, but he knew he shouldn’t blame himself. It wouldn’t do him any good.

He heard footsteps behind him as someone entered the dining room. They stopped, abruptly, as the person froze in the doorway. He looked behind him; Do-yun standing there, eyes wide, mouth gaping open. 

“What the heck?” she screeched.