Not Alone

It's All Fun and Games Until Someone Loses an Eye

Brown needed a plan. 

Gundy was somewhere in this labyrinth, and he wasn't leaving without her.

No matter what.

But his frantic attempts to think were interrupted by the sudden drone of an alarm, a hellish sound that filled the cramped corridor with its insistent bellowing, its scream pounding back and forth between the walls like a trapped, rabid animal. 

The harsh yellow of the overhead lights blinked out, turning the corridor black. Red underfloor lighting came on in their place, illumining the escape squad and the scattered Skibidi corpses in a bloody glow. 

Brown could hear the unmistakable tramp of booted feet, distant but coming closer.

(RUN) Joe signed.

Where are we even going? Brown thought as he kept guard at the back of the group, Skibidi claw gripped in both hands, watching the twins' backs. Do you even have a plan are are you just charging around like a bunch of—

Further thought stopped as they rounded a corner to face a grotesque figure whose bulk filled the width of the corridor. The stitch-mouth Skibidi with the stolen television, his clawed tentacles reaching out towards them...

Joe, unhesitating, unpinned a grenade and tossed it at the Skibidi.

At the exact moment the weapon left the Cameraman's hand, the Skibidi lit up his screen, turning the dull red of corridor into a shining rave of magenta as the purple light of hypnosis intermingled with the gory color of the emergency lighting.

For the third time that day, Brown was caught in mind control, forced to stay still like a child playing statues. The hypnosis held his body remain motionless, and he could only watch the grenade roll and tinkle across the tiles towards the Skibidi. 

The mouthless creature reached out towards the grenade with one of his long tentacles— everything had slowed to a dreamlike crawl— his grotesque face pale with horror.

Brown was forced to be a helpless spectator to the devastating act of violence that was about to occur. He couldn't protect his new friends. He couldn't brace himself. He couldn't even raise his hands to cover his lens...

As time seemed to stop entirely, Brown's mind burned with a single thought.

The most fervent hope that whoever invented hypnosis screens would burn in Hell.

Then the grenade inflated like a little metal balloon, glowing, and time went fast again. 

White light filled Brown's vision, and he was thrown silently on his back, another Cameraman sprawled on top of him. Then noise and black smoke filled the cramped corridor, followed by roaring fire.

No longer held under the hypnosis screen, Brown nevertheless lay still, his earpiece ringing. There was a jagged black crack on the ceiling above him, and his lens stung. He struggled to raise his head a little, and the crack moved. 

His lens... his lens was broken. An ugly, thick crack was stuck in the center of his vision, bisecting everything he saw.

No. NO. NO.

Someone grabbed his hand and pulled him upright. One of the twins. Brown clutched at his fellow Cameraman, unable to hear anything over the ringing of his earpiece, staggering and swaying. 

Through flame and smoke he saw the mouthless Skibidi, his stolen television screen shattered, his face streaked with blood. Badly hurt, but alive, his eyes wild.

The twin who wasn't clutching Brown charged forward, firing his bolt gun, getting a perfect shot into one of the Skibidi's eyes. His head twisted in pain while the second shot— the very last one— went wide and made a pointless little hole the corridor wall.