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Bloodlust had always been such a strange and unnerving feeling. In another life, Martyn could remember falling prey to its temptation, allowing himself to indulge in his own madness and take another's life to save his own. He thought he'd learnt from that experience, that he'd never be enticed by his own bloodlust again, but the Boogeyman's Curse worked in very peculiar ways and he was nothing if not its underling.
In spite of his unease, Martyn had immediately started planning, wondering when, where, how and who he'd kill. Because as easily as he could take out his sword and eliminate one of the people beside him, where was the fun in that? He wanted his kill to be dramatic, pretentious and memorable in all of the worst ways. All he needed was for the opportunity to present itself, and in a game of death and chances, it didn't take very long for that to happen.
The first opportunity had come when Skizz had been alone and without gear in the caves below the sheave. It has been overwhelmingly tempting to kill him, because it meant both a quick escape from the curse and a comedic continuation of Skizz's own apparent curse.
But in that very moment, Skizz had done something unexpected, something that had saved his life without him being any the wiser. Because, as if in spite of the uncertainty and mistrust that had plagued the group, Skizz had decided to give Martyn a genuine and wholehearted compliment.
It had taken Martyn by surprise, and for a moment, he was unsure what to say or do. Part of him didn't have the heart to slaughter Skizz after such a kind and heartfelt gesture, and during that brief moment in which he'd faltered, the opportunity slipped away from him.
His second chance, albeit being more of an opportunity to cause chaos than to kill, came when Grian made the grave mistake of digging straight down. Quite a novice mistake in hindsight, and Martyn couldn't really be blamed for standing by and watching in amusement. However, Grian didn't die, and even if he had, the death wouldn't have been Martyn's to claim.
A more direct way of impacting an otherwise accidental death manifested not too long later, when atop a mountain that had yet to be given a name, a creeper was making its way towards Cleo. Martyn had debated pushing them into its path, reminding him of a past life in which he’d similarly (albeit accidentally) pushed her into death’s clutches. However, Martyn could also remember how furious they'd been after that had happened, and decided against aggravating her this time.
Later on, he'd run into Grian whilst exploring an amethyst cave, who was seemingly alone and wielding nothing but an iron sword with which to defend himself. It would have been a perfect chance to get this whole 'curse' business over with, had Joel, bearing a diamond sword and chest plate, not walked around the corner at that very moment.
He'd quickly left the self proclaimed 'Bad Boys' behind, and found Etho in an underground room that he, Tango, Skizz and Impulse had apparently claimed as their base. Martyn made a brief attempt at digging Etho into a hole, perhaps using it as an opportunity to trap him there and secure an easy kill, but ironically had ended up falling into one of Etho's own traps.
Injured, impatient, and having just taken a substantial bruise to his pride, Martyn hoped to redeem himself when Skizz and Impulse arrived through a hole in the ceiling. In an attempt to drop a bucket of lava on the ground just as Skizz was coming down, Martyn had instead lit one of their ill-fated cows ablaze, leaving them with one less cow and almost certainly making Etho more suspicious than he'd already been.
So many perfect opportunities, yet none of them had worked out in Martyn's favour. The timer kept ticking, always reminding Martyn that he had so much to lose yet only one chance to save himself. The pressure was driving him to the brink of insanity, his need for blood having grown so overwhelming that he knew he couldn't just wait for the time to strike, not anymore. He needed to take matters into his own hands, and he was going to force this kill to happen whether his victim liked it or not.
TNT was always a good way to force a kill, because it was very, very difficult to get wrong. The more TNT, the higher the success rates, and Martyn decided that three should surely do the job. Despite the aforementioned failure to kill Skizz, Martyn remained in the little hole that he, Impulse and Etho had dug out for themselves, hoping that more people nearby would further increase his chance of success.
When Scott and Tango had arrived moments later, Martyn knew that the time had come. He had less than half an hour to spare, and although Skizz's retelling to Scott of his third death that day sparked a glimmer of sympathy in the depths of Martyn's heart, it was swiftly overtaken by the merciless need to kill.
Scott was led down into the maze of doors and hallways that the T.I.E.S called their base, whilst Martyn made his way into one of the many passages that lay directly above the center room. Their eyes had briefly met, but even if Scott had his suspicions about what Martyn was doing, he never expressed them. A mistake on Scott's part, all things considered, it was a shame that he was likely about to die.
As Tango recounted the tragedy of their many lost cows, Martyn dug a new hole through the ceiling, holding his breath and hoping that nobody would notice him as they spoke amongst themselves. Five people, one room, half an hour and three TNT.
There was no way he could get this wrong, as he simply couldn't afford the luxury of another mistake after the trainwreck of a day he'd had.
He lit the fuses in quick succession, letting them drop into the room below as he waited for the telltale screams that would make his kill all the more satisfying. And surely enough, the screams came alongside the first deafening boom of the TNT.
"I CAN'T MOVE!" He heard Skizz yell, and although he certainly didn't deserve to be killed by the Boogeyman for the third time today, Skizz's words gave Martyn hope that he'd secured at least one kill with his TNT. The second explosion rang through the tiny cave, and at the same time, he heard Etho's voice next.
"Not the cows!"
Martyn froze. As the third explosion went off, he waited for the bloodlust to dissipate. He waited for satisfaction, relief, emptiness, anything but the insanity of the Curse, but it never came. And slowly it dawned on him, the shock and horror that he'd just wasted three TNT, outed himself as the Boogeyman to five people, and the only thing he'd killed was that godforsaken cow and its calf.
He didn't know what to do, his master plan had failed and he was now facing the very real risk of losing 6 hours of his precious time. What had been fear and anxiousness moments ago had devolved into pure terror, the screaming urge to kill consuming his every thought and leaving him lost and panicking.
"Who did this?!" Came Tango's furious voice, as Martyn scurried out of the hole and across the nearby river. Perhaps if he got away fast enough, they wouldn’t see him and he might get one last chance to save himself from the Curse's unforgiving consequences. He only had minutes left to spare, and at this point, he'd take whatever opportunity he could get.
"I think it was Martyn!” He heard Scott reply, and Martyn groaned. Of course, Scott had watched him climb down the passageway to enact his plan, and he had been too caught up in the moment to realise how much of a risk it had been. If he'd just killed Scott there and then, all of this could have been avoided, but in the typical fashion of bad luck, he only came up with that brilliant idea after it was far too late to enact it.
"Martyn's got to be the Boogeyman!" Impulse called, only worsening the situation. He'd hit the nail on the head, and a simple message in chat altering the others would hit that same nail straight into Martyn's coffin. It would take them at least a few minutes to regather their things and tell the rest of the group, and he had to use those minutes wisely and to his advantage. It didn't matter if he had nothing but a lava bucket and no food to help him in a fight, the next person he saw was the one he'd kill and that was that.
It was unfortunate that the next two people he saw happened to have been his friends of many years, but Pearl and BigB had simply wound up in the wrong place at the wrong time. BigB was standing so close, blissfully unaware of who or what was coming, and as much as Martyn wanted to resist the temptation he knew he couldn’t. His clock was ticking, his time too limited and the bloodlust too overwhelming to ignore any longer.
The Boogeyman’s Curse told Martyn to kill, and after all, he’d always been such a good listener.