Content/Trigger Warning: Foul language, mild blood and gore
Sludge ran down the hall of the hotel, picking up any shards he could find, before skidding to a stop. Before him was a statue of a muscular demonic angel-thing, similar to the one in the ballroom.
He stared up at it before hearing the voice from before say "Like it?"
"Huh?" He yelped, his mind now on the voice, but before he could say anything else the voice continued.
"It's the Ring Altar. When you collect all the Soul Shards, come back here for the Piece."
The voice faded away, but Sludge stayed still a few minutes, thinking over what it said before continuing down the hall.
Laser-focused on the task at hand, Sludge marched on, his gaze set to the rapidly decreasing number onscreen. Every now and then he bent down to collect a shard, but otherwise he refused to stop, even for a second.
He wasn't stopping.
He was going to get the piece.
He was going to beat Mortimer.
He was going to get that second chance.
He was -
SLAM!
"... ugh..." Sludge groaned as he stumbled backwards for a bit before coming to his senses. He put his tablet down to see what dared stop him from achieving his goal.
A wall. He had walked into a wall.
"Fuck!" He yelled in embarrassed frustration before looking around in a state of mild rage.
It seemed like some high-class hotel. Green wallpaper, reddish-brown doors, paintings on the wall. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary.
But it couldn't be completely ordinary, could it? Bierce said they would be traversing through nightmares, and while yes, it was nightmarish to him, there was no way it was anything other than a fancy to that prick in the same realm. Was he seeing it differently or something?
He walked over to one of the paintings on the wall to take a closer look. It was a strangely well-made - shaded, lighted, almost realistic - painting of... bananas.
It was strange, but he wasn't sure what fancy people liked. For all he knew, portraits of produce could be the thing for these bastards. He shrugged it off and proceeded to walk through the hall, dragging his hand along the wall - and flinched when he felt his finger dip.
He turned to look and realised that it was a scratch mark, and an unnaturally large one at that. It made him kind of uneasy.
He nervously traced the mark along the wall before he heard a disgusting squelch. He looked down and noticed that he was standing in a pool of viscous red liquid. Taking a few steps back in queasy fear, he reluctantly kneeled down and poked a finger into it to try and see what it was - and gulped in sick horror.
Blood.
Suddenly, he heard pattering from behind him. "Mortimer...?" He turned around slowly in a state of fear.
He did not see Mortimer.
But he wished he did.
Running down the hall was a crazed-looking life-sized clockwork monkey, dressed in a tattered bellhop uniform, bearing a huge maw full of sharp, bloody teeth and, most notably, - and most horrifyingly - in place of hands it had a pair of glistening knives. Its eyes were wild, but he felt it had its gaze set exactly on him.
Terrified, Sludge turned tail and ran - this time for his life. The monkey's screeches and mechanical whirring, and Sludge's quickly shortening breath mixed together in a terrified cacophony. His eyes darted back and forth, looking for any dead ends to avoid or entrances to other hallways to throw off his pursuer. He forgot all about the Soul Shards, about beating Mortimer to that second chance, he almost even forgot about getting a second chance as a whole. His only goal at the moment was making sure he wasn't killed.
After what was probably a few minutes but felt like hours, Sludge ran straight into a dead end. He turned around to see the crazed chimp quickly tottering toward him, wailing a painful screech as its bladed arms swung up and down mechanically.
With nowhere else to run, Sludge prepared for his last resort. As the monkey lunged towards him, he grabbed it by the wrists and pushed it away, tearing off its arms and sending it flying back down the hall, where it crashed in a heap.
Sludge threw one arm down, then strode over to where the twitching creature lay and thrust the other arm blade-first into it. It let out a silent howl before it collapsed. It wouldn't be getting back up anytime soon.
The deed now done, he fell to his knees and tried to catch his breath. "God... what was that... thing?" He panted, before he noticed a glistening Soul Shard before him, which reminded him of what he was here to do. He got up, brushed off the dust and picked up the shard.
Meanwhile...
Mortimer charged down the hall, single-mindedly focusing on collecting the Soul Shard while mindlessly ranting to himself.
"God I fucking hate that stupid kid. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Hell, this whole ordeal is stupid. I'm more intelligent, more cultured, more DESERVING of a second chance but NOOoooOOOOoooOOOoooOO! I have to walk around this dilapidated little hotel looking for crystals I CAN'T EVEN KEEP, all while I'm competing with some scrappy little street kid!" He stopped moving, thrust his tablet down and screamed to the heavens, "I FUCKING HATE YOU BEIRCE!"
His frustration cleared a bit when he took another look at his tablet and noticed the number at the top of the screen: 140.
He smiled. "That chance is MINE."
As he said this, an uneasy feeling came over him. Like a million eyes were looking straight at him. Quivering, he looked over his shoulder.
Nothing.
Mortimer turned back around and continued collecting the shards. Still, he couldn't shake the feeling of being watched. He even began to feel like he could hear footsteps from behind him - but when he looked back, the hall was empty.
Shivering, Mortimer carried on, muttering to himself. "There's nothing there. There's nothing there. You're imagining it, you're-"
CRASH!
His murmuring was quickly interrupted by a loud noise from somewhere down the hall. Startled, he jumped around to see who was there.
Nobody.
Terrified, Mortimer walked backwards, keeping an eye on the other end of the hall. "W-who's there?" Mortimer shuddered. He hoped it was somebody - probably Sludge - messing with him as an act of sabotage. "Please... whoever you are, please stop and come out from where you're-"
Suddenly, he bumped into something. When he turned around to see who it was, he screamed.
A monkey dressed in a classy uniform torn to shreds shrieked before lashing out at him with a pair of knives. Mortimer quickly backed up and, without thinking, tore a nearby painting down off the wall and thrust it out in front of him, using it as a makeshift shield. As the monkey dived knives-first towards him, they tore through the painting.
Its blades tangled in the canvas, the creature shrieked and hollered as it tried to free itself. Mortimer winced as he tried to thrust the painting forward in attempt to push the monkey away.
REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!
Three more screams from behind broke Mortimer's focus. He dropped the painting and ran, only looking back to see what he was running from.
The first monkey had torn the painting to shreds, unshackling itself, and had started charging towards him, as three more monkeys emerged from the shadows, following close behind.
Mortimer continued to run; his breath shortening rapidly; his face drenched in sweat; his chest feeling like it was about to explode. The screeches of the monkeys rang in his ears and bored into his brain to the point where he could almost feel physical pain.
Suddenly, his foot caught on a tear in the carpet, and he toppled over, landing stomach-first on the floor. He rolled over to see the horde of monkeys tottering towards him, their grinding teeth, chattering and swishing knives merging in a dire melody.
He wanted to run, he wanted to hide, he wanted to do anything, but fear had rendered him frozen. He looked up at the monkeys towering over him and rolled over as they slashed him with their blades, his body quivering, his eyes stinging with tears.
As his vision blurred, he caught sight of a hazy red shape. He knew grabbing it was useless, as his death was near – but for some reason, he felt a need to get it. His hand quivered as he reached out and curled his fingers around it.
As soon as he did, a burst of energy erupted and spread across the room, the impact sending Mortimer and the monkeys flying backwards down the hall. He hit a wall and slid down, knocking him out of his senses.
When everything cleared up, he noticed the monkeys laying in unconscious piles on the ground, heads spinning like humming tops. They probably weren't going to be a problem for a while.
Mortimer began to stand, then noticed that his hand felt kind of wet. He looked down and saw a tear on the calf of his trousers, a red stain running down from it.
"Oh God-" He said with a heavy breath. He slowly and adversely removed his jacket and gave it a sad stare before tearing off a sleeve and tying it around the wound.
"There." He sighed before sliding his jacket back on, struggling up and limping off to collect the rest of the shards.
A/N: HAHAHA MERRY BELATED CHRISTMAS HAVE ANOTHER CHAPTER OF FDIE!
Finally, it's out! After losing interest for months, I'm back and I am SWINGING!
This is actually the longest chapter I've written so far, and damn I'm proud of it ^w^