Better Eight Than Never

Chapter 49: Into the depths

Warning: This chapter contains body horror and gore, and a single case of vomit. No joke. If you need a recap instead of reading all the way through, we don't blame you one bit, go ahead and ask!

"Let go of me!" Bato shouted, struggling against the Octomaton's tight grip, but to no avail. He found himself yanked through the eye socket of the machine, through a curtain of ink, and into darkness. The bubbler surrounding him began to sizzle, and then it cut through the tentacle binding him, sending him crashing to the ground, and bouncing a few feet. The room shook as a cry of pain echoed through the cavernous darkness. Seemed Orion was still very much alive.

He grunted as he tried to stand up, the bubbler winked out, leaving him in darkness. Underfoot the ground shifted and squelched sickeningly, and he almost fell over again as he felt it. He heard some slithering in the darkness, and he clutched his brush as he tried to locate where it was coming from, or as the case would be, retreating. He tried to keep from hyperventilating, he had to keep calm. He'd find his way out eventually...

"Bato!?" He heard Hachi calling for him, and he spun around, only to have a beam of light shined directly into his face.

"Gah!" He yelped, shielding his eyes. "Hachi!"

"Sorry!" She said quickly, turning down the lights on her mask as she looked around. The illumination made his stomach churn as he saw all over the walls and ceiling was this carpet of flesh, ever so slowly crawling, expanding, growing all over the bridge of his machine, which had walkways and railings to be manned from the inside. The stench of death and decay flowed all around them like a suffocating blanket.

"Eeeugh... Judd's tail..." Bato gagged, covering his mouth with his hand.

"Oh screens above...This stench..." She agreed, covering her nose before looking back up the way they'd come. "I don't think you can get out of here. There's a shower of ink up there, and it'sthicker than a flooder, we have to find some other way out of here."

"We?" He asked.

"Yes, we, I'm going to get you out of here, we didn't come this far for nothing." She said firmly. "And you need someone to watch your back."

"Thanks." Bato nodded. "But... our job might not be done either. Orion's still in here, and I don't think he'll just let us go."

"Yeah no, that'd be unlike him..." She agreed.

"I heard the tentacle that grabbed me go that way." He said, then pointed, and once Hachi looked that way they could see a giant hole in the wall, which seemed to be the neck. When this machine was running usually it would be vertical, and easily reachable, but right then they didn't have as much luck. "Do you think you can reach the edge of the hole if I give you a boost?"

"Yeah, then I'll pull you up." She said. "Transformed. If you make me haul you up like that you're going to ruin my back for the rest of my life."

"Don't worry, I won't make you do that." He said, carefully starting to make his way over to the wall. Underfoot half-formed suction cups tried to reach out and grab him, but they only succeeded in sending shivers down his spine. He crouched down as they reached the wall, clasping his hands together to form a step.

"You know–" She started as she started to climb. "–if this is skin and such... he probably knows exactly where we are."

He frowned, then supported her legs as he got onto his shoulders. "Probably."

"Really not looking forward to seeing what he looks like now." She added.

"... Maybe we'll know when we get close enough so you can stay behind, so you don't have to see him," He suggested, feeling some of her weight leave his shoulders.