Not alone

The Fallen rushed to the top of the bone mound as Oscar did his best to hide.

He left behind him one of the lanterns, now attached to the battery of the fallen Canadian mech besides him. He did the best he could not to breath as he laid flat on top of the shredded machine, just out of sight.

They surrounded the pile and got closer, biting each other at times if one got to close to the other. The moment the flesh was torn, the crystals in closest proximity started to glow.

Bone grew flesh, and flesh grew scar tissue.

The worst part was how much they seemed to enjoy the wound.

Oscar couldn’t decipher what it was. Excitement? Bliss? Fascination perhaps?

Oscar did not know, and though he did not want to stay around to find out, Oscar waited.

And waited.

He waited until they were all surrounding him. Close enough thy could touch him.

And then, He jumped.

The moment he passed over the Relentless they all reflexively attacked.

Oscar found himself rolling to break his fall, then immediately slid on the bones to the bottom of the pile.

The older relentless reactively grabbed the lifeless machine and ripped it in half.

But the monstrous kids started to chase Oscar immediately.

Oscar shot a blast of fire up the bone mound while trying to get as far away from the enemies as he could.

The fire engulfed the four, grey skinned and spike covered kids. melting their skin on their legs into their flesh as they laughed. They paused for a moment to smile and enjoy the moment while their bones grew flesh again.

They almost looked like they were playing as they rolled in the bones on the way down, their legs not working with the muscle burning.

But they crawled towards him anyway.

By the time Oscar got to the corridor out of the room they were already walking.

And before long they were all sprinting after him.

The corridor did not seem to end.

It was a long curving line that provided no room for hiding or confusion.

After what seemed like forever, Oscars legs started to hurt as his lungs were burning.

“This place is the worst” Oscar yelped as one of the kids grabbed a hold of his mech.

Oscar fell down while the adult Relentless closed in.

In one motion, his saw found its purchase in the monsters shoulder, splitting him all the way to the belly button as he started laughing hysterically.

While his assailants muscles were reforming, Oscar kept the momentum of his fall and transitioned it to an awkward roll forward.

The long lumpy corridor seemed to get narrower as Oscar advanced. Scarping against his mech as the walls bent. This only served to amplify the weirdness of his attackers proportions.

Even though he was three meters tall in his Mech, the kids were almost his size, while the adult monsters were even bigger.

Their flesh seemed to scrape as they climbed on top of each other to get to their prey.

Almost turning themselves into a wall of arms, teeth and crystals.

But Oscar could not stop, even if his side began to hurt, even if the walls snagged on his mech.

Oscar had to break anything in his way while trying to get to what seemed to be a light at the end of the tunnel.

Oscar jumped forward into the narrow opening to the next room, barely fitting as he stopped dead in his tracks.

“No! No! No! I cant be stuck!” Oscar yelped as the severity of the situation became apparent.

The firefighter did his best to get loose as he fired a stream of flames towards the monsters.

He could hear them laughing as they broke each other’s bones on the walls just to get to him.

He could hear the fire reach them and make their kin boil.

And he could hear they actually enjoyed it.

He felt a scratch on his legs, then another.

He pushed one final time with all his might, breaking a small piece of stone caught in one of Chestnuts joints and rolling forward to a other large room.

He spun around. And shot some more fire into the tunnel. Just for good measure.

The enemies shrieked in frustration of being caught while laughing at the bliss of the fire.

In one last struggle the two four-meter-tall parents managed to push forward and out of the cave. The sound of skulls being squished on stone sloshed throughout the catacombs.

And just then the laughter of two of the kids died out.

The parents lumped forward with three quarters of their skin missing and huge gashes of bleeding flesh laid bare. They looked like minced meet, but they still moved forward. Their laughter only intensified with the magnitude of the pain.

Oscar chose to run as far as he could while they were still somewhat immobilized.

He barely had time to see the room he was in, only that it had two exits and was built in a vaguely triangular shape.

As he got out, he could see that what used to be the mother and father stopped to pick up the bodies of their squashed children.

Though they were mangled and torn they took a moment and stopped to lift the dead Fallen into an embrace.

And then they laughed. Harder than they ever did, so hard they coughed up blood.

Their smiles so wide they cracked their faces on to a bleeding mess.

They almost looked like they were mourning if not for the blissful expression.

“Oh no…” Oscar thought as the monsters started to bend and twist their form, body heat rising by the minute.

After a while Oscar broke eye contact with the creature due to a bend in the corridor he got to. “Maybe they stopped ?” he thought cautiously.

But before he could even slow his pace, the now much more slender and prolonged Relentless were once again in hot pursuit. Laughing even harder than before.