Layered echoes vibrated through the vein tunnels, making the rounded interior vibrate from the motion. It was then that everything suddenly became much wetter, the lactating inner walls secreting frequently. Both Chase and Everest were nearly painted entirely red as they traveled through the network, moving in the darkness.

"That encounter back there," Chase whispered, creeping low to the ground. "We were lucky to have that clump of meat nearby."

"We're just now getting lucky?" came his partner's sass-filled quick. "I thought we were lucky to even last this long in this... misshapen hell world."

Chase was going to reply only for his train of thoughts to be drowned away, the shepherd twitching as a dizzying feeling overcame him. The faint lingering of static fizzed in his ears, bubbling and crackling around his brain to an uncomfortable degree. His face twisted with disdain, shaking his head in a feeble attempt to throw off the odd feeling.

"Uh, Chase?" Everest raised an eyebrow at him. "Are you okay? You're making that weird face again."

"I'm... fine," the shepherd gasped, struggling to pull himself through the feeling.

An image appeared in his head, manifesting like a ghost within his mind; a rigid, crested shield-like object, shining like refined metal and glistening with vibrating waves. It was nothing more than a blurred shape, but the shiver of fear that went down his spine was unmistakable. He couldn't possibly understand where the image had come from, but it refused to leave his mind and every second it stayed only furthered his unease.

"Don't worry, sweetie," came the voice in his ear. "You're okay."

"Don't call me that," Chase muttered, flattening his ears.

"Call you what?" Everest said, giving him a confused look.

"Sweetie. Don't call me that."

"I... didn't?" the husky said quizzically, blinking with a puzzled expression. "Chase, I didn't even say anything."

"Yeah you did," Chase stopped, turning around to face her with narrowed eyes. "I just heard you in my ear."

"Chase, I don't know where you heard that from, but I honestly didn't say anything."

They stood confused for a few seconds, Chase scanning her up and down for any answers. The husky could only shrug, drawing a blank to the angelic voice the shepherd claimed to have heard. The whole damn hive was probably messing with his head, the only logical conclusion he could draw in his bewilderment. Muttering a quick apology to his companion, he continued forward on the bloodied path, his head bowed with troubled thoughts. Watching his every move, Everest tried to get a read on what was distressing him. Fearing she had asked enough stupid questions; she kept her muzzle shut but stewed in her concerns.

The tunnel continued on for a while, the lost animals trudging through the abyss. They walked in silence until Chase abruptly stopped.

"Wait," he said, halting himself. "Do you hear that?"

Everest shot him an annoyed glare, "if you're starting to hear stuff now, I promise you it's not me."

"No, I actually heard... something," Chase flicked his gaze around, a weary look on his face.

Still confused at his actions, Everest pricked her ears to listen. The churning of The Omnihive instantly molested her hearing, filling it with bellowed groans and distant hums.

"I hear something," Chase said again, his ears turning in all directions as he searched for the noise.

"Well I'm not, and I'm seriously starting to worry about you," the husky rolled her eyes.

She was about to walk past him when an echoed sound emerged from the darkness before them, much louder than the last one. It was layered with feral snarls and distant screams, bouncing up from a dark corner of the network where a gruesome scene had taken place. Everest stopped quickly, her body stiffening and hair spiking on end. Instantly taking two steps backward, the husky crouched low with fearful eyes.

"Okay, I heard it," she quivered. "I definitely heard it."

Chase took a careful step, pricking his ears forward into the darkness. He didn't say a word, all his focus narrowed in the gaping tunnel ahead, while Everest quickly backed up behind him. Her tense paws were tucked underneath swiftly, her body struggling to keep her heartbeat in control. They hung in place for a second, both huddled in fearful positions like frightened woodland animals. Silence completely shrouded the area, nothing but Everest's labored breathing able to be heard.

"It stopped," Chase said, narrowing his eyes.

Everest stood up slowly, watching the corridor shakily, "so... is it gone?"

The soldier didn't reply, instinctively placing his tail on Everest's shoulders. He kept still, tuning his hearing for any last trace of the sound. Still nothing, the phantom noise had come and gone without a trace.

"I think so," said the shepherd, unsure of himself.

He looked down for a moment, twitching as he felt something hot splat onto his back. Flinching with disgust, the shepherd reached behind him, feeling a sludgy liquid that was a stark contrast to the blood droplets.

"The hell is on me?" He cringed, feeling the saliva-like goo running down his leg.

A putrid smell hit their noises, a wave of fear hit Everest and she took a single step back. "Chase..."

The shepherd thought for a moment, slowly looking up at the ceiling.

There was a solid note of piercing silence, lasting only a second yet felt like hours in passing. Chase and Everest locked eyes with the vile creature attached to the ceiling, staring down into their souls as it waited. Before either of the dogs could say anything, the ferox warrior dislodged from its hold, tackling both animals with full force. Everest could only scream as a massive claw grabbed her with brutal strength, clamping around her neck and nearly taking the wind out of her by impact alone. The silence was shattered as the creature emitted a piercing screech, roaring out and sending its scream through the entire network.

"Everest!" Chase yelled into the darkness, overwhelmed with panic and pulsing adrenaline. He felt a thin tail wrap around his waist, coiling around his body and tightening around his skeleton, squeezing the air out of him with a forced wheeze.

The ferox warrior snarled loudly, turning around and breaking into a run, dragging both screaming dogs with it. Chase flailed his legs, fighting to even get a solid breath of air into his lungs while blood rushed into his head. Frantic, Everest grabbed the giant paw holding her neck, wailing in distress and desperately clawing at the grip. The warrior quickly sped up into a full sprint, charging at terrifying levels of speed through the darkness, although hindered as one arm was occupied holding Everest. It stumbled every few feet, the movements made awkward with only three legs, acting as the only window of opportunity for the husky until her fate was sealed.

Clawing and pulling at the creature's grip, Everest wiggled with all her might, contorting and twisting her body with every fiber of energy she had. The claws suddenly let go, and she was dropped to the muscley floor with a splashing crash. Abandoning the first captive, the ferox warrior charged into the darkness, carrying Chase along with it.

Her body slid to a halt, and hastily she scrambled to her footing with frantic breaths. "Chase!" she called out, crying for her partner lost into the abyss. Backing herself into the wall, she began to crumble as panic filled her veins, limbs uncontrollably shaking. Her neck groaned with a tight soreness, wounded from the ruthless method of capture.

"Dutch!" she cried into her radio collar. "Chase is gone!"

"Is he now?" the executive muttered through the line; his voice garbled with radio static. "How disappointing, I expected more from such a hyped-up dog from Adventure Bay. Oh well, I guess we move on with-"

"No, he's not dead!" Everest said, her voice stumbling over itself. "It- it took him, but he's not dead!"

"Not dead? Just how unfathomably stupid are you?" Dutch hissed. "You just witnessed him get dragged away, how could he possibly still be alive?"

"I don't know, it's... a feeling, okay?!"

"You've lost me..."

"I'm... I'm going after him!" She couldn't stop the words from leaving her mouth, going against every logical thought her mind had.

"Everest, he's-"

She sharply cut him off, "Until I see the body, Dutch!" came her frightened snarl. "Until I see his body, I'm not leaving him behind!"

Dutch tried to say something else, but his words fell on the deaf ears of a determined husky. Ignoring all natural instincts screaming at her to turn back, Everest swallowed her fears and painted an image of Chase in her mind. She couldn't see him abandoned into the abyss, she refused to allow it even if he was already in pieces. Just to see, she only had to see, that was all she asked for. Jumping into action, the husky sprinted after the ferox warrior down the path it had disappeared in.

She charged forward with a rush of furious drive, only to be taken aback as the floor began to tilt underneath her. What was once a flat surface was slanting downward, forming a slippery slope of bloodied flesh. Attempting to slow herself, her paws lost traction and the husky completely toppled into a fall, tumbling down the slide and picking up speed. Uncontrollably sliding down the tube, Everest panicked screams filled the tunnel until she slammed against the exit. The lips of flesh opened, and the husky flew out of the tunnel, dropping straight into a cavern.

"Oof-" she grunted; her fall cushioned by the meaty floor but not painless. Pushing herself up, she brought a paw to her head with a pained expression. "Ow... damn it. Where am I?"

The cavern expanded in front of her, forming a massive cave of hanging intestine and bone above. The walls were built from puckering muscle mass, strung together in a fabric-like material coating every surface. The immediate smell of dead fish washed over her, making the husky recoil in her first steps. Gulping down her inner fears and instincts, Everest crept forward underneath the hanging intestine, entering the corridor. How far deep in the Earth even was this? The excessive heat was doing her no favors, and the humidity emitting from the cave curled around her fur and twisted it into knots.

"Where in God's name am I..." she muttered, crouching down low behind a cluster of meat. "First it was lethal cold, now it's lethal hot, just my luck."

As she traversed through the corridor, a yellow eye opened in the floor, flicking its iris to her with a studying look. Everest leaned down to sniff the floor to try and catch Chase's scent, oblivious to the small folds of flesh stretching open behind her. The eyes curiously watched her every move with meticulous gazes, observing closely as she trekked on.

"Chase?" she called out, trying to keep her voice slightly hushed.

An eye opened at her left, slowly peeling apart its lids to watch her. A twinge of unease running through her body, a chilling premonition went down her spine. The husky slowly turned to the side, realizing the new presence and gazing directly into the meaty eye.

Her vision hardened at the foreign organs, staring with pure disbelief at it, "what... the hell?"

The eye blinked at her, rotating slightly with squishing sounds.

Paralyzed like a deer in headlights, Everest held its gaze and began slowly backing away, unnatural chills tensing in her back. Burning its unblinking stare, the eye kept her fixed in place, seemingly reading her thoughts as if they were printed above her. Everest twitched violently, her fight or flight instinct beginning to kick in as her brain scrambled for a decision.

A layered screech echoed through the tunnel, the approaching call of ferox warriors, prompting the eye to instantly close tightly. Snapping out of her trance, the husky flinched and sped off through the darkness, although making a mental note to shove her claws into any new foreign eyes she spotted. The passage didn't seem to commit with one shape, deforming itself the further in she moved.

Faint splotches of white began to peek through the darkness, making Everest squint her eyes at the shining objects nestled against the walls. Eggs, dozens of them, a shot of fear ran through her at the mere sight of them. They were all nearly the size of a small animal, appearing more as large stones than capsules for creatures of sadism.

"Chase," she called again with a lowered, shaking voice. "Honestly, of all the terrifying corridors to vanish into, you really had to pick-"

A layered hiss filled the tunnel as a ferox warrior emerged from the ceiling, crawling out of another aorta passage. Stiffening, Everest nearly tripped over herself in a panic, scrambling backward as the monster appeared ahead. Its teeth snarled, dripping with bloodied saliva, hanging upside down as it scanned the area. It wore the messily woven face of a border Collie, stretched and stitched together for a gruesome display. Birthing its arms out of the tunnel, the creature gripped the ceiling and let its lower body squeeze through, briefly clinging upside down before gracefully dropping down. Everest was completely exposed, barely a scrap of efficient cover within these exaggerated throats. Pleading with denial in her mind, the husky darted behind a clump of eggs, crouching low by their glossy frames. It landed with a splash of fluid, letting its tail dance around for a moment before walking off into the darkness.

Everest watched it leave, a small chill of relief easing her mind as its tail vanished down the path. Then the egg moved, taking her by surprise. The once-still egg she used as cover had suddenly nudged itself, swaying to the side before leaning back into place.

"What the-" the husky breathed, taking a step back.

The egg moved again; a small tapping noise audible within it. Like faint clicking of nails on a hard surface, a brittle sound almost so gentle it was impossible to hear. Everest stared at it with display, newly unable to process what she was seeing.

The top of the egg suddenly burst open, cracking through its shell and sending fractured bits in all directions. A burst of embryonic fluid splashed Everest in the face, making her quickly recoil in spluttering, hacking disgust. "Ugh, God-" she spit, coughing out sticky liquid and shaking shell pieces off her.

A high-pitched squeal filled the area, a tiny, red hand reaching out of the egg and gripping its side. Everest finally wiped the sludge off her face and spotted it emerging into the world. Fierce alarm quickly flashed on her face, her mind screaming hundreds of words a minute.

Time to run.

"Alright, alright," she cracked, trying to maintain her composure as she broke into a trot. "That's... fine. It's just a baby."

The faint tapping sounds of hatching eggs quickly enveloped her from all angles, dozens of capsules starting to shake and nudge. One by one little shells were broken through, followed like clockwork with a pig-like squeal filling the air. She picked up her pace, speeding up through the fleshy tunnels, her eyes flicking around with bated breaths. A foreboding sense of dread filled her veins, and before she knew it, her quick pace exploded into a full sprint. Paws pounding across the fleshy surface, her heart was skipping beats as hundreds of high-pitched screeches echoed past her.

She fled around a corner and into a new cavern, one that made her completely skid to a stop, shock and awe paralyzing her to the floor. The cave opened up even larger, only this time it wasn't eggs being kept hidden away. Her eyes gawked with horror at the morbid sight, scanning each massacred body strung up into the wall. There could've been hundreds, humans and animals of all kinds, sewn into the walls and ceiling like a twisted farmland.

"Dear God," she breathed, panic filling her blood as she absorbed the sight. "Chase!" she shouted out, "where are you!?"

Her voice shot up the large room, passing over each butchered corpse left to be hanging food for the newborns. A few weak pairs of eyes opened but were helpless to respond. What did respond to her voice was a mangled conglomeration of screeches and feral hisses, approaching behind her like a tidal wave. Roach-like skittering filled her ears from the hundreds of tiny creatures scampering across the ground.

"For the love of-" Everest glanced behind her, frantically searching the area for any logical place of thing she could use. Nothing.

"Dutch, I need your help!" she cried.

The executive was less than pleased at her call, "I explicitly told you not to run after him, and now look at the mess you're in! What do you expect me to do!?"

"Shove it, can you play a sound on Chase's collar?"

"Didn't he mute me?"

"Then unmute it!" lashed the husky. "You're the fucking CEO, don't you have the power to break these rules!?"

"Why should I help you?"

"Why should you- what are you talking about!?"

"Everest, tell me why I should help some insolent husky who doesn't listen to me."

"Are you insane!?" she almost shouted, breaking into a panicked run as an unseen hurricane of rabid creatures began storming the food tunnels. "You can't leave me down here! What kind of monster are you!?"

"A superior one, that's for sure. What's in it for me?"

"What!?"

"That's what I said. Tell me why I should-"

"We're-" the husky stammered as she fled through the tunnels. What could she possibly say in this situation?

Running across the fleshy floor, she felt a certain piece of the ground lurch under her, different from the rest of the terrain. Faltering slightly, Everest looked down at tightly held lips of skin, sealing the tunnel under it. Another gateway into the aorta tunnels, it seemed.

She knew she had to think quickly, otherwise she'd meet a nightmarish fate. "We're right on top of the Omnihive Nexus!" she said. "We're practically halfway there!"

"You are?"

"Nearly right on top of it!" came the husky's lie. "We're too close to lose it all now, just help me find him!"

"Hm," Dutch muttered, as if he were leaning back in his chair. "Very well, stand by."

After a few moments of panicked running in the dark, a high-pitched chime suddenly sounded, quite different from the rabid snarling behind her. She turned her ears to it in an instant, expression widening with alarm as she heard the ping. Chase was somewhere behind her; she'd probably ran directly past him without even realizing it.

"I hear it!" she said, charging back the way she came, flying straight into the hurricane of feral animals.

The ferox infants were like rabid piranhas, no heavier than a few pounds with their spindly, maskless tiny bodies, yet they attacked with unrelenting ferocity. They lunged in teams of four to six, quickly zoning out bodies in the wall and mercilessly picking them to the bone. Needle-like teeth scratched and tugged through flesh, gnawing down the corpses until they were nothing but bare skeletons, some of which -to Everest's horror- were still alive. Screaming filled the tunnel as eyes were picked out of skulls and stomachs were burrowed into and eaten from the inside out, the torrent of rabid infants bringing in the absolute worst way to die.

None of the swarm had spotted her yet, too distracted in their feeding. She followed the low chiming Dutch had pinged, desperately trying to ignore the agonizing screams filling her ears as poor souls were eaten alive.

There he was, Chase was firmly latched up in the muscle wall, a ferox infant was already biting into his leg. "Get off!" Everest barked, shoving her front paws forward to slam the infant away. The creature was immensely light, tumbling along the floor in a dazed state. Just one didn't seem to be a problem, at least until the other thousand eventually noticed her.

"Chase, wake up!" she ran to him, gripping the straps of flesh that held him up, tugging it with all her might. The shepherd was unresponsive, slouched over from where he hung.

The ferox infant stood up, shaking itself off and turning to her. Seeing the moving prey, it curled its fleshy lips and screeched with all the rage in its puny body. Springing off the ground, it lunged for Everest and snagged her by the neck. She screamed as her body hit the red puddles, a dozen pinching needles sticking her skin and latching on. Her neck painfully pulled in unpleasant directions, drawing blood and threatening to deglove her entirely.

Overwhelmed with searing pain, Everest howled with adrenaline and forcefully tore the ferox off her, ignoring the tearing agony of its teeth pulling through her skin. She snapped her jaws on its head, calling forth her own feral instinct, and felt its neck snap under her teeth. The creature went limp and was unceremoniously spat out onto the ground.

She clamped her paws on Chase's organic prison, "damn it, don't leave me to die in this place! You're-" she growled, starting to pull. "Not allowed..." heaved the husky, putting in all the strength she had, "-to die!"

The seal finally broke apart, dropping the shepherd into a crumpled heap of rotten debris. She tried to catch him but was nearly crushed under his weight. "Hnng-" she staggered, gritting her teeth and trying to lift him. "Get... up!"

The swarm of infants was starting to take heed to the invading presence, looking up from their meals with displeased growls. Chase stirred faintly, starting to recollect himself, but Everest had no time to wait.

The shepherd opened a wary eye, "Everest...? What-"

She sharply cut him off, "time to run!"

Hundreds of enraged screeches filled their ears, the infants baring their teeth and sounding their horrifying cries. Chase fully came to almost immediately at the noise, shocked to attention at the swarming threats. He was already the first to run, just as the vile roaches began hopping off the food carcasses. The walls began closing in with a torrent of rabid creatures as Everest ran behind him, unable to hear her own thoughts over the overlapped screaming.

Spotting the aorta gateway back where she saw it, Everest made a split-second decision and grabbed her partner's scruff. Throwing all their weight to the floor, the two dogs crashed through the fleshy lips, the impact just strong enough to part them slightly. They fell through the enclosed slit, sailing into panicked freefall down the vertical tunnel. The flesh lips closed behind them, sealing away the monstrous cavern of horrors and drowning out their screeches.

They landed with a splash into a rubbery floor, crumpling into an exhausted heap. Everest fell to her side, breathing heavily along with her racing heartbeat. Chase jumped up quickly, expression full of panic as he looked around, only to slowly calm at the sight of the empty tunnel. Wavering in his step, the shepherd slowly looked to the floor, contemplating what in the world they just went through.

"Heh," Everest heaved, trying to slow her labored breaths. "You're uh... you're welcome."

Chase looked at her, chuckling with a faint smile, "guess I owe you one."

"I'll hold you to that," said the husky, relief easing into her body.

Escaping another deadly encounter, the two friends couldn't help but share an amused laugh, endeared in the presence of one another.