Chapter Text
"Dear Life: Will you at least start using lube? - Unknown"
‘Another day, another dollar.' You think to yourself as you heat up the corner store empanada you picked up on the way home from work. You watch in a half-daze as it spins around, ignoring the nagging thought that you will most definitely be dealing with indigestion halfway through your sleep cycle. Spicy food before bed was never a good idea, but you were terribly exhausted, and right now this required minimal effort. The crazy ass dreams would definitely be a bonus. You appreciated the momentary break from reality. The microwave sounds out that its task is complete, and you pull out your prize. One nuked hand pie, ready for consumption. Your first bite is modest, testing the temperature before feeding the rest into your mouth like a conveyor belt. Teeth, tongue, and throat are all working in tandem to move the food along as quickly and efficiently as possible. You make short work of your meal before turning off the light and stumbling to your room in the dark.
The siren song luring you to your bed is too strong to ignore any longer. You strip off the grungy clothing that clings to your body, tossing it to the side. Tonight, you sleep in the buff. You faceplate into the mattress and nuzzle into the soft pile of blankets and pillows before a loud series of bangs suddenly rattles your nerves. You hastily fumble around in the dark, grabbing the first thing you can find. A worn-out tank top and PJ bottoms. It couldn’t be a shuttle re-entry; it was much too loud, and besides, there hadn’t been any manned lunches in over twenty odd years.
You fiddle with the lights as you make your way through your tiny living space. None of them seem to be working properly. You don’t bother to stop and look out the peephole on the door. Curiosity is driving you as you toss cation to the wind. Stepping out into the night, the air is crisp as it nips at your bare skin. You look around but find it’s dark as pitch. That’s…unusual. All the lights are out as you wander further into the communal area. You look up at the night sky. It’s almost otherworldly without the light pollution. You can clearly see the constellations. The speckling of stars shimmers and shines against the onyx background. A faint violet hue seems to blend into the otherworldly canvas the longer you look. You eventually tear your attention away to take in your surroundings. None of the other tenets seem bothered enough to rouse from their own beds. Maybe there’s some kind of power issue going on. A blown transformer? A partial outage, maybe? You try to shrug off your buding paranoia, but you feel something creep along your spine. A primal urge that calls to the part of your brain that controls your fight or flight response.
You walk back to your designated living quarters, locking the door behind you. Suddenly another series of bangs sends you scrambling away from the entryway closet. “Shit! Shit! Shit!” You stumble over your own feet on your way to the nearest lamp. You frantically struggle with the damned thing in vain. Nothing. A few flickers of life before the darkness floods back in. You grab the nearest chair and haul ass back to the entryway, wedging the back into the door to keep it from opening. You take a breath, trying to center yourself. “Focus.” You tell yourself this in an attempt to calm yourself. Something most likely fell, or perhaps the shelves collapsed from the weight of all the clutter you’d repeatedly shoved in there every time you’d gotten a wild hair and decided to clean up. No. There was most definitely not a monster in your closet. A few prop skeletons, sure. But no monsters. Three knocks. Three knocks break your inner dialogue. You stare wide-eyed at the closet door. “Nope!” You shake your head. “I’m too damn tired for this bullshit. I’m going to bed, and whatever is in there can just fuck right off.” You back away, watching in morbid fascination as the handle starts to turn. The knocks begin again, slowly turning into wall-shaking bangs. The wooden door bows with each strike.
“A dream! It’s a dream. I’m dreaming.” You look around, panic-stricken. A mirror. You have to find a mirror. Years of lucid dreaming have taught you what to look for to trigger your conscious mind. Shoddy lighting was usually the first sign that you weren’t awake. Your reflection was the final piece of the mental puzzle. There, next to the closet door, sits a large mirror. You grab the sides, moving in closer, straining to see your reflection. A loud growl rips from the closet next to you as a distorted, mangled version of your face starts to become more visible. “You’re dreaming! I’M DREAMING!! WAKE UP!!! WAKE UP!!!” You scream even as one of your eyes turns a milky white and the skin surrounding it begins to slide off of your face in wet, sticky chunks, slowly exposing your skull. The door beside you finally gives, splintering outward with a sickening crack.
You scream as something pulls itself out of the clutter of your closet. Articles of clothing, odds, and ends cling to its body as it slowly turns towards you. The most notable is the stuffed patchwork rabbit from your childhood that seems determined to remain draped over the giant's shoulder. In any other circumstance, you would’ve found this detail to be hilarious, but as the monster glares down at you with glowing golden eyes and fangs that stretch shark like past its eyes, you decidely refrain from laughing. “You’re not real.” You whisper, trying to reassure yourself more than anything. The creature doesn’t seem to appreciate your comment, as its eyes narrow. “YOU’RE NOT REAL!” You scream, screwing your eyes shut as the creature lunges towards you, bracing for the impact and the inevitable pain that’s sure to follow.
Nothing. Nothing? You crack one eye open. The creature is crouched over you. Its whole damn body seems to surround you. It’s warm breath puffing against your face. You feel lightheaded. Your eyelids are suddenly very heavy. The monster moves in closer, crowding your personal space. You feel something brush down the length of your neck, past your clavicle, and rest between your breasts before shoving you backwards into the mirror hanging behind you. “HA HA HA! Seven years of bad luck.” The creature laughs as the framed glass crashes to the ground. “Did you really think you could lock me away forever?” It plucks the rabbit from its shoulder. “After all we’ve been through.” He tsk’s, flopping the stuffed animal around tauntingly.
“You’re-not-real.” You pant, struggling to breathe. The air feels heavy and dense.
Your captor lets out a low growl as it moves closer. Pressing its body flush against your own. It buries its face into the crook of your neck before inhaling deeply. “How about I show you just how real I can be?"
A loud whirring noise fills the room. You feel the creatures grip tighten around you. “How’s about an adventure?” It rumbles just as the sound becomes deafening.
***
You wake to find yourself sprawled out on a cold metal floor. Your body convulses involuntarily from the chill that seems to seep into your bones. You struggle to pull yourself into an upright position. The movement causes your head to spin and your mind to cloud over. Your stomach rolls, and you lurch forward, projectile vomiting. You stare numbly at the mess. “Heh, r-really got some distance—herp." You don’t have the energy to fight the second round. You groan, closing your eyes against the onslaught of light and colors that strobe in an otherwise endless sea of gray. The metal surfaces only enhance the agonizing experience.
You eventually gather enough sanity to notice that the head-splitting sound and seizure-inducing light show are coming from a machine just a few feet away. It towers high above you, emitting a blinding incandescent light show from hell and what can only be described as a cross between the sound of a jet engine and a tardis. You lay back down, curling into yourself. You’re overwhelmed and overstimulated. You can’t think or process jack-diddly-squat in these conditions. You drift in and out of consciousness for an unknown amount of time before the machine finally powers down.
Relief washes over you like cold spring water on a blistering day. You bask in the soothing silence, soaking it in. You take your time rolling onto your stomach and slowly crawling towards the nearest corner of the room, as far from the devil's disco ball as possible. Blinking hard and rubbing your eyes to clear the remaining spots from your vision, you take your time gathering your thoughts. “Where am I?” You finally ask yourself, looking around. Only the gentle glow of multiple video screens to your left illuminates the room. The steady hum of what must be the surrounding technology littering the room is a welcomed change. Cautiously, you stand on unsteady feet and tentatively shuffle your way towards the massive setup. “What is...?” Movement catches your attention on several of the monitors before you. Your brows knit together in concentration.
“Dreaming? I’m still dreaming. Right?” You plead. This was so beyond anything you could wrap your mind around. Deep down, you know you’re very much awake, and it terrifies you.
You continue starring dimly at the screens as several skeletons mill around, seemingly going about mundane everyday tasks. You chuckle humorlessly as you watch the interactions between two skeletons in particular. They seem to be having a rather animated exchange. The shorter ones shoulders shake gently with mirth, while the taller one appears increasingly agitated, stomping its foot in an exaggerated manner. Your attention is pulled towards another screen as a blinding light fills the video before fading to reveal a fire that’s erupted from a pan in what appears to be an unnervingly rough-looking kitchen. The cook, another skeleton tall and pointy, seems completely unfazed. It looks like a rather large grease fire. Spikey slams a lid onto the pan and then slings it to the back burner as if it insulted their entire lineage. Giving a huff, Spikey turns off the stove and walks off camera.
“Okay...” Your brain feels like it’s blue-screening. Was this some kind of movie or game that was playing out? If so, under different circumstances, you’d be over the moon with excitement to sit around and continue watching. Unfortunately, as things were sitting currently, you just wanted to know where the fuck you were and who was to blame for, well, everything.
Your gaze slowly travels down, just below the monitor, to the chrome console. You’re kind of amazed by the sheer size of the expansive surface. It’s massive, taking up the entire width of the wall from corner to corner. The ends of the workstation pitch up the sides of the wall, framing the screens above. The whole thing is dotted with control panels, keypads, exposed wiring, and other miscellaneous buttons that seamlessly fade into the surrounding surface. The overall setup reminds you of something out of a sci-fi film. It looks very expensive and well-used, if not a little cluttered. You allow a chuckle to slip. This was all just way too surreal.
You reach out to touch a mug that’s half full of lukewarm coffee. It sits abandoned amongst several piles of handwritten notes, blueprints, and graphs, all strewn about haphazardly. A newspaper stands out amid the littering of paper. Taking an interest in the only thing that’s remotely familiar to your exhausted mind, you scan the front page; you read off each article.
“Human and monster relations continue to move forward in leaps and bounds despite the sudden re-insurgence in hate crimes.”
“Local monster-owned bar and grill, Grillby’s has been awarded best eats for the third consecutive year in a row.”
“Alison Baker. A promising student at New Mt. Ebott University will be laid to rest this Sunday. Continued on page 5."
Your blood runs cold as you look at the young woman in the photo. You snatch the paper up and rifle quickly through the pages. You have to read the rest of the article.
“There!” You stare at the article for a moment in an attempt to gather your resolve before reading on. “Alison Baker, a promising student at New Mt. Ebott University, will be laid to rest this Sunday in her home town of Oakland. Alison’s passing was tragically sudden. Her life was cut short only four weeks before her 24th birthday. Alison’s body was found Monday on the steps of the university’s library by maintenance workers in the early hours of the morning. Local law enforcement say Miss Baker's death is being ruled a suicide." You can’t continue reading. She looks just like you. A younger version of yourself, but still you.
Not for the first time since waking does your stomach drop and a sickeningly cold dizziness cloud your mind. A sense of foreboding fills you with dread as you drop the paper and back away from the desk, away from the glow of the monitors. A blur of movement startles a gasp out of you. All of your attention snaps back to one of the screens in a fit of panic. It looks like a woman, her back to the camera. You steel yourself as you take a step back towards the screen; the woman moves in tandem. Your heart bottoms out as fear firmly takes hold and worms its way through your gut. You lift your arm, only for the woman to do the very same. You whirl around to search behind you, clutching at the material of your worn tank top as you do so. There! Just a little ways past the machine is a small red light aimed in your direction. Half turning back toward the now-ominous screen, you again see the woman has mirrored your movement.
“Oh, Gods...” You dig your nails into your flesh in hopes of waking, but to no avail. “Oh, Gods, no, no, no...” You feel the pain as clear as day. While it doesn’t work to wake you from this nightmare, it does help to ground you as the rush of anxiety threatens to rob you of the remaining sanity you possess. Your breath comes out in a shaky, shuttering mess as you murmur. “It’s not a dream? I-I'm not dreaming?” Your nails are still lodged into your skin, causing crimson to slowly well up beneath each nail. Dreams didn’t hurt like this. They didn’t make you feel like you needed to conduct a full system purge. Your stomach lets out a low, gurgled whine as panic fully sets in. Did that mean that those skeletons on the screens earlier were real too? Someone who looks like you, albeit younger, is already dead. You can’t say for certain how you got here, but you do know one thing for sure: It’s time to get the hell out of this room and as far away as humanly possible from anyone and everyone until you can sort things out.
Something gnaws at the back of your mind. Those skeletons seem familiar in a way, but your gut is too busy screaming at you to run. Now is not the time for curiosity. You scan the room, looking for an exit. A glimmer of hope fills you with determination as you spot it. An automated sliding door sits blended into the wall, nearly indistinguishable, just underneath the camera. You make to bolt for the door, but stop mid-step. “What if it’s got an alarm set up?” Panic claws at you again as the gravity of your situation settles in. The fact that you seem to be in a rather high-tech room likely means there must be alarms set up. You don’t know how much time you have before someone comes back for that miserable, half-filled mug. Shit, with how long you've been immobilized by that machine coupled with the time wasted gawking, you’re sure your times are running out.
Scanning the security monitors, you look for anything that could possibly be an indication of the outside of the room you’re currently in. “It that? Maybe… It looks like a stairwell.” You breathe out quietly. “And there seems to be a small keypad next to the door -shit-.” The same panel is mirrored flush within the wall on your side as well.
“Of course there is. Nothing in and nothing out, I suppose, and with my luck, there’s no way that I’ll be able to open that door without triggering an alarm.” You wrack your already exhausted mind. “What am I going to do?” You look around for any scrap of inspiration. “What could possibly be so important?” The Banshees laser light show seems like it’s the most plausible big-ticket item. Could that thing really be what brought me here? Is the person running this tin can responsible for bringing me here, or was it just a fluke—an accident?”
Something still feels off—something you’re forgetting. Working three jobs has seriously affected your memory. You’re still holding out hope that this could all just be some kind of fever dream or maybe even a hallucination brought on by exhaustion. It’s not like it hadn’t happened before. It’s just that this is way too damn vivid. Hell, not even your audio and visual hallucinations have ever been this realistic. Just little breaks in reality—a shadow person here, the sound of laughter there. You really needed to find a roommate so you could quit at least one of those jobs. A vacation would be nice; maybe even hang out with friends, if you even have any left. It’s been nearly 2 years of working yourself to what seems like an early grave. Maybe this was actually hell. You snort. “Yeah, no. The earliest concepts of hell were devised by the early Puritan preachers as a way of keeping members from straying from the church, along with the depiction of the devil with red skin and horns.” Your mind rambles. “Focus damnit.” You finally chid yourself.
Looking back at the monitors, you notice the door to the stairwell crack open. In a fit of panic, you notice a small panel slightly ajar. You don’t have time to think as the lanky skeleton meanders down the stairs. You do the first thing that springs to mind. You snatch the abandoned mug, dumping the remaining liquid into the wiring and laying the mug back down on its side next to the now-cracking and sparking panel, with a trail of liquid connecting the two. The screens flicker, then blink off. You turn, clambering to make your way to the side of the doorframe, tripping in your haste. You stumble head first into the side of the wall and tuck yourself down as low as possible, ignoring the dull ache of your bumped noggin. Heart hammering behind your ribs, you hold your breath, curling in even tighter as the door beeps and slides open. Footsteps pause halfway through the door, but you don’t dare to look up. A resounding -SHIT- rings out amongst the sharp sparking of electricity. Followed shortly by the clambering of a single pair of feet as a particularly loud crack kisses the air, followed by the smell of burning plastic and paper. As a cadence of “shits” continues to tumble from the distracted skeleton, you take a chance just as the door begins to automatically close.
Flinging your body around the door frame, you barely make it out without being clipped by the sliding mechanical door. You’re no longer thinking; your body is completely on autopilot, driven only by an unwavering fear and a primal need for self-preservation. Breaking and entering with the bonus of damaged property—never mind the fact that you're still not certain how you even ended up there in the first place—it's only a theory. Not to mention the biohazard you’d left behind. You were just racking up the shitpoints today. You blindly barrel up the stairs on all fours like a wild animal, only stopping at the top, your hand in mid-grab for the door, as two more muffled male voices come from below.
"Dammit, Ashtray, da hell ya do?"
"I didn’t do it!"
"Whose cup of mud waz dat den?"
"Fuck’n move, Red!"
‘How the hell did more people—monsters?—get down there so quickly? Nobody else was in that room with me. They would’ve seen me if that were the case. No, there must be another entrance down there.’
Shaking your head to clear away the cloud of thoughts, you gently grasp the handle and turn it. No sound betrays your cautious emergence from the assumed basement. You peek around what looks to be a nicely furnished sitting room before tentatively making your way towards what you assume is the front door. You want out of this accursed place. The sooner, the better.
You carefully unlock the door and proceed to slip out again, hunching down in an attempt to make yourself smaller. Closing the door, you turn around quickly, prepared to run like a mad woman. Unfortunately, your heart nearly shoots out your ass as you clutch both your mouth and chest. Strong hands seize your form, and... “Jus where do ya think yer go’n, Darl—Hing?"