Hendrick
Hendrick pushed forward, leading his two companions through the massive mess of black conveyor belts and red flesh. They ducked behind another huge machine, which towered tall above the crimson ground while steaming and whirring at full work.
“We’re almost there. Once I give the signal, Jim starts the diversion.” Hendrick lurked around a corner, looked out for any openings to proceed.
Right around the corner were multiple creatures. They were standing in front of the conveyor belts and worked with tools which they had instead of hands. Metallic creatures with mostly humanoid shape cut open mechanical animals and other creatures which were brought by the assembly lines. Some cut out organs and placed them on different production lines, sorting everything with care; others gathered blood and led it through a pipe to somewhere else.
One of the creatures, which was around their size, turned off their belt and moved towards them. It carried a mesh of red mass, probably on the way to bring it to its destination. Between its chest and stomach, there was a large, horizontal cut, which gave a small insight of what laid inside. It didn’t seem to mind it in any way.
It hadn’t even taken the flash of an eye until the creature had been silenced, pierced through the heart as it had moved around the corner. Hendrick had known how to strike: inside of the cut, piercing its heart. It was the only part besides the brain they couldn’t repair.
Hendrick laid the humanoid machine on the ground face down. Made sure the others wouldn’t get a closer look at its face.
The butterfly seems to be in my favour, he thought.
Hendrick looked at Jim, nodded towards a net of conveyor belts not too far away. Jim nodded back, started hurrying towards it. He sneaked off in a way he could stay hidden from the looks of the machines, kept his posture low as he made his way out of sight.
He turned to face Anna, said with a quiet voice, “Alright. You know what to do. I'm counting on you.”
“We have one shot,” she said. “I will make sure it counts.” She peaked around the corner, asked, “What are they even doing? Are they sorting out parts?”
“Yea.”
“How is a rabbit brain big enough for them to do tasks like that? It seems like they do complicated cuts and stuff…”
Hendrick looked at his scissor, then back at Anna, “It’s not.”
“I see.” There was a hint of suppressed emotion in Anna’s body language.
He found himself repeating the steps inside of his head once again. Every step, every move was set up for perfection, for success. He couldn’t be stopped. Not anymore. He was different. Something much greater. Perfect.
“If all goes well,” he said. “Then this will be over soon.”
“Hope so… this place starts freaking me out.”
Their conversation got interrupted by a loud bang accompanied by a siren whirring. A red light started rapidly flashing over an area not too far away.
“He really did it.” A smile grew on Anna’s face. It was almost a little sad how obvious it was, even though she was so solicitous to hide her thoughts.
“Didn’t expect less from our Berserker,” Hendrick said.
---
Jim
Jim took another turn, barely dodged the grasp of one of the walking machines. He ducked under a tube, which was suspended at around the height of his head, sprinted forward with scissor in hand. His intent was clear. The red ground felt soft beneath his feet, as if it absorbed the pressure he put against it.
He only needed to keep running, to escape for long enough to buy some time for Hen and Anna to reach the heart.
It was almost like back at home, playing tag with the others. He had always been the number one at it, being able to turn and twist out of situations where others would expect to get caught. He somehow always dodged it all. It was rare for him to get caught even once while they played. The others hated him for it, but were impressed at the same time.
Jim felt his confidence raise a little.
He turned to the left, almost ran into something. A mechanical deer, standing on its hind legs, stared him down, its upper two hoofs replaced by tools for dissecting. It bellowed before getting silenced by Jim piercing its heart.
Jim pulled the weapon out of the large cut in the creature’s body, continued running as he saw a group of creatures approaching from behind.
More alarms were now beeping and emitting red light, leading more and more attention towards him. And then, after another turn to the right: a dead end.
He was standing inside of a narrow path between two machines, creatures in front and behind him having him locked in as their target. Their eyes gloomed at him in a narrow angle. He had become the prey.
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Jim looked upwards, saw the massive scale of the crimson coloured room. Fleshy pillars towered high, so high the ceiling was nowhere to be seen. Conveyor belts formed a labyrinth of black lines in the skies, transporting enormous amounts of creatures and their remains around.
The only situation where he couldn’t run away had occurred: he had been baited into a corner. But this time it wasn’t a game between children. He couldn’t just laugh and giggle as he was caught.
“How annoying. I’ve always said that this strategy is unfair.”
The grip around his weapon tightened. He hesitated.
Maybe I could do it, he thought. No... I would get myself into danger. I need to stay safe so I can keep her safe.
The creatures approached, got closer as he noticed something to his right. There was a small hole shaped spot in one of the machines, big enough to use it as a stepping stone. Then, a bit higher, a piece of metal which he could climb onto. He looked upwards, saw the massive scale of the machine in front of him.
“For fuck’s sake…again?”
He swallowed.
“Fine… who cares about heights anyways?”
And he started climbing.
---
Anna
The diversion worked. A lot of the motion in the endless seeming halls of flesh and machines now stood still, the workers trying to find a solution to the problem. Little did they know that all of this was just a way of distracting them, to lead them away from the real problem.
Stupid trash cans.
Anna and Hendrick had spent the last couple of minutes sabotaging more machines, causing more malfunction and more production lines to stop. They had stayed undetected, silently increasing the havoc more and more as time went on. Hendrick had used his scissor to take care of the creatures which had seen them, keeping them safe for now.
They were now getting close to their destination: the center.
It the middle of the room, not too far away from their current location, a hole of massive scale embedded itself deep into the ground. There was no technology to be seen close to it, not even a piece of metal fixed into the red mass it was made out of.
A rather quiet thumping was audible, but Anna wasn’t sure if it was just her heartbeat or something else. It somehow felt like it was both inside and outside of her at the same time. She wanted to ask Hendrick about it, but refrained from doing so.
We don’t have time for this now, she thought.
And so they pressed forward towards the core of the machine, ready to put it to a halt for all eternity. Anna double checked if her arrow was still there. It was, of course. To put everything on one single shot from her… Their friends really had a screw lose or two. But that was the kind of thing she loved about them.
This would be her moment; her time to shine.
And between the flesh and gore,
between the scrap and metal,
she would be the hero of this stage.
It wouldn’t be perfect,
but that would be okay.
And she would finally leave her past behind.
---
Jim
Jim leaped across a tiny gap and gripped a metal lever with both hands, pulled himself upward towards another ledge. He breathed out, wiped some sweat off his forehead. He took a look down, swallowed.
He was now around 10 meters above the ground. A growing group of metallic creatures stood around the machine he was currently climbing onto, their empty stares fixed on him. Some of them tried to climb up the machine, but most fell off quite fast. The few that actually managed to climb were fast though, so he couldn’t allow himself to slow down by any means.
Sadly, he had been forced to let go of his left shoe as a creature had gotten too close, had grabbed his foot. It had been luck that he didn’t fall off together with the creature back then and there.
Another last effort, some fast but careful movements. He had reached the top of the machine. He didn’t know where Anna and Hen were right now, but he sure hoped they were close to the center, since his pursuers were inching closer at a frightening speed.
He looked around, searched for an alternative route which wouldn’t cause him to fall to his certain death. The view up here was stunning, to say the least. Even up here, high above the ground, machines could be seen towering high, connecting to uncountable production lines, all of them forming a dense network of production which centred towards one location: the hole in the middle. The place where he needed to go.
Over the hole, something appeared to be floating. He couldn’t quite make out what it was from here, but it wasn’t connected to anything else around it and seemed to be mostly metallic. Whatever was keeping this whole place alive, it was down there.
And somewhere around there, in between the sea of technology and gore, Anna and Hen were supposed to be. And hopefully, they were close to striking their attack on that thing. He hoped it would be time soon.
But it was not time yet.
The first creature managed to get a grip onto the upper ledge of the machine, pulled itself up. Jim fetched his weapon out of his makeshift mount, made ready to cut off the trash can’s hands before continuing his search for where to go. But as he got closer to it, something caught his attention. He hesitated for a second, took a closer look at the creature.
It didn’t look much like a human, even though its shape more or less resembled one. But in between the wires and screws, between the steam and the metal, something struck him as oddly familiar. For a moment, a flash of the past went through his head.
That one room back at stage 1… the place where the Doll-Maker had placed the presents.
He shook his head, sliced away the silver fingers which had gotten a hold onto the ledge. The creature fell off and took another one with it on its way down.
Jim looked down. Both creatures stood up after a second of delay.
“Jesus… the heart and brain really are their only weak spots.”
More hands revealed themselves all around the machine. His time was running out. There weren’t many options where he could go without breaking all bones inside his body, but not too far away was an assembly line built across the air which could be barely within reach. He swallowed, shook his head again.
“Fuck it.”
And as the terrors of the factory dragged themselves upwards,
and made their way on top of the machine,
Jim left the last bits of his past fear behind,
and leaped through the air.
---