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A distant klaxon sounded, which Meg took as a cue to run like hell. She kept one hand glued to the open wound on her shoulder as she barreled through the fog, her wide eyes desperate for any glimpse of the exit gate. Her throat burned as she ran, each frantic breath slicing it like a razor. Though exhaustion compelled her to suck down as much air as possible, the sheer pain limited her to only sharp, shallow gasps. She took to leaving her jaw hanging wide open like a fish gulping down water, letting whatever air she caught in her mouth to filter down her raw and dried out throat on its own. It helped ease the strain, if only a tiny bit.
Her blood-soaked shoes squelched whenever her feet slammed against the dirt, each step bringing forth a wave of pain that threatened to knock her on her ass. The wind whipped at her face and mussed up her sweat soaked hair. Both the moisture streaming down her brow and the stray bangs whipping in front of her eyes blurred her vision, and every now and then she had to wipe it all aside with her arm so she could see where she was going. But not once did she break her stride. Running was the one thing she was good at, after all.
If she wasn’t so hell-bent on finding the gates, she’d be thinking more about how everything went to shit. Not a single generator managed to get repaired, the biggest sign that something had gone horribly wrong this trial. Part of that was her own fault; she personally hated getting down on her knees and repairing the gens. Sitting still for too long and trying to put all her focus on the intricate machinery made her antsy. Usually she could rely on the others to do the boring stuff for her, but that wasn’t the case this time. All her teammates apparently had the same thing in mind as she did and ran off to do their own thing. Anything aside from actually repairing generators was the name of the game.
Normally she liked to distract the killer while everyone else worked, but Feng Min beat her to it. Using a fancy flashlight she secured from a previous trial, the gamer girl would flicker it in front of the Trapper’s face solely to provoke him into chasing her. Meanwhile, Ace busied himself with finding totems instead of generators, only breaking off his search to help Min off a meat hook whenever the Trapper caught her. Meg wasn’t sure what Jeff was doing that whole time, but to his credit, he also did his part to save the others whenever they found themselves dangling from a hook.
It was all futile, though, and everyone except Meg had been sacrificed in record time. Maybe she should’ve tried searching for the hatch when it became obvious that all hope was lost; if she had started her search sooner, the Trapper wouldn’t have beaten her to it and slammed it shut.
Her shoulder seized up, putting a damper on her pace and knocking her out of her thoughts. She took her free hand and covered the other one already on the wound, pressing down while her exhausted breaths struggled to push past her clenched teeth. She had rescued Jeff from a hook after he had been caught hiding in the basement. That noble gesture had resulted in her taking his place, but Jeff was able to return the favor and save her.
The Trapper interrupted them before Jeff could even examine her wounded shoulder. A cleaver to the back sent Jeff splayed out on the grimy basement floor. As the Trapper wiped the blood off his blade, Meg had already reached the top of the stairs. She hobbled out of the storehouse and fought to stay upright, her fist plugging the hole in her shoulder the best she could while Jeff’s dying screams rang in her ears.
No point in feeling sorry. He knew the risks involved when he set his foot in that basement. Altruism was a virtue to have on a team, but one’s own survival mattered more than all else in the Fog. He gave her a chance at making it out and all she could do was ensure that his sacrifice wouldn’t be in vain.
Dark blood dribbled through the gaps in her fingers, seeping into her shirt and spilling onto the dirt below her. If the Trapper found her and hit her again, she’d be down for the count and wouldn’t be able to stand up again. Unfortunately, there was no time to try and scavenge for a med-kit to patch herself up. The Entity’s eager grumbles burned her ears, a chilling reminder that she was on a time limit. If she couldn’t find the exit in the next few minutes, the Entity wouldn’t wait for the Trapper to catch her. It’d finish the job itself.
She couldn’t dwell on any of that, not while she still had a chance to survive. She struggled to hear past the mounting volume of the Entity’s voice, trying to detect if the Trapper was nearby. She’d be hearing her own heartbeat if he was anywhere close, so the fact that she couldn’t hear it kept her feeling safe. With a sigh of relief rushing out of her gaping jaws, she allowed the Entity’s hungry whispers to flood her ears again while she returned her focus to looking for the gates.
Blinking away the veil of sweat stinging her eyes, she spotted the killer shack up ahead. She charged toward the decrepit building and sprinted around it, nearly slamming into the wall as she rounded the corner. Upon seeing the exit gate behind the building, the stray breath caught in her throat burst out in a cry of relief. Her jaws ached as her muscles relaxed and her lips quivered into a relieved smile. She kicked off the ground, using the lingering bit of stamina she had in a final sprint toward freedom.
A snap of metal and a crunch of tearing flesh ripped through Meg’s ears as she fell forward. Her face collided with the earth before she had a chance to scream. A bolt of pain pierced through her left leg and she already knew she had stepped in a bear trap. She had to get up and free herself, but her body felt like a hundred tons. Aside from the flaring in her ankle and shoulder, the rest of her was numb. Weak, desperate gasps wheezed out of her ragged throat. She lifted her head and pressed her cheek against the dirt. Darkness swirled around her eyes and the Entity’s voice pitched into an eager fervor as pain and exhaustion pulled her deeper toward unconsciousness.
If this had been her first trial, she probably would’ve given up right here. But she had been through much, much worse in countless previous trials. Compared to getting maimed, electrocuted, and stabbed until all her blood leaked out of her body, this was nothing she couldn’t overcome. She had to keep reminding herself of that, reassuring herself that she would be free if she could just get herself loose, that all of this pain will end if she could just sit up.
Her inner mantras rose over the Entity’s taunts, distracting herself from the pain long enough to plant down her hands and push herself onto her side. She spat out a chunk of dirt and snapped her head toward her leg to assess the damage. The bear trap’s rusted jaws sunk deep into her ankle, milking out several streams of blood that had stained her sock a deep maroon. The sight made her stomach lurch. Her vision grew foggy again, but a violent shake of her head blew it all away. No more of that. She had to focus.
Steeling herself and clamping her teeth down on her tongue to silence any screams that might escape, she forced herself into a seated position. The movement caused a spasm to erupt from her trapped ankle, but she bit down harder to keep herself silent. She grabbed hold of the bear trap, worming her fingers in between the jaws and the damp, pulpy spots of her wounds. Her oozing blood coated the metallic surface, making it hard to get a secure grip on the trap. After easing it open an inch, its teeth slipped out of her fingers and bit down harder into her wounds.
Meg whimpered from the pain, which rushed back just as fresh and searing as when she first stepped in the trap. Behind her, the heartbeat grew louder. The Trapper was closing in. A panicked sob came out as a hiccup through her clenched teeth. She tried to wriggle her fingers back into position and try prying open the trap again. Just as she braced herself for her second attempt, a white hot stripe of pain lashed across her back. She crumpled forward, an anguished scream escaping her before falling back to the ground again. Hot blood seeped out a wound running parallel to her spine and soaked into the fabric of her shirt. The Trapper’s shadow draped over her like a weighted blanket, keeping her pressed to the ground.
Cheek against the cold dirt, Meg’s vision swirled and tilted the whole realm at an angle. The Entity’s hungry whispers thundered in her ears. From high above, the Trapper’s guttural breaths rained down on her. She could hear him wiping off his blade on his arm, her own blood running off it and pattering on top of her lacerated back. After all that effort, she was going to die. It wasn’t fair. She clenched her eyelids shut, anticipating that familiar ritual of being hoisted from the ground and carried off to the hook to be sacrificed.
The weighty crunch of boots against dirt caused her eyes to flicker back open. The Trapper had stepped over her broken body and was trudging toward the exit gate. The Entity quieted down, as if it was just as puzzled by this course of action as Meg was. The Trapper raised his fist and slammed it atop the exit switch, the metal doors screeching as they pulled open. The killer then returned to Meg and scooped her up in his giant arms. She wasn’t slung over his shoulder like a slain animal, the way he’d usually carry survivors over to the hook. Instead, she was cradled like a bride about to be carried over the threshold by her husband.
Too weak to struggle and too dizzy to make sense of what was going on, Meg fell limp in his arms. Head pressed against his torso, she could hear his heart thump under the solid wall of muscle that made up his chest. To her surprise, it didn’t have that same threatening tremor as the heartbeat in her ears whenever she got too close to him or the other killers. His rhythm was rapid, that of a heart wracked with exertion and in need of rest. It reminded her too much of the thundering inside her own chest.
“… Why?” she managed to heave out. Her throat screamed from the effort of forming words, but she tensed up and gasped again: “Why are you doing this?”
She narrowed her eyes hard, trying to peer past her cloudy vision and get the Trapper to form into a more defined shape. The colorful blurs swirled about until they coalesced into his large, chiseled form. No matter how hard she focused, his expression was forever hidden behind his mask. His gaze remained fixed forward and staring off in the distance. He made no indication that he even heard her.
Then a voice: deep, gravelly, but unmistakably human, came from the lips behind the gruesome mask:
“You’re mine. I don’t want it to touch you.”
She’s... his? Even if she could muster the strength to form words, his steady pace toward the gate wouldn’t give her the time to ask about it. Once they passed the gate’s entrance, the Entity’s dark tendrils erupted in the threshold as the Trapper drew closer to the realm’s edge. One of the many mystifying rules in this world was that while survivors could leave a trial, Killers were denied that right. Once he could proceed no further, he gingerly set Meg down onto the dirt in front of the barrier. Unable to stand up, she crumpled into a prone position, but the Trapper’s hands remained on her body until she was flat against the ground.
The Entity’s voice erupted around them: terrifying, impossibly ancient, and furious. It nearly howled in its rage as the trial neared its close. Before it could get the chance to seize her, Meg gritted her teeth and pulled her useless body across the threshold, the barrier forced to part open to allow her access. Dead grass and topsoil grazed under her torso as she dragged herself deeper into the foggy expanse before her.
Once she managed to crawl a couple feet further to safety, she turned her head around to glance over her shoulder. The Trapper’s hulking silhouette stood motionless, watching her fade away into the distance. In an instant, massive black claws surrounded him and clamped down with a sickening crunch. Meg groaned in agony and threw her face forward, not wanting to witness the grisly fate of the one who saved her.
Grief, confusion, and rueful gratitude pooled in her stomach, adding an extra weight she needed to carry as she crawled. She knew she’d be at the campfire, the survivors’ one refuge, in no time. Her wounds would be healed in time for the next trial, where the whole process would repeat. Maybe she’d see the Trapper again, but then what? Would he continue to show her preferential treatment, or would the punishment he received cause him to redouble his efforts to cause her excruciating pain?
Even if they fell back into their cat and mouse dynamic and this was just a fluke, that single act of mercy would forever stick with Meg. In the Fog, one needed to treasure all the happiness they could scavenge, no matter how small or insignificant.