Chapter Text
I couldn’t remember the last time I’d slept soundly without nightmares. Every time I closed my eyes it was some new hellishly creative way my brain came up with to torture me. Sometimes it was my batshit crazy ex boyfriend breaking in again to finish what he started. Sometimes it was Kurt and Ram, the two former star football players of Westerburg High, bloody and asking “why? why did you kill us?”. But mostly it was the face of my late frenemy, Heather Chandler, mocking me.
“You killed me and then couldn’t stomach the guilt? Tch, typical. You’ve always been a goddamn pillowcase.” I had spent more hours than I could count laying awake, too scared to fall asleep. Which brings us to now, with me standing in a graveyard in the pitch black darkness, in front of a pink granite headstone that reads ‘Heather E Chandler’. My stomach twists with a mix of guilt and sadness. We may have fought often, but I never wanted her dead. She wasn’t always awful, outside of parties and school, sometimes she really was just a normal high school kid. And I’d never say it out loud but I really did miss the few moments of genuine friendship we’d had. I pull a large, beat up, leather bound book out of my bag and flip open to the bookmarked page. The whole thing was in latin, but Heather Macnamara(god knows where she had found the damn thing) had helped me translate it. The translation, of course, was rough and flawed, but from what we gathered it was a simple spell to summon someone’s ghost back for an hour. Obviously I had low expectations on whether or not this would work, but it was worth a shot if it meant getting any kind of closure. I take a deep breath and start to read from the page. The temperature immediately drops at least 10°, and I can see my breath as I read. I shake off the little bit of fear gathering in the pit of my stomach and continue the spell. The air has gotten painfully cold, and my hands are glowing now, shaking as I turn the page. The moment I read the last words, the ground shakes violently, tossing me to the ground. The soft earth at the base of the headstone begins to split, and a hand reaches up. I can’t even scream, I’m too frozen in terror, because that does not look like a ghost. The crack in the ground grows wider, and slowly an arm emerges, followed by a head and shoulders, until an entire body climbs out and falls at my feet. The body raises its head and I’m staring into the cool grey eyes of Heather Chandler.
“Veronica?” Her voice is hoarse, and before I can reply she pitches forward and coughs up a mouthful of nasty blue sludge. All over my boots. It takes all of my self control and a few deep breaths to not vomit too, but I lean forward and press my fingers to the side of her neck. Her skin is cool and clammy, but underneath my fingers is a faint pulse. She’s alive .