Born To Die | Vanessa Afton

15

"Hey." Your head snapped to the left. The boy who had spoken to you the other night was stood there. He was older, blonde. An unsettling smile rest upon his face. "Follow me."

As the boy started to walk away, you froze. He could lead you to your death but him and his friends were the whole reason you had come, right? You wanted to know what they mean, you wanted to know what happened. You were a police officer, it was in your nature to investigate. Cautiously, you began following the blonde through the halls, the lights flickering as you went past.

"Where are we going?" You muttered after a few seconds of walking. He hadn't even looked back to you as he pointed to a room. Then, in a blink of an eye, literally a blink of an eye, he had disappeared, leaving you alone in the corridor. Your hand rested on the handle for a minute, contemplating whether you even wanted to know what was behind it. 

Slowly, you had opened it, revealing a dark room. You turned the light on, it flickered a few times before maintaining a small, dim light. "Hello?" You questioned, not coming any closer and making sure to stand by the door. Suddenly, your eyes lay on three animatronics on the floor, your heart raced as you looked a little closer. You stopped completely, seeing the clear dead bodies stuffed into the suits.

A scream escaped from your mouth, a genuinely terrified scream as you backed out the room. In an instant the door was closed and you were leaning against the wall, hyperventilating. They had to be dead, right? Their faces were purple and no one had been here except Mike. Your body curled itself up on the floor, still against the wall as you tried to slow your breathing and calm yourself. Tears pricked at your eyes as you tried to process what you had just seen. Who could have killed them? For all you know, only Vanessa and Mike had been here in the last month, plus there were morning patrol officers, right? How have they not seen?

Vanessa wasn't looking at the cameras after you had left, she was too busy searching through drawers to find old things of hers and family members. It was one of the first times she actually got to be alone here for a long time because of you and Mike. Thinking of you, she hadn't seen you in a while. Vanessa stepped out of the room, closing the door behind her. Suddenly, she had heard a scream, one very faint from where she was standing. Swearing under her breath, she followed the sound, trying to keep her cool.

Seeing you all afraid, curled up on the floor severely worried her. You were relieved to see her, jumping up and running straight into her, engulfing her in a massive hug. She had paused for a minute but wrapped her arms around you, one on your back and another combing through you hair as she comforted you through what seemed like a panic attack. You were shaking violently and almost wailing like a child, you had seen people dead before but this worried you... The faces seemed scarred in your mind as you remembered the girl's face, she looked so young. 

"I- They... They're dead! The- there's actual... actual dead people in there." You managed to spit out through breaths once you had pulled away, Vanessa had kept her hands on your arms, rubbing slowly to comfort and calm you down. It had worked for the most part, you had stopped shaking as much and your breathing was somewhat under control. She had guilt in her eyes, you could see it, but you couldn't tell whether it was from earlier or for now.

"Hey- hey! It's fine... It's okay. I'm here." She comforted in a soft and small voice, she had pulled you back into the hug, almost as if she needed the comfort too. She held you close, like she was trying to tell you that you are safe, that no one could hurt you while you were in her arms. And it was like that, you felt like everything went away under her touch.

"I don't want to be here." You mumbled, pretty much into her ear. She hadn't said anything for a few minutes after you had admitted to it. In this moment, you had felt almost pathetic, and useless like you were told a couple days ago. You were just so spooked to see the bodies, that were still quiet fresh, maybe a week or two old? That just made it worse. What if you, Vanessa or Mike were the next victims?

"Let's go home. I'm sure this place will be fine for three hours." She whispered, matching your tone of voice. It shocked you that she seemed so normal about this.  By the time you had collected your stuff from the office, you had calmed down while Vanessa was checking the cameras one more time before loudly sighing. "I'll file them reports when I go in tomorrow." She had said, turning to you, you nodded, not really wanting to think about it. "You okay? you still seem shaken."

"I'm going to have nightmares about that." You lightly chuckled, trying to make yourself feel better with a small joke but you knew you were not joking and you were probably going to think of that everyday for the next five years. Vanessa's face turned sour at what you had said. She tried not to be sad, after all, it wasn't her that killed them, but she had felt like it was her fault, that she should feel guilt. You both wandered out of the building quickly.

"Would you want to stay at my house tonight? I don't want you to not be able to sleep because of that." She asked as she locked up the gates. It was still dark, obviously, but you felt more relaxed knowing you were out of there. You shrugged, you didn't know if you truly weren't going to be able to sleep but the extra comfort wouldn't hurt, right? Especially from someone who you classed as one of your closest friends. Plus, you wanted to spend as much time with her as you could because before long, it was unlikely you were going to see her as often.

"Sure. I'd like that." You said, a small smile sat on your face as she turned around. She seemed to be content with what you had said, as if she didn't mind but inside she was over the moon. She had overlooked the whole situation with the body's, it had been normal to her after all, and she just thought your reaction was shock not fear as it actually was.

You thought she was too calm, you could tell she was way too calm for a situation like this. Thoughts crossed your mind, was she even planning on reporting it? She must be, right? Why were you thinking that, she wasn't a bad person and you've been around her constantly when she was on patrol, you knew her well enough.

"It's fine." Vanessa suddenly said, taking you out of your ridiculous thoughts. You looked to her with literal fear in your eyes, fine? It was not fine, nothing about this situation was fine. She sighed, looking at the expression on your face. She wondered why you were so terrified, it wasn't unusual for officers to see all kinds of disturbing stuff. While you were both patrolling, you have seen lots of stuff a general person would cry to, and you seemed... fine. Now, you were shaking, as if you were scared for your life.