Tragedy

I. Man in the Mirror.

Stale beer always filled the air, no matter the time. Her father wasn't an angry drinker, Olive knew that. She always found him passed out, watching her mother on the television. Olive heard very often that she had her mother's eyes and her father's smile. She was a mismatched jumble of bits and pieces of two adults who couldn't love without the other.

It was her father's week, though she wished she could stay longer. A long plane ride filled with plans that reeked of pity and sorrow was all that she remembered on these types of days.  Ten years ago, they divorced. Olive was an olive branch, quite literally. She was the product of one final attempt for her parents to remain in love. They stopped loving each other while together when she was six years old. That was seven years ago.

She was thirteen now, with dark brown hair that tangled in ways she couldn't explain. With a fear of men with masks, and scary movies. Her mother and father were paranoid but the last of their tormentors died years ago.

     It didn't matter, claimed her mother on bad nights.

    They always come back, her father whispered when he kissed her goodnight.

     Olive just wanted to ignore the man in the mirror with the funny shaped head wound. She never told her parents about the strange man. He often spun tales of killers with masks, and movies that barred the names of her parents. He said this was her design, her fate. To either be the man in the mask, or be the little bunny that he kills. On these nights, Olive sleeps with her father. Sometimes, it's other people, still with the same man's mask. They whisper their vision of events, muttering profanities Olive never dared to repeat.

    Olive knows their names. She knows exactly who they killed, where they killed. There was Woodsburo in her blood, no matter how many times her mother denied it.

    Just as her mother denied her urges to move back to her ex husband. Daddy loves you, Olive would shout on their really bad nights. Her mother would only shout back: if he loved me, he wouldn't have left. And that would be the end of those conversations.

    Olive was homeschooled, though she wished she wasn't. But she could never remain enrolled in a school that would let her miss that many days of school. Her mother preferred to keep her home, to keep her safe. Her father agreed, solely because he lived in Woodsboro.

     Her notebooks filled with nonsensical muttering of the people in masks and long division cluttered her bedroom floor. It was nothing like her room at her mother's. It was neat with little boxes filled to the brim with her things.

      When Olive lay in bed, she knew it was only a matter of time before the man in the mask would come visit her. He keeps her company while her father sleeps. The house was always too quiet for her. It reminded her of those scary movies Wes Hicks showed her, with the music that built suspense. He babysat her while his mother, Judy, hung out with her father. She was a nice woman that bought lemon squares and other various treats to the Riley house whenever Olive was there.