In the nightmare, perspective is the most dangerous thing a killer faces. identifying with their prey, caring about them. Will surely invoke the entity's wrath. So it's no surprise that it only takes one failiure to stop any ideas of rebelling, any chances of identifying or empathy. that's at least how it is for most. At some point even the killers who enjoy their "job" lose that joy as it gives way to fear of failure. In all this time of hunting, killing, teaching, waiting, don't you think at least one would lose that fear? The first was The Huntress, being the one with the tightest grasp on her humanity compared to the others, maybe barring The Wraith, she was the first to get over her fear and start thinking, start empathizing, start seeing. Regaining her humanity through thought and rationalization she became withdrawn from the other killers as she felt empathy for her prey. And then, she had the second most dangerous thing a killer can have, realization. In her thought she finally realized how much smaller her prey was conpared to her, almost like children, and in that moment she realized that from her perspective she had been killing children ever since she arrived. over and over and over again, she immediately keeled over and vomited in disgust for herself, disgust for how she had been killing the one thing she cared about this whole time, how they had been right in front of her and she failed to take care of them like the mother she always wanted to be. She decided what she would do.
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On the arrival of the next trial, she dropped her axe on dropping in, as well as her hatchets. She calmly walk through the killing grounds that The Trapper said belonged to him, humming her usual lullaby but in a softer way than before. In the distance she saw someone, she immediately stopped her humming and began to sneak their way, knowing how startled they could get from her humming. once she snuck up on them she noticed that they were the small girl in bright blue clothing, The Competitor, she came up behind the girl and grabbed her like she always did to her prey in the past. However instead of going on her shoulder she turned the girl around and hugger her to her chest. The girl screamed and struggled but she was too weak to get free in this position and eventually her terror gave way to confusion as The Huntress held her close, cuddling her. Softly humming her tune The Huntress calmly ran her fingers through the girls hair while holding her, and eventually the girl held back, clinging to The Huntress and the only true comfort she's ever known since entering the nightmare. Soon others noticed while trying to sneak by and stopped to watch the scene. The Runner, who could almost always evade the killers was the only one brave enough to leave her cover for a better view. As soon as The Huntress saw her she stared at her, and after a few seconds motioned her over to join the embrace. When The Runner got close enough The Huntress put her arm around her and held her as well. Eventually after a long while she let the girls go and stood up with them, she calmly followed them around and even tried to help them fix generators, despite being only good at breaking them. When all five generators were complete she even opened the door for the girls and let them leave before looking for any others throught the estate grounds, the only glimpse she got was The Fighter leaving through the gate she opened before the trial ended.
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To say the entity was furious would be an understatement, for what felt like years The Huntress was tortured. Burned, whipped, and strung up at the crows bitter mercy. Through all of it however, she didn't regret her choices one bit, she finally got to have a little one once more and that was worth all the pain ever given in this realm in her mind. Luckily for her, time is a fluent thing in the nightmare, and she knew that. What was years of pain and torture for her, was seconds for everyone else, and during those seconds as well as beyond them the survivors talked, of the match, The Huntress and how unusual her actions were, and the entity took notice. While the entity struggled to make sense of their language as they did the entity's, the one thing the entity had no trouble senseing was the shear amount of hope radiating off them. Being the only sustenance the entity needed to survive, this amount of hope was a feast that made the entity wonder where it was all coming from. With the only logical conclusion being the change of pace The Huntress made, the entity decided to let her go and give her another trial.
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In time The Huntress started being dropped into trials without her weapons, and only at her cottage. The survivors eventually came to love The Huntress and always hoped to be sent to her when going into a trial, eventually The Huntress even learned english, and learned the survivors names, as they did hers. Even though the nightmare was still as bad as it used to be, and the suvivors still suffered, they always had a bit nore hope going into trials, always had that hope that instead of facing their death once more, they would be going to see mother Anna once more.
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This was a story I've wanted for awhile. It is my first story so sorry if it's secretly terrible and I didn't realize. I was inspired to do this because my mom looks like The Huntress and her name is Anna too. The reason I said The Wraith has his humanity like The Huntress does is because he never wanted to kill anyone. I got the ideas for the entities torture from the legacy items and the flavor text on NOED.