Killer Romance [Book 1] [Jeff the Killer x Reader] [JTK]

Chapter 21: Gaiety (Day 7) Edited

Your mind was becoming a maze.

Your thoughts and feelings were all tangled up like a bush of thorns in the winter, and you were battling all six emotions at once: The vexation of being lied to, trepidation of being killed, incredulity of his betrayal, odium of his inhumanity, gaiety of his strange, yet caring attitude, and dolor of knowing your fate. On top of all that, every single memory you thought you had lost came crawling back into your spine like a tsunami hurdling a village with a flash-flood warning. While you pondered about the mysterious girl named Jane, your brain contemplated every facet of Jeff and what he was doing. What was he doing? And why was he doing it?

It was known that you hadn't regained all your consciousness when you discovered the gift of your accident, but you didn't expect a fact to soar in so late. As your brain tip-toed on the tightrope of sanity, an eagle knocked you off your podium with the momentum of shattered lies. The face of the man destined to kill you was shown before your shangri-la, and it startled you. His features were prominent when a harsh light blocked his eyes from knowing what was watching him. If he had any clue of what it was, he would likely spiral out of his own sanity and try to pull others down with him.

"You look grim," Jeff said, sitting next to you on the floor of the hotel room.

You, vexation, held your knees up to your chest and answered sinfully, "I don't feel grim."

"Listen," Jeff murmured. He propped himself up on his heels and slowly started walking back and forth across the room as if he was thinking or giving you a speech. "I want to know what's going on. It's obvious that something's bugging you, and it's annoying me. I'm sorry about earlier, by the way. I didn't know that it was an accident. I was just scared and really confused-"

"There's nothing wrong with me," you sighed.

"That's a lie," Jeff declared. He had his arms hanging by his sides and his head hung so that his eyes would face you directly. And it was trepidated. Every gaze and every glare was simply scary. If you didn't know any better, or know him any better, you would've ran away like a lost creature in the woods. It was a good thing that you knew he wasn't one for extreme measures without evidence. But your sureness was silenced when he continued his dirty nonsense of an articulation with a phrase that could make everyone in the building rethink their certainty of what they do and do not know: "I'm almost sure I know what's happened."

You buffered your eyes so that you wouldn't have to face him and wondered whether you should tell him or keep acting like you were innocent and oblivious. "Can we talk tomorrow?" you decided. "I'm tired."

His face showed that he was agitated and filled with incredulity, unbelief, but it changed after a moment to show his resentment. He took a breath and then shrugged in a sarcastic fashion to insult you with your own remarks. You could tell that he wasn't ready to give up on you and your false advertisement, but he cared enough to agree for your sake. Maybe he wasn't totally out of the dark. If he really did know, wouldn't he be upset that his cover had been blown?

Curling up in a bed that was low to the ground, you felt an inkling of peace and an odium that subsided with every breath. The bed was cold, yet consuming. It was like a jacket meant to be worn in frosty weather, but it did nothing more than hide the scars on your arms and conceal the dignity you wouldn't dare let go of. It wasn't able to protect you from sub-zero thoughts or zephyr, much like someone you knew nothing about.

You fell asleep in the chilly shackles whilst dreaming about that person. It seemed like you learned more about them every time you slept, so it didn't surprise you when a scene of the two of you played about endlessly where you searched and searched for answers as to why they ruined the only good part of your life. And that was freedom. They had taken the knife and shoved it into the sharpener thousands of times before they gave you any reason to suspect them and what they were challenged by. Or what challenge they accepted at the beginning of the story- the story where life and death were simple games.

The dream startled you so much that you woke up with a small, dolorful scream.

"Are you alright?!"

He was standing over you, his frigidly austere hand lightly on your head. He commented on the extreme hypothermia your body was undergoing and cursed at the non-existent reasons why. Even your exponentiated breathing was getting colder by the minute, and the accumulated stress was turning your eyes into a foggy, white mess.

"Can you just calm down for a second? Was it a bad dream? A nightmare that seemed too real?" he asked blissfully.

"It was the worst thing anyone could ever go through," you stuttered. "I was trapped in a burning cycle of lies with someone I barely knew. But the scary thing was that I didn't even know myself or what the freedom they took away felt like. I couldn't remember any of it because I was forced to believe that life was excruciatingly hard and painful."

He definitely caught on at that point, and he didn't look too happy about it. In fact, he looked so emotionally traumatized and absolutely shocked that he couldn't have been anything more than depressed. It was only then that you noticed how red and sleepless the whites of his eyes were and how crookedly worn-out his cheeks felt. The invisible tears climbing up his face looked brutally pure. And just as he turned the lamp's switch to the other side, forcing the room into a slumber of darkness, he sighed, coughed, and excused himself for the way he displayed his feelings.

"Hey," he started, "I know what happened, and I want you to know that I still love you." He crawled into his side of the bed and snuck his hand under your pillow before nuzzling his face into your neck. It set you on edge, but it was nothing different than his normal abnormal behavior.

He whispered, "Even if you remember everything, if you believe that I won't hurt you, I won't."

Your eyes shot open, which made the blankets crinkle.

"Are you scared?" Jeff asked. Other than his voice, it was completely silent in the room. But a slow and calm tic toc emerged from his hush. It frightened your bones more than it correlated with his outer skeleton.

Maybe.

"Do you think I'll hurt you?" he asked with more force. It was obvious that he needed some sort of answer or any inclination that you still believed in him, but you weren't aware of an adequate reply to the question. You didn't know if you felt more frightened or more guilty about the situation, but it was killing him more than it was killing you, ironically.

I don't know.

"Do you love me?" he asked sincerely. This time, the edge of his voice was a sorrowful dejection masked by unfulfilled hope. He was hoping that you were still on the same side he was, and that side was neither black nor white.

After letting a tear fall from your left eye, you said, "Yes."