P.I.E. Operation: PARASITIC

XVI: Crafty Escape

The climb ahead of Johnny and Gertrude seemed lengthy and boring.

Mama stared above the crowbar lodged in the side of the deep crater. She hung below it, but nearly a few feet off the ground. She originally promised herself she wouldn't look back, but it was highly likely that Toast would easily fall behind.

Fair enough.

...Except for the fact that they were eventually going to be 80 feet (24 m/about 24 five-foot-tall people) above the ground (if they could ever reach the top).

Although that wasn't anywhere near the size of a crater--and more of a man made hole--it was still pretty high for them.

After a long moment of hesitation, Gertrude finally managed to re-dig her weirdly tough office pen from the dark brown soil. She struggled to relocate the pen to another safe spot in the dirt, barely keeping her balance as she went up, up, up.

She checked below her to see how Johnny was doing.

Admittedly, he stopped doing anything after the first few moves. Basically, he was just hanging from two dullish daggers with his feet off the ground, and totally expressionless. He caught her glance and reacted with silent surprise, climbing a bit faster.

All in all, the scruffy 30 year-old was still a bit slow, but he was clearly getting better.

Even if it made no sense. Heck, Gertrude thought, nothing makes sense anyway. Why should she question John's 'ability' with the weird family she was a part of?

A growl of the weird pale creature came from under her. Mama outstretched her hand to Johnny, wordlessly telling him to hold on.

At first, he did nothing; he was still processing what she was trying to tell him. He understood shortly after. She wanted to pull him up so Slender wouldn't be able to reach Toast by his legs. He was only two feet above him with estimation, so surely if they both were to straighten out one arm their hands would reach.

Shaking, veins popping out from so much stress on his right arm, Johnny rapidly dragged one dagger out of the hard layer of earth that was keeping him up. He shoved the weapon into one of his leather pockets and reached for his savior.

The weird monster Sally supposedly was in relative to stood, unmoving, creepily below them--its head only a hair's length from Johnny's foot. Darn how tall that thing was! Why couldn't it have been a hobbit's size? It held the mysterious soggy papers that had landed in the puddle at the bottom of the pit earlier.

"Stop..." Toast began to garble. Gertrude's eyes widened over his head. "Assaulting us...!"

Gertrude realized that Slenderman held the mysterious soggy papers that had landed in the puddle at the bottom of the pit earlier. "We... We don't need your stupid notes, and we never will! L-Leave us alone!" She tried.

"They're... gone...." Slender stated the obvious.

"Only those few... I'm sure you can write your chicken scratch on new ones if they're really that important! Besides... They were only directions written on them that eventually lead us to you." Mama mentioned.

"Let... us... go!" Johnny spat in irritation, breathing heavily from weariness.

The creature dripping with black, blood-like substances oozing from open wounds began to twitch. The sound of paper being crumpled protruded from its back, and the tall humanoid slowly grew a quadruple family of red tentacles.

All at once, Gertrude's hand finally met with those of the Englishman's while one of Slender's tentacles wrapped around his ankle.

Mama simply said, "Whoops!" as if this was all a sick, lighthearted joke. Her spirits never seemed to be down, whether in the best of times or the worst of times.

Johnny gulped with a late reaction time. He held onto Gertrude's hand for dear life to release his other knife from the gravel, thrusting it at the suctioned tentacle and almost dumbly stabbing his own foot in the process.

The abnormal sea-limb split in half.

Neither person could express their disgust as Johnny shook off the dead arm when they were both struggling to stay above the ground.

The monster screeched in fury. When the tentacle fell to the ground, it shriveled up into dust along with its remains on Slender's back. A new one also began to form in place of the other, but this time, darker--indicating a recent injury.

"Sorry... but..." Gertrude lifted Johnny up to her height. He latched onto the side of the crater again with the only dagger he left out. "We're... leaving." She breathed heavily between every word. Climbing mountains was definitely not her thing. Doing this made her hate it even more.

Eventually, both Toast and Mama reached the top of the crater, leaving the thing behind. They uncaringly hauled themselves over the edge of the cliff without question of what could be above them.

All that mattered was that they were finally on level ground--more importantly, they were back on track.

They were out of Slenderman's grasp.

From the top of the cliff, they could hear a faint roar of frustration from the tuxedo-wearing weirdo standing 80 feet underground.

Ahead of them, the scenery was a lot more different than they originally remembered... in a peaceful way.

The lush green land leading in front of them was a bright change from the horrid darklands the two had previously experienced.

It was very fertile. And very blocky.

- - - - - - - - - -
This is getting weirder and weirder.

Oh, and it's a bit of a short chapter... I was a bit confused on how to write this chapter at first, so this was the best I can do. :3