Outside, thunder boomed loudly over the roof of the Connors' house, and the crash seemed to intensify the metallic, sweet smell of blood that now permeated the living room.
"Come here, Lillith," Bee said, slowly advancing toward the stairs with her smile still in place, but her eyes were cold. "How about we play a game?"
Max, Allison, and Sonya deployed behind her like a pack.
Lillith tilted her head, clutching the teddy bear tighter against her chest. "What kind of game?"
"Hide-and-seek," Bee replied, stopping right at the foot of the stairs, blocking the way up. "You hide, and the four of us look for you. And when we find you..." She raised a single finger. "...the game is over."
And to her surprise, Lillith blinked and then giggled. "Yes! I love hide-and-seek!"
With agility, she jumped off the last step and landed cleanly in the entryway. The four adults instantly closed in to surround her, but the girl did not show the slightest fear; on the contrary, she began to clap excitedly, as if a party were truly about to begin.
"But," she suddenly said, and her voice instantly lost all its childish nuance, taking on a strange, resonant tone that made Bee's skin crawl, "I think we should change the rules of the game a little."
!
As soon as the last word left her mouth, all the lights in the house went out simultaneously, plunging the room into absolute darkness.
The only visual relief was the pale flashes of lightning, which illuminated the scene in frames, freezing their expressions of confusion.
"Count to ten and then come look for me," Lillith's voice echoed in the darkness, seeming to come from everywhere and nowhere at once. "But I warn you... be careful. In this house, I'm not the only one playing."
"What the hell does that mean?" Allison whispered, nervously spinning around in the darkness, trying to locate the girl.
"One... two... three...," Lillith's count began, her childish voice now distorted, echo, and whisper all at once, impossible to pinpoint.
Bee clenched her teeth, mastering her own panic. "Split up! Don't let her get to the second floor! Find her!"
"Four... five... six..."
Groping the walls, Max headed heavily toward the kitchen, feeling sweat forming on his forehead. It was four armed adults against a child, but... An irrational fear was squeezing his chest!
"Seven... eight... nine..."
Meanwhile, Sonya found the knob for the basement door, opened it, and peered into an even deeper blackness. Clenching the knife in her hand, she began to descend step by step.
"TEN!"
The count ended.
But instead of a giggle, what followed was an unnatural silence.
"..."
The house became so still it was deafening—no footsteps, no breathing, and even the thunder seemed to have stopped.
Bee remained paralyzed in the center of the room, her heart pounding against her ribs. When lightning illuminated the room again, her blood ran cold.
She looked toward the rug.
The corpse of the man with the glasses... was gone. The puddle of fresh blood was still there, but the body had vanished.
"Max?" she called softly.
There was no answer.
"Allison! Sonya!"
Nothing. Just the same, absolute, terrifying silence.
An icy shiver ran down her back.
…
Meanwhile, at Crystal Lake Camp.
"..."
Lief lay awake, eyes open in the darkness, on the narrow, uncomfortable bed in the cabin.
He listened intently as the last echoes of the bonfire finally died out, giving way to the nocturnal sounds of the forest.
Carrie had retired to the girls' dormitory a while ago, and his cabin mates had succumbed to exhaustion, their deep breaths and the occasional snore filling the small space in what seemed to be the end of a perfectly normal camp day.
But Lief couldn't sleep, and it wasn't exactly because of the hardness of the mattress or the symphony of snoring surrounding him.
It was because of an inexplicable feeling, a premonition that clung to his back like a block of ice and wouldn't allow him to feel at peace.
Even the air was permeated with a strange smell…
"Is it finally going to begin?" he murmured, and a smile of pure anticipation spread across his face.
He silently got up, his ears confirming that his roommates were still fast asleep.
He slipped out of bed without making the slightest noise.
From the system space, he retrieved his two pistols, Ebony and Ivory, feeling the cold, familiar weight of the metal in his hands as he secured them.
He gently pushed open the cabin door, and immediately, the night wind hit his face, laden with the salty smell of the lake.
The camp was steeped in silence, where the only lights still shining were the faint bulbs of the administrators' dormitories.
Lief did not head toward them. Instead, he turned around and walked toward the lake shore, his intuition screaming that the real protagonist of this night would not be waiting in one of those cabins.
Just as he reached the water's edge, the moon disappeared completely behind a thick bank of black clouds, plunging the landscape into a darkness so profound that he could barely distinguish where the land ended and the water began.
And it was in that precise instant of total blindness that he heard it.
"AHHH—!"
A bloodcurdling scream ripped through the calm of the night, coming from exactly the direction of the administrators' dormitories. It was followed by a second, more muffled scream, and then a third that was cut short halfway.
Almost instantly, the screams abruptly ceased.
Lief turned his head toward the cabins just in time to see the light in the first room flicker and go out. A second later, the second room went dark. And then, the third.
The darkness spread, rapidly devouring the entire administrative area.
Boom
The silence was shattered by the sound of splintering wood.
A door in the administrators' cabin was violently kicked in, and a tall, bulky figure emerged walking from the darkness inside.
Even dozens of yards away, Lief could clearly distinguish that unmistakable silhouette: tall, sturdy as an oak, and with the pale, empty surface of a hockey mask.
Jason Voorhees.
The legendary killer of Crystal Lake, finally, was making his appearance.
In his right hand, he dragged an enormous machete, a weapon as long as his forearm and whose blade still had obvious blood on it.
Then, his hidden eyes fixed on Lief, who, of course, was already watching him intently.
"..."
The two stood staring at each other, in an absolute silence charged with a murderous intent so dense it seemed to solidify in the cold night air.
Lief broke the stillness by raising his two pistols, and a confident smile spread across his face. "Hello, big guy. I heard you really like to play games with young people."
"..."
Jason's response was silence, simply raising the dripping machete.
"Alright, seems like you're the quiet type." Lief turned his wrists, causing the weapons to make a small spin. "Then let's get right to it. The rule is simple: the one who catches the other first wins."
He winked provocatively. "Though I should warn you that the loser might have an... well, let's just say not very pleasant experience."
The moment the last provocative word left his mouth, Jason moved.
Swish
That enormous body, which looked heavy and slow, exploded with surprising speed. In a single instant, he covered the distance to the lake shore, and the machete descended in a deadly arc straight toward Lief's head.
But Lief, who was already prepared for it, threw his torso backward, avoiding the lethal slice from cracking his skull by barely a millimeter.
"Good speed!" he exclaimed, spinning around, and his two pistols roared at the same time.
Bang Bang
The bullets tore through the darkness, but Jason's reaction was supernaturally fast. He raised the enormous machete, and the bullets collided against the flat steel of the blade, exploding in a shower of orange sparks that momentarily illuminated the expressionless mask.
Lief didn't stay to admire the spectacle.
He landed from the dodge already in a full run, turning around and sprinting toward the darkness of the forest.
It wasn't a panic-stricken flight; it was a tactical maneuver.
He needed more space to move.
Jason followed him without hesitation, becoming an unstoppable locomotive of fury. Each of his steps thudded on the ground, leaving deep prints in the earth, and his speed was frankly absurd for a man his size.
A brutal chase began: one agile and fast, the other a monstrous force. Lief zigzagged through the trees, jumped over a narrow stream, and finally burst into a large clearing on the mountainside.
As if waiting for its entrance, the moon finally slipped out from behind the clouds, bathing the circular spot in a silvery, ghostly light.
It was the perfect setting for a confrontation.
Lief finally stopped and turned around, planting his feet on the damp grass, and watched as the killer entered the clearing.
Jason stopped no more than ten meters away.
"Now," Lief said, running his tongue over his dry lips, "we're going to play something truly fun."
…
Back at the Connors' house, the game continued.
Bee moved blindly through the absolute darkness, her nerves frayed and her senses on high alert, having completely lost track of her companions.
The house, a space she thought she knew like the back of her hand just minutes before, seemed to have twisted in on itself, transforming into a labyrinth where geometry made no sense.
The hallway she was moving through seemed to stretch, becoming endless, and she was sure the kitchen door was no longer where it should be.
But the most chilling thing was the sound: soft steps, like bare feet, that seemed to follow her at a safe distance.
But every time she turned abruptly, stiletto ready to strike, only the motionless darkness stared back.
"Lillith?" she called, her voice sounding forcedly calm. "It's alright, the game is over. You can come out now. We don't want to hurt you, really, we just..."
"You just want my blood?"
Lillith's voice seemed to rain down on her, coming directly from the ceiling. Bee jerked her gaze upward, but only met the dark, still plaster.
"You know what, Bee?" Lillith's voice resonated again, this time seeming to whisper from all the walls at once, an echo surrounding her. "I'm actually very grateful to you all."
"Grateful?"
"Yes. Normally, my master always tells me not to make trouble, that I have to behave like a good, ordinary little girl." The voice paused, laden with a chilling emotion. "But tonight is... different. Tonight..."
The childish tone vanished, replaced by something deep, ancient, and horrifying that vibrated in Bee's chest.
"...tonight, I finally get to let loose and have some real fun."
Barely the last syllable of that threat echoed in the darkness, a bloodcurdling scream erupted from upstairs.
Bee recognized it instantly: it was Max's voice! The scream was followed by the unmistakable sound of a large body hitting the floor, and then, nothing.
An uncontrollable tremor was born in Bee's hands.
Sweat beaded on her forehead.
Reality hit her with the force of a punch: they had never been the hunters... They were the prey.
________
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