Photographic Memory

1 vs 1

The match started with Fiona running away from Hastur and Eli from Joseph. Aesop summoned his coffin right away and waited for one of them to get hurt, which was admittedly pretty morbid. Soon, Fiona was injured.

He began his work, bringing color to the pale face with his brushes. The Embalmer's eyes were locked on his masterpiece. A beautiful long ginger braid put to the side so it could show the huge golden earrings and other ornaments of similar materials. The dark make up created a gorgeous contrast on her light skin. After the lipstick, she was ready to be "resurrected". But that was on her hands.

Aesop ran away from his coffin as fast as he could to reach the cipher machine near the rollercoaster and started decoding.

They were at Moonlit River Park, doing their best to stay strong until the end.

It took a while for the siblings to get knocked out, but still not long enough to get one single cipher done. Eli was the first to sit on the rocket chair.

Tracy ran rapidly in Aesop's direction and hid behind the structure of the rollercoaster. "Hey!" She sounded out of breath as she sat down.

"Taking a break?" He spoke without moving his eyes.

"Hell no." The Mechanic laughed while taking out her controller.

One rescuing, one decoding, both on the same spot. Eli was free in less than a minute.

At this point, Fiona had already seated on the rocket chair, resurrected, helped Margaretha decode a cipher and just started to decode their second machine. Aesop and Tracy did the same. Five more to go.

The pair searched for the next cipher together, or at least that's what Aesop thought before he realized they had split up at some point. She was probably in some corner controlling her robot.

His heart began to beat faster. He got a hit from Hastur himself. The attempt to run was useless since his tentacles could reach him easily. Aesop's head was spinning from its impact on the ground. A strong feeling of nauseousness made his vision go black for a second. He looked up with the rest of the strength he had.

Tracy was hidden behind a stall. Apparently, Hastur realized her presence too, because he left the Embalmer alone whimpering on the ground and walked up to her instead. But Aesop saw something more interesting than a survivor hiding in a corner. He saw the dungeon. About thirty meters away from him.

He heard someone being sent back to the manor. Then one more. And one more. He lost count at some point, but it didn't matter anymore. All he wanted was to go back to the manor and be treated. Screw Joseph, he wasn't in the mood for cryptic conversations anymore.

He had been crawling for what felt like years of torture that thankfully were going to end soon enough. Although his chest insisted on telling him otherwise.

He could feel it in his heart. One of the hunters was near him, again. But he refused to stop crawling. It's not fair, I'm so close, not now, please. He felt his mask wet with small tears of despair. It felt like his stomach was spinning around inside of him. He needed to get to the manor fast. And surrendering on his first 8vs2 match wasn't a pleasing option.

"Please."

The heavy breathing behind him made it obvious. It was Joseph.

"Please." He said once more, louder this time, voice cracking.

He heard his metal sword being placed on the ground.

The hunter was picking him up. Aesop felt dizzy, numb, he couldn't think right, wasn't aware of his surroundings. If he were, he would have felt Joseph's trembling hands behind his knees and back. He would have felt a heart beating, one that wasn't his. He would have seen the sad blue eyes examining every visible little bit of his face.

He wasn't tied in balloons, but being carried in a Hunter's arms.

Aesop knew fighting back wasn't worth it, so he let his body go limp. Relaxed on Joseph's arms and leaned his head on the man's chest closing his eyes.

Joseph kneeled near the dungeon. His hand ran down the survivor's nape, putting some hair behind his ears. The gesture shook the fear away as a tickling sensation ran through his body. The type that made him want to chuckle even though he was feeling horribly sick.

The Photographer held Aesop by the arms and helped him get down the passage.

"Joseph! Where the heck are you?!"

Hastur started to think he was alone at the park.

"Go," Joseph said softly. "Hurry up."

"Thank you..." His lips moved, but he wasn't sure if actual words came out of them. Finally, he was swallowed by the darkness and out of there in no time.

Joseph felt a tentacle in his shoulder, like a reassuring hand.

"He managed to get down before I could catch him." He said, picking up his weapon.

"It's alright, you can get him next time."