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Chapter Text

TEN HOURS UNTIL DAWN

21:05 [9:05 PM]

     Jesse and his extended friend group were traveling for a snowy vacation spot in Blackwood Mountain, his parents owned a cabin lodge high up a side of the jagged cliffs and apparently was the most ideal for skiing. Lukas brought along his old friends, Aiden, Maya, and Gill, while Jesse brought along much of the Order and his assistant Radar. The hum of the light rocking of the minecarts filled Jesse’s head on the long ride to the bottom of the mountain, pushing aside his thoughts.

     “How much longer?” Maya broke the silence of the ride, constantly lit redstone rails thwipped past with no end, the top speed of the minecarts being seemingly to no end.

     “Only a few more minutes,” Jesse shrugged off their concerns, the scenery being recognizable only to him. “this is gonna be great, guys! Just us, the bruising cold, what’s gonna go wrong?”

     “Freezing ourselves to death.” Aiden added sarcastically, the rest of the group were significantly more dressed for the cold than Jesse, who simply wore a billed trapper hat with his basic dress shirt and suspenders.

     “Ahhh, don’t be so pessimistic, mate!” Jesse laughed, “Take it like a man, I’m sure you know how to throw some logs in a fireplace, unless you don’t.” he smirked, earning a sneer from Aiden in response.

     “Hey, I’m not sure-“

     “Heyy!” They were cut off by the sharp arrival to the mountain, Jesse hopping out of his cart and starting for the trail. “This is our stop!” The group looked up at the lodge, the mountaintop being a lot shorter of a distance than expected.

     The group groaned in slight disappointment, attempting to follow suit with Jesse’s familiarity to the mountain as he took small shortcuts to the top, though many of them chose the trail.

-

21:26 [9:26 PM]

     The group had split up a lot more than initially expected, only few in groups of three and the hopeful in groups of two.

Maya took out a blaze rod, snapping the top and catching the tip ablaze, lighting her way in the cold. “Okay, Maya, play it cool..”

-

MAYA

Leader of the Blaze Rods

Resourceful | Diligent | Irreverent

-

     “This better not be super dangerous and brooding..” she thought out loud, treading the icy wood planks carefully as she crossed a bridge over a small riverbank.

     The route she was taking seemed to go further away from the lodge before getting closer, while she would’ve tried cutting corners she didn’t want to deal with the amount of trees or trudging through the thicker snow either. The trail seemed a little endless in that sense, she wasn’t usually alone on these types of things which gave her a slight sinking feeling in her gut.

     Her breath hitched as she tensed herself up from a low creaking sound beyond the cliffs and trees, something barreling in her general direction and she wasn’t sure of how to play it. The direction of the noise seemed to be from a steep cliff area, she hid at the edge of it, hoping that whatever creature was coming through would jump instead of drop straight down for her to get the jump on it. She covered the light of her blaze rod and drew a sword, but as the sound got ever so louder it sounded like yelling—yelling from a familiar little green eyed brunet in her life.

“AAAAaaAAAAAhhh !!”

     Aiden made a painful flop in the snow front of her, him scrambling to get up as Maya sheathed her sword and walked over to the brunet. “Aiden, what are you doing? What’re you-“

     He grabbed her shoulders, shaking her and spewing frantic fear-filled drivel through voice cracks and small sobs which led to her simply slapping him- gently, but enough to sting. He cleared his throat and blinked, shaking his head as the cold made the sting linger just a little longer. “I needed that. Sorry, Maya. There’s something seriously crazy out here, it looks like a person but also, like, crazy!” Aiden didn’t really have the words, Maya moved his hands off her shoulders.

-

AIDEN

Ex-Leader of the Blaze Rods

Cowardly | Conniving | Methodical

-

     “Alright, Aiden, let’s take it easy.” Maya restarted for the trail, dragging Aiden with her. “I’m sure Jesse and the others aren’t freaking out as much as you are. What did you see?”

     “It was insane!” Aiden’s voice cracked, “It looked crazy, the thing was huge, but it looked like a super skinny person with grey skin and grey eyes- It chased me! N-No one’s gonna believe me.” He sighed, coughing and clearing his throat to attempt to draw the cracks out.

     “I already kind of don’t believe you.” Maya climbed broken wooden stairs, a patio a short ways away from the lodge coming into view. “But you’re my friend, Aiden, I trust that you at least saw something crazy. What it was? I don’t know. Never heard of it.”

     “You think I’ve ever heard of a thing like that either?” Maya rolled her eyes, pulling Aiden up from the stairs.

-

     Jesse watched the group disperse and lose themselves to the snow from the lodge balcony, stifling giggles from the possible outcomes in his head.

     Though relatively behind, Lukas had been able to follow Jesse’s shortcuts, taking notice of the brunet’s sightseeing and waving up at him from outside. Jesse hiked himself down the stairs to greet Lukas inside, hopping down the last steps as he entered. “You made it!”

-

JESSE

Leader of the New Order

Caring | Bubbly | Sarcastic

-

     “Yeah,” Lukas scratched the back of his neck sheepishly. “you really know this place, everyone’s pretty lost.”

-

LUKAS

Researcher of the New Order

Strategic | Cautious | Charismatic

-

     “They’ll be fine,” Jesse scoffed, patting Lukas on the back and leading him to a backdoor. “let’s get a fire started for the rest of the group.”

     “So, how’d this place come to be?” Lukas questioned, Jesse gathering some of the old firewood in a small shed.

     “Ah, my parents built it! Haven’t seen them in a while.. but when I was super young, we went here for small trips on adventures before I moved to Beacontown permanently.”

     “Where are your parents now?” Jesse shook his head, tossing Lukas some unfinished logs to chop.

     “Nowhere I’d know, my parents were explorers, might as well have been the first people on earth, haha! Don’t think I ever learned their names, they were always just my parents.” Lukas grabbed an old iron axe, dusting off the snow and swiftly chopping through the rotted wood.

“Guess you were that young, huh?”

Jesse sighed.

-

21:33 [9:33 PM]

     Petra pulled Radar out of the snow after he caught himself in the powdered type. “Goodness, thank you, Petra! I-I must’ve looked over needing leather for this expedition.”

-

RADAR

Intern of the New Order

Attentive | Bashful | Self-Conscious

-

     “It’s just a mountain getaway, Radar. I don’t think we’ll be on the edge out here, even if Jesse has a nose for adventure.” She shrugged, gesturing for him to follow her on the trail.

-

PETRA

Warrior of the New Order

Skillful | Composed | Perceptive

-

     Radar had a tendency for talking people’s ears off, but with Petra he had a certain sense of security that allowed for a type of communication to be left unsaid for the two. Petra watched for Radar’s organized yet clumsy nature, turning back to watch him whenever they crossed a path that required some form of physical exertion.

     Radar frantically cleaned his glasses after noticing a figure in the trees, the cold being unkind to his vision as he rescanned the area. “Radar? What are you looking at?”

     He straightened himself out, lightly jogging back up to Petra’s level. “S-Sorry Petra! I- Thought I saw something out here..”

     “What did you see?” Petra raised an eyebrow, climbing up a small ledge and helping Radar up.

     “I-I don’t know, but it seemed pretty big! I didn’t get a good look at it, my glasses frosted as soon as I saw it.. I-I’m sorry.” Petra sighed, continuing up the trail.

     “You don’t have to be sorry, Radar. Whatever it is, I’m sure I can fight it off.” Radar beamed, though he’d joined the Order on many adventures by now he was always giddy for the praise of people so prestigious.

“Of course! Haha.. Thank you, Petra.”

-

21:44 [9:44 PM]

     Gill hiked up towards the group of two, squeaking at the sudden drawing of a bow and arrow by Olivia that was quickly put down after she realized who it was. “Gill! Don’t just come up to people like that without saying anything.”

-

OLIVIA

Engineer of the New Order

Witty | Clever | Apprehensive

-

     “Sorry! I just, saw people and thought I’d come along. The group split up really fast!”

-

GILL

Member of the Blaze Rods

Enthusiastic | Simpleminded | Gutsy

-

     Olivia patted Axel on the back to signal him to keep going along with them. “So why’d Lukas bring you guys along?”

-

AXEL

Rouge of the New Order

Crass | Reckless | Contemptuous

-

     “Oh! Well. Actually, I don’t really know. We’re cool with Lukas again! ..I think.” Gill laughed awkwardly, earning an eyebrow raise from the two.

     “Jesse did say Aiden was gonna be on the straight and narrow from now on.” Axel reminded, Olivia shrugging.

     “Some ‘leader,’ but I guess it was better for everyone he didn’t go nuts nowadays.”

     “Aiden’s not the leader!” Gill interjected, “Maya’s the leader now, Aiden stepped down a long time ago.”

     “Why’d he step down? He was pretty jealous and crazy one of the last times we saw you guys.”

     “Aiden’s a pretty good guy when he’s not emotional,” Gill shrugged, “said he wanted to step away from decision making, or something. That was also just… years ago.”

     “He better be, or this whole trip is going to be a disaster.” Axel crossed his arms.

     The group approached the lodge, noticing the chimney smoking which signaled some people had already made it inside. “Jesse’s probably already in there, he knows this place best.” Olivia thought out loud.

     “Yeah, but what I don’t get is why he didn’t just lead us all there and ditch us instead.” Axel raised half a monobrow.

     “I think he just wanted us to explore before we got here, since he knows this place better than any one of us, he probably just already knows where everything is.” Olivia shrugged, walking up the front porch and knocking a few times. Axel and Gill peeked through the frosted windows, blurs of two figures scuttling around in the room before one was approaching their direction.

     “Hey!” Lukas swung open the door, looking back at Jesse who was flopping some folded blankets around. “Axel, Olivia, and Gill made it here.”

     “Hey guys!” Jesse waved, dusting his hands off and going over to greet them. “Me and Luke here just got a fire started, all of the natural light usually keeps the place lit but since it’s late and snowy we’ve gotta get the lights from the basement going.”

     “Yeah! You guys make yourselves at home, I’m gonna go try to look for the others?” Lukas trailed off slightly, looking at Jesse for his approval.

     “Go find everyone else Lukas, it is pretty late by now, I’ll take Olivia down with me incase the old Redstone is sputtering.”

“I’ll try to be back by midnight, Jess. Don’t get too crazy with the snacks without us!”

-

     “Hey, Maya, check this out..” Aiden gestured Maya to come look as he picked up a small wooden object.

     He examined the black paint on the object, demonic faces and figures branding the object, catching him in a trance as he looked into the small “window” on the back.

     Visions flashed through his mind as a clear scene came into view, he watched himself fall to his death from Maya’s grasp when he failed to grab a rope on the side of what appeared to be a bridge, his head splitting open from a jagged rock at the bottom.

     He dropped the object, blinking and looking around frantically. “Fuck! W-What the Hell was that?” He stood up, backing away from it.

     “What’s up with you?” Maya questioned, picking up the block. “Thing looks pretty weird, what’d you see?”

     “Fuck, Maya, I don’t know! The back of it, when I looked inside it- L-Look for yourself! I’m not crazy!” Maya raised an eyebrow, examining it for herself and peeking through the hole.

     “What are you talki—“ Maya spaced out, the scene replaying in her head. She blinked away the vision, looking back at Aiden. “Ugh-! What the? What the Hell is this?”

     “I don’t know! It’s weird looking, it shows me dying, what the Hell is wrong with this place?” Aiden huffed, Maya pocketing the item.

     “As much as I’d probably just leave, we’d better find the others before we try anything.” Aiden groaned as Maya grabbed his arm to drag him along, “This lodge is super far, I don’t want to be dying in a place like this.”

     A shriek was heard from the trees, startling the two as Maya grabbed onto Aiden to keep him from running and drawing attention.

DON’T MOVE!

     A figure was seen at the edge of the bridge, moving insanely swiftly to either side of it. Maya slowed down her breathing as Aiden panicked internally, his quivering temporarily alerting the creature slightly. It croaked, approaching Maya, a low shriek building up in its throat as she cringed from the creature’s appearance.

     Aiden temporarily lost his balance, tripping slightly from the icy wood. Maya squeezed his arm tightly to stabilize him as the movement agitated the creature severely, a loud ear-piercing shriek emitting from the creature in Aiden’s face while he held his breath. The fire of Maya’s Blaze Rod waved slightly, making the creature cringe and back away.

     Maya exhaled lightly, immediately stopping her action and holding her breath when the creature looked in her direction, squealing again and staring deeply, eventually disappearing from the two back into the forest.

     The two wordlessly hiked to the other side of the bridge, opening the door to the small roofed area and slamming it behind them, Aiden finally allowing himself to breathe. “Th-that was what I was talking about!” His voice cracked, sitting down against the wall. “I’m not.. crazy.”

     “We have to tell the others, someone might already be dead!” Maya panicked. “Fuuuck. What was that thing..” She griped, looking around the room for any semblance of a clue.

-

     The two hadn’t found anything in the shed, eventually deciding to come out of the safety of it and cautiously continuing towards the lodge.

     Maya peeked a small opening, leading to a dead end but also hid a small book in a corner. She dusted snow off of it carefully, the frozen pages brittleness making her nervous to flip through it. The ink in the writing had faded and smudged a bit, but some transcripts survived which described areas that unforeseen creatures  had terrorized some curious children when the lodge’s paths were being created.

     Aiden scratched the back of his neck nervously, Maya returning from the path. “W-What do you think that all was? I-I mean, that creature. It was really insane looking. I couldn’t even tell if it could actually see or not, it’s eyes were so faded, but it didn’t seem.. blind.”

     “I don’t know, Aiden, none of us do! But it looks like someone else might. I found this book, it’s hard to read but a lot of it talks about the thing we saw.”

     “Does it have any crucial information? I mean, I wouldn’t be surprised if people explored-“

     “No, it seems to just be about encounters.” Maya cut him off, sighing. “Some information on how to defend ourselves would be really helpful.”

     “It didn’t seem to like the fire?” Aiden awkwardly suggested, shrugging and gesturing to the burning Blaze Rod in Maya’s hand.

“That might be something.”

The two continued their way up the trail, the lodge finally visible in the homestretch.

Chapter Text

NINE HOURS UNTIL DAWN

22:00 [10:00 PM]

     Lukas trudged forward, making sure to have taken leather armor with him to avoid any sinking in any powdered snow. The snowstorm had calmed down, Lukas following the trail to the Cable Car Station.

     “This thing’s pretty advanced,” he muttered to himself “wonder if it still works.” Lukas scouted the area, finding an old shed within a small lit cavern that held several switches and buttons to the contraption.

     “There’s gotta be a instruction manual around here, right?” He sighed, Redstone engineering wasn’t really his thing, and Jesse already took Olivia with him back at the lodge. He opened drawers and cabinets in the room, finding little to nothing upon initial inspection. “..I probably should’ve asked Jesse about this.”

     Lukas took notice of a small sparkle in the corner under a desk, crouching and reaching for the figure and pulling out a strange wooden object, branded with yellow paint and several animals. He looked in the back, entranced by the darkness and seemingly transporting him to another realm, a clear vision in his head.

     Lukas watched a screenplay of Petra cutting an old rope with her sword, it reconnecting the Redstone trails within the system somewhere and booting up the cable car system, Radar praising her intelligence.

     He blinked, pocketing the object. “Well that’s… weird. And not totally helpful to me.” Lukas looked around, not that he had anything else more useful to do. “…Guess I should find them first.”

     He hopped down a steep hill towards a patio and river, the area seemingly barren aside from a few frozen couches and tables, as well as a large spot for a controlled bonfire. “Pretty rich looking.” He squatted down, looking around under the tables and couches, a small paper caught under one of the seats. “Score!”

     “Better be useful..” He muttered, pulling it out from the cushion and fluttering the snow and ice off of it, it read poorly written patterns to the activation of the cable system, earning a small scoff out of the blond. “Why would they leave this out here?” He squinted, the faded and horribly legible writing making his head’s cogs and wheels burn. “And so poorly written. What were his parents doing?” Lukas sighed.

“Guess it’s enough for them to understand..”

-

22:12 [10:12 PM]

     Petra ripped off a dead lantern from one of the “streetlamps,” wiping the snow off and emptying condensed snow from the inside. “Hey, Radar? Got any flint? …or steel? Flint and steel?” She raised an eyebrow.

     “Oh- of course! Always prepared for stuff like this, haha! I took note of the time we’d arrive..” Radar droned on, pulling out a pair of Flint and Steel from his pocket and extending it out to Petra as he continued.

     Petra lit the lantern, pocketing the flint and steel and lightly nudging Radar’s shoulder to signal him to move on. She lit the way, the nightfall becoming more and more prominent as the night went on. “It’s getting really dark..” Radar broke the silence, Petra exhaled softly at his worry.

     “Like I said, Radar, I’m sure whatever we got going on I can fight off. Though, for one of Jesse’s old bases I wonder why it’s not nearly as well lit as some others..”

     “Y-Yes! Well, by Jesse’s word, this vacation spot was built by his parents a long time ago, and he only just finished building the minecart railway here a few days ago.”

     “Huh. Guess his parents didn’t really care about the outside if they had a huge cabin lodge to stay in.”

     The two continued, narrowing in on the lodge’s large deck as many redstone lamps suddenly lit up, melting the snow around it and lighting up a good amount of the general area and inside of the lodge.

     “W-Well! I suppose we have our answer!” Radar laughed, “Of course they’d have systems in place, Jesse’s parents as amazing as Jesse himself!”

     Petra raised an eyebrow, “..I don’t think light systems are that crazy, but whatever floats your boat, Radar.”

     The two entered the cabin lodge from a side entrance, looking down at the group from a floor above. “Hey, Axel! It’s uh.. Petra!” Gill waved, Axel turning in their direction.

     “Hey, Petra, Radar. Anyone else with you?”

     Radar shook his head. “No, Radar and I here got mixed up in a powdered snow puddle, who else is here?” Petra shut the door, walking down to the rest of the group.

     “Jesse, Olivia, and him.” Axel pointed to Gill. “Lukas was here, but he went out to find you guys, and Maya, I guess.”

     “Oh. Should I go find him?”

     “It is getting pretty cold out,” Axel shrugged. “If you want to, but I don’t know how far he’s gone. I heard he was heading towards the big Redstone system on the right of the deck.”

“Alright, guess I’ll scout back for him? Thanks, Axel.”

-

22:21 [10:21 PM]

     “Aha! Back out on the trail, huh, Ms. Petra?” Radar joyfully swung, having followed Petra out on her extended expedition.

     “Just ‘Petra,’ Radar. You’re our friend.”

     “Right! Gosh, being friends with the Order.. it’s everything I’ve dreamed!”

     Petra sighed, a playful eye roll escaping Radar’s field of vision. “It’s not that big of a deal, Radar. I mean, sure, we’re super cool, but you’re super cool, too.”

     Radar laughed bashfully, a new pep in his step with the compliments from some of the most prestigious, Petra was almost as cool as Jesse to him.

     The two scouted the area, having found no sight of Lukas. They explored further down a staircase that was covered with powdered snow blocks, finding an old tattered rope attached to a lever, holding it down from being flipped. Small overhead covers blocked the redstone from being disturbed, old torches everflickering in the bitter cold.

     Petra unsheathed a sword, cutting the old rope and watching the lever flip itself from the change in tension. They watched the redstone light up, faded redstone lamps lighting the dark undercover area, listening to the faint clicking of activating machinery. “Oh, Petra! That probably activated the system, great idea!”

     “Educated guess,” Petra smiled, “let’s see if it works now.”

     Petra started for the staircase, being interrupted by Radar’s exclamation. “Petra! Look at this! It’s some sort of artifact.” He held up what looked like an old wooden brick, carvings depicting several amphibians and reptiles, brown paint accenting the pale wood.

     “I’ve.. Never seen anything like that. It does kind of just look like someone’s wood carving project, though.” Radar was turning it in several angles, the two examining the strange item.

     He turned it backwards, the small window in the back entrancing the two in a swirl of flickering visions. It quickly faded into a scene somewhere on the mountain, near a cliff’s edge and abandoned cave.
Lukas and Olivia are seen running out of the cave, Lukas falling over the edge and being caught by Olivia, her losing her grip at the sharp cry of an unseen threat. Lukas clawed for a grasp on the cliff, the pain of the dragging of falling down the side of it making him cringe as he fell rapidly, his ribs shattering on a jagged rock and finally being torn open by deep barbed wire and broken minecarts at the bottom amongst sharp spikes of jagged rock in the rubble of a mineshaft’s waste. Olivia is seen fleeing the scene after being momentarily horrified, the scene fading to black.

     Radar dropped the object, backing away and wiping his eyes, then his glasses. “W-What?!” Petra was easily as shocked, imagery like that of one of her closest friends mortifying her to no end.

     She picked it back up, the images burned into her mind. “…I don’t know what the Hell that was, but there’s something seriously off about this place.”

     “D-Don’t touch it! Wh-What if that vision comes true or something if we take it?” Radar protested as Petra pocketed it.

     “Olivia is back at the lodge with Jesse and the others, we just.. won’t let her leave, or something.” She shrugged. “This is something we should show the others.”

     “Oh… I-If you say so.” Radar sighed in defeat, not wanting to be too combative with his superior. “..What if it still happens to Lukas? Just without Olivia?” Petra sighed, putting a hand on his back and walking him up the staircase.

“We’ll figure something out.”

-

22:35 [10:35 PM]

     Lukas watched the Redstone lamps flash on, hiking himself back to the old shed. He stopped himself before the last few steps, pulling the wooden object out of his pocket and peeking through the window, rewatching the scene play out.

     He blinked the vision away, shaking his head a little before returning it to his inventory. “Did.. the.. prophecy? Come true?” He thought out loud to himself, lost in thought on autopilot to the shed about old cultures he’d read about, he didn’t remember too much of the details unfortunately for himself.

     “Lukas!”

     He turned to the voice, Petra and Radar waving at him from a short distance as they quickened their pace to meet him. “Hey guys!” He smiled, waving back. “I was just looking for you guys! ..And everyone else. Maya and Aiden haven’t came back to the lodge yet.”

     “Yeah, we came out to find you. Kind of hoped that you would’ve found them already.” Petra shrugged.

     “Yeah, me too.” Lukas pressed his lips into a fine line. “…Look, this is gonna sound weird, but.. Petra, did you turn the lights on? By… cutting an old rope?” He squinted a little, unsure of his own suggestion.

     “Yeah!” Radar piped up, “How did you know? We found a covered area with old levers a little ways back.” Petra raised an eyebrow.

     “Really? I found this old wood carving.” He pulled the object out of his pocket, extending it out for the two to view. “It’s super weird, it’ll sound kinda crazy but when you look in the hole in the back, it shows you that exact thing happening.” He scratched the back of his neck awkwardly.

     Petra quickly pulled hers out, holding it next to Lukas’ to compare the two. “We found one just like that! It’s carvings are.. different though.”

     Lukas’ eyes widened. “Woah.” He shook his head, “That’s great! What did it show you?”

     Petra and Radar tensed up, Radar pressing his lips into a fine line and averting his gaze, Petra furrowing her eyebrows and exhaling gently. “It.. might be best for you to see for yourself.”

     Lukas took the similar object from Petra, comparing the difference in animals and paint colors before peeking into the hole. The scene played, mortified as he watched himself get mangled by broken rails and barbed wire. “Oh-!”

     He griped, blinking the flashes away and shaking the object slightly. “Fuck. I-I guess they all show something a little different. I’ve read about what these are and what they represent before, but that was so long ago..” Lukas sighed, pocketing both. “Let’s just.. get this cable car station going. We should find Maya and Aiden before midnight.”

     The three walked in mild silence, the ambience being the only sounds flowing through their brains in their collective mortification. Lukas snapped his fingers occasionally, attempting to fire some neurons to remember exactly what he read about. He remembered that the wooden objects were called ‘totems’ and what meanings certain animals had in the culture, but it wasn’t enough to put together in his head.

     Lukas pulled out the weathered paper with poorly written instructions, squinting at it in a poor attempt to read between the lines of the smudged ink. “Hey, Radar? You’re good with deciphering patterns and really old tattered stuff, right?”

     “Oh! Yes, I’m experienced in that field, haha, I’ve dealt with a lot of Beacontown’s citizens letters, all of their handwritings get so messy from excitement!” Radar smiled, reminiscing some of the kind words everyone had to say, including some about him since Romeo’s reign of terror.

     Lukas smiled, handing him the paper. “That’s a relief, this thing’s terrible.” He chuckled, watching Radar’s eyes widen slightly from shock.

     He cringed, “Wow, uh.. This is some of the worst I’ve seen.” he examined it closely, adjusting his glasses. “Not even from all of the weathering, the handwriting is also just terrible to begin with.”

     “Make anything out of it?” Petra raised an eyebrow, crossing her arms.

     Radar sighed, taking a seat in an old chair. “Some of it, I don’t wanna get anything wrong though.” He crossed his legs, resting his elbow on his knee and squinting closely. “It’s a short pattern loop, Jesse’s parents must’ve been a bit more educated in redstone engineering to pull this off.”

     He pointed to the sets of levers and buttons that covered a wall of the room, “The lever on the far right, then the second button to the farthest left..” Lukas flipped the levers and buttons to Radar’s instructions, “the third lever on the bottom, the button on the far right, then the one in the middle..”

     “What’s this pattern so long for?” Lukas shook his head, listening to the constant moving machinery. Petra shushed Lukas, muttering about Radar losing his place.

     “Uhhh… the top lever on the left, then the lever on the far right!” Noteblocks somewhere in the walls chimed once Lukas flipped the last lever, light whirring of Redstone machinery constantly moving in the background.

     “Nice! Thank you, Radar.” Lukas smiled, a small chuckle emitting from the intern.

     “Oh, it’s no problem! Anything, haha!” He laughed awkwardly, following Lukas and Petra out of the shed to enter one of the cable cars.

-

22:47 [10:47 PM]

     Lukas dusted snow off of the old controls outside the cable car entrances, hitting a button and watching the machinery begin moving. “Ever been on one of these?” He entered a car, gently pulling Radar in as it began leaving before he took a full step in.

     “Oh- thank you, sir! Ahhh.. no. This is really advanced! I don’t even see stuff like this even in other cities!” Radar admired the functionality, wiping the frozen windows. “Jesse’s parents must’ve been on the level of Old Builders!”

     Petra smiled, shrugging a bit. “I wouldn’t really say that, the Old Builders ended up reaaally sucking..”

     Radar perked up, “R-Right! You guys actually met them!”

     Lukas interrupted the conversation, calling attention to some papers left in a corner of the car. “Hey, take a look at this..” He picked them up, flipping through to see if they were in the right order. “It talks about a strange creature having tormented some explorers, I’m guessing more people than Jesse and his parents found this place.”

     “What about the ‘strange creature’?” Petra questioned, raising an eyebrow.

     “These look like they were part of a journal, but it’s mostly about miners that tried to find materials in caves here that I’m assuming Jesse’s parents already picked clean. There’s not too much about the creature, but it seems really dangerous. It’s humanoid with grey skin and super thin limbs, I’m not entirely sure what this is about. I’ve never really heard of a creature like this.”

     “Kind of just sounds like a skeleton.” Petra shrugged.

     “Minus the razor sharp teeth, supersonic shrieks and pale eyes, kind of.” Lukas shrugged, Petra’s eyes widening slightly, being reminded of the shrieks ‘heard’ in the totem’s prophecy. Deciding not to say anything, Petra watched as the car descended fully, the three exiting the car quickly.

Chapter Text

EIGHT HOURS UNTIL DAWN

23:00 [11:00 PM]

     Jesse sighed, piling new logs into the fireplace. “So, what’s with this place?” Axel spoke up, lounging on one of the couches.

     “My parents built it, it’s technically like a glorified base. We didn’t really have any safety precautions put in, so anyone could crash here while exploring if they wanted to. Though, as cities began being built people kind of lost the need to explore, aaand this place mostly rots.” Jesse shrugged. “It’s held up pretty well, though. Anyone else come home?”

     “Petra and Radar came by, but they left to go look for Lukas.”

     “They did? He said he’d be back by midnight and it’s.. Eleven.”

     “Give them some time,” Olivia sat on the couch armrest, propping a leg up “Aiden probably got himself lost out there.”

     “Maya’s still out there, too..” Gill sighed. “She’s a great leader, but she’s not that great on her own.”

     “Well, Aiden’s probably with her?” Jesse shrugged. “He stepped down from being leader?”

     “Oh- yeah, about five years ago?” Gill shrugged.

     “That’s a relief. I mean- I’m sure he’s gotten better now, but..” Jesse clasped his hands together, “Well! Let’s not wait too long out here, instead of sitting around waiting for everyone else, let’s explore the lodge a bit! It’s been awhile myself.” He smiled, “Olivia’s already seen the basement, we can check out some of the rooms out here.”

-

23:14 [11:14 PM]

     Maya groaned, having found a new area to explore versus just going to the lodge. “Let’s go this way instead,” she pointed to a path further down the creek. “we’re supposed to be at the lodge, not whatever this building in the side of the mountain is.”

     Aiden shrugged. “Anywhere’s better than out here, what if we see that thing again?” Maya shuddered.

     “Yeah, but it’s probably better to be in a larger group instead.” She started for the trail, snapping another blaze rod to light the way. “Let’s get going, Aiden.”

     He followed begrudgingly, he didn’t want to be outside but Maya had a point. “There’s so much crap out here, we don’t even know what the Hell the creatures are out here!”

     “Not like we can do anything about it, they don’t look like they can be fought off with just swordfighting.” Maya sighed, holding Aiden’s hand for some form of warmth.

     The two mostly explored in silence, Maya watched a few figures pass by in the distance, blurred by the snow. Aiden let go of her hand to find something else, taking notice of a small box under a tree. He opened it, revealing small trinkets and photos, as well as a familiar wooden object. “Maya, it’s another one of these things..”

     He handed it to her, it was branded with red paint and insect carvings. “This one’s a different color.” She braced herself, looking into the back and watching the new scene play out.

     Her  vision blurred, Axel and Gill were seen in the lodge being chased by one of the creatures the two saw before. Gill was tackled by it, the scene ending with Axel ramming himself into it.

     Maya shook her head, pocketing the item. “It was Gill and Axel, being chased by one of the things we saw.” She peeked into the box, “What else is in here?”

     Aiden took a photo out, depicting Jesse and what appeared to be his dad in front of the lodge. “It’s a family photo of Jesse, you think he lost this?”

     Maya furrowed her eyebrows, picking out a note from the box. “If it’s Jesse’s, that means he knows what those wooden items are about.” She flicked snow off of the note, reading about a group that wanted to forget the events of what they’d seen on the mountain, but signed it off with a different name than Jesse’s.

     “What’s it say?”

     “It’s not from Jesse, I’m guessing they just found the photo, because whoever wrote this had no ties to him or his family.” Maya put the note back in the box, Aiden pocketing the rest of it. “It’s another thing about the creature, they survived with two other people and wrote it as a memento to forget the entire thing.”

     Aiden examined the photo further, eventually pocketing it. “Jesse looks pretty different in the photo. He’s got longer hair and wears overalls.” Maya raised an eyebrow.

     “You’re sure it’s even Jesse?”

     “It’s got his name on it.” Aiden shrugged.

     Maya blinked, nearly forgetting what she saw. “I uh, saw some people up ahead, that’s probably some of the group. We’d better get going.”

-

23:26 [11:26 PM]

     Petra looked around across a bridge, watching for any sign of people. “Lukas! There’s light down there,” she pointed towards the creek, a small illumination in the trees moving forward. “it’s probably Maya.”

     The three descended the mountain hill, Petra keeping her eye on the moving light. “Aw! Are you kidding me?!” Petra groaned, the bridge across a flowing river having broken for who knows how long.

     “Uhhh… There’s! Conveniently aligned stones sticking out of the water that can be used as a path to jump over..?” Radar pointed, earning an eyebrow raise from Lukas.

     “Or we could play it safe and just punch down a tree?” Lukas squinted, Petra shrugged.

     “Whatever’s easier. I mean, if Radar doesn’t want to get caught in the river’s current from his lack of muscle only one of us can go over the rocks.” She chuckled, starting on the stone ‘path.’

     Lukas shrugged. “Let’s get to work on those trees..?” He trailed off. “Ahh.. well. If we come over here again during the day it’d be helpful to the group.”

     Radar perked up, following Lukas up a small hill to the trees that weren’t cleared out for the paths.

-

23:33 [11:33 PM]

     Petra going ahead, followed the general direction of the light that escaped her vision. A small glint in the corner of her eye caught her attention, at first she thought it could’ve been some glass in the moonlight but upon closer inspection passing by it turned out to be a small necklace.

     She turned to the item, kneeling to pick it up and realized it was a locket. In the snow, however, it was frozen shut.

     Not wanting to lose her lead, she continued to follow her original direction, clutching the locket in her palm in hopes of warming it up by the time she found Maya or Aiden.

     A dim light began fading into view, Petra’s face lit up as she quickened her pace to meet up with whoever was on the other end, nearly tripping over another object.

     Petra turned back for a second, getting a glimpse at a totem in the snow and stopping herself to snag it, chasing the brightening light.

     “Hey! Who’s out there?” Petra called out, the dim light now just around the corner.

     “Petra?” A familiar snooty voice called out, turning the corner to meet what she thought would be her fairly new acquaintance, being interrupted by the faint crashing of trees, and not by a person.

     Aiden froze at the sight of the creature. Maya rushed to Petra, wrapping an arm around her shoulder. “Stay perfectly-“ the animal shrieked, making Petra cringe slightly, but reminding her of what she heard in the mortifying vision. “fffucking-!” It got uncomfortably close to Aiden, who had his jaw clenched tightly at the sight of it so close once again, faces inches away from one another. “…still.”

     “HEY!” Petra yelled, quickly getting the attention of the creature as it was now in her face in the blink of an eye, her breath shaky as she exhaled slowly from holding it.

DON’T MOVE!

     Maya was horrified by Petra’s guts, but exercised a stable train of thought and stayed still. Aiden cautiously snuck towards the river, watching the creature as it croaked, sharp warbles emitting from it to seemingly get a lay on it’s surroundings.

     Aiden picked up a large enough rock, reeling his arm back and chucking it into some lower hanging trees, it rustling loudly as snow fell in large clumps into the water and making a significant splash at the end when the rock finally hit. Aiden remembered to halt all movement after he threw the rock, watching it quickly turn towards the noise from the corner of his eye, a loud cry emitting from it as it swiftly navigated its way towards the source.

     Aiden hiked over to Petra and Maya, shoving them to go back whence Petra came. “C-Come on!”

     The new pack of three ran frantically back towards the broken bridge, having Petra lead the way. Lukas and Radar were only a few feet away from the freshly repaired bridge, being swept along with the three until they settled on a patio closer to the lodge.

     “What.. What are we running from?” Lukas choked out, catching his breath.

     “We don’t know what they’re called,” Petra pulled the totem out of her pocket, “but I think it’s the creature that whoever wrote those letters were talking about.. I found this.”

     “Geez, these things are everywhere.” Lukas examined the totem, a new color and new brandings, white paint and carvings of birds adorned with the familiar butterfly shaped hole in the back. “Don’t be something crazy..” he muttered, peeking through and allowing himself to view the new scene.

     Petra was seen falling through a hole in the ceiling of what appeared to be an abandoned mine, groaning from the hit on the ground and rolling on her side, right on time to dodge what would’ve been a rock large and heavy enough to have killed her in the spot her head was just in.

     Lukas blinked away the vision, shaking his head and pocketing it. “..It’s good news this time? I saw Petra. She fell somewhere and moved in time from a huge boulder that could’ve crushed her head.”

     Petra shuddered. “You guys have been finding those too?” Maya piped up, pulling out two of her own. “Nothing good on our part, though. The black one shows Aiden dying and the red one has Gill and Axel being chased.”

     “We should really get back to the lodge,” Radar adjusted his glasses, pointing in the direction of the cable cars. “Everyone’s probably seriously worried about you guys.”

     The group nodded in agreement, Lukas and Radar taking the lead back to the cable cars.

-

23:51 [11:51 PM]

     Olivia was exploring the relatively abandoned cabin, inspecting someone’s old bedroom. Jesse had mentioned it was a getaway for anyone, beds in several more rooms than required for what she assumed was a family of three.

     The moonlight lit up the room nicely besides the Redstone lamps, giving her a hopeful feeling for the rest of the group outside from how much the snow reflected the light. She wiped some condensation off of the window, a new glint behind her coming into view from the reflection.

     On the wall hidden in plain sight was a wooden button that blended in with the wall, while Olivia didn’t want to intrude, she was curious. Pushing the button, she heard several pistons and machinery whirr as the previously insignificant bookcases had swapped out for an opening to a hidden staircase.

     It appeared to have still been lit up by torches, safe enough for nothing to have spawned for how long it could’ve been dark. The staircase didn’t seem to go far, a hallway at the end of it rather than an ominous door, a lingering foul smell however being noticeable.

     The smell got stronger as she descended, holding her nose and holding her breath when it got more unbearable, the source of the smell not being locatable from the dimming hallway. Old chests and boxes held nothing too significant, she debated if Jesse’s parents were even the one to add it to the home. She sighed as the smell lead to a hole in the corner, ladders leading down to who knows where.

     Olivia was almost sure it was a dead body by now, halfway down the ladders and hit like a brick by the smell being significantly more pungent. It seemed to be a hole dug in the ceiling haphazardly, having been lead to an old cave with very dim sources of light. She pulled some torches she still had from the basement and lit up the area properly, papers littered the ground, most too weathered and old for her to even try to read. From what little she could read, however, it was someone who was stuck in a dead end with no real tools to leave and too weak to be breaking stone blocks to leave with their equally tired friend.

     Strangely enough, the cave seemed to be open ended, a small light at the end of the tunnel she could see, so there’s no way these people could’ve been stuck unless there was a reason not to leave. An old weathered chest had nothing much more of value, old journals that she could bring to the rest of the group maybe, but nothing crazy.

     The smell was driving her crazy, looking for the source and finding nothing inside the chest that would’ve made the smell but very clearly where the chest was. She turned over the chest, mortified by a cold, rotting body stuffed in a 1x1 hole that was missing most of everything from it, a dim eye looking back at her.

     She held her stomach, holding a hand over her mouth instinctively from nearly retching her guts out. She quickly left the area, nearly tripping as she crawled out of the small hole, a glint in the hallway in a dank corner that not much light hit. Begrudgingly, she approached it, a wooden object with strange creatures and green paint lying in its wake.

     She examined it, taking it with her back up the staircase and rushing herself to close up the hidden entryway. Sitting on the bed, she examined it further, feeling a deep hole in the back that didn’t seem to have any use until she peeked through it.

     A vision flowed through her brain, the scene fading to an unknown man fleeing something, talking to someone Olivia couldn’t see as they entered the cave that she assumed was the shelter she just left.

     She blinked, eyebrows furrowed from how seeing something like that through a piece of wood was possible. “Jesse?” Olivia called, leaving the room to search for the more educated one on the premises.

Chapter Text

SEVEN HOURS UNTIL DAWN

00:12 [12:12 AM]

     The group stayed relatively silent in conversation for the cable car ride, cooling off from the horrors of the creature that lurked in the trees. Maya groaned, the lodge finally in proper view. “Was it really that much closer for the rest of you? We’ve been out here the entire time.”

     “Aaall of us have stepped in the cabin at least once, it’s gonna be your guys’ turn eventually.” Petra smiled, patting her on the back with a little too much force.

     “Have you guys seen Jesse?” Aiden piped up, earning a small eyebrow raise out of Lukas.

     “Lukas said he was with Olivia, why?”

     Aiden picked the box out of his inventory, taking out the photo. “We found this box of a bunch of notes and photos, one of these is of Jesse and his parents.”

     Radar leaned over, peeking at the photo. “Are you sure that’s Jesse?”

     “It’s got his name on it, he looks really different, but who else here is going to conveniently be named Jesse with his parents?”

     “It has his name on it, but Jesse’s also a boy.”

     Lukas and Petra cringed slightly, Jesse was relatively open about it but they didn’t feel right “outing” him to people he just didn’t tell. Lukas picked the photo out of his hand, holding it out properly for the group to see. “It is Jesse, just really young. He’s just Asian and his family didn’t really care about his hair length.” He pointed to Jesse’s right eye, the slight droop to it much more prominent. “They have the same droopy eye, and the eyes are still green.” He leaned back, looking at the back of the photo and choosing not to read anything out loud after skimming it over.

‘Us and our little girl, Jesse’, huh?

     Aiden snatched the photo back from Lukas, earning a short side glance out of the blond. Radar adjusted his glasses, “I see! It makes sense you’d know, you are his closest partner.”

     Lukas scratched the back of his neck awkwardly, “I’m also just his boyfriend, Radar.” Maya snickered, Aiden’s face scrunching in disapproval.

     Aiden suffered an unfortunate crush on the hero, long before Lukas came around and actually befriended him. Their duel back in Sky City solidified the crush, though he didn’t confess, he knew at some point Lukas would. He accepted defeat a long time ago, but you can’t get rid of feelings. Maya teased him about it often, the two actually having gotten closer since Aiden stepped down.

     “What else is in the box?” Aiden shrugged, handing it to Petra. She skimmed through the entries, a familiar name catching her eye. “Hey, Lukas.. take a look at this.” She picked it out, holding it up to him and pointing to a name.

     “Soren?” His eyes widened, taking the note from her and reading it. “‘We met an old man named Soren, he was traveling with someone who appeared to be his friend. Soren seemed like a fairly troubled man who was running away from his problems, we don’t know where they went, but we hope that they weren’t the distant screams we heard leaving this hellish environment.’”

     “Wow. They don’t even know who Soren was? He’s kind of a worldwide legend.”

     Lukas shrugged, “I guess they could be from a more secluded town, the trip here was pretty long. There’s something seriously wrong around here, though, we should really tell the others. You guys think that Soren got attacked by one of those things up here?”

     “He’s a coward, but I really hope not. I don’t think he deserves that- Whatever the creatures are, they seem really strong.” Petra sighed, Lukas put the letter back in and she handed the box back to Aiden.

     “This is our stop, you guys!” Radar pointed out the frosted window, the lodge only a deck away.

-

00:26 [12:26 AM]

     Jesse sat alone, people who came by were kind enough to leave mostly habited rooms in the lodge untouched, his childhood room still held much of his old things left behind between trips.

He couldn’t help but feel embarrassed.

     A deep sinking feeling in his stomach grew, hunger, but not for food. He’d been starving for a long time, the constant craving and urge in the back of his head at nearly all times of the day. He could eat rotten flesh, sure, and he did to stifle his hunger, but nothing beat it fresh.

“Jesse?”

     Olivia’s voice interrupted his thoughts, quickly composing himself and exiting his room. “Olivia?”

     “Jesse! Hey… I wanted to ask about something.”

     “Sure, what’s up?” Jesse eyed the wooden object in her hand, internally hoping it wasn’t something about it.

     “I found a hidden staircase in one of the rooms downstairs, it doesn’t have that much in it but it kind of seems like someone… dug in here, at some point.”

     “Dug in here?” Jesse blinked. “There’s not.. a way out of that staircase.” Olivia furrowed her eyebrows. “The switch, button, whatever, it’s the only way to open the door.”

     “..Then how did they dig into that hallway, and leave the lodge with no harm? Everything seems pretty intact.”

     Jesse shrugged, “They could’ve been some huge douchebag and dug out, and just. Put the blocks in the wall back, I guess.”

     Olivia raised an eyebrow, “I guess.. well, anyway, I found this.” She extended the totem out, Jesse internally groaning at the sight. “It’s really weird, you look in the back of it and you get visions of stuff.”

     “The past or the future?” Jesse chuckled awkwardly, he was initially going to brush it off, but noticed a specific trait about the totem.

     “I don’t know.” Jesse furrowed his eyebrows, awkwardly reaching for it and taking it out of Olivia’s hand, holding uncomfortable eye contact.

Why’s this one green?

     “Uhh.. I’ve never seen one of these before. Well- I have, but not.. this color.” Jesse examined the carvings, he knew what the others meant, but this one was completely new to him.

     “You know what these are?”

     Jesse sighed deeply, he didn’t mean for this to be an issue. “These.. Totems, are naturally spawning objects on this mountain. Certain people and cultures around here in the past made a really big mark on the general area, it’s just that the reason they come up isn’t usually.. good. They’re on the level of old builders, but even older.”

     “What’s wrong with them then?” Olivia raised an eyebrow, Jesse’s awkward demeanor raising some red flags.

     “They can be good—they are good, some foretell fortune and good luck, guidance, but some foretell death, maybe one of your friends or even yourself- It’s only if a certain creature is in the area. They come like seasons, sort of. Like.. when birds migrate, or bears hibernate, they’re a lot less active during the warmer times.”

     “Jesse. It’s winter. Did you seriously bring us all here knowing we could potentially all be in danger?!” Olivia’s voice rose slightly, making Jesse cringe.

    “H-Hey-! Listen- Listen.” Jesse gestured for her to keep her voice down, noticing a group approaching the lodge in the distance from the window behind her. “This place is great during snowy seasons, it’s also just snowy because it’s a mountain. It’s been super warm for winter this year, and I honestly didn’t expect for us to get here so late since nights are colder. We do.. have to leave, if the Wendigos really are in season, but we have to wait till morning. It wouldn’t be safe in the cold.” He sighed, pocketing the totem. “I-I saw a group coming around here, through the window. It’s probably Lukas and the others. Olivia, I’ll explain everything to them- just please let it be me.”

     Olivia pressed her lips into a fine line, her eyes displaying great disappointment in Jesse. “…Okay, Jesse. I trust you.”

-

00:37 [12:37 AM]

     Axel and Gill were snooping in the basement, searching old chests. Nothing in particular caught either of their eyes, but something outside did. Axel peeked out the small window above, rustling in the trees being uncharacteristically loud, faint cries not of any animal he knew about in the distance. “Whatever’s out there, it’s super loud.”

     “You can’t see it?” Gill was significantly shorter than Axel, propping one of the empty chests to climb on top of to see outside.

     “No, it doesn’t even sound like an actual animal. I thought it could’ve been a wolf or something, but it’s too high of a noise.” Axel shrugged, the two glanced at each other momentarily before being frightened by a skinny long creature outside the window, only a few feet away.

     “What-“ Gill attempted to whisper, eyes widening at the creature immediately turning in the direction of the window, it slowly approaching with its elongated stature. He held his breath, silently ushering Axel to move away while he crawled down from the chest.

     The slight frost and condensation of the window saved the two, them slowly backing away. Axel rounded the window, making sure he wasn’t directly in eye view to trip the blinds quickly and rushing back to the basement door, which Gill was already trying to leave through, opening it for Axel and closing it behind them.

     Axel ascended the stairs, “Gill, lock the door.” he turned back, waiting halfway for Gill to turn the locks and rush upstairs to tell someone.

     The two speed walked down the hall, Lukas and the rest of the group entering through the main entrance. “Maya! Aiden!” Gill immediately noticed his friends, Maya giving him a small side hug and fist bumping Aiden.

     “Hey, Gill. We ended up taking the suuuper long way here..” Maya sighed, adjusting her earmuffs. “Lukas and the others helped us out, though.” The three took seats on the living room couch to catch up, Aiden being visibly shaken up.

     “Hey, Axel?” Lukas gestured for him to come closer, “Where’s Jesse? We all kind of have something to talk about.” He pointed to Aiden, who was checking behind himself constantly, looking out windows.

     “I don’t know, I was about to look for him too—We were all exploring the lodge while you guys were out.” Lukas took notice of the dimming fireplace, going over and tossing new logs in, lightly fanning the flames with his hand.

     “Lukas! Petra!” Jesse called, him and Olivia looking down at them from the upstairs railing. “You’re back!” He went down to hug Petra, being pulled away by Lukas for a more intimate embrace and planting a small kiss.

     “Told you I’d be back by midnight.” Lukas smiled, Petra rolled her eyes and pulled Jesse away from him, a light chuckle emitting from the brunet.

     “Hey, Jesse? We’ve been seeing something really freaky out there, we don’t.. Think it’s safe.” Jesse tensed up.

     “What did you see?” He fiddled with his thumbs, Lukas wrapped an arm around his shoulder to calm him down.

     “We don’t know, I mean, Lukas and Radar haven’t even seen it yet. It’s huge. It looks like a really tall person with grey skin—kind of like an Enderman, actually.”

     Jesse pulled away from Lukas, pacing around the room and holding his head. “Shoot, shoot—Fuck! Man!” He sighed deeply, trying to gather his thoughts. “Okay, okay..”

     “Jesse? Are you okay?” Lukas furrowed his eyebrows, going over to hold him steady.

     “Yeah! Yeah..” Jesse let out a low whine, frustrated and in worry. “I’m so sorry, everyone.”

     He got the attention of the rest of the group, Jesse suddenly felt extremely self conscious.

     “I’m so, so sorry..” Jesse started, avoiding Olivia’s gaze specifically. “The animal you’ve all been seeing are Wendigos, they come out of their resting spaces when it’s colder. I thought it’d be safe because of how warm it’s been this whole winter, but if you guys are seeing them—we’re fucked.” He pulled out the totem, immediately catching the eye of Petra and Aiden.

     “Hey- wait, we’ve seen a bunch of those too..” Petra interrupted, Jesse’s expression twisting into fear.

     The group pulled out their respective totems, Lukas took out Radar’s brown totem, his yellow totem, Petra’s white totem, Maya and Aiden’s Red and Black totems,

Jesse was stressed.

     “No, no, no, no, no, no— Black and Red..” Jesse shook his head, holding it in his hands. “I’m s-so sorry..”

     Lukas held him close, attempting to reassure the panicking brunet. “It’s okay, Jesse, you didn’t know-“

     “N-No! Lukas, this isn’t okay. I did know—I didn’t know Wendigos would be in season—but I shouldn’t have brought us here in the first place!”

     Petra sighed, “Jesse, you just wanted to share your childhood with us, you didn’t mean for this to happen.”

     Jesse breathed heavily, gathering his running thoughts. “…These totems all foretell prophecies based on the people that find them.”

Jesse pointed to Maya’s red totem, “Red foretells Danger, either of a friend or a future for yourself.”

Petra’s white totem, “White foretells Fortune, the best outcome of a possible future.”

Lukas’ yellow totem, “Yellow foretells Guidance, the outcome of a choice someone can make that is beneficiary to the situation.”

Radar’s brown totem, “Brown foretells Loss.. The possible death of someone other than yourself, especially your friends.”

Aiden’s black totem, “Black is.. Death. The possible death of yourself if you or someone else fails.”

     “What about that one?” Gill pointed to the green totem in Jesse’s hand.

     “That’s the thing, everyone, I don’t know. I grew up with five colors, I don’t know what green means.” Jesse sighed deeply.

     “..How do we prevent this?” Radar pointed to his brown totem.

     “You can’t.” Jesse balled his hands into fists, “That’s.. that’s the thing about these. Only the people in them can, they’re only possible outcomes, this is all based on the choices you make—but you can’t.. fight fate. You can’t sit in the lodge forever, these events will happen, whether you know about it or not, whether anyone else does- someone will get the bright idea to do something that can cause one of these. It’s.. all on you guys, that things like Death and Loss don’t happen.”

Jesse exhaled deeply, “It’s not safe here, but we can’t leave at night- not in the midst of danger.”

“We have to wait until dawn.”

Chapter Text

SIX HOURS UNTIL DAWN

01:03 [1:03 AM]

     Jesse was right, someone would get the bright idea to do something that could cause one of the events.

     Lukas was exploring the cavern under the lodge with Olivia, holding his breath at the smell of decomposition at the entrance. He examined his surroundings when the smell dissipated a little more, “Olivia, this is an abandoned mineshaft.” The cave floor occasionally turned into wood planks and old broken rails scattered the tunnels.

     “We could probably find something the miners left, get a little bit more information on Wendigos, you know?” Olivia suggested, Lukas’ expression only displaying concern.

     “But Jesse already knows what Wendigos are, he grew up with them.”

     “Yeah, but he doesn’t know what they really are. They could be like that old Enderman theory- maybe they used to be people, something other than just.. out of the blue.” Olivia shrugged.

     “It might be good for us not to know.” Lukas squinted, lighting up corners of the mine, torches long dimmed since then.

     “It could be equally as good for us to know, if we can fight them off we don’t have to leave, and things can go back to normal.”

     Lukas sighed, rubbing his eyes tiredly. “Olivia, we’ve been on vacation as Order of the Stone for less than a week now, sticking around for danger isn’t really in any of our best interest, I’d think you’d be the one to know that out of all of us.”

     “I know that, but this place actually means something to Jesse, I think if we could somehow make it safe would be really good for us.”

     Lukas pressed his lips into a fine line, staying silent, his heartstrings pulled by the idea of doing something meaningful for his longtime boyfriend.

     A small glint caught his eye, made visible by the new flames. Another totem, another prophecy, internally hoping for Fortune and Guidance over something like Death, but at the end of the day any warning was helpful in it’s own way.

Red.

     Lukas picked it up reluctantly, “Olivia, you find anything yet?”

     “No. Have you? Any of the scattered journals in here are too weathered to even try to read.”

     “New totem. It’s red, so.. hopefully it’s us. We’re probably going to be too far to warn any of the others.”

     “Geez, they really are everywhere. I’m surprised there’s not much written about the dead culture around here— it’s really fascinating when you think about it.”

     “They probably died before they could, and if there were, we’ll probably find the new information you’re hoping for on the Wendigos.” Lukas peeked in the hole, watching the new scene play out.

     Jesse was tossed at a wall by a wendigo, turning on his hands and knees, vomiting from the force he was violently thrown at. His breathing shortened, watery eyes gleaming in the moonlight, gripping the floor and trying not to shake as the wendigo honed in on him.

     Lukas dropped the totem, immediately stressed at the idea of Jesse being injured by one of them. “Damn it!”

     “Hey, Lukas, calm down— what did you see?” Olivia picked it up for him, the blond reluctantly taking it back.

     “It was Jesse.. He was the only one out of all of us not to be in a prophecy. Fuck- why’d I have to be the one to find it?” Lukas huffed in frustration, reeling his arm back to chuck it at the wall but decided against it— a sudden feeling of dread washing over him, like he’d be guaranteed made dead for disrespecting the mountain.

     “..Right, what happened to Jesse? It’s only a Danger totem, not Loss.” Olivia raised an eyebrow, Lukas shooting her a mildly upset look as he pocketed the item.

     “I saw one of the Wendigos, like Petra described, it threw Jesse at the wall so hard—and like nothing—he threw up. He was shaking.. Maya said you can’t move when you see one, they seem to only be able to see moving objects.” Lukas sighed, “I’d go fucking insane if he died.”

     “Wow, I mean.. At least we know? Maybe you can try to stick with Jesse when we finish exploring here.” Olivia suggested, squinting slightly. “It might be all fate, but maybe me telling you that you can stick with him is also fate- I don’t know.”

“If I had to choose between the world and Jesse, I’d choose Jesse.”

     The two cautiously explored the area, finding a small excavated ‘room’ with desks and maps, randomly circled areas with a poorly drawn skull doodled on top— Neither of them had a great lay of the land, so it didn’t really help them given there was also not a “You Are Here” marker.

     Searching a desk, Lukas spied a tattered journal stashed away between the drawers. He cringed at the thick cobwebs in every corner of it, sure that a cave spider once lived there. Reluctantly retrieving the journal, he patted off the webs and egg sac shells— lucky they weren’t live. “What did you find? I got some sticky photos.” Olivia held out a small clump of photos, meticulously splitting them apart from each other.

     “An old journal, it was stuck between the drawers. There’s a bunch of dead baby spiders in this thing.” Lukas shrugged, flipping the pages and turning it over, attempting to pat out anything between the pages. “I swear, the only thing in the drawers were cobwebs.”

     “You can probably actually read it- aside from the humidity here, there’s not too much for it to be weathered by.”

     Lukas’ eyebrows furrowed, a fairly particular detail on the journal raising red flags. “Olivia.. these pages are white. I mean- they’re a little yellowed, but they’re uncharacteristically pale for what should be a pretty old book.” He rubbed a page between his fingers, flipping through them. “It’s nothing to do with the type of paper either, it’s just a regular old journal. It’s only a year at the oldest.”

     “Really? What would they be doing here..”

     “No idea.” Lukas turned to a random page.

“‘It’s been eleven years since the Witherstorm… I’ve explored many lands since then, the Order of the Stone has diminished since then and been replaced by even bigger fraud-‘“

Lukas blinked. “Whew, eleven years and this guy’s salty.”

     “Sounds like a die-hard fan.” Olivia shrugged.

     “Uhh.. some of this is kind of just a diary..” Lukas skimmed the entry, looking for anything more interesting.

“‘There is something wrong with this mountain and I intend to find out what, I’ve been joined on my adventures by a stranger named Romeo, he’s been wronged by the same man I have-‘“

Lukas groaned, reading through the rest of it.

     Olivia’s eyes widened, “Romeo? Didn’t Jesse leave him to rot a long time ago- How in the world did he get out here?”

     “Yeah, friggin’ creators know how- this is stupid fanfic about how shitty Jesse is because he probably hurt their feelings on an adventure.” Lukas rolled his eyes, skimming the next few pages.

     “Maybe, but Jesse’s a pretty all around good guy- He’s not really rude unless given a reason.”

     “He’s a fucking sweetheart.” Lukas spat, admittedly riled up- he just couldn’t see how anyone could possibly find Jesse evil. “..Sorry. I’m just.. frustrated. I can’t tell who wrote this, though, I don’t know who else could possibly hold this bad of a grudge.”

     “We haven’t really had adventures nearly as big as the Witherstorm or the Admins since- I mean, it could be Soren? But-“

     “Soren! You’re right, we actually found something before- it was a note, they crossed paths with him, who else could be this whiny?” Lukas chuckled, rolling his eyes and skipping a few pages. “Not much too interesting here, the writing is a bit more wonky though.”

     Olivia laughed, “‘Whiny’? Lukas, I know he’s a huge coward, but you didn’t really even talk to the guy, none of us really did.”

     “Anyone who thinks that way about Jesse is probably a huge baby,” Lukas scoffed. “Hey, now it’s a little more interesting..”

     “‘We were cornered in this abandoned mine by a freakishly large creature, it resembled some of my old friends, Endermen, but it was certainly not as friendly. Romeo was severely injured by the creature, his leg was torn off in one fell swoop— if I didn’t know any better, I would’ve tried taming these entities, their strength and form of hunting is fascinating.

     Unfortunately, we’ve found that it’s no longer safe to try to leave, these entities seem to thrive in the cold and this season’s peak has been on the levels of even the most frigid taigas.’”

     “This season’s peak?”

     “Well, it can’t be this year. It has to of been one of the last two, the Witherstorm was thirteen years ago by now, and we only just got Petra back from her last adventure.”

     “Wow.. Time flies. Man… I can’t believe Soren’s or Romeo’s still alive, honestly.”

     “The guy’s a fossil by now- Olivia, I’m 34. How Romeo left, or how he became insanely bitter again is beyond me.” Lukas sighed.

     “Well, from what you’ve read out, it might just be Soren talking out of his ass.”

     “Might be.” Lukas sideeyed his surroundings.

     “‘I don’t know how long we’ve been in here, Romeo has seemed to have succumbed to the cold, he barely breathes at night now. I am so weak and tired, and our last ration of food has long gone out. My only source of hydration is the snow, the horribly dim torches in this mine don’t provide enough heat to boil it and I believe this is where I have become ill.

     There are no more resources in this mineshaft, and we are doomed. I hear the shrieks of the creatures every day, and they are always uncomfortably close. I fear that I won’t make it out of here alive.’”

     “‘Joyous day!

     I dug out a few blocks of gravel under the deep snow, and I’ve been able to finally create real heat only using flint. However, my friend has long succumbed to the cold now.

     I’ve been surviving off of spider eyes from the remaining cave spiders in this mine, and the heat gives me hope of seeing spring.’”

     “‘What I believe are the last few weeks of the season have become violent and unforgiving, and I am so hungry. I believe I have killed the last of the cave spiders here now, I should’ve allowed them to propagate more, but my hunger got the best of me.

     I don’t know how much longer I have, the winter here is so long. I’ve only seen a handful of sunny days at the end of the tunnel, and the sun fails to produce heat in this wasteland.’”

     “‘My hunger has been consuming me, I’m so tired, weak, and I have lost weight.

     It sounds so evil, but the idea of eating the flesh of my friend has dawned in the hallways of my mind. I checked it the other day, his flesh should be still be edible, being buried in the snow has preserved the meat. If I drag him back into the cave to thaw, I may survive another season.

     I am so very sorry, my friend.

     Creators have mercy on my pitiful soul.’”

     “Holy shit! He ate him?!” Olivia stared at Lukas wide-eyed, clear discomfort in his.

     “It’s what it seems to say.. that’s such a disgusting visual, I mean, I guess Romeo probably wasn’t his friend for that long- but I can’t imagine eating someone I knew, I barely stomached rotten flesh at my most desperate.” Lukas cringed, spitting out the memory of the taste.

     “I can’t either, I might be a worse survivor because of that, but it just seems so wrong..”

     “..There’s two more entries.”

     “‘With my newfound strength, I have dug a way up into someone’s home, I’ve added ladders whenever I wish to be somewhere safer.. there doesn’t seem to be a way out on the other end, where the entrance is must be activated by redstone- if my old friend Ellegaard were here, she’d know how to piece it back together if I chose to disturb it.

     My stomach has only become more knotted.’”

     “‘I no longer have the strength to enter the home-‘“

     Lukas furrowed his eyebrows, pausing at the final entry and skipping a few pages. “What’s wrong?” Olivia raised en eyebrow.

     “It just says ‘I’m so hungry.’ Like… everywhere. For ten pages. He must’ve gone nuts.”

     “..Sheesh. What a crazy way to go out.”

     “I would’ve let a Wendigo take me at that point, honestly, I can’t imagine shriveling for months on end just to die to starvation because I was too scared to leave.” Lukas shut the journal, pocketing it for another day.

     “I probably would’ve too, I-“

     Olivia stopped herself, the uncomfortably loud thumps of footsteps interrupting her train of thought. Lukas backed away against the wall as the sound got closer, a loud shriek echoing in the hallway. Panic settled in the two, Olivia backed herself against the wall, inching herself towards the entrance.

     She knocked over a loose rock in the wall, the clattering immediately alerting the wendigo of their location. Lukas stared wide eyed at Olivia, fearful and mildly frustrated at the implications as the noises got louder. She attempted peeking through the side of the entrance, the wendigo unluckily having been looking in her direction.

DON’T MOVE!

     Olivia immediately moved back, the wendigo shrieking and bolting for the room. The two watched as it hung on the walls and ceiling, it’s long nails and proportions on full display as it searched for the source of the movement. It’s grip was unfathomably good, being able to sit on the walls with no issue- how it just stuck on spaces was beyond the two. Olivia swapped places with the other side of the wooden support that bordered the entrance when the wendigo faced the other way, Lukas quickly moving towards the exit and freezing when the wendigo was searching.

     It shrieked and crowed, staring at Lukas directly and screaming. Lukas cringed as internally as possible, it’s breath reeking, but at the same time Lukas had a extraordinarily good look at it. It’s eyes were dim and it’s teeth were razor sharp, having become entirely made of canines and bluntly chipped molars. It lacked any form of body hair, the skin upon closer inspection looked extremely thick.

     Playing all of the risky cards, Olivia picked up a rock and chucked it at a part of the wall further down the tunnel. The noise echoed, alerting the wendigo, it hung on the walls of the tunnel, descending deeper into the line. She gestured for Lukas to go, running down the hall and looking for the light at the end of the tunnel with each new direction. “Shit! Lukas, where did we come from?!”

     Lukas shook his head, “We didn’t go down this direction that far, we have to go back.”

     The wendigo shrieked, having looped to their four-way stop. It pounced on Olivia, shoving her on the ground, grabbing her shoulders and forcing her on the ground- nearly shattering her skull if she didn’t hold it up. Lukas took a torch out, burning it in the neck and hearing it scream in agony, subsequently being bitten in the bicep- if he hadn’t pulled away when he did, it would’ve ripped an entire chunk out of him. He cringed, clenching his jaw at the pain and pressing the flame into its chest, waving the flame around as it backed away.

     Olivia drew her bow and arrow, shooting it in the head, horrified by the unexpected ricochet of it not even really piercing the skin on the skull, only leaving a laceration that didn’t even bleed. Lukas darted for the other direction, grabbing Olivia from her spot on the ground and turning for wherever the exit may have been. They didn’t have time for something like climbing ladders with something like this if they were to find where they came from, it followed close behind and fast.

     He habitually snapped his fingers pointing at the exit, horrifying himself as it very well just gave away their location even more. The adrenaline coursing through his veins after being bitten so violently made him reckless, he sprinted with a bunny hop in his step, though it contributed to his speed every contact with the ground threatened their odds of survival with every stride.

     Lukas overestimated the ground as the two made it out of the mine, his final contact with the ground being the edge of a cliff as he attempted to turn back, his velocity betraying him as he fell backwards-

     Olivia grabbed his arm, Lukas’ only support being his last foot on the edge. He instinctively looked down behind him, jagged rock and barbed wire along with other broken machinery piled at the bottom. The wendigo shrieked close behind, loud violent thumps barreling in their direction. Lukas’ arm reminded him of what terrible pain he was in, he pushed through the pulsing agony and grabbed onto Olivia’s forearm as she pulled them back, quickly pressing themselves against the wall next to the entrance.

DON’T MOVE!

     The wendigo darted out of the mine, ending at the edge and looking around. Lukas held his breath, the settling of pain in his arm making him exceptionally shaky. It let out a high shriek, the burns on it being hit by the staggering cold of the outside, thwipping in another direction.

The two waited for it to leave entirely, collectively sprinting in their own direction back to the lodge.

Chapter Text

FIVE HOURS UNTIL DAWN

02:13 [2:13 AM]

     Petra, Maya, and Radar left the lodge in search of Olivia and Lukas, the two having decided on their endeavor privately as they thought it would be a quick trip.

     “Man.. Where have they gone now?” Petra shook her head, Lukas had to have a friend while she was gone on her own adventures, and it made sense in a way that it would be the only other girl in their immediate circle— While the Blaze Rods had long since reformed, it was also several years since any of them last saw the three. Letters were sent the first year or so post-Sky City incident, but the exchanges eventually stopped. Jesse had actually suggested that Lukas invite the three when they moved back to Beacontown, the trio only being three months into their settling in.

     “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen Lukas, but if there’s anything I learned about being his friend it’s that he has a tendency to fuck off.” Maya shrugged, pulling out a blaze rod and igniting it. “It’s a force of habit for him to forget telling people what he’s doing.. Mostly that it usually happens when he thinks what he’s doing will be a quick thing.”

     “Oh yes!” Radar chimed, “We’ve actually been working on that! When he and Jesse go on their own short adventures, Jesse would have complaints about Lukas’ communication when they returned— Lukas actually came to me about it!” Radar chuckled, thinking back on their ‘lessons’ where Lukas would trip up every word of his line of thought, apparently Lukas was several times more nervous about communication like that when it came to Jesse.

     “I get it, Lukas is kind of a sensitive guy when it comes to Jesse, but he could’ve told at least one of us other than Olivia or Jesse.” Petra sighed, “I’m just kind of worried, like, Wendigos? And deciding to go out who knows where? It’s really bad timing, especially for him.”

     Maya fanned the flickering flame of her blaze rod, the snow had stopped but that didn’t mean the wind did. She held her hand up to shield it from the direction of the wind, extending her arms out a little further to light the way under the more forested areas. A wall of stone bricks caught her eye, gesturing the other two to follow her as it lead to a defined building. The bricks had their fair share of wear and tear, but some sections adorned large gashes in them, most likely from Wendigos. “What do you guys think this place is?”

     “..It doesn’t really look like anything. I mean, it’s a building, but no defining features to the purpose. Kind of like someone’s first house where it’s a huge brick with a door.” Petra shrugged.

     “Hey, check this out..” Maya crouched down to grab a now all too-familiar wooden object. “It’s another one of those things.”

     “This one’s brown..” Radar muttered, avoiding even looking at the totem. In contrast, Petra leaned over Maya’s shoulder as she turned it over, the two peeking through the hole.

     Jesse and Aiden were out on a bridge, blurred words resembling a conversation when the wooden bridge suddenly shook, a wendigo having bolted onto it and shaking the ropes. Aiden initially backed away, alerting it and accidentally breaking the worn planks below the two. Jesse grabbed the hanging broken plank, cringing at the splintering digging into his skin, dangling Aiden below him. Jesse’s hand bled profusely from his grip continuously slipping and tearing his skin off against the harsh icy wood, Aiden attempted climbing over Jesse, only for the wendigo to shriek directly in his face, as well the plank he pulled himself onto to break almost immediately. The wendigo swiped at Aiden as he knocked Jesse down with him, body shaped dents in the once unbothered snow.

     Petra blinked, eyebrows furrowed and pain in her eyes, only sighing deeply at the vision.

     She began messing with the iron doors of the unknown building, one of them falling with the unfortunate loudest crash in the wake of the low ambience. The three cringed, looking around for any sign of a wendigo that may have heard it.

     “Should we explore it?” Maya peeked inside, redstone lamps were still on but remained extremely faded and dimmed, some torches were put in place but so too did they fade.

     “Aren’t we looking for Lukas and Olivia? I-I don’t think they would be in here.” Radar pointed to the collapsed door.

     “We can look a little bit, the.. lobby, in here seems to be one big area, and lit enough for no monsters to spawn. If we don’t find anything we can just leave.” Petra suggested, Radar was reluctant to the idea but he supposed it didn’t look too dangerous.

     Maya relit the torches with her blaze rod, the room becoming significantly more lively. Petra coughed, waving away some of the atmosphere. “This place is super dusty.”

     “Yeah, mixed with the humidity from the snow, it’s kind of stuffy in here.” Radar fanned some of it in the direction of the open doorway, “Hopefully the giant hole in the wall will air things out?”

     “The air outside wasn’t that great to begin with..” Maya sighed. “This place.. looks like a hospital? Research place?” She observed her surroundings, a large front desk in the far back of the room and several chairs scattered the room, some still in their original place as what seemed like a waiting room.

     “I don’t know about hospital. What’s the point in a place like this, it’s such a secluded area? I believe research facility a little more, but that also doesn’t really make sense with the layout here.” Petra raised an eyebrow, eyeing the open doorways to empty halls.

     “I think that Jesse might know more than he’s letting on.” Maya suggested, a firm nod from Petra in response.

     The three explored the lobby, several journals and files were located behind what Maya supposed was the front desk. Petra sidepeeked the hallways, the dimness of the end rivaling their shimmering night, the moonlight playing the sun’s role with how the light reflected off the snow.

CRASH!

     The girls were interrupted by a noise at the opposite hallway opening of Petra’s, Radar halfway in the doorway faceplanted after slipping on an object. “Hey! You okay, Radar?!” Petra shouted across the room, eyes slightly squinted in concern.

     “Yyyeah!” Radar raised his head from the ground to respond, slightly muffled from biting the asphalt. “Just slipped on..” he looked back, a green totem just a yard away from his foot. “Another totem?”

     Maya went over, ushering Petra to properly join them as she picked it up. “This one’s green.. Jesse said he didn’t even know what that one meant.”

     “Maybe if we look at it we’ll get an idea? I don’t think he let any of us look.” Petra shrugged, reluctant to try looking.

     The vision appeared to actually be in the first person perspective of someone, the player watching someone in a cave facing the wall and breathing slowly, feeling their neck and holding up their arm to feel their wrist as it seemed to fall completely limp.

     It seemed to jumpcut now, the body having snow piled onto it outside as the faint shriek of a wendigo crowed in the distance, causing them to retreat back inside.

     “This one is.. really different. Who are ‘we’ supposed to be?” Maya questioned, Radar shrugging slightly.

“Hopefully someone one of us has found out by now.”

-

02:40 [2:40 AM]

     Jesse sighed, taking notice of the visibly emptier cabin from the second floor railing, he couldn’t stop anyone from trying. “…Jesse?”

    He perked up, turning to the voice behind him. “Aiden! Hey, what’s up?” he chuckled awkwardly, their relationship had sweetened overtime but actually having a conversation with one another was still difficult for either of them.

     “I-I was thinking, since Gill and Axel are still here.. Did you want to try looking for Lukas and Olivia? Petra said they disappeared exploring something.” Aiden grinned widely, eyebrows furrowed in uncertainty.

     “Disappeared?” Jesse exhaled deeply, looking back at the living room to Gill and Axel helping themselves to the snacks Jesse put out when everyone was gathered in one place for once. “I wouldn’t mind that, mostly, but I really need this place to be safe.. Axel’s great and all, I’m sure Gill is decent, is Petra still here?”

     Aiden pressed his lips into a fine line, his mouth deciding whether to fib or concede, spacing out at Jesse’s gaze.

“Aiden?”

     “O-Oh,” Aiden cleared his throat, “sorry. Yeah, they’re.. downstairs in the basement, probably taking a look at the cabin themselves! With Maya and Radar. Just forgot for a second.”

     Jesse raised an eyebrow, still reluctant to go. He looked back down at Axel, though he had insane amounts of strength as a big man, he didn’t know if he could take on a Wendigo should the worst happen.

     He sighed, turning back to Aiden. “Sure, we’ll go look for Lukas and Olivia.”

-

     The two were far out in their own direction now, retracing the path Lukas took when he looked for Maya and Aiden. “Ah.. you guys fixed this old thing?” Jesse noticed the repaired bridge, pressing down on it to test it’s durability.

     “Lukas and Radar did, if they didn’t I’d of probably fallen in the water.. Petra took that stone hop path.” Aiden pointed to it, Jesse raising an eyebrow.

     “That’s good, I really have to thank them when I see them again.. This path leads to a watchtower, below is a big ‘park,’ essentially, my parents made it a big open area so that we could have snowball fights.. though, I didn’t really play with anyone other than them.”

     “Really? I didn’t see that back here, just another bridge and long path.”

     “It’s when you continue following the river here, that path you and Maya came out of is actually the scenic route, so.. you guys kind of did just take longer.” Jesse chuckled, a light blush dusting Aiden’s face.

     “You guys could’ve put up signs..” Aiden sighed, Jesse smiling up at him with a furrowed expression.

     “There are! They’re just hard to read with the constant snow piling.” Aiden’s blush deepened, thinking back at when he did in fact see a snowy hanging sign and didn’t bother to shake the snow off to read it.

     “Oh…”

     The silence between them was painfully awkward, Aiden hadn’t visited very often over the years or looked Jesse in the eye since the Sky City incident, while Jesse felt it was water under the bridge by now he couldn’t help but feel a little lingering shame for the whole debacle.

     Jesse seemed to get a little lost as they continued past the river, his waypoint being the lone watchtower above, the place he once called another home had somehow overgrown since he last saw it.

“Oouf-!”

     Aiden tripped over a large mass in the snow, faceplanting embarrassingly. “Aiden, what are you doing?” Jesse raised an eyebrow, Aiden raising his head from the snow.

     “I tripped over- whatever this is..” he pulled himself up, kicking at the mass and scaring himself as the body turned over. “Oh- fuck!” He griped, backing away.

     The body displayed large gashes in it’s skin, it seemed to have been bitten by a large animal and mauled before they lost strength crawling away.  The head was split open, a large chunk taken out of the skull and ever rotting guts and glory frozen onto the scalped head had a slight odor thawing. “…We should go.”

     “Y-Yeah..” Aiden took Jesse’s hand, lightly jogging towards the watchtower.

     The watchtower base came into view, Aiden’s jaw dropping at the architecture as it displayed a large deck adorning several resource packed chests and small balconies off the sides. “Jesse- this is really nice..”

     It overgrew over the years, moss covered the steps and snow piled thickly on the railing. “It still looks really nice, yeah.. I’d better light up the joint. I just hope the Redstone isn’t messed up..” A small room was on the inside of the base of the tower, levers covering the wall with small labels that depicted divisions where light would go. Jesse flipped all of them, the lights flickering on dimly and beginning to melt the snow.

     “Doesn’t all of these lights, like, turn this thing into a giant dinner bell?” Aiden looked around nervously leaving the room with him, keeping an eye on the trees.

     Jesse began climbing the steps to the top, “Haha, oh no.. for the most part, no. Wendigos can’t see. They’re mostly blind and see based on movement, they see in red and when things move they highlight.. they don’t like light, warmth is super sensitive to them living in the cold- before we built around this place, my dad fended them off with flint and steel and a couple of torches! They started associating light with heat, so before we knew it, lighting up places like this were like scarecrows instead.” he boasted lightly, a large grin on his face reminiscing his father.

     A large bridge connecting to the cliff beside the watchtower came into view as the two approached the top, smaller balconies built off the sides were now unlocked.

     Aiden tapped Jesse’s shoulder, pointing at two totems in the corner of a balcony. Jesse blinked.

     “What the Hell are two totems doing here at the same time..?” Jesse approached them slowly, Aiden close behind.

      “Are there not supposed to be more than one?”

     “No. Not usually. Someone had to of been here and left it, I’ve never. Heard of two at once.”

     Jesse picked the two up, one black, one green. Death and the unknown at his fingertips.

     “Isn’t black ‘Death’? It’s supposed to the of the dreamer, right? Which one of us is it for?” Aiden stuttered slightly, pointing at the totems.

     “They’re not inherently just yourself.. I mean, yeah, they are, but that’s because they’re not supposed to spawn more than once in like.. a 50 yard radius. What the Hell are the green ones?” Jesse squinted, tossing the black one to Aiden.

     “You want me to look at it?! I’ve already had a death totem associated with me!” Aiden shouted in lowercase, Jesse rolling his eyes.

     “Shut up, Aiden. It’s probably mine..”

     The dream played, Jesse was running from a wendigo in the basement of the lodge, a long hall of Redstone illuminating the area dimly. He haphazardly twisted at the door to upstairs, double taking when he realized it had been locked. He panicked attempting to tear the handle off, being thrown against the wall and his neck split open by the wendigo, tearing him virtually in half as his chest split open and organs spilled. He blinked one last time, falling limp at the wendigos feet.

Aiden didn’t say anything.

     The player was dragging a snowy body, tearing its frozen clothes off and planting it over an open campfire, searing the arm like a plain steak as they turned it by its frozen fingers. It cut out slightly, the player taking a bite out of the gooey arm and fading away.

     “What the dick..” Jesse muttered, pocketing the totem. “What’d you see, diaper boy?” He chuckled, starting back up the staircase.

     “N-Not important. You were right, though..”

-

     Jesse’s mood lightened exponentially as the top floor came into view, his old getaway being miraculously intact. “Oh man, it’s been soo long!” He quickly approached a desk, picking up a small photo frame. “Ohh..” He cringed slightly, his freshly shortened hair being an eyesore on the photo of him and his parents. He opened up the back instinctively, noticing writing in the corner of the backside.

‘This new chapter in our lives is my favorite out of all of them, I love you, Steve.

To our dear child, Jesse.’

- Alex’

     Jesse didn’t really know his parents names, so this was practically the first time he’d seen it. Faded memories flooded his head as he reminisced his family, recalling when his mother even wrote what was on the back, though he wasn’t really able to read or write at the time.

     “Hey, Jess, you okay?” Aiden shrugged, Jesse’s expression furrowing at the elusive nickname.

     “Yeah.. just missing my parents a little, they’re explorers, so they’d never.. be in the same spot for a while. They could be on the other side of the world by now, maybe even dead.” He sighed deeply, closing the frame and propping it back up.

     The two ended up chatting for a while, Aiden getting the hang of a pleasant conversation with the two-time worldwide hero. Jesse smiled warmly at his trip ups, Aiden fumbling in embarrassment about the few books he ended up writing over the years, what characters representing who slipping out ever so often. Jesse was admittedly quite prideful, he loved being “better” but more so for the love of friendly competition, so the characters implied to be him being resilient beacons of light gave the shorter man a warm feeling.

     “Listen.. Jesse?” Aiden was readying his bombshell, Jesse’s pleasant mood about to sour.

     “What’s up?”

     Aiden sighed deeply, clenching his fists. “I.. Look, I know you’re with Lukas.” Jesse raised an eyebrow, Aiden taking note of his already displeased expression with the direction he was going in. “A-And I’m not trying to get between you guys! Honest, I just.. need some closure.”

     “Closure fooor..?” Jesse continued his statement, tilting his head slightly.

     “I.. I-I like you. Like, ‘I’m in love with you,’ ‘like you.’” Aiden’s face began reddening immediately, the taller man’s gaze darting anywhere but in Jesse’s direction, eventually shutting his eyes and facing the ground. “It’s not me falling in love with you within the two minutes of this entire trip, I’ve liked you since you became the New Order. M-Maybe even before. I was just confused and angry all of the time, so bitter— I’m sorry about that, Jesse. Really. I just.. wanted to tell you, so it wouldn’t keep eating me up inside.”

     Aiden opened one of his eyes experimentally, surprised to find Jesse’s stifled expression, the shorter man’s low squealing barely audible. “…Jesse?”

Jesse burst into laughter.

Aiden couldn’t possibly melt into any more embarrassment.

     In contrast to his horrifying predicament, Jesse’s goofy laughter was warming his heart. The way Jesse giggled and hiccuped had him head over heels, the familiar feeling of jealously washing over him as he remembered Lukas got to see this level of joy in full effect all of the time. Jesse laughed himself to tears, catching his breath and gasping slightly, straightening himself out and facing Aiden.

     Aiden expected a slap or punch despite his seemingly very positive reaction, but was instead met with a slight warmth wrapping around him, Jesse having pulled him into a small embrace. Aiden reluctantly hugged back, several scenarios playing in his head about how Jesse would turn it into a beat down, fortunately not being the case for him.

     “Thanks for telling me, Aiden.” Jesse pulled away slowly, Aiden quickly putting his hands to his sides as to not discomfort Jesse in some form. “I really appreciate it, I do, I just didn’t really expect it- Lukas knows you better than anyone though, he kiiind of had a suspicion anytime you came up in a conversation. I-I wasn’t, laughing at you, promise. Just the absurdity.” He smiled warmly, a cocky eyebrow raise in Aiden’s direction.

     Aiden had a weight lifted off his shoulders and a new, small, lingering one taking its place; the two leaving the watchtower on the cliffside bridge with their newfound fondness to one another.

Chapter Text

FOUR HOURS UNTIL DAWN

03:02 [3:02 AM]

     “Hey..” Axel looked around, just now noticing the emptiness of the lodge after being preoccupied by his conversation with Gill. “Are we the only ones in here?”

     Gill shrugged, looking around with him. “They didn’t even tell us where they were going.”

     “I mean, they kinda did.” Axel recalled when Petra left the lodge with two other people, yelling her presumed whereabouts before leaving.

     “Yeah, but ‘I’m gonna go look for Lukas and Olivia’ isn’t that helpful, where are they looking?” Gill raised an eyebrow, Axel nodding slightly in response.

     “Well, with wendingos or whatever they’re called being out there, we’d better keep a lookout while we wait.”

     Axel’s timing was impeccable, a large mass thumping against the wall as he finished his sentence. “Shoot! Axel, what do we do??” Gill panicked, attempting to hush his own voice.

Axel was insane.

     Expect nothing less of the Rouge of the New Order, Axel suggested going upstairs when the presumed wendigo definitely thumped above the two.

     “Are you crazy?!” Gill whisper shouted, Axel rolling his eyes slightly.

     “We’ve seen waaay worse as Order of the Stone, how bad could this thing be?”

     Gill squinted. “Really, fucking bad!” He sighed, looking in the direction of the initial thump. “A-And, I’m not part of the Order! The Blaze Rods haven’t seen half the things you guys have!”

     “That’s fair. I’m just… saying things could be worse.” Axel shrugged awkwardly, starting for the second floor.

-

     The two entered the attic, which ended up being a large master bedroom—the most glaring detail being the larger than average windows. “You think Jesse has any weapons in here? You know, just in case?” Axel shrugged.

     “Jesse hasn’t been here since he was a kid, unless his parents did, I doubt it.” Gill sighed, unsheathing his sword.

     “…Don’t you have anything? I mean, the Order is prepared for anything, right?”

     Axel laughed, “I keep the big iron on my hip,” he gestured to his muscles, “I can pop zombies heads off with my bare hands—I don’t need weapons.”

     Gill was iffy on the reliability of his ‘iron’ but exercised restraint as Axel wasn’t dead for the past thirteen or so years as part of the new Order either. A totem rolled from Gill’s foot accidentally kicking it, Axel picking it up before it could hit a far corner somewhere annoying. “Hey, Jesse talked about these, right? What does this one mean?”

     “It’s Guidance— that’s good, right? Yellow is Guidance..” Gill muttered, unsure at it’s carvings. The two peeked into the dream reluctantly, backing away from the wide windows for safety.

     Maya and Radar were attempting to break down a stuck wooden door, the final ram knocking the two off their feet into the room and scaring off a wild wolf that ran past them.

     “…How are these helpful for anyone?” Axel shook his head, tossing it for Gill to take. They snuck by the windows on either side of the room, sidepeeking for wherever it was. “See anything?”

     Gill gestured for him to keep it down, pointing behind him to the snowy void. He peeked at the inner outside of the window, turning as little as possible—face directly in the wendigo’s as it shrieked on a near supersonic level. Gill quickly backed away as it’s claw burst through the window, keeping his sword drawn in a defensive position.

     The wendigo scanned the room, Axel’s apparent mouth breathing making him audible to the creature as it slowly approached to check if he was a living being. It screamed in his face, unexpectedly causing him to cringe and alerting it— it grabbed him by the head, tossing him to the side in an attempt to tear his head off cleanly. Gill ran up behind it, surprised by its quick reaction and lost focus of his slash, weakly slicing at its thick skin.

     It shrieked loudly, the enchants on his sword assisted him in actually piercing its skin in some form. Axel used his body’s full force to push it away and pull Gill out of the attic. Gill practically fell down the stairs, the wendigo having shoved half it’s body through as Axel shut it harshly, it writhing and howling in pain, seething anger as he repeated slamming it between the ceiling door.

       Gill attempted stabbing it in the head, his enchanted diamond sword ricocheting instead and only leaving a sizable gash in its head, severely agitating the creature as it slipped out while Axel was reeling the next slam back and lunged at Gill. Gill’s sword knocked itself out of his hand on impact with the ground, eyes widened at the wendigo’s features so close to his face before grabbed his head, reeling it’s arm back to tear his head off.

     Axel elbowed it in the head, kicking it out of view and helping Gill up as they headed for downstairs, Axel miscalculating gravely—falling over the railing and nearly breaking a bone.

     Lukas and Olivia burst through the front door, horrified to already find another wendigo inside the lodge. “Olivia!” Axel shouted, the wendigo shrieking loudly at the new movements. Gill was at the bottom of the stairs now, the wendigo had perched itself on the railing, switching positions grotesquely as it scanned the room for movement.

DON’T MOVE!

     The creature was preoccupied resetting it’s understanding of the environment, low shrieking emitting from it.

     Axel turned himself over, getting up from his plant on the ground. It screamed, lunging at him and knocking him against the wall. “Axel! You’re not supposed to move!” Gill yelled, moving it’s focus on him.

DON’T MOVE!

     Gill breathed shakily as the wendigo approached him slowly, shrieking loudly directly in his ear, making him clench his jaw. Olivia drew her bow, focusing on it’s eyes for a more hopeful shot.

     She shot an arrow, a bullseye, but nothing that killed it. The arrowhead barely past its eye, the wendigo screaming loudly being knocked on its back. Lukas pulled out a pair of flint and steel, running over to it and slowing down his movements as it seemed to recover quickly. He struck the flint and steel above it, it’s screams becoming a lot louder as it was set on fire.

     The wendigo was for some reason extremely resilient, rising from the ground despite the amount of fire engulfing it. It’s vision was messed up now, mostly seeing bright yellow flickering everywhere as it continued writhing in pain with its movements. Gill pulled Lukas away from it, the two running back by Olivia’s side.

     Grouping with the others was harder for Axel, being underneath the staircase when he was thrown at the wall. He attempted slipping out of his vulnerable spot, but instead took the role as the only viable movement the wendigo could see.

For a moment, life moved in slow motion.

     It struck at Axel in an instant, erratically swiping at his head and swiftly tearing his head off. The fire was too much for it now, it collapsing on the body and fizzling out as it’s warbled shrieking faded, the group only staring mouth agape.

-

03:33 [3:33 AM]

     Petra was on her own exploring the inner constructs of the unknown building, finding scrawled journals and several records filled with research data on Wendigos that actually lead to very little. She was sure she was in the bottom floor now, the stairs expanded for several floors below already and this one used a ladder for once. She sighed at the uselessness in the data, it lead to all of the same things every single experiment they depicted with no benefit at all— whoever was doing research down here at whatever point was complete dogshit at it.

     She wandered the empty halls, rooms were empty or full of ruin with little to no useful items inside that she could see.

     A low audible shriek crowed, echoing through the hallway.

“You have to be fucking kidding me.”

     Petra was forced to tread carefully now, drawing her sword and cringing at the familiar twang that played each time she unsheathed it, maybe she couldn’t fight it off but she had to try. She learned her lesson long ago against the notorious Warden on one of her first adventures on her own when Romeo was exiled, still bearing deep scars from the Deep Dark’s barbed moss halfway degloving her when she first took a hit head on with the beast.

     Thumps within the hall got louder, she ducked her way into a seemingly secluded room that seemed to have had recent signs of life in it at some point, sprawled unfinished journals with untouched ink rather than the typical faded and splotchy worn penmanship. None of them had anything notable to her—but what did was scattered pages that littered the room with pale journal entries, some were clean torn and some were shredded halfway, detailing Soren’s perspective during the reign of the Witherstorm.

     A lone totem laid next to one of Soren’s entries, painted in black. Petra cringed at the implication, feigning bravery in the wake of something that could be completely fate to her— she decided a long time ago that she didn’t want to die, not when Jesse pulled her out of her admittedly lonely life as a part-time mercenary and introduced her to the art of true adventure.

     Petra ran around a small corner, backed into another as she hid. She struggled to breathe slowly and quietly as the Wendigo passed by, it shrieking to get a lay of it’s surroundings. Her breath hitched, the choked sound leaving her throat sealing her fate as it immediately grabbed her, too fast for her to even react as her head was bashed on the ground and her jaw torn off.

She inhaled deeply, pocketing the totem.

     A low growl was creeping around her room, putting her on high alert. Do Wendigos even growl? Claws faintly clacked on the stone bricks, snarfs and audible exhales seemingly just around the corner— but came from a small 1x1 tunnel into her room. She drew her sword in an offensive position, backing away from the hole until a real noise emitted from it-

     A mangy old wolf creeped out, shaking off dust and cobwebs from the tunnel it crawled out from. Petra lowered her guard, kneeling to make herself less intimidating. “Hey there..” She cooed.

DON’T MOVE!

     The wolf growled lowly at her outstretched hand, Petra steadying her breathing to not wobble in place too much. It experimentally chomped at her hand, nipping her fingers slightly and making her cringe internally. It put her hand in it’s mouth for a moment, pulling away and lapping at her fingernails. “Hi.. are you domesticated..?” She whispered, attempting to get a good look at the wolf. It backed away slightly at her new movement, Petra slowing down as she surface searched for the familiar magic collar.

     She raised her hand above it’s head, waiting for it to calm down as it seemed to ready biting her. It stared holes into her, suspicious at her trustworthiness from her similarity to the creatures that terrorized nature in the mountains. Petra attempted softening her gaze, raising her eyebrows slightly and letting her eyelids rest. The wolf seemed to lower it’s guard, Petra experimentally petted it’s head slowly. It tensed up, backing away and approaching slightly, unsure of whether to leave or not.

     It sat down in front of her, lowering it’s head when she stopped. Petra moved closer, slowly and carefully to not agitate it. “You come from outta here?” She peeked into the tunnel slightly, a small glint in a corner of it. “Hey.. think you can fetch that thing there?” She made a small closed mouth smile, pointing to the tunnel.

     It blinked, staring at her until it slowly stood up, crawling back there and retrieving it for her. “Good, uhhh..” She squinted, turning to the side to try and get a look at it’s anatomy, it’s slightly overgrown fur not helping her case. While the genital anatomy would’ve been more surefire for her, it’s stubbier legs and lack of shoulder broadness appeared female. “Good… girl?” It seemed to have a more positive reaction, Petra gingerly felt it’s neck and hit a tangled collar, unclipping it as a nametag fell off.

‘Lazzie’

     “‘Lazzie,’ huh? You are domesticated.. must’ve been so hard to relearn the wild having an owner. What happened to them?” Lazzie whined lowly, sitting and dipping it’s head much lower than before. Petra hummed, taking notice of the object she asked for Lazzie to retrieve.

White.

     “Fortune, huh? You must be lucky..” She dusted it off, turning it over and peeking through the blinds of the inner cobwebs .

     Jesse was seen heading for the lodge, covered in snow and his dress shirt unkempt. He dropped a long object in the snow and continued, a small fire breaking through an attic window.

     “…That’s a lot more ominous for ‘Fortune.’” Lazzie whined, Petra pocketing the totem and going to leave the room. Lazzie barked, alerting Petra as the low thumping of a presumed Wendigo got more erratic. “H-Hey! Hey,” Petra yelled in a hushed voice, gesturing for her to follow. “I’m not your owner, but you can follow me, okay?”

     Lazzie followed Petra close behind, treading carefully and taking note of the sounds the Wendigo made somewhere in the deep halls. The end was a pathetically blocked off area that lead to a deep mine, it’s best ‘blockade’ being a now rusty large grate just directly over the hole, assuming it was going to be another useless floor.

     Petra turned to leave, barely making it halfway until a wendigo screamed, the hall echoing it’s cry. She ran further, seeing the wendigo thwip wall to wall in the reflection of the windows through experiment rooms and certain doors. She pointed Lazzie back into the room they were in before as she turned herself around a corner and held her breath.

DON’T MOVE!

     Her breath was shaky as the wendigo took a more menacing approach, it’s long toenails clacking against the ground and practically sneaking around with its slow approach. It made a lighter cry, trying to startle it’s prey into scurrying.

     It got close to her face, Petra cringing at it’s grotesque appearance and surprisingly rancid breath— maybe not surprising, but she hoped the cold would dampen it a little more somehow. It screeched before a loud bark and scurrying in the distance was heard, diverting the wendigo from Petra while she darted for the ladder.

     Petra cringed at the sound of loud whining, yelps and cries while she started her way up the ladder. She looked back, hoping that the wolf would miraculously come up if she wasn’t already mauled by the wendigo. She looked up at the entrance, some clacking against the next floor and a familiar little panting sound waiting for her.

    “Oh, Lazzie..!” She was waiting for her, a book in her mouth and a small upturn in her jaw. Petra took a few brick blocks out of her inventory, blocking off the ladder and leading Lazzie with her. “We should find Maya and Radar, they’re probably done searching this place.”

     The new duo ascended the long basement floors, sometimes double checking rooms that Petra was too bored to look in properly. She kneeled down to check on Lazzie, finding that her wounds from the wendigo were strangely and miraculously healed, the blood on her still being fresh in contrast. “That’s so.. strange. Lazzie, are these old? Did you hurt the wendigo instead?” She furrowed her eyebrows, Lazzie only tilting her head in response, though she didn’t know how the wolf would say yes either.

     “You know this place well, right? We’re almost the-“ A stair broke under Petra, her initial yell inaudible as she watched Lazzie look down at her with a small whine.

Chapter Text

THREE HOURS UNTIL DAWN

04:16 [4:16 AM]

     “We’re almost back at the lodge, I hope Lukas and Olivia are fine if they’re not out here..” Jesse muttered, climbing broken worn stairs up another cliff.

     “Why are there so many bridges and stairs around here?” Jesse squinted at Aiden, shaking his head and rolling his eyes.

     “It’s almost like we need them to get around large cliffsides and gaps.” he quipped, his furrowed expression dropping to a soft smile and picking up the pace to leave Aiden behind. “Come on, goober, we’re almost there.”

     “‘Goober?’”

     “What, mate? You prefer ‘Diaper-Boy?’”

     “No.”

     Aiden noticed a glint of light behind a tree, walking over to it while Jesse continued on. “What’re you doing? I don’t hear you fee-fi-fo-fumming behind me!”

     “Uhhhh..” Aiden picked up the object, dusting it off to reveal a Loss totem. “Found a totem!”

     “Is it gooood?” Jesse called, exaggerating the volume of his voice for how far Aiden actually was.

     “…No.” Aiden scratched the back of his neck awkwardly, Jesse looking back at him by the next bridge. “It’s Loss.”

     Jesse groaned, rolling his eyes. “Okay, give it here.” Aiden moved next to him, holding it out for the two to view.

     Maya was seen running from a wendigo, her blaze rod dimming as she attempted evading the elusive creature. She shouted some faint words, her blaze rod’s light diminishing as she found herself backed into a pitch black corner. It screeched in her face, her coughing out a lump in her throat from the rancid breath. The vision cut off at a light reigniting between the two.

     “Geez, you think Maya’s in danger right now?” Jesse looked past Aiden, starting on the bridge.

     “There’s some nuance to how soon a prophecy is.”

     The bridge they were going over now was a lot longer than the other ones they crossed, the wobbly rope bridge concerning Aiden, gripping the side ropes as they crossed. Jesse paid no mind to the shakiness, making Aiden freeze from his reckless movements. “Jesse- I-I think you should be more careful..”

    “It’ll be fine! My father was a big guy, my entire family crossed this thing no prooooblem.”

     “Sure, but isn’t that like, years and years of outside wear and tear, I don’t think-“ Jesse faceplanted, a large mass on the other side of the bridge rocking the surface beneath them.

DON’T MOVE!

     Jesse peeked at the figure, a large wendigo screeching wildly. Aiden kept himself frozen, tensing his entire body and cringing at the sweat his body was drenching itself in as they stood off against the wendigo’s perceptive view.

     The wendigo was bigger than anything Jesse had ever seen—wherever it came from it had a lot to eat considering it’s unnatural growth despite its skin and bones design. It got closer, rocking the bridge erratically with every move, shrieking as it’s vision was covered in alerts. Aiden stepped back instinctively, breaking the board below him and causing a chain reaction of several breaking down, taking Jesse with him.

     Aiden latched onto Jesse’s leg. The wendigo crowed, getting a lay of the situation— Jesse had grabbed onto the last hanging board that didn’t fall, his hand beginning to drip and bleed profusely from the wood splintering and grating at his skin as he began slipping. He couldn’t just go back up— the wendigo would tear him apart— but Aiden was wearing him out and neither could hold on for much longer. “Aiden! I-I need you to listen to me, here! You need to climb up over me!”

     “What?! I can’t do that! That’s insane!” Jesse swung Aiden, his grip slipping harder. “Fuck— Fuck! Okay! Okay!”

     “Get ready, asshole!” Jesse used the rest of his strength to grab the board with his other hand, the bridge continuing to wobble and shake, agitating the wendigo. “Go! Now!”

     Aiden struggled to get past Jesse’s legs, the shorter man cringing at practically being groped all over to save their lives. He got a better hold of things after grabbing one of the ropes and supporting himself with Jesse’s shoulder, hoisting himself up onto the opposing side of the wendigo.

     It screamed, swiping at Aiden and nearly tearing his head clean off, it’s own movement rocking the bridge betraying it. Aiden unsheathed his sword, slicing at the wendigo’s throat in hopes of making it bleed out or cut it’s head off, but not even it’s enchantments aided him in attacking the creature, it’s wound simply being a strange thin dent. It lunged at Aiden, missing as he ducked quickly from the erratic surface. He turned back to the wendigo in his face, startling him into toppling over and knocking Jesse down with him.

-

04:29 [4:29 AM]

     Maya and Radar began descending the facility in search of Petra, the trio split up initially to cover more ground and let Petra go solo because “she could take care of herself.” A dog barking was heard faintly, turning the heads of the remaining two as they were far too deep below the dirt for anything like animals to spawn. “What’s a dog doing down here?”

     “It’s probably the wolf that jumped us when we got that door open, it probably didn’t find it’s way out of here.” Radar stopped to clean his glasses while Maya relit a dimmed torch.

     “It’s barking a lot though, do you think it was domesticated?” Maya was lucky to always carry an unnecessary amount of blaze rods, snapping the tip off of another to illuminate the dim halls and relight the way.

     “Most likely— Wolves that have been tamed bark while wild ones have a bit more of a hushed puff of air.” He pulled out a small piece of tape to mend his glasses, Radar had a thing for taking out his old broken pair on adventures or outings since Romeo terrorized Beacontown.

     The barking got louder, clacks and thumps moved towards them. Maya instinctively took out her sword, “H-Hey, Maya! Dogs aren’t hostile unless their owner hits you.” Radar put a hand on the guard, pushing it down. The dog slowed down, approaching the two and sniffing at them.

     Maya sheathed her sword, switching hands with her blaze rod. “What’s it doing—?” It yelped, whining and moving further down the hall, turning around several times to look at them.

     “I think she wants us to follow her.” Radar shrugged.

     “‘She?’ You can tell it’s a girl?” Maya raised an eyebrow, following the dog.

     “Male and female wolves have slightly different body types, it’s a little hard to tell with the overgrown fur but she is a female wolf— she does have some more male leaning features, though.” He adjusted his glasses, noticing a glint in the corner. “Ah- Maya, can you relight this torch? There’s something in the corner.”

     The light revealed a red totem, the color earning a deep sigh between the two. Radar picked it up, bracing himself as he turned it over.

     Lukas was in a standoff with a wendigo, sword drawn and perfectly still. He yelled something at it, taking off his goggles and throwing them to the side.

     Radar stood with a furrowed expression, pocketing it and moving past Maya. “What was it about?”

     “Lukas doing something really reckless— I feel like I’ve seen it all, but man, that’s something Jesse would do. Lukas must be really confident to attack a wendigo head-on.” Radar shook his head, readjusting his glasses.

     “That’s if he does that, though.” Maya sighed, reminiscing her days as an Ocelot.

     Maya was pulled back by the dog, looking down at the gaping abyss beneath her. She was knocked down onto the stairs behind her, shaking her head. The dog whined, sniffing at the hole. “Ow. What’s wrong?”

     “Maybe something’s down there?” Maya snapped her blaze rod in half, the two pieces igniting and dropping one of them down below where it fell for minutes until it finally thumped, diffusing upon hitting the ground. “…Guess not.”

     “The dog seems to think there is, though.” Maya watched her whine and scratch at the edges of the hole, beginning to bark at the two loudly.

     “Geez- W-We might attract something being that loud, maybe we should try getting down there?” The dog’s tail wagged erratically upon the suggestion. Maya stood up, discussing a way down with Radar.

-

04:46 [4:46 AM]

     Olivia was in and out of sobbing uncontrollably, her cries of agony would pause for a few minutes, then continue once they built up again. She was poorly consoled by Gill and Lukas, despite everything, Lukas and Axel were never the closest— but Olivia was Axel’s best friend for decades.

     She reached a certain point, screaming bloody murder as long and hard as she could, crumbling into a ball on the couch. She didn’t listen to a thing, covering her eyes from everything in fear of if she opened them up again that she’d watch it all over again.

     Lukas sighed, looking over at the bodies as Olivia’s cries seemed to die down, silent whimpering and sobs emitting lowly. The wendigo’s skin was seared and burnt into a strange bark, iridescent boils protruded from it’s bones melting under the skin and the graying warmed into a light red. He closed his eyes, trying to get the image of Axel’s head still moving after being cut off out of his head, the way his eyes dimmed and rolled back limp haunted him.

     Lukas motioned for Gill to stay with her, walking over to the bodies for a closer look. If people weren’t researching the Wendigos, then he would. He pulled out an empty journal, hoping to have written about more lighthearted things during his stay but a new mob would have to do. Whatever they were, they were extremely flammable, Lukas set people and things on fire plenty of times during his adventures with Jesse if he really had to, but he’d never seen something engulf into pure flames and still be conscious in such a short period of time. He tried examining the skin, feeling the toughness of the skin that wasn’t as burnt get squishier as he compared the types—it was like armor, the cold had permanently frozen and become one with their muscles, heat thawed their skin and caused their bones to boil, the iridescence in the blisters being inexplainable to him.

     Lukas grabbed one of the blankets they first took out and covered the bodies, cringing at having to carry Axel’s head to his body as to not have an inconspicuous lump a few feet away from the bodies. He jotted down a few experiences, taking note of Soren’s journal. Lukas briefly explored the lodge, opening the door to Jesse’s room and peeking into his drawers.

     A seemingly fresh totem laid at the top, he didn’t know about the nuance of the spawn rates and spots totems could spawn, but a green totem that Jesse claimed he never knew about rose a few questions and an eyebrow for the blond. He closed his eyes, turning it over and indulging into the dream.

     The player was writhing in pain somewhere in the cold, their arms splayed out in front of them. It faded, Lukas thought it was over but was met with a blurrier point of view, the arms having increased in length and unnaturally long claws beginning to protrude from their fingertips. It faded again, ending with the player dragging away a dead animal at an impressive height.

     Lukas dropped the totem back into the drawer, blinking and rubbing his eyes. He clumsily jotted down some notes, grabbing the totem and pocketing it. Nothing else notable was found in the drawers of clothes and trinkets initially, searching between some of them and feeling a lump sandwiched between the clothes. An old notebook was wrapped in a red and white shirt, a photo of Jesse and his parents taped to the cover.

     Lukas wasn’t one to intrude, but he was researching now and had to use as much information as he could. Jesse’s handwriting hadn’t actually changed too much between the modern age and him when he was young, he mentioned always having a poor hold of things when he grew up and had to settle for holding things strangely for a good grip, even if it held the quill so hard the feather snapped halfway. He squinted having to read some of the more illegible writing, a few excerpts catching his eye.

     He shut the notebook, pocketing it and kicking the drawer closed when he stood up, a new set of questions arose for his seemingly secretive boyfriend.

Chapter Text

TWO HOURS UNTIL DAWN

05:00 [5:00 AM]

     Petra slipped behind a broken wall, holding her breath at the wendigo thumping around the deep tunnels of the mine. She waited for it to pass before running out of her hiding spot, taking a quick and reckless route to her next refuge.

DON’T MOVE!

     The wendigo seemed to deaggro, the spot she was in being a little small for the wendigo’s height while she stayed silent. She pulled out a yellow totem that she didn’t have a chance to view when she found it, breathing gently and slowly for the wendigo to leave first.

     Gill was seen leaving the basement door unlocked behind him, holding a blanket and journal in his hand.

     She repocketed the totem, leaving the hiding spot and sneaking towards the darker areas of the mine. Torches deeper within the mine remained relatively bright in comparison to ones closer to an outside entryway due to weather conditions.

     Petra sighed, patting herself down for Radar’s Flint and Steel. Though the torches weren’t as faded in the deeper constructs of the mine, it hurt her eyes to squint constantly in darker places.

     She tore a dimmed torch off the wall, reigniting it to light her way, carefully traversing the abandoned mine while the wendigo seeked the sign of life it last witnessed. She turned a corner, listening to the wendigo let out an experimental shriek.

DON’T MOVE!

     Petra held the torch as close to her as possible without burning herself, steadying her breathing while it honed in on her location. She’d gotten used to the screams from them echoing the mine, but in her face was a different story— she cringed when it screamed in her face, it swiping at her and instead getting a handful of burning flames, immediately letting go of the torch and backing away. She pulled out her Flint and Steel, striking near it and watching it howl away from the fire.

     It seemed to gain some confidence, lunging at her over the fire and knocking her down, doing her best to somehow keep it off of her with her legs despite it’s long skinny anatomy while she adjusted her grip on the flint and steel. It went for her head, a large gash in her cheek making her wince. She kicked it back into the dying flame, quickly getting back on her feet and striking the flint several times over its body while it began screaming at even higher volumes than before.

     She watched it burn. The skin boiled and popped, gross ‘pus’ spurting from the heat and iridescent boils. She examined it’s burning head from a safe distance as their eyes shriveled and sunk into their skull. She wiped her cheek, flicking off the blood from her hand. Tearing a dead torch from the wall, she split it in half and ignited it with the still burning Wendigo, pressing it to her wound to cauterize it.

     Petra groaned, holding her torch out to light her way as she turned to the end of a tunnel, moonlight reflecting off the snow and illuminating the night. She kicked an object larger than the small rocks she usually would, looking down at it to find that it was another totem, signaling fortune. “Lots of good fortune recently, huh..” she muttered, thinking back to when she was almost brutalized by a large rock when she first fell, and the white totem that even prophesied the event. She picked it up reluctantly, turning it over.

     Gill and Radar were seen running out of the lodge, jumping through a broken window and being cushioned well enough by the snow. A window broke out in flames, the lodge blowing up from the inside shortly after, bursting the rest of the windows.

     “What is even gonna happen..?” She muttered to herself, putting it away and leaving the mine, the lodge a slightly farther distance than before.

-

05:22 [5:22 AM]

     Olivia seemed to finish crying, breathing shakily standing over the covered bodies. “Olivia? I think maybe you should continue resting-“

     “No, Gill.” Olivia uttered raspily, holding her breath to hold back more sobs. “I’m okay.”

     “..What are you doing..?” Gill watched her crouch down, uncovering the lower half of Axel’s body and digging into his pocket.

     “Looting a body.” Olivia deadpanned, Gill looking away awkwardly. She pulled out a few useful materials he kept on himself, holding a small bracelet to her chest.

     “Uhh.. What is that?” Gill muttered awkwardly, unsure of how to talk to her at this point.

     “A bracelet. It’s like.. me and Axel’s best friend charm thing, I guess. I met him way before I did Jesse.” She wore it on her wrist for a second, changing her mind and pocketing it. “The pearl charms match my earrings, they’re uh.. from the same Pearl bracelet before we chained them.”

     “Oh..” He held his left arm, fiddling with himself, looking at the ground. “I’m so sorry.”

     Olivia sighed deeply, covering the body back up. “Thank you, Gill. This was just.. a lot. I’m so angry.”

     Gill looked up at her, “Why? I mean, other than.. your friend dying because of the wendigo.”

     Gill quickly averted his gaze, Olivia shaking her head. “Just that.. Jesse knew something could happen, he was just betting on it not happening. It’s not his fault, but he is part of why.. I just wish things could’ve been different. Axel acted too rashly.”

     Lukas came out of Jesse’s room, looking down at Olivia and Gill, Gill immediately taking notice of Lukas.

     Lukas came down, giving Olivia a tight hug. “You doing okay now?”

     “Better. Thanks, you two. Everything is just a lot.”

     Lukas pulled out a pocket watch, the clock beginning to show a small semblance of day. “It’s five and there’s no one else in here. You think that everyone else is okay?”

     “We can only hope so.” Olivia sighed, stretching from hunching over sobbing so violently in a short amount of time.

     “I think they are.. Maya and Petra are super strong.” Gill muttered, “Aiden.. Aiden I don’t know.. If he even left with anyone.”

     “I’m sure he took somebody, did you see who left?” He shook his head.

     “Me and Axel were talking for a while.. I mean, Petra did mention looking for you two. I don’t know who she took, but it could’ve been Jesse and Aiden? Or uh, Maya and.. Radar.”

     Olivia blinked. “Oh. That didn’t even occur to me.. Radar’s not here? He does come with us sometimes, I mean.. Well, I just didn’t think he’d advise even going near windows in a situation like this.”

     “He was looking for us,” Lukas interjected, “I think that he might’ve just wanted to be confident for the Order.”

     “We really should’ve told somebody..”

     “..Yeah.” Lukas shook his head. “Didn’t really expect for wendigos to be in all constructs of the mountain, I mean, maybe? But this is super new to all of us besides Jesse.”

     “They’re probably okay, they can take care of themselves.” Gill wishfully stated, a small eyebrow furrow out of Lukas.

     “Ah.. I found some new information. I want to confront Jesse about it first, though-“

     “Then why would you mention it?” Olivia’s expression soured slightly.

     “Sorry. Just saying what’s happening! Uh.. the Wendigos. I figured that since no one writes about them, I would. They look insane post-fire, their bones, or muscle, something under the skin— they make shiny, weird air bubbles and boils. It’s seriously weird.” Lukas awkwardly explained, flipping through the pages of his journal.

     “Gross. They don’t shrivel?” Lukas shook his head.

     “Worse, they like.. thaw out. Get all rubbery and squishy. It’s super gross.” He chuckled awkwardly, looking over at the covered up bodies.

     Olivia shook her head, gagging slightly at the thought. “Sheesh. Well. Find anything else?”

     “Yeah, I—“ Lukas squinted, the dark corner under the stairs that Axel was in displaying a small glint. He went over to it, continuing. “I found another green totem, it’s a little funky. Aaand…” he pulled a brown totem out of the corner, holding it up for the two to see. “Looks like we got another.”

     “Isn’t brown paint bad? I mean, that’s.. uh…. Loss, isn’t it?” Gill questioned, Lukas raising an eyebrow.

     “Jesse made a pretty good point. They’re not really good or bad— I mean, sure, the stuff that it shows is pretty bad, but it can be a good thing to know what might happen. We can’t fight fate, but we can prevent whole deaths if we just pay attention. It’s just.. a lot less helpful when you find ones that don’t reflect you.” Lukas turned it over, the three peeking into the hole.

     Radar was being chased in a mine, tripping over a mangled corpse and faceplanting. The wendigo grabbed him by the back of his head, Radar’s glasses slipping off as he screamed, being lifted into the air and slammed into the wall, his head splitting open. The body dropped to the ground, the wendigo grabbing him by the foot and dragging him elsewhere.

     “Sheesh..” Olivia cringed, “I’d suggest looking for him, but we can’t risk anything right now.”

“People looking for each other and miscommunication is the entire reason we’re in this mess.”

-

05:46 [5:46 AM]

     Radar and Maya were now halfway down towards the mine, Maya carrying the wolf at her side awkwardly. “How much longer?” Maya groaned, Radar placing ladders under the both of them made from the wooden counters in the facility.

     “We’re about ten feet away from the ground, don’t worry about it!”

     “Man, I wouldn’t, but I’m kind of carrying a huge dog? Radar.” Maya’s expression furrowing in displeasure for no one to see.

     “Ohh I hear ya..” Radar’s voice drooping, he still wasn’t the most adventure savvy and his upper body strength wasn’t the best, the fact he was even close to the ground now without falling flat on his face was shocking even for him.

     He jumped off two blocks from the way down, placing the rest of the ladders for Maya to descend safely. She huffed, dropping the dog to the ground and watching it wander off, sniffing around for Petra.

     “It’s so dark in here..” Maya muttered, pulling out another blaze rod to use as a nonrenewable light source, “and I’m kind of running out of these. I’ve used like, ten so far and I brought 42.”

     Radar furrowed his eyebrows slightly. “I think that 42 is more than enough, you’re very well prepared.” The dog barked, running off in a random direction. “Ah- should we follow her?”

“She’s the whole reason we’re here, we’d better.”

     The two found her sniffing at a rotting corpse, resembling a wendigo. “Fucking gross.” Maya crouched down, grabbing an inconspicuous split torch on the ground and poking at the red iridescent boils on the creature. One of them popped, making her back away at the new, more pungent stench.

     Radar griped, having been examining the sunken in head. “Eugh, you probably shouldn’t have done that— that fucking reeks!” Radar stood up, the dog having left after whining sharply at the smell.

     “Haha- Radar, you swear?” Maya followed the dog, Radar groaning.

     “Not usually. Where are we going?”

     “Following her.” The dog barked, whining at the ominous dark tunnel. “..What’s she looking at?”

     A shriek echoed, the three immediately turned around, Maya trying to be careful with her blaze rod extinguishing itself. “You have to be fucking kidding me!” Maya jumped over the burnt wendigo, taking a sharp right at another large figure in her way.

     She slipped around a dark corner, forcing her blaze rod out and holding her breath.

DON’T MOVE!

     Breathing slowly, the wendigo crowed, walking past her. She stood up slowly, mildly alerting it, watching it turn around in the dim torchlights.

-

     Radar was running circles in the mine, the second wendigo hightailing him and giving him no time to decide on a new direction. He made it back to the burnt wendigo, miscalculating a jump and tripped over it, the wendigo pouncing on him and reeling it’s arm back.

     The wolf attacked it, biting at it’s rough neck and causing it to scream. Radar took the chance to search for an exit, yelps and whines mixed with the wendigo’s shrieks echoing the mine. He turned in hope that she might follow him after attacking it enough, but focused on leaving.

     Radar panted, turning the corner around the entrance of the mine and noticing the footprints in the snow. He began following them, noticing the light clacking of nails against the stone ground of the mine behind him.

     The dog was bleeding in the snow, continuing to follow the footsteps in front of Radar. He sighed, picking her up and carrying her while she whined.

-

     Maya struggled to leave, two wendigos were on her trail and she couldn’t see a thing. Blocking off a wooden room, she pressed her back to the wooden wall and noticed it cave in a little, actually being a double door.

     She attempted unlocking it, but it’d been frozen shut on the outside. She started ramming into it, reigniting her blaze rod and pressing it inbetween the doors in hopes it would assist in unfreezing the latch.

     She was running out of time, the amount of noise she was making was driving the wendigos crazy, a hand bursting through one of her barricades. The ice was starting to give in, the hinges squeaking loudly from actual movement in who knows how long— a crack finally opened, Maya hitting it as much as possible to get it to go past the piled up snow outside.

     She slipped through just as one burst the barricade, the other assumingely having left, but she wasn’t going to think about the nuance in wendigo interactions; If they killed the other, that was one less wendigo to ever deal with.

    She slammed the door back, listening to the wendigo shriek and thump against it while she used random various blocks to cover it. A red totem laid near the exit. Maya debated on taking it or not, she honestly didn’t want to see any more, but decided against her reluctance.

    She picked it up, walking towards the lodge, holding her blaze rod out in the snow. The red totem seemed more ominous than usual.

     Aiden laid in the snow, tiredly opening his eyes to Jesse towering above him.

Chapter Text

ONE HOUR UNTIL DAWN

06:13 [6:13 AM]

     Jesse groaned, body stiff from laying in the snow. He looked over to Aiden, or at least the body shaped hole that looked like Aiden was in it. Jesse thought about a lot of things, like how could things possibly get any worse, forcing himself to get up.

     The snow cushioned his fall surprisingly well, only a soreness in his lower back and left leg notable. He looked over to Aiden, his sword hadn’t fallen too far from his body. In fact, if it fell any closer it’d have stabbed one of them clean through.

     Jesse picked it up, crouching next to Aiden and pressing two fingers to his neck.

One beat.

Aiden was on the verge of death, and he wasn’t getting up.

     Jesse tilted his head, no signs of Aiden’s eyes moving or even breathing very much.

He stood up, angling the sword and stabbing it through his neck.

-

06:22 [6:22 AM]

     Petra tiredly fell through the door after turning the handle, rolling over and using her leg to shut it. “Petra! Where have you been?!” Lukas had ran over to her, holding her hand. “Are you okay? Man, that wound on your cheek looks terrible..”

     Petra groaned, throwing her arm over her eyes. “I’m fine.. just tired. Really, tired. My body is fucking aching.”

     “What happened?” Olivia sat next to Petra, her turning herself over to sit up.

     “Fell really, really far down. Ughhh… Lukas. Lukas you remember that white totem? The one where a rock almost busts my head open? Yeah.. that’s the thing that happened.”

     “Sounds like one Hell of a time. Where were you?” Lukas shook his head.

     “Some building with wendigo research, I don’t know.. not really any useful signs in that abandoned building.” She pulled old notebooks detailing certain things about the wendigos out of her pocket, tossing them to Lukas.

     “How’d you get down there? I don’t think you’d fall that far down on purpose, at least.”

     “It wasn’t. I uh… was exploring the basements, a lot. There was a seriously unreasonable amount of floors. Found a dog. She uh.. she was gonna go with me, but one of the stone stairs broke from under me and I fell in the crappy mine.”

Lukas seemed conflicted.

     “Hey, Lukas, you okay?” She raised an eyebrow, Lukas seemingly lost in thought.

     “..Yeah. Look, guys? Me and Olivia learned some stuff about Soren, especially that he was here, and.. well, I think that Wendigos are people.”

     The other three’s expression’s scrunched and furrowed in confusion. “Lukas? I know that they have human anatomy, but you know, so do Endermen?” Olivia shrugged.

     “Yeah, yeah.. I just.. the green totem that I mentioned a little while ago, I think that it’s Soren’s point of view, and the last one I saw was—-I think—him, turning into a wendigo.”

     “But then what turns you into one?” Petra tilted her head, Olivia’s eyes widening.

     “Lukas… weren’t you bitten by one?” Lukas blinked, looking down at the crusted blood on his arm.

     “I-I don’t think it’s from bites-“

     “And what if it is?!” Lukas shook his head nervously, Petra getting up from her spot on the ground.

     “And why the Hell wouldn’t it also not be! Zombies are undead people! We’ve gotten bit at and stuff all of the time and didn’t turn into one!” Lukas raised his voice slightly, Olivia looking away conflicted.

     Radar trudged through the front entrance, holding a bloodied dog. Petra’s face lit up, “Lazzie!” She jumped out of Radar’s arms, limping toward Petra and barking.

     “‘Lazzie?’“ Petra petted Lazzie, her sitting at Petra’s feet.

     “Yeah, she’s a domesticated dog, you’d know that, right? Lazzie was the name on her nametag.”

     Lukas kneeled next to Lazzie, petting her gently. “She looks really bad, what happened to her, Radar?”

     “Ah.. See, Maya and I followed Lazzie down to a mine, I tripped over a burnt up wendigo body and she saved me.”

     “Where’s Maya-“

     “Woah, hold on— Lazzie saved me too, a wendigo chased me while I was still in the basement, but like, she respawned, or something…”

     “Dogs can’t respawn, though.” Lukas’ eyebrows furrowed while he patted down his pockets for anything to mend the dog’s wounds. “People can only respawn and only in certain places and situations, like.. me, when we met the Old Builders in their world.” Lukas chuckled, petting her and watching her roll onto her side. “‘Lazzie,’ like ‘Lazarus,’ huh?”

     “‘Lazarus?’ Who’s that?”

     “Uh.. he’s from a book I read a good bit of, I think, I’m not too sure if it was just a story or if it was supposed to be real. Jesse thinks it is, or something.”

     “Uh.. Well, Maya is a little bit of a ways still back there, I saw her from a far distance on my way back here.” Radar inserted himself back into the conversation. “What’s that?” He pointed over to the covered bodies.

Olivia stayed silent.

     Petra began walking towards it, quickly being stopped by Lukas. “D-Don’t! Don’t. Um… it’s Axel.”

     “What’s wrong with him?” Petra asked wishfully, hoping for the best.

     “He’s dead.” Lukas’ expression soured nervously, Petra’s eyes widening in shock.

     “He’s dead? Are you serious-“

     Maya walked through the door behind Radar, tossing a green totem on the ground. She adjusted her earmuffs, looking up at the conflict in front of her. “..Am I in the middle of something?”

     Petra shook her head. “No.. just, some crazy news. I can’t believe he’s gone.”

     Gill looked over to Maya, speaking for the first time in a while after watching everything unfold. “Axel’s dead.”

     “Shit. One of us actually died to one of these things?” She turned to the bodies, the room washed over with a somber feeling.

“Yeah. I don’t even know how I’m going to tell Jesse.”

-

06:30 [6:30 AM]

     Jesse finished dismembering Aiden’s body, sighing deeply. “Sorry it had to end up like this, buddy.” Jesse managed not to get himself covered in blood, carrying one of the arms over to his campfire. He really could’ve just tried to resurrect Aiden, made a fire next to him, let him warm up— but he didn’t like him too much, and it’d been a long time since he had a proper bite. He already hadn’t eaten the entire night.

     He seared the meat gently, careful with the preparation over a fire. The last time he had anyone to eat was sometime when he was 24, just a few years after the Witherstorm. He watched a stranger die on one of his short trips alone, and took the body along to take apart into a travel size when he was in a more secluded area.

     Jesse was lucky inventories were so versatile, being able to chuck Aiden’s limbs in with no problem and not having to worry about carrying body parts around in secret like when he was younger. Jesse took in the smell, unfortunately he had nothing to season it with, but he liked the raw taste the most anyways. Normal people would smell a burning body and retch, but the aroma reminded him of a juicy steak more than anything, though even his parents hadn’t been too interested in it..

     Jesse didn’t have the best bite, in fact his teeth were rather messed up and still never had braces— but nothing could beat his canines. He used Aiden’s sword to cut the arm in half, pocketing his forearm and taking a bite out of his bicep.

     Eaten without seasoning, people had surprisingly different tastes, some tastes resembled pork, fish, chicken— Jesse hated the ones that resembled pork, and that was only one when he was twelve. Aiden’s flesh gave a slight pork texture, making Jesse cringe a little, but the taste gave off fish and chicken more than anything. He chuckled at an artery splurting in his face, careful not to get it on his shirt.

     He hummed, taking out a white totem that he’d picked up while Aiden wasn’t looking a little while back on the stairs, peeking in for some past time.

     Maya and Olivia ran out of the lodge, Maya tripping over a rock and being pulled by Olivia while she was still slightly airborne, the two crashing into a pile of snow. The lodge burst into flames shortly after, several windows shattering from the intense heat.

-

06:42 [6:42 AM]

     Petra and Lukas were investigating the attic’s bedroom, snooping through the drawers of Jesse’s childhood getaway. “Hey.. Lukas?”

     Lukas nodded, shutting a drawer. “What’s up?”

     “You mentioned something about Jesse, Olivia said that you wanted to confront him about it first, but I mean.. I’m just worried now, we need all the information we can get.”

     Lukas’ expression furrowed, looking around the room. “…Yeah. I just found Jesse’s old journal, it had some interesting stuff in it. Kind of serious, actually?”

     “Well, what was in it?” Petra pried, Lukas unsure of whether to tell. Petra was Jesse’s best friend too, right?

     “Uhh.. Well. I, uh… Might’ve come across an entry in it, Jesse mentioned like.. eating human flesh..?” Lukas chuckled awkwardly, Petra’s expression mortified.

     “What?!” Petra exclaimed in a hushed voice, “Lukas, you can’t be serious— did he just mean, like, rotten flesh?”

     Lukas shook his head. “No.. like, he found a person, dead in the snow around here, took him home and ate him. It’s.. super detailed, the process, and stuff. He wrote it when he was twelve, it’s one of his later entries in it.”

     “…Wow. Didn’t know Jesse had those kinds of issues. Man…” Petra stood up from the bed, accidentally kicking an object.

     “What was that?” Petra crouched down, it having hit the wall and rolled under. She reached for it, pulling out a dusty yellow totem.

     “It’s a Guidance totem, because we’re all here they might start spawning fast, or something.” Petra tossed it onto the bed, Lukas taking it to look at.

     Maya yelled at a wendigo that was approaching Gill, staying still after agitating it and allowing Gill to run off somewhere.

     Lukas closed his eyes, sighing deeply. “…Fuck.”

     “What was it?”

     “There’s gonna be wendigos in here, more of them, Jesse said these things happen regardless..”

-

     Maya picked up a black totem in the basement, sighing deeply while she explored with Olivia. “What’s wrong, Maya?”

     Maya held the totem up for her to see, “Death totem. Haven’t seen mine yet.”

     “Well, it could be mine if I’m here too, right? Or is it whoever picks it up first?” Maya shrugged, holding it out for the two to look.

     Radar was cornered by a wendigo, holding his breath and shutting his eyes, trying not to tremble. Olivia shot an arrow at a window in an attempt to distract it, but was also in the wendigo’s way. She was tackled by it, being carried by the head and her eyes pressed into with it’s sharp nails, screaming until her eyes were popped inside out.

     “Guess it’s yours.” Maya deadpanned, Olivia sighing.

     “It’s really freaky to see, honestly. After everything today, I almost don’t mind..” She muttered, watching Maya stash it away. “Hey. Didn’t you bring in a green totem when you came in here?”

     “Yeah, threw it on the ground, I hadn’t looked in it yet.”

     Gill opened the door. “Oh- hey, guys. Find anything?” Maya shook her head.

     “Not really, nothing notable other than this inconspicuous journal, and even then only maybe. Fine materials, though, did you need something?”

     “Oh, well, Petra asked for a blanket a little bit ago to give to Lazzie. Couldn’t find any in the other rooms, considering, uh.. the other ones are occupied.” Gill scratched the back of his neck awkwardly, Olivia’s expression drooping slightly.

     “They’re in that chest,” Maya pointed to one on the far left. “give one to Radar, too, he seems a little.. not built for this kind of adventure.”

     “Yeah, Radar’s a little out of the loop with adventures.” Olivia smiled, the first time in a while. “He’s well prepared, but he’s not made for fighting. Or running. Or very much really.”

     Maya nodded, “Olivia and I are gonna head back upstairs, this place is pretty clean.”

     “Yeah, hey, Gill. Hold onto the journal, okay?” Olivia tossed it to him, watching him clumsily attempt to catch it and got it with his elbow.

     “Yeah— yeah! I will.” He watched them leave, turning to sit atop the chest and open the journal.

     It belonged to someone named ‘Alex,’ venting about her concerns with Jesse. It noted Jesse’s cannibalistic tendencies, an excerpt about a time that Jesse had brought home a dead body to eat that lasted two days— they hadn’t eaten any organs, only limbs and sometimes the head if Jesse felt like it. He liked it a little too much to her liking, voicing concerns to her husband about Jesse potentially murdering people for it. The last entries talk about Jesse’s suppression of hunger, relief in fine ink.

     Gill opened the chest for the blankets, noticing a brown totem in the corner of it. He furrowed his eyebrows, unsure of if it belonged to Jesse’s parents or if it could spawn like that.

     Axel was seen attempting to evade the burning wendigo at the bottom of the stairs, his head being torn clean off.

     He exhaled deeply. “Guess we didn’t find this one soon enough..” Thinking back to when he and Axel searched the basement initially, brushing it off as they didn’t know the significance of the totems.

     Gill shut the chest, going upstairs. He turned to lock the door, suddenly hesitating. He thought about the possibilities, a wendigo could break in a little easier, but it could probably break down a locked door regardless, and someone if they end up in there might need it— he left it unlocked, climbing forward.

-

06:50 [6:50 AM]

     Jesse approached the lodge, dropping Aiden’s cleaned off humerus in the snow and wiping his mouth. He tucked in his shirt, watching the attic window burst into flames. He ducked into a small tunnel hidden by trees, hitting a button and entering the basement. A wendigo was roaming, curtains blowing through the broken window.

     “Fuckers..” Jesse muttered, the wendigo being alerted slightly.

DON’T MOVE!

     Jesse side eyed the wendigo crowing, listening to more scream upstairs, agitating the one in the room with him. It thwipped around the room erratically, hanging off the wall chests and ceiling.

     Jesse took his chance to run down the hall while it was turned to another echoed shriek, cornering himself as it hightailed him from making so much noise fleeing.

DON’T MOVE!

     Jesse cringed at the wendigo being in his face, clenching his teeth from it screaming. He waited for it to start wandering, the wendigos upstairs reacting to it’s scream.

     It went back down the hall, Jesse taking the chance to head upstairs and lock the door behind him.

     Lukas and Petra exited the attic, watching Olivia gesture to them urgently not to move. Two other wendigos had gotten in, one cornering Radar and the other screeching at Maya, who was up against a support beam.

     Lukas jumped down from the second floor, alerting the wendigo approaching Maya. He drew an iron sword, throwing his goggles out of a window. Radar watched wide eyed, remembering the totem from the facility. “HEY! ASSHOLE!” Lukas yelled, startling most of the others slightly— Lukas wasn’t one to actually yell in anger or agitation, but he sounded like a violent drunk father about to beat his wife.

     The wendigo charged at him, Lukas striking flint on his sword while he swung at it, fire branded his sword wildly and made a deep gash in the wendigo’s chest, the knockback thwarting it against a wall.

     Olivia threw a pair of Flint and Steel to Jesse, shooting a window behind her. “Jesse! Light it on fire!”

     Lukas turned to Jesse for a moment, but remained focused on his brawl with the wendigo. “I got you now, Soren!”

     Petra motioned for Radar and Gill to run out, the two hopping through the window Olivia shot, Gill carrying Lazzie bundled in a blanket. She hopped down, drawing her own iron sword and igniting it several times, sparks set fire to the ground, but that didn’t matter right now. Maya took her own route out of a side entrance, looking back at Lukas for a moment before fleeing.

     The wendigo seemed to be alarmed by the name, suddenly focusing on Jesse, who had lit a wendigo on fire, using Aiden’s sword to fend it off while it remained conscious. It lunged past the two, confusing the group. “Jesse, look out!” Jesse mimicked Lukas, striking the flint on Aiden’s sword and swung at ‘Soren’ in a batting motion, it stopping at Jesse’s swing.

     “Petra, Lukas, Olivia! I need you guys to leave, NOW.” Jesse lit a green totem on fire, chucking it at Soren’s head while he dodge rolled around it.

     Petra took Olivia’s arm, “What about you, Jesse?!”

     “Doesn’t matter! I got us into this mess, you guys deserve to get out!” Jesse cringed, a sharp claw having swiped him in the arm.

     “You need help, Jesse!” Lukas yelled, shooting an arrow at various windows to distract Soren, sweating from the heat of the growing house fire.

     “I don’t care! GET OUT, you piece of shit!” Petra and Olivia jumped out of a window, Lukas refusing to go when they pulled him.

     “I’m not letting you die, Jesse!” Lukas charged directly at Soren, for some reason trying to choke him out and getting his eyes pressed into.

     Jesse threw Soren off of Lukas, “I said I GOT IT!” he punched Soren with immense force, somehow actually getting it to spin on impact. They were extremely tough and versatile— but a small guy like Jesse could beat one around? Lukas watched in shock, rubbing his eyes from the harsh pressure nearly breaking them in.

     He threw the flint on the ground, striking Aiden’s sword against it and lighting the entire thing ablaze, swinging at Soren’s lunge at him and slicing his head clean off. Soren’s skinny, gross and oozing body crashed into him, Lukas for some reason grabbing Soren’s head. Jesse groaned, pushing it off of him and grabbing Aiden’s sword. Jesse looked around frantically at the fire engulfing the lodge, “I told you, to get the FUCK out of here!” he grabbed Lukas by the back of his jacket, throwing him full force out of a window.

-

DAWN

07:09 [7:09 AM]

     Lukas groaned, having been thrown against a tree with little snow to cushion his impact. He immediately sat up, scanning the area for Jesse, only seeing Petra and Olivia—

     The lodge burst into flames, Jesse nowhere to be seen. Lukas screamed seemingly inaudibly, looking around in desperate hope that Jesse got out okay. Radar and Gill had Maya, the three looping around for the rest of the group.

     Lukas got up quickly, shaking Radar. “Radar- Radar, PLEASE tell me you saw Jesse get out of that fire, please-“ Radar’s eyes widened in shock and confusion.

     “I-I don’t know, we came around from the back of the lodge! The front has way more entrances-“

     Lukas ran off to the front of the lodge, Petra and Olivia motioning for the others to follow him. “Is Lukas okay?!” Gill panted, looking to Radar for answers.

     “Jesse is- extremely important— He goes ballistic if anything happens to him!”

     Jesse was faceplanted in the snow, being helped up by Lukas. He’d flown out of the front door when the fires got to the Redstone, broken glass flying having torn up his clothes and lodged into his face. The group consoled Jesse, blurry praises and reassuring nothings echoing around him, but he was far too dizzy from the blast to decipher anything.

-

     Lukas was pacing around frantically, Petra trying and failing to calm him down. “What if he doesn’t make it!? Oh fuck! What’ll I do?! I have nothing without him!”

     “Lukas, Lukas, LUKAS— Calm the fuck down, he’s still breathing!”

     “AND IF HE STOPS?! He is EVERYTHING to me-“

     Petra’s expression furrowed, done with Lukas. She grabbed the bicep that Lukas was bitten on and squeezing— hard. Lukas cringed, the wound reopening from its scabs, being brought back down to earth from his episode of ‘Minecart Psychosis,’ shaking his head frantically and holding Petra’s arm.

     “Ow- ow- ow, Petra- Petra, Petra, okay— I— Fuck!” Petra squeezed even harder one last time, letting go and watching Lukas writhe in pain. “Okay, I’m cool now- fuuuuck! Ow! Petra, whaa-hyy-hiii—“

     “You need to quit fuckin yelling in Jesse’s room, I swear! He’ll get a damn headache waking up if it’s just you crying ‘bitch.’” Lazzie growled at Lukas, Petra petting her reassuringly to stand down.

     “Petra’s right, Lukas, Maya and Gill left hours ago because they were freaked out by your deluded yelling.” Olivia stated, Radar nodding next to her while he changed Jesse’s IV. The four had been in Jesse’s room for hours— Petra was consoling Lukas for hours, and his panicked whimpering made them all restless. Jesse had been out the entire ride home, Lukas clinging to him.

     Lukas took a clear look at Jesse for the first time since he panicked, Jesse’s face was littered with small bandages from the glass pulled out. Somehow, he had very little burns, nothing that would display a scar but at least be uncomfortable for two weeks. His hands were calloused from the heat of holding metal swords in an active fire, surprisingly still soft to the touch. Lukas held Jesse’s cheek, kissing him on the forehead, kneeling next to his bed and waiting for a sign.

-

     Maya and Gill entered, looking at Lukas nervously. “Uhh.. is Lukas okay now?” Gill scratched the back of his neck awkwardly, Lukas visibly less crazy.

     Petra shook her head, “Lukas has just come to his senses, he’s not okay, though.” Lukas seemed to be on the verge of tears, holding Jesse’s hand.

     “Uh.. well. Did anyone ever.. find Aiden?” Maya’s expression soured, “He never came back with Jesse.”

     “I’d honestly assume he’s dead. Jesse used Aiden’s sword to fight off Soren— Lukas, did you ever keep Soren’s head?” Maya sighed, she knew Aiden wasn’t on the best terms with all of them, but she didn’t want to overlook one of her best friends dying.

     Lukas blinked, looking up at Olivia “Huh?”

     “When you got thrown out, you were holding a wendigo head. That one was Soren’s, right?”

     “Oh, yeah..” He pulled it from his inventory, the group grossed out from the smell. “Wendigos are bald, but you can still see some of his orange beard at his chin..” Lukas held it out to Olivia.

     “Lukas! Gross, don’t put that in my face..”

     Lukas chuckled, placing it on the ground. “Can you believe Romeo got eaten by Soren? I’d expect for it to be the other way around—“

     “Wha- Huh?! H-Hold up, Romeo? Like, crazy admin, Romeo?” Radar’s eyes widened.

     “Oh— yeah, Olivia and I found a ton of journal entries about Soren freezing to death with Romeo- Maya? Did we ever look at that green totem you threw in?”

     “Uhh.. I looked at it with Olivia, but it didn’t seem like it meant anything. Was just.. someone, somewhere in the trees.”

     Petra sighed, “This is a lot of new news and events, we need more information from Jesse but he’s out.”

     Lukas’ eyes widened, thinking back to Jesse’s journal. “Hey… You guys don’t think that, maybe Jesse ate Aiden, do you?” Most of the group’s expressions furrowed, forgetting that not many of them knew of Jesse’s cannibalistic tendencies. “Uhh.. Sorry, I forgot to tell you guys- I found a journal back at the lodge, it was Jesse’s when he was younger and there’s stuff about taking dead bodies in the snow home to eat, haha..” Lukas chuckled nervously, internally strangling himself from dropping a bombshell like that.

     “Lukas, what?” Olivia’s jaw dropped, glancing at Jesse.

     “He’s right—“ Gill inserted himself into the conversation, “The book you gave me in the basement, belonged to Jesse’s mom.. It was a bunch of venting about Jesse’s potential to become some serial murderer to eat someone.” he cleared his throat. “Uh.. Well, at the end they resolved it, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

     Olivia shook her head, “Jesse never went out to kill someone when we used to just sit around our treehouse, I wasn’t worried about that, I’m worried that he ever ate a person in the first place.” She raised an eyebrow, unsure of how to look at him anymore.

     “..I don’t think Jesse would eat Aiden, neither of them are on the best terms, but I guess you could say if he did, it was out of revenge? I’ve never really heard of eating anyone out of love. I don’t think Jesse hates Aiden enough to kill him just because.” Petra chimed in, a hand on Lazzie.

     “Lukas, if your boyfriend killed our friend, I might just kill him.” Maya’s expression sharpened, looking down at Jesse with a certain disgust in her eyes. She thought back to the Danger totem, depicting Jesse standing over Aiden.

     Lukas blinked, drawing his sword. “H-Hey, Lukas, Maya, hey now, we don’t need to do this.” Olivia put herself between the two, Maya gritting her teeth while Lukas stared blankly. “We don’t know anything yet— I think that we should all just leave for a while.”

“…Well, I’m staying here.” Lukas muttered, sheathing his sword.

-

     Jesse stayed out for two more days. He opened his eyes on the third, looking to Lukas, who nearly yelped in surprise— alerting Olivia and Petra. Lukas blurted a bunch of things he couldn’t keep track of, how worried he was, what’d been happening, Jesse merely shook his head with a small smile in response.

     “Jesse- You’re back!” Petra took a seat next to him. “How are you doing? Lukas has been having a damn near psychotic episode-“

     “No I haven’t.” Lukas had a wide smile on his face, raising an eyebrow at Jesse.

     “..Tired. I’m okay, though. What happened?” Jesse rubbed the sleep from his eyes, arm aching from Soren nearly cutting it off.

     “Well, you know, the lodge burned down.. I think it blew up one last time when it got to the redstone machinery downstairs.”

     Jesse smiled somberly, one of his childhood homes gone— happy to be alive and surrounded by the Order. “…Where’s Axel?”

     Olivia clammed up, Lukas sighed deeply. “..He died.” Petra averted her gaze, getting a glimpse of the pain in Jesse’s eyes.

     “…Oh.” Jesse looked down, frustrated at himself all over again for having brought all of them there. “I’m so sorry, everyone..”

     Lukas shushed and consoled him, Olivia awkwardly taking a seat next to Petra. “It’s okay.. we made it out with almost everyone, that’s something.”

     “That’s great, Lukas, but Axel was one of my best friends.. you know that. He was a bit of an ass, sure, but a great guy regardless. I don’t know how to feel. Two of us died?”

     “Well. There’s our answer..” Petra muttered. “What happened to Aiden?”

     Jesse felt conflicted, looking back at Lukas’ concerned face. “Aiden.. Aiden died. We were on a bridge, and the both of us fell- When I got up, he was barely breathing— and I mean barely. His heart beat once the entire time I tried checking his pulse.” Lukas hugged Jesse, kissing him on the forehead.

     “What do we do now?” Olivia sighed. “Where do we go? What options do we have? Axel is dead.. Boomtown is going to be devastated- First Magnus, then him..”

Jesse sighed deeply, choosing not to tell them about the cannibalism of Aiden.

“We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it. First, we’ll hold memorials for Axel, then Sky City about Aiden, and with luck..

We move forward.”