The Horrors Persist But So Does DDR
“Welp. We’re finished,” he said. He was sitting on a nearby pile of trash. I could see his hair poking through his fingers as he cradled his head and stared at the floor of the compactor.
“Beg your pardon?” I said. He looked at me, annoyed.
“Cooked. Donezo. Game over. The end,” he said. He kicked what may have once been a watermelon and sent chunks of rotten debris flying.
I rolled my eyes.
“Really?” I said.
“Girl, we are fucked,” he said. He started kicking another piece of trash and uncovered a cinder block by means of smashing his ankle into it. He started hopping around on one foot–uttering choice expletives–before encountering a slippery patch of orange goop and falling back to the floor next to a prominent mound of trash.
I stared at the trash pile as he struggled to stand up. It looked… familiar? I walked over to it and started pulling away used bandaids and old banana peels from its surface. Could it be…? Yes! Speakers! An old CRT screen!
The screen was cracked and the speakers had completely filled with something black and flaky. I turned my attention to the floor nearby, kicking away at the refuse with my feet. Eventually, the form appeared: two sets of four arrows, caked with grime, sticky with the lechate that had corrupted its innards.
“No fucking way,” he said.
“Fucking way,” I said.
The walls of the compactor shuddered as a hydraulic system deep in its bowels started working up pressure.
“Do you… do you want to dance?” he said. “Not that it’ll work, obviously, but we can imagine.”
“Hell yeah,” I said. I took my place on the dance pad and he came up beside me.
There was a loud banging sound somewhere else in the compactor. Red hydraulic fluid started leaking down a wall. The distant whine of the oil pump slowed down and then stopped completely.
“Dumbasses can’t do anything right,” I said.