The stench woke Coco. She was afraid to open her eyes. She didn’t want to know where she was, or the source of the smell.

The back of her head throbbed. She thought of the purple brain sucking spores and desperately groped under her mess of hair to check if one of them was on her. She walked her fingers nimbly over her scalp and found only a large lump from where the guard had hit her.

Coco avoided opening her eyes as long as she could. Soon the urge to vomit was so great she had no choice, if only to find somewhere to be sick. When she opened them, she had trouble focusing.

Her dress was pulled up around her waist. Through her gauzy eyes, the room appeared to be a padded cell. On the floor nearby was her silver g-string.

The room smelled like shit. Literally.

Without much time to analyze it, she could see there was nothing else in the room with her. Just four, off-white, quilted walls, with a floor and ceiling to match. Clearly the only place to vomit was in the corner.

Coco stood and pulled her dress down. The floor was soft and uneven. The heels of her shoes dug into the plastic quilted floor and tore holes in it. The more she walked, the more it tore, until the quilted cushions fell apart and brown paste oozed from the floor like old pus from a wound. The smell of shit was instantly stronger. Coco fell to her knees and retched violently into the corner.

Hot stomach acid and roasted cat meat sprayed onto the floor, mingling with the stuff already pooling under her from the brown seepage her heels had unleashed. It was all too much. Coco threw up until she was gagging on green foam and there was nothing left inside her stomach. She heaved until tears were streaming down her face. She just wanted to go home.

Coco sat up and wiped her face with her dress. She tore a layer of fabric from her skirt and tied it around her face. She looked around her cell.

The Chamber was a very small padded room, much like that of a mental institution. But this room was padded with used diapers. Judging from the slow fountains of shit squeezing through the holes her stilettos had torn, they weren’t just baby diapers. Kernels of corn and peanuts were clearly visible in the brown muck. Coco dry heaved into her hands.

The door to the room was metal with a barred slat at eye level. Coco leapt up and pressed her face against it. She lifted her makeshift mask and gasped hungrily at the relatively fresh air on the other side with her face mashed against the bars. There didn’t appear to be anyone guarding her. There also didn’t appear to be a way out.

Coco stood with her face pressed to the bars until it hurt. She pressed her face so hard into the metal that she was sure it would bruise. But she didn’t care. She would do anything to breathe something beside the fetid air of the Chamber. She watched the shadows in the dark hall outside the door, and waited for a guard to check on her.

Rudy flew through the bars and landed on the wall. “This place is fucking great!” He hopped about the room happier than Coco had ever seen him.

“It’s not! It’s terrible and I have to get out of here!”

Rudy laughed, “Sorry sweetheart. The guards throw you in, and then drag you out. When you’re dead.” He settled into one of the holes torn by Coco’s shoes.

The fly sniffed the sludge, and rolled about giddily before he stopped and cocked his tiny bug head to one side. “You know, there is a way you could get out of here, but you aren’t going to like it.”

Coco wailed, “I’ll do anything, I don’t care! I have to get out of here!”

Rudy buzzed through the air and landed, with his petite shitty feet on Coco’s nose. “Dig.”