The spray cans in her backpack rattled as they walked together. Nea adjusted the straps, feeling the indentation of the cans push into her spine. Beside her, Stella calmly smoked a cigarette while she toyed with her braided hair, the ends being adorned with little beads that clicked together with her every stride. Nea often found herself staring at them, especially in math class in which Stella sat in front of her. There were seventy-three of them. Whenever the teacher started boring her (which was more often than not) Nea would resort to her regular pastime, which was dazedly counting the beads.
It always made her feel hopelessly pathetic. She yearned so badly to touch them.
After discreetly pining after her for a few months, Nea was able to convince her to go on a tagging run. Stella seemed so indifferent, so hard to impress- not in a snobbish way, though. She just had a lot of people trying to get her attention all the time, she all but needed to play hard to get in order to weed out the flakes. So Nea thought maybe if she gave Stella an experience she would never forget, that'd be the way to make a good impression on her. If nothing came from it, at least Nea could be a thrilling memory for her beloved Stella Fourie.
"Were you ever caught before?" Stella asked as a tantalizing cloud of smoke slipped from her mouth. The flashing image of her blowing smoke between Nea's lips nearly staggered her.
She was so whipped it wasn't even funny.
"Nope." That was a lie. She was caught back in Hjo but there was no way for Stella to know about that.
"Impressive," Stella said quietly, watching cars and taxis pass by them. Out of the corner of her eye, Nea watched her, wondering what she was thinking about. She wanted to know her thoughts, how she felt, what her dreams were. She just wanted to know her.
The parking lot of the police station was just up ahead, made apparent by the wealth of cruisers parked there. Nea stopped and moved to the side so that they were protected by the shadows of an alleyway. Stella followed her into the darkness, wordlessly watching Nea sling the backpack toward her front, where she then unzipped it and pulled out two balaclavas.
Stella chuckled. "You're pretty serious about this stuff, huh?"
Nea glanced at her. "We're about to be in enemy territory. Gotta protect ourselves."
She handed the mask over to Stella. They both put them on, looking immensely silly when they slipped out of the alleyway. Stella followed Nea's lead as she briskly continued up the sidewalk until entering through the gateway that led into the parking lot.
Cameras were absolutely everywhere. The masks helped, especially in Nea's case. She'd seen CCTV footage of herself on the news already, but they were suspecting that she was an adult man based on the silhouette created by her baggy clothes. As far as the public knew, the legacy of Mashtyx belonged to some mid-twenties loser who had nothing better to do, not a rebellious teenage girl.
Her concentration was lapsing due to being able to feel how close Stella was. She really hoped she didn't fuck this up.
Being bold, Nea went to the part of the building that faced the street. It wasn't the front entrance but it would garner lots of attention nevertheless. She slung her backpack off and set it on the ground quietly, snaking out the spray cans that she wanted.
Patriot Red. Chalk White. Royal Blue. In honor of those who protect and serve… She almost chuckled to herself.
"Can I try?" Stella asked, tossing her cigarette to the floor where her heeled boot put it in its grave. Nea wasn't going to say no, but even if she tried, it'd be impossible to resist her. She picked up the cans and held them out for her. Opposing what Nea's guess was, Stella grabbed white, despite seeming like a red type of girl.
She uncapped it and approached the brick wall.
Spritz.
A little too close, she ended up saturating it too much and one dot of white suddenly turned into a waterfall trailing down the bricks. Nea laughed just as Stella did, then stepped aside her and gently took her hand, pulling it back a couple inches away from the wall. Nea's skin could've ignited in flames from the contact.
"Like… right about… there," Nea said quietly, letting go of her hand once she was at the right distance. "Okay, go ahead."
More confident, Stella tried again with a greater deal of success. She started with two X's, then a squiggly line which earned the curve of what looked like a tongue. An uneven circle sprayed around it all left Nea smiling proudly. It was the Nirvana logo. How cheeky.
"Looks great," She complimented her. Stella grinned in such a way that Nea thought she might've been blushing underneath the balaclava. She handed back the white spray can and stepped away, waiting for Nea to do her thing.
It was all muscle memory by then. Nea could've drawn her tag while blindfolded, she'd done it hundreds of times.
Mashtyx was graffitied in huge letters on the police station in a matter of minutes. When she capped Chalk White, Nea turned around only to freeze, catching Stella staring at her. Awkwardly, she tapped her fingers against the can's exterior, smiling like an idiot.
"Do you like it?" She asked timidly.
"You might be the coolest person I know," Stella claimed out of nowhere. Nea's knees felt weak. Her heart began beating fast. The street was melting with heat suddenly.
"Hah, thanks," Nea told her, still awkward as ever because there was a four-alarm fire taking place within her body, completely clouding all judgment.
"We should hang out at my place."
Nea's throat shriveled up. "We… should?"
Stella nodded, smiling coyly. "Yeah, I have a friend at the dispensary, he'll hook us up. My parents are gone for the weekend so… let's get high and watch a stupid movie."
"Yeah," Nea nodded, trying to remain calm. "What like- like Blair Witch?"
"Eh, I was thinking Rom-Com but hey, we could do horror." She shrugged.
Nea grimaced, "Let's do Rom-Com, I really don't care for horror anyway."
"Suit yourself," She said slyly with a grin. Her septum piercing peeked out from the balaclava as she did so. Every little detail tantalized Nea horribly.
She was in the middle of staring for far too long at Stella when the distant sound of a door opening and closing could be heard, then the heavy plod of footsteps. With the accompanying of male voices, Nea could only assume it was a pair of officers exiting the building. Given that all the commotion seemed to be getting louder, it was safe to say the girls were seconds from getting busted.
"We should go, right?" Stella asked as the veil of her sleek persona slipped. Nea waited a moment until she could see the shadows of the men seep over the macadam, signaling that they'd be rounding the building's corner at any moment.
"Yeah- Yes-" Despite feeling flustered and frantic, Nea tried her best to make gathering up her shit look somewhat attractive. She smoothly put the cans back in her backpack, doing it all in between glances at her tag. The more her eyes analyzed it, the more her stomach twisted. The perfectionist within her was screaming. It needed something else. Something to help it stand out.
As Stella was backing away worriedly and the police officers were getting louder, Nea unzipped her bag and pulled out Patriot Red again.
"Hold… On…" She mumbled while giving Mashtyx a thick underlining spray of the deep red color, holding it so close to the wall that it dripped all along its length.
When she was finally satisfied, Nea tossed the can back in her bag and slung it over her shoulders smoothly, then took Stella by the hand and quickly led her to the corner opposite the officers.
Nea shot a satisfied smile toward the tag before rounding the corner with Stella while Patriot Red oozed down the side of the police station.
Between the blur of tears, Nea watched her own blood drip from her mouth, long strands of metallic saliva pooling toward the ground. She had the displeasure of experiencing her first hooking. Holy fuck, did it hurt like Hell. All of her body weight had the flesh in her shoulder aching, muscles twitching and clenching around the cold metal that was punctured through it. Every once in a while, if she breathed too heavily, the hook would agonizingly tickle her collar bone, sending bolts of fresh pain all through her body.
Smushy footsteps approached after a few minutes of her dangling helplessly. A ragged sigh escaped her when his lower half came into view.
Of course it had to be Ace fucking Visconti who came to her rescue. Sure, he'd gotten his foot in the door with the Mika James shit, but with the giant hook through her shoulder, she was one 'princesa' away from suckerpunching him in the jugular.
The only thing helping her to bear the weight of all the pain, anger and misery was the thought of Stella. Some of the tears were from the lacerations across her body, but some were from the tragic ache of missing her.
She never got to tell her goodbye, never got to say sorry for fucking up with the whole drug thing. Did time stop while she was gone? Was she frozen and crying in her bed while Nea battled the forces of Hell? If she returned to the real world, maybe everything would swing back into motion and it would be like no time had passed. Maybe she'd end up in the asylum, staring at her tag and still coked up, yearning to make things right with her girl.
Who knew… One could only hope for the best.
"This reminds me of that one movie…" Ace said with intrigue, taking a second to look Nea up and down, his eyes catching on the bloody hook pierced through her.
"In case… you can't tell… I'm fucking dying here-" Nea grit out.
He put his hands on his hips. "Am I allowed to touch you?"
"No, I thought you were going to telekinetically get me down. YES. You can fucking touch me!" All the pain from shouting was worth it. Her teeth ground together as she watched his unfazed face move in, his arms reaching upward. He struggled at first but soon understood what he needed to do, and with the help of Nea, she was released from the hook within a minute.
"What's with the hooks? Is it trying to make jerky out of us?" Ace asked while standing aside Nea, who was trying to control her breathing as she was bent over. As she recovered, she grabbed her flashlight from the ground and wiped the mud from it.
"Shut up. Please shut up."
"Someone's got to ask questions around here," He said.
"You know what," She sighed, "Why don't you go find that thing and ask it yourself."
Ace wheezed with laughter. "Maybe I will."
Ace had reconvened with Meg and Dwight after he'd run off, explaining that Nea had saved him from "The Hag". They didn't really question how he'd come up with the name since it was pretty fitting and honestly they couldn't be bothered to indulge in whatever long winded explanation he'd inevitably come up with. It was a gamble whether or not it would segway into an insincere conversation on his previously failed marriages, which was a rather undesirable topic as they'd discovered back at the campfire.
In order to keep Ace from diving into his monologues, they asked him for help on the generator but it was quickly made apparent that he had no idea what he was doing. Which was fair. People don't normally have that sort of knowledge in their everyday life. But it was when Meg and Dwight tried teaching him what to do, Ace just stood up with his hands in the air and a shrug on his shoulders.
"I don't think this is for me," He quipped casually before heading to the door, taking the medkit with him as per Meg's orders. "I'll go check up on that girl," He said in the same manner as a kid avoiding his vegetables.
If it had been any other situation, Meg and Dwight would've burst out in laughter at how effortlessly Ace evaded responsibility, not seeming in any way fueled to work in order to stay alive. He was running on luck, but it would be only a matter of time before he was felled by his own hubris.
It wasn't long after he left when they finished the generator and were left with the listless task to go find another. There couldn't have been much more to do.
Together they walked to a little boat which was at the base of a short slope right beside the shack. They soon discovered a generator was perched on its deck, not giving them much to consider in terms of where to go next.
"Do you think they're okay?" Meg asked in concern as she stepped up into the boat. Dwight followed after her, each taking a knee beside the generator, getting right to work.
"I don't know…" He wasn't entirely sure Ace was capable of being trusted. But they didn't really have a choice. They had to keep working and just hope the others were able to take care of each other. "Just keep your eye out for them."
Meg breathed out, trying to release all of the tension that was built up in her body. There was a lot running through her head. A lot more than just running, hiding and surviving. There was so much more to fight for than just her own life. She had her mom, she had Dwight, she had the others. No matter how many people entered and exited the revolving doors of the trials, she wanted to help them and to get them back to the real world. But that concept alone was the looming ache in her heart. How do they escape?
How? How? How?
A stabbing headache seeped its way behind her eyes, just as a bead of sweat rolled down the moist plane of her forehead. Symptoms of extreme stress. Maybe it would kill her before anything else did.
Dwight glanced at her, noticing the discomfort written on her face. "How's it going?"
She shook her head. "I wanna get out of here. We need to do something. I know you don't want me to, but I have to find out what that metal door was."
His face betrayed his disdain for the idea, but he knew he was being selfish. "Okay, but I'm going to go with you."
Meg shrugged. "That's fine."
The strained silence they fell into didn't remain uninterrupted for long as they could hear the Hag's gurgling whisper up the side of the boat. They pulled their hands from the generator and ducked low. There were only two entrances onto the suffocatingly small boat. Dwight kept his eyes trained on his side, while Meg monitored hers. The thing's uneven strides could be heard smushing into the mud. The gurgles encircled them, taunting and toying with them. The anticipation was skyrocketing as they waited with pounding hearts.
What was it doing? Maybe it didn't realize they were on the boat…
The gurgles faded for a moment. Just when they thought it was clear, the Hag sprung onto the deck on Dwight's side and immediately started scampering up to him. Meg flew up her side of the deck and leapt off the ramp where she landed evenly in the mud. What she didn't realize was that there was a trap etched into the ground right where she landed.
The Hag shot up from the mud, nearly face to face with Meg, and slashed her straight across the waist within a millisecond of appearing. Meg stumbled backward in shock and despair, holding a hand over her torn and bloodied flesh.
Just a couple feet away, Dwight tried to run to her aid but he too failed to spot the trap that his foot landed directly in.
Right like Meg, he was caught off guard when the Hag sprung from the mud and landed a deep strike in the same spot as where he was injured before. The attack was so abrasive that he was knocked off his feet and splatted right down into the mud, groaning in pain as blood fountained down the front of his body.
Despite the blur of tears obscuring his vision, he watched the Hag corkscrew into the mud, disappearing right into the soil. His eyes adjusted as he spotted Meg hobbling away in the distance. She looked disoriented and hazy, tripping over her own feet.
There wasn't much she could do when the Hag burst from the ground and slashed at Meg, creating a deep and bloody engraving down her back. She fell limp onto the ground.
Dwight cried out in pain as he sat up, trying to at least get away now that Meg's fate was sealed. He didn't like turning his back on her and fleeing but being hooked was a part of the game and it didn't necessarily spell the end for her. He just needed to get up and hide so he could be there to get her off and then hopefully finish that generator on the boat. They were on the cusp of beating yet another trial. He needed to keep things cool and calm- It would all work out.
The Hag seemed unconcerned with finishing what she started with him. Despite its startlingly thin and frail form, it picked up Meg and slung her over its boney shoulder with a shocking ease. He watched despairingly as it carried her off, knowing full well what sort of pain awaited her at the destination.
He got up as soon as they were out of sight and began trailing quietly after them all while scanning the ground like a maniac for any of those dreaded symbols. His cautious feet carried him to a patch of foliage which he peeked through, giving him a clear shot of a menacing and idle hook, Meg's name written all over it.
The Hag bounded right up to it and slung Meg directly onto its point, piercing it straight through her shoulder.
Meg's shrill cry filled the air. Nea grimaced, finally being able to sympathize with the pain of being hooked. She pulled her beanie down over her ears, despising the sounds of her companions' agony.
Her trembling hand went back to the powder bottle that was sitting uncapped in the medkit beside her. There was blood absolutely everywhere. As she leaned against the generator, she continued to pour the powder in the foot long gash that took residence along her ribs. The pain slowly ebbed away.
"What's that stuff?" Ace asked. Instead of actually trying to repair the generator for once, he was just standing there watching Nea patch herself up. And when she was done, she already knew he'd continue to do the same thing when she started working. He was like a loathsome cocktail of spoiled brat child and unbothered old man living in retirement. She was half convinced he was some manifestation of the torture they were being put through, not actually another survivor like them.
"I don't know," She told him, hardly any energy left to continuously give him attitude. When she pulled the bottle away, she peered in and found it to be empty. With an unenthused sigh, she threw it and the cap into the swamp. She was normally pretty green minded, but in an act of rebellion, she wanted to ruthlessly litter in the realm that she was imprisoned in. Though, it didn't make her feel much better as she watched the bottle splat into the mud.
Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Ace's mouth open and his chest rise. She put her finger up- "Stop talking, please. I need silence."
Ace's mouth shut which then a grin grew across his lips. She couldn't tell if that was better or worse than him just spewing useless nonsense.
"I'm not letting you get away with sitting on your ass and doing nothing," She told him matter of factly as she closed the medkit, tossing it aside where her flashlight was before facing the generator. Her own blood tainted the machine It was… surreal.
"I'm here to keep the morale high," He explained, sounding like he didn't even believe his own words. Nea grabbed his arm and yanked down irritably, watching him crumble to his knees in front of the wiring panel.
"We keep the morale high by surviving. To do that, you gotta do gens. On this day, Ace Visconti is gonna be an electrician."
His eyebrow twitched slightly. She couldn't tell what emotions swam in his eyes due to the shades he wore, but Nea could tell that he didn't enjoy not being able to weasel his way out of working. Rather than speaking on his frustrations, he smiled coolly and said, "Don't blame me if this thing blows up."
Nea shrugged, "Hopefully it ends us both."
Meg was the best when it came to evading the killers, but not always when it came to handling the pain of getting caught. Dwight had to use all his strength to keep her held up. She was loosely conscious, fading in and out. He wasn't sure he could make it all the way back to the small boat with her. A part of him also worried the Hag would be waiting for them, or in the least it would have trapped it back up with its symbols.
What he needed was to get that medkit back, but he had no clue where Ace and Nea were. They could be hopelessly far away. He didn't want to risk wasting time when they had a generator not far from them- it was just Meg.
He held her tightly. He needed to make the best decision that secured her safety.
So, he wandered off in search of Ace and Nea.
The swamp was difficult to navigate, especially difficult to traverse. There was so much going on in the environment that it felt like it too was trying to kill them. Dwight endlessly slipped on the mud due to having to balance Meg's weight. She was barely walking on her own.
It had to have been five minutes of straight struggling before his ears were delighted by the sound of a progressing generator. They were in an area he was unfamiliar with, so it had to be the others that were working on it. He shuffled through the mud and murky puddles faster before finally stumbling into sight of Nea and Ace.
Ace promptly stood up and grabbed the medkit, meeting them halfway. Nea bitterly muttered something under her breath as he walked away, but Dwight couldn't hear what it was.
"Nice to see you friends," Ace greeted them. Dwight nodded at him and knelt down, letting Meg slip out from his arms. He leaned her up against a rock and immediately took the medkit from Ace. Upon opening it, he was disheartened to see the powder bottle wasn't there. As he was taking a thoughtful glance toward Nea, his eye caught on the bottle lying in the mud a few feet from him, assumedly empty.
All that was left was some sutures, a needle and thread… or the syringe. He grabbed it, caring little about saving it for another time. She wasn't going to make it anywhere with just stitches. She needed the boost.
Without debating anything else, he plunged the needle into her arm and pushed the mystery elixir into her. Him and Ace both watched her body transform right in front of their eyes. Every marred piece of flesh seemed to branch out and meet with its other half until the gaping scratches were conjoined in pink, unscathed skin.
"Okay," Dwight breathed out in relief. He brought his hand up to her face, lightly pressing his thumb into her cheekbone to elicit some response from her. As his palm came flush with the side of her face, Meg's eyes fluttered open with a newfound energy in them.
"That feels amazing," She said with the tiniest smile. Her gaze moved down to see the empty syringe in Dwight's hand. "You gotta try that sometime."
He cocked his head, hand falling from her face. "Hopefully I will never need to."
Meg nodded as she sat up and saw that Nea was moments from popping the generator, having heard the fast pace of the pistons.
"Do we know if this is the last one?" She asked. Ace thought for a moment.
"We did one on the steamboat," He offered.
She looked at Dwight. "We did two, and I did one."
The trio shared a pleased look. They were almost done.
"Oh FUCK!" Nea shouted from behind them just as the Hag pounced on her. They were tangled in a gruesome ball in which Nea fought frantically against the monster, but all there was to be seen was blood spraying everywhere as the Hag ballistically slashed and diced Nea's flesh.
It was the first time Meg heard Nea scream for her life. A cold chill ran down her spine.
They all stood up. Ace, shockingly, sprinted pretty quickly over to grab the flashlight from the ground and then zipped right to the whirlwind of Nea and the Hag as they barreled down a slope beside the generator. The fiasco was just out of sight as Meg and Dwight hurried over to the gen. It suddenly started spraying out sparks, making their guts sink. What was going on with these generators?
Knowing it was their ticket out, they both started repairing it again. It was so close to being done, they just needed to finish it despite the odds of their monster being right in their midst.
Meanwhile, Ace was doing everything he could to take the Hag's attention away from Nea. He sidestepped a few times, trying to get a good angle on the thing's face in order to shine the light in its eyes. His heart pounded tremendously, so much so he thought it would probably be a heart attack that would claim his life right then and there. If so, he was determined to go out with a damn good fight.
Poor Nea shouted and wailed. She couldn't fight back no matter how hard she tried, so she just began to shield herself with her forearms held just above her face. The skin there was flayed apart all but down to the bone. There'd soon be nothing left of her arms if she couldn't get away.
The Hag just continued its bloody assault, standing right above Nea with its animalistic glare swimming with instinctive malice. That is until it was purged by the blinding flashlight beam. Ace held his arm stiff and straight out, walking closer to the Hag in order to concentrate the light more. It tried covering its eyes and moving around to evade the light but Ace had marksman aim and accuracy.
Nea knew it was her only chance to flee. She got up, soiled in blood and mud, and took off in the direction of Meg and Dwight.
Ace felt smug for a moment, thinking he'd found the key to winning the battle with the Hag, but then the flashlight flickered once, twice until-
The light was gone.
He confusedly pressed the 'on' switch to no avail. The flashlight was dead. As Ace looked up, he realized he was too. The Hag's vicious gaze was settled on him.
"Bajá un cambio!" He said with an uneasy laugh whilst backing away from it, like one would when faced with a wild animal.
His words seemed to only aggravate the beast. The Hag launched forward in a ferocious lunge, fully intent to kill him. Ace threw himself to the side, barely missing it. He broke into a sprint that was quickly turned into a chase as he realized the Hag was not giving up on him.
He had a bad feeling that it wasn't going to let him get away from it this time.
They'd just finished the generator by the time Nea climbed back up the slope in a state of terror. Meg spared only one look at the girl before being overcome with sickness. Her arms were mutilated beyond belief. If you had the guts to stare longer than a second, you'd notice that the cuts were so deep you could see her bones peeking out from the blood and torn flesh. The look in Nea's eyes was harrowing.
"We have to find the exit," Dwight told them. Nea didn't even respond. It seemed like she was just trying to not look down at the gruesome mess her body had become. Her eyes stayed trained on the horizon, not daring to go any lower.
Meg put her hand on the girl's shoulder, helping to guide her as they began walking along the edge of the swamp in search of the exit gate. When they got around the steamboat, they realized there was one off in the distance, a little ways behind the landmark. They wasted no time in running right up to it, Dwight being the one to yank down on the lever. Relief started to flood through them as the light bulbs shined down their crimson light.
One… Two… Three-
The gate opened and with it they were welcomed by the usual rumble and sizzle coming from the ground. Meg had yet to really consider why that all happened when the gate opened, since she usually was just running for her life in the final stages of the trials. Yet again, she found herself unconcerned with it, rather her mind was on Ace.
"What do we do about him?" She asked worriedly. Nea was on the edge of the inky, black fog at the end of the gate, ready to head in at a moment's notice. Dwight and Meg stood at the gate's threshold, contemplating what to do.
Her heart ached for him. He was just an old guy, she couldn't imagine that he could make it out on his own.
"Do you think we should go back in for him?" She asked, scared yet hopeful. "Maybe we can get him out of there."
Dwight shut his eyes and tangled his fingers in his hair, yanking on the black strands. "I don't know, I don't know-"
Meg prayed Ace would pop out from the swamp, shoot them a smile and stroll through the exit gate like nothing was amiss. But they stood there waiting without any indication that he was coming. Their hope was fading so fast.
"Guys…" Nea moaned from behind them. They turned around, seeing her standing near the fog with her eyes finally roaming the severe injuries all along her body. She looked up at them with glazed over irises and a starkly pale face before plummeting to the ground, completely out cold from the sheer horror of seeing the blood and gore her body had undergone.
"Oh fuck, fuck," Meg cursed as she ran to Nea's aid, pulling the girl into an embrace. "Dwight I-"
She looked back at him, pain stained across her face. "What do we do?"
Without looking her in the eye, Dwight hung his head low. "I think we… I think we just cut our losses and go…"
She'd already known that'd be the most plausible solution, yet it stung terribly. She didn't know Ace well but he was still another soul, the same as them, twisted in the web of terror. It hurt badly to leave him behind but she didn't know what else to do. She didn't want to do something stupid to get herself killed, or have Dwight be killed. And then there was Nea. It just was… unlucky.
With nothing else to be said, they each took a hold of Nea and solemnly breached the black fog, feeling the insufferable pang of guilt line their guts.
The biggest torture was not the killer hot on his tail- it was the running. Ace felt as though his lungs were on the brink of collapsing. A sizzling fire branched through his chest and climbed up into his throat which ached with every haggard breath he took. His knees were inflamed, his hands itched with sweat, his beloved tweed coat was soon going to be abandoned in favor of getting some cool air on his body.
By some graces of a miracle, Ace had run with enough strength that the Hag was pretty far from him, so he had the ability to slow just a little. Honestly, he debated if accepting death was the right way to go. He did evade it long enough, he figured. Between the gangs, the bets and the gambling, all the trouble he had gotten into throughout the years… maybe this was just the epitome of karmic payback for being the sinner of all sinners.
"Aghh, damnit," He cried aloud as he decided he couldn't take it anymore. He stopped running and panted profusely in place, feeling like he'd hit a brick wall.
So be it, death was a few seconds away. Or maybe one of the others would pop out of nowhere with another flashlight and prolong his lifespan for another half an hour. Either way, he was ready for whatever the universe sent his way.
That was when he heard it.
The heartbeat pounding in his ear faded as he took his break from running, allowing clearances for him to hear… something… something heavenly. It was to his right, somewhere just beyond a patch of tall grass and cattails. Almost entranced by the noise, Ace began taking meaningful steps toward it. He pushed the foliage aside and took a confounding look at the ground, seeing a sort of manhole there, though it was square and had a hatch lid attached to it. Billowing from it was a black, wispy fog. All that he could see was a dark void within. It was unsettling yet something about it made him feel comforted. He couldn't explain why.
The Hag's gurgles were getting closer, as were her sloppy footfalls in the mud. It was now or never. He gripped his alligator tooth, realizing suddenly that he was back in his gambling game. Whatever the hatch was, he couldn't be sure. But he was willing to bet it was better than being torn to pieces by the swamp monster.
Still holding his beloved charm, Ace grinned and stepped over to the hatch before plunging into the dark fog. The last thing he heard was the lid slam shut behind him.
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Hey friends, hope everyone is enjoying the story. As some of you may have realized by now, Ace is Argentinian so I've done my best to sorta weave in some Spanish lines for him but ah, I don't speak Spanish so I'm relying on the internet to offer me some Argentinian slang and stuff. If it is horrifically wrong, let me know and please correct me so I can make it more believable, especially for any readers who understand Spanish cuz I'm sure that shit gets annoying when authors have lines/grammar totally wrong.
That aside, I hope everyone loves the story and is enjoying how things are unfolding. I've received lots of engagement recently and I'm happy to welcome new readers to this twisted tale. I want to mention that I've been doing some pretty heavy rewrites on the whole story, starting from the beginning chapters. At this point I believe I am at Chapter Ten, so everything before that should be revamped in order to be more seamless with the overall story. I've added in some extra fluff between characters here and there so if you're into rereading it, you'll be pleasantly surprised to find that there's new details to learn.
As of right now that's all I've got to say, just wanna throw out another thank you for all those who are reading and giving me my motivation boosts by favoriting and liking the story, as well as reviewing it. Y'all really keep the gas in the engine lmao.
Alright, alright- Much love 3
MizzTQ xoxoxoxoxo