Several floors down were, luckily, unaffected by the flux. Judging by the damages to walls and furniture, the armed group had done their rounds and succeeded in whatever tasks of 'containment' or 'destruction' that they were performing in the skyscraper. Minted had no idea what was happening. He was confused. The next set of stairs had collapsed, so the stallion needed to get to the next set of stairs across the ruined office. Lights were dangling by the wires that had broken through the damaged ceiling. Ceiling tiles and plaster covered the room with a dusty veil, all thanks to the quakes caused by the flux. Light was nonexistent as the electrical current had been interrupted by the strange things happening all around. Minted cursed to himself, wishing he had the electrical know-how to fix the lights or even jury rig some weapons, but he didn't. He only knew how to clean. His hoof remained suspended above the door nob because of his need to reassert himself from the negative thoughts that just passed through his mind.
As soon as he opened the door, his eyes twitched and he felt the need to vomit. A viciously acidic odor came from the other side, and red lights showed why: The entire stairwell looked like a living creature's insides. The lights were also caused by luminous tumors growing along the fleshy walls and creating a red bioluminescence. Minted was disgusted by the green substance oozing from and slowly sliding down the walls. Under any normal circumstances, he would have ignored the fleshy passage and chosen another, but he bit onto his hoof, worried about what might happen. His only choice was moving forward.
He exhaled in a simulacrum of disgust and reluctantly took steps on the gooey substance. Every step felt like torture, but his only way out of the tower was by wading through this...horror. The stairs gradually deformed into a lengthy, bobbing appendage reminiscent of intestines, and the janitor couldn't help but groaned silently again. Bright red bug-like creatures skittered along the walls and floors, digging into the meaty growths and puling out white balls that they would nibble on. When some saw the pony walking around, they would burrow deep into the surfaces, tossing up red and meat. The area seemed to span through wide tunnels and sharp elevations and inclinations. Creatures resembling intestines slithered to and fro in the tunnels, and pools of crimson would see more worm-like creatures rising up.
Many of the walls looked like they had compressed over a screaming pony, and the pools contained traces of bones that would be repurposed by crab-like scavengers. They would add them to their own bodies made of bones and thin, visible tendons linking everything together like a bone that hadn't seen all the meat completely eaten off of it. A noticeable gust of wind blew through the tunnels and hissed at the 'intruder'. Minted, gulping loudly and wobbling as he moved forward, noticed the wind was actually a voice hissing at him. Finally, it goaded him to approach it. It had no real threats to give, and Minted, as he accepted once more, had no choice in where he could go. It was either obey or die.
Continuing his way and following the instructions of the wind, the janitor ended up in a very large room once more, or so he thought. The vast majority of the area was walled off by transparent membranes transporting gas of some kind through valves. Pump. Pull. Pump. Pull. Minted could barely move, let alone turn his head. At the end of this tight space was a huge, fleshy mass pulsating and throbbing in random areas. Minted looked around, trying to gauge if the exit he sought was anywhere nearby. Instead, he was greeted by a voice that bordered on exhausted and was compounded with a liquid gurgle echoing in every word. The mass opened and folded to show the red face of a pony. An upside-down grew out of the small indenture opposite Minted and fell limply on the ground.
"So you're the...intruder..." It would often take deep breaths and stretch the end of its sentences. "Why do you wander the confusing labyrinth...? Why do you dirty my entrails with your hooves and breath?" Its eyes lazily rose, simulating an eyebrow being cocked. "I want only to rot and fester in peace."
Minted blinked several times and grinded his teeth.
"Ahhhh...A mute. Good to survive this flux."
Minted bore confusion on his face, and the entity exhaled in response, almost melting into a pile of flesh.
"Then you seek an exit?" She asked. Minted nodded in response. "Mmm...It is to your right." A large mass of flesh folded backwards, revealing a door still covered in slime and red liquids. "If you survived this long within our torture, then you might have a chance to leave before being trapped here with the rest of the trespassers." She cleared her throat when Minted put a hoof to the door nob. "We are all from different times but all have the same one as a source, now hurry along. You sully my fetid air."
Minted squeezed his eyebrows in and looked away, concerned and confused. The door closed automatically behind him, startling him a bit. Good thing the fleshy bits prevented it from slamming. All in all, the stallion found that this encounter was the calmest and nicest he had...even IF it was a bit disgusting. He stuck his tongue out and gagged at remembering the smells. The next floor was a white, quiet museum area.
Everything was polished a clean sheen, and it was very well illuminated to boot! Benches were strewn every few feet, and some small sculptures rested upon tall pedestals or were large enough to have their own place in the middle of the gallery. Minted rubbed his chin, perplexed at what he was seeing. All the 'paintings' and 'sculptures' were random shapes, colors, and sizes. There was no rhyme or reason to anything here, and it was honestly very horrible. It reminded the stallion of Pawcasso: A weird diamond dog with paintings that terrified Wrap as a young foal and still did so to this day.
Much like the 'church' place he went to, his steps her were loud and clear, but it felt like he was being watched. He carefully observed his surroundings as well as the statues and paintings for any movement. He jumped and looked back, but there was nothing. He did so again, but a few feet further, and huffed. The stallion was getting stressed. Something was stalking him, and he couldn't see it. The janitor heard a muffled noise that startled him and looked around, his eyes bolting left-to-right. A slight twitch in his field of view brought him towards another weird painting that wasn't as colorful as the others.
Looking closer, Wrap realized that the fully black, random shapes was actually an armored diamond dog actively looking around and trying to get help. His weapon was in there as well. Minted fall onto his read and pushed himself away, only to bump his head against something behind him. He looked up to see a triangular head pierced by a square and a rhomboid. Its single eye on the triangle looked at the pony with an almost child-like curiosity and two, white, cartoon gloves moved slowly forward, attached to misshapen geometrical forms.
It made a sound that resembled the name 'Joe' that it repeated in quicker succession, starting from a very low tone, to an era shattering high that was warped by the crescendo. It tried to grab Minted, but the pony managed to slide between the many shapes serving as the creature's legs. Having failed to capture its target, the entity slipped away into a painting and vanished, only to reappear in one right next to Minted and taking a chance for a grab. Even the statues moved and tried to grab him but failed, but everything became worse when the janitor saw the armored ponies and diamond dogs walking around. The floors were so waxed that Wrap couldn't stop himself. He still managed to get a hold of a tube shaped garbage can, stopping himself, and hiding inside of it. It was big enough to house a pony for some odd reason.
"What was that?!" one of the armored people asked.
Minted heard rustling all around him, then silence.
"Looks like it was nothing, for now. Keep your wits about you. Whatever is lurking in here wiped out the forward scouts."
Taking deep, slow breaths, the janitor tried to keep himself as quiet as possible while the armed people outside made their rounds. He overheard them noticing their companions in the paintings, and dared to poke his head through a small opening by pulling the trash lid back and looking out. His pupil shrunk when he saw one of the ponies looking at a painting then turning around. The weird creature emerged from the painting and, in as quick a flash, pulled them into it, trapping them in a painfully distorted form.
"There!" one of the other armed individuals shouted.
Most shots missed since the creature's body was so bizarrely misshapen and would dive 'into' paintings and sculptures. Other diamond dogs and ponies were grabbed and either turned into similarly horrific statues and paintings, and Minted saw the whole thing. He knew that if he didn't leave now, the armored group would probably be wiped out, and then he would be trapped in the trash can, doomed to starve. Before the janitor could come up with a plan, however, the painting monster noticed him and slowly walked towards him. Its whole body twitched and rearranged itself while it walked towards him, and it made the "joe" noise in the process again. The armored individuals saw it slowly moving and fired at it, shattering several parts of its body like glass. It shrieked in pain and started bouncing around everywhere like a rocket.
Minted bolted out of the trash and to the exit the armed visitors took, slipping right by them without their noticing. Somehow, this time, Wrap was jettisoned through the door as if he were shot out of a cannon. The trip skid to a stop on long, brown platforms strewn all about a long, dark room. Hanging above an abyss did not help Minted out very well, especially when he heard a childish giggle behind him and got to see a large creature climb onto the planks from underneath by wiggling the toes on its four legs quickly like a bug's limbs while the rest of it remained immobile. It had features of both a bull and a bear. Its body was huge and bulky like a bull's, and its head was adorned with bull horns and a bovine shape, but its fur was fluffy and brown and it had massive paws complete with lanky fingers. As for its face, well, it was a wide grin that reached ear-to-ear. Its eyes were wide, white circles with a tiny black dot serving as a pupil.
It started inching closer to Minted in the same fashion as it slowly got onto the planks and moved forward with giggling. At first, the pony thought this thing was just something whose appearance was worse than its capabilities, but it lashed out at the pony without warning, its paw slamming violently onto the board and nearly destroying it. A loud cackle came from below, in the abyss, and a red light illuminated in the corners of the room in that lower level, revealing gruesome scene. Multiple corpses and bodies torn, smashed, split, among other things, were strewn all about in a large pile. Not one bit of the original ground was left, and a naked, featureless creature hopped around gleefully on the bodies with its arms held aloft in the air.
What kind of joyous aberrations were these?!