Jack tilted his head to the side, letting out a few faint jingles from the bells attached to his clothing.
"I know you want to play a game with me! It's going to be so fun!"
The woman furrowed her brows and backed up a few steps.
"What the hell? Is that a person?"
Her brother frowned.
"No way, what person just walks around in the dark like that? That's clearly a monster! Let's get out of here!"
Jack let out a strange giggle while they were talking. He pulled out the utility knife he had gotten and brandished it in a reverse grip.
"I'm so glad that you want to play with me!"
He ended up glancing down at the knife, and put a finger on the bottom of his mask.
"Hm... holding a knife this way really makes it feel like I want to kill you. But I don't want to kill because that's a bad thing!"
While he was talking to himself, the siblings decided it was best to run away, going in the opposite direction. Jack hummed to himself while observing the knife, and flipped it around, changing his grip.
"Much better!"
When he disappeared from the light of the torch, it was as if he disappeared entirely. Though the pair of siblings were running away, they looked over their shoulder and tried to listen in, but to no avail. The brother narrowed his eyes, trying to focus his hearing.
"I don't think it's chasing us. That monster looks like one that just stands in place for whatever reason."
In response, his sister clicked her tongue.
"What kind of monster would that be? There's no way it's that simple!"
The brother shrugged his shoulders.
"I don't know, everything in this damn place is so strange, maybe that's just how it is."
Though they were still running, they didn't feel any pressure so they unconsciously slowed down. The sister went into thought.
"But I saw it pull out a knife that's purchasable from the hub. Besides, he was even talking to us! Maybe it's just a person?"
The brother clicked his tongue.
"You gotta be joking, right? That was the voice of a kid! How the hell is a kid supposed to survive in this kind of place? They'd just be shitting their diapers! And regardless if he is a person or not, it's obviously a threat if he pulls out a knife."
The sister let out a small sigh.
"I guess you're right. But it looks like we were overreacting. It's not like he was even chasing us in the first place."
The two of them began slowing down to catch their breath. After calming down a little, the brother let out a small laugh.
"What do you think would've happened if we stayed? He might've just pulled out a board of checkers to play with."
"No, no, we're obviously playing tag! You guys are running away, aren't you? I was thinking of another game, but you chose it first!"
Jack suddenly appeared in front of them, with a jingle of bells. The sister's eyes widened in shock.
"What the hell? How'd he get there without making a sound? He literally has bells on him!"
As for the brother, he began to panic.
"That doesn't matter, we gotta get out of here!"
She didn't hesitate, and the two ran. Yet, just after a few steps-
"AAAAAAHHHHHHHH!"
The sister fell down with a guttural scream. Her brother's eyes widened.
"Sis? What the hell happened?"
"Remember, no killing, Seedy!"
Jack appeared from behind, walking towards them slowly with his knife in hand. However, that definitely wasn't the focus. That was because there was currently a terrifyingly large bite mark on the woman's leg.
Out of fear and maybe pure instinct, she ignored the pain and tried to get away. However, there were vines holding onto her. And the source of it was a flower. While it was larger than a normal flower, it was quite cute compared to its full size.
Nonetheless, it still had sharp teeth lined on its petals that were more than enough to bite down, proven by the blood dripping from them. Tears were in the woman's eyes as she looked at the monstrosity, desperately trying to crawl away.
As for her brother, he was frozen for a moment before pulling out a razor blade and attempting to cut the vine off.
While still walking towards them, Jack spoke through discordant laughs.
"Usually tag is played with only one person it, but I didn't want to leave Seedy alone! But it's still a fair game because there are still two people on each team!"
The man didn't listen, opting to cut through the vines binding his sister. And when he did cut through them, despite being green on the outside, red blood spilled out from the inside.
Despite that surprise, he wasted no time ripping off the end of the vine from his sister. But when he tried to throw it away, he found that it stuck to his hand just before he released it. It stuck on tightly, perhaps with strength that even surpassed superglue.
In fact, it was almost like the vine in his palm was actually always part of his body.
Out of nowhere, the vine suddenly began contracting, curling itself into a ball. However, it was still very much attached to the man's hand.
"Wh... GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH... aaa... AAAAHHHH!"
His screams were quite warranted considering both his skin and flesh were forcibly being ripped off by the vine. Soon enough, it peeled itself off, leaving a bloody gaping hole in his palm.
In that time, the flower was still eating away at the leg. When it saw the vine with flesh plop down next to it, the thing took a break to eat it as well before continuing to messily devour the woman's leg, splashing blood and bits of flesh everywhere.
It did not take long for her eyes to roll back into her head as she fell unconscious. As for her brother, he was still delirious from the pain and couldn't think straight. Seeing this Jack walked up and looked down at him, now just a bit above since the guy was down on his knees.
"Sorry, it looks like Seedy caught your sister and there's nothing you can do about it! You tried, but that should count as making you also it since you touched Seedy. But since it was a small mistake, we can just say that it didn't count! So run away, and I'll catch you!"
The bells that jingled along with his voice were deceptively comical, which made his words sound even more frightening.
While still in shock, the man looked at his sister being devoured, then at Jack. His breathing was hoarse, while his instinct to survive battled against his desire to save his sister.
But in the end, he had given up on his sister. And it wasn't the wrong choice either, considering his sister had already become unconscious. Not to mention his attempts only backfired, injuring him instead.
He ran away, opting to ignore the torch that was on its last embers, and into the darkness.
His blood splattered out from his palm, the gaping wound still very much bleeding.
As for the sounds of his sister being eaten, they gradually faded as the only sounds became his hoarse breathing and frenzied footsteps. But while there were no signs of Jack nearby, he still continued to run.
After all, from his perspective, he was able to move completely silently.
Though, in his rush, he ended up tripping many times in the process, slowing him down considerably. But there was hardly anything he could do about it. Even if he did have a torch, the simple fact that pain was numbing all his other senses made it hard not to continuously trip over things.
Even if Jack was in his normal state, he would easily be able to keep up.
And the entire time, Jack was right next to the man, practically breathing down his neck.
"When you run, you have to look where you're going so you don't fall down!"
The man could just barely hear his voice, but only parts of the words. It sounded like it was incredibly far away and everywhere at the same time. In the end, he didn't have the strength to continue on and collapsed right onto his face.
Jack tilted his head to the side like he was confused, crouching down next to his face.
"Do you not want to play tag?... I guess you must be tired! Hahahahaaaaa!"
He let out an exaggerated hum, while putting a finger on the mask and tilting it to the side. After twirling the knife a few more times, he picked up the bloody hand and giggled.
"Ah, I know what to do! You were trying to have fun here too, right? Let me help you have some more fun! I promise you that your fingernails will shoot up higher than ever before!"
From there, he pushed the knife under the man's fingernails, before suddenly prying them off, with just a bit too much expertise. In the end, the man woke straight up from his blurry state.
"AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH.... aah.... haa..."
Jack let out a brighter laugh when he heard his screaming.
"Hahahaaaa... ha! You are having so much fun too! Of course, it's fun, this was always my favorite thing to do as well!"
One after another, his fingernails came off one after another with cracks, one after another. As he began losing all his nails, the man gradually began regretting running in the first place.
He continued to go in and out of consciousness, but even after the fingernails were removed, to his dismay Jack began playing with his fingers as well, cracking and bending them in the wrong ways. They quickly became purple, either from the bruises or the blocked blood.
The man no longer even had the capacity to beg for the pain to stop, just desperately hoping that he would be freed from all the hurt.
Yet, Jack didn't even stop there, cutting his fingers at the joints. At some point, the man couldn't even comprehend what was happening anymore. But his only thought was that he wished that the plant was killing him instead.
He was practically going insane, blaming himself for running away from the plant. After all, the plant wouldn't have made it painful, right? If only he had gone to the plant, then it would've all been fine!
The man began hating himself, instead of the person making him go through so much pain. He wasn't even able to understand how illogical that was and even began having fantasies about being killed by the plant until he bled out from his wounds.
Jack tilted his head to the side when the man stopped moving.
"Are you still having fun?"
...
"Are you still having fun?"
...
"Are you still having fun?"
He continued to tilt his head to the side, staring at the dead body curiously, the only sound being the soft jingle of bells.
"Ah... you are sleeping. I guess you were having too much fun! I'll go now."
And with that, Jack pranced off back, leaving his cold dead body on the ground. Though as much as the man thought the plant would've given him a more painless death, that may not have been true.
Because his sister was still very much alive and in agony.