“Really now, dear guests, dear dolls, I would have thought you’d know by…” The voice cut out as horrid sounds of static and grinding metal took its place. The whole of the corridor shook as Jake and Alice stumbled backward into the wall, only to feel it flex against their weight. Recovering and stepping back, they turned to see large cracks forming up the sides of the corridor’s walls as mass chunks of rock fell to the floor.
Looking around, the pair felt their sense return to them as panicked hopelessness gave way to rationality and they realized the entirety of the corridor was collapsing in on itself now. Dust and rubble littered the floor. A little ways away, Jake could see his bag abandoned amidst the debris of the corridor.
“By NOW!” The voice returned with a sudden scream, “Disobedient guests need to be punished!”
Suddenly both Alice and Jake felt an odd sensation at the base of their skulls as the voice tried to force them to submit through pain, yet both stood standing. Whatever connection the voice had was gone now, completely severed in both of them.
“No, no, NO!” The voice roared as the sensations tickling their heads magnified, yet it was all for naught. “Fine, so be it, dear guests, if that’s how you want to…” The voice cut out again, lost to a violent wave of static. The ticking from the walls intensified, yet it sounded damaged. Off-beat and broken, nowhere near as meticulous and perfect as it had been before.
“IF THAT’S WHAT YOU WANT!” The voice screamed through the static, returning before Jake or Alice could react in time, “I CAN STILL CRUSH YOU PERSONALLY!”
The walls of the crumbling corridor began to shift as the unrhythmic ticking increased, yet nothing happened. The sound of scraping metal rang out, nearly deafening the duo, and at last it seemed the corridor headed the command of the voice as the crumbling rock walls around the pair began to slowly constrict inward.
Neither Alice nor Jake stood by waiting to be crushed by the slowly moving walls, instead turning and running at fever pitch down the corridor. The voice was clearly pained, despite all its posturing it was clear that whatever Alice had done to it before had hurt. It was struggling to even speak now, let alone properly maintain control of its torture chamber. They might still be trapped inside the voice’s corridor, but things were nowhere near as hopeless as they’d been before.
“WHAT DID YOU DO TO IT?!” Jake screamed, desperate to be heard over the frantic ticking of the walls and the scraping sound of metal that permeated every inch of the corridor's crumbling façade.
“NO IDEA!” Alice responded, reaching out to help catch Jake as he stumbled forward, almost falling flat on his face.
By now, the pair had managed to reach the end of the constricting walls with time to spare. Around them, they could hear sounds of effort as it seemed the voice was straining itself to try and force the rest of the corridor to constrict, yet nothing happened. Looking back, they could see now the source of the horrid scrapping noise that permeated the whole of the corridor as series of broken, jagged gears drove the walls of the corridor forward, shearing and bending with each rotation.
The pair continued forward, as the voice screamed and raged all around, till suddenly Jake dropped forward low to the ground. Alice stopped, worried he’d collapsed due to injury or exhaustion, only to see him pulling their bag of supplies free from a pile of rubble.
“Where'd that come from?” She asked, helping Jake to his feet. Jake gave an unsure shrug, glancing upward toward the crumbling ceiling above, as suddenly the corridor rattled once more. Turning around they saw one of the walls behind them begin to slide upward and out of sight before stopping abruptly, shaking violently, and falling back to the floor with a violent crash.
Yet despite this mechanical failure of the corridor, the end goal remained unchanged. Behind the collapsed wall of rubble, they could see a beast walk forward. Hunched over it walked near silent save for the slight mechanical clicks that now escaped its frame. Patches of black fur covered its body, save for trace areas where it peeled away, falling to the floor to reveal a slender mechanical frame. Twin antlers protruded from its head where a long, elongated snout barred its fangs toward the pair. It walked upon raised paws coated red with blood, supported upward by long, vicious claws.
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Jake froze as he caught sight of the mechanical beast, his chest instinctively tightening as every nerve in his body screamed with a desire to flee and hide. Yet he stepped forward, a slight smile on his face as he spoke aloud to the voice, earning a confused look from Alice,
“You got the eyes wrong.” Indeed the voice had failed here, perhaps in its hurry to hunt and kill the rampaging duo the eyes of the mechanical monster stalking toward the pair were mere bulbs of light, lacking any real emotion. None of the hot blind fury or instinct need to kill that drove the predator before were there, just a mindless killing machine. Though its claws lay sharp and blood-soaked, Jake found it almost laughable easy to suppress his fear of the machine before him when he compared it to the source material.
Jake's taunting earned nothing but roars of rage from both the voice and the mechanical predator. It leapt forward; claws barred fangs gnashing. Jake and Alice dove to the side as the power of the machine's leap carried it soaring through the air, past the duo, and several meters behind them.
“You’ve seen that thing before?” Alice asked, crawling back toward where Jake was.
“Once. It ripped my leg off!” Jake said in quick speak, watching as the mechanical beast circled around, teeth gnashing as artificial spittle formed in its jaw. It began moving back in toward the pair, crouching low stalking in for the kill.
“That’s not very encouraging!” Alice said standing up and grabbing hold of Jake to force him to his feet so the pair could run, yet he remained seated. There was no point in running, he knew firsthand how fast this monstrosity was. Even a mere replica built by the voice would undoubtedly catch them in no time and rip them apart. Their only option was to fight the beast and somehow slay it. Throwing the reacquired bag open, Jake tore through its messy unorganized contents in desperate search.
“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!” Alice shouted, panicked confusion clear in her voice as the beast stalked ever closer before springing forward and charging across the stone. Jake’s hand finally felt it, gripping hold of the grip as he pulled the revolver free of the bag’s confines. The mechanical beast continued charging towards him uncaring as he leveled the gun with the monster's head. He had a second, less than a second to fire. A short click rang through the corridor, drowned out by the chaotic fury of the voice and the crumbling sounds echoing all around the pair before an explosive sound reverberated throughout the corridor.
Alice watched, her ears covered since she saw the revolver emerge from the bag, as the bullet pierced the length of the mechanical monster's body. The beast continued forward, carried by its momentum, collapsing on top of Jake as its body began to break apart. Splintered bits of metal and gear fell from the matted form of the beast as it struggled forward, teeth mashing still, to try and tear into Jake’s chest. Yet Jake did not sit still and wait for the mechanical replica to rip him apart, forcing himself free of the dying machine. He rose from the ground quickly and came to stand by Alice, a ringing echoing still in his ears.
They watched as the mechanical monster gave its last death throes before collapsing into a pile of scrap on the floor. A slight tremor ran through Jake’s body, he’d not planned to get nearly as close to the beast as he had. The whole right side of his body ached as he tightened the grip he held on the gun. In truth, he hadn't been entirely convinced that would work yet it seemed the only option they had left.
The voice only screamed in response to the monster's defeat, it seemed speech was no longer possible for it before suddenly even screams of pained anger were too much being instead replaced by choppy static. The ticking emanating from the wall grew more choppy, and more disorganized as the static carried on. Looking from the wall to the mechanical beast on the floor Jake looked around the crumbling corridor before saying,
“I think it’s a heartbeat…”
“What?” Alice said, unsure what Jake was talking about.
“The ticking, I think it’s the voice’s heartbeat. It just seems to be getting worse and worse the more this place falls apart. Do you think you can do it again, whatever it is you did before?”
Alice shook her head, and it was the truth. She felt drained and exhausted. Whatever power pulsed through her body, even if she knew how to access it, she was running on empty. Jake gave a slow nod before glancing down the corridor the mechanical beast had emerged from. It was also crumbling as it stretched onward into infinity with no clear end in sight. Both knew from all the time they’d collectively spent trapped in the corridor so far no exit awaited them down there. The only way out was through the voice.
Jake walked toward the crumbling façade of the corridor and began to violently kick the wall. Soon, large cracks appeared stretched out from where Jake’s foot connected, growing with each kick. As Jake kicked the wall, Alice forced her hand into the growing cracks, beginning to pull to try and pry the wall apart.
It didn’t take long for the duo’s efforts to bear fruit as before long the wall collapsed, causing the two to jump back for fear of being buried alive. As the dust cleared, what greeted the two was not another corridor stretching into infinity. Instead, a series of intricate gearwork and springs lay just behind the hole made in the wall, behind which they could see absolutely nothing but a black abyss.
With a nervous gulp, both stepped forward, forcing the springs and gears apart, as they stepped into the nothing beyond the corridor.