True to his word, Jake was teaching her how to use a sling. Which, despite what Sam had thought, was not the same as a slingshot.
"This is miserable and I hate it," Sam deadpanned after more than an hour of complete failure, picking up the last of her missed shots several feet ahead of the rock structure she'd been aiming at.
"You're not launching it into the ground anymore," Jake shrugged. "Or shooting into the trees. That's improvement."
"I thought we learned skills faster here. Isn't time some flavor of weird?" She tied and retied the flannel around her waist, kicking at the ground of the clearing. "Why is my arm sore? Running doesn't hurt like this."
"Because you were out of shape before you came here and running is a skill essential to the trials."
Sam blew a sort of raspberry as she sighed, sitting on the edge of the shortest of the petrified stumps. "Pulling no punches, I see," she grumbled. She'd actually been pleasantly surprised when she'd pulled on her workout gear for the first time; she'd thought it had fit really well. Then again, they didn't have a full-length mirror here, so maybe it was just her not actually knowing what she looked like. Which was probably better for her self-esteem in the long run. And, admittedly, it wasn't like she'd gone to the gym, before: too busy wallowing in her free time. So he may be right about that.
"And learning does come faster, yeah. But those are trial skills, this is for fun." Jake stood close, but not too close, swinging his own empty sling around one finger. He always gave her space. She appreciated that. "Where's your loop?"
She held out her hand, palm up, wiggling her fingers. "I think the ring finger is working better than before, but I still suck."
"You never threw a baseball?"
"I tried softball for like two weeks one summer." Sam leaned back, stretching her neck as she put one foot up on her stump and bounced the other.
"Ah. So you are gay."
She jerked back. "What?" Why the hell, "No! Why—?" Right, sweatbands. "I'm bi, Jesus, why do people just assume the rainbow is only for gays and lesbians, fuckin' Christ." She tried to scratch at the wood with one of the stones she'd picked back up, but it wasn't exactly sharp. "Homophobic."
He let out a short laugh. Sam wondered what the hell that was supposed to mean. Some variety of queer as well, maybe? He never really talked about himself. Also, he never really laughed that often. Broody boy was broody a lot, especially in the more populated quarters of the camp. Then again, so was she.
"The softball was at summer camp, dipshit." She was kinda used to wearing the wristbands at this point. Days always felt so long, even though she objectively knew they weren't. Or it seemed like they weren't. People had watches, they still told time. You could get used to a lot in a few days, and she'd been here…
How long had she been here? Must've been a couple weeks. A month? Two? No, less than two. Less than one? There was a whole wall on one end of the cabin, covered in hash marks. Someone was tallying the days, or at least some days, but she'd never counted. Enough to fill the majority of a wall that was easily 20 feet wide. She'd never asked who'd started it, just knew that Bill had taken charge of it since he'd arrived. Every dusk he'd carve another notch.
"So you need to work on aim, so what? Got the time."
Sam groaned. She was comfortable enough with Jake to whine a little. He rarely if ever validated it. She didn't mind, it was usually petty stuff, anyway. "When I come out of this I'm gonna be so fuckin' talented."
Neither of them added anything to that. They both knew it wasn't happening any time soon. Chances were very very slim. Infinitesimal. One might even say nonexistent.
She broke the moment of awkward silence. "Can't I try something else? Archery? Knife throwing?"
"Got a thing for knives or something?"
Ahaha, no, you don't answer that.
She ignored the thoughts taunting her. "No." Which… might have been true? "Why?"
He gestured to her bare arms. "It's kinda big."
The tattoo, right. Yeah. "Just a… personal thing."
He nodded. Never pushed the issue on personal stuff. One of the reasons the gay comment had taken her by surprise.
Personal thing… yeah. Part of her minor tattoo addiction. Which was too recent in her life to have really covered much, but she had had plans. Any time she needed to hurt, she'd get a tattoo. She had, what, 12 now? Over the course of… two years? Less, she'd gotten her first a few months before turning 19. They were all black and grey, nothing massive, some quite small. It was a very artistic form of self-harm, and for that, a knife had felt… poetically appropriate. Now, though…
"Almost identical, don't you think?"
Fuckin' hell. She ignored the itch at the back of her mind. It had been ages. It had been so long since they'd had a trial together, there was no reason to be thinking of him. She must've had at least fifteen trials since then. There were very few killers left that she hadn't faced, maybe four or five, and yet not another Legion.
"No throwing knives," Jake shrugged. "If I did, sure. A hunting knife isn't quite the same."
Right. Sure.
"Another go?"
Sam nodded, but they were interrupted as someone came through at the entrance to the clearing, waving to Jake.
Steve. A little too far off to speak at a regular volume, he raised his voice to call to them. "I caught a rabbit!" Aww, he sounded so excited. (Sam was in an upswing on the hope thing lately, high off of three whole escapes in a row, even if one had been a rush for the hatch.) "I need help with the next part!"
Jake turned back to her. "Keep practicing. Try to clear your mind. Focusing on your breath might help, and feel for the right release point."
What, like she hadn't been? Sam waved him off. "Yeah, yeah. Thanks. Go… skin a rabbit, I guess." Eh. Not something she wanted to think about, even if she knew she should probably do the trapping and the dressing and the whole dead animal thing at some point. It couldn't hurt to know more. And there wasn't much else to do. God, she missed TV. And books. And all the cheesy things about nature she usually only admitted to herself. Birdsong, sunlight, crisp breezes. Flowers. Stars.
Once Jake left her alone she kicked her foot a bit, playing with the knot of her sling, then sighed and stood up, reloading the pockets of her shorts with stones. More of this, then.
She… sort of improved. Not very consistently, but there were a couple cracks of stone on stone that were very satisfying, on the edges of the chalk circle she was going for, and some that weren't quite as powerful. A lot of stones hit short, or wide, or long. Aiming was hard when she was swinging the thing so much. She tried to do the focus bit.
Tapping into the skill Bill had taught her, she tried listening, like she might for the hatch. That didn't work. There was no hatch here, she probably could've known that. But she pivoted the idea and tried thinking about her own breath, instead. Breath and pulse. Focus in, cut everything else out. Swing and release. Miss. Try again. Miss.
Really great at this new skill. Getting better every minute. Great use of your time.
Sam ignored that part of her. Couldn't improve if she didn't try.
Oh the cliche, that's just painful.
Shut up. Breath and pulse. The beat of her heart. Swing and release. Finally there was a satisfying crack as she hit her target (still off center, and the target was pretty big, but it was something).
Fuck right off.
Her focus faded away as she realized she'd run out of stones. Collection time, then.
She was in the middle of gathering up her ammunition that had flown well over her target (enthusiasm was a plus, right?) when she almost stepped on something in the grass.
Well, not almost, no; she did step on something, just not enough to break it. She bent down.
It was… a cassette tape? That felt so incredibly out of place, not just in the middle of a bunch of grass (though, that too), but in this place where they were so disconnected from the real world.
Sam turned it over in her hands, examining. It wasn't in great shape, but could probably still work if they had a tape player. Which they might, actually, there was all kinds of weird stuff in the storeroom, but she'd never heard anyone playing any tapes. It wasn't even like they needed to preserve battery, either; batteries didn't run down on this side of the trials (unfortunately, they did during trials, which Sam had learned at a very bad time).
There was nothing written on the label, just some scratchy lines that—
Sam stiffened. They looked eerily familiar, now that she thought about it. An awful lot like the pincers that clawed and grabbed at every bit of hope the survivors could muster, trial after trial. She frowned.
Practice was over for the day.
She'd have to bring the tape back to camp, ask someone about it.
She still wanted to put all the sling stones back in a pile, though. She'd want to find them again when the time came for more practice, and she didn't particularly feel like carrying around pockets full of rocks. She was heading back toward the rock she'd been aiming at, and the scattered stumps and stones ahead of it, when she saw something broken off of the big hollow stump. Splintered off? It was too far away to tell, but something was sticking out at an angle.
It only took a few steps closer for her to realize what it was and stop stock still.
A knife.
Her eyes darted around for movement, but if someone had been here they were already gone. No one behind her, no one in front, unless they were crouched in the shelter of the rock. Sam swallowed hard. It was Jake's. Or— Bill had a knife. Plenty of survivors had knives, they weren't unheard of, just impossible to bring into trials, but they existed. So she hadn't seen it before she'd come to this side of the rocks; she probably wasn't paying attention.
She gave the rocks a wide berth, eyes fixed on them as she came around, but no one there, either. How had it gotten there?
Chewing at her lip, Sam let out a determined breath before rounding the stump and reaching for the knife, prying it out with some difficulty.
Her heart leapt to her throat as she stared at the blade in her hand, breath heavy, trying to keep herself steady. She would've known the blade before she came here, a similar silhouette inked onto her skin, but she knew it intimately now.
Was that breath on the back of her neck? She was imagining things. But she didn't want to turn around.
Why not?
There was no good reason why not. Fear, probably. Even if she was the one holding the weapon.
Sam tightened her grip on the handle. It wasn't warm. It couldn't be, she'd left it there, it had been there too long, that one had to be her mind playing tricks on her.
It had been embedded in the wood of the stump. The angle of penetration made it very clear which direction it had been thrown from. The Deep Forest.
Of course. Where else? Spooky woods is spooky, you knew this. They can't come here during the day.
She'd put her hand in at night. What was to stop them from doing the same?
If they could come here to kill you, they would've done it long before now. This place has been here for ages. Just check. Just turn around.
But what if it wasn't to kill them?
…You're messed up, you know that?
It was just a theory. It was obviously wrong.
Turn around. Check. Do it. Just do it, just turn around and check, it's one motion, all you have to do is look, and you won't do it.
In a second.
Do it. Do it.
In a second, Christ.
You want him to be there. You do, that's why you're not looking.
Fuck.
You're fucking insane. Knives, now? Knives?!What happened to tattoos being your weapon of choice? You want him cutting you open, now?
Definitely not. No. No cutting. He hadn't cut, he—
He doesn't have to break skin.
Sam wasn't sure how long she'd been standing there, arguing with herself, unable to move. Trying not to replay that day and failing in miserable flashes that made her skin crawl in too many ways, completely inconsistent. Morbid curiosity.
One fucking pretty boy and that's all it took?
She could justify this. This was just another example of her inclination towards things that would hurt her. Another way to kill herself, that's all.
…Right.
…
Was it bad that having him slit her wrists had been the closest she'd felt to someone in years?
YES. THAT IS BAD. DO NOT THINK THAT, WE DON'T THINK THAT, YOU DIDN'T THINK THAT, THAT DIDN'T—
Just a tone. Blue screen, flatline. Cutting all thoughts off. Humming in her skull as she pushed off any more argument. No more.
She stabbed the knife back into the wood.
No more.
She left the clearing.
"Yeah. We have some tapes. You haven't heard the tapes?"
Sam tried to push off the feeling still crawling over her skin, focusing on Ace's words. He was a little less unlikeable, now. He'd been essential to saving her ass in two separate trials, so… couldn't exactly hold a grudge. Just cause he dressed like a divorced dad in Vegas.
"There are tapes?"
He took the one she was holding out to him. "I think we've seen this before. Might be doubles." Tapping the tape on their table for a second (she'd really prefer he didn't, it was in bad enough shape as it was), he handed it back. "Talk to Adam. He keeps recordings."
Turned out, Adam kept a variety of recordings. A stack of yellowed papers and a box of cassettes, kept in a well-rusted filing cabinet in the storeroom before he set them out on the room's prep table.
"Ah. Yes, we've seen that one before." He plucked the tape from her hands. "Don't listen to it."
She hadn't been aware they could, but okay. "What is it?"
"That one? It belongs to the Entity. Listening to it doesn't help any of us. It only corrupts the mind. The best we can do is keep it with the rest to prevent the killers from having them."
Sam was peering into the box of cassettes curiously, when Adam went on.
"We have tapes you do need to listen to. You should have listened to them earlier." Oh? "The Lost Tapes."
Another term that sounded capitalized. (Also: patently untrue? If they had them, they certainly weren't lost.) "…And those are…?"
"They impart skills."
What? Seriously? That was possible? "How?"
"We're not sure. Most of the tapes are incoherent, there are very few words audible. They've been here a very long time - some as long as anyone can remember - and they're one of the few resources we have for escaping the killers."
How could they help if they were incoherent? How did an incoherent recording teach a skill? And— "How do I listen to them?"
Adam turned around for the filing cabinet again, struggling with the second drawer before it opened with a screech of metal on metal that made Sam wince. He dropped the cassette she'd given him into the drawer, and there was a clatter of plastic on plastic. Probably more tapes. Then he pulled out a tape recorder that seemed to be from the 70s, or maybe 80s. Old. He set the recorder in the box, and pushed it in her direction.
"Take them. Each is one hour long, 30 minutes on each side. At times, it may not seem like you're hearing anything, but you have to listen the whole way through. Some are labeled, others aren't. We don't know all of their names."
For some reason, that sent a nervous itch over her skin.
"You should get listening before trials tonight. New skills may come in handy."
Sure.
Notes: Working on another very long chapter that may need to be cut down. But before that, we get to meet someone new. Also: Hey! The Lost Tapes! There's so little lore about the Lost Tapes! Thought I should go ahead and fill in how all those 'everyone' perks can be imparted. And well well well, if someone isn't being sneaky. :3
As always, gimme your thots in the reviews. ^^