She was running. Screaming. Claws, sharp as razors, ripped at her flesh, tore at her. Fire, seemingly from everywhere, licked at her skin. She blistered, she shrieked, she reached...for him. His name was on her lips, she called for him. He called her name, begging, pleading for her to simply turn around and see him reaching for her.
"I'm 'ere, Lil' Love!" he called, despairing, as she fled. "Please," he whispered into the darkness that enveloped him in her absence, "...please." With that, he darted after her, running as fast as he could to try to catch up with his love, but no matter how fast he ran, she seemed to get further away from him as she ran through mazes of hallways that seemed to twist and turn endlessly. Suddenly, he rounded a corner and was startled to find her standing still only a few yards away with her back turned to him. He could see her head turning frantically as though searching for something. 2-D realized that she must have been looking for another route. She was looking for a way out; for a way back to his arms.
"Noodle-girl, 'hit's me. 'Hit's 2-D," he said as he moved closer to her. She froze on the spot. Her back suddenly stiffening. She stood silently. 2-D became aware of a sickening sense of dread slowly building in his stomach making him want to wretch. Still, he moved forward against the nauseating lurch closer to her, closer to Noodle.
It had seemed that she had only been a short distance from him when he had come across her, but it took an eternity for him to bridge the distance to her now. He reached his hand out and, shaking, rested it on her shoulder, causing her to jump at the sudden contact. Slowly, she turned toward him. He felt the nauseating sensation dissolve into a voice in his head telling him to run, that he did not want to see her face. The screaming grew and grew until he was sure that his ears were bleeding from the sounds of the shrieks in his ears. But all fell away as she turned her head to him and he gazed upon her beautiful green eyes. The tears that had been threatening to fall finally began to flow freely. It was her. It was his Li'l Love.
She opened her mouth to speak, but 2-D watched, horror struck, as a black gaping mouth appeared in the wall behind her, and a thousand arms reached out to her. He tried to speak to warn her, but he found that the giant maw was swallowing his words before they crossed his lips. Instead, he reached for her, hoping to pull her away from the multitude of hands that reached for her, but suddenly, one shot forward. Noodle's body arched forward and an ear-shattering scream pierced through the air as the arm punched violently through her chest, splattering 2-D's face with blood—her blood!
He opened his mouth to scream and reached for her as her eyes locked with his, tears slipping down her cheeks, but he found that he was still silenced by the mouth. Her lips formed soundless words as 2-D's fingers brushed against her cheek. Suddenly, with an earsplitting cry from the great orafice, the arms shot violently back into the damned mouth, taking his Li'l Love with him. He was left in darkness, surrounded by the deafening silence and the warmth of her blood on his face as his mind tried to grasp the implications of her last words to him.
"I love you, Stuart."
2-D awoke from his fitful sleep with a start. He frantically threw his eyes around the room searching for her, but she was nowhere. She would never be. After El Maǹana, Noodle had been taken from them. Ripped from this earth and dragged to hell where she lived only in his occasional nightmares. "Thanks to Murdoc," he snorted to no one in particular.
After lying in bed for another eternity, he rolled out bed and rode the elevator from his room beneath the sea to the common room. "Speak of the Devil," he said, half to himself when the elevator doors opened to reveal Murdoc sitting in his underwear as usual on the worn down couch, his cigarette pursed in his frowning mouth. Murdoc gave no indication that he had seen the blue haired singer enter the room, so 2-D stumbled to the kitchenette behind the couch and fumbled in one of the cabinets until he found what he was looking for—his migraine pills. He poured some of the contents of the bottle into his hand and swallowed what landed there. Grimacing against the bitter taste of the pills, he grabbed a bottle of water and joined Murdoc on the couch.
"'Bout time you decided ta join the living, Faceache," he grumbled, downing a little more of the vodka bottle he was clenching in his hand.
2-D grunted a response and tried to focus on the movie Murdoc was watching, but his growing headache and his memory of the nightmare that had shaken him awake not thirty minutes before kept him from accomplishing his task. Eventually, he gave up entirely and laid his head back on the sofa and began to drift back off to sleep.
He was beginning to envision a young, beautiful face wreathed in uneven purple hair when Murdoc's gravelly voice cut into his musings, "Holy Hell, Faceache, is 'at all yer goin' to do today? Sit on yer ass and sleep?"
"Wa'cha wan' me to do?" 2-D responded.
Murdoc growled and grabbed 2-D roughly by the neck, tossing him off the couch."I ain't yer fookin' mother, Dullard, figure it out for yer fookin' self,"
"Ow, Muds, why'd ya do that? I jest asked ya a question," 2-D whined as he pulled himself off the floor
"Shut the fook up and make some breakfast, Dullard."
2-D rubbed his neck and strode to the kitchen, glad that, at least for now, that Murdoc's rage had been sated. "Okay, Muds, all ya had ta do was ask," he said as he searched the cabinets for the pans he would need to make one of the only meals he could: Bacon and eggs, slightly burnt.
He opened the refrigerator only to discover that they were lacking both of the ingredients he would need to make his meal and sighed to himself.
"'Ey, we're outta bacon and eggs, Muds," he said, emerging timidly from the small kitchen. Murdoc made no response.
"Muds?" 2-D questioned as he walked around the couch to look the bassist in the face. His eyes were wide and his green skin unusually pale as he stared at the television. "Murdoc, wha-" 2-D's interrogation was cut off suddenly as Murdoc's hand shot out and struck violently across his face, knocking him back to the ground.
Murdoc rose suddenly from the sofa, but he wasn't looking at 2-D. His eyes were still fixed on the television and the chilling laugh that issued from it.
"How the fook did you find us here?" Murdoc growled.
2-D looked at Murdoc curiously before following his gaze to the screen and was not shocked to see a man's face staring back at him. It was a telly after all. What did shock him what the image suddenly spoke—to Murdoc.
"Been looking for you for a while, Niccals," chuckled the man on the screen. He was a rather gruff looking man with a large scar marring his otherwise not unattractive face. "You would think it would be easier to find an attention whore such as yourself, but you have done quite a good job concealing your whereabouts," he said flashing a toothy grin.
"Ya won' know where we are fer long, Dielens" Murdoc rumbled, returning the man's sneer with one of his own and reaching for the remote to turn the television off.
"Aww, now play nice, Niccals, how're we to reestablish our old 'friendship' if you keep running off every time I give you a ring?" He was playing with Murdoc, and 2-D could see Murdoc beginning be become enraged, a prospect that was never good for the vocalist. "Besides," he said in a greasy voice that made 2-D's blood run cold, "I have something of yours."
Murdoc's face blanched, "What d'you mean?"
"Oh, so you don't know?" the man called Dielens said, smiling. "I really doubt that. Did you think I wouldn't recognize her? Black wig, black contacts. Try as hard as you could, I would recognize that face anywhere," he chuckled.
"Fook off, yer lying!" Murdoc barked, reaching again for the remote. 2-D looked at him curiously, wondering what was going on.
"So I guess you don't want her, then? Can I keep her?" Dielens said, chuckling.
Her? 2-d swiveled his head back to the screen. His heart stopped and a cry escaped from his lips as he stared at the television. There on the screen, struggling against Dielens' grasp, bloodied and bruised, was Noodle.