Afraid of the Dark

Ç̸h̴æ̶p̴t̸ə̶r̴ ̵Þ̶w̴ę̸ñ̵t̶ý̷-̵S̵é̸v̸ë̷ņ̸

Well, that's the first step skipped, Dark thought with amusement as he backed away. The demented Irish man walked forwards with increasing speed, raising the knife as he began to laugh. The American man planted a smile of feigned confidence upon his face as he locked eyes with the other entity. He needed to stall for time. The other two men had to get into position.

"Took you long enough; I was starting to get disappointed," he said smoothly.

"Oh yeah? Why's that?" a distorted Irish voice asked.

"I was worried that I wouldn't get to return the favour of driving a knife through your chest, Anti."

Anti's smile somehow widened. "Good luck with that, Mark. Or whatever f***ing name you're calling yourself now. Out of interest, how'd you get your one to give up so quickly?"

"Well, I did not have to do much thanks to your actions. I suppose I should be thanking you for that, really."

"Wait, so you took control because I pretty much killed your host?"

"I suppose you could say that."

Anti was silent for a moment. "F***."

Without hesitating any further, the Irish man lunged forward, thrusting the tip of the blade in his hand towards Dark's exposed chest, but was surprised at the speed in which his target moved, easily turning his body while sidestepping the blade. However, Anti had fast reactions too. Without skipping a beat, he turned his wrist and swung the edge of the blade in the direction of where the American man moved, but again, he missed. Dark ducked beneath the arc of the knife, shifting his position so that he was behind the Irish man's arm before grabbing it firmly. With one hand on Anti's wrist, and the other just above his elbow, Dark used the Irish man's momentum against him and pulled his arm downwards, sending the Irish man tumbling to the floor and skidding a few feet across the mud.

Anti scrambled back to his feet, and made a noise which Dark wasn't expecting him to make: he growled. At first it sounded like a groan, but the American man quickly realised that it was too deep, gruff and rumbling.

"Am I supposed to be intimidated?" Dark teased, spreading his arms out wide as if to invite another assault attempt from the increasingly destabilizing Irish man, who's head and hands were starting to twitch as he tried to keep a grip on an already low state of composure. With an infuriated malice in his piercing green eyes, Anti pounced back towards his target, grabbing the collar of Dark's shirt to try and drag him forward into the blade, knowing that this method worked the last time he tried it.

He didn't see the American man prepare the strike, nor did he realise it was coming until a blurred fist appeared a few inches from his right eye. The crunch of bone as his right eye socket cracked, along with the searing pain that shot behind his eye, made him screech with pain as he recoiled from the blow.

"Did you really think that would work twice? They say the definition of madness is attempting the same thing, while expecting a different result, but I don't think that statement holds true in this case, does it?"

While Dark was stalling, Tyler and Ethan were trying to overcome a problem of their own. Tyler didn't anticipate quite how difficult it would be to get someone who was blind up an uneven, vertical climb. He also didn't realise that by getting on the ladder himself, he had greatly damaged it, meaning that after Ethan took the first few steps upwards, the ladder rungs started to snap. Quickly realising that the treehouse was not going to be a viable hiding place, Tyler had to come up with something else, and quickly.

"Ethan, drop down, we need to move," the eldest American man instructed as he placed Ethan's stick on the floor beside him.

"What!?" Ethan whispered harshly, stopping his voice from raising too loudly so that Anti wouldn't hear them. "I'm not just letting go!"