(This story contains violence, gore, and foul language. Reader discresion is advised.)

Genna slowly woke to blurry surroundings and the sound of rattling metal. It was her cage, and the rattling was from Ned trying to break open its lock without creating too much noise. When he finally broke the lock, he opened the cage and pulled her out, while attempting to stand her up on her feet.

“Ned?” Genna guessed as her vision returned.

“You okay? Can you stand on your own?” Ned checked.

“I think so.”

“Good, thank God you’re okay. I thought I lost everyone for good, until I spotted him carrying you into this place.”

Genna looked around regaining her bearings and asked, “Where are we?”

“It looks to be a kennel for experiments; part of some old mine converted into some sort of military, research laboratory complex. I don’t know what’s going on, but I’m getting my hands on that son of a bitch and making him pay. He’s currently in a room with Billy now.”

“Billy’s here? How do we get him out?” Genna asked as Ned helped escort her to the kennel entrance with his rifle at the ready.

“Easy, I’ll shoot him. However, after seeing all the crazy shit I’ve seen him do, as a backup plan, I’ll cause a distraction. When Tom leaves the room, you get in there, grab Billy and get the hell out of here.”

“Where do we go? What about you?”

“Don’t worry about it, I’ve got things covered.”

After carefully peering outside the entry doorway, he turns to Genna and with an assured motion of his head says, “Come on, follow me.”

The duo left the kennel and carefully made their way to the laboratory room where Tom and Billy were. Peering in through the observational glass, they saw Tom still wearing his breathing apparatus, looking through documents and writing something down. Not far from him, an unconscious Billy was restrained with his own gas cylinders and breathing mask strapped to his face. Ned turned to face Genna.

“Go hide close by, stay there and wait for the coast to be clear.” he said.

Genna hid so not to be spotted if a chase started. Ned readied his rifle and jumped in front of the room’s entryway.

“This is for Jack and Marla, you fuck!”

Ned let loose a spray of bullets until he ran out of ammunition. They all hit around Tom, with none of them hitting their intended target, just as Ned feared. He figured that would happen from the few encounters he had with Tom prior, swearing to have had a bead every time he missed a shot. This was no different, except now Ned knew for sure the man in his sights somehow deflected each projectile.

Ned fled and Tom was in immediate pursuit after calling his machete into one of his hands. Losing sight of them both, Genna made her move into the laboratory. She quickly made her way to Billy and removed the mask from his face. She began shaking him and rapidly slapping his face just hard enough to wake him.

“Billy,” she roughly coaxed him, “Billy! Wake up damn it!”

Billy coughed and spat up a little fluid, grunting confused gibberish while attempting to gauge his surroundings. She grabbed him by the face and forced him to look at her directly.

 “Billy, are you okay? We’ve got to go!”

Genna helped Billy up and supported him under the crux of his arm and left the room. They both soon reached an exit, which emptied out of the installation and into the old mine. Desperate to find their way out, they wandered deeper, with only dim, sparsely spaced light to give them an inkling of where to go.

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

With his machete at the ready, the hunter could sense Ned was somewhere in the showers. Creeping slowly, he approached some partitioned shower stalls with their curtains closed. Settling to try one of the showers, he thrusts his weapon through, causing Ned to rush him from out of the stall and strike him with the empty rifle. Ned tried following up with another blow, but it was blocked by a raised machete. Tom then slashed at Ned, catching him in the forearm before raising the weapon to bring down onto his head. Ned tackled him to the ground, causing the machete to drop. Putting his MMA training to use, he landed blow after blow with his fists into Tom’s face, partly damaging the gas mask. Tom ripped off the hose of the mask and sprayed Ned, who loosened his grip to cover his own face from the assailing plume. After pushing Ned off, Tom then quickly twisted the valve on his cylinder closed.

Ned struggled to breathe and see, as he gagged and coughed through the frothy spittle that accumulated in his mouth. Whatever gas was inside that cylinder was not meant for breathing in. Tom grabbed a curtain, wrapped it around Ned’s head, and wrenched back holding it as tight as he could. They both fell backwards, while Ned attempted to loosen Tom’s grip and tried to pull off or tear through the plastic, but the grip held strong, and the wrap was too taut.

Ned remembered his survival knife. He pulled it out and tried jabbing behind himself to stab his assailant, but Tom had already read his mind. With the raise of his hand, he stopped Ned from burying his blade. Then, turning his open hand into a fist, Tom began moving the knife away from his own person and towards the one physically wielding it. Ned tried fighting this force; Pushing back, tossing it away, even dropping it all didn’t work as he helplessly watched the blade slowly guide it way over his body. It was getting harder to concentrate as the curtain restricted any further oxygen from being inhaled. He felt the carbon dioxide accumulating and his head becoming lighter as the knife traveled over his heart, up towards his neck. Tom turned his fist, causing Ned’s hand to turn as it clenched the hilt, and started to lower onto his neck. Weakened, Ned tried using his other hand to stop the knife, but it kept coming down. The point of the blade dipped and penetrated the jugular, followed by a little less than half of the edge’s length. He could feel his own blood trickling down his neck. The knife started dragging across the neck, cutting open vessels, making the trickle rapidly become a torrent of blood running and shooting out from the internal pressure. The pain and lack of air was already too much for Ned to handle on top of the blood loss. Ned stared off into space and the room became dark before his body fell limp and lifeless.

Letting go of the body, Tom completely pulled off his mask and headed straight for a wall holding similar gas masks. About to grab the mask, the light of the room begins to hurt his eyes, and his head begins to throb. He tried ignoring the brightness of the light and the pressure on his brain increasing, as he hurriedly replaced his broken mask with the new one on the cylinder. Placing the new mask onto his face, Tom twisted the cylinder valve open as fast as possible. The light and the hurt immediately subsided as he breathed the gas in deeply. Turning to Ned’s corpse, he gave a couple of good kicks before exiting the room, mentally calling his machete to fly into his possession yet again.

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

Genna and Billy, now both mobile without each other’s help, were still trying to find a way out of the abandoned mines. After eventually gaining his own footing, Billy took the lead in looking for a way out. Crediting his own intuition, he seemed to be guided by an almost all-knowing voice in his head, only stopping once or twice when a sudden migraine struck him momentarily before continuing.

They soon rushed ahead upon seeing daylight at the end of a tunnel, but they stopped short of going over the ledge of an old shaft. The two spotted a lone chain suspended from the ceiling, possibly leftover from whatever pully system they used for the shaft, and it was the only way they could possibly cross the gap.

Genna opted to search for a possible safer route. Billy made a running start, jumped off the ledge, and grabbed hold of the chain. He began swinging to use his momentum to reach the other side when another sudden migraine attacked him. Billy missed his chance to jump to safety as he strained to keep his grip on the chain and fought the pain in his skull.

“Billy!” Genna called out to him, “Hold on tight! I’m going to try and help!”

The pain was so strong that he felt as if he was going mad. Billy raised his head screaming in agony, yanking, and shaking on the chain in desperation to somehow be rid of his suffering. Genna noticed a weak looking link grinding against the others.

“Stop! Stop moving!” she pleaded.

He yanked and shook again and again as she tried getting him to stop. Billy felt almost like the migraine was being projected onto something else. Something metallic, pulling and twisting its physical structure. Giving the hardest pull he could muster, with a shattering pop, the link gave way and Billy fell into the embrace of the unknown below. The void consumed him whole as Genna could only watch it happen with a sinking heart.

Genna looked down the shaft and called out for Billy the loudest she could, desperately hoping that he would answer back. Her boss and mentor was gone, and she was alone.

She stepped back and looked ahead towards the tunnel exit. The daylight was taunting her with a possibility that had broken down right before her very eyes a minute ago. Stricken with the idea of being stuck in the mine and having to run into Tom again, Genna was starting to spiral into a panic. It was then, she felt almost as if some urge was tugging at her mind. Turning to face the dark tunnel from which she and Billy had come, the urge felt like a voice quietly calling her to another way out. She had to take the risk, otherwise she was going to die down there. She took a deep breath and ventured back into the bowels of the mine.