The Shapeshifter | Deleted Chapters

36

"Isn't she pretty?" Feng beamed with a wide grin. She held the wolf up in her hands as Steve and Zarina stood in front of her. They were the first to come up to her when they saw the creature in her hands.

"It's a she?" Steve tilted his head. He could've sworn he saw the animal literally shake its own in denial. It made him chuckle as he ran a hand along its head. "Where'd you find it?"

"Roaming around the forest. The Entity doesn't normally have animals, right?" Feng's big eyes sank into the other two. Something felt odd about this. The only other species they had ever seen (excluding the Demogorgon and a couple others) were crows.

"Not to my knowledge. Maybe the Entity tried to grab someone else and accidentally caught this thing." Zarina scratched at the creature's side, earning a joyful rumble. As it blinked back at her curiously, a smile was brought across her face.

"How is nobody else excited by this?" Steve looked back at the other survivors. Everyone was there except Elodie, Jake, Dwight, Yun-Jin, Chris, Nancy, Jeff, Laurie, Ash, Tapp and (Y/N). Most were talking, but a lot were just sat in silence.

Cheryl was alone and thinking to herself. Her head was bowed down and her stature was slumped. Earlier, Claire had almost started crying as she began shooting apologies like a gun, telling her how it was her fault that she got killed.

The blonde had stuck to her guns that it was no one's fault. That was just how some trial's went. But still... the memory was burned into her brain and it wouldn't go away.

Speaking of Claire.

Claire and Jill were sat with each other. Claire was still stressed out about things, and the two were having a very odd conversation to say the least.

"Something doesn't add up, right?" Claire raised her eyebrows as she explained the whole trial to Jill. The other woman had wanted to talk about Shapeshifter to her, which wasn't too surprising at the moment. But there was something else Jill wasn't speaking up about.

"I've spoken to him before. I've had short conversations. He doesn't seem like the person to pretend to be friendly just to do something like this." Jill groaned. Of all the killers to do this... She just didn't believe it'd be him. Maybe it was from the hours on end she had been thinking about him-

"I agree. God, I wish (Y/N) was here." Claire rubbed at the side of her face as her mood dimmed even more. (Y/N) had the ability to raise everyone's moral with ease. It was a shame he had been so distant lately.

"Can I... ask you something?" Jill's eyelashes shimmered as she clinked her nails together. Claire tilted her head, beckoning her to go on. "I know that after all this, it's gonna sound even worse. But I wanted to talk to someone about it-"

"It's fine. Go on." Claire shrugged. She wasn't going to judge her for whatever she said. While Jill would normally talk to Chris about most things on her mind, she didn't really want to about this.

"Ever since that first trial I had with this guy... He was so un-killer-like. He was always apologising when he hit and hook us. It's a complete contrast to your story, but that's not the point." Jill shook her head clear as she started going off topic. Claire just hummed as she listened.

"I can't stop thinking about him. I even asked Leon and Steve to help me try catch him so I could unmask him." Jill revealed with an awkward expression. She scratched at her arm nervously and looked down at the floor as if embarrassed to admit such a fact.

Claire nodded, taking in the information. "Why'd you want to unmask him?" She was a little curious of that detail. There were a few times where some of the others had wanted to unmask the Legion members, but gave up on the ideas quickly. After all, what was the point? They were still killers at the end of the day. Perhaps seeing their human features would make things seem a little less horrifying.