Chapter 5: But When She Turned... She Looked Empty Inside

A chapter where confrontations are needed.

Playa Des Losers

11:17 AM

"Great job, idiot" Damien took some moments before completely understanding what just happened, but he knew damn well that it wasn't good. In the attempt to make things better he only screwed this already stressful situation even more.

What would everyone think if MK revealed that audio? Would they trust her? Would they judge Damien? His mind was racing trying to find a possible way out of this. Until something snapped him out of his thoughts…

A door opened.

Damien looked at where the sound came from, only to see Scary Girl leaving her room. She was now dressed in her usual goth circus doll outfit.

Damn it, not now.

In that moment Damien's mind realized something. If Scary Girl hid from MK when she surprised them in the pool last night, how would she react if the news of them potentially making out was spread? Would she be affected by it? Would she not care? What if she took it as Damien trying to make himself look like a women magnet and hated him for that?

Even more reasons for keeping that audio a secret from everyone.

Unfortunately, Damien's train of thoughts didn't let him realize that Scary Girl saw him before he could leave.

"Great…" He thought. This day escalated from embarrassing to bad to worse.

"Oh, hey Damien…" Scary Girl waved at him, but something was clearly different about her. Her usual grin was now just the ghost of the smile everyone had known her for. Was she still upset about what happened last night?

"Hi Scary…" Damien didn't know what to do or say. His mind was still confused about what to do next, and Scary Girl was another one of the many problems on his list. He was already expecting her to say some of her usual weird creepy comments, or to talk about what happened in the pool. But what he got instead was just Scary Girl moving aside and making her way to the restaurant zone, without saying a word.

"Oh- uhm… Scary" What was he doing? Why was he calling her back when she was leaving him alone for once? Whatever the reason was, now there was no way of backpedaling. Scary Girl turned her head to Damien, with the same weak smile as before.

"Yes?"

"I- well, I was thinking uhm- Look I wanted to talk-"

"About yesterday?" She interrupted Damien, leaving him stunned for a moment. Wow, if he had a nickel for every time someone stopped him from finishing his sentence knowing what the topic was about, he would have two nickels now.

"I… yes. Look, I'm not sure about what was the deal with-"

"Can we please talk about this another time? I'm not really feeling like talking now." She interrupted Damien again. He expected her to look at him with venom in her eyes, if he had to guess by how her voice sounded.

But when she turned… she looked empty inside. She didn't have her smile on her face, and instead had a sad expression, and her eyes didn't show any kind of emotion. As soon as Damien tried to speak again, she turned and left the scene for good.

And now Damien was alone, again.

Not seeing anymore a point in going outside he made his way back to his room, thinking to himself all the way through.

"What was all of that about? Did I sound like I was being clingy about the situation? Ugh! That's so stressful! How did I even end up in this mess?"

Once he was in his room, he locked the door with the key and laid on his bed. Not really a great way to spend the day, but he had enough bad interactions with everyone in the resort to be social today.

"Well… now what? I embarrassed myself in front of the others, pissed off Scary, and got blackmaile- oh… right" Suddenly he remembered that he had to register MK's number. Did he really have to? Being at the service of someone else didn't really sound appealing. But what other options did he have? By now MK surely edited the audio to make it seem like he and Scary were a thing. And if that audio got around everyone would judge him even more. He was never seen as the cool kid from his fellow ex-contestants, and if they thought he had a relationship with a freak like Scary Girl his reputation would be screwed.

Damien wasn't a guy to be really afflicted by how the others viewed him, but that was in a context like school. He was in a reality show now. If someone like MK, Julia or Nichelle revealed such a gossip about him, the social medias would eat him alive. That's not exactly what he was hoping for when he made that audition tape as a dare. If he could've seen his friends in that moment, he would have probably cursed them for two weeks straight. It was their fault he was there. It was their fault he almost died three times. It was their fault he was now being blackmailed…

"Ugh… it's not their fault you idiot! You are the one that accepted the dare. It's your fault and yours only!" His mind was yelling at him for everything that led up to this.

"Now because of your stupid decisions you are being blackmailed and Scary is mad at you! Look at what you've done, smart guy." He always thought himself to be wiser and less ego driven than his peers, but just now he was realizing that he was probably the biggest egocentric person he ever met. He really believed himself to be so smart that he could have never ended up in such a situation. He really thought he knew better than the others. Man, no wonder the others didn't really like him.

"There was someone who liked you back on the island, and because of your genius idea of voting yourself off you'll not see them for days. Now you are just surrounded by ego driven smart asses. Considering how you always acted, this is really your habitat. You deserve this." And the worst part was that the voice in his head was right. He did deserve this. Maybe if he acted differently with Scary Girl, now the situation might be different. Or at least she wouldn't be mad at him. Wait, was she mad? Or is she just sad about something? Is she sad for what happened last night or it's about something completely different?

"Why do I even care so much about her anyway. She tried to kill me, she laughs at the others' misfortune, why should I care if she's fine or not."

No matter how much he tried, the feel of guilt would not leave Damien alone. And so, in an attempt to stop overthinking, he closed his eyes hoping he would fall asleep. Miraculously, he was able to get some rest for a couple of hours, but his sleep was everything but relaxing.

Nightmares like the one he had when he first entered into Scary Girl's room were the only thing dominating his mind, not allowing Damien to rest not even the slightest.

Damien's room (Playa Des Losers)

1:57 PM

A couple of hours went on like this, until…

Knock knock!

"Damien… It's me"

His eyes wide opened. Great, what a nice way to wake up.

Damien crawled over the door, with the sleep still in his eyes, and opened it. Just as he predicted, Scary Girl was on the other side. The girl had the same smile she had some hours prior, which implied that her day didn't get any better from the last time Damien saw her.

"Hey Scary. Are you here for…"

"Yes. Can I come in?"

Damien moved aside to let the girl in, preparing himself for what was probably going to be an awkward conversation.

Scary Girl set on Damien's bed, and the boy did the same after making sure the door was closed. After a minute or so of silence between them, Scary Girl broke it first.

"So, I know you wanted to talk about yesterday" She started, while looking away from Damien.

"Yeah. I- uhm, how do I put this? I'm kinda confused and worried about what happened, you get it right?" He replied. He tried to get Scary's attention by moving his hands a bit, but the girl still didn't want to look at him directly.

"I get it. I'm… used to people reacting like this. I just want to let you know that you did the right thing by trying to avoid me yesterday." Her eyes were looking down at the floor, but Damien could see that the empty look she had before was now back on her face. Not good.

"Oh… uhm. Yeah, about that. It's not that I want to purposely avoid you but- I mean yeah, I was trying to avoid you on purpose, but I did that because I was trying to-"

"Not get killed. Yeah, I already know the deal. People always say the same thing. Like I said, I'm used to this. I just wanted to let you know that it would be better for you to avoid talking to me. I know everyone here is kinda skeptical of you, and if they see you with me, it's probably going to be ever worst for you. I'm sorry I've caused you so many problems. I really am a freak, huh?" She finally looked up at him. It was so weird seeing something that wasn't a creepy smile on her face.

Damien tried to reply, but before he could, Scary Girl got up and made her way to the door. Was this really it? She just told him to stay away from her, and that's it?

"Wait! What about you?"

"Hm? What about me?"

"I mean… how are you? You've been different. And not in like, your usual way of being different."

For a moment there was silence. Scary Girl already had the hand on the door handle, but she didn't open it. After some seconds of eternity, she finally turned her head back to where Damien was and looked at him.

"I thought you would be smart enough to understand it by yourself. But if you really need the things to be told to you directly, then fine." With that she let go of the handle and instead made herself closer to Damien, standing in front of him.

"I'm not feeling great. There, now you get it?"

Damien wasn't sure how to respond. He clearly wanted to not touch a particularly sensitive topic if that made Scary feel worst, but at the same time if he didn't get any answers, he might end up overthinking too much about what happened.

"Yes, I suspected that. What I meant was… can I know why?"

And again, silence dominated the room. Scary Girl's eyes looked down at the floor again. Clearly, she didn't want to talk about it… was this really the best idea? Being so intrusive in her personal stuff caused more than enough problems this far.

"Look, I don't want to force you. But if you'll ever feel like talking about it, you know where to find me" Damien broke the silence and made his way to open the door to let Scary Girl get out. But she didn't move from how he left her.

He looked at her for a moment, unsure of what to say next. Should he say something? Should he wait? There weren't really many options. But he didn't have to wait too much for her response.

Without looking up, Scary let out a weak voice speak.

"Can I stay here with you?"

A.N: God, it's been so long since I updated this! Sorry for the big gap between chapters. I'll try my best to work on this as much as I can in these days. I'll also try to do the art for Chapter 4 and 5 asap (Go look at the AO3 version of this fic for the art). I hope you were able to enjoy this chapter. This one is more serious than the others, and I do want to bring this story to have more serious moments, without losing that Total Drama style that I also want to represent as the best as I can.

PS: If you are wondering why the title in the chapter selection is shorter, the reason is that FanFiction Net let me use only a certain number of letters. That's why the last word is cut.