SOTF Archive/SOTF Classic

Brendan wasn't going to get a chance to say anything. Michael was coming for him again. He gritted his teeth. His grip on the weapon was tightening. It looked like Michael was trying to distract him. He wasn't going to let that happen.

He had the speed and agility to outrun Michael for now. He had noticed Michael's limp. He had to bail out. He stepped to the side quickly. He managed to rush pass Michael.

He bolted out of there. He didn't look back as he knew that Michael would chase after him.

((Brendan Harte continued in No Time For Sorrow))

Michael's axe went up, but it had hit nothing. Michael turned his head, expecting to get stabbed in the back by Brendan...

He heard the splashes of Brendan running away behind him, going down the hall. Figures... He's a coward to the end.

Michael sprinted after him, axe above his head, screaming madly. His heart was pounding, he could feel his gums pumping blood, his chest burning. Sounds around him faded and warped. His screaming went from barely coherent swearing to inhuman wailing. At this point, through his own perception his voice sounded less like Michael Crowe and more like Bennings-Thing. He swung his axe and missed as he watched Brendan run up and out the area. He couldn't catch up with this limp.

Michael stood and stared up the stairs.

Two murderers, both got away...

He'll kill 'em. He'll kill 'em both dead.

Michael brought his axe above his head and screamed again. He flailed his axe around, his motions were spastic, yet robotic, like something had short circuited him. His axe banged off of the walls and doors of the hallway. His screaming echoed through the halls, and possibly other areas in the asylum.  He brought his axe down, smashing against the ground, water splashing up every which way. He had screamed one last time, as his tantrum slowed to a crawl.

They got away...

"J-Jerry..."

Michael's adrenaline was gone, and the pain in his ankle increased ten fold. His limping slowed, his foot stiff as a board. By the time he reached that room again, he realized that there was another body inside.

That was three bodies here.

He thought about the corpses here, and what would happen. Two days in, they'd be green and purple bloated floaters, brown veins filled with rotted sludge, eyes bulging out, their lips looking as if they'd been vacuum sealed, they'd resemble a fish more than a person... Two days later, they'd rupture and collapse in on their selves, filling the water with rotted organs. Two days after that... They'd start melting, and this whole area was gonna be a decayed soup of disease and bacteria. Woe behold anyone who hides here, for trench-foot and facilitated necrosis wouldn't be too far from the truth.

Jerry wasn't gonna be one of them. Michael only had the strength in him to take one out, to give them a somewhat 'proper' resting place. He wished he could bring the others out, but he just didn't have it in him. He needed rest, he had to hunt those other fuckers down. Made sure they pay.

Because of Michael, Jerry had been killed. He got too cocky, and didn't think of watching the rear, keeping an eye on ambushers. He got lazy. Because of that Jerry died.

Brendan did the deed, but Michael had himself to blame. What a fucking waste. The good ones, they always go early.

Michael bagged his axe, and bent over, picking Jerry up by the shoulders.

It was a slow slog back to the exit, with Michael stumbling and falling a few times on the way there.

By the time he got to the exit, he was running on fumes, at this point all he wanted was to find some sort of closure.

He figured Jerry wanted the same thing...

((Michael Crowe continued Elsewhere))