starry eyes ✮ slashers.

chapter 022.

twenty two. take me.

"You evaded me." Freddy twirls a strand of her hair around his claws, talking to her unconscious form. They usually 'wake' by now, he muses uncomfortably. "You haven't seen me in days but i've been watching. You've been asleep. How have you not come to me?" He hisses in frustration, gripping her jaw harshly, shaking her head in hope to wake her.

Twice she'd been forced unconscious, the first by Harry, now by almost drowning. Why does she only enter the dreamworld when forced to? He feels powerless, the frustration overwhelming him. He needs to kill.

Not knowing something is foreign, disgusting, pathetic. He looks down at the girl he hovers over, eyes scanning her features carefully. She looks lifeless, it stirs a pit in his gut, one that makes his anger grow.

Why would he want her alive? Why did they all? The killers? What was so special about one human girl?

Waving a hand dismissively, her figure disappears and Freddy's left to mull over his thoughts.

Billy Loomis is not dead.

Stu's cheeks have burned red ever since he'd entered the hospital— a day ago, and there are dark purple circles under his eyes. His skin is coated with layers of dried tears, his knees tucked to his chest, eyes focused sternly on Billy. He blinks quickly and less occasionally than he should, but the drier his eyes are, the longer he goes without crying.

His head pulses, stressed from his recent emotional bursts. He's struggled with a lot recently and although he knows all the murder and killers isn't entirely normal, he can't help but wonder why he must be so hurt by everything.

Encroaching footsteps finally register in Stu's complicated mind and he turns hastily, eyes widening in fear as he sees his film studies teacher. He all but stands from his seat, scrambling to Billy's side.

"I'm not here to harm you." Tom begins, fury boiling in Stu's blood. He wishes to attack, to show him even a fraction of pain Billy feels. "Lyra is in the room next to yours. I didn't think he'd survive." Tom continues after a pause, listening to Stu's heavy breaths.

He approaches the unconscious boy on the bed with a sinister smile. Stu eyes him warily.

"Don't you touch him." He speaks sternly, watching him intently as his fingers grace across the tubes spilling from Billy's body. Lyra's in the hospital, Stu registers his words.

He hastily looks around, paranoid this was all a trick to make sure the infamous miner killer could finish the job.

"He's in the hands of fate now. If he wakes, make sure he remembers it was me, and it was to protect her. He ever harms her again and i'll make sure he suffers worse." Stu takes a second to process his words, nodding in shame.

"And Lyra?" Stu asks through fear, missing the girl who'd comforted him so bravely. Through a technicality Billy had been hurt because of her, but he knew it was Billy's own stupidity and Harry's protective nature that was truly to blame.

"A girl tried to punish her for standing up for Carrie. They drowned her in the pool on campus." Stu's eyes widen like saucers and he steps back from Billy as a fearful reaction to the information.

"Is she—"

"She's alive. Even woke up for a second, but then she was out like a light. Carries with her now. She killed her you know? Carrie killed the girl that drowned her. She's like us." Tom smiles faintly at the thought, seeing no shame in his actions any longer.

"I'm not like you." Stu curses out. The inclusive manner of the word 'us' wounds him sharply. He didn't relate to the man who tried to kill his best friend. Not one bit.

"Anyway..." Tom rolls his eyes, glancing back to Billy's almost lifeless rigid figure. "Feel free to visit her, your little friend isn't waking up anytime soon." Stu struggles to think of a response in time as Tom leaves the room quickly. He's left to dwell uncomfortably, glancing between Billy and the door. He shakes his head. He can't leave him. Lyra will live, perhaps she'll visit him even.