nauticheric

[nauticheric]

Crystal Clear

Jason Voorhees x Black!Female Reader

Warnings: Period accurate racism, antiblackness + antiblack violence, violence, drowning, implied murder, period accurate ableism, this is a fic dedicated to all of the black girls out there who had to suffer through going to PWIs and all the discrimination in white academia that comes with it

Word Count: 4k

Excerpt: "You should have listened to your cousins. You’d always been extremely receptive of their advice, bordering on harsh criticism, so you didn’t quite understand why this time had been any different. Maybe it was because you’d finally graduated. Class of 1983. Convinced that walking across the stage would suddenly, magically, cure the deep seated bigotry present in the people you’d been going to school with since the 1st grade. 

“Never get on a boat with no white folks.” 

That’s what they’d said. You’d all laughed about it at the time, you much harder than the others, before your cousin wiped away tears that never actually shed and faced you with complete sincerity."

You should have listened to your cousins. You’d always been extremely receptive of their advice, bordering on harsh criticism, so you didn’t quite understand why this time had been any different. Maybe it was because you’d finally graduated. Class of 1983. Convinced that walking across the stage would suddenly, magically, cure the deep seated bigotry present in the people you’d been going to school with since the 1st grade. 

“Never get on a boat with no white folks.” 

That’s what they’d said. You’d all laughed about it at the time, you much harder than the others, before your cousin wiped away tears that never actually shed and faced you with complete sincerity. 

“Seriously. Especially if you’re the only black person there.”

You told yourself it was 1983, not 1957, and forced the smile to reach your eyes as you sat in the back of Jenny's boyfriend's rusty red 1974 Jeep Cherokee. You’d known Jenny since you were 6 years old, although she didn’t actually give you the time of day until the last year of junior high, and she was nice enough. Funny, pretty, and rich with sharp cheekbones and a blown out blonde bob. Except her boyfriend, Donald, looked like her blood related cousin, because Jenny had always been clear that she didn’t associate with brunettes; so, in the face of the 5 blondes (1 of which you were sure wasn’t naturally so) and singular ginger you’d be on the trip with, you painstakingly flat ironed your hair. Convinced that if you were going to stand out with your dark hair color, you weren’t going to give them any other ammunition to work with. Which, only served to add to the misery you were trying to suppress involving the trip, because you were all heading to Donald's family's lake cabin. In the middle of nowhere rural New Jersey, some “quaint” little place called Crystal Lake. 

You should have listened. You think maybe, above all else, you went because you were finally free. A final reminder of why going to PWIs all your life had been so miserable. A final reminder of all the things you actually enjoyed, and desiped, about these people you had resigned to call your friends. A final goodbye as the HBCU you were accepted to welcomed you with open arms, just beyond the horizon. 

You were on Donald's family's boat less than an hour after your arrival to the cabin. After the conversation with your cousins you’d done a bit of research at the local library, stumbling upon the story of Oscarville and Lake Lanier down in Georgia. The whole thing shook you so deeply to your core that you didn’t even bother packing any swimwear. You’d convinced yourself that you were being far too paranoid enough to let yourself actually get on the boat, but you’d be damned if you were actually going to let yourself get into the water. So, you put on your floral, silk, bell sleeved wrap top and high waisted shorts, and hoped that no one would actually make mention of it. You understand immediately why the town is named after the lake. It’s larger than any lake you’d ever seen. You almost convinced yourself that Donald’s family had the cabin custom built in this area, due to being unable to see any structures on the other side, with how far the opposing shoreline was. The water's surface looks like an expansive panel of glass, reflecting the sun's gentle rays in sparkling diamonds of rainbow light. You absentmindedly think that if this behemoth of a pool froze over in winter, the chunk of ice retrieved from it could be sold as the rock at the center of a wedding ring. As the boat pulls away from the dock where it’s stationed most of the year, the waves sent away from the vehicle's motor create such a clear path in the water that you can see the fish swimming just beneath the surface. There’s a part of you that desires to reach down and run the tips of your fingers through the water. You push it deep inside of you. 

“You know, a boy drowned out here back in 1957.”

Is the first thing that Nathan, Donalds best friend and captain of the high school basketball team, says when you guys settle at the center of the lake. You internally grimace, hoping that he’s just being an ass, before Donald speaks up, 

“Yup. Then his mother came back a year later and slaughtered two of the camp counselors responsible. Then she came back in 1979 and slaughtered several more innocent people.” 

Your stomach begins to stir as you listen to them speak. 

“Now why’d she go and do that?” 

Asks Arlene, the singular ginger amongst your group, with a mixture of amusement and disbelief. Nathan has his arm thrown around her, laughing at her doubt of the tale being spun. 

“Well, the story goes that the woman, Pamela Voorhees, had her boy Jason with her while she worked at the summer camp. Her son, well, you know…he was a-” 

Donald says the word with such a casualty that it makes you physically flinch. You hope no one saw, as you frown deeply, imagining this little disabled boy's everyday life in the 50’s.

“Apparently the little guy couldn’t swim. He fell into the lake, or something like that, and no one came to save him. The camp counselors were too busy getting it on in the cabins to notice-” 

Donald makes a gyrating movement with his hips to really punctuate his words, causing giggles all around. You force the same noise past your lips.

“I don’t know, I guess the little fucker couldn’t make it back to shore and he drowned. Then Pamela went on a whole vengeance killing spree against sexually deviant teenagers as punishment.” 

Nathan makes an “oo”-ing sound, wiggling his fingers in Arlene's face, who rolls her eyes and slaps his hand away with a smile. 

“But, where things really get interesting is that back in ‘79 one of the counselors fought back. She beheaded Pamela and, if you believe it, apparently Jason woke up at the death of his mother. Rising from the bottom of the lake, donning a hockey mask and a machete, he slaughters anyone unlucky enough to cross his path around the forest. Apparently he’s responsible for dozens of murders around here over the past couple years.” 

Laughter erupts around the boat, for some reason you don’t quite understand, and a shiver goes down your spine. The whole situation makes you extremely uncomfortable. If you'd known that there were apparently dozens of homicides, blood seeping into Crystal Lakes waters, you would have just stayed home. Locked yourself in your bedroom until fall and rushed into the waiting arms of your shining HBCU without ever looking back. 

Apparently you don’t hold back your discomfort well enough, because suddenly the full weight of Jennys eyes are on you. You know it immediately, an ever familiar sensation, usually followed by laughter at your expense in high school. 

“Speaking of which,”

She starts, voice deceptively sweet. 

“[Y/n], is it true that black people don’t know how to swim?” 

Your stomach drops, the feeling exasperated further by the barely muffled laughter of everyone else on the boat. 

“Especially if you’re the only black person there.”

You’re met with the realization that you have no allies here. You school your expression, 12 years of dealing with this specific brand of ignorance having taught you that showing any emotion will only lead to further degradation.

“No…that’s an unfairly perpetuated stereotype.” 

You respond, cordial, as if you’re writing an academic essay and not having, supposedly, casual conversation with, supposed, peers. Constantly having to prove to the people around you that you’re just as intelligent as they are, just as worthy of taking seriously, as if you didn’t get into a university with a 4% acceptance rate. You feel the eyes of every person on you now. It’s unnerving. 

“Oh really?”

Jenny begins, taking a few steps closer towards you. Your hackles raise, breath hitching, but you try to push the ever increasing feeling of danger down inside. You try to convince yourself that it’s paranoia. That it’s 1983. 

“Then why aren’t you wearing a swimsuit?”

On anyone else it would seem like such an innocent question. Her voice is even, a bit airy, and she smiles as she says it. However, the way her blue eyes crease just underneath light bottom lashes is all too familiar. A repeated reminder of your white classmates' cruelty. And before you can even manage to get an answer out, there’s a heavy force at the center of your chest, and then you feel weightless momentarily. You don’t notice the way Donalds fingers curl around the steering wheel of the boat, as your back hits the water. Jenny pushed you in, you realize all too late. Body fully submerged and slowly sinking more and more. 

The water is suddenly not so crystal clear, not so peaceful, from this side. It’s darker than it has any right being, which is so unnerving considering how warm it actually is. Your shirt has a bit of extra weight to it, not built for being wet like this, but you manage to breach the water's surface. You blink the droplets from your eyes, vision steadily clearing and you greedily gulp up the air around you, but even more panic begins to set in as you watch the steadily shrinking image of the boat in the distance. They’ve pushed you into the water. Then they’ve driven off without you. Leaving you in the center of Crystal Lake. A lake so wide that you’re sure it’d take you well over an hour to swim to the other side. 

The panic that fills you is sharp and all encompassing, and whether it’s an “unfairly perpetuated stereotype” or not, you suddenly begin to sink under the water's surface. You desperately claw around you, hoping to grab onto something, anything. However, your panic clouds your judgement, and as you gasp around the air above the surface you take in a mouthful of lake water. Suddenly your throat and nose begin to burn simultaneously as you sink further and further into the lake's depths. You vaguely wonder, in the back of your fear riddled mind, if you’ll find a town at the bottom. A town housing hundreds of black residents and one, sole, little white boy. Cared for and forever watched in ways that the people on the land above failed to. 

Everything is black for a long while. Like an inverted version of Crystal Lakes miles of glass panelling. It’s peaceful, oddly enough, but there’s this ever increasing sense of panic that starts at the center of your chest, before spreading through the rest of your body, constricting your lungs. Then, there’s a heavy weight pressed to the center of your chest once more, and suddenly it’s no longer panic you’re feeling. The weight is heavy, brutally crushing, borderline painful, but, as you come to realize, it’s physical. Your eyes are flying open, the suddenly setting sun blanketing your face. You’re vomiting up lake water and it burns worse than any vodka, tequila, or whiskey you’ve ever had. You’re coughing repeatedly, eyes instinctually clenched shut, and that burns even worse than the vomit. It rumbles deep within your sternum, as if the bone is breaking with every convulsion of your body. 

It takes several minutes to stop the coughing fit. You’re greedily drinking in the air around you, clawing at the solid ground underneath you. You fight the desire to lower yourself to the dirt and pepper it with kisses. Suddenly thankful for something as simple as grass to stand on, something you’d, foolishly, taken for granted everyday. You take a few minutes to breathe, something else you realize you’d taken for granted, before rolling your body over. You face the sunlight, willing it to take you into its loving arms, like you’re a child being wrapped in a warm towel. However, as your vision clears, that’s when you see it. Or, rather, him. The face of your savior, as you, foolishly once again, begin to process the fact that you didn’t just drag yourself out of that lake. 

“Donning a hockey mask and a machete, he slaughters anyone unlucky enough to cross his path.” 

Donald's voice rings in your ears, as you come face to face with empty voids in the middle of the reflective white surface of a mask. Broad figure, nearly popping the buttons off his forest green shirt, meaty fingers twitching from where they clench around the handle of a rusted, blood stained, machete. Your throat burns once more, as you nearly choke from where your heart has jumped and lodged itself. You’re hyperventilating as the figure stands motionless in front of you. Some frantic, desperate, part of your brain tries convincing you that this is a hallucination, spurred on by your very recent near death experience. Then he tilts his head in a, dare you’d say, curious fashion, and that just cements him as entirely real in your mind. 

Fear strikes you like lightning, as you sit up fully. Your legs are extremely sore so you only muster up the strength to push yourself backwards with the help of your scrambling hands. You don’t get far as your back hits the trunk of a rotting tree. Your head sags against the surface, the world around you spinning with the sudden movement. The back of your neck is warm and wet and you instinctively reach for your nape, wondering, for some odd reason, if you’re bleeding. As your fingers curl into the area the thought flies out the window. The digits curl around the strands of your hair, which has returned completely to its coily state. The hair that you worked so hard on this morning. The hair you, specifically, straightened for the people you’d be going on this trip with. You’d always been unwilling to relax your hair. You couldn’t bring yourself to kill off that part of you. And it was all going to be worth it, because you were going to a HBCU in the fall. You think of the hair iron and silk bonnet you’d packed in your bag for this trip, willing to take every precaution necessary to what? Make these people more comfortable? Make yourself more desirable to people who couldn’t care either way? Your heart rapidly begins to pick up speed, like a rabbit caught in the maw of a fox, and your whole face grows hot. 

You’re suddenly sobbing. Crying fat, warm, tears, head pulsating violently. Your breaths shudder as you try to get yourself under control, but the floodgates have broken and there’s no stopping them now. You’re speaking without thinking, sure that this, apparently undead, serial killer doesn’t care all too much about what you have to say. 

“ My…my hair…”

You stutter around your words, in between sobs, 

“I-I just did my hair…”

Your face heats up even more. You feel so stupid. 

“I-I don’t understand…I don’t…wh-why would they do this to me? What did I ever do to them? I’ve…I’ve always tried so hard to get them to l-like me…and they-they-” 

You take rapid breaths inward at the end of the sentence, your panic rising again, 

“They tried to drown me! They left me there to drown!”

Saying it outloud fills you with a sorrow like nothing else you’ve ever experienced. This is it you think. This is rock bottom. 12 years of torment all culminating in a murder attempt. 

You don’t know how you expect the killer to respond, maybe he’ll finish the job the others failed at and put that machete through your neck, but it isn’t kneeling down in front of you. He moves unnervingly quiet and fast for someone so large. He’s balanced on one knee, machete still firmly in his grip. Your eyes track his movements, and the weapon, and that’s when you notice the darker color of the bottom half of his khaki pants. It’s as if they’d been submerged in water. You blink rapidly around your tears as your brain tries to catch up with the fact that Jason Voorhees is apparently the one who pulled you from the water. Did he do chest compressions? 

Suddenly he’s reaching out towards you. His tanned hand is visibly calloused and there’s a mixture of blood and dirt underneath his nails. Your eyes widen, tears continuing their way down your cheeks, and you freeze. Your brain takes a moment to process what’s happening. Then, not suddenly, extremely slow and with purpose, he takes a coiled strand of your wet hair between his pointer finger and thumb. He rolls the hair back and forth between his fingers, and you can’t see his eyes but you’re sure that he’s watching the way the droplets of water travel down his thumb rather than your face. You hear his breathing pick up at his own actions and you realize you hadn’t been sure he was breathing before. 

His movements are quick and extremely intentional when he stands next. You flinch, unsure of what to expect, but immediately relax whenever he’s holding a hand out to you. His knuckles face the earth, palm facing you, and that alone is enough to convince you that he has no intention of violence. It’s almost natural the way you place your hand into his. Your size doesn’t matter, he’s so inhumanely big that he dwarfs you in comparison, and you wonder how he grew to be so big if he apparently died whenever he was a child. He pulls you to your feet and your legs wobble and ache as he does so. You’re partially worried you’re going to collapse, but he’s a sturdy and guiding force that keeps you upright. 

Then he’s holding your hand in his, a gesture that borders on being extremely intimate, and he’s leading you into the forest. He walks extremely fast with his long legs and it’s kind of hellish for you to try and keep up. His arm is lagging behind him from where it clutches your hand. But then you slightly trip over a tree root and he stops so abruptly that you nearly crash right into him. He turns his gaze over his shoulder to you once more, pulling you closer into his side. He smells distinctly of lake water, coppery blood, and rot, but underneath it all you think you get the scent of sunlight and campfire smoke. That gentle reprieve, however, doesn’t negate the smell of viscera and death radiating from him, his presence equal parts comforting equal parts nauseating. Once he ensures that you’re right where he wants you to be, he continues onward, slowing his pace considerably to match yours. 

As he walks he’s taking sharp lefts and rights, the only sight for miles the sprawling trees, and you have no idea where he’s taking you. You think back to your final thoughts before your brush with death. As you sank lower and lower into Crystal Lakes clutches, images of Oscarville and a young Jason Voorhees. Of comfort and community in ways that he’d likely never experienced before in life. It hadn’t served to make death any less terrifying, unfortunately. However, there had been something comforting about the thought of someone consistently disregarded by society finding unconditional protection in the face of, what should have been, that society trying to snuff the life out of them forever. Maybe that’s why you let him continually lead you. Hoping that he’ll offer the same olive branch to you that Oscarville had offered to him. Although, you grimace internally, Oscarville was in Georgia and you’re in rural New Jersey. You wonder vaguely if nearly drowning can give you a concussion. 

The sun has dipped below the horizon by the time Jason finally stops. Your eyes have grown heavy with exhaustion from drowning and crying respectively, and you’d been, more or less, trusting him to lead you wherever it is he wanted you to go; eyes partially closed, brain completely turned off. After a minute or so of his hovering, you will your eyes to open, and your heart sinks at what you see.

It’s Donalds family's cabin. The lights illuminating from the windows, shadows moving, dancing, and you notice that your bags and suitcase are propped up against the back tire of the Jeep. Tears well in your eyes all over again as you turn to look at Jason. You think that the hurt is evident on your face, as you watch him shake his head in a “no” motion. The movement takes you aback momentarily, as you’d been slightly convinced that he was completely incapable of communication whatsoever. He continues, however, to prove you wrong, as he lifts his machete up from where it hovered at his waist before. You don’t have the energy in you to flinch anymore. He then points the tip of his blade at the outline of a figure in the window, and you can tell immediately that it's Jenny. Funny, pretty, and rich with sharp cheekbones and a blown out blonde bob.

There isn’t much but a sinking sense of dread as you stumble towards the cabin. Your newly found serial killer companion is no longer holding your hand but you can feel him hovering just behind you. You wonder how much of your murder attempt he actually saw. How long he’d been hovering, watching your group. A part of you wonders if he had planned on killing you before, but you don’t let yourself dwell on that as you make your way up the poarch, and you hear the laughing inside. Giggling and guffawing as if they didn’t just try to kill a person; in fact, as far as they know, they had succeeded. 

You feel yourself shaking with anger as you raise a fist to rap at the door. There’s a momentarily pause inside the cabin, before you hear a mumbled out, 

“Who the hell could that be at this time?” 

Followed by a, 

“Don’t worry, I’ll get it.” 

From Jenny. You hear the click of her, slightly heeled, slippers as she makes her way to the door, before your vision is being flooded with light. Your eyes are squinted, as you watch her face contort from a polite, confused, smile, to one of abject horror. Your shaking hand slowly curls into a fist, before she begins to stumble over her words. 

“[Y-Y/n]!” 

She squawks and at least she has the decency to sound genuinely shocked. You hear the music in the background abruptly cut off with the scrap of a needle, improperly, being lifted off of a record. You imagine that the vinyl probably has a deep, ugly, groove inside of it now. 

Jenny is at a loss for words, opening her mouth, before closing it again as she tries to find her words. 

“You pushed me in the lake.”

You speak with a drawl that is probably far too casual for the situation and anger you feel, but your throat is still extremely raw from everything you’ve been through today. 

“We-”

The other girl flusters. You see the others gathering not too far behind her, before she quickly composes herself. 

“I’m so sorry, [y/n]! We meant to come back for you, you know, but when we got back you were gone! We figured you’d swam back to shore!”

She lies like it's the easiest thing on earth. A part of you, nagging and tired, wants to just let her have it. Collapse forward and let them fake dote on you for an hour to save their own asses. A part of you that tells you arguing about this is so much more trouble than it's worth. A part of you that has been continuously beaten down and bruised by white academia. 

You take a step back from the doorway on wobbling legs, however. Unconditional protection you think. 

“You’re not sorry,”

You growl out, low, and oh so tired. 

“But you will be.” 

Is all you say before your vision is being clouded by the imposing figure of Jason Voorhees, as he steps out of the shadows and in the doorway between you and the rest of your former classmates. You don’t even flinch as the shrill sound of her scream fills your ears, a puddle of blood growing from underneath your murderer's boots. There’s scrambling inside as Jennys body drops limp, Jason stepping over her with purpose, as he travels inside the house to pick everyone else off. The funny, pretty, rich girl with the sharp cheekbones and blown out blonde bob is still alive, reaching out the same hand that pushed you into the lake towards your feet. She gurgles around the pain she’s surely in, as the sounds of slaughter ricochet off the walls of the cabin, but you can’t find it in you to care. You should have listened to your cousins. Now, you’re just grateful to be cared for and forever watched in ways that the people on the land above failed to. Now, you’re just grateful for companionship amongst the drowned.                              

[nauticheric]

Spring Cleaning

Michael Myers x Black!Female Reader Warnings: Slight animal death mention, slight violence, implied murder, general Michael Myers being creepy and strange warning, also be warned that y/n enables his behavior greatly. Word count: 7k Excerpt: "It wasn’t how you envisioned your day. It was impulsive. You had picked up a shift for your coworker the Saturday before. 3pm to 11pm. A dreadful shift, considering the fact that you were on the payroll for working Mon-Fri, excluding Wednesdays, from 9-5. She had told you, however, that her sister was having a baby, and she was cut from the same cloth as you; an unspoken pact of black sisterhood in the face of 1973 Haddonfield, Illinois. So you sucked it up, envisioning the older woman's smiling face on Monday as she regaled tales of her freshly born niece writhing in the hospital light, and worked through gritted teeth."

It wasn’t how you envisioned your day. It was impulsive. You had picked up a shift for your coworker the Saturday before. 3pm to 11pm. A dreadful shift, considering the fact that you were on the payroll for working Mon-Fri, excluding Wednesdays, from 9-5. She had told you, however, that her sister was having a baby, and she was cut from the same cloth as you; an unspoken pact of black sisterhood in the face of 1973 Haddonfield, Illinois. So you sucked it up, envisioning the older woman's smiling face on Monday as she regaled tales of her freshly born niece writhing in the hospital light, and worked through gritted teeth. You made it back home and into bed half an hour past midnight, and yet when you opened your eyes again the time read 4:27 am. You laid there, blinking at the face of the analog clock. Desperately willing yourself to succumb to sleep, but the longer you stared at the ticking hands the clearer your sleep addled brain became. 

You stood in front of your stove, listening to the soft sound of the bubbling water inside of the metal tea kettle. Shifting lazily from one foot to another, slipping a foot out your left slipper to scratch an itch on your bare leg. You wore a large, button up, mens sleepshirt; an act which is considerably indecent for a single woman like you, but you were in the comfort and privacy of your own home. It wasn’t long before the telltale whistle of the kettle filled the kitchen. It was gentle at first but you knew it’d be less than a minute before it was shrieking loud enough to wake the entire neighborhood. Your left hand rubbed against the ceramic of the snoopy mug you placed gently against the countertop. A gift from the white lady with the distant, but kind, eyes at your job during last year's secret santa. You hadn’t really been a person who kept up with the Peanuts comic strips in the local paper but you hadn’t cared all too much. You had a fondness for obscure things. Things other people either didn’t seem to care about or that they seemed hesitant about simply because they didn’t, or couldn’t, understand it. You preferred the “weird” or misunderstood things in life. Your right hand dug through your cabinet, mentally cataloguing the teas in your inventory. As your fingers curled around the bag of loose leaf English breakfast tea, you heard it. Just under the rapidly increasing whistle of the kettle. The deep groan of the wooden floor board at the bottom of your staircase, the telltale indication of another presence in the house. Of life standing in the doorway of your kitchen behind you. You lurched backwards, the tea clutched in your hand, as you spun around. Your breath caught in your throat as you choked down a gasp. Eyes dark with dilated pupils scanned the shadows of the foyer. Left to right then right to left before repeating the process again, lingering on the entryway to your seemingly empty living room. Your deep breaths slowly even out once more, the rise and fall of your chest unnoticeable under the excess fabric of your sleepshirt. A bead of warm sweat dripped down the back of your neck, clinging to cold skin, from under the hem of your silk bonnet. That drew your attention back to the steam pouring from the kettle's spout, the poor thing screaming as if it were being murdered. With deft fingers, you plucked the thing from the burner, placing it on an unlit one in the back. As you twisted the knob to put out the flame, you caught a glimpse of a spice jar you had knocked out your cabinet in your haste. Picking it up, your nose crinkled in disgust as you stared down at it. The little holes at the top had crusted over with a dark brown substance. As you weighed the jar in your hand you could tell that the onion powder inside had clumped together into essentially a brick. You narrowed your eyes at the thing, scouring the recesses of your memory. You’re abruptly hit with the reminder that you had bought this when you first moved into this house. Six whole years ago. 

That's how your day off had shifted from 24 hours of relaxation into a day of spring deep cleaning. You had been so disgusted that you started tearing out the various spices and herbs from your cabinet, throwing away anything that you had no recollection of even buying. Your snoopy mug and English breakfast tea was forgotten, the water in the kettle going cold as the time stretched on. Once you finished cleaning the first cabinet you found you couldn’t stop. By the time 7 am had rolled around, the sun reaching an overarching hand over the neighborhood, you had cleaned all of your cabinets and fridge. You had accumulated nearly 2 trash bags worth of waste from this, much to your disgust, and dragged the bags to your garage. You went through the house gathering the trash bags from your bathrooms, adding them to the bin in the garage, before dragging it to the curb. Trash collection was on Mondays and you knew your neighbors would likely have something to say about you being a, grueling, day early, but you couldn’t find it in you to care at the moment. 

The morning is routine. You make your way back upstairs to gather clothing for the day, before slipping into the shower. You swear you hear the sound of the door to the guest room, across the hall, creak open, but you ignore it as you continue scrubbing at your body. You loved your house, the layout, the area, it was perfect. However, there were a few quirks which permitted the halls of your Haddonfield home. Creaks, doors opened that you could have sworn you closed before and vice versa, a few missing items here and there. At first you figured that you were just paranoid. Your momma had really ramped up the dramatics when you told her you were moving, more than unhappy at the prospect of her daughter living alone, 

“In Haddonfield, no less.” 

Then, when you started having friends over they would hear it too. Often asking, 

“You don’t hear that, [y/n]?” 

When things went bump in the night. Many of them had assumed that the noises were something that you hadn’t noticed before, or maybe that they were something new, but after a while you had simply grown to ignore them. Sure, sometimes they got to you like they had that morning, but you found it useless to continually give them attention. After six years of living on your own, you had personified the oddity of the home into a roommate of sorts. As long as you minded your business then they would mind theirs and you both seemed to like it that way. 

After you shower, then dress, you tie a silk head scrap around your hair; unwilling to do anything more with it today. You go downstairs, opening your wooden front door, while keeping the glass screen door promptly locked. You pull open the curtains, wincing at the dust dancing in the spotlights the sun creates through the windows. Then you go over to your wooden record player. Gently, you place the vinyl onto the turntable, lowering the needle. There’s static momentarily, before the sweet, melodious, voice of David Bowie fills your living room. In 1968 you had bought his self titled debut album, the one currently playing, and your friends had been incredulous. They didn’t know what you saw in the white boy, but now, five years later, Ziggy Stardust had taken over the world, and you couldn’t help but feel a bit vindicated.  

You reorganized and wiped down countertops and shelves. You washed dishes. You dusted every surface. You put your clothes, sheets, and blankets in the washer. You In the time you had made your way through David Bowie, The Ronettes, Ben E. King, Tammi Terrell, and David Bowie again. It’s half past 4 whenever you remind yourself you need to eat. Sifting through the mail that had sat forgotten, for far too long, on your porch steps. Your eyes linger on the newspaper. The headline is bold and stares back at you. 

“The Haddonfield Boogeyman-”

Is all you can care about, or rather stomach, reading of it, before you toss it on the wooden table in your foyer. There’s no point in paying the headline any mind anymore. You’re sure by now you could probably recount every single line. A grim recount of excessive force and stomach churning violence, all ending with an empty promise that he will be caught. A promise that feels almost like a call to action. Corpses of somebodies loved ones made into a spectacle in the efforts to urge the citizens to do the job the police have failed at for so long, stoking and prodding at the towns collective fear. It’s not your fault the Haddonfield police department is incompetent. Let it be a black man breaking into white homes and he’d have been caught back during that first Halloween night in 1963. 

There isn’t much food left in your fridge and you grimace at the prospect of dirtying your dishes so soon, so you start making yourself a sandwich. You sit down to eat, a notepad next to you, as you scrawl out a grocery list in between bites. You’re chewing your second mouthful, five bullet points down to “eggs”, when you hear a hollow thud above you. You pause momentarily. Blinking rapidly as you swallow down past your bite, clearing your throat. Looking up above you, you half expect to find a face staring back at you. A pale figure, features stretched and hollow, pressing against the white ceiling like it were made of rubber. You half expect to see the Boogeyman. 

You shake off the thought, chastising yourself. You shouldn’t have lingered on the newspaper so long. You supply your mind with a memory in order to distract yourself. You’d moved a bunch

of junk into your attic whenever you had first moved in. Christmas and Halloween directions that you swiped from your momma's basement when you were young and convinced you’d actually decorate for the holidays. Bits and bobs you took from your childhood room that your momma had convinced you you’d need. Things you hadn’t looked at in all the years of you living here. You look back down, taking another bite of your sandwich, before standing. The need to feed yourself pushed to the back of your mind. You gather your garbage can, which has been emptied multiple times today, and a broom, as you make your way upstairs; with newly found determination to clean the attic. 

You propped open the door to the closet in your guest bedroom. You had to stand on the tips of your toes but after your brief struggle you were able to pull down the string attached to the attic door. You narrowed your eyes as the dark hole came into view, coughing as you waved away the cloud of dust that fell down with the stairs. When your vision finally clears up, your stomach lurches a tiny bit. You weren’t scared, per say, but rather you were filled with a hesitance spurred on by the fact you hadn’t been up to your attic in over half a decade. You were determined to deep clean your entire house, that was true, but something in you dreaded seeing just how dirty it might have been up there. There was no telling how much dust and cobwebs had built up over the years. There was no telling what, or who, your brain unhelpfully supplied, was up there. The creak that sounded from the first wooden step was all too familiar, and it made you gulp around your dry mouth.  It took your eyes a moment to adjust when you made it into the attic. It reeked of stagnant dust and the corners of the room were deep in shadow, a tall, wooden, wardrobe from your childhood standing in front of the window. You rubbed your tongue against the roof of your mouth, the muscle catching along the ridges, as you willed the dryness to go away. You took a deep breath once more. You grimaced, able to taste the dust bunnies dancing in the barely there light. However, you felt yourself stutter in place, an acrid, metallic, taste sticking to the back of your throat as a sickly sweet taste of rot tickled the tip of your tongue. Your stomach churned as you blinked rapidly, trying to process what you were simultaneously smelling and tasting. It took a few, agonizing, seconds for your eyes to drag down to the floor in front of you. Smushed in between a few cardboard lay a crumpled duvet and sheet. The duvet was dark in color, but you could tell from what you could see of the white sheet that the thing was stained with some sort of dark red ooze. You knew. You knew immediately. You could physically taste the blood.

You don’t even see him before his hands are on you. You vaguely wonder how someone so big could have snuck up on you so silently. It’s a chilling thought, as his hand wraps around your throat, that all those times you heard him creeping around the house was simply because he had wanted you to. You’re barely afforded half a deep breath, before you’re pressed against the wall of the attic. You can feel the toes of your slippers brushing against the wooden floor from where you hang rigid in his grip. His giant form curls over you, crowding your space, and obscuring

most of his body in shadow. However, there’s one thing you can see clear as day, even with your vision blurring from your eyes watering. That mask. Pale, grey-ish white, rubber, mouth pulled into a perpetually unimpressed thin line. You’re reminded of the ghastly face you imagined pressing into your ceiling and it’s haunting. You feel a deep sense of regret over brushing off the newspaper story, and you find yourself hoping that whenever they publish the details of your death that people actually take the time out of their day to care. To mourn. 

Instinctually you reach your left hand up, gripping at the collar of his jumpsuit in the efforts of doing something. Anything. He catches your wrist in a bruising grip, causing you to hiss between your clenched teeth; wasting air you do not have the luxury of wasting. Your fingers clench and unclench around nothingness, spasming like a bug that's been crushed under a person's heel. You see nothing whenever you look into those black holes where his eyes should be. No hint of potential remorse, no hint of humanity. You feel your wrist go limp, your fingers brushing against the clammy chin of his mask. Your vision is fading, before you feel the smallest bit of pressure taken off of your throat. Your pulse jumps with adrenaline, greedily taking in as much air as you can muster with the little reprieve. Your eyes widen as you take him in. His movements are minute. Inconceivable if you weren’t pressed so close against him currently. You watch him lean in closer to your hand. Your fingers brush against the mask again, unintentionally, and he freezes a bit, grip tightening once more. You choke again, willing your body to stay as still as possible. After a few, terrible, seconds, he repeats the process. You can’t tell what he’s doing as he crowds your hand. You can’t even hear his breathing in the silence of the attic, and you have half the mind to wonder if this is some sort of nightmare. Finally, he leans back, seemingly satisfied with whatever assessment he was making, and you feel your feet land flat against the floor once more. All at once, his hand is off your throat and you lean against the wall to keep from falling forward into him. You cough violently, a few tears rolling down your cheeks, as you take in the air around you like it’s your last chance. 

Your vision is blurry as you look up at him. You’re slumped against the wall, which only serves to make him look all the more giant. You wonder how you hadn’t noticed that the Boogeyman, the Shape of Haddonfield, was living in your attic sooner. Your mind supplies you with images of your senior year of high school. Of walking down the street with your friends and seeing Laurie Strode, survivor of the Halloween massacre, walking by herself on the other side. The Strode girl was fine as far as you were concerned, but it hadn’t gone unnoticed by you how she seemed to avoid you and the other black students of your high school. How all her inner circle was white. Which, you figured, was a good thing in a way, since all of her inner circle was now dead. She had looked up from across the street, locking haunted eyes with you. Your girlfriends had thrown their arms over your shoulders, turning your head away from the other girl. A reminder to,  “Mind your black ass business.”

On their tongues. Of course you hadn’t noticed his presence. You were minding your black ass business. 

You didn’t even have a minute to catch your breath before he was grabbing the back of your neck like some sort of unruly kitten. You yelped in surprise, but before you could try and scratch at his arm, he was pushing you forward. Your feet scraped against the floor, taking a few shaking steps with him leading you the entire way. You barely stumbled a foot ahead before he was squeezing again stopping you in your tracks. You unintentionally let out a whimper at this, squeezing your eyes shut out of fear. He shook you a bit at this, grip tightening, causing your eyes to fly open. As you took in the sight in front of you, you were confused to find the same thing you saw when you first entered the attic. The mused duvet and sheet set on the floor. He lingered behind you, motionless, and silent. You knew Michael Myers didn’t speak, everyone knew that, but you weren’t quite sure what he wanted from you. You stared down at the disgusting blankets, grimacing. Along with the blood you could see dirt and other grime, mold, and dust. You wonder briefly where he could have possibly even gotten them from. His grip has adjusted once more, large hand splayed against the lower part of your neck, over your cervical vertebrae, pointer finger resting against your shoulder. Seconds turn to minutes and you become increasingly uncomfortable in your own skin as the time marches on. Your eyes flicker off to the side in an effort to try and catch a glimpse of him, but it just earns you increased pressure on your spine. You shiver, looking back down at the floor before you. You’re confused and you’re queasy because of how dirty the blankets are. 

An answer to the unspoken, unknown, question flashes into your head briefly. Your eyes linger on the stained fabric at your feet once more. You didn’t know how much longer he’d be willing to be so patient, your voice shaking as you speak, 

“Do you-”

You cautiously clear your throat, 

“Do you want me to wash these for you?”

You didn’t know what you were expecting to receive in response but the weight, quite literally, lifted off your shoulders. You stalled momentarily, the hairs on your back standing on end as they met with cold air; no longer crowded by the heat of another body. Hesitantly, you kneel down. Gathering the duvet and sheet in your shaking hands. The shaking had less to do with fear, at this particular moment, and more so with disgust over handling the fabrics without gloves. Once they were in your arms, spilling over with a corner dragging against the floor, you turned to face the exit. The Shape was gone. Your eyes frantically scan the room, adrenaline causing a spike in your heart rate. It’s not long before you hear it. The creak of a wooden floor board being pressed on to your right. His indication that he’s here. That he’s still watching you. To behave accordingly.  You reluctantly make your way from the attic to the basement. You can feel his presence as you do so. The traits that you had rationalized, and even grown to find comfort in, in your personification of your home had suddenly become unnerving. Despite being acutely aware of his eyes on you, you softened your steps. Flinching everytime the wooden floor sounded under the weight of your feet. Hovering over your, thankfully, empty washing machine, you unceremoniously dumped the dirty fabric inside. Stretching to reach the shelf above the washing machine, where you keep the washing detergent, you falter as you stare at the box. The white, freshly scented, powder coating the sides of the cardboard. You think back to a few hours before. To the same powder coating the fingers of your left hand in your hurry to wash your clothing, before you wiped it on the side of your pants leg. You look down at your hand and it suddenly all clicks. He’d smelt the detergent. On your hand. This fact makes you shiver as the realization that the only thing that stood between you and certain death was the artificial scent of fresh linens. It takes a lot to drag you back upstairs from the damp darkness of your basement. You don’t know what to do with yourself, unprepared to wait the hours it will take to wash and dry Michael Myers sheets and duvet. You’re slowly making your way through the hallway of your home, the thought creeping into the back of your mind of what exactly he’ll do to you after you wash his things filling you with a cold sort of dread. You linger in the entryway of your kitchen. Glazed over eyes staring off into space. You’re distracted by the “what ifs” reverberating in your mind. 

That all comes to a screeching halt when you hear it. Low with long, unnatural, pauses in between. Deep breaths coming from over your shoulder. 

He’s definitely real. 

Your brain supplies you, realizing that this is the first time you’ve heard the Shape of Haddonfield breathe at all. You glance over your shoulder at him and suppress your urge to flinch. He’s not crowding your space like he had been before, but he’s still far too close for comfort. It’s unnerving how a man of his stature could manage to sneak up on you. You stare into those empty black sockets that are meant to be eyes, desperately hoping to find some indication of a living, breathing, human being underneath. You had always avoided fictionalizing Michael Myers. Refused to feed into the sensationalizing of a serial murderer. The things he had done were monstrous, that was true, but he was just a man. A man, a human being, just like his victims, who were mothers, fathers, daughters, and brothers like anyone else and not sacrifices to a Devil walking the Earth. Right now, however, it was growing increasingly hard to maintain this mindset. 

The breathing continued onward for far too long. His breaths were surprisingly even, unlike the shallow and raspy things you’d half been expecting. The idea that the sick depravity inside of him would somehow manifest on the outside as well. Unable to keep your eyes on him any longer, you turn your head forward once more. That’s when you notice it. Your barely eaten sandwich sitting forgotten on your kitchen table. You blink owlishly for a few seconds, before turning your head to look at him once more. You stare momentarily, before following his metaphorical gaze to where your food sits. You clear your throat nervously. 

“Are you…are you hungry?”

Your momma had taught you to never let guests in your home go hungry. You weren’t sure if this counted since, you figured, on a technicality, he was your roommate, not a guest, so he could feed himself; but, you’d also heard a rumor once that he’d eaten a dog, so you weren’t sure you could stomach him scrounging for food in your home himself. 

When you turned to look back at him, you couldn’t hold back your flinch this time around. His head was turned completely to you, his breathing still. You could only stare back with wide eyes, willing your heartbeat to return to a somewhat normal rhythm. You curled your bottom lip under your top row of teeth, running your tongue along the fat gripped in your teeth. Hesitantly, you took a step away from him, testing the waters. You hovered those few extra inches away from him, waiting cautiously to see if he’d try to snuff your life out once more. When nothing happened, you took another step. He simply cocked his head slowly at you at this. A little unnerved by the movement, you continued taking your steps back, until you stood in front of your kitchen counter. He simply hovered in your doorway. Observing you. Your lower back pressed into the counter, pinching at your skin, but you were far too nervous to turn your back to him. It felt unwise. Like you’d be setting yourself up to be killed. 

You stayed in that position for a minute, seemingly locked in eye contact, although you couldn’t be too sure. You were surprised, however, to find that you apparently won the supposed staring contest. His head slowly turned away from your sight, as he stared at the half eaten, pathetic, sandwich on the table again. Your heart panged a bit at this, and you were even more surprised to find that you felt almost…sorry for him. Sympathy pulling at your heartstrings as he stood there like a dog begging for table scraps. You frowned deeply, finally turning your back as you gathered the sandwich material. You pulled two slices from the bread box, turning towards the fridge to gather the other material. You placed two pieces of bologna on the left slice. Pulling your freshly washed cutting board over, you placed a half cut tomato onto the wood. You were quick to grab the small knife from the knife block, cutting off two thin slices. It didn’t even cross your mind the fact that you hadn’t thought to use any of the knives to defend yourself. You wiped the tomato juices off on a washcloth hanging on the drawer handle below you, before unscrewing the cap to the mayonnaise. As you stuck the blade into the jar, you felt a tug on the small hoop earring in your left ear. It didn’t hurt, per say, it did sting a bit, but it was obvious that the intention wasn’t to rip the jewelry from your ear. You spun around, shock written on your face and found Michael there. Hovering in your space once more. You should have felt fear at that moment, probably. Fear, dread, that bone chilling confirmation that he was going to hurt you, but you couldn’t help but notice that, although you couldn’t see them, something about those empty black sockets told you that his eyes were full of mirth. An almost playful amusement. Not too dissimilar to the faces your boy cousins would make when you were kids, sneaking up behind you to pull at your braids and run. 

Your jaw locked a bit at that as you stared at him. But, he made no movement again so you turned to continue what you were doing. As you wrapped your fingers around the mayo jar, you felt him hook his finger in the hoop, pulling once more. It was, once again, not hard enough to pull the thing from your ear, but you found that it a bit annoying. You turned on your heel much faster this time, pouting up at him, and you could swear that you heard the man huff a bit in laughter. 

“What? What do you want?”

You snapped out, tone clipped in a way that was most definitely not appropriate for talking to a prolific serial killer. He tilted his head at you once more, before taking a step forward. You gasped, as he pressed the front of your bodies together. Your eyes bulged out of your skull, feeling adrenaline begin to punch your heart into action once more. He smelled like mildew and motor oil from this close. Which, caused you to furrow your eyebrows, surprised at the lack of copper-y blood scent. You glanced off to the side quickly. Your eyebrows flying back up to your hairline as you watched his right arm move. You tensed a bit, half expecting to find his hand around your throat once more, but instead he reached past you. You heard more than saw the way he scootched the jar of mayonnaise away from the plate you were making his sandwich on. Then, he was taking a step back once more. Still hovering in your personal space, but no longer pressed chest to chest with you. You snapped your head over to look at the counter, and, sure enough, the jar was pushed so far away from the food that it was practically pressed against the fridge. You blinked owlishly at the thing, turning to look at him, before turning to look back at the jar again. 

“You don’t want mayonnaise? Seriously?”

You laughed a bit hysterically, unsurprised not to get a response. “Ok…sure, whatever you want.”

You continued to make his food. It was…almost funny you supposed. Michael Myers, the Shape, the Boogeyman of Haddonfield, didn’t like mayonnaise on his sandwiches. To the point that he’d physically stop you from putting it on a sandwich when he, presumably, hadn’t eaten any real food in weeks. You laughed to yourself as you slathered mustard onto the bread, movements slow and deliberate to give him time to stop you. All previous thoughts of his humanity were pushed out of your mind, as you were suddenly affirmed that he was just a man. An extremely terrifying man who killed with no remorse, who haunted a small town in Illinois for years, who didn’t like mayo on his sandwiches, and went through the efforts of stealing a sheet and duvet set to sleep on the cold, wooden, floor of your attic. As you close the sandwich, dropping the cutting board and knife in the sink, you wonder if he actually covers himself with the duvet when he sleeps at night. If he tucks himself into bed. You turn around and he’s already sat at the table. Across from where you had sat before, earlier that day. Your stomach turns a bit as you bring him the plate, the thought that this is a slightly too domestic scene replaying in your mind. When you set the food in front of him, you turn away to go wash the dishes. However, you’re not able to go far, as a large hand grips your wrist. A shiver runs up your spine, as you spin around again. You briefly wonder if this is another one of his acts of amusement. One of his actions that you’d dare to call a bit childish. Which, you pause, is a bit of a horrifying thought. That this large murderous man was taken into psychiatric care as a boy, and now in his adulthood seems to find joy in small, child-like, actions. Actions that he probably never got to partake in when they’d have been socially appropriate. 

You wait for him to release your grip, or even tighten it and finally break or kill you. However, neither comes as he stares at your sandwich sitting across from him once more. You pull your lips into a thin line at this. Your stomach feels cold and empty, truly, but you’re not sure if you have much of an appetite currently. You look back at him, fixing your lips to try and explain this to him, but something pulls at your heartstrings once more. That horrible sense of sympathy. You try to think of the newspaper you abandoned this morning. The faces of his victims, of your highschool classmates, but all you can think is of a baby faced, blue eyed, blonde child, eating alone in a large, sprawling, white cafeteria. You wonder how many meals he’s had to eat alone. You try not to think of the potentially dead dog. He’s human. He’s not the Devil. Those people were not sacrifices. He eats because he’s hungry. He feels hunger. You grimace as you gently tug your wrist from his grip and sit across from him. You sit there in silence for a while, waiting for him to start eating his food, but he doesn’t. In fact, he doesn’t move at all as he watches you. You think you’re starting to feel sick of being watched. You sigh, picking up your cold sandwich with deft fingers. You take bite after bite, allowing yourself to mindlessly eat. Hoping that the cold emptiness in your stomach will be satisfied with the cold mush that is the chewed up lunch meat and bread. You finish eating, bringing the cup of room temperature water to your lips, as you wash down your food with the stale tasting liquid. It isn’t refreshing by any means. It barely feels like water as much as it feels like drinking liquid dust.  

When you finally look up, you find him staring back at you. Food untouched. You sigh, a bit exasperated. You were used to living alone, or rather, you were used to feeling as if you’re living alone. However, what you weren’t used to, was the perpetual silence of another human being. Sure, you weren’t the most chatty when it came to the people you worked with; the only other humans you saw on a consistent basis. But you were used to them filling up the silence. Sitting in the breakroom, listening to the background noise of your coworkers talking to each other, or your older coworker one sidedly regaling a story she heard on the news that morning. You think of the fact you took over her shift the day before. You think of her niece. A new life born into Haddonfield. You wonder when the first time she’ll hear the words “The Boogeyman of Haddonfield” uttered will be. You wonder what horrifying things will follow the name, details of gruesome and brutal crimes, and you wonder how the image she forms of the figure will differ from the image of the man currently in your kitchen. 

You gather your plate and cup, walking to the sink. You don’t even hesitate this time, suddenly on autopilot. Michael doesn’t stop you. You begin washing the plate and cup. Your back turned to the other the entire time. You stop before you begin on the cutting board and knife you’d used earlier. You gather a tattered rag from the rack next to the sink. Running it under the water, you ring it as dry as you can, before turning to wipe down the crumbs present on your side of the table. It had taken you no longer than 3 minutes to wash your dishes. However, when you turn to face Michael once more, you find his entire sandwich gone. He’s sitting there now. Watching you. You stare at him with eyes wide with disbelief, letting out a loud and flat laugh. You take a few steps up to him before staring down at his plate. You don’t even see any crumbs. You let out another bout of stale deranged laughter at the thought of him licking his plate clean. You gather his plate, then you continue to clean. There isn’t much else for you to do. You wipe down the plastic tablecloth, and you’re forced to lean a bit into Michael's space as you clean his side. He sits still in the chair and you’d say that it almost seems like he relishes in your invasion of his space. Or maybe, rather, he likes the idea of you forcing him to invade your space. The idea that you’ve accepted his actions, even encourage them to the point of indulging him yourself. You can’t hear him breathing anymore, but you wonder if he can smell your laundry detergent or your body wash. You wonder if the nurses and psychologists who cared for him were forbidden from wearing anything scented. You wonder how long it was in between the washes of his psych ward uniform. You wonder what the night smelled like when he escaped all those years ago. You think that maybe he likes it. Likes smelling things other than antiseptic and likes seeing colors other than a pale, blinding, sterile white. You turn to do the rest of the dishes and when you turn around again he is gone. 

You tense up at this, once more. Your eyes scan the room. Hovering from right to left then back again. You scan the room multiple times over before you finally see him. Your heart leaps into your throat as you catch sight of him hovering, partially hidden, in the open archway of your living room. He’s a hulking figure. A streak of synthetic grey-ish white and navy blue in the sunlight haloed image of your living room; bamboo shelves decorated with tchotchkes, end tables decorated with books and magazines, Nubian statues, and a brightly colored rug. He stands out. It’s mind boggling how you, or anyone else, could miss him. But, maybe that’s the tragedy of the Shape, your mind supplies you. So hulking and yet so invisible. Unnoticed because he does not fit in the consciousness of other human beings. The brain interpreting him as inherently different. Forgotten by the herd, overlooked by humanity, because it has been decided that he does not fit into their narrative and he never will. It makes something in you lurch and ache for him. So, you clean. You had personified the oddity of your home into a roommate of sorts, and your personification had become physical, but that did not change the original concept. As long as you minded your business, he would mind his. 

You scan through your records, wondering what kind of music the Shape would enjoy most. You settle on 1964’s Make Way for Dionne Warwick and you figure that surely he’ll turn it off if he doesn’t like it. Although, you find that a part of you doesn’t care if he likes it or not. Because you’re the one washing his sheets, and keeping the house clean so who is he to complain about your music. It’s terribly domestic. Almost like the dynamic between a husband and a wife. 

You sweep and you lose sight of him as you do so. You thought that’d freak you out more than it actually did. However, not having sight of him relaxed you more. Letting the sounds of the record whisk you away. Suddenly, your house felt like your home again, and there was something comforting about the familiarity of it all. You’d lived here for 6 years and you’d accepted that your house was watching you in a way. Acutely aware of metaphorical eyes on you at all times. In an odd way, Michael Myers validated the existence of those, no longer metaphorical, eyes. His existence, in a sense, only served to validate your routine. 

Before you know it, time flies by, and you switch his sheets and duvet from the washer to the dryer. You don’t even grimace at the ring of reddish-brown dirt inside of the machine. Then you make your way back upstairs, switching the record back to Bowie, before you start mopping. 

He’s hovering at the door to the basement when the dryer is finished running. You don’t even spare him a glance as you make your way downstairs. You pull his freshly washed sheets and duvet from the dryer, taking the time to fold the large things. You figure there’s no point. No point in folding them when they’re going to end up right back on the floor. No point in washing them when they’re going to end up blood stained again. As you finish folding the sheets, placing them on top of the folded duvet, you feel him press his chest against your back. You can only feel his presence there because of the fact the muscle of his abdomen is actually physically touching you, because you notice that he’s deathly cold. It almost feels like he has no blood pumping through his veins. You can’t even feel his heartbeat through the fabric of the mechanics uniform. He’s stiff and he’s cold and he leans over your shoulder, crowding you closer to the dryer, and you hear him take in a single deep breath. You hear him breathe in the scent of fresh linen and your heart yearns. 

There’s no point. 

You think as you feel him follow you like a loyal dog up the stairs of the basement. 

There’s no point in any of this. 

You tell yourself, as he continues to follow you up to the second floor. You risk a look over your shoulder and you notice that he’s purposely a few steps behind you. That, from here, he’s put enough space between you to make it seem like you’re taller than him. That you’re above him. 

When you finally make it into the guest room, all you can do is stare at the open closet door. Up one more flight of steps and he’ll retreat back into his attic crawl space. You can pretend that he’s not there until he decides he needs to eat or wash his things again.

But you find, as you stand there, that you don’t want him to retreat back to the attic. There’s no point to any of this, only because you had not acknowledged him before. You realize, with a horror that never truly amounts, that you want him there. You want there to be a point. 

So, you dump the freshly washed sheet and duvet onto the guest bed. There’s already a set of clean sheets and blankets on the thing, but you figure that maybe he likes the ones he has. Then you turn to look at him. He’s standing in the open doorway of the bedroom. Half hidden behind the frame, obscured in the increasing darkness of the setting sun, and you see him immediately. 

“Michael.”

You croak out, trying your hardest to sound confident with your heart beating in your throat. 

Mind your black ass business. 

A voice in the back of your head rings in your ears. You ignore it. 

“The guest bedroom is yours.”

It’s not a command for him to stay but it’s not an extended offer either. It’s a gift. 

You leave him standing there. Hovering in the doorway. When your night finally ends, he’s no longer in the doorway, but he’s not in the guest room either. However, the guest room closet door is closed, and his sheet and duvet are sprawled across the surface of the bed. When you go to sleep that night, you’re sure that you can feel someone there. Hovering over you. Watching you sleep. It doesn’t scare you as much as it should. 

[nauticheric]

☽༺♰༻☾ my name is julek nauticheric and this is my horror blog. i'm a college aged black, queer, new wave goth with an interest in film, immoral subcultures, howling at the moon, erotica, maiming, mauling, & generally most other acts of depravity. here is my AO3 where i'll be posting afro-centric horror x readers soon. please mind any fics posted pre-2024. foxgnder ☽༺♰༻☾ Now Playing: Lullaby  The Cure    2:30 ━━○───── 4:07 ⇄ ◃◃ ⅠⅠ ▹▹ ↻ılıılıılıılıılıılı ᴠᴏʟᴜᴍᴇ : ▮▮▮▮▮▮▯▯▯