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- Hailey -
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I woke up, feeling my lungs burning as if they had been ignited on fire. I felt disoriented almost immediately, my eyesight blurring and finally focusing on nothing but darkness. There had been a dim light at the end of the hallway, but I was confused as to where we ended up, and why.
The door had been open, and I looked around at the four walls closing in around me. It wasn't long until I realized I had been laying down on a worn out hospital bed. It hadn't been just any hospital, after gaining back most of my senses, my eyes flickered at the walls in hopes of figuring out where I was.. And I had gotten my answer at the sight of a sign with the hospital's name on it.
Lakewood Medical. I remembered the hospital being up and running when I was roughly six years old, and it had shut down the same year as well. No one knew why, I mean who knew, maybe the hospital became overcrowded and they needed to vacate elsewhere. That had usually been the case for most hospitals that just closes, but.. Why was I sent here?
As I look to my left, I see a satin curtain separating me from what was on the other side of the room, my heart plunging from the fear that I obviously wasn't alone. My breath hitched in my throat as my shaking hand reached out to pull at the curtain.
As I had revealed the opposite side of me, a gasp left my lips at the sight of Ashton. He was unconscious, wrists cuffed and ankles strapped down.
"Ashton? Ashton, wake up. Please." I begged, as I had tried to pull at the chain locks that held him down. The locks had a key whole, meaning there had to be a key somewhere.
Unless someone already has the key and wants something in return in order for him to be let go.
"Ashton." I tried again, my voice cracking as I had shook him gently by the shoulders. As I watched him inhale sharply yet abruptly, I back away in a startled jump when his hazel eyes had shot open.
"W-we're stuck. We're stuck, and I don't know what to do. I'm scared. The only way out would be the window, and we're about ten stories up." I whispered, looking over at the closed door across from us.
"We can't leave. Look, if we were somehow planted here by Ghostface, then leaving might just be the trap that they'd want us to walk into, Hailey. Despite how crazy it sounds, I need you to keep a leveled mind about this. I need you to stay here, and we'll figure our own way out, okay?"
"We were drugged, Ash.. The party was the last thing I remembered being at, the shed. Where the hell is everyone else?" I whimpered, pressing my hands to my forehead in distraught at the fact they could be jeopardized at the moment being.
"They could be here." He uttered, letting out a sigh of grief.
"This was never over. These past months all we did was wrap our heads in this lie. This perfect lie. We tried, we really did but look at where we are."
"The truth's the hardest pill to swallow, Hailey." He muttered, sadly.
"It's not over." I whispered. "When has it ever been?"
"Maybe it was an ending we all deserved, so we believed it. Look, my phone's in my pocket. If you can get to it, we can try to call someone. Evie, I don't know, fucking Luke. We just need to know where everyone went."
"Okay." I spoke in a hushed tone, turning around to peer over my shoulder at the sight of the opened door. I shakily gasped, peril intensifying my very bones as I had seen the sight of the ghost-masked killer cloaked in black silk across the hall. Lights flickered, from darkness to light, the penultimate of the dark making it difficult to see every time the lights had went completely pitch black.
"No!" Ashton hollered hysterically, as I shrilled a scream. I had made a run for the door, slamming it closed.
"Ashton, w-we have to call someone. Before they end up hurt." I whispered softly.
His hazel eyes had softened, gaping at me in shock. I flip the lock in the midst of battling an oncoming panic attack, dragging a chair underneath the handle of the door before I ran my fingers through my hair in distress at the sound of a silver blade slashing at the metal door.
The knife had screeched behind the door, the dragging sound prolonging before it had followed with receding footsteps and an utter silence.
"Dammit! I have to get these fucking cuffs off." Ashton bellowed, as I flinched at the sound of his loud voice.
Both our eyes had wandered around the room for something, anything.
"The ax below the fire alarm." I muttered, feeling my head spin. "We can cut the chain loose that way."
"You can handle an ax, right, Hailey?" He asked her.
"Of course I can." I breathed out. "I mean, I've never handled one before, but I can figure this out."
"I trust you."
"Do you trust me?" I murmured with a quiver lacing my soft tone. With a shaky hand, on the edge of hyperventilating, I gripped the hem of my shirt, gripping it tightly as I ripped a piece and wrapped it around my knuckles.
"Of course I trust you, Hails."
Making a fist, I shatter the glass slightly with a single blow to the glass box that encased a red ax. Wincing, I whimpered before I screamed, punching the glass harder as the shards had scattered the ground. I shielded my face away as the glass broke.
"Okay." I nodded, taking the ax out as I gripped it in my hands. "Are you ready? Hold it over the bar, I can get an aim that way-"
"Wait." Ashton breathed out.
"What is it?"
"Space your hands out on the ax so you have a better swing."
I felt tears threaten to spill, realizing that the pressure of this entire situation quite literally overflowed to the very brim.
Abiding to the notion Ashton made, I grasp towards the tip of the ax at its bottom and near the top of its bold blade.
"On the count of three." I nodded.
"I love you, Hailey." He said as I stood there, feeling my fucking heart in my throat.
"I love you, Ashton. One, two... Three!" I cried, swinging the ax over my head, taking the deepest breath before I lunged the ax forward aiming for the bar with my eyes screwed closed. The ax hit dead center when I heard the metal chain split in half.
I feel my breath hitch, as I slowly opened my eyes, a sad smile making its way to my face. "Let's get out of here."
"What? We have to stay here, to get to the bottom of this Hailey. You and me, remember?"
"If what happened to my mom stood true... I have to get to her first. I have to talk to her about it."
"I'm going to stay here and kill this motherfucker." Ashton nodded once, his empty eyes gazing into mine.
"You're not staying here." I whispered. "Please tell me that isn't what you're thinking of doing, after we were baited to this trap."
"I'm not scared of whoever this is, Hailey. And you surely shouldn't be either."
"You better get out of this alive." I murmured. "You have to swear to me you will."
"I swear."
"Take it." I held the ax out to him as he nodded.
"Get home, and get to the bottom of what happened with your mom and the original Ghostface—Lanor. The more we know, the less damned we'll all be, don't you agree?"
"Yeah. Of course. Look, if anything does go down here, you either flee or call fucking Grant, Detective Jones, anyone, the entire police force." I went on, wondering if I was stalling finding out what'd be on the other side of that door.
I embraced Ashton, for the longest moment, as he pressed a kiss to my hair.
"I'll be seeing you soon Hailey, I promise."
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When I had arrived, limping weakly down my street, I wiped the sweat that had trickled from my forehead. I was snapped out of the daze I was in by bright blue and red flashing lights up ahead of me.
A few more strides forward, and it was then I realized that yellow tape blocked off the walkway into my house, cops and the press hounding at the front of my own home.
"No." I whispered gently to myself, running as quickly as I possibly could until I felt my lungs on fire. I still pursued to get to the front of my house, knocking into bodies that overlapped in conversation.
I headed over to where men in ambulance uniforms pushed a gurney, my mother lying on it, blood staining her clothes.
"Mom!" I cried, some of the officers holding me back.
"Hey, get off. Get the fuck off of her." I heard officer Desario say from behind me.
"Yes sir." They curtly obey, letting me walk.
I glanced over at him, nodding solely as a thank you before I had rushed over to where my mother weakly laid down.
"Mom, it's going to be okay." I sobbed. "Mom? Stay with me." I said, shaking her slightly by the shoulder when her eyes began to droop closed.
"Sweetheart?" She murmured, her eyes focusing on me.
"Hey, it's me. It's me." I gushed, sniffling as warm tears streamed down my face and onto the bloodied blanket below. "I'm her daughter." I was frustrated when one of the EMT's had tried to motion me to take a step back. "I'm not leaving her alone."
I pushed my entangled brunette hair back, pushing my way into the back of the ambulance car.
With all of my emotions suddenly wiped clean as I glanced over at my mom's lifeless body clinging onto the will to live within her, I turned over, looking out the windows from where I sat.
With the same look in Officer Grant Desario's eyes as the car drove away, he put the phone to his ear, mine abruptly ringing and vibrating from my pocket. I flinched at the sudden sound of the phone, repressing a gasp.
"It was Ghostface." Grant said over the phone when I had answered it. It's felt like I hadn't stopped shaking since I left the abandoned hospital.
"That's impossible." I murmured. "I saw him at the hospital."
"The hospital?"
"Lakewood Medic, last Ashton and I knew was that we were drugged, people at the party with us were drugged, and me and him woke up at the hospital."
"You didn't think to call for help?"
"For one, I was scared out of my mind, and two Ashton was cuffed down and I had to get him out, it was all my mind was telling me to fucking do in that moment, Grant so bite me. Murderers are conspiring against me, my friends, now my family, and I'm obviously not going to know what to do if the anxiety is eating away at me."
"If Ashton was with you, where the hell is he then?" He exhaled, stressed at the stakes that broke the scale.
"He stayed back because he wanted to wait on Ghostface, he had an ax so I trusted he'd be okay." I shook my head. "Look this all happened too fucking fast, I thought I was going to face my death sooner than later, and I could barely think straight."
"It's not your fault. Look, I think you and I both know we have to find out who these fuckers are, and it obviously isn't going to be easy."
"Yeah." I muttered, looking up at the light on the car's roof as I wiped my tears away. "Could you just please make sure my friends are okay, and let me know."
"Of course—"
"And Grant. My mom was involved in this, more than I thought, and I'm afraid one of the killers behind the damn mask could be my brother or sister."
"What makes you think that?"
"Dammit, Grant. My mother Rebecca Snow was a victim of the original Ghostface, a lover at that. Please read the files back at the station."
"Files?"
"Just... Don't tell detective Jones. Please." I exhaled.
"Okay. Fuck. I'm going to need another cigarette."