❦
Y/n was different. She wasn't her normal self snapping over her medication, playing dollies with Flora–earlier that day, she'd ripped one of Flora's dolls out of the little girl's hands, tearing the head right off of the body as if it was nothing. Flora had run back to her room sobbing into her hands and Kate scolded Y/n for doing something so rash.
"What is wrong with you? Flora just wanted to play dolls! If you really had so much of a problem with it, you could have just told her no like a civilized person!" Kate yelled, Y/n staring straight ahead, her eyes dull. The girl hadn't even flinched. It was as if her brain was turned off and she was no longer capable of reacting to sudden movements or the raised sounds around her.
Kate had noticed this and was immediately concerned for her little sister. Kate had known that this wasn't the same girl. Y/n would've loved to play dollies with Flora, not tear the little girl's doll in half–Y/n may as well have torn Flora's heart in half along with the doll.
"I don't have time for distractions." Y/n monotonically said, shifting her gaze slightly so it now rested on Kate. "The quicker I get it done, the happier he'll be." She finished, pushing past her older sister, heading straight to her room.
Miles, who had been sitting there, watching the whole ordeal unfold before his eyes, was struck with fear. He recognized the shallow, dismal look in Y/n's eyes. It was one that he once wore before.
It made his heart squeeze with the thought that Y/n wasn't herself, like someone else was controlling her. Miles thought the girl had been strong enough to fight it, so he let a few of his guards down. He supposes that only made her weaker, allowing his problems to pile up on her shoulders. He supposed that that's why she was no longer her sassy-self, her personality completely wiped. Like she had been implanted with a chip, a chip that described her character, deeming her traits. Like that chip had been taken out of her control system, replaced with one labeled 'kill mode'. A 'kill mode' chip that would stop at no end to get its task done, whether it led to its own demise. A chip that would ultimately destroy poor Y/n from the inside out the longer it was forced into her head.
"Why is she acting like that?" Kate whispered, pacing the room in front of Miles. Miles could distinctly pick out the scuff marks on the floor where the carpet had been worn down from the many people who had copied Kate's exact actions many moons before. He had so confidently known because he himself had been one of the lost people, pacing back and forth, trying to find something to help themselves. Miles remembers the sound of rubber shoe soles on the carpet, the strings slowly being unwound as his feet pounded against the floor, his mind soaring.
"I know." Miles replied before he could stop himself. Kate's feet stopped abruptly, her eyes now set on the boy. Miles wished more than anything that he hadn't said that. He wished he could go back in time to switch his words. He wished he could go back in time to change a lot of things, now that he thought about it.
"Tell me. What is happening to my little sister?" Kate desperately pried, trying to get Miles to spill.
"I–" Miles started at a loss for words. He'd wished he could go back in time. Wished he could revert his actions so he hadn't been expelled from school. Wished he could prevent Kate and Y/n from coming to the dark mansion. Wished he could take back his pinky promise to Quint. Wished he could keep his parents from going on that trip that ended their lives. Wished he could just be normal again, return to not fearing and feeling for anyone or anything. Wished he that he could just not fall in love with Y/n. But then again, he realized it was a bit too late for that. He was in too deep.
❦
"So you're telling me that your deceased friend–"
"Ex-friend." Miles said, grinding his teeth together, his fists clenching.
"Ex-friend." Kate corrected herself, shifting on Miles' mattress, obviously uncomfortable with the situation. "Turned into a ghost and is not possessing Y/n?" She finished, chewing on her lip. Miles had noticed that her appearance had slowly started falling apart the longer that she stayed in the house. Her lips were completely split and cracked, red from the amount of times she'd bit them open. Her eyes had distinct bags, purple and prominent, piercing her perfect pale skin. Her cuticles had been picked to non-existence, blood constantly dripping from at least one cut. Miles decided to cut her some slack although he didn't particularly like her. He would've gone insane too if he had been forced to live in this house with two crazy kids although he'd had a perfectly stable and decent life.
"That's exactly what I'm saying." Miles agreed, nodding his head. Kate frantically nodded her head along with Miles, letting the information process in her mind.
"How do we... you know... get it out of her?" Kate stuttered, wringing her hands together. Miles shrugged half-heartedly. It annoyed him to no end that he didn't know how to save Y/n.
"Not sure. Maybe I'll try asking Quint." Miles sarcastically spit. He understood that Kate was desperate to get her sister back–he would be too if Flora had been possessed–but he had no clue as to how this whole thing was going to be fixed.
"Can you really do that?" Kate asked, rocking back and forth on the edge of the mattress, biting her nails down to the skin.
"No." Miles retorted, snorting. Then, it was as if something clicked in his brain. He didn't know where he got the idea from, but it just might work.
"What is it?" Kate asked, noticing Miles' eyes widen and his mouth slip ajar as he came to realization.
"This isn't the first person Quint has possessed." Miles started off slowly, nodding his head. There were a few bits and pieces in his plan that were blank, but he'd figure out what to do when he got there. "Mrs. Jessel." Miles said sternly, standing up in a rush. "Mrs. Jessel!" He repeated, running out of his room, leaving Kate alone.
The hallways seemed quieter than normal when Miles trudged through them, his spine crawling with goosebumps. His whole body shook with shivers when he passed Y/n's room, slowing down at the sight of her door creaked open. Without thinking, he walked closer to it, knocking on the wood softly. There were quiet muffled laughs on the other side of the door, but Y/n didn't come to open the door for Miles. So, he took it upon himself to let himself in.
"Y/n?" Miles asked unsurely. In all honesty, he didn't know why he was in here in the first place. It was almost as if he was drawn here–it reminded him of how he was drawn to Y/n when he first saw her. Her tan skin glowed and her hair was a mess–bed-head he had assumed–but it still managed to create a halo around her head. Her faint freckles sparkling and shining depending on how the light hit her face. Miles surprised himself by remembering all this information about Y/n, but it somehow felt right to him.
He was hit by the smell of pennies, so he thought. Miles didn't exactly know what the smell was, but it smelled metallic like metal. If metallic even had a smell, he thought to himself.
"Miles!" A high-pitched voice giggled, but it didn't seem like Y/n's, it was too squeaky and unsure of itself to be Y/n. He'd always recognized her voice by its precision and carefulness. Yet, it was confident and not afraid to speak-up. Something that this voice didn't have.
Despite knowing the voice wasn't Y/n's, Miles followed it into the bathroom. The faucet was turned on all the way, water gushing out of it. The tub was overflowing, the water spilling over the edge, running into the drain that was luckily placed in the center of the floor (Miles had thought that putting drains in the center of a bathroom floor was stupid. What normal person would purposefully flood the bathroom? However, now he was eternally grateful for it).
"Y/n?" Miles asked, stepping closer to the tub. His eyes soon squinted as he realized blood plinking into the water, mixing and swirling as they went down the drain. His eyes followed the blood to the source. A well-manicured hand was draped over the edge of the tub on each side, the red liquid oozing from it. Miles tilted his head as he observed the red lines that were dragged across the wrist of the person.
Suddenly, a feminine figure sat up in the bathtub, the water splashing ferociously. She was gasping for air, her throat making wheezing sounds. She shakily brought her hands to her face, her chest heaving at she sobbed. She stared at the red on her wrists before she even noticed the boy standing in the room.
"Y/n." He whispered, moving closer to the tub. This, this was his Y/n. The one he knew and loved.
A faint smile quirked at the end of Y/n's lips, but it didn't make it to the rest of her face. Soon, her smile fell as she tears started tainting her beautiful eyes, making Miles' heart lurch in worry.
Miles watched as the tears welled up in the girl's eyes, but he couldn't bring himself to move or do anything for that matter. The tears weren't normal clear-ish blue, but this time they were an inky red. The bright red tears spilled over Y/n's eyes, depleting her eyes of their color, filling them with red. She wiped at her face, the red from her wrists mixing with the red from her eyes, creating the scene twice as heart-wrenching for Miles.
His body was frozen as he watched his lovely struggle in the tub, her eyes overflowing with red, just like the bathtub overflowed with steaming water. Suddenly, as if his puppet strings were cut, he was able to move. Hurriedly, he ran forward to the girl, grabbing her hands in his, cupping her tiny, dainty ones around his larger, calloused ones.
"Y/n." He whispered again, staring into her bleeding, red eyes. As if on cue, she blinked her eyes, the red washing out of them, her normal eye color melting away the black color that had taken over her eyes.
"Help me...," Y/n shakily whispered, blinking her eyes once more. The red flooding them once again. Her normal eye color faded back into pitch black, the sight of it sending shivers down Miles' spine.
Suddenly, Y/n's hand were yanked from Miles' grasp, her gut-wrenching scream filling the air before she was tugged back underwater. The surface of the water bubbled as her silent scream disrupted the still water. The impact of her being pulled back underwater must've caused her a nosebleed, because there was now a new stream of blood that rose up from the depth of the tub, infusing with the stuffy, warm water.
Miles stood up, scrambling backwards as he watched the once happy, go-lucky girl was thrown up and down in the tub, continuously being gagged by the water washing in her mouth. Startlingly, the sink faucet exploded, the water spewing out of it, bits of it splashing Miles. He watched as the sink water mingled with the bath water, all of it swirling down the tainted drain. Miles could feel his heart swirling too, as if it were being pulled down the drain along with all the debris and water that had messied the bathroom.
Frantically, Miles ran out of the room, squeezing his eyes shut. He was afraid that the longer he watched the girl whom he loved, the tighter the space in his chest would get as his heart wound up in pain. Luckily, he had gotten out just in time before he saw the girl scream her lungs out as a knife was held to her throat.
Quint was just beginning. Along with driving Y/n insane and getting Kate out of the house, he was also hurting Miles second-handedly. Something that he'd never been able to do while attached to the boy himself.
Chuckling, Quint gripped the knife even tighter, holding it to the girl's throat. His spectral body floating above the bathtub as he tortured Y/n to his heart's desire. And his heart told him that he wasn't stopping anytime soon.
[words : 2172
here, take this really long chapter that is very disturbing when i think about it ://]