Silence.

Darkness.

Heat.

Dampness.

Then, out of the stillness, there broke quite obvious sounds of a struggle. Not a struggle between people, but the struggle of desperation from a lone man whose strength had been slowly chipped away into nothingness. This man, once so highly esteemed and respected by his peers, now seemed to be nothing more than a husk of his former self. For this man's teacher, his mentor... had turned his back on him.

Or perhaps it was he who had turned his back on his teacher.

His mentor's final wish had now been granted by much more proper students, those who had learned from his games. This hollow shell of a human had not learned his lesson and to him, it seemed he would not be getting another chance... Not this time.

In the beginning, he had been full of fire, an angry passion that seeped from every pore, fighting to be free. He had thrashed, he had clawed, he had shaken, yanked, smashed, banged, torn, thrown, and cursed. He had cursed everything, every name that ever brushed over his tongue, every plane of existence he had ever crossed, every life he had watched falter at his own hand.

He had tried everything... and yet...

Every possible effort he had made to escape this imprisonment had been to no avail. He wanted to scream, but his throat was raw from the countless hours, even days of that, attempts which he already knew were fruitless. With nothing but two corpses to keep him company in this hellhole, he had resigned himself to his failure. How had he fallen so far?

It was game over.

And yet, after days of nothingness, or what was most likely days seeing as the man really had no way of telling the time, a noise came. A sound! Glorious relief from the insanity inducing silence. The man's relief dissipated as quickly as it had come on once he realized that this noise meant someone was coming. Before he was even able to react, the door to his dark prison creaked open and a stream of light entered, followed by footsteps. The man, in no shape to fight, instinctively pushed himself as far back into the corner as possible. The new visitor was revealed in the dim light to be adorned with an all too familiar pig mask.

"No..." his voice was unrecognizable to himself, cracking from the sudden usage after it's time of silence. He forced himself to be louder, "No, no! Get back! Fuck you!"

Though the words were malicious and threatening, the delivery was weak and unfulfilling.

"Show yourself," he tried once more, finally generating some air out of his lungs, "COWARD!"

But a hand clapped over his mouth ending his reign of insults. He tasted the leather of a glove as the owner of said hand finally spoke.

"Hoffman, Jesus Christ! Shut up!" Came a familiar, young voice, not like that of his captors.

"Kid Matthews?!" The one called Hoffman croaked in awe. The pig man released him and removed the mask to reveal a mop of dusty colored curls and dark eyes. Eyes that had seen far too much in their almost two decades of existence. The emotion behind them was long gone.

"Yeah, it's me. I'm here to get you out of this place and quick." He produced a pair of metal cutting shears from his robe and hurriedly used them on the other's ankle chain. The sound of metal snapping reverberated throughout the old bathroom around them, making Hoffman flinch at the sudden and aggressive new sound.

"Now come on! Quickly! Before they catch us!" The younger hissed, hauling Hoffman to unsteady feet. The weaker of the two fumbled at this movement.

"How did you-" Hoffman coughed and the other cut him off.

"I'll explain later, move!" Despite his attempts to sound serious, the dark eyed one's young voice cracked with fear. Scared or not, he knew where he was going and what he had to avoid. For he had been here before. And this place held terrifying memories, memories he did not wish to face. This was a place that had heard his name echo off of it's dingy walls more times than one could count.

And Hoffman knew all of this.

Daniel Matthews... a boy that was just barely an adult, had just saved his life.

Daniel Matthews, a survivor of one of the original Jigsaw himself's own games.

Daniel Matthews, son of one of Hoffman's old friend and coworkers, Eric Matthews.

And Daniel had no idea that Mark Hoffman was the reason for his father's demise.