Craig continues down the intertwining halls, his eyes looking in every which way for anything that could help him. He spots a camera in one of the halls and hides from it. He had wanted to find the room that Kenny was in last time, thinking that it was most likely where they would return him to. But he had forgotten just how much of a maze this place was since the last time, and the cameras weren't making things any easier for him. When the camera looks down another way, Craig quickly runs to it and stops underneath it. When it looks back to where it was before, Craig takes off running down the opposite direction from it.
He comes to a stop, spotting guards coming down the hall ahead of him, and notices an opened door to the side and decides to quickly slip into it before they notice him. He waits a few seconds by it, to make sure they really didn't see him and there weren't any rushing footsteps headed his way. Luckily there aren't any, and he let's out a small breath as he looks around the room, not really seeing much of it though because of how dark it was. As he waits by the door for the guards to go pass, he hears something faint. Looking around the dark room again, this time a bit more carefully. Something catches his eye, and it's then does he spot something attached to the far wall. He hears the sound again. It had sounded like breathing mixed with something wet almost. As his eyes adjust more to the dark, he could now see the outlines of a figure. However something about it seemed off, like it was missing parts of itself.
"Kenny...?" Craig calls out cautiously, thinking that it might be him, although knowing that it probably wasn't.
As he walks closer to it, a heavy breath is heard, then something else sounding like a gargled mumble follows it.
"..ai..g"
The voice that replies is so hoarse, and Craig can tell right away that it's not Kenny's, but something about it seems so familiar to him. Against his better judgment, he continues walking closer to the figure, the details of it becoming more clear as his eyes fully adjust to the dark. The first big thing he sees is blood. A lot of it. Then he sees limbs that look like they were torn off and a midsection completely sliced open and exposed. He can see the organs in it move and pulse. But most of all, he sees brown hair missing in patches on a scalp, and an eye socket missing a very familiar hazel eye from it.
Craig reels back in horror as he realizes who it is, "C-Clyde?"
There is no vocal reply, just a small slow nod.
"W-What happened?!"
He takes a moment, struggling to breathe as more of those wet gargles are heard.
"We got caught... they killed Token... left me alive... tore off my limbs.. I couldn't get away... took legs first... brought me here... took arms. Then they... found subject number and power..." he pauses and takes in another heavy breath. "They cut open... torture information...from me..."
The guilt Craig feels in his gut is instant. He knew what information they were trying to get out of him, and it was information that he didn't know either. Craig hoped that by some means, they had gotten out of there, but he always knew somewhere deep down that things didn't turn out that way. And he wondered if things would've been different, had he stayed with them to help.
"...How are you still alive?" Craig asks, wondering how he could even talk in the state he was in.
"Injected with... Amplifier... forcing power to work... keeps alive..."
Craig briefly wonders what an Amplifier does for a moment but, figures if it's as literal as the Blocker, then he had a pretty good idea what it's purpose is.
"...Stan or Dot?" he gets out.
Craig shakes his head, "I don't know what happened to them after all the chaos. Me and Kenny got away but, they tracked us down and caught up to us."
"I see... hopefully they got away..."
"Yeah..." Craig says quietly. He had hoped the same but somewhere deep down, he had a feeling that might not be the case.
"Are you... looking for him?" Clyde asks and Craig nods, knowing who he means. Clyde closes his eye and smiles faintly. "He's lucky to have you... watching over him."
Those words cause guilt to build up more in Craig's chest. He thinks of how lonely Clyde must have felt being here, being tortured, and no one coming to find him. He felt the weight of his guilt even more, knowing that he was the one who dragged him in to this. All of them.
"Kenny... he healed me before, when I got broken ribs," Craig says and looks up at him. "Maybe he could—"
"No," Clyde says. "Just go..."
Craig gives a confused look, "But—"
"The effects... the Amplifier... are fading... can feel it. Wouldn't have time... to find him... get back to me... on last dosage... anyways," Clyde tells him. "Find Kenny... and keep going... alright?" he smiles weakly. " "Go... before they find you."
"But..."
"Go..." Clyde says softly. "Don't let, everyone's efforts go to... waste."
There's a few seconds of pause, as Craig thinks over everything. He then looks away and begins to walk back over to the door slowly. When he reaches it, he pauses. He keeps his eyes trained forward and doesn't look back.
"I'm sorry," he says quietly, before he leaves the room, slipping back into the labyrinth of hallways once again.
Clyde smiles to himself and closes his eye, "It was... a good run."
Those words soon become lost forever in time, as the blood in his body starts to slow down, eventually coming to a stop. The very last of his existence fading away as all of it begins to spill out of his body and down onto the floor beneath him.
…
As Craig continues down the hallways, he tries his best not to think of what happened or what he saw just a short while ago, and instead pushes it to the back of his mind and focuses on the task at hand. He reaches the end of a long hall and looks around it, something clicks in his mind, like that of distant familiarity. He goes down another turn connected to it, following the feeling that he had. Letting his feet guide him. When he rounds a corner leading down a short hall, he spots a big circular door. He can't help but smile a bit, having finally found it.
He doesn't see any guards standing in front of it this time though, and isn't sure if that should be a good or bad thing. But regardless, he walks up to the door. The only way he was going to get an answer, was if he checked out the room himself after all. He spots the keycard slot and takes out the ID he took, he looks at it hoping this will work. He slides it through the slot, and there's a silence as he waits. As he starts thinking that the ID he has might not have access to the room, the small light above the slot turns green.
The gears of the door turn and it begins to open. Once opened all the way, Craig cautiously steps into the big room. The room was dark, like the last time he saw it, except for a single light in the middle of it. It shone down directly on a large metal object, that Craig recognized to be the back of the metal table that Kenny had been on the last time he was there as he walks towards it. With every step that he took, his apprehension grew. It had been too quiet, and he feared that he might be walking right in to a trap. When he reaches the metal table and steps around to the other side of it, a wave of overwhelming relief washes over him though.
Kenny was there.
He walks over and stands in front of him, noticing that his eyes were closed and his shirt and coat were now gone. He watches the rise and fall of his chest steadily, no longer bearing a hole, as if it never even existed in the first place. Kenny was alive. The recollection of Craig seeing a light form around him before passing out crosses his mind, now knowing that what he had seen wasn't just a hallucination after all anymore. Even though at the time, he thought that he lost him. He lifts up a hand and grazes over where the hole had been with the tips of his fingers. At that, Kenny's eyes slowly open.
"Craig...?"
"Hey," Craig smiles a bit upon hearing him speak.
"This place, it's..."
"Yeah, they caught us and brought us back here," he tells him and moves his hand away. "They decided to take me in alive, because one of the scientists wanted to deal with me personally. But I managed to get out from where they were holding me."
"I see..."
"Anyways, I'm going to get you down from there."
Craig looks around and spots a nearby control pad, seeing a slot in it. He looks back down at the ID keycard in his hand and wonders if it would work here as well. It had open the door after all, but still, something felt off to him in his gut.
"You should go," Kenny says looking away.
"Huh?" Craig looks at him confused.
"You should just go, and leave me behind."
"What? No— "
"Bringing me with you, will only cause you more problems. Even if we get away again, they'll continue to hunt us down. Just like before. Until we're caught again."
Craig looks at him stunned, "Where is this—"
"You'll have to be in constant fear and worry if you take me with you. Or be in danger all the time. Without me there, you'll have a better chance at living a more peaceful life. A more normal one, like before, when you stayed with those people you told me about. All I'll do is cause you problems and be a bother. That's all I ever seemed to have—"
"Enough!" Craig snaps, and Kenny looks at him. "I don't know where this is coming from all of the sudden, but I don't want to hear you saying all of these things!"
Craig was confused as to why Kenny was saying all of these things to him, if not also a little hurt by them as well. He didn't know what had brought them all on so suddenly, or where it was all stemming from. Maybe it was something built up over time in the recent days, or something that had always been there, he didn't know. But whatever the case was, he didn't want to hear these things from him. No, not him.
"And you're wrong..." Craig continues quietly. "You've never been a bother, or problem, or anything like that to me. Ever. All of those years that passed by without you... felt hallow to me on the inside. Because I knew that you were still out there somewhere, somewhere I couldn't reach, because I didn't know where it was. And I couldn't be with you because of that. So everyday that went by without you, left me restless. Because everyday I knew that you were still out there, in some god awful place, suffering. And I don't know how to explain it properly but, it felt as if I was suffering along with you because of it. Because I couldn't get to you, because I couldn't stop the pain you were feeling or experiencing, because I couldn't have you next to me and away from it all." Without realizing it, his eyes had begun to water.
Kenny's gaze shifts downwards along with his head, "But I... why?" he asks faintly.
"Because..." Craig starts. "You're my home, my heart, my other half... you're my everything," he lifts his head back up with his hands so that he can look directly at him. "I love you."
The expression on Kenny's face changes from his usual blank unreadable one, to that of surprise. Craig smiles a bit and let's go of his head, turning back around to the control pad.
"Now, I'm going to get you out of here okay?" he says and slides the ID through it, hoping that it works.
There's a silence, and Craig doesn't think that it's going to work. He had remembered that last time, Kenny had said something about the keycard needing to be from higher ups, and started thinking that a guard might not have access to him directly. Just as he's thinking about whether he should try using his power again or not, the small light turns green and the clamps around Kenny release him. He lands on his knees and Craig walks over to him, still trying to shake the nagging feeling that something wasn't quite right here. As he gets closer, Kenny gets up and takes a few steps towards him.
Craig figures that means he's ready to get moving right away, "Alright, let's get out of—"
Kenny instead wraps his arms around the other tightly, "I love you too," he replies.
The words cause Craig's heart to skip and Kenny pulls back a bit placing a hand on his cheek, looking at him. He then leans his forehead against Craig's and moves his hand down along Craig's neck and to his chest resting it there. Craig's heart was beating so hard in his chest by this point, he wondered if Kenny could feel it. Very slowly, their heads started to tilt up more bringing their faces closer. Craig could feel Kenny's breath ghosting over his lips, and the beating of his heart loud in his eardrums now. Their faces were so close to one another, that—a very loud mechanical sound is heard then, and the two are instantly drawn back looking towards it. They see that the door to the room had now begun to close. When it stops, it locks in place with a loud clunk, and the light that is shining on the table where Kenny was, turns off and the whole room is shrouded into darkness.
"I feel like I'm starting to watch a never ending soap opera with how you two are acting," a loud voice echos throughout the room.
In the next second a bright light comes on, illuminating a holographic screen, Craig recognizing the woman with glasses on it instantly.
"You," Craig glares.
"Volorha..." Kenny murmurs.
"Volorha?" Craig says confused for a second before realizing that was probably the woman's name.
The woman gives a bemused smirk, "I must say that this is a rather interesting development. I had a feeling that you would try and find where subject 122 was, based on your inquiries and the last time you were here. I thought that you may just be sentimental about your old subjectmate or something. However after seeing the way you two subjects interacted and the things you said to one another just now... well, that certainly was an unforeseen outcome. But it does make a lot more sense for your actions I suppose. Most other subjects that were put in a room together, either died from tests, or went mad and killed the other subject. You two subjects were the only ones who did neither of those things. The guards would sometimes say you two acted differently towards one another when they would go get one of you. I guess I know why that is now."
An irritated look crosses Craig's features, "You know something? You talk too goddamn fucking much."
He didn't want to think of how this person or anyone else, basically just watched him and Kenny share such a very intimate moment with one another.
Volorha laughs a bit, "I guess that's true. So let's just get on with the show then shall we?" a green light to the far side of the room flicks on, "Remember how I said some subjects went mad? Well others went both mad and mutated physically," the sound of a door slowly opening is heard. "Like the one you're about to meet. This subject mulled it's other subjectmate to death. Pity, that one had a similar power to yours, but flew as well. I'm sure it could've been useful to hone that power. And so yours would've been too, if you weren't about to face a similar fate like now. As much as I would've like to have dealt with you myself, subject 123, this will have to do instead. And although subject 122 most likely will be killed off again, it's small collateral damage if it means stopping a repeat like before."
The sound of the door stops, indicating that it's been opened all the way now.
Craig looks up at the screen and extends his arm offering up his middle digit to her, "Fuck you."
Volorha frowns, "Goodbye subject 123."
And with that, the screen goes out and everything becomes black again.