Chained

Chapter 13: Hide

Red began swiftly crawling through the hole, occasionally glancing back at Black and Milk to make sure they were still following. Strawberry Milk was the quickest; bumping into Red when she wasn't paying attention. Black was the slowest; lagging a few feet behind Milk. After a while of crawling, Black glanced backward, looking back at the darkness. There was a red, glowing visor staring back at him.

"aaaaAAAA," he heard Milk exclaim. It was a bit quieter than Black expected; Surely much quieter than the scream he heard from who he thought was her earlier. Red looked back too, his visor widening at the ominous glow in the darkness.

"Get down!" he cried, before quickly shooting into the darkness and, whipping around, continued crawling, even more quickly than before. Milk's visor widened and she whined in despair. Red quickly looked back at her nervously. "H- hey, relax. It's all part of the life cycle."

Black, though still much slower than the skilled impostors, somehow managed to up his pace. He was still behind, which worried him, but he knew that if he just kept going they'd make it out. Probably.

"So... uh, why did you- why do you have- how is that child-" Black stuttered, his brain running quicker than his words.

"Oh, her?" Red asked. "Yeah... I found her curled up in a bush. She was pretty beat... C- she whose name mustn't be spoken, she didn't know about her. Dad instincts kicked in, and here I am, running from my own friends."

"Friends? Didn't Lime-"

"That's... normal here. We wake up pretty quickly, too, so it doesn't really matter. You get used to it."

This place is brutal, Black thought, looking down at Milk. Poor SM... Everyone has it hard, but she probably has it harder.

Black crashed into Red, letting out a little 'oof' as he bounced back to his senses. "Keep an eye on our tail, willya?" Red whispered, reaching down to his waist. Black turned around, sitting down and grunting. The old impostor was gone... for now.

"And remember you two..." Red murmured, looking back at them. "Don't. Have. Thoughts."

What an odd reque-

Black quickly stopped himself.

"Uhm..." Black whispered. "I had a long thought."

Red grumbled something under his breath, quickly shot ahead into the darkness, and hastily began crawling again. "All part of the cycle, Milk," Red reminded her. "We live, they die. That's how it works around here." Strawberry Milk let out a whimper before continuing on.

"Alright, hustle up," Red whispered, looking back again. "Black just had a long thought and you know what that means."

Black gave Red an exasperated look. "I don't know what that means!"

Red huffed. "It means bad stuff. Let's go."

That didn't hel- shoot.

"Bad stuff as in death or tortured to death?" Black inquired. Strawberry Milk looked back at him with a horrified expression.

"Erm... the latter," Red whispered. Strawberry Milk turned back toward Red, giving him a horrified look. "What? It's the truth."

"Why is this vent so LONG?!" Black huffed, exhausted from all the crawling.

"Oh, it's not... we just took a wrong turn," Red murmured nervously. "But! We can't let a second go to waste. Now that someone has had a thought, they'll find us."

"Why the heck can't w-" Black was cut off by Red suddenly stopping. Black looked around in alarm, quickly noticing they were at a four-way fork in the hole. Worse yet, there were red visors popping up in every direction.