Killing Season (An Origins Fanfic)

Survivors Guilt

⚠️TW: Swearing, flashbacks

???’s POV

“It's been so long since we’ve all seen each other!” In front of me was a man with long brown hair, he was smiling so genuinely it made me smile too. Holding his hand was none other than Plu, they looked different here though. Their hair was cleaner and not knotted at all, they had circle glasses with golden outline. Their face was a light shade of pink. They wore a light purple sweater and a black skirt, nothing like the clothes they wore when I’d seen them.“Its been so long since we’ve all seen each other!” A man with long fluffy brown hair spoke with a loud smile

“Yeah, its been what? Two years,” I leaned in and gave the two of them a hug, “This year has been so crazy.”

“Wow, no hug for me?”

I turned around. It was the guy with the gun. My heart was racing but despite what I wanted to do my body moved towards him, enveloping him into a hug, “Lucas!” Was that that guy's name? Must’ve been.

“Hey bud,” He hugged me tight. He was shorter than me but definitely bigger, as in he had some chub on him. It made him look friendly though, like a big bear who’d cuddle you till you suffocated. Nothing like the boney man I’d met before. “Damn it’s like we didn’t talk yesterday,” I could hear the smirk in his voice.

“Lucas stop making fun of him,” Plu spoke with a deadpan voice.

“Bruh,” He let go of me and patted my head. I got a better look at his face now; he had brown hair, a stubbly beard, his eyes were a deep chocolate brown and not the icy blue I was familiar with. And there, resting on his head, was a captain’s hat. White with blue edges and a shiny gold plaque on the front, engraved in it was his name. Lucas.

“Anyways, Ruben’s inside and there’s quite a lot of alcohol in there and...yeah Ruben and alcohol don’t quite go together,” The brown haired man joked walking towards the door to a small house.

That’s when the memories started flooding in. This was our New Year’s vacation from 2022. We had such a great time here; we drank, did arm wrestling, played yui-gi-oh, and curled up on the couch almost every night just to watch a movie or talk about random things till we fell asleep. Then I remembered the worst part of that vacation...it happened a week before Lucas went missing. I remember how shocked I was when I’d gotten a call from his older brother saying he hasn’t been around for a week, how withing the weeks passing by all of his friends, me included, got more and more depressed. Those of us who’d went on that trip got the worst end of it, I remember Plu calling it survivor’s guilt since we were the last ones who saw him. Whatever it was it felt horrible knowing that he might’ve been dead, or kidnapped, or something like that.

But now that depression and guilt was replaced with something new.

Fear.

Lucas wasn’t that friendly, geeky, teddy bear man I knew him to be. No, now he was a killer with a gun ready to kill us. Sure, he’d spared me before, but we all know what the box said. Now he’s angry and out for blood. OUR blood. I felt myself slip back into reality, the fogginess of the swamp returning and my hands tightening on the hat. “Lucas,” I mumbled again, tears slipping from my eyes. I couldn’t believe it Lucas, one of my best friends, was now a monster.

Plu sat next to me, “No...did...did he die here?” Plu reached over to touch the hat.

“No...he’s the one hunting us...” I turned to look at Plu, their eyes were filled with horror.

“No. No Boat wouldn’t do that. H-he couldn’t. He’s too good to do something like that.”

“Sorry to interrupt this emotional moment but, who’s Lucas?” The blonde asked.

“A friend of ours...he went missing back in January and...we never found him...this is his hat...and the one who’s hunting us is...” I stopped; it was like a bubble was trapped in my throat.

“Also him?” The blonde added once they realized I was too emotional to finish my sentence. I nodded, “Well then we can’t just sit here crying over him, I’m sure there’s a way to fix all of this.”

“How?”

“Well you said you ran into him earlier, did he say anything to you?”

I thought back to that earlier encounter, “I won’t shoot you yet,” His voice was hushed he seemed to be on the verge of tears, “The boss likes you, you’re familiar to me too.”

“Yeah... he said he wouldn’t shoot me because his boss likes me, he also said I was familiar to him.”

“So, he was probably hypnotized into thinking that way and has some sort of memory of you, was there anything else?”

“Not really? He did sound really upset so you might be right.”

“Alrighty then, maybe we should find other groups, they might’ve remembered stuff about themselves like Plu did and might know something about this Lucas guy.”

“Yeah,” I stood up, still clutching the hat. I helped Plu get up, “Let’s get going.”

“So uh? Which direction would you say is best?” The other guy asked, Plu pointed off to our right.

“We came from the left and so did he,” They gestured towards me, “Best place to go would be the opposite, so we can not only try and find others but also find new area we haven’t explored in case there’s a puzzle or something.”

“And it’s opposite of where Lucas was last,” I added. They all made sounds of agreement then we headed off in that direction, Plu and I walking behind the other two.

“Do you think we’ll actually be able to do this Plu?” Plu sighed and grabbed my hand.

“If I’m being honest...no,” Plu stared at the ground, “Do you remember how sweet Boat was? Imagine what must’ve happened to traumatize him that badly that he’d become a monster like that?”

I nodded. They were right but, it wouldn’t stop me from hanging onto the slightest bit of hope that we could save Lucas. He didn’t deserve this.

“Guys look!”

1140 Words

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Damn...long ass chapter and we’re only just getting into the meat of the story...even if most of it's angst and dialogue. Also I totally didnt forget about this when I got home from school 5 hours ago and instead of posting went to sleep 💀but yk what? Atleast I posted it at some point.