25. Submission
Scourge — April 4, 2036 10:02 P.M.
I arrived back at my sad excuse of a girlfriend Fiona's place with stuff I bought from the pharmacy a few blocks away. Fiona brashly snatched it out of my hands and picked out the contents.
"What is this garbage?" She glanced at the cough syrup and cold medicine packets. "You expect me to get my high off shit like this? What do I like, a thirteen-year-old?"
"Don't be a bitch and make do with it," I groaned.
She huffed. "We could be having black tar right now. God, why in the hell did you have to screw up so bad last week? That stuff isn't easy to get by, you know?"
"Hey, it ain't my fault those two brats stumbled upon our stash! I don't know why they were there in the first place," I barked back.
Fiona threw the medicine onto the floor. "Well, clearly you didn't do a good job picking a good spot, did ya? Can't you do anything right anymore?"
I snarled back, "Fuck off! Why don't you get your skag yourself if you think I'm not good enough for you?"
Fiona threw the meds on the floor. "Whatever! Forget it!" She whined before leaving to go to her room.
I went to the bathroom and turned on the faucet for the sink. Once the water was running hot, I splashed my face and cleaned myself up for a minute. "Geez… I was lucky enough to go outside at all. Dumb bitch doesn't know anything."
The local cops have not only been in my ass a whole lot more since my stash was exposed but also seriously amped up their overall patrol game. Last night's murder of that hedgehog got the whole town riled up, and some think the serial killer from Station Square did it.
I chuckled weakly at myself. "Not that I'm afraid of some psycho running amok. Maybe he'll get the cops off my back if he causes enough trouble around here."
I turned the faucet off and looked up at the now foggy mirror. I wiped the center with my hands and…
"Huh?" In the mirror, I saw what appeared to be a pink hedgehog creepily standing right behind me. I instantly spun and looked back— only to see no one there.
"Okay, must've been my imagination," I sighed and dried my face off with a towel, thinking I was just tired and needed to get some rest since it was pretty late. But when I tried to open the door to exit I couldn't. The doorknob wouldn't turn as if it was locked.
"What the hell? Is the door busted?" I attempted to kick the door open with all my strength, but it wouldn't budge. "Fiona! Can you hear me? Hey!"
I gave up trying to force the door open after a few minutes and started searching for another exit. There wasn't anything else I could do, though.
I sat down on the floor with my back against the door. "I can probably just wait this one out. Fiona will have to help me eventually if she wants to use the bathroom, anyway."
The sound of glass fracturing broke my thoughts. I glanced up and saw that the bathroom mirror had a big crack on it.
"What…? How did that happen?" I carefully walked up to the mirror and examined it. It seemed like something was thrown against it, but I couldn't find anything that could be heavy or hard enough to make such a crack. In fact, nothing else in the bathroom seemed to have been moved in any way.
"Holy shit!" The mirror abruptly shattered into smaller pieces. Some fragments almost flew into my face and cut me, and I fell back down on the floor. "What the fuck is going on?"
Before I could even assess the situation, though, I heard an echoey giggle from in front. I looked back up, and what I saw flustered and terrified me.
There was a dark empty space behind where the mirror was; not like a hole in the wall but a completely new area on the other side of the frame. And slowly emerging from that abyss was that pink hedgehog girl from earlier. She haggardly climbed out of the mirror frame and into the bathroom, staring down at me with menacing blank eyes.
Now that the girl was up close, I could see how harrowing her figure was— pale, dirty, and almost dead. She actually looked almost exactly like Rosy the Rascal and seemed just as psychotic.
I could only gawk at the girl in shock and awe as she limped towards me. Terrified with my back against the door, I tried to cry out for help but nothing came out. She continued to stare down at me with menacing white eyes as she came closer and closer. I sensed a cold and ghastly aura coming from her. I was certain my head was clear at the time, but I still wondered, Am I high or is this real?
When she was finally right in front of me, I stammered, "W-w-what do you want?"
She jerked her head and replied in a croaky voice, "I've come for you. I want you to help me."
"What? Why the hell would I help you? I don't know who the fuck— Aaargh!"
I felt a sharp, excruciating pain in my gut. I looked down and realized that the girl had shanked me in my stomach with a large piece of the broken mirror.
"If you want to live," She breathed. "You will do as I say."
That aura she had intensified, filling my entire body with fright and dread. I thought my heart, which was already pounding very fast, was about to explode. I've encountered many violent and dangerous people and dealt with them without trouble before, but this girl was something else. I wanted to get away from her right now.
"What are you?" I coughed.
The girl looked directly into my eyes, and then I spontaneously envisioned Knuckles and that rabbit girl from last month flash in my mind for a split second. She murmured, "You hate them, too, don't you? You want revenge?"
I suddenly felt more hypnotized than in pain. Her gaze and voice put me in a semi-trance, and my fear of her partially subsided. I didn't give her an answer, but she gave a little smirk as if she knew what I'd say.
She continued, "I know you will enjoy making them suffer, too. That's why I decided to seek your help… instead of killing you right away for interfering."
Interfere? What, is she mad that I tried to steal her kill or something? I weakly forced out a chuckle. "Is that all? You just want me to kill those two?"
"You only need to make them suffer," She told me. "Do exactly as I command and you will be spared."
She giggled and vanished into thin air. I remained on the floor and slowly passed out from blood loss and exhaustion.
…
"Get the hell up already, Scourge!" Fiona roared into my ear and woke me up.
"Huh? What happened?" I sat up, not really paying attention to her.
"You fucking tell me," She demanded. "What is this mess? What were you doing here?!"
Looking around, I noticed that the bathroom was exactly how it was just before I lost consciousness: pieces of the mirror were still scattered all over the area; there was dried blood where I was stabbed as well as on the floor; and even the shard the girl attack with me was present and had also had blood on it. However, the hole the girl came out of after the mirror shattered was no longer there— in its place was just an empty mirror frame. Furthermore, my stomach wound was also gone. But I was skeptical.
Was I just seriously acting out in some crazy-ass nightmare? Or did I take one too many pills this time? I scratched my head trying to figure out the situation. But then I noticed something strange on the back of my right hand— it was an uppercase "R" printed in what looked like dried blood.
"It's a reminder of our little pact," It was her again. I looked back up and saw that hedgehog girl standing right behind Fiona. Yet, Fiona didn't seem to notice her at all.
"Prove me that you can fulfill it," She said. "I know you already want to."
I stared at Fiona and then back at the girl. The latter was still intimidating, yeah, but she wasn't giving off that dreadful and dangerous vibe anymore. Again, I questioned, Is she even real?
"Are you even listening to me, Scourge?" Fiona kept yelling. "You know what? I don't care. Just clean this shit up!"
Fiona turned to leave the bathroom. Shaking my head, I went to pick up broken mirror pieces off the floor. "Fine. I'll get this place clean, Fiona."
She briefly stopped and glimpsed back. "Good. And of course, you owe me a new—"
I forcefully pulled her to me and slashed her throat using the same shard I was stabbed with. "I'll start with you, you bitch."
Fiona fell to her knees and began choking on her blood. I watched blankly as she tried futilely to stop the bleeding with her bare hands for a minute before finally dropping dead.
I turned to the girl. "Is this what you expect?"
"Oh yes. Yes it is," She smiled. "I look forward to seeing what you will do next,"
