The Nemesis

CHAPTER ONE: SEASON OF HORRORS

October 1, 2020

"Yo, nasty-Nast! Catch this!", shouts out a mischievously smiling Rudy as he aggressively flourishes a plush Jack Skellington doll, that is almost twice the size of his stout ten-year old body, over his head.

"Which Nast?", asks Theo with a playful wink at the boy.

"The singer nasty-Nast!", shouts Rudy as his mischievous smile turns devious.

Then, he tosses the doll straight at the back a tall, pallid-faced, morbidly skeletal teen girl, whose mind and arms are focused all onto the impossibly compelling mission of standing on lavish rose-pink Gucci pillows piled upon a pea-green velvet camelback sofa and hanging bloody-red Halloween lights on the sky-high, medieval-arabesque dome frames of the colossal arched ceilings.

The doll cruelly smacks the poor teen's face, making her medium-length dark-chocolate curls bounce once, and her feet lose balance. She lets out a surprised yelp before crashing onto the sofa beneath her, with a quiet "pooosh!" of air, as the plush sofa seat slightly sank under her feather-light weight.

Finn, who was decorating the grand ceiling alongside Pip, Gaten, Caleb, Noah, and Maya, yells out, "El!", as his eyes grow larger as if to almost bulge out of his sockets.

His scream pierce the jolly air of the living room, forcing everyone to be on high-alert. Finn immediately leaps off from his sofa and jumps onto Pip's sofa and abruptly places her head onto his lap with hysterically trembling fingers. Pip's long, ebony eyelashes flutter as Finn's hands frantically run all around her face, as he shouts at her, "El! El! El!" with flecks of dry saliva drizzling everywhere.

At Finn's dramatic commotion, Gaten, Caleb, Maya, and Noah all make haste and crowd over on the sofa's armrest as if Pip is Snow White in a glass coffin. Gaten asks in a loud voice, "Oh my god! Oh my god! Is she having another nosebleed?!".

Pip tries to see through the well-intended chaos surrounding her and opens her mouth to speak, "No, no nosebleed. I-", when Maya suddenly shouts out, without looking at her, "Pip fainted! Pip fainted!".

Theo, Cecilia, and Carys instantly hurry over to Pip, at once, their sock-covered feet sliding across the intricate brown and chestnut, versailles-parquet-floored living room, as if ice skating. Iris, who was decorating one wall of books with hand-woven fake spider-webs alongside Cecilia, runs to Pip as her face darkens with dread, thinking, poor girl finally gave out.

Timothee and Eve drop their two medium-sized brown, dusty cardboard boxes labeled "MISC. HALLOWEEN DECO" , and flock to Pip's side, they see Noah and Caleb fanning Pip's cold-sweat-beaded face with their hands, creating a whirlwind around her and further confusing her eyes.

Again, when Pip is about to speak, she is interrupted by Anwar, Bella, Margot, Harry, and Rose, who were at the other end of the living room, running to her side and collectively asking, "What happened?", with their eyebrows knitted in concern.

Finn bends over Pip and nearly smothers her as he possessively shields her upper body from the worried crowd, and asks in a terrified voice, "Back away from her! Get away! She needs privacy!".

Pip smoothly slips out of Finn's tight grasp as she pats him on his arms with a whispery laugh.

"Finn, it's nothing. And you guys are seriously paparazzis?! I'm fine, don't worry.", jokes Pip.

The anxious uproar of the crowd dies down with a collective sigh of relief and they begin to return to the fun of Halloween decoration. Pip attempts to stand up from the sofa, when a sharp feeling of dizziness clouds her vision like fog, making slightly sway sideways. She weakly falls onto Timothee's already outstretched arms, like a shriveled autumn leaf.