𝐒𝐄𝐀𝐒𝐎𝐍 𝐎𝐅 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐖𝐈𝐓𝐂𝐇

𝟎𝟕. 𝐬𝐧𝐚𝐩 𝐜𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐤𝐥𝐞 𝐩𝐨𝐩

𝐉𝐮𝐥𝐲 𝟏𝟐𝐭𝐡, 𝟏𝟗𝟕𝟖

(Y/N) O'Connor

(Y/N) Van Buren

(Y/N) Marshall

(Y/N) Davis

(Y/N) McCradle

(Y/N) Vanderbilt

(Y/N) Greene

(Y/N) Williams

The names went on and on, covering at least two of the dusty, veiled stones. Each of them had a slash driven right through like it had been crossed out and re-written again and again, century after century leading up to this very moment. There was only one name left without a strike.

Alice joined you, her jaw dropping as she read from the stones. "Holy fuck."

It felt wrong, but you still reached out to drag your fingers against the freshest carving where your name had been written as clear as day.

(Y/N) Jameson.

"That's...That's me."

"They're all you."

"But this is...me."

Cindy shuffled over carefully and pointed her flashlight at the powdery stone slab. "...What did Nurse Lane say to you again?"

And suddenly your entire world began falling apart.

"She said that...that she saw my name on the wall."

You were seriously about to puke.

Your fingertips erupted with the sensation of pins and needles and you yanked your arm back from the wall of names. If this was a prank, it was an awful one. But something told you that whatever this was, it was real. Bile rose up your throat and pinpricks of tears formed in the corners of your eyes.

"I want to leave. I can't be here." You turned away from the stones and marched uncertainly toward the arched entrance of the room. The stale air of the cavern was making your chest tighten and a bubble of panic was threatening to burst inside of you.

"(Y/N), wait!" Cindy pleaded, following close behind. "There has to be a reasonable explanation for all of this!"

"Yeah right," you scoff, getting on your hands and knees to duck through the low passage. You were so done with all of this. All you wanted to do was retreat to your nice, warm cabin with Tommy and wait out the rest of this fever dream. Maybe, if you were lucky, you would wake up tomorrow with zero memory of the witch's house. You could go the entire rest of the summer pretending that you never found what you found tonight.

"Unless that reasonable explanation starts with Sarah and ends with Fier, I'm—"

Your flashlight caught the glint of metal and your eyes snapped up just in time to see Tommy yanking a rusted hatchet off of the cellar wall. The words died in your throat at the sight of his cold and unfeeling expression. 

Cindy and Alice crowded around you, confused at your silence, but none of you had time to ask what he thought he was doing before he lifted the axe high above his head and speared it into the base of Arnie's skull, chopping the flesh and bone clean in half.

A wet choking sound left Alice's mouth and her arms threatened to buckle under the weight of her body. You could do nothing but gawk up at the scene unfolding before you — the beam of light from your flashlight illuminating the bloody spray and making it glitter like freshly fallen snow in the inky black cellar.