the two sisters burst through the doors of the mess hall, sprinting towards the hanging tree. they didn't dare spare a look behind them, they knew what was coming and they knew they had limited time to do what they needed to.
"there it is. go, go!" cindy exclaimed as the tree came into sight, purely out of instinct, urging her sister to reach the tree first. if anything happened - any of the 'ghosts' showed up, she would gladly give herself up for her sister to live. ziggy didn't respond, making the only noise between them the gasping and panting of their tired breaths as the space between them and their destination closed.
upon reaching the tree, they both immediately gravitated to the place they knew the witch of old was hanged, the place where - just a few hours ago - ziggy was strung up by her wrists with a bloody nose and a lighter's flame pressed to her arm.
cindy dropped on her knees and began digging her trowel into the earth. "here! here!" she screamed, again unneeded but at the same time wanted.
"yes, yes!" ziggy let out in relief, only a couple minutes and hopefully the horrors of the night would be over. she brought the shovel down into the ground repeatedly, doing her best to ignore the sinking feeling in her stomach - something didn't feel right, something was horribly wrong. she somehow knew what they were about to find wouldn't be what they had wanted but she would take anything over her sister dying because she bled on some bones.
for the next few moments nothing could be heard but their desperate gasping and the scraping of metal against earth, until a thud broke through and the sisters instantly paused and locked eyes. joining her sister on the ground, ziggy dropped the shovel and used her hands to push the dirt around to find what she had hit. cindy had abandoned her trowel to help and together they finally uncovered the fateful skull of the vengeful witch that haunted their town.
turning to retrieve the hand, ziggy noticed a shadow on the forest line getting closer - a young boy with a mask and a bloody bat with nails messily hammered in. her breathing picked up even faster as she flung herself back to face her sister. "cindy, they're coming," her voice was nothing more than a whisper but she couldn't help it, her façade was no longer - all she was now was a shivering, terrified teenage girl.
sparing a glance around them at the other shadows growing in the distance, cindy took in a deep breath to keep her brave face intact before she reassured her sister. "i know, ziggy. i know. let's end this."
with a sharp nod, the ginger haired girl lowered the skeleton hand into the ditch before her and let it fall the rest of the way. as the lost hand connected with the rest of the bones, she felt a familiar wetness underneath her nose; she lifted a hand to touch it and confirm what she knew when, suddenly, her sight went of focus. the last thing she heard was her sister screaming her name before she wasn't herself and she wasn't underneath the hanging tree. instead she was black haired and blue eyed.
a quick flurry of images flashed before her; it seemed as though time had both slowed down and increased. she took in all the information she was gifted - letting the shock of the truth immobilise her as sarah fier's (the first innocent life) final words ring through her head.
the truth will come out... yes it would, ziggy decided.
i will never let you go... ziggy would never let nick go, not until he paid for what he's done.
her sister was right, they could end this curse tonight. and they will. all they had to do? find nick goode and kill him. easy, ziggy declared to herself, it would be easy. but the memories of her day with him came back to haunt her. she had laughed with him, actually talked with him, kissed him. she had fell for him, and he had played her, but she had fell for him still.
hands on her shoulders, shaking her roughly, brought her out of her daze. "ziggy! ziggy, come on! snap out of it! please, ziggy," she could hear her sister screaming, crying, begging. begging for her to come back to her. so she did, she would do anything for cindy to never look or sound like she did.
so she blinked. and the spell was broken. sarah fier had revealed the truth to her in the hope that she would save shadyside, end nick goode's tyrannical reign over them. and she would: she would end nick goode.
back in the present with cindy, all the feelings sarah fier had blocked out came rushing back. she was a shivering terrified teenage girl again. but this time she had a plan. this time she knew how to end the curse. looking up, she saw cindy already watching her. "how long was i out?" was the first thing she says.
cindy shook her head. "you weren't out. you just kind of stared into nothing. but it wasn't long." she gestured meekly to the approaching shadows, walking in a slow stroll as if they knew the two would lose to them. "they haven't moved very far. it's like they're teasing us." she took a moment to glare at them before snapping back to ziggy. "are you ok? what happened? you looked like you did when you bled on the hand and you did just bleed on the whole body so-"
"cindy. cindy! i'm fine" ziggy interrupted before her sister could go off an a tangent. they had a goode to kill and they could waste no time. "i saw everything. i was sarah fier in 1666 and i saw what happened to her. she wasn't the witch, she was never the witch." she spurted out in a hurry. going by the look an cindy's face, it wasn't making a lot of sense but she couldn't stop herself now she had started. "it was soloman goode. he made a deal with the devil and his ancestors have carried it on. nick goode. it's nick." she breathed the final words out in a heavy breath and watched the same shock she felt encase her sister.
eyes widening, cindy stared back at ziggy. "nick goode? the same nick goode who's a counsellor here? the one who has a crush on you? and jumped in front of an axe for you?"
ziggy jumped slightly at that, breath catching in her throat. "shit!" she met cindy's gaze, feeling stupid that she hadn't noticed before. "shit!"
"what?" cindy implored, knowing her sister too well, she was hitting herself - knocking herself down for something and she hated it.
a scoff escaped her mouth before she answered, "tommy walked straight past him. he hit him with his axe and nick was down: he was an easy target. but he just ignored him and chased after me. i should've realised it. i should've known. why would he just ignore nick when he was killing everyone else. i mean he almost killed you and he loved you." she rolled her eyes, not noticing her sister tense up next to her until she felt her hand being squeezed. "cindy? what's the matter."
her sister was sat upright, hand clenched around ziggy's, face set and hard. "they're gone."
and she was right. tommy, ruby lane, the child with the bat - they were all gone.
"why would they leave? i thought they wanted me dead. i bled on the bones. i know what they don't want me to. they should be trying to kill me." a voice in the back of ziggy's head told her she sounded stupid wishing her could-be murderers were still closing in on her but it worried her even more to not know where they were.
cindy and ziggy got to their feet and looked around for any sign of them but the forest only swayed in the breeze, either innocently watching the unfolding events or offering a hiding place for the possessed killers. they almost didn't want to find out which but knew that the killers wouldn't be too far away from ziggy if the evidence they'd uncovered tonight meant anything. and, of course, they were right. the shadows hadn't run off - they were stupid to believe that would happen. they had just moved in a way that left no exit for the sisters to escape; they were animals in a cage and it's bars were ever so slowly getting smaller.
they're hands naturally found each other again and they held tight to each other as they stood witness to the apparitions of the killers tauntingly made deliberate steps in their direction. how they would survive, they didn't know. as far as they could see they was no escape.
FS|FS|FS|FS|FS
but there he was. leg wrapped in a messy bandage that allowed blood to leak, nick goode hobbled out of the trees. as he set his sight on the berman sisters trapped in a circle of his family's killers, he felt his life flash in front of him. since getting the family legacy passed onto him, he had his doubts but when his father had told him he could get whatever he wanted, he was willing to give it a try. because he had a very specific want in mind. christine 'ziggy' berman. the girl who stole his heart. the girl he never wanted involved in any of his family business. he wanted to protect her from everything but she had proved she didn't need his protection.
and now he was forced to watch his creation, his first possessed killer, goody tommy slater, shifting his axe as he and the others made their way to kill her. so he acted without thinking. he ran forward ignoring the pain in his leg. he pushed past the dead milkman - who, he noted, was running his tongue over the sharp edge of the knife - getting closer and closer to ziggy. he saw cindy next to her but his mind pushed her to the background; all that mattered was ziggy.
"ziggy! are you okay?" he asked, making sure to keep a check on the oncoming threats. there was no way to stop them if they were after ziggy. he was begging in his head for the devil to stop this, to pull them back but the only response he got was a distorted noise that sounded like laughter.
she looked at him with such disgust that he almost threw up. he had seen that look on her face before but never directed at him. it hurt. "am i okay? are you a fucking psychopath? your killers are trying to kill me and you ask if i'm okay? what the fuck! you're a killer, nick!"
how she found out, he'll never know but he would be sure to find out soon. right now he had to focus on getting ziggy out of this alive. play dumb. be innocent. you weren't the one to actually bring the axe down on all those campers. "what are you talking about, ziggy? my killers. you don't know what you're saying. all the trauma is messing with your head." he held his hands up in front of him - the surrender position, ironic really: he would surrender himself to her any day.
"messing with my-" she spluttered, not in shock, it was something else. he couldn't make out what it was. "no, nick! the only thing messing with my head... is you!" she poked him in the chest with an accusing finger making him stumble slightly just from the ferocity of her words. "you're psycho. your great ancestor made some psychotic deal with the devil and you decided to continue it. you made tommy a killer. you ruined the lives of the campers. you are the reason people died tonight." her finger acted like a knife - stabbing him in the chest with every accusation, every point she made while he did nothing but feel the stinging pain. "you are the reason these- these ghosts, whatever they are, are after me and my sister. you, nick!" with her final word, her rage seemed to overspill and she shoved him with both her hands.
he fell back, not onto the ground, but away from her. the pain he felt from her speech was nothing compared to what he felt when she made the space between them bigger. but she fell for the innocent nick goode, just like he fell for the weird girl from shadyside, she had to believe him, to listen to him. "listen, i don't know what you've been told but it, it isn't true. okay? i never made tommy a killer, he must have snapped. people do that sometimes, maybe today was just his day. and i could never kill you. not you, ziggy. never you."
that, however, was not the right thing to say. "not me?" she was mocking him. he could see the tears in her eyes. they were beautiful in the light of the moon and stars; they made her eyes glow, shine. they were enchanting. "you would be okay if everyone at this camp died as long as you get to keep me. keep me alive." she released a derisive laugh and it cut through his heart. "what did you think? you would let tommy get possessed, kill all the shadysiders at camp, kill him off, act like a hero. but not me. no, no, you save me from the big scary monster. i fall in love with you and we live happily ever after." her eyes narrowed into slits. it reminded him of the snake that crawled over them while they hid from tommy. "well, fuck you, nick." and her next move was so sudden, his mind and body could do nothing but obey.
she wiped her hand on his chest leaving a trail of fresh blood - when had she cut her hand? - and hands grabbed him from behind. cindy, he had completely forgotten she was even there. his mistake. she locked her hands on his arms and spun him around, throwing him to the dogs. his dogs. his family's killers. he felt it all. the knife. the blade. the axe. the spiked bat. they made him think of starved lions; that's what they were, starved killers out for blood. and they got what they wanted. it filled his vision, his throat. it spilled out of him from every hole they made. the pain felt like it would last forever until it didn't. he knew he was finished; his breathing had stopped (punctured lung, thank you, tommy) and he had more blood outside his body than inside. with the last morsel of strength, he dropped his head to the left and lifted his eyes to search for her.
ziggy berman. the weird girl from shadyside who stole his heart and then his life. she was all he ever wanted in life. the curse had at least given him that - being with her in his final moments. even if the scenario wasn't what he wanted; they weren't an old couple, deeply in love with children and grandchildren. but this was good too. having her in his sight before he died was all he could've wished for. so he smiled.
FS|FS|FS|FS|FS
cindy held ziggy in her arms as the ghosts disintegrated before them. they were alone with nick goode's broken dead body. ziggy was crying - loud sobs with vicious tears; cindy couldn't remember the last time she had seen her sister look like this but she knew she hated it. her sister was a beautiful soul with a good spirit, she deserved more than what she was given.
"it's okay, ziggy." she murmured into her sister's orange hair. her arms tightened around her as if daring anything and anyone else to try and separate them again. "it's over now. we did it." cindy let her eyes fall onto the sight she had been avoiding, the mangled body of the boy who had chased her sister, tricked them all and paid for it, the reason her boyfriend and best friend were dead and the reason her sister was in the state she was in. the curse was over. shadyside was saved. there would be no more possessions or killing sprees.
cindy let out the breath she didn't realise she had taken in. placing her chin atop ziggy's head, she made the one promise she swore she would never break. "nothing will pull us apart."
she felt ziggy move closer to her and heard her muffled reply against her chest. "never again."
this was literally just written as a brain spill. i couldn't get this idea out of my head so here it is! hope you enjoyed :)