Freddie Malone: "STOP!"
They both pause
Your voice was as imposing as a lions roar, you feel that otherwordly force tickle at the back of your throat, tastes like nostalgia
You calmly lower your sword
Freddie Malone: "What do you want? Maybe we can solve this whole problem peacefully"
You and J.P stare at Gasmask, watching as he slouches and says
Gasmask: "To beat this fuckers head in"
His grip tightens on junior's spasming body slightly, you and J.P tense
Gasmask: "To have whats rightfully mine, I spent weeks cleaning the donkey, getting along with the staff, learning how to calm even the most unreasonable guests"
He drops junior and falls to his knees, you can hear muffled sobbing, dust hits the inside of his lenses instead of tears, the fog leaves the spasming hotel managers body and spreads around
You run over real quick to grab junior, dragging him to J.P
Gasmask: "All I ever wanted was Pah's love, oh god look at me now, I'm like a fucking ghoul from those ghost stories that Ma told me and Pete"
He rips a strip of dried flesh from his chest, the S.E no longer preserves it for it is not part of the host, it becomes dust
The husk raises his hands to the sky, like he's holding up the moon
Gasmask: "Bare witness to why my anger extends past even death"
The fog encircles you all, the moonlight flows along with it, not even the resistance given to you by your S.E it could withstand it for long, now you stand at the rusty donkey much newer and cleaner looking then before
junior wakes up confused and fucking freaked out
J.P holds him close and is sobbing while saying how worried he was, he also asks why junior was behind the building
junior answers it by simply raising a cigarette pack, replying "Late night smoke break"
J.P takes the cigarettes, stomps them, and replies he ain't supporting that kinda behavior, pulling some moonshine out of nowhere
"We're a moonshone household boy! We hate our livers as much as we hate the lord who made em!"
After that snippet of insanity was over and done
You, J.P, and J look around before seeing two young men and a considerably older man arguing, one looks alot like junior, the older man looks like J.P
"I don't remember this" junior says confused once more
"Course you dont" Replies J.P before his expression grows solemn
"You're about to see my worst mistake"
Gasmask walks in from stage left
"What!?" he asks befuddled
"Pah, you did nothing wrong, I just couldn't prove the hotel should've been mine sooner, it's all HIS FAU-"
"It's been 52 years Matt"
The silence was deafening, the illusion grows more intense, the scene changes to the cliffside, Ma didn't take Matt and Pete there when they were kids because she was afraid they might fall off, so they snuck here like the scamps they were
"What?"
"Pah died years ago, you're an uncle little bro" Pete shed a couple tears, his expression pained, his old bones are bracing for something, junior and you shrug while facing eachother
The brothers of the rusty donkey argue near the cliffs edge, their favorite meeting spot, where they used to play tag, where Ma used to drag them away from for sneaking off
Where Pete first showed Matt the stray ball he caught at the big game Pa brought him too, and played catch, since pa was busy whenever Matt asked
Now look at them, bits of brown stubble on their faces, shouting things they'll regret, who deserves to inherit the property, who was the better son, and to top it all off, a shove from Matt with a resounding "WHY WOULD DAD LOVE A PIECE OF SHIT LIKE YOU! HE TOOK YOU TO THE GAME, HE HELPED YOU RIDE THAT STUPID FUCKING BIKE, I HELPED AT THE HOTEL MORE, I WAS THE TOP BUSINESS MAJOR IN COLLEGE, YOU JUST SPENT YOUR TIME FUCKING AROUND AND FLIRTING WITH THAT CHICK FROM THE BAR, THE RUSTY DONKEY IS MIN-"
The next shove would set everything in motion, they were too caught up in the fight to notice how close they were to the cliff
Fear and loathing flooded his heart as the ground grew closer, fear that he would never grow old with a loving family, that the hotel might not run as well without his help, fear that he'll never prove to pa that he was the better son
And that mixed with the hatred in him attracted something horrible, something otherwordly, and it would gestate in the mans corpse, and the corpses of the coyotes he landed on, for many years to come
Pete never told anyone where Matt went, mother cried and even in her final days she snuck out of the nursing home to ask passerby where her boy went
Pa didn't give 2 shits, Pete pulled the plug on him early during the bastards last days
The fog recedes, all that is left is the result of brotherly dispute
Pete: "Ain't it all so clear now?"
Matt took a couple steps back, clearly shaken by this revelation
Matt: "Y-you look so much like Pah!"
Pete: "I am offended by that remark, but yes, and not even the worst nightmares you could show me with that damned fog could hurt me as much as the guilt I still hold inside"
You raised your hand real quick, trying to get one last question in
Freddie Malone: "Why did you kill those people out in the desert?"
The three of you face Matt
Matt: "The coyotes getting out of control, I just let them do their thing, sometimes someone got too close to me, it took awhile to trek all the way here, the whole freakout at the hotel wasn't even my idea, I had my fog feeling around for Pete"
Matt then looked at Pete while pointing at you, and said
Matt: "Okay who is this guy?"
You decide to finish the job Pete started
The Electro-Claymore pierced Matt with ease, the nightmare ended with the man gasping, before blowing away as dust in the wind, leaving behind only a leather mask
Pete and Pete Jr were looking at you with their eyes and mouths wide open
Freddie Malone: "What?"
You have slain the pitiful Lord Of Fog
Gas Mask is added to treasury
