"Who is she?"

"I've never seen her before."

"Can we trust her?"

"Why can't we trust her? She's stuck here like we are."

Voices? Who's? My head was spinning as I gradually came to consciousness, feeling groggy and disoriented. My whole body felt like it had been hit by a full-grown oak, making it heavy from head to toe. A hammer pounded away at the back of my skull. Pain radiated a dull rhythm in my back, zigzagging from muscle to muscle, left to right, a zipper ripped open to expose the nerves.

"I treated her back. The muscles were a little shredded, but if she rests, the Entity should have her fixed up by her next trial."

The events came back. The Hillbilly's chainsaw shredding through my spine, a blur of dilapidated buildings and flame barrels, leaving Evan's cave. All of it came back in a hurry, causing my stomach to churn and roil. I knew I should have gone back to that cave, waited for Evan to wake up. He could have brought me here, then I wouldn't have walked into that trial-

Or wouldn't I have? Evan was a killer too. There's no guarantee I won't face him in the future. My heart sunk into my nauseated stomach, appalled by the very thought. I could only just barely rise and scramble a few feet to vomit what little I may have had in my stomach.

"Easy, kid, easy…" The voice that spoke now was soft, and a warm hand touched my shoulder. Through the blur of my tears, I could barely make out a broad-shouldered, heavyset man with a thick beard. He looked friendly enough. "First time is always rough." He sat there with me for a while, letting my body give itself up to its sensations before letting me take back over. "It gets better with time."

"Doesn't make it suck any less, but at least it gives us a reason to try." Another voice spoke up now, from behind me. I did my best to turn towards it, but my stomach protested, and I was heaving again. "Gross, are you sure you didn't just come from a Plague trial?"

"Nea, that was uncalled for…" Yet another voice spoke up.

"Oh, go jump in a locker."

"Enough!"

All heads, including mine, turned. A girl stood beside the campfire with her arms crossed over her chest. Her hair was tied back into a tight black bun and a sweater covered her shoulders. Her piercing black eyes held the faces of everyone there, before resting on me. "What Nea said is right. It sucks, a lot, but now you know what to avoid. And if you get caught, well, you know what to expect. You're a survivor... and that's that."

A survivor. So these people are the survivors Evan told me about. By taking a brief look around the fire, I could count seventeen, a mixture of men and women, younger and older, and all sorts of backgrounds. A girl with a rather short, colorful hairstyle sat crossed legged on a tree stump, scowling at a sheepish looking man across the fire from her. I had reason to assume that the girl on the stump was Nea.

"So how did you end up here?" The girl with the bun knelt in front of me, extending her hand. In it, a scrap of fabric. When I didn't answer, she pressed on, "No need to be shy. I drank myself stupid and wound up here."

I took the handkerchief from her hand and used it to wipe my mouth, feeling a little better than before but not much. "I don't know how I got here. I can't remember." The admittance made me feel small, inferior to this group. They knew their places, their skills, how to maneuver through this world and how they got here. Surely, they all had skills in their life that helped them to prepare for their time here. "The Trapper found me as I was waking up."

The girl nodded slowly, "You were lucky, then. Had the Shape found you, he would not have been as kind." She rose to her feet and looked back to the fire. "Claudette, is it ready yet?"

I let myself sink back into the ground, relieved to have the focus taken away from me again. It was all so much to take in; the pain, the realization of the true nightmare this place was, and that I had only seen three of the monsters that lurked in this realm. And that girl, she said I had been lucky it was Evan. Were the others truly not so kind? The Shape seemed pretty bad… if I remembered correctly, that's Michael.

A twig snapped nearby. All the survivors leapt to their feet and backed towards the fire. The man beside me gently took me by the arms and pulled me further from the forest edge, his posture rigid as he examined the shadows. But there was no need. I gently pushed him off and shakily stood on my own feet.

I could hear him breathing in the darkness.

"I'm okay." I found myself saying into the dark. I didn't believe myself for an instant, but those words would have to work. I took a few steps closer to the edge, further from the light. "You didn't sleep long."

"I slept long enough."

He did not sound happy. His reply was short, curt, as though aggravated.

"What are you doing here?" The girl from before, Nea, called out, causing me to jump. I looked back at her, not sure I liked this crazy-haired chick. "You know this is the survivor camp."

"I won't stay long." Evan's voice was a low growl, voicing his displeasure with her. Then, it softened, redirected for my ears. "I wanted to make sure you made it here in one piece." There was quiet from him for a moment, his breathing still, before he went on, "You went into a trial."

"I know."

There was more silence, then, "and you're okay?"

I swallowed a lump in my throat. "I'm okay." I was not okay. I could feel their eyes on my shoulders. I knew they were listening, judging. They didn't trust me for a moment. "The Hillbilly didn't get me too bad."

"Now that's a damned lie."

I couldn't see his expression. In fact, I couldn't see him at all. I was talking to the inky depths of the forest, only knowing he was there by his disembodied voice. It was though he himself were the forest, watching on and listening to its intruders. "I'm fine. They helped me out of the trial." I did a small gesture back towards the others, trying my best to alleviate his worries.

Had he really been worried about me?

There was silence for a while, followed by a heavy sigh. Branches crunched under his heavy boots as he moved in the dark, away from our circle. "If you say so." And he was gone, without even so much as a goodbye. I watched the shadows, for some inkling that he was there, still watching, still listening, but he was truly gone. My heart, which had been beating hard against my bruised ribs, began to calm and slow as the icy night settled on my shoulders.

"Come by the fire, before the Entity sucks you in." A gentle set of hands took me by the arm and led me away from the forest edge. I sunk onto a log, between two of the others I hadn't exchanged names with. The hands belonged to a dark-skinned girl with glasses, her hair braided and tucked under a loose cap. After her hands had released me, they had found another object, a bowl filled with a steaming liquid. "Here, eat. You'll need to get your strength back."

Minutes passed by the fire, stretched in silence as everyone held their own bowls. One girl, done before the rest, held a guitar in her lap and strummed a solemn chord. The others would listen as they ate or doze off in their sleep. One man fiddled with a puppet that was attached tightly to his arm.

"So, newcomer. We don't know your name." It was the girl with the bun again. She hadn't let me out of her sight since the Trapper came by. "I'll start. I'm Feng Min."

"Farisa. At least, that's my name for now." At her suspicious stare, I felt obligated to explain, "I can't remember anything. My past, how I got here, not even my name. E-… the Trapper suggested it." I squeezed the bowl tightly in my hands. There was no point hiding the truth, even if it meant I was digging myself into a hole. "He said I might be able to remember if I came here."

"Well… he's not wrong." Nea frowned, holding her bowl against her knee. "But the hell kind of name is Farisa?"

"What's wrong with it?"

"It's an Arabic word." One of the men answered this time, an old man with a cigarette balanced between his lips. "One of its translations is 'prey.' You sure he gave you that name out of kindness?" He took a long puff before sighing the smoke out through his nostrils. His eyes slid towards me, with just the faintest shadow of pity, then back to the inky dark of the forest as he chuckled out a puff of smoke. "How ironic."

.

.

.

It didn't take long for me to exchange names with the rest of them, but how I would ever remember who was who was beyond me. Bowls were cleaned and put away, the fire was stoked, and some set to resting for the night, but not all.

One of the men, David, stood near the edge of our small clearing, looking out into the depths of the woods. He had told me he was a rugby player before he arrived here and had been in his fair share of brawls. Seeing him standing there, it was as though I was peeking into how he used to start his fights. His broad shoulders were squared, ready for a fight, as he took a step into the woods.

The forest swallowed him, and he was gone.

I sat up, alarmed, but none of the others seemed to have noticed… or cared. Then, Claudette stood from where she had been sitting, stretched for a long while, and followed David into the fold. Only after two others, Kate and Ace, followed them did I realize what was going on.

They were going into a Trial.

"Feng Min?" I found myself at her side, my voice soft as I readied my question for her. "How do we know when we've been summoned for a Trial?"

The girl with the bun, Feng Min, was among the stockpile of toolboxes- Bill had explained we could take a few tools in to help us during our trial. A wrench was in her hand while the other checked the contents of a particularly large box. "Well… it's hard to explain. I guess the Entity tells you." She pulled out a grease-covered towel and set it to the side, replacing it with a set of swivel sockets.

"But what does that mean?"

"You'll learn." Feng patted the ground beside her, motioning for me to sit. "It's kind of like this. You have this feeling, like you need to be there. You'll look out into those shadows, and find yourself stepping in. And once you take that first step, there's no backing out." She grabbed a large looking gear from inside the toolbox and placed it beside the rag, saving it for later. The piece looked almost brand new.

I sat beside her, picking up one of the toolboxes she hadn't touched yet. "But… what happens when you get sacrificed? What if I don't escape the trial?" The questions just kept coming to my mind; what happened if I was sacrificed? What did each killer do? What would happen if the trial never ends?

There was a soft caw overhead. My eyes traveled upward, along the stark silhouette of a crow perched on a long branch. It bowed its head low, its red eyes shining bright, fixated on us.

"He's watching." Feng whispered, placing a toolbox to the side. "No more questions… Go rest, Farisa… I can't imagine that you won't be facing another trial soon." She picked up another toolbox and set to organizing its contents, now practically ignoring me.

I watched the crow for a while, unaware that more and more of my new comrades were disappearing, one by one, into the forest beyond.