"I swear to god, it's like everyone just wants to ruin my life."

Evie, Danny and Cindy were in charge of cleaning the mess hall in preparation for colour war that night, and Cindy was still getting all of her feelings of her chest. Evie was wiping windows and pretending to listen, and Danny was wiping down tables and actually listening while Cindy scrubbed the floor.

Cindy and Danny had this weird flirty thing going on, everyone was convinced they were dating. Evie knew both of them fairly well, and she couldn't really see it, but she also didn't want to ask. She didn't quite know why, but she was scared of what the answer would be.

"Alice, she just like... she just won't let it go, you know? It's like we're still twelve years old and her whole goal in life is to punish me for something that wasn't even my fault!"

Alice and Cindy had been friends in middle school, not as close as Evie had been with the redheaded girl, but still close nonetheless. The details for why exactly they had stopped being friends were fuzzy and, if she was being honest, Evie didn't really care. She loved Cindy, and she was always happy to listen to her talk about whatever was bothering her, but if Evie devoted the energy to actually caring about Cindy's grievences then Evie would have no energy to care about her own shit.

Big things, of course, Evie was all in on. But hearing Cindy complain about Alice wasn't one of those big things.

"I can't believe you guys used to be friends," Danny said.

"And Ziggy!" Cindy groaned. "I mean, it's only a matter of time before she ends up in jail or worse. And I'm just trying to be a good role model and make something of myself but no! No, I'm the stuck up priss who hates fun, which isn't even true at all! I like fun. I like fun! I just... I just want to get out of Shadyside. Is that so crazy?" Cindy gasped and Evie finally turned, seeing her friend on her knees with her sponge split in half. "Shit!"

Now, that was new. In all her years of knowing her, Evie had never, not once, heard Cindy Berman curse. She didn't even say god, instead using gosh or goodness or even one time 'oh my days.'

Danny laughed. "Did the Cindy Berman just swear?"

"Wow, look at you," Evie raised her eyebrows. "All it took was a sponge."

Cindy scowled. "Not now! Not in the mood!" She stormed off to the storeroom."

They both finished up in their areas and moved onto the next one in tandem. "I hope I didn't really upset her," Danny said genuinely.

Evie shrugged. "She'll be fine, you just gotta let her get it all out, that's the biggest part." A door slammed in the kitchen and Evie spun around, expecting to see Cindy. "God, this place is haunted," she shook her head.

They told ghost stories about that camp, the fact that Sarah Fier had been hanged on the grounds was reason enough for people to believe the place was cursed.

"Danny!" Cindy's voice echoed from the storeroom. "Is that you?"

Both of them turned just in time to see Cindy come out and stand in front of them, looking to where they had been cleaning before she left. "Evie, this isn't funny."

Evie frowned. "You okay?"

Cindy whirled around, breathing a sigh of relief when she saw her two friends.

The door to the kitchen creaked open and Evie relaxed a little bit when she saw it was just Nurse Mary. That relaxation lasted less than one second, though, because then she saw the knife in her hand.

Danny instinctively stepped out in front of the two girls. "Nurse Lane?"

The nurse spoke with a faraway voice, clutching the knife firmly by the handle. "I'm sorry, but I can't save you."

Cindy started shaking as Nurse Mary took a few steps forward. "I saw your name," she continued. "I saw it on the wall. One way or another, you're gonna die tonight."

The part that scared Evie the most was that Nurse Mary sounded genuinely sorry, genuinely scared. Like she had no choice.

"What are you talking about?" Danny sked, trying to keep his voice even.

She didn't answer, instead, lunging straight for him. If it had been Cindy or Evie, they would've been dead, but Danny was a lot bigger than Nurse Lane, and he managed to grab the hand Nurse Lane was holding the knife and keep her from plunging it into his chest.

He hit it out of her hand and it spun across the floor, landing right in front of Cindy. Nurse Mary didn't let that stop her, screaming as she wrapped her hands around Danny's neck.

He fell under her weight, landing on one of the tables before sliding off and hitting the ground. Nurse Mary was on top of him, squeezing the life out of his throat until he managed to shove her off, her head snapping back into one of the wooden benches.

Nurse Mary fell, limp. Danny was bleeding from the back of his head and Evie rushed forward to see if he was okay. Her first instinct, ironically, was to make him go to the nurse's office.

Obviously that was off the table.

Mary was hauled away, handcuffed, on a stretcher into an ambulance. Danny was interviewed by the only police officer between the two towns (there used to be two, but one of them died), and Evie and Cindy stood by his side the whole time. "You got some kind of history with her? She had a grudge against you or something?"

Danny shook his head. "No grudge. No, we barely ever talked. I... I go to get bug spray from her," he couldn't wrap his head around it. "That's it. It just doesn't, it doesn't make any sense."

Danny's hand was encased in Cindy's, more for her benefit if you asked Evie. "Why would she do something like this?"

Officer Kapinski shrugged. "She was nuts, just like her kid."

Everybody knew the story of Nurse Lane's daughter. When Evie was four years old, a seventeen year old Ruby had reportedly gone crazy and killed a bunch of her friends before slashing her wrists.

Evie didn't want to believe that Nurse Mary had gone nuts just like her daughter. She didn't know her very well, but she had always been kind.

"She never seemed crazy," Cindy pressed.

"That's what she said about her kid," Officer Kapinski pointed out. "But sane people dont chop up their friends. Now, tell me again what happened."

Evie had already given her statement to the cops, so she stood up and left, heading straight for the redhead under the tree. "Are you okay?"

Ziggy looked surprised. "Why do you give a shit?"

Evie knew the answer, but she also didn't think Ziggy would appreciate it. Cindy was Evie's best friend, but Evie often found herself in the position of Cindy's little sister.

Shirley had been very different from Cindy, polar opposites in fact, but the feelings had been the same. "I'm not a bitch?"

"I'm fine," Ziggy bristled.

"I know you and Nurse Lane were friends," Evie started, but before she could finish, another voice spoke up.

"You and Nurse Psycho were close, weren't you, witch?" This was probably the girl that had given Ziggy the burn that sat under the bandage on her forarm. "Guess you can visit her in jail now."

"Fuck off, Sheila." Ziggy snapped.

Evie could tell that if she wasn't right there, as a counselor that Sheila would have done a lot worse. Instead, she just sneered, "you might want to check your stuff, by the way. I think there was an accident in cabin five." And stalked off with her friends in tow.

Ziggy ran off to her cabin and left Evie standing there under the tree. Julia, Gary and Joan were huddled close by, Tommy was standing with Val a few feet away, and Cindy's gaze hadn't left her body since Evie had gone to see Ziggy. She ignored all of them, though, and crossed her arms.

She didn't want to believe in curses, she knew there was some sort of sociological reason they had more murders and psychos and horror in Shadyside, but it was hard to shake the idea.

Everyone said the reason Ruby Lane had gone crazy was Sarah Fier, and Sarah Fier had been hanged a hundred feet through the trees.

Evie didn't want to believe in curses, but it seemed the curse didn't care whether or not she believed in it or not.

────────── ⋆˚✿˖° author's note
hii!! we're getting into the deeper stuff now which i am quite excited by, it took me a while to properly ease into evie's mindset throughout this act but i'm really getting places and i am excited for you guys to fully learn what her deal is and why she is the way she is. with maddie i took a lot of time providing the context at the beginning so she kinda always felt like a fleshed out character but with evie i wanted it to be somewhat more like how the rest of them are in this film where they give hints but reveal bigger things towards the end

also i am unsure of whether or not i mentioned this but i will most likely be adding a 4th act where it's like, bonus chapters and alternative plot points etc and the deena/sam parts of this movie will be outlined during that part because obviously. maddie's dead whoopsies, so you will eventually get the full movie but for now it's just the flash backs