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lucky-clover-gazette · 11 months

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The Past is Beyond Our Control

Chapter 1: A Sheep in Wolves' Clothing

Rated T | Vio/Shadow | Modern Slasher AU (Heavily Inspired by Until Dawn (2015) | 4,241 words, more soon

"Six."

“Fuck me,” Vio groans as he finally grips the handle. Is he seriously about to run from a real-life actual murderer through a creepy basement, all while barefoot and wearing a fluffy purple robe?

“Five.”

Yes, Vio decides, ripping the door open. Yes, I am.

My entry for @fsfrightfight week 3! Look out for the second chapter next week. I apologize for posting like this, but the first half of my October was insane. Glad I can share work I'm genuinely happy with, now that I have a bit more time on my hands.

Read it on AO3 (RECOMMENDED) or under the cut (with author's warnings AT THE END):

11:04 P.M.

Coming tonight was a bad idea.

Vio pulls the fluffy purple robe tighter around himself as he pokes his head out the door. “Seriously, guys?” he shouts, to no immediate answer. “Even the scrunchie?”

Vio runs a hand through his hair, still damp at the edges from his bath. Great. He’s stuck for the night in a creepy massive lodge on an isolated snowy mountain, owned by the parents of a friend whose brother mysteriously disappeared one year ago. One year exactly, actually, hence the group reuniting while home their own families on college break.

It still makes no sense that Shadow would invite them all to return for the anniversary, but Vio just couldn’t bring himself to refuse. Not when it had been Shadow asking, and not when he still felt partially responsible for Link’s death.

Even with his low hopes for the evening, he still found himself disappointed. The second they all entered the lodge, after a long and cold walk from the cable car station, Zelda and Blake had been immediately at each other’s throats. Reed gets, like, exhaustingly emotional any time Shadow speaks, and Shadow is being weirdly avoidant despite him being the one to invite them all back. It’s cold, everyone either hates or feels indifferent towards each other, and the memory of Link—now assumed dead—looms over them all.

So Vio took a bath to avoid their bullshit. Sue him.

“Blake?” Vio calls into the dark hallway. The lodge is simultaneously open-concept and cramped, with a second floor revolving around the lower foyer’s fireplace and massive chandelier. Vio looks over the railing and furrows his brow. Where the others had been arguing around the fireplace just an hour or two ago, there is only darkness. “Reed?”

Vio flicks the hallway light switch, only to be confront by a single red balloon floating near the stairs. “What the hell?”

A grandfather clock chimes loudly. Vio thinks of the jumpscares in horror games he, Shadow, and occasionally Link used to play in middle school.

Shaking his head, Vio steels his nerves. He passes the balloon on his way down the stairs, half-expecting for the others to perform a jumpscare of their own.

“Guys?” Vio calls out again, his voice weaker than before. Not scared, but not exactly annoyed, either. Unnerved, for good reason—the lodge’s main floor is empty, dark, silent, and cold.

He spots another balloon across the foyer, next to a closed door. The home movie theater, Vio recalls from years of staying with the Farore twins over winter break. A chill runs down his back as he opens the door.

More silence and darkness greet him. Vio reaches for his phone to use its flash, but realizes that it must have been confiscated along with his clothing.

“Oh, come on!”

He turns to go back upstairs, but faces a closed door. Vio releases a startled yelp and reached for the handle, but somehow…

“I wouldn’t bother with that,” mocks an unfamiliar voice. It echoes around the room from an unseen origin, so distorted that the speaker is unidentifiable.

Vio stumbles backwards, bumping up against a leather recliner.

“I have so much to show you,” the voice promises. The giant screen comes to life, illuminating the framed posters from Mr. Farore’s most famous horror films. It seems to show some kind of camera feed, although it can’t possibly be live. Vio watches himself, from just a few hours ago, hiking up the mountain trail in a heavy winter coat.

“What the fuck?” Vio exclaims, gripping the nearby seat.

“A lost little lamb,” the voice narrates with almost deranged fondness. “Do you think he has any idea of what lies ahead?”

Vio watches himself leave the frame. “Why are you showing me this?” he cries, yanking on the locked doorknob.

“Why are you watching?”

The shot abruptly cuts to a new location and subject. Vio forgets his escape at the sight of Shadow, restrained against a wooden board in dingy dark shed. He struggles against the ties, glancing over to Blake, tied up in the same manner beside him.

“Shadow!” Vio cries as the modulated voice speaks again. Not to him, though—to them.

“Now for this experiment,” the voice says, “we'll need the cooperation of our two test subjects, Blake and Shadow.”

They both cry out in fear and rage, completely helpless. The camera pans away from them, now focusing on—

“Reed!” calls out Blake, shaking in his bonds. “Holy shit, get me out of here!”

The kindest of Link’s former friends stands behind metal bars, paralyzed in front of a large metal lever.

“But we’re going to need our brave participant to help decide,” the voice calmly continues, “which test subject will live… and which will die.”

Vio slams a hand over his mouth. Now visible in the shot is… is a fucking circular saw, on a track, which splits between Blake and Shadow. Both of them continue to panic, the camera fully fixed on their reactions.

“Shadow,” Vio says, his throat dry. Is this happening right now? Has it already happened?

Will it happen to him next?

“Please,” the voice says, with good humor. “Please please, everyone calm down. It's all very simple, Reed. All you have to do... is choose who you will save!”

There’s a loud noise as the saw begins to move, the grinding of metal almost drowning out the screams. Many thoughts run through Vio’s brain, but none of them matter—this is Reed’s choice, and it’s obvious who he will pick.

“I’m sorry, Shadow,” he says, pulling the lever in Blake’s direction. “I’m really sorry!”

Vio winces as the saw changes its track. Shadow’s screams echo through the room as sharp blades meet flesh, producing the exact sort of viscera one would expect from such an interaction.

As in, it cuts the man in half.

“I’m going to give you ten seconds,” the voice informs Vio, reminding him of his own predicament. “Nine…”

“No,” Vio whimpers, trying the door again. Still locked. “No, no, no…”

“Eight.”

There’s another door in this room, Vio remembers, reaching through the darkness behind the seats. It doesn’t lead upstairs, but it will get him the hell out of this room.

“Seven.”

If he could ever actually find the goddamn door.

“Six.”

“Fuck me,” Vio groans as he finally grips the handle. Is he seriously about to run from a real-life actual murderer through a creepy basement, all while barefoot and wearing a fluffy purple robe?

“Five.”

Yes, Vio decides, ripping the door open. Yes, I am.

The door behind him bursts open, revealing a sliver of light and a person’s silhouette. “Vio,” says the killer, his voice still modulated behind some kind of Halloween mask. He holds a large metal cylinder at his side, and clearly doesn’t intend to keep his ten-second promise.

Vio screams.

“Vi-o,” the maniac repeats in a singsong voice. His movement appears to be somewhat slowed by the weight of the heavy object.

“Shut up!” Vio growls, picking up a nearby vase and throwing it in his pursuer’s direction. He doesn’t stick around to see the aftermath, slamming the door behind him and entering the depths of Farore Lodge.

─────────────────

8:39 P.M.

They make their way down the basement stairs, leaving the others to argue in the foyer.

“Still use that home theater?” Vio asks, glancing over his shoulder at the room behind them. “You and your parents?”

Shadow smirks just a little, immediately calmer and much more like himself. This whole evening, he’s had an energy Vio can only describe as manic—forced enthusiasm that’s deeply off-putting, especially given the occasion.

“Mom and Dad don’t come up here anymore,” says Shadow.

“But you’ve been living up here for a while, like a gap year?”

“Sure. Like a gap year.”

Silence falls between them, again. Ever since Vio went away to college, things have been silent. And even before that, after Link’s disappearance… Shadow hadn’t exactly stayed in touch.

“You know, Vio,” says Shadow, just a hint of playfulness in his voice.

Vio matches it with a small smile. “Yes, Shadow?”

“I just wanted to say…”

“What?”

“It really means a lot to me that everyone came back this year. And y’know… that you came, Vi.”

Vio softens at the sentiment, despite his discomfort with the overall situation. “Shadow,” he says, “I’m here for you, really. Whatever you need, whenever. I understand that you might have needed your space this past year, but—”

“Watch your step,” Shadow warns, holding out an arm to stop him. So much for sentimentality.

“I think I can handle a set of stairs,” Vio scoffs. He pushes it away as they reach the basement.

Shadow opens the boiler cabinet and get straight to work, leaving Vio to look around. He and the Farores hadn’t spent a lot of time down here during their adolescent years, save for a few games of spooky hide-and-seek. Shadow and Link’s parents had always discouraged the boys from going beneath the lodge, and the boys mostly obeyed. It was all pretty much just storage down there—props from Mr. Farore’s horror films, Shadow had said, which were not dangerous but were very, very expensive. At some point Link had also mentioned a hotel or something down there too, connecting the lodge to the abandoned asylum on the other side of the mountain.

Seriously. Creepy basement.

“Sorry to drag you into the bowels,” Shadow tells Vio, surprisingly competent with the equipment. Although, Vio reminds himself, Shadow has always been good with mechanical stuff.

“Bowels,” he says, wrinkling his nose. “Gross.”

“You’re cute.” The response is automatic, which Shadow seems to regret. He clears his throat and tries again. “I just wouldn’t want you coming down here by yourself, y’know?”

“It’s definitely creepy down here,” admits Vio.

“Yep,” Shadow teases. “Not a place to be on your own.”

─────────────────

11:16 P.M.

Vio almost trips on that damn step.

“Shit,” he says, narrowly avoiding the hazard as the killer rips the door open above him. Vio thinks fast, cloaked enough in darkness to hide but not with enough time to make it much further. He presses himself against a pillar by the water heater, where he’d just been with Shadow only hours ago.

─────────────────

8:44 P.M.

“What’s this doing here?” Vio asks, reaching behind a nearby pillar. He spins the wooden sword in his hand and then points it in Shadow’s direction. “I haven’t seen this thing in years.”

Shadow’s expression shifts at the sight of it, a strange mixture of fondness and sadness. “Guess it’s been a while since we play-fought. I dunno, things just end up down here sometimes, especially if they’re not being used. Not sure where Link’s went, though. Not that it really matters.”

Vio’s face falls. He lowers the sword. “Shadow—”

“I know,” Shadow says, holding up a hand. “Save it for the couch.”

─────────────────

11:19 P.M.

It’s still there.

“Why are you hiding?” asks the killer as he makes his way down to the boiler room. That metal cylinder, whatever it is, hits each stair as he goes.

Vio weighs the wooden sword in his hand. No blade, of course, but it has some heft. He holds it against his chest and presses himself even tighter against the pillar.

“Why prolong the inevitable, Violet?”

Vio flinches at that. No one calls him Violet anymore, unless it’s on a legal document. He wouldn’t call it a deadname exactly, but there’s only one person who’s ever said it in a way that actually felt right.

Zero now, though, because Vio just watched that person get cut in half.

“Gotcha,” says the killer, peeking around the side of the pillar. He yanks the struggling Vio backwards against his chest, trying to keep him still. “So sorry.”

Vio freezes as a plastic mask is pressed against his face. It’s easy to recognize the familiar sensation of nitrous oxide, but this seems to be significantly more potent than what he’d get at the dentist. He’s terrified to realize that he’s getting dizzy already.

Weakly craning his head, Vio is finally able to get a good look at Shadow’s murderer. A cheap Halloween mask obscures his features, but it’s not your average creepy clown or werewolf. It’s like… some kind of demented elf, with a pointed head and a goatee. What the hell was it called on the package, Guy You Definitely Don’t Want to Talk To at the Renn Faire?

Vio isn’t sticking around to find out.

Channeling every ounce of strength he has left, he shoves the wooden sword backwards into his attacker’s gut. The masked killer doubles over in pain, releasing him with a monstrous roar.

Vio’s head feels fuzzy as he runs across the boiler room-slash-cellar. He reaches for the door, but—of fucking course—

“Are you kidding me? NO HANDLE?!”

Removed and hidden, probably by Mrs. Farore, to keep the teens from exploring any further. Vio has to improvise.

The wine rack—he can work with that. Vio yanks it downwards, creating an obstacle for his pursuer. Among puddles of wine and broken glasses, a small metal object clatters to the floor.

“A-ha!” Vio sticks the handle back into place, passes the threshold, and locks the door behind him. The killer slams himself against it, but it’s not long before he gives up on that particular approach. His noises cease, leaving breathing heavily in an unfamiliar room.

His mind is clearing, which is good, because it’s pretty much all he has. He left his sword back near the boiler.

Vio turns to assess his current location, no longer familiar from his years of staying at the lodge. He sees a very dirty bed and a very broken dresser—must be one of the abandoned hotel rooms. One door to his left, and another straight ahead. The killer could, hypothetically, be making his way to either right now.

Vio moves forward. If this is a hotel, the door to the left likely leads to a bathroom. He’d be like a sitting duck in there.

His chosen path leads him to a long hallway, lined with several more doors and what looks like a defunct elevator. It’s one of those old-timey cage ones, with it cab stuck just a few feet above the bottom of the shaft.

He feels a hand over his mouth.

“Vio,” says the killer, noticeably out of breath. “Vi, holy shit, just let me—”

Vio bites.

The killer rears backwards, his mask shifting slightly and obstructing his vision. Vio sees his chance and literally runs with it.

He heads down the hall, but doesn’t go through a door. Instead, he slides through the crack beneath the elevator cab, pressing up against the wall at the bottom of the shaft.

Don’t move, Vio thinks to himself. Don’t. Fucking. Move.

From the hallway above, he hears loud pacing. The sound of doors slamming open and shut. Various curses and grunts of frustration.

And finally, thankfully, impossibly—

“FUCK!”

The footsteps reside. The hallway falls silent.

Vio stays still for the next twenty minutes.

─────────────────

11:44 P.M.

One Year Ago

Vio had been perfectly happy reading.

“We know your secret, bookworm,” Blake teases, holding the paperback out of his reach. The lodge’s warm fire illuminates Vio’s scowl.

“What the hell are you talking about?” he demands, looking from Blake to Grant to Zelda to Reed—his ‘friends,’ or rather Link’s friends, invited to the lodge for a weekend of teenage shenanigans.

“We’re helping you with your crush,” Reed enthuses, a little tipsy but earnest nonetheless. “It’s going to be soooo sweet. Like a movie!”

Vio raises an eyebrow, only growing more suspicious. They’re all high school seniors, can’t they be done with the stupid hormonal preteen nonsense? “I don’t have a—”

“Listen,” interrupts Grant, leaning slightly forward towards Vio. “We know you like him. And he obviously likes you. Prom is soon, don’t you want a date?”

“You have no idea what I want.”

“Aw,” Zelda smirks, cocking her head slightly. “I think he’s blushing.”

Reed elbows her. “Don’t be mean!”

“You don’t even have to lift a finger,” Grant continues, just as much a leader here as Link says he is on the lacrosse field. “We’ve arranged it all for you. Left him a little note on your behalf, told him to meet you in the guest bedroom at midnight, alone.”

“A promposal in the moonlight,” Reed swoons. “It’s perfect.”

Vio shoots out of his seat. “This is extremely inappropriate. You people have no idea—”

“We people might not have years of friendship with the Farores,” Blake says, “but we still care about them. And they talk to us about stuff.”

The implication, Vio knows, is that he is ‘stuff.’ A Farore has a crush on him, and he’s been running his mouth about it to his friends. Which Farore, Vio could easily guess—the same one he’s been secretly crushing on since eighth grade.

“It’s none of your business,” Vio argues, balling his fists at his sides. “Even if I… had feelings for him, I’d want to tell him on my own terms. Or he should tell me.”

Reed’s face falls, but Blake seems unfazed. “Too late. He’ll be there now, waiting for you.”

The grandfather clocked chimes midnight, as if on cue.

Vio wants to bicker more with these near-strangers, to explain how serious his feelings really are compared to their trivial promposal nonsense, and to make them feel terrible for assuming they could try to intervene. But Blake is right about at least one thing—it’s too late now. Vio’s crush is waiting for him, and he needs to minimize the damage of this ‘prank’ as best he can.

“You guys suck,” he tells the four, turning on his heel.

“Have fun!” Zelda enthuses, giggling. Vio flips her off and heads for the guest bedroom.

─────────────────

11:44 P.M.

Now

Eventually, Vio finds the courage to leave the elevator shaft. But with one or more of his ‘friends’ dead and a killer on the loose, it seems foolish to head back the way he came.

He knows that these hallways eventually connect to the abandoned asylum on the other side of the mountain. He could escape through there, hide out for the night, but then what? It isn’t like a serial killer is just going to give up at dawn. And who even knows what’s inside that asylum, or in the woods? There could be, like, wolves or bears or something.

Hiding or fleeing still seem like better options than fighting, though. Vio isn’t a fighter, he’s a thinker—but still, he probably can’t exactly out-think a murderer. Especially not one so meticulous with his use of audio, video, and elaborate death traps.

But something does still tug at him. During the chase, the killer was presented with several opportunities to quickly kill Vio. He could have strangled him, snapped his neck, or hit his head with the heavy metal gas canister. But instead, for some reason, the masked man had been determined to knock Vio out.

If only he had shown Shadow the same courtesy.

“Oh, shit,” Vio groans, finally glancing down at the ancient hotel carpet. Bloody footprints, in a steady trail, lead back the way both Vio and the killer came. With the amount of blood Shadow produced, Vio wouldn’t be surprised if his murderer is still tracking it around.

Oh Jesus Christ, it’s Shadow’s blood.

Vio refuses to let himself picture the most recently deceased Farore son, who went silent for nearly a year after his brother’s disappearance. However Vio had felt about Shadow before Link’s presumed death, none of it mattered after. And now it matters even less, because Shadow is dead too.

He supposes he should be more concerned about the others. If the killer has given up on him for now, does that mean he’s now hunting Grant, Blake, Reed, and Zelda? Vio doesn’t like any of those assholes, but he doesn’t want them murdered, either.

But… he isn’t about to throw himself in harm’s way to save them. At least, not right now. There had only been one person present at the beginning of this nightmare that Vio would have fought to protect, and his blood is staining the carpet.

“NO! NO, NO, NO!”

Vio freezes at the sound of a voice—his own voice, panicked cries from the theater playing on repeat.

What the actual fuck?

He picks up a fallen wooden beam, complete with a nail sticking out the end. Vio isn’t sure if he’ll be able to stomach using it, but hopefully he won’t have to.

He has to know. This is just too weird.

He follows the path of footsteps back into the hotel room, where it continues back towards the cellar. But other footsteps diverge, leading through the side door Vio hadn’t taken the first time.

The sound of his voice is coming from there.

Taking a deep breath, Vio pushes it open. It is indeed a small conjoined bathroom, leading to another bedroom. Vio slowly approaches a chair in the center of the space, only lowering his weapon once close enough to examine its occupant.

The killer has tied up a mannequin wearing Vio’s clothes—the same clothes he’d been wearing before he dozed off in the bath, whose absence leave him so vulnerable now. Beside the chair, a small speaker blasts his cries for help.

Vio was supposed to be bait. That’s why the killer wanted to knock him out. And in Vio’s absence, he improvised using a prop from one of Mr. Farore’s films.

It was smart, Vio has to admit.

Too bad he’s smarter.

Back in his jeans, sweater, and boots, Vio feels much more prepared to indulge his rising suspicions. Something is definitely wrong here, and it’s not just the murder.

“Oh, right,” Vio mutters, giving the mannequin a final once-over. He retrieves his scrunchie from its wrist and ties up his hair. “Okay, yeah, I can do this.”

Pointy beam in hand again, Vio follows the footsteps into another hallway down some more stairs. It’s completely silent down here, which honestly might be scarier than any kind of ambient noise.

He seems to have found himself in some kind of utility area. While the other parts of the hotel were decrepit and abandoned, Vio can still imagine them looking nice in their prime. Here? Not so much. These interconnected rooms are clearly not meant to be seen by guests.

But the killer has been down here recently, if he isn’t already here now. Again, Vio considers turning back— but more and more, he begins to question the danger of what lies ahead.

The first room he walks past is a meat locker. A freshly-gutted pig hangs on a rack, its blood dripping onto the tile floor. Footsteps, of course, lead in and out of the doorway.

The second room is not at all like a bloody meat locker. It’s strangely modern, full of modern equipment and furnishings. The surfaces aren’t dusty at all. There’s even a mini-fridge.

“Oh, no,” Vio mutters, examining a blueprint pinned to a corkboard. It depicts what the creator crudely named a ‘death machine’—a long board with straps, hooked up to a track with a saw. A fake prop torso is attached, beneath a hole for someone’s head to poke through.

Under the blueprint, Vio finds a stack of newspapers. He startles at the headline, which is accompanied by an image of Link’s year-old missing person poster.

SUSPECTED KILLER ON FARORE MOUNTAIN - COULD HE BE RESPONSIBLE FOR LOCAL TEENAGER’S DISAPPEARANCE?

“They’re fake,” Vio says, glancing down at an invoice from a printer. “It’s all made up. How could he—”

He winces at a nearby buzz. A very familiar phone rests on the workbench, its black case decorated with a pop-socket shaped like a ghost.

Vio still remembers the passcode—although in this case he kind of wishes he didn’t.

The most recent text is from someone named ‘Dr. Arrghus,’ who appears to have been communicating with the phone’s owner for a few months. Vio scrolls back to the beginning of the current day, trying to get a gist of the conversation between them.

1:34 P.M. A: Hi Greyson, it’s Dr. Arrghus. I hope you don’t mind me texting you, but this is important. I got your email. I don’t think that your plan is going to help. I think you need to stop what you’re doing and come to see me. 4:13 P.M. A: Please, pick up your phone. I’m getting worried. G: LEAVE ME ALONE A: When is the last time you’ve spoken to a person in real life? G: I’m fine. People coming later today A: I am concerned about your safety and theirs. 6:48 P.M. A: Greyson? 12:00A.M. A: Greyson, please respond.

Vio drops the phone, his hands shaking.

Holy shit, Shadow has lost his mind.

Holy shit, Shadow is ALIVE.

“I have to tell the others,” Vio says, because of course he does, what other option is there?

A response comes in the form of the pop and fizz of an opened soda tab. Vio turns to face the would-be killer, now unmasked, offering him a can of chilled root beer.

“Are you sure you need to tell them?”

Specific warnings of possibly upsetting things, but some are pretty spoilery. I HIGHLY encourage you to skip over if you want this to be experienced as intended:

A character has their clothing taken while bathing and wears a bathrobe for the majority of the first chapter. There is a reason this happens, and the character is not sexually harassed.

Gore is mentioned but not described in any detail.

Someone attempts to knock out a person with gas by forcing a mask onto them, but they're quickly fought off.

A character sees a disemboweled pig. Again, not described in detail.