Mona tries and fails to remember.
Just as Mona had expected, this path was turning out to be far worse than she could have ever imagined. Almost as soon as she'd made her way into the pathway, the shop behind her was engulfed in flames, no doubt to block her retreat. While accusing fire of having some sort of plan or consciousness might seem insane to the average person, she'd long since begun questioning the merits of sanity or rational thought after setting foot into this awful town.
Though the stench had lessened a bit, the heat certainly hadn't. It was worse than ever now, almost like she was the one inside the oven from before given the roaring fire beneath her. Maybe she'd just "lost" whatever game this place was playing with her, doomed to be cooked alive. Maybe that's what happened to the thing she'd fought before.
Mercifully, the grating beneath her feet gave way to actual flooring. Though it was no less sweltering inside these confined spaces, she was at least out of the path of direct heat. Stepping out onto what seemed to cracked linoleum, she took the chance to look around, expecting yet more danger.
Strangely, that wasn't the case. This place seemed like a mostly normal if a bit rundown kitchen. After all the buildup with the Hell Tunnel, it was almost anticlimactic to see just your average refrigerator, dish washer, dripping sink, and wooden cabinets like you'd see in any old house.
Certainly tempted to let down her guard, Mona resisted that urge, knowing something bad was just around the corner. This was somewhat confirmed given the fact the pathway she'd arrived in was now entirely gone, a collection of faded pictures stuck to a dirty white wall that had formed behind her. If their seeming age didn't make them entirely indecipherable, the burned bits and what looked like scribbling with a black crayon most certainly did. The clearest of the bunch was in the very middle, showcasing what might have been a family of four with all of their faces drawn over with dark smudges and scratches.
A new sense of dread began to overtake her. Something about this place seemed familiar, but she couldn't be sure if that was because she'd actually been here in the past or it was simply the town playing tricks on her again. Either way, she forced herself to focus on that picture again, trying desperately to wring any scrap of detail she could out of it that might reveal the answer to this mystery or even what the mystery itself might be.
As she felt a pair of hands wraps around the back of her neck, her body did the opposite of what she figured a normal reaction would be and held back any noise. She flipped around, finding that no one was actually there. Almost immediately after that, a blob of some kind of white fluid fell from the ceiling, landing on her shoulder with a disgusting splat.
While the original hands may not have been real, these certainly were. Reaching down from the ceiling directly overhead was another monster, either attached to or coming through the floor above and stretching its charred body far beyond what should have been naturally possible. Its arms were similarly elongated, hands featuring a series of far more than ten thin, constantly moving fingers moving towards her neck. In place of a head, there seemed to be nothing more than a protruding mouth, constantly undulating and biting with its numerous teeth, the fluid from before running out like saliva.
Mona clubbed one of the creature's hands in a panic, at least one finger breaking under the strike. Not wanting to stand around and try to fight another of these things, she sprinted from the room as quickly as she could, emerging into a steel cage surrounded by a wall of flames instead of the more predictable living room or the like.
The floor was hard steel covered in rust (she hoped it was rust, at least), nothing but fire to be seen around her in the still relatively small octagonal arena. Beyond the bounds and over the sound of crackling fire, grinding metal interspersed with quiet cries and whimpers was audible, though from where it originated was anyone's guess; she had no clue where she was right now, let alone anything else.
Out of the darkness of the kitchen emerged the creature she'd just escaped from, somehow stretching itself all this way to pursue her and moving around erratically. It would have been far less awful if it had simply detached itself from the ceiling to drag itself like the other, its disgusting body making a horrid rubbing sound against its own skin as it slowly but surely came towards her in the air.
As scary as the thing was, it at least didn't seem to be much of a threat given the pace of its attack. But if it really wanted a fight, she'd give it one. Mona grabbed her makeshift weapon with both hands, pulling it back over her shoulder to ready it like a bat for when the monster got into range.
That was her first mistake.
Like a bolt of lightning, the thing's mouth shot out of its own skin. A pink, fleshy tube came toward her at an alarming speed, biting deep into the meat of her shoulder with its rows upon rows of pointed teeth. Letting out a scream from both the initial bite and the stinging of the fluids inside its mouth against her wounds, she clumsily beat the thing as best she could to try and get it to let her go.
That was her second mistake.
Making little progress at clubbing the midsection of the mouth, Mona was too preoccupied to notice the rest of the thing catching up to her. Only when it was mere inches from her did she finally see its hands reach out for her neck. Its grip was like a vice, bearing down on her with the comparative force of an adult strangling a child and cutting off even her ability to scream.
It began to lift her into the air, her legs kicking wildly as she was pulled off the ground in a desperate attempt to do something against this monster. Beating it across its body, she could feel herself beginning to lose consciousness as its fingers wrapped tighter and tighter around her throat.
In a last ditch attempt to free herself, Mona shoved the chair leg as hard as she could into the small amount of separation between the thing's skin and the fleshy mouth embedded into her shoulder. Letting out a scream, the monster's teeth finally came loose from her shoulder, the creature nearly flinging her into the fire pouring through the metal boundary at the edge of the area.
Doing her best to catch her breath close to the ground, she started to think about what she'd just learned. This one seemingly had skin too thick to hurt through conventional means, though fingers were fair game given how thin and fragile they seemed. The inside of its body was apparently its weak point, though, so that's what she had to aim for.
The monster began its slow pursuit once more as Mona scrambled to her feet, trying to move around the side of the arena to better control when she'd have to attack. Her hopes of possibly retreating back to the kitchen were dashed, as was the possibility of using her superior maneuverability to get around. The reason behind why this thing had been moving in anything but a straight line was now clear, the stretched portion of its body having become an immovable barrier as it continually filled space.
Worst of all, she'd just purposefully run herself into a corner. With the monster closing in and the amount of space she had left rapidly decreasing, there was nothing left to do but fight. Watching the thing intently, she held up her weapon straight out in front of her to be ready. Given how little room she had to move anymore, this was probably her only chance at this.
Seconds ticked by with painful slowness as the abomination grew closer and closer. Just as before, its mouth was the first thing to come at her. She was ready this time, letting her body react on instinct and aim the length of wood in her hands directly into the mouth of the chomping jaws.
Scoring a direct hit, the thing's protrusion tried to recoil as the chair leg was forced almost the entire way down its throat due to its own haste. The choking sounds it made were uncannily human, but Mona couldn't let that stop her from doing what had to be done.
As the body began to catch up to its mouth, she continued to force the weapon down its throat. Whatever had...constructed this beast had obviously not intended for it to be able to move in reverse, as it still tried to continue forward in the hopes of either removing the obstruction from its mouth or to kill its enemy.
Mona wasn't going to let either of those things happen, though, twisting the rod in her hands and watching as more of the white fluid began to spray out like blood. The body's hands tried to stop her from doing any further damage, clawing at her jacket hard enough to tear the leather and cutting through the skin on her legs like razors, breaking many of its own fingers in the process with its urgency.
She ignored the pain and the fear and the heat and just kept going. With all her strength, she managed to force the chair leg the entire way into the creature's mouth, fluids puking from its mouth as it began to convulse. A final seize was all it had left inside it before the totality of its body went limp, its expansive midsection falling to the ground in a pile.
For a few seconds, everything was still. Even the fire hung eerily motionless in the room around her, all sound having ceased, as well. Then, from out of nowhere, Mona began to experience a splitting headache, the sound of a siren blaring in the background. As she crumpled to her knees in pain, her vision faded to red.
When she finally awoke, she found herself in a dirty, cramped bathroom, unsure of how she'd gotten there or what became of the place before. This was starting to become a rather normal sensation, though.
The Otherworld is not a friendly place, especially when a boss shows up. So much for a no damage run.
Thanks for reading. Share if you're enjoying. Always remember to search everything, including your memories.