The Two Puzzle Pieces (Joscarl)

The First Game

Aesop was awoken by a loud knock on his door. 

"Aesop, are you in there? It's pretty late.. Are you ok? Do you need anything? Do you want me to come in?" Emily said softly. 

"No, I'm ok. You don't need to come in, I'll be done in a minute and be downstairs for breakfast." Aesop mumbled groggily. 

"Alright, but I'll come check on you again if you aren't down here in 15 minutes." Emily scolded outside Aesop's door. 

Aesop let out a groan of agreement and trudged his way out of bed into the bathroom to go freshen up and get ready for the day. He saw his reflection in the mirror, and saw that he had greyish circles under his eyes. 

I'll just cover it up with a bit of concealer and it should look better. That way Emily doesn't have to question me what happened last night. 

Aesop changed into his fresh clothes and applied makeup from his makeup box (gross, but desperate situations call for desperate solutions) 

He picked up everything that he needed, slipped on his mask and rushed downstairs. People lined the long dining hall and chatted with eachother merrily. Aesop saw a gloved, waving hand and immediately knew it was Emily. He was always a very observant person, so he only needed a few minutes with someone to know and recognize very inch of their being. He slowly walked over to emily and sat next to her quietly. 

"What happened? The wake up call was 15 mins before you woke up, are you ok? Did you get enough sleep last night? Will you be ok to play your first match?" Emily said in a stern but concerning tone. 

With all the energy Aesop could muster in making a beliveable reply, he said in a joyful tone, " Yeah, I'm great, It's just that I'm a bit homesick, that's all."

"Yeah, it's normal, you just gotta get used to the feeling." Emily replied in a somber tone. 

Both ate their breakfast in silence after that, and after a while, it was time for the first match. Aesop wasn't going in the matches until the late evening, so he just retreated back to his room and took a long nap before lunch was served. A strange person knocked on his door for lunch, but he couldn't identify the voice, not like he wanted to anyways. He then moved himself downstairs, ate lunch, and went back up to his room. Even though his match was going to start in an hour, he just rearranged his makeup box and made sure his coffin was working. 

After a while, he packed up his things and left for his match. He had butterflies fluttering around in his stomach, but he found comfort in the fact that Emily was also going to join the match. He sat in one of the chairs and waited for the other survivors to come in. He saw the heavy curtains and wondered what was behind those curtains, and why was he not allowed to see the other side? He kept his thoughts to himself and after a few minutes, the match began. 

Aesop opened his eyes to see a place filled with snow, called Leo's Memory. he had wondered why the map's description was so odd, but it seemed to have a very heavy and somber tone to it. 

He then followed Emily's advice, and ran to the nearest cipher. There, he found a camera right behind the cipher. he wondered if someone else put it there or it was the hunter's. He assumed that one of his teammates were the ones who put it there, and just ignored it. He then started to decode the cipher, and the game went pretty well for him. The others were eliminated and Aesop avoided making any contact with anyone. He was down to the last cipher, and everyone was eliminated, when out of nowhere, the hunter came out of the camera behind him and terror shocked him! As he was struggling, trying to heal himself, the hunter picked him up and tied him to a balloon! He tried to struggle as hard as he can, and he was put down. 

Why did the hunter suddenly put me down? Should I run? What should I do?  Aesop panicked internally. 

He looked up at the hunter, and was met with eyes as blue as the sky outside the manor that looked like crashing and billowing waves. His hair was long and white, tied back into a ponytail, and his hair glistened in the moonlight. He was dressed very fancily, wearing a blue coat with golden embroidery. The eyes looked somber and the hunter just stared at Aesop. They looked eachother in the eyes for a few more good seconds, before Aesop just uttered,

"Just let me go. I want to go back to the manor. Eliminate me, please." He begged in a dark and sad tone. 

The hunter just stayed there for a while, processing his request. With no words, the hunter picked him up and strapped him in the nearest rocket chair without a word. His eyes were still filled with the rage of a thousand billowing seas, and after the rocket chair's time was up, Aesop was sent back to the manor. 

Once Aesop went back to the manor, thoughts started to fill his brain. 

Is every hunter like this? Or is it just this specific hunter? Or was it something that I did?

Thoughts like these spiralled in his mind for a long time, and he couldn't find a way to remove these questions out of his head. 

He couldn't sleep for most of the night, but he finally drifted off to sleep with these thoughts in his mind. 

______________________________________________________

Hi everyone! This chapter took me about 1 hour and 30, but I think it was worth it! Thank you for sticking with me till this chapter if ur patient enough 😅, and tsym for reading! The word count was about 950 words, and I'll start working on the next chapter as soon as I can!