Chapter 6

The snake was three times as long as 96 and had a monstrous set of fangs, having not been able to see it clearly under water this was his first time actually seeing it, which made him glad that he had been unable to clearly see because its appearance was a alittle shocking. It was black with dark green markings spread across it forming strange patterns and on its head were two small horns. 96 looked at the voice but he soon realized that though the two patterns were similar they were slightly different. "You really do end up in some weird situations, don't you?" 96 didn't really think that he had been in that weird of situations. Out of the corner he noticed the glowing stone and picked it up to examine it, the stone glowed with a green tint not unlike the color of the snake, it was rather cold and damp but for some reason he rather suddenly put the stone in his mouth and swallowed it whole. The voice looked at him in open mouthed shock "Excuse me but what in the world did you just do?" 96 wasn't really sure himself, he had felt like he needed to eat it and the urge had been almost an instinct he also felt that he needed to eat the snake but he intended to cook that one first.

With the voices help he was able to drag the snake over to the fire, but before he could put the snake in he noticed several glowing objects in the center of the flame,though he had the urge to eat one of the glowing objects he stopped himself from reaching out and touching the fire because he was not that stupid, and becouse he had already died that way once. The fire was not that large but it was quite hot, he was still dripping with water and he wondered if that would help with the heat. The urge to eat the glowing object was getting stronger, and he could feel his body starting to move on it's own.

Behind him he heard a small splash which brought him back to reality, he quickly pulled his fingers back from the fire, they were only slightly burnt, the water had slowed down the burning but had not stopped it completely. He started to turn and see what had made the splash when something darted past him into the fire. It took a split second to register that it had been the voice, he turned his head to see the voice dragging one of the stones out of the fire. When it got close to the edge the fire started to catch on its fir, 96 quickly reached into the fire and dragged both the voice and the stone out, he grunted in pain as the fire scorched his arms, he dropped the stone but held onto the voice who was still on fire.

96 stood for the first time and slowly crossed the room slowly patting out the flames on his companion, when he reached the water pool he fell to his knees bloodying them. He set the voice into the pool extinguishing the last of the flame and then plunged his own arms in to relieve some of the pain.

once both of them had recovered from the shock, 96 sat down taking the pressure off his knees, he looked at the voice and only one question on his mind, why?

The voice shook itself and looked at 96 with a face that said, do you really need to ask? "you don't get it, you stopped responding to me, you were so focused on getting that stone that you didn't care if you burned alive again...

You used to care more about survival, but now it doesn't seem like you care either way" 96 didn't understand what he ment by that, what did it matter if he felt pain or died? It wasn't like it was anything new. "See that's what I'm talking about it's not normal for humans to act like that" Since when had they been human? As far as 96 could tell he was little more than a lab rat, could he really consider himself human when no one else seemed to think the same. The voice shed a single tear and sighed "You should view your life as something more precious, if not for yourself then can you do it for me?" So the idea was that the voice didn't want him to play so loosely with his life? 96 couldn't help but remember how the voice used to be rather condescending when they had first met, but now it he couldn't help but smile. For the sake of the voice he could try to stop dying if the voice would take care of himself as well, no more running into the fire. The voice smiled "Sounds good to me, now let's get your injuries taken care of" after rapping his arms with cool cloth 96 ate the stone and fell asleep after eating some bread. And for the second time in his lives he reached day five of being in the dark room.