Chapter 2: A Cruel Awakening

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When Homer Simpson, or rather the being that used to be known as Homer Simpson awoke, it was with a start and a scream, as if he had just escaped a 100 night's worth of nightmares. "Ahhh! Huh! What the!?" Once his vision cleared, he made out a ceiling with a single cracked florescent light in the middle. It was currently off. He tried to turn his head to get a better look at his surroundings but found that he could not move much further than an inch toward either side.

Something felt off. Way off.

"Where am I?" The man tried to recall his last conscious memory, only to panic as he realized he couldn't recall anything about his life before this moment, not even his own name. "W-Who am I?

Then the light suddenly came alive, temporarily blinding the man and forcing him to hold his arm over himself. He felt a brief sense of joy in realizing that he could still move his limbs but this joy died out the moment he moved his hand away and his recovered vision beheld the gruesome sight of a pale skinned man with medical braces covering his eyes and pulling his lips back. In his hands was a bloody scalpel.

The being once known as Homer Simpson screamed in horror and thrashed about in an attempt to get away from this...this thing. He leaned toward the far right of the bed he was resting on and ended up falling on his stomach. Every nerve in his body screamed in agony the moment he touched the gore-coated ground and if it weren't for the fact that he was currently running from the monster with metal covering its eyes, he probably would have stayed down until the pain abated. Instead, he pressed his hands against the floor and forced himself to his knees. He felt something warm and gross inside his mouth and tried to spit it out, finding that he had trouble doing so. Once he finally got it out, he looked to see it was stray pieces of flesh.

"Oh...Oh my God!"

The being once known as Homer Simpson forced himself up and nearly lost his balance. He felt something heavy like a tumor on his head that waved and craned as he tried to find his footing. He found that his line of vision was far shorter than he had figured as when he turned to the table, he only saw the edge of it stained with dried blood and carnage. Before he could ponder this further, he heard stomping to his left and his eyes darted to the abdomen of the hellish creature that was looming over him not long ago. From his bellybutton began two chains that wrapped around either side of his waist, adorned with surgical tools the being once know as Homer Simpson had never seen before.

"G-Get away from me!"

The fretful, pitiful creature backed up as the hellish beast came closer. Once he came to the end of the table, he grabbed it and pulled it in front of the monster. Then he turned and tried to make a break for the doors on the other side of the room. He found that his movements were wobbly, his body a machine he had no prior knowledge of how to operate. He uttered a short scream as he heard the table scrape against the floor behind him and zig-zagged toward the doors. He reached them, pulled them wide open...

...and found himself staring into the pale bellybutton of yet another hellish monster. Looking up, the being once known as Homer Simpson felt familiarity for the first time since waking up as he beheld the man with pins in his head, his solid black eyes staring down at him in quiet contempt.

"Ahhhh! A acupuncturist!"

The pinned being entered the room, forcing the fretful creature back with a whimper. Behind him, another monster followed, this one a female with a open wound in her throat. The monster with the metal braces walked up to the pinned being and all three stared at the fretful creature before them as he backed himself into a corner and cowered.

"W-Who are you people!?" He asked through a shaking, whispering voice. "W-What is this horrible place?"

The pinned being stepped up to the fretful creature and examined him closely, holding his hand up to his chin as if he were inspecting a prized cow. "Very good work, Surgeon. The stiches are a nice touch."

The monster apparently known as the Surgeon bowed in gratitude. The female monster leaned toward him and whispered. "It is decent. But personally, I would have removed the head." The Surgeon's only response to this was to shrug.

"H-Head? Stiches? W-What are you guys talking about?" The being once known as Homer Simpson looked down at his hands and gasped quietly when he saw that they were the same shade of ghostly blue as the monster's. "W-What did you do to me?"

"What did we do?" The pinned being repeated the fretful creature's question with something akin to a chuckle. "The same thing we do to all worthy souls that fall into our realm. We remade you."

"R-Remade me? I-Into what?"

"A solider in Hell's army." The pinned being gestured to the far side of the room. The being once known as Homer Simpson reluctantly turned to see a rusted mirror replacing the wall. In the dingy light of the room, it was hard to make himself out from how far he was standing. All he could really tell was that he was shirtless and barefoot. The fretful being turned to his captors once more and then, with fingers tenting in fear, he slowly made his way toward the mirror. He looked down at his feet, squirming as he stepped over rotting flesh and broken bones. Once he felt close enough to the mirror, he drew in a long breath, braced himself and beheld the horror of just what these monsters had done to him.

At once, it became clear why his line of vision seemed lower than before and that was because his eyeballs had been stitched into the spaces on his flabby chest that his nipples used to occupy. His mouth, still possessing his teeth and tongue, now lay where his navel used to be. He blinked and he soundlessly gasped, all the more horrified that, despite the rearrangement, his eyes and mouth still worked the same as they always had. The most horrific part, however, the putrid blood-soaked cherry on the top of this unimaginable nightmare, was his still-intact head. Both the eye sockets and his empty mouth were sewn shut with human hair, possibly his on account of the head being totally bald. Unlike his gut, the head made no expression of any kind as the horror of his situation sunk in. It was little more than a growth with a brain inside. The "tumor" he had felt before.

Unable to take the fear anymore, the being once known as Homer Jay Simpson screamed. "W-What the hell is this!? What the hell did you guys do to me!?"

"Hell is exactly what we did for you," The female monster cooed. "A perfect form for one with such appetites as yours."

"Enough with the fancy talk!" The panicked being turned around and pointed a finger at the monsters. "Tell me what's going on right now or I'll...I'll..."

"Scream?" The female challenged as she took a step toward the being with the useless head. "Pray to your God for deliverance?"

The being with the useless head whimpered and backed up as the female grew closer and closer, her gaze hateful and playful in equal measure. He slipped on an eyeball and fell on his giant ass, sliding himself against the mirror as the female leaned toward him. "Because I promise that he can't hear you in here. No one can but us!" She reached out a hand and caressed the pitiful creature's cheek, even as the eyes on his chest began to cry.

"That is enough, Deep Throat." The pinned being spoke up. "I believe you've scared him into submission."

Deep Throat turned to her leader silently, a small look of regret in her eyes. Then she sighed and stepped back, allowing the pinned being to step in her place. He held his hands behind him like a schoolteacher as he watched the pitiful being tremble. "Arise."

Despite his brain and his heart screaming at him not to follow this monster's orders, the being once known as Homer Simpson forced himself back up, his entire mutilated body trembling in terror.

"Now, let me put this in terms you'll understand." The pinned being explained. "You are now a member of the Order of the Gash, a servant of the one true Leviathan. There's a name humans have for beings such as us and that name is Cenobite."

"C-Cenobite?" The belly-lipped being asked. He rubbed his head, trying once again to recall how he ended up in this nightmare in the first place. "I...I can't remember anything!"

"A symptom of the rebirthing process." The pinned being continued. "Your human memories are lost to you forever. Just as well, for they would serve no purpose in the Labyrinth."

"L-Labyrinth?"

"This place, your new home." Deep Throat spoke. "Of course, the humans have another name for it as well. Hell."

The being once known as Homer Simpson panicked. "H-Hell!? I'm in Hell!?" He slapped both his hand over his ears. "Oh my god! Oh my god! This can't be it! I can't be in Hell!" He began to pace. "I don't remember anything but I know I was a good guy, right!? I went to church! I went to work! I had a family...did I? Yeah yeah! I remember that much! I remember I had a family! I don't remember their faces or names but I remember that I had a family! I-I can't be in Hell!"

The being wept as he threw himself at the pinned being's feet. "Please! There's gotta be something I can do to get out of here! I can't be in Hell."

"A typical reaction," The pinned being mused. "And a fruitless one." He kicked the being once known as Homer Jay Simpson away from himself. "Make no mistake, my dear solider. Hell is not a place of punishment but a place of discovery. You are not here to atone for the sins of your human life but to shed it in the process of evolution." He stepped up to the trembling being, got down on one knee and patted his bald head. "I know it may seem like a nightmare now but I promise, down the dark decades of your time here, you will wonder why you ever hesitated in the first place."

The pinned being got up and walked toward the door, Deep Throat and the Surgeon following him. "You may remain in this room if you wish or you may explore. Either way, you will wait until you receive your first assignment. Consider it a field test of sorts." The pinned being stopped at the doorway as the other two passed him and left the room. He turned to the trembling Cenobite. "Oh. That's right. I almost forgot." He walked back up to the Cenobite once know as Homer Simpson, removing one of the pins in his head in the process. He tapped his fingers over the blood running from the wound and held them out to the trembling Cenobite. "I received your new name from Leviathan." He flicked the blood in the new Cenobite's face in the same manner a priest might sprinkle Holy Water. "From this moment forth, I christen thee, Xingtian."

"Xingtian?" The Cenobite choked as he spit out some of the blood that went into his mouth. "But my name is...is..." He once again remembered that he couldn't recall his former name and whimpered.

"Waste not your energy clinging to the last shreds of your humanity but save it for the tasks ahead." The pinned being advised. "Welcome to the Gash, Xingtian. Welcome home." With this, the pinned being left the room.

The being now known as Xingtian waited until the doors closed completely before crawling back into the nearest corner and breaking down into a sobbing mess.

"Good morning! I'm Kent Brockman, keeping you updated on the tragic situation regarding Homer Jay Simpson who, three days ago, seemingly vanished into thin air!"

The news reporter stood along with his crew in front of the Simpson's open garage, the distraught family standing at the entrance way. Behind them, the Springfield Police worked haphazardly to find anything even remotely resembling evidence. So far, all they managed to find was a dried line of blood on the ground which Chief Wiggum was all too eager to suggest as proof Homer was brutally attacked and possibly killed.

That theory still weighed heavily on Marge's mind as Kent approached her with the mic. "Now, Mrs. Simpson. It has been three excruciating days since your husband vanished from your once-thought-to-be safe home, leaving only a trail of blood behind. Do you have anything you want to say on the manner, maybe even some words for the assailant if they're watching this right now?"

To Kent's surprise, Marge suddenly grabbed the mic with a cry. "Please bring my Homie back! We don't have a lot of ransom money but I can cook for you! For free! For life! Just please bring my Homer back home!" Marge began to weep, keeping an iron-clad grip on the mic even as Kent tried to wrestle it back.

"This is so sad," Lisa commented as she watched the struggle go down, Maggie in her arms. "Dad's missing, Mom's a mess and all the media cares about is the sensationalism. Can you believe this, Bart?...Bart?" Lisa turned to see her brother on his phone, addressing the twelve followers he had on Springface.

"Remember guys. One like on this post equals one prayer to God to get my father back safe and sound and a share is worth five. Please bring my old man back home, guys! Best wishes, your pal Bart Simpson" Bart finished the recording and chuckled to himself as he saw the likes and views go up.

"Bart!" Lisa ripped the phone away from her brother's hands. "Don't use our Dad's disappearance for clout!"

"Relax, Lis!" Bart said as he snatched his phone back. "This is Homer we're talking about, remember? He's probably off on some wild adventure, the consequences of which will come back home with him in no time. Remember when he got married in Las Vegas with Mr. Flanders?"

"I try to forget." Lisa muttered. "But I don't know, Bart. Something about this whole situation seems off somehow! I mean, even if Dad got swept up on some goofy adventure, he would have at least left a note, even if it was written in butter! Plus, what about the blood on the floor?"

"Homer's always getting himself hurt." Bart waved his hand in dismissal. "Look, he'll be back soon. I guarantee it." Bart clicked his tongue with both fingers pointed at his sister as he walked away. Sighing, Lisa walked up to Lou as he was currently emptying Homer's tool box.

"Officer," She spoke. "Have you found anything yet?"

"So far, nothing, little girl." Lou spoke as he turned to Lisa and gestured behind him. "The Chief is currently searching for any possible gateways to Narnia."

"Hey, I think I found it!" Wiggum shouted with his head stuck inside of a old flower pot. "Look! They've even got one of those talking spiders like in the movie. Hey, wait a minute! There were no talking spiders in Narnia! Who are you!?" Wiggum began to panic, running around in circles with the flower pot still on his head while Eddie chased after him, trying to get it off. Lou and Lisa watched the spectacle unfold for a few seconds until the police officer spoke up.

"Listen, little girl. Was your father acting strange the days leading up to his disappearance?" He asked. "Anything unusual going on with him at all?"

"Well..." Lisa thought of the puzzle box her father had been messing with the week before he vanished. He had done his best to hide it from the rest of the family but Lisa had spotted him a few times before, sitting in this very garage, messing with the puzzle box with more focus and effort than she had seen him give to anything he'd ever done. She didn't think too much about it at first, part of her even glad that her father had such interest in something like a puzzle box. But that fact alone made the whole situation suspicious as well and now that both her father and the box seemed to be missing, Lisa couldn't help but feel that the two events were connected. "Well...there was this box..."

Before Lisa could go into further detail, a gunshot stole both her and Lou's attention. They turned to see Eddie struggle with Wiggum's arm, a smoking gun clasped around his fingers. The Chief's head was, of course, still trapped in the flower pot. "Someone get it off! Get it off! Oh god! I think it's laying eggs!" Wiggum pointed his shaky gun toward his head again, Eddie struggling to stop him.

"Oh no, Chief! Not again!" Lou rushed over to his superior, leaving Lisa alone to sigh.

"Oh Dad. I hope wherever you are, you're alright!"

She looked back to her mother who was still wrestling Kent Brockman for the mic.

"Or at least doing better than Mom."

Having had enough, Kent snapped his fingers and had two of his network goons grab Marge by the shoulders and drag her away. He grumbled to himself for a moment, fixing his hair and clothing in place, before turning to the camera with his professional smile. "Come up next: Doo-Doo Head: Harmless childish insult or derogatory slur!? But first, a word from our sponsors."

Xingtian wasn't sure how long he spent in that room, curled up in that corner and crying to himself. Could have been a few hours, a few days, or even a few weeks. Time was a useless construct in Hell and in the end, it didn't really matter to Xingtian how long he had been here.

All that mattered was that he was so, so hungry.

Rationalizing that if the monsters had mouths, they also had food, Xingtain got back up and toddled to the doors. He pushed them open only a bit at first, enough to create a crack for him to see through. There didn't seem to be much aside from a long corridor before the doors, the ending concealed with mist. After a moment's hesitation, he opened the doors all the way and shuffled outside, confirming that he was at the end of a long, empty corridor. Xingtian whimpered as he looked around, the only source of light available being the small torches that lined the walls. Once he understood that there was no other way but forward or backward, Xingtian chose the former and started walking.

He groaned as he felt the sludge of rotten gore and crusted blood beneath his feet. He was hoping that it would be cleaner than the surgery room but it was clear to him now that the floors of Hell were just like this. Once his eyes adjusted to the minimum light in the corridor, he looked down at the ground and made his feet step onto the parts with the least amount of gore on them. After only a few seconds of this, however, he felt something hard and sharp pierce the inside of his nose. He shrieked in pain and tried to back up, causing the object to stab even further into his nose. He stepped forward, paused and slowly brought his hands to the object before him As he grasped it, he realized it was a long grimy chain. He moved his hands downward to his face and with a final, painful yank, dislodged the hook at the end of it, losing a bit of the inside of his nose in the process. The blood dripped over his stitched-together lips, in between his chest-eyes and down to his belly-mouth. He gagged and sputtered, somewhat horrified by how used he was getting to the taste of gore.

He needed real food pronto.

Xingtian continued his walk, being careful to navigate around the occasional hooked chain hanging from the ceiling. He had let go of the idea of trying not to step on the gore beneath his feet and before long, forgot it was even there. His sole focus became getting to the end of this corridor and finding something to eat. He grew tired. His hunger and thirst were great, increased by his heightened sensitivity to sensation. He was suffering, far worse than he ever had in his human life. He wasn't entirely sure how he knew that but somehow, he just knew.

Xingtian wasn't sure how long he was wandering down that corridor. It could have been a few hours, a few days, or even a few weeks. Time was a useless construct in Hell and in the end, it didn't really matter to Xingtian how long he had been in there.

All that mattered was that he couldn't move another muscle and so finally allowed himself to collapse.

And as it just so happened, he collapsed right into the hallway marking the end of the corridor. His body heaved with great effort as he lay face-down on the floor, even more gore getting into his misplaced mouth. As his breathing began to return to something akin to normal, he heard the sound of wheels rolling next to him and lifted up his head to see what was going on. Only a few seconds afterward did he remember where his eyes were now and so, with great effort, he turned himself over on his back.

Standing before him was another pudgy Cenobite, one with no shirt and a cigar in his mouth. The wheeling sound came from the wheelbarrow he was hauling, his steaming guts inside. Xingtian gasped in horror as he noticed them.

"Hey, whatcha looking at?" The Cenobite asked. "You never seen a guy carry his guts in a wheelbarrow before?"

"N-Not really," Xingtian whimpered.

The Cenobite took out his cigar and tapped it a little, his beady black eyes studying Xingtian more closely. "Oh, I see. You're a newbie, ain't ya?"

"Uh huh." Xingtian confessed.

The Cenobite sighed. "Well, welcome to Hell, kid. And you might as well understand this right now. It doesn't get any better."

"D'oh!" Xingtian muttered sadly as part of him was hoping that the Cenobite would have slightly more comforting words for him. "I-Is there at least a cafeteria or something around here?"

The wheelbarrow Cenobite pointed behind himself. "There's a rec room just behind me where folks go to relax in between jobs. It ain't cozy but you just might find some fiddles there." He popped the cigar back into his mouth and continued forward, running over Xingtian's fingers in the process. "Just don't choke on 'em!" He chuckled to himself as he vanished down the corridor.

"Ow!" Xingtian muttered as he sucked his fingers. He noticed the wheelbarrow Cenobite walk away and uttered an uncertain "Thank you." before forcing himself back to his feet. He cracked his back and headed in the direction the wheelbarrow Cenobite came from, dreading the possibility of wandering down another endless corridor. To his immense surprise and relief, however, he found the door to his left rather quickly. The word "REC" was written on it in blood. "Thank goodness I found it!" Xingtian exclaimed happily. "Finally, things are looking up!"

He entered the rec room, wincing at the horrid sound the metal door made as it scraped against the ground. The sound caught the attention of all five Cenobites already in the room, their blank yet judgmental eyes sizing the newcomer up. Xingtian stiffened as he found himself on the spot and sheepishly waved. "H-Hello."

The Cenobites continued to stare at Xingtian for a few seconds more before returning to their personal business. For the two Cenobites standing right next to the doorway, this meant continuing their flirtations with one another. Xingtian observed them as he cautiously entered the room, a male and female Cenobite talking like two normal people in a bar. It would have put his mind at ease if the man wasn't covered in horrific burns turning what was left of his skin a hellish red and the woman wasn't sporting literal cracks in her face as if she had been submerged in a frozen lake for several days.

Gulping, Xingtian turned his attention to the other side of the room. Standing in the left-side corner was another male Cenobite, one with a outfit very similar to the Pinned Being, symmetrical strips of flesh cut away from his chest. That's about when the similarities ended, however, for on the Cenobite's shoulders sat a bull's head. The horns grew two inches wider than his shoulders and if it weren't for the beady eyes blinking every now and then, Xingtian would swear the head was taxidermized. The beastial Cenobite had his arms crossed as he stood in the corner, the left being the front leg of a tiger and the right being the forearm of a bear. Xingtian shuddered to think of where they got those parts from.

"Geez, is everyone around here a freak?" Xingtian thought as he looked over to the single table in the middle of the room. There was a teenaged female Cenobite on either side of the table, a bowl of fruit between them. Compared to their fellow Cenobites, they looked relatively normal, even sporting hair upon their heads. This, along with the food, relaxed Xingtian who made his way to the closer side of the table and sat down next to the Cenobite with short black hair. "Hey there!" He greeted. "My name's Xingtian and I-"

Xingtian uttered a high-pitched scream as the Cenobite across the table from him looked up. She seemed almost out of place among the other mutilated monsters, her leather clothes resembling a tank-top and miniskirt and her blue hair done in childish pigtails. As she looked up at Xingtian, however, he found himself staring into the deep empty sockets where her eyes should have been. They seemed to ooze a sugary green liquid that trailed down her cheeks. She slowly opened her lips in a grin, revealing that all of her teeth had been replaced by what appeared to be blood-red shards of candy. Her gums looked diseased, pale and bleeding from every "tooth".

"Gah!" Xingtian shuddered. "Uh...Uh...Y-You have a pretty smile, Ma'am." He turned to the girl next to him. She looked even more out of place than her companion with a mostly normal, shy-looking face and a school uniform over her leather outfit. "W-What about you?" Xingtian asked, deciding he'd rather get whatever body horror this girl had to offer out of the way. "What's your deal?"

The girl opened her mouth to speak, only to turn back to the table and erupt into a violent coughing fit. From her mouth came what looked at first glance to be rose petals. As Xingtian watched them squish against the table, however, he realized with disgust that they were actually petal-shaped bits of flesh. The girl continued to cough ugly for a few seconds before uttering a final wheeze and slamming her head against the table. With her face away from Xingtian, he wasn't sure whether she had lost consciousness or not and was too afraid to check.

Wanting to distract himself, Xingtian remembered his hunger and turned to the fruit table. His hunger turned to revulsion, however, as he realized all the fruit in the bowl was rotten. The apples were moldy, the bananas had blackened and the oranges had putrefied within their peels, draining out as a smelly, yellow liquid that covered everything else. Xingtian scanned every inch of the bowl for something even remotely edible but there was none. He looked around the room and found no fridge or pantry that might contain something fresher. This horrid mess of decay was the "fiddles" the wheelbarrow Cenobite was talking about.

Xingtian was really and truly in Hell.

Giving up on finding so much as a shred of comfort, or joy in this nightmare world, Xingtian covered his chest-eyes and cried. He wasn't sure how long he sat there and wept over his fate. It could have been a few hours, a few days or even a few weeks. Time was a useless construct in Hell and in the end, it didn't really matter to Xingtian how long he sat there and cried.

All that mattered was that he was stuck here for eternity.

"Oh! How about this slab of beefcake!?" Selma suggested as he pointed to the laptop screen. "Owns a beach house and a nightclub!"

"Or how about this guy?" Patty scrolled down to the profile beneath Selma's suggestion. "Says here he's a doctor with a side degree in Law! Plus he likes cute puppies!"

Marge's only response to her sister's suggestions was to burst into tears. It had been about a week since Homer mysteriously vanished and virtually all confidence that he would turn up alive had all but disappeared as well. Seizing their opportunity, Marge's chain-smoking twin sisters stopped by unannounced and after a very brief chat with Marge concerning her grief for her missing husband, they randomly suggested that Marge set up a dating profile online. She tried to object but was too choked up on her tears to do so and thus, Patty and Selma set up the profile on her behalf. All three sisters were sitting in the living room now, laptop seated on a coffee table brought in from the Rumpus room. From the hallway next door, Lisa watched with quiet disgust as her aunts continued to show her crying mother clearly embellished profiles.

"This is so awful!" Lisa whispered. "It's only been a week and everyone's already given up hope on finding Dad! Doesn't anyone in this house know what faith means?"

Just then, Bart walked in through the front door, holding a basket of muffins against his chest. With one hand, he happily munched on a muffin as he started up the stairs. But not before Lisa caught him.

"Bart? Where'd you get those muffins?" She asked.

"The Springfield Church," Bart answered through a full mouth. "Turns out Mr. Flanders will bake a whole basket of muffins for any kid whose lost one of their parents!"

"But Bart! We don't know for sure that Dad's dead! He's just missing! You told me yourself that he was just on one of his whacky adventures!"

"Oh Lisa, I thought you would have learned your lesson by now. Don't listen to the guy that's clearly full of crap." Bart said.

Lisa gave her brother one hell of a stink eye.

"...I gotta go." Unnerved, Bart raced upstairs as Lisa uttered a long sigh.

"Maybe Bart's right. Dad's never taken this long to come back. Maybe something terrible did happen." She thought back to the box she saw him messing with again. "If only I could find that box, I might be able to find some sort of clue into Dad's whereabouts." Lisa racked her brain for a moment, than gave up. "No, I shouldn't burden myself with this now. I'm stressed out enough as it is. I need a distraction."

It was then that she noticed Snowball II sleeping beneath a table in the hallway.

"I know! I'll bathe my cat!"

The sleeping feline awoke at once to the sound of that accursed word. She hissed at Lisa and dashed down the hallway toward the garage.

"Wait!" Lisa chased after her cat, mentally cursing herself for being so blunt about her intentions. Next time, she would simply grab Snowball while she was sleeping and dump her in the water.

The panicking cat leapt at the door leading to the garage with enough force to open it and jumped on Marge' car and from there, the nearby shelf. Lisa rushed in after her cat and spotted her at once. "Here, Snowball II! Here, girl!"

The cat only responded with hissing as her owner approached her.

"It's alright, girl!" Lisa cooed. "I was only kidding about the bath! I know your self-grooming is sufficient enough to clean yourself. Maybe...maybe we can compromise on a little brushing, yeah?"

Snowball II hissed one more time and leapt off the shelf, knocking the toolbox sitting there off as well. Lisa screamed as the box landed before her, narrowly missing her feet by an inch. Wrenches and screwdrivers clattered as they fell from the box.

"Snowball! What the heck is wrong with you!? I could have been seriously hurt!" Lisa continued to grumble to herself as she gathered her father's tools back in the box, grabbed a nearby chair from his work desk and pulled it up near the shelf. She picked up the toolbox, got on the chair, and was just about to slide the toolbox back to its proper place when something on the shelf caught her eye. Something that made her gasp.

Sitting on the shelf, dusty and with a spider's web connecting its top-right corner to the wood, was the very puzzle box Lisa had seen her father work on before he disappeared.

(Not exactly how I wanted to end the chapter but my laptop likes pissing me off and ruining my mood. That being said, I am very glad at how this chapter turned out, especially with all the Cenobite OCs I managed to create. They all may or may not show up in future stories by the way. And just in case you were wondering, here's their names in the order in which they appeared:

Guts

Scorch

Freezer Burn

Chimera

Sweethtooth

Hanahaki

I'll try to fit in a few more when I can but until then, please review if you liked the story!)