In, out.

In, out.

In, out.

In, out.

Your breathing was steady. The air was cold and slightly burned your lungs. The ground was hard, unforgivingly strained your back. Something was falling lightly on your face. You opened your eyes. Snow. You stood up quickly and formed a fighting stance ready to defend yourself once again, however, there seemed to be no threat at the moment. You took a second to take in your surroundings. You were in the forest, you looked at where your body previously laid. There was still snow which meant you'd hadn't been there for long. The snow was only a light covering so it would have melted, and there would have been an imprint as to where you laid. You looked down at your attire. You were wearing black jeans, a pair of black combat boots that were a size too small, and an olive green hoodie. You didn't want to know where the boots came from but they were defiantly uncomfortable. Gosh, how happy you were that the clown had changed your clothes. You gazed around, looking for any sign of Laughing Jack or any other freak that might try to kill you.

Your attention was caught by a paper on the ground under a rock, not too far from where you woke up. You walked over to it, the sound of snow and leaves crunching beneath you. You removed the rock and picked up the paper. It appeared to be written in red crayon with the most childlike handwriting you've ever seen.

It read, "Good morning Gumdrop! I hope you had a nice sleep, cuz it's time to play! Welcome to round #3. I'm so excited, It's gonna be so much fun. The game is simple, Hide and Seek! You will be given an hour to hide and I get an hour to find you! Isn't that fun? Remember if I find you, we get to be best friends forever! This is the last round and It's going to be the most fun yet. Your time started when you picked up this paper, happy hiding". Signed Laughing Jack.

Taking no more time you took off running. Finally, a game you were good at! You used to play this all the time as a child. You can't outrun him, you know that. But in this game, you could outsmart him and that's what you needed to do if you were going to win. As you ran you began to analyze the situation more. You have an hour, you needed to use every bit of that time. Jack had multiple advantages, he could teleport, no matter how much ground you would cover in the hour you were giving he could undo all of your hard work in a second. He has way more experience at the game considering he was hundreds of years old, God only knows how many times he's played. It was also safe to assume he knew these woods like the back of his hand, you've "played" in them before and he lives in the middle of them. So the odds were pretty much against you, but that wasn't gonna stop you from trying. Like you thought before you need to outsmart him, "work smarter not harder", your mother used to say.

You had been running for 20 minutes if you had to guess and you thought you covered a lot of ground. You now began to think of a plan, Jack was childish, yes, but he was no moron. Your plan needed to be very persistent. You slowed down for a moment, so you could catch your breath. Jack had to have a weakness, everyone does but what would a murderous clown be afraid of? That you didn't know and you didn't have time to figure out. You turned around for a second and looked at the trail you made. You nearly slapped yourself in the face at your stupidity. You were walking in the snow, after all, so all the progress you made can be undone in minutes if the clown simply just followed your tracks. What a waste of 20 minutes. You really needed a plan. Too bad, you weren't spiderman and could just hop tree to tree and avoid making tracks. Alas, this was not a comic book and you had no such ability. You had to figure out a way to keep moving without leading him right too you. Trees weren't an option for obvious reasons. You kept marching through the forest until a beneficial sound ringing in your ears. The loudness of running water. You quickly followed the sound, crunching on the snow, and leaves as you run through the branches and trees. You let out a breath of relief, as you approached the flowing river.

You had a plan.

The water was crystal, you could see the bottom. You were gonna use the river to stop your tracks as long as it wasn't too deep. Yes, it was freezing out, hypothermia was a very possible risk but you really didn't have a choice. This could work you just had to be smart about it. Good going (Y/N), you could actually make it out of this. You immediately began to climb down the side of the riverbank in order to get closer to the water. Hypothermia is very real and could kill you within a couple of minutes if the water is cold enough. Once you were out of the water you would need to warm yourself up. Hard thing to do if you only had the clothes on your back. So you had to use your resources wisely. So you began to strip. You took off all of your clothes until you were left in your bra and panties. At this point, you really didn't give a f*ck. God, you were so over this sh*t. You held all of your clothes including your boots as you slowly step into the water, the freezing temperature of the water making you shiver. Gosh, was this dumb but unpredictable is what you needed to be in order to win this.

"Come on (Y/N) you can do it, don't be a bitch", you said aloud.

After giving yourself a little encouragement you step into the cold water. Luckily it was shallow, it was only up to your knees.

"See that wasn't so bad", you huffed.

You began to walk downstream, walking with the flow of water wouldn't only be easier for you, it would also lead you towards civilization, (at least that's what a discovery documentary taught you).

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If you had to estimate you had been walking downstream for around 20 minutes. Did you cover a lot of ground? You thought you did. Would it be enough? Probably not. You had approximately another 20 minutes until Jack came looking for you. You were freezing, you made in about half a mile downstream when you realized the stream indeed got deeper. It seemed to get deeper the further you went. You were currently up to your chest in freezing water with your dry clothes held above your head. Hypothermia is defiantly a high risk at the moment. It probably would be a good idea to get out of the water, so you didn't freeze to death even though you would leave tracks. Alas, you were confident that you had distanced yourself enough to have a solid chance of escape. You walked over to the bank and marched yourself out of the freezing water back onto the rocky shore.

The water was so painfully cold most of your body had gone numb. Quickly in an attempt to warm yourself you reclothed and continued moving, climbing up the bank back into the forest. If the clown were to follow your tracks to the river you would be found. You had to get as far from it as possible. The shore along the river was very rocky so you didn't have to worry about your footprints. Reminding yourself that Jack would soon be hot on your tracks. You needed to hide, it wouldn't be long until Jack began his search.

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Back at the manor, Laughing Jack sat impatiently on the front porch steps. He bounced one of his long legs eagerly while he waited for your time to be up so he could have his turn. Boy oh boy, he was excited to play hide and seek with you. He enjoyed playing with you very much, you were certainly more interesting than his usual playmates. You were easy to scare but stubborn and full of hope. You never gave up, even when you had nothing left. He knew you were smart and you had tricks up your sleeves just like a magic trick. Jack loved the thrill these games brought him, there was so much more on the line.

The old screen door creaked opened and Jack turned to face the blue masked man he knew as his friend Eyeless Jack. He came out of the house holding an old kitchen timer that was seconds from going off. "She has 30 seconds, LJ."

LJ smirked as he twitched with excitement. "This is going to be THE BEST ROUND YET, HAHAHAHAHA CAN'T YOU FEEL IT EJ!", he screeched.

"Ohhh yeah, I'm shaking with excitement", he relayed to his friend sarcastically. If EJ had eyes he would be rolling them. He didn't see why the clown put in all this effort. EJ loved the sport of killing as well, but he thought his pal took this a bit too far. Negotiating with a human, it was just ridiculous. He just wanted this to end so he didn't have to tend to the human anymore even if he didn't mind your company when he was overwhelmed with the imbeciles that he lived with. Fixing you up was almost therapeutic for him.

Just the kitchen timer went off EJ tore his attention from the timer to Laughing Jack who disappeared in a cloud of smoke. Not before muttering,

"I'm coming for you Gumdrop."