“Come on Liam, at least say hi so I know you’re okay,” Mark called out knocking on the door again.

“Alright I’m just gonna have to go round the back then,” Mark said loudly, pausing briefly.

No response, Mark grew worried, he couldn’t remember a time that hadn’t worked.

“No no no, probably just out, right?” Mark muttered, as his mind fruitlessly attempting to rationalise Liam’s apparent absence, he began to walk round the side of the house, slowly picking up speed as he went. Lifting up the window, Mark climbed through.

“Liam? Come on man, this isn’t funny.”

He clambered over the cluttered kitchen worktop.

SMASH! One of many stacks of plates had fallen off of the worktop and shards covered the floor.

“Crap...” Mark muttered, trying not to stand on the fragments whilst also trying to not knock anything else over, he stumbled out of the kitchen eventually regaining his balance.

He looked up the stairs, and that’s when he first smelt it. He reflectively covered his face. An odour he swore he had smelt somewhere before, but Mark couldn’t quite put his finger on where. He had to resist the urge to gag as he reached the top of the stairs, despite pressing his arm against his nose as hard as he could. It only grew stronger as he approached the Liam’s bedroom.

He nudged the door open. He could barely breathe, that’s when it hit him, where he had smelt it before back in the first year of college, the biology lab’s freezer had broken over summer, when they returned to college, the whole wing stunk of rotten flesh.

Mark fell to his knees, in front of him was Liam, hanging… Lifeless.