The Alt Four in: Hell is Horribly Mutilated People

by Bloody Simpson Chibi

Penny has found herself in quite the rut. Nothing thrills her anymore. All of that seems to change when she finds a strange puzzle box that promises to alleviate her boredom...by stealing all her skin. Now she and her friends must journey to the bowels of Hell itself to get it back. Will they succeed or will they taste the pleasures of eternal suffering? Rated M for gore.

The Alt Four in: Hell is Horribly Mutilated People

by BloodySimpsonChibi

Disclaimer: I do not own the Hellraiser series but do own the Alt Four and my own OCs

(Hey everyone! It's been quite a while hasn't it? Truth be told, I was hoping to write far more Alt Four stories this year but things came up, other stories needed my attention and all that other jazz. Nevertheless, here I am with the seventh story, this one centered around the Hellraiser franchise. Now before we begin, I should mention that this story will be a little more... gory than my usual helping of the Alt Four. This is Hellraiser after all. Also, not sure if this warrants a warning or not but there will be an uncensored mention of menstruation involved.

How will the girls get out of this one? Let's find out..)

It was a warm, sunny day in Oakwood. The birds were singing. The children were laughing and within the confines of Oakwood Park, four teenage friends were engaging in a time-honored tradition for their age bracket.

"Umm...Penny...Tell me again why we're doing this?" Emily peeped as she trembled within the shopping cart.

"Because you haven't lived until you've rode a shopping cart down Broken Spine Hill!" Penny shouted in elation. The punk girl was slowly pushing the cart to the hill's edge. At the bottom of the hill stood Ginger and Sally, the goth girl holding a timer at Penny's request and the scene girl jumping up and down, excited for her turn.

Emily fought the urge to look down, lost the battle, and gulped as her eye beheld the elongated slope before the cart. The slope she and Penny would be racing down in a matter of seconds. Sweating bullets, she turned to Penny. "And...And tell me why I have to be in the cart with y..you?"

"Oh come on, you wuss!" Penny responded. "It's not that dangerous! Besides, the adrenaline will do you some good! Put some hair on your chest!"

"I'm a girl..." The emo whispered fretfully, knowing it was no use to try and talk Penny out of this stunt. She turned forward, closed her eyes, and prayed to whoever was listening that she would survive this catastrophe with her ability to walk intact. "Ready...set...let's rock!" Penny nudged the cart, hopped inside behind Emily, and screamed in excitement as it zoomed down the steep hill.

Emily screamed as well, although her screams were born from fear rather than joy. As the cart descended, the air was filled with the screams of both the young girls. But one of them grew fainter and fainter as they neared the end of their short journey, dying down into a drawn-out drone before stopping completely.

That scream belonged to Penny, who greeted the bottom of the hill and her two other friends with an indifferent, almost disappointed face.

Emily, on the other hand, would not stop screaming, her fingers curled tightly around the squares of the cart.

"Emily...Emily..." Sally said as she approached her screaming friend. "Emily! You've stopped already!"

"Aaaaaah! Aaaaa- Wait I have?" Emily looked around, her lips curving into a small smile as she realized the shopping cart was no longer moving. "I have!" She jumped out of the cart and kissed the ground passionately. "Oh I'm alive! I'm alive! Usually, I'm not that excited about the prospect but who cares? I'm alive!"

"Wow!" Ginger whistled as she approached the cart with the dumbstruck punk inside. "10 seconds! That's a new record! Way to go, Penny!" She looked up to her friend, expecting her to brag about getting such an impressive time, only to see her friend's expression look...bothered by something. "Penny? Hey, what's wrong?"

"Huh?" Only then did Penny seem to snap out of her stupor. "Oh, it's nothing!" Penny climbed out of the cart and sighed.

"Look, Penny, you can't say nothing is wrong and then sigh like that so tell me what happened," Ginger demanded.

Penny gave a sideways glance toward her goth friend and sighed once more. "It's just..." She tugged at her arms. "Carting down Broken Spine Hill is one of my favorite pastimes but today it's...it was..."

"Itchy?" Sally suggested, butting in the conversation.

"What!? No!"

"Gassy?"

"Gassy? What the hell-

"Oh! I know! I know! It was itchy!"

"It was boring!" Penny finally shouted in frustration. "Alright! It was boring!" She looked up at the hill sadly. "I've been down that hill so many times but today, it...it just didn't do it for me!"

Ginger placed a hand on Penny's shoulder to comfort her. "Hey, it's ok. Maybe you're just used to it is all?"

Penny shook her head. "It's not just the hill either. Skating. intentional loitering, ballet..."

"Wait, what was that last one?" Ginger asked.

"I-Intentional loitering!" A flustered Penny blurted out. Then she sighed a third time. "It's like, all the things that used to excite and thrill me just don't anymore. Even going on joy rides in my van is starting to become dull. I...I've become stuck in a rut!" Penny's voice broke a little as she spoke that last sentence and all three of her friends exchanged glances of concern, knowing that if this were anyone else besides Penny, tears would have been shed by now. She was that upset.

"Oh Penny. It's ok." Emily stepped in and rubbed Penny's back. "You're just a little burned out is all. Everyone gets like that sometimes."

"Yeah! Just the other day, I ate 10 whole jars of peanut butter and I didn't feel a thing!" Sally chirped.

"That's because you went into a coma," Ginger corrected.

"Oh yeah!"

"The point is that when you do certain things all the time, you're bound to get bored of them. You just need to take a step back, lean into something new, maybe even discover a part of yourself you didn't know was there."

"Emily," Penny chuckled in a weak voice. "Has anyone told you that you sound like an after-school special?"

"You know what I mean!" Emily defended. "Sometimes you just have to learn to like something all over again."

"Yeah, maybe you're right." Penny dug her hands into her pockets and started walking away.

"Where are you going?" Ginger asked.

"For a walk. I'll catch you guys later." She removed one of her hands to give a peace out sign before digging it back in.

"Poor Penny." Sally clicked while shaking her head. "It can't be fun to be the weakest of the litter."

"What!?" Emily exclaimed. "Penny's caught in a rut! Not a runt!" She pressed her eyes against Sally's ears. "Are you going through another Q-tip boycott again?"

"Viva la reveloution!" Sally cried out.

Ginger just sighed and facepalmed, only for another voice to suddenly startle all three girls.

"Hey you!"

They turned to see a heavyset man in a clerk's uniform standing on the hill and pointing to the shopping cart. "How many times have I told you brats to keep your grubby hands off our shopping carts!"

"Run for it!" Sally screamed. She, Ginger, and Emily bolted as the man shook his fist at them.

"Hey!"

---

"Man, this bites!" Penny sighed as she walked down the business district while kicking an empty beer bottle along the floor. To her left were a variety of different shops selling baked goods, candles, etc. But of course, she had no interest in any of these. She hardly had interest in anything anymore and that fact was eating at her core. "Am I too jaded or something? Did I live too fast and burn out all the excitement within myself? Oh god! What if I'm stuck with this old-person mentality for the rest of my life? This sucks!" In a small fit of rage, Penny kicked the beer bottle hard enough to send it flying toward the nearby pole where it shattered upon impact. She sighed heavily again. "Guess I'll just go home and sleep. Maybe I'll have an exciting dream or something." She muttered as she walked past the final store of the block, an antique store from the looks of it, and walked toward the suburbs where she lived...

...or at least, that's what she would have done if something behind the display window of the antique shop hadn't caught her eye as she passed by it.

She zipped back to the window in a cartoonish fashion and pressed her face and hands against the glass. Sitting on the shelf within the store, covered with intricate gold markings, was a box.

Now, Penny Hoffman was not exactly a fan of old antiques nor random boxes. By all rights, she shouldn't have even the slightest bit of interest in this ancient cube sitting behind a display window of a dusty old antique store. And yet, there was something about the box that she just couldn't put her finger on. Something that made her crave it, need it, desire it. She felt a drop of wetness hit her chin and realized with embarrassment that she was literally drooling over the damn thing.

"I see the box has caught your eye." A man's voice rasped beside her.

"Oh shit!" Penny tore herself away from the window. "What!? No! I wasn't...I..I was just looking!" Penny blubbered as she tried to explain herself. She noticed that she had left a trail of drool on the window and, with a sheepish smile, tried to wipe it off with her leather sleeve which only served to smear the mess onto more of the glass. "Eh heh heh. I'm sure some wet wipes will get that right off."

The man, a gruff, old fellow who looked in all honesty to have only recently escaped poverty, shook his head. "Let's not concern ourselves with that now. Come, I'll show you the box." He beckoned for her to follow as he disappeared back inside his store. On any other day, Penny would have responded to any invitation from an old man to enter a building alone with him with a sprint in the opposite direction and perhaps a kick to the crotch beforehand but on this day, desperate for excitement as she was, she followed him inside.

The place looked about as general as an antique store as a place could get. Useless old garbage all over the place, cleaned up just enough to be sellable. The man seemed to have disappeared and as Penny wandered looking for him, she very nearly crashed into an old wedding dress. The dress, having not been worn since the 70's, released a cloud of dust into the air, causing Penny to cough violently. "Oh shit! *Gag* Old man! Where are you?"

"Right here." The man said as he suddenly appeared from the subsiding dust, causing Penny to scream and jump back. Whatever dust was still in her lungs was flung out by the scream and she no longer needed to cough but her heart was beating a mile a minute and her face was flushed. "You need to stop doing that."

"Behold," The man said as he reached his hands out to Penny, revealing the box nestled within them " The Lament Configuration, also known as LeMarchand's Box."

"LeMarchand?" Penny asked.

"He was the inventor of the box, a toymaker in life." The man explained. "This, my dear, is a puzzle box."

"A puzzle box? Penny spat. "You mean to tell me I got worked up over a glorified Rubix's cube?"

"Ahh! It is not just a mere toy." The man purred. "This is a box that calls upon desire, calls upon the hands of those seeking new pleasures. New sensations."

"Is...Is it a sex toy?" Penny asked sheepishly.

"I can be whatever you want it to be but first, you must solve the puzzle." The man pushed in a section of the box, causing it to pop up for a few seconds before sliding back into place. "Only then will you open the door to new experiences."

"New experiences?" Penny repeated longingly. In her head, her thoughts were racing. "I don't know why but something about this box really speaks to me. I have to have it! But then, what exactly is supposed to happen if I solve it? Will it really get me out of my rut? How do I know this isn't just some giant scam?" Penny cleared her throat and asked the shopkeeper how much the box cost.

He simply shook his head in response. "The box is yours free of charge."

Penny did a double-take. "Huh? R-Really?" Her excitement grew. There was no way the box could be a scam if the guy wasn't charging her but then...could it be some sort of cult indoctrination? "Wait! I'm not gonna have to join your religion or anything to get this box, right?"

The man shook his head. "It does not matter which God you follow or even if you follow any at all. The box will prove to be a religious experience either way."

These words should have made Penny nervous and perhaps on another day, they would have resulted in her tossing the box in the man's face and leaving the store with middle fingers to the sky. But at this moment, the poor punk girl was so desperate for exhilaration, so in need of a reprieve from her rut that she didn't care what the old Koot said.

All she wanted, all that mattered to her, was the box.

"I'll take it!" She snatched it out of the man's hands and ran out of the store. The shopkeeper watched silently as she vanished past the street corner.

"It belongs to you child." He whispered. "It's always belonged to you."

---

"Come on! Come on you stupid-Grr!" Penny growled as she struggled to move the next section of the box upward. After rushing out of the antique store with her new prize, Penny headed straight home, locked herself in her room and sat criss-cross on the floor as she began to fiddle with the box. For the most part, the experience was much like the one time in her life when she actually tried a Rubik's Cube. It was somewhat easy at first, simply sliding one section of the box against the next. But as time went on, it became progressively harder for the punk girl to find the right direction to move the sections. She even had to undo some of her previous moves which served to annoy her.

Unlike the Rubik's Cube, which she threw in her father's fireplace when she got fed up with the personal humiliation, she persisted with the Lament Configuration, more sure than ever that solving it would mark the end of her rut.

Now if only she could solve the damn thing.

"Come on! How hard can it be to move one little piece!? Gah!" Penny fought the urge to throw the box against the walls of her messy room and paused a few moments to catch her breath. "Stupid little box is really making me work for it." She thought. "It's times like these I wish I was an egghead like Ginger or Nelly." She paused again upon realizing what she was thinking and groaned. "Oh God! I'm jealous of nerds!"

Sighing, she looked back down at the box in her hands and without really meaning to, studied the designs on it's surfaces carefully. Little by little, the complete design became more and more clear to Penny and with it, the path to reaching it. "Holy shit!" She whispered. "Did I just have a eureka moment? Well, better not let this chance go to waste!" Her determination renewed, she undid her last movement and tried another angle. When it worked, she did it again and again, her joy growing as she saw the design in her head come to life on the box. "Come on, baby! That's it! Just a little more!" Penny cooed. With one final movement, she completed the design and cheered as the box now sat fully completed in her hands. "I did it! Take that, eggheads! Ah ha!"

Before she could say more against her imaginary foes, the box suddenly flew out of Penny's hands and landed in the middle of the room. It divided itself again, this time rising up as a flower-shaped section above itself, turning and sliding back down with the available space. The ground began to tremble and Penny had to grab her bedpost for balance as she returned to her feet.

"Since when does Oakwood get earthquakes?" She asked out loud, her voice somewhat drowned out by the sound of her possessions falling over one by one. Outside the window, the sky began to darken and so too did the interior of the room. Penny heard a loud cracking sound and looked next to the window, gasping at the large crack forming on it.

"Oh, Mom's so gonna kill me for that."

The crack grew and grew until a section of the wall fell down completely, shattering into useless pieces of plaster as it hit the ground. There was nothing but intense darkness from the gaping hole now in Penny's wall and soon enough, three beings emerged from this darkness. They were vaguely humanoid but in the darkness, Penny could not make out their features. Finally, after several seconds of torment, the tremor died down and the box fixed itself back into its original cube shape. An eerie blue tint covered the room from the now broken window and as the darkness ebbed away, Penny realized that her entire room had been transformed. Gone was the ceiling fan hanging from overhead. Instead, several chains swung down from the unseeable ceiling, each of their ends marked with a razor-sharp hook. Penny learned this the hard way as she backed up against one which dug into her buttcheek. "Ow!" She cried as she pulled the hook away. "What the Hell just happened here?"

"Hell is exactly what has just transpired." A voice spoke from the shadows. Penny turned forward as one of the beings that entered her room walked up to where the box sat. The blue tint allowed Penny to get a better look at him but that wasn't exactly a comforting thing. He looked to be a man wearing a strange cassock comprised of the blackest leather she had ever seen. It made the leather of her own jacket seem like cotton in comparison. As the man picked up the box and faced the girl, she could see six spaces on his chest where his skin had been cut and pinned down below, three for each chest. There was also a long slit of space exposing his belly button and a belt around his waist carrying surgical tools she had never seen before. She doubted some of them could even be used to save lives. What really struck Penny, however, what really put the fright in her heart, were the dozens of nails hammered into the man's head, each neatly stabbed within the intersections of a grid-like pattern on his face. If this arrangement caused the man any pain, he did not show it.

"W-Wow!" Penny shuddered. "And my folks say my nose piercing's too extreme."

"Ah yes," The man cooed. "The decoration within your nostril is quite amusing. An experience for you, I'm sure but hardly a drop of what we can offer."

"Offer?" Penny felt herself trembling and took a step back. "What are you talking about? Who are you guys?"

"Explorers in the outer reaches of experience." The man answered. "Angels to some," He gestured to one of the beings waiting in the shadows behind him. She walked up into the blue light and Penny fought the urge to gasp. The being was a woman, shaven and naked, the closest thing to clothing she possessed was the flayed skin hanging from her breast and torso. Behind her, two sets of wing-like bones protruded and a metal plate protruded likewise from the top of her scalp.

"And demons to others," He gestured for the final being to come forth and his appearance shocked Penny even more. He was clad in black leather pants and nothing else but he was entirely skinless. Two sword-like blades had been stabbed through his head, forced to protrude through the other side like horns. His gaze was hateful and burning while the girl's face was soft and kind. The gaze of the man with the nails in his head, on the other hand, was simply calculating. "Some of those in your world have taken to calling us Cenobites."

"C-Ceno..what?" Penny shook her head aggressively. "Look, what do you want?"

"The box." The pinned man said as he presented the Lament Configuration. "You opened it and we came" He brought it down again. "Now it is time to taste our pleasures."

"Whoa! Whoa!" Penny put her hands up defensibly. "Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! I don't know what the fuck is going on here but you know what? This is too freaky even for me! Thanks for the invite but it's gonna be a hard pass from me, alright. I mean, don't get me wrong, I like piercings as much as the next girl, and when it comes to body modification, I say live and let live but um...yeah...like I said, hard pass." Penny turned to walk away, despite there being no door to the rest of the house anymore. She didn't care. She just wanted to get away from these freaks that had broken into her house, trashed her room, and were offering her services she was sure were illegal for anyone of any age. She wanted a break from her rut but not that badly. "Adios!"

As Penny walked down the dark corridor, she suddenly felt a sharp pain in her right hand, causing her to cry out. Before she could see what it was that caused her such intense agony, she felt herself being pulled back toward the Cenobites. "Hey! What the fuck!? Let me go!" She strained as she struggled against whatever was pulling her hurting arm back. Once she stopped and nearly fell over, she was finally able to see what had brought her before the pinned man.

It was one of the hooked chains, its sharp end digging into the flesh of her right wrist.

"No more games." The pinned man spoke. "Now it's time to get down to business." He glanced at another hooked chain dangling by his side and sent it flying into Penny's left arm. The punk girl screamed in pain as the hook ensnared her flesh and pulled her left arm away from her right. She was trapped now, helpless to do anything but kick and protest. "What the fuck's your damage man!? Look, I don't know what this shit is but I do not consent, you hear me!?" I do not consent!"

"Foolish girl," The pinned man said. "You gave your consent when you opened the box. You wanted excitement! You wanted pleasure! And now that it is here, you deny its embrace?"

"P-Pleasure!?" Penny shouted. "Listen, asshole! I don't know what planet you're from but here on Earth, we don't consider being hooked like fish and held against our will pleasurable!"

Penny glared at the man, only for her anger to turn to fear as he smiled to himself. "Oh but you will child. You will." He cooed as he snapped his fingers. More of the hooked chains surrounding them came to life and dug into Penny's flesh. She cried out as she felt her flesh, no, her entire body being yanked toward all possible directions at once. Penny was in a world of agony, only able to utter a low groan in protest.

"You... edgy... fuck..."

"Save your voice." The pinned man advised. "You'll need it for screaming later." He purred as he studied the bound punk girl close for a few moments, relishing in the look of absolute helplessness on her face. "In Hell."

The chains suddenly started pulling back toward the directions from whence they came. Penny struggled to tear away from even one of them but it was no use. It hurt to even move, never mind the agony that came with her limbs being pulled in all directions. The last conscious thought that Penny had before the chains ripped her into tiny pieces was simple.

"If I ever see that shopkeep asshole again, I'll shove that box right up his poop chute!"

And then, the room ran red.

---

"Penny! Oh Penny!" Sally knocked on the door again. "You home?'

It was the day after Penny's declaration of ennui and her friends, complacent enough to give her space at first, had changed their minds when she failed to show up for school that morning. Sure, Penny Hoffman skipping school wasn't out of the ordinary and normally wouldn't be cause for concern if not for the fact that it was Taco Tuesday.

Penny never missed Taco Tuesday.

And so after school, Ginger, Emily and Sally had decided to head over to her house and check on her. Her parent's car was gone, indicating they were still at work but her van remained, indicating that the punk girl herself was home. Thus, Sally spent the next five minutes knocking on the door and calling for Penny as loudly as possible, not stopping even when one of the neighbors threw a shoe at her.

"Sally, just stop." Ginger finally spoke up. "I think it's pretty obvious that Penny's not gonna answer the door."

"But why not?" Sally whined. "Does...Does she not want to be our friend anymore?" She sniffled a little."

"Of course not," Ginger reassured her. "She's probably still down in the dumps because of her rut." Ginger walked up to a potted plant that sat next to the porch and dug into the soil. After a few seconds, she pulled out a spare key. "Good thing we know her so well."

"Good thinking, Ginger." Emily praised. "Now let's...ohhhh!" She grumbled as she suddenly wrapped her arms around herself.

"Emily? Are you ok?" Ginger asked.

"Y-Yeah. Just a little cramp," Emily moaned, clearly in more pain than she was letting on. "Let's just go."

"Right," Ginger tried the key and smiled as the door unlocked. The three girls walked into Penny's house and began the search for their missing friend.

Ginger poked her head into the kitchen which currently had a pot of bubbling water on the stove. "She's not in the kitchen!" She called out as she went to turn off the stove.

"Sally likewise peeked inside the bathroom. She searched the shower and the towel closet and finally, looked inside the toilet. "She's not in the bathroom!" She cried out as her hand reached for the lever with her face still inside the bowl. She flushed the toilet and found herself sucked in as well, the lid closing behind her and muffling her screams.

Emily knocked on Penny's door a few times, mentally begged that she was in a good enough mood to pardon the intrusion, and stepped inside. The room was the same as it always was, messy behind all comprehension. Emily could never understand how Penny, or anyone else for that matter, could live in such a pigsty but right now, that was beside the point. There was no sign of the punk girl anywhere, no note, no nothing.

"Oh, Penny," Emily whispered sadly as she stepped further into the room. "Where did you go?" As Emily walked, she felt her foot kick something on the ground. She looked down to find a strange puzzle box laying on the floor. "Huh?" She picked it up and looked it over in her hands, unintentionally savoring the sensation of the markings against the skin of her hands. "Since when did Penny collect puzzle boxes?" She thought as she pressed a section of the box inward, causing it to pop up for a brief moment. "It's very pretty." She giggled as she watched the section slide down again and prepared to move another section, to solve the puzzle and unleash its pleasures.

Before she could try, however, she felt a hot, wet sensation running down her left leg. Looking down, she watched in horror and embarrassment as a trickle of blood emerged from the bottom of her pant leg and around her shoe.

"Crap! My period started!" Emily muttered. "I should have known when I started getting those cramps!" Emily tossed the box onto Penny's unmade bed and rushed out of the room. "And I didn't bring any tampons with me! Oh, I hope Penny has some!"

At that moment, as she was running toward the bathroom, a soaking wet but alive and unfazed Sally emerged. "Hey Emily!" She asked nonchalantly. "Where's the fire?"

"Not now, Sally!" Emily grabbed her wet friend and pulled her out of the way. "It's an emergency!" She entered the bathroom and slammed the door shut behind her.

"Wow," Sally said. "She must have had to pee something awful."

Meanwhile, back in Penny's room, the puddle of blood Emily accidentally leaked onto the floor was slowly absorbed into the wood. The emo girl could not have known it at the time but she had bled right at the very spot where Penny had been ripped apart by hooked chains. This spot now began to darken as the last of the blood was absorbed. From this darkened patch a single skinless hand arose and felt around itself before gripping the floor and pulling itself along. Another hand reached out and gripped the ground opposite of its partner. As the two limbs continued to pull, the mohawk-clad scalp of their owner emerged from the darkened spot.

"Did any of you guys find Penny?" Ginger asked as she walked up to Sally.

"Nope, but I found this cool rock!" Sally happily held up a small rock with a bit of moss on it. How she found that rock inside the depths of the toilet bowl (and how she got out for that matter) would forever remain a mystery. Behind her, Emily reemerged from the bathroom, a look of relief on her face. "I checked her room and all I found was a weird box."

"Weird box?" Ginger questioned. "What are you talk-

She was interrupted by a loud mournful groan coming from Penny's room. All three girls shivered as the voice cried out.

"What was that!?" Emily asked fretfully.

"I don't know but whatever it was, it came from Penny's room," Ginger replied. "Let's investigate."

"But I just did," Emily whined. She reluctantly followed her friends as they slowly tiptoed toward Penny's room. The pained moaning grew louder and louder with each step and even the likes of Ginger couldn't help but shake in fear. Nonetheless, it was she who went in front of the group and wrapped her fingers around the door handle. "C-Calm down guys," She said in a shaky voice as she turned to her terrified friends. "I'm sure it's n-nothing to worry a-about." She turned back to the door, gulped, and tore it open.

In the middle of the room, making those terrible moaning sounds, was the bloody, skinless torso of a girl with a mohawk.

Her moans were quickly overpowered by the combined screams of Ginger, Emily and Sally.

"Sweet Merciful Goddess!" Ginger cried. "W-What is that thing?"

"I-I don't know but it looks like it's in a world of pain!" Emily cried.

"Then we have no choice," Sally whimpered as she reached for the baseball bat next to the door. "We'll have to put it out of its misery." She took a deep breath, yelled "Charge!" and rushed at the screaming creature.

"Sally wait!" Emily cried but her protest fell on deaf ears.

"Die!" Sally shouted as she slammed the bat over the creature's head. "Die! Die! Die!"

"Gr...e...ENOUGH!" The skinless girl shouted as she grabbed the bat from Sally's hands and smashed it against her head. "Cut it out, Sally! Can't you see I'm in enough pain as it is!?"

"Oww..." Sally wobbled a little while rubbing her head. "Wait...that voice...P-Penny?"

"Well it ain't Raggedy Ann!" Penny answered.

"Oh Penny!" Sally scooped up the bloody mess that used to be Penny from the floor and spun around the room, giggling all the while. "I'm so glad you're safe!"

"Let go of me!" Penny demanded. "You're hurting me dammit!"

"Sally! Put her down now!" Ginger demanded.

"Aww!" Sally reluctantly complied and placed the legless mass of flesh and bone back onto the floor. Ginger and Emily slowly approached as the skinless girl continued to regenerate, the stubs of her legs forming underneath her.

"Penny?" Emily asked. "Is that really you?"

"In the flesh." Penny croaked. "Holy shit! You guys would not believe the day I've been having!"

"W-What exactly happened to you?" Ginger asked.

"Well I was walking home, still stuck in my rut when I noticed this cool-looking box on a display window. The shopkeep brings me inside and tell me that it can open gateways to new experiences or some shit like that and since I was desperate for anything exciting, well, I kinda took it.

"A box that opens gateways to new experiences?" Ginger whispered. "Oh no."

"So I take the box home," Penny continued. "And I solve it right? Out of nowhere, these jerks with way too many piercings show up and demand that I taste their pleasures and the next thing I know, I've been ripped apart by hooked chains and am being tormented in Hell! Like actual Hell!"

"Oh shit!" Emily whispered loudly.

"I don't know how long I was there but thanks to you guys, it looks like I'm free." Penny scratched her skinless scalp. "Say, how did you bring me back anyway?"

"Well," Ginger spoke up. "First of all, you didn't come back all the way."

"Huh?" It was then that Penny looked down at herself, only now realizing her state of evisceration. "Oh fuck!" She cursed. "My skin and my clothes are gone!" She looked up at her fully formed friends and suddenly wrapped her arms and legs over herself. "Stop looking!"

The girls complied, looking the other way. "Second of all, if that box you mentioned is what I think it is, you must have been brought back by someone else's blood. But whose?"

Emily gulped, which caught the attention of everyone else in the room. Her face burning as red as Penny's exposed muscle, she sheepishly turned to the punk girl with her hand scratching the back of her head. "Well, I may have...started my period...in your room..."

Dead silence.

"It was an accident! I swear!"

"Great." Penny deadpanned. "So not only did I get brought back halfway but by period blood at that!" Penny slammed her fist against the floor, leaving a bloody print behind. "Man, this sucks!"

"Easy Penny." Ginger warned. "Don't strain yourself. You need to save your strength."

Penny glared at Ginger for a few moments but sighed as she knew she was right. She forced herself to try and relax, at least, as much as she could in her present state.

"Good," Ginger praised. "Now, where's that box you mentioned?"

"I dunno," Penny said wearily as she looked around. "It might be on the floor somewhere,"

"This box...it wouldn't happen to have gold trimming, would it?" Emily asked.

"That's the bitch!" Penny shouted. "Wait, how would you know?"

"I kinda found it on the floor before my period started," Emily confessed. "I think I dropped it...there!" She pointed to Penny's bed where sure enough, the box lay behind a filthy pillow.

"Ooooh! Shiny!" Sally leaped for the box, only for Ginger to somehow beat her to the punch and snatch the box away, causing the scene girl to fall on the bed. "Dawww!"

"You don't wanna do that, Sally," Ginger warned. "Or you'll end up like Penny or worse."

"What are you talking about, Ginger?" Emily asked.

"Yeah! Spill it, Spookylocks!" Penny growled. "Just what the hell is that damn box anyway?"

"Hell is exactly what this box is, Penny!" Ginger explained. "This is the Lament Configuration, an ancient and occult object that's been written about for centuries. It's supposed to open the doorway to new experiences and pleasures beyond imagination."

"Can I hold the box?" Sally asked

"Oh, it gave me a new experience alright!" Penny growled. "The experience of getting my skin ripped off by a bunch of psychos with too many piercings!"

"The Cenobites," Ginger spoke.

"Yeah. That's what they called themselves. Who were those jackasses anyway?"

"The Cenobites are a race of formerly human demons. They exist to test the boundary between pleasure and pain and are unable to tell the difference between the two. To them, pain is pleasure!"

"Sounds like an S&M club," a blushing Emily commented.

"Can I hold the box?" Sally asked again.

"They appear to humans who open the Lament Configuration and drag them off to Hell to experiment on them. Torture them. Cut them. And in time, make them one of their own." Ginger finished as she looked over the box. "I've read countless stories about them but I never imagined they could be real."

"Oh they're real alright! Real dead when I get a hold of them. I just need...err..." As she spoke, the skinless Penny struggled to her feet. It was clear from her ragged breathing and the slight whine in her voice that hurt her to so much as move. "I...just...need..."

"Stop it, Penny!" Ginger scolded. "You're not going anywhere like that and you know it!"

"Yes...I...am!" Penny declared as she was suddenly standing upright. "I did it! I did-" Then she fell face-down, her agony doubled. Her muffled scream could be heard from the floor. Ginger sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose as Emily and Sally helped their mutilated friend up. "Ow! Ow! Ow!" Dammit! This sucks! This sucks!"

"Ginger, is there any way to fix this?" Emily asked. "We can't just leave Penny this way!"

"Can I hold the box?" Sally asked.

"Well, if what I've read is true and so far, that seems to be the case, we have two options. Option number one, we prepare a sealing spell and summon the Cenobites back here. Once they're sealed, we'll have a small window of time to walk into the open portal to Hell, find the rest of Penny, piece her back together, and then make it back to Earth."

"Sounds...risky," Emily said.

"Yeah, not to mention stupid," Penny remarked.

"What's the other option, Ginger?" Sally asked.

"The only other option is to lure some poor saps here one by one, kill them, and have Penny absorb their flesh to restore herself," Ginger said bluntly.

The other three girls remained silent.

"Alright, so I take it we're in agreement about the first option," Ginger spoke.

The other three girls nodded.

"I guess we don't have a choice," Penny added. "But one question, just where the hell are we gonna find an actually working sealing spell?"

"Oh! There's one in my books that should be powerful enough to handle a Cenobite," Ginger beamed. "Although there is an issue there."

"What?" Emily fretfully inquired.

"We'll need three people to work on the spell and a fourth one to bring forth the Cenobites. In other words, we'll need someone to act as bait."

Emily and Sally gulped.

"Well count me out!" Penny shouted. "I'm already skinned out!"

"How are we gonna find someone willing to open a portal to Hell itself?" Emily asked.

"Can I please hold the box!?" Sally pleaded

"Don't worry girls," Ginger reassured her friends. "I have someone in mind."

---

"Sooo...tell me what am I supposed to be doing again?" Pam asked.

Ginger sighed. "For the last time, It's a new challenge going viral of Tik Tok!" She explained. "You're going to solve that puzzle I gave you in under three minutes."

"I knew that," Pam huffed as she turned to face the mount where her phone was hanging, the Lament Configuration in her hands. "I have to say this though, this is a really stupid challenge. Why am I doing this instead of a real challenge like drinking paint or doing a Gorilla Glue face peel?"

"Because this is a new challenge!" Ginger replied. "So new in fact, that no one's ever heard of it! Just think about it, Pam! You'll be the first on the trend! You'll be a star!"

"A star!" Pam sighed dreamily. "But wait, why do I have to do this challenge in your friend's pigsty of a room?" She asked in disgust as she looked all over the messy room.

"T-That's part of the challenge!" Emily butted in. "You have to solve the puzzle in under three minutes in the messiest, dirtiest room possible!"

"Hey!" Penny's muffled voice called from the cooler beside the emo girl, too quiet for Pam to hear.

"Speaking of messy and dirty, where is your gross friend anyway?" Pam asked.

"Oh, she's..uh...taking in her van for service." Sally chimed.

"Can we move this along?" Ginger asked. "Are you going to do the challenge or not?"

"I just have one more question," Pam spoke. "Why are you three losers sitting around that star with that cooler?" She pointed to the girls as they sat around the pentacle of salt that Ginger had made on the floor. There was a lit candle between each of them, one on top of the cooler Emily had next to her for some reason.

"Umm...I-It's a ritual to...uh...imbue us with some of your energy while you do the challenge so that maybe...one day...we can be popular like you!" Ginger's fake smile as she said this looked painful as if her jawline was going to begin bleeding out any second.

Pam glared at the goth girl with suspicion for a few moments before scoffing and saying, "Oh I see. It looks like you losers have finally come to understand just how amazing I am!" With a flick of her hair, Pam turned to the suspended phone, logged into her Tik Tok and began her recording, "Hello, my lovelies! Today, I'm going to be doing the Ugly Puzzle Box Challenge!"

As Pam continued her recording, Ginger spat to her right. "Ugh! That was possibly the worst thing I have ever had to say in my entire life!"

"Well, on the bright side, at least Pam is doing the puzzle now," Emily whispered. "So what's the plan, Ginger?"

"While Little-Miss-Perfect is busy solving the puzzle, we'll impart our energy into this pentacle," the goth girl explained. "By the time, the Cenobites come through, we'll be ready to ensnare them with it and keep them trapped and the gate opened."

"And then we can get Penny's body back!" Sally chirped. "So she won't have to live out her life as a freak in a cooler."

"I heard that!" Penny growled from her plastic container.

"Shh! Let's start!" Ginger closed her eyes and grabbed Emily and Sally's hands. The emo girl blushed but closed her eyes and grabbed onto Sally's as they began to hum. Around this time, Pam had finished her introduction and was starting on the Lament Configuration. As she went about the puzzle, mentally comparing herself to the likes of Einstein and Bill Nye the Science Guy, the three alt friends continued to grant the pentacle their energy, causing it to glow brilliantly just out of view of Pam's camera. Before long, the glowing shape of the Pentacle lifted itself from the salt and hovered over the girls. Even Penny could feel the warmth of the light from her cooler although she would never admit it, skeptic as she was.

Then again, she did have her skin stolen by demons from another dimension.

"Psst...Ginger!" Penny whispered. "How much longer is this gonna take?"

"Patience!" Ginger whispered back. "This is Pam we're talking about after all. It could take hours to-

"Done!" Pam chirped triumphantly as she held the solved puzzle box up to the phone. "That was hardly a challenge!"

"Pam!" Emily spoke up in disbelief. "H-How did you do that so fast!"

"It was nothing really," Pam said as she turned around and whispered. "The secret ingredient is cheating!" She turned back to her phone and swiped out of the walkthrough tutorial tab she had opened since the recording began. "Thanks for watching my lovelies, make sure to follow me and support...my...?"

As Pam spoke, the room began to rumble. The lights flickered off and darkness engulfed the entire room, save for the glowing Pentacle the girls had conjured. Pam's phone stopped recording due to the lost connection to the already spotty Wi-Fi and fell to the floor, cracking the screen a little. Another, much larger crack formed on the wall of the room and as the ground continued to shake, Penny's cooler nearly slid away, only for Emily to grab it in the nick of time. Hooked chains fell from the darkness above, one of them hitting Emily on the head.

"Ow!"

From the shadows of the crack approached the same pinned being that had torn Penny apart just the day before, the heads of his pins glistening in the light of the Pentacle. His black soulless eyes stared down his new prey, specifically, the blonde preppy girl with the Lament Configuration in her hands.

"No way," Ginger whispered. "A-A real-life Cenobite!"

"I've heard of extreme piercings," Emily added. "But that's just ridiculous!"

"If someone were to take one of those pins out, do you think he'd deflate?" Sally asked.

"Ha! I'd like to see that!" Penny shouted from inside the cooler.

"Ah." The pinned man purred. "And so another soul has opened the box, seeking forbidden pleasure no doubt."

"Eww!" Pam shouted in disgust. "Just what the heck are you supposed to be?"

"An explorer of the outer reaches of experience," The cenobite said. "To some, I bring damnation, to others, salvation. I am Pain."

Pam stood silent for a moment before stifling a full-on laughing fit. "Ok, I'm sorry!" She giggled. "But are you for real?" She turned to Ginger and her friends. "Is he for real?"

"Pam, I promise to explain everything later," Ginger said. "But first, back away slowly and get underneath the Pentacle. It's the only safe place!"

Once again, Pam scoffed. "Oh right! First, you ask me to solve some stupid puzzle box because you guys are too stupid to solve it yourselves and now, all of a sudden, some weirdo with too many piercings shows up! I see what's going on here! You jerks are pranking me!"

"This isn't a prank, Pam!" Emily shouted. "Get over here now!"

"You really thought you could get the drop on me, did you? Well unfortunately for you, I'm just too smart for your silly little tricks!"

"But...didn't you go along with everything we said right up to this point?" Sally asked innocently.

"W-W-Whatever! Shut up!" Pam turned back to the Cenobite. "And as for you, Pinhead, I would consider finding a real job that didn't involve wearing a man-dress."

The Cenobite let his mask of composure slip for a moment, gritting his teeth in annoyance. "You dare address me by such an imbecilic title?"

"What? You mean Pinhead?" Pam purposefully repeated. "Well, hey, if the shoe fits."

"What's Pam doing?" Emily asked.

"Buying herself a one-way ticket to everlasting pain." Ginger gulped.

"Aw man!" Penny mumbled from inside her cooler.

"We can't worry about that now girls," Ginger said as she shook her head and held up her hands. "We only get one chance at this. We better make it count."

"Right!" Both Emily and Sally agreed as they held up their hands as well.

"I mean, seriously?" Pam continued. "Who in their right mind would get a piercing, let alone a face full of them? Do you actually walk around in public thinking that's a good look because let me tell you something, Pinhead. You ain't winning any beauty pageants any time soon."

The man Pam had dubbed Pinhead growled. "You will cease referring to me by that insulting designation or suffer the consequences!"

"Consequences?" Pam laughed. "What consequences? Are you gonna spank me with that leather strap of yours or something? Because news flash, Pinhead, only ugly chicks are into that kind of thing!"

(Disclaimer: BloodySimpsonChibi inc does not endorse the opinions of Pamela Seawell when it comes to...well anything really. Like most of the characters in this story, she is an idiot.)

"That's it!" Pinhead barked. "You asked for it!" With his teeth still grinding against each other, he moved his head abruptly, causing one of the hooked chains hanging from the ceiling to suddenly shoot toward the laughing blonde's left arm. The hook ensnared itself into the milky white skin of her wrist and Pam cried out in pain as the chain retracted and forced her arm over her head. "Owww! What the hell!?" She reached for the hook with her other hand, whining as she tried to pull it back through the way it came.

Pinhead jerked his head to the other side, summoning a second chain to ensnare Pam's right wrist and pull it away from her left hand. Pam screamed in agony as the two chains hoisted her up in the air, her legs dangling and kicking helplessly as they were lifted off the ground. Blood trickled from her wounded wrist and down into the inside of her pink shirt, staining the armpits red.

"Oh God!" Emily covered her mouth. "I think I'm gonna be sick."

"Emily, focus on the circle!" Ginger cried.

"Ok, ok." Emily swallowed what wanted to come out and held her hand back up.

Pinhead, on the other hand, was quite amused with the way Pam was struggling with the chains. "Arggh! You jackass! What do you think you're doing?"

"As I've told you," Pinhead said as he rose his hand to his face. "Exploring." He snapped his fingers and summoned a third chain that dug itself down the side of Pam's right leg and into the tender flesh of her ankle. She let out another cry of pain and tears streamed from her eyes. "W-Why..."

"Ah, such exquisite suffering," Pinhead snapped the fingers of his other hand and a fourth chain appeared, digging itself into Pam's left leg. Now there was a chain for each limb as the blonde continued to scream in the air. "Ah no tears please." Pinhead said. "You'll waste all that precious suffering!"

"Go to Hell!" Pam screeched.

Pinhead smiled deviously. "Ladies first." With a final, simple nod, he summoned a fight chain that ensnared the skin of Pam's forehead. He waited a few moments for the girl to finish her latest screaming fit and willed the chain to retract. With a single motion, the chain ripped Pam's skin clean off her body, clothes and hair included. The skinless, screaming girl could only watch helplessly as it all vanished into the darkness.

"Ok. Now I know I'm going to be sick." Emily turned away from her friends and tossed up.

"I...er..." Pam, now in a world of unimaginable agony, quietly expired, her skinless figure still suspended by the chains. Pinhead bellowed in laughter as he watched the girl die.

"Do not fret child. This is only the beginning." He turned toward the three friends hiding under the Pentacle. "Impressive." He mused as he approached them. "To think you could have found such a spell in this day and age. But alas, it will not protect you." He lifted up his hands and prepared to fire more chains at the girls.

"That's alright," Ginger said. "Because this Pentacle isn't meant to be a shield. Now girls!" At the goth's command, all three girls launched the Pentacle over Pinhead. Before the confused cenobite could react, eight pillars of light surrounded him and dug into the ground. Cautiously, he tried to reach out toward the girls through the space between the pillars, only to get burned by the light for his troubles. "It's a seal!" Ginger declared.

Pinhead looked over his blackened fingers for a moment before looking up at Ginger. "Clever girl."

"Come on, guys!" Ginger called. "That seal won't last forever! Let's find Penny's body!"

"Yeah!" Sally chirped as she hoisted the cooler with Penny in it on her back. "Let's go, Penny!"

"Just be careful, ok?" The punk girl asked. "Take it slow."

"Oh relax, Penny." Sally waved her hand. "Do I ever not take it slow?" She proceeded to skip after her friends toward the giant crack in the wall, bouncing up Penny's sentient remains inside the cooler. "Ow! Ow! Ow!"

"I see," Pinhead cooed as he watched the girls vanish into the crack. "This was your plan from the very beginning." He looked disdainfully at the Pentacle floating above him, nearly blinding him with its light. "This spell is pitifully temporary but as long as it is in effect, I cannot escape nor close the door to Hell. He looked back upon Pam's skinless corpse and smiled. With a single nod, he willed the chains to retract, tearing the body to pieces. "But there is still one thing I can do. One wrench to throw into their plans." He chuckled as the chains, now carrying different pieces of Pam, began to change shape.

---

"Guys? Guys!?" Emily called out as she ran through the dark corridor. She had slipped on a puddle of blood and lost track of them as she was getting back up. "Hello? Are you guys he-OOF!" She slammed into a wall and fell on her back. "Ouch! My nose!" The emo girl groaned as she got back up and looked around. "Guys? Where are you?"

"Over here!" Sally's voice called out "Come over here! You got to see this!"

"O-Ok! Coming!" Emily rushed toward the sound of her friend's voice and before long, spotted them standing together with their backs to her. "Oh thank goodness!" Emily chirped. "I found you guys!" She ran to greet her friends, completely unaware of the danger ahead. "I was starting to wor-REEEEEEEAHHH!"

Emily, in trying to catch up to her friends, very nearly fell off the edge of the platform they were standing on into an endless abyss. Only Ginger casually grabbing the scruff of her shirt in the nick of time saved her from a horrible fate. "Watch where you're going." She scolded lightly.

"R-Right." An embarrassed Emily agreed as Ginger pulled her to the side. Wanting to take her mind off of what just happened, Emily turned to Sally, who was looking up at the sky, and asked what she wanted to show her. Rather than reply verbally, Sally grabbed her friend's chin and brought her face up, treating her to the sight of a giant diamond-shaped entity looming in the sky.

"Whoa!" Emily whispered. "W-What is that thing?"

"I don't know, but I think it's a sure sign that we're not in our world anymore."

"It's Leviathan!" Penny shouted from the cooler.

"It's what?" Sally took off the cooler, placed it on the floor, and opened it up. The skinless Penny shot up and gasped for air. It, of course, stung her exposed muscles but she didn't care, she was just glad to be able to breathe again. "What did you say that giant doohickey in the sky was?"

"Leviathan!" Penny repeated. "I overheard those assholes praising it while they were torturing me. I think it's supposed to be God of this place or something."

"Leviathan. Yeah, I read about this thing too." Ginger pulled out a book from somewhere and flipped to the page describing the Leviathan. Only it showed a picture of a giant sea monster. "Damn, but this book was way off!"

"But I don't understand," Emily said. "This is Hell right? I thought there'd be fire and brimstone and a big red guy with horns and a pitchfork. Not an endless maze and a giant diamond in the sky."

"Whoop-die-doo. The Church got something wrong. What a shocker." Penny mumbled sarcastically.

"They'll be time for justified blasphemy later, Penny." Ginger scolded. "For right now, can you remember where the rest of you is?"

"Hmmm." Penny thought for a moment. "I'm not entirely sure but I think it might be right under Leviathan."

"But if that's the case, that means..." Emily trailed off as her eyes scanned the endless labyrinth on both sides of the abyss. There was an entry way to the other side that would be easy enough to cross but this did nothing to soothe Emily's dread of having to navigate the various passages and corridors that were sure to lead to several dead ends.

She wanted to cry.

"I hate mazes." She whined.

"Suck it up, Buttercup!" Penny declared. "Because we're not leaving until we get my skin back!"

"Right," Ginger gestured for the girls to follow her toward the bridge. "Come on girl, let's get going!"

"Yep!" Sally repacked Penny into the cooler, despite the punk girl's protest and set her on her back. "Come on, Emily."

The distraught emo girl watched as her friends headed for the bridge and took one last look at the maz on the other side. "I haven't even stepped inside there yet and my feet are already killing me." She sighed heavily as she followed her friends into oblivion.

---

Hours seemed to pass by as the girls navigated the Labyrinth. Every few minutes seemed to bring a dead end, forcing the girls to backtrack and take another path. They took turns carrying Penny inside the cooler with Emily struggling the most with the load. No matter, how much they walked, how much of the blood-soaked ground they covered, they never seemed to get any closer to Leviathan who continued to hang in the sky, almost as if mocking the girls for their failure.

Eventually, as the girls neared a corner, they were stopped in their tracks by voices approaching.

"Shit! Someone's coming!" Ginger cursed

"What do we do? What do we do!?" Emily panicked.

Sally looked around and noticed a narrow slit inside the wall next to them. "Quick! In here!" She ducked inside.

"I don't know," Emily said. "It looks like a tight squeeze."

Ginger noticed the shadows of the approaching cenobites darken the end of the hall. "Beggers can't be choosers!" Ginger pushed Emily inside the crevice, only to get caught in the opening by the edges of the cooler.

"Hey! What's going on?" Penny shouted from inside.

"Come on! Pull!" Sally demanded as she grabbed Ginger's hand. Emily followed suit and after a few hard yanks, Ginger fell on top of her friends just as the Cenobites entered the hallway. Neither of the two monsters noticed the opening in the wall nor the unmaimed girls squeezed inside as they passed by for they were far too engaged in their conversation. None of Penny's friends could have known it but these two cenobites were with Pinhead when he tore the punk girl apart.

"So I says to Chatterer, I says, Buddy, look! I've been working here for Leviathan knows how long and I still haven't heard any word from Human Resources! When are you going to get on that?" The demonic-looking one said.

"And what did he say?" The angelic cenobite asked.

"What do you think he said? He just gnashed his fucking teeth at me and walked off." The demonic Cenobite sighed. "This place sucks!"

"Ah quit complaining. At least you get to have pants." There was silence for a moment as the two monsters started to turn the corner. "By the way, shouldn't you be cutting up that punk with the mohawk right now?"

"Ah it's fine. I left her pieces back in the red room. They ain't going anywhere. Come on, let's see if Camerahead is finished with that film project of his yet."

The angelic cenobite sighed. "Right. Like anyone is going to pay to watch blood drying on the wall for 12 hours."

"You never know."

Once the two cenobites vanished down the hall, the girls squeezed themselves out of the crevice. "Did you hear that?" Ginger said as she got back to her feet. "That Cenobite said Penny's remains are in a red room!"

"Maybe it's close by," Emily suggested as she got back up. "At least I hope it is."

"Red room...yeah...I think I remember that..." Penny mused from inside the cooler.

"Alright!" Sally cheered. "We're almost the-

"Shhh!" Ginger clamped her hand over Sally's mouth. "Not so loud! Do you want the cenobites to hear us?"

"..."

"And stop licking my hand, Sally." Ginger groaned as she moved her hand away from the scene girl's mouth.

"But your body wash tastes so good," Sally chirped.

"Well, well, well. What do we have here?" A voice cooed from the distance, causing the girls to freeze up.

"That voice...it can't be..." Ginger whispered.

"Isn't she...dead?"

"That voice..." Sally turned to the direction of the voice and waved her hand. "Hi Pam!"

"Sally!" All three of her friends shouted.

"Who is Pam?" From the edge of the hallway emerged a new cenobite. She was clad only in a single shoulderless leotard, the hemline stapled to the top of her chest all the way around. There was a buzzsaw stuck inside the top of her head, almost like a mohawk. She had two more buzzsaws replacing her hands and two more at the bottom of her feet. "I am Buzzsaw."

"Pam...What happened to you?" Emily asked.

"She must have been turned into a Cenobite!" Ginger explained. "But that could only happen if...if...oh no!"

"What is it, Ginger?" Emily fretfully inquired. "What's wrong?"

"If Pam's a cenobite now, then that means that guy who we left back in Penny's room is...is..."

"The Hell Priest," Buzzsaw finished for the goth. "The leader of the Order of the Gash and one of Leviathan's favorite disciples. It is he who waits for you at the other side," Buzzsaw held up the namesakes standing in for her hands and willed them to life. "Not that you'll be allowed to make it there."

"Run for it!" With no other options, the girls bolted down the other end of the hallway and turned the corner with Buzzsaw right on their heels. It didn't help that the saws on her feet allowed her to glide like a skater through the hall. Once she got close enough to the girls, she began to swipe at them with her hand blades, relishing in the pain and fear she was causing them.

"Gah!" Emily cried as one of the saws cut her back. Some of her blood landed on Buzzsaw's face and she licked it away with a seductive purr.

"What are we gonna do, Ginger?" Sally screamed as she felt some of her hair cut by the saws. "She's gaining on us!"

"I don't know!" Ginger screamed as she felt the saws slice at the cooler. "Let me think!"

"Hey! Knock that off!" Penny demanded as the spinning blades scraped against the cooler. "Don't make me come out there!"

"Wait! Look!" Ginger pointed to another opening next to them a gateway into another corridor of rooms. "Maybe we can lose her in there!"

"Good thinking!" Emily agreed. The three friends rushed through the gateway. They were so preoccupied in creating as much space between them and the cenobite formerly known as Pam that they didn't notice her stopping just in front of the gateway. "Drat! Seems they found their destination," She mused as she looked up to the massive stature of Leviathan as it loomed directly over the corridor.

The Corridor of Lost Souls.

Buzzsaw chuckled to herself. "It does not matter. They'll never escape their personal Hells and even if they do," She lifted one of her saw hands and spun it around. "I'll be waiting for them on the outside."

---

Had the girls not been so focused on escaping the newly-made Cenobite, they might have thought better than to separate upon encountering a three-way split of the corridor. But at that moment, they all wanted to get away from the threat as fast as possible. There simply wasn't any real room for rational thought. And so, despite not a single word behind exchanged between them, the girls went their separate ways with Ginger taking the middle path.

She continued to run even as the roof overhead grew thicker and the light vanished. Eventually, she was forced to stop due to simple exhaustion. She leaned against what she hoped was the wall and allowed her breath to catch up.

"Hey, you alright?" Penny asked.

"Yeah. I just need to rest a little is all." Ginger panted. "Do you think we lost her?"

"You mean Little Miss Bitchsaw? I don't hear any saws spinning after us if that's what you're asking."

"Good," Ginger breathed. "Let's just hope the others lose her as well." As Ginger leaned her head against the wall, she thought she could here the faintest sound of voices coming from up ahead. She winced then relaxed again when she realized they weren't coming any closer. But at the same time, despite how muted they were, Ginger could still tell that the voices were angry about something. "Penny? Do you hear that?"

"Hear what?" The girl in the cooler asked.

"Those...voices..." Ginger slowly walked ahead, keeping her hands against the wall. As she neared the angry shouting voices, she thought she could see a flicker of light hiding behind a corner. She stopped, her instincts screaming at her to turn and run, but curiosity got the better of the goth girl and she turned the corner into the light. It blinded her at first, forcing her to shield her eyes. Eventually, she was able to get used to the exposure and regain her new bearings...

...only to regret doing so.

She was standing in the middle of Oakwood, the town square some might call it. It was broad daylight and in the middle of the normally busy street stood three wooden pillars. Tied to these pillars by rope were three women, two elderly, and one around Ginger's age. They looked around the crowd surrounding them with fear in their eyes and for good reason. Plenty of these people carried flaming torches and one of them was approaching the women.

"Please!" The youngest one cried. "Have mercy!"

"Mercy? Mercy!?" The man shouted. "We are showing mercy! Does the Good Book not say thou shall not suffer a witch to live? And now that the government has legalized witch hunts, that's exactly what we'll do!" The crowd behind the man cheered in agreement.

"How can you call it a Good Book if it says things like that?" The girl asked.

The man remained silent for a moment, trying to come up with a rebuttal and could find none. "Why don't you ask God himself, in Hell!" He lit the ropes on fire with his torch.

"That doesn't make any sense!" The girl declared as the flames engulfed her. The crowd roared with sadistic approval as the man lit the other two accused witches aflame, all while Ginger stared in horror.

"Witch hunts...burning...oh Goddess...It...It's like something out of a nightmare." She backed away slowly, only to hit the back of a car whose alarm sprung to life, alerting the bloodthirsty mob of her arrival.

"That girl over there!" One of the women in the crowd shouted. "Those clothes...that hair...she must be a witch too!"

"Get her!" The crowd roared as they ran after her.

"Shit!" Ginger quickly scrambled to her feet and made a run for it. As she ran down the street, more people poured out of their homes and workplaces with torches and pitchforks in hand. "What the fuck's going on? Has the whole world gone mad!?"

"Ginger!" Penny called out.

The goth girl ignored her friend and ducked into the park. As she ran down the path, she was greeted with several more pillars, all scorched with the charred remains of the witches that burned with them. Ginger felt her eyes tear up as she left the park, only to bump into another smaller mob of fellow teenagers. "Witch!" One of them cried.

"This isn't happening!" Ginger ran downtown, her feet feeling heavier and heavier with each step she took. Finally, when she could take no more, she ducked into a dark alleyway and hid behind a dumpster. The teenage mob ran past the alley, for which she thanked the Goddess. Her heart was racing and sweat covered every inch of bare skin she had. "W-What's going on!?"

"Ginger."

"What the hell happened while we were gone?"

"Ginger."

"Oh God! What are they gonna do to me?"

"Ginger!" Penny shouted.

"Eek!" Ginger covered her mouth, looked around to make sure no one heard the voice from the cooler and then scolded it. "Penny! Keep it down! Do you want to be burned alive!"

"Relax!" Penny replied. "Listen, I think I know what happened?"

"You mean why everyone is suddenly acting like its the 1600s again?" Ginger asked.

"This isn't real. Ginger, don't you see what's going on? You stumbled into your personal Hell!"

"My personal Hell?"

"Yep. Those Cenobite bastards put me through it too before they cut me to pieces. Although, mine was less The Crucible and more The Handmaid's Tale."

"Ouch. That must have sucked for you,"

"Tell me about it."

Ginger calmed herself down a little. "I see. So what you're saying is that this is the psychological section of Hell, meant to break down the victim's spirit before they get to the cutting."

"Pretty much," Penny confirmed.

"Well, do you know a way out?" Ginger asked.

"Not completely," Penny confessed. "But if we listen for the voices of the others, we can escape into their Hell."

"Their Hell?" Ginger gulped. The idea of escaping into another plane of punishment didn't exactly thrill her. As she overheard the angry voices of the mob and peeked out of the alleyway to find them burning a life-size doll of her at the end of the street, she knew she had no choice. "Alright. Let's do it!"

"Cool!" The two girls closed their eyes and mentally tuned out the voice of the mob, listening for either of their missing friends. Eventually, they discovered a new voice among the crowd, not angry and bloodthirsty but sorrowful and afraid.

The voice of their friend, Emily Fisher.

"It's Emily!" Ginger whispered.

"Well what are we waiting for? Christmas? Let's follow that whining!"

Ginger placed Penny on her back again and followed the sound of Emily's voice, despite knowing full well she was being led to a brick wall that served as the dead end of this alleyway. When she didn't smack into it after a while, Ginger opened her eyes and found herself not in town square surrounded by an angry mob of amateur witch hunters but in the bustling hallways of her high school. Students were walking off in all directions, chatting with each other and completely ignoring the goth girl with the cooler on her back. Once she snapped to her senses and remembered what she had come to do, she called for her friend.

"Emily! Emily! Where are you?" Ginger walked through the halls, trying her best to ignore the rather rude shoves she was getting as the other students passed her by. One boy even pushed her hard enough to knock the cooler off her back. "Hey!"

"Ow! What was that!? Ow!" Penny shouted as more feet kicked the cooler away.

"Shit!" Ginger was the one now shoving everyone in sight as she raced toward the cooler. She managed to grab the handle just before Penny could be lost in the hallway and breathed a sigh of relief as she held her close. "You ok, Penny?"

"I'm fine." The punk girl confirmed. "A little dizzy."

Ginger chuckled at her friend's response, only to stop as she heard the sound of Emily's voice again. It was much closer now and the despair in it was impossible to ignore. "Penny, do you hear that?"

"Yeah, I think we have arrived at our destination," Penny said grimly. Ginger fixed the cooler to her back again and wandered the hallways toward the voice. Once again, she was shoved relentlessly by the other students but simply kept a tighter grip on her cooler. As she neared the middle of the hallway, she finally spotted Emily, who with her transparent body, quite literally looked like a ghost.

"Can anyone hear me? Anybody!?" She cried, tears falling from her single good eye. "Please! I'm right here! Say something! Anything! I'm here!" She reached for a few of the students as she pleaded, trying to grab them. Her see-through hands simply passed through them with none of them being the wiser to Emily or her suffering. Her lips trembled and she buried her hands in her face.

"Solitude," Ginger whispered while shaking her head. "These bastards really know what hurts the most."

"I'm so kicking that Pinhead guy in the balls when we get out of here."

"Someone! Anyone! Please!" Emily wept. "Someone hear me."

Ginger walked up to the crying emo and wrapped her arms around her, causing her to squeak in surprise. "I hear you."

"G-Ginger!?" The blushing emo turned to face her friends, her quivering lips forming a smile as she looked into the goth's eyes. "Ginger! It is you!" Emily returned the hug tightly, her tears now being shed for joy rather than sadness. "Thank goodness you can see me! I thought I had died!"

"You're not dead," Ginger said. "Just in Hell."

"Hell?" Emily sniffled "Hell is right! Normally, I like a little peace and quiet but being completely invisible to the world, I think that really could be my Hell."

"It is your Hell, moron," Penny shouted. "And now we have to find Sally's and then a way out."

"Sally?" Emily wiped her tears away. "How are we gonna find her?"

Ginger brought a finger to her lips and hushed Emily. "Just listen for her voice," She closed her eyes and waited and Emily followed suit. After a few seconds, they were able to hear the sound of unbridled sobbing in the distance. It sounded like it was coming from the classroom at the end of the hall. "There she is!"

"Don't worry Sally! We're coming to save you!" The girls ran down the hall, rudely shoving anyone who had the misfortune to get in the way. They huddled together once they were in front of the door and Emily hid behind the cooler, clearly wanting Ginger to open it. Ginger sighed and grabbed the knob. "Brace yourselves, girls. There's no telling what unspeakable horrors we'll find behind this door."

Emily gulped.

"Alrighty. Here goes nothing," Ginger turned the handle and pushed the door open. A small gust of wind hit her face, causing her to panic. Once it was gone, she approached the door and peeked inside.

It was Oakwood Park again, this time devoid of any smoking blackened pillars with witch skeletons attached to them. In fact, it was devoid of all color. The sky overhead was grey. The grass and trees looked as if they had been bleached white and sitting on a colorless bench all alone and crying was Sally, her colorful arm warmers now nothing but shades of white, black, and grey.

"Oh my God!" Emily shouted. "It looks just like an old movie!"

"Yeah, like Dracula." Ginger agreed as she walked up toward Sally. She paid no mind as what little color she had on her person melted off her body and sank into the ground like rainwater. Emily, on the other hand, couldn't help but feel unnerved as she watched the violet stripes from her armbands and the black and blue of her hair drip off her like paint. "I've got a bad feeling about this place."

"What's going on?" Penny asked. "Why do I feel like I'm leaking?" The red of both the cooler and the muscle that made up Penny dripped through a crack at the bottom of the cooler.

"S-Sally?" Ginger spoke as she approached the crying scene girl. "Sally?"

"There's no hope in the world!" Sally shouted through her sobbing. "There's no life! No love! Just the impatient wait for death and cold."

"Wow!" Penny muttered. "And I thought you were emo, Emily."

"Hey!" Emily whined.

"There's no color. No light. Just darkness, darkness, and more darkness!"

As Sally cried, Ginger walked up to her, gently grabbed her wrist, and pulled them away. Only now did she get the scene girl's attention. "Maybe that's true," She said as she wiped her friend's tears. "But sometimes, there can be beauty in the darkness."

"G...G...Ginger?" Sally smiled. "Ginger!" The scene girl pounced on her friend, giving her only the chance to say "Oh shit!" as they both fell to the ground. Penny's cooler was once again knocked off and hit the ground with a thud. Ow! Sally! You're gonna pay for that!"

"Penny!" Sally giggled uncontrollably as she grabbed the cooler and cuddled it aggressively. All the while, Penny protested as she was shaken inside the box.

Emily, unnerved by the whole affair despite being glad that her friend was ok, tried to sneak away. Sally noticed her right away and grabbed her ankle, knocking her down. "Emily!" She shouted as she pulled her friend in for a hug, the poor emo girl digging fruitlessly into the bleached grass as she was pulled. Sally wrapped all three of her friends into a tight and (thanks to the cooler) painful hug. "Guys! I never thought I'd see you again!"

"It..It's good to see you too..." Emily croaked.

"What are you doing here?" Sally asked. "I thought I was the only one to escape Hell!"

"We didn't escape Hell, you dolt!" Penny shouted. "We're still in it. Specifically yours!"

"Mine!?" Sally exclaimed.

"Yes," Ginger replied. "This is your personal Hell, Sally. We all found ours in those corridors. Now we just need a way to escape."

"Why?" Sally asked as she hugged her friends. "It was Hell when I thought I had lost you guys. But now that you're here! It can't be." Sally was so preoccupied with hugging her friends that she failed to notice the cracks forming in the air around her. "It doesn't matter if we're in a blazing inferno or a barren frozen wasteland! As long as I have you guys, there's not a single place that can be Hell for me!"

The area around the girls suddenly shattered, revealing a giant room with more hooked chains dangling from a nonexistent ceiling. Leviathan hung directly over the girls and let out a low moan as if complaining about their escape from their personal Hells. As the shards of Sally's monotone Hell faded away, the color slowly spread back to the girl's hair and clothes like wine stains soaking in satin. Upon realizing what had just transpired, the girls cheered wildly.

"Sally! You broke out of your own Hell! We're all free!"

"Way to go, Sally!" Ginger complimented. "You sure showed those Cenobites a thing or two about the human spirit, right Penny...Penny?"

"I don't believe it," Penny sighed. "Saved by the power of friendship. Someone fucking kill me."

The other three girls shared a laugh over Penny's chargin. As she was laughing, Emily's eyes fell upon something hanging from one of the hooked chains dangling in the room, something with a leather jacket and red mohawk, "Wait a minute," She said. "Is that..."

"Penny's skin!" Sally beamed. "We found it!"

"Did you hear that, Penny!" Ginger knocked on the cooler. "We found your skin!"

"No fooling?" Penny tried to get out of the cooler but couldn't get the dented lid off. Sally and Emily had to pry it off themselves and help their skinless friend out of the cooler. She struggled to stand and leaned on Emily, staining her black shirt with her blood. "Sorry about that,"

"It's fine," Emily pulled Penny's arm over her shoulder and Sally followed suit. Together, the two girls brought Penny to the chain as Ginger carefully removed the skin from the hook. Carefully, they laid Penny out on the floor, grabbed the skin, and held it over her.

"Alright, guys. This is a very complex surgery and the most medical training any of us have ever had was watching half that episode of Grey's Anatomy. But if we take this nice and slow, we should be able to pull it off."

"Right!" Sally and Emily shouted in agreement.

"Can we speed this along? I think my fluids are leaking," Penny said as a puddle of blood formed around her.

With a sharp nod, the girls draped the skin over Penny and worked together to fix it in place. The process only took about five minutes but to them, it seemed like hours had passed before the last bits of skin were safely fitted over Penny's body. "Whew!" Ginger wiped her brow which only served to redden it with blood even more. "Well that wasn't easy but I have to say, I think we did a pretty good job!"

"Um, guys?" Emily said.

"Yep! Not to mention it was kinda fun!" Sally beamed. "We should do this more often!"

"Guys?"

Ginger chuckled nervously. "I don't think that's gonna be possible," She said.

"Guys!"

"What?" Ginger and Sally asked in unison. Emily, a little annoyed with their refusal to hear her, simply pointed to Penny. Specifically, she pointed to the back of Penny's head which was currently pulled over her screaming face, creating quite the mental imagery for the girls.

"Ahhhh! Oh shit!" Ginger shouted.

"Whoops!" Sally said with a sheepish smile. It took another five minutes for the girls to pull the skin off and drape it back on the correct way but when they did, their friend was whole again...

...and the first thing she did was leap onto Sally and start bashing her head against the floor. "Whoops!? You freaking put my skin on backward and all you can think to say is "Whoops!?"

"Good (ow) to have (ow) you back Penny!" Sally said between head bashes.

"Penny's that's enough! Ginger chided. "It was just an honest mistake!"

"Yeah. I guess you're right." Penny let go of Sally and got back up.

"So, how do you feel?" Emily asked.

"Okay, I guess," Penny said as she looked at her forearm and waved it around a bit, wincing as the sensation of loose skin rubbing against her spread throughout her arm."I spent so long in that cooler that I think it'll take me a while to get used to having skin again."

"I'm sure it'll be fine once it adheres to your body," Ginger assured. "Now to find a way out of here."

"Actually," Emily interjected. "I think we've got one more problem to deal with."

As if to back up Emily's statement, the sound of a buzzsaw could be heard in the distance.

"Shit!" Ginger smacked her forehead. "I completely forgot about her."

"I don't think she's gonna let us just walk out of here either," Sally gulped. "What are we gonna do?"

"Oh man!" Penny whined while gripping her stomach. Much to the other girl's horror and disgust, the punk girl casually pulled out some of her intestines from an opening in her stomach. "My body's more separable than a Lego playset!"

"Cool!" Sally got over her initial disgust and started poking Penny's exposed guts, only to get slapped with them,

"Knock it off!"

"That's it!" Ginger shouted. "I know how we can get rid of Buzzsaw." She gave Penny a rather disconcerting yet smug look. "But it's going to take some guts."

"You just had to say that, didn't you?" Penny muttered.

---

Buzzsaw was fairly confident that her quarry would never escape their personal Hells. Nonetheless, she figured it would be best to wait a while just in case one of them did somehow escape. Then, she could cut them into tiny little pieces for the Hell Priest and his congregation to fit back together as they saw fit. Just the thought of that alone was enough to make the newly-formed Cenobite giggle with delight. "Master will be so pleased once he hears what I have to report." She said to herself. "To think of the countless hours I wasted performing trivial challenges for miscreants on social media when the real action, the real pleasure was here all along!" Buzzsaw cackled. "I can't wait to point the Master to my former friends and-

"Hey, Buzzcut!" A familiar voice stole the cenobite's attention. She looked ahead to see two of her quarry, Sally and Emily, dancing about and taunting her. The scene girl was even tapping her butt as she shook it at the cenobite. "Hit the target!"

"Wha! H-How did you imbeciles escape!" Buzzsaw growled as she shook her head. "It doesn't matter! I'll personally rend your flesh myself!" She raced toward the two girls who took off at the first sign of movement. Of course, she was much faster than them and it didn't take too long for her to get close enough to start slashing at their backs to and fro.

"Ow!" Emily cried. "I (OW!) hope this plan (OW!) works!"

"Yeah, me (OUCH!) too!"

"Just what are you two babbling about!?" Buzzsaw angrily inquired.

"Look! I see them!" Emily pointed ahead to two conveniently placed hooked chains. "Ready!"

"Always!" Sally beamed.

"Alright! On the count of three! One...Two...Three!" Both the emo and the scene girl leaped onto the chains and swung forehead, heading into the air with cheers from Sally and screams from Emily. Buzzsaw's focus was on the two girls and their seemingly infantile escape plan. Just how did they expect to get away from her like that? It wasn't until she was preparing to race back that she realized two things.

The first was that she was heading straight for the edge of the Labyrinth, beyond which lay an endless abyss. The second was right on the edge of this abyss stood Ginger and Penny with the latter's intestine pulled between them.

"No! You tricked me!" Buzzsaw tried to stop herself but her momentum was too great. She tripped over the intestine and fell into the blackest void, never to return. "Master!" She cried as her form grew smaller and smaller, the crying growing fainter and fainter and, then, both were gone.

"See you next fall, Bitchsaw!" Penny called out after her.

"Really?" Ginger asked with a raised eyebrow. "See you next fall?"

"Oh Like you have any right to talk, little miss "It's gonna take some guts!"

"Toche!" Ginger conceded with a point as she let go of Penny's guts.

"I just hope that Cenobite's leg didn't bruise my guts. I like eating." The punk girl muttered as she stuffed her intestines back into herself the best she could.

Ginger smiled and walked back to where Emily and Sally swung. "Alright, guys! You can get down now!"

"All right!" Emily carefully slid down the chain and jumped off right before she hit the hook at the bottom. Sally, on the other hand,, slid right down like a firefighter on a pole and yelped as the hook dug into her right buttcheek.

"Sally!" Emily screamed. "Are you ok?"

Sally nodded although the single tear from beneath her bangs stated otherwise. She heaved herself off the hook and landed on her stomach. Emily helped her up, trying her best to ignore the blood leaking from her friend's backside. She told herself it would stop soon.

"Okay, now that Bitchsaw is out of the way, let's go home." Penny suggested.

"Yeah!" The others shouted in agreement and thus began their long and confusing walk home.

---

"Well that was a long and confusing walk home but it's almost over." Emily commented as they walked down the hallway from where they had begun their journey. How they were able to find it amongst the countless hallways within the Labyrinth is a story for another time but the point is, the girls were on their way home and it seemed as if everything was finally looking up. Penny's body more or less fully constituted itself back to normal and Sally's butt-wound had stopped bleeding, although she was still whining from the pain. Emily was ecstatic about leaving this hellish dimension behind but as they approached the darkness that marked the end of their journey, she noticed Ginger looked rather...unnerved. "Ginger? She asked. "Is something wrong?"

"I don't know," the goth girl replied. "It's just, in all the excitement with the personal Hells and Buzzsaw, I can't help but feel like we had forgotten something super important."

"Well, we're almost home so maybe that will refresh your memory!" Emily suggested.

"Yeah, I hope you're right."

The girls thread through the darkness and into Penny's room...

...where a still sealed Pinhead was waiting to greet them.

"Oh, right!" Ginger cursed under her breath. "Him!"

"Well, well, well." The Hell Priest cooed."It would seem time is up," Just then, the Pentacle over his head broke into pieces, releasing him from his prison. "For the both of us."

"This is bad!" Ginger said. "The Hell Priest is supposed to be the strongest Cenobite there is! A general of Hell's army!"

"I don't care if he's freaking Goku!" Penny shouted. "This jackass put me through the wringer and now it's time for some payback!" Penny ran screaming toward the Cenobite.

"Penny no!" Sally cried.

"Take this!" Penny slammed her foot into Pinhead's crotch, causing the Cenobite to lean back. He held himself and bent down as Penny took her foot away, his head bowed.

"Had enough?" Penny smiled.

This smile faltered as Pinhead raised his head, showing a sadistic smile on his own face. "Such a limited imagination you have." He got back up and dusted himself off as if nothing had happened. "What you know of as pain is but a shadow. Here, I'll show you." Without warning, Pinhead backhanded Penny into the wall. Her friends cried out as they watched her slide down. A single picture hanging on the wall fell down and smashed against her head.

Pinhead burst into evil laughter. "Do you really think you have a chance against the forces of Hell itself? What silly little children! You judge yourselves too highly yet you fear what you do not understand. What we offer is not death but life everlasting, an experience beyond worldly pleasure and pain. Your friend was able to see this for herself when I converted her."

"You bastard!" Emily shouted. "You turned Pam into a monster!"

"I relieved her of her human limitations." Pinhead corrected. "And she was quite thankful when all was said and done, trust me." He spread his arms out and several hooked chains fell from the unseen ceiling. "Perhaps once you have been converted, you will understand."

"The hell we will!" Penny snapped as she picked herself back up. Ginger tried to help her up but she forced her away.

"Holy Hell! He's gonna turn us all into Cenobites!" Emily whispered.

"What are we gonna do!?" Sally cried.

"My old man keeps a gun in the fireplace," Penny stated.

"Do you really think a gun's gonna work on someone like him?" Ginger asked.

"No but I'm willing to try anything at this point." Penny noticed a trickle of blood running down her lip and wiped it off. "Besides, even if I have to die, I'd rather go down fighting." She turned to Penny. "Wouldn't you?"

Ginger smiled. "That's our Penny!"

"Playtime is over!" Pinhead roared as he prepared to launch the chains at the girls.

"Uh oh!" Emily gulped.

"Everyone get ready to dodge!" Ginger warned.

As Pinhead fired his chains, the girls moved to and fro to escape them. Penny ducked and jumped over every chain launched at her, only getting hit with a single hook that grazed her cheek. "Not gonna let you tear me apart this time, asshole!"

Emily dodged the chains as well, throwing herself to the floor as they sped toward her. "Oh God! Oh God! Oh God!" Emily screamed as a single chain headed right for her face. She looked around for anything that she could use to defend herself, spotted a skateboard underneath Penny's bed, and held that before her, screaming as the chain smashed through it.

"Aww! My board! I was gonna ride that someday probably.!" Penny complained.

"Sorry!"

Ginger didn't fare much better. She was able to dodge most of the chains and make it halfway to the room. One of them headed for her and she twisted in an angle to escape it. It didn't snag any flesh but did rip into her shirt. Before she realized what had happened, the chain snapped back, ripping her shirt off and leaving her in a black bra. "Oh Fuck me!"

Emily, dripping with sweat and face all red, could only think of one thing to say. "Awesome."

Sally only had a single approach to dodging the chains which was to crawl like a worm on the ground as they flew overhead. This plan might have worked too if she hadn't accidentally bumped into Pinhead's ankle. The Cenobite stared her down with the glare of a million generals and Sally could only laugh nervously as fear consumed her. "Um, How's the weather up there?"

"Crawling like a worm," Pinhead stated. "How fitting." He turned to see Ginger making a break for it focused his mind on the doorway. A small explosion occurred, sending the goth girl knocking into her emo friend. As the dust settled, all could see the gaping opening that the doorway had become.

"My door!" Penny growled and reached for her bat. "Alright, asshole! You've trashed my room for the last time!" With a feral yell, Penny rushed at the Cenobite, intending to knock as many of those pins out of his head as she could. With a smirk, he suddenly vanished out of the way just as Penny swung her bat. She hit Sally over the head instead and tripped over one of the outstretched chains. She hit the floor with a thud and the bat flew from her hand. Pinhead rematerialized in front of them, a cocky smile on his face.

"You...cheating bastard." Penny groaned.

"All's fair in Hell and War," Pinhead replied as ears picked up footsteps. He turned toward the former doorway again, this time spotting Emily leading a somewhat dazed Ginger through it. She froze like a deer in headlights as her eyes met the cenobite's. "Oh no."

Pinhead prepared to create another explosion, this time using the young emo as a base. He was too focused to notice Sally get up and reach into her pocket. "Prepare for my ultimate attack! Pocket sand! Sha-Sha!" She threw a handful of sand into the Cenobite's face. He shouted and backed up as he fought to dislodge the grit in his eyes, something hard to do for one with nails driven into his head. Sally took Penny's hand and led her to the doorway, Ginger and Emily already on their way to the fireplace.

"Why were you carrying sand in your pocket?" Penny asked.

"I watched King of the Hill last night and it inspired me."

Ginger and Emily made it into the living room, the former starting to regain her bearings.

"Alright, where's the fireplace?" She asked.

"I don't know. It's got to be around here somewhere." Emily responded as she looked around frantically, trying to ignore the fact that her crush was now clad in a bra. "Wait! There it is!" She pointed to a small fireplace in the back of the room.

"Let's go!" Ginger and Emily rushed to the fireplace at once. The goth girl entered the chimney while Emily looked through the small jars and boxes on top.

"I found the gun!" Ginger popped her head back up with the empty pistol, her face and shoulders covered in soot.

"I found the bullets!" Emily beamed as she emptied the rounds into her hands, five in all. "But wait, isn't a fireplace a horrible, horrible place to keep a gun and bullets?"

"We can worry about not following gun safety protocol later." Ginger snatched the bullets and filled the chambers. "Right now we have a Hell Priest to blast."

Guys!" Did you find the gun?" Sally asked as she and Penny made it to the room.

"Yep!" Ginger said as she wiped the soot off of her face.

"Good! Because Pinhead's right behind us," Sally chirped, just as the angry cenobite grabbed her and Penny by the back of their heads and rammed them together.

"Don't call me that name!" Pinhead roared as he launched the daze girls across the room. They hit the wall and tumbled down to the couch waiting below. Pinhead stomped toward them, only for Ginger to jump in between them and aim her gun. "Don't come any closer! I'm warning you!"

The Hell Priest stopped momentarily before continuing his march. Ginger pulled the trigger and fired a round straight into one of the exposed wounds on his chest. It bled but he did not seem to even register that he'd been shot. She fired again, this time hitting him in the stomach. Once again, blood was drawn but he continued to approach. Starting to get scared, Ginger fired the remaining three shots, one hitting his neck, one blasting off the top of one of his nails and one missing entirely and digging itself into the wall behind him. She pulled the trigger several more times but only got empty clicks for her troubles.

"Dammit!" Ginger cursed as he pulled the gun away from her and tossed it aside. "I knew it wouldn't work!"

"No ammunition from your world, from the oldest bullet to the newest laser can harm me," Pinhead said as he grabbed Ginger by the throat and held her up, choking the life out of her. "Now your real suffering begins!"

"Ginger!" Sally cried.

Before the strangulation could go on any longer, however, Emily broke a vase over Pinhead's...well, head. The Cenobite released the goth girl in surprise and Emily grabbed her shoulder. "Come on, guys! We have to run! Now!" All mentally agreeing with her, Sally, Penny, and Ginger followed their emo friend out of the house as Pinhead groaned.

Once they were outside, the four girls bolted down the sidewalk, hastily and frantically trying to plan their next move.

"Alright, so the gun didn't work," Penny growled. "How are we supposed to beat this damn guy!?"

"Maybe we can't beat him," Ginger said. "Let's face the facts. This guy's way too strong for us. All we can do now is run!"

"Bullshit! Penny Hoffman doesn't run from anyone!"

"Then what do you call what we're doing now, jackass?"

Penny blushed a little, her angry scowl still on her face. "Shut up!"

"Look, let's just find somewhere safe and come up with a plan," Emily suggested. "Maybe we can find a spell to banish him or something?"

"A spell? Really?" Penny asked.

"Hey! The sealing spell worked didn't it?"

Penny scowled at being corrected for the second time as Ginger offered a smug smile. "I repeat, shut up!"

"Umm...guys? Is it just me or does that mailbox look familiar?" Sally asked

"Huh? What are you talking about, Sally?" Penny asked.

The scene girl pointed to a grey mailbox with red trimming. "I mean I'm sure we already passed that mailbox," She said as they apparently passed it again.

"You're just seeing things," Penny replied.

"No really! I'm sure it's the same one!"

"You probably saw another mailbox and thought that one looked like it," Emily offered.

"But...I'm sure we passed it..."

"Sally, now's not the time for a mental breakdown," Ginger scolded. "I'm sure that you a mailbox that looked like that one but I assure you it was-

They passed by the grey mailbox with red trimming again.

not...the...same...one..." As Ginger's sentence slowed down, so too did her and her friend's feet. Both stopped at the same time as well. "Holy shit that was the same mailbox!"

"Told ya!" Sally stuck her tongue out.

"But how can that be?" asked Emily. "Have we been running in circles all this time?"

"How can we run circles in a neighborhood we know like the back of our hands!?" Penny snapped.

"Unless," Sally suddenly started shaking. "What if...the reason we kept passing that same mailbox was...BECAUSE WE'VE BEEN IN A CARTOON THIS ENTIRE TIME!" She screamed in existential horror.

"Or maybe...this is a trap!" Ginger shouted.

As if to confirm her theory, the world around the girls began to waver and deteriorate. The sky darkened. The grass withered and died. The houses and mailbox fell apart and the sidewalk underneath the girl's feet cracked and crumbled. Before long, the girls found themselves back in Penny's living room with a laughing Cenobite waiting for them. "Back so soon?"

"No way...it was an illusion?" Emily whispered.

"I should have known it wouldn't be that easy to escape a Hell Priest," Ginger muttered.

"You speak as if there was any hope for you to escape," Pinhead spoke as he approached the girls. They backed up in fear, all eyes trained on the Hell Priest before them. "The second your friend opened the box, she belonged to us, flesh and soul. And the second you tried to intervene, you offered yourselves as additional tributes."

"W-What are you gonna do to us?" Sally whimpered. "K-K-Kill us?"

Pinhead shook his head. "No. What use would there be in that?" He snapped his fingers and several hooked chains appeared out of nowhere to ensnare the girls. They struggled with their new bonds while Pinhead held out his hand and conjured a sword-like surgical blade. "No. What I will do is rend your flesh, tear your souls apart, and piece them back together as I see fit. You will be subjected to pains far beyond what your mortal mind can comprehend but when it is all over, eons down the line, you will wonder how you ever lived without the pain."

"Fuck you!" Ginger snapped.

"Safe your breath for when the rending begins. You'll need it to scream," Pinhead taunted. Just as he was about to command the chains to do what they do best, however, he realized that he was short one victim. "Where is the one who opened the box?" He muttered to himself.

"Right here!"

Pinhead zipped around only to be greeted by a hammer for his troubles. The stony head of the tool smashed into the pin just above his nose, driving it right through his skull. This, of course, was not enough to kill the Cenobite but it was enough to cause him to scream out in agony as he held his bloody face and fell to his knees, dropping his new weapon.

"What's wrong?" Penny taunted as she held her father's lucky hammer up. "I thought you liked pain!"

"Uggh!" Pinhead moved his hands from his face and glared at the girl looming over him. "You treacherous louse! You snuck off while your friends were ensnared,"

"Sorry, but I'm not one to listen to the bad guy's stupid monologue." Penny slammed the hammer onto another one of Pinhead's pins, causing it to pierce his brain. "And it's not like I was gonna just let you turn my friends into one of your Cenobitches!"

"And..." Pinhead paused to turn his head and spit out some blood, his head throbbing far too much for him to speak. "And just how do you intend to stop me? With a simple hammer?"

"Hey, what can I say?" Penny shrugged. "When you've got a hammer, everyone starts to look like a nail." With this, Penny began violently hammering down Pinhead's namesakes, driving more and more sharp points into his skull. Being a cenobite, Pinhead was captured in the undiluted ecstacies of pain and pleasure in equal measure, all while his cognitive thought slipped away due to the damage to his brain. As the assault on the Hell Priest continued, Ginger held her breath and ripped her arm free from one of the chains binding her. It hurt like hell and left a strip of flesh behind but now with a free hand, she was able to easily unhook the other arm and then her other body parts. Once she was free, she set to work saving her friends.

"Ouch!" Sally whined as the goth girl unsnagged a hook from her armpit. "That really hurt!"

"Big girls don't cry, Sally!" Ginger scolded as she repeated the hook removal process on Emily.

By the time the emo girl was freed, Penny had finished jamming the last nail deep into the back of Pinhead's skull. The Hell Priest's entire head was coated in thick red blood that dripped down to his cassock and onto the floor. He tried to speak but only allowed a spittle of blood to leak from his mouth before slumping down into a red puddle.

"How do you like them apples, Pindick!" Penny reached into her jacket and produced the still-solved Lament Configuration. "Alright, Ginger! You probably know what to do!" She tossed it toward her goth friend.

"I sure d-

"Ow!"

The box hit Emily right on the forehead while Ginger stood there with her hand ready to catch it. She turned and stared at the box for a few moments as it fell on the floor and Emily rubbed her head. Then she picked it up and finished her sentence. "I sure do!" She twisted the top half of the box and pulled open one of the sides, allowing a blue light to shine from the opening and onto the downed cenobite. "Go back to Hell!"

Pinhead could only utter a lone groan as the blue light engulfed him and he exploded into a bunch of bright lights which then flew into the box. The chains around the room repeated the process and as the last of the lights vanished, all traces of Hell went with them. The oppression in the atmosphere dispersed and the girls could once again breathe easy.

"It's over," Emily sighed. "It's finally over!"

"And we all made it out in one piece." Sally beamed, ignoring the blood leaking from her armpit.

Ginger looked thoughtfully over the box. "So what do we do with this thing now?"

"I know what!" Penny snatched the box out of Ginger's hands. "Hell had a lot of fucked up stuff but it was missing one thing."

"Oh? And what's that?" Ginger asked.

"Fire!" Penny lit up the fireplace and tossed the box to the flames. "Now burn fucker! Burn!"

The four girls watched as the flames prepared to engulf the box and with it, seal the gateway to Hell forever. Before that could happen, however, there was a shaking sound up on the rooftop. The shaking continued until it was inside the chimney, sending pieces of soot into the hot flames.

"What's going on now?" Penny asked.

"Santa?" Sally said hopefully.

The thing that crawled out from underneath the chimney was not Jolly Old Saint Nick but a horrendous draconic skeletal demon with horns growing out of its eye sockets. It picked up the box, ignoring the searing flames completely and with a horrid screech, flew past the girls, the force of it's wings putting out the fire and knocking Emily down. They all watched as it smashed through the front door and flew off into the night sky.

The silence that followed was deafening.

"Well, that happened." Penny finally managed to say. "Looks like some other poor shmuck is gonna get flayed."

"Well as long as it's not us, I'm fine with that." Ginger groaned.

"Sorry that box that was supposed to fix your rut skinned you alive instead, Penny." Sally said gumily.

"Are you kidding!? That was just what I needed!" Penny shouted. "Getting exposed to all those sensations of pain and pleasure, it made me realize it's ok to take things slow every now and then. I just needed a new perspective is all!"

"So, you're cured?" Emily asked hopefully as she got back up.

Penny nodded. "Yep! Now who's up for a trip down Broken Spine Hill!?"

Emily's smile faded fast as she grabbed her sides. "Oohh I think I'm getting cramps again!"

Penny stared at her emo friend for a moment before suddenly bursting into laughter. Ginger and Sally joined in at once but Emily was less than amused. "I'm...serious."

---

Megan wasn't entirely sure why she was staring at an old puzzle box behind the filthy display window of an old antique shop. She hated puzzles. But there was something about this particular box that just seemed to call to her.

"I see the box has caught your eye, child." An old man's voice rasped.

"Fuck!" Megan practically jumped out of her skin as the old man spoke. "Shit, old man! You nearly gave me a heart attack." She looked back at the box. "So how much for the cube?"

"Oh you can have it for free," The old man smiled.

"W-What!? Really? Why?"

"Because it belongs to you, child." He said as he gestured for her to come inside. "It's always belonged to you."

The End

(Is it just me or is Penny taking up the hero mantle a lot in these stories? I don't intend on making her more of a main character than anyone else, the way that I write these stories just seems to put her in that role. Oh well. I hope you guys are at least able to get to this story, considering that the site's been on the fritz for a while now, and have a Happy Halloween and a Blessed Samhain!)