THE SCENE LOOKS LIKE THE perfect metropolitan life - both Tom and Alex are stood in their glossy, monochromatic kitchen, smiling to the many cameras now wrapping up their filming.

After the final two deaths, true to their word, the doors slid open and Alex and Tom were freed. News vans and media outlets surrounded the place, and ambulances and police officers rushed to get the story and ensure the well-being of the only survivors.

It later turned out Alex was right - only Luke and Ashton had been murdered when they split off, and Calum later managed to escape undetected and give a full account of what happened to Michael and the other two to the fandom around the world and the authorities.

Calum then voluntarily checked into therapy for anxiety, paranoia and depression, and the last they heard of him, he was doing a lot better at the clinic.

Nobody ever found any trace of Mantra, or was able to find an IP address of the mantrachants Twitter. They'd seemingly disappeared off the face of the planet, and that was the way Alex, Tom and Calum liked it.

Of course, many people wanted interviews to hear their side of the story, and they mostly accepted. It was a way of honoring the deaths of the seven people who fell foul of this mess, and a way to prove their innocence.

They were hailed and branded as 'anti-heroes': apparently, murdering your friends, even if you didn't want to, isn't that morally correct. Thankfully, it was branded as self-defense, and no charges were ever brought into the conversation.

Alex laughs at the interviewer's small talk, before tapping her now-boyfriend on the shoulder and standing up to get a drink from the counter. It's stressful business, always having unfamiliar people in their house to pick apart their brains and form a sensationalized story from it, but she gets by.

The vibration of her phone still alarms her, even four months on, but she quickly shrugs off the fear and presses the home button lightly, sipping her wine as she does so.

Alex gasps in sheer terror as she reads the screen, and her wine glass nearly falls out of her hand as her body goes into a state of pure paralysis.

"What's happening--" Tom asks, sounding as though he's underwater, before his phone pulls up the same notification.

The interviewer is looking over his shoulder, and upon catching sight of what's happening, begins to gesture wildly at the camera crew behind her. They begin to set up the cameras and the interviewer is speaking wildly, but nothing can pull Alex out of her trance.

She doesn't care about them coming for her, it's more for Calum's sake. He's been healing so well, how dare they set him back so far like this?

MANTRACHANTS | @mantrachants
THINK YOU COULD USE
A NEW ABUSER?

MANTRACHANTS | @mantrachants
CLOSE YOUR EYES AND
LISTEN CAREFULLY

Still shaking as the producers and camera operators crowd around her, Alex doesn't hear the insistent buzz of her phone continuing through the chaos. It's so far back in her list of priorities right now.

GROUPCHAT
mantra: defeated

lanacondor
are any of you here?