Episode 37: Fear and Frenzy

## Synopsis

Sammie fights off a doll-faced creature, falls into a pit of acid, and then passes out on a black sand shore. Henry finds himself in a hedge maze with a woman bound to a stone slate in the center. He refuses to kill the woman and falls into darkness. Bjorn is confronted in a cemetery by Park Ranger Ted, Mad Maddy, his dead squad mates, and everyone else he feels like he didn't save. He breaks the illusion and is back in the country club.

## Episode Description

The heroes are running out of sanity and hit points, but there are still rooms left. How much more can they handle?

## Key Events

* Sammie fights off a doll-faced creature in a series of endless hallways before falling into a pit of acid.
* Henry finds himself in a hedge maze with a woman tied to a slab. A voice wants him to kill the woman to leave, but he refuses. He falls into an inky blackness he can't see through.
* Bjorn is confronted by everyone in his past that he feels like he could have saved. He breaks the illusion and finds himself back inside the country club.

## Summary

Sammie finds herself in the hallway she was pacing in before all of this happened. She opens the door to what should have been Bjorn's bedroom, but finds another hallway. She tries another door, but just finds the same hallway. She decides to go down the same hallway for as long as she can. She opens every door she passes, but they all lead to the same hallway. She feels like the hallway should have ended by now, but it doesn't. She suddenly remembers she's been poisoned by the wendigo. She looks down at herself and realizes the black blood has spread through her body. The tips of her fingers are black. She takes a moment to try and heal herself the best she can.

Sammie can see a stairway at the end of the hallway, but she can't reach it. She panickily starts running through random doors and hallways to try and find something different. She finally enters a hallway that seems older and decrepit from time. She opens and runs through a door, but trips over herself. She falls into another hallway but it is covered in a red substance that she assumes to be blood. She pulls herself into a ball and tries to calm herself down to see through the illusion, but soon hears a growling coming from an open door. She can see something rapidly moving toward her from the end of the hall she came through. She kicks the door shut before it can reach her. The growling is still getting closer.

Sammie gets to her feet and tries to run down the bloody hallway. She slips as she goes, having a hard time running on the liquid in her bare feet. She hears the door get blown open and stops to see what is chasing her. It is a large mass with four legs and shaggy black fur. Where it should have a face, instead a doll's face is sewn onto it. Sammie shoots fireballs at the creature, but it isn't slowed. She tries to take a hard left and finds herself running through a hall full of broken glass, cutting her feet.

Sammie goes through another door and pulls her knife. She waits for the creature to burst through the door and stabs it. The creature reacts and swipes her with its claws. Sammie slashes its throat and the monster gets one more jab in before it falls to the ground, dead. Sammie notices the first door that has looked different than the others. She opens it and steps through before managing to catch herself on the doorway as she realizes there is no floor and the door opens up into a pit. Sammie shoots a fireball down the pit to see how deep it is. It drops a long way until it hits what looks like water. Sammie takes a breath before jumping in.

As she hits the liquid, she realizes it's acid and not water. Sammie doesn't see any way out of the vat. Sammie ignites some fire on her hand to try and see where to go. She sees what looks like a black sand beach. By the time she reaches the shore, she can see that the acid has eaten away at her skin down to the muscle. She passes out as soon as she pulls herself out.

Henry has been blown out of the kitchen door and falls onto what feels like gravel. He picks himself up and sees what looks like a hedge maze in front of him. He takes a moment to try to just breathe and heal himself with magic. He can see the country club in the distance, but all he can see around him is hedges. He gets his gun ready and manifests his claws as he enters the maze. He hums the Harry Potter theme song to himself.

Henry starts to hear a constant, low rumble around him. A skeletal hand reaches out for him from the hedges. One manages to scratch him before he stomps down on them and they disappear back into the hedges. This continues as he makes his way through the hedges. Various creatures and monsters' hands pop out to try and grab him. Eventually he comes to an opening where he sees a woman. There is a stone slab in the center where a woman in a black dress is tied down. Her mouth is gagged, but when she sees Henry she starts to scream through her gag. She seems terrified of Henry.

Henry approaches the woman and the stone slab. A black blade falls from the side of the slab at his feet and a voice asks him if he wants to leave. Henry replies that of course he wants to leave. The black blade has lifted up into the air on its own and hovers in the air. The voice asks again if he wants to leave. Henry believes that he must kill the woman to leave and refuses. He tries to remove the woman's gag, but he feels a shock that makes him pull his hand back. The sky turns black and a spotlight seems to shine down from the sky. The blade moves and floats over the center of the woman's chest.

Henry shouts toward the sky that he's not going to kill the woman, but nothing happens. Henry finally reaches out to take the black blade. Instead of using it on the woman, he uses it on the bonds around the woman's feet. There is a similar electric shock that forces him to stop. The voice booms at him, asking him if he wants to leave. Henry shouts at the voice to come out and face him, but nothing happens.

Henry drops the knife and tells the voice he refuses to do it. The light around them grows brighter and brighter. He's forced to close his eyes. He suddenly feels like he's falling. He hits the ground, but when he opens his eyes, he is surrounded by an inky blackness.

Bjorn has landed on soft, wet grass. He seems to be in some kind of cemetery. Bjorn sees a park ranger sitting on a tombstone with his back to Bjorn and appears to be crying. Bjorn feels confident that this is just another illusion. Everything seems to go a bit 2D for a moment, but snaps back into place. Bjorn gets his gun at the ready and approaches the park ranger. As Bjorn gets closer, he realizes there are holes in the park rangers' uniform with blood seeping out of them. He looks up at Bjorn angrily. Bjorn immediately shoots the man he now recognizes as Ted, the park ranger killed by the big gator. Bjorn unloads into him, trying to end this scenario as quickly as possible.

Bjorn turns around and bumps into Mad Maddy, who accuses him of not doing his job and not saving her. This gets to him a bit more. He backs away from her and he bumps into Nick, the man who ran the community center. He says that his son is going to grow up without a father because of Bjorn. He starts trying to leave the cemetery. He runs into a woman, the mother of the missing boy who was killed by the wendigo. She tells him that because of him, her son will never see her again.

Bjorn closes his eyes to try and convince himself this isn't real, but when he opens them he is staring into the eyes of his commanding officer from Afghanistan. Behind him is the squad mates he couldn't say. This feels entirely real to Bjorn. He suddenly starts seeing even more and more people swarming around him. People he couldn't save or killed in Afghanistan, people he couldn't save from monsters. They all begin to shout at Bjorn about how he didn't save them and now nothing is the same. He shouts at them that he tried his best and that he's sorry. They push in on him, surrounding him.

Bjorn tries one last time to break out of this illusion. He closes his eyes and when he opens them, he's in a hallway of the country club. He sees some stairs in front of him and starts to head down them.

## List of Appearances

* Sammie Overbrook
* Henry Marlowe
* Bjorn Olafson
* Park Ranger Ted

## Roll Tracker

**Hannah Level Up:** Saved for later due to narrative reasons.

**Andrew Level Up:** Not mentioned in episode

## Harm Healed

 Hannah/Sammie
 Wesley/Henry