Hallway No.7

Well, every family has that one thing they hide from everyone. My family has 7. For us, we hide the fact that we are cold blooded murderers. Trained from birth to bring death upon people. For the right price, of course.

My Grammy, Grand Papi, Mom and Dad, they are absolutely skilled killers. No one in our bloodline has ever got caught. We intend to keep it that way. My brother, Henry, his weapon of choice are daggers. I have no idea how many he carries but they seem to never run out. At times I thought he had magical abilities. Spoiler alert: he doesn’t!

Then we meet my little sister, Joey. She’s 16 and her weapon of choice is a spear and katanas. Dad made it so that she can adjust the length of her spear at any time, to ease her in her battles. Body count: 27. Not bad for a newbie. 

I’m Sonic. I know, I have the coolest name in my family. I forced them to change it when I was 6. I would kill the house cats every time they said no. It’s pretty fucked up if you think of it... Anyway, my weapon of choice is anyweaponIcanfindbecauseIamindecisiveandcannotchoosetosavemylife. I would bring the first thing my eyes land on the second we enter the weaponry. There’s anything and everything you could imagine. Katanas? Check! Guns? Check! Portable mine bombs? Check! Phone bomb? Check! 

Like I said, anything and everything you could imagine. Literally ANYTHING! My dad can make anything he puts his mind to. I, on the other hand, am helpless when it comes to creating weapons. I failed every single attempt and would end up just hurting myself. Nevertheless, I am the best assassin in my bloodline. I am very versatile and I adapt to the situation very quickly. I beat my dad multiple times under 2 minutes and he held the title for best assassin so badabing-badaboom, I’m the best now. 

Every year we would hold an election day. We would choose 1 person in our beautiful country of Velenznova, the best of the best of fighters and see if they can survive a treacherous night in the hallways of our house. We would scare and maim and hurt the challenger. If they survive... I don’t know what will happen if they survive, no one in 27 years has been able to survive the house. Everyone who survived ended up getting killed by my stupid bloodlust controlled brother, Henry. 

Apparently this year, things are going to change. For some reason, a group of 10 kids are going to be living with us, in our massive house for about a month and as per my dad’s rules, they cannot know a thing. If they came at any other time, I would be fine but right now, requests are coming in hot and coming in fast. At times I would come home all bloodied and messy, only to drop dead in the lobby. I can’t do that now. 

Sunday night, they arrive at our house with their bags and their books and their little nerdy things. I don’t know, okay? All of them look absolutely weird and awkward but smart and composed. One of them catches my eye. I jump from the first floor window, all the way down to the pebble covered ground. I land in front of a young lady, delicate looking and sweet. 

“Name‘s Sonic. You are?” I put my hand out and she smiles and accepts it. 

“Eden. Sonic is a pretty weird name. Also, where did you come from? You appeared out of nowhere.” She asks me with a shy look on her face and my heart completely melts. I take her hand, folding every single finger except for the pointer finger and points to the windows I jumped from. She giggles and tells me that’s amazing. I know I’m amazing but I like hearing it from her. 

Henry drags me by the collar and pulls me away. Eden lets out a small giggle before I wave my hand at her as I was being dragged by my brother. Henry warns me about flirting with other people and I roll my eyes. He is such a party pooper. 

My sister informs me that I have to leave for work and Henry let’s go. Joey pulls me by the ear and drags me into the office. That was not a fun experience. I unlock the secret door to enter the weaponry and a whole bookcase moves out of the way. 

We close the door behind us and punch in the code so that we can walk through the iron vault door. My eyes meet with a beautiful freshly forged Karambit. I take it off the glass table and test it out. I absolutely love it! The small size, the speed it gives me, the cool spinny thing I can do with it. My dad truly is the best. 

I enter the changing room to change into something more comfortable to fight in and I put on my “assassin cloak”. My family still does that for some reason. I get out of the room and I pick and choose other weapons too like a couple guns, a few hidden daggers and a garrote wire just because I can bring it.

My sister and I leave the mansion through the secret back door and we start doing our job. Today’s job is to burst into a meeting, kill everyone and not die. Apparently they’ve been importing cheap drugs and selling it to a drug lord saying it’s a premium drug. That’s just a death wish if you ask me. 

The meeting is taking place in a reserved casino, that makes things so much easier. We kill whoever isn’t involved and kill whoever that’s involved, easy. We enter through the kitchen door, obviously as no one is stupid enough to try and hurt us while we’re bringing katanas and guns. 

To be honest, only one person has to die but why not finish all of them? Why not? We burst through the door and to our surprise, they have guns. Well so do I. 

I give Joey a smile before we start completely obliterating everyone. Some dude really tried to pull me back by yanking my cloak but guess what? There’s a thing called velcro. I stick a dagger through his chest and he falls to the ground. 

I make my way to the boss and there’s 4 men defending him. None of them are armed? That’s is so stupid. Joey finishes off the rest and I take my gun out from the back of my pants and shoot the boss straight in the head while Joey finishes off the other 4 guys. Everyone is now on the floor, bleeding one way or another and to make sure everything is all fine and dandy, I place a bullet in each of their heads, finishing each and every one of them.

Joey and I return to the car and drive away as fast as possible. 

“I’m tired, aren’t you?” Joey asks me. 

“I am totally drained. You wanna get some food after this? My treat,” I offer and she nods. “Right now, we have a problem. How the hell are we going to be able to return to our rooms? Windows? I’m so tired to climb—“ 

“Basement,” we say we at the same time and I step on the gas. We get home and we sneak to the back of the house all bloodied and dirty and enter the basement through a trapdoor.The basement hallways are always lit so we don’t have to worry about a single thing. We open the door leading to the kitchen and my dad is standing on the other side.

He’s making food. Joey’s eyes light up instantly. We’re not allowed to get food until after we’re clean so Joey and I run up to our rooms, taking off our cloaks, gloves and masks on the way up the flights of stairs. I entered my room, shower and cleaned myself before heading to the kitchen. My dad made us steaks and mashed potatoes. 

“They’re here because we are one of the founding families. Play nice and absolutely no flirting. I’m talking to you, Sonic. Henry told me your little encounter with one of the girls.” My dad glares at me and I look away, pretending to know nothing of the incident. “All your missions are on hold for now. We’ll figure out something.” 

“Wait, what? Then what am I going to do all month? Just sit around at the estate?” My sister glares at me, knowing that she can’t leave the house for any other reason other than work. I roll my eyes at her and turn my attention at my dad. He nods and I groan. 

I don’t really have a say but he’s paying me while I am stuck at home so whatever. 

~

“My grandparents give us the money to buy whatever crap we want because we can’t leave the estate until we’re 18. My sister can’t leave home yet so I rarely leave too. My brother on the other hand, loves to go out. Understandable,” I tell Eden what goes on in our house and she lets out a giggle. “You can’t leave the house until you’re 18? Wow. What do you do here? Let me guess, laptop and lotion?” 

“That’s where you put the bar, Eden? Ouch. The estate is massive. We would go horse riding or swimming or archery or tennis or combat training or sit inside and read. We do sports a lot. Up until I was 19, my dad made me study 8 hours a day. From the age of 6, we’ve been spending a lot of time studying. We’re pretty smart for people who don’t leave the estate much.” I tell her and she seems pretty amazed. 

We continue walking and she notices a pretty hidden door that we keep several weaponry. My dad explained to me last night that they can know that we are weaponsmiths but they can’t know that we are assassins. I place my hand on the RFID detector and the chip in my wrist unlocks the door. I pull out the hidden compartment and I notice a bloody dagger that I use in one of the missions. 

She looks at it and picks it up by the handle, careful not to touch the blood. She asks for an explanation and I lift up my shirt, pointing to one of my many many scars. I take the dagger out of her hand and I keep it in my pocket. She takes out a katana and she hands it to me. I do a few tricks here and there with the sole reason to impress her.

I hear my sister’s very high-pitched voice and I know that I am in trouble. I am holding her sword without her permission and I know I am in very very deep trouble. I turn towards her and she has 2 other people following her. “You are supposed to give her a tour, not show her tricks and do funny business! Dad is taking away your card if you slip up and all access to your thing!”

I crouch down to her height and tease her. “When have I ever slipped up? I know my place, kiddie. I am done with the tour, okay? Don’t worry about me.” I pat her head and she glares at me. 

Eden takes my hand and pulls me to the end of the hallway. She points to the door and she asks me what’s inside that room. I tell her that there's a hallway that no one can enter. It’s a lie but she doesn't know that. Oh well. I lie to her that I can’t enter by tapping my wrist on the detector and it won’t open. 

There’s a special code we have to tap to get in and obviously I didn’t do that. Hallway number 7 is absolutely off limits to anyone and everyone outside of our family. In there, lies our deepest darkest secret and NO ONE can find out or we’re done for. 

I lead back to the kitchen and I tell the chef to cut up some fruits for us. He obliges and I turn my attention to Eden. “What information do you want to know about my family? What’s not enough on your little notebook of yours?” She thinks it’s flirting and she starts blushing. Lord, save me.

“I want to know what was like growing up in the estate. You can’t leave, you’re locked inside. How did it feel?”

“Pretty normal. It’s not like we don’t have the internet and I can leave but for a good reason. My parents didn’t lock me up in here, I just didn’t like leaving. I get anxious and this house is a safe place for me. I played a lot and I got really fit but I still enjoyed reading and stuff. In our house, there’s always a balance. My childhood was mostly my siblings and I playing in the field, classes with Mr Harrows and helping my dad and mom in the workshop and the tailor. Most of the time, I don’t like people outside of my family because we can’t just trust anyone right? My dad and mom really taught me to know who to trust and not to.” I lied again. My childhood was mostly school and combat training. We did play around but that’s after 8 hours of ‘school’ and 10 hours of training. By the time we finish our training, all of us would be completely drained, no one wanted to play.

We continued chatting and thankfully none of the questions were about how we even get the money we have. My dad sells weapons and my mom is a fashion designer/tailor. Neither of the jobs is enough to pay for the estate. Not even close. I wonder what my dad said about that question. It’s probably about old money or some bullshit like that. It’s not a full lie like the ones I’ve been telling her but our ‘old money’ is in the Velenznova bank. We just don’t use any of it. The money in the bank is just for show.

Later that night, all my family members were required to meet up at the forbidden hallway and one by one entered the hallway. Making sure none of us looked suspicious. the door actually leads to another room but we just call it Hallway Number 7 to throw people off. The door will automatically close after 30 seconds and I was the last one to enter so I didn’t think about anything as I walked in. I take my seat and I say, “I don’t like tradition being changed. The kids can enter the house, look though our shit and we can’t kill any of them? That’s a bummer. That Eden girl is so tiny, I just wish to break her neck and—“ 

I hear a gasp from the door and it’s Eden. I smirk at her and walk towards her. The door closes, completely sealing off the sound proof and windowless room. “You know a little too much, Princess… I’m sorry but you have to leave.” 

Crying, she says, “Sonic, I won’t tell anyone. I promise. Please don’t hurt me.” 

I glide my hand on her cheek and with a swift motion, I break her very delicate neck. The sound she made as her neck was being snapped sounded so soft. I turn to my family and shrug. The look of disappointment on their faces are obvious. My grandmother groans and says, “we’ll deal with the family. Sonic, you clean this up. Henry, follow me. Joey, pack her things. Sonic, make sure she’s really dea—“ I pierce her heart with the dagger I have in my pocket from before, cutting off my grandmother. “Micheal, you did a poor job in raising him… you really did.” I start laughing and my dad glares at me, cutting me short. 

Eden’s dead because she knows the secret. Guess what? 

YOU'RE NEXT!