Karma (Sequel to An Old Friend)//Grumbo\\

4

        "This isn't real." Grian was once again in the cell from before, except instead of being tied to a chair like last most other times, his hands were tied to a rope hanging from the ceiling. His feet just barely touched the ground, and his shoulders ached. The amount of time it took for "Sam" to come into the room was different every time. This time, it took a long time for him to enter. The door swung open, and the fake Sam entered with a knife. Grian was telling himself over and over again that it wasn't real in his mind. He wasn't actually getting hurt or dying. But this time, the false Sam spoke.

        "Oh, this will definitely hurt." Its voice wasn't like Sam's cheery voice, but dry and almost robotic. The tone of the voice hadn't confused Grian as much as the fact that not only did the fake Sam speak for the first time, but it had also almost read his mind. 

        "But...How?" Grian asked, but the Sam didn't respond. Instead, he grabbed the builder's red sweater, now dirty and losing its color, and lifted it, exposing his bare chest. Grian shifted uncomfortably but was ultimately unable to stop what was happening. The fake Sam ran the knife over his stomach, drawing a little bit of blood. Grian inhaled sharply through his teeth, and the fake Sam smiled. He increased the pressure of the blade, making a deeper cut and causing more blood to spill out onto the floor. This time, Grian yelled in pain. He still tried to hide his pain, but the longer it went on for, the deeper the cuts got. His chest and stomach had been carved into, and he was losing blood rapidly. Finally, after the deepest cut possible without exposing organs was made, the fake Sam let go of Grian's shirt, letting it fall onto all of the fresh cuts. Grian's face was covered in salty tears, the pain too great for him to handle. Everything hurt, but at least the cutting stopped. Fake Sam lowered his knife, before suddenly stabbing it toward Grian. It landed hard in his chest, and unlike Grian had, Sam didn't miss the heart. 

Grian woke with a start, as he always did. He would gasp and his body would try to shoot up, but the leather straps always held him down. He started coughing next and finally would calm down. Once that happened, Sam would enter the room, feed Grian, take a blood sample from his arm, and leave for a while. Then he would come back to inject him again. This time, when Sam entered to take a blood sample, Grian spoke up. 

        "Why did it talk?" He asked quietly, his voice hoarse and gravely. Sam smiled and replied.

        "Why do you think I keep taking blood samples after every death? You didn't think I would just give you the same serum over and over again, did you? Everything great in this world has the ability to evolve, and by studying your blood, I can make your deaths worse and worse. I guess this time, it gave the killer a conscious. Neat." He finished, and before Grian could say anything else, he walked out and slammed the door shut. Grian laid sadly on the table, unaware of how long he had been there. He began to softly weep as he thought about his friends. What if he wasn't the only one Sam had taken and was torturing? And if his friends were safe, were they looking for him? He cried himself to sleep, letting himself be taken from his real-life nightmare into a fake one. 

He was trapped in a cycle. Be injected, "die", wake up, blood sample, and be injected again. The serum was evolving too. He could feel his sanity slipping. Being killed over and over again wasn't good for the human psyche. He had given up the thought of escaping, no longer fighting against his restraints and just letting himself get injected. He also hadn't realized how many different ways he could be killed. He had been beaten, starved, burned alive, drowned, but one thing was always constant. Every time he was going to die, he was always in the same cell. That was, until one day. He had been injected as usual but woke up back on the table. Had the serum failed? Why wasn't he in the cell as always? The door opened, and a very exasperated Sam entered. 

        "Stupid serum. It's supposed to always work, what happened?" His sentence was ended by a large boom. It came from somewhat far away, and both Sam and Grian turned to look toward the door. "Ugh, now what?" Sam lifted his arms in defeat before quickly walking out of the room to investigate. There were a few minutes of silence before finally, the door reopened. Though, instead of the regular lanky figure of Sam, a shorter man entered. Grian recognized him instantly.

        "Mumbo!" Grian smiled at his friend, but his friend didn't smile back. He walked over to the table, and Grian began to try to move in his restraints. "Hurry, get me out of these stupid straps," Grian suggested, but Mumbo didn't move. 

        "Get you out? Why would I want to do that?" Mumbo said coldly, and Grian looked at him confused.

        "Aren't you here to rescue me?" Grian asked nervously, and Mumbo laughed a familiar laugh. 

        "Hah! You really are so naive. Of course I'm not here to rescue you! Did you really think I was ever your friend? Who would want to be your friend? No, I was just the man on the inside, getting close to you for Sam's benefit. I would never want to be your friend." 

        "No, that can't be true." Grian tried to reassure himself, his eyes starting to get watery, but Mumbo just laughed. 

        "Oh, but it is." He said before pulling out a gun and resting the tip of it under Grian's now quivering chin.

        "You're my friend," Grian said sadly, more telling himself than Mumbo. Mumbo put his finger on the trigger and waited before pulling it, saying,

        "No, I'm not." And pulled the trigger.

Ooh, kinda a cliffhanger. A lot of you can probably tell where this is going, but whatever. Sorry that updates kinda slowed, due to school and my idiot English teacher. I didn't think it was possible to hate English class, but he somehow found a way. Anyway, this was a thing. I'm really happy that I am able to write chapters that are over 500 words nowadays. I always hate to write 500-word chapters, but sometimes I can't write any more than that. I hope you enjoyed this chapter, and the book so far. I'm having a ton of fun writing it, as bad as that is to say. It may not be my most popular book, but I'm enjoying it, so I hope you are too. Ok, I've talked for long enough. I hope you have a good day/night, and you are lovely.