Murder Junkie: I didn't say anything last time because when I got your review, I literally had just finished writing the chapter. Thanks for getting interested in my story. Hopefully, you'll come to like it.

ThePyroInTheCorner: Thanks! I plan to!

sentfromsilence37: Thank you for the constructive criticism. I hope you stick around further. And, to answer your question, the names of the monsters are just tools for me to use and for the reader to use. It makes it a lot easier than saying, "The creature with no lower body," or just, "The monster." Tyler thinks of them collectively as monsters and is a little too busy fending them off to actually name them in his own mind.

And thanks to all the lazy people who don't want to review. I won't get mad; I do it all the time.

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Chapter 4 – Scarlet Ice

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Tyler felt cold all over as he shot up in bed from the sheer shock of the temperature. He looked around and could barely see an inch in front of his own face. He grabbed his glasses, and put them on, but it didn't help. It was just too dark. Somehow, though, his glasses were fine and didn't fog up. He could hear very faint static, which could only mean two things: One, he was in the nightmare he'd faced before, and Two, the nightmare was getting more developed. Up until now, a few scarce lamps lit his way, but now, no such luck.

He saw his own breath, but very little else in the cold darkness. The thin cloth of the hospital gown and the bed's even thinner blanket did nothing to warm him. He'd always hated the cold. He remembered that he'd put the flashlight he'd stolen-slash-borrowed by the bed. He blindly looked for it, finally grabbing the handle. He lifted it up, and turned it on.

The light almost completely reflected back at him, and now the world seemed even colder now that he saw his surroundings. All of the walls of his room were completely made of ice. The doorway was now a warped, trapezoidal opening, and the television was iced over. Icicles hung from the ceiling, which was somehow still tile. The floor was tile as well, but had a blue-ish tint in the very faint light.

Tyler tried to get up from his bed, but put too much pressure on his ankle. He hissed in pain and immediately sat back down. Remembering the night before, he looked over at the Tylenol cup, and the water next to it. The water had frozen. Tyler had never taken any medicine before without something to drink, and so didn't want to take the chance of choking to death on pain pills. He grudgingly lifted himself from the bed, standing on the bottom part of his foot and toes, trying to keep his heel off the ground. This was especially difficult considering his foot was in a brace designed to keep his ankle straight.

He walked clumsily to the doorway with his cane, the cold, cold floor making his bare soles numb. Subconsciously, he was grateful that the metal end of the cane didn't stick to his palm. He kept his flashlight in one hand, and had put his headphones around his neck again. They whined, but it wasn't nearly as loud as when something was near. Walking with some difficulty out of the room, Tyler went outside to check on the state of the rest of the hospital. It was still dark, no light whatsoever, and all of the walls were still ice.

Tyler walked on, trying to get to the rest area, somewhere open where he wasn't restricted by the hallways. He kept going and at one point looked into a room where a patient was supposed to be. Instead of a human, there was an impossibly perfect ice statue under a blanket. It didn't look like a frozen human; it looked like a statue made purely of ice.

Tyler continued down, waiting for the static to increase at any moment and for the Ambiguous Phantom to reappear. But he finally found a very slight source of light at the end of the hallway. He figured that it came from the window wall. As he continued, however, he started noticing that in the ice there was what appeared to be some sort of redness. He looked at it, and it looked like frozen blood. Thin liquids would freeze smoothly, but viscous liquids like blood froze in a more prominent manner where you could practically see all of the dimensions of the still fluid.

There were streaks of frozen blood in the ice leading to the opening in the hall to the rest area. When Tyler finally came inside of the room, he felt as if he himself had frozen, purely from fear. Within the two-story high walls of ice, bodies were now plainly in view despite the ice itself being opaque. Blood covered the insides of the walls, and the bodies were all frozen in painful positions, obviously trying to impossibly escape their prison. Every so often, a body part such as a face, knee, or hand had made it out of the ice. All of these parts were skeletal, while all else was perfectly preserved.

Tyler fell from the shock of this horrible vision, falling hard onto his backside. He dropped the flashlight, but it only rolled on the floor, illuminating everything slowly like a macabre slideshow. Tyler's body felt numb yet also felt like needles were pricking him all over. He panted hard, and scrunched his eyes closed, curling up in the middle of the floor.

"Oh, god..." he muttered aloud. He felt his eyes sting while hot tears streamed onto his face and glasses. He didn't want to see this. He didn't deserve this hell! There was nothing he had done that warranted this nightmare! He cried out in sheer emotional pain, still not moving. Was he going to become like those bodies? Screaming and frozen in eternal agony?

Tyler felt some form of adrenaline pump into his body as his mind ran this thought over and over. From what he had experienced so far, one thing was clear. If he did nothing, he would die. He tensed his muscles, getting ready to use them and slowly looked out from behind his hands and through his bangs at the frozen hell. His heart was beating so fast, he could actually see slight distortions in his vision as it pumped. He stood. He was so tired now and so cold. His ankle hurt like hell and his very bones ached.

He grabbed his cane and the flashlight. He had to think. Why would he see this place? There has to be something of some meaning here. He looked at the walls, fighting the urge to vomit at the horrid imagery, looking for any sort of difference in any continuing pattern. He established one pattern in the way the bodies were frozen: All of the bodies were male. Tyler was somewhat thankful for this. The female body disgusted him. Thanks to HER.

Tyler got sick of standing, and looked around. In several chairs there were more impossibly perfect effigies mimicking people. A number of them sat in chairs, and some were children playing with toys that were now frozen in small glaciers. The only place with almost no ice was a large desk Tyler assumed was for appointment making and the like. Something was different about that desk.

Hoping beyond hope that that something was useful, the young man hobbled to the desk, and looked at it from the front. Nothing special so far. He walked around it, using his scrutinizing eyes to pick up anything. Finally around the desk, Tyler saw blood. It was in the shape of a hand sliding down the desk's drawers. He needed a free hand, so he sat down in the rolling chair and freed himself of his flashlight. The light shone upon half the room, and the reflective properties of the ice illuminated it. It didn't make the room entirely visible, but at least he could make out things rather than just vague silhouettes He opened the drawer slowly, and listened for the static to change. It was still quiet.

There was a gun in the desk. Tyler looked at it for a good bit of time. He hated guns. He hated pistols so much. They had done so much damage to him. But, he considered the situation he was in. He could barely even stand without his cane, so he couldn't use it as a weapon. That left him with this. Besides, it would be best to attack some of these things from a distance.

He picked it up, using his limited knowledge of guns to check its bullets. It had a magazine and it had bullets. No idea how many, though. He opened the drawer all the way and saw another mag. He took it, not even questioning why a gun would be in a reception desk. With what he'd seen, questioning anything would only get you more questions than answers.

Tyler jumped when the static suddenly spiked in volume and looked up. He saw in one of the three hallways into the rest area the Ambiguous Phantom from all of the times before. Tyler didn't need to shine a light on it; the Phantom was luminous enough on its own. Just like before, the Phantom stared at him, and walked away into the darkness. It didn't seem to need to breathe, however, because its breath wasn't visible. Although Tyler had to wonder what he was doing thinking logically at a time like this.

Metallic clattering was heard. This was an unfamiliar sound to Tyler. He had heard moaning from the Armed Nurses and The Beldam, wet screeches from the Shambles, and Pyramid Head's knife made an ungodly screech. Tyler listened carefully. The sound was coming from his right side. There was a hallway parallel to where he was. A monster came into the room, slowly curving around the corner. It seemed to see him and came out into full view.

This monster had an androgynous human body with gray skin, and was so emaciated it looked more like a skeleton someone tied something tight to. Its head was bald and there were indentations where the eyes should have been, but there was just flesh. Its mouth was stuck open in an exaggerated yawn that was twice as long as the rest of its face. The mouth had no tongue or teeth; just a gaping black maw. Its body was hunched over with bloodied knife blades protruding from its back. Its fingers were knives as well.

It saw Tyler despite having no eyes, and screamed. It was the loudest thing Tyler had ever heard in his life. He immediately covered his ears, but it didn't help. He scrunched his eyes shut, and remembered through the disorienting noise that this thing was trying to kill him. He managed to open his eyes, and saw the Shiv running right at him.

The Shiv was upon him in seconds, faster than anything else Tyler had seen so far. Tyler put his foot on the ground and pushed. The rolling office chair slid back, and the bladed hand missed him, going between his open legs and lodging itself in the cold stone floor.

Tyler raised his cane for a counterattack, expecting it to attack again, but the Shiv was stuck. It kept pulling at its arm, trying to get the floor to let go. It screamed each time it pulled. Tyler watched it for a moment in sheer amazement at how easily it had been incapacitated, but remembered what the thing was. He remembered too late; the Shiv had pulled its arm free. It tilted its head back and let out another scream. Tyler, again, covered his ears out of sheer reflex, and only scrunched one of his eyes closed. The almost feral creature attacked again, this time a side-swipe.

Tyler ducked in the chair as the Shivs fingers shredded the backing, and again stuck in the icy wall. Tyler didn't want it to have the chance to attack him again; he attacked with his cane, bludgeoning the monster. Blood flew and the Shiv screeched in short bursts as it was struck. Tyler hit it a total of five times on the head before the Shiv managed to pull itself free again. This thing had good stamina!

The Shiv screeched instead of outright screaming this time, and lunged at Tyler, leaping into the air. Tyler fell from the chair, and the monster landed on top of it, toppling it over. The thing lifted itself up, and looked at Tyler, who was just getting over hitting the floor. The monster put its fingers together like a lance and lunged again. Tyler rolled out of the way. The Shiv's fingers were stuck once more in the floor. Tyler stood painfully, no longer feeling the cold because of terror and adrenaline, his ankle and side protesting as he moved. The Shiv tried ot free its arm again, and Tyler bashed it on the head several times before it finally pulled its arm out and landed on the floor from the force behind the pull. The knives on its back lodged in the floor, trapping it.

The monster flailed like an overturned turtle and screamed just as loudly as before. Tyler covered his ears reflexively and saw the pistol fall from the desk. He moved over to it, picked it up, and shot at the monster. The gun recoiled and pain from the kinetic energy traveling through his bruised arm shot through Tyler's arm and back. But the screaming stopped. The Shiv finally stopped moving.

Tyler heard loud ringing in his right ear, and was deafened by silence in the other. The only sound was the quieted static in his headphones. How the hell had those things stayed on his shoulders? He stood. He looked at the monster he had just finally managed to kill. "Fucker." He muttered. Normally, Tyler was more reserved than that, but in this situation, there was little else that could be said. Numerous beats to the head, and it was finally killed by a bullet.

The ringing started to quiet itself as Tyler stood with the gun and his cane in his hand. He felt the pain in his ankle, but something made him not care anymore. He was in so much pain, but he didn't feel it. Tyler heard wet squelching noises, and looked at the doorways. He stood roughly in the center of the room. Behind him was the outdoor portion of the rest area. Now that he looked, he saw that behind him, in front of him, and to both his left and right, two Shambles apiece were coming down the hallways, eight total. One in each hall crawled on the floor while the other of the hall was crawling on the icy wall.

Something primal in Tyler made him not care that these things were coming after him. Now, they just pissed him off.

"Come and get it." He growled, not even caring if the earless torsos could hear him or not.

The ones in front of him were closest, so Tyler raised the gun, and fired a few shots at the things. One went down, hit right in the head. The other leapt off the wall, and Tyler fired at it. It landed right at his feet, not moving. The ones to his right and left leapt off the walls at the same time. If they really thought that they could get to him that way, then…

Tyler stepped back a good ways, and the Shambles hit each other like some impossible action movie. They fell to the floor, screeching in pain, but Tyler grabbed his cane off the ground, and hit them both several times until they stopped moving. The Shambles on the wall behind him leaptoff as well, but Tyler managed to hit it midair with his cane. The Shambles went flying into an icy wall, and fell with a wet "splotch."

Blood had started to pool on the floor. Tyler's feet were covered in it. It felt surprisingly warm, and Tyler found himself wondering just how the Shambles could bleed when they died if their cut-off waistlines didn't bleed.

Three left.

The ones on the floor in each hallway let out particularly loud gargles at the knowledge of their comrades' demise. How they could tell with their lacks of senses, Tyler didn't know. The three remaining Shambles set themselves up on their arms, using them as impromptu legs.

"What is that supposed to do?" Tyler asked aloud, not expecting an answer.

The Shambles all walked on their new legs, faster than before because of how they didn't have to drag their bodies around. Tyler shot one to his left, and looked just in time to hit the one to his right with his cane upside the head. Another shot, and it was dead.

A loud screech was heard behind him, and Tyler turned sharply, and the Shambles was upon him. It had somehow managed to jump with its arms and latched onto his own torso. It screamed wildly, wrapping its arms around his neck, obviously trying to choke him. Tyler fell onto the floor, stomach-down. The Shambles was beneath him now. The impact with the floor stunned it, and Tyler lifted himself onto his knees. It kept screeching and Tyler finally started slugging the thing in the face.

"Just. Shut. The. Fuck. UP!" Tyler screamed. He felt the thing's teeth cut his knuckles, but didn't care. Finally, he stopped punching as he felt the thing go completely lifeless.

Tyler crawled over to his cane and gun, and placed the gun on the desk next to the flashlight. His adrenaline rush was over, his mind was normal. The pain of his recent activities caught up with him, and his foot and arm seared in pain. His eyes watered, and his body fell limp. He was so tired, and almost delirious with how much pain he was in. He looked at himself through his blood-spattered glasses. He was covered in pinpoint blood drops, making his gown and legs look like some pointillism painting.

He heard a loud noise. He looked over at the apparent source, and saw a brand-new monster. This thing had brown skin and was overtly male. It had huge muscles, and its head had been cut off. There was a face on its stomach. Below the stomach, its male genitalia were visible. The face screamed in apparent pain, but Tyler's tired ears only heard a muffled sound.

"Fuck it." He said aloud. "I can't fight anymore." He turned his head away from the Ideal Man and closed his eyes. It was then that he heard a loud moan as well. The Beldam had come back. She dragged her arms behind her and came into plain few. Tyler looked between the two monsters. He couldn't do any more. He hurt too much, and his body refused to move. The Beldam raised its arm, flinging it in Tyler's direction. The enormous hand was at least as large at Tyler, and he knew he couldn't avoid it. He closed his eyes, waiting for the impact.

It never came.

He finally cracked one eye open and saw The Ideal Man with its own arms around The Beldam's. It flung it away, crashing into the thick icy walls. The Beldam screeched its disapproval and attempted to attack The Ideal Man. Tyler watched at The Beldam swatted at the male monster, but the monster kept deflecting the arms by punching at them. The thing had to have supernatural arm strength. It took Tyler's mind a bit to understand just what he was seeing.

"They're fighting…" He muttered. "Why…?"

Tyler couldn't take any more. He just couldn't stay awake. Darkness consumed him and the world around him was drowned out into a dull din.

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…Not much else this chapter. It's at a good place here. I could go farther, but I think this is nice for now. This chapter was to set up for the next few chapters, and to introduce the last of the monsters.

Some notes on Nowhere: To me, Nowhere, or the Otherworld, whichever you want to call it, manifests itself as a person's personal hell. Tyler's is the one seen in the story. Why it looks that way will be explained later. Like, next chapter. Maybe. I think.

The Ideal Man: This is just…weird for me. And you too, I'm sure. A monster trying to fight off another monster? Doesn't make sense. Well, when you learn about Tyler's past next chapter, hopefully some things will make more sense. Again, there is only one, so it's kind of a sub-boss.

Shivs: Originally named Backstabbers, these monsters are especially strong. They represent Tyler's emotional anguish and suffering, and the very real, stabbing, painful sensations he feels because of it. I know this might not be true of all people, but whenever I feel particularly torn up inside, with all kinds of negative emotions bottled up inside of me, it feels like something is clawing at my back, trying to get out. So that was the inspiration for this one.

Tell me what you think, and if anything in particular needs revising. And if you liked it, keep an eye out for more chapters.