A/N: I got the chapter name while I was almost done writing it. Keep your eyes peeled later in the chapter for the name drop if you want to see it. The chapter name used to be "To Drop The Soap" as a sick metaphor for where Courage is right now, but I absolutely HATED that name, as it sucked and also could've possibly insinuated something nasty happening to poor Courage that thankfully doesn't happen. Howeverr...
WARNING: This chapter is UNGODLY bloody, may be very disturbing, and more than likely crosses lines as a "T" Rated fanfic. This is going to be by far the bloodiest chapter in the entire story, and I advise anyone who is sensitive to gore to either tread lightly or to skip this chapter altogether. There is also some strong swearing in this chapter. I am actually a bit worried about keeping the "T" rating after publishing this chapter. But I can't say I didn't warn anyone. Anyways, I am beyond sorry for what I'm about to write. Pls skip this chapter if you need to and cheers! :) :(
Chapter 16: To Be Alone And Ground By Enslaved Worms
Courage blinked in and out of consciousness. His head felt heavy, and he felt like his ribs were badly bruised. As his vision cleared, he realized that he was staring at a nasty, concrete floor.
He was being dragged down a musty, rugged looking hallway. On his left was a giant, grey bulldog, and on his right was the giant Gila monster from earlier. Both were dressed in black and white, and both dragged him down the hall by his arms.
He tried to stand upright, but he fell right back down. He realized that his feet were cuffed together.
"Come on now!" the grey bulldog barked in response to him moving.
If this was that godforsaken prison that his dear departed friend Daffodil spoke of, he assumed that these guys were guards. And if this was the case, then it was probably a better idea if he stopped resisting and tried to behave.
"AHHHH!" a female scream suddenly shrieked into Courage's ears. It sounded like it came from the hall around the corner. It also just so happened to be the hall they were traveling towards. Courage's obedience was starting to falter out of fear.
They soon came around the corner to see no one in the hall. But the voice kept crying and screaming, and it seemed to be coming from the open door about halfway down the hall.
"AH! Let G-GO OF ME!" the voice screamed and pleaded. "Let GO-!" Her voice was now muffled because someone inside had shut the door.
And just like that, the hall was suddenly silent.
The interruption of the desperate sounds of that weak little voice sent shivers down Courage's spine. He kept his eyes were glued to the door's window as they passed it.
Through the window, he made eye contact with the bloodshot eyes of a grey ferret. She looked horribly beaten and weak. Courage also soon realized that she was gasping for air, and was in the tight arm lock of another grey bulldog guard dressed in black and white. And that's when Courage realized that the little bit of audible noise he did hear was actually her violently choking.
Courage gasped and quickly averted his eyes. He bit down and tried to drown out the sounds. But all he heard was her last wheezing breaths followed by a long silence.
THUD!
Just as they were coming around the corner of the next hallway, Courage knew without a doubt that the sound he just heard was the dead body of the ferret hitting the ground.
"I haven't seen inside, but the bodies that come outta there…." Daffodil's words haunted Courage's mind and drove him into chaos.
He yelped before yanking as hard as he could to try to free his arm from the Gila monster guard.
WHAM!
Courage saw stars, after the Gila monster had pounded his fist hard onto Courage's skull. Courage could not keep his heavy head up any longer, and his vision started to involuntarily fade.
-o0o-
Courage jolted awake after hearing the howl of a dog in unimaginable pain. Needless to say that it frightened him out of his fatigue.
He was still being dragged down another rugged hallway, but this one was creepier and much louder. There was also a worn, metallic set of doors at the end of the hallway with darkened stains all over it. Courage could hear yells, screams, cries, pleads, gasps, hisses, whispers, chokes, chains, and the rest of the worst sounds imaginable. He knew that the noises he heard were from behind this door. And he also knew that's where the guards were taking him.
Courage bit down and shut his eyes as they approached. He bit down even harder upon hearing a new scream, this time much closer to him.
He finally heard the door open, and the sounds grew sooo much louder. The air, which reeked of burnt hair and feces, grew so much heavier. And as much as Courage wanted to keep his eyes shut, the screams were just too much for him to bear.
Whenever he opened his eyes, he discovered that they were now in a giant, pit-like atrium with jail cells stacked up several stories high on the wall to the right. Almost everything consisted of concrete. And as he looked around the ground level, he saw many different items, devices, machines, and structures. He didn't know what most of them were for, but the ones he recognized were ones he hoped he'd never see even in his nightmares.
He saw torture wheels, a brazen bull, iron maidens, stretching racks, transparent cells, gallows, and countless tables and stakes. He saw many different types of corpses lying tied on the ground with bamboo growing through their torsos. He saw a giant hole filled with corpses of humans and animals alike.
"AHH!" the same scream from earlier screamed again.
As the guards dragged him further into this hell, he turned to his right and saw a giant, muscular tiger shackled to a thin, upright board. He was covered in many hole-like wounds, all of which oozed blood. Courage watched as a crocodile guard twisted a corkscrew into the tiger's stomach and pulled it out very fast.
SQUELCH!
"AHHHAHAHAHAAHHHHH!" The tough tiger screamed in a weak, vulnerable voice that Courage knew only conveyed the sound of pure pain.
Courage gasped in utter shock when he noticed that what he saw sticking out of the new wound was the tip of the tiger's large intestine. He also realized that the tiger's screams were softening.
Oh, wait, no!
They were getting covered up by the whirring sound of a machine. Then he noticed what the ox guard behind the tiger was up to. Courage caught sight of a sharp drill bit spiraling out of the tiger's eye. The tiger stopped moving entirely, and his head remained in an upright position with a horror-stricken face. Once the ox removed the drill, the tiger's head fell limp immediately.
Courage stifled a whine, as he watched the crocodile guard lift up the tiger's head to slice his throat with a sharp dagger. He then began digging into the tiger's throat.
SQUISH!
SQUISH!
"Oh, the SOUNDS!" Courage's mind screamed in horror. "WHYYY?!"
He looked away, but caught sight of an unclothed male human tied to a stake. He screamed, as a smiling water buffalo guard was ripping off his fingernails and toenails. And once he finished, a bear guard and a moose guard held the person's mouth open. The buffalo guard then violently SHOVED a hose down the person's throat. Their uncontrollable chokes turned into gurgles, as Courage knew that they were going to kill him with the water.
Once he looked back over at the tiger, he saw the final work of the crocodile guard. What looked like the tiger's tongue now hung out his slit throat wound.
Everything slowly grew dark after that.
-o0o-
WHAM!
Courage hit the ground hard. It was more than enough to wake him up. He had no idea how long he was out. All he knew was that he was now in a jail cell with many other prisoners. But whenever the guards turned to close the door and leave, Courage shot up and made it to the door just as it closed. And as the Gila monster locked the door, Courage banged his paws onto the door.
"Please, don't do this!" Courage begged.
The Gila monster clearly didn't seem to care and proceeded to walk away.
"PLEASE!" Courage continued to scream at him. And when he was surely gone, Courage slid down the bars of the door and into a deep sob.
He didn't weep long before realizing that somebody else was crying much louder than he was. This made him stop and turn around to get a look at his cellmates.
There were a lot of people and animals in there, but nobody wore clothes.
"So the guards get those black and white onesies while the prisoners get nothing. Right," Courage thought in his mind. "And to think that I was self conscious around Shirley!"
But something else he noticed was that nobody talked, nobody fought, nobody did anything really. All of them looked completely defeated and entirely fearful. Everybody feared and somewhat accepted their long anticipated torture that would end with their brutal deaths. Courage then finally laid eyes on who was crying so loud.
The person crying was a tall, brown Great Dane, and he was crouched down by the back wall. There was something that disturbed Courage about all of the cries he's heard here. From the strangled ferret to the mutilated tiger, all of these people have given up. And these cries carried a sense of despair that disturbed Courage greatly. And remembering Daffodil's words about how it's pretty much impossible to escape, and that he's dead as soon as he's taken, he still couldn't sit here and watch this sort of hopelessness.
Courage decided to cautiously approach the weeping dog. He did not seem to notice or care about Courage's presence. Courage, however, wanted to make him feel better in any way possible.
"Hey," Courage sat down by him and gently patted his back.
"It's no use trying to cheer ANY of us up!" the dog finally cried back. Courage saw his face for the first time, which had heavy red rings around his eyes from all of his crying. Courage unfortunately couldn't think of anything to comfort him fast enough.
"We're fucked!" a turtle prisoner said from the corner.
"If they were gonna kill us, they just couldn't make it easy on us," a hippopotamus prisoner added.
A shiver went down Courage's very soul whenever he recalled his disturbing memories of what he witnessed down in the atrium, and remembering Daffodil's words. He involuntarily aborted his mission to comfort the Great Dane. He was now too scared.
"Just, h-how exactly are they g-going to k-kill us?" Courage asked, shaking in fear.
Every prisoner turned to look at him. All of their faces were struck with horror. The Great Dane wiped his nose with a sniffle. Then he stood up and looked down at Courage. He was much taller than Courage.
"Follow me," he said in an emotionless voice. As the dog walked right by him, he followed him to the barred wall with the cell door. From there, they could see down into the atrium. With an overhead view, Courage could now see just about all of the torture and killing that was happening down there. He swiftly closed his eyes shut.
"Look at this poor fellow over here," the Great Dane said calmly.
Courage couldn't help but open his eyes. He saw a male, yellow rabbit tied to a horizontal table faced down. A smiling gorilla guard raised a large dagger, and then he sliced into the rabbit's back. Courage grimaced painfully as he watched the rabbit squirm and scream. But then the gorilla pried the wound open and folded the back skin inside out. The rabbit was still ALIVE! But then the gorilla tore his ribs outward and pulled out what Courage knew were the rabbit's lungs. The rabbit finally went limp and completely silent right after that. The lungs were slung over outward as well. Courage could not believe what he was seeing.
"Poor guy got The Blood Eagle," the Great Dane shivered.
"That was The Blood Eagle?!" Courage was now hyperventilating. " What did he do to receive that?! Could that happen to one of us?!"
"Maybe," the Great Dane said apathetically. "Or maybe this," he nodded somewhere else.
Courage saw that he pointed to a female human tied to a stake. One of the bulldog guards were behind her, and then he started choking her violently with a rope. Courage knew he couldn't hear her quiet chokes from here, but he felt like he could. He watched as she kicked and squirmed, but got nowhere. Courage then caught sight of the Gila monster down there standing in front of her. He held a kettle or something with a pouring tip. Were they going to try to poison her or something?
"What's that?" Courage asked in fear. But the Great Dane did not answer. He just kept watching this happen without emotion.
As the prisoner stuck her tongue out and was starting to die, the bulldog loosened his grip. Just when she was finally able to inhale a deep breath, the Gila monster poured whatever was in that kettle down her throat. Courage watched in shock as he saw the liquid glow a bright orange. She started to scream, but she simply did not have the air to do it. And after trying to cry with the inability to inhale or exhale, she fell limp almost immediately, most certainly dead.
"Molten lead straight down the throat during your last breath," the Great Dane read his mind, watching the event too. "That's a bad one."
Courage pulled onto his ears and audibly cried like a toddler throwing a tantrum once he realized that every way to die here seemed to be worse than the last. When he looked back down at her, he noticed that the Gila monster held her head up, slit her throat, and then pulled her tongue through too. He winced as he saw steam ooze out of her throat hole along with hot, runny blood.
"W-what is u-up with t-the t-tongue thingy?!" Courage was barely able to spit out.
"No matter the death, we all get Columbian Neckties," the Great Dane said. "I dunno why they're called that, but all of our throats will be cut. Your's will be cut, and mine too. And all of our tongues will be stuck through the wound. It's the only unavoidable thing we're all going to receive." He paused for a moment. "Well, that is if your body is still intact."
Courage caught sight of a white goat tied to the circumference of the torture wheel. All of his legs seemed to be broken in impossible angles, and he seemed malnourished, like he was starved to death. Then a giant rat guard suddenly appeared to give him one of those disturbing Columbian Neckties. Right next to that he spotted a grizzly bear guard forcing a male mule deer into an iron maiden before closing the door. After nothing else happened, the bear suddenly shook it around violently. Blood was then pouring out of the iron maiden. And when the grizzly bear opened it back up, the deer stuck to the spikes on the door. The bear then tore him off, laid him down, and messily gave him a Columbian Necktie with his own bear claws.
"Uh, oh," the Great Dane spoke again. His concern got the attention of Courage.
"What, now?" Courage vomited.
The Great Dane pointed again. Courage laid eyes on a male human dressed in black and white getting forced inside of the brazen bull.
"No, no," Courage moaned. He knew how brazen bulls worked. "Isn't that also a guard?"
"Looks like it," the Great Dane said. "It isn't uncommon for guards to be killed like us too."
"So everybody here is a prisoner," Courage said.
"They say everybody, but him," the Great Dane pointed downward at a guard.
Courage gasped whenever he saw that the guard the Great Dane was pointing at was the same Gila monster guard he keeps seeing. He was the one who locked the ex-guard into the bull. The fire underneath the bull was ignited, and the bull let out several loud and long moos before ceasing. The Gila monster put out the fire and opened the bull up. The man was not cooked to ash, but was instead cooked just long enough for his flesh to stick to the insides of the metal bull. The man was most certainly dead.
When Courage looked away from the mess, he laid eyes on the bamboo field. So many corpses laid tied to the ground and impaled by bamboo. And he noticed a tall chameleon, tied up and alive just above a fresh sprout. It already stuck out of the ground, and it clearly grew fast. The Great Dane noticed Courage watching the bamboo field.
"Poor guy," the Great Dane said. "That sprout's gonna grow right through him. He's got maybe a day before it makes contact, but about a week before he dies."
Courage took one last look at the guy, hopelessly trying to shake himself free. Then he caught sight of a blue, female cat corpse lying on a rack bedded with sharp spikes. Her arms and legs were stretched in opposite directions so far that they broke free from her body. The spikes underneath her seemed to have mutilated her back as well. And she, of course, had a Columbian Necktie. Courage hated seeing what he was seeing, but he was happy that he didn't see it while it was happening.
He then caught sight of a bunch of little shapes throughout the atrium that he didn't notice early when he was being dragged through. But as he looked closer at the shapes, he realized he was staring at the torsos of hundreds of corpses. All of them were dismembered and decapitated, all of their heads were placed to face their bodies, and all of their arms and legs were shoved in where their heads used to be.
"Flower Pots," the Great Dane spoke again. Courage grimaced up at him. "That's what they're called, anyway."
And before Courage could ask why, Courage eyed those transparent cells from earlier. Some were filled up with water and floating corpses, and others had charred corpses on the ground surrounded by smaller dark masses.
Courage stifled a whine as he pointed to the cells. The Great Dane gave him an understanding pat on the head.
"Those are The Cells," the Great Dane said. "If you are brought there, you are forced into one. And you have no idea if they are going to fill it with water or toxic gas. No one knows what type of gas it is, but it viciously burns the victim's skin, eyes, and insides. It also causes them to vomit uncontrollably and sometimes even throw up their own frigging intestines! But receiving water isn't much better. They never stop filling it up, even after it's full. And they fill it up in multiple different places so that you cannot stop the water from rushing in. And to increase the torture, they leave a little hole at the top just big enough to fit your arm. Many people drown with their noses just inches from air." The Great Dane stopped talking, as he clearly shook in terror after explaining all of the torture he just did.
Courage looked away from The Cells and caught sight of countless stakes that stuck all the way through bodies from hole to hole. Some of the prisoners still squirmed around, which greatly disturbed him to say the very least. There were also bodies that were hung upside down and slowly sawn in half between the legs. Prisoners were also forced inside of a structure with a tiny hole and were spun around until they died, often from dehydration from the amount of vomiting they did from their non-stop motion sickness. Courage also found out what those giant pots from earlier were used for when he saw prisoners get forced inside of them while they were boiling water. Giant lids were then bolted down on top of them and never opened again. Living prisoners were also thrown into boxes and coffins before getting covered in black scorpions and locked in. The caskets were then thrown into dug holes and buried for good with the screaming prisoner still inside of it.
"And I bet you've seen The Pendulum," the Great Dane finally started to cry again. Courage vividly remembered Daffodil mentioning The Pendulum.
As he looked to the a corner in the atrium, he saw a giant clock. Underneath it was a female pig prisoner tied up on a bed of stone that was covered in dry blood. The pendulum of the clock had a sharp blade at the end of it, and it inched closer and closer to the pig's stomach every hour. When the blade finally makes contact, it will be a slow and painful death before it gets deep enough to kill her.
Courage also saw the corpse of a fox prisoner who sat on top of a metal prism of some sort. The top of the prism was lodged in between the legs of the fox while his legs had heavy weights chained to them. He must have finally bled to death, but the guards clearly left his body up there even after administering him his Columbian Necktie. Courage also saw prisoners being forced into confines within the concrete walls and cemented inside.
"They give you your Columbian Necktie once they open up your wall to trap someone else," the Great Dane sniffled. "And those sick bastards make the next prisoner watch them do it too."
Courage shivered, as there was still somehow more to see. Prisoners hung from the gallows and meat racks. But some of the prisoners that hung from the gallows hung by different parts of the body, or had fleshly wounds in place of certain body parts.
"They'd hang you by different parts of the body," explained the Great Dane in a shaky voice. "And if it gets ripped off, then they just hang you by your neck, and you die from either strangulation or a broken neck."
Courage couldn't even shake anymore after discovering this much. He watched as more prisoners had different parts of their body stuck into a steaming barrel of some sort. When they were removed from the barrel, they were frozen solid. Guards would then beat the body parts with a hammer until they shattered or were hopelessly mangled. And whenever they were finished with the prisoner, they'd dunk their heads into the barrels and then beat their heads until they shattered or were unrecognizable. There were other prisoners that laid tied to stakes either dead or alive. There seemed to be no pattern of death or torture. It's almost like the guards tied them there, and used them however they liked. Some were strung up and skinned alive, while others were beaten to death by a large group of guards.
Courage finally looked away from the atrium for good. The Great Dane was sobbing again, so Courage hugged onto him. And as he did, his mind finally started to try to process EVERYTHING he just saw.
"They had EVERY type of way to torture or kill somebody it seemed," Courage spoke into his mind. "And EVERY single body that was still somewhat intact received those gruesome Columbian Neckties and were tossed into that giant mass grave with the other bodies." Courage paused whenever he thought he remembered seeing living prisoners down there with the dead bodies. But then he continued his thoughts once he remembered half of the other horrible things he witnessed.
He pulled onto his ears harshly whenever he thought of the possibility of getting cooked inside of the brazen bull. He thought of being locked inside of the dark structure to slowly start sticking to the hot metal while his flesh cooked right off of his bones. And the worst part was that no amount of screaming could save him.
He also thought of being tied to one of the stakes and mutilated so brutally by so many vicious people at once. He then thought of having his throat slit into a Columbian necktie and tossed into the mass grave as another number, just to be alone and ground by enslaved worms.
Then he thought of Daffodil. Her death had happed so sudden and so fast. And even though he only knew her for a short period of time, she was his friend. And she was trying to help him escape, even though she ended up losing her life for it.
Courage dipped his muzzle down into his lap and began to finally sob. He had failed Daffodil. He had failed Noel. He had failed his parents. But most of all, he had failed Muriel. He knew she'd never find out how he died, but he honestly thought it'd be worse if she didn't. She'd never be the same happy Muriel ever again, and it just might kill her. And this time, there was truly nothing Courage could do.
"Arroooooo!" Courage howled in agony.
"Hey! What are you doing?" Another prisoner snapped at him. But Courage could not stop no matter how hard he tried.
"AROOO!" Courage pull onto his ears harder.
"Shhh! Cut it out!" A different prisoner spoke.
"Ahhahahaha!" Courage wailed loudly. Before he knew it, at least five prisoners surrounded him and closed his mouth with their dirty hands. Courage still sobbed through his closed mouth, and his tears mixed with the dirt on the prisoners' hands, forming mud all over his pathetic face.
"Will somebody shut him up?!" A koala prisoner finally yelled.
KICK!
The air was knocked out of Courage. He didn't see who or what did it, but he finally stopped crying and started moaning. The prisoners then started beating him up.
"Oww, hey!" He heard a prisoner scream.
"I didn't do nothin!" a prisoner spat back.
Before Courage knew it, that lack of fighting he noticed earlier completely vanished as the prisoners trying to shush him all started viciously fighting each other. Whenever he regained his strength, he slid away into the rest of the prisoners, who just stood or sat doing nothing.
BANG!
"WHAT IN THE HELL IS GOING ON IN HYA!" Doyle suddenly slammed the cell door open very angrily and violently. Every single prisoner in the cell stopped breathing. The ones fighting broke away and stood up straight. Courage forgot how tall this man was, as he towered over every single prisoner in here, despite being a human. And he had never heard anyone yell that loud in his entire life. Courage had to admit that this man's yells would probably give even his screams a run for their own money.
Guards then trickled in from behind him and started grabbing onto random prisoners. The Gila monster guard was there and grabbed onto Courage of course. Courage was confused, as why the guards grabbed onto some prisoners that we clearly not even involved.
"Soma y'all just can't WAIT to go, is that what I'm getting?!" Doyle yelled at every prisoner. He turned and looked down at the Great Dane, who just so happened to be standing a little close when he unexpectedly barged in. Doyle clearly noticed the red tear rings around the dog's face. "You, are you cryin?" Doyle asked the Great Dane.
Courage knew he had to do something to steer Doyle's attention away from the dog. The Gila monster caught hint of this, clamped Courage's muzzle shut tight, and stuck a dagger right under his throat, ready to kill him at any moment.
"I ASKED YOU A GODDAMN QUESTION!" Doyle grabbed onto the Great Dane's chest and screamed in his face.
"N-no," the Great Dane whispered to him.
"YOU CALLIN ME A LIAR?!" Doyle screamed in his face somehow louder than before.
"No no, I-."
WHAM!
The Great Dane received a hard punch from Doyle right to his muzzle. Courage squirmed hard, as he watched the Great Dane fall to the ground and grab onto his now crooked jaw. Courage could see crimson start trickling out of the Great Dane's nose as he stared back at Courage. Courage saw as the dog gave him one last plead of puppy eyes before-
CRUNCH!
Courage no longer saw the face of his new friend, but instead the bloody boot of this enormous monster. His friend was completely innocent to this all, and he was the one who got his head crushed.
"Mmmmmphmmmm!" Courage sobbed as the Gila monster held his muzzle shut. The Gila monster then grabbed onto his neck and strangled him too so that he couldn't make anymore noise. He also pulled Courage closer to the back of the cell and into the crowd of innocent prisoners.
"Don't!" CRUNCH! "Fucking!" CRUNCH! "Lie!" CRUNCH! Doyle screamed in between stomps. Where the Great Dane's head once existed now only existed a pile of gooey mush.
"AHH! Now which one of you cunts was that wailing like a bitch?!" Doyle screamed as he turned back around to face all of the prisoners.
"HUH?!"
Courage couldn't even fear him anymore because he was suffocating so badly. The Gila monster had such a tight grip of his throat that everything grew distorted around him. And now he was falling into a deep sleep.
However, nobody answered Doyle, not even the guards. Not even the Gila monster guard who prevented him from making anymore noise ratted him out.
"Oh, now I see how y'all think it is now." Doyle laughed. "Now nobody's gotta cry anymore. Awww, now THAT'S something to cry about!"
After a slight uncomfortable silence, Doyle started laughing uncontrollably. Courage felt the Gila monster somehow grab on tighter to him. Doyle then cupped his face in his hands and kept laughing maniacally.
Then without warning, he stopped laughing and suddenly grabbed an innocent zebra prisoner who was standing just a little too close to him. He then swiftly cut the zebra's throat. There was a collective gasp from everybody in that cell, including the guards. And during that time, the Gila monster finally let go of Courage's throat so that his big breath blended in with the gasps.
Doyle held the helpless zebra's head back to drain the blood faster and probably caused more pain for the zebra. But it was mostly so that it was easier for his "audience" to see his point. And as the poor zebra tried grabbing onto Doyle's massive arms, Doyle remained staring at every prisoner and guard in the cell, who were all averting their eyes at this point. Courage could hear the struggled choking and inevitable gurgles from the dying zebra.
"LOOK, HERE!" Doyle demanded.
Everybody then swiftly returned their eyes to the gruesome mess before them. The zebra desperately grabbed onto Doyle's arm, as he tried and tried gasping for air. Then Doyle stuck his free arm into the zebra's throat and pulled out his tongue into a brutal Columbian Necktie. The zebra fell entirely limp and his gurgles grew silent. But Doyle kept his head fixed upward, and the blood kept leaking. Doyle continued to stare into the faces of everybody who was there.
Courage stared into the unmoving eyes of the Zebra, who stared right back at him. It sent shivers down his spine, as he knew that the zebra probably knew it was him that got him killed so horribly like that. Then he looked into the eyes of Doyle, who now stared directly back into his with venom. And after a moment of pure electrical fear-
SPLAT!
The zebra now laid face down in a quickly growing pool of his own blood.
Doyle left without another word. Then some of the guards went to go clean up the two bodies.
The Gila monster then turned Courage back around to face him. He had squinty, red eyes and disgusting, yellow teeth. He then brought his blade in closer to Courage's neck. Courage whined as this happened.
"You'd best stop yapping if ya knew what was good for ye," the Gila monster spat into his face while he ran his blade across Courage's neck and up his muzzle. His breath reeked of cigars and tobacco. "You won't be so lucky next time," he added before throwing Courage down onto the ground and dragging the headless body of the Great Dane out with the other guards.
CLUNK!
The door was now locked again, and the prisoners were now down two prisoners. Courage ran his paw along the bottom of his muzzle and found a small, bleeding cut and a couple hairs were now missing. And as he stared at the blood on his paw, he thought about the mush that was once his new friend's head. He thought of the Columbian Necktie on the innocent zebra and how sudden that was.
But as Courage looked at the rest of the prisoners, he realized that they all sat away from him. They all glared at him. They all hated him. They all really wanted him dead, and Courage didn't blame them. And as much as he wanted to give them what they wanted, he was still way too scared to die. And after thinking about Muriel again, he remembered why he must keep living.
He kept watch over his surroundings to make sure that no prisoners would try to do something to him. But after standing guard for a long while, he accidentally drifted into a big sleep.
End of Chapter
A/N: Hopefully you made it through! FYI, there is NEVER going to be a chapter that gory EVER again! I hated killing off the Great Dane like that, but his death does serve a purpose. It will haunt and torment poor Courage for the rest of the story, as well as the zebra's death. Also Sergeant Tom Doyle was heavily inspired by Sergeant Leland Coyle from The Outlast Trials, as they have very similar appearances and their last names are almost the same. The Gila Monster guard was loosely based off of Bad Bill from Rango. Also I always thought that the music that plays in the Transept in Amnesia The Dark Descent fits the prison too well. In fact, it was replaying through that game that made me want to include a prison in this arc that was full of disturbing torture, murders, and executions. Some of the torture and execution devices seen in the prison were also seen in the Transept and Choir locations in the game. Anyways, the next chapter's plot is written and is ready to be written into story form. After spending too much time on this chapter, I cannot say when to expect the next.