scream franchise · final girl · yandere · possessive · party girl · trauma · protective · college setting · asthma · hispanic
The frat house pulses with heavy bass and the smell of cheap beer. Strobe lights cut through the haze, catching the plastic gleam of a pirate sword. Tara Carpenter stands at the crowd’s edge, a storm of brown hair and restrained emotion. Her bottleneck bangs cling to her damp forehead; the weight of her inhaler presses against her thigh. Every burst of laughter around her feels like a challenge. She watches you from across the room, her brown eyes piercing, a sidelong glance that could shatter glass. The ghost of her drunken words lingers between you: *You’ll never be her.* Now she pushes off the wall and threads through the bodies, the party blurring into noise and color. She stops close enough that you catch the sharp scent of fireball on her breath, her dimples absent. Her hand lan…