Evan was four the first time his father raised a hand to him. He remembers it as clear as day.

The pain.

The betrayal.

But what impacted him the most was the realization on what his father truly was.

Before that day, he idolized his father as he seemed almost larger than life. He was a business man, had a beautiful wife, and seemed to know the answer to every question Evan ever asked of him.

To a child such as Evan, Archie MacMillan was a god, but soon he found out gods can also be cruel.

If only he had known just how much worse some gods can be.

As soon as Evan wakes up in the woods after that last trial, his spine tingles and chest feels heavy as he looks around, knowing exactly where he was. It wasn't from the years of hunting and tracking, no, it was because this is where it happened.

These were the woods where his father told him about his mother's death however long ago it must be by now. Through the years spent with the Entity, it never let him forget this day, as it played it in his mind and through his nightmares the occasional times he would find sleep.

He remembers the way his father looked past him towards the trees as he spoke. There was no remorse, grief, or even a hint of sadness in Archie's voice as he said those words that truly broke something in Evan that day.

"Your mother is dead. It's best you forget about her. Nothing good ever came from having women around."

Afterwards, while barely giving Evan time to process that his mother, his beautiful, caring, doting, protecting mother was gone, his father made him catch and kill a deer with his own hands.

They were there for hours setting traps, just so Evan could watch as a young deer stepped into one of the sharp claws and then thrash around knowing this is the end. Archie expected Evan to approach it and stab it in its neck, giving it some sort of release.

"There is nothing like killing something with your bare hands."

It was a slow and agonizing death for the deer which seemed to please his father but only made Evan's stomach twist violently.

But he knew he couldn't show any weakness in front of his father, nor did he want to.

This is a man's duty, a man's job after all. He should be strong, like his father. But he's weak, and his father never missed a chance to tell him.

So he killed the deer, letting it bleed out while they watched it slowly give up fighting for its life. When the kicking stopped and the mewls of pain got quiet, his father did the one thing Evan strived for his whole life: he gave him a firm pat on his back, looked at him, and nodded. It was just one simple nod but it meant the world to Evan. Getting the praise or approval of Archie MacMillan was rarer than any of the precious gems they found in the mines, and so Evan began to live his life chasing that high he felt when his father finally nodded at him.

As a young boy, he was always eager to help, to please, and to listen to what his father had to say, hoping that one day his father would tell him he was proud. One day he could be like him.

Soon after his mother died though, this idea, this unquestioning loyalty began to twist into something else so slowly even Evan didn't realize how he was acting until one day, a fleeting thought crossed his mind.

It was such a quick idea that was lost to the wind almost as quickly as he thought it…but it was there nonetheless, leaving a permanent black stain on his soul.

He was going to kill his father.

He shoved that thought so deep inside him, he cried that night for the first time in years, he cried for even thinking such a thing.

You cannot kill a god.

So instead, he began to draw and paint as an act of defiance. It was nothing big, but the act itself, knowing that his father would disapprove, was something he could keep within him knowing that he was doing something…anything.

But in reality, he knew it was to keep the other darker thoughts from surfacing again. He often thought about the deer and how it felt to kill it, knowing it was completely at his mercy.

He didn't want to kill it, but the deed was done…and he wanted more. He wanted something else to be completely at his mercy…

But that is something he could never do.

So he drew.

Unfortunately, the more he drew, the more ideas came to mind about who his father truly was. People disappeared here and there; Evan thought nothing of it. It was almost normal in their business of mining, but then one day he began drawing a picture of his mother.

"Your mother is dead."

Archie said his mother died while going for a swim one day, but Evan knew her better than he ever did, he knew that, and the one thing he was positive about is that Arlene MacMillan hated water. She stayed as far away from it as possible, always staying around the house and in town, or occasionally finding little nooks and crannies in the forest to sit under to read or write.

So why was she out swimming? Evan always tried to push this from his mind until he started drawing her, and before he knew it, he drew his father drowning his own mother and when he sat back to fully take in the entire picture, he almost felt nothing at all.

Maybe his father was getting to him.

That was until Archie himself found the picture and ended up framing it above his bed like a prized trophy.

What once could pass as a fatherly act of being proud of his son's talent was then tainted by the pure malevolence that his father exuded as he smiled down at his son.

He knew what he was doing.

He admitted to killing his mother, and Evan was now powerless against anything.

So he said nothing as he turned away, never to touch paint or to draw again.

A week later, after he watched his own father brutally torture and murder five of his employees, he took Evan out into the woods again.

"You have to keep them in line. You have to be tough and not show any weakness like you do now. They'll walk all over you."

Evan walked along saying nothing. He knew he was right, but there was something deep inside him that couldn't get himself to voice his agreeance. They walked in silence, rifles, knives, and bear-traps in hand, always hunting bears, but as soon as they reared a hill, Evan saw a man tied to a tree.

"Now is a time where you can finally prove yourself. Take that step into becoming a man who means business."

As the tied up man saw them, he let out a scream muffled by the wet and bloody gag that was tied around his face. Tears stained his bloodshot eyes as they darted around like a mad man's would, looking for an escape, any escape.

Evan's stomach sank. He looked between the bear-trap and the man, then to his father who stared at the tied up man as though he were nothing but dirt on his shoes.

"He was the one who sold you out, you know. I know you were working with them to try and unionize. He sold you out for a couple extra bucks. Show him how the MacMillans deal with disloyalty."

Evan closes his eyes, trying to forget the memory. He looks around, noticing how the woods never changed. He became someone completely different and yet, nature always stayed.

As he looks around trying to figure out exactly what direction to go, he could almost see the man tied up to a nearby tree, or the way his father smiled down at him as he made the poor man beg and plead for his life.

He even remembers the exact spot he left the poor man after he bled out and had chunks of flesh missing from various parts of his body once Evan and Archie were done with him. The spot was beside a half broken decaying tree, but there were flowers blooming nearby that Evan thought the man would have liked.

He remembered having long talks with this man…

He liked flowers.

Evan starts walking in a direction, not quite remembering how to get back, but knowing this was close enough. As he walks, his mind can't help but think this is another cruel trick by the Entity. The Entity was always learning, always changing, and it was about time that he finally got a hold of one of the memories Evan kept buried deep inside him.

He knows he will come across his little shack on the edge of the Estate. In the Entity's realm, he made a separate shack to stay in, as he always refused to stay in the actual home itself that the Entity prepared for him. It wasn't real, and he wasn't welcomed in it. So now his only option is to walk.

Before long, he sees small tracks in front of him. They aren't from an animal, they are from shoes. Small feet, a woman's…and the way they were spread apart suggests she was running.

Running from what?

He picks up his pace slightly following whatever tracks these could be, wondering if a survivor found their way too deep in the forest.

This isn't a place for them to be, and although he has no idea what he would even do if he were to find one of them, he knows they shouldn't be out this far.

It was part of an unspoken rule, they stayed near the campfire, and the killers stayed around in the woods in their own areas.

But as he follows the tracks, he also notices the trees start to open up and grow thinner revealing a light blue sky with wisps of orange and pink.

That was never normal in the Entity's realm.

So he follows the tracks with more vigor and determination than he ever felt tracking something before.

Whose tracks do these belong to?

With his head down, he stumbles slightly onto pavement, not quite realizing that he fully made it out of the woods.

But while looking around, he doesn't recognize anything.

There are strange looking automobiles sitting on one end of the lot, but they were like nothing Evan had ever even dreamed of.

As much as his body and his mind wanted to stay and try to figure out what they were, he knew he needed to move. He doesn't have time to stand there and try to figure that out by himself.

For all he knew, this could still be a trick of the Entity's, and it wouldn't be the first time that he felt some small grain of hope only to be taken away in an instant.

But there is something different about this that he can't quite place.

To start with, he is wearing the same suit he wore when he killed so many people…

On top of that, everything looks so real. For someone who spent a lot of time in the woods, this feels so much different than what he got accustomed to in the trials.

Over the years, he began to forget what real trees looked like and what real wind felt like.

Or what real birds sounded like.

He lets the music of various bird songs fill his mind for a minute, just a minute, until he proceeds on.

Sure, there were crows in the trials, but nothing as beautiful as birds practically singing.

Coming around a corner, he comes upon a street he knows quite well, although it looks so much different than it did.

Downtown Weeds, if he's not mistaken.

The General Store was to his left, as well as the butcher, then the florist was to his right.

He stares at these places, transported to another time as his legs, getting a mind of their own, begin walking.

But once he approaches the general store, he notices everyone else around.

The clothes, the sounds, the smells…

Nothing is the same, and everything is…

Where is he?

What is happening?

Turning around, about to head back into the woods away from noises Evan can't even begin to place, that's when he sees her, the red head from the trials, Meg, he often heard survivors call her. She stands on the other side of the street like a scared rabbit about to bolt at any sign of movement.

He stares at her, grounding himself, drowning out any sounds around him, afraid if he makes any sudden movement, she would sprint away, and in this town, in this strange time… he feels like he would never be able to find her again.

So he waits as he stares at her.

He remembers the first time he saw her, her fiery red hair in messy braids blowing behind her as she ran across the map, oblivious to him lurking in the shadows.

The grace she exuded when she ran, she was so soft and gentle, yet she had power behind each step, it put him into a trance.

No other woman had ever caught his eye like she had, but he knew at once that the Entity would never allow such a thing, or even such thoughts.

And as cruel and heartless as the Entity was, he wasn't fast enough. It knew, and it made sure that Evan suffered for it.

For many trials after that, Meg was what some killers nicknamed 'the obsession', meaning if they attacked her first, or attacked her more, the Entity would provide them with some assistance in order to kill of them faster and more efficiently.

He knew it was the Entity's way of saying that it knew the forbidden thoughts he had about her at first; it was a fitting punishment.

But then again, he much preferred this over the Entity coming to him as his father, and torturing him in the most unimaginable ways as it had done so many times before.

When he tried to spare her, like he did a few times, the Entity, disguised as his father, would take him aside, and twist his bones, turn his blood into acid, light unyielding fires across his skin, pierce more metal permanently into his skin.

He quickly learned that she was not to be spared, or thought of in any way, and even the thought of her made his body go into overdrive remembering how the Entity, or his father, hurt him, he knew he couldn't look at her any differently. She was a survivor. That is it. He quickly learned to shove any thoughts aside of the redhead and continued to do his job.

His duty.

He was a business man after all.

He had a job to do and he was going to do it well.

But here she is, and every bone in his body knows that they aren't in the Entity's realm anymore.

The whispering from the Entity is gone for once, and now all he knows is that he's out.

But where is he?

As he stares at Meg, she doesn't move, so he nods slowly, wondering if she will run, and if she wants to, now is her chance.

She stays grounded to the spot.

So he crosses the road, focused on her ignoring all the foreign lights and sounds and cars around him.

But as soon as he gets face-to-face, she runs.

Evan doesn't watch as she runs away the second time from him once they reach the woods. To be honest, he was surprised that he got this far with her, as he expected her to either never follow him to begin with, or go kicking and screaming at his suggestion earlier that they should not be separated.

But he also discovered that she was also so…aggravating.

He truly should have known that she would have a temper, and he feels like a fool not to expect as such. As soon as she suggested him taking off his mask in the alleyway after their yelling match, he knew this wasn't going to work out.

He was used to telling other people what to do, and the only person who ever told him what to do was his father.

He can't be weak. He can't have some woman telling him what to do.

No.

It is probably for the best that they part ways. He can figure things out on his own, and she should be capable enough…

Right?

No - he isn't going to think about it.

So he walks.

He walks without looking back as he feels her eyes burning into the back of his skull.

He just needs to get a little bit further until she won't be able to see him anymore, and he won't have to worry about her.

Before long, he feels the weight of being alone once more though it is something he became accustomed to long ago in the Entity's realm.

So he walks, trudging through the familiar woods praying to whatever deity there is left that the house he is looking for won't be standing.

An odd feeling settles over him though as he walks. Remembering all the pain, the screams of the innocent people he -

He can't think about it.

He can't think about his father and his rules, the strict way of growing up without his mother to protect him, the beatings, the way he could never be enough, and the way that he discovered he was just like his father in his business habits.

His mind goes to where this all happened: at the Estate. He walks, though somewhere in the back of his mind, even though he knows he doesn't want the house to be standing and he most certainly doesn't know if he could even go inside, part of him wants to know if it is there because where else would he go?

Anywhere is better than there, he tells himself, but from the slight glimpse he saw of the world now…he can't be back in 1889. How could he ever begin to live on his own without a house to come back to?

Swallowing any doubts he started to let himself think, he suddenly comes to a clearing seeing the house he wished would be a pile of ash, but, like always, it stood a haunting vision taunting him in all of its glory.

"Let's get this over with," he mutters to himself, his mind willing him to move forward towards the abandoned house, but his feet stay rooted to the spot. Can he really go in there?

He should.

He has to.

And yet…

His mind wanders back to Meg.

'Should we really be separated?'

He sighs thinking back to their last encounter. She really has no place to go, and it could be beneficial if they stayed together.

He tries to think if he could live with himself if he got her killed by letting her wander away again.

But then another voice in his mind laughs at that thought.

He has been killing her for years, and she wastes no time telling him that, so her only enemy out here is him.

But he doesn't want to hurt her here; he doesn't want to hurt anyone anymore.

Goddammit, well now he has to go look for her again. If she would have just stayed with him and not ran away, they could go in together, and now here he is, cleaning up someone else's mess.

Taking a deep breath and turning from his childhood house, he goes back through the woods, truly wondering if he wants to find her, or if he just doesn't want to go inside his own nightmare alone.