After the bathroom door had shut and the silence that the small room offered embraced him, Michael Myers finally let himself be at ease. Here there were no obnoxious arguments and insults hurtling through the air to cloud his thinking space, nor were the gratingly familiar voices of his companions present. In this little room he could soak in the golden silence that had become both a rarity and a luxury. It was truly a wonder how his head hadn't exploded over the years he had known them, especially seeing as he currently sported a rather annoying headache; One of which would no doubt worsen if he seconded a glance at the horrendous dark blue and light green color palette of the shower curtain.

It was also difficult to form a clear idea of just how long it had been since he had last been by himself: Had gotten to be in his own company.

While he knew the majority of the group well, there were a select few that he hadn't been well enough acquainted with. Despite this, the group dynamic predominantly remained the same. One would think he would have gotten used to it by now, and some part of him had, but the way they behaved often had the uncanny ability to succeed his expectations of just how frustrating they could be. It never ceased to amaze and infuriate him at how some of them just never shut up. It was as if they never ran out of things to say.

Why, why did they do that? Why did other people feel the impulse, the overwhelmingly powerful need to talk? And talk? And talk? It wasn't a new question. The curiosity had stayed with him ever since he had been a boy. The longer he spent on this planet, the more and more he begged the question. He would forfeit the secrets to life if it meant the one would be answered. Not knowing the reason would put him in such a frenzy, his hands would tremble between two warring impulses on whoever was closest at the time: The impulse to ask and the impulse to strangle. Why fill and clog the air with the unnecessary pollution of words? Why couldn't they just be silent? Why did they always have to resort to incessant noise? That was all it was to him.

Noise.

It had him thankful that he had chosen his mute lifestyle. Otherwise Michael would have to engage with the others in their never ending backs and forths of conversation, and responding to them would only prolong the interactions. The idea of actually speaking was..

Wasteful to him. He much preferred the idea of saving his breath. When he had taken the time to express as much to the Lakeshore Strangler, the doll had chirped back to him in that irksome cocksure way of his; 'Well whaddya savin' it for?' At the time he had no comeback to that. The Shape still stubbornly clung onto the belief that he had little to gain from excreting words. As much as he didn't enjoy admitting, there was a drawback to his selective silence though. If listening to them bicker was irritating, one could only imagine just how annoying it was for him to have to sit there and listen to them stupidly try to translate what he wanted to say. He'd been through the aggravation of charades more times than he cared to recall.

Adopting the notepad as a way of communicating had been a bliss and one that he had to use many times before. At first it had been a bit of a chore to remember keeping the notepads on his person. Sometimes he'd lose a pen he had taken designated for writing, or the other way around; He would lose the notepad and be left only with the writing instrument in its place...And that was if the pens he found still had ink in them. Then there were times when he'd carelessly leave his old notepads about or lose them entirely so he had to stock up on fresh ones, and by that point? By that point he'd feel like throwing out the idea entirely.

He quickly corrected his forgetful manner altogether however when the others had played one too many games of 'What the Hell was Michael Myers Saying? And How Many Times Can We Get It Wrong?' with him.

Only Jason had understood him without it. If anything the other silent killer made traveling with the rest of them bearable. While he often preferred the company of the Camp Crystal Lake killer, Michael still required his own privacy here and there.

The frequent itches he suffered from were upon him again.

He briskly headed towards the mirror and stood in front of it. Just as he expected, he spied the tiny lock of hair that had escaped from the enclosed space of his mask. It peered out at him in the reflection, having slipped out from underneath the pale neckline. He knew his hair had gotten long over the years, but it was still strange to think about. He had given his appearance such little thought that now whenever he moved his head, his hair was entangling and maneuvering itself across his face in irking increments. Now the length was making his skin itch, especially around his neck and cheeks.

Without hesitation his large palm came down over the old latex of the nose and mouth, while his other hand took hold of the mirror's wooden knob to pull it open. The mask slid off of his head with minor difficulty and he placed it on the side of the sink to the right of him. His hand lagged in its next action as it patted and made sure his mask would not fall, would not move from its place. Once he trusted gravity to let it be, he surveyed the inner cabinet space through the messied strands of hair that the removal of the mask had created. His eyes almost immediately froze on a pair of scissors. Just as quickly he grabbed the tool from its place and had the mirror shutting back to a close.

There he stood exposed, the stagnant onyx of his eyes pinning him in place.

'The blackest eyes…The devil's eyes!'

Resisting the urge to swat at the memory of Loomis's voice as though it were a pesky fly, one hand climbed high to the ripped tissue of his left eyelid. Hand hovering just in front, the rough padding of his thumb lightly brushed over the scar his sister had left him from with the stab of the wire hanger. He felt the upper and lower lid slowly, especially taking note of the absence where some of his eyelashes had once been. Michael hardly recognized the man in the mirror; Eternally stuck in his forties. Or so he guessed. He hadn't paused to take note of his own personal details. He had put himself on the back burner to let his rage take priority. Not much else had mattered in his crusade.

He had not mattered..For so long. Maybe too long.

But even without the growth of his tresses, the smattering of dark facial hair that obstructed the view of his jawline, and the aging lines that decorated the expanse of his features, he still would have struggled to find familiarity in his image. Then again, he had never truly felt attached to the way he looked. Ever since he was a boy, he had disassociated with it all. It didn't so much look like him, as it was just the way he looked, the shape he came in.

His gaze briefly visited the empty demeanor of the mask sitting on the sink, the backs of his knuckles still fixed to his cheekbone. It sat slightly crumpled and deflated, gravity causing it to lean inwards towards him. The aged, battered face of the disguise that stared back up at him didn't look anything like his physical self, however he felt he identified with it far more in comparison.

Having taken his fill of studying his reflection, Michael swiftly set to the task of getting rid of the irritation that was his overgrown tresses. Crudely he grasped handfuls of the dark brown length and pulled them taunt. With his scissor-holding hand he began chopping indiscriminately. While he didn't much care what the end result would be, he was still mindful to keep his hair around his ears. It had been his usual style and he didn't see the point in breaking routine.

Lock after lock fell softly into the basin in front of him. The only sounds inside the bathroom was that of the crisp slicing of the scissors meeting hair and his breathing. He hadn't needed to maintain his appearance too often. The vexing itch of his long hair from under the mask had been the only thing that prompted this primping, otherwise he wouldn't have cared.

After a few minutes he was already feeling for the back of his head for longer strands. While he couldn't quite see where the pesky things were, his hand was large enough to locate what was visually hidden. He groped blindly, found what he was searching for, and pulled the long bits of hair to their ends. With the measuring help of his fingers, he was successful in cutting the lengthy portions at the proper point.

If Michael Myers was anything, it was efficient.

He threw the last of his longer locks into the basin to join the others. Setting the scissors down opposite the side his mask lay, he gazed down at the mass of brown swallowing the white porcelain. The drain could barely be seen as it was delicately buried underneath the featherlight mass. The sight was familiar.

His hands wandered forth and sunk wrist deep into the hair, ignoring the slight itch that it provoked in his palms, fingering and feeling the textures. As if by reaching into the remains he could grasp what it was that had him recalling an old memory:

His mother's soft words as she cut and combed his hair. The smell of her like autumn leaves and dish soap as she had been just behind him, leaning and adjusting to ensure she fixed his hair properly. The basin choking with the fallen snippets that had just been attached to his head. Then the loving kiss planted to the middle of his forehead to officially mark the end of the task, as she always did.

He blinked at the recollection and realized that he was crushing the cut strands in his fists. Exhaling, he released the soft hair from his destructive grasp and retrieved his hands from the mess. Clapping and rubbing his hands together roughly to dust away the tiny pieces of hair that still clung to the skin, Michael rushed to forget what he had just been reminded of.

His memories were useless. Recalling them served no purpose. His family was dead. Long gone. As far as he was concerned, hoarding the memories of them were solely wastes of valuable thinking space. Yet he could not banish them, no matter how hard he tried. While they were dead, the remembered moments of them lived on like ghosts. Sometimes he contemplated if ripping them out with his bare hands would be the only way to rid himself of their stubborn presence. And sometimes he had tried to no avail. All the mutilation served to do was leave him bloodied, filled with both pain and self-loathing. In the end he had given up on the thought.

In the end he was just Michael Myers. And in the end his memories remained.

There wasn't room left for much else. What else could there be? His curious existence had him wondering if there really was life after death. The answer wasn't as clear as he had hoped. Clearly there was life after death, at least in his experience, but was there really life after death? Yes, he lived on, but was this really living? What was the point anymore? He had one goal and now that one goal had been accomplished.

He'd been successful in bringing an end to those that stupidly thought they'd understood him best. His so-called family had pretended to understand him when in reality they understood exactly nothing. With their ushered words and explanations, they had rushed to bandage the wound that he had been upon their lives. After years of letting the aggravation of their lies fester inside him, he had finally lashed out to the one that had failed to comprehend him most:

Judith Myers.

Halloween had just been a fitting occasion, nothing more. For the bulk of his childhood they had been pushing him into boxes to conform to what they had needed and wanted him to be. They had wanted to know who their little boy was? Well he'd shown them. He had made them finally understand, and Judith had had the luxury first.

They had needed someone with who they could call 'boogeyman'? He had gladly taken the role and honestly it had fit much better than his actual moniker.

Going to Hell had afforded him his final accomplishment, had guaranteed his success. It also had guaranteed his downfall and had stolen whatever else had been left of his humanity. He wouldn't weep for the latter, but the former had left him impossibly more empty than he had been prior to his sister decapitating him. Deep down some part of him almost wished it had ended there, his life extinguished forever with the resounding thump of his head to the grass. But it hadn't. The ring of ruined skin around his neck, partially hidden under the shadows of stubble would prove that it hadn't. He would have chanced a look at the old scar if not for..

Another memory crawled forth from the back of his mind and at first he was adamant about not letting it get through, until a face flashed into his head: A badly wounded face with sky-blue eyes and horribly stapled scars. Chucky. Seeing as the incoming flashback would not involve his deceased family members, he indulged it:

The two of them had been seated around a poker table, fresh victimized bodies crowding the feet around the chairs in which they had sat. Said chairs hadn't exactly been height appropriate for the doll, so Chucky had chosen to seat himself on top of the green of the velvet that lined the table. Current Michael inhaled and exhaled with some losing patience. Vegas.

"Ahh, I love the smell of blackjack and hookers in the mornin'. Don't you?"

The killer toy had grinned cheekily up at him, the grin almost blocked by the playing cards in his hands. When Michael had only stared at him in response, slightly narrowing his eyes to inform the doll that he had been serious, Chucky tossed his head and sighed. The deck of cards he held sank to his lap; "So you're dead, so what?" His eyes returned to the visage of the cards, raising them back up in front of his face to stubbornly return to the game they had been playing. More over, the game that Charles Lee Ray had pestered him into. "Bein' dead ain't all that bad, Mikey. Hell, I might as well be dead myself livin' in this body. Only thing that's alive about me is my winnin' personality. You've kicked the bucket, so make like the fuckin' Grim Reaper and reap the benefits!" Upon the last word he had slapped a card down onto the table and targeted the Sister Killer with a broad and victorious grin.

Michael had slumped his lanky self back in his chair, letting his entire head roll with exasperation. Chucky wasn't getting his point. Instead he was spouting idyllic nonsense that wasn't going to help him in the slightest. What benefits to being a revenant could there be?

For once Chucky had understood him without the assistance of the notepad he had carried, because he had begun blabbering loudly in disbelief; "Whaddya mean there's no benefits? You wanna talk benefits, fine, we'll fuckin' talk benefits!" Chucky had leaned forth eagerly, his arm crossing over to rest his elbow atop the colorful knee of his overalls, a fan of his cards being gripped in his small hand.

"Do you have any idea how good it feels not to have to pay taxes?"

For the first time in a surplus of over forty years, Michael Myers had snorted. The shock of the mute killer actually producing sound in front of him had Chucky's eyebrows skyrocketing up his forehead but miraculously he hadn't made a fuss about it. If anything he had only registered the surprise of it in just his brows and his grin broadening even wider. The doll himself chuckled; "I'm serious man. Just the thought of it makes my balls itch. I get this nervous sweat down the back of my neck and everythin'." His other hand gestured behind his head, hooking his thumb in the direction of his back.

Michael had only let his head hang to the side as he shook it, a barely audible huff of noise escaping the mask he wore in what had been a resisted laugh. The sound had Chucky laughing shortly himself, shrugging away the joke; "Ah, I'm fuckin' with you. But seriously though, jokes aside, bein' 'dead' is the best thing that's ever fuckin' happened to me."

From underneath the mask, Michael's amused stretch of lips had faded and thinned. He had regarded the other killer across from him seriously for the first time, as though he had never really seen him before. Even if he had been more talkative, this moment would have rendered him speechless regardless. Chucky had felt the gravity of Michael's solemn gaze, nodding quietly to register the moment the two of them shared. The cursed toy had glanced down at the table and dragged his eyes back up to meet his; "Honestly," It had taken a minute for him to gather his words together. "It's like I get a second chance."

Almost as if what he had said had sounded stupid, Chucky quickly explained; "I'm not lookin' for redemption or nothin' dumb like that. I know for a fact that I ain't bein' redeemed. I don't wanna be cleansed of my sins or whatever. Sinnin's the most fun I've had and if I had the choice to go back and do it all over again, I wouldn't change a damn thing. I'm not touchin' Heaven with a hundred foot pole. And Hell? Well, that's where all my friends are," He leaned back as if he could recline against a backrest that wasn't there and made a goofy show of crossing his arms behind his head to relax. Rolling his eyes and tilting his head with each word, he had sarcastically said; "Hidey-fuckin'-ho."

Michael had let the words sink in. He let them marinate inside his skull for so long that the doll had knocked on the table to get his attention again. When Michael had obliged, Chucky had pointed with his chin down at the table. "Well? You gonna throw your card down or what?"

And so he had.

Once Chucky had leaned forward to see what the card had been, he swore.

And Michael had smiled.

A slam of a door from outside the room had the memory abruptly dissipating like a ruined projector. Irritated by the thievery of the moment, he cast his eyes away from the door and back to his reflection.

Michael Myers looked deeply into the mirror of the bathroom in which he stood and reconsidered what had been said. Was this really his second chance? Technically third seeing as he had been to Hell a second time, which had prompted his coming here to begin with. Much of his living years had been wasted inside the Smith's Grove Sanitarium. Fifteen years he spent looking at white walls and watching the little wiggly vein on Dr. Loomis's temple swell with determination. That was eight years of countless staff, especially Samuel Loomis asking and wanting to know who Michael Myers really was, when Michael had had no idea himself.

And he had again had to endure others trying in vain to understand him, to comprehend him, to plant nice clinical tags onto his forehead so he could be sorted and filed away. Then another seven years before he escaped had followed suit. Thankfully by then Dr. Loomis and the others had primarily given up on the conquest. The segment of time went without the constant questioning and prodding, only the routine silence and avoidance of the very same staff that had previously pressured him. While their curiosity had never been fed, their fear had certainly given them enough sustenance to make due. That was a huge chunk of time taken from him. What was he meant to do with the rest?

Just like Chucky had shared the mutual sentiment of his refusal to change for the better, Michael wasn't keen on quitting murder cold turkey. Killing was the only thing that had him feeling something. The role of 'boogeyman' after all these years had stuck. And while he still wasn't so sure about himself, he felt the most assured when he wore the mask. That and admittedly when in the company of the other murderers. While their presence typically induced the most devastating of headaches, there was no denying that when around them, he felt the most at home he had ever been. He had no longer been the odd man out.

In the beginning Halloween had had no meaning. It had been largely convenience and happenstance. Now through the perspective of hindsight, he knew better. The holiday had its own merits, its own sentimental gratitude for him. It had been the day he had freed himself from his own familial hell; Had picked up that knife and carved out a path for himself in his sister's blood. The comforts that came with Halloween in turn came with the other killers, because when they were around, every day was Halloween.

The other patients at Smith's Grove had initially given him some malnourished sense of comfort. Oftentimes Michael would sit quietly with them, watching their bouts of insanity, listening to their one sided conversations directed to no one, he'd entertain their requests for board games, paint alongside the more craftier and gifted individuals, and keep the inmates company while the staff never would.

At first he had been thankful to be around others that hadn't been all there in the head, others that had something wrong with them. He remembered looking around and actually enjoying the company of those that did not belong in society. However after the first year, he had realized that the other patients did not suffer from the same issues he did. His mind was not lost or jumbled. He suffered from anger and clarity. After the realization, Michael had elected to stay by himself.

When some of the others had grown attached to him, he had made it crystal clear that he would accompany them no longer; Either knocking away their offered games from their hands, crumpling their artwork, or walking away from them completely when one of them would strike up conversation. After that, he had been alone. Just as he had always been.

Until he'd met the others.

The doll had started it all: Barging into the old house on 45 Lampkin Lane as if he had been cordially invited by none other than the Shape himself, and making himself right at home in the dilapidated house in which Michael had refused to leave after Laurie's death. The exceptionally strange friendship had started as a dismissive and sometimes aggressive exchange of moments between two individuals that had nowhere else to go and quite frankly weren't intending to leave anytime soon. Michael had tried to discourage it, tried everything to nip the budding companionship before it could bloom: Giving the doll the cold shoulder, ignoring him, threatening him, throwing him around, but all with no success. In time he had gotten used to the murderous toy, and thus the murderous toy had gotten used to his silence. It helped that Chucky had a mouth big enough for the both of them.

After that the friendship had opened the door to other just as strange meetings.

While the others had questions for him, they had never tried assigning labels to him. They just simply let him be. Their problems were actually akin to his. Their incredibly unique stories mirrored his own. They had the most in common with him than anyone in his life ever had. And even before he had been locked up in the sanitarium, no one had ever before given him that freedom.

When he brought down the hand of death upon others, it was the only time he himself felt alive.

Well that, and the current throb in his head.