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10. an analysis of horror
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ONE NOTIFICATION FROM DISCORD !

LORELAI'S REFRIGERATOR
🟢 24,294 online ⚪️ 57,128 members

lorelai Today at 23:18
@/everyone live now!
twitch.tv/lorelai

LORELAI WAS A FAN OF horror. She liked genuine fear, not cheap frights brought upon by jump scares. Psychological fear, fear that made you question your life, was the type of horror Lorelai was a fan of. So, in her opinion, jump scares were trash. They were created to make people feel afraid when your actual story can't. It was a filler.

But, with that being said, Lorelai was terrified of jump scares. She could get startled in an instant, and was also just generally afraid of the idea of a jump scare. Scary music that began to crescendo filled Lorelai with a type of fear like no other. She hated that pop outs could so easily frighten her, but no matter what she did, she still was afraid of jump scares and the idea of getting jump scared.

Lorelai, Corpse, Sykkuno, and Rae were all gathered in a Phasmophobia lobby. Sykkuno and Rae were messing around with the basketball hoop, soft laughter hitting Lorelai's ears as her headset struggled to pick up the audio from far away. She and Corpse were next to the whiteboard, the latter player going through how to play the game and what it was about. All four young adults had started their streams, and a large mass of viewers were watching them mess around with excitement.

"Lorelai, you said jump scares terrify you, right?" Corpse asked.

Rae and Sykkuno's laughter grew louder as they walked towards the duo.

"Yeah," Lorelai nodded. "I really hate jump scares."

On Rae's stream she looked at her chat with an amused grin. "There's so many jump scares in this game. You're gonna hate it."

Lorelai pouted, pulling the sleeves of her orange and black striped sweater over her hands to make little paws. "Great."

"It'll all be okay," Sykkuno chimed in. "You'll do good!"

Lorelai softly whined and pushed her face into her hands. She remembered Corpse briefly stating Phasmophobia was scary, but she supposed that it had slipped her mind since the night they discussed it. Knowing now what she was getting into, she felt regret seep into her bones and fill her mouth with a sour taste. Couldn't they have made a ghost hunting game without jump scares? There's so many ways they could have created true horror instead of copping out and going for stupid frights.

Sykkuno, Rae, and Corpse all moved to mark themselves as ready, while Lorelai continued to pout at her screen. Her chat was laughing at her, as expected, and found her fear hilarious. A few people were caught showing sympathy, but even for Lorelai, her pouting wasn't fully genuine. Sure, she didn't want to get jump scared, but it was also a bit funny. Being terrified made good content.

"Lorelai, come on," Corpse chuckled. "We can all hold your hand if you need."

Lorelai rolled her eyes and clicked on her 'ready' button. "Shut up."

The four of them spawned into their truck. Lorelai, with absolutely no idea what to do, walked around the truck as her friends began grabbing things. All of Corpse's instructions vanished from her mind, and she shrugged as she looked at her chat. Eventually she was told the grab the camera and a flashlight, so she did as she was instructed.

All four of them left the truck and everyone followed Sykkuno, who held the house key, to the front door. They were on Tanglewood, which didn't mean anything to Lorelai, but to the others, it meant that they would have a relatively easy round. The Danish girl in question, actually, was hiding behind Rae with Corpse directly behind her. She had insisted on being in the middle of the group; she didn't want to be crept up on from in front of from behind. There was safety in numbers in most logic, but there was more safety in the middle than on the outsides.

"Wait, why are we splitting up?" Lorelai asked as she watched Rae turn into a hallway once inside the house and Sykkuno continue straight forward.

"It goes quicker that way," Corpse explained. "You can stay with me, come on."

Lorelai flicked her flashlight on, following Corpse into the nursery much to her dismay. She scrunched up her nose as she stared directly at a teddy bear on a shelf. One of her least favorite horror plots was using kids to make things creepy. It was unsettling to see childhood delights become tools for terror.

"Guys," they all heard Rae say, "it's in the bathroom. Freezing temperatures."

Corpse and Lorelai headed into the bathroom between the first bedroom and the nursery, walking in to see Rae throwing a journal on the ground. Lorelai stood there while Corpse and Rae walked out. What was she meant to do? Did she need to follow them?

The girl walked out of the room, looking around to see where her friends had gone. They had seemingly disappeared. As a last resort she walked back into the bathroom. On the floor where Rae had dropped the journal, she could see writing on it that definitely wasn't there before.

CAN'T RUN. CAN'T RUN.

A ghostly noise entered her headset, something like an exhale or a moan, and Lorelai ripped off her headset. She slapped a hand over her mouth and did the exact opposite of what the journal said, running out of the room and eventually out the front door of the house. Finally she walked into the van, softly muttering, "oh my God, oh my God, oh my God," under her breath. Sykkuno, Rae, and Corpse were already in there having a conversation, but upon seeing the Danish girl walk in and crouch in a corner, they paused their conversation.

"Lorelai?" Sykkuno asked. "Are you okay?"

"It wrote in the journal," she whined, slipping back on her headset. "And then it moaned in my ear or something."

"Did it scare you?" Rae giggled.

Lorelai nodded and hummed to let her know it had.

Behind his computer, Corpse playfully smiled. "Lorelai, you can't hide in the truck forever."

"Yes, I can. You didn't hear the moan, Corpse. It was a borderline sex offender moan."

Her three friends burst into laughter, looking down at the girl crouched in the corner.

"Another minute in there and it would've starting doing more than moaning in my ear!" She exclaimed. It was all a bit, obviously, and she was extremely thankful her friends had caught onto that part.

"Let's all hold hands," Sykkuno suggested. "We can take Lorelai to face her sex offender, and then we can figure out if it's a demon or a yurei."

Lorelai couldn't stop quiet laughter from tumbling out her mouth, and she took a sip of water from the glass on her desk to calm herself.

All together, the four streamers left their truck and headed back to the bathroom. They had gotten lucky on this level, and Corpse, Rae, and Sykkuno knew that this level was going to be very calm in terms of fright levels. If Lorelai was struggling now, she was going to die later on. Both in game and in real life, actually.

"Don't fall behind, princess," Corpse laughed as Lorelai walked behind her sprinting friends.

Lorelai pouted once more and pressed the shift key to catch up. Once they were inside the bathroom, Corpse pulled out a spirit box to see if it would get triggered. Upon realizing that they had evidence for the spirit box, the four friends left the bathroom and headed back to their van to finish the round.

When the round ended, they saw that it had, in fact, been a demon, and they were therefore correct. They got paid in full, and Lorelai began to get herself mentally prepared for their next house.

CLIP FROM LORELAI !
"lorelai dies lol"

"Guys! It moaned in my ear again!" Lorelai exclaimed, eyes wide and fingers frantically using the S key to back her out of the utility room. "Guys!"

Two ghostly hands crept into her screen and the girl jumped, tossing off her headset and shutting her eyes. When she deemed it safe, she looked up again and saw that she was, in fact, dead. Her chat was split between laughing at her and simping over the scared girl. With a shaky laugh, Lorelai put her headset back on.

"So, chat, I'm dead. That's not very cash money of the ghost."

CLIP FROM LORELAI !
"if i can't see it"

"If I can't see it, it can't see me. If I can't see it, it can't see me."

Rae walked into the room and burst out laughing as she saw Lorelai and Corpse hiding in a corner muttering the same sentence over and over again. The duo continued unfazed, repeating their mantra so as to hopefully avoid getting killed by the ghost they had seen fifteen seconds before.

TWITTER !

04:28

lorelai 🌃 | lorelai
———————————————————
phasmo is very scary i don't like ghosts :(
9.1k comments 1.7k retweets 96.2k likes

replying to @lorelai

smvtee8: awww :(

valkyrae: SAME
↳ lorelai: WHY DID YOU HAVE ME DO IT THEN
↳ valkyrae: CORPSE ORGANIZED IT NOT ME

holmsnowatsin: that stream was so fucking funny

f4kef4nb8: she's baby 🤷‍♀️

corpse_husband: :)
↳ lorelai: :(
↳ corpse_husband: :(

marsn0tfound: go to bed! get some sleep <3

toleco: ur cute pls rail me

marziana9p: pfft imagine being scared from phasmo

IMESSAGE !
04:35

corpse
calling iPhone...

"CORPSEY!" LORELAI EXCLAIMED, smiling widely as Corpse answered her call.

"Corpsey?" He repeated in a questioning tone, the left side of his mouth twisting up into a smirk.

Lorelai immediately grew embarrassed, lifting a hand to rub the back of her neck. "Uh, yeah. I thought it was a good nickname but if you don't like it then-"

"It's cute," Corpse cut her off. "I like it."

"I-, uhm, thank you," Lorelai replied. She snapped out of her flustered state and asked, "are you doing anything right now?"

On the other end of the call, Corpse was staring down at a plate of pasta that he really didn't want to eat. He knew that after it the chest pains and heartburn would start up again, but he also knew that he really did need to eat something soon. "No, I'm not. Did you need something from me?"

Lorelai looked down at her hands. "Not really. I just don't want to go to bed right now, but also don't know what to do."

She was still sat in her desk chair, her monitors turned off and the only light in her room coming from her laptop which was sat open on her bed. The house was silent and Lorelai knew that if she looked out her window, the sky would be preparing itself for the sunrise to come. If she saw the sunrise, she'd never fall asleep, but at that moment, she just didn't feel tired.

Corpse pushed away his plate and chuckled. "Do you want bedtime stories?"

"Your bedtime stories would scare me out of sleeping," Lorelai replied. "Some of the stories on your channel really get me."

"You've listened to my horror stories?" Corpse asked, genuine surprise seeping out of his words.

A light blush dusted Lorelai's cheeks. "Yeah. I like horror like that; I know nothing will pop out at me."

Some sort of happiness flooded Corpse's emotions. "That's adorable. What's your favorite horror movie, then?"

"Maybe The Blair Witch Project?" Lorelai answered. "If we're counting Donnie Darko as a horror movie, then Donnie Darko, but if not, then Blair Witch."

"Donnie Darko is sort of middle ground," Corpse said. "I'm not sure if I would count it as horror or not. It's not really scary, in my opinion."

Lorelai took a sip of her water. "Yeah, I'd agree with that. I would just call it a cult classic. "

Corpse hummed in agreement. "So, if you like Blair Witch, then what did you think about the 2016 one?"

Lorelai's face immediately screwed up in disgust. "I really didn't like it, honestly. It just wasn't good."

"That's understandable," Corpse mused. A silence washed over their call for a few seconds before Corpse suddenly asked, "did you ever watch Circle?"

"No, what's it about?"

Corpse bit the inside of his gums as he thought about how to explain it. "It's not the best movie ever, that's for sure. And it's really grim. Just really fucking dark."

Lorelai hummed in acknowledgement. "What's it on?"

"Netflix," Corpse replied. "If you're not tired yet, we could just watch it over Discord together."

A smile began to creep onto her face. The thought of watching a movie with Corpse over Discord seemed so calming and domestic that she couldn't help but feel like her heart grew warmer. Even if it was, apparently, a macabre movie, it seemed really wholesome and fun.

"I'd like that," Lorelai replied giddily.

Movie night. With Corpse.

Lorelai's night was about to get a lot better.