"Get Mark back to the hideout!" Avery yelled behind her at Jack and Delirious and then took off in the opposite direction.
"What are you going to do?!" she heard Delirious call after her.
But she couldn't answer, because it would likely slow her down. Avery wanted to get as far away from the others as fast as possible, giving them time to get Mark to safety. That's what mattered right now, nothing else. As long as Mark was taken back to the hideout and treated, he should be alright. Hopefully Jack or Delirious would soon find a first-aid kit. Avery ran past the Blood Lodge and beyond, heading into the area of the Wrecker's Yard. The Killer's Shack was at the center of it, and she knew that if she reached it, she might find something useful.
There was a roar behind her, and Avery then realized just how close The Wraith had gotten. There was a gray truck just ahead of her, and for some reason it was somehow running. Avery circled around it, and what she wasn't expecting was for The Wraith to take the sharpened end of the spine on its weapon and stab it into the truck's hood.
When Avery opened her eyes again, the first thing she felt was pain. It was all over her, but the majority of it was in her lower back. Barely moving, Avery managed to get one of her hands on that one spot, and gasped when she felt something wet. Blood. She was bleeding. What had happened? The last thing she remembered was a flash of bright orange and red light and then everything went black. Wait, almost everything was still black, or more like dark gray, and then Avery realized that it was smoke. The truck must have exploded when The Wraith had stabbed the engine.
With a few small yelps of pain, Avery managed to get to her feet once more, but it was difficult to stay on them, since her legs felt like jelly. Her head was now starting to hurt, and Avery was hardly able to walk. She looked around and saw smoldering fires burning themselves out, and there was a small crater several yards away from where she had landed. It was where the truck had been previously. The Wraith was nowhere around, and Avery guessed that he had either been sent flying and or had even been destroyed.
Poor guy. . . she thought suddenly. For Avery, even though The Wraith was trying to kill her, she still felt bad for him. His entire back story was something some people might find slightly dramatic.
The Wraith, or before he'd become the monster he was now, Philip Ojomo, had apparently come to this "country" with nothing but hope for a new start. He'd happily accepted a job offer for Autohaven Wrecker's where crushing cars was what he did best. But Philip Ojomo had been totally unaware to what his boss had been doing, which was putting innocent people in the trunks of the cars that he was putting through the crusher. It hadn't been until he saw blood coming from one of the trunks that Ojomo had discovered what his boss was doing. Apparently he'd completely snapped after his boss had finished off the poor guy and stuffed him into the crusher, ripping his head and spine out afterward, which he now used as his weapon. Obviously he had found a blade to lodge into the jaw for better use at some point, though.
According to the game's website, after killing his boss, Philip Ojoma had left and was never seen again by anyone. Except for the unlucky souls that happened to wander into the junkyard.
Avery moved away from the site and stopped finally in a small patch of trees. She sat there for a couple of moments with her eyes closed before opening them again and looking around a little. To Avery's confusion, she saw something white and gray, almost like metal. Standing up for a closer look, Avery gasped.
It was a gate.
Avery ran up to it and tried pulling on the lever. It was stuck, and even if it wasn't, it wouldn't matter; the box wasn't getting enough power. Only half the number of needed generators were currently working, so of course there wouldn't be enough power to open the gate that Avery now stood in front of. Sighing, Avery turned away from the gate and started walking towards the Blood Lodge, the top of which was just barely visible in the distance. She couldn't go back to the treehouse, she felt that this was her chance to find the Journal. In truth, Avery actually did want to go back to the treehouse and the others, but what of the Journal? They all knew that the Journal held the answers to everything they needed and possibly wanted to know, and finding it would hopefully make things easier for them all.
As Avery wound her way through the high walls of scrap metal and other broken vehicles, she started to recognize which area she was on. This was Wrecker's Yard, which always contained the Killer's Shack. Inside the shack, there was always the basement. The lair. Getting excited, Avery started looking around for a high vantage point. She found it in a dead birch tree, the branches of which were formed just right for climbing. Once Avery had gone as high as she dared, she gazed out over the Yard for any sign of the Shack. She knew she would recognize it once she saw it. But before Avery found anything of the dangerous building, she heard movement.
Avery froze, hoping that it wasn't Philip. All she needed now was to deal with The Wraith while stuck in a tree. The thing wouldn't leave her alone unless someone else came by.
Or it knew how to climb trees itself. That wouldn't be good.
Heart beginning to beat quickly in her chest, Avery slowly looked around, and was thankful when she finally saw the Shack far off in the distance, just barely visible through a patch of tall trees. Climbing down from the tree that she was in and landing on the ground once more, Avery started off in that direction. She heard the movement again, and then heard voices. Avery ducked out of sight and cautiously peeked out at the owners of the voices. It was Jack and Delirious.
"You sure?" Delirious was saying.
"Yeah, I can still see it ahead," Jack said.
Curious, Avery looked at where they were heading, and caught the slightest glimpse of something transparent. The Wraith.
"Come on! It's started running!" Jack whispered quickly, and then took off, with Delirious behind him.
What are they doing? Avery wondered. Were they hunting The Wraith? That was crazy! They would get themselves killed if not hurt!
Shaking her head and ignoring the urge to run after them, Avery turned away and headed off in the direction of the Killer's Shack. The sooner she got there, the better. Avery walked for a while, climbing to higher points when she could to make sure that she was still going in the right direction, and then finally reached the Shack. Sighing, Avery climbed in through the one window and gazed down the stairs, which emitted an interesting orange colored glow. Descending the stairs, the glow disappeared and was replaced with a blue-gray haze. It was hot in the basement, but Avery didn't care. She searched the whole place, and found a box in the small nook hidden behind a wall in front of the stairs.
Avery bent down in front of the box and threw it open. She rummaged through the contents (old sheets, broken hooks, a few blood covered bones, and a cracked piece of glass that Avery cut her arm on), and thought that it was all for not until she spotted something oddly familiar.
It was her diary.
The pink book was lying at the bottom of the box in one corner, and it looked as though it had been there for a while. Confused, Avery picked it up and turned it over. She opened it to a random page and was startled. The writing wasn't hers. The penmanship was not only different, but Avery had never written anything like this before.
She had found the Journal, but why did it look like her diary? Avery turned to the first page and began reading after a quick glance behind her.
Hello, player. I see that you have found the Journal. Good for you!
As you hopefully have already been told, this book contains the answers to your questions about your current situation. This is very much true, for on the next page is the reason why you're here.
Avery felt her breath catch in her throat as she turned the page.
Ah, I see that you have decided to keep reading. Smart decision, player.
As for the reason you are here, that it something that you may not want to know, for it is disturbing. I do not know which of the four is currently reading this, but one of you is the cause for this mess. She wanted to meet the three people she idolized most so desperately that she was willing to put them and herself in danger to do so. Yes, Avery is the reason that you are all here. If you feel that she can no longer be trusted, you are wrong. She got you all into this mess, and she knows that she can get you all out of it as well. I'm sure that she has already said that she knows a lot about this game.
Avery, if you are the one reading this right now, you must be so confused. Well, let me explain. You may have made your most recent diary entry unclear, therefore, making the book believe that what you meant was that the only way to meet Jacksepticeye, Markiplier, and H2ODelirious was inside this particular game. You may want to start wording you paragraphs differently, my dear.
However, you did get the book without heeding the warning of the old bookstore owner, and are now only experiencing this because for the first time, you wrote in that diary a wish. The book was created to grant whoever was to write in it the wish that they wrote down. Unless properly worded and extremely specific, that wish would go bad somewhere. Writing with no flaws would always be the best option.
Avery stopped reading for a moment, and then turned to the next page, though she was afraid of what she might find written on the pages.
Now for the question of how this is happening.
The four of you are probably wondering what is going on in the real world, right? Well, not to worry, none of you will be reported missing, for your actual bodies were left behind in the real world, each in a coma. Currently in the game are copies, or for more better terms, your souls. It sounds very freaky, I know, but there was no other way.
What the first note you read said about the physics here being different from what they are in the actual game is something you should really be worried about. Any injury you sustain here, will be inflicted on your real body in the real world. Which also means that if you die here, you're actually dead. Game over.
The note also stated that you would have to go up against the four killers on the four maps. Currently, you are facing the Wraith on Autohaven Wrecker's. The next one will be the Hillbilly on Coldwind Farm, leaving the Trapper with the Macmillan Estate. Finally, it will be the Nurse at the Crotus Prenn Asylum. The reason for all these specifics has to do with the backstories for each character and location.
You already know that in order to get home, you must beat the game, and you already know how to do that; repair a certain number of generators on each map and move on.
Something else that is rather important for you all to know, is that time is passing differently here than it is in the real world. Here, it is much slower, while in the real world, it goes normally, or as you might now see it, quicker.
Avery couldn't bear to read any more, but she kept going, there was still so much more that she needed to find out. Like, what about resources like food and water? She discovered that the game's toolboxes used for sabotaging the hooks had been replaced with these very things. Great, more things to find. Avery reread what was written in the Journal a few more times, trying to remember everything written on the pages, which was a good thing, because when she finally closed the book again, it vanished.
"Holy shit, this is way more serious than I had thought. . ." she murmured quietly.
Suddenly, Avery heard a creak. It had come from the stairs, which meant that someone was coming down. It could be The Wraith! Avery stood up quickly and ran across the basement as quietly as she could and hid inside the closet against the wall. She kept her breath and heart as still as possible, hoping that the monster wouldn't look in that particular closet. Several moments passed, and then Avery heard almost silent footsteps just outside the closet. To her surprise, there was a knock.
"Avery? Are you in there?" a most familiar voice spoke. It was Delirious.
Avery let herself breathe again and pushed the closet's doors open.
"Then Delirious and I came back here and he patched me up." Avery said, gently rubbing the bandage on her arm where she'd been cut by the glass.
"Why is it that you're the reason we're here?" Mark asked.
"I would like to know that, too." Jack said.
Avery shrugged. "Despite what the Journal had said about my diary being magic, I still want to know that answer as much as you do. Especially as to how that book is enchanted. I didn't think that magic was real," she said.
The four of them were quiet for a moment, before Delirious spoke up. "So, we've only got two generators left to repair?" he looked at the note where there were eight tally marks drawn under the large ten.
"Yeah, I guess we do." Avery said.
"Let's go and get them fixed, then!" Mark said, beginning to stand up.
"Whoa! You're not going anywhere, Mark," Jack said, putting his hand out to stop Mark from getting up.
Mark looked at him. "I'm fine, Jack. I can walk," he stated defiantly. "And besides, I'm sure that once the last generator is fixed, we're all going to get out of here right away," he added.
Jack looked to Avery, who shrugged.
"Well, we still don't know where the last two generators are," Delirious began. "and there's a chance that something could happen while we're still looking for them and we'll end up coming back here anyway."
"That's true." Avery nodded. "But we don't need to worry about that for right now, because I have a feeling that I know where the last two generators are."
Mark, Jack, and Delirious all stared at her. Avery shifted her gaze between them.
"We haven't hit two parts, I'm sure. There's a high chance that there is another generator on the other side of Asarov's Resting Place, and then one somewhere by the Killer's Shack." she explained.
"Oh, so all we have ta do is walk across the entire map?" Jack groaned.
"Basically, but the sooner we have them done-" Avery began.
"The sooner tha we're out." Jack finished her sentence.
"Exactly," Avery said. "And we're taking Mark with us," she added.
Mark's expression brightened.
"What?!" Jack exclaimed.
"Well, if he says he can walk, why leave him here?" Delirious said, just guessing Avery's thoughts. She nodded, saying that was exactly what she thinking.
Jack looked at the two of them, and then back at Mark. He sighed. "All right, fine, but we'll take a break or two, right?" he asked.
"Jack, I'll be fine." Mark stated.
"Unless Mark says that he wants to stop and rest, then we're not stopping." Avery crossed her arms.
Jack lowered his gaze. "Okay, fine," he said.
A minute later, Mark, Jack, Avery, and Delirious were headed back down the ladder to look for the last generators.