Chapter Text
The inside of the mansion was absolutely nothing like the real thing. Instead of hallways leading off on either side of a rounded double staircase with an elevator in between them, there was only one set of stairs. Starting to the far left hand side of the front door, the white marble steps curled up and around the room in a spiral over their heads before leveling out almost three and a half stories up. The best part of the whole thing was the lack of bannister or rail. One wrong step and it would be a long fall all the way back down.
“This is so… incredibly weird,” Danny murmured, and the fox in his arms made an odd sound. He’d always assumed foxes just barked or growled like dogs. Or maybe wolves. But the animal was making some of the strangest sounds he’d ever heard. He’d have to ask Doc if that was normal or… just a dream thing.
“It kind of reminds of a book I read years ago,” Amanda said, eyeing it warily. “House of Stairs. Really good read, but not something I’d ever want to go through.”
“Psychological horror?” Danny asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Psychological horror in a light sci-fi setting,” she confirmed. “It’s vaguely dystopian, but the world outside the house is irrelevant in the long run.”
“You got a copy I can borrow?”
“Yeah, but if I get it back with a single stain on it I’ll cut your hands off.”
“You can play book club later,” Freddy cut in, mood a lot more sour since Quentin’s confession. “Come on. We need to get moving.”
None of them were particularly happy, but there was nothing to be done. Despite the added dangers, they still needed him. Even if they hadn’t, there was no turning back.
The air felt oddly heavy. Following him up the stairs, it was Amanda who asked the Survivor, “Who was that big guy? The one outside?”
“Oh, that,” he muttered, scratching the back of his head. “I’m not… I can’t talk about him too much or I risk… manifesting him in here with us. I did that to Mikaela once and we both almost died. But, um, yeah… The burning city. The giant. Those are Leon’s memories. His first day at Raccoon City Police Department, he showed up and the whole town was overrun by zombies and… mutant things with no skin. That thing, the big blue guy, was sent in by Umbrella after the outbreak to eliminate any survivors and ensure the truth never got out.”
“Hold on… He wasn’t even a cop for a single day?” she clarified, and Quentin nodded tiredly. “Oh my god… The Legion are going to love this.”
“Umbrella? Ugh, of course it was Wesker,” Danny guessed, not particularly shocked by the revelation. The fox in his arms let out a low growl, and he soothed, “I know, he’s a big dumb-dumb poopy head. I don’t like him either.”
Still, that explained the Nemesis-like vibes he got from the fedora wearing giant at least. He’d have to ask Leon about it next time he got the chance. And by ask, he meant ‘torment him with the idea that he somehow had knowledge about his past he shouldn’t in hopes it would get the blond to spill more beans than he realized’.
“An early Tyrant prototype,” Quentin offered, before saying, “I’m not really comfortable talking about everyone else's memories if I don’t need to. It’s not… They usually don’t mean to share them with me, and I… have to try not to let their pasts affect me. Especially in here.”
“It’s a little too late for that,” Freddy chuckled mirthlessly. Coming to a stop, he asked, “Have you three noticed anything?”
“We’ve been walking a really long time and still haven't reached the landing?” Amanda asked, looking upwards.
“Bingo. Now, try looking down,” he directed, pointing with a bladed finger.
All three of them cautiously leaned to peer over the side of the bannerless staircase. It looked like they’d already climbed five or six floors, when from below the landing had only appeared to be about three floors up. Looking back up again, the stairs seemed to stretch on endlessly into the impossibly tall abyss above.
“Fucking House of Stairs bullshit,” Amanda whispered, pinching the bridge of her nose.
“Well…” Danny said slowly. “That was unexpected… Now what?”
“Well, normally, I would just put us on the landing,” Freddy deadpanned. “But I’m getting a lot of pushback, and if I push too hard, I could break something. Of course, this isn’t my toy to break, so that’s not really an option.”
“I thought the entire point of all these extra people was to make this easier!” Ghostface snapped, and the fox growled in his arms.
“It’s making the dream more stable,” the Nightmare insisted, before offering, “But that doesn’t mean there’s no push back! If Doc’s mind is in full defense mode because of the Entity, he might not be able to tell the difference between all the people currently in his head! Adding Quentin and co’s tangled plate of Survivor spaghetti memories to the mix isn’t helping!”
With a sound close to a bark, the fox wriggled out of Ghostface’s arms. Landing lightly on its paws, it trotted up the steps a ways before turning to look over its shoulder. Coppery brown eyes shifted to bright blue with a blink, and it turned to continue upwards again. Before Danny could say a word about following it, Freddy glared at him.
“Yes, we know. Not like there’s any other way to go, unless you want to try and go back down,” the Nightmare grumbled, and the group took off after the small canid.
Sure enough, only a few yards up they reached a long hallway. It was entirely unfamiliar to all of them, and incredibly strange to look at. The walls and ceiling were all sterile white, like the inside of a hospital. The floor, however, was a thick, almost shag material. To top it off, it was a deep, forest green.
Doors lined the hall, but each one looked entirely different. Some looked like the glass doors to gas stations or fast food restaurants. Others looked like something a person might find in a fancy office building or upscale house, while others looked entirely mundane and unremarkable.
“What… are all of these?” Amanda asked, eyes fixed on a particularly filthy door a few feet ahead. It was one of the first doors in the hall, and as they got closer, Danny realized he could pick up the faint smell of…
Oh, fuck the Entity. Was that heroin? He’d never used the nasty shit himself, but he’d been in enough unsavory places to recognize the smell. Curious, he moved a bit closer to the door, only to wince as the smells of blood, gun powder, and sweat hit him.
“Fuck, it smells like a drug den,” he coughed, recoiling. “Qbert the wonder Survivor, you better tell me whose nightmare this is, because I know there’s no way Doc would have a place like this in his memory palace.”
“What? But I don’t… I don’t know,” Quentin admitted, shaking his head. “I’m sorry, I have no idea where that came from. It doesn’t feel familiar.”
“Well, you’re right,” Freddy agreed. “It’s not Doc’s memory, and yes, each of these doors has a memory behind it. Don’t touch them, don’t open them, and whatever the fuck you do, don’t go inside any of them.”
Quickly withdrawing the hand he’d been about to place on the knob, Danny asked, “Why? Will it hurt Doc?”
“No, but considering the shit he’s lived through, there’s no telling what the hell these memories might be,” the Nightmare advised. “Believe it or not, I don’t go digging in his head when I visit him. Sometimes I do drop in on some… unsavory sights, but I don’t go looking for shit without him knowing. Not in his head… It wouldn’t feel right.”
“Then… how is this here? Is it just a bad dream his mind made up? Or… is this actually something that Doc encountered?” he questioned, stomach a hard knot. Despite knowing Marcus had worked for a drug dealer, the idea that he’d been in and out of environments like that left an incredibly bad taste in his mouth.
“It’s not his memory,” Amanda said quietly, and all of them looked over at her. Her eyes were glazed as she stared at the door, one hand tightly gripping the inside of her other arm. “It’s mine… Jigsaw… John needed me to help him with a test. We called it ‘the nerve gas house.’ It was full of traps designed for the people we had inside it. I was there to make sure it ran the way it was supposed to, and that someone special passed his test…”
“Hey, it’s okay,” Danny comforted, gently resting a hand on her shoulder. “I’m sure you did your best–”
“I didn’t fail!” she snapped, yanking away from him. A scream of anguish echoed behind the door and she squeezed her eyes closed. When she opened them again, her expression was one of pain as she explained, “There were tests for everyone inside. Including me. But I passed. Even the ones that weren’t meant for me. That’s all that matters.”
“How many traps have you survived?” Quentin asked, and she shot him a scathing look.
“Tests. John didn’t trap people. He tested them,” she repeated. “If they didn’t have the will to live, they failed, and they died! He never killed anyone!”
“What… happened to you? In that house?” he asked softly, looking over at the door again.
“See for yourself,” Amanda spat, before striding further down the hall.
Watching her go, Quentin started to reach out to touch it, but Ghostface grabbed his wrist before he could make contact. Slowly shaking his head, he let him go without a word. Amanda was his friend, and he knew that despite what she’d said, she didn’t really want any of them to look. They had no right to see her like that. At her lowest. He would respect that. And so would they…
Moving on, they passed several more out of place doors before Danny paused. He couldn’t help it. Not when he’d spotted a door he would never forget despite having not seen it in person in decades.
The paint was peeling and the wood was chipped, while someone had blocked the peephole with a large screw. There was no mistaking it, and he couldn’t help but let out a quiet laugh at the sight.
Glancing at him, Freddy asked, “What’s so funny? Recognize something?”
“Ah, yeah,” he admitted, pausing in front of the door. “The house I grew up in.”
“Oh?” Quentin asked, and even Amanda turned around.
Reaching out a hand, Ghostface paused before he could touch the dented knob. Casting a wary glance at Freddy, he asked, “If I touch this, Doc’s head won’t explode or anything, right?”
“No, it’s your memory,” he offered, shrugging. “He might be able to see it if you open it, but in the sense of, you told him this story and now he can very vividly picture and remember the moment.”
“Huh,” Danny mused. He wasn’t actually sure what memory was behind that door, but if it was his childhood home, it likely wasn’t something too horrible. Right? Touching the knob, he startled slightly when the entire door suddenly faded away like a mirage. The smell of old beer mixed with humid Florida air washed over him, and he stiffened as a scene came into view.
A dark bedroom, barely lit as moonlight spilled through moth-eaten curtains. Despite the warped floor and sweating walls, everything was immaculate. The books on the shelf were arranged by size without a single one out of place. There were no posters on the walls, but instead dozens of cut out newspaper clippings and articles. The words made no sense and the pictures swirled together, indicating it was nothing but a memory… but every second of what was going to happen next hit Danny in the chest like a ton of bricks.
The door to the room creaked open, and the small figure sleeping on top of the tightly fitted sheets stirred. Blinking into the darkness, the youth mumbled, “Dad?”
Ghostface took a step back, but the memory played on.
The ten year old version of himself sat up, peering into the dark with an unnatural wide eyed curiosity. Danny had never been afraid of the dark. Despite his father’s horror stories of the man-made monsters that lurked in every shadow, he’d never been afraid of the boogeyman. But that night was different. It may as well have been etched into his soul for as clearly as he remembered what he’d been thinking as he watched his younger self step out of bed.
Was this more of his dad’s ‘training’? Would he find a knife and a compass outside his door with instructions to rendezvous somewhere in the swampy woods behind their house? Or was the old man simply drunk, nudging the door open as he stumbled to the toilet?
Creeping to the door, he slipped his fingers into the crack, peering out before slowly pulling it open. There was an odd resistance to the door as he pulled it, and he frowned before giving it a much harder tug.
Something fell from above, having been hanging on the doorframe only to be dislodged by the sudden movement. Danny grunted as something heavy fell across his shoulders, hands reaching up on instinct to pull it off.
Ghostface took a shuddering breath, matching his younger self as the shock and horror of feeling a smooth, slick body coil and writhe under his hands. The thirteen foot long python’s head whipped around, mouth open as it struck at the youth, sinking rows and rows of teeth into his arm just above his wrist.
It wasn’t the first time he’d woken up to find a snake in his room. He’d stepped on one only the night before and it had bitten him on the ankle. He’d screamed and his father had rushed in with a machete, chopping it in half before sending him back to bed with an order to ‘control his fear, not be controlled by it’.
Now, he struggled to get the much larger, much heavier snake off his back. In his mind, he swore it was trying to strangle him. In reality, it was merely trying to get away from what it perceived to be a threat, just as he was. Unfortunately, childhood fear and panic have a way of warping memories, and in the young boy's mind, his life was in grave danger.
The last thing Ghostface expected as the memory faded into a black void was for a low hissing to fill the air. Someone swore loudly, but before he could register it, a snake shot from the darkness beyond the door, rows of dripping fangs aimed to latch onto his face as someone grabbed him by the hood to yank him backwards.
It wasn’t far enough, and for a moment, he honestly expected the serpent's jaws to close on his flesh. Only centimeters from making contact, it was violently ripped out of the air without warning. The sound of its jaws snapping shut on nothing still made him flinch, and he snapped around to see what had happened.
With a snarl, the fox whipped its head back and forth, the snake clamped tightly between its teeth. It continued to whip the body around until it ripped in two. Only then did it finally drop the half still in its mouth, before looking up at the group with mismatched eyes.
Slowly releasing the back of Ghostface’s hood, Freddy warned, “Okay… No more reliving the past. None of us are stable enough for that shit.”
Blinking as the fox trotted past, Quentin asked suddenly, “Wait, you’re afraid of snakes?”
The only thing that stopped him from shoving the Survivor through the nearest memory door was Amanda. Slapping the brunet across the back of the head, she warned, “If you keep asking stupid questions about the things we’ve been through, we’re going to have to have a nice long talk… Outside the Dream Realm.”
“Oh…” he said softly, actually looking confused for a moment. Looking between them, he offered, “I’m sorry. I’m… used to people wanting to talk about it after sharing these kinds of memories with me.”
“We’re not friends,” Danny pointed out coldly. “Why would we share any of this with you?”
There was a deep sadness in Quentin’s eyes as he answered, “Sharing the burden makes it easier. Especially when it's something that still hurts you.”
“You don’t want our burdens,” Amanda told him, tone becoming more sympathetic. “You carry enough.”
“And you carry too much,” he murmured, expression unchanged. “I can handle it, and I’m happy to. They know that, so they let me help. You don’t have to share with me, but you shouldn’t sit on the things that haunt you when you have friends who will help you.”
As they started walking again, she asked, “What about you, then? Who have you opened up to about the things that haunt you?”
Danny half expected a hypocritical answer. He was ready for the Survivor to tell them that he refused to put that on his friends when he was supposed to be the one they opened up to. He was the mule that carried their burdens, locking their worst nightmares away in the recesses of his own mind so that they could sleep soundly at night.
Perhaps that was why he was so shocked when Quentin said sincerely, “All of them. They know me and the things I struggle with. The things I still haven’t been able to come to terms with. We had almost a hundred years in the Entity’s Realm, and you don’t live together that long without forming unbreakable bonds. Especially not when you go through the things we did. Our pasts, our histories. They were used to torture us so the Entity could feed, even when we weren’t in Trials. Without one another… we would have been lost to the fog, one by one.”
Up ahead, the fox paused, looking back with an eerily sorrowful expression. Turning in a circle, it nipped at Freddy’s legs when he walked past, and he stopped.
Glaring, he complained, “What? We don’t have time for bathroom breaks.”
Yipping, the fox laid its ears down flat before looking down the hall the way they’d come from. Following its direction, the group was met with an entirely changed landscape. Instead of the oddly sterile walls lined with out of place doors, it had changed to become the interior of a large house. The carpet remained, and muffled footsteps could be heard approaching.
Danny tensed, assuming the trench coat wearing giant was back… but to his confusion, a woman suddenly appeared at the end of the hall. She couldn’t have been much older than Doc was now, but her face was oddly obscured. It wasn’t that she didn’t have a face, but it was blurry and impossible to make out any defining features.
Amanda squinted for a moment before her face suddenly paled. Reaching out, she gripped Danny’s bicep so tightly he actually winced. Why the hell did shit have to hurt in a damn dream? How was that fair?
The anonymous woman continued to approach as though unaware of their presence. Stepping aside when it looked like she was about to bump into them, Danny shivered as a part of her arm passed right through him like a ghost.
He’d actually had a ghost pass through him before, and it felt incredibly weird. Like a breeze blowing through his bones and exposed organs…
Turning to watch her go, he was about to comment on how weird the whole moment was, when he noticed the rest of the area had changed as well. Now, only a single door sat at the end of the hall. It was slightly open, the interior of the room illuminated by a small, slowly spinning light orb that cast marine life across the walls. A lone figure was asleep on the bed as the faceless woman approached the room, and horrible understanding washed over Ghostface like an icy tidal wave.
Completely numb, he took a staggering step forward. “No… No, no, no!”
“Danny!” Amanda shouted, but he yanked free, charging forward as though there was anything he could actually do to stop it.
The apparition faded like mist and the door slammed shut before him. Throwing himself against it, Danny let out a wordless scream as it held fast. Slamming his fist against the wood, he swore and spat, punching the barrier until blood began splattering the ground with every hit.
“Danny, stop!” Freddy demanded, grabbing his shoulder as he attempted to pull him away. “If you go in there, you could change his memory–”
“And why shouldn’t I?!” he screamed, rounding on the dream demon. “Why should Doc have to live with that weighing on him?! Why should that bitch get to walk free after what she did to him?!”
“Enough!” Freddy roared, and Danny felt an invisible force slam into him. Thrown against the door with a pained grunt, he felt the weight of whatever had hit him holding him down as the Nightmare stood in front of him.
“Fuck you!” Ghostface spat, and something wrapped around his mouth before he could say more.
“I know it hurts. I know you want to get revenge on his behalf. But you have to stop thinking like a Slasher and start thinking like his partner. Let your emotions settle and think rationally for one fucking second,” Freddy ordered. “Going in there could alter his memories irreparably. It’s one thing to open a door and look. It’s another to go inside and change things because they’re unfair. Changing his memories wouldn’t change his past.”
Danny was still shaking with rage and sorrow as he glared venomously back at Freddy. He knew he was right… but he didn’t want to care. He wanted to go in there and rip that bitch apart. He wanted to make things right. To make sure Doc knew that she would never hurt him again. That he wouldn’t let anyone hurt him like that again…
“He’s showing you this for a reason,” the Slasher told him, voice softer than before. “This is something he stopped opening up about because of how people reacted in the past. He’s showing you now, because he trusts you. He’s not asking you to kill for him. He’s not asking you for revenge. He’s asking you for your understanding of something that happened to him. It can’t be changed and he knows that. He’s showing you, because he knows that he can open up to you without the fear of judgement or criticism.”
Breathing heavily, the cloth wound tightly over his mouth was the only thing that kept Danny from trying to argue. It wasn’t Doc’s fault. It just wasn’t fair… He wanted to help beyond simply carrying that burden with him… But there was nothing he could do that wouldn’t hurt the vet instead. He and Freddy both knew it, even if he didn’t say it in as many words.
Gaze drifting past the Slasher, Ghostface’s eyes found the fox again. It was watching him with a knowing expression. Rising from where it had taken a seat beside Amanda, it trotted forward. Stretching out its neck, it gently touched its nose to his hand.
The weight holding him against the door dissipated, and Freddy took a step back. “Do you understand now, why he showed you that?”
Still looking down at the fox, Danny murmured softly, “Yes… I do…”
The fox blinked slowly before looking at the door. It touched its nose against the barrier, and the Slasher felt it lose its solidity behind him. Confused, he turned to see for himself, but it still looked as sturdy as before.
Something nudged his hand, and he looked down to see the fox staring at him again. Flicking its ears, it almost seemed to be telling him to go inside. Despite there being nothing he could do to change things… there was something inside he needed to see.
Squatting down, he ran a soothing hand over the fox’s head, whispering, “Thank you for trusting me, Doc.”
Standing, he stepped forward before anyone could stop him. Stepping through the door felt almost like stepping through the Tree. A split second of chilling cold and darkness swept past him, and then he was inside the bedroom from before.
Unlike previously, the bed was no longer occupied. Instead, the covers had been thrown off one side as though the occupant had hastily gotten up. Looking around, he saw walls covered with a child’s drawings of animals and National Geographic posters.
The sound of someone sniffling caught Ghostface’s ear and he whipped around, looking for the source. Spotting a closet door, he cautiously stepped forward until he could pull it open and look inside.
He must have inhaled a bit too sharply or made some other sound without realizing it, as the little boy sitting in the corner with his knees pulled up to his chest quickly lifted his head. Teary, mismatched eyes met the Slasher’s, and twelve year old Marcus’s lips trembled. Flinching when Ghostface held up a hand, he pulled his legs a bit closer to his body, arms wrapped around his shins.
Slowly lowering himself until he was resting on his knees, Danny reached out. Gently brushing away some of the tears leaking down Marcus’s cheek, he was taken aback by how warm and real he felt.
The boy's eyes widened, darting to the fingers before quickly looking back up at Ghostface.
“It’s going to be okay,” Danny whispered, knowing if he spoke any louder his voice would crack. “I’m not going to hurt you. I will never hurt you. I will never let anyone hurt you like this again. And someday, when we meet again, I hope the first thing to cross your mind is… It’s just Ghostface… Because even though you’ll find it hard to believe, I will never hurt you.”
Mismatched eyes blinked, filling with fresh tears as the boy uncurled from the corner of the closet. His hands reached out, and before Danny could stop himself, he was pulling him into a tight hug. Burying his face in the child’s hair, he held him close, his own tears silently falling as Marcus cried himself into an exhausted sleep.
~~
“Danny!” Amanda shouted, unable to stop him before he stepped through the still closed door. Before she could grab the knob and try to go after him, the fox nipped at her ankles and she jumped back. “Hey!”
Staring up at her with shining eyes, it barked before sitting in front of the door as if to block anyone else from going inside.
“This was a horrible idea,” Freddy groaned, rubbing his eyes with the heels of his hands. “I should have just come in alone! This was a mistake, and when we turn Doc into a vegetable, Michael is going to turn me inside out and Jason’s going to be all fucking smug about it! My already shaky reputation will be ruined!”
“Are you really making this about you right now?” Quentin demanded incredulously. “If Marcus let him in there, he had a reason for it!”
“Are you telling me you haven’t considered what the entire fucking Realm will do to us if Doc comes out of this with broken memories?!” he snapped in return. “You saw the blurry faced fuck! Doc wasn’t asking us to invade the memory itself!”
“He did that because he knew if he showed us her face we’d all make it our personal mission to find and kill her! And he’s not going to ask someone to kill for him! Even I know that!”
“Bitch, please,” Freddy scoffed, rolling his eyes. “Like you’d take it upon yourself to try and kill someone.”
As the two of them argued, Amanda looked back down at the fox. It was watching her intently, and for the first time, she started to get a familiar feeling from the animal. Was that what Danny had been insisting he felt since they’d first run into it?
Blinking slowly, the fox let out a shallow snort, as if impatiently waiting for her to connect the dots and see the full picture.
Glancing over at Freddy and Quentin as they inched closer and closer to trying to physically strangle one another, Amanda narrowed her eyes. What had Freddy called the babysitter? A blurry faced fuck? Did that mean they hadn’t been able to see her face?
Slowly, she turned to stare at the fox, understanding dawning on her. Marcus would never ask them to kill for him. But Jigsaw didn’t kill people. He tested them. It was up to them to prove they deserved to live…
Ears flicking forward, the fox sighed, head dipping slightly as if nodding at her.
A part of her wanted to admit to him that she was not an impartial judge. To admit that there was a reason she had been taken by the Entity. That she had failed John… failed her final test.
Stretching out, the fox touched her knee with its nose and she got the strangest sense… He already knew. He knew she believed some people didn’t deserve second chances, yet he still trusted her to create a fair test… but an utterly merciless one all the same. Amanda knew what she was being asked, and she knew it was something she could do.
She would find the woman and she would put her in a special test. One made just for her… One where forgiveness would not be earned at the end. The babysitter's conscience would never be cleared; she would ensure that, even on the slim chance she made it out. One way or another, she would be punished, and her victim would be able to live with a deserved sense of peace.
Ignoring Quentin and Freddy’s continued bickering, Amanda knelt down in front of the fox. Its ears flicked forward and it pressed its head into her hand when she held it out. Looking up at her with tired eyes, it let out a small sigh.
“I understand,” Amanda promised, rubbing her thumb through soft red fur. “I’ll make sure the test is fair… and equal to the pain she’s caused.”
The fox seemed to smile, eyes closing as its tail swished gently from side to side. Behind her, the arguing had fallen silent, and she glanced over her shoulder to scowl at the pair. They were both lucky she didn’t beat them to death herself. Maybe she would, after they woke Marcus up.
Before either of them could say something stupid to change her mind right then and there, the door in front of her opened, and Ghostface stepped out. His face was hard, expression one of cold fury.
Standing, Amanda asked quietly, “Danny, what did you do?”
He didn’t look at her, silently staring down the hallway with icy black eyes. The fox yipped, and he looked down at it, expression softening slightly. He still didn’t say a word, simply turning to follow when it started down the once more changed hallway.
Quentin balked slightly when he saw the new layout, but Amanda didn’t need to ask why. She recognized it from the Entity’s Trials. They were underneath Badham Preschool, and that could only mean one thing. They were traveling through either Freddy or Quentin’s memory…
~~~~