A Tale of Rust and Flesh ~ Part 2

	Falling...
	Falling...
	Falling...


	Susie was nowhere in sight. He was alone.


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	Kris' eyes shot open. He was lying down on a dirty gray floor. Kris was wearing his normal light world clothes, but they were caked in dirt and grime. The chocolate bar he just had was gone, with only a sticky residue on his hand to indicate that it even existed. Just how long has he been lying there? With a dry mouth and heavy eyelids, Kris slowly picked himself off of the ground, dusted himself off, and observed his surroundings.

	The floor was littered with trash, with a broken glass plate sitting shattered in a corner next to a heavily dented birdcage. A flickering light bulb above him illuminated the room with a dull white light. Faded, green wallpaper was practically peeling off of a concrete wall. The air was stale and smelled of rotten flowers; a sweet yet sickening smell. An moldy wooden door stood before the young man, with a jagged knife planted in the center.

	As Kris approached the door, he grabbed the knife's handle with his right hand and tugged, tearing the blade from its wooden home. Kris decided to examine the blade he held in his hand. Rust speckled the shiny blade, the metal pommel of the knife was cracked, and the handle was comprised of rubber and plastic; molded to give his human fingers a better grip.

	The teenager reached for the small yellow doorknob, but stopped halfway. His heartbeat began to pick up the pace, almost pounding in his chest as a primal fear surged within his brain that he couldn't explain. His hand trembled as he forced himself to grab the doorknob. It felt cold and grimy. Kris turned the doorknob and yanked it back in one swift motion. The door swung open with a startling squeak, kicking up dust in its wake. The sweet, rotten flower smell only intensified.

	A hallway greeted the young man. There was a similarly molded wooden door on each wall. A heavily dented, rusty metal door held shut by a large lock stood in front of Kris; light shining through multiple holes and cracks which provided enough light for him to observe his current environment. The floors were made of similar material as the door he just opened, and the walls were in even worse condition than the walls in the room behind him.

	As Kris was shedding his grog from his indeterminately lengthy sleep, his mind began racing with questions that he couldn't answer. "Was I kidnapped? Am I even in Hometown anymore? Where am I? Why was there a knife in that door? Why did that birdcage look exactly like the one I have in my room? Where the hell is Susie? Is she okay? ...Am I going to need this knife? Is someone going to die here? Am I going to die here?"

	Kris knew that he wouldn't get any answers if he just stood in that hallway forever, and he would need to find a way out and get back home. Clutching the knife, Kris decided to try to open the door on his left. Kris grabbed the doorknob with much less hesitation than before and pulled the door open, only to discover the source of the rotten stench. The sight of what lied before him combined with the smell almost made Kris gag as his eyes watered. A blackened pile of flowers wrapped in ripped plastic bags sat in the center of the room. A dark, thick liquid pooled around the rotten pile and seeped into the wooden floorboards below.

	Upon closer observation, the pile was twitching... Almost breathing, even. Kris was a mere moment away from slamming the door shut, but he saw something glistening inside of one of the bags. Maybe it was the key he needed to open the lock. Pulling his sweater over his nose, Kris reluctantly stepped forward. Kris proceeded to stab the bag containing the shiny object, causing more of the dark liquid to spew out onto the floor, splashing onto Kris' pants.

	Kris did everything in his power to not gag or choke on his own vomit as he reached into the bag to retrieve the shiny object. The contents of the bag were warm and moist, with the occasional prick from a thorn. Feeling around inside of the repulsive mass, Kris found something metallic and proceeded to slowly pull it out.

	Kris opened his dripping hand only to find that the object was the bottom half of a key. Kris flicked the liquid off of his arm the best he could, and tried to wipe the rest of it off onto the wall to little effect. The repulsed young man placed the key piece into his pocket and began to walk out of the room until the sound of heavy footsteps slapping the floor in the other room became audible.

	The footsteps began to approach the unopened door, followed by heavy, labored breathing, sending Kris into a panic. Kris acted on instinct and hid behind the door leading into the flower room and hoped that whatever lied inside of the other room didn't turn around and see him. The doorknob rattled and slowly turned before the door opened with a loud creak. The source of the footsteps began to find their way into the hallway before stepping into the flower room.

	The footsteps stopped at the rancid pile of wrapped flowers, being replaced by the sounds of crinkling plastic, sticky sloshing, and loud munching. It sounded like the creature was... eating the rotten flowers? Kris took a deep breath and peered from behind the door and almost immediately regretted his decision. A tall, gangly creature with dark, sickly yellow skin, large hands, an abnormally large mouth, skin wrapped over where its left eye socket should be, a hole where its nose should be, a few stray hairs originating from its mostly bald head, and seemingly no genitals to speak of stood before the rotten flower pile.

	There was a dark chunky substance running down its legs as it reached into one of the many plastic bags and ate whatever it pulled out with a sickening, squishy crunch. Its mouth was covered inside and out with the black ooze, containing black teeth that appeared to be sharp enough to easily cut through the flower stems it shoved into its gaping maw. With every bite, the creature grunted with what sounded like a mixture of satisfaction and sexual pleasure interlaced with short wet burps.

	This horrifying sight sent shivers up the disgusted human's spine as the vomit threatening to build in his throat only became more likely to pour out of his mouth by the second. Kris stepped back behind the door and shut his eyes, hoping that the thing eating the rotten mass of flora would go away soon. Seconds passed. Minutes passed. The creature kept eating more and more rotten biomass with no sign of stopping.

	The teenager hiding behind the door stayed completely still, being sure that he kept his breaths shallow and quiet. His heart pounded in his chest, his hands shook with adrenaline, and tears almost formed in his eyes. Kris had hoped that this disgusting creature would be easily scared off, but his gut told him that it would rip him apart if it knew where he was.

	The adolescent had formulated a plan in his head. He would sneak behind the creature, close the door behind him, search the other room for the other piece of the key, somehow put them together, open the metal door, and escape. It was a simple plan riding on a lot of luck, but it was a plan nonetheless, and it was time to execute it. Kris peered around the door to see the creature still stuffing its gullet with rotten biomass, with a small but visible bulge appearing on its torso that grew with every gulp.

	Kris took one step away from the door, being sure to tread lightly. Then another. The creature, preoccupied with its hedonistic gluttony, didn't notice the human sneaking past it. Then, just as Kris was about to make it to the hallway, a floorboard creaked. Kris completely froze in place as he heard the munching and grunting stop. The frightened young man slowly turned his head to glance at the creature.

	A horrified yelp escaped Kris' lips as he tripped over himself onto the dusty floor, dropping his knife as it clattered next to him. The creature glared at him with one yellow, bloodshot eye as a piece of rotten flora dropped out of its now unmoving mouth with a plop. The other piece of the key was lodged in its forehead. The tall yellow creature began to let out a small gurgle which slowly grew into a screech as it turned to face Kris.

	The creature stopped screeching only to slowly breathe in before letting out an ear piercing shriek, causing Kris to cover his ears and clench his eyes tight. The adrenaline fueled human scrambled to his feet just before getting tackled back down to the ground by the monster.

	The creature straddled Kris with its legs, smearing the chunky liquid onto his sweater. The creature frantically slammed its sticky hands into Kris' face, leaving behind a black residue that mixed with the blood beginning to accumulate from gashes being created by its sharp nails. Kris put his arms up to his face to stop the assault, but then he felt his left wrist be grabbed with both of the creature's hands. Deliberately yanking his sleeve down, the creature opened its jaw with a crack, and clamped down onto his arm with a sickening squelch.

	Blood began to pour from the now screaming human as his other arm scrambled to find the knife. Kris frantically kicked his legs in an attempt to wriggle free. The creature yanked and pulled as its teeth sunk into his flesh, beginning to rip into the muscle. The pain was intense enough to fog the flailing human's mind as he was still desperately searching for the knife, unable to focus on anything other than the pain. Tears ran down his cheeks as the creature began to focus its attention on his skin above the muscle. The creature sadistically began to flay the human's arm with its teeth while wearing a malicious grin. With every yank, a small wet rip followed. The sound of blood splattering onto the floor was drowned out by desperate screaming and crying coming from Kris.

	At last, his right hand found the knife on the ground. Kris swung it at the creature's head with the weapon. With a wet crack, the ripping and tearing stopped. The searing, agonizing pain was still there, but the creature froze in place. A dark red liquid began to drip from its wound as it began to slump down. Taking this as an opportunity, Kris let go of the knife and pushed the creature off of him as it hit the ground with a thud.

	After twisting the knife out of its skull, a small stream of blood began to spatter onto the floor. In a primal rage, Kris brought the knife down to the creature's head before quickly ripping it back out with a shout. He stabbed the creature once more. Then again. And again. With each stab, the skull of the yellow monster began to cave in as yellow was replaced by dark red. Kris didn't bother keeping count of how many times he stabbed at the creature's head. All the knew was that he had done enough damage to the creature's head to begin breaking down the integrity of the skull.

	It wasn't long before the creature stopped moving, but Kris didn't stop slamming his now blood soaked hand into the increasingly sloppy mass of mulched flesh for several minutes. Dark red blood drenched the knife, Kris' pants, his shirt, and even his face and hair.

	Eventually, Kris drew a final, victorious blow with a shout. Kris let the blood-drenched knife go and shakily dug the other piece of the key from the mass of destroyed flesh. The sweet, pungent stench of the rotten flowers was practically nonexistent to the severely injured human at this point. His arm was still functional, but it looked and felt absolutely destroyed. If he didn't patch himself up soon, he was eventually going to bleed out and die.

	Breathing from his nose was impossible due to his nostrils becoming inflamed as they usually did whenever he cried hard enough, forcing Kris to breathe from his mouth as he hyperventilated and heaved. It took every bit of willpower from Kris to not puke all over the floor and pass out. Kris slowly stood up off of the yellow corpse and yanked the knife out of its head. At this point, Kris didn't care how absolutely filthy he was. All that mattered was that he was alive.

	Kris was somehow still in a sound enough state of mind to remember what he had to do. The filthy, injured teenager meekly put both pieces of the key together only to find that they connected as if they were jigsaw pieces. With a click, a small button on the side of the key appeared, presumably to allow for someone to easily break the key into two pieces again. With a small stumble, Kris approached the locked metal door at the end of the hallway.

	Kris barely managed to fumble the key into the slot to find that it was thankfully a perfect fit. A twist of the key released the lock off of the metal door as it thudded onto the floor. He shakily picked the lock off the floor and twisted the key out and stuffed it into his pocket.

	A bright light nearly blinded Kris as he pushed the door open with his uninjured arm. He was outside, at last. He didn't care about the other room anymore. As Kris took his first step away from that cursed building, the sound of gravel scrunching up against his shoe filled his ears. He appeared to be in what looked like a train yard. Kris pocketed his new knife and gripped his arm as he began to shuffle further out.

	Then, a thought popped into his head. A thought that dulled the agony in his left arm just by a little bit. Susie. He needed to find Susie. She could make things better. The very thought of her occasional warm smile gave him that extra bit of motivation to keep going. Looking back, Kris saw a sign barely hanging into the wall which read: "Waste Disposal".

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*You won!
*You earned 26 EXP and 0$
*Your LOVE increased.

LV 2