Mark looks around the very spacious room. The rows of white beds that look more gray from the accumulation of dust. The wooden bed frames that are breaking down and a small cabinet besides each bed. Mark decides to do a bit more cleaning, taking out his broom to sweep the room. He takes out everything he needs before placing his bag into a cabinet. Rick, laying on the ground, begins to feel Mark’s intense heat from working above and beyond which gets him back to his senses. He gets up and grabs Mark by his poncho clenching his fist as he feels betrayed.

“I thought you guys were gonna show me more respect! Listen to my inputs unlike the old geezers in the repair shop. I told you about what I saw, yet none of you believed me!” Rick says frustrated to the point his face is red and his eyes tear up.

“I believe you.” Mark says

“.... huh?”

“You’re my friend and I trust you.” Mark says Rick stares at Mark’s face, seeing how sincere it is.. Rick then lets go of his poncho. Rick walks towards Mark’s bag and rummages through, grabbing his engineering kit that’s full of tools. “What are you doing?” Mark asks.

“It feels as if my whole purpose in this team is just being Dasa’s mechanics. I want to contribute in other ways you know” He puts on his goggles and a mechanical backpack. Rick then grabs Ana’s spell book and puts it in his backpack

“Woah!” Mark is enamored by the shiny bronze gears sticking out and a steamy smoke being released. . “When did you make that?”

“This is the passion project I’ve been working day and night on. I’m gonna use this to find whatever is in the walls.” Rick heads out the room leaving Mark behind in his lonesome. Mark was really impressed with Rick’s confidence and decided to just let him go off alone.

“What’s wrong with repairing me?” Dasa says popping in through the window which makes Mark jump.

“N-no. That’s not what he means.”

“It’s ok. I’m just an android that needs repairs. It makes sense how he wants to do other things.” Dasa seems to have taken Rick’s comment the wrong way which disappoints Mark.

“Wait... How come you aren’t with Ana?”

“She asked me to join in her mission but my duty is to defend you.” Mark hands her a duster.

“Dasa, We’re all friends here. You don’t have to stick with me the whole time.” Mark begins sweeping the floor more while Dasa dust the cabinets.

“They aren’t my friends. They clearly don’t view me in the same level as human”

“And is this an absolute?”

“No...”

“That feeling is very human, ya know.” Dasa goes silent and they quietly sweep the room.

As Rick approaches the painting that once scared him, the rush of confidence soon begins to crumble the closer he gets to the painting. His mind, body, and soul screams how out of his depth he is. His legs tremble while his head begins raining.He begins thinking back to his time in the auto-shop and the glare of pity he gets. He grits his teeth and reaches his hand to the painting once more, feeling the rough layers once more..

Rick stares deeply into the painting waiting for the eye to appear once more but nothing happens. This puzzled Rick as he expected it to do the same thing as before. He considers going back to Mark to tell him but he begins to think “What if Mark starts thinking I’m a liar after coming back telling him the painting wasn’t alive.” Rick decides he’ll venture forth on his own instead to prove what he saw was real.

He soon enters the nave, deciding to go check out the Altar. As Rick approaches the Altar, he spots a door that’s slightly open. He carefully takes a peak and sees stairs that lead down towards the basement. Rick slowly begins to move down the stairs.Creek CreekEach loud step makes Rick quiver hoping nothing could’ve heard it. Then as he reaches the final set of stairs, he enters what seems to be the catacombs. It seems vast and expansive with the multiple paths he could take but one in the other end has a flickering light..

Rick walks down the narrow arch tunnel, slowly as the sound of crying begins to be heard. “How long till I’m free.” The echo of the nun can be heard with the sound of gargling cries. “We made a deal. You’re never going to be free as long as I’m here”!” the nun says but with a distorted sound that wasn’t human. “I didn’t want this though. I just wanted to be good” The nun begins to sob while muttering names followed with “I’m sorry.“.

Rick stands behind the corner and slowly peaks his head in.The small stoney room was filled with the bones of people possibly going on for centuries. The nun was curled into a ball afraid of looking at the horror.. As Rick was left stunned, he begins to step back but unintentionally trips creating a sudden yelp from the surprise. Then the tears of the nun abruptly stop. Rick sits there quietly hoping that the nun would go back to crying. The only sound filling the air is the drips of sweat coming off him. The nun comes out of the corner, her pupil resembling the white abyss as she slowly turns towards Rick.

She stares into Rick’s soul as he freezes on the spot, too petrified to move. She reaches towards Rick. It’s now or never for Rick to finally test his backpack. The nun’s hand nearly grabs him before his back pack’s tendrils shoot out of the backpack launching him away. Rick runs to the stairs with the tendrils of the backpack making him resemble a spider crawling.When he reaches the stairs a suddencrackis heard as the old wooden board couldn’t resist the force of the spider legs. Rick watching the nun approach just decides to destroy the whole stair and having his spider leg pull him to the door. .

The nun standing in front of the destroyed stairs turns to the wall. “Send him and another of his merry friend to the butcher”

Rick turns off the spider legs and begins to run as fast as he can towards the dorm. He then barges through the door falling to the floor. “The nun is possessed!” he shouts but where he is isn’t the room. Instead resembling a nursing room.

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This doesn’t make sense as Rick was positive he entered the correct door. Ana then bumps into him entering the same door he did.. The door then slams shut behind them. Ana goes and opens the door again just for the room to be completely different from before. She closes the door and turns to Rick asking what he is doing here.

“Well... I uhm.. I wanted to help by hunting down the thing I saw in the wall.” Rick says nervously, avoiding Ana’s furious gaze. “Well it seems as if our wall monster can somehow change the rooms we enter.”

“Y-yeah it does seem so.” Rick says anxiously as he looks around the old nursing and the baby cradles that fill it. “Ah!” Rick realizes he should probably tell Ana about the nun. “The nun seems to be possessed.” He says to Ana who already knew and told him as such.

“The information I need is what kind of possession it is. So we could break it more easily.” She says frustratingly.

“Oh! I heard something about a deal!” Rick shouts. Ana begins to think of a way they can use that. The only way she could successfully use this information is if the deal isn’t fully complete allowing them to possibly break it. “Stand back behind me Rick. We have to get out of this room.”

She leads Rick through the door and enters a large cafeteria. Filled with paintings of what seem to be finger paintings made by kids aligned on the walls. The dining tables built from the amber wood are rotting where they stand leaving many of them broken on the floor. The smell of sulfur mixed with the rancid and putrid rotten meat. The smell is so bad it makes Ana’s eyes water. Yet the smell of rotting flesh mixes into the air seemingly coming from a door in the end.

Ana begins to stomp towards the door with Rick nervously following behind her like a child running behind a parent for protection.Chop Chop Scrape ScrapeThe sound of a butcher at work getting louder.. They reach the door and Ana confidently steps in and sees a bipedal creature with three fingers, its skeleton bulging in their skin. Its face was indescribable like a contortion of different features and its mouth not even seeming to be able to move just stuck as a circle. What it’s chopping seems to be corpses of other unlucky travelers that stayed the night.

A pile beside him with faces of those unlucky. Some seem to have their life drained leaving their face in still agony and others with a broken smile that won’t disappear. It first scrapes the meat off the bones before chopping it into smaller pieces. It then puts all the pieces into what seems to be Mark’s bag.. “You beast!” Ana shouts with a fury in her eye seeing them use one of Mark’s most precious gifts as a way to store such grotesque actions.

It slowly turns its head with the sound of cracking. Its face unchanging stares down Ana who’s glaze blazes fiercely. Rick trembles with fear hiding behind the door frame. Time feels as if it stopped with no one making a move; it even begins to make Ana drop a nervous sweat. Suddenly it moved, swinging its butcher knife at Ana. Ana quickly reacts, ducking under the swing then striking its body with her palm. The strike itself doesn’t even flinch it but the spell she imbued begins to harden its body turning it to stone unable to move.

Rick is amazed and cheers for Ana. Ana isn’t saying anything instead holding still as her face begins to strain with the veins in her head popping out. “Congrats on the easy victory” Rick says as he pats her back, knocking her out of concentration.

“WHAT’S WRONG WITH YOU!” She shouts angrily leaving Rick stunned. The sound of cracking stone fills the room and he realizes his grave error. Rick quickly uses his backpack to grab Mark’s bag before Ana grabs him by the collar and runs out the room. It begins to make a strange noise like a mix of screams stuck in an infinite void. Rick and Ana attempt to run out the door to another room but instead they get transported back through another cafeteria door.

It steps out of the kitchen slowly before getting a sudden burst of speed launching itself towards Rick. Ana quickly reacts to defend Rick pulling him out of the way letting It hit the wall. She motions Rick to get behind her. It began to charge at her, she reacted quickly by conjuring lighting through her finger tip but It doesn’t stop as it has no feeling of pain. She quickly grabs the rotten slush that was once food from the table. Hardening it to use as a shield blocking It’s initial strike. She’s put on the defensive, being pushed throughout the cafeteria. Having no regards on the tables around them, sending all the rotten and rancid food flying. Ana repeatedly stepped on them but was still able to keep her balance gliding across the cafeteria spreading the food in a circle.

As the fight dragged on it became more clear that Ana is unable to keep up with the relentless assault as she kept dividing her attention on the floor and It’s attacks. Her only weapon, the hardened slush, cracked after every parry until it reached its breaking point and snapped in half. Allowing It to connect its butcher knife on her shoulder.

Thinking quickly she touches the blood coming off her shoulder hardening the blood around the knife. It tries to pull out its butcher knife but it’s too lodged in her shoulder. Rick, unable to watch any longer, uses his backpack releasing his spider legs. He uses the spider legs to grab It away from Ana and launches it away. Ana huffs and puff from exhaustion holding her shoulder as Rick readies himself to have to pick up the fight.

Then suddenly out of nowhere. It speaks creating a blood curling screech that puts whoever hears it into a unmoving state. Rick is unable to move or speak, with the only thing keeping him up being his spider legs. Rick is stuck in the empty abyss that he was once in before. This time unable to move or do anything.

It then began to move slowly towards Ana. She tries to prepare herself but her watery eyes and stabbing pain that makes her daze made her unable to react to its fury. Ana tries to shield herself using the broken pieces of the table but that won’t last long. It just keeps swinging down on the shield slowly breaking it with each strike.Drip Dripand then a splatter of blood spills to the floor. Rick may have been unable to move but his spider legs were still connected to his brain and as long as he could think, he could act. Rick is back to his senses out of the empty abyss. He quickly grabs It away from Ana once more. He then pins It to the center of the circle that Ana made during the fight believing she did it with a purpose. Ana not letting the opportunity Rick has given go to waste quickly moves to the circle’s edge. The disgusting food circle begins to light up with its murky color glowing. It begins to break free from Rick, breaking the spider legs one by one. Eventually getting up but its legs have turned to stone breaking apart when it tried to move. Yet it doesn’t stop and begins crawling as its arms begin crumbling next till It’s whole body withers away as only It’s head makes it out of the circle.

Ana quickly disposes of its head using the butcher knife to chop it in half. Rick then falls to the floor as he’s unable to withstand the blood loss for any longer. Rick’s vision begins to falter. “Can you fix her!” the voice of Mark’s desperate plea comes to him. The moment when Mark asked him to join him.

He was just sitting in the back of the repair shop. Having to Fix kid toys since no one thought he was ready to work on machinery. Being treated like a little kid having to play with the toys. That was until Mark came in holding Dasa. She was something no one in the shop had seen before. They didn’t even try to do anything but Rick. Rick had something no one did and it was creativity to do something above and beyond their level.

When Rick repaired Dasa he finally felt accomplished that he was needed by people. When Mark asked him to join in tears of joy Rick could only say yes as he finally found people who wanted him. Rick eventually gets up with his throat being sore. The smell of smoke fills the rancid room as Rick looks around the cafeteria and sees all the paintings burnt up. He spots seeing Ana completely exhausted.

“Healing magic isn’t my specialty.” Ana takes a couple of hard breaths between her sentences. “So your throat is still gonna hurt but at least you can go back to talking soon.”

“Let’s just rest for a while” She says before falling from her own injuries.