Of course the story shouldn't end straight away. I'm not giving up on you, buddy.

"Come back here! You're not done dying yet, you slut!" Eddie shouted, chasing after the variant that sabotaged his chance on slicing my body open with that roaring buzzsaw.

That variant... I couldn't tell whether I recognized him or not. But, it didn't matter. He would forever be my accidental savior.

Once I pried myself out of the ropes restraining my limbs, I quickly rolled off the operating table and grabbed for my jumpsuit on the dirty floor. Eddie had removed my clothes earlier, to continue his little project with my naked form. Thank God he didn't pass it. I put on the jumpsuit fast, still shaking with utmost fear as I tried to pick up my dear old camcorder and hold it steadily. I let out a sigh of relief to see that it was undamaged.

I needed to get away.

But this entirely new area wasn't familiar to me one bit. Wherever Eddie dragged me to, this was a workshop from Hell. Dead men's bodies strewn on the floor so carelessly, with their bellies sliced open and genitals either butchered off or mutilated. I was appalled by the climbing amount of mangled corpses everywhere, how many lives Eddie has taken in such calm stature, and such a short time. Did he even know how many lives he's taken? Judging by the way the madman thought in projecting, I assumed not.

I scurried into the darkness of a large second room nearby, using my camcorder to navigate myself safely. Eddie may have been chasing that variant, but there was no telling when he would reappear-

"Darling?!"

I spoke too soon.

"Darling, where are you?! Come back to me!" Eddie's voice boomed out, scouring into the very room I was hiding in. His tall form represented in the opened window's moonlight thoroughly, giving me the advantage of sneaking through the dark, as he blindly hunted. "I'm trying to be patient, darling!" He emphasized, with desperation in his voice. He was definitely on my ass now. "You can't move about with that leg, sweetheart!"

Shit. I had thought for sure he would have forgotten about my severely wounded leg. I tried to ignore his shouting, as I snuck underneath a sewing table to avoid his legs. He walked passed me, eyes trying hard to adjust in the dark. Wherever that variant was, I would have loved for him to come back and rescue me once more!

"Darling, please! Don't do this to me! Listen, I can patch you up, good as..." Eddie stopped to wipe at his wet lips with the heel of his gloved-hand. He then wickedly grinned. "... Better than new!"

Clank!

Fuck, my foot hit a fallen tinderbox.

"Darling?!" Eddie quickly crouched to look under the table. Right away, he spotted me just three tables from him. "Oh, darling! Come to me!" He stood upright again to start off for the table I was under.

Panic rose like steam in my chest, as I frantically crawled out from hiding and started limping off towards the opposite direction, away from him. I wasn't fast at all, with this broken leg, yet I was able to outrun him. I looked over my shoulder to see that he was closing in, but wasn't running. Instead, he was power-walking after me. Motherfucking monster - he was enjoying my struggle, and he knew it! That's why he wasn't grabbing for me so soon!

"Darling, don't do this to me...!" Eddie tried to sound decent, yet anger was clearly boiling over. "Why're you running, sweetheart? Hm? Haven't I been ever-so loving to you? Haven't I been more than fair to you?" I could just feel his teeth gritting together as I never stopped to look back at him. "Why aren't you appreciating my attention? Darling? Darling... Whore!" He suddenly snapped, once I emoted into a room fast and slammed the door shut behind me, to slow him down for just milliseconds. "Love me, you fucking SLUT!"

My timing to escape that fucking maze of a vocational block was immensely complicated. I can't count how many doors I had to swing open, the rooms to plow through, and the tables to hop over. No matter the great lengths I took to slow him down, Eddie found numerous ways to stay ahead. I didn't even want my camcorder out to help me throughout the blackness of thick shadows, relying only on dimly flickering lights ahead of me as guides to hopeful salvation.

And just when I saw the escape through a broken window, I was SO ready to take that leap of faith. Just when my foot planted onto the wet sill of the window, a hand retched out from the dark and grappled for the back of my jumpsuit collar. I gasped out in sheer terror, as the strong hand forced me back into the room with vigorous want. I can remember the moment my back slammed onto the floor, forcing a yelp out of me, as Eddie quickly climbed over me to keep me down. Straddling me now, he gripped my throat with one powerful hand, and the other unsheathed his machete.

"Fucking slut." Eddie hissed furiously, pressing the machete over my throat.

My eyes widened when I felt the sharpness scrape at my skin. "EDDIE!" I screamed to the top of my lungs. "Eddie, wait-! Stop-!"

"You don't deserve to live!" He screamed back in my face, teeth flashing viciously like a wild dog. "You don't even deserve my children!" He gripped the handle of the machete hard, to where the fabric of his glove strained loudly.

'This is it,' I told myself. 'I die here.' I could feel the first slit at my skin beginning. 'Sorry, Lisa...!'

"I'm sorry." I whimpered aloud, picturing my Wife's face again. I imagined apologizing to her, as I felt blood trickle at my neck. I let out a throaty whine to the weapon's sharpness splitting my skin open.

Lisa giggled delightedly to me, as I hugged her once more. "You'll do fine at that Mount Massive Asylum console, Waylan. You're the smartest man I know behind the computer monitor." Her smile was sweet, as daylight and flowers blossoming.

"I'll try to Skype you often. Tell Paul and Henry I'll try to Skype at, uh... six at night, okay?"

"If they don't fight over the tablet." Lisa joked lightly. "But hey, listen," she kissed me on the lips. "I love you."

"I love you... too." I weakly replied to an invisible Wife that degraded into the back of my mind.

And right there, the machete stopped. Before I could react properly, the machete swung off of my throat and was thrown across the room, blasting through an old vanity's foggy mirror. I jolted with a squeak when Eddie's body dropped over mine, eloping me in his arms. I froze like a rabbit under the wolf.

"No, no, no... No, I love you too much!" He yelled, his face buried in my shoulder. "You're hurting me, darling... But I cannot let you go!" He held me like this for a moment, clutching his hands over the middle of my back, his forehead rubbing at my shoulder to wipe away the beads of sweat. I remained trapped. But then, like clockwork, his hand suddenly traveled up to my throat and gripped it in a vice. "I don't even want to love you." He lifted his head up to look at me. His blue eyes were like the blue flames underneath of the red fire. "Look at the damage you've caused, darling!" He shouted in desperate fury, his thumb pressing at an artery.

And for the first time in fourteen hours, I balled my hand into a tightened fist, and slammed my whitened knuckles at Eddie's cheekbone.

Though, it wasn't enough.

"Hahaha!" He barked out a short laugh. "Oh, darling! You see the glory, can't you?" He continued to cry out and laugh hard, pressing his foot down on my wounded leg as revenge for the punch. "Is this the glory of love, Jimmy Durante? Is this it? I must bludgeon my darling as she does to me, to show how much we fucking love each other?" He chuckled breathlessly. "God intended this moment, did he not?"

I didn't know what Eddie was talking about, or who Jimmy Durante was, but I wasn't going to lay there like a douchebag and let this lunatic win me over with another of his preaching.

Quickly, once his hand loosened off of my throat, I used both my hands to shove the Giant off of me, throwing him back as I scrambled up to my bare-feet. I attempted for the broken window again, as I was no longer fearful of jumping to a pit of pain. Better than being stuck with him.

But that couldn't happen, once Eddie ran at me and grabbed me by the shoulder, spinning me around to face him. He struck me across the face with the back of his hand, and shoved me down forcably to the floor. When I was down, Eddie proceeded to kick sharply at my abdomen and chest. As much as I let out mewls and yelps of agonized pain, Eddie paid no mind. He even grabbed a fistful of my hair and slammed my head into the crumbling room-wall. My vision was blazing in a foggy red, as black flowers bloomed at the back of my eyes to the numbing pain.

"Stop it!" I screamed, with both my hands gripping at the wall to prevent any further damage. "Fucking stop!"

"You don't make the rules here!" Eddie released his hand from my head fast to swipe his hands down at my wrists, pulling them back behind me to lock them in one gloved-hand, while the other gripped at my side. "A good Wife," he gripped my wrists together, likely bruising them, "must stay at home... and submit to her Husband!" He shoved my body against the wall and moved his freehand down to my wounded leg, and the fucker gripped at it mercilessly. I screamed bloody murder when his thumb dug into the punctured, bloodied hole in my shin, pressing at my shattered leg deeply to scrape at my inner-flesh.

I was crying now, stammering on any words to speak up. My opened-sobs were pleading for help. Anyone...

"Eddie...!" I croaked his name. "Eddie Gluskin..."

The sound of his entire name being announced rose his brows with interest. He kneaded his fingernails at the blood spilling out my wound, as some way to sign that he was listening.

I breathed in, shakily, through my nostrils. My heart was weak now. "... I said I loved you." I exhaled heavily, a tear rolling down my cheek. "... I said I was sorry, too... Why're you hurting me?" I asked helplessly, trying to look at Eddie with a halfway turn of my upper-body.

"BECAUSE-!" Eddie tried to make up an answer on spot. But, from the way our eyes made contact, he was at a loss for words. When his eyes met mine, a small pang in that cold-stone heart of his warmed. His jaw slacked for a moment to drink in the helpless look on my face, rethinking his actions. "... Oh God!" Eddie had an epiphany, blinking when he realized what he had done. "Darling...! I've hurt you! Oh, dear God!" He released his hands from my body, scooting away from me, as we both sat on the floor. "Your face... Your face..."

Bruises decorated my face, yes, follow by a new lovely hand print on my cheek that reddened like a tomato. The smack made me accidentally bite my lip, causing a line of blood to dribble down from my bottom lip. Eddie allowed me to sit with my back against the wall, as I tried to catch my breath.

"Sweetheart. My love, darling." Eddie petted the side of my face, as he tried to figure out what had just happened. Did he honestly forget?

I shook my head to him, before wiping away the blood from my lips with the back of my hand. When I looked back at him, I gave the sincerest smile I could manage. My eyes were bright underneath the ceiling lights. "Ed..." I then grinned with a flinch, feeling the bruise at my cheek disagree with burns.

Eddie saw this, and scrambled back fast to me, grabbing at my sides to wrap his arms around my back. He pulled me in for an embrace, engulfing me once more, pecking kisses at my good cheek, down my jaw to my neck. "Darling...!" He whined peevishly, curling up against my body as he continued to talk out his jumbled thoughts. "I love you. Let me love you."

"C'mere," my voice reached his ears, making him lift his head up from my shoulder. "I... love you, too."

And there, Eddie and I kissed. I could feel tears - real tears - stream down his deformed cheeks, as he continued to maul at my lips and mouth. I kissed him back, I remembered, and tried my best not to get lost in it, as my freehand searched the ground for something blunt. I could remember almost melting into the kiss as Eddie gave me a savage little bite at my bottom lip, and the way our tongues fought for wet dominance. What I could remember was that his lips were warm, soft, wet. Alive.

Sorry, Eddie.

When I felt the rough edges of a lone brick on the floor, I wasted no time on grabbing for it. I swung my equipped fist at the man, drilling the rigid edges of the brick into the side of Eddie's head. I hit him hard enough to throw him off of me, off my body, and jump back up to make my escape out the window. Eddie was almost out of it, but he could see through his dazed vision that I was climbing out the window sill.

"N-No, don't, don't!" He begged, trying to reach out for me.

But I jumped.

Landing down at the bottom of the vocational block building, I slammed both my feet at the brick ground surrounding a crumbling water-fountain. The bone in my leg punctured out of the ripped hole, and I let out a screech, falling back to grab at my leg. The pain ignited like lightening throughout my entire body, as I could see how my leg now looked jagged from the dislocation of my compound-fractured bone.

"Fuck! Fucking fuck!" I bellowed, holding my knee.

"YOU LIED TO ME!" Eddie screamed out the second-story window I jumped out of. Through the welded tears in my eyes, looking up, I could see Eddie there. "YOU SAID YOU LOVED ME! YOU SAID YOU WERE SORRY! BUT YOU FUCKING LIED TO ME!" Eddie slammed both his fists down at the window sill hard, a couple of times, before pushing himself away from it. "YOU'RE LIKE ALL THE OTHERS! LYING... WHORES! SLUTS! USERS! ALL OF THEM!" He disappeared into the room, screaming at himself now for trusting me.

I let out a few pants, closing my eyes tightly as I tried to figure out how to stand. I forced myself up to stand, despite the stings of pain bolting up my body from my leg. I ignored it, knowing I couldn't rest now. I had to make one last effort into finding that fucking way out of this Mount Massive Asylum building.

But did I feel bad for tricking Eddie? His feelings? Honestly, yes. Honestly, no? Honestly... I didn't know he had feelings.

But after I splashed water onto my face from the water-fountain, I went towards the door of the vocational block upon the rotting stoop, and reached for the knob.

This'll be my last attempt, Eddie.