Riley turned away apathetically from the bleeding heap that was Sey, his pants whirring up again as he began to pace off. He had every intention of walking off this way as if he were some kind of innocent bystander, ignoring both Epsi's panic and Tad's sobbing, but the whistling stopped him in his tracks just long enough for him to hear his own conscience. And that... was disastrous. What had he done?... Hadn't he just gone above and beyond what any 'normal' slig would do?... And the whistling... No, any other slig would have... And the whistling... But he didn't have to... He could have just struck the thing a few times; he didn't have to shoot... And the whistling...
After an eerie pause of a few seconds since the whistling had stopped him, he suddenly turned his head in Tad's direction so quickly that one might've assumed his whole body was mechanical for an instant, his blood-splattered tentacles shuddering as they caught up with the movement. "Shut up! Stop it!" he shouted, silently pleading that the mud would obey. It was ironic how he reacted to the whistling now and not even he understood why. Earlier he had enjoyed it, and now he couldn't stand it. He was wavering between the slig he was and the slig he wanted to be-- all the while tormented by the possibility that he might have gone overboard.
That fucking noise.
When the whistling continued, he turned fully to walk up to Tad, turning his gun on its butt again and trying to drive it into the cowering mud's side even more swiftly than when he had struck Seydas. "I said, shut up!" Another forced move he instantly regretted. He wanted the whistling to stop, the crying to stop, he wanted to not pity these muds... However, like an uneducated, unruly child, all he knew as a means to an end in his life was force. And force, in a situation like this, would just make matters worse.
Tad's sobbing and whistling, Epsi's reaction, Riley's further steps and words and violence...all of this seemed very vague and far-away to the panting, whimpering Seydas. Maybe it was the blood loss, and maybe shutting off his senses was his way of dealing with the pain. Which there was an awful lot of. He concentrated first on catching his breath. If he passed out, that was probably the end of him...since clearly, no one was likely to help him but himself. Tad was too busy being timid, depressed and now victimized, and he probably didn't deserve any kind of help from the older mud, though he certainly wouldn't have turned it down. After a few moments he was lying still, hands clamped around his bleeding wound as tightly as he could manage, gradually breathing more evenly as the adrenaline helped him adjust to the pain. More quietly, too, as he realized he was no longer the only victim. Best not make that slig any more volatile. He had never hoped to have to use his knowledge as a tribal healer to help himself, but at least he could tell it was already working. His head was clearing gradually, enough for him to think of the next step. Gotta bind the wound. Nothing to bind it with but that oily, bloody rag and my own loincloth. Well, life over decency I guess. That or death by infection or blood loss... He just laid there a bit longer, hoping he would retain consciousness until the whole situation calmed down. At least the bleeding was slowing. Or at any rate, he couldn't feel any more blood seeping out from beneath his hands...
Calming down, Epsi's head fell into the bucket. Although he still felt incredibly ill, he knew he had to stop everyone else for his own well being, first Sey. Although he absolutely abhorred the guy, he knew something had to be done. He lurched over to Sey, although he was no medical profession, work required him to know how to bind wounds, as many accidents often befell the workers.Tearing off the back pocket of his own loincloth, he then tore it into strips, although first he'd have to get the bullet out, if it was even still in there.
"Okay, you think you can pull that bullet out?" he asked Sey, as ill equipped to handle this as he was. He pondered taking him to the Vykkers, but he knew what kind of messed up crap happened down there. He glanced to Tad, a look of pity on his face.
There was nothing else Tad could do. Although the whistling stopped with the blow, the sobbing started up again, harder this time, as his entire buddy trembled and wheezed and gasped for breath. Now there was misery, and there was pain, and he didn’t know what to do with himself... “J-J-Just l-like h-him,” Tad sobbed, the words bubbling out, barely audible over the racking sobs that shook his entire being down to the core. “J-Just l-like him, j-just like him, just like him...” They became more even with time, more audible, and it became a chant - no. Not a chant; it was a curse. Sligs were all the same. Sligs were heartless. Sligs didn’t deserve to live.
And neither did he. Couldn’t he do anything right? Couldn’t he have stopped this from happening, couldn’t he have done something? “Just like him,” he said one last time before falling completely silent, shivering and sniffling. The whole world was just like that Slig that had pushed the Mud into the grinder, the Slig that had broken him. In fact, the world and everyone in it was that Slig, and his life was the grinder, a slow-moving grinder that was going to pull him and everyone else into little, tiny pieces. He wanted to die... But he didn’t deserve to die, no; this was the fate he deserved, the fate within that slow grinder. He couldn’t do anything to help Seydas, or Epsi, or anyone else. He couldn’t even help himself.
Riley was infinitely relieved that the whistling had stopped, but that feeling didn't last for long. The next words that came from the groveling mud's mouth had him step back and waver in his stance: the gun he held seemed to increase tenfold in weight, he nearly dropped it and fell; he nearly fainted. His unstable nature was to repeat itself: just as he had bounded from misery and sadness to anger and violence before, he did so again, gripping the gun tightly and keeping himself poised to bring it down again on the sniveling heap. "No, I'm not! I'm not, I'm not! Shut up!" While he didn't hit Tad again, it gained him no points for kindness considering how ready he felt to do so.
Seydas blinked at the voice, and seeing the white-feathered fellow above him. The only thing he expected less than that was for the slig to show them the exit and wish them well. "I...maybe. Maybe." He moved his head, trying to look down, but he really couldn't get a good look at his leg from here. He risked moving a hand from his leg to push against the floor, bringing himself into a sitting position with a rather pained-sounding grunt. He shuddered to see his wound. Awful. Blood all over the floor. He forced himself to ignore it, act like he was just another patient. Trying to keep pressure on the wound with the one hand, he felt beneath his leg with the other and shuddered again at feeling an additional wound. That was why he didn't feel any more blood, it was just going somewhere else. "Nevermind. The bullet didn't stick around. I will hold it." He clamped his hands hard over the top and bottom of his thigh with a whimper. He hoped he hadn't lost too much blood. The fact that he would now owe this fellow meant little to his bruised ego at the moment; his pride knew when to finally give way.
Epsi took the rag, makeshift as it was, and quickly dressed the wound in the thigh, there were other matters to attend to, such as getting the blood off the floor, and of course Tad. "Er...little help would be nice." he mumbled as he thumbed to Tad. He wasn't much of someone you could depend on for moral support, but he knew a depressed mudokon could mean a suicidal mudokon, so if anything he wanted to avoid that. He was sympathetic, and his facial expressions showed it. As much as he loathed the idea, he knew for both his coworkers, he'd have to be the whipping boy. He gulped, closed his eyes, and threw something soft at Riley to attract his attention.
Tad was quiet now. Maybe, just maybe, if he was still enough and silent enough, he could melt away into the floor... Puddles of grease and water didn’t have to worry about their friends getting hurt. They didn’t have to worry about anything. He wanted nothing more than to be something negligent like that, something that could be mopped up without a second thought, something that didn’t have to deal with this unbearable pain.
The pain, and these Sligs. These terrible monsters... How he hated and feared them now. They were hideous inside and out, soulless and bitter and cruel... That goddamned Riley. He deserved all of the mental anguish he was getting from this - at least, that’s what Tad would have thought, had he known about the Slig’s current mental turmoil. The broken Mud knew nothing of his overseer’s strife; as far as he knew, Riley was enjoying every second of this, that filthy bastard, that slimy, disgusting, putrid beast...
Oh, how Tad hated him.
And then there was a new sound, a sound that would probably be quite familiar to Riley. In the distance there was a raspy, high-pitched humming - sort of like a drunk wasp, if the imagery is necessary - and the rusty teetering of some mechanical pants that had most definitely seen better days. A miniature Slig came bumbling towards the group with his gun clutched in his tiny, wrinkled hands, his tentacles twitching perfectly against the beat of both his pants and his terrible song. Nothing about this tiny industrialist seemed to be in sync, to the chagrin of the rest of the world; he redefined ‘off-beat.’ There would be no mercy here, either - the humming only stopped when he called out to his friend in a high-pitched squeal.
“Yo, pinhead! Haha, just kiddin’,” he squeaked, waddling over a bit faster. “Riley, ma’man, whass’ happen-- ...”
Oh. Blood. A lot of it. And apparently it was coming from that new capture.
... What the Hell?
“Shit, man!” He squalled in that unbearable voice of his, flailing towards the injured Mud in a tottering, arm-waving panic that would’ve been quite comical if the situation had been different. “Wha’appened here, Riles? Good gravy!” Good gravy? What kind of a Slig said that? “Blood all over’a place...”
Riley's hands trembled subtly with the weight of the gun, his glare still fixed on the cowering mud. Skree had caught him poised to strike, there was no doubt about that. Once Tad's sadness had bothered him, then the lack of whistling, then the presence of whistling... now, it was the poor thing's silence that incensed him. Though he wasn't in the mind to see it at the moment, he was acting just as that sadistic slig that had tormented Tad in his earlier days: everything turned into a reason to hit the poor mud. He wanted things to be normal again, to rewind this scene and not shoot that mud, to... damn, to have a different block. It was of his nature as an industrialist to rapidly point fingers, and that finger had turned away from himself and Sey and was now on Tad. The shread of loincloth that Epsi threw indeed caught his attention, and very thankfully for Epsi, a familiar sound approached just then from down the hall.
He lowered his gun a little upon Skree's arrival, turning slightly to eye him. Perhaps on other days he would have responded with just as lighthearted a greeting, but the delay that preceded his reply should have immediately indicated that something was amiss. As per usual, his eyes, mood, emotion, and everything else was hidden behind that glaring mask, and only his tone could indicate that he was not amused. Half of him didn't want to put himself into trouble with Skree, and the other half knew he would be in trouble anyway. That latter half decided he should lay his actions out straight... and even try to justify what he had done. "'Ey, it's about time. I was startin' ter think they f ucked up the schedule... I shot that one," he said, his voice flatly toned as though he were discussing something trivial. "He was pissin' me off, yammerin' on, and then he threatened me, so I shot 'im. This one, he's ... he's..." What was Tad doing that deserved Riley looming over him, ready to strike?... Riley faltered notably as the question came to him, but he pressed on anyhow: "He's fackin' psycho. Look at 'im. This block's a mistake, Skree, we've gotta do somethin'." That latter half of him then added, "And I don't want non'yer mudlover bullshit." That part of him was obviously expecting a fit or a reprimand... and he was prepared to defend himself . Indeed: just before Skree's arrival, he was desperately questioning his own actions, and suddenly, he was ready to defend them.
Seydas eyed the thumb, and the sad one, and then the concerned one, seeming to take a long time to grasp the situation. "Little...help. Yeah." Moments after his wound had been so graciously bound, he was rapidly beginning to feel woozy. Adrenaline must be running out. That WAS his blood all over the floor, after all. "We can't let anything happen to the fellow." Or that was what he thought he said. It slurred together into something more like "We can' lennythinapp'n t'fella." He didn't even really notice the throwing of something at the slig, and was only vaguely aware of the new voice - though Riley's still came across clearly to him. He kind of wanted, no REALLY wanted, to speak up and tell his part of Riley's story - what threat? - but as he tried to get up, his leg started hurting much worse, even with him putting all his weight on the other. As he plopped back down onto his mud-butt, his head started to spin. "Whoooa, um...yeah..I'll just..." Thud. Seydas was on the floor, unconscious. His newly bandaged leg gave a sharp twitch, and then he was still.
"Unconcious, great..." Epsi said to himself. Now he was the only mudokon able to fend off those overseers. He didn't know what to do. That distraction didn't work, so now he had to try a different approach. Slapping his head, he looked to the new Slig, along with Riley, and said to himself "This guy needs a shrink more than I do." He made his way over to Tad, somebody sounded like he needed a pat on the back. "Hey, stop cryin', it'll get better, I swear." He didn't know how true his claims were, but either way, there was some oil on the ground, black ,black oil, and he got an idea. Scraping it up in his hand, he coated his hair in it, maybe if nobody saw him he could spare Tad a beating. Thinking of the time he got no brew for a week, and he turned a deep shade of blue. Aside from the torn loincloth, there wasn't much to tell him and Tad apart.
Tad would have appreciated the help, but unfortunately for Epsi - and fortunately for himself - he’d managed to sink himself into his happy place. He was back in his village, working happily and whistling happily, amongst friends that didn’t get hurt. The sun felt so warm on his back... And the grass tickled the bottoms of his feet, too, in that special way it had. He remembered the time he’d decided to chase the fish in the river; he couldn’t have been older than a toddler... He had walked around in the water, grasping at the fish that darted about his legs, giggling - one happy baby. He could recreate these memories so well when he put his mind to it, so well that the cold metal and steel of the industrial life evaporated and left him at his home.
“It’s so warm,” he mumbled under his breath.
Skree was about to address Riley when Seydas hit the floor, and the shock of the sudden motion nearly caused him to leap out of his pants. “poopoo, this one’s bad,” he squeaked, his wobbly pants bringing him unsteadily over to the KO’d slave. In a lack of anything better to do, he turned his gun around in his palms so that he gripped it by its muzzle and lightly nudged Seydas with its blunt end - the industrial equivalent of poking someone with a stick. “Yeh, I know, Riles, I’m sorry ‘n’ all,” Skree muttered as he ‘worked,’ rhythmically prodding Seydas in various places, “but... Didja really have to, y’know... Shoot ‘im?” He knew he would probably be scolded for that, so he continued without pausing. “I mean...” Two Muds appeared unconscious, and one seemed distracted enough, right? “... Y’know I feel bad fer ‘em, they’re kinda like us, in a way.” For being pretty dumb, he had an outstanding sense of justice, which never worked in his favor.
Poke poke.
“Guess he ‘served it, though, if’n he was threatenin’ yer... ‘N’ y’know I had that ‘un fackin’ crazy Mud, actually liked him a whole lot, real nice guy...” Clearly, Skree had no idea that Tad was the very same. That reunion would come later. “... Why’d y’hit the nutter, though, Riles?” This obviously didn’t sit well with him at all.
Riley, upon hearing the thud, turned his head to face Sey so quickly that one could take the opportunity to call him concerned. Great... He had no idea what to do about the mud, and he felt pressured to help him somehow... but now that Skree was here, that was out of the question. "What the hell are ya talking about?" he said as soon as he regained his composure and turned to look back at Skree, his tone lightly dipped in disgust. "They're nothin' like us. I hit the nutter 'cause he's a nutter and deserves it, an yer startin' ta sound like one talkin like that! Ya want me ta hit you, too!?" The reason for hitting Tad was made up on the spot, but he was quick to utilize his ability to turn anything into a threat.
"Just how did ya mean, they're like us --..."
The one-track mind characteristic of his species kept him only vaguely aware of the movements Epsi made, and he fell silent for a moment when he noticed that there were two cowering mudokons where there should have been one. They were trying to make a fool out of him... He stepped back away from them, a mechanical growl rising from his mask. "Thought we had at least one sane mud, Skree... Get the fack up, Oatmeal Head, yer in fer a beatin'. Ya got till I count ter three or I'm gonna pound you both." Get up, I don't wanna hit ya...
"Beat me in his place." Epsi simply said. It was suicide, as much as he hated it, Tad didn't deserve the beating, he just wasn't emotionally stable. He was being far too charitable, and he knew it. "What the hell am I doing?" he thought to himself as he gazed into the distance. The whole factory never seemed to end, and he knew he would end up spending his entire life here doing the same thing, eating the same food, and getting the same beatings. These guys didn't deserve it, they had people that probably cared about them out where the factories finally ended, but him? Nobody cared, and because of that, he was willing to take the beating.
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