The door creaked open, revealing a long forgotten room..

Miranda shrunk away from the light that was being let in. She wouldn’t go in there, she couldn’t…

But the room wasn’t asking. It was demanding—demanding that she face what happened inside its walls all those years ago. She took a shallow breath, one that shuddered through her whole body.

She walked.

Step after step, plank after plank, she entered the room, her footsteps echoing along the creaky old wood. Her shoes left footprints amidst the dust, like a little trail in the snow.

It was terrifyingly reminiscent. The air smelled the same as it had that day. Dark, ancient, full of secrets. Poison, really.

Miranda took deep inhales of it. Her eyes flit along the walls, comparing them to how they had looked those fatal 20 years ago. When she had murdered Hank Dawson, she hadn’t really spent any time taking in her surroundings, so it surprised her now just how much she remembered.

With another inhale, she was there, in junior year again, head over heels for Hank. He was the new kid that had come “all the way from Indiana!” to their little town in Alabama. Everyone was obsessed with him.

Whenever Miranda passed him in the hallway, she felt her cheeks grow warm. Her heart beat a little faster. She loved that feeling.

In September, during the homecoming dance, Miranda had found a way to him. She spoke her first word to him. And then another. And then another.

Fast forward a couple months, and they were dating. Miranda’s parents loved him. He was rich, like Miranda’s family, and he had a way with words that made parents say, “Wow, that boy is well brought up.” He made average grades in school and was on a few sports teams. Miranda was in love.

That was until late March, when Miranda found out he had spent his entire spring break with Lilly Canton. At first she thought, _rumors rumors_, _you can’t hurt me_, but Hank never answered her calls that weekend. And when Miranda returned to school, she found Hank walking Lilly to classes like it was nothing. When Miranda confronted him about it, he shrugged it off with a “Oh, really Miranda? I didn’t think you’d get so worked up over a week without me.”

That touched a nerve.

That burning passion she felt for Hank turned sickly. She found herself day dreaming for the rest of that week how she would get revenge.

And that’s how she found herself on a Saturday night in 2004 sinking her knife deeper and deeper into Hank’s chest. She had led him away drunk to the abandoned house in the woods on the land that her parents owned so one could hear his screams.

He begged for forgiveness, for mercy. But that just made it easier to sink the knife deeper and deeper.

Originally, she thought killing him would be difficult. She wasn’t sure if she was up for that kind of messy stuff, despite the many, many times she had dreamed of it. But as she saw the life draw from his eyes, and felt the adrenaline coursing through her veins, she thought: _I see now why murder is illegal_. _It’s the easiest thing a human can do. _

She buried him underneath the bloodstained floorboards that night. And when she returned home, she threw up.

When her parents heard that Hank was “missing,” they comforted Miranda, took her shopping, and called her “honey” which was something they only did when they felt bad. Miranda’s mom had grabbed both of her shoulders with her thin hands and held her tight. “Don’t you worry honey, they’ll find Hank,” she insisted.

_If only she knew_.

And now she was back in that room, feeling that same racing heart. She thought she might be hyperventilating. There was a change in the air, something that sent a shiver down her spine. Was someone here?

“Hello, Miranda.”