Episode 19

Capri's remains slowly sizzled in a puddle of red and yellow. The screen doors remained shut. Not only had they lost Capri, but the keycard as well. Ethan couldn't look back at her melted corpse, not ever again. It took the three of them a few minutes to gather what had happened, but now all of them had the same crazy look in their eyes.
They were dead. They were all dead, Ethan thought, it was all a matter of time.
"W-what now..." Genessee sniffled, "Is there n-no way out?"
"Our way out just melted someone," Ethan said.
Something in Matthew finally broke. He looked wildly about the room, occasionally running towards a wall and pressing against it as if it would move.
"He said... he said... there were two ways out... not to pick the wrong one... where's the right one? Where!"
"Does it matter?" Ethan asked, "We don't have the key anymore. It's gone."
"This can't be it," Matthew ignored him, "There has to be... somewhere we can..."
"Hey, man," Ethan said, "We'll..."
"We'll what!" Matthew shouted, "We'll what? We screwed up, we chose wrong..."
Genessee began to cry again. Ethan gave up trying to talk to Matthew and returned his attention to the sleeping man who fell out of the pig corpse. His fingers began to twitch.
"I think he's waking up," Ethan announced.
The man's eyes flickered open, revealing almost clear colored irises. His nose crinkled in disgust, "Ugh... what stinks. W-... Where am I?"
The man bolted to his feet, but began to sway and fell back to his knees. He brought his fists up as if ready to attack someone.
"Woah!" Ethan backed away, "Chill, chill..."
"Where is he?" the man barked.
"Who? Who!" Ethan put his hands up in defense.
The man spotted Genessee, and if it was her innocent face or bright pink haired that cooled him off, whichever, he seemed to wake up from his trance.
"Where are we?" he asked.
Genessee answered, "We don't know. We were brought here... I-I think by a mad man."
"Wait..." Ryan blinked, "Wait... I know you. And you two."
Matthew drew away from the walls. Everyone seemed confused.
"You're the missing students," the man said, "We've been looking for you! I'm Detective Robinson's assistant, Detective or... Jr. Detective I guess, Ryan! Ryan Nelson."
"Detectives?" Genessee's eyes seemed to glow, "They were looking for us?"
"Yeah!" Ryan said, "You're Genessee, I remember your hair from the photo. We were following some leads in the case but... "
"You're trapped in here with us," Matthew said, "Why?"
Ryan scratched his scalp, "I'm not sure myself. Last thing I remember... I think I was jumped. I remember hearing my phone go off a lot... Aw, man." He buried his face in his hands and spoke muffled nonsense.
"Do you know what's going on here?" Ethan asked, "Because if we don't find a way out we're all going to die."
Ryan recovered, "Sort of... it's a lot to explain. This is the bad guy's domain, huh? Doesn't look good... We don't know who it is yet, but we think he's part of a death cult. Like I said, a lot to explain, and I'll gladly do it once we get you kids out of here. What about that door over there, it's blocked off, but I bet we could-"
"NO!" they all said in unison.
"It's a... trap," Ethan explained.
"Ah, ok," Ryan coughed, "Ugh, I don't feel so good. And I smell awful."
"You were inside of a pig..." Matthew muttered. It was unclear if Ryan actually believed him, but he didn't seem too distracted by it. Instead he was inspecting the room with sluggish and drugged calmness.
"No exit, huh," Ryan walked towards the middle of the room, "Well... That's not entirely true."
His feet stopped at a metal grate on the floor. It was large enough for people to fit through, but none of them had thought about it since...
It was a drain.
"Help me," Ryan grunted as he pulled on the bars.
Matthew didn't look convinced, but stood on the other side of the grate and pulled. The bars groaned, and with the conjoined effort they were able to lift it open. Ethan and Genessee tiptoed closer to get a better look, and were both repelled by the sight. And smell.
"Gah! Oh hell..." Ethan's face twisted.
"Nasty..." Ryan agreed, "Are we desperate enough?"
Genessee was on the brink of tears again, but when she glanced back at acid pool with Capri's very few remains, she nodded, "I think we are..."
"I can go first," Ryan offered.
"No, I'll go..." Matthew said.
"You sure?"
Matthew didn't say anything, but sat on the edge of the hole and swung his legs over. It was hard to tell where this drain went. The drop down wasn't too high, but down below looked like a giant slide. The entire drain was at a slant without an end in sight. That could be do to all the blood and gore.
"Careful," Ryan said.
Matthew nodded. Ethan sat at the edge as well, "Right behind you. This looks like Sun Splash for diseases..."
As soon as Matthew dropped himself into the drain he began to slide. His backside dragged through the chunks of red that smelled rancid and rotted. Blood splashed against the walls of the drain the faster he started to fall. He was picking up speed, hitting more slimy contents that Matthew refused to think about. Vomiting could commence any second.
The light at the end of the tunnel was less than pleasant. The drain suddenly ended, letting Matthew fly out of the tube and fall into a gigantic pool of thick maroon goo. There was no stopping becoming completely submerged. He clamped his mouth and eyes shut as tightly as possible.
Everyone fell in soon after Matthew did. It was a good thing the pool was shallow, because navigating in the gelatin gore was near impossible. Ethan scraped the goop from his face and blew through his nose trying to make an airway.
"This... is... freakin' disgusting!" Ryan chocked.
Genessee struggled to shake off the blood pudding and whimpered in distress.
"This is insane..." Ethan rubbed his beard until it was raw, "This is... Are we out? Is it over?"
Ryan's button down shirt had no chance of being white ever again. He ripped off his tie and shoved his sleeves up to his elbows, "Well... we're definitely out of one room, but it looks like we're in another."
It looked like a really old sewage system. The ceiling was a dome. Multiple tunnels led away from the pool into further darkness. Ethan had to pull his legs like he was walking in tar, but made his way to dry land, which was a ring of cement around the pool. He took a few moments to breathe through his mouth, trying to block the smell. That's when he heard the gurgling.
The grizzly breathing echoed off the walls from one of the tunnels. There's no way, Ethan thought, there's no way that same monster made it all the way down here before they did. No way.
But the gurgling sounds were spot on. The others weren't there when the beast tore Macy apart, but he was. He knew.
They were here in the dark and blood with the blind skinless monster.