Chapter Text
Warm, sticky, liquid soaked through Elliot Builder’s clothes. Everywhere. His every muscle screamed in pain as angry, fresh, red wounds burned against the wind’s chill.
He tasted blood in his mouth—nothing new, of course. It was a taste he had gotten used to over the months. Clutching his upper left arm, he winced, limping towards the remnants of his pizza place.
He wasn’t sure, honestly, why the Spectre had made this specific memory of his a place in this hell. Or, he was. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that the eldritch being wanted nothing but to make his prisoners suffer for as long as possible. Making Elliot relive his worst experience over and over again was the logical thing to do, if that was one’s viewpoint.
But he didn’t really care about what, or why, right now. As his heavy breath and gaping wounds reminded him, he still needed to find a medkit. Because for some reason, the one person in this god forsaken realm who could heal couldn’t heal himself. And the gashes weren’t closing up by themselves anytime soon.
Soon, he thought. The time—what’s the time?
Elliot winced. A whole minute-thirty left in the round.
Ignoring everything else, Elliot decided that he was going to find that medkit. Even if it meant doing things he kind of… didn’t want to do.
The body of Guest 1337 was still warm. Freshly killed. His blue hair was matted in dark crimson, arm bent at a sickening, unnatural angle.
I could’ve saved him.
Elliot’s eyes locked on an object. He inhaled, and laughed softly in relief as he let his breath out. What he really cared about was that box next to the body. That beautiful, scuffed, off-white box. The big, red plus on the lid. A medkit.
Wasting no time, he got down to his knees, working quick to wrap his arms and legs in the gauze. It was positively magical, how it could heal him. The angry wounds faded into his yellow skin, going from red to orange to a pale butterscotch color.
Fifty-five seconds left.
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A few moments before, in the trailer lot, two pairs of footsteps echoed. One of them was a bit heavier than the other, and dragged a bit on the floor (Their owner’s back had just been ripped open by a pair of sharp bone wings, it was only understandable they wouldn’t be on their best game).
The short, messy, black hair bounced on their shoulders as Two Time ran. A short ponytail at the end that didn’t do anything except for keeping the tiniest bit of hair off their neck, and the unnerving bony pair of wings, steeped in blood, protruding from the cultist’s back, proved their desperation as they fled the small creature tailing them.
“You’re it!”
Two Time yelped in pain as the child rammed into their back, sending the both of them through a broken window and onto the floor of the destroyed pizzeria. A shard of glass embedded itself between their wings, digging deep as they slid across the torn-up linoleum floor, and they screamed in pain.
The killers don’t care about you. Stab him, they thought.
He’s a child.
He doesn’t care about you.
I won’t ruin 007’s perception of his son’s safety if I don't need to.
007? You’ll die. You do need to.
I don’t care.
You’ll leave Elliot alone to face this thing.
Fine.
The metal found its mark. The monstrous child roared in pain, fresh blood spurting out of the hole in his back. Two Time closed their eyes as they twisted the handle of the Ghostfire dagger, making sure c00lkidd wasn’t getting up for a while. Silent tears streamed down their face as they ran.
And in an almost mocking tone, a message flashed across their vision.
+20 HP - Backstabbed the Killer
Throwing the stunned c00lkidd off and running, after only a moment Two Time heard his strained voice perk back up over the horrible sound of the music playing. The stun was over. But their legs felt like they had been submerged into cement, and their strides were nothing more than a limping shuffle. Their wounds were too deep, the pain too fresh, their health too low.
Two Time nearly collapsed as they turned the corner, breath coming out painfully from their throat. Their wings dragged against the ground.
“Two Time!”
Elliot was already there. He grabbed their wrist and shoved something warm into their gloved hands before they could even speak.
“Hey—”
The relief came fast. Pain peeled away from their body like it had never been there at all.
“Elliot.. How fortunate I am.. to see you here..” they managed over gasping breaths. A warmth flushed over their body. The pizza was doing its work.
The pizza-maker grinned.
“Yeah! Let’s be careful, now. I think I just got the last medkit.”
Two Time ran a slender hand through their messy, black hair, detangling it a bit after the fall they had taken.
“I feel at.. Unease. As if the Spawn Itself has abandoned us.”
Not one to engage with the cultist’s rambling about the Spawn (That was the one thing he wouldn’t talk to them about, and they knew), Elliot mumbled some sort of mm-hmm, took their hand and led them away, c00lkidd’s chase music growing ever so slightly louder.
He was then promptly hit by a brick.
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Elliot’s hand was wrenched from Two Time’s. He sprawled out onto the grass. Hard. Blood pooled around his head as he lay dazed on the ground. He groaned at the feeling of his head being split open, looking up.
“There you are!”
Oh, Telamon.
Elliot flinched at c00lkidd’s voice. He struggled to his feet, only to be met with a sharp punch straight to his face. That kid was freakishly strong. White flashed behind his eyes, and Elliot immediately became engulfed in flames.
Two Time had completely slipped from his mind as he ran with the little stamina he had left. The horrible heat licked his feet and shirt, causing damage after damage in steady ticks. All the while, c00lkidd’s lumbering footsteps grew closer.
Where the HELL is Two Time when you need them?
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What he didn’t know was that the cultist had been busy fighting off three of the pizza minions themselves, trying so hard to reach Elliot. But their stab had been on cooldown, and to avoid a certain death being pinned by the clones they ran as fast as they could muster the opposite direction.
Two Time hated feeling helpless. Purposeless. That was why the Spawn brought them so much comfort, because to serve it—they knew what they were doing, all the time. They had to run. They had to save-
A whimper and a sickening crack echoed throughout the almost silent map. Two Time inhaled sharply as the blaring theme of a last-man-standing started to play. Tears welled in their eyes.
Oh, dear Spawn. I just found Elliot again. Don’t let this be..
Looking over at where their friend was, Two Time flinched as they saw Elliot’s body. His head was twisted at a horrible angle, lines of tears marked his face by cutting through the blood, his fists clenched from trying to stop c00lkidd, his eyes glassy and hollow.
Their vision tunneled from Elliot’s remains to the red shape rapidly approaching them. They muttered a prayer to the Spawn, realizing they just had to survive for forty seconds more.