Chapter Text
The dark grew ever more suffocating and a light fog brought their vision range from threeish trees down to two and maybe some roots. Wherever the person by the TV had gone, they must not have noticed them or just didn't care. It had been hard to tell what they were doing, sleeping right next to a television when it sounded like everyone here knew about that Keeper (not that she had a great sample size), but it didn't matter anymore, Cassie missed her chance. She tried to keep her hopes up for another Little Nightmare or the Shepard to appear from behind one of the trees but the darkness was draining, closing in around her heart and throat. The girls were quickly becoming hyper-aware of every sound they made, especially Cassandra, as every little thing resounded off of every single rock and around every single tree.
It felt like the leaves were frozen solid, trying not to draw attention to themselves and allowing the scavenger and Wolf Pup to draw everything's attention. What 'everything' entailed, they didn't have a clue, nor did they want to. They came upon another small burrow, the inside of which was dense with tree roots like spines or drapes growing from the top right and burying into the other side. They had to duck down beneath the tough, dry, flaky wood as they made their way across. It had three openings; the one they came through, one across the tree, and a smaller one to the left that broke off the main path. Whatever made this tunnel needed an escape route, and for good reason.
Cassie barely blinked and dozens of cold, shadowy hands reached out at her and Rebecca through every gap in the roots where the soil was obscured by black. They clawed at their black and gray sweater and raincoat, then vanished right as she jumped out of her skin. She glanced back to Rebecca, whose blood had flushed out of her face, silently agreeing to get out of the tunnel as fast as possible. Both scrambled to the other side, Cassandra barely being held back by RCG at the exit so she could tug down her hood and peek around the corner. Her long, greasy, and braided hair with its little bright red bow fell around her left shoulder and swayed, bouncing against her waist as she looked around. Cassie lightly poked it out of her way while leaning out as well.
Lined up against a tree, barely visible in the lacking light of the thick treetops and sickening presence, was a wooden stake or rod decorated in skulls and skins. It was a cross of sorts, the sides had smaller skulls perched at the ends; although 'smaller' was relative. Each one was easily twice the girls' size and full of massive teeth. The mandibles were gone but the rest looked canine. Were these the kinds of dogs Rebecca had to deal with? And what put them down? Cassie had seen some big dogs around shopping malls but even those seemed exaggerated, what if they were twisted wolf skulls? Was there a pack wandering around? Something told her there wasn't... not anymore.
The totem's center rod and sides were covered in many knotted, though colorful, furs. Browns, one white skin, a few big gray ones, another above the cross was jet black with some white or gray portions, it was hard to tell in the dark. Dark splotches covered the bone and stained the yellowish teeth. The skull on top was realistically around the same size as the decapitated wolves, but the dead deer's long, pointy antlers made it seem grander than it really was.
From where they were, it looked like it was the only skull that still had its bottom jaw. Its blunt teeth stopped further back in the mouth than she would've thought and the chin continued almost twice as long with a flat, spoon-like tab partially covering the narrow and wide-open nosehole with threads hanging stained feathers from the thin line down the center and the bases of the teeth. The horns had two small points breaking off from where the antlers began, pointing slightly inward, while the bulk of them twisted off to the side, bearing three more speartips before stopping. Its hollow, empty eyes were darker than night and stared deep into the forest behind them, watching the rocks grow faster than the still grass and trees rotting away.
Very dark red tears trailed down the sides of its head and out of the sockets, they looked more brown than the wolf heads. Though there was no wind to carry the dead leaves from their branches or stir those that blanketed the ground, the black fur and white streaks of age on the blanket around the deer's neck seemed to bristle and tingle. The furs shifted with no cause, opening up the folds where thick strings of thatch flopped out, each dangling one thin line of bone white and crimson wrapped around them that sprouted from a roughly orb-shaped weight. They were all barely different sizes and the line coming from each was a bit of a different length, it was hard to tell with the differently spaced spirals they made around the thatch cords, but most looked around Cassie's size.
"Didn't one of the boys say something could see through the-"
Before Cassie could finish, Rebecca grabbed her hand and yanked her back into the tunnel. Whatever shadowy hands were in there clearly appealed to her more than whatever made the totem; Cassandra wasn't so sure, though. Hadn't the redheaded boy said it was a Little Nightmare that made them? Well, none of them actually saw one. And how could he have known they were staring at him and the kids that were with him? The shrines probably didn't do anything, more for intimidation or sick decoration.
I bet I'm just on edge, Dad said people's minds play tricks on them when they're scared. She still had no idea what made the burrow but it had the right idea, making multiple openings. Rebecca dragged her out of the tunnel through the side-opening quickly, not stopping to look where they were going as she dashed across the grass with the tree between them. The Raincoat Girl found a tall but pretty skinny rock to hide behind, it looked like a jagged wall and was at the top of a small hill they could crouch behind and peek out of. This... might be my fault... Maybe she shouldn't have said anything about it, all she did was set RCG off over nothing-
A bitter cold stabbed directly into their joints like needles and spread over their bones like poison. Nothing was biting her but she could feel a frigid maw closing down on her nose and tugging at her hair. The dark grew denser and crawled up the trees and stones like millions of bugs returning to their nests. Some leaves began to descend from the branches, rapidly turning autumn oranges and withering to black, crumbling to ash across a breeze she couldn't feel brushing across her face. Black leaked out of the many skulls' eye sockets and dribbled down the dangling threads, pouring from the round bottoms of the weights like acidic rain hallowing the soil the spire of death was stabbed into.
Brown bark began blackening and peeling off the trees, the sawdust scattering beside the disintegrating leaves into plumes of toxic smoke that spread throughout the stale air like mustard gas. The girls shoved their bodies into the side of the tall rock like the wall of a trench and pulled their collars over their noses. Dark embers flowed around the stone like buzzing insects and filtered through the twigs as branches started snapping off their bases and thudding to the ground, landing with puffs of black mist and decaying shrapnel.
The blight dug steaming black holes into the treetrunks that grew through the cracks and chips like snakes slithering up the bark and moss-ridden, stagnant water oozing down the openings. Plague and sludge pulsed and swelled out of every rising shadow, rippling as the puss erupted and a fog descended over the grass. Something shambled through the dense woodwork, Cassie thought it was just an odd tree in the corner of her eye before seeing it move again, watching it cover massive amounts of ground with every stride.
Its legs were thin and pale, caught tight over the figure's skeleton and sickeningly gray. Black fluid dripped down the cold skin and along the talons of their feet. Their claws gripped the rapidly rotting trees as they navigated toward the totem. Each finger was bony and long, their claws were dark and stabbed deep into the decay. Pure black covered their limbs from the forearms and shins to their nails, turned to dark gray at the joints, and lightened further to their body. Long black furs were wrapped around the figure's shoulders and waist, dangling by the threads of dry thatch that harshly wrapped around what remained of their skin. Their gut was all but gone, the emptiness left a skin-crawling gap in their body where the thin flesh about their hip bone squeezed their intestines while sucking into their spine.
The person's vertebrae appeared like spikes piercing out of their spine and made a small sail in the back of their fur poncho. Tangled, dirty, and poorly-cut hair draped over their collar and around their chin as their hunched-over, almost crawling-on-all-fours posture let the strands flail like pendulums. The entity's face was obscured by hair and a bloody deer skull, a pair of searing red eyes peeking through the unnatural shadow pulsing beneath the deceased animal's missing eyelids. Its antlers, though, were long gone.
Through the doe's bone snapped a set of vile and defiling antlers bursting from the wearer's head. Four small protrusions snapped inward from the main shaft the rest of the points sprouted off of but the furthermost and innermost points both had an extra speartip, the inner branch having a small dagger diverting toward the three tall triangular blades in the center of their head like they were pointing at a crown of bayonets and the far split were of two equal-length horns ready to gore someone and pull out their guts.
Dark gray drool poured like a bunch of hoses from under their skull and hoarse, raspy breaths and hisses became the only sound bouncing around the Forest beside Cassie and Rebecca's hearts pounding in their ears. A bracelet of thatch run through small, bloody backbones loosely hung from their wrist, spotted with tiny skulls of various 'small' animals like dire mice and giant birds like they were no different from the plastic beads on the Wolf Pup's favorite hair ties. A similar string dangled around their neck, clattering with spines of slightly differing sizes from who knows how many different sizes and skulls from who knows how many sources, not just birds and this hellish place's equivalent of a field mouse.
Oily feathers, ripped-out fangs, and the heads of children clicked and swayed as the too-long plant lace moved back and forth before the figure's skinned-fur-covered chest, its centerpiece being a strip of yellow. The small raincoat was a fraction of the person's size, not even a third of the length of their shin from their foot, it was covered in rips and dark blemishes she vaguely recognized as worse than what she'd seen on Six's garment, as opposed to Rebecca's, but bone-chillingly familiar nonetheless.
The Wendigo
--- 👁 ---
Bailey watched Mono and Six's backs on the way to the elevators and prize corner. Cold sept into her bones and fire flowed through her muscles, smoke gathered in her lungs and bloody coughs got caught in her throat. Her head was throbbing but she kept it on a swivel, not that the Little Nightmares needed a third pair of eyes looking after them. That didn't mean she wouldn't try, though. The dark was no problem to navigate, they both had clear experience walking through pitch-black, though Bailey never doubted that, and the teen had been forced to move under the cover of night countless times, figuring out where she was going alone while hiding herself from the ATM cameras.
Colorful neon rods guided them to the elevators, the sudden burst of white light from their interiors stung their eyes. The animatronics crowded into the tight space, Freddy holding Six in his massive plastic arms as Mono blinked to his shoulders and tapped his hat. Bailey pressed herself against the far wall, shielding her eyes and letting the tip of her bat hit the ground as she relaxed her shoulders as much as she could.
Her heart was still moving quickly and everything was tense, but she did her best to keep it cool for the kids. Cassie might've been missing but she still needed to juggle these two and find Gregory. With any luck, they'll retrieve him before she gets back from... whatever happened to her. She'd harbored more than a few doubts that the scrappy little boy was alive, as well as what she was supposed to think about the techie kid who lived with and helped her group but also caused all of this while poorly protecting them from bitch-trap, but Cassandra only needed to know she was helping look for him and any mechanical abominations he buried himself under. A large part of her still wanted to swing her bat until he was black and blue, but another large part knew that wasn't true. What am I supposed to do with you, Greg?
"Something on your mind?" The wolf asked, her arms and legs crossed as she leaned on the wall to her left.
Bailey looked back at her while resting both hands on the hilt of her weapon. "Don't we all?"
"Fair." Roxanne shrugged.
The lift seized and creaked. They could hear the winches struggling but they were fine just a second ago. Multiple heavy bangs echoed throughout the shaft right as they approached the second floor, just for the elevator to start lowering. Chica tried to press the button over and over again, though nothing happened. The group wasn't quite careening down to their deaths but the lift was falling faster than it was supposed to and stopped violently on the basement floor.
Bailey stumbled to stay on her feet and the animatronics shook, getting Six and Mono to disappear and blink away from Freddy until the elevator stabilized. The wires and their attachment points creaked but remained intact. The Broadcaster jammed the axehead of his makeshift weapon and tool into the crack of the sliding doors, forcing them open like a lever, then pushing his foot and back against the panels the rest of the way. There was a small step where the elevator fell slightly lower than the basement floor, though they were in good enough condition to walk into the maintenance tunnels.
They didn't have any of the lingering neon bulbs the upper floor had way too many of. The dim lights didn't help much but she could at least see a few inches in front of her when she was standing under them and they highlighted the walls, barely enough to prevent her from running into walls and photobooths and rocking spaceship rides. Down here, there was nothing. Correction; there was a lot of stuff from shelves of heavy boxes full of parts, abandoned toolboxes, scattered nuts and bolts, forgotten tools, lines of computer terminals, and whatever else the old human staff and Staff Bots didn't clean up that would make tons of noise if they so much as grazed them.
Maybe Cassie getting out was a good thing.
--- 👁 ---
The Wendigo didn't seem to notice them, not since moving behind the tree. What or whoever dug that burrow knew what they were dealing with as the massive person followed their totem's gaze to the tree they hid under and just fled. In one swift, unnaturally smooth motion they shoved their long-clawed hand into the opening. A cloud of dirt puffed out of the other end and side entrance toward her and Rebecca, dead roots flew like throwing knives and clumps of mud scattered like grenades. The Keeper's long, deathly thin arm stabbed through the opposite opening like a bundle of blackened daggers coalesced into a dense pike.
Their long and tired fingers curled into a spade as they retracted their arm, resulting in nothing but a pile of dry soil and dying bark falling through their black hand. The Raincoat Girl grabbed Cassie's hand and pulled her aside, sliding down the small hill away from the creature, hearing its runny sniffs and raspy growls shake the decaying woods. They started down the vague path between mounds of dry dirt and dying grass while the creature's back was turned. Neither had a clue where they were going but anywhere was better than here.
It disappeared in the dark behind them but the ground still shook under its footsteps as it found and traced the burrow's second exit to the rock they'd hidden behind. Had it spotted them yet? How good were its eyes? Were they like Six's? There was no way it could see well with a skull on its head and tangled black hair in front of its eyes, right? And Cassie didn't think she was particularly smelly, it might just be guessing where they went, but it couldn't actually find them anymore. Maybe they were too far away?
SNAP
The crack of wood echoed throughout the entire Forest. A shiver ran through Rebecca and Cassie's spines as they froze and the latter looked down. The big, mostly rotting stick the Raincoat Girl quietly stepped on without either of them noticing until it was Cassandra's turn, making it shatter under her shoe. Their wide eyes and shrunken, pinprick pupils met for but a fraction of a second before RCG tightly and painfully squeezed her hand before bursting into a sprint. Cassie accidentally kicked rocks into Rebecca's heels as her soles crunched twigs, leaving puffs of debris in their wake and prints in the dried mud. The Wendigo's movements were light but quaking like its presence was five times its weight.
Its footsteps hardly touched the grass but sent tremors through the soil and its arms wrapped around trees. Shadows swelled and slithered in tandem with the Wendigo; its body moved along at a constant and smooth pace like it was floating, weightless, but its head shook and twitched violently up and down and left and right. Its arms and legs smoothly and constantly pushed the steady body along, then shot out to another trunk or branch in an instant, joints flinging open and claws snapping shut like bear traps then gradually closing to pull them around forward like they were gliding after the girls, a merciless hawk zeroing in. The creature didn't move that fast but it covered way more ground than the girls. Was it just toying with them? Did it want the chase to last?
The air hummed with its hissing and growling, lacking any exhausted heaving, as they came to a clearing. It may be of little consolation but at least the creature would be forced to walk like a normal person. Slightly taller reeds and withered flowers batted against their faces and slid against their hair as they rapidly approached an absolutely awful smell. Cassie's stomach churned with the scent of decay and over-exerting herself, but she couldn't afford to stop to catch her breath or figure out what the odor was. She wouldn't be left wondering for long, they almost ran face-first into a mound of rotting meat and bloody bone. The dead grass was barely pinned down by the pile's weight enough for Rebecca to turn and yank her to the side, almost sending Cassie toppling over into the animal's guts.
Its skin and skull were missing but the intestines and stomach spilled onto the ground, long dry blood pooled and stained the soil Rebecca ran barefoot over and the stump its head once sat upon pointed the way to another pile of discarded rotting flesh, old blood, the remains of sludge-like organs, and missing skulls. Then another, and another, and another. Some of their legs still had brown, black, gray, and white furs above some black paws the size of Cassie's entire body and dull, canine claws.
RCG weaved through the maze of nauseating corpses like a needle guiding the Wolf Pup the right direction while the Wendigo reached out for them, gaining ground. It refused to walk normally, crawling to the ground from the side of the trees and tops of tall rocks as the chase continued, just to slowly rise in a whirling mass of infectious fog even more toxic than the bloated bodies, hovering upright with its legs lost in the fumes and dark embers flowing over its outstretched arm. Oil dripped from its black arm and claws, poisoning the ground even more before the slime evaporated into its misty legs to continue the deteriorating cycle.
Translucent streaks of darkness and dense vantablack ribbons cut through the stale air and sliced open dead trees as they crossed the clearing, back into the Forest. Rebecca hung a left, behind a tree and towards another one raised off the ground by its roots. The Wendigo's antlers scraped against the sides of the tree, barely missing its catch and extending its oil-dripping claws again. Rebecca and Cassie slid and rolled under the roots, quickly getting up and trying to crawl to the other side before the monster got to them.
Its long, curved black talons slashed the roots as they pierced the dirt, closing down on the girls. They kicked to the sides, letting the claws slash shut between them. The nails left deep craters in the ground, one of which Cassandra wedged a foot into to shove herself further and grab a root to continue. Heavy cracks and trembling began bringing the tree down one them, the remaining roots holding it up crumbling where the rotting wood and dry mud sat. The Wendigo blindly thrashed and curled its fingers to try and scoop one of them up, but Rebecca rolled away in time to leave it with nothing but dead grass and woodchips stuck in the shadows melting its hands.
Cassie was nearing the exit when the creature placed its free hand on the bark, pushing the tree as it yanked its hand out and viciously tore more of the bottom out with Rebecca inside. Rotting leaves and twigs landed in her hair as she dug her way out and whipped around to search for Rebecca. Instead, in the dark distance, she spotted a coated figure with melting skin and a hat waving a lantern through the air.
The Ferryman's appearance was cold as the sea and just as indigestible, hiding something big and hungry beneath the waves that were dragging her down where she could see nothing but a dark portal to the abyss within a vaguely blue highlight as her lungs constantly burned oxygen. Cassie shuddered like she was seeing something left behind by the ocean, something profane that was never meant to be seen by the surface and was rejected even by the depths.
He raised a fist to his chest and tapped on it, then pointed to the Wolf Pup's Fazwatch. Whatever he wanted, Cassie's first problem was Rebecca. The tree was falling faster and splinters were beginning to bend and break around the Raincoat Girl's legs, gashing them open as the space she had to crawl free from became smaller. Cassie reached back into the falling tree, feeling some of the roots shift and press on her spine as it leaned, and grasped her hand as hard as she could.
As far as the Ferryman would be concerned, she'd buried herself back into the collapsing tree. Cassandra did everything she could to pull Rebecca out; kicking against the ground, grabbing broken roots with her free hand, even desperately digging the hole a little wider, but the gap they had to work with kept getting smaller, tightening around RCG's shoulders and legs. Her breathing was getting shallow and her wide, terrified eyes were watery, pinned to Cassie's.
For just a second, a confused and panicked second, Cassie looked down at Gregory's Fazwatch for some kind of answer or clue or whatever the Ferryman was trying to gesture her towards. She fell on her back, Rebecca's hand still painfully tightly entwined with hers, onto cold and polished white tiles.