Dying to Breathe

9.8: introduce new rules

A/N: Sorry that took a few extra days to get to! How have you been? Here's the final part in chapter 9! Listen to Joke's On You :)

Chapter 9, Part 8: Introduce New Rules

"Elliot!" Nina giggled with a bright smile lighting up the room, making Penelope's smile fade as her stomach suddenly spun too quickly.

"Elliot?" she felt her voice sound out from afar, confusion blinking her eyes repeatedly as she watched Riley interact with Nina enthusiastically.

Elliot?

Standing in a stupor as things spun violently around her, it was like everything was blending and blurring. Things she thought were one thing becoming something completely different in a dizzying show of colours and movements. Reality was so far from her grasp and the ground of the ocean was even further—her head sinking under the violent waves again as she saw everything through a filter of crashing water.

She felt the coldness before she realized what had happened.

Vibrant red liquid poured over her vision—the rough ocean waters so real. So cold. So bloody. So sweet?

She felt her knees give—her reality mixing impossibly with every nightmare she had of Millie drowning as she stumbled down to the ground.

"Chloe, what the fuck is your damage?" The distant rage of the familiar voice shook her temporarily free from the depths of the bloody waters.

Penelope looked down, the red alcoholic beverage staining her clothes and forming a puddle around her on the hard wood flooring. She looked up with confusion written on her paling face.

Chloe stood above her, holding a now empty punch bowl over her head as a wicked smile curved on her pink lips matching her pink lingerie and night robe—something dangerous glimmering in her enraged grey eyes as she tossed the large bowl to the ground carelessly, "Consider this me officially partaking in the dare." She turned to the gasping students—their phones already on and pointing towards the scene, "I, Chloe Natasha Vanderbilt, am officially throwing my hat into this goddamn ring and I am going for the mother fucking gold—let's prank the new blood until she fucking breaks." Announcing with a laugh, she peered back down, her cold eyes glowing, "We. Are. Not. Dead." Spitting each word venomously, she held her chin high up in the air, "But you are to me."

"What the fuck...?" Penelope breathed out, trying to fight the drug induced waves washing over her in a sickening repeating rhythm. "What...?" shaking her head she squeezed her eyes shut, "We're not dead...?" She couldn't keep up with her racing thoughts—each thought leading to something different that barely correlated at all, yet completely added up to the same thing: Millie.

She slowly stood up, the sticky fluid dripping down her skin uncomfortably.

"It was all a... dare?" She whispered, her eyes wide, yet not seeing anything but her stream of thoughts like they were physical objects of her state of confusion and frustration and growing anger.

A dare the whole student body partook? Riley was Elliot? There was a dare specifically about her? Chloe just announced she hated her? Everyone was sounding just like Millie? Elliot was Riley? 'We're not dead'? She kissed her boyfriend's best friend? Someone actively made a dare about her? How did this all connect to Millie? She cheated on her boyfriend with his best friend? Millie said that exact line so many times? A dare? Nina was in love with Riley? It was all a fucking dare? She kissed the boy Nina's in love with? Millie was somehow the linking piece, right? A dare? Really? That's it? That's all it was? A series of pranks by the student body being pulled on her? Because. Of. A. Fucking. Dare...?