Chapter Text
God, it was a mess in here.
You weren’t expecting a lot from the attic of a run-down isolated woodside cabin. But this was truly a sad sight to see. The floors were covered in dust, forgotten boxes full of belongings were scattered around the place, and you were pretty sure there was a hole in the roof.
Each step you took felt risky as the wood beneath your feet creaked in protest.
Making sure to avoid the spots that looked rotten, you proceeded anyway.
You held the flashlight in your clammy hand as you surveyed the dusty boxes. Surely, ignoring how this place looked to be abandoned for years, somewhere here must be a new clue, right?
A note or trail that would get you closer to your goal of finally leaving this place.
Anything.
The key to the attic was such a pain to find. Who would think of a vacuum dust bag as a hiding place of all things? So surely, there must be something substantial hidden here- something to finally turn the tide on your endless chase to freedom.
But even as you neared the end of the room, making sure to avoid any stray nails on the floor, nothing had yet caught your eye.
Frustration welled within you as you reached the dilapidated window on the other side of the room. Moonlight filtered in through the stained sheer curtains, and you sighed, turning around to observe it all a second time.
Just as you turned, a crunch sounded beneath your feet.
Looking down, you found that there was broken glass scattered on the dusty floor.
Instantly, your spirits brightened as the clue you were looking for revealed itself.
Silently moving your feet off the glass, you crouched near it, finding a broken picture frame wretched between two boxes. A thick layer of dust covered everything. This place must have been untouched for a long time.
Carefully, you tugged the frame loose and flipped it over, revealing the grainy picture within.
It looked to be a picture of the house you were staying in, just looking a little older, a little more outdated. It must have been refurbished before its current owners decided to rent it out as a vacation home.
A woman stood before the house, her face scratched out with a sharp object, making her unrecognizable.
You wondered if the owners ever took the time to run a background check on the property. Surely, considering the situation you were currently in, there must have been something nefarious going on before it got abandoned and resold, right?
You shook your head with a huff, realising you were speculating about useless things.
Carefully, you removed the picture from the frame and flipped it over again.
You found a message written on the back in scratchy red ink.
How original.
Rolling your eyes, you read it.
“He is watching you.”
Great, you thought as your previously brightened spirit soured again.
Like you haven’t read a variation of that same sentence over and over already.
Hissing in frustration, you threw the frame to the ground, not taking into account the sharp pieces of glass still stuck to the frame. Blood welled up on your fingers in the places where it scratched you.
“Shit” you cursed silently putting the bleeding finger in your mouth.
But your small injury was quickly forgotten as another piece of paper fell to the ground.
A hidden compartment in the frame?
Your heart started beating quicker as you picked it up, staining the corner with your blood.
“There is something wrong with this place.
We have only been here for one night but I couldn’t get a wink of sleep.
I feel watched. Like there is something- or someone constantly aware of everything I do.
My brother says I’m overreacting, maybe I am but I’m almost sure tha-”
The writing stopped abruptly, a wide splash of red ink staining the rest of the paper.
Or well, blood would be more likely.
Huffing with irritation, you folded the paper and put it in your back pocket.
So much for finding any new clues.
Not being able to help yourself, you vented in hushed angry whispers.
“Really, how stupid is this character? If you feel watched, you should leave! Obviously the kil-”
Your sentence was rudely interrupted as a strong hand took hold of your hair, yanking you back towards the ground.
“Wha-!”
You hit the ground with a thunk, and before you could feel the pain in your back, there was already a knife at your throat.
In your shock, you couldn’t help but look up at the face of your killer.
Or rather, the dirty sack that covered his head- a mocking smiley face painted in black ink was staring you down.
It was the last thing you saw before your awareness wavered and everything turned black.
G̵̺̹͌̿̑̿͝a̴̢͈̹̭̜͕̫̍̕͠m̵̡̛̗̮͗̈́͐̉͌̚͝e̵̺̣̽̉͆ ̵̧̹͔̐ơ̴̳̻͔̺̫̺̋͜v̷̡̛͎͈̞͖͉̊͌͛̒͠e̵̫̤̟̗͕͂̑̏͋̏̓̒͠r̴͍̪̝̠̗̰̖̾͆͑̃̉͝
.
..
..
…
….
…..
“Are you almost there yeeet?” A whiny voice called.
“Your guess is as good as mine, the GPS stopped working halfway.” A calmer voice replied.
“Are you serious? Give me that.” Someone grumbled, reaching out for the console.
You kept your eyes screwed shut as you tried to get your breathing under control.
God, that was one of the more gruesome endings.
Luckily, it was also one of the quicker ones.
A bit too quick if you had anything to say about it, but there was a reason this game was rated so low. Its unsatisfying endings were only one of the reasons people couldn’t help but criticize it.
Finally getting your breathing under control, you settled in further into the soft padding on the door of the car, letting the rhythmic grumbling of the engine settle you further.
You can’t remember the last time you slept.
“Always with you.”
That was the name of the game you were stuck in.
It was a standard horror/slasher RPG.
A group of students, an abandoned house, and a psychotic killer on the loose.
You remember your first few runs, the stress you felt. The dread of realizing that you were stuck here.
You could positively say that after all this time, you had tried everything to escape this game.
Running away, trying to kill the killer, and even going as far as ending your own life.
But death wasn’t an escape for you in this reality.
It just meant you had to start all over again.
–
It wasn’t long until an over-excited voice roused you from your pointless ruminations.
“Oh, this seems to be it!!”
“What do you mean? Where is the house?”
“Weren’t you listening? The village head told us the roads here are too narrow for cars.”
“Ughhh, I’m too hungry to walk.”
“That’s fine, we can eat right after, we packed all those noodles remember?”
The sound of a loud rumbling stomach was heard.
“Ughhh, now you’re just making it worse.”
Inwardly, you sighed; the car ride always felt too short to you. At most, you would have around 10 minutes of shut-eye before the loop started all over again.
Blinking your eyes open, you resigned yourself to another day of stress.
Stress that was not only caused by the killer on the loose but also by your companions. Who knew that people written as stereotypes could get quite annoying after a while?
You allowed yourself the time it took to park the car to observe the people around you
Next to you sat Leon, your childhood friend. It was the only person in this car you were ‘supposed’ to know. He was the one who invited you, or rather, your character ‘Angel’. He had a bright and bubbly personality, but most of all, he was very doting and protective of you.
Which was, more often than not, his end.
You remember the early days when you still did everything you could to try and save him.
But what was this? Your 19th run? After the third time of having to witness him sacrificing himself for you, you decided it was better to distance yourself.
Even if it hurt your heart, it was the right decision.
He seemed to die a lot less without you around…
In front of him sat Jae, with whom he was currently conversing quite enthusiastically about how they were going to prepare the noodles they packed later.
You still weren’t sure how apart from each other, they were decently intelligent, but put together, all their brain cells seemed to vanish.
Jae was interesting, but still so full of stereotypes, it was hard to talk with him sometimes. He could be seen as the ‘jock’ of the group, even though he was one of the smaller ones.
You remember the hope you had in him when you first started. But that was quickly overshadowed as you realized the stereotype he lived and breathed.
In any horror game relying on stereotypes the jock always dies.
Besides that, Jae also tended to always trigger death flags with his words.
‘I’ll be right back.’
‘Nothing will happen.’
‘Don’t worry about me.’
Whenever any of those kinds of words were spoken, you were marked for death in this game.
And Jae tended to say quite a lot of them…
It was one of the reasons he always died first.
Next to Jae sat Violet. She was kind of reserved, only joining this trip to have a better look at the local wildlife. She often met her end while parting from the group to look at the plants in the forest better.
You tried following her once, to see if she ever discovered something interesting. But, most of the time that resulted in you having to listen to around 2-hour lectures about the types of plants she found and all their properties.
It would have been interesting had you not been stuck in a horror game.
In Front of her, and sitting in the front seat, was Elanor. You didn’t know her very well, but she was your coworker, working in a different department, so you’d only met briefly before.
As the ‘mom friend’ stereotype, she often dies trying to help others. The reason she is on this trip, while normally avoiding outings like this, is because of the guy next to her.
The one driving, and often complaining about the bad quality of the roads, was Teo. He truly had one of the worst personality stereotypes you could think of. In horror game lingo he was the ‘flirty jock type’
Surprisingly, unlike what his personality stereotype would suggest, he often dies while trying to protect others from the killer. He is also the first one to run to and try to fix the car whenever things go sour.
However, if Jae as a normal ‘jock’ was already flagged for death then a shameless flirty jock had no chance of making it.
And finally, in the back right next to Leon, sat Ren. You weren’t sure why he went along with this trip, the game had never explained his reasons for joining. Nor did it ever explain who invited him.
Which was strange, considering he was th-
“Alright, guys,” Teo interrupted your inner monologue as he turned off the car, “I’m starving, so let’s get to that bloody cabin already.”
Jae yelled in agreement as everyone started getting out of the car.
“Sunfish?” Leon spoke quietly next to you, “Are you awake now?”
“Ah, yes sorry I think I zoned out for a while.” You responded, rubbing the last moments of sleep out of your eyes.
“That’s alright, you must be tired from all that traveling,” Leon spoke, undoing your seatbelt, which you forgot to do yourself, as you opened the car door.
“You can rest again after we have dinner at the cabin. I don’t think we have anything planned for today.” He said as you exited the car.
“Rest? With this lively group, that seems unlikely.” You joked, holding the door open so he could climb out after you.
Leon laughed as he jumped out of the car and was immediately dragged away by Jae. You were about to close the car door behind him when you caught locks of pink hair trying to exit the car, too.
Gripping the handle harshly, you stopped the door from closing completely in his face.
“Ah- I’m sorry.” You apologized, opening the door fully again.
“That’s alright,” Ren smiled, “I thought I would exit from this side too, since Teo seemed to have parked near a muddy patch.” He explained while gracefully leaving the car.
Muddy? You were pretty sure, in all your other runs at least, that the ground was always quite dry around this time of year.
As he exited, a moment of silence fell upon the two of you as you were still too busy thinking about what he said. Causing Ren to start fidgeting with the edges of his sleeves while a nervous blush spread over his face.
“Y-You are Leon’s friend, right? I couldn’t introduce myself before since you were sleeping.”
The timidness of his voice broke you out of your stupor as you forced yourself to get back to your ‘script’.
“Yes, Nice to meet you, I'm Angel.” You introduced yourself like you always did, reaching out your hand.
“Hi Angel, I’m Ren.” He smiled softly, the blush still high on his cheeks as he took your hand, holding it tighter than he ever had before.
…
That was strange…
In all your other runs, he would leave the car from the other side, and you wouldn't introduce yourself until you reached the cabin.
Why was it different this time?
“Are you guys coming?!” Elanor waved you over, waiting at the edge of the treeline. That's when you noticed that the others were already way ahead of you two.
“Oh- We should catch up.” You said, finally letting go of Ren's hand. How long have you been holding on to it?
Ren jumped slightly at being spoken to, like he was shocked out of a trance. Before nodding and walking beside you to where Elanor was waiting.
You knew from previous experience that the walk was quite short to the cabin. So, no need to come up with a topic for small talk. You would probably just embarrass yourself again.
Before you knew it, the dinner table was set up at the cabin, and everyone was huddled around two big plates of noodles prepared by Jae and Leon.
You poked around with your food, tearing at pieces of bread and only eating half of them.
You like Leon, and Jae was an alright guy, but…
Their cooking skills weren’t anything to write home about.
The noodles didn’t taste so bad the first time you tried them. However, after the fifth time, you quickly grew tired of them. After the 10th time of eating them, you even grew sick of them.
It’s been a while since you tasted them at all but you knew from the scent alone that your distaste for them hasn’t waned a bit.
So, instead of tucking into the noodles like the rest, you were quite at peace eating small bits of bread.
Besides…
“Are you alright? You’ve only been eating the bread so far.”
Blue sparkling eyes stared at you full of quiet concern.
“I don’t have much of an appetite for salty things right now.” You spoke honestly.
Ren frowned at your words as he placed a hand on his chin, thinking about what you said.
“Hmm.. no salty things you say? I could cook you up some pancakes instead?”
“Oh, that's okay, I don’t want to bother you.” You pretend to fluster as if this exact situation hadn’t played out so many times before.
You also can’t recount how often you have eaten Ren’s pancakes.
But for some reason, you couldn’t get enough of them.
Ren responded enthusiastically. “It’s really no problem! I was hoping to make some anyway.”
As he ran off to the kitchen before you could reply, you couldn’t help but ponder for a bit.
It was quite embarrassing to admit, but Ren had always been your favorite character in this game.
Compared to the others, he was softer, more sincere, and all in all just smarter. He could be seen as the ‘final girl’ of this game. Clearly, he is the developer's favorite. He would normally survive the little things that would kill any of the other characters.
Traps would either go off before or after he had stepped on them, or the killer would suddenly drop significantly in IQ points whenever he gave chase after him.
You remember that after your 5th run of the game, you decided to stick close to him. If his ‘final girl’ status turned out to be true, you had the most chance of surviving by letting him ‘accidentally’ set off all the traps ahead of you.
But, as was expected of horror game slop, the character closest to the final girl stereotype always died in the end, just before being able to escape.
After dying near the exit one time too many, you decided to give up on that plan.
Besides, the look in Ren’s eyes every time you bled out in his arms was too heartbreaking to experience over and over again.
This game- or rather this hellhole you were trapped in really was depressing.
It has been so long that no matter how long you think you can’t remember what it was like before you got stuck in here anymore.
You didn’t even remember your name.
Your real name.
In this game, everyone referred to you as ‘sunfish’. A nickname that was started by Leon, which everyone caught up on before the car trip here.
Or at least, this is what you assumed happened since it occured before you ‘spawned in’.
But you’ve never really liked that name. You’ve always thought sunfish are quite weird creatures. It wasn’t until you started sticking to Ren in a few runs that another nickname stuck with you.
‘Angel’ He had called you, after you rescued him from one trap too many.
You had started introducing yourself as Angel from then on, happy to not have to avoid introducing yourself or have to call yourself Sunfish again.
You had no clue what your actual name was.
Sometimes you doubted you even had one.
After all, with no memories, what real proof did you have that you existed before this place?
“Here you go.” Ren’s soft voice spoke again as he placed a stack of fluffy pancakes in front of you.
Smiling softly, you thanked him, finally picking up your fork.
You didn’t miss the sudden blush forming on his face, nor did you miss the intensity of his gaze before he sat down and started picking at his food again.
Huh, that was… weird?
Did he always have that look?
You can’t remember seeing it before… But you also have never truly looked for it before, too preoccupied trying not to die.
Perhaps the game was experiencing a bug?
Eating the first bite of pancake with your gaze trained on the table, you let go of the thought.
Whatever, it was probably nothing. You could always just check if this sudden strangeness remained in your next run.
“Huh- Angel, where did you get pancakes from?” Jae spoke up suddenly.
“We had pancakes?” Violet asked, eyes turning bright.
“Oh, uhm…” You looked at Ren next to you before quickly looking away again. You wouldn’t want to inconvenience him even more by forcing him to make pancakes for everyone.
“I could share some for those who want it.” You offered, but Ren quickly shot that idea down.
“Angel’s stomach was having trouble with the salty food, so I made them something sweet instead.” He explained calmly. But you noticed his fingers clenching slightly on the utensils he was holding.
"Oh?" Are the noodles not good enough for you?” Teo mocked playfully. You rolled your eyes, ready to shoot a sarcastic comment back, but someone else spoke first.
“Sunfish has always had a huge sweet tooth, I’m not surprised they skipped out on the noodles. Although they’re really good, I promise!” Leon joked, and the conversation turned back to its original topic.
Sighing in relief internally, you zoned out again.
Dinner was always drawn out; it was annoying, but you knew not to get up and excuse yourself too early.
You had to wait until the first ‘marker’ happened.
Just then, as if just thinking about it triggered it, a phone rang.
“Oh- I need to take this, I'll be right back guys,” Jae mumbled, his eyes on his screen before leaving the room in a hurry.
Everyone watched him go with raised eyebrows before someone spoke up.
“He seemed hurried. I wonder who that call was from?” Leon spoke, his eyebrows moving up and down suggestively with a sly grin on his face.
“Secret girlfriend, perhaps?” Teo joined in, also suggestively moving his eyebrows up and down.
“Oh, please, Jae is about the last person I expect a secret girlfriend from. That guy can’t keep a secret even if his life depends on it.” Leon joked.
The group laughed and returned to their previous conversation.
The perfect time for you to excuse yourself.
After making sure your chair scraped the floor loudly enough for people to notice, you got up.
“Bathroom.” Was all you said before turning and leaving the room.
Ren, who was still sitting beside you, gave a considerable look to the half-eaten pancakes on your plate before smiling and looking away again.
You didn’t waste any time once you had made your escape.
Jae leaving the room for a sudden phone call was always the first ‘mark’ needed for the game to start. It was dangerous enough to leave the group in a horror game, but his last words of “I’ll be right back” really put the last nail in his coffin.
Or it will suffice to say;
You had about an hour until his body was found.
The attic would be a good place to start this run. You could have missed some important stuff last time since you were killed so quickly. The killer only ever came out whenever something of plot relevance was revealed.
The photo frame was interesting, but not nearly important enough to warrant a death trigger.
It just sucked that the key to the attic had a random spawn point. You had found it hidden in the vacuum machine last time, but there was no certainty it would be there again.
Still, it wouldn’t hurt to check.
Moving upstairs, you made sure to keep quiet, answering stupid questions from the NPCs in this game would only hinder your progress.
Barely noticing you zoned back into ‘game mode’ again, checking all the hiding spots you knew of until your hands closed around the old attic key.
You surveyed the room quickly, ignoring the glass shards on the floor this time. It wasn’t long until you hit the back of the room already.
As the moonlight hit your face again, you moved the sheer curtain away from the window. You haven’t been this high up before, maybe there was something to be seen from this higher vantage point.
Scanning the area just in front of the house, you found two figures standing around. There wasn’t much light outside, besides the moon and the dim porch light next to the door, so it was hard to distinguish any details from above, but…
You swore you could make out a tall figure with pink hair talking to a smaller figure with blonde hair.
Ren and Elanor were outside? Wasn’t Jae’s body discovered only an hour ago? Normally, everyone would still be hidden in the house, panicking at this point in the game.
The discussion seemed heated, and it didn’t take long for Elanor to storm back into the house again, clearly upset.
You were about to turn away, but some instinct told you to keep watching.
And sure enough, it didn’t take long until the killer revealed himself in the treeline. Cleaver at the ready, he started advancing quickly on Ren, taking big, measured steps.
However, Ren wasn’t running. Rather, he was staring the killer down.
He was also holding something.
An axe?
You squinted your eyes to see better, but before you knew it, a loud sound reverberated through the clearing.
Crunch
..
Crunch
..
Crunch
…
What?
Had he just?
…
Did Ren just murder the killer?
Releasing the breath you didn’t know you were holding, you gripped the windowsill tightly.
How was that possible?!
It was a fact that in any horror game, no matter what the characters threw at the killer, he would never just die. They could stun him for a while, maybe, but Ren has just repeatedly cleaved an axe into the killer's chest.
It was hard to see, but you were pretty sure there were pieces of his ribs scattered in the rest of his gore besides him.
Trying to get your breathing under control, you looked back at Ren, who had just dropped his bloodied axe on the ground. As he turned towards the house again, you could see the blood spatters marring his face.
He was covered in blood and gore.
You couldn’t make out his facial expression, but as his head tilted up-
Was he..
…
Could he see you?!
Stumbling away in shock, you hadn’t even taken two steps when your foot got stuck in the floor.
“Shit” You hissed again as the rest of the rotten wood crumbled away underneath you.
You were still trying to wrap your head around what you had just seen when you hit the ground hard enough to pass out.
After all, there was no escape from this game.
G̵̺̹͌̿̑̿͝a̴̢͈̹̭̜͕̫̍̕͠m̵̡̛̗̮͗̈́͐̉͌̚͝e̵̺̣̽̉͆ ̵̧̹͔̐ơ̴̳̻͔̺̫̺̋͜v̷̡̛͎͈̞͖͉̊͌͛̒͠e̵̫̤̟̗͕͂̑̏͋̏̓̒͠r̴͍̪̝̠̗̰̖̾͆͑̃̉͝