The opening act finished, and everyone was preparing to go their separate ways. Hamz and Nasri took a ''Ryde'' together, which is an app that calls a taxi.
Ace wanted to talk to Ax about both of their performances and how the crowd affected them and just wanted to catch up one more time before they called it a night.
He looked around; after watching Nasri and Hamz leave through the exit, he saw Ax slowly walk towards the same exit.
Ace ran towards Ax, his own gig on his shoulder.
Ace saw Ax walk through the door.
"Was... this always black?" he asked himself.
Ace looked through the door frame to see...
"Red?" he asked himself.
"Why is everything red?" he continued.
As he took a few steps inside, the door slammed shut, all by itself.
Slam
Ax looked behind him, towards the door where the noise came from.
His eyes widened in shock.
"Ace?!," Ax screamed.
"Why are you here?! Did you follow me inside!?" Ax asked Ace over and over again.
"Where... am I? Did we get lost or something?" Ace asked Ax, confused.
Ax ran past him towards the door. He shuffled for the door to open.
"You''re kidding me!" Ax screamed.
"You okay? Ax? There''s another door right there we can"—Ace''s words stopped mid-sentence.
A bony hand erupted from the red grass, grasping the ground right in front of Ace.
Ace fell backwards in fear. "What... is that?!" Ace asked Ax as the skeleton kept trying to climb out of the ground.
Ax dropped his bag on the ground and ran to Ace''s side. As the skeleton''s head was popping out of the grass, Ax kicked it after getting a running start, dislodging it from its neck, causing the skeleton to stop moving.
"No time to explain," Ax said as he ran towards the gun and dagger on the ground.
Ax picked them up and threw the revolver at Ace.
"What the hell am I supposed to do with this?" Ace asked, his heart beating as fast as a hummingbird''s, the fear adding to his already caffeinated blood.
Dozens of bone hands escaped the grass from below. The skeletons are crawling out of the grass and getting up on their two feet, preparing to lunge at Ax.
"Aim for the heads, cover me," Ax said as he rushed a skeleton.
"What?! Are you crazy?" asked Ace, worried for Ax.
A skeleton tried grabbing Ax''s arm; Ax swatted it away and lodged his dagger into the elbow crease of the bony figure and twisted.
Pop
Ax dislodged its arm, the arm falling on the ground, its skull lunging at his neck.
Ax shoved his thumb into one of the eye sockets and grabbed the top of its skull and pulled it up, exposing the skeleton''s neck, giving Ax a better view.
He shoved his dagger in there and dislodged the skull swiftly, causing the skeleton to drop.
He then threw the skull at another who was running at him.
This caused the skeleton to lose balance. As the skeleton was trying to get back on track, Ax picked up the arm on the ground and hit its skull as hard as he could, causing it to fly off. The skeleton is falling forward.
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"What the hell..." Ace muttered to himself.
He was looking at what looked like two dozen bony skeletons, running around with the intent to kill. Ace was shocked to the core, but what made it even more shocking was the fact that they were actively trying to kill Ax... and were losing.
Ace was looking at Ax, winning a fight where he was outnumbered, two dozen to one, and he was winning?
A skeleton was able to sneak up on Ax as it lunged to bite the back of his head.
"AX!" Ace screamed out at the top of his lungs.
Ax looked back to see the skeleton, already in his face.
"Shit," he muttered.
Crack
The skull became encased in ice. Freezing over, causing the body of the skeleton to fall to its side and the skull to shatter into shards of ice.
Ax looked in the direction the crackling sound came from, and he saw a petrified Ace, holding up the silver gun.
"You did that?" Ax asked Ace.
"I—I guess so?" Ace replied to Ax.
"Well damn, good jo—" Ax got cut off; he looked down to see a red bony hand sticking out of his chest, through his heart.
He looked back up at Ace, his eyes losing vision.
"Shoot..." Ax tried to speak to Ace once more before dying.
"AXTON!" Ace screamed out to his friend, who was now bleeding on the ground, dead in his own pool of blood.
Crack
Ace shot the red skeleton as he quickly stood up.
Crack
Crack
Crack
Crack
Ace kept shooting the head of the skeleton over and over again till he ran out of bullets, even though its head got encased in ice with the first round.
"Damn it!" he screamed out as he ran out of bullets.
Ax hid the red skull encased in ice with the backhand of his handle, shattering it into a million shards. He then pulled off the arm of the red one with all his might, dislodging it. He then started to attack the other skeletons with that arm.
"AX!? You''re alive?" Ace screamed as he asked him.
"But I saw you—" Ace looked at Ax''s body on the ground. He was silent.
"Well? Air out your gun and keep shooting; we''re not done yet," Ax commanded Ace as he was fighting off the skeletons.
Ace opened the cool metal cylinder of the gun; as mist escaped the chamber, he closed it shut and started shooting the skeletons.
Crack
Crack
Crack
Crack
***
After around thirty minutes, all the skeletons were dead on the ground, with a dead Ax with it.
Ax walked towards the red tree.
Ace ran towards him, getting ready to ask a million questions.
"Ax!? How did we end up here? Did you die? Since when can you fight like that? How were you so cal?" Ace kept asking more and more questions.
"Ace. I need you to keep shooting that tree," Ax demanded of Ace.
"Alright...? Why though?" he asked as he shot the tree with his icy bullets.
Crack
Crack
Crack
Ace spread his shots out all over the tree.
Crack
Crack
Crack
Dweller Slain
"Who said that?!," Ace asked Ax.
"No clue, it just happens when you kill the main enemies and you clear a room," replied Ax as he picked up a sheathed katana that was lying on the ground.
"What do you mean by... ''Room''? Are there more? How long have you—" Ace got interrupted again.
A black door appeared in front of Ax, separate from the door at the end of the room.
"I''ll... explain everything on the way back..." replied Ax.
"Okay...?" Ace acknowledged Ax''s comment.
As Ax opened the door, he walked back into his apartment, his own room.
Ace followed him inside... with his eyes even wider open.
"What the f@ck?" he reacted.
"Wash the paint off your face. How do you feel about a sleepover? Haven''t done that in a while," Ax asked Ace.
"I feel like you''re brushing off a major detail, no, a dozen details, Ax, including that sword you just happened to pick up from the ground." Ace looked into Ax''s eyes while talking.
"We''ll get to it; I''m just tired, and so are you. I''ll fetch you some spare clothes," Ax replied.
***
Both of them took turns washing their faces and getting changed; Ax gave Ace a spare T-shirt and a pair of sweatpants.
"You calmed down a bit?" Ax asked Ace as he was going through his fridge.
"A little. Are you going to explain to me now or what? Also, why are you going through your fridge?" Ace answered Ax with a few other questions.
"A while ago, I walked through a back door the same way you did, kinda. It just appeared in front of me. I walked through it, had to kill a goblin with a rusty dagger, and got a gun of my own," Ax explained to Ace as he pulled out a carrot.
"Ace, grab the dagger again," Ax continued.
"Alright, I guess." Ace followed his instructions.
"I''m going to toss this carrot, and I need you to try and hit it when you throw the knife at it." Ax explained.
"Alright... sure, I guess." Ace was ready to throw it.
Ax threw the carrot towards his closet.
Ace talked to Ax while throwing the silver dagger, "Okay, but I swear I saw you die; what was—"
Ax hit the moving vegetable straight through the middle.
"...that ...about?" Ace trailed off as he stared at the dagger that was sticking out of the closet door and the two halves of the carrot on the ground.
"You... never had that good of an aim, did you?" Ax asked Ace.
"No... I always had trash aim," Ace replied.
"Yeah, for some reason. When we walked through those doors for the first time, we got a random superpower," Ax explained.
"Mines... never missing a shot?" Ace asked.
"It seems so... yeah," Ax replied.
"My power is the fact that... I can never die," he finished.