Freddy followed Sophia through the woods. They moved cautiously as they slowly approached the outer edge of the passage realm.
Frankly, he didn't want to follow her, but she clearly knew more than she had shared. He wanted to know what was happening. "Where the hell are you going?" he asked her in an angry whisper.
"The outer edge," she whispered back.
"And what are you gonna do there?"
She didn't look back at him, but she did slow down a bit. "I'm gonna bury myself in the ground."
"What?" he spewed, but—
"Shhh," she hushed him. It was still daytime, so they had a clear view of their surroundings, but she acted as if she was expecting danger to jump at them at any moment.
Anger bubbled in the depths of his gut. With each second that passed, he felt more and more ready to break off and stop following her, but through sheer stubbornness, he kept following her while thinking up ways to convince her to speak.
The outer edge was quite far, and combined with Sophia's sudden hypervigilance, it took them a while to reach her destination. They left the woods and entered a clearing void of all growth, right beside the massive, jagged cliffs surrounding the passage realm's outer perimeter. All that stood below their feet was dead, dry soil.
"All right," she said as she pulled a small knife from her Storage Ring. Then she knelt and dug into the ground, using the dagger as an improvised trowel.
He stood to the side, watching.
Eventually, she paused. She took a deep breath and aggressively rubbed her face. "You think I'm insane, don't you?"
"I know you're insane," he corrected her. "I just want to know what you're hiding," he said, remaining upright as he squinted down at her.
"Are you gonna leave me alone if I tell you?"
"Gladly."
The day suddenly blinked out, and night descended on the realm. Both of them merely glanced at the sky, already used to dealing with this phenomenon, having seen it happen quite a few times.
She suddenly started chuckling. A mixture of laughter and disbelief rang through her body as she looked around. Then tears began streaming down her face. "Why?" she said, gulping and sniffling as she sobbed. "Why did they have to come here?"
Why did who have to come here?
He watched the woman sob her heart out in the darkness for a long few minutes. Then she picked up the dagger and continued digging. But it didn't take long for her to stop again. "You asked me about who I was." She turned to face him. "Do you really want to know?"
"Is it related to what's happening?"
She nodded.
"Is knowing going to help me?"
She paused at that. "At the very least... you'll know just how bad the situation really is."
The darkness around them suddenly felt stifling, and Freddy felt a chill move down his spine. He took a breath to calm himself. "Tell me. I want to know."
"I..." she started, swallowing heavily. "I grew up in a cult."
His eyebrows jumped. That was... not exactly what he was expecting to hear. It suddenly clicked. "They're the ones behind this attack."
She reluctantly nodded. "Yes. I recognize that barrier."
He felt a bit of anger bubble in the back of his mind. "Did you know that they would do this?"
She stared at the ground for a few seconds. "No," she said. "If I had known they would come here, I... I..."
A few long moments of silence passed. Then he sighed and walked over, kneeling beside her as he took out his own hunting knife and started digging.
"What are you doing?" she asked him.
"What does it look like?" he asked. "I'm digging a hole to bury myself."
She stared at him, her mouth quivering slightly. "Do you—"
"Do I what!?" he spat angrily. "Do I trust you? No, I don't fucking trust you!" He angrily threw the dagger into the ground, where it bounced off and skittered across the dry soil. "Give me one goddamn reason to believe you aren't a part of whatever is happening."
"I don't want to be," she said, her expression hard to see in the dark. "I would rather be anywhere else right now, Liam." A shiver crawled into her voice. "I would rather be dead."
He froze at those words, and he felt his anger deflate slightly. He was scared. He was so damn scared.
But... so was she.
He could tell better than anyone just how dense the terror in those words was.
As he looked upon her, the weight of how foreign she was was like a wet blanket pressing against his back. This was a stranger. Someone he truly knew nothing about.
Why would he hear her out? Why would he give her a chance? He'd done it once already, which might have very well been the exact reason he was in this situation to begin with.
Maybe if I had killed her back then... he thought, remembering the moment after she dragged him out of the ravine. Just adding a Flowing Strike to his punch would have been enough.
Darkness descended on him, and he found himself biting the inside of his cheek.
"Oh, that?" she asked, raising her hand to admire the piece of magical jewelry. "I found it on a corpse buried under a pile of rubble."
He smirked at that. "It's not finders keepers around here, Sophia," he teased. "You're supposed to report that."
She raised an eyebrow at him. "Well, where did you get yours?" she asked.
"Hey, I earned mine fair and square!"
She snorted and shook her head.
Honestly, he didn't know what to say.
At some point, he had started actually listening to her explanation, and... What reason would she have to spout such convoluted lies?
In many ways, she had gone through something surprisingly similar to what he had. He couldn't bring himself to cast any more doubt on her story, even if his pride made it impossible to admit it.
The moments of silence stretched on.
She waited anxiously, rubbing her shoulder as she looked away, looking so frail and vulnerable in the darkness. He could see her regret like a sticky ooze slathered over her skin. What could she be feeling at that moment? Waiting beside him, hiding from her brethren she had so selfishly betrayed?
At that moment, he felt burdened by her conflict. Would she go back to them if she encountered them? He remembered what she said about the cult's message. Even if it didn't justify their actions, that message couldn't possibly be more correct.
If anything...
He wanted to be an exception to that rule.
"My real name is Freddy," he said suddenly, surprising himself. His throat tightened.
Sophia looked at him in surprise.
A voice in the back of his mind screamed at him to keep his mouth shut, but he couldn't resist the compulsion to speak.
Then, starting from his childhood, he told her his story. Granted, he kept many details private. He didn't share his real surname, he didn't share where he had lived, he didn't specify Madame's identity or why she took him under her wing, he didn't tell her about Bloodshed, he didn't tell why the Kraven Clan had been after him, and he said nothing about the fight between him and the patriarch. But he shared everything else.
By the end, he felt... good—a lot better than he had for a while—as if a massive boulder had rolled off his back. He didn't trust her enough to say everything—hell, he didn't trust her enough to say as much as he had—but he had told her anyway. He had shared his tale with another person.
And he felt... warmer. Just a bit less alone in this cold, uncaring world. As he stared into her eyes, seeing that same hole again, the same pain that resonated with his own, he felt the shell of distrust crack ever so slightly.
Was she keeping some details of her tale hidden, just as he was? Maybe. But he knew. At least in broad strokes, her story was genuine. Because within her eyes, he could see not sympathy—but empathy. She understood.
"Wow," she said. "When did this turn into a tragic backstory dick-measuring championship?"
He laughed at that. "I don't know... but I think I win."
She chuckled at that, shaking her head. "Nah. Mine's sadder."
"Nuh-uh," he responded childishly.
He rubbed the back of his neck as he looked away. "Sorry," he said, feeling his pride tearing apart in the wake of that word coming out of his mouth. So he backtracked a little bit. "I still think you're a fucking dumbass, and I'll never forget the fact that you nearly killed me, but—"
She aggressively rolled her eyes and laughed. "You'll never let go of that, will you?"
He chuckled. "Save my life once or twice, and I'll think about it." He smiled broadly at her.
She shook her head and breathed out, relaxing slightly.
"Anyway." He clapped. "What do you want to do now?"
"What do you mean?"
"What I mean is—are we sticking to this zombie cosplay plan, or...?"
She looked at the ground. "I don't know..." she said, sighing deeply. "To be honest, the odds of it working are... not as high as I'd like. We'll have to get pretty damn lucky."
"Are our chances better if we confront them?"
"Hell no," she said, shaking her head and staring at him seriously. "Don't take this the wrong way, but you're not qualified to face these people."
"Are you saying that because you really think we can't do it or because you are afraid to face them?" he asked. "And I don't mean afraid to fight them, but—"
"I get it," Sophia said, hesitating. "And I don't know." Her shoulders slumped a bit.
"Would you go back to them if you could?" he asked without even a hint of judgment in his voice. "Honestly... I kind of agree with their message. Maybe if we beg on our knees, they'd take us in?" he suggested with a sly grin, but—
"No," she said. "They aren't big on forgiveness and second chances. They wouldn't be doing this if that were the case."
"Yeah. I guess that tracks." He paused momentarily, then his eyes slid down to the ground. "What if I were to tell you that I might have a way to fight them anyway?" he suggested cautiously.
She glanced at him with a raised eyebrow. "I don't know what you're aiming at, but it will have to be something huge." She shifted a bit as if recollecting a painful memory. "They don't hesitate to utilize illegal talents, and they have no qualms about using them in fucked-up ways. What do you have?"
He couldn't stop a small smile from appearing on his face.
It was time to introduce her to his favorite little skeleton.