Hybrid

Chapter 9: Ressenting Evilness

You're laying in a patch of grass afar from the campfire, between Felix, Jeff, and Mikaela. The group of explorers haven't come back from the forest yet and the hubbub generated by all the arguments and tensions had come to an end a while ago.

You're relaxed from chilling with them and chatting about everything but something is odd. You can't help feeling oppressed a little. You've been feeling like this for almost ten minutes without a reason and it's growing stronger now. This oppression seems familiar, somehow, but you can't explain where or when you got it from.

"Ah, shit... here we go again."

You sit up, along with your friends, to see what's happening.

Ace got the mark and will be transported to a trial soon. You start to watch around and see Vittorio being marked too. A bit later, Cheryl gets the third mark and it takes a few seconds for you to be selected as the fourth.

While everybody is wishing all of you good luck, you freak out at the idea of a fifth one getting tagged for the match.

Gladly, it didn't happen and you begin to sink in the fog.

As soon as you touch the ground, the cold bites your skin. Ormond. Not that bad of a map.
It seems like you've spawned into the killer shack this time. Through the door, you see Ace, standing in the middle of an empty area. Not even a tree or a rock to hide behind.

You hear a chime, somewhere far from you. A chime that sounded... sharp. Ace turns around and waves at you just before a hatchet hit his arm, staining the snow in red for the first time.
The man tries to muffle his pain through his teeth while running away from your location.

The Huntress had been chosen for this trial.

Her lullaby softly breaks the silence as she follows the red stains to your mate; making the metal of her hatchets echoes in the mountains.

While she is away, you rush into the main building and join Cheryl on the generator inside. Doing this specific gen early is important as it will help to avoid a three-gen situation.
Ace must have learned his lessons well since you managed to finish your generator and he is still running in a corner of the map. But he finally got downed a bit after, letting his broken voice resonates in the whole place.
Once the giant woman leaves the area, you unhook your mate and start healing him, following the instruction you've been given at the campfire.
As they told you, you simply try to push the edges of the wound back together as if you were trying to close it until the flesh starts to melt and heal.

.....

"Not all of us are nurses or docs. And none of us could be able to survive such horrible injuries. This is why the entity 'helps' us a bit. During a trial, we all benefit from a faster recovery. But there are conditions. Wounds won't heal by themselves, even with the entity's power. That's why we need someone else or a med kit to heal ourselves. We need to close the injury's gap for the regeneration process to start."

"But what about the ones that can heal themselves without a medkit?"

"Those actually got some medical knowledge, which helps a lot."

"Can we learn from them?"

"If you want and if you can understand it. For now, just try to find someone to heal you, and don't try anything more than what we explained."

.....

For now, everything goes well. But as you expected, the entity tried to sabotage you as it does on generators. Some tiny claws appear on your friend's back and try to re-open the cut.
This time, you are not getting tricked and act quickly to make those claws disappear.
You are surely getting the hang of those 'mechanics' and you're doing very few amount of mistakes now.