Every Last One Of Them - Red Dead Redemption II

Act Nine - Just Passing Through

Hugh came to with the sound of screaming, blood-curdling squeals of pain as he shot awake. Looking on he found the world upside down, his head pounding and weak as he looked around. His ankles were bound together, the rope looped and hung on a hook like he was a slab of meat.
"What the hell?" He whispered to himself as he began to breathe faster, his chest rising and falling rapidly.

He's been stripped of all his things, his gun belt is gone, and he doesn't even have his knife. The sound of the screaming comes to a harsh and sudden stop. It was too dark to see much at all, but what he did see was the rock. The echoing of the screams, he must be in some sort of cave.

It was dead silent, the dread in him building before he suddenly saw light approaching. Then a man, holding a torch.
"Who the hell'r you?!" Hugh shouted, the man smirked at him devilishly. He was human, but deformed, lumps of skin in places they shouldn't be, like some inbred creature rather than a human. He looked dirty, Hugh could smell him from nearly ten feet away. He wasn't even wearing any clothing. It was more of a monster than a person.

The stranger hit Hugh upside the head with the butt of a knife, and in a spur-of-the-moment idea he acted as if he was knocked out. Surprisingly it worked, the man cut him down instead of hitting him again. Hughie took the man by surprise, jumping up from the ground and grabbing his head. The man squealed, inhumanly as Hugh strangled him with his bare hands.

Hugh grabbed the torch, and the knife as he went off to find Arthur. He kept low and quiet until he found an area of the cave that had a fire going. He put out the torch and snuck closer.

He found more nude and deformed people, some women, some men, some were even children. He had to suppress the urge to scream once he bumped into a corpse. A wall of dismembered and mutilated bodies in various stages of decomposition hung just like he was.

Looking closer he watched as the people ate something, and by the time he saw someone chewing on a leg, he wanted to throw up. But before he could he heard a scream, a scream that sounded an awful lot like Arthur.
"Arthur?" Hugh whispered to himself, hurrying towards the sound. He snuck down various tunnels and open spaces of the cave until he came upon a well-lit part of the system in which he heard taking in.

Hugh kept quiet and snuck just up to the opening , hiding behind a large boulder as he peeked. He saw a table, multiple of the freaks surrounding it as a man was laid on the top. It was Arthur, immediately Hugh noticed that.

Hugh watches as a man raises a cleaver above his head, Arthur screaming as four men hold him down. He didn't think like he did with Ron, he jumped in and stabbed the man holding the cleaver in the neck with abandon.
"Hughie!" Arthur shouted with as much relief as terror, the four strangers made strange noises and gestures at the man he'd just killed.

They let go of Arthur who immediately shot up and decked a man hard enough that his nose went inwards. He ran up and broke the neck of another as Hugh stabbed the other two wildly.
"You okay? You okay?" Hugh asked Arthur, holding his head in his hands as he analyzed him for injuries.
"I'm fine. We needa go. Right now." Arthur said.

Luckily for them, their stuff was in a pile on the floor, eerily full of other gun belts and various things. Disturbingly a few kid's toys.
"Who are these people?" Arthur asks,
"How the hell should I know? Move!"

It was like a maze, with dead ends, loops, and so many different directions it was almost impossible to find their way out.
"There!" Shouts under his voice as he points to a beam of daylight in the distance. Hugh is then grabbed from behind, a stranger attempting to choke him out when Arthur shoots the attacker down.

Hughie's ear is ringing when more come up from every angle,
"Arthur behind you!" Hugh shouts, readying himself with his knife when he jumps at a filthy man. The brunette rams his blade through the stranger's neck, blood splattering onto the dirt floor, the red dripping down his hand before he drops the monster.

Arthur pops a stranger in the face, punching another across the head as they grab him in return. Hughie jumped at them, splitting open the freaks back until he could see their spine.

Suddenly an arrow pierces through Hughie's shoulder as he falls over, knocking over a lantern as he does.
"Hughie!" Arther shouts as the fire begins spreading across the wooden supports that kept this old mineshaft stable.

Hugh sees the flames and grabs Arthur by the arm, yanking him down towards the light as they blow past dozens of cannibals. The arrow in his shoulder rendered his other arm entirely limp with pain. When he moved it'd fuck with the piercing.

They burst into the daylight and turn around, just in time to watch as the mineshaft caves in, a cloud of dust puffing out and a chorus of blood-curdling screams.

"Shit!" Hughie cries out sitting down as he assessed the arrow lodged in his shoulder.
"Hold still," Arthur said, grabbing the arrow.
"Alright just take it out already!" Hugh begged. Holding his arm as Arthur ramped himself up.
"Count down from three t' one alright?"
"Kay." Hugh gritted his teeth and waited for the pain.

"One... Two-" Without warning Arthur then rips the arrow from Hughie's shoulder. Blood dribbling out alongside a disturbing noise.
"Gah! Shit! What happened to three?!" Hugh then promptly hit Arthur like an angry mother.
"I didn't want you to flinch." Arthur pulled out the gunpowder. Pouring some of the powder into his palm he started to undress Hugh's top half.

"Gimme that I can do it myself." Hugh reached out a hand towards the gunpowder with a scowl.
"Just lemme help you." Arthur starts to gently pat the gunpowder onto the wound, on both sides.
"Fine but you're on thin ice." Hugh groans, Arthur packs in the powder until the red of the wounds have turned grey.
"This is gonna burn like hell. Grab me."

Arthur lit a match as Hughie grabbed his thigh hard enough to draw blood.
"Okay okay go." Arthur then tapped the match on both sides of the wound as the powder erupted into a searing pain. Hugh screamed out, growling in pain as his wounds were cauterized. It wasn't until the fire went out that he could breathe,
"Hell..." Arthur then gave Hughie a kiss,
"You're alive. That's all that matters."
"Yeah. Christ that hurt."