Chapter Text
Let it be known that Autumn was a perpetual hater.
She hated her name. Why a season, of all things?
She hated college. She hated assignments. She hated homework.
She hated her country. America was certainly not the land of the free as of right now.
She hated the current state of the economy. She hated her landlord.
She hated slaving away at a dead-end white collar job, typing until her hands ached, downing bitter coffee just to stay awake for five more seconds, sitting on her bed budgeting her already insubstantial meals so she would have enough money for rent.
She hated how she had no friends. She hated how her parents pitied her.
She hated herself. Her pathetic, useless self, stuck in a dead end, wasting her youth away, contributing nothing to society, just another cog in the endless, mercilessly churning machine of corporate enslavement.
She hated so intensely it felt like a physical affliction. And she hated that, too.
The only thing she didn’t hate was her games.
They were her way out when it became too hard to live. She would turn her shitty laptop on and just fake it until she made it. Roblox, Minecraft, gacha games, it didn’t matter. She threw herself into whatever she was playing with a reckless abandon, desperate to feel something other than crushing resentment. So when a Roblox game started trending, invading even her carefully curated for you page, she picked it up immediately, eager for something new.
At first glance, Forsaken was just another asymmetrical one-on-eight survive-the-killer game. What caught her attention, though, wasn’t the fan media or the gameplay, but rather one of the characters.
1x1x1x1.
Autumn wasn’t ashamed to admit she was a lore reader. She was among the few people who sat through dialogue and analyzed storylines during their free time. For every game with an in-universe information system, she had collected every letter, every book, every faded tablet and bound scroll, and read them all, clicking through archives in the dead of night as her eyes burned from the strain.
So when she had gone to buy a new survivor after playing a few rounds, the short info section above the stats had immediately caught her eye.
Forsaken’s lore was very interesting. Most of the survivors were iconic Roblox figures, like Builderman, the Last Guest, and Elliot to an extent. It was a refreshing change of pace from the usually OC-dominated casts of choose-your-character games. 007n7 was c00lkid’s dad, a unique spin on the actual truth that brought a smile to her face. It was the killers where things got juicy, though.
Jason Voorhees was nothing new - she’d already done a deep dive on him. But she did appreciate how he was kept silent. John Doe, though, now that was some crazy stuff. Ripped from his life and wife with no warning, stuck being slowly parasitized by some old, corrupt code while it drove him to kill? Man, that had to suck. And c00lkid being unaware he was killing, but rather thinking he was playing tag, his memories erased every time he started to become aware of his bloodied circumstances? Holy hell, the Forsaken devs knew how to fuck shit up.
And then she got to 1x.
It felt like looking in a mirror, almost. Shedletsky’s creation of hatred, born to loath, made to rage, molded by forces outside of their control. Never happy, barely living, chains a constant motif throughout their abilities — shackling their legs during Mass Infection, wound around their arms as they pried their ribs open to Rejuvenate the Rotten.
How could Autumn not favor them?
She poured hours of playtime into the game, saving, scraping, never spending on anything besides 1x. She bought their skins, trained her aim, kept persistently playing them no matter how many rounds she lost. Eventually, things turned around for her. She got better. Smarter. More reactive to jukes, more tactical about baiting slashes and blocks, faster at dodging parries and shots. She learned how to predict survivors, downloaded Flow Free to do generators quicker for more malice, and figured out how to loop the most effectively, not only so she could win as a survivor but so she could reverse engineer it for her times as killer. Her win/loss ratios quickly flipped from 1-3 to 3-1.
She even picked up drawing again just so she could do 1x justice. She pushed through anatomy studies by sheer force of will, gritting her teeth as she repeated to herself that it was all so she could make the best drawing of her beloved main.
She slowly improved, first over weeks as she practiced drawing boxes and circles patiently, then rapidly as she began refining her art style, sketching madly every hour of the day, her mechanical pencil continuously clicking, 1x her muse.
Slowly, more and more drawings were pasted onto her walls instead of crumpled and thrown into the trash. It felt like she had reached the final stage of her obsession. Detailed depictions of 1x littered her bedroom. She owned every one of their skins bar the holiday exclusive ones, and won almost all her matches using them. Hell, she kinned them and read fanfiction about them on AO3.
It was getting out of hand, she mused as she booted up her Forsaken private server. Some recurring players she kept beating had demanded rematches, so she had invited them to hop on and face her again.
Upon loading in, she was surprised to see a bright pop-up on her screen, consisting of 1x’s signature neon green and black. There was no X in the top right corner. The pop-up read, “wanna hop on in the REAL deal and pwn some losers? ;)”
The options were “Yes” and “blame john!!”, which didn’t leave her with much of a choice in the matter, so she clicked the blame John option and the pop-up closed itself.
A few moments of inactivity passed, but Autumn knew better than to let her guard down. She had read too many self-insert works to be fooled that easily. Sure enough, her screen glitched out before turning dark, and her whole room dimmed.
BE NOT AFRAID was displayed in white letters on her screen.
“Respectfully, you just broke my laptop. I had my multi-thousand-word essay on that, you know, and it’s due in two days. I’m very afraid for my future.”
YOUR LAPTOP IS NOT BROKEN, came the quick reassurance. I AM MERELY BORROWING THE SCREEN FOR COMMUNICATION.
“Oh,” she breathed out a sigh of relief. “I’m guessing this has something to do with that pop-up I just closed?” She asked, despite already knowing the answer.
DO NOT ASK QUESTIONS YOU DO NOT NEED ANSWERED, came the reply.
“Worth a try,” she shrugged. “So you’re here to offer me payment for incarnating into Forsaken or whatever?”
YES, the being answered. READ THIS CONTRACT.
Sure enough, a paper copy of the contract materialized in front of her. Autumn did read the thing several times, unlike most isekai protagonists, because she wasn’t fucking stupid, and everything checked out. No loopholes, no unspecified conditions, everything from the payment to the hours was outlined in low-quality ink. One hour in Forsaken was two minutes here. Spend thirty-five hours in Forsaken every week to get a fat paycheck that was already processed and exempted from tax. The longer she held the job, the more perks she would receive, like the private server admin panel or her phone. The better she did, the better her pay for that week. She was limited to possessing one specific killer and survivor, although if Forsaken added any more, she could opt to switch to the newest character after the corresponding update had passed.
She would be free to come and go as she pleased. The Specter was not a part of the offer in any way, shape, or form, and in fact, the being cutting her this deal was gunning to piss it off as much as possible. She could request items from Forsaken while in the real world as long as they related to her two chosen characters, like asking for slateskin potions if she chose Noob or a machete if she chose Jason, and they would arrive fully intact and functional. Lastly, if she wanted to request any changes be made to the contract at any point in time, she was allowed to attempt negotiation with her employer.
Nothing was restricting her from acting out of character, improving the survivors’ quality of life, or any of that. She assumed this was because, again, her employer wanted to anger the Specter.
Oh yes, she thought, looking down at the unassuming stapled papers in her lap. This is what I like to see.
Without hesitation, she signed her name off with a flourish, and the contract disappeared in a flash of light.
I LOOK FORWARD TO WORKING WITH YOU, her employer said before their presence withdrew. Instantly, her room brightened, her laptop began working again, and the strange hush that had fallen over the world lifted.
The UI on the left of her screen had shifted upward, and there was now one more button neatly slotted in under settings. It was a simple laptop symbol, and she clicked on it without hesitation. Thirty-five hours in Forsaken was an hour and ten minutes here, and she always had Mondays free.
Another UI appeared, this one a box on their screen divided into two. One side was labeled killer, the other survivor, and both contained dropdown menus beneath the text. In the middle was the submit button.
Immediately, she clicked on the dropdown menu for killers and locked in 1x. Then she looked over to the survivors.
It was pretty hard to choose because she didn’t pay attention to anyone else besides 1x and therefore Shedletsky by association, someone she was not going to touch with a five foot pole due to his close-knit friendship with the other admins, along with his exuberant personality, which would take too much effort to fake. She ended up going with 007n7 because he was isolated and disliked, so nobody would notice if he acted weird for a bit. She felt sorry for him and sort of guilty about her reasons for picking him, but it wasn’t like she would ever possess him when she had the choice of 1x instead, so she got over it soon enough.
Upon clicking submit, the window closed itself. Autumn paused for a moment, confused, before deciding to reopen it again. The two sides of the box were still labeled killer and survivor, but the dropdown menus had been replaced with the names of her chosen characters, complete with themes. 1x’s name was that one specific green glitchy design, and gave off the impression of dripping shadows, much like their twin dæmonshanks. The left part of 007n7’s name was seemingly corrupted by the same texture present on 1x’s name, except colored red to symbolize c00lkid. A small replica of his burger hat hung off the corner of the last seven in his name.
Beneath their names were two pictures of them, a portrait and a full body. These pictures appeared not to be their in-game models, but rather what seemed to be black and white artist’s depictions, drawn with simple graphite, of what they would look like in the Forsaken universe she was going to be entering.
1x was, surprisingly enough, conventionally attractive instead of just a shadowy blob, with high cheekbones, an angular jaw, and a sculpted nose. Their pitch black hair, barely visible if not for the artist texturing it differently, wasn’t overgrown, unlike their Betrayed skin. It was just long enough to brush their shoulders, framing their face artfully, their domino crown sitting lightly among the dark locks. But there was something about their expression that screamed, “I do not want to look like this”. Their portrait was captured from a simple right view, 1x seemingly tilting their head to gaze at the viewer with their glowing eye. Their full body was a simple front view of them in their default idle stance. They were well-built with a narrow waist, obviously fit, and seemed unclothed, but Autumn got the impression that they weren’t naked either. There was a neat note on the side of the full body that read “body is too obscured for details to be observed”, likely referencing their weird glowing effect that seemed to suck in and project light all at once.
007n7 just seemed tired. The artist had taken care to give him a sort of fatigued air. His posture was a tad too slumped, his face too blank, his eyes belying the cloying turmoil underneath. His shoulders were broad, his build nothing to look at, but Autumn could tell he was healthy. He wore the same outfit he did in-game, just as actual clothing rather than colored limbs: a sleeveless blue shirt with a weird-looking PNG of some ambiguous creature and grey pants. Rather than being bald, a few strands of hair peeked out from beneath his burger hat, although the majority of it was kept beneath the bottom bun. 007n7’s portrait was drawn from a left view and showed him tilting his head upwards. A shadow was cast across half of his face, and the lighting in the drawing seemed to bring out the stress lines at the corners of his mouth. His full body was also a front shot, but he was standing almost listlessly in the render, as if he didn’t know what to do with himself. A small sketch of the c00lgui displaying a :P face was drawn beside him, with the caption “he misses that innocent version of his kid every day”.
Done examining the (frankly depressing) drawings, Autumn turned her attention to the real star of the show: two simple buttons beneath the drawings, both labeled “get big money!!". She clicked the one for 1x and pushed her laptop out of the way, putting both arms on the table and laying her head down in them. Just as she scooted a bit closer to the table, a wave of drowsiness overtook her, and she slipped into sleep between one breath and the next.
When she awoke, something was off. She was lying down in a bed, for one. For another, her hair felt much shorter. She sat up and lifted a hand to brush her new bangs out of her face, confused, before faltering at the sight of her hands, a strange effect rippling over her now much more callused palms.
Her surprise quickly turned into excitement when she remembered what she had been doing.
She was 1x! She was actually 1x!
She sprang out of bed and threw open the door in the corner of her room, relieved to discover it was a bathroom. Hurrying over to the mirror, she checked herself out. Or tried to, at least.
Man, the artist wasn’t kidding about that light effect obstructing everything. Autumn could vaguely make out her (or was it ‘their’ now? yeah, she should probably start using 1x’s pronouns) hair if she squinted hard enough, but holy eyestrain, it was a pain to even try.
So they didn’t bother, instead grabbing the hairbrush on the sink counter before brushing their hair. It was a nice break for them to process their situation before having to deal with everything else, and 1x’s hair needed urgent help, as evidenced by the truly baffling amount of knots and tangles they had to work out. By the end, there was an unfortunate amount of shed hair covering their hands, but Autumn was finally satisfied.
Since they didn’t feel the need to go to the bathroom at all, or the presence of any parts that would allow for typical bodily functions, they decided to head out of the bedroom and explore. They made their way out of the bathroom, only pausing for a bit to examine 1x’s room because it was incredibly bare bones, before easing the other door open and gently shutting it behind them.
They were greeted with the sight of a hallway. To the left, two more doors were present, one on each side, before the hall transitioned into an archway. Beyond it, they could hear the ticking of a clock, so they assumed that way was the rest of the living space. To the right, the hallway seemed to stretch infinitely, doors with blank nameplates appearing periodically throughout. It was clear that those rooms were for unreleased killers.
Turning away from the trippy sight, Autumn blinked upon noticing the name on the door in front of them. John Doe was embossed neatly onto the plate, with a plain knocker underneath. Turning around revealed roughly the same thing, the nameplate reading 1x1x1x1 with a knocker underneath as well. Turning to the left, they headed to the second set of doors. Jason, on the same side as John Doe, was also equipped with a plain knocker. c00lkid, the door across from it proclaimed, and the knocker was a drakobloxxer eating its tail.
Wait that’s actually so cute, they internally cooed, staring at the metalwork for a moment more before snapping out of it and heading out into the house.
It was laid out like a typical two-story suburban house, minus the infinitely extending hallway that the staircase led to. The architecture was surprisingly normal, with faded yellow walls giving the place a bit of subtle color, and the doorways and other fixtures were painted white. The floor was oak with a nice finish, and their steps fell solidly on the planks. It was strangely domestic. All that was needed to complete the picture would be a loving partner cooking up some sizzling food and a yawning kid sitting at the kitchen island.
Lo and behold, there was indeed a yawning kid sitting at the kitchen island.
c00lkid blinked once, twice.
“Mister 1x?” His voice was strangely artificial, layers of autotune hiding the harsh whispers echoing his words. But it was still soft, pitched in a way that belied his youth.
“What,” they said flatly, walking over to the fridge. It bothered them, being this curt with a ten-year-old, but 1x wouldn’t have softened their tone for anyone or anything.
c00lkid didn’t seem bothered, though. “Are you gonna cook?”
“Yes,” they replied, browsing to see what they had to work with. They were no culinary genius, their options heavily limited by their lack of money, but they could make a decent meal if need be, years of doing their share of chores ingraining simple cooking into their memory.
“...can I have pancakes?” came the slightly hesitant question.
“Sure,” they agreed easily.
“Yay!” c00lkid cheered, even going so far as throwing his hands up. And Autumn couldn’t help but stare at that childish display of joy.
God, he was so innocent. Just a kid stuck in this hellhole against his will, manipulated and lied to until he believed it was fine. Living in a gilded cell, let out to hunt occasionally, but still caged. Still collared.
Autumn forced themselves to stop staring and instead get all of the ingredients and dishes out. Pancakes were easy, pancakes were good. Focus on making food right now and have an existential crisis about just how scummy the Specter was later.
They made the batter, pouring some syrup in because children deserve sweet things, buttered the pan, and cooked the pancakes one by one, plating them as they finished until there was a decent stack on the plate. They poured some more syrup, sliced off a square of butter and put it on top, and slid the entire thing plus utensils in front of c00lkid, setting the syrup beside the plate in case he wanted more at any point.
“Woahhhh!” was the only response they got before c00lkid dug in, although it wasn’t like they minded. As 1x’s body had no need for food and Autumn didn’t particularly want to eat at that moment, they set the rest of the batter and butter aside along with the pan and cleaned up everything else. When they turned around, c00lkid was just finishing the last pancake.
After a loud swallow, c00lkid sprang from his seat and shot like a rocket towards Autumn, who only managed to catch him thanks to 1x’s muscle memory. Realizing they were holding the kid like that one monkey held Simba, they loosened their grip and were promptly glomped.
“Thank you thank you thank you so much!!!” c00lkid enthusiastically squeezed them multiple times before releasing them from the sudden hug and running out of the house like he was on illicit substances.
Shit, I’ve just given him a sugar rush, Autumn realized.
Oh well, too late for regrets.
They decided to spend their time exploring the house, and upon discovering there was a backyard attached, they switched plans to training.
Could they even use their moves here?
Only one way to find out.
It turns out they could, and there was no cooldown as well, although the attacks seemed entirely incorporeal. A reasonable precaution, otherwise the killers would’ve probably gotten into deadly brawls already out of boredom when they weren’t in rounds, but still, it was annoying not having a way to gauge their power. The other problem was that after they had gotten the hang of activating their abilities, they had no moving targets to aim at.
Of course, that’s when c00lkid showed up again. The child was surprisingly easy to rope into their shenanigans, and seemed awfully trusting of them and their promises that the projectiles were harmless. Did 007n7 never teach him about stranger danger or what? But it seemed their earlier act of service had endeared them to c00lkid, and he still had to burn through his sugar rush, so Autumn wouldn’t look this gift horse too directly in the mouth and would instead focus on getting up to par with the actual 1x.
There was the expected issue of translating video game aiming to real-life actions, but once they had it down, they discovered that they were just as goated as in the real world, although it may be a slightly biased assessment since their test subject was a kid. They almost never missed their shots, and when they did, it was because c00lkid got frustrated and used Walkspeed Override to avoid it.
“No fair!” c00lkid pouted after he was hit square on again, Autumn having predicted his next move and aimed ahead to where he dodged to. “I wanna go too!”
“All you then,” Autumn relented easily enough, and traded places with a noticeably happier c00lkid.
All c00lkid indeed. Pizza Delivery minions swarmed in droves and flocks. Corrupt Nature bricks flew through the air at inhuman speeds. Autumn was pretty sure the killers’ rooms were soundproof, because the absolute din that blanketed the yard was enough to wake the dead.
A soft chime made all activity come to a halt. The minions dissipated, the bricks fell to and then through the ground. Even c00lkid himself slid to a halt, his chase after Autumn temporarily paused in favor of paying attention.
1x1x1x1.
It wasn’t a voice so much as it was a thought imprinted into their minds.
“Aw, why don’t I get to play?” c00lkid wilted before straightening up. “Mister 1x, if you see my dad, tell him I said hi!”
Autumn could do nothing but nod before they were suddenly whisked away to another place. They seemed to be in a dilapidated mansion, everything dark with the absence of light, the shadows stretching greedily, trying to swallow up whatever they could get their hands on.
Upon emerging from the front doors, they paused for a moment. Poison rivers lazily bubbled in their beds, running through the map mostly unhindered, dividing it into segments. A spire loomed beside a formation of walls, a well sitting strangely pristine on top of it. Distantly, through the gloom, they could make out spiked walls arranged in a square, forming what they knew was the graveyard.
Yorick’s Resting Place.
A clock chimes. A sudden ticking begins, counting down the seconds until their defeat. A smile stretches across their face.
This’ll be fun.