V: Running For My Life
Jacelyn
Ash and I have a stare-down, the rumbling in her throat never ceases. It turns aggressive and louder; she is ready to pounce on me. I never thought this would happen. I thought she would just be dead and move on, but she has returned to the dead to hunt us all.
All I can do at this moment is stand my ground and beg for forgiveness. I don't know what I need to apologize for. I must appease her to avoid being attacked. "Ash, I'm sorry for what I did! Please forgive me! I-I wish it all just a big mishap. I didn't want you to die, Ash. Find peace with yourself and go to the light!" I shake in fear, holding back the tears and the urge the piss myself.
She doesn't soften up. Her eyes look to my phone and back to me. Her grin turns sly. She squeezes my phone. I can hear and see the phone cracking, popping, and folding by her fingertips. "What are doing? Stop! Stop! Please stop! Don't break my phone! What happens if my parents call?! Noooo!" She doesn't stop until my phone looks like a brutalized soda can.
Her smile downgrades into a grave grimaced face. Her piercing stare makes my throat slam shut, and my heart begs for the ribcage to be closer to it. What once lived inside Ash is now a fragment of her former self. No, not a fragment–a 180 replacement! She snarls like a dog before catapulting my crushed phone at my ankles. I jump out of the way. I watch it slam against the wall, breaking into millions of pieces. It sounds like a gunshot; my parents would break down my door with their guns drawn if they ever heard that in the house.
How do I explain my phone to my parents? A zombie girl from our school broke into our house and tore it? Doubt they would believe something ridiculous like that.
Ash snarls again in a very agitated state. She lunges at me. I sprint out of my room as fast as possible. I book to the right of my narrow hallway with elegant brown wallpaper to the stairwell. I don't hear footsteps behind me, but I hear my door creeping open. I don't look back, knowing that will make Ash catch up.
My rush down the stairs causes me to slip out and yelp, turning my brain into slushy panic mode. All I need to do is leave and wait for my parents to get home. I don't care if I have to wait all night because I feel much safer if my parents are in the house rather than staying inside the house with a highly intelligent zombie that is chasing me in the house. I don't know what will she do if she catches me.
I feel an ounce of relief when my hand touches the cold knob to twist my way to freedom.
...That relief never comes. The knob locks up. I look at the middle of the knob; the door is unlocked, yet why is the knob freezing up? Don't tell me it's jammed. "No...Not now." My doom is closing on me. I can feel dead eyes staring at me.
Back door! My head screams. I turn around. There are three exits in the house: the garage, the indoor patio, and the basement. The garage is near the entrance next to the stairwell, but opening it will take more time than death. The patio is the best bet and the second closest. I turn around and sprint down to the indoor patio next to my parent's hobby room. They do diamond art painting, karate, and gaming in there. My hobby room is next to it for school projects, practice cheers, or online games. The hobby room is connected to theirs.
My eyes trace back to the stairwell. I can now see Ash's fully bloated form. Her dress is ripped in the middle, showing a black oily substance covering her old wound. It creates black cracks in her upper torso and neck. She stabbed herself in the chest; nevertheless, the knife was gone. She stares down at me. She tries to growl, but a yellowish bile mixed with blood and maggots spills out of her mouth onto the wooden stairwell. The stench of uncleaned vomit, blood, and decomposing organs breaches my nose. I feel the acid in my stomach churching. My hand slaps my cheek to look away and run faster than before. It doesn't prevent me from gagging.
I reach the patio door, quickly checking that is not locked. I hurriedly slide it open, and this window-sliding door doesn't budge. I break down crying in fear as I keep pushing it. Why aren't these doors moving?! The putrid smell becomes stronger and stronger. I spin around with some final hope to have room to run into the garage; however, Ash is already behind me. She's silent and deadly.
I jolt back, hitting the glass pane, shrieking in terror, a sound no parent wants to hear from their kid. Around me, the walls melt like candle wax. I look around. What is happening? It melts down into my room again where everything started. I loudly whimper in my own confusion and horror. Ash is not under the bed. We are now face-to-face.
"You never figured it out and learn, didn't you?" Ash finally says something. Her voice is extremely raspy with a fine young guy scratch to it. Both of them sound disappointed and suspiciously calm at the same time.
"Learn what?" I shakingly demand.
She growls in annoyance. She throws a punch to my gut. I grunt and fold to the ground like paper. My tears drip down to the ground. The pressure and pain spread throughout my abdomen. My eyes trembling. Ash picks me up by the collar of my shirt. She looks me, dead in the eye, and goes, "How does it feel to have the hell following you home? No escape."
I don't say anything.
"It doesn't feel good, doesn't it? Maybe, you shouldn't have done that to me?"
What? I never did anything to you after school!
She yanks my collar. Frustration hits her voice– "Answer m–" A gurgle in her voice stops before more of the bile leaves her mouth in heavy amounts. I yelp and pull away, and she yanks me back into the splash zone... It hits my upper torso and below, soaking my clothes. The liquid is hot and thick. Its smell is not going to leave my clothes too. I froze in shock. My own throat spasms and I look down at the floor, gagging. I'm not going noseblind anytime too. I feel my acid rising up. Before I can throw up onto my damn floor, Ash drags me out of the bedroom door.
I wish to take off my shirt, but there is no way I am tasting dead-ass methane and bowel and wiping my face with it. She turns left and heads to the master bedroom, which is at the end of the hallway. I flip my shit. "What are doing here? Get out! This is my parents' room!" I grab her hand to pull away from her grip. Her skin breaks open with dying blood and muscle. It gets on my hands. I look like I tear open a human with my bare hands like a cannibalistic killer.
Ash groans and grabs my neck with her left hand, grabbing both of my hands with the other. I squirm for my hands to escape. Sadly, that never comes. She squeezes them tighter, ready to break both of them. "You saw what I did to your phone," she seethes, "not afraid of doing that to you."
She drags me out to the balcony in my parents' room. There is no point in fighting as harshly as I did. This is not a normal fight. There's a demonic aspect to it. "Are you taking me to hell?" I whimper out as she holds me over the ledge. The upper part of my back is titled backwards. Her eyes glowing green, sharing that dead calm glare. I tremble to my upcoming death. I don't want to die. I'm too young. Why did it become like this? Why did Ash become more of a monster than she did in her own life? What will happen after I die so early? So many questions will be unanswered since I will be gone to find out.
"I am no demon, Jacelyn Weslan," she replies. "Demons belong in Hell. As a human, you belong worse than that." Then, she pushes me over completely.
I keep staring at her. She doesn't reach out to me. I feel no impact as I keep falling and falling, only falling into the darkness with stars. It consumes every part of my vision. Is my punishment eternal falling? I close my head, accepting that fate, only to feel nothing afterwards.
.
.
.
"Jacelyn, wake up!" My ears ring as my body is being shaken awake. My eyelids are too heavy to move.
.
.
"Jacelyn!"
.
My eye experiences a painful blow. I sit up. My ears still singing the song of their people. I see Destiny and Lola. No, my whole friend group is here. I put the hand to my eye. "Ow!"
"They were about to kill us," Lola mumbles.
"Who's 'they'?" I ask dumbfounded.
She turns to point to three inhuman psychopaths. The first is a young male in his upper twenties, a short blonde with glowing green eyes. He has a mildly sharp jawline. He wears a blue 1800s outfit. His eyes focus on me with hollowness. He can possibly fit the hot vampire trope in a love story, but he surprisingly ends up killing the girl and doesn't turn her because he feels no damn emotion for her, only to play upon them as an asshole that girls need to beware of.
The woman companion to his right is more antagonistic and almost in her forties. She is a lot paler with straight stale black hair and entirely red eyes looking like an insect. Her dress represents the same century, but as an entirely black dress that caters to casual wear or funerals. She looks at us with her head lowered to look more intimidating as possible. She bares her fangs that possibly have venom. The light reflecting in her eyes are pebble pupils.
The girl on the man's left looks familiar somehow. Her hair is short, barely touching her shoulders, and blonde. She looks younger like twelve or something. Compared to the other two, her dress is white, modern, and somewhat tribalistic. I can't put a finger on which tribe she looks like. It can be both American and international. Her eyes are a glowing never-ending fire. Lines go down her face like some animal tried to claw her eyes out and a mouth dripping blood.
"Looks like someone is finally awake," states the man in a tamed manner, "you bunch of geebags." He was probably an Irish lad back in the day.
"...Where are we?" Laura nervously asks, lost and frightful as all of us are.
"Where you deserve to be," the woman replies lowly and dangerously.
"No, we don't! Let out of us here!" Heather demands as she does a chucking motion. Thank god, she doesn't flip them off.
The woman hisses loudly in response like a spider. It echoes throughout this place- a cave. This cave has no entrance, nor exits, firmly trapping those who somehow got in this situation. The only light in here are those lanterns all around in a row. We all cower down to the spider's lady hissing.
"You just proved my point. Parents nowadays don't monitor their children. I don't know who to blame more– your parents or just you," spat the spider lady.
"Hey, are you a mother?" Lola questions, eyeing down the amber-eyed girl. "If you are, you are leading your fucking kid into a cult!" She says while pointing to her. The girl just frowns. "Why are you trying to blame our parents when you are shitty one yourself?"
"Such accusation, Lola. Even when you got sent here, you didn't zip it. From looking at what you have all done, I'm not surprised. I am also not a mother," her voice turns deep and demonically growls on the emphasis of 'mother.'
While pointing at us, the girl implies, "These girls are sixteen and above, old enough to understand right from wrong, getting ready for the real world. It's all their fault." Her voice sounds familiar as well, and I hate this.
"We are still kids!" I protest.
"Pffff!" The girl rolls her eyes with a smirk. She is assuming what I said is bullshit. "Ironically, a daughter of parents who enforce the law intentionally ruined a girl's life even though she was actually innocent."
"...Why do people keep saying that?" Destiny mumbles.
I wonder that too. Why do people even these guys believe that Ash was innocent? They don't know the truth for fuck's sake. I am somewhat curious about how that damn girl knew my parents were cops.
Laura gulps, raising her hand like she is asking a teacher's question. "Is it because of Ash's suicide? ...Like we caused it and getting punished for it..?" She squeaks.
I look at her and say, "It was her choice–"
"Yes!" The amber girl screams over me. "And got away with it!"
"Murderers," Spider girl jabs. "Murderers with no trace still warrant retribution."
"So you killed us just to prove a point?" I ask. "How does that correct a wrong if you're wrong too?"
The amber-eye girl fiendishly chuckles. "Murderers don't fear death, do they? We can't teach them a lesson if we lock them up in the hole or kill them–"
"We are not murderers!" Lola shouts in anger. I agree with her. We are not murderers. There is no blood on our hands. Thank God that Ash's bodily fluids are gone. I would've smelled disgusting and made my friends vomit.
An elk cry and a high-pitched shriek erupt from the girl's lungs. All of us shut up. The man glares at us with his head slightly tilting, reading don't make her scream. The girl suits them quite well and sounds more than a spoiled toddler.
The woman threatens, "Cut her off again, none of you will leave alive just like the others?"
Destiny raises her brow in confusion. "The others?"
The man explains, "Along with your pity group, ninety-four people have taken people's lives. You will go through rounds that you must solve and survive. Some are simple. Others, not so much. If you die, we will not mourn for you just like you did."
"Let's not make them wait too long, shall we?" The woman falsely beams, grinning ear to ear.
The girl also smiles. "This is the trial of survival. Welcome to the Bully Trials."
That's when the girl's voice hits me. She's not twelve; she sounds close to our age. Her eyes matched the same color Jaymie had when her eyes flashed fire. All of us saw it. It was more of a warning of what is about to come. These eyes are a fire of vengeance. Her hair is slightly lighter and shorter, making it harder to tell it was her. I couldn't recognize Jaymie until now. What has she done? Is it really her?
And most importantly, what the fuck are we in for?
Skeletons in Our Closet
1. The dead Ash saw right through Jacelyn's apology.
2. There was never going to be where Ash threw up bile, but I added it in there because Ash's body is confused about what's going on. Dead yet still moving at the same time. Something is also keeping Ash's body together.
3. Don't ask what a dead bowel smells like. It's nasty. It's no joke either. Honestly, if you see or smell necrotic on a living person or yourself, go to the hospital.
4. The woman's and the guy's name would be revealed later on because Jacelyn is not omnipotent or a reliable narrator. *You might know.*