The lone Lukas of the Supercitadel, now in A24's crew after disguising himself as one of them, was now excited because they had just murdered the rest of the crew which came down with them.
Earlier, during a break, he had strangled one of A24's crew and stole his armor before throwing the body to the undead for food and garbage disposal. He had started to scream and shot around into the horde, killing all of them after the corpse was unrecognisable. The rest of the team thought that Lukas and the one he had strangled were attacked while making sure their surroundings were clear and Lukas had died.
They ran through the corridors, weapons deactivated as they were sure that A24 had cleared the way for them. The rooms were just disgusting to look at. Due to their speed at which they progressed through the rooms Lukas had not enough time to look at the rooms fully, but he noticed bandages and metal scraps laying around everywhere.
Lukas' stamina had almost fully run out. He could not tell them to take a break, each one of them was trained and so was the Max he had killed, it would be obvious that he was not part of their original crew if his stamina was already empty.
He had to come up with an idea so as not to run out of stamina and be caught. His eyes wandered quickly around each room, scanning for the possibilities: "Start to pick up the scraps? Or could I bring attention to the bloody bandages and medical equipment laying around? No! They definitely noticed these already and are ignoring it." His mind started to panic, "Do I need to hope for undead in the next few rooms? Or… wait!" An idea came to his mind, "Could I artificially create an adrenalin rush and keep going for a lot longer?"
He slowed slightly down, starting to jog.
"Good idea." Said one of them and they all slowed down a bit to preserve energy.
"How did it work? Something with my breathing." He just could not come up with how it worked.
The crew noticed him, sunken in thought. "You good?" They asked.
"Deep quick breaths, I think." Lukas started to quicken his breathing. With every breath his heart started to beat faster and louder. His lungs started to hurt and his skin started to sweat but a quick burst of energy overcame him and he suddenly sprinted past the rest of the crew.
The crew quickened their pace again, trying to keep up. Lukas ran through a door into another room, and again he burst through a closed door. He ran for what felt like dozens of minutes but was at most a minute long.
Entering another room he was startled by the sight in front of him. Trying to dodge it but instead he tripped over cut up parts of flesh on the floor and crashed against the creature filling the room.
A24's crew entered only seconds later.
A24 was sitting on a creature they could only assume was Lina. It was a mess of tentacles and green acid. He was resting his arms on his legs and his head hung facing down. In his hands were two small pistols.
"Captain!" They screamed and quickly climbed the creature to pick him up as he was unconscious. Behind them Lukas stood up. His eyes wide at the sight.
"No… No!" He whispered loudly, "I wanted to kill it! It was mine!" He started to beat his fists into the corpse over and over in anger and blood came shooting forth from the wounds he inflicted.
His gaze went towards A24 as he was being picked up from beneath his shoulders and joints. The blood shooting out of the body hit his skin and he noticed something crucial: "It's still alive!" His voice cut through the quiet of the room and Lina's body started to move, tentacles rising from the ground into the air.
"A trap!" Lukas yelled and quickly ran up the path which A24's crew went up, staring at them as the tentacles opened up beneath them, swallowing some of them whole while others were cut in half once the tentacles closed again. The remaining members threw A24 from the body onto soft and dead flesh to save him from Lina.
Lukas reached the remaining members, pushing them down towards A24 taking the sword one of them was carrying. "Time to shine." He muttered.
Thousands of tentacles surrounded him or opened beneath him again and again. He dodged the holes and cut most of the living tentacles in two. "LEAVE!" He screamed.
He continued to cut the tentacles. His strength leaving him again after they had left he searched for the body of the creature. "Where is it?" He stepped back, dodging a tentacle from the side and accidentally stepped into a hole behind him. "SHIT!"
He dropped into the dark moving cave of tentacles and flesh. He quickly activated his armor before hitting the floor, losing consciousness.
⟪⚪⟫
"So let me get this straight: You are a clone—"
"Duplicate, yes." The woman interrupted him.
The Teddy Emperor sighed. "A duplicate, got it. And you say this world— my home— is a simulation?" He glanced at her with scepticism, "Did I get that right?"
She nodded: "Yes."
The Teddy Emperor was sitting cross-legged at the table, one hand on the table, supporting his chin while the other one was stirring his hot chocolate. He leaned back in his chair and took a sip, pinky not on the cup.
He put his cup down and looked her into her eyes. One of the two was staring back at him, the other one was moving. She was analyzing the room they were sitting in, and it was obvious that she was astonished.
"You want me to believe all that?" He asked and raised an eyebrow.
Both her eyes focused on him: "Of course. And if you don't believe me, I can prove it." She stood up and leaned across the table. It was hard for the Teddy Emperor to keep his focus on her and not her chest hanging onto the table but he was trying to restrain himself.
Suddenly she pushed her fingers around the Teddy Emperor's eyeball. "Ah!" He started screaming at the feeling of dry but smooth skinned fingers touching his eyeball. He grabbed her lower arm with his nails trying to rip her hand out of his face, but his nails could not penetrate her skin and she would not budge.
"Keep still." She commanded and the Teddy Emperor could not move anymore.
He tried to speak, to complain, but he felt that he could not. Once she pulled her fingers out of his eye he could move again. Rubbing his eye he muttered something under his breath.
"Put down your hand and look at my world." She said happily. Her voice was filled with delight at the thought.
He pulled down his hand and said: "Holy Shit!" He could see the world normally but at the same time he saw letters and numbers and weird symbols making up the world.