If you're hoping that I'll establish the others more thoroughly as characters than you're in luck because this chapter is all about slow burn setup and knowing more about the other future relationships and characters. It's also good practice since I can visibly seen how far I've come. Also I like to get these out on the faster side because I know how it feels waiting for a new chapter for over a month. I was rereading some of my old chapters and HOLY CRAP I WROTE THEM BAD. I probably still do but I think I've improved. I keep on seeing the dumbest usernames like "Hex: * (explicit)"
Meg sat back against a tree with one leg lazily crossed over the other. Claudette doing the same on a different tree a few feet away.
Claudette was a healer, always had been, always would be. A botanist in college who'd studied plants with the passion of someone who truly loved the wonders of nature and desired to know everything her brain could hold at once.
Not to say she was adverse to other subjects, Meg had never heard her say otherwise. Unfortunately those subjects they'd all studied in school weren't nearly as useful as botany knowledge when dealing with open blade wounds.
Meg was energetic, a runner and despite her rougher nature, at least in comparison to Claudette. They clicked like jigsaw pieces.
Really all of them worked well together, when they first met there was more head butting and infighting than they cared to admit, along side death at such bickering.
But as all people work, with more time they got along, becoming better versions of themselves through trial and tribulation with their soon to be family members by their side. So no, Claudette and Nea extremely disliked each other in the beginning. Meg had heard them argue over ethics and morals endlessly when it had just been them, but it warmed her heart to see the two getting along so well in trials and out of them after so long.
Realizing healthier ways to cope with their problems wasn't a new experience to Meg, she'd done just that in what little she could remember of her old life. Leaving high school and being stuck in such miserable living conditions had given her such a sobering yet miserable sensation she'd lost the will to be the girl she'd been before.
She didn't regret leaving that girl behind, but she wished she'd at least be happier as someone else.
But those five years before she was taken seemed like heaven on earth to her now.
The fuzziness of her memories always bothered her. Made her feel like she was only a fraction of a girl who was much more than she currently was, someone who never got a full chance to bloom with all their potential.
She knew the others felt the same. If they got out...
Just how would they all live their lives differently after experiencing this? What would she do?
What would the killers do?
That seemed rather obvious in hindsight. Freaks like the Clown and Ghost face would just keep on killing until they got too old or a family member of a victim caught up to them.
But the Trapper? What would Evan do if he got out? The Hillbilly? Would he just find some distant farm to live on in the isolated country and stay there for the rest of his life?
"What are you thinking about." Claudettes voice drew Meg's head over sharply, somewhat startled at the disturbance of her musing.
"Oh it's nothing important, just some daydreaming." Meg responded longingly. Wishing she could shake off the perpetual feeling of aimlessness that had been clinging onto her back for years. Not even that little demonic baby freak could grab on as tightly.
"Come on Meg, I can tell your upset. Maybe I know what you're feeling, besides, it can't hurt to talk about it right?" Claudettes said kindly.
Meg huffed. "Why do you always have to make sense!" She pouted, drawing her legs up and holding her knees defensively.
"I'm a healer, my entire existence revolves around helping other people, and I can tell when someone's sad. So are you gonna tell me what's got you moodier than a fourteen year old girl on her period? Or do I have to follow you around?" Claudette asked with a smile, switching her position so her right arm held her up above the ground while her left leg sat on top of her right.
"I'd say it's surprising that you're being smug but considering your Canadian, I really shouldn't be!" Meg snarked, narrowing her eyebrows in an obvious challenge.
"Oh, so I'm automatically smug because I'm Canadian, that's racist." Claudette said, mock anger prominent.
"Wait what? How is Canadian a race?" Meg said baffled.
Claudette's lips were twitching, and eventually she couldn't hold back the fit of giggles that burst forth. Covering her mouth to try and stop she slid her knees underneath her and almost fell over as her giggles turned to hysterical laughter.
Meg was already on the ground, having fallen on her side in a failed and rather pathetic attempt to not laugh by her own standards.
"How is Canadian a race!" Meg shouted hysterically. Still unable to hold herself up with her friend, uncaring of the others who were probably watching her.
"I don't know!" Claudette shouted back. "I needed something to get you to stop." She giggled, rolling onto her back with her chest heaving. If Meg had to guess it would be a little bit before both of them were able to breathe normally.
Eventually they calmed down enough to speak.
"T-thanks Claudette, I really needed that." Meg breathed out.
"You're welcome Meg, but please tell me what was bothering you, it's alright to tell me." Claudettes plea hit Meg hard, and all enjoyment left like the wind.
She sighed, wrapping her arms around her knees as her body cooled down from her hysterical laughter. "I'm alright Claud, I'm just tired and feeling a little overwhelmed with all the new survivors. It's never been this crowded before, and it's a lot. Sometimes I feel like I'm going insane, but I think all of us have. I think I can make it." She said with calm finality. Letting her legs go and standing up.
She was around an inch taller than Claudette, who was around 5 foot 5. And she made sure Claudette never forgot who was the shorter one of the two.
"Fine, I'll drop it. But I will stick Bill on you if you bottle all of your emotions up for too long." The Canadian threatened with a finger wag.
Meg smiled, internally cringing at the thought of her breakdown if the old man ever confronted her on her mental state. That was not a mess she wanted to deal with or let out.
"Alright, i'm gonna go talk to Nea, just call for us if you want to talk again. Alright...alright?" Claudette said the last word with a little extra force. To which Meg smiled at her mother hen concern.
"Go have your fun, i'm just gonna wait here for the next trial." Meg said. Claudette nodded and turned away, a subtle breeze made itself known in the back of her head when Claudette stepped away, whispers...
They didn't make sense or even sound like a cognizable language. But they had been there when she spoke to Evan, both times in fact. They were there when she spied on the Wraith sparing Nea, so faint she almost missed them entirely.
She hadn't even realized what they were when she spoke to Evan and watched the Wraith and Nea, she'd just brushed it off as the environment and the weirdness of the Entity.
But now they were here too, but they were too loud to mistake as anything else in the facade of an environment around her.
Meg herself had been thinking back on her behavior with the Trapper, he'd told her his name and she'd acted as if they were just two normal people. It didn't make sense in hindsight.
She should have been furious at him, used his hesitation to escape and harass him for all his wrong doings. Or at the very least give him hell for it while grilling him as to why he initially spared her. But of course now Meg knew why...somewhat.
Someone saying "I find you interesting" certainly wasn't specific and eluded to something more, and despite Meg literally having an outfit called the fortune teller, she wasn't psychic. Although she was quite a fan of the hair style in said getup, It really brought out the rich color of her hair.
She rearranged her train of thought, but it didn't make any more sense than it had fifteen seconds ago.
She wished her mom was here, she could've made sense of it. She would have been able to tell her what was going on and what to do. She always was so wise.
Meg's joy drained from her body, apathetic chills taking its place.
What would her mom have done? What would she have said?
Probably something along the lines of 'Dwelling on something you can't control is a good way to put yourself in a mad house. Sometimes you just have to tackle it head on and never stop pushing until it's over with.'
Yeah...She could do that.
Things were...different.
The social aspects of the survivors never changed, the newest stuck together in groups but did all they could to learn, the intermediate mingled with both the newbies and the veterans.
The veterans remained a tight knit family that constantly swapped stories and did their best to keep everyone's morale up.
Fuzzy memories and the ever present sapping of their spirits made it a necessity. The Entity contradicted itself in Meg's eyes, they had already deduced it used them in some twisted manner. They were sacrificed and not just killed for a reason.
Elodie had learned what she could, being a cultist and studying the cult that seemed to follow the entity in her past life had given her insight.
Their memories of their past lives were also shoddy at best. Meg remembered some things, like what she was, what important people looked like, but specific details were blurred beyond sight.
Her mother, she could never forget her, she knew that her father had left them. The anger from that never waned. Yet she couldn't really remember much regarding any friends or neighbors.
Elodie had told them that she'd heard the cult members she'd been tracking whispering of feeding the creature, feeding it fear and pain. Meg along side many others had put two and two together.
It all just reinforced her belief that the Entity was contradicting itself, if it fed on them through their suffering and being sacrificed then why would it drain them of their emotions outside of trials. It would just waste their potential.
It was certainly a sick and twisted way to look at it, but Meg had to see it through the disgusting abomination's eyes if she was to make sense of any of it.
Once more her curiosity fell on the Trapper, as well as all the killers at large. Were they being fed on too? She was more sure than ever that not all of them had wanted to become what they were. So were they being used as slaves for the same purpose as the survivors?
It begged the question, why weren't some of the killers survivors then? If a handful were just people on the normal side who got sucked in, then why were they forced to kill? Why wasn't she forced to kill?
Meg pondered further on those questions, leaning back against a tree while everyone else mingled about the campfire. The campfire was in its normal state, it changed on occasion with new killers and survivors.
They all remember how annoying it was to look at the blaring neon lights when the Trickster and Yun Jin arrived.
No one really enjoyed it when that happened. Well, except humiliating the trickster repeatedly, that sick degenerate got what was coming to him.
But now the campfire was back to normal, in a dark forest not unlike the Macmillan estate, logs placed around the fire for them to use as seats and all.
But where did she go from here?
Was there even anywhere to go now, she'd gotten herself all hyped up on the new and interesting things happening that now the routine had more to it than just keeping herself sane.
Now she was simply bored.
Meg and Claudette were best friends, had been for as long as they'd been in the fog. Nea was a close second, and then there was the rest of her little family, like Dwight and Jake. Meg loved them all to bits but at the beginning she did default to the only other person who predominantly produced estrogen over testosterone.
That and Jake had been less than sociable when they all first met.
They all fit together in possibly the dumbest way they were capable of.
But the newbies, they had to learn how to mesh with the others well. Something the new girl, Mikaela, was better than most at. It was to Meg's immense surprise, she thought they were gonna have another boar headed lunatic on their hands like the last three times.
Her newest addition of magical boons to their skill set was an incredible new advantage that Meg planned to take to the max. Once Mikaela learned how to use her two boons effectively, Meg would learn them, and dominate the games even more so.
But until then it was going to be the same way it always was, Meg already planning to take the Killers attention for the entirety of the game. Claudette would work on gens and keep the other two, Mikaela and Leon, healthy so all three could finish them.
The buzzing in the back of their heads was their awareness, a supernatural one granted by the entity. Warning them of when teammates were injured, healed, escaped, the only things they could use to communicate since they were too afraid to talk.
That buzz also warned them of other things, like the timer before Freddy pulled them into the dream world, before the chain hunts of the lament configuration started, how much longer the timer on a reverse bear trap would last.
It helped to identify which killer they were facing.
Meg recognized where she was immediately when she awoke, Claudette wasn't far off. The squealing of slaughtered pigs was a certainly a new addition by the entity, but it wouldn't scare her.
A hay colored fog coated the far reaches of the map, preventing scouting from afar of the killer or other survivors.
A shield and a hinderance.
The sound of a chain saw certainly helped lower the possibilities down as well. It was too far away to tell which killer it was, but Meg was hoping it was the Cannibal. His power was annoying and brain dead but at least he wasn't as good at it as the Hillbilly.
What if it was the Hillbilly? Meg had escaped from him before, but she'd died to him before. He'd actually been the very first to Mori her. Trapper had been the last one before her streak had started.
If it was closer she'd be able to tell, Hillbilly had a gritty sound to its revving, almost as if something was hindering the chains movement. The model seemed older than the Cannibals, less loved and taken care of, something that was seen as just a necessary tool more than a favorite accessory.
Goes to show that the cannibal really did love the killing.
Leon and Mikaela were no where to be found. The latter was probably setting up one of her boons, as she'd come to realize they were, for now, the best assistance she could offer beyond sitting on gens while the others ran the killer.
Meg scanned the distant fog for movement, an out of place shadow sipping across the horizon, a small little figure creeping through the corn or behind some hay. Nothing showed itself, only the ludicrous embodiment of an idea that the Entity could ever fool the survivors.
Meg fondly thought of Nea, she was good at picking out things from a distance. Not even Ghost face could hide from her.
Claudette tapped her on the shoulder, pointing a to a generator not far off. Meg shook her head, pointing at Claudette and then at the gen, than on her own chest, and out towards the center of the map.
Claudettes face grew concerned, but her shoulders sagged and she nodded, turning around and going to work. Unable to give Meg the hug she wanted to because of the Entity's rules. All you could do was vaguely gesticulate, anything further than that in the realm of emoting was forbidden.
Meg watched her crouch down next to the still cogs, beginning to brush wires out of her way and pull them out of jams between metal parts. The generators were always the same, and somehow they all just instinctively knew how to fix them, even in the beginning.
She'd have to hopefully identify where Leon and Mikaela were while she got whoever the killer was to chase her. Bubba didn't rev his chainsaw in the beginning of the game, he had no reason to. Hillbilly did for the sheer speed it afforded him.
A scream rang out from the distance, Mikaela by the shrillness of it, and then a faint music could be heard as her heart rate increased. The sound of a ghostly chainsaw rev echoed from the hazy sky.
It was the Hillbilly.
Mikaela was hooked behind the Thompson house within seconds of her going down. Kindred had become one of her favorite abilities to use, both for helping the team, and so that she didn't get hooked. The Hillbilly could be seen heading away from Meg and the hook, over to where the aura of what looked like Leon rested at a generator.
Meg ran to get Mikaela off, and the rest of the trial blurred together. Despite the fact that Meg would usually try and remember the games against one of the three, with two brand new teammates who died rather quickly it was essentially a two on one. So now here she was, for some reason having not been hooked, bleeding from a graze in her side and trying to find Claudette.
But if she knew anything it was that the healer already knew where she was. The real question is whether or not she'd stop doing the last generator to come heal her.
Meg hadn't chosen her own adrenaline ability for the match, so if the gates were open she'd be borderline useless unless Claudette felt up to the challenge of distracting the killer. But something had been off the entire trial. The Hillbilly was too well practiced at the game to have only hit her once, he wasn't dumb enough to ignore Claudette who'd been churning out generators like a factory.
One of his custom ability's was to sneak up on gens that were nearly completed for crying out loud! What was wrong with him today? These kinds of mistakes were the ones she'd expect to see from killers like Ghost face or Legion.
She could hear his chainsaw revving in the distance for the thousandth time, the noise merely becoming another buzz alongside the whining of the sacrificial trees nearby. A high pitched, shrill scream could be heard from the other side of the map, were Meg had seen an incomplete generator earlier.
Meg tensed up, almost fully recovered from her exhaustion and now beginning to sweat with worry. Her body heating up uncomfortably like she was being held over a fire. Did he get Claudette? What happened? If he did why couldn't she see her friends aura on the ground. He didn't have one of the cannibals perks did he? No he couldn't, he'd downed Mikaela with his hammer earlier and Meg had seen her.
She had to go, she had to protect Claudette, she'd kept her exhaustion timer at almost nothing so she could make a quick get away if she needed too. But she'd be damned if she let Claudette get hurt when she could protect her.
Everyone else had done the same for her and as nice as it was to know she had people who would take care of her, she wasn't just going to let them get hurt for her own comfort. So she sprinted through the corn field as it slapped her face and arms, doing her best not to trip as the heartbeat grew louder and more erratic. The ghostly chainsaw could be heard from the sky, but she was too focused to register the humming.
With so much force she should have shook the wall she threw herself over the small window into the jungle gym. Coming face to face with Claudette, and an unarmed killer who stood several feet away from the two.
His chainsaw and hammer were next to the upright pallet, his own hands hanging limply at his sides as he stares at Claudette, only giving Meg a brief glance. Ragged breathing they were all familiar with, yet somehow still irked them, was constant.
Pieces started falling into place, was the Hillbilly following the lead of Trapper and Wraith? Had he taken an interest in Claudette? Was that why he had ignored her for the entire game? But if that was the case then why hadn't he chased her very much beyond the light graze on her arm?
"You, don't want to hurt her do you?" Meg spoke hesitantly. Testing the waters with a broad statement that hopefully would set a calm and smooth tone. The Hillbilly nodded in response, pointing first at Claudette, and then at Meg.
"You don't want to hurt me either? Why?" Meg said confused. He had slaughtered Mikaela and Leon without hesitation, Claudette was spared for the same reason Trapper has spared her, or the Wraith to Nea, but why'd she get a special pass?
The Hillbilly pointed at her right ankle, the one that always got stuck in bear traps no matter which foot landed on the pressure plate.
"Because of the Trapper?" Meg questioned. Had he told the Hillbilly not to hurt her? Is that why the Wraith hadn't tried to kill her either when he spoke to Nea? Another nod, he pointed to himself, and then at Claudette. He stuck both his arms out, bumping the side of one hand with an invisible stick in the other, before running a hand over his head.
Claudette had begun to calm down, and strangely, the heartbeat wasn't quite as oppressive as before. "Me and you? Was that the Wraith, and Nea? What does that mean." The botanist questioned for her friend. Dozens of thoughts spinning in her head like a tornado, speculation of his intensions and what it meant for the future.
The Hillbilly's mouth contorted, and after several seconds, the two girls realized that he was trying to smile. His head bobbed in approval, before he finally pointed to his right ankle, and then at Meg.
"Meg and the Trapper?" Claudette said. Bringing her hands up and clasping them together restlessly. A small groan burst forth from the Hillbilly'a throat.
"Y-yyy-yyyeee-yyyeeess." The sound was guttural, deep, rumbling, and sounded like a small earthquake. But it's impact was far greater, even with the previous knowledge of the Trapper's rule breaking.
"The three of you refuse to hurt us. And you won't hurt me or Nea out of respect for the Trapper and Wraith, and they're doing the same for you aren't they?" Meg said confidently, a small smile gracing her thin but elegant lips.
This changed everything, it showed a level of sincerity among the three killers. A sign that things were changing, that they could break the Entity's rules, that there could be...hope. She had to tell Bill, she had to tell Ace, Dwight, all of the others. This was huge!
Meg felt herself get lighter and lighter until she was walking on air.
"Thank you!" Meg said excitedly, taking a bold step forward while pulling Claudette with her, who squeaked quietly. Meg reached one hand out, holding it outwards for the Hillbilly to take, something that deeply perplexed the former farmer. But eventually, after a long glance at the darker skinned girl, one he accepted. Meg took his rough, deformed hand, and gently brought Claudette's own to replace hers.
The two appendages smoothly slid into each other's grasp. When they did Claudette's eyes widened, and she relaxed. Her shoulders dropping and her other hand instinctively coming up to the Hillbilly's arm.
Before the healer could react she was engulfed in a tight hug by the killer, her eyes barely able to reach over the hulking killers shoulder. And, despite all logic arguing she should panic, she stayed calm. Instead she brought her arms up under the killers and hugged him back, simultaneously feeling the skin beneath her finger pads.
"You, aren't like the others are you? You three don't really like it do you?" Meg questioned. Her inner bravery once more shining through the surface. The chainsaw wielder looked at her from over Claudette's head, and with sadness in his white eyes, shook his own. Confirming everything Meg had begun to suspect since that fateful game with the Trapper.
Or was it Evan?
All killers were punished for failure, at least the ones who could be punished. The Shape had no soul, had nothing to lose and never let pain slow him for long, he defied even the entity with his iridescent tools.
The Executioner also in a way defied the entity, having the ability to kill on demand without any items and disrupt the entity. Yet the Pyramid Head chose not too, the reason as to why eluded Evan. There was something wrong with it, that he had no doubt of, but it didn't really matter. It wasn't like he was going to do anything about it. He sat in the Macmillan estate, in one of the many rooms on the top floor.
This one was rather well hidden unlike the others, deep in the heart of the mansion with no windows but a domed skylight in the center to gaze upon the false moon. The reasoning behind the lack windows was that there was nothing to look at. Just more bricks, concrete, marble, and steel girders.
Evan rested, slumped at the foot of the bed thinking to himself, daydreaming and brainstorming simultaneously. He was leaning forward, resting his chin on his intertwined hands with his elbows on his knees.
This had been his parents room, his own room had not been far down the hallway. Despite his father voicing his opinion on wanting Evan to be farther away as to not be coddled, his mother had been vehement in her refusal. He remembered it quite clearly, sitting in his room as a three year old boy while his parents loudly argued. Back then arguments weren't that common between his parents, but his father hadn't been as much of a monster when he was younger, he wasn't so harsh regarding disobedience.
Evan knew what it felt like to disobey both the Entity and his father, although at this point he didn't even know if there was any difference anymore. He thought of all his father had tried to drill into his head, all the abuse, all the isolation, and domination.
He still had the scars as a permanent reminder.
But his father was all he'd had for so many years, his mother died...was murdered by his own father undoubtedly, just like his uncle.
Evan couldn't help but ponder over whether he was lucky or not, that he had not been killed. That instead his body suffered what his soul did not have to, broken bones, bruises, cuts and gashes.
Having nearly everything he enjoyed being destroyed infront of him and then one of his drawings taken and perverted by his father. The echos of admiration so taunting, tormenting his conscious as to whether it was just or not. Murder wasn't just. So why did his brain cling to the notion of his fathers nobility?
Archie's voice always whispered, and Evan knew it was the entity. In the beginning he had believed it actually was his father haunting him, harassing his every mistake just like he had as a child. But the voice was quieter, just as demanding but softer. Not enticing, but shakier, as if the speaker was loosing his strength and will to keep voicing his desires unto the hunter. Or as if his voice no longer could hold itself together.
But after so long, would he ever truly get rid of his fathers voice?
Paranoia had lingered in him since the day he started defying the voice. Paranoia that if his father was really alive, or if he kept believing the voice was actually his father that he wouldn't be able to stand up for himself. That the old shackles from childhood would come back like just like a snap of someone's fingers.
Ever since he was a little boy he wanted to be his own man, both idolizing and despising his father. Having seen his fathers cruelty in nearly every way possible yet the success and wealth that came with it.
An empty feeling crept up his chest, right to his heart and almost past it. However, it was ignored as Evan dived back into the depths of his mind. He remembered the emptiness, it hadn't left him since he was a preteen after his mother had died.
Unfortunately Evan could only remember one memory beyond his parents argument from when his father still had some bits of humanity in him. Evan had been downstairs in the kitchen, sitting in a chair at the table as his mother prepared dinner. She'd been rather blank faced, of course she'd cheered up in between breaks seeing Evan sitting there, but whatever melancholy that had possessed her that day vanished when the front door open and Archie Macmillan walked through the house and headed into the kitchen.
She'd gotten up and kissed him, both of them holding the other in a tight embrace after his fathers departure a few days earlier. Evan had known then and there that he wanted that same thing for himself when he was older.
Perhaps that's where his fascination with Meg had come from. Beyond her simply being impossible to tear his gaze away from, she was the potential for happiness, something he could hope for, and perhaps hold secrets that guided the traveler to even greater peace.
He brought his hand up and stuck two fingers through the eye holes in his mask, doing his best to rub his eyes from fatigue with constricted movement. The overwhelming urge to tear at his mask rose up like a raging dragon. Heat building up in his torso as his breath quickened minutely in bubbling anger.
He knew he shouldn't, he knew it was pointless, however remembering all his past failures only made him more determined instead of defeating him. It always had, and it always would.
So he let himself go and gave in, his calloused fingers grasping the piece of bone on the back of his head and on his jaw, pulling with all his natural and enhanced strength.
As expected it didn't even slightly budge, but he felt no disappointment, just rage. So he pulled even harder, his fingers unable to even get in between the skin of his face and the mask.
He hadn't actually touched his own face except for his eyes since he'd been brought here. Once he stopped fighting and the metal hooks in his right arm stopped increasing in number the mask became permanent.
But he knew he was stubborn, he knew it when he would chase the survivors down even if he had no hope of getting them before they escaped, that in of itself was a testament to his rage. He knew it from the hooks in his shoulder, his bond with Phillip and Max. He knew it because he still breathed with something more than cold acceptance.
He'd felt actually somewhat alive for a decent amount of time, Max and Phillip and seen to that even if he wasn't inclined to show it.
But Meg...She had taken a small little spark and built it into a raging bond fire several feet tall. The thought of the cheeky yet charming redhead was enough to distract him from his endless endeavor.
He needed to stop doing that to himself, tearing at his mask just added to the numerous little scratches at the side of his skull and fingertips while his mask remained the same.
So with twitchy fingers he left his former parents, and now his bed room, and opened the thick wooden doorway, the top which forming a rather nicely decorated arch. It led into a medium length hallway with an even bigger steel door at the end.
The entity had recreated the estate to borderline perfection except for the tiniest of details. The design of the mansion left no room for debate as to which parent Evan had inherited his paranoia from.
The steel door was rather thick, the hinges being nearly as much so. He might have been paranoid, which is why he took a strange sense of comfort in the knowledge that the incredibly thick steel door was the only way into this hallway, but he was also a dreamer. It was where his drawings had come from, and recently he'd found new motivation.
In his bedroom, neatly organized by age were a bunch of drawings locked away in a drawer. They were of various things, some of the other more tolerable killers, Phillip, Max, other survivors, and Meg.
Meg had already been part of the collection before Evan had ever realized the nature of his affections. However now she was in nearly every new drawing.
Some were of just her, some had him interacting with her, in some she was unaware of the viewer, effortless in her beauty as she looked away at something else outside the frame of the picture.
He couldn't help but fantasize as he slowly walked up to the steel door, gently placing his hand against the cold metal in his reveries. He could imagine Meg sleeping peacefully in the large king sized bed with her adorable strange hooded garment he'd seen her in, the sheets pulled up to her stomach and her arms gently resting on top of said sheets. Resting at ease without even a smidge of worry in her. Protected by him, and the fortress of a manor he had inherited.
The ache made itself known in his chest again, but this time it was a pleasant longing. He took his free hand off the door and placed it on his sternum where the offending sensation originated. He knew what it meant, he could feel it, the desire to hold the survivor close in his arms until she drifted to sleep, to keep her tightly pressed against him to both warm and protect her from the other vile monsters of the fog.
Most other killers would have no hesitation to kill a survivor they found outside the trials. He knew it, and he vowed to himself that if he ever found Meg outside of a trial and away from wherever the survivors were imprisoned, that he'd keep her safe.
But what would he do until that happened? If that ever happened?
Eventually he decided on leaving the upper hall, heading down the staircase that immediately followed the steel door down to the rest of the manor. He briefly glanced into one room, it had a table with a broken bear trap on it, and dozens of the contraptions organized in boxes which themselves were organized around the room. He considered using that to keep himself occupied until he could find something else to do. However he decided against it, eventually he would become so absorbed in the work he'd forget what he had originally been doing.
But then genius struck, and a smile that almost matched the one of his mask spread across his face.
It would be difficult, tedious, dangerous, and he might just have to bring Max and Phillip along just in case, but if he was right than it would undoubtedly be worth it.
After all, Hope was what the Entity fed on, but if he was right on both accounts. He could be made new.