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It had taken almost an hour, but he'd found it. In the dark, in the middle of a withered cornfield, was an open grave waiting for him to jump into.

He could appreciate the irony of it. He could appreciate a lot of things now that had never really seemed funny before, or worth paying attention to at all. Little things. Lucky had never noticed before now how the island was devoid of cricket song. There were no blinking fireflies or howling dogs. Even the trees and bushes barely rustled when the winds died down, amplifying everything else a hundred times in the silence. He was alone with just the distant sound of the tide rushing in and out, his own quickened heartbeat, and the severed head of one of his colleagues.

It was a long story.

But it was also the reason why he had gone so far as to pry it from Dakota's most likely far more well-meaning hands. It was why he had smuggled it away from cremation at the last second, in defiance of the posters with the big red letters warning people against proper, whole body burials. Or even partial body burials. It was why he had finally gone to seek out the abandoned lab he'd heard so many rumors about.

< Not that I'm against this, sweetheart, in fact I'm all for it, but ... are you sure you want to do this? > The cold blue glow of his sawblade weapon could barely illuminate the path below him. It was only enough light to see the edges of the hole in the ground, and the relief of the three letters R I P carved into the tombstone marker.

I have to do this. He adjusted his glasses by the corner, shifted under the straps of his backpack (heavier than he expected), and crouched down to clamber into the unknown. Or try, at least.

To call this an underground lab was certainly an understatement.

He clung to the rope ladder, swaying uncertainly when he had to come to a sudden stop. He held out Song's blade for a second or two before he returned to hugging the ladder. There was very little to be seen except for a partial cave-in of concrete. If it was that prone to falling apart, he couldn't guarantee it would be able to stand his weight if he walked on it.

There had to be another way...

The life hunter eased himself down onto the 'roof' and looked around again. There was something that might have been a hatch or a trapdoor, which seemed more promising than tumbling down a broken concrete ramp.

Lucky took about two steps toward it before the roof caved in beneath him.

Feet left: Doesn't matter, made a new hatch
HP: 40/50 (-10)

Well, the important thing was that he wasn't dead. Yet.

The first thing he noticed about the room he'd landed in, aside from the fact that he had completely trashed it with pieces of what had formerly been the roof, was that it was a men's bathroom.

He clambered out of the rubble and dusted himself off a little. It didn't help.

"Kurwa," he remarked as he stared up at the dark hole in the ceiling.

"Kurwa," he grumbled as he kicked at the rubble blocking the only exit.

"Kur-" he began again, before noticing there was a medicine cabinet.

Well, if he was going to be here for a while, he figured he might as well see if there was anything of use inside. He frowned at his scraggly reflection and opened it up.

HP: 40/50

One by one he inspected the contents of the bottles. Most of them had gone off by now, judging by their half-ruined labels. The only two that could even be considered salvageable were a bottle of mystery candy, and something that looked suspiciously like a bottle of viagra.

< Disgusting, > Song observed, not particularly clear about which bottle she was referring to. Maybe both.

It's just medicine, he replied dully, sniffing the liquid contents of one of the bottles and coughing. Or was.

He hefted the bottle of gumballs in his hand a few times as he thought, and then finally jammed it into one of his backpack pockets. Food was food, he couldn't afford to be picky in the event he was trapped by his own stupidity in trying to explore this place.

Sighing, he crossed back the other way and began kicking in stalls one by one with the edge of his shoe. If the bottles were any indication, this place had been abandoned for quite a while. This was so unsanitary...

< No. >

Come on. Just this once.

< No. >

Please?

< Absolutely not, and that's final. >

Lucky remained poised over the nastiest toilet, holding his nose with one hand and gripping Song in the other. He glanced between her blade and the glinting object buried in the filth. And again. She was the right length to prevent his hands from getting dirty, and, well, weapons were tools of hunters, right? That made her like a swiss army knife. A really long swiss army knife with good leverage and no need to worry about getting some kind of horrible infection.

It could be the key to getting out of here, he reasoned. Maybe even the literal key to getting out of here. Or maybe it was just someone's phone lost to a poorly-timed call. There was only one way to find out.

< You wouldn't dare... >

He dared.

Song screeched all the while.

In retrospect he probably should have expected this, he might think to himself later on as he went to dunk himself in the ocean for the hundredth time to clean off the grime and excrement.

But the fall had put him on edge and adrenaline churned within him. He had just barely seen the outline of what looked like a keyring -

Something rose up in front of him, and his arm made a wild slashing motion with the saw before he had even focused on what he was attacking.

AAAAUUGHHH, he whined internally, not even daring to open his mouth at this point.

HP: 37/50
DMG: 12
BOSS: 18/30

Song was making a noise that was probably - no, definitely - laughter. Annoyance seemed to improve his aim.

HP: 31/50
DMG: 7
BOSS: 9/30