Chapter Text
“There are some things that once you’ve lost, you never get back. Innocence is one. Love is another. I guess childhood is a third.”
1x4’s day was going decently, in the way that it could in the purgatory. They woke up first thing and went downstairs to start making breakfast for themselves and the three kids only. Sometimes other killers would ask them to cook for them too, and they would refuse verbally before doing it anyway through their actions. Kids couldn’t cook, but they were still kids, the other killers had no excuses for not cooking for themselves.
They went to cook some eggs for the three brats and some limes for themselves. One of the three came running into the kitchen, of course, Coolkid was this energetic in the morning, or at least that’s what they decided it was. Not that with the forever darkness they could ever tell when it was actually morning.
“Good morning, Mrs. 1x!” the red kid said before jumping onto the counter alone. 1x4 moved a plate of eggs with bacon they had made at the last moment, grunting a morning greeting before continuing to cook. Pretty Princess and Bluudude came not long after, still sleepy. They moved their plates to the table this time, as the two had some manners in confront of Coolkid.
“Thank you, my knight” Pretty Princess bowed to them before starting to eat. Bluudude rolled his eyes and muttered some insults before scarfing his food. Because of this, the two older children started another argument, but 1x4 didn’t hear it, going to nibble their lime in silence, or at least that’s what they wanted, before they were teleported into a round, their lime falling to the floor as the teleport happened.
Of course, the round went by quickly. They were angry about the loss of the lime, so they were more lethal than usual. Normally, after the round they would spawn in their own room, sigh loudly, and wait until Coollkid came inside demanding to play tag or asking them to stop yet another argument between Bluudude and Pretty Princess, something that happened far too often.
Living in the purgatory wasn’t that bad, at least not like at the start. In the rounds, every killer was more blood-hungry and killed every survivor, but when they got back to the cabin they were actually chill. For example, John Doe, back when he could talk and the corruption wasn’t that bad, he wasn’t a bad man to converse with.
At the start, the games were rigid, the survivors scared shitless of the killers as they killed and killed, but now? They had all kind of become chill outside of the rounds. They would hang out together like… friends, if they dared to say that word. Some rapports that were broken before were finally becoming whole again, like Noob and Guest 666, or Azure and the Cultinist.
When they looked at them, they always wondered what would happen if they talked with their creator, Telamon. Would he be guilty? Still the same? Would he see them as a failure? Too many questions they knew they would never see the answer to. They shook their head, pushing the thoughts away, as they needed to check what had happened to the killers’ cabin while they were away, since they were the only sane one keeping things calm.
So when they opened their eye and saw they were in a completely dark space, they were surprised. After so many months in the purgatory, there was never much change other than new faces or maybe new maps, but this? This was something they had never seen.
They walked around, searching for a face, frowning as they thought about how the kids, who they didn’t care about at all, were doing in their absence. They could be with Azure, sure, but that man’s hat was a bitch, and they hated it when it talked to the kids, since it had a fucked-up mouth that never shut up.
The darkness was giving them the creeps. The nothing, no sound, no light, nothing and nothing, was too similar to the cage their creator had put them in before they were moved to the purgatory. Their lips pressed shut as they still tried to walk in a random direction.
They growled, hoping the sound would echo like in an empty room, but it was barely audible. They shook their head as they looked around, freezing as they felt something staring at them without seeing anything. They gripped their swords, but they disappeared like a cloud into nothing, leaving them stunned at the sight.
They spun around fast, seeing a giant eye staring at them from behind. They recognized instantly who it was, the one, the only one, who could pull this stupid trick just to scare them. Of course the Spectre wanted to meet them in person. The fucker. “What now?” they growled, glaring with their only eye. The other one, despite what others might say, was blind, and aside from showing blurs of color and highlighting survivors, it was useless. “Dear toy, it feels bored of its own game, so it will grant you toys some weeks of break.” The eye, or eyes, since somehow there were multiple, tilted like a dog’s head, and 1x4 felt disgust rising in their chest. They scoffed.
“And why would you tell me this?” they asked, venom dripping in their voice. It wasn’t as if they had never been punished by the Spectre before, they weren’t scared anymore. The eyes blinked in different rhythms, overlapping like a grotesque heartbeat. “You sound bitter” the voice slithered, tone mocking. “But bitterness is delicious. You carry it so well.” 1x4 clenched their jaw. “Shut up.”
The Spectre ignored them, lids sliding closed and open in a way that made the darkness itself shiver. “It thought you would like to know. A break is not nothing. A break can be… dangerous.” 1x4’s grip tightened on their useless hands. “Dangerous for who?” The laugh came again, sharper this time, scratching like metal dragged against glass. “For you, toy. Always for you.” They stepped forward, defiant. “If you’re trying to scare me, it’s not working.”
The nearest eye leaned close, so close they could feel the cold air leaking from it against their skin. “Not fear. Amusement. You amuse it, little thing. Always angry, always snarling, but never breaking.” Their lip curled, but they didn’t back away. “Glad to know I’m good entertainment.” The darkness shifted, a ripple spreading beneath their feet as if they stood on water. The eyes all closed at once, then reopened, brighter, wider. “It will give a prize for this, and you will be the one of it.”
1x4 blinked, opening their mouth to snap back, but the moment their blink ended, the world lurched. The cold void vanished. They were standing inside a cabin, one cleaner and larger than their own, the Spectre’s laughter still echoing faintly in their ears. Their body hurted, a lot. It was like something was growing out of their back, a sharp migraine drilling into their skull, and their knees couldn’t take their weight anymore. They collapsed onto a hard surface, breathing heavily, trying not to panic at the sudden pain. They heard gasps and footsteps drawing closer, and for a moment they thought they were back in the killers’ cabin.
They snapped their eye open, ready to curse at whoever was looking at them while they were this weak, only to blink and realize they were in the survivors’ cabin for some strange reason. Their head hurts too much to process things quickly. Noob was holding a little piece of glass, she had probably been doing makeup before they appeared here at random. They caught sight of it before they hissed, their eye widening so much it almost hurt, staring at their reflection. Their cloak felt bigger now, too big, draping over their whole body and hiding everything beneath it.
New wings twitched from their back, wings that once had been cut away and torn from them, while smaller, unfamiliar ones pushed from their head, where scars had once marked what was taken. Their eyes, once red, were now pitch black, empty pools that reflected nothing. Their skin was pale white again, no longer black, while their hair remained the same stark white it had always been. Under the cloak, they realized with a rush of panic, they were completely bare.
Why the fuck were they a kid again?