Thank you Sailor Pandabear, TheForgottenSheikah, ItsLiz and Zermilla13 for reviewing :)

ItsLiz: Actually, that giant is Neun, one of the game's monsters. He appears as a sub-boss in chapter 6 of the game. There are a couple of users in youtube that provide gameplay of the chapters without commentary, if you're interested in checking him out. ;)

After a short moment of despair at the entrance of the Victoriano mansion, Sofia finally entered the place and soon her soft steps could be heard, echoing through the manor as they made their way to the music room very slowly, as if the woman taking them was in a trance, being drawn to the place by some sort of unseen force.

For all she knew, she was.

Sofia walked through familiar corridors without really seeing them, distracted by the pain that shot up her legs every time she laid her feet on the floor, repeatedly staining it with bloody footprints. She hoped not to come across any eventual Haunted that inhabited this mansion, and also that they weren't smart enough to follow those footsteps to her. The doctor didn't think she'd be able to survive an encounter with those creatures in her current state.

Thankfully, her prayers were answered and she managed to reach the music room without any undesired encounters with the Haunted, immediately coming face to face with the grand piano Ruben used to play for her, once upon a time.

A sad smile tugged at the corner of the doctor's lip and she sat down at the instrument, sighing in relief at finally having her weight taken off her feet. Automatically, her hands laid gently atop the instrument's keys but didn't dare to press them down. Not only the sound would most likely bring her unwanted attention, but she had also completely forgotten the little she knew about playing the piano. Despite having the real instrument in her home, Sofia never tried to actually learn it; without Ruben, it would be meaningless.

With him, it would be meaningless as well. The man I loved never actually existed; he was a fraud, composed by lies and my own wishful thinking.

Sofia felt tears prickle her eyes and immediately raised her face to glare at the ceiling to keep them from falling. All her hopes of Ruben being the one responsible for making that giant save her disappeared inside that damned church. He had been the one manipulating Juli into seeing his face instead of hers, almost getting her shot; and he was the one who pulled Leslie away from her, again. Since the beginning he was doing all he could to torment her. She had to stop crying for him.

No. It's Ruvik. Ruben died in that fire, alongside his sister. Even he recognizes he isn't that person anymore. That he isn't a person anymore.

With that in mind, the doctor pursed her lips and rotated her body on the piano bench so she was staring in the opposite direction of the instrument and ready to stand up. However, when she looked down at her feet, she hesitated.

Only now the doctor was taking a good look at them, and they were in worse shape than she had thought. There were wounds covering their soles and sides and some were still bleeding; the few that had stopped promised to resume pouring out blood as soon as they touched the surface of the floor. There was one particular gash in Sofia's right foot that made her actually wince; it was quite deep and filled with dirty and coagulated blood.

I need to clean this up and stitch it.

Fortunately, she knew just where to go for that. Unfortunately, it was the place she least wanted to visit

Ruvik's basement…

Sofia shuddered at the thought of returning to that place and mechanically spared a glance at the door in front of her; it was blocked by various debris and wooden beams. Behind alll of that, she'd find a room with its floor covered by an expensive persian rug and, beneath the rug, the entrance to Ruvik's basement.

Well, that's not even an option anyway.

Immediately her brain started working on double-pace, thinking about any other place in the mansion where she could find the supplies she needed to take care of the wounds in her feet.

Of course. His old laboratory, from when he was a child.

Ruben had shown her the place once, during a tour he had all but forced upon her in an attempt of lessening her reluctance in walking around his home. It was just after the manor's kitchen and, despite not being used since he was a child, the doctor believed she could scavenge the necessary supplies.

The woman stared forlornly at her right foot, already dreading the painful walk she'd have to take.

No use putting it off. The sooner I get started, the sooner I'll finish it.

Once again, the walk was slow and painful for the woman but she didn't find it in herself to as much a grumble a complaint. She hadn't encountered any Haunted and, most importantly, she hadn't encountered the Chain Man; those small mercies went a long way in providing for the woman's "good" mood.

When she reached the lab however, said mood died at finding a scalped human head standing atop a small desk, with a couple of small orbitoclasts protruding from the exposed brain.

It was difficult for Sofia to hold back the urge to vomit when she saw the head blinking and she quickly turned it around so it was facing away from her.

There was a recorder with an audiotape by the severed head and, despite knowing it promised nothing good to her, Sofia pressed the play button.

The detached voice of Ruvik narrating his inhuman experiment, combined with the gut-wrenching pleas for mercy of a woman in the background quickly made Sofia's previous effort in holding back her vomit something completely in vain. She pulled a trash can from beneath the table and hurled into it.

To increase her disgust, the contents she vomited were red as bood, and with chunks of meat that were sickeningly to pieces of a human brain.

After some minutes to catch her breath, Sofia put the bin aside and started to scavenge the place as fast as she could with her damaged feet, extremely anxious to get away from the gruesome altar close to her and her own vomit.

It took the doctor a good while to find needle and thread for her skin, let alone enough clean gauze rolls to wrap them with. Rubbing alcohol, on the other hand, was rather abundant.

The only thing she didn't find were anaesthetics and, for a brief moment, Sofia actually considered going into the kitchen to grab one of the many bottles of wine she had seen laying around in there and drinking it just so she could lessen the pain that was sure to come.

But she couldn't afford to have her judgement and motor skills impaired in any way. She had to be in constant alert to avoid any contact with the Haunted and pick up any clue that might lead her to Leslie, as well as figure out a way to get them both (and hopefully the rest of the people stranded) out of STEM. And, when – not if – she did eventually confront the Haunted – as long as it's not the Chain Man. please let him be dead – Sofia had to be in perfect control of her body to run away from them.

So, instead of pouring a bottle of wine down her throat, Sofia stuffed a dirty rag inside her mouth, pulled the chair away from the gory table and closer to the door so she could take a seat without feeling the urge to vomit again, and started to work.

The cleaning of her wounds alone brought great pain to the doctor, making her bite hard on the fabric in her mouth every time the alcohol touched her damaged skin. But when she started to suture the deep gash in her right foot, not even that rag filling her mouth managed to completely muffle the moans of pain coming from the woman.

The doctor's usual firm hands trembled at every stitch she made and she couldn't keep the tears of pain from overflowing her eyes. She remembered a strange woman from her brief time in the surgery residence who had the habit of stealing xylocaine gel from the hospital and always carried a tub in her pocket, just because she enjoyed putting it on her lips and making them numb. She wished she had the same strange quirk; topical xylocaine wouldn't do that much for her pain, but she'd take any help at the moment.

Covered in sweat and breathing hard, Sofia finished her stitches as fast as she could, almost sobbing in relief when it was all over.

Then she started to wrap both of her feet with gauze. It sure wasn't going to do much to protect them if she was to break in a run on a stone floor again, nor would it keep her from feeling pain in every step, but it was all she had at the moment.

"It is so strange, bringing someone other than you in here…"

Sofia's head shot up in alert when Ruvik's voice reached her ears, believing that he had teleported into the room with her. But, of course, it couldn't be; his voice was filled with love and longing, emotions that he'd never direct at her again.

"I knew you'd like her, my beautiful Laura."

Sofia watched as a grey shadow with Ruvik's face took shape right in front of her. Its head was turned to the side, smiling tenderly at nothing in particular.

No. Not nothing in particular. He was seeing Laura in front of him, hallucinating with her. But… since when?

The doctor pursed her lips, wondering if the whole time they had been together Ruben had been suffering from such strong hallucinations. If the scene she was watching was any indicator, the answer would be yes, he had. And she never even suspected it.

"There is no chance of her being compatible with you. I've already considered it but, from what I have gathered so far, for such a connection to be stablished between two minds they must have experienced very similar experiences, and Sofia's life hasn't been much close to yours. So do not fret my sweet sister, there will be no need to destroy our lovely doctor's mind to return what is rightfully yours to you. A healthy body, capable of dancing and singing and laughing as only you can."

Sofia's eyes widened as she felt a sudden pain in her chest; one that she had grown rather familiar with and knew by the name of betrayal.

Ruben… You had actually considered the possibility of using me to provide a new vessel for your sister… of completely erasing my mind so Laura could have a new body.

After all the atrocities she had watched – and helped. never forget that you helped, that you're just as bad – Ruvik commit, Sofia really shouldn't have been surprised that his intentions towards her had once been so cruel and selfish.

She really shouldn't hurt as much as she did because of it.

But she did. It was one thing for Ruvik to resent her after the Director tricked him into believing she had something to do with his confinement in STEM, but for him to as much as consider doing that to her while they were still together…

It hurt too much, and she ran away from that old laboratory and the ghostly scene still unfolding behind her, uncaring of the Haunted that might've been alerted by her loud steps echoing throughout the otherwise silent mansion.

All the while, she could only think how much of an idiot she was. In the end, Ruben hadn't been worthy of her love at all.

STEM seemed to be made to follow Murphy's Law; everything that could go wrong, would go wrong. So it was no surprise when Haunted started to sprout seemingly out of nowhere and start chasing Sofia through the manor, cornering her inside one of the bedrooms upstairs. It was the second closest to the library, connected by a door to Ruben's own bedroom; the one she had been meant to sleep in through the night in her first visit to the mansion.

Heart pounding in her chest, the doctor used all the strength her sudden adrenaline burst gave her to pull the – thankfully empty – chest of drawers down so it was blocking one of the bedroom's doors. The other door, the one that directly connected both bedrooms, she could only lock with the rusty key that still laid inside its lock.

As soon as Sofia finished turning the key, she jumped back in fright as a particular heavy Haunted started to slam its body on the door, making it tremble forebodingly in front of her. Lips pursed and cold sweat covering all of her body, the doctor scanned her surroundings quickly and attentively before setting her eyes on the large armoire close by the window. She didn't waste one more second before sprinting towards the piece of furniture so she could hide herself inside it. That door wasn't going to hold out much longer and the last thing she wished was to be in the Haunted's line of sight when they breached the room.

Both hands laid firmly over her mouth to muffle the fearful sounds that threatened to scape her lips, Sofia heard the dreaded sound of the door violently slamming on the wall, soon followed by multiple footsteps stomping inside the room. Then, she watched through the thin gap between the armoire's doors as a couple of Haunted invaded her line of sight, glowing eyes searching, hunting for any signs of her.

Moments that felt like an eternity passed before, slowly, the creatures started to lose some of their alert, as if forgetting there was someone inside the room for them to find. Someone Ruvik wanted dead.

Sofia herself only started to relax when she heard the last of their footsteps finally leave the room, soon followed by the breached door slamming close.

Cautious, the doctor stood still and silent inside the armoire for long moments still, ears attentive to any sounds that could indicate any sort of threat still in the room with her. However, nothing came and the woman couldn't help but let her hands fall from her mouth as she released a loud breath of relief, alongside a single tear of fear.

The air had barely left her lips when the armoire's doors were cruelly pulled open, revealing the Chain Man's figure staring down at her with passionate murder written in its mismatched eyes.

Sofia's breath hitched and, before she knew it, survival instinct had prompted her to duck to the side and out of the armoire, successfully squeezing herself between the creature's frame and the edge of the furniture. The woman's knees had barely scrapped the floor and she was ready to sprint out of the bedroom.

However, before she could take one step forwards, the Chain Man's left hand reached for the top of her hand, roughly grabbing a fistful of the woman's hair at the same time it pushed the rose's thorns inside her skin, mixing her blood with his.

The Haunted hauled the woman to her feet by the hair and pulled her to the foot of the bed, not wasting one second in throwing her face first atop of it. Some strands of ink black remained in his hand, wrapped around his red rose, and the Chain Man couldn't keep himself from raising them to his face and breathe in their scent deeply.

Tears now freely streaming down her face, Sofia quickly rolled herself on the mattress so she was now laying on her back and staring at her tormentor with fearful eyes that still searched for a way to run away from him.

Before she could find said way, the Chain Man's slim form had already crawled onto bed with her and was now straddling her waist. His red rose, she noted, was now safely tucked in the pocket of his unbuttoned and blood-stained white shirt, allowing him to grab the broken collar at the other end of his chain in his left hand.

As if in slow motion, the doctor watched with wide eyes the creature lead that iron collar, covered in dried blood, towards her neck.

The woman tried to push his hand away with all she had, but her strength was nothing compared to the Chain Man's. In the end, she felt the cold iron encircle her throat and press down on it, steadily closing her windpipe. She watched the creature smile lovingly at her as he continued to press the collar down on her throat, choking the life out of her. She watched her surroundings slowly disappears as shadows started to overtake her vision from the outside in, funnelling it until all she could see were those bright, mismatched eyes staring down at her with regret and satisfaction.

Then, she felt the weight of cold metal in her right pocket and determination bubbled inside her.

Strength renewed by the sudden surge of hope, the doctor scratched and punched at the Chain Man with her left hand as her right reached inside her pants' front pocket, clumsily searching for the one weapon she had with her: Ruben's scalpel.

Finally, when she felt herself on the edge of losing consciousness, her hand closed around the weapon and pulled it from her pocket. She shook her wrist once, making the silken handkerchief that involved the scalpel's blade float away, and then thrusted her hand into the Chain Man's face, plunging the blade into his left, grey eye with all she had.

It was with immense relief that she heard the monster roar in pain and pull back from her, releasing the pressure that was bearing down on her windpipe.

Then, Sofia heard the sound of a shotgun being fired somewhere. She couldn't pinpoint where exactly, for the sound was too far-away and the world was shifting rapidly around her, morphing into many different scenarios. Sofia could make out brief images of a field of sunflowers, a burning barn, a cold and humid basement and a bedroom filled with blood.

After that, her vision went absolutely black.

I hope you all liked the chapter! Writing The Proprietor's scene was rather fun for me, so I really hope you all had a good time (aka: a tension-filled moment in your day XD) reading it. :D

Kisses,

RedVoid