#061993.

of all the gin joints in all the world.

miles doesn't know how long it's been, or whether time is even still working, since he'd barricaded himself into a room in that godforsaken asylum and the dark fog had swallowed him up. his watch had stopped. but it isn't his first of these -- trials, the others had called them. like mice in a fucking maze. still, he's lost interest in doing these generators, since after the first few times it's become clear that any 'escape' they offer is only temporary. a brief respite of sitting around a dwindling campfire in the dark woods with a group of strangers, most of whom have such a laissez-faire attitude towards the fuckery of the whole situation that miles is half-convinced they're going to start singing campfire songs any second now. thrilling. he thinks he almost prefers running for his life.

he's never heard of any of these other jackasses -- the beefy chick with the hatchets; the horrible screeching baby and its lumbering guardian(?); the dickhead with the bell. figured they were all conjured out of the same dark mist, spirits perhaps, not even conscious. (before the asylum, miles wants to note, he didn't believe in any of this supernatural shit.)

but not now -- not now that he'd snuck away for a smoke break and seen the familiar glint of neon light off a very familiar mask. ghostface -- sorry, the ghostface, as jed olsen had insisted back in roseville, in all his creepy coverage. fuck.

the taste of nicotine is heavy on his tongue. keeps eyeing the hunting knife in the psycho's hand, even when that mask comes off to reveal -- yeah. fucking olsen. (thinking of his coworkers: i was right! who's paranoid and antisocial now, cheryl?)

"why? what is it?" fastest way to arouse a journalist's curiosity -- possibly the only thing powerful enough to make miles forget how much he dislikes being around the paper's golden boy. picking up the folder, miles leafs through the scattered drafts. "ghostface killer, ghostface killer -- jesus, man, don't you ever cover anything else? you got a crush on him or something?"

olsen's been even more intolerable lately since he published that footage -- the short clip of what he and every other paranoid son of a bitch in roseville thinks is proof of the ghostface killer breaking into someone's house. miles is prone to doubt in general (especially when it comes to jed olsen; nobody is that nice without some fucked-up ulterior motive, not in their business) so he's gone through the footage multiple times. hasn't found anything to show that olsen staged the whole thing, but he hasn't found any reason to think it's the literal fucking ghostface either. could have just as easily been your run of the mill home invasion.

people in this town are too goddamn suggestible, is the moral of the story.

he wants to hit something. any other day, he's tripping over rusted cars or dead animals or those goddamn generators, but now that miles actually wants to break something, of course, the fucking eternal torture realm is devoid of anything but woods. so instead, he walks.

one of those more recent survivor had mentioned being from 2024. more than twenty goddamn years since miles had disappeared, or died, or been spirited away to this place. and the earth just keeps on turning. that thought, the one that stays with him always, now, arises, chilling in its honesty. maybe you're never getting out of here. maybe there is no way out. like it's all for nothing -- his life, the asylum, everything he'd endured and everything before it, only for him to end up some useless, pointless pawn in a cosmic game he doesn't even understand.

at some point, he becomes aware of the feeling of being watched. could just be the unsettling paranoia of the realm, but he doubts it. not lately. "jed fuckin' olsen," he says loudly, to his stalker and anyone else that's listening. he'd pocketed one of the many ids in ghost face's trailer, one with the name danny johnson. "or -- danny, right? enjoying the show, fuckface?"