Mortuus groaned as he awakened. He stood, the bones of his spine cracking into place. His neck was in pain but seemed okay.
"What happened?" Mortuus questioned as he staggered into the bathroom across the hall. He stared at himself.
The bandages around his neck were drenched in blood. He touched the applications. Still wet.
However long he had been there, it couldn't have been more than an hour. "The blood would have dried if I was here for longer than sixty minutes." He reasoned.
Mortuus picked up his revolver from off the bed. He thought that if he hurried, he might be able to find Willem.
A thought that quickly disappeared as he left the house. The street was unnervingly silent. He could drop a pin and hear it from the other end of the road.
He sighed and sat on the porch stoop. He lifted a flask from his trench coat pocket and took a swig.
"I lost him." He spoke through the bottle.
Death slowly rolled from the shadows, nodding his head in agreement. "Indeed, Mortuus." He spoke with understanding, "You cannot blame him for losing a battle he never wanted."
Mortuus looked up at Death. Wiping vodka from his chin, he spoke. "I don't blame the victim. We were never meant to be here."
He stood and walked down the road. His cannabis smoke trailed behind as he puffed. Death glided behind him.
He continued on his way down to the town square. He stood in front of the fountain. It was a place he often came to think.
Sure, the old church was just across from it, but not many people went there after the tragedies. Most just couldn't continue to have faith in God after the horror.
"Please tell me what to do. I need your help, Maria." Mortuus begged as he kneeled before the fountain, his head resting on the stone.
Silence.
He knew it was pointless, but what did he have to lose? He stood up, wiped his tears, and returned to the bunker.
Mortuus suddenly noticed a sound coming from an old beat dirt path as he neared the bunker. Had this path always been here?
He didn't bother to think and instead began moving down the path. It was unkempt, with weeds and roots growing all over it.
Had he not heard anything, Mortuus probably would have never noticed it. As he continued to trudge the path, a building came into view.
It was an old mill, probably built in the early 1800s, entirely wooden with rusty, bent nails. Attached to the central part of the mill was a large room, probably for lumber, made of hand-laid brick.
Mortuus stepped closer to it. The windows were shattered, and bottles surrounded it. It was pretty clear that it hadn't been very successful.
As Mortuus walked up the side of the building, he could see a massive saw blade through the window. Each of its points was at least the size of his head—just a hollow reminder of the town's once-booming industry, lumber.
The old rust-covered saw lay there like a sleeping beast. The talk of the town was that it shut down after a man was chopped to pieces by the massive blade.
Whatever the reason for its abandonment, the building was creepy. It would give even the bravest urban explorationist the willies.
Mortuus jumped as he heard a loud creaking. He turned and located the sound. The wind swung an old hanging chain from a broken window.
He chuckled nervously to himself. Even the rickety boards groaning under his boots were making him uneasy.
A faint glow from behind a stack of wood caught his eye. It obviously wasn't an old bulb. All the lights in the mill looked like they belonged in a museum.
Maybe if the old Crater Hollow Museum hadn't caught fire two years ago, these things would be in a museum, but they're merely sitting in the old mill.
These beauties of time were now just trash rotting away inside the walls of abandonment. As Mortuus admired the old relics, he was suddenly paralyzed with fear.
Willem walked toward Mortuus; the pod in his hand was glowing. Mortuus could see each breath, the small pod lighting up each time.
"You shouldn't have come back, E-5," Willem said, his voice hardened.
Mortuus laughed, cannabis smoke billowing out with each hearty laugh. "I used to think the same thing, Willem."
Willem lifted his arm and pointed his outstretched palm toward Mortuus. A large metal cable lifted like a snake and coiled around Mortuus.
The coil tightened and burrowed into Mortuus, bursting into the walls. Mortuus screamed out, his lungs filling with blood.
Blood poured from each opening and dripped down his mouth. "This world shall feel the pain it caused, and you will not stand in my way," Willem shouted angrily.
Mortuus grabbed part of the coil and tried to remove it. "This... isn't..." He coughed up more blood as he tried speaking, "...The way."
Willem ambled toward Mortuus. His walk was staggered and uneven. "The old way died with me in 'nam."
Mortuus gripped the coil and yanked it from his stomach. He fumbled to grab his revolver. "The war is over, Willem."
"But it's terror, isn't."
Mortuus held up his revolver at Willem. He didn't want to shoot him, but each encounter made it hard to choose peace.
Willem looked down the barrel of Mortuus's revolver. He snapped his fingers, laughing.
As if alive, the coil straightened in a flash, tearing Mortuus's body to shreds. Pieces of his body were strewn about, ligaments sliding down the walls.
The white walls were a deep red now, and pieces of Mortuus lay all over. He watched Willem leave from an eye that was stuck to a wall.
Mortuus's ligaments slowly slithered toward his eye, forming a rough, bloody splotch of a vaguely human shape.
His skin slinked like a sickly slime over his tattered muscle. Slowly, his teeth tore through his jaw to reform.
Death leaned over, extending a hand and helping Mortuus to his feet. He parted his jaw as if to speak but refrained.
"What in the world was that?" Mortuus questioned Death. No matter how he tried, Mortuus couldn't seem to reword it.
He ran outside his revolver in hand. Mortuus looked around, but to his dismay, Willem was gone.
He ran into the forest and made a mad dash for the bunker. There have to be answers somewhere. 60Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfPlGMKv8bc
