☘︎ Jᴇɴɴɪғᴇʀ Rʏsᴏɴ ☘︎

The clown has a pair of surgical scissors and a knife in his hands. His irises glinted with a maniacal satisfaction, a crazed smile gracing his painted red lips.

"My dear Dolly Polly shut your eyes.
Lie still, lie silent, utter no cries.
As the witcher, brave and bold.
Paid in coin of gold."

Squished inside one of the many empty cemented rooms of the warehouse, the other four kids and I were each lying on creaky old hospitable beds, our wrists and ankles bound by iron chains to the eroded railings of the bed.

The clown approaches me first, singing and limping his way over. The slish-slash sound of the scissor's cutting movements were like the disturbing screech of a nail dragging across a blackboard.

The clown's eerie smile widens when he stops in front of me, staring down at my bound form with a psychopath's clinical gaze, as if thinking of ways to carve my body with his equipments.

Gritting my teeth to stop their tattering from the cold I felt in my veins, glaring at him to stop the tears that had been begging to unleash from the confines of my eyes since I've been bought here, I don't let the clown see my fear.

Although I hate the tremble wrecking through my body when the clown lifts my top to expose my bare stomach. He traces a horizontal line with the tip of his knife over my skin. It's barely a graze but I know what he's doing.

I'd read in an article how it wasn't about the pain that fueled a psycopath's pleasure. It was about the power they felt over their victims, the power of making the victims loose all hope and be completely on their mercy. He wanted me to fear him, to cower him and beg for his mercy and then he was going to kill me, kill all of us.

I knew the moment I gave up and surrendered, he'd be bored. Psychopaths get bored easily, it was what further fueled their maniacal tendency to inflict different types of torture on their victims and seek entertainment through it. The only challenge holding him back right now from killing all of us was me not fearing him. He'd do all he could to terrify me, to make me succumb. The faster I gave up, the quicker he'd be bored and decide to finish his game. I'd be damned if I played right into his ploy.

If I was going to die anyways, I'd rather die brave than in cowardice.

"He'll chop and slice you.
Cut and dice you.
Eat you up whole.
Eat you whole."

The first slight stab of the knife has me biting my tongue, stiffling a cry at the stinging pain.

"He'll chop and slice you.
Cut and dice you.
Eat you up whole.
Eat you whole."

He repeats the lullaby's lyrics like a broken record, twisting the knife while it's still partially within my skin. I taste the irony tang of blood from where I'd bitten my tongue too hard.

The clown is about to dive the knife deeper when a traumatized cry stops his movements,

"No, stop!" Mia begs, sobbing from the bed beside mine, her entire form trembling at an alarming rate.

The clown frowns before his smile grows wider, crazier. He pulls the knife out of my skin with a harsh tug and stalks towards her with purpose, completely ditching me.

My eyes grow wide in shock. I can feel the telltale of blood seeping down the fresh slice on my stomach as I yell, "NO! You were going to demonstrate on me first!"

The clown laughs, smug satisfaction clear in his laughter. He's going to hurt her because she tried to stop him from hurting me. I couldn't let that happen. She's my only friend here.

Mia's body convulges on the bed, her head shaking left to right as the clown approaches her and lifts her shirt as he had done with mine. She's having a panic attack.

Just when the tip of the knife touches Mia's pale skin, we hear them;

The sirens wailing, warnings ensuing on megaphones, orders being yelled and then the thudding of footsteps rushing our way.

"The warehouse has been surrounded. Clown killer, show yourself. You're under arrest warrant." An authoritative voice rings loud and clear through the blarring megaphones.

The clown pauses in his ministrations, stepping back from Mia with an uncharacteristical calm. Shaking his head as if the voices and people were being bothersome, he limps his way to the iron table where he'd placed all of his surgical equipments.

But before he can grab any of other scissors, tongs or knives placed there, cops dressed in dark-blue uniforms storm into the cemented room.

They pull the clown's arms behind his back and the chief of police, clasps the handcuffs on the clown's wrist with a quick work of his hands.

"You don't understand. What I'm doing is for the good of all of us." The clown reasons in a composed manner as if he isn't a psychopath at all, "Do you know how hard it is to get kid organ donors? What if your child suffers from an accident and needs immediate organ transplant to survive? If you don't get a donor on time, your child could die. I'm going to take the organs of all these children and donate them so that I can save all of the children who need donors for transplant. I'm doing this for the good, I'm helping all of you."

That was the thing about psycopaths, they always thought what they were doing was right.

"What of these kids? You think you're saving one by killing the other? That's no saving!" The chief of police shouts, his jaw tight.

The clown begins again, "I'm helping you-"

The police chief knocks the clown on his painted face with his gun, "YOU need mental help. And you will be getting that. In the prison." Then he's commanding his teammates to take the psycopath away.

The other remaining police officers rush to my and the other kids aid, unbinding our chains and passing us water. Once we're settled, they ask us for our names and our parent's phone numbers to contact them.

After minutes that felt like hours of staring into nothingness, sitting numbly on the iron bed, with the voice of the police droning in my ears and the background feeling like a blur, a cop finally enters the room with my parents.

"Miss Violet, your father and mother are here." The dark-blue uniformed government official informs.

My sight flickers to the horrified faces of my parents. Dad looks at me like he's seeing a ghost, his face pale and his arms slightly trembling. He's rooted to the spot as if he can't move. Mom is crying and the moment she spots me, she breaks into a sprint to hug me, breaking into heavy sobs.

Dad follows shortly behind, engulfing both of us in a tight, warm embrace. I see a single tear slip down his cheek, "I'm sorry, Violet. I should've been more careful about your security."

I gently shake my head telling him he wasn't to be blamed and he just hugs me and mom tighter. And as they hug me like they'd loose me if they let go, does everything that happened since I was kidnapped come rushing back.

My gaze finds Mia's who was breaking down in the arms of the police chief, reapetedly blabbing on and on about how the clown was going to cut her down. The police chief consoles her, trying to calm her panicking state by telling her she'll be fine. Her parents haven't made it yet and she was losing it with every minute.

It was when Mia eventually settles down enough to pass me a teensy small watery smile, clinging to the elderly police chief officer, do I feel the first tear run down my eyes.

But it wasn't a tear of sadness, it was a tear of finally escaping the dark clouds.

Only if I knew how wrong I was.

Only if I knew the end was only the beginning.

--------᪥♔︎᪥-------

Y'all have no idea how fried my brain was after researching on psycopath's behaviors and watching disturbing interviews of serial killers, for the sake of the book💀✋️

But on the bright side, it helps me make this book's psycho characters more realistic and creepy🌚

Also, hopefully the next 'twelve years ago' chapter will be about 'THE incident'👀👍

Anyways, lemme know your thoughts on this chapter and that last-minute-made cliffhanger😎!