Did it really happen, Bri?
We'll win but not everyone will get out.
~Tyler Joseph
Brianna knows it's a man.
His screams are dissolving her from the last good dream she'll have before the morning she'd been dreading. The screaming started when she was running on a dark lonely road. Ironically, she is able to recognise the frequencies of this frightening scream. Worse than piercing, she screams as she jerks her body from her bed in a sudden motion.
Her eyes open to the wooden box at the opposite end of the room playing Car Radio. The man is still shouting and the direction of his screams is clear. It is just the radio. Just the radio, she repeats.
She brushes her hair briefly with her sweaty hands and sits upright, contemplating whether to go out or not. Her sister warns her about Friday 13ths every year, including this year. Brianna understands. Her heart moves 10 degrees to the right again, just like when she was bullied for wearing braces.
She tries getting down from her bed, placing one foot after another on the floor, aiming to get rid of the music that woke her in the first place. She turns off the radio but it refuses to shut up. There's a knock on her door which makes her wonder who she lives with. Her friends aren't supposed to be back till the next semester. She looks through the peephole but doesn't see anybody. Her anxiety shoots up, pushing her to the floor. The knocking continues, each one louder than before.
The radio suddenly switches from Car Radio to soft violin music. She looks at the switch button and sees that it's still turned off. She throws the radio to the floor, hitting it again and again, hoping it will stop.
Even with exposed wires scattered about, the soft music continued playing.
She feels goosebumps on her plump skin, oblivious that her anxious thoughts were literally getting tattooed on her skin. Brianna is certain she was singled out by the Egyptian god, Set, even when she didn't know what she did to him. Maybe it is when she was badmouthing him to her course mates. She buries her head in her palms and notices the text on her thighs. Times New Roman, she thinks. Only that it appeared beside the Oh My God she had thought before.
The music becomes more intense than before, sending chills down her spine. She flees to her bathroom, rinsing her face over and over again. She tries turning off the tap but is unsuccessful. First it was the radio, now it's the tap. She watches the text appear on her arm, typewriting all the anxious thoughts that followed. She rushes to leave the room but the door refuses to cooperate.
She curls up beside the door crying her lungs out. Her feet start to feel wet. She gets up and notices that her runny tap has flooded her room. And the indestructible radio is still playing, even in the water! Desperate to escape she shakes the door violently.
She bangs the door as the water reaches her knees, waist and neck, screaming for help at the top of her lungs. In no time, her head is completely submerged. She wonders how much water could have come from the tap and filled the room, reaching her head. It has to be supernatural. A solemn God be With You Till We Meet Again plays softly in her head as she succumbs to death.
Or not.
She wakes up to a round of slaps from her mother. Her father tries to restrain her but fails. Brianna is more concerned about the fact that she's alive. She notices the hospital bed and the tube attached to her wrist. She hugs her distraught Mum and cries on her shoulder.
Her Mom also starts crying and puts Brianna's head in her palms.
"Why'd you do it again, Bri?" She asks, revealing all her wrinkles.
"Do what?" Brianna asks, confused.
"Something like drowning yourself?"
Brianna is confused. She is grateful that she escaped the nightmare she just encountered. She didn't try to drown herself recently. Why is her Mum talking about the event that happened over six years ago? She's still recovering from the event that compelled her to do so. She was bullied for having braces and being interested in nerdy stuff. She felt depressed and tried to take her life by drowning herself but was luckily found before it was too late.
Her Mum reveals that she'd been talking to her twin sister the day she tried to drown herself again. The day of the strange event, the call was still on when her sister noticed that Brianna had started crying and then suddenly went silent. She had called for help and Brianna was found in her bathtub, unconscious.
She doesn't remember calling her sister that day.
The confusion is real. What's going on? She wonders.
She asks what date it is and is surprised to learn that it's been two years since the horrifying Friday 13th.
Brianna is even more shocked to learn that it's Friday 13 again. Maybe Set might come for her again.