The One (Jeff The Killer x Reader)

Chapter 8

~Jeff's POV~

"It's happening," he thought aloud while sitting against the base of the tree house. "They're turning against her, and it's making her angry... it won't be long until she loses it, until she becomes like me." 

He watched the sunset rise once again, with no sign of you. 

~Your POV~

You found yourself silently following a stranger down the street in the dark. As you got closer, the light from the moon and stars shone on their body to reveal that they were covered in blood, with a long, curved knife in their bloody hand, just dangling at their side. But you weren't afraid, if anything you felt concerned. Although their back was towards you, you could tell from the way they walked that they were in a daze. In the distance you could here an echoing voice, "do you need help, do you need help?" But they carried onward, and so did you, despite everything in your body telling you to turn back, to call back to that person and ask for help. The stranger turned towards a path in the forest, and so did you. You felt chills as the leaves and twigs under your feet crunched and snapped, the stranger stopped. With their head down, they turned and walked back towards you. You wanted to run, but your feet were frozen in place; you tried to scream but no sounds left your mouth. The stranger was just inches from you now as they lifted the blade in their hand. As they brought the blade to your throat they lifted their face, their gaze meeting yours. But she was no stranger, you saw your own face starring back at you, and your own voice leave her lips: "I'm sorry," she whispered as the blade sliced across your throat.

You woke up in a cold sweat, shooting upright in bed. Still shaking, you flicked on the lights in your room. You looked at yourself in the mirror, assuring yourself that it wasn't real, that it was just a bad dream. But you were afraid, deep down, because you recognized that knife. It was the same knife you were hiding in your backpack, for whenever he came back. 

You stayed awake for the rest of the night. Every time you closed your eyes, you saw that blood-covered "stranger". 

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Your mother found you one morning, propped up and barely awake, eyes fixated on your window, dark bags forming under them. You haven't slept in a few days, not since that nightmare.

Your mother crossed her arms, "You've had plenty of time to get over this, you're too old to be doing this." 

You didn't look at her, you kept your eyes glued to the window, "he's coming back, I know he's--"

And with a swift crack across your face, your mother cut you off. For the first time since she met your step-father, she had laid her hands on you. "Stop it. Now." was all she said before leaving your room and slamming the door behind her. If you had the energy, you would have cried, or screamed, or both. But instead you kept your eyes on the window, until it was all too much and you drifted off into a restless sleep. 

When you woke up you could hear your mother and step-father arguing, you couldn't tell what they were arguing about, but it was the same tone of voice you remembered as a kid: your father coming home late with the smell of whiskey on his breath, your mother who had been waiting up all night just to fight with him. Growing up, you felt like she loved these fights. She always wanted someone else to fuck up, so she could yell and still play the victim. 

Then finally, your step-father's voice was clear: "She's sick, you help sick people heal, you don't hurt them more!"

And then it was clear, they were arguing about you.

After what seemed like hours of arguing your step-dad decided he had had enough. You could hear your mom screaming as he packed his bags and carried them out the door. The sound of his truck staring and pulling out of the driveway made your heart sink, the only person who at least cared about you in someway was leaving, maybe forever.

Well, the last corporeal being anyway.

You spent the rest of the night awake, wondering what fresh hell you would face tomorrow.

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You decided to leave the house extra early to avoid your mom. Riding your bike, you took the long way to school. You still managed to get there a good 20 minutes before home room, and you braced yourself for the tormenting of the day. You knew you weren't crazy, these assholes had no idea the shit you had to see. But the rumors spread and spread, and you went from a regular kind of weird, "you ain't from 'round here", new girl, to someone completely alien to your peers. 

      "I heard she was in an asylum before moving here"

        "Freak"

         "Attention whore"

            "Hey, edgelord, how about a wrist reveal?!" 

Before today you hadn't even noticed it, but your clothes were getting darker and blander, the weight you've been losing making your clothes so baggy you were nearly lost in them. Maybe your subconscious was helping you fade into the background.

Another day of torment was laid in front of you; no one was really here to help you. The teachers and counselors at this school thought you were crazy too, and they certainly weren't going to get involved in some "typical gossip" as they called it. But "typical possip" wouldn't make you feel like this. It felt like sadness and angry wept from every part of your body. Sometimes, when it all got to be too much, your mind drifted to the knife in your bag..... but NO, that's not you. That will never be you, you assured yourself. 

You had a choice: be angry, seethe with anger and think about any and all ways you could get back at these assholes. Or, you could be numb, block it all out and be alone with your thoughts, silently completing your work and avoiding any and all unnecessary interactions. You typically chose the latter. 

But today it was so hard not to feel. You wanted to scream and kick and throw a fit, like a toddler throwing a tantrum. You felt like you had held it all in for so long, and if you held it in any longer you would explode. 

As you unlocked the cord holding your bike to the rack, two of girls made their way to you, walking their own bikes beside them. 

"Hey, (y/n). We've decided to walk you home today!" the first girl said, the snarky-ness wasn't lost on you. 

"Yeah, I mean, it's the least we can do for someone in your state, so afraid of -- oh... what's his name? Jim? Jake? You would know, you made him up," the second girl chimed in with a grin on her face.

"Yeah, that's gonna be a hard pass from me, and I didn't make up shit," you said. And a thought crept into your mind, a thought felt like someone else was in your head: "if you keep talking to me like that, you're gonna regret it, you all will."  You try to just shake it off, you got on your bike and started to ride away. Their words made you want to cry, but not because you were sad. That kind of wet anger swelled up inside of you and you did everything you could to hold it all in, to keep your back to them, to try and drown out their voices.

Something inside of you was telling you to go home through the woods. Maybe it was the fact that it was faster, maybe it was that with these two assholes at least you wouldn't be alone. And so, despite your better judgement, you made your way into the woods. They had been keeping a steady pace behind you before, at least that's what you had assumed based on how loud their taunting had remained. But their voices got quieter and quieter as you made your way down the trail. You slowed for a moment to look back when you couldn't hear them anymore. They were gone, they must have turned back, deciding it wasn't worth the effort to get lost in the woods for you. As relieved as you were at first, it then occurred to you that now you are alone in the woods, most likely with a murderer. Your heart raced as you pedaled as fast as you could towards your home. Once you were there, you dropped your bike to the ground and ran inside, locking the door behind you. You began your nearly daily "Oh Shit, I'm Home Alone Again" ritual of making sure every window was closed and locked, checking every closet, checking that your weapon stash was undisturbed. Once you confirmed everything was as it should be, you sat in your room and began your homework.