Lory and I had been walking for easily an hour, awkward silence had fallen. We only heard the rumbling of the insides of this beast. Lory did hold my hand, she looked at me, “Steve?”

“Yes?”

“Are you alright?”

“Yes, I am fine, where do you think we are?”

“I don’t know, another flesh tunnel, so far, all we encountered are a few of the bird creatures.”

We halted at an intersection. Lory sighed, “Aren’t we walking in circles?”

I chuckled, “Perhaps they are more squares.”

Lory let out a smile from the corner of her mouth, “Then again, what way is the right way?”

I heard a voice in my head, “Go left.”

“What, why?”

Lory looked at me, “Huh?”

“Never mind, we should go left.”

Lory nodded, “Alright.”

After a while, we came to three giant lungs, one seemed to be filtering the brown liquid, to make it able to breathe underwater, this is a very strange creature. Lory fist pumped, “Yes, we found a weak spot. We blow these up, and we can get out.”

“Yes, that is true.”

I felt a sting in my head, quickly I put my hand on my head as I heard the voice from Agent. “Let go, Steve, give me the reins. You are not strong enough.”

“Shut up! I am not giving you the reins!”

“Steve?”

“What?”

“I think you are going out of bounds, this is more my territory.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Well, being inside a flesh cave is more the great evil's thing. It seems you are making it your thing as well.”

“What?”

“The flesh cave from the white slime, that, was from the evil beast inside me?”

“Yeah mate, I know what to do, let me out and I will help.”

“No, I am not going to let you out. You can stay right the fuck there.”

“Oh, don’t you need my power? You felt it, right, when you got eaten by that plant?”

“No, that plant, you killed it?”

“Yeah, you got yourself in a pickle there mate. That was only a tiny fraction of my power. Imagine letting me go, I will blow this beast up.”

I fell on my knees, “no, no, no! Shut the fuck up, that is a trick! You are going to lock me up if I let you go!”

“No, Steve, we can work together.”

“No, we are not going to work together.”

“You can stay right there and shut up as I go about my business.”

I heard a chuckle in my head, “And what about Micheal?”

“What do you mean, what about Micheal?”

“Well, Lory killed Alice, right?”

“Yes, Lory killed Alice. So, what, that is not my problem.”

“No, but imagine Micheal coming for her. You stand no chance at all.”

“Yes, I know Micheal will obliterate me.”

“Then let me out, I am stronger than Micheal, I already beat him once. If he comes to Lory, then I can turn him into jelly. I can even kill Abby.”

“Fuck off and shut up. Just shut the fuck up, I don’t need you.” Then there was silence. I let out a sigh of relief, “That is much better.”

Slowly I got up and I saw Lory stare at me. “Steve? Are you, okay?”

“Yes, I am fine, why do you ask? I just talked to myself, didn’t I?”

Lory slowly nodded, “It is trying to get out, the thing from the plant incident?”

“Yes, it is.”

Lory walked over and hugged me, “Don’t let it win.”

“It might be in your head, but you are stronger.”

“Thanks, Lorraine.”

She smiled at me, “Now, shall we get out of here? I have seen enough insides for the rest of my life.”

I pointed at the lung filtering brown liquid. Lory nodded and stretched both of her hands and fired at the giant lung. Nothing seemed to happen. I stretched my hand and shot dark and silver energy. Things started to shake. Lory grunted and put more power in her energy. I did the same. She grunted, “It is not enough!”

I heard the voice in my head again, “I told you so. Things are not looking up, did you notice the monsters coming for you?”

I looked around and saw some kind of blob in the distance. “Yes Steve, that thing is going to eat Lorraine, she will be dead, do you need some power?”

I shed a tear, “Just a trickle, you are not getting out.”

“Alright, here goes nothing.” Red energy swirled around my right arm, Lory looked at it, then the red energy shot at insane speeds towards the lung, and it exploded in a grand fashion, the blob in the distance fell dead to the ground. I redirected my arm to the flesh wall as we felt the giant snake rise into the sky, and Lory did the same.

Blood and gore erupted everywhere as a massive hole got carved into the flesh wall. Lory panted, I did so too and we felt a quake. We both fell down, then we got up and walked to the exit we had made. It led us to the sacrificial room. We saw many dead birds, Haley, Funk, and Abby sat there. I looked at them, “Well, good seeing you guys again.”

Haley got up, “Hey dad.” She looked at Funk, “I told you so.”

He sighed, “Fine, you told me so.”

Abby smiled, “Man, they hit me with at least fifty darts.”

Haley sighed, “We found her stashed in the basement.”

Lory looked around, she walked over to Abby, “Sorry for being a bit mean to you.”

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Abby smiled, “No worries at all, how were the insides of this worm.”

Lory sighed, “Big, enormous.”

Funk looked at me, “Why don’t you have a shirt on?”

I scratched my head, “Oh yeah, I kind of had other things going on.”

I heard the voice in my head again, “Didn’t you like that much power, Steve? You know I saved you again, mind giving me some control for that?” Quickly I grabbed my head and I immediately heard Lory walk over. She put me down on the floor and hugged me, then she just froze. I heard the voice again, “Come on, give me your body.”

“No! Shut up!” My wings sprouted, “Let my wings be! This is my body! I am not afraid of you! No matter how much power you wield! Get back in your fucking room. This is my body, not yours. I don’t care how many people you have in there, they can all stay in your pretty fucking mirror. Who cares that you can kill Micheal, who cares that you are stronger? Power is nothing. You are nothing.”

Agent scoffed, “Those are some nice words. Look, I am backing off, see I got my hands off the mirror.” I infused my head with energy and ordered it to seal the mirror. Agent spoke up, “It seems you are not as useless as you seem to be. Believe me, the moment you let your guard down, I will be here.”

Haley looked at me, “Dad?”

“Munchkin?”

“Yes, are you alright?”

“Yes, I am fine, munchkin.” I panted, “Damn, my head hurts.”

Funk walked over, “Holy cow, those wings, they are nice, Steve.”

I looked over my back, then I quickly put them back into their inclines. “They are not for use.”

Abby walked closer, “What is going on?”

“You seemed to be struggling. Don’t tell me you have a parasite too.”

I chuckled, “If only it were that easy, Abby. Do you remember the plant incident?”

Abby and Funk nodded. “Do you remember me saying there is something inside of me?” They both nodded.

Lory looked at me, “And this thing, I saw its power slip through for a moment. It is at least stronger than us combined.”

I sighed, “Lory?”

“Yes?”

“That was only a single drop, and he is holding back something even stronger, but I think, if I had enough training, I can easily match him.”

Abby looked at me, “What does it want?”

I sighed, “It wants to be free and take over my body. It is locked up in my head, in a mirror.”

Lory blinked a couple of times, “When you blacked out, you went into your mind space?”

I nodded, “It is there, it has woken up. He calls himself Agent, I have no clue why.”

Haley took my hand, “What does he look like?”

I sighed, “He looks like me. Only with two arms, his hair is a bit slicker, and he has ebony colored eyes. He knows more things.”

Abby sighed, “It sounds as if he wants to control you.”

I nodded, “That is a safe assumption.”

I slowly got up, “I will be fine, though. He has no foothold presently. We need to keep going.”

Lory looked at me, “Are you certain that is a good idea?”

“Yes, I will truly be fine.”

Funk looked at me, “I did not know you have wings.”

Haley smiled, “Where do you think I got my wings from?”

Abby smiled, “It seems you got them from your dad.”

Once I had ensured everyone I will be fine, Haley pointed somewhere, “We should go that way, the exit is over there, I killed all the big birds.”

I saw Lory loot the giant worm. She shrugged, “You still keep forgetting it.”

I sighed, “Did it give anything useful?”

“Some meat, gold, a bit of equipment and that’s it.”

I looked at Haley, “Did you call them big birds?”

She chuckled, “Yeah, I did not know what else to call them.”

She started walking and I followed her. Abby looked at me, “If you ever need my help, Steve, ask me.”

“Thank you, Abby.”

Funk walked next to me, “It seems you have some secrets hidden inside of you. Is there anything else you know?”

I shook my head, “I don’t know how this works. Or who he is exactly, nor what he is protecting.”

Lory looked back and smiled at me, “Are you alright?”

“Yes, I am fine.”

Funk smiled at me, “Haley told us you would be fine, we just ran into the room as we saw your cage get swallowed up. How did you even survive that?”

I chuckled, “A bit of luck, and tactics.”

Lory laughed, “Mostly luck!”

Funk yawned, “I think it is getting late, Haley told us you would be fine. There was no way for us to get that worm out of the brown liquid. Abby offered to jump inside, I told her we should wait first.”

Haley opened up a door, and we looked at the moonlight shining on us. We all looked around, all the big birds had fallen down, completely dead. I smiled, “We killed the worm, their master, and now the big birds are dead.”

Lory looked around, “I don’t know about you guys, but I am up for making a campfire.”

Funk sighed, “We barely traveled any distance today, two steps forward, one step back.”

I gave him a thumbs up, “At least, we are not dead.”

Abby sighed, “You did not get stashed in a barrel after getting hit by fifty darts.”

Haley chuckled, “I slapped her a few times to wake her up.”

Lory laughed, “Good job, Munchkin.”

Abby grinned, “What happened to being sorry for being a little bit mean?”

Lory smiled at Abby, “I am going to allow people to call me Lory from now on, it suits me much better. Since I am sorry Abby, a little bit, I’ll make a campfire and cook everyone a meal.”