Waylan Park/Eddie Gluskin.

A fanfiction inspired by the DLC, "Outlast: Whistleblower," and by Butcher Babies song, "I Smell A Massacre."

Just when I had narrowly escaped that personality disordered freak, I run into the Groom.

It was Eddie Gluskin, the captive man that was supposed to be experimented earlier within the base's laboratory. I had thought for sure that he was dead. Tubes and wires down his throat and through his nostrils, with my comfirmation to begin their twisted project, but, I was dead wrong. Just seeing him again, he looked as if he had risen from his own grave. A monster, wearing a worn-out tuxedo's waistcoat, formal pants, and a purple, tattered neck-bow. His face looked like he had been through a house fire, from the way part of his skin seemed seared off. His eyes were piercing through mine like dilated daggers. He looked like a zombie.

But he spoke coherently, shouting for me to approach him, if I dared, in a shamefully charming voice. He called me darling, actually, referring me to be his bride-to-be. I didn't know what his true intentions were at first, until Eddie chased me through the Female Ward, screaming bloody Mary, "I want you... to have my baby!" I could just feel the physical spill of color draining from my face when I heard those words. Did he seriously want to...?

I never stopped to even question it. I just kept running, as fast as I could through the thick halls and jumping over table-tops. Fucker was fast though, mimicking my actions to catch up to me. I swore, he was always close enough to wrap me in his arms.

I made a daring move on jumping through the opened elevator shaft, grappling onto an extremely weak ladder that broke bit-by-bit until it couldn't support my weight. I fell hard onto the wooden roof of the elevator box beneath my feet, letting out a blood-curling scream due to my foot plunging into the roof and a long slab of wood pierced through my shin like a hollow needle. God, you couldn't imagine the sheer pain ripping through my limb.

"Oh, God! Oh, God! Are you okay?!" I could hear Eddie's horrified shouts from above the first floor calling for me, as I mercilessly pried out the wood from my wounded leg. I could just feel my bone sever as I ejected the sharp wood out. "Tell me you're okay! I hate to think of you suffering without me!"

Tears welded up in my eyes as the pain bolted through my body like a blast of lightening. But rage also seared. I whipped my head up fast to see Eddie looking down at me, with the most worried look on his burnt features.

"Why... would you do something like that to yourself?!" Eddie worriedly implored.

And I screamed back, "I'd rather die, you sick motherfucker!"

Eddie was taken aback by my outburst. I must of broken his heart. "You'd rather..." He looked ready to suffer in his heartache. "... You'd rather die, than be with me?" He asked loudly. I didn't respond, out of breath to even try shouting at the lunatic a second time. His wide, saddened eyes then narrowed to a blazing glare, teeth flashing as they grinded together furiously. "... Then die." He menacingly decided in a hiss, backing away from the shaft-doorway to, likely, find another way downstairs.

And just as I thought I had outsmarted the bastard, Eddie played me. While he scoured the halls to track me down, I had jumped into a locker to hide in, thinking he would leave the area any time soon. Yet, somehow, Eddie knew exactly where I was.

"Mmm. Close. I can... Ah, the smell of my love's arbor. Darling," Eddie appeared at the locker's pried bar-windows, locking me in with chains and a padlock. I cussed at myself for even thinking I was ahead of his game."You can't hide from me." Evidentially. "You've made yourself a gift for me!" Eddie lowered the locker down onto its back, so that he could shove it through the halls more diligently, while I was banging on the closed door and screaming. He paid no mind to my cries. "A delicacy to be unwrapped... and unwrapped again... And savored..."

The terror that ripped through my mind was too much for me to express. I was practically paralyzed in utmost fear in that locker, as Eddie pushed through the dirtied rooms and halls to Hell-knows-where. I clenched my teeth together, unable to image my end.

"I know I've been... vulgar. I know, and I want to say that I'm sorry. I just..." He sighed, defeatedly. "You know how a man gets when he wants to know a woman." By know, he must have been hinting at being a horn-dog lately. "But after the ceremony, when I've made an honest woman out of you... I promise, I'll be a different man." He swore as he continued to struggle on moving around the floor.

I couldn't help but breathe fast, out of panic. "I'm not a woman, Eddie!" I tried. "What do you want from me?! What's your deal?!"

And to those very questions, Eddie halted his movements and peered through the locker bars at my petrified face.

"I want a family. A legacy. To be the Father I never had." My stomach made double-flips to his words, my jaw slacked and eyes wide as saucers. "I'll never let anything happen to our children. Not like..." Not like me, was what he wanted to say.

Perhaps this was some sort of sick vengeance on me, after I had unwillingly helped in making him a test subject. He must have recognized me. Me, the man that could have rescued him in the beginning of his nearly demise... I began to slowly understand his desire to kill me.

Should I have felt sorry for Eddie? Of course not. But it was my fault. Mixed feeling eloped in my mind.

"You'll have to wait here." Eddie lifted the locker to stand upright again. When it was up, I was now faced with the eerie sight of a operating-saw table before me, seeing how the surface was draped in thick layers of fresh and old blood, shining brightly in the ceiling lights like a red velvet comforter. Severed arms and legs hung by chains from the ceiling tiles, rotten or fresh. The strong aroma of iron injected through my nostrils fast, forcing me to hold back my vomit as Eddie peered through the locker window again. "I know you're just as eager as I am to consummate in our love." He brushed his palm over the locker bars lovingly to me. "But try to enjoy the anticipation."

"Eddie, stop this, now!" I hollered as much as I could. "I know why you're doing this, okay?! But it wasn't my fault!"

"Here, darling," The nozzle of a hose poked through the bars, surprising me. "This will help you relax." He cooed, as the smokes of a blue-greenish gas spewed into the locker space, in my face.

I choked under the gas, feeling as if someone was strangling me until I blacked out. "Eddie..!" I struggled under the fumes. "Eddie..." But soon, darkness engulfed me in its fold. "... Edd... ie..."

Please, forgive me.

For twelve hours, I was out cold from that smoke. But Eddie never came back to kill me.

'Could have killed me, right then and there, but... He didn't. Instead of killing me in the vulnerable position I was in, Eddie forced me to witness his acts of brutality upon other men he called his 'darlings.' I would never want to insult a woman's process on birthing or bits ever again, after what Eddie had forcibly shown me. He used a machete into slicing open mens' chests and bellies, to prepare stuffing them with severed heads and limbs to mimic a birth. Eddie cut through the mens'... most sensitive parts, to castrate them and slice open their lower-half, as a way to mimic a woman's body.

I can just remember the hideous sights of Eddie using that very machete to jab the blade of the bloodied weapon into the man's body, between the testicales and arse. I wanted so much to run away, as fast as I could. Break out of that fucking locker and just run before he did the same to me. I screamed once time, banging on the locker door to make it tip over, but the heap of metallic junk wouldn't budge!

"Darling, please! Try to relax!" Eddie reappeared at the bars again, a 'comforting' hand upon the door. "You mustn't upset yourself, my love. Just think of what the Doctor said about stress and pregnancy... It will never do." He could just see the sweat upon my shining face at that point. He saw the tears prickle at my eyes, as my heart thumped madly against my chest as he tried to draw closer to my face. I visibly shook under his gaze. "Hold still now, darling... You won't be ignored for long now."

"... Let me go...!" I coughed out, feeling gas particles spew out of my throat. "... I'm sorry, Eddie. I'm very, very sorry..." I tried to speak to him like a normal person, man-to-man. I pried at the hope of some cohesive sense of normality in that thick, murderous skull of his. "I... I should have stop it, back in the console. I should have saved you before all this. I should have..." Right there, I saw a flash image of what Eddie could have been, had I saved him. He would have been under the exact same morphographic state just like me, but he would have at least been... normal. My partner in survival...? "I know you're only doing this because you hate me. I know you recognize me, Eddie. I recognize you..."

Eddie looked at me, with those shining blue eyes never blinking once, nor shifting. I didn't know if that was the sadistic look of harm or the look of realization. "... I do love you, darling." Eddie hooked his dirtied fingers over the pried bars of the locker. "Why would you say that I... hate you? I would never harm you in such a way. I only want a family with you! Please... don't cry now. You'll make me cry, too."

And suddenly, Eddie forced his hand through the bars to reach out for my face. I flinched and prepared for whatever harm he would have wanted to bestow upon me. But instead, reaching to my face, Eddie caressed the side of my face, stroking his thumb over my cheekbone. I flinched to his touch, even if it were harmless.

"You're an amazing person, darling. You're going to be beautiful." He said, as if to soothe me out of my despair. "You've always been the strongest. Unlike those..." He looked over his shoulder momentarily to see if any of the dead corpses were eavesdropping. "... You'll be happy soon, with me."

I physically trembled under his hand, accidentally letting out an open-sob. My red, watery eyes met with his unreadable ones. I didn't know whether I was being stared at, or being stared through.

"Eddie... I'm so sorry...!" I apologized one last time.

"I forgive you, darling."

A pang in my heart thumped.

"It is my vow to you. No matter what you become, or no matter what you've done to hurt me, I... will always forgive you." Eddie looked on at me now, a small smile played upon his ripped features, and eyes staring back at me lovingly. "Do you know how love works, darling?"

I made no effort to answer. How could I?

"... Me either." He chuckled delightedly at me.

Not only did I feel scared for my life, but I felt that shitty feeling of sadness cast over me like broadcast news on weather forecast.

It was honestly the biggest, and craziest, question to even ask, but... Did Eddie really love me?

"If..." I mentally struggled to even ask the serious question. "... If you really love me, then..." My shifty eyes met with Eddie's again,

"You wouldn't hurt me!"

I must have struck a nerve at that statement, from the way I saw Eddie's smile drop fast, and his hand that held my face flinch. I awaited his brutal answer of declining, to rant on more about his hallow duty in having a baby, a wife, and a successful marriage of some fantasy sort. I wanted to scream when Eddie's hand suddenly gripped hard at my cheek, his nails feeling like razorblades slicing my skin, but I withheld the best I could. What I couldn't seriously do about it was tell Eddie to stop digging his nails into my skin. He would have likely ripped off my cheek if he pleased.

"Darling..." Eddie chuckled lowly, grinning wickedly to himself as his blazing eyes flared something vicious. "... Do not... test... my love and needs... for you...!" He shoved my face back, to where the back of my cranium slammed against the metal locker wall. I let out a yelp, as prickly rust-curls smashed against the back of my head, causing likely minor bleeding. The impact was enough to knock me unconscious again...

It must have been another hour or so when I slowly became conscious again. The squeaky sound of the locker's hinges groaning stirred me awake. The hands that pulled me out of the locker and into strong arms told my brain to wake the fuck up.

"Away with you," I could faintly hear Eddie hiss, before kicking off the recent dead man's body off of the operating-saw table. "You were so ugly. Given up on love, you have... But, not my love here." Eddie placed my body down onto the operating table's long surface, delicately. I only began to groan and murmur gibberish - trying to make myself awaken and mobile - when I felt Eddie's gloved-hands on either side of my face. His right-thumb brushed up to my half-lidded eye and pushed up my eye-lid to see if I were still conscious. The blare of the ceiling lights shocked me, making me jolt.

"Oh!" Eddie delightedly grinned to my mobilization. "Awaken, now, darling."

"Gh..." I tried to speak.

"Keep calm now, darling. You're doing fine." Eddie stroked at my cheek lovingly, as he watched my unfocused eyes shift and gaze. When I tried another time to speak, my lips only parted slightly, giving up instantly. I mentally swore at my inability to do anything. "Do you request my full attention now?" He asked, almost mockingly. "Not now, love."

When I felt his hand at the zipper of my prison jumpsuit, I made a terrified flinch, my fingernails suddenly kneading at the bloodstained metal beneath my limp body, desperate to move. "No, don't..." I teared, trying to plea. "Please... Eddie..." My heavy hands, with all their might, lifted up fast to grasp at Eddie's broad shoulders before they fell. My teeth gritted together, hooking my nails into the fabric of his sleeves as I felt the relief of his hand yielding.

No. No, this man didn't love me. He tormented emotions with words, and I was just close enough to be caught in his snare. Eddie was hurting me to get his payback. I could almost feel the flare of hatred blaze from those icy blue eyes every time I made a noise.

Before my thoughts could continue to ramble, I suddenly felt the warmth of lips press against my own. My fingernails remained snagged at his sleeves, my hands trembling once more. God, he was kissing me. Eddie moved one of his hands up to my face, brushing his thumb over the corner of my lips. He forcably pried opened my mouth, and invaded it with more kisses and tongue. My soul felt really to rip out and run for dear life. I dug my nails into his shoulders when I felt his thumb hook over the side of my bottom-teeth, preventing me from closing my mouth or biting, as he continued to molest my mouth.

If he could have been any-fucking-body else...

My heart made a burst of fire to a sensual slide of Eddie's tongue on mine. He licked at my tongue and at my teeth, as saliva began to dribble out of my mouth and trail down from the corner of my lips. I shut my eyes tightly and tried to think of my Wife, Lisa. I tried imaging that it was her lips, her body hovering over mine. I just tried to imagine that her kisses were more rough, more sadistic, and more demanding. But, it wasn't working. Eddie must have been an expert smoocher or something, because everything he was doing to my mouth made me shamefully fired up.

"Darling," Eddie spoke against my lips, a thin thread of saliva between us as he moved his face from mine. "Darling?"

I didn't want to open my eyes. I just didn't want to.

"Such a pet," Eddie giddily smiled. "Eyes closed, breaths light. Listen, though," and there, I was surprised again by Eddie's hand slamming down onto my agap lips and nose. A cloth was there, soaked in something that could knock me out cold. My eyes snapped open and my screams were muffled. Eddie down at me with a smile, eyes wide and paying attention to my terrified face, to soaking that vulnerability. "I will love you forever."

I braced for the safety of darkness again. Only now, I couldn't run for cover.