Hatchetfield Stories

To Ash And Dust

THIS STORY CONTAINS MAJOR SPOILERS FOR NIGHTMARE TIME EPISODE 2 (FOREVER & ALWAYS AND TIME BASTARD)

Me after Forever & Always: Nope. I refuse to believe that happened, it's too sad.
Me, 2 weeks later, writing fanfictions: BUT WHAT IF I MAKE IT EVEN SADDER????

Shoutout to Nina, who was the only person I know who had seen Nightmare Time for a while, and let me rant about both the episode and this story :)

Also, this is the longest oneshot I've ever written!!! 800 words longer than my previous longest!

TRIGGER WARNINGS:
-Torture
-Blood
-Injury
-Needles
-Kidnapping
-Death

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"Paul, give me that knife!" Emma's look-alike shouted, reaching for the knife.

"No!" Emma shouted, grabbing the double's arm and pulling her back. "Give me the knife, Paul!"

"Stop it! I'm not letting you two kill each other!"

"Paul, listen to me..." the double spoke calmly. "I'm your wife. She's trying to ruin what we have. It has to end!"

Paul looks at her, lowering the knife. "No one has to die. Both of you can live."

"She stole my life!" Emma shouted.

"How many times do I have to tell you that you didn't deserve your life?!"

"Stop fighting! Emma," Paul spoke, addressing the impostor, "We're not going to kill her. And Emma, she's right. She is the woman I married."

Emma nodded, still watching the other Emma's every move.

"Fine," the double said. "But she can't leave. She'll have to stay at our place. I don't want her to fuck up the life that I built."

"Which you did stealing my identity!"

The double rolled her mismatched eyes and chuckled, grabbing Emma's arm. "You're coming with me." She snatched the knife from Paul's hands and pressed the tip of the lemmet against Emma's back, not yet drawing blood, but enough to be seen as a threat. "Paul, let's go," she said, nodding her head in the direction of the hotel room's door.

Paul nodded, and he met Emma's gaze. "Please..." she begged.

"I'm sorry," Paul mouthed, before leaving the room. Emma's double pushed her forward, and the door fell shut, their stuff left behind in room 311.

*** *** ***

Emma's head spun as it hit the floor of the basement. She scrambled backward, the imposter towering over her, despite being the exact same height.

"I hope you like it here," she said, the corner of her mouth twisting into a grin. "Because you won't leave. You'll have to stay here. Forever and always." She walked towards the door. "I'll come back later. First, I have to kill some homeless dude."

The door closed with a bang, and the click of the lock made Emma's heart sink. She was stuck here.

Getting back to Hatchetfield had been very difficult without a passport, but after almost a year of trying, she finally got on a plane two days ago. Apparently, her sister had been dead for almost two years, and she got married. Sure, Paul was a nice guy, but Emma would never get married. Not that it mattered... She was stuck here, and if her double had been smart enough to keep this act up without anyone noticing, not even Paul, she doubted it would be easy to escape.

Emma got to her feet, looking around the room. A dirty looking mattress, covered with a scratchy blanket, and a wooden chair next to an old desk were the only things in the room.

She sat down on the mattress and took the braid out of her hair, putting the hair tie around her wrist. She grabbed one of the two pillows, trying to ignore the stains on them.

What the fuck had happened in this basement before she got here? When they led her here, they had passed another room, also in the basement. She assumed it was a room similar to this one.

Emma must've dozed off, because she woke up to the sound of screaming. The door opened, and a man got pushed inside. He smelled like alcohol and cigarettes. He was probably the homeless man her doppelganger was talking about. But he wasn't dead.

Her double appeared in the doorway and smiled at Emma, the knife threateningly in her hand. "I thought you'd enjoy some company. You know, it gets pretty lonely down here."

As the door slammed closed, the homeless man looked up at Emma, confusion clear in his eyes.

"Yeah..." Emma sighed. "Not what I expected to happen today either, dude."

"That... That was not Emma Perkins."

Emma chuckled. "No, but I am. What's your name?"

The man seems to hesitate for a moment, as if he was about to expose a big secret. "Ted," he finally says. "Ted Spankoffski."