BRUTAL !

CHAPTER ONE:
"Let's play a game"

KITTY PLAYS THIS game. It's quite simple. Imagine an empty room. Not a big one, just regular sized, like the average living room.

Now imagine a chair in the middle of it. Only a chair, apart from that the room is empty. Now imagine a person tied to the chair. A girl to be more specific.

She's not special in any way. She's just at the wrong place at the wrong time— and god do these ropes hurt...

Despite the first assumption, she isn't alone in the room. Someone is there. Someone that's taunting her.

"Having problems to stand up?" he asks, stepping closer. His face is hidden behind that stupid mask. He's looking like an idiot altogether, which she would probably comment on if that knife in his hand wasn't dripping in blood already.

She doesn't recognize his voice, although she is sure she would if he would finally stop talking through that stupid distorter. Why can she be so sure? Oh, because she knows him.

Yeah, it's always someone you know...

"You're not scared, are you?" he asks and it's almost like she can hear the smirk that is probably playing on his lips.

Kitty doesn't want to answer. But she'll pay a prize if she doesn't, so she just simply shakes her head.

"Hmm" he hums approvingly. "Of course you aren't. Because you're just like me, aren't you? Because the same blood runs through your veins, the same thoughts keep you up at night. The same desire is ready to overtake you." He moves from side to side, jumping in front of her, like she is a kid, ready to be entertained.

"No!" she finally says. She won't let him talk like that. He's wrong, he's so wrong about her.

"Oh, Kitty" he shakes his hand, disappointment flowing through his words. "Don't be like that"

"I will never be like you. Never!"

He pauses, standing still right in front of her. Then he laughs. And when he laughs, he doesn't sound that foreign anymore.

His hand wanders to grip the bottom of the mask. And then with one swift motion, he takes it off. For a split second Kitty sees her brother.

He looks exactly like the photo on the mantel. His eyes pierce through her own, his glance is fixed, drilling into her.

Then, in an instant, he's gone, and it's her own face looking back at her.

"No!" Kitty screams and her throat hurts. She cries and trashes against the rope, but it doesn't even move.

"It's just me" the other Kitty smiles as she watches her victim break down. "Or you, I guess", she laughs.

On days when she can't take it, the game ends at this point. But on nights when she feels particularly strong, Kitty manages to loosen the rope.

She breaks free in one swift motion and jumps to her feet. She takes the first object she can find, which happens to be her mother's flower pot, and swings it at her clone.

Kitty two is relentless. She puts up a fight. But it's to no use.

In a matter of seconds, Kitty, the original one, is towering over her, holding the bloody knife that threatened to pierce through her own body only minutes ago.

Now she's no longer the victim. Now she is something entirely different. Something worse..

Blood splutters as she moves the knife down. And then up. Down again. Until her clothes are soaked in blood and the body beneath her is no longer moving.

It's healing and sickening all at the same time.

She lets go of the knife once she is finished, extracting it from her body to make it as foreign as it used to be. It's no longer a part of her; it's not hers entirely.

Her hand moves along the floor, grabbing the ghost face mask and looking at it intensively, before she shakes her head and pushes it down on Kitty two's face.

Once the face is hidden again, it's no longer her behind the mask. It's Stu Macher or Billy Loomis. Or Roman Bridger... or Charlie.

It's just a foreign voice behind a mask. An idiot with a knife. But it's always someone you know, remember?

The sound of her phone made Kitty jump. She opened her eyes and looked over. It was hidden beneath a mess of sheets that she didn't bother to tidy, as she pulled it up and the phone slipped from the pile.

Tara 🩶
U coming over? I'm making pasta

Kitty smiled at the message, which quickly turned into a frown once she remembered that she wouldn't be able too.

Kitty 💌
Sorry, my mom's home, can't make it

Kitty could practically sense Tara's disappointment and she could understand it perfectly too, but it was only to her best interest to not tick her mother off.

Tara and Kitty met in third grade when Tara's family moved to Woodsboro. Tara was new. She didn't know anything about the town or its past. Most importantly: She didn't know anything about Kitty and that made Kitty feel entirely new too.

Growing up Kitty didn't have many friends. Mostly because of her brothers actions years ago.

It wasn't like she couldn't understand the reason for parents keeping their children far away from her and her mother. Her mom had raised a killer once, who said she couldn't do it again?

Even after Tara knew about Charlie, she never acted any differently. Tara understood what it meant to grow up in a family that had more problems than they could count.

Tara's father had left them, just like Kitty's dad had and that fact alone made them inseparable.

Tara 🩶
Ok, got it.

Kitty wasn't sure if Tara was angry. She had originally planned to come over, before her mother had decided to move her and her new boyfriend's date to next week.

Tara was all alone in that house and Kitty didn't want her to spend the night alone, but before she could worry further, her phone chimed again.

Tara 🩶
I can feel you worrying. dw, kit, amber said she might come over later <3

Kitty 💌
Okay, that's good. see you tomorrow?

Tara 🩶
Definitely xo

Kitty smiled, sending a thumbs up on the message and threw her phone back onto her sheets. She slipped through her door and into the hallway.

It took her thirty seconds to rip her gaze from the door across from hers, before she walked down the stairs.

Lily Walker was leaning over the kitchen table, busy exchanging the old flowers for new ones.

"Hey", Kitty mumbled, walking around her mother and reaching for the opened bag of waffles on the counter.

"Hi, sweetheart" Lily smiled, looking up at her daughter and following her every move, as Kitty plopped the waffles into the toaster. "It's a bit late for breakfast"

Kitty shrugged, turning her body away, as she watched the toaster, ready for her food to jump out.

"Dad called earlier. You were still at practice so i had to put him off"

"It's christmas already?" Kitty smiled sarcastically, reaching for the waffles and letting them fall onto the plate quickly before they could burn her fingers.

"Kitty.." her mother shook her head. "Come on, be nice"

"It's not my birthday either" Kitty added, acting like she was thinking about it. "It can't be or he definitely wouldn't have called"

"He misses you. He just wants to talk"

"Well, i have nothing to say to him" Kitty shrugged, ready to leave the room with her plate and a fresh glass of water in her hand.

"Nate called too"

Kitty froze in the doorframe. Starring straight ahead at the wall across from her, before she sighed and looked back at her mother, who was watching her with a worried glance. "I'll call him back later" she promised.

Back in her room, she looked at her phone, her finger hovering over Nate's name, before she pressed down, her phone ringing as she pressed it against her ear.

"Hello?" a man asked on the other side of the line. "Katherine?"

Kitty closed her eyes, reevaluating if she should just end the call. "Hey" she finally muttered. "It's Kitty"

"Oh" she could hear Nate mutter, obviously surprised at the correction. "I thought you had decided to not use that name after—"

"—Well, I changed my mind" Kitty quickly interrupted before the conversation could fall into uncovered territory.

"Okay"

There was silence for a few seconds before Kitty realized that Nate was waiting for her to continue. She sank down on her bed.

"Stop beating around the bush" she said annoyed. "You know I hate when you do that. Are you coming or not?"

"Look, Kath—Kitty, sorry" he quickly corrected. "Work has been piling up and there's a lot of unsolved cases in the area right now, so I might—"

"Yeah, sure, sounds important" Kitty nodded as she tried to hide how much the news affected her.

"I'm sorry, okay? I wish I could make it"

"Yeah, I know" Kitty mumbled as she stood up and crossed the entry in her calendar off. "Good luck with work and stuff."

Nate knew her well enough to read the annoyance from her words. "Please Kitty, you have to understand that this is important."

"No, yeah, I do." A knock on the window made her swirl around and press a hand to her chest. She audibly sighed when it was just Wes staring back at her, pointing for her to open the window.

"There's this festival in two months or so" Nate continued talking, while Kitty held the phone between shoulder and ear, her hands expertly moving along the window. "Maybe you could come here, to New York I mean, and stay for a while. We could go to the festival or to the movies or do anything you'd like—"

"Hi," Wes grinned, climbing in as soon as she had opened the window.

'Nate' Kitty mouthed, pointing to the phone in her hand. Wes nodded, hugging her, the cold that had clung to him, quickly evaporating due to her body heat.

"Hey, sorry, Nate, I gotta go," Kitty said, watching Wes' every move as he got rid of his jacket and began sorting through her movie collection like he had done a hundred times before.

"Wait, what about the festival and New York?"

"Sounds great," Kitty said, without even knowing to what she had just agreed. Nate noticed that too.

"You don't sound like you even know what I'm talking about"

"Sorry, Nate" Kitty mumbled, still concentrating on Wes. "I really gotta go. Bye!"

"Kit—Wait!—" and without listening to another word, Kitty had ended the call. If Nate didn't have any time for her, she wouldn't have time for him either.

Wes looked up at her with big eyes. The kind of look that would make you fall in love in an instant. And clearly it had worked on Kitty.

Kitty sighed, falling onto the bed beside her boyfriend. Wes, as always, sensed her discomfort before she could even say anything, rubbing soft circles onto her knee the way he always did when she was upset.

"He's not coming"

"But you said he has promised to make it this time?" Wes asked, confused, his fingers now lacing through hers automatically.

"Well, he's broken his promise. Some excuse about work and cases piling up"

"Doesn't sound that far-fetched" Wes shrugged, trying to lighten the situation.

"It might not be, but it's just another excuse not to come here. Not to come back into this house" Kitty closed her eyes. "He's invited me to visit him. In New York"

"That sounds cool, doesn't it?"

Kitty shook her head and Wes' smile quickly died down. "It's not bad, but he hasn't seen Mom in years. He knows that she cannot leave the town, no matter how much she wants to, she just can't"

"He's never been here since.. you know?"

"He was here once" Kitty mumbled, thinking back to Nate's visit a few months after Charlie's death.

"But he hasn't stepped a foot in this house since that time, no. And I can understand him, of course, I can. But I mean Mom and I had to live with all of it. Here, where everyone knows what happened. He could get away, while we have to deal with it constantly."

"You're right, I'm sorry. He shouldn't have promised you."

"Yeah, I guess" Kitty shrugged, falling back onto the sheet and adjusting her head in her boyfriend's lap. Wes' hand instinctively found her hair, his fingers slipping through it in that steady, grounding way that always made her relax. 

"Sometimes I just wonder what he wants from me. He wants a relationship but never puts any effort into it."

"Hm" Wes nodded. "I can imagine how exhausted you might feel. That's the very same reason why mom and I stopped talking to dad. As soon as we stopped putting any effort into staying in contact, he did too. It was like he had just waited for us to end it"

"Yeah, sometimes ending it just feels like the easiest option." Kitty nodded. "But let's not talk about that. Which one do you want to watch?"

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