Quoted By:
>GTFO
Shit, shit, shit. If you'd submitted to the experimenting, really gotten Pat in a good mood, maybe you could've skated by with this. But last she saw you she was ticked off, and that was <span class="mu-i">before</span> you busted into an off-limits room and pilfered a scraper and fed the fucking flesh tendrils— there's no way she doesn't know about the flesh tendrils, right? They don't look new, and she fucking lives here. And there's no way she wants <span class="mu-i">you</span> to know about them, or she would've mentioned them at literally any point.
And it broke the drain. Four strikes. If you were a little less stressed or a little more creative you could probably bluff some gullshit about being sleepwalking or mind-controlled or whatnot but you're blanking hard on specifics and there's footsteps, now. The door's closed. No way you can clean up the water in the hallway, that's a lost cause, but you can dart forward at least to slam the light switch off and—
—as you do, the hall light comes on. It's just barely enough to see by, which is just barely enough to stop you from registering that you're now locked in a tight and windowless box. Or maybe it's just that you're not in a body that can cramp or sweat or itch. Breathe! You're not safe yet. Pat can still stroll in and catch you red-handed, whether you crouch uselessly behind a shelf or not. If you're committing to this— and do you have a choice?— there is exactly one option. You're trying not to look at it.
It doesn't make much of a difference, practically speaking, between being trapped in a big box or a little box. You know this. In your head you know this. But your neck is not turning and your feet are not moving and in the <span class="mu-i">other</span> part of your head you're running through 50 million insane what-if-I-get-stuck, what-if-I-starve-there, what-if-Pat-snaps-the-cord, what-if-I'm-cube-shaped-forever scenarios. You need somebody to take you by the shoulders and give you a good shake and a hard slap. You need this more than anything else in the fucking world. But there's nobody here, and you can't fucking split yourself in two like a worm or a starfish, and you don't have an evil ghost or your own common sense walking around to help. You have a tentacle.
...Can the tentacle... no! It can't. (Why would it? Fucking hell.) It's stopped doing <span class="mu-i">whatever</span> it was going to do and is instead jamming itself down the drainhole: you grasp your wrist and watch numbly until it goes. And then you're alone in the mostly-dark and the footsteps are ever-louder and the door handle <span class="mu-i">rattles</span> and—
(1/3?)
