chapter eight: the mighty must fall

MONDAY: October 21st, 2026,
3:00pm woodsboro local diner

The booth was a tight space but for the most part everyone was perfectly seated inside. The absence of Nadia and Kieran made a select few anxious, for the most part it made Benjamin a lot more nervous. He remembered the words the girl mustered to him yesterday when he ran into her. Secret agents and detectives, he didn't truly believe it meant her and Kieran wouldn't show up for the weekly meeting.

Every week on Monday everyone would meet at the diner and for the most part it's been going perfectly well until today. Benjamin dreaded Mondays with a passion and that only added to his nervous behavior. "Any signs of Kieran and Nadia yet? I don't have all day to be sitting here in this dingy diner".

Claire looked at her fingernails as she smirked "honey you're the only dingy thing in here" Angel glared at Claire "bitch! If anyone's dingy it's you, might as well be called a slut too with the amount of people you've slept with". Benjamin shouted when he felt something wet hit his face, he regretted horribly sitting beside Angel as he coughed.

"Bitch you missed!" Benjamin grunted when he was pushed out of the booth. His body collided with the ground as he heard the loudness of Claire and Angel shouting at each other. Alexandra rolled her eyes "Enough! We don't have time for you two to throw a bitch fit, if you're gonna fight do it outside! Everyone else is actually here to be helpful!".

Claire huffed in annoyance "I'm the only one here who is even being helpful! We all know it's likely Angel running around trying to kill us. I'd be doing us all a favor by kicking her ass!". Angel jumped at Claire, the girls both grunting as they collided into the table. Andy awkwardly yelped when he moved out of the way before he was kicked in the head.

"You fucking bitch! My hair!" Claire punched Angel in the face angrily as the girl pulled at her hair "screw your stupid hair extensions! Mommy and daddy will buy you new ones!". Benjamin clinged onto Andy when he felt the boys hand grasping onto his arm to help him get off the floor.

"Gosh I hate Mondays" he shouted when another pile of water hit his face "what the fuck!". Andy pulled him back as Benjamin's sunglasses flew off his face and collided on the ground. Alex being the only brave enough guy pulled Angel and Claire apart which ended up with his face being brutally punched.

The boy groaned as he let go of Claire and pressed his hand against his swollen nose. Gwen laughed as she pointed her phone at the two girls who were fighting and recorded "gosh my followers are gonna love this".

Alexandra smacked her hand down angrily onto the table "guys! We're being hunted down by ghostface, we can't afford to be fighting each other!". Claire pushed Angel angrily into the table "screw this, you guys can all die for all I care! I'm outta here! I'm not staying here with this crazy bitch!".

She stormed off towards the doorway, Angel didn't even speak she angrily stormed off outside. "Well at least we can talk now" Alexandra sighed as she looked at Andy, the boy awkwardly smiled as he sat back down into the booth.

Alex pressed a napkin against his nose "remind me to never break up a fight again". Gwen sighed as she looked at Alex "I don't think it's broken, and if you wanna press charges I've got all the footage on my phone. We could totally win the case".

Everyone laughed softly at the girl's words and she looked around "what? I mean it, I seriously think we could win a case". Alex smiled softly "we don't have to do that Gwen, it's just a bloody nose".

Gwen smiled sadly "I really wanted to go to court, I could've worn such a cute outfit and made us match. Oh well I guess we can match for the Halloween batch instead... Wait, we're all still going to that right? I didn't have my parents buy me a limo for nothing!".

Vivian, who had spent half of the time sitting awkwardly alone in the back of the booth pressed down on the letters on her voice machine.

"The Halloween bash is still happening?".

Benjamin coughed up water and Andy patted his back as the boy hunched over the table. "You alright?" Benjamin threw up a thumbs up as he smiled weakly. Vivian smiled as she covered her mouth, Benjamin laughed "it's drunk Kermit the frog!".

The boy smiled as he felt Vivian's hand slap his lightly, he lifted his hand upwards and smirked when they successfully did a high five. "That should be your costume Viv, Kermit the frog. I could make a pretty hot miss piggy. But unfortunately my costumes are a surprise, for the most part I hope I ordered the right size, my little sister keeps tricking me by telling me I'm ordering the right things and then when they show up it's a cursed dress that doesn't fit. I've gone through five costumes, I just hope when it shows up tomorrow it's actually the right one".

Alexandra pushed her cup towards Andy when the boy pointed at it. "Still haven't figured out what I'm gonna wear yet, honestly at this rate I'm kinda dreading the whole dance". Gwen smirked slightly "I mean we could ditch! Have a party at my place and get wasted, we can all still wear costumes and I can invite half of the school to show up".

Benjamin groaned "I hate parties, and doesn't all of the stab movies literally end at a party? All of the characters start dying one by one all because they wandered off all alone into a creepy basement". Gwen scoffed "if the killers crash my party I'll be pissed! Do you have any idea how expensive a costume is! I need to at least wear it for six hours before someone tries murdering me! I mean have some respect!".

Alex chuckled "your costume wasn't even that expensive, well you did buy like four...". Gwen smiled "I gotta have options! Changing into something new every hour will make us win the Halloween costume contest. I'll be the Gwen to your Peter, we'll be an unstoppable duo".

Alex smiled "I'll be sure to catch you". Benjamin turned his head slightly at the sound of the door chiming open, the strong stench of gasoline filled his nostrils and it made his head ache. Everyone was so lost in talking and Benjamin felt anxious as the scent increased "guys... I don't think we should stay here".

He tugged on Andy's arm and the scent was so strong his nose scrunched in disgust. Andy looked at Ben with concern "what's wrong?". Everything turned dark and cloudy in a matter of seconds.

—

"It's proven that the DNA on the first murder weapon is unknown, the same goes for the second weapon they found at the place Ben was attacked. Only difference is that one has Alixs DNA but it's proven the knife is from her kitchen. Which means whoever the killer is, they ended up in her house at one point".

"Do you have any idea how many times someone could've gone into her house? It could be anyone from the club or even someone entirely different". Kieran pushed the laptop shut as he looked up at Nadia, the girl's gaze was looking down at old newspaper articles as she wrote down into her notepad. "Back in the 2000s the killer used photographs to leave at the crime scene. Every single one had the victim's blood on the back with the same words over and over again".

She flipped over the newspaper and Kieran looked at the photo. "Corey Becker" the boy let out a light breath as he tapped his fingers along the table. "Okay but it was proven the killer was the guy's husband at the time, so it makes sense his name was on the back of all those photographs".

Nadia huffed "you're not seeing the big picture here, all of the clues lead to that one person. The star of the movie, it was stab 3 back then but now it's likely stab ten or eleven. Whichever movie is next.. you get the point". Kieran grabbed a hold of the newspaper "except the killer hasn't really gone in a stab like pattern, they always start with someone dying. No one's died yet, just emotionally scarred. They keep attacking us but no one's like died from it".

"Yet, I spent all night reading articles and researching on ghostface and none of the patterns match ours. Which means the killers are doing their own twist, a reboot if you wanna use fancy movie talk. They're following the play, everyone who's been attacked so far their character in the play suffers from an event".

Kieran looked at the screenplay that rested beside the enormous pile of newspapers and photos. "How much coffee have you had exactly? Did you actually go through the entire script?". Nadia shrugged "it was easy, I color coded all the characters and tabbed the scenes where they die".

She opened the script "act one, Vivian's character loses her voice due to not speaking up for her people. Then in act two Benjamin's character's eyes are taken away after he seeks revenge for his people being killed by Vivian's people. So far those two are the only ones who were actually attacked fully".

She turns the script by a few pages "next was Andy's character, his wasn't anything major but his character suffered from stomach illness and died. He was stabbed in the stomach at the hospital! Gwen's character is killed by her husband when he pushes her off a cliff and she suffers from bleeding out to death. Then it takes another three acts before the next character is attacked and that's Angel. She loses both of her hands when she steals from a witch, of course Alexandra plays the witch and her character never dies. So she might actually be the only lucky one of us all. If it's following a pattern at least".

Kieran sighed deeply "I don't like this, the whole thing seems so pointless and stupid". Nadia chuckled "well it just proves we're right about one thing. The killer is someone from the club, they know the script perfectly, so it could be anyone".

She pushed the script closed as she looked outside her kitchen window "everyone dies in the play except Alixs character and mine. Dia, I think you should stick close to me, I don't need these fuckers killing you because of some words on a page".

She sighed "I die last in the play, I die in the arms of my husband because he poisoned me thinking I was a witch. Talk about a more painful way of going out. Where does someone even get poison?".

Kieran smiled weakly "it's pretty easy to get actually, it's like drugs only they're a lot more permanent". Nadia rolled her eyes playfully "because you're dead, of course they're permanent".

She stood up off the stool and stretched "wait so who's all left? We went over all the deaths in the play?". Nadia looked at Kieran "just Alex and Claire, you don't die so you don't really count. Alex is hanged by the village for murdering Gwen's character and then Claire is the last one who dies. She gets burned to death for being accused as a witch, but Claire said it herself, her character comes back in the end. So does it really count?".

Kieran picked up his phone "shit it's past three, we were supposed to meet everyone at the diner". Nadia looks outside her kitchen window "is that smoke?". Kieran frowns deeply as he stands up and moves towards the window "where's that coming from? What's over in that part of town?".

Kieran looked down at his phone then back towards the window "wait you don't think....". They look at each other with worry "the diner".

—
authors notes:
Everyone gasp because I posted early for once, at least in my time zone lol. Normally I post this at like 4am, but for once it's 5pm so I'm proud! We get a full on Nadia and Kieran detective montage next chapter and I can't wait to write it. Also after a lot of drafts and planning I've decided who's gonna die, it's gonna happen at random times so look out for that. Also there's a lot of foreshadowing in this chapter that regards peoples deaths or almost deaths.

TO ENSURE YOU'VE READ THIS!
answer this question (required)
Does your oc drink alcohol? (I know this is a dumb ass question but for the Halloween bash I imagine everyone's gonna be drinking so I wanna be true to the characters and follow what they would do at a party. Whether it's drinking or not drinking or just down right not drinking so they can be sober in case ghostface shows up).