Pain ripples through Victoria's body as she looks up at the clear blue skies overhead. The clear blue skies that just dropped her from a green pipe into the sunny swamplands below. She wants to scream, and swear, and hit something, but she can only grumble one word, through her gritted teeth: "Ow." She sits up, swearing under her breath, only to be interrupted by an audible pop in her backside. "Oh, my back!", Victoria yells, rubbing the sore spot.

Suddenly, she notices the strange teal glow emanating from the swamp water. Do I know this place , she asks herself. She rises to her feet, lazily, still recovering from the fall, and takes a few steps to approach the water.

With a deep breath, she falls face first into the water, letting its properties heal her. Broken bones mend, fresh cuts close, and aching wounds fade all over her body.

Rejuvenated wholly, Victoria emerges from the water, laughing to herself. Oh, I definitely know this place!

Victoria would not call herself a gamer but, with a quarantine keeping her away from the party scene of Seattle, she had to find some way to keep her mind off of the pandemic. Fortunately, Jessica had bought a Playbox for Christmas, and both she and Victoria would get their money's worth out of the console with quarantine keeping them inside. And among the many games the two played, "Fortnite" quickly became a favorite in the Chase Space and especially with Victoria.

With the swampwater confirming where she is, she knows her next destination: the Factory nearby. Carefully and quietly, she approaches the building, not hearing any gunfire. And just like the game, with the turn of every corner, she finds highly helpful loot - guns, ammunition, bandages - and she hoards all the best stuff in her inventory.

Finally, she finds a room, empty save for a television set and a wooden chair. Here, she rests, watching broadcasts from all across the map. They cut out, again and again, but they tell her what she needs to know about the Storm (she's in the eye of it) and where her enemies are located (about a dozen remain and they'll be converging on the Factory sooner rather than later). Victoria loads her shotgun, pistol, and sub-machine gun, and cracks her knuckles, ready for combat…

But combat shows up a couple minutes too early, it seems, as footsteps march through the halls of the Factory, searching for imminent action.

Caught off guard, Victoria hastily grabs her nearest pistol, and marches forward to face her opposition, as they draw closer and closer to her location.

All four of them, evidently, as they open the door, armed and ready to take her down.

DAMMIT! That was Squads?! , Victoria internally screams at herself in her dull, dreary prison cell. She looks up at the ceiling, a dim light bulb keeping her room illuminated.

Suddenly, she feels his presence at her door. The Mad Hunter, with his pearly white grin, peers in through her barred door. "Hey, you. You're finally awake… Er, as awake as you can be." Victoria sits up and glares at him, much to the Hunter's delight. "You were trying to get home, right? Instead, you walked right into my trap. Like a stupid idiot."

"Where are we?"

"The Gulag. The holding place for all my contestants." Victoria raises an eyebrow, confused at the usage of the word. "I see that look on your face. 'What do you mean by contestants'?" The Hunter leans back on a railing opposite the cell, crossing his arms. "I wasn't always a Hunter. I used to host a game show. Still do, from time to time. And when I'm not corrupting the memories of good little boys and girls, I come back here… for a jolly good show. And you, my dear, are one of my newest contestants."

A fire burns in Victoria's soul, hungry for revenge. This bastard killed Max . "I'll get out of here."

"I'll do you one better." The Mad Hunter snaps his fingers at her cell door, and it slides away with a sickening metallic screech. "Show me what you've got.", he says, motioning for Victoria to bring it on. With no hesitation to exact her vengeance, she lunges at him… and falls right through him, instead slamming gut-first right into the railing. The Hunter's hologram laughs in her face as she recovers on the floor: "Look at you, Vicky. You're soooo strong."

With a groan, Victoria tells him, "You're gonna pay for what you did to Max!"

The Mad Hunter's grin widens as he jokes, "Then let me call my lawyer. Bye!", before vanishing.

After a few seconds of catching her breath, Victoria stands back up and looks around at the Gulag. There are others out of their cells, and others in their cells. Most look like normal people, afraid of the great change that has just shaken up their lives once more.

Walking through the Gulag, she hears questions amidst sobs, begging a slew of deities for answers, only to receive none. She hears talks, discussing what had happened, with no discernable answers. She hears fear, mounted upon lost hope, seeking out loved ones in locations unknown. Dread lingers in the air, spreading, and distorting based on one's fears, like a raging virus.

And as Victoria marches onwards through the area, she feels a tap on her shoulder. Shaking her out of her trance, she turns to see three weary travellers (judging by their loose and soiled clothes), all of whom roughly her own age. The youngest of the group, Jacob, asks her, "Excuse me, you're with the rescue team, right?"

Victoria nods her head as she looks at him and answers, "Yeah. How did you know?"

"After we first got here, we heard a radio transmission, saying that help was on the way. You match the description the woman gave: blonde hair, kinda tall, a little snobby when you get to know her."

Victoria chuckles and says with a sigh, "Sounds like me alright. Name's Victoria Chase." Though she laughs, she asks herself, Who sent the message? She figures these fine folks wouldn't know.

"My name's Jacob. My friend's names are Penny and Hannah."

Victoria shakes Jacob and Penny's hands with a smile on her face. "Very nice to meet the three of you.", she says as she goes to shake Hannah's hand too.

Hannah pauses at her outstretched hand, not raising one herself. Instead, she asks Victoria, "Didn't you buy out a website solely so you could bully your classmate?"

Victoria looks down and away from facing Hannah's judging gaze, before looking back up at her and answering, regretfully, "Yeah. I did. And I hate that I did. But I've made amends. Anyways, that's not important to all of this, it was like seven years ago." Victoria feels a different pit in her stomach as she realizes what she just said: God, I'm old.

Hannah's a bit uninspired by the gesture as, amidst the awkward silence, she remarks, "A whole website?" She does sees a light in Victoria's eyes, the type you don't see in a particularly malicious individual. With a shrug, she does decide to shake her hand, even offering her a smirk: "I'm just yanking your chain. I'm sure you're happy to help."

Victoria looks at the trio with a renewed smile on her face as she nods her head. "I take it you three are also from Beaver Creek?"

Penny explains to her, "We were camping a few miles outside of Beaver Creek when we saw a flash of light. Whatever it was, it brought us here, along with the people from the town."

With arms crossed, Hannah adds, "We also got separated from Jacob's little sister, Sarah Lee."

"She's a lot younger than us, just a kid." Jacob looks at his friends, with worry consuming his heart. "I hope she's alright."

Victoria plants a hand on his shoulder and offers him hope: "Don't worry, Jake. We'll find your sister, and we'll bring her back to you safe and sound."

Hannah raises an eyebrow and asks, "Who's 'we'?"

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

"Yeah, because you're a dirty, stinky liar!", screams a squeaky voice over the PA system.

Offense quickly turns to anger as Victoria looks at the loudspeaker shit-talking her. "Who are you?", she asks with her fists balled up in restrained rage.

"I'm the boy running these games! You can call me…" Drumroll please. "Partyboy!"

As the Drifters sigh in annoyance, Victoria mutters to herself, "Fuck me." Wiping her face down in frustration, she asks, "What do you want… Partyboy?"

"I like fun! So you're going to have fun on the Island, and whatever else Mr. Hunter wants!" Over the PA, a whisper rumbles behind Partyboy's brash yelling.

Victoria sneers at the loudspeaker and asks, "Who's that over the microphone?"

"It's Mr. Hunter, dumb-butt!" The whispers continue, which provoke a laugh from Partyboy. "He says you smell like grass!"

Victoria's jaw drops, and she points at the loudspeaker, shaking once more with rage. "How… dare you!"

Penny tells Victoria calmly, "Let's try and talk to the kid, okay?" Jacob and Hannah pull her away, hoping to calm her down, while Penny speaks to the loudspeaker, "Partyboy, we don't want to argue with you."

"Okay. Byyyyye!"

"N-no, hang on. We know there's a good kid in there. A kid who wants to see the world for what it's worth. For all its beauty. For all it has to offer the good people who live in it. We want to see that world too. We want to be free."

Over the speaker, he hears a response… digital beeps and blasts, with the tapping of buttons and triggers on a controller. "Ooh, new characters!"

Penny rolls his eyes before throwing his hands up in the air. "Well, I tried."

Victoria groans, "How are we supposed to negotiate with this kid?"

"He's doing good work if he's got your prissy ass all worked up!" Victoria recognizes that guy's voice…

"Please, Dale. Let's not fight right now." She also recognizes her voice too.

She turns around and sees that the front gates of the Gulag are wide open. Entering are about two dozen strangers, dressed in a variety of outfits: business, casual, pajamas, prisoner and emergency uniforms. And among them are the Party Parents, that criminal duo that menaced the Chase Space barely a month earlier.

As Victoria takes in a deep, aggravated sigh, she asks the two, "Now where the hell did you two come from?"

Father Festivity answers with a smug grin on his face. "King's County Correctional. Out early for good behavior thanks to this big, bright flash of light that zapped us here." As he walks forward with his wife, their outfits transmute from prison garb to their colorful work outfits. Looking down at his jacket, he remarks, "Groovy."

Although she's just a little bit jealous and intrigued, Victoria tells him bluntly, "I've got more pressing matters to deal with than you."

The Father looks around, mockingly, and asks, "Oh no, is there another artsy-fartsy party you have to attend?"

"I'm trying to get people out of here. Because…" Victoria looks up and notices a window, tucked away in the shadows of the ceiling, that wasn't there before. Looking out is Partyboy - dressed in a nifty suit of purple and blue hues, with an oversized top hat on his head - accompanied by none other than the Mad Hunter. He smiles upon his captives , creepily, while petting the boy's head equally as eerily. Victoria points at him and exasperatedly continues, "... Because THAT little shit is working with the Dream Demons to try and… I dunno, end the world!"

Partyboy looks down at her and shouts, "Am not!"

Victoria stomps her foot in anger and shouts back, "Are too!"

While Partyboy is busy sticking his tongue out at Victoria, and Victoria is equally busy sticking her tongue out at him, Mother Merrymaker quivers. She notices something oddly familiar about the boy… and it frightens her just a bit. She grabs her husband's shoulder and tells him, "Dale. Look."

He looks too and gasps as he sees what she sees in the Partyboy. "It can't be."

Victoria looks at them from the corner of her eye and asks, with her tongue still stuck out, "What?"

The Father shakes his head in disbelief. "That's our… No. That's impossible."

Realizing how serious the two are, Victoria sticks her tongue back in her mouth and walks over to them. "Are you okay?" She looks up with them and asks, "Do you know that kid?"

The Father cackles, almost sarcastically, before informing her, "It's none of your goddamn business, bitch." He looks over to his wife and asks her, "Don't tell her this, Ann."

"Dale, please, let me talk to her." As she walks over to Victoria, she also points up to Partyboy, which transforms the grin on the Mad Hunter's face into a grimace. He quickly leads the boy away, to look and play somewhere safer, but it doesn't change what the Party Parents know. "That kid- and it sounds crazy, but… I think he's our son. Or… He was." Her breathing grows tougher as she remembers the specifics that she could never forget. But opting to keep it short, she explains, "I was pregnant a couple years ago. And everything was going fine. But then one day… we lost the pregnancy."

The lingering anger in Victoria's soul melts away, instead turning to a calming sympathy. "God. I'm sorry."

As Victoria wraps her arms around the Mother, hugging her out of instinct, she tells her, "It's okay, thank you. For a long time, it hurt. We both wished for that little bundle of joy, that ray of sunshine in our dark lives, but we just lost him… And that kid; he's about as old as our boy would be. And in our dreams, both of our dreams, we've seen him. That kid looks like him, it has to be him!"

Victoria's a bit confused, but she thinks she's got the gist of it as she gently backs out of the hug: "You're saying you, for lack of a better term, dreamed him to life?"

Still annoyed at her presence, the Father answers, "What do you think?"

The Mother holds his hand, hoping to sooth his anger, and quickly tells him, "We have to try talking to him. I don't know how or when, but we have to reach out to him."

With a deep breath, Victoria reassures her, "I have faith in you two... And about the fight at my birthday party, I'm sorry for not just paying you."

"Maybe we can focus on that another time." The Mother extends a hand of peace, hoping for a handshake. And happily, Victoria accepts the handshake. "And just so you know, my name's Ann. His is Dale."

A smile emerges on Victoria's face. "I'm happy to have met you two." The two women laugh with each other, much to Dale's continued (but slowly melting) aggravation.

Suddenly, the PA system activates again, and the Mad Hunter speaks, grabbing the attention of all the prisoners in his hold: "Good day, my lovely captives, I surely hope you are all enjoying your time here! Tomorrow, in place of the standard Battle Royale, we here on the show want to give you a special treat; a shot of adrenaline to really wake you up! That's right, you lot will be the stars in a fight for survival, on a grueling obstacle course designed by yours truly, with the intent of carrying on the strongest, and absolutely crushing the weakest! So stay alive… if you can."

As his laughter rings through the Gulag, Victoria can't help but scowls, fairly set on not dying. Not after all the stuff she's been through. Not with a plan in her head that she intends on seeing carried through!