Once inside his room, he slumps down on his bed, feeling good at the warmth of his mattress with his eyes closed. He didn’t even realize that someone is standing beside his bed, looking down on him with a sinister look. Anthony opens his eyes at once when he feels a presence in his room. But he sees nothing. The man was gone as soon as he got his eyes opened. He then looks behind him towards the window. Nothing’s there as well. He looks back to his front and screams in horror as he saw a pair of eyes is watching him deeply and wickedly. He falls down from his bed and quickly stands back up to look at the man before him. “The hell, Trance?!” He spat.
Trance does not say a thing. Something is different about Trance. He has a very sinister looks on his face. He’s not looking normal at all. He only stares at Anthony wickedly with a threatening smile on his face. “Surprise, Anthony?” He asked. But it is in the voice of an inhuman being. His voice is distorted. It sounded like a growl mixed with a whisper. It’s like the voice of a person being possessed.
“What the hell?” Anthony is in fear now. He staggers and he starts to move backward, away from Trance who’s coming closer to him. His eyes are now glowing. It is red in color and it splits vertically. Anthony screams in horror at the sight of it and he screams for help. But no one hears him, of course. This is what the devil can do.
Trance looks into Anthony’s eyes and he understood of Anthony’s fear. “Being gang-raped? That’s your greatest fear? How ironic…” Trance commented, still with the same bone-chilling voice. He then laughs… It is a roar of evil laughter and with that horrifying voice of his, it made Anthony started to cry in fear. “Hey, I’ve brought some friends with me…” Trance then said with a glow of evil in his eyes as he said ‘friends’.
Dark shadows start to appear from behind Trance. They look like men but they wear masquerade masks and they spills out evil inhuman auras along as they appeared. They started to move closer to Anthony. Anthony tries to shove them away but they are too strong. They are holding his hands and legs to stop him from moving. It was as if… they’re about to… gang-rape him. Anthony’s greatest fear is coming to life. He screams and backed away once they let go of his hands and legs. The shadows are laughing evilly with inhuman sounds of laughter. Anthony did not realize that he is backing away to his open window and he trips over. He fell down from his window. He screams out loud as he fell down to the ground. He can feel a few of his bones breaking. When he opens his eyes, the shadows are now standing in front of him. They are still laughing the same inhuman scary laughter. Fighting the pain, Anthony gets up with all his might. He struggles to get up on his feet. Limping, he tries to distant from the shadows. “Get away from me!!!” He screamed. But they only continue laughing. He then reaches the tarred road when they stopped laughing and disappeared into thin air. There’s only Trance now looking at him. “What do you want?!” He yelled at Trance.
“Death,” Trance replied in his usual voice now with a wicked smile plastered on his face and that’s when Anthony realizes that headlights are approaching him. It happens in a split of seconds. Anthony was hit by a car. His limp body flew from the impact 5 meters back. He is covered in blood as his body shook violently before he gasps for his final breath.
Trance walks away from the scene when the driver gets out of his car to check on Anthony. Trance stops somewhere in the wood, groaning in pain as something came out from him. It’s William. He gets out from Trance’s body in soul-like material before he became solid again. Trance was possessed by William. It was what William wanted to do to satisfy his lust for blood for the final five victims. William smiles at Trance. “Does it hurt?” He asked. Trance only nodded in answer. “Soon…,” William said as he descents closer to Trance. “You’ll be completely mine,” he continued as he finally plants a soft kiss on Trance’s lips.
24. YOUR DARKEST FEAR .II.
Ever since the news of the death of Anthony, everything turns completely gloomy for the third years. Nobody is talking in a happy mood. No sounds of loud laughter. People even feel guilty for laughing. They don’t get into active conversations, even. It was as if the whole school is mourning. And everyone is just wondering who’s next or if this will ever stop. Peter, Andy, Noah, and Justin sit at their usual table in the cafeteria. Moments had passed by with nothing more than awkward silence between them.
“It just doesn’t make sense. Why would Tony killed himself? He seems just fine. No way he would even want to do it,” Justin suddenly said.
“Yeah… They say he jumped out of his window and found himself not successful at dying so he walked to the main road waiting for a car to hit him. That’s just bogus!” Noah exclaimed.
As they were talking, Andy notices Trance and William walking inside the cafeteria. They take a sit at the other table across them. “Do you guys think he really had amnesia? I have this odd feeling like he remembers everything,” Andy asked, indicating Trance who’s sitting opposite of them.
“If he remembers, he would have told the police, Andy,” Noah assured him.
“He would have. I agree on that. But I also kinda having a bad feeling about him,” Justin made a sudden remark in agreement with his friends.
Andy stares at them for a while. There’s a bit of a glow in his eyes as he studies Trance. Peter realizes of the way Andy was eyeing Trance and William once in a while from where they were sitting. He knows that looks. It’s jealousy. And desire. Peter starts to comprehend the situation and it makes him want to speak. “You actually have a thing for Trace, isn’t it?” Peter asked Andy abruptly from being silent most of the time in a bit of an angry tone. How can he be blinded by this all this while?
“What are you talking about?” Andy gets defensive by the question which makes everything registered even clearer to Peter’s knowledge.
“I knew it, Andy. That’s why you jumped in to fuck him when I’m done that day, right? It was supposed to only be me,” Peter accused Andy.
“Do you want me to punch you, Peter?!” Andy threatened, getting up from his seat with his fist clenched. Noah holds him back by pulling his shoulders.
Peter also stands up. “I was such an idiot to ever be friends with ALL OF YOU! You are all hypocrites. God! Look what I got! Wanting so much to be a part of you jerks that I ended up hurting the only person ever matters to me.”
“Who are you talking about? What have gotten into you?” Noah asked, worried if his buddies are going to punch each other in the face.
“I’m talking about Trance! He was my boyfriend,” Peter confessed.
“Fuck. What? Y-you’re gay?!” Justin asked in terrible shock.
Peter gives them a how-come-you-still-ask look on his face before replying. “Yeah. And I’ve been pretending all this while like I’m not, just for the sake of having you accepting me,” Peter said with his voice started to crumble.
Andy looks at Peter in disbelief and is immediately disturbed by a thought. “But wait. That’s just sick. You raped Trance. He’s your boyfriend. You didn’t even stop us! And that just made you even more of a jerk than us,” He stated out his sick thought.
“True…” Peter confessed. This time, tears hung up on his eyes as it later slowly flows down on his cheek. “And you know what? I think it’s coming back to haunt me. All of our sins. All of our wrongs! It’s coming back… if that’s just what it takes to right all the wrongs that I did, then I’ll embrace my fate. You guys should too ‘cos mark my words, Anthony is just the beginning. Soon, each one of us will die. Can’t you see the pattern? Here’s something for dumb asses like you guys to look for!” Peter stated and throws the list Mrs. Cuttingham gave him to them. “Cross out Anthony’s name and see who’s left,” he instructed and immediately walks away, caring less and less with each steps taken.
The three of them wear a dumb-founded and dreaded looks on their faces as they look at the list. They then look at each other in disbelief. They pass a glance at Trance and William at the other table and catch the sight of them smiling wickedly at th
em three. They wait no longer. The three of them also walk out of the cafeteria in a hurry.
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That night, Noah tosses and turns in his bed. He can’t sleep. He’s afraid… He wishes over and over in his head that he could turn back time and undo all of the wrongs he did. He’s too young to die and he has no idea how he’s going to die. He just knows that he will. He feels agitated.
“Your greatest fear…” He suddenly heard someone whispers into his eyes and that made him jump out of his bed in fear, screaming out a little. He sees Trance with menacing eyes sitting at the side of his bed.
“What do you want?!” He asked in fear.
“Tch. Tch. Tch,” Trance hushed him in a wicked manner. “Are you that afraid of me?” He asked in a slight hint of cynicism.
Noah trembles. “I’m sorry…” He said. It sounded more like a beg and a whimper of fearful cry of a child.
Trance only laughs at Noah. It sounded normal at first but later the laughter turn into a growl. “Snakes…” Trance said in a distorted voice, his eyes are now red in color and it’s glowing. He’s more of a devil now. William is starting to show himself through Trance’s body as a medium. “That’s your greatest, darkest fear…”
Snakes… Huge snakes started to appear from behind Trance. They are three times bigger of the size of normal adult snakes. They hiss as they slither closer to Noah with their tongues coming out and in. Noah screams at the sight of them. “No! No!!! Get away from me!” He screamed. Trance hands out a knife to Noah. Noah takes it immediately without thinking and starts trying to shoo them away with the knife. Trance only smiles sinisterly, looking down on him.
Noah then starts to notice that scales are appearing on his leg. Is he becoming a snake too? That was his first thought. He then screams in horror and starts to wipe his skin off of the scale. The snakes around him had disappeared. He is crying. He cries badly like a child. He’s too frightened. His heart feels like it’s about to drop out of his chest. The sight of his own skin turning to scales of a snake sickens him. He feels like throwing up. Only then he realizes the use of the knife. Hell… twisted as fuck but he can’t help it. Because he can’t have scales on his body! No! So he starts to peel the scales off of his leg with the knife given by Trance. One by one, the scales were removed. Painful, but worth it. Little did he realized, he is actually skinning himself alive. And tomorrow, they’ll find him… drenched in blood,… with that knife in his hand,… his all-red skinless dead body…
25. YOUR DARKEST FEAR .III.
Peter had stopped coming to school as soon as they heard the news of Noah’s gruesome death. So did Justin and Andy. Andy had run away from the town. He went over to his family lake house somewhere north to escape. He thought he could escape. But he can never escape… None of them will escape their fate.
Peter sneaks into Trance’s room that night. He was hoping he could talk to Trance to make him stop. But Trance is not in his room. So he waits. He waits for Trance to come home. He lies down on Trance’s bed, taking in the smell. He misses Trance’s smell. In truth, he misses everything about Trance. He misses their small conversations. He misses the thrill of hiding out from the crowd. His eyes tear up a little at the thought. He wants to go back but at the same time, he’s afraid to go back as well. He hates who he was. He wishes he didn’t do the things that he had done. It’s already pass midnight. Trance still hasn’t come home. Peter shakes any disturbing thoughts away from his mind. All that he could think of is probably Trance had went out to kill again tonight. He doesn’t want to think of that. He doesn’t want his Trance to be like that. He paces around the room, shaking off of the thoughts. The longer he waits, the sleepier he gets. At last, he falls asleep on the floor. He only awakes when he hears sounds in the room and he notices Trance sitting on his bed, staring down at him.
“Oh believe me, if it’s up to me, I would already have you dead by now,” Trance said to him.
“Trance, are you okay?” Peter asked because there’s just something wrong about Trance. He doesn’t sound like him at all. And he is perplexed by Trance’s attitude. It was almost as if… he sounds like… William?
Trance only chuckles lowly. A little wickedly too at Peter. “But Trance wanted you to be the last one,” Trance continued.
That is just weird. Trance is talking as if he is not Trance. Then, to his horror, he witnesses something coming out from Trance. It’s like a spirit or a shadow of some sort. Peter holds back his scream that only leads out to a small gasp coming out of his mouth. When the spirit began to materialize into a solid form, it turns into the figure of a human. It is William. “Wh-what the hell was that?!” He asked in horror. His body is shaking. He can’t believe what he had just seen. But he had seen it. So he has no choice but to believe it.
Trance is panting. He looks at the direction of Peter but he can care less about him. The possession is exhausting him. He just wants to lie down and rest. So, he chooses not to answer Peter’s question. He just continues to lie down on his bed and closes his eyes. He is breathing heavily. “He’s tired. Try talking to this one instead,” William said as he stretches his right hand towards him. Something in his palm shines. Confused, amazed, and terrified at the same time, Peter can only look at the light. And that’s when something materializes next to William. He now sees Trance. He is a bit transparent. It’s like he is a spirit. “That’s his soul,” William explained. Peter looks at the boy on the bed and then back at the transparent figure next to William. He doesn’t know what to think or what to say.
Peter looks into the transparent Trance’s eyes, focusing only on his eyes. Tears form in his own eyes as his heart whispers softly that yes, that’s him. That’s the Trance he knew. That looks on his face… “Trance…” He called out sadly to him.
The transparent-Trance looks down to the ground, refusing to face Peter’s eyes. “We’ve killed Justin just now,” he stated.
Peter shakes his head at that statement. “Wait. What? What?! Why did you do it?” Peter asked in disbelief. He is suddenly engulfed in rage. Why is his Trance doing this? His Trance wouldn’t hurt anyone!
“Getting my revenge… William is helping me to it,” he said as a matter-of-factly.
“William?” Peter asked again, staring at the man beside transparent-Trance who is constantly smiling the smile of a psychopath. Questions are pounding in his head. He then glares at William and then passes a glance at the solid Trance on the bed. Everything starts to make sense to him. “No way… You sold your soul?” Peter asked.
“Wow… This one is a genius,” William made a remark.
“And that made you…,” Peter looks at William and gets his eyes widen at a disturbing thought inside his head. “The devil.”
“Correct,” William said. “Bravo!” William claps his hands with little excitement towards Peter. The psychopathic smile lingers on his face.
Peter cannot say anything to that. He is dumbfounded. He then only looks at the transparent-Trance with his tears still hanging in his eyes. There’s too much to digest for what he had learnt and seen that night. But he knows deep down inside of him that this was all his fault. He had made Trance turned out that way. “Trance,” he called. The transparent-Trance looks at him this time. “I’m turning myself in,” he stated. Trance does not seem to get what Peter meant at first so Peter starts to explain; “I’m going to confess to the police that I was the one who raped you and got you into coma. I’m going to take responsibilities for the wrongs that I did,” he explained.
William hisses angrily at Peter. “Do you think by turning yourself in, you can take back what you did, Peter?!” He yelled angrily. He then looks at Trance’s soul who’s now sobbing. “Don’t you dare feel sorry for him, Trance!” He warned. He then made Trance’s soul no longer visible to Peter’s eyes. “You best go now,” William suggested. “Or you can stay around and watch me do Trance in front of your eyes. You have a thing for that, don’t you?” He smirks at Peter.
William th
en gets on top of Trance on the bed. They start to kiss each other hungrily. William takes off his shirt and starts to unzip his trousers. Trance starts to push down his pants. Peter does not even realize that he had tears overflowing down from his eyes by then. He does not want to wait to witness them. He feels a bolt of a pain striking in his heart. It’s jealousy and sadness for the fact that he had lost Trance. Probably forever. He gets out of the room through the window quickly. He had lost him for good. He can’t win over the devil and he’s going to die in that psychopath’s hands soon. What’s more hurtful is that, he can’t even make up to his faults and Trance had not granted him with forgiveness for all of the wrongs he had done to him. He only wishes for his forgiveness. It’s okay to die if that what it takes for Trance to forgive him. It’s okay… He thought.
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Justin’s greatest fear… is demons. It didn’t take a lot for William to finish him off. He just asked his demon friends to do the job for him. On the morrow, they will find his mutilated body… scattered all across the floor… in his room. The scene was even worse than that of Black Dahlia…
26. YOUR DARKEST FEAR .IV.
The sky looks like it had been dyed with the mixture of the colors of orange and blue. Here, the sky is clearer than the sky back in the town. He doesn’t feel the gloom here. The gloom of deaths that had surrounded his high school can’t reach out to him out here. Andy enjoys the cool breeze of the evening air at his family’s lake house as he looks out from the balcony of his room. He had heard the news of the death of his friends. If it’s true that Trance is on a killing spree to kill them, that nerd won’t get to him out here. He feels relieved to be away from the lunatic town surrounded by death. He feels sad, yes. But there’s nothing he can do. All he can do is save himself. That is just basic human nature.
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