Chapter Text
The forest had never been on your list of safe places. In fact, it sat right next to “areas that will inevitably kill you,” mentally underlined in red. And yet, there you were, dragged along by your own team like someone accepting a bad bet while knowing perfectly well you were going to lose. Camping, they called it. As if giving the idea a friendly name could somehow tame the monsters.
Because you knew. You knew with that uncomfortable certainty that settles at the back of your neck and never leaves: any place far from cities, bases, or towns was full of things that didn’t respect respawns. Animals, sure. But also other things. Things that breathed like people and hunted like nightmares.
And still, you agreed. Because you didn’t want to be the killjoy. Because saying “no” on a team like yours was almost as dangerous as saying “yes.”
So there you were, gathering twigs for a campfire that already seemed like a ridiculous idea, paranoia crawling up your spine like a stubborn insect. You prayed—to God, to the system, to any available entity—that no monster would show up wearing the damn face of one of your teammates. There were acceptable horrors. That wasn’t one of them.
You talked to yourself under your breath, as if the forest could hear you.
“Shit, Trapper, you’re a mess,” you muttered. “It’s just paranoia. You know those things don’t move well between the trees. As long as you don’t wander into чуж territory, you’ll be fine.”
It was a small lie, one of the kind you tell yourself just to keep walking.
The radio decided to prove you wrong.
First came the static crackle, that sound that always announces bad news. Then Sniper’s voice, choked with panic, mixed with Demoman’s curses:
“Hey, mate, we left you behind! Turns out the campsite was way too close to a sniper monster’s territory. We had to run. Run—because it’s already caught your scent!”
The roar that followed cut through the radio like a rusty knife. It didn’t sound alive. It sounded hungry.
You dropped the twigs. You pulled out your Swiss Army knife with clumsy hands. You opened it… on spoon mode. Of course. Because at the most critical moment of your life, that’s what you had. With it, you started digging, desperate, flinging dirt behind you as if you could claw your way into another reality.
Every scoop was a blasphemy. Every second, a badly phrased plea.
“Shit, shit, SHIT!” you repeated over and over. “Why the hell didn’t I stay at the base with the Engineer? At least I’d be listening to another one of his damn country songs!”
The contrast was cruel: the idea of an out-of-tune guitar now sounded like paradise.
In a few minutes—far too few for what you needed—you managed a pathetic trench, barely enough to cover yourself. You crawled inside and curled up, trying to take up less space in the world, as if that could make you invisible. Fear trapped you from the inside, hardening your stomach, cutting off your breath.
One,
two,
three.
Then you heard it.
The crack of branches under an impossible weight. Footsteps so slow and heavy it felt like the earth itself was getting tired of holding them up. You peeked out slightly, your heart pounding against your ribs as if it wanted to escape before you did.
Yellow eyes.
They glowed in the gloom like two cursed coins.
The creature was a sniper only in the most ironic sense of the word: a human shape twisted into a cruel joke. It was enormous, the size of a Tyrannosaurus rex, hunched, its back covered in gray plates that you couldn’t tell were scales, stones, or hardened scars. They jutted out like old blades. Its teeth—too many, too long—looked like poorly washed daggers. Its claws sank into the earth with every step, claiming it.
It moved slowly. It sniffed. It searched.
Your heart beat in time with its steps, and you were sure it could hear it. With every passing second, you swore it was closer. Closer. Closer.
Until it wasn’t.
The rhythm changed. The footsteps moved away. The vibration faded like an old echo. Silence washed over you, heavy, almost offensive.
You cried without realizing it. It wasn’t dignified or cinematic; it was the kind of crying that happens when the body understands something before the mind does. You were alive. Against all logic, you were alive. The irony was almost insulting.
But you couldn’t move. The adrenaline had nailed you to the ground, fusing you with the trench as if you had always been part of the landscape. The forest began to blur, like wet paint. The edges of the world darkened.
There was one last shaky breath.
And then, nothing.
Sometimes surviving doesn’t feel like a victory. Sometimes it feels like a loan that fear collects on later.