This chapter contains descriptions of violence/death/self-harming behavior.

Chapter 20

I made one final look back at Faust before opening my door. I watched him and the others get sucked into their respective rooms. 

How was any of this normal?

We had been trapped in this game for months and we just accepted everything that came at us. I couldn't say that I was any different though. 

I turned the handle on the door to my room and instantly got pulled inside. Gluttony? I didn't know what to expect, but I know it wasn't this. 

The room wasn't a room. I was outside. The ground was muddy and the sky was cloudy. I looked around, but I didn't see the house or the door. I was standing in a muddy field. 

“Hello?" I called out. “Faust? Kendrick? Leon?" I strained my ears to hear something, anything. 

It was so desperately quiet.

“I knew splitting up was a bad idea…” I whispered. “Shouldn't there be food or something?" 

All I could see was mud. I hesitated to move, moving seemed dangerous. I took a few tentative steps, walking deeper and deeper into the field of mud. 

"...Hello?” I called out. I don't know that I was hoping to hear back, but even hearing an echo would have been better than this. 

In the distance I saw something.

I couldn't quite make out what it was. Inching closer, it looked like it might have been a person. 

"Hello?” I called out.

I could hear the faint sound of them muttering something to themselves.

"I'm sorry, I couldn't hear that…” slowly, I approached them.

They were crouched down, and covered head to toe in a thick layer of mud. I could see them scooping something out of the ground, but I couldn't tell what it was. 

Curiosity got the better of me and I slowly moved to stand next to them. 

“Safe, it will make us safe," the figure repeated this over and over. Their fingers digging into the wet ground and pulling up chunks of mud. With each scoop they brought the dripping mess to their mouth and devoured every bite. “Safe, it will make us safe." 

I could feel my mouth fall open as I watched them shovel handful after handful of dirt and mud into their mouth. Without realizing it, I took a few steps back. 

This must have triggered the figure because it suddenly stopped. Its head jerked to the side to stare at me. 

The suddenness of this movement made me lose my balance and I tripped and fell backwards. 

“Mine, mine, mine!" The figure shrieked at me.

“Ok! Ok! You can have it!" I scrambled to my feet and started running away. 

From behind me I could hear the figure screaming, "mine! Mine! It keeps mine safe! It keeps mine safe!”

I kept running but there was nothing. No place to hide, no place to run to. 

I tried to check my inventory but before I could even pull out a weapon I felt a slimy hand grab me and pull me back. 

"Let go! Let go of me!” I jerked and tried to get out of their grasp. Pulling at their hand that was grasped onto my tunic I finally felt their grasp release. 

I spun away from them and ran as fast as I could. 

Out of breath and with a stitch in my side I glanced back to see if they were following me. I didn't see anyone or anything. I slowed to a walk and tried to get my bearings. Breathing hard and looking around me, it took a moment before I felt something slimy touching my arm. 

I looked down to find the figure's hand still stuck on me. It's fingers wiggling now and grasping at me. 

"Oh, what the hell!” I swatted at the appendage that had attached itself to me and threw it to the ground. 

As soon as it hit I heard a splat, and the hand turned into just another clump of mud. 

I stood there for a moment, just staring at it. As if it might start moving again any moment. 

Finally, I took a sword from my inventory and poked at the lump. It was just mud. Was the figure only mud too?

I looked back at where I had been. 

“Safe? What did it mean, ‘it keeps us safe?" Looking around, there was nothing else. The world inside this room was just a giant mud field. With apparently mud monsters, that ate mud. That sounds like a whole different level of cannibalism that made me shiver. 

A thought occurred to me, if this is the room for gluttony, did that mean I needed to eat the dirt? Like what that monster was doing? 

I looked down at the mud that was now covering my shoes, pants, and pretty much all of me. How could it be gluttony if I wanted no part in it? 

I bent down and dipped a finger in the mud. I brought the slimy chunk to my face and sniffed. 

It just smelled like dirt.

I stared at it for a moment before finally sticking that chunk in my mouth. 

“Oh my gosh…” I gagged and spat it out. The mud had coated the inside of my mouth and made me want to throw up. I sat there heaving for a while until I was able to clear it from my mouth.

There was no way, no way I could shovel this in my mouth and eat it. 

"There has to be something else…" Before I could finish my thought I heard a noise from behind me. 

I was still croched on the ground. So I slowly turned my head in the direction of the sound. Because this world was so quiet, I could hear every squish, every slosh, and every groan. 

In front of me I could see several figures, crawling their way out of the mud. Their hands surfacing and grasping onto the slimy earth, then hoisting their bodies out of the muck. 

They all appeared to be the same, looking just like the original figure. 

“Safe, it keeps us safe. Mine. Mine. Mine!" They all muttered. 

I was glued to my spot, I couldn't help but stare at them. I'm scared. I don’t know what to do. My mind is blank. What should I do? 

I held my sword in front of me, but my arms shook from the effort. I was exhausted from running. 

"Faust…I could really use some of your luck right now…” 

I took a deep breath and charged at the mud monsters. I swung my sword at the one that was closest to me. A sickening sucking sound came from the contact. Instead of cutting into the monsters my sword sunk into it. I tried to pull it back out, but it wouldn't budge. 

The monster looked at me, and I swear it looked smug. It grabbed at the blade, and pulled. 

The sword was pulled out of my grasp and I was left empty handed. 

I slowly backed away, staring at the mud man who was now armed with my sword. 

“Well, that's not ideal," I turned and ran. I searched through my inventory looking for anything that I might be able to use. 

I really wish I had an explosive or something, but luck was not on my side. 

I could hear them running behind me. The sound of their feet smacking the muddy earth was making me sick to my stomach. I was tired. I knew I couldn't keep running like this. 

In front of me I saw a glint of something. It looked like a black rectangle floating in the air. This entire time I hadn't seen anything different in this world, so I ran towards it. 

As I got closer I could tell it looked like a doorway. The door wasn't at ground level though, it was about five feet off the ground.

I threw myself at it and tried to hoist myself up. I glanced back and saw the mud monsters were close. 

“Mine, mine, mine," they screamed at me.

I took a deep breath and strained to get myself up high enough that I could flop into the doorway. As soon as I was up I scrambled through, and the door shut behind me. 

I layed there for a while, breathing hard, trying to catch my breath. I slowly looked around me, but it was just dark. 

I couldn't see the doorway I had come through anymore. The abyss that surrounded me was as eerie as the silence had been in the other room. 

There was just one thing that bothered me more. In the mud room the air has been filled with the smell of dirt. Not a bad smell. It just smelled like outside, or a garden after a rainstorm.

This room smelled differently. It wasn't a smell that I was very familiar with, so it took me a moment to place what it was. 

I sat up and pulled a torch out of my inventory. When I lit the torch I could see what was around me. 

In every direction, on all sides, were bodies. Arms, legs, faces…or parts of them.

The room smelled of blood.