Disclaimer: I don't own Saw.

Summary: Waiting to die in the darkness around him, Hoffman finds his thoughts turning to the only girl that truly got to him. HoffmanAmanda, oneshot

I've been wanting to do another Saw fic for a while now, ever since I saw the last movie, and I finally got an idea for one! I hope that everyone enjoys this little fic. It's not too long, but I just thought it was an interesting idea so I went with it. Please enjoy!


In Nothingness, There You Were


Mark Hoffman is dead.

Well, not yet, but he's surely getting there.

As he sits in that dingy bathroom, the smell of decayed bodies and dried blood and filth reaches his nostrils. He has no choice but to breathe it in, the very last thing that is keeping him living. There is nothing around him to aid him in even thinking of escaping. Nothing that he can manage to sever his foot with, nothing that can help him get out of this infernal chain that is wrapped around his ankle like a rabid dog.

He doesn't know how long he's been in here. Frankly, he doesn't care. Well, he does, he just doesn't know how that would help him. Knowing just how long he's been in here would more than likely enrage him, or defeat him, or a little of both.

He wishes there was at least light. The darkness is, admittedly, quite unnerving even though he knows there is nothing in here but himself and the various others that have met their demise.

Hoffman sighs, a loud noise that echoes in the vast expanse of the bathroom around him. His fingers tap, tap, tap on the tiles beneath him, and something grimy rubs off on them. He doesn't have it in him to care, so the noise continues, the only sound other than his shallow breaths and his rumbling stomach.

Every now and then, a tune will escape his lips. Just a faint humming, something that he used to do to help his sister sleep when they were just children. The sound is a happy contrast to the grimness of his situation.

He wonders if he's going mad.

There isn't much to do except wait to die, which is a depressing thought in and of itself. That, and think.

Of course, his mind is one of his greatest enemies at the moment.

It splashes him with images, some pleasant, some horrid.

His sister, bright and shining and alive.

His sister, bloody and bruised and unmoving.

Hoffman knows there is nothing he can do to help his situation. He's tried crawling over to the bathtub to at least see if he could get some water to run out of the faucet, but no luck. Obviously that was just a brief fever dream, one that he can't help but want to believe. He wasn't sure what good the water would do if there was any to begin with, other than prolong his suffering, and that was one thing he didn't want to happen.

He forgets wanting water, and just tries to focus on that task at hand. Or lack of tasks.

Right, even now his thoughts are getting nonsensical. Maybe that means the end is near - Hoffman sure hopes so.

He can't help but think about everything that he has gone through in the course of the whole Jigsaw debacle. Losing his sister, becoming wrapped up in John's games, becoming the successor to his legacy, and now...this. It all seems like a strange dream, something that he could easily wake up from. But he knows that isn't the case. His weary state will testify to that.

Suddenly, an image flashes behind his eyelids.

It's quick, just a millisecond of a thing, but it's there none the less.

The familiar features - dark hair, bright eyes, slim figure, and a snarl on that pretty mouth of hers.

Amanda Young.

Hoffman rubs his face with a hand, trying to dispell the sight of it, wondering why she just came to him just now. Her very image, taunting and teasing behind his eyelids, hates him just as she did when she was a tangible being. He leans back, almost toppling over with his clumsiness, and finds the side of the bathtub, where he stays and stares out in front of him.

The image was welcome to Hoffman, although it was one that has plagued him both before and after her death, which was ultimately, indirectly, his fault. He finds himself actually missing her. Missing their banter, missing their harsh words to one another. She was a fiery girl, one that didn't put up with his bullshit, one that was intelligent and confident and everything wonderful that he could ever conjure up in a woman.

And he killed her. Sure, he didn't fire the shot, but he set into motion the events that would lead up to her demise.

Hoffman groans, feeling guilt seep into his veins. He's not supposed to feel bad for her death, when it was so long ago. When it was necessary for getting what he wanted, even though what he wanted had ended up sending him here in this infernal place.

"Quit being a whiny fuck, Mark."

Hoffman started, hearing her voice crystal clear in his hears, as if she were in the room with him.

But that was impossible.

"Ha, you're going batshit crazy, aren't you? Psh. Serves you right."

His weary eyes shot across the room, looking for anything that would serve him as a thing to debunk the voice in his head - the voice that sounded remarkably like Amanda's. He finds nothing, his despair more concrete now than ever.

He was going mad, certainly.

Hoffman closes his eyes, only to be met with flashes of red. Red lips, red nails, red blood as it drips out of the gory hole in her neck...

His eyes shoot back open as the voice taunts, "Guilt, Mark? I always knew you were too soft."

"Shut up!" Hoffman growls into the darkness, and it echoes back at him. His voice sounds scratchy and defeated, due to lack of water, and he almost hits himself because of his stupidity.

"I knew you'd miss me after I was gone."

An image assaults him. Legs wrapped around his waist, mouth on his neck, grunts and groans and pants and desperation...

He leans his head back on the lip of the bathtub and lets out a shaky breath.

"You know I was good." Amanda's voice, cocky and sure, calls out to him.

Hoffman finds himself smiling as his mind take over from there, pushing memory upon memory into his mind, flashing them through his brain. He feels them almost as if they had happened yesterday.

"Yeah, I miss you, too."

Her airy comment floats in the air amongst the musty smell and the stale air and the dead bodies, a comfort in the midst of hopelessness. Something that gives Hoffman the hope that he needs. He knows he can't get out of here; she will be his comfort while he approaches death's door.

He'll take being crazy in his last moments if it means being able to hear her voice again.

She's saying something now, something unintelligible, and he desperately wants to listen.

So he closes his eyes, and lets her voice guide him into oblivion.


End.

My latest Saw fanfiction. I really enjoyed writing this, and I hope that everyone enjoyed reading this! I hope that all the people who've read my other Saw fictions like this just as much as the others. I would love to hear your opinions on this little fic of mine, and yeah... It'd be very much appreciated.

Thanks so much for reading!