Chapter Text
A week in this hell felt much shorter than it should’ve been. At least, when you ignored how time passed, that was different.
Attempting to count the days that passed was short-lived because there were times when you wouldn’t be dragged into a match out of nowhere and have very little to do other than sleep or chat with some of the others, that is, if you could make conversation.
Taph (you finally learned their name), you found, was actually pretty good at handling conversations when you were one-on-one, but she always scurried off when Dusekkar or Builderman became available. Not that you didn’t mind.
When you weren’t blessed by a strange bout of luck and were pulled in along with a few other survivors, you had to lock the fuck in.
Strangely enough, it was always easier to think about the matches than to experience them. You’d often think about how you’d stay calm and strategically move around the map and avoid the killer, but when it came to the real deal, those plans went out the window. You were always quick on your toes, but your breath grew strained, your eyes darted around whenever you swore you saw something whizzing by your head, and you would nearly cry the moment you came across the first body of each round.
Near the beginning of the week, you were stolen into the match in a map called Brandonworks. Spawning at the top of a somewhat large castle was an interesting feeling, but the sight of the starless sky made that little light dwindle in your chest.
Although you did get a particularly good view of the middle of the map and spotted the killer almost immediately due to the green glow they emitted—1x1x1x1. A sharp noise echoed in the air when they brought their hand towards her face.
“Ah, hell,” Shedletsky, who had walked up one of two slopes to get to the top of the castle, muttered. You didn’t see him until now and watched as he immediately began speedwalking to the other side of the castle.
For a while after that, you didn’t see Shedletsky or 1x1x1x1 for a good amount of the round. You did come across Noob and Builderman at one point, who introduced you to the term ‘targeting’.
Yet, after separating from the two, you happened to run into the myth himself near a section of wooden walls, who had just finished decapitating the Admin’s head. They noticed you and gave a sharp, zipper-toothed smile, before deciding you were their next target.
It did not end well.
Your passive ability helped only for the first hit, but you weren’t as skilled as the other survivors in actually getting away from killers. The venom added to his blades felt like fire burning in your veins as you looped her back around towards Shedletsky’s body, aiming to swoop in and pick up his sword that you had yet to train with, only to find two swords piercing your back.
It was more numbing than anything, even as hot warmth bloomed across your back and you slumped to your knees. A foot kicked you down to the ground, and you fell forward, only to jolt upward, screaming.
Light, warmth that wasn’t the burning holes those swords had made in your torso; you were back in the main cabin, lying on the living room floor like a drunk who had just woken up, but without the major headache.
Both Shedletsky and 007n7 were there, too. They weren’t too startled by your cry, but 007n7 knelt at your side and gave you a consoling squeeze on your shoulder as Shedletsky stood by with a knowing nod.
“You’ll get used to it,” he told you as it took all you had in you not to cry in front of people who were practically strangers.
Another round happened that you were dragged into in the middle of the week, where there were a larger number of survivors. Chance was there too, and his presence nearby caused you to recall your recent conversation with Dusekkar.
You told the Admin you’d talk with them, but hadn’t yet.
There hasn’t been an opening, you thought to yourself, tearing your eyes away from him as they began to flip their coin in the corner of a graveyard.
You didn’t die that round, playing it even more cautiously than usual due to the appearance of a new killer (to you, at least). Elliot told you it was John Doe, told you not to step in the dark puddles on the ground or in the purple river, and to try to avoid his line of sight.
Then, he ran off towards the chase, where you saw a somewhat yellowish Robloxian with a deformed black spike as an arm carve into the back of Shedletsky.
Thank 2x2, you didn’t die that round or even get thirty studs near him.
All killers had some sort of personality, you learned. At least the ones you knew of so far.
John Doe and 1x1x1x1 were both brutal killers, but from the stories you overheard from others, John Doe didn’t speak while 1x could. Nosferatu spoke as well, you knew this for a fact, but he enjoyed toying with the survivors like prey, and you heard from Veeronica that the myth Noli liked doing the same, but he was rather degrading with his words.
The Noli? You almost couldn’t believe it, but then you remembered 1x was here, and thought it wasn’t impossible.
You asked her to tell you more about the other killers that were here, just so you were prepared for the future.
There was one called Slasher, apparently. He didn’t talk and wore a mask, but he was aware and could understand the survivors. Veeronica told you that he had spared her once because she had put up a spray paint of him on the wall, but on a different round, when she tried the same thing again, she was nearly cleaved in two.
“OH, TH3R3’S AL5O…” Vee looked around for a moment, the two of you sitting on the couch in the living room, “GU3ST 666.”
A giant beast colored red and black. The way she spoke about him threw you off a bit, like she was a bit unsure if she should be saying these things.
“Y0U’LL N33D TO ST1CK NEXT T0 S0MEONE WH3N Y0U GO AGA1N5T THEM,” she told you, shivering when there was no draft.
The end of the week was the current day, and you were thankfully exempt from an early-day match. It was quiet downstairs, the usual chatter you’d wake up to not reaching your ears. Whoever else was excluded from today’s game must have been outside or in their room. Not that you were going to bother and look, you enjoyed your alone time as much as anyone else, which was a hard thing to get when surrounded by the same faces the majority of the time.
You chose to relax in one of the beanbags, finding a bit of peace whenever you just sat here.
But that peace did not last long.
There was a sudden thud that echoed downstairs, causing you to flinch and turn your head, followed by familiar shouting, “come on! I didn’t even have my gun!”
Chance was the first one dead, then. A shame…
But, as you sat there a moment longer, something in the back of your mind clicked, realizing that this was the moment you had been both agonizing over and anticipating. Part of you screamed to rip off the bandaid, while the other part of you wished to do anything else but this.
You stood, took a deep breath, and marched quietly to the top of the stairs to glance down at the living room.
It was impossible for Chance not to see you with the way he was sitting on the living room floor. As you walked down the stairs, you watched in the corner of your eye the way they attempted to hurry up off the floor to maybe escape the room and your gaze.
“Chance,” you stopped him with his name, and your stomach did an uneasy flip, unsure for a moment on how to continue. You had mulled this over more than twenty times already, but it was just like those damn games. Even if you prepared for it mentally, when it actually came to the action, you lost all rationality.
You had been standing at the bottom of the stairs for too long, and if you waited a second longer, someone else might appear and take the moment away. A perfect out, but you had come this far already.
“I…I want to talk to you,” you manage to get out, your right hand finding interest with the fringe on your left sleeve, but then you immediately stop the action to gesture with your right hand towards the door, “outside…maybe.”
You had sealed your fate.
Chance paused, standing next to the fireplace with an almost dumbfounded look on his face; you could tell even with their shades on. He wavered, studying your expression to double-check if you were being truthful, then ahem’d into a fist and nodded, adjusting the collar of his suit right after.
You took the lead first, stepping outside into the open where that cool chill always brushed past the moment you arrived on the porch. Chance was right behind you, so you didn’t bother waiting up for them and headed to the left, where two seats remained in the same place they always had.
You took the furthest one, so Chance sat on your right.
Now that you were here, things felt a lot more real. All this time, it was like you were on autopilot when interacting with Chance, but in this very moment, you had taken the wheel, and all there was so far was silence.
Say something, goddammit! Your mind screamed as you tried to refer to your talk with Dusekkar.
“So, I-”
“So, about-”
The two of you looked at each other, words falling apart. You hadn’t expected them to speak at all—you were the one who called him out here—so hearing their voice was a bit surprising. Chance revealed a sheepish grin, though, one that flashed his canines. You offered an awkward smile in response.
Chance gestured for you to continue with one of his hands and leaned back into the wooden chair that creaked in protest.
You turned your head back to stare forward, sorting through your rattled thoughts. Looking forward made it a little easier, even if you were all too aware of the presence next to you.
“I just wanted to–well, not only did I want to…um, say sorry about hitting you again,” you paused upon hearing an audible exhale (or inhale) come from your right, but chose to ignore it, “a-again, I just wasn’t expecting you…here… Even after I…”
You trailed off, knowing what else you wanted to say, but not how to get there.
“I think I–no, I blamed you…partially, for my death,” you heard a creak from the chair this time, and your head tilted just a bit to see that Chance had leaned forward rather than back. You couldn’t see their expression, “not this game death, but my real death. All because of that…that Don Sonne-whatever his name is recognized me ‘cause I hung out with you once when we were at his casino.”
It was before Chance met iTrapped. They had dragged you along, and Don Sonnellino didn’t forget a face.
The movement on your right caught your eye. Chance had dipped his head down, back slouched, grey hair hanging low around his face. Your heart stopped for a moment when you watched Chance lift his head and nearly caught the hoods of his eyes from the top of his shades, before you averted your gaze the moment they looked back at you.
You felt warm.
You had seen him without their sunglasses before, just once, but you couldn’t remember what his eyes looked like; it was a fuzzy memory.
“Got caught a bit after I heard what happened. They wanted to know about where you were, like I knew your every move,” these memories weren’t fuzzy, “I told them I didn’t know, so they made it as painful as possible.”
Your voice grew low, not a whisper, but still quiet.
Chance said your name, but you lifted a hand just slightly, motioning to him that you weren’t done. They only nodded in response.
“I…I had a lot of time to think, when I was captive, I mean,” you inhaled slowly and shifted to sit back against the chair, head bumping against the wood of the cabin, “and now, I guess… About how…how shitty my life was, but even with all that, and my bad luck, I still met you. Who made my life a bit better.”
You didn’t dare look at what expression Chance was making now.
“I just…” You nearly said the word, hated, but they stuck, and you realized that wasn’t how you felt at all. You never hated Chance, not at all; that was aimed at someone else, “I just held a terrible, bitter grudge, knowing that you were lucky enough to get away, while…I was not.
It felt…a lot better after saying those things. Your mind didn’t feel as clouded, and when you thought of who sat next to you, you didn’t feel as uncertain as you usually would. You breathed easier, finally felt…heard.
“So you were thinking of me when you died?”
The way Chance says that was clearly not thought out at all, and either he realized what they said and didn’t care, or was just too thick-skulled not to. It took all you had not to smile or laugh at his unusual bluntness with such heavy words.
“Yeah. Sure,” you gave them the benefit of the doubt anyway and just agreed to it. It wasn’t as if they were wrong, but the way he worded it was a little…
After a few moments of silence, Chance sighed. You angled yourself right, finally looking at him once again. You imagined Dusekkar holding the end of his staff to your chin, ready to put you into place if you lowered your gaze.
“I should’ve listened to you,” their lips pursed, and you could see his dark brows furrow just above the lines of his sunglasses, “he was a bad friend. A terrible one,” his voice grew quiet, almost becoming a whisper.
You knew who Chance meant, you weren’t dumb, and you weren’t about to be an asshole and say, “I told you so!” Even if you might’ve in the past.
“Why did I even…?” Chance took off his hat and ran a hand back through his hair, starting from his forehead and all the way to the base of his neck. In the dim light of the lantern that hung nearby, you could tell that they looked almost tired, the vibrant orange softening the sharp curve of his jaw and outlining his frame in warm color.
“I won a game, the…the Sonnellino’s game at their casino,” they chuckled and shook their head, then put their hat back on their head, “won me too much, actually. Too much for me t’know what t’do with…”
He trailed off, the smile he wore when talking about winning the Sonnellino Family’s game slowly faded, “I was on the run for a while. Don’t know if iTrapped heard what happened, but he sent me a message and…and set me up.”
You saw his jaw tighten for a moment, but it loosened a second later.
“Stabbed me clean through, left me for dead,” after placing a hand along his stomach, they turned their head towards you. You saw your own sad eyes reflecting in Chance’s dark shades, “if I woulda known winning that game would’ve led to your death… I would’ve never taken that chance.”
Those words coming from Chance’s mouth were…well, you didn’t have words of your own to describe it. The Chance not taking a gamble? Risking all they had just for the life of their friend? You exhaled slowly, relieving tension and wearing a small smile.
You didn’t know if you wanted to even hear those words, but it made you feel better, ten times better than before.
It was never on purpose.
It was never your or his fault.
There was a comfortable quiet after that, just an unspoken weight having been lifted, and the feeling of tears that would not come.
You could hear the presence of your other friends and the other survivors mingling in the cabin just behind both of you, returning from whatever torturous hell that dragged them away from this cabin in the first place. You were only fortunate enough not to be chosen by whatever hand had a play in your current life.
Even as the sounds grew louder, neither of you moved. Just like before, you sat amidst the sound of distant chatter and quiet laughter with the backdrop of quiet waves from the lake nearby to add to the odd calm that washed over you.