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The Voice of the Hero’s eyes popped open.
Wait… his eyes?
“Hello?” He sat up, frowning to himself. He didn’t feel anyone pressed into his headspace. “Anyone there?”
He was met with silence. Not the textured nothingness of The Long Quiet, just… nothing noteworthy.
His lips (huh… guess he had those in this not quite what he was used to body) curled into a grimace. He was alone. He didn’t think he liked it.
Where were the others? Were they still stuck amongst the other bits of her ?
Actually, where even was he ?
The Voice of the Hero (well, he was more than a voice now, he supposed) stood up, eyes scanning his surroundings. He was in the woods, on the same path they always started on. (That shouldn’t be right, when The Long Quiet accepted his godhood, The Construct broke , didn’t it?) If he was in the woods, then maybe…
He followed the path, heart leaping into his throat when he saw the cabin atop a familiar hill.
He… didn’t know how to feel about seeing it again. His brain seemed completely torn between immense relief and unfathomable panic.
Well… no way to go but forward. He steeled his nerves and wrapped a clawed hand around the handle of the front door.
That probably wasn’t completely true, but checking out the cabin beat wandering aimlessly in the seemingly infinite expanse of forest in all directions (he’d worry about that later).
No.
No no no no no no no no no no no no !
How was this possible?!
Why back here?!
Hadn’t they finished this already?!
What was left to do here?!
They felt their chest squeeze, eyes burning as they staggered towards the wall away from the empty chains.
They dimly felt their back slide down the wall, feathers bending and nearly snapping, sending painful shocks through their body.
“Whoa- hey!” They knew that voice. Where did they know that voice from? “Let’s calm down, yeah? You’re okay, there’s no one in here but us.”
They could feel her eyes on them. She was here, waiting in the shadows to freeze their heart and boil their blood.
Their hands flew to protect their face, latching to skin and feathers in blind panic. She wouldn’t take their body from them. They couldn’t just.
“Hey don’t do that, you’re hurting yourself.” They screamed as a hand wrapped around their wrist, yanking the limb away and pushing themselves as far into the corner of the room as possible. “ Ah !” The voice cursed indistinctly under their breath “Sorry sorry. I probably deserved that.”
Deserved…? Their head shot up wide eyes locking onto an avian a few feet away from him, a few bloody scratch marks decorating his cheek.
The newcomer seemed to notice that they were being watched. They raised their hands, palms open. “I’m not here to hurt you, see? No blade, no nothing. It’s just you and me down here.”
That couldn’t be right. She had to be here! They could feel -
Their eyes darted around the basement only to be met with stone walls. Empty stone walls.
The ball of nerves that had constricted in their chest began to unwind. Their breathing gradually shifted to erratic and frantic to heavy.
The avian smiled gently. “See? Just us.”
Just… them…
“How…” they didn’t even know where to start.
The other sighed. “I don’t know how we got here… or where ‘here’ even is, at this point. I just saw the cabin and walked towards it like usual.”
Oh. They almost relaxed. This was another one of them.
“Where are the others?” They sounded much more anxious than they would like.
“I don’t know. You’re the only one I’ve run into.” They paused, offering a hand. “I’m The Voice of the Hero if we’re using those silent titles, by the way.”
They stared at the outstretched hand warily. “I’m not paranoid , I’m cautious.”
“Oh!” The Voice of the Hero let out a breathy laugh. “Okay, got it. Wanna get out of here?”
“ Yes .” Being in this basement, the original basement, just made them remember dying over and over again.
They didn’t take the hand offered as they stood up. The Voice(?) of the Hero might’ve been inseparable from them once, but now that they had their own minds and bodies, they couldn’t be trusted.
Wandering around the woods was boring, but every path they found led to the cabin, so it seemed most counterintuitive to not follow.
The Voice of the Contrarian (a fitting title if it wasn’t given to them) heard rustling around them a few times and had stepped off the path to check it only to be met with nothing and another path to another cabin, so ignoring everything and aimlessly wandering it was. Maybe eventually they’d get bored enough to actually follow a path and check out a cabin, but they hadn’t quite reached that level of desperation just yet.
Wait… that crunch wasn’t from them.
They spun around, a smile growing on their face when he saw two avian-esque creatures walking along the path.
“It can’t just be us out here. The others are bound to show up somewhe-“ The Contrarian waved at them. “ See ?” The taller (wait no, the other one was just hunched over) avian said excitedly.
The slouched avian eyed them warily, eyes guarded, but somehow they still looked a bit relieved.
“What took you guys so long?” The Contrarian beamed.
“Oh I don’t know,” the first avian began sarcastically, “maybe some of us wanted to do something more productive than wandering in the woods all day?”
Contrarian felt his chest flutter with excitement at having found someone willing to play with him. “Ah, but where’s the fun in taking an already tread path?”
“ Quiet !” The scared one hissed, ear tufts shooting up in alarm. “Did you two hear that?!”
“Hear what?” The Contrarian asked as loud as they could without yelling. The paranoid one’s eyes looked about ready to pop out of their skull ( ha , score).
A tail hit the back of their head, almost chiding them. “ Oi !” They looked up to see a pair of large, opal-like eyes staring down at them.
The first avian snickered as the newcomer gracefully hopped from the cover of the leaves. “Found you.”
“This is great!” The first one’s eyes lit up with eagerness and relief.
The tail whacked the back of their head again. “Don’t toy with flock members.”
“Yeah yeah, whatever! It didn’t do anything!”
“You nearly sent me into cardiac arrest!”
“I don’t even know what that is!”
“Hey hey, let’s not fight.” The first stepped between them, giving The Contrarian a pointed look. “It’s like…” he looked over at the one with a tail, “you’re… The Hunted, yeah?”
“Yes.”
“It’s like The Hunted said! We’re a flock or… what have you, so let’s not fight!”
“Rousing speech!” The Contrarian tried to make their applause as sarcastic sounding as possible.
The first sighed, rubbing a hand to his temple. “Let’s just keep looking for the others.”
“ Oooooooor we could-“
The tail slapped over their mouth. “We’re a flock. We’ll keep looking until we have each other.” The Voice of the Hunted said resolutely.
As much as The Contrarian enjoyed pushing buttons, they knew that they wouldn’t feel complete until they found the others.
It might not be a contradiction, but it still felt like the right thing to do.
The first gave them all a smile. "Now, let's find our flock."