Honey-Comb [A Dead by Daylight Fic]

Chapter 8

Honey had the opportunity to slip out of her coat at any given moment, but never did. Idly kicking her feet, she listened to the screams that echoed over the MacMillan Estate and tried to imagine she was at an amusement park on Halloween, because it was the only way all the blood made sense. Barring any happiest-place-on-earth tragedies.

Maybe she just wasn't programmed with that fight or flight sense. She didn't feel like fighting and she didn't feel like flighting. Both seemed equally futile, so maybe it was just the 'A' in grief that kept her hung up there.

She realized after a few minutes that if she kicked her feet hard enough she could swing and felt very much like a kid again as she wondered if she could swing herself so hard that she would flip up and over the hook. She managed instead to hit the back of her shins rather hard off the post.

She stopped swinging after that.

The screams had stopped too and an uncomfortable quiet fell over the Estate, the kind of quiet that gave no illusion to the shifting spider high above her. It's limbs creaked and cracked and Honey was sure she'd seen them reach down within the realm once or twice. They never came close enough for her to see, but she could hear Her whisperings. Unintelligible, but there in the back of her mind - or just the back of her - behind her rather - curled about the hook's post.

Everything about that night had been a thesaurus dedicated to unease. It made her insides turn to her outsides, skin crawl, toes curl and every other phrase of speak. Humor had always been a good armor, stupid though because she never could stop herself from joking. She'd landed herself three weeks detention in highschool once for "backsassing" a teacher. It was later repealed when he straight-faced reported her comments to a Principal who was probably never good at poker. Laughed so hard he threw up.

Honey's priding moment.

Still clutching the cleaver, for whatever comfort it offered, somehow not stripped from her by the Trapper, she gazed into her reflection. It was amazing such an old disgusting piece of equipment still managed to offer any surface to reflect upon.

"Soooo," she said to what glimpse of herself she could see, "Not really sure how this works, Gramps, but I could really use some input on this whole..." she looked around, "situation."

The knife did not respond, because it was a knife.

"Is it three times or five?" She muttered, "Betlegeuse is three, Bloody Mary is three, but the Hisji is five...usually these things have rhymes to remember. Crap. Eh. I'm sure it'll be fine. If I overshoot it it's not like MORE of him will show up," she assured herself.

Looking very seriously into her reflection she said her great grandfather's name five times.

She waited.

And waited.

And felt quite silly.

And waited more.

But nothing ever came of her reflection - and certainly not her late great grandfather's.

"HelloOo,?" She held the knife up, held it low, held it out, as if it were only a matter of bad reception, "listen I really think these people think I'm you or something."

She glared into the blade, trying real hard to conjure anything by shear will power alone.

"Crap," she muttered as the only thing she was able to conjure was the Trapper trudging back over to her hook.

There was so much more blood now, caked on thick and already starting to congeal and dry. Thin vein like cracks ran through the macabre paint, drawing thicker and longer with every motion. His mask a much more sinister veil, grinning even wider than before. Which wasn't a figurative term of speech, it looked like someone had snapped one of the jaw wires in their struggle.

His steps were heavy and slow in their approach, boots scarred by the jaws of his own traps and razor wire about his Estate.

"So, how'd it go?" Honey asked him and not the knife.

He stepped up to her, real quiet like as the world shivered in the absence of any survivors. He didn't answer right away, or even later, but instead said very low and very seriously, "You don't belong here."

"And yet here I am," she said with a sarcastic shrug.

He waited somewhat patiently for more.

"Dude, I don't know what to tell you. It wasn't really my choice to end up in this nightmare. I've used this place as a shortcut for YEARS and have never screwed up this badly before. You sure YOU don't belong here? No that's stupid, the place is literally named after your family. Unless this is some Ghostface scenario where you guys just kinda use the name to keep the horror-mystery alive." She wiggled her fingers.

It was weird speaking to him at a shared height, a little less intimidating even now that he wasn't looking down on her.

"But-" she said, indicating new point with a finger, "like I said, 'here I am.' Which means that my being here is on purpose. People just don't accidentally stumble into parallel worlds or demon realms, they seek them out or are brought there. And since I didn't seek this place out," she paused and expressed her opinion with a very pointed look, then waggled her finger to the sky, "I was intentionally sought for - something. Which is why you didn't initially kill me, right?"

She could hear him breathing through the mask.

"I'm right aren't I?" There wasn't any cockiness in her tone, in fact, she was more scared of how on the nail she was, "Has your uh - spider friend been wrong before?"

No answer.

"Because it seems odd to think She'd fuck up this bad out of the blue, bringing some random innocent person here."

"No."

"Eh?"

"It's not odd."

"It isn't?"

"No. You're not the first 'innocent' to be brought here."

"I'm not?"

"No," he said again, "Rin was a lot like you. Angry though."

"What happened to her?"

"Her father murdered her, she carried that to her grave, and when she got here - she didn't hesitate."

"How many of you are there?"

"A lot."

"But you're not all murderers?"

"No."

He grabbed her by her coat and lifted her off the hook, roughly placing her back on solid ground. There was a pause in the action as he noticed the several bees that seemed to crawl out from beneath the Sherpa fluff of her collar and onto his hands.

"If you can't follow the rules - you'll wish I had killed you here instead. Next time I ask you to kill someone. You do it. Understand?"

"Hey, what should I call you anyway?"

"We're not friends," he said and followed up with a weighted pause, "Trapper."