ᘜIᑎ★ᘜᗴᖇ🂱

Beside you, Bobby struggles to breathe through the hot air, just like you are as you’re still in your bomber jacket, refusing to take it off. The two of you wait for the pirate to move on, for the sound of thumping to fade from your ears as you hear its body scrape against the steel pipes. It’s too large for this place as it shambles around awkwardly.

The chase has you and Bobby winded, even more now that the heat isn’t helping you take in air. You’re drenched in sweat, the beads of sweat drips down from your chin down to your pants as it leaves little dark droplets on the fabric. Bobby is faring better than you, still sweaty and breathing heavily but not as bad as you when you feel like you’re being cooked from the inside out.

“Just take off your fucking jacket.” He whispers, too close to you when the curling pipes hinders him from moving away from you as you both hide inside a small crevice in the wall. “I won’t judge you if you have shitty tattoos.”

“Shut up before it hears you.” You shush him, swallowing nothing when the inside of your mouth is drier than a desert.

“You’re going to die of heatstroke.” You turn to him, glaring at Bobby as he glares right back. “I’m not a fucking idiot, I know shit too.” He takes a deep inhale of the hot air, regretting it when he almost chokes from the heat. “Just take off the jacket, you’ll feel better.”

“I’m fine.” Wiping away the sweat dribbling on your forehead, you strain your ears to try to hear the entity walking around. You don’t hear anything other than the leaking pipes and Bobby’s breathing. “I think it’s gone.”

“Thank fuck.” He shimmies out, passing by you as he stretches his legs from the prolonged crouched position. “Come on, let’s get out of the devil’s armpit.” Holding out his hand to you, you reluctantly take it as you feel your shirt cling to your skin from how drenched in sweat it is. “Before you faint again.”

“It happened one time and you’ll never let me live it down.” You start to walk through the hallways lined with pipes, you suddenly miss the yellow wallpaper instead of this creepy boiler room that makes you claustrophobic.

When the previous corridors felt like an abandoned office space, this one is more industrial, more metal and steel than wallpaper and carpet. There is an occasional hiss from the pipes, letting out warm air, and there are manholes on the floor, randomly dotted around, some look like it’s two in one, melted together like it’s in the middle of mitosis. You’d take the sailboat room more than this place.

“This place looks like it’s out of a Nightmare on Elm Street.” Bobby helps you search for the hasty marks you left when you two were being chased by the pirate. “I’m gonna ask now because it’s fucking eating at me but, did that fucking thing look like Clark to you?”

“Yep.” You pop the letter ‘p’ in your mouth as you struggle to look through the waves of heat ahead. “And don’t ask me why because I don’t know either.”

“Do you think it steals faces?” Bobby’s crop top sticks to his torso and you avoid your gaze from staying too long on him.

“I don’t know, Bobby.” You lumber towards a corner, your hand touching the hot wall trying to look for the mark you left with your marker. “Why are you so talkative?”

Bobby shrugs, keeps walking behind you as he uses his shirt to fan himself. “It helps to distract myself.”

You make the mistake of looking behind you as you see him completely drenched in sweat, his white crop top clinging to his torso like second skin, leaving almost nothing to the imagination. His lean stomach is in full show, heat singes your cheek and it’s not from the heat. Averting your eyes, you continue to walk forward, searching for the same door you two came out of. “It’s annoying me and the thing might hear you—”

Fumbling, stumbling on your own two feet when the heat makes your vision foggy, you hold onto a pipe for balance. Your palm is immediately seared as you scream in pain, taking your hand away. “Fuck!” You hold onto your wrist, keeling over, and crouched down onto the hard ground.

“Shit, let me see.” Bobby crouches down in front of you, gently taking your wrist in his hand. When you don’t budge, he clicks his teeth and calls you by your name. You didn’t even know if he remembered your name. “C’mon, hero, let me see.”

“Hero?” You ask through clenched teeth and tears in your eyes as he examines your reddened hand. “Really?”

“Yeah, you saved my ass, so you’re a hero. And you did that hero jump.” His eyes narrows at your palm, wincing for your sake. “Fuck, I don’t know much about burns but this looks gnarly. You’re gonna need ice for this.”

“Ice isn’t actually good for burns.” You let out a shuddered breath as the pain radiates from your palm down to your wrist, a slithering burn inching downwards to your elbows. “Running tepid water is.”

Bobby starts to unzip your bag, taking out one of the bottles of water for you, to which you instantly stop him with a shake of your head.

“I didn’t know that, but we don’t have either of them, so. Can we just use this instead?”

“N–no,” gritting your teeth, you make the mistake of glancing at your hand, seeing your flesh burn, bubbling up in angry reddened skin. “We need to conserve it for drinking. I—” you take a deep yet wobbly breath. “—I can handle this.” You’ve felt a lot of pain in your life but the burning sensation makes your stomach turn and the back of your eyes burn.

“You’re fucking stubborn.” Bobby stands up, knees creaking as he tries to help you up with his hands cupped around your elbows. “I have an idea.”

“You’re getting ideas now?” Brow raised, you try to focus on his face when your vision is starting to wobble like your legs. The combined heat and the throbbing pain in your hand has turned your body into jello.

“Yeah, you’re not the only one who’s allowed to have them.” He rolls his eyes, a hand reaching into his pocket for something before his palm comes up empty. “You said there’s a pool here? We can use the water for your hand.”

“That’s actually not a bad idea. But I don’t know how to get there from here.” You don’t mean to lean against him but you do as the pain takes hold of you. He lets you use him to steady yourself. He smells the same, just more sweat than cologne, and the scent of weed has almost faded away from his crop top. You try to keep your mind off the pain and heat, to try to recreate the comforting hum of the walls that doesn’t reach this searing place.

“You sound condescending.”

“I’m not,” swallowing down the bile in your throat, you take a deep inhale. “That’s just how I sound when I’m in blinding pain.”

“How about taking some of the pain meds—” you’re shaking your head at his idea as your eyes glance narrowedly at him. “It’ll help. You need it.”

“We need to ration—”

“Well, you fucking need it now, hero.” Bobby stops walking abruptly, feeling you tremble against him has him moving to open your backpack, taking out the little orange pills and handing it to you with a bottle of water. “Don’t be a hardass.” He gestures with his eyes, encouraging you to take it. “I took one before so you take one, equality.”

“Didn’t peg you for an activist.” He’s insisting, and you won’t get a move on if he refuses to walk. So you take a pill, pop it in your mouth and gulp down a mouthful of water.

“I get that a lot.” Bobby simply shrugs, putting the supplies back inside the backpack with a resounding zip before gently yanking down the straps from your arms. “Let me take the load off of you.”

You relent, letting him take the backpack as you watch him sling it over his shoulders. “Thanks…” mumbling, you hear something move, something’s hitting the pipes as the sound reverberates through the tight corridors.

You both simultaneously look back with fear in your eyes. “What was that?”

It’s an incessant tip tapping, almost like morse code, you don’t know much about it to know what they’re saying if it is.

Your feet move backwards, away from the sound as you instinctively grab hold of Bobby’s arm. “Were you a boy scout?”

“No,” he keeps his eyes on the empty corridor as the sound grows nearer. “Why?”

“Does that sound like morse code to you?”

“I don’t fucking know.” He hisses, walking backwards with you as a shadow, one with four legs, and a very large head slithers on the walls. “We should run.”

You’re already bolting away, tugging him away as he runs alongside you. The stench of rusted metal hits your nose, as numerous pipes whizz past the two of you.

You’re going deeper and deeper inside the boiler room. You shouldn’t be, you should be going back to the yellow walls, the familiar ones instead of running deeper through the copper scented hallways.

Your rushed footsteps alert the being as the tapping hastens, following right after you through the winding corridors.

The heat makes it hard to find your breath as you struggle to run this time. Your bomber jacket clings to you, drenched from your own sweat as your hand slips from Bobby’s arm from his clammy skin.

“Here!” Bobby grabs you by the scruff of your neck, yanking you away from a dead end and towards a room with rusted pipes lined around the brown walls. There’s a familiar sight right in the middle of the room, half embedded in the walls as the door swings creakily in the stale air. “C’mon!”

Bobby shoves you inside the industrial sized washing machine, before climbing in with you and shutting the door closed with a resounding clack of metal.

Heaving, you feel the stitch blooming on your side as your wide eyes stare at the yellowed glass panel of the washing machine door.

“What the fuck is that?” Bobby whispers, voice laced with fear as you both watch the creature stalk towards you.

This isn’t like the pirate with its eerie face borrowed from Clark, nor a docile one like your old man at the helm. No, this one is different, like it was meant to be a dog, a copy of it if the dog went through the shredder and blasted with radiation. This thing, is just as wrong as everything else in this place.

It snarls with an opened maw, rows of sharp canines combined with human teeth is in full show. It bites at the air, as if that’s the way it smells when you can’t see a nose where it’s supposed to be. The fur is mangled, dark and rusted just like the walls around it. It’s a moving shadow with four pointed ears, six legs with paws the size of your hand. The three tails, two longer, and one shorter, all seemingly from different dog breeds, stand on its end. It barks like a dog that doesn’t know how to. A mere echo of it, like it’s being played through a broken speaker that ends up spitting out a garbled mess of sounds.

As if things couldn’t get any worse, one more show up, this one is leaner, eyes more hungry and yellow than the first. It has three eyes, all wrong, all looking directly at you and Bobby.

You just now noticed that he’s still holding onto the back of your jacket, fingers bunching up the fabric in his tight hold in an attempt to calm himself.

One word glares brightly in your mind, ‘run.’ Run like you always have in your life. Instead of hiding and cowering in place while you wait for the hounds to get you and tear you to pieces. But there’s nowhere to run when you feel for the end of the washing machine, half expecting a door when you only find warm steel.

“Bobby, what—!” You both yell when the angrier one leaps up to smash its head against the glass.

The window doesn’t budge nor crack at the sheer force. The creature shakes its head, staggered by what it did.

“They can’t get in.” Your companion chuckles, a rising laugh that fades away the moment one of the hounds bashes its head against the glass again.

This time it leaves a crack in the glass and a smattering of black ooze.

You feel for your hammer, readying it in your hold. Bobby turns to you, locking eyes with you as his fear is palpable within the small confines of the washing machine.

You two reach an understanding. You and Bobby might die right here.

Another strike at the glass, another crack. Then another and another. Each hitting you right at your chest.

The glass looks like a mess of cracks and blackened blood as you both could barely see the hounds waiting on the other side.

You fix your hold onto the hammer and wait for another strike that doesn’t come.

A minute passes, a long agonizing minute of staring at a dirty window.

Then another minute, two, three, nothing happens.

You both look at each other, and you slowly inch your way closer to the window, crawling over Bobby’s legs as you peek through the side of the glass where it’s clearer. There, sitting right on the floor, hind legs spread out, are the two hounds sitting on both sides, as if guarding you both whilst their yellow eyes never stray too far from the washing machine. They don’t move a muscle or feel the need to breathe, they’re as steady and uncanny like your grandfather as he stared into space at the helm atop the half sunk boat.

“What do you see?” Bobby whispers beside your ear, raising gooseflesh on your skin despite the heat as his breath flutters your lashes.

“They’re not moving, just…just standing guard.”

Bobby tilts his head up, trying to find a spot on the glass that he could see through. His brows knit together, lips pursed tightly. “What the fuck are they doing?”

“Waiting for us to come out.” Your back hits the metal with a groan, and you stretch your aching legs, too long for the machine as the heels of your feet rise up to the other side of the wall. “I guess they got tired.”

It’s getting hard to breathe in this heat, especially when you’re starting to feel claustrophobic inside. You ball your uninjured fist, opening and closing it to attempt to calm your nerves. If only you had the song of the walls to press your ear onto.

“So we’re just fucking stuck here?” Groaning, he kicks at the wall with a resounding metallic thump. “Dying in a washing machine, how fucking funny.” His blue eyes flick over to you as you look like you’re dying from the heat, panting and sweating. “Shit, you need water.” Bobby takes the backpack off, unzipping it and taking a water bottle for you. “Drink, and don’t give me the rationing bullshit.”

“Has anyone told you—” you shut your eyes for a moment as sweat trickles down your face. “That you have a very unique way of showing how you care?” Uncapping the cap, or trying to at least with your injured palm, Bobby clicks his tongue and opens the bottle for you.

“No, shut up we need to conserve our air.” Watching you take gulps of water eases the tension in between his shoulders for a bit.

Your rising laughter bounces off the metal walls as Bobby looks at you with a raised brow. “Sorry,” wiping your sweat with your sleeve, you continue to chuckle to yourself. “This is actually a bit funny because I’ve had a recurring dream of getting locked in a washing machine.” You take a generous swig, letting the sweet after taste of the almond water coat your tongue. It helps a little bit.

“Okay, Nostradamus.” Swallowing his spit, you notice and hand him the water back. “And yes, I know who the dude is.”

“The dude.” You chortle. “You know a lot of things, Bobby.” Patting his knee, your head reclines back, thumping against the wall whilst he drinks. He takes it as sarcasm. “Never judge a book by its cover I guess.”

“Your hand needs to be bandaged.”

“I’ll do it later.” What’s the point when you’re gonna suffocate in here?

“No, it’ll get infected.” He rummages through the supplies and brings out a gauze and medical tape. Bobby still holds out hope. “Can you tell me how to treat it?”

“I don’t have burn cream…” Your chest lines with warmth and around your heart from the gesture. “Just put the gauze on my palm then wrap it as loose as possible with the tape. Keeping it clean is the only thing we can do.”

Bobby nods, moving closer, legs cageing you in as you sit between them. You give him your hand, the reddened flesh peeling whilst he’s slow and clumsy with his movements. Your skin pulsates with warmth and pain, like a bleeding heart.

Your eyes flick over to him, through the haze of heat, you really look at Bobby. At his chiseled jaw, broad shoulders, sandy blonde hair and pretty blue eyes that always seem to really look into your own. If you squint, he really does look like the guy you talked to for two hours straight whilst he waited for his laundry to finish. Maybe that’s why you’re helping Bobby, a redo of your fumbling.

He’s handsome. You just now realize that he’s good looking, the type of face that would have people giving him a second look on the street, or a face you see up on a billboard. He wears the crop top well, like he just shrugged it on in the morning without an afterthought, without sparing an effort on how he presents himself when his whole face and how he carries himself is enough to draw eyes on him. But he’s not like the frat boys you remember back in college, he doesn’t talk like he owns the ground you’re walking on, unlike them in their snooty letterman jackets and tuition paid for by mommy and daddy, Bobby actually talks to you and even listens. He makes conversations, notices things when you think he’s not paying attention. He’s kind enough to remember your name when no one even bothered to try. Even Janet just calls you kid when she forgot it months ago even though she has your resume on file.

He’s far kinder than you thought he would be. All that crisp angles and handsome features made you think he wasn’t when in truth his kindness was wrapped in his sharp angles and intense stares that is always keenly aware of the details around him.

You wonder why he even went with you in the first place when his ankle got better when he seems to be capable enough on his own. Never judge a book by its cover, but the verdict is still out when you’re both stuck here slowly running out of air.

“Why are you still with me, Bobby?” Your words tumble out of your tongue as your lungs struggle to take in air. “You could’ve gone on your own way to find Kat without me. Seriously, why are you helping a stranger?”

“Because you helped a stranger, idiot.” He says matter-of-factly, jaw tightening at the mention of Kat. Finishing dressing your wound, his adam’s apple bops up and down, admiring his handiwork before tossing the supplies back inside the bag. “I’m not a complete fucking asshole to leave you all alone here when you didn’t leave me. I should be the one asking you that question. You already saved me once and you don’t need to again. I’m no one to you and so is Kat.”

You wet your lips, smiling faintly at him, testing your hand as you open and shut it slowly. It still hurts but at least it’s contained. “You look like someone I knew.” Your words hang in between you as he blinks at your words. “And I’m not a total asshole to leave you wandering around here by yourself. There’s strength in numbers you know.”

You two are quite similar in that matter. You both don’t want to be alone in this place.

“I know that’s not all.” Somehow, Bobby could see right through your eyes and into your very soul.

You wince, looking at how his knee knocks against your own. “Because…because it looked like you needed someone and Kat…Kat was nice to me.”

Bobby glances away, looking at the hounds outside briefly before nodding at your words with a tensed jaw. “It’ll be better when we find Kat.” Everything will be better when they reunite.

It’s an arrow to your chest, your own lie striking you where it hurts. You’ve never been really good at lying or hiding it, but for his sake, you have to bite your tongue until you taste copper. “Yeah.”

“Y’know, I wanted to fucking throw shit at you when you left Kat and Clark in the laundry room.” Bobby turns to you and gazes into your eyes as you glance at the space between his brows instead of locking eyes with him. “I thought you could’ve just taken them with us. That you could’ve, I don’t fucking know…save them.” Shaking his head, Bobby wets his lips. “Then you left me and my thoughts all alone, and shit, I think–I think I would’ve done the same. Probably bolted out of there myself if no one was in my reach.”

“Still,” you sniff, struggling to breathe as you wipe the sweat hastily from your eyes when it stings. “I wish I could have saved them both.”

“Yeah,” he holds his breath for a moment before letting it go and handing you the half empty water bottle. “I don’t know what kind of adrenaline you have but I want some of that too, you could lift a fucking fridge when you’re panicking. Hell, you lifted me off my fucking feet like I weighed nothing.”

You smile after taking big gulps of water. “It’s a subconscious thing, people who are…more cautious tend to be better in situations like that.” Or that’s how your doctor put it when you survived drifting in the water for days.

“Like when a walking horror show tries to rip you apart?”

You manage a scoff akin to a weak laugh. “Yeah, I guess.”

Silence hangs in the air between you, his knees knocks against your own, the space too small for two people as he sits, or more like folded himself adjacent to you. In the cramped space and the dappled fluorescent lights filtering through the cracks of the window, his sharp features look softer.

“We’re gonna die here aren’t we?” Bobby says under his breath, too afraid to say it out loud.

“I hope not.” Hope, hope could be blinding that leads you to disappointment. But sometimes, it’s a driving force to keep you moving forward, even when it’s too dark to see, hope will be the guiding light. You hope for his sake when he has people waiting for him on the other side. You don’t care if you die inside this place, but it’ll crush you if he dies, because you failed to bring him home, you failed to save a life again.

You already failed with Kat and Clark, you don’t want Bobby to end up like them. Or like your grandfather still waiting for you at the bottom of the sea.

“Fuck me.” Bobby rubs his face harshly, leaving his cheeks flush with red. When he opens his eyes, concern mar his face. “You don’t look too good, hero.” He scooches closer, taking the bottle from your weak grip to pour some of it out on his palm and splashes it on your face. “Hey, stay with me.” He says your name gently, coaxing you to keep your eyes open with a pat to your cheek. His palm is warm, silken, with the pads of his fingertips calloused, blazing against your clammy skin.

You want to live for him.

Something moves. A warp in the walls, a metallic groaning of metal sliding against steel. Like nails on a chalkboard that grinds your teeth together.

Bobby hears it too, “what was that?” You know it was real this time, not like the humming in the walls.

“I don’t know…” Head craning towards the far wall, at the other end of the machine, you don’t see rusted metal anymore, just darkness, pitch black, a void that stares back.

“Do you have a flashlight?”

“No, it ran out of battery on day six.”

Bobby fishes out a lighter from his pocket. He flicks his thumb, letting sparks fly as a flame blows out from the lighter. “Stay here.”

He crawls over you then towards the darkness.

“Bobby, wait—”

When he’s supposed to hit the wall, he continues to move inside. “It’s a way out.”

“What the fuck.” You follow him, crawling on all fours as your knees hit the metal.

It’s so dark inside that you could only see the small flame in front of you. Your arms wobble from your weight, and when the flame flickers away, Bobby curses under his breath.

“Hold on.” With a hand rummaging in your jean pocket, you take out your phone whilst Bobby tries to light the flame again. You press the on button, waiting for your phone to come alive, wishing that the screen turns on.

“What are you doing?” You could only hear his voice and feel his warmth on your side.

“Turning the light on—” the screen flashes and you immediately swipe to open the flashlight. You two blink at the sudden light.

“What the fuck is that thing?” Wincing, Bobby has one eye open, adjusting to the light, trying to get a look at what’s in your hand.

“My phone, duh, c’mon.” Patting his shoulder, you crawl by him when you’re now the one leading.

“That’s a weird looking phone, man.”

More crawling, more metal squeaking underneath you, and with your palm fully bleeding as it leaves bloody handprints on the floor, you finally get out of the washing machine.

You almost fall down if not for Bobby’s hand on your ankle stopping you from falling from the hole. Hopping off, shutting your phone off again and shoving it in your pocket before helping Bobby out, you feel heavier, woozy from the heat and pain. You slouch, folding against yourself when you feel like crumpling on the floor.

It looks like you two crawled out of a metal pipe. It doesn’t make sense one bit.

“Jesus, your hand.” Bobby puts the backpack on, and gingerly takes your wrist with a wince and a grimace. “Fucking gnarly.”

“I’m fine.”

“It doesn’t look fine.” His eyes rake around the bloodied gauze. “You need fucking…something. A doctor, you need a fucking doctor.”

“Bobby, I’m fine—”

You heard him before you saw him. A shuffling of feet on the metal floors, tentative, wary.

There, standing in the corridor, looking worse for wear, sweaty all over with a relieved look in his eyes is Clark.

“Bobby?”

Your companion turns to the voice, following your shaky gaze, landing right at the man, who dragged you on the damp carpet.

“Jesus, Clark.” Bobby puts his arm instinctively in front of you, taking a step forward, apprehensive, unsure of his decision. “Where did you come from?”

“The pipes, f—fuck, you have no idea how relieved I am to see someone—”

“Stay the fuck back.” Despite your injured hand, you grasp the hammer in your bloody grip, shaking, pointing it right at him. “Bobby, don’t trust him.”

“Where’s Kat?” Bobby stays beside you, yet his attention is on Clark. “Is she with you?” Hope is laced within his wavering tone.

“I–I don’t know, we got separated.” His hands wring in front of him. He looks normal, better than the last you saw him. Clark doesn’t look as starved, he does look exasperated like you and Bobby, but his eyes are just as frantic and panicked as yours, not steady and calm like before. He looked like the Clark you met, the one that tied Bobby’s rope too tightly around his waist. Not the Clark that hauled you around and tried to give you to the being. “I’m sorry, I tried.”

There it is, tried. The same word he uttered to you in the room with Kat’s severed hand, sounding too calm, looking too calm for someone that’s starving.

Something’s amiss.

You’re missing something. He shouldn’t look like this, he shouldn’t sound like this, if the Clark that tried to take you was real, then who the fuck is the one standing before you?

If it’s the heat that’s messing with your mind, then it’s affecting Bobby too when he also sees this Clark, nervous Clark, terrified Clark.

“What the fuck do you mean you tried?” Bobby hisses, fists balled at his side. “What happened to Kat? What did you do to her?”

“What? I–” Clark’s eyes find yours, and you falter, heat clinging to your skin, drying you out even more as you feel woozy. “I wouldn’t hurt her! Why would I do that?”

“I don’t fucking know, man.” Bobby scoffs, shaking his head as his tone rolls out sarcastically. “The same reason you did this to her.” He gestures at your neck, scratches reddened at the edges, pulsing with a dull ache. Clark looks confused. “Did you feed Kat to that–that thing like you tried with her?” Voice cracking, his words breaking in the middle. “Where the fuck is she, Clark?”

“I didn’t fucking do anything!” His hands land on his chest, eyes wild, swallowing thickly. “I didn’t do that to her!” Clark now points to you, hands shaking. “Please, I just need some water, we’ll get out together.”

Bobby snatches the hammer from your hand, staining his own palm with your own ichor. “Where the fuck is Kat?” He repeats, heavier this time, more threatening.

“I don’t know, okay!” Sweat dribbles off his clammy face, hands trembling around him. “I heard her through the walls, I really did try to help her but I couldn’t see her but—but she could see me. I don’t know what happened to her, Bobby, and I didn’t do anything to her.” He sounds desperate, heaving, almost keeling over himself. “Please, let’s just get out together.”

“Bobby, we need to go.” You take him by the arm, walking backwards as Clark starts to walk closer to you both. “Bobby, we can’t stay here. We can’t trust him.”

“Just tell me where she is, man.” Bobby breaks, lips wobbling, hand trembling around the hammer. He suddenly brings it to the wall, smacking a pipe as it leaves a dent on the metal. You and Clark wince at his action.

“I don’t know, Bobby. I’m sorry.” Clark holds out his hands in front of him in surrender. He seems genuine, but he also sounded genuine the last time you saw him.

From behind Clark, you hear the shuffling of fabric. A quiet rustle, too silent to be heard by the two men. Your heart rate immediately picks up.

“Bobby,” you whisper, clutching onto his arm, tugging him away, getting more exhausted by the second as you inhale and exhale out hot air. You feel your brain getting cooked inside your skull. “Bobby, it’s here.”

“Is she even alive?”

His trembling words strike right at you when you have the answer to his heartbreaking question.

“I don’t know…” Clark shakes his head, eyes averting from Bobby’s tensed form. “Why are you so scared of me? I didn’t do anything! I’m just me!”

You catch a glimpse of a pair of reddened eyes just around the corner of a wall, it stares at you, watching, observing. Waiting for you to break. “Bobby, on the wall, left side.” Voice trembling, head falling to his bicep, too hot to hold yourself up, you watch Bobby reluctantly take his eyes off of Clark, expression contorting into pure horror when he sees it.

He takes you by the hand, twisting around and running away with you in tow.

Clark screams, followed by his rushed footsteps, trying to keep pace with you and Bobby.

You don’t have the energy to sprint, more so to even lift your feet up. You’re so tired, too hot, your muscles strain under your clammy skin as you heave.

Bobby leads the escape, shoes scraping against the metal as he hides a wince. A pipe bursts near his face, and he shrieks at the sudden puff of warmth on his cheek. But he continues on, holding you up.

Because you would’ve done the same for him, you already had.

He turns a corner, blindly running in the heat soaked boiler room. Turning his head behind him, he doesn’t see Clark following anymore, but he does hear the rustling, the fabric scraping against itself, running, following.

Saliva covers your mouth, coating it as bile rises from your esophagus. Your legs turn wobbly under you. Bobby throws his arm around your shoulder, helping you run alongside with him when he could’ve just left you in the corridor to fend for yourself. He’s not giving up on you so you don’t give up for his sake. Your feet drags along the metal floors, trying to keep pace with his long strides. Your head dips down to your chin, unable to keep it up as you see the floor rush under you, the rusted floors, teal copper spread across it and the occasional manhole covers.

Vision blurring, you want water, you need water, to dive in it, to swim in its depths and stay underneath the currents.

You’re dying of thirst. Heatstroke, you’re gonna die of heatstroke after everything you went through. It’s comedic.

“Stay awake!” Bobby jostles you in his arms, you’re dead weight. “Fuck, c’mon!” He steps onto a manhole cover, and you both suddenly fall inside.

You gasp, flying mid air, twenty feet, fifteen, twelve, watching the hole you fell in get smaller and smaller, a mere dot in your vision.

Wind rushes around you, stale air that smells like chlorine.

You feel Bobby’s hand try to grasp at you mid air, but you feel so light weight, so light, free, like you’re flying, soaring, and you close your eyes, hearing him scream your name as you both plunge into the cold depths.

—

“Hey, princess.” You look up and see him, your grandfather, smiling down at you. Or you think he’s smiling when the sun behind him blinds you, covering his features. “You’re cooking here, you should get under the shade.”

His voice sounds far, muffled, like it’s playing on an old cassette tape that’s been played a hundred times before. Weathered, the movement of time marring the edges of the tape.

“I put sunscreen on.” You mutter, eyes squinting up at him as the popsicle in your hand melts, staining your hands raspberry red. “I miss you.”

He chuckles, that familiar laugh right from his belly that you’ve always told him was too loud and garners too much attention. You shouldn’t have told him that because he doesn’t let his laugh out like that anymore.

“I’m right here, sweetheart. What’s there to miss?”

There’s a seagull flying above him, the sky is blue, the clouds don’t move. And your eyes follow the bird, attention taken away, watching it fly until it hits a wall made to look like the horizon. It falls, leaving a smattering of blood amongst the blue.

It squawks loudly, an ear piercing cry of pain as it lands harshly on the ocean painted floor.

When you turn to look at him again, his face is mere inches away from your own.

Your breath shudders, gazing into those wrong eyes in the wrong face. He looks like someone who just moved as you press the camera’s button and the lens captures his blurred features that melt together.

“What’s there to miss?” He asks, garbled, the words stuck in his esophagus, choking on his own broken tone.

You wake up with a start, eyes opening to tiled ceilings and walls. It’s startlingly bright inside, a bright blue that encompasses around you, a deep contrast from the rusted boiler room. You take a deep breath, heaving, a palm to your chest as you smell the acrid chemical chlorine permeating the air around you as it tickles your nose.

The first thing you notice is how drenched you are, your clothes cling to your skin uncomfortably, soaked as droplets of water drip from your bare arms. You don’t have your jacket. Your arms are bare, the scars lined around your flesh. Old, but still there.

Gasping, you cross your arms around you, eyes panicked, frantic as you feel the familiar numbness climb from your legs to your chest, suffocating you.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay, you’re okay!” Bobby appears from behind, arms hovering around you as his eyes rake around your panicked face. “It’s okay, just breathe, we’re safe here.”

“Where’s—” you struggle to find your words when your lungs don’t work. “Where’s my jacket?”

Blinking, he looks at you like you’re a fish out of water. “I took it off you, I’m sorry, I had to, you were cooking in it.”

“P–please, just— just give it back to me.” Tears sting your eyes as you fold your legs against you, trying to press further into your chest as if you’re absorbing your legs into yourself.

“What? It’s wet—”

“Bobby, please!” Your nails dig into your forearms, leaving crescent shapes on your slick skin.

“Okay, okay!” He rushes away from the pool lounge chair where you have found yourself. There’s some rustling behind you, and your first instinct was to run. “Here, I’m sorry, I was hanging it over a chair to dry it out.”

“Give it to me.” You don’t extend your arms as your hand opens and closes. He passes it to you, turning away when your shirt clings to your front, it’s white and shows him too much of everything. Once you’ve put on your jacket, you hug yourself, collapsing onto the pool lounge chair that squeaks under you. “Thank you.” You wheeze out, a hand around your throat as you take deep inhales and exhales.

“Yeah, you’re welcome.” Bobby walks away, clearing his throat, scratching the back of his flushed neck as his wet hair clings to his nape and temples. His torso is bare, showing off a lean body, probably drying his shirt just like what he was doing to your jacket before you woke up. “You thirsty?” He asks after a beat of awkward silence.

Smacking your dry lips together, you feel your strength return as you sit up. You’re still wobbly, trembling slightly, and your head still has that dull throbbing ache as you rest your forehead against your folded knees. “Please.”

A second later there’s a bottle of almond water nudging your thigh. “This one’s yours. I found a couple more here.”

Where is here exactly?

You lift your head, eyes roaming around the new environment you both fell in. The walls are covered in white symmetrical square tiles, all lined perfectly, the grout in between is black, and it reminds you of a comic with the tiles lined in thick black lines. From the pillars down to the floor, it’s covered in the same tiles. Right in the middle of the expansive room is an Olympic sized pool, rectangular in shape, with various pool toys floating on the blue water. It would look normal if not for the random colourful slides sticking out of the walls and some on the ceiling that has a drop that would have your stomach churning.

As you gaze at the ceiling, you see the manhole cover above, now closed, the other side showing you the underside of the rusted metal.

“It’s not going to drink itself, y’know.” He shakes the bottle, looking down at you with a faint smile as the fluorescent lights shine behind his head, a halo of light lined around him. You blink owlishly at him, and his face contorts into deep worry as he squats beside you. “Shit, did you hit your head?” A hand cups the side of your face gingerly, like he’s afraid you’ll break in front of him from his touch alone. “Was it dilated pupils or pin point that says someone has a concussion?” He says more to himself, mumbling, looking into your eyes.

“Neither, the pupils should be equal in size, not one bigger than the other.” You answer, voice hoarse as you look into the blue depths of his eyes. You could drown in them. “I’m okay, Bobby, just shocked, where are we?”

“Oh, thank fuck.” His hand falls atop the lounge chair, head lolling down to his clavicle with a relieved sigh. “I thought the impact broke your head.”

“Did we fall?”

“Yeah,” he sniffs, a hand raking through his drenched tresses. “From that manhole.” Pointing up, you both look up, twenty feet from below, you squint from the harsh white lights. The manhole cover remains on the ceiling, a brown dot amidst the stark white tiles. “I don’t know how though, I stopped trying to figure out how things work here ever since we got out of the washing machine. But thankfully we fell into the water and we didn’t turn into a pancake.”

You crane your neck down, looking at him as he still gazes at the ceiling. His lean neck is stretched out, a sharp jawline that moves at the hinges when he purses his mouth. “You swam us out of there? On your own?”

Your gaze stretches from both ends of the deep pool, wondering how he managed to get you out and himself without drowning. You’re impressed by his feat. And he knows it from your tone alone.

The water is so clear that you could see the bottom, but it’s deceptive, you know it’s far deeper than it seems. This place is bigger than any of the rooms so far, it’s as big as a football field, probably twice as big when the pool stretches so far. There are three doors in this place, one adjacent to you, painted in deep emerald green with three odd doorknobs on it. Then the other two are on the far right end of the wall, both having signs on it. Then there’s the wrong door right in the middle of the far wall. It’s small, like a doggy door, painted in blood red. Something tells you that you shouldn’t go there. You guess the two doors beside each other are the bathrooms or shower rooms from the looks of it like in public pools, but you can’t tell what the signs says from where you sit.

His eyes crinkles in the corners, smiling gently, a nice reprieve from the fearful look on his face that you’ve gotten used to. “Not to brag but, I was on the varsity swim team during sophomore year.”

“Just sophomore year?” You can’t help it when the corner of your lip tugs up.

“I flunked chemistry.” Bobby winces, chuckling at himself. “And they had to kick me out because my grades weren’t as good.”

“I should be the one calling you hero now. And chemistry sucks anyway.”

His eyes softens from your words. “Please drink, I’m tired from wetting your lips with your own jacket. It was like I was feeding a baby bird.”

“That’s not embarrassing at all.” Shaking your head, you hide your smile as you gulp down the sweetened almond water. You let it coat your insides with that odd saccharine taste.

“Trust me, it was more embarrassing for me than for you.”

“At least you didn’t use your own shirt.” You wipe your mouth with your sleeve.

“Yeah, or you’d be drinking remnants of my sweat.” Bobby gives your shoulder a pat before rising, knees creaking as he stretches. “I’m preparing dinner.” Those are the words you thought you’ll never hear again.

“What?”

“I found a bunch of food in this place, just under the sink in the bathroom. It’s like someone left their stash here. I’m sorting through it, just rest, you were really out of it.”

“You think someone else was here?” You call out over your shoulder, watching the clear undisturbed water.

“Probably, I don’t know which one is scarier, us being alone here or someone else was here, wandering around just like us.” There’s a clang of metal behind you, and you twist around, ignoring the pang of pain radiating from your feet up to your knees. Your palm still aches, but more tolerable rather than the blinding pain. Bobby is trying to break open a can of peaches with your hammer. “Shitty fucking thing.”

“Use the other side of the hammer. Stab at the corners.” You simply say, body folding against yourself as you still feel the heaviness weigh you down. “Fuck…”

“You good?” He pauses from his hammering, looking at you as you wince, a hand grasping your forehead. “I told you to rest, lay back down, hero.”

“Did Clark…did he follow us?” You hug the back of your legs, half lidded eyes staring at him.

Bobby shakes his head, turning the hammer and stabs at the corner of the can just like you instructed. “You were right, something was up with him. He was hiding something, I could tell.”

You’re hiding something from him. “Yeah,” twisting around, you lay back down on the lounge chair when you feel the heaviness in your chest weigh you down. “You okay, Bobby?”

“Yeah, just starving.”

“Back in the sailboat room,” you hear him hum in reply, telling you that he’s listening. “Who do you think left the food and water?” The metal scraping against metal pauses. When he doesn’t reply, you call out to him. “Bobby?”

“I don’t know.” You could hear the confusion in his tone. “Why didn’t we ask that? It was left right there on our doorstep. It was clearly for us.”

“We have a mysterious benefactor.” Your eyes close, embracing yourself as your muscles relax to the sound of Bobby’s ministrations and the scent of chlorine. It should bother you more, but it doesn’t.

Your wet clothes should make you uncomfortable at how it sticks to your skin, but it does the opposite, it comforts you, reminding you of the days where you would swim for hours and let the air dry you as you doze off on the deck.

“I wonder who it is. It can’t be Clark or that thing.” Bobby is only met by silence. Worry slithers up his chest as he leans back until he could see you on the lounge chair, sleeping soundly, curled around yourself and more importantly, still breathing. He lets out a sigh, before trying to open the can quieter this time around.

—

Bobby floats aimlessly in the water as it laps around his face, eyes closed, breathing steady when he has stripped himself bare except for his boxer shorts. He’s unashamed, while you avert your eyes as you dig through the can of peaches.

There’s only silence around the pool room, save for the gentle scraping of your finger against the side of the crinkling metal can and the gentle lapping of water, it’s stifling. You miss the quiet comforting song of the walls, that slight tremble within the wallpaper that is warm to the touch. Bobby helps, his presence is a good alternative to the hum, but how long will that stay when you’re withdrawing important information from him? Something that might break him and ruin his peace.

He looks softer as he floats on the water, his arms are spread around him, legs floating as he lets out a breath. The lights illuminate him, the chain around his neck catching the light, making him look ethereal, almost akin to a renaissance oil painting. One that bears tragedy underneath all the brush strokes and pretty colours.

“I think I’m going insane. The tiles are starting to melt together in my eyes.” His voice cuts through the silence, echoing as his eyes open, head craning to look at you slouched on the lounge chair. “You look like a camel.”

“Thanks?” You slouch some more as he snorts out a chuckle. “Sounds something like an insane person would say.”

“Slouching is not good for your back.” Bobby stops his floating and swims over to the edge of the pool, arms over the tiles as he rests his chin above his arm. His blue eyes sparkles, head tilted as he gazes at you like he’s trying to read your mind. “Do you think someone created this place?”

“I don’t think so.” You lick your lips, grimacing slightly at the taste the peaches left. “No one’s smart enough or this crazy to invent something like this place.”

Bobby sucks in his teeth, legs floating behind him as he watches the water lap at the edge of the pool. “Back in the laundry room where we…fell.” You hum, eyes staring at the floating peaches inside the can. “I saw my own shirt on the pile of laundry. It was fucked up, it was dumped there like some kind of trophy.” He waits for your reply, and yet when he glances at you, you’re just staring at your dinner. “Earth to hero? Am I annoying you?”

You flash him a smile. “No, just thinking.”

“Penny for your thoughts?”

“You don’t have a single penny.”

“Not right now, but I have money in the real world, y’know.” He flutters his lips at you, blowing an annoyed raspberry as he pushes himself away from the edge of the pool and floating again on his back.

“This is the real world, Bobby.” You don’t mean to sound calloused or bitter, it’s just the truth.

“And they both suck.” His wrist flicks at the water, splashing some water upwards as if it’ll reach the manhole cover on the ceiling. “Do you know how to swim?”

“Yeah.” The slice of peach doesn’t go down your throat easily and you have to take a swig of water.

“Oh yeah, you lived near water.”

More silence, a tension brought back by your dry replies.

“There’s more food in the backpack if you’re still hungry.” He says, prodding at you with his gaze. You hum in reply, and he purses his lips.

Bobby sighs, swims over to the edge of the pool again and looks at you over his arms. “You know that I won’t judge you, right?” His words cut through you when his gaze flickers towards your covered arms. “We’ve all got shit we don’t want to talk about. And that’s okay, I understand you, I won’t ask you about it or judge you for what you did. I’m just glad you stuck around, hero.”

You instinctively hug yourself, the taste of the tart peaches makes you gag. You never liked peaches. “Where’s the bathroom?”

Bobby’s face falls, your name falling on his lips quietly, swallowing thickly as he looks away from you, perhaps guilty for bringing it up, or maybe pity. “Far wall, the signs are fucked so choose whatever.”

You vault from your seat, placing the half eaten can of peaches down on the lounge chair with a clang before walking carefully on the damp tiles. You could feel his eyes follow you, and you could finally breathe the moment you reach the bathroom door.

He’s right, the signs are weird. The usual female and male signs are wonky and turned upside down, it looks like it melted under some heat and you could barely tell what it originally was. You don’t pick which one to go into when you shove your way inside.

The bathroom is dimly lit compared to the bright pool room outside. It’s clean, filled with stalls and sinks, some have showers just like you surmised. And it looks normal, like a public bathroom at a dying mall or an airport bathroom during a red eye flight when there’s no line. For a moment there you thought that you got out, that you’re back in reality instead of being stuck here with a stranger that has saved your life twice now. But when the smell of mold hits you, and you catch sight of a painted sun with a face on the mirror, you know you’re still here, where the air is still, and the monsters in your mind have come alive and are out to get you.

You take deep breaths, grounding yourself, counting how many things you can touch in the place, how many things you can hear, what things you can taste, and all the things you can see. You come up with less and less as you grip onto the sink, opening the squeaky faucet as it splutters out cold water.

Yanking off the jacket, the fabric is still damp to the touch when you toss it haphazardly onto the counter as it clangs loudly, bouncing off the walls. You don’t look at yourself for a while, maybe the feeling will go away if you don’t look.

Taking out your phone from your pocket, you try to turn it on, to find comfort through the pictures, but just as you suspected, it doesn’t turn on. You should toss it against the glass and break it into pieces, but it’s the only thing you brought from home that reminds you that there is still something for you when you get back. Even if it’s just a gravestone, or an empty apartment, or a dead end job. So you shove the phone back in your pocket, maybe if you get out of here you can get it repaired and see the old pictures again.

Unwrapping the bandage Bobby wrapped around your palm, you place your injured hand underneath the water, letting it drench your hand with a wince. Biting your lip, you whimper, eyes glazing over with tears let out by the pain in your hand and in your chest. You unstick your gaze from your reddened flesh, reluctantly staring at yourself in the mirror, you look worse for wear, tired even though you’ve slept long enough and ate enough to keep you going. You still refuse to look at your arms.

You must keep going for his sake, you have to bite through the pain and live on, even when it hurts. Even when he has seen why it hurts.

Head tilted down, you listen to the rushing water hit the porcelain, watching the water collect on your palm as it overflows and hits the sink with a splash. You let your breathing even out when you’re starting to feel the bone aching numbness spread through your limbs. You’re antsy, and you feel your throat close up, static poking right at your fingertips.

Your mind rushes a thousand miles per hour, you just can’t help it. From thoughts about Clark to Kat, to Bobby and the exit, you didn’t hear the sound of the cubicle door opening right behind you.

You feel cold arms wrap around your middle, featherlight at first that you thought you were imagining it, that you’re so touch starved that you were day dreaming about a gentle embrace. But when the pair of arms wrap tighter around your torso and arms, you jostle awake.

Your heart stops when you look at the mirror, there, situated right behind you is a man.

He’s awfully familiar, but unfamiliar at the same time. His face peeks behind your head, and it’s wrong, like the ink on a picture that has faded out. Like Janet down here, just like the memory of your grandfather that stays still at the helm. It’s just like them, it’s not alive.

And it’s wearing the exact same shirt as you.

“Fuck!” You stagger away from the sink, trying to wiggle out of its hold. “No, let go!” Your elbow meets its stomach, but it continues to hold onto you for dear life, not even feeling your striking blow.

The sounds of your shoes squeak across the floor, and you feel it grasp onto you tighter, fingers interlocking on your front, digging you further against its chest like it’s trying to absorb you within itself.

You struggle, kicking around, managing to shuffle to the wall as you push it against it harshly, knocking it against the tiles, trying to make it let go. All it does is make it sink its head against the crook of your neck.

It doesn’t breathe, it doesn’t blink, it doesn’t speak, it just presses itself against you, embracing you like it knows you, trying to take your warmth.

“No!” You shriek, tears blurring your vision as its arms hold onto you so tightly that it’s getting harder to breathe. You have no choice as you claw at its arms and face. “Bobby!” Your nails hit something soft, digging into something akin to a foam than flesh.

Your guttural screams echo around the walls.

“Bobby!” You hear something crack, a bone, maybe yours as your breath leaves your lungs with a dry cough. It holds onto you like velcro, and your legs weaken from the lack of air. It turns you around, pressing you against the wall and further into the tiles. Something in the walls shift, you could hear it hum, you could feel it move. The coldness parts against your cheek as it absorbs you, one by one, cell by cell. “Bobby!” Your screams turn dull with every press against your chest. “Bobby—”

There’s a loud thwack from behind, and the arms let you go.

You keel over, taking deep breaths as you push yourself out of the walls. Crawling backwards and away from it, fingers grasping at your neck, desperately dragging air into your lungs. You see Bobby wield your hammer, standing tall, drenched, striking right at the entity.

“Motherfucker!” He brings it down with a force so harsh that it breaks its face, cleaving it open. “Fuck off!” He strikes again and again until it staggers backwards into a stall.

It’s hand tries to reach for you as if asking for your help, pleading for your help.

Bobby stalks over it, anger rolling off of him from his posture alone as the muscles on his back tense with every rise and fall of the hammer.

The cubicle door swings close behind the two similar looking men, and you could only hear the sound of the hammer meeting whatever it’s made of. Not flesh and bone, something else, something you can’t tell.

You flinch with every smash, metal hitting it in decreasing intervals when Bobby’s ragged breathing echoes around the bathroom.

Your eyes glance at the wall, and you see the tiles close in time before it returns to normal. Or what normal is around here.

The door swings open, and Bobby wipes the sweat off his face with his arm, standing over what remains of the thing that took the form of a man you met and talked to once.

Its face is smashed in, leg twitching, fingers opening and closing. There are stuff around it that bears a resemblance to its cut open face. It looks like foam, like what’s inside a mattress instead of blood and bone.

Bobby heaves, crouches down in front of you, the hammer clangs against the tiles as it falls from his grasp before his hands take hold of your face gingerly, making you look away from the carnage. “Are you okay?”

Your lips wobble, but you keep a brave façade. “Yeah, it— it came out of nowhere.” The lack of air made your voice hoarse, cut at the edges, almost broken.

“I swear that I checked this whole place and there was no one else here.” He sounds guilty, face contorted into a mix of guilt and ebbing fury, the edges of his eyes are reddened, crimson amidst blue. “Did it…did it hurt you?”

Shaking your head, you feel an ache between your ribs that you decide to ignore. “No, it just—it was pushing me into the wall.”

“Fuck, I’m so sorry.”

You don’t know why you did it, maybe it was his genuine bone aching worried expression or maybe it was because he saved you again, either way, you break, opening your arms and pulling him against you for an embrace, as if he was the one in need of comfort. Maybe you shouldn’t when you could still feel the entity’s arms around you, so unfamiliar, so cold. But Bobby is so warm, so familiar, and he lets you, you haven’t held onto someone in so long that your body has forgotten how real warmth feels like. Not from the walls, or whatever nonsensical thing you could fill your days with in the real world. This is humanly real that it sends your mind into a state of calm, a quiet that you’ve only felt through the song of the walls.

Bobby holds you gently, taking you in his arms in a softer and kinder way as his palms rest on your back gingerly. His hand shivers slightly from the adrenaline or from the unfamiliar affection from you.

“I’m not going to break.” You mutter near his ear, watching the thing twitch on the bathroom floor. Bobby squeezes you, letting out a relieved sigh. He holds onto you for a moment, his knuckle gliding along the length of your back, the other cupping the back of your head, waiting for you to pull away first. Once you finally gather your breath and your trembling seizes, you pull away. “Thank you.”

“I heard you call for me and I thought—” his lips purses together, a palm patting your cheek. There is an unsteady tremor from his touch that isn’t as well hidden as he hoped. “nothing, I’m glad you’re okay.” Eyes flicking down your torso, his brows knit together.

“What?” You look down at yourself, expecting blood, or for him to be staring at your arms.

“It was wearing the same shirt as you…” Bobby’s blue eyes meet yours, confusion swimming in them. His mouth forms a question, until.

“Hello?” A voice calls from somewhere. Echoed, like speaking through an old speaker.

“What the fuck?” Bobby instinctively shields you, a hand grasping at your bicep as you both frantically look around the source. “Who the fuck?”

“Holy shit, you guys are real.” Relief is palpable in the stranger’s tone.

“This place is fucked, let’s go.” Bobby helps you up, cautiously walking away.

“Wait, no, please! I’m human! I’m stuck here just like you guys!”

“Can you see us?” You ask tentatively, holding onto Bobby’s elbow to stop his frantic movement. Looking around, you see nothing out of the ordinary, except for the being on the floor. “Where are you?”

Bobby side eyes you, asking what you’re doing through his expression. You reassure him with a squeeze of his arm.

“In some fucked up looking house.” He sounds ragged, exhausted. “I could see you but you can’t see me, right?”

“Yeah.” You could see the cogs in his mind turn as you both recall what Clark told you two in the boiler room. “Who are you?”

“My name’s Peter.” He takes a deep breath that you could hear everywhere around you. “Peter Tench. I… I worked here, still work here.” He laughs bitterly. “I’m a researcher.”

“I fucking knew it!” Bobby seethes, still shielding you from the unseen Peter. “The fucking government made this shit.”

“No, no, we’re not the government, we’re far from it.” He sounds increasingly tired with each word he lets out. “Listen, I don’t have much time, it’s out there.”

“What is, Peter? Maybe we can help you.” Bobby turns to you with a befuddled expression.

“We don’t know this fucking guy, don’t be a hero, hero.”

“I didn’t know you either and yet I saved you. And you didn’t know me but you still saved me.” Your words has him clamping his mouth shut. His jaw clenches before he turns away, and yet he doesn’t leave your side.

“No, he’s right.” Peter shudders a breath, “you shouldn’t trust me but I do know a way out of this place.”

“Tell us.” Bobby demands, standing steadfastly, adrenaline still rushing through him. His eyes are narrowed to slits, fury still rising from his skin like steam.

“There are CB radios scattered around this place, there’s one in every outpost. it’s our…” he pauses, trying to gather his breath. “Our way of communicating with the outside world. If you could find it you can contact my people. I only ask for you to tell them that I’m alive and to come get me. It would be impossible for us to meet up so don’t waste your energy in trying to find me yourself. They know this place better than you ever will.”

“That’s not ominous at all.” Mumbling to himself, Bobby licks at his lips. “And who exactly are these people of yours.”

“You’ll find out.”

“Cryptic motherfucker.”

“Peter, I’ve come across one of those radios and I tried it but no one answered.” You add, taking a step forward and away from Bobby as he watches the side of your face.

“Fuck, it was probably the wrong frequency. Things here like technology don’t work as well for some reason.” He laughs, an ugly laugh that sounds half humourless and half pained. He almost sounds insane, hopeless. With a wobbly breath, he tells you the frequency, just three digits, saying it twice for you and Bobby to memorize it. “Did you get it?”

“Yeah,” your eyes rake around the walls, trying to figure out how he could see you but you can’t see him. Clark said the same thing. Nothing makes sense here, and Bobby’s right, you should stop trying to understand it. “Do you know where any of these radios are?”

“They’re mostly in level zero with the yellow wallpaper.” Your breath hitches at the mere mention. “Your best bet is to just wander around and hope for the best, me giving you direction to a directionless place is a waste of breath.”

“Or you could try giving us a landmark, fucking anything, man.” Frustration rolls off Bobby’s shoulders as you feel his adrenaline fading away.

“Chairs, a ton of wheels from a boat, and I remember a banner that says ‘everything must go,’ once you see those you’re near one.”

“Well, that’s fucking helpful.” Bobby scoffs, walking towards the fallen hammer and picking it up together with your discarded jacket on the counter. “Any other helpful tips, mister scientist?”

“Yeah, don’t get lost.” Peter chortles, a sound from the back of his throat that you feel your skin rising from his laugh. “I have to go, I could hear it shuffling outside.”

“Peter, wait!” There’s a sound of rushed footsteps on the other side, retreating away as you and Bobby are now left alone in the bathroom. “What the fuck just happened?” Turning towards Bobby, he looks at you with furrowed brows, frowning right at you. You feel self conscious as you cross your arms over your chest. “Bobby, I—”

“Are you really okay?” It’s not pity in those pretty blue eyes of his, it’s remorse, it’s guilt marring at his face, it’s empathy that cinches at his heart whilst he holds the jacket close to his chest, your scent clinging on the rustling fabric. “Hero…what happened—”

“I’m fine, thank you but I’m fine.” You would break in front of him, to cry in his arms or hold onto him again but you don’t give yourself that when you’ve been lying to him with an excuse of saving him from the hurt. Stepping towards him, his concern grows, he doesn’t seem to be so convinced. Why is he so worried about you? “I’m okay, worrying won’t get us anywhere.”

“Am I not allowed to worry about you?” Bobby’s eyes flicks towards the entity’s feet as it peeks through the stall, still twitching, still trying to get up. “That’s what people do, hero, they worry about other people. That thing could’ve killed you, and I—” shaking his head, he turns his head away and the fluorescent lights shine right on his glimmering eyes. He’s still soaking wet from his swim, he must’ve rushed here when you called him. “You said that we’re a team. I really don’t want to lose my only teammate, or lose you to insanity like that Peter guy.”

You swallow his words and tuck it in your heart, keeping it there, not knowing how to respond. “You don’t believe him?”

He scoffs at your reaction, biting his lower lip as he shakes his head. “Let’s just get out of here. You are the most frustrating woman I’ve ever met, and I’ve met a lot.”

“I’m sorry that I’m emotionally constipated.” You meant it as a joke, but he doesn’t find it as funny as you.

Bobby licks at his teeth, head falling down on his clavicle with a chortle akin to a scoff. “You said it, not me.” Taking a deep breath, he hands you your jacket back. “You didn’t finish your peaches.”

“I hate peaches.” You awkwardly shove the jacket on.

“See? That— you should’ve said so.” He shrugs, frustration right on his movements. “Don’t shut me out, man. You don’t have to tell me everything but at least tell me *some of the shit. Like how you don’t like peaches or that you’re dying from the heat or about the radio thing, you didn’t tell me that.”

“I didn’t even know it still works. Bobby, I’m sorry, but I’m really trying, I…” clutching at the hem of the jacket, you shut your eyes for a moment before looking at him, not between his brows or the wall beside him, but right into those blue eyes that remind you of the ocean you once sailed on. “I’ve just been alone for so long that I have no idea how to… I’m sorry.”

Bobby’s shoulders ease, a hand raking through his wet hair as he bites the inside of his cheek. “No, don’t be sorry.” The heel of his palm kneads at the space between his brows. “I keep prying you with questions when you know as much about this place as I do. Kat tells me that I could be an annoying ass sometimes.” Pausing, he lets out a sigh, looking at the wall behind you for a moment before meeting with your eyes. “I—I just want you to look after yourself for a change.”

Shaking your head, you reach for his hand, you shouldn’t, but something in you told you to, that you should show him that you understand, that you care. “You’ve been nothing but pleasant so far, Bobby.”

The corner of his lips ticks up into a sad smile. His fingers squeeze you weakly. “Kat would be happy to hear that. Just— just don’t forget that you have to survive too, you need to take care of yourself, not just me. I’m not a kid, don’t sacrifice your comfort for me.” He takes a pause, fingers flexing on his side. “I need you to fight for this. Like you already did before.”

“Okay.” You feign a smile that doesn’t quite reach your eyes. “Let’s go find that radio.”

this painting was rlly just a simple monochrome interpretation of saint edmund the martyr king of england by luc-oliver merson, and I don’t think I originally planned it to be of a silm character, but of course my terrible fixation bled through … also I was too scared to paint the halo so I opted for silmarils </3