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Normally, The Spectre kept every bit of coding nice, neat, and organized.
Normally, everything was in place. Sure the occasional extremely strange thing happened, but it was usually a once-off.
When everyone awoke the day after Christmas, it was a matter of immediately getting ready for more torment. The killers brushed themselves off and stretched out, the survivors tried to get a good breakfast in, it was everything they were used to. By the time the first round of the day started to draw close, the survivors were fully ready for another day of torture [well, as ready as one could be for being killed multiple times in one day.]
What no one was ready for, however, was the feeling that came next. The map loaded up. Tempest.
Veeronica was used to lag. She was used to her processor slowing for a bit and her having to wait out the issue, or if it got bad going to see Builderman. She accepted that she was going to die this round because of her slowed reaction time, and groaned as she stepped around a building, vision swimming.
Only to see Sixer, the giant beast that they were, with their claws clutched over their head, making a repetitive series of panicked and confused noises. Vee blinked at the sight and hesitated, then decided to approach. Sometimes the killers did refuse to kill for a round, apparently, so maybe this was one of those times?
“H3Y, KRAMPUS!” she called out, “Y0U DOIN’ GO0D?”
Sixer made another loud noise of distress in response. Vee glanced to the side to see if anyone else was seeing this.
007n7 was half-hunched over a wall, also holding his head and mumbling to himself. Dusekkar’s flame flickered in extremely obvious discomfort as he leaned against the same wall 007 was on. Shedletsky was stumbling down a set of stairs, clearly confused and disoriented. Builderman outright tumbled straight down the same stairs, much to the momentary distress of Shed.
“‘KAY!” Builder announced, grabbing onto a ledge to pull himself up, brushing Shed away, “WOULD ANYONE LIKE T’ EXPLAIN HOW ‘N WHY WE ARE ALL EXPERIENCIN’ ONLY SOMETHIN’ STARLING SHOULD BE ABLE T’ EXPERIENCE?”
Starling–that was their nickname for her, right? Veeronica made a little ‘ahem’ like she was clearing a throat she didn’t have nor need to clear.
“Are you guys uh…s0m3how l4gging too??” she looked around in confusion.
“You could certainly call it that,” 007 groaned, “Haven’t experienced anything this bad since I was first making the GUI and I messed up on it really badly.”
“I do not enjoy this feeling,” Dusekk held onto his staff for dear life, feet on the floor for once, “It feels like my very core is ringing.”
Elliot cleanly fell off an upper platform, announcing his presence with a loud “OOF–” as he hit the ground.
“...Hey, Double-O, if you somehow caused this I’m going to throw you through the cabin window,” he plainly blinked.
“Why would I cause myself to lag, Elliot??” 007 turned to stare at him with an extremely confused look. Elliot waved his hands around before he shrugged, still on the ground.
“I think it’s uh…in our best interest to at least try to get generators done,” Shed called, taking it one step at a time to get over to a gen, “Try to limit the time we’re here.”
Sixer didn’t even complain, flopping firmly down into the center of the map as the survivors scrambled to end the round quicker.
Vee let out a heavy, bit-crushed sighing noise as she headed to a gen, air huffing through her vents. Hopefully the other rounds of the day would go smoother.
The rest of the group had heard about what happened, but none of them could confirm if it was a one-off experience yet. Tempest was the first map of the day, but it hadn’t shown up again yet, so it was merely a waiting game.
Guest 1337 was making his way through Underground War, trying to ignore the stinging memories that came from the fake corpses strewn about and keeping in mind the fact that the killer hunting them all down was Slasher.
G walked up a ramp, looking around to try to gather his teammates, only to suddenly find himself face-to-face with the masked menace he knew was hunting around the area. Acting on instinct, he expertly deflected a blow from Slasher’s machete, then delivering a punch square to the killer’s face, slamming him against a wall–
And causing him to go absolutely flying. Slasher ricochetted off the wall, comically flying into the air and landing in a heap of limbs on the dirt a bit away, clearly extremely disoriented.
G blinked at him, trying to figure out what just happened.
“...Uh…you good…?” he eventually settled on getting out. He didn’t expect the punch to do that.
Slasher, disoriented, pulled himself to his feet, dusting himself off before he slowly turned to look at G, making a strange hissing noise that G genuinely couldn’t tell if it was good or bad. Slasher shook himself off, suddenly sprinting directly back at G. Not yet prepared for attempting to block again, G took off like a shot, trying to find others to formulate his team back.
After a while of running, he managed to slide nearly right up to Chance, who was in the process of fiddling with his coin and staring annoyed at his flintlock.
“Luck not serving you well?” G tilted his head.
“Tails all the way down,” Chance groaned, “A singular heads at the start of the match.”
“You willing to risk it on one?”
“You of all people know fights mean risk,” Chance shrugged with a sigh, “Guess I gotta go with what I think I can go with.”
G nodded, looking back the way he ran but not seeing Slasher hot on his trail yet.
“So is Two Time in this round?” G hummed, “Usually the two of you are together.”
“Ran off to deal with Slasher,” Chance motioned behind him, “Their respawn is right over h—”
Both of them were cut off by a loud, almost choir-like noise and the muffled sound of a squeak of pain.
“…So I take it that plan didn’t go too well, Times?” Chance called over his shoulder, a grimace still visible from where G stood.
“You good, kid?” G called.
Silence.
“…Times?” Chance called for them again.
“Gambler, Soldier,” came a soft voice, muffled, “I am…uh…currently out of The Spectre’s playing field. Stuck in a narrow little passageway between two barriers.”
…what.
“YOU’RE IN A WALL?!” Chance abruptly shouted
“In layman’s terms, yes!”
G blinked. He then blinked again. What the fuck was happening today.
Chance stared at the wall, very clearly not knowing what to do.
“O…okay,” G stepped forward, “I uh…”
…He did not know how to fix this.
“A…At least you’re safe for the rest of the round??” Chance questioned.
“Isn’t that cheating?” Two Time squeaked.
“S…since when do we care about cheating?? We’re in a death game???”
Chance shook his head, turning to go run off.
“G, keep an eye on—well you can’t exactly do that,” Chance groaned, “Okay just…make sure Times is okay, yeah?”
“I’m quite alright, Gambler!” Two Time called, “Can’t exactly get hurt in here!”
With that, Chance took off running, and G saw him get merely around 20 feet away before he ran directly into Slasher.
G saw Chance clearly state one of their cocky statements before they spun their gun around aiming it with perfect precision.
And then it blew up in their face, killing them near instantly.
Great.
“…Soldier,” Two Time cleared their throat, “Am I correct to assume that our gambler is currently deceased on the field?”
G looked closer, seeing some absolutely baffled body language from Slasher. What was…?
…
Was. Was Chance’s gun somehow stuck endlessly firing?
Slasher motioned down at Chance, staring at G, who just…shrugged. He didn’t know what in the world was happening today.
“They uh…” G started, taking in a breath, “yeah, their gun is sort of…somehow endlessly firing…?”
Two Time was silent for a long while.
“What the fuck?” they eventually stated, voice much louder than expected.
Not even the killers could figure out what in the world was going on.
Sixer had already been through the wringer first thing in the morning, and the last round he was in was also a bust. Not even a single kill, and he could tell The Spectre was disappointed, which was pretty scary.
She was halfway through a leap when the round ended, but the momentum didn’t stop.
They quite literally could not control their speed as they nearly immediately catapulted through the window of the killers’ cabin, earning a collective scream from literally everyone, even if the one from Slasher was only audible if you were directly next to him.
She skittered across the snow, heartbeat in her throat as she nearly immediately went catapulting into the freezing cold lake, the shock of the temperature finally jolting her out of the speed, leaving her to scramble, soaking wet, to the shore, whining like a sad dog and shaking her fur out.
Man :(
Builder was getting tired of this day.
Literally everything was wrong. Could The Spectre please get itself together and fix things?
He was in the middle of setting up his machines when he suddenly heard a yell. A yell he didn’t expect to hear.
…?
Builder slowly but carefully made his way over to where the glitchy screaming was coming from, and he stood there baffled.
Vee was standing there, a look of horror on her screen face as she profusely apologized to…uh. Noli.
“I’M S0RRY DUDE I DIDN’T KN0W TH4T WOULD H4PP3N–”
“H0W 7H3 FUCK DID Y0U D0 7H47?!” Noli, quite literally half-clipped into a rock, waved his arms around wildly.
“I DON’T KNOW I JUST HIT Y0U WITH MY SK4TEBOARD! I’VE D0N3 THAT A HUNDRED TIM3S TO A BUNCH OF KILLERS!”
“WHY I5N’7 0B53RV4N7 W0RKING?!” Noli shrieked. Builder quite literally could not hold back his laughter, leaving Noli yelling at him too, the half-decayed divine desperately trying to wiggle out of his predicament.
“Right right,” Builder took a breath, “Walk me through what’s happenin’ here.”
“He–” Vee looked back and forth between Noli and Builder, “He w4s doing his like…Void Rush thing, and I hi7 him with my sk4t3board, and then he–”
“Y0U CLIPP3D M3 IN70 4 R0CK!!!!!!!!!”
Today was certainly something, wasn’t it?
Being set as the last man alive was always stressful for 007n7.
Dusekkar had put up a good fight, offering to try to run the timer as 007 tried to heal himself.
Suddenly, he felt that terrifying sting, and in his vision, he could see the horribly terrifying glow of John Doe off in the distance through walls, preparing the GUI to throw a cl–
That Was Not The Right Music.
The Spectre loved its music. The killers each had their own little theme. The maps the rounds were played in had idle music. When it was just down to two people left in this song and dance, there was a special song that played. Sometimes, if it was certain pairs, it was an even more special theme.
007 had always hated, with every fiber of his being, that song that chimed out when it was just him up against his son, who was so caught in a delusion that he couldn’t pierce. It writhed through his being like he was being shot.
Now why the fuck was it playing right now ?
Doe caught his eye as he turned the corner, looking equally puzzled despite the explanation that the man basically was not himself.
What .
Why the hell was this playing ???????
The two of them stared at each other for a long while before Doe suddenly seemed to remember he was supposed to be killing, and 007 took off like a shot, darting across the playing field and to a small hall he’d run through hundreds of times at this point on Horror Hotel, stumbling through a digital footprint–
And then like…five more.
What.
He was only supposed to be able to place like ...three at a time ?
He was so puzzled by literally everything that he outright faceplanted, too confused by everything happening to really defend himself before Doe was upon him.
Whatever man.
It was nearly the end of the day when the entirety of the survivor group was gathered outside, each looking at each other incredibly baffled as they explained everything that happened during the entirety of the day.
People found their respective stuns to have way too much knockback [Shedletsky apparently threw 1x1x1x1 nearly halfway across a clearing and without thinking yelled out an apology, and G had pulled off that insane punch at least twice more in the day], found themselves clipped into things [poor Two Time lost track of how many times they were stuck in a wall, and apparently Noli had been the unlucky victim of being clipped at least five more times during the day], or just in general had the strangest things happen to them [the music KEPT MESSING UP SOMEHOW].
The conversation skittered to a stop as the black sky suddenly fizzled into red speckling. The group huddled together, eyes to the sky to keep track of the shape of The Spectre as it flickered in the sky.
“Uh. Sorry about today,” the group caught the vague sight of it rubbing its head with one of its main wings like one would rub their head if they had a headache, “Insane party last night, you had to be there to understand. I guess I messed up the coding before I sent out the rounds today. Should be fixed by tomorrow, you’re off early tonight.”
Then, just as casually as it had appeared, it flickered out of sight.
The group blinked around at each other, trying to figure out how to respond to that.
“...What,” Noob muttered, “the fuck?”
“Agreed,” Builder turned to go back into the cabin without another word.
What the hell even happened today .