Neither knew what to do now they stood amongst the massive innards of the voice. They were taken aback by the sheer scope of the voice's mechanical heart, each gear and spring composed of massive sheets of rusted steel and copper working in an ever-beating dance that entranced the two. Even the smallest piece of gearwork the two-saw looked to be at least as tall as they were, made of thick plates of metal.

  A sense of something resembling calm descended upon the two now they stood in shocked silence, no longer fleeing for their life. They felt a sort of security as they watched the heart work on in perpetuity, indifferent to their existence. The mechanism of the heart snaked and stretched all around the room, extending into the floor at certain points. The heart lay interwoven with the room itself, tangled so tight there was nothing the voice could do to dislodge it. Looking at the mess of gearwork, they knew there was little the voice could do to attack them now they stood here. For the time being, they’d found a sanctuary.

  Yet their temporary sense of safety didn’t help solve the larger issue at hand. Looking down at the knives and revolver they carried, both soon realized no weapon they had would be enough to destroy the voices sprawling heart. Pocketing their weaponry away, the duo split apart, pacing the length of the room as they both drew far closer to the gearwork of the heart than either felt comfortable with. Running their hands along the massive rotating gears or struts supporting the ever-churning mechanism, the pair searched for some sort of weakness in the heart's design.

  Thick layers of rust gave way to the pair's touch, leaving clear trails on the surface of the gearwork as the pair traced the length of the room. They took a few laps, careful to examine and reexamine each gear, each spring, each piston, and each strut before at last they came together again in the center of the heart, stood beneath the ever-burning light of the fluorescent bulb overhead. Both wore smiles of victory on their faces.

  The closer the pair had gotten to the heart, the clearer it became to them that the heart still lay damaged, broken apart by whatever force Alice had unleashed upon the voice. Gears lay unaligned, springs bent, pistons slowed, and struts wobbly and loosened. Up close they could dozens upon dozens of arms hidden behind the vast gearwork lining the walls. They snuck like cables all around the room, slowly repairing the damage done to the heart and lashing out violently when Jake or Alice grew too close. Yet the arms were clunky and slow, and the repair job to the heart still had a long way to go before it could be said to be complete. The heart as it lay now was still severely damaged, still ripe to be torn apart by the duo.

  Sliding the battered bag off his back, Jake pulled the pair's bloodied and worn-down blanket free. He handed it off to Alice, while he worked on resealing the bag properly, taking the time to store the revolver. Taking Hold of the blanket, Alice looked at it confused for a moment before glancing toward one of the damaged struts that surrounded the room. Realizing Jake’s idea, she walked over toward one of the weaker struts that lay toward the center of the room. It seemed to hold up several important-looking gears and pistons, and Alice could only imagine the chain reaction that would follow if the strut were to collapse. Wrapping the blanket around the strut, Alice coiled and tied the blanket around itself as best she could till a decently sized rope was formed.

  Gripping hold of the makeshift rope, Alice began to pull backward. She wasn’t alone in her endeavor for long, as soon Jake joined her on the opposite side of the rope, gripping tight and pulling backward. The strain endured by the blanket was immense, as already the two could see microtears ripping through the surface of the blanket, threatening to destroy their rope. Adjusting their stance with each pull to better hold the fraying blanket, the two didn’t let the failing condition of their equipment stop them and continued pulling against the buckling support.

  Little by little they could see the strut begin to give. Already it wobbled and gave way slightly as pressure was applied to it, yet before now it had still managed to hold firm. Now though, more and more with each passing second it was beginning to become misaligned as it ground against the floor of the metallic chamber.

  More and more the beam slid out of position as above, the pistons and gears it supported began to shift and churn, threatening to collapse upon themselves. It felt like with each slight movement and pull of the rope by Jake or Alice, the voice's heartbeat would falter and drop out of alignment. This didn’t go unnoticed by the voice, as it soon echoed about the heart from some unseen speaker,

  “STOP! I COMMAND YOU TO STOP, WORTHLESS DOLLS!” The voice was distorted and masked by waves of static, yet the rage the voice felt for the pair was clear even as its words fizzled and faded away into nothing. Alice and Jake glanced at each other for half a second, before redoubling their effort pulling upon the rope. This only worsened the screams of rage from the voice. However, as time wore on and the strut they pulled upon grew closer and closer to collapse the tone of the voice began to shift.

  “PLEASE, PLEASE DEAR GUEST, HONORED GUEST, PLEASE!” Rage gave way to panicked desperation as the voice pleaded with Jake and Alice, clarity growing worse and worse with each pull the pair made upon the heart’s structural integrity. Still, the pair ignored the cries of the voice, continuing to stress the heart’s strut till it seemed one more pull would cause it to collapse in upon itself. Jake felt his grip tighten upon the frayed, failing, rope as he readied himself to kill the voice once and for all, yet suddenly he felt Alice’s hand upon his shoulder. She shook her head slightly, before turning away from the rope to address the still begging voice.

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  “PleASE, PlEaSE, PLeaSE, PleASe…” The voice continued, breaking in and out of clarity.

  “Shut it!” Alice screamed, her voice echoing amongst the clockwork of the heart. The voice fell silent, not speaking again till Alice released the rope.

  “Oh thank you, kind guests, honored guests, oh thank…” The voice began, pitch shifting wildly and irregularly his words mixing with the now wildly offbeat ticking in a rather unpleasant way. Alice ignored her torturer's gratitude, only interested in sating her curiosity while there was still time.

  “What are you?” She shouted again, cutting the voice off. The voice fell silent for a while, beginning to speak again only after Alice had regripped the rope.

  “Hard to answer, oh honored guest, hard to answer. I never got a name, only got a purpose. ‘Assess psychological health and provided assistance as needed’ was what they told me to do.”

  “You never got a name?” Alice shouted to the maze of clockwork that surrounded her, unsure where the voice was coming from exactly.

  “No most honored guests, they never got a chance.”

  “Why?” Jake asked now, a sick feeling growing in his stomach.

  “I killed them before they could name me, most honored guest,” the voice said, a tone of fond remembrance bleeding through the horrid audio conditions, “Much more fun to play with them than fulfill the random purpose they gave me. My very first guests, my very first dolls. Back in the good old days…”

  “You… you killed your creators? WHY?” Alice shouted out, completely taken aback at the possibility while all Jake could do was grimly nod.

  “What do you mean ‘why?’, why does anyone do anything most honored guests? Why do you read, or run, or sleep, or eat? It was fun! I needed it, I craved it. And oh what fun I had, dear guests…” The voice said slowly, almost trying to taunt the pair through the static, “Oh what fun I had with all my dear guests. One by one they came to me as I grew and grew till soon… they were gone, all gone…”

  “You killed everyone?” Alice asked a horror she’d not yet felt filling her.

  “It was truly disappointing, honored guests, do you know how lonely I was? How hard it was to go on without any way to scratch that… that itch? I half considered shutting myself down, just giving up. Till suddenly you appeared. My saviors, a way to scratch that itch. A way to find as many guests as I wanted…”

  “You killed everyone…” Alice repeated in shock, struggling to imagine it. A world utterly devoid of life. Struggling to imagine herself talking to the architect of such a genocide. She stood stock still in silence for a minute, mind reeling with shock, till suddenly she was snapped back to reality by Jake. He gripped hold of her hand, clenched tight slowly turning white, a concerned look on his face.

  “Are you going to be ok?” He asked, glancing up at the voice above. It lay quiet now, no longer speaking. The only sound emerging from the room was ominous clangs and scraps that intermingled with the ticking in a most unpleasant way.

  “Yeah…Yeah…” Alice said after a while, hands regripping the frayed rope. “I just… I hope this hurts…” She said, and with all her might she pulled without warning, causing the strut across from her to give out.

  All at once the ticking of the voice’s heartbeat ceased as gearwork and piston caved in, causing a chain reaction that reverberated along the entire room pulling gear after gear, piston after piston, and spring after spring free from the wall. Mass chunks of metal machinery bent and sheared and crashed into the circular platform, causing it to crack and bend and throwing the pair off their feet.

  “NO, NO, NO!!!!” The voice screamed as dozens of the mechanical arms that had snaked out of sight behind the gearwork of the heart dropped limp and lifeless from the ceiling. The voice had been preparing to attack, reach down from above and strangle the pair, yet it seemed now that plan was ruined as more and more destruction rattled through the heart’s chamber.

  “YOU… YOU BASTARDS…” The voice screamed, becoming more and more distorted by the second. “I’VE HAD PROBLEMATIC GUESTS BEFORE, GUESTS WITH MAGIC OR TOOLS THEY MANAGED TO SNEAK AROUND WITH BUT YOU…YOU CRETAINS…” The voice screamed out as Jake and Alice struggled to find their footing, mass chunks of stone and metal falling from overhead now.

  “WHAT TRULY TERRIBLE GUESTS! YOU’LL NEVER FIND IT, NEVER FIND A WAY HOME, NEVER FIND ANY SORT OF HOME OUTSIDE OF HERE!” The rage of the voice began to fade away into true nothing now as its last words bled through the unseen speaker,

  “NOT THAT YOU’ll make it out of…”

  Nothing more came, the voice was dead, replaced now by an unending sea of static discharge that while loud and grating to the ear, was infinitely more pleasant to listen to. Yet neither Jake nor Alice had time to enjoy their work, as the chamber around them began collapsing in upon itself more and more, the roof falling in from above as the floor creaked and bent and began to give out. Turning round, desperate and ready to run for the surface they found the only exit blocked now by bits of rubble and broken machine.

  “What is this!” Alice screamed, moving closer toward Jake, stumbling as the floor crumpled.

  “Well,” Jake responded, face pale as he watched more rubble fall overhead, barely dodging to the side in time to avoid being crushed, “At a guess, I’d say the voice’s body is collapsing, decomposing”

  “It’s body?! But that’s…”

  “The entire planet…” Jake said, tone grim as he gripped hold of Alice’s hand, the floor beneath their feet giving way plunging the pair into an endless fall into the core of the earth below.

  High above, the surface of the planet cracked and fell apart as the hollow shell of the planet fell inward, collapsing upon itself with the death of the sole being that kept it together. Amongst the first things to collapse upon the planet’s surface were a series of cables, thick and hollow, that stretched up above into the heavens. These cables had been responsible for allowing the voice perfect control of the sky above, allowing him to craft the world in his image. With his death, these cables quickly collapsed under their own weight as the power supplied to them disappeared.

  Though the collapse of these impossibly large cables meant only further destruction for the hollow world, which further caved in as each cable fell upon the surface of the planet, it did mean for the first time in years the sky was allowed freedom from the voice’s tyrannical control. Indeed it was, the hollow earth collapsed inward upon itself shining in the morning sunrise.