Dying to Breathe

11.1: horrific rose blooming red

T/W: blood & tiny bit of gore (going right in with it... don't say I didn't warn you in the author's note lmao)

A/N: goal for this update: to make you momentarily stop breathing. It aint called dying to breathe for nothing ;) Please listen to Love Can Kill by Lennon Stella

Chapter 11, Part 1: Horrific Rose Blooming Red

The white—now stained red—leather wound around her wrist was the first thing Penelope noticed. Even without the bracelet, she would have clicked the pieces together.

She would always recognize Millie—even when she wasn't identifiable.

But it was the mere recognition of the bracelet that made her chest clench—her heart suddenly too full as it faltered. She had gifted it to Millie the week they had gone to a neighbouring beach back when they were 16. A few months after giving her the bracelet, Millie had told her she had misplaced it. To anybody else, that simple tie would have meant nothing. But to Penelope and Millie, it was a pact made to be fulfilled on their 18th birthday.

It was now in less than a month's time—their birthday. And all Penelope had to show for it was a blood-stained leather bracelet and tear-filled eyes as her sister's violent movements came to an abrupt, blood-soaked end.

When Penelope Jones woke up that morning, on top of cursing herself for drinking so much, she vowed to be done playing the fool. She made it her new goal to never be out of the loop again—and yet, here she was. Once more, the last to know. Once again, the unmistakable fool.

Her morning consisted of learning everything she could about the mysterious dare game. The website wasn't hard to navigate—her memories of the night blurry, however, she remembered almost vividly the familiar presence of someone showing her the ropes. She even dared to hope that Millie could have been that person. Who else made her feel so on edge, yet inexplicably at home?

As soon as she opened the infamous webpage, she was met with a blank, black screen. Everything felt a little eerie; a little unsteady—or maybe that was her brutal hangover. She watched with her breath stuck in her lungs as a purple glow began to grow, creating a buzz like sensation under her skin as it turned into a floating purple orb in the middle of the screen—casting the only light in her room in the very early hours of the morning. As she waited for something to happen, a slow slanted message was scratched out on top of the orb.

Do you dare?

As the question mark was messily scratched out, the entire screen suddenly cracked inside of her hand—making the purple orb flicker, glitching out until she was once again met with a blank display. As quickly as it went out, the glitch seemed to come back to life—the orb splitting until it was two neon scripted options like hanging signs at a bar:

Members

Join us.

She could feel her heart inside of her chest, each thump wavering and unreasonably violent. Everything seemed to have been adding up to this moment. For some reason she couldn't explain, it felt as if she were signing away her very soul as she touched the signup option. With a heavy anticipation in her stomach, the font swirled back into a purple orb—three more orbs appearing, each with a different colour, spread along the screen.

"Classify yourself?" Penelope read allowed anxiously, watching script appear under each orb—describing them more in detail.

Each orb represented an element: red, fire; green, earth; blue, water; purple, air. As she hovered over each glowing orb, another word appeared: Players (fire), Voters (earth), Givers (water), Drifters (air). Players were the people who did the dares; Givers were those who gave the dares; Voters were those in charge of leaderboard scores; and Drifters were a little bit of everything. And at anytime, members could change their classification.