The Wrong Room

<snip> Tense and edgy, Jay proffered his hand “Come on - It's this way”

“Aw, what?” Cass wrinkled her nose in distaste as she stepped out into the alien ship.

Artemis turned to regard them “So, what you think?” he said, bracingly.

“That's just... wrong!”

<tag>Where are we?

What's so distasteful and just so downright wrong about this place?
</tag></snip>

Joribel turned around as the others entered the room. He frowned severely, a look of distaste on his face . . . or it could have been his reaction to the room itself. Holograms were known to, oddly enough, be able to smell, and this one smelled atrocious things. He crossed his arms over his still immaculate jacket, dress shirt, and jeans. Being a hologram meant always being the clean one at least.

"Welcome to hell, everyone. A small tour, yes?" He turned back to the room, waving a hand as he spoke in a sarcastically over-friendly realtor's tones. "As you can see by the unusual decor, the current owner has made this rather large room a sort of hobby shop storage area. In place of curtains are huge strips of what can possibly be called human meat across every wall. The furniture is hand made from sturdy calcified tissue, more commonly known as human bones. Note that rather lovely coffee table made completely of re-purposed rib bones perfectly centered on four sturdy femurs."

Sarcasm and disgust still high, Joribel turned back to the others. "Mind you don't slip in the accumulated blood and intestinal tracts. I understand the purpose is to rather oil the floor, if you will, presumably to keep it in a near-mint condition and avoid scuff marks." He merely walked right through the decaying entrails and littered stacks of body parts, knowing he'd walk out the other side totally messy but not needing a bath once his hard drive rebooted.

"As you can tell by the mind-numbingly rank odor wafting on the thick, putrid air, not only are we in the heart of this charnal house nightmare, but we are ungodly close to a rent in the deck plating above the garbage holding area. And . . ." he came to a halt near a huge tear in the floor plating, a gash dangerously overlooking the stewing mixed refuse of the ship. "Ah, that can easily be enlarged by the lucky home purchaser to include direct access to the below deck, or, for a slightly higher cost, can be repaired to keep both the blood-hobby room and the garbage disposal separate . . . as safety regulations probably dictate." He lost his sarcastic friendly tone and shifted to frustrated, annoyed, and disgusted with a bit of rising hysteria.

"Of course, I'd have to research that bit, wouldn't I? I'm not exactly up to date on the most recent regulation changes concerning human torture rooms and their waste product re-purposing chambers. And naturally the toxicity of that wast area will really need to be looked into, as it's probably released all sorts of unhealthy bacterum and other microbes into the air." Joribel threw his hands up in complete frustration. "Of course, I would have called this a rampaging killer cyborg's starter flat, but now that I look at it, it had shades of psychopathic serial killer and long-term sadistic fetisher about it."

Finally, he whirled around to glare at the others. "Good luck cleaning up her," he chin-flicked to gesture at Cass, "injuries with the nasty contaminants in this room. She'll be lucky to get only a minor staph infection or a slight more nasty necrotizing faceitis. Now, what I really want to know. What I'm fairly, shall I dare say even dying, to know is when you struck the weakened hull, weakened no doubt from the acidic bile lurking around the tastefully blood smeared walls, did you have any clue, even one iota, that," Joribel's tone rose, near hysteria building with each word at that point, "there was no smegging exit from this nightmare bloodbath?!"

He spun around, flicking his arms wide and barely missing hanging rotting flesh as he did so. "And why the hell are there no exits? How the smeg do they get these smegging disgusting, germ-filled, bacterium-ladened, maggot-enticing remains of poor human explorers into the sealed room to begin with? And why? Can anyone answer me that? Why would they do something this insane?"

Joribel ended with taking a deep, sobbing breath, then covering his face with his hands and heaving, wondering if it were possible for a hard-light hologram to actually vomit, knowing it wasn't, but sort-of wishing he could anyway. If any time called for a good barf-session, this was it.

<<tag: I kind of was on the fence about this room. Is it a hologram/ delusion where everyone gets to see their own nightmare, or is it really a charnel house filled with decay and a hidden exit?>>