Chapter Text
Shrimpo Pov
Shrimpo cursed under his breath as he ran agonizingly slow towards the elevator. He ate his spare speed candy in hopes to be faster, but it barely made a difference. Five seconds. He could see the elevator. He saw Finn’s worried face. He saw Scraps and Connie hollering at each other over something he couldn't hear. He ran as fast as he possibly could, being nearly at the elevator as the door started to close. Finn grabbed Shrimpo by the wrist and flung him into the elevator, pushing himself slightly out as he did so. Shrimpo landed roughly in the elevator, nearly falling when he hit the ground. He turned to yell at Finn for touching him.
“Finn! I didn’t need your-”
Shrimpo stopped short. His tail drooped and his blood turned to ice as he stared where Finn had just been. Instead of the stupid, jokey fishbowl he had grown to like, there were two blackened legs and a pool of ichor. Shrimpo stared for a moment, his mouth agape. Then he felt his stomach flip over, and he clasped his hand over his mouth to not puke. His head was spinning with nausea and disbelief. Finn couldn’t be gone. Not like this. He realized he’d shut his eyes tightly, and he hesitantly opened them again. In front of him was Astro, who’d rushed over to him when he gagged. His one eye was panic-stricken, even more than it had been when his boyfriend Cosmo had died.
“Are you alright?” Astro said, his normally soft voice tense
Shrimpo couldn’t speak. He wanted to nod, but he wasn’t okay. Finn had just sacrificed himself to save Shrimpo. He stared blankly at Astro, his sight growing hazy at the peripheral. His knees gave out, and he collapsed on the elevator floor, his hand still over his mouth. For once in his life, he wasn’t angry. Astro looked worried, but he didn’t try to make Shrimpo talk. Astro glanced over at Scraps and Connie, his gaze concerned. Shrimpo numbly sat on the cold elevator floor, not daring to move. He eventually stood up and walked out of the elevator after it opened, looking anywhere but Finn's legs. He wandered around the floor for what felt like hours, but it was only a few minutes. He stumbled across a machine, and started trying to complete it by habit. He had never felt this level of dim despair. The growing sense of hopelessness overcame him. He began smashing his head violently against the machine till he tore a gash in his forehead, frowning hard as tears formed in his eyes. He stared at his reflection in the machine’s glass walls, watching the ichor that had seeped out of the cut on his head drip down the machine’s outer glass. He began punching the machine, causing the glass to shatter. The ichor shot out and coated his face and hands, sticking heavily to his skin. The splintered glass shards stung in his fists. He felt so much pain, but he enjoyed it. It felt like he had control. The world around him started spinning, and a red haze washed over everything he could see. He lost his balance and fell backward, landing hard on the back of his head. He turned his head to the side as his vision went in and out, the last thing he saw being a different version of Finn. a version of him that was filled with thick, black water instead of clear. A version of him that had glowing red eyes and sharp teeth. A version of him with no legs and ichor gushing out his abdomen. Shrimpo thought he was hallucinating. His vision went black, and all the searing pleasure of his pain faded away, along with all his other senses.