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Harvey walked out of Mr. Boar's room, bloody and holding Mr. Boar's body. Usually, he would have cleaned up before he left a guest's room, but he knew his co-workers wouldn't mind his appearance.
He walked over to the elevator and peeked through the gate and saw Mx. Bat nodding off to sleep. Harvey thought it was weird that a bat would be sleeping during the night, but then he remembered that Mx. Bat had to operate the elevator throughout the day. If anything, Mx. Bat should have been the butler killing all the guests; that way they wouldn't have to ruin their sleep schedule.
Harvey slowly knocked on the gate and Mx. Bat jerked up with a start, their honey eyes quickly opening. Mx. Bat bowed down quickly and then opened up the elevator shaft. Harvey shuffled inside and stood in the corner of the elevator. He would have started some sort of small talk, but he knew Mx. Bat would only answer his words with a hiss at most.
When they arrived at the lobby, Harvey quickly left the elevator; that elevator felt so claustrophobic when you were holding somebody; and he started walking over to the kitchen. As he walked by, Mr. Crow gave a quick smirk and a caw of approval. Honestly, this was the first time Harvey had seen Mr. Crow showing so much emotion, if you would even call it that. Harvey was technically older than Mr. Crow, but Mr. Crow still acted like a superior to him.
Harvey entered the kitchen, the smell of garlic and cooked meat pungent in the air. Harvey quite liked Mr. Toad. Mr. Toad seemed to enjoy his job as a chef and did his job well. When Mr. Toad noticed Harvey, he gave a soft chuckle and looked at him.
"Ha! We're matching, huh?" Mr. Toad cackled. This was the moment Harvey realized he was still covered in the blood of his newest victim. Mr. Toad always had a blood stained apron tied around his waist, but he was the only one who could get away with it while the guests were around.
"I guess so!" Harvey laughed lightly. Mr. Toad took Mr. Boar's body and started to cut it up. His cuts were very precise and quick. It was almost mesmerizing to watch him prepare meals. It almost made you forget that the ingredients to the food he was preparing was a person.
When Mr. Toad finished cooking the ribs, he handed the plate to Harvey and grinned. "Let's hope this meal is to die for!"
Ha, very funny. Would have been funnier if Harvey hadn't heard that joke a million times already.
Harvey walked back into the lobby with the plate of Boar's ribs, and started to head to the dining room. Before he could get there, though, Mr. Crow stopped him.
"Mr. Owl wants this meal. Go up to his room and give it to him."
Harvey frowned and nodded. Mr. Owl had been a bit cranky since the guests had arrived. When the guests arrived, he locked himself in his private room and didn't open the door for anyone except for Mr. Crow. It was actually pretty surprising to Harvey. Mr. Owl was usually confident and self assured, laughing and talking about how he is forever grateful for the lake. Now that Harvey thought about it, Mr. Owl seemed almost… Scared of the guests.
"And don't forget the cigars. Mr. Owl has been asking for them."
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Harvey paused before he knocked on Mr. Owl's door.
I doubt cigars are going to get him out of his bad mood.
When Harvey finally knocked on the door, all he heard was, "Come in, Harvey." Harvey slowly opened the door and silently came in. To his surprise, Mr. Owl seemed happy.
"Ah, you brought the ribs and cigars. Thank you, Harvey."
Harvey handed the plate of ribs to Mr. Owl and bowed down.
"My pleasure, Mr. Owl."
Mr. Owl lightly chuckled and lit one of the cigars. "I know you've already heard me ramble about the lake enough, but the lake will be truly happy." He gave a long drag of his cigar.
Harvey nodded and Mr. Owl pointed to a nearby chair.
"Sit down if you'd like. I want to tell you something." Mr. Owl coughed.
Harvey slowly sat down on the wooden chair and crossed his legs like Mr. Owl was. After all, parrots like to copy.
"Do you know why I did all this, Harvey?"
Harvey perked up.
What was he talking about?
Harvey stayed silent for a second then answered,
"For the lake."
Mr. Owl chuckled and shook his head.
"Partly. The lake was hungry, so I fed it. But, there's another reason."
Harvey stared at Mr. Owl silently and tilted his head.
"Revenge." Mr. Owl whispered ominously.
"Excuse me?"
"Revenge. Those guests you have killed are the cause of all of my problems. They are not fit to be enlightened anymore."
Harvey stared at Mr. Owl with his beak open. What?
"What did they do?"
Mr. Owl laughed and said, "Practically everything. Everything they did led to my death."
"Sir, what did they do?"
Mr. Owl stopped and looked at Harvey.
"They sacrificed me. They sacrificed me so they could be enlightened. I was a mere sacrificial sheep to them."
Harvey's mind started to race.
He had known Mr. Owl longer than even Mr. Crow. How did he not know anything about Mr. Owl's past?
Mr. Owl set his cigar on an ashtray and got up from his seat. He walked towards one of the drawers and opened one of the compartments. He looked in the drawer for a second before picking up a yellow picture frame. He stared at the picture for a moment then sat back down with the picture in hand. Harvey quickly got up from his seat and stood beside Mr. Owl to see what the photo displayed.
The photo was very gray from age, making only red and orange undertones apparent. There stood seven people, a man with messy brownish hair and his hands in his pockets, an old lady holding a baby, a red headed girl, an orange haired boy, a smirking lady, and a grayish haired man. Under the picture it read,
The Eilander Family
Harvey stared at the photograph for a moment then turned his head to Mr. Owl,
"Are those the guests? A family?" Harvey honestly didn't want that to be true. This picture added a greater sense of humanity to the guests. That would mean that he killed a whole family. Well, not a whole family, he only killed five out of seven people.
"My family, actually. Should I introduce them to you? You did get to see their last moments."
Harvey gulped. Mr. Owl ordered the death of his own family. What did they do to him? Why did Mr. Owl make him do it? Why wouldn't Mr. Owl want to get his supposed 'revenge' by himself?
It was quiet for a minute until Mr. Owl broke the silence and pointed to the gray haired man,
"Mr. Deer was my father. His name was Nicholas. He was the one who decided to order my death."
The man had a mustache and was holding the smirking lady's arm. His grasp on her arm seemed forceful and hard. His eyes seemed to stare into the camera intensely, burning with some sort of entitlement.
"He wasn't a very handsome man, I'll tell you that." Mr. Owl whispered jokingly.
"He was always rambling about the lake… About how sacrifice is necessary…" Mr. Owl's eyes widened.
There's no reason to act like your father, Jakob…
He coughed and continued,
"He didn't seem to care about anybody else except himself. That's why I ordered you to kill him first."
Harvey nodded. Immediately after he entered Mr. Deer's room, Mr. Deer was demanding a Bloody Mary. His room was full of science equipment and he had a deer skull on his wall. Kind of ironic actually, having a skull of his own kind hanging up above his own head. Maybe it reminded him of his son, a mere sacrifice he could look back on with pride.
"Which kid were you? Baby, red head, or ginger?" Harvey asked. Now that he thought about it, the ginger kid looked kind of familiar.
Mr. Owl smiled slightly and pointed to the orange haired boy.
"That was me. I wasn't that young when I was sacrificed though. This picture was taken around 15 years before my death. I wouldn't have sacrificed David if he was a baby. David was Mr. Rabbit."
David must have been the baby, making him around 16 when Mr. Owl died. Harvey wished there was a more recent picture of David, he would have gotten more information from the photograph if he was older.
"He was… Annoying to say the least. He had this annoying voice and one time he put a frog in his pants; It was disgusting." Mr. Owl smiled softly and had a whip of nostalgia hit him.
"He had messy brown hair but always hid it with a hat. One time, I shot his hat off with an arrow and he started pouting about how I took his favorite plague and stuff. I couldn't get that mad at him though, he was my little brother after all. We weren't super close, but…"
Mr. Owl seemed to think for a moment. He seemed to almost wish he had talked to him more.
When Harvey first met Mr. Rabbit, Mr. Rabbit asked him if he believed in magic and to come see him that night. Harvey thought that he was making a move on him, so when Harvey went to his room, he was surprised to realize that he meant actual magic, like the stuff you see at children's birthday parties. Mr. Rabbit wanted help with practicing his magic show routine. He was actually pretty charismatic, really playing the part as a magician. Harvey almost felt sorry that he had to kill him. He honestly didn't expect Mr. Rabbit to be Mr. Owl's irritating younger brother. It was actually kind of funny.
"I heard he became a magician. He liked that kind of stuff when he was a teenager, too. Was he any good?" Mr. Owl asked.
"Yes, actually. He was very entertaining."
Mr. Owl smirked, "He must have gotten out of his weird teenage boy stage. Good for him."
Mr. Owl seemed to have fond enough memories of his brother. Too bad he decided to kill him.
"Anyhow, Mrs. Pigeon was my grandmother, Margaret." Mr. Owl pointed to the old lady.
In the picture, she was holding David loosely and she looked bored. She honestly looked like she was hoping to die at any moment. She wasn't even looking at the camera.
"Her cooking was very good. But, she once put an egg with a baby chick in the pan. That poor chick ran off the pan so quickly that I almost didn't catch it. She only looked at the terrified bird and smirked."
When Harvey visited Mrs. Pigeon, she was in a bathtub and asking for corn. That isn't the weirdest thing to walk into, but it was very uncomfortable for Harvey. It became even more uncomfortable when he found a baby bird trapped in a shock machine. Apparently, Mrs. Pigeon was a scientist that was trying to test shock therapy, but that poor bird didn't deserve that. When Harvey freed the baby bird, it happily helped with his murder plan. Mrs. Pigeon seemed like a deranged woman, maybe she was like that even when she was a human.
Mr. Owl started to point to the red haired girl,
"...That was my sister, Elizabeth… She was Ms. Pheasant."
Mr. Owl's voice sounded sorry and sad.
In the picture, Elizabeth was a young child. She had on a pure white dress, and she had terrified eyes. She looked like a deer in the headlights.
"Liz was the only one who helped me when our family was trying to sacrifice me. She went blind when she was a child. This picture must have been taken before she went blind. Or maybe it wasn't, Liz always had wide eyes, like she knew more than she was letting on. She wanted to be an actress on stage, but Father always told her that she would never be one with her voice… It was quite sad."
It was obvious that he was the closest to Elizabeth, he even called her Liz. He had pity in his voice and he spoke softly.
When Harvey knocked on Ms. Pheasant's door, she happily opened the door and asked him if he would be able to take pictures of her. She became an actress and needed to take headshots for the play she was doing. She was playing all the parts, so she had to take a couple. She was very polite but she seemed to be seeing something that nobody else could see. She seemed like the only one to know that the meals weren't made of just 'normal' meat. But, she ate the food anyway. Maybe that was the reason she shot herself. Maybe she felt guilty over eating her family… Or maybe she felt guilty for Mr. Owl's death.
"She always had some sort of prophecy when I talked to her. Maybe the lake told her its secrets." Mr. Owl said.
Mr. Owl looked over at the plate of Boar's ribs and chuckled. "I think it would be appropriate to eat while I talk about Mr. Boar. He was my uncle, Gerard."
He grabbed the plate and started swallowing the meat off of the ribs whole. He coughed up the bones and placed them back on the plate. It was actually kind of disturbing to watch him eat. No wonder he didn't eat with the guests.
Mr. Owl pointed at the man with his hands in his pockets. The man looked at the camera with some sort of disgust. He seemed like an asshole just from the picture.
"He was always asking me to get him things, mostly food. One time, I fed him diseased cow meat. He didn't seem to care until he ran into the outhouse and started to go from both holes. I had to clean the outhouse after that of course." Mr. Owl chuckled.
When Harvey visited Mr. Boar, Mr. Boar immediately asked for a sandwich. When Harvey tried to talk to him, he only swore at him and demanded for his sandwich. So, Harvey put something extra in his sandwich. Harvey gladly watched as Mr. Boar went to the bathroom, that just meant he could make more sandwiches with Mr. Boar's excrement. After, Mr. Boar demanded an opium pipe. As the room filled with smoke, Harvey tied an ax to a rope above Mr. Boar's head, and, swish, Mr. Boar was dead. Harvey's visit definitely wasn't a bore.
It was quiet for a second until,
"So, does that explain why I did all this, Harvey?"
"It does, Mr. Owl."
"Jakob. It's Jakob."
Mr. Owl pointed to the orange haired boy.
"I guess I'm always going to be Jakob, I can't fight it. No matter what happens, I'm always going to remember everything that happened in Paradise. Thank you Harvey, for listening to my ramblings. It really means a lot."