Chapter Text
“They say a person needs just 3 things to be truly happy in this world: Someone to love, Something to do, And Something to hope for.” -Tom Bodett
Her feet hit the ground in long, even strides as Meg Thomas sprinted through the trees that littered the shell of what was once the Macmillan Estate. She darted towards a nearby wall and planted a hand on the edge of a window as she vaulted through it with skill and precision like she'd done it a thousand times before.
She had done it a thousand times before, but who was keeping count?
The heavy footfalls of the man chasing her were painfully audible as they drew closer. Meg had spent the past few minutes running this bastard around to buy Claudette, her only remaining team mate, a little more time to complete the last generator but she knew she wouldn't be able to do this forever. Meg was a sprinter, not a distance runner and she could already feel her lungs burning from the strain of keeping up the fast pace. Yes, she was faster than all of the killers in this realm, but the monsters that prowled around in trails had an insatiable blood lust that made them seemingly never get tired. They kept moving endlessly without ever stopping for breath. Meg could only assume that was The Entity's doing.
She took a sharp turn around the L-shaped wall connected to the window she'd just vaulted and stuck close to the edges, trying to minimize the distance between her and the next window as much as possible. The one chasing her, better known for his nickname: The Trapper, followed close behind, moving just as efficiently as she did by sticking close to the wall as well. She silently cursed to herself, flinging herself over the second window without a second to spare, feeling the wind from his missed swing on the back of her neck. Compared to all the other killers she had to face on a daily basis, The Trapper was by far the most cunning, seemingly always two steps ahead of the survivors at all times. He was the most difficult to escape, but also the most fun to tease.
As soon as her feet hit the ground, she turned around to see The Trapper panting as he tugged his cleaver out of the splintered wood of the window frame and returned his weapon back to his side. Meg flashed him a smile and crossed her arms, "What's the matter, big guy? Can't keep up?"
Meg didn't think that any of the killers could speak, so his silence came as no surprise to her. He only let out a short huff before lunging forward, pushing his extremely large frame through the window in pursuit. Meg took that as her cue to get out of there. She turned tail and pushed forward once more, a sly grin on her face. Her taunts always seemed to get to the masked killer, which made it all the more fun to push his buttons. He certainly deserved it for the pain and suffering he had caused her and her friends, and It's not like he had any real feelings other than anger, after all.
Just then, as soon as The Trapper was about to close the distance between them, a loud screech blared from somewhere ahead of them, signaling that the last generator had been completed. Meg felt a surge of adrenaline rush through her entire body as she suddenly was met with an incredible second wind. She dug her shoes hard into the ground and launched herself forward with unnatural speed, leaving the killer behind her lost in her own dust. She laughed triumphantly as she raced ahead of The Trapper, her entire body buzzing with energy. God, she’d never get used to that!
But her good mood turned sour as soon as Claudettes scream ripped through the air along with the unforgiving snap of metal uncoiling and tearing into flesh. Claudette had stepped into a bear trap somewhere ahead of her. Meg was suddenly very aware that it meant there would be no open exit gate to run towards, and nobody to save Claudette if The Trapper caught up to her.
On a whim, Meg made a risky decision. She glanced over her shoulder to see if The Trapper was close. She couldn’t see him yet, but the frantic pounding of her heart in her chest told her that he was near. She looked ahead and saw the looming shadow of a water tower not too far away. If she could use it as cover, the killer might just walk right by.
She narrowed her eyes in focus and ran as fast as she could the rest of the distance. Next to the base of the water tower was a cluster of crates arranged in an angled tunnel-like line that left a small space between the wall. The fit would be tight, but she should have enough room to squeeze inside and go undetected. Feeling the pounding in her ears getting stronger, she took a deep breath and slipped inside, getting low to the ground while trying to make herself as small as possible. There was no cover over her head, so she would just have to hope that the killer wouldn’t think to check behind the crates. The heavy crunch of The Trapper’s foot steps were upon her seconds later. Meg pushed herself backwards as far as she could go until her back pressed against the last crate in the line. She held her breath when she heard The Trapper’s breathing echo against his mask. His exhales were ragged from the exhaustion of chasing the runner for so long. Good, she thought, she was delighted to have made him killing her and her friends as hard as possible.
He took a few small steps around, his head turning in every direction around him as he searched for her. Meg stayed as still as she possibly could, but her lungs were beginning to protest from the lack of air as she held her breath. If he didn’t leave soon, she was screwed.
He turned his attention towards the crates and slowly began to make his way towards them. Meg closed her eyes and prepared for his bloody hands to reach down and rip her from her hiding place but before he got the chance to look, the screech of metal sliding together nearby signaled that Claudette had managed to escape from the bear trap. The trapper snapped his head in her direction and was off in an instant as he began to hunt the easier target down. Meg gasped the second he was out of earshot and gulped in oxygen hungrily. That had been way too close for comfort, but now wasn’t the time to be relieved. The trial wasn’t over yet.
Meg began to push herself onto her knees to stand but something flashed in the corner of her eye that caught her attention. She looked to her left and noticed a small opening inside of the wall that made up the base of the water tower. There was something inside that was catching the faintest ray of moonlight, causing it to glimmer among the shadowed shelter of the crates. Meg curiously reached her hand into the crevice and felt something smooth and flat inside. She wrapped her fingers around some kind of handle sticking to it and slid it out from its hiding place. Meg almost gasped as the object revealed itself in the full light of the moon.
It was a solid gold toolbox.
It was seemingly glowing as Meg examined its pristine condition in her hands. There wasn’t even a single spec of dirt or dust on the outside of it, almost like it had been placed there moments ago. Meg found herself getting completely lost in her new find, running her fingers over the surface of it, marveling in the beauty of such a simple object. She assumed that it was real gold too, The Entity probably had no interest in using a replacement metal when the rarity and appeal of gold in the real world was lost when it could be conjured at will. This toolbox had no real value in the realm of The Entity, but Meg’s old ways were hard to shake, even after spending years in a place where the most valuable items were gauze, medical tape, and styptic powder.
Meg wondered what could possibly be inside that would outshine the beauty of a solid gold toolbox. She slid her thumb down to the small latch that kept the box closed and popped it open with a small snap. She lifted the lid carefully and took a peek inside.
Sitting at the bottom of the toolbox was a single silver key, but this key looked different from any of the other keys Meg had encountered during her time in the realm. The keys she normally saw were slightly crooked and had three round holes at the top, but this one only had two with a triangle shaped hole in the center. This key was masterfully designed and in pristine condition, the silver radiating similarly to the toolbox that contained it. She could tell instantly that there was something special about this key, but she wasn’t quite sure what that was yet.
Claudette’s scream drew her from her thoughts in an instant.
Meg’s head snapped up as she came back to her senses. She reached in and snatched the key from the toolbox, shoving it into her pocket and throwing the box to the side. She was angry at herself for getting so easily distracted by petty things and jumped to her feet, pushing herself out of her safe haven and reentering the trial once more, leaving the golden toolbox she found beautiful moments ago toppled over and discarded in the dirt like it was nothing.
She ran forward with a new sense of purpose. The time she’d taken inspecting the items she had found had given her several moments to catch her breath, so at least something came out of that monumental waste of time. She raced forward to help Claudette as much as she could but when Meg rounded the water tower she saw her friend in a bloodied mess on the ground, The Trapper looming over her as he wiped the blood off of his cleaver. Meg slowed to a stop with her heart sinking in her chest when she made eye contact with the small healer. Claudette gave her a worried look and weakly waved with her bloody hand for Meg to go while mouthing the words, ‘Leave me.’ After mentally accounting for the previous events of the trial in her head, Meg realize sadly that this would be her friends third time on a meat hook, meaning The Entity would claim her instantly and her lifeless body would be lifted up into the sky as she was sacrificed to it.
The runner watched helplessly as The Trapper hoisted her up onto his shoulder and carried her to the nearest hook, never taking her eyes off of Claudette even when she grew weak from blood loss and her eyes fluttered shut as she lost consciousness. Meg turned away when the killer lifted her up and tossed her onto the hook like she was a dead animal, unable to watch as the tendrils of the entity materialized around the hook and impaled her body in several quick snaps. Meg felt herself fill with anger and grief as the world shook around her during the sacrificial process. If she hadn’t wasted so much time sitting on the ground doing nothing her friend might be alive right now. She almost ripped the key from her pocket and tossed it into the dirt right there.
But she had bigger things to worry about.
The Trapper turned away from the hook and spotted Meg watching from behind the tower as soon as he looked in that direction. He wasted no time in bounding towards her with his weapon held firmly in his hand. Meg perked up instantly then, turning around and bolting off in the opposite direction, their chase picking up right where it left off, but this time Meg had nowhere to run. There wasn’t a single exit gate open.
But she did have that key.
Hope briefly fluttered in her chest at the thought, but the heavy breathing of the killer chasing her made her think realistically. If she could just lose him, maybe she’d have just enough time to open an exit gate. As tempting as an easy escape sounded, there was too much risk to searching for the hatch when she was the only remaining survivor.
Meg pushed forward towards a pile of barrels and trash that stood in a line with a pallet leaning against it at the end. She ran through and put the pile of trash between her and The Trapper, slowing slightly to see what he would try and do next. He didn’t stop moving for a second, following her right through the opening where the wooden pallet sat. She picked up the pace instantly and took a sharp turn around a barrel and headed towards the pallet again. The moment she reached the other side, she flipped around and slammed the pallet down right in The Trapper’s face. He grunted in surprise and stumbled backwards, barely avoiding getting smacked in his masked face. Meg couldn’t help but chuckle at his reaction, her usual humor leaking back into her mind. If she was going to go down, she was going to go down giving this asshole hell.
He raised a boot and began to kick the pallet to pieces, giving Meg time to gain some distance on him. She moved quickly through several high wooden walls in search of her next pallet. She started to get a little concerned when all she could find were three piles of splintered wood for three wall segments in a row. Dwight and Ace had really cleared this place out before they’d been sacrificed. She continued past the third segment and noticed the shack not too far ahead of her, the safest pallet in the trial still standing in the open doorway. She smiled in relief and headed that way, nearing the broken building with The Trapper still far behind her.
Meg jogged the last few steps towards the window to vault through it and put an obstacle between her and the killer but the second her feet stepped into the tall grass beside the window time seemed to stop for several moments before the rigid snap of a bear trap registered in her mind. She glanced down slowly at the blood pouring from her ankle where the teeth of the trap had shredded her skin like paper. She felt a combination of dread and pain build up all at once and explode out of her mouth in a blood curdling scream of agony. The shockwave of metal hitting bone jolted through her leg and up her spine before her knees buckled from under her and she collapsed. The bear trap tugged at her flesh as she fell, causing tears to well up in her eyes after she hit the ground hard. Her heart started to beat impossibly fast in her chest and she knew The Trapper was closing in. She managed to shakily lift herself up onto her good knee and lowered her head to stare at the trap embedded around her ankle. Her hands fell to her sides as the will to fight left her body. She was through. She’d let her entire team down. Claudette had died and Meg didn’t even have an escape to show for it. She was a failure.
Meg let out a shaky breath and mentally prepared herself for the pain that was about to come, but as she took one last longing look at the window to the shack her heart skipped a beat when her eyes landed on the hatch sitting right there on the floor inside not three feet away from her. Every stubborn cell in her body flared to life in an instant, her hands quickly reaching down to grip the metal jaws of the trap. She started to attempt to pry it open, but she’d already lost a lot of blood so her attempts were weaker than what she could usually manage. The thundering approach of the killer filled her with a small burst of adrenaline and with one last hard pull, she opened the jaws just enough to slide her foot out from its iron clutches. She gasped as the cold air hit her open wounds but she bit her tongue and forced herself to her feet, gripping onto the edge of the window with shaky hands as she pulled herself slowly upwards. She managed to swing her good leg over the frame of the window and used her momentum to drag her now useless one the rest of the way through. She attempted to place a fraction of her weight on her injured foot but her nerves instantly screamed in protest and her hands had to slap back onto the frame to catch herself from falling again.
The Trapper was on her in that instant, watching her struggle to even stand from the other side of the window. Meg glared at him and hissed through clenched teeth, “You get your kicks watching people suffer, you sick freak?”
He didn’t move or react, just stared at her with his muscled shoulders moving up and down as he breathed. Maybe it was just the blood loss scrambling her brain, but his non-reaction only angered her more.
“Can’t you speak? Don’t you have anything to fucking say for yourself?”
He said nothing. He only hesitated for a moment before turning right, making his way towards the open door of the shack to finish her off. Meg growled and turned that way too, hobbling over towards the door as quickly as she could, throwing the pallet down just before he could get there. She stared daggers into the black pits that were the eyeholes of his mask then turned her back to him and limped towards the hatch, digging into her pocket and retrieving the silver key she’d found.
The Trapper must have realized what she was trying to do because Meg heard his foot slam against the pallet to break it. She finally let her legs buckle from under her and collapsed onto her knees, leaning forward to jam the key into the lock. The pallet shattered behind her just as she turned it with a quick twist of her wrist. The black lock sprung open, dark fog and a rush of air poured out of it so suddenly her braids flew into the air behind her head. The last bit of strength that she had left vanished all at once and she went limp, falling forward into the hatch the second before The Trapper reached down to grab her, his hands swiping the air as Meg fell downward into the unknown.
<~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~>
Meg grunted in pain as she hit the hard ground, landing face first into the dirt. She groaned as she slid her arms under herself and pushed herself upwards, rising to her feet slowly. She winced in pain as her injured foot touched the ground, but it wasn’t as bad as it was a few moments ago. After managing to keep her balance for more than a few seconds, Meg looked around at the thick gathering of trees and bushes around her, expecting to find the campfire somewhere nearby but it was nowhere to be seen. She furrowed her eyebrows in confusion and turned around, noticing then that she was standing in the center of a dirt pathway that lead deeper into the forest. The faintest trickle of light from some unknown source illuminated the trees ahead of her. After taking one final glance around, she realized that she’d probably end up wherever that light was coming from regardless of which direction she walked. The Entity built it’s realm entirely on where it wanted you to end up, if it was watching you, that is. Sometimes the other survivors had managed to slip by and end up somewhere they weren't supposed to, but that was rare.
Meg sighed in slight annoyance, not even bothering to head a different direction out of spite like she normally would. She was just too tired. So tired of playing the same games every day. So tired of feeling the same pain. She was not in the mood to be petty right now, which was also rare.
Meg started limping in the direction of the strange glow, her limping fading more and more with every step as she felt her normal strength return to her again. The Entity was healing her injuries while leading her towards some unknown place. The thought unsettled her, but if The Entity wanted to kill her it would just do it. She wished that thought made her feel better.
As she moved forward she noticed a few crows perched in random places around her, watching her as she walked by. She noticed one in particular sitting on a rock in front of her that she approached at a little lower than eye level. The crow’s pitch black eyes were trained on her, it’s head twitched back and forth to get a good look at her. She disregarded it and tried to walk past it, but when she reached the rock the crow screeched at her and took off into the sky. Meg flinched when one of it’s wings swiped her cheek as it flew away. She frowned and absentmindedly brushed a feather out of her face.
After a few minutes of trekking through the woods, she followed where the path curved slightly left, took the last few steps around a cluster of trees, and saw what she could barely describe as an old building made out of dark red bricks up ahead on the right side of the trail, flickering light pouring from the entrance, which was the entire front of the building because most of the walls and the roof of the building had crumbled and broken all around, leaving the inside completely devoid of any privacy. What was left of the right wall was barely managing to block her view from where she was standing so she couldn’t get a good look inside, but she could hear the roaring of a generator which was most likely powering the lights and whatever else was going on behind those walls.
By now, Meg had already regained all of her strength since the previous trial so she walked the rest of the way like nothing had ever happened. She felt strangely refreshed, even as the uncertainty of what she was going to find inside of that building gnawed at the back of her mind. She even allowed herself a small smile of victory. She had just completely showed The Trapper up right in front of his face and damn, it felt good. Whatever The Entity was throwing at her right now, she’d face it head on.
As she drew near, Meg could hear strange bubbling and the clicking of glass from behind the wall, along with a male voice humming along to some tune she’d never heard before. Who the hell could be all the way out here? Hopefully not a killer, she thought grimly.
Piggybacking off of the temporary bravery of her recent victory, she willed herself to step forward and look inside of the crumbling mess of a structure and find out what the source of the noise was.
The inside of the building was mostly barren, save for a green quilt mounted up on the wall to her left. In the corner touching the back wall was the generator as she suspected. It coughed and sputtered like it was struggling to stay activated. To the right of the generator was a pile of chains and the latches they were once attached thrown haphazardly on the floor, with small indents on the crumbled wall above like they’d been ripped straight off with sheer force. Finally, to the far right was a worktable that was mounted to the back wall about waist high. On top of the table were a series of intricate test tubes and beakers connected with glass tubes with some kind of liquid filtering through each of them.
In front of the apparent chemistry project was the source of the low humming. The tall hooded figure of a man was fiddling with one of the tubes, holding it up to the light to inspect it closer. He wore a dark leather trench coat with a large hood covering his entire head and brown gloves secured at his wrist with small buckles. He was very broad shouldered and tall, but not as tall as the killers were. That didn’t make him any less of a threat, though. He didn’t notice Meg just outside of the building and continued to mix and inspect the liquids inside of the tubes. Meg wasn’t a chemistry wiz by any means, so she hadn’t the faintest idea what on earth he could be creating, or what purpose it could possibly serve in this world.
She took a cautious step forward to try and get a closer look but her shoe came down a piece of rubble that crumbled under her weight with a loud crunch. Meg froze and glanced up at the man with wide eyes, wondering how he would react to her intruding in his dwelling.
The man stopped working in an instant, quickly putting his tubes down before turning to look Meg in the eyes. He had a strong jawline with very defining characteristics on his face. His skin was pale and coated in dirt and grime like he hadn’t even bothered to try and wipe it away. His eyes were dark and serious as he examined her with interest. Meg didn’t like the way he was staring at her. She contemplated backing away and making a break for it but hesitated in surprise when a huge grin formed on his face and his entire body perked up in joy. He all but skipped over to her and raised a hang in greeting.
“Somebody finally found my toolbox! And just in time too!” He shouted happily, reaching down and taking Megs hand into his, shaking it with enthusiasm.
Meg just stared at him with a look of dumbfounded confusion on her face. Who the hell was this guy?
He noticed her wariness and took a step backwards, “My apologies! I just haven’t seen a survivor in quite some time! I tend to get a little ahead of myself! You’re probably wondering who I am and why you’re here, I assume?”
Meg nodded slowly, relaxing just enough to stand up straight and cross her arms against her chest, “That’s right. What is all this? Who are you?”
He dipped his head at the last question, the smile widening on his face as he gave her a polite dip in greeting, “It's a pleasure to meet you. I cannot remember the name I was given at birth, it’s been so long since I’ve used it,” he admitted as he stood upright and straightened his coat with his gloved hands, that same smile not wavering for a moment, “But you can call me Vigo.”