This is my Dead by Daylight fanfiction. Hi, let's see how long I can keep this going. A few things I want to note:
1. I won't be using information from the Tomes. While I like the worldbuilding in them, I can't possibly play catch-up to the future tomes released. I think I as an author and you as a reader are better served by me making sure everything fits in my own head. I'll just go off what I feel fits them based on the blurb on their release and their perks, okay? Okay.
2. I'm starting with David, since I like his character the most. I'm not certain whether the story will follow him or change targets. I'll see what flows naturally.
When David King woke up, it was with a pounding headache. Such things were nothing new to the man, whether from a hard blow to the back of the head or an excess consumption of alcohol. The problem was the place. He stared up at the fog, a denser and deeper fog than he was familiar with. Manchester's chill didn't set into your bones like this one, didn't block out the night sky. He was out in the wilderness next to a crackling fire, and he didn't much care for camping.
There was mud underneath him, which squelched as he shifted to sit up. He'd have to take his jacket to get dry-cleaned, a small and stupid use of his meager paychecks. Not like he had much of a choice, the men he worked for didn't like it when he showed up dirty. He was supposed to be muddy and bruised at the end of the night, not the start. It sounded dumb to David - why clean a jacket just to get it dirty again? But he'd learned to stop giving lip to his employers. He sat up with a groan, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand as he took in the surroundings. The warmth of the fire was the only protection from the chill fog, and...
"Hello?" said the man. Bespectacled, in a white collared shirt stained with blood. He was sitting in just the place to be shrouded in shadow, despite the firelight.
He was small and unassuming, almost invisible. David hadn't noticed him, but that was okay. Dwight was used to being invisible. It was proving useful in the here and now. Dwight had seen a lot of faces come through the fog, oftentimes familiar. Some brushed him away, some ignored him. He had begun to recognize the ones that he felt would survive for longer. They had a robustness of spirit, a certain... energy. Some were quiet but focused, like Jake. Some were loud and rambunctious, like Meg when she had first arrived. He got the feeling this one would fall into the latter category. But that was good. They'd meet many more times in the fog.
"Where the hell are we?" David said, immediately confirming Dwight's suspicions.
David glared into the mist that surrounded the campfire with a stern eye, as if challenging the fog itself to a fight. Dwight was surprised. He'd seen people on their third or fourth awakening, but never one who had just arrived. He honestly wasn't even sure how to explain the predicament they were in. His time in retail had poorly prepared him to explain the premise of this waking nightmare, and he wasn't sure if he'd believe him anyways. But he had to try.
"Umm, we're in a... well, it's hard to explain, but basically..." Dwight stammered his way through a non-explanation. When David's eyes turned to glare at him, it sent terror down his spine. Dwight had been hit with a machete countless times by now, but somehow direct confrontation still frightened him. David relaxed slightly, recognizing the effect he was having on the poor bloke.
"Relax. Just spit it out, okay?" David said, rolling out the crick in his neck from the weird sleeping position. "I ain't gonna hit you or anything. Stop shaking like a rabbit."
"We're being stalked by killers so we can be sacrificed to a spider god," Dwight said, the floodgate breaking on his nervous rambling. It came out in one solid block of speech, Dwight choosing to speak so quickly as to be incomprehensible if he couldn't stammer. David just squinted at him.
"This is just a long-ass practical joke, innit?" David said, brushing off his jacket. "I'm leaving."
"You really shouldn't do that," Dwight stammered out.
He hadn't expected David to believe him, but he hadn't quite expected the guy to try to run off into the fog either. He didn't see it happen often, but it was always accompanied by gruesome results. Outside of a trial, there was more leeway given to the killers to do what they liked. To indulge in their bloodlust. And, well, the killers always took their time to 'break in the fresh meat'. Dwight winced as David strode out into the mist, ignoring his stuttered warning. David didn't have to walk far before he felt something stir deep inside. There was a pounding in his ears, a rush of blood in his veins. He knew the feeling, it was the same sense he got when he was about to get into a fight, when he was staring down a man and about to engage in a fight for his life. Then he was face to face with the hulking beast of a man.
He was huge, and easily towered over David. His calloused skin seemed almost like armor, and David's eyes were instantly drawn to the cleaver in his hand. It was a brutal piece of bloodstained metal, a hunk of jagged steel designed to cut into flesh. There could be no other purpose. The blade would fail to chop wood. Its edge was too irregular to saw. It was meant to inflict pain. It had fulfilled its purpose, and recently, with fresh blood staining its surface. The man's gaze, hidden behind a mask, lowered down to settle upon David. There was malice in that gaze, palpable even with his face obscured. David had never fought an enemy like this. A wiser man would have run away.
But whatever you wanted to call David King - tough, scrappy, hardheaded and loyal - he wasn't wise. He'd never backed down from a fight no matter the odds, not until he knew he'd lost. He threw up his fists, ready to get into a proper scrap.
"Come on then, tosser!" he yelled. What came next was a blow to David's pride moreso than his body.
It wasn't even a contest. The swing came down, and King rushed forwards to try to block the man's arm from completing its swing, but it was like trying to stop a freight train in motion. The man's shoulder creaked as the iron bars buried in his shoulder shifted and bent from the force of the blow, and then David was struck, bleeding like a stuck pig from a massive gash in his side. He yelled in pain, gritting his teeth to try to fight through it, but then the second blow came down, a strike directly into his shoulder, and then he was out.
He awoke at the same campfire, staring up into the moonlight. He expected to feel pain ripping through his body, but it never came. He was healed, apparently, and he touched his side, marveling at how there wasn't even the slightest trace of punctured flesh. Just a tear in his jacket and a small bloodstain. That was weird. But with his newfound vigor, David only knew one thing to do. He leapt to his feet.
"I'll show him what-for," David growled. He knew what weapon the man had now, and he could adapt. Dodge to the right, give him a right hook to his jaw, and see how well he kept standing when-
"Don't be stupid," came the voice from the campfire. It was a different man from the one he had seen before. He had a scruffy beard and a green hiking jacket. The man was calm and composed, as opposed to the stammering bundle of nerves he had met before. The man spoke softly, with measured tones, as if each word were precious to him. He stared into the fire as he ground some herbs with a rock, placing them into a battered med-kit.
"Don't tell me what to do," David snapped back. It was instinctive, coming out from his mouth before he even really registered what the man had said. "Come on, we can take him if we charge him together."
"We'll end up here again. Save your strength for the trial," Jake said, continuing to pack more items into the battered medkit. Scraps of bandages, an almost-depleted roll of tape. "He won't come to the fire."
"The hell's a trial?" David said, bristling. He stared into the fog as he spoke, trying to find the bastard. For all he knew, the guy could be sneaking up on them right now.
"You'll see," Jake said, and left it at that.
David grunted, but reluctantly came to the campfire all the same. He didn't much like this guy.