letsplayamurder | souls have been lost and the panic grows

[That... that was hell, actually. Wendy didn't like that at all. After the trial she... has to head to the kitchen and hopefully not find clay shit everywhere. She needs to do something to keep things under control. To keep things going.

She's not a great cook but she knows the basics. Meat. Bread. Cheese. Something warm for the belly to drink. She's nervous when she works but she's relentless. There's no asking for help from her as she makes a spread for everyone. Then... she's moving all of it not to the eatery but the bonfire.

Making makeshift tables around it and placing trays of food and drink. Even setting up a chair for Alex a good distance away from the fire but close enough that he can be part of things if he wants to.

Wendy, with her careful writing, writes up some notes and hands them out to everyone if she can find them or if not under their door.

Food at the bonfire and the area around it. Attendance not mandatory but it's probably better for all of us if we stick together. Bring more food and drink if you want.

Wendy

...She can't control other people but she can try to suggest.]

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Yeah. Yeah. I know.

[She thinks back to the trial, what she said then she stares at the ground.]

It’s not the same but that’s why I’m jumpy around horses. Death got hold of one and it almost killed the other two survivors. It… also… got one.

[She swallows hard. He should remember the carousel in one of the pictures.]

[ The fire's close enough, but Alex feels a chill. ]

Fuck, it's using animals now?

It was a white horse… you know. The pale horse for a pale rider.

[She rubs the bridge of her nose.]

The others didn’t involve animals. I don’t know why that one did. Kevin told me later that someone saw some kids with fireworks around it but… a horse?

[ With derision: ] Probably thought it was real damn clever for that one.

A hell of a lot must've been happening... I don't blame you for being scared. Kevin's one of the others? Your...survivors?

Yeah. He was supposed to die right before me—that damn horse kicked him into a barbecue grill.

[…]

It was at the tricentennial anniversary of our town so there were barbecues and reenactment people. [Hence the horse.] Kevin, Amanda, and me. We were the three survivors.

[ Alex winces. He's never been kicked by a horse, but like. That must fucking hurt! ]

...But you saved them. It skipped them.

[Wendy doesn’t speak for a long time. Her eyes staring at Alex’s shoes, his dirty clothes, his stupid sweaty hands.]

…I was going to be next but someone else we saved died instead.

Before... [ His eyes flick in thought. ] But the...the order, it was supposed to... How?

It doesn’t make sense. We thought he was going to kill me so when he died we thought it was fine again.

[She’s just kind of shaking. Ian’s angry, hateful stare coming back to her mind. McKinley. The—

She blinks, gritting her teeth.]

Oh… fuck… that doesn’t make sense.

What? You save the guy, and he—

[ Alex is ready to launch into a furious little grumble, but he sees the way Wendy tenses.

Softly, raspy but gentle: ] Talk through it with me. For him to die...there must've been something that almost killed you. Even if it was just a second before.

A falling sign—he got crushed by it. I was scared of him so I walked faster even if I was helping Kevin walk—

[She paused, the realization making her freeze.]

If he weren’t there I would have died. He—saved me so I got skipped and then it went right back to him!

He...took your place? No... No, that makes sense. Just by savin' him, you changed things. Even if it sounds like he didn't mean to.

[ A little nod. ]

I was worried...for a moment, that it was like me. No one ever...really intervened, for me. We just thought I had a close call, so...we beat it.

It… confused me but… maybe I didn’t read the omens right for my death. I was focused on him that I didn’t even notice the stupid sign above me. That asshole definitely didn’t mean to save me but Death didn’t really care about that.

[Ian, you asshole!]

That’s why you went to Paris… and everyone let down their guard.

[ Alex's shoulders slump a little. ]

Yeah. I guess...I got too good at spotting it.

[ And because he thought it was alright to take a stupid fucking flight, Carter died. ]

...I mixed up a lot. Omens, the list... I...couldn't get the order for awhile. Thought Clear was after me. Death let me wait a...almost a fucking week where I thought I was holding it off. But it was just waiting. Just waiting for me realize. Just so I could struggle.

...Death liked messing with me. It... once nearly trapped Kevin and I in a car just to see me squirm before it killed someone.

[Stupid Arnold's!]

[ His lip curls a little. ]

Sounds like it hasn't become any less of a piece of shit in the last several years.

[ The last several years... There's a question that tickles his mind. One he...doesn't think he wants to know the answer to. He does, and yet, the wrong one would just...

Alex sighs. ]

Yeah, it did shit like that to me too. You know it dropped a whole tree on me to keep me from getting to Clear? Always fond of...the big spectacles.

...I've never seen anything as... vicious as that. As sadistic. We were trapped and... just so the truck could--

[She cuts herself off. She doesn't want to remember. Frankie Cheeks was a sleezy asshole and she didn't particularly feel sorry for him but... that. Was far too cruel.]

...it--what the hell?

[ Alex casts Wendy a sympathetic look. ]

Yeah. That's what it was doin' with me too. I'd just figured out it was after her. It couldn't kill me, that'd be- that'd be defying its new order. So it just...threw whatever it could at me. Made me think I was gonna die, slow me down. Know how easy it is to drown in one inch of muddy water?

[ He shivers. ]

...I thought Death hated me but... He really hates you, Alex.

[She shives just thinking about it.]

I'm really sorry to hear that.

[ He grins, but it's bitter and strained. Dry. ] I couldn't tell from the five star treatment.

All I'm saying is... I understand. I get it. Our circumstances, they may've been different but... I've been right where you have.

souls have been lost and the panic grows

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cw near drowning mention

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