A Tale of Rust and Flesh ~ Part 8

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	"Urrrgh..." Susie awoke with a groan. Her head was throbbing with pain, and her body felt bruised and sore. There was a weird, sharp, probing feeling in the back of her head. Susie couldn't remember anything that happened before she was knocked out other than that she was with Kris. However, she didn't recall very much at the moment, let alone the one-armed hug they.

	"O-oh, Susie! Y-you're a-awake!" A soft yet nervous voice called out to her. Susie could swear that she's heard it before. The battered dragon tried to sit up to see the source of the noise, but a soft hand pressed her back down without much effort. "W-wait, you should rest! You look like you r-really hurt y-your head!"

	Susie snatched the wrist of the person talking to her, prompting a startled yelp. The dragon girl's burred eyes focused on a silhouette. Susie slowly recognized the shapes, and a few things started to make a lot more sense. "...Noelle...?"

	"Y-yes...?" With a grunt, Susie let the wrist go and used both hands to rub her eyes. It was only at this moment that the teenaged dragon noticed the small campfire to her left. As Susie payed more attention to her surroundings, she found that her head was elevated by a soft, rotting log of wood, and she was lying on a bed of pine-straw. She clawed at the back of her head to find the source of the probing feeling, but she didn't find anything. She was completely surrounded by pine trees on all sides.

	"W-where am I...? What the fuck happened? Where's the train? Where's... Where's Kris!?" Susie tried to sit up again, but she was only pressed back down, but with more force.
	"S-Susie, please! You need to rest! I-I-I think you have a concussion," Noelle practically yelled.
	"Gah... That explains a lot, actually... Fuck! Urgh... Hey, why am I here and not on the train? Where the hell is Kris?" Susie squirmed on her makeshift bed.
	"Th-the train? W-when I found it, it was completely derailed, a-and... I didn't see anyone else on the train other than... *you*..."
	Susie could sense that Noelle was at least attempting to look directly into her eyes as she exaggerated the word 'you', but her sudden panic made her forget all about what was probably an inappropriate advance. "Derailed!? We got in a fucking train wreck!? You know what? No, I don't give a shit if I got a concussion, we need to find Kris NOW!"

	The dragon shoved the seemingly well-meaning deer away from her and scrambled to her feet. Susie stumbled around as she struggled to find her balance, but eventually got a foothold after momentarily resting on a tree. Susie spotted something reflecting the light of the campfire and snatched it. The texture of the metal and the effort required to haul the object's weight told her that she had found her crowbar.

	"S-Susie, lie down, please!" The deer girl pleaded with the dragon, but it was no use.
	"No! You are going to lead me back to the train, and we're gonna look for Kris. Got it!?"
	"Susie, you're b-being completely irra-" Susie snatched Noelle by the collar and bared her teeth.
	"We are going to go back to the train. We are going to look for Kris. We are going to ensure that he isn't DEAD." Susie's words were slow, cold, and deliberate. She wanted to make her point as clear as she possibly could. After a moment of deafening silence, Noelle slowly nodded.

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	Kris awoke to the sound of a dying lightbulb desperately buzzing its last few buzzes before petering out. Kris immediately noticed that he was lying on a painfully hot metal floor. With a pained grunt, Kris sat up to prevent his skin from roasting any further, but another pain grabbed his attention. Kris noticed that the side of his head stung as if something had cut him.

	He reached for the source of the sharp pain, but he felt something wet along with a small surge of agony. Kris ripped his hand away and looked at his fingers and found a small bit of semi-dried blood smeared on his fingertips. Kris recognized his wound as a gash.

	It wasn't anything serious, but he knew he should clean it with peroxide or something soon. Kris had gotten a wound infected years before he fell from that old ripped up chair in that bunker, and he didn't want to experience anything like it ever again.

	Kris stumbled to his feet and examined his body to the best of his disoriented ability. He was absolutely covered in dried mud speckled with pine-straw, and his pants were pretty much ruined. He was missing a shoe, and his sock was completely soaked with Earthy brown liquid. There were several small, rough cuts on his body along with the occasional scrape.

	He felt like he had been dragged through the Hometown forest on a rainy day. Kris removed the sock and undressed his other foot. The floor burned Kris' feet, but it wasn't anything he couldn't handle. He didn't want to walk around in a soggy, dirty sock all day. The last thing he needed was a chafed foot.

	Kris tried to remember what events led him to be here. He didn't know where he was, why he was there, or where Susie was. He didn't remember anything much beyond knowing that he wanted to help Susie cheer up after something happened that he couldn't yet wrap his head around.

	Maybe she was blaming herself for recent events again, or maybe she was confessing something heavy. Both of those possibilities seemed equally as likely to the young man. He didn't remember something coming down on his head and knocking him out, either. At least, not yet.

	Kris focused as hard as he could while ignoring the burning he felt in his feet, but he couldn't come up with anything. Mentally, he was completely lost. Kris had a feeling that it would all come back to him eventually, but for now he needed to get his bearings and maybe try to leave. Kris took a moment to examine his surroundings.

	There was a door that was broken where it was supposed to connect to the wall, with a lock connected to a rusty chain keeping it closed. The dying light bulb above him weakly buzzed with an eyesore of a red light, and every surface in the room was made out of similarly rusted metal.

	From the sound of it, there was something wet sloshing around in the walls interspersed with an occasional thud or scraping sound. Kris was located in a small room with only just enough space to breathe. Mud smeared the floors, but that was a given considering Kris' filthy condition. The room looked like a single-unit prison cell meant to house only one person.

	There was a boarded up window on the wall, but Kris could see bars behind them that completely blocked the potential exit. The wooden boards seemed to be obsolete, but maybe they were for blocking out any natural light, but Kris couldn't be too sure.

	There was a surprisingly clean, gray cot affixed to the wall with two metal slabs connecting it to the wall and acting as supports, which was odd considering that he woke up on the floor. There wasn't even any mud on the cot like there was below his feet. Judging from the rust overtaking the supports, it probably would have collapsed under him anyway.

	After taking another moment to gather his bearings, Kris knew what he needed to do. He was going to get out of this hotbox of a prison cell, he was going to find his friends, and he was going to get back on the train that Kris didn't yet remember was completely wrecked.

	Kris patted his pocket to see if the knife was still there, but to no avail. Whoever was keeping him here had the foresight to make sure that he was unarmed.  The thought of not being able to reliably fight back against any hostile entities lowered Kris' confidence in his situation, but he knew that whatever locked him up would be back soon.

	Kris approached the door and gave the chain a tug. It didn't budge much, but it was loose enough to give off a slight rattle. Kris gave a much harder tug, and the same thing happened. The only difference was that the rust on the chain started to hurt Kris' hand. The lock itself looked somewhat familiar, though. After a thorough examination, it looked like the exact same type of lock that kept him inside of the waste disposal building in the train yard.

	...Then Kris remembered that he pocketed the key he used to escape. He didn't know why he did it, but maybe he felt as if it was important somehow, or that he could use it to unlock other doors. Kris fished for the key in his mud-soaked pocket. A feeling of pure ecstatic relief washed over Kris as he felt his finger touch something cold and metallic.

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	"...I'm sorry, Susie... I really am..." The deer girl held a small wooden torch and did her best to comfort the panicking dragon.
 Susie struggled to keep her tears from escaping her eyes. She had practically torn the train apart, but she didn't find anyone. She didn't even find a single trace of Rortheb in the completely thrashed locomotive. All she found was a crummy flashlight and a pack of saltines meant for crushing into soups.

	The lights in the train were still on, which provided enough illumination, but the torch would still be needed for the trek back to the campsite. Many of the windows were completely shattered, there were numerous dents and tears in the metal. Several seats were dislocated from the floor, and several wires jutted from the walls and ceiling, occasionally sparking.

	"Not again... NOT AGAIN, I CAN'T LOSE HIM NOW! EVERYTHING WAS GOING FINE, BUT NOW I CAN'T FIND HIM IN SOME SHITTY FOREST IN THE MIDDLE OF FUCKING NOWHERE!" Susie slammed her fist against the ceiling, or what has become a vertical wall at this point. The dragon girl collapsed against the wall and slid down onto the impromptu floor. Susie ignored the sound of grinding glass underneath her weight. The crowbar thudded to the floor as Susie grabbed her head with both hands.

	Susie sat and quietly commanded herself not to cry again, but she was interrupted by a warm presence finding itself next to her. Susie didn't want to cry in front of anyone she didn't fully trust, but the hopelessness of her situation only made it harder, yet harder not to break down.

	"...I miss him, too," Noelle softly said. A soft hand found its way onto Susie's shoulder. Susie wanted to slap it away, but a weird feeling in the back of her mind told her not to.
	"I... I can't lose him... I can't... I don't even know where he is..." Susie's voice almost trembled. She stopped herself before her voice grew audibly weak.

	Noelle's fuzzy hand retracted itself from Susie's shoulder. For whatever strange reason, Susie wanted that hand to return to her. Under normal circumstances, she would have told Noelle to fuck off, but she was slowly beginning to feel a bit more... out of character.

	Noelle stood up off the ground and extended a hand to help her up off the ground. Susie ignored the gesture and used her crowbar to prop herself up. Susie glanced at the doe and saw her grabbing her own arm and avoiding eye contact. Susie's eyes narrowed at Noelle's body language, but the thought of Kris being missing took priority, so she didn't question it.

	The draconic monster wiped her eyes while Noelle wasn't looking and leaped up to grab the edge of a broken window. The broken glass lining the window frame didn't bother Susie's tough dragon skin, but she knew that the deer girl might cut herself if she tried the same thing. Susie reluctantly reached out to Noelle to help her up. The doe grabbed a hold of the mauve hand before being yanked outside. Noelle seemed to be a bit heavier than Susie anticipated. 'No, scratch that, a LOT heavier.'

	Susie made sure that she flashlight she found was still in her pocket before she unwrapped the saltines. Rortheb's sandwich was pretty light, and Susie must have been out cold for several hours. Susie dumped every single cracker into her maw and clenched down. Her mouth quickly dried up due to the absorbent nature of the crackers combined with the salt, but at least it was something to fill her stomach. Noelle just watched in silent fascination as Susie wiped the crumbs and bits of salt off her lips with her tongue, before she finished cleaning her mouth with her jacket sleeve.

	Susie flicked the flashlight on and shined it towards the path they had both traveled minutes prior. Even though Noelle's makeshift torch had been made obsolete, she still held onto it firmly. The dragon girl quickly slid down the side of the train and felt the mud squish beneath her shoes. Susie turned around and held her arms open for Noelle to have a softer landing.

	"U-uhm..."
	"C'mon, nerd, this isn't an invitation for a hug! You coming down, or what?"

	Susie kept her arms open and waited for Noelle to jump down for several agonizing moments. Finally, the doe slid down the wall with a girly squeal and fell into the dragon's arms. Susie actually staggered from the impact, but she caught her new ally all the same.

	Noelle stayed within Susie's arms for a bit longer while looking into her yellow, reptilian eyes. The draconic monster furrowed her brow and slowly pushed the doe away while lightly shaking her head, much to Noelle's visible disappointment. "...L-let's get back to the campsite," Noelle said with a defeated tone.

	For some odd reason, Susie couldn't help but feel... bad? Why did she feel remorse for pushing her away? She never did before, 'so why start now?' Ever since Susie first woke up, she didn't feel quite like herself. One possibility that Susie considered was that she banged her head really hard and had one of those blunt force trauma induced personality changes you see on TV.

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	It was only the lower half of the key. Kris stared at it in disbelief, knowing that he had put the key together, and that he had taken it from the Waste Disposal building. Kris looked at the lock, then back to the key piece, then back to the lock again. He was seemingly trapped with no way out. The human's heart raced and his breathing quickened.

	Just as Kris was about to lose all hope, he snapped out of it and determined that he was at the very least going to look around for the other piece of the key. Kris looked under the cot, but didn't find anything. The sink and the toilet held no secrets either, and Kris wasn't desperate enough to stick his hand in there.

	Kris turned one of the sink's knobs in one last attempt at searching for the other key piece. To his surprise, the pipes groaned in response. The teenaged human expected water to come pouring out, but nothing came. As Kris was about to turn the knob back to stop the irritating noise from the pipes, a foul smelling, brown liquid dripped from the faucet.

	It looked like a mix between the end product of an upset stomach caused by greasy popcorn combined with even greasier chili-dogs, and melty chocolate ice-cream. The stench was comprised of the contents of a septic tank, the acidic smell of vomit, rotten food, and urine, all rolled into one nausea inducing odor. Kris turned the knob to stop the liquid from dripping out any further.

	The liquid stopped flowing, and the pipes within the walls went silent. The horrific smell lingered in the air, however. The sludge in the sink took its time draining away in the sink, and there were no airways for the smell to air out. Not only was Kris still trapped inside of a muggy prison cell, but he had accidentally hotboxed it with an extremely unpleasant aroma, too.

	Kris backed away from the sink in a futile attempt to escape the smell and grabbed his head with both hands. Kris had already forgotten about the gash in his head, and he let out a grunt of pain as his fingers brushed up against it. However, his finger brushed up against something else, as well. It was the same cold and metallic feeling he felt when he searched his pocket for the key.

	Kris' eyes widened as he realized that the other half of the key was jammed in his head. An image of the flower-eating creature that had mutilated him flashed within his mind as he remembered that the other half of the key was lodged in its head as well. Kris carefully grabbed the other key piece and tugged.

	A surge of agony stabbed into Kris' cranium. With a shout, he immediately let go and looked at his hand. There was fresh blood on his fingers alongside the dried blood from before. His hair began to feel wet with the red fluid. A deep breath reminded Kris of the stench that had filled the room, prompting him to try again.

	Kris hesitantly grabbed the key piece again, and pulled. He grit his teeth through the pain, but his fingers slipped, causing his hand to painfully strike the hot wall. After taking a moment to wipe the slippery blood off of his fingers and caress his aching knuckles, Kris grabbed the key piece once again.

	With a drier hand, Kris found a solid grip on the small piece of metal and yanked. With a small, wet sound, the other half of the key came loose. Kris looked at his fingers to find that he was holding the blood-soaked other half of the key. As he was muttering several curses under his shuddering breath, Kris took the two key pieces and reunited them.

	They came together perfectly, and that small little button reappeared on the side. Kris knew what he needed to do. He stepped towards the lock and shoved the key inside. With a click, the chains loudly clattered to the floor.

	Kris retrieved the key from the lock, but he hesitated before he opened the door. Since Kris didn't have his knife, an idea sparked within his mind. Kris took the lock from the floor and re-locked it onto the chain. He was going to use the lock and chain as a flail.

	After wrapping it at a comfortable spot on his arm with a good amount of length at which he could swing from, Kris braced himself for whatever he might see on the other side. With a push, the metal door creaked open to reveal a hallway. The hallway was mostly devoid of light, but Kris could make out enough detail to know where he was in relation to the room.

	Every barrier, from the floor, to the walls, to the ceiling were all made from the same rusted metal. The floor showed signs of once carrying a carpeted floor, but it was obviously long gone for several years. There were streaks of mud smeared on the floor, which were likely because something dragged Kris into the room with little regard for his physical well being.

	The streaks lead to the left, and stopped at a rickety looking elevator cage. The floor Kris was on seemed to be the top floor, judging by the fact that the elevator cage ended just below the ceiling. The elevator itself was missing, and presumably at a low floor.

	Instead of a button used to call the elevator back up, there was a tangled mess of shredded metal and several ripped up wires. The button was nowhere to be found. With the elevator being out of the question, Kris decided to look elsewhere for an exit.

	To the right, Kris saw another door, but the handle was enveloped in yet another chain, bound by another lock. The chain was in a similar condition to the one that Kris was using as a weapon. The lock looked quite similar to the one that had accepted his two-piece key.

	Kris walked past a dark, empty hole in the wall. The jagged edges of the hole seemed as if they could rip his body apart if he tried to climb through. Wet, fleshy sounds could be heard from inside the hole, but there wasn't enough light to see anything that could be emitting sound.

	The human approached the door and retrieved the key from his pocket and attempted to push it inside. Disappointingly, the key couldn't fit through the hole. If the elevator couldn't be called up for Kris' use, and if the door was locked and Kris didn't have the key, then it seemed as if... 'there's no way out of h-'

	Just as he was about to lose all hope and resign himself to an early death, the loud, cringe inducing sound of meat grinding against rough metal caught Kris' attention. A large, glistening mass of flesh, tendons, and visibly fractured bones jutted out from the hole in the wall. As it roughly pushed itself against the jagged edges of the hole, blood messily dripped down the wall and spattered onto the floor.

	The sack of biomass twitched and writhed as it audibly pulsated. The veins visible in between the folds of meat swelled with bodily fluids, which all seemed to threaten to burst at a moment's notice. The sight disgusted Kris immensely as his normally blank expression shifted into a cringe. The large chunk of biomass twisted and contorted as if it was pushing something around within itself.

	A translucent fluid erupted from a small hole and spattered onto the floor. Kris covered his mouth and stepped back away from the disgusting display, struggling to look away. Just as Kris thought it would eventually stop, an eyeball without any eyelids popped out of the hole.

	The eye dripped with the translucent fluid, was bloodshot, and was covered in several green and yellow patches and scabs. The iris was a diseased greenish black, but the pupil itself seemed normal. The eye twitched violently as the tendons, fractured bones, and meat parted to give it more room to escape the confines of its moist prison. With every movement, a sickening, wet noise followed.

	The eye abruptly ceased all movement as its gaze met with Kris. The now adrenaline-shaken teenager made uncomfortable eye contact with the eye as it stayed still enough he could almost mistake it as belonging to something dead and lifeless. His heart beat against his rib-cage like a drum.

	Without any warning, the eye began twitching again, but still focused on Kris as the iris shifted into a hostile blackish red. The sloshing, scraping, and thumping within the walls increased in speed and intensity. The air felt as if its temperature rose by a small, yet uncomfortable margin.

	A muffled, female groan rattled the floor from below. An unseen entity on the floor directly beneath Kris slapped the presumably metal floor with each footstep. It stopped for a brief moment and began hoarsely coughing and retching. After a small splashing sound impacted the floor, the creature laughed a guttural, wheezing laugh to itself and continued walking. It sounded like it was walking over to the elavator cage.

	At that moment, Kris connected the dots within his mind. The eyeball must have been somehow feeding information to the creature downstairs. The creature only began moving around and making noise when the eyeball focused on him, and Kris had no reason to suspect that it was anything but malicious. If this was all true, then he couldn't try to hide again, because they eye would see him and reveal his location.

	Without hesitation, Kris slung the chain in a counter-clockwise motion, gradually picking up speed. Just as his impromptu weapon began to whoosh through the air, Kris hastily stepped forward and swung the lock down onto the eyeball. With a thud and a splash, the eyeball exploded into a mess of blood and curdled, yellow puss. The red sack of biomass flinched and twitched with fervor as it let out an ear piercing death rattle.

	The creature from below stopped its trek towards its destination upon impact. The creature sounded as if it had thudded to the floor as it began screaming. It wasn't an animalistic screech or gurgle, but a genuine scream coming from was sounded like a person. The creature thrashed around on the floor and broke down into incoherent babbling and crying.

	The eyeball's fluids splattered onto Kris' chain, lock, face, chest, and legs. The searingly hot liquid burnt Kris' body as if boiling water on top of his house's stove had been spilled onto him. Kris recoiled and slapped at the hot liquid in an attempt to wipe it off or somehow lessen the burning. Eventually, the repugnant fluid's temperature lowered enough to match Kris' body heat.

*YOU WON!
*You earned 2 exp and 0$

	The eyeball barely held onto the rest of the sack of gore by a thread. The mass of flesh had ceased all movement and went deathly quiet. Chunks of blood-soaked, solidified puss plopped into the puddle of various bodily fluids and broke into several pieces on impact. A stream of blood dripped from the destroyed optical organ, adding to the increasingly large puddle. Several tendons weakly swayed from side to side.

	The metallic smell of blood combined with the stench of rotten meat wafted into Kris' nostrils, prompting him to gag and back away from the mess he had created. His eyes watered as he clenched his nose with his free hand. It was taking much of Kris' willpower to not throw up right then and there. After all, he didn't want to further contribute to the puddle, or the smell.

	The screaming and crying from below turned to angry sobs, coughing, and strained grunting. The creature shouted and growled and violently slammed itself against the floor. After another furious scream, the creature picked itself up off the floor. Clumsily loud footsteps were replaced by deliberate stomping as it made its way towards what was likely the elevator. Then, the stomps stopped, and Kris heard a creaky gate open, another two stomps, and the closing of the same gate.

	The elevator bell rung as a small screen at the top of the cage lit up. The number 1 flashed on the screen as the elevator cage shook and shuddered. The cable connected to the elevator pulled it upwards and coiled into an unseen contraption above. The creature was riding the elevator up to Kris' floor, and he knew it.

	The growling and grunting grew closer and less muffled with every passing moment.

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