Goretober - 2024

5. Meat Hooked || Genloss - Slimecicle/Ethan Nestor

teehee hi guys

Charlie lengthened his stride, ducking into one of the empty shops and diving under the counter, waiting until the employees walked past. He let out a breath and crawled on his hands and knees to the back of the store, hoping staying low meant they couldn't see him.

There was a door there, at the back, that led to a hallway that all the shops on this side connected too, Charlie knew. He had been in one similar with Ranboo before they had disappeared.

He opened the door with a quiet creak and slipped inside, closing the door before he stood up, letting out a heavy breath of relief. He started down the right side, the opposite way that the employees had been heading, hoping that he could get somewhere slightly safe before they found out he was back here.

Charlie walked quickly, anxiously pushing his glasses up his sweaty nose as he made his way down the hall, passing door after door, until one made him stop.

There was blood on the doorknob, and behind it were the sounds of quiet sobbing mixed with whimpers of pain. Charlie wondered how likely it was that this was a trap, but did it really matter? He knew he was going in to help even if it WAS a trap.

His fingers wrapped around the doorknob, and he turned it with a quiet squeaking sound.

He opened it the tiniest bit and pushed himself through the tiny crack he had made, his thick vest almost forcing him to open the door more, but he made it through and quietly closed the door.

"Hello?" Charlie called at a whisper's volume, wincing when his voice sounded too loud for the space.

"H- hello?? Is someone th- there?" A voice choked out, something about it sounding oddly familiar to Charlie.

There was a screen made of fabric a few feet from the door that reached above Charlie's head and stretched to each wall, obscuring his vision of the rest of the room.

"P- please, help me!" The voice begged, their voice scratchy like they had just spent several hours screaming.

Charlie bit the inside of his bottom lip and walked to the edge of the screen, pushing it back and squeezing through the space between the white fabric and the wall.

At eye level, about in the middle of the room, were a pair of legs in purple pants and black boots, dangling from the ceiling. Charlie looked up and felt his stomach drop, his heart rising in his throat and making him feel like he was going to throw up.

That boy from earlier, the one with the white hair, was hanging from the ceiling by a hook that had been stabbed into the back of his shoulder and was so long that it came out the other end. The white-haired boy's hands were weakly holding the thick metal hook that was about the width of Charlie's forearm. Ok, maybe that was a bit dramatic, but he really didn't have any other way of describing how large the hook was.

"Holy fuck," Charlie said weakly.

The boy looked like he was slipping out of consciousness, his eyes drooping slightly. Blood covered his face, splattering across his cheeks and lips, even coloring his hair. Blood seeped into his purple top, spreading out from his shoulder all the way down to his stomach.

"Is there, like, a ladder??" Charlie begged, running his hands through his hair as he stared up at the boy.

The boy nodded slightly, pointing with his unimpaled arm at the left corner, close to the covered windows.

Charlie nodded and ran over there, grabbing the short ladder and dragging it back over to the boy.

He set it up right under him and guided the boy's feet to finding the second to top rung so he wouldn't be hanging anymore, before climbing up quickly.

"Hey, stay awake," Charlie said frantically, tapping the boy's cheeks until his dull eyes opened again, swimming with pain. "What's your name?"

"Ethan," the boy said, so quietly that Charlie almost didn't catch it.

"Ok Ethan, I think I have to lift you up to get you off, so give me a second," Charlie said.

After a few minutes of trial and error, Charlie finally managed to steady himself on the ladder while lifting up Ethan. Now to figure out how to pull either him off, or the hook out, while still keeping him up.

Charlie decided to pull the hook out from the back, so, while still balancing on the ladder, he let go of Ethan with one hand, using one arm to keep him in the air while the other grabbed for the hook.

And as he did so, the ladder slipped out from under him and fell to the floor. Charlie screamed, his fingers slipping away from the hook and accidentally grabbing back onto Ethan as Charlie fell.

Unfortunately, the sudden added weight pulling Ethan down made the hook rip upwards until it just completely went through the top of his shoulder, and they both plummeted to the ground.

Charlie wasn't even able to hear Ethan's shrieking because when he fell, his head slammed against the corner of the ladder with a crack, blood exploding out the back of his head and pooling under him, his wide, horrified, unseeing eyes still staring up at the ceiling.