Lost in Transmission - Little Nightmares AU

Hungry | 6

Killer.

That's the only thing I'm thinking as I move on from the Janitor's smoking, smoldering body. The word "killer" is stuck in my brain, repeating itself over and over until it's like there's thousands of tiny voices accusing me. I can't tell if it's my thoughts, or if it's the thoughts that sound wrong.

I killed someone. No, I killed something. A monster; not a person. Is that bad? Do I care if it's bad? Do I feel bad? No, no I don't. I had to burn the Janitor, or it was gonna catch me. So it's okay. It's fine. I'm fine.

You're getting good at this.

The wrong-sounding voice is back again. ...I'm getting good at this? What do you mean?

You're getting good at killing things, and at not feeling guilty for it.

....Guilty....

Is that how I'm feeling? Like I did something maybe just a tiny, little bit wrong? And I could have done something differently so that I don't feel like this? It isn't the killing part - I've done that before - it's that I burned the Janitor alive and heard its screams go on and on and I knew that it was me who did that.

But whatever I feel doesn't really matter, because I killed so that I'd be safe and now there's no going back - not that I want to go back.

I just want to get out of here and find somewhere safe. Maybe I could find somewhere that I don't have to kill anymore. If I can't, that's fine too.

I'm okay with being a killer; next time, though, I'll be faster.

I'm still thinking about killing when I fall onto a pile of bodies.

The hook I'm hanging from shakes, making me lose my grip. I fall down onto a heap of bundles with the same white fabric the Janitor was wrapping kids up with. There's so many that I can't see the floor.

I'm standing on a pile of dead kids.

I don't know enough about numbers to say for sure, but I think there's at least a hundred of them. How did they all get here? Why did they come here? Maybe they were caught.

I never thought there were this many kids left. I used to think Mono and me were the only ones out there, and we got lucky finding each other.

Now there's more kids than I've ever seen in my life - right in front of me - and all of them are dead.

I frown. Why? Why are they here? Why was the Janitor catching kids and sending them here? There has to be a reason. There had to be a reason that they're dead.

I'm not feeling sad for them. If they were still alive, they might betray me. None of them could be trusted. But I do feel like I need to find out why. Why they were brought here, why they all had to die.

They're dead, but they deserve answers.

That's what I'm looking for as I keep going. Answers. For the dead kids, and for me too, because I know I can escape if I can figure out what killed them. There's no monsters here, so it seems like the kids died from being there. They must have been...left there too long, until....

Maybe I should kill whatever's doing this.

I should. I will. If I get the chance, I will.

I keep coming across open metal crates with more bodies inside. All of them are wrapped up the same way with the same fabric. What's weird is that some of them look way too big to be kids. Are they monsters instead? I wonder. I don't know if monsters get along. The Cracked-Head kids hated each other. If some monsters had a fight and died, they might have been sent off here along with the kids.