The Henhouse

Hangover

Like the punchline of some sick joke, there wasn't one bullethole, but 3; one hit his head, just above the right eye; one grazed his neck, blood trickling to his chest; one pierced his shoulder, bullet colliding with the wall behind him.

If these didn't give it away, the splatter did; it spread wide behind his body, the droplets tiny- more like mist. Far range.

Lucas didn't shoot Casper.

One of them did.

The world stood still. In fact, the world didn't seem to exist, not anymore. This was the only room, its 8 visitors the global population.

And one of them had just killed another.

"W-" someone tried to talk. Justin looked but didn't see; someone was walking towards the shattered glass, their feet dangerously close to the shards.

"Who?" Jonah whispered. She bowed her head, unable to look forward. No one could. The window was gone, but there was a much more powerful barrier now in place. Jonah's tone was low, a million degrees of intensity skimming the surface.

Justin lowered himself to the floor and sat knees to chest. He was sure he'd faint, sure he'd vomit... sure he'd implode, explode, combust, degrade somehow.

If his brain was just running slow earlier, now it had a virus. It skipped and caught on random words like a broken record:

Dead- dead- dead....

"WHO?!" Jonah screamed, turning on the others with eyes aflame. Her hands curled slightly as though claws would pop out of her nailbeds. The question bounced off the walls, bounced around the confused shambles of Justin's mind:

Who- who- who....

No one confessed.

No one moved.

Justin scanned everyone's hands, but found no guns. They'd been lowered to the floor – Justin spotted three.

"It could only have been you or Peter," Ivy whispered. Her eyes were open but, like Justin's, they saw nothing. "No one else had a gun."

"No." Jonah shook her head. "No. Not me."

The room turned to Peter, who stared at the floor as though counting tiles.

"Peter-"

He looked up, eyes glossed. He stared at Ivy for a while, then his sights wandered to the others.

"I gave- ah- I gave the one I found to, ah... to Dany-"

"Don't," Dany warned them all at once. He stepped forward. "I did not do this...."

Justin felt embarassed he sat on the floor. He lept up now, thinking of Casper in his chair. He never want to sit down again....

"Someone did," he spoke. His voice was steadier than he'd expected, but not normal. He could barely recognize it as his own.

"Someone did," he repeated. His felt his insides lighting on fire, the pressure building up, filling his chest, his head, his fists with black smoke, up until-

"WHO. WAS IT?!" he shrieked, as loud as his lungs would allow. He made sure his voice would bounce off the walls, made sure everyone would flinch. Made sure the question was unavoidable. The group looked in on itself.