A mask.
A smiley face, crude mask, painted with dark red.
Fresh blood.
I froze while my stomach turned over and nausea twisted my gut.
Blood. Real blood. Not a joke. Not a prank. Real. And not just an animal.
It smelled too bitter. This was human blood, too.
I sank to my knees beside the mask, my hands trembling while my fingers hovered above the plastic. My mind spun around and around, trying to make sense of this.
The storm outside rivaled the storm in my head. Rain mixed with fear. Fear mixed with vodka. All of it swirled around until I couldn’t sense anything else.
I heard my own voice echo back at me. “Xanthy…where are you?”
No answer.
The mask seemed to grow in my hand, my mind warping the smile into a cynical grin. Drenched in blood, dripping and vibrating under my palm.
I nearly collapsed. The adrenaline hit harder, keeping me awake as it mixed with the alcohol and panic until breathing felt impossible. And then, everything clicked at once like a gun.
Xanthy alone.
The phone call.
The messages.
Her voice was trembling.
“Go back to where it began.”
Carrington.
I felt my knees give out completely. The room swayed. The mask stared at me like warped horrors. My hands shook violently.
“No…he wouldn’t.”
I scrambled to my feet, stumbling down the hallway, knocking over a chair. The floorboards moaned under my weight as I called a new name out into the dark hallway.
“Carrington…where the fuck are you?” My voice cracked, raw and desperate. “Where’s Xanthy?”
No one answered.
There were just shadows, and the rain as it drummed on the roof above me, mocking my existence.
My mind flared. Memories of Xanthy, scared and trusting. Memories of Carrington, cold and precise. Every detail of their faces, their movements, flashed through my mind. My hands clenched in anger. My knees buckled again, and I dropped to the floor, pressing my forehead to the mask.
I whispered, fear and rage swirling inside me. “What the fuck have you done, Care Bear?”
I moved from room to room, stumbling over furniture, knocking into walls, trying to make sense of this shit. The electricity was off, and as I stumbled around, the hallways seemed endless, darkened mirrors reflecting shadows that weren’t there. The storm outside roared in my ears, and I pressed my hands over them, trying to block out the booming thunder.
I called her phone again…nothing, not even a dial tone.
I pressed my palms to my face, breathing shallow as I tried to focus, tried to hold the pieces together. Carrington had been three steps ahead.
All the messages.
