^^^^^^

" YOU HAVE TO SHOOT THEM IN THE HEAD, OR ELSE THEY ALWAYS COME BACK. "

alexa, play ALL FOR US by labrinth
and then play STRANGE by celeste
(i will tell u guys when to start playing strange)

^^^^^^

"Richie!" Sam let out a sigh of relief once her boyfriend picked up the phone. "Are you at the hospital?"

"Hello, Samantha."

That voice made anger flood through my veins. This fucker better beg for their life when I finally get a hold of them. Flying down the streets of Woodsboro with the worst driver in the world was not an ideal situation right now, but we needed to save Tara. I wasn't letting this fucker take anybody else from me, not over my dead body.

"Richie can't come to the phone right now," Ghostface explained, "he's finding out what happens to people who stick their noses in business that doesn't concern them."

She pulled right up to the hospital, and all three of us rushed inside while whoever was behind the mask monologued on and on. There was no time to talk to the nurses at the counter; the three of us ran to the elevator and practically smashed the button to death.

"Please don't hurt him," Sam begged the killer, and I hugged myself out of pure nervous habit.

"Hey!" Brielle's voice made me feel just a little bit better about this entire situation; I had texted both her and Laina to come to the hospital because of an emergency, and now here both of them were, running up to us just as the elevator opened and doctors flooded out.

All of these doctors, and not one person knows that Tara's in danger? That a killer is in the hospital? These doctors sucked ass. All, now five of us, got into the elevator, and words would always fail to describe the anxiety only being able to hear Sam's side of the conversation gave me. Laina and Brielle were holding both of my hands, trying to both console themselves and myself all at once. It wasn't working, not for any of us.

"What? No," Sam's 'one-sided' conversation was going to kill me. "No, please! I'm begging you, please don't hurt them!" A beat. "No, no, wait, Tara! Don't touch her, please, please, please, I'm begging you-" A couple more beats after an abrupt cut off. "I'm begging you, please don't hurt her." Another fucking beat. "Why are you doing this?!"

This was the slowest elevator ride of my life. I shook my hands free of Brielle and Laina's grip, pulling out the switchblade Wes had snuck into my back pocket and getting ready to use it on whoever was behind the mask. We were just about at the floor where Tara was, but even then, the wait was murder all in itself.

"Or maybe I'm just stalling for time, fuckhead." Sam said just as the elevator doors opened.

By a quick assessment of the room, I could tell that it was not looking good at all-Richie was unconscious, and the killer was hovering over Tara-who was on the floor-with a knife. Dad fired two shots at Ghostface before all of us came running out of the elevator. I ran to help with Richie, Brielle, Laina, and Sam all went down to help with Tara. Why was I helping Richie? I could hear Dad's footsteps coming up from behind as I helped Richie to his feet, making a face of determination as I did so.

"C'mon, we gotta work together here-" I urged as I started to half-walk, half-drag Richie towards the elevator. "Get the elevator opened!" I shouted to the group closest, and Dad began to jog towards the elevator to help out.

"C'mon, girls, let's move it!" Dad also urged, and before anybody could give a possibly snarky response, I felt a stabbing pain in my side.

Ghostface hurled me into one of the vending machines; I let out a cry and sank down to the floor, completely disoriented from the impact. My vision was blurry as ever, I couldn't make sense of anything despite my desperate attempts to. It was too late when I saw the black blob coming towards me for my mind to register it as the killer, so I wasn't exactly able to fight when they grabbed me by the throat and pressed me up against the wall, most likely intending to cut off my oxygen supply and kill me that way.

"Help!" I choked out, and just like that, everybody seemed to be back in action.

Dad managed to manhandle Ghostface off of me, and proceeded to let Brielle and Laina beat the shit out of the masked killer before turning his undivided attention my way. As I struggled to catch my breath, he placed one hand on my back and the other hand in my own.

"You're okay, you're okay, just breathe, it's okay," he did his best to calm me down. "Look at me, look at me-you're okay. It's okay, it's okay, just breathe in like I taught you to. Two seconds in, four seconds out, two seconds in, four seconds out." I began to copy his technique. "That's it, good job, yeah-yeah that's it. Good job, good job, I'm proud of you...lets go, lets go-"

Three gunshots sounded, each one knocking the killer into a glass shelf filled with different things that were important to the hospital. All of us jumped, then realized it was Brielle that had done the shooting with Dad's gun, and recovered quickly. We all made it to the elevator after Brielle had handed the gun back over, but just before the doors were able to close, Dad stepped out of the elevator and shook his head.

"The head." He said, and I straightened up, beginning to shake my head.

"What?" Richie asked, not understanding at all.

"Please stop, please stop, please stop, please-" I began to beg, my concern and worry increasing by the second.

"You have to shoot them in the head, or else they always come back." Dad explained, and that worry and concern began to weld together to form another emotion that I couldn't quite discern.

"Dad, no, no, no please don't do this, stop-" He was going to die if he did this all by himself. I couldn't lose him too. "Dad, please-"

"I love you, Tatum-" Dad seemed to go and try to say something else, but Sam's shockingly aggressive voice cut him off.

"Dewey, who gives a fuck?!" She asked, and just for three seconds did Tara's cries be the only cause of noise.

"I do."

The elevator doors closed, and as they did, I started to shout: "Dad! Dad, what are you doing-Dad, no, no, no!" And I shouted other things as well, mostly strings of colorful sentences about how slow this elevator seemed to be moving. Everybody was in a panic, the elevator didn't seem to be able to go fast enough, and when the doors finally opened up, it already felt like we were going to be too late. Again.

(alright, guys, i'm so sorry, but if you're listening to music, start playing STRANGE by celeste)

It was absolute chaos downstairs; Sam, Richie, Tara, and Brielle were all getting pulled outside by doctors and policemen alike, and at that instant, I knew we didn't have much time left. So, I took off running up the stairs, knowing the elevator would take too long. I could hear plenty of people screaming my name and for me to come back, but above all else, I could hear my father's screams. This was going very bad, very fast. I could hear somebody else chasing after me, and because I didn't know who it was, I pushed myself to run faster and slammed the door to the private floor wide open to see a sight nobody should ever see.

My father was getting kicked down to the ground by the killer, and once he fell back, he didn't make a single movement. I let out a gut-wrenching scream of pure anguish; tears began to stream down my face and I tried to take a couple of steps towards my Dad's body, but my legs proved to be insufficient. I collapsed to the ground, full body sobs set in as I began to scream-cry. He was gone. This couldn't be real. Not him. Not him too. This has to be some sort of nightmare, right? He can't be gone. Not him. Not my dad. I can't handle losing him too. I can't lose him too. This needs to be a joke.

"DAD!" I let out a broken cry, and the killer began to walk away. 

Just walk away, slowly, in no rush whatsoever. I didn't have it in me to chase after whoever this killer was, I could barely focus on anything except for his body. My dad's body. My dad's dead body. I crawled my way closer to his body, and with shaky hands, I tried to do CPR. His glazed eyes were wide open, and there was no truly discernible emotion on his face. It freaked me out, and yet again, I let out a cry. He was gone. My father was gone. His eyes were opened. He got killed by Ghostface, and he never even wanted to become a part of this again. Sam made him. He died protecting everybody else. He can't be gone. He can't be gone.

"Wake up, Dad!" I begged, my breathing becoming hitched. "Dad, wake up! Wake up, please, please!"

Laina Macher got on her knees next to me, and although it took a lot of work-I wouldn't let go of him-she pulled me into a side hug, rubbing my arm and trying to comfort me despite crying herself. My body hurt from sobbing, but I couldn't stop. I couldn't stop crying. My father was dead. His blood covered my hands, my chest and stomach area, my legs. I was sitting in a hospital hallway, sobbing in a pool of my father's blood.

I don't know how long Laina and I sat there, but we sat there for a while. The paramedics came up and put his body on a stretcher. One of them offered to help clean me off, but I refused-I think I told them that it wasn't my blood, and they backed off. I tried to regain my composure in the elevator, standing next to the gurney with a body bag on it, but it didn't work. He was my father. He was dead. He was gone. He was never coming back. Laina stayed in the hospital for five extra seconds, and I walked out with the body bag on a stretcher with the paramedics.

Brielle let out a scream and fell to her knees, Sam held onto her and Richie held back my mother from running up to us. Laina walked out and ran over to her sister, wrapping her in the sort of hug that is only in dreams. I had nobody to hug. I'm sure that my mother would have wanted to hug me, but I wouldn't have let her. I wouldn't take her touch-no, I couldn't take her touch. It would be too hard, and the only two people who could hug me (who happened to be Wes and my father) were gone. And they were never coming back.