who's the bad guy here? / stella & the killer

After sliding beneath the narrow opening of the garage door, knife screeching against the cement floor as she does so, the rush of getting back up on her feet causes Stella's head to spin. Her bravery meets nausea, and her pride meets shame. Inevitably, her many dreams will have to meet the hard and terrible task of actually coming true.

That's the worst part of being the kind of person that Stella is. Only sixteen years old, loved by everyone who matters in her life, and yet already so detached from her empathy. All she wants is the wanting — to succeed, to be loved, all of these things she has convinced herself must be won. She does not know how to receive a trophy without snatching it, how to kiss someone she loves and not wonder who else their lips have touched, how to stand up for her brother for the first time in her life and actually follow through with it.

She knows she's not a good person, even if she's standing on this side of the battlefield. There's too many checkmarks in her list of goals to ever trick herself into believing she is not a person capable of doing wicked things — she's spent so long ironing all of her own insecurities into blank lines that it's impossible for her not to see the underbelly of everyone around her. All her life, she's lived on the reaction of it all, the way she can so easily capture the attention of a room. And people just love to watch other people get torn apart.

When she reflects on Scarlet, on the awful prank and the endless laughter, how she didn't even bother to watch the girl's heart shatter into pieces — all she can think is that maybe she will always be ruthless. She has never met terrain that has made her feel challenged; unknown territory that hasn't channeled some aspect of her rage into ambition. A conversation with Stella is like having a conversation with a scalpel; she always cuts deep, and clean, and all her life she has thought that this is okay. This is the game she's been playing.

The gunshot rings in her mind, but no one is here. Only tension remains in the space, the blur of her vision and the quick swipe of her hand to wipe away tears that she will not recount in her autobiography. Here's the thing, being headstrong and drunk are not a delightful combination. "Where the hell is everyone?" she mutters, brandishing her weapon and rushing out into the hallway, taking only a brief pause to lean against the wall and check for shapes in the shadows. "I know you're in here, bastard. And I'm coming for you!"

There's no blood that she can see, no splatter on the walls or a cry for help. If one of her classmates had been the target of the gunshot, it seems at least that they have disappeared unscathed. But the killer has to be just around the corner, a real and present danger that she believes her brother is telling the truth about. He's here, and they are unsafe, and now in their most dire moment Stella is playing the savior. This skin doesn't fit right, to be the person protecting and not the one harming. But she has no choice in the matter.

There is only this.

"I could give a rat's ass what you do to people like Cleo, or that nobody, Cassius," she shoves her way into the nearest area, scanning the open living room and the stillness there, "but stay away from my brother." Propped against the fireplace, she finds a fire poker, and she wastes no time taking it in her free hand. Wielding dual weapons, she presses ahead, stepping into a master bedroom and pausing only to admire the interior design. Elaina's parents have good tastes, that much she can see, but there is no killer— wait.

Glinting through the slightly ajar drawer of the bedside table, she finds a folded up pocket knife sitting pretty atop a few pieces of parchment. She takes it greedily and shoves it into her pocket for safe keeping, preparing herself for what she has already chosen to do. Girl on the warpath, a sister's love, the villain revealing herself as the anti-hero. "Come out, come out!" She exits and makes her way to the kitchen, the final room downstairs, and she thinks about what will happen when she finally comes face to face with the terror she's convinced she can handle all on her own.

"What's the matter? You only kill the people who don't see you coming?" Her scoff is a signature sound, a knife she doesn't even have to hold. "Face me, motherfucker. You don't get to run and hide from this." She turns a doorknob, and she steps into a nightmare. All of her dreams are quiet here. But in the silence, in the dark,

she knows that she is no longer alone.

part 2 of 2

"Watch those chapped lips of yours." Suddenly her war cries meet their target; and so easily the figure shrugs her fury off. Here she stands, armed to the teeth with various sharp objects, but the shadow standing in the center of the room seems to stare right through her. She is not a ghost, she is corporeal, and she takes her first few steps forward even as they continue to speak hatefully. Distorted tone, obscured features, the night speaks condescendingly to her like it's the monster to be wary of.

But she is not afraid of the dark, of things that cannot be denied and must be accepted. Intangible things cannot hurt her. Only the anonymous human across from her — the one that can be gutted in all the same places as her. Predator and prey take the stage; one has more notches on their belt, sure, but Stella is no stranger to cruelty. The difference between them is that when she does terrible things, she owns them under her own name, her own choice, a girl knocking over dominoes just to say she can and did.

When she was a child, she would sit by the anthills outside her home with her magnifying glass, and a very long time ago she realized she enjoyed watching lesser things burn. Or maybe that was simply her first taste of control, and now, she will do whatever is necessary to maintain it. Even face off against a known murderer.

"I can take out your tongue just like I did that 'nobody.' Or maybe I'll sew your lips shut like I did with Naomi? She can tell you all about it - oh, wait, she can't anymore. She's dead." Stella's head tilts, and her approach halts. Only moments ago, the brave little canary had volunteered to search for medical supplies, dashing into the house, and supposedly her light had already been snuffed out in the brief chaos that followed. Blood pooling through a white shirt, a scream piercing the night, a gunshot going off but only the smoke remaining in the room. There are a lot of unanswered questions here.

But she knows that right in front of her, real as any dream in her journal, this assumed stranger is the one that has been terrorizing them all from the very start. Now they're locking their sights on her, but she can't even see their eyes. Only the pitch black, the shape of a shadow unfolding, revealing a frame that cannot be identified. It disgusts her. Damn insults, and damn threats, what disappoints her more than anything else is the inability to own up to the truth. If they want to frighten her, it will take more than a coward's trick to unnerve her. She remembers the look on her brother's face, the cold chill of metal where his warm fingers used to clutch to hers, thumb brushing over her knuckles when things got too scary. Then she grew up, and she became the thing to be scared of.

"You all deserve it, Zeke included." She holds up her weapons at that, revealing her intentions where they will not. A dim light fills the space, just enough to make out the rage and the determination in her gaze; the way her fingers are trembling ever so slightly — the way that the longer she stares at the shape and listens to its terrible words, the more her heartbeat begins to quicken. Suddenly, all of this is more real than watching her frenemy bleed out, more real than accepting a blade from her brother and vowing to do whatever it takes. Cleo stood here before, in this very same moment, and so did Naomi, girl playing the hero and becoming the victim, and even Ca—

Her memory turns, ever the clever one / ever the girl who will search for any and all possible loopholes. She wills herself to keep her bravado, to deny the satisfaction of letting them see her truly lose her footing. Not until they drive a knife of their own through her skull, nothing will be enough. In the quietness, she thinks of a life she built of all her deepest wants, the boy that left her and returned, the family that uproots the very foundation of their home just to support her. Always, at some point in time, Stella was meant to confront the consequences of her actions. And if this crime is personal, if this stranger is actually friend or foe, then who else has more enemies than her?

All she does is hurt. She doesn't expect that to stop now.

"Do you think traumatizing people behind a mask is going to right some wrong?" She wants to laugh, to make the bad guy feel small, but from whichever angle she looks at them... she feels small, knuckles white hot against the hilt of her weapons, mind racing through possibilities and reasons and so many threads that just end up tangled. But she's the only one really here, the only person with a name, a purpose to be served, a punishment to be carried out. "Targeting a very specific group of kids, hiding in plain sight. It all feels personal. Tell me, what exactly do we deserve?" She closes in, chances fate.

What will be — will be. There's a checkmark waiting to be jotted down in her book. "And who are you to be the one to decide? Kill us all, whatever sob story lead you to this point will stay the same." Now, finally, she chuckles. Thinking of stories, gazing at the danger closer than she ever has. Trench coat, all skin hidden, eerie and brooding and all so... typical. She thinks again of her initial thought, the name that triggered her curiosity, the body that wasn't found and the funeral she did not attend. It all seems crazy, but nothing in this entire house is rooted in sanity. All she sees is a disturbed loser wearing a disguise, trying to right some wrong, like this will ever change anything.

All she has to learn from this is the name of the fucker she's going to tear apart.

"I just have to ask one thing: where'd you get the inspiration for the costume from? If Cassius were still here with us, this is exactly the stereotypical shit he'd love to see in a horror project. It all feels so... predictable, doesn't it? A bad novel with too many loose ends." She raises her arm to make her first strike right as she takes her final step, her checkmate move. "But that lonely little creep died a long time ago." She aims for all the vital parts, and thinks; what does a shadow know of what is and isn't deserved?

"Didn't he?"

stella attempts to stun the killer