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"bad things happen to the people you love"
-she knows by j. cole

song to listen to: any song you'd like as long as it's sad and theatrical 

warnings: flashing lights!!!, blood, death, screaming, crying, violence, swearing, anxiety attacks, some more swearing, some more death, weapons/use of weapons, graphic descriptions of all above/in front

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Killing Me Softly With His Song by the Fugees played as we walked into the hospital, and the receptionist was filing her nails. Yeah, that's Shadyside for you. The hospital here sucks, and it's the one that my own mother works at. Deena stood there for about ten seconds, and the nurse didn't even bother to look up, so I annoyingly hit the bell for a straight ten more seconds.

"What the shit do you want?" The nurse asked without looking up.

"You to get up off your ass." I crossed my arms, but she still didn't look up. Damn.

"Realistically? Alright, you know what, just fill these out and take a seat." She tossed a clipboard onto the desk.

"No, I'm just visiting," Deena spoke up without knowledge of how hospitals work.

"Visiting hours end at nine." The bitch still filed her nails away.

"Tell Nurse Beddy she has a patient." Kate cleared her throat, leaning on the counter-how she said her words made it clear that Beddy was one of the people she was dealing to.

And now the bitch looked up. Nurse Beddy came into view a couple minutes later, a creepy smile on his face as he saw Kate. Ew. Ew. Ew.

"Beddy." Kate stated matter of factly. "Long time, how you been?"

He looked around at all of us, nodding to Simon. "I see you're still toting around with this moron."

"She can't quit me, Beddy. I'm too pretty!" Simon spoke up in just the way I expected the love of my life to.

I laughed, taking his hand and kissing the back of it as Nurse Beddy scoffed. He was nice, sure, but he was an addict, which wasn't too nice at all.

"Listen, we need your assistance-"

"I'm sure that you do, but there happens to be a new security protocol." Beddy took a strange step closer, his hands clasped behind his back. "We kept coming up short on blueberries and bananas. So now I need a special key-"

"I need to see a patient." Deena didn't exactly raise her voice, she just came off as immensely aggressive upon getting right in her face.

And without another word, Nurse Druggie was leading Deena off to see Sam. There's no way that this would have a good outcome for any of us-we'd be lucky if Deena doesn't get the cops called on her.

"Blueberries and bananas," was all Josh managed to ask, and I rolled my eyes, already knowing the answer.

"Vicodin and Percocet. You want anything from the machine?" Kate instantly changed the subject. "I'm starving."

Kate stood in front of the vending machine now, admiring all the snacks. I felt too anxious to just watch, to just sit around and wait for a bomb to go off, I needed to get this shit off my chest now.

"It's a wig." I confessed, playing around with a strand of the faux long brown hair.

"You have cancer?" Simon lacked a filter with his reply.

"Oh shit, I'm sorry-" Josh went with what Simon said.

"Badass." Kate was the one that caught on the most, and I was so thankful that I didn't have to deal with these himbos all alone. "How long? How short's the cut?"

Feeling the need for the element of surprise, I turned a corner and pulled off the wig and the cap, shaking out my hair. It felt stupid at the moment, but ah well-what was I supposed to do about it? They'd be my support system, I could count on them to hype me up whether I was in Gucci or a literal trash-bag. I stepped out into their view, and their reactions happened simultaneously. Simon's jaw dropped in what I could only hope to be a positive way, Josh did an approving nod, and Kate clapped with the proudest smirk on her face.

"Holy shit, girl, you look amazing!" Kate dashed and hugged me, letting out a small bit of laughter. "Who knew you would ever be able to rock highlights, short hair, and bangs all at once?"

"You look like you're straight out of the eighties, and-" Josh began to give what I would take as a compliment, but Simon just gave him a big pat-pat on the chest.

"-AND we are all here for it, because you look stunning and that's not even fair. How? How-I-why-what-" Simon kept on stuttering, and I couldn't handle it.

"Shut up." I commanded as I walked over, proceeding to kiss him right on the lips.

Now I felt good about myself. I felt confident in how I looked, I felt confident that Deena would handle the situation well, and hell, I even felt confident that Mom and Dad would forgive each other.

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"Yo, Si-Money. Cash me." Kate demandingly stuck her hand out for some money as we found ourselves in the vending machine dilemma once more.

"Don't look at me, dude. I'm..." He shrugged and pulled the insides of his pockets out. "...I'm broke."

Kate looked at me, and I just held my hands up in mock surrender. I actually have sixty bucks in a pink piggy bank under my bed that nobody knows about, but those are savings in case of emergency. Plus, sixty dollars would be a bit much to put in a vending machine, even if I had brought it with me. 

Kate looked at Josh; "You got any change?"

"Oh uhm..." Josh stuttered after five seconds of silence. "Let me check." 

Josh Johnson had nothing in his pockets but a clear crush on Kate. 

"Um...uh, uh, no. UH, but I-" He awkwardly waddled to the vending machine, pressing a couple of buttons, leaning in a faux cool way against the Coca-Cola machine as all the vending machine snacks fell out. "What do you want?"

I grabbed all the Crunch bars before anybody else could, stuffing a few in the inside pockets of my sweatshirt. Fuck off about it.

"Where'd you learn how to do this?" Kate asked Josh, taking a Snickers from the pile in his hands.

"Oh, a lot of people trade hacks online."

"Nerd," Simon fake-coughed, and I slapped his arm. "Hey-"

"Shut up, that's more than you could ever do." I scolded him, then turned to Josh and smiled. "That's cool, Josh, really cool."

"Thanks," he would probably hold my words in his head for forever. "So, um...when'd you get into the fruit business?"

"What?" Kate looked confused, and I felt bad for Josh.

"The uh...the...uh...drugs." He looked as bashful and awkward as he probably felt.

"Oh! That's just temporary. Saving up to get out of here." Kate explained proudly to Josh, even nodding a little bit.

There was that terrible ringing sound in my ears again-Josh's lips were moving, but I couldn't make sense of the words he was saying. Hell, I couldn't even hear whatever he might be saying right now.

"They're after you." The accented voice I'd hear before. "Run."

Sam and Deena soundlessly ran from the emergency room. Mom came out from another hallway, looking worried and concerned. Simon looked confused. Kate screamed, and I only realized the reason behind it once I was knocked to the ground. The ringing in my ears was debilitating now, as was getting knocked down to the ground. Skullmask was-for lack of better terminology-straddling me, one foot pinning my left hand to the ground, the other knee pinned my right. He got right down in my face, and that's when I could hear again.

"You're gonna burn, bitch." 

That wasn't Peter's voice. That was legitimately Ryan fucking Torres' voice. He traced the blade over my cheekbone, and I turned to the side, letting out a scream for help. Suddenly, Skullmask got knocked off of me, and I was stunned by who stood over me now.

"M-Mom?" I stuttered, and she pulled me up to the ground.

"I never liked that kid anyways." She looked at the squirming masked teenager on the floor, then kissing my forehead.

"Baby, you've gotta get out of here. Go to your friends, get to the closest house that you can, and call Auntie Mia. I know me and your father always make jokes about it, but she's not insane. She's right. The witch is real; you need to call her and tell her that it's happening again-"

"No, no Mom, I'm not leaving without you, you need to help us, we-we can't make it without you." And I wasn't talking about just me and my friends, Mom knew that.

"I'll hold him off, but don't worry about that. You'll survive." She began to back up as Skullmask began to stand up, and I started shaking my head. "Now you have to run."

"No..." I pleaded, slowly walking backwards. "No, Mom, no!"

She grabbed a clipboard and hit Skullmask over the head, then kicking his back. She had the upper-hand right now, that was good. But the ringing in my ears started again. I started to run slowly, still looking back at what I prayed would be Mom being a badass. She still screamed for me to run, even after the blade sank into her rib cage. Even after Skullmask pinned her against the wall, even after it twisted the knife in deeper.

"NO!" I screamed, tears streaming down my face. "Mom! Mom, Mom, no!" 

My screaming and useless pleading didn't stop once Simon pulled me into the ambulance with everyone else. Heard over the tires screeching and everybody screaming was only one thing: my sobs. Mom was gone. Mom was gone, and Dad had to find out. I just watched Mom get killed by one of my former best friends. But that wasn't the same man I shared my art secrets with, no, I knew that much. It was the witch. Auntie Mia's known since 1978, when her boyfriend got possessed, and my own mother has known since who knows how long.
What the fuck am I supposed to do with that?

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all i can say is that i'm sorry

i'm sorry :)