Never Ending

Slow and Steady Pt. 3

"Lets kill him again." The hyena said as soon as the sloth woke up.

"We just ate." The sloth yawned as he stretched.

The two looked at the human in question who slept on their floor, still covered in blood. A brief moment of silence elapsed before the sloth finally spoke up. "We should clean that."

"Yeah." The hyena agreed ruefully.

Carrying Kostas, the two ran him a bath and got to work scrubbing their floor clean of the blood that had dried onto the stones. When Kostas awoke, he found himself on a different part of the floor--naked. The two Hellions looked at him in confusion when he let out a cry in shock.

"I don't sense much suffering;" The hyena remarked. "What do you think is wrong with him?"

"I don't know." The sloth scratched his head. "Maybe he liked being dirty."

"I'm glad we cleaned him then." The hyena laughed.

"Where are my clothes?" Kostas asked while trying to cover himself.

The hyena rolled its eyes. "Why are humans obsessed with their rags?" It glared at Kostas. "They were filthy. Besides, no one in this place cares what you look like; you're just a food source."

"I'll still take my pants back." Kostas replied in defiance.

They looked at each other and laughed. The hyena started wiping tears from his eyes. "I can't believe he is emitting suffering over rags."

As their laughter continued, Kostas felt himself growing more and more flustered. Then he noticed that not only were his clothes gone, but also all of the dried blood that had been covering his body. "Why did you clean me?" He asked suddenly in confusion.

"We don't want you messing up our clean floors." The hyena crossed its paws.

"You cleaned?" He looked over to where he had been lying when he fell asleep. There was not a single drop of blood. "You two did clean. Why?"

"Why?" They hyena asked angrily. "I don't know, maybe because we live here. Do you think moron over here wants to step in your mess every time we need to cross the room? What, just because we're demons we don't have standards? Is that what you thought?" It questioned indignantly.

"Yeah. That pretty much sums it up." Kostas replied dryly. 

The hyena growled at him. "Lets kill him."

"We just ate." The sloth replied as it went to lie down.

"Fine, we don't have to kill him; just make him suffer a little." The hyena began to beg.

"I don't feel like it." The sloth said sleepily.

Kostas watched in horror as the hyena sank into the sloth's body. The Hellion quickly picked up a knife and lunged at him with it. Panicked, Kostas just barely managed to dodge the creature. He winced as he frantically tried to pull himself up to run away. His twisted leg buckled awkwardly the moment any pressure was put on it. As he fell to the floor in a heap, Kostas felt the blade bite into his thigh.

As he hissed in pain, the sloth let out a high-pitched laugh. "Told you we would make sure you shed some tears." It said playfully.

Kostas turned to face his attacker. Even though he had just been stabbed, the most shocking part of the whole ordeal was witnessing what he could only assume was the hyena taking over the Hellion's body. With a crazed look in his eye, the sloth swung the knife down--aiming directly for Kostas's face. At the last moment, he managed to block the blade with his arms. He cried out as the metal dug into his arms.

Then, just as suddenly as it had started, the sloth stopped the onslaught. Its eyes returned to normal and the blade dropped onto the ground with a clang. The hyena resurfaced onto the sloth's shoulder, looking exhausted and annoyed.

"Now I have to walk all the way back." The sloth said gruffly as it turned to make its trek across the room. It glanced at the blood spattered on the newly cleaned floor and sighed. "We'll have to clean that up sometime."

By the time it had reached its bed in the corner, the hyena was already fast asleep from the exertion of taking control for so long. Kostas watched in wonder as the two fell asleep--leaving him completely alone and unbound. He glanced down at his mangled leg which now had a gash that was dripping blood. His eyes then turned to the knife that had been left lying right beside him.

Grasping the knife, Kostas decided to take his leave of the two creatures while they were both asleep. As he crept out of the cave, he tried to make his movements as painless as possible. The last thing he needed was for another Hellion to be attracted by any suffering he was emitting. As he supported himself with the side of the stone wall, Kostas made sure to stay in the shadows; thankfully, no other creature could be seen at the moment.

'I just need to put some distance between us.' He thought as he urged himself onward into the unknown. Once he was sure that he had gone far enough away, Kostas allowed himself to rest. Looking over his wounds on his arms and legs, he found that they were still dripping blood; leaving a trail behind him. Again, he glanced down at his leg. He winced, seeing it still twisted in an unnatural direction--especially at the thought of what he would have to do in order to fix it since the bone had already healed in the wrong position. 'I can't do anything about it right now.' He thought as he tried to relax himself. 'Breaking my leg again would definitely bring some unwanted attention.'

Kostas rubbed at the scar that had formed over his heart. His heart still hurt faintly with each beat, making him suspect that it was probably not in the correct position. 'There is no way I'm re-opening my chest.' He thought, shuddering at the memory of feeling his warm insides squish around his fingers as he had put the organ back in his body. 

"I need a plan." Kostas muttered as he sat in the shadows thinking to himself. "Korbin needs me to die, but these creatures are trying to destroy me. They don't care what happens to my body so long as they get fed." He furrowed his brow in concentration. "Maybe if I just kill myself when a Hellion is near, it will go into the comatose state. They seem to do that whenever I die."

"That's a good plan." 

Kostas felt his heart stop at the sound of a voice coming from right beside him.