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vitamx · 4 years ago

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the iron door: chapter 3

[ Also read on AO3! ] [ Chapter 1 ] [ Chapter 2 ]

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mumbo liked to think he was fairly headstrong, that he could push through anything and find a solution for any problem. of course, more often than not, that didn't turn out to be exactly true, but he still liked to believe he could do anything he set his mind to.

that type of thinking is what led him to accepting grian's offer on managing his "project" while he was gone, it was what put him in this seriously creepy situation.

he didn't want to think about the NPC's tattered body, didn't want to think about its wide, mechanical eyes, didn't want to think about its voice.

"it's just a machine, mumbo. nothing more," he told himself as he tossed and turned in his bed after the events of his second visit.

of course, mumbo was a smart man. he knew there was something beyond what grian had told him- and while he didn't like to distrust his friend, arguably his best friend, he couldn't help but question if what grian said was true.

(he tried his best not to follow that line of thinking. he didn't want to believe, not even for a second, that grian would tear apart a person like that.)

though, what else could the NPC possibly be? he saw its metal skeleton, its wires and cogs.

"just a machine," mumbo muttered to himself once more, the morning sunbeams filtering into his room.

it must be some prank that grian was playing, mumbo thought. he must have programmed those reactions, the dialogue. he must have purposefully cut off the second recording, just to spook mumbo.

(it was payback for the last prank mumbo pulled on grian, he told himself, even if he couldn't remember for the life of him when he last pranked grian, nor what said prank was.)

he didn't care if the nature of the prank didn't make any sense- it made more sense than any other theories he came up with. it was better than believing he had been performing maintenance on a living being, better than believing his friend had, whether intentional or not, tossed a living being in that dark and lonely room, beyond the iron door.

and so, the next day, as the sun was only just beginning to set, he made his way towards the shipwreck once more.

once he had arrived above the ocean water where the shipwreck lay, he inhaled sharply, turning down and diving into the water within seconds. when the icy water splashed around him as he made his way down, down, and downward more, the chill clung to his skin even after the conduit came into effect, and even as he was shaking off seaweed from his hair inside the shipwreck's bottle.

rubbing his hands together swiftly, mumbo's eyes darted around the room as he emptied his pockets, save for a few buttons and redstone material- and his eyes caught the glint of an iron axe, cast aside in one of grian's old storage chests.

he only thought about it briefly, really- but in the end, as he made his way down the worn-out ladder, the faint weight of the axe in his inventory served only to comfort him.

how else would he protect himself if the NPC began to act "violent" once more? use his fists? his hands would do nothing against the ashen metal skin and rusted wires of the NPC.

he climbed his way down, his back occasionally scraping against the stone only one block behind him. he thought of leaving the NPC all alone, behind the iron door, of leaving it to decompose, and that dealing with the consequences later would be a far better fate than facing the disturbing replica of grian.

he quickly cast aside those thoughts. he promised grian. he promised. and besides- it's just a robot. just an NPC. just a machine.

the numb and cold pull of the void welcomes mumbo as his feet land upon the stone ground, the room encased in a familiar darkness. on the floor, in the center of the room, was the communicator, screen flickering on and off, its faint light blinking.

stepping forward, footsteps tapping loudly against the ground, mumbo bent down and picked up the flickering communicator. a few notifications, asking grian for favors or inviting him to hang out before realizing he was away.

he dismisses them with a sigh, and turns the communicator around to shine its light over on the iron door.

his heart leaps in his throat, and he nearly drops the communicator on the ground as he scrambles backwards.

sprawled between a small crack in the door was the NPC. its body was nearly crushed as the door pushed against it, trying to shut itself closed.

oil and redstone leaked from a hole in the NPC's metal lungs, bits and pieces of wiring strewn about. as mumbo's eyes flicker around the dimly lit room for some explanation, he spots the button laid against the wall, and his stomach fills with dread.

the buttons.

he should've been taking off the buttons by the door.

setting the communicator down slowly, bringing out a redstone torch even slower, mumbo reaches over and pushes the door open more, ever so slightly. he watches for any signs of movement from the machine, carefully stepping over it with shaking legs.

he makes it to the other side of the iron door, and he grabs hold of the NPC's broken, marred, and disfigured legs, pulling it away slowly, carefully...

its metal skin scrapes against the floor loudly. mumbo's ears ring.

the iron door slams shut with a clang, and the NPC lay unmoving still. mumbo moves his hands away swiftly, wiping off the excess stains on his pants, and he grabs onto the communicator once again, rubbing his eyes with his wrist.

he opens it up, and closes the previous audio file. there was no need to continue it, mumbo thinks, not after what happened the last time.

he pushes aside any thoughts of "last time", and opens up "MCHECK_03.mp3", staring down at the NPC.

he doesn't take his eyes off of it for a second.

"so..." grian's voice speaks out through the communicator's speaker. there's a faint crackling noise in the background.

"i take it by now you're wondering why you keep coming back. that's-"

grian's voice falls silent as a loud BANG! echoes from the speakers, and mumbo flinches, eyes darting towards the communicator, then the iron door, and then rests his eyes upon the NPC once more.

he's starting to feel a little sick, if he's honest.

he hears grian inhale, and the grip on the communicator tightens as grian speaks up once more.

"...that's, because... it's... the- the NPC is a very broken model. i didn't know what i was doing when i made it. i think i... tried to make it human."

grian's voice falls silent for a little while longer, and the NPC's left eye flickers on before shutting off again.

mumbo's fingers twitch towards his pocket, where the axe lay in his inventory.

"...it's just a machine though. a very broken, very glitched, very destroyed machine. e-everything it does was in the original programming. it just... doesn't know when to activate certain commands. yeah."

for a second, mumbo thinks that maybe grian is trying to convince himself rather than him, but he quickly pushes the thought aside, rubbing at his eyes once more.

(the air was dusty- dustier than normal, anyway. strange.)

"...anyways. might as well move on with the maintenance checks. push in any parts of its face or arms or- whatever's popped out, and then we can go from there."

mumbo glances down at the communicator, pausing the audio that's playing. looking back down at the NPC, he sighs quietly, eyeing the several pieces of it face that have popped out of place.

the only one in place was the piece surrounding its right eye- the rest was snapped aside, and the machine's metal skull was out for him to see, redstone and oil and faded paint staining it all over.

shivers ran down mumbo's spine.

why did grian make the NPC so human-like; so alike to himself? even with its paint scraping off in certain places, even with stains and leaks and malfunctions, mumbo still had trouble distinguishing the NPC from grian.

mumbo took a step closer, pocketing the communicator temporarily, and peered closer at the NPC's face in morbid curiosity.

it was difficult to see anything past the flood of redstone and oil leaking from every joint, but even then, he could clearly see the NPC's skull.

its teeth were jagged and out of order with a few missing, its tongue (why would an NPC need a tongue?) had a hole in its side as if an arrow had pierced through it, and its eyes had wires sprouting from behind them, faint, barely noticeable sparks flashing now and then.

he never had a chance to really look at it much, not with its face clicked into place.

mumbo pushed down the nausea swelling in his stomach and reached his hands forward to click the NPC's face back into place.

his hands stutter and flinch back at every sound made, jittery and frantic. when its face was finally back in place, he leaned back, staring emptily at the NPC's features.

it looked so human. it looked alive.

the NPC's eyes flickered red for one second, then two, and then they flickered off, staring into nothing.

it seemed so much more unresponsive than the last few times mumbo had come here- maybe getting caught between the door had damaged it somehow, so that it couldn't react as much?

(he shouldn't be so hopeful for such a thing.)

letting a bit of tension leave his shoulders, mumbo reached for the communicator once more, eyes flickering down as he played the audio file once more.

"once you're- once that's done, you're pretty much good to go for, uh... touching it, i suppose." grian's voice, the actual grian's voice, echoes throughout the dusty room.

"every once in a while, i like to clean up all the dust in the room so that, um, when it- when it glitches out, the dust doesn't spread out in the air everywhere."

mumbo's eyes squint, flickering towards the communicator as he leans backwards against the wall.

'glitches out'? what did grian mean by-

his thoughts stutter to an end, jerking forward off the wall as he spins around to face it.

the faint glow of the communicator shines against the wooden planks, and deeply indented in those planks are claw marks and dents, oil and redstone flickered across the wall in a chaotic spray. dust is visible in the light of the screen, heavily clumping together in the air.

dread pools in his gut.

the audio file continues playing.

"sometimes it'll just, you know, scramble around or try breaking ou- blocks, breaking blocks. using cobwebs usually works but, if you don't have any, i suppose you can do it whenever, if you don't mind sneezing a lot, and dust getting in your eyes."

the audio file ends right as mumbo's eyes begin to water. his nose scrunches up, and the communicator clatters to the ground loudly as he brings his arm up to his face and sneezes.

when his eyes crack open, they burn, and he rubs at them frantically before yelling out, faint traces of oil and redstone tainting his hands and now his eyes, and he has to hold onto them tightly to keep himself from touching his eyes any more.

"goddammit!" he yells out hoarsely, teeth grit as he slams his eyes shut once more.

he hisses through his teeth, forcing his eyes open to search for the communicator he'd dropped.

maybe if he's lucky, he can find the communicator quickly- though its screen had shut off, leaving the room in near darkness, so he fumbles a hand into his inventory to search for his own communicator.

a metal hand clasps around his ankle instead.

"don't- don't- don't- don't- go-!" the NPC's voice croaks out, its voice filled with static. "stay... i can tell you- tell you- everything."

the hand digs into his skin painfully, ripping some of the cloth on his pants, and he shrieks. the hand pulls, and he tumbles over, the side of his face hitting the floor. he rolls over on his back and scrambles away from the NPC, its body barely visible in the darkness of the room- the redstone torch too far away to provide any meaningful light.

(the only thing he can see is the hand, mangled and metal and broken, its grip unnervingly strong nonetheless.)

he raises his other leg and kicks it frantically in the air, hoping to knock it into the NPC's face. his foot connects with nothing but air the first few kicks, until finally, a loud CLANG! echoes through the room, and the NPC lets out a screech that leaves mumbo's ears ringing in pain.

he's able to scramble up again, using the beaten-up wall behind him as support, and he can hear the NPC's body scraping against the floor as he drags himself to his feet.

he's dazed and scared and frantic and he can barely keep his eyes open, so maybe that's why the only thing mumbo can think to do at that moment is take out the iron axe he'd stolen and-

he brings down the axe's blade against the NPC's wrist, the one connected to the very hand grasping at his ankle, forcing his burning eyes to stay open, and the sound of metal-against-metal scrapes his ears painfully.

it doesn't come off in one slash like he'd hoped- instead it takes four cuts from the axe to sever the NPC's hand from the rest of its body, and the NPC won't stop screaming.

(mumbo nearly sobs as he realizes the hand still won't let go.)

he stumbles and trips over the screaming NPC, pushing the iron door open, slamming it shut with his whole body.

he slides to the ground, eyes shut tightly as his hands shake, ears ringing as the NPC screams and shrieks and bangs against the iron door.

blindly reaching for his own communicator, he cracks his eyes open painfully, barely making out the button to enter the general chat, and struggles to keep them open as he types out a desperate message attached to his coordinates.

(the metal hand digging into his ankle has not loosened. if anything, it's gotten tighter.)

his ankle is starting to go numb, he thinks, before his vision goes dark, heart pounding from adrenaline and fear.

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MumboJumbo: hekp

MumboJumbo has sent his coordinates.

Stressmonster101: mumbo? :(

Iskall85: you good?

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