Four Little Nightmares

Chapter 6: Trust Me

[Mono's POV]

I don't know how much more of this I can handle. It's been about 2 hours of walking through this endless maze with Seven going on and on about his experience here or whatever. I tried to listen to him for the first hour maybe, but honestly after that I just stopped paying attention. I don't even think he minds though; maybe he's just so happy to actually be talking to someone that he doesn't even care if they're listening.

We had passed a bunch of rooms and hallways, as well as crawled through dozens of dirty vents, yet so far we hadn't seen any of the weird creatures Seven had told me about. I was exhausted of walking though, yet Seven seemed like he could go on for another couple hours, which we might have to. I had no idea how gigantic this place was, with every hallway just leading us to another set of undistinguishable rooms.

There was something about this place that made me feel uneasy, with the putrid smell of the air and the messily thrown around objects. There were broken chairs and tables randomly strewn around the rooms, with occasional vents here and there that Seven would lead me into. He seemed to know his way around the Maw, which was impressive considering how huge this whole place was. I guess he really had been in here a long time to have memorized everything. 

"Through here!" Seven called back to me, heading towards another vent. I quietly groaned as I followed; I was a bit claustrophobic ever since I got trapped in a locker by the bullies back when I was at the school with Six, so crawling into vents didn't exactly make my day or anything. The metal of the vent felt cold against my hands as I crawled behind Seven, thumping sounds echoing throughout the tunnels. There were multiple splitting pathways, so it was probably easy to get lost in here. However, Seven seemed to know exactly where to go, like he had studied these vents for years.

I followed quietly as he continued to talk about who he'd met... or rather talked to for a minute or two. He really hadn't known many others, which was surprising. Apparently, he was taken to the Maw a couple years ago, where he was stashed with some other kids in the Playroom or something like that. None of the kids were really talkative there or anything, but he had had short chats with a couple of the kids. He escaped at some point and has been living deep in the Maw since. I think that's about when I stopped paying attention as he rambled on about guests and what not. 

As we turned another corner in the vent, a bright light appeared into the tunnels as the vent opened up into a room. Seven hopped out and waited for me to follow, but as I was about to reach the end of the vent, Seven tumbled backwards, letting out a soft "hmph". 

"Seven?" I asked, scared to exit the vent. I thought something had grabbed him, but then he started... laughing?

"It's okay! Come out!" He yelled back, and I quickly jumped out of the vent into a new room, filled with paintings and tipped-over chairs.

Seven was laying on the floor with something pointy and gray on his chest, giggling like a maniac. It was one of those gnome things, the creatures that ran away from me earlier. Yet this one was hugging Seven as if he was an old friend. "What's going on?" I asked. "Do you know this... thing?"

"They're called nomes," he replied. "Without a g, just n-o-m-e-s." He picked up the "nome" and set it beside him, finally sitting up. 

"Uh... how do you know that?"

"They told me."

"They... can talk?"

"Not really, they just chirp a lot. I can understand them though. Honestly I don't even know why," he explained. I turned to the side and noticed a couple more nomes cautiously walking towards me and Seven, like they wanted to come over but were afraid of something. Afraid of me.