Lost in Transmission - Little Nightmares AU

Playing With Fire | 6

I'm dead.

I'm going to be, at least.

I can't run. I can't hide. I can't do anything but watch as the Janitor's arms start searching the room for me. My heart and thoughts are racing. I back against the wall. I have to get out of the way. Where can I go? There's a stack of two locked cages and a crate. Everything else is metal walls and closed space, too small for anything. I'm like a mouse cornered in a metal trap with snakes crawling through the bars to kill me.

Was this all a trap? Did the Janitor mean to bring me here, to chase me where it knew it could catch me?

I shouldn't have run so fast. I shouldn't have yelled at it! I SHOULDN'T BE HERE, I COULD BE SAFE IF MONO SENT ME SOMEPLACE ELSE!

There are so many things I could have done. So many places I could have hid. Waited. Let the Janitor go by. Not trusted Mono in the first place, because look where it got me.

Wondering and wishing won't help. No matter what I do, the Janitor will catch me eventually. There's no way out.

Catch me. Put me in a cage. Kill me. And I'll die. I'll DIE.

What would it do to me? Would it drag me away and leave me in a cage in the dark forever, until my skin rots and there's only bones left? Would it take me and wrap me up and send me off to somewhere that would hurt me worse than if I was just killed?

Hands shaking, I look around the room again. I CAN'T DIE HERE! I want to scream. THIS CAN'T BE IT!

There's still nothing. Absolutely nothing. The only way out is the door, and it's not going to close because of that stupid broken cage in the way....

The cage....

If I'm getting out of here, I need to move the cage.

One of the Janitor's hands moves toward me. I leap back and climb onto the stacked cages. From there, I crouch and wait, hoping I can't get caught. The Janitor moves in a pattern. A hand stays right next to the cage - probably in case it breaks and the door closes - while the other searches that side of the room. Then it switches. The Janitor never reaches up here.

How can I move the cage? It's squished between the door and the ground; I know I won't be strong enough to move it. There's two bars holding it up, though, so if I could pull those off, the cage would break, the door would shut, and....

....And it would cut off the Janitor's arms.

My eyes widen and I grin. I can kill it. For chasing me, for breaking the music box, for trying to kill me. Finally, it's going to die!

I just can't let it catch me, or it's all over.

Timing. If I'm going to do this, I can't just rush in. I have to be patient. Holding back a sigh, I silently repeat those words in my mind. Be patient. Don't rush. Be patient.

I wait for the arm closest to me - Its right arm, I think? - to slide back to the doorway. The way is clear. It's smart to wait longer; I know that. But I hate waiting, and being slow could kill me too, I reason, because if the Janitor can't find me on the floor, it'll search where I'm hiding.

That reason isn't really why I'm going fast. I want this to be over. I want to kill it already so I don't have to run and hide and be afraid anymore. It needs to die, and I want to be the one to kill it. It has to be me, because...because...I don't know why. The only things that I really know are that it deserves to die, and I can kill it, and I'm not going to leave until I watch it die.