“Cig . . .” I’d started calling him by his nickname.

He didn’t look at me. For the sake of his poor eyesight, he focused on the hallway ahead, to prevent himself from tripping. He’d done it twice already.  “Yes?”

“How did you know that Yora and I became . . .” I dreaded saying the word.

“Roommates?” Cig guessed. He shrugged. “While you were sleeping, I knocked on your door and saw you there.”

I grimaced.

To think that a stranger had arrived at my bedroom, while I had stayed blissfully unaware—

Through my teeth, I replied, “Oh.”

Yora must have told him everything. Well, not every single thing. Cig believed I was working for Riley Ledders. He had not made any mention of me being a private ‘detective’.

“Yora kept you protected, huh?” Cig pointed out happily. He and Yora were complete opposites, in appearance and within themselves. Cig seemed too easygoing compared to his friend. Yora had shown that he could be like that as well, but it felt a lot more sinister than when Cig did it.

Not pleased with that observation, I replied, “I guess.”

“It makes me trust you.” Cig said.

I stumbled, shocked by his words.

“Yora doesn’t have many friends, but when he feels protective of someone, then it makes me believe that you aren’t bad.” He continued, “It makes me feel like you won’t hurt him.”

That last part felt unnecessary. I wasn’t going to hurt Yora, nor had I ever thought of it. It made me think back to what Cig had said earlier. They both worked in a lab, together. I also assumed they worked for Modiano.

I tried to hold the candle without shaking. I was cold, which made my focus a bit blurry, “Thanks.” I responded quietly.

Cig watched me, “I’m the only person he talks to at work, too.” He sounded disheartened at his own statement. “I’m glad he’s branching out.”

It was my chance to ask about that specific subject. Perhaps it was just me, but—their line of work gave me a feeling that it was important to Yora and his gloves. Yes, it was none of my business, but being in such a dangerous setting, I had to find out for the sake of survival.

“ . . . why do you work in a lab?” I murmured.

Cig didn’t talk for a few seconds. I could hear him gathering his thoughts as he walked beside me, “Yora didn’t want to work there.”

I looked at him, brow raised.

He looked right back at me, “He wanted to work on the pharmaceutical side of the Modiano business.” He told me, “Specifically, pharmaceutical botany.”

My mind went straight to the plants in our room. Having someone with that knowledge and background, especially in our vulnerable situation, was an advantage.

But what people said about medicine was true—

Something that could be considered a cure, could also turn into a poison if the dosage changed slightly.

“Me too. I focused my studies on all of that as well. Though . . .” Cig let out the first sigh I’d heard from him. “Yora wanted to devote himself entirely to botany, like me, but people could tell he was far more gifted in other areas—” He adjusted his glasses. They glinted in the faint candlelight. “Drug development for the Modiano cigarette brand was . . . the one thing he was best at, more than anyone else in the family.”

I kept my mouth shut. It didn’t feel like I had any right words to say. That technical side of the business was something consumers didn’t see. Yora was at the forefront of developing recreational drugs for Modiano, apparently.

It sounded like a demanding job. “Does he not like it?”

“Well, I’m not very happy in this position either,” Cig said, with a light laugh that sounded forced. “His parents practically—” He paused, “John, it’s . . . a role that has been forced upon him since he was very young.”

For the sake of the business.

Again, I had nothing to say. None of this revealed why he wore those gloves. Cig wasn’t telling me everything. 

“I saw them. The cigarettes.” I thought back to the ashtray. The distinct pastel pink color was unforgettable.

Cig perked up at that, “What did you think? Yora created them.” He did laugh again, but this time it did sound more genuine, “Despite it being his richest invention, he doesn’t smoke them at all.”

Oh—

So he didn’t smoke?

“Then why . . . ?” I hadn’t intended to ask. The question simply fell from my lips.

“I can’t believe he keeps lighting them in that room.” Cig hadn’t heard me. “Does he do that with you in there?”

“No.” I shook my head. “He got rid of them.”

He exhaled, relieved, “Good.”

Why ‘good’?

I knew cigarettes were an overall danger to our health, but it was a common product that people bought. I had been exposed to it a number of times in my life, and personally, it didn’t bother me if he kept lighting them.

Cig peered at me from over his glasses, “Drugs sometimes have side effects.” He said, pointing his finger in the air, like he was giving me some lecture, “The same goes for those cigarettes. They help people with the one thing they’d like the most—” He changed his mind, “Actually, not everyone would find it a luxury, huh . . .”

I sent him a perplexed expression. “What do you mean?”

“It’s a good thing he stopped exposing that to you.” He rubbed his chin thoughtfully, and then did something that had annoyed me the most with Yora, “How many fingers am I holding up?” He held two fingers out.

My face must’ve said it all, because he chuckled. I knew all too well that they were both concerned. “Two.” I answered.

If the cigarettes were dangerous enough to affect me after only a few hours of exposure, then why bother even giving them to people?

‘They help people with the one thing they’d like the most—’

I was ignorant. Money played a big part. That was how they were so rich in the first place. Yora was . . .

Wow, he was far richer than any man I’d ever met, besides Alexander.

“Alexandra is the heir, so she’ll be inheriting the business in the end.” Cig said, as my eyes widened in astonishment. This was the first I’d heard of any siblings. “He’s the chemist, and she’s the business woman. A perfect combination.”

Yora was the younger brother, not the eligible heir, but an important heir if anything happened to his sister.

“Alexandra?” I said this below my breath.

There were a total of fifteen guests joining me in this ‘school’, which meant that I would have more than one voice occupying my head at all times. They had their own stories, and their own motives, as well as their own problems—it was a family business, therefore drama seemed inevitable, and somehow I was supposed to balance all of that . . . if I chose to stick around.

I was afraid that I would have to. Escape seemed impossible now that I had the proper chance to walk through the dark hallways of the place. It was a literal maze, and one that I could not navigate through without assistance. These trapped men had more of an advantage of escaping than I did.

It was inconvenient, and dangerous. I probably had a better chance of surviving if I stayed and figured out what was going on.

The nagging feeling that I was correct about that thought was bothering me to no end. Yora, as well, must’ve guessed it before I had too.

He was a smart man. Very.

My eyes wandered to either side of us, watching the formless objects in the dark. A hand could’ve come out from the abyss and grabbed me without Cig even knowing. It was frightening. And the moonlight pouring in from the occasional window did nothing to calm my nerves, not even the sound of soothing rain against the house could relax me.

I could hear it, or—perhaps it was something else. A branch tapping against the window as well?

Cig slowed his pace, outstretching a hand in front of me protectively. He was significantly smaller and yet his actions made it seem that I was the one who was in more danger.

Maybe I was.

“What?” I questioned.

We had stopped.

My small acquaintance pointed to the window nearest us. No branch was hitting it. I could only see the moon from beyond the rain streaked glass.

The faint tapping noise of the soft rainfall could only be heard in our silence, but then . . .

Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap—

6 taps in a row.

Cig let out a tired laugh. I had no clue as to why he had even made us stop to listen.

“I thought I wouldn’t hear that noise anymore.” He took my candle, which had died seconds ago. I hadn’t been paying attention to it. “Well, not as an adult.”

When he set down the now empty chamberstick on a table to his left, I took our pause as a sign to breathe. We had walked pretty far, and the way he carried himself made me assume that we still had a long way to reach the dining room.

I leaned on the table close to me, one that held a fine set of silver plates, all decorative. “The noise?” I shrugged it off. “Does the house make many noises like that?”

“No.” He shook his head. He was searching up and down the hall, looking for what I guessed was a new candle. I felt bad, knowing he needed more lighted guidance than I did. “The house is the sturdiest thing in the area, despite the age.”

“Then . . .” I didn’t join him in his search. It was fruitless to look for anything in such darkness.

He looked up at me from the floor, where he had squatted to peek into empty drawers. “I mean—it may be old house noises, but as children we always concluded it was something else.”

“You stayed here when you were younger?” I asked. It was obvious, considering he was Yora’s childhood friend.

“Indeed,” He replied. “Everyone at this gathering grew up here, related or not.”

Well, the place was huge enough to fit more than two large families. It was no surprise to hear that it housed more than that, as well as a literal school for children.

Since it had been a school, it also wasn’t shocking to hear that the kids had created ghost stories for the house. It was old and exceedingly daunting in appearance.

“The Grainer.” Cig said out of the blue, as if I would understand that name.

I did not.

“Grainer?” I stayed where I stood as Cig rose and gave up his search. We would have to continue without much light to guide us. I hoped he could get us to our destination without trouble.

"He carries one. It's the name of a well-known knife. One that specializes in removing skin, and . . ." Cig rested against a table, just like I had, “It’s a story we used to tell each other.” He explained. “The kids from the old school passed it onto us, to scare us.”

The sense of humor that children had was sometimes quite disturbing. Passing on ghost stories like that was a prime example of how wicked they could be. I knew, because I had been one of them.

“Does the monster tap 6 times like that?” I waved to the window.

My acquaintance shivered, like he had remembered something alarming, “Apparently he taps surfaces 6 times, just so he can let you know that he’s there.” He fisted his hand, about to tap the table, but he halted, “If you reply in the same way, he’ll find you.”

It was stories like these that made me really recall that this place had definitely been a school. Whoever was behind this game could use this monster in some way, too.

I hated the idea.

“He wears a black masquerade mask.” Cig recounted, as if he had personally seen him. "And he carries that knife."

“Why?”

“He’s Alexander’s great uncle.” He answered casually.

I let out a startled cough, which didn’t cease until I settled down. I had thought we were both talking about a mythical creature, or some ghost—

Cig saw my reaction and went on, to reassure me that I was not in any danger from the thing, “Oh, he’s been dead for a while. Definitely deceased, John. He won’t get us.” He assured me.

It did nothing to help.

I cleared my throat, “What are you even saying?”

The man scratched his head. “Well . . .”

Quite disturbed by the fact that this story was real, I tried to convince myself once again that this was something that I had to deal with.

“It happened a long time ago.”

“The story?” I attempted to follow along.

“The murder.” Cig corrected me. “George Westley, the one who died recently—his mother had been murdered by her own brother.”

Oh.

Oh gosh . . .

“ . . . and for what reason?” I realized I had only been asking question after question. I was getting tired of not knowing anything.

Cig looked from left to right, to check if there was anyone else there with us, which was fruitless because we couldn’t see anyway. Thus he whispered to me, “After his fiancée died suddenly, he went—” Cig used his hands to try and explain, “I guess you could say he went mad.”

I didn’t ask how the fiancée had died, mostly because I knew where this story was headed. It was a tragedy. “Alexander’s great uncle . . .”

“That’s why he wears the mask.” Cig explained, “During his sister’s engagement party—a masquerade party, he grew jealous of her and slaughtered sixteen people with only a knife.” His whispered words grew louder, “The mask helps hide the splattered blood on his face. I believe that’s what all the children say about him.”

Lovely.

I shivered, disgusted by the image of it. “Sixteen guests?”

“Yes.”

That didn’t sound reassuring at all. We were also sixteen guests, all ready to be handed that same fate if we didn’t obey our professor.

I glanced back at the window, thinking that those strange noises were more important than I presumed.

Children's stories were very informative after all.

“But we won’t be going to that ballroom today.” Cig got up, ready to continue our walk. “Today, we will be eating in the second dining room.”

Honestly, after hearing of that man, The Grainer, I didn’t feel like eating much of anything. I even wondered how the men had been getting their food too.

“I’m not that hungry.” I told him, returning to his side, to walk once more.

Cig let out that now familiar chuckle. His tone was too bright to be considered sinister. For a slight moment, I felt a bit bad that I was blatantly lying to his face.

But only for a moment—

“Yeah . . . me too,” He said, the brightness in his voice dissipating slowly.

With the end of that ghost story, we returned back to our own reality. I did not have to worry about a masked man rising from the dead to murder us. Instead, I had to find another person who may have had similar intentions.

Everything connected back to George Westley, which was odd because I did not think he should’ve been the main focus of the investigation.

I held more interest in his heirs, and in their cousins and friends. This generation was important, and I had to find out why.

They were the ones who were trapped in the house. They were the ones who were suffering right now the most, not George Westley. He was dead and resting. Meanwhile, we were not.

Thinking back to the story, I hoped that history would not repeat itself.

But in reality, I had no control of anything.

And what made it scarier was that Alexander, Yora, and the other great and powerful men in our party . . .

They had absolutely no control either.

Cig and I walked on, ignoring the occasional tapping sounds we heard along the way.

I’d had enough of horrific tales for one night. For now, I had to make sure we wouldn’t become one of those stories.

And so far . . .

It didn’t look like I’d be getting the happy ending I desired.