Hybrid

Chapter 2 : First Trial

You passed a good amount of time chatting with those folks and discovered a bit more about them.

Sure, you know almost their whole personal stories but knowing their past lives is not enough to capture everyone real personality. Even if some of them are exactly how you imagined, other got a huge gap between your knowledge and the reality.
For example, when you thought Nea would have been a complet jerk that bully any newbies and get mad easily, she is actually a nice person. She does have a very strong personality and prefer acting solo during trials but it doesn't make her malificent or unhelping.

Something else you couldn't really get in the game lore is how the campfire works and the relationship between all the survivors.
For the few hours you had past with them now, you can tell that they are mostly all friends or at list they are acting friendly toward each other. You did spot some tensions here and there. Some were expected, like Nancy and Steve, others are quite surprising, like Yun-Jin and Meg.

You couldn't guess any strong rivality, rancor or romance yet. You blush when you realize how disappointed you are on the last one.

You blush even more at the ideas of them asking about fan creations and other stuff around the game. Never gonna tell them about all the fanart and fanfic that ship them all together with the killers.

Never.

You got pulled out of your thought by Ace patting your shoulder.

" Hey buddy. Prepare yourself. You gonna start your first trial."

" What? How do you know?"

He points his finger to the ground.

Black smoke all around your shoes and burning ashes coming up from the floor. You have been marked.

You raise your head and seek for others sharing the fog circle.
You see Claudette and Quentin being marked too but can't find the last chosen survivor.

Ace sits next to you:

" Well, easy one for you if you know everything. At least, we won't have to explain how things work here like for every newcomer."

Eh. True. You've done this for hours and hours. Looping the killer, unhooking people, doing gens. You never miss a skillcheck...

Wait. Skillcheck?

You rise up promptly with your eyes opening wider and wider as your brain process how bad is your situation.

This isn't a game now. It's your new reality. It won't work like a game and you have no idea how you'll handle it.

You're about to rush to any of them and ask tones of questions when the fog swallow you up.

Like it was in your kitchen, you feel the world spinning more and more before landing somewhere new.
The darkness dissapears and your senses awaken again.

You hear bugs, feel the soft warm of an early summer dusk, smell a strange mix of dirt and rotten bodies and see corns everywhere.

"Coldwind farm..."

You give a rapid look all around you for anymore cues about your location.

You get a glimpse a tall white house in the distance.

" Thomson's house. Errr, not the best but I can do with that."

You want to see where the killer is but the cornfield block your sigh and you resolve yourself on doing the first gen you find.

How is it working?

In the game, you just click on a button and sometimes hit spacebar to do your skill checks.

Also, how can you 'feel' the killer coming? How does the terror radius works?

Too much questions and no progress. You won't have answers by looking around. You need to take actions.

You kneel down next to the gen, on the wire side, and put your hands in one of the worst electrician's nightmare.
Since you never learnt about mechanic or electricity, you are just grabbing cables the same color and connect them, hoping not to get zapped.
You're apparently doing good since the engine starts to make noise and sparkles burst in between your hands.

But after less than ten seconds, a huge boom detonate from the generator, scaring you way more than you could have expected.

Why did that happened? You didn't saw anything wrong in there and you didn't change your methodology. There was no reason for it to explode.
You put yourself back to work and pay a close attention to the wires, just in case it happen again.

But before anything comes up, you freeze on place when you hear a loud breathing behind you.

You know that breath, you have no doubt on who is 'stalking' at you.

You don't even look back and immediately run forward but not as quick as you though. You feel a cold, sharp knife cutting your back as your adrenaline strikes in your leg muscles.

It doesn't hurt, yet, but you will have plenty of time to feel the pain later.
While running off, his presence finally reachs you and your heart is pumping fast and loud. You concidere those as his 'terror radius' since you have nothing else that could be define like so.

Why does it has to be Michael Myers for your first trial? Of all the killers, he is one you actually feel scared about. At least, more than the others.

You look back to see him slowly but surely catching up on you.

The chase has begun.