swine | ☆

○ chapter 13. ●

CWs: None.

and we're finally to the fun part. from this chapter onward, things will get either easier or harder depending on how youve been reading this book so far. more characters to suspect, more clues given out, more sentences to look at and ask "is this important or is this the author just shit at his job?"

also i made the fatal mistake of giving yall a specific outfit this chapter. please forgive me if i butchered your style im begging.

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The calm before the storm.

Y/n laid in bed with his limbs spread out, feeling oddly at peace with everything. Chris wasn't home, The Swine wasn't sitting on his counter or hovering over him, his phone was dinging faintly from text messages between his friends on the group chat, and that's all he needed. Everything, for now, was okay.

He teased the idea of rolling over and picking up his phone to look at the messages, but his body didn't want to move, and neither did he.

This feeling, whatever it was, was a newer sensation for Y/n. Something he'd felt before, but was lost in the years of grief and fear.

Somewhere back in time, when... that had happened, Y/n thought that he'd never recover. That there would never be any joy in his life, because how could he feel it again? How could he experience happiness while having to live with the knowledge that one of his closest friends would never live with that feeling again? Would never live again?

But as the people around him made progress with getting through the grief process, so did he. And now Y/n was - even with everything going on - okay. At least, he wasn't doing as bad as he was.

Y/n's thoughts were interrupted by his ringtone, catchy at one point but now a headache as it reminded him that there was still a world outside of his bedroom. A world with an extremely small population of people who would probably care if he suddenly disappeared off of the face of the Earth.

Ignoring those... interesting thoughts, he picked up the phone, which produced a sudden, familiar noise of the end of a call not started. He'd barely gotten a glimpse of the call screen before it switched back to his home screen. Huh.

The notification for a missed call popped up belatedly, and the profile name was, lo and behold, three pink hearts.

Y/n groaned, opening up his messages and staring at the text he'd received, which read:

Just making sure you're paying attention to your phone :)

The previous texts from just a few minutes ago were simple, wishing Y/n luck at the party (which, correct him if he's wrong, he didn't recall telling The Swine about, but the serial killer seemed to know everything anyway, so why be surprised?) and reminding him to watch his drinks.

The latter of both texts was... ominous. Well-known, but still good, advice that would've been kind-hearted had it been from literally anyone else. A serial killer telling someone to watch their drink at a party did not paint a pretty picture.

Y/n didn't bother tapping out a reply. After all, The Swine said not to block the number, but nothing about actually responding to it. And Y/n had no intention to do so. Now or ever.

Instead, he opened up the group chat, which was still housing a consistent conversation about what the "game plan" was for the party. From the looks of it, everyone planned to stay loosely together and to beat the shit out of anyone who looked suspicious. In a hyperbolic sense, of course.