The High School Escapades!

Beetle (Body Horror Warning)

Trying to shake the screams and blood and death and terror out of his head, Ted continued on, the gang of cryptids following. Lillith was still gnawing on a bone that they let her keep for some reason, Ethan was hyperventilating, and Will was trying to calm him down, but failing, mostly because Ethan didn't want anything to do with him.

God he really didn't want to know what was up with Sam.

Ted was tired. Exhausted. Physically and mentally. Mostly mentally. He really just wanted to leave, and get out, and never come back, and that's when he remembered that his dad disowned him, and if he ever got out of here he had nowhere to go anyway. Whatever. He'd figure it out.

He was startled out of his thoughts by Billy, who pointed to a big, metal double door with a handprint keypad. "That door looks important."

Ted looked at it and had to agree. "There's no way we're getting in there, though, so-"

BANG

CREEEEEAAAAAK

That was the sound of Billy punching through the steel and forcibly separating the doors. Once they were opened, he went into a coughing fit, falling onto the floor. Ted would have ran to his friend's aid, but he was standing in shock, along with everyone else, at what was inside.

Red, fleshy tendrils covered the walls, floor, and ceiling so much that you couldn't see even a hint of gray. It looked like something that would be dead, and yet it was very much alive. It was twitching, and pulsating, and oozing thick, fresh blood onto the ground, into gooey puddles. And at the center of it all was a small, human-looking thing, with hair that might have been blond if it weren't so bloody. The tentacles were stuck to him, part of him, attached at his arms and back, and he stared at the ground, standing straight up, neck tilted at a 90° angle.

Instinctively Ted backed up against the opposite side of the hallway, followed by Sam and Ethan. And when Billy finished hacking up his lungs, he too ran back. Even Lillith seemed unnerved, although she stood her ground.

The only one not to see anything wrong with the scene before him was Will, so surely he was the one to ask. And ask Ted did. "What the hell is that thing?!"

Will answered apathetically. "That's just Beetle. He's one of the older experiments. Second one ever, actually." He turned to face Ted. "You're the sixty-fifth, I believe."

These scientists got a lot more moral over time, he thought, when Billy spoke up. "Who was the first?"

"Oh, some kid a long time ago. He was their youngest experiment, which is saying something, cause I was twelve when it started." Will explained. "He got out a looong time ago, though."

"And how do you know all this?"

But Will didn't seem to hear him, instead suggesting they let Beetle join their team, as he would be a valuable asset. "I don't know about that," Ted interjected.

"Yeah," Billy agreed. "I'm sure he means well, but his presence fills me with a looming sense of dread."

"...What he said."

But Will insisted, so they reluctantly agreed. "Alright," Will said happily, "so who's going in there?"

And the vote was 2-4 in Ted's favor, or rather, against it. He and Billy thought it was only fair that Will be the one to go in, but Sam didn't trust him, and Lillith and Ethan just didn't really like Ted.

So, bracing himself for whatever fucking fresh hell awaited, he went in.