The Leviathan Trial

by Oliver Madison

  He asked them all to raise a hand if they were in alignment with this basic matter. Pearl raised her hand first. Eden, Hiroshi, and Cynthia followed suit. After that, the others joined in, feeling like they would be made to look like an enemy if they did not comply. Allister and Blake regretfully raised their hands despite not wanting to be told what to do. It was a simple act, but an important one. Despite their father’s last words about ‘trust being the foundation of failure’, they were all working together. All hands were raised. They were one. They defied his final request. Somehow, this unified them. It gave them a chance to take a deep breath and plan out their next course of action as the storm outside grew worse.

  CHAPTER 4

  THE GAME OF LIFE

  It did not matter that the vast majority voted to call the police. Their phones were virtually useless. None of them had any signal. There have been times where they needed to move out of a corner of Lancaster Manor for their phones to have bars, but it had never been this bad before. It was no coincidence. It had to be their father’s bidding. Neither their phones nor their father’s laptop had any internet or service. They might as well have been staring at oversized MP3 players. When they were done standing around, one of them asked the second most obvious question.

  “I’m praying there is no way that father really wants us to kill each other. But if he did…” breathed Zara, “how would he even know if we…went through with it?” It was another uncomfortable question, but a fair one. They had to think. How would this so-called Leviathan Trial be regulated from beyond the grave?

  For a moment, none of them had any answers. Then Blake spoke.

  “There is one way,” he started. “I don’t know about you, but I distinctly remember being chipped when I was first adopted.”

  Sion nodded after thinking about it. He was one of the newest adoptees and recalled his implant very vividly. He pinched the flab of flesh between his thumb and index finger. He could not feel the tiny tracker in his left hand. It was the size of a grain of rice. But he remembered the day it was implanted. He recalled Father Benedict being very transparent about the whole ordeal. Benedict assured Sion that he loved him very much, but now that he was a Lancaster, he would become a high-profile figure. The implant was to serve as a safeguard in case he ever gotten himself lost or kidnapped. It was one of the most sophisticated trackers money could buy.

  Helena nodded and displayed her hand out to the others as well. She too remembered receiving one earlier this year. It was a heart rate monitor too, able to transmit general information on the children’s vital signs.

  So, it was confirmed. There was a way for their lives to be monitored. But if not by Benedict, due to his death, then by who? Could everything be autonomous at this point? Could everything be orchestrated digitally?

  Perhaps so.

  Perhaps one of the computers in Lancaster Manor was programmed to keep all the exits locked until only one implant remained in active status showing healthy vitals. If that was the case, Levi wondered if all they needed to do was find the system tracking them and reprogram it. However, even that sounded too easy to be the solution. Surely, there would be some sort of security measures, passwords, and safeguards to prevent interference in this trial.

  At any rate, it was worth a try. What was the alternative?

  Kill each other?

  There were not any other guns or bullets that they could access. They would have to be more…creative in their slayings. Their murders would be an intimate affair that they did not want to humor for even a second.

  No.

  There was always a way out, some sort of third self-made option. They were smart—brilliant. They were gifted young minds that swept the floor with other teenagers in a variety of fields. They just needed to keep their wits about them. Then maybe they could get out of this alive.

  It did not help that the power was out due to the recent storm. In the whole mansion, they could only find four flashlights. They decided they would split into groups. It would be the safest way to go about exploring their home for an exit. There were four groups in total.

  Zara, Troy, and Levi.

  Sion, Hiroshi, and Mauve.

  Blake, Allister, and Cynthia.

  And Pearl, Eden, and Helena.

  “I know you want to be with your brother,” soothed Pearl, tugging at Helena’s hand. Helena reached out to Levi and teared up. “I want you close to me right now.”

  If it were anyone else, Helena would have run away. However, second to Levi, Pearl was the only other member of the family that she trusted. Pearl was, after all, their maternal figure. Helena kept looking back as Levi left with his assigned group.

  While trekking down one of the hallways, the thunderous storm roared and shook the night sky. A heavy shower of rain pelted the roof and windows, creating a pitter-pattering of white noise. Because the AC unit was down from a brief outage, the hallways were muggy and warm with stale air. Minus their flashlight, it was pitch black.

  They made trips to various rooms in the house. Very few doors would budge when they tried turning the knobs. It soon became apparent that they were not just locked within their home. The children were locked in a specific wing of the house altogether. They had no access to the center of the manor or the south wing. So, they went where they could.

  Levi’s party made a stop at the dining room and picked up a few candles. There were only ten. They used one as an additional light source as they crept around in the darkness. It briefly crossed Levi’s mind that the food in the fridge would go bad.

  He took a few snacks from the subzero refrigerator. He removed some yogurt, cheese sticks, and some peaches, keeping them in a sack he took from a cabinet. He one hundred percent intended to share with his other siblings, but truly, he did not want Helena to get hungry later.

  In the corner of his eye, Levi saw Troy slide something out from the cutlery drawer.

  Two stainless steel butcher knives.

  “What are you doing?” asked Levi.

  “Better safe than sorry,” replied Troy with a whisper. “There’s been too much weirdness going on as it is. I’m not getting caught with my pants down. We need to defend ourselves, if it comes down to it…”

  “Defend ourselves from what?” asked Zara, cutting in. “There’s no one here, but Lancasters. So, are those to stab us then?”

  The tension was beginning to rise. “We don’t know anything,” urged Troy. “This,” he said, raising one of the knives, “is to defend us from the unknown. Whatever that may be.” He wished he bit his tongue after his next remark. “For all we know, one of us might actually go through with it…”

  Zara bolted to her younger brother and dabbed him between his squishy chest. “So, you admit it! You don’t trust our family?” Her eyes, widened. “Or, what if…those knives are for you to win the trial and escape!”

  “He didn’t mean it,” Levi intervened. “And I know you don’t mean that either. We’re all on edge. Hell. I know I am. And rightly so,” he acknowledged. “We’re hostages in our own home—by our own father, no less. We witnessed Bartleby…” he stopped himself and swallowed his spit. “We need to stay calm and work together. If we don’t, then we all lose.”

  For the moment, Troy and Zara ended their dispute. However, that did not stop Troy from keeping his knives. That was nonnegotiable.

  Troy raised one of his blades in a defensive stance as the three of them noticed something scurry within the pantry.

  “You hear that?” breathed Troy faintly. He crept slowly, not making a sound as he made his way past the granite counter tops. He signaled Levi to follow along and for Zara to stay put. Whatever was moving, knocked over a bag of flour. They could see that there was white powder scattered around the floor. As they tiptoed nearer, Levi’s heart thumped. It could not be one of the Lancasters in the pantry. Someone else was currently in their house.

  It was an intruder.

  In the back of Troy’s mind, he knew that if someone wer
e to die tonight, it would not be anyone in his family. He raised his knife and swung the door open, ready to kill to stay alive.

  Screams from the pantry filled the air as he brought down his knife.

  CHAPTER 5

  FAMILY FEUD

  A shadowy body stumbled out from the pantry, falling headfirst. At the last possible moment, she caught herself before faceplanting into the floor. Levi shined his light on her as she screamed.

  Kitty!?

  Unfortunately, Troy could not soak in the friendly face fast enough and his instincts kicked in. He started stabbing aimlessly into the darkness. He put three holes in a box of cereal as she held it up as a last line of defense. Cornflakes scattered about the floor. Levi instantly dropped his flashlight and grabbed his brother from behind before he could do any more damage and gash open his new friend. “Stop!” ordered Levi. “Stop! That’s Kitty!”

  Troy dropped the knife and regained his senses. It took him a while to catch his breath and recollect himself.

  “You’re that girl.” Zara squinted, inching in closer with her hand on her heart. She picked up the flashlight and aimed the beam in her face. “Levi’s friend? May I ask what the hell you’re still doing here.” All eyes turned to Levi. He threw his hands in the air, just as confused as they were and helped her up.

  After confirming Kitty had no injuries, she explained. When Levi saw her out earlier in the evening, Kitty walked out to her car. It was not until she got there that she remembered she left her purse back in Levi’s room. She had called him, but to no avail. She slipped back into Lancaster Manor and made her way up to his bedroom. By the time she tried to leave back out the front door, it would not open no matter how many times she tried unlocking it. She yanked and yanked, but it did not budge. From that point on, she timidly wandered around the mansion, calling out to anyone who could help her. She was lost, even after having had an abridged tour of their home. She wandered around until she heard the gunshot. She had been hiding in the kitchen’s pantry ever since, not speaking a word.

  Despite her phone having no signal, that did not stop her from attempting to call and text the police, her mother, and Levi multiple times.

  No bars.

  No signal.

  No luck.

  Her face illuminated and her eyes shined as the phone’s screen casted its glow in the pitch blackness during the power outage. She turned it off the moment she heard footsteps coming in her direction.

  At that point, it was Levi’s turn to bring Kitty up to speed. She was in disbelief of the whole thing and had to be reassured multiple times of the real danger they were in. Levi helped her up and encouraged her to stay by his side until this whole ordeal could be resolved.

  “Well, buckle up, hun,” sighed Zara. “Looks like you’re along for the ride with the rest of us.”

  “Looks like you got your wish,” breathed Levi, thinking out loud. “You can stay at Lancaster Manor as long as you want…”

  “You think this is funny?” asked Kitty, planting her hands firmly on her hips. “You think any of this is a game? My mom’s definitely going to sue your family for everything you’re worth when I get out of here.”

  “If you get out of here,” scoffed Zara. “And right now, that’s not a guarantee for any of us.”

  On the way back, Zara vented to Kitty, letting her know that she was not supposed to be here either. She came home early from filming her first movie in England. Her new boyfriend, who was still overseas, begged Zara to stay. She could have been with him right now, cozying up in his apartment without a care in the world.

  “But no,” Zara uttered. “I stupidly decided to catch a flight back early to be with my dad. Had I known he was actually a psychopath, I would have stayed gone.”

  For some reason it bothered Levi that Zara was so quick to discard their father. Obviously, none of them wanted to be in this situation, but Father Benedict saved them—each and every one of them, from a life of poverty. He brought them in from poor cities and villages and gave them everything.

  But that was his loyalty talking. Stupid loyalty. Look what loyalty got them all in the end—sealed away in a mansion-sized tomb in a duel to the death with his eleven siblings. Now was not the time for sentiments. Now was the time for logic and reasoning. Levi thought to himself that even if, and it was still a big ‘if’ at this point, only one of the twelve Lancaster children could escape this hellhole of a mansion, he would want it to be Helena.

  It needed to be Helena.

  She was the youngest of them all. She hardly had a chance to live. Sure, they all came from broken beginnings, but Helena did not have anywhere near as many of the blessed experiences as the others have had. Levi was adopted when he was five. He had ten years to lavish in luxury as an heir to the Lancaster fortune. He had traveled to four different continents, been exposed to countless sporting events, plays, operas, and conventions, and had the opportunity to live a life as a teenager.

  Sure, he did not do anything extraordinary himself, but he liked his life. He certainly would not have had it so good if he was left alone in Kenya. He most likely would have been dead if he stayed in the city streets of Nairobi. More than likely, he would have been involved in drugs and gangs and who knows what else. His debate club was the only antidrug he needed. There was just something about explaining his viewpoints in a way that bridged the gap between two parties that fascinated him. He loved finding that perfect balance between ethos and pathos and leaving his opponents with no option other than turning silently stupid, knowing that they could not refute his logic.

  Helena had no experiences or memories of her own. It would be unfair for her to be brought in from the quaint village of Hell, Norway, simply to be slaughtered six months later by the same family that adopted her. There was no question about it. If only one could escape this trial alive as the rules stated, it would need to be Helena. That was Levi’s new sole purpose for existence—even if it would cost him his life.

  Soon the clock struck midnight.

  Since it was not electronic, the grandfather clock was the best central indicator in the north wing of the house that it was time to return to their meeting ground.

  The study.

  Once all twelve were reunited, plus Kitty, the Lancaster children confirmed their biggest fears. It was just as their father claimed. They were locked inside Lancaster Manor. Sealed away, actually. Even the glass was indestructible.

  Some of the children sat comfortably in the few chairs that were scattered around the study. Hiroshi paced back and forth, thumping his behemoth feet across the lit fireplace with his hands behind his back. It was easy to tell that the giant of a man was the most anxious. With his size, strength, and alpha male personality, it most likely hit him hardest when he was told he must stay put. He was not used to being told what to do very often. He and Benedict even butt heads a few times about curfews and forbidden girlfriends. Normally, Hiroshi was a gentle giant. It was unsettling to see him so apprehensive.

  “Looks like we’re stuck here for now,” claimed Blake.

  He leapt out of Hiroshi’s way as his brother effortlessly grabbed the vintage Victorian rosewood carved armchair he was sitting on and swung the whole thing at the bay window beside him.

  SMASH!

  He might as well have thrown it into a brick wall. The chair shattered into wooden and leather fragments. One of the splintered legs nearly flew into Helena’s face. The bulletproof glass window was unfazed. Hiroshi breathed heavily as he focused on it, blankly checking for any sort of scratch. Levi went to comfort his little sister as Blake confronted their eldest brother.

  “What the hell is wrong with you!?” demanded Blake. He pointed to the corner of the window, towards a small transparent sun logo. “This is Hyperion military-grade glass. Even a missile launcher wouldn’t crack it. You can’t muscle your way out of here, you stupid ape!”

  “We can either take action or end up like Bartleby,” answered Hiroshi. He grabbed the collar of Bl
ake’s shirt. “I’m not staying here and dying.”

  “Brothers! Please!” cried Pearl. She ran between the two and tried her best to push them apart. They did not acknowledge her but backed off regardless.

  “We have to stay unified if we’re going to get out of here,” she appeased.

  “Oh, shove-it, Ms. Goody-Two-Shoes,” mouthed Mauve, crossing her arms. She sat cross-legged in the corner and blew her green bangs out of her face. “Let them fight if they want. Isn’t that the whole point—to kill each other?” she snipped sarcastically.

  “You don’t mean that,” replied Pearl, disheartened.

  “You’re not our mom, Pearl! So, stop acting like it! We don’t have to listen to you anymore. This whole thing’s turning into a free-for-all.”

  The family bickered and bickered. A select few stayed out of it.

  “I’m still in denial over all this,” cried Zara.

  By the end, the children decided that staying unified during a crisis was far more infuriating than beneficial. Even Levi’s usual charisma and rallying words of positivity were no match for the family’s collective ill moods. With the exception of Pearl, Cynthia, Kitty, and Helena—who wanted company as they rested—everyone adjourned to their own bedrooms.

  There were several slammed doors throughout the third floor of Lancaster Manor.

  All but one of the thirteen children were haunted with nightmares and thoughts of their butler’s final moments of life. That, and their father’s encouragement to kill one another, burned away at their subconsciouses. Surely, sleep would do them good. None of them were a threat to each other. They knew that they could thoroughly search the house for a way out in the morning when it would be brighter.

  However, one of the thirteen would not make it to the next day.

  One of them would die tonight.

  CHAPTER 6