A/n: Okay so this one shot was also requested by Coffee, hope you like it. The one shots requested will be posted in the following order to avoid confusion: Bloody Painter, Puppeteer and Homicidal Liu. Updates may be every 5 days from now on, unless inspiration hits me. So, enjoy!
THE FOLLOWING WILL CONTAIN EXTREME VIOLENCE AND TRIGGERS.
You blink lethargically, the lingering draughts of sleep escaping as you break the cold waking world. Your body feels stiff and achy, every movement sending dull pain singing up your spine. Your head felt as if it were filled with cotton, leaving you woozy and disoriented. Perplexed, you frown and attempt to shake the cobwebs from your memory as you gingerly sit up to absorb your surroundings...
A sea of polished tile swept before you, cold seeping into your bones to make them creak. Rows and rows of crimson lockers flanked the expansive hallway you were sprawled in, luminescent in the misty blue glow of moonlight spilling in through white-paned windows. High above, mounted on the peach wall was a rusty bell.
In the blink of an eye the scene dissolved around you, the moonlight exchanged for blaring daylight, the vacant hall primed and packed with students.
Thirteen-year old (Y/N) marched through the halls with her head ducked down, attempting to be as inconspicuous as possible among the sea of students. Your clothes were torn and worn, simple jeans, sneakers and a sweater that was two sizes too big for you but that was all you could afford. Besides, they were just material items and it never really bothered you, but it gifted others with ammunition to wield against you.
So you kept to the shadows, praying you wouldn't attract attention. Praying that they would find some other target and leave you alone for just once in their shallow, vapid lives.
But, of course, they never did.
Morphing faces, constantly changing, surrounded you in a ring like a pack of rabid wolves, cutting off any escape route that you could utilize to your advantage. Your books smacked to the ground as papers flew and scattered the floor like ants, trodden on by passerbys who ignored the commotion or added fuel to the fire. Your body shrunk in itself, attempting to shield you from harm as you slammed back into the lockers, pain singing up your spine.
"Bitch."
"Slut."
"Whore."
"Wimp."
"Loser."
"Fugly."
"Kill yourself already."
The words sank into your flesh like blades, skewering flesh from bone in a festering wound that almost hurt more than the physical blows that followed.
Almost.
Numerous days, you were chased home with forming bruises and bleeding cuts. So many days, you yearned for your mother to notice, to hold you, to ask you what was wrong, to be there. You just wanted some form of stability, for somebody to show you they cared enough. You wanted the person who was supposed to love and cherish you to help you through this torment.
But she never did.
You shook your head, dispelling the unnerving thoughts and wondered what in the world were you doing back in the former hell you had called high school. This was the place you vowed to avoid from the moment you graduated, the memories too harsh and horrid to relive. So for you to end up here of all places seemed a bit of a stretch at best.
Then the fluttering banner in the distance caught your eye, its cheerful font so eye-achingly bright you wondered how you could have possibly overlooked it.
'HAPPY TWO YEAR REUNION, CLASS OF 2013!'
It clicked; this was the night of the reunion you had point blankly refused to attend. An event created for those who wished to revel in the warm recollections of their younger years and see just where they had come from there. In all honesty, it was point blank idiotic to you and there was no need for you to show up and watch your former bullies bask in the glow of their high school glory days. It repulsed you. Not even (F/N) could convince you otherwise.
Then again, she was never targeted like you were.
Tired of sitting around, you rose to your feet tentatively –still perplexed at the ache in your body –and began to make your way down the passage towards the gymnasium where the reunion would be held. Your bones felt creaky and tender, your muscles like jelly as you stumbled your way through the halls hoping for some sort of explanation.
Was this all a prank?
If it was, then there would be hell to pay. You weren't the weak pushover you used to be, allowing yourself to be humiliated continuously at the hands at a bunch of insecure brats that had nothing better to do but take out their frustration on others. You had a mouth like a gun and bullets ready to be shot towards anyone who attempted to snipe at you.
However, strangely enough, there was nobody around to bother you yet. Glittery signs and streamers in school colours became apparent as you passed, merry yet oddly solemn. The passages remained silent, your footsteps reverberating through the atmosphere as you continued your search.
Shouldn't you be hearing music by now? The chatter of conversation? Babbles of laughter?
Yes, it sounded cliché but this was a reunion so naturally it was considered a party of sorts and that goes hand in hand with certain types of sounds depicting socialisation. You recalled from your school dance that the swell of music could be heard from the library on the other end of the school, where you had hidden amongst the books to stay away from your horrid bullies. So, it logical enough to assume that you would have heard something by now.
But no, only the pad of your footsteps and the heavy thud of your heart echoed in the smothering silence that was too still to be true –the calm before the storm. Dread coiled in your stomach like a reptile, slinking through your insides as you approached the gym doors where the party would be held before you hesitated.
Something was wrong.
Maybe it was your paranoia getting the better of you but every instinct was screaming at you to get the hell out of here asap. Your instincts never let you down before so why would they fail you now?
You paused, half in the action of turning back the way you came before a bloodcurdling scream cleaved through the silence like a butcher knife to meat. You body reacted without your consent, surging forwards to fling open the doors with a bang in a rush of adrenaline and basic human compassion.
Until blood froze in your veins, your heart stopping dead in your chest.
Jesus Christ.
Bodies, bloody and chopped like vegetables littered the formerly pristine floor of the gymnasium –dismembered legs, stumps of arms, hacked carcasses of torsos all strewn before you in some display of demented artwork. Blood poured from gaping gashes and stumps of limbs, staining the floor crimson beneath them in pools of liquid that shimmered beneath the glow of lights. Eyes stared out glassily, unseeing, expressions of the purest horror imprinted on their features in an accurate capture of their final moments.
Your eyes skittered over them, catching the familiar resemblance of your various torturers, teachers and other classmates. Colourful decorations splattered with scarlet from the blood spray added a grim touch to the morbid sight, glass shattered and gleaming like jewels under the stringed lights hung from the rafters.
It was a massacre.
Your stomach clenched, heaving as the nauseating stench of acrid metal filled your nostrils. Your body quaked with perpetual shock, a hand clamping over your mouth to prevent you from gagging.
No. This is a dream. It's not real, it's not...
But your core, the deepest chord of you knew that it wasn't. Someone had slain these people like lambs at slaughter. Some monster had butchered these people for unknown reasons in the ultimate overkill as you absorbed the horrifying display.
Suddenly, the scream resounded again, piercing your eardrums to have you practically jump out of your skin as if a jolt of electricity struck you. Your eyes immediately snapped to the source, your breathing shallow as your feet remained rooted to the spot despite your body's desperate pleas for you to run.
A female dressed in a scanty white baby-doll dress stumbled across the sea of bodies, honey blonde hair streaming behind her. Tears stained her tanned cheeks, her petrified glass green eyes wild as she desperately ran from an unknown threat, her gown marred with bloody prints from running through the dead.
Her eyes found yours and recognition zapped through you like lightning.
She was the girl who had initiated you as the school target, who would leave you feeling so low you wished you could have disappeared into the woodwork, who would constantly belittle you for every move you made.
She was the cause of all those years of agony, she was the one who showed you no mercy even when you begged for it, who constantly concocted new ways to make your life more of a living hell than it already was.
And she was staring at you know with beseeching eyes, in dire need.
"Please help me!" she yelled, her voice shrill with fear as she reached out her hands distraughtly –only a dozen feet separating both of you. "He's right behind me, fuck. Please you've got to help me!"
Your expression remained blank as you absorbed her words, your mind oddly detached and cold as you observed her panicked form. A part of you wanted to condemn her to her death and leave her to fry, a vicious and callous voice that was fuelled by the thirst for retribution.
After all, karma is a bitch.
But you glanced at her face and you recognized that expression of fright, of unholy fear. The victim in you bled, composing a greater part of you than you preferred as it empathised with the vulnerability she so freely radiated.
Karma wouldn't make things right.
Determination set inside you and you started forwards, stretching out a hand for her to grab so you could pull her to the doors.
"Grab my hand and we'll get out of here," you ordered in a somehow even voice despite the turbulent emotions beating at you, sombre when you caught the hope spark in her eyes.
The hope to survive. To live.
Her hand shot forwards as she closed in, her fingertips barely brushing yours when –
*Squelch*
Time froze as the undeniable sound of metal impaling bone, resounded in the silence. You watched in horror, as the scene rolled on in slow motion: the light snuffed out behind her green eyes, blood spilling from her mouth like paint as she crumpled forwards with no heed to the bodies she collapsed in. She lay among the corpses, the gruesome sight of a hatchet lodged into her spine now visible as unadulterated terror swept through you in vicious cold.
*Tic, tic, tic.*
Slowly, your eyes drew up from your butchered classmate to the sound that cut through the grim hush, limbs trembling as your body numbed.
Oh shit.
Before you was a man. Even from the reasonable distance, he stood taller than you. His body leering over you with shattered grace, the ripple of muscle holding a lethal grace before it shuddered spasmodically and his neck cricked with an audible *tick*. He wore grey long-sleeved shirt, the sleeves striped in darker variations of the color over his lean torso. Dark pants cloaked his legs, a brown utility belt slung around his hips where one bloody hatchet hung, its sibling embedded in the dead female you had attempted to help. His hands were gloved, his mouth disguised in a smiling dark bandanna covering the lower half of his face. Orange goggles protected his eyes from sight, dotted with drops of blood. His hair was shaggy and unkempt in a dark brown the hue of mahogany.
But what truly disturbed you was the aura of unstable energy buzzing around him like a swarm of wasps.
You weren't going to get stung.
You whipped around, sprinting towards the open door with manic panic snapping at your heels. The heavy sounds of pursuit sounded behind you like sirens, far too close for your liking. He was hot on your tail.
You skidded into the hall, nearly crashing into the lockers in your haste before the echoing clang of metal against metal burst inches away from you. A hatchet was lodged in the lockers.
He's fucking insane!
Stunned but not beaten, you propelled yourself forwards. Your lungs burning with exertion, heart heaving with pounding blood, head dizzy with adrenaline as you caught the blissful sight of the entrance doors.
Then a heavy force slammed into you and brought you crashing to the ground. Your head thwacked against the hard tiles, your vision spitting in two as your body sprawled in a useless heap of limbs beneath your attacker. You could feel his heartbeat race in his chest, a curiously gentle hand cupping your face.
"Why are you running from me?" he asked, his voice oddly meek and soft to your buzzing ears as pain flooded through your body.
This guy weighs a ton.
You blinked to clear the pain-induced tears from your eyes, feeling the strangely tender sensation of someone stroking your hair. He was hovering above you, body pressing against yours in an awkwardly intimate way that placed pressure on your aching muscles. Every now and again his body spasmed and ticked, the sudden movements sending darts of pain through your aching muscles.
"You shouldn't run from me," he whispered quietly, staring at you as if you were some sort of priceless artifact in a disturbing manner that severely creeped you out.
Oh yeah sure, I'm not gonna run from the psychopathic twitching maniac that just turned the gym into the butchery. That would be stupid.
But you remained mute despite your sarcastic thoughts as your lungs filled with oxygen, your vision becoming clearer with each passing moment. You attempted to gather up strength, just enough to somehow shove him off you so you could make a break for the door. There was no way in hell you were staying near him, not when his strange behavior had ominous shivers slide down your spine.
"I-I t-took *tic* care off t-them *tic* all. Even y-your m-mom *tic* FUCK I HATE MY TOURETTES!" he roared so violently, your ears popped. His sudden swing from soft and hyper to uncontrolled rage so swift, it had you practically jumping out of your skin, your body freezing in realization that you had indirectly caused all those meaningless deaths. Guilt swarmed you like insects, stinging your skin as your insides grew jagged.
Then his words clicked, he mentioned your mother.
"What did you do to her?" you voiced throatily, heart already speeding as if it knew the answer. Even as your mind balked at the thought, vehemently denying any such notion as you glared at him expectantly for his response.
He only stared at you, before removing his goggles and the bandanna from his face and you cringed. His cheek was severely burned, skin charred, blackened and mottled where it showed glimpses of his teeth. The rest of his skin was pale, taut over handsomely carved features that were alluring bar the gruesome scar. But all you could see was the sick mix of glee and lust searing in his hazel irises, black demons writhing beneath the surface.
He leaned forwards, his lips ghosting over your cheek to make you shiver.
"I-I k-killed her," he answered cheerily, so plainly so casually it floored you as your mind, heart and soul shrieked in grief, the fight in you dying a swift death as the electricity struck you like lightning, benumbing you completely as your mind battled to process the information.
"I-it *tic* w-was fun *tic She t-tried *tic* t-to run b-but *tic I c-caught her," he elaborated as if it were some pleasant memory, words warm against your cold skin as his lips moved to brush over your cheeks, nose, forehead, and jaw, tasting samples of your flesh as you shivered unwillingly in revulsion and begrudging pleasure.
He paused over your mouth, offering you a sincere smile if only you didn't see the malice, the possessiveness beneath it.
"N-now *tic* you c-can stay *tic* with m-me! Won't that be *tic* great (Y-Y/N)?" he chirped happily, ignorant of your mute response as you cocooned yourself in your own grief, your own sorrow. You were burying yourself beneath layers of your own pain and disbelief, freezing your senses as you drifted further and further away from this horrible scene, from this terrifying truth.
His gaze blackened, the demon in him showing its true colors as he grabbed a handful of your hair to tilt your face up to his. He did find your silence rather annoying. He had been annoyed and shunned most of his life, even at Slender mansion where that jerk Masky continually belittled him. He did not enjoy the idea of you ignoring him too, though his mind drifted to other thoughts as his hands drifted over the curve of your hips, gaining a shudder he took as a good sign.
"You'll never *tic* leave me, will you?"
He never wait for an answer but crushed his mouth to yours, exploiting your state of shock to explore the taste of you, a sharp strident flavour that drove his mad with its intoxicating nature. His hands shaped you, skimming beneath your shirt to bruise your skin but you were numb to it all, far beyond his reach.
Knowing there was no escape.
Almost mockingly, above the hall, the school bell rang for the last time on the chilling scene.