Re: The Battle Royale S2 [Round 3: Endymion]
09-20-2011, 05:34 PM
Originally posted on MSPA by MalkyTop.
What could he say? The obvious answer was there was nothing to say. There was absolutely nothing to say when you were accompanied by a talking knife and walking through the twisted dreamscape of a conglomeration of sentient goo.
Goddamn. All this trouble for some stupid whatever-it-is. Hopefully it’ll be over with as soon as possible.
Mongoose carefully hopped down and turned around to take Snake’s hand and help him down as well. Instead, Snake jumped on him like a giant cushion. The young man thought extremely dark thoughts and made a resolution to find some other old geezer to hang out with for the twentieth time that day. He then scrapped the resolution for the twentieth time that day. So Snake liked to tease and anger him. So what. He could deal with it.
As soon as Mongoose got back up and brushed himself off, he realized that they had finally reached the bottom of the bizarre sewers. Water rushed by under something that looked like glass but was actually cellophane. Underneath that, he could see dead fish floating by. He turned towards Snake. “So now what?”
“We still have to find the, ah, the photographer, he’s called?”
“Yeah,” said the knife that Mongoose was doing his best to ignore.
“Yeah. So how do we do that?” he said, shivering and glancing around the dreamscape again.
Snake prodded the cellophane with his foot. “Well, he was washed down here. We could probably find him if we continue following the flow of the water.”
“Yeah. Right.” It was only now that Mongoose realized how cold and dark it was down here. “Maybe that’s not quite a good idea.”
“I certainly hope you aren’t frightened, Mongoose.”
“Shut up. We should leave.”
“Well, I have no intention of abandoning this little venture. I’m rather curious about how it’ll turn out. You can leave if you want.”
“I’m not—“
“Of course you wouldn’t, because you wouldn’t leave a poor old man alone down here, would you?”
Snake beamed cheerfully at him before continuing down a nearby tunnel. Mongoose waited until he turned the corner to curse.
“Don’t think I didn’t hear that,” came Snake’s admonishing voice. “Do I have to come back there or…?”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, I’ll do it,” Mongoose grumbled back, dragging his feet and pulling back his rubber band. Feeling a strange stinging sensation, he looked down to find that his disciplinary rubber band had grown teeth for no real reason and was now suckling blood from his finger.
The rubber band was subsequently discarded with a yelp and a hard toss against the hard, sharp, stone walls. It flopped around helplessly, teeth pointed upwards and clacking with an insistent neediness. Mongoose shivered again, this time nothing to do with the cold, and hurried after Snake.
“Before you say anything, the stupid rubber band bit me, so you can’t say that I should’ve left it on or something…” Mongoose trailed off for a moment.
The sewers had become a veritable labyrinth. Water continued to flow happily along, oblivious to the fact that they were flowing in impossible directions. Dead fish were still pushed along in their stream. They chugged along the floor, up a wall, and doubled back on the ceiling until they were right back where they started. But that wasn’t what he was staring at.
Metal stairs, or maybe they were ladders, circled their way up to the surface, winding all around the room and covering the sides like dark ivy, making it impossible to really climb up. One stretched their way through a different doorway like train tracks. And indeed, Mongoose was certain that he could hear the distant howls of a train. But that wasn’t what he was staring at.
No, he was staring at the bodies. All of them dead, of course, why else would you call them bodies? They were all strung up, tied somewhere, sometimes to the stair-ladders, sometimes to something he couldn’t see, sometimes to nothing at all. Slashed or strangled or stabbed, however they were killed, they all shared one thing: no faces. No discerning feature whatsoever. Mongoose couldn’t even tell if any of them were female.
Blood dripped on the cellophane with a weedy little ‘plang’ sound. A thought occurred to him, the murders must have been done recently, the murderer might still be here, but it was a thought that seemed so far away that he could barely feel it.
“Let’s go,” Snake said, tugging on Mongoose’s sleeve.
“But,” he stuttered.
“We can report this as soon as we find a way out. But it’s important not to panic and run. Hopefully, this is only part of the dream…”
Mongoose allowed himself to be pulled away, but he wondered if Snake really understood the mechanics of this dream thing. Maybe the bodies weren’t really real, maybe the thing that killed them weren’t really real, but, well, as long as the photographer thing was dreaming, they were real enough. The bodies were real enough to be dead. The killer was real enough to kill. He and Snake were definitely real enough, and they could certainly die by some twisted nightmare.
Mongoose briefly touched his face. It was still there.
What could he say? The obvious answer was there was nothing to say. There was absolutely nothing to say when you were accompanied by a talking knife and walking through the twisted dreamscape of a conglomeration of sentient goo.
Goddamn. All this trouble for some stupid whatever-it-is. Hopefully it’ll be over with as soon as possible.
Mongoose carefully hopped down and turned around to take Snake’s hand and help him down as well. Instead, Snake jumped on him like a giant cushion. The young man thought extremely dark thoughts and made a resolution to find some other old geezer to hang out with for the twentieth time that day. He then scrapped the resolution for the twentieth time that day. So Snake liked to tease and anger him. So what. He could deal with it.
As soon as Mongoose got back up and brushed himself off, he realized that they had finally reached the bottom of the bizarre sewers. Water rushed by under something that looked like glass but was actually cellophane. Underneath that, he could see dead fish floating by. He turned towards Snake. “So now what?”
“We still have to find the, ah, the photographer, he’s called?”
“Yeah,” said the knife that Mongoose was doing his best to ignore.
“Yeah. So how do we do that?” he said, shivering and glancing around the dreamscape again.
Snake prodded the cellophane with his foot. “Well, he was washed down here. We could probably find him if we continue following the flow of the water.”
“Yeah. Right.” It was only now that Mongoose realized how cold and dark it was down here. “Maybe that’s not quite a good idea.”
“I certainly hope you aren’t frightened, Mongoose.”
“Shut up. We should leave.”
“Well, I have no intention of abandoning this little venture. I’m rather curious about how it’ll turn out. You can leave if you want.”
“I’m not—“
“Of course you wouldn’t, because you wouldn’t leave a poor old man alone down here, would you?”
Snake beamed cheerfully at him before continuing down a nearby tunnel. Mongoose waited until he turned the corner to curse.
“Don’t think I didn’t hear that,” came Snake’s admonishing voice. “Do I have to come back there or…?”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, I’ll do it,” Mongoose grumbled back, dragging his feet and pulling back his rubber band. Feeling a strange stinging sensation, he looked down to find that his disciplinary rubber band had grown teeth for no real reason and was now suckling blood from his finger.
The rubber band was subsequently discarded with a yelp and a hard toss against the hard, sharp, stone walls. It flopped around helplessly, teeth pointed upwards and clacking with an insistent neediness. Mongoose shivered again, this time nothing to do with the cold, and hurried after Snake.
“Before you say anything, the stupid rubber band bit me, so you can’t say that I should’ve left it on or something…” Mongoose trailed off for a moment.
The sewers had become a veritable labyrinth. Water continued to flow happily along, oblivious to the fact that they were flowing in impossible directions. Dead fish were still pushed along in their stream. They chugged along the floor, up a wall, and doubled back on the ceiling until they were right back where they started. But that wasn’t what he was staring at.
Metal stairs, or maybe they were ladders, circled their way up to the surface, winding all around the room and covering the sides like dark ivy, making it impossible to really climb up. One stretched their way through a different doorway like train tracks. And indeed, Mongoose was certain that he could hear the distant howls of a train. But that wasn’t what he was staring at.
No, he was staring at the bodies. All of them dead, of course, why else would you call them bodies? They were all strung up, tied somewhere, sometimes to the stair-ladders, sometimes to something he couldn’t see, sometimes to nothing at all. Slashed or strangled or stabbed, however they were killed, they all shared one thing: no faces. No discerning feature whatsoever. Mongoose couldn’t even tell if any of them were female.
Blood dripped on the cellophane with a weedy little ‘plang’ sound. A thought occurred to him, the murders must have been done recently, the murderer might still be here, but it was a thought that seemed so far away that he could barely feel it.
“Let’s go,” Snake said, tugging on Mongoose’s sleeve.
“But,” he stuttered.
“We can report this as soon as we find a way out. But it’s important not to panic and run. Hopefully, this is only part of the dream…”
Mongoose allowed himself to be pulled away, but he wondered if Snake really understood the mechanics of this dream thing. Maybe the bodies weren’t really real, maybe the thing that killed them weren’t really real, but, well, as long as the photographer thing was dreaming, they were real enough. The bodies were real enough to be dead. The killer was real enough to kill. He and Snake were definitely real enough, and they could certainly die by some twisted nightmare.
Mongoose briefly touched his face. It was still there.