Never taking your eyes off the Butcher, you reach down and grab a long, flaming branch from the fire, you hand it to Meredith.

The Butcher creeps around the fire, body lower and lower to the ground. Waiting for it’s moment to pounce.

You grab a branch of your own and you think, just for a moment, that it pauses. It’s worried. You can hear it’s breathing, low and labored. It’s around the fire now, blocking the exit.

For a moment, neither of you move.

Then it pounces.

You both thrust your branches in front of you and it crashes through them. It rips you to the ground and sends Meredith sprawling, her gut sliced open by the Butcher’s razor-sharp fingers. she stumbles to her feet, branch still in hand.

But The Butcher stumbles, too. You impaled it, your branch jutting out from its torso as blood drips to the snow. But still it is right on top of you, head arching back, teeth gleaming. It’s long, malleable claws lower slowly towards your arm, preparing to carve you up. This is it, you think…

Meredith cracks her branch over it’s head! The Butcher goes limp.

Quickly, you shove it off, grab Meredith’s hand, and sprint into the woods.

By the time find your way out of The Glen, it’s almost morning. The two of you slump, exhausted, into an empty field. Everything is cold and white, new snow coating the landscape. A thick trail of blood back into the forest, a perfect roadmap for anything that wants to find you.

But nothing comes.

You’ve used what’s left of Meredith’s coat to stop the bleeding from her stomach, but you both know that you can’t run any further. It’s cold. So, so cold.
So you and Meredith do your best to huddle into your warm winter coat, sharing your heat as the chill wind whips around you. You can’t feel your fingers. Your eyes are freezing shut.

And then you hear the helicopters.

As if brought back to life, the two of you leap up, hands waving as the rescue crew descends upon you with doctors, blankets, and water. The load Meredith into the copter first, then come back for you. And though your vision is woozy, your senses fried, you take one last look in the dark forest. And you swear, as the helicopter carries you to safety, a disembodied mouth of perfectly white teeth smiles at you through the trees.

YOU SURVIVED!!!

Nice work! Think you can survive the other horrors?

On the count of three, you tell her, we’ll bumrush it. She looks at you, apprehensive, but she nods anyway. The Butcher creeps around the fire, body lower and lower to the ground. Waiting for its moment.

“One.”

You, too, begin to lower.

“Two.”

You can hear it’s breathing, low and labored. Teeth gnashing with anticipation. It’s around the fire now. The only way out is behind it.

“THREE!”

You fake a step forward as Meredith throws herself at The Butcher. As it grabs her, you take off, in no hurry to see what happened to her. You can hear what’s happening well enough. You’re tearing throw the woods, running in whatever direction you can. But it’s not long until the humming returns — louder, needier, the breath on the back of your neck.

Until suddenly there are no woods anymore. You trip in a ditch and sprawl onto an old country road, tumbling into the rough gravel street. You slowly rise to your feet, blood coming from your head. Stars and lights flash through your vision, but even then, you can see the teeth. The shining, shimmering teeth, smiling wickedly from the safety of the trees.

They are the last thing you see as the very real set of headlights swerves in the snow, the oncoming snow truck losing control as it plows through you, trapping you underneath it as it rips you to shreds over the stones. The plowman, distraught, calls the police to come, quickly, but it’s already too late. Your pieces have already been collected.

Try again?
Credits

You turn to Meredith, gaze steely. She nods back. “On three?”

The Butcher creeps around the fire, body lower and lower to the ground. Waiting for it’s moment to pounce.

“One.”

You, too, begin to lower.

“Two.”

You can hear it’s breathing, low and labored. Teeth gnashing with anticipation. It’s around the fire now. The only way out is behind it.

“THREE!”

The two of you charge, and for a second you see its eyes, wide blackened disks, open as if surprised.

But The Butcher will not be fooled by the same trick twice.

It’s long, razor-sharp fingers lash into your gut as soon as you hit it, the other hand wrapping around Meredith’s skull and throwing her across the clearing. She doesn’t move, but neither can you. Slowly, as if handling a work of art, the butcher steadies a claw over your arm. And then he gets to work.

Try again?
Credits

Whoever that is, Meredith certainly won’t be able to take it alone. You sprint off after her, screaming for her to stop.

As she approaches the campfire, she screams, the person — the creature — lunging for her.

But you’re almost there, too. You reach her at the same time, bodies crashing into one another and tumbling back towards the campfire. Without looking back, you and Meredith scramble to your feet around the fire, looking for a way out that isn’t the way you came.

But you’re stuck there, frozen in horror by the trees. Because they aren’t heavy with pine needles and snow — they’re heavy with people. Arms, legs, and torsos speared on sharpened branches, a primordial meat locker of drying human flesh.

And The Butcher, now back on its feet, has none of your hesitations. It is long and loping, fingers hooked and sharp. In the glittering fire it’s skin shimmers with blood and sweet, mangy hair covering everything except for a mouthful of bone-white teeth.

There is nowhere left to run.

BBAAABBAAAA) Bumrush it again, bowling over it
BBAAABBAAAB) Stand your ground
BBAAABBAAAC) Push Meredith in front of you and run

“Steven? What’ll it be?”

But Steven is already walking away, obscured by the storm. He turns back to tell you that he’ll send for help, and then he’s gone.

As he slips away, you a scream erupts behind you. Before you can stop her, Meredith charges right for it.

“JACKIE! We’re coming Jackie!”

You sprint to keep up with her, climbing higher and higher up the ridgeline. The branches poke and stab, your coat/jacket in tatters, until you reach a small clearing. You freeze.

In the distance, a campfire burns through the storm. It’s in a secluded area, the shadowy trees thick with pine needles that shield it from the wind. You can just make out the silhouette of the someone before the fire, warming their hands.

“JACKIE” Meredith cries, stepping forwards.

They turn their head, looking right at you, but the face is still obscured. Meredith is already running towards it as it stands, slowly. And it’s only as Merdith is just about to arrive that you realize that this isn’t Jenny. They’re much too tall to be Jenny, the limbs loo long and gangly.

A) Help Meredith
B) Get out of there

“Look, we don’t have time to –” Steven’s words are cut off by a mangled scream in the distance.

“Oh god. It’s here.” Meredith is backing up, eyes brimming with tears.

The humming grows closer.

“What’s here? Is this some stupid Alphi Kai bullshit?” Look, just because people thought it was funny when you’re in school doesn’t mean it’s funny now. You didn’t come back to be messed with. “I’m not in the mood for games.”

“These aren’t games. This is… well, I don’t know what this is.” Steven sighs, and for the first time, you notice the blood trickling down his forehead.

“G-ggg-gg-guys…” You turn to Meredith, confusion and horror on her face. “Where’s Jackie?”

“We need to keep moving, now.”

“Steven! We can’t leave Jackie!”

“It’s too late to save her.

“Go if you want,” Meredith says, “Real friends hang together.”

They turn to you expectantly.

A) Go and look for Jackie with Meredith.
B) Get out of here with Steven.

“I’ll be right over,” you call out. As you follow the sound of the voice, your flashlight catches something shiny, just off the trail. It looks like a watch, dangling from the trees. You can’t be sure, not in the snow, but it seems like it’s still attached to a hand…

Someone grabs you by the shoulders! In your panic, you trip and fall to the ground.

“I can’t believe you made it this far!” You turn to see three people, roughly your age. They reach down and pick you up, introducing themselves as Steven, Meredith, and Jackie. Their eyes dart around the woods worriedly.

“Thank god I found you guys! Started to wonder if I was all alone out here.”

“You’re not.”

Sheesh. Warm welcome. “I think the ropes course is this way,” you say, “I feel like I have my bearings again.”

“You don’t want to go to the ropes course.”

A twig snaps behind you. In the distance, a low, grinding noise echoes through the trees.

“We need to go, now.”

Go where? You did just meet these people after all. And something about them makes you nervous — their darting eyes and shuffling feet putting you on edge.

A) “What the hell is going on here?”

B) “Alright, let’s go.”

Maybe you can get a better view from the high ground. You should always take the high ground. You start hiking, the sharpened branches closing in around the trail.

It’s steep. You’re practically climbing, scrambling up roots and rocks. By the time you make it to the top it’s nearly nightfall, and you can hardly see the forest floor. A light snow begins to fall, further obscuring your vision.

You fumble for the flashlight on your phone when you hear:

“Hey! Is that you? Come over here. Quickly!”

It’s not a voice you recognize. Still, your only other option is to backtrack into the gorge.

A) Backtrack into the gorge

B) Head to the voices