kpwu
long
tale

Feaser and Esgol went down yet another flight of stairs. Suddenly, they were no longer in what Feaser called the backstage. They had ended up in a villa. A seaside villa. The walls were a greyish white, and through large windows the sea shone its blue color. A great blue sky loomed above.

"Oh wow ! A villa ! this place is great huh. Think we should wait here ?" exclaimed Feaser. "No. Something is wrong. Look outside."

Feaser examined the outside for longer. Then suddenly it hit him. Just like before, the sky had been painted on the walls of a huge room. "Oh wow." "Look at the sea too." And indeed, the "sea" had been printed on a piece of cloth that was waving up and down by some unseen mechanism.

"What do you think this place is ?" asked Esgol
-Honestly ? I'd say a movie set. Or a studio.
-That would make sense for what you've seen yeah. Not really for mine though.
-You never did tell me where you woke up, by the way.
-A hotel lobby.
-That doesn't sound so bad
-A hotel lobby suspended by a flimsy scaffold in an all-blue sky.
-Oh. That explains the fall."

They started to look around. Quickly, they noticed a trapdoor on the floor, although it was locked. The floor they were on -the only floor- had a small living room with a fireplace and two white couches. There was a kitchen, with all common appliances, except for a fridge and an oven, and in the back there was a simple bathroom, with a shower, a sink, a medicine cabinet, and a toilet. There was no other way forward than the trapdoor.

"Well let's see. How could we open that lock ?"

"No idea." "Yeah, same here. Let's just look for a key."

They resumed their search. Feaser looked in the fireplace. "Hey uh, there's something here ! I can't see what though." Esgol took down one of the curtain poles and handed it to him.

Feaser tried to dislodged the stuck item, but hit the pole too hard and it broke. "I'll do that." Esgol grabbed Feaser's flamingo and dislodged the thing.

Said thing was... a skinned rabbit. Whole.

They stared at the rabbit for a few seconds. Then, Esgol took it and washed it in the kitchen. She took a knife and started to cut into the rabbit. "Are you checking if there's a key inside ?" "Yep."

Esgol tried to split the carcass, but didn't manage to. Something kept the knife from moving and cutting through.

"Hold on, I'll do that." Esgol stood up, and Feaser took her place. He started to slice, and eventually opened the rabbit in two. He had separated the inclusion that kept Esgol from succeeding into a separate hunk of flesh. "This is going to be a problem, he said. This looks like a key, we need a way to get it out without cutting too much."

They washed their hands, and started to look around.

"We could try to... erode away the meat ? As in, make it melt.
-And with what could we do that ?
-Uhm...."

Esgol went to the bathroom and looked in the cabinet. It was full of many bottles, all the same. Their label all said OXYGENTATED WATER.

"Well ! there we go. We should immerse the chunk in that and it'll work out." She took the bottles to the kitchen and slipped. The bottle fell. Thank god these were plastic bottles. They are plastic bottles right ?

Nope, theey were glass bottles. Not only did she just break and spill ever single bottle, but now she's soaked in the thing. "Ah." "Ah..." Ah indeed. "Well no matter, I'll just do it with the knife. Just go uh, take a shower and change or something."

"Oh god I'm so so fucking sorry. Oh god. I'll do it, don't worry.
-No, no it's fine, really ! Just go clean yourself, I'll be fine !
-No no, but really, I'm so sorry. I should do this."

"No I insist. If you don't clean yourself up you'll... get hurt probably. This is oxygenated water after all.
-Fine..."

Esgol went to the bathroom to take a shower. Meanwhile, Feaser got started on the chunk.

When Esgol came back, Feaser had barely removed any meat. All there was were very thin strips. "I'm, uh, trying to be as precise as possible.
-I can see that. Hold on a minute, let me try."

After a lot of back and forth between Elgol and Feaser, they finally freed the key. Feaser washed it in the kitchen sink, then used it on the trapdoor. It opened. Below, a ladder lost itself in the void.

>BLACK_CORRIDOR_8 : Concrete parking lot