As Demon and Anita's life ended, Pam drove the pick-up truck tediously down the muddy highway, heading past the trailer and RV park. She squinted through the rain that had started to sprinkle down, trying to see if Tommy had possibly gone back there.

There was no sign of him on the road, or in the woods.

There was no sign of Junior and his motorbike either.

She knew that Tommy wouldn't leave his masks behind and just go off on his own. Where had he gone? Was he just out wandering in the woods? she thought.

She couldn't imagine how irate Matt would be when he learned that she had lost Tommy.

How could she have predicted that Junior would pull up on his motorcycle?

How could she have known they were to be in the wrong place at the wrong time?

From what she could tell, Tommy had just been defending himself.

He seemed to be able to take care of himself pretty well, so maybe he would be alright.

As if things couldn't get any worse, Matt and George were gone.

She glanced nervously at the sky, praying that the storm would pass over the area. It would just make things worse trying to look for people in the pouring rain.

If worse came to worst, she would have to go to sleep at the clinic and call the Sheriff in the morning. She didn't know what else to do.

She was really starting to worry, and she could feel the knot of fear and stress churning in her gut.

They had three patients missing, the doctor was gone, and it was about to storm.

What a night, she thought. What a week.

Pam thought back to all the events of that week alone.

Joey, his body hacked, almost limb from limb…

Vic, not showing any remorse for it and being taken away willingly by the police…

The way he had looked at her flashed into her mind.

It was as if he was trying to impress her.

Tina and Eddie got hauled in in a police car.

Now, three patients and the doctor are missing.

And today was Friday the 13th.

I guess the legend about Friday the 13th in this town is true, she thought.

She wasn't superstitious, but the fact that it was Friday the 13th, and the fact that it was a stormy night, and the fact that so many strange things were going on all had her spooked.

Something else was bothering her too.

Everything seemed to go wrong ever since Tommy had arrived at Pinehurst.

Maybe he just brought gloom and doom everywhere he went. It was understandable given what he went through.

He had actually seen Jason Voorhees. At least, if you believed the legend.

What if he really was out there?

She thought back to her psychology courses.

What if there had been a Jason? What if he really did survive after all those years and murder those innocent people? What would have happened to his mind out in the woods feasting on roadkill and running off of pure survival instinct?

Had it rotted his brain to the extent that he became just a killing machine or some kind of wild animal?

He was clearly able to feel things, since he was killing for his mother and clearly loved her.

It was easy to empathize with Jason. He would have been a good fit for Pinehurst considering all he had was his mother and look how she turned out to be. He probably didn't have any friends.

Pamela's love for him had driven her crazy.

A special needs child like Jason allegedly was could do that to you. It can make parents extremely overprotective of the child.

That's what Pam learned in her parenting courses.

Sometimes, parents end up totally babying their special needs child and underestimating their abilities.

They also overestimate sometimes and end up pushing their children into doing things they aren't

ready for. Pam sometimes dreamed of one day becoming a parent, but she didn't know if she could handle it.

Some days, she still felt like barely an adult herself.

Maybe Mrs. Voorhees had tried for so long to keep Jason safe from the other kids that it must have felt like her heart had been ripped out and stomped on when he drowned.

The guilt must have been too much to bear, and to cope with it, she blamed the counselors.

Those counselors should have been watching Jason and none of the murders would have ever happened.

The whole thing was started by people mistreating special needs children.

And the pattern still continued today, she thought. Just look at how Ethel behaved. She had called the patients all "crazy" and threatened their lives.

There was definitely a societal stigma against mentally ill and disabled people.

And she worried that if it didn't stop soon, more people would end up just like Jason.

More people would end up just like Jason's mother, and take revenge on the people who harmed their child.

It was only inevitable.

She couldn't imagine the pain Mrs. Voorhees must have felt knowing that the people she entrusted with her son's life let her down and didn't keep him safe.

Her thoughts drifted back to Tommy, and she started thinking of where he might go to feel

safe.

He'd probably go and touch his masks, she thought. That's where he was probably going. Back to the center.

She started to think more about Tommy.

Maybe he snapped. What if he was way more messed up than they realized?

What if he…became Jason?

What if in his mind he felt himself turning into a monster?

And what if he eventually started to believe those feelings?

Could Tommy have been responsible for the murders at Camp Blood? Sure, Tommy and his sister both said they saw Jason, but did they?

No…that was nonsense. How could a 12 year boy slaughter a bunch of seventeen year olds?

Then again, Tommy's story didn't make sense either.

How could Jason have survived all those years?

None of it made any sense and if she kept thinking about these morbid legends and ghost stories, she was going to scare herself to death.

She decided to just focus on finding Tommy for now.

As she started to turn the truck around to head back to the center, it suddenly sputtered and stalled.

Fuck! she thought.

She cranked it. Nothing.

"Just great," she said to herself, annoyed.

Pam climbed out of the truck and started the long walk back to the center and miserably thought to herself….

Happy fucking Friday the 13th.

At the Pinehurst Center, it was dead quiet except for the howling wind that made the old farmhouse creak and groan. Thunder rumbled softly and the crickets had begun their symphony of calls.

A light feathery sheet of rain fell, dripping off the tin roof and the eaves of the old home.

Robin's red hair was gleaming in the light of the roaring fire in the fireplace.

Jake sat next to her on the couch, anxiously biting his nails.

Robin was engrossed in an old movie, munching on a bowl of popcorn, wearing nothing but a short, revealing blue robe.

They were all not supposed to watch TV in the living room after seven, but since Matt was nowhere to be found, the teens decided to have some fun.

Violet was dancing up in her room, her outlet for all of her pent-up emotions, even though she was supposed to do dishes after dinner.

Jake opened his mouth, trying to say something but his nerves were taking over.

Finally, he managed to force it out.

"R-Robin?" he stammered.

She leaned over to him. Jake went on.

"We've b-been here nearly eight m-months now, right?"

"Uh-huh," she said, still not taking her eyes off the TV.

"That's a long time to..uh..g-get to know each other, don't ya think?"

Robin shushed him, trying to hear the movie.

"Jake, please," she said.

A Place in the Sun, a black and white film from the fifties, was playing on the small television set and Robin was enthralled.

The woman onscreen looked dreamily at her lover.

"We could get the biggest house in the world…only I'd like to live in a little house…with room enough for just the two of us…" the woman onscreen said to him.

Jake thought about having a house big enough for just the two of them.

Him and Robin, that is.

How nice would that be?

Their own place to make their own rules. They could support each other and tell each other about their day at work. They could spruce up the house with curtains and knick knacks and could make it feel "lived-in".

They could light a fire in the fireplace on a warm summer night much like this one, and he'd press his lips against hers, tasting her lip gloss, smelling her shampoo, and then, slowly, they'd take all their clothes off and make love right in front of the fire.

They could get a dog. Or a cat. Jake was allergic to dogs.

They could even invite friends over and let them crash on the couch.

It all sounded like some distant, ideal fantasy that was playing in his mind but tonight he wanted it to feel like a reality.

He couldn't stop staring at her long, red locks and the way her bathrobe fit tightly around her long, slender legs.

"R-Robin…I l-like you…a lot," he managed to stammer out. He hoped she didn't notice that his hands were getting clammy and beads of sweat had started to roll down his forehead.

"I like you too, Jake," she said flippantly, not able to pull her eyes away from the TV screen.

"You do? A lot?" he asked. He smiled.

Ecstasy was surging through him.

"What are you talking about, Jake?" she asked, popping another popcorn kernel into her mouth and staring at the screen intently.

Jake licked his lips nervously and swallowed.

He tried to get out his next words, mustering up his courage.

"I-I-I w-wanna be w-with you," Jake said. "I r-r-really do wanna be with you,"

Robin continued watching the movie.

"I w-wanna make love to you,"

Robin's eyes grew wide. She turned to him.

And then, a smile broke across her face and she laughed. And then giggled some more.

She tried to stop, but couldn't. It was flowing profusely out of her and she couldn't stop.

Jake's smile turned into a hurt expression.

He tried to fight the knot in his stomach that was slowly twisting tighter and tighter. The lump in his throat could have been the size of his fist.

"I-I didn't mean it," he said.

Robin laughed harder.

"I-I said I didn't mean it!" Jake cried, flustered. He rose to his feet and stormed off. Robin's laughter faded when she realized he had gotten really upset.

Jake climbed the stairs two at a time.

He wanted to get out of there as fast as possible.

More than that, he wanted to crawl into a hole and die.

Jake reached the upstairs hallway and slumped against the wall, trying to collect himself. He took deep breaths in and out, just like Matt showed him. He bit the inside of his cheeks, feeling the tears welling up in his eyes.

How could I be so stupid? he thought. How could I be so goddamn stupid?

Just ask her if she wants to make love right out front? What had he been thinking?

He had just wanted to get it out there before it ate him alive. Ever since he met Robin eight months ago, he had become enamored with her. The way she smelled. The way her gorgeous crimson hair gleamed in the sun. The way that she looked away shyly whenever he would compliment her.

Even the way she had giggled at him just now had been irresistibly sexy.

He couldn't help himself.

Whenever he came upon someone he liked, he got so attached. He would usually freeze and not say too much but when he did open his mouth, he always managed to say the worst things possible.

Matt said it was just his social anxiety but it had to be more than that. Maybe he was just a freak and nobody would ever love him.

Despite being seventeen, Jake felt like he had lived a lifetime of loneliness. He had always been painfully shy around the other kids his age. In school, there were some classes where he wouldn't say a word to anyone or would refuse to read if the teacher called on him.

And now, it was his first time trying to be intimate with a girl and she laughed in his face literally.

What was he going to do? He felt like becoming a hermit like Ethel Hubbard, just to live away from civilization and not have to deal with people any longer. It was hard enough to socialize with nice people for Jake.

At least he saw the hard truth.

Robin was a cold-hearted bitch.

At least, that was his way of making himself feel better.

Since he had been to rehab, he had barely said two words to Robin, much less flirted with her. Something about her made her seem so intimidating.

She was far prettier than any girl at his school.

And she laughed at him.

Why was that her response?

Was he that pathetic to her? Was he nothing but a joke?

He felt so stupid.

He even planned for her to watch that stupid romantic movie to try and get her in the mood, and it hadn't worked.

And of course, his stutter didn't help it either. He was probably just cute to her and not sexy. He didn't want to be cute. He wanted to be sexy to women. He wanted to be like Eddie.

That guy could have anyone he wanted, he thought. Any girl looks at him and their panties would fly off for him.

It made Jake increasingly bitter the more he thought.

Fuck him, Jake thought.

He was glad Tommy had whooped his ass the other day.

What Jake really felt was deep jealousy towards him and his masculine bravado that could hook women like a fish.

It was easier to be angry at him.

Hopefully, he and Tina both had been arrested.

Thunder suddenly rumbled outside and Jake jumped at the sound, looking towards the window in the hallway.

There was a loud thwack.

The wind was picking up, blowing the trees against the window.

God, what had actually happened to Tina and Eddie? he thought, staring out the window. And Matt? They were all gone and it was going to storm.

He wondered about what Ethel had said the other day. She had threatened to kill them all.

What if she really did come here in the middle of the night and hack us up? What if Tina and Eddie are lying dead in the woods?

As Jake wiped away a tear that fell, he went to his bedroom door and leaned against it, his thoughts drifting back to Robin.

Maybe he just needed to talk to someone. Since Matt was missing, he would have to see if Violet could console him, although he didn't expect her to oblige.

She wasn't the best during times of need but it was his only option.

Jake rapped on her door that was across from

his. It was the door with loud, techno-funk music emanating from it.

"Vi?" he said.

When the door didn't open, he pushed it open.

Violet's bedroom screamed "angsty teenager". Ripped magazine pages and posters hung all over the walls. She moved her hips back and forth to the funk music, looking up when she saw Jake's silhouette out of the corner of her eye.

"Vi!" Jake yelled over the music.

"Huh?" she said.

"I need to t-talk,"

"Can it wait?!" she yelled back.

Jake sighed defeatedly, and his shoulders sunk.

"No," he said, and quietly left the room leaving Violet to her late-night hobby.

He closed the door behind him and leaned against it. Now it was either go to sleep, or back downstairs and give Robin a piece of his mind.

Why shouldn't he? Why shouldn't he march right down and tell her how he felt and that he didn't care about her anymore because all she is is a bitch?

It would serve her right. He wanted an apology. She didn't have to laugh at him. A simple "No thanks I'm tired" would have sufficed.

Thunder boomed again, shaking the old farmhouse.

There was a creak on the stairs.

Jake didn't hear it.

He was lost in his racing thoughts. The thoughts screamed at him. Screamed at him about how much of a loser he was.

It had only been his first try.

Did she have to laugh at him? What a cold heartless bitch, he thought.

Or maybe he really was unlikeable.

Nobody liked him no matter how hard he tried in school. So why would it be any different here at Pinehurst?

He just didn't care anymore. If Robin was going to treat him that way, she deserved to lose him as a friend and she had to know how he felt. He had to tell her how he felt. How hurt he was. How wronged he felt.

Jake mustered up his courage again, and moved for the stairs.

Another creak on the stairs, and Jake heard it this time.

He turned the corner to go downstairs when an arm flashed out.

Lightning struck, and Ethel's meat cleaver gleamed in the bright light as it whistled down through the air.

As Jake's body slumped to the floor upstairs, Robin jerked her head at the sound.

When the house returned to silence, she resumed watching the television.

It was probably Violet punching a hole in the wall, she thought. Or it had just been the storm.

Poor Jake, she thought.

She really didn't mean to laugh.

It was the only thing she knew how to do when men made sexual advances towards her.

Now, she had gone and hurt his feelings.

Why had he come onto her like that in the first place?

He had never even talked to her before and now that they were getting to know each other, he decides to just ask to fuck?

That interaction had just as much been his fault as it was hers.

Maybe get to know me first, she thought. Maybe see me as a person.

With her body issues, she felt insecure constantly and the only thing she knew to do was laugh when guys came onto her. She never knew what to say or do.

Really, he had been sweet and endearing up until tonight. Now, he was plain creepy and she was dreading breakfast tomorrow and how awkward it would be.

Didn't guys ever care more about a girl than just her body? Is that how they want to start relationships? Robin thought that was so backwards.

She always felt used, like a spare hole for someone to fill to get their rocks off and then toss her aside like a discarded rag. In the past, her relationships were all abusive. For years, all she was was a piece of meat and it made her body issues worse.

Now, with Jake coming onto her so blatantly like that, she was getting flashbacks to her exes and how they treated her.

She really hadn't expected Jake to be so forward like that but she surmised that he was just like other guys deep down.

Always wanting to fuck.

Then again, Jake had asked her to make love, not fuck. Making love was a very different thing than fucking, she thought. Maybe he was sweet and did care for her.

Maybe he was just socially unaware.

His stutter really didn't bother her all that much. There were never any awkward pauses.

Still, he wasn't her type.

He was a nice man. He was a good person. Most guys wouldn't have even asked like he had.

Robin seemed to only fall in love with the toxic ones.

Matt said it was all because of her relationship with her parents.

Her mother had constantly called her fat.

She remembered sitting on Halloween wanting candy like the other kids and her mother refusing because she didn't want her daughter to grow up being a "chubby" girl.

That word. That damn word started it all.

She hated that word. She hated the word fat.

She hated being fat.

Anytime Robin gained a pound, she would violently throw up to force it out. Sometimes, she would gorge herself with delicious cakes and sweets, only for it to feel like poison running through her veins afterwards. Then the cycle would repeat.

She remembered her mother constantly teaching her about counting calories and weight restricting.

It had really taken a toll on her self worth. Anytime she craved sweets, she would beat herself up.

Anytime she binged on sweets, she would start a spiral of intense self-hatred that would completely consume her.

That's how she ended up at Pinehurst.

And she felt like she was going to have to stay here forever.

But maybe not.

Matt had taught her a few things. Maybe she could face her demons once and for all.

She had thought many times about bringing it up to her mother about how she had given her an eating disorder; the trouble was, she knew that they wouldn't even listen. Her mother would likely make excuses for it.

Matt called her mother a narcissist.

Maybe that's why she had laughed in Jake's

face.

It had all been her own trauma.

Maybe she was a narcissist herself. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree, as they always say.

Tomorrow, she would have to apologize to him. Maybe she could tell him how she felt, and that maybe they could just get to know each other first. A relationship like Robin wanted, you had to work on for a long time. Robin wanted something special, not just a hook-up with a patient at rehab.

As "The End" flashed on the screen, Robin yawned, stood up and turned off the television set.

It had started raining outside, and she heard it pattering on the tin roof.

Robin walked over to the second couch, where Reggie lay half-asleep.

She bent down close to him.

"Reggie…Reggie, wake up,"

Reggie moaned and didn't move.

"Reggie, it's time to go to bed," she said, trying to pull at his bright red sweatshirt.

Reggie pulled his arm away and moaned in protest again.

Robin gave up, and threw an afghan down on him. She glanced out the window at the rain coming down on the halfway house. Thunder rumbled again.

She was really getting worried about everyone. Where was Pam? Was she really driving around in a thunderstorm? Had they found Tina and Eddie?

It was a weird night.

But then again, it was Friday the 13th.

She yawned again, and sleepily walked up the stairs and into her room. Her room was more modern, with a bunk bed. The bottom bunk was shielded by a curtain.

Rain pelted her window.

Drip…drip…

Lightning cracked, illuminating her small bedroom. She jumped, and then relaxed.

Robin took off her shoes and her robe, wearing nothing but her panties. She gazed into the mirror at her breasts and her body.

"Jake…I'm sorry…" she said to herself.

Her eyes went down to her waist and she frowned.

She felt the hate rise in her.

The hatred of her body fat.

Maybe she had laughed at Jake because she didn't feel like she was good enough for a sweet guy like Jake, even though he was creepy.

She didn't think it was meant to be creepy. He was just socially awkward and it was kind of endearing.

And she laughed at him.

She couldn't believe herself.

"God, Robin, sometimes you can be so stupid," she said to herself in the mirror. Lightning flashed again, and she jumped out of her skin.

What would have been so wrong about giving him a fun night for the both of them? her thoughts continued.

It was probably his first time. But anything would be better than getting slapped around like her last boyfriends, she decided.

It probably wouldn't be that bad. He was the only one around to hook up with. Vic was in jail, Eddie was taken, and she hadn't gotten to know Tommy.

Boy, was he messed up, she thought.

You could see it in his eyes.

Something about the way he had looked at her when driving in had spooked her. It had been an icy, distant stare.

And then, when he flipped out on Eddie, it had made her even more afraid of him.

Tommy must have gone through something really terrible, she thought.

Something nightmarish.

That icy stare of his reminded her of how Vic had stared after he had killed Joey.

Poor Joey, she thought. Now she felt bad about both of them.

She had been mean to Joey just seconds before he was…

She didn't want to think of his mutilated body again and she forced those thoughts away.

She continued to scan her naked body in the mirror, her eyes attuned to any imperfections that she saw.

As she sucked in, she saw the outline of her ribs, and sighed.

Maybe she was just naturally skinny. Maybe it was just her metabolism.

Or maybe it was just her way of avoiding the fact that she had a problem. Sometimes it was easier to just pretend that she didn't binge and purge every now and again.

Matt called it denial and had told her to focus on "radical acceptance" but it all sounded the same

to her. They all said the same things but still, she kept purging.

She didn't know what it would take to cure her obsession with being fat. It had started to take a toll on her body. Her teeth were not as white as they used to be, and her throat was frequently irritated from all the vomit.

And now as she was staring at herself in the mirror, she saw how thin and unsexy she was and frowned.

She knew that it was her mother who had damaged her in this way, but she also knew her mother had to learn from her parents and so on.

How could she blame her if she was trying to keep her daughter attractive looking, even if she did have the wrong approach?

Or maybe what she needed was for that woman to just die.

Then, she may finally be free from the disappointment of having her own mother disapprove of her body weight.

That's how much it hurt.

Every little snide comment about her weight made her resent her mother even more. Why couldn't she change? she thought. Why couldn't she see what she was doing to her own daughter?

She would probably laugh in my face if I told her I have an eating disorder, Robin thought.

Then again, she had no room to talk. She had been in just as much denial as her mother was about her problem but at least she recognized it now. At first, she would have a little extra cake at dinner and then it morphed into binging on entire bags of chips and cookies.

She would tell herself it wasn't that much food, but it was.

And it all would feel like poison every time she binged.

At first, she had only thrown up her dinner once to see what it felt like, and after just once, she was hooked.

It felt like purging had become her only refuge. It immediately relieved her anxiety whenever she participated in it.

Whenever she'd purge, she'd feel safe again. The guilt over eating a few extra cookies would be completely drowned by the sound of the toilet flushing and the blood rushing through her veins from all of the effort and from all of her muscles violently contracting.

That's what had reeled her in.

It was a coping mechanism to deal with the guilt that came along with choosing to eat a lot of sweets.

It was especially harder for women who were always pressured to look good, wear your

make-up and don't get fat.

It's not lady-like, her mother would always say.

Yeah, some lady you are, Robin thought.

As she ran a hairbrush through her thick, red hair, lightning flashed again.

Robin turned to the window.

The only sound was the tree branches tapping against the glass and the howling storm just beyond it.

She set the hairbrush back on the dresser and sauntered sleepily over to her bunk bed, climbing up onto the top bunk and sliding underneath the covers.

As she stared at the ceiling, she wondered when Pam and the others would come home.

Hopefully, they were all safe and sound and she could wake up tomorrow and everything would be back to normal.

As she rolled over onto her side, lightning flashed again, and Robin opened her eyes at the sound.

Jake was sprawled next to her in the bed.

His eyes were open in horror and shock, his face was twisted into a horrified grimace, his mouth hung open lifelessly.

His face was split in half diagonally by a huge,

gaping gash. Blood pooled underneath his head and dribbled out of his mouth, soaking the sheets and the mattress beneath.

Robin screamed bloody murder.

The storm rumbled, drowning it all out.

Robin leaped up and tried to grab for the ladder but an almost inhumanly strong hand grabbed her by the throat and pinned her down to the bed.

A machete came up through the mattress and she felt the cold steel pierce her back and plunge all the way through her abdomen.

Blood vaulted into the air like a geyser.

Violet yanked off her Walkman headphones, jerking her head to the door.

Had she heard something? She lowered the volume on her Walkman, and listened.

There was nothing but the sound of the rain on the roof.

She shrugged and turned back on the funk music, dancing around her room and flipping through a teen magazine.

She wondered what Jake had wanted. Maybe he finally talked to Robin about how much he liked her.

Violet had seen it on his face when she had arrived.

The boy was like a lovesick puppy. It was disgusting to Violet. It was endearing, but definitely not something she was into.

Violet liked toxic men too. Ones with tattoos, and chains and motorcycles.

She had almost been turned on by that hillbilly's motorcycle the other day when Tina and Eddie got arrested, until she saw his face.

She couldn't help herself.

Men who could easily kill her if they wanted to were exactly her type.

She knew how dangerous it was and didn't

care.

Violet had had a death wish since she was thirteen.

She just didn't see the point of life.

She had a drug-addicted mom, a jailbird dad, and a creepy uncle who always complimented on her body and touched her in inappropriate ways.

She was stuck in a small town, as a goth kid, and had been bullied her whole life.

She had been molested twice by two different men.

First, it had been another uncle who invited the family over for a bonfire on the Fourth of July when she was only eleven.

He had brought her out to the backyard while the rest of the family was inside, and made his move. From the odor of his breath, she knew he was absolutely plastered out of his mind.

That's when he had begun to touch her.

That's when the dissociation started. Her entire body had frozen when it had happened.

She couldn't move. She had just let it happen.

Just like the next time, when the school janitor copped a feel in the janitor's closet. She had frozen then too, and had never told anyone except for Matt and Pam.

Pam was a good listener, and was the only one she felt like she could trust.

Now, anytime she tried to be intimate, she would freeze just like when she had been assaulted.

That was why Violet was always in a bad mood.

She couldn't experience true human connection, so she covered up her pain with anger, loud music and the irritability of a honey badger.

She truly didn't understand someone like Jake, who had these fantasies about Robin that he had told her about.

They were long and convoluted fantasies of himself and Robin falling in love with one another and doing other cutesy couple activities like going on a picnic or a romantic walk by the beach.

All of that made Violet want to vomit. It felt like poison to her.

She wasn't aware that the darkness she had experienced had also seeped into her bones and became her personality.

She didn't know why she started wearing black. She also couldn't understand what had made her choose to wear thick, black makeup, and pierce herself multiple times.

To Violet, her exterior needed to match her tortured internal world.

That was why she was the way she was.

All of the fucked up shit eventually became too much for her to bear, and just like that, her "good girl" personality was gone and all that was left was a very angry, pissed-off and antisocial sarcastic sixteen year old.

Of course, she had every right to go through her angsty phase.

Some have to cope with that kind of attitude. For all the shit Violet had gone through, she was grateful to be alive most days.

And grateful when she wasn't cutting.

She had started using a knife from the kitchen when she was thirteen to make small gashes, not deep enough to cause an issue, on her forearm. She wondered how people would react and began to think the attention would be worth the pain.

But soon, it spiraled out of control. She started doing it not to get affection and attention, but doing it for the sole pleasure of it.

It began to be her refuge. Knowing that she could go home and cut had been her only solace at the time.

Her parents didn't listen and didn't believe her story. They said she was just lying for attention

She didn't feel safe anywhere. Not in school or at home.

The only other place where Violet felt safe was music.

Pseudo Echo's hit "His Eyes" blared through her headphones.

She had first seen their band at a concert and fell in love with their new wave of electro-funk.

The door to her room slowly creaked open. She didn't turn around.

Violet swayed back and forth to the rhythm, not hearing the stealthy footsteps approaching.

She closed her eyes, feeling the beat pulsating in her ears, moving back and forth.

And then, lightning flashed.

A hand appeared suddenly, and meaty fingers wrapped around her throat and slammed her back into the wall. Her magazine and Walkman fell to the floor.

She tried to scream, but her assailant's hand squeezed tighter, crushing her larynx.

As she looked up, she saw the demented eyes of her killer through the eyes of a hockey mask.

She felt the pain of her throat being compressed, but only let out a soft whisper.

The hockey-masked assailant lifted her into the air. her feet dangling and kicking below as she tried to free herself.

It was no use.

The machete gleamed in the moonlight.

It pierced her belly deep, and plunged into the plaster behind her.

The figure stood and admired his handiwork. Violet hung from the wall like many of her posters.