When Holly-Eve finished her sentence, her face became demented like the night that thing had visited Violet and Charlie. ‘Holly’ laughed at Violet as if it was waiting for her to join in. In some sick way, it thought of them as old friends. Violet was one of its favorites now considering she played along so well last time.
“You want to stop me, Violet?” it whined, “Well the game is only over when I say it is! Just try to stop me. I dare you.” ‘Holly’ cackled in her face. “Just kidding! You already had a dare, Violet. Oh no, you’re getting truth, friend! I like to shake my games up. I get bored soooooo easily. I just have to change things up, but you know a lot about that don’t you?”
‘Holly’s’ head began to tilt to the side as she continued to look at Violet with wild eyes. When her neck should have naturally stopped moving, the girl’s head continued to tip until a SNAP broke the silence and a bone tried breaking through the skin. “Always hopping from friend group to friend group… Everyone says you’re so brave, but just how fearless could you be when you won’t even talk about your mother?”
Holly-Eve’s face was, unexpectedly, resting naturally once more. Had Violet triggered something for it to go away? When it seemed for a split moment that the thing had ran off, something called her from behind.
“Tell her why you really never had friends until now.” Mrs. Matthews (or whatever she was going by now) stood in the same outfit Violet had last seen her in before walking out on her family. The grotesque smile on her face let Violet know that this wasn’t really her back for her daughter, but there was something still very unsettling about the hallucination.
“You’re not so brave as you pretend to be, Violet.” another voice joined in. Suddenly, a swarm of Violet’s mothers circled around the two girls.
“Tell her how I ruined you and your father.” they all demanded collectively as they continued to glare at the blonde. “Tell her, Violet. Tell her.”
As soon as Violet heard an out of place laugh coming from Holly, she knew what was happening. The look on the girl’s face only further cemented things. The truth or dare demon had chosen that moment to pop into another body of someone she cared about, and tragically she didn’t even time to try and turn the tables on it.
Not again, she thought to herself as the taunting began. Opening her mouth to speak up and demand a truth, Violet was taken aback by how she was given no choice, and made a mental note of that fact. As she’d come to realize, any truth was better than a dare, and since there really wasn’t anything that Holly couldn’t know, so Vi crossed her arms and waited to see what life-ruining secret the demon could be possibly trying to get her to reveal when she really didn’t have any.
Her life had been perfectly bland up until she’d joined the Murder Club. She went to school, she went home, she did her homework, she talked to her dad, she ignored all invites to socialize outside of school, she watched movies and ate meals with her dad. Wash. Rinse. Repeat. What did the demon think was going to be big enough to ruin her friendship with Holly?
Violet tried to keep her eyes trained on the demon for as long as possible just in case it pulled some sketchy shit, but she absolutely had to look away when her neck began to twist beyond any reasonable range of motion. She liked to think that she could see a lot, but hearing the distinct sound of breaking bone made her instantly aware that she drew a hard line at that. She didn’t dare to look up, knowing it was just some hallucination but fearful anyway. She didn’t want to see something that she couldn’t unsee.
Except the demon was already one step ahead of her there. She should have known as soon as the word mother had come out of not-Holly’s mouth that she was going to have to come face to face with the shadowy figure from her past that was her mom, but... previously the demon had only jumped into her dad and the television. It hadn’t materialized into something out of her super repressed memories.
“Holly-” Vi spoke up, finally daring to look up at the girl. Not at her mom. Not yet. “I don’t know if you can hear me but it’s here. And apparently it loves eavesdropping.”
Knowing that the demon wasn’t about to let her not engage in a stare-down, and absolutely aware that her survival instincts were screaming at her to play along, Violet finally glanced at the figure. And then there were more of them, circling and hurling words that were clearly meant to hurt at her. Rude.
The most jarring thing was seeing her mother’s face. She was a figure Vi had long buried in her past, including every photo that had existed of her. She had almost been able to forget what she’d looked like over the past 10 years, but seeing her in those clothes... Violet knew that outfit. She had replayed that night in her mind for so long, wondering what she had done to make her mother leave. How she could have stopped her. Why she didn’t get to leave too.
She was about to sorely disappoint this demon fuck.
“It didn’t ruin me when my mom left,” she started, looking pointedly at each of the Caroline Matthewses surrounding her before looking over to Holly. “I don’t know how much of this you know but she left when I was six. The whole town couldn’t stop talking about it like it was some major scandal. And I guess it kind of was. She left me and she left my dad and I still don’t know why. I stopped wondering why a long time ago. It’s not like it didn’t impact me. I know I stay out of the spotlight to avoid being the subject of town gossip again. Like, thanks YouTube videos on how to psychoanalyze yourself. I’m aware now. But I’ve accepted it. She’s gone. She isn’t coming back.” It probably should have been concerning how unemotional Vi was when talking about her mother’s abandonment, but she had stayed up for so many nights sobbing about it in the past, running the water in her bathroom while she sat there just so her father couldn’t hear. After ten whole years you move on.
“But my dad?” she pivoted to ask, eyes narrowing as she made one thing explicitly clear to the demon in the room. “He’s the one who is always there for me... supposed to be, at least. And since this demon is trying to mess with that too, yes. I am coming for it. And it will cease to exist. Soon.”