Lethal Confessions
Eleven

"I'm not touching that." Sophia said matter-of-factly.

Cassandra rolled her eyes. "Few hours ago, before all this happened, this" She pointed to Alexandra's body. "was your friend."

"That friendship ended when I found out that she had been fooling around with my boyfriend."

"It's not like you're a saint yourself." Cassandra said under her breath.

"What was that? You know if you have something to say to me just say it."

"Listen, the body is taking up space and inconveniencing us. Just help me carry it into the bathtub. Is that so much to ask?"

"And like I said before, I'm not touching that backstabber. I'm comfortable where I am so it's best if you leave her where she is and replace yourself a spot."

Cassandra eyed her where she was cramped in a corner and snorted. "You're comfortable? Fine. But you have no right to call Alex a backstabber. You're as guilty as she was."

"Just because you act all prim and proper all the time doesn't give you the title of 'judge'."

"I don't even know what my cousin saw in you in the first place."

"Excuse me?" Sophia got on her feet. "What nonsense are you blabbering?"

"Exactly what you heard. I have been quiet all this while because I thought my cousin was in love with you and I didn't want him to get hurt. But now I realize that my inactions rather did the opposite. Sophia, you're a selfish people-user. And evidence of that is right outside the door, choked to death by his own best friend."

"It's not my fault what Philip did to John. You yourself said it, that he was possessed. That means, something made him do it. If he was in his right mind John wouldn't be dead."

"Really? Is that your best excuse? If you hadn't cheated, Philip wouldn't have gotten any cause to be angry and we would not be in this hellhole. And of all people, his best friend? It just goes to show how low you've stooped."

"How dare you!" Sophia raised her hand, ready to strike Cassandra who stood her ground, waiting for the impact on her face.

It took a few seconds for Cassandra to realize that she had stopped, her hand frozen in mid-air. Less than a milli-second later Sophia quickly rushed to the sink, opened the tap and splashed water on her face repeatedly.

She looked in the blood-spattered mirror, at her reflection. The red lines that were marked on her eyeballs began to recede till there was none left. She let out a breath she didn't know she was holding and splashed more water on her face. If she hadn't controlled herself, what could have followed the slap would've been disastrous. Deadly disastrous.

"What just happened? Did I see 'almighty' Sophia chicken out of something? This is truly a phenomenon."

"Listen, I'm not in the mood." She sat back in her corner. "Don't piss me off and go replace something else people like yourself do to entertain themselves. Like, replace a hidden passageway or something we can use to leave this prison; just leave me alone." With that being said she brought her knees up to her chest and buried her face in her arms.

Cassandra watched her for a while till she realized that Sophia was serious when she said she wanted her to stop being a bother. Browsing around she tried to do what Sophia had told her to: replace something they could use to leave the place.

The only thing she saw worth opening was the medicine cabinet which she did without hesitation. It wasn't empty, much to her surprise. She found a number of medicines: antidepressants, tranquillisers, painkillers and a whole lot she couldn't identify.

"Someone must have really been battling with craziness to take all these." She reached in again, deeper, and felt her fingers close around something that was definitely not a medicine container; medicine containers weren't made of leather.

She pulled out the book, then took a close look at it, turning it over and feeling it. It was nothing extraordinary: a small journal covered with leather. She opened it and immediately noticed that it was going to take a while to read whatever was written inside.

What she presumed to be the owner's name was in a shaky writing and was so faded she couldn't make it out, Alma. Worse still were the pages which were so light and feathery that it felt like they could tear any minute if she just turned them.

The little she got was that it was a diary and with how neat it was, whoever had owned it had done a good job of keeping it. Which meant that whatever was written in it was cherished enough to receive such treatment. Cherished and private.

Curiosity is a deadly web and Cassandra was easily caught in it. She carefully turned the first page and read the first line.

'Dear Diary, I'm going to kill my family.'