Chapter Text
"What happened to Ze? Chilled, don't tell me... You didn't do this, did you?"
"Hey, Chilled, have you seen Platy—Ze!! Did you... How long has he been dead for?"
"I don't understand. What do you mean you searched him?"
"There's something I have to tell you. It's the reason why I'm here, but I need you to understand one thing too: I need Ze's body."
"You know everything then. About Ze, about Cheesy—"
"I know a way to bring him back."
"About me... Wh-What do you want from me? Why haven't you killed me already?"
"He may not come back the way you remember him though. I don't know what will happen if we revive him, but prepare for the unexpected, okay?"
"I don't know if I should trust you."
"I've already located and turned on the switches needed to power the lab station. All we need to do is get there and use the Lazarus Machine. What?"
"Prove yourself to me. If you are what you say you are, then we're in this together, Chilled. No one else can or will help us. Only kill us. We can't trust anyone."
"Well, yes. I did have someone else in mind I wanted to bring back. I can only do this once and since Cheesy died first I thought I'd try with him, but now that Ze's dead..."
"Do you want to do this?"
Ze woke up dazed and confused and staring at an unfamiliar ceiling. This moment of listening to quiet electric buzzing was interrupted by hissing steam as a door opened and the surface beneath him was pulled, dragging him along with it, until he was met with yet another unfamiliar room. He was content with staying still, wondering how and why he was alive, but a voice called out to him forcing him to turn his head and unintentionally scare whoever disturbed him.
"How are you feeling, Ze? Can you speak? Can you hear us?"
Kara's questions were cautious and Ze didn't fail to notice the crossbow she held in her hand ready with a bolt in it. He glanced quickly at Chilled before making an attempt to speak.
"... I see." Kara's grip on the crossbow didn't loosen, but she pulled out her notebook and wrote down a couple of notes observing her mute teammate. Then she brought out a syringe. "I'm sorry to do this to you just when you woke up, but we need to know if you're on our side or not. It's a truth serum that was made in this lab for unknown reasons. Don't worry though; it's been thoroughly tested as far as I know and you won't feel a thing."
Suddenly, his time was up before he could live again. He watched the syringe draw closer, slow and steady as Kara kept a careful eye on him. He wasn't afraid of needles or syringes or the twinge that came with them, but he shut his eyes anyway. Everything was going to be revealed and he'd have not only betrayed the group but his ex-partner as well.
Kara's hand grabbed his arm. He flinched at her abruptness having prepared for a sensation similar but more restraining, less grasping. When he looked down, he was met with her eyes wide open and blood pouring out of the puncture in the side of her head. As quickly as she had held onto him, her body went limp and she fell to the floor soaking in her own blood. Unable to perform many expressions, Ze stared at Chilled who held a bloodied pickaxe in his hands.
"I didn't want her finding out the truth about you."
"Tha—" He coughed, shaking his head at his broken voice before taking Kara's blood-splotched notebook and pencil and writing, That didn't mean you had to kill her.
"She caught me off-guard. She never told me about the truth serum." Looking genuinely hurt as if he was on the receiving end of the pickaxe, Chilled closed the distance between them and stood over Kara's dead body. He adjusted his grip on the pickaxe in favour of holding Ze's hand. "There are too many secrets between everyone and as much as I would like to learn more about you, I'd rather you tell me of your own volition rather than through some strange substance."
Hearing his honest thoughts, Ze was obliged to try speaking again albeit a little croaky. "Thank you, Chilled. One day I'll tell you everything. More than I already have."
They were due to return to the cabin for warmth, but he believed Chilled's smile would keep him alive just a bit longer. Holding Chilled's hand, he was helped down from what he believed was a mortuary's carrier table and led to the lab's entrance into the freezing snow. The weather had worsened and the small fire that had comfortably kept six people warm before barely did much for the two of them now.
"So what's our plan now?" He asked between chattering teeth. He took a seat on the floor, the rest of the furniture missing and presumably used to fuel the dying fire.
Chilled moved about the cabin at a fast pace, grabbing blankets and the remaining bits of cooked food for him and Ze. "We already called for a rescue team to come pick us up. I don't know if it was that HQ place you guys keep talking about that helped send a rescue team our way since I was out helping fix the console to the radio tower, but Kara confirmed a vehicle would arrive shortly."
"Where will the vehicle be picking us up from?"
"I don't know. She mentioned they would activate a beacon for us to find with our watches, but I don't have a watch and I couldn't get yours to work either." From one of his pockets he pulled out Ze's watch and showed the dead screen. "I've tried everything to turn it on but nothing worked. Maybe it's because it's not my watch?"
Ze took the watch and tried to turn it on too but failed. He threw his head back in resignation. "What do we do, Chilled? We can't possibly check everywhere, can we?"
They sat in silence mulling it over. Ze remembered being able to use the hatches scattered around everywhere, but that was before his death and without his watch he wouldn't be able to use them again. It was likely the rescue vehicles would arrive somewhere on the borders of their marked territory; it was just a matter of where exactly they would come.
"Ze, I have an idea."
"What is it?" Hope had been drained from his body even when Chilled had thought of a plan.
"We split up and go in different directions. I'll go to the north and you go to the south."
"What? Why?!"
"Because there are less wild animals in the south, at least from what I saw when travelling that way." Purposefully avoiding the true intent behind Ze's questions, Chilled continued explaining his plan. "I don't know how much of the area you uncovered while scouting, but there's a couple of places I know where they could potentially pick us up."
"But, Chilled," he protested while watching his friend stand up and move to grab pieces of paper to draw a rough copy of the map outside. On it he indicated familiar landmarks and drew three circles representing the exits: two to the south and one to the north. He even had the gall to draw tiny animals with sharp teeth to scare Ze from travelling the opposite way. "What if they only arrive at one of these three places? What if they don't stay for everyone?"
"Then make them stay. Find a way to keep them there and wait for me."
"And if they arrive in the north?" It wasn't the time for banter but Chilled had started it first with his drawings. Tapping those crude pictures, Ze asked, "What am I going to do about all these animals?"
"I'll meet you halfway or here at the cabin." Chilled's answer came easily and quickly, his tone oozing with confidence. "You have nothing to worry about with me by your side! I'd kill every damn wolf, moose and bear that threatens to kill you again, Ze!"
"Thanks, Chilled, but I don't think the moose will be a problem."
Still harbouring some doubts about this plan, Ze was ready to question Chilled more but he suddenly got up again and lifted Ze up too. "It's probably been half an hour since Kara made that call. I'd say they've arrived now and are waiting for us."
They both took slow steps to the cabin's door. What would meet them on the other side was the early onset for a blizzard and Ze mustered every bit of willpower he had to move away from the tempting fireplace and blankets that called back to him, urging him to stay a few more minutes unto his second death. He could faintly feel the pain from his first death and the shocking screams of Cheesy in his afterlife wandering the snow-ridden terrain; he had been so angry and so upset but most of all, betrayed. Cheesy had been the one to believe in their team the most and, being the youngest member, held a lot of trust in his older peers. Thinking how he cried ethereal tears made Ze's chest tighten and he struggled to keep his composure. "So this is it? We're really going to split up?"
Craning his head to look up at the man who stood taller than him, he found himself gazing at his smile before being smothered into his chest. It was a cold embrace. He held on tight regardless and when they parted he could only stare into Chilled's tired, smiling face with worried eyes. "It'll be okay. Just find the exit and survive. I'll meet with you shortly after."
"Okay, fine. But if there's any chance for you to escape and I'm too far away to make it, you have to leave. Got it? You need to leave."
"I got it, I got it." Ze glared but was met with a kiss to his forehead bringing on a sudden rush of heat he didn't think he'd find within the cabin. Chilled matched him with his own blushing cheeks. "That's a small parting gift to help you on your way. You need all the warmth you can get."
"You idiot."
Another quick exchange of kisses and the duo left the cabin heading in opposite directions. With not a moment of time to lose, Ze fought his way through the ever increasing snow and didn't dare glance back to watch Chilled's disappearing figure. Ever since his death, his goal had changed and had changed for the better: find the exit and survive together. With everyone.
Perhaps 'everyone' was an exaggeration on all who were left. If his sources were to be believed, then the last two remaining players (aside from him and Chilled) of this hellish game have gone missing. Who knew if they had survived? Maybe they had suffered the same fate he had, bitten and mauled to death by wild animals. Maybe they froze to death within a bunker or trapped beneath the snow. Who really knows?
He didn't think about the peculiarity of his watch. How previously all his personal belongings went missing (except for his contract which he hid well on his person before his death), but now his watch suddenly appears in Chilled's hands. If he had, would he have found out about the radio hidden inside Chilled's jacket too? Would he have learned of the exchanges made between Chilled and Courtilly, about their plan to meet in the north to prepare for a final fight against those who were left? Maybe if he still had the radio on him he would have heard the scuffle of a fight followed by a loud bang, not knowing that the sounds would seal Courtilly's fate.
But Ze was blissfully oblivious to all of this. Too focussed on the objective at hand, he ploughed his way through the snow in search of freedom for him and Chilled. Unbeknownst to him, a wild animal unaccounted for on his map stalked him. Yet not once did he turn around to see the person tailing him.
Not once did he see their crazed smile as he drew closer to the first evacuation point, finding it empty, then left for the second exit.
The gun they held was loaded and the bottles they carelessly tossed aside left a trail, each one emptied of alcohol.
They just watched and waited... and waited... until at last...
"Let's do this, Ze. One final tango."
BANG