Memory Logs

Bravery's Punishment

3. Bravery's Punishment

[ Encounter 10; Springwood Elementary. ]

Another trial, another challenge. After having been through countless games at the Entity's behest, Meg knew the drill. You wake up in a strange place, you try to get out while a new bloodthirsty killer tries to sacrifice you, and you either die or you escape. Either way, you end up back at the campfire - either without a scratch or sporting black, bloody holes in your chest.

She was already sick of it - but this realm, a place the survivors called the Fog, was beginning to become home. A sick, twisted, nightmare of a home, but a home nonetheless. Mainly because of all the friends she'd made. No - they weren't just friends at this point, they were family. She supposed constantly watching each other's backs, constantly saving one another from death and coming out on the other side of dire, terrifying situations, had that bonding effect on people.

Currently, Claudette, who Meg had met in her first trial, was sitting beside her, patching up her arm with some ointment and bandages. It would heal on its own - the Entity's doing - but the ointment soothed the pain and the bandages hid the scars. Meg, in turn, used Claudette's teachings to patch up a new friend they'd made - Quentin Smith, a teenager from a town called Springwood. As he took off his shirt, balling the material up in his hands anxiously, Meg spread gentle fingers over his back, her touch soothing on his bare skin. She was no healer like Claudette, but she tried her best to channel that energy as she scooped up some sticky ointment with her free hand, carefully spreading it over the gaping hook-wounds marring his skin. A groan came from him and he trembled beside her, but otherwise made no noise.

When it was time to do the same to his chest, Quentin turned toward Meg, avoiding her gaze and still clutching his shirt in an iron grip. Again Meg's touch was gentle; she couldn't help her wandering eyes as she patched him up. Quentin seemed to be quiet, studious, helpful, and kind. In his very first trial he'd sacrificed himself to save Nea - a feat so noble that it had earned him instant friendship with the closed-off, streetwise graffiti artist. "How are you holding up?" Meg finally asked, voice quiet.

Quentin was equally quiet. "Well, I've got a hole in my chest... so I could be better."

A small laugh left her. "I meant... like with all of this. In general."

His blue-green eyes lifted to her face, his expression exhausted. "How are you holding up?" he asked, but she had a feeling that was an answer, not a question.

"I... uhm, not well," she responded awkwardly, grabbing a few bandages, now having both arms free. "Though I guess I'm kinda used to it by now."

"You never get used to this," Quentin replied, his voice bitter.

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At this point, trials were a reprieve; an escape. Because when he wasn't in a trial, doing the bidding of the strange entity whispering in his ear, he was stuck on the grounds of the MacMillan estate, surrounded by all the pain and agony he'd caused others. He walked around with the voice of his father muttering in his ear: "they're weak. All weak. Cowards deserve to be disposed of. Show them you're not weak. Show them how strong you are."

When Evan MacMillan was transported to some sort of lot with an old run-down building on it, he looked around at his unfamiliar surroundings. The building appeared to be a school of sorts. Eyes squinted behind his mask as he read the words: Springwood Elementary.

This was new.

Flashing lights on the other side of a chain-link fence caught his attention and upon further inspection he found it to be... a vehicle, of sorts. He'd been exposed to vehicles before, in Azarov's garage, but had never remembered them this way before he'd been taken. They were entirely new to him - and he'd certainly never seen one like this, with flashing lights and a large opening in the back. 'Ambulance,' he read, mild curiosity filling him.