Partners in Crime (Remastered)

Punishments

March 30th

The elevator dinged, and there we were.

I stuffed eddie's mask back into my pocket just as the doors opened onto Cathy's floor. She was always a stickler for security, but..
"Well that's new." There were bars surrounding the doors. Even in the footage from the other sacrifices' trials, the bars were nowhere to be seen

She most likely added them to deter Zack, who was already trying to smash them with the back of his scythe. Wonderful start

Ray held her messenger bag, talking quietly to zack for a moment, before a siren kicked on.
I yanked the both of them back, Zack dragging his feet, and ray nearly getting launched by me into the wall behind us.

Gunshots rang out, littering the walls and floor where they were just moments before standing.

"We almost got turned into swiss cheese.."
The speaker crackled to life, projecting Cathy's gameshow soundtrack and high-pitched laugh into the area
She took a moment to explain her floor, the rules she had set in place, before opening the door to the bars with a spotlight and small bit of confetti to go along with it.

We headed forward, finding only one door unlocked. And from the look of things, she wanted our mugshots. That was only confirmed by 1.) Her instructions, and 2.) The placards stored in a box to the side

I ended up taking zacks, managing to get it when he was standing still. Ray took mine, and zack took hers, which of course, was the only one to come out blurry.

"Here bitch. Happy?!-" He held the mugshots up to a nearby camera, and his comment was shortly followed by the sound of the next door opening.

Again we moved on. Near silently, apart from Cathy's contributions.

"Great. Dolls here we come"
I'd seen the dolls being set up before, and the little doodles on the wall only confirmed what i'd saw. An electric chair, gas, a doll, a syringe, and Cathy.
God, we were fucked.

We ended up in the first room. Rows of dolls, heads down, facing a chair at the front of the room. There were no other objects in the room, so I mean someone had to sit in it. It sure as hell wasn't gonna be me, and ray was smart enough not to go near it.

Why should I have stopped him?

The chair quickly trapped him, and despite his protests the screen above kicked on, displaying her, sitting at a small table, teacup in hand and button beside her.

...she was hot as shit but I mean that's besides the point-

After a brief explanation, something about the eyes of the spectators dealing punishment, the "show" began.

It started with the dolls, their heads lifting and eyes lighting up, tilting side to side like some demented taunt. Then Cathy twirled, slamming her foot down on the button. The chair lit up with sparks, and before we knew it Zack was screaming, the smell of burning flesh filling the room.

The power cut off, and he was smoking.

"Oh dear, is he dead already?"

He groaned, muttering something.

"THAT FUCKING HURT YOU BITCH-"

She did nothing but laugh, pressing the button with her foot again and leaving ray and I to solve the puzzle.

Zack managed to toss his scythe to us, and ray picked out a few dolls that could be turned. After they were all gone, I did most of the smashing. She was hardly able to lift the thing, I had to. Gunk poured out of each of their necks and heads, getting all over the blade and my clothes. It looked far too much like blood for my liking, at least at the time.

Zack was let go, and after a moment to make sure he was alive, we moved on.
I'll spare you the details of the next one. To sum it up, it ended in a broken keycard, a homemade bomb, and left all of us weak. Ray was the worst. There was only 1 gas mask, and she had to do most of the searching the poor girl.

We took a break, for her sake. Hell, I was tired as well, who knows how long we'd been walking. All three of us got some rest. All I saw was death. Visions, or memories maybe. The old man, the teenagers, random ass alleyway victims, and finally Eddie.

It took a bit to wake Zack, and he looked pissed. Nightmares, probably. But he had no right to blame either of us for that. Sure, he could be mad but he was taking it out on Ray.

We made it too the next room, after a run in with one of the decomposing prisoners. A dollhouse, thats all it was. 3 positions, 2 sides.
The third seemed improvised, last second.

Calculator, Interpreter, and..Puppet.
Zack took his place in front of the doll house, standing on the small labeled mat. Ray took hers as calculator, and I took the last position.

For the next few minutes, Ray did math, I found what words each equation led to in a book, and Zack moved dolls accordingly.

The setup was..odd. 3 dolls, a man a woman, and a little boy, wrapped in bandages.
It had to be Zack, right? Same clothes as when i first met him, bandages, same hair, it all added up.

It looked like an old orphanage, they couldn't have been his parents. The woman rolled outside with zack's doll, near a dumpster, and ordered him to dig.
To bury a trash bag.
..a body.

No wonder he slowly got mote pissed. Ray didn't see, she was too busy doing math and giving out my set of orders. But he looked pissed. Nearly smashed the dollhouse at one point out of anger.

He never liked being ordered around, and I was starting to put together why.

The last room was nothing but syringes. One with vitamins, one with a psychedelic drug, and penicillin. No clue as to what was what.

And zack took them all. This time I tried to stop him, but he was delusional, so ready to just fuckin get out and kill ray that he wasn't thinking straight.
We had to move on after that.

That led to a drug-induced chase, to the final room.
And there she was, behind a glass wall, watching us. She gave Ray a gun. Told her to kill him, and god, he wanted it. Wanted to stop himself so fucking bad he was willing to die for it.

And I thought
Would that really be all too bad?
I wouldn't have to kill him, just wound him, right?
Pull him out of it.

I wasn't thinking.
I took the gun, aimed at his stomach, pulled the trigger, and..
Nothing happened..
The bitch burst into laughter. They were all staring at me, some in disbelief, Cathy with humor, laughing still as she pressed a button, sending a ball of red-hot metal into my shoulder.
I fell, dropping the gun

And the next thing I knew, Zack had stabbed himself.
Ray shot the bitch. Not with her gun though, a different one. An all black pistol.
Not long after, Zack was back up, somewhat riddled with bullets but managing to kill Cathy. No regret this time. If anything, I felt myself laugh softly.

We left shortly after, moving up, yet again in silence.