Disclaimer: Anything that you don't recognize from the original movie is mine. Steal that and face the wrath of the REAL Slim Shady. Yes. That is me.

Author's Note: I'm horrendous. I really am. This story (and all my others) are giving me terrific trouble. So I'm going to tell you straight up–they're all going to take a LONG while to be updated. It's your choice if you want to stick with this story, and if you don't want to, I respect that. But I just thought you should know that I'm taking a while to get inspiration and all that. I'm putting priority on this story and Run For Your Life but I may just focus on this one, because that's not getting like ANY reviews. So if you really want, review this one, and if you are interested in that one, let me know. I need to know what the people on here want to read so I can bother publishing them. So if I don't get any reviews on this, I'm not gonna keep updating. Simple as that. Sorry to sound so mean, but I'm telling the truth. :/ On a somewhat lighter note, I've got a feeling you're gonna like this chapter, if you've been following Jonah and Juliet through this. :) Okay, spiel done. Enjoy!

Mad World

I lay draped across my bed, with the door to Wendy's and my room locked. My throat was clenched tightly and the tears were spreading down my face. The toilet in our bathroom had nearly flooded with vomit in the past hour, before it had all swirled into oblivion. She was back. And she had things to tell me. Things she'd whispered in my ear, venom that had crept in through my ears and curled tightly about my brain.

-I know his story, sweetheart. Every little last secret about him that you'd be too timid and frightened to even ask about. Has he told you about me? What I've learned of him?

I covered my ears, pulling my knees up to my chest, but the words seeped through, and this time he was no longer with me to reassure me of her.

-Then again, why should I tell you? You wouldn't believe me if it were mere words I had for you. Come with me, Juliet, and learn what I have learned...

I began to protest, but before I could, she had her vice grip around my throat and was whisking me off into...nowhere I wanted to be.

We were in the dining room, and exactly where our table was, there was one of the same color, shape, and exact type in its place. The room had a sepia-esque feel to it, and not in a good, rustic way. She was towering beside me, a snake-like smirk on her face and her firm hand curled around my wrist. A racket sounded from the door in front of the stairs and through it came Jonah, smiling and laughing like I'd never seen him do before. And behind him walked her spitting image, but happy-looking and entertained. Her hair was curled into soft brown ringlets, her body clad in a modest brown dress and her face coated in natural makeup. He led her to the table, and his laugh sobered.

"You have to promise me you won't reveal any of what you see or what I tell you to anyone, Marie, ever," he told her calmly, and sat down in one of the spots at the table. She followed, this Marie girl, and sat down beside him. She nonchalantly slipped her hand into his and nodded at him. "I'm not what you think I am, Marie. You see me as merely an assistant to Mr. Aickman." He took in one deep breath and looked seriously at her. "Unfortunately...I'm afraid I'm much more than...just an assistant." His eyes trailed down once more to his hands, refusing her his gaze. She looked at him, trying to appear persuasive. She and Marie were one in the same. It was now that I saw the similarities between Marie's earnest expression and her influential sneer.

"Marie, you remember the stories I used to tell you about...when I was a boy?" he asked softly, and I noticed the fine way his thumb traced over the skin of her hand. My stomach gave an ugly twist, and the her beside me smirked in a sick kind of vindication. Marie nodded, being sure not to make a sound as she stared earnestly into those big blue eyes of his. "For my own reasons...I withheld the truth from you. And I feel that you deserve to hear the truth from me now.

"My parents were Maxwell and Alana Halls. I was born on the thirteenth of January 1909, which, of course, makes me seventeen years old today. My father was very poor. He had just been injured in the factory, and could not work any longer. He relocated my mother and I from New York City to here in Goatswood. Mother took to work, as a maid for the Popescu family, Joseph's parents. Still, there was not enough money for us to live properly. We had met Mr. Aickman a few days before we permanently made our home here, he had helped us financially and had helped finding my mother a job. I asked him if I would be fit to assist him in his studies. I was not much fond of death, but the family was desperate. I became his assistant." Marie nodded understandingly. I tensed as his hand tightened around hers.

"I'm not a normal assistant, Marie. I...see things. Things that most people cannot. I feel things. I've been called a...a medium. A psychic. They pass through me. They do not trust any of the others. I doubt they even trust me. But they will talk to me and identify with me. They show themselves through a thing called 'ectoplasm' and converse with Mr. Aickman and those trying to find them." He withdrew his hand from Marie's and ran it through his hair. "But lately...things have not been going well. They are getting restless, because of what...Aickman...and I have done to their bodies. Desecrating and spoiling them...it's shameful...I feel horrible for what I have done, but I..." He paused to swallow hard on the tears that edged his eyes and shake his head. The next words were spoken in a choked whisper: "...I cannot displease my master."

Marie looked so...understanding. I wanted to be sick.

"I know you can't, Jonah," she said softly, and the pads of her fingertips brushed his hair out of his eyes. "I know you are obliged to Mr. Aickman, and I know that, though you do not wish, you must work for his causes. I understand. I...I'm terribly sorry, Jonah, but I...I must go." She stood abruptly from the table, the feet of her chair scraping backwards over the wood floor. And within a moment, she had fled from the room and the house altogether.

As my head spun violently back into reality, I felt the sour bile rising up in my throat again. She was hissing with small fits of vile laughter. I covered my ears, but the laughing wouldn't stop. My eyes burned. My stomach twisted. Nothing was right and nothing was in line. She was happy. And somewhere, in the back of my numb mind, I was not. I was particularly unhappy, for that matter, and at many things. Unhappy with her, for one, for confirming the fears I'd always put away in the back of my mind. Unhappy with Jonah, for never telling me any of this. And most of all, unhappy, furious, with myself, for believing that I could ever have something even relatively similar to a happy ending.

-You see? You see? He never loved you. It was me he was trying to get to, through you, I alone was the one with the key to his heart. I am Marie, you goddamned mess, I am Marie Lorraine Campbell, it is I who was promised Jonah Halls, I who was destined to fall for him, I who knew his every secret, as reluctant as he was to reveal them to me. I was the one who held his heart in the palm of my hand, the one who crushed it into a million pieces at my untimely demise. And I have chosen you, you, Juliet DiMarco, as my host to unlock the potential I was capable of all those years ago. You were a perfect target, Juliet, simply perfect. Insecure. Ugly. Disgusting without me. And as I shaped you into myself, I drew you to my great nephew, the one I never met. Peter Campbell. I drew you to his niece, Wendy Hamilton in hope that you would accept her. And you fell into the seams of my plans perfectly. So, thank you, Juliet DiMarco. Thank you.

My heart was pounding furiously against my ribs. No, no, no, no, no. It wasn't supposed to be like this.

No.

-You're welcome.