Indie Cross

by CrisisCardio

Awaking in a world unknown to all that inhabit it, a young individual must now work together with a group of unlikely allies in order to find their way back home, facing against threats both old and new, while at the same time working to discover what could have stripped all of these indie video game characters away from their homes, and for what purpose could one have done so.

21. The Angels Devilish Demands

Sayori's POV

I groaned and grunted as I slowly opened my eyes. I found myself staring up at the wooden ceiling, laying on my back on a really uncomfortable bed, covered by a dirty, torn blanket that felt like it was falling apart in my hands, with the sounds of an annoying, ticking clock constantly ringing in my ears. I suppose I can't be too upset by that though, since the others didn't have much better luck, having to sleep on whatever random stuff we happened to find, which wasn't very much. Forcing myself up until I was sitting on the edge of the bed, I rubbed my eyes before my hand pressed itself against my aching forehand, realizing just how badly I slept last night. I just couldn't stop worrying about the others. Protag, Hat Kid, Theodore. All of them were missing, probably trapped somewhere down here, just like we were, but none of us knew where, or if they were even okay. It kept me up all night just thinking about them, and I know Monika told me it wasn't my fault that we were here to begin with, but those thoughts just kept crawling back into my mind.

I shook my head. No, she was right. We were going to find them. We had to. I just needed to keep those kinds of thoughts out of my head. Easier said than done though.

Speaking of Monika, as I looked around the room, I found that I was the only one still here. Everyone else must have woken up before me. I wonder where they all are right now. I brought myself up to my feet, stepping over the makeshift beds and past the open door. I could hear noises coming from the other room, so I carefully walked around the pairs of ink dripping from the ceiling, which at this point was nothing new for what we've seen here, and down the hallway into the main area, where I saw Monika sitting at a wooden dining table with that wolf guy sitting across from her, tapping his fingers on the table while the two of them were looking at something over to the right side of the room.

"Are you sure it's meant to be done like that?" I could hear Yuri ask as I entered.

"What do you mean?" Natsuki responded. "I'm making it exactly like it said to."

"Of course, but I don't think that's how it's supposed to look." Yuri replied.

"I hope it's not." Natsuki added. "It smells just as gross as it looks too." I could see the two of them behind the corner, standing next to each other while a large pot was cooking something on top of an old looking stove, although I couldn't tell what they were making from here. Monika perked up and she looked over at me as I stepped further inside.

"Sayori!" She welcomed me with a warm smile. "I almost didn't hear you come in."

"Oh, good morning Sayori!" Yuri greeted me as well, a little bit surprised by my sudden appearance.

"Hey! Morning Sayori!" Natsuki chimed in right after, giving me a quick wave while continuing to stir something in the pot.

"Did you happen to sleep okay?" Yuri asked me.

"No, I didn't. Sorry." I told her sadly, holding my hand on my elbow.

"Ah, I see." Yuri said softly. "I'm sorry to hear that…"

"Don't sweat over it, none of us slept all that great." Natsuki admitted to me.

"Still, better than nothing, I suppose." Yuri stated, trying to be optimistic about it.

"Right." I quietly agreed, but not very sincerely. Natsuki stopped stirring the pot and grabbed a small bowl with her free hand.

"So what are you guys doing?" I asked curiously.

"Oh, we're just making some of this soup for Boris." Yuri replied.

"Yeah. Guy's keeping the door handle from us until we feed him for some reason." Natsuki muttered, annoyed by the situation, while pouring some of the soup into the bowl.

"He probably just doesn't want us to go looking on an empty stomach." Monika said to her. Natsuki simply shrugged, and handed the bowl over to Yuri, who then turned around and walked over to the table. I could tell what she meant by it not looking right. It was black in color, and it seemed more gooey than it should be.

"Here you go." She told Boris, setting the bowl down in front of him. He then quickly leaned over to his right, grabbing a pale colored toolbox from underneath and setting it down in the middle of the table. Monika opened it to find a lever sitting inside.

"Ah, here it is." She stated, taking it from the box and looking behind her. I followed her gaze over to the door, where a control box was sitting beside it on the wall. The light on it was lit up, but the handle that was supposed to control it was missing, leaving only a pair of long black holes. I figured that the lever that Monika had now was meant to go there. My eyes looked back over to the others. Boris gulped down his meal in one go, and I noticed Natsuki shutting the stove off. She stared at the still steaming pot for a brief moment before scooping a small amount of the soup with her spoon and tasting it… only to immediately spit it back out. Her eyes shot open and her hand went to her throat, dropping her spoon on the floor and choking as she did so. We all suddenly looked over to her in worry.

"Oh my god!" I yelped. "Are you all right!?"

"Oh God!" She said between her coughs, spitting out whatever was left in her mouth. She rested her hand on her knees, taking a second to regain her breath. "Jesus Christ, that was disgusting! It tasted like I was drinking ink and-" She stopped, as if she realized what she just said. Spinning behind her, she grabbed the empty can off to the side of the stovetop and spun it around in her hand, reading what it said. After a moment, she looked back, dumbfounded by what she saw.

"You know, in hindsight, I probably should have seen that coming." She admitted in a defeated tone, before casually tossing the can behind her into the nearby trash bin.

"I guess that means there won't be any for us then." Yuri stated.

"Looks that way." Monika agreed. "Besides…" She looked down at the lever she was carrying, holding it tightly in her hands. "It's best that we get moving. We don't want to waste anymore time."

"Agreed." Yuri replied. She then looked over to Boris, leaning down slightly to match his eye level. "You mentioned earlier about seeing something dragging our friend away, right? Would you be willing to show us where you saw them going? It's really important for us that we find them before something bad happens." Boris looked down, thinking for a moment, before looking back up and nodding his head in approval.

"Ah yes! Thank you so much!" Yuri calmly cheered. We all stepped back a tad as Boris got up from his chair and walked over to the door. When he reached it, he spun back around to face us and waved at us to come over. We all quickly followed suit, and Monika, with a slight grunt of effort, pushed the lever back into its place in the control box before pulling it down, the door opening in response. Monika spun her head around towards the rest of us.

"Let's go find our friends." She softly declared with an expression of determination. Me, Yuri and Natsuki all silently agreed, and followed closely behind Boris, who began leading the way out of the safehouse, past the lift that we came here in, and back into the creepy, decrepit halls of the studio.

Spiderwebs, dark puddles, broken down vending machines, tubes pumping with ink, boarded up doors and the creaking of the wooden halls were among what greeted us as we took our first steps back out into the unknown. My heart was filled with dread and anxiousness, always nervous for what we might find lurking out there, waiting in the dark corners of these corridors. Not helping was the fact as we walked, we soon came across a pitch black room directly ahead of us. Thankfully, there was a conveniently placed flashlight sitting on top of a nearby desk. Boris also seemed a bit worried about stepping inside, so Monika took the light and led the way through.

"Don't worry, Boris. We'll stay close to you, okay?" Yuri told him. Her words seemed to help calm him down a little, and we kept on going. The room itself was full of a lot of old machinery, most of which was somehow still running, the sounds of the whittling and cranking of the gears and the steam being blasted echoing throughout the hallway.

"What could all this stuff be used for?" I wondered out loud.

"Whatever it is, I doubt it's good." Natsuki replied. I had to agree, and a part of me was hoping we didn't have to find out. A bunch more of the ink was leaking from the ceiling, from little droplets to full on globs pouring and creating large puddles on the ground. It made me wonder, just how much of this stuff did they really need? I thought back to those creatures we saw before. They were made of this ink, right? In fact, now that I think about it, that guy that kidnapped us was too! If they were all made of ink, just what else could they make? Now I really didn't want to know. The sooner we find the others, the better.

My thoughts were interrupted by a loud banging. We all jumped in surprise, gasping at the sudden noise, Monika pointing the light around to try and find the source, but couldn't find anything. It sounded like it came from a vent of some kind.

"There's something here with us." Yuri spoke softly.

"Yeah, another reason we can't stay here." Monika whispered. "Everyone, stay as quiet as you can, and keep your eyes open." The rest of us agreed without saying another word, and we pressed on, now more cautiously than ever. Eventually, we made it past that dark hallway. The next room we came to was thankfully much more lit up, but that didn't do very much to ease my worries, especially not when we saw what was on the other side.

It was another large set of doors, blown open from what looked like some kind of explosion.

"Wait a minute, didn't we see something like this before?" Natsuki asked.

"She's right." Monika realized. "This same thing happened back at the musician's studio." Yuri then walked over and held her hand close to them, feeling the air near what was left of the frame.

"It's still warm as well." She stated, before looking back over at the rest of us. "This just happened recently."

"What could be strong enough to destroy these doors like this?" Monika pondered.

"Could it be that demon from before?" I mentioned.

"I'm not sure." Yuri admitted. "But whatever it was, it means we aren't the first ones to come down this way, since it looks like these doors were blown open from our end, just like before."

"So we're following whatever did this?" Natsuki questioned.

"Looks that way." Yuri answered.

"In any case, we shouldn't stick around in case it decides to come back." Monika said to us.

"Right." The rest of us agreed without a second thought, and we quickly carried on past the remains of the doors, feeling the heat from the blast emanating off the metal as we passed by, walking over a steel grate, along with more ceiling ink and the creepy face of that Bendy demon drawn onto the far wall. The path then split off into two open door frames which into a much, much bigger room.

Woah…

"What is this place?" Natsuki uttered. All of us were completely blown away by what we were seeing! The room was massive, easily bigger than anything we had seen up to that point.. It was wide open too, only being filled with a couple oversized stuffed plushies of the characters that were admittedly kinda cute, a number of broken cardboard cutouts of Bendy whose pieces were littered across the ground, and a trio of parallel railings in the center that led towards a huge display that towered above us, which served both as a massive ink fountain, but also as part of a set a set of large support beams that held the whole place up. Attached to the center pillar was a large sign being held up by a giant, fake replica of the demon that chased us before, which was sticking out from the inside of the top of the fountain. I took notice of what the sign read.

'HEAVENLY TOYS: Joey Drew Studios'

"No way…" Yuri muttered to herself. "What kind of place is this?"

"God, and here I thought nothing could surprise me at this point." Natsuki admitted.

"Wait… this place makes toys!" I blurted out loud upon realizing what it meant. "That's so cool!"

"You're right…" Monika said, all of us still baffled by the sight of it all. "But that would mean… this must be some kind of manufacturing plant!"

"A toy factory?" Yuri questioned. "But why then would they have it all the way down here, let alone within the studio? Usually, this kind of facility would be reserved for its own building."

"Usually, yeah." Monika told her. "Makes me wonder just how big this studio was."

"Perhaps that might be why this place was abandoned." Yuri considered. "They must have stretched themselves too thin, and they were forced to leave everything behind after their business fell apart."

"Beats me." Natsuki stated. "Either way, it looks like our only way forward is to head on through."

"Natsuki's right." Monika agreed. "Protag might be somewhere inside. We have to find them." We then kept on walking, past the sign, up the stairs and into the next room, which looked like it was part of the system that they used to make the toys. On the sides of the room were a set of large machines that were fixed with a bunch of wheels and belts, while in the middle was an overhead conveyor belt with a number of wooden shelves hanging from it, each filled with small dolls of the characters. One of the shelves had snapped off its hinges and its broken pieces, along with all of the dolls that were most likely sitting on it, were now all over the floor. It was the one that was originally hanging in the front of the door on the other side of the room. But the other ones all seemed intact, and in fact, the very top of the shelf was still attached to the belt. So either this one just happened to break off or…

Something was strong enough to tear it down…

I quickly shook my head, trying to get that possibly out of my head, and instead turned my attention over to all the dolls now on the ground. There were small versions of Bendy and Boris of course, but there was also another character I didn't recognize. I picked up one of the dolls to get a closer look at her. It seemed to be a human looking girl with horns in her hair. Another demon maybe? If she was a demon too, then could her and the demon chasing us be working together? Maybe she was the one who tore that shelf down, or maybe she was also the one who blew open those doors? Maybe she even could have been the one who took Protag away? I knew in the back of my mind that it was pointless to ask all these questions knowing I wouldn't get any answers, but I just couldn't help myself but think about this. With those thoughts swirling in my head, I gently set the doll down on the nearby table and rejoined the others, who headed through the door into the next room. This one also stood out from the other places we've been to so far, being greeted with a large lit up sign on the opposite wall hanging above a broken window as soon as we stepped inside, which read 'SHE'S QUITE A GAL!' Looking around, along with a bunch of old TV'S on the ceiling and walls, tipped over wooden barrels, a tripod camera knocked over and broken on the floor, I noticed a bunch more dolls of the girl character sitting on a shelf behind some glass, and right across from them on the other side was a cardboard cutout of the same girl, only the cutout stood out from the dolls, since in addition to the horns, she also had a halo floating her head. This was also true for the posters that featured the character hanging next to it as well. Those posters even had her name too!

"Alice Angel…" I read to myself as the others looked around the room. "Wait, she has devil horns, but she's supposed to be an Angel? That doesn't make any sense. Angels are usually the good guys, right? So, why would she…" My train of thought trailed off. Now I wasn't sure what to think about this at all anymore.

"Hmm." I heard Yuri thinking out loud. "First those doors, then the shelf and now the glass window. It's like we're inadvertently following someone's trail, only we have no idea who it could be."

"Do you think it might be Alice?" I asked her, gesturing over to the posters for her to look at.

"Maybe." She replied, after glancing at them for a minute, her eyes jumping between them and the other things in the room related to the character. "Although I have a feeling we're going to find out one way or another." As much as I didn't want to think it, she was probably right. Considering how much of this character we've already seen, there was no way she wasn't going to show up at some point. It was only a matter of when and how.

Not wanting to waste anymore time, we moved on, started heading down the hall before-

"Wait!" Monika suddenly stopped, throwing her arm in front of us so we didn't go any further. I was about to ask what was going on, before she then asked, "Do you hear that?" Me and the others instantly understood what she meant, so I focused and listened, wanting to hear what she heard.

Squeak…. Squeak… gurrrrgh…

There was the creaking of wood… and… something… growling? What was that noise? Monika gestured for us to stay put, before taking a couple steps forward and peeking around the corner of the hall. After a couple moments, she stepped back, turning back around with an expression of dread.

"Something's here…" A collective gasp escaped from me and the other girls' voices.

"What do you mean?" A nervous Yuri asked her.

"We're not alone. Another one of those ink creatures." Monika replied, pointing to the other end of the hallway while keeping her voice down to not alert whatever it was that she saw. We looked at each other, worried yet curious by what she saw, and she stepped off to the side to let us see. As quiet as we could, we carefully stepped around her to get a peek behind the corner, and sure enough, there it was!

It was a short, human-like creature, almost like a gremlin in a weird way, with a limping walk thanks to the pipe attached to its leg instead of a second foot. It was wearing a kind of fancy coat, its left hand was missing, leaving just the bone sticking out from its arm, while the other was carrying a large wrench. It's back was facing as, so I couldn't get a good look at it's face, but it seemed to be examining the signpost it stood in front of, said signpost being a long wooden plank planted into the floor being used for a pair of wooden signs made to be arrows, each pointing towards one of the two doors dividing the path going forward, the signs reading "The Demon" for the left path, and "The Angel" for the right. One was for Bendy and the other was for Alice if I had to guess. The creature, after looking at the post for a minute, then brought its good hand back and clamped its wrench onto the demon sign. It grunted as it tried pulling on the sign, probably trying to rip it off, but even as it grunted and growled with effort, the sign wouldn't budge at first. It got to the point the creatures had to prop itself against the wall with its good leg and pull back with everything it had. Eventually, the sign finally came loose, but since the creature had put all of its weight into tearing down the sign, it stumbled back and flopped onto its back, landing with a loud thud. The sign also popped off its post as this happened, and it fell right onto the creature, bonking against its overly large head. I heard Natsuki snickering next to me, but she had to cover her mouth to stop herself from laughing too loudly. The creature then propped itself back up using its weapon, before leaning over to its left and pulling another sign from behind the corner. It placed the other sign where the Demon one had been and began wacking at it with its wrench like a makeshift hammer, hitting it until it finally stayed put. This one had the same arrow shape as the one it broke off, but the sign read something different.

"The Rabbit"

"Rabbit?" I pondered, before my eyes went wide as the horrible realization dawned on me. "But that's-"

"GRAH!"

'AHH!" We all jumped in shock, as the creature suddenly, with a loud CRACK, whipped its head all the way behind its back, so it was now looking straight at us! Its face was completely disfigured, with a broken, wide open mouth, hanging helplessly, and its left eye being stitched up in an 'X' shape, while the other, pure black eye, stared right into my own! For that brief moment, it felt like the air just got ripped from my lungs, and my body was paralyzed with fright, all I could do was watch, fearing what the creature would do, now that I just gave us all away!

The creature readjusted the rest of its body to match the direction it's head was facing, where I could now see it was also wearing a torn up suit and tie, but its eye remained completely fixed on us, and then… nothing. Neither it nor us moved from where we were standing, only continuing to stare back at each other in dead silence, save for the heavy breathing and low growls it made, as its head slightly shifted towards each of the four of us standing in the hall. After a few moments, it started shuffling back step by step, before turning around and starting to limp away, leaving the other sign it broke off behind as it hurried down the now called 'Rabbit" path, and disappearing from our sight. With the creatures now gone, I felt the weight on my chest finally loosening and my breath returning back to my body.

"What… the hell was that thing?!" Natsuki questioned, taking a step closer to where it was just standing a couple moments ago.

"I… I have no idea…" Yuri admitted, trying to comprehend the situation herself. "That didn't look anything like the ones we saw before. Another character, perhaps?"

"Well… at the very least, it's gone now. So, that's a plus." Natsuki pointed out.

"True, but that probably wouldn't be the last we see of it." Yuri told her. We all walked ahead to examine the new sign the creature had put up before it ran away.

"Rabbit…" Monika muttered. She thought to herself for a moment before turning over to me. "Sayori, you mentioned something about a rabbit before, right?"

"Yeah, it was chasing me and Hat Kid when we went back to that creepy pizza place… but, you don't think it…"

"At this point, I don't think there's any other possibility…" That rabbit suit, it… it was here? How? When? Was it… looking for us? Did I bring it here?

"Oh my god…"

"Sayori…" I heard Yuri gently say.

"I know." I said to her. "I know this isn't my fault, but I just…" The words stopped coming out from my mouth. I was doing it again. Not by choice, but because I was struggling not to just pin everything on myself just like before. Natsuki told me I was blaming myself for things that weren't my fault, Monika told me I was blaming myself for things that weren't my fault, and yet here I was, blaming myself for things that weren't my fault, again. I knew I couldn't keep doing this, but then I kept finding myself doing it anyway. It infuriated me to no end, but as much as I hated to admit it, I let it start to get to me the same way it had before. I swallowed whatever was in my mouth, before trying to take a calming breath. I didn't want to think about it anymore right now. Finding our friends was more important anyway.

"Let's just… let's just keep moving, okay?" I told them, trying my best to hide my self frustration. "Whether or not it's my fault that's it here, it doesn't matter. What matters is that it's here, and we need to find the others before it, or anything else here finds them first." The other girls seemed a bit surprised by my sudden conviction, but I could tell they were a bit uneasy about the fact I was obviously trying to dodge around my own issues, and I knew in any other instance, they would have gladly taken the time to try and help me, but this was unfortunately not one of those times, and they all knew this too. I didn't want to waste anymore time that we could be spending getting back to our search.

"Sayori's right." She tried to speak with confidence, but she was still very clearly worried about me. "No matter what, we need to keep going. The less time we spend here, the better." The others quickly agreed, and so we did. We made a beeline right into the right 'Angel' path to avoid running into the creature again, which led into a room filled with more posters of Alice and random furniture and other decor. Weirdly enough, there was a framed image of a gear hanging on the far wall, but I just chalked it to this place being weird. We continued onward, not paying attention much to what was around, knowing full well just how many different monsters were now walking around the same hallways we were. The demon, the angel, those ink creatures, and now the rabbit robot on top of all of that. We needed to find our friend faster now than ever before, and we needed to pick up the pace!

We hurried through the next few areas, passing by more similar looking corridors, into a storage room filled with more giant puddles of ink and more identical shelves, each having a number of dolls of the character, just like the ones we saw before. More dolls that were just left here. Yuri's theory about them getting too big for their own good might be more right than we first thought. Still, that was far from our main concern! We didn't take a look at anything this time, and continued straight through and into the next area. This set of hallways contained a strange door system that required multiple switches to be pulled before it would open…

Or at least, it would need those switched to be pulled if the doors were already blown open just like the last ones. This was starting to become a big pattern, and hopefully a sign that we must be heading the right way! Quickly moving past this area, and past more loudly operating machinery, we found ourselves by the railing on the higher end of yet another large room, not nearly as big as the entrance of the toy factory, but still big enough to house an overlooking level of the area, connected to it was a short set of stairs which circled down a floor to what looked like a large elevator. A poster near the top of it stated we were on 'level K', whatever that meant anyway.

"An elevator?" Yuri questioned. "Is that meant for us?"

"Looks that way." Monika answered. "Wouldn't make sense for it to be there otherwise."

"Where do you think it's gonna take us?" Natsuki asked.

"Hopefully to where the others are." I said. "Although that probably won't be anywhere good." We hurried down the steps, where the compacting gates of the elevator opened for us to step inside. Surprisingly enough, there was more enough space for everyone to fit, and-

"Woah!" We all yelped, for as soon as we finished entering, the elevator suddenly started moving without any warning! We didn't even hit any of the floor buttons, the thing just started heading down on its own.

"What the hell?" Natsuki suddenly exclaimed, as she attempted to escape the box, only to be blocked by the gates that shut right before she could, trapping her inside. She attempted to wrap her fingers around the chains of the gates and pull, but they wouldn't budge.

"What's going on?" I asked out of instinct, and it was at that moment when we all were taken completely by surprise as we suddenly heard a brand new voice.

"Well well. Isn't this a surprise? A whole group of little flies, now all tangled up in my special web." The voice seemed like it belonged to an older sounding woman. She spoke very softly, but at the same time, I could notice a sense of elegance emanating from her words, like she was proud of what she was saying. The four of us all started spinning and darting our eyes around the area, in some attempt to find the source of the voice. The mysterious voice continued, seemingly unfazed by our reactions.

"I must admit, it's been quite nice having so many new faces wandering these halls as of late, at least compared to all these mindless husks of ink."

"Who are you!?" Yuri questioned the voice, but she didn't get a response, rather the voice just kept going. From what I could tell, the voice was coming from an overhead speaker system, which would explain why she couldn't hear us.

"Tell me, what brings you all the way here? Was it just to see little ol' me? Or perhaps, you're all looking for something… maybe even, someone." Could… could they mean…?

"This one here certainly seems to be a fan of yours. They must just be dying to meet you! Heheheheh… hah…" She laughed disturbingly, while a series of sharp gasps escaped from our breaths.

"No… Protag…" Monika uttered in horror, realizing what she meant, clutching her hand tightly against her chest.

"Now then, why don't you all come and join us? You won't have to look very hard though, their screams will be a dead giveaway!" The voice chortled as she finished her speech, as the elevator reached its destination. The gates opened up and we found ourselves in yet another large room, with us on the upper level of a balcony overlooking a long wooden bridge, crossing over a river of ink and leading towards a set of stairs. At the top above the metal doors was a massive display of Alice Angel emerging from the wall, and attached to the hands was another sign reading "She's quite a gal!" This all got me thinking. Was Alice the one who was talking to us earlier? The one who was holding Protag hostage? Monika practically leaped out from the elevator, spinning back around towards us as soon as she made it to the stairs leading down to the bridge.

"Come on! We have to go now!" She called over to us, her hand on the railing ready to sprint down the stairs at any moment. Although her face no longer carried the same level of determination it had before, and I could see it in her eyes and hear it in her words. She was scared. Really scared. Not for herself, but for Protag. We knew they could have been in trouble long before this moment, but now that we knew for sure, she was more worried than ever before. She had been hiding it for so long now, always being the calming voice that helped us whenever we needed it, always showing us a face of compassion and trying to uplift our spirits, even after everything we had gone through so far, but to see her like this, this frightened, this scared, was something I had never seen before. Me and the others were also just as worried about Protag's safety as she was, I knew that for sure, but Monika… Protag meant everything to her, and the rest of us all understood that. We were going to save them, we had to.

"Right!" We replied, and without any further gestation, we ran out from the elevator, hurried down the steps, and sprinted across the bridge, where we stood right beside the doors. With a loud, metallic hum, the pair of iron gates slowly slid away from each other on their own, opening to reveal the path forward, but before any of us could take a step further, Boris suddenly shot ahead of us, dashing down the newly unveiled hallway.

"What the? Hey!" Natsuki yelped as he suddenly ran past us.

"Wait!" Yuri called out to him. "Where are you going?" Boris didn't hear her, and kept on running ahead.

"Come on!" Monika yelled, and hurried after him, the rest of us following closely behind her, down yet another one of the seemingly endless hallways, filled with random desks, shelves, machines on the walls doing random things, and cardboards cutouts of Alice, taunting us as we heading deeper into her domain, but as we caught up to where Boris had stopped, we could have never had guessed what we saw. Boris was looking up…

At Boris?!

It wasn't just himself either, but a version of himself… that was dead.

"Oh my god…" Monika uttered.

"What the hell…" Natsuki cursed.

"Boris…" My voice trailed off, unable to say anything else. All of us were horrified by what we were seeing.

The other Boris was strapped onto an upright surgeon table, his chest and ribcage had been completely torn open, with nothing left but the bones sticking out from the hole that remained. Besides that, the two looked virtually identical, and it wasn't just him either. There were at least a dozen replicas of Boris that were littered across the sea of ink that engulfed the floor of the expansive room we now stood in.

"I've seen this before, back when we first came here." Yuri admitted, her eyes fixated on the Boris clone that our Boris was staring at, as she stepped closer to him, softly placing her hand on his shoulder.

"I'm so sorry." She said to him, but Boris didn't respond. My heart felt for him, I couldn't imagine what was going through his mind now. Seeing yourself like that, in that state, must be devastating. I could feel a tear rolling down my eye, and my hand instinctively began rubbing against my throat, those same horrid memories beginning to intrude within my mind once more.

"We can't let this happen to anyone else." Monika told us. "If Protag is with Alice, we need to find them, and fast." The rest of us nodded in agreement, and started making our way across the room, all except for Boris, who just continued to stare at his other self, probably completely lost and confused from this discovery. I wanted to say something to him, but we figured it was best to give him some time to reflect on this revelation, and we sadly couldn't wait for him to come along, so we were forced to leave him behind for the time being. However, since the whole floor was covered in ink, we didn't want to risk stepping through like we had before. Thankfully, there was a convenient series of wooden planks attached onto barrels that served as a makeshift bridge, so we began walking across them, slowly and carefully so as to not fall in. As we started making it across, the voice of Alice began blaring over the speakers yet again.

"Take a good look around. Do you like what you see?" Alice said, seeming proud of her display. "It took so many of them to make me so beautiful. Anything less than perfect was left behind. I had to do it. I'm so close to being perfect." Her words made me sick to my stomach. She was the one who did all this? How could she do this to them? All of these poor creatures mangled, killed and left out like trophies for her own selfishness? It wasn't just Boris either. There were copies of the creature we saw earlier replacing the signs, and others I didn't recognize just abandoned in the ink like discarded waste. I had to turn away from how much it pained me to look at. Thankfully, it didn't take us very long to reach the other side, and another set of doors squeaked as they opened to reveal yet another stretch of wooden hallways, filled with more machinery working on the walls. As we stepped through however, we began to hear a couple new noises. The crackling of electricity… and someone… screaming in pain…

Oh no… Oh no!

Our walk turned into a full out sprint, as we dashed down the hallway and into the final room, where our worst fears were laid out in front of us.

"GAH-AAAAAAAAAAAGH!"

"PROTAG!" Monika screamed in horror. She immediately ran over to them, but her path was blocked by an invisible glass wall. She slammed her fists and feet against it in an attempt to break through, but no matter what she did, her efforts weren't enough. All we could do was bear witness to this horrible sight, for on the other side of that wall, Protag was being tortured by Alice! They were strapped onto yet another surgeon table, the same one that the Boris's were fastened to, yelling in pain as they were being violently shocked with electricity, yellow sparks shooting out from the machine behind them and landing on the glass that separated us. Just beside them stood Alice Angel, but unlike the cutouts of her earlier, her body proportions were much more like a regular person, unlike Boris, who looked just like his cartoon self. Not to mention the left half of her face was scarred and looked like it had melted a bit, with larger horns, her left eye missing, half her teeth and gums exposed and the halo sticking out from the top of that side of her head.

"LET THEM GO, YOU BITCH!" Monika angrily yelled, slamming her fist against the glass. I saw Alice gaze shift over to us, and a malicious grin formed across her face. She pressed something on the control system she was standing next to, shutting off the electricity and the excruciating pain Protag was just under subsided. They slumped forward slightly, having no energy to stand up, and being caught by the straps that held them to the table. Their eyes were braced shut, their fingers were twitching, their skin was steaming from their burns, and they were struggling to breathe.

"Now now. Let's not go and say something we might regret. We wouldn't want anything to happen to our poor friend here, now would we?" Alice said in a prideful tone, slowly stepping over and holding up their head toward herself by their chin with only a single finger.

"What are you doing to them?" Yuri snapped at the angel.

"Well, let's just say, the two of us have been having a bit of a… disagreement, so to speak." She stated, letting go of Protag, whose head fell back down, and she stepped back over to behind her control panel, staring down at us. "We've been looking for something very important to us, just like you have, and luckily for me, our friend here just so happens to know where that thing is. You should be able to see where this goes. They tell me what I want to hear, and I let them go, no worse for wear. Quite simple really, even a newborn infant could figure that one out. However, it would seem that our friend isn't very interested in talking. I couldn't begin to understand why, but I'm willing to call myself a reasonable girl. At the same time however… I'm not exactly a fan of having my patience tested! So, I figured that what our friend here needed was a little bit of… shall we say, motivation."

"What do you want?" Monika desperately said to her. Alice chuckled at her response.

"Hmhmhmhm, it's so fascinating just how quickly it is for someone to fold and beg when someone they care about is on the receiving end of a punishment, isn't it? Tell you what, you've all seem to have caught me in a good mood at the moment, and I'm feeling generous. I'd be more than willing to hand this troublemaker back over to you… that is, of course, if you do a few tiny little favors for me first."

"What do you want us to do?" Yuri questioned her.

"Oh, just some very simple tasks is all I ask. Gathering a few spare parts for my machines, a couple of power cores, some globs of extra thick ink from those disgusting swollen wanderers, and a handful of ink filled hearts from the deepest abyss, perfect for a sweet little angel like me. Nothing too tasking, I presume, and how convenient! Four jobs, four of you. Should be simple enough to figure out. Divide them up however you wish, it doesn't matter to me. Just get them done, and feel free to take your time. I'm sure our friend here wouldn't mind waiting for you. Besides, the two of us have plenty of things to catch up on." She slammed her hand on the panel, and a pair of window shields suddenly crashed down in right of the glass that separated us, cutting off our view of them, and all we could hear was the machine torturing Protag start up again, their painful screaming echoing throughout the room, and nothing we could do to stop it.

"NO! LET THEM GO!" Monika screamed, desperately hitting and kicking the windows in a vain attempt to reach them, but her efforts couldn't make any difference. I tried to stop forward and say something to her, but Yuri placed her arm in front of me so I couldn't get closer. When I looked up toward her, her nervous expression said everything, and she simply shook her head. Knowing what she meant, I relented, stepping back and holding my hands against my chest.

"LET… Them… go…" Monika's efforts soon slowed down, as the reality of our situation loomed over her, and I saw her slide down on the ground, her head and hands resting against the wall, and I didn't need to see her face to know she was crying, scared and terrified over what we all witnessed, and how powerless we all were to do anything about it. After a short moment of silence, Yuri slowly walked over to her.

"Monika…" She said, trying to be as soft and as understanding as possible.

"...We have to do what she says." Monika admitted in a defeated tone, looking up towards Yuri. "We have to save them. We have to."

"Say no more." Yuri said to her, extending her hand out towards her. But instead of taking it, Monika suddenly jumped off the floor, and bolted for the door, catching all of us by surprise.

"Wait!" Yuri yelled in shock, snapping her hand towards her, barely being able to grab her wrist before she went too far. "Where are you going?" Monika whipped her head around towards Yuri, and I could tell just by the way she was looking back at her, that Monika was absolutely terrified. Her expression just emanated with a mix of dread, panic and anxiety, and her whole body was trembling from her heavy breathing... I don't think I've ever seen Monika this scared about something in my life.

"Let go of me!" Monika snapped back while she struggled to pull her hand, but Yuri held onto her wrist extremely tight. stopped her from leaving. "We have to get Protag out of there now!"

"Yes, we know!" Yuri firmly told her, while at the same time, trying to pull Monika back towards us. "But just running off on your own isn't going to help anyone! Not when we don't have any idea what's out there!"

"We don't have time!" Monika exclaimed, still unable to break out of Yuri's iron grip. "We need to go, now! Protag's going to-"

"Yuri's right, Monika." Natsuki cut her off, standing by Yuri's side. "Listen, we're all just as worried about Protag as you are."

"No, you don't understand!" Monika pleaded.

"Yes, we do!" Natsuki reaffirmed. "We know how much they mean to you, and we're going to get them back, but we can't just start running around in circles either! We have to think this through. Otherwise, we're going to end up just like they are now, or worse!"

"But you..!" "But I...!" Monika struggled to say, her eyes zipping between the two standing in front of her, realizing she was fighting a losing battle. I walked over to Yuri's side as well.

"Don't worry, we'll get them back." I told her, the same way she did for me earlier, giving her the best hopeful grin I could. "Promise." She was completely taken aback by this sudden conviction in my voice, her gaze shifting between me and the others. Her efforts slowly came to a stop, and her frantic breathing started going back to normal. Soon her eyes fell down towards the ground, as she took a minute to process her own emotions. I couldn't help but feel awful for her, but they were right. If we were to save Protag, we needed a plan, and we needed to do it together. After a brief moment, Monika finally looked back up toward us, wiping away the tears rolling down her face.

"Okay…" She nodded slowly, and we started making our way back, this time with Natsuki leading the way. Boris wasn't where he was before, but we thankfully found him again, sitting down in the corner of the elevator facing outwards, with his hands curled up over his head.

"Boris, are you okay?" I instinctively asked him, but just like before, he didn't give any sort of response.

"We should probably just leave him alone for a while." Natsuki stated. "Probably still trying to figure out what the hell we saw earlier."

"Yeah…" I resigned, standing back up and rejoining Monika and Yuri, who just made it to the elevator themselves, each carrying a set of large tools.

"So, what's the plan?" Natsuki asked.

"Alice said there were four jobs for us to do. One for each of us." Yuri explained. "If we're going to do this as fast as possible, we're going to need to split up to get these done." She held up the tools she was holding towards us, gesturing for us each to take one.

"Right, but considering the kind of shit we've seen here already, it's gonna be suicide for each of us to go alone." Natsuki added.

"Then we'll have to work in pairs." Monika told us. "Natsuki, why don't you go with Yuri and start gathering what we need from the upper levels and Sayori and I can start searching from this floor downwards. We'll meet up back here once we've found everything, okay?"

"Got it!" Natsuki agreed, borrowing the wrench from Yuri.

"Okay!" I said, taking the metal pipe into my hands.

"Understood!" Yuri replied, grabbing the syringe that Monika was holding, which left her with the axe.

"Alright. Now let's go!" Monika declared. We watched as Yuri and Natsuki stepped into the elevator, and pressed the buttons on the inside, which closed the gates and began rising upwards, but just as things were starting to look like they could work out for us, the voice of Alice rang out over the speakers one final time.

"Oh, and one more thing before I forget. The Ink Demon is out there with you, wandering those same halls, and each and every one of us have learned to fear him. He hears everything. From the creaks on the floor, to the lightest rustling of paper. I wouldn't run so fast if I were you. In fact, I've been told that he's been so much more angry lately. You best not stay out for too long, or who knows what he'll do when he finds you? In any case, we have work to get done. So then, let us begin."

Protag's POV

"GAAAAAAAUUUUGGGHHH!"

I shut my eyes and gritted my teeth together as hard as I could in some vain attempt to withstand the amount of pain I was in. I could feel the electricity coursing across my body, hitting every bone, striking every nerve, contorting every muscle and shocking every single inch of my skin. My whole body felt like it was going to either burst open or collapse into itself at any moment, all the while, my body violently and uncontrollably shook and vibrated from the rampant flow of energy, my limbs and chest struggling to stay still, only being contained by the straps that held me to the table. It was a horrible, miserable, burning moment of pure agony, and each time, it only got worse and worse.

My only source of respite were those few moments when Alice turned off the machine between these torture sessions. The electricity left my body just as quickly as it entered, my body's contortions came to an abrupt halt, and all that was left in me was the excruciating pains emanating from the burns across my skin, the tears leaving my eyes and the twitching of my fingers, as the muscles in my body continued to uncontrollably react to the leftover effects of the multitude shocks.

"So then, now are you willing to start talking?" Alice said to me, although I could tell she was getting increasingly more irritated by my unwillingness to speak. Even if I wanted to give her what she was asking for, I couldn't. With how much pain I was in and how little energy I had in me after everything I had endured already, I just didn't have the strength to say anything to her, only having just enough to keep my breathing, albeit deep and heavy. Despite how blurry my vision was, I could still notice her satisfied grin slowly shift downwards into a frustrated scowl. Without any other warning, she quickly flipped on the machine yet again, sending an even stronger current through my system, and another bloodcurdling scream left my body.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUGGHH!"

Even if it was only on for just a moment, the awful sensation of the electricity felt like it lasted for an eternity. All of it coursing through me all of the same time, hitting every point in my body one after another. It was relentless, unyielding and beyond brutal to experience. Just as soon as it came back however, it just as quickly disappeared, the pain relenting for the time being, if only the slightest bit.

"I must admit, you fascinate me." Alice admitted. "Protag, was it? Most men would have broken long before this moment, yet you remained as resilient as ever. It's almost impressive just how stubborn you've been. And for what? What do you expect to gain from being so unwilling to simply tell me what I want to hear? It's only going to get more painful the longer you keep quiet, and it's only going to end until you finally start talking. Do you, perhaps… enjoy this, or is there in fact, another reason that makes you refuse to talk, like, let's say… those girls?" She scoffed, seeming disgusted by the very thought of it.

"Don't make me sick." She spat out. "Those girls don't actually mean that much to you, do they? You haven't really been holding out on me for this long because you think they can save you, or even worse, that you think by keeping quiet will somehow protect them from me? How do you suppose you can do that when you're too weak to even stand up on your own feet? They'll probably just get themselves killed out there anyway, and then what will you do? In fact, if that idiot Sammy Lawrence had gotten rid of them like he was supposed to, this would have been so much easier for the both of us." She paused her vitriol rant for a minute before continuing.

"Let me tell you something. If there's anything I learned after being trapped down here for so long, it's that 'friends', or whatever you want to call them, won't get you anywhere. Power is the only thing that matters in this world. Why else do you think I agreed to work with that hooded man to begin with?" Alice placed her hand on the activation switch. My eyes shot open in horror, realizing what was about to come.

"But then again, do you really believe someone like that would keep their end of the bargain." Alice stated, suddenly letting go of the panel and crossing her arms on her chest, stepping back into the middle of the tiny room we were in. "We had a deal, them and I. I get them their precious little rocks from you, and in exchange, I finally become beautiful at last! Simple enough, almost too simple… but I know their type. Last time I made a deal with a man like that, it's what caused me to become trapped in this… inky abyss to begin with." Her voice trailed off, finding herself staring at her ink covered hands, but just at that moment, she perked up slightly, and a sinister grin grew on her face, as she got even closer to me, leaning down until she could whisper her next words into my ear, cupping my chin and holding it up so as to match her eye level.

"But you… you're not like that, are you?" She questioned me, almost with a seductive sounding tone. "When I ask you for something, you will give it to me, right? Hmm, don't bother saying anything, we both already know the answer to that question. So, here's my new deal. If your little friends happen to survive the errands I give them, I'll hand you back over to them, like we promised, and luckily for you… you already have exactly what I want in return." She let go, letting my head drop back down, again lacking any strength to do anything but watch as Alice returned back to the control panel.

"But until then, let's have a little more fun, shall we? After all, we wouldn't want you to try and spoil the surprise…"

With an ominous sounding click, the sounds of the torture machine whirled back to life.

Yuri's POV

We each stood on opposite sides of the open door, carefully peeking around the corner of the frame where the creature stood within the center of the next room. Natsuki held her weapon tightly, looking determined to get our task over with, while I clutched the oversized surgical syringe Monika gave to me close to my chest, the tool nearly fully filled with the swollen ink that Alice had sent us to find, with this last ink specimen hopefully containing just enough for us to get the rest of what we needed. Natsuki had already done wonders in eliminating whatever ink creatures have tried impeding our progress so far, including both those one crawling on the ground, and a couple that seemed to be related to the disfigured creature we saw at the split paths. While she was focused on clearing the path of those creatures, that left me on supply gathering duty. Within my pocket rested the number of gears and parts we were also asked to retrieve. The very idea of them shrinking for us to easily carry genuinely baffled me, but I suppose that just happened to be the logic of whatever game we had gotten ourselves stuck in. I admit, I was a bit confused at first when Natsuki mentioned how she squeamish about using the syringe on the creatures given her level of tenacity and ferocity she had already displayed throughout whatever you could call this last few weeks, but after she told me what she saw when she entered the clubroom on the day of the festival…

Oh… yeah, I suppose that makes a lot of sense.

Regardless, we had a job to get done. I brushed those thoughts out of my mind for the time being, turned my focus back towards our objective, as we now found ourselves staring right towards our last target. Gesturing Natsuki to stay where she was, I slowly began taking very gentle steps towards the creature. These one would keep disappearing into the ink whenever they would hear or see us approaching, so I had to make sure I was extra careful not to make too much noise as I got closer, using one hand to keep myself balanced as I was crutched down to help quiet my footsteps, although the creaking of the wooden floor certainly didn't make things easier, while the other hand pointed the needle of the syringe directly towards the creatures back. The creature in question thankfully wasn't moving, rather simply slumped over in place, lazily swinging its body back and forth, almost as if it had fallen asleep standing upright. Well, maybe not so much standing given its lack of a lower body, but that was besides the point. Slowly bringing myself off the ground, and with a single quick motion, jabbed the syringe into the creatures. It growled in pain and flailed its body around, trying to shake me off and nearly causing me to fall backward, so I was forced to wrap my other arm around its neck in order to both keep it in place and keep it from running. It howled uncontrollably, clawing and scratching at my arm in an attempt to break free, but my efforts proved superior, filling the syringe up as much as I was able to before pulling the needle back out, letting go and stepping back, the creature quickly retreating back into the ink to prevent a second attack. Taking a second to regain my bearings after that dissertation, I studied the tool in my hand, while Natsuki came out of hiding to join my side.

"Looks like we have enough." I stated, letting my arms fall back to my side after confirming the syringe was completely full.

"Thank god." Natsuki breathed a sigh of relief. "Let's hurry up and get out of here then. Hopefully the other two are also done by now."

"Agreed." I replied, and the two of us turned back and started heading back down the way towards the elevator that we came here from. As we walked, I couldn't help but let my mind wander yet again. This place… these creatures, these… monsters, they were just unlike anything I could have possibly imagined. Ever since we first came here, we've never been given a moment to simply comprehend the kind of situation we had gotten ourselves into, and just how many different forces were at work. The demon, the angel, those creatures, the hooded man, the rabbit robot, and who knows what else we haven't seen yet, one after another, all under the same ink covered roof, and all out to get us. This place was truly cursed beyond any sort of imagination. It all just begged the question, who could have built a place like this, and why? For what purpose? It had to be for something more than just some silly cartoons. There was clearly something more at work here, and I had a feeling we would soon find out what that would be the further down we traveled. I shuddered at the thought, but refused to let it sway me from what needed to be done. The path back to the elevator was paved with a long river of ink for us to cut across on our way through, and a pair of narrow hallways that were divided by a slightly wider area, the walls were littered with machinery working behind glass windows, and the walls and ground were covered in a strange, shadowy, pulsating, liquid like texture. This was confusing to me, since the area wasn't like this before when we first came through. It was almost as if something had-.

GUSZHRT!

"GAH!" From out of seemingly nowhere, an ink covered arm just shot out from the wall, right in front of us! The two of us both yelped in shock, jumping back away from the protruding limb now blocking our path. The arm didn't appear to break through the wall, but rather emerged from some sort of symbol that had slowly begun to fade into existence. A pentagram. As more of it came into being, another, smaller arm burst out forward the same way the former one had, and it was at that moment when I suddenly realized what it was.

The Ink Demon. It found us.

It twisted its arms back around and began pushing against the wall in an effort to bring itself through faster, its sinister, horrifying face started to emerge from the demonic hex, breaking free from the wall with a loud splattering sound, sending bits of ink flying everywhere, and its face suddenly shot directly towards us, staring us down as the rest of its body began to follow suit.

"GRRRHHHHHHUUUUUUUUUUURRRRRRRRRRGH!"

Its ear piercing roar was ferocious and thundering, enough so send us both stumbling backwards from the sheer intensity of its scream. Both my mind and my chest were racing at a million miles a minute. We had to get out of here, but how? The demon was directly in front of us, its arms easily reaching across the distance of the narrow hallway, there was no way for us to get through, nor was there anywhere else to go. The path behind us only went far, as we unfortunately discovered during our initial attempts at catching the swollen ink creatures, being sealed off by a wooden barricade, and our efforts of breaking through proved fruitless. We were trapped here… with this monster only moments away from reaching us. I needed to do something, and fast.

My eyes flashed around the room, searching for something, anything we could use to aid our predicament, and the whole area was nearly empty, save for a few heavy barrels and a significant number of spider webs. This is, except for one thing.

A very cheaply made wooden outhouse, half-fastly labeled with a tilted metal sign reading "Little Miracle Station". It was far from ideal, looking like it could fall apart with the slightest breeze, but at this point, it was better than nothing.

"Natsuki, over there!" I shouted, hastefully pulling both of us back up to our feet, just as the demon's full body stepped into the hall. "This way, I have an idea!"

"Woah!" She yelped as I grabbed her hand, the two of us darted over to the station, where I threw open the door to find the inside was completely empty, easily spacious enough for someone to fit inside. Perfect.

"In here, quick!" Without any hesitation, I quickly ushered Natsuki inside, slamming the door the moment she was safely inside.

"Wait! Yuri, what are you doing!?" Natsuki uttered with a mix of both confusion and shock, spinning around to face me from the small square hole on the wooden door, pressing herself against it to try and open the station back up.

"Buying us some time." I quickly explained, trying to keep myself calm and composed. I held my hands against the door to stop Natsuki from leaving. "I'm going to try and lead the demon away from here."

"Are you crazy!? That thing's going to kill you!"

"We don't have time to argue about this! Just stay here, and once we're gone, run! I'll catch up with you, okay?!"

"Yuri, wait!"

"GRRRHHHHHHUUUUUUUUUUURRRRRRRRRRGH!"

"Gah!" I yelped, instinctively jumping back from the visceral roar of the Demon. It was now here in its entirety, and even with the dripping ink covering its eyes, I could tell it was staring right into my very soul. I don't know if it was just my heightened fear or seeing it so close up this time, but the Demon seemed even bigger than it was before, going from roughly the same size as us, to now its frame towered above me, large enough to envelop the entire corridor, even while maintaining its lanky proportions, and every slow, bone crunching, ink splattering step it took towards me was accompanied by deep, guttural snarls brimming with anger and rage. It was only at this moment that I realized what I had gotten myself into.

As the Demon slowly grew closer and closer, I found myself unconsciously taking steps away My widened eyes refused to look away for even a second, my whole body felt paralyzed with fear, and the air felt like it was getting drained from my lungs just from the sight of this overwhelming monstrosity standing just mere paces away from me. Natsuki was right. What the hell was I doing? What the hell was I going to do? There's no way I can get this thing away from us! I just… I'm just not-

Gasp! Natsuki! From the corner of my vision, I could still see her peeking out from the station, her eyes filled with horror and dread. I… I…

…

No… There's no other way. We're out of time and options. I have to do this. I refuse to go down like this!

I knew I couldn't go back down the way we came, so I just needed to figure out how to get past this thing. There's just enough room in this wider area of the hallway that I could circle around it, but just trying to make a run for it now would no doubt spell a quick end for me. I need to time this perfectly if I would have any chance of making it out of this alive, and it might be a long shot, but I think I had just the idea.

I remained steadfast, returning the Demon's staring gaze, watching and waiting for the right moment, as it continued to grow ever closer. I also took the moment to recognise that it was now standing straight up, no longer having the limping walk and the hunched back that it had during our last encounter with it. I continued trying to keep my distance away from the creature until my back hit the sides of the halls, and my feet entered the ink that flooded a significant area of the hallway. The Demon took notice of us, and I saw it begin to bend down slightly and reel back.

Now!

With yet another loud roar, the demon lunged towards me, arms outstretched as it leaped through the air, and the second I saw it getting ready to leave the ground, I immediately dove down and to the right as fast as I could, the Demon narrowly passing over the top of my head, as it crashed into the wall I had just been standing and collapsing face first into the ink, splashing it all over the hallway around us. I had remembered that it had done the exact time trick when it took away Theodore by grabbing and submerging the pair of them in the ink together back on the very first floor, therefore I had purposely led it over towards the small river in the hopes that it would try to do the same to me, and my gamble ended up paying off. Now I was behind it, just like I needed to be. However, that would prove to only marginally affect this situation, as the Demon did not stay down for very long.

In fact, as soon as I finished getting myself off the ground, the Demon was back on its feet as well.

"GRRRHHHHHHUUUUUUUUUUURRRRRRRRRRGH!"

Alright, now it was time to run!

Without a second thought, I instantly spun around behind me, narrowing avoiding the creatures retaliating swipe, and took off down the now empty hallway as I fast as I could make myself move, the echoing stomps and the extremely potent shockwaves from the very force of its pounding footsteps was a horrifying indication that the Demon was not far behind. The elevator was straight ahead of me, but I knew it would never get here in time, which left only one way for me to go. There was a single doorway on my left, and I quickly threw it open before dashing into the stairwell it contained, hurrying as fast as I could down the many steps, all the while, the creature remained right on my tail, now easily just as fast, if not faster than I was, needing to constantly look behind me to duck and weave through its unrelenting onslaught of wild claw swipes and punches, the results of its attacks leaving visible marks, cracks and holes on the walls, the Demon completely unfazed by the damage being done to its own body. I still wasn't certain if I was even going to be able to escape from this thing, but now I was completely out of other options, so despite my terrified mental state and my struggles to keep breathing, I forced every part of my body to keep moving, practically leaping down every flight of steps, just to stay even the slightest bit ahead of the pursuing monster.

However, as it continued its chase further and further down, I heard an incredibly loud crashing and cracking sound, as if something heavy had just been broken. Risking another look behind me, I discovered the Demon halfway inside a stacked up pile of oversized wooden crates. It started to pull itself out from the stack, but before it was able to, It let out an ear piercing roar as the lifted it hands up, but couldn't stop the top two crates from collapsing right on top of it, sending globs of ink all over the place with the sounds of splattering liquid, crunching bones, and heavy boxes crashing onto the ground, the Demon seeming disappearing from my sight! I have no idea what just happened, but I knew this was my chance! If I was somehow actually going to escape from this thing, it had to be now! I wasn't sure how long that would stop it, or if it was even going to come back at all, but I wasn't going to stick around to find out!

Keeping up my rapid pace, I continued my rapid descent down the flights of stairs until I came across yet another door, this one sitting by itself at the end of an otherwise empty corridor. Not willing to go back in case the Demon had returned and praying it was someplace to hide, I dashed to the other end of the hallway and threw the door open, revealing on the other side to be another large room. An empty area to my right and a short passageway that split off into a pair of rooms which were viewable from the windows that surrounded them. The most notable thing being the limp body of yet another one of the many humanoid ink creatures resting atop one of the tables in the center of the room, almost like it was the test subject for some disturbing experiment. As much as I was curious as to just what it was doing here, getting away from the Demon was my number one concern, and just before I could even consider where to go next, the black, pulsating splotches on the walls suddenly appeared. Here too?! But that mean it's-

Splurt! Splurt! Splurt!

Those were its footsteps! It was already coming back!? I need to find someplace to hide now! Frantically, I slammed the door shut and ran into the passageway, shooting my gaze around in circles for any sort of hiding spot, and that when I saw it. Another one of those outhouses!

"Yes!" I practically shouted out loud in my own head. Without a second thought, I rushed over to the station, and hurried inside, closing myself in mere seconds before the Demon burst through the door I entered from, sending pieces of wood flying across the room and all over the ground. It snarled and growled through its teeth as it shot its head left and right, slowly walking further and further into the room, each step leaving behind a loud spattering sound and an imprint on the ground, until it eventually was standing right outside the station, mere inches away from me!

The level of tension in my body was beyond anything I had felt before. My heart pounded in my head and my whole body shook with anxiety, doing everything I could to keep myself as quiet as possible, even throwing my hand up to cover my mouth and holding in my breath as I watched the Demon hunch over, examining the area around itself, all the while I prayed in silence that it wouldn't wise up and find me here.

After what felt like an agonizing wait, the Demon finally gave up the search, standing straight back up and turning around to enter the room in front of me, a wave of relief passing through my body as the tension of the situation dissipated. The Demon walked over to the table where the motionless body laid, and stared down at the creature, inspecting the specimen from head to toe. I brought my gaze closer to watch through the glass window, curious as to what it was planning to do with it, before the Demon suddenly brought its hand up and drove its fist straight into the creature's chest!

A quiet gasp escaped my month before it was quickly covered by my hands cupping my lips, my eyes shooting wide open and my back pressing up against the back of the station from the sheer shock of what I was witnessing! I could only watch in horror as the assaulted creature violently shot awake, screaming and screeching in intense pain as it widely flailed its limbs around, trying and failing in desperation to free itself from the Demon's sudden incursion, its hand now entirely impaled within the creature's torso. As the scene continued, the Demon's arm started to tense up, and small strings of the creature's body began to break off and lash themselves onto the Demon's perforating limb. Those small pieces soon started growing larger and larger as the creature's features began fading away, more and more of its body being forcibly torn apart and pulled by some invisible force into the Demons arm. What on earth was going on? What was it doing to that thing? Could it be… assimilating it in some twisted way?

The voice of the creature abruptly faded as its entire body become siphoned by the Demon, the ink that once made it up now transforming back into its liquidly, goop like state, shifting and twisting itself around the Demons body like a nightmarish parasite, before it was absorbed into the Demons being, disappearing from sight. The Demon looked down at itself, before the ink on its body suddenly started to ripple, and its body began to swell and stretch apart. The Demon tensed up, hunching over and shaking as it was now beginning to grow. Spikes started growing in a linear pattern down its back. The horns atop its head started growing larger, wider and sharper. It's right hand, before not even half the size of its counterpart, suddenly started rapidly increasing in size to match, both hands now growly larger on top of that, its left protruding and tearing open from the faded glove it wore, and the tips of it fingers began to stick out into claws. The most extreme change however, had to be its mouth, which began to almost push itself forward from the rest of its face, before its teeth split apart, now granting it a fully functioning jaw.

"RRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRGH"

As the transformation came to a sudden stop, it raised its head skyward before letting out one more ear splitting, animalistic roar, shaking the entire floor with the intensity of the newfound power of its voice. I let out a yelp of pain as both of my hands immediately covered my ears, crocheting down inside the station of a vain attempt to circumvent even the tiniest bit of the deafening, bellowing howl. The force behind the roar was even enough to completely shatter the windows surrounding the room, sending shards of glass flying across through air and onto the floor. The Demons triumphant bellow thankfully subsided soon after, as it turned away towards the wall opposite from me, and with one upward swing of its now fully grown left hand, smashed a massive hole through the wall, leaving behind several chunks of wood across the ground alongside the glass, and the Demon began walking away and eventually disappearing back the way we came. Soon, the only traces of the Demon's presence were its booming footsteps before those too soon faded into foreboding silence, leaving me in unbridled horror as I struggled to comprehend what it was that I just witnessed.

The Demon was evolving. Getting stronger and faster. I could only imagine just how lucky I was to have survived in that moment. If I had to guess, it probably isn't used to its more advanced body yet, which is why I was able to get away from it back at the stairwell, but I had a feeling we wouldn't be so lucky if we happened to run into it again. Being so close to the end like that, only to be saved by the unfamiliarity of its own power and speed… the very thought of seeing that monster again terrified me. Not only for what it was now, but what it could become, not to mention everything else that still wandered these halls, both that we've seen, and those that we haven't. All the more reason for us to find our friends and get out of here as soon as we could.

Taking a long deep breath to help ease the stress eating of my nerves, I slowly stepped out of the station, looking around at the destruction left behind in the wake of the Demon, and started making my way down the other path from the one the Demon took, continuing down the steps that led to the floor Alice had claimed as her own. By now, hopefully Natsuki and the others had made it there as well, and we'll be one step closer to escaping this living nightmare.

Monika's POV

The elevator creaked and clanked as we descended deeper and deeper into the unknown reaches of the facility. I tried to remain as calm as I could, tightly gripping the axe close to my chest despite the sweat between my hands, but the adrenaline continued to pump itself through my body regardless if I wanted it to or not, filling me with unrelenting dread for whatever could be waiting for us down below. I looked over to Sayori, who appeared to be in the same state I was, both physically and mentally. We had already made a good amount of progress so far, with her currently hanging onto the gears that Alice had requested us to find, having magically been shrunken down to fit safely within her pockets. I wasn't even going to begin to understand how that worked, but was thankful for the measure of convenience regardless. As we continued to travel down level by level, my mind began to wonder. I couldn't help but start thinking about the others again. Yuri and Natsuki were working as hard as they could too. Theodore and Hat Kid were still missing, trapped somewhere in this nightmare, and Protag… oh god, Protag… what are we going to do? Why did any of this have to happen to begin with? I could still think back to when I first discovered what happened. The last thing I could remember was deleting the other, ready to spend the rest of eternity with Protag, or at least the character Protag was controlling, and then after that, I was suddenly walking outside to head to school like normal, and realizing the whole world had been turned upside down.

I looked away from Sayori in shame. I still can't believe I did what I did. Putting the others through all that cruel misery like it was nothing, all because I couldn't bring myself to accept that they were just as real as I was, and that I was supposed to be some sort of… instrument to help the player fall in love with one of the others. I watched them join the club every single time. I watched them go to the festival with them every single time. I watched them fall in love with them… every single time. And every single time, I wake back up at the start of the week to do it all over again, and again, and again, and-

I shook my head. Now wasn't the time to be thinking about this. They had already forgiven me for what I did, but I still needed to make up for everything, and what mattered now, was saving our friends, and finding our way back home. Once we make it back, I'll tell them everything. They deserve to know that much.

The elevator began to slow to a crawl, coming to a stop at the lowest floor it could reach. A dinging sound indicated that we made it, and the doors opened up to reveal a large, tall and open room. The two of us stepped out to get a better look at our new surroundings. The place was massive and spacious, no more dimly lit than the rest of the building, and featured a domed roof, almost like some sort of underground bunker. We were standing on an elevated deck overlooking the area, which had been overwise completely flooded by more of the ink that surrounded us, flowing in from the many pieces of machinery and vents littered across the walls. Straight ahead underneath a lowered arched ceiling was a massive gray statue of the cartoon Bendy in the distance, along with a pair of open doorways. Looks like that was where we needed to go. Seeing no other way down, we started to-

"AHHH!" Sayori suddenly yelped. I shot around towards where I heard the noise, and saw her jumping back away from something.

"Sayori!" I yelled, immediately running over to find out what she saw. "Are you all right!?"

"Yeah, I'm fine." She stated. "Just a little startled, was all." She pointed over to what caused her to jump, which turned out to be the slumped over body of yet another ink creature, looking similar to the one we saw earlier changing the signs, although in this case, it wasn't so much a body as it was… a corpse.

"Oh god…" I muttered, gazing at the lifeless body in front of us.

"What do you think caused this?" Sayori asked me curiously.

"I'm not sure." I replied, shaking my head. "But whatever it was, let's hope we don't run into it."

"Right." Sayori agreed, but as she took another look at the body, we saw something else. In its hand, was what looked like… a human heart. That's what Alice had asked us to collect for her. Realizing this as well, Sayori began slowly reaching down to grab it out from its hand, being extra cautious just in case the thing suddenly decided to spring up back to life or something like that. I couldn't imagine what Alice wanted with these hearts anyway, but if they meant getting Protag back, then that's all that mattered. As soon as Sayori's hand reached the heart, she quickly swiped it away from the body and-

"HHHHHHHHHUUUUUUUURRRRRRRRRRRRHHHHHHHURRRRRRREE!"

What the hell was that! We both stumbled back in shock, frantically spinning our heads around the room to figure out where the hell that loud, echoing shriek came from, to no avail!"

"My my, looks like he's finally awake. How unfortunate for you, that is." The voice of Alice began to play over the speakers once more. What did she mean by 'he'? Could the person she was referring to be what made that noise? Both of us looked over towards the doors, where a bright, flickering and moving light began to peek out from behind the frame. We quickly hurried down the nearby set of stairs, and ducked behind the railing, low enough to not be easily seen, yet high enough to get a good look at whatever was coming our way.

"That Projectionist had been skulking out there in the darkness for as long as I can remember. Seems he's not too happy with us taking his belongings. Best to stay out of his light now, if you two don't want any trouble." As if on cue, the figure entered the room, and just by looking at it, the 'Projectionist' name was scarily accurate, with it most immediately noticeable feature being that it's head was completely replaced with a film reel projector, still lit up and running somehow, alongside the many wire and cords sticking from the back of the player having attached themselves into the figure ink covered, hunched over, humanoid body. The creature didn't seem to notice us as we watched, the sounds of its head projector still clicking and whirring as it slumped along, tilting around to shine on the sea of ink that surrounded it. Just what was this thing? Was it really human, or at least… did it used to be one?

"Just hurry up and bring me my hearts already." Alice continued. "My patience only lasts for so long after all, and our friend here knows that all too well, don't we?" The voice cut out, signaling the end of her words.

That bitch… I'm going to make her pay for what she did to them…

My focus was instinctively turned back toward the Projectionist, who simply continued walking by until it entered the opposite doorway from where it entered from, eventually disappearing from our sight.

"Let's hurry and get those hearts then!" Sayori stated.

"Right. Let's make this quick." I agreed in stride, and the two of us made our way around the lower level of the deck to the far side, where by taking another small set of stairs, we entered the massive sea of ink below, high enough for our knees to be completely submerged. Still, we pressed on, wading through the liquid goop and onward to where the Projectionist was headed towards, being careful to make as little noise from the splashing of the ink as we could. Since the creature hadn't noticed us yet, I figured as long as we stayed behind it, we should be able to grab what we needed without it ever discovering we were here.

"Stay close, and follow my lead." I whispered to Sayori, who responded with a silent nod, and we stepped inside, watching the Projectionist turn the slight corner and continue trekking down the hall. This place almost seemed to be more… barren and empty than almost everywhere else we had been in this place so far within this establishment. Not in terms of what wasn't there, but with the walls that were all flat and blank, and combined with the flooded floor, the level of deterioration and the… corpses littered across the ground, it felt lifeless, almost unfinished, but it couldn't have been right, since as we soon saw, there was another projector on the ground, in the ink, somehow both functional and still running, displaying a still from an old cartoon on one of the otherwise bare walls. Could that have been the original purpose of this room?

"Just another place that was left abandoned…" I couldn't help but think to myself, but as much as I yearned to learn what really happened here, I had a feeling I would never get answers. Regardless, that was far from my biggest concern right now. We had hearts to get, and thankfully, one just happened to be along the way, being held by the lifeless body of yet another one of those creatures. Sayori leaned down close to it, taking a split to make sure the Projectionist wasn't going to suddenly spin around the second we grabbed it, and in a single quick motion, snatched the heart from its hand. It made a very subtle squishing sound as she took it, but thankfully it wasn't loud enough for…

For…

It… it stopped moving. It was completely frozen in place, save for the twitching of its hands and the reels on its head.

Did… did it know we were here?

Both of us remained just as still, not daring to make even the slightest move or sound, praying the creature would just move on, but it didn't. Instead, it stood straight up…

And looked right at us…

"HHHHHHHHHUUUUUUUURRRRRRRRRRRRHHHHHHHURRRRRRRE!"

The light from its head struck us both right in our eyes. It was so sudden and overwhelming, being hit with this blinding sensation after so long of traversing the dark corridors. We yelped and groaned as the ear piercing screech blasted and echoed throughout the chamber, followed directly by the flashing beacon shining directly into our eyes, forcing us to squint and turn away instinctively, all the while the sounds of splashing ink grew louder, the terrifying sound of it heading straight towards. Through the blinding light, I forced my eyes open just enough to see it growing closer, raising its hand above its head.

"LOOK OUT!" I yelled at Sayori, but the combination of the light and the roar was too much for her to handle. Her hands over her ears and her eyes slammed shut. In a split second decision, I quickly gave her a hard push to the back, causing her to fall forward into the ink with a loud splash, while at the same time, I used the force of my shove to throw myself backwards, narrowing getting us both out of the way of the creature's attempt to strike us, and sending a shockwave of pain through my back as I collided with the nearby wall. I grunted from my sudden impact, but I forced myself to deal with it. The Projectionist shot it's light at me, and I immediately threw my arm up in front of my eyes, although it ended up doing little to block the beam, but rather than go after me, it instead spun around to where Sayori was, who was pulling herself out from underneath the surface of the ink and flipped herself around to see the creature now standing directly above her!

"AAAAHHHH!" Screaming in horror and unable to see as the flashing glare was completely focused on her, she started wildly swinging her rusty pipe at the creature's head. Her efforts barely seemed to even faze it though, and it simply smacked the pipe right out of her hands, sending it flying away and landing somewhere with the sea of ink. The Projectionists hand violently shot down towards her, suddenly clutching her shirt and slowly lifting her off the ground, with Sayori powerless to stop it.

"SAYORI!" I yelled as I quickly pulled myself off the ground, watching as it raised its other arm into a fist, ready to strike her. I wasn't about to let that happen. Grabbing the axe laying in the ink right beside me, I clutched it with both hands and gave it a hard swing, slashing the creature right across its back, cutting a pair of the cords of the Projector clean in half. The creature roared in pain and recoiled forward, dropping Sayori back onto the ground before turning its now furious attention onto me.

"Lights on me, asshole!" I snapped at the creature, ducking under its retaliating backhand, which instead smashed onto the nearby wall, leaving a visible ink splatter in its place. Trying to divert my eyes away from the intense glare, I particle turned my gaze over to Sayori, keeping my focus between both of them while I saw Sayori once again pulling herself out from the ink.

"Sayori, get the other hearts!" I yelled over to her. "I'll keep it busy!" I didn't wait to see if she heard me, rather turning my attention fully towards the Projectionist, whose anger was now solely fixated on me. I stepped backwards as it grew closer, taking another swing with my axe, and even though I had started to adjust somewhat to the overwhelming light, the flashing beam was still potent enough for me to misjudge my distance and completely whiff my swing. The creature growled with effort as it took a swing of its own, but I was able to step back far enough to avoid it. Hoping to put some distance between the two of us, I began leading it down the nearest hallway, and since the path split into two, I knew that I would be able to get the monster from Sayori, buying her as much time as she needed.

This continued on for some time. I would swing at the creature, and while sometimes I heard the axe scrape off the metal on its head, it would more often than not miss. Then it would try to strike me in return, but thankfully, it needed to get close for its swings to hit me, which gave me enough time to just barely back away, despite my feet being completely submerged in ink and the light still shining in my eyes. However, this creature was relentless, leaving cracks and dripping ink splatter wherever it struck, and I was already starting to struggle to keep up, never getting a chance to catch my breath. A couple of its punches nearly hit me already, and with its attention completely focused on me, there was no way for me to get any solid distance away from it before it caught back again, forcing me to take another swing in some vain attempt to keep it in place while I made any sort of distance between us, sometimes the blade would get stuck in the walls, and my efforts to get it out would only cause the creatures blows to come even closer towards reaching me, some even managed to miss by just inches, I could feel the force of its strikes as they passed right in front of my eyes, and while I started feeling myself beginning to slow down and my swings getting weaker by the second, this thing was still just as quick as before. I knew it was only a matter of time before it get me at this rate, and the light was still incredibly strong, to the point where I felt paralyzed for a brief second whenever it managed to strike me directly in the eyes and-

"GAH-!"

Something hard struck me across the face, sending me crashing into the ink below. Walking through this stuff was already bad enough, but being completely submerged in it was an entirely new level of horrible. It felt like the liquid was closing in on you, pressing your body into itself. Your brain felt like it could burst at any moment, your arms being pressed into your ribs and whatever air happened to be in your lungs was getting squeezed out, not even mentioning how pitch black it was as well. It was unlike anything I felt before, and even in the brief moment I was in there, it lasted like an eternity. That was, until I felt myself getting suddenly pulled out by the back of my shift, erupting from the liquid and before I could process what was going on, the inky hand of the Projectionist suddenly lashed itself onto my face and I was slammed hard into the nearby wall, the wave of pain blasting into the back of my skull. The creature snarled as it pressed its palm into my head, putting more and more pressure onto my skull with every agonizing second. Its light flashed mere inches away from my face, the beam so close I could feel the heat emanating from it, as I felt my skull getting more and more compressed, the overwhelming pain beginning to overtake me. I couldn't even scream from how much it hurt, as any other thought was overtaken by the feeling like my head was going to crack open at any moment.

"Hey! Over here!" A voice suddenly rang out, which caught the creature's attention. As it shot its gaze over to the source of the new noise, it eased the pressure against my head, and turned it light away from my eyes.

"Check this out! This is yours, isn't it!?" The voice continued to yell. I didn't recognize it at first, as my head was still trying to recover after nearly getting split open, but when my eyes were finally able to see again, and I saw the hand holding up what looked like one of the ink hearts, I suddenly realized who it belonged to…

"If you want it, come and get it!" Sayori shouted. The Projectionist dropped me onto the ground, taking off to chase after its new target.

"RUN MONIKA!" She yelled at me, covering her eyes from the light and taking off in the other direction, the ink monster following close behind. Sayori! What the hell was she doing!? I know she just saved my life, but now she's going to get herself killed in the process! I'm still spitting ink out of my mouth and my head still feels like it's gonna crack open like a watermelon, but I couldn't just sit here and do nothing! She just saved me, now I'm gonna save her back! So despite the level of agony I had just gone through, I quickly felt around for my axe, finding it beside me and hanging on to it tightly. Without daring to waste even a single second, I groaned and strained as I forced myself back onto my feet, and hurried after the pair, my free hand firmly pressed around my forehead in some vain attempt to ease the pain, but that was the least of my concerns right now.

When I did catch up with them, I gasped in horror as I discovered Sayori backed into a corner, the Projectionist growling as it grew closer and closer to her! I wasn't even going to consider giving it the chance to hurt her again, so I raised my axe over my head and, with a yell of effort, threw my arms forwards and plunged the blade directly into the monster's back! It roared in agony as it began to flail around, trying desperately to remove the weapon now attached to it, but I wasn't done! With it now distracted, I circled around to the side Sayori was and slammed my shoulder directly into the monster's chest, and with one more battle cry, shoved the creature as hard as I could, throwing it backwards and sending it crashing into the ink, where it sank underneath the surface of the darkness. I could only give myself a very brief moment to catch my breath before turning to make sure Sayori was okay, who was simply in awe at what I just did.

"Monika, I…"

"Are you alright?" I asked her gently, kneeling down where she was sitting.

"Yeah, I'm fine." She quickly replied.

"Did you get the hearts?"

"Oh, yeah. I got them right here." She patted her pocket to show me they were there.

"Good." I nodded in approval, standing back up and holding my hand out for her to grab. "Now we need to get out of here, before that thing comes back."

"Okay!" Sayori agreed, taking my hand so I could pull her back up to her feet. Wasting no more time here, we made a beeline for the exit of whatever this maze was, ending up back in the main area where we originally came in from, but we barely made it back out that far before the Projectionist suddenly rose up from the ink again with a loud and furious shriek, now standing right behind us!

"RUN!" I yelled, and the two of us picked up our pace even faster, the creatures speeding up in response. Our shadows were laid out in front of us as we hurried back up the wooden path towards the elevator, the sounds of the Projector rang in my ears, and each of the attempts from the Projectionists to grab us barely scraped by the backs of our necks, tiny pieces of its ink covered hands splashing onto our backs with each swing! We could only keep running and running, but we finally saw our way out! Practically leaping into the elevator, I slammed my entire hand into the elevator button before slipping inside, only barely getting in just mere seconds before the gates shut, trapping the Projectionist on the other side, but even though it couldn't reach us, it still wasn't done, trying to force it's arm through one of the many gaps in the gates, still determined to get us as we, now alongside an understandably frightened Boris, pushed ourselves as far back inside as we as could away from the gates. The elevator thankfully, finally, began to ascend once more, causing the hand of the Projectionist to slip away, the creature letting out one last guttural echoing roar, knowing we had gotten away at last.

We all just continued to stare at that spot where it was for a moment longer, still trying to process everything that just happened, before the reality of our exhaustion started to kick in, and the tension released from our bodies all at once. Sayori slid down until she was sitting on the ground, laying her weary head against the walls of the elevator, while I stumbled forward, my hands resting on my knees, feeling the sweat running down my forehead, the aching of my legs and the air returning to my chest. Both of us didn't say a word for the entire ride, simply focusing on mentally recovering after that whole ordeal.

"That… was way too close. Hopefully… we never have to deal with that thing again." I thought to myself, too physically taxed at the moment to say the words out loud. But… despite what we came across down there, we thankfully got everything we needed. The ink hearts were safely in Sayori's possession, and the others should be wrapped up with their tasks by now as well. Now, all we had to do was bring everything back to Alice, and if she's true to her word, we'll finally have Protag back!

Protag… please still be okay.

The creaking and cranking sounds began to grow quieter as the elevator came to stop, the gates opening to reveal we were back on Alice's floor. I didn't turn to look at first, still in the middle of catching my breath, but I was suddenly taken by surprise when I heard a familiar voice gasping in shock at our arrival.

"Oh my gosh! Monika, Sayori?! Are you two alright?!" I heard the voice of Yuri suddenly call out, quickly rushing over to our side to check up on us. The two of us looked up, thankful to see her well as always.

"Yeah." I said to her between breaths. "Just had a close call, was all." She extended her hand out to Sayori, who took it, and helped pull her back onto her feet. However, as we looked around the immediate area, we couldn't help but instantly notice the missing member of our group.

"Wait, where's Natsuki?" Sayori was the first to ask. Yuri turned away, looking down towards the ground, seeming ashamed about the question.

"We… we were cornered by the Ink Demon…" Yuri began to explain. "I had her hide inside one of those 'miracle stations' before I led it away from us, managing to lose in one of the other floors. I told her to meet up with us back here once we were gone, in case it decided to turn back around to go after her, since it saw me hide her there, but she hasn't shown up yet." Dread and anxiety both wasted no time in clouding my heart and thoughts. If she wasn't with Yuri, then where could she be?

"Do you think something could have happened to her?" A worried Sayori asked her, fear plaguing her words.

"I hope not." Yuri replied. "But the longer I wait, the more I'm starting to worry that might be the case." I could feel my heart sink in my chest. I didn't want to believe it. I couldn't believe it! First Theodore, then Hat Kid and Protag, and now Natsuki is missing too! All this time we spent trying to find our other friends, only for yet another one to disappear! How could this keep happening?!

"Then… then we have to go find her!" Sayori exclaimed, immediately starting to bolt towards the open stairwell.

"Sayori, wait!" I yelled to her, quickly grabbing her arm before she could run off too far. She turned around with a look of confusion and nervousness, so I knew I had to make my point fast.

"Look, we're going to find her." I quickly explained. " I promise you that we're not going anywhere else until we do, but we need to get Protag first."

"Monika's right." Yuri agreed. "Protag's still being held captive and possibly still being tortured by Alice. We need to make sure they're safe first, then we'll find Natsuki, okay?" Sayori looked a little taken by surprise, her expression turned ashamed for a split second, possibly upset with herself about Protag completely slipping her mind, even for that short moment, before giving me a determined nod of approval.

"O-okay." She replied, and the three of us turned quickly around and hurried over towards Alice's door. Opposite from where Yuri and I found our tools earlier sat a large wastebasket, its lid noticeably glowing brightly. This must be where Alice wanted us to put everything after we found them, and so we did just that, dropping off both our weapons and the object we were sent to recover into the bin.

"Well now, looks like you did make it back in one piece after all." The voice of Alice rang out over the speaker yet again. "Did you have fun? I can say for sure that we did at least. Still, what's done is done, and I believe that should account for everything I asked. So much more efficient than having you all do them one at a time, wouldn't you say? I must admit, I hate for our friend to leave so soon, but I am an Angel of my word. Step away from the doors, would you kindly? I'll have one of my lackeys bring them out in just a moment." Following her orders, we turned and headed down the steps before the metal doors opened up to reveal a humanoid ink creature. Unlike the other human-eque creatures we saw before, this one was nearly identically proportioned to a real person, having the same build, only with the obvious differences being the ink covered body and the yellow glowing hollow eyes, and in its arms laid Protag, looking even worse for wear. The creature stepped forward through the doors, leaning down slightly before throwing Protag out of its grasp, their unconscious body violently rolling down the steps before coming to a stop right besides us.

"Protag!" We all let out a gasp of shock at the sight, quickly rushing over to their side as the creature retreated back inside the hideout, the doors quickly shutting behind it. Protag's body was warm to the touch, their clothes torn and shredded and their skin covered in steam and burns. Alice! That monster was going to pay for what she did to them!

"I'll take them." Yuri swiftly stated, lifting their body up into her arms. "We'll set them in the elevator next to Boris, then we'll start looking for Natsuki." We both nodded in agreement, quickly turning back around and making our way back the way we came. As much as I hated leaving Protag in a state like this, there wasn't much we could do for them in this state. So the best we could do was just to keep them somewhere safe for now, at least until we found everyone else. We all huddled inside the elevator and Yuri gently set them down inside, just as she said we would. I then spun around and raised my hand up towards the elevator control.

"Where did you last see Natsuki?" I quickly asked Yuri.

"Floor 11." Yuri immediately answered.

"Got it!" I replied, hitting the corresponding button and watching the gates shut as we began to raise up once more. Hang on wherever you are, Natsuki. We're going to come find you!

"And just where do you think you're going? I never would have guessed you for a runner, Protag."

Wait, that was Alice's voice again! What was going on now?

"Oh, did they not tell you?" She uttered condescendingly. "Must have slipped their mind. In case you all weren't aware…" As soon as she said this, the elevator instantly stopped in its tracks, causing us all to stumble on our footing for a moment. The three of us exchanged nervous glances with each other, scared and confused of what was happening.

"We're not done yet." Her tone had suddenly shifted in those last few words, now sounding much more aggressive and frustrated. What did she mean by tha-

"Heh, hmhmhmhmhmhmhm~… Ah, heheheheheheheheh~…Hahahahahahahahahaha~, HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"

Creak… Creak… Snap!

I suddenly felt the weight being swept away from under my feet and the air being sucked from my lungs as sparks started firing out from all sides around us, the many levels of the studio being sped by one after another.

The elevator! The elevator was falling! We were falling!

"Did you really think that I was blind?! Did you really think that I would forget?! We had a deal, Protag! I spared your worthless hide, and now you and your stupid friends aren't going anywhere until you bring me back my Boris! It's the most perfect Boris I've ever seen, and I want it! I need it! I need it's insides, so I can be beautiful again! Don't you understand?! Don't you get it?! Now give him to me! Or better yet, I'll take him!"

"ONCE…

YOU'RE…

DEAD!"

…

…

CRASH! BOOM!

…

…

…

Yuri's POV

Ughhhh… what's… what's going on? What… what happened? Where am I? Augh! Everything hurts… so much. I… can't move. Every part of my body… hurts so badly. My whole body… aches. Every muscle… every part of me… feels like… it's going to… split… in half… or explode. It hurts… to breathe. It hurts too much… to move. I… can't feel… anything… but pain. I can… barely even… open… my eyes. Was that… Boris? Boris… was in front of me. What… what is he doing? Wait… he's… he's shaking me. He's trying to… trying to shake me awake. He's... trying… to see if… if I'm okay. I… can't tell him… anything. Hurts too much… to speak. I see… I see something… behind him. Some… something walking towards him. No… Boris! Boris you… you need to run! You need to get out… of here… please! I have… have to warn… him! Have to… I have to tell him but… but I can't! I trying… so hard but… my voice… hurts too much! Everytime I try… hurts even more…

Boris…

BORIS!