What's poppin' , WP peeps?! XD so before y'all read this, I just wanna give a little announcement and a couple of dedications to some users.

So, first off, I slightly made some changes in CHAPTER 2 of this story, specifically the scene where Samara went to the police station and had her first encounter with Dane. I made some small changes in her monologue/inner thoughts and some little descriptions there in order to make it fit for Samara's grief/gloomy state. I mean, when I read it back, her, flirting, is not just in her character? LOL! so that's really my bad. No worries! the slight change won't alter the overall course of the  story; it's still the same. Y'all can check it out and let me know what your thoughts are! :D

Okay, now for the dedications:

ALICE_1616 Thank you and your team and review shop for putting your time and effort in reviewing this story and lending out your thoughts about it. Also, I'm glad that I can be of help to keep you improving with your work too. Keep it up!

PJO_forever_and_ever thank you, again LOL, for also lending out your blunt honesty in reviewing my work, it's just what I need. Also! keep it up with your dedicated work!

Also, I dedicated this chapter for theekensays! Happy birthday! Sorry if I wasn't able to greet you in Facebook. I was really worked up making this chapter polished and exciting as possible just for you LOL! Stay safe and cool!

Anyhoo! If anyone out there who wanted to work on and improve their stories/written works and at the same time, you can visit ALICE_1616 and PJO_forever_add_ever's review shop! 

I promise y'all, both have different styles in lending out their reviews, but it can really be of good and great help for y'all!

You can also take your time looking at their written works too!

You can search up their review shops and by the links below! 👇

https://my.w.tt/Z9NZs1MFy8

https://my.w.tt/b20XjLXFy8

Also included are some of their works that I checked them out personally; they got promising plots!

https://www.wattpad.com/story/231321227-blending-in

https://www.wattpad.com/story/230682924-once-upon-a-miracle

So that's it for now. I'll see you all in the next update by next Sunday (August 9, 2020).

Feel free to leave a vote and feedback in the comments. Have a safe day y'all! <3

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CHAPTER 7: Lights Out

~~~~~~~~~~

Samara could not explain this strange feeling that she felt when she noticed the phone in their hands. Suspicious? It was not exactly the right term she would put, however, it was as close as what she thought was her current perception.

"So did they catch the guy who attacked you, Samara?"

The young brunette heard Charissa asked, breaking her out of her semi-trance. She faked a smile, replying soon after. "Nope, the scumbag got away."

"Lucky indeed." She heard Jayson mumbled, noticing the latter crossing his arms with a sigh.

Click!

She heard the door to her left emitted a sound. Heads turned afterward; the chief entered into view, clad in his uniform, standing strict and formal.

"Good evening, chief!" They all shared their respective greetings.

"Evenin', kids," the middle-aged man greeted back," I don't suppose any of you mind if I can borrow some private time with your friend over there?" He requested, motioning his hand to Samara, "I just need to ask her a few questions."

"It's okay, chief Freddy."

"Please, West, simply 'chief' will do."

"You guys should go ahead, Samara told the trio with an assuring smile, " I'll be okay. You guys should be going home. It's almost eleven."

The three friends nodded and obliged to the young brunette's request. They bid their farewell to Samara before going out of the sickroom one by one.

It was all her and Frederick alone. The little liveliness that was once spreading from all four walls of the room vanished, replaced with the silence that might just deafen Samara's ears, had the chief not spoke.

"How you feelin'?"

The young brunette shrugged. "I don't know," she pointed across the bandage on her neck, continuing, "apart from a scratched up shoulder and a busted neck—thanks to that asshole in my cabin that grabbed me in a death choke— I'm perfectly good, yeah?"

She received a glare from the chief, prompting her to sit and adjust formally on her bed. "I mean, I'm basically in a hospital, chief, so I guess it really tells something—for the obvious of reasons."

"A'ight, just askin'," the chief asserted in his defense, "apparently, you got attacked in your cabin, right?"

Samara nodded without a word and hesitancy.

"Why's that?"

She shrugged her shoulders again, raising both of her arms in mid-level with the palms open. "I don't know? Some douche bag with a fake voice, out of nowhere, rang me up in the middle of the night and started threatening me. That's when I got attacked."

Frederick nodded, his eyes reckoning as they stared from nothing but the air. "What else did they say to you?"

Samara sighed, looking down in the process, gulping. "They happened to be my sister's murderer," she looked up at the chief again with an affirming gaze.

"Say that again?"

"They literally claimed that they're the ones who killed Crystal... they called me again half an hour ago with threats and shit. Got no answers as to why they did what they did," she said the last sentence in a downbeat tone, head glancing back down.

Silenced lingered around the room after. She did not say anything else, nor did the chief ever tried to pry her more for answers. Did her statement strike a sensitive nerve for the chief to not throw questions at her no more? She doesn't have a clue; she preferred it that way. For all she cared about, nobody else should meddle with her personal business—not even the people of authority that should be helping her either. She preferred to work alone. Her business—hers to take care of.

"They want something from me. I know it," she spoke absentmindedly.

"I don't know, but it could be possible," she heard the man answered, "I think I gathered enough. Appreciated you for cooperatin'."

She did not reply back, head still looking down. She heard the door clicked open with a smooth creak, and assuming that before the chief could let himself out, she heard the latter spoke one more time.

"You stay put."

She remained mute. The door finally closed, giving her the chance to lie back down onto the soft bed.

She looked up at the ceiling, savoring every moment of alone time once again.

~~~~~~~~~~

When the chief had finally head out, a mysterious individual in their casual clothing entered inside. They walked up to the nurse's desk, beaming the only female staff in attendance with their seemingly warm smile.

"Excuse me," the unknown person greeted, "I'm looking for a Samara Morrison something here?" They inquired with the most polite tone that they could muster, "just wanted to drop by a little visit."

"Yeah," the sweet-looking nurse answered, picking up a clipboard containing all names of the patient confined and their room numbers, "Samara Jane Morrison—room three-o-nine, third floor," she said while handing over the clipboard to them, "please kindly fill up your name beside here."

The unknown person, without hesitancy, followed the nurse's request. Their eyes thoroughly scanned through the names of the patients, which, surprisingly, only had three names filled in, including the one that they were looking for.

"What happened to Samara, by the way?" They asked. "As her close friend, I'm frankly worried for her."

"Oh," the nurse uttered, "you haven't heard the news about what happened to her a few hours ago?" she baffled as she arranged some papers she was attending to, "some crazy madman broke inside her cabin and tried to attack her," she explained, clipping the papers with a clip holder, "poor girl ended up having a purplish neck. Had to be wrapped in a bandage to avoid any swelling. For now, she gotta take a lot of rest," she ended by turning away to amend some sort of other work she was wrapped up with.

Secretly, the unknown individual smirked with such deviousness. Moving a bit closer to the counter, they changed their expression and asked, "by the way, I've noticed that you're the only staff here, or that's what it seems?"

Giggling heartily, the nurse turned her attention to the unknown individual and replied, "there's only like, ten of us here on duty. They're taking dinner break at the moment. Someone's gotta have to watch over the patients. That's me, of course. They'll be back here in an hour."

The unknown person nodded with a smile. Unbeknownst to the nurse, the person she was talking to had secretly slid out a glistening knife that was hidden from one of their back pockets.

~~~~~~~~~~

Samara sat on her bed with her phone lying in landscape-style on her hands. Her mouth formed a tiny smile on their own as her eyes watched the video that was playing on her mobile device.

"Happy birthday Sam'!"

"Oh my God! Crystal! You're such an ass!"

"What?! You look cute for a human cake!"

"Whatever, I look a mess with cake frosting and shit all over my face."

"I love you, you little dork!"

She felt a tear sliding out from one of her blue eyes, admiring every second of the video showing Crystal and her celebrating her birthday. She could clearly recall all the sweet, little details during that, one, specific day.

She wiped the tear itching her cheek, playing the next video shortly after.

"Oh my God, this eye shadow's a total fucking bomb!"

"Hey, hold still, Samara. I'm trying to curl your hair tips over here."

"Ooh! That reminds me, you wanna dye your hair?"

"Only if I get to choose the color I want?"

"Deal!"

"Now you're talking, little sis'!"

Samara looked up to the ceiling for a brief second, chuckling in the process.

"Why the fuck am I even watching these?" She said out loud, her sad gaze looking into nothing but invisible air, "what the hell am I doing?"

She found herself chortling. It was amusing yet, confusing as to why she still bothered watching these videos of her and Crystal with their sisterly bond; still clinging to the past when the truth had already slapped her in the face was yet funny in an ironic way. Her sister's not coming back anymore, and here Samara found herself reliving the same moments from the past instead of sucking it up and move on.

"The sun really looks nice, don't you think, Sam'?"

"Totally."

"How it feels good if every day could have been always a good day.

"Hey, Crystal?"

"Yeah?"

"When can we get the hell out of Warren's house? You know? Like, run away?"

"Someday, Samara. Someday."

"You promise we'll leave him for good?"

"And kick his bony, wrinkled ass like we always wanted to? If the opportunity is ever given, hell fucking yeah!"

Her eyes began to water, her once smiling mouth quivering into a sad frown as she silently viewed yet another video of her and Crystal, looking out to the sun during one, random, hot, afternoon.

Every piece of the memories she shared with Crystal were oh-so-gratifyingz—sweet as honey yet, so harsh as the taste of bitter gourd. It was more than a mere reminder for her that she was on her own now, and there was no alternative way for her to cope up other than face the fact that her only family was now gone forever.

"D-damn, you're such a mess, you bitch," she muttered to herself, her voice cracked from sobbing.

She stayed there in her sickroom for some time, just switching between crying in grief and laughing—much at herself—pathetically. People might have already perceived her as crazy, had they have the chance to see her in this state. She just wanted to forget everything; if only it was ever that simple to do.

And after what seemed like countless hours into mourning, she was silent yet again.

"Coffee," she muttered, the strange, craving sensation for caffeine suddenly made its presence known to her taste buds.

Samara reached over and tried to press the nurse's button.

Buzz!

The buzzing noise echoed throughout the hospital. She waited for a while. Nobody came into her room, unfortunately.

Samara tried ringing the button again and waited. Still, no woman in a medical, white uniform seemed to come to her rescue.

Growing impatient, Samara stood up from her bed, sitting on it for a while before finally getting out of it, walking out of the sickroom.

She looked past from left to right; the hall was apparently deserted, no audible noise could be heard except for the building settling in.

"Hello?" her voice traveled along the hall in an echo, but nobody made their presence known to her.

She cautiously walked down the seemingly abandoned hallway. She could feel her stomach growling for some sweet caffeine; her tongue was coordinating with her stomach's rumble and her taste buds' craving. She recalled catching a coffee machine from the ground floor, somewhere near the lobby before. So the young brunette decided to go there.

As she headed her way toward the stairs, she stopped on her tracks upon hearing a distant, ongoing, scraping noise from the other end of the hallway.

Scrape! Scrape!

Samara turned her head around, seeing nobody there, and so does the scraping noise that abruptly stopped. She stood there for quite some time, her gaze just locked onto the opposite end of the empty hallway.

Unsettled, she descended down the stairs, her mind counting each step her bare feet made contact with. After getting off of the last step, she strode her way along the white halls. Upon seeing the nurse's desk, she noticed that it was unattended.

"Where did that nurse go?" It was the first question her mouth uttered, bewildered when she could not see any signs of the nurse that was supposed to be on the counter.

Samara shrugged this off before heading over to the coffee machine that was just right next to the waiting couch, which was sitting near the main entrance of the lobby.

She grabbed a styrofoam cup, pulling out a coin from her pocket before inserting it to the coffee machine's coin slot. Samara's smile grew when the alluring aroma of caffeine snuck its way through her nostrils.

She made a tiny sniff on the hot drink, almost forgetting the strange circumstance that she was in. Samara took a quick sip from her coffee before making her way back to the nurse's desk.

As she passed by, she inexplicably caught a pungent smell in her nose. Her forehead wrinkled from the odor. It was seemingly coming from behind the nurse's desk.

Curious, Samara went over and peeked.

"Oh God!!"

Her hand accidentally dropped the hot drink it was holding, the contents splashing the once, clean tiles with wet, mocha-brown color. Her mouth opened wide, releasing a powerful, terrified shrill that filled the hospital halls, drowning out the silence of the place.

Samara felt her blood running cold, her breathing came out as heavy, with a hand over her pounding chest. Her eyes— despite her conscience telling her to look away—were glued upon a gruesome sight in front of her:

The nurse was lifelessly sprawled on the floor, lying on a pool of her own blood. An abnormally large cut was left on the dead body's neck, showing crimson-coated flesh. Those pair of lifeless eyes stared back at the young brunette. It was terrifying to look at; it haunted her.

Samara tried to approach the only telephone on the counter but was dismayed to find out the wiring was snapped for some unknown reason.

The sense of lack of security that she felt back at her cabin returned to make its presence known.

It was now only then when Samara noticed a bloody message written on a piece of paper, lying beside the nurse's corpse.

'Lights Out!'

Tap! Tap! Tap!

Samara heard faint tapping noises from the main entrance. She felt a wretched feeling under the pit of her stomach. Her chest was ostensibly stiff and tight too. Her mind was screaming at her to not look, but the muscles around her neck were telling her otherwise. Her head slowly turned to the direction of the glass twin doors, her eyes following in sync.

Her mouth was left agape, her eyes grew wide as her gaze caught sight of a masked individual by the other side of the twin doors.

It was no random masked stranger, however; and that fact alone made Samara's face turn pale.

That same, Cheshire grin made her legs tremble feebly. There was no arguing that she exactly recognized the masked stranger as the same one who invaded her home and attacked her.

The stranger stood there from the other side of the door, eerily waving at the young brunette as if waiting for her to come outside.

And by the time Samara was even able to think about what to do next, all the lights around the hospital went out.