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Leo's Memory had gone silent and it worried Luca. He could hear the soft morse of the cipher machines, but the lack of communication between his fellow survivors put them in a bad spot. While the prisoner hadn't confronted the hunter yet, his teammates had. His eyes darted between the 3 entrances to the cipher he was decoding.
For the time being, he was safe. The crows wouldn't touch him if he was decoding, and there were 4 ciphers left. Luca completed a calibration with ease. As long as he didn't feel that signature chill down his spine, there was a chance to escape. Just finish the cipher, find the dungeon, and leave. If only the postman were still here, he could grab the letter and get perfect directions.
Luca was snapped out of his thoughts from a sudden shiver. The hunter was near. He didn't have the time to pop it, so he ran. His heart pounded in his chest. Fron the brief glimpse he got, he could tell this was the new hunter. The suspicions were comfirmed by the sudden sound of a dash rushing up behind him. He took the hit, the back of his shirt torn. Luca inhaled sharply and sprinted.
The prisoner only looked behind him a few times in the chase. After failing a pallet stun, he collapsed to his knees. His leg brace rattled from the fall. The pallet he had trusted shattered into pieces. Luca finally got a good look at the hunter. Tall, broad, with a long and heavy sword. A single milky eye peered at him. Electricity softly crackled between his fingertips. Some sort of mechanism was strapped onto his back. If it weren't for the circumstances, Luca would love to open it up to see how it worked.
He expected the weightlessness of being lifted into the air, but it never came. He continued to brace for it. The hunter slowly sat down, placing his sword by his side. It suddenly hit Luca that the hunter was letting him bleed out.
"... What are you doing..?" He managed out, turning his head to the hunter, "Why won't you chair me?"
The hunter paused.
"Chair you..?" He seemed confused, like the term was familiar but he never knew what it meant.
"You're supposed to pick us up, a-and take us to the rocket chairs." Luca explained, leaning on one shoulder to point at one of the rocket chairs.
The hunter turned his head to look at the chair. Luca took the time to really examine him. The scar across his head seemed out of place from the other hunter's porcelain faces. His hands shook in his lap. "The others told me to do that. They never told me what it meant. What it does."
Luca furrowed his brows. "Then why don't you?"
"... My hands shake too much. I can't hold the strings." It was a convincing answer. The prisoner wheezed softly, shifting his weight to a different side. Blood loss was getting to him.
"Losing like this... It's worse. The chair is painless. It just takes us back." The prisoner explained.
The concern on the hunter's face twisted his stomach. Luca didn't expect for someone chansing them down to sit and listen to his plea.
The swordsman paused for a moment before speaking. "My name is Percy. I am a doctor, an inventor. I vowed to do no harm. This is hurting you, isn't it? These games?"
Luca rested his head on the ground, no longer able to support his weight. This was a much faster death than he was used to.
"It hurts us all, but you are a hunter. It's your job." His voice was fainter than he wanted it to be. His breathing came out as wheezing as his vision began to fade. His ears began to ring.
"... I'm so sorry."