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Mnemosyne- no, Dionysus, shell of memory. Siren’s song, psychedelic, a trigger for terror. Hydra, rebuild memory. Avoid that which is labeled with Orpheus’s lyre, an overdose can lead to a coma.
They were all puppets, bound to succumb to the effects of drugs and the manor’s experiments at some point.
Hydra proved itself to be most potent in many test subjects.
It was a never ending cycle in which the mind was twisted and bent, the body mangled and poorly reconstructed, the soul shattered, and the spirit drained.
To have ended up here at the racecourse where his aunt once spent her happy afternoons betting on horses with Manus, forced into a game of cat and mouse on the familiar grounds, was beyond cruel. It wasn’t enough that he was no longer himself, and a self-loathing little voice in Frederick’s brain told him that he deserved this miserable stroll down memory lane.
The familiar feeling in the air, tinged with a twist of something rotten, the howl of the wind swaying the grass and cornflowers. It all felt just like he remembered it. Except he was no longer himself, now a grotesque, warped shell of the person he used to be.
His eyes are blurry and he can’t seem to remember what he is supposed to look like. Now, he thinks he looks like his aunt Mary, but after her death. After her corpse had been found and the family had been notified to identify her.
He must look just like his aunt Mary; stained with blood, the cuffs of his white shirt tinged black and rotten. Drained of all of the color his cheeks used to have in them. Aunt Mary always used to pinch his rosy cheeks as a boy, patting them softly before she’d straighten out his collar and send him back inside to practice. He thinks to call out to her, for her aid, but a nauseating lump forms in his throat and puts an immediate stop to the idea. His airways feel like they are closing up.
He can’t tell how much of his poor vision is to blame on hair hanging in his eyes, clung to his forehead with stale blood and sweat, and how much of it is because of the drugs in his system. Either way, nothing looks quite right. Not his hands, nor the colors of everything around him. The racecourse looks faded. He’s white as a ghost himself, his fingertips a dark shade of purple, almost black. He’s scared of himself.
These survivors, the glimpses he catches of them, don’t look familiar. They’re not the teammates he once knew around the manor. He can’t identify any of them.
Even now, he doesn’t want to harm them. There’s no desire to maim them, but instead, whoever has done this to him. He’s a disoriented mess, tripping over his feet like this is his first time walking on land. He’s forgotten how to carry himself with grace, or walk at all. Two left feet, trying to walk right.
He lurches forward, trying to find somewhere dark and quiet to barricade himself. There’s a melody in his head, a cacophony of out-of-tune piano keys echoing throughout his mind. Stumbling ahead, swaying from side to side unsteadily with no decided destination.
He can pound on his skull as much as he likes, but the chords continue to strike. A voice joins into the ruckus, calling his name. Is it his father? One of his uncles? Have they come to torment him in death too? It’s… familiar. A single, hot tear rolls down his cheek. It burns his skin and he hisses. His hands come to wipe it away, peering through his fingers as he drags himself further.
His head throbs. His limbs feel so terribly heavy, like weights sewn to his body, a crudely made doll.
But that voice, he realizes, is external. It is not in his head. It calls for him again, following after him.
He hauls his head to the side, looking out of his peripheral view. Something is there. Someone is chasing after him. But it isn’t a hunter, he’s the hunter. The realization makes him sick to his stomach.
It is a survivor, one he does not recognize. Or at least, he doesn’t think he does.
“Frederick…? Frederick, wait…”
Whoever is calling for him is breathless, slurring. He wants to continue running off, to get as far away from everyone and everything as he possibly can. But his knees buckle underneath him, and he can’t continue on as weak as he is. He collapses in the middle of the race track with a defeated cry. He wants this nightmare to end.
There’s dirt and sand all over him, his knees and shoes caked with it.
“What are you doing?” someone else calls. “Are you trying to get yourself killed?” It’s not directed at Frederick, but at whoever has been chasing after him.
The survivor leans down, sluggishly putting a hand on Frederick’s back. He flinches but does not look back, instead wrapping his arms around his head. Such terrible noises, unrelenting. His head is spinning.
“Frederick…”
That voice is too familiar. He shouldn’t be forgetting who it belongs to. “Don’t…” he whinges. “Don’t look at me.” He doesn’t know where he’s been, what he’s been put through from the time he blacked out until he found himself here at the racecourse. There was blood all over him, his pretty pink coat now a deep crimson, torn in ways he wasn’t sure could be fixed with thread. It’s pitiful to even bear the thought of someone laying a finger on him.
“Frederick, it’s just me.”
He shakes his head, nails digging into his hair. He doesn’t want to know who it is.
“It’s just… the drugs,” the man mumbles, sitting down in the sand. “Let’s… go somewhere…” He looks around, trying to find somewhere better than the course itself to sit in the middle of. For some instinctual yet unclear reason, Frederick feels compelled to follow the man, wherever he decided they should go. And sure, in hindsight, it was a good idea to get out of the sand and dirt, even if there were no horses- at least not living ones- that could trample them.
Cipher machines eventually begin to pop, 3 in a succession. 4 would have gone at once if one of the survivors hadn’t thrown himself at the hunter. But it was for a good reason.
“Hey,” the man says softly, sitting Frederick down in one of the stables, leaning him up against the wall. There are more than a few ugly gashes on his face, he realizes with a wince. Frederick’s eyes are vacant, opened just a crack as his head knocks against the old wooden boards. “Do you know who I am?”
Frederick doesn’t move. Miraculously, he is alive, but he’s visibly in a state of shock. The other man knows what that is like. “I… I know I know you. I shouldn’t be forgetting, should I?” A wordless stream of tears flow down his cheeks, no muscle in his face moving aside from the subtle quiver of his bottom lip. “Why don’t I remember anything?”
The survivor hushes him gently, moving a few blood-crusted strands of hair out of his face. “It’s the drugs,” he says once again, “They make your mind play tricks on you. It’ll wear off soon.”
“... Who are you?” Familiar as the man’s voice is, he can’t remember who it belongs to. The voice speaks to him so softly, like they knew each other well. What had happened that would make him forget someone so special?
It’s gutwrenching that he doesn’t remember. “Antonio.”
Frederick looks down, still crying, and his face seems to crack at the name. Antonio . “Antonio…” There’s too much feeling in saying his name for it to be just another name. He’s sure he’s said it countless times before, it felt like it belonged in his mouth. “Antonio…” By saying his name, he seems to be jogging his memory. There’s a flicker in his eyes. With each echo of the name, life returns to his strained voice.
“You’re Antonio…” He looks down at Antonio, confused. The man looks different now. Is this how he looks as a survivor? The top half of his face is covered by an intricate demon mask, and his hair is neater than usual. His violin had been tucked away in its case, leaned up against the wall.
Antonio reaches for Frederick’s hand, shivering at how cold it is. His hand felt skeletal. Did he feel this cold to Frederick? He trembles as he traces over the scabs and callouses on Frederick’s fingers. His Frederick never went anywhere without his gloves on. Where had they gone? He gives his hand a soft squeeze, his eyebrows creasing as he begins to cry. “It’s going to be okay. We’re going to get out of here.” Shutting his eyes, he leans into Frederick, forehead pressed against his chest. “We’re going to be okay.”
It doesn’t make any sense to Frederick how he’s ended up here, like this, with Antonio weeping into his chest. He couldn’t remember enough of the man that his heart knew all too well. Small flashes come to him in waves, in infrequent memories in his mind’s eye. They’re colorful and tender. Warm.
They’re nothing like the illusions in his mind, the blood on his clothes and under his fingernails.
He could never truly forget someone like Antonio, even with these terrible drugs clouding his thoughts. “Don’t go,” the hunter whispers through tears, a hand coming up to the back of Antonio’s head, stroking it almost mechanically. His vest is soaked through with tears, but that is the very least of his worries. “I have to remember you.”
The violinist weeps. “Come back to me, my love.” Frederick’s fingers intertwine, giving Antonio’s hand a squeeze in return. It was a sign of life, just what he needed.
“It’s going to be okay,” he says again. No matter how real this fear or this ache is, he knows it will be ok. He hopes that it will. After this game, they will return to the manor, and the drugs will eventually leave their bodies. They’d return to their normal selves, or as normal as the manor has left them, in time. But still, he knows that this pain, this terrible feeling of loss, would stick around.
It is the psychological torture of the manor that bothers Antonio most.
“It’s going to be okay,” Frederick strains, trying to believe that Antonio’s words are as truthful as he tells them.
Antonio sighs shakily, a choked up sob shuddering through him. “Yes, that’s it. Keep holding on,” he sniffles.
The last 2 ciphers pop and Antonio’s teammates are heading to the gate, yelling for him to leave. But he won’t. He won’t budge. “I’ll stay with you,” he whispers, rotating their intertwined hands and kissing the back of Frederick’s hand. Frederick stirs, beginning to panic, but Antonio keeps him sat down.
“No, Antonio,” he cries, realizing that the survivor couldn’t just stay with him forever– or at least until the end of this game, without some form of repercussions. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
The violinist shakes his head, putting his other hand on Frederick’s heart. He squeezes their interlocked hands together with a congested little hum. “You won’t. I am surrendering.” It will give Frederick 1 ‘kill’ from a willing surrender. “Don’t worry.” This isn’t the first game Antonio has been a survivor in, but he hoped it would be the last, at least for a while.
He also hoped that Frederick wouldn’t remember any of this, but he knew the drugs weren’t that kind to anyone. At least he could stay by Frederick’s side so that he wouldn’t have to face those nightmares alone.