The Final Hiding Spot
I found the perfect hiding spot during our Halloween game in the abandoned manor. It's been hours, the air is getting stale, and I've just realized that the 'prop' I climbed into has a working lock on the outside.
Turtle Noir is an AI mystery game: an AI host runs each case, judges your yes/no questions against the hidden truth, and keeps the story consistent from the first question to the final reveal — solo or with friends.
Back to HomeI found the perfect hiding spot during our Halloween game in the abandoned manor. It's been hours, the air is getting stale, and I've just realized that the 'prop' I climbed into has a working lock on the outside.
I shriek with ecstasy as I wallow in the brown mire, letting the sludge coat my skin. My parents loom over me, watching. They are massive, and they are definitely not human, but I know they love me.
Day 1: The woman claiming to be my mother slammed a plate of wet, grey meat on the table. I refused to eat. Her jaw unhinged with a sickening crack, and she screamed until I swallowed a bite. Day 2: I tried to sneak out while 'Dad' was in the garage. The little girl who calls me 'brother' found me. She didn't scream. She just giggled, pointing a long, pale finger back at my room. 'Not ripe yet,' she whispered. Day 3: I can hear them sharpening knives in the kitchen. They are arguing over which parts to roast. I am shaking so hard my teeth act like a metronome in the silence. Day 4: The table is finally set. The main course is steaming in the center, perfectly charred. Watching the family tear into the meat and lap up the dark red sauce, I stop shaking. For the first time in days, I feel completely weightless and at peace.
After the funeral, a crate arrived from my mentor's estate with a note: 'Only you have the touch to wield this true vitality.' Inside lay a canvas labeled 'Prima Neve' that felt uncomfortably warm, almost feverish, under my fingertips. I uncapped the tube of Venetian Red, hit by a wave of metallic scent—like wet copper coins—rather than oil. Hesitant, I dipped the unusually humid bristles of the brush and applied a single, heavy stroke. The canvas didn't just take the paint; it shuddered. The red didn't dry on the surface; it was aggressively sucked down into the grain, spreading like a blooming bruise.
I smiled groggily when I heard the delivery driver say, "Here's your food," and a voice from the hallway replied, "Thanks, looks great." But as the deadbolt slid home, I stopped breathing and pulled the duvet over my head, tears streaming down my face in silence.
Midnight patrol. Ranger Elias found a stiff, mangled coyote carcass on the fire road. It looked grotesque—limbs bent at impossible, rigid angles, wrapped loosely in a burlap sack. He tossed the bundle into his truck bed, but as he drove down the mountain, he heard a sound that made his blood run cold: the distinct, frantic scratching of fingernails against the truck's metal bed. He sped home, heart pounding. His wife, Sarah, was standing on the porch in the moonlight, obsessively scrubbing dark, wet earth from her hands. She was wearing their daughter's favorite floral Sunday dress—the one that had gone missing a week ago. 'I turned the soil,' Sarah hummed, her eyes wide and glassy, staring right through him. 'The bad roots are gone. I planted something new. Come, the stew is ready.' Elias froze. The house was dead silent. For the first time in months, their daughter—who claimed 'bugs were crawling under her skin'—wasn't screaming.
The morning of the final anatomy exam, the university lab became a crime scene. Adrian, the class valedictorian, was found dead on the floor, his throat slit by his own hand. On the steel table above him lay his roommate Billy—surgically disassembled with such terrifying precision that the police initially thought it was a cadaver, until they identified the face. The third roommate, who found them, hasn't spoken a coherent word since. Who took the test?
Every morning, Sarah wakes up screaming, her body covered in fresh, purple bruises. Convinced her father is the one beating her, she went to the courthouse to file a restraining order and press criminal charges. However, despite the visible injuries on her arms and face, the court clerk immediately rejected her filing and told her the case was impossible to process.