Chapter Fifty-One: The Contradictions (Patreon)

We weren't a mile down the trail before we ran into the lawyers. It’s not that they had been taking their sweet time, no, they were walking back toward the cabin.

Antoine and Camden gave us a flash of acknowledgment when they saw us. They were quick to drop it though. They couldn’t be sure if we were really their friends.

The other seven lawyers didn’t acknowledge us.

Even Tony didn't seem happy to see us.

“Was this the way to the exit?” Antoine asked. “We got turned around somewhere. Somehow.”

That didn't seem possible. It was a pretty straightforward trail back to the parking lot. Literally, it was a straight trail--how had they managed to get turned around?

Unless…

Unless they had a Straggler with them. They could only leave with the amount that they had come in with. If they had a Straggler, they would have too many people and they would never find the exit. But which one didn’t belong?

The lawyers had the strangest looks on their faces. Like they were angry or sad. One of them, a man wearing a plaid shirt and a yellow construction vest, was silently crying. These lawyers certainly were acting funny. They didn’t seem to like each other much either. They refused to stand close to each other.

I noticed that one was missing.

"Didn't you have another lawyer with you?" I asked. "A woman?"

Antoine nodded. "We had two. Dina and Roberta. They got mad and left together after we got lost."

They had found Dina... I hoped that she was okay.

It was strange. He had just called Dina a lawyer. Wasn't Dina one of the missing people from Anna's notes? How could that be possible... Unless--

“Did you all hear what that guy in the cabin was talking about?” Camden asked. “Crazy stuff. Did you talk to him?”

We didn’t say anything at first. Was Camden a Straggler looking for information? Did Stragglers even need information?

“We talked to him,” Anna said. “Learned a few things.”

She took her notebook out of her pocket. "I wrote it all down here."

They made eye contact for a moment. Neither fully trusted the other. Slowly, Anna held the notebook out for Camden.

He was just as slow to grab for it. He flipped through it for ten or fifteen seconds before handing it back.

“Interesting stuff,” he said. “Very interesting.”

If Camden was who I thought he was, then he now knew everything. Anna had taken notes from Old Man Akers’ story. Between Camden’s Eureka and Photographic Memory tropes, he would know almost everything we did.

Or he was just playing the part in hopes of tricking one of us to take his place in the forest?

Who knew?

There were other things we didn’t know. Things like: how to tell Stragglers from non-Stragglers. Akers made it out like it was possible, but as I gazed around the group in the moonlight, I was lost. Truly lost.

This was a mind teaser. There had to be some way that we could use clever planning and lore knowledge to tell everyone apart. We needed to figure it out quickly too. There were around fifteen Stragglers out there in the forest—enough to replace every single one of us.

“Tony missed the whole conversation,” Anna said. “Ran off before we even met the guy.”

“Sorry,” Tony said. “I just really wanted to leave.”

“Wait,” Antoine said. “How do you know Tony?”

“He goes to school with us,” Kimberly answered.

Camden and Antoine looked at each other. Camden started to back away from Tony.

“Tony is a member of our law firm. He came here with us,” Camden said.

“No,” Tony said. “Wait.”

Camden's look of confusion turned to one of horror. At first, I was confused too but then I managed to follow the same logical trail that he had.

The scales fell off my eyes.

“No that can't be,” Anna said.

She must have figured it out too.

Tony had to be a Straggler. I couldn't believe it. I thought back to everything we had been through. We both worked for the school paper. Didn’t we? Did I?

Was it possible Camden and Antoine were lying?

It was like half my brain was missing. I was all questions and no answers.

What I knew is that Tony was my friend from school. Yet, he was apparently a lawyer that was hired by the city. Both could not be true.

The forest tricks you into thinking that Stragglers belong. Tony had attempted to join two different groups, so he had two different backstories. The contradiction was enough to wake us up to his true nature.

He was cursed.

He was a Straggler.

This must have been how we were supposed to figure out who the Stragglers were. You learn a piece of their lore—in this case, the fact that the forest tricks you into thinking you know them—and then you find contradictions.

You had to find some indirect way of figuring out who they were.

“No, please let me explain,” Tony said. He was trying to think, he closed his eyes and breathed rapidly, willing his addled mind to come up with an explanation. “Just a second.”

He began to cry.

As I looked at him, I suddenly realized how ragged and ghoulish he looked. He had been out here for a long time from the look of it. I had noticed and yet… I had never really seen him.

“Please. Please,” he said. “I can't stay here any longer. Please.”

Everyone started to back away from him. The group of lawyers looked particularly upset. He dropped to his knees.

“Just let me go. I promise I'll bring someone back for you. I won't be long. Please.”

“How is that possible?” Kimberly asked. “How can he…”

She was having the same problems that I did. Now it was obvious that Tony was a Straggler, a cursed being forced to walk endlessly for the sin of having entered this forest. And yet, Tony was my friend. I knew him. We had come here together.

Or so I thought.

“We need to split up,” one of the lawyers said. “We should all just run out of the forest. There could be more of them.”

I was waiting for someone to suggest that. Akers made it seem like splitting up was a viable option, but truthfully, it was just a good way to leave someone behind.

“No!” I screamed. “We don't want to leave the forest. Not yet. Not until we're sure that there are no Stragglers with us. They can only leave with us if we stay together. We need to head back to the cabin. That’s the only landmark we have all been to. As long as we stay together and don’t try to get out of the forest, they can't take our place.”

“That makes no sense,” one of the lawyers said through chapped lips, “We were just there. You’re just trying to get us to go deeper into the forest."

He was a tall man named Nicholas. He wore a threadbare long-sleeve shirt and a climbing harness. As he spoke, he moved his fingers through his mess of hair.

"Please!" Tony yelled, "This isn't fair!"

He jumped to his feet and approached Kimberly, who screamed as he got close.

“Please,” he said. “We can figure something out. Don’t scream.”

She backed away.

Antoine started to move to protect her, but at the last moment, it looked like the fear that she might be a Straggler left him staring at her in confusion.

“Let’s not resort to violence here,” Anna said, looking at me and Antoine expectantly.

I paused, confused at what she was looking at me for.

Then I realized: Let’s Not Fight was one of her tropes. If she broke up a dispute between two players, all involved would get a buff.

That meant she could tell who the players were simply by trying to activate her trope. If the people she was talking to were players, it would work. If not, at least one of them was a Straggler. It would probably also prove she was a player.

I imagine it would have worked too. If we had time to test it out.

Tony had finished crying. He got up from his knees and walked toward me. Of course, he picked me. I had the lowest Plot Armor. He grabbed onto my arm and started pulling me away from the group.

“Let’s go,” he said, “Let’s get out of here.”

I struggled against him as he pulled me. I had to assume that our Mettle scores were tied because I was making no progress.

I started pulling against him.

The lawyer, Nicholas, came to my aid. He grabbed onto my arm and pulled me away from Tony.

“Get out of here,” he said to Tony. “Get back.”

I backed away into the darkness. I needed to find my way back to my friends. I looked over in their direction.

Most of the lawyers had split as soon as Tony started getting aggressive. Those idiots were doomed.

To my left and right, figures began coming into view. It was the lawyers or maybe it was someone new. Other students from U of C?

“Riley, come here,” Anna called.

“Yeah, Riley,” a voice called out from the darkness. “Come this way. We’ll go together.”

All attention was on me. Many of them were saying my name. Anna, Camden, Nicholas, the lawyers, and even Tony.

But who could I trust?

What group had I come in with? Anna, Kimberly, Tony, Austin, Pietro, and Jaime, right?

No, that wasn’t right. Tony was a Straggler.

But if he was a Straggler, maybe Jaime or Kimberly was too. How could I tell?

If I joined a group and walked out with them, could I be leaving my friends behind?

I had to make a decision quickly.

They were all drawing in toward me.

“The cabin,” I said. “Go to the cabin!”

I started running away from the people surrounding me. I had some idea of where the cabin was because of the direction the trail led. I needed to stay parallel with it. I also needed to stay away from everyone. With my high Hustle, that part was doable.

While I was running, the plot cycle struck Second Blood.

I knew splitting up was a bad idea. I just had to trust that my friends, whoever my real friends were, would be able to figure things out without me for a while.

I needed to use Oblivious Bystander.

Unfortunately, no matter how high my Moxie was, Oblivious Bystander would not work in a chase scene. No one would believe I was just jogging along.

This was going to be tricky. I needed to stop running and start being oblivious. How would I sell that though? Could I really just be the most careless guy on the planet?

I needed to figure it out. It was the only way I could guarantee that I was safe. In fact, I had a theory that it would allow me to separate the Stragglers away from the players.

I was working on the assumption that you could indirectly determine if someone was a Straggler, even if you couldn't know by looking at them. I thought Oblivious Bystander might just do the trick.

When using the bystander trope, my own perception was unimportant. All that mattered was the audience. If the audience knew who the Stragglers were, then watching one sneak up on me would create tension.

So, theoretically, if someone approached me and Oblivious Bystander activated, I could safely assume that they were a Straggler. The opposite might have also been true. If someone could approach me without activating the trope, then they must not be a Straggler.

The question was, how did I convincingly pretend to be oblivious? I had just been accosted by at least one Straggler. I had my new pair of headphones and the Walkman. How realistic was it for me to use that right now?

I had a plan.

I would act panicked and out of breath. I would then put on my Walkman and visibly calm down as if the music soothed me. All I needed was an excuse to listen to music in a haunted forest while being hunted by cursed people. I hoped it would work because the forest was too dark in most places for me to put on my sunglasses. I needed to wait until I was Off-Screen and then back On-Screen. That would give me the cover I needed. The audience would not know how much time had passed.

That plan was borderline at best, but I had prepared for this. I had been stacking points into Moxie for edge cases just like this. I had to hope that it would be enough.

I went Off-Screen for thirty seconds or so. Then I was back On-Screen. It was time.

I ran until I was out of breath. I put my hand to my chest and tried to show that it was visibly shaking. I closed my eyes like I was holding back tears. Then I took my headphones from my pocket and put them over my ears. I bent over and breathed in deeply and pushed to play on the Walkman. The volume was down next to nothing. I took deep breaths and let myself calm down. I even hummed to the music.

That would have to be enough. My Moxie was high. I had invested heavily in it. That should be enough to make up for the slightly unrealistic timing of my moonlight serenade.

I had to hope I didn’t get approached while I was getting things working. I started walking through the forest in the direction of the cabin.

Within a few minutes, a shadowy figure was trailing me. I didn't pay them any mind. I became aware that I was On-Screen; I probably had been for a while. I continued to walk like I hadn't noticed anything at all.

I continued to walk forward. The figure followed but never came close.

This was so much easier than humming to myself to try to drown out noise.

I got a good enough look at him in my peripheral vision that I could see his name was Thadeus. He was dressed in a ripped old cotton shirt. He was barefoot.

The more time went on the surer I was that Thad was a Straggler. He had clearly activated Oblivious Bystander.

He followed me for a time. When I went Off-Screen, he left, off to find someone else.

I actually smiled to myself like an idiot. Of course, then I was back On-Screen.

Another figure appeared behind me. It was Pietro, my friend from school. Except, he must not have been. Oblivious Bystander activated. He followed me but only got close enough to let the camera see. He too faded into the distance with time.

Then there was another.

And another.

And another.

How many of those lawyers had been Stragglers?

How many fellow students were, for that matter?

I soldiered on.

“Dina?” a voice cried in the distance. “Where did you go?”

It was Roberta, one of the NPC lawyers. I zigzagged to keep her out of my eyeline.

“Dina, why would you do this? We were friends. Please, I’m scared. I want to go home.”

My character didn’t react. I was listening to music, after all.

“Din-“ she cried out. She appeared to notice me. She grew quiet.

It was like I could see Roberta slowly realize what was happening as soon as she saw me. She started to follow. Of course, as I suspected, she was cursed. If I had to guess, she had been cursed by none other than Dina.

Dina had been a car crash survivor in the woods for a week. That was her role. Somehow, she had convinced some of the others that she was a lawyer. The only way that could happen was if she was a Straggler.

Dina had started the storyline as cursed but was probably already out of the forest now. Cutthroat, even if Roberta was just an NPC.

Roberta, like all of the other Stragglers, eventually gave up. There was really no point in chasing me once I knew. It wouldn’t be cinematic. I would just run from a Straggler. They needed someone who still thought they were safe.

I smiled to myself as I stepped out of the thick part of the woods and into the space where the cabin sat.

I froze.

I had come face to face with Kimberly. I hadn't seen her at first because the forest was so thick. She was standing up next to Old Man Akers’ truck, her slender arm reaching through the tiniest crack in his driver's side window, attempting to grab onto the lock.

She looked at me. I looked at her.

Was she a Straggler?

I had no idea. I thought I knew her, but I couldn't trust my memory. After all, I thought I knew Tony.

I turned and ran.