Dare You To Death: Solve the Mystery, See the Death.

Investigation Part 29

 

The same taxi led them to their destination. Khamin paid the driver before looking at the house in front of him. The atmosphere around him was growing cold from the drizzle. Both his badge and gun had been confiscated. Now, all he could do was bring the necessary weapons with him and be very careful. Khamin walked through the grass until he reached the house. He tried turning the knob a little, but it was locked. He had to try to find another way to get inside instead. While walking around, he also tried to listen for sounds from inside. Even though he couldn't hear anything, it didn't make him feel any less at ease.

 

Khamin walked to the back of the house, to the kitchen. There was a window that was slightly open, just enough for him to squeeze through. He walked in slowly, opened it, and made the sound as quietly as possible before climbing inside.

 

As soon as his feet finally touched the floor, Khamin began to scan the house for any living creatures. He chose to open the drawers, gently searching for a weapon to protect himself. Although the house was remote and deserted, all the furniture was complete, so he was sure that at least some kitchen utensils would still be there. And it was true.

 

Khamin took out a sharp knife from the drawer before walking out of the kitchen. As he walked, the light coming from a door made him stop and slowly creep towards the front. There was a conversation inside, but it didn't seem like people were talking because it was overlaid with several voices speaking at once.

 

Khamin used his free hand to grab the doorknob and slowly opened it, finding the stairs leading down to the basement. The light coming out was still on. He took a deep breath before preparing himself. If anything happened, he was the only one left to deal with it until Jade and the other police arrived.

 

Every step down the stairs was filled with pressure. The lower he went, the louder the sound became. Khamin could already tell what it was. The light from the television screen was playing the images of each murder victim on repeat. The other screen was completely black. Nothing was showing except the red letters that read "TRUTH".

 

Khamin looked at the bloodstains on the floor, which gradually spread and reached the chair in the centre. There was a person tied up sitting on it. The former police sergeant swallowed his saliva and slowly walked closer. The closer he got, the faster his heart beat. The person in front of him looked so familiar.

 

“Jay!!!” Khamin dropped the knife in his hand and went to look at the young man whose face was pale and unconscious. Khamin knelt in front of Jay and noticed that there was a bullet hole near the right side of his chest, almost to his heart. 

 

“Jay, Jay, can you hear me?”

 

Khamin used the knife he had brought with him to cut the thick rope until it broke slowly, then he picked up Jay and laid him flat on the ground. He took off his outer suit and used it to press on the wound to stop the bleeding. From the bright red blood pooling on the ground, he estimated that Jay had already lost quite a bit of blood.

 

"Jay, don't fall asleep. Don't fall asleep." Khamin lightly patted the boy's face to bring him back to his senses.

 

The sharp pair of eyes slowly opened. Just seeing Khamin's face, clear tears slowly and uncontrollably flowed from the corners of his eyes.

 

"P'Min"

“I’m here. Please be patient.”

 

“I… didn’t… answer. Again, I didn’t answer.” Khamin gently caressed Jay’s cheek. The blood loss mixed with the shock after the terrible event made Jay start to go into delirium.

 

Khamin looked around to see if he could find anything that could stop the bleeding, but all he could find was an empty basement with five television screens. When he looked back at the person lying there, he saw that Jay was about to fall asleep again.

 

"Don't fall asleep, Jay. Absolutely not." Khamin held Jay's head up on his lap before pressing the wound with both hands, tightening it even further. It was too close to his heart. He didn't know where the vital parts of his body had been hit. If he had delayed any longer, it would have been dangerous.

 

“I’m glad you’re here. I don’t want to die alone anymore.”

 

"You're not dead," Jay said quietly, then stared at Khamin without looking away, thinking back to the previous incident...

 

Jay stood there staring at the two of them without blinking. He thought he was dreaming, but no, it was all real.

 

“Are you that surprised, Jay?”

 

“Why are you… Why aren’t you dead yet?”

 

“It's easy to fool people who think they're so smart, especially those who are so used to doing bad things that they think no one can catch their tricks.

 

“Why are you doing this, you son of a bitch!

 

"Tee, why did you do that? Try being me. You've seen what they've done to me, Ek. Do you know how many times I've been hurt, Jay? I almost died because of those who called themselves my friends. And look, when I actually died, which of them would dare to praise me for what they did!"

 

“If you don’t like it, if you get hurt, just report it to the police and let the law handle it.

 

"Law? Oh, oh, because your brother is a police officer, you think that there will be justice for everyone? You're a bit too much. If the law can really do anything, then Champ would be sleeping in the dungeon all day." The person who was swimming had a look of concern when the price came up to Puth, before he could raise his hand to Cherene.

 

“She didn’t survive this; she didn’t get out of it.

 

"Why not give it to me when I have everything I need? After I've finished taking care of everything, I'll leave this place and live my life free from the memories of my childhood. I'll go back to the place where Panphin is."

 

"She thought she'd have a plan to use up all the Lay's."

 

“It’s not enough to see me as a human being, but… one person has to go to jail as the murderer in this case, that’s all.”

 

“You choose the colour, Jay. The challenge is to choose between Champ and Cherene. Who will you give the role of the killer to?” Jay looked up.

 

The sneer of someone who had always had a bright smile on his face; he realised how much of a mistake they had made. Cotton is not a demon, but they are the ones who created it.

 

"I don't choose Fai... I don't choose anyone. This game should end. If you want Champ or anyone else punished for their wrongdoing, I'm happy to help. But stop this game already."

 

"Ah, do you know what the penalty is for not playing games, Jay?" Pui Fai placed her hand on Puthi's shoulder as a signal.

 

Bang!!!

 

"How do you die?"

 

Jay slowly looked down at his chest, where blood was now flowing out. The pain was starting to numb him, causing him to collapse in shock. The two of them helped Jay to a chair, tied him up with a rope, and started playing the entire video on the screen again.

 

"Since you choose to sit back and watch others live their lives without doing anything," Pui Fai leaned down and spoke softly into Jay's ear, which inevitably left a deep impression on the young man's heart. "Then just watch until you die."

 

It was all still fresh in his memory. When Pui Fai and Puti walked away, he had to watch his friend's death over and over again. Even when he was asleep, he could still hear the sounds. He tried to ignore them, but those howling sounds still terrified him.

 

“Jay, don’t fall asleep,” Khamin’s voice rang out again. It made Jay try to keep his eyes open even though he was very tired.

 

"P'Min"

 

"How is it going?"

 

“I'm tired.”

 

“I know you’re tired, but you can’t sleep, okay? Jade will be here soon. Just be patient.”

 

He didn't want to see any more deaths. He really didn't want to. Jay tried to raise his hand and point at the fifth TV screen.

 

“What is it?”

 

"Cotton"

 

"Is Fai not dead?" Jay nodded slightly.

 

"Brother, go help. Go help the remaining people."

 

“I will leave only after the others arrive.”

 

“I… beg you,” Khamin looked at the child on his lap. Jay’s eyes were full of pleading and pleading.

 

“Okay, wait here.” Khamin got up, picked up the cassette tape that had fallen nearby, then walked back to Jay and helped the boy up. “Hold on to your shirt. It’s going to hurt a little, but I have to make sure it stops the bleeding until I get back. Okay?”

 

Jay nodded before grabbing Khamin's shirt. The split second the cassette tape wrapped around his shirt, Jay let out a soft cry until Khamin finished wrapping it, then dragged him to lean against the wall.

 

"Jade must be coming, so hold on tight. Don't fall asleep, okay? Otherwise, your brother will definitely come after me."

 

Jay smiled slightly at the person in front of him. “No, it’s not like that… Brother Jay won’t mind me.”

 

Khamin gently wiped the blood off Jay's cheek.

 

"I'll be back." Khamin picked up the same knife, held it, looked at Jay again, then walked back upstairs. If Pui Fai wasn't really dead, then that woman must have been working with Puti.

 

On top of the house, Pui Fai stood and smiled at a man and a woman in a steel cage. After she told them that there would be only one survivor of this game, the two immediately became suspicious of each other, and that was exactly what she wanted to see.

 

"I'm your friend, Fai," Cherene said, turning to speak to Pui Fai from the left side of the bars.

 

“Really? Was there ever a time when you saw me as a friend?”

 

“I have never hurt you!”

 

"Liar!!! Who was it that secretly slept with my husband behind my back? Who was it that talked about my pregnancy even though I told you not to! Who was it that chose to ignore me when I had a problem? Do you call that kind of behaviour a friend?!" Cherene stopped talking when everything Pui Fai said was exactly what she had done behind her back.

 

“Why aren’t you dead yet? Sir, you said you tried to trick us and failed.”

 

"You really want to know that much, Champ? Then, how about I have my new boyfriend explain it to you?" Pui Fai turned to pull Puti closer before pulling him down to kiss him passionately on the nape of his neck.

 

“It’s not difficult. Just have Fai put everyone to sleep.”

 

"No, I should be the one who drugged Fai," Cherene protested.

 

“Ah, the bottle you received is just saline solution.”

 

“What?” Puthi smiled and began to tell them everything that had happened that night, for the last time, before the game started in earnest.

 

Before the night of the freshman orientation, Cherene came to sleep at Pui Fai's house because she planned to go to the university together. Even though Pui Fai really hated the person she slept with, she had to pretend to be innocent in front of the world as usual, so that everything would go according to plan with Puti.

 

"Time is fooling me about tomorrow's outfit again, this bastard," Cherene was lying down, reading the group chat on her phone while grumbling.

 

“Do you want to pretend to return it?”

 

"How"

 

"I know this guy. He's a doctor at a hospital. He's free tomorrow."

 

"Are you going to let him lie to you that I'm dead? That's ridiculous."

 

It's not you. It's me," Cherene looked up from her phone to look at Pui Fai.

Why don't you try it?"

 

"He just put sleeping pills in my glass, and when I fell asleep, he pretended I wasn't breathing or something, and then pretended to call an ambulance, but really he called his brother."

 

"Will they believe it?"

 

"Believe me, I'm sure. No matter how hard you try to wake me, I won't wake up." Seeing Cherene's hesitation, Pui Fai reassured her even more. "Isn't it fun just thinking about it? You'll know how everyone reacts when shocked and how they feel. It's fun."

 

"That's true. It's just a prank, after all."

“Smiling, teasing.”

 

"Then where are you going to get sleeping pills?"

 

“There was a time when I couldn’t sleep well.”

 

“Is that about it?”

 

"Um"

 

"And the other day when Champ took me to the hospital, what did the doctor say?"

 

"Too bad, because that clinic damaged my uterus. From now on, I won't be able to have children." Pui Fai stared blankly at the ceiling. Even though her voice and facial expression seemed normal, inside, her heart felt like it had been cut into a gaping wound.

 

"Oh, I'm sorry."

 

After that, Pui Fai gave Phutthi's number to Cherene, and the two went to bed together. From morning till night, Pui Fai acted normally, a loving senior, a good friend, a suitable girlfriend. But when the sleeping pills were put into a new bottle of liquor by her own hands, those people disappeared.

 

When Pui Fai was sure that everyone was unconscious, she, who had pretended to be unconscious half an hour ago, suddenly came up with a squinty eye, looking at the people around with hatred. 

 

She put on gloves, washed every glass and every bottle of liquor she had, then walked towards Phit at an angle where the CCTV camera's range could not reach.

 

“Is it all right?

 

“It’s fine. They’ll point to this when they use it.”

 

"The ones that are not more than fifty, I'm using them until I'm speechless."

 

“Hmm, if they die, just spit them out. If they don’t die, they’ll all have to die.”

 

“Everything has a time limit, so you can’t miss a single second, understand?”

 

"I'm full. After I told them to call the police, when the forensic team came, I was able to inject it."

 

"Are you sure?"

 

"Sure." Pui Fai's expression and eyes were full of determination, without a trace of fear. Right now, in her heart, there was only revenge and taking...

 

At two in the morning, Pui Fai returned to the room and had Put inject her with a smaller dose of Midazolam than her friends had received. It would only take an hour and a half, which was the time the others would have woken up and thought she was dead. Everything went according to plan. While everyone was arguing loudly, no one knew that the doctor sitting next to Pui Fai knew that she had regained consciousness.

 

When the sound of a car outside was heard, Puti injected potassium into Pui Fai's body, causing high blood potassium levels, which caused her heart to beat irregularly. The police forensic team was unable to detect her heart rate and concluded that Pui Fai had truly died.

 

Puthi hurriedly moved Pui Fai's body into the ambulance, claiming that he would quickly take it back to the autopsy room. He tried to pump Pui Fai's heart, injecting insulin and calcium into her body to restore her potassium balance to normal. Everything had a limited time. If he missed even a split second, this fake death would become real.

 

Upon arriving at the hospital, Puti walked into the autopsy room where he had prepared various life-saving equipment. He quickly washed Pui Fai's body. After almost an hour, Pui Fai's pulse returned to normal. Now he had to decide whether Pui Fai could be revived.

 

This was the last thing she would gamble on. If she were to die, it would be her fate. But if she survives... someone else will have to die in her place.