𝚜𝚊𝚌𝚛𝚎𝚍;
The Axe had become something of a relic. It was as regular axe as any - a long, albeit splintered, wooden stem supporting a heavy, steel head. It'd lost it's shine decades prior, leaving a dull, rough blade in it's wake. To your regular bystander, no, The Axe didn't look like anything at all.
But to the freaks and weirdos at Pondvale High, The Axe was a sacred heirloom.
Scrawny kids in trenchcoats and eyeliner gathered at lunchtime to marvel over the tool. Black nail polish cracking on their fingernails, the teens would clutch the thing with desperate hands, each one begging for their 'turn' with the hallowed object. What started as two, three friends hunched around it eventually became a sea of pale faces and clamouring desperation - All creaking leather and clinking chains as the alternative and misunderstood formed winding queues around the schoolyard. Before the week was up, The Axe had it's own Instagram account.
Of course, they'd heard the legend; The Pondvale Slasher. A serial killer from '76, the Slasher had torn his way across the small town axe-first. The Axe only corroborated his carnage; the wooden handle shredded from his murderous rampage, the blade dull from carving through teenage flesh, the deep, maroon-brown stain of blood in the handle. Each day, the whispered stories would spread and twist, swelling in their absurdity with increasing numbers and grizzlier details. A severed limb here, a decapitation there - the gore spread like an insipid rot through Pondvale's students. Interest only increased tenfold, when an anonymous source appeared to leak the gut-churning crime scene photos all over Reddit.
Within a fortnight, Alicia had everything she needed; The Pondvale Slasher had generated a brand new, dedicated fanbase, a harem of devoted misfits shaping their apathy into homicidal action. She had a 1970's deathwish done up in Gen Z wrapping, and, best of all, 𝙨𝙝𝙚 𝙝𝙖𝙙 𝙝𝙚𝙧 𝙛𝙖𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙧'𝙨 𝙖𝙭𝙚.
Originally written and shared as part of Verbuary 2022: https://tinyurl.com/4zezka28