Bobby limped off the smooth stone bridge, the ache in his thigh is finally starting to fade. The dark opening beckoned, swallowing the greenish glow from Rigg's lantern as they stepped through. Behind them lay the vast, empty arena and the sealed stairwell; ahead… well, ahead was more damn tunnel.
This one felt different though. The stone underfoot vanished instantly, replaced by the smooth, cold feel of polished metal. The air changed too, losing the open, echoing quality of the arena and becoming close, confined. It hummed with a low, resonant thrum.
It reminded Bobby uncomfortably of the sterile corridor before the arena, the place with the memory-scanning pillar. This felt like more of that same architectural nightmare.
Rigg hurried to keep up, staying close to Bobby's back, his lantern held high. The kid was still pale, eyes darting nervously around the new surroundings.
The metallic corridor stretched forward, seemingly identical in every direction. The faint hum shifted slightly, growing more erratic. Bobby squinted. Were the walls flickering? Rippling faintly, like heat haze off summer asphalt, just like before? He couldn't be sure in the dim, green light.
He planted his feet firmly. The familiar weight of the heavy shield on his left arm and the sharp sword in his right hand was a small comfort. He readjusted his grip.
"Alright," Bobby grumbled, the sound loud in the narrow space. "What fresh hell now?"
Rigg scann thourgh the walls and floor ahead with a expression tense, anticipating more hostiles after the killer constructs in the arena.
"Sensor readings are goin' haywire again, sugar," Betsy cut in, a sharp edge of warning to her words. "This section feels... actively malicious."
"Malicious," Bobby repeated flatly. "Good to know the hallway wants me dead. Just like everything else here."
He took a cautious step forward, then another. The polished metal floor felt smooth under his boots. Too smooth. Unnatural.
Rigg took a step beside him, then gasped, pointing with a shaky finger. "Air's... thickening!"
Bobby barely had time to register the shimmer Rigg pointed at before it hit.
Weight.
Crushing, absolute weight slammed down on him like a shifting load tipping a trailer on a steep grade. His knees buckled instantly, the air driven from his lungs in a strangled grunt.
He instinctively threw the shield down, bracing it against the floor, muscles screaming as he fought against the sudden, impossible gravity. Dust puffed up around his boots. A low metallic screech echoed through the corridor, like the tortured groan of failing steel supports under far too much tonnage.
Painfully familiar, that sound. He'd heard similar groans from overloaded rigs often enough.
He heard Rigg cry out, a sharp sound of surprise and pain, cut short. Bobby risked a glance sideways. The kid was pinned flat, face pressed against the metal floor, the lantern clattering away from his outstretched hand.
[WARNING: GRAVITATIONAL ANOMALY DETECTED - EXTREME LOAD]
Viewer01: WHOA GRAVITY! NERF PLZ!
Viewer02: Man got pancaked. Like a bad load shift fr.
Viewer03: Can he even move in that? RIGGED DUNGEON!
"Whoa there! Felt that one through ya!" Betsy's voice came back, "Hang tight, Bobby, these spikes seem temporary!"
Temporary felt like a goddamn eternity. Bobby gritted his teeth, sweat popping on his forehead, the pressure squeezing the air thin. His arms trembled, threatening to give out. Felt just like that time outside Flagstaff, load shifted bad on a mountain pass, felt like the whole damn rig was gonna roll…
And then, just as abruptly as it began, the pressure vanished.
Bobby pushed himself up, gasping, muscles still quivering from the strain. He swayed for a second, spots dancing in his vision. He shook his head, forcing them away, and turned to Rigg.
"You alright, kid?"
Rigg pushed himself up slowly, retrieving his dropped lantern. He looked shaken, his eyes wide with a mixture of fear and something else… realization? He nodded, voice hoarse. "Saw it... just before. The air…" He gestured vaguely at the space where the shimmer had been. "It... warped."
"Yeah, well, keep seein' it," Bobby said. He clapped a hand awkwardly on the kid's shoulder before moving forward again, sword and shield held ready. He moved slower this time, scanning the walls, the floor, the ceiling. This place wasn't playing fair.
Rigg stuck close, his lantern's light sweeping back and forth, specifically looking for that tell-tale shimmer.
They passed a section of wall that looked identical to the rest – seamless, sterile, faintly humming metal. But Rigg, hyper-aware now, spotted it. Faint cracks, like spiderwebs, flickered across the surface for just an instant.
"Wall! Moving!" Rigg yelled, shoving Bobby forward with surprising strength.
Bobby didn't hesitate. Didn't question. He reacted purely on the kid's panic, throwing himself forward into a roll, tucking his shoulder just as a sound like God slamming a giant's fist down ripped through the corridor.
WHUMP-SLAM!
The wall section they'd just been beside had pistoned inward with sickening speed, occupying the space where they'd stood a heartbeat before. The sound echoed, loud and brutally final. Disturbingly like the big hydraulic press down at Miller's scrapyard back home. That thing could crush a car flat in seconds.
A whiff of rust and hot metal hit Bobby's nostrils as the wall retracted just as quickly, leaving the surface perfectly smooth again. No trace it had ever moved.
Bobby finished his roll and came up onto one knee, breathing hard. He glanced back at Rigg, who was scrambling back to his feet.
"Good lookin' out, kid."
[WARNING: KINETIC HAZARD DETECTED]
Viewer01: INDIANA JONES TRAP LOL
Viewer02: That was close! Kid saved him! Good spot Rigg!
Viewer03: Wall hacks! Literally!
"Okay, definitely personal now," Betsy chimes in, "That ain't standard dungeon architecture, hon."
"Tell me somethin' I don't know," Bobby muttered, pushing himself fully upright. His shoulder twinged where he'd hit the floor.
He eyed the walls with renewed suspicion. First gravity like a bad load, now slamming walls like a scrapyard press. Pulled straight from his memories of near misses and dangerous jobs. This place wasn't just hazardous; it was rooting around in his head for ways to kill him.
They continued onward, slower still.
"Floor looks weird here!"
"Air's doing that shimmering thing again!"
Bobby learned to trust the kid's eyes implicitly, dodging, weaving, sometimes just freezing based on the callouts. It was like navigating a minefield designed by a sadist with access to his personal history.
They approached another stretch of corridor. Rigg stopped abruptly, holding up a hand.
"Cold! It's getting cold fast! Look!" He pointed his lantern ahead.
Bobby saw it instantly. Frost.
Visible white frost was racing across a twenty-foot section of the floor just ahead, spreading like crystalline fire. The air bit at his exposed skin with an unnatural, piercing chill. He saw his breath plume violently, a thick white cloud in the green lantern light.
Faintly, underneath the corridor's hum, he thought he heard a phantom howling sound, like a blizzard wind tearing across an open plain.
He skidded to a halt just shy of the creeping ice, boots slipping slightly on the suddenly slick metal. The intensity, the suddenness, the biting nature of the cold – it slammed into him with the force of memory.
Wyoming. That freak blizzard outside Laramie, came out of nowhere, almost took the rig right off the damn road into a ravine. Whiteout conditions, felt like the air itself was trying to freeze his lungs solid.
"Just like Wyoming..." he muttered, the words escaping before he could stop them.
[WARNING: THERMAL ANOMALY DETECTED - SUB-ZERO EVENT]
"Flash freeze? Seriously?" Betsy let out a sigh. "This place ain't playin'. Keep those chrome buns warm, driver."
Bobby didn't need telling. He skirted the edge of the frozen patch, giving it a wide berth. The metal was slick with condensation even several feet away. Rigg followed, his eyes scanning nervously.
Then, the corridor seemed to stabilize for a moment. The air warmed slightly. The humming returned to its previous, less erratic rhythm. It felt almost… calm.
A dangerous feeling in this place.
Rigg seemed to feel it too. He slowed, tilting his head. "Something feels... off..." He scanned the air, looking for shimmers, for cracks, for frost. Nothing. But the pressure felt wrong somehow.
Then the world exploded into noise.
DEAFENING. OVERLAPPING. ROARING.
The sound of multiple diesel engines, revving high, screaming under load, slammed into Bobby from everywhere at once. Interspersed, cutting through the engine roar, came the blaring, ear-splitting HONK of air horns, dozens of them, echoing like they were inside a metal drum.
It wasn't just loud; it was a physical force, pressing in on him, vibrating through the floor, through his bones. It was pure auditory assault.
It triggered a phantom memory – a terrifyingly close call on I-80, fog thick as soup, headlights appearing out of nowhere, the shriek of locking brakes and the symphony of angry horns inches from impact. Pure chaos distilled into sound.
"Gah! What the--?!" Bobby flinched hard, instinctively clamping his hands over his ears, squeezing his eyes shut against the invisible onslaught. He stumbled back, disoriented, the sheer volume making his teeth rattle.
Rigg yelped, dropping his lantern again as he threw his hands over his ears, staggering backward. The lantern's green light flickered wildly, mirroring the assault.
[WARNING: SONIC ANOMALY DETECTED - SENSORY OVERLOAD]
Viewer01: MY EARS! WTF WAS THAT??
Viewer02: TRUCK HORNS? SOUNDS LIKE HOME LMAO
Viewer03: Sonic damage? Is this place weaponizing his PTSD?? Rough.
Betsy's voice somehow cut through the din. "Sounds like a ten-truck pileup in here! But there ain't nobody else drivin'! Hold on, it's fading!"
And just like that, it cut off.
Silence slammed back in, thick and ringing.
Bobby lowered his hands slowly, shaking his head, trying to clear the ringing in his ears. He looked around, anger finally boiling over the confusion and fear. He glared at the impassive metal walls.
"Okay," he snarled, his voice raw. "Now it's just bein' an asshole."
Rigg lowered his hands too, looking pale and wide-eyed, retrieving his flickering lantern once more. He didn't say anything, just kept looking around, as if expecting the sound to leap out again.
They moved forward cautiously, past the point where the sound had hit its peak. The corridor ahead seemed… stable. Actually stable, for the first time in what felt like miles. No flickers, no shimmers, no sudden temperature drops. Just the quiet, steady hum.
"Hazard pay." Bobby leaned against the wall for a second, catching his breath, wiping sweat from his brow with the back of his glove. His heart was still hammering against his ribs like it wanted out."Definitely need hazard pay for this gig."
He pushed off the wall and gave Rigg a nod. The kid looked like he'd seen a ghost riding shotgun in a phantom truck.
"Good ears back there too, kid," Bobby admitted. Rigg's warnings had saved their bacon with the wall and the ice. "Even if it didn't help much that time." Noise like that, there was no dodging, only enduring.
Rigg just nodded, still looking shaken by the sonic assault. He kept scanning ahead, though, perhaps even more nervously now, his grip tight on the lantern.
"Nice job survivin' the memory lane minefield, boys!" Betsy chimed in, clear relief washing through her voice now that the static was gone. "Passed its little stress test, I reckon. Wonder what prize ya get?"
Bobby didn't feel like he'd won anything except maybe a headache and frayed nerves. As they looked ahead, the prize became apparent.
And it didn't look good.
The sterile metal corridor began to warp and change more drastically now. The smooth surfaces buckled, shifted, textures flowing like liquid concrete before hardening into something new. The steady hum intensified, twisting, modulating into something almost melodic, but hideously distorted.
Was that… music? Like greasy spoon diner music played through a blown speaker submerged in oil?
Then came the smell.
A strange odor drifted towards them, cutting through the metallic tang of the corridor. Stale grease. Overcooked bacon. And underneath it all… the unmistakable, acrid stench of burnt coffee.
The tunnel wasn't just a tunnel anymore. It was actively reshaping itself, the walls taking on the vague outlines of booths made of packed earth and bone, the ceiling flickering with unseen lights that cast greasy shadows. It was becoming something disturbingly familiar, yet fundamentally wrong.
A roadside diner from hell.
Bobby braced himself, raising the shield slightly, sword held ready. He sniffed the air again, a look of profound disgust crossing his face. He knew diners. He knew truck stops. He knew the smell of stale grease and burnt coffee better than he knew his own mother's cooking.
"Aw hell…" he muttered, the realization dawning cold and unwelcome.
Rigg held the lantern higher, his light cutting weakly into the shifting, flickering architecture ahead, revealing glimpses of warped chrome and stained countertops forming from the very substance of the anomaly. Whatever stress test they'd passed, the final exam was shaping up to be a greasy nightmare, setting the stage for whatever waited in this corrupted mockery of a truck stop.