Act 2 | Chapter 6

"F- Fuck you!" Maria yelled in desperation. It was like music to my ears, to hear her screams of pain and agony. My heart was beating with excitement, it was racing. I couldn't stop smiling, it was too enjoyable.

"You have no idea how long I have waited to see you humiliated. Like how you humiliated me." I laughed in her face as I took my bloody hand and smacked it across her cheek. It felt so odd. To drive my knife into Maria's flesh, to see the fountain of blood pour out. I raised the knife and brought it down onto her hand. With several slashes, I cut off and removed each one of Maria's fingers. She yelled out in agony as her hand was reduced to nothing more than a stub. I couldn't stop laughing. This was too much fun. Seeing her weak and defenseless. Hearing her screams of pain. I raised the knife, this time, positioning the tip just above her left eye. Right as the blade made contact with her cornea, the sudden sound of a familiar voice rang out.

"Zoey! Wake up!"

I opened my eyes and looked straight forward. The warm sunshine from the window cill was almost enough to distract me from the cold temperature outside. "It was a dream."

"Zoey! Wake up! It's Christmas day!" Riley whispered rather loudly in my ear.

"Hm?" I turned my head to look at her. Riley was still in her pajamas but she had put on one of those Santa hats, with the small white ball dangling just over the side of her head.

"Come on, Zoey! Wake up!" She repeated with enthusiasm.

"You sound like such a kid." I teased her, sitting up and rubbing my eyes. No blood was on my hands. The dream felt so real though. Like I was back there, at that point in time, but doing things differently.

"Come on!" Riley rolled her eyes and tried dragging me out of the bed.

"Alright, fine, I'm coming." I chuckled a bit and stretched my arms out over my head. I still needed a minute to wake up, so Riley just left her room and started making her way over to the kitchen without me. I met up with her and saw Miss Blackmar already finishing up breakfast. She had made three plates of warm pancakes, with coffee to drink.

"Good morning, Miss Blackmar." I greeted her, "Merry Christmas."

"Merry Christmas Zoey, Did you sleep well?"

"Yeah." I nodded, sitting down. "I had an... interesting dream."

"Oh, what was it about?" She smiled, sitting down at the table beside Riley.

"Ah, you wouldn't want to hear it. Can't remember much from it anyways. But it was nice." I looked down at the warm plate of food before me. Miss Blackmar had also made a couple of waffles and eggs to go along with it. I started filling my plate with some of everything, while Riley did much of the same, only she put more on her plate then I did.

"So. Either of you has any big plans today?" I asked.

"The snow's pretty heavy, so we can't do much." Miss Blackmar explained. I took a glance over to the window and saw what she meant. It was snowing pretty hard outside.

"I'm' thinking about playing in the snow later," Riley suggested with a mouthful of bread.

"Oh." I nodded, "I brought my winter coat, but I don't have any snow pants?"

"I could just lend you mine," Riley said.

"Will they fit?"

"They're elastic."

"Oh, alright then. We can go do it later." Not too long after, I finished eating and went to put my plate in the sink. Riley wasn't even finished with her food when she followed up behind me and put her plate in the sink. The leftover food fell into the garbage disposal.

"Come on, I want to open up gifts!" Riley said, grabbing my hand and yanking me over to the living room. I couldn't help but giggle at Riley's childish behavior. It's not often that I get to see her act like such a kid, which is one reason why I always loved thee types of holidays.

"I want to start with this one!" she said happily, as she grabbed out the gift I had got for her the day before. It wasn't wrapped the best because wrapping a stuffed animal is one of the hardest things to wrap ever. Of all time. She felt the gift around and giggled excitedly as Miss Blackmar took a seat at the couch and got out her phone to record Riley.

"Go on and open it." I chuckled. Riley quickly tore off the paper and threw it to the side. She held up the little onion knight up and squealed happily, before turning to hug me.

"Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!"

"Your welcome!" I giggled, hugging her back. Riley gently hugged the toy plush and giggled to herself. After a bit, she put down the onion knight and forced it into a seating position as she took out a large square gift. Riley pushed it over to me and grinned a bit.

"This one for me?" I smirked and held it up. It was pretty big, and it was pretty heavy

"Go on, open it!"

I looked back up at Riley and her mother for a moment before slowly taking the paper off. I raised an eyebrow and smirked ad it was slowly revealed to be a large box set of paint cans. They had the three base colors as well as their opposite, so six large cans of paint in total.

"Oh, my god." I chuckled, and smiled, "Thank you!" I climbed over the box to give Riley a hug.

"Your welcome." She replied happily. One she let go, I reached for the small rectangular box under the tree. It was my gift for Miss Blackmar. The second she opened it and saw what it was, she looked to me and smiled.

"This? Zoey, you really shouldn't have!" She held it up in front of her and smirked a bit.

"I wanted to get it for you. I remembered you saying that you like it a while back.

"Th- Thank you, Zoey." She smiled and reached for the second to last gift under the tree.

"Here, let's hope it doesn't get torn up this time." She commented with a giggle. I tilted my head and took the gift. After unwrapping it, I saw it be a large canvas. Bigger than the one I had used before. I knew what it was for.

"Thank you, Miss Blackmar." I watched as Riley and her mother both passed their gifts. I'm not sure if they were both unsure what the other wanted, because they ended up getting each other about one hundred dollars each to spend in gift cards. Riley's a gift card to the gaming store, and Miss Blackmar, a gift card to a sportswear stroke, as she was the kind of person to go jogging on weekends. They both gave each other that awkward and embarrassed look like they were both ashamed they couldn't get anything physical for each other this year. Eventually, they gave each other an awkward hug before thanking one another.

"So, is that everything?" Riley asked.

"Nope. I have in more for you." I said, pulling out the last gift from under the tree. Riley took it and unwrapped the small gift. Once she saw it was the game she wanted, she squealed again and went to hug me once more.

"This is the best thing you could ever do Zoe! Thank you!" she said and hugged me a bit tighter.