You've Missed Mouthy

A Puzzle Missing Pieces

The smell of smoke brings Kate out of a deep sleep, making her mind race to register her surroundings. Underneath her, Mouthy twitches; and Kate looks to see her legs are draped over the grey proxy's back. Kate scowls at the gloved hand being pushed against her mask by the other girl, swatting it away angrily to wake her up. "Mouthy!" Kate growls, pushing the mouthless proxy roughly. "Don't want to play..." Mouthy whines in a girly voice, curling into a ball. "There's smoke." Kate warns, sniffing loudly to push her point. "Cooking fire, Kate..." Mouthy groans, sitting up and shaking her head. "Who's cooking?" Kate says back, earning her partner's concerned glance. The two girls meet eyes, and Mouthy points a finger at the stained proxy dipping her voice deep. "Good point." She mumbles, throwing herself to her feet. Kate groans in annoyance at her drowsy partner, running out of the room towards the smell. Out in the courtyard, Vince stands over a smoking fire with a skinned raccoon rotating over the flames. His face is neutral, but his shirtless body is covered in small bloody claw marks. As the chaser rushes up to him, Mouthy appears silently from around the corner, each girl having taken a different path into the yard. "Did'ya wrestle the 'coon?" Mouthy quotes in a southerner's slang, pointing at the cuts on the plain proxy's chest as she reaches a hand under her mask to rub her eyes. "Ya, I couldn't sleep last night, the kill-buzz was keeping me up." Vince says with a smile on his face. "So I went out to release some energy, and just happened to snag breakfast too. The sucker played a mean game of cat-and-mouse." Kate gazes at the browning animal with a hungry look while Mouthy locks onto Vince's grin, a feeling of concern passing through her as she stares. "I'm guessing the twitch is still out?" Vince asks knowingly, still turning the raccoon over the fire. The three proxies exchange looks, secretly deciding who should be the one to go and check on Toby. Kate ends up growling, ripping her eyes away from the slow turning animal. Without anyone exchanging words, the stained proxy stomps away, yelling "Fine!" as deeply as she can. Leaving the two grey proxies alone in the yard, Kate misses the tiny shift in Mouthy's stance as she adjusts to stand cautious of the man. It'd be wrong to say that she's scared of him, however once her partner faded into the misty building, the tension grew thick almost instantly. "Mouthy?" Vince addresses the hooded girl with a curious tone in his voice. She turns to look at him, tilting her head. "Were you able to sleep after your first kill? At least, the one you remember being first." Vince pushes his shades off his nose, letting them sit on his head as he looks at the black eyes Mouthy's mask. To his surprise, she nods. "So, you were able to sleep then?" Vince whispers, slightly unhappy with knowing that he may be the only one out of the four of them who felt that kind of buzz. But Mouthy breathes in to continue. "Like a baby." She mimics Vince's voice out of her habit to hear-and-repeat. "The victim was occupied with Kate, completely missed me. It made me mad. I pinned them to the wall and bashed their skull in with my fist." Mouthy looks down at her right hand, clenching it shut as she speaks. Her voice drops into a wub as she replays the blurred memory in her head. "Can't remember what they looked like... too much blood. But I felt... avenged somehow. Almost like it was the only thing I ever succeeded with." Her voice swoops between phrases, like a radio with a bad signal. "Slept bloodstained and happy." Vince smiles, thinking of how he would feel if he bashed someone's head in with just his hands. How it would work, where the best points to break through would be, how many hits it'd take; things like that. His smirk widens as he forgets to flip the cooking animal. Mouthy sees the distant look in Vince's eye, curious and concerned about what was playing through his head. But as the smell of burning flesh reaches her nose, Mouthy puts her hand on Vince's in order to rotate the raccoon. Fire licks the underside of the animal, and Mouthy quickly uses her gloved hands to pat out the flames. The sudden movement makes Vince return to reality, and he pulls the carcass away from the smoke cloud. "Sorry, I zoned out." Vince says, grabbing a small chiseled piece of glass from off of one of the wooden benches nearby. The shard is covered in dried blood, leading Mouthy to guess it was the tool he used to skin and gut the animal. Though she's right, the hooded proxy watches closely to see how Vince opens the animal and removes it from off of it's stake. "How'd you kill it?" Mouthy asks in a child's voice, brushing the ash from her gloves onto her jeans. "I was going to use a rope around it's neck, but I ended up just stabbing it with a stick after dropping the rope." Vince answers, catching his shades on nose as he looks down at the hunk of meat. Mouthy nods, giving a hum of acknowledgment. Mouthy continues to watch Vince work through the carcass, following his gaze as he looks up slightly and smiles. "Look who's shining bright with the sun." Vince laughs, smirking at the two other proxies as they enter the yard. "Me apparently." Toby groans, rubbing his eyes powerfully without attempting to put on his goggles. He stretches his arms and pops his neck. "What's making you the happy-camper this morning?" "Kill-buzz." Kate hisses, sitting down next to the fire, staring at it quietly. Toby purses his lips into an "O" shape, connecting the dots in his head before nodding at his partner. "Cool, but bro, where's your shirt?" Toby asks, as his shoulder ticks quietly. "I washed it in the bathroom area here, then hung it up to dry after getting most of the blood out. I can do the same to your shirts too, wouldn't be the first time I've done your laundry." Vince laughs, Toby too. "Of all the things you can remember about those four weeks, that's the memory you pick." The striped proxy walks closer to his partner, eyeing the hunk of raccoon meat that Vince had pulled off. "Man, can I get a bite of that?" "I got it to share, might as well stick to the plan." Vince snickers. "Just help me find a real weapon and we can call it even." "I can d-do that." Toby says, popping his neck mid-sentence as the shirtless proxy places the piece of meat in the twitches palms. Continuing around to the girls, then back to himself again and again until the half charred animal had disappeared. Thanks to his shades, no one saw the glint in Vince's eye that flashed an... interesting idea into his head.- - - (Hoody's POV) ... Today, Hoody and I were told to take the new kid,Toby, out for a test mission. He wasn't too bad actually, but he wasn't good at keeping quiet and completely overwhelmed our victim and their friends. We were forced to spring into action rather than using our usual strategy to chase them out of the forest. So rather than scolding the kid, I took it as a chance to teach him how to dispose of the corpses. He'll be out there for few more hours, hopefully he learns faster than he digs holes... My eyes scan over Masky's journal, reading every other paragraph in my partner's small hand writing. Jeff sits on the other side of the room, holding a black pen clenched tightly between his teeth, a different journal in his hands. And lastly, the white masked proxy himself lays draped over his bed, reading another journal that lay open on the floor below his face. It's been the same routine idea for a few days; Masky and myself will finish eating before returning to our rooms, but Jeff would stop us in the hall demanding to have answers to his questions. These dreams he's been talking about, they aren't normal flashes that follows after Slender messes in someone's head, they're far too specific. The way he described them had affected both Masky and myself; speaking with him afterwards, we both found that our heads ached after hearing those names. I adjust my position, my eyes growing heavy behind my mask. I can't stay awake much longer, if I sleep no one will notice but I won't be able to figure out the answers to my own questions if I do. I have to get up and move around in order to stay awake. Standing up to continue with my plan, I find Jeff's eyes on me. "Find something?" He asks with a desperate undertone. I shake my head, looking at Masky for a moment, not finding his gaze. He must have let sleep knock him out... "I-I need a little air." I whisper to Jeff, who nods before looking back in the journal. Before leaving, I catch a glimpse of the paper he had been writing "notes" on. Rather than being covered in anything helpful, the psycho has only been writing down black-mail on the white-masked man. I sigh soundlessly, stepping out of the door. The hallway is cooler than the room I just left, making a chill run up my spine as I throw my hands into my pockets. Roaming the mansion has become second nature, and I no longer have to think to find a certain place. So, I've found my feet padding to the living area where the sound of monotone beeps echoes into my ears. Ben is, of course, sitting in an awkward position on the couch playing a video game while a few other monsters sit scattered throughout the open area. With a small sliver of couch left open, I slide between the elf and the arm of the sofa. "Sup, Hoods?" Ben says as I drop down besides him. I let my head lean back on the couch, while I exhale heavily. "That good, huh?' The elf takes my small movements as an answer. I grunt in acknowledgement at his comment, relaxing into the sofa as an argument starts in the next room by other household members. The green clad boy continues to play his game, while trying to make small talk with me. "Where's your boss been for the past few days?" He asks. "I-I don't know, doing Slender s-stuff stomewhere." I give Ben my best answer, honestly that was a horrible answer even it is all I know. "It's strange n-not having a mission resently." I mumble. Ben nods, chuckling slightly. "He's probably playing with his new toys." The elf cracks a smile. "Whatever, it's not my business what the faceless man does, I'm just glad he didn't blow everything up before he left." The beeps and boops of his game jingles as a text-box pops up saying "Level Complete," and Ben puts his hand-held console on the coffee table. His comment about the the other proxies being "new-toys" still playing behind his red eyes, and I can tell that he wants to continue with that topic by the way that he desperately looks around the room, checking for any eavesdroppers. "This is a bad place to discuss this, but I know Jeff's been visiting you to talk about them." Ben draws my attention to him, continuing when I turn my head slightly in his direction. "To be honest, Jack and I haven't talked to anyone about it, but we're curious too. What is going down right now? There's tension building around you three." The elf whispers quiet information to me, giving me time to think by starting up another round of his game. Contemplating whether or not I should tell him, I find it could be safe to give him a little information. "T-the Boss hasn't been back since the outburst w-with Jeff. And o-our pale-faced friend hasn't slept well since either." I mutter the words quietly, so not to let the other monster's hear. Ben nods to let me know he's listening. "He keeps having f-flash-backs that aren't his own, and he's making Masky and I figure out what's w-wrong." With a pause, I sit up and lean on my knees, looking at the floor before continuing. "We think... he's seen pieces of our pasts... the proxies' pasts... all six view points." "What!?" Ben gasps a little too loud, bringing the attention of a few monsters to himself. Knowing what he did, he coughs. "Uh..How the hell did he beat me!" The elf growls as a cover, making everyone lose interest as he started playing the 8-bit jingles again. "That's crazy, none of you guys remember anything, so how do you know it's your past?" He whispers again, turning up the volume of his game. "Or how does Jeff know it connects to any of you?" He leans in closer to me, attempting to hide from the others eyes as well as their ears. "Jeff says Slender may have put them in his head. We're not entirely convinced, b-but Masky and I felt strange after h-hearing about the flashes." I say, lowering my head even further. "You were there when S-Slender snapped, w-what'd you hear him say to Jeff?" "Something along the lines of telling the moron that he can't understand Slendy's 'grand' plan, called him out on it before dropping his ass to the floor. The power cut, and Boss was gone. That was it." Ben hisses at his game, growing frustrated with each beep. "You cannot comprehend us." I repeat the phrase Jeff told me, half making sure that's what Ben heard, half muttering it to myself in thought. Ben nods as his pale thumbs furiously push the bottoms on the hand-held device. "That's a-all we've got... We've hit a d-dead end." "This is going to be one of those 'can't solve without all the pieces' scenarios isn't it? Classic." The elf scoffs, losing interest in our conversation and becoming more engrossed in his game. The laughing and the arguing that spun around the living area picked up after Ben and I stopped talking, and I find myself no longer feeling tired. I push myself off the couch to return upstairs, but a faint mist stops me. I take a step back as the purplish cloud takes a humanoid form before me. "Been playing hooky while faceless is gone, have you, proxy?" A deep and malicious chuckle rings from the figure forming out of the cloud, leading me to look up into the icy eyes of the mansion's "magic" clown, Laughing Jack. "Turns out you've missed an intruder, Eyeless and I stumbled upon him not even five minutes ago. Looks like The Rake got to him first though." "W-what do you want, clown?" I snap, not wanting to hear this monster's sarcastic bullshit. Looking up at his black and white profile, I pause to see if he has anything important to tell me. "You're killers too, just p-put the guy out." "You don't think that was my first idea, brat. I came back because Eyeless said to get either you or your partner. Then he went into medical-mode like the kid was important." Laughing Jack cranes his neck at me, causing his black knot-filled hair to mingle with the feathers on his shoulders. After a long pause, I look up at the monochrome clown. "What'd this boy look like?" I ask without stuttering, and Laughing Jack only cracked a huge animalistic grin. "How about we go find out." The clown extendeds his striped arm around my shoulders, and the mansion fades into a dark purple before the smell of wet bark seeps through my mask.



"Cursed to be ignored, angered at the mockery. caution the shadows, incase you've missed Mouthy."All images and characters belong to their respectable owners.
Thank you.