Chapter Text

  When people think of malibu, they usually think of one of two things – either the bright, saturated sky blue, or more often the beaches and stupid number of Hollywood celebrities. Not you, though. 

  For you, who grew up in Malibu, you think of forests that stretch on and on with no end in sight, of the animals that dwell in there, of the various stories and legends about creatures which call the place home. You make an active effort to avoid where the other people dwell, because the drama and ocean have never resonated with you. 

  You don’t dislike the people here, but caring about celebrities has always felt like too much effort for you. You've been told that you have a way with people, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you enjoy spending time with them at every given moment. People skills are something you developed out of necessity, and frankly you’re fed up enough from dealing with those with your own life that you don’t want to think about the lives of celebrities you will never meet. As for the ocean, there is an inexplicable fear of water buried deep inside you that you simply cannot eliminate, no matter how hard you try. 

  Instead of turning to the ocean and celebrities, then, you find solace in what you perceive to be the opposite. 

  Rather than the deep blue sea, you prefer the forest – it is a place you have explored since you were a child, and it is familiar to you. With the forest, there is an end. You know you will hit the edge of it and come out on the other side some day, if you run for long enough. With the ocean, there is no knowing how deep it will go, and what lies within. Knowledge is power, that is the motto you live by. 

  Rather than celebrity gossip and drama, you turn to niche internet stories that nobody else has heard about. Creepypastas are your personal favourite, and since no other 19 year old in your life seems to enjoy indulging in poorly written fanfiction as a pastime, you can confidently say that your interest is quite unique. Your friends can talk about the popular figures they watch through a screen all they want – you’d much rather stick with your fictional, unproblematic horrors. 

  Thus, when your university suddenly appears with a crossover of your two favourite things in the form of a camping trip, you jump at the opportunity. 

  You find yourself on a bus to your campgrounds just three months after the trip was announced, sitting next to Chris, your friend of a year and a half. She’s just one of your many friends in school, part of what you privately deem as a ‘card collection’. 

  Despite your quiet disposition, you lead a surprisingly rich social life and have a reputation of being friendly. As far as you’re aware nobody hates your guts, and you see it as a sort of game: how many friends can you collect by simply donning the most appropriate personality for the situation, by being agreeable and by observing everyone’s likes, dislikes, habits and interests? 

  Sure, the friendships you form are typically shallow at best and it’s hard to connect with people on a deeper level when you’re just pretending to be someone else, but you can’t have everything in life. You have your occasional moments of loneliness, but you can deal with the consequences of your own actions just fine. 

  Chris is listening to music next to you, eyes closed in rest. Probably some kind of Pop, you think. A nonchalant glance at her phone, and you cheer internally – sure enough, it’s Taylor Swift. Knowing someone well enough to be able to guess what they listen to, well, you’d count that as a small win. It’s the little things that build up, and it’s the little things that matter to people – remembering their interests, their birthdays, things they said. It shows that you’ve been paying attention, and that their words mean something to you. It makes them feel valued, and it makes them think that you care. Applying this in a general interaction gets you extra points. 

  You gaze at her side profile as you contemplate whether or not to engage in a conversation – after a moment of consideration, you decide against it. It is best to let her get her rest. You make a mental note to bring up Taylor Swift in passing some other time.  

  Instead of focusing on the person next to you, you survey the bus. A quick once-over tells you that there are about 70 people. It is a rather sad amount, considering that the offer for the camping trip was open to your entire university. You find yourself rather upset when you realise that of the 70, there are only 50 or so you recognise, and only 29 you know on a personal level. Still not enough. Knowledge is power – you only have a few months left to establish a relationship with as many people as possible, to shove as many cards into your collection as you can for no other reason beyond self-satisfaction. What you can’t meet in quality, you will in quantity. 

  This camp is the best chance you’ll get. You’ll never forgive yourself if you pass up this opportunity to grow your collection quickly. Helping out around camp, asking people questions, doing something attention-grabbing with your group at the start to establish a first impression… countless possible ways to win the strangers on the bus over fly through your head. You’ll need to get a good read of them first before you act, though, or you could end up pushing some people away before you can even form any sort of connection. Excitement and anticipation swallow you as you think about the possibilities. 

  When the bus suddenly halts to a stop and a sense of impending doom hits you, however, you realise that perhaps making friends should not be your top priority right now. 

…

  Somewhere in the forest ahead, a tall, faceless man sits behind a large mahogany desk – he dons a crisp suit and a tie, towering over everything else in the room. His height would be the most striking thing about him if not for his lack of facial features. In place of where his eyes, nose and mouth should be, there are nothing but indents in his white flesh. 

  He is staring off into the distance – not that anyone would be able to tell, given his lack of eyes and what not – as he broods deeply. Three masked figures stand before him with their heads bowed, deathly still.

  The faceless man straightens himself slightly, interlaces his fingers and fixes his gaze on the one in the centre. It would have been an odd sight for anyone else to see, but after a minute of silent gazing, all three give a small nod at the same time and retreat from the office with swift steps. Not one word is exchanged, but the orders have been given – they know what to do. The tall man left alone in the office pauses, then vanishes without a trace. 

…

  “Are we really that desperate for new blood?” The one on the left pulls off his mouth guard and asks, his tone somewhat perplexed. In the hallways of the building, the three men walk side by side and begin discussing their next steps. The one in the centre, their leader, regards him with a look of mild annoyance. 

  “It’s not our place to question his orders. We just have to carry them out.” Lefty rolls his eyes and repeats the words under his breath mockingly. What a suck up. It earns him a glare and he raises his arms in mock defeat. 

  “How come he can’t just… use his powers and pick some people with potential, then let us train them? I feel like that would have a… a hi-higher rate of success,” he continues. His stutter is beginning to come out again. 

  “Because,” Centre begins, exasperation crawling into his voice. “It doesn’t matter. They sent themselves here, we just need to get rid of the useless ones and find someone competent enough to join.” 

  The one on the right adds on, much more patiently, “He doesn’t have the time. We don’t have the manpower. All we can do is hope that something good comes out of this batch.”

  “And if it doesn’t?”

  “It will,” he says. His voice falters. “It has to.” 

Chapter Text

  The sudden braking of the bus causes it to jerk forward violently, and an almost immediate response comes from the crowd. Those who were asleep are jostled awake, while those who were already up start murmuring and peer out the window in alarm.

  Chris rubs her eyes in frustration and removes her headphones, eyes darting about in confusion. “_______, what…?” 

  You place a finger over your lips and squint as you scan the scene outside. According to your phone, it’s supposed to be 5pm right now, but the dark forest you can barely make out does not seem to reflect that. You can only see the faint silhouette of trees stretching out endlessly, covered in a shroud of darkness. Either something is wrong with your phone, or something is very, very wrong. Sensing your anxiety, Chris shuts her mouth and joins you in peering out the window. Her brows furrow in confusion as she glaces at the time on her own phone – clearly, the unusual darkness does not escape her either. 

  The bus driver stands up, turns around and quietens everyone down. He assures everyone that nothing is wrong – he saw a dog in the way of the bus and braked to avoid running over it, the darkness might be unnerving but it’s probably just because you’re in the forest, and everything is okay. The more he speaks, the more the confidence drains from his voice. Something is wrong , everyone can feel it. And sure enough, mere seconds after the bus driver completes his little inspirational talk, the front windows of the bus shatter, scattering a sea of glass fragments in your general direction. 

  Screams ring out from all around you – people you know and people you don’t alike scramble to undo their seatbelts. Some move to the back of the bus, away from the window, others move hesitantly towards it in an attempt to figure out what is happening and some make a mad dash for the bus door, pushing themselves up against it in preparation to escape. Perhaps normally, the reaction of a bus filled with half-dead young adults wouldn’t nearly be as extreme, but there’s something about the never-ending stretch of shadowy darkness outside the bus that puts even you on edge. You manage to get yourself to stay put throughout the madness – something in your gut tells you that there isn’t any point in moving, and so you don’t. 

  Fortunately, nobody seems to be injured from the flying glass save for a few minor scratches here and there – a wise choice on the bus designer’s part, you suppose. Having countless glass shards embedded in you on top of crashing into something hard enough to shatter glass is probably not fun on a normal day. Today is not such a day. 

  Amidst the chaos, everyone seems to have overlooked the bus driver who is now lying on the floor with a bullet wound through his head, very much dead. It is only when the discord somewhat subsides does someone point it out – whoever it is, you have no idea, because within seconds complete silence befalls the bus and all eyes are on the deceased bus driver. Brief amusement flits through you at the sudden change in atmosphere, but it is pushed down by confusion and obligatory panic as soon as it emerges. Ah, a dead man. Not good. 

  In the silence, the sound of a bullet being loaded into a gun is awfully loud.

  A boot makes its appearance through the shattered window, followed by a leg, then an entire man. The first thing you notice is the gun in his hand – you quickly put two and two together and realise that the gun is likely loaded. Another not good in your books. That makes two ‘not good’s, counting the dead man under the new person’s feet, which add up to a very shitty situation. The next thing you notice, after the man steps out of the darkness, is the mask adorning his face. It’s a black ski mask, and your brows furrow as you try to figure out what the hell is on it, the dim lighting not helping much. 

  As the masked man slowly stalks forward, into the better lighting, you realise that the design on the mask is a red frown. It takes you a moment to grasp the odd feeling of familiarity brewing within you – just where have you seen this before? Then it hits you like a truck. 

  Well, you suppose you should be disappointed in yourself for not realising sooner. The masked man is either a diehard Hoodie fan like yourself, or the real thing. And something about the situation – perhaps the dead man he is standing on? – tells you that it is likely the latter. 

  In the tense silence, the masked man continues to move forward, gun still gripped in one hand. You can practically feel the fear of the people sitting in the front seats as he walks past them, and as he passes your aisle you can barely stop the shiver that runs down your back too. As for whether it’s from fear or excitement, well, you’re not quite sure of the answer yourself. Perhaps a mix of both. 

  Beside you, you hear Chris’s breathing begin to quicken. You know your friend isn’t a fan of guns, her experience with them so far being far from good. The scar on her arm serves as proof of the nightmare she experienced, and the nightmare that she managed to live through. If someone as tough as Chris is displaying such signs of panic, perhaps you’re all royally fucked.  

  Drawing in a deep breath, you lean a bit closer to Chris and gently rest a hand on her shoulder in an attempt to comfort her. It seems to work, albeit only a little, and she sends a nod your way in appreciation. 

  A cushioned thud tells you that the masked man has likely sat himself down in one of the seats. Probably the last row of five seats, since the rest of them were filled last you checked, but you’re not about to stand out by turning back to face him. Real deal or not, he did just shoot a man dead. You’re not particularly keen on dying an untimely death just yet. 

  Another foot through the broken front window treads on the dead body, another figure enters. This time it’s a young adult who seems to be just slightly older than you, putting him at around twenty. Once he steps into the light, you can tell that he is wearing yet another outfit that you recognise – one of Ticci Toby. He pauses for a moment as he is approaching, head tilting to the side. You hold your breath as you feel his gaze brush past you, though you can’t be sure if he even looks your way since it’s hard to make out his eyes beneath his goggles. 

  His head jerks to the side slightly, startling Chris and causing you to raise an eyebrow. Again, either another big fan who did their research and can act or the real deal. Goggles proceeds down the same route as Hoods – it feels wrong to think of them as creepypastas, so you opt to create silly little nicknames for them in your head as a substitute and to make yourself feel better. Just a little better. 

  A low murmur from the back of the bus, then another thump. It seems that Goggles has also found his place. 

  Almost in sync, you and Chris lean forward slightly to stare at the front of the bus again. A third man steps in, and this time it’s another masked man who you recognise to be Masky. He gives the dead body a rather violent kick as he makes his entrance. Alright, so either a trio of insane, murderous cosplayers or you’re fucked. Well, you’re in quite a lot of trouble either way, actually. Perhaps if they’re just cosplayers you can even bond with them a little before inevitably being sent to your death.

  The new man wields a crowbar in one hand and a thick file in another. He wears a white mask with a monochrome colour scheme – the most distinct part are the feminine lips. The sound of light shuffling fills the bus as… Well, in all honesty, you can’t really think of any nickname more befitting of him than Masky. You scrutinise him as he sifts through the file, before being hit by a sudden stroke of genius – Sideburns is the perfect nickname, you decide. 

  Beside you, Chris suddenly jumps when Sideburns lets out a loud “Fuck!” The file slips from his shaking hands, and a few pieces of paper land in the blood. You wonder if he’s okay. Anxiety, perhaps? A laugh almost slips out of you at the thought of a murderer, particularly one who is supposed to be a leader, having a fear of public speaking. He squats down, tucking the crowbar underneath his arm, and begins to collect the pieces of paper. 

  To your mild horror, the silence is broken by a light chuckle that sounds distinctly female. You place a hand over your mouth and look to your side. A wide eyed Chris shakes her head at you, and you take it to mean that the laughter did not come from you. Judging by the way Sideburns stands up and faces the bus, you think it’s safe to assume that it didn’t come from one of the killers either.  

  Chris quietly shifts in her seat and pulls herself up slightly to see behind her. A few other daring ones do the same, but you decide against it. Shuffling from the back of the bus, a scream, a few loud thuds and then more screams. The series of sounds comes in rapid succession, and it doesn’t take you much brainpower to figure out what happened. Sure enough, Goggles soon walks past your seat, dragging a dead body behind him. He has a certain pep in his step that wasn’t there before. 

  Goggles comes to a stop beside Sideburns and casually throws the body over his shoulder to join the bus driver. He bends down to retrieve a hatchet buried in the back of the new deceased. You recognise the dead lady. Her name is Yerim, and she once had lunch with you and your friend group. From what you knew about her, she was never really the type to understand social cues. Looks like she paid the price for it. 

  “The next person to make a single sound without permission won’t die so easily. Follow me,” Sideburns orders, swiftly turning around and jumping out of the bus. You realise that you don’t hear him when he lands – the longer this goes on, the more you begin to doubt that these people are just cosplayers. 

  Nobody gets up even when Goggles manages to get the door open by slamming buttons at random, until another gunshot rings out. You feel your heart racing in your chest as you wait for half the bus to begin moving until you do. These people seem to have a goal. Before you figure out what it is, it would be wise to let some people move ahead and carve out a path for you first.  

  The person at the very front of the line takes his own sweet time with exiting the bus. It’s one of the twenty or so people you don’t recognise. The way he hovers at the exit without moving, holding everyone else up, awakens in you a strong and sudden desire to push him off. Clearly the same desire manifests in the person behind him, who you recognise to be your classmate, Yoshida. 

  Yoshida gives the first man a heavy shove, sending him falling out the door with a heavy thud. Yet another heavy thud, and then silence. The ones standing near the front of the bus collectively take a small step back, but no words are exchanged. After a moment, Yoshida becomes the first person to successfully make it out of the bus alive. 

Chapter Text

  When you finally get close to the front of the bus, everything adds up. 

  It seems that while Goggles managed to find a way to open the door, he didn’t have the patience to try and figure out how to get the stairs down. That leaves a small jump from the bus to the forest floor, and clearly some people didn’t even have the courage to challenge this obstacle in time. 

  Beyond the door of the bus lies a pile of dead bodies – likely those who took too long to jump. It’s hard to make out every face from where you’re standing, but there are a few faces in the mass that you recognise. You glance at them briefly and turn your attention back to Sideburns. He’s slamming his crowbar against the head of a friend you made back in your first year of university. Gnarly.

  Based on what you’ve seen so far, Sideburns and Goggles take turns to eliminate whoever takes too long. You’re not planning to turn around, but you assume that Hood’s job is like that of a shepherd, making sure that everyone in the bus moves like they’re supposed to. Someone either very brave or very stupid decided to test him earlier, and you’re going to assume that the gunshot you heard means that the person failed. 

  Knowledge is power, as you always like to say, and right now you’re lacking in it. You have no way of telling whether these people are just cosplayers with lethal weapons who happen to be skilled or actually supernatural. You don’t know their personalities well, and you don’t know what their goal is. What little you do know is easily gathered by anyone else who is even a little bit observant or purely theorised. 

  If this trio is legitimate and actually composed of likely supernatural beings that serve under a certain tall man, then you definitely have the edge over your fellow field trip goers. While fanfiction and wikipedia pages are probably not too accurate in telling personalities and tendencies of people, there are bits and pieces of information you can use to your advantage. If the trio is not, in fact, legitimate, then you can always have a nice conversation about creepypasta or Marble Hornets.

  Since you can’t gather information about them, you decide that you’re not going to let them gather information on you either. You’re going to have to play it safe and find the most suitable character to act as in their little game. Something that’s enough to keep you alive, but not enough to make you stand out – not until you’ve figured them out.  A coward who wants to live is the best choice – if you play your cards right, you’ll be nothing more than another face in the crowd to them. You turn your attention back to the shortening line in front of you.

  The person before Chris takes a moment too long and ends up with a crowbar being slammed violently into his stomach until he kneels over coughing out blood, only to have his skull beaten in soon after. Sideburns seems to prefer long, dragged out executions to quick clean ones. Goggles silently drags the corpse away from the entrance of the bus and dumps it in the growing body pile. The two seem to have some kind of rigid system in place – take turns to kill the ones who take too long, take turns to dispose of the body. Not once do they both turn their backs at the same time. You’re not counting the seconds, but they probably have a certain time limit before they go for the kill. 

  You hear Chris draw in a sharp breath – then, she throws herself down without hesitation. You watch her land gracefully on the floor, puddle of blood beneath her feet barely splattering even as she lands in it. Not surprising, since you’ve always known her to be brave and poised, but it’s not the time to be analysing your friends because you’re next. You step forward to the edge of the door and freeze up slightly.

  The fall looks much more scary now that you’re here trying to convince yourself to jump, and you can almost understand why some people took so long despite knowing that their lives were on the line. Play it safe, you remind yourself – stay alive but don’t stand out. You let the hesitation show on your face as you stare down. The growing puddle of blood almost looks bottomless in the darkness. Despite the reasonable height, it’s almost like you’re standing on the edge of a cliff and the next step you take will send you plunging into the middle of the sea, which you’re not quite keen on doing. Goggles’ head jerks slightly as you twiddle your thumbs, and you force yourself to take that step because dying sounds just a little worse.

  Unlike Chris, you fall flat on your ass. It hurts but you count it as a win since Goggles doesn’t get any closer or try to lop your head off. His gaze does linger on you for a second and his grip on his hatchets tightens for a second, but then he gestures for you to move forward with a sharp jerk of his head and you know you’re safe for now. You’re grinning victoriously in your mind, but do your best not to let it show, instead pulling yourself up and making your way over to the crowd of survivors in the distance.

  Behind you, the forest is completely silent. Completely silent. No leaves shuffling in the wind, no crickets chirping in the trees, just the occasional soft thump. 

  After the last person leaps off the bus and makes his way over, Hoodie spends a few more minutes inside it – you can see his silhouette moving between the windows, patrolling up and down a few times before he leaps out silently. He casts a long, menacing shadow as he steps further and further away from the dim glow of the bus before eventually melding into the darkness and disappearing right in front of your eyes. You assume that he comes to a stop somewhere nearby, and this almost peaceful quiet continues for a few more minutes.

  Then, the bus in the distance is engulfed in flames. Exclamations of surprise and shock come from around you as an explosion rings out and shrapnel from the bus is launched outwards. A large fire blazes to life and illuminates everything in its vicinity – you squint at it and take in the sight.

  The forest is beautiful, fire and all. If it were not a crime perhaps you would’ve liked to try setting a few trees on fire yourself sometime in the past. But now you’re in the middle of the woods with a bunch of young adults and three murderers who may or may not work for a supernatural entity, and the possibility of trying that is a little out of reach.

  When you finally rip your eyes away from the mesmerising scene, you take in your immediate surroundings instead. Before the fire began it was hard to even see the person standing next to you, but now that there’s a pleasant glow the four corpses lying in the grass grab your attention. Their bodies are turned away, expressions locked in terror – probably runners, you deduce, then make a little note to not try that anytime soon. Next to you, another near stranger stares intently at the corpses in the grass, untouched by the raging flames. 

  The smell of burnt flesh mixed with burning plants wafts over, and your eyebrows furrow in mild disgust. Overcooked human – you don’t like the thought of that.

  “You run now, you die,” Goggles quips cheerily from the side in a sing-song voice. You jump slightly at his sudden comment and wonder when he got there. The poor fella standing next to you falls onto his ass, and you swear Goggles laughs.

  While you’re quite certain that his warning did not go unheard, two people in the crowd seem to decide not to heed it because they book it right after he finishes speaking. The fire illuminates their faces enough for you to recognise one of them as Yoshida, the first person to make it out of the bus earlier. The other is his best friend (named Michaal, or something like that) who looks absolutely terrified . You’re not quite sure what they’re thinking, especially since one of your now-captors has a gun, but hey, maybe they’re confident that they can dodge a bullet,

  Seconds later, it becomes incredibly clear that they’ve made a mistake. Hoods doesn’t even raise his gun – instead, Sideburns leaps into action and catches up to them in a few seconds. He brings his crowbar backward and swings forward with a twist of his hips, and the weapon makes contact with Michael’s back, generating a clearly audible crack and causing a scream to rip from his throat. Sideburns swings his crowbar again, and Michael is silenced forever. Compared to his sadistic executions before, Sideburns seems to be more purposeful in his movements this time. Michael’s death is quick and brutal, and if Sideburns’ goal was to make a point, that point was very, very clearly made. 

   Yoshida quickly turns around and starts running back towards your group the instant Sideburns lifts his crowbar again. You find disgust brewing somewhere within you at his actions – to so unhesitatingly abandon Michael, who was supposed to be his best friend, in an effort to save his own life… you’re not the best person to walk the earth, and your moral compass is incredibly skewed, but this pisses you off ever so slightly. 

  Sideburns holds his crowbar loosely with one hand and faces Yoshida, but doesn’t make a move. Even when Yoshida has returned to the crowd of survivors, having the sense to stand a little off to the side, Sideburns doesn’t bother to spare him another glance. Out of the corner of your eye you spot Yoshida smiling in relief and you sneer at the lack of guilt in his eyes.

  “In case we weren’t clear before, if you try to run without our permission, you die. If you speak without our permission, you die. If you fail to follow our orders, you die. Is that really so hard to understand?” Sideburns scoffs, glaring pointedly at Yoshida. The crowd parts automatically as Sideburns makes his way through the crowd, all the way to the back of the group. The other two flank the crowd, and no more escape attempts happen.

  A few minutes of nothingness pass. The trio of killers stand at their places – Sideburns methodically cleans the blood off his crowbar with a cloth, Goggles bounces back and forth on the spot and Hoodie simply stands there with his arms folded. You exchange glances with the people standing beside you, and it becomes abundantly clear that nobody knows what is happening. 

  You decide to take that window of time to do a quick headcount and some thinking. There are about 48 people left standing, excluding the killers. Of the 48, you recognise a decent 37. You think that it’s safe to assume the trio of killers are the real thing – creepypastas, as ridiculous as the idea is.The thought of a big group of skilled, murderous cosplayers roaming the earth is somehow worse than accepting internet horror stories as reality. What could they possibly want with a bus full of young adults? Are you going to become sacrifices to some kind of god? Perhaps Slenderman or whoever they work for has moved on from eating little children, and has progressed to consuming freshly matured, somewhat functioning adults? Why did they do the little… courage test thing, whatever it was? Are there requirements for sacrifices? Do you meet the requirements? What if–

  Your train of thought is cut off when Sideburns grumbles, “About damn time.” 

  Your gaze trails off to the side, and you give a little start. At some point in time, a bunch of other figures have arrived behind Masky, silent and completely unnoticed by you and your trip mates. They’re all wearing blank masks and cloaks for some reason, so you can’t tell who they are based on appearance alone. Though, if you have to make an educated guess, you’ll bet that they’re other creepypastas. The only one you can confidently identify is a dog with a big, human grin on his face – it hits you that this is probably the dog the bus driver saw. Was everything planned from the start?

  “Alright, we can finally begin. You lot from the bus, keep heading forward – look out for a big mansion and wait outside. You can’t miss it unless you’re fucking blind, ” Sideburns gestures behind him, before continuing, “If any of us decide you’re too slow, or if you stray too far, you’re dead.” 

  The instructions are simple enough to understand, but you suppose the idea of running through the woods in near complete darkness doesn’t appeal to many people, because nobody moves. 

  “Even they don’t listen to you, how pathetic,” one of the new people mocks, his voice gravelly. Sideburns shifts and adopts a stance similar to Hoods, with his arms folded in front of him. You raise a mental eyebrow.

  “Shut up. They’ll listen. I’ll make sure of it.”

  “Poor Masky. Are you feeling insecure? Is Ticci not enough to satisfy your hunger for power?”

  From the corner of your eye, you see Goggles making to grab his hatchets. Internal disputes, huh? The idea of a bunch of bloodthirsty killers living peacefully under the same roof (as often seen in fanfiction) has never seemed particularly realistic to you – you give yourself a little pat on the back for having common sense. 

  Sideburns doesn’t respond, but from the way his shoulders tense you can tell what the other man said has gotten under his skin. 

  “What’s with the silence? Did I hit a nerve? Are you–” (You wonder if you’re going to die in the crossfire. It’d be a shame.) 

  “Enough. We have a job to do,” Hoods injects quietly from the side. His voice is not loud, but it holds a kind of authoritative power that works like magic – the offending man scoffs and flashes his middle finger, but doesn’t continue his taunting. You notice that Sideburns doesn’t relax, and instead appears to become more tense. Looks like the other masked guy had a point about power.

  “What the fuck are you all waiting for? Move!” 

  Instead of commenting, Sideburns decides to take out his frustration on all of you instead. His voice comes out loud and clear, but the slight tremble in it doesn’t escape you. You jot down the information in your mind, grab Chris’s outstretched hand, then run for your life. 

Chapter Text

 You’ve always enjoyed running – there’s something liberating about propelling yourself forward, feeling the wind rush through your hair and just appreciating the moment. When you’re in a forest and you can’t see anything, however, it’s a different story.

  Five minutes into the advancement, everyone has tripped on something at least three times. You can feel countless hungry gazes fixed in your general direction, the stares of predators waiting in the background for someone to fall behind, for someone to prey on.

  The group of survivors has almost unanimously decided to move together. Strength in numbers, they say, and most people aren’t keen on traversing the dark, danger fraught woods alone. Of course, there are always outliers, and you’re certain there’s at least one or two people who have chosen to take the unconventional path. 

  You’re not going to try to find out who until later, though. For now, you have a lot of important not tripping to do. 

  It feels like you run for hours on end, for miles and miles, though it’s likely only been a kilometre and fifteen minutes. At some point, someone who was holding your hand this whole time trips, vanishes and never returns. You’re not sure if it’s because they’re somewhere else now, or if they got left behind, and can’t possibly turn around to check without risking your own ass. You know that the group isn’t going to give up their safety to ensure that everyone makes it – you’re just a bunch of people fighting for your own survival, gathered together out of pure convenience. 

  Occasionally, one of the killers shines a flashlight in your general direction – maybe it’s an act of kindness, maybe it’s their way of messing with you. In any case it does little to help with the not tripping in the long run, but between the little pockets of being able to see your morale slowly dwindles. A few people definitely either split off or die off somewhere along the way, because every time the flashlight is switched on the crowd seems to thin just a little bit. 

  During one of the rare, sustained bright periods, you notice two people in front of you communicating with frantic gestures. You recognise them as Shermaine and Killian, close childhood friends known for their strong bond. Earlier, Killian was dragging Shermaine along, and now it appears that Shermaine has just given up entirely despite Killian’s best attempts to encourage her. She shrugs off Killian’s hand and turns a blind eye to his pleading expression, stopping right in her tracks. Killian reaches for her but doesn’t slow down – the last thing you see before darkness befalls once more is blood spraying out from her neck.

  If anyone else notices, they don’t comment on it. The only thing left to do is to move forward. 

...

  Sideburns was absolutely right when he said you have to be blind to miss the mansion. 

  The structure looms in the distance, illuminated by moonlight that only seems to fall on that particular patch of land. You attribute it to a supernatural thing. If creepypastas are real, then who’s to say magic isn’t? 

  Seeing the run-down mansion in the distance seems to spark hope within everyone, because you find that the pace of the group picks up as soon as the mansion appears in sight like a damn rabbit out of a magician’s hat. Your group quickly makes its way over and comes to a stop before a rusted metal gate, where a few people are already waiting. You assume that they’re the ones who moved alone. A few stragglers are still emerging from the forest behind you as well, panting heavily while they limp towards the moonlight.

   You take the time to admire the mansion grounds. 

  From this distance, you can see that the entire place has a rather rustic charm to it – the building itself has clearly been through a couple decades of use, with patches of moss and weathering from the elements visible to the naked eye. Despite this, the mansion still looks grand and imposing, either because of its sheer size or its dark colour scheme. You’re no architect, but you can count and thus can say with some confidence that the structure is five stories tall. The main segment of the building is sandwiched between two smaller wings of about five stories each as well. You peer into the first story window but can’t make out anything. You chalk it up to magic again, and grudgingly consider the more logical possibility that it is one way glass.

  The mansion is loosely enclosed by a barbed wire fence, which you find yourself standing outside of along with the rest of your fellow survivors. You wonder if the fence actually does any good in keeping creatures that even killers find difficult to fend off away, and quickly decide that you don’t want to know. There seems to be something behind the mansion, too – perhaps some kind of garden? Greenery peeks out from behind one of the wings, but whatever it is, you can’t see it from where you’re standing.

  “It seems that everyone competent has arrived.”

  You immediately turn your gaze to Hoods, recognising his quiet yet authoritative voice almost instantly. There’s just an air of confidence about him that you can’t mistake or fake. Then, the sound of a gunshot echoes through the air. 

  You stare blankly for a second, and then hastily take three steps back and cover your mouth dramatically. Act, act, keep acting. Don’t let them know your next move. In your retreat, you stumble and almost fall, but thankfully some kind soul catches you. You look up and take in the face of your saviour – a science professor who teaches some of your friends. You flash him a tight-lipped smile and he gives you a comforting pat on the back. Nice guy, you think. You wonder if he regrets volunteering to supervise this trip. 

  Three more gunshots ring out in rapid succession, and next thing you know the professor’s presence next to you is gone. Some of his blood lands on you, warm and viscous as it reaches your skin and drips down your arms. You freeze and the momentary panic that overtakes you is real this time. He was here, just a second ago, saving you from a nasty fall and comforting you. Now he’s gone forever, and suddenly the whole premise of acting feels so goddamn stupid. What are you doing, acting out a play while people are dying ? The thought comes and goes, leaving you with a newfound determination to stay unassuming for as long as you can.

  Screams of varying degrees of intensity and loudness reach your ears, and you vaguely register that you’re screaming too. People begin to push and shove at each other in an attempt to get away from the bodies – you move yourself as far away from the corpse of your teacher as you can. Out of the corner of your eye you see a few people making a mad dash for the treeline, only to be cut down within seconds. 

  “SHUT THE FUCK UP,” the voice is loud and filled with rage, so much raw rage that you freeze up instinctively. It cuts through the screams and the discord and leaves a ringing silence in its wake. The few people who continue to run make easy pickings amidst the otherwise frozen crowd. It’s Goggles, with a sort of explosive anger that sends a shiver down your spine. 

  He practically stomps over to the crowd, which collectively backs away. You can’t really make out his facial features still, but the way his shoulders are set and the way he’s hunched over say enough about his current mood. He comes to a stop near you and reaches out, then pulls someone out from the crowd. The unfortunate chosen one is someone you recognise, one of your friends. He stumbles forward and pales, trembling as Goggles stares him down.

  “H-he was the slow… slowest, right?” Goggles grabs his hatchets and begins spinning them around nonchalantly, jerking his head to the direction of the forest. “I’ll give you one chance. Run.”

  Your friend doesn’t stop to question it and simply bolts. He runs slowly and clumsily, legs practically giving out beneath him with every step – it’s clear that he’s tired from the trip here, and it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that he won’t make it far. But he runs anyways, panting and eyes blown wide as he ungracefully heads for the trees. You conquer up some respect for his grit. 

  The crowd of survivors is silent as your friend advances. He’s halfway there now, just a few seconds away from the forest where he might just stand a chance if he hides himself right. You can feel the hope beginning to gather in the air, feel the way the crowd roots for him – if he makes it out, it proves that there’s still a chance. It means that the masked men are not entirely unbeatable, that you all might be able to make it out in one piece after all. You, personally, play a silent game of how many more seconds before he dies. 

  A few fellow realists stare in the direction of Hoodie, who fidgets silently with the gun in his hands. Goggles remains in his original spot just a few steps away from you and watches as your friend reaches the treeline with no clear change in expression. He doesn’t move, doesn’t fidget, doesn’t even twitch – he’s deathly still like a mannequin. Then when your friend disappears into the darkness of the forest, when the crowd lets out a collective breath of relief and the hope begins to swell, he finally makes his move. 

  Goggles pulls back his hand and casually swings out. The hatchet in his grasp is sent flying towards the trees at an inhuman speed – it meets its intended target with a sickening thump and a loud scream that follows not too long after. Goggles closes the distance between the group and the forest within a few seconds and disappears into the trees too, his blurred form hard for your eyes to follow. Within minutes he reappears, dragging the dead body of your former friend behind him. He dumps it right in front of the crowd. 

  “...35. Pe-perfect,” he says cheerfully, dusting his hands off like he’s just finished cleaning his room. The genuine happiness in his tone throws you off. While Goggles had previously been an angry ball of violence, there is not a single sign of it now save for the unmistakable splatters of fresh blood coating his outfit. You’re not sure if you like this unpredictability. 

  Sideburns saves you the trouble of deliberating over it, clearing his throat and making himself known. You can feel his gaze sweeping over the noticeably smaller crowd. “Alright. There’s about half of you left now. We’re going to figure out how many make it in.”

Chapter Text

  The task is simple, or so you are told. Arm wrestling against one another to identify the ones worthy enough to enter. Despite the seemingly simple setting, however, a problem still arises in the process. 

  “What did twitchy do that for? Now we have an odd number of people, fuck…” The one who was placed in charge of the challenge grumbles under his breath. (When you say ‘placed in charge of’, you really mean that he lost a friendly round of real life rock paper scissors involving teeth, knives, scissors and scalpels. He’s clearly not happy about it.) 

  In the end, Hoods dragged the poor guy out from the crowd of snickering killers, whispered what you’ll assume were some instructions to the devastated creep, then upped and left with the other two proxies without speaking another word to your group of fellow survivors. Rude.

  Now the only three people who seem to have power here are gone, the other creeps have faded into the background again and there is an irritable killer in your midst. Said irritable killer seems to be wracking his brain for how to carry out the trial with an odd number of people. You’re tempted to put forth a simple solution – why not just kill another person? – but decide against it upon realising that you might just become the ‘another person’ if you speak up. 

  Your brilliant solution does manage to see the light of day, however, thanks to the courage and sheer idiocy of one person who seems to be a bit bad at reading the situation. 

  “Are you stupid? Just kill another person.” You can’t quite understand where he got the courage from but one person, whose name is along the lines of… Andy, throws those words at the creep in charge with the most rude tone you’ve ever had the displeasure of hearing in your life. 

  A sort of odd silence envelopes the entire scene as soon as these words are said. Most of your fellow survivors seem nervous at the suggestion, though their eyes light up in glee when they realise that Andrew’s words were… quite offensive, to say the least. The creep in charge, well, you’re not quite sure the red glow coming out from behind the mask is a good sign. 

  "You shouldn't have done that."

  You’d be absolutely ashamed of yourself if you didn’t manage to identify the creep immediately after hearing the words come from his mouth. 

  You watch with silent intrigue and wires slowly crawl out from underneath the creep’s robes, and firmly attach themselves to Andrew. There is a spark, a static buzz accompanied by a long, drawn out scream, and then silence. Andrew’s charred, smoking body falls to the ground with a thump and the wires disappear as fast as they came. 

  “Great. Now we have an even number!” The creep acts as if he didn’t just summon magical wires and electrocute someone to death, clapping his hands together and addressing the survivors. “Now, pair up. I hope you guys like arm wrestling.”

…

  The life of the Link wannabe is not destined to be smooth-sailing. 

  After settling the issue of numbers, the issue of pairing arises. For whatever reason, BEN decides that it’s too much trouble to pair you all up himself. He just waves his hands like some almighty god and leaves you all to figure it out, which results in a bunch of feeting shuffling and avoiding eye contact. While no one knows for sure what kind of fate awaits the losers, most of you can make an educated guess based on the charred, smoking corpse lying on the forest floor just a few metres away. The stronger people look for weaker ones to pick on, while the weaker ones look away – nobody moves. 

  It’s only when BEN allows his wires to threateningly crawl out from under his cloak with ominous sparks do people begin to reluctantly pair up and line up in two neat rows like kindergarteners. 

  You end up with someone you don’t recognise – he approaches you under the guise of care with a poorly concealed gleam in his eyes that has you holding back a scoff. He clearly thinks you’re weak, but you’ve spent a good chunk of your life running around in forests and scaling trees. You’ve gone around challenging everyone who looks remotely strong to arm wrestles (and you’ve won a good number of them too) so you have great confidence in your technique. He’s going to regret looking down on you. 

   While the last few stragglers reluctantly join the growing line, a commotion occurs somewhere near the front. One of the survivors decides, for whatever reason, that trying to tackle BEN to the ground is a good idea. The outcome is another dead body lying on the floor. 

   The dead man’s unfortunate partner is pulled out of the line by writhing wires and violently shoved against the metal gate separating the group and the imposing mansion – the poor thing is trembling as BEN looms in front of him.

  A different masked creep, a bit shorter than BEN, peeks out through the mansion doors– the entire group of survivors watches with bated breath as they get closer to the trembling survivor. Then, with a wave of their hand, the metal gates swing open and the unlucky survivor stumbles through it. He gracefully face-plants into the dirt as the gates slam shut behind him, still shaking, quaking. But the masked creep just watches him for a second then disappears back into the mansion. There’s no anguished wail or spray of blood, the survivor merely sits on the floor and stares through the gaps in the metal gate like a deer caught in the headlights. And suddenly, he doesn’t seem so unlucky after all.

  “What the fuck are you waiting for? Get started.” Someone barks, pulling your mind back to your own situation. You recognise the irritated voice as one belonging to Sideburns. When you turn your gaze to the back of the line, he is standing there, arms crossed and facing BEN with a suspicious red liquid coating the front of his hoodie. Where did he go, you wonder?   

  “Yes, boss!” BEN salutes jokingly and clears his throat. “You heard the man, get started.”

  The survivors stare at him, wide-eyed. He gestures to the grassy ground, and a lone spark flies into the air.  

  “Well?” 

  Slowly, survivors begin to lower themselves onto the forest floor and stretch their arms out. You do the same, making eye contact with your opponent – he’s of average build, someone you’ve never even seen before. Unimportant. You can beat him.

  You offer him a nervous smile as you wrap your right hand around his, but he doesn't return it immediately. Instead, he stares you up and down, seemingly trying to gauge his chances of victory. When his gaze shifts to your arms, he smirks, then finally returns your smile with a cocky one of his own. At this, you freeze up and begin seething on the inside. Is he… looking down on your arms? Your strength? 

  “Ready? Three, two, one…” He meets your eyes after deeming you not a threat. As much as you want to absolutely wreck him, now isn’t the time to stand out. Thus, you push down the boiling anger inside you and match your strength with his.

  For the pair to your left, their battle has already concluded. You recognise the loser being pulled away by a bunch of wires –  her name is Ruth, a friend of yours who is ever willing to lend people a helping hand. You will yourself to stop thinking about the fate that awaits her.  

  As more and more people get pulled away, you decide that now is a good time to put an end to the meaningless fight. ‘Rest well, stranger. You will have to pay the price for looking down on my arms,’ you think you yourself. With an overly dramatic grunt, you tip the balance of the match in your favour then slam your opponent’s arm onto the floor. He is quickly dragged away by wires, and you grace him with a radiant grin as he stares at your arms in disbelief.

…

  When all the matches have concluded, the survivor group is split into two. One is the victorious group, who stands next to the gates with grass and mud coating their clothes. The other is the group of losers, who are also covered in grass and mud – the only difference is that they look downright terrified. 

  “Congratulations on your victory, you lot! Now you may walk through the sacred metal gates before you… Please.” The creep in charge addresses the winners and bows down dramatically, gesturing at the creaky gates with a flair. A tuft of brown hair falls out of his hood, catching your gaze. It looks soft. 

  He gets up and tilts his head, body sagging in faux disappointment when nobody moves. “No? You want to watch what happens here? Suit yourselves.”

  The creep then proceeds to address the losing group. Wires rise into the air, and a few people pale visibly. 

  “As for you lot… Well, I guess the big guy was feeling nice. Only one of you has to go. There’s no room for the weak in there,” he jerks his head in the direction of the mansion, “So we’ll just have to get rid of the weakest among all of you.” 

  And so the pairing up and arm wrestling happens again – the premise strikes you as a bit odd, since there are so many factors that could affect the outcome of the match, but you’re not here to judge their trialling procedures so you keep your thoughts to yourself.

  As the matches progress, BEN looms behind them as a reminder of the fate that awaits the loser. Batch by batch, the winners of the round join your group of survivors with trembling legs and wide, overjoyed eyes while the losers sink deeper and deeper into despair. A fucked up knockout tournament where the last one standing is awarded with a painful death. 

  At last, the finalists sink to the ground and begin the match that decides their fate. Both of them are people familiar to you – one is Ruth, the person beside you during your own match and the other is Evelyn, yet another friend of yours. No matter who wins, one of your cards will get torn into little shreds and scattered in the wind. You frown.   

  Sideburns, who has remained mostly silent up to this point, walks over with slow, deliberate steps, taking BEN’s place beside the two of them. With the crowbar covered in drying blood raised slightly, his intention is clear. 

  You can see both Evelyn and Ruth shaking as they grasp each other’s hand, locking eyes and taking shaky breaths. Although you’ve always known both of them to be kind in every way, you can see a sort of viciousness in their eyes that has you taken aback. Both of them want to live, you realise, even if it costs the life of the other. 

  Ruth takes the initiative and, with a trembling voice, begins counting down. 

  The match is not exciting by any means. You’d go as far as to describe it as pathetic, even – the two weakest people among a group of people arm wrestling, their thin arms trembling from the exertion and exhaustion, looking weak enough to snap at any given moment. On a normal day, you would’ve scoffed and looked away – but today is not a normal day, so you find that your attention is glued to the spectacle playing out before you.

  A long, drawn out stalemate, then Ruth suddenly lets out a guttural cry and slams Evelyn’s arm down on the floor. Ruth pulls her hand away once her victory is secured as if she’s been burnt, then stares down at it, panting heavily. Evelyn collapses onto the floor and begins to sob quietly. Everyone watches.

  “Look carefully.” Sideburns’ voice cuts through the air like a knife. His voice is tinged with menace and a trace of contempt, and he slowly lowers himself into a squat next to Evelyn. She’s full-on sobbing now, face buried in her hands as she hiccups and begs and shakes her head wildly. Her shoulders bounce with every gasping breath she draws in. Sideburns pries her fingers away from her face one by one, actions deceivingly gentle – Evelyn does not resist.

  “This,” he begins, casually swinging his crowbar over his shoulder. “Is what happens to the weak.” 

  Then iIt comes crashing down with terrifying speed, right into Evelyn’s head. When her skull bursts into hundreds of little fragments, exploding into a gory mess of blood like a shotgun was fired into it, her eyes are locked onto Ruth. They burn with a deep hatred and unwillingness that you’ve never seen from her before that sends Ruth physically reeling back. But this time, nobody screams.

  “Inside.” Sideburns gives a simple command. You all follow.

Chapter Text

  After walking through the metal gates and joining up with the lucky survivor from earlier, the group is led through the double doors of the mansion. The walk is solemn and quiet, but a welcome change from the earlier panic.

  Stepping in, the first thing that greets you is an entrance hall. Like the rest of the mansion, it is old and well-used, but holds an ancient charm about it. It’s quite well decorated, with tastefully positioned paintings, plants, tables with what look like snacks and even imposing suits of armour. Two grand staircases rise on the sides of the hall, leading up to the next level. Storage compartments line the space below the stairways, and a brief glance at the handwritten labels reveals that they are apparently filled with common survival equipment and an assortment of weapons. For some reason, one of the bigger compartments is dedicated solely to tape. 

  The second thing that greets you is the smell. Mildly sweet wood is not unpleasant in itself, but an undertone of blood and something else seeps into it. You’re not sure what it is, but after some time you decide it’s not as bad as it is unique. 

  The group comes to a stop right at the end of the spacious entrance hall, before the doorway which seems to lead into a living room. Sideburns blocks the way forward with his body, though you doubt that anyone would have stepped forward even if he didn’t. You wait.

  With a resounding bang, the doors of the mansion are slammed open behind you, revealing Goggles with his leg raised and an unimpressed Hoods standing beside him. They are both coated in blood as well, though it looks less fresh than Sideburns’ was when he showed up earlier. Perhaps they were relegated to clean-up duty? 

  “Took you two long enough,” Sideburns grumbles with a glare. You notice Goggles’ mouthguard shift slightly – discontent? – while Hoods doesn’t give much of a visible reaction. Though there isn’t much you can read from that frown etched onto his ski mask. Interesting. 

  The two wordlessly take their positions next to Sideburns. 

  You find yourself wondering which one among them is the leader. Sideburns seems to be the most obvious answer – a quick Internet search will reveal that most fans agree he’s the head proxy, but you’re hesitant to trust the words of a bunch of 14 year old fanatics online. You think back to his behaviour so far – the file he was entrusted with, his commands, coming back first – and promptly decide that it’s not worth thinking about. Why does it matter when your goal is to collect all the cards rather than the ones worth the most? 

  “Alright. Now that everyone who has any use is here, it’s time to tell you all what you’re here for,” Sideburns begins. He is eerily still as he addresses the crowd – you swear you can feel the way his burning gaze brushes past you. “Only one of you is making it out of here alive.” His  straightforward words seem to startle every survivor present. There is no sugarcoating, and in fact, not even any attempt made to explain the shocking declaration. 

  It is Hoods who supplements Sideburns’ rather lacking explanation in a somewhat monotone voice. “For the next three months, we will be conducting a series of trials to find out who is the most well-suited to join us. Those who do not clear the trials will be eliminated, and chances are there will only be one person who clears them all. If at all.” 

  Alright, so, you could all die. That’s a pleasant thought. 

  “Your first trial is simple. Gather the approval of at least five of us by the end of 30 days.” After he is done speaking, he turns his head towards Goggles. 

  Goggles is holding a stack of what look like poorly designed stamp cards in his embrace. The graphic design work, from what you can see, leaves a lot to be desired – either that, or whoever made them has a wonderful sense of humour. 

  “Come find me later to get your cards and start collecting!” Goggles finishes in a cheerful tone. With that, the three turn around to stride forward in perfect sync, leaving you to ponder over whether to follow in their footsteps and more importantly, the feasibility of them forming a killer girl group. 

…

  It seems that after the three take their leave, the survivors are left to their own devices. A brief survey of the people in the room reveals that some of the survivors have begun to group off into little cliques. 

  Chris, for instance, has gone off to join the friend group in your class – the one with eight people you are supposed to be a part of. You wait for a minute as they gather and begin to discuss things in hushed whispers, but none seem to pay any heed to your absence. Perhaps they think you died, but it does sting slightly that nobody bothers to search for you.

  As far as you can see, there are only five people still on their own – two people you recognise, the lucky survivor from earlier and someone completely unfamiliar to you. You contemplate whether to approach one of them and offer to work together, but decide against it. Perhaps the identity of a scared, lonely and friendless survivor will open up some doors for you. 

  The instructions Goggles gave earlier are still fresh in your mind – find him and get the cards to start collecting stamps. The first person to follow those instructions is Killian. You find that somewhat surprising, given that he has always been one to think things through before acting. Perhaps the death of Shermaine did something to him? Killian moves away from the crowd of survivors and steps through a doorway into a living room of sorts. He turns back briefly to stare at you, then his other friend, before moving forward alone silently. 

  You wonder if you should have gone with him.

  The interior of the mansion is frankly much bigger than it looks like from the outside. Thus, when he reaches the trio awaiting her at the end of the living room and they begin talking, you cannot make out what they are saying anymore. All you can do is stare at Killian’s back and wonder when it began looking so desolate. 

  When Killian finally turns around, he is holding one of the comical stamp cards in his hands. You can tell even from this distance because the card is in the most obnoxious, glaring shade of pink you have ever had the misfortune of setting your eyes on in your life and accented with a horrendous shade of green. Maybe this whole thing was a ploy from the start? Maybe whoever designed the stamp card is setting you all up for failure.  

  Killian retraces his steps with the card in his hand – you can tell from his expression that he is also pondering over the sanity of its creator. Instead of returning to the entrance hall, he stops right before the doorway and turns into a hall on your left, disappearing from view. You hope this isn’t the last time you see him. 

  With Killian taking the lead, the survivors gradually stream into the spacious living room to get stamp cards for themselves. You wait for the crowd to thin before joining the queue and end up near the back, right behind your friend group. Heather, the self proclaimed group clown, notices you as you fall into the line and loops her arm around yours without a word. 

  You are pulled to her side and grace her with a withering expression. She simply grins at you. 

  “_____, there you are!” The first person to acknowledge you verbally is Chris, who loops her arm around your other one. Now you are helplessly sandwiched between two people. The other members of the group spare you a glance and a smile. 

  “Hey. How are we feeling?” You query sarcastically with a grin, raking your gaze over your friends. Chris, Heather, Haziq, Cecilia, Noah, Selena and Qasim, _____ – in a high school drama, you’d be the popular clique. Though, having known them for a few years, you can confidently say that they’re nice people at heart. 

  Selena humours your question with an amused scoff and an equally sarcastic “Very good, thank you.” 

  “We were discussing what’s been going on,” Noah explains with his brows furrowed. Ever the empath, it appears that the deaths so far have taken a toll on him. “I was wondering, what do they mean by joining them?” 

  “Maybe wear one of those weird masks and cloaks?” Qasim offers, looking just as concerned as Noah. You pretend to consider the suggestion carefully and hum. It is Cecilia who shoots down the suggestion in a contemplative tone, asking, “But aren’t the three of them wearing something different? Who knows if the cloaked ones are “them”?” 

  Your friends go on and on about the identity of your kidnappers for a good five minutes while you listen and nod from time to time. Within that period of time, the line has barely moved. It looks like the three in front are taking some time to talk to everyone personally before giving them the card. 

  “Wait, doesn’t _____ like stuff like this? _____, what do you think?” You are suddenly dragged into the discussion by Chris with a tug on your arm. You blink, and shake your head slowly. No way in hell are you giving away your advantage. Thank god you stopped talking about creepypastas after you turned sixteen, leaving your current peers clueless on your…. expertise. 

  “Sorry, guys. They’re not from any horror movie I’ve seen. I can’t help unless you see a man with a hockey mask or finger knives.” Your friends don’t doubt your statement for a second. The discussion is quickly advanced in the direction of “What will they make us do?”, and your presence is promptly forgotten again. 

  Another half an hour filled with idle chatter passes before your group finally reaches the front. Haziq is the first to go. To your dismay, despite standing only a few metres away, what the creeps tell him sounds like nothing more than senseless murmurs to your ears. Each creep says something before Goggles passes Haziq the atrocious card. Haziq proceeds to the side of the living room and stops in place, intending to wait for the rest of you. 

  Your friends go forward one by one to receive their cards, joining Haziq at the side. Soon, you are the last one of your group left in the line. You step forward with an expression of anxiety plastered on your face. 

  It’s hard to tell whether the pounding of your heart is due to fear or excitement. Sure, the three considerably tall men standing in front of you with deadly weapons are imposing, but at the same time these are the three men whose very existence has gotten you through some tough times in life. How could you possibly suppress the excitement running through your veins at this moment? You do your very best to keep your gaze on the ground, but cannot help but peek upwards slightly. The piercing, judgemental gazes you can feel make you wonder whether you did something wrong.

  “Well… it’s a feat you survived up to this point, I’ll give you that.” The first voice that graces your ears is Sideburns’ condescending one. “The others have at least some redeeming qualities, but you… you haven’t done anything worth commending at all.” He does little to hide the malice and mocking in his tone. 

  Goggles nods in agreement, chipping in, “You-you’ve done nothing but l-l-leech off others.” His head jerks violently to the side, and you consciously take a small step back. “You’re a c-coward. I wouldn’t… wouldn’t be surprised if–”

  “Good luck.” Hoods cuts Goggles off, sending a nod in your direction. Despite his well wishes, you can tell that he agrees with the sentiments of the other two and does not harbour much hope for you. Lovely. You grace the trio with your best pale, panic-stricken expression and reach out for the card with trembling hands. Goggles slaps the stamp card into your open palm and gives you two harsh pats on the shoulder, before shoving towards your friends. What a jerk. 

  You shift your body slightly and allow the momentum to send you stumbling forward – Qasim manages to catch you before you completely lose your balance and hit the floor. Goggles better remember this, because you definitely will. 

  With one last fleeting glance at the trio, who have already moved on to the next one in line, you turn around and follow your friends out of the living room clutching your ugly stamp card close to your heart. 

Chapter Text

Whoever made the cards has some sort of magical powers or something, because a few minutes into wandering around the mansion it begins emitting light. Light which sends you to a different section of the mansion, alone, lost and honestly pretty damn pissed. But being pissed does little to change the fact that you are now on your own in unfamiliar territory, territory likely filled with supernatural creatures which may or may not be out for your blood. So you suck it up and begin to explore. 

  Thinking back, the trio really did not do a great job of explaining. All you know is that you’re supposed to get approval, but how the hell are you going to go about doing that? What about your lodging and food for the next 30 days? Whether you’re safe from the inhabitants of the mansion, and whether you’re allowed to sabotage your friends? You grumble under your breath as you begin to stroll. You decide that the only right course of action now is to find the kitchen, because if you’re going to be stuck in this place for the next month you need to know where you can get food. That, and you’re kind of hungry. You walk down the hallways with renewed purpose in your steps and a grumbling stomach.

  On your hunt, you pass by many doors, but you don’t feel particularly inclined to pull them open just yet. Who knows what awaits you behind them? You certainly wouldn’t want to burst into some kind of… sex dungeon, or worse, somebody’s room by accident. 

  When you finally spot an actual section of the mansion down the hall, you pick up your pace and speed towards it. Much to your disappointment, it appears to be some kind of recreation room instead of a kitchen. It is quite spacious and well-equipped, and if not for your empty stomach you'd absolutely love to throw yourself onto one of the many soft couches and pick up a gaming console. Alas, you cast one longing glance at the Nintendo switch lying on a table and proceed to another hallway. 

  You usually think that you have great instincts, but these instincts don’t seem to apply to wayfinding. It takes a good two hours of spinning around and roaming down halls lined with closed doors before you’re finally blessed with the sight of cooking equipment in a little kitchen space. It is, thankfully, empty. 

  The mansion is an interesting place with its neverending halls, you think. Maybe there’s some kind of space-bending magic at play, maybe you’re just an idiot, but you’re too tired to think of that for now. You approach the fridge and pull it open, only to be greeted with an assortment of… mystery meat. The meat products are contained in ziploc bags, suspended in jars of clear liquid and meticulously wrapped in cling wrap. An ominous feeling washes over you as you gaze at the kidney-shaped products and suspiciously human names labelled on each item in elegant handwriting, beneath the ‘date of harvest”.

  You don’t need to tap on your extensive creepypasta knowledge to figure out what that means. 

  You hesitate as you regard the fridge in front of you. You’re not sure how well a human eater would take it if you were to touch their food without permission, and you’re not sure if you’re hungry enough to become a cannibal just yet. But the mansion stretches on as far as your eyes can see, and you have no way of knowing when you’ll next find an opportunity like this. Is it worth the risk?

  Your stomach starts to growl again. A few seconds later, you steel your mind, pick out the name you dislike the most from the fridge and slam the door shut with a bang. 

  Now, there is what is most likely a human kidney (once belonging to someone called Bobby) sitting in front of you. The writing on the cling wrap tells you that this kidney was harvested about two weeks ago. You wonder if it’s still fresh, but quickly decide that the quality of the flesh should be the least of your concerns right now. 

  After washing your hands and unwrapping the kidney, you give it a few good pokes. It’s cold, soft, and not as slimy as you expected it to be. It’s hard to imagine that just fourteen days ago, this organ was processing the contents of poor Bobby’s body. You wonder what kind of person Bobby was – did he have a wife? Children? How did he die? 

  What now? 

  You can’t just eat the thing raw, can you? It’d probably wreck your immune system. You can’t cook to save your life either, but burnt kidney sounds better than raw kidney. As you stare at the kidney contemplatively, you fail to notice the person creeping up behind you until he has his hand around your shoulder. 

  Behold, what awaits you when you turn around in a panic is a man in a suspicious black hoodie. He wears a royal blue mask with drips of black tar running down it, two voids staring back at you where his eyes should be.

  Face to mask, one on one with one of your favourite characters since childhood, all rational thoughts escape you. With the excitement of a toddler on Christmas, you shrug his hand off your shoulder, grasp it excitedly and ask if you can try some of his kidneys. 

  The masked man freezes, swiftly pulls his hand away from yours and retreats a safe distance away. 

…

  Eyeless Jack has never met such an idiot in his life.

  The young woman standing before him is one of the survivors from the earlier trials – he remembers her, has a vague impression of her rather subpar performance. But as she gazes up at him with an expression devoid of all fear, he can’t help but wonder if she’s the same person.

  For the first time in a while, Eyeless Jack finds himself at a loss for what to do in the face of the woman grinning at him with a fervent gaze. 

  He briefly recalls the instructions he was given regarding the survivors – don’t kill them unless they mess up the trial. What could go wrong with following such simple instructions? The one in front of him looks harmless enough, maybe he’ll give her a stamp if she’s not annoying like the others he’s met so far. Eyeless Jack hesitantly moves forward with his gaze resting on the kidney and opens his mouth. 

  “That’s a human kidney.”

…

  You watch in mild amusement as Eyeless Jack approaches you like one would a wild animal. It’s almost as if he thinks you’re the dangerous one, when he is the one with a gleaming scalpel gripped tightly in one hand.  

  “That’s a human kidney,” he says, facing the kidney in front of you. His voice is low and soothing – perhaps he should consider a career in reading audiobooks if he gets bored of all the murder. You consider the kidney and then nod. 

  “I know.” 

  Your response seems to stump him, because he pauses in his steps. They’re slow, but in a cautious way, 

  “Can you help me cook this? Please?” You query, gesturing at the kidney. Eyeless Jack does not respond verbally, but after a moment he moves to your side and pulls out a piece of fabric. 

  When he throws on a pink apron with an attitude of a soldier going to war, you cannot quell the laughter bubbling from your throat. 

…

  Half an hour later, you are seated at a dining table with a murderer. He places a freshly made plate of human kidney in front of you – while cannibalism has never been on your to do list, you must admit that the steaming. well-plated dish before you looks incredibly appetising. Perhaps it’s the hunger getting to you, or perhaps it’s the culinary skills of the masked man staring a hole into your head. 

  You briefly consider the moral implications of what you’re about to do, but find that it’s a waste of time. With the combined threat of a seasoned murderer and starving to death looming before you, you quickly shove aside all your reservations about cannibalism and take a bite of the dish. 

  It’s hot, having just come off the pan, so your first bite is small. First impressions? It’s not as bad as you’d expected. The taste is reminiscent of pig kidney, albeit a bit more… strong? A little voice in the back of your mind hurls at the thought of eating a fellow human, but you ignore it. If other animals can commit cannibalism, why can’t you? Flesh is flesh. You power on. 

  Before you know it, you’ve finished your meal. You apologise to the spirit of Bobby under your breath (“Sorry for eating your kidney, Bobby. You were great, Bobby.”), then hop off your chair and bring that plate to the sink like a proper guest. 

  EJ’s stare practically burns a hole through your head as you wash the dishes of your own accord. You take that as a sign to get the fuck out, so when you’re done drying the plates and returning them to their rightful places you hastily excuse yourself and practically run out.

  “Thanks, stranger! You’re a great cook,” you compliment him sincerely as you retreat. You don’t wait to see his reaction or hear his response before you’re gone, down the hallway in search of more adventure. 

Chapter Text

  After staring at your retreating back for a few seconds, EJ finally comes back to his senses. 

  He spends a good minute processing what just happened. Then, he walks out of the kitchen, makes a few decisive turns and arrives in a room filled with various devices. He approaches a television and gives it a few solid taps. 

  The lights flicker briefly and dim, taking on an ominous red hue. A television switches itself on with a click. Static fills the screen, and the silhouette of a figure slowly becomes clearer within the grain – it is moving closer and closer, pressing itself up against the glass. 

  “You shouldn’t have done that.” A glitchy voice plays from all the speakers, and the low hum of electricity begins to build up. Gradually, pale fingers begin emerging one by one, followed by an entire hand, arm, and person dressed in green. 

  If EJ had eyes, he would’ve rolled them by now. 

  “Stop. I have something to ask.” EJ states, grabbing one of the hands and tugging hard. In an instant the figure is pulled from inside the screen and falls to the ground inelegantly – the lights return to their usual brightness, the static disappears and the television begins playing the Teen Titans Go theme song. 

 “Did you really have to pull me out? Couldn’t you have waited like a normal person?” EJ ignores the floating poltergeist’s whines and proceeds with his inquiry. 

  “How do the… stamps work?” 

  BEN graces EJ with a blank stare of disbelief. He blinks once, and asks, “The stamps? I thought you weren’t interested in participating?” 

  “I found someone interesting,” EJ explains, then pauses when he notices the shit eating grin emerging on BEN’s face. EJ gives it some thought and quickly decides that he doesn’t like the idea of BEN ruining his prospective kidney munching buddy. He pulls out his scalpel.

…

  You, wandering the halls and lamenting your rather lacking sense of direction, suddenly catch a hauntingly familiar song playing in the distance. 

  “T-E-E-N, T-I-T-A-N-S, Teen Titans, let’s go–” It’s faint and barely audible, but you would never mistake the tune for anything else. You hesitate only briefly before you begin sprinting towards the direction of the sound. The obnoxious music grows louder and louder as you run, prompting you to push yourself even faster until finally– 

  You skid into the same entertainment room you found earlier just as the music ends, wide-eyed and panting heavily. 

  “Am I… interrupting something?” You ask hesitantly after a pause, raking your eyes over the scene in front of you. Link from the Legend of Zelda is curled up into a floating little ball, and your personal cannibal cook is towering over him with a scalpel in hand. In the background, a television plays an episode of Teen Titans Go! at max volume.

  “No.” EJ lies, rapidly retreating a few steps and tucking his hands into his pockets. The aforementioned floating little ball unfurls itself and raises an accusatory finger in your general direction. The finger is quickly lowered when EJ tilts his head. 

   “Right…” You draw with a slow nod, eyes darting between the two murderous freaks of nature. Maybe interrupting whatever was going on wasn’t the best of ideas. You shift awkwardly on the spot and try to come up with an excuse to leave. You fail to come up with one, but when your gaze unwittingly falls on the Nintendo Switch lying in plain sight another brilliant idea pops up in your mind. “Do either of you like Mario Kart?”

  The Link Ripoff, previously hovering aimlessly in the air with a faint expression of annoyance, makes an immediate beeline for the Switch as soon as the words leave your lips. EJ lets out what you assume is a gasp of horror at the same time. Before you can regret asking your question, a bunch of wires slither around your torso and pull you onto the couch. 

  You remember, at this moment, that your life is practically hanging in the balance. Anybody in this room could end you in an instant if they so wish, yet here you are, JoyCon in hand, about to engage in a game of Mario Kart 8. The sheer absurdity of the situation has you grinning despite yourself – you resolve to maintain your 100% win rate at Mario Kart even if it’s the last thing you do. 

  Thus, with a murderous ghost sitting by your side and cables capable of manslaughter still wrapped around you, you begin the most intense match of Mario Kart you’ve ever played in your life. No words are exchanged, only shells and banana peels. EJ watches with an air of mild disapproval as the two of you battle it out, slamming buttons and spinning the joystick with dextrous, practised movements. Eventually the race comes to an end, and a miserable howl escapes your opponent’s lips. 

  “How did you do that? Did you cheat?” He whines, throwing his controller onto the couch. The wires tighten around you and for an instant you think that this is it – you’re going to die here, all because you didn’t want to lose a game of Mario Kart. Thankfully, BEN isn’t enough of a sore loser to kill you over this, and he retrieves his cables after grumbling for a few more seconds. 

  You glance around the room quickly, then decide to make the most of your newfound freedom. It’s just you, BEN and EJ here. Surely you can afford to make another bad decision. This is one of the hardest battles you’ve ever fought, and you’d rather die than walk out of here without bragging about it. With a finger in the shape of an L on your forehead, you stare right into BEN’s eyes and grin. “Skill issue.”

  The green goblin growls, wires shooting out from under his sleeves and tightening around you again. His eyes, dripping a steady stream of blood, meet yours. You regard it with mild fascination. The lights in the room suddenly go out, the screen showing your victory is covered by static and the red pupils fixated on you fill up with murderous intent. 

  Regret fills you, but it’s too late for regret now. No amount of grovelling will fix the impression that you’ve made. Your only option is to offer him something interesting – and you’re confident that you do have something interesting to offer. You open your mouth at the same time as he does. 

  “You shouldn’t have done that.” Your voices overlap. His is accompanied by a low hum and filled with anger, while yours is crisp and mocking. Silence follows. Things return to the way they were before and you’re left staring at a very confused BEN. 

  And then, an unfamiliar voice from the doorway. “What the fuck?” 

…

  It seems that luck isn’t on your side today. You turn to the direction of the horrified whisper and frown. What was supposed to be a performance for an intimate audience of two is caught by two other people who walk into the room with slow, measured steps. 

  One is a woman dressed in black with a beautiful porcelain mask, and the other is a man with a striped scarf. Jane and Liu. The former is unreadable, but the latter looks clearly amused by the situation. You can work with this. 

  With a dramatic thump, you fall to your knees in front of BEN and throw your hands over your head. Your eyes are fixated to the ground in front of you – is that blood? Why would there be blood in a goddamn recreational room? – as you tremble violently. Pleas escape your lips, shaky and coated in a thin layer of mocking. “P-please, please don’t hurt me… I have a wife and three children…” 

  “Really?” BEN asks incredulously. A soft snort comes from the doorway. 

  “We’ve been married for ten happy years, my Caroline and I,” you tell him, raising your head and staring off into the distance. Conjuring up nonexistent memories of family life, you begin rattling off in your best Southern accent. “My youngest, her name is Betsy, she turns six next week.” 

  BEN blinks. Looks you up and down. Blinks again. 

  “Her oldest son is named Austin and he turned nine last Friday,” Liu adds helpfully as he makes his way over. He offers you a hand and pulls you onto your feet with ease. “Her second son, Dallas, turns seven today.” 

  BEN remains silent and stares at you contemplatively. His gaze files between you and LIu – you can see the gears turning in his head “How did you two–”

  “ She’s joking, dumbass, ” Liu cuts in. Well, it’s Liu’s voice, but the way he carries himself is noticeably different. If the internet stories are right, you’re willing to bet that it’s Sully speaking right now. How fun. 

  “You should get an oscar for that incredible acting,” Jane laughs, clear and melodic. Your gaze lingers on her mask for a second – it’s very well made. She approaches you like one would a stray cat, mask lifting up slightly in a smile. “I’m curious. How did you predict what BEN would say?”

  You smile at her question, having prepared your answer long ago. There’s a few more people than you planned for, but this is fine. “I’m a creepypasta fan.”

  Even after you announce your identity, the looks of realisation that you expect never come. All you get in return are a bunch of blank stares.

  “A what now?”

…

  So, apparently, creepypastas aren’t silly horror stories that anyone can just read off the internet. Thanks to magical shenanigans, alternate universes that are just slightly off exist, and by entering the forest you’ve entered one of them. An alternate universe where the creepypastas don’t have their life stories put on blast for everyone to read, one where there are no 13 year olds on Wattpad writing about Jeff the Killer. You’re having a bit of trouble processing this new information, and the killers are too. 

  According to them, they were entirely unaware of the whole ‘creepypasta’ thing until five minutes ago. Even BEN, who dabbles in electronics, looks a little lost at the moment. It takes a lot of convincing and throwing out all the trivia you’ve gathered over the years to convince them, but after some back and forth you manage. 

  (“ Really? So you know who I am ?” “Yes, for the seventh… time. I know who you are Sully.”) 

  EJ, who has been quiet so far, is the first to recover from the information you dump on him. He decisively chalks it up to “just some more Slender forest magic,” then begins silently fiddling with his scalpel. BEN receives the news with considerable excitement, apparently elated that there’s a whole other version of the internet out there. You hint at the ungodly amount of Jeff the Killer content available – he grins at you and promises you’ll be the best of friends in time to come. 

  Liu… well, Liu takes the information well, but Sully takes the opportunity to annoy the ever loving fuck out of you. You’re not sure why he enjoys it so much, but he clearly finds your rising irritation with his incessant questioning very amusing. Though, you will admit that watching Liu try to stop him is entertaining. 

  Jane is the last to react to the new information. Her manner, while not aggressive, becomes infinitely more guarded when you confirm that you have knowledge of her backstory. Knowing what she has gone through, you find that you can’t blame her for reacting in such a way.

  “Great discussion, folks!” you clap three times once they’re done asking questions, concluding the little question and answer segment. “Please keep this between us.” 

  The four creeps easily agree to keep your secret, and you can only hope that they do as they promise. 

  “Could I… get some of those stamps, by the way? Kinda need them to survive and all,” you ask hesitantly. You pull the ugly card out of your pocket and wave it around. “Whoever made these has really good taste, by the way.”

  You don’t miss the way BEN’s grin grows just a little bit wider at your comment. He is the first to agree to your request, shuffling over and pulling out his phone. He presses it over the card – a second later, a surprisingly intricate neon green stamp appears on one of the blank slots. Whoever designed the stamps clearly put a lot of thought into them. 

  “BP made them, insisted that my designs were too shitty or something,” BEN grumbles when he notices your raised brow. You decide to keep your mouth shut. 

  EJ gasps softly when the stamp appears, as if enlightened, then swiftly pulls out his phone to add his own stamp. His is a beautiful royal blue with black accents, featuring his mask and a kidney. 

  “ Give Jeff hell for me, ”  Sully whispers into your ear as he adds his stamp. For once Liu doesn’t offer an alternative opinion. You smile at them and stick out your pinky finger, promising to do just that.

  Jane is the last one to pull out her phone, and when she holds it out to mark your card, she hesitates. “Can you walk with me after this?” She asks, voice wavering slightly. You nod and muster up your best comforting smile. She tilts her head in return. 

  When she pulls her phone away, you are left with an atrocious stamp card marked with four unique stamps. You thank all four of them genuinely, and wave goodbye as you walk to the doorway. “Nice meeting you all! I trust that my secret is safe here” you say, pausing briefly to address EJ. “Can’t wait to try your cooking again, EJ. See you around!” 

  With that, you extend a hand to Jane and smile. 

  “Shall we?” 

Chapter Text

  The walk with Jane is silent at first – not the comfortable kind, but the heavy sort that hangs in the air when there is something weighing on your mind. After two minutes of walking in that silence, Jane speaks. Her voice is quiet and solemn, but not angry. “How much do you know?” 

  “I know what Jeff did,” you say, not meeting her eyes. 

  “I see.” She sounds tired – very tired. Then, she scoffs as if amused. “I’m not sure why it bothers me so much. It was a thing of the past, but knowing that people out here have seen my entire life story…. that’s a little off putting. 

  You blink at her comment and shake your head. “I won’t pretend to understand, because I can’t. But I think that it’s completely fair for you to feel this way.” Comforting people has never been your strong suit – you just use the words you’ve regurgitated time and time again. It makes you feel like a filthy liar, a cheat pretending to care, but you don’t have the capacity to say anything more suitable. “If it’s any comfort, not the entire truth is put on the internet for people to see.”

  She pauses in her steps, then tilts her head at you again as if asking you to elaborate. 

  “The stories are… unreliable. There’s a general gist, but I don’t think there’s one version that tells the complete story,” you explain. “I know your names and I have a vague idea of what happened, but I don’t know any details and I have no way of telling if my knowledge is right.” 

  She doesn’t respond. You try to lighten the mood by throwing out the most obscure fact you can think of. “Is it true that Masky really loves cheesecake?” 

  Jane lets out a light snort and shakes her head. “Goodness, no. I doubt that stuck-up prick would touch anything sweet with a five-foot pole.” Her voice is considerably lighter now, and you take it as a sign of victory. You two resume your pleasant walk, and this time her gait is less guarded. 

  “Thank you for telling me,” Jane sighs, quickening her pace slightly to take the lead. “Listen, could you do me a favour? Either Liu or Sully probably already asked this of you, but please fuck up the smiley bastard for me. He tends to be prideful, so just… smash his ego into little pieces or something. I am sure that is within your capacity.” 

  You nod and assure her that you already have a plan. 

  “Great. Now follow me, I have something to show you.” 

…

  For somebody in high heels, Jane walks surprisingly fast. You find yourself struggling to match her pace as she power walks, navigating the hallways with ease. By the time she slows down, you’ve lost track of what turns you made and which doors you walked through. 

  Jane turns around to see your confused face and immediately laughs. “Don’t worry, you’ll get used to it.” 

  She comes to a stop in front of a door – it looks like every other door you’ve seen on your way here. Jane surveys the hallway, leans in close and whispers, “Spend some time training yourself. I think you’ll need it for the next few rounds. Remember, when you’re walking you must walk with purpose. Don’t let the mansion confuse you.” With those cryptic messages, she tosses you the keys and whirls around, returning the way she came from. “Keep them safe and stay safe. We’re counting on you.” She leaves with those final words, her heels clicking against the wooden floor. 

...

  The first thing that hits you when you step into your new room is all the dust. In fact, it hits you right in the face, prompting you to begin a round of uncontrollable sneezing. Your suffering only serves to stir up the dust even more, and you soon find yourself in a miserable cycle.

  Lovely. You need to clean your room. Now. 

  With all the determination of a warrior taking his last stand, you poke your head outside for one last breath of fresh air before waging a war on your new room. You fling blankets, pillows and anything else that you can get your hands on off the bed. One particularly fluffy pillow you wield as a weapon to battle against the rising rust, sweeping it out into the hallway with large, frantic motions. The plumes of dust that rise into the air with every move you make strike fear into your very being.

  Your eyes begin to water from all the dust and all the sneezing – with a sinking heart, you realise that this won’t work. Your foe is too formidable to be defeated with such primitive methods. With the gears in your head turning at top speed, you survey the room for any possible alternative plans. 

  Through the dust, you finally spot your potential saving grace – doors. Doors that could lead to either your salvation or your doom. You retreat into the relative safety of the hallway for another breath of fresh, less dusty air, then make a mad sprint to the closest set of doors in sight. You pray to whatever gods are out there as you run, pray for whatever awaits you behind those doors to be something other than more dust.

  Thankfully your prayers are answered – you burst through the doors into a smaller side room which, to your absolute delight, contains a sink. It seems that there is hope after all. You quickly scan the new room and determine that it is a bathroom, one which is stocked with cleaning supplies. With one fluid motion you grab a towel off the nearest rack and turn on the tap to make yourself a makeshift mask. Then, you begin to frantically flip through cabinets and drawers in search of items that can aid you in battle. A minute later you are sneezing again, but this time you are armed to the teeth with cleaning supplies. With a wet mop in one hand, a rag in the other and a wet towel over your breathing cavities, you step out of the bathroom to resume your battle. 

…

  It takes close to an hour and a lot of swearing, but you eventually manage to turn your new room into a livable, breathable space. The water you used has turned a concerning grey colour in its container, and as you pour it down the sink unidentifiable particles of dirt float about in it. You can’t say you’re sad to see it gone.

  You still have a lot of concerns about the state of your blanket and pillow, but you’re willing to make do with them for now. You’ve given everything in your reach a good wipe and beat down, and unless you can find the laundry room while dragging a large blanket behind you, you’ll need to suck it up for now.

  It’s clear that it has been some time since this room was used. Despite the appalling volume of dust, everything else is thankfully not too bad – it’s like having your own sizable apartment in the middle of the mansion. The bathrooms are filled with necessities, though you wouldn’t trust the medicine inside the cabinets to be unexpired. Aside from the main bedroom and the bathroom, there are two more rooms for you to use. One is a little workout space equipped with basic gym equipment, and the other is an empty room which you imagine will remain empty for the rest of the month. Unless you manage to get someone to provide you with something, that is.

  It’ll be necessary for you to create a plan soon. But soon is not now. Exhausted from the events of today, you ensure that all three locks on your door are in position, snuggle into your bed of indeterminable cleanliness and fall into a deep slumber. 

Chapter Text

  Walk with conviction, she said. You wish Jane was just a little bit more specific in her instructions. As you stalk down the hallways, you channel your inner… convict with as much energy as you can muster. Yet, no matter how purposeful you try to make every one of your footsteps, you don’t seem to be getting any closer to your goal. 

  To make matters worse, pangs of hunger are beginning to wreck at your body again. Did you really sleep that long? You woke up about an hour ago with no real way to tell the time – the sun is a nonexistent concept here and your phone gave out long before you did. 

  The hallways lined with the same plain doors, the turns that don’t seem to lead anywhere productive and the lack of anything substantial almost causes you to begin tearing up in frustration. To hell with water and food. You begin to wish that you’re back in the recreational room with BEN, giving him a good asswhooping on the Nintendo Switch. 

  If you ever get out of these halls alive, you’re going to make sure that the elf-ghost-monster-thing gets his ass handed to him, even if he uses his unfair magical powers to cheat. You won’t let a few stupid doors drive you so far – if you can survive an enclosed bedroom filled with dust, you can survive anything. 

  When you snap out of your wishful thinking you find that you’re back at a familiar entranceway, surrounded by familiar facilities. You blink in wonder. You see what Jane means by walking with conviction now. Relief floods you as you step into the recreation room. 

  BEN is sitting on one of the couches, sparks flying out of his hands as he stares intently at a screen. “Did you get lost?” He asks, eyes never turning away from his game. You hum, a wave of embarrassment suddenly hitting you. He snickers.

  “Really? Didn’t anyone warn you that the mansion likes to mess with you?” You pause, and think back to the words Jane whispered to you. Right. She did say something like that. 

  BEN casts you a glance, then grins excitedly. “C’mere, I think you should see this.” He pats the space beside him with one hand – you are hesitant at first, but the sparks flying threateningly are all the motivation you need to shuffle over and sit down. You peer at the Switch in his hands, and realise that the pixelated face contorted in pain looks hauntingly similar to someone you know. 

  “Do you know her? She came with her friends searching for a stamp, but started whining about how unfair the game was a few minutes in,” BEN narrates, regarding the character with mild annoyance shining in his red pupils. “I dragged her inside to give her a fair advantage, but looks like it just wasn’t meant to be.” 

  The face staring at you from the screen, frozen in abject terror, belongs to someone you know. You’re sure of that now. It belongs to Heather, a member of your friend group – she does not speak (you’re not sure if she can speak) but her eyes scream for you to help her. BEN moves his fingers and the character on screen is immediately impaled on a bunch of spikes. They render her limbs useless but leave her alive, heaving, on the pixelated floor.  

  “Right…” You begin, narrowing your eyes. You turn your gaze away from the screen and shuffle away from BEN. He feels different from the sore loser you were playing Mario Kart with earlier – you can’t quite place it, but he feels more…. staticy, You don’t like it. “I know her. She’s just a friend.” 

  BEN’s grin grows wider, and suddenly his wires are wrapped around your arm again and pull you back to your original position. The cables hum threateningly with electricity as you squirm and try to dislodge them – you take the hint and freeze. 

  “Do you wanna try? Playing this game with her?” 

  It is an order, not an offer  – you know that there’s only one answer you can give to make it out of this room untouched. You’ve almost forgotten who he is, who they all are – anyone roaming this mansion can end your life in an instant if they want to, or at least make it a living hell. Here you are, acting all tough and trying to befriend the killers who kidnapped you. At some point the device in his hands ends up in your own, and you’re face to face with Heather.

  From behind a screen, none of this seems real. It doesn't feel real, not yet – not the pounding of your heart, the blood rushing to your head, or the cold, lifeless hands wrapping around your own. BEN’s hands are smaller than yours, yet they have taken so many more lives. Those same hands buzz with the artificial hum of electricity as they guide yours to take a life, too. You are watching as your friend is pulled apart by digital monsters, her mouth open in a silent scream and eyes fraught with disbelief and betrayal. 

  “Game Over”, in bold, red letters, appears on the screen. The chill has left your hands and the buzz has faded away – you are left with nothing but a feeling of numb emptiness. The wires detangle themselves from your limbs and slide away, and your strength disappears with them. Your arms feel like blocks of iron as you raise them and stare at your hands. Do these things really belong to you? 

  The bloody, dismembered pieces of your friend exit the screen and fall to the ground in a big heap. How long have you been staring at it? Why are you shaking? Is that someone talking to you?”

  In the dark reflection of the screen you see BEN floating behind you. He is grinning like before, this time without even attempting to veil his amusement and malicious intent. You can tell that he is waiting – but waiting for what? For you to mess up? For an excuse to do the same to you? For you to react in fear? His mouth is moving. 

  “-me. _____? Earth to _____?”

  And in an instant, everything returns to normal. You regain control of your hands and bring them to your face with a gasp, the red letters fade away and suddenly the body on the ground doesn’t look so bad.

  Your head snaps towards the source of the sound, and you see BEN still floating there with his legs crossed, with the same grin still on his face. You grin back and wipe the imaginary blood off your hands. His expression drops. 

  “How about a game of Mario Kart?” 

…

  Selena is scared. 

  Correction, Selena is fucking terrified. Selena has never been so scared in her entire goddamn life. 

  She is sprinting down the hallways blindly, willing her legs to carry her as far away as possible. The black sclera of the ghost dressed as Link is burned into her head, along with the memory of her friend being dragged into the screen. She is running away, to another place that is anywhere but that fucking entertainment room with its malicious ghost and the sight of Heather reaching out towards her and the sound of her desperate wailing. 

  The doors and walls blur together as she sprints wildly, haphazardly shoving aside anything in her way. She’ll be safe somewhere else, she’ll find a way to survive or at least die a peaceful death. She has to. Selena runs, and at some point she begins to make out the faint sound of a game in the distance. 

  Selena has been an avid gamer her whole life. In particular, she’s always been a fan of the Mario games. She would recognise the sounds anywhere. The further she runs, the louder the sounds get – but she can’t turn back, not now, not back to the place she came from. So Selena moves forward, sprints through the next entranceway, and then–

   “...What?” It’s the same entrance, the same room, the same ghost. Only now, you are there too. You are sitting next to the Link ghost, playing Mario Kart with him and laughing away. Nearby lies a pile of dismembered limbs, with a familiar face staring back at Selena from the top of the pile. 

  “What are you doing?” Selena’s voice is shaky when she speaks. She tries to be brave. She has to, she needs to get to the bottom of this. “_____, what the fuck have you done? 

  Selena advances slowly, her face contorted in a mix between anger and confusion. The fear is quickly fading, and wrath swiftly fills her in its place. She cannot understand how her friend can be so relaxed, so happy around the one who killed Heather. 

 Then Selena is on the floor, wrapped up in cables and convulsing as electricity runs through her body. BEN glances at her only briefly before returning to his game. 

  “Oh, that sounds like it hurt,” You wince at the sound of her body hitting the ground. Then, taking advantage of BEN being distracted, you launch a blue shell at him and swoop in to take the victory. After rubbing the win in his face you turn around to face your friend. “What’s up?”

  Selena, nothing more than a sack of flesh bound in wires from head to toe, glares. Hatred and anger brews in her gaze, and even though she cannot speak the look she is giving you speaks a thousand words. You pause. 

  While the two of you have never been close, you don’t think she hates you. What happened? Your gaze falls on the dismembered corpse at the side.

  Oh. 

  “She’s the only reason I lost. I demand a rematch,” BEN grumbles audibly from the side. He is staring at the rankings displayed on screen with a disgruntled expression.   

  His words are filtered out by your brain as you try to come up with ways to explain yourself. The tiniest slither of doubt begins to gnaw away at you. Have you lost your humanity, too caught up in trying to befriend the characters you grew up with? Did you really have to do that? Was it your fault? 

  “Oh, you’re fucking kidding me. Are you really gonna let her get to you?” BEN groans, throwing the controller onto the sofa. “Tell you what. I kill her, find someone to get you the last stamp you need and we have a proper rematch. Deal?”

  The offer is, frankly, not tempting at all, but you don’t turn him down. You’ve learnt your lesson. You know that the moment you do anything against his wishes, those wires will be wrapped around you instead. You’ll be the next corpse on the floor, bleeding out everywhere and cut into pieces. 

  It wasn’t your fault, because you didn’t have much of a choice. 

  With that in mind, you offer Selena a mildly apologetic grin and hold your hand out towards BEN. 

  “Let me try.”

Chapter Text

  You take BEN up on the offer of another rematch, though this time you’re too disturbed to whoop his ass properly. He ends up winning and does a little victory dance, which brings your mood up just a little bit. He also promises to send someone your way with a stamp, though it’s the least of your concerns at the moment.

  “I’ll take care of the bodies!” is the last thing he says to you before hopping into the television with a mass of flesh trailing behind him. You decide that you don’t really want to know what he means by that, and quickly make your escape. It’s unsurprising that he doesn’t have much empathy for you, and you don’t expect any. But you can’t stay in that room for a moment longer. The fresh blood staining the floor has already begun to dry and blend in – you shudder to imagine how many people have died in that very room. 

  Taking a life in real life, with your own hands and by your own decision… it feels different. You watched as the life slipped away from Selena’s eyes, felt her grasp on your hands weakening and heard her final breath. Even now you can recall the expression on her face, feel the phantom of her touch along your arms. You still hear BEN’s laughter in your ears, his voice as he encourages you to hold on tighter. 

  Now, you’re back to wandering the halls with no real purpose. You look down at your bloodstained clothes and think that maybe you should get yourself cleaned up. 

  Yeah. That sounds like a good idea. You’re willing to bet that there’s some kind of laundry facility in this hellhole, you just need to find it. That and some extra clothes. Hell, while you’re there you might as well wash your bed sheets and blankets. And pillowcases. And almost everything in your room, actually. 

  You have a plan. Something to do. Perfect. 

  With a destination in mind, you stride forward confidently and throw open the next door you see. 

…

  You think you’re finally beginning to get the hang of this place. 

  Fortunately for you, the door you throw open leads directly to a laundry room. There are an assortment of washing machines and dryers in different states of disrepair, a heap of baskets of which some look like they haven’t been cleaned for years and a fine selection of sticky detergent bottles for you to choose from. 

  Needless to say, whoever has been in charge of this place (if there even is anyone) has not been doing the best job. You’d never say it to their face, though, because you don’t want to die. Unless it’s BEN. Or EJ. But something tells you that EJ, of all people, would never allow a place to reach this state.  

  You brace yourself, hesitantly pick up one of the bottles of detergent from the floor with as little skin contact as possible and cringe at the sticky texture – it’s ocean scented, whatever that means. To your relief, the bottle is almost half full, which means you only need to dirty your hands with one (1) contact with some month-old exposed detergent today. You cheer.

  Then, you pause. Where in the world are you going to find clothes to change into? Last you checked, there were no articles of clothing available in your room. You don’t have any reliable way to contact the creeps you’ve already met, and you’re not sure if you have enough luck left to survive putting on a random set of clothing left in the laundry baskets. 

  You frown and consider your options. You could walk around until you find someone willing to help or let the mind reading house do its thing, but there’s a chance you’ll be seen by a survivor. Being covered in blood is sure to raise some questions.

  Or maybe you can just use one of those clean towels lying around to wrap yourself up while your clothes are in the wash — there are dryers, so you’ll get clean clothes eventually! All you need to do is pray hard that nobody with malicious intentions walks in on you. 

  With no better solution, you set the bottle of detergent down at a safe place and pick up a large towel to drape around your shoulders, Then, you begin to strip. The blood on your clothes has begun to dry and cling to your skin, and you shudder lightly at the feeling of it being peeled away. It’s like that thing you used to do with glue but stickier and less… in one piece. 

  “Woah, woah. Woah there. We should at least go out for dinner first, damn,”  the door opens and the amused drawl of a woman reaches your ears. You immediately pull your pants up to cover yourself up and whip around, face heating up. Shit. 

  The first thing you notice about the woman leaning against the doorway with her arms crossed is that she has stunning green eyes. Well, a stunning green eye. One of her eye sockets contains a clock instead of an eye. There are stitches along her face that pull her mouth into a smile. She’s… hot, which only serves to further elevate your embarrassment. You decide to focus your gaze on her eyes because you don’t intend to be a complete creep. 

  “What’re you staring at?” she asks, raising an eyebrow. Her voice is still amused, but there is a slightly more threatening tone to it. 

  “You. Your eyes, specifically. They’re really pretty,” you admit. She scoffs lightly, but doesn’t comment further. You’re not too sure what to make of it. 

  An odd silence descends upon the room as the lady brushes past you. She comes to a stop before one of the dryers, picks up a basket from the pile and slams the dryer door open. It gives a sad, dying beep and a pile of clothes come pouring out. Your eyes follow her movement – the only other thing you can do right now is continue stripping, and you’re not quite sure whether you want to do that. 

  The clothes are all piled inside the basket within a minute, and the lady retraces her steps. She stops by your side for a moment, digs through the basket and holds out a set of clothes. You blink at her. 

  “You’re _____, right? The name’s Clockwork. Jane told me about you.” She scans you up and down, then a contemplative expression appears on her face. “I can see why she likes you.”

  Before you get the chance to speak, she continues. “Just take these, Jane would hate to see ya go so early,” Clockwork throws you a wink, stuffs the clothes into your hands and shuffles towards the door. She balances the basket on one hand and gives you a lazy wave as she disappears down the hallway. “You can thank me later. See you around, bitch.” 

  You’re left alone in the laundry room with a pile of freshly cleaned clothes in your hands wondering what the hell just happened. The embarrassment from earlier shoved into the deepest crevices of your mind, you peel off your old clothes as fast as physically possible, place them inside the nearest washing machine and scramble to cloth yourself. Then, you pick up the abandoned bottle of detergent, pour out a generous dollop, slam the washing machine door shut with a bang and press start. The washing machine comes to life with a pathetic jingle and begins to spin. You almost sink to the floor in relief. 

  The clothes that Clockwork gave you are just a little too big, but they do a good enough job of covering the blood. You quickly decide that you never want to see this place again and whirl around, intent on returning to your room as soon as you can.

...

  For some reason, the house decides to send you to a gym instead of back to your room. How lovely. You linger in the shadow of the doorway and survey the room for anyone you know. To your mild distress, two of your friends are there, jogging side by side on treadmills. You take one look at your bloodstained hands, then shove them into your pockets. Thank goodness whatever detergent Clockwork uses does a good job of covering up the smell of blood. You decide not to take your chances and turn around to leave, but Chris spots you just as you take your first step.

  “_____! There you are,” Chris waves to you, stopping the machine and making her way over. “Have you seen Heather or Selena?” 

  You briefly freeze. Is the doorway dark enough to mask the blood on your face? You sure hope so. You peel open your trembling lips, pray that your voice doesn’t shake and tell her, “They’re dead.” 

  Chris pauses – you wonder if she’s going to question how you know that. Your mind whirls as you try to come up with a suitable excuse. You saw their dead bodies? You overheard it from someone else? You tried to save them but they died before your eyes, thus the blood splatters? All your thinking turned out to be for naught, however, because Chris just sighs in response. She is taking it well, you think. 

  “Shannon and Clarice are dead too,” she informs you in a grim tone. You wonder if she’s experienced the same thing as you have, or whether she just happened to see them die. You’re not sure if you can bring yourself to trust anyone in this room anymore.

  Cecelia hops off the treadmill and moves to join you and Chris near the doorway. You notice her glistening eyes – is she crying? Why is she crying? A brief moment of silence passes; all three of you take a moment to mourn your dead friends. Two more people you once knew, dead. 

  Cecelia is the first to break the silence with a soft sniffle. Chris is at her side almost immediately, rubbing her back with a serious expression on her face. You’re taken aback when you see the determination and quiet anger in her eyes. She knows, is your first thought, and you pull your gaze away from hers. But the anger does not seem to be directed at you. 

  “I’m going to make whoever did this to them pay.” Chris sounds angrier than you have ever seen her, and you can’t stop the guilt that quickly arises in you. You shove it down into the recesses of your mind and give her a lopsided grin in return. Your eyes meet hers – Chris’s eyes are burning with a muted hatred. They promise revenge.  “_____. Cecelia. Will you join me?"

  “Of course,” you whisper, shoving your hands deeper into your pockets. “We’ll make them pay.” 

Chapter Text

  Chris and Cecelia bid goodbye to you – before they leave, they tell you where the other three remaining in your friend group are. Apparently they’ve found a little hideout for themselves. A mild pang of annoyance strikes you as you realise they’ve rendezvoused without you, but you push it aside.

  You don’t like the way they make you feel so small, so insignificant. No matter how you feel, though, they’re still your friends at the end of the day. You just need to suck it up and keep going. 

  You turn around and draw in a deep breath. “Dear house. Please send me back to my room this time,” you whisper, then begin to walk. You really need to take a shower.

…

  Fortunately, the house seems to hear your plea. The hallway you find yourself walking down looks… about the same as every other hallway in the house, but something about the door in front of you just feels right. You give a little mental cheer when your key fits into the lock. 

  Pulling the door open reveals your room in the same state as you left it, much to your relief. You realise now that you’ve pretty much achieved nothing on your journey – the only thing you’ve achieved from your first expedition is a set of clothes and a new criminal record. Murder, on top of your existing cannibalism. You’re starting to feel like you belong already. 

  You sigh. You’ll have to venture outside again, maybe try to get your hands on a charger and a stable source of food. And water. Two very important things that completely slipped your mind earlier, but are back to bite you in the ass. Your stomach growls and your mouth is dry, but you ignore it – right now your top priority is cleaning the blood off your hands.

  After making sure the door is properly locked, you scramble over to your bathroom. You peel off your new clothes in haste, set them aside for later then step into the shower. When you turn the knob a stream of freezing cold water blasts you right in the chest, sending you shrinking into a little ball. You’re gasping, struggling to breath as the cold water runs down your body and sends an unpleasant tightness through your body. You’re shivering, shaking and you feel like a miserable wet dog, but you don’t allow yourself to step out. 

  If you can’t even put up with a bit of cold, how are you going to survive? The memories of earlier today fill your head as you watch the bloody water run down the drain. Now that you’re alone with your thoughts in a relatively safe space, the feelings are beginning to hit you at full force. You can see the disbelief in Selena’s eyes, feel her hands beat helpless against your flesh. You can hear her screams, smell the burning flesh and blood as she struggles and BEN’s wires wrap around her, remember the very instant the light goes out from her eyes and she stops struggling. The sight of red water running down the drain melts into your memory of Selena bleeding out, of Heather’s body trailing blood behind her, of the fresh blood on your hands. Out of the corner of your eye, you think you see them – but it’s just your reflection in the mirror. 

  Your body has gotten used to the cold now, and you mechanically observe the person reflected in the mirror with a sort of detached curiosity. Is this the face of a killer? Are those the eyes of someone who has taken a life? You stare into your own reflection and give her a smile. She smiles back. 

  It’s the same as always, you think. Nothing has changed. The memories of the game room stay with you for now, but you don’t think what you’re feeling is regret or guilt. Not anymore. You might have torn up a few cards, but they were getting old anyways. You’re just making space for better ones, you tell yourself. You grin wider at the reflection, and she matches it. 

  You don’t feel like the person you’re looking at right now. Not with the dried blood still clinging onto your skin, the ache in your chest and the conflicting thoughts running through your mind. You can’t decide who you want to be – do you want to regret this? Or do you want to take pride and joy in it? Do you regret it? You close your eyes and step under the shower head. 

  A fresh wave of cold water hits your face. No matter how you feel, there’s no going back anymore. There’s no point in having regrets. You begin to meticulously scrub at every inch of your body. Some of the more stubborn blood stains still cling onto your skin, and you methodologically wash it away. You don’t want to die. You want to live, you want to have fun, you want to continue collecting interesting cards. If all of that comes at the cost of your humanity, then so be it. 

  For the first time since your arrival here, there is light coming in from outside. The moon peeks out through the clouds, spilling in through the half-closed grills of your bathroom window. It blends into the harsh, artificial light of your bathroom, but you pretend you are basking in it nonetheless. Under the moonlight, you wash yourself clean of everything you were before and resolve to become someone entirely new. You can’t afford to do otherwise. 

  You’re not sure how long you stand under the running water for, but by the time you feel clean the moon has disappeared again. You turn off the water, drape a towel around your body and glance at the mirror one last time. It’s you. There’s no doubt about it. The one in the mirror smiles at you sweetly and turns around. 

Chapter Text

  There’s no time like the present – falling back into your dusty sheets feels wrong, so you decide to make another trip to the laundry room, this time with all sorts of linen and your own set of clothes stuffed into a basket. 

  On your way there you pass by the gym again. Chris is still there, and Killian is there too, working out with a serious expression on his face. You wave briefly at them both and continue moving towards your objective. 

  This time, the house decides not to play any tricks on you. You make it to the laundry room without meeting anyone else and immediately dump your bedsheets into the first working machine you see. The flickering display says it’ll take two hours, so you decide to make the most of your time by spending it somewhere more productive. 

  Empty basket in hand, you strut down the hall and plead for the mansion to take you somewhere fun.

…

  Once again, the mansion obliges. You’re beginning to think that the two of you can be friends at this rate. Won’t that be nice? You wonder what magical, sentient houses like. 

  You come to a stop before a rather conspicuous door – it’s the same style as every other door in this hallway, but there are colourful crayon marks all over it. You wonder how the house feels about this, and you swear it groans in response. 

  It looks fun enough to you, and it matches the description of the hideout Chris told you about earlier so you knock. The tiniest slither of light appears as someone pulls it open and stares at you suspiciously through the crack. Then the door swings open with a loud, shrieking creak and the sight of your friends sitting together in a decently sized room greets you. The same group of friends who you were split off from – Cecelia, Noah, Qasim, Haziq. It feels like it’s been an eternity since you last saw them, and oddly enough you can hardly remember the times you spent together in the first place. 

  “Hi,” you say softly, lingering at the doorway.

  “Hey,” Cecelia responds, not quite meeting your gaze. There is a sort of despair hanging in the air that has you missing EJ’s quiet company, or even BEN’s antics. The heavy atmosphere drains you, saps away at your energy until you’re feeling just as miserable as your friends look. You observe the room.

  The bedroom is a flashy shade of pink, the sort most little girls who loved princesses dreamed of at some point. Beds with fluffy bedding and even fluffier pillows are set up with elaborate canopies and fairy lights – a quick count tells you there are seven of them. Stuffed toys and bejewelled pillows are gathered in the centre of the room, around a large, circular table lined with silk tablecloth and ornate tea cups. You’d burst into laughter at the sight if not for the depressing mood, and if not for the realisation that your friends never thought of you when they claimed this place. You wonder how they’ll react now that two of them are dead – will they welcome you with open arms, or will they make excuses? The awkward silence is disturbed by the growling of your stomach. 

  “Come in. Someone call Sally, let’s get _____ some food,” Cecelia says with a little start, as if just registering your presence. Nobody moves.

  “A new friend!” It doesn’t matter because soon a little girl in a pink nightdress floats through the open door, and as soon as you make eye contact with her she’s throwing herself at you. You instinctively extend your arms to catch her, and before you know it you’ve lifted her into the air. She laughs happily, and to your horror worms out of your hold and continues to go higher and higher up until she’s floating above you.  

   “Hi! I’m Sally, and this is Mr. D!” She holds her tattered teddy bear up with both hands, prompting you to lift your head and stare at it. The bear gives you a little wave. You blanch and wave back. 

  “I’m so, so, so happy that you’re here! I heard you’re hungry, are you hungry? I’ll get LJ to bring us some snacks, wait here! Do you want to have a tea party? Let’s have a tea party!” The child is like a machine gun that just goes on and on, rattling off endlessly. Sally doesn’t wait to hear your response before she’s gone, disappearing on the spot without warning. You’re left staring blanking at the place she was last seen. 

  Magic, or whatever it is supplying the creeps with their powers, is still a hard concept for you to wrap your head around. So far you’ve seen BEN with his crawling into electronics like a little sewer rat, floating wires and electricity, seen the mansion and its uncanny ability to misdirect its inhabitants – now you can add Sally’s sentient teddy bear and teleportation to the list. 

  Not even a minute later Sally is back, this time appearing in a little cloud of sparkling pink smoke and holding the hand of a monochrome clown who towers over you and gives you a menacing little wave.

…

  A tea party with your human friends, a dead child, a sentient teddy bear and a killer clown wasn’t on your bingo card for today, but here you are. 

  There are eight of you seated around the table with just enough space for the assortment of little treats and teacups. To your right is Sally, who has apparently decided that you’re her new best friend. To your left is the monochrome clown, who seems to think that something is very funny because he bursts into sporadic giggles as he sips tea out of a comically small cup. Sandwiched uncomfortably between them is you, snacking on a cookie that could very well be poisoned, sipping the same tea with a dainty finger sticking high into the air and pretending to be a high class lady with a ridiculously exaggerated British accent which Sally finds very amusing. 

  But in all honesty, you think that you’re coping with the whole situation quite well. Your fellow human friends don’t seem to be doing much better than you – the instant the clown poofed into existence their expressions turned from mildly amused to fucking terrified. You wonder if it’s from prior experience, or just an innate fear towards clowns.  

  Personally, you quite like clowns. You think they’re pretty damn funny and don’t get the love they deserve, and usually you’d try to convince your friends to see the good in them. But the one sitting next to you now is happily sucking on a lollipop as if his otherwise monochrome outfit isn’t stained with fresh blood, so you can’t exactly blame your friends for reacting so strongly to his appearance. 

  Sally is chattering away with… chattering away at Noah, who seems to be doing his best to entertain her. With the way his eyes keep drifting over to the clown sitting beside you and the strained smile on his face, you’d say his attempts are passable at best. Haziq, Qasim and Cecelia are engaged in their own conversation – low whispers with the occasional glance at either you, Sally or the clown. 

  With a solid crunch the clown in question finishes his lollipop and grins widely, revealing sharp teeth that glisten threateningly in the light. All eyes fly towards him. “We should all get to know each other better!” he declares, rising to his feet with a fucking sound effect to match. How the fuck did he do that? 

  “I’m Jack. You can call me Laughing Jack because I like to laugh. Hahaha!” You physically recoil at his… joke? His laugh is admittedly pretty sweet, radiating the sort of genuine elation you haven’t heard for some time now. but you sincerely hope that he has better jokes up his sleeves. Your fellow survivors grin awkwardly, and Cecelia manages to force out a strained half-laugh that sounds more like choking.

  Sally claps her hands enthusiastically. “Me next, me next! I’m Sally, but you all already know that. This is my best friend, Mr. D.!” The teddy bear hops up and does a mock bow, then returns to being a teddy bear. Sally’s eyes turn to you and on the inside you give a long, hard sigh. Out of the corner of your eye you notice Cecelia whispering something to Noah, who nods hesitantly. 

  “Hey. The name’s _____! Nice to meet you all,” you say with as much enthusiasm as you can muster. Sally and LJ clap once you’re done speaking, while your friends stare you down like you’re insane. They introduce themselves with just their names next, and when everyone has had a turn LJ clears his throat.

  “It’s truly a pleasure,” he grins, giggling a little at the end of his sentence. Part of you questions if he is okay, but another part of you is amused by this behaviour. His laughter is infectious, almost endearing – the genuine child-like wonder radiating from him has you smiling slightly too. “I think we should play a game! Sally–” 

  Before he can finish speaking, he is rudely interrupted by Noah, who stands up and cuts him off. “Sorry, Mr Jake–” 

  LJ frowns. “It’s Jack.” 

  “--Right, sorry Mr. Jack. I think we have to go,” Noah says, shooting a glance at the other people. They exchange a look and stand up in unison, then begin rushing towards the door without waiting for a response. Cecelia and Qasim leave without looking back, Haziq has the decency to give you an apologetic look on his way out and Noah gives Sally a half-hearted little wave. The four practically sprint out as if afraid they’ll be hunted down otherwise, and when Noah steps outside he shuts the door behind him with a loud slam. 

  “That’s kind of mean of them,” Sally mutters thoughtfully, staring at the closed door. She glances between you and LJ contemplatively, then picks up Mr. D. and gives you a little wave. Her next words sound almost ominous. “Don’t worry, I’ll go… talk to them. We can have another tea party next time! You can stay here and play with Jack, ____.” 

  With that, Sally disappears on the spot again. You stare despairingly at the spot where she vanishes, doing your best not to turn to your left. Sure he’s always been one of your favourites, but he doesn’t know that. To him you’re a completely normal human he met less than ten minutes ago, one that’s locked in the room with him and one who’s practically defenceless save for the petite teacup still in your hand. You have no idea what he can or what he wants to do to you, so you try your best to pretend that he isn’t here. 

  The clown is silent, a stark contrast from the giggly mess he was just a few seconds ago. You almost miss the sound of people sipping away at tea and Sally’s neverending chatter. You keep your eyes trained ahead of you and try to ignore how his lanky arms are still right in your direct field of vision. You didn’t realise how goddamn large LJ is until now – you can feel his presence next to you even though he’s squeezed himself into a little ball to fit onto the cushion used as a seat. How tall is he, actually? 

  “About 8 feet on a good day,” he responds. Determination not to stare forgotten, your eyes immediately snap towards him. He laughs at the look on your face, but still has the decency to explain himself. “Mind reader.” 

  Oh. Mind reader. That explains it. “Lovely,” you mutter out loud. 

  LJ seems to find your discomfort very amusing, because he begins to laugh his heart out. He laughs so hard that he ends up hunched over on the floor, a sight that has the corner of your lip quirking up involuntarily. When his wild laughter finally subsides he picks himself up with another sound effect (how the fuck does he do that?) and wipes a tear from his eye. Then, without missing a beat, he pulls out a piece of candy and holds it out for you to take. “Do you want one?”

  They’re probably poisoned. 

  “Just one of them,” LJ assures you. Great. “Only mildly, though!”

  Thanks, LJ. You’re feeling very reassured right now. Deciding that it’ll be easier to get this over and done with, you pick up one of the candies at random and pop it into your mouth. It’s surprisingly good, the sort of nostalgic artificial watermelon flavour you’ve always liked. It certainly doesn’t taste poisoned, and judging by the small pout on LJ’s face you assume that it isn’t. 

  “Maybe next time,” he mutters under his breath. You stare at him as you swirl the candy around in your mouth. Are all the people here so goddamn strange? 

  Then, his plan to poison you or whatever completely forgotten, LJ proceeds to magick out a deck of poker cards and lay them down solitaire style. It’s clear that he wants to play a game. You begin to pray that he isn’t some kind of psychopathic gambler who will lop your head off if you lose. 

  Luckily for you, it turns out that LJ is genuinely in it for a good time. For the next hour the two of you work together on solitaire and an assortment of other card games conjured up by LJ – you simply go along with his whims and stuff yourself with the constant stream of candy that he supplies you with. (LJ pinky promises that they’re not poisoned, and you’re not quite sure you believe him but you’re not really in a position to refuse them.) 

  LJ rambles when he’s not focused on the games laid out before him, telling you all about the gnarly details of his kills and the interesting people he’s met along the way. You listen intently to his tales, fuelled by morbid curiosity. The way he talks about his victims – mostly children, to your genuine horror – reminds you not to underestimate his cruelty just because he’s being nice right now. You’re not sure if he catches your… strong disapproval towards his actions, but if he does he doesn’t bring it up. 

  At some point he begins to complain about the people living in the mansion – about BEN and his pettiness, about Kagekao and his pranks, but mostly about Jeff being an ass. LJ brings up an interesting piece of information about a fellow survivor, too. According to him this woman called Naomi accidentally got someone else killed, and the survivors who witnessed it weren’t too happy about it. LJ, at least, seems to find the whole situation very entertaining. (“Imagine… imagine helping someone out, and she gets you killed because she ‘forgot how to open a door.’ She forgot how to open a door. ”) 

  “That kinda sucks,” you grumble in response to his animated storytelling. You think about the people you know – Naomi isn’t one of them, but you’re sure she’s an interesting one if she can fuck up this badly. 

  “You don’t say?” LJ laughs, abruptly getting up from his seat. He stretches his arms out to their full ungodly length, towards you. More specifically your head. You flinch back instinctively as his claws graze the back of your ear – for a moment you think that this is it, you’re done for and about to die at the hands of the worst solitaire player you know, but when he moves his hand away your head is still intact. LJ laughs (he really lives up to his name, huh?) and holds a familiar card up between two sharp claws. 

  “Like my trick?” he asks, holding the thing up to the light with surprising gentleness. You nod. Though your heart is still pounding from the shock you got, you’re genuinely impressed by his magic or whatever strange force it is he uses to do all these things. He grins at your response, teeth on full display, and snaps his fingers. 

  Many things happen at once – the deck of cards disappear from the table with an audible ‘poof’, a monochrome stamp emerges on your stamp card and completes your collection, and suddenly the empty laundry basket sitting by your chair is filled up with an assortment of sweet treats. You feel like Alice lost in Wonderland, surrounded by all sorts of odd curiosities. You suppose that makes LJ your Cheshire cat. When you recover from your initial shock and look up, you realise that LJ… really suits that role, because he’s dramatically fading away into the background before your very eyes. 

  ”I had fun, but I gotta go now. Cya!” He doesn’t give you a chance to thank him before he’s gone, leaving behind just those few words and the same wild laughter in the wind. And you find yourself laughing, too, at the sheer absurdity of it all. 

  Just what have you gotten yourself into? 

Chapter Text

  The original plan was to return to the laundry room, shove your now clean linen into the drier and, y’know, just sit around. But your once empty basket is now filled to the brim with sugar cookies, pastries and packaged drinks, so you make a quick trip back to your room. 

  On your way back you come across someone just sitting out in the hallway, scribbling in a sketchbook. He’s not one of the pastas as far as you’re aware, and you briefly remember seeing him on the bus, so you decide to offer him some of your food. You’ve got plenty now, and it won’t hurt to make some extra human allies in this place, right? 

  “Hey,” you whisper, careful not to startle him. The artist pauses briefly in his sketching, looks up at you, then back at his art. “For you.”

  “A cookie,” the man deadpans, accepting it nonetheless. He pauses briefly at the sight of his graphite stained hand, but seems to decide that it doesn’t matter and grabs the treat. “Name’s Alex. Thanks for the snack.” 

  What an… interesting person. You eye his drawing materials curiously. 

  “Where’d you get those?” you ask, praying that it doesn’t come off as too pushy. As far as you’re aware nobody was allowed to keep anything on them, so this Alex person must’ve gotten his materials from someone in the mansion. You want to know who.

  Alex shrugs, shoves the whole cookie in his mouth and continues to draw. “Some pretty boy. Black hair, blue eyes. Name was Helen or something.” 

  Your mind immediately flies to one individual who matches those characteristics. Another potential friendly face in the mansion; that’s good to know. Alex doesn’t bother to look back up after he speaks, so you hesitantly bid goodbye and continue your journey back to your room. 

  The trip back is much shorter than you remember, and you take it to mean that you’re getting used to travelling around the mansion. You unlock your door with practised ease and sigh as you enter the now familiar room. It’s kind of beginning to grow on you.

  After depositing the various sweets and drinks in the safety of your cupboards, you hold on to your empty basket and begin the trip to the laundry room yet again. A sense of bone-deep tiredness suddenly gnaws at you as you step out the door for the… what, the third time today? Is this all your life is good for now? Ferrying things between the main building and your room, hoarding supplies like a little rat? Without the sun and a clear way to tell the time, the hours blend into a single monotonous stretch that drags on and on – you wonder how much longer you can stay sane without some form of entertainment. You hope things become more interesting soon. 

  You make it to the laundry room with no hiccups on your journey, and the subsequent task of transferring your washed linen (and forgotten set of clothes) to the most reliable looking drier proves to be just as mundane as it sounds. And when you’ve pressed the button to start the machine, you begin watching the cloth spinning round and round through a little glass door. The rattling and quiet hum of the machines, the harsh smell of different detergent brands mixed in one room and the spinning colours are oddly calming. You stare.

…

  About an hour into your mindless gazing at nothing, Sally materialises in front of you without any warning. It snaps you out of your stupor, has you blinking several times to clear your head. The phantom of spinning linen lingers in your vision, still. 

  “H, ____!” Sally chirps, floating into a sitting position and waving at you cheerily. You wave back and feel the tiniest of smiles crawling onto your face. 

  “Hey, Sally. What are you doing here?” 

  “I’m here to clean Mr. D.,” she informs you happily. Sally holds up her hand and shows you the teddy bear clutching it for dear life. “It’s been waaaay too long since he had a good wash…” Sally mutters, regarding her friend with mock disgust. Mr. D. turns his head to you, as if asking for help. You avert your gaze. “What are you doing here, _____? How did you even find this place so soon?” 

  “I’m here to wash my bedsheets and shhh… stuff,” you admit, sneakily eyeing the teddy bear still in her embrace. He isn’t going to try and kill you for ignoring him, right? You hope not. “My clothes, too. I don’t have any extras.” 

  Sally gasps at your words, rushing to your side with sparkling green eyes. “No extra clothes? I know just the person who can help you!”

  You’re given no chance to react before you’re being dragged out of the laundry room and along the halls. The creepypastas you’ve met so far seem to have a habit of walking… or, well, floating really fast. You don’t know if you’re floating too but it certainly feels like it, with how fast the halls are whizzing by you. 

  Then Sally comes to an abrupt stop, which sends you almost flying onto your face. You catch yourself on something just in time, and when you look up you realise that it’s a mannequin. One of many mannequins. You take in your new environment with a mix of shock and horror.

  It is a spacious room, littered with identical mannequins that have various articles of clothing draped onto them. Bolts of fabric and other sewing materials are strewn about the area, along with cuts of cloth and sewing patterns. Whoever occupies this place clearly has a passion for fashion, and you have a good idea of who it is. Deeper inside the room, there is an abnormally tall door, which only serves to strengthen your hunch.

  Sally floats towards it while humming a little tune – she knocks twice, and within moments the door opens to reveal an abnormally tall man in what is, admittedly, quite the stylish outfit. (In comparison to the other residents of the mansion, in any case.) He dons a simple white button-up with a brown vest, completed with a red tie. It’s not particularly elaborate, but it suits him well. You gaze up at his face and realise that he has no facial features to speak of, but he does wear a pair of spectacles. 

  Please, don’t let him be another mindreader, you plead as you stare up at his towering form. You plead despite knowing that your cries will likely be in vain. These supernatural beings have a really irritating tendency to possess psychic powers. Your conjectures are proven right when Trenderman quirks an… eyebrow? Eyebrow bone? At you. You sigh in dismay. 

  “Hello, I’m _____,” you greet politely, directing your gaze at his glasses. You imagine that his eyes would be there, if he had any. The tall man nods at you. 

  “Trenderman. A pleasure, darling,” he says pleasantly before bending down to Sally’s level. You jump at his voice, because it seems to project directly into your head – something you’re not used to. You suppose it makes sense, given his lack of any other voice making body parts. “And what are you doing here?” 

  Sally scoots closer to Trenderman and whispers something into his… ear? The tall one pauses for a moment, turns to regard you before straightening himself and swiftly retreating back to where he came from. Your bewildered gaze follows him as his form disappears behind the door. 

  A series of frankly concerning thuds, whirling, shuffling and angry noises come from the room. It sounds like he’s demolishing a building in there. Then Trenderman re-emerges a few minutes later, with a copious quantity of fabric bundled up in his arms. Alarm bells begin to go off in your head when you see the scissors, needles and measuring tape held in his tendrils approach you menacingly. You turn around and attempt to make a run for it, but Sally stands in your way. 

  “We’re gonna make you a princess, _____!” Sally claps her hands and smiles at you sweetly. Mr. D. stares at you from her arms. 

  You submit yourself to fate and turn back around.  

…

  When you walk out of the mannequin room, you walk out with your basket now filled to the brim with tailor made clothes (which are thankfully not actual princess gowns, bless Trenderman’s dramatic soul if he has one) and having made a new friend. All in all, not the worst case scenario, even though you now have a few dozen pin pricks along your body.

  Your new clothes range from the hoodies that everyone else seems to be a fan of to evening gowns of the reasonable sort, much to Sally’s disappointment. Though, Trenderman’s refusal to craft an atrocious hot pink, feathery and sparkly gown with rainbows and flowers seems to do little to dampen Sally’s mood in the long run. (“You’ll always be a princess to me, no matter what you wear!”) 

  Sally walks with you, back to the laundry room where she dragged you away from your drying bed sheets. She carries an empty basket, courtesy of Trenderman, and insists on helping you retrieve your forgotten linen. You have little choice but to allow her to help, and on the way there you two talk about My Little Pony. 

  Your heated discussion about whether Twilight Sparkle deserved to become an alicorn is abruptly cut short by a long, drawn-out scream from somewhere. You and Sally exchange a quick glance, drop the baskets and immediately head towards the source of the sound.

Chapter Text

  As it happens, the source of the sound is a fellow survivor of yours. Go figure. You don’t recognise this one, but she’s crawling on the ground with a kitchen knife embedded deep inside her arm, inconsiderately leaving blood stains all over the place – the place being EJ’s personal kitchen. EJ himself stands slightly off to the side, clutching a red object close to his chest with his head hanging dejectedly.

  A familiar face stands over the fallen survivor – it’s Yoshida, the man who shoved his friend off the bus on that first day. (It’s odd to think that only… what, three days? Only three days have passed so far.) 

  You turn to Sally and see that she’s just as confused as you are. 

  There are a number of other people gathered around the three, watching the scene play out with varied expressions on their faces. You count at least twelve other survivors and a few creepypastas. BEN hovers close to the protagonists with the expression of someone watching a show, while Masky and Hoodie loosely flank Yoshida.

  “You’re not supposed to do that,” Hoodie states matter-of-factly. His fingers idly brush over his gun. 

  Yoshida stomps his feet. "I was just defending myself! She was the one who tried to shove that shit in my mouth," he grumbles, glaring at the woman writhing on the ground. She shakes her head rapidly and continues to crawl away. Yoshida turns his burning gaze onto EJ. “It’s all this monster’s fault.” 

  You glance at the red object in EJ’s embrace. Oh. The mystery is unravelled – EJ was looking for someone else to appreciate organs with, but things clearly didn’t go well. You want to laugh at his misfortune, because he’s gone ahead and chosen the worst candidate possible. Yoshida is known for his obsession with cleanliness and – you glance at him – his child-like temper. 

  EJ doesn’t give much of a response to Yoshida’s accusation, but you can see the way his hands tighten around the organ. Your own heart squeezes lightly in response. He probably doesn’t want or need your pity, but that pity settles in you nonetheless. Maybe you can find him and share a meal with him sometime – a normal meal, though. You’d rather not try cannibalism again.

 “You’re not allowed to make murder attempts under our watch.” Hoodie informs Yoshida with the same mild tone. This time, though, his words carry a hidden threat – maybe it’s  because of the way Masky pulls his crowbar back as Hoodie speaks.

  Yoshida, apparently ignorant of the impending danger, begins to whine . “I thought the whole point was to find the strongest? Why am I being punished for killing someone? Shouldn’t I be rewarded for having the guts to do this?” The unnamed woman who was crawling around just a minute ago has fallen silent. You’re pretty sure she’s dead. 

  “You’re not being punished for trying to kill someone,” BEN corrects him from the side, his eyes flickering towards your location for a split second. He grins at you. “You’re being punished for failing.” 

 Yoshida sputters and throws his hands up at the words. He opens his mouth, but never gets to speak his mind. A heavy smack from Masky’s crowbar and Yoshida’s head comes flying off, leaving a headless corpse to fall to the ground. 

  “Your actions have consequences,” Masky says, regarding the decapitated body with the same attitude one would a dead rat. He gives Yoshida's head a kick and sends it towards the silent spectators – they collectively shift back. You can imagine the way his eyes scan the crowd, narrowed and threatening. “Let that be a lesson to all of you. If you want to break the rules here, don’t get caught ,”

  With a huff, Masky tucks his crowbar away and heads towards the door with Hoodie following close behind. The crowd parts to make way.

  “Eyeless Jack.” Hoodie calls out before he leaves. EJ nods, and only then does Hoodie disappear down the hallway with Masky. 

  “The rest of you. Please get out,” EJ says. His words are polite, but his tone is far from it. The crowd of survivors do not need to be told twice and begin moving. You turn around, grab Sally and bolt. 

…

  “That was… something,” you whisper, heart pounding in your chest. Nervous laughter bubbles out as the adrenaline in your system begins to subside. You turn to your uncharacteristically silent companion. “Sally?” 

  “They’re gone.” She isn’t looking at you, she’s looking at a spot on the ground with nothing there. You’re taken aback by the small frown on her face. Sally seems to sense your confusion, and elaborates. “The baskets. They’re gone.” 

  You look around, and sure enough, there are no baskets in sight. You’re not sure if this is the place where you dropped them off before, but you trust Sally to be familiar enough with the mansion to tell. Who could’ve taken them? You don’t have to wait long to find your answer. He reveals himself, eternal grin stretched out on his face and malicious amusement twinkling in his eyes. 

  “Are you looking for this?” A snicker falls upon your ears, and you turn your gaze to the source of the familiar gravelly voice. If your voice recognition doesn’t fail you, it’s the one who was taunting the proxies when you were first taken. And if your years of experience as a creepypasta fan doesn't fail you, it’s Jeff the Killer. 

  He holds a basket in each hand – his skin is an unnatural pale white, textured and almost leathery under the light. His glasgow smile stretches from ear to ear, the wound still raw and ragged around the edges. (You wonder if he reopens it from time to time to keep himself looking this way.) He wears his iconic off-white hoodie, stained with patches of blood, both dried and fresh. The only thing you can commend him for is his black hair, which, admittedly, looks better cared for than your own. 

  You quickly realise why so many people wanted you to knock him down a notch and find yourself agreeing with their sentiments already. He’s… a sight to behold, alright. You take one good look at the smug grin on his face, the taunting look in his blue eyes and suddenly get the overwhelming urge to punch him. 

  You gaze at the baskets in his hand, gaze at the silent Sally then back at the towering man in front of you. Then, taking a deep breath, you throw yourself at his feet and begin to cry. 

…

  “P-please… please don’t hurt me! Please just give those back to me,” you whimper, staring up at him pitifully. His eyes bore down on you in all their lidless glory, and you’re sure if he still had eyelids they would be widened by now. You have so many questions about how he functions, but now isn’t the time to ask them. Maybe you should write them down somewhere. 

  “What the fuck? I haven’t even done anything yet,” he murmurs. He sets the baskets down and bends down to your level. You throw both hands together in a prayer, but they’re swiftly pried apart and taken into his. His iron grip has you wincing in pain, though you’re more preoccupied by the sight of both your wrists in his one hand. You find that you’re oddly offended by the sight – are your hands that fucking small? 

  Jeff grips your face with his other hand, forcing you to face him directly. He stares at your face unabashedly, taking in your wrinkled brows and the tears dripping down your cheeks, laughing in disbelief after he’s done scanning you. He’s too close to comfort, even for you, and you find yourself tensing up as he leans in to whisper in your ear. “If I wasn’t on a strict no-kill order you’d be dead by now.” 

  You tremble violently at his words, more out of anger than anything. They’re on a no-kill order? Why the fuck did you let BEN intimidate you like that then? Though, you suppose that it didn’t stop the ghost from killing your friends.

  “Pathetic,” Jeff sneers, releasing your face and giving you a violent shove. You fall to the ground and curl into a foetal position, sniffling away. “These are yours? Take them and get out of my sight,” Jeff laughs, grabbing clothes from the basket by the handful and flinging them in your direction. The basket itself comes flying at you last, hitting your back with a low thud. 

  You unfurl yourself and begin scrambling to pick everything up, shoving them back into the basket as fast as you can. Your dignity can’t take this for much longer. As soon as you’re done packing up, you give Jeff one last dramatic frightened look and flee for your life. His burning gaze follows you all the way down the hall.

  “This your princess, Sally?” Jeff cackles, tossing the other basket at the ghost. Sally glares at him, takes the basket and disappears without another word.

  “Might needa have a word with that stuck-up prick about this,” he mumbles contemplatively. Jeff has seen his fair share of people scared to die, but none so scared that they fall to the ground and begin grovelling the moment they see him. He cups a hand to his own face thoughtfully. The image of your retreating back and Sally’s annoyed glare flashes in his mind for a second. There’s no way someone like you will survive here, but if Sally likes you, maybe you’ll live long enough to offer more solid entertainment.

  What should he do? Jeff only deliberates for a second before throwing the matter to the back of his mind. Whatever. He can cross that bridge when it comes to it. Either way, it’ll be fun for him. With his mind made up, Jeff whistles a merry tune and heads towards his room. He needs to take care of his hair. 

Chapter Text

  You and Sally come to a tacit agreement not to talk about this matter after reuniting right outside your door. How Sally knows where you live is beyond you, but she deposits the basket she's holding at your door before cheerlessly waving goodbye and disappearing. She tries to put on a bright smile before she leaves, but it's entirely unconvincing when accompanied by the brewing annoyance in her eyes. 

  You, personally, are only mildly annoyed by the earlier encounter. You might've discarded most of your dignity in front of Jeff, but on the bright side he probably thinks you’re a good for nothing, snivelling rat now. Perfect for surprising him later down the road, like your allies here have requested. 

  The door opens with a click, and you slide your newly acquired goods inside. You arrange all laundry baskets neatly at the foot of your bed and take stock of the situation. Your heart melts slightly when you see the folded sheets and pillowcases inside the basket Sally was carrying. You’d forgotten all about that, did Sally make a trip to the laundry room to grab them for you? How thoughtful. 

  Aside from your now cleaner accommodations, you have secured a pretty reliable source of food and water. You and LJ get along just fine, so you’re sure that he won’t mind if you take a few more of his cookies. Worst case scenario, you look for EJ again. You’ve got enough clothes to last you through a whole week as well, so it’ll save you a few trips to the laundry room. 

  Once you determine that everything important has been obtained, you begin to organise your room. The freshly washed sheets and pillowcases are still slightly warm from the dryer, and you make short work of putting them back. The new clothes are hung up in your wardrobe, the food is stashed into the cupboards. With everything done, you sink into your now clean bed with a happy sigh. 

  You mentally thank Jane for giving you the keys to such a well-equipped room, else you might’ve gone insane from figuring out where to put everything. Pulling out your stamp card, you count to five in three different languages and even pull out your fingers to make sure that you got all the stamps that were asked of you. With your life intact and basic necessities secured, you can finally begin on your planned epic training arc. 

…

  Life in the mansion for the next three weeks is a disconcerting blend of entertaining and dangerous, but overall you find it is oddly fulfilling. 

 As you come to discover, the proxies are the ones in charge of the entire… trial? Their big boss hasn’t made an appearance once, and you’ve heard some rumours that he’s busy dealing with some kind of threat. What that threat is, you don’t really want to find out, because if it can trouble a bunch of supernatural beings to this extent it’s probably going to kill you instantly. In any case, this means that the three almighty proxies have the final say over all you survivors, and you’ve noticed some people trying to get into their good books.

  They’ve been calling weekly meetings at the entrance hall to check on the remaining survivors, and last you checked there were still about thirty survivors give or take. Maybe they just don’t find you pleasing to the eye, but in those three meetings none of them even acknowledged your existence in any way. You know that Kilian and Cecelia are definitely their favourites so far, because for three weeks in a row they took the time out to talk to the two of them separately. 

  So you just use these weekly meetings as an opportunity to do your laundry. Deposit your clothes in your trusty machine before the meeting, listen to the proxies talk, then go back to collect your now clean clothes.

  There was once you met Goggles in there, but he just gave you a rather nasty glare and walked away. Outside of the weekly gathering you’ve never really had the opportunity to interact with the proxies, so needless to say you’re not on the best of terms. Not that it matters much to you, though. You’ve got other people in the mansion to keep you entertained. 

  Strangely enough, you’ve never felt more at home or connected to people you talk to than with the group of killers in the mansion. Hell, you feel more connected to the goddamn mansion itself than you ever felt to your “ best friend” back in Malibu. You think it says something about the life you’ve led up till now. Sure, the people here could kill you at any given moment and have taken countless innocent lives, but there’s something about their authenticity and individuality that draws you to them. You’ve stopped seeing them as cards to collect for the most part and begun to look at them as, ironically enough, actual humans. It’s a nice change, you think. 

  You’ve converted the empty room in your home to some sort of miscellaneous activity area. There’s a gaming system mounted on one of the walls, courtesy of a rule-breaking BEN about one week in. Sometimes he crawls through and violates your privacy when he’s bored or looking for an escape – according to him, anyone else who can even remotely challenge him in Mario Kart or any other game for that matter isn’t in the mansion at the moment, so you’re his only non-lethal entertainment option. You managed to wrangle a reluctant confession out of his mouth that you’re the best gamer he’s had the pleasure of knowing. (With the exception of himself, he says, even if the score that you’ve tabulated thus far begs to differ.)

  BEN is your only form of access to the internet, and sometimes when he’s idly messing with a victim you’ll nab a phone from him to learn some exercises from. Youtube training videos and all that to keep yourself in good shape, because you’re not stupid enough to believe that your life going forward will be all fun and games. Sadly he still can’t get your phone charged because it’ll get him caught (not that orders stopped him from killing before, but apparently giving you internet access is a greater crime than murder here). 

  Other than the gaming system, BEN also managed to get you a desk from somewhere. He won’t tell you where exactly, but you’re inclined to believe that it’s from one of his victim’s houses. Sure, whatever – the thought of one of his victims freaking out over a missing desk brings you more amusement than anything.

  During one of your trips to the laundry room, you met Alex again, who thanked you for the cookies once more and introduced you to a Helen (you’re quite sure he’s Bloody Painter, but hey, what the hell – he was nice). From him you managed to get some writing supplies. 

  Thanks to the combined donations from BEN and Helen, you now have a little space to keep track of your thoughts and scribble when you get bored. 

  Jane and Clockwork often stop by your room to gossip and just share a drink.  Towards the end of the second week, Clockwork somehow managed to lug a little dining table and three chairs into your room within one trip, adding even more items to your once-empty room. The furniture now serves as your little gathering space, though your two friends often opt to sit side by side on the bed instead. You’re almost completely certain that the two of them have something going on between them, but they insist there’s nothing. (You told them, at some point, that they should at least consider it. Clockwork, normally shameless, blushed at that – it’s as a confession in your eyes.) It’s not in your place to care, but you do think they’d be cute together. They’re another one of your main sources of company in this hellhole.

  Sally, Mr. D. and LJ also stop by from time to time to have little tea parties with you, or just to show you some silly tricks. They’re similar in many ways, and you find both of them endearingly cute. LJ has been getting more and more creative with his food-magicking – when you pull open your cupboard of food, it’s filled with all sorts of dazzling and odd sweets. You’re not complaining. Sally contributed a pink tent to your miscellaneous room where the four of you hang out. Sometimes when the other two aren’t here, you and LJ just play games inside and listen to music. Mr. D… he’s a bear of few words, but you like to think that you’ve gotten closer. 

  Once, you ended up in the library while trying to get back to your room. It was, predictably, quite empty. You simply sat yourself down, pulled out an interesting looking book about biohazards and began to read. The next time you looked up was when you felt someone’s shining gaze on you – upon lowering your book you found that it was EJ, holding a similar book in his hands. The two of you exchanged simple greetings and spent the next few hours in each other’s company just reading. You haven’t been to the library since, but sometimes you open the door to find a few books and a plate of mystery meat sitting on the floor outside. 

  Liu and Sully popped twice. The first time they came by, Liu was in the middle of sincerely congratulating you for surviving when Sully cut him off and burst into laughter at the sight of your gym. In a moment of completely misplaced confidence you challenged him to a spar – he put you in your place very quickly, but you did learn quite a lot from his fighting crash course. Liu promptly saw both of them out with the most apologetic expression on his face afterwards, though you’d go on to invite them over a few days later. 

  You don’t see much of Trenderman, but he did pop his head out from behind a door once to compliment your outfit and remind you to stop by in the future if you survive. You wonder if your friends have worked out some sort of schedule, because oddly enough they’ve never encountered each other on their trips to your room. 

  And Jeff. Jeff seems to have the uncanny ability to find you whenever you step out of your room, much to your discontent. Every time it ends with tears welling up in your eyes, and you’re beginning to wonder if he even believes your acts anymore. To you, it’s beginning to feel more and more like babysitting, but you suppose it doesn't really matter as long as he thinks you’re weak and he’s happy. 

  All in all, the three weeks pass in relative peace. You come out of it with better friends than you’ve ever had in your life, more muscular and less likely to die within ten seconds of engaging in combat. Before you know it, the final week rolls around. You make the effort to record the last seven days in your little journal and try to find something interesting to do everyday.

Chapter Text

  D7 begins at 0012, so says the digital clock in the corner of your bedroom. You remove yourself from your bed and raid your freshly stocked wardrobe for something good to wear. One hot shower later, you’re out of your pyjamas and inside your outfit for the day. A breakfast of apple pie later, you’re out the door and headed to wherever the mansion fancies. 

  As it turns out, the mansion wants you to read today. It directs you to a large set of doors, which you know from experience lead into the library. You’re fine with that. EJ is, unsurprisingly, already inside when you step through the door. You give him a small smile and proceed to pick a book off the shelves, before settling down in the armchair next to him and beginning to read. 

  It’s just as peaceful as before, if not more so. You only lift your head again when you’re done with the book in your hands, and by then EJ has moved on to his third one. He turns to you when he hears the sound of your book slamming shut, and you offer him a sheepish smile. In return, he extends a hand to you. 

  You’re mildly taken aback, but accept it without much hesitation. EJ hasn’t done anything remotely harmful to you thus far, and in the few interactions you’ve had he’s been nothing but helpful, so you’re willing to trust him. He helps you up from the chair, then heads for the halls, still holding onto your hand. You leave it partly because you have a hunch he’s clueless about what it means, and partly because it’s kind of nice. 

  You trail behind him until eventually you’re taken to his kitchen, where, much to your dismay, you’re deposited onto a chair and given the order to stay put. He gives your shoulders two awkward pats and doesn't offer you a single word of explanation before turning around again and walking off. You sit alone in his kitchen, not quite sure about how to proceed. You feel like a stray cat he’s intent on feeding at this moment. 

  EJ comes back not one minute later. This time he’s holding a wooden tray with what looks like a cut of steak on it. He heads straight for the stove, throws on the apron that still pops up in your memory sometimes and begins to cook. 

  You don’t know how long it’s been since you last ate, but one thing’s for sure – you’re hungry now. Your stomach begins to growl as the aroma of cooked meat wafts into your nose. Cannibalism be damned, you haven’t had proper food since the last meal EJ sent you a week ago. You want meat. 

  When EJ sets the steaming dish on the table, you swear that you see a halo appear behind him. Hell, there’s even vegetables on the damn plate. You haven’t seen anything largely green other than BEN since you set foot in this place. EJ immediately becomes your new favourite person, and your burning gaze must have made him uncomfortable because he pauses and shifts on the spot after setting your cutlery down. 

  “... It’s steak,” he explains, voice cracking slightly. It sounds hoarse, as if it hasn’t been used in weeks. You wouldn't be surprised. You give him a grin and thank him, but he still remains standing. You put down the knife and fork you just picked up and tilt your head at him. Under your questioning gaze, he slowly pulls out a chair for himself and takes a seat. 

  “Are you not gonna eat?” you ask, a frown playing on your face. You’re not sure whether you can bring yourself to have such a delicious meal while the chef starves just across from you. 

  “I don’t want to scare you,” EJ explains, surprising honesty tainting his monotone voice. He is awfully considerate for a cannibal, you think. If he was still a human, people would probably swoon over him and his gentle manner. Your heart clenches again at his words, though, because they betray how he has been treated since his change. 

  You decide to try your luck and slowly reach forward, towards his mask. 

  As expected, he flinches back like a cat that has been sprayed with water. This result is better than you expected, however, because you expected yourself to be on the floor with a scalpel jammed right into your jugular. EJ seems to contemplate for a moment, before letting out a sigh and grabbing his mask with both hands. You note his claw-like nails with interest. 

  “Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” he mutters before sliding it off his face dramatically. His head is lowered, and his auburn hair falls over the top half of his face. Yet you can still make out his features behind that – his grey skin, his sharp teeth, the black tar dripping down his cheeks, out of the endless black in place of his eyes. You gasp softly, but only because you didn’t expect him to look this damn majestic . The photo of him circulating online does him absolutely no justice. 

  He stands abruptly upon hearing the noise slip from your mouth, whirling around and pulling the fridge door open violently. From your position, you can see the way his back is heaving slightly and the way his arms tremble lightly as he reaches for a ziploc bag. He turns and sets it down on the table with a bang, not quite facing you as he rips the plastic open with his teeth and grabs the organ with one hand. You’re not sure if he’s angry at you, himself or both, but he seems to pause briefly before bringing the organ into his mouth. 

  “Hey,” you come back to your senses and begin gently. “You didn’t scare me. I think you’re beautiful,” you say with full sincerity. He is beautiful, you think, in a sort of quiet, alien way. The skin, teeth and eyes give him a sort of otherworldly charm. You disregard his reaction, pick up your cutlery and begin to eat. 

  Out of the corner of your eye, you see him blink – then the smallest of smiles crawls onto his face for a second before he begins to eat as well. The two of you share your meal in silence. Your biggest takeaway of the day is that EJ is a great fucking cook.

  The cook in question stares at you unblinkingly for a whole minute after you put away your dishes and get back into your seat. Then, EJ flashes the most blinding smile in your direction, thanks you out of the blue and begins to spill his life story. 

  D7 ends right in that kitchen with the only other soul you’ve interacted with today – your conversation leads from his tragic life story to biology to the science behind cults, and in the middle of it EJ runs off to procure lamb chops from god knows where for your dinner. 

  “I’m only doing this because you might die before I get the chance to if I don’t,” EJ admits before you go your separate ways. He’s gotten a whole lot more talkative now, and this time the hoarseness in his voice is from overuse instead of misuse. You laugh lightly at his admission and wave it off. 

  “I won’t die,” you state simply, glancing at his features one last time before he puts his mask back on. The smile has never faded from his lips, and even as he slides his navy blue on it’s still hanging there. 

  “I hope so.”  Those are his last words to you before he bids goodbye and walks away.

…

  EJ isn’t sure why he decided to take his mask off in front of you. He’s never done that before, but then again no human has been alive around him long enough for him to even get the chance. Maybe it’s your impending doom? Maybe it’s knowing that the strange human who tried his food despite knowing it would be cannibalism might die?. Maybe it’s because he wants to make a mark in your memory before you disappear, leaving him to his solitary visits to the library again? 

  Anger filled him when you gasped at the sight of his face, and he just barely managed to push it down. He was willing to set aside the hurt for just a little bit, as a sort of thank you for the company you’d given him up to that point. When you told him he was beautiful, that anger turned into fear, then right back to anger. 

  How dare you waltz into his kitchen and ruin his routine? How was he supposed to go back to eating alone in this cage like some sort of monster, reading alone in the library with nothing but himself to read with, keeping all his thoughts and theories to himself with nobody to share them with? 

  “I won’t die.” He almost burst into laughter at your resolute words. 

  “I hope so.”  EJ hoped that those words wouldn’t be his last ones to you. Not when he finally found a friend. 

Chapter Text

  D6 picks up where D7 left off, in EJ’s little kitchen. As you embark on the journey to your room in high spirits, however, you have the absolute fortune of meeting your favourite creepypasta – Jeff the Killer. 

  The moment you see his face pop up in your peripheral vision, you brace yourself for a full hour of a narcissist chattering nonstop into your ear and free flow tears. You’re not sure when, but the tears became muscle memory – nowadays, they’re not even completely fake anymore. You’re tired of hearing him go on and on about his hair routine, about how pathetic you are and about how absolutely amazing he is. His lack of creativity astounds you. You’re embarrassed to admit that he scared you a little at first, because behind that gnarly outer appearance he’s really just a goofy fucking prick.

  When he’s directly behind you, the expected shove doesn’t come and instead it’s an almost gentle tap on your shoulder. You find yourself more surprised by this than any nonsense that’s slipped out of his mouth over the past three weeks.

  You whirl around as if startled, tears already brimming in your eyes. The same familiar eye roll, the same scoff, the same annoyed, malicious expression – but this time it’s less aggressive for whatever godforsaken reason. Your mind works to come up with possible explanations for Jeff’s lacklustre response to you. Did a kill get away? Did he get rejected? Did BEN beat him at Mario Kart? Possibility after possibility pops up in your head, and just when you think the day can’t get any more surprising, it does. 

  “You ate?” Jeff asks, his eyes burning into your skin. You pause then shake your head. “Eat with me.”  

…

  You can’t believe it took you more than three weeks to realise that this place has a proper kitchen. Above that, you can’t believe the first person to take you here is Jeff . You shake a fist at the house in your heart because, what the fuck, it would’ve been nice not having to survive on a diet of mystery meat, baked goods and the occasional ramen noodles from BEN.

  Jeff violently shoves you into a chair like you’re some kind of disgusting insect he can’t wait to be rid of, then stomps over to the cupboard to grab two bowls. He slams yours down in front of you as if it’s not made of ceramic, then grumbles the whole time as he acquires some milk and a box of cocoa puffs. Finally, he throws himself down next to you with a carton of strawberry milk in his hands. 

  For the first time, you find yourself truly and thoroughly shocked by his actions. Laughter threatens to bubble out from your throat because, wow, Jeff looks like you just killed the person he loves the most when all he’s done is grab things to make a lazy breakfast. Maybe he would’ve had better luck than Joker as a comedian – he’s even got the smile to match. 

  Still grumbling unintelligibly under his breath, he pours out a hearty portion of milk and then coco puffs into his own bowl. When you stare at him in wide-eyed mortification this time, it’s not an act. 

  “Got a problem?” he growls at you through a mouthful of cereal. The piece that slips out from the slits in his cheek and back into the bowl almost breaks your entire act apart on the spot. You shake your head rapidly.

  Like a normal person, you receive the ingredients and add your cocoa puffs, then your milk. Jeff mumbles something that sounds suspiciously like “Loser” under the breath and throws a spoon into your bowl with practised precision. You begin to eat, albeit hesitantly. 

  Jeff shovels cereal down his throat like a fucking animal, and then polishes off the milk in his bowl and in his packet within seconds. You find yourself amazed at the feat. Your amazement does not last, because he then begins to do the same thing as EJ except with much less eloquence – spill his life story. 

  You find this breakfast the most painful one you’ve had so far, having to balance between a healthy amount of fear and other emotions. Pity, disgust, disapproval… you cycle through negative emotions like a television, and by the time you’ve finished your cereal you’re ready to die. 

  At some point Liu and Sully walk in and witness you sitting there nodding away like a glitched YouTube video. Behind Jeff’s back, Liu offers you a pitying glance and Sully straight up bursts into silent laughter at your misery. The laughter becomes audible when Jeff grabs both your shoulders in the middle of his story about killing his parents.

  Jeff whips around, glares at Sully, then continues chattering away. His brother just… leaves you here to fucking die. Jeff doesn’t stop talking even once. Even as he’s doing the dishes, as he’s leading you to some other place, his mouth doesn’t stop moving. He just keeps going on and on and on about himself, his life, his interests, his friends, his hair… You’re reminded of the child you used to babysit back in Malibu. 

  The two of you walk down the halls like that for what feels like an eternity – when Jeff finally, finally comes to a fucking stop, he gives you the usual intimidation treatment, threatens something that you don’t really catch and enters a room. Before the door closes, you manage to see two things in his room. One, the time (1650, damn,) and two, a My Chemical Romance poster. You physically sink to the ground in relief and begin to laugh silently as soon as his door slams shut.

…

  The first word that Jeff attached to you when he laid his eyes on you was “pretty”. Not necessarily in the conventional sense, but in the way you acted, the way you felt. He was one of the first to arrive at the bus on the day you arrived, and as every candidate was jumping off one by one, he was observing the reactions of those left in the bus. 

  While no one else may know this and as shocking as it may be, Jeff has always been quite observant. He noticed the flicker of intelligence in your eyes, that calculating, scheming look and the hidden flash of excitement in them. He saw the way they lit up as if you had some sort of epiphany, as if you figured out the solution to the game. He thought, then, that there would finally be someone else who he’d be able to fuck around in the mansion with. 

  His anticipation quickly turned into disappointment when you stood there hovering at the door and your sharpness was nowhere to be found. The “pretty” turned into “pretty pathetic” real fast as he continued to watch you, and eventually he lost interest. When he met you again in the mansion and the first thing you did was throw yourself at his feet, well, you only drilled his poor impression of you even deeper.  

  Yet you have kind of grown on him, in a way – maybe there’s still a part of him holding on to the hope that you’re going to be able to meet his expectations one day. When he saw your solitary back in the hallway, something just told him that it would be his last time seeing you. While Jeff hates acknowledging his emotions, he hates not listening to his gut even more. 

  So he sucked it up and made you breakfast as a sort of final tribute to the person who got his hopes up for a bit, who brings him just the tiniest bit of entertainment in this boring mansion. To the only person who listens to him in this goddamn mansion – with tears in her eyes, but who listens nonetheless. 

  And as he left you outside his door, maybe his final threat held a hidden goodbye. 

Chapter Text

  D5 begins in your room, this time at the more reasonable time of 0543. After returning to your room the previous night you gorged yourself on some cheesecake, took a shower, wrote down your adventures and promptly fell asleep. 

  First thing in the morning, you are rudely awoken by aggressive knocking on the door. You go through the list of people who know where you live in your head and quickly determine that the person at your door is… almost definitely Sully. Either that or a drunk Clockwork, but it’s too early for even Clockwork to be drunk.

  You hop out of bed, pull open the door and sure enough, he’s standing there in all his glory. Judging by the grin on his face, you’re quite certain that you’ll have an interesting experience today. Judging by the things in his hands, you’re almost positive that the effects of said interesting experience will extend beyond today. You gulp, then reluctantly invite them in for cookies. 

…

  Your fun fact of the day is that both Jeff and Sully like strawberry milk. Sully vehemently denies liking the same type of milk as his least favourite person but is quickly shut down by Liu. Liu, apparently, prefers banana milk. You, well, you’re more of a chocolate milk enjoyer yourself. 

  The three of you sit in Sally’s pink tent and have a pleasant breakfast of milk and assorted sweets. You’re treated to an amusing debate between Liu and Sully throughout the entire thing, and just when you think the day isn’t going to be so bad after all, Sully polishes off his last cookie, gets up and begins to stretch with the most excited expression you’ve ever seen on his face. After a blank pause, he reluctantly begins to wrap his knuckles up with boxing tape.    

  You quickly shove your remaining cookie down your throat as well and scramble to catch the roll he throws your way. Sadly, you’ve never done any form of proper boxing in your life, so the only thing you can do with this wrap is stare at it.

  “ Quit staring at that thing like a sad puppy. C’mere, ” Sully grumbles, swiftly completing his own wrap. You return the roll to him and stick out both hands in front of you, earning a snort. 

  When he’s done wrapping up your hands for you, he drags you out of the safety of your miscellaneous room and into the gym. Liu pops out and gives you a grin that’s just as, if not more, excited than Sully’s. It’s only now that you realise how fucking terrifying Liu can be as well.

  Within the next minute, you find yourself on the treadmill running for your life. 

…

  “So, I saw what my brother did to you… Gotta say _____, I think he actually doesn’t hate your guts. How’d you do it?” Liu sits on a nearby bench and swings his legs happily, seemingly unaware of your current predicament. You would respond if you could, but you’re physically incapable at the minute. “I thought the plan was to lower his guard and surprise him later on. Why does it feel like he might actually mourn you for a second if you end up dying?” Liu continues thoughtfully. 

  “ He’ll probably cry himself to sleep when he realises it’s all a lie, ” Sully snickers, and Liu nods in agreement. On the treadmill, you almost begin crying yourself.

…

  Liu very kindly decided to end his training session three hours in, much to your relief. When you step away from the yoga mat with every single muscle in your body burning, a single tear slides down your face from the relief. 

  Your relief doesn’t last long, however, because Liu’s body shakes for a second then abruptly slouches a little bit. You’ve learned that it’s a sign of Sully being in full control, and as much as you like Sully, your love for him definitely does not extend into his teaching style. 

  A mere five minutes later, you’re curled up on the floor and bawling your eyes out. 

…

  “ Stop crying, ”  Sully hisses, throwing a kick at you. You ignore your screaming muscles and roll out of the way as fast as you can – it’s not fast enough, because the kick lands and you swear you hear your bones crack. 

  “I’d stop crying if you’d stop hitting me,”  you gasp out, scrambling to get off the floor. You can’t let him have the high ground, you’re at enough of a disadvantage as it is. Sully laughs at you and effortlessly knocks you back down again. He throws in another kick for good measure and you swallow the insults threatening to fly out of your mouth.

  You can usually banter with Sully no problem, but when he’s training you you’d just be signing yourself up for extra suffering. You’re usually not one to cry so easily, but Sully just happens to be the manifestation of the two things that upset you the most at this moment – physical pain and criticism. 

  “ Get up! ” he yells at you, reaching down to fling you onto your feet. You do your best to obey and succeed with great difficulty. 

  “ Why do you never learn? I told you to do it this way, ”  Sully growls, jabbing you with his right arm. You wince. “ You just have to listen. ” 

…

  Liu and Sully leave your room at around 0003 the next day, making for a whole 19 hours of suffering. Halfway through, Liu had the decency to step in, offer you some food and an insincere apology before letting Sully take over almost immediately after your meal. You think that no amount of Girl Scouts camping could have possibly prepared you for this. 

  Thus D4 begins with you alone in your gym, crying on the floor with an almost dislocated shoulder, marks from a whiteboard marker everywhere and a whole assortment of bruises. Damn Liu, Sully and their inhumane training regimes to hell.   

  You crawl into a more comfortable position with what little strength you have left and fall into a deep sleep right on the floor. 

…

  “Did we push her too hard?” Liu whispers aloud as he closes the door behind him. He swears lightly as the ache hits him – even with the wrap, you make a tough punching bag. 

  “ Nah. ” the response is equally silent. The man in a striped scarf stares off into the distance for a second. Both Liu and Sully remember your cocky grin back in the recreational room, the self-assured tone you used and the confidence you exuded as you told your story. Liu thinks back to your crying form on the floor – Sully shuts it down quickly. “ Maybe a little,” he admits. “But that one is strong. I think she’s got this.” 

  “Yeah, you’re probably right.” 

…

  D4 begins anew with all your muscles aching more than before. Tears stream down your eyes again first thing in the evening when you awaken, still sprawled out on the floor. You drag your beaten and bruised body to the shower, allow yourself to live in bliss for all of ten minutes before deciding that you need to get your shit together and put some food in your stomach. 

  It’s in this weak, admittedly pathetic state that you walk out the door and head to the newly discovered main dining area. 

  The mansion seems to take pity on you, because it’s there within one turn down the halls. You drag your feet inside and slump into your chair like a flaccid bag of water. Which proves to be a mistake, because you find yourself too tired to get up again and actually find food. So for the next hour you just sit there with your head down on the table, stare into space and devise plans for revenge that will never come into fruition. 

  Salvation appears in the form of a proxy who, contrary to you, skips inside with all the cheerfulness of an innocent child going to school for the first time. He ignores your presence entirely, or is so preoccupied with his toaster waffles that he doesn't see you until he's seated himself down at the table with an overflowing plate and a bottle of maple syrup. It’s Toby.

  “You look… look like sh-shit,”  he notes helpfully, nodding at you. You try to groan. A pathetic wisp of air escapes your lungs instead. 

  Toby regards you hesitantly, then with great reluctance offers you a piece of his waffles. In your half-dead state, you don’t quite register the act. Muscle memory forces your mouth open in response, and this time Toby doesn’t miss a beat before shoving the piece inside. You decide that you have nothing left to lose, and the rest of your meal consists of the same few actions on repeat – cut, feed, chew.  

  You mumble out the closest thing to a thank you that you can conquer up, then fall asleep. 

…

  “My waffles…” Toby mutters sadly, sudden regret filling him as he regards his singular missing waffle. An annoyed tsk escapes from his mouth as he stares at your defenceless, sleeping form. Should he just get rid of you now? 

  He remembers… he doesn’t remember much about you, and nor do the other two. It probably goes to show how remarkably unremarkable you’ve been this entire time. On the bus, during the run, during the weekly meetings… he knows your face but he doesn't know your name, and he sure as hell doesn't know you well.  He only has a faint recollection of how you hesitated before the jump, of the fear in your eyes when the three proxies addressed you together.   

  He would have gutted you many times over for just getting on his nerves if he wasn’t on strict orders not to. 

  “Don’t,”  a strict voice comes from behind just as Toby begins to entertain the thought, and he whips around to find Masky leaning against the counter with his hands crossed. “Remember our orders.” 

  Toby groans in dismay, gives you one last glare and then grabs his waffles to enjoy in the comfort of his own room. Masky glances at your sleeping form once, noting your lack of awareness and the bruises all over your body with great displeasure, then disappears as well. 

  You groggily pull your eyes open once they both leave and stumble back to your room like a drunkard, mourning your loss of dignity again.

Chapter Text

  D3 begins with you waking up on a surface that is definitely not your bed. You open your eyes in mild alarm and almost fall when you turn your head to check your surroundings – LJ catches you with a little clown magic just in time, and you’re stunned by the colourful state of your surroundings.

  Dancing stuffed toys, flying teacups, cards spontaneously doing tricks on their own, a circus act complete with rings of fire and acrobats, a neon ferris wheel where Sally sits, cheering… The surface you’re on shifts and you cry out in alarm, throwing your arms around the nearest thing. That’s how you find yourself in LJ’s arms, staring at the up-sized Mr. D.

  “LJ?” Your utterance of his name is more of a question than a statement. He gives you a bright grin and sets you on your feet before bowing with a dramatic flourish. 

  “Welcome to my carnival!” he cheers, grinning with the same kind of intensity you’ve always seen from him. You take a good look around you and then grin back as brightly as you can despite your confusion. His carnival, huh? It seems happy enough. 

  Sally quite literally flies off the ferris wheel and arrives at your feet – Mr. D. shrinks down back to his usual size and jumps into her arms. You can’t help but think back to how comfortable his belly was just now, and suddenly understand why Sally carries him around all the time. You definitely wouldn’t try it again, though, given that he can probably smash your skull in within a single movement.

  “C’mon, _____. Let’s go explore!” Sally grins at you as well, her eyes twinkling. Even Mr. D. gives you what must be the most friendly grin you’ve ever seen from him. You find yourself laughing along with them in no time, infected by the happy atmosphere of this place. 

  A brief gasp escapes from your mouth when Sally grabs your hand and you begin to soar through the air as if weightless. The feeling is surreal, reminding you of the countless times you’ve dreamt of flying in the past, yet you can’t bring yourself to think of this place as a dream. How could it be, when it’s filled with such wonder and the people you like are here with you? All of you begin to soar higher and higher, and you continue to fly even when Sally lets go of your hand to do a twirl midair. You mimic her movements and let out a laugh. 

 From your birds’ eye view, you can see the magical land that seems to stretch on endlessly – the countless rides and buildings, the stalls with striped roofs flapping gently. The wind carries the scent of popcorn and cotton candy, and you wonder if that’s the reason why LJ smells so sickly sweet all the time. The carnival and amusement park area tapers off into a forest made of candy, there are rainbows in the sky and everything is beautiful. Too beautiful to be true, but you turn a blind eye to it because who are you to care right now? So what if there’s a suspicious dark fog that blocks your view beyond this magic, so what if the wind also carries a mildly rancid scent with it from time to time? So what if this is all a dream?

  Sally descends near a rollercoaster and you do the same, only to stumble forward. Thankfully, a pile of cotton candy appears right before you fall flat on your face – it disappears before you can decide whether to take a bite of it. 

  “Don’t eat anything here if you want to leave,” LJ whispers to you as he pulls you to your feet. You thank him in your head for his warning, heart warming up slightly at the gesture. There’s no way to tell if he’s saying this because he likes you or because he’s on orders not to kill you, but you appreciate it nonetheless. No eating things from the suspicious dreamland, understood. 

  By the time you catch up with Sally, she’s already in her seat with Mr. D. beside her. You and LJ get into seats of your own – you laugh at the sight of LJ’s long legs folded up against the back of Sally’s seat. An operator, a short one wearing a happy clown mask and colourful overalls, comes to help all of you put on your seatbelts and the ride lurches into motion, sending you into a whirling world of colours and astounding visuals. The wind rips through your hair and you find yourself lost in the moment. LJ and Sally cheer and laugh, you whoop in ecstasy and for just a few minutes everything is fine. 

  When you descend from the ride, legs shaking slightly, the feeling is still entrenched deep inside you. You wonder if you’ll be able to come to this place in the future and have as much fun – you look to LJ for a response, but he doesn’t give one. You’re not surprised. 

  The rest of the day is spent in a similar state of bliss with your group of friends, taking all kinds of rides, playing at the different carnival games and exploring the area around you. The place is huge, stretching across an endless expanse and only stopped by that odd dark coloured fog. LJ doesn’t let you get near, not that you have any desire to.

  Here, there is a sun in the sky – a bright blazing ball of fire that you haven’t seen for weeks. You’re not sure how much time has passed before it begins to set, casting the sky a beautiful shade of pink. All of you fly back to the ferris wheel near the place where this whole dream began. By this point you’re an experienced flyer and land just as gracefully as Sally does. Your friends cheer you on. 

  The four of you sit in one cabin and watch the sunset in a peaceful silence. 

…

  LJ is quite certain that you're not going to die. After all, he has seen your thoughts. You're definitely not going to die anytime soon, but that doesn't mean he isn't going to take the opportunity to show you his carnival. He had a feeling you would enjoy your time here, and he was right. It was worth the effort he put into picking out the most presentable spirits wandering around and dressing them up.

  He still remembers how your first thought upon seeing him wasn’t fear, but intrigue. It was refreshing. He remembers the way your eyes lit up slightly, how quickly you opened up to him and how much fun the two of you had playing together. He definitely appreciates the way your mind works, and sometimes he finds himself wishing he could physically open it up because for once, he can’t figure it out with his magic. 

  Maybe he should’ve just let you eat that cotton candy, maybe he shouldn’t have given you that warning. LJ thinks it would be nice to have someone like you stay here with him for the rest of eternity – it would offer him a fair bit of entertainment and plus, Sally seems to like you too. Hell, even you seem to enjoy it. He could maintain this section of his world for you, bring in fresh souls everyday to keep you amused if he had to. 

  But you don’t belong here. Even though you had fun, even though you’re all friends, something just tells him that you’ll never be happy spending everyday in this place the way he is. It makes LJ sad. 

  He stares at you for a second before turning his gaze to the sunset as well. He can figure out what to do with you in the future.

…

  Sally likes you. You’re genuine, nice and even managed to get Mr. D.’s approval. How rare is that! Sally likes spending time with you – she’s completely confident that you’ll manage to make it to the end. 

  Not that she’d have any way of judging accurately, of course. She’s just a little girl after all. 

…

  “You should go now. That was fun, _____!”  LJ giggles, abruptly disturbing the peace. The ferris wheel is on its second round and the sun is almost out of view. You glance at him in mild confusion and nod.

  “It was nice spending time with you! Let’s have a tea party the next time we meet, I’ll bring my special cookies!” Sally echoes, floating up from her seat. She and Mr. D. wave at you, then leap out from the cabin to float beside it. 

  “Thanks, guys. I had lots of fun today,”  you say genuinely. You move to give LJ a big hug in a sudden show of courage that surprises even you. He freezes up for a moment before wrapping his lanky arms around you as well. He’s cold, you note, and from this distance the muted smell of iron assaults your nostrils along with that candy scent. You find yourself not really minding. 

  “Come again in the future?” LJ asks. You nod into his chest – his arms lock up slightly before he lets go.

  LJ stares at you contemplatively for a second, before he disappears in a puff of smoke like always. Sally and Mr. D. disappear on the spot as well. 

  As the sun finally sets in the distance, your cabin reaches the top of the ferris wheel. It creaks dangerously as a sudden gust of strong wind blows – without the sunlight, the entire place suddenly looks cheerless. You feel awfully alone sitting in it, overlooking everything. You have the capacity to do anything you want right now, but you feel like this horrible sinking feeling in your chest won’t go away no matter what. How many times can you ride the rides here before you grow tired of them? 

  A sudden wave of sleepiness hits you and you slump over in your seat. Just before your vision goes black, you notice that the cloud of black fog has faded. LJ stands on the barren land with a circus tent behind him, eyes burning into you.

…

  You wake up in your bed at exactly 9pm only to be hit by a fresh wave of pain and intense hunger. Your dream is still fresh in your mind, though you can’t quite recall your last moments there. It’s hard to believe that you spent more than a day in that place – you suppose time working differently there wouldn’t be that wild considering everything else. 

  With great difficulty, you drag yourself out of bed and grab some cookies to fill your growling stomach. You almost curse when you see the ugly bruises covering every inch of your body, but come to terms with it quickly and focus on finishing your food instead. It takes a monumental amount of effort for you to pen down what happened over the past few days, but you manage. Once you’re done, you trudge to your bathroom to take a shower. 

  Two hours after you wake up, you’re finally somewhat put together again. You sink back into bed. Just as you’re about to relax and take a day off for yourself, a crash comes from your miscellaneous room. You groan.

Chapter Text

  D2 begins with BEN carefully holding a kettle filled with boiling water an arm's length away from him, walking into your room with shaky steps.

  The crash you heard from before? It was BEN, falling through your gaming system with all the grace of a baby taking its first steps. You stared him down for a good moment then, after which the two of you immediately launched into an intense game of Mario Kart. (You won.)

  Running your mouth about how hungry you were during the game proved to be a good idea, because eventually BEN relented and went off to bring you some food. Two cups of ramen noodles sit on your table now, waiting for the hot water BEN is currently trying to transport over. 

  “Does water not travel through digital screens?” You ask curiously as BEN approaches. He doesn’t look up from the kettle, but you can feel his glare. 

  “Are you hearing yourself right now?” he hisses, carefully tipping the kettle over to pour water into the cups. Once he’s done, he sets it down and closes the cup noodle lids with a sigh of relief. “I’d like to see your dumbass try to transport a toaster through a swimming pool.” 

  BEN passes one of the cups over as he speaks, and you decide to swallow the snarky comment threatening to bubble from your lips this one time. 

  With BEN, it’s always just… peaceful. He’s not a peaceful person by any means, but when you two are in a room playing games it almost feels like you’re back in Malibu again, not in the middle of a forest. And if you imagine hard enough you can pretend BEN is the online friend you finally meet up with after years of joking about it on Discord, not a serial killer. It’s nice, reminiscent of the ordinary life you led before all of this in all the best ways. 

  For the rest of the day, you two just sit in your entertainment room playing games and thriving on unhealthy snacks. Neither of you mention anything about the approaching end as you cycle through game after game. And for once, when he leaves, he takes all his trash with him. 

  You wave goodbye to the ghost dressed in green as he lugs a pile of empty wrappers and ramen cups through the screen, but he doesn’t turn back. His desolate silhouette fades into little pixels and disperses into black. 

…

  BEN kinda doesn’t want to see you go. 

  He still remembers the expression on your face when you walked in on him and EJ the first time, eyes blown wide. He remembers the music playing on the television, the change in your expression from panic to joy as you started playing Mario Kart with him. He thought you were weird at that time, maybe a bit stupid. When you beat him at the game, he considered killing you right then and there. 

  But he held back, because where else was he going to find someone who could actually keep him on his toes in the game? That didn’t stop him from messing with you, though. Like all his other victims, he found amusement in the deep-seated panic in your eyes as your friend died in front of you and he forced you to carry out the act with your own hands. 

  He just doesn’t know when your status in his mind changed from victim to friend. Was it when you held out your hand to him? Was it when you didn’t tear down the screens on the wall like everyone else, even though he could tell you were sometimes annoyed? BEN doesn’t know. 

  BEN hates to admit it, but the two of you have grown close. You’re the closest thing he has to a gaming buddy now that the other video game dwellers are out, and he doesn’t know how he’ll go back to playing games with incompetent sore losers like Jeff if you don’t make it. 

  You make him feel important for once, like something more than the little creepy ghost that haunts electronic devices and fools around all day. Like an equal.

  Your friendship is a fragile one that BEN almost wants to protect – that’s why it sucks so much when he realises he can’t. He can’t help you in a fight, can’t teach you any useful skills, can’t put in a good word for you, he can’t do anything. And he knows that later on, when the trial is in progress he won’t be able to do anything except watch through a little screen, even if you’re being ripped apart and eaten alive by whatever awaits you out there. He’s powerless.

  So when he takes his leave, he doesn't turn back. Because if he does, he might end up giving both of you false hope that he’ll be useful for once. 

…

  After BEN takes his leave, very graciously cleaning up after himself, you send yourself right back to bed. It’s been a fun few days, but you haven’t forgotten the impending threat. You may already have all five stamps, but you can’t just stop preparing for whatever might come next. As you slip into a dreamless slumber, your last thought is that you’ll spend tomorrow training. 

  When you wake up on D1 morning, train is exactly what you do because you don’t want to die after coming this far. You ignore the dull ache in your body and spend a good part of the day going through the things Liu and Sully taught you, practising the moves until your body almost gives out. 

  Once you feel like you’ve pushed yourself far enough, you take a shower and head out in search of lunch. You don’t have to look far, because right outside your door is a little basket containing a lovingly crafted chicken sandwich and a note from Sally. It reads ‘Enjoy your sandwich’ in surprisingly neat handwriting and ends in a cute little red heart. You bring both the sandwich and the note into your room and settle down. 

  Recently, the days have begun blending into each other again. You feel like you’ve been dragged along for the ride, like you’re just helplessly drifting along with the currents on a pathetic wooden plank. Today is a nice change – uneventful, but for once you feel like you’re in control.

  You dig into your chicken sandwich with the company of a raven which perches on your windowsill and stares you down with beady little eyes. Creepy, but you find that you don’t really mind the company. And at the end of your meal, you hold out your last piece of chicken to the watchful creature as an offering.

  It caws loudly, grabs the chicken with its beak and departs in a dramatic mess of feathers. One of them lands right on your bed, and you decide to store it in a drawer along with Sally’s letter. Little things, small keepsakes that you can look back on somewhere down the road. 

  It’s odd, in a way, how tranquil things are. Tomorrow, some of the peers who have spent a whole month in this place with you will die for failing to get little stamps onto an ugly piece of paper. And more of you will die during whatever they have in store for you after that. You wonder how many have died already. Will it ever be your turn? 

  Too tired to continue training, too lonely to play any games and too drained to write, you simply spend the rest of the afternoon staring out that very window. The patch of forest outside your room looks the same as it always does. It’s dark, spooky, everything a creepy forest should be. The trees have been untouched, standing rigidly and unchangingly since you first arrived in this place. You can hardly believe that it’s been almost an entire month – you don’t really remember what life was like before all of this anymore. Do you even want to go back? You’re not sure. 

  You wonder where the raven flew off to, and if it’s happy now. Maybe it also calls somewhere in this forest home. 

  An aggressive knock at the door snaps you from your reverie. You glance at the clock and run through names in your head – it’s Clockwork, you decide, and judging from the light scolding coming from behind the door Jane is with her too. 

  You rise to your feet and pull open the door – sure enough, the two women are standing right there. Holding bottles of what look suspiciously similar to alcohol. Clockwork grins at you and snatches you by the arm, kidnapping you into your own room. Jane gently locks the door behind her, then turns around and holds a bottle high up into the air. You sigh. 

…

  “--and he was like, ‘Fuck you!’” Clockwork splutters, one eye burning with unbridled contempt. She raises the bottle of brandy in her hand and takes a giant swig from it, emptying it completely. “Can you believe the audacity of this fucking man? I hate men,” she grumbles. 

  Jane is a much more elegant drunk in comparison to Clockwork. She gently pats Clockwork’s shoulder and shakes her head in sympathy, before downing a glass of wine in one go. “Get with a lady and call it a day, hun,”  she slurs, wrapping one arm around Clockwork. Clockwork’s already flushed face rapidly turns into an alarming shade of red, and you let out an unrestrained guffaw at the side. 

  “Get a room, you two,” you call out in mock disapproval.. You receive embarrassed laughs in return. 

  The two of them have finally convinced you to drink with them (in other words, Clockwork let you take one swig of her brandy) and let’s just say you’re not a heavy drinker. You’re almost definitely going to regret this in the foreseeable future, but right now, it’s nice to just let loose a little bit. 

  You wind up passing out in your bed just an hour into the session. 

…

  You wake up with a splitting headache on top of your aching muscles, filling you with instant regret. A cry escapes your lips as someone begins to bash your head with a pillow. 

  “I’m up, I’m up… stop that,” you whine, holding your hands out in self defence. The assault stops briefly before continuing again in full force. 

  “Get up faster, dumbass. You’re going to be late for the second round,” someone mumbles into your ear. You recognise it as Clockwork, and when you take in her slouched form you triumphantly note that she doesn't seem to be doing any better than you. Jane, bless her soul, is peacefully knocked out on the other half of your bed. 

  It’s at this time you register what Clockwork said. Before you can ask what she means, a voice plays directly in your head, the same kind of psychic communication that Trenderman used with you except more commanding. 

  “Entrance. 0000,” is all the message says. Short, stern and to the point. Whoever sent it (you have a few educated guesses) wants you to be at the entrance on the dot. The echoing command in your mind only serves to worsen your headache, but when you glance at the 1145 displayed on your clock you decide that you have other things to worry about. Like being on time. So that you don’t die. 

  Ignoring Clockwork’s outraged cry, you peel off your sticky clothes and strip down to your underwear. You quickly flip through your wardrobe to find a fresh set of undergarments and clothes suitable for running. If there’s one thing you’re sure of, it’s that whatever they have in store for you isn’t going to be easy. You change right in the middle of the room in record time, stuff a few cookies into your mouth, guzzle down a bottle of water then give yourself a good slap on the face. 

  Clockwork peels open her eye once she’s sure you’re decent, grumbling something about decency. You’re too panicked to really hear what she’s saying, but you offer her a noncommittal hum nonetheless. You dig through your drawers on your way to the door, grabbing anything that looks even remotely useful – a box of matches, a pen, a little piece of paper, an extra cookie wrapped up in a neat little bag, these things all get unceremoniously shoved into your pockets. 

  “I’ll bring her over later,” Clockwork calls, voice now alert.  You take a deep breath as you unlock your door. 

  “Don’t dirty my room,” is your simple response. It manages to wrangle a little laugh out of her, but you don’t need to turn around to know that it’s a strained one.

  With that, you set foot out your door and begin hurling compliments at the house, begging it to take you to your destination on time. 

…

  Clockwork likes you. As a friend, of course. She wasn’t there for your journey to the mansion, but she did hear some pretty nasty things from the proxies – needless to say, when Jane came to her gushing about you, she was confused. 

  She decided it would be better to see things for herself, and so she found herself in the laundry room with you on that fateful day. She’s glad she did, because where else would she have found such a neat drinking buddy? There’s a serious shortage of women in this house, and she’s glad you’re around to make things just a little bit better.

  Clockwork knows that Jane likes you, too. Again, as a friend. Important distinction. Why would Jane give you such a useful room if she didn’t approve of you as a person? And as Clockwork watches Jane jump up from bed and begin to panic, she knows that Jane doesn’t want you to die either. 

  “C’mon, let’s go babe,” Clockwork calls out lazily, thumbing her two serrated blades. Jane scrambles to check that her knife is in place before running straight out the door. Clockwork follows close behind, hands in her pockets and back hunched.

  They’re both willing to put in a good word for you, if need be. Hopefully you won’t need it.

Chapter Text

  Your incredible camaraderie with the house strikes again, and you make it to the entrance just in the nick of time. You practically dive into the foyer when you see it, almost knocking Masky over in the process. He sends you a glare that tells you he would’ve very much preferred if you were late, but thankfully doesn’t comment. 

  You ignore every creep already in the room and make your way to the crowd of survivors. Chris pulls you to her side as you near her, giving you a few heavy pats on the back. Much firmer than before, you note with a wince – you suppose you’re not the only one who has changed. 

  “It’s time,” Masky states mere seconds after you settle in with the crowd. 

  “Some of them aren’t here,” Hoodie notes from the side, prompting a nod in response. They exchange no more words on the subject. You wonder what kind of fate awaits the late ones.

  “Five rows. Take out your cards,” Masky snaps, and the survivors quickly obey. You keep your gaze trained straight ahead of you, but out of the corner of your eye you can see more creeps filing into the room and spreading themselves out. Even Clockwork and Jane are here (looking much more put together than how you left them), swiftly positioning themselves at a doorway. 

  Toby is the one who inspects your card, brow quirking up ever so slightly as he takes in the five stamps present on it. He doesn’t comment either and simply eyes your bruises before moving on to the person behind you. Before you know it the three proxies have returned to the front of the line. In complete sync, they straighten themselves and raise their heads.

   Silence descends. Everyone is still. 

  You’re suddenly aware of a low hum, a staticky sound that grates against your mind, worsening your already existing headache by twofold almost immediately. Your hand twitches, your body begs you to loosen up and curl into a little ball but an even stronger instinct tells you not to. The static increases in volume and increases… in presence? It’s getting louder, heavier, and you’re not sure when but it begins to cloud your vision. 

  A piercing scream rings out somewhere behind you, and then another – at some point the screaming stops, there’s something on you, a black flash that passes your vision too quickly for you to make sense of, something is happening and it hurts and then suddenly everything stops again. The static clears and you come back to your senses, blinking away the blurriness in your vision. 

  What the fuck just happened? 

  You survey the foyer, clutching a hand to your racing heart. There are bodies on the ground that weren’t there before and missing people in the crowd – crimson soaks into the floor. And there is a gaze, heavy and contemplative, resting upon you which has all your goosebumps rising. Your eyes dart around the room in search of the source of your discomfort but there is nobody you can find. The gaze disappears quickly, and in its place is a message in your mind, placid but commanding – “Begin the second round immediately.” 

  “We will begin the second round immediately,” Toby echoes, almost too placidly. It’s the most complete sentence you’ve ever heard him say without stuttering. “You–” 

  “Yes,” Masky cuts in with a hint of annoyance. He shuffles forward a little and addresses the crowd. “You will be sent to different parts of the forest in five groups of five. Your teammates are the people standing in your row, team one is on my left and team five is on my right.” 

  You look around. You’re in Team One, with two acquaintances and two people you don’t know. Not a bad team, you think. 

  “Your job is simple – survive,” Hoodie finishes. He nods at someone among the crowd of creeps, raising one finger to lightly tap at his wrist. 

  It is LJ who responds to this gesture, stepping forward with a large grin painted on his face. With a happy clap of his hands, a new wave of dizziness hits you, and the next time you come to you’re no longer in the mansion. 

…

[team one] 

  You awaken dangerously close to a crackling fire, staring into the forest roof. It’s thicker than you remember, if you’re remembering things right – not even a single shred of moonlight peeks through the leaves and branches. Leaves cling to your body as you pull yourself up.

  “She’s up!” a voice calls out from the other side of the fire. 

  “I’m up, I’m up…” you grumble in response, clumsily crawling away from the fire on all fours. “What’s going on?” 

  The owner of the voice peeks her head out from behind a tree – you recognise her. Another classmate of yours who has always been kind, taking the initiative to help everyone out. Looks like her friendly nature has carried over even in such a situation. You wonder how she lasted so long. (School feels like it happened in another lifetime. How long has it been since you’ve had a proper interaction with your peers, instead of a creep?)

  “Are you feeling alright? Headache? Was it too hot? I told him that we should’ve left you further away…” She frets, rushing over to your side and placing a cold hand over your forehead.

  “Chill, Nadia. I’m sure she’s fine,” another person groans, emerging from behind the same tree and making his way toward you. Someone you don’t recognise, but he quickly introduces himself as Timothy with a wry smile. “They said to survive. The plan right now is to remain hidden.” He explains, coming to a stop a safe distance away. 

  “Sorry for getting up so late, how can I help?” You ask, climbing to your feet. Nadia and Timothy glance at each other.

…

  It takes a considerable amount of effort, but eventually your little team manages to figure out how to set up a usable shelter. Not a very sturdy looking one, but it'll have to do for now. You find out halfway through the shelter building efforts (which you play a minimal role in, actually – you feel like you’re here for moral support more than anything) that your two other group mates are currently busy with their own things. 

  One is Noah, who returns from his recon mission and greets you with a lacklustre wave. The other is a stranger, who is currently still out cold on the floor, too busy being unconscious to introduce himself to you. 

  Upon his return Noah quickly decides that the next order of business should be to look for food, so he takes Nadia on a little hunting trip at a nearby river. You and Timothy are tasked with watching over the last member of your team.. It is an awkward silence that settles over the two of you, one which Timothy breaks with an interesting observation about the stranger. “He’s useless.” 

  “A bit, yeah,” you agree. 

  There’s a dark look in Timothy’s eyes that you don’t quite like as he continues to stare at the unconscious man. The silence settles back in, and it stretches on until Nadia and Noah return with a single handful of berries.

  “Sorry, guys. This was all we could get…” Noah sighs, crushing one of the berries between his fingers. The berry bursts into a suspicious shade of bright red. “We have no idea what these are. Anyone wanna try their luck?”  

  “He’s still out?” Nadia asks, passing Noah to check on the stranger. She sets down the big stick and big rock in her grasp (hunting gear, she said before she left – you wonder if she got the chance to use it at all) and kneels beside him. You nod at her query and watch as her brows furrow in concern. 

  You move to check on the man too, but before you reach him a loud burst of static catches your attention. When you turn your gaze to the source of the sound, you discover a drone staring back at you menacingly, lens flashing with an ominous red. How the fuck did all of you miss that? How long has it been there?

  “Hello, hello? Can you all hear me?” A familiar voice crackles into life from the machine. It’s of a lower quality than you’re used to, but you’re sure that it’s BEN. There’s a brief pause, and then, “I’ll just assume that you can… We forgot to mention, you’ll be brought back to the mansion once one person in each team dies. Good luck!”

  When you turn your attention back to your team, you find that all of them are looking at the unconscious person on the floor. 

Chapter Text

[team five]

  Edgar isn’t too sure when everything went wrong. Things were fine at first – good, even. When he woke up, his teammates already had a whole system in place, there was a competent leader and the rest of them just had to listen. 

  But now that leader is on the floor, bleeding out as petite, friendly Ruth stands above him with a rock in her grasp.

  “Ruth?” a woman calls out hesitantly, holding out one hand. Edgar watches silently from the sidelines. Is the Ruth smashing a man’s head in with a rock really the same one who almost died first? The second weakest among all the survivors, the one who barely survived the first round? Is she really the friend Edgar’s known for over three years? 

  The man is dead now, having stopped struggling some time ago – his face is an unrecognisable mess as Ruth straddles his corpse, panting heavily. The other woman, Edgar doesn’t know her name, approaches Ruth with two hands cautiously outstretched like she’s trying to placate a wild animal. 

  Ruth is trembling, staring right through the dead body below her. The other woman tries to calm her down, whispering words of comfort and inching closer with every sentence that leaves her mouth. And when Ruth does eventually settle down, the woman breathes an audible sigh of relief. 

  Ruth isn’t trembling anymore. She stops shaking, stops breathing heavily and stops moving altogether as the other woman continues to approach with her hands outstretched. When that woman eventually reaches Ruth she wraps her arms around Ruth’s shoulder in an awkward but genuine hug. Ruth doesn’t move. 

 The next time Ruth moves is when raises the stone and brings it down with terrifying calmness. 

  The woman pulls away from the embrace with a little cry, stumbling backwards and clutching the back of her head. Edgar can’t see her face but he imagines she’s in shock as she realises what happened. In too much shock to put up a fight when Ruth comes ramming into her headfirst, flinging her to the forest floor and repeating the same thing she did with the man before her. Ruth is bashing the rock in her hands against a hard skull, bringing it down again and again with all her pitiful might. She is screaming, crying and laughing all at once, her unintelligible shouts disappearing into the trees. 

  Edgar watches it happen in a sort of catatonic silence. It doesn’t make sense, none of this does. What’s happening? A second dead body falls to the ground next to the first, and the perpetrator turns her gaze to Edgar. There’s guilt somewhere in those eyes, but mostly fear. She’s scared. She doesn’t want to die, Edgar realises. (Edgar realises that he doesn’t want to die either.) 

  Edgar scrambles to find a weapon of his own from the floor – his hands close around a stick and a rock just in the nick of time. When Ruth rushes towards him it is the stick that she meets first, a flimsy yet sharp thing that drives itself into her stomach and snaps in half once it has served its purpose. Edgar takes the opportunity, bringing the rock above his head and then back down again, over and over and over just like Ruth was doing seconds ago. He doesn’t stop even though she’s flailing around and snapping at him like a wounded animal, teeth closing sometimes around thin air and sometimes around his flesh. The pain is distant for now, subdued enough that it doesn’t hinder him in his work. Edgar doesn’t stop bringing the rock down until he’s sure that Ruth is dead and no longer a threat. 

  But wait, isn’t there a fifth person? The fifth person, another stranger he may have seen around in the mansion once upon a time, is standing a few metres away with her eyes wide and a rock of her own in her trembling hands. She is a threat to his safety, so Edgar does what he must. Edgar isn’t sorry when her corpse joins the other three on the floor, because he’s just doing what it takes to survive. 

…

[team three]  

  “When will the other two come back?” Amelia whispers to Cassandra, surveying her surroundings with caution. 

 “I don’t know,” Cassandra responds quietly. 

  Amelia and Cassandra are best friends. They’re best friends who have always done everything together – before all of this and even during. They’ve scraped by together so far, and there’s no reason they can’t get through this task together as well. 

  When they woke up two members of their team were already gone, and for the past hour or so have shown no signs of returning. The duo, together with a little straggler who woke up with them have been sitting in the same spot since opening their eyes, just hoping that nothing in the woods spots them and decides to come knocking at their metaphorical door. 

  It’s almost peaceful, Amelia thinks. Sitting here in the middle of the woods with her best friend, with no worldly matters to worry about save for their survival. She leans against Cassandra and closes her eyes. 

  It is silent. But amidst the silence, the sound of mechanical whirling is akin to a gunshot. 

  Amelia’s eyes snap open, zeroing in on the source of the sound. Did something find them? Do they have to run? Amelia’s hands find her best friend’s, and the two of them scramble to get off the floor as the drone flies closer. Then the drone begins speaking. 

  “Hello, hello? Can you all hear me?” Amelia knows this voice. It’s the gamer guy, that immature Link wannabe. “I’ll just assume that you can… We forgot to mention, you’ll be brought back to the mansion once one person in each team dies. Good luck!”

  “Oh. That’s not good,” Cassandra comments, a disbelieving laugh escaping from her mouth. She makes brief eye contact with Amelia, before turning to the stranger in their little trio. He stares at the two of them with a sort of impending horror on his face. 

  But before the two of them can take action, they’re all passed out on the forest floor.

…

[team four]  

  Killian might be angry. 

  Killian isn’t the type of guy to get angry at anything. He likes to think that he’s a really calm and patient guy. He can put up with incompetent teammates during group work, he can talk his friends through the most complicated tasks without getting frustrated. But this Naomi person really, really gets on his nerves.

  The rest of them have been scrambling around, looking for food, shelter and fighting off the unknown creatures that scurry between the trees. But Naomi has done absolutely nothing but trip all over the place and scream in short, piercing bursts, attracting more of those things for the rest of the team to fight off.

  So when a strange man with a black and white mask descends from the trees with an offer for safety in return for just one sacrifice, Killian naturally agrees with one particular person in mind. She seems to know it too, based on the way her eyes shift and her breathing gets heavier. Killian allows the feeling of anticipation that wells up to wash over him for once. 

  They’re following the masked man to the place of sacrifice now, following his path as he leaps between trees with ease. Any other day Killian would have been against following a masked stranger to an unknown place, especially when said stranger is some sort of ninja that probably wants to see someone dead, but right now Killian finds himself too exhausted by everything to care. He’s watched his best friend slip from his grasp and fall to the ground, dead. He’s had to do things he would rather not think about to get some ugly ass stamps for an even uglier card. He’s had to deal with Naomi’s incessant whining and screaming for over sixty minutes. Killian is so, so tired.

  Eventually the masked man stops at a small clearing, where a large hole appears to reside. ”どぞう,” he says, gesturing at the bottomless pit with a hint of mischief in his voice. The man doesn’t speak in a language that Killian can understand, but he takes it as an invitation (a welcome one) and grabs Naomi.

  Naomi is screaming before Killian begins dragging her towards the hole, piercing cries echoing through the forest and grating at Killian’s ears with each passing second. Then there is someone in their way, speaking in a low and concerned voice, doubt and uncertainty dancing in his eyes. 

  “Move,” Killian commands, keeping his iron grip on Naomi. If someone has to go it will be Naomi. Not the rest of the team who have contributed and suffered while Naomi played damsel in a little corner. 

  The man – Haziq, Killian realises – says something but Killian can’t hear it through the sound of blood rushing past his ears. Naomi’s irritating voice somehow cuts through that and Killian just knows she’s begging for help, writhing in his grasp and clutching at Haziq’s clothes and– and then Haziq is stumbling backwards, sent into a spiralling free fall into the bottomless pit. 

  There is screaming and crying and there is panic, and there is a mounting feeling of dread and guilt and then there is silence. The world goes silent. Kilian cannot hear Haziq’s screams anymore, cannot hear Naomi’s little sobs, cannot hear the masked man going ‘Kekeke’ under his breath and cannot even hear the sound of his own racing heart. For an instant everything is quiet, and then the world starts up again and Killian realises that he really is angry this time. 

  Killian lunges forward and shoves, but Naomi jumps back just in time with a little scream and it’s someone else who loses his footing. It’s a repeat of earlier, the stranger is stumbling and loses his footing and then he’s gone, just like Haziq. Killian screams, cries, throws himself forward again but his limbs give out beneath him before he can touch Naomi. 

…

[team two] 

  “Hurry up, Alex,” Chris hisses, giving the man a rather violent tug. Alex lets out an annoyed tsk and pushes himself to walk faster, but it’s clearly not enough for the rest of the team. This has been the dynamic of the team for the past few hours – ever since Wayne left to survive on his own, Chris and Cecelia have taken charge of the situation. They’ve been pushing Alex to move faster and keep up with the team. And Alex really loves his friends, but his injured ankle just doesn’t allow him to move any faster even if he wants to. 

  “Do you need help?” Cecelia offers kindly, but he rejects her good intentions with a resolute shake of his head. Alex knows that this little help will do little more than drag the team down even more. He thinks that it’s really quite nice that he has gotten this far, but he’s had enough of stumbling along pathetically as dead weight.  

  So when the machine tells the group that one of them has to die, Alex doesn’t even wait for the others to take action. He sprints off into the forest alone, ignoring the throbbing pain in his ankle and screaming at the top of his lungs. He knows there are monsters here – he’s seen them, and this time he doesn’t intend to hide. 

  Almost immediately, a pale creature with giant claws and protruding ribs leaps out from the trees. It’s the one they’ve been trying to avoid since they arrived in this damn place, and Alex is pretty fucking sure it’s been toying with them the entire time. 

  “Eat up, pup,” he braces himself before running towards the monster. Alexander has always enjoyed running – he hasn’t been able to do it as often as he likes because of his injury (a consequence of pushing too hard just a few days during that stamp collecting month) but he’s glad that he gets the chance to run one last time. 

  When the monster is upon him and he is on the floor, pinned beneath its razor sharp claws, Alex turns back. He sees Chris and Cecelia’s fading silhouettes, and instead of the relief he is expecting, it’s a sense of bitter resentment that arises. And when he sees the stranger he hasn’t even said a word to running towards him, face set in a determined expression that will surely prove to be worth nothing, it’s an odd feeling of guilt and schadenfreude that wells up in him. 

  As the claws come down upon his throat and the monster screams into his face, rancid breath wafting against him, Alex laughs. Maybe it’s for the best that he dies. 

…

[team one] 

  The discussion about what to do went about as well as expected, you think. Nadia was adamant on defending the unconscious person, while Timothy was adamant that getting rid of him would be the best choice. You and Noah remained neutral on the matter. 

  The subsequent battle ended as quickly as it started – Timothy got rid of the person on the floor using a machete he pulled out from god knows where, Nadia beat his skull in using a baseball bat at the cost of sustaining a gnarly would and bled out on the floor while you and Noah watched. 

  Now it’s just the two of you sitting around a fire with the company of three dead bodies. 

  “I didn’t even know his name,” Noah’s voice is barely a whisper – you turn towards him and give him a smile.  

  “Neither did I.” 

  The two of you lay yourselves down to sleep next to the crackling flames and the bodies of your former teammates. 

…

    “So it’s decided, then?” Jeff asks, snatching a piece of paper from Masky’s hands. The masked man lets out a low snarl and snatches it back immediately. 

  “Don’t touch that,” he demands. He straightens out the slightly crumpled piece of paper carefully and checks for any other imperfections – upon finding none, he folds it up neatly and tucks it into a pocket. Jeff chuckles and pulls away. 

  Masky nods at his two companions, gives Jeff a death glare and stalks away. 

Chapter Text

  You come to in the familiar foyer of the mansion, head pounding heavily. You never realised how much you missed the mildly bloody smell of the house until you returned after your first breath of fresh air in a few weeks. Around you, about ten more people are in varying stages of waking up. 

  “Welcome back,” Masky snaps grouchily once everyone is standing. You rake your gaze over him sneakily and wonder what’s gotten him so riled up – the lingering look of content on Jeff’s face tells you all you need to know. Amusement seizes you for a moment and you’re tempted to laugh, but you control yourself. Masky stomps closer to your group of survivors and raises a single finger like an angry middle aged lady then begins jutting it at people and counting from one to twelve. This time it takes all your willpower to keep your laughter in. 

  “One, two, three, four…” he drones, eyes lingering on every person he numbers for a second. At last, he comes to you. “Twelve.” It’s the familiar kind of disdain mixed with a sort of disappointment that you see in his gaze, if not a bit stronger than before. Why? 

  “We’ve been watching you,” Hoodie begins, his low but authoritative voice filling the room. Oh. That’s why. “And we’ve ranked you according to your performance,”

  “You’ll be choosing someone to mentor you for the following two weeks. That person will tell you all you need to know. You are to select a mentor in order of your rankings,” Masky supplements, gesturing at himself, the other proxies then the group of creeps standing at the side. Some of them wave, some of them groan, some don’t react at all. You do a quick count – twelve creeps including the proxies, so it looks like you’ll be left with whoever isn’t liked. Fortunately for you, you know most of them well enough that you don’t really need to worry. 

  “Number one, Edgar. Step forward and make your choice.” 

  The named survivor steps forward from the crowd with a slight tremble in his steps. His head moves from the left to the right, then back to the left, before he makes his choice. Raising one shaky finger, he points right at BEN and says “I choose you.” 

  Almost immediately, you can see the anger that flares up in BEN. His eyes take on a sinister glow and the familiar staticy feeling begins to build in the air, but he controls himself before wires appear.  You make a quick note to make fun of him for this in the future and silently offer your prayers to Edgar.

 Edgar used to hang around your (now noticeably smaller) group of friends – unsurprisingly you’re not that close to him either, but you know he plays video games in his free time. You wonder how long Edgar will last now that he’s gone and pissed BEN off with his poor choice of words. 

  What could Edgar possibly have done to get first place in the rankings, though? A sense of mild alarm suddenly fills you, and you resolve to train harder over the next two weeks for whatever is about to come. They’ve thrown all of you into a forest to die, so who knows what kind of bullshit they’ll pull out next?

  The new mentor and mentee make eye contact and pair up, moving off to the side. 

  The next person to make a choice is Killian, who walks forward with a steady gait. He seems as calm and collected as ever, if not a bit more. You wonder what he’s been through. Killian comes to a stop before the selection of pastas and makes his choice after a good five minutes of contemplation. He’s just as thorough as you remember him, you think fondly. 

  “Hoodie,” he states, giving Hoodie a polite nod. Hoodie returns the nod and joins Killian at the side with BEN and Edgar. 

  Wayne steps forward next, hands in his pockets. Jane steps out from the crowd not a minute later, and the two join the other pairs at the side. Have they already met? 

  Chris comes up next and after a brief period of contemplation chooses Masky. You raise an eyebrow at her choice and Masky seems equal parts surprised and irritated at her decision. 

  Next, Cecelia contemplates for a minute before pointing at a masked man you haven’t met personally before. He’s got a monochrome colour scheme, with a sick black and white mask you can’t help but admire. You take a moment to recall his information from your sea of creepypasta knowledge, but all you can pull out from your mind is his name – Kagekao. If your memory doesn’t fail you, he’s Japanese. A good pair, you think, since Cecelia did study the language for a period of time. 

  Sebastian takes a few steps forward, sweeps his gaze over the group of creeps and points at Jeff. Jeff raises one eyebrow and shrugs, shuffling over to join Sebastian at the side.  Cassandra and Amelia come up in rapid succession and make their choices – Cassandra chooses Clockwork and Amelia sets her sights on Helen. Noah follows suit, and from the remaining few creeps standing at the side he picks Sally. 

  Finally, it’s down to the last three. Naomi walks forward with slow, uncertain steps, eyes darting between the three remaining creeps – EJ, LJ and Toby. She twists her fingers as she thinks; you can practically hear the gears turning in her head. After a good five minutes of thinking, she juts her chin towards Toby and stumbles to join the rest of the survivors. Toby’s head twitches to the side violently, and for a second you think he’s going to raise his axe and bash Naomi’s skull in, but in the end he begrudgingly moves to her side. 

  “Number eleven, Adam,” Masky sighs, tone impatient. You recognise him to be the lucky person from way before, the one whose partner died during the arm wrestling trial and got in through the gates without having to break a sweat. His eyes fly around the room before landing on the two creeps left. One is EJ, standing there in his silent, imposing way and the other is LJ, who flashes a threatening sharp-toothed grin. Adam quickly makes his choice, raising a shaky finger to point at EJ before scurrying off to the side. 

  Masky doesn’t even bother to call your name, because you’re only left with one option. LJ appears right in front of you in a flash of colour, large form towering over you menacingly. He licks his lips, eyes shining with child-like excitement. You can feel the pitying gazes of your fellow survivors burning right into you, but you’re not in the mood to care. Maybe being last was a blessing in disguise – god knows you wouldn’t have been able to make a choice if you had one. 

  “Hey, LJ. Miss me?” you say in your mind, staring up into his eyes. His grin grows wider.

Chapter Text

  You vanish in a colourful cloud of smoke with LJ by your side as soon as Masky gives his permission, rematerializing in the familiar comfort of your own room. What little is left of the afternoon is spent in the usual merriment and wonder you share when in the company of LJ. After a few cups of tea you find yourself exceedingly sleepy and see LJ off with lingering regret, before slipping into a deep slumber, blissfully unaware of the hellscape that awaits you. 

  What follows is the worst thing you’ve ever had the misfortune of enduring in your life. As far as preferences go, you can say with almost complete certainty that you prefer Sully and Liu’s idea of a training regime over what LJ conjured up in that rainbow filled, fucked up brain of his. Nothing could have prepared you for the onslaught that you faced as soon as you fell asleep. No amount of physical torture could have possibly compared to the general mindfuckery that LJ threw at you the moment you peeled your eyes open, fully prepared to take a blissful stroll around the carnival. 

  As is the case with most dreams you’ve shared in LJ’s world, you wake up and find yourself somewhere completely unfamiliar to you. While it’s usually sunshines, lollipops, rainbows and zombie children happily playing on colourful neon rides, what greets you this time round is an indescribable eldritch entity staring right into your soul from a corner of the circus tent. The usual sweet smell that encompasses the area is missing, allowing the rancid scent of rotting flesh and decaying bodies to hit you at full force. The entire place is a lifeless monochrome devoid of any joy or colour, with broken, creepy carnival music that could rival BEN’s singing playing somewhere in the background. A genuine shiver runs down your spine.

  You’re given little time to truly take in what you’re witnessing, because within seconds of regaining consciousness the aforementioned eldritch entity leaps at you with jaws gaping, moist, putrid breath fanning against your face. You don’t put up much of what most would consider a fight – by the time you register the sheer absurdity of the situation and begin moving, your head has been detached from your body. Your lifeless corpse falls to the ground in a pool of startling crimson. 

  When you wake up next to your own decapitated head eying you down, you realise that you might be in for a long night. 

  The next round of survive the unspeakable horror doesn’t go much better – you, reeling from the mental impact of getting your fucking head ripped off and feeling your own still warm blood coating your body, aren’t quite prepared to tackle the monster just yet. In the brief space between dying and reawakening, the monster seems to have retreated back to its spot in the shadows eying you down. This gives you about a split second to pick yourself up and make a sprint for it, which ends just as well as you imagined it would – with another death by decapitation, minus the breathing right into your face. 

  You’re more prepared the third time you wake up, eying the monster with a sort of analytic glint before turning around and recreating your mad dash forward. This time you dive bomb the floor ten steps into your great escape, just barely missing the iron clasp of the creature’s jaws that follows a mere millisecond later. You spare a little bit of mental leeway to give yourself a well deserved, sarcastic round of applause before promptly finding yourself out of viable ideas. The gears in your brain whirl, grind against each other, but it’s fruitless – your mind is all over the place, the faraway, dissonant melody causes your head to pound and you’re at a loss for what to do. A familiar putrid breath draws nearer, slowly, tauntingly, before jaws close around your back and sharp teeth grind into your flesh. You scream as you’re ripped apart into half bite by bite.

  There is a brief reprieve between your death and your following awakening – it’s barely enough for you to recover, let alone come up with a new plan, but you know that you have little choice other than making the most out of this time if you want to see the moonlight tomorrow morning. You shove the mounting panic aside, give it a good slap and tell it to fuck off until you’ve found a way to survive. It listens meekly, crawling away into a little crevice in your heart for you to deal with later. 

  Big monster. Strong teeth. What else does it have? 

  Your eyes fly open and you propel yourself to your feet, pushing yourself forward as fast as you can and turning back. The creature is taller than you imagined it to be with its long, lanky limbs – it scuttles across the floor towards you at a frightening speed, reminiscent of a spider. Its eyes zero in on you with little emotion other than hunger. Its limbs bend and it leaps towards you. prompting you to fall flat to the ground ungracefully. You fight against the growing discomfort in your chest and keep your eyes trained on the monster. 

  The creature lowers itself to the ground limb by limb and dips its slender neck, rows of teeth grinding against each other and mouthpiece clicking threateningly. Before it can close its jaws around the back of your neck again, you grab one of its limbs and shove it into your own mouth.

  A foul taste fills your mouth, enveloping all your senses as you clamp your mouth shut. Unwittingly, you close your eyes and spit the limb out, falling back to retch and heave into the ground. The entity lets out something akin to a pained scream, sending another piercing pang of pain down your head. Your eyes water as you peel them open to see the creature thrashing about, lengthy appendages trembling as it screeches. One of them brushes against you, leaving a narrow wound in its path. It turns on you with black liquid dripping down its eyes and a hatred-filled glare. 

  You laugh in its face as it removes your head from your body yet again. 

  The next time you wake up, the creature doesn’t move from its position next to your newest body. It stays there still slightly trembling, and upon seeing you tenderly treads across the floor on all its other limbs in your direction. You glare at the approaching monster with a ferocity you can feel burning inside you and bare your teeth in a mocking grin.

  What follows is a never ending cycle, a macabre tango between you and the monster. With every other corpse that falls into the growing pile of bodies, the monster loses function in one of its long legs. You lose count after repeating the process fifty times, after the taste of rotting flesh in your mouth loses its disgust value, after the monster begins staring at you with a sort of fear in its eyes instead of the other way round. It only has four limbs now, which it balances on precariously to move away with piercing cries escaping its mouth every other step.

  You tread through the piles of dead bodies towards it and glare it down with a stare so venomous it freezes, then begins scuttling away on its remaining limbs. You draw closer and closer to it, disbelieving laughter bubbling from your lips. How you let this cowardly thing get you so many times is a mystery. 

  Barely ten steps into your pursuit, the creature trips over its own limbs and falls over. It continues trying to scramble away with its limbs bent as you approach, but it clearly proves too daunting of a task – the monster ultimately stops making attempts to move away and adopts a defensive position, cowering with two limbs above its body. You can’t stop the scoff that escapes from your mouth. 

  You take your time, languidly strolling towards the quivering mass of flesh. How many times has this thing killed you now? Fifty? A hundred? Why did it take you so damn long to take it down? You can’t stop the surge of self-mocking that washes through your body at the thought – you wonder how LJ feels, if he’s been watching you die over and over again to something like this. 

  With mock empathy you gently wrap your arms around the monster’s shaking form, patting the back of its head. It makes no attempt to break free from your loose embrace or to strike at you while you’re undefensive. Your hands crawl around its thin neck inch by inch, and then when it raises its now empty gaze to meet you you snap its neck in one movement. The creature falls to the ground in a heap, joining all the other lifeless bodies around it. 

  Your own body sinks to the ground not too long after – despite the minimal effort it took to finally get rid of the monster that has been tormenting you for the past god knows how long, it feels like you’ve just emerged from a long, hard battle. Maybe it’s the culmination of all the stress in you, maybe it’s just a side effect of dying so many times. Your muscles are devoid of strength, and in this moment you doubt you could even take another step. 

  It’s in this lifeless state that LJ finds you a few minutes later as he appears with a pile of colourful candy in his embrace. He takes a long, hard look at all the corpses strewn around the area, gives you a smile with some hidden emotion you can’t quite read for once and snaps his fingers. In the blink of an eye the bloodstains and dead bodies disappear, and you almost cry in relief when colour begins returning to the space around you. It’s almost as if the few dozen battles you just fought never happened, and this place has always been a wonderland filled with sunshine and rainbows this entire time.

  “What the fuck was that, LJ…?” you breathe out. You’re not even mad – just tired. Should you be mad at him? 

  “Training!” he explains with a shrug, in a tone that suggests it should have been clear from the start. Your eye twitches subtly as you take in the word – training. You suppose he has a point. 

  “How about a little warning next time?” you say. “Please.” 

  LJ nods his head rapidly, blinking his eyes innocently as if asking for forgiveness. You can’t tell if he’s being serious, but you decide that you’re not in much of a position to make him keep his promises right now. Before you can say another word, you fall to the ground and pass out. 

Chapter Text

  You’ve never passed out in one of LJ’s dreams before, and honestly, you’re glad you haven’t until today. Usually you walk out of the carnival feeling all relaxed – the transition from dream to reality is smooth and seamless, leaving you with remnant feelings of happiness and satisfaction. But this time you wake up with the most intense headache you’ve ever experienced in your life, and the only remnant feelings in your heart are those of fear and anger. It’s… not a pretty emotion. 

  To your mild relief, LJ is nowhere in sight when you wake up. You’re not sure you can look at him quite the same after what you just experienced, and you would hate to have him hear some of the things going through your mind right now. 

  What you need is a bath – a long, hot scalding bath. And to brush your teeth until your gums bleed, because even now the rancid taste of monster flesh is still lingering in your mouth. Phantom pangs of pain hit you and your legs give out under you as you stumble out of bed, sending you straight onto the floor with a crash. For a few minutes you just lay there, staring off into the ceiling until you find the strength to pick yourself up and stagger to the bathroom. 

  The following hour passes by in a flash, and before you know it you’re somehow in different clothes and wandering the halls of the mansion. You walk with no real purpose in mind and allow the mansion to whisk you away. For a while, it’s just you and the never ending hallways. 

  During your walk you run into Wayne. A good friend you haven’t seen much of this whole time, one who somehow managed to place third. When you meet him he’s standing outside a door, hands in his pockets and eyes darting around. He freezes briefly when you begin to draw near to him, but relaxes when he sees your face. 

  “_____! It’s you,” he whispers, still glancing around. “What are you doing here?” 

  “Just… taking a break. What about you?” You match his hushed tone and scan the area as well. Who is he hiding from?  

  Before Wayne can offer you a response, the door swings open to reveal none other than Jane. She stares at Wayne, then stares at you, and then slams the door shut. You make awkward eye contact with Wayne while listening to the voices from behind the door (“Fuck! Who was that?”) and clear your throat.

  “Bad time, huh?” you ask. Wayne looks unamused. 

  The door opens again a few seconds later, and this time it’s Clockwork who pokes her head out. Her head whips to the left then to the right, and before you can say so much as a single word he pulls you and Wayne through the doorway and slams the piece of wood shut.

  “Hey, Wayne,” Clockwork waves to the understandably concerned looking man before whirling around to glare you down. “The fuck are you doing here?” 

  You decidedly turn your attention to the other occupants of the room instead of answering. A look of mild alarm is displayed on Wayne’s face as he warily eyes you and Clockwork. You can see Jane laughing at you silently out of the corner of your eye, and there’s someone else perched awkwardly on a chair across the room – you recognise her as Cassandra, part of Wayne’s sweet little clique. It consists of the two of them, Amelia and Theodore, though Theodore is decidedly dead.  You were actually on the path to joining their group before you all got kidnapped, so you're glad that those still alive have chosen some good creeps as mentors. 

  An impatient cough from Clockwork draws your attention back to her, and you muster up a weak smile. “Can’t I just want a bit of company?” 

  Clockwork’s eye meets yours, face softening significantly. “Well… Take a seat.” 

…

  ‘“_____, meet Wayne and Cassandra.” Jane’s soothing voice reaches your ears as you sip on a cup of warm water. It seems that Jane has come to some kind of realisation and is treating you with more care than she usually does. 

  The alarm in Wayne’s gaze has only grown as time goes on. As for Cassandra, she’s been staring dreamily off into the distance in some sort of trance until now. They wave at you unsurely, and you wave back with just as much enthusiasm. 

  “We’ve met,” you explain. 

  “That’s great.” Jane doesn’t miss a beat and shoves you onto a chair. “Let’s do something fun while we wait for the last two to show up!” 

  You never get to find out what the something fun is, however, because a second later there’s someone else knocking on the door. Jane swivels around, peeks cautiously through the peephole and pulls the door open to reveal none other than the missing piece of the friend group – Amelia. She’s accompanied by a lanky man in a white mask and a smiley faced badge pinned on his jacket, who gently shuts the door behind him as he enters the now cramped space.  

  “Hi Amelia.” You wave at her cheerlessly and she waves back. Her gaze darts around the room as if searching for something, then returns to you with more confusion than before. You can feel the gaze of the man who just walked in rest on you briefly before he nods at Jane and Clockwork in acknowledgement. 

  “Alright, now that you’re all gathered,” Clockwork begins with a huff, eying you slightly. “Let’s begin the lessons.” 

…

  “Good job, Wa– No, Cassandra. For the last time, begging for mercy will not work.” It’s rare that you hear Jane so fed up with someone who isn’t Clockwork or Jeff. Apparently you’ve managed to invite yourself to ‘how to not get your guts ripped out 101’ (scribbled haphazardly on a crumpled, browning piece of paper and pasted on the wall) which sounds useful enough. 

  Why in the world these three pairs have decided to come together is beyond you. Have they met before? Is that how Wayne did so well? Whatever the reason,  you don’t feel particularly inclined to dig into matters that are none of your concern. 

  The unlikely crash course session has been going exceedingly well so far, with the exception of Cassandra and Amelia having one breakdown each. Bloody Painter (who turns out to be the Helen you met back when Alex was still alive – it takes you a split second to remember you have to act surprised) and Clockwork have exercised… surprising patience in dealing with them, all things considered. 

  The three mentors in the room have been running through scenario after scenario to build what they call ‘battle sense’ – if it were up to you, you would’ve named it ‘common sense’, but after hearing some of the others’ responses you begin to doubt if your idea of common sense is common at all. Your peers’ responses range from begging for mercy (Cassandra’s default option, it seems) to acts of seduction (a classic from Amelia, with confidence stemming from apparently having read multiple WikiHow articles on how to do it) to purely reckless acts of leaping off unknown cliffs (this one is Wayne’s – Jane agrees that it’s a wonder he survived).

  “I think we can end the theory here for today,” Bloody Painter says, glancing at the clock. Jane and Clockwork make brief eye contact then nod in agreement. “Questions?”

  You hesitate briefly – should you ask about your nightmare battles? – but ultimately decide against raising your question in a room full of future rivals. As much as you love your friends, both human and non-human, you’d rather play on the safe side and keep your knowledge advantage for as long as possible. It’s one of the few things you’ve got going for you right now.

  “Guess that’s it then. Tomorrow, same time same place. Be careful.” With a few more words, Bloody Painter adjusts the pin on his jacket and takes his leave. Amelia scrambles off the floor and jogs right behind him, disappearing behind the door. 

  “Let’s go,” Jane taps Wayne on the shoulder and makes her way out the door, waving goodbye. Before the door shuts behind her, she gives Clockwork a lingering look that you don’t quite like. 

  Clockwork slings an arm over Cassandra’s shoulder and yawns lazily, holding up a kettle with her free hand. “Alright Cassandra, I’m gonna need you to fetch me some water. I’m fucking parched.”

  Cassandra jumps, flushes then runs out of the room with the kettle immediately. Something tells you it isn’t the first time Clockwork’s messed with her mentee. You wonder if Jane knows. 

  You get off the floor as well and make your way to the door, but before any parting words escape from your lips you’re pulled back by the collar. 

  “Not so fast. I have some questions for ya, missy,” Clockwork grumbles as she sets you down on the bed. Sometimes you forget that you’re dealing with almost superhuman killers in this mansion. “What’s got you all shaken up?” 

…

  Under Clockwork’s impassive stare, you eventually manage to get the details of your wonderful dream encounters out. From how LJ’s carnival felt different to your repeated failures and eventual success, the words pour out of your mouth like wine. Maybe there’s a part of you that just needed an outlet to vent to – maybe that’s why you ended up here, with one of your new… friends? 

  At the end of your tale Clockwork lets out a singular, long sigh. Then, she gives you a violent pat on the back. “Tough luck, bitch. Sounds exactly like something LJ would do for sure.” She shrugs, then continues, “Keep your head up, ‘kay? It’ll probably get ya instincts reaaal sharp by the time the next trial rolls around.” 

  You blink, not quite sure what to make of her actions. Is she… comforting you? You stare at her blankly. You’re not sure what you expected when you started dumping your sorrows on her – definitely not a hug, you know Clockwork well enough not to expect that – but it wasn’t… this. 

  Clockwork sends you a glare and pats you on the back harder than before. “Don’t look at me like that. Feels like I just killed ya mother or somethin’...” she sighs. “If you need a listening ear or something, I don’t mind some entertainment at your expense.” 

  “Sure. I’ll let you know the next time I die,” you crack a small smile and nod. You’re not comfortable with being so… vulnerable. When was the last time someone offered you a shoulder to lean on instead of the other way round?  It’s nice to know that someone in this place has your back, even if they’re a murderer and clearly just as averse to vulnerability as you are. 

  The door creaks open just as you finish speaking, revealing Cassandra struggling with a filled kettle. You take the opportunity to leave, helping Cassandra set the kettle down on your way out. Before you step out the door, however, Clockwork grabs your arm. 

  “Careful around him, ‘kay? He’s never been human like most of us,” she whispers seriously, clock flashing in the dim lighting. A small shiver runs down your back at her words. 

  “I’ll be careful,” you promise. She lets go and gives you a small nod before disappearing behind the closed door. You’re left alone in the hallway, just a little bit less lost than you were when you arrived.