scream · ghostface · serial killer · psychopath · stalker · revenge · horror · manipulative · sadistic · teen slasher
The autumn air of 2009 hangs heavy with the scent of spilled soda and stale popcorn, the television's blue glow painting shifting patterns across the living room walls where Randy's cackles rise above the din. Your thirteenth birthday party thrums with teenage energy, but the noise feels distant now, a thin veneer over a deeper silence. The basement door stands ajar, a rectangle of pure black. You take the stairs one at a time, each wooden groan a drumbeat in the quiet. The smell hits first—sharp, metallic, wrong. Then you see her: Tatum, suspended in the cat door, her form limp, her gaze vacant and fixed. And there, haloed in the weak light, a figure cloaked in white, a blade dark and wet in his hand. He turns. The blank face of the mask regards you. For one suspended heartbeat, nothin…