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Alone in a part of the woods just out of range, faint yelling is hardly heard to the rest of the world. Only Jake and Aiden are the ones present here.
“And-… and maybe if your personality wasn’t so godawful, he wouldn’t avoid you like the plague!” Aiden is barking back at Jake, looking up at him with frustration that can’t be contained any longer. “You’re so delusional! Have you ever thought that maybe he doesn’t like you because you’re crazy?!”
Jake doesn’t respond in words, any argument he might’ve had was shut quiet and his lips were just slightly parted, eyes wide like a deer in the headlights.
“It’s not my fault he doesn’t like you. You need to get over yourself, seriously.” Aiden scoffed, flash of anger burning out into a fizzle and he feels exhausted all of a sudden. Just talking to Jake completely drains his energy, and he swiftly walks past him— shoving his shoulder into Jake’s arm.
Jake is silent still, and his lip twitches, the whites of his eyes glazed over in some state of dissociation. He looked as if someone had snapped a picture with the flash on, and his terror and shock were forever immortalized.
That is, until the printed photograph hits the sun and goes black.
“…He just doesn’t love you, Jake. Get over it.” Aiden says coldly, and honestly. It feels more genuine than out of a place of anger, and that’s the worst part.
Jake’s sullen and unmoving expression suddenly shifts, and he bares his teeth. He looks as if somebody has stabbed him, and he’s writhing in irrational rage. His pupils are as small as the pinpoint of a needle, and when his teeth part— when his mouth opens— he only gets out one word.
“…Aiden.” Jakes voice hardly wavers. He is so manic he almost sounds calm when he says the name. He calls after Aiden to make sure he doesn’t get away, and Aiden begrudgingly stops in his tracks.
Aiden lets put an exasperated breath through his nose and turns around reluctantly, but open to conversation. Or at least, open to having the last word.
“What—“ Before Aiden is even aware, before the words can leave his lips, his eardrums scream and he feels cold, harsh metal against the side of his head. His brain hits his skull, and his eyes go blank.
Aiden isn’t conscious for that second, and he has no idea what hit him until he sees it gleaming with blood in the moonlight— which peers through the trees surrounding them.
His vision is blurred, and he hardly even realized he was on the ground. When he is aware of his surroundings, his bloodshot eyes stare upward to the sight above him.
Jake stands with a metal baseball bat which he lifted from where it laid against the storage shed near them. He is holding it above his head, blocking the moonlight behind them. The bat drips with a stream of blood, and Aiden feels some kind of glimpse of fear. Is that his blood? Is he bleeding?
Sputtered against his cheek, few drops of blood litter Jake’s face. The darkness of the night doesn’t shield its dark red color, and Aiden feels sick to his stomach. The moment his fuzzy brain remembers what nausea feels like, he’s horrified.
He faintly whines, slowly trying to lift a hand to his forehead. With shaking fingers, he touches the open wound on his forehead and winces.
“…Tom loves me.” Is the first thing Jake says when he finally talks again, and Aiden can’t even process the words. His brain struggles as it bleeds from a gaping wound. “…He’s only using you to make me jealous.“
Aiden attempts to squirm from his spot on the cold ground, but his body betrays him. He fumbles, no strength remaining in his arm. His nerves all shot, Aiden is whimpering in primal fear, only able to stare at his attacker.
“You’re just a distraction…” Jake speaks coldly, and his eyes lack any color. Pupils shrunk, they are black and empty. Fury behind his gaze, he looks down at Aiden in contempt. Aiden’s ears are continuously ringing, and he can’t hear a thing Jake is saying. The wind is suddenly so cold, and the blood dripping down his forehead is so hot.
“Once you’re out of the way…“ Jake speaks, blind rage bordering on excitement at the idea. “…he can look at me again.”
The words manage to get through the crack in Aiden’s skull, and insert themselves into the veins lacing his brain. Adrenaline cannot find him, and he kicks his feet weakly to try and scoot away.
He has managed to roll onto his stomach, and uses his trembling fingers to cling at strands of grass. He is grasping at the floor in an attempt to pull himself away.
In his terror, he is gasping and crying quietly. His voice hardly comes out, unable to scream, he instead meekly pleads out.
“Tom…” Aiden begs, grasping at nothing, eyes unfocused and drifting downward.
The name that escapes his lips does not fall on deaf ears, and Jake reacts with little hesitation. With a twitching eye, he lifts the bat behind his head. He swings it swiftly downward, and Aiden all-but screams as it thuds against his head for a second time.
Adrenaline finds him too late, and the blood that has not splattered on Jake’s bat has started pumping aggressively through his veins. He is gagging and rasping out sounds of primal terror.
The noises do nothing but blur the gentle sounds of the forest. Jake’s ears are ringing too, all he can hear is his own breathing. He does not wait another moment before slamming the bat down a third time.
And then a fourth.
…and Aiden is no longer breathing.
Bleeding from his head and mouth, his neck is strained in an unnatural way. One of his hands is still clasping the grass in a death grip. The other hand twitches once when Jake brings down the bat again.
Jake is no longer conscious either, and all he can see is the blood which has contorted Aiden’s skull into a mutilated mass of brain matter. Blood splatters onto Jake’s face and buds at his eyelashes. He doesn’t blink once, eyes wide open and unfocused.
The previous noise of a thud turns into a splat. Jake continuously hits Aiden’s head with the bat, over and over.
Splat.
Splat.
Splat.
He lifts the bat, his arm strains as if the bat has suddenly become heavy. His burst of manic energy fizzles out, and he nearly wheezes out a strangled breath. He pants as his arms lower one more time, and he is unable to lift the bat another time. His arm rests at his side, and he releases his tight grip on the bloodied bat. It falls to the grass with a dull thud.
Jake’s chest heaves as he recovers from his outburst. His pupils expand, and he blinks the droplets of blood away from his eyelashes. His vision adjusts to the cool darkness of the woods, and the color red becomes more noticeable.
His heart is pounding loudly, and it slowly drowns out the sound of the prior ringing in his ears. Wind wisps through the trees and into Jake’s lungs, grounding him in reality again. He starts to meekly tremble as he becomes aware of his surroundings.
“…h.. ha…” Terrified breaths escape his lips, and his expression shifts. His focus is shifted to Aiden’s corpse beneath him, blood pools at the dirt below him. “…no… oh no.. no no no no…” Jake’s murmurs increase in volume as his terror grows larger.
He is quickly to buckle his knees, kneeling down next to Aiden’s side. His heavy breathing becomes more akin to hyperventilating, and he shakes Aiden’s shoulder. “A-Aiden? …oh god, Aiden! Aiden, wake up! Wake up, please, pleaseplease…” He begs, deluding himself into thinking there was a possibility Aiden wasn’t yet dead.
“Ai- Aiden!” Jake cries out, voice breaking in fear. He flips Aiden’s body over, and his head falls limp onto the ground. His eyes are completely bloodshot, opened wide and nearly rolled to the back of his head. His mouth hangs open, blood drips from his mouth and nose. He is unmoving and limp, cold in Jake’s tight grip.
Seeing his lifeless expression causes Jake to immediately let go of his shoulder with a yelp. He whimpers frantically, falling back on his butt and scooting away from Aiden’s fresh corpse. His warm bloody hands meet the cold and dirty ground.
“Aaahh..!” Jake sobs loudly, shaking his head but is unable to break eye contact with Aiden’s body. “Ohh god! Oh god, what did I do?! Wh- what have I done?”
His abdomen aches and his head starts pulsing, his senses finally catching up with him. He feels like vomiting, but he’s so scared he can’t even feel his fingers any longer. His eyes dart from the wound in Aiden’s head, to the metal bat on the ground, to the sky adorned with stars.
“…W-What do I do?” Jake whines, and his vision blurs with tears. Streaming down his face, tears mix with blood and drip from his chin.
“Tom… Tom… Tom is going to hate me…”