The floor creaked faintly, the weight of Tahlia's footsteps, as gentle as they were, failing to prevent the sound from resonating in the perpetually silent night.

With only a plastic bottle in her hand, she walked down the soulless hallway, her eyes having barely adjusted to the brilliant ceiling lights illuminating the otherwise dark dormitory.

It was merely eleven minutes ago, that she'd jostled awake from yet another nightmare. Only this time, instead of getting stabbed by a hundred needles or having to face her dead family, Tahlia found herself back in the Asylum. Back to that night.

She saw him.

"I don't feel guilt, I don't feel remorse, I don't feel pain, no happiness, nothing."

In her memory, Logan's face was soft and warm. His cerulean eyes, sparkling with nothing but candor.

This wasn't Logan Hunt, the Westfield Ripper.

This wasn't Logan Hunt, a clinically insane man bound in the psych ward.

"But I'm feeling this"

As his pillowy lips touched hers, she realized this was the Logan that had fucked all of her mind up.

And what made this particular recollection an unnerving nightmare, was perhaps the fact that she couldn't escape the part where she kissed him back. Ardently. Her lips moved in stellar sync with his, a flare of sublime desire moving down her shoulder. She was giving into him, her mind free from every reservation she ought to have had.

And then she got stabbed.

Naturally Tahlia woke up, all out of breath and oddly, hot.

She reached for the bottle of water kept on the nightstand, sighing as she realized she'd downed all of it along with the last bit of pills she had left, before she went to sleep.

So there she was, half-asleep, slugging her way to the water faucet at the end of the corridor.

The silence in the building was so acute, that even the paltry sound of water trickling down into the bottle seemed to echo throughout the space.

Even three weeks ago this would have been very unusual, the fact that it was only 1 AM, yet there was not a single young adult out and about in the campus. But then, it's not everyday that the truth about an unhinged serial killer escaping comes out in the open.

With that French girl's body being found and the Asylum being shut down, it didn't take long for reporters and budding conspiracy theorists to put two and two together. The police and administration had no choice but to divulge the truth to the public.

Between young activists calling out the government for it's negligence and budget cuts, and the police department being scrutinized for it's incompetence; an entire can of worms had been kicked opened.

For Tahlia it felt like someone had struck her with a brick. Especially, considering the rumors that the FBI was now going to get involved in the manhunt for the Westfield Ripper, her lies were going to come out sooner or later, and it was an absolute storm inside her head.

She closed her eyes, weeks of drowsiness taking over her body.

A sudden flash of movement made her pop her eyelids open.

The ceiling lights were all off, except one in the very middle of the corridor that kept flickering, plunging Tahlia into total darkness one second, then pulling her out the next.

The scene chilled her bones entirely.

She quickly turned to grab the bottle, only then realizing it wasn't there. The faucet wasn't running either.

She furrowed her eyebrows, her lips parting in perplexity as she could've sworn she had the bottle in her hands.

A faint but noticable sound of the floorboards creaking straight in front of her, right about the other end of the corridor made her whip her head towards the source of the noise.

Paranoia clawed it's way down her ribs in an instant.

"H-Hello?"

She called out warily, praying to God it was just another partygoer who was too drunk to watch her step.

She took a cautious step ahead, reminding herself that there was a police car right inside the campus, that there was no way he could break in.

She made her way down the hall against her better judgement, the ceiling light still strobing eerily. Her steps were daunted and unsure, her heart expanding and contracting too quick for her liking.

Just as she made it to the end, the light flickered off, but much to her relief she found no one. She let out the breath she'd been holding in, shaking her head for acting all crazy.

She'd just turned around, the light turning on, when her breath hitched in her throat.

There he was.

Logan.

His face was just a fraction away from hers.

As the singular light kept flickering; his features were illuminated for a moment, the glimmer made his light eyes appear more angelic.

But then as the light went out, darkness took over, making his eyes appear the darkest shade of onyx like the pitch black depths of hell.

She was immobilized with fear. Her brain was too scattered to act or say anything.

It was only when he advanced a step towards her, that she took one back mechanically.

He gripped one of her wrists, holding it out in the trifling space between them, while his other hand remained concealed behind his back.

He shook his head condescendingly, clicking his tongue.

"Haven't you heard about what happens to kittens with an awful lot of curiosity?"

"I-"

And before Tahlia even had the time to even completely process what was happening, Logan revealed his other hand, a knife gripped tightly amongst his fingers, driving it straight into her exposed palm.

Tahlia didn't feel the pain, but she could feel a liquid trickling down her arm.

She shut her eyes close as she shook her hand vigorously, maddeningly, as if blood could be shaken off.

As her lids flew open again, the sound of splashing filled her ears.

She looked over to her side to find her hand still clutched around the bottle, and realized that the liquid dripping down her arms was in fact, the water overflowing from the brim.

She quickly closed the faucet, tearing her eyes away from it, towards the ceiling lights. They were all on.

For good measure, she looked around, but found no evidence of someone else's presence.

Her mind was rattled.

What just happened?

✴✴✴

Tahlia spent the entirety of the day in the library.

Most of their classes had been cancelled in the wake of the news of a certain serial killer being on the loose.

Perhaps, that's why the place was so unusually empty.

Perfect.

She spent the most of her time doing all the studies she was comically behind on, especially from her Biology and Statistics classes.

Why was the femoral artery important again?

Her mind went to her phone, and she glanced towards the screen for a second as something came to her mind.

Why isn't he replying? She mused to herself.

She put her pencil down, unlocking her phone.

She stared at all the text messages she'd sent to Jace since the previous day.

It was about ten messages in a row that she'd sent to him, none of which he'd seen.

That was very unlike Jace. The apocalypse could strike the earth, and Jace Montgomery would still have his phone on him. For him to not reply to her over a span of 27 hours was very strange.

Typing a quick, 'You ok?', she put her phone away.

She kept all the reference books back into their places on the shelves neatly, gathering her things as she prepared to leave.

Her eyes went to her arm, and just like that, the thing from last night entered her mind all of a sudden.

It had left Tahlia completely disturbed and unsettled, rendering her awake for the rest of the night.

It wasn't a nightmare. It couldn't be, she wasn't asleep or anything when it happened.

No, it was too real.

She heard the sound, she saw the lights go off.

She saw him.

She felt her blood ooze out of the knife incision and coat her hands.

It reminded her of the recent instances where she thought she'd seen her sister or even her mother.

As she exited the library, heavy realization hit her in the chest.

She was hallucinating.

She paused for a second, letting it sink in.

Logan Hunt was literally driving her crazy.

She sucked in a sharp breath, telling herself it would be alright.

As she walked past the park near the dorms, she spotted the patrol car parked near one of the buildings.

One of the few things keeping her from going entirely insane.

She couldn't help but dwell on last night's hallucination. Logan got in the dormitory.

Could he?

'Impossible', She reassured herself with one quick glance towards the police car and the cop sitting in the driver's seat.

But what if he did?

She looked at all the people sitting around, chilling in the park. She didn't know most of them.

A guy sat on the grass with his headphones, doing something on his laptop. A girl just beside him, talking on her phone. She spotted the members of the music club sitting together in a circle.

While Westfield was a small town, the University happened to be fairly popular in all of New Jersey. It was home to more than five thousand students.

Would the Westfield Ripper massacre all of these innocent kids if he got in?

He'd probably target her first.

A bitter smile came on her lips at the thought.

As she continued to make her way, her brain reminded her how he likes to play games.

It would be much more likely of him to actually save her for the last, making sure she watched all the others die, especially the people close to her—

She stopped dead still in her tracks.

Her breathing turned a little sharp, as something dawned upon her.

She whipped out her phone in a split second.

Dialling her most visited contact, she brought the phone up to her ears, hearing it ring incessantly, before going straight to voicemail.

"Wassup, you already know it's Jace, leave a message after the beep, don't forget to add your name babe—"

She disconnected with a loud groan of frustration leaving her lips.

Switching over to the messages, she decided to try her luck again.

Jace???

I'm worried

???

This is not a joke please pick up the phone

She then tried his social media, hoping there was some, any recent activity on there.

None. He hadn't posted anything in the last three days.

Her eyes were glassing up at the thought of something happening to her best friend. All because of her.

JACE WTF

ARE YOU OK?

Running her hands through her hair, she started running down the opposite direction to where she was headed.

She practically broke down the glass gates to the café as she rushed inside.

Her head was frantically darting around the place, hoping to spot him.

She couldn't, but instead, she saw a familiar head of long blonde hair sitting at one of the booths. Tahlia made her way over there, the blonde and her friends snapping their heads towards her direction immediately, ceasing their talks.

"You're Tara Hayworth.." Tahlia breathed out.

The girl looked at her straight, "Yeah, and you're Jace Montgomery's little pet monkey."

Her friends snickered at her little joke.

Normally Tahlia would have kept her head down and get moving, but right now just wasn't the time.

"Have you seen Jace recently? Or-or talked to him?"

She huffed, "And why would I do that?"

"Cause you drove to Mountain Creek together? Just anwer the question please." The tone of urgency had started to surface in her voice.

The girls surrounding Tara broke into gasps and looked at each other with wide mouths, one of them nudging her. By the looks of it, this was the first time they were hearing about the trip.

She raised her brows, "Did he send you to—"

"Just answer the fucking question!" Tahlia barked, having had enough.

The entire table fell silent.

Tara opened her mouth to say something, then stopped. Instead, she sighed, "Last time I talked to him was, I don't know, like three days ago."

That felt like another punch to the gut.

She backed away quickly, running out just as fast as she'd come in.

She ran her way over to Jace's Hall. There she practically sprinted her way up the stairs and into his room.

His bed was empty, the other one occupied by his roommate.

"Where's Jace?" She asked in between pants, breathless from all the running.

He rolled his eyes, "Oh God no, please for the love of God, I can't change the sheets every— Oh wait." He paused,

"You're his friend, Natalie right?"

"Where is he?" She asserted yet again, frantically.

"Umm.. I don't know, he went for the Delta Kappa Beta party two nights ago and hasn't got back yet."

She mumbled a small thanks and closed the door.

The walk between his dorm to hers was a blur.

A blur of every possible dark thought she could accumulate in her mind.

But once in a while, she'd muster up the courage to think about other possible things before jumping to conclusions.

He could be out and about the town, or with one of his jock friends, who knows right?

As she walked up to her room, she wiped the streaks of tears away from her cheeks, inhaling deeply.

Just as she had opened the door, she paused still, her hands still clutching the doorknob as she stood under the doorframe.

For a second her mind went numb, not being able to process the scene in front of her eyes.

Then her eyes widened.

Tahlia Meyers let out the loudest, most ear-piercing shriek she'd ever screamed.

For there on her own bed, lay the body of her best friend, Jace Montgomery.

✴✴✴