Male Ward (part 2)

The Variant known as Richard Trager appeared as a very withered and boney elderly man on the brink of anorexia, having only a few strains of grey hair hanging from his scalp. All he dons is a blood-stained apron around the front part of his legs, which is just a dark green patient sheets. He also had a patient drip wrapped/taped around his left arm and stabbed into his veins, a tattered surgeon mask, and strange steam-punkesque monocles.

Trager grinned under his mask as he reached for Kirigiri's head. Before neither of the detectives could act, he grabbed her head and smashed it twice on the wall of the dumbwaiter, knocking her out with blood splattering all over the walls and on Naegi's shocked face.

The brunette was about to yell at the doctor but the latter punched him on the face, grabbed him by the collar and dragged him out of the device, pushing the lavender haired woman out and on the floor in the process. Naegi tried to stand up but Trager turned him around and punched him not once but twice, three time with such brutal force that the male detective was at the limit of unconsciousness and couldn't stand up anymore. The Variant stared down at him saying:

"Hey… you are that little shit priest's guys,aren't you? His… witnesses or whatever." He kneeled down, "you must be exhausted. Let's take a break, huh, buddy?"

Naegi wanted to protest but the man was already reaching out for him.

"The old two martini lunch, have a little confab." Trager laughed as he lifted up the brunette and sat him down on a wheelchair.

Naegi grunted in pain.

"Woo! … heavier than you look. A little cardio wouldn't kill you." Mocked the Variant as he strapped Naegi's arms and legs to the chair, "Okay. Here we go. Arms and legs inside the car at all time, hehe." He joked as he stood up.

He walked towards Kirigiri's unconscious body and lifted her up, he dropped her over his right shoulder like a vulgar potato bag. Her head hanging over his back. He looked at his right.

"She has a nice ass, your girl." he commented.

"Don't… touch her…" Naegi managed to say over the pain.

"Hoho, no worries, buddy. I won't touch a hair on her head until I'm done with you…" he said in a friendly tone that sent a freezing chill down the ahoge boy's spine.

He walked behind the wheelchair and grabbed the handle, then started to push Naegi to his new destination. He noticed that they were in a kitchen and leaving it. After going through various corridors, they reached a very large room that looked like an entrance hall. The sudden gust of wind made Naegi's eyes widen. Trager made him face a long hallway with an open double door at the end of it. He could see and hear the rain and storm at the other side of the doorframe. But the most important thing was the big glowing red panel over the door, spelling the word the couple have been searching for: EXIT.

"Aah. I love the mountain air up here at night." He leaned in front of Naegi's face, a hand holding firmly at Kirigiri's body to not drop her, 'You want to head out, take a stroll?" he taunted, "Go ahead, I'll wait here."

Naegi glared the best he could at him.

"Go on, run free!" Trager kept taunting, "I'm in no hurry… No? Ooh." he said as he noticed the brunette staring at his unconscious partner, "You don't want to leave her behind. So you're the loyal type, heh? That's good I respect that." The doctor continued as he walked behind the wheelchair to pull him into the elevator behind them, "If I was that loyal, I might have had the chance to get married, heh."

He pressed a button and the elevator closed its door as it went up. The Variant was humming a little melody, waiting. Naegi looked at the sleeping injured face of his fiancée, he wanted to reach to her but his hands were strapped to the chair. He wanted to call out to her, but it will only attract the attention of the crazy man holding her.

The elevator reached stop and the doors opened, he took a handle and pushed Naegi again to the next destination. The male detective noticed a trail of blood, but it wasn't like the one Father Martin left for them. It was left by wheels… from a wheelchair… the one he was sitting on. Naegi had a very bad feeling about that. He tried to struggle a bit as Trager pushed him through different corridors. In these corridors were some beds and patients strapped to them.

One of the patient was whispering one phrase again and again: 'Kill me…' The other one was debating like a mad man, screaming. Trager shushed him.

"Ssh! Ssh ssh! You weren't putting that tongue to any use anyway." He said.

Naegi's eyes widen as the man on the bed looked at him screaming even more, he could indeed see that a lot of blood was pouring out of his mouth. There was no pink muscle inside the mouth just darkness and blood. Trager pushed Naegi inside a big hospital room with lots of hospital beds, some reversed, some tugged into some sort of wall separating the room in half, leaving a large space in the middle for access.

"Truth be told… I was just tired of licking my own stamps." he confessed, "Wait a sec, buddy." he left Naegi and walked towards a bed, where he dropped the sleeping form of Kirigiri.

He came back and pushed Naegi through the room and into a small dark room next to it, the smell was horrible, blood, piss, death and flesh.

"Here we are, then." he said as he stopped Naegi's chair in the center of the room, "Thanks so much for coming by. We'll begin your consultation in a moment." he said as he switched on the light.

Naegi could now see that they were in the men's room, but with gore everywhere. Also, he started to feel better, in pain level, he could now see clearly. There was blood everywhere, the mirror was broken to pieces and there was a pile of body parts not far away from him. Trager must have tortured and mangled dozens of patients. And next to him was a trolley with different surgical tools on it. Each one more threatening than the other.

"I'll just need a second to wash up and… Oh." he reached for Naegi's camcorder and took it, he saw it was recording, "Home movies! ...And it will give us a chance to talk." he said as he was imitating a movie director before putting the camera down on the bathroom sink, filming Naegi. He then started to wash his hand.

The brunette saw this as an opportunity, he tried to struggle to loosen up a bit the straps on his wrists. But the voice of the mad doctor stopped him.

"You know, I'm a bit worried how much time you've been spending with Father Martin. I know…" He walked behind the trolley and looked at the different tools, "I hope you haven't been letting him confuse you with all his holier-than-thou bible thumping." He grabbed the saw.

He walked towards the detective and the latter started to sweat and turning pale as the doctor pressed the blade against the skin of his neck, not stopping his speech.

"No offense to the man. But I sometimes worry he might just be a little bit…" he looked at Naegi in the eye with amused crazy eyes, "crazy."

He took the blade away and put it down on the trolley. But he grabbed another one, thinner and bloodier.

"It's understandable, people get scared, they're likely to turn to God as anything else. God died with the gold standard. We're on the more concrete faiths now."

He approached Naegi with the new tool and pressed the blade on his right arm. Naegi was doing his best not to shake as his eyes were wide open and full of fright.

"You have to rob Paul to pay Peter, there is no other way." he grabbed Naegi's right hand and looked at his fingers, "Murder in the simplest form. But what happens when all the money is gone?"

He walked away again and put down the saw on the trolley and walked towards the dirty urinals on the wall. That's when Naegi noticed it. A bloody bone shears was resting inside one of them, Trager grabbed it.

"Well, money becomes a matter of faith. And that's why I'm here for…" He snapped the shears twice as he approached the detective. "..To make…"

Naegi knew what was going to happen, he suddenly remembered how to plead and yell.

"No no no no no"

But that didn't stop Trager to open wide the shears.

"...You…"

"NO PLEASE DON'T!" screamed the brunette, his eyes tearing up.

"...believe…" he slid Naegi's right index finger between the blades.

"PLEASE NO! AAAAAAARRRGHHH!" He screamed in pain as he fell the blade cutting his flesh as the Variant closed the shears.

He could feel everything, the blades digging and slicing deeper into the flesh, then it hit the bone. But Trager was a sick son of a bitch and started to put pressure on the blade to crack the bones finally cutting through it. Naegi screamed all the time. Then.

*SNAP*

The sound of the two blades colliding together echoed in his mind. He was about to pass out but Trager was not okay with that.

"You're paying attention?!" he yelled before violently slapping Naegi, "Don't pass out on me, there's still a lot for you to absorb!" he ordered as he kneeled towards the other hand, "Well, look at that! A ring, like that, the blades won't slip, heh?" he laughed as he slid the blades below the engagement ring at Naegi's left ring finger.

The ahoge boy's eyes widen but everything was blurry because of his tears, he was about to yell at the man to stop but suddenly he felt the same pain as before. His finger was getting cut again, he screamed in pain even louder.

*SNAP*

The sound ringed inside his head. Trager stood up in front of him, holding the male detective's fingers. In one hand and his engagement ring between two fingers.

"There." he said, throwing the ring at Naegi's face.

It fell to the bloody floor.

"Better now, right? You have your ring, I got what I wanted." he laughed as he put the fingers down on the trolley, "Do you understand what we achieved here? We made the consumer into the means of production!" he took the trolley away and headed to the exit, "This thing is going to sell itself!" he shouted before closing the door.

Naegi looked down at his hands, now all bloody. His left ring finger was cut clean, Trager didn't slip the blades and cut well. But his right index finger was very badly cut... and he could see the bone of his finger sticking out of the flesh. This vision made him gag, he wanted to throw up. He cried. Then the door's handle started to shift. His head jolted towards it and he started to shake.

"No more! Please no more!" he cried as the door opened.

"Makoto?"

"Kyo...ko?" he whispered.

"Makoto. Oh my God!" She exclaimed when she saw his hands, her mask shattering completely.

She dashed to him and untied him.

"I'm so sorry…" she repeated, her voice not more of a whisper, her eyes slowly starting to tear up also.

The moment he was unstrapped, he ran towards the sink, made a gesture with one of his hand telling her not to watch and started to throw up. All his dinner meeting the dirty bloodied sink. After that he grabbed the camcorder that was filming everything. He wanted to smash it on the ground… but they needed it… So he put it back in his pocket.

"My… ring?..." he asked.

Kirigiri had her back turned, biting down her thumb in worry, she almost didn't hear him and started to look for his engagement ring. It was on the floor, on a pool of blood, Naegi's blood. She took it and wiped it clean. She handed it to him.

"T-There…"

"Thank you…" he tried to grabbed it with his right hand but he had no index finger anymore, this gesture made him cry even more as Kirigiri gently put the ring on his palm.

He held the ring tight as if it was the most important thing in the world. He repeated 'Thank you' as if it was a chant. She took him in her arms, stroking his hair as she was whispering to him that everything was going to be alright. He rested his head on her chest and let the tears flow. His sobs filling the horrible room.

But they had to leave. There was no time to waste. Who knows when the crazy doctor will come back. Kirigiri took off her suit and ripped off her sleeves. She used one to wrap up his left hand and stop the bleeding. But for the right hand… She did her best. A bone sticking out was difficult to wrap up tightly without hurting Naegi like if he was being tortured.

They slowly walked out of the room. Naegi ready to record again. When a voice called out to them.

"Who's there? Is somebody there? Come closer…"

It was coming from the center of the hospital room next to the forsaken room they just got out. They approached the voice but not without their guard up. They saw another Variant strapped to a bed. His head lifted by a footrest.

"I'm not a patient… I'm an executive. Just like him. Like Trager." he started, looking at the couple, "But he got the treatment. He's too alive… Filled with Wernicke's nightmares. It worked too well… They couldn't control it…"

What was he talking about? Is it about the PROJECT WALRIDER?

"...And you can't control it. Nobody." he took a breath and repeated, "Nobody!" and then he yelled, "NOBODY!" He started to struggle on the bed, "He'll find you! He'll kill you both! He's coming now! TRAAAGER! TRRRAAAAAGGGERRR!"

The couple quickly understood that he was calling out the crazy doctor. They looked for a place to hide but the only places were under the hospital beds. No choice. They got under one at the corner of the room. Trager approached the man on the bed, armed with the bone shears. Just the sight of it made Naegi sick.

"I see what's happening here… You're bored. You want a little attention. Perfectly understandable. Well I'm here for you. I'll give you very special attention."

Trager raised the shears and planted them in the man's chest, right in the heart, deep until the handles touched the murdered patient's skin. There was nothing the couple could do about it. The strapped man started to scream in pain and agony, but it was only making the wound worse as blood spurted and he started to spit blood. Trager had a sadistic look in his eyes as he twisted the blades inside the body, making the stab wound larger. And after some seconds, he took the blades away from the fresh corpse as it stopped moving.

Trager walked away and then it down on him. Kirigiri wasn't on the bed anymore.

"No. No no. NO!" he ran to the men's room and yelled, "Fuck! FUCK, REALLY?!"

The couple were still under the bed. Leaving it while he's that close is way too risky.

"You're gonna walk on ME? If there's one thing I can't goddamn stand is a QUITTER!" he yelled as he got back to the hospital room, "COME ON!" he took deep breaths, "Alright...Alright. You can figure this out. Let's solve some problems…" he walked away, snapping the blades of the shears.

The duo heard the snapping entering in another room away from where they were…

Trager was a sick fucker, they both though. They were ready to bet that he was Murkoff brass before whatever infected this place changed him.

They wanted to get out of there. Naegi wanted his fingers back. And both felt horrible for even wishing this… But they wanted to see Trager die.

To be continued…

In the next chapter of Survival at Mount Massive Asylum…

'God damnit! We need a key? What the hell?"

"That's for what you did to my fiancé!"

"I'll kill you all!"

"Nobody likes a quitter…"

"Kill me! Go ahead and murder me, see what happens!"

"Oh God…"

And Naegi lost two fingers.
Will our heroes manage to escape the twisted fuck that is Trager?

We'll see in the next chapter.