The second of the four endings. Probably not as good as the first ending in terms of ending, but decently better overall.
I absorbed my surroundings, and took a deep breath, I was so close to the cure, I could weirdly almost feel it. But as I turned around, my setting had changed. The support beams that had previously fallen, were gone, and instead, was a long corridor, with several rooms labeled 'testing room', 'fusion machine'. I took of down the corridor, my two greatest priorities repeating in his mind over and over again. Gathering the others, and of course finding the cure. The first door I stopped off at, was the fusion room, I also made sure to watch out for infected, although I was immune, the infection clearly made me pass out for a while, exactly what happened in the sewers of the school. Inside the fusion room, was a lab like space, counters with different coloured potions inside vials, a huge metal machine was of course the main sight, with three titanic test tubes, the two on either side were signed as 'input' and the middle was 'output', pretty self explanatory. Just then, a sound like a large entity taking a footstep could be heard. And it was close,
"Looks like I got company." I whispered. Diving into a supply closet, and leaving the door a crack open to see what was going on. Then, a towering, disturbing nightmare fuelled beast emerged. It was huge, and bulky, with torn clothes, and gnarly limbs, then there was the head, it was the rotting image of a deceased pig, it had bloody scratches bubbling with pus, and jagged teeth, it had a signature eye of insolence.
"Wouldn't want to get on the wrong side of that thing." I though, barely daring to breath.
The pig creature stumbled forward, jerking with every step. Then, it's nose twitched in the most disgusting manner. Then it plunged it's blistered fist into the closet right next to mine, who's heart was now pounding like the footsteps of the creature. To his horror, the pig wrenched out a person, the man had dirty grey hair with a scraggly beard and faded scientist outwear.
"No, No, Penny, stop!" He begged.
"Penny!" I thought, nearly blurting it aloud. As he recalled, all of Georgie's family were infected by Mr.P, except Georgie obviously. He had previously run into both infected parents, but never Penny, or was it a coincidence. Either way, things weren't looking good for this guy. Squirming and screaming all the way, Penny slung him over her shoulder and tossed him into one of the tanks. Penny noticed icicles had formed in the other tube.
"DON'T!" The man screamed, pleading for mercy, banging his fists on the glass, Penny stumbled over and pulled a lever. Both tubes whirred, and smoke set. when it cleared, there was a frozen figure in the output tube, on it's knees. I gasped, nearly giving himself away. Penny's neck turned like someone had whipped her. After about twenty solid seconds of tension, she turned back. And in one move, she completely shattered the ice sculpture that was a scientist. But then, something just as terrifying entered the room, and it was the opposite build to Penny. This creature was tall and slim, with slimy and oily features, but the worst part was it's head. The feature's head was that of rotten stitched wool, that had...wait...was that an eye of insolence? Right next to it, stood, a slightly shorter version of the creature, expect it's head was teardrop shaped, and had two blazing orange eyes. Penny snorted, then her body changed, it shrunk down until it was a girl, my age. Long hair, long skirt, it was definitely Georgie's sister.
Only, as Penny changed, she was completely a shadow, no visible facial features. But a bright red eye. Then, Penny slunk across the ground in the blink of an eye, before strangling the mini creature and tossing it across the room, it smashed one test-tube and lay on the ground. The insolence creature glared with hatred at Penny, but like more of an irritated glare than a pure angry one. Then, Penny dashed forward, and tried to pummel The wool creature with her bare fists, but it kept dodging, this way, and that way. It ducked and swerved. Penny took a deep breath and stepped back. But now it was the wool creature's turn. It's eye glowed so brightly it looked like the furnace fires of hell. Then it blasted an orange beam of energy at Petra, rasping,
"I AM STITCHY!!" However, Penny had melted in her shadow form, and simply re-formed right behind Stitchy. She punched, but Stitchy created a hole where she punched, and then reformed, trapping her hand inside. Stitchy whistled, and the other creature rose up, it extended it's arms and grabbed Penny, it pulled her and tried to smash her on the ground, but then Penny grew, she reformed into the gnarly pig. It barred it's saliva dripping fangs, before pouncing at the creature. Stitchy charged up another beam and fired, but Penny held out a knuckle, then there was a faint sizzling noise. The beam died out, and Stitchy glared again. The only problem with this, was the fact that I was long gone.
My heart pounded even more as I sprinted out of that room, he I met two creatures that from the looks of they, could have quite simply killed him. But what was Penny all about, she was a write-off, his heart panged painfully when he realised he'd have to tell Georgie what happened to her. He strode up stairs, completely out of breath, and saw commotion unfolding in a room before him. It was Willow and Tigry. Tigry was on one knee, a nasty bruise on his cheek, and Willow standing up, staring down at him.
"Go on then." Tigry snarled. "Finish me, deep down, I know you don't have the heart to." Willow decided to promptly kicked him in the chest, causing him to collapse.
"Maybe you do." He grunted. Willow noticed me.
"Look at this pathetic man." She spat, kicking him again. "Surely you could never trust him." Just something about watching these two endlessly fight, that made my insides squirm.
"STOP IT!" I yelled at them. Both of them looked at me, surprised, before I continued.
"The cure has to be around here somewhere." I reasoned. "It's probably in this very corridor."
Willow and Tigry glanced at each other. I could tell they both agreed with me, Willow to a lesser extent. The two of them rose to their feet and followed me. And then, he checked every room of the hallway that we could find. But then, a miracle happened. At the end of the corridor briefly flickered, just showing a room where a vial sat on a table. The liquid was bright blue.
"Could it be?" I whispered, darting forward. Willow and Tigry followed close behind me as I slowly made my way up to the door.
"Well I never." Tigry growled, running forwards. However, all of a sudden, like something out of a dream, my vision faded to black, and when I opened my eyes, the whole scenery had changed. I was no longer inside the lab, instead, I was in some strange, distorted landscape. And to my horror, Willow and Tigry were about fifteen feet ahead of me. They stood in the centre of the landscape, and they were fighting, only, it was way more intense than before. Blood was flying everywhere, bones were breaking, I had to act fast. And I didn't have too much time to act either, as not too far away from me, several, ghostly entities appeared. They were the colours of the rainbow, red, blue, purple, only they were about two feet taller than me, and nearly double my armspan. I rose to my feet. If I was going to stop this, it wasn't going to be with them around. I started running around the landscape, the floor underneath my feet cracking into nothing. It was like a dream. And then, I circled back around until I was right in front of the battle taking place. Both of them were in bad shape.
"Y-you." Willow said shakily, out of breath. Her left leg was clearly broken, as she was kneeling down, and various wounds sported her face. Tigry wasn't much better, he had a black eye, and what looked like slash marks over his torso. And then, I saw something, to the left of me. A baton! Picking it up in my hands, it was heavy, heavy enough to do some serious damage. I looked towards the fight. And then, in that moment, with the entities wailing after me, I made a split decision. I reeled my arm back before throwing the baton through the air. Towards...Tigry. Tigry saw it coming and caught the bat in his hands. He looked towards me, before nodding with a sort of..approval. Willow looked back from Tigry to me, her face tightened in anger. Tigry then rushed forward, waving the baton madly. Willow tried her best to fend off the attacks, but it wasn't enough, the baton made contact with her skull, and a dull thudding sound could be heard. Wherever it hit, it was enough to knock Willow out, as she slumped to the ground, not moving. And then, as quickly as it had appeared, the vision vanished.
Just as the two of them disappeared, a strange figure appeared in the centre of the room. His hand reached out slowly towards the unconscious Willow.
"This has been a long time coming." It said. "Willow..."
"Thanks for that." Tigry said. "I'm not sure what would have happened."
"No problem." Me and Tigry were back in the lab. Whatever the dream was, Willow seemingly hadn't returned from it. But the two of us had more important things to weigh up. In front of us, was the cure. There was no doubt about it. Slowly, Tigry's hand reached forward towards the cure, but then it stopped. He then turned to me.
"You know what?" He said. "You take it."
"Are you sure?" I asked. "What about your friend?" Tigry then looked at me with a sad, sort of distant smile.
"Don't you worry about that." He said. "I ended up making a new friend all along." I was shocked.
"Thanks Tigry..I." Then I stopped. "Should we leave together?" Tigry suddenly tightened the cap on his head.
"I'd love to." He said solemnly. "But I can't. I have places to be." Realising this was probably the last time I'd ever see Tigry, I did something that most likely surprised him. I held out my hand.
"To surviving." I said. Tigry looked at my hand briefly before a faint smile crossed his face, before he took my hand and shook it.
"To Surviving." He said. "I'll see you on the other side."
After parting ways with Tigry, I made my way into the elevator and pressed a button. The doors clanged shut and pretty soon, I was on my way out of here, with the cure in my pocket. A sort of, bright glow came over my chest. In no time, I'd be back on the way home with everyone and Mimi would get to replicating the cure in no time. Then, we could go around the world, first curing our friends and then we could save everyone. I exited the building into the yard, and sure enough, I could see Pony leaning against a tree, he looked kind of sad. In the moment, I'd honestly forgotten about what he'd done. I was in such a good mood.
"Hey Pony!" I called. But sadly, my euphoria couldn't last. Out of nowhere, an infected mouse burst out of the ground and in a single movement, slashed it's right arm over my ankle. Instantly, I felt an explosion of pain over my lower leg. Before I could react, the mouse's head quite literally exploded. A looked across to Pony, who was holding a smoking revolver, a bullet having just been fired from it.
"I guess we're both turning infected now." He said.
"What?" I said shakily. Honestly, I couldn't quite believe what had just happened.
"That damned moose got me at the port." Pony said. And then there was silence. Neither of us knew what to say. Both of us had failed, so close to the finish line. And then, Pony spoke.
"You know how I told you I was the one who gave Doggy the infection?"
"Yes." I growled, suddenly feeling my anger bubble over again.
"You know, I'm honestly kind of happy-." I suddenly sprung round in my place and glared at him. If my ankle hadn't been killing me, I would've beaten him up a second time.
"YOU'RE HAPPY THAT YOU INFECTED MY FRIEND!" I boomed.
"No no." Pony said, interlocking his fingers. "Not that. It's just that, ever since that day, I've regretted it. And, I told myself, karma would come back to get me one day. And oh god, it finally did." He then relaxed and sank back so he was lying on the ground, his voice was becoming fainter.
"Oh god it did." I couldn't even bear to look at Pony any more, wiping the tears from my ears, I started walking. I didn't know where, just..it couldn't be here. Taking the cap of the the vial, I looked down at my ankle. It didn't look too bad. Some vaccine and I'd be good to go. With a sigh of pain, I raised the bottle to my lips.
This ending is probably more heartbreaking than the previous one if you know what I mean. Anyways, I've suddenly realised that I totally forgot about the two bonus chapters that were released before Chapter 12. So in fact, I'll finish up the Willow endings and then write those two as well. This might have an impact on the pre-may release date. If so, it'll be tight, but if not. It'll be late June at the latest. That's all for now, have a good rest of your day
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Doctor of Fun