This chapter contains scenes depicting violence on a school campus. 
Reader discretion is advised.
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Marble countertops bore Halloween decorations, with spiderwebs and black bats strewn about. Generous ceramic bowls overflowed with an assortment of colorful, sweet, and bitter candy, while the ambient lighting had been subdued to set a haunting mood. A sizable assembly of people, all with distinct platinum blonde hair, congregated around a flickering fireplace.
"You're not going to join us, Edel? We're going to watch Friday the 13th," inquired one woman with a ponytail, dressed in an elegant purple witch's costume. Her attire featured a flowing gown, a lengthy cape, and was capped off with a classic witch's hat.
"Sorry, Rhiannon," Edel replied. In stark contrast to the rest of her family who sported various costumes, she hadn't dressed up. "I'd like some time alone. Lately, I've been feeling really stressed because of school and everything."
Rhiannon smirked knowingly. "Mhm... you're sneaking out to see Karina, aren't you? You two have been inseparable lately, way more than usual."
"W-what? N-no! It's not that," Edel stammered, blushing hard. "It's just because of college applications."
"That's what's stressing you out? You do realize the Monclerchanteau name is on one of their buildings, right? And you're legacy! You're practically guaranteed to get in!"
"I know, but..." Edel began. "I want to earn my place there based on my own merits, not just my name."
"Oh, Edel. You're really the most hardworking and humblest out of all of us," Rhiannon said with a proud smile. "But why didn't you apply to USC? Isn't that where Karina's going?"
"Harvard has some programs I'm interested in that USC doesn't have," Edel replied sadly. "But I do wish we could go to the same university together."
"That's unfortunate. I heard her dad wanted her to stay in LA," sympathized Rhiannon. "Well, take a break if you need to. You can always rejoin us next year."
"Thanks, sis," Edel said with a faint smile as she headed toward the foyer. "Enjoy yourselves!"
"We'll try, but don't be too sad if you miss out on all the fun parts!" Rhiannon teased with a wink.
"Edel! Where are you off to? Skipping out on some quality family time?" called an older man in a Frankenstein's monster costume.
"Hey, Dad! Sorry, I'm just not up for it. I'll be heading to the beach house," Edel explained.
"Really? Aww. Well, you take care out there!" Edel's father waved in acknowledgment.
Edel waved back, not knowing about the great tragedy that would very soon unfold.
------
Edel tapped the car keys of her vibrant blue Bugatti Divo, a birthday present she'd received for her 18th birthday. Her parents had noticed her passion for automobiles, and this sleek machine was their thoughtful gift. However, her 18th birthday gift seemed much more modest compared to the extravagant presents her siblings had received. Averie, her fourth older sister, had been given a sprawling ranch, while Declan, her seventh older brother, received a massive superyacht. Nevertheless, Edel cherished her car, secretly dubbing it "Karina" because the car's paint reminded her of her best friend's brilliant blue eyes.
She slipped into the car and brought its engine to life, savoring the resonant roar. With the car growling in ignition, she glided out of the garage and onto the impeccably paved cobblestone driveway.
The front yard was a spectacle to behold, decked out with colossal Halloween inflatables featuring ghosts and zombies as well as gravestones that were meticulously aligned along the driveway. Edel's family had a tradition of going all out with holiday decorations, and this day was no exception. They often spared no expense, and the result was a mesmerizing visual feast. It never failed to kindle the holiday spirit within her. Edel had a particular fondness for the imposing, giant skeletons stationed around the gate, replacing the stone lions they usually had. They were certain to deter any unwelcome visitors and spook any child who approached their doors in search of treats.
Edel cruised down to Malibu, where her family's private beach house nestled. She rolled down her car window all the way, allowing the invigorating ocean breeze to sweep in. The road stretched out before her, an open expanse of asphalt, and she relished in the sensation of absolute freedom.
She parked her car in the house's garage and hurriedly exited, eager to reach the beach.
As soon as she stepped out of the house, the ocean's soothing waves played like a therapeutic melody in her ears. Descending the steps, she reached a distinctive, substantial blue-gray rock bearing the inscription "K+E 4EVER" etched into its surface. Edel remembered the day she and Karina carved those words onto the rock with a chisel and hammer when they were 10. She affectionately ran her right hand over the letters before quickly taking her clothes off, revealing a black one-piece swimsuit underneath.
She sprinted toward the ocean, and as she dived in, the ice-cold water splashed across her face. She was accustomed to the chill, so it didn't bother her in the slightest. She continued swimming until she was approximately a quarter of a mile from the shore. The waves were calm, making it an easy swim. Then, she backfloated, allowing herself to drift and gaze up at the radiant full moon above.
She closed her eyes and let the salty water wash away all her worries, chilling her pleasantly as she rested.
------
Suddenly, the water grew more turbulent, and the waves became formidable. Recognizing the hazard, Edel decided it was time to swim back to the shore. The return swim proved to be a challenge as the increasing waves became rougher. A massive, heavy wave approached her from behind, engulfing her and dragging her beneath the water's surface. She fought to resurface as more waves crashed down, seemingly intent on drowning her in the deep, dark depths of the ocean. With all her strength, she managed to make it back to dry land. She was alive, but it took every ounce of her being to get there.
Weakly, she hurriedly dressed, her body shivering uncontrollably from the freezing cold. She fumbled for her phone and discovered over 150 message notifications and 70 missed calls, all from Karina.
11:11 PM
edie! are u ok??
is everyone ok??
your neighbors told me your house exploded
please tell me everything is okay
edie im so scared right now
im heading over
please tell me youre still alive
edie please respond
please...
please be okay
edie please
i love you
i love you so much
i wanted to tell you sooner
but i didnt know how youd feel
please dont leave me
11: 51PM
edie you cant be dead
no
no
no
edie please respond
youve got to be alive
edie
please just say this is all a dream and im just freaking out for no reason
i love you
just please come back
i cant do this without you
if youre dead then please let me die with you
Suddenly, Edel struggled to breathe. She collapsed against the blue-gray rock, gasping for air. Her heart felt as though it were being squeezed under a hundred pounds of pressure, and her head began to grow numb. Tears streamed from her eyes, and her vision blurred and swirled. Her mind had become like a hurricane.
"No... No..."
"They-re... They're..."
"No... I-it... Can't... Be..."
She clutched her phone close to her chest as more tears streamed down her cheeks, dampening the sand beneath her.
"Karina..."
She longed to respond to Karina, to reassure her that she was alive and safe, but she couldn't. She couldn't take the risk of putting Karina in harm's way.
Desperately, she extended her hand toward the spot where the stone bore their shared inscription, seeking some measure of comfort.
"I will... I will find who did this..." Edel declared. "And I... I will kill them all."
"Karina..."
"I will come back."
"Please... wait for me."
------
Edel snapped out of her daze, suddenly aware that she had been clutching the steering wheel so tightly that her knuckles had turned white.
I need to stop dwelling on that, Edel thought to herself. I have to stay focused.
She started the van's engine, but as she looked up, an ethereal, dark figure materialized directly in front of the vehicle.
The figure appeared faint, almost motionless. Edel switched on the van's headlights to get a clearer view, and to her astonishment, it was the unmistakable form of the Masker she had encountered in the nightclub.
"What the—" But before Edel could even react, she was abruptly whisked away to a vacant dark street, a street she could not even recognize, with only the Masker for company. He stood there, seemingly frozen in place like a sentinel.
Edel searched for her weapons, but there were none. Tentatively, she approached the Masker's hazy image, which became clearer as she drew nearer. As she closed the distance, she realized that the Masker's gaze was fixed firmly on her, intense, like a predator locking eyes with its prey. His only visible iris was precise and small.
"What do you want?" Edel demanded. "Why am I here?"
"What I want is irrelevant." The Masker scowled in return. "As to why? That... is relevant."
The Masker's seemingly sole eye seemed to scrutinize Edel more closely, tilting his head slightly to his right.
"...You possess that look, that vindictive, seething glare. The world hasn't treated you kindly either, has it? It took something from you. Blood. That blood on your hands, however, it's not yours... You're a killer. You won't stop anywhere until you achieve your goals."
Edel seemed to know where this was going, and her hateful expression transformed into one of denial and anger.
"I'm nothing like you. I don't kill innocent people."
"No, of course not..." The Masker's previously motionless stance shifted as he approached Edel, looming over her.
"...But those stains of blood, no matter where they came from, they're on your conscience and, well, they will never wash away, ever." His eye bore daggers into Edel, making her feel terribly uneased.
After a while, a grin cracked out from the crescent-shaped smile of his mask, and Edel was abruptly returned to the van's interior, her face slick with sweat. The Masked figure had dissipated, leaving her alone once more.
"Damn it! Fuck!" Edel cursed aloud, slamming her palms against the steering wheel. Her teeth were clenched, and the Masker's words repeated in her mind like a broken record.
Panting heavily, she eventually started the engine and drove off, all the while muttering under her breath:
"I will deliver justice... to those who stole everyone I loved away from me... and save LA... because if I don't do it... no one else will."
------
The sky began to brighten as the morning sun gradually ascended above the horizon. Charlotte paced back and forth the junkyard, looking nervous and anxious.
"Where is she? She's been gone for a while now."
Just as Edel's gleaming new white van rolled into the campsite, Charlotte's face lit up with unbridled joy. She almost dashed in front of the van, ecstatic to see Edel's return.
"Edel! You're back!"
Edel managed to slam the brakes just in time to avoid colliding with Charlotte.
"Charlotte! What are you doing?" Edel chided, quickly exiting the van.
"Where were you? It's been hours! I was worried you had left us!"
"I went to get a new van," Edel explained as she began transferring the contents of her old, broken-down van into the new one. "You shouldn't have rushed out like that. I could've been an intruder and accidentally or intentionally run you over."
"I'm sorry, Edel," Charlotte apologized, feeling bad she got Edel angry.
"You have to stop acting impulsively and recklessly," Edel admonished. "From now on, anything other than calculated decisions can get you killed."
"I know..." Charlotte bit her tongue and looked down at her hands. "I know I'm childish, impulsive, entitled, and spoiled, and I'm sorry! I understand my privileged childhood doesn't excuse that though."
Edel cast a sidelong glance at her, and beneath the growing morning light, Charlotte couldn't help but notice a stark change in Edel's complexion. Her face and cheeks appeared drained of the vibrant vitality that Charlotte had always associated with her. It was a subtle detail that she might not have noticed if not for the gentle sunlight.
It unsettled Charlotte to witness Edel in this state. She had always been accustomed to the Monclerchanteau family's grand, beautiful, and striking appearance. Now, Edel looked almost like a zombie warrior– Intimidating and cold, but lifeless.
"Just do exactly as I say, and you won't die," Edel stated before turning away.
I wonder what she was like before her family died. Charlotte pondered. And how she was like before she had burdened herself with the weight of revenge.
"Hey, Edel," Charlotte began, slightly hesitating, "I was just thinking, if we have the opportunity, could we pay our respects to the people who... passed away in the nightclub that other night? I'd like to, you know, offer our condolences to the families and friends who lost their loved ones."
"Okay," Edel replied, though it seemed like her mind was elsewhere.
"Alright... Cool... I guess I'll leave you alone now," Charlotte said, sensing that she might have been sharing too much.
I wish I could be as strong and capable as Edel, Charlotte thought, feeling somewhat disheartened. But maybe not as scarily intense as her.
------
Despite a night of sleep, Perchance still felt the persistent ache in his body. His muscles were tense, his mind foggy, and his eyes heavy with fatigue. The unwelcome intrusion of sunlight forced him out of sleep, and reluctantly, he dragged himself to his feet.
Once he managed to rise, Perchance went about his morning routine. He brushed his teeth with bottled water, splashed his face to freshen up, but deliberately left his hair untouched. Messy hair was his signature look, after all.
As he completed drying his face, Perchance turned around, only to be startled by the sudden presence of Tabo right behind him.
"Woah! You scared me!" Perchance exclaimed.
"S-sorry," Tabo apologized. "So... can you tell me?"
Perchance was about to ask what he meant by that, but he remembered yesterday. He shuddered nervously at the memories of it. However, he was determined that, for Tabo's sake, it would be better to hide the truth and keep him in blissful ignorance of his unfortunate and painful birth.
"U-unfortunately, I couldn't really find much on your past. The spiritual connection to it seems to have been cut off permanently," Perchance started, hoping Tabo wouldn't catch onto his lie. "I'm sorry. I did the best I could."
"O-oh," Tabo's face dropped immediately. "Are you sure? You didn't see a vision or anything? Not even a vision of my parents?"
"No. None at all," Perchance gulped. He was sweating at this point, and his hands became clammy. Lying was his expertise, but this time, he was doubting himself in his skill.
"Oh... okay," Tabo replied with disappointment in his voice. Perchance let out an internal sigh of relief, relieved that his lie had managed to deceive Tabo for the time being.
"I guess... maybe they're still alive? Maybe I can still find them?" Tabo's eyes lit up with hope. "I have to find them!"
"What if they're dead?" Perchance suggested. It was a suggestion that leaned on the truth, which made Perchance feel less guilty hiding the whole truth from Tabo. "What if you never find them?"
"Well... then at least I'll know who they were," said Tabo, determined. "Dead or alive. I'll find them no matter what." It broke Perchance's heart to think that Tabo might spend his entire life searching for parents he might never find. But for now, the truth remained hidden, and Perchance hoped it would stay that way.
"Thank you, Perchance," expressed Tabo. "I should train and devise a plan on what I should do next." With a new purpose in mind, he headed towards the shooting range.
"Of course..." replied Perchance, but his heart ached. A memory of Tabo's deceased mother flashed in his mind, her face wet with tears, and he felt like crying. Lying had never made him feel this guilty before, and he didn't know what to do about it.
------
"ALERT! ALERT!" Edel's laptop screen suddenly blared, startling her just as she was entering a line of code into her program. The program then displayed a line of code she needed to input in order to retrieve coordinates.
The coordinates were surprisingly close to their current location, but their window of time to get there was rapidly closing.
"EVERYONE! GET IN THE VAN! NOW! MOVE!" Edel shouted.
Sensing the urgency, Tabo, Perchance, and Charlotte dropped whatever they were doing and sprinted to the van.
"What's going on? Where are we going?" asked Charlotte, who got into the passenger's seat.
"There's going to be an attack on Westwood. We don't have much time," said Edel as she drove the engine out of the junkyard.
"Westwood? I used to live there," Charlotte whispered to herself. She kept her eyes on the road, hoping to catch a glimpse of her old house, but the scenery whizzed by too quickly for her to notice.
------
"The coordinates lead us to here. We're getting closer," said Edel as they approached what looked to be a dirty, damp alley. Homeless people scurried about, their appearance ungroomed and shaggy. Some pushed shopping carts filled with odds and ends, while others were huddled on the ground, exhibiting erratic behavior.
"H-Here?" Charlotte gulped nervously, her gaze fixed on the scene outside the window.
In a corner near a dumpster, Edel noticed a man in a black suit, a mobster, taking aim with a gun at a homeless man wearing a green beanie.
Not wanting to waste another second, Edel immediately got out of the car and dashed to the suited man, quickly disarming him with a few deft moves. However, when she got him pinned to the ground, the homeless man ran away in fear, leaving behind a small ziplock bag containing some white powder.
"Ooh... Do you think it's okay if I take that for myself?" Perchance asked from the back of the van, eyeing the bag of powder. Tabo and Charlotte gave him disapproving glares.
"Okay... nevermind," Perchance quickly backtracked and returned to his seat.
"Who are you targeting? What were your orders?" Edel interrogated, keeping the man's arms firmly pinned behind his back.
"Y-You a cop or something?" said the mobster.
"No. Now answer the question before I break all of your bones."
Just as the mobster was about to respond, distant screams pierced the air. The darkness obscured their origin, but Edel knew they had to reach the source quickly. She released the man and hurried back to the van.
"Damn it! The program gave me the wrong coordinates," she hissed. "We missed the real attack."
------
Atop a picturesque, grassy hillside sat two magnificent red brick-and-tile buildings. Their architectural style bore a resemblance to that of an Ivy League institution, yet they had a distinct West Coast charm and uniqueness. Hundreds, if not thousands, of people who were scantily clad in underwear had been densely packed on the expansive green lawn between the two buildings.
"Hey, man. Stop looking at the ground and check out all the hot girls around," a tall, young man with scruffy blonde hair and black underwear said, giving his friend beside him a playful shove. The friend, a shorter guy with thinning black hair, round glasses, and red boxers responded hesitantly, "I'm not sure, man. This is weird."
"You're thinking too much about this, man. This is fun! It's not every day we can do this!" said the taller friend. "Hey. Check out that–"
Before he could finish his sentence, his throat was brutally slashed from behind. He choked, desperately trying to control the torrent of blood gushing from his neck. Chaos erupted as everyone in the vicinity screamed and fled in terror.
"What'd you say? Jared? What–"
The shorter man turned to his right and leaped in terror when he noticed his friend's bleeding neck.
"Oh, fuck! Oh, God!" the man screamed before he spun around and locked eyes with a Masker, his knife bloodied and ready for its next victim.
"No no no no," the man begged as he stepped backward to get away. He wanted to run, but he couldn't. He was frozen in fear. "Please! Don't!" But his pleas fell on deaf ears as the Masker continued to advance, closing in on him.
Around him, the man could see other Maskers chasing people, slicing and stabbing them with no regard for their humanity. He knew without a doubt that he was going to be next.
Involuntarily, the man lost control and urinated as he stared into the Masker's menacing smile. His hearing was muffled by the screaming around him, but he was convinced he could discern the Masker's chuckling as he observed the man's humiliating reaction.
"What God? Hmph. How pitiful," the Masker said.
In the next instant, the Masker lunged at the man. He thrust his knife into the man's chest, sending him sprawling to the ground, and proceeded to slash it downward from his chest to his stomach, as though he were dissecting him like an animal carcass. The man was embarrassingly defenseless as his guts spilled out onto the concrete floor.
Amid the horrific scene below, where dozens of Maskers slashed their victims left and right, a singular Masker positioned himself in the center rooftop of the Romanesque red-brick twin-towered building — the university's main lecture hall. He held a black-haired young pale-skinned woman near the ledge with a razor-sharp knife pressed against her throat.
Around him, two police helicopters bathed him in the blinding glare of their searchlights, casting him as if he were on a grand stage.
"Put your weapon down, let the hostage go, and move away from the ledge," came the repeated command from one of the police helicopters. Additional helicopters from various news networks had also swarmed to document the harrowing scene unfolding before them. Yet, the Masker refused to budge.
"Sufferers, heretics! Rid yourself of the frailty, the purity of humanity! Pay your tithe to He who smiles, offer yourselves as the next ounce of bone in the skeleton of our community, our family, our faith! Become a superior self, or become a faded memory!" But his grandiose monologue was once again interrupted by the insistent commands from the police helicopter, much to his chagrin.
"Step away from the ledge! You're cornered! You have nowhere to run!"
"Pulsate, pulsate, pulsate! Quis venit in nomine Senyum!?" Annoyed, he seized the young woman he held hostage, slitting her throat before casting her lifeless body off the ledge for a quicker death.
The police spurred into action and leaped from their helicopters. The Masker absconded, evading gunfire and disappearing into the shadows. As the SWAT team arrived, the other Maskers had already vanished, leaving behind a sense of bewilderment among the witnesses and those who had come to stop the grisly act.
