Flip the Coin [BL]-Chapter 388. Turn Out The Light (by Cjbeards)

Maggots under my skin, worms crawling through my body—they are all hidden from the naked eye; they are all waiting to grow while feeding on me. They grow and grow to break free and live. 𝗳𝚛𝚎𝚎𝘄𝕖𝕓𝕟𝕠𝚟𝚎𝕝.𝗰𝕠𝐦

WON’T YOU SAVE THEM, KENNY?

AREN’T THEY INNOCENT?

FEED THEM, KENNY, FEED THEM!

LET THEM LIVE, LET THEM LIVE!

I KNOW they are there; my dazed mind could FEEL them, and so I instantly put my hand to my neck before I even opened my eyes.

I scratched my neck, having a feeling that I could sense the bumps under my skin, and just with a bit of scratching, just after penetrating the skin, I could pull them out TO GET THEM OUT OF MY BODY.

Just a bit more—oh, there is blood already—no, never mind, just a bit more, just a bit more!

Light flickered inside the room I was lying in, and it was SO FUCKING ANNOYING that I finally snapped my eyes open.

I was lying in a dark room inside an old hospital with walls so dilapidated, old, and broken that I knew then that this was not reality.

Not my reality.

There was an oxygen mask covering my nose and mouth, but no fresh air came through.

I stopped scratching my skin, the sensation of the worms suddenly gone, and pulled the mask from my face.

I looked to the side and saw that I was wired to two or three machines, with cables on my chest and stomach under the hospital pajama top that should lead to a beeping monitor.

But these machines were so old and broken that they should have stopped working years ago.

The hospital gown was full of holes; the cloth had already lost its color and pattern.

In the corner lay a violin that was covered by a bit of plastic-like fabric, which should have been the case for said instrument, which had, however, long been decaying all by itself.

The lonely violin, however, was in good condition, and it was a somehow glaring contrast to the rest of the room.

This hospital was empty as far as I could hear, but given that there was no table and no coin inside my mind, and neither was there a speck of superpower in me, that didn’t say much.

Inside the Maestro’s world, I was just my most average human self.

I was still thinking of my next course of action when the flickering light went out, and it was dark inside my room again.

Fantastic.

Apparently, I haven’t gone through enough horror movie scenarios already; a dark empty hospital was still missing. How lucky.

I couldn’t see in the darkness, but on my left was a window. It should be daylight outside, but the window was so grimy and dusty that it served as a nearly perfect light block.

The corners of the window let, however, a bit of light through, and so after a few minutes, I could orient myself again.

Then the greenish neon light on the ceiling went on again.

And it flickered again.

I stared at the light, then at the door to my right that was closed.

I ripped the wires from my skin; luckily, there was no catheter or jokes like that.

Flicker.

An old loudspeaker on top of the ceiling made a few sounds, scaring the heck out of me, before a distorted voice spoke.

"Run... Runrunrunrunrunrunrun... Run!"

The speaker went out the moment the room went dark, and there was silence again.

My heart slammed against my chest as I waited for something to happen, something to come and chase me, something that gave me a hint of whatever I had to run from.

The floor creaked, the light flickered, and the next second something broke.

The floor under my bed collapsed.

I jumped from the bed as it broke through the tiled ground and threw myself in the direction of the door.

Flicker.

FUCK!

Where the bed had been was a gaping hole, and more of the floor broke away, the abyss coming in my direction.

I jumped up and ripped the door open, the ground breaking away right behind me, right in front of me, in the dark corridor in which the light continued to flicker.

More noise told me this fucking building would soon break down completely, and this was a jump and run game, nothing else.

"DAMN IT!"

I had to MOVE; I really had to RUN. I had to JUMP and ESCAPE, so I took my fucking legs into my hands and sped along the corridor.

Flicker.

Two meters ahead, a good chunk of concrete broke away, and I jumped over it in absolute darkness.

Flicker.

There would soon be a turn to the right; another flickering light was hinting in that direction.

I would be led deeper into the building if I took that turn, and given how the side of the building I was currently in was breaking away, I opted to take the turn.

Flicker.

But I couldn’t see around the corner; I had no idea whether there were big or small holes coming for me.

Ah... I get where this fucking déjà vu came from: a jump and run game, looking out for holes.

Didn’t we have that already?

Although these horrors seemed so far away, a paralyzing fear flickered through my system, but I told myself that I wasn’t alone back then.

So I am not alone right now. Henry was guarding my physical body, and I had someone watching out for me here as well: I just have to trust my instincts, my magpie, to lead me, don’t I?

Flicker.

I could see that the wall was intact as I sped towards the corner I would take, and when I took the sharp turn, I stepped on the wall for support to jump ahead while I took a look at the state the floor was in.

Flicker.

Mid-jump, I saw a big hole under me, and there was no ground or anything else beneath that hole, just darkness, just another fucking pharynx waiting to devour me.

At the corner of the hole, thin iron struts stuck out of the floor, so I landed on one of them before crashing on the tiled floor ahead.

Flicker.

I turned around and found that the corridor floor I had just come from was completely gone.

I jumped up and continued to run through the darkness, the flickering neon bulbs on the ceiling not helping one bit, as my eyes never had the chance to get used to the darkness, making me depend on the next flicker.

JUMP!

In the pitch-black corridor, I jumped as I finally heard the magpie singing, and I really landed on solid ground.

I heard more of the ground breaking away behind me, so I ran, I ran, I RAN!

LEFT!

I instantly moved left as there was an apparent new turn with a new, much bigger corridor, and there it was again, the Flicker.

The flicker showed me that there would be a long, big spiral staircase that would start on my right, and looking over the railing on the left, I could see that it would lead to the ground floor, where there was a big black glass front with a huge door that would hopefully lead outside this cursed hospital.

I would jump down the railing, but given the height and my current human body, I decided on the safer option.

I bolted down the steps to my right, hearing and feeling the ground give way so close to my feet that it was NERVE-RACKING.

Flicker.

JUMP!

I jumped the last steps down, and it was good that I did because a big chunk of ground broke away the next second, and I could only stop myself from falling into the abyss by grabbing onto some thin pipes lurking out of the concrete.

No time to think, no time to contemplate, no time to rock my body to the left and right to gain momentum and throw my body back to the ground floor again.

No time to look down.

Flicker.

"Fuuuuuckk!!!"

I pulled myself up until I wasn’t hanging anymore but was leaning on the pipes with stretched arms, then put one knee on them, using my other foot to jump back to the ground.

Landing flat on my face, I felt my lungs sting excruciatingly, my body not having enough air to work with, and noticed that I was drenched in sweat—all these human inconveniences I thought I had long since shed away.

No time, no time to rest and breathe.

Flicker.

I forced myself to my feet, and instead of wasting time by opening the glass door, I used all my strength to lunge as fast as possible at the glass front.

A few steps later, my body CRASHED through the glass, while the ground gave way, and nothing of this damn hospital was left behind.

I wanted to stand up, my ears ringing, my body full of glass shards, but then there were feet on me, many feet trampling over me.

"RUN, RUN, RUN, RUN!"

I was outside, but the speaker continued to bark the command from who the fuck knows where, while I was trampled by probably other Kennys that were also running, all running in a specific direction.

I was pulled up the next second; I was dragged along by my wrist, and while I tried to open my eyes and tried to see something inside this new, very bright setting, the Kenny that had pulled me up let go.

But I continued to run with the other bodies around me that also ran; everybody was running, and now I knew from WHAT, but I had no idea WHERE we were all heading.

Finally, finally, I could see again, while I sped ahead with all my might and found that we were on a massively big street; when I looked back, I saw that the ground here outside was also collapsing, crumbling away as the abyss hunted us relentlessly.

The old Victorian buildings to our left and right were also breaking away and being devoured, and so was the whole rest of the world behind us.

I was one of the last, but I could still see that along the hundreds of red-eyed Kennys that also ran ahead, there was a cliff.

And the closer we came to that cliff, the more we could hear the dousing water that surely had to be our salvation, stopping the devouring abyss and catching us if we just faithfully jumped.

I could see Kennys jumping just a few hundred meters ahead, and I knew I would have to do the same, as there was no other way, as more of the ground gave way, as we would die either way.

There were increasingly more bodies under my feet, Kennys that had fallen, but I just tried not to fall by stepping onto their bodies as the abyss came closer faster; there was no time to bend down and save someone like someone had just done to save me.

The cliff behind, the cliff ahead—it didn’t matter anyway, as it would go DOWN, AS IT WOULD SURELY GO DOWN, EVERYTHING ENDING IN ANOTHER FALL, ANOTHER DEATH.

The cliff came closer; the water that would wait behind it did as well. I could TASTE the salty breeze in the air already.

And there it was, the cliff; I was one of the last to jump, and I instantly saw that there was no sea, just dead bodies hundreds of meters down on the ground, each of them crashed to death.

My heart was beating out of my chest as I was midair, falling again, always falling to survive, falling to get eaten, falling because I jumped.

The wind ripped at my clothes and hair, and instead of the salty breeze on my tongue, I only tasted iron.

But then I could see a living Kenny, with black eyes and with shoulder-length black hair, standing on a stony pedestal inside this canyon full of dead Kennys.

The Maestro’s black eyes found mine, and while I was falling toward the pedestal, the Maestro raised the stick in his hand.

He looked at me bloodthirstily, and I could feel the pressing power, but what was even more evident to me was the fucking wind around me and the fucking ground approaching.

The maestro took a step toward me and accurately skewered my solar plexus with his stick.

My body dangled in the air, held by the stick that held me in the air, with the sea of dead Kennys beneath us.

I blacked out for a second, then came to; blood was flooding out of my nose and my mouth, but I was just happy that I didn’t crash on the ground, my foggy brain not realizing that I had just been stabbed instead.

The maestro’s frilly white sleeves had not a speck of my blood on them as he grinned.

"Did you like the chase?" His voice was way softer than I had anticipated, like velvet that tucked you in for a good night’s sleep.

I coughed out only more blood, my feet swaying in the air, my body cooling, and my heartbeat going from frighteningly slow to agonizingly fast.

He, very leisurely and unhurriedly, lowered his arm that held the stick and my body with it.

"I really..." The lower his arm, the more my body slipped off the stick in the direction of the other dead Kennys deep down.

"...hate all of you."

I fell into the abyss while the maestro watched with mockery and disregard, cleaning the bloody stick with his glaringly white, frilly sleeve.