Ghost

Awaken

"Beats at a hundred. Patient seems to be gaining some consciousness."

What? What the fuck?

Lights and faces scribble around a pale blurred room. A constant beep resonates in her ear.

"I think she's waking up." says a muffled voice. Darkness blinks at her sight as she attempts to remember what happened. Where is she? Finally, the cloudy perspective sharpens to doctors watching her. She gently lifts her head up and looks around her. Clear cables and machines neighbor the bed she lays in. She tilts her head a bit more but frowns as a sharp pain wraps around her neck as she does so. To the left, there's a window. Glimpses of a warm smile accompanied by red hair spike in her eyes. Brooke?

A man approaches her in tears and caresses her. Dad?

"Julie, baby. God, I told you to be careful." he says. She was correct, it is her father.

"Dad.." she groans. "What happened to me? Why am I here?"

"You flipped your car on the road. Harold called me from when they were putting you in the ambulance. He told me you totaled your car, so I got out of the office and made it here as fast as I could." he says holding her hand as he sobs on her shoulder. He kisses her hand and continues to sob. "I love you so much Julie. You are all I have left in this life."

"It was Dana." she says in a broken voice.

"What?" he says lifting his head up. He looks at Julie in her eyes and sees nothing but a cold fear imposed inside of them. Her blood runs cold. Living dead.

"Dana was in the middle of the road. I swerved around her."

"What are you talking about?"

"I saw Dana!" she exclaims.

"Calm down, Julie."

"Where's my phone!?" she screams. She squeezes her father's hand tightly.

"Julie, baby-"

"Is Reese okay!? Where's Reese!?" she says pulling the cover off of her. Nurses rush over to her bed and hold her squirming body around as she screams.

"Julie, your friend is fine! He said he was on his way! Your phone is right here."

"Is he really?" she says gently. She stops twisting her body like a fish out of water and lifts the cover with her foot.

"Yes sweetie. Please, calm down. Tell me what happened."

The nurses snatch the blue blanket and tuck it around Julie, who just stares at her father. Two thin red lines are drawn on her cheek and forehead, as well as a minor cut at the bottom of her lip.

"I thought I saw Dana in the road, and I didn't want to hit her." she says, shaking. "She is my best friend, so why would I want to hit her with my car? She'd kill me!"

Mr. Borne looks at her, bewildered at this. He rubs her arm. She looks down at the gesture and smiles.

"Did you.. take any drugs, sweetie?" he says with concerned tone.

"No, Dad! I'm fine." she says. He continues to look at her.

"Dad, I know what I saw!" she says raising her voice again. "I'm not crazy! I'm not fucking crazy!" she yells. Mr. Borne holds and constrains her as she commences to squirm and repeats it.

"Julie, I'm here. Please, stop!" he says, kissing her head as she twitches and slithers in his arms like a fish out of water. She gives a sigh of relief and squeezes her father and groans.

"Do you think I'm crazy, daddy?"

"No, sweetheart." he says as a tear streams down his face. He kisses her head again and tightly holds her and shakes his head. "You're not crazy."

With a rapid entry, Reese stands in the hospital room, watching Mr. Borne and his daughter hold each other.

"Are you alright, Julie?" he says. Julie peeks through her father's embrace and releases him as she turns to Reese with a smile smacked on her face. Reese approaches her, giving Mr. Borne a slap on the back. He smiles and steps aside, leaning next to the neighboring machine. He hugs Julie tightly, and Julie returns the action. She looks at her father, who has tears in his eyes. He steps outside of the room along with the nurses and sits on the chair right outside of the door.

"You really scared me, Julie. What happened out there?" he says, letting go of her. She looks out of the window and looks back at Reese and shakes her head.

"I thought I saw Dana." she says coldly. "It looked so real."

"Sasha comes to me in my dreams." says a voice from behind Reese. He turns around and sees Brooke lying on her side, looking at Julie.

"Brooke?" he says.

"She came to say goodbye to me. She frequently comes to me and tells me what life outside of the earth is like. She says it's beautiful." she says gently. Julie looks at Brooke with a face of sadness. Reese looks down at the ground in silence.

"As much as I dream of her, I dream of him too." Brooke says. Reese looks back up at Brooke. "That mask.. behind that mask is evil. I see that horrid face in my dreams and all that comes to me are these chills riding through my veins, making my blood run cold. That pale mask is death's cousin."

Julie leans up on her side, facing Brooke and the silenced Reese. "What do you mean?" she says. Brooke lifts her legs and sits on the edge of the bed, shaking in her skin.

"That day at the pool, I looked through the mask and into that mad man's soul. It scares me to even call him a man, because that is no normal man. Under the costume and on the outside, he may seem like it, like you and me; but in that man is a black heart and twisted mind controlled by a dark entity. His immortal desire to hunt and kill is powered by that evil force inside. He is the boogeyman, except he never goes away, and he never stops until he gets what he wants. And what he wants, is you, Julie." she says pointing at her. Julie and Reese exchange sullen looks and look at Brooke again in the midst of the powerful silence.

"I remember when I found Dana." Julie says. "He called me. I remember he said he was the darkness that lives in the darkest corners of my mind." she says touching her scars. "I'm starting to believe what he said."

"Julie, listen to me. When you control the fear, the fear controls you. Don't try to fight the fear; fight the one who causes it. It's the only way to stay in control of your mind." Brooke says, holding her side. Reese approaches Julie's bed and sits on it.

"She's right, Julie. This guy is fucking with your head. He's trying to make you weak." Reese says, putting his hand on Julie's shoulder. She touches his hand and nods. "This isn't your average Stab killer. This guy's reinventing it." Brooke looks at Reese.

"What do you mean?" Julie says.

"Look at this whole situation, Julie. He's murdering people who've hurt you." says Brooke.

"What about Sasha? She never-"

"Sasha and Marcus were in on John's affair. Before you came to swim, that's all they rambled about before having sex in my room."

Julie, with an open mouth, shakes her head in disbelief. Brooke does the opposite and nods at her. "I'm sorry, Julie."

But Sasha comforted her in her own home. Why would she do that if she felt the same way about it?

"She was going to tell you everything after swimming, because she said she felt horrible about it. Sasha'd told me it was eating at her inside ever since Angie was killed."

At least she was going to apologize. Brooke and Reese are right about this killer.

He is killing everyone that has hurt her. That is when Julie wipes a tear from her face and stares at Brooke.

"John."