Rachel sits down, setting her back against the corridor corner so she can see both of the coming ways. She had just passed the room full of those insanity patients. Where will this funhouse take her next?
Her mind constantly wandered back to that image of Zack restrained to that chair with that floor master. Think, think! Where were the doorways in and out of that room, if she could see any... But no matter how hard she thought, the image remains impregnable. There's nothing else to see in that image in her head. All she can do is hope this path will take her to him anyway. Even if it is a trap like with Cathy.
She exhales and grips the hammer as she leans forward on her knees drawn to her chest. The changes of cold and warmth made her sleepy, as well as the fact she never caught so much as a wink of sleep in this place when she wasn't knocked out. Her own floor left her mentally exhausted. Keeping a hold on the hammer, she closes her eyes, just for a few minutes...
…
No more air moving over his sensitive skin. He can feel his arms are numb as he regains a vague feeling in them. But his head is still a mess, swimming from whatever the hell she stabbed him with. He forces his eyes open, feeling the vertigo almost immediately. His vision remains a hodgepodge of images, unable to be put together. All he can see clearly is a lot of something large and bluish before he has to shut his eyes from the blurriness.
The gag is gone from his mouth. There's something like a mask over his face instead. Arms feel bound near his abdomen, and he's wearing something that is tying them together. A straitjacket?
Despite the weakness the drug induced in his limbs, he thrashes however he can. Something is holding him in suspension so he cannot move very well.
"Ah, Zack..."
He opens his eyes a crack to see the image of Kirsten wobbling to his left. Damn, he can't focus for shit. She's not with her fishbowl at the moment, instead just holding a switch of some kind.
"...A dosage that can put an elephant under for a day... and for you, it's only been a few hours... are you really human, Zack?" She looks at him with those dull eyes... and a queerly intrigued smile. It sickened him. She's like how Danny ogles after Rachel.
His vision slowly returns and Zack now clearly sees he is indeed in a straitjacket. The attire is chained with attachments that go up near the ceiling to a pulley system not unlike the ones used to haul meat in a slaughterhouse. But it has been modified to lower cargo. Beneath him is a large tank of bluish water. This mask on his face wraps around his head, with tubes leading out of it.
This room is larger than the last. Splatters of sickly reddish or yellow liquids stain the white floor; likely bodily fluid. Hooks attached to the pulley system dangle, unused. Some are rusted and others have bits of detritus still left over from the last victim. Zack couldn't care less to guess what goes on here.
"What the hell is this...?!" He growls under the mask. It garbles his words a bit but she has no trouble hearing.
"You are... a very dangerous person, Zack... No person can have as much fire as you do... But yet, it's the first time... I could ever feel satisfied..." She seems to blush lightly, closing her eyes and thinking, "That was amazing, the fight you put up... even after I had the syringe in you..."
Oh god, is she getting off on this?
"Fucking crazy bitch..."
"That's why I want to properly extinguish you, Zack. This time, I will surely be even more satisfied...!" Kirsten pants slightly, wrapping her arms around herself, "This is the ultimate high! Never again will I find anyone like this!"
Her talking annoys him to no end. He growls and roars, swinging about like a suspended worm.
"I may be mad for saying this... but I am glad you betrayed us floor masters... Otherwise, I would never have this opportunity to punish you..." She looks up to him, face flushed still, with admiration. It was making him sick.
"What the fuck are you even talking about?! I ain't got nothin' like loyalty for any of ya!" Zack snarls, "I just kill! And that's what Imma' do t' you!"
"I know, Zack..." She giggles lowly, "That's why I want you to get used to the cold first..."
There is a click. She pressed the switch. Suddenly, the chains suspending him in the air slacken and he feels himself falling, and the water tank rush up to meet him.
SPLASH
His vision is obscured by millions of bubbles accommodating his plunge into the cold liquid. He can feel himself sinking, bound in a way that he cannot swim. He feels the sudden restriction on his breathing, as now the mask is his only lifeline. Luckily, it is fitted on snugly so no water seeps in. The bubbles slowly rise away and he sees he is now completely submerged in the tank. A thin stream of bubbles from the side of the mask, with the tubes running into it supplying him with oxygen. Outside the blue vat's glass wall, Kirsten walks into view, smiling.
"I bet it's nice and cool in there, right? Don't you want to stay forever?"
…
I'm nobody's god.
Rachel felt relief after they had killed Danny again. Zack was not her god. But he would kill her anyway, once this was all over. There was an assurance in this man, who lived only to kill. He did not ask anything of her like Danny did.
But when she turned to face her angel of death, she saw instead that helpless form of him. Tied to a chair in that room at that woman's mercy. Rachel reaches quickly for her gun, only to find her bag gone. That woman presses a button in her hands. Rachel hears Zack's muffled screams and sees his body writhe in pain.
Her angel mustn't die.
She takes a brave step forward. Her eyes widen as she sees Zack's body balloon up.
And then POP.
Viscera and gore splatters on her and the other floor master. She has Zack all over her.
Rachel bites back a gasp as she wakes from that unpleasant nightmare. There is no indication of time to tell how long she had rested. From how she felt, she gathers it was not long, as she still felt tired. But she was no longer in any mood to sleep after that kind of dream. Dragging herself to stand, she starts to walk again, down the corridor.
This place has a rather pristine feel, much like an asylum. At the end of the corridor is an elevator, and on the side is a small door, which opens to a stairwell. The elevator seems to be the same core one that goes through the floors. But this one is out of order, as it is all boarded up. They also didn't see this floor on their way here. There are hidden floors here then, sandwiched between the main stops.
Before going up the stairs, Rachel looks at the wall opposite the stairwell door. She had heard Zack's shout from somewhere on this floor here. Tracing the schematic of the floor so far...
Gripping the sledgehammer, she slams it on the wall. There is not a hollow sound, but the greenish paint coating breaks easily, showing cracked plaster. The force travels up her arm a bit, but she does not stop, now going for a second and third hit. If the image in her head is right, either there is enough room on this floor for another space, or this is just a massive support column.
After around the eighth smash, her arms tingle and about an inch of the plaster is worn through. There is something covering the other end, but there appears to be light there. With the handle of the hammer, she pokes at it. There is the sound of paper ripping. She peers through.
It is a rather small hole. From what she can gather, it appears to be an empty room on the other side. The walls are all covered within what seems to be papers, too small and far away to read. But what is legible is a big statement made of what looks like red paint slathered across the leaves of paper. It is one simple word written:
TRAITORS
Rachel looks about the rest of the room. On the floor, there is only one singular object, which appears to be a black box. Zack is nowhere to be seen.
"So..."
The box fizzles to life. It's some sort of walkie talkie.
"You found the secret room... but Zack is nowhere to be found."
"...Where is Zack," Rachel speaks as clear as she can into the hole.
"It is your job to find him. Or will you betray him again?"
"I didn't betray him..."
"You pointed your gun at him on your own floor. You betrayed him," The other girl's voice is steady and cold, "This is where traitors are punished."
"Then why are you hurting him?"
"I'm not. He's pleasuring me."
"I want to hear him." Even if it was just going to be another horrible scream.
"No."
The other side curtly cuts off as the device fizzles before Rachel can make another plea. She doesn't linger and quickly goes to ascend the stairwell. A frostiness settles again. She must be going back up to the main floor after having slid down the pipe into this intermediary level.
Rachel did not think much on the floor master's words as she climbed the steps. Whatever pleasure she was talking about did not matter to her in the slightest. What she did realize was how similar the voice sounded to hers in tone. She had never taken much thought into what she sounded like before.
The stairs promptly stop before a wall with a fogged sheen on a landing. When Rachel approaches, she sees only a vague blob shape. It's not reflective, as it does not move with her. She taps the surface tentatively and feels it to be glass from the sound. With her hammer, she smashes at the glass wall. Fractures show almost immediately but it holds fast until about the third swing.
Like a broken fishbowl, water surges forth from the breached wall. It is greenish and chlorinated. Rachel holds tight to the railing of the landing so she is not swept away by the deluge. The blob she saw vaguely, a rotten body, floats past her and down the stairs as the water flows out. There is a stench now, of chemicals and worn flesh. Rachel walks forth to look into the room that held the water. She sees it is the bottom of one of the pools she had passed earlier. On the side is a ladder built in to the wall, leading back up to the walkway. Rachel sighs and steps into the drained pool, climbing up and out onto the path she had walked hours ago. The screen at the end of the hall with the four doorways is on. Rachel approaches the screen and her eyes widen at the broadcast.
The floor master stands before what seems to be a large tank of liquid, with Zack suspended inside. He is restrained by numerous bondages and a mask that is streaming with bubbles on the side. She cannot see if he is conscious.
"Zack!"
"Zack, do you see her?" The floor master looks to the captive. There is movement from Zack, but it is very minimal, given his constraints. His eyes cannot be seen.
"I don't understand what you're doing... If you're punishing me, why are you hurting Zack..." There is the slightest pleading tone in her otherwise dead voice.
"It's keeping you trapped here, isn't it?" The other girl looks impassively into Rachel's eyes, which are also as placid and unfeeling, "The 9th circle... is where traitors are frozen in their tracks forever within a great lake of ice."
"Let Zack go."
"He needs to be properly preserved... even angels can be traitors."
"Let him go!" Her voice grows a bit in volume.
"Don't worry. I plan to extinguish him soon. He was a bit rough, so I had to restrain him..." The floor master blinks a bit in slight surprise at something, "Oh... and my name is Kirsten."
Rachel had not even thought about the name of this person trying to murder them.
Kirsten continues in that dull voice, rambling in boredom, "It's not good manners towards the guests if the host does not introduce themselves..."
"... I don't think it's good manners for the host to drown guests either."
"This is Hell, where it is," Kirsten shrugs slightly before waving with a remote in hand at the screen, "Now, bye..."
The feed cuts. Rachel is left in the quiet that remained from before. There is only a light splashing in the near still pools that interrupt the silence. When bodies decompose in water, their air components cause the body to float and emit bubbles.
Without another word, Rachel goes for door 1.
"I'm not a traitor..."
