There are many things that can wake someone up from their sleep. Babies crying, some idiot revving up a motorcycle just to annoy people, and of course the good old shouting match between two people as one or both of them were just trying to make a scene for their own vaunted ego.

Sadly for me this was a motel so the sound of a full grown woman screaming woke me up as I groaned in mild annoyance reaching for my revolver. The sleep deprived part of my brain promised swift vengeance upon the fool who dared have the TV on max volume! Heck, the court might even rule in my favor if I shoot the TV first?

The more rational part of my brain was trying to play catch up and kept trying to inform me that it wasn’t that bad and I might as well get up, get dressed and…

My hand tapped around where my trusty revolver should have been only to find a book resting in its place. I didn’t go to sleep with a book besides me and if it was one of those hotel bibles then shouldn’t it be inside the cabinet or something?

The fact that my only weapon nearby wasn’t in arm’s reach started waking me up faster as I tried finding my gun only to find out I wasn’t sleeping in my bed.

No instead of a cheap motel bed and pillow… I was sleeping on a hardwood floor. This was an issue because I didn’t drink anything besides water so there was no way I had passed out in a drunken stupor. The fact that my clothes felt stiff and I could hear people talking around me didn’t make me feel any better.

If somebody broke into my room and dumped me on the floor someplace else… then there was a good chance somebody tried to steal something from my car while I was asleep. That thought alone sent a shiver down my spine waking me up far faster than any cup of coffee ever could.

Four young women I had never seen before were looking around the room in confusion. Glancing down at my own body it was a small relief that I wasn’t naked… though less thrilled about my clothing being stained with grass, dirt, and blood as if I was a psychotic murderous hobo who just passed out in a drug fueled stupor right in the middle of the room.

Oh and my pistol which should have been beside me was strapped to my side without any bullets in the gun chamber. This wasn’t a ‘someone emptied out the bullets’ as I could see scratches, a few bits of damage… and the sign that each chamber had fired a bullet meaning it had been used to shoot something.

Waking up in a strange room, surrounded by strange people, with no weapon to defend yourself with?

You could see why I had tried my best not to panic which I think managed to work right up until I noticed the cuts, scrapes, and bruises across my body as my wrist watch had the day showing that one entire week had passed since I went to sleep. The first rule of suddenly waking up in a strange place with no memory of what was happening… was finding something to defend yourself with.

‘Trust in paranoia as it tis a blessing! If thou are right you shall be prepared and it shall be a relief when you are wrong.’

Right now paranoia seemed to be right as I saw a knife resting next to a dead body. The first thought that ran through my mind was that there was a dead body sitting in the room. It took me a few seconds to realize that the old woman had died with a smile on her face as a creepy looking book sitting on a book stand beside her chair.

The knife was stained with dried blood, but nobody (besides me) was covered in blood or had scratches all over their body. Everybody was freaking out yet nobody had left the room as they also didn’t seem to know each other.

So the first thing I did was grab the knife and check her for a pulse while preparing for the worst.

“What are you doing!” Someone shouted

I turned my head to see the first person to actually pay any attention to me. A random young woman who was wearing a red formal dress… and someone I didn’t recognize from last night (or week). Normally that was a good thing, but right now it was kind of bad since I was covered in dirt, grass, and blood stains now holding the blood stained knife.

“Checking to see if she’s dead.” I carefully replied trying not to make a scene or have them all attack me. “Unless one of you killed her.”

Woman in red frowned as she stared at the body with a bit of hatred for some odd reason before running a hand through her long dark brown hair. Her skin was tanned and more importantly her clothes were clean and pressed as she looked as if she had gotten out of a beauty parlor if one ignored the bloodshot eyes and panicked look she had as she kept looking around the room in confusion.

“First rule in stories like these. Check the body to make sure it’s dead because the first ‘dead body’ is usually faked.” I muttered to myself

It always annoyed me since a lot of mystery stories had you guessing which character was responsible for the disaster (and deaths leading afterwards) was always the first dead person who faked their death so they wouldn’t have to risk their own life in their crazy death game.

What was the point of trying to figure out who the killer in the group is if none of them are the real killer?

“Oh why didn’t you say so?” The next woman spoke only this one was closer to me.

The woman in a green dress took the knife out of my hand before slapping the corpse with her free hand and screamed “Wake up or I’ll stab you!”

That got everyone’s attention as it was hard not to pay attention to a full grown woman screaming with a sharp knife in her hand. Moving back sounded like an excellent idea while the now enraged women in the green formal dress shook the corpse screaming at it for a few seconds while holding the knife tightly in her other hand.

There wasn’t a look of confusion, but rage in her eyes as she first stabbed the knife into the corpse’s neck which would have killed her if the old lady was faking her death. Still that didn’t seem to be enough for the woman with the knife as she just continued screaming and stabbing the corpse repeatedly to the point of mutilation.

“Uh… is she normally like this?” I asked knowing full well to take cover behind a nearby chair in case crazy knife lady threw something at me

“No… I mean she isn’t normally this bad, but…” The woman in red rubbed her head “I don’t know her.”

That caught my attention as saying someone isn’t normally ‘this bad’ while also claiming to say that they didn’t know her didn’t make any sense. Of course waking up in the room that last night or week where random strangers were fed what might possibly have been a drugged meal also didn’t make sense.

“I’m not supposed to be here…” The woman in green spoke in growing dread “I can’t remember. I can’t remember! Why can’t I remember anything other than this witch! She isn’t my mother! I know she isn’t!”

I gulped as a woman in green who was furious at her own confusion and the corpse in front of her. She looked like your standard fair skinned blond woman who looked more likely she would be selling something on TV, but all hints of beauty were washed away by the blood on her hands and the crazed psychotic look in her eye.

Once again the same confusion came from trying to make sense of what she said as she claimed she couldn’t remember… while also thinking that the old lady she tried to murder was also her mother.

Every woman in the room looked somewhere between their twenties and thirties as the ‘mother’ looked to be in her nineties or something. The fact none of them were giving me odd looks or questioning about my own attire made me question ‘what the heck is going on with these people?’

“Okay I can’t remember who I am either, but can we all please talk without any weapons in our hands?” The woman in the blue dress suit spoke with what sounded like an british accent

Woman in green stabbed the corpse in the face one last time before leaving the weapon “Who are you… why do I think you’re family! I’m an only child! My name is… my name is…” Her hands clung to her face as she struggled “It’s…”

Woman in blue cleared her throat “I don’t remember my name either. For some odd reason I think you’re my sisters… but no clue on the guy.”

All their heads turned towards me as I kept my eyes on the one closest to the knife who stared at me in a mixture of confusion… and a hint of psychotic rage. Trying to keep her away from me was the most important thing to do right now. She had a knife and I didn’t have a weapon as somebody had left me with an empty gun for some absurd reason!

Woman in red shook her head “I have the feeling we are messing one… but no idea who is missing.”

The last woman groaned “He’s the spare. Our ‘sister’ was shot in the head by the cop who decided trying to gun us in our sleep was better than letting us off with a warning.”

Everyone turned to face her as the last woman looked different from everyone else. She didn’t have a formal dress as the clothing… it looked halfway caught up between normal clothing and a dress as it was a very odd and impossibly surreal piece of clothing that looked more as if someone was in the middle of trying to change it, but stopped mid way leaving a very impractical article of clothing.

Her hair was black though there were brown highlights at the end of it which only seemed to add to the ‘half finished’ aspect she was going for. Of course all of those details weren’t as surprising as the one key item she held that separated her from the other women.

She was holding a cell phone as a different female voice spoke from it “Oh my goodness. They gunned him down. The cops here are trying to kill us saying it’s for our own good! My name is Rebecca Colt…”

The image showed a young woman… one of the people who had been in the room, but I didn’t pay much attention to. More importantly she looked nothing like the current person who was holding the phone.

There could have been a couple of plausible explanations like her stealing the phone… but those thoughts died when I saw something that shouldn’t be here on that phone. The second cop had pulled out a machine gun only to freeze as it hovered over her.

The creature was dressed in a long black dress forged out of countless black scraps stitched together as it leaned over the second cop before grabbing the cop and pulling them out of the phone’s camera. The first cop of course screamed with the person on the phone freaking out before the person holding the phone closed it silencing the video.

Everyone was staring at the only person who seemed to have any idea on what was going on. She stared at everyone as stage fright seemed to have taken her for a second, before she took a deep breath and shook her head “My name is Rebecca Colt. I was the woman on the phone. Most of its fuzzy, but apparently ‘mom’ ran out of time for the finishing touches.”

“What is going on?” The woman in the green dress interrupted in a fit of furry “I came to this place to sleep in a motel room only to wake up like this, and my memories screwed up! I have no phone. I have no wallet, no ID, nothing that tells me who I am while these two get the lucky break!”

She was pointing at me and Rebecca. It made sense for her… but I’m guessing the fact I was the only male in the room left me as the odd man out. It also left me in the sights of the woman holding a sharp knife pointed in my general direction.

“No clue how I got here. Barely remember last night, and I look like I got mauled by a wild animal before being left dead in a ditch or a grave…” I glanced at the dirt and grass around ‘my spot’ which wasn’t as clean as the others “Did they literally dig me out of a grave or something?”

This made a couple of them move back and stared at me in confusion either trying to figure out if I was insane… or if somebody had literally dug me out of a grave. The fact that they even thought that might be a possibility left me unnerved.

“No... I think you needed to be alive…” Woman in blue spoke rubbing her neck “Last thing I remember was being strangled by someone else… before a different person stopping them and saying they can’t afford a ‘second loss tonight’… so I think you were alive. I mean otherwise we wouldn’t be down a sister according to Rebecca.”

“Lucky.” Knife girl replied with envy

The woman in red stared at her in disbelief before shouting “Lucky? We are the lucky ones in case you didn’t realize everyone else who spent the night died! Yes we are cursed, but we can break curses. What we cannot do is bring people back from the dead!”

That caught everyone else’s attention as I tried my best not to stare at my own handgun as apparently the murder mystery party had already been finished. The people inside this room were the survivors meaning I had used this gun to prevent someone else from murdering me.

Apparently I wasn’t paranoid enough when I went to bed that night.

The second moment of dread passed through my body as the ‘missing sister’ was shot dead by a cop and the old lady… she had already picked out her winners!

It wasn’t luck that everyone else survived! They were chosen by the old witch for… whatever this was! That meant the rest of us were just extra bodies for whatever she had been planning until something messed it all up.

The words rang through my head “I think you would have made a fine daughter.”

The cold clenching feeling in my stomach grew as it wasn't by random chance that I had survived… the old witch decided to pick me up as a spare after her ‘first pick’ had died leaving me as the runner up.

‘Come on think logically!’ I thought to myself ‘This entire thing is just crazy! There are no such thing as witches or crazy magic voodoo powers that transform people or night… or over a week…’

Any moment somebody was going to just pop out and shout ‘surprise! Now let’s see your face on camera!’ where it was all revealed to be an elaborate prank being pulled on random people. That made a lot more sense than this crazy madness!

This was the real world! Oh sure strange stuff happened and while it may not look like it on the surface… there was always some sort of logic to the madness instead of twiddling fingers and chanting random nonsense like some fantasy book wizard to make impossible stuff happen.

You didn’t mutter the word ‘fire’ in quasi Latin and shoot fireballs out of your hand! There was a system or a basis of logical that explained everything instead of magic mobo jumbo being the answer!

“None of this makes any sense!” The woman in green shouted breaking me from my thoughts “How did we change! Was I a guy or a girl before the curse took effect? How are you so calm about all of this?”

The woman in blue bit her lip clearly uneasy “I’ll even admit that feeling so calm is kind of creepy. I mean I know I should be screaming my head off and questioning who I am or what to do… but…” she shivered “Nothing. Just neat tidy ‘look at the problem and figure it out’ without all the fear or panic.”

“Well shouldn’t there be a book somewhere?” Rebecca asked in mild annoyance “Some sort of ‘Oh I am sorry for cursing you, but here is why’ message left behind? I mean she went through all the trouble of kidnapping us.”

“Forget seeing if she left us anything. We should just leave this place before the police come in asking us questions or trying to gun us down!” The woman with a knife snapped out loud “I need to go home and I can’t do that… here where it keeps screwing with my head!”

The woman in blue glanced over to me before pointing at the ground “Can I borrow that book? Maybe there’s a key or hint…”

I picked up the book that had been lying beside me only for a key to fall out of it. Rebbeca quickly snatched up the key and ran around the room trying to find something for the key to fit in while the woman with the knife just ran to the front door trying to open it up finding it locked… before coming back into the room to grab a wooden chair before running and screaming towards the front door trying to break it down.

That left the remaining three of us with a mystery book left by a witch who tried to murdered everyone else and cursed the survivors for some obscure reason.

I glanced at them as I really needed better names to call them by “What are your names?”

They both stared at me in confusion as apparently they had the witch magic curse letting them know each other’s names leaving me the odd man out. The fact that I might not even know their names apparently didn’t cross their mind which was kind of creepy especially since I was way out of my preferred element.

It was probably a stupid idea, but I showed them my revolver “Okay look I have no idea what is going on or who any of you are. I have a gun which is out of ammo as I had been shooting something dangerous. I would like to know what names to shout if we run into the monster from Rebecca’s phone.”

“Monster?” The woman in red spoke “What monster?”

I looked at her in confusion as apparently she didn’t pay attention to the video “Big creepy thing dressed in black that abducted one of the police officers trying to shoot people? I’d like to have something to defend myself or a name to shout if we see that thing again.”

She glanced at her surroundings nervously “Scarlet… you can call me Scarlet because of the dress as for the monster… I just saw the woman suddenly getting yanked away and disappearing in mid air.”

We both stared at each other trying to see if someone was lying. Personally I couldn’t see how she missed the giant creepy eldritch looking monster in the video. It was in plain sight and attacked the police officer which was very hard to miss!

I glanced over to the woman in blue who was now reading the book from the floor. She apparently wasn’t paying too much attention to the mystery monster question and I really needed a better name that ‘blue’ to refer to her as.

I cleared my throat “Did you see the monster Miss…”

“Alexandria.” She replied “And no, but that’s probably a good thing. Apparently ‘Mom’ made a pact with it as insurance to make sure most of us survived the night. The fact we don’t know or can’t see it apparently protects us… or it should have protected us.”

So we were dealing with what might possibly be an invisible eldritch monster that could murder us all now that the old lady had kicked the bucket. Now I really wanted to get to my car and grab a couple of items… or better yet drive away trying to flee the insanity that had taken refuge inside this place.

Alexandria cleared her throat as she tried to continue “Apparently ‘mom’ was a witch who didn’t have any heirs and didn’t want her line to end after her death. All of us were ‘invited’ because she wanted five heirs just in case one of us died.”

Scarlet stared at Alexandria in disbelief for a few seconds before glancing at her own clothing. Alexandria didn’t seem much happier with the confirmation that the woman with the highlights apparently was telling the truth.

“Oh it’s worse as apparently we might not even have been female as there is a notation in here just in case…” Alexandria paused as she stared at me for a few seconds before closing the book “What is your name?”

“Call me Dais as that’s what was written along the side of my revolver.” I informed them

Yes it wasn’t my real name and it was more of a bad joke… but my paranoia was kicking in. Strange women, elaborate rituals, magic and eldritch monsters possibly lying outside the house? I had no idea what was going on and if they were going to pick fake names then why not me?

They continued to stare at me as I shrugged “What? I have no idea what is going on and none of this makes any sense to me! Seriously I am still holding out for plastic surgery to be a possibility rather than an old lady drugged us in our sleep and twiddled her fingers to cast a spell because none of this makes any sense to me.”

Alexandria sighed, shaking her head before she finally went back to what she was saying “Well… apparently she wanted female heirs.” She glanced at me for a few more seconds dragging it out “And she had set everyone for assigned roles…”

“Wait why did you stress female heirs?” Scarlet interrupted

Alexandria rubbed her neck as she looked away before saying “Because there apparently was an… issue with Dai. The note left here is just in case he wasn’t the only male here when we woke up.”

“What?” Both me and Scarlet both nearly shouted at once

It was surprising that some of the other girls were originally men… but another point that there was a message left just in case I was still a guy… that I was singled out or that the person doing the cursing had apparently left a message in case they failed.

“He was the spare.” Scarlet spoke as she rubbed the back of her neck “So he didn’t get cursed because it wasn’t prepared for him?”

That actually kind of made sense and was a little bit worrying since it meant that five other people had apparently been stalked by a creepy old witch for a magical ritual. A bit grim considering that nobody stopped her and the only reason why I was alive was because one of the five got killed by fake cops.

“Apparently… there’s an… issue?” She stared at me as she didn’t understand the message “Also Dai… you tried making a Pact with The Stitch Witch!” Suddenly everyone turned to stare at me “To keep yourself alive though there was something... ‘off’ about it?”

Scarlet stared at me in disbelief “You made a pact with… witch of the hill… the invisible monster is the Stitch Witch!”

Now Alexandria stared at Scarlet in disbelief “No that can’t be right… if the invisible monster was the Stitch Witch then he wouldn’t be able to see her! You have to know her name and obviously he doesn’t know her name. She specifically made a warding ritual to prevent anyone who…”

“The fake cops knew something was wrong and the old lady was rather upset that they had appeared.” I reminded them. “Rebecca also had a video of the fake cops being killed by something that apparently nobody else could see…”

“No if you made a Pact then… Pacts are dangerous! It’s like making a deal with the Fae!” She spoke in growing annoyance “That is twisting words and agreements to suit their needs straight down to the letter of the law, but not the spirit in which it was agreed upon! There is no way he’d be here alive and intact if he made a pact with the Stitch Witch! You all know how all of her pacts end!”

Scarlet nodded, apparently agreeing with Alexandria leaving me a lot more confused than before. Also it didn’t exactly sound right either as Pacts were intent on the agreement instead of lettering of the agreement. Thinking that some eldritch being would understand much less care for the careful twisting of legal word of some poorly written documents was laughable at best and suicidal at worst.

Scarlet apparently noticed my look of confusion as she asked “Do you know what a witch is? How to do magic? What the Stitch Witch is?”

Alexandria rolled her eyes having gone back to reading the book as I didn’t know what to say. None of what was going on made any sense to me… half of it seemed utterly insane and yet they had a certain amount of… certainty in just accepting some of this as fact.

There was no doubt in their mind that the book could be lying or the false memories could be wrong. Well they weren’t real memories, but none of the information could be off or just straight out lies meant to guide them in a certain direction.

Shaking my head I tried to be honest with them instead of telling them the truth “I thought witches were myth and legend as in the ‘riding broom sticks and brim hats’ deal... only to find out that apparently not only are they real, but they can erase people’s memories and change their appearance.” I spoke glancing back at the mutilated corpse “So I have no idea on what unique brand of madness is going on here.”

Witches were stories and fairy tales. The type of magic they were talking about belonged to utter nonsense as it went with fairy tale logic than… something more grounded. The fact that they seemed to believe in knowing a name meaning a monster can harm you.

That was like saying ‘if you pretend the bear outside doesn’t exist it won’t hurt you.’ which was a big load of nonsense! The bear was still real and it could tear down your very real door and maul you to death if it felt like it!

Scarlet just kept staring at me either noticing that I had evaded her question or she was trying to figure out what was going on. Alexandra on the other hand seemed firm in her belief that whatever the book said was true… despite the video evidence stating that the fake cops knowing about a magical monster had come to the house and started murdering people.

“The really important part here is our roles which our ‘mother’ had tried to make.” Alexandria spoke softly filled with unease “One of us is The Lost Traveler far from home unable to return, and here to find what must be found. The Healer who cared for the one they loved, now made to tend for her family and home. The Binder who twisted words to suit their needs, shall bind each oath for the good of each heir. The Crafter who spent their time looking and learning to now apply lost lore with ones they know to further the craft once more.”

She glanced into the hallway towards the two ‘missing siblings’ making sure they were well out of ear shot before saying “The Taker who earned their spot by killing those who were not chosen. The final heir being the one sent to cut down those who oppose them and ensure none challenge the Heirs of the Hill.”

Scarlet didn’t need an explanation as I stared at my pistol as a grim thought entered my head for a moment before I discarded the horrible idea. Okay I would defend myself, but I wasn’t a fan of pointless death. Besides it was pretty obvious that ‘The Lost Traveler’ fit me pretty well since I was the one trying to return home.

“So Dais is the one who murdered everyone who wasn’t turned?” Scarlet spoke in disbelief

“No!” Both me and Alexandra nearly shouted

She glanced at me not taking her eyes off as she continued “No he’s The Lost Traveler. I know that because I remember mom calling him a lost traveler with meaning behind the words as she thought he would have made a ‘good daughter’ unlike…”

Her hands clenched tightly to the book as there was a look of envy on her face before a brief look of disbelief replaced it “Oh my goodness… I’m jealous you had a better relationship with the witch that cursed us rather than…” She tossed the book away from her as if it was a venomous snake

Suddenly she was now staring at the room around her as if she had suddenly gained claustrophobia or if she was expecting the furniture to suddenly spring to life to try and attack her. The woman with the knife was now trying various objects and tools to break down any part of the front door. Rebecca on the other hand had started knocking down objects or tossing them aside trying to find where the key had gone.

Alexandra paused as she stared at one of the windows like a panicked animal suddenly finding a way out as fear tainted what was supposed to be a calm and orderly voice “New plan! We get out of the house before it messes with our mind!”

I glanced at Rebecca as suddenly the answer was obvious “Okay so we test the key on the front…”

There was the sound of glass shattering as Alexandra hadn’t bothered waiting for an answer. Instead she had grabbed the nearest heavy object and threw it at a window breaking it open catching everyone else’s attention. The ‘calm one’ had just freaked out and panicked causing everyone to gather and see what the heck was going on.

Alexandra wasn’t waiting for answers as she grabbed a throw rug knocking everything on it down on the wood floor before shoving the rug onto the bottom of the window frame to prevent herself from getting cut by some of the shards of glass.

It took everyone a second to realize what she was doing until she landed in the bushes outside the house… and we all noticed the cars sitting outside. The door might have been hexed… but the windows were still made out of glass.

“Do any of you have any car keys?” She asked in a slightly pleading tone “Because the motel is gone, but the cars are still there.”