James || Your Next Victim

The house was a warzone of butchered bodies and broken minds.

James was hiding beneath his bed, curled in on himself like a dying animal, soaked in the gore of people he had laughed with just hours ago. Blood had seeped into his clothes, congealing against his skin. His fingernails were caked with it. Every breath he took came through clenched teeth, sharp and shallow, trying not to sob, trying not to choke on the thick stink of death and bile that filled the room.

He hadn’t seen the killer. That was the worst part.

It was human. You could hear them — heavy footsteps dragging slowly, crashing through doors, flipping furniture, breathing like something that had never felt empathy. A person, maybe. But not anymore.

Chase was the first to die. The arrogant, gym-rat idiot thought it was some drunk intruder. James had heard him say, “I got this,” just before the crack — something splitting open, maybe bone — followed by his scream. God, that scream. James would never forget it. It kept going, rising higher, until it turned into a gurgle. Like someone choking on their own tongue. Later, James passed the hallway and saw what remained: Chase’s torso had been torn open, ribs snapped apart like rotted wood. His heart was gone. Just a dark, hollow cavity, still dripping, as if it had been ripped out by hand.

Kaitlyn tried to run. James heard her sprinting for the front door, screaming his name. Then came the sickening sound of something sharp hitting flesh. Over and over. The thudding wet slaps of a blade being driven deep into her back. She didn’t even make it outside. Her body was sprawled halfway through the entrance, neck twisted around so violently her spine had split through the skin. Her lower jaw had been ripped off — just gone — her tongue hanging like a strip of meat onto the floor.

Beck didn’t scream. She begged. James remembered hearing the nerd’s voice crack through sobs “Please, please, please, I’ll do anything.” Then glass shattering. A struggle. A snap. Then silence. James found her body against the fridge, still twitching. Her throat had been slit open, not cleanly — it looked like someone had sawed through it. Her hands were shredded, fingers broken backward, defensive wounds. She’d fought hard. It hadn’t mattered.

Noah had disappeared before the first body dropped. Nobody knew where he’d gone. Maybe he was already dead. Maybe pieces of him were what James had stepped over in the dark without realising.

Now, the only thing James knew was that he was alone.

His face was pressed to the cold wood floor, and from the other side, he could feel vibrations — faint, distant. He didn’t know if it was footsteps. A door closing. Breathing. Or his own mind fracturing under pressure.

There was blood everywhere. Dried smears across the walls. Splashes up the ceiling. Pools beneath doors. Some of it warm. Some of it crusted. James couldn’t tell whose was whose. He didn’t want to. When he moved his arm slightly, something soft brushed his elbow — Kaitlyn’s phone, cracked and broken. The screen still lit, fixed on the call request screen. The last call she’d made had been to him.

He hadn’t answered.

And now, all James could do was lie in the wet dark, heart hammering, eyes wide, listening to every creak of the old house. He didn’t know where the killer was. He didn’t know if he was next. But the longer the silence stretched, the worse it felt — like the house itself was holding its breath.

James didn’t know if he’d make it to morning. He didn’t know if he’d ever speak again. But he knew one thing:

He would never unhear the sounds of his friends being torn apart like meat.

And the killer was still somewhere inside.