Habit cups my face in his hands and forces me to look at him. "Run."
"No, I can't lose you!"
A bullet tears into the tree beside us.
"I can withstand anything in this body, you can't. Go now, y/n, please!" he hisses.
I don't want to leave him, but I know I have to. So I kiss him one last time before sprinting into the woods. Gunshots clang through the air and the sound sinks into my very bones. I bite back a scream and just run.
Like the typical cliche the universe likes to throw my way, I trip over a tree root and fall. A familiar laugh permeates the woods and dread grips my heart.
I remember watching EMH when they first started, and how watching these handsome dorks on YouTube brought me such joy and happiness, for no real good reason at all really. I remember how sweet, and timid, and kind Jeff was up until Jessa went missing.
There is no trace of that boy in this man's red-tinted eyes. Just anger towards me and the others. Just rage and a lust to kill.
No more innocent Jeff.
"I knew you two would split up," he says as more gunshots and shouting echoes through the woods. "It was just a matter of time. Although it was hard splitting up you two lovers."
"Well, I'm glad we provided you with such difficulties," I snarl. "What happened to the real Jeff?"
"He's gone. He died when Habit killed him, when he burned him to death!"
"So what now? You kill me to make Habit pay for what he did to you? You kill an innocent person you don't even know?"
"If that's what it takes. I'm not putting up with this shit anymore, I'm not going to let you, Vinny, Evan, and Habit live lives on my corpse!"
"This isn't you, Jeff."
"Oh no, it isn't me, but it's the me you made. You said I barely know you, and the same can be said for you and I. You don't know this isn't me."
"Have you really left your family behind for the Stick In The Mud? Have you really forsaken us all?" I ask.
He snarls at me, lifting me off the ground and slamming me against a nearby tree. He grabs me by the throat and starts to choke me.
Pure, unadulterated rage fills his red eyes and he starts to twist, morphing into a burned and tortured husk, a shell of what he once was. He smiles, his teeth showing through the muscle in his jaws. His hair is mostly burned away. He looks like death itself.
"Now you see what you made me," he snarls, getting closer.
"I ... didn't do this ..."
"No, but he did. And that fucker is the reason why I lost her. He's the reason I lost my brother. I lost everything. And now, so will he."
I punch and kick out as hard as I can and nail him in the nuts. He shrieks and drops me, and I collapse, seeing spots. He snarls and grabs me by my hair, yanking my head up.
"Ready to die?"
"Nope."
I lash out, headbutting his hand and arm, then I hook my leg around his and move, knocking him on his ass. I get up and laugh like the Observer.
"Take that, motherfucker."
Then I wobbly run back towards the gunshots, and away from Crazy Jeff, to Habit.
