Bad Blood Finale

——❝ 𝘖𝘩, 𝘵𝘳𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘮𝘦, 𝘗𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘤𝘦𝘴𝘴. 𝘐’𝘮 𝘢𝘭𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘺 𝘥𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘪𝘯𝘨

            𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘥𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘩 𝘢𝘴 𝘪𝘵 𝘪𝘴. ❞

Welcome to the final act —— :performing_arts:

                   Parts one through six are provided at the

                    end of the previous blog. Check them out

                    if you’re interested in reading the full

                    story before this part (they’re all

                    500-1000 words/generally shorter).

Trigger warning ——❝ haunted house :ghost:

                                                    Panic attack ❞

𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭: 1452

In the dim light, Pearla and Tristan ventured without a clue about the exit’s location. They’d found a map earlier and tried following the directions, but they only wandered further off track. The walls were caked in heavy drapes and fake blood, and the jumpscares were all subpar in their eyes. But the flickering lights and silence of the past few minutes had changed the atmosphere.

Objects would fall off walls, and doors would creak open before they were in sight. Tristan was starting to get paranoid. Not a single actor had come out to scare them.

“Maybe we should turn back,” he suggested, but Pearla wasn’t deterred. She, too, had a sinking feeling in her stomach, but chalked it up to her usual anxiety. The flashlight in her hand illuminated a mirror at the end of the corridor, but something else peeked from its corner.

A face.

Oh, how she wished she hadn’t spotted it. She bit her lip, forcing herself to step forward. “Come on, Tristan. We only have one flashlight.”

“I still think this is all too creepy. We haven’t seen anyone in here for the past ten minutes.” He took the flashlight from her hand, saying he’d lead from now on. “Your map-reading skills are what got us lost in the first place.”

Pearla didn’t fight and advanced, hands to her chest. She had taken out her gloves earlier and started scratching them to distract herself. The sound drove Tristan up the wall with how tense he already was. But it was either that or she’d make the place look like a crime scene.

He jumped past the corned, light, pointed. Scouring the perimeter, he sighed in relief.

“Coast is clear.” He turned around, and his heart dropped. Pearla wasn’t there. It was like he had been walking alone this whole time. The silence bared heavily on his shoulders as he waited for her to pop up from behind a drape.

Nothing.

He called her for several minutes; still no answer. All he could do was retract his steps. But the path he came from had changed. Or had it?

“I swear that door wasn’t there before,” he murmured. His breath hitched as something grazed against his side. Hot air puffed on his already sweating neck. When he checked, it was empty behind him.

But something was visible.

There’s something there. Eyes red and black watched from a distance. A ringing played in his eyes as it smiled, revealing hell in its mouth.

Just what kind of madhouse is this?

“Tristan?”

He yelped, stumbling into the wall as Pearla appeared from the door he’d been avoiding. She was seemingly fine, with a few cobwebs in her hair. “Are you okay?”

“Damn it, Pearla. Where have you been!?”

“In here.” She showed him the small room with a TV and a projector. A bunch of cassette tapes were thrown on the floor, and the old projector flashed a blurry image through the window into the hall.

It was the shadow he had been staring at a minute prior.

With a heavy sigh, he pushed his hair out of his face. “I’m starting to have enough of this.”

“I think we’re nearing the end,” she reassured him. Or tried to. Tristan was full of nerves, ready to fire if anything scared him again.

“Let’s go, then. The faster we’re out of here, the better.”

When they left the room, the door slammed shut. They shared a confused look. The initial breeze was gone. The air lay eerily still. They were alone, and Pearla knew she had been scratching when she ed the door. Tristan, still holding the light in one hand, held her wrist with the other

Who had closed the door?

In their growing fear, the light dimmed ever more and gained a red hue. They could hardly see a few feet ahead of them. Taking a step back, they froze.

A loud crack popped under their feet.

Those bones were not there a second ago.

But something else was there, breathing. The smell of rot reached their noses, permeating the air. And then came the footsteps.

Y̧̬̬͇̖̳̏͌͞o͙͙̙̘̙ͤͫ͞ụ̴̴̾̀͟͡ṛ̣̬̫̍͌ͩ͟ t͖͖̠̬͛i̧̻̻͉̜͑ͪ̾͟m̰̰̹͚̙̂ͦ͗͠ḛ̡̰̳͓̥ͬ͋ͪͧ i̧̻̻͉̜͑ͪ̾͟s̨̞̞̰͎͎̪̩͕̈́̀ͯ̍ͧͅ ụ̴̴̾̀͟͡p͔͔͚͉̬̋ͩ̾͗, c̨̨̣̮̝̈́̔ͯ̀͂h̨͚͚͖ͯ̒̄͗͞i̧̻̻͉̜͑ͪ̾͟l͖͖̰̝ͭ̀͘d̶̵̯̯̼̘ͨ̓ṛ̣̬̫̍͌ͩ͟ḛ̡̰̳͓̥ͬ͋ͪͧn̫̫̘̗͕̲̲̎ͥ.

“We have to move. Now!” He grabbed her hand and ran. They ran over bone piles on the floor; hands reached for them from doors and broken windows. Spectres fell from the ceiling, cloaking their vision in white before vanishing entirely.

It was all too much.

“Ah! Tristan, wait—ah!”

She tripped, rolling to a halt. Her ankle throbbed, and she tried moving herself from the debris surrounding her. She cried, ignoring the other minor cuts she suffered, focusing her energy on her leg. But the peace was all cut short.

Eyes full of hunger craned past the corner. A body tangled and thin crawled into the dim lights, scurrying for the poor girl. By the time Tristan had turned back, it was too late. Eyes wide in horror, I watched as Pearla was ripped away, screaming for help.

The silence that followed was suffocating.

“PEARLA!”

“Come on, Princess. Please, wake up.”

Roman had finally gotten them all to his safe house, but Pearla had yet to wake up since her episode on the helicopter ride there. He hadn’t explained exactly what would happen inside the house of horrors to make her reaction as real as possible, but the downside was the aftermath. When Echo brought her to them, she was in tears and shaking without rest.

After an agonizing thirty minutes, there was movement. Her fingers twitched, and her eyes fluttered open. But as the memories came rushing back, a surge of adrenaline flooded her system. She shot up, hyperventilating.

Roman held her hands, trying to find her gaze as it darted around the room. When he caught it, he called her name a few times. She was able to keep her eyes on him, but the panic never lessened.

“Alright, Princess, can you name five things you can see?”

“Uhm, o—okay, uh, you. The—the window. The li—ight. Tye an—and the te—eddy bear.”

“Mhm, four things you can touch.”

She reached for his hands first, then the bed she rested on, her clothes, the phone at her side and finally his hair. His soft and fluffy hair.

“You’re doing good, Princess. Name three things you can hear.”

His voice came first, followed by the low buzzing of the air conditioning and finally, Echo’s tense breathing.

“Pour de vrai tu respire fort. Calme toi un peu.”

“I’m just breathing!”

Roman chuckled, keeping his eyes on her. “Almost there. Name two things you can smell.”

Her breathing now calmer could pick up a few scents; his cologne and—

“chocolate ice-cream?”

“Un merci serait apprécié.”

“One more thing, Princess. Something you can taste.”

She licked her lips, tasting remnants of her sweet peach lip balm. She leaned against Roman, taking a slow, deep breath. With all her nerves gone, she could finally take a look at her surroundings. It was a large room complete with a king-size bed and a balcony. The air smelled fresh and light. Even the way the sun came in through the window was different.

Peaceful.

“We made it?” She looked at Roman with hopeful, teary eyes. “Did we really make it?”

He never broke her gaze and smiled, filling her heart with warmth.

“We made it, Princess.”

The relief crashed on her like pouring rain. She threw her arms around him, repeatedly thanking him. The torment and pressure weighing on her shoulders was gone. The nights spent anxiously waiting for Lucien or dealing with his entitled family were past and would never return.

“Please, never leave me, Roman.”

He hummed and reached for his pocket, taking out a ring. She gasped, ing the opal that shone in the center. She’d wanted it months back, but Lucien thought it was cheap and never bought it.

“You ed? Why?”

Interlocking their fingers, he kissed the one shining with the ring. “I fought for your hand today and I’ll be damned if I let anyone take you away from me.”

“That is a promise, Pearla.”

“Alors, c’est officiel?”

“If you want it to be.” Normand fumed when Roman gave his usual vague answer, but it raised a question in Pearla’s mind.

What are we? What am I to you? She glanced at him, blushing under his intense gaze.

“Yes?”

“What do you want?”

The question took her by surprise. What did she want? Titles were floating in her head, thoughts and ideas all bubbling down to one word.

Mine.

“I want you to be mine.” The words were powerful and pulled his heart to hers.

“Then forever yours I shall be.”