Sorry this chapter has been a little late, but I'm been busy.
Anyway, this chapter will be a little stronger themed than usual, and thanks to some 'feedback' I'm made some improvements...or at least I hope that I did.
Anyway, read on and prepare for some shocks...
I don't even remember waking up. I just remember hanging my head and feeling the pain come back stronger and stronger as the drug wore off.
I heard the door opening, the locks swinging back as the door to my prison was opened.
He started talking. I didn't pay attention to what was being said until I heard this.
'Look, instead of going through another day of torture, we'll just put an end to your misery. Whatdya say 'eh?'
I didn't answer. Not for a few seconds. I opened my eyes and with all the hate that I have ever used in my voice was used then.
'Why? Do you really think they'll let you go after you do this to me? Do you really think they'll have use for you after you kill someone you've never known? You're not killing just me. You're killing the only one of a whole race!'
'Naha,' he said mockingly. 'You're not the last. Your friend was also up there. Don't worry, we made sure he didn't have the position for long. We wouldn't have wanted him to see this. That woulda have been bad.'
'Stupid fucking humans,' I spat. I didn't yell. There wasn't any point of wasting what would be my last few breaths of air on them.
'Ch-yeah well, if it makes you feel better he went real quick. You won't.'
'So what are you gonna do? Just get on with it. Unless you wanted boring me to death to be part of your torture.'
'I wouldn't say anything like that if I were you,' he said. 'We have here hundreds of surgery tools here. We don't need to use antithetic. We can use blunt tools and give you a slow painful death if we wish.'
You just can't reason with a bully. That's what it was like in school for the most part. In my life, you can't reason with people would want to kill you. It was exactly the same. Typical.
I didn't say anything. Nothing that wouldn't land me in more trouble than I already was jumped to mind.
'But we're not going to do that, because doing a little housework will be too messy. I ain't in no mood to clean it up.' Something cold started creeping up my back when I heard that. ' And because we don't really want to torture you.'
'You seem to be doing a fucking good job fooling me,' I growled. The next thing I knew, I was hit on the head and I was knocked out, closing my eyes for possibly the last time.
Two hours later...
Rex was sitting one of the metal chairs in the room, waiting for his captive to wake up. When he did he was welcomed with a gun poised at blank point range at his face.
'Now, what's it gonna be?' Rex asked quietly and loudly at the same time. 'I don't have the time play screwed up mind games with you.'
Rex knew he was showing weakness, but at this point he didn't care. He knew that he had very little time left. He swore he heard the sound of a clock ticking in the background.
He released the safety and aimed the gun at his captive's feet. 'I'm going to start counting down. I'm not even going to bother to say what happens when I reach 0.'
'Look man, you don't have to do this,' he said, going pale and forcing a tight smile.
'5.'
'Stop it!'
'4.' Rex was losing his energy, but he couldn't let his captive know that.
'I'll tell you!' He shouted.
'3.'
'What? I said I'll tell you!'
'2.'
'He's in the prison room. The second one on the fifth level!'
'Now that wasn't so hard now was it?' Rex started walking away. 'Your friends can come and get you after I tell them that you gave their location to me. I'll catch you later.'
Rex locked the door as the swear words of his captive bounded off the wall. He then started running up the stairs, hoping he wasn't too late. He knew that he probably had a chance of finding his friend, but there some something at the very back of his mind that bothered him. A voice quietly telling him that it was too late. That he couldn't do anything to save Ratchet.
For once that voice inside his head was right.
The bitter cold was bringing me back to this world. I wished it didn't. I wanted to just lie there, asleep for the rest of my life. But of course, that would have been too easy. My eyes snapped open.
I was lying on the same bench that I was on before. I was in an X position this time round though.
This room was a lot bigger than the last. It was shaped in some sort of sphere. I saw that my captors were on a platform about 20 metres from me.
'I'm glad to see you're awake,' he said, a hint of a smile on his pale lips. 'We didn't want to start without you.'
'Just get it over with.' I had decided that I was going to show that I accepted my fate. This was it. I was sick of all this running and hiding and getting caught. I knew that those tales of heroes (if I could call myself that) were brave and calm at their death. That they accepted their murder with courage. Sorry to break it to you, but that's a lie. It's a fucking lie. It's always terror. It's always that boulder sized fear at the bottom of your stomach that won't go away until your heart stops.
'So this tool we have here is used regularly in the asylum here. It's used to cut clean through any form of stone or metal. It's extremely effective and easy to use.' He mockingly patted what looked like a machine gun's turret with a hole about 1 centimetre in diameter. 'A laser cutter shouldn't be used for this kind of purpose, but I thinks we'll have an exception this time, m'kay?'
I didn't anything. It wasn't worth it. I closed my eyes and hoped that it would over before I realized it.
Rex burst through the room that he was told that I was in. He saw it was empty and swore, making no bones about it. He went up to the metal desk that was on the ground. He noticed the cuffs on the corners. He looked at them closely. He saw that there was blood on them and that they had traces of bright yellow hair caught in the rivets. He then saw the capsule on the ground. He picked it up and saw what it once contained. He knew that I must have used to it reduce the pain. He dropped the bottle and then rushed out the door. He knew that I hadn't gone far. Or at least he hoped not. He saw something o the ground. It reappeared every few feet. He knew that I would have done everything I could to leave a trail. Maybe this would be the thing that would save my life.
The laser had been started up and although it couldn't direct in one certain place for some reason, the laser coming through the steel bench where I was lying and it wasn't stopping. It was burning through the bench, even though it was made of steel. I shivered when I thought of what it would do to my Lombax skin and fur.
I suppose I wouldn't have long to wait now.
'I wonder how long it'll take you to die,' one of them said. 'I wonder how much pain you'll be in before it finally slices through you and kills you. Maybe you'll be alive when completely cuts through you. I wonder how long you'll have to live when it does. A few minutes? A few hours? Maybe I'll film it when it does. Teh interwebz would love to see it happening, wouldn't you agree?'
I closed my eyes. Bravery had nothing here. How brave you were, you matter how much you endured, how much you went through and could go through, death was always scary. It was always a chilling bitter truth that I was finally going to feel.
The laser was cutting to cut into the bench now. Though it was pure steel and extremely solid, the laser sliced through it like a hot knife through butter and cut through it completely.
It started moving towards me, bit by bit. My heart started thumping like a sledgehammer through my chest. Sweat was sliding down my body and soaking through my fur. My throat felt like I had swallowed a box of thumb tacks. The laser was mere inches away. I started edging away as far as I could go. The metal bindings tore into my flesh as I did this.
'Oh come on man,' he said, 'you're spoiling all the fun!'
It was so close to me I could feel the heat from the laser. I was trying to edge away but it was a far as I could go. Maybe I should move towards it. Let it cut through me. Maybe it would be quick and easy.
Then my captor started falling from the platform. His friend with him. They both hit the metal banisters bellow and into the metal grinders surrounding it. Their screams died with a sicking crunch.
I looked up and saw Rex was standing there. He saw me at once.
'Turn it off!' I shouted. It crept closer and closer to me.
'They locked it and broke the key!' He shouted. My heart sank.
'Wait!' He yelled. I knew what he was going to do as soon as he said it. He pressed a button and the cuffs locking me down were sprung free and I slid away off the table just before the laser cut directly were I was lying. I think it even chopped some of my fur off.. The metal grinders were directly beneath me. With barely even opening my eyes, I grabbed onto the right leg cuff, holding on for dear life. Rex pressed another button and the table started sliding towards the platform. He grabbed my arm and lifted me up. For a moment I didn't know what do say. He then pulled me in a tight embrace. Not the romantic type of course (I'm not that sort of Lombax and I'm pretty sure he wasn't either) but that sort that you give to a best friend that you just saved the life of. After a few minutes he led me away quietly, my arm over his head as he carried me away, the blood dripping from my wrist, the one that saved my life with its trail. Trying to forget what was behind us and start again. Of course that wasn't going to happen, but we would have never have guessed how soon it was going to be.
'We have to leave,' Rex said. 'I don't care what we have to do. Steal a ship or whatever, but we HAVE to get off this island.'
'I know,' I said quietly. I was sitting on the ground in the room we came too. My hoodie was covered with blood, and my shirt was soaked with sweat and hair, but I wasn't going to get a shower any time soon, nor was I going to complain. I was just glad to be alive and not cut in half.
'So let's go. Now. Leave all the stuff here. We'll buy it again. I took all their cash.' I got all off the floor and I followed him as he went down the corridor. He took the right corridor and started walking down the stairs.
After about ten minutes of walking, I couldn't shake off the feeling that we were going in the completely opposite direction.
'This should be it,' Rex said as he pushed the door open. I knew that this was the one that we came through. We stepped inside and I wish we didn't.
The entire place was filled with scalpels, knifes, drills, saws and every sort of sharp instrument you could think off. I was beginning to think that it was some sort of torture room, but then I saw the dozens of meats and frozen foods on the work benches when I knew it was some sort of deserted butcher parlour. Hey, asylum workers have to eat. Although I knew what the room's purpose was and that it was a hostile one, it still gave me the creeps.
I wanted to go back but the door had locked behind us. The speakers blared to life. And guess who was speaking?
'Good evening Lombaxes,' Tachyon said. Or at least his voice said. 'It's seems that you are in perfect timing to witness the end of someone you love, and yet have never met.'
'What a busy afterlife you're having,' I said.
'I'm warning you, Lombax. Everything you worked for; everything you know and love, and everything you have EVER known, you'll see and then lose, once again.
'You're the one who lost,' I said calmly. 'You're dead.'
'You'd like to think that won't you?' He said. 'Whatever helps you sleep at night, because believe me, tonight, the night of all nights, you're going to need it. As much as you can get.'
'And why would that be?' Rex asked.
'You'll find out...in your own due time.' More sniggers before the speakers went silent.
Then the machinery started clinking. I looked around, trying to see what it was. The gears, grinders, boilers, crisper and other various meat cookers also started up.
I wondered why the whole thing started up. There was no purpose was there?
Rex's eyes started widening. I followed his line of vision and my eyes started widening.
Chained to the thick steel rope that turned through the entire circuit, the one that was used to hook the meat on, was a slim, tall, dark Lombax.
A female Lombax.
And she was seconds away from the menacing machines that would butcher her to pieces in seconds.
She turned and although there was a cloth tied around her mouth, when she mouthed two words, we both knew exactly what they were.
Help me.
I know I know. You want me to upload the next chapter right away. Sorry, but you'll have to wait a bit. If you want it faster, you can write a decent review and I'll quicken the pace.
Until then...
