ivachism

[ivachism]

Empathy

She was obviously new. He’d never seen her before, which didn’t necessarily mean this was her first trial, but it may as well have been.

Each generator she touched would short at least once. She unhooked others at the wrong time, she ran either too much or too little, and she healed sloppily.

It was no surprise then that she was the first to die. He felt no remorse. If anything, he was doing her team a favor by getting her out of the way.

It was quite some time before he saw her again, not that it was easy to keep track of time in the void. It could’ve been weeks, it could’ve been years.

The entity conducted this particular trial in Legion’s home turf, an abandoned ski lodge on Mt Ormond. The only familiar thing in this alien realm. The chill seeped through his jacket as wisps of snowflakes flurried around him. The cold was one of the few sensations he felt anymore and he enjoyed it immensely; the way it burned his lungs, made his fingers cramp around his blade, and stung his nose.

He immediately set to work, striding through the arena and looking for any sign of movement.

It wasn’t long before he found the survivors, three of them. They scattered like roaches the moment they saw him and the sight sent him into a frenzy. Picking the weakest survivor out of the bunch, like a lion chooses which antelope to hunt down, he gave chase to a rather muscular man with a mean sneer. The man ran with a heavy plod and he evaded poorly.

In the real world, outside of the fog, Frank wouldn’t have gone head to head with the brawny man. Frank wasn’t stupid- his talents didn’t lie in brutal strength. He was more… specialized in his methods, bloodletting being one of those.

But here, in the Entity’s realm… he was strengthened beyond human limits. Frank knew from experience he could easily heft that man onto his shoulder and chuck him up onto a hook with nary a sweat.

Frank was so, so close. His arm was reared back, ready to plunge deep into the man’s retreating back.

His blade descended

…and he was instantly met with a pallet slamming down on him.

The flash of pain snapped him out of his frenzy and he doubled over, vision flickering as the inhuman rush of adrenaline was cruelly snatched away from him.

That was one thing about the Entity. It gave but took at the same time. At a glance, it would seem it favored its killers, but that wasn’t the case at all. It took great pride in always keeping these sick trials as ‘fair’ as possible.

So if Frank was given an amazing power that doubled his speed? Well, the drawback of when he lost that power was what felt like battery acid sizzling through his bloodstream and eating at his brain. Gaining his bearings, he looked up.

The man was nowhere to be seen, but the elusive fourth survivor had been found. She stood across the fallen pallet, staring at him like a doe in the headlights. In the distance, the brawny man was running far away, leaving her to the full brunt of Frank’s attention.

His anger surged, fueled by his frustration of a lost kill, and he juked to the right. She mimicked the action to the left.

Frank sneered beneath his mask. It was going to be one of those games, was it? Unluckily for her, he fed off the chase and was more than happy to oblige her. Fuck protecting the gens. She was falling to his blade, one way or another. She met his concealed gaze one long moment before turning on her heel and sprinting.

He was momentarily taken aback by her speed but was easily goaded into the chase at the sight of her retreating back.

Her improvement was glaringly apparent and he reluctantly acknowledged that she gave him a run for his money. She evaded him with an innate intuition and skill and distantly he admired her. She had become the backbone of her team, looping him around and around as the rest of the survivors took advantage of his split attention and worked on the generators that would lead to their escape. But she could only hold her own against him for so long as his bloodlust grew by the second, fueling his speed.

He dragged his knife down the length of her back. She crumpled to the ground with a squeal, whimpering softly as he wiped her blood from his knife. He met her gaze from behind his mask. The usual expression of a downed survivor when they looked at him varied. It could be terror, disgust, fury, or a combination of them all. He was intimately familiar with each.

So he was surprised when she simply gazed at him with acceptance, resting her cheek on the frozen ground.

Their breathing echoed one another, both heaving from the exertion of their long chase.

Finally he broke the trance she’d put him in, grabbing the back of her jacket and hefting her onto his shoulder with a grunt.

She echoed his sound, wheezing as his shoulder dug into her stomach.

She reached down and grabbed fistfuls of his jacket, bunching the fabric in her pain as he strode towards the nearest hook. Her screech was long and loud as he hefted her onto it and she instinctively tried to curl in on herself. It pierced through her shoulder, the only thing keeping her suspended was her collarbone holding the weight of her entire body.

Frank waited until she calmed down. Once he got another glance of those piercing eyes of hers, he was satisfied.

He continued on his way without looking back. He had survivors to kill. They’d had enough of a head start as it was and they had their dying teammate to thank for that.

-

The rusted hook piercing her body was warm with her blood, the only heat in this chilled hell.

She’d never get used to the pain of being hooked. The only thing that kept her afloat was the knowledge that her friends would come to rescue her eventually. So she grit her teeth, ignored the pain, and held on.

Through some twisted sorcery of the Entity, she was able to see the auras of all of her teammates. It always served as a moment of sweet relief when she would get to see someone rushing to her aid.

Only… no one was coming. One generator, two, three, four dinged with completion, and still no one came for her.

Her hands were beginning to slip on her own blood as the Entity steadily morphed into existence around her.

With a shriek, she just barely caught the descending spider-like leg of the Entity as it tried to pierce through her middle, having to rely solely on the hook to suspend her entire weight.

The agony was almost unbearable as she struggled on the hook and kept her demise away with what little arm strength she had.

It felt like she struggled forever, an eternity of blinding pain.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw someone’s aura approaching her. David. Her split attention cost her as her arms went slack, the muscles refusing to do anymore. Her screech was cut short when strong hands hoisted her from the hook, just barely evading the piercing legs. She sank to the ground, curling into herself and fighting the tears burning in her eyes.

She thought she’d been abandoned. She looked up with eyes swimming in gratitude. He wasn’t looking at her though, not even moving to heal her. He was looking to his right, panicked, and she followed his gaze. Legion rounded the corner abruptly, knife raised high.

He brought it down on her teammate.

At least, he would’ve, if David hadn’t shoved her forward into the killer’s chest.

He just barely stopped his swing, millimeters from her stunned face. Legs weak, she slithered down his body into a bloody tangle of limbs at his feet, stunned speechless.

In the confusion, David took the opportunity to sprint away, leaving her once more to deal with the killer.

It took a few seconds for her sluggish mind to process what the hell just happened and when she did understand she wished she’d just died on that hook. At least then she wouldn’t be aware of the absolute betrayal she’d just suffered from. Her team was going to allow her to die on the hook. And when David had come to rescue her, it was only to use her as bait to aid in his own escape.

It was enough to make her want to cry. She’d done so much for them. Had given her life so many times to save their own. It wasn’t the first time something like this had happened, where one person had to make a tough decision between their survival and another’s. But never had it been so blatantly treacherous, the obvious sacrifice to save his own skin glaringly apparent.

David was long gone and she was left alone with the killer.

She waited for the plunging knife of the brutal killer that stood over her, panting with exertion. Legion, she believed his name was. She’d only ever gone against him once, and that was so long ago that she hardly remembered him. That had been her very first trial, if she remembered correctly.

He stared at her for a long moment before leaning over her prone figure. She flinched harshly and he paused in his movement. When she stilled, more out of pain than trust, he continued reaching forward. His bloody hand combed through her hair, grabbing a fistful of strands and not ungently tilting her head so she could meet his gaze.

She couldn’t stop the breathy whimper that escaped her throat, so quiet that she herself barely heard it.

Legion’s head cocked to the side at the sound, and she felt the weight of his gaze like a physical thing. It was an out-of-body experience to look into the eyes of a killer, just visible through the crude circles of his mask. He slowly knelt, resting his weight on the back of his heels and releasing his hold on her hair, gently setting her limp head back against the ground.

“They left you for dead.”

Her heart stuttered at his voice. She’d never heard a killer talk before, had been half-convinced they were simply mindless servants of the Entity, zombie-like in their mission to kill and incapable of speech. She wondered what he looked like underneath that mask of his. His body was obviously normal from what she could tell. The only thing that distinguished him from a survivor was his mask. Without it, he could easily blend in with the rest of them, sitting amongst them at the campfire. What a scary thought. Surely the entity wouldn’t choose someone so normal looking to be its champion, right?

“Doesn’t that make you angry?” he prodded.

Was it against the ‘rules’ to talk to him? Perhaps it wasn’t a good idea. Honestly though, at this point, she couldn’t be bothered to care. She cleared her throat of blood and rasped, “Not angry.” When she was met with dubious silence, she elaborated. “It just makes me… sad. Betrayal hurts. I helped them and they left me. I don’t understand what I did wrong. I don’t…”

He seemed to mull something over, tapping his knife absentmindedly against his knee.

“Never seen anything like it,” he mused.

She didn’t know how to respond so she simply watched him as he seemed to mull something over.

“Alright,” he sighed, getting to his feet laboriously. She groaned when he grabbed ahold of her arms and dragged her across the frozen ground. He leaned her against a brick wall that semi-enclosed the hook she’d almost died on.

When she bonelessly began to slide to the side, he righted her again. She was struck by the carefulness of his hands, in the way he settled her more comfortably against the wall. Her throat tightened with some strange emotion and her eyes watered when he went to the trouble of straightening her rumpled shirt for her and wiping some of the blood splattered on her cheek away with the back of his wrapped hand.

“Stay here,” he said, looking at her with the single-minded focus of a predator.

She slowly nodded despite her confusion. “Alright…”

He twirled a lock of hair around his finger before rumbling, “Good girl.”

And then he vanished, striding away with the sinewy grace of a leopard and leaving her a blushing, heartbroken mess.

-

There was only one generator left. She expected the alarms of the escape doors to rip through the frozen air any second now. But nothing happened. The only thing she could hear was the agonized screams of her teammates, one by one. Since she wasn’t on the hook, she could no longer see their auras. There was nothing left to do but wait and appreciate one of the few maps not shrouded in total darkness. If she concentrated very hard she swore she could feel some muted sunlight touch her numb cheeks.

By now a sizable puddle of blood had formed around her. Her entire face tingled and her vision faded in and out periodically. It wouldn’t be long before she would bleed out- not the worst way to die in a trial, she supposed.

The crunching of approaching footsteps woke her from her daze. It was Legion, crouching over her. He didn’t pause, wrapping his hands around her waist and leaning forward so her torso could fall over his shoulder.

A groan escaped her as he lifted her. He wrapped his arm around her waist, the other against her side. He completely bypassed several hooks.

Her fuzzy mind didn’t even bother to linger on what he intended to do with her, not when his body heat was seeping through their layers of clothing to warm her in this wretched realm.

She began to wrap her arms around his neck, shifting awkwardly on his shoulder to do so. He stiffened and came to an abrupt stop. “You hurt me and I’ll kill you,” he growled.

She nodded against the crook of his neck. “Okay.” She gently tightened her grip around him, in no way harming him or obstructing his breathing. He remained still for one long, indefinite moment, before he resumed his stride. She lightly held him and enjoyed the simple pleasure of human contact. It made her skin tingle pleasantly. She reasoned that this sudden bout of affection was due to her considerable blood loss, though Legion had nothing to excuse why he was indulging her.

They suddenly emerged into a snowy clearing.

It was a massacre.

Blood, guts, the jarring ivory of bone. It littered the clearing in droves. Two lumps were barely recognizable as human bodies, maimed so badly that it was impossible to tell who they were. Steam swirled in the air from the corpses as their wet gore slowly cooled.

But the third was alive, moaning in pain. David.

He was laid out on the ground much like she’d been when he’d left her to die.

Legion suddenly crouched, leaning forward so her weight slid off his shoulder. The entire world darkened as her head spun. As she adjusted, he balanced her like earlier, making sure she didn’t slump into the dirt.

David only just then noticed the two other presences in the clearing.

“The fuck?” he rasped.

That drew her attention, snapping her out of her daze as quickly as if she’d been stabbed. She was painfully aware of the hostility in David’s eyes and she couldn’t help but feel guilty. She should be helping him, right? No matter if he’d done her wrong, she shouldn’t repeat his evil deed. At least, that’s the way she’d been raised. Don’t respond to negativity with negativity.

But, she thought wryly, her parents probably never factored being in an eternal hellish void into the equation. Perhaps there were loopholes to how kindly she should be treating people.

So she allowed herself just the tiniest bit of satisfaction in seeing her traitorous teammates laid out before her like a gory platter. And the main course? David, broken and bleeding before her as she’d been not half an hour earlier.

And the man that put this all together stood over her, tapping his blade against his collarbone absentmindedly.

He suddenly moved, bending over at the waist to come face to face with her, jarringly close.

“What do you think? Did I do good?”

‘This is amazing. Wonderful. The satisfaction I’m feeling is like a drug. You did God’s work, you sweet, sweet angel,’ she thought.

Of course, she couldn’t say any of that. It was bad enough thinking it- admitting it out loud would condone her beyond salvation.

“What the fuck is this?!” David said again, fury tightening his voice. If his body wasn’t broken, she was sure he’d be tensed, ready for a fight. As it was, however, he looked like an animal in its death throes, defiant till the end. “Did you do this? Make a deal with this sick fuck?” He heaved for breath.

She hoped he was as scared as she had been, just as she hoped he felt the same heartbreaking betrayal that her team had inflicted on her.

Legion, tiring of her silence, sighed and straightened. “Of course, I could help him stand up if you want. Let him get away. You can take his spot on the hook,” he said condescendingly.

That jolted her out of her musings and she looked up at him, shocked.

“Hmm? Gonna be a little saint and forgive him?” He began walking towards David, looking back at her over his shoulder.

“Don’t touch me, you sick bastard,” David snarled as Legion stood above him.

He ignored him in favor of staring at her.

“I’ll take that for a yes,” he said to her silence.

But as he reached down to pull David up, her sharp voice echoed in the still air, rushed and ruthless.

“Wait!”

Legion immediately did as asked, straightening back up with a quiet chuckle.

She couldn’t help but feel like she’d just proven herself to him, had passed some sort of test. She shouldn’t be feeling pride from that, but here she was.

“Sorry bud,” Legion crowed jovially. “Looks like you won’t be getting out of this one.”

David snarled, strained to look in her direction. “This is on you, you fucking cunt. You’re killing me.” To Legion, he sneered, “Why you doin’ it, huh? She give good head?”

In a move as fast as a snake striking, Legion flipped David onto his back and stood over him, legs on either side of him. His voice dropped to a low drawl, icier even than Ormond’s snow. “I don’t tolerate cowards.”

“You fucking bitch,” David snarled, maneuvering to glare at her with pure fury. “You’re going to pay for this! Nobody will trust you after this, stupid cunt, not after I tell them-” his voice sputtered into a wheeze when Legion drove his foot into his stomach, leaning his entire weight into it.

“Don’t ignore me,” he hissed. Looking over his shoulder, his voice suddenly brightened into a coo. “Sit back and watch, sweetheart. I’ll make it extra special for you.”

And he did. He tore into David with a brutality she’d never seen before, hadn’t even thought possible. She lost track of the number of times Legion drove his blade into him. The sharp click of his knife scraping bone could be heard even over the sound of David’s screeches.

Legion drove his blade deep into David’s heart, wrapped both hands around the hilt, and threw his entire weight backward to open up his chest cavity.

The silence that followed was deafening.

Legion sat back on David’s thighs and stared up at the sky, shoulders slumping. He looked blissed-out, chest heaving for breath and covered in blood.

That picture would be forever ingrained in her mind.

She wasn’t sure how to feel. She was the reason David was now a steaming pile of mush. It was her fault. But that wasn’t what made her queasy. What made her feel sick to her stomach was the satisfaction she felt during the entire act. She felt… amazing. Justified, avenged, a moment of instant karma that she got to be privy to.

And the person she had to thank was lolling his head to the side to take in her reaction.

Whatever he saw, it made him chuckle. “Glad you liked it.”

She should’ve argued, denied it. Instead, “Thank you,” she whispered, voice heavy with sincerity. “Thank you.”

Legion went still as stone. She wondered how long it had been since he’d been shown even a sliver of gratitude. He’d probably not done much to prompt any of it, of course, but this was different. This went beyond teasing the entity; it was a denial of its very rules set into place. And even if he used the entire situation as an excuse to inflict more brutality than normal, it was still in the name of making a situation right.

It made her want to cry.

Everything briefly went black and when she opened her eyes, Legion was standing over her prone body, head tilted to the side.

“Blood loss,” she murmured, pale as a ghost and becoming paler by the second. She didn’t have much longer.

“Better make this quick then.” His voice was barely audible over the ringing in her ears. “Arms.”

She lifted them obediently and he ducked his head through them, allowing her to wrap them around his neck as he lifted her. She was more than grateful when he held her to his chest instead of hefting her over his shoulder. In this position she could rest her head against him. His bloody clothes didn’t bother her in the slightest, instead serving as a reminder of the deed he’d done for her. And he was so warm. The solid beat of his heart was her own personal lullaby as she timed her breaths with his in perfect synchronicity.

She turned her body into him as much as possible. The saccharine sweetness of human contact made her heart ache.

She was so tired and dizzy that she didn’t bother with tensing in his arms as they approached a hook. He deserved it, she thought, her sacrifice being the only thing she could offer in return for his deeds- no matter how bloody or unasked for they were. She came back to consciousness when he jostled her lightly in his arms. She hadn’t even realized she’d fallen asleep.

“Staying with me?”

“Not quite,” she slurred. Out of the corner of her eye she saw a hook. “There’s one,” she said, nodding in its direction. “I don’t have much longer. The entity won’t be as pleased if I die from blood loss rather than being hooked.”

“You’re an eager one, aren’t you? Why would a survivor care about whether the entity is happy with a killer?”

“You’re not just a killer. Not anymore. Not to me.”

He was silent for a long, long time, though he never stopped walking.

“Hey,” she said, moving weakly in his hold. “You passed it.”

“If you really think I’m going to kill you after going through all that effort, you’re going to need to get your head checked, sweetheart.”

If she had the blood to spare, she imagined it would be flooding her cheeks at that moment. What was with him and his little pet names? Very un-killery.

She decided she liked it.

-

“Where’s the fucking hatch…” he hissed under his breath, looking around vainly.

She was becoming dead weight in his arms, head lolling back to dangle over his arms. He shifted her so her head rested once more against his chest, reaching a hand up to hold her head in place. Her hair was soft as silk.

“I swear to god if you die on me…”

She chuckled breathlessly. “That’s an odd thing for a killer to say.”

“I thought I wasn’t just any old killer?”

She smiled. Her lips were blue. “That’s true.”

Her eyelids were beginning to flutter and he felt helpless for the first time in as long as he could remember. The one fucking time he actually decided to let someone live and he couldn’t even do it. Was this the work of the entity enforcing the rules of its little game? That killers and survivors weren’t meant to interact?

“It’s okay,” she murmured as if reading his thoughts. “I don’t mind. You’ve done enough for me.”

He frowned down at her.

“Hey, what’s your name?” he asked, cradling her limp body closer and ducking his face closer to hers.

She gave it through numb lips and he repeated it.

“You’re Legion, right?”

He chuckled softly. “That’s one of our names.”

“Our?”

Balancing her in one arm, he used the other to lift his mask just enough for her to see his smirk. “Just call me Frank, sweetheart.”

She mirrored his expression, eyes creasing with a heartbreakingly genuine smile.

She died in his arms with one last warm exhale.

-

She woke up once more at the campfire, and he in a different realm of Mt. Ormond.

There was a weightlessness in both of their hearts as the trial disappeared from reality, swept away by the Entity.

It was one of the most pleasant experiences they’ve had ever since arriving in this hellish realm.

She would remember him as her savior, and he would remember her as his second chance at redemption, to be something more than was expected of him.

That damn smile of hers haunted him long into his dreams, just like her skin still tingled pleasantly from his touch, warmth, and rare act of kindness.

[ivachism]

[me, gently pulling worms from the dirt] and ur evicted and ur evicted and ur e

[ivachism]

[ivachism]

[ivachism]

Life imitates art.