"... when do you reckon the boss'll be done in there?"

A lean-built man rests against a wall of metal. Upon first glance, one would assume it to be some form of cast iron, made up of intersecting panels, divots and braces in an amalgamation of sleek grey. However, upon closer inspection of the strange yet abundant metal, seeing as how the wall seemed to stretch on forever down the corridor to the man's left, one could almost swear the stuff was... alive?

Not in any literal sense, mind you. It was more of a feeling that the material gave off. Unsettling, like it wasn't quite right. Like it wasn't quite the same iron that they've seen time and time and time and time again. Like if you took your eye off of it for a moment, let it breathe, that It'd move while you weren't looking.

"Boss? What boss?" 

A woman leant against the wall opposite the man, arms crossed and a pair of piercing red eyes trained at the floor. An expression of indifference across her face. An odd white mask rested to the side and atop her head, out of the way but close enough to put back on at a moments notice.

"What do you mean 'what boss?', the same one that's got us waiting down here for him!"

The man pouted, an odd slithering noise echoing for a moment before silence again.

"Pfft, oh, honey no. There isn't anyone here with the right, the need, nor the wish to be called 'boss'. Especially not him. You heard him say that yourself, didn't you?"

The woman chuckled almost bitterly at the thought. Why would anyone want to be seen as the head of this shitshow? It wasn't like there'd be any benefits, just more blame to carry.

Some people had enough blame, enough sins, as it already were.

"Well what else are we supposed to call him? He started all this, managed to convince you of all people. He's the oldest, probably. Maybe."

"And you should know by now that age ain't got anything to do with it if we're working by those standards."

The two descended into an odd silence. Not tense per se, not awkward, but odd. There wasn't anything that needed to be said, they both knew exactly what the other was thinking, it's just that there wasn't any point in talking about it. As one man once put it; 'A mutual understanding for the benefit of sanity', or- well, something like that. 

The sudden creaking of metal and a rumbling down the dull shining hall didn't knock them out of their funk, both parties continued to stare at the floor in silence as the shaking continued. The dull hum of the sickly fluorescent bulbs illuminating the walkway flickered for a moment before everything was plunged back into an all encompassing, all consuming and ever hungry silence.

"Yeah yeah, got it. Not like we were fighting anyway." Grumbled the man, lifting their head and glancing to their right.

A large door. Not large in the sense that lots of people could fit through it. Large as in sturdy, thick, built to keep things in- or maybe out. It was rounded off on its edges, in its centre, a metal crank one would see in those old-timey ships for safety doors and pressure chambers.

The door, or rather the huge slab of metal, was perhaps twenty centimeters thick at its thinnest angle, and was currently swung wide open on its hinges.

Beyond the door? Another hallway, oddly enough, though nowhere near as long as the one behind the two figures and nowhere as- well actually the smaller hallway was still pretty creepy on its own.

Made of concrete, the hallway through the odd door looked more like a dimly lit modern underground parking lot than anything. If the lights down the metal hall were sickly and clinical, the ones in the concrete slab and square walkway were on their last legs and suffering a slow, painful, agonizing death and at the mercy of time.

Beyond that door looked like a scene ripped straight from the budget of an indie horror film. The poor lighting didn't help, nor did the short, stationary feeling it gave off as the path veered off to the right and out of sight. There was perhaps 100 meters of concrete runway before the path was abruptly cut off by a wall. Large, black, blocky letters littered the surface:

SITE -B-

FACILITY 13

The atmosphere was thick with a sense of hopelessness, like going to bed knowing that tomorrow is Tuesday and you still have pretty much a full week to go before you can get back on the high of the weekend, but also knowing full well that you won't actually be doing anything that you plan on the weekend and you'll just end up the same as always. Cold and alone and five pizzas in to your next level of the hit game 'Diabetes'.

Exactly where the concrete hall ended and the metal one started was a bit of an odd topic. If anything, neither of them really fit. Not in the sense that they were a completely different material, and for at least one of them that point was painfully true. No, more in the sense that it looked more like someone had just slammed the metal door, the entrance to wherever the two figures stood, down in a random place and called it a day. Like a toddler squishing pieces of Lego or coins or something else potentially tasty into a wad of Play-Doh.

The concrete around the metal exterior wall was cracked and warped like a horrible attempt at an organ transplant.

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

The whole scene was just... liminal space. A vague sense of uncomfort and and abandonment but without the reason why, like empty stores at 4am, or old supermarkets in dead towns.

"... You don't reckon he's in trouble, do you?" Asked the man with an odd tone. Possibly growing impatient. Maybe just hungry.

"Trouble? Of course he's in trouble. If that bastard ever isn't in trouble, then we can start worrying."

"That's not-"

The frantic pitter-patter of rushed footsteps can be heard from the concrete jungle. Both figures at the door look out and to the corner. They tense up, as if not sure what to expect despite waiting for one person in particular.

"Do you-"

"Shhh-"

"-t... clo...it-"

A distant echoing call joined the symphony of footsteps, growing closer.

"What are-"

"Shhhh-"

The woman reached up slowly to the mask atop her head, not touching it quite, instead keeping her hand mere millimeters from its surface. The tips of her fingers twitched ever so slightly, the mask... resonating with the closeness of her touch, shifting a little under her shadow.

The sound of slithering started again. Echoing, maybe quiet, by no means natural as it reverberrated against every crevice of the mind. It sounded like coiling tendrils of a spring ready to snap, like a rope stretched taught and prepared to unravel. Poised, to strike.

But not yet.

They'd been taught that much.

"It c... se it clo-" The footsteps grew louder as the voice grew clearer, closer, towards the corner and in to view.

A monstrous screech tore through the concrete hallway before the two, the first sound to startle them since arriving.

"Oh now that's a new sound." Mused the man, now off of the wall completely and standing next to the woman, gazing out the door with a watchful eye.

The screeching continued to grow in volume, just as the source of the footsteps came into view around the corner.

A lone man, dressed in black pants, a mustard yellow hoodie, and what appeared to be an antique crusader's helmet spun into view, slightly overshooting the corner and scrambling to the side to regain their balance from how fast they'd been running. They continued to call out, like repeating some sort of mantra like a man possessed, supposedly to the two waiting at the door.

"-SE IT CLOSE IT CLOSE IT CLOSE IT CLOSE IT!"

The woman stepped forward, gripping the metal door's valve and began to pull.

"NOT YET YOU ASSHOLE WAIT FOR ME!"

As the screaming man continued their charge their pursuer came fully into view at last, the source of the wailing.

A hulking mass of pale flesh, the stench of a wet, rotting corpse, and what could only be described as a choir of agonizing screams tore from around the corner, slamming into the opposite wall before scrambling to gain some traction on the hard floor, much like the man had before it- only with more sloshing... and grossness.

The thing looked straight out of a poorly written yet very-well made horror film. An amalgamation of maybe once human bodies all fused together into one semi-alive pile. The eyes, on any of the out-most faces, were sunken in and replaced with dark holes, as were the mouths for that matter. Several pairs of arms and legs grasped at air as others propelled the conjoined body forwards at an honestly surprising pace for how the thing looked. The constant scream that escaped its many mouths sounded hoarse, raggedy, harsh. As if the vocal cords had been half snipped and then stuck back together with chewing gum, sticky tape and glue. The whole scene could possibly be a stand in for a three-year old's attempt at drawing a cow or something in all honesty.

"Fuck, shit shit shit shiiiiiaaaaaaaannnndddddSAFE! HAHA!"

The man wearing a helmet slid through the border of the slowly closing door, cheering over his own success but painfully out of breath. It was evident that the man didn't often run, or at least not regularly.

Soon after, he was interrupted from his celebration by a pair of pale arms reaching in from behind him and attempting to grasp at his hood. The screaming as loud as ever.

"AAH! CLOSE THE DOOR SHIT!"

To which the woman responded by closing the hatch with an overexerted slam, severing the arms in the process and leaving them writhing on the floor of the metal hallway, the screams muffled.

The three people just... stared at the arms for a moment, captivated by their continued movement. The lack of any blood coursing through dead veins.

The screams grew softer and softer, dying in intensity to an eventual quiet as the arms disintegrated into a pile of... well... nothing, not even a pile of ash just... gone. Erased from existence.

The helmet-wearing man's exhausted breaths began to even out as he rested on his knees, leaning over and trying to get some air into his burning lungs.

"Remind me to thank Snake." He finally said after a moment of laboured breathing.

"Don't know where we'd be without him."

"You just like not needing to deal with the shit you bring back every time, or the rubbish."

"Well, yeah, I suppose there's that. Not gonna say I miss the chute."

The trio stood around awkwardly for a moment, not sure what to say, if there was anything to say. It was as if what just happened was just another ordinary thing, water under the bridge, didn't matter.

"So..." Began the first man, glancing over with a pair of odd yellow eyes, slits down their length in place of pupils.

"Next one's in Revelation 13:1 The Beast. 'John saw it rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy.'"

He sighed.

"The code's seven, one, zero, one, zero, and-"

"Six, three." Finished the woman quickly, going over the numbers in her head a few times before nodding.

"... Alright, I'll go check it with the rest. You go and... clean yourself up I guess. You smell like ass."

She started walking down the impossibly long metal corridor before any protest could be made.

"Hey and how do you know what ass smells like, Nem?" Called back the helmeted man, straightening himself with a hidden smirk as Nem shot back the middle finger in response.

"Business as always, isn't she?"

"Well, if she wasn't I'm not sure anything would get done around here."

"Yeah, you're probably right..."

Awkward silence yet again.

"So uh..." The yellow eyed man began, reaching into his jacket pocket and pulling out what appeared to be a short grocery list written on floral-pattern paper.

"Did you get the milk and eggs?"

"..."

"..."

"FUCK!"