"Music Hath Charms"
Calloused fingers strummed against the gut strings of the instrument, eliciting a soft A cord from the aged wood. Her heart fluttered in her chest as she feared that the noise would attract unwelcome attention, but her yearning for music was far more powerful than any silly survival instinct. Slipping her hands around the guitar, she held it delicately as if her expert hands would be the final straw to snap it's termite-riddled neck.
It was old.
Very old.
Very old and loved.
It's wood was a bleached and gashed white, and flaked with what she first thought was paint but upon closer inspection was pieces of tree bark. It was certainly no Yamaha or Gibson but by god whoever made it had tried their darn best to craft a worthy music maker.
Seating herself upon the soft dusty cushions, she rested the instrument on her knees and tried her hardest to choose what notes to play first.
A.
G.
F.
A pause.
A.
G.
F.
G. G.
F. F.
A.
G.
F.
Kate burst into laughing tears. It was her first time holding an instrument in so many moons and all she could muster was "Hot Cross Buns". As her tears were absorbed by the decades-parched wood, she tried to remember why she was in the decrepit barn in the first place.
It had been too loud at the campfire that night. There had been an argument between Dwight, Jake, and Feng, over who had hogged medical supplies during the previous trial. Kate had been the fourth member of said trial but was not privy to events as she had been grabbed and hooked within minutes by The Huntress.
Her death had been dumb luck. Nothing else.
Dwight's on the other hand had been a different story as he claimed that Jake and Feng had ignored him as a hatchet lodged itself into his shoulder.
Feng had admitted to ignoring him in favor of laying low and seeking out the Huntress' totem.
Jake on the other hand had a different excuse. "It's was her singing, man!"
"Her singing?" Dwight seethed. "She was running at us with an axe and you noticed her singing?!"
"No! It's not just that! It's just that I think…" Jake's voice lowered slightly as he explained. "I thought it sounded a bit like how my Mom used to sing you know? She'd hum a radio song and stuff when she got home from work and… shit." The survivalist rubbed his eyes furiously against his sleeve, the skin turning red with irritation. "It's been so fucking long since I've heard her sing. Even before I came here. It's not even the same language but just the sound, the humming."
Dwight's face softened as Jake became quiet, his hands slowly becoming tangled in his own hair. Feng patted Jake's back with a sympathetic smile, her lip quivering with a shared sadness.
Kate raised herself from the campfire and simply started walking.
She ignored it when the other Survivors called out to her, some trying to warn her not to wander into the foggy woods alone.
So she kept walking. Past the line of pines, and past the thickets of thorns, and past creepy clearings, until she hit a wall of fog indicating that she had reached the limits of the current realm. This was how It knew where they were going. No matter how far or how long ago a realm was to the other, the blustery fog connected them all like silk in a spider's web.
Kate breathed deeply, unsure of where this patch would take her. It seemed almost random where they would end up. With few visual warnings or markers, you wouldn't be sure if you had walked into Gas Haven or Haddonfield until you got there.
Jake claimed that you could tell which foggy path led where based non-visual cues he had picked from being in the Entity's realm for so long. He and Dwight chad come to an agreement that the paths that smelled of gasoline and copper would bring you to the junkyard or the gas station.
Meg had become familiar enough with the smell of the MacMillan estate and said that she could sometimes hear the sounds of pickaxes and machinery as if she were about to enter a functioning mill.
Laurie and Quentin's hairs would raise if they ever felt the stings of home in the cold fog.
Claudette had a good sense of where you could go based on the feel of the soil. "If it's hard like podzol then you're in Red Forest. Loamy then you're in the swamp."
Detective Tapp was arguably the best at determining which paths to avoid. He said to stay away from the paths that smelled like pork as they could lead one into the meat packing facility that the Jigsaw Killer had trapped so many victims.
However this path seemed different from all the others. Unwalked but familiar.
The grass grew high and corn-silk yellow.
The air was thick with the scent of sunburnt grass and kicked dirt.
It smelled of Summertime.
Kate didn't have enough time to reconsider her direction when the fog wrapped around her in a way that signified that she had entered one of the many Realms. Startled, she whipped around only to be met with the hard "wall" of foggy darkness. She huffed at the sight. No U-turns were allowed on the Entity's road. She would just have to march on into terra incognita if she wished to find an exit.
Taking a careful step forward, she began her journey into the unknown.
This realm wasn't like any of the others she had been to before. Like all of them, it was cast in darkness - A deep, moonless sky blanketing overhead. But the plants and land seemed so much different from the towering trees of the Red Forest or the rows of corn that stretched between Coldwind Farm.
But who's Realm was this? It looked similar enough to the Hillbilly's land to possibly be an extension, but the size of it was too large to be catered to a Killer with his own Realm.
Unless it was for her.
The realization smacked her like the wood gate she just walked into.
She had seen the exact same type of grass and kicked the same fawn dirt so many times that she had almost completely ignored it.
It was the Great Plains. Southern Oklahoma, or maybe East Texas, maybe even Missouri. Places she had toured and wandered for weeks at time for festivals and fairs. Weekends at her Gramma's home in rural Pennsylvania. Roads she had walked miles down, flagging for help when her Chevy's tires ripped open on a stray horse nail.
A Realm for her.
Kate wasn't sure if she should feel flattered or nervous, the Entity making an entirely new area of the pocket dimension for little ole' her. But uncharted maps meant uncharted dangers.
The wood gate she had walked into was overgrown with parched vines. The hinges had rusted red with disuse. Kate attempted to unlatch the similarly rusted lock but to no avail. With a quick check to see if anyone was watching (as if she were a child again and her mother was about run out to scold her for it), she climbed the middle rung and swung her legs over the top until she was happily seated on the gate.
The small change in vantage point allowed her to glimpse something she otherwise would have missed through all the grass and hedges.
A farmhouse. Sitting on top of a hill surrounded by acres of wheat and hidden in the shade of stocky Texas oaks. Out front a porch swung in the breeze as if it remembered it's last visitor and was keeping the seat warm and mobile for their return.
"I don't remember that…" Kate thought aloud, not knowing (or caring) if there were others in the realm with her. "Gramma's house only had one floor. And she didn't have a swing like that."
Now that was odd. Normally the Entity was more keen to detail. Then again it might not be her Realm.
The wood gate made a displeased "Hurmm" and the top hinge cracked and popped off, dropping the old wood (and Kate) flat on the ground.
"Oof!" Kate's breath knocked out, her face buried in the ground. She turned her face around an inch and saw that the gate was now flat on the ground behind her, the bottom hinge giving up on the first sign of trouble. She felt a twinge of guilt - trust her to break something while out on somebody else's property. Now her knees were skinned and her mouth full of grit.
Then again she still didn't know Who's property it was and hoped that the owner would be of the forgiving type.
The walk to the porch was pleasant enough, the breeze and sultry heat reminded her so much of summertime that she almost expected the sounds of cicadas to follow her. She did however hear the familiar sounds of a running generator by the shed, which almost made her heart leap into hr throat. Luckily the model of the machine was far too small and old to be the kind found in the other Realms during active Trials. Though she wondered what it was powering.
Out of habit she scraped the dirt off her boots before climbing the porch, the sun-bleached wood creaking like an old house should. The screen door and windows were far too dirty to peek through and the front doors seemed to be in a bad state, so she couldn't see much of the inside - but she could see what appeared to be a wall of deer racks at the end of the hall.
Evidently the homeowner enjoyed hunting, though she doubted the property belonged to the Trapper or Huntress as she was a regular in their homes (if being hooked inside of said homes was comparable to a visit).
It was when she turned to step off the porch when she saw it.
Leaning against the swing.
A guitar.
Which brings us back to the present where famed folk singer Kate Denson was having trouble remembering any melody beyond "Hot Cross Buns".
The gate was broken. This was Bad.
His brothers were going to be so mad at him!
"You're brothers aren't here though. Nobody is." He relaxed at this thought, picking the gate back up and leaning it against the fence so nobody (likely him) would trip over it.
His brothers weren't allowed come with him.
The Spider said that it only wanted Him and that his brothers had purpose elsewhere.
He wasn't sure how to feel about this.
Sure he didn't get hit by Chop-Top or Hitch no more. Drayton couldn't yell at him when he did a dummy move. He didn't need to hide anymore. Nobody cared if he walked outside with his Faces on. Heck, Maxie even asked if he could make him one! He'd tried but the Other's skins kept disappearing.
It was so darn lonely.
The Spider wouldn't let him take anybody with him. Not Drayton, not Nubbins or Chop-Top, not Grandpa or Mama or the rest of the family. Even most of the furniture was missing cus' the Spider wouldn't let him bring it with him. Since it was once people, it still counted as them.
She let him keep the hen though. She stayed in the house so she don't get hurt.
Course not much to be hurt by out here. No cars. No coyotes. No foxes or dogs. No hawks. No buzzards.
No other people.
It made him sad sometimes. No people.
Though he sometimes got hurt by the Others, especially the blond one in blue, he wasn't allowed deal with them after Trial. He weren't allowed near their camp either so he rarely saw them outside Trial.
Maxie was a good friend - though he was busy a lot with his own Trials. Him and Maxie liked to fix up the farms and find good scrap together and sometimes they would go over to Mr Hawk's cart and play with his horse. A lot of his Friends were older and also did Trials so they sometimes got frustrated with him if he did a dummy move. The one with the hat even hurt him when he accidentally dropped the chainsaw on his foot (he didn't mean it!) and his Friends put him in time-out. Then again he wasn't sure where "time-out" was cus' Evan told him "Not to worry about it, Bubba."
He liked his new Friends. But they couldn't come to the house just yet. Weren't clean yet.
Nobody allowed in the house.
Somebody was at the house.
She was on the swing, strumming the noise maker he found and fixed from the junkyard.
She was beautiful.
She was TRESPASSING!
He ran at her, swinging his arms, trying to shout words to go away. But she looked like she couldn't hear him.
He were about to take out his hammer when something stopped him.
"O give me a home where the buffaloes roam…"
He stopped.
"Where the deer and the antelope play…"
Singing.
She was singing.
"Where seldom is heard a discouraging word,
And the skies aren't cloudy all day…"
A song he remembered from the radio. Drayton hated when he messed with the radio and he made him turn it back to whatever he and his brothers were listening to before (usually silence).
"Home, home on the range…"
But Drayton weren't here no more and the Intruder wasn't a radio.
"Where the deer and the antelope play…"
He could listen as much as he want.
Kate had admittedly shrieked when the Cannibal emerged from the grass, walking towards her with a purpose.
Of course! It was his Realm!
That would explain why neither she nor the other Survivors had seen it before. It was his home!
Her eureka moment was cut short however as she almost dropped her (She guessed it was now his?) precious guitar. She could deal with getting hooked or chainsawed, but the loss of her first source of music in months would be far too much to bear.
She was weighting her options on whether to run or give herself up and hopefully spawn back at the campfire when she saw a most curious sight.
The Cannibal had halted in his tracks. His head was tilted to the side as if asking "Why did you stop?"
She let out a nervous lap and readjusted her position so the gutiar was safely seated next to her. She stood up and called out to the hulking figure of a man. "I'm sorry, is this your house? Sorry if I intruded! I thought it might have been someplace familiar!"
He continued walking slowly towards her, stopping when there was less than two meters between them.
He then looked her in the eye and pointed to the instrument.
"I saw your gutiar and… I'm so sorry for touching it but I haven't played a string since before I came here and-"
He started making a waving motion with his hands, not seeming bothered by her rambling.
"…Excuse me?" Kate asked, dumbfounded.
He continued the motion until Kate finally realised what he was trying to say.
"You want me to play some more?"
He nodded vigorously, taking a quick seat on the swing and presenting the instrument to her.
She took it, hands shaking. Was this really happening? Had she made a fan in this deranged killer?
Even in through his fleshy mask she could see him give her an excited smile.
"Any requests?"
He whistled a long noticeable tune, slapping his knee in rhythm to a song dear to his heart.
"Butcher Pete? Sure, I can play that. Scoot up."
He obeyed, moving to allow her space on the swing right next to him.
They would sit like that for what seemed to be hours, her playing and singing whatever song he could recall. He would croon along to her voice, a surprising sweet sound forming with his hums and tweets. It was almost adorable to see such a massive, intimidating man bounce his knees to the tune of "Blue Moon". It was only when the sky formed into an alert orange did they stop. A Trial was beginning.
"Darn" Kate sighed. She had barely strained her cords and yet she had to stop and go to run and hide and fix generators. "Looks like both of us got to go."
He made a sad noise, almost a whimper. "D-d-d-on't…"
Kate paused at the sound, the closest thing to a word the man had ever said. "I'm… I'm sorry. But the Entity wants us to go."
He looked at the ground like a child that had dropped his ice cream.
"But maybe I can come back later? I can play some of my own songs when I get back."
The man leaped from the swing and swung her by her waist, squealing with delight. Kate laughed, knowing that (at least presently) the Cannibal meant her no harm.
"Ok! Ok! I'll take that as a yes!" She started to giggle. "You're almost as bad as the Nashville folk festival."
He placed her back on the ground before carefully (and with much effort) sounded. "Bub-ba."
"Bubba?"
Another excited nod.
"Ok Bubba. I'm Kate. Looks like I have a jam session to attend to."
He couldn't help but to bring her into another big bear hug.
Kate would spend the next Trial with the encounter deep in her mind. She had eventually escaped from the Asylum with two of the three others in that trial (David had been hooked and they couldn't get to him in time) and made it back to the campfire in one piece. There a familiar item was laid on the ground.
The guitar her new friend had lent her was sitting happily against a log.
The word "Kate" scratched in to the back.