1. The Darkest Hour
I ran inside the dark hall, with Hanna, Aria, Emily and Mona close at my side, trying to hurry. We didn't have much time. Charles would soon realize where we were headed.
For the last four years, my friends and I had been tormented and stalked by someone known as A, threatening us with notes and texts. At first, we thought A might have been Alison DiLaurentis, our long-lost best friend, as the notes centered around ninth grade from the same time she went missing. But then construction workers had found Ali's body underneath a concrete slab behind what used to be her house.
Up until five months ago, we all thought for sure that Ali was dead until we found her in Ravenswood hiding from A, leaving us with more questions that ever before. The texts grew scarier and more threatening, and A even went so far as to murder Alison's mother, Jessica DiLaurentis. Not long after Ali had returned to Rosewood, Mona Vanderwaal, Hanna's old best friend, faked her death with the help of A, who had taken over the game, and framed Alison for the murder in an attempt to stop A. Unfortunately, A had found her first and held her captive here in a recreation of their own life-sized dollhouse ever since, in the middle of nowhere. A had Mona pretend to be Alison, and she went along with the charade while they were watching in order to make A think that they'd won.
A day before, I saw a set of blocks from the game room that seemed to spell out a name that changed everything. After unscrambling the letters around in my head, I made the startling discovery that the blocks spelled out one singular name: Charles.
It had a name.
The following morning, I told Mona and my friends that Charles was A. And just when we all thought A's twisted games couldn't get any worse, he'd forced us into re-creating a fake Rosewood High School prom that my sister, Melissa, and her old boyfriend, Ian Thomas, had attended. Hanna, Aria, Emily, and Mona and I used the event to execute a plan of escaping by making a tool that would shut down all the power, guaranteeing our freedom. But just minutes before, I'd found my way into the vault, a room that Charles had mysteriously sealed off to the rest of the house. When I turned on a projector that was sitting in the center of the room, a video began to play of Mrs. DiLaurentis, Alison's mom, with two blonde toddler boys.
In the footage, she was kneeling down next to the boys, with a baby girl in her arms. They looked to be about six years old at least, with pale blonde hair and crystal-blue eyes, just like Alison's.
"Kiss your sister," Mrs. DiLaurentis had told them.
As if by command, they each pressed their lips to the baby's tiny forehead. I recognized where they were–the old Campbell farm where my parents used to take my friends and I for apple picking. My mind raced with more questions. What were they doing there? What did all this mean? Who was Charles? And what did he have to do with Mrs. DiLaurentis?
The sound of a man's footsteps scuffled stealthily behind me as the video continued to play. He was so close that I could feel his breath on my neck, sending chills down my spine. I couldn't breathe. Slowly, I turned around. Charles stood very still in front of me. He wore a black suit, and his face was half concealed by a red and white mannequin mask.
Charles was taller than I'd thought and he had broad shoulders, and I could see his longish dark-brown hair peeking out from the nape of his neck. There was something familiar about him, but I couldn't pinpoint what exactly. It had less to do with the way he walked and more to do with that feeling of déjà vu, when you knew someone from a long time ago, but couldn't remember.
Emily pushed through the heavy steel door, shocking me out of my thoughts. But as we stepped out into the warm-night air, a wire fence surrounding the entire property had us blocked, and it quickly dawned on me that we were still trapped. The lights that were hooked around the perimeter of the fence were still turned off, leaving us in almost complete darkness.
I looked around the courtyard in horror and felt my chest tighten; we were trapped. Terror froze me in place, stopping my heart in a state of panic. I glanced over at my friends. Hanna was nearly a twin of Alison, with her wide blue eyes, curvy but slender form, and her short blonde hair was cut at the nape of her neck. Emily on the other hand was tall and lean, with beautiful olive-colored skin that complimented her long, deep black hair. And Aria, with her small, petite frame, straight black hair, and pouty lips, it was no wonder why boys wanted her. I was just plain and ordinary compared to them.
Maybe if I looked like the other Typical Rosewood Girls, I'd be hot and sexy, too. But I wasn't blonde, had All-American features, tan, blue-eyed, or sported Coach bags. Instead, I was ivory-skinned, long chestnut-brown hair, chocolate brown eyes, and pointed chin. I'd always been slender and long-legged, but had the chest of an eight-year-old boy.
"Oh my god," Mona said in horror. The short, small girl looked terrified, and her blonde wig hung in chunks at her shoulders in contrast to her olive skin.
"We're still trapped," Hanna said.
Emily's expression suddenly took a determined edge. "We can climb it. Let's go!"
Aria, Emily, Hanna and Mona rushed towards the fence with desperation to climb over, to finally escape. Suddenly, the lights shot back to life and the rest of the power turned back on, electrifying the wire fence with a crackle.
My eyes widened in panic. "Stop!" I screamed.
The others stopped in their tracks, looking confused. Warning signs were attached all around the fence: Warning, Electric fence. Another one said, Danger: 10,000 volts.
Just then, old-fashioned music blasted through the speakers. I tried to slow my breathing, forcing myself to think clearly through the fear that gripped my heart. I scanned the darkness for any signs of escape, trying to find some way out of this nightmare, and found none. My breathing picked up again, and my heart raced. There was no way out, nobody to save us. This was Charles' game, and we were the dolls.
Everyone looked around with scared expressions on their faces. We were still wearing the prom dresses that Charles had picked out for us. Mona looked like a princess in a floor-length, pale pink satin gown with a beaded high neckline, and Hanna was in a pretty red strapless sweetheart dress that showed off a little bit of her chest through the sheer lace, paired with elbow-length black gloves. Emily wore a skimpy navy-blue, velvet V-neck Mac Duggal gown, while Aria was dressed in a black-and-burgundy satin chiffon prom dress with matching satin gloves. Meanwhile, I felt plain in my off the shoulder purple-and-black plaid dress, which was how I always felt when I was back in Rosewood. Except when I was with Toby.
Toby. My heart swelled just thinking about him. Toby Cavanaugh was my long-time boyfriend and one true love, and the last person to see me before the police arrested me as an accessory to Mona's faked murder. Just hours before, though, Toby professed his love for me, stating that he was choosing me over his job as a cop.
I felt my throat constrict at the memory. I'd just gotten Toby back, and now I would do anything to be in his arms again.
People used to cross to the other side of the street when they saw Toby, but no more than two years later, he'd transformed into a James Dean of Rosewood and joined the Rosewood police force to protect me. He had the physique of an athlete and the bluest eyes I'd ever seen. From the moment he kissed me outside of the motel two years ago, I'd fallen completely, uncontrollably head-over-heels in love with him.
"There's no way out," Mona announced, breaking me out of my thoughts.
I stared up at the lights above, my heart pounding, wishing to find a way out of this hellhole. Frustrated, I turned back to the others.
"I'm not going back down there," Aria said stubbornly. As soon as she said that, the door behind us automatically locked, shutting us out.
We each let out a gasp. I sprinted to the door and tried yanking it open, but no matter what I did it wouldn't budge.
Hanna walked over to the security camera that was attached to the electric fence and looked straight into it. "You may be a dude, but you're still a bitch." Abruptly all the lights shut off.
"You guys," I whispered, turning around, "in the vault I was so close to Charles I could feel his breath."
"Was there anything about him you recognized?" Mona asked. "A smell?"
"She's not Jenna," Emily replied. Jenna Marshall was Toby's younger manipulative step-sister who we'd accidently blinded in a cruel prank set up by Alison back in ninth grade, but it turned out that Jenna had been raping Toby before she lost her sight in some sick plan to force him into a sexual relationship with her. This was one of the many heartbreaking things we'd learned after Toby and I started to develop feelings for each other.
"I don't know," I said, "I can't pinpoint it, but there was something that was really familiar."
Aria frowned. "You mean like the way he moved?"
I gazed up at the sky, my mind lost in thought. "No, it was…like when you meet a pen pal or like a cousin…or somebody that you knew when you were really little."
Hanna looked at me skeptically. "Wait, so you're saying you know Charles a little, but you feel like you know him a lot?"
I shook my head, brushing away such a crazy thought. "I can't explain it, it was just a feeling."
A few seconds of silence passed. The only sound was the cold wind blowing through the trees, which was growing stronger.
"I'm going to get cold out here tonight," Emily said after a moment.
Mona glanced around. "Where do you think we are?"
"We don't…we don't know how long we were out before we got here, so…" Aria trailed off.
"We could be in the Amazon right now," Hanna said.
"No, we're in the northern Hemisphere." I pointed at the half silver moon hovering above us. "That's the waning moon."
"I was saying that facetiously."
"Wow, that's an eleven letter word, Hanna," Mona said, sounding impressed.
Suddenly, Lightening cut across the sky and thunder broke overhead with a crash, making us all jump.
Emily's warm brown eyes widened with fear. "This fence is like a giant lighting rod." We all gathered together closely and looked at the electric fence nervously.
Hanna stared into the camera. "You going to let us fry out here?"
Lightning flashed again, followed by the loud rumble of thunder. The storm seemed to be reaching its climax as sheets of rain hurtled from the ominous dark clouds rolling overhead. Soon, the rain started to fall harder, pouring off the sides of the house.
With no idea where we were and nowhere to go, we had no choice but to stay outside in the pounding rain. Everyone huddled together on the wet ground, using the skirt of my dress as a cover. The wind picked up amidst the thunderstorm throughout the night, and I was so wet that I felt as if my skin was pruning. But that wasn't the worst part. Charles left us out for the next day, too. All of the rain from yesterday had dried, making the ground dry and hot.
I lay on my back against the burning hot ground, exhausted beyond belief. My eyes blinked open, slowly adjusting to the bright light, and the past few days came hurtling back. I threw arm over my face to shield my eyes from the stinging rays of sunlight from above. This was only Round Two of Charles' game, and I'd lost.
My throat was parched, and my limbs were sweaty and sore from lack of food or water. My dress was pulled up at my thighs from all the tortuous heat, and it stuck to my hot skin, making it extremely uncomfortable to move in the heat. It felt like I'd been lying here for weeks.
I stared through the trees, my mind spinning. We were outside of a demented real-life dollhouse in the remote woods that felt lonelier than the desert, surrounded by an electric fence. For the first time, I was uncertain of whether we would all survive.
My skin was so hot and sticky, it felt like my face was burning. I moved my hands down to my stomach, where a small but defined bump stuck out between my hips.
I was pregnant. It hadn't fully registered in my mind or body that there was something growing inside me until five months ago, when Toby and I had sex after his trip back from London. Since then, I'd had morning sickness around the clock, my body was changing rapidly every day, and my eating and sleeping habits had increased.
My fingers moved along the bulge, trying to feel something, any sign that my baby was alright. When I didn't notice any cuts or blood anywhere near my stomach, I let out a soft sigh of relief.
Then I closed my eyes, remembering clearly what had happened. A flood of memories began to wash over me like snapshots. The night Ali was convicted of killing Mona, the police arrested Aria, Emily, Hanna and I as accessories to her 'murder.' We had been put into the back of a police van to later be transported to a different prison separate from Alison, when suddenly the van crashed. The only thing I remembered before passing out was someone in a black hoodie hovering over us and shooting a smoky gas inside. It smelled strong like toxic fumes–a thick poisonous scent that filled my heart with dread.
No! I thought. The baby. But before I had a chance to hold my breath against the intoxicating flunitrazepam gas, everything faded to black.
I saw myself waking up in what I thought was my bedroom. I looked around the room and my blood turned cold. This wasn't my bedroom, I realized. It was only a look-alike version of it in A's recreation.
I was alone, blocked off by cement walls. A had kidnaped my friends and I, and locked us away in our fake rooms. The vision changed again, and I saw a dark hallway, which was lit up by pathway lights. I saw myself taking a tentative step out into the hall, only to find Aria, Hanna, and Emily stepping out of their rooms as well. Then an echoing of an automated woman's French voice came over the loudspeaker suddenly, telling us to follow the lighted pathway. Knowing what Charles had in store for us was enough to disturb my thoughts.
By nightfall, my body was starting to wear down, numbing over with fragility. I tried taking a couple of painful swallows, but my throat was too raw to moisten. A soft breeze tickled my bare skin.
I brought my hands along the surface of my dress. It was disheveled and smeared with dirt. The girls sat close to me, with the skirts of their dresses wrapped around them for warmth. I pulled my own dress closer to my body, though I didn't have any feeling in my body anymore. I hadn't bathed or eaten in days, and my arms and face were smudged with dirt and covered with scratches from having to sleep on the ground.
"How long can a person live without food?" Hanna asked suddenly, her voice small and quiet.
"Three weeks," Mona answered.
I felt my heartbeat quicken, and the anxiety pressed down on my chest. Just then, my maternal instincts kicked in, causing my hand to move over to my stomach, where the baby was hopefully still breathing inside me. Even if I managed to survive without food or water, I wasn't sure how long my baby could.
I raised my head slightly to look at her. "But water's a different story. Some people can only go a few days without it."
"You know you're dying when you're not hungry or thirsty anymore. It means your organs are shutting down."
"Mine are definitely working," Aria said. "I'm so thirsty, I'm seriously considering drinking my own pee." The others chuckled softly.
"I can totally suck on a pee ice cube right now," Hanna added.
"I'd lick sweat off a jockstrap," Emily said afterwards. Aria looked at Emily and frowned.
"Okay, Emily," Hanna surrendered, "you win."
"I don't know how much longer I can handle this," Aria said in a shaky voice. I noticed her face looked drained, and she was trembling.
Mona turned to Aria. "You can handle it, Aria. We all can."
Everyone was quiet for a few seconds, and we stared at one another uncertainly.
Trembling, I lowered my head and felt a throbbing ache pressing into my temples, and the world around me spun. I blinked, trying not to lose it, but to no avail. A swirl of colors danced in front of my eyes, threatening to blacken everything.
Then I felt my body go limp, crumbling onto the ground. My skin froze over, and my forehead started to bead with sweat. After a couple of minutes, I noticed the blur of colors starting to darken and swirl, until finally I let myself fade into the darkness.
A few days afterwards, Aria, Hanna, Emily, Mona and I slept on the hard ground, our shoes and gloves kicked off to the side, when abruptly the door to the Dollhouse finally opened with a whining squeak. Still slumped over, my eyes flew open and I used my hands and knees to stand up, staring intently at the heavy steel doors that were now yawning before us.
"Bonjour." A woman's voice rang out over the speaker. "Good morning. Buenos Dias."
I felt an uneasy chill. It was the same voice from before.
"Please enter and follow the lighted pathway," the voice continued.
I looked into the darkness looming beyond the doors, and my heart began to race. We all glanced at each other with wide, nervous eyes.
"I mean, I–I'm afraid to stay up here, but I'm also scared to death to go back there." Aria's voice quivered. Her eyes had dark-purplish shadows underneath, as if she hadn't slept in days.
"Please enter and follow the lighted pathway," the automated voice repeated. It rang out loud and clear
"You've been here the longest, Mona," Hanna said. "What do we do?"
Mona didn't speak right away. "Maybe this was our punishment. Maybe it's not mad at us anymore."
Emily turned to me. "Let's all stick together."
"Always." I looped my arm through Emily's. We were best friends and always would be. Staying together was what made us stronger.
Aria took Mona's hand, and Hanna slid her arm in the crook of Emily's elbow opposite of me. Hesitantly, we walked back inside, unsure of what lay ahead.
As we entered the dark, narrow hallway, the lights dotting along the walls suddenly flickered and blew out completely. A bright bolt of light flashed and everything went dark.
And then I heard something–a sort of rattling sound. It was coming from behind us. Everyone froze.
"What the hell?" Hanna said aloud.
Just as I heard the shattering rattle, a smoke bomb was thrown right in our path. It exploded in a cloud of grey smoke, hissing violently. My head continued to ache. I spun around, and we all screamed.
He was standing in front of us, wearing only a black hoodie and a gas mask covering his face, staring back at us.
I was vaguely aware of Hanna screaming Mona's name through the heavy smoke. Two leather-gloved hands shot out in front of Mona, dragging her towards him like a rag doll. He held her against him, forcing a gas mask against her face.
"Mona!" I shrieked, my heart beating hard.
Aria, Hanna, Emily and I started to cough heavily, struggling to breathe through the smoke. It swirled around me, burning my eyes. I recognized the scent; it was the same toxic fumes from when A kidnapped us from the back of the police van.
I coughed again, gasping for air. "Mona!"
The hall closed in around me as I inhaled the smoky fumes, making me dizzy. I tried to fight through it, but my eyes were growing heavy. A piercing shrill ringing in my ears made me aware that it was the side effect of the drug taking over my body. My throat closed up, and I felt the anxiety push in against me once more.
I clawed at the ground, desperate to find something, anything to keep me awake, fighting for my breath. But I immediately felt the muscles in my body soften, and my vision blurred behind my eyes as I collapsed to the floor.
After what seemed like days of spinning through a black hole of nothingness, my eyes popped open. A bright, painful light stung my eyes. I was lying on my back with my arms pinned to my sides on an uncomfortable steel, cold table. I didn't have anything covering me except for a thin white sheet, like a corpse.
I looked around the room, then at my friends who were lying on matching gurneys next to mine. It was dark except for a few hanging overhead lights, and there was a tray of surgical instruments sitting at the foot of my gurney. In addition to the needles and forceps, there were shelves nearby full of bleach and other sterile fluids, and I realized where we were.
It was a morgue. My body went cold, prickling with fear and confusion. What happened? We were unconscious; A could have done anything to us while we were out.
I rested my hands protectively across my tummy, rubbing the bump to make sure my baby was okay. I relaxed when I didn't feel any cuts or bruises along my stomach.
I pulled my arms out from underneath the sheet and held the sheet around myself, careful not to show the defined bulge in my stomach. A searing pain shot up my outer thighs and crawled down my arms. I tried to speak, but I couldn't seem to form the words. It burned my throat just by swallowing.
Hanna gasped. "Is this a hospital?"
"Looks more like a morgue," Emily answered.
I sat up and cried out painfully. My head ached at the center of my forehead between my eyes, and it felt like needles were stabbing at my temples. The room began to blur and shimmer around me.
I pressed my fingers to my eyes. "It feels like somebody's ripping my brain out through my eye sockets."
My head continued to throb, pulsing hard into the sensitive area behind my eyes.
"What did they do to us?" Aria asked.
Emily looked underneath her sheet and then sat back up. "Thank God."
Aria looked at Emily. "What?"
"I thought for a second A harvested our organs."
"Emily, we'd be dead," Hanna pointed out.
"You only need one kidney," Emily argued. Hanna and Aria looked down their sheets.
I glanced around the room, my mind slowly turning. And then it hit me. There was only one reason why A would put us in a morgue. If our families thought we were all dead, they'd have no reason to keep looking for us.
"Hey, guys," I whispered, my head reeling, "I think A wanted to make us look dead to send a message to our families."
Aria frowned. "What do you mean?"
"So they'd stop looking for us," Emily realized.
It fell eerily quiet. I wrapped my arms around myself, feeling unhinged. I wondered if Toby noticed I was missing yet, and if he would come save me. But if my own family thought I was dead, how could he?
Misery welled up in my throat. I blinked back the hot tears that filled my eyes, trying to hold everything together. If we were going to get out of here, I had to stay strong.
Just then, a strange sound, like wheels squeaking against the floor, lingered nearby. Everyone glanced towards the door. I thought for a minute the door was open, giving me hope.
A dark figure entered, pushing a cart with a tray of Aspirin and juice into the room. When she came into the light, I saw it was Mona, clad in a candy striper outfit.
She smiled pleasantly. "Aspirin? Juice?"
"Mona, what the hell is going on?" Hanna demanded. "What happened to us?"
Mona handed Aria a small cup of round white pills and another of orange juice from a silver tray. "I've asked you not to call me that ever again, Hanna," she replied sternly. "That bitch is dead to me."
It suddenly occurred to me that Mona was back to acting like Alison.
"Okay, Ali," Aria said, trying to play along. "Ali, do you know what A did to us? We're scared."
"I'm scared, too," Mona said under her breath.
I took the cup of medication and juice Mona handed to me. "How long have we been here? How long were we unconscious?"
"Only a few hours. I've been in my room until now. That's all I know."
"Are you sure that's all you know?" Emily asked her.
But Mona didn't have a chance to answer. The voice on the speaker came back on, startling me.
"Please return to your rooms and find your surprises," the woman's voice ordered. The camera on the ceiling blinked red, whirring mechanically.
Mona looked directly at the camera. "No."
"Please return to your rooms and find your surprises," the voice repeated.
"I said, 'no,'" Mona said defiantly.
At that moment, a chime rang, three long bongs. "Three times means we have to go to our rooms," Mona explained. "Or else…"
My heart caught in my throat. What could A do to us that he hadn't already?
Mona wordlessly set down the tray and hurried out into the dark hall. I looked to the other girls, my eyes widening fearfully. I pulled the sheet around myself and hopped down. The others followed suit, and we rushed down the hall after Mona.
Mona's long blonde hair shone through the darkness like a neon as she walked ahead.
"Ali?" Emily called. "Ali! Ali, wait up! Please, talk to us."
"Or else what?" Aria asked, referring to what Mona mentioned just a few moments before.
Mona finally turned around, her eyes frightened. "It steals you in the night and puts you in the hole."
Before I could ask her what she meant, the speaker rang out instructions again, that same loud, echoing voice. "Please return to your rooms and find your surprises."
I felt a ripple of irritation. I really hated surprises. I liked knowing, of being certain.
"I hate surprises," I said glumly.
"Whatever the hole is, I don't wanna go there." Hanna's eyes flickered back and forth.
I pursed my lips stubbornly, my heart beating fast. Mona gave us one last look before heading towards her room and closing the door behind her.
Everyone looked at one another worriedly. I sucked in a breath, feeling my insides tighten. But I kept my face calm and composed; I wouldn't let A break me.
After a few long seconds, Hanna, Aria and Emily reluctantly walked down the hallway towards their rooms. Slowly, I walked to the door on the right side of the wall that led to my own room. I looked over and noticed the others had stopped at their doors as well.
Despite my hardest efforts to be brave, I couldn't stop trembling. Taking a deep breath, I cast one last glance over my shoulder at my friends before turning the door handle.
I heard the door shut automatically behind me as I walked into my room, and let out a terrified gasp.
What waited for me in that room was so horrifying, so painstakingly gut wrenching that it churned my stomach inside and out, grappling me in place.
I screamed at the top of my lungs in horror. "No, no, no!"
Tears ran down my cheeks as I succumbed to my punishment. More piercing screams filled the air, only confirming my worst fears. I tried to fight against the sharp pain, but it sliced me, leaving me helpless. The flow of blood sucked every part of me away with it.
And then it pushed me down, swallowing me whole. I closed my eyes and allowed it to drag me under until I was sinking.