Upon the Gaze (Ghostface X Reader 18+)

CHAPTER FIVE - Dogs in the Beartrap Woods

When my eyes fluttered back open, I was alone. I gradually scanned the room. There was no sign of him. The Ghostface.
Once again it could have all been a dream, and I would have again believed it so if it weren't for the fact that my shirt was still torn down the center. As I raised myself off the couch I felt a twinge of pain. At first I didn't think much of it, as you would expect from someone who self harms quite frequently, but as I began reflecting on the events that took place on the couch I stood beside, I recalled the slit in my side, created from Ghostface's blade. I picked up my phone to figure out the time.
7 am. I sighed and decided it would be best to take a shower. I made my way upstairs, taking notice to how it felt as though I slept quit well considering I spent the night on the couch. As I entered the bathroom I was a bit surprised for whatever reason by my reflection. My shirt was indeed torn down the center, and my hair was messy. It looked as though I had fornicated with a wild animal, and yet thinking back, all his actions were actually quite delicate. I raised my hand, and moved my fingers through my hair, trying to replicate the way he had done it. Though I was pleased with his second visitation, I was now feeling lonely. Since I had moved into my late grandfather's home, I had been lonely. However that wasn't new, so I hadn't taken notice to the empty emotion. Not until I made contact with the Ghostface and his physical touch began.
I undressed and turned on the hot water, climbing into the shower gradually so to not immediately feel the seer of the heated water on my new cut. It will surely scar, I thought. I knew cuts, and I knew the feeling of the ones that stuck around. It was almost as if Ghostface was marking me, though I had never read of him doing something like that to his other victims when I thought back to the articles of his killings.
I stepped out of the shower, and wrapped myself in a towel. Walking into my room, I looked to the spot I had been standing when Ghostface had first appeared to me. Funny, I thought, he really does act ghost-like. Always disappearing and reappearing. I sat on the edge of my bed, and brushed through my wet hair with a comb. I trailed off in my thoughts and closed my eyes for a moment.
I tried to re-invision everything that took place the previous night. As I began to play through the sequence in my head, I realized how silent he had been when he snuck into the house. How did he manage that? It's as if his feet never even touched the ground. The only thing to be heard before his arms wrapped around me was the creak of the door swinging slightly from the breeze and my own quickened breathing. I rewound a bit in my mind's playback of the senerio, thinking about how the evening even began. Suddenly a very important detail struck me that I hadn't even caught before.

He knew my name.

I jumped from my bed due to the sudden shock of realizing it, and mentally cursed myself, asking how I could have been so blatantly dumb to not question that? Had I grown too comfortable around the killer, and that's why it felt so natural when he spoke my name?
I walked over to my full length mirror, and undressed the towel from my bodies frame. I looked at the cut upon my side in the reflection, and put a hand to it, not averting my gaze. My mind was racing as the question cycled through my head, over and over again. How did he know my name?
The buzzing in my brain was growing heavier when I was snapped out of it suddenly by an alarm on my phone going off. "What the hell is that set for?" I pondered out loud. Picking up the phone I read the alarm as "First day. Don't be late!" My head was empty at the moment, but then it dawned on me. It was Tuesday. My first day of work at the library.
I immediately ran to my dresser and began throwing an outfit together. I had plenty of time still for me to be there, but I always felt anxious about needing to be ready well before I had to be. It went along with my anxiety disorders. Ones now that I think don't make any sense. I get panic attacks sometimes in public just because of strangers walking by me, or anxious just ordering coffee, yet an armed killer having his way with me in my own home was something I was learning to get comfortable with.
I put disinfectant and a bandage on my new future scar, handling it with care, thinking of it as my first pleasant life bookmark upon my body. I cleaned up the bandage wrappers and got dressed, then put on my makeup and went downstairs for an attempt at breakfast.
I made coffee and ate a slice of buttered toast while divulging in another bad habit of mine. The occasional morning cigarette. As I looked out the kitchen window into the woods that filled the space of the backyard, I began questioning if Ghostface was always hiding there, simply behind trees or in the brush. I had never ventured out into the back woods since I had moved in. I found them to be a pleasant thing to look at during the day, but at night I had no intention of holding curiosity for it. I had time this morning for a quick jaunt through the woods, so I finished my coffee and lit another cig for the road.
Upon entering the woods, all felt peaceful. The birds were singing, and the air was cool. It was a pleasant morning and I wondered if I'd catch glimpses of any wildlife. As I ventured deeper I started hearing stirring in the brush ahead. I'm not sure what I was hoping to see, but whatever it was I didn't want to scare it away before I caught a glimpse of it. As I parted the brush however, I was met by a dreary sight. A beautiful doe with it's leg caught in a bear trap. It having such thin limbs, the poor things leg was practically snapped in two, but the teeth of the trap were still boared into it's muscle and it had no chance of escape. When I entered the area through the brush, it's terrified face met my gaze. I stood there, staring at it for a moment, wondering who would do a cruel enough thing to set bear traps out in the woods. I wasn't sure how to go about approaching it. There was certainly nothing I could do. I thought maybe I could at least try to comfort it, but it wasn't like holding a slowly deceasing animal. It still had it's life, but the severe injury it sustained by the trap would never allow this wild animal to recover.
I started walking very slowly towards the doe, crouching down slightly as to not appear as intimidating. I started extending my hand to reach for it's head. Without warning, a large black dog sprung from the other side of the brush, snarling and snapping its jagged teeth. I feared immediately for my well being, and stumbled back so quickly, I tripped and hit the ground with a thud.
"Zippo!" A deep male voice called through the woods. Before this vicious dog could launch at me, it seemed to immedialy halt in place to the man's callings. A figure of a man, tall and built, came out of the thick part of deadfall from the trees. He was burly, with a thick scraggly beard. The man looked practically like a lumberjack. Upon noticing me, a southern accent emerged with the word, "shoot!" He hurried over to where I was, but rather than giving me a hand up, he held the dogs caller. "Y"all right, miss?" He asked. "I'm good," I responded, helping myself up and dusting the dirt off. He turned his attention to the doe. "Git on it, Zippo." The man said, and his dog seemed to know exactly whatever that meant as he trotted over to the deer and grabbed it's neck with its mouth.
I stared at the sight for a moment. The man, seemingly awkward, said, "he don't hurt no one. Just out here helpin me with my huntin." Without removing my gaze from the dog and the doe, I replied, "right...interesting name he has. Zippo? Was it?" The man chuckled a bit, then reached into his pocket. "Right, right. Named him after my lucky zippo lighter." He flashed me a silver zippo with a picture of one of those typical tattoo style skulls on it. He continued this quickly dying conversation, "what a young, pretty thing like yourself doin out in the woods?" I didn't quite like the way he said "young, pretty thing" and I caught his wandering eyes as I finally looked away from the dog and the doe.
"I live off of Scarsbrow road." I gestured to the direction I came from. I hoped this man didn't live anywhere close by. I didn't necessarily want him to know the area I lived in, but I thought if I insinuated I was close to home, he'd leave. "Ahh, we'll be careful out in these woods. My Pa and me, we do our huntin out in these woods. Just stay on the look out for red. They'll show ya where the traps be." He pointed to the bear trap, and I caught on to what he meant. There was as a red tag on the bear trap, likely to catch peoples eyes so they don't accidently make the mistake the doe did. "Right. Well, I actually have work soon, so I'll be going." I started to turn to leave when he asked, "oh, you work in the town over?" I huffed a quiet sigh, trying not to be obvious that I was growing annoyed and honestly anxious around this southern drawling man. "Borose, yeah." He nodded and said, "right, that town be a diamond in the rough out here. Well, I'll let you be. If you ever need somethin, my Pa and I live through the woods on the other side, on Tensstop ave." I waved him goodbye with a fake smile, and quickly made my way back through the brush. I mistakenly looked back one last time, and made eye contact with the doe, still in the jaws of that big, black dog.
I couldn't help but feel so apologetic about it, like I had just left it to die, but again, what could I do?