As much as everything sucked in forsaken, there was one thing in that place that was better than how it was on Earth.

That being, the lack of disease.

On Earth, all the survivors had gotten sick countless times - like most living beings - and some had even fallen victim to parasites and fungi. In forsaken, however? None of them could even remember the last time they were sick, with the exception of C00lkidd's special case.

But disease is sneaky. It waits to develop and overpower you, so that when you least expect it, it's already infected your body 2-0.

So using that logic, maybe the survivors shouldn't have been so arrogant as to assume that they couldn't fall ill there.

But they had forgotten how scary death could be.

Luckily, they were just about to be reminded!

Day 13, cabins.

The survivors witnessed something interesting. John Doe came around, but not to kill them.

Not in the way they thought, at least.

Instead, he seemed... Calm-ish. The corruption shouldn't have allowed that...

Either way, he claimed he was looking for something. Something notable, though, was that he never went anywhere by himself. He deliberately tried to stay in the close vicinity of any survivor he could. He even shook a couple of the survivors' hands as greeting, which was for a truce until the end of the round. Apparently, the killers weren't gaining anything either.

He looked around at everything, save for Taph's room, as it was still blocked by the crate, and the guest cabin storing 1x1x1x1.

The survivors tried to ask him a lot of questions, but he didn't really answer any of them in a way that mattered.

There was one thing for sure though, regular round rules still applied for him.

And in fact, John Doe still did have to go after long enough, so he did. Long enough was two hours.

Still, they continued their day as they normally would, and when they had dinner, most of the survivors drank something. That something was the water from the tap outside the main cabin.

But the next day, there was something... Interesting that happened. Several of the survivors had leg cramps, had thrown up several times and some had had bad diarrhoea.

They only noticed they weren't the only ones when Shedletsky vomited outside the main cabin and was spotted by C00lkidd, which got them to have a small meeting.

"-Okay, so, does anyone know why we all suddenly have the shits?"

But halfway through that sentence, there was a knock at the door, followed by a muffled "Does anyone happen to be present behind this door?"

Two Time.

"Oh dang it really wasn't Elliot. You won, Guest."

Taph pushed the bookcase out of the way, and Two Time opened the door, which caused Guest 1337, 007n7, Taph and Shedletsky to stare at them in pure confusion, meanwhile Two Time stared back, confused.

"...Is my presence so surprising?"

"Not that, the door."

"What?"

"It was always locked before this? We'd have to bust it down with Jason's chainsaw."

"I shall ignore the fact you even obtained the item in favour of thinking about your former statement. What?"

"We don't know either."

"Either way, uh, welcome back? How's stuff going on planet Voss?"

"Elliot shall likely fall next; he promised to when the next person would, and that was me, so if he keeps his word..."

"Okay so I was ALMOST right about the death order, 'kay."

Then Guest asked,

"By the way, how'd 007n7 die?"

"Considering his wounds and body placement, it is likely he jumped from the arch, did he not?"

"I fell."

"Intentionally."

"No. Why are we bringing this up again, anyway? Shouldn't we focus on the whole vomiting sickness thing?"

"The what?" Two Time asked.

"Basically, most of us have thrown up a couple times, have gotten the shits. But seriously, when's the last time we got sick here? I didn't think we were able to at this point," Shedletsky explained.

"Sounds like a mass infection."

"..."

Shedletsky started giggling at the sentence.

"...Pun unintended."

"Oh wait- I just remembered- Two Time?"

"Yes?"

"Every day the killers come and try to kill us, and if you die three times you end up in a weird white purgatory where we can't hear, see, feel or perceive you in any way besides if you talk near 007n7, because his c00lgui for some reason makes dead-dead people audible."

"Ah. Unfortunate that we do not escape the killers' wrath here. So I assume Builderman, Dusekkar and C00lkidd are dead-dead, judging by their absence?"

"Well, you got the first two right."

"The child lives."

"Oh, and I'm still mad at you for killing me."

"You would have killed me first had I not done so."

"Because you killed Taph!"

"I did not."

"Yes you did."

"I did not."

"Yes you did."

"I did not."

"Yes you did! No one else would have!"

"Neither would I, and I did not!"

"If we're not going to discuss anything important, can I just go back to my cabin?"

007n7 buried his face in his arms as if he was a schoolchild trying to sleep in class.

"Antisocialism much?"

"Can I or can't I?"

"👇😵‍💫. 🤮📃."

"Yeah I agree, this IS stupid. And what are we supposed to do about the sickness anyway?

Nothing. They were supposed to do nothing.

"Whatever, it'll probably be gone by tomorrow."

007n7 got up and left after Guest 1337 said that, going to his cabin. No one stopped him. The meeting was practically over anyway.

"Hopefully."

Day 15.

Things did NOT get better. In fact, Guest 1337's fingers on his left hand turned black, which Shedletsky only even realised when he checked up on him, because he had gotten feverish and couldn't get out of bed, C00lkidd died of dehydration from the diarrhoea, now on his second life, and 007n7 found it hard to breath at all, with nosebleeding and chest pain.

And what does that sound like?

The plague. It sounds like THE plague. Specifically, pneumonic and septicemic. And the survivors knew that.

So, Taph, Shedletsky and C00lkidd being the only 'well' survivors, Shedletsky pulled something.

Now, C00lkidd was a child. He was also gullible, naive and impatient. And Shedletsky knew that, so he was using it to his advantage.

"Kiddo?"

"Uh huh?"

"You know how everyone's sick, except you, Taph and me?"

"Tw0 time isn't."

"Exactly."

"What?"

"You see... If we all lose all our lives, then the game is over. The killers get an easier time killing us for a good while. And that's BAD. But plague spreads fast, so we'd all infect each other until we died."

"But I d0n't wanna die!"

"Most of us don't- anyway, we need to keep someone alive, that isn't infected with anything."

"Aren't we all infected already th0ugh? C0nsidering h0w cl0se y0u guys were."

"Less likely to be infected with anything. Anyway, I'm thinking Two Time. All we gotta do is keep 'em in quarantine, like they do with most pandemics, and boom."

"0h."

"And they have two lives per life, so..."

"0H YEAH! D0 we quarantine them in the cabins?"

"No."

"Then where?"

"The basement."

...

Two Time was more than concerned for everyone there. And they thought planet Voss was bad. Seriously, the literal plague? What? How was that even possible? But those questions weren't getting answered, because he was instead getting approached by C00lkidd.

"Hey tw0!"

"Oh? Hello, child."

"Can y0u g0 t0 the basement please?"

"Alright, why?"

"Quarantine f0r the mini-pandemic g0ing around!"

"Oh!"

"N0w g0."

"I would rather not be locked in a basement."

"It w0n't take l0nger than a week at m0st!"

"No."

"Please?"

"No."

"Pretty please?"

"No."

C00lkidd sighed.

"0kay, GET THEM."

"What-"

Shedletsky got out from the crate he was hiding behind and struck Two Time in the back of the head using the flat side of his sword, knocking them out and sheathing his sword, before picking them up in his arms and carrying him to the larger storage cabin.

He walked through to the back, and opened up the basement, dropping Two Time in and then putting Two Time in the hiding place inside the basement. There was food in there, it wasn't like they would starve.

Take that, two-faced...

...

When Two Time awoke, they awoke in confusion and fear.

Why were their ears ringing? Why were the lights off? Why were they breathing so heavily? Why did their head hurt so bad?

They were in the basement, they remembered, even though they didn't even know they had a basement in the first place. It didn't look like a basement, though.

Ah...

To predict one's death is to defy nature, they realised.

And to defy nature was to defy The Spawn themself.

They had sinned. And that meant, that they had to beg for forgiveness from the spawn.

Two Time sat on their knees and closed their eyes.

"Ignoscas mihi propter delictum meum; quaeso, ignosce mihi. Intellego quomodo te dereliquerim. Progenies sacra, serva me. Obsecro, libera me ab his vinculis meis."

They took a pocket knife out of their pants' pocket and took them off, before sizing themselves up, and beginning to carve the spawn symbol into their thigh. It was painful, but pain was what a sinner deserved.

They started by tracing out the center circle with the knife, before slicing into the actual skin, seeing red bubble up from between the cuts, the area feeling like it was on fire.

Then they made progress on the outer part of the spawn symbol, wincing slightly when they made each individual spike appear in jagged red on their leg.

Then they took the bandages off their right arm and wrapped them around the new wound.

The bandages on that arm were there for the same reason anyway - but that was an old injury, from around two weeks prior.

"I do not call your name in vain; I beg, forgive me for my sins. I shall forever be devoted to you."

It was cold down there. Very cold.

But the latch on the trapdoor... They had most likely been thrown in there. No wonder their body hurt.

"...Hello?"

No reply. Of course - they were around seven metres underground, no one would be able to hear them.

"HELLO! HELLO?"

They tried to climb up the ladder, hitting the door. It was wood. If only they had a saw...

They punched it several times.

"IS ANYONE THERE? AM I HEARD?"

They continued punching it, and only stopped when they realised they had peeled some of the skin off their knuckles.

"LET ME OUT OF HERE! MY ENTRAPMENT IS NO JOKE. RELEASE ME!"

"...My calls fall on deaf ears."

Two Time disappointedly sighed, before standing up and trying to open the door. They continued banging on it.

Who threw them in there? Their head still hurt at the back, so it was most likely Shedletsky, if there was use of a weapon. They remembered what C00lkidd told them.

Great. They were being quarantined.

Then they realised there was probably something in there they could use, like a hammer or something.

They were lucky they could see well in the dark. They were stuck in a bathroom, so they searched it. Two Time's steps had always been very quiet, so there was complete silence in there. They opened the cabinet underneath the sink.

There were two unopened bottles of dettol spray, a washrag, a roll of trash bags, chlorine and the rest was the plumbing of the sink. They sighed, and closed it.

Then they checked the cabinet above the sink. Two packets of paracetamol, one opened, one unopened, which Two Time was going to take until they realised it was expired, a box of plasters, a first aid kit, rubbing alchohol, dry shampoo, a box of eye patches, a red whiteboard pen and a notebook. They took the notebook and pen, opening it, before noticing the notebook had already been written in.

Whoever wrote it had messy handwriting, cursive written with a dull pencil. But Two Time used to have messy handwriting too, so they could read it.

'it started when i was all alone in my room. another bad day, so i was just trying to lay down in bed for a bit and get some rest. i laid on my side and looked at my window, and i swear that it was a different shade of gray than it usually was. however, i paid no mind to it, as i had just assumed that i was seeing things due to my somber suffering. it was subtle like that at first—a few small illusions that could be disregarded as your mind playing tricks on you. but then, my walls began to contort, warping and folding in on themselves as if they were alive. my heart raced as the room twisted, bending in ways it should never have.

i tried to move, to scream, but the air grew thick and heavy, suffocating my breath. one of the walls stretched forward at me, a jagged blur that rushed towards my face. there was no time to react, and before i could even comprehend what was happening, it struck me, and everything went black.'

Two Time flipped to the next page.

when i woke, i was no longer in my home. i was in a place i could never have imagined. the ground beneath me was cold and unforgiving, the sky above painted with an unsettling hue. i had no idea how i got there, or why, but the emptiness around me felt like a warning.

that was where i first encountered it, and the first time it put me through one of its "games" (which i personally called the games of hell, heh). there was nobody else playing except for me and a strange figure with a hockey mask on. he walked towards me, machete in hand, and kept whacking at me until there was none left of me to be recognized.

the process repeated over and over and over again, with some times where id be able to get a breath of fresh air in an empty beachside forest and some where id experience the same fate once more.

Two Time flipped to the next page after that. Who wrote this?

it had kept me trapped in its "home" for so long that i grew numb to its torment. my greatest regret is letting it realize that. once it understood that there was no more value to be gained from me, it wasted no time in tearing me apart. that was when i ceased to exist; it turned me from someone into no-one.

and yet, i still breathed. i still felt, still thought, still did everything it believed i couldn't. i was alive, but i was no longer myself.

that's when i began to study it. even though i didn't want to, i couldn't do anything but observe—not yet, at least.

for the sake of my studies, i decided to title it "The Spectre."

The next page was a drawing of a robloxian with shut eyes and a page that was ripped out, but beyond that was scribbled all over with pencil. Part of that page was torn, and the pressure from the pencil could be seen on the next couple of pages.

Two Time decided not to write anything, as to not confuse a potential future reader.

Well - they tried. Once they looked up from the book, they were in a weird white plain.

They walked around, but after they walked past where the walls should've been, they started getting a headache. Hmm. But they kept walking.

They tried not to lose sight of their original spot. But they lost track. Where were they again...?

Then they were hit by dizziness that creeped down into their stomach and made them feel sick. Really, really sick. So they stopped walking back, and started running.

And when they got there, they sat down, braced themselves and waited for the pain to leave them, and it did, after long enough.

But when they opened their eyes, they were back in the basement. They got on their knees again and clasped their hands together in front of their face, closing their eyes and facing slightly downwards.

"Precor, me sine inferno febrili effugere. Noli muros liquefacere, et miserere animae meae. In te confido, progenies benigna..."

...

Everyone upstairs were not doing well, to say the least. Shedletsky and Taph were fine for the time being, C00lkidd was on the fence both literally and figuratively despite his symptoms and 007n7 and Guest 1337 were just dying.

More of Guest 1337's body had turned a purplish black - specifically his nose and feet, 007n7 had fainted twice and C00lkidd was showing his dad's symptoms, but milder.

Shedletsky tried to keep distance with everyone, and Taph did the same. They didn't show it, but they were scared.

Day 16.

Shedletsky's fingers and nose also became black. However, Taph still wasn't sick at all.

But... Back when the plague was going around on Earth, there were people called plague doctors. And Taph just so happened to share the traits they had that prevented them from falling ill, despite being in close proximity with those who had. The masks they wore prevented pneumonic plague transmission, and the gloves they wore with their cloaks and boots made it so that infected flesh touched wouldn't touch them, and fleas couldn't bite them.

And he hadn't drunken any water on the day of the outbreak.

Shedletsky, unlike Guest 1337, didn't get as much of a fever - but a lot of chills.

To make it even worse, Jason came early that day, and managed to kill all the survivors, save for Taph and Two Time, as they were still locked up.

The only reason Taph survived was because he was checking on 1x1x1x1 and hid in one of the mostly empty bookshelves when Jason came around.

The cabins had always been quiet, but with the current conditions, they felt more dystopian than anything, knowing that the silence was due to a mix of death by illness and death by murder.

But since they all died... So would the disease, right? Unfortunately, no. For some reason, instead of how it would work on Earth, they returned with their illness in full swing.

However, another survivor appeared that day. That being Elliot.

And to say he was perturbed was an understatement. When no one was in the main cabin to open it, he instead went to the survivor cabins, where he saw Guest 1337 doing something he didn't care enough about to think about. But seeing the state of his face and fingers, he got startled, and yelled,

"OH MY GOD! WHAT- WHAT HAPPENED?"

"Ehh... No clue."

"YOU LOOK LIKE YOU HAVE THE BUBONIC PLAGUE."

"Wrong kind. And that's because I most likely do. and so does everyone else."

"What the fuck?"

"How should I know?"

"I- how does that even happen? How'd you guys get infected in the first place?"

"I think we're all asking ourselves that already."

"This place never ceases to stress me... For how long?"

"It started yesterday..."

"Okay- uhh, how's everyone else?"

"C00lkidd and 007n7 have the type of it where you can't breath, Sheds and I have the one where this happens, Taph seems to be fine, uh... Don't know where Two Time is, honestly."

"..."

"..."

"...Get some rest, I'll go find Two Time, I guess."

"Alright..."

And Elliot did just that. He looked around everywhere - even the storage cabins. So when he ran around the larger one and heard calling from underneath him, he stopped dead in his tracks and called back.

"-HELLO?"

A faint call back. He walked closer to the source, and found a box under a bookshelf. So he moved it, and found the basement trapdoor, that was locked.

Ah, the basement... Elliot was actually the one that reset the code to 5987. So he opened it.

"AM I HEARD?"

So it WAS Two Time.

"YEAH, uh- WHERE ARE YOU?"

"ANOTHER LEVEL DOWN, I THINK."

"BUT I'M ALREADY IN THE BASEMENT?"

"WAIT, NO- I'M IN THE BATHROOM."

"UHH... I DON'T KNOW HOW TO GET IN. WAIT, I'LL GO ASK EVERYONE ELSE AND COME BACK, OKAY?"

"OKAY, THANK YOU."

Elliot did exactly that, climbing and crawling back out. He then went to find Shedletsky. He was the best option by far - he didn't want to bother Guest 1337 again, and he didn't want to talk to C00lkidd or 007n7, especially after their interactions on planet Voss - and on top of that, they had the most infectious kind of the plague. And Elliot did NOT want to get the plague, no matter how curious he was.

But unfortunately, Shedletsky was dead-dead, like Builderman and Dusekkar. Elliot didn't know that, though, since no one had explained the round logic to him yet.

So, unfortunately, he had to talk to Guest 1337 again. Awkward...

"Guest...?"

"What?"

"How do I open the bathroom inside the basement?"

"Wait, who showed you?"

"Not important, just tell me."

"Okay, but then you have to tell me somethi-"

"No, I didn't tell 007n7 to kill himself."

"-Not that. I know that now. But I saw you two together for a while, so what were you two talking about?"

Elliot sighed, and crossed his arms.

"Fine. We were just sorting out some things, since we actually had some time to talk about it. I'm not going to relay the whole conversation, but I guess my hate for him has faded over the years. Not disappeared, I just get that he's not the same man he was when I knew him. Honestly, I hate his child more than I hate him. Always have. ...But don't tell him that."

Elliot uncrossed his arms.

"So how do I get in?"

"If the bathroom's locked, the key'll be under the carpet in the corner."

"Oh, okay."

So Elliot went back and checked the carpet, which did actually have the key, and unlocked the door.

Two Time walked out immediately, with a sigh of relief.

"Two Time...?"

"Why is that on your arm."

"Hm? Oh."

Elliot was talking about a spawn symbol carved into their arm, the same arm that they had taken the bandages off of to put on their leg.

"I get you really like the spawn and all that, but you really should not be hurting yourself like this..."

"Worry for me not, though I appreciate your concern."

"No, seriously, why are you doing this?"

"My devotion is endless and undying."

"...Noted, this is a conversation for another day."

"Again, thank you."

"Uh, no problem, I don't believe in locking people in basements. How long did they keep you in there for?"

"A day and a half...?"

"Jeez... Are you okay?"

"I could eat something."

"Yeah, let's find the bean storage, alright?"

"Alright."

...

Shedletsky woke up in the same white plain that Builderman and Dusekkar had described, and so, when he realised where he was, he knew immediately what was happening.

Still, he expected it to be more white, and less gray.

He walked forward, and found a door.

Whatever, let's get this over with...

He opened it, and was whirled to the left immediately. The whole room began spinning, literally. he walked along with it, not wanting to have to fall or slide all the way down.

Then a timer appeared, with three minutes, and he was given a sword. A door appeared on each wall.

Then, a voice appeared in his head, that wasn't his, telling him to slice through the doors. And he did. He sliced one off its hinges in the first minute, but it wasn't the right one, and was replaced with more white wall when he tried to go through.

Damnit... Damnit...

He desperately tried to slice the next one in time, but the room rotated away for him before he could - so he had to open the next one. Which was also wrong.

46 seconds... 43... 42... 41...!

He ran to the other side of the room as fast as he could, despite the wall stretching, and stabbed the door, slashing at its his hinges. He stabbed and stabbed at where the hinges should have been, with 20 seconds, but he managed to open it, and when he fell through, after the next fifteen seconds passed, he saw the giant room he fell from explode, and right before some of the rubble was about to hit him midair, he was teleported back to the cabin.

What the hell? What the hell just happened?

"-Dusekkar! Sheds got 'ere!"

"Ah, indeed! But he seems shaken, almost like he was just forsaken."

"...Huh?"