How long had it been since just they were in a trial together? For a little while, at the very start, they were one of the first players that Claudette had ever met and had participated with. She recalled the heavy anxiety that forced her heart to unnaturally palpitate against even her ribcage. Things were slightly different now. Only slightly. Claudette was much better at survival by herself than what she had been. Almost always did she now carry around the red, dirtied medkit and waited for someone to pass her by. Her empathetic senses were always brutally high in some cases but that let more people survive. If she could feel their pain, then she knew something was wrong and that she needed to be a team player.

Now, here she was, trying her best to piece the generator together. It like an awfully greasy jigsaw puzzle that had set next to motor oil for far too long. The smell was easy to get used to. It was the same concept of parking next to a gas station and the first smell of pump fuel wafts into the car but you wrinkle your nose and it's gone. This was like that and she could get past it if she had to help others as well as herself.

Both her and Dwight had finally decided it was time to stop being so scared and startled. To move forward meant that they had to grow up, become more adept and try, try, try, try and keep getting better until they felt like they were a god. That was how this game worked. The generators were relatively the same, always functioning after tendrils of red and blue wires were untangled and crooked gears were uprighted properly. Sometimes, even then, the fixes were easy with practice and the help of toolboxes.

A scream in the distance was another of many. It wasn't any of the survivors, she knew. Everyone had gone through this enough times that Claudette was able to pinpoint who was downed. In hindsight, that sounded awful. This meant that she knew each and every one of them by their own screams up until the Doctor. That man always made something much more raw come out of them and no one liked it. But what she heard now was the cries of the Nurse, the one that had supposedly helped Jake. After hooking the red-outlined boy up in the belly of the basement, Claudette was able to hear the teleporting woman once again as she phased through wall after wall.

She tugged on the last wire and sprinted off in one direction, wasting no time in getting the generator running and splitting from the location. It chugged behind her and remained doing so as she sat in the cold grass, waiting for the Nurse to shriek her way over there. At this point, the botanist found it to be like clockwork but sometimes there were pieces that remained unpredictable. Sometimes the killers made their way from a different direction than predicted and others were too preoccupied with another survivor or spot.

The heartbeat thumped in her ears and, despite that, she carried on slowly through the trees, keeping herself as low as possible. Nea had tried to teach her about her perk, about how she crept through the grass like it was no problem without being on her knees, but Claudette wasn't capable. The female wasn't ready yet to learn it and that was okay. She figured she would just live without it. If she did things with too much fast-paced speeds, then she might end up in the dirt.

No one needed that.

Heaving in a slow sigh, the female heard the heartbeat recede behind her. Fingers quivering, she put a hand on her chest and simply continued to let her feet guide her through the crispy grass. It was always a little warmer than what she thought it should ever be. She couldn't pinpoint directly as to why it was like that but she had an idea, given how ashen the asylum was.

The screams of the Nurse never faded. They reverberated and echoed off of the somber, brick walls that penned them all in. It was a sound that was inescapable. But what could one do to prevent such a thing?

Warm temperatures fanned over her face and the front of her throat. It was surprisingly heated in this location. Black fingers stretched up from the ruined floorboards and thin carpet. Glass had long since shattered from the hot temperatures and laid scattered across the ruined flooring. If someone walked through here barefooted, they wouldn't be able to save their feet from the sharp shards that Laurie was always so fond of. She kept a single shard in her pocket at all times, even as she slept.

The basement was easy to find thanks to the outline of Jake trying to keep himself from pulling all of his weight on the bloody thing. The basement, also, smelled rancid. It was worse than the cows that swung from the treetops in the Thompson property and more vile than the insides of the swamp. The smell of mud and old motor oil was one thing. But having it all mingle with the smell of overturned guts, vomit and more down here?

It was awful.

Jake looked awful, too. His skin was pale and tears freely fell from his face. There was a mixture of defeat and determination in his expression, which was never a surprise. It was a part of his personality.

Her hands came up and gradually took him off of the hook with as much ease and skill as possible. The man was, by no means, light. He was surprisingly fit for his age and well-muscled. She could only tell when she was helping him heal or removing a bear trap from his ankle. Unlike Dwight, who had a little bit of pudge around his waist, Jake was very fit.

Claudette used all of her strength while Jake pushed the hook through his shoulder again. There was an awful sucking noise before he was falling to the ground, taking in a shuddering breath. She didn't waste any time as she unraveled the bandaging and ointment from the medkit and began to patch him up carefully. Thanks to her botany knowledge and her constant self-care, she was an exquisite healer. She tried to pass on her knowledge to others but they still fell behind when it came to patching up others. She couldn't blame them though. They would all get it eventually, just like she would with the athletics of David, Meg and Nea.

"Something's wrong," he groaned. Claudette didn't look away from her work but Jake felt compelled to continue. "Something's wrong. She's in a daze or just subdued. I can't tell what it is. But it's bad. It's really bad."

The botanist looked to him carefully, feeling a tense sadness well up in her chest. "You think she's in danger?"

He shook his head, gritting his teeth and running a hand through his hair. "I think we all are, Claud," he murmured, the nickname strangely comforting and not often used. The way he spoke, however, made it sound as if he was already accepting sacrifice on the hook and she knew very well how terrifying it was.

She helped haul him to his feet as the distant cries echoed, followed by Dwight who was probably ready to absolutely piss himself. She couldn't blame him in the slightest. The Nurse was terrifying and she almost thought the Hillbilly was tame. But even he was a horrific person to go up against. He never seemed to take anything with a hint of compassion. The male didn't do it for fun as anger held onto every piece of chainsaw and the sledgehammer between his hands of inescapable iron.

Best not to think about that...

Jake sprinted up the steps of the basement. Claudette followed, sweat already bunching around the bridge of her nose. Her glasses threatened to fall and she had to force herself to constantly push the piece up with shaky fingers, even as she followed Jake to the second floor of the asylum. She was up here once before a couple trials back. The overturned furniture, the burnt fabrics and the overall awful texture of the place was incredibly disheartening to look at, but here they were, focusing on a generator that was locked well within the walls of the asylum. It appeared here almost every time and she was certain it was similarly placed like the one generator on that huge boat in the swamp and the one that was solidly placed in the Ironwork's factory.

Just as she touched the generator with Jake, the bleeding heartbeat started in her ears. She stood up immediately, knees locked to be prepared to run as the Nurse was so good at appearing from thin air. A gloved hand wrapped around her wrist and she turned towards the woodsman.

"She's still chasing Dwight. Don't worry. He's really good at keeping them busy for a while." She slowly kneeled down again just to hear "surprisingly" come from his mouth. Claudette quickly snorted but said nothing. She had to focus on the generator just so Dwight could probably catch a break. Every now and then she could see his yellow aura sprinting around rocks, stumbling across the coarse dirt and his hands coming up over his head to avoid being hit.

It didn't last long as the heartbeat thrum faded slightly but Dwight's yelling came from afar. Jake's head snapped up, dark eyes immediately scanning the closest, broken windows of the asylum floor. Judging by his expression and the way their companion cried out, he was about to get hooked. After looking around on the ground for a moment, Claudette could see his reddened outline not that far from the asylum but it was too far from the basement. Luckily she wouldn't be in danger of having the Nurse suddenly giving her a heartattack-worthy visit, since Dwight wasn't getting hooked below her rooted feet.

At least there was that.

Jake dove out of the nearest window, unafraid of the possible pain that was an accidental ankle snap. It hadn't happened, more than likely to keep the games progressing but sometimes there was a fear in Claudette's chest over the height of such leaps of faith.

He ran off to become prepared to unhook Dwight while she, on the other hand, stayed low and continued to work tirelessly on the generator. It was the same routine as the one before hand. Tweak, turn, snap- loop the wires here, press the gears here and watch the sequence of pistons begin to pump like healthy arteries. Even as the daunting howl of a hooked survivor echoed she kept going, albeit fingers twitching in anxiety.

Somewhere in the distance, another generator popped to life. This meant progress and it that kind of thing either made her heart swell with hope or did nothing to soothe her aching heart.

This time it was the latter. Even as hers illuminated the facility, there was something wrong. She turned to look over her shoulder, pressing herself against a pallet that was to be used in case the Nurse somehow appeared. Dwight's illuminated figure sat still on the hook, hands clutching the metal like it was a lifeline.

Where was Jake? Shouldn't he have gotten Dwight off the hook? There was no heartbeat so surely she wasn't close, was she?

With a breath sucking between her teeth, she jumped out of the building and landed on her feet. There was a shivering jolt up to her knees but that was fine. No broken bones, no sprained ankles- But that didn't mean she could stop and admire the nonexistent damage. Claudette tore off in Dwight's direction, keeping an eye out for the Nurse. The rescue was a short-lived one as Dwight's shoulder made a thirsty, sucking sound from being released from the metal hook and he was immediately running in a different direction. Perhaps the Nurse had gone the opposite way?

There were phantom screams in the distance but she didn't dare question their direction. It meant that she was still active and she had to move.

Shaky feet pounded through the rough, dry dirt, catching up to Dwight who was leaning over another generator already. He was always quick to get from point A to point B in these kinds of situations, wasn't he?

"Dwight! Let me heal you!" Her words were a low hiss, fearful they would get caught from even just the slightest raise of noise level.

He glanced up, lights and fog dancing off of his glasses before he nodded, moving to come over to her and kneeling. Just like before, she began to heal up the shoulder wound, listening and watching for the other.

Unlike the first time they had faced the Nurse, Dwight was currently level-headed. Usually he happened to panic and immediately run away from the phantom specter of a woman, turning about as white as the uniform she wore. Now he was straight-faced, save for the thin line of his pinched lips. He was clearly thinking, pondering over something he had seen. Claudette decided it would be good to ask him. If there was anything on his mind he usually had a good reason for it. If it happened to be silly it generated by the campfire, when there was nothing better to do than tell stupid stories or jokes.

"What's wrong?"

Dwight took a moment to answer, heaving a sigh as he straightened from her healing hands. "Something's weird about this match. I can't put my finger on it but something's really driving the Nurse this time. We've faced her before and angered her but..."

"What do you mean? She looks the same to me."

He shook his head, moving back towards the generator. "She's crying, Claudette."

The botanist shook her head, her empathetic heart crying out immediately. "Even so, what does that mean for us? Surely she's not mourning over anything while she kills us."

The glance she got made her heart falter. "Something's not right. I believe..." Dwight turned, catching sparking wires and deterring them away from the oil and grease inside the machine. "I believe Jake's story. I really don't think these people are here just to kill, you know? I've never seen her cry before. None of us have but why this time?"

Claudette stared at the generator, not trusting herself to let herself repair. It was risky right now, with how her fingers were shaking. What could she do? What could she even say? Hell, what could any of them do but repair generator after generator, endlessly going through a near mindless habit of playing this game of life or death? It just reminded her of the stories and diary they had come across, where it introduced the killers in blooming, aging ink and explained in great detail what they hadn't known before. Thanks to that one person they had come to know so much, perhaps more than what they had ever wanted to.

"Let's just keep doing what we can," he murmured. "Little by little, right?" Claudette caught a glimpse of a tired smile and she couldn't help but sigh, smiling back.

Red flickered in the corner of her eye, the person so far away that she didn't even hear a yell.

"Go ahead and get them, I'll be here. Hopefully it's not Jake getting his second hook." Claudette slightly chuckled in the dry humor before she turned away and sprinted. It wasn't as fast as Meg's but it was something as she took off towards the red outline again, knowing she'd be rewarded with lots of things from the bloodweb at this point. If she ever went to sleep again.

The outline shifted and she stopped. It wasn't the usual pick-up motion. It was...different. Distant screams of the Nurse echoed off the burnt walls of the mental ward and faded. There was a struggle and then the body, of someone, fell against the ground limply.

The world hummed satisfactorily and she looked up, seeing the teeth of the Entity twitching and waiting for more.

What was going on?

Claudette glanced away for a moment, pinching her lips together. Her eyes skimmed dry grass for a brief second before she carried herself through broken windows and made her way with a slight haste. Something told her that she needed to be careful. Quiet and careful. Those that kind of thing wasn't exactly her middle name, she knew how to keep her mouth shut and how to roll her ankles to prevent them from popping or to help steady her feet. She was determined to get from her current point over to where the injured was.

Through shattered glass window after the next, the female eventually dropped into the dirt. She wasn't as graceful as Nea but she at least knew how to bend her knees to avoid extreme damage to her nerves.

A familiar, deep green jacket was spotted and she immediately moved, taking her medkit from one hand to press it into her chest. It was like a tiny safety net that helped her believe she could make the slightest of differences in these god awful trials. Usually, if anyone was injured, she was there to bring them back. Now would be one of those times as she recognized dark hair, matted with blood in the back of the head.

"Jake!" She approached, immediately kneeling down to try and help him up. "Jake, can you stand?" A hand rested delicately on his shoulder as she leaned over, hoping to get his attention. Dead eyes stared at her and his breathless body laid still. Pale lips were parted in a fragile, non-existing scream as saliva crawled from one corner to the next. Claudette had never seen someone dead in front of her before. There was a massive difference between watching someone become taken away from a meat hook after being relentlessly stabbed and beaten to a corpse that laid still in the trials like a lonely bird.

In front of her was a man- no- a boy that had fought bravely and who had died at the hands of the Nurse. In front of her was one of her best friends and here he was, dead at her feet with no semblance of a heartbeat.

She couldn't find her feet anymore. Her knees quivered and she dropped to the ground beside him. She cried, the hot warmth of tears falling without hesitation. There was fear in her heart and a lurching in her stomach that wanted to produce vomit she might be even capable of anymore. They were here and they were trapped in this cycle of death that was just like this, never to go home and never to see the light of day that they had been within since the day they were born.

The botanist could only imagine the absolute fear Jake must have gone through to feel that woman's hands on his throat. There hadn't even been that much time between them together and yet there were deep bruises that she had never seen before, deeper than what the Shape might have ever given anyone on the camp.

The heartbeat gathered itself and she threw her head up, coils of hair bouncing in her face. Despite the steam that fogged up her glasses, she knew that the Nurse was on the way, swaying like an old flag that had long since been abandoned by time and by the people that had once loved it.

Claudette stood up and ran with all of her might, forced to leave Jake behind.

There was nothing she could do.

There was nothing anything of them could do but survive.

And she hated it.

The first thing Quentin could register were thick fingers turning his head left and right, taking their time in moving his once twisted neck appropriately. Somehow, he lived. And someone was touching him. Given the size of the fingertips and the calluses that laid on them, without even opening his eyes, Quentin knew this was something he had faced before and someone who was clearly capable of doing handiwork of patching up a corpse.

He opened his eyes slowly. There was just enough light for him to groan and not enough for him to see properly around the room. What he could see, however, was a familiar, peeling face that stretched back with iron and leather alike. Bulbous eyes of white glared down at him, searching for answers as electricity poured from his enormous frame.

He would have screamed, he would have but his chest hurt too much. All he do was give a painful wheeze that made him wince.

A low, warped cackle escaped from the Doctor's wide chest. It almost didn't sound like it even came from his body but it, instead, integrated itself wholly into his mind. It was an awful integration of the mind and reality and it was almost as bad as the palms that cascaded over his body, his shirt and sweater removed from his body and revealing him to the awful onslaught of forever-chilled weather.

Two fingers came up to the Doctor's mouth and pulled onto metal. There was the slightest sound of fresh leather crackling and stretching before metal fell from his lips. In turn, the smile dropped but only to a degree. It was like the man's mouth was paralyzed into a smile or perhaps that was just how the man decided to handle himself; all smiles and no fun.

"Well, well," came a voice of horrendous static and rough texture, "look who's awake in the ICU."

Quentin's nose wrinkled but there were only a few words he himself could mutter. "Where am I?"

The Doctor leaned back in a seat that groaned, the old wood barely able to contain the man's height and weight. "You could call it a place where the killers can function altogether." His right hand gestured towards the room that they resided in. "It is, per se, a collaboration of all of the places the killers reside in. We use it to view on-going trials. Such as now. However, in her place, I am here with your broken form, instead. You should be grateful that the Entity foresees that someone takes care of that broken body of yours."

Quentin cringed, moving to pull himself up. The Doctor continued to eye him before he shrugged. "You are lucky I was able to put you back together. It isn't my expertise, so be thankful for my assistance. Otherwise you wouldn't have a chance to return to that little campfire of yours."

"Why would you even do that in the first place?"

The man chuckled again, the sound demented and broken but forever there and sticking like static to a balloon. "The Entity cannot have her games if she doesn't have any prey that's salvageable."

Her? The Entity was a female? How did they even know? Sure they were probably able to hear whispers and something from this beast that swallowed them, but was it really a she?

Quentin's face must have been priceless as the Doctor gave a wheezing chuckle. It reverberated around the barren room. Nothing was said, however. The large man instead began to check old stitching he had clearly made on Quentin's limbs. A ring of black thread wrapped around Quentin's wrist, sewing the hand on tightly to the rest of his arm. He temporarily admired it but also felt shudders crawl down his spine.

"You had quite the nasty fall against Krueger." The very name made the survivor grit his teeth. "However, I'm sure you'll be entirely pleased to know that no one else died in that trial." The Doctor let his fingers run over the thick thread, watching it disappear into the boy's skin and melt away into tissue that connect root nerves and tendons with ease. Quentin almost didn't notice and wouldn't have if it hadn't been for the same weird disease spreading along his sewn wrist. "He was very sour about the ordeal, I do believe. I cannot say I have met the man accordingly as he appears only in dreams, yes? So I can only imagine."

Another weird, estranged cackle fell from his cracked and stretched lips, that smile having not once left him. "So," he continued. "What will you do now? Do you intend to ask questions, go back, or stay here and heal? Although, you might have to move out of that bed, soon." A hand raised upwards in the same fashion when he compiled his electrical swarm. "Others from her trial will be coming in very soon and I don't think you would like to be crushed by the weight of a dead body."

The tired boy licked his lips and merely gave a sigh. He wanted to give a proper response but there, truthfully, nothing. Just a puff of stale, exhausted air that was barely even an actual answer.

Neatly folded articles of clothing were settled on his bare stomach. He eyed his usual grey shirt and the accompanying sweater, coupled with his jeans, shoes and socks. And his underwear. At the sight of it and the full realization that Quentin was entirely naked made his entire face flush hot and the Doctor didn't miss it. He cackled again, this time louder and his wheezes became shorter with each breath. He really was getting getting a kick out of this, wasn't he?

"Go ahead and dress," he mused. "I'll turn my back just for you."

Quentin accepted that statement whole heartedly and gradually stumbled out of the makeshift cot. It actually reminded him more of a gurney which was an awful realization but he decided to not linger on that idea for too long. He shoved both his undergarments and pants on with as fast of a pace as he could muster. In a strange way, he felt dizzy but he wasn't sure if it was from dying or if it came from the sickening influence of the Doctor's electrical radius.

"Finished?"

He looked up, eyeing the broad back and muscle of the man that easily stood over even Michael Myers himself. His hands were threaded behind his back by his fingers and he could see the tubes and wires that protruded from his skin like rocks from a sinkhole's entrance. Some of them sparked and others seemed to just simply pump his blood. It was hard to discern which was which on this homunculus of a man.

Quentin answered the man with a drying mouth as he finished tugging his shirt hurriedly over his head. "Yes." He was threading his arms through his sweater when the Doctor turned around, maddening sparks falling to the wooden floor and bouncing away into a shadowy corner.

"So," he murmured, looking up, "can I go?"

A part of him, however, really wanted to look over this place. He said that all of the killers maps ended up somehow combining. But why? Was it just so that they could flee to their territory if they felt threatened or was it something that was just there for show and to help them collect an overview of trials and other games. Was it like the campfire? Or was it some weird makeshift killer shack that could hold all of them at once, if they felt the need to talk?

"I believe you can," answered the man, who stepped forward. Immediately, Quentin felt the threat from just the man's overbearing height. "You can leave by dropping out the nearest window, just like Crotus Prenn Asylum." He leaned over and the boy leaned back, feeling sweat collecting around his collarbones. "And perhaps I'll also give you a warning for you, and your friends."

"W...What?" A warning? What for?

Mucous-white eyes scanned him up and down before directly looking him in the eyes, an evergrowing grin on his face.

"There's a blight in the woods. An infection. I do hope you and your teammates are careful around it."

The Doctor leaned away, a chuckle festering around his throat then spilling out of his mouth. It was like listening to a broken radio podcast and the only sounds you could get was the static that cut in and out, in and out. It ended but only because the man turned away on his heel and walked out of the room. Once his presence disappeared, the room felt empty, cold and shivering with the lightning he had left behind. Quentin could feel goosebumps rising on his skin and not even the exhaustion behind his eyes could help him remain calm and heady.

He glanced out the nearest window, eyeing the steep drop off as he came to the edge of it. A black fog consumed the ground and he wondered if he couldn't just make out the ground or if there was no ground. Regardless, Quentin took in a breath and threw a look over his shoulder. With no one there, the boy finally decided to step one foot off the ledge and jump.

It was dark. Severely dark and he fell for much longer than what he wanted. He had begun to windmill his arms when he landed hard on the ground, so much so that his body literally crumbled to the ground.

The grass was cold and inviting, tickling his face and providing also an itch on his cheek. Quentin didn't waste time as he moved to his feet and simply sprinted away from the building he never saw through the fog.

Jake awoke at the campfire but he didn't sit there. The boy had instead leaned himself into a tree on the outskirts of the fire, flipping through page after page in the Benedict Baker's journal. Pages were added and some were slowly filling in. Ink and blood mixed into a distasteful calamity on the pages, frothing with information that made no sense or made just enough sense to where it was a little more than just vague pieces that could be brought to light.

Despite it all, despite the games, he knew there was more to it.

A far-off noise signaled him to return to the present. Nea Karlsson was sitting next to him, a freshly lit cigarette between her coral lips that she most likely borrowed from Bill.

"Heard what happened at the trial," she muttered, lips still holding onto the cig. "Four man murder." She shook her head, fingers coming up to remove the cigarette and let herself exhale the nicotine. "You feelin' okay?"

Seafoam green eyes looked up at him, glowing in a way that she knew how he might have felt. Jake finally closed the old journal with a soft huff of a sigh, watching the red tassel swing with the wind of the closing pages.

"I'm fine. Just perturbed."

He didn't go on and so she pushed him. Quite literally. Her palm came up to his knee and very carefully pushed him, as if trying to pry out some more information. "Over what? You're always thinking but you never tell us what's actually going on, you know?" The street artist sighed. "You can't keep it all locked up. You're not a cryptic, you're an idiot."

Nea was always a little hot-headed. He took her words without a single blink.

He gently patted the book into his palm with his other hand. "There's more than what we know. There's more things we don't know and I think we need to find them out as soon as possible." Dark eyes looked to that skeptical shade of blue and he interrupted her before she could start laying down questions. "The more we know, the more of a chance we might get out of here." Another pause. "Yes, I mean we."

She turned her skeptical face into one of contemplation, her lips pursing to take a drag of the cigarette again. She exhaled then spoke. "So, if you're going to investigate, you going to bring anyone to help you?" She glanced over the eternal, dark forest. "Two heads are better than one."

Jake raised an eyebrow, watching her. "So... Would you like to come with me, then?"

They shared eye contact again and Nea's face brightened a little with a smirk. "Yeah, just a bit. Just so you don't get your head caught in a bear trap or whatever."

Silence fell between them. It was comfortable, unlike when they all stood around the campfire brewing over all of the grueling aspects of these games. This time, they stopped speaking for a moment, just to enjoy the company of one another. The woodsman and the street punk. The rich kid and the artist.

"So." She dug the butt of the cigarette into the ground before she stood up, turning to face him with her hands on her hips. "What do we look into first?"

Jake nodded and opened the diary, pointing to a single page. The figure on the page was filled in nicely with color and was easily recognizable by the two. He was not the most lethal but he was one of the most brooding killers in the area. No one liked going up against him. He wasn't the quickest. He wasn't the fastest. But, he had definitely been with them and around them the longest.

"Let's go see if we can get a clue on the MacMillan Estate."

𝘓𝘦𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘉𝘭𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵

𝙗𝙚𝙜𝙞𝙣

~End

A work of nearly 3 years. I wanted to complete this to get everything in order for what I wanted. Thank you for the hits. Thank you for reading. Thank you for the comments and the kind words. I look forward to seeing you in other works and the sequel story that follows Nea Karlsson and Jake Park.