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He should be happy that they came for him. He should be spitting smug ‘I-told-you-sos’ at the glitch beside him who had an arm loosely wrapped around his waist.
Yet, all he could feel was the vice-like grip of the unrelenting terror constricting around his throat and heart which made him feel like the world was collapsing onto itself beneath his feet. He gritted his teeth and unknowingly leaned his weight on the smug glitch to his side for support otherwise he would have fallen and he wouldn’t know if he could ever get up.
He couldn’t speak. He couldn’t breathe while he stared across the room and into the other Septic’s mixed reactions of horror, anger, and disgust. He wondered what they were thinking right now, seeing him so close to their most hated and feared nemesis with the other keeping him close to him. He wondered if the disgust and anger was for him, for being so weak and broken. He wouldn’t blame them.
After all, he felt the same for himself.
Anti was saying something. It was probably another one of his grandiose speech— but no matter how hard Chase tried, he couldn’t get a tight grip on his crackling, mind-grating words. It was like he was trying to get ahold of water in his own bare hands, it always slipped through his fingers no matter how hard he tried to.
Normally, his words clung to you, piercing into your mind like a stubborn itch that you couldn’t quite scratch before it fades away into the darkest corners of your psyche, turning into a quiet, subtle whisper that was always there in the background as if it had always been there from the very start.
“How about we let him choose then?” Chase’s mind suddenly came back into focus as Anti’s arms migrated upwards to being casually swung around his shoulders. “After all, it’s quite rude to choose someone’s future without any of their input when they’re right here .”
Chase hunched on into himself when Anti leaned closer so that they’re cheek to cheek. He could glimpse the razor sharp smile on the glitch’s lips at the corner of his eyes before Anti cooed mockingly, “What say you, Chase? You wanna stay with me or are you gonna go back to the others?”
He swore that he felt his heart stop at the question. The cooling fire of terror earlier flared up in his veins, burning brighter than before. Chase opened his mouth and closed it again when he couldn’t muster up a voice around the noose on his neck. His eyes snapped back and forth in-between his prison warden and the other Septics. He could feel the sweat dripping down his neck as he swallowed around the lump in his throat.
“Stop this, Anti! This is not a fair situation for him and you know it!” Henrik snarled and would have marched forward in an attempt to come closer to his petrified friend from the glitch’s claws if it weren’t for Jackie grabbing a hold of his shoulder to stop him. “You are frightening and manipulating him from making an independent answer!”
Jackie stepped forward, slightly placing himself in front of Henrik. He narrowed his eyes at Anti and said, “You actually think we’ll believe you when you said that you’re going to honor your promise of letting Chase go when he chooses us? We’re not idiots, Anti.”
Anti straightened up into his full height, twisting his face down into mock hurt and clasping his heart as if he had been hurt by the hero’s words.
“Why hero! You might just hurt my feelings with your harsh words!” Anti feigned a soft whimper before he burst out cackling, the force of his laugh shaking his and Chase’s body. He gave Jackie a smirk that spoke of knowing secrets that would hurt them. “Besides… when he chooses you? You tell me I’m choosing for him when you’re doing the same. You’re all just a bunch of hypocrites. Can you believe the nerve of your friends , Chaser? You of all people knows that I always keep my promises.”
At that statement, Chase flinched back and would have torn himself away from Anti’s hold if it weren’t for the nails digging into the skin of his shoulder. Chase trembled lightly, tears biting at the corner of his eyes as he bit down on his tongue to stop himself from sobbing.
Red… There was so much red…
Guts and gore were splattered all over the room and him as he stared unseeingly at the torn pieces of the bodies that the glitch had dropped in front of him and gently wiped all over his body. He had vomited out his practically empty stomach to the side earlier and cried all the tears that he could. His voice was gone, worn out and shredded from his screams and begging amidst their screams and pleading for him to save them.
Claws scratched painfully at his scalp as the glitch carded his fingers through his blood and dirt matted hair. He whimpered softly, straining his throat, before Anti shushed him and rocked him in his lap.
“Oh Chaser… I told you didn’t I? I promised that if you were a good obedient boy I wouldn’t have had to punish you. I keep my promises Chaser but since you tried to escape me again, I had to discipline you.” Anti sighed, disappointment heavy in his tone. “So really, little brother, you only have yourself to blame for their deaths.”
“Don’t leave me! Please don’t leave me alone again !” Chase pleaded as he clutched at the glitch who held him in his arms after he finally let him out of his solitary confinement in that dark space of the void with only silence as his companion.
He didn’t know how long he had been there. It could have just been a few hours or even barely an hour but to him, it felt like he had been there for years . The void swallowed up his screams and sobs until he had no voice left to give. The silence and the biting cold of the space carved into him, ripping out pieces of himself until he was left a desperate husk of himself that would accept any form of grounding touch from anyone even if it would be from the very being who stuck him in there.
“Shhhh little brother, I’ll never leave you alone. You’ll never have to fear being alone ever again.” Anti whispered, static and influence sinking into Chase’s desperate and willing mind. “ I promise .”
Chase screamed as Anti dragged down the knife that had been impaled in his right thigh, his skin and muscles parting like the red sea under the glitch’s favorite torture instrument. Anti entangled his claws into Chase’s matted hair to lift it up and slam it down on the ground, cutting short the man’s screams.
“It doesn’t matter where you’ll try to run or hide, little brother.” Anti drew a long bleeding line on the dazed man’s cheek with a claw as he leaned closer so that glowing acid green eyes would pin down glazed baby blue ones. “ I promise I’ll find you and drag you back here into your home kicking and screaming even if I have to rip apart every single person who’ll attempt to get in my way. I will paint the world with your friends’ and loved ones’ guts and blood until you come back to me and trust me, if you manage to escape, when I catch you, I will make whatever pain you’re currently suffering mere child’s play to what you’ll experience when I get my hands back on you.”
“Why so quiet, little brother? Don’t you have anything to say to your friends?” Anti murmured, eyes glinting with an emotion Chase couldn’t quite place a finger on. “You gotta choose, little brother. Your future’s up to you now.”
There was a hidden message there, Chase just knew it. He gulped in some air as his mind worked itself down to try and decipher whatever the fuck Anti is playing at. Is this another one of his tests? He’s lost count of how many times the glitch had done this in his dreams, or in reality, creating illusions of events where he has to choose. The wrong answers normally meant pain while the right answers gave him the touch and gentleness that he so craved desperately. He wanted to ask if this was another test but just one look into Anti’s mesmerizing eyes told him that he wouldn’t get an answer even if he tried.
“I…” Chase croaked out, glancing at the forms (are they real or merely illusions?) of his friends who were still watching him with concern and Anti, with hatred.
“Chase please… We’ll protect you, we promise.” Marvin pleaded, the magician readying his magic just in case a battle occured.
But Chase doesn’t know if they could even keep that promise especially not after he had been under Anti’s ‘tender’ care. He knew how powerful the glitch was and how dangerous he could be if one incited his attentions. If he even came home, what would happen then? Would Anti break one of his promises just to keep this one? Would the others even be able to protect him if Anti decided to break the promise of letting him go?
He took one last look between the two forks in the road in front of him and he breathed in deeply.
He opened his mouth and made his choice.