Fires of Hell: Red Rose
The house was silent. Her gloved fingers ran over the cool marble surfaces, and she marveled at how spotless this mansion was.
She made no sound as she navigated her way around the mansion, her favourite rose knife in hand. She also had a bottle of poison chained to her neck, just in case.
People tended to look down on poisons, but as long as you could kill someone with it, she respected it.
More than she would ever respect a human being, anyway.
Her blue eyes travelled down the hallways, noting and memorising every detail. It was only then she noticed the small unevenness in the walls. Barely noticeable, unless you looked carefully. She smiled a little, eyes burning with fire.
She put an ear to the small crack.
At first, it was just muffled, quiet, talking. But her patience was rewarded, because then came a peal of laughter.
Unmistakable.
She almost snorted. How could they be so careless?
Forming a plan in her mind quickly, she grabbed a knife from her pocket and kicked the door open, throwing the knife. It spun and landed firmly in the middle of the target board at the other end of the room.
“Bullseye,” she said, smirking.
The room was silent now.
The guests were all on edge, glancing furtively around the room.
She spotted her target immediately, and was about to walk there. But, surprisingly, he stood up.
There was a look of defiance on his face. He was clearly a distinguished man, in his early thirties.
He looked at her like she was a piece of cake, but she didn’t care. One strike and he would be dead.
However, before she could plunge her dagger in, he said softly, “I will give you a challenge.”
Her ears perked up. A challenge?
“If you beat me in a duel, you can kill everyone in this room. But if you lose, you will go out of this room and I will stab you in your back,” he said, a small smirk on his face.
She didn’t think about it twice. “Deal.”
She won the duel. But before she could finish him off, he reminded her in a raspy voice, “You said you would kill everyone in this room if you won. Are you not in this room?”
She laughed it off, but inwardly seethed. How dare he trick her! “I will, after I’m done with you all.”
“No. I don’t trust you,” the man shot back.
“Yet how do you expect me to kill you after I’m dead?”
“I will resurrect you,” the man said proudly.
Her eyes sparkled at the thought of being resurrected.
Without further ado, she plunged her rose dagger into her heart and twisted it, a smile on her face.
For although she acted naive, she had planned this all along.
A girl, an amateur assassin, with a gift from the gods above.
As the people in the room cheered for the man, she writhed in her own blood. She was dead. Well and truly dead. And yet, he hadn’t resurrected her as promised.
She knew that it took time. Necromancy took time. Years, decades, centuries.
But all she needed was a reason.
A reason plausible enough.
A red rose started to bloom on her heart, but no one noticed. They were all too busy celebrating.
The thorns grew, too. Soon the rose and its thorns were sneaking all around the room, sealing all entrance points. The roses were all red as Snow White’s lips, and beautiful as the princess that sat upon the throne.
The thorns were sharp—sharper than even the blade of the dagger, sharper than even the man’s tongue.
And it was only when the guests started to leave that they realised all entrance points were sealed up…by a rose and its thorns.
They only made sense of what was happening when they noticed the assassin’s body still lying on the ground, motionless.
The blood was gone now, and so was the dagger. They started panicking, but it was too late.
The red rose and its thorns snaked around their arms and legs, restraining them.
One by one, the rose grew from their heart, causing them to collapse and die, but not before they received a threatening text message from a loved one—a lover, perhaps, or a son or daughter.
∞︎︎⎈∞︎︎
When dawn comes, so shall the fire.
∞︎︎⎈∞︎︎
At dawn the next morning, a fire started from the assassin’s heart. It spread through the room, burning every guest’s dead body.
Once all the bodies were burned, the fire died off on its own.
Exactly 24 hours later, the husband of the Lady who had held this party found that damned room. By then, all the roses and thorns were gone from the entry points.
Though one might expect ashes due to the fire, when the husband went in, he saw rows and rows of bodies, lined up neatly according to sequence when they were killed, although to the traumatised husband it meant nothing.
He did not notice anyone out of place—no one did, not the police or the detectives who came to investigate this strange case—for the amateur assassin’s body was no longer there.
