Unfair | Cindy Berman

xɪ: ʏᴏᴜ'ʀᴇ ғᴜᴄᴋɪɴɢ ɴᴇxᴛ

TW: SELF-HARM AND DRUG ABUSE

Cindy grabs my hand and interwines our fingers, I look at her and nod, reassuring that I was ready for everything.

I can't let her die.

I won't let her die.

I promise.

We start walking again, looking for basically anything that could be our way out. A voice whispers, calling us from behind. We look behind gasping but there's no one there, we reassure each other we're fine and keep going.

"Boo!" Alice yells.

"Jesus, what the hell? I told you now to follow me?" Cindy says hitting her arm.

"Yeah, I didn't." She replies and hits her on the arm too. "You went in a circle. Fucking circle." She says and I sigh. How the fuck are we getting out of here? Cindy grabs the Mary's book from the floor while muttering some stuff.

"What are you doing?" I ask her confused.

"This symbol, it branches off here. Four times. Three there, one there. Just like this cave, it's the same." She explains. "Sarah Fier cut off her wicked hand on Satan's stone, scarring the soil beneath with the witch's mark." She quotes the poem again. "Scarring the soil" She says while pointing her flashlight through the place.

"So what, like, the witch made this fucking place?" Alice asks.

"Or the settlers claim she did. It doesn't matter." Cindy replies. "All that matters is this symbol.  It's a..."

"It's a map." I say and Cindy smiles at me. "Cindy Berman you're so fucking smart I could kiss you right now."

"Well, there's nothing stopping you." She replies and I freeze.

"You guys do realize I'm here right?" Alice interrupts the moment, and I roll my eyes to her making Cindy laugh. I always liked her laugh. We start following Cindy's instructions, walking through the place.

"Alright, it branches off again here. Just stay left." Cindy says.

"I cannot believe this is working." Alice says.

"It's taking too long. He could be back at camp already." Cindy replies worried, suddenly Alice turns around looking at us.

"Cindy, if you have to kill him...could you?" She asks.

"Earlier, when Mary attacked, I just...I froze. I couldn't do anything. So no, I..I couldn't kill anyone, much less Tommy." She answers and then Alice looks at me, waiting for me to answer too.

"If...If killing him means protecting the people on this camp, I would." I respond. "And you?" I ask her back.

"I would happily kill him." She answers.

"God, even after after everything you're still a jerk." Cindy responds.

"Okay, I'm sorry. I just...I never got what you saw in him, when you had something so much better." She chuckles and looks at me, I hold my laugh. "And that was before the witch possessed him."

"Tommy." She turns around. "He may be the person I didn't want but he was sweet, for some time he made me feel like everything was going to be okay. I loved him, not the way he loved me, but I really did love him." She says, starting to tear up.

"I loved Arnie too." Alice says. "I loved that gross, high little shit." She jokes, but in a still sad tone. We suddenly hear a weird noise.

"Do you guys hear that?" I ask, and they nod at me.

"There's this space here up ahead." Cindy mentions, looking at the book. "All roads lead here." She continues saying, while pointing to the circle in the middle of the symbol.

"Is there any other way around?" Alice asks, uncertain because she didn't want to go there. Cindy denies, moving her head. As we enter the place we see a bunch of flies, and a dark liquid coming through the walls.

"Guys, what is this stuff? It's everywhere.." Cindy asks and I don't answer because I don't know what the fuck this is.

"Guys?" Alice calls us, and we look at she is looking. I freeze there.

The cave is alive. It has a fucking heart and it's fucking beating.

I believe in God now.

Hi God please take me from here.

"What the fuck is that?" I ask.

"Let's get out of here." Cindy suggests and she starts roaming around the room, looking for the rest of the path and I decide to follow her. I look behind and see Alice frozen while touching the heart beating thing, Cindy grabs her by the arm.

"Alice?" Cindy calls for her but Alice just screams, looking at her horrified and starts running away. She was looking around like she was seeing things, or hearing.

"Alice?" I call for her but she continues running. We run up to her and see her groaning, I look at her leg and see her bone showing off, ouch.

"Alice!" Me and Cindy go up to her and I start to find some way to cure her wound.

"I was there. I was in the past." Alice says breathless.

"You're okay." Cindy reassures her.

"I saw the...the killers. They killed so many and you're next. You're fucking next!" She continues.

"No she isn't, we are not dying tonight." I say.

"That's not true. I'm right here." Cindy says.

"The witch did this. She did all this. She put a curse on Shadyside, Mary was right."

"I know." Cindy replies. "The cave was alive. Tylenol can't do that." She continues, she finally accepted the truth. Alice laughs but then groans in pain because of her fracture. I gently move her leg so I can treat her, Cindy drops some stuff on her bag so we can at least put something around it. "You were right by the way. I am a snitch. After we stole Mr.Evan's JVC player, Harold Hines saw me with it." I grab her leg and mentally prepare myself to put her bone back in.

"Fucking Harold Hines." She says and then she screams in agony as I push the bone back in.

"Next thing I know I'm in the Principal's office, and my dad can't come in because he just ran off with some girl not so much older than I am now." Cindy keeps talking as she gives me a comb and a pad so I can put it on Alice's leg. "And my mom, well, she was having a few drinks at a bar. And I knew then...I wasn't different from the other shadysiders." Cindy had already told me this before, it was the first time she ever opened up to me. "I was cursed. I told myself if I was perfect, if I did everything right, I could beat it." She says as I wrap the pad around her leg. "I snitched on you, I got new friends, I..started dressing like this." She rips a part of her polo shirt and hands it to me so I can tie on Alice's leg. "I dated sweet Tommy. I avoided you, but I couldn't avoid Ziggy. Because she was always there, reminding me of the truth. That this town, this place...was cursed." As I tied up Alice I could feel some tears running from my face, hitting on the ground, it's so tiring to live like this, in this town, where wherever you go....there is always darkness following you. "And so were we. Now I know. She was right...all this time." Alice screams in pain as I tie the cloth so it doesn't fall off from her leg. "I've been a bad sister. I've been a bad friend. I should've just..skipped class, partied, had sex, had fun."

"I hate to break it to you, but the fun it's not any more real than your polo shirt." Alice says. "There's a reason why I wear these." She continues as she starts removing her bracelets. "And it is not just because they're awesome." She turns her arms and I see some healing scars on her wrists, we don't deserve this.

"The fun it's just good at the beginning, then it destroys you slowly...just like this town." I say and look at Alice. "Remember the first time I tried the hard ones?" I ask her and she nods. "Since that moment everything went down..."