Lost In Purple
Chapter 59: When Everything Becomes Bleak (Part 1)
Johnny's POV
'Someone is coming, this could ruin your night. Stay hidden, take cover, and stay out of sight.' A pretty elementary riddle if I do say so myself. All it implied was for us to conceal ourselves during this event, and believe it or not, we couldn't have been any more correct. We're all running through the EKO house, sending hundreds of thuds and thumps through their hallways as we frantically search for places to hide. A majority of the HSS decide to go for several random spots in the living room, all of which I personally wouldn't choose. That's probably because I'm colossal compared to them and would get caught within two seconds flat, but I still don't think balancing a lamp on top of your head, or hiding in a fireplace, would be the smartest decision. One wrong movement and you're smashing that lamp on the ground and revealing yourself, or you're landing in a bunch of soot and leading humans into the monster world by leaving a trail. Hopefully Nadya doesn't decide to do that in the human world…ever, because if she does it'll be the end of everything as we know it.
The referees are scouring the house head to toe, at least that's what it feels like. I can hear them within the random closet I've taken refuge in for the time being, not daring to move as their footsteps pass by every few seconds. I've managed to climb up on top of the shelf above the pole that still houses a bunch of the EKOs winter coats. The flashlights bright glow pierces through the cracks in the closet door, making it seem like a flash bang went off outside. I have to put my arm over my eyes so that my retinas don't cook to a crisp. Now I can just wait until the event is over, because that's how easy this event is. I've only trained for this exact thing since high school so this should go by smoothly. Seriously, I just have to pick a spot that nobody would think a thunderous yet rotund monster like me would hide at and then win, it's as simple as that. The Oozmas and HSSs could only wish that they were as fast and generally skilled as I am. I'm assuming that all of that commotion outside the door is them getting caught too. Hearing things like "YOOOOUUU'RE OUT," can only mean that their inexperience and nervousness finally caught up to them.
The closet door suddenly flings open. The flashlight is blinding but it never moves up to me when it suspensefully sways from side to side, showing me that the referee is carefully examining every inch of the closet. That is, he thinks he's examining every inch. All it would take is for him to raise the flashlight up a tiny bit and he would notice that something looks a bit more 'alive' than everything else, but I've always been one lucky monster. The referee takes a step back after another five or so seconds, and seals the door silently as to not give away his position. I exhale painfully, relieved that I didn't just jinx everything and ruin my last scare games because of something so mindless. It would definitely be a extraordinary idea to change hiding spots now since you can't always rely on a hiding spot that you almost got caught in.
I try my best to listen for what's outside, but I could never have such outstanding auditory abilities like Melanie does. This is an event that I would have loved to have her in considering everything that happened over at Fear Tech a couple months ago; She would have blown this event out of the water, but she thinks otherwise. I could only assume that she would be crawling all over the place, even creeping out the referees with her stealth, but she hasn't been talking to me recently. I'm both worried and annoyed because I want to know if something bad happened to her, but if she isn't in trouble then she should be here getting some practice in. I'm done having her watch from the sidelines and think poorly of herself. If she wants to become a Scarer like me, then she has to start proving herself.
Anyways, I open the door as slightly as I can, peeking out to the gloomy hallways that are ominously empty. I slide my limbs out of the closet, take one more quick look around, then dash towards the entrance of the house. I'm guessing the referees are sweeping the upper floors of the house or something, so this was the golden opportunity for me. I remember that the EKO house foyer has a huge chandelier hanging down from the ceiling, so that's going to be my next hiding spot. Having feline ancestry in my genes can sometimes come in handy, which it always had because I enjoy hanging out in the most elevated of places. I'm secretly hoping that this chandelier isn't cheap and flimsy, because I'm screwed in multiple ways if it isn't. When I do reach the foyer, I jump onto the main staircases banister and fly up into the chandelier, keeping a minimal amount of sound from being generated as it swings slowly from side to side. It seems like my worries were all for naught since there isn't any sign that it will plummet into the ground. Now I can just wait until the event is over and done with.
When the chandelier stops swinging, I can put all of my focus towards the sounds around me. A couple more putter patters come from several hallways, but I eventually hear more unnecessary hollers from the referees. Like damn, you don't have to announce to everyone that this certain person failed miserably…actually maybe they do because in reality you would likely die if you got caught. In terms of becoming uncatchable, failing like this might be an excellent teacher for us. If you don't have what it takes to hide, then you shouldn't be here, just like the Oozmas. Unfortunately it wasn't any of the Oozmas who got caught this time. It was Nadya and that one Nancy girl who has no mouth and is just one eye stalk with legs. I knew those hiding spots were embarrassingly bad, and I can only tell myself that I couldn't have been more correct as they're led outside to the waiting crowds.
Time seems to move infinitely slower than what I thought. Every second feels like a minute and every minute feel like an hour, but we're eventually given the signal that everyone who still hasn't been ensnared by the referees should leave through the front door, similarly to what we would do on a Scare Floor. I stay on top of the chandelier and impatiently wait for the rest of my fraternity brothers as they pile up in the hallways. I jump down in front of them, giving Chip a good ol' scare before taking the lead and showing myself to the the now cheering crowds. They all give us adoring smiles with their fists being thrown up in the air, and so I respond with a smile myself while gesturing to a couple of our fans along the stone steps, giving them a wink.
We run all the way down the steps and strike a quick pose, basking in the glory of being the best Scarers on campus. There's something about people cheering me on that makes me feel so alive, and yet happy to make them so excited for the art that is Scaring. I really just can't get enough of it! It seems that everyone's attention shifts away from me though, leaving me feeling baffled as to how they could just wipe me off their shoulders like that. When I turn around, I find my answer. It's every last Oozma Kappa, walking down the steps as if they've always been the top monsters on campus.
"We're down to two remaining teams, Roar Omega Roar and Oozma Kappa," The goth Greek council member announces.
Everyone stays quiet when our name is called, but then everyone goes berserk once more when the Oozmas are mentioned. It's infuriating! How is it that they get kicked out of the program, and lose the first event on a technicality and still be allowed to scare with us as if they're equally as skilled as us?!
The griffin council member then jumps in with his most dramatic voice he can muster by saying, "Which leads us to the final event! Every one of your skills will be put to the test. The Scare Simulator will prove who's the best. Tomorrow night you finally get to Scare in front of the whole school!"
At this point, I've had enough of all these baby games. I could have asked high schoolers to compete with us and they would have just just as well or even better than Oozma Kappa and all the rest of these disappointments of fraternities and sororities. "Enjoy the attention while it lasts, boys," I stare before popping my collar in order to keep my cool, "After you lose, no one will remember you."
I mean really, how will a couple of these lowlife beanbags leave any sort of impact on the Scaring world?
It seems as though Mike has a quick sentence he wants to blather though, so I let him speak. "Maybe. But when you lose, no one will let you forget it."
…Even after everything I've shown them these past couple of years. Would my reputation be slashed after just one mishap? Shut up Johnny, you have nothing to worry about. There's no possible way you could be beaten by these nobodies, I mean you've literally made one hell of a name for yourself these past years. People couldn't possibly forget about who you are.
"-hats a good point," I hear Chet utter after snapping out of my thinking.
I can't help but slap his fat head, sending his cap to the ground as I walk furiously back to our house. My blood pressure is through the roof, and all I want to do is send my fists through someone's skull right now. It only gets worse when I hear a couple of the Oozmas new fangirls start calling them 'awesome' and asking about how they do their not so scary scaring. They must be cheating at this point, or bribing someone to get through the events with ease. Nobody in the history of Scaring would have gotten away with what they've done, and I hate it.
"Don't sweat it Johnny, I can just feel it within me that they'll end up choking tomorrow night," Chip says in attempts to calm me down.
It doesn't help though. The only way for everything to get better would be if they were eliminated, making that green beach ball leave the campus for good. I'm sure all the other fraternities and sororities could agree with me since we've all been attending classes while he gets all the time in the world to prepare.
"Oh Jonathan!" A fat, furry green monster hollers while jumping in front of me.
Oh god, it's Helga. I thought I was officially rid of her after that so called 'date.' Her fat folds jiggle with every movement and I can't help but subtly gag seeing that. I know that having some weight in the monster world is a socially acceptable thing, but this is actually just a simply case of gluttony at its worst. Like I can see her losing calories just by moving. Not to mention that she's made it clear that she has a parasocial obsession with me and has based her entire personality off of me.
"You forgot to give me your phone number! How am I supposed to know when we can go out together again if I can't reach you! You're so funny!" Helga blathers.
She wraps her arms around my waist and puts her head up against my chest, nuzzling it. Holy sweet mother of Mary I can't possibly be more uncomfortable. I feel queasy and there's a nasty shiver that runs through my spine. I have to push her off, and it ends up being kind of aggressive. Seeing Javier and Chips reaction to this also embarrassed me beyond belief considering that they can't believe what they've just seen.
"Hey! Jonathan, what was that for?" Helga asks.
"DON'T…call me that. I thought I told you that I wasn't interested in starting a relationship," I sigh while gritting my teeth.
Helga just laughs everything off. "What are you talking about, of course you do, who wouldn't want a piece of me? Come on, why don't we head back to your place. I've become so impressed with your performance tonight that I want to give you a treat."
With a quick hop, she jumps up and plants a kiss right on my lips which makes me borderline panic. I basically send her flying into the ground on her back as I wipe my mouth furiously with my sleeve.
"Dude, what is happening right now?" Chip asks as Javier picks Helga back up and gently pushes her away from me.
Even though I do know what's going on, I can't possibly make them understand it. They wouldn't believe it if I told them that my father basically promised my future to Helga and her father because that's something that would come straight out of a fairytale or movie. They would probably think I'm oing insane if I told them that this was all in the name of 'genetics' as well. I growl as I walk towards Helga, ready to actually get rid of her this time. "For the last time, we're not dating! I was forced against my will to even meet you and I can safely say that you are the last person I would ever want to get to know! Not only are you absolutely disgusting in a literal sense, but you're boring and creepy. Pull something like that again and you'll-"
I see light escape through the front door to our house before it's closes shut, and I'm pretty sure there was a dark colored tail that swished distressingly as well. Was it Melanie? I could really use her presence right now because she always makes my anger dissipate. I turn my attention back to Helga for one last time and growl, "Just take the hints and leave me alone."
Pushing myself past her, I leave everyone behind me astonished at what they've just heard. The sound of the crowds grows dimmer, and my desire to see Melanie again grows stronger. I open the door to see the place empty like it should be. The fire place still roars, lighting the living room up with a nice and soft orange glow while being undisturbed by any noise. While the scene is beautifully calming, I'm more interested in seeing my favorite person in the whole world.
"Mel?!" I holler as I walk into the center of the living room.
There's no response after I wait for a couple seconds. Maybe she didn't hear me, so I have to raise my voice a bit more. "Mel?!"
There's a couple of thumps that I hear up towards her room followed by the door swinging open to bump the wall.
I can't help but immediately open my mouth. "There you are, where have you been? I wanted you to be a part of this event but I never heard anything back from you!"
She doesn't peek over the banister to look at me and instead walks back towards the stairs with her head down. Her arms are crossed, grabbing onto her sides as if she's one of those kinds of people who feel lost and hopeless. She's also not wearing her cardigan, and is instead holding it in her hand while wearing the punk rock clothes she would normally wear at the beginning of the year. It would probably be best to meet her at the front door, so I pass under the archway to find the staircases being lit up vividly. When Melanie finally reaches the staircase, I'm met with a panic-inducing reaction after seeing that she's been crying.
"Mel, what's wrong? Did somebody do something to you, say something to you?" I gasp.
There isn't a response from her at any point during her descent of the stairs, but walks up to me to force her cardigan and the set of house keys I gave her into my arms.
"Mel?" I plead.
"I…" She sobs, "I can't be a ROR anymore."
My lungs begin to ache, my heart begins to pound, and my legs begin to shake. This is the worst, yet most unpredictable thing I could have ever heard Melanie say to me. It was something I could only hear within a paralyzing nightmare that would have left me forever broken by just remembering it.
"Wha- Melanie?" I question as I see her take hurried steps towards the door.
She her head back towards me with two streams of tears falling down her cheeks. "You can go have some fun with all of your fangirls outside without me getting in the way."
I grab her hand, keeping her from twisting the doorknob and leaving me. "Wh-you saw that?! That's not what that was, you can't possibly think I would do that to you! You don't even know the story behind that anyways... please just let me explain!"
"I don't care, I can't even be happy with myself knowing that I'm one of you," She growls while breaking free of my grasp and ending up outside by her lonesome self. I follow her out to see my brothers conversing amongst themselves. It seems they've taken care of the Helga situation and have gone back to congratulating themselves for getting through, but that might not be the case here for very long. I shout out to her once more to have her wait, causing every one of their eyes to land on us. They all know something is wrong.
Melanie's steps create this tapping sound as she struts away from the house, never even thinking about responding. I can't help but feel fairly frustrated. There's way too much on my mind, so having Melanie overreact like this and toss away everything as if it meant nothing to her makes my blood boil a little bit. I've had it with all this drama on top of all the Scare Games and Oozma Kappa stuff, all I want is for everything to go back to the way it was, when I could just look forward to becoming a Scarer with ease. Now I'm feeling betrayed, cast aside as some random monster to be soon forgotten.
"Melanie I'm serious! I don't have a relationship with anybody else, it was she who came onto me! Melanie...Melanie are you seriously going to run away from me while I'm trying to fix this?! You're just going to choose to throw everything away all because you refuse to talk to me?!" I growl as she passes everyone, "Stop overreacting and think for a second about what you're doing!"
She stops in the middle of the road, arms crossed. Her hair begins glowing a vivid sapphire blue and floating like it does when she's upset. There's usually a reason behind her ghostly outbursts, but this time I'm going to assume that there isn't a reason behind this one except that she's jealous.
"I have thought about it Johnny. As a matter of fact, I've had a week to think about it, and I think that I don't have what it takes to be a ROR. If anything, I would have thought that you would respect my decision, to let me do what's best for me," She whimpers.
"Melanie I've told you a thousand times over the past few months that being a ROR is what's best for you, that I want you here with me!" I scream, "Like I can't believe this! I finally give you a place to belong, but you're walking away from it like you do with everyone and everything else but you're not listening to me!"
"YOU KNOW BETTER THAN EVERYONE ELSE THAT I DON'T BELONG HERE!" Melanie screeches, sending waves of blue through her body and revealing her hollow banshee form that everyone's become so intrigued with.
All my brothers stare in utter shock at Melanie. I'm not phased by it though, she doesn't scare me. As a matter of fact, nobody scares me and neither does anything else scare me.
"All you've done for weeks is go on and on about those poor Oozma Kappa boys and how they couldn't possibly be what they've dreamed of being because of who they are! It just so happens that I'm one of them! I can't even perform the simplest of scares, nor do I look like a monstrous atrocity while scaring! I should have failed my first scare exam, I've failed this semester in Scaring 102, and I couldn't even follow your directions during the Scare Games because I was so terrified about someone that wasn't even a human!" She rants.
All of us are frozen in place, not believing what we're hearing. I especially am astonished to hear her say these things about herself, however, I'm still vexed. A monster is nothing unless they're scary, it's our identity, and she's saying that she's nothing more than a glitch in the system.
Tears begin flying out of her eyes as she stands in the street painfully. She grasps onto her stomach and leans downwards, looking like a distressed ghost straight out of a fairytale. "I know that all of you would have never of even spoken to me if I didn't get accepted into the program…I'm sure that you would have just forgotten about me if I never even got through the Scaring 101 exam… and I'm certain that I would have ended up just like Mike and Sullivan and those other few, living day to day knowing that I'm worth nothing to those who are worth something!"
The silence never breaks between us all. What would have things been like if everything went differently. Would I have felt differently about her if she didn't pass?
"The fact that you all laughed… the fact that you all humiliated those poor monsters, who just wanted to be something more than what they've been told their whole lives what they couldn't be… I couldn't possibly believe what I saw! It would have been me getting shunned like that wouldn't it, if I ended up showing you any signs of weakness?"
None of us have any clue what to say. Javier stares at her with his antennae drooping, Bruisers eye stocks are lowered, Chet's got puppy eyes, and Chip looks disgusted with himself. Everyone feels the same it seems, looking down at the ground as if they've made a grand mistake.
Melanie isn't done yet, and so we keep on listening. "I grew up being told that I could be anything I wanted, that my future is not chained off by people like you…they all couldn't have been proven any more wrong! ALL OF YOU ARE THE WORST POSSIBLE PEOPLE I COULD HAVE EVER MET! TALKING ABOUT PEOPLE LIKE THEIR NOTHING BUT SLAVES THAT SHOULD BOW DOWN TO YOU AT THE SNAP OF A FINGER, THAT THEY SHOULD NEVER EVEN BE WITHIN YOUR FIELD OF VIEW! I…HATE YOU! I HATE ALL OF YOU!"
Melanie begins violently twitching, and everything is starting to look exactly like it did back in September, in the same location for the same reason. While everyone is filled with sorrow for what she's said, she can't fool me. We're not monsters who can be labeled as these heartless, power-hungry beings. We've earned every ounce of glory that we've mustered, we've built our legacies brick by brick with our own blood, sweat and tears. She talks about us as if we've been handed everything to us on a platinum platter, when we've actually spent thousands of hours honing our abilities. We are, in fact, not like everybody else. We're braver, stronger, and smarter because of everything we've done. It seems as though she doesn't see that. She chooses to believe that we are the villains of this story, that we're selfish and only interested in ourselves. We're clearly different kinds of monsters who want different things.
"Hmm…then it seems like you are right…you don't belong here after all." I growl. I never knew that Melanie thought of me like that, and that unfortunately means that I want nothing more to do with her. It seems that my father was right, she isn't someone I should be affiliating myself with. She's just some stuck up child who thinks she's justified in every possible manner. I did what I did to teach those Oozmas that they won't make it far, I'm saving them from ruin. They don't have the adequate reaction times, predictive power, or versatility we all have. Eventually, no child will be scared of them anymore…because all they'll do is the same scares over and over again…all until they're irrelevant just like they are now. All I want is to uphold my family name, and prove to the world that I'm worthy of being the best of the best, but Melanie doesn't want that for me.
I throw Melanie's cardigan on the ground in front of her as she sobs uncontrollably. "Only the best Scarers are allowed here in Frat Row, and I can now say with certainty that you are not one of the greats."