Chương 28: Project X

"Holy fucking shit, Isabel." The path widened as we passed under the arch, opening into a massive gravel parking lot, packed with cars. Most of them were empty, but a handful of teens were scattered around the lot, including a couple deep in a heavy makeout session, leaning against a pickup. A few cars away, three guys passed a bottle back and forth, laughing too loudly as drunk dudes always do.

Their heads turned as we passed, and I caught one checking out my chest, which renewed my discomfort at being forced into this fake body.

"Jesus," Tre said from my shoulder.

"How many people are here?"

"Everyone," Isabel said. We passed a girl in a cropped navy jacket sitting on the hood of a Prius. She barely glanced up from scrolling on her phone, smoking on a vape with the bored expression of someone who'd already decided the party sucked. The lot stopped at the edge of the open campgrounds, and it took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the glaring lights coming off the dock in the distance.

A small set of stairs led down into Camp Stillwater proper, where six cabins formed a wide amphitheater around the distant bonfire. There were three cabins on each side, their weathered wooden faces lit up like theater boxes overlooking a stage. The cabins sat well back from the flames, a good hundred and fifty feet or more. Between us and that fiery beacon stretched an open area, maybe half the length of a football field, scattered with clusters of teenagers who looked small from this distance.

"Holy shit." Tre leaped off my shoulder.

"Maltheris threw a literal Project X party!" He threw both arms in the air and screamed over the music: "LET'S GET FUCKED UUUUUUP!" Camp Stillwater did have that over-the-top movie party energy. Which made me wonder: was Maltheris building this from horror movie logic, or was he pulling it straight from my head? Isabel leaned over.

"What's Project X?"

"Some old party movie," I said. Tre yelled back.

"It starred a young actor who I believe also filmed a pornography."

"You believe?" I said.

"I know. Okay? It was BangBus. I'm disgusting. Are you happy now? Can we go party?" The bonfire itself was massive, easily fifteen feet high, shooting sparks into the night sky. Around it, people danced and swayed, their silhouettes backlit by the flames. Beyond the fire, past the dancing crowd, I could just make out the thin beach and then the lake itself, a black expanse of water that seemed to swallow light rather than reflect it. I don't know what I was expecting, but it wasn't this.

"You kids go hard," Tre said. Isabel laughed, some of the tension finally breaking.

"I told you it was a whole thing," she yelled over the noise. The music thundered across the field, bass notes traveling through the ground and up my boots to rattle my entire body. The track Maltheris had chosen, a Doja Cat song for some reason, seemed to come from everywhere at once. Massive speakers were positioned around the camp's perimeter, connected by thick cables that snaked across open ground, stretching all the way back to the distant lake dock.

Even from the entrance, I could make out the silhouette of a DJ setup on the dock, and the colored lights cutting patterns across the dark water.

"You guys want a beer?" Tre asked.

"We're supposed to be looking for two masked murderers, remember? Maybe we should try to clear the place out."

"Nora, look, I get that there's a goal or whatever, but we have until dawn," Tre said.

"Maltheris is obviously giving us a little break after all the fucked-up shit we just went through. Let's not look a gift demon in the mouth." He started walking towards the cabins, then stopped and turned around, annoyed.

"Come on! I refuse to be the only three losers without a beer."

"We will blend in better if we're at least holding the cups," Isabel said, following him. As we got closer, I realized each cabin had been converted into its own mini party. The windows glowed with luminous colors, and each cabin's distinct energy seemed to spill onto the front porches. The one closest to us was cast in black light, as purple hues turned the huge clouds of pot smoke wafting from the windows from white to violet.

"My kinda party," I said as we passed. SURVIVOR'S EYE ACTIVATED Cooldown: 4: 00: 00 Survivor's Eye activated without warning. My vision sharpened, and the party noise dropped half a register. My attention was drawn toward the stoner's cabin's foundation. That familiar blue outline materialized around a rusted propane tank partially hidden under the porch stairs. My eyes somehow zoomed in —leaving me with a nasty feeling of vertigo—and I could see a damaged release valve, the threading worn down to almost nothing.

The outline held, and the skill kept going, but it felt like everything else around me was either paused or had been slowed down so much it may as well not be moving at all. My eyes zoomed out again so I could see normally. Then a deeper blue highlight appeared around the front cabin wall, a gap in the porch in front of it, and then a detailed schematic appeared, showing me the width and length of the interior of the cabin. Without context, there wasn't much to do with this discovery at the moment.

But a leaden weight settled inside me as a horrific zoetrope of burning teenagers flickered through my mind. Rapid-fire clicks of video-game controllers mixed with the unmistakable sound of video-game explosions pulled me out of that grim place. The noises emanated from the next cabin, accompanied by the occasional cheers from the small crowd gathered to watch someone play. Tre made a move to hop off my back.

"I found my people!"

"No... focus," I said, lightly placing my hand over his tiny one gripping my shoulder. Alt and punk kids had commandeered the third cabin on our right, blasting guitar-heavy music that clashed with the bass-heavy beats the DJ spun. I hurried past it quickly, feeling a massive headache take root right behind my left eye. The three cabins to our left were also uniquely themed, but it was hard to make out the details of each one through the din of music and the tightly packed throng of students.

There were way more than three hundred teenagers scattered across the campgrounds and hidden away in the various cabins, which didn't make sense because there were more kids than I'd seen the whole day at school. Even if every kid from school showed up, plus kids from a neighboring town, the math didn't math up. Plaxx's words from the tutorial echoed in my head: players, companions, and bystanders are all real people.

Every single one of these laughing, drinking, dancing kids was a real human being whose body was in stasis somewhere on Earth. They were prisoners. Maltheris had dragged hundreds of actual souls into this simulation just to make the background of his twisted murder game a more authentic high school experience. The sheer, callous scale of it enraged me. I suddenly realized I was clenching both fists so hard my palms hurt.

Between the cabins and the central bonfire, maybe halfway across that football field of open ground, sat a cluster of beer kegs surrounded by students with red Solo cups. That's where Tre was already heading, his small form cutting through the grass with determination. As we followed him across the field, I kept looking for Sameer, those porcelain masks, or any other spooky shit. The constant din of dozens of separate conversations, mingling with the booming music, made my head throb.

It hurt to try to process it all while staying alert for anything that seemed off. Every face I passed could be hiding a killer. And all the others were innocent. These people were in danger, even if they didn't know it. Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work! Someone had arranged the beer station close enough to the bonfire, which seemed counterintuitive, so that the heat was pressing against my face as we waited in a short line for the beer kegs.

The kegs were in long metal tubs packed with ice, so at least someone had thought about the fire-warming-beer problem. Two guys I didn't recognize were working the taps, clearly experienced at managing the flow of students.

"Who pays for all this?" I asked Isabel. She looked around at the spectacle and shrugged.

"No clue." As we inched forward in line, I caught fragments of conversation from the groups around us. Most of it was the usual party chatter: someone's phone dying while navigating to the dentist, or people gossiping about who hooked up over the summer. I was tuning most of it out when two girls passed by our line, and I caught something that made my ears perk up:"—swears the lake was moving even though no one was in it."

"That's just the Lake Mothers," the other girl said with a laugh.

"I'm serious. Tyler doesn't believe in that ghost shit. What if it's an allig—" I tried to follow them with my eyes, but they'd already melted back into the crowd near the gaming cabin. Damn. I should have been paying closer attention. It was hard to stay focused when there were so many things happening at once around the party. A kid got laughed at for spilling a beer on himself, while a group of theater nerds drunkenly slurred the lyrics to Hadestown only a few steps away.

Navigating the crowd added another layer of distraction. Any time I spent even a moment looking around, I nearly collided with someone.

"Beer!" Tre hopped off my back and beelined for the kegs, where it seemed the majority of the football team had gravitated. Using his size to his advantage, Tre maneuvered between legs, making his way to the front of the line.

"Guys, come on," he yelled, waving Isabel and me over. Tre had been a bartender for years before he blew up online, and despite his small size, his skills hadn't diminished. By the time Isabel and I pushed through the crowd, he was already chatting with the guys behind the kegs, handing out red plastic cups of beer. Tre held a cup that was oversized for his two-foot frame, forcing him to grip it with both hands, as he coached the kids on the perfect pour.

When he handed the cup off to me, I ended up with the perfect amount of foam on top. While Tre enjoyed himself, embracing a moment of normalcy, I was on high alert, my head on a constant swivel, watching for threats or suspicious people and mapping potential exit routes. Maybe he was right. Maybe we did need this. After the three of us had beers, we moved off to one side of the kegs and touched plastic cups with a small "cheers."

I brought the beer to my lips for a taste and paused, examining the cup and getting a useful pop-up: ITEM ACQUIRED! BEER Effect: -15% Lucidity, -8% Movement, -8% Vision Consuming 2+ beers applies the Beer Goggles debuff"She looks like heaven; maybe this is hell." I mentally clicked on the highlighted words, and another pop-up opened. BEER GOGGLES (DEBUFF) Effect: Every creature looks more attractive than they are. Susceptible to Charm skills and abilities.

"You get a bunch of debuffs from beer. Maybe we should go easy, so we're not at a disadvantage when shit inevitably goes down," I warned. Tre was about to argue when Sameer emerged from the gaming cabin, weaving around a group on the porch, loudly debating Call of Duty rankings.

"Heads up," I said, nodding in Sameer's direction. He looked... normal. Too normal, maybe. His dark hair was perfectly styled, not a strand out of place, and his navy hoodie looked freshly washed. There was not a wrinkle or stain on his dark jeans. He actually looked pretty hot. Isabel's relief was immediate and obvious. She waved him over with a smile.

"Hey guys," he said as he joined us. His smile seemed genuine enough, but his posture read like he was forcing himself to relax. Or maybe I was just being paranoid.

"Sameer!" She pulled him into a crushing hug, her face buried in his shoulder. There was a quick contraction around his eyes, a barely perceptible flinch, when Isabel's hand pressed against the exact spot where Tre had stabbed one of the Weepy Whites. But then he was hugging her back, laughing softly into her hair, and I couldn't tell if I'd actually seen something or if I was just projecting what I expected to see. I forced myself to take a mental step back. What was I even looking for? There were two killers.

Only one of them got stabbed repeatedly. Even if Sameer WAS involved, he might not be the injured one. And right now, all I was doing was reading menace into a completely normal greeting because I'd already decided he was guilty. He hadn't done anything overtly suspicious. He was just... standing there and hugging his friend, looking exactly like a normal teenager at a party. If Tre was worried about Sameer being a Weepy White, he didn't show it.

As soon as Sameer finished hugging Isabel, Tre clapped him on the leg.

"Man, I'm glad you're here. After today..."

"Yeah." Sameer's voice was rough, like he'd been crying.

"I had to sneak out once my mom finally fell asleep. She wouldn't let me out of her sight after... everything." Isabel's brow furrowed.

"You snuck out? You?"

"Yeah, so?" Sameer's tone got slightly defensive.

"You've never snuck out in your life," Isabel said slowly.

"You literally skipped my birthday party last year because your mom said no."

"I've snuck out before," Sameer said quickly.

"I just... I never told you about it." The lie hung in the air for a second. Isabel's expression shifted to… well, not accusatory but confused.

"Anyway," Sameer continued, not meeting her eyes.

"I keep seeing him. In the shower. That thing they did to his throat..." He briefly trailed off into thought.

"I heard him screaming, you know? When we got separated. I heard him, and I couldn't—" His voice broke. While they talked, I used the moment to scrutinize Sameer. His hands looked clean, free of burns and cuts. His fingernails were immaculate, too. I was honestly jealous of his healthy cuticles and vowed to myself to stop biting my own. His hair looked freshly washed, that slightly damp look you get after a shower. No hint of the acrid smoke smell that had clung to our clothes after we left the police station.

The killers had been wearing heavy black combat boots. Sameer wore gray Nikes, dashing my hopes that I could spot the killer by his shoes and call it a day. Again, he'd had time to change, so wearing different shoes couldn't rule him out as a suspect. The problem was that every piece of "evidence" I could think of was easily countered. He was put together and cleaned, but that didn't mean he wasn't at the police station earlier.

He could have showered and made his way to the party in the time we spent in the diner and walking here. Sameer appeared to be genuinely shocked by the details Tre shared about the attack in the evidence room, but maybe he was just a skilled liar. And while he didn't look injured, that didn't mean he wasn't the killer Tre didn't stab. My internal debate went nowhere, and I grew frustrated with myself.

"You couldn't have known," Isabel was saying to him, but her voice had lost some of its earlier warmth.

"None of us could have stopped it."

"Poor Austin. Nice dude." Then he quickly added, "Oh fuck. Do you think he was killed for standing up for me?" There was genuine concern in his voice. I met Sameer's eyes, hoping they would reveal his true feelings, but they welled with tears at the thought of Austin being murdered for defending him and his sister. The emotion that crept into his voice made me seriously doubt whether he was one of the two people who attacked us at the station.

Could he feel this bad and have murdered Doc Mosley, Austin, Sheriff Hardin, and Deputy Rowe? I honestly wasn't sure. Sameer surveyed the area nervously.

"Are we in danger?"

"I mean, probably. Yes, actually," I said, watching his reaction.

"The killers are still out there. He ran a hand through his thick, brown hair.

"Fuck." Tre had moved to Sameer's left and was watching his reactions closely. Isabel was to my right, close enough to feel when she suddenly tensed up.

"We've been spotted," she said, looking past Sameer toward the sandy area near the dock. Summer, Evan, and Liam had positioned themselves near the water. Summer was looking directly at us now, waving us over with that fake-sweet smile of hers. She mouthed something I couldn't hear over the music and crowd noise. Even from this distance, I could tell Evan was already drunk from the way he was gesturing wildly while telling some story to the people gathered around their group.

"Oh, fuck no," Sameer said, his voice taking on a harder edge as he spotted Evan. The fear from our previous conversation had been replaced by something that looked almost like rage.

"If that psycho is the one who killed Austin..." His hands clenched into fists.

"I'll fucking kill him myself." Isabel stiffened.

"Sameer!" He shook his head.

"You guys go ahead and talk to them," Sameer said, making a visible effort to calm himself down.

"I'm gonna pass on that particular social experience. Maybe check out the stoner cabin instead… I need something to take the edge off." As he started to walk away toward the cabins, we exchanged uncertain looks. Isabel watched him go, her eyes tracking his movement through the crowd with obvious concern.

"When he hugged me, I didn't smell any smoke on him," she whispered.

"No burns, no singed hair. Nothing." Sameer's retreating figure weaved between groups of partiers. He wasn't walking like a man with hidden injuries.

"He certainly seemed sincere," I admitted.

"But he had plenty of time between the fire and now to have cleaned up." I shifted my gaze back to Evan's group near the water.

"Then again, so did Evan. Look at him, does he look like someone who was in a burning building two hours ago?" Even from this distance, Evan looked completely normal. Expensive jacket, perfectly styled hair, not a mark on him. If he'd been one of the killers at the station, he'd also have had plenty of time to clean himself up before the party.

"But the way Sameer got angry about Evan potentially being the killer seemed real, right?" The note of hope in Isabel's voice sheared through me. She wanted him to be innocent so badly.

"It did," I agreed. Isabel's palpable doubt was infectious, and I started to worry we'd ignored or entirely missed some crucial piece of evidence.

"Go talk to Evan's group," Tre said abruptly.

"I'll catch up in a minute." Without waiting for an answer, he dashed into the crowd after Sameer, his small form disappearing between the legs of much taller teenagers. Keeping an eye on our boy, his voice pinged in my head. Didn't want to stress out Isabel. I almost called him back; he was the one who got mad at me for suggesting we split up, but it was smart to have eyes on Sameer either way. Plus, if something went wrong, Tre could sneak away more easily than Isabel or I could.

"Come on," I said to Isabel, nodding toward Summer's group across the field.

"Let's go say hello to the other suspects." Isabel hesitated, glancing once more toward where Sameer had disappeared into the blacklight cabin.

"What if it is Evan? What if this is some kind of trap?"

"Just follow my lead, and if things get weird, we make an excuse and leave," I said, hoping to reassure her I had everything under control. I very much did not.