Live From Blackglass (Chapter 1)

Written by Taylor Lee

Genre: Mystery, Murder, and Suspense

Audience: Young Adult to Adult (12+)

Chapter 1: Hello Contestants

Outside, the Atlantic Ocean was the color of a bruised plum. The ferry came in through the slight waves hitting the shore. Above the cliffs, Blackglass Resort rose in sheer, windowless tiers of pure mountain and smoked plate glass, with a slight fog that blanketed the top of the mountain.

Ten people stood upon the dock, their breath condensing in small, nervous intervals. They are known as the 10. They all looked at each other; a few introduced themselves, but mostly they kept to themselves as they started walking up to the resort. The resort looked far, but thankfully an older gentleman met them at the end of the dock with two vehicles. This was a quite tall and buff guy in a suit. He gestured to the cars behind him.

Arden Pryce adjusted the lapels of her camel-hair coat. She was thirty-four, a senior partner at a white-shoe litigation firm, and accustomed to rooms where people were ruined quietly over parchment. But here, the air tasted of salt spray and ozone. Her fingers tightened around the handle of her leather briefcase.

"Twelve million in real estate," Arden murmured, more to steady her pulse than to inform the others. "And one million in liquid escrow. Provided the contract holds."

Beside her, Julian Kest gave a low, dry chuckle. He wore an Italian overcoat that had seen better years, his handsome face settled into the easy, practiced smirk of a man who had sold fake oil leases from all around the world. "Contracts are like spiderwebs, counselor. Beautiful until a bird flies through them."

The 10 got into both cars and drove off to the resort. The butler stood there with a grin.

The cars pulled up, and the 10 got out, grabbed their luggage, and approached the entrance of the grand Blackglass Resort. It looked perfectly new, but aged at the same time, with a white, sandy look, yet the surrounding area was green with grass and a blue-gray color.

"Quiet, please," a voice called from the balcony above.

Dorian Kells, a producer of the show, stood on the terrace stairs, drenched in the white glare of high-output floodlights. He wore a tailored charcoal suit and a radio lapel mic that winked a bit. Behind him, three unmanned Steadicam rigs hummed on hydraulic tracks, their red tally lights pulsing in unison.

Live-to-tape.

"Contestants of Blackglass, you have made it!" Marcus announced, his baritone smooth, resonant, and entirely devoid of warmth. "Ten strangers. Ten backgrounds. One solitary inheritance. You have been selected because you need what this island offers. You are also here to be a part of television history. Come inside, so I can go over what to expect."

The 10 go inside, but Micah was the last to enter and noticed something strange.

Micah Deren shifted his weight. He was twenty-eight, an emergency room nurse from Chicago with eighty thousand dollars in unpaid tuition and hands that still trembled when he closed his eyes after a thirty-hour shift. He looked at the perimeter wall, twelve-foot black iron bars, topped with razor coils, sinking directly into the ground. It looked very sturdy. Enough to keep large animals from getting out.

The 10 enter the lobby and sit in what appears to be a 5-star resort for only the ultra-wealthy. A few sit down, and the others stand and walk around. Marcus enters with a camera crew.

"Welcome to Blackglass Resort, everybody, everybody. Now, the rules are elementary," Marcus continued, pacing slowly along the perfectly reflected marble slabs on the ground. "You all know why you're here. You auditioned and made it to the reality show where if only one stands, a huge prize awaits. You are permitted to walk through the main gates and walk down to the dock at any moment. The boat will return with the help of our butler. But if you cross the threshold of the pier, you forfeit your claim to the resort and the one million dollars forever. That’s right, you win the whole resort, and one million dollars, but that’s if you stay to play!"

"And if we stay?" asked Nessa Osei. Her voice carried through the lobby. Her arms were crossed over her wool sweater; her dark, watchful eyes took in the exterior service doors, the grease traps, the absence of kitchen exhaust.

"If you stay," Marcus said, "you must survive the night. And solve the death of our benefactor."

The heavy oak doors of the grand hall swung inward with a prolonged groan.

An old man walked out onto the stone patio, leaning on an ebony cane with an ivory skull for a pommel. Orson Rake. He was seventy-one, sunken-cheeked, his skin translucent as vellum, draped in an emerald velvet smoking jacket that hung loosely on his skeletal frame.

Behind him, walking with silent, immaculate precision, came a tall man in a midnight-black tailcoat. Eamon Vey. The butler’s silver hair was combed flat; his white gloves were spotless; his expression possessed the still, chilling neutrality of a marble urn.

Orson Rake stopped at the top of the marble stairs. He looked down at the ten contestants. His lips pulled back into a yellowed smile.

"Welcome to my tomb," Rake whispered.

The microphone picked up the dry rattle in his chest.

"I am dying," Rake said plainly. "Cancer has chewed through my marrow. The doctors gave me until winter. I find winter as bad as the decay inside of me. I prefer an ending with an audience."

Elara Voss stepped forward. She was forty-two, a disgraced investigative journalist whose last byline had been retracted under corporate pressure. She carried a battered moleskin notebook in her left hand, her pencil already hovering over the page. "What are you talking about, Rake?"

"Tonight," Rake said, his eyes glittering under the floodlights, "one of you will kill me."

Silence dropped over the terrace. The only sound was the rhythmic thud of the ocean breaking against the rocks fifty feet below.

"I have not left my murderer to chance," Rake said softly. "I have already met with the person before you got here, and that person will take my life. I gave that person the instructions. I gave them the key to my private quarters. Between midnight and three in the morning, my breath will be stopped."

Micah took a step back, his stomach dropping. "This is insane. That’s conspiracy to commit murder. It’s illegal. This was not mentioned in the show. It just said to solve a murder, but I thought it was like pretend or something."

"You signed the binding arbitration agreement," Arden whispered, her voice suddenly hollow. "Clause nine. 'Voluntary assumption of lethal entertainment conditions.'"

"By dawn," Rake rasped, "my corpse will be in the conservatory. The cameras will record your reactions. The audience at home will cast their ballots. And you, my guests, will conduct your own inquiry. If you deduce the killer's identity, the resort and the fortune are yours to divide among the survivors. If you fail—"

Eamon Vey stepped forward. On a silver platter, he carried a crystal bottle of dark amber liquid and ten small, cut-glass goblets.

"If you fail," Eamon said, his voice flat, melodic, and terrifyingly polite, "the elimination ritual will commence. Nine cups carry a tincture of wild hemlock and aconite. One cup contains pure spring water and the certified cashier’s check for one million dollars. Whoever is the unlucky individual, you have to choose one or the other. 50/50! You will choose your cup. And you will drink."

Rake laughed—a wet, rattling sound that ended in a cough.

"The doors are unlocked, ladies and gentlemen," the old man said, turning his back on them. "Make yourselves comfortable. Enjoy the resort. One of you has an appointment with me at midnight."

End of Chapter 1

Chapter 2 will be published soon

©2026 TaylorLeeMedia LLC and its affiliates. All rights reserved.

This short story is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or real events is purely coincidental.