SILENCE THE VOICES

“Why aren’t my fingers in someone’s eye sockets right now… Why aren’t my fingers in someone’s eye sockets right now… Why aren’t my fingers in someone’s eye sockets right now…”

You ever consider, Krieg, that it’s because we’re currently CHAINED UPSIDE DOWN ON THE ROOF OF A CAVERN HIDDEN IN A MOUNTAIN?!

Like usual, the psycho didn’t listen to the only speck of reason and higher thought that he had in this shared space we call our brain. He just kept on mutter, “Why aren’t my fingers in someone’s eye sockets right now…” Over and over again.

Like he had been doing. For the past fifty years. Non-stop.

Do you have any idea what it’s like to live inside the mind of a psychopath, who seems to only communicate through various forms of incoherent shouting, rage-fueled ranting about castles made of cartilage, and the latest of his insane mumblings, the desire to shove our fingers into someone’s eye sockets. With the eyes still in there.

Any idea? Any at all?

If not, then I wish unto whatever god will listen that I had your life, because quite frankly, this blows.

This is hardly the first time when I had thought that sharing a brain with Krieg the Psycho was shitty. In fact, it was one of the first thoughts I had when I realized my situation. Then there was that time we slaughtered an entire bandit town, that time we got stranded in that one desert and had to survive on nothing but the remains of animals that even the buzzards wouldn’t eat, then that time we somehow pissed off the entire nation of Happy-Go-Lucky-Horseys.

And there was also the time that said Happy-Go-Lucky-Horseys actually caught us. That resulted, somehow, in us being chained to the roof of a cavern underneath their capital city for the next, oh, near millenium.

I have no idea who made that judicial decision, but whoever it was, I was going to sic Krieg on them and their family. As soon as we actually got out of this prison, that is. Which doesn’t seem likely.

Anyway. This is me.

Hey. Remember back when I used to be in control? Back when we used to be sane?

Krieg’s only response was to continue muttering to us.

Guess not. I sighed in defeat. You can’t even hear me, can you? Little voice in your head trying to remind you of a time when we could go hours, days even, without muttering about our desire to feel the gooey mush of an eyeball after we shove our thumbs into someone’s sockets?

Krieg just kept on muttering.

Yeah… I barely even remember…

It wasn’t always like this, you know. It used to be that I was the one in control of our body. We didn’t go around slaughtering anything that we could find that had a pulse. We didn’t try to terrify everything that had eyes (though that didn’t stop people from being scared anyway). We didn’t go running around screaming about our desire to ride bicycles made of meat.

But… Something happened. I don’t really remember what. Time and the trauma of it keeps me from doing so, I think. But I know it’s when Krieg took the Captain’s chair out from under me, and that’s when shit got messy.

But I don’t remember much from before Krieg took the reigns. And I remember even less from the time before Krieg and I started to share a brain.

It had been a… Simple life. I think. Maybe. Like I said, I don’t really remember.

But there is something that stuck with me. A mask, the mask that Krieg and I are currently wearing. That mask being sold to us. And I remember that fucker who sold it.

When I find that bastard, that asshat who sent me to this fucking pony-land with this psychotic lunatic, Krieg and I are going to rip out his small intestine, wrap it around his throat, and choke him to death with his own guts.

Yeah. And I’m the sane one of the two of us.

“Why aren’t my fingers in someone’s eye sockets right now… Why aren’t my fingers in someone’s eye sockets right now… Why aren’t my finger in someone’s eye sockets right now…”

Wish I could shove our fingers into our eye sockets right now…

…

… Krieg. Did you hear that?

Krieg just kept muttering, but I could feel his metaphorical ears perk up at the sound of something echoing through the crystalline halls of the cavern around us. Something that sounded familiar… Something like…

Footsteps?

The rhythmic pattern of the sound bouncing off the walls could only be one thing. But they were odd somehow, different from the hoofsteps of a pony walking (trotting, cantering, whatever…). There were… Fewer steps. And they were slightly spaced apart from one another, like…

Like a biped.

Then a man rounded a corner. And I recognised him.

You MOTHERFUCKER!

Walking towards me, a smug, self-satisfied look on his face was that damn salesman that sold me the psycho mask that had gotten me into this situation in the first place.

“Well, well, well,” the little bastard said. And he was little. Like, five and a half feet. Krieg and I were damn near seven. We could crush him just by heaving our pecs at him. “If it isn’t my favorite deranged psychopath.” His smile turned sharper as he took in my condition. “How’s it hangin’?”

YOU LET ME DOWN FROM HERE, YOU SON OF A BITCH! LET ME DOWN SO I CAN RIP OUT OUR LIVER AND CAVE YOUR SKULL IN WITH IT!

Somehow, the salesman’s mouth turned up into an even wider grin. “Let you down? Oh, of course, of course!” He said in a jovial tone, as though he were talking with a favorite relative. “But you’ll have to wait on the liver ripping and the skull caving. I’ll let you down alright, but only so you can go about doing what it is you were, my good man.”

IF I GET LET DOWN FROM HERE WITH YOU STILL AROUND, I’M GOING TO MAKE A HOUSE OUT OF YOUR RIBCAGE!

The man seemed unperturbed by my threatening, smiling all the while, though I knew he could hear me. “You remember, don’t you? Finding the Vault? Looking for a way home? Trying to keep your… Meat pet in line?” He gestured a hand at us, but somehow seemed to be singling out Krieg, who was still muttering about eye sockets, though our eyes were locked onto the asstard in front of us.

The salesman went on. “Oh, and don’t you worry your pretty, fractured head about hurting me when you get down from there. By the time that this spell,” he clapped his hands together twice in quick succession, “takes effect on those chains that keep you on that ceiling, I’ll be long gone.”

He then turned around and started walking away. “I’ve found you very entertaining, Krieg,” he said over his shoulder, and somehow, despite only using Krieg’s name, it felt like he was addressing the both of us. “Do keep that up. I’d hate to have to replace my newest toy after only 1,200 or so years.” Then he turned the corner, leaving our sight, and was gone.

Krieg stopped his muttering (call Guinness, he broke the streak) long enough to shout after him, “I WILL SWALLOW YOUR SOUL!”

I sighed tiredly. If only, Krieg… If only…

And, true to the salesman’s word, hours later, the chains that wrapped around Krieg and I started to spontaneously rust at an extreme rate. Soon enough, they started to weaken to the point where the links started to snap.

Wait, shit, we’re hanging upside do-

Then we fell from a five story drop, straight onto our head.

Were it anyone else, they’d have died on the impact, either due to their skull being crushed, or, in the off chance that didn’t happen, their neck being snapped.

We, however, were not what you would call normal. I think you’ve figured that bit out by now.

So, when we landed on our head from a five story drop, all I said was, Oh. Damn. You okay, Krieg?

The psycho simply got up, rubbing our head with a hand. Then something seemed to dawn on him as he looked at our right hand in growing surprised rage.

I immediately saw where this was going. Krieg, keep ca-

“WHERE’S MY MEAT STICK?!”

Uh-oh.