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“No no no no nonono fuck-“
Waking up in an unfamiliar location with no recent memories was, unfortunately, not the biggest shock in the world for Tim. Not after all he’d been through. However there were a few key differences this time around that had left him reeling.
Tim was used to waking up in decrepit old Rosswood Hospital, but this was something else. Maybe a school, or an old plantation home, a mansion… dusty and dingy, creaking in ways he wasn’t sure was just the foundation settling. It didn’t seem like he’d lived there long- if he had it was on meager means. A small, uncomfortable bed; considerably neat in the aging room. That was all the room had, save for scattered empty pill bottles and a few tapes. Jay’s camera… it was still attached to his chest, little red light blinking on.
He moved about the empty room in frantic circles, throwing open the closet t-oh. Boxes and boxes of hundreds of tapes. . . How long had he been here?? He remembered driving off after saying his goodbyes to Jessica, but now?? This many tapes?? God, how many hours was that… years, surely. Two? Three?
Tim couldn’t bring himself to watch any of them right now. Eying the light creeping out from under the door, he reluctantly pulled the white mask he detested so much back over his face and ventured out in search of answers. What he wasn’t expecting was other people, if you could call most of them people, but whatever they were they all regarded him with terrifying familiarity. Some happy to see him, for reasons he couldn’t fathom- some simply nodding in acknowledgment as he passed. He was almost grateful then for the mask, concealing his surely visibly distress and disgust.
The man stopped short in the entry way to some kind of large foyer, the overpowering stench of iron hitting him even through the plastic. Dark eyes settled on the one figure he did know, tan hoodie and frowning mask uncomfortably fresh in his mind. It was him, the one who’d stolen his pills, the one who left Jay to-
Tim’s momentary surge of white-hot rage crashed and cooled into something icy as he noticed what Hoodie was dragging; the mass being yanked up grotesquely over the front stair. He could identify it then as a person, when Hoodie yanked the knees over his shoulders from behind. When the two got closer Tim was struck with the horrific realization that she was dead; she- whoever she’d been, was crushed up and bloody, body flailing and twitching uncomfortably like everything inside the skin was shattered up. She must’ve hit the ground facing up; face rosy and round cheeked staring back at him with vermarine green eyes that Tim found unpleasant, too bright still for someone surely dead. Meanwhile the back of her skull was no longer, caved in and spilling out as she was jostled. Every rough movement had the wooden floors soaking up the red, with copious bits of brain matter unable to follow. Tim felt bile rising to burn the back of his throat; warm, frantic breaths condensing on the inside of the cheap plastic. The body was far too small to be grown, tossed around with careless ease; maybe fifteen, and even less than a decade apart in age he was stricken with how young that really was, how much life was left ahead of-
“Goddamn it, I told you it just makes it harder when you move her!” Another figure had entered the room without anyone’s notice, storming towards the corpse as it was dropped unceremoniously with a sickening splat. He too was masked, though the gray clawed hands suggested something not human.
“Was I supposed to just leave it outside for vultures to pick over? She can afford to lose a little brain, she wasn’t using it for much anyhow.”
The two continued to bicker as the newcomer scooped up the body in a far gentler hold, though it did little to lessen the unnatural limpness. Just like that he hauled her off, like she was the garbage that needed taking out as it started to rot. Tim said nothing, even as his other half threw him a scrutinizing glance. He wandered off down the hall again in a daze, mindlessly turning into doorways in an endless loop until he got deeper and darker, more lost in the building.
This part of it was impossibly more decrepit; peeling walls and creaking floors coated in layers and layers of dust, and he wasn’t quite sure how long he’d been walking for. Hours? It was hard to say, there were no windows for him to look out of.. he stumbled into what might’ve once been a bathroom, clawing at his own face until the mask popped off and he was reminded it was not part of him. It fell somewhere he didn’t quite care to keep track of, calloused fingers prying at the dust-slated mirror until its hinges creaked open. It was a practiced movement, Tim habitually cracking open a bottle and downing whatever was inside.
He shut the cabinet again, handprint in the dust revealing the reflection of those vermarine green eyes staring back at him. Tim scrambled away with such force he tripped back into the space, eyes wide and fixed on what he was sure was just a hallucination. She was so still at first, staring like he hadn’t just flew back at the sight of her. And her clothes- some frilly dress, black and white and lacy like one of those definitely haunted dolls he was forced to organize when he worked at the antique store. It certainly wasn’t what he’d seen that body wearing- he couldn’t exactly recall what it had been; mind focused on more pressing things, but pants surely? And something light enough to see the blood soaked into it. . .
“What are you doing?” She sounded… older that he’d anticipated. And meaner, those eyes turning on him from blank slate to a mixture of scrutiny and confusion. “Those are Hoodie’s pills.” The longer she stared at him, visibly terrified of her and curiously without his mask, her face continued to twist up. “You’re acting- youuuu….” She trailed off, eyes widening impossibly and uncomfortably further.
The girl whipped around to check the hallway, locking the creaking door and advancing on Tim as he pressed himself further against the wall. She either didn’t notice or didn’t care, getting in the man’s face to prod and poke and question him. “You’re acting wrong. So is this just one of your bits to make me fuck up, get a reason to hit me? Or are you finally losing it?” This, again, got no answer from Tim- she was spitting familiar words to someone who had no concept of them, and when the implications started to catch up to him his face made her step back in something like quiet resignation, or maybe shock.
“You woke up.”