WARNING

This chapter contains moments of spoilers from the movie 'The Conjuring'!

Enjoy!

     There was literally nothing else to watch, as Amethyst had said hours upon hours ago. Peridot went back to the Car Wash for the rest of the day so she could make sure Jasper was sound asleep before she left for Steven's house. She wasn't all that sure about watching The Conjuring, same as Steven, but Lapis convinced them both that it was the best for a movie night. She was waiting on the couch for the blonde to arrive. When she opened the door, everyone looked up. Amethyst was grabbing some sodas out of the fridge, Steven was playing a video game, and Lapis was just casually waiting on the couch.

     "So, everything clear at the wash?" She asked.

     Peridot nodded. "Jasper's been asleep for, say, ten minutes before I left."

     "You waited that long?" The girl with the sodas asked.

     "I-I wanted to be sure she'd stay asleep."

     "Well," Lapis began, "you're here now, and Pearl's in her room, so we're clear. Steven," she called to the boy, "you coming?"

     "Yeah." He turned his game off and walked down the small flight of stairs. Amethyst grabbed all the sodas from the counter that she set them on and led everyone to her room. There was one door, which led to a door straight ahead, and a left stairwell leading upstairs, and a right leading downstairs. The group went left, upstairs to Amethyst's room, where she had hidden the movie. Looking behind herself, Lapis noticed her fellow traveler Peridot, holding onto her alien plush. She had it with her all day, does she even remember that she's hugging it to her chest? 

     Lapis did consider that the plush was gigantic, though, remembering that 'hugging' it was the only way to keep it in your arms. Even so, Peridot did look nervous, and it seemed that her hold on the plush was tighter than necessary.

     Amethyst's room was a bit messy, clothes here and there, an unmade bed, and s bit of trash mixed with random items that were assumed t have fell off her shelves. She shoved some of the mess out of the way and threw her bed covers onto her bed to make it seem a bit more neat. There was a nightstand at the end of her bed that she set the drinks on and across from the bed was a nice flat screen T.V. While she set up the movie, the rest of the group sat on her bed, Lapis at the end next to Peridot, while Steven sat beside her in the middle. Amethyst moved her pillows and sat next to Steven at the top end while the movie started rolling, having stolen a soda from the nightstand. Steven and Peridot looked at each other, and back at the T.V. The blond gave a small shout when she seen none other than Annabelle when her eyes returned to the screen.

     Lapis smiled as the movie progressed, hopeful that things would get a bit more scary. Nobody died in the first ten minutes because it was just a clip that some exorcist people were showing in an auditorium. A small while later in the movie, a car pulls up in a dirt driveway and unloads five girls, and their parents. There was also a dog, but it refused to go inside the house. 

     "That's too many children," Peridot whispered to Steven, "I think one of them is gonna kill everyone in the house." The boy just nodded and kept watching. 

     One full night passed in the movie, and after that, one of the girls was screaming. Lapis flinched at the sound. The parents investigate, and the dog, who still refused to go inside, was found dead at the side of the house. "Noooo," the boy cried, "not the dog."

     Peridot grimaced. "That's so dumb, the dog could have helped the children when somethin bad really happens."

     "Right? I mean, they couldn't even wait 'till thirty minutes in to kill it." Amethyst said. Lapis shushed them both. The scary parts should come soon.

     And they did.

     There began to be some loud banging around the house, and like the dumbest person on Earth, the mother goes into the basement. The door is wide open as she calls to whoever is hitting the walls to stop, yet when she turned around to leave the stairwell, the door slams in her face. Everybody jumped, even Amethyst, who had already seen the movie. What was a bit scary was that the mother flies down the stairs, tumbling and spinning down, but Amethyst sat laughing at the sight. Lapis thought the mother was going to die, and so did a nervous Peridot and a terrified Steven. She didn't, which was a downer since they already killed the dog so early.

...

     Later, the next night, the girls were sound asleep when one felt something trying to grab her, and accused her sister of doing it, telling her to stop. Peridot, without noticing, held her plush tighter. The girl got out of bed after the sister she accused of trying to scare her claims that she has been asleep the entire time. Looking to the door, the paranoid girl begins to become terrified. She said that there was something at the door, and her sister goes to the door to prove that, like on the screen, nothing was there. Peridot closed her eyes. She's gonna die, shes gonna die, she's gonna die...

     Silence...

     Peridot was about to open her eyes when just about everyone, in the movie and in reality screamed, and she buried her head into the back of the plush. She felt somebody pat her back, and jumped slightly. Realizing that this was Lapis' doing, she gave a weak smile and returned to the chaos of the movie.

About an hour later, the movie was still going. The exorcist couple seen in the beginning of the movie have come to see the creepy new house that the family moved into. They've been there for a while, and were trying to give the church evidence of the house needing an exorcism so they could save the remains of the family. Peridot and Steven were a bit confused, however, because in the middle of conspiring that one of the girls-the youngest one-was going to be possessed and kill everyone, and all the jump scares they hid from, they suddenly see one of the exorcist people falling through beams inside a wall. Turns out that they must save the mother who is being possessed instead of the child they thought was going to be. Peridot blinked and the woman fell into the basement, and then seen a witch. A course looking woman, that reminded both Amethyst and Peridot of Granny from the horror app of the same name. 

     She mumbled a few things, and then was hung by a noose that came out of nowhere. Steven held onto Amethyst, but when the hanging body charged at the woman, Peridot held onto Lapis' arm. "Um, Peridot?" Lapis whispered.

     The girl blushed and frantically apologized for clinging onto her acquaintance. The movie continued, having being near the end and at the same time, the mix of insane frightening moments. Peridot tried not to act like anything Steven would in the moment, being already embarrassed because of her cling to Lapis. She didn't want to look like a child, though what she didn't know was that it was too late.

     During the movie's exorcism, there seemed to be some noise from outside the room. It's just paranoia, the blonde thought, stop being scared. The noises continued, and Lapis gave the door a glance before returning to the entertainment. Peridot returned to the T.V as well, reluctantly, and then-

     -the doorknob turned. There was so much tension in the room that the entire group jumped.

     Then Pearl walked in.

     "Amethyst, I kept hearing shouts up here, what's going on?" The larger girl flicked the T.V off before Pearl could look at it. She glared at Amethyst, and then took the movie out of the D.V.D player. She gasped. "Amethyst! You have Steven in here, why are you watching The Conjuring?"

     "It's not like he didn't want to?"

     "That's no excuse-"

     "Pearl," the boy chimed in, sliding off the bed, "I agreed to watching it, and everything's fine. It wasn't all that scary anyway."

     Are you sure about that? Peridot thought, both her and Steven having quite the scare from the movie. Pearl was squawking and Amethyst and Steven defended the horror called The Conjuring, and Lapis and Peridot were tired of it.

     "Hey, guys," Lapis began, quietly. She tried to gain everyone's attention again, and then shouted. "Guys!" Amethyst, Steven, and Pearl looked to her. "Can we all just calm down a bit?"

     "Yes," added Peridot, getting off the bed. Now everyone was standing in a small crowd, but she continued to get closer to Pearl. "The movie was quite boring, for starters, and Steven is clearly ok with having watched it. Permitted to do so or not, the boy is clearly ok, ad it's not like that crazy witch jumped through the flat screen and took him."

     "Wh-what are you suggesting, Peridot?" Asked Pearl.

     "I am suggesting that you take it easy and give Steven a bit more independence when it comes to scary movies such as The Conjuring."

     "Who are you to tell me how to take care of Steven?" Pearl squawked. "You don't even know him, or me, or anybody in this town! You don't know how we do things in Beach City, and you sure don't know what fit for Steven's well being!"

     "Well I do know that you're being much too overprotective and squawky, you clod!" Peridot shouted, reaching and grabbing Pearl's shoulders and shoving her an inch backwards.