Chapter Text
༺Chapter 2༻
Jake sat cross-legged before the fire when they entered the clearing, leaning against the log behind him. However, as the three emerged from the forest, he slowly rose, eyeing the newcomer with suspicion.
"A new one?" Jake inquired warily, his gaze fixed on the man who had followed them back.
Dwight nodded somberly, returning to his seat on the log across from him. The memory of the flashlight he'd inadvertently dropped into the creek, most likely a soggy useless mess by now, made him frown sourly.
"You lot gonna let me in on what the hell's going on yet?" The man responsible for the unfortunate loss hesitated at the treeline, reluctant to step closer as he surveyed the campsite. "I didn't come for a sit-down. I thought you'd give me a hand gettin' out of this place."
Dwight listened silently from his seat as Claudette tried to slowly explain the nature of the nightmare to the newcomer. She did the best she could, delicately starting with the most impossible truth to accept. There was no way out, not even in death. Dwight didn't have to look at the man to sense his wary disbelief, accompanied by a layer of distrust as he took in their appearances in the new light, clothes marred with dirt and blood.
"Enough," the newcomer abruptly interrupted Claudette just when she’d begun to mention the trials, and Dwight’s eyes flickered over to him when he heard him take a crunching step back towards the forest. “I’ve had enough of this. You people are insane.”
"If you go back out there, you're just gonna..." Dwight's words trailed off as the man vanished into the trees. "...wind up back here."
Unsurprisingly, the British man re-emerged on the campsite's far side a mere five or six minutes later, a mixture of surprise and mild disconcertion now playing across his features. They watched in silence as he muttered to himself, knowing little could be done.
"Must've taken a wrong turn somewhere."
Without another word, he turned and hastened in the opposite direction, arm quickly brushing a tree branch out of the way.
Content on learning the hard way.
When he emerged from the forest for the second time, his appearance was disheveled, pace abruptly halting as he reentered the clearing.
"We tried to tell you," Claudette offered this time, tone laced with sympathy. "It doesn't matter which way you go. You'll always end up back here."
The stranger stared at her, taking a small step back.
"That's... that's impossible."
He swiftly pivoted and started running, vanishing again, and the third time he reappeared and came to a stumbling halt, he remained silent, only turning to bolt back into the shrouded darkness. Bleakly, no one said a word. Watching new survivors acclimate was as saddening as it was depressing. The anxious disbelief that usually accompanied new survivors always left a bitter taste in the mouth, a fresh reminder of one’s own hopelessness.
It was hard not to let it get you down.
Dwight sighed, shifting his attention to the fire. At this rate, they wouldn't even have a chance to explain the rules of survival to the newcomer. He likely wouldn't make it through the next trial with them, destined to be reset and recycled into another group, condemned to repeat the cycle until someone managed to instill some sense in him.
And judging by what Dwight had seen so far, that would no doubt take a lot.
The next time the new survivor emerged from the woods, it was accompanied by a curse, and once again, he urgently disappeared into the trees, until he came walking out one final time, carrying a forlorn look of disbelief that bordered on dismal acceptance.
To Dwight's surprise, this time he didn’t turn to run back into the hellish loop. Instead, he approached the logs, breathing still fast, and he unexpectedly settled down on the seat right next to Dwight, half falling in shock.
"You weren't jokin'," he stated aloud in a hushed tone of disbelief. "I thought you were 'avin' a laugh. Pullin' some sort of prank..."
Dwight shook his head, his gaze fixed on the campfire."... I wish it were," he replied quietly. "I'm sorry."
“It doesn't make any damn sense," the man continued, his voice still laced with bewilderment as he stared forward numbly at the flames. "...None of it makes any damn sense."
Dwight nodded.
"Welcome to the survivors club," Dwight remarked with weak sarcasm in his words. It seemed it was his turn to try to bring the new survivor back to a baseline of acceptance, but he hardly knew where to begin, and he doubted he could do much better than anyone else. There wasn’t much that could bring ease to those swallowed by the fog, and it would surely only get worse. "It's uh... not a great time. And there's a lot you still don't know. A lot of... not great things."
A brief silence hung in the air, and it dawned on Dwight that he didn't even know this newcomer's name. That seemed like a better place to start.
“I’m Dwight, by the way,” he offered meekly, his gaze briefly shifting sideways at the man beside him. The moment he met his darkly intense eyes though, watching him suspiciously from the corner of his eye, Dwight averted his gaze to the others, motioning vaguely. “That's Claudette and Jake.”
The man didn’t say anything to this, only looking frontward again as he placed his elbows on his knees and sat forward, lifting his arms to cover his eyes with the sides of his clasped hands in a slow, deliberate motion. Dwight felt a pang of awkwardness. Just because he understood the difficulty of finding oneself in the entity's realm, didn't mean he exactly knew how to comfort others, and he painfully tried to keep up the one sided conversation.
“...We uh, showed up here just like you did. Freaked out just as much. Well, worse, in my case. You do get used to it, though. Sort of.”
He mumbled something into his hand, and Dwight regarded him with curiosity. "What?"
"David," he responded, letting out a quiet exhale before speaking louder. "Name's David King."
David lifted his head, casting a skeptical look at Dwight, seemingly thinking for a few seconds before asking, "What the hell are you all on about, anyways? Get used to what?"
"This place," Jake chimed in this time, and David glanced at him as he gestured toward the surroundings, "it's more like a waiting area. Soon enough though, the fog comes, and the trial will start."
"Trial?" David echoed doubtfully, blinking. "Is this some kind of fucked up television show? Like one of them reality telly programs?"
It was Claudette’s turn to speak, and she did so with a small laugh. "No. It's worse," She took a deep breath, crossing her arms and hugging herself against a chill as she hunched forward towards the warmth of the fire. Her dark eyes became somber, light reflecting off of them as violent memories flashed behind them. "In every trial, there's a person, sometimes not even that, sometimes they're worse, like, like—"
"Monsters," Jake interjected, and she nodded in agreement.
Dwight stole a curious glance at the newcomer, finding obvious doubt etched across his face. His lip were curled, as if he were on the brink of protesting to protect his own sense of rationality.
Frankly, Dwight couldn't blame him.
“They’re strong, inhumanly strong. Sometimes they have weapons or impossible abilities, and they use them to hunt you. You can’t fight back. Escaping is the only way to live, and working together is the best way to survive,” Claudette continued, “and the only way to escape is to repair power generators and find an exit gate. We can show you how. But we can’t promise to keep you safe. Newcomers are usually the first to get hurt. If you stick with us though your chances are better.”
David's expression shifted from skepticism to slow anger as she spoke, and when she finished he stood, his hands clenched tightly at his sides.
"What the hell are you talkin’ about?" He demanded, his voice growing more forceful. "This some sort of threat then, is it?"
No one answered this time, for the air around everyone's legs began to grow cold. They exchanged looks, and one by one, they followed each other's darkening glances down. Dwight felt the familiar chill that ran up his spine without fail each time he caught sight of the dark fog rolling in, slowly spilling in with its promise of punishment.
The expressions around the fire grew grim, save for David, who seemed more angrily confused than anything.
"What the…” he muttered as he backed away from the encroaching fog at his feet, nearly tripping back over the log behind him before half shouting “What the fuck is this?"
David's eyes flickered with fear for the first time as the fog closed in around them, a stark contrast to the reserved exhaustion present on the other three survivors as they stood in unison.
Dwight let out a tired sigh. They had barely had a moment's rest since the last trial, but there was no choice in the matter. "The trial is starting," he explained as he put a hand on the log and pushed himself to his feet.
Although he really didn't want to, he reached into his pocket and stepped forward to approach the new survivor.
"Here—" Dwight began, but stopped short when David turned sharply to face him with a flinch, clearly on the brink of fight or flight. Dwight raised up a reassuring hand, really not wanting to be on the other side of the fists that had already come close to pummeling him once before. "It's alright, just…here. Take this."
David watched suspiciously as Dwight slowly pulled a knotted piece of fabric from his pocket and held it out. Giving it up wasn't a wise move, but David would need it more than him, and he was the only one without an item or an offering. At this point, he’d need every bit of help he could get. However, David didn't reach for the cloth, and Dwight gave it a nervous push toward him, noticing the fog growing thicker by the second, surely ready to consume them and transport them into the next nightmarish event at any second now.
"It's an offering," Dwight explained quickly, and David's unsure eyes flickered to Claudette and Jake, who were standing before the flames. A torn blueprint was already burning over the logs, and Jake next tossed in a small shiny coin. "It will help you. If you throw it into the fire, you won't go in alone."
Dwight could tell his words weren’t getting through to him in the slightest.
"You people are fuckin’ crazy," David started with a scowl, on the verge of turning away back toward the forest. “I’m gettin’ out of ‘ere.”
"Look, I don't make the rules here, okay?" Dwight mustered up the courage to respond more strictly before he could leave, and it was enough to make the man hesitate and look back over his shoulder before he could fully turn away. "I know this all sounds insane, believe me. But if you don't play the game, you won't survive. Staying close to someone who knows what they're doing can help. Just follow their lead and keep your head down. We can work together on this."
The biting fog was getting thicker, nearly up to their waists now. As much as Dwight could tell the man didn't believe a word he said, the frantic flickering of his eyes at the strange inky mass swallowing them spoke for itself. Once more, surprisingly, he seemed to come to some strange sort of acceptance, stiff shoulders relaxing an inch as he slowly turned back, perhaps realizing that none of them meant him any harm, that time itself would only prove if exactly what they were telling him was true.
Despite this, there was still a hint of skepticism present in his face when his eyes moved to the shroud in Dwight's hand before raising to his face.
“What are you getting from this, then?”
Dwight blinked, caught off guard by the mistrust. “...Huh?”
"You say that rubbish can help. With all this shit you people are yammering about, life and death, and you're just gonna give that up? Out of what, the kindness of your heart?” His scowled deepened. “I don't buy it for a second."
Dwight frowned and gave a small nod. The doubt made sense, sure, but there wasn't time for it. He took a careful step closer, unable to confidently look the man in the eye but still managing to urge the item out with more determination.
"I've survived my fair share of trials. I don't need it. Besides, who knows," he added with a small smile, "Maybe we'll end up together in there."
Once more, David bit at his lip as his eyes darted doubtfully between Dwight, the offering, and the other survivors waiting for him to choose.
Finally, he shook his head with a sigh.
“Right then,” David replied finally, reaching for the cloth and thankfully tossing it aside straight into the dying flames. The shroud burned, and cloth embers floated and circled up into the air around each other. “For the record though I still think this is all fuckin’ batshit.”