The night before
Watching the younger man leave her house, Marcella thought back to what he had said during dinner. There was no way of knowing the circumstances of his life, but the few facts she was able to glean made her heart clench with worry and grief. It also made her feel all the worse that she had thrown him to the wolves earlier that night. Off he was going to test some theory that might get him killed, and she was too cowardly to say anything about it.
Despite being fully prepared to guiltily spend the night safe and holed up in her house, there was no way she could go through that plan now. While Gabriel was out there willing to put himself in danger's way to get information, she wouldn't be sitting twiddling her thumbs either. Grabbing a warm shawl from the coat rack, she placed it over her shoulders as she stepped outside. A cool breeze made her shiver, but she ignored it. Now wasn't the time to be getting scared of the cold.
Evidently, she wasn't the only one who had a similar idea. Because across the way, the door opened to reveal Joseph, seemingly just as surprised to see her as he jumped a bit when they made eye contact.
"O-oh, Marcella, I wasn't expecting you. I was just-!" Holding up a hand, she interrupts whatever excuse he was going to give, "I know what you were doing. You don't want to feel useless when Gabriel is going out of his way to help us. I get it." She sighs.
"Y-you do?" Joseph stutters out in disbelief.
"Of course. I just can't take seeing someone younger than me doing something like that, as I just stand by and watch. What kind of person would that make me? Maybe I'm too late to make him change his mind, but I can help out in a different way. So let's go find some information, two heads are better than one after all." Marcella smiles.
"Right." Joseph nods with determination and crosses over to stand next to her, "Where do we start?" He asks.
"Well, we haven't gotten a good chance to look at any of the bodies; maybe they have some evidence that someone missed." Marcella answers.
"Oh, I know where they keep the bodies! The church has a graveyard right outside, and apparently, they keep the bodies in a big hole there until they can be placed in coffins and buried." Joseph snaps his fingers in delight.
It was easy enough to find the path leading up to the church, but actually looking at it was already giving her second thoughts. In their rush, they had forgotten to grab a lantern, and the path ahead of them was completely shrouded in darkness. The path was only visible for a couple of feet ahead of them; beyond that, there was no telling where it led.
"M-maybe we should just head back-," "No way!" Marcella shouted loud enough that Joseph startled, jumping into the air for a second.
"We came here to do this, we're going to do this." She says, filled with determination.
"Alright…but can we at least get a lantern?"
"...Yeah."
Back at the forest path with a lantern to light the way, Marcella was feeling a lot more confident. If they were able to get some clues, then the rest of the group would have an easier time. And maybe she was doing this to help her guilt a little…but it didn't matter! After this was over, she would apologize to Gabriel and do whatever she could to help everyone.
The lantern swung out in front of them. Neither had said anything for a while; they had tried to converse at first, but the gloomy aura of the forest dampened any urge they had to continue. There was supposed to be more noise in the forest, right? Even if it was right next to the village, there had to be things like birds and bugs, but it was completely silent.
CRACK!
Marcella and Joseph froze. They glanced at each other and slowly turned around, the lantern turning with them to light up the space behind them. The light climbed higher and higher until…
"Aw, it's just a squirrel." Marcella cooed. Breathing out a sigh of relief, she turned herself back around and saw the lantern reflect light off a pair of shoes.
"Hk!" She let out a strangled gasp, eyes flitting up to see who was standing there and meeting the soft red of Katherine's.
"K-Katherine? H-how, I thought you were…" Joseph stuttered out, cutting himself off before uttering the word.
"Mm, it only looked like I was. I can assure you I am still alive and perfectly healthy." She answers.
"Oh, that's good, is Charles…?" Marcella starts to say, but is soon interrupted by Katherine, "Right here." The man himself walks out of the forest, his eyes the same soft red as Katherine's. Despite her elation at seeing the two once thought dead Players return, Marcella couldn't help but have an odd feeling of dread run through her.
"It was the strangest thing, we went to sleep the night before, and when we woke up, we were on a body pile! It seems nobody checked our pulse." The older man chuckled, seeming to feel a degree of amusement from the situation.
"Why didn't either of you come back then? We were worried about you all day. Dahlia said you died. If you were alive, you should've let us know." Joseph chides the two in frustration.
"We only woke up as the night began; it seems that whatever illness affected us ran its course," Katherine explains. It all made sense, it all sounded fine…and yet, something about it seemed so off. Something about them seemed off. Marcella studied their appearances; they looked the same as ever. Katherine, with her strong build and stern face, and Charles, with his wrinkles and kind expression. And of course, their vivid red…eyes…wait. Her eyes flick up above their heads, the bright, floating letters that were once there were now suspiciously absent.
"Well, it's nice to know that the two of you are still here. But Joseph and I were just going, we'll see you both back in the village." Marcella aims for a quick goodbye, grabbing onto Joseph's hand and squeezing it to keep him from talking.
"Oh, don't be like that. We just recovered from an illness." Charles pouts, moving slightly closer to them.
"We really do have to be going, I'm very sorry to cut this short, but-"
"How about we walk together?" Katherine offers. A coolness spreads throughout Marcella's gut. Something was seriously wrong; they had to get out of there, but Katherine and Charles weren't letting them leave. And she even spotted Charles starting to move around the side to cut them off! There was no time to think; she didn't have time to do anything but push Joseph in front of her and scream,
"Run!"
Abandoning the lantern behind her, she ran as fast as her legs could take her, hiking up the dress as her feet pounded on the ground. Joseph pelted ahead of her, and she could feel the danger at her back steadily growing closer. But there was no chance in hell she would turn her head around to check.
When she felt the hand digging into her shoulder and the hot breath on her neck, all she felt was resentment, though she didn't know who she felt it for. The monster who was ripping a chunk out of her neck as she choked on her own blood? Gabriel, who made her look at her own behavior and try to change it. Or herself, for trying to absolve her own guilt. Really…she could only hope that Joseph made it back.