Chapter Text
The air was heavy tonight, swollen with the dampness that clung to the midwestern summer like a second skin. At this hour, you check your clock, almost 9 P.M. the park is empty, actually, that is the reason you decided to go there in the first place.
You can barely see around you, only the jogging lane is illuminated, a narrow strip of cracked asphalt stretching endlessly through the woods. It’s perfect.
Resting your hand on a tree bark you swing your right leg to the right, then to the left, stretching your muscles. They ache from the abuse — you have been running everyday since last week trying to bring some peace to your mind, but it’s nothing compared to the weight pressing on your chest. Everything in your life has been so much lately.
You lived in what is one of the smallest towns in your state but you’ve never been somewhere louder. Every neighbor lines behind their white picked fence to shout ‘hello!’ as you pass by, and when you turn your back to them their eyes trail behind you until you lock the door. Then, when you think you finally breathe again, their whispers seep through every crack in the walls, buzzing like flies.
This town is the kind of place where every cough echoes down the streets and every secret rots slowly exposed in the humid dark.
On top of that there’s this fucking headache.
You’ve never been one to suffer from this before, but now, you can’t remember what it’s like to not have one. It’s like there’s someone drilling your head and pushing your eyes to inside your skull.
Running is the only thing that helps. So you decided to go to the only place where everything seems to calm around you, hoping the rhythm of your feet would drown out the noise.
Still, today the humidity closes in, suffocating, and your heart is unsettled, beating against your ribcage like a bird that needs to be put down. A violent urge hides behind your closed fists and forced breaths.
You don’t give in too much thought before just sprinting towards the badly lit path in the woods. It’s not helping.
Nameless faces from school pass through your mind, you can’t wait to never see them again. There’s very few people who you actually like from that disgusting place, but somehow every one of them seems to be pulled in by you like a moth to a flame. Always trying to please you, to be near you and to be your friend.
It’s always been like this, from when you entered middle school to your senior year in high school, so you thought you would be more used to it by now.
But you’re not, you just want to bash their head in with a hammer.
The air feels like needles entering your lungs. Your sneakers squeak as they hit the cracked asphalt road, it gleams faintly under the starry sky, its edges bleeding into patches of earth, mud and weeds.
You run, run as if your life depended on it. But it’s not enough.
Music explodes in your ears as you delay the end of your run, by this hour you should have been home now. You pretend you don’t see the unanswered calls of your mother, probably desperate to know where you are. You don’t want to go home, you don’t want to return to your life, you hate it, hate everything.
It feels like there’s something wrapping long and slender fingers around your neck.
The clouds sagged low, swollen with rain that never seemed to fall, and the air smelled of wet grass and rust. Your shoes scuffed against the road, leaving faint streaks of dirt.
You feel that there’s something inside of you that’s about to explode.
It is when you see her. Under a single light post there’s someone sitting in one of the forever damp wooden benches of the park.
Anna Harrison.
Unconsciously your mouth curves upwards, a predatory glint shines in your eyes. You stop and put your hands over your knees, pretending to catch a breath. Taking off your wired earphones and shoving them in the pocket of your rain jacket. You watch her from behind your lashes, a single drop of sweat runs down your face. She hasn't noticed you yet.
You position yourself upright, and continue down your path, now slowly.
“Freak” you curse under your breath, loud enough for her to hear, amusement coating your tone. She purposefully doesn't look up from her sketchbook. So she did see you, your smile widened and you stopped in front of her. “Freak.” You roll the name on your tongue.
“Shut up.”
Ha. “What?” You look at her in disbelief.
“Shut up!” Harrison looks at you, her bangs covering her eyes, but there’s a distinct snark in her expression.
It makes your eyes twitch.
She stands up and crosses her arms protectly over her chest. Your mouth curves upwards — she never did this before. You open and close your hands in reflex. Her reaction is tethering a very fine line between fun and irritating, and you’re starting to lean in the later.
“Am I hearing this right? You’re telling me to shut up, Harrison?”
She takes a step closer to you, and tilts her head. Finally you can see the eyes she hides behind her stupid glasses, she exposes her teeth. There’s a bomb ticking inside of you.
“Yes! I’m not going to let you treat me this way anymore!”
You laugh drily, to cover up your ever growing irritation.
“Which way, freak? The way you deserve?” You shove her.
You raise your brows when she hits the damp asphalt.
It wasn't even a particularly strong shove, but she fell on the ground nonetheless. You never went physical before, but it wasn’t like you actually wanted to hurt her right? It wasn’t that strong. You stand tall. Seeing her under you makes something twist inside of you. You like it.
“What the fuck?” She looks at you surprised. “You can’t keep doing this shit y/n, we’re not in middle school anymore.” She tries to get up “You can’t treat people this way and pretend it won't have consequences.”
You smile to her, your teeth glint in the moonlight, unexpectedly sharp. “Bla bla bla.” You roll your eyes, opening and closing your hand to mimic her idiotic speech. “I can do whatever the fuck I want, Harrison.”
She’s still under you, but she doesn't back off.
“You think you’re clever, don’t you? Always circling people, waiting to bite. Actually, it's kind of pathetic.”
Your smile twitches. “What did you just say?”
Anna looks up, glasses sliding down her nose. “I said you’re pathetic. You’ve been doing this shit to me since I moved here, I’m tired! C’mon, y/n you have to admit you go around picking at people because you’re too fucking scared.”
Heat rises in your chest. “Scared? Of what Anna? You? Don’t make me laugh.”
Anna shakes her head. “Not of me. Of everything. You walk around like you own the school, no, the entire town, but everyone sees through you. You’re just noise. Empty noise.”
Your jaw tightens. “Watch your mouth, Harrison.”
The girl scoffs, the way she looks at you in disgust makes something shift in the pit of your stomach. “Or what? You’ll shove me again? Okay, do it. You’ll just prove everyone right — that you’re nothing but some hick bully.”
Your hands flex, nails digging into your palms, dry laugh escaping your lips. “You don’t get to talk to me like that.”
Anna leans forward, voice rising. “Why not? Because you’re y/n? Yeah, sure, like you’re so important.” she smiles. “Oh, you really think you’re "feared", “powerful”? This is ridiculous. You’re just some highschooler, just one so irritating everyone’s already tired of you.”
Her words sting sharper than you expected. Your pulse hammers.
“You don’t know a damn thing about me.” Anger is boiling inside of you, it’s burning its way up to your esophagus and threatening to spill like reflux.
Anna’s laugh is brittle, cutting. “I know enough. I know you’re miserable. I know you’re sick. And I know you take it out on people who never did anything to you. That’s not power. That’s immaturity."
Something snaps inside you. The buzzing in your head grows louder, white dots dancing in your vision.
“Shut your mouth.”
“No. Not anymore. I’m done letting you treat me like garbage. You’re just another of those small town idiots that gloats on the internet about peaking in high school.” Her laugh makes bright white dots dance in your vision. “Then you’ll just end up one of those–”
Your feet connected with her face.
The crack echoed through the forest, sharp and satisfying. She cried out, blood spilling from her nose, staining the concrete.
Your eyes were as wide with surprise as Harrison’s, they lifted, wide and wet, locking onto your face.
This felt so—
Your leg swung again hitting her hard, her head making a dull ‘thump’ as it now hit the cold ground.
The next moments went down in a haze, blood pumping loudly in your ears. For the first time the air entered easily in your lungs, you felt alive. You looked down at the girl curled tight against the concrete. Her hair was tangled, her arms raised in a pathetic shield, her body trembling with each kick.
You were already panting when you finally stopped.
The silence pressed down heavily.
Harrison was sobbing, trembling, her face a heap of bruises and blood.
Her breath came in ragged gasps, her hands trembling as she lifted them, smeared with dirt and blood. Her lip quivered at the sight, her body shuddering with each sob.
Looking down at your hands, for the first time in the last minutes you realized what you did.
Your heart seized. Panic clawed at your chest painfully. You glanced around wildly, terrified. What if someone saw what you did?
Without a second thought you ran. You ran like you never did before.
The woods mixed around you in a blur, it seemed like hours passed when the greens and browns slowly shifted to the blur of white houses, grey pavement and warm yellow lights of the residential area.
Someone tried to talk to you, a neighbor, a friend from school still lingering in their yard. You paid no mind, running straight to your house.
A good 200 meters from your home you noticed the porch lights were on. You can see by the uncurtained living room window the TV is on.
You stopped abruptly and looked down at you. Your shoes.
They were damp with mud and something else, darker and stickier. The stain extends to your white socks. To your baby blue leggings. You almost vomit.
You make a drunken beeline to the backyard, your mudded footsteps mark the ground up until you step on the grass.
The keys jingle in your trembling hands.
You take off your sneakers before opening the door. Your vision tunnels. Stairs. You trip in almost every one of the steps. Corridor. Your room’s door. You run straight towards it, locking the white wooden panel behind you.
Rubbing your hands in your face, heart racing in your chest. ‘What should I do? What should I do?’
You looked desperately around your room. ‘Where— Where—’ You locked eyes with the open door of your wardrobe, shoving away dresses and shirts from the way you bury deep inside it the dirty shoes and your damp socks. You put the clothes back in place, checking if you can see them from where you are. No. Okay? Okay.
You lock yourself inside of the bathroom.
Practically ripping your clothes from your body you toss them aside in the ground, and immediately open the shower.
The water is hot and it burns your face and scalp.
Grabbing your sponge you rub down hard your arms, legs and every other extension of your body. Trying to grate that sticky and unclean humidity from you, pink blossoming in your skin.
This has never happened. Never. You— You never did this before.
You were fine with tormenting people, that’s okay, right? Just— Just taking off some anger in something else. Completely harmless, right? But this was different, even you could see it. A line you shouln’t— couldn’t have crossed.
But you did anyway.
Outside, the woods behind your house hummed with silence. The forest loomed, damp and endless. And somewhere in that silence, there was a masked figure lingered, watching.
Inside, the girl paced her room, restless, her movements sharp and uneven. She looked like a caged animal. The corner of his mouth curved upward beneath the mask. He saw what she did back there, the way her rage spilled into violence. Despite the reticent behaviour she’s showing just now, he has to admit, he’s impressed.
He takes his mask off and lights up a cigarette. The rain makes his dark damp hair stick to his forehead, the cold drops slide against his clothed back, still he stays unbothered. His eyes are trained on her, cold and calculating, but amused in a strange way.
When he first heard that He had chosen a new one — and that it was a high school girl of all things — he was doubtful to say the least. But tonight was a surprise. A nice one.
He had been following her for some time now, watching her cruelty unfold in this small, suffocating town. She was mean, yes, in that particular Midwestern way, where gossip rotted in the humid dark and every smile hid sharpened teeth. She thrived on it, feeding off the fear of others. But, he thought that everything was because she was scared.
A sheep hiding in wolf’s clothing. Her laughter was too sharp, her cruelty too desperate, her dominance too fragile. He could see the tremor in her hands when she thought no one was looking, the way her eyes darted to shadows, the way her voice cracked when she was alone. A sheep hiding in wolf clothing.
Everything he could see that she was too young, too shallow, too wrapped up in petty cruelties.
But now, after what she did, he knew there was more inside her. Something darker. Something worth cultivating.
This fear he noticed inside of her was not of others, no — it was of herself.
And so he lingered in the silence, patient, waiting.