Time Will Tell

After putting a rope in each corridor, Thomas proceeded to leave different kinds of fuses for each rope. He made sure to twist the fuses to lead into the corridors in order to test out his hypothesis correctly.

The thought process was for the fuses to be timed differently, giving Thomas enough time to set up all five of them, and so that the fuses would ignite the ropes at the same time.

Once he was finished with everyone's corridor, he set up an additional one nearby in the camp as well.

"What are you doing?" Tim asked again.

"I am trying something out, and if I am right, there is a possible time anomaly going on," Thomas explained.

He told Tim to wait for his return and headed back to his own corridor. It pained Thomas to leave Tim out there, considering he would likely be the first casualty with Thomas idly sitting and waiting for it to happen.

Thomas thought of this plan in order to make sense of the decay and the mistiming of the demon showing up. Through putting and burning a rope in each corridor, he could confirm if they burned at a different rate. This would then give insight about each corridor and tell if there was a time anomaly going on.

The rope was made of a special fabric, that if one chooses to make candles to keep warm during hiking, one could sever parts of the rope and turn it into one. It was the perfect way to try out a "slow burn" method to discover a potential and crucial clue.

Thomas could not help but to stare at his pocket watch. It was around this time that he had heard the first scream and ran back to the camp during his first death. A few seconds later he could hear Tim's scream coming from the camp.

"I am so sorry," Thomas quivered in fear.

The wait made him even more paranoid in the midst of all the darkness surrounding him. All he could do was but to wait for every one of his friends to be killed, one by one.

And for what? Only to try out a theory!

Thomas' stomach turned and he felt nauseated just thinking about it. The wait, the helplessness, it was pure torture. Another muffled scream was heard in the distance. Later a third, and finally a fourth.

"Everyone is gone… and I am next…" Thomas agonized.

It was time to reel the rope in. He could hear heavy footsteps in the distance, the demon was coming for him. There was not much time left.

Thomas made haste with reeling the rope in, one at a time. The ropes gave off a non-burning scent when ignited, if his theory worked it would prove two things.

He started with the rope in the camp and noticed it was burning without any problem, once he put it out he checked his watch for the time and length.

"This confirms one thing," Thomas trembled and pulled the next one in.

The one in Corbin's corridor, then Ashley's and lastly Emily's. The final one was beside him and he extinguished it right away without measuring it.

The steps were getting louder, the demon was nearing in on Thomas.

"Okay…" Thomas began to look at the different ropes and pulled the one behind him to the front as well.

He began sorting the ropes from most least burned to the left and most burned to the right.

The result was in the following order: Corbin - Ashley - Tim - Emily - Thomas

His hand was shaking as he pulled up his own rope to double check it.

"This cannot be…" Thomas was shocked.

His own rope was hours ahead of everyone else's, with Tim's only roughly being burned for about an hour. Thomas quickly grabbed Corbin's and Ashley's ropes to have a second look at them.

"This must mean that time is moving naturally where Tim is at and the slowest where Corbin is… Ashley's timeline is slower as well… That leaves Emily and mine to be accelerated," Thomas concluded from his findings.

The demon's lullaby was heard in the distance in the form of humming. Thomas stood up and unsheathed his sword and was trembling through and through. Once the demon came into the sight it laughed at Thomas.

"Well… are you not prepared?" The demon said after gazing upon Thomas' determined look, yet shaken body.

Thomas gulped at his next move.

"You are blind are you not?" Thomas posed his question.

The demon clapped and it echoed loudly throughout the corridor.

"Well done! And how did you figure that one out?" The demon asked.

"The dark liquid, it serves as a coating and when it touches anything, it gives off some kind of fragment smell to you. Also these corridors are way too dark, therefore you must either have some kind of night vision or be blind," Thomas replied to keep conversing with it.

The demon clapped once more with his hands. Thomas chose to omit the burning ropes for a reason and to catch the demon's curiosity.

"It is a shame I have to kill you, the council issued an order, else I would have you entertain me longer!" The demon began approaching Thomas.

"The council?" Thomas was baffled but then shook his head, there was still one more question he needed to ask.

"Why are the corridors time manipulated?" Thomas yelled while pointing his sword against his throat.

The demon halted and looked displeased. He then decided to take a couple of sniffs.

"You--! You can cheat death, cannot you?" The demon yelled out angrily.

Thomas turned pale, no one knew of his ability to repeat things upon death.

"I can smell it! Ah! The euphoric scent and blessing by her! Why do you have it?!" The demon rushed towards Thomas.

"It matters not! It is spilling, spilling out! One, two or perhaps three more times and you are permanently dead!" The demon shouted.

This was the moment Thomas closed his eyes and slit his own throat. He intended to try one more theory, if he could repeat things through his own death. It was about time he took the ultimate sacrifice to attune in waiting for everyone else to die.

"Noo---!" The demon screamed.

Thomas' mind went blank for a second and before he knew it, he was brought back to that very same moment.

"It is okay to be scared Thomas, you can run back and scream my name for help," Corbin joked poorly before slowly heading inside.