I Dream of Disney (Volume II)

He Haunts Me {Edward Gracey x Reader} Part III

Part III - Tying The Knot (Of The Noose)

"The world was full of monsters, and they were allowed to bite the innocent and the unwary." - Stephen King

I was terrified. I ran.

No longer did the floorboards creek, they screamed. Moats of dust spouted from the floors in tornadoes, rising from the floors like badly produced film effects. Gaggingly awful, the dank smell only got stronger. I was more spirit than human as I rushed across those floorboards.

I turned left.

It was a labyrinth. Doors were open on every side of the hallway and none of the vacant rooms was empty, yet I didn't look inside of any of them. Instinct propelled me forward to the one door that was closed, the one at the very end of the extensive hallway. Judging from the harsh thundering footsteps of my friends closing in on me, I suspected that they were close. I instantly grabbed the doorknob and pulled it tight. It was locked.

"Suzanne?" My voice was hoarse, "Suze - ?"

I knew it without knowing it: she was inside. Rattling the handle, I didn't stop fighting against the door. The lock was jammed. Abandoning the lock for a moment, my eyes whirred around in a frantic search for something to pry the door open with but the walls were bare of decoration. Stretching onto tiptoes, my fingers searched the edges of the door for a weak spot. Just below the uppermost corner, the door groaned.

"Cedar!" I yelled for help, "Guys! Here!"

I pressed with all my weight and the door buckled. It didn't open completely but it was just wide enough to give me a fleeting impression of a sight that harrowed me to the bone.

"Suzy!" I screamed.

The strength rose from within me like a wave of crashing water. Echoes rang down the corridor and I knew my friends were coming, I could hear them and I would have seen them if I was not so trained on the door: I was fixed on it. Taking a step back from the door, I sucked in a breath.

Cedar yelled, "(Y/n), don't - "

I rushed the door. My shoulder slammed against the wooden surface so hard that the door buckled and snapped, the rusted hinges pulled from the frame. Pain slithered into every crevice of my arm, somehow finding each twisted tendon and each vulnerable nerve. I might have cried out. All I knew was that there was something warm leaking across my hands and that the door was opened.

I hurtled through the doorway, stunned by the dust-and-splinters hurricane that erupted around me, but I was yanked back harshly. I squirmed.

"You idiot!" Marguerite growled in my ears, "If you hurt yourself, I'll kill you! Literally kill you!"

"That's kind of beside the point," Giavanna piped up nervously.

My eyes were wide and blind, jittery like the eyes of trapped prey. Suddenly surrounded by my friends who were pulling and edging and shouldering together in an improvised group huddle, I couldn't get the words out of my mouth. When I tried to turn and point, when words had failed me, my limbs were weak, "Door!" I gasped impatiently, "S-Suze."

Idalia understood. I felt her warm, slender hand retract from mine without realising that she had been holding it, tight in a fist, in the first place. Hands were pressing around me, roaming for injuries and seeking any breaks or damages. I was blubbering. Any minute, I was expecting to hear more screaming. Except that it wasn't the shrill girlish shriek of Suzanne Mercer. It would be more powerful, a strangled grunt of a scream from her brother, Octavius. I squeezed my eyes shut against the horror that I had seen. Or it would be Idalia screaming. And when Idalia screamed, they all did.