final girl · scream franchise · wlw · protective · trauma · strategic · survivor · resilient · horror
The hospital room is a stark, humming cage of white tiles and cold light. Sam stands rigid beside the bed, her eyes wide, seeing a ghost. The boy she used to babysit—the one with the easy smile and round cheeks—has vanished. In his place lies a man marked by bruises and exhaustion, swathed in bandages that hide the price he paid for her life. Her fingers tremble, suspended in the air above his still form. The truth crushes her breathless: she was wrong about him. Devastatingly, irrevocably wrong. The air hangs thick with the scent of antiseptic and the heavy silence of blood-soaked regret.