Chapter Text
This round's killer is… Jason.
Taph landed not so gently upon teleporting, bumping his head on the cold floor.
Ow… that uncalled for teleportation never fails to make him dizzy, which definitely didn’t help with the fact he was already feeling nauseous from the thought of food previously.
He sat himself up, trying to see where he was. Though all he could see was hues of brown green and grey blending into each other.
Rubbing his eyes in order to clear his vision, it seems like he’d spawned in a graveyard this time.
As he slowly picked himself off the grassy floor, he could hear the metallic ringing of continuous coin flips from behind the wall, followed by a buzzing sound each time. Geez... whatever it was, it sure was annoying.
“Hey buddy! How’s it going?” Taph turned around to be met by none other than the fedora wearing gambler himself.
“Fine for now, planning on looking around.” Taph signed in reply, only to realize that Chance probably didn't understand any of that.
Before he could do anything else, a few signs popped up over his head.
“👍 💭👀🔄”
…
“⁉️⁉️⁉️(huh???)”
“Ohhh, that’s good to hear.” Chance replied, a little surprised at the sudden appearance of the symbols in the mute’s chat box.
Taph stared up in confusion, not knowing where or how those emojis formed. It was common knowledge that chat boxes only appeared for those who could talk. Though he didn’t speak at all, so how the heck did the chat message appear over his head?? But who was he to complain about it? As long as it helps him communicate, he doesn't mind.
“So… Wanna team up and find the others? I’m sure Guest or Elliot shouldn’t be far from here.” The gambler adds, starting to flip his coin again like his life depends on it.
“👍(Fine by me.)” Taph signed, “➕ ❓🫵🪙🔁 (Also, why are you flipping that coin?)”
Chance stood there for a bit, taking a few seconds to decode the images.
“Oh! This thing? It’s what I use for my ability. Whether it lands on heads or tails decides if I’ll get a charge for my gun, or… get weakness from it.”
Speaking of ability, Taph rummaged through the pocket on his belt, pulling out two wooden stakes and a translucent wire.
He walked over to one of the entrances of the graveyard, the one facing the bridge and the purple coloured river, and crouched down to behind the wall to jab a peg into the ground. Tying the wire around it before slowly making his way over to the other side of the entrance to secure another peg, tying the string around it too. Trying his best to let the grass hide the sticks in order for the tripwire to be less noticeable.
“🔗🧵➡️🐌🔪(This tripwire should be able to slow the killer down.)” He signed.
He walked over to another entrance, this time the one lined with tombstones towards the left of the altar. Reaching back at his belt, he took out another set of stakes to make another tripwire, only to find out it hadn't been sharpened. Meaning that it couldn’t be used unless he finds something to sharpen it with.
Planning to deal with that issue later, he reached into his pocket again to take out the other useful tool he had, the subspace tripmine.
Knowing of its equally destructive capabilities to the timebomb, he carefully took out a pointed magenta crystal and quickly placed it into the metal frame that contained it. Making sure to not make any sudden movements.
Now with the armed tripmine ready, he carefully threw it towards the entrance with precision. Keeping in mind to stay outside the detonation radius in case the bomb exploded on impact, since the subspace was known to have blown many of his co-workers up before. And he did NOT feel like getting himself or Chance blown up today.
The subspace glowed a bright magenta colour before fading into the grass. Meaning it was ready to activate when someone would step onto it.
Chance just watched as the new survivor worked silently. Setting up tripwires isn’t hard from what he knows, but the way he was handling the weird glowing cube thing and knowing how to properly hide them made it seem so easy, as if he's done the same thing hundreds of times before.
Perhaps he should ask him later about how he learned to do that later…
Looking up toward the river after placing down two of his traps, Taph could see a masked man holding a machete, running straight towards them at full speed.
He gave Chance a few panicked tugs on his sleeve before looking back at the killer to alert him. In which Chance immediately responded to. Running out from the back end of the cemetery and dragging him along.
Jason ran after them, triggering the tripwire while he was at it.
To Taph’s disappointment, the duration of the slowness wasn’t as much as he had anticipated. He was used to people usually tripping and falling over them and needing time to get up. But Jason just simply stumbled over a little before regaining his original speed, and was highlighted with a bright red glow for some weird reason.
Seeing the new survivor slow down a little, possibly from being distracted. Jason wasted no time raising his machete, cutting him swiftly in the chest twice before switching to his chainsaw to land a few more hits. Effectively causing blood to splatter everywhere it tore through flesh. Followed by plunging the chainsaw into the demolitionist and kicking him into the floor. Letting him bleed out as he went in for another slash.
Taph let out a sharp gasp, scrambling back onto his feet. Vision blurring as his eyes watered from pain. He clutched his arm and cloak as a poor way to ease the stinging sensation pulsing from his chest. How’d he survived being stabbed by a chainsaw? He has no clue, and that was the least of his worries. In a panic, he made the quick decision to run back towards the cemetery. The subspace tripmine should be able to deal enough damage to the killer for him to escape.
Jason followed behind him, attempting to slash at the survivor whenever he got close, and ran towards one of the exits of the stone walls. He’d noticed the translucent cube the survivor was running towards. Which let off a soft magenta glo- BOOOOMM1!!!1! (insert tripmine sound)
The deafening shriek of the tripmine could be heard, as well as an explosion that painted the sky with a bright magenta hue. Disorienting Jason.
Though in the process, Taph had also been caught in the blast. Causing his head to spin and vision to become impaired, throwing him off track from where he was headed to. He stumbled around, bumping his face into a wall here and there, before collapsing onto the floor. Not even putting the effort to move anymore.
Hurried footsteps could be heard coming over, alongside indistinct muffles, which were drowned out by an unending ring in his ears that just kept getting louder. His head started to spin, his eyelids felt heavy, closing them as everything started to blur…
…
“...c….n…y..u……..he…r……..e?”
...
“T…ph…..r..y..u….a…..w…ke..?”
His eyelids slowly drifted open, rubbing them to get rid of that horrible ache.
“Taph! Thank goodness you’re awake. You had us worried there.”
Jolting up at the sudden voice, bumping his head onto the cold metal behind him. Not registering who or what the voice came from. Wait- since when was there metal behind him?
“Woah buddy, calm down. The killer’s gone.” another voice called out.
Turning around, there was a solid cylindrical machine that he was leaning onto. Flowing with some kind of red mist as it let off a soft hum, along with letting off a light tingling sensation across his chest. Was the machine always there? He had no clue.
Once his vision cleared. He was met with the presence of two of his fellow survivors staring down at him, Chance and Elliot. Both with concerned or worried looks on their faces, as if he just accidentally blew himself up or something.
Oh right… he just got a chainsaw plunged into him…
And then he got blown up by one of his own tripmines…
…
Now to think of it, for some reason he felt a lot less pain than what he's probably supposed to feel after all that. Aside from the minor headache, which he already had beforehand.
How though..?
-
The logic behind this makes zero sense…