THE FOLLOWING CONTAINS INTENSE GRAPHIC DEPICTIONS OF ABUSE AND NEGLECT.

--File 053: Game Time--

The video begins in the morning. There is a sense of grim, anxious expectation as Blaine handles the camera. Emma is seated in the center of the room, on the edge of one of the beds; Alex is pacing nervously by the door; Bartosz is standing by the window and occasionally looking out the blinds, deceptively calm as he leans against the wall; Anders is standing close to Emma, concern on his weathered face.

Blaine: "All right. 9:57. It's game time."

Emma: "Recap."

Anders: "The last game you played, we learned that there's some group that orchestrated the death of Grantham's father. We don't know why, although I think we can sort of guess who, and what the outcome is."

Blaine: "We also don't know how Weiss fits into this tale."

Alex: "Or you."

Blaine: "If your convenient amnesia isn't going to offer any actual help, you can sit your ass down and shut the hell up."

Emma: "You two- cool it. We need to focus."

Alex gives Blaine a dark, openly mistrustful look. It's unclear how Blaine responds to this, if at all, because the camera is mostly trained on Emma and the gray game console she is gingerly holding in her hands.

There is a small noise suddenly from the speakers, and Blaine strides over to record the screen flickering to life once more.

Instantly, the graphics display a small figure standing in what appears to be the pixelated depiction of a sidewalk beside a road. The figure is simply clad, but the shapes of the pixel art by the side of the road appears to be depicting snow.

Emma doesn't say anything, navigating the character in one direction down the sidewalk. There is the sound of pixelated snow crunching coming from the speakers as she does this, and after a moment of this, text appears at the bottom of the screen, which Anders reads aloud:

"SHE NEVER GAVE ME ENOUGH TO KEEP WARM."

Blaine: "Neither did my mother, and here I am-"

Alex: "Oh, yeah, just a convicted killer across multiple realities."

Emma: "Alex. Jesus, cool it."

The figure continues on, until Emma reaches a path leading north. Her forward motion is blocked by a pile of snow, so with no other option, Emma turns the character to the north and begins moving forward. The pixel art depicts the front stairs of a house that Emma directs the character up, toward a door. When nothing stops her, she activates the "action" button on the door. At once, there is a small text window that appears across the bottom of the screen, indicating conversation.

HER: "YOU KNOW WHAT YOU HAVE TO DO, DEMON."

ME: "MOM, PLEASE-"

HER: "DO IT. FIND WHAT YOU NEED. I THREW THEM OUT THERE FOR YOU. WHEN YOU'RE CLEAN, YOU CAN COME IN."

Blaine: "'Clean'?"

Emma: "I'm telling you. Serial killers are generally born from suffering."

Alex: "Suffering, huh? That sounds strangely familiar."

Bartosz: "Save it for after the level, Alex. Stop antagonizin' everyone. Emma's life depends on gettin' this right. We'll worry about the rest of the shit later."

Alex: "...Right."

Emma: "Okay, so now I need to find some items. There's a little thing up here, see? I've got to find 5 items."

Blaine: "What's that one?"

Emma: "That looks like... a timer. I need to find the items before the bar runs out."

At the top left corner of the screen, there is a simple 0/5 displayed, indicating 5 items that need to be located. In the top right of the screen, a simple bar has appeared, and the colored portion is slowly draining as time ticks by.

Everyone falls silent as Emma continues to navigate around the screen. She guides the character into the cold snow, and begins meticulously checking everything she can. Under a semi-hidden pile of snow near the house, she finds the first item.

YOU FOUND THE BLONDE WIG.

Anders: "Ah, hell."

Blaine: "What?"

Anders: "I think I know where this is going. And if it's going where I think it's going, we're about to get some answers, Bartosz."

Bartosz: "I'll be sure to alert the press."

Emma continues navigating, and the bar continues to steadily drain. She finds under another snow pile the BLACK SKIRT, and under the front stairs, the SHINY SHOES.

Blaine: "I think I know where this is going, too."

Bartosz: "There was another serial killer whose mother forced him to dress up as a girl. It's... sadly not uncommon."

Emma: "One more item."

Emma backtracks to the front of the house; the timer is now more than halfway depleted. She quickly moves to check a rickety mailbox, and exhales a sigh of relief when the prompt appears.

YOU FOUND THE CUTE SHIRT.

Emma: "Just in time..."

She quickly navigates back to the door and activates it, prompting more text.

HER: "PUT IT ON."

ME: "MOM, PLEASE, I DON'T WANT TO-"

HER: "PUT IT ON, SO HELP ME GOD, I CAN'T FUCKING SEE HIS FACE!"

Emma: "She hated that Jake looked like his father."

Blaine: "So she made him dress up like a girl?"

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

Bartosz: "Lotta sick people out there, kid. You know more'n most, but still not all there is to know about the depravity of humanity."

The screen fades to black momentarily, and when the game reappears, instead of Jake's original avatar, it's now one with a curling blonde wig and a skirt. The door opens, and Emma navigates the character through the door, though the screen now just fades to black and begins displaying text.

"IT WAS MY FAULT THAT MY FATHER DIED. THAT'S WHAT SHE TOLD ME. I SHOULD HAVE DIED IN HIS PLACE, SO SHE COULD STILL HAVE HIM. I FOUND MYSELF WISHING I HAD... BECAUSE SHE WASN'T THE ONLY ONE TORMENTING ME. THE REST OF THE WORLD JUST WANTED ME TO TAKE OUT THE TRASH."

Emma's head tilts somewhat as she reads the last of this text, but the game begins to fade back in. Now, she's Jake Grantham again, but in a different location, and no longer dressed as a girl. At first glance, it appears to be a school ground, and there's other characters facing Emma's player character.

BULLY 1: "YOU'RE SO FUCKING GROSS. YOU SMELL LIKE SHIT ALL THE TIME."

BULLY 2: "DOESN'T YOUR MOM GIVE A SHIT THAT YOU COME TO SCHOOL IN THE SAME FUCKING CLOTHES ALL THE TIME?"

BULLY 3: "YOUR PANTS DON'T EVEN REACH YOUR ANKLES! HAHAHAHA!"

ME: "STOP..."

BULLY 1: "WELL, IF YOUR MOM DON'T WANT YOU, THEN WE CAN JUST TAKE OUT THE TRASH FOR HER!"

Before Emma can mention anything, there trio of boys suddenly surge forward and, before Emma can process, they grab her character. The screen goes black, and there's a nasty noise that emits from the speakers. White letters appear across the black void of the screen, shaking in an odd, jarring fashion.

YOU FAILED. YOU WILL BE PENALIZED.

Again, before anyone can react, there's another piercing shriek from the speakers, and maggots begin wriggling out in torrents. Emma screams as they drop onto her arms and immediately begin scrambling up toward her face- but the screen has already begun to fade back in to the scene, which begins replaying. Blaine instantly thrusts the camera at Anders, who grabs it haphazardly in shock as Blaine lurches forward to start brushing the maggots off of her, even as they continue pouring out, aggressively trying to reach her face.

Blaine: "Fuck, keep playing, keep playing, I got it!"

The camera is being moved around in a fashion that makes it difficult to see what Emma is doing, but it appears that on the second run, in spite of the distraction of the maggots and Blaine trying to keep them from getting to her face, she does the right thing. When the camera is stabilized, her character is moving fast to the south, and the three boys are running after him.

Maggots are still crawling, somehow, out of the speakers of the game, but Emma, stiff and with veins popping in her neck from clenching her teeth, continues running from the bullies. At the last second, as she passes a seemingly innocuous part of the background, she suddenly gasps and jerks Jake Grantham back around toward a collection of dumpsters.

This appears to be the right thing to do. Maggots immediately stop pouring out of the speakers; the camera jitters, and beyond, both Bartosz and Alex are trying to stamp them out in the motel room as Blaine continues keeping the things off of Emma, seemingly hell bent on getting to her and no one else. On the game screen, a cutscene takes over, and Jake's character leaps forward, grabbing something off of the ground and spinning around to throw it into the faces of his attackers.

BULLY 2: "HOLY FUCK- WHAT THE FUCK- WERE THOSE MAGGOTS?!"

BULLY 3: "I'M GONNA THROW UP-"

BULLY 1: "YOU'RE FUCKING DISGUSTING, TRASH!"

Unable to handle the situation, they turn tail and flee, leaving Jake Grantham standing in the midst of the disgusting dumpsters. There are small pixels moving slowly across the ground on the still screen, and the trash is apparently overflowing, despite the number of receptacles.

For several moments, nothing happens, and Emma appears to still be unable to control Jake Grantham. Finally, text appears.

"AND THEN HE APPEARED."

WEISS: "THAT WAS A BRILLIANT MOVE."

Emma: "I fucking knew it."

Blaine: "What?"

Emma: "Weiss just appeared."

Anders: "Is that who that is? This little screen is hard to look at for so long."

There's a new character walking on screen. He's thin, but seemingly tall, matching somewhat the description of the real deal. He walks toward Grantham, who takes a step back.

WEISS: "I'M NOT HERE TO JOIN IN. I'M HERE TO STRIKE A BARGAIN."

ME: "WHAT BARGAIN?"

WEISS: "MUTUAL SURVIVAL. I'VE BEEN WATCHING YOU. I THINK WE ARE ALIKE."

ME: "ALIKE? US? YOU DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT I GO THROUGH."

WEISS: "NO. BUT YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT I GO THROUGH, EITHER."

The screen fades to black, and new text appears.

"I DIDN'T TRUST HIM AT FIRST... UNTIL I SAW. I SAW HOW HIS FAMILY TREATED HIM: THE SACRIFICIAL LAMB. HE KNEW, AND EVENTUALLY, I KNEW THAT HIS FAMILY WAS ONE OF 'THEM'. THE ONES WHO SACRIFICED MY FATHER TO CREATE MY MOTHER.

"HOW LITTLE WE REALLY KNEW."

Nothing appears for several moments, and then a new timer appears, one that, this time, is ticking down from about 24 hours.

Emma: "I feel like that gave us so much and so little."

Alex: "I saw none of what you saw, and I was a little... distracted. God, those fucking things really pop, don't they?"

Bartosz: "Kid, never, ever say that again."

Emma: "We learned a lot from this."

Emma gingerly places the game down on a table at the far end of the room, her hands and arms jittery. She moves to stand next to Blaine, who is watching her carefully; he takes her hand and laces his fingers through hers, and she immediately squeezes his hand, seemingly without thinking.

Emma: "We learned that Grantham's mother abused him. She forced him to dress in a blonde wig and little girls' clothes."

Anders: "By extension, we can also say why he targeted the Lost Girls."

Bartosz: "Thought I'd be happier to have that answer, after all this time."

Anders: "No. Answers just give clarity to the depression."

Emma: "We also learned that Grantham was bullied at school. His mother did not provide enough for him."

Bartosz: "Boo fucking hoo. Cry me a river. I don't feel jack shit for him."

Emma: "At that time, he was just a child, Jakub. If something had been done for him, all of this could have been avoided."

Anders: "Go on with what you were saying, Emma."

Emma: "Right. We learned that this bullying drove him to hide in the dumpsters."

Anders: "How did you know that's where the game wanted you to go?"

Emma: "It kept emphasizing 'taking out the trash'. Everyone thought of him as trash, including his mother. Where else was he going to find safety, but in the disgusting, untouchable zone of the dumpsters?"

Bartosz: "I never was very good at pitying serial killers."

Emma: "On top of that, he met Weiss shortly after the discovery that maggots would keep away his attackers... and Weiss's family was behind what happened to his father. He also said Weiss's family treated him like a 'sacrificial lamb', and that they wanted Grantham's mother to become what she became."

Blaine: "That is a lot of forward planning."

Alex: "Why would they treat Weiss like a sacrificial lamb? For what?"

Emma: "We don't know, and we don't even know what that entails. If they were planning on actually sacrificing him for... something... then that would explain what they were doing."

Blaine: "But Weiss wasn't sacrificed."

Emma: "No. Neither was Grantham, if they were both supposed to be sacrificed."

There's a long moment of silence as all of them think this through.

Alex: "Back when we were at the church... Weiss said something. I remembered it earlier, when Emma mentioned that serial killers are born from suffering."

Blaine raises a single eyebrow, which Alex notices, because he's staring directly at him, rather pointedly.

Alex: "He said that you and he were alike, Blaine. That you were 'born of suffering'. He had a big thing for suffering, didn't he?"

Emma: "You think the cult made it so that both Weiss and Jake would suffer?"

Anders: "That's starting to seem to be the reason."

Bartosz: "Why treat him like a sacrificial lamb?"

Emma: "Because..."

Blaine: "Because Weiss wasn't the intended sacrifice. His family was."

They all turn to look at him in surprise, but Blaine is staring off into though, frowning.

Anders: "How do you figure?"

Blaine: "Think about it. If Weiss's family needed to treat Weiss badly enough to turn him into a murderous psychopath, then they needed to do it with as much intentional direction as possible. You don't tell a family that THEY'RE the sacrifice and they'd better treat their kid like shit."

Bartosz: "Ah. I get it. They told the members of their little cult that their kid was going to be sacrificed, so of course the fuckers were all too happy to play along, never realizin' that they were linin' up their own killer."

Emma: "This is all conjecture. We won't know for another 24 hours."

Anders: "And what happens after that?"

They all turn to look at Alex, who shakes his head, looking dismayed.

Alex: "I'm sorry. All I remember is waking up in the hospital, having that second journal, and... and nothing else."

Several long minutes pass, and then Anders sighs.

Anders: "You want me to turn this off? I think we got what we were going to get."

Blaine: "Yeah. Go ahead, Jim."

Anders fiddles with the camera, swears a few times, and then finally manages to turn it off.

--END TRANSMISSION--