Growing up the son of a wealthy CEO was always going to put pressure on Jake Park. When his brother graduated with honors from Yale the pressure on Jake intensified. Jake just wasn’t the academic type, but his father never really understood his refusal to embrace the expensive education he lavished up on him. Eventually, Jake rebelled by dropping out of school entirely.

Now, Jake lives off the grid on the edge of the woods. It’s been years since he spoke to his father but his mother checks in once in a while. It was her who eventually called the police.

The cops said he got lost in the woods and a search party looked for days, but gave up as bad weather rolled in. Despite passionate pleas from his mother, they never resumed the search and Jake went down in history as another casualty of the woods

Perhaps it was her mother that had instilled the fierce streak in her or maybe it was her father that left them when she was a baby.

Meg excelled at schoolwork but she was off the rails. Fortunately, an athletics coach encouraged her to channel her misspent energy on the track.

She motivated herself into becoming a high school star and earned a scholarship to college. When her mother fell ill, Meg decided to give up her chance at college to care for the woman who had raised her.

One summer’s day, on a long run deep in the woods, Meg vanished. Search as they did, they never found her body.

Dwight was geeky and scrawny through high school. He always wanted to be one of the cool kids, but somehow never had the charisma. He tried out for the football team but was cut, the basketball team didn’t even take a look, and his grades were distinctly below average.

One weekend, on a team building exercise from his dead-end job, Dwight’s boss led them deep into the woods before breaking out his family recipe moonshine. Dwight remembered taking the first sip before waking up late the next morning all alone.

During the night, the others had abandoned him. Once again, the laughing stock of the community Dwight tried to hike his way out of the woods. That was the last anyone ever heard of Dwight Fairfield

From the day that her parents gave Claudette her first science kit, she loved experiments. Her single minded pursuit lead to an early scholarship at a great college. It was a huge decision to leave Montreal, but the chance was too good to pass up.

Her introverted nature means that chat rooms and forums are now her best source of social interaction. Her new favourite activity is to answer botany questions for others under her new moniker of Science Girl.

One evening, during a long bus ride back from the city, Claudette took a stroll that would change her life. It only took a minute for her to get completely disoriented in the thick woods. She never found her way back. Her forum only started to wonder where she was a week after she stopped posting.

At first sight I thought it was a cat that passed me by, just a few meters behind me. A shadow that moved without sound. But yelling is not wise in this place. I have spotted her more times, but just in the peripheral. I still don’t know her name, but she evades the monsters with a certain grace.
~ Unknown (Potentially Benedict Baker)

Nea grew up in the small town of Hjo in Sweden. She had a happy childhood even though her mom and dad worked hard. As the opportunity to move to the US became a reality she started acting out. Her parents didn’t really pick up on this as a reaction to their move. Nea was forced to leave her friends and life behind. Nea shied away from what her parents considered “normal”. Instead she took refuge in skate parks, and her tag “Mashtyx” was seen more or less all over her new hometown, and Nea made a sport out of tagging government buildings. Finally Nea’s parents became used to Nea disappearing for a few days on end. As she’s nimble and almost catlike, she’s able to evade deadly dangers. Years on skateboards has proven worthy training. And keeping her head down, avoiding the fuzz can be applied to all dangers. The only question is whether she has some interest in not giving up.

I stumbled upon another soul in this doomed corner of the earth. I do not know her name, but there is something about her. I have never crossed paths with her, but she seems as if she’s been doing this for far too long. Weary of the environment, clad in a kind of controlled panic, constantly looking over her shoulder, on the lookout.
~ Unknown (Potentially Benedict Baker)

You never know what really matters in life until you’ve realized it might end soon. Laurie is one of those who just wants a quiet life in the suburbs, hanging out with friends, family and maybe go on a date or two. Laurie is a typical teenager. You could pass her on the street and not think twice. She does her homework and is liked by her friends, teachers and family. A simple night of babysitting turns into something that will forever change the course of her young life. A knife swooshing through the air. Screams from afar. Noises that plays tricks with her mind. But not Laurie, she’s made of something stronger. Something that won’t give up.

“I have seen a poor new soul in this nightmare. For most of the others trapped here, fear is our common denominator. But this man does not appear as haunted as we are. I have seen him walking without despair, instead I could see his alert gaze taking in his surroundings and his crooked smile as he picked up something from the ground. Just by watching him from afar, I felt as if he ignited a faint spark of hope in my heart before he disappeared into the shadows. I do not grasp why, but I do pray that good fortune stays on his side.”
~ Unknown (Potentially Benedict Baker)

Ace Visconti is one charming guy. With his sharp Italian looks, grey-streaked hair and silver tongue, he can pass for an aging 50's movie star. His heart has always belonged to the cards. From his roots as a poor boy in Argentina, he gamed, scammed, seduced and smooth-talked his way to a life of luxury as a high roller in the land of opportunity. Money has always had a way of slipping through his fingers, but Ace figures he can always win more. Eventually he racked up too many debts with the wrong kind of people. But when they finally came to collect, Ace was nowhere to be found. No one knew who tipped him off or where he has gone, but everyone who knows Ace Visconti can agree on one thing: He will survive… against all odds.

It took two tours in Vietnam, a handful of medals, a knee full of shrapnel, and an honorable discharge to get William "Bill" Overbeck to stop fighting and try to live a peaceful life. He hated it. After decades spent drifting aimlessly through dead end jobs, Bill went in for a routine surgery and woke up to find the world he knew was gone. A plague was turning normal people into mindless killing machines. Naturally, the first thing he did was fight his way home and put on his uniform. Making his way through rural ghost towns and pitch-black forests, he found other survivors, and together they fled from the infected hordes. In the end, Bill sacrificed himself to ensure their safety. His body was never found. Bill was left for dead. No one knows that he still has the only thing he ever wanted: an enemy to fight.

Feng Min was a young girl when she first picked up computer games, and she was instantly hooked. The brand new worlds enchanted her with colors, sounds and explosions – a chance to be somewhere else, or someone else. Her parents saw no wrong with a few minutes in front of the screen, but as minutes turned into hours and sometimes days, they finally decided to pull the plug and force Feng Min to put more efforts into her studies.

She felt smothered by parents who refused to see the potential of a future in games, so she left home and spent her time in internet cafés and LAN parties where the old rules didn’t apply. She spent hours playing, streaming, competing to rise to the top. Her parents became what she called “holiday parents” as she never saw them outside the holidays, and she became the black sheep of a one-child-family. In the gaming world, however, she finally found respect. Nicknamed the “Shining Lion,” she was invited to join a prestigious e-sports team and to live in their dorms, where she found a sanctuary free of the misconceptions and prejudice she had felt from her parents and the non-gaming world.

Feng Min pushed her limits to prove she was the best. Sleep was less important to her than training. At the top of her game, she filled stadiums with fans who adored her. But it couldn’t last forever; The pressure to be the best grew stronger and stronger. She pushed herself too far, slept too little, and her performance began to slip. She started to lose. At night, she would stay up, tormented by the thought of disappointing her parents… and her fans.
She spiraled out of control and fell into a pattern of self-destruction. She started wandering the streets and visiting bars, where no one knew of e-sports, waking up in places she didn’t remember. One day she woke up somewhere completely different… in a never-ending nightmare. Feng Min did not despair – as she learned more about the challenge she was up against, she realized this was what she had been training for her entire life. Now, she was going to win.

The single child of a wealthy family, David King seemed destined for greatness. While growing up in Manchester, he demonstrated serious potential in both sports and academics, and with his family connections, all doors were open to him. He could have succeeded at anything, if it weren't for his combative nature. David lived for the adrenaline rush of a good fight and would go out of his way to get into one.

His robustness and athletic abilities led him to rugby, where he could cut loose and really cause a ruckus. King excelled and gained a reputation as a promising, if somewhat reckless, rookie. His meteoric rise came to an abrupt end when he lost his temper and assaulted a referee, earning himself a lifetime ban from the league and cutting short what most people assumed was going to be a long, successful career. King was unconcerned; money was no issue, so he took it as an early retirement and focused on other fun things to do.

Free from the constraints of a career and enabled by the wealth of his family, David King spent most of his time at the pub, drinking, watching games, and getting into fights. Some might say he was wasting his life away. Not many people knew that he was an occasional "debt collector" or that he fought in clandestine bare-knuckle fight clubs.

When David King stopped showing up at the pub, the few friends he still had were not surprised. They figured he had finally picked a fight with someone stronger than he was. In a way, they were right.

When he heard that Nancy’s mother had disappeared, Quentin Smith knew instantly that their success had been short-lived. Although their plan had seemed to work flawlessly, Freddy Krueger had beaten death yet again.

But Quentin wasn’t about to give up. It may take many attempts, but he vowed that somehow they would find a way to beat Freddy, once and for all. If he didn’t, it would only be a matter of time before Freddy would win and Nancy was lost.

Someone like Quentin never attracted attention in a library, no matter how strange the texts he requested. He devoured all the information he could find, on shared dream worlds, lucid dreaming, and the methods to control the dream space. Forcing himself to stay awake, via a steady diet of pills and energy drinks, he searched through dusty volumes, finding myths about the demons that live in dreams, trapping their victims in limbo and feeding off their terror. He worked quickly as he knew that Freddy would soon be coming for him.

It wasn’t long before that moment arrived and Freddy began appearing in his dreams. He stayed at the periphery at first, taunting Quentin, seemingly hoping to tire him out. Using all that he had learned, Quentin was able to see flaws in the dream; cracks where escape routes could be formed. He tested this skill carefully, not wanting to show his hand, hoping that it would give him some kind of advantage that he could use to defeat Freddy.

Then, one night, he found himself in the familiar environment of Badham Preschool. Freddy had tired of the taunting and had finally decided to gut him. Quentin ran through the school, his quick eyes scanning for something useful in the maze of rooms. He found a can of paint thinner and quickly formulated a plan. Once the trap was set, he waited, acting as the lure to draw Freddy into the right position. And there he was, claws scraping on metal as he closed in for the kill. Quentin allowed himself time to enjoy the surprise on Freddy’s face as the corridor ignited and then he was away, running through the building, heading for the exit that he knew existed. If he harried Freddy, weakening him and then escaping the dream, surely that would defeat him over time? Before his eyes, the cracks in the dream closed and his escape route was blocked. He was in Freddy’s secret room again, and there was nowhere to run.

As Freddy closed in, a broad grin spreading across his ruined face, Quentin was consumed with a need to see this man finally obliterated. He wished it had been him, not his father, who threw the gas can that ended Krueger’s life, that it had been him who cut Freddy’s throat. Perhaps that desire would be enough? This was a realm of the mind after all.

He let it consume him, concentrating all his thoughts on wishing Freddy gone. His vision was obscured with roiling tendrils of fog and, when it cleared, he was somewhere else. In another dream? If so, it wasn’t his; it felt cold and unfamiliar.

A flickering drew his attention and he realised he was by a campfire, and he wasn’t alone. Other people were trapped here too, and they needed his help.

Detective David Tapp was one of the good guys. His determination to see killers brought to justice and their victims avenged had led him through a long and respected career.

When he first saw the details of the Jigsaw case, it seemed like many others. More grisly and macabre, sure, but just another lunatic with a penchant for the over-dramatic, who would soon be behind bars.

A stroke of insight brought Tapp, and his partner Detective Stephen Sing, to an abandoned mannequin factory, where they discovered Jigsaw’s lair. They apprehended the man but he managed to escape before being unmasked, slashing Tapp’s throat as he did so. Leaving his partner, Sing went in pursuit but fell victim to a booby trap. Tapp had failed to go by the book on this one occasion, entering the lair without a warrant, and it had resulted in a Detective’s death. He was discharged from the force and left with a ruined throat and crippling guilt.

He channelled that guilt into an obsession: he would find the killer, stop the murders, vindicate himself, and avenge his friend and colleague. Following the evidence trail brought him to Dr Lawrence Gordon and he staked out the doctor’s apartment, sure that he would find some evidence of guilt.

Then he saw a stranger at Gordon’s window and heard gunshots. Tapp confronted him and the man fled, with the pursuit leading to an industrial building.

Tapp’s age caught up with him, A fight that he would easily have won in his younger days ended with Tapp taking a bullet to the chest. Slumping to the floor, he saw only failure. He had failed his partner and the other victims. Whoever the killer was, Tapp had been unable to stop him. More would die and it would be his fault.

He let the rage and guilt consume him and closed his eyes for the final time. Beneath him, the concrete floor softened. He dug his fingers into the ground, feeling dirt and leaves. Where his chest had been wet with blood, the shirt was now dry and the pain had gone. His eyes opened onto a darkened sky and the jagged, searching fingers of branches.

Screams echoed through the forest and a new determination filled him. His mind was clear for the first time in months. Victims needed to be avenged, killers thwarted. He didn’t know what this place was, but he was still a cop, and he always would be. He had a job to do.

A vast monster of a man with a hideous grin torn across the mask that keeps stalking my mind. The hunter tracks us through the world. His devastating traps are hidden amongst the greenery. Extreme vigilance and a light step is essential in avoiding the clutches of that miserable smiling killer. I have but many times managed to get caught in one of these traps. Feeling how the blunt spikes grind my bones at the same time as that grin comes closing in. It is a constant battle between looking up and looking down.
~ Benedict Baker's Journal, Nov. 1896

Evan Macmillan idolised his father. It wasn’t just that he was heir to a great fortune, it was the way he ran the estate. Raised under his firm hand, Evan had taken to running the workforce with an iron hand. Production was always high and the Macmillan Estate prospered under father and son. As Archie Macmillan’s mental health slowly disintegrated, Evan protected him from the herd who wanted a piece of the fortune. No matter what his father asked of him, Evan would do.

When Archie Macmillan finally snapped, Evan became his enforcer in what would become known as the worst mass murder in modern history. They never proved that Evan led over a hundred men into those dark tunnels before detonating the explosives and sealing them to their fate. The tale of the Macmillan Estate is a tale of wealth and power gone very wrong. How many victims fell to the hands of father and son is unknown. No record is ever made of what became of Evan Macmillan. His father is another unsolved puzzle, found in the basement of his own warehouse - dead and abandoned

This thing moves as a shadow, appearing and disappearing at the sound of this dreaded bell. This “banshee” appears to be able to move invisibly. Several times it has caught me without me even seeing it closing in. Often convinced I have my back covered, the thing has materialized right behind me to strike from close range. So stay still and watch the fog. Sometimes it is possible to see the shimmer as it glides forward, looking for more prey.
~ Benedict Baker's Journal, Nov. 1896

Philip Ojomo came to this country without anything more than hope for a new beginning. He was happy as he got offered a job at Autohaven Wreckers. A small scrap yard where bribed cops turned a blind eye to the somewhat shady business that took place. Ojomo didn’t care. He had seen criminal activity up close in his homeland, and as long as he didn’t get involved, he'd let things be. He just fixed cars and handled the crusher. Something he did really well. A car went in, a small, metallic cube came out. It was not until one gloomy day that he, just by accident, saw some blood coming from one of the un-crushed cars.

As he opened the trunk he found a young man, gagged and with tied hands with panic filled eyes. Ojomo freed the man who managed to run ten feet before Ojomo’s boss stopped the man who was running and slit his throat. As Ojomo demanded answers he got explained to him that he’d been nothing more than a simple executioner as more or less every car had a soul in them as this was a "service" the scrap yard provided to certain "clients". Ojomo snapped and went ballistic. He threw his boss in the crusher and let it slowly compress, as the head stuck out, Ojomo grabbed it and pulled his head and spine out of the body. Then he left and was never seen again.

A most terrible man to behold. His physique is all twisted and disfigured as of by some awful accident. He carries a deadly and cruel chainsaw which he wields with devastating violence, seemingly imbuing him with a superhuman speed for a while. His advantage is also a weakness as the loud noise can give away his position. So I have tried to heighten my sense of sound. Honing in on any sound that is not stemming from nature.
~ Benedict Baker's Journal, Nov. 1896

The son of wealthy landowners Max and Evelyn Thompson, this unnamed boy was an unwanted child born to savage parents. Hideously disfigured, he was shut away from society. So ashamed they were of their son, they bricked him into a room and fed him through a hole in the wall. When the boy escaped, he took his revenge savagely and terribly, slaughtering the parents that had tortured him instead of raising him.

After the deed was done, he continued to live his life at the farm, taking out his deranged violence on the animals that were allowed to run free. As he finally broke free from his shackles, he ran through the cornfields, chasing and slaughtering whatever he could find. They never found the bodies of Max and Evelyn, but they did find tortured and disembowelled animals, all over the farm. Coldwind Farm was quickly settled and the land split up and sold off. There was never a buyer for the farmhouse. Perhaps it was the sound of the chainsaw you could hear throughout those hot summer nights.

A new varmint has entered the arena. I spotted her as she, somehow, moved through a wall. Clad in bandages that tell an untold tale of something horrid. This...nurse as it seems, brings me new angst during my lonely nights, as my mind runs amok.
~ Unknown (Potentially Benedict Baker)

Sally Smithson came to town with dreams of children’s feet and laughter in a wooden home built by her husband Andrew. But life came not with smiles but with plans of destruction. Andrew worked as a lumberjack - a job with its perils. And one day Andrew’s foreman had to pay Sally a visit, forever changing her life. She was alone. Without food on the table, the only employment she could get was at the Crotus Prenn Asylum. Nobody sought employment there unless they were in dire need. Just like Sally. Without any education, she started at the bottom and after two decades she hadn’t progressed any closer to the top. Instead her mind had reached its limits. Two decades of seeing horrid things that violates the eyes. Memories that are re-played every night. Being abused verbally and physically, by people without limits. Sally saw insanity from the outside, just to catch it herself. Finally she could not take it anymore and concepts of purification emerged inside her. She did what she felt was necessary. As the morning staff arrived one day in September - they found over fifty dead patients, lifeless, in their bed. Sally was the only one at the scene, rocking back and forth. Exactly what happened is only known by her, but it seems that some of them had been choked as they had marks around their necks.

Curious Data:

The Nurse is the first female killer

The Nurse is the first Killer to be introduced as DLC

The Nurse might be based off the nurse from Silent Hill games

Something, or rather someone, is here now. I’ve never seen this...Shape before. A man hiding behind a mask. He comes with a determination. But more worrying, he comes with an apparent grasp of the hunt. He’s does not strike me as someone who even went unwillingly to this place. Is there more to this being than I can fathom?
~ Unknown (Potentially Benedict Baker)

Some humans are simply bad seeds. Seeds infused with a distilled and pure form of evil. Michael Myers is one of those seeds. He had no issues with causing the pain of others. Instead, it was exactly what he sought. But even life can be tough on those with minds filled with terror. The difference is just how one goes about to solve those problems. For Michael, he had to kill to find some inner peace. As he took his sister’s life, the police found a silent boy dressed as a clown at the scene. When one stumbles upon a growing fire, one does not pour gasoline on it. But this was an action taken by officials that had no idea how it would shape this demon in the boy’s body. Sending Michael to a mental institution was a feeble attempt to save the child. Unsuccessful therapy and nightly screams just made him even more introvert and deranged. People hoped that Michael Myers would end up a parenthesis, soon to be forgotten and buried, a failure that soon were to rot away. But then...he escaped.

A new nameless terror stalks the darkness, her appearance haunts me after but a glimpse of her haggard silhouette. Twisted and torn in unspeakable ways, with greyish dead skin stretched out over her emaciated body. I saw that her arm was a horrid overgrown deformity that looked as if it could claw its way through flesh and bone. I feel as if her presence speaks of endless torture.
~ Unknown (Potentially Benedict Baker)

Lisa Sherwood grew up in a quiet town. The people of the village were kind, and the elders helped settle their disputes and keep the old traditions alive. Lisa was particularly fond of the charms they taught her to draw for safety and good fortune. One night, as she was walking home through the woods, a terrible storm struck without warning. In the slick wet darkness, she lost her footing and struck her head. Slipping in and out of consciousness, she watched dark shapes approach between the trees. Soon they were close enough for her to make out their evil, hungry grins.

They kept her chained to the wall in a flooded cellar. Through the gloom, she could see others, whose open wounds swarmed with flies. They did not survive long once the cannibals began carving bites from their bodies with their rusted blades, but somehow Lisa persisted. Starved and mutilated, her gaunt arms became loose in their shackles. She pulled, and the metal tore through skin and muscle until she was free. Her flesh oozed viscous yellow pus and bones were visible beneath gangrenous wounds. She could go no further. Delirious, she thought of home; she thought of the elders. She traced the symbols they had taught her. A dark hunger stirred inside her. It yearned for blood. She chose vengeance.

The police search eventually brought them to the old house in the swamp. Its inhabitants had been dismembered and devoured. The elders’ charms were scrawled in blood on the floor. Lisa’s body was never found.

From an early age, Herman Carter understood the human psyche. To analyze and deconstruct something as powerful as the brain intrigued him. He was an apt pupil and gained the attention of his teachers. He excelled in high-school and was published in “Partisan” - a psychology gazette. Within a year Carter was fast-tracked into Yale’s advanced neuroscience programme, really a front for the CIA

Brainpower is a must if you’re about to conquer the world and demolish foes across the pond. The CIA understands this, so interrogation and intelligence became their number one priority. All they needed was brilliant people - like Carter.

Carter and other top-tier recruits were transferred off-campus and into a secret black site facility in Illinois known as the Léry Memorial Institute. A protege craves a mentor, and that’s where Mr. Stamper stepped in who taught Carter that information is everything and knowledge is power. He were given all instruments needed, a guiding hand and more or less everything he asked for. He never realized that sunlight started to became scarce. That he too was kept in the dark. Because knowledge doesn’t only give you power, it also transform you into a threat.

To extract information was his mission. Mr Stamper encouraged Carter to go further and don’t consider this a normal medical facility - no eyes were watching them, there was no rules to abide. The agency just pointed Carter in the right direction, then he started to take a few steps back as he saw how Carter could walk on his own. Docile test subjects were exchanged for real, live spies. People that played a role in the troubles outside the facility. Carter shouldered this new role - Project Awakening took form, and on paper Carter described it as “experimental interrogation”. It was approved and over a few months, nobody knocked on his door. Screams and moans filled the corridor outside his lab, but wars skew people and what they accept - as long as the enemy is kept at bay. The fluorescent lights flickered more and more often. ECT became a standard dish on the menu. Prisoners held at the facility begged the guards to take them to another lab than Carter’s. Rumours were disregarded in the beginning.

Over the years, Carter became known as the Doctor and no one ever questioned if he had even held a medical certificate or even what happened to the prisoners after they had given up their information. It was only after the Léry Memorial Institute went silent for a week that they finally uncovered the true horror of what had happened there.

Carter’s experimental information extraction had turned to horrific and bizarre torture. Patients and prisoners were found dead or in vegetative states with all types of head trauma. In his office, they found the most terrible of discovery of all, Mr Stamper himself, his head peeled open and an array of electrodes and sensors inserted into his still working but annihilated brain. There was no sign of Herman “The Doctor” Carter, but his research papers suggested that he had been using the prisoners as part of awful ECT experiments as he searched for the panacea of mind control.
The government didn’t want to know. The black site was condemned and all knowledge of the Léry Memorial Institute redacted forever.

As soon as Anna was able to walk, her mother started teaching her how to survive a harsh, solitary life in the northern woods. Living in such an extremely remote and dangerous area required skill and resilience. When sunlight became too dim for productive activities, they would take refuge in their house, a sturdy old cabin constructed to resist the toughest winters. Close to the hearth’s warmth, Anna would rest in her mother’s arms, surrounded by the few wooden toys and masks she had crafted for her. Drifting off to sleep with stories and lullabies, she dreamt happy dreams, ignorant of the events that would soon change everything.

Anna and her mother were stalking a great elk through the woods. They knew it was dangerous prey, but it had been a particularly difficult winter and they were almost out of food. The specter of starvation frightened them more than any forest creature. Without warning, the elk reared, bellowed and charged at Anna. She was paralyzed with fear as the whole world seemed to shake under the immense beast's pounding hooves. The elk was close enough for Anna to see the murderous fury in its eyes when her mother threw herself in its path, axe in hand. A bloodcurdling scream escaped from her lips as the elk impaled her upon its antlers and hoisted her into the air. With all her strength, she brought her axe down on its head again and again while it tried to shake her loose. With a sickening crack, the antlers snapped and Anna's mother was free. The beast collapsed.

Anna was too small to move her mother's broken body, so she sat with her in the clearing where she had fallen. To distract her from the dying elk's cries, Anna's mother held her and hummed her favourite lullaby. They stayed like that, the huntress and the elk getting quieter and colder, until Anna was alone in the silent forest. Eventually she stood up and started the long walk back home.
Still a child, she knew just enough about life in the frozen forest to survive. She followed her instincts and became one with the wild. She got older and stronger and practiced her hunt. As she grew into a dangerous predator, her humanity became a half-remembered dream.

She widened her territory and lived off her hunts. She worked her way up through squirrels and hares and mink and foxes. Eventually she grew tired of them and hunted more dangerous animals like wolves and bears. When unsuspecting travelers came through her woods, she discovered her new favourite prey: humans. Unlucky souls who strayed into her territory were slaughtered like any other animal. She liked to collect their tools and colourful garments and especially toys when there were little ones. But she could never bring herself to kill the little girls.

Girls she would take back to her house, deep in the woods. They were precious, and looking at them woke up something deep in her heart. She craved the closeness of a loved one, a child of her own. Among the pillaged wooden toys, dolls and story books she couldn’t read, the girls would be tied by the neck with a rough and chafing rope fastened firmly to the wall. She couldn’t let them wander off, or they would surely die outside.

Every time, the girls would waste away and die of cold or starvation or sickness. Every time, it plunged Anna deeper into pain and sorrow and madness. She was compelled to try again, and started raiding the nearest villages to slaughter families and kidnap their daughters. She wore one of the animal masks her mother crafted for her so many years earlier to try to calm the frightened children. Villagers spread the legend of a half-beast lurking in Red Forest: The Huntress, who killed men and ate little girls.

War eventually came to the forest. German soldiers began to pass through, on the march to attack the collapsing Russian Empire. During these dark times, there were no more travelers. The villagers had abandoned their homes, and no more little ones to be found; only soldiers. Many of them were found with violent axe wounds. Whole groups disappeared mysteriously. Once the war was over, the rumours of The Huntress disappeared with it, engulfed by the Red Forest.

Whether killers perform their heinous acts by the compulsions of their diseased minds, or if they are forced into them by external pressures, has long been a matter of debate. But for one killer, nature and nurture are inextricably linked.

Leatherface kills not from a desire to exert his will over others, to satisfy carnal urges, or even to quiet the voices in his head. He kills because he is scared. Scared that others will hurt him; scared that his family will be displeased with him, scared that their shared willingness to eat human flesh will be discovered.

He does as he is told, his family loves him and that is all that matters. Outsiders are a threat, and threats need to be dealt with.

Like those kids that came into the house, uninvited. Walked in like they owned the place. Looked around the house, trying to find out his family’s secrets, no doubt. But Leatherface deals with them, protects his family, just as he’s been taught.

He is not just protector, he has many roles, and each role has its own face. He serves dinner, cares for the family, dresses well when they eat. His Grandpa and Ma used to care for them all, but Grandpa he is old now and she has been still for a while, so Leatherface and his brothers had to take over. Family is everything to him. Family is security and safety.

But, even though he did his best, one of the kids got away. He tried to stop her, chasing after her as fast as he could, but she had help: another outsider, driving a truck. The evil trucker killed his brother, ran him over like he was a possum. In a fury, Leatherface leapt at him, the saw ready to avenge his family, but the trucker was too quick. He knocked Leatherface aside and turned his own saw against him.

As he watched the outsiders driving away, the rage, grief and pain combined with the worry about what would happen to his family now. They would surely return with the police, and the police would take his brothers, his Grandpa. Without them, what would he do? Without their commands, he would wither and die.

As his world collapsed, Leatherface spun in circles, swinging the saw all around, trying to fight off the myriad external threats that surrounded him.

Then another feeling overtook him. It came from outside his vision, crawling over his skin with cold dread. He realized that no matter what outsiders could do to him, there was something worse, something bigger that lived in the shadows. He was filled with a terror unlike any he had ever felt before. But it was almost comforting, like the fear he’d felt with his family. The fear of disappointing them.

He was brought to a place that was familiar but unknowable, and he instinctively knew what he had to do. He couldn’t fail it, the way he had his family. Outsiders would come but he would use his skills to overcome any threats. There would be screaming, but he could make the world quiet again. Until the only sound remaining was the blessed howl of the saw.

Let the outsiders come.

Even while he lived, Freddy Krueger was a creature of nightmare for those who truly knew him. Hiding behind a mask of warmth and friendliness, Freddy’s actual temperament was known only to his victims. When those victims were finally heard, the parents of Springwood tracked Freddy down and took the law into their own hands. They thought that fire had rid them of a monster that night, that their children were finally safe, but evil as strong as his has a way of surviving.

Years passed, the horror was buried, the victims mercifully forgot. Then, somehow, Freddy returned, and dreams became nightmares once again.

Freddy focused his anger on those he felt had wronged him, building up to his one true obsession, Nancy Holbrook. But he underestimated her strength and resourcefulness. Together with her friend Quentin, she managed to weaken Freddy, mutilating him and leaving him for dead once more.

Death didn’t want Freddy the first time he encountered it, why did they think it would take him now? He emerged once more, consumed with vengeance. Then he turned his sights on the boy who had blocked his path to Nancy, his number one.

Freddy invaded Quentin’s dreams, terrorising him night after night, until his strength and defences would be at their lowest. When the time was right, he forced the boy to return to the dark reflection of Badham Preschool. Here he would have his final revenge.

Freddy stalked the boy through the school’s halls. He took his time, savouring every moment of the hunt. This was what he enjoyed the most, the smell of their sweat in the air, the ragged gasps of their terrified breath. They were his to toy with.

There was the boy, at the end of a long corridor. Too tired and scared to run anymore? Resigned to his fate? Freddy closed in, arms wide, claws raking the wall. Their tips traced along a pipe, the metallic shrieking only adding to the boy’s apprehension.

A shower of sparks rained on the ground, and into the liquid that covered the tiled floor. A blue flame blossomed and quickly engulfed the room.

The boy took flight as Freddy burst from the flames in a fury. Rooms and walls raced past in a blur until they were in Freddy’s basement. There would be no escape from here.

Slowly Freddy closed in on the boy. His fear was so strong now that Freddy could almost taste it, but his eyes burned with a defiant hatred that was almost admirable.

Freddy drew back his claws.

Then Freddy felt another presence with him; something old, powerful and dark. A miasma enveloped him and the only sensation was a sound like wooden beams flexing and creaking in the distance. The echoing groan of metal crushed against metal. Something arcane and unknowable, half-way between language and pure terror.

A moment of falling and spinning and then Freddy was back in the school. But not his school. It looked the same, but it felt different. His powers were tempered in some ways and focused in others. The boy had gone for now, but other prey walked the hallways. Some would be inconsequential; others would become his new favourites. All would fall before his claws.

When John Kramer, better known as Jigsaw, planned for his son to be born during the Chinese Zodiac’s Year of the Pig, he wanted it to represent fertility and rebirth; a new beginning for him and his wife, and the start of a charmed life for his son. But that plan was shattered on the night that a junkie broke into his wife’s clinic, hoping to score.

After this event resulted in the death of his unborn son, John finally caught up with the junkie, making him his first test subject, and the Pig was changed forever too. It became a representation of the disease that was rotting John from the inside, a reminder that we are just meat unless we elevate ourselves by our actions, by grasping life from the jaws of death. The Pig became a vessel, an agent of Jigsaw, conveying the subjects to their test. For some of those who emerged victorious, the Pig could still be a rebirth, into their new lives as apprentices, even disciples, of Jigsaw.

That was the case for Amanda Young, a troubled soul, whose life had been a catalogue of harm, both to herself and those around her. That changed when she faced, and bested, Jigsaw’s test. Deciding her life was worth something, she became devoted to Jigsaw’s cause, ready to take over when cancer consumed him.

But she became more dependant on John, her anguish at his impending death combining with a belief that their test subjects weren’t capable of saving themselves, of being reborn in the crucible of the games.

Seeing this, John presented her with another game, another chance to save herself, but Amanda let her rage and jealousy rule her actions. She failed the test and took a bullet as a consequence.
Bleeding out on the tiled floor, darkness engulfed Amanda’s vision, accompanied by a sound like creaking wood. Then she was in a forest, once more viewing the world through the eyes of a Pig. Trees surrounded her, their branches clawing at her from all sides. Waves of panic washed over her and she could hear her breath reverberating inside the mask.

Had she been damned, cursed to spend her days here, in this guise? Or maybe this was another test? Maybe she hadn’t failed at all? John always thought one step ahead of everyone else, planned for every eventuality, and he would never give up on her, surely?

Jigsaw may have gone but he had passed her onto another. A being for whom she would be The Pig again.

Ultimately, she saw now that she had been right in the choices she had made. The time for games was over. There was no chance of redemption for any of them. They were meat, and meat was destined to die.