Flatline ((Jughead Jones)) 3

25

The second we left the room, the Gargoyle King was standing in the corridor, looking at us, his branches meant to be wings casting long shadows that brushed against our toes. This had been what we wanted, get to the king and unmask him. Step 1, draw out the monster, was complete.
"I did what you asked. I came here with Cynthia." Betty said, stepping forward with me beside her. Behind the mask was probably just some high school gaming geek obsessed with board games, so I believed I had nothing to be afraid of.
"What do you want?" I called out to it, waiting for it to answer with more than a head tilt, waiting for him to give some kind of clue that he was not a mythical beast but was in fact human. Betty then pulled out a gun from her bag she was carrying, shocking me to the core as she demanded to know who was standing in front of her. She should have shot the gun.

Instead of an answer, a body pushed Betty down to the ground before holding me by my hair. My once perfect braids were now being ripped out of my skull as I looked to Betty in horror. I couldn't see who was behind me, and from the look on Betty's face, I really didn't want to see. My breath was caught in my throat as it dawned on me what was happening. I had been lucky the first time, against all odds the multiple stab wounds hadn't killed me. There was no way my luck was going to hold up.

A cold metal was against my neck, and from glancing down, I saw that instead of a hand, he had a hook. Something told me that if that tore through my throat, I would not be walking into school Monday morning. As I looked to Betty, I saw her gaze as I was going to be alright. She reached up from her place on the floor and pulled his hook towards her, away from my neck. While he was caught off guard, she kicked his leg and then ripped me out of his hands.

With my arm firmly clasped in hers we took off down a corridor, me trying to see though the tears that clouded my vision. When we were inside one room, I managed to get a brief look behind me. He wasn't racing after us, he was stalking us, slow, precise. He knew he could take his time and that no one was coming for us. Inside the room, someone was lying on the floor, blood pouring from their chest as they stared at the window.

I slid down the wall, bringing my hands to my head and rocking back and forth, trying to hold in my panic. My hands were shaking and I felt like I was about to throw up. Betty was desperately calling to her dad as he rattled the door, trying to appeal to his better nature.

Then he forced his way into the door and I lifted my head to see Betty being pushed into the cabinets in the Blue and Gold room, a room that Betty had made her office. When I saw her pinned down to the desk, I stood, trying to shake off my anxiety and save her like she had saved me. I lifted a small desk piece, a figure of some important person's head, and slammed it into the hood that Hal was wearing. This allowed Betty to slip out of her father's grasp before running with me once more.

I felt like my legs were about to give out, as I pushed myself to keep moving. Betty tried the fire exit that we knew was chained, hopelessly trying to make the chain budge. Both her and I were screaming, crying for someone to help and praying that someone could hear us enough to come to our rescue.

The soundtrack to any chase in every horror film is meant to build suspense. That was exactly what Hal Cooper had achieved as he dragged his hook over some lockers, effectively sending a screeching sound straight to our ears. This screech, and our heels running against the floor were our soundtrack. Something I was always a firm believer of, was if you were going to wear heels, you must also be able to run in them. There was no way Betty or I would be one of the classical female deaths in a slasher film as they barely managed to keep our footing while running from our inevitable deaths. As much as running in heels was no problem, running in heels while being dragged around corners by someone else, while trying to suppress an anxiety attack as I screamed for help was slightly harder than I imagined. If it weren't for Betty guiding me, I wouldn't have stood a chance of seeing through my tears.