Can't Say

Chapter 27

      The intense darkness of the dead end hallway increased your hearing sensitivity. Your frustration with trying to hide your presence grew with each cautious step as you approached the second door. Even the whispering of your steady breath seemed loud enough for Edea to hear.
      You managed to keep yourself steady, reaching the door and placing a firm ear to its wooden surface. For several long moments, you listened, not expecting to actually hear anything other than the droll hum of silence. At first, you did, but just as you were about to push yourself away, you heard a faint thump that reverberated through the door. Immediately, you pressed your ear against the wood, focusing on the air beyond its wake to confirm what you had heard.
      Nothing; just the piercing silence of the night.
      Not wanting to take any chances, you moved your body flat against the wall, next to the doorway. You reached to the knob to swing its mount open, but found that it was locked. With a light grunt of disapproval, you traced your finger over the knob's entirety, seeing if you could manipulate it some way. To your surprise, you felt two flush screw heads that held the knob in place. You pulled out one of your thin knives, smirking at your clever idea, and began working on the screws to twist them out of place.
      Carefully, you managed to get the screws loosened. It wasn't easy in the dark, but you were persistent in your curiosity. Once the knob felt loose enough, you diligently wiggled it out, only to be startled by your own mistake: the other side of the knob had nothing holding on to it.
      Clanging and banging, the metal knob-half impacted onto the cabin floor. If no one knew where you were, they did now. You mentally scolded yourself for your impudent plan, though there wasn't really any way to prevent this from happening - except to not do it at all.
      Now that you had made a racket, you figured it'd be best to get back against the wall. If you really did hear someone in that room, and they had a gun, you didn't want to swing the door open with your full body right in the way!
      You held your back against the wall, reached out to the door, and gave it a firm push with what strength you had in your wrist. Though the knob was cheap and light, it still made it harder to simply swing the door open. The rough, wooden floor added the most friction.
      Almost as soon as you pushed the door open, you heard someone charge toward you from inside the room. She made a fierce shrill, her feet pounding across the floor. Her aggressive charge had you quaking in your boots for a short moment, expecting some crazed, rag-clad woman to round the corner.
      To your surprise, you were only half right. When your would-be attacker stumbled passed the doorway, you laid eyes on a frail elder. Her silver hair was pulled back in a clip, and her clothes appeared to be handmade - skilled, yet simple. In her hands was a baseball bat, raised and ready to strike. The only way you could see any of this was thanks to the warm glow of a dim lamp from within the room. You were even able to see the confused and frantic look wash over the woman's face when she realized you weren't readily available for her bat.
      You stood there, motionless as possible, and hoped to anyone who was willing to listen that you weren't noticed.
      No one listened.
      Finishing her careful gaze through the darkness of the hallway, the woman's eyes settled on your frozen form. She moved to swing her large baseball bat, but doubled over in a hoarse coughing fit. Her bat toppled to the floor with a metallic set of clangs. A brief thought of how much damage you could have suffered to your head with such a blunt weapon passed through your mind.
      You took the opportunity to move away from your attacker, brandishing a knife from your jacket. Whether you should run or subdue the woman, you weren't quite sure. You didn't have anything to tie her up. Was this even your target, Edea? Was there anyone else in the house?
      Finally recovering from her violent coughs, the woman straightened herself out to glare at you with a snarl strewn across her face. Her heavy breaths were ragged and furious, filling your ears as though they were the only sound in the entire cabin. She gripped her bat and raised it up again, screeching at you. "What do you want, now?!" You were sure this had to be Edea, seeing as no one else came to her rescue. Even her crazed and desperate demeanor spelled it out for you.
      Not receiving a response from you, Edea swung the bat at your head. You managed to step back and turn your head away just enough to feel the rush of the offending wind pass your ear. "Leave me alone!" Edea screamed, swinging again, as she tried not to give you time to recover from your dodges. You jumped to the side and noticed your attacker's arms were lowered from her recent swing. This was an opportunity you couldn't miss.
      Blade gripped tightly in your hand, you lunged forward and jabbed Edea's arm just below her shoulder. She screamed and tried to strike you with her blunt weapon, but the close proximity and her injured arm made it far too difficult for a successful attack. You tackled her to the floor, trying to subdue the woman with your weight. She fought like a wild animal; biting and crying madly, doing her best to flail her limbs in an effort to fight you off.
      Edea's hand made contact with your face, knocking your mask askew and leaving a burning set of scratches over your cheek. You felt her nails pull at your fresh as they dragged across - no doubt you were going to bleed.
      The thumping of boots drew closer to your scuffle. Before you knew it, Masky and Toby were at your side, pinning Edea down and getting to work on tying her up. Masky didn't hesitate to inject the sedative, and Toby did what he could to help you hold the woman until the drug kicked in.
      It only took a few minutes, though they were long, before Edea finally grew sluggish and eventually gave in to artificial sleep. You breathed out a sigh of relief and climbed off of the thin woman's torso. As soon as you straightened out, you felt a gooey weight on your scratched face adjust to gravity's hold. It crawled down your cheek and along your jaw until it finally dripped away to freedom. You adjusted your mask and traced your fingertips over the battle wound.
      Four scratches. One of them quite shallow, but the other three were painfully deep for damage by fingernails. At the end of the bleeding lines, you felt the remains of your torn flesh that had piled up, barely hanging on. You were sure the rest was under Edea's nails.
      Toby casually tied Edea's arms behind her back, securing her hands together and winding some of the rope around her chest. He bound her ankles with the rest of the rope he had. Masky pulled out the knife you had pierced into Edea's arm, then handed it to you, blood and all.
      "Thanks," you mumbled, still fixated on your battle wound and how badly it was bleeding out. It didn't seem too heavy, but the blood was still seeping out at a steady rate. Eventually, it would clot - long before it would become life-threatening. You took the blade from your teammate, wiping it over your pant leg a couple of times to clean off the blood, then stuffed it back into its designated pocket.
      "Find anything on our master?" Masky asked, briefly examining your scratches. He didn't seem concerned with getting you immediate medical attention.
      Shaking your head, you focused your thoughts on what you had seen of the cabin, so far. "I only got to explore one room," you said, aiming your thumb to the door further up the hall. "All it had were a bunch of electronics and old gadgets."
      Masky glanced in the room's direction. "He'll want to know about that. Those are probably used to make that frequency disruptor."
      "Yeah. Most of them were taken apart."
      With the upper half of Edea lifted into his arms, Toby butted in to the conversation, "Hoodie st-till hasn't got-t-tten the disruptor t-taken care of, so you still need t-to search the p-place, ____."
      "Right," you nodded, watching Masky pick up Edea's legs. "Any leads, so I don't waste time?"
      "Come on," Masky lead the way back up the hall, helping Toby with carrying the unconscious woman. You obediently followed, making note of the house's layout as best as you could in the poor lighting situation.
      Pointing deeper into the house, Masky directed you to a doorway that he said would lead into a kitchen. To the furthest right corner of that was a small room containing photo-curing supplies. A nod was all you needed to give your teammates before slinking off in your tasked direction. You heard the men move elsewhere, most likely to the front porch to prepare for departure.
      Luckily, the kitchen had a window. The silver moonlight illuminated your way across the tiled floor. It was just enough for you to see your target room. You approached the door, finding it slightly ajar. After a few short seconds of feeling your hand around on the inside wall, you flipped on the deep red light. Since Masky and Toby told you about the room, you figured they had checked it for traps already. It seemed safe enough with the door having been opened.
      Pushing the thin door further open, you peered inside to gaze upon the full crimson glow. Across the long room was a pair of sinks. Above them, a line was hung, still burdened with photos that had recently been printed. The walls on either side of you were the most interesting part, though. They were littered with photos, all of which were either connected with thumb tacks and colored string, had frantic notes scribbled next to them, or both.
      You wondered, though: Why keep the photos in the dark room if they're already cured? Wouldn't it be easier to see?
      Squinting your eyes and trying desperately to focus in the dim lighting, you studied a section of the photos, hoping to find something that pieced it all together. From what you could see, every single photo had captured your master's image. There was something off about his surroundings, though. Things looked too various in age or were out of place. There were distortions radiating like heat from Slenderman's form - some more obvious than others. You hadn't seen these effects in the other photos you had glanced over in the Tall One's collection. There was no way these had been photo-shopped, either.
      "____," Slenderman called from within your head. "Time to rendezvous."
      "I found something you might want to know about," you mumbled, knowing that your master could hear your thoughts by now. The wait didn't last long, and you heard him command you to return to him, anyway. The photos wouldn't be necessary.