She lay there for what seemed like hours, trying to piece together the events that had led to her waking alone in bed. Chris felt the icy stab of deja vu, this wasn't the first time she had faced down a nightmare only to wake up in a quiet bedroom. And this had been no dream, her stained and bloody clothing told her that much. She struggled to sit up, wincing at the dull ache in her bones and the sharp pain in her sides. No, definitely not a dream. It was then she saw him standing in the doorway, and understanding washed over her.

"It's you," She spoke in a flat monotone that was somehow pierced him deeper than any of her hysterics had. She didn't speak again for a long moment, only sat there amidst the tossed bed covers regarding the man in the mask the colour of a dirty bone. Her eyes were flat, her hair tangled, and her words were as dry as dust. If he had been a normal man it would have been his turn to respond, but he was not a normal man, and so he just stood there, mute as always. Chris was sitting cross legged on the bed, almost as though she were at the edge of that dock outside and afraid to let her feet dangle over. Her natural luster, hair, eyes and posture, was gone.

"You should have ended it that night." She leveled at him, voice still strangely devoid of any emotion.

That night? What night? There had been so many nights of pain and anguish at Crystal Lake, and sometimes the lines between them blurred to the point that it seemed like one long, never ending night at Camp Blood, always that fetid place. Rotten cabins, rotten lake. But the night she meant had taken place far from that den of sin. It was a patch of woods near this very room, where he had come across her weeping beneath an oak tree. The knife jutting from his fist had been all set to stab a rabbit or something else for dinner. He had not been prepared for the girl with rich brown locks.

But he hadn't put the knife away, indeed had clutched it tighter,readying himself for the kill. Something in his subconscious, however, could not deny that she was fully clothed,

not draped drunkenly against some punk with one thing on his mind,

and seemed to be more affected by something than any of the others he had seen.

Really, how many of the pretty gargoyles who frequented his stomping grounds had ever cried, except when confronted by his visage? Even then, they never shed real tears, the tears of bullied boys and mothers without children but the whimpers of selfish creatures who didn't want their sinful lives of groping and thrusting to end. Well, he had shown them. He had thrust something into each and every one of them. It had been a blade with a handle polished smooth by his palm, a blade that was the final lover each of them would ever know.

"But I should have known you would come back," she continued dully, drawing him out of his reverie. "I was stupid to think it was over and finished. And now everyone is dead, except me. Why me? Do you..." Her brow furrowed slightly, the only hint of any sort of emotion that registered on her blank face "Do you just want to draw it out, to make me suffer?"

Of course there was no answer from the hulking man standing before her. It was ridiculous to think that he would deign to address her query, this man that had accosted her in the woods so long ago, done awful

AWFUL

things, things she still didn't want to remember and who had brutally slaughtered her friends who had done nothing to deserve their grisly ends save being her guests. SHe was a fool to ask questions, even she in her current state could recognize that. Perhaps he could not even speak, perhaps he was just an animal, something akin to the cold eyed killers of the deep that knew nothing other than the allure of scenting freshly spilled blood.

But regardless, she continued to press on. After all, did not the condemned man receive some sort of last privilege, whether it be a single cigarette, a moment alone with a Priest, or even a slice of pecan pie? What harm was there in giving her disjointed thoughts voice, when she was certain that he would end them soon enough with a massive, filthy hand wrapped around her windpipe, squeezing until the merciful darkness took her. His eyes were as cold and empty as she felt, but she continued with the courage that only the dying can display. And it was that cold slice of hopelessness seated deep within her gut that forced her next words.

"You know you ruined my life that night? Do you?" she spat, vitriol rushing in, warming her apathetic heart "I don't think you could possibly know, because I don't think you are capable of the simplest emotion. I just want to thank you," And here her eyes took on the sharpest, steely glint, her voice becoming lower but angrier with every word. "For fucking up anything I could have had with Rick, with anyone. Thank you for making sure that I would NEVER be able to stomach the idea of any sort of closeness, of a kiss with any sort of meaning. Thanks for making my mother right, for making sure I'd never find anyone, how could I after that? Most of all, thanks for making me into something just like you. A twisted, fucked up thing that hides behind a different sort of mask."

Her confession done, she sat there with her legs crossed and her soul bared. Now that she had spoken her piece, miraculously with no intervention from the monstrosity before her, she felt a certain calm sweep over her. Whatever happened now was okay, because she'd said all that needed to be said.

Maybe if she were lucky and there was any sort of justice in this world she could go to her grave knowing she'd wounded him, even if her words cut only a fraction as much as his blade had. And so she faced him, waiting.

He was not sure what his reaction was, because no one had ever talked to him before. No sweet nothings whispered from a lover's lips further down the pillow - no pillow! - no sudden but lovely proclamations of affection as she straightened the stacks of clutter in their house - shack, a ratty patchwork of boards and tin in the deep, dark woods, and the clutter was old, side-of-the-road furniture and a severed head - no inquiries as to what if anything had occurred over the course of his day - oh, the things that had occurred. Instead he heard those things being spoken to and asked of others while he voyeured from behind a tree or just outside the bedroom window. One thing he did know was that when it came time to present himself, at least there was a passionate response. A sharp intake of breath. Voices high and wobbly with fear. Animated faces with wide eyes and trembling lips. The closest he could ever get to seeing someone in the grips of an orgasm.

His thoughts turned dark then, because here this girl was, this Chris Higgins, a girl who had not disappointed him each time he showed himself to her,

and gone wild with terror, and now here she was like those blank chalkboards in the Camp Blood rec room, featureless, empty, and devoid of meaning. But though his mind was swimming in a dark ocean with no shore in sight, Jason Voorhees did not have the urge to rend and tear. This only mildly surprised him, for he hadn't gotten that urge the first time he encountered this girl, not after he'd seen her prim, pretty outfit that appropriately covered her wonderful curves, and noticed that here was someone in his woods who wasn't rutting like a wild animal,or shedding their shorts to present a nude defiance to him, watcher in the woods, and indeed, the very gods themselves, peering down from the clusters of stars above, so very much like the clusters of trees from which he always watched. So there was no real desire to hurt this girl just then, and more confused than anything else by her quiet, slack face, devoid of rage, fear or even the pout she usually wore as Princess of The Woods, Jason stared a moment longer, then silently left the room.

Chris watched him go, eyes smoldering like the embers in wait beneath a poorly extinguished fire. Of all the reactions she'd expected from this reaper in the flesh, this she had not foreseen. As therapeutic as it had been to slice at him with bitter words, she had expected some sort of response, even if it had been for him to bury a blade within the bony cage housing her heart. For him to just walk away, as if she were nothing more than a curious insect sighted on an especially long blade of grass was a slap in the face. Even if, as she supposed, he did not possess the capacity for any sort of empathy, she was sure he could process the hatred in her voice.

For him to walk away, no... that was just unacceptable. Damn it, he owed her at least this much. After cutting down cherished friends, a lover, and reducing her life to THIS, he couldn't walk away and brush her words off like so much ash. Before her actions could even register within her, she pulled herself upright and stood rigidly, drawing herself to her full height with an air that would have befitted a queen.

"So, you think you can just walk off and be done with me, just like that?" Her voice was tight, her eyes needle sharp as she continued. "Well, go ahead and slink off like a coward. I'll be right here, just the way you wanted me because I am not a coward like you, and I'm not something that has to hide it's face and slink in the shadows. No, I'll be right here, always ready to remind you of exactly what you are. And even if you cut me down too, I'll still be there in the back of your head. I promise you that. "

Jason retreated to the spiral staircase as Chris loudly berated him from her bedroom. He found himself able to shut out her words if he stared at his fingernails, cared for and trimmed by an instrument stolen from her father's own bathroom. He had scrubbed them clean since the massacre, but since moving the bodies to the barn they had gotten grimy again. Blood was caked under them, reminding him of what had occurred here, even in this very hallway, where the idiot staggering around on his hands had offered himself up as an upside down lamb to the slaughter. Once downstairs, he went for the nearest sink to once again scrub them with was at the top of the stairs now, her voice loud enough for him to hear but still not a shout. What was he going to do with her?