GUTS, NO GLORY

More Fuckery Than You Can Survive

The door slams shut behind me, cutting off the sounds of whatever-the-fuck just happened back there. I don’t know if that poor bastard died screaming or just gurgled his last breath into oblivion, and I don’t fucking care.

I’m alive.

For now.

The hallway is long, dark, and dripping with something thick and wrong. The walls are covered in writing—no, carvings, deep grooves etched into metal.

"LIAR."
"THIEF."
"FUCKING WASTE OF AIR."

Gee, thanks, buddy. Real motivational.

A single lightbulb flickers overhead, buzzing like it’s laughing at me. There’s a door at the end. No handle. Just a slot, big enough to fit an arm through.

Oh, hell no.

I’ve seen enough fucked-up horror movies to know where this is going.

But the voice crackles to life again.

“Hello again, James. You survived your first lesson, but let’s be honest—you got lucky. This time, let’s see what you’re really made of.”

The slot slides open.

I already know.

FUCK.

There’s a key in there, hanging by a thin piece of wire. Just out of reach.

And the space around it? Blades.

Not clean surgical scalpels—rusted, jagged fucking razors, sticking out from the sides like hungry fangs.

Oh, you sick, motherfucking son of a bitch.

The voice continues.

“You have no one to steal from this time, James. You want the key? Then you’ll have to pay for it. With your own flesh.”

I stare at the blades, the way they catch the dim light. How deep will they cut? How much will I bleed?

No time to fucking hesitate.

I shove my arm in.

Instant fire.

The razors bite deep, splitting my skin open like tissue paper. Blood gushes, pooling on the floor as I force my way forward, gritting my teeth so hard I think they might fucking shatter.

Almost there.

My fingers brush the key—it swings away.

FUCK. FUCK. FUCK.

I push in deeper, my skin shredding like fucking deli meat. My vision pulses—black spots, dizziness. My stomach churns. The pain is so fucking much that my brain is starting to check out.

I grab the key.

Yank back.

My arm comes out looking like it survived a blender on steroids. Skin hanging in flaps. Dripping. Fucking dripping.

I’m lightheaded.

But the key is in my hand.

And the door unlocks.

It swings open into a new room.

A room I immediately wish I hadn’t walked into.

I wake up to agony.

Not a dull ache, not some half-assed hangover pain—raw, unfiltered, flesh-ripping agony. My wrists and ankles are on fire, the metal cutting deep. Cold steel cuffs, bolted into a chair. My head is pounding, my mouth tastes like copper and something worse.

What the fuck?

I try to move—bad idea. The second I shift, something pulls tight against my gut. I look down. Oh, fuck.

A wire.

Thin, razor-sharp, wrapped around my stomach, biting into my skin. Move too much, and it’ll slice me open like a goddamn fish.

Then the voice starts.

"Hello, James. You’ve spent your life being a selfish, lying, thieving sack of shit. You steal, you cheat, you hurt people without thinking. But today? Today, you’re gonna fucking think.”

The lights flicker.

And that’s when I see him.

Strapped to a table across from me.

Some poor bastard I don’t even recognize. Early 20s, maybe younger. His eyes are wide, his mouth duct-taped. But that’s not the worst part.

The worst part is the fucking hole in his stomach.

His insides are a goddamn mess—flesh peeled back, glistening, bloody. And right there, tangled in the gore, is a key.

A fucking key.

I know what’s coming before the voice even speaks again.

"There are two ways out of this room. One: You retrieve the key. The pain will be unbearable. The blood will be real. But you will live. Or two…"

A timer clicks on.

Three minutes.

"…you hesitate. And we see what happens when that wire around your gut starts pulling tight.”

FUCK.

I thrash, but the cuffs don’t budge. The kid across from me lets out a muffled scream, his whole body convulsing. He knows what’s happening. He knows what’s coming.

I don’t have a choice.

I grab the scalpel on the table next to me, my fingers slick with sweat. My stomach is fucking churning. I don’t want to do this. I don’t want to reach into some guy’s guts like I’m digging for fucking treasure.

But I do.

The second my fingers slide inside, the heat of his body, the fucking wetness of it, my stomach lurches. I gag. The smell is overwhelming—metallic, putrid, thick.

The kid screams through the duct tape, but I keep going. My fingers brush something hard—the key.

I pull.

It doesn’t come out easy.

I have to dig.

Blood is everywhere now, pooling, spilling over the edges of the table. The kid’s thrashing like a fucking madman, but it doesn’t matter. He’s already dead. He just doesn’t know it yet.

The key tears free with a wet squelch.

I jam it into my cuffs with shaking hands. The metal clicks, my wrists pop free. I’m moving before I even think, my legs buckling as I stumble forward. The wire at my waist pulls just a little—a sharp bite into my skin—but I’m faster.

I reach the exit.

00:02

The door slides open.

00:01

I throw myself through.

00:00

Behind me, a sound I’ll never fucking forget.

A snap.

A wet, ripping noise.

And a gurgling, inhuman scream.

I don’t turn around.

I don’t fucking look.

But the voice follows me.

"Well done, James. But this was just the beginning."

The hallway ahead is long, dark, and filled with something worse.

And somewhere in the shadows, someone is laughing.

GUTS, NO GLORY

A Nightmare of Blood, Screams, and Bad Fucking Luck

THE NEXT LEVEL OF FUCKERY

Bodies.

Dozens of them. Hanging from hooks, swinging like grotesque wind chimes. Some still twitching. Some with their mouths sewn shut.

And in the center of the room?

A chair.

Strapped into it—someone I know.

Oh, fuck me.

It’s Eddie.

Eddie, my old partner-in-crime. The guy who helped me rip off those jewelry stores, who swore we’d make it out of this shitty city together. The guy who disappeared three months ago without a trace.

His head lolls forward. His arms are strapped to the chair.

And his hands?

His fucking fingers are missing.

The voice crackles again.

“Oh, good, you remember Eddie. That’s sweet. But I’m afraid Eddie doesn’t have much time left. See, James, your choices don’t just affect you. They never have. So let’s play another game, shall we?”

A saw drops from the ceiling. Lands at my feet.

Oh, no. No no no no NO.

The voice keeps going, way too fucking pleased with itself.

“Eddie is still alive, James, but not for long. His bloodstream is currently full of a slow-acting toxin. He’s got maybe… oh… five minutes before his organs liquefy and start leaking out of his ass.”

I feel sick.

“But lucky for him, there’s a cure! And you, James, get to decide how he gets it.”

A hatch slides open on the wall.

Two vials.

One labeled “CURE”.

One labeled “FUCK YOU”.

I know what’s coming. I fucking know.

“One of these will save Eddie. The other will speed up the process and turn his insides into soup in thirty seconds. But here’s the catch—"

Another timer lights up.

05:00

“You don’t get to pour it down his throat, James. No, no, no. That would be too easy. You have to inject it directly into his spine.”

A needle slides out of the chair’s armrest.

Big. Fucking huge. Long as my goddamn hand.

Eddie groans, barely conscious. His eyelids flutter.

He doesn’t even fucking know.

I grab the CURE vial, but I hesitate.

Because this motherfucker wants me to doubt myself.

What if the labels are swapped? What if I’m about to murder my last friend in the world?

04:00

FUCK.

I grip the needle. My fingers are shaking. My arm is still bleeding, leaving sticky red streaks all over the fucking floor.

I don’t have a choice.

I jam the needle into his spine.

Eddie screams, a sound so raw and fucking broken that it splits my soul in half.

I inject the cure.

03:00

He convulses.

I step back.

The voice laughs.

“Oh, James. You always did have shit luck.”

Eddie starts foaming at the mouth.

His body locks up. His skin turns purple. His fucking eyes explode.

Thirty.
Fucking.
Seconds.

I killed him.

I fucking killed him.

And then—the walls start closing in.

FUCK.

I run.

Blood dripping. Brain spinning. The last thing I hear is the voice, that same sick, twisted voice.

“No glory for you, James. Just guts.”

The door slams shut.

And ahead?

Another hallway.

Another fucking nightmare.

TO BE CONTINUED…