"So, who's going to die today?"

I eye him, pinning him with a death stare. "You really shouldn't joke about this, Bryan."

"Alright, alright!", he holds his hands up, shriveling under my gaze. "You know I like this as much as you do, Cass."

Next to me, Lily picks up one of the colored beads. "Well, let's get this over with, shall we?"

After a pause in which everyone eyes each other nervously, we all pick up a bead too. I pick up the red one. Red, the lucky color. Red, the color who murdered my best friend. Red, the color of blood and death. Seems fitting.

I feel someone patting my back. Behind me, Emilia is holding the grass green one, gazing at me with sympathy, knowlegde in her eyes. Besides Sophia, she was the only one I knew well enough to find comfort in. Now that Sophia is gone, Emilia is the only thing I have.

"It'll be okay. Who knows what happens after? Maybe they're not even gone." But in her eyes I see the uncertainty, as if even she doesn't believe it. I sigh.

The last bead is the brown one, and the last person not holding a bead is Logan. He gives me a lopsided grin, picks up the bead, and. Everything. Goes. Black. Again.

The ritual is familiar now, but still my hands tremble. My breath comes out in a shaky puff of air. Cold sweat breaks down my back. I squeeze my eyes shut, even though it's already dark.

A bang. Dread. Relief. I'm alive. Someone else died.

Behind my eyelids, I see the lights turning on again. At first, as always, there's that dreaded silence, where everybody's trying to figure out who was the victim this time. Then a sob. Someone falls to the ground. I bury my head between my knees. I don't want to know. I don't want to know. I don't want to know.

"Millie.", the broken whisper falls through the air. As realization hits me, I lift my head. Bryan is on the ground on his knees, head on the ground, Lily leaning over him, both trembling, holding each other as if their lives depend on it. Millie. Emilia. Bryan's second half. Lily's big sister. My only steady wall in this chaotic mess of a life.

No, no. No, no, no, no. No.

Only when someone squeezes me against his chest, I realize I'd been screaming it out loud. My vision goes blurry as tears threaten to spill. I'm trembling, I'm dying. I can't breathe. Millie. Why? It should have been me. Millie was good. God knows the only good thing I've ever done is coming here instead of my sister. Logan hushes me, rubs soothing circles on my back, but the only thing that will ever make me okay again, is Millie coming back.