Symbol of Terror

6a. - Ending: Free Aaron

A/N: Only choose this part if you decided to free Aaron, or you are done reading the part you chose initially.

Wade approached the Englishman's face on the wall of vine-like strands. He decided to go the simple route and cut a line right around where Aaron's body was. The tentacles retreated and the broken ends fell out of his skin and onto the ground. The man himself fell on the floor, on his hands and knees, panting.

"Oh my g- thank you, thank you--" Aaron said in between breaths. "I-I can't feel my-- AAAAH NEVER MIND WHAT IS THAT?!"

"Shh! Aaron!" Wade mumbled. He watched in confusion as the man, bleeding from holes in his skin from the tentacles, clutched his stomach and rolled onto his back, squirming and looking horrified and greatly ill.

"Sorry-- e-gah, it's writhing! Why is it writhing?!" he continued, panicking and breathing harder. He got off of his back, one hand still on his stomach, and got into the position he was in previously. "I'm gonna be sick--"

He paused, then retched hideously, making Wade grimace and shut his eyes. When he opened them, Aaron had his head down and was shaking horribly. A moment later, he vomited a black, slug-like creature. Both of them stared at it, perplexed, as it crawled. Wade went down and stabbed it, the thing freezing limply. He sighed, but quickly moved when Aaron began to retch again.

The door suddenly opened as another one of the slug-things was thrown up. Mark stood there, glaring ferociously.

"What do you think you're doing?!" the yellow-eyed man yelled at them. Wade saw his chance, and jumped on him, dropping the knife. The two toppled, Wade grabbing the lighter from his pocket, desperately holding down one of Mark's arms while flicking the switch. He couldn't get it for whatever reason, and he realized he'd have to open Mark's jacket to actually get to the tattoo. The lighter was smacked out of his hand, the item flying towards Bob.

"No!" Wade exclaimed, and hurried off of Mark to get it. A hand grabbed his ankle, then more tentacles gripped his legs tightly. It was unusually silent, except for the sound of Aaron puking. He looked behind himself, to see Mark holding the pocket knife, poised above the Brit, then brought it down with a horrible thud. Aaron screamed as he continued to stab him until he was limp and quiet. Wade held his tongue as the yellow eyes stared him down over the bloody corpse. He saw the spiky black teeth grimace at him, then he stood up straight, gracefully stepping over the body.

"Don't tell a soul," he said sternly, flipping Wade onto his back, legs twisted uncomfortably until the tentacles adjusted. Wade tried to prevent him from being on top of him, but more of the weblike strands restricted his arms to the ground. Mark blinked at him, bringing the knife to Wade's cheek, wiping Aaron's blood on his face with the broad side, once with each side. He suddenly forced his mouth open and stuck the knife in far, nearly gagging him. Blood gushed into his mouth as Mark sliced into his flesh, cracking a few teeth. Wade screamed in a vast amount of pain, choked on his own fluids, and coughed violently. Mark forced his head to the side, slapping him upside the head as blood poured onto the dirty floor. He whimpered, shouted, then felt a large fleshy thing in his mouth. Spitting the object out with much difficulty, he realized that there was nothing resting undisturbed in his bottom jaw.

He couldn't speak. He very literally couldn't tell anyone. He coughed more blood out of his mouth as the tentacles ate up the severed tongue, then looked up. Mark was giggling, setting fear into the man's heart. He brought his face close to Wade's, smiling in a terrifying way.

"Police!" A few men barged into the room, holding pistols out, the two on the floor looking up at them curiously. "Who here is Mark Fischbach?"

Mark stood somberly, as if he knew what had occurred, gently placing the knife down and raising his hands. Wade suspected that he had called the police on himself in a moment of sanity.

---

Knowing that Aaron's girlfriend had no one to look forward to coming home hurt Wade almost as much as she will hurt.

Wade had a new tongue attached when he was taken to the hospital, but his body rejected it almost instantly. He and Molly were very happy to see each other again, but learning that he couldn't talk presented a bigger issue. He couldn't do YouTube until something could be done about this. They didn't have a ton of money available to take care of what medical needs there were, so they went over it as well as they could, with one unable to speak.

Mark had, unfortunately, ended up in prison, because of the murder of Aaron and the assault on Wade. Bob, who was cut loose from the bindings when the police had arrived to help, and Wade knew it wasn't Mark who had done all the damage. No one would ever believe them, though, that some sort of particle-creature had possessed him to do it. The man was only 24, and he wouldn't be released until he was 50. Wade felt sorry for the real person that lay within the shell of Mark's body.

Out of pity, Wade, Molly, and Bob decided to visit him a few weeks into his sentence. The phone booth visitation seemed like something right out of a movie.

"One person at a time," the guard said. Bob volunteered first, in the knowledge that Molly needed to request the guard if she could go with Wade due to the speech problem. The two felt better when the guard gave the okay to go together. After several minutes, Bob came out of the booth, and the couple headed towards it. Wade could already see Mark smiling.

"You guys too!" he said over the phone, "Oh wow, today's my lucky day, isn't it?"

"How have you been?" Molly asked, holding the phone's receiver between the two of them.

"I don't... really want to talk about that right now," he said, looking down.

"Sorry. We've been doing well. It's been interesting to work things out."

"I bet so. Hey, Wade looks a little left out," he gestured at him, "Can I talk to him?"

"Sure," she said, holding the receiver closer to Wade's ear.

"Dude, you have no idea how much it means to me, you three visiting. I miss you, I miss... making stupid things for YouTube, et cetera. But I know why I'm here. It's only been a few weeks, but it's felt like it's been much longer. I dunno, bail seems too illogical for me right now. I can keep going though," he finished, smirking, but had sadness deeply rooted in his eyes. Wade blinked back a tear. They chatted for a while more until the time was up.

"Goodbye, Mark," Molly said with a smile. Wade waved at him, all three standing up to be led off to their places. As Mark stood, his stare at Wade became blanker, the other man feeling slightly uncomfortable by it. Regardless, they smiled at each other as they both left, Molly and Wade going to where Bob was waiting.

Bob had to take a flight back to North Carolina that night, so the couple dropped him off at the airport, then went back home. It was getting very late, and Wade wasn't quite accustomed to not making any new videos. He and Molly made a joint video on his channel about the issue, and the fandom received it with great understanding, if not a little disappointment that he couldn't talk or make silly puns on camera.

"I'm going to bed, are you going or no?" Molly asked. Wade shook his head, still unnerved by the fact that one of his best friends was in prison right now. He sat on the couch while she went away to the bathroom, turning the TV on and trying to distract himself. A few minutes later, Molly returned to say goodnight, kissing him on the cheek and disappearing to her bed. He smiled at the gesture.

Wade successfully got his mind off of things, mindlessly absorbed in television. He checked his phone on occasion, watching the time jump from 11:27 P.M. to 1:03 A.M. He turned the TV off, and figured he could doze off out here. He shut his eyes, feeling at peace, until he felt a strangely familiar sensation on his legs. Shaking his leg, he found he couldn't get it off. He opened his eyes, looking down at his feet, which were covered in black tentacles. Looking at the wall opposite him, it had numerous strands spread across it. An odd sensation prickled at the top of his head, and he hesitantly looked up. Yellow eyes stared down at him, a grey body clad in orange. It lunged as Wade screamed in terror, abruptly cut off by a tentacle forced into his windpipe.

Congratulations, you have received "Bad Ending: Monster on the Run." Forget something, Wade, something Mark said to remember? Feel free to read the other endings.