Chapter 6: 9-14-19-1-14-9-20-25
I was just staring at television, seeing only my Mii in the center, while the other Miis are nowhere to be seen. Even if the Splatoon application was there, there still weren't any Miis to be seen surrounding it.
Deciding to check on one more thing before going to bed and getting some sleep, I went to my computer, and decided to go to YouTube to look for the update video. I went to Nintendo's YouTube channel, and I soon saw, that the Splatoon update video was gone.
I then realized, that I was playing an update that hasn't even come out yet, and that the update was still broken and needed work. Out of curiosity, I decided to call up one of my friends on Skype whom I've had a history of playing Splatoon with, and doesn't live too far away from my house.
My friend, whose name is Denver, is an S rank Splatoon player. He and I were about the same height as each other, and he always loved cracking jokes whenever he lost or won. He's one of the more competitive Splatoon players, since he always strives to get the S+ rank. But he is a great friend overall to play with. I pressed the "Call" icon next to his Skype name, and waited for him to respond. And sure enough...
"Hey, Sam!" He says happily, and I can hear him play Splatoon, judging by the intro music before a match starts.
"Hey, Denver. Am I interrupting your game?" I ask him, to which I hear him let out a slight chuckle as he responds to my question before his match starts.
"Nah, you aren't. Anyways, let's talk once I finish this match, alright?" I just sit back as I hear him play the match, occasionally, I hear him curse underneath his breath after I hear him get splatted.
After a while of waiting, I hear the victory theme from his television while hearing him sigh in relief as he speaks to me.
"Alright, so what's up, Sam?" He asks me, turning on his web camera while I do the same as I get straight to the point.
"Have you played the new update and singleplayer campaign, Denver?" I ask him, as he looks confused at me for a seconds, and soon forms a grin on him as if he thinks I am screwing with him.
"New update? Dude, are you fucking with me, or something?" He chuckles at me through the camera, not believing me in the least bit, to which I roll my eyes in annoyance.
"I'm not fucking with you, Denver. Can you please come over to my house, so I can prove that I have this new update?" I say with a desperate tone, to which he looks a bit skeptic a first, but eventually agrees to coming to my house tomorrow when I finish work. I thank him, and say good bye to Denver before going to my bathroom and brushing my teeth to prepare myself for tomorrow, not wanting to suffer any hallucinations.
As I finish brushing my teeth and spitting out the water in my mouth, I look up at my mirror, and see Callie's hallucination behind me, looking at me as I quickly turn around and see her standing there, staring right into my eyes. I was about to scream, but she just stood there in front of the door, showing no signs of aggressiveness at all.
I just stared at the hallucination as it continued staring back at me. She then begins looking around the area she's in, and proceeds to sit on the ground, her glowing white eyes lowering a bit as I can't decide on whether on being scared or feeling bad for Callie as I continued looking at her.
Suddenly, I hear her say something for the first time that isn't a demonic roar or an eerie screeching sound when I first saw her at the aquarium. Her voice is somewhat distorted and echoing, and judging from her tone, she sounds depressed and miserable as opposed to her happy and optimistic self.
"I don't want to be alone..." The hallucination whimpers quietly as I slowly approach her, feeling a bit afraid of inching closer to the Squid Sister, since I didn't know what she would do if I make contact with her. I proceed to kneel down to her, keeping a small distance between me and the hallucination.
"What did I do to deserve this?" She looks up at me, and begins to cry as she covers her eyes with her tattered gloves. Transparent, grey-white liquid falling onto the ground as I sigh mournfully and look at her with a sad look as well.
"I never wanted you to end up like this, Callie... I'm so sorry..." I quietly say, and walk over to the sink, turning on the faucet and splashing my face with cold water. And sure enough, where the hallucination of Callie once was, is now nothing as I safely manage to go to the door and leave the bathroom and fall onto my bed, managing to fall asleep with barely any problems except for sometimes thinking about the hallucination I saw in the bathroom.
When I woke up after about 10 hours of sleep, I immediately got myself something to eat, I drove off to work at the aquarium again. My boss and co-workers were happy to see me in a good condition again, and the fish that I fed there weren't as aggressive as they used to be yesterday. However, sometimes when I fed the fish, I spotted Callie's hallucination looking at me with the same, forlorn expression that she had when I saw her in the bathroom last night.
I simply ignored the Squid Sister, not wanting to be drawn into insanity by the hallucination as I continued feeding the fish and crabs. However, I couldn't stop looking at Callie from time to time, and especially after seeing a young child point at her and say: "Hey, look at the squid girl, mom!" The child's mother just looked at Callie, and then back at her child with an eyebrow raised at her child. "I don't see this squid girl you're talking about, dear..."
I was starting to get creeped out by the fact that I was not the only one seeing the hallucination myself. Apparently, the children who were at the aquarium seemed to talk to the hallucination at times, while their parents just didn't seem to acknowledge Callie's existence at all, and look at the children funny.
Soon after, I saw Lucy walking toward me, holding a white box while having a smile on her face as she opens it to reveal several donuts with different frostings on them.
"Pick one." She happily says, as I grab the donut with strawberry frosting on it, thanking her for the donuts she has bought. Just before she leaves, however, both of us suddenly hear people screaming from where the hexagon aquarium is, and see a small girl twitching on the ground, suffering an epilepsy while Callie has placed her hands over her non-existent mouth. I run over to the child, and try to wake him up, but to no avail as someone begins calling 911 on her phone. My boss soon arrives, looking shocked as he sees the child twitching on the ground.
"What's going on here!? What happened!?" He shouts with worry in his voice, as the child's crying mother walks up to Richard, kneeling down to her child.
"I don't know what happened! My child just walked up to this "squid girl" he mentioned, before he suffered some kind of epilepsy attack... PLEASE, DON'T TELL ME HE'S DEAD!" She bursts into tears as I see the Squid Sister backing away with a depressed look on her glowing eyes, and runs out of the aquarium, her cries echoing throughout the aquarium to which some people including my boss hear as they look up in confusion.
"What in the world is that sound?" Lucy asks, standing up as the crying continues for a while.
"It sounds like a girl is crying somewhere around here. Sam, you go check the hatchery, and Lucy, I need you to stay here and make sure everything is under control!" Richard says sternly as I follow his orders and go to the hatchery. I run to the doors, and swing them open, only to see Callie's hallucination at the far end, crying and wallowing in her tears as I sigh and slowly walk over to her, being careful if she would attack me again like she did last time.
"Callie, what happened?" I asked her, only for her to respond by letting out a loud scream that filled the building and hurt my ears as I saw her quickly got up to her feet and begin running towards me, rage in her eyes as I quickly ran toward the door back outside and kept it shut.
I looked through the door's window afterward, and saw that there was no sign of Callie's hallucination anywhere inside as I opened the door again. I sighed in relief, thinking that Callie was playing a trick with me and would kill me like she did with the child earlier.
Soon after, I could hear the sound of an ambulance arriving along with two police cars, and the group paramedics soon run inside of the aquarium to check up on the child. I followed them inside, and saw everyone standing over the motionless child on the ground while the mother can't help but whimper in fear of her son.
After a while, the medics picked the boy up, and told the woman to follow them as she slowly nods and follows them to the ambulance.
"Please tell me, if my son is going to be alright!" She raises her voice as the medics pull the boy inside of the back of the ambulance, the medics answering if they don't know, and tell her to stay with her son as she gets inside of the back. I couldn't help, but feel bad for the woman as the ambulance starts up again and drives off to the nearest hospital in the city.
Richard soon walked up to me, and gave me my daily paycheck with a somewhat forlorn look on him.
"Richard, is something wrong?" I asked him, as he looks back up at me and lets out a sigh afterward as he begins speaking to me.
"Sam, this "squid girl" the children were referring to while I was looking through the cameras..." He pauses for a moment, before finishing his question. "It couldn't be that hallucination you've mentioned yesterday, right?"
"Yes, it was the hallucination that must have given the child epilepsy. It has been stalking me a day ago, and I sadly don't know how to get rid of it." I said with an apologetic voice, as my boss makes a humming sound for a moment, before looking and nodding at me with regret in his eyes.
"Sam, I'm sorry, but I can't let you work here if these hallucinations of yours are dangerous to our visitors. So until these hallucinations of yours are gone, I'm sadly going to have to block you off from coming here." He says, hanging his head down as he places a hand over my shoulder, and gives me my daily paycheck before bidding me a farewell with a sad look on him and closing the door behind him.
I just stand outside of the aquarium, all joy and happiness having been taken away from me as I silently walk over to the car and sit down on the driver's seat, letting out an exhale as I just start the car and slowly drive back home, and proceeded to go buy some groceries along the way for dinner later today.
However, little did I know, what I would experience today in the supermarket after leaving work, and I bet no one would've believed me what I saw.
I arrived to the supermarket some minutes later after driving from work, and got out of my car after finding a vacant spot for me to park my car and went inside of the large building through the automated gate opening itself for me. Once I stepped inside, I grabbed a nearby shopping cart and began looking for the ingredients I needed to make my dinner. I won't waste time, and just skip to the important details. Even though you might think I'm just making stuff up and being crazy, I at least know for damn sure, that I won't be forgetting this.
After finding the ingredients I needed and walking to the counter to check out my items, I suddenly felt a headache that caused me to place one of my hands on my head while the people around me looked at me with confused looks.
"Are you ok, sir?" The man behind the counter asked in a worried voice as I saw the world around me warping and distorting. And then out of nowhere, I suddenly blacked out as I fell onto the ground below me, dropping my wares onto the ground in the process.
Recommended Music: Amnesia - The Dark Descent OST - Ambience 08
I soon woke up with a headache afterward, feeling as though I've been smacked on the head many times in a row as I manage to stand on my feet despite the dizziness, stumbling around while trying to regain my focus and surroundings.
Once the headache was gone after a minute or so, I began examining the surroundings around me. I was still in the same supermarket as I was before, except now the entire building is completely dark, due to there being no light whatsoever in the building. I saw that my wares that I had dropped before blacking out were nowhere to be found, and that the windows showing the outside world are now showing nothing but pitch black fog surrounding the building.
Looking around even more, I saw that there were no wares on the shelves at all, making me suspect that this was another hallucination like the one I had when I worked at the aquarium yesterday with Callie chasing me down. I didn't waste another second, before I started to try finding the way out of the building and took out my phone as I turned on the flashlight application to brighten up the building to make it easier to navigate.
Everything was silent at first as I walked through the darkness, lighting up the path in front of me. But I knew, that Callie would show up at one point to find me, and give me the same treatment that she gave the child. I just knew, that she had to be the one responsible for nearly killing that boy at the aquarium, and nearly costing me my job as I continued walking through the darkness. Eventually, I managed to find the gate leading back outside, but there was obviously a problem like with the first one.
The gate didn't even open before me, and I knew that if I didn't manage to open the gate, I would be trapped in the building until I found a way to reactivate the automated system again. And to make matters worse, as soon as I turned around, I heard the same sound when I saw Callie's hallucination for the first time at the aquarium, albeit being slightly different.
Recommended Music: Luna Game Soundtrack - Hush Now, Quiet Now
I immediately hid behind one of the shelves, hearing footsteps coming towards me as I slowly crouched down and snuck through the darkness, making sure to turn my flashlight off as I tried to be as silent as possible. I kept a close eye at where the footsteps were coming from, seeing a white light emanating from Callie's eyes who soon comes into view.
As soon as she appeared, I feel the headache slowly returning as I look away from her, and the headache soon went away as well. At this point, I now knew, that looking at the hallucinations was a bad idea, as it would drain my sanity and make it easier for them to find me as I heard Callie slowly walk towards me. I barely managed to avoid being seen by the hallucination as I turned to the left, finding another aisle to hide myself behind.
I stood up, and began to slowly walk through the shelves and find a better hiding area away from the Squid Sister as I hear her walk past me while I was hiding, her presence causing a screeching sound to be heard inside of my head. I could soon hear her knock over a shelf while she lets out a distorted scream, followed by loud metal being heard clanging onto the floor as she moves onto the next shelf to knock over in order to find and kill me. Needless to say, this was nerve-wrecking, as Callie seems much more destructive than she was when I first encountered her. I soon heard her stop knocking over shelves momentarily, but soon see that she has moved onto the next aisle. And I was hiding behind it. I saw that the first shelf was knocked over, then the second, then the third. She was getting close to me, and something in my head just told me to run and find another hiding spot from her as she knocked over the fourth shelf.
I was just sitting there, waiting for the inevitable as I just sat there behind the shelf that Callie was about to shove down on me and crush me in the process. But after a while of waiting, I looked up, and didn't even hear the screeching and footsteps anymore. I quietly got up to my feet, looking confused as I just stared at the shelf. Nothing, but silence is heard. But something was telling me, that it was too quiet as I began to walk away from the shelf.
Just as I was about to do that, I soon heard the demonic screech of Callie's hallucination as she sent the shelf flying to a wall with a swift kick, knocking several others shelves over as I widened my eyes and began running as fast as I could away from the hallucination who began chasing me as well after spotting me.
Recommended Music: Slender Fortress Music - Sawrunner Theme
Thankfully, this chase wasn't as long as the first one at the aquarium, which I was grateful for. However, it was balanced with tension as well, since I had to constantly avoid Callie throwing and kicking shelves at me with great force in an attempt to halt my progress.
I immediately turned to the right after avoiding two shelves that were thrown at me by the hallucination and ran down into the darkness with the Squid Sister following me relentlessly, continuing to throw shelves several times her size with no problems whatsoever down the hallway while I heard the loud, metal clangs behind me from the shelves.
Soon after running away from Callie for a while, I managed to somehow trick her into thinking that she managed to crush me with one of the shelves by letting out a scream after throwing it toward me and running inside one of the aisles to hide from her, barely avoiding the shelf she threw at me. I heard her faint, distorted screaming as she ran toward the shelf she threw while I began to quietly walk away from Callie in order to not get caught by her.
But the silence only lasted for a few seconds, before I heard an even louder and more distorted scream from Callie. She must have realized, that she was tricked, and I could hear rapid footsteps echoing around the empty supermarket, soon followed by shelves rapidly being knocked over to the ground as I heard the metal clanging even more violently than before.
I soon found something that could save me from the hallucination. I found a door which was opened slightly leading inside to a security room as I quickly ran inside, and shut the door while locking it. It was soon followed by banging coming from outside the door, along with a distorted: "COME OUT!" I heard Callie violently kick the metal door blocking her, but it was no use to the hallucination, as after several kicks, she gave up and began to find another way to kill me as the banging stopped after several minutes having passed.
Recommended Music: Slender: The Arrival OST - Conceal
I looked around the dark room I was in while I turned on my phone's flashlight, seeing swinging meat hooks hanged up on chains in the ceiling, metal crates and containers inside along with kitchen knives on some bloodied tables along with the floor on the ground having been cracked and some tiles are even missing as I began walking around.
There was nothing interesting in the room, but I did grab a kitchen knife in case I had to use it as a weapon against Callie if she began chasing me. Even though I was reluctant of using it against one of the Squid Sisters, I had no other choice but to use it on her if she saw me and ran after me like she did last time.
Soon after walking through the butcher room filled with carcasses and plastic bags containing meat, I found another metal door leading inside to a security room and opened it to reveal a room with a large monitor showing nothing but static on it. Looking at the buttons below the monitor, I managed to find the buttons that re-activated the gates, and turned the lights back on. I pressed the button that would light up the building again, but it was damaged as it didn't do anything at all. So I went to press the button that reactivated the gates, and sure enough, I could hear machinery as the static on the monitor soon showed the gates having been opened.
This was my chance to escape. I turned around, and left the security room, about to run back to the gates and get the hell out of the supermarket until I heard something that sent shivers down my spine. The sound of an old man's gurgling cries and screams, sounding as though his throat hasn't even been cured for a long time. I turned to look at the source, and I soon widened my eyes as soon as I turned my flashlight toward where the sound was coming from and almost dropped my flashlight once I saw what it was.
It was Cuttlefish, except he looked much different than he was before and had almost the same appearance as Callie. His eyes are completely missing, his skin is somewhat decomposing, as well as his clothes having been tattered and ripped. But that's not the worst part that shocked me the most.
What shocked me, was that he completely lacked any legs whatsoever below him. No signs of leg stumps or anything at all. He was oozing ink out of his legless body from his torso as he slowly crawled toward me, wheezing and sickly choking on his own saliva that constantly leaks out of his mouth.
Recommended Music: Black Mesa OST - Surface Tension 3 (Start at 0:53)
He soon lets out a gurgled scream of pain after I looked at him for a while as Cuttlefish began crawling toward me at an incredibly fast pace despite lacking legs. I quickly stopped looking at the legless inkling, and ran out of the butcher room as fast as I could, unlocking and opening the door out of the room I was in as I saw him a few meters behind me. I made a mad dash through the pitch black supermarket with my flashlight on, not caring whether or not I was chased by Callie or Cuttlefish. I just had to get to the gates, before they could catch and kill me with their touch.
But crawling toward me with a fast pace wasn't the only thing Cuttlefish could do. What made it worse, was that I saw multiple inkling boy and girl hallucinations running after me along with Callie, firing their Splat Chargers, Splattershots and weapons at me while some even turning into krakens as well while Callie was running after me, having those same nightmarish claws that she attempted to use on me at the aquarium while I was running away from her. I soon realized, that the inkling boys and girls that chased me were the same inklings that my character had splatted, and they were out to get me as well.
Just by looking at the horde of inklings, it drained my sanity an insane amount as I completely looked away from them and saw the counters I started at, and saw the opened gate showing the exit out of the supermarket. I was determined to get the hell out of here, and away from the hallucinations as I climbed onto the counter and jumped off at the other end as I ran to where the gate was, sweat falling from my face as I was almost at the gate. However, I soon felt something painful hit me as I let out a painful scream as I clutched my shoulder. One of the hallucination inklings has shot her Splat Charger at me, leaving a small hole on my shoulder as I began bleeding from it. I saw Callie jump at me in order to strike me down with her claws, but I managed to move out of the way as she retracted her claws from the ground to get herself unstuck. I soon felt another sharp pain go through my left arm as I let out another scream of pain, and I saw that the shadowy inklings were preparing another Splat Charger shot. I didn't waste another second, and ran to the gate, and out of the supermarket. All of the cars including mine were gone, and the supermarket entrance fence were blocked completely off by thorns and a black mass. I soon heard Callie letting out a distorted scream as she charged at me, claws ready as I gasped before she lifted her claws in the air, and swatted them down at me.
THE END...?
20-8-9-19 9-19-14'20 15-22-5-18 25-5-20 . . .
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