My head is still ringing, but I almost force myself to come to my senses. His face looks distraught while he looks at the dead body. I get myself to my feet and walk up to him.
"Aiden… are you okay? Calm down okay."
"I… I killed him… I shot him to death…"
"I know… its okay. Just put the gun down okay. What happened?"
As my mind starts to clear slightly I look over to the body and notice the blood on the metal pipe. He was closest to me when I picked up the book. I see.
"As soon as you looked over to me… he hit you over the head. You didn't go down so he hit you again. He was holding his arms back preparing for a third hit when I pointed the gun at him… He tried talking me down… and when that didn't work…"
I can see his face change drastically as he's remembering what occurred
"He charged at me… I shot him… then again… and again… and again. I shot him until I knew he was dead… I killed him."
I put my hand over the gun and his and lower it slowly. He's holding his head down, but i notice something while getting a glimpse of his face. He's… smiling.
"I… I killed him… kehehe… I… I KILLED HIM! HAHAHAHA! That sick fucking bastard, he deserved it after he tried that shit. Worthless fucking shit"
He pulls the gun away from my hand and opens the chamber, adding more bullets to it.
A shiver goes down my spine witnessing his drastic change of demeanor. I grab his shoulders and shake him while calling his name. I didn't expect it to do anything but in an instant his facial expression changed, he looked shocked, and then I could see a glimpse of fear in his eyes as he started to panic.
"What… What's happening to me? Why did I do that? What's wrong with me? What's wrong with me…"
He repeated that phrase a few times under his breath before I grab his shoulders firmly.
"Get a hold of yourself okay. You're stronger than this. Don't lose yourself to this place. You did what you needed to do. It was either him or us okay. You did the right thing. You did a good job."
He looks at me and nods his head. He seems somewhat more stable now. Which is what i was hoping for
"Aiden. We're only on the first layers of this place and we've seen not even people who are human can be fully trusted. If the time comes you can't waver. Listen… if someone's a threat, shoot them dead with no remorse."
Aiden looks towards me, while he's still shaken up I can see the conviction in his eyes. He nods his head to me and puts the gun back in his pocket.
I pick up the book and stare at it for a moment… I walk over to Aiden putting it in his hands
"Actually no… Your objective here is done. This is what you came here for right."
"You're the one that found this, would you really give it to me?"
"Yeah… take it and leave this place. You've seen enough of this already."
He remains silent for a bit before speaking.
"No."
What? His answer shocks me so much that I struggle to find words for a moment
"What… what do you mean?"
"You're still going to continue right. It's only going to get more dangerous from here. Like you said we're only on the upper layers. I'm not gonna let you die here. Not in this place, this… this isn't a place anyone should die."
I can only imagine the look on my face while he's speaking. It doesn't make sense. He has an option to leave this place. This hell, is he really not gonna take it purely for my sake?
"I… I don't know how to respond to that. Okay. When we leave this place we're leaving together."
"Right."
He might be the only person I'll meet who would be willing to do this. If I were in his shoes I'd take the opportunity in a heartbeat. I suppose he's simply a better person than I am. But most people aren't like that. I look over at the dead body of the man once again. Even in a place where it would be infinitely safer to form a group of people, humans can't discard their selfish desires… I would've let him have one if we found more. It reminds me of the streets of where I grew up. People I ran jobs with, if something went down no one would look back. Doesn't matter who was or wasn't running alongside us. At the very least I've been trying to give people here the benefit of the doubt, but it seems like I can't do that. I can't die. Not yet. I look towards aiden.
"Ready to go?"
"Yeah, let's go"
I pick the pipe off the floor and strap it to my bag. It'll be useful to have something longer than my knife. As we leave the room, we both take one last look at the dead body before stepping right over it as if it were a mere rock along our path. Aiden is right. This is no place to die. We walk through the floor with the sound of our footsteps being the only thing accompanying us. Seems like that thing was the last one here. I'm sure if there were other things they would've come rushing at the sound of the gunshots. We're lucky we managed to kill that thing when we did. We reach the entrance to the next floor and begin to descend. We reach the bottom, another floor different from the rest. However, this leaves more of an eerie feeling. For some reason my stomach is turning more than usual. Could it be the old one's presence grows stronger as we descend or maybe it's the floor itself. It's hard to tell. A single pathway in front of us. Lined with torches on both walls. With nothing else to do, we walk along the pathway.
Step, step, one more step…
We've been walking for around 10 minutes now. The hallway doesn't seem to end. Same with the torches. How long does this go on for?
After walking and walking eventually the line of torches come to an end. Both of us stop for a moment… because what's ahead of us is pure darkness. The unnerving feeling grows stronger as I look at the nothingness in front of me. I look towards Aiden and nod my head. I can tell from his eyes he's just as afraid as I am. We take a step towards the darkness.
Step, step, one more step…