𝕯𝖆𝖒𝖆𝖌𝖊𝖉 ☽ 𝕒𝕙𝕤

𝕮𝖍𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖊𝖗 𝕾𝖊𝖛𝖊𝖓

𝙼𝚒𝚕𝚔 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝙲𝚘𝚘𝚔𝚒𝚎𝚜 - 𝙼𝚎𝚕𝚊𝚗𝚒𝚎 𝙼𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚒𝚗𝚎𝚣

☽

I'm in my room when I hear the doorbell ring. My parents just left to go to some dinner and I've been left home alone. No surprise there.

As I walk down the stairs, I hear the doorbell ring several more times, not waiting for the last chime to end before the next starts. Whoever it is, they're getting impatient.

I look through the peep hole, and there's a woman standing there with blood dripping down the left side of her face.

"Excuse me ma'am, I'm hurt and needing some help," she says through the door in a monotone voice.

'How did you get hurt?' I shout to her, not wanting to let her in. She only responds with the same line.

"Excuse me ma'am, I'm hurt and needing some help," she drones and starts banging on the door.

Something's not right, and there's no way in hell she's getting into this house. I close the peep hole and step back.

"Excuse me ma'am I'm hurt and needing some help," the woman repeats slower and louder, banging harder on the door. For a second I'm worried she might break it down.

And then the banging stops. I put my eye up to the door again. She's gone. Thank goodn- the back door.

I can't remember if it's locked, and I rush to it as fast as I can. When I grab the door handle and try to lock it, it starts turning from the other side.

I can't reach the key without letting go of the door. I put my whole body weight against it, but she's too strong. The door gives way. I stagger back, unable to run even though my mind is telling me to.

"Excuse me ma'am, I'm hurt and needing some help," she says again through her teeth.

She raises her arm up and I flinch. There's something in her hand. I expect it to be a knife, but it's a... bowl. She swings it at my head and everything goes black.

✧✧✧

I wake up tied to a chair in the living room. The woman is standing over me. I try to struggle against the binds on my wrists and ankles but it's no use. She starts circling me and talking in a low voice.

"I've checked the house and there's no one else here. I guess we'll have to wait for someone else to come back until we can start."

"S-start what?" I ask, not really wanting to know the answer.

She doesn't respond, but she picks some white clothes up off the coffee table.

"Put these on," She practically throws them at me, and starts untying the binds. "And don't go anywhere or I'll kill you."

The woman starts pacing around the room, waving the gun around as she talks.

I slowly start to put the clothes on, trying to stall her and buy me some time until I can come up with a plan.

'Back in 1968, two nurses were murdered, within these very walls,' she explains.

Suddenly it all starts coming together. The clothes she gave me are a nurse's uniform - this is a re-enactment. This keeps getting worse and worse.

'The first was Maria - that's you - he knocked her over the head with this antique bowl,' she picks up the bowl from the table, holding it up to the light and admiring it. She starts walking around me. 'Then, she woke up restrained and he came up behind her and stabbed her repeatedly until she died.' She pulls a knife out and moves it around behind me.

'Then, there was Gladys. He drowned her in the upstairs bathtub.'

That part of the story sounds familiar. My nightmare - I saw a nurse dripping wet in the corner of the room. 'Look what he did to me...' it all suddenly makes sense to me. And it wasn't a nightmare.

She goes to continue but she's stopped by knocking at the door.

'Sounds like someone's come to join the party,' she laughs cynically, leaving the room and locking the door behind her.

I frantically struggle to release my wrists and ankles but once again to no avail.

'Evie?'

'Tate? How did you get in?'

'Never mind that,' he says walking over and starting to untie my ankles from the chair.

'I'm so glad you're here,' I pant.

He releases the first knot and moves on to the second.

'Just some early trick-or-tre-'  the door opens and a look of anger washes over her face. 'What are you doing here?'

She pulls the gun out of her pocket and holds it up at Tate. He slowly turns to face the woman and raises his palms up in submission.

Then something happens that I can't quite comprehend. She must've hit my head pretty hard, but Tate disappears and reappears standing behind the woman.

As she looks around in confusion, he grabs the heaviest object he can find and bangs it over her head, hard.

When she falls to the floor, the base of the candlestick is red with blood, and there's a hefty dent in the back of her head. Oh God. She's dead. Tate just killed someone.

He runs over to me and finishes untying the binds. When he's done, I try to stand up but the room is spinning and I feel like I'm going to puke. I almost fall, but Tate catches me and lowers us to the floor.

I start crying into his chest, trying to understand what just happened. Someone just tried to kill me. He rests his chin on the top of my head and wraps his arms around me.

✧