Killer Romance [Book 1] [Jeff the Killer x Reader] [JTK]

Chapter 23: Duplex (Day 8) Edited

You awoke in tears and sobbed after reliving the dream for the fifth time in a row.

"Hey," Jeff called from the other side of the room. "Are you okay?" He moved to your side in an instant.

Wiping away the wetness on your cheeks, you shook your head and burrowed it in his warm, loving arms. You didn't explain what had happened or why you were crying and coughing, and you appreciated that he did not ask. He just sat there rubbing your back and brushing your hair with his fingers. His chest rose and fell with his calm breathing, and you matched yours to the beat of his heart. There was nothing more soothing than his voice telling you to calm down and try to breathe.

But you wouldn't let go that easily. Half of you wanted to surrender and tell him about your nightmare, but the other half wanted to stay silent and enjoy his heartwarming companionship. He didn't care either way. People have nightmares all the time, and bringing them up in conversations could go one of two ways. It could bring back the traumatic instance and create a lifelong fear in the individual, or it could relieve them of the terror they felt and insure that nothing like it would ever happen in real life. You hoped it would never come true. You would never want to see him at the hands of the gun used to kill you.

"Please, don't leave me here alone," you whispered. You pulled on his arm and squeezed his shirt tighter, watching him nod and kiss your forehead.

"I won't," he said. "Not after what you must've experienced. You were laying over here in a sweat ever since I woke up, like you were trapped in a wild hallucination. But it was so early in the morning that I didn't want to wake you."

"It's fine," you muttered, rubbing your eye. But it was not fine. You wished so badly that he had shook you awake. If only your massive screams carried over into real life actions. That definitely would have got him to break you free. The cries in your dream went on for miles, so they would have filled the entire hotel room easily.

He suggested that you try to keep yourself busy and get your mind off of it, because it was simply a dream intended to be forgotten within the hour. You knew it was an excuse for him to not have to sit there any longer, but you understood that you could not keep him there forever. You were in need of a pacifist, and pacifism was not part of his nature. Nothing could change the way he was raised. And those corners of his personality are precisely defined by his childhood. He must have been given too much help when he was young. People like that never grow up thinking they need to help other people. They think that help is a concept for the weak.

And so he left, leaving you to fend for yourself. You looked in the mirror, taking a glance at your arms and torso. The fight was nothing but a dream. However, you still saw purple and black evolving around your shoulder like freckles. Any sort of pressure was painful. But how was that so? How would bruises you gained in a dream start forming in real life? It was not the placebo effect. No, they were on the complete opposite arm! How the hell would that happen? You did nothing to attain those. Furthermore, your headache from hitting the bed of roses was the worst.

You wanted to remain in the room for a bit, but no matter how much you tried to stay put, you found yourself walking out into the kitchen area. It was probably because a strange smell had crept around the room and you needed to take a break from it. Honestly, if that smell had been there before, you would have noticed it sooner. Something probably got stuck in the pipes and died.

Jeff greeted you with a smile. "You feeling better?"

Who knew? You had a spontaneous nightmare about him murdering you. Were you not supposed to be afraid? Were you not supposed to care? Your subconscious could have been warning you of a bad day soon to come. This might be the only chance you have to escape with an excuse. Escape. You made it sound like you did not want to be there. He was not holding you hostage. He never did anything to hurt you. But what if you just forgot about it? What would your future be like if you were with him?

A knock on the door rang from the opposite end of the room. The two of you twisted your heads as the handle pivoted and squeaked with the utmost tumult that caused your ears to twitch and battle the euphoric sensations you felt in the deepest part of your mind awaiting liberation. But you held your feelings back, opening up to the innocence that would be the reason why the person who walked through the door would remain a mystery for the rest of your life.

He was the one who held onto the door frame and stared at his alter ego.

Both of them decided to mirror each other's movements like robots analyzing code. If you hadn't seen the poser attempt his falsified fakery, you would have doubted your judgement of which was good and which was bad. However, the two of them tricked you into believing that the other was a reflection of themselves.

The original was gazing at you with the most sinister expression that a human could possibly possess. It was almost as if horns were growing from his heart in ways that would cause the sharp tips to infiltrate the veins in his neck the moment he transforms into the form of a true demon who earned his lousy spot in hell. On the other hand, the impostor in the doorway was enticing you with his innocent eyes and bloodshot smile that reflected the moon at its smallest crescent, and the glows in his pupils were pure. Neither of the duplicates said a word. Instead, they held out their hands and awaited your approval.

You did nothing.

"What's wrong?" the good one sighed.

The other smirked. "You're torn literally and metaphorically, yeah?"

Nothing was wrong, and you were holding up perfectly fine. The only problem here was the fact that nothing you saw could be trusted, and nothing you believed could be definite. If you had any clear insight on which persona was better for you, you would have picked the innocent one. But you didn't. You didn't pick the innocent one. You picked the one that would openly tell you all the answers you needed to know, and that one was pure evil.

You began to walk towards the one with the vile eyes, and he snickered back at you. His hand was hard to get. He didn't want you to reach him that easily, because he was never fond of letting people off with a simple sigh.

Just as you were about to embrace his fingertips, you felt a tap on your shoulder. And with that tap, your body became paralyzed and shocked with fear once again. The "innocent" one told you to back away, and you did so graciously. He then faced his evil alternative and synchronized glares. They both glared at you.

"You're doomed," they said.

He turned to face the wall, and he bickered with nothing. He didn't let anything mess with the things he cared for.

And the true one killed the old one.