Logan's Inferno
Imagine - if you will - Hell.
Like a very stereotypical Hell. The kind of Hell in which you’d see horned midgets prancing around, looking like sentient chorizo. That kind of Hell.
That is what The Furnace looked like around 11 hours after being activated; and the only midget in sight at that time mark was a screaming, scorching man snatching at his smouldering skin as it melted off him.
The drugs had worn off an hour after he was dropped in.
His eyesight had gone 4 hours after that.
The burial garment of whatever was left of his costume had either singed away or melted miserably into his flesh, making him almost one with that uniform he held so dear.
The Furnace itself was once a large smelting room for re-using metal by melting it down, but after the factory was closed due to an accident and left to rot - eventually being illegally repurposed by Keith Hibbert and his merry band of fucklets as an ‘interrogation den’ where they’d routinely kidnap mutants to catechize on important info about mutant rebellion groups - it had been delightfully reconstructed into a labyrinthian hellscape that Daedalus would kill (again) for. With the many metal walls veined throughout, it was impossible to determine how far The Furnace stretched - all of the barricades were identical, and all of them burned to the touch.
Wolverine slammed straight into another unforgiving wall. He couldn’t see, he couldn’t smell anything except thick smoke that stuck to the back of his throat, he couldn’t hear anything but the scorchingly-loud crackling and blazing and licking of the flames and his screams echoing off of the infinite perimeter. Any attempts to slash through the walls resulted in white-hot pain striking up his claws and searing his nerves.
His knees gave out right in front of another wall. With a strangled roar, he thumped his fists against the barrier, over, and over, and over.
As if that would help.
All-too-familiar rage was bubbling up inside him. The narcotics that had been smothering it were burning away, and they’d left a painful stain that made the internalised inferno writhe, made it rear its disgusting head towards the flames, towards the fire, towards the sorry state that it found Wolverine in. It took its time. Prodded the throbbing heart with its claws, simmered under the inflamed skin and left the aching muscles contracting violently, scratched at the sore throat and tore from it an animalistic screech that could only belong to it.
It punctured the eyeball and fractured the pupil, its ebon rupturing and devouring the iris and sclera until all that remained was a single white dot in each optic.
Wolverine blacked out, the rotter he’d formed as a bastion all those years ago - the weapon, the animal - taking the wheel.
The berserker tore through The Furnace as if the labyrinth had been constructed from crepe paper. Immense heat and the smouldering metal under its feet just compounded to the fuming frenzy of the manufactured force of nature that exploded out of that Hell on Earth, like it was the untamed parasitical scum clawing out of its molten underbelly.
Any guards outside or further on didn’t hear it before it was too late, what was left of those who got in its way were trifling stains sticking to its claws or damp morsels wrenched between the teeth. Limbs were separated from their owners and torn to shreds or jammed down the victim’s throat, snapping back and disjointing teeth - if not sometimes making them crunch out of the gums and clatter to the ground like white, broken quarters.
It splintered open another unrecognisable foe’s cranium and sunk its teeth into the cervical, almost-black blood spurting out like a geyser, wetly splatting on the pale skin of the corpse-to-be. The body writhed like a slug in salt before going limp, after which it was dropped and stepped over like nothing.
A thick bullet cracked into the lumbar curve of the savage; a jarring, raspy clack wrenched out of the throat as its head snapped towards the attacker - scrawny and sweaty, holding the gun as far away from him as possible, as if it were infected.
The demon lunged at the bony assailant and plunged its claws into the area beneath the clavicle, getting a scream in response - it screamed back, spittle flecked with blood flicking onto the face - as it pinned him down on the cold floor, yanking its left arm out of the chest and using it to wrench the man’s jaw from his face with a ‘CRUNCH!’ and a shrill scream, before forcing it into the middle of the forehead - dark crimson surging from the wound - and digging its right hand deeper into the chest before the body finally stopped moving.
The unhinged wretch torrefied through the rest of the facility, until the blood boiling in its veins was rain droplets compared to what it was inundated in.
In the entrance room, hiding behind what was once an L-shaped receptionist’s desk that stood three metres away from the exit, Keith Hibbert heard the crashing and caterwauling of his guards jumbled with the infernal roars of the devil and the sound of shattering bones, and fumbled for the gun in his shabby desk of drawers - not a regular gun, but a tranquiliser, hooked up with what his supplier told him was ‘stuff that’ll fuck up even the strongest mutie’. His supplier had neglected to tell him exactly what it did, but Hibbert was willing to take risks as the disquieting plausibility of impending expiry built up in him. The ceiling fan hummed.
With his back pressed to the open end of the desk, he checked if the gun was loaded, once, twice, thrice, before peeking around the edge towards the door. If he could knock the beast unconscious, that’d give him enough time to break the barricaded exit door open, leading to a quick, well-earned escape. He could hire new employees, goons were expendable. He’d call the cops after he left, tell them an unhinged mutant had slaughtered his entire work staff and almost him, despite the fact that Hibbert - as a good acquaintance of the Friends of Humanity charity’s co-founder - had only wanted to help the poor soul, and get information on one of the most dangerous mutant groups. The Justice System would buy that - they wouldn’t question the ropes, chains, medicaments, or anything else - they’d see it all as necessary when handling mutants, and they’d be right.
Keith smiled at the thought - a quick and easy getaway, an absolutely genius plan - as he stretched his neck to get a look at the entrance door.
It was open.
Stifling a shriek, he slammed back against the desk and gripped the gun with his clammy hands, eyes wide and beginning to brim with tears, teeth grinding together. The heavy stench of metal drizzled with blood clung to the room’s atmosphere.
A low, guttural growl echoed from his blindspot, somewhere behind the false safety of the desk. Quiet, muffled footsteps, slowly, slowly tapping out.
Getting louder. Louder. The sound of raspy, laboured breathing and the footsteps were ringing in his ears.
Getting louder. Louder. Louder. Check the gun - loaded. Getting louder. Louder. Closer. Closer-
Squealing, Hibbert stood up and fired.