Punishment Halls

It was a hungover the likes he had never experienced before.

Just saying that he was suffering from dehydration and a throbbing headache would be a ridiculously gross understatement. This was akin to every cell in his body initiating a revolution against him, screaming out in anguished unison.

He was experiencing a primordial, chemical sense of instability —as if he was being forcibly caged back into a vessel of flesh and bones after being allowed to taste an encompassing spiritual release. His skin felt tight, constraining, his soul too vast to be contained by boundaries any longer. An incessant buzzing in his ears and behind his eyes made the world seem to undulate around him, tastes and smells assaulting his senses completely out of context —the metallic tang of pennies clashing with the saccharine aroma of decaying flowers.

How long had it taken to gather enough strength to rise from the floor? He didn’t count. It could’ve easily been hours, if not almost the entirety of the day. His phone had awakened him from incessant ringing multiple times, but its battery had long since run dry, leaving him in the silent penumbra as the sun disappeared in the horizon once again.

Dragging himself up from an unspecified layer of grime on the floor, composed of brownish and reddish tinctures he didn’t feel like deciphering at the moment, Brennan stumbled a couple of times before finding support on a nearby wall.

Just what HAD he done last night?

Flashes of cerebral delirium and physical transcendence made him clench his teeth as he fought a roiling nausea, squeezing his eyes shut and focusing on putting one foot in front of the other towards the bathroom.

His stomach felt heavy, still full from who knew what; and his clothes were all tattered and torn, exposing most of his skin —which was covered with a gooey substance clinging to him like a secondary skin.

Stumbling against the bathroom door frame, his trembling legs threatening to give way beneath at any time, Brennan finally made his way to a water source, and by consequence, also a mirror. The sight that greeted him back was one of utter dereliction —a haunting reflection of depths plunged yet not remembered.

His typically unruly bird’s nest of brown curls was matted and tangled, streaked with viscous strands of drying bile and coagulated blood, giving him the appearance of a feral creature more than a man. Sunken cheeks only accentuated the sickly pallor of his skin, even paler than usual, as if any remnants of life had been leeched from him.

Beneath the perpetually half-lidded brown eyes, dark circles and hollows made him look like a walking corpse. Sure, he was already lanky to begin with, his frame boring the vestiges of someone not yet entirely grown into adulthood, but the juts of bone peeking under the ripped holes of his vintage band t-shirt were even more frail looking than usual.

Yet the catalogue of unsettling anomalies didn’t end there either.

Furrowing his brow, Brennan leaned in closer to the mirror, unsure of what to make of a jarring detail that stood out in his face like a sore thumb.

One of his lip piercings had been somehow… displaced, the metal ring now embedded in a superficial hole below its spot, as it if had been ripped through the flesh in a violent frenzy. The surrounding tissue, however, had already scabbed over in a thick, twisted line, seemingly… Healed?

Despite how recently it must have occurred, the wound had been cauterized by some unknown force, leaving behind only an echo of mutilation.

With a weary sigh, he handled the blackened iron piercing with his uneven pulse, extracting it from the skin over his chin. He then proceeded to assess the damage done on his clothes, which appeared even more desecrated than his body.

Unable to bear the repulsion evoked by the unspeakable yellow and viscous chunks of fluid lingering upon him, Brennan slid out of his torn jeans, only to discover a deep crimson stain in the groin area of his boxers. Panic seized his throat in an instinctive reaction as he fumbled at the waistband, peeling back all the remaining layers of fabric to reveal… only smooth, unblemished flesh beneath.

He was completely unharmed, despite the visceral evidence of the contrary.

Standing there, naked in the bathroom and Adam’s apple bobbing, Brennan was left just to ponder. What kind of insanity had he committed the previous night to leave him like this? All of the memories he retained made even less sense under the cold light of his bathroom. He needed to retrace his steps, piece everything together.

It had all begun after he had given permission to pierce his arms to that thing…

… What was its name again?

“Oh, Brennan, please. I don’t want to see you naked.” Needle’s resonant tones pierced his jumbled up thoughts, a ray of clarity amidst confusion. “Put on some clothes for decency’s sake.”

He made a sharp turn from his position to quickly face the direction of the deep and melodic voice, and there it was —that same demonic cricket, its elongated limbs unfolding from the bathtub as it materialized from thin air. He was sure it hadn’t been there moments ago.

“You!” Brennan pointed an accusing finger at the creature, ignoring its admonition about clothing. “You said it would all be fine if I let you do as you pleased!”

“Yes, I did.” Needle regarded him with its horridly humane black eyes, an amused tilt to its gentlemanly manners. “And where is the fault in that? Somehow it isn’t?”

“Excuse me!?” The refined lilt in its voice only served to infuriate him further. He flung his arms out, gesturing to his tattered clothes and the streaks of filth coating his body. “What part of any of this is ‘fine’ to you?!”

One of Needle’s spindly appendages waved dismissively as he chuckled to itself in a low, grating sound. Every motion coursing through it from the gesture made its engorged abdomen palpitate in an unpleasant fashion.

“But you seemed like you were having the time of your life last night.”

>> “You didn’t, Brennan-boy?”

The tormented young man opened his mouth to retort, but he found himself frozen in an anguished pause. The recollections trickled back in —the sensations of utter euphoria and physical transcendence unlike any high he’d ever experienced before. For fleeting as it was, he had been more than mere flesh, more than a mortal man.

Needle wasn’t mistaken; it had been a bliss beyond words, a complete uncaging of the self. Brennan’s skin prickled with the ghost of that freedom, already starting to feel pangs, craving for it again yet trying his best to resist.

“I… No… I don’t mean that.” Brennan meekly responded, at least until he tried to fill his chest with air once more to appear larger than he truly was. “But you still tricked me! Ending like this isn’t what I wanted!”

“Oh… Isn’t that easy?” Needle’s tone shifted tensely, becoming insidious and accusatory. Its words sliced through the air like a razor, leaving Brennan's lower lip quivering in fear. “You do things and then you shift blame onto others.”

>> “Much like you did with Moxie.”

How or why that monster knew of his dog were questions he couldn’t even afford to ask, as the sins he had tried to bury deep came back to haunt him. No matter how many years passed, the memories remained seared in his mind —Moxie panting in the backyard on that rueful summer when Brennan had decided to play with the neighboring kids rather than caring for his pet.

And the eventual acrid stench of Moxie’s decaying after he finally found out… The relentless heat having finally taken its toll.

All because of his own negligence.

“Shut up!” Brennan lashed out, frantically sweeping the contents of the bathroom sink onto the floor, refusing to acknowledge Needle’s cutting truths. “That’s not the same thing! And I was just a kid back then!”

His parents and the vets were in the wrong when they pinned the blame squarely on his young shoulders. He wasn’t playing the victim, he wasn’t trying to make excuses.

Yet, despite his protests, the disappointed scowl etched onto his father's face and the worried, pinched expression worn by his mother still flashed vividly in his mind, refusing to leave him alone.

“It was too much for a child?” Needle pressed, its word dripping with venom as it tore through Brennan’s turmoil. “That’s the narrative you weave for yourself, is it not? Do you not grow weary of the charade?”

The creature's elongated limbs unfurled from the bathtub, its movements deliberate and menacing as it continued its relentless assault.

“It’s the same tiresome act you performed after the tragic loss of dear Beverly. The same sorry defense you’ve clung to ever since, never taking accountability for anything or anyone, not even for the voices inside your head that are aware of all your faults.”

>> “That’s the path of least resistance, right? To disengage, to allow entropy take its course while you drift through life, unattached and unaffected, leaving only misery in your wake.”

His legs, already wobbly from the start, gave out until he crumpled to the cold tile floor, his shoulders hunched in defeat. He raised his gaze towards Needle, hoping the monstrous creature could offer some twisted path of redemption like last time… But only more condemnation rained down upon him.

“Do you realize now, Brennan-boy?” It sneered at him. “You kept on resenting poor Moxie even after his demise… In the same way that you hated dear Beverly for not playing along with your act.”

>> “You ruin everything you touch, so why not simply…”

Needle’s coup de grâce was interrupted by a loud banging on the apartment’s main door, followed by a familiar voice calling out. It made the demonic cricket recoil, its eyes narrowing with visible frustration at having its monologue cut short.

“Brennan!? Bev!? You guys in there!?” It was Oscar. His closest friend since high school —the one person he could always confide in, the one who could offer different perspectives and alternatives to his doomsday scenarios.

The same guy who had first introduced Brennan to the warmth of alcohol and drugs, igniting a spark within him that yearned for the same unfettered existence. Oscar was the older big brother he never had, the one he admired for his free spirit and hoped to emulate, even if just a little.

Oscar had now become an unwitting escape route, his get-out-of-jail-free card away from Needle's incessant assault. With a glimmer of hope in his eyes, he scrambled to pull on a pair of discarded jeans from the laundry tray, his movements frantic yet purposeful. He had to get away from the monster, had to find solace in the company of his friend, only then would things start looking up.

Breathing heavily, Brennan prepared to move away from the bathroom, steeling himself to open the door and let Oscar in.

“That is a very bad idea, Brennan-boy.” The sound of Needle’s voice so close to his ear made him flinch. The monstrous cricket had landed on his shoulder as if it were the most natural perch —its weightless form far too close for comfort. “You don’t want to let anyone in here.”

Certainly, those were nothing but lies, the same type that Needle has been spewing ever since disgracing his life with its presence. A sickening mind game, or a ploy to isolate him further from the outside world. Moreover, he couldn’t ignore the loud bangs growing more insistent by the moment —Oscar was a muscular and strong guy, it wouldn’t be outlandish for him to try and break the door down if he didn’t answer soon.

Only to pull up short in all of those thoughts, a strangled sound catching in his throat once he finally turned into the living room once again.

It was a like a grotesque parody of a flower in full bloom, laying there in a tangle of bloodied hair, butchered flesh and shards of bone amidst the detritus. The corpse was so desecrated that he couldn’t tell if it was human or animal remains anymore —if only he didn’t knew her beforehand.

Beverly’s lifeless body was splayed out like a gruesome eruption, flayed chunks of meat torn from her structure and strewn about like macabre petals. Her skull had been pried open at some point, the delicate matter of her brain scooped out and mostly missing, barring some scattered chunks sticking to the floor like smeared fat.

Dried crimson streaked every surface his eyes landed upon, creating sticky darkened pools on the hardwood and soaking into the cushions.

Realizing that she was incomplete, the fullness in his stomach that he had tried to ignore before suddenly felt not only purposeful, but also heartrendingly disturbing. He clamped a hand over his mouth to keep the rising bile contained from spilling over, all of the pieces landing together despite his desperate attempts to push them apart in denial.

Brennan fought back the urge to scream, not wanting to alert Oscar to the horrors that awaited within the apartment’s walls. Sadly, as he took a stumbling step away from Beverly’s mutilated corpse, his foot ended up stepping on a severed hand, and he went crashing to the floor with a dull thud —all attempts at silence rendered useless.

Before the impact, Needle launched itself from Brennan's shoulder, its elongated limbs gracefully landing on the blood-soaked coffee table. The creature's movements were almost mocking, taunting Brennan with its effortless poise amidst the carnage.

“Brennan? Hello?” Oscar’s muffled voice carried through the door, angered and concerned. “I know someone’s in there, man. Open up!”

There was a tense pause as Brennan remained unmoving, punctuated solely by panicked gasps for air. It was a barrier too thin that he relied on to separate his life from total collapse.

“All right, that’s it. I’m calling the cops!”

Needle's bulbous eyes bored into Brennan with smug satisfaction, like it knew this reckoning was inevitable —another step of a plan masterfully orchestrated. It was only a matter of time before he caved completely to the weight of his actions, to the brutal reality he could no longer avoid.

Brennan wanted to cry out, to beg Oscar for help in escaping this waking nightmare… But where to even begin explaining? What kind of spoken language would serve to convey that it was his sister’s mutilated corpse what decorated his living room in a morbid exhibition of viscera and bone?

As the sounds made on the other side of the door faded, probably as a temporary retrieve before much more chaos ensued, Brennan was left alone once more, surrounded only by the hellish aftermath. There was nowhere to run, no one to plead to for salvation… Except…

“Needle… Please…” Curling inwards, Brennan began to weep, calling out to the monster’s shadow looming over his head. “Fix me up… One more time.”

>> “Make everything pleasant again.”

Another quietude fell over the room as Needle seemed to savor his utter surrender. The monstrous cricket had him eating from the palm of its segmented hand, and the two of them knew it.

“Of course I’ll help you, Brennan-boy. I’m your only true friend, after all.” It finally quipped, its tone mockingly paternal. “But remember…” It nodded towards Beverly’s desecrated remains. “Last night was a one-time deal.”

>> “Your dead girlfriend here has nothing of value to me henceforth. If you want another dose…”

>> “Then you’ll have to do exactly as I say from now on. No questions, no hesitations.”

Brennan didn’t even pause to consider. His hands were shaking, his whole trembling from withdrawal from the sublime escape he’d tasted. He needed that blissful release more than oxygen now, his escalating despair demanded it.

“Yes.” He hated how pathetic and broken he sounded, but there was no helping it now. “Anything. I’ll do anything…”

>> “Just… Don’t leave me alone with all of this.”

Needle's eyes gleamed with sadistic approval as it drew nearer to him. Brennan knew his task before it was even demanded, tightening his right hand into a fist as he extended his bare arm, ready for the toxin to flow through his veins once more.

“Then, let’s get to it, shall we?”

Whether it was the chemical composition of his body having changed in a short period of time, or simply because Needle administered a more subtle dose into his system, the sweet euphoria blooming through his veins this time didn’t feel quite as all-consuming or incapacitating as before. Brennan could still retain some tenuous grasp on reality, allowing him to navigate the real world with still dazed, yet conscious eyes.

With Needle climbing onto his shoulder again, whispering guidance that Brennan didn’t even think to question, he just focused on chasing that blissful high, letting it numb him of worries, horrors and anxieties.

On the monstrous cricket insistence, Brennan crossed to the apartment’s window and threw it open, inviting the cool night air to caress his frame. He climbed out onto the exterior ledge with fluid grace, deftly shimmying up the building’s veranda in effortless acrobatic motions that defied human capabilities. Fear of falling would have normally gripped him, yet he remained utterly unaware of such trivial concepts like gravity or danger.

He leapt from building to building, his bare feet pale against the rough concrete yet undaunted by the dizzying heights. His focus had narrowed to simple pleasures —the crisp breeze ghosting over his naked torso, the solidity of the rooftops as he stepped upon them, and the glorious absence of thought or responsibility.

For however long that bliss lasted, he was unshackled from the confines of his pathetic mortal form. Embracing his re-found transcendent freedom, Brennan surrendered fully to Needle’s lead as they traversed across the city skyline in an inhuman display, leaving only impossible footprints behind.

Beverly, Oscar, parents, his studies and the past. All of them mere names and matters he chose to leave behind, receding into the horizon just like the building he had been calling home until now.

It was rebirth, shedding the shackles of his former life like a serpent would do so with its skin.

There was a million of shimmering possibilities, half-formed wishes and obscene dreams yet unknown to him but soon to be realized. His trail was one of gleeful uncertainty, a journey with no defined destination save for the next thrill or pretty sight to enrapture his senses with.

One or two times, he stumbled, crashing through unclear obstacles in a strepitous disaster that should by all means have left his bones shattered. Yet not even a military missile could pierce the heavy steel casing of his euphoric high. He simply picked himself up and marched on, recovering without effort.

Flashing lights from ambulances and police cars painted his name across the night sky, fleeting iridescent streaks that branded Cretierfield as his own personal playground. He moved through the blinding chaos until finding his sanctuary in the basement of a nightclub, a ghost amidst the churning mass and the background neon strobes —a supernova out of phase with their base reality.

Surrounded by the faceless crowd and bass pulsations, Brennan felt like freedom given breath, like the insatiable hunger that drove the universe ever outward into unexplored infinities. Voices drowned by the thunderous music, petty human concerns held no sway over him —he could afford to be unaware, to let their fleeting dramas play out without consequence.

They could all retain their shapeless form for all he cared, their vapid existences beneath his lofty contempt… At least until suddenly, one indistinct figure coalesced into something more… Lovely. Petals of crimson satin, flushed with inner light like a wildflower in full bloom. There was an intoxicating perfume mixing in with all the sweat —the scent of warm flesh and sin.

“Don’t you seem like a fun one?” The silken voice was a velvety caress against to his ears as the rosy apparition danced closer, feminine curves grazing his naked torso in tantalizing delight. “Mind if I cuff you for tonight?”

“I… I can't wait...” Brennan trembled amidst pants and gasps from all the adrenaline coursing through his veins. “I want your petals to water my garden in blood.” The feverish words tasted foreign on his tongue. Were they murmurs induced by Needle’s suggestions, or his own depraved desires given voice? “Please… Be my rose...”

“You’re really fucking wasted, aren’t you?” A silky laugh escaped the rose-woman's lips, amused and intrigued. “We get your type all the time in here. It’s what makes the Pixipoint Club such fun.”

Statement that was punctuated by a downwards trail performed by her delicate hands, fingers wrapping around the fabric over his crotch with hungry need. The spike of physical sensations was barely felt through Brennan’s drug-addled numbness, for other possibilities altogether were the ones igniting his cravings.

Beyond her awareness, this living rose was temptation incarnate, daring him to indulge in raw, brutal desires. To force her flora to unfurl in crimson ecstasy, to scatter the petals of her flesh across the writhing dance floor.

Lowering his mouth to the juncture of her neck, Brennan inhaled the heady fragrance of her perfume, further unraveling himself in her.

“That’s it, Brennan.” Cutting through the haze, Needle’s voice resounded inside his mind as the monstrous creature crawled from his body and onto hers, position itself on the back of her shoulders. Perhaps he would have been revolted by its form under normal circumstances, but right now… Brennan was past caring about its abysmal silhouette. “Keep her that way… Close and vulnerable.”

Like a bee drawn to nectar, any self-restraint he could’ve possessed dissolved in the sweet warmth of this nebulous girl, as she melted against him when their limbs intertwined, fevered and pliant beneath his wandering hands.

His tongue explored the thrumming pulse just beneath the satin skin on the nape of her neck, and Brennan felt like he could practically taste her lifeblood, so close and so inviting. It was just too exquisite to resist.

In one savage motion, his teeth sank deep into her tender flesh. The girl’s breath hitched in a gasp of surprise, and immediately afters, nails raked harsh lines down Brennan’s back as her body tried and fail to put distance between them —the pain only inflaming his ardor even further.

A guttural groan vibrated up from his chest as hot arterial spray painted his tongue. Her sweet blood was ambrosia, a forbidden fruit from the garden he now defiled with rabid abandon. It trickled down his chest like a nurturing rain, embracing him as a lover’s caress.

Vaguely, Brennan registered shouts and screams from the crowd as his atrocity became hard too horrific to ignore. Hands clawed at him, trying to tear him away from the bleeding rose he clutched possessively. Grinning, his teeth peeled back from the bloodstained neck as entire chunks of tissue were ripped by his savage motions, exposing the pulsing artery beneath.

She was his prey, and he would let no one steal what was his, not until every petal had been plucked and consumed.

The tumult surrounding Brennan intensified into a seething mob of flailing limbs and strident protests. Fists and feet collided against his body multiple times, but in his stupor, he only registered them as little more than whispers when compared to the discordant symphony he created and unfolded.

All that mattered was the way in which meat yielded to the insistence of his caving fingers… That, and the refined chuckle of Needle reverberating through the fog.

“Brennan-boy… You’re such an impatient fool.” The cricket’s tone held a mocking disapproval, yet it was clear that it too was drinking from the escalating pandemonium with a glee akin to his own. “You need to cultivate your patience, my dear lad.”

Patience? Such an abstract concept, completely lost to Brennan as his entire being was consumed by a frantic surrender to impulse. The frenzy of violence became an outlet, a way for his body to catalyze that carnal high into a tangible medium.

With each vicious tear of limbs and snaps of bone between his savage hands, he experienced fleeting instants of the sublime. He wasn’t sure when he had moved on from the rose-woman’s form after tearing her asunder, diving into the butchery with wild efficiency. The screams replaced the music to conform a chaotic chorus, fueling delirium as he transformed into the eye of a storm.

Rapid pants flowed through his system like a bellows stoking the inferno, breathing in destruction through the lens of distorted perception. This was his baptism by fire… And it was so fucking glorious. Brennan threw his head back, his mouth open in a feral smile of sheer pleasure.

Only Needle’s crisp, refined laughter was capable of piercing his euphoria, but rather than stop him, it egged him on to discard every last vestige of restraint —its own mouth full in their shared feast.

At least until his entire surreal ecstasy screeched into a jarring halt, as if the entire world had slammed the brakes on him. One moment he was the vortex of the hurricane, and the next he was being viciously launched backwards —able to interpret only half of the brutal force that collided with his body.

He crashed through the rickety structure of what must have been the nightclub’s stage, jagged wood and twisted metal tangling with his limbs. He groaned in profound agony, as a wave of pain he had believed himself impervious to washed through him, rupturing against the shores of his awareness.

The living purple hues of Needle’s poison ebbed inside his veins like a retreating tide, leaving him disoriented and half-broken to the cruel confines of reality once more.

Every breath was a labored rasp in his ravaged chest, struggling and failing to rise from the rubble, his arms giving out from under him —his weight far too much for his dislocated joints to support.

“Rise and shine, Brennan-boy.” Needle’s voice sliced through his faded consciousness —sharp, unwavering, and uncharacteristically serious. The cricket crept into his view, spindly legs standing by his side as its eyes remained laser-focused on a threat still out of view, appraising it with cautious tension. “I’m going to require your complete faculties for what lies ahead.”

Despite his battered state, the words chilled Brennan like a bucket of freezing water. He dragged himself to sit upright as his body reformed itself haphazardly under protesting wheezes of suffering, his head swimming as the disorienting fragments of the surroundings slowly assembled into a full shape.

The first sensation registered through his skewed senses was the acrid, foul taste coating his mouth. He gagged, struggling to swallow down the piece of… Something meaty and viscous still lodged in his esophagus. Bile burned at the back of his abused throat as he fought against the powerful urge to vomit up the lingering remnants.

Finally, hawked up a bloody chunk and spat it aside, gasping for air. It was only then that he could finally ascertain the enormous figure slowly walking closer towards him.

He was an immense mountain of a man, his bulky frame composed more of layers of fat than muscle. Grease-stained jeans threatened to split at the seams around his midsection —the waistband cutting deep angry grooves into his distended belly. A sleeveless shirt did little to contain the rolls of tan skin and flesh spilling out beneath his filthy biker jacket.

“So who the fuck do you think you are, you fucking sonuvabitch?” In his forced awareness, Brennan felt like each of this man’s heavy steps made the floor tremble, enraged blue eyes staring at him with practically no humanity left, under a rounded and puffy face, a wiry and unkempt lock beard covering his double chin.

Terror lanced through Brennan, cutting through whatever lingering chemical haze to let sheer cold clarity set in. This wasn’t a brad trip or a hallucination, but a very real menace instead.

“You mess in my turf! Fuck with my cattle!” His words were punctuated by heavy slams of his hands against his chest, rumbling the wild chaos of greasy black hair attempting to stand high on his head, dyed on the tips with deep red hues. “I should fucking dismember you for even rearing your fucking head on my territory!”

>> “Tell me one good reason I shouldn’t gut you right fucking here.”

The once vibrant nightclub was in ruins around them. The dance floor and seating areas were now a gallery of shredded bodies and spilled viscera. His own handiwork, Brennan presumed, committed in the throes of his all-consuming frenzy.

“Stay still.” The monstrous cricket whispered from the shadows of the rubble. Before he could react, he felt the sharp point of its proboscis piercing his back —a new dose of the toxin flooding his veins. He couldn’t completely suppress a full-body flinch, but only a faint groan was extended from his mouth as his companion’s hypnotic voice overrode the instinct to recoil. “On my cue… You pounce.”

>> “Do not falter, we are not the prey in this encounter.”

An exchange that seemed to occur completely outside of the fat punk’s awareness, his meaty hands moving to clench around Brennan’s throat as he ranted.

“I know for a fact that no one is stupid enough to walk like this into Tools n’ Corpses territory, not without a death wish.” Cold sweat beaded on Brennan’s brow as those dead eyes bored into him. What did he see staring back? Some skinny kid in way over his head? “Are you from Midwich Valley? Did that bastard Ross send you?”

>> “Are you some kinda fuckin’ kamikaze or something?!”

Releasing him momentarily, the mountainous and overconfident man seemed to get lost in his own ramblings, his beefy arms crossing as he seemed to ponder upon something. It was a split second of distraction, and enough for Needle’s piercing command to lance through Brennan’s nerves.

“Now!”

With a feral growl, Brennan launched himself —his frame employing far more speed and strength than its scrawny composition should be able to. One moment he was sitting down defenseless, and in the next he tried to drive himself into this foul-mouthed stranger with the force of a train itself.

The impact from his charge should have been more than enough to blitz through the man where he stood. Brennan was employing even more conscious might than he had when rending human bodies to shred barehanded.

Yet somehow, impossibly… This man held his ground.

Brennan’s teeth gritted hard enough to produce sound as he slammed into the pile of fat and muscle, being met with an unyielding resistance. The biker’s legs planted themselves firmly, his boots grinding into the nightclub’s floor as he withstood through sheer mass alone. He could feel the corded muscle straining under the layers of flab as the two of them grappled in mutual effort.

Only for the man’s mouth to split into a yellowed and crooked grin —one that made Brennan immediately realize that both him and Needle had been underestimating this new monster.

A new presence manifested in the periphery of his vision with a sound like ripping butcher paper. Brennan’s head whipped around just in time to see a hulking, grotesque figure solidifying from the ether itself.

This… Thing, appeared composed of various animal carcasses stitched together in a nightmare patchwork of rancid meat and foul ooze. It had a pig’s head, lolling lifelessly atop elongated limbs that ended in meat cleaver appendages. There was no smell, but the image alone was enough to make his nose crinkle.

The pig specter violently shifted through the air between him and its partner, a cleaver arm rearing back in a swift motion aimed straight for Brennan’s frame… And then his world was momentarily overtaken by agony.

He gasped, soundless, as the uneven blade diced through his abdomen with sickening force, cleaving flesh rather than slicing cleanly. His body hardly had the time to draw blood before he felt himself airborne once again, this time crashing through flimsy wooden tables near the basement’s walls, slumping amidst discarded corpses.

Shock cascaded over him, gripping his open wound with trembling hands to prevent his organs from spilling forth, cruelly held completely aware by the dregs of Needle’s toxin swimming in his organism.

Through a growing crimson haze, Brennan made out the swagger of his opponent’s lumbering approach, the menacing outlines of the pig-like creature floating behind his back like a grotesque guardian.

“That was no regular blow, alright.” The self-proclaimed owner of the place kept a cautious distance despite his overzealous bravado, sizing Brennan up with wary eyes. “I see clearly you ain’t no regular human.”

>> “Not like I didn’t suspect that from the get-go.” He added with an ugly sneer. “What? Thought you were the main character or something, you little bitch?”

>> “Bad news tough guy. You fight like a little kid learning how to walk.”

‘Where was Needle?’ Brennan resentfully asked himself, abandoned by the monstrous cricket in the most crucial time. Had it scuttled off cowardly while he faced this brute alone?

“Wait…” His aggressor seemed to notice something amidst his frantic glances, a glimmer of self-gratification in that mug of his. “How long since you’ve had it?”

>> “Your Punisher.”

“Punisher?” Brennan managed to ask, releasing some of the pressure from his wounds as he realized the opened flesh had sealed itself, something he’d rather not let this man notice just yet. “Is that what those things are called?”

He ended up wincing as the brute let out a loud and mocking laugh —a sound as ugly as the guy that birthed it.

“Oh kid, you got no idea the kinda shit you’ve stepped in, do you?” He made a motion with his bulbous face towards the pig-creature hovering at his side, his ‘Punisher’. “Been rolling with Rottgore since before you were born, fucko.”

>> “And know what? You need to teach these monsters who’s in control. Otherwise, they eat you alive. Heart first.”

The creature so-called Rottgore let out a disturbing squeal at the punk’s words. Whether it was in defiance or acceptance, Brennan couldn’t decipher. The only thing he knew was that the two of them had a very different relationship from his and Needle’s.

“But I dunno if you’ve got what it takes.” The brute leveled him with a final look of utter disdain. “You’re just a fresh-faced runt still shittin’ your diapers.”

>> “Look at you. I bet you’re even waiting for your little babysitter Punisher to swoop in and save your ass, don’t you?”

The fat punk’s words struck a chord deep within Brennan’s pride, rousing what should’ve been withered long ago, because… Damn it all, the bastard was right —he was waiting for Needle to come and save him, just like always expected others to solve his issues.

A familiar feeling of helpless resentment welled up, that same frustration he bottled away after the incidents in the past with Moxie, and more recently with Beverly. Brennan hated how easily this disgusting man had him figured out, hated that such a revolting person could so brazenly mock him.

But more than anything, he reviled the truth behind those cutting insults.

He had already allowed Needle to say whatever the hell it wanted before. This random guy? No matter how strong he thought he was, Brennan vowed to force-feed every one of those demeaning words back.

Savagery exploded once more from Brennan’s chest as sheer defiance took control of his body. It wasn’t something born out of any desire for self-improvement, nor any other misconceived higher moral standpoint. It was a simple and petulant refusal to accept his weaknesses being so crudely stated by a stranger.

If this was to be his deathbed, then he’d rather go out in a blaze of useless self-destruction instead of a pathetic whimper.

With that goal, Brennan dredged up every last searing drop of Needle’s toxin clawing through his veins, harnessing its unnatural power in one final, desperate burst. He launched himself at the punk’s direction once more —lacking any semblance of strategy or even much thought; just rage and reckless abandon fueling his attack.

Rottgore swept in to intercept him, cleavers slashing in a horizontal arc that would bisect a normal man with ease. But Brennan was already twisting with inhuman reflexes, retreating in millimetric precision to avoid the swinging blades as the beast interrupted his advance.

Frustration continued to build as his reckless charge was cut short time and time again. With the pig-beast insisting on shielding its partner, the cleaver appendages were swung every time Brennan tried to close the distance, each lunge avoided by a hair’s breadth.

Well… If that fat fucker wanted to hide behind his monstrous bodyguard, then so be it. He simply needed to batter his way through the abomination first.

He feinted left, allowing one of Rottgore’s slashes to whistle past before whipping back with a vicious overhand haymaker. Brennan poured every last ounce of his phantasmagorical strength into the blow, feeling his knuckles connect with a sickening crunch.

The pig-creature’s head whipped sideways with the force of the impact. For one delirious moment, Brennan thought he’d shattered the beast’s skull entirely, but Rottgore merely shook itself and turned its dead eyes back towards him, undeterred.

“Nice shot, runt!” A mocking laughter grated on Brennan’s nerves. ”But there ain’t no way you’re winning with punches alo—“

But Brennan had no intention to let either of them get the last laugh. Whatever insult that was forthcoming died on the brute’s lips as his expression morphed into one of surprise, the young man raining an onslaught upon Rottgore by repeatedly slamming his fists into its grotesque form until reducing it to the floor in a crazed frenzy.

Each blow landed with a meaty thud, rending flesh as Brennan unleashed the full force of his drug-fueled rage. He was sure he heard cries of pain along the way, but everything was drowned out by the his own roars of exertion, knuckles splitting and bleeding as he made his damn best effort of pummeling the creature.

However, before he could reduce it to a rough, pulpy mess, what could only be described as chain of viscera and spinal cords whipped and coiled around his throat, yanking him forward with brutal force. The punk bastard had woven the nightmarish bindings from the corpses littering the basement, using Brennan’s distraction to regain the upper hand.

He choked and sputtered, clawing at the slimy chain tightening around his neck. Spikes of bone pierced his skin, growing unnaturally from the segmented vertebrae as they pressed constricted him. They were a strong indicator that this may very well be an effect akin to Needle’s toxin —however, his restricted air supply, as he was yanked with brutal force once more, left his thoughts half-baked.

Rottgore recovered somewhere amidst his struggle, letting out an enraged squeal as it rose on shaky limbs, cleaver-appendages raised high, prepared to mutilate its victim beyond recognition.

“Do not maim him! I want him alive!” Words loudly spoken that Brennan could barely interpret through the escalating panic and urgency gripping him.

In that moment, failing to break free from the flesh-molded confines, resignation fell over his shoulders like a divine judgment. He tried, by whatever suicidal and ultimately useless means he had at his reach.

But at the end, he was hopelessly outmatched against the synergy that his opponents held over him in such an abhorrent supernatural power. Perhaps if he and Needle could work together in the same manner…

The world grew hazy around the edges as Brennan began slipping towards the abyss. He didn’t even completely feel it when Rottgore’s bulk was slammed into his back like a truck running over him —his bones contorting and fracturing under the merciless impact.

He had only a distant, dreamlike impression of that bastard stepping into his view —or rather his boot grinding his face into the floor as Rottgore’s spectral form dissipated in a rancid-looking cloud of mist.

“You’re certainly a crazy motherfucker.” The larger man grunted, sounding almost impressed despite the remnants of their struggle also being felt on his strained voice. “Never seen anyone fight a Punisher bare-fuckin’-handed like that before.”

>> “Let it be known that Vardon Hogstead is willing to show you mercy, kid.”

A series of dull thumps reverberated through Brennan’s shattered form as heavy stomps connected with his skull.

“But first…” Vardon continued, his voice merely wisps on the abyss now. “I gotta make sure I beat some proper respect into ya…”

And then he felt his consciousness slipping away, entirely numbed to both pain and insult as his eyes slid shut.