Day 7, still in the cabins.

It was 1x1x1x1's turn again. He did not get shoved into the fireplace again, unfortunately.

Instead, he caught Taph putting the box back in front of the door to the cabin where Jason was being held ransom. At that point, it was just more convenient to not have to deal with another killer, so they decided they were going to keep him in there. But they couldn't have him starve! He would just die and respawn and be a problem again. So instead of all that, they gave him food every day, and left. It's not like he ever took that hockey mask off, but when they came back, the food was gone, so they assumed he ate it.

There were multiple food hoards in the sleeping cabins, with refrigerators that stored so many canned beans no one bothered to count them.

That's usually what they had for dinner, if they decided to eat anything before they slept. It had only run out once before, and the next day it was refilled. At least they had that.

1x1x1x1, of course, had no care in the slightest what Taph did in his free time. He just wanted to get to slicing up the cabin.

So he did that.

Without killing anyone else.

That did not last long, of course. It's not like he wouldn't kill, he just wouldn't do so if left unprovoked. Killing was not currently the objective; it would be what most people would call a big fat waste of time.

However, one of Builderman's sentries went off at him, and so, assuming he was now part of a fight, went for Taph.

Or at least he WOULD'VE if he were quicker to pick himself up after tripping over a tripwire.

Damned things...

Shedletsky and Dusekkar heard the commotion, since they were figuring out ways to barricade the entrance of the cabin from the inside, so they got out. Builderman was doing the same, but he was figuring that out for the other sleeping cabins, which were a lot farther from the main one. Consequently, he had no clue what was going on.

1x1x1x1 was, by no means, bad at fighting. In fact, he had quite a knack for waiting around for a whole round, not attacking anyone, and then obliterating the whole team in the last 20 seconds because he found it entertaining. However, having two sentinels and a support after him did not make his job easier.

In fact, he couldn't even get up, because Shedletsky already swung at him with his sword the second he got up, and right after, he was shoved down again.

He thought, for a second, about the fire again.

Then he flipped over on his side and slashed Shedletsky.

In response, Dusekkar spun his staff and cast slowness onto 1x1x1x1. What is he, a punching bag?

...Well, he would be if Guest 1337 were here.

And Taph was placing explosives and tripwires, because of course he was.

So 1x1x1x1 sent out a mass infection that hit both Taph and Dusekkar, meanwhile Shedletsky dodged it. He wished it had hit him too, just so he could see his stupid pained expression. Whatever, he could target him later. He couldn't wait... Which meant he had to speed up with getting rid of the other two.

They weren't stupid, of course, 1x1x1x1 knew that. So if he wanted to take them out quickly, he'd have to do some trickery.

Said trickery... Involved a simple slash at Taph, before entangling Dusekkar, and then 'accidentally' setting off a subspace tripmine.

He stayed in place for a bit longer than the effects should've lasted for, and predictably, Dusekkar lifted and spun his staff, and in that time, 1x1x1x1 dropped the act and rushed forwards to slash him the second he saw him lift his hand. Another slash'll do it, alongside the poisoning.

Dusekkar, of course, was being annoying, and had 1x1x1x1 to chase him for a bit, but at that point he simply used mass infection, which got him down.

Now just for the flightless, voiceless bird and the bane of his existance. Easy, whatever.

Except, Shedletsky and Taph got him stunned again, and they put a crate on top of him.

Now, he WOULD simply wriggle his way out, but everything below his chest was getting crushed by the ridiculously large wooden crate.

And Shedletsky held his arms down with a wooden plank, before taking both his swords.

That little...

Since 1x1x1x1 was a manifestation of feelings, he couldn't go unconscious. And no, he couldn't sleep. Which meant that moving him would be a struggle, since if they moved the crate too much, he would simply get back up and start attacking them again.

The rest of his thoughts were an incomprehensible swirl of hate and plotting how to kill the two.

Well, at least he got one down.

Anyways, to get him out of the way, Taph and Shedletsky put him in a conveniently big bag. It was a bit difficult, especially considering his violent thrashing the whole time, but they did get him in, eventually, tying up the opening of the bag with the bag's drawstrings and rope found in one of the storage cabins.

Whenever 1x1x1x1 managed to fall out of their grasp, they just stomped on him - or the opening of the bag - to make it so he couldn't get out in the time they got him back up.

...Huh, kidnapping turned out to be very easy.

Now to figure out where to put him...

...

Turns out, Jason was no liar.

Dusekkar woke up slightly dazed in a white plain. Or at least, it was white around him. Beyond that, it was a kind of gray - it seemed he was the only light source.

He reached for one of the pouches attached to his utility belt. He was forgetful sometimes, so he had a small notebook on him most of the time with things he had to remember, in different sections. One of these sections was dedicated to different spells and tricks that he found useful.

And it wasn't there.

Seriously?

He left it in his room again, didn't he...

Not very convenient, but oh well. He could manage.

Originally, he was going to cast something to light up his staff as another light source, but he forgot the incantation, so instead he set his staff on fire. Not actual fire, it was supported by magic. If it were a real fire, it would die from the lack of heat and fuel. At least there seemed to be oxygen there, wherever 'there' was.

After looking and wandering around a bit, he spotted a door. It was slightly bashed in at the bottom, as if someone had been kicking it over and over until it broke. The door was also forced slightly open, like it was unable to fully close.

Due to a lack of choice, curiosity, confusion and boredom, Dusekkar opened the door, Which ended up leading to a weird room that looked like the lobby, but off.

First of all, the people in the cabin, such as the pizza delivery guy, the cat, Greg and Carl's faces were obscured. They looked normal if you paid no mind, but if you tried to focus on them...

...You couldn't. They would jitter about their head in jagged lines and shift positions and shape. Which was unnerving, to say the least.

So he didn't pay mind to it.

The whole layout of the place looked off as well. The fire in the fireplace burned maybe a bit too bright, the carpeting was off-colour, the floorboards didn't line up, the lights weren't there yet there was light, the stairs didn't match and all the tables in the other room looked like they were moving.

Actually, everything was moving.

That was when Dusekkar realised he was really dizzy, and weak, and got hit with a headache. So that WASN'T his awful depth perception, alright.

He just tried to brace himself until it was over, and when he was less dizzy, he tried going back out the door. What WAS that white space, anyway?

Spoiler alert; he wouldn't find out, because when he stepped outside, he was back outside the cabin again, where he saw Taph and Shedletsky using another crate to block off a different cabin. That was one of the spare ones, he thought.

For some reason, outside had the same sickly white tint as the inside. He probably wasn't fully with his senses yet, but that wasn't something he should worry about yet. It would probably be gone by morning time. It didn't seem like it was the next day yet, maybe he got lucky and respawned earlier!

And he was more excited to be back with his friends so soon anyways. So of course, the first thing he did was float over to them to greet them. The fact that they were there must have meant that they hadn't gotten killed by 1x1x1x1, which was something to be happy about!

"I greet you two, apologies for my earlier quick adieu."

They didn't seem to have heard him. So he got closer to them, and made a quick wave.

"-Greetings!"

...Still no response.

Are they ignoring him?

No, they must be doing something, then. He couldn't tell what they were doing, but they were definitely focused enough on something that they simply hadn't noticed he was there.

It's not like they were just ignoring him out of spite, right? they had no motive to.

He could help! So he attempted to tap Taph on the shoulder to get his attention.

But his hand went right through.

He immediately pulled his hand back in confusion and mild embarrassment. Maybe he REALLY wasn't with his senses. But it's not like it was the first time it had happened, sometimes in a daze if he held onto something it felt like it stretched outwards in the direction he pulled it, but looking back, his hand hadn't moved at all, and neither had the object. So that was probably what happened, and he was probably just a little bit sickly.

So he reached out again.

And the same thing happened.

He waved his arm about, and it didn't seem to have any effect whatsoever on the two.

Maybe he's not even really there...? Is this some kind of illusion?

Could he touch objects?

He could not, actually. He could touch the door earlier, when he opened it, but he couldn't touch anything.

In fact, he couldn't even touch the floor. His hands went through that too - which was very disorienting, and made his body run cold, like a disease that quickly spread from his chest and arm to the rest of his body in under a second.

There was always something or other to be scared of, for some reason.

But it's not like he would have noticed unless he tried, with him floating around instead of walking.

He got back up and took a couple deep breaths, just to calm down first. Where even was this? Some kind of trick The Spectre set up?

"-Oh, you finally got it!"

A voice that sounded familiar, that he had definitely heard before invaded his head. He couldn't quite tell who it was, and the voice sounded like a jumbled mess of all the voices he'd heard before. So it sounded like everything and nothing at the same time. Pure confusion.

"That took you forever to figure out. You're playing a little... Game of sorts. And you have been the first so far to get 'out'! And by that I mean that you are currently dead dead. And you won't be getting let back into the game until this round is over. But I think you knew that already! Didn't that masked guy tell you about it?"

"His name is Jason, I believe, and when shall it be that my life I shall retrieve...?"

"Oh, you know what he's called. And don't worry, it won't take that long. Just a week or two."

"But that's a whole fortnight! And any other place besides the cabin to be is out of sight."

"Pff- haha... Oh don't sound so- pff- panicked! I'm sure you won't be alone here for long. Go off, mess around."

Whoever that was, they were struggling to hold in their laughter. That only made him feel worse.

"I can hear what you're thinking, y'know. Things will get worse. Be happy you don't know what I mean by that yet."

"I must inquire, wh-"

"Bye-bye!~"

"..."

What the fuck was that voice? WHO the fuck was that voice?

What was 'things will get worse' supposed to mean? And the random laughter?-

Did they seriously find this funny?

... Whatever.

Dusekkar's surroundings shifted back into the plains and cabins and trees and bushes outside the cabin.

If he really was dead...

Dusekkar went over to where he remembered 1x1x1x1 got him, and, lo and behold, his dead body was right there on the floor.

It didn't seem too damaged yet - nothing had gotten to it, and the light hadn't fully left his eyes yet.

So was he a ghost or something...? Seemed like it. But he could still watch everything going on.

And about that, when he went upstairs to inspect the things there, he noticed that Mart was gone and so was the panda cub that would usually be displayed on screen.

He changed the channel. A bunch of times.

And eventually, he found three interesting ones.

In regular rounds, you were given the option to spectate the living survivors, and that round's killer. On the channels, there were the equivalents of that. The channels were called 'TAPH-HEADSPACE', 'JOHN-HEADSPACE' and 'DAVID-HEADSPACE' respectively. Seems they were using first names, save for Taph, for some reason. Dusekkar himself didn't have a channel, and he couldn't find channels for anyone else.

Each channel showed the perspective of the respective survivor, alongside everything they heard.

...Huh.

He had seen Taph and Shedletsky earlier, so he decided to check out what Builderman was doing.

Switching to 'DAVID-HEADSPACE'...

For a couple moments, Dusekkar watched the TV in confusion as to what he was even seeing, but then his eyes adjusted to the lighting and he realised that Builderman was fixing some kind of platform to the roof's support beams in the smaller of the two storage cabins. The lights were off, so it was difficult for Dusekkar to see with the contrast it had with the main cabin around him tinted white.

Then again, the TV showed it from Builderman's perspective, through his eyes, which were adjusted just fine to the darkness at that point.

He decided to walk there. Er, float there.

And Builderman was doing just that.

The TV made it look considerably brighter than it actually was, so Dusekkar turned the light on.

Okay, he can touch doors and light switches. Noted.

That seemed to spook him a bit, with him jolting up slightly, dropping a screw. Good thing he didn't drop the screwdriver.

"-Taph?"

Well, it was a fair assumption, since Dusekkar was incapable of making any noise audible to the living survivors in his state, and Taph couldn't speak either way.

"No, it is me."

He responded with that to test the previous statement.

Builderman did not hear him, of course, and after looking down and realising no one was there, mumbled 'weird' and continued his work.

If he could hear him, he would've asked what he was building. But whatever, he would probably see what it was later.

Going back to the TV, and switching the channel, he checked out what Shedletsky was doing.

What Shedletsky was doing was trying not to get mauled by something or someone frantically thrashing themselves around in a bag. Taph was also there, closing off the area inside the guest cabin with several tripwires.

Then Dusekkar almost recoiled in shock when he heard 1x1x1x1's voice from inside the bag ringing out loud and clear;

"LET ME GO SO I CAN JUST DESTROY THAT BUILDING ALREADY!"

"No can do..."

Shedletsky finally set him down, before getting out, with Taph following. The two put another crate in front of the entrance.

Huh...

The rest of the happenings weren't that significant, until bedtime. Dusekkar, unfortunately, could not touch the beds either, so he had to stay floating.

Unless... He slept on a door.

So now Dusekkar was trying to pull a door off its hinges using his staff. It sure would be useful if he could touch people, if so, he would've checked the notebook that was probably in his dead body's utility belt.

Either way, he sucessfully got the door down, and so he went to sleep. Could ghosts sleep...?

They could.

...

That morning, someone new knocked on the main cabin's door. Of course, as it was just the morning, no one was in there. But Taph, having woken up first, saw who it was, and he was recognised on sight.

"0000- b0mb guy! Y0u never t0ld me we had h0uses!"

---

R.O.T.S. stands for 'room of the spectre'.