Amnesia: The Painter's Prison [An OSC AU]

FAIM

Paintbrush's hands clasped onto their handle, their palm resting where their heart would've been. Sound sound of rapid heartbeats filled the empty void. Lightbulb licked her lips of the crab's innards, her tongue lolling out as she approached her friend. "Lightbulb, please...it's me...there's got to be some other way..." Paintbrush mumbled, patting around the submerged floor for their firepoker.

"Your smell...sooo...familiar...sooo...tasty...SO MEATY..! I want to taste it all...! I want to rip you from limb from limb and feast on everything you can give me..!! All the blood...THERE WILL BE SOOO MUCH...give it all to me..."

As Paintbrush was able to grip onto the handle of their firepower...

...Lightbulb pounced.

"G I V E  M E  Y O U R  F L E S H ! ! !"

Paintbrush struck Lightbulb quickly with the fire poker, causing her to fly into the wall next to her. The shattering of glass echoed through the chamber as pieces of her head scattered around the watery floor. However, that wasn't to say her whole face was busted. Her left eye was still very much intact despite the massive blemish to the right of her face. Had Lightbulb always been this durable...? Usually she would break so easily. They saw it with Knife too, unexpectedly more strong than they remembered him being.

What did Airy do to her?

"I'm sorry!" Paintbrush yelled as they quickly bolted in the other direction. Lightbulb cackled in response, "AIRRRYY~! LET ME T A S T E YOU!" Getting onto her hands and knees she crawled after Paintbrush at practically Mach 10. The art utensil managed to get out of her sight by rounding a corner, causing Lightbulb's scent to be thrown off. Looking around like a hungry predator, she cackled and ran off, the distancing splashes indicating her leave. Paintbrush sighed a breath of relief, holding onto the side of their head. "...There has to be another way...I...I can't kill her...not Lightbulb...anyone but her..."

And yet...the truth of the matter was...

This was what had to be done.

To save her.

To save everyone.

To save...themselves.

Airy had to pay.

Quietly trudging through the waters again, they shone their lantern down the hall where they just ran away from Lightbulb in. Through the tide, they suddenly stepped on what they thought was Baxter's body, still sitting in the bottom of the water, meat hanging off of the bite marks taken into his body. Tears stung in Paintbrush's eyes...

"...I'm sorry, Baxter..." Was all they were able to say.

Shining their relit lantern through the darkness, they were eventually able to come across a large iron gate, held down by a lever next to the door. Paintbrush rushed towards the closed grate, looking through to see some sort of stone garage-like room on the other side. A ladder was visible through the gaps of the gate, leading up to a trap door. "...Airy..." they said under their breath. They quickly grabbed onto the lever and began to pull against it, using practically all their strength to pull it downwards. The grate began to rumble, slowly lifting as Paintbrush lowered the lever.

"AAAAiiirrryyy...! I seeeeee yoooouuu~!"

Paintbrush could hear Lightbulb's sing-song voice from down the hall. Their face turning a shade of gray, they began to put more effort into lowering the gate, up until there was a small gap that they could squeeze their flat body into. Quickly, Paintbrush got onto their stomach and began crawling under the gate, holding their breath as they crawled through the water, re-emerging from the other side.