Work Text:
The sound of gears activating filled the air as the match came to life. The ruins of the old manor were bathed in an eerie light, a world distorted by the madness Joseph controlled with his camera. Every shot froze time, capturing the survivors in their movements, crystallizing them like helpless puppets.
Joseph, the *Photographer*, walked through the shadows with the calm of a predator. His cold eyes, almost disinterested, scanned the field, looking for his prey. It was a cruel game, and he was the master. The sounds of decoding and hurried footsteps echoed through the ruins, but no one could escape his lens.
With a swift motion, Joseph raised his camera. Another shot, and the world around him crumbled, transporting him into his photograph. There, the figures of the survivors were frozen, like wax statues, and he could see them, vulnerable, unable to hide.
He found the first survivor, the Doctor, focused on decoding a machine. In that distorted world, she was defenseless, with no way out. Joseph approached without haste, almost with a lethal grace, and with a decisive movement of his cane, he struck her without hesitation. A muffled scream filled the air, and when the real world reformed around him, she lay on the ground, wounded, her white coat stained with blood.
There was no compassion in Joseph's eyes. There never had been. He cast a quick glance around and, without hesitating, hoisted her onto a nearby rocket chair. The Doctor struggled weakly, but it was useless. Joseph was relentless.
He walked away, leaving behind the moans of pain and the shouts of the companions rushing to save her. Deep down, he knew he wouldn’t let them. This match was under his control, every move they made brought them closer to defeat.
As he continued his hunt, however, something caught his attention. A silent shadow, a reflection moving discreetly like a ghost. Joseph stopped, watching with keen eyes the slender figure decoding a cipher machine. There was something different about him. It was *Aesop*.
The hunter paused for a moment, observing the embalmer. This wasn’t the first time their paths crossed in a match, but each time something about that solitary figure caught Joseph’s attention. Perhaps it was the quiet familiarity with death that bound the two, like an invisible thread pulling them toward one another.
Joseph raised the camera, ready to shoot and stop Aesop in his tracks, but then he hesitated. His eyes studied the boy closely—the white hair falling over his face, his pale, perfectly still skin. Aesop was there, only a few meters away, yet there was no evident fear in him, only a cold determination. The same kind of calm Joseph had only ever seen reflected in his own eyes.
A sudden noise caught the hunter’s attention: another survivor, the Mercenary, had approached to try and rescue the Doctor, and Joseph decided to act. With a swift move, he struck the Mercenary, who collapsed to the ground. He picked him up and carried him to another rocket chair, chaining him without mercy.
Part of him was satisfied with his hunt, but when he retraced his steps, he realized that Aesop had vanished.
With a sharp movement, Joseph returned to the photograph world. The images of the survivors appeared once more, and there, near the graveyard, he found him. Aesop, as always, was absorbed in his work, unafraid, trying to finish decoding another machine.
Joseph approached, and this time there was no hesitation. With a fluid gesture, his cane struck Aesop, who fell to the ground without a cry, as if he had expected the blow. The embalmer didn’t try to escape, nor did he complain. He just lay there, looking up at Joseph with those deep, empty eyes, as if death were an old friend.
The hunter lifted him without a word, but when their gazes met, Joseph felt something waver inside him. Those eyes... they were so much like his own. They were the eyes of someone who had stopped fighting, someone who no longer feared the fate that awaited them.
Joseph held Aesop a little tighter, but he didn’t immediately carry him to the chair. He laid him down, his hands moving more slowly, as if he were delaying the inevitable.
"You’re not afraid," Joseph murmured, his tone betraying a slight curiosity.
Aesop looked at him, his voice calm as always, a faint breath intertwining with the heavy air. "Should I be? You and I already know how this ends."
For a moment, time seemed to stand still. The world around them was still in motion, the distant sounds of the survivors fighting for their lives. But there, between Joseph and Aesop, there was only silence.
Joseph knew he should finish him, that it was his mission, his role in this cruel game. Yet something held him back. He stared at Aesop for a long moment, then, with an almost imperceptible movement, he let him go.
Aesop stood up slowly, without surprise or gratitude. He simply looked at Joseph, as if he knew that, in the end, this was what was supposed to happen. "I won’t be the one to stop you," the embalmer muttered before walking away, his hands trembling slightly, almost imperceptibly.
Joseph stood still for a long moment, watching Aesop's figure disappear into the shadows of the ruins. Something had cracked inside him, a faint sound like shattered glass. The silence that usually enveloped him like a cloak had become oppressive, heavy. It was strange, almost disturbing: it wasn’t the first time he had hesitated before a survivor, but with Aesop, it was different.
He remained motionless, like a statue, while his mind wandered through memories. In the world he lived in, time and space bent to his will, but there were moments he couldn’t control, like this one.
He took a step back, lowering the camera slightly, his hands trembling ever so faintly. Aesop. That boy had a gaze that was hard to forget: cold, empty, yet at the same time so familiar. Joseph was used to seeing terror in the eyes of his victims, but Aesop didn’t fear him. He never had. It was as if he embraced death, or perhaps he knew it too well.
**Crack.**
A sudden sound brought Joseph back to reality. The cipher machine in the southern part of the manor had completed decoding. The survivors were gaining ground, despite his ruthless capture of two of them. The Mercenary was still strapped to the rocket chair, while the Doctor struggled to recover from her wounds. The exit gates were about to open. Time was running out.
Joseph could hesitate no longer.
His mind refocused, and his body moved with the usual cold elegance. He let the world distort around him once again, his photograph coming to life as he observed the slowed movements of the survivors. He chose his next target carefully.
Then he saw him again: "Aesop". He was near the exit gate, his gaze fixed on the lever that would open the path to escape. He seemed focused, as calm as ever, but Joseph knew him well enough to notice the slight tremble in his hands. Something inside him drove him to move toward the embalmer, leaving the rest of the hunt in the background.
As he approached, Joseph felt a dark impulse within him. Part of him wanted to end that bond, that inexplicable connection that disturbed him. But another part, deeper and hidden, held him back. It wasn’t just that Aesop didn’t fear death—it was the certainty that both walked the same fine line between life and darkness.
When he was only a step behind, Joseph raised his cane. The noise of the other gates opening and the surviving players running for their lives mingled with the crackling of the night. But before he could strike, Aesop turned.
Their eyes met.
For a moment, everything else seemed to vanish. There were no more gates, no more other survivors or cipher machines. There were just the two of them, trapped in a strange and fragile balance.
"You’ve been waiting for this moment, haven’t you?" Aesop asked in a calm tone, but one laced with a resignation Joseph couldn’t ignore. "Maybe we both have."
Joseph gripped his cane more tightly but didn’t answer right away. What was there to say? He had chosen this moment, this decision. And yet, something held him back.
Aesop took a step closer, so close that he could feel Joseph’s breath, but he didn’t show fear. "We’ve both spent our lives chasing death," the embalmer said, his voice as distant as when he worked. "But the difference between us is that I welcome it. You, on the other hand… keep trying to stop it."
Those words cut through Joseph like a blade. He, who froze time, who captured the essence of things before they slipped away, realized now what haunted him. Aesop had accepted death; he had made it part of him. Joseph, instead, rejected it, trying to stop the passage of time, freezing life itself.
"We’re both prisoners of what defines us," Aesop continued, his voice quiet. "But you can’t escape death, Joseph. Not with your photographs, not with your power."
Joseph felt his heart grow heavy. Aesop’s gaze was like a mirror: it reflected the part of himself he tried to ignore. Why had he hesitated so many times? Why did this boy disarm him in ways no one else could?
"You’re not like the others," Joseph murmured, slowly lowering the cane, his voice reduced to a whisper. "There’s something in you… that holds me back."
Aesop tilted his head slightly, his gaze piercing. "Maybe because we recognize the shadows in each other’s eyes."
That phrase hung in the air between them, suspended, while both remained still, chained by an understanding that went beyond the match, beyond the hunt, beyond mere survival.
Suddenly, a sharp noise filled the air: the exit gate opened, a sliver of light cutting through the darkness. The remaining survivors were escaping. The Mercenary had freed himself and was already running toward safety, followed by the Doctor.
Joseph looked at Aesop again. "You can go," he said, his tone surprisingly soft. "I won’t stop you."
Aesop stared at him for a long moment, then, without a word, took a step back, slowly moving toward the open gate. But before crossing the threshold, he turned one last time. "You’re trapped here too, Joseph," he murmured. "But it’s not just this game that keeps you a prisoner. One day you’ll understand how to escape."
And with those words, Aesop disappeared through the gate, leaving Joseph alone, surrounded by the shadows he knew so well.
The photographer remained there, motionless, as the world around him fell into a tomb-like silence. He had always been the master of time, the controller of death. But in that moment, with Aesop’s absence weighing more heavily than he’d ever admit, Joseph realized that perhaps, in all this hunting, he was the real prisoner.
And as the match concluded, with the lights slowly dimming, Joseph couldn’t help but wonder how long he would continue to play this game, and how much longer he could resist facing the truth Aesop had revealed to him.
---
**End**