Little Nightmares: The Damned Child

Chapter IX - Repetitive Memory

I pulled on a lit lamp that had turned on once we placed the pieces in the right places. The Shelves parted like I had guessed. Mono went into the hidden room grabbing the key from the chair inside. He looked at the Chessboard.

"Why did it need the pieces in that order?"

"It's in the position known as checkmate." Mono stared at me. "It means that one team has successfully trapped the other's The white are the Teacher, the black is us." Mono eyed the boy tied to the black chess piece, seeming to finally understand. "Let's go and find your friend." He nodded and we left the room. As we went down the stairs I had to ask. "Do you know her name?" Mono paused, looking back at me. "No... I never told you if they were a boy or girl..."
"I get weird dreams." I said quickly. "You guys were in them." He nodded warily, inserting the key into the door. Opening it it seemed to go to some sort of kitchen area. The yellow tiled floors were stained with substances and things I didn't want to think about. I bit my lip as we entered the small hallway. King had talked about some girl a lot before that happened to him... I'm starting to wonder if she was who he spoke of.

Mono dragged a trolley holding trays across to a vent above our reach. While he did that I spied the door that was behind it. I jumped up latching onto the handle and it opened. Mono noticed the door and followed me inside. There were two large bins inside. FIlled with pastries. The fat figure of a person's lower half stuck out from one of the tipped over bins. Mono stared at it.

"She was the lunch lady, organised food for the kids here at the school before things changed... the bullies out there don't need to eat. So she was the food source for remaining kids. At least... Before the bullies suffocated her in here..." Mono turned around and climbed the trays to the vent. I followed him up into the vent. We dropped out the other side onto a bench. You wouldn't think there was a sink with all the dirty plates stacked in it. Mono and I jumped over the shelves. He picked up the ladle on the ground and smashed a porcelain bully in the head. We went to continue on when I was jumped by one of the others we didn't see. It's hands wrapped around my throat as I tried to force him off I blacked out. I jolted away to see Mono standing above me. We were back by the sink.

"What the?"
"Are you okay Jordan? You fell from the vent..."
"No I didn't, I died." He stared at me, I had a feeling he was as confused as I was, but for different reasons. He turned around, about to jump over the rung of metal shelves again. I stopped him pointing to the other bullies among the cupboards. One of them seemed to be peeing in a pot on the stove. How that was possible I had no clue. Mono nodded and I went back and got the pepper shaker. We dropped down behind the kid on the floor. Mono picked up the ladle and swung it down on the kid on the floor. The rest of them were quickly alerted by the noise and came towards. Us. I helped Mono smash through the other aggravated bullies.

"Soup Is Served!" I smashed the salt shaker into one of their chests. Their head fell off. Mono seemed to knock another one's head off. He turned away from me and slid off his paper bag. Grabbing the head he put it over his own, a disguise. I broke off a small piece of the one I'd destroyed, copying Mono's actions and followed him. I had to hold the head in place, it was too heavy. The next section was what was the mess hall. It truly lived up to its name now. I followed Mono, weaving through the hyper and violent kids. 

Shaking pots and scooping sludgy rotten soups and pastes. Throwing it at each other. It was astounding how differently they acted around the Teacher. One was dancing in a pot wile another had his limbs tied behind his back. His face was stuffed with food as he lay on his stomach atop a stack of plates. He looked similar to the position a raw pig was tied before going into the oven. We ducked under a table to sneak around the crowd. I stopped Mono short of going further by grabbing the edge of his olive coat as a pot came down where he would have been standing a second later. Two potatoes rolled out, one of them had split into two pieces. One smaller than the other. I snatched the smaller one shoving it into my pocket. It felt touch in my hands, but it would be better than nothing later.

We made it to the hallway where more of them were. They didn't seem to have any care for each other, they only worked together when they had the same interests or goals. I let Mono lead me onwards into a crack in the wall at the end of the hall. I fell forward, the porcelain disguise on my head shattered against the floor. I looked up to see Mono putting his bag back on after he too lost his disguise...

Sorry these are short chapters.