Run: 2026-07-09-01KX40C6VFSRF1ENNRX3CEM3NB

At midnight, Inspector Mara Venn arrived at Blackthorn Manor beneath rain that sounded like fingernails scratching a coffin lid shut. Inside, twelve dinner guests waited beside a dying fire, each guarding silence with the rigid poise of a practiced liar. Lord Blackthorn lay across the chessboard table, his white shirt blooming crimson around a knife buried deeply in his chest. On the board, every black piece stood upright, while the white king rested obscenely inside the dead man's open mouth. Mara removed her wet gloves and noticed thirteen place settings, although only twelve frightened guests occupied the room before her. Mara asked who was missing, and somewhere above them, a floorboard answered with one slow, deliberate creak from the darkness. Nobody spoke, but the youngest guest, Clara Vale, stared toward the locked library door and began trembling violently without explanation. Then the grandfather clock struck thirteen, and Lord Blackthorn's corpse opened its eyes just before every candle suddenly went dark.