I roar as the meat hook slowly pushes through my arm. I want to lash out, to stab, to burn, to tear apart the thing doing this to me. To torture it with the same malicious methodology it has inflicted upon me over the years. I feel my skin parting, cut with some unseen blade. The Entity was very displeased today. Four had escaped me in the swamp with that old paddle steamer. They had broken all my traps, leaving the dismantled pieces in the mud. Whenever I chased one of them down another was there to shine an unnaturally bright light in my face. Worst of all, after the old boats horn echoed into the night, sending the crows flying into the air, they stayed to mock me. All at the gate, goading me, waving me forward, crouching and standing in some ridiculous dance clearly meant to be insulting. I seethe with rage powerless to stop the Entity as it...encourages me to do better next time.

I take my bear traps and put them together, but this time I add 4 springs to each to make the trap harder to get out of. I won’t let anyone escape this time. When I’m finished I shove as many as I can into a bag I stitched together myself. It was a patchwork job, taking large pieces of skin from my victims and sewing them together. Last I looked the at the collection of items I have amassed. Photos, scraps of medical records, bottles of strange liquid that could thicken or lessen the fog that perpetually blankets this place. I reach down and grab a wooden bauble and throw it into the fire. The flames lap up the offering quickly, consuming it greedily not even leaving ashes behind. The Entity is calling on me once again, eager for sacrifice. I put on my mask and bag, grab a third trap from my work bench and reach for my hatchet but pause, hand hovering above it. Instead I grab the handle of the machete I stabbed into the wall and yank it free. I hear the whispers immediately "anoyk yeqkany'ye hvay'k l'gnoo eydokl'x : sekall'o ammk'ix"

I breath in the familiar scent of the estate, home. I can see the storehouse in the distance, and as I look more closely I can see my traps. Despite distance or obstructions I can make out the outline of each trap scattered around the property. I can also see the generators scattered around. The survivors will have to repair them before they could escape. I’d have to put a stop to that. Behind me was a shack. The ramshackle building wasn’t part of estate. This building shows up wherever I go, superimposed on reality by the Entity. I take the trap in my hand and set it at the corner of the doorway next to a pallet leaning against the opening. The wood pile there camouflages the open mouth of the trap. The next I set under the outside of the window in the tall grass. The third also went outside, against the wall to the left of the second door into the shack. Inside the shack was the basement where there were 4 hooks, a shrine dedicated to the entity. 4 hooks, 4 survivors. That was the ritual.

I walk toward the nearest generator, walking fast, my enormous stride eating ground at a tremendous pace. It is silent and cold like the surroundings. I see a totem in the corner but beyond it behind the wall I see a bear trap. I crouch and pick it up and turn my attention to the generator, eager to find the sacrifices. Patrolling the gennys brings me to the storehouse. I hear it chugging as if trying to start but nothing else. I take a quick look around, making sure no one was around and place a bear trap in a doorway overgrown with grass and pick up another laying near the generator. I give the machine a mighty kick which sends sparks flying and silences the sputtering piston. I leave through the window, using my long legs to simply step out over the wall into the night. Before I go I set the trap just outside the window.

One of the gens come to life, lights coming on and illuminating the area around it. By the time I get there, they would already be long gone. Another turns on, drawing my attention. This one is much closer and I know the layout of my estate. They will have to go around the dilapidated water tower so would have to go left or right. I choose left and catch a glimpse of scratch marks indicating that someone had been here just a moment ago. I follow the trail, a predator after it’s prey. They don’t bother with stealth, instead running with all their might toward safety. They break away but can’t keep up the pace forever and are soon exhausted, but they continue to run but now I’m gaining. I grip the machete tight in my hand and raise it up lunging forward to bring it down on them. They look behind them in the last moment and dodge to the side, the blade cutting through the air with a whoosh. I look around me, seeing where they went then, snap. Their scream brings a wicked smile out of me as i turn to the storehouse window. I walked up to a red headed girl wearing a hoody, sweatpants and a jogging headband. Running was obviously her forte, however this was my land. I reached down and grabbed her, pulling her from the trap. As I did I glanced into the window to see a black woman fixing the generator inside. Our eyes met, the fear of my very presence making her hand slip and causing an explosion.

I carried the redhead straight to the basement. She struggled with all her might but I was holding her with an iron grip. My eagerness to get her on a hook made me move faster, I even skipped the steps and dropping right down the bottom of the flight stairs. The basement was dark, with lockers on the walls with the stairs the only way in or out. I lifted the girl up and impaled her on the hook much like the Entity had done to me. Her screams echoed throughout the estate. Shut up and bleed. I turned my back to her and went up the steps, eager for the next victim.

I picked up the trap that caught the runner and stepped through the window of the storehouse to be greeted with another explosion from the gen. All 4 pistons were pumping but it wasn’t fully operational yet. The black woman saw me and frantically tried to finish. Glancing from me to the part she was working on in rapid succession she managed to turn it on just as the machete came down on her. She managed to avoid having her head cleaved but took a massive blow to the shoulder which cut deep. She ran toward my trap and I smiled gleefully but as i turned the corner between shelves looking to heard her toward the door she dropped one of those damn pallets on me. My foot came down with all my might and reduced the wood to splinters in meer moments. I followed her trail she left behind her as she ran, hunting her like an animal. I suddenly sensed the Entities displeasure as the redhead was pulled off the hook.

I left the black woman to heal her own wounds as I rushed toward the shack. I saw the redhead run out the back and as I stepped inside to go after her a man in a tuxedo hiding in the corner dropped a pallet on me. Staggering backward I glared daggers at him. That stupid squatting taunt. With brutal strength I smashed the pallet and watched him vault out the window. Snap. I was going to enjoy this. I stepped around the building where the man with salt and pepper hair struggled to free himself. He gave a nervous chuckle and pointed to me with both fingers, thumbs raised up. I whisked down to the basement, having a special spot for him in mind. I put him on the back hook, farthest from the stairs. Fuck. Your. Finger. Guns! I slashed him with the machete 4 times while he cried out in pain, hanging helplessly on the hook. The last generator was complete. Damnit. I went up stairs and reset the trap, this time on the inside of the window and repositioned the one around back to right in the middle of the doorway.

It didn’t take long before the other survivors came to see if they could get their friend. They let themselves be seen and ran when i took a step toward them. I feint a chase before doubling back and I see the signs of a sacrifice  all over the building. I rush in, jumping down the steps again and come up behind the red head just as she is is lifting that taunting gambler off the hook. I grab her and yank her off, and put her on a hook next to his. The entity is pleased to have her back and it’s spider like appendages materialize all around her trying to claim it’s sacrifice. Upstairs I see a mop of blonde hair peeking over the window sill and the black woman, waiting against the wall, looking to drop in behind me and save the people below. That plan shot, she bolts from the shack and gets her leg caught in the bear trap hiding in the wood pile. She screams in pain and falls to the floor. I pretend not to see the blond e, just like she doesn’t see the bear trap on the other side of the window. I pluck up the black woman and bare my teeth in satisfaction when I hear the blond get caught as well. On my way in I casually slash the blonde sending her sprawling to the floor in a puddle of her own blood. Mortally wounded she crawls, trying to get as much distance from me as possible as I put her ally on a hook down stairs. I get the honor of seeing the Entity impale the redhead, it’s sharp appendages piercing her body from every direction before dragging her into the unknown in the sky. The woman on my shoulder had given up the struggle, resigned to her fate. That didn’t keep her from screaming as I put her on a hook next to the now struggling gambler. He probably thought he could get a lucky break and unhook himself but in the end it only hastened his end.

Leaving them behind I search for the blonde. You wouldn’t think she had gotten far crawling like that. I eventually find her and pick her up. She is limp on my shoulder and I figure she was resigned to her fate as well. Suddenly a sharp pain in my side makes me drop her. I reach back and pull out a shard of glass from my flesh. I’m going gut this bitch and let her bleed out. I catch sight of her as she runs off and i follow hot on her heels.  She is desperate, dropping every pallet down between herself and I, but the trail of blood she leaves behind makes it impossible for her to lose me. I see where she is headed, the switch is already lit up, the door open. No. No no no. My lust for blood gives me an extra boost of speed. She crosses the threshold to the gate, can see the safety of her campfire, and feels the machete cut into her back. I clean the blade on my arm as she desperately crawls for safety, to cross that border the entity won’t allow me to follow. I pick her up and carry her to a hook outside. As I get ready to sacrifice her the Entity speaks to me. “You worked well, the last one is yours.” That’s right, the memento mori I had burnt as an offering. The 3rd sacrifice was being claimed now so I let the blond girl fall from my shoulder. She landed on the ground hard. She look up at me confused before her eyes widened in horror as the moonlight gave her a glimpse of the grin through my mask.