Chapter Text
Alone was a word Mono had long used to describe himself.
All his life, he survived on his own in this world filled with death around every corner. The suicidal adults he knew as the Viewers, the Teacher with an elastic neck that could meet him from across the room, the doctor who stuck himself to the ceiling like glue.
That was only in Pale City.
However, as terrible as they may seem, those monsters were nothing compared to the Signal Tower; nothing compared to the tall man in the suit who had chased him throughout the whole city. The same man who took his friend and deformed her into a horrifying, twisted creature he barely recognized if it weren’t for her yellow coat.
Oh, how angered he was when he saw her like that, seeing the longing sadness in her eyes as she pulled the crank of her music box, the Transmission brainwashing her into thinking everything was fine and happy. It broke his heart even more when she offered him the said music box to touch. By then he knew that was what kept her locked in this Tower.
And so, he did what he had to do.
Yes, he could tell the story over and over to himself like a bedtime story, change the ending to a better one as much as he’d like, but it still wouldn’t change the painful truth.
That Six was the monster he should’ve run from.
Mono hugged his legs tighter in his chair, chin resting on his knees as a single tear dropped past his cheeks for the third time today. His sobs echoed in the room he was to spend the rest of his life in. And for the third time, he harshly wiped his watery eyes, his denial side telling him she'd left him here by accident.
That she would soon be back for him after realizing her mistake.
That she was sorry, and she was truly his friend.
You silly fool, he said to himself.
It’d been days—or perhaps weeks—since she abandoned him. By now, she would’ve already made her way to leaving the city, because who would even want to come to the Signal Tower to save someone you knew for only a couple of days?
Mono would.
And he had.
Stupid fool, she never cared.
Of course, she never did. If she did, she wouldn’t have betrayed him in the first place. He wouldn’t be here in this room; his freedom wouldn’t have been snatched away from him.
He stared at the clean empty wall, eyes puffy from his hours of weeping over the girl he thought he could trust.
All four walls that surrounded him, and none held a door.
It was evident to him that the room was designed to keep him here, however, the reason behind that was beyond him. Not like there was someone to tell him anyway.
It was too quiet here.
The quiet soon was replaced by a sound of a door unlocking, despite there being none.
In an instant, he cocked his head, the ever-present sadness in his chest casted aside as he was met with an unfamiliar face standing shyly in the door frame, shooting him a nervous smile.
“Uh…hi,” the girl said.
He did nothing but stare at the girl, his eyes wide open in bewilderment.
Is that...an actual person?
The girl merely sighed and brushed off her grey coat awkwardly, and turned to the open exit he could confirm wasn’t there before.
How did she…?
“We can go, you know,” the girl started, her smile becoming tense at his lack of reply. “Unless you want to…stay here?”
At that, Mono shook his head fervently, his nose sniffling every now and then.
He wanted nothing more than to leave this room.
The girl nodded in glee after finally getting something out of him. “Then, come on. Let’s get out of here.”
A pang of fear started in his chest.
The chance to leave presented to him in such a random way, he couldn’t believe it to be true. No, this had to be a trick. The fact that this girl appeared out of nowhere, let alone magically entered the Signal Tower’s premises and found his room, something didn’t add up.
If he were to follow this strange girl, it wasn’t impossible she could betray him too. With her dark-brown hair, her black eyes, she could easily be Six: version 2.0 for all he cared.
She might look a bit younger than that lying jerk, but then again age wasn’t a reliable factor.
Perhaps he’d been thinking too much of Six for him to imagine everyone as her.
The girl sighed at his fixed stare on her. She snapped her fingers then, causing the sound of her snap to reverberate around the room, which got him out from falling deeper into his overthinking-hole.
“Are you coming or not?” she asked, a hint of impatience in her tone if he listened carefully.
The girl tilted her head at the exit as she took a step out, perturbation rose in his mind at the thought of being left behind.
Because he knew this was his one and only chance. If he refused it, there might not be another.
With that, Mono hesitantly got up from the chair he’d been sitting on for who knows how long. The girl in response, smiled brightly at his first achievement. She watched him approach her with such caution and weariness, his hand playing with the other nervously.
After a glance back to the chair, he nodded back to her, signaling that he was ready to leave this place for good.
The girl led him out to the hallway, the one he’d enter way too many times before Six had pulled him out every time. He winced at the memory.
No wonder she hates me.
The door behind them closed with a click just as they made their way to the glowing portal in front of them, their movements heavy and slow.
Once again, a familiar sensation to him.
The girl, however, seemed unbothered like it wasn’t her first time. Was she also used to the Transmission and warping to other televisions? He made a mental note to ask her.
Both then made it in front of the portal, Mono looking it up and down with a wide-eyed gaze.
All this time, he had always wanted to know what was on the other side of the door, and now that he’d been there, he never wanted to get out so bad.
Finally, he could leave, even if it wasn’t Six who rescued him.
The girl beside him gave a reassuring grin, connecting her hand with the portal before it took her into the other side of the unknown.
Gulping at the fact he hadn’t warped for a while; he couldn’t help the anxiety building up in his stomach.
Now or never.
Mono followed after the girl, placing his own hands on the portal.
Then he warped through.
He felt himself being thrown over to the wet ground, puddles of water forming around him as the rain hit him softly on the back of his coat and hair. The sound of a faint buzz behind him indicated enough that they’d gotten out through a television.
As he was welcomed back to the dead streets of Pale City, it never changed since the last time he saw it. His eyes looked around in disbelief, mouth widening. He then looked at the dark sky, water falling on his face instead as a small smile crept to his lips.
He was free.
Free from the Signal Tower. Free from whatever that even wanted him there in the first place.
Getting up to his feet, he took a step forward, almost forgetting the girl that got him out to begin with. Even as he was still in awe, he could feel her stare boring at the back of his head.
The girl was seen shivering slightly as the wind blew in the air. Not a moment later, so did he. Right, he’d forgotten how cold this city could be sometimes. With his soaked coats and all, he didn’t know how he managed to survive without a fire to warm him.
Mono turned to the girl, not exactly looking her in the eyes.
“Thank you,” he said. “I’ve been trying to escape that room ever since I was trapped in there.” A huff left him as he remembered his futile attempts back then.
The girl brightened even more; her expression filled with optimism that he once wore when Six had said her first words to him—
Stop it.
“Thought you might need some help. My dad told me a super evil creature lives in that Tower, so I’m glad I got you out.”
Mono eyed her with curiosity. “Y-your dad…told you that?” he asked, partially because of her father’s knowledge of the Signal Tower. While the other being the fact she even remembered her father.
He certainly didn’t remember his own.
“Yeah! Well, he doesn’t tell me everything though, just things that he thought I should know. And that Signal Tower”—She pointed to the television—“is nothing but bad news. But I guess you already know about that.”
“Yeah...” He averted his gaze, suddenly feeling uneasy by the mere reminder. “I wished I’d never even come there.”
“H-hey, try not to think about the past, okay? It’ll drive you crazy, believe me. Then again, I can’t really blame you though. I’d be angry too if someone just leaves me behind like that.”
Mono froze, his eyes snapping to her in a matter of seconds as the words slipped past her lips.
“What did you say?”
The girl caught on to his suspicions quickly for she looked at him in sudden fear.
“What?” she asked back, feigning cluelessness.
He stood up straighter, on guard.
“How did you know I was left behind?”
Her only response to his question was a nervous chuckle and a flushed face. Her posture screamed guilty.
As he started to back away from the girl, she immediately reached out her hand towards him frantically. “W-wait, I can explain—”
“Who even are you?” Mono continued, his next questions turning more into accusations. “How did you find me in the Signal Tower? No— how did you even know I was in the Signal Tower?”
“I promise I'll tell you everything, okay? Just please don’t run away from me.”
In return, he shot her a skeptical look, nodding a second later for her to explain herself.
The girl gave a sheepish smile. “I’m Viola,” she said. “Now this part is going to sound a little crazy, but someone told me about you. Your name, how you were betrayed, how you were abandoned by your friend—”
“She’s not my friend,” he deadpanned at her wrong choice of word.
Viola shrunk a little, making his eyes softened slightly at that. Mono cursed under his breath, running his hands over his face in exasperation.
How could someone other than him and Six know about the betrayal? That was a personal matter.
“Who told you all that?” he asked after a breath, trying to ease the tension between them.
Silence was all he got from her as she shifted her gaze.
“I swear I’ll tell you, but right now...I need your help first.”
“My help?”
She nodded. “I need you to help me find something just outside the city.”
He felt his face fall, eyes down casted in disappointment.
“So, that’s why you even got me out of there...” he muttered.
Everybody’s just trying to use me in the end.
“I-It’s not like that, I promise! It’s just that…you’re the only one who knows where ‘it’ is. If I could, I would’ve come months earlier—”
“Whoa, hold on just a minute. Months? ” He shot her a look of incredulous, feeling panic rush all over his body with just a single word. “What do you mean months? Is that how long I’ve been trapped for?”
Viola’s eyes widened at her slip up. “C-calm down, I know it’s a lot for you to take in right now. And obviously, you have a million questions running inside your head. Which is why I think you should come with me. I really want to help, Mono, any way I can.”
Hearing his name coming from the girl he barely knew—or to be precise, just met— he didn’t know why he hadn’t run away yet. Perhaps his curiosity still got the better of him even after all this time. He wanted to know what Viola needed his help for, he wanted to know who told her about him.
Mono gave her a sharp nod, letting her continue. Viola smiled brightly in return, clasping her hands.
“Great! Let’s start by finding a way out of the city first though, then I’ll tell you all about my plan. This place is giving me the heebie-jeebies.” She shuddered, turning her head around the street. “Come on.”
“No, wait a second! I’m not going anywhere with you unless you tell me what exactly you want from me.” He stood defensively, threatening to walk away if she kept this up. Viola noticed, raising her hands once again.
“Okay, okay. I-I can just tell you now,” she said, her smile becoming timid. “You see, I uh…I’m looking for something really important."
“What is it?” he asked firmly, no longer accepting a vague answer.
“It’s nothing special. Just a…a music box.”
His breath hitched, his mind remembering a certain music box Six had held so dearly. No, it couldn’t be the same one. There are tons of other music boxes in this world. It couldn’t be, could it?
Masking his growing fear, he cleared his throat.
“Where?”
“Somewhere in the forest across the city. I know it’s in some sort of cabin and I just need you to help me find it. Simple. Totally nothing that would hurt you.”
Mono could feel his stare at this girl becoming colder. The second the word ‘cabin’ left her tongue, he knew Viola was thinking of the same music box he was. It was precisely where they’d left Six’s real music box. In the basement of the cabin.
It was rather unlikely that the Hunter kept a collection of other music boxes, he was sure of it. So whoever this Viola girl was…
She couldn’t be trusted.
He returned to his relaxed, albeit still tense posture, giving her a tightly forced grin.
“Alright then.”
“Wait, really?” Viola asked, stumped at his sudden cooperation just when seconds ago he looked at her as if she was an escaped felon.
“Yeah. I believe you.”
She furrowed her brows, slightly unconvinced at his answer, her smile already gone from her face. “Oh, that’s…good? Okay, um…then let’s continue and find the way out, yeah?”
He nodded, faking his enthusiasm, to which it did not lessen Viola’s doubts. “Of course,” he said, stepping aside and putting out a hand. “Ladies first.”
Viola merely gave him an iffy look, nonetheless, doing as he said by walking ahead.
But just after her back was turned on him, Mono pushed her from behind, making her fall immediately to the ground on her stomach as a surprised yelp sounded from her. Her cheek planted on the puddles of water below.
While she laid on the ground stupefied, he took the chance and bolted to the nearest back alley he could spot, purposely ignoring Viola who shouted, “Wait!” even as she was still on the ground.
By the time she stood up, Mono was already out of sight, hiding behind the wall with his back against it.
Well, was he proud of pushing a girl younger than him down to the muddy street? Absolutely not. He wasn’t as immature to go over that line—even though he did just that. But this was only necessary.
It wasn’t all that hard to crack anyway, Viola knew Six. She must’ve had some sort of a relation to her.
Anyone relating to that backstabber couldn’t be trustworthy.
“Mono, come back! Please!” he heard her shout from a distance, her voice sounding desperate and scared. “We really don’t have time for this! So come on, we can talk it out!”
Why in the world was she shouting? Didn’t she know how dangerous the volume she was using now? And how it could attract adults? Nevertheless, Mono did nothing but stayed behind the wall, occasionally peeking from it to see if she was getting closer to his hiding spot.
Viola was seen moving only a few steps, not walking further than where the TV was. He watched the girl intently from afar, wondering why she was desperate for him to reveal himself.
Well, he already had a few theories in mind. One being, she was a friend of Six’s and they’d been working together to mess him up. But...it wouldn’t make much sense though. The second theory, Six sent Viola to get her music box, so she needed him to locate it specifically. But then, why wouldn’t Six be the one to follow her?
Once more, none of it made sense.
What does she want to do Six’s music box?
All of a sudden, silence overwhelmed the area.
That was…odd. He could’ve sworn he heard her just a second ago shouting without a care in the world like she’d lost all her brain cells. Had she moved on to a different street? Mono hoped she did. Letting himself associate with someone similar to Six was a no go.
After hearing nothing from the alley, he assumed she was already gone. Yet it was best that he made sure of it.
Taking one peek from the wall, his eyes widened in horror.
Viola was still there. She stood right where he left her. But the only difference this time was the new presence that joined them.
A Viewer.
Those TV-addicted scums.
He felt his body tense even more, seeing its face-less face twitch ever so slightly as its back hunched like a walking corpse.
Viola only stood there, feet glued to the exact same place, her chest rising up and down gradually.
Yes, the adults in the city never held a welcoming aura nor a comforting one, yet something about her reaction was worrying him. All the children in this world must’ve at least faced a monster once to know that running was common sense. However, for her it seemed like this was her first time.
But what was more worrying was the fact that she just…stood there, staring back at the monster who could, at any second, run full speed towards her and kill her with just a hand.
The Viewer tilted the side of his head towards Viola, craning its non-existent ears as if it was listening for her movements.
It jolted all so suddenly, causing her to flinch and let out a tiny squeak.
Bad mistake.
The adult stood straighter, then came charging at the girl who couldn’t move her legs even if she wanted to.
Mono immediately got out of the alley, running towards her with all his might.
And absolutely without a plan.
Viola screamed, idiotically.
He could just shake his head at her knowledge of survival, which was almost next to nothing . Then again, maybe not nothing, considering she’d made it as far to the Signal Tower. Regardless she only did it to bust him out for her own selfish reasons.
So, why he was running to stand in front of her was beyond him.
His mind was completely blank by the time he reached her, merely raising his hands up at the Viewer who lunged after the nearest person it heard.
“Mono!” Viola shouted behind him, her face paled at who was standing in between her and the Viewer. Frankly, he hated how he felt the need to save everybody.
All he did was shut his eyes tight, waiting for the hand that was meant for Viola to grasp him.
The sound of a body hitting the ground filled the air, making him open his eyes and merely widening at the sight of the adult now.
It laid on the ground a few feet ahead, wheezing for air as the top part of its skull was seen missing, the skin around it all burnt to crisp. The content of its head could be seen dripping down, and its fingers twitched in silent agony as the life in its eyes faded.
Mono took a step back despite their distances from the dead Viewer, his brows furrowed.
Did he do that? Did he kill the monster? He turned to his hands next, seeing a barely visible and blueish force field swirling above his palm, a tiny sensation of electric tingling just beneath his fingertips.
In slight panic, he shook his hands away before his powers could hurt anyone else, namely the only kid with him, Viola.
She must’ve feared him by now, after witnessing the whole…show he accidentally put out; after witnessing what his powers were capable of.
Warping through TVs was acceptable enough given she’d done it too but blowing someone’s head off by accident would no doubt terrify anyone .
He could already imagine Viola’s reaction, looking at him with utter horror and disgust.
However, as he turned around to meet her, he barely spoke a word for he felt his torso being wrapped by two tiny arms, making him freeze in surprise.
What was happening?
He looked down to her, his face still in disbelief at what she was doing.
Why in God’s name was she hugging him? Well, if he hadn’t been mentally haunted by the fact that his old friend had left him to die, he wouldn’t have thought this simple gesture to be extreme. He knew his old self would have hugged her back without question.
Her arms around him tightened, sending a wave of familiar emotions throughout his body.
“Thank you,” she said, head leaning on his chest as she was shorter. Around Six’s height maybe—
Stop comparing everyone with that liar, he scolded himself.
Mono forced out a grin, awkwardly patting her back a few times until she released him. When she did, he breathed out in relief, unintentionally.
Viola’s expression fell, noticing his discomfort. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to—”
“No, no. It’s uh…It’s fine. I’m just not used to being…hugged. Especially by a stranger.”
She averted her gaze away, face flushed at his honesty. Perhaps she did come on a little too strong because who in the right mind would just hug somebody as if they were her family? Ridiculous much.
A faint screech was heard from a far, echoing through the streets of Pale City. Both looked at each other, knowing exactly what it was. More Viewers were coming their way, presumably having heard of Viola’s ear-piercing scream earlier. He knew they had to get out of the streets before they arrived.
As a figure appeared turning from the corner, Mono grabbed Viola by the arm before the adult snapped its head to them, leading both of them to the nearest house he could see.
Viola stayed silent all the while, letting herself be dragged into a home long abandoned by its residents.
The living room was filled with furniture covered in dirt and dust, the wooden floor missing a few boards here and there as the corner of the walls painted with black mold, seemingly growing the more it rained.
Mono released her arm and closed the front door behind him. Just a second later, the screech sounded again, albeit louder now. If they hadn’t been quick to hide, the Viewer probably would’ve been lucky to see them enter the house.
But as the Viewer’s screech became faint, he let out another sigh, shifting to Viola who stood in front of him as if waiting for permission to speak.
“I think we’re safe for now. Let’s just take a break here before we leave the city,” he said, and her eyes lit up instantly at his answer.
He could basically hear the excitement even before it was unleashed.
“SO YOU’RE REALLY COMING—?”
“Shh!”
Viola closed her mouth at that, muttering a small apology soon after.
Mono only shook his head at the girl’s careless behavior. Standing still in the face of danger, shouting out in the open, not minding her own volume. Honestly, it was a miracle how she even survived this long.
Either a miracle or she was too damn lucky for her own good.
Taking a seat on the floor, he tiredly threw his head back against the wall behind him, feeling part of his energy already drained from using his powers. He closed his eyes, hoping to just drift off into the night.
However, he couldn’t now as he felt someone staring through his soul.
Mono opened his eyes, not sure why he was even surprised to see Viola, suspiciously smiling wider after he noticed her.
Okay, this girl is starting to give me the creeps.
“What?” he asked, raising his brow, albeit not annoyed.
“Nothing. I just…missed having some company.” A hint of sadness lingered in her eyes as she looked away, her soft smile faltering as if she was reminded of something. But she soon snapped herself out of it. “Don’t you?”
He gave her a look. Seriously?
Of course, he missed having someone as company; having someone to talk to. Those months—as Viola had claimed—in the Signal Tower were all wasted with him drowning in his sorrows and regrets.
Viola nervously snickered.
“I guess that doesn’t matter much, since you know, we’ll be working together from now on.”
“Yeah, about that,” he turned to fully face her, “Why are you even looking for this music box? And why the one in the Hunter’s cabin exactly?”
She kept herself quiet after that, to his chagrin. But her face soon met his, her bright and giddy expression switched to one of serious.
“Because…it belonged to my mom.”
Mono blinked once. Then twice.
“Your what? ” he asked, his tone clear of skepticism that he did not care to hide.
“My mom, Six.”
He paused for a few seconds more, taking in her words.
“As in, yellow-raincoat? As in the backstabber who abandoned me in the Signal Tower?”
Viola nodded affirmatively in return despite his accusing tone.
Once again, dubiety appeared on his face, eyes unblinking at the name she said to be her mother.
Viola had to be pulling his leg. That was all it would take for all of this to make sense. Because how on earth could a nine-year-old child…have a daughter who looked about the same age as her? And this was Six here.
The idea of that deceiving traitor becoming a mother was simply absurd. Pure claptrap .
Viola’s back shrunk, looking away as if ashamed on Six’s behalf. But the way she reacted already confirmed his questions and suspicions.
Mono huffed in disbelief, shaking his head.
No freaking way.
“Look I know this makes zero sense, but I swear, I’m telling the truth. I’ll even start from the beginning.”
He narrowed his eyes, and nodded his head reluctantly.
At that, Viola took a deep breath.
“I’m from the future. Bam! It’s out.”
Silence was all that came from Mono after, his face becoming more and more dumbfounded and blank by Viola’s mere statement.
By that point, Mono knew the girl had lost every little bit of sanity left inside her brain, judging with all the nonsense spewed out from her mouth.
He figured it could be that she’d gone through something extremely traumatic in the past—a tragedy that messed her up mentally. At least, that would explain why she seemed so carefree in a world where death roamed awake.
But definitively, she was crazy .
“Mono?” she called after a minute of nothing from either of them.
He briefly shook his head, bringing himself out of his daze.
“Sorry, I’m just…” He inhaled deeply and chuckled. “Wow. I didn’t think anyone could go that far for a joke.”
“But it's…it’s not a joke. I’m being serious.”
“Yeah, look. This is just a big misunderstanding.” He waved her off. “I’m sorry if you went through something horrible in the past, and I’m sure you met Six some time before me. Now, I don’t know what she did exactly that led you to believe she’s your mom, but maybe she saved you from a monster—"
“You put an axe through her door.”
All of his prior assumptions immediately crumbled under Viola’s words, his mouth left hanging in utter shock. He felt his body freeze temporarily from the bomb she just dropped on him.
“Excuse me?” was the only thing he got out.
“That’s how you rescued her," she said. "You felt bad after getting her caught, so you went to the cabin, heard her music box playing and followed it until it led you to her! But the door was sealed, so you had to find something to break it through. And then, that’s where you found the axe. But in the end, the Hunter found out and chased you two out of the forest. Am I right?”
More than right.
She was damn specific.
“How did you…know all that?” he asked with widened eyes, his body tensing even more at her knowledge of his and Six’s history.
Now, he knew from the moment he and Six met, she wasn’t exactly a ‘friendly’ person let alone as talkative as he had been. Even getting her name had taken him a day to find out.
So, if he were to assume that Six spilled her life story to a companion like Viola, he’d think it over again.
She shrugged, almost smugly.
“You could say my bedtime stories helped.”
“Wait, so you’re really from the future? Like decades from now?”
“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you, and yeah,” she said, relieved that Mono was close to finally believing her.
“But then, how did you end up…here?”
The look of sadness behind her eyes returned. She shifted from his gaze, releasing an exasperated sigh.
“If I tell you, can you promise me something? If we meet Six?” she asked, sounding small and hesitant. He merely nodded, wanting her to continue. “Don’t tell her anything about what I’ve told you; about her being my mom, nor about me being from the future. None of that. ”
“Okay…” he said.
Viola lifted her eyes up to him, a reassured grin making its way to her lips.
And as the heavy rain continued to pour outside in the cold streets, she began her story.
The forest was a quiet place. Dry leaves rustled and blew in the air, the sun just beginning to set as the sky took on its orange hue.
And somewhere deep inside the forest, sat a television under a tree.
The television blared to life and buzzed with static, a soft whine coming from it as its screen glowed brighter and dimmer like a dying lamp.
A small figure appeared on the screen, the centre of it all before the television spat her out quicker than one could blink.
Viola fell to the grass, elbows propping up immediately at her realization.
She turned her head back to the said television, however to her dismay, its glass screen had already shattered into little shards everywhere, smoke coming out of it for the intense heat it had produced.
Her chest began to hyperventilate for all her fears returned tenfold. Her eyes were already close to tears.
But anger soon mixed with it as she gritted her teeth.
That lying jerk!
He pushed her into the TV right after he knew her guard was down. He knew she wanted to help, he knew she wanted to stay, yet he refused to let her. Now with the TV all shattered and broken, it was futile to even try and warp back to him.
This left her with only one option, like he had intended it to be.
She got up from the ground, starting her run through the familiar forest; to reach the bunker.
And she didn’t stop for even a second. No matter how much her legs burned from exhaustion, no matter how much she tempted herself to take a short break.
She had to get there, whatever it took. For her parents’ lives were on the line.
They’d told her beforehand, the bunker was made for emergencies such as this and it was the only place safe for her…to hide.
Of course, parents always thought they knew better compared to their children. Frustratingly.
They wanted her to ‘hide and wait’ in the bunker, until all was safe. Well, she may be a child, but she wasn’t as ignorant as they thought her to be.
She knew things were hellishly bad when it involved the Eye.
So, screw hiding. Screw her parents’ plan for her. She wasn’t going to wait for the worst to happen.
The bunker was seen just hidden beneath the vines, making Viola speed up towards it with determination.
She pushed the leaves that were covering the entrance in a haste, grasping the handle before unlocking the door. It opened, as loudly as the first time she stood here.
Viola entered, climbing down the stairs despite her hesitations.
Darkness engulfed most of her vision, the only source of light being the natural one from the entrance as she left it unclosed. But that was the least of her worries as of now.
Viola rushed to the other room, kicking all the covered boxes that were in her way.
She set her eyes on the television in front of her.
This was the only one left.
Before she knew it, she found herself already sitting in front of its black screen, her palms resting on them like many times before.
She switched it on.
A buzz was felt underneath her hands as her energy shot through the TV, its light illuminating the room in an instant, the familiar sound of static emitting.
Viola shut her eyes as her thoughts and doubts suddenly became loud.
All of the problems mainly came from the Transmission, and the Eye was merely the root of it. It was strong enough to take over because of its host’s ability to broadcast the deadly signal.
So, take away that, then the least it would do was weaken the Eye, wouldn’t it?
Perhaps going back to where it all started could prevent this from happening.
Assumptions were dangerous but doing nothing was not an option.
Thin aura of dark magic and electric surrounded her as she focused on when and where she needed to travel to.
This could go wrong, her mind spoke to her.
That was true. But it could also go right if it worked, if she succeeded. This was her only choice to help her parents and to bring them back home and alive.
She needed it to work.
She couldn’t let the Eye destroy everything.
Viola opened her eyes, white obscuring her sight as she felt herself sink through the TV in a matter of seconds. And in those seconds, it somehow felt as if everything slowed and sped at the same time, a strange feeling yet familiar.
Static engulfed her ears.
However, the whiteness soon dissipated, clearing her view as her face fell on a wet pavement, the sound of rain becoming louder. Her head, dizzy.
Slowly, she stood up, her balance a little off as she realized the massive buildings around her.
It worked! She was in Pale City! But…had her body shrunk?
Everything seemed so gigantic that it was unsettling to say the least.
The lamp posts, the garbage cans, even the benches. They look twice her size!
Viola shook her thoughts off, reminding herself that there were bigger issues she should pay attention to. She needed to find the Signal Tower and get their host out of there.
Luckily for her, Pale City was famous for its ever-looming Tower. With just one turn of her head, she already spotted it.
A hopeful smile adorned her face. Now she just needed to use the television and warp to the Signal Tower—
She turned around only to find that the television she came through was broken in pieces, its glass seemingly had exploded just as it spat her out.
Oh, great.
All she had to do first was find a working television. Only then could she get to Mono.
And only then could she save both her parents from the Eye.
“So, let me get this straight,” Mono said, apparently invested in every word, “ You, Six’s daughter, came here to the past to bust me out from the Tower, all because those parasites of a flesh came to kill all of you? And your parents sacrificed themselves to buy you time to get to the bunker?”
Viola breathed out as if relieving the memory.
“Yeah, pretty much. I didn’t really have a choice because, well, you know. Those ‘parasites’ were coming to kill me. And from what I know, they’ve gotten stronger ever since…Thin Man left.” She looked down to her hands and added, “Years after years they fed on his powers, fed on him . I couldn’t let them do the same to you.”
“Because I was supposed to be the next one, wasn’t I?”
Viola nodded.
Quietness settled between them, both staying in their place with downcasted gaze.
As for Mono, he didn’t know what to feel anymore. The truth Viola revealed to him was too believable to be considered as a lie.
Even if it wasn’t the whole of it, one thing remained clear to him.
Viola had saved him from his cruel fate, saved him from being imprisoned for the next few years, possibly decades.
Maybe it was only right if he helped her in return, regardless of her mother being that yellow-hooded demon.
“You know, if Six is your mother—like you said—then, why not just tell her that ? Why go all the way for some crappy music box you’re not even sure is still there?”
“Because I know her,” she said, narrowing her eyes. “And I know she isn’t as simple to deal with. She changed over the years after she met someone.”
Mono scoffed, unintentionally rolling his eyes.
“Let me guess, your dad?”
Viola paused for a second, taken aback.
She cleared her throat after keeping silent and replied, “Yes, my dad. But that’s really,” She chuckled sheepishly, “not for a long time. So for now, the music box is the only thing I have to gain her trust—which I’m positive she’ll give right after we return her property.”
He frowned at the idea Viola vaguely suggested.
“We?”
“Well, yeah. We’re going to have to meet her one way or another, right?”
All the sudden, the idea of helping Viola became less and less appealing to him. Not helping her per se, but more to the fact that he’d have to face his betrayer in the end.
He wasn’t entirely sure he could refrain himself from beating Six to pulp if he did. And in front of the younger girl too.
Mono breathed through his nose.
“I…don’t think I want to see her, Viola. Not after what she’s done to me.”
At this, she deflated immediately, her brows furrowed enough to make the guilt crawl into his mind. Mono shifted his eyes away, not wanting to look at her expression—as well as hating how easily this was affecting him.
“So, you’re not…coming with me?”
“I am ,” he said, a tad overwhelmed by the disappointment she displayed in her tone, “I’ll still help you find the music box and everything, but that’s all I can do for you; all I will do for you. After that, you’re on your own.” He finally turned back to her as he added, “We’ll just part ways.”
The frown Viola had lifted slightly, to his relief, but it soon was replaced with a hopeful one.
Little did he know, her true plan wasn’t to get the music box to Six.
Instead, it was to get him to her. For the item was merely an excuse.
An excuse for them to talk again.
“Okay, but you do know you’re going to regret it right?”
His body froze at what she said, his eyes remaining still and unblinking.
Regret?
Why would he regret this chance to not see Six’s ugly face?
“What do you mean?” he asked, his voice firm, and frankly, a little offended if he were to admit.
“Hey, I’m just saying,” she said with nonchalance, shrugging to him. “Obviously, you don’t want to see her now, but aren’t you at least curious to know why she betrayed you? Why she left you behind after everything you went through together? Because she never told me, and you won’t get another chance to ask if we part ways.”
Surprise smeared all over his face.
How he never thought of that, he didn’t know. All those times being in the Tower; every minute of every day, he had always asked himself the same question, repeatedly so.
Why did Six leave me behind?
A bloody mystery that was. Because he knew, he did everything right as a friend. And for her to just toss him away like some unwanted junk, he couldn’t understand why he had even debated with himself to forgive her the first day.
Her actions were way beyond redeemable.
Now, did he want to look at her betraying-face again? Instant nope. However, if he ever were to put this behind him, move on from the hurt she’d caused, he had to know why he was betrayed in the first place.
Viola was right, and again too.
He would regret this later if he let the opportunity slide.
“Wow, Six must’ve taught you some great manipulation techniques if you’re this good,” he said.
“W-What are you talking about?” she stammered, caught off guard by his boldness. “I would never manipulate anyone!”
Mono rolled his eyes, though lacking the annoyance in them. “I meant you’ve got a point. I do want to know the reason behind her stupid decision. So yeah, fine. I’ll follow you until I get to ask her.”
“Oh, that’s great!”
“And kill her after…” he mumbled, deliberately making it loud and clear enough for her to hear.
Viola shot him a glare.
“What? I was joking! Can’t a guy make a silly joke about killing his betrayer he once called a friend?” he said, smiling innocently as if the joke itself wasn’t dark.
“That’s my mom you’re talking about. So, you better be joking,” she said, putting a hand on his shoulder. “Or else I’ll have to bury two bodies instead of one.”
Giving him a small pat, she got up from the floor and left his side.
Now it was her turn to smile oh-so-innocently.
Mono, however, merely stared with his mouth agape as she turned her back on him, seemingly walking further into the house.
“Where are you going?” he raised his voice from where he sat, not realizing how he sounded like a concerned parent.
Viola stopped halfway, glancing behind her. “I’m just going to the kitchen to see if they have anything edible. Don’t worry, it’ll only take a second,” she said, however, that did not stop Mono from shooting her a look. “Jeez, I promise I’ll shout if I see anything.” She lifted her hands up as if in defeat, proceeding to walk away.
He released a sigh, her form soon disappearing as she entered another room somewhere in the hallway.
Mono eyed it for a second more before throwing his head back against the wall, tired after the day he had—even though he had sat on a chair for the last couple of months. You’d think he would’ve been well energized.
Viola was to thank for changing his constant routine he was sick of.
Maybe helping her find this music box would do him some good, distract his mind from the liar who apparently, was no fit to become a friend, let alone a mother .
Truly hilarious.
Just who would be dumb enough to marry Six?
Mono closed his eyes, a thought lingering in his mind before drifting off.
Who was Viola’s father?
Notes:
Thanks for reading!
Chapter Text
Morning came, and Mono barely had a good night's sleep.
It felt as if he only slept for a few minutes but seeing how light shone through the window from outside, he knew it had to be more than a couple of hours.
He buried his face into his hands, feeling ever so sluggish after the repeated nightmare he had—like Six’s stupid face staring down at him as she let him fall. Enough to ruin his morning that was for sure.
Though, this sluggishness didn’t come from that alone.
But also the fact that his new companion, Viola, incessantly had been trying to get him to wake up and proceed with their mission. As much as he was thankful she’d busted him out from the Tower, he realized something about her on the next day.
Which was her understated loquacity . Like a deafening horn that would go on and on and on.
Honestly, none of that bothered him much. But for God’s sake, It was early in the morning, in a city where parents would eat their own children no less.
If Six was the one in his shoes now, he knew what a fit she’d throw over this.
“Mono, come on! We’ve got a long day ahead of us.” Viola was already standing by the door, fervently waiting for him to get up from his place. Of course, he took his sweet time, which only increased her impatience.
Pretty cheery for a girl who almost died yesterday.
He released a loud sigh, finally removing his hands from his face as he rose. “I’m up, I’m up.” Tiredly, he made his way to her.
“We need to find the—"
“Yeah, I know,” he said, yawning. “Come on, let’s get out of here.”
Mono opened the door and stepped out, Viola trailing behind him. Truly, he wanted nothing more than to leave this dead city.
Rain poured all over them, getting them soaking wet like the norm. They travelled through the somewhat hidden alleys of Pale City, being discreet and on guard for the adults that might roam the streets at the time.
Seemingly, after his unexpected escape from the Signal Tower, the usual buzz that noise-polluted the entire area became…quieter, less bothersome.
Which was great news!
Yet at the same time, it wasn’t.
Without the usual Transmission the Signal Tower had the TVs broadcasted, those faceless scums went berserk. Everything turned into chaos as if a wild beast had been released to their homes. They ran around, screeching madly the longer they realized the televisions no longer brought them comfort; no longer the same drug they’d been addicted to.
Or in other special cases, one that he wouldn’t rather witness, there were the suicidal bunch. These Viewers decided that life wasn’t worth living for without their TVs, then proceeded to literally jump off the roofs, ultimately ending their lives in a more…disturbing way.
And seemingly overnight, dead bodies piled over in the streets and pavements, more so than usual.
Regardless of most being corpses, both children had to be more careful than ever now if they ever cross those carcasses.
Because not all the dead ones were truly dead.
Mono had to learn it the hard way when one of the Viewers caught his leg.
If it weren’t for Viola who had helped pull him away, he didn’t know what he’d do.
Time passed as they walked side by side in silence.
Well, he walked in silence.
The girl next to him, not so much.
Viola couldn’t stop babbling . It was as if she felt the need to fill in those 3 seconds of silence or else she’d implode.
Mono understood the feeling, he did.
Back then, he too liked conversing with a certain ‘friend’ and was familiar with her annoyance whenever he talked too much. Although, he had always thought that she was merely an introvert for that matter.
But now with Viola, he was inclined to think that she talked way more than he did. Still, he wasn’t going to tell her off like Six had with him.
Besides, it brought him relief knowing that he wasn’t alone anymore.
“Do you even know where we’re going?” Viola asked, her energetic pace slowing down a few steps behind.
Like a battery finally losing its power.
“Of course, I do,” he said, walking past a stop sign. “I just…need to remember the way.”
“So, we’re lost?”
“No, we aren’t. If I’m right, the beach should be around here somewhere.”
“That’s exactly what you said an hour ago. I mean, this is the third time we’ve passed this stop sign!” Viola pointed to the red sign. “We’re lost aren’t we?”
Mono bit the inside of his cheeks. Has it been an hour already? His concept of time didn’t really apply anymore after being isolated in a room for months. All credits went to Six for that matter.
Still, it was no excuse as to why they wasted their time walking in circles.
Indeed, they were lost.
Mono wasn’t loving how Viola waited by his side for him to verbally admit it. The long stare she gave him, how she raised her brows the longer he stayed silent, Viola seriously was a clone of Six. But friendlier somehow. Ugh.
He released an exasperated sigh, discreetly rolling his eyes as he turned the other way.
“Fine, we’re…” Mono let his mouth hang open, spotting something familiar in the distance.
Viola tilted her head at him, wondering why he’d suddenly gone so quiet.
“Mono?”
Without a reply, he continued forward along the dark alley, the slight fog clearing up the further he went. Viola followed him anyway, despite not knowing why they suddenly stopped at one of the back buildings.
A big hole was seen in the wall in front of them, bricks already splayed beneath it. Inside was merely a large empty space of a room, made of nothing but old, brittle wood. Its proof being the missing ceiling as it revealed the floor above. A screenless television hung in the centre of the circle as an adult’s suit was left swaying through it.
At the far end of the empty room, was a door. One that he knew for certain would lead to the beach.
An exit out of Pale City.
This is it!
The same entrance he and Six had gone through to get into the city.
“Found it!” he exclaimed proudly and pointed to the door inside.
Mono went and climbed through the hole in the wall, baring a smile on his face at his accomplishment. After he got inside, he lent out his hand to Viola who stood in the alley still, sheepishly asking him where they were now.
She eyed the place up and down curiously, taking his offered hand and climbed through too. Her eyes then averted to the moldy door at the end. Of course, any sane human would question how a room such as this could lead them to the beach.
“You’re telling me the beach is behind that door?”
“Yeah,” he said with a nod. “That was how me and…how I got into the city in the first place. No other entrance but through it.”
With a huff, he proceeded towards the exit.
The natural light from the broken ceiling shone above him, the wood groaning under his steps, despite his feet pressed lightly against them.
Just by walking on these floorboards felt as if he was relieving his first time being here, when he was all but a determined child, yet oblivious to the true dangers in the Pale City.
It was indeed a shame to see where his own curiosity had brought him in the end. A real shame.
A grumble reverberated throughout the room, followed by Viola’s grunt.
His steps halted as he turned around to face her.
Viola stood a few feet behind, her face contorting in pain. Mono knew something wasn’t right when she suddenly bent over, her arms wrapping her own abdomen as she clutched her hands to the fabric of her sleeve.
Another grumble filled the air, and it was clear to him that it came from her stomach.
Seeing how she was losing her balance and about to fall flat on her face, Mono rushed over to her side, the floorboards groaning louder beneath him.
And so did the boards above them.
A noise either would’ve heard if they’d been paying attention.
Mono caught on her arm and held her up, his brows furrowing deeper by her sudden pain. “Are you okay?” he asked, worry laced in his voice.
Her response was a mere whimper, and that was enough to indicate that she wasn’t feeling as swell as she was moments before.
Viola wrapped her arms around her abdomen tighter, however, that did nothing to lessen the growling in her stomach. Another pained whine left her, worsening Mono’s anxieties.
She’s hungry, he figured that much. What the hell am I supposed to do?
The only logical answer to that simple question was fairly obvious yet complicated.
Food.
Food, food, food .
Where in the world would he find that now? They were only a few steps away from kissing Pale City goodbye, so if someone told him to turn back just to find food for Viola, he’d honestly laugh for a full minute.
Though speaking with the same honesty, he’d still do it without question. Like a careless, suicidal blockhead.
But a blockhead with heart supposedly.
Just the sight of someone in agony made the insides of his stomach churn with guilt.
Mono lifted his gaze to the alley behind them, contemplating his next move. If he were to go back, hypothetically, where would be the best and the most guaranteed place to store even a little piece of grub?
Restaurants, cafes, any local stores. That is if the awful rain didn’t ruin them first. Everything would be too soaked to even digest by then. Also considering if he could even find one on the spot.
Viola whimpered again, sounding as if she was holding back a tear from the pain. It made him wonder if she’d been starving all this time. Then it’d make sense why she had looked through the kitchen in the last house they’d stayed in.
However, the amount of time she hadn’t had any food was a question he’d ask later.
For now, he could just help her out.
Gently loosening his grip on her arm, he said, “Stay here. I’ll be right back.” Instantly, Viola grasped his sleeve, her head shaking in protest. “You’re starving right? I’ll just look for something quick.”
“No!” she snapped before calming herself down with a breath. “D-don’t go.”
Her words left him slightly speechless, confusion behind his eyes as he tried to understand what she could have meant.
Was she afraid that he might abandon her here? Well, he wasn’t Six, that was for sure.
Placing his hands firmly on both of Viola’s shoulders, he reassured her, “Listen, I promise I’ll be back. You just stay put and wait while I find something, okay?”
Once more, she shook her head, telling him it was unnecessary to find her food. Yet the grumbling of her stomach made him think otherwise.
Not having it, Mono gave her another look before eventually releasing her as he turned around.
A pinch of guilt ate at him as Viola dropped to her knees without having him to support her.
“Wait!” She reached out a hand, while the other closed around her abdomen. “You don’t…Y-you don’t get it.”
“What’s not to get? You’re clearly hungry, Viola. Hungry enough to the point where you can’t even stand.”
“I know, but I…” Viola took in a deep breath as she wore a grimace, her body curling for the pang in her stomach, “I don’t need food .”
“What—?”
A crash sounded from above. Instantly, their eyes went to the twitching figure standing near the edge of the broken ceiling, fear written on their faces altogether.
The Viewer stood dangerously to the edge, his skin sickly pale akin to a corpse, the features of a normal human face completely distorted on him.
With no eyes to see, the man relied on his two ears instead, listening carefully for the sound of two children below him. The Viewer craned its neck towards them, his face directly looking at Mono.
Before either of the children could react, the Viewer jerked forward, ostensibly falling off the upper floor and landing right in the way of their escape out of this horrid city.
The man’s movement was unusual, but that was nothing Mono hadn’t seen before. Still, it didn’t mean he wanted to see how every limb in the man’s body spasmed and twisted itself. Mono was beyond disturbed by that point.
The Viewer didn’t give himself even a second as he was already on his feet, ready to pounce at the first child he could hear.
All because the boy simply had breathed at the wrong time.
Mono felt his arm being yanked from behind, making him fall on his side rather abruptly. Quite painfully too.
He saw Viola stand in front of him, however, it was only for a second for his vision was then blocked by a thick layer of swirling darkness, the fog covering his senses as he lost sight of the girl.
Panic rose in his chest as he couldn’t do anything else but wait.
Wait for the overwhelming darkness to subside.
Wait for the ear-piercing screech to stop.
As if his thoughts were read, the moving darkness eventually cleared up, giving him a glimpse of Viola, However, his eyes instantly settled at what laid in front of her.
The Viewer was seen on the ground still as ever, as if at her mercy, the man’s body too skinny for a former human being as the corpse looked closer to a skeleton. The clothes worn by the Viewer seemingly bigger, looser than before. A dark humanoid shadow above the Viewer’s face appeared merely a second before being absorbed by Viola.
The Viewer let out a faint wheeze as his bone-like appendages twitched for the last time.
Then came the silence.
Mono stayed on the floor, his mouth agape at what he had just witnessed. He watched the girl in front of him, and darted back to the still adult, unconsciously staring at the dead man more than he should.
But his stare was soon cut off as the child in front of him slowly descended to the floor, sitting on her knees with her head hanging low. She heaved a sigh without a glance over her shoulder, already knowing his reaction. Or rather, assumed his reaction was fear.
Fear was the last thing on his mind.
It was obvious to him that Viola apparently had a…soul-eating ability, which he would admit, a little disturbing. Then again who was he to judge? He literally had blasted off a Viewer’s head yesterday for crying out loud—something he wasn’t proud of despite the person killed being a mindless monster.
A monster that tried to kill her before he got in the way.
And seemingly now, their roles had been switched.
What Viola did was no different. She was no different than him. The fact that she sat there, looking ashamed , made it easier to understand.
Mono stood up, and quietly crouched next to her.
Viola, abashed that he saw it all, kept her eyes on the corpse. Uneasiness built up in his chest as he too looked over the Viewer once again, the man’s limbs akin to bones.
She really meant it when she said she didn’t need food.
Shifting back to her, he gently nudged her arm, to which she only acknowledged with her silence.
“Viola…?” he called softly.
She finally met his gaze, guilt still written on her features as she frowned. Her eyes returned to the Viewer’s body.
“Sorry you had to see that,” she muttered under her breath. “You weren’t supposed to find out, yet.”
“It doesn’t really bother me, you know.”
“It…doesn’t?”
He gave a shake of his head. “I think you've forgotten that you're not the only one with a secret.” He took her arm and helped her get to her feet. “But, just to avoid any more surprises, give me a little heads up next time, alright?”
At his light remark, Viola let out a faint chuckle, smiling ear to ear, the previous shame on her face no longer seen.
“Okay,” she said.
Mono returned the smile, nodding his head. His eyes glanced at the door at the end.
“So, I’m assuming you still want to find your mom’s stupid music box, huh?” he asked despite knowing her answer, making his way to the said entrance together.
The girl merely shot him a look at his choice of words.
He scoffed lightly, jumping at the doorknob before twisting it. As a result, a creak was produced from the door as it opened, revealing the body of water far ahead, the cool breeze touching his skin.
Mono couldn’t help but give a slight shiver as the wind entered the gloomy room.
Both children eventually stepped out to the open beach and made their way to the shore, the sand they walked on sinking a tad for every step they took.
A half-buried television did not go unnoticed by Mono as they passed by it.
Part of him wondered if something was behind its screen. If someone was watching them.
Instantly, he shook the thought away before it could grow, no longer wanting to remember the bad memories that came along with it.
No longer wanting to remember how Six abandoned him because of his issue with the televisions.
Alas, forgetting his memories of her turned out to be harder when they reached the piece of door stuck to the edge. The sand kept it from floating away after all this time. Until now.
A bitter frown crept to his face, his mind thinking of the girl with the name he cursed on his tongue. Just the mere thought brought the anger in him.
Nevertheless, the coldness he radiated now, wasn’t something invisible to his new companion.
Viola pat gently to his back as he remained his stare on the broken board, as if something was written on it.
From the touch, he heaved multiple deep breaths to calm his temper.
“Let’s just leave,” he grumbled, climbing onto the wood. Viola kept her lips pressed into a line, and hopped on after him, the door swaying slightly as another weight was added.
All aboard, Mono finally pushed them away from the shore, their somewhat boat following the current and floating away further towards the middle.
And the city that once kept him, no longer seen as it disappeared behind the white fog.
Notes:
Thanks for reading!
Chapter Text
It only took them a couple of minutes until another land appeared in their line of sight.
The Wilderness, a forest that had once become the Hunter’s territory and home. Mono remembered vividly of his encounter with the man. It was a memory that practically lived inside his brain among many other near-death experiences. Way too many.
But what made this one particularly more special, was because of that girl . That dumb, selfish-wearing-yellow raincoat, Six.
This was where they’d first met.
Where they’d first helped each other.
Where he’d thought foolishly once, as a great day for having found himself a new friend. If only he’d known sooner she would become the opposite of the word ‘friend’.
The wait soon came to a stop when their door reached the land. An old shed could be seen in front of them, still holding up strong after all this time. But he doubted it if anything around here even changed.
If this horrid world couldn’t, then what’d make the Wilderness any different?
Walking towards the shed, the two children helped the other climb up, their only way forward being the window.
At first he’d been hesitant to let Viola climb first, although considering her smaller frame than him, there was no way she’d be able to push him up. Her poor arms would suffer before he could even grasp the edge.
Hence, he did the noble thing and gave her a boost. To which, thank God, Viola pulled him up. Unlike someone …
Once all two of them made it inside the shed, they took notice of the laying figure by the door. A hole gracing the man’s chest where the heart would be.
The Hunter is still there.
Mono walked around the rotting body, flies buzzing above the man as his arms spread to the side.
He could only cover his nose from breathing the horrible stench that came from the Hunter. Viola did the same, although she’d taken a bit of interest in the corpse, wearing a look as if she’d known all along about the Hunter’s demise.
Viola stood just by the Hunter’s head, a hand still to her nose as the smell became much stronger. She stayed in her place, staring at the dead Hunter with curiosity, yet not noticing how Mono had already walked further ahead.
After a few more seconds passed, he abandoned the idea of waiting for her realization.
“Oi!” he said, and it immediately got her out of her daze. “Don’t stand around that man.”
Viola speed-walked to him, saying out apologies as she did so. She removed her hands as they got far enough, nervously chuckling. With a clear of her throat, she gave a toothy smile. “Let’s carry on. Lead the way please!”
“Huh?”
Slowly, Viola’s smile dropped. “You…y-you do know where the cabin is…right?”
“Right. Actually, about that…”
“Oh, come on. Not again!” Her shoulders sunk in disappointment, groaning out loud.
“Hey, now, don’t give me that. I never said I didn’t know. I just sort of need time for it all to come back to me—which it will. Trust me, you’ll see.”
“After, what, a few hours?”
“One hour. Tops. Besides, I think finding the cabin should be easier because of the trail I left.” He gestured to the ground filled with pieces of broken boxes far apart from each other.
“A trail?”
Mono crouched to the dirt and picked one of the pieces. “See this? You find one lying around then it means we’re heading the right way. The forest got loads of them after he tried to shoot at us.” He casually threw the wood over his shoulder and continued with the path.
Viola’s eyes widened, chasing after him. “Wait, what ?” she gaped in disbelief. “You and Six were almost shot?”
He kept his head to the front as he walked, keeping his face from snarling at the name.
“It’s really not that big of a deal, Viola. We were just being chased, that’s all.”
“Still!” she said, her hands to her cheeks. “I cannot believe this! She never told me there were guns involved in the story.”
Mono shot her a funny look. Wait, how did she—oh, right.
He had almost forgotten Viola's certain knowledge of his and Six’s history, given that Viola was from the future. With Six apparently ‘her doting mother’, that traitor must’ve told her some of her own past.
Curious, had Six possibly ever mentioned him at some point? Mono was, after all, a part of this so-called story Viola had stated. Perhaps so. Viola had already known his name and everything about him the first time they met.
Maybe.
The two children carried on with their way. With the help of the little pieces of wood spotted by them, it made the travel a lot easier; and the further they got, he began to remember the little bits of this place. The way to the cabin, especially.
It was all coming back to him, just like he said.
The green-yellowish murky swamp with the docks being one he remembered the most as they soon stumbled upon it— which Viola was lucky enough to not have to experience diving in.
The swamp did not get any cleaner. Viola didn’t hide her disgust at that, saying she wouldn’t jump in ever .
Easy for her to think so.
Back when the Hunter was alive, he and Six had no other choice. It was either swim or get shot. His joy couldn’t be expressed enough having the choice to walk on the docks this time.
Regardless of their path and location becoming familiar to his eyes, that didn’t stop Mono from going extra paranoid of the forest. He frequently glanced behind them as they headed deep inside the Wilderness, making sure that no one was stalking in the trees . Or basically anything that was deemed suspicious .
He wouldn’t let the monsters attack him and Viola in a form of, well, murder-surprise . That wasn’t a way he’d ever like to go out. Neither would he want that for Viola.
“Hey, Mono?” said Viola, bringing him out of his thoughts. “Can I ask you something?”
He merely gave a side glance.
“What is it?”
“Why were you in the Hunter’s cabin? I mean, I already know why—but, how did you know that Six was being kept there?”
“I didn’t.”
He proceeded to enter the old building in front of the dock, leaving Viola behind to gape at his simple answer.
She hurried to his side, nonetheless.
“What do you mean, ‘you didn’t’? Then how come you were there to hear her music box in the first place?”
“Look, I’m not proud to say this, especially to you , but I came there looking for”—He took a breath, his pause clear of reluctance—“hats.”
"Wait what?"
“Hats. I went inside to look for them. But I found her and her ridiculous music box instead.”
A sneer appeared on his face at the reminder, and his frown only grew when Viola let out a chuckle.
Taking on a defensive tone, he spoke up, “You don’t need to judge me for that, alright?” His eyes averted, cheeks flushing. “It’s just one of the things that helped me cope with all the wrong things in this world. That and my paper bag.”
“Wait a second, I’m not judging you,” she said.
“Yeah, that’s what they all say. Then the next thing you know, everyone is avoiding you and calling you a freak to the point where you have to even hide your face from everybody.”
Mono continued ahead with his head slightly hung, his feet walking on the leaves and sticks that snapped with just one step. The events from his past bombarding his mind, way before Six even came into the picture.
But his sour mood lasted only for a moment as a hand touched his shoulder, making him stop in his tracks.
“I’m not judging you; I promise,” Viola said before dropping her hand. “I just wasn't expecting that, you know? Not everyone is as mean as… that someone .” She raised her brows, clearly hinting at the girl he despised.
A small grin crept its way to his lips as he scoffed.
With the way Viola casually just called her own mother mean, was somewhat surprising to hear. And things like this made him wonder as to how a monster like Six raised a child like Viola. Apart from the appearance, the girl's personality wasn't all that similar to Six—as far as he noticed. At some point, there were even doubts of the girl being Six’s offspring.
So, it was only down to two things.
One; Viola was just as incredible at lying as Six.
Or two; Viola’s father was dead on a good example—though an unlucky guy if Mono were to admit.
Opening his mouth to thank her, he found his words dying in his throat as their path was put to an abrupt halt, forcing them no way to proceed forward to get to the cabin.
Perhaps, to be more concise, that broken bridge was still there.
The bridge that could only be used if one were to be on the other side to pull its rope. Alas both of them were on the same ground. Leaping carelessly to get across appeared to be riskier as the chasm presented itself below, threatening to eat anyone who was unfortunate enough to fall.
And Mono had had enough with falling .
Had had enough of relying on someone to catch him.
“We need something to connect the bridge,” he started, turning to Viola.
“You sure? Maybe it isn't that far to jump across—”
“No,” he snapped. However, upon seeing Viola’s changed expression, he instantly realized how cold his tone had become. “I-I mean, don’t do that. It’s dangerous. I don’t think it’s a good idea to risk your life like that.”
He shot her a lopsided smile, a nervous huff leaving him.
“Oh, okay then.”
Viola returned the smile and turned towards her surroundings, searching the forest for something that could help them.
The trees took up most of the Wilderness as that was all loomed above them. The dirt on the ground was only covered with harmless rocks and somewhat tall grass, reaching almost up to their knees.
Walking away from her place, the girl went further towards the deeper parts of the forest.
“Wait Viola where are you going?” he shouted to her as he stood by the bridge still, becoming more and more antsy the farther she went. “Hey, don’t go too far!”
Viola’s back faced him as she took her steps carefully on the tall grass.
“I’m just going to look around!” She spared a look over her shoulder before returning her gaze to the front. “Geez, it’s not like there’s anything here that could hurt—OH GOOD GOD!”
“Viola!” Mono immediately ran to her, crossing the tall grass as fast as he could. He could see her also running back towards him, her face in absolute horror.
As they met in the middle, Viola hurriedly clutched to his coat, hiding behind him, and using him as a human shield.
Before he could even ask, she beat him to it, pointing a finger ahead. “Th-there’s something m-moving…”
Hearing that, his whole body tensed, his hands balling into fists as he watched Viola cower behind him as if her life was at stake. The hold she had on his shoulder only tightened when a rustle sounded in the distance, the tall grass shifting around a fallen log for a few seconds before it stopped completely.
The boy raised a brow, his curious nature persuading him to take a step forward to the sound. But someone held him back just as fast.
“Don't!” she whispered harshly, still behind him.
Gently, he took her hand off his shoulder and sleeve, feeling slight ache at her iron grip. He put a finger to his lips, then gestured for her to stay where she was. That, however, merely got Viola frightened even more, her hands quickly back to holding dearly to his coat as he took a step.
It told him enough that she was following.
He mentally sighed at her.
So together, they slowly approached the fallen log, making sure their movements didn’t incite the mysterious creature.
And every step taken, he could feel a small part of his brain kicking regret into him. This could easily be an adult, waiting for them to come into its trap. Which here they were, doing so willingly.
But now that he thought it through, what other adults were there?
The Hunter was long dead. There weren’t Viewers stalking in these trees as far as he knew. The televisions in the Wilderness barely worked as nature did not reserve any sort of electric outlet for it to be powered through day and night.
Besides, this creature even ran away from them. What adult would ever do so?
They reached the log eventually, both standing with a cautious stance.
Small squeaks could be heard behind the long log, the tall grass hiding the source. Mono, still being used as a shield by Viola, dared another step, pushing the grass out of the way.
The grass followed his touch and revealed the creature that had terrified Viola greatly.
He released his held breath, his tensed body relaxing at the sight he was given.
A Nome.
Upon seeing two children looming above it, the Nome let out a tiny whimper, wrapping its arms around its knees tighter as it quivered. It hid what it could of its cone head as if they would eat it alive.
Slowly, he kneeled closer to the Nome. In return, the creature only trembled even more, flinching when his hand reached out to it.
But his touch was gentle and soft, unlike any other monsters. Mono lightly tapped its arm, getting its attention.
“Hey,” he whispered to it, “I’m Mono.”
The Nome eventually cocked his head, a little courage building up inside its chest to look at him. And stare was all it did.
“I’m not going to hurt you, okay? Here…” With a gentle hold, Mono brought the Nome to his chest, lifting it up with him as he rose from the ground. The Nome in response, melted in his arms, its head leaning against him to his surprise.
Meanwhile, Viola only watched with her lips parted, a mix of confusion and fear still behind her eyes.
“Uh, Mono?” He turned to her at his name, the Nome already snuggling to him. “What the heck is that thing?”
“Oh, you’ve never seen one before? This is a Nome. I met a few a while back. They’re friendly little things, completely harmless I swear.” He brought up the Nome closer to her, to which she backed away with wide eyes. “Go on, give it a touch.”
Viola, still reluctant to even come close, did as Mono said anyway, taking a step or two with a hand reaching out to it. Her palm twitched as she gave it a brief pat.
But soon her pats became longer as the Nome’s head leaned against her touch.
A laugh escaped her, a smile growing on her face.
“Wow, it really is friendly,” she said, continuing to pet its cone head.
The silence hung in the air for a second or two.
“So, you want to try and hug it?”
At his question, her breath choked. “Say what now ?”
“My arms are getting tired,” he said, adjusting the Nome. “And you don’t seem very scared of it anymore, so…here.”
Mono casually passed the grey creature to her without any second spared.
Viola gaped at his action, being forced to have the Nome in her arms instead of his.
The Nome, however, reacted the same as it did with him, merely cuddling back against her as she kept it from falling to the ground.
Seemingly, trying to hide her joy of it was impossible as her eyes beamed at the Nome.
He snickered to himself and shook his head, turning his attention to the log.
Now this looked like something that could connect a gap between two sides. Maybe it was good thing they’d approach the Nome. And while Viola was distracted cuddling with the little creature, he figured one of them should do something about the bridge.
Cracking his knuckles—or at least he tried to—Mono walked around the log and got to the middle part of it.
With his hands under the wood, he took a deep breath and attempted to lift the log off the ground. But his strength alone did not match up to the heaviness of the log, causing him to trip and fall on his rear instantly.
In hindsight, doing this by himself was a stupid idea.
As Viola saw it happen, she placed the Nome to the floor, and rushed over to his side.
“You okay?”
He huffed an exasperated breath. “Yeah,” he said. “Just…didn’t think the log would be this hard to lift.”
“Well, it’s a giant log Mono. I wouldn’t think it to be light either.”
“I sort of figured that part out.” With a grunt, he pushed himself up from the ground, dusting the dirt and mud off his pants as he did so. “Come on, let’s try it together.”
Viola nodded and got beside him, both of them crouching down and putting their hands below the log to raise it off the floor using their combined strength.
However, the two children barely did any lifting as a frustrated grunt sounded in front of them, making them halt halfway to stare at the creature in bewilderment.
The Nome had already imitated their posture, seemingly trying to lift the log from the other side. It was lending them help.
Regardless of their obvious staring, the Nome still proceeded to give its efforts to get the log up, albeit the wood barely even moved.
The two continued to observe the Nome in front of them, seeing it work harder than they even did. And both knew well by then that the log was unmovable with just the strength of two kids and a tiny Nome.
“Mono,” said Viola, not taking her eyes off the Nome, “are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
The boy, also locked on the creature, gave a hum.
“Does it sound stupid in your head too?”
“Yep.”
Both went quiet after that, merely watching the Nome struggle with such determination despite knowing how futile its attempts were.
Exactly what they needed!
They needed more of that—more of these determined creatures on their side if they wanted to move the log over to the broken bridge.
This could work, he thought.
“Okay Viola, new plan. We have to find as many Nomes as we can,” He heaved a sigh, “and hug them.”
This could not get any weirder.
Notes:
Thanks for reading!
Chapter Text
The Wilderness had become a quiet place ever since the Hunter died, the air as calm as it could be without the usual bangs of a shotgun to noise-pollute the forest. The thought of being hunted down by the masked man, no longer a fear.
None should fear anymore. There wasn’t a reason to hide in the darkness any longer.
The main threat of the Wilderness was gone for good, giving the inhabitants of the forest the choice to roam around freely.
So then why?
Why was it so damn hard to find a single Nome?
Viola groaned in frustration, running her hands through her hair as she walked through the trees for about an hour. At least that was what it felt like.
Mono had told her to split up, saying how it would be so much faster if they went separate ways to find the Nomes; saying how they could gather many more of these creatures easier that way if they weren’t catching them in groups.
Honestly, it wasn’t all that bad of an idea.
Except it sucked.
The sky was already starting to set, and still no Nomes caught. Because obviously, it wasn’t working.
Why she even agreed to it, she’d never know. And she’d also never know why Mono had insisted on bringing the other Nome with him.
“Ugh,” Viola pouted, her back slumping as she passed the bushes.
Was there some secret technique of catching Nomes that she missed? Was her aura not friendly enough for these little creatures to come out? Although the Nome they found had been afraid of her as she was with it the first time. She figured all of them were naturally born cowards.
Adorable, sure. But so easily frightened.
Understandable of course. This world wasn’t all cakes, glitters and rainbows after all. Because everything just had to be creepy. Everything just had to resolve around death and violence and…mud. Disgusting mud.
No wonder dad’s so paranoid. He grew up with all of this.
Viola heaved a deep breath, having had enough of hearing sticks snap nearby.
She knew she’d already located one, yet this particular Nome was quite the runner as it vanished just before she could properly laid eyes on it.
Since calling them out nicely had proven to be an utter failure, she decided to take on a different approach.
One that was taught specially by her dearest mother.
“Looks like there aren’t any Nomes here,” she said, raising her voice on purpose. With a fake turn to leave, she added, “Oh dang it! Looks like I'll have to go back! Mono would be so disappointed…!”
Her voice soon faded as she disappeared behind the trees.
The Nome, who’d been avoiding the girl for certain reasons, finally dared a peek from the bushes, the top of its cone head becoming exposed the more it stood.
The creature tilted its head, shifting its gaze all around to locate the girl.
Yet she was gone.
After a minute or two, the Nome pushed through the bushes, coming out from its hiding spot with a cautious stance.
Though seeing that it was entirely alone now, the grey creature soon relaxed its posture. It let out a tiny sigh.
But its relief was cut short as two arms suddenly circled around its torso, and it was lifted off the ground just before it could run.
“Gotcha!” Viola exclaimed, a smile growing on her lips.
The Nome in response, thrashed against her hold, squeaking madly in horror after being caught. As if she was the weird looking thing here.
Quickly, Viola brought the creature close to her chest, hugging its small figure tight like a teddy bear, just like she'd seen Mono do.
That alone did the trick.
Being enclosed in her warm embrace, the Nome eventually stopped its squirming as it merely leaned further against her as if tamed.
Viola gave a chuckle when it stayed in the same position.
Gently, she placed the creature on the ground, letting it stand on its own—to which it did. But that only lasted for a second as the Nome latched itself back on to her leg, its head looking up at Viola like a toddler. It then raised up its hands towards her, gesturing for her to pick it up again.
A whimper sounded from it when she shot it a look.
The same Nome that had run away from her, making her follow it to the point where her feet ached, was now treating her as if she’d been its caretaker for years.
Viola rolled her eyes, however, unable to resist its request despite trying. Obviously, she did the only right thing.
She caved.
“Oh, you little mischief.” Viola lifted it off the ground and carried it as she moved forward.
The two retreated back, following the path that Viola had taken before to get to the broken bridge. Although she wasn’t quite sure how Mono’s plan of connecting the cliffs with a log would work still, considering finding one Nome was a piece of work . She doubted if he'd find more than two.
But then again, her father could sometimes be just as unpredictable. Who’s to say he’d be any different as a child? After all, his paranoia was still there.
It took merely minutes to return to their meeting place as she was lucky enough to remember the way back. Being lost in the Wilderness wasn’t a fate she’d want for herself after all.
With the Nome in her arm terribly aching arms, she made her way over to the huge log, and sat the creature on top of it, beads of sweat already forming on her forehead. Seemingly, its weight was nothing like its appearance.
She wiped her sweat with the back of her hand, taking a seat next to the Nome as she huffed a sigh.
Mono wasn’t back yet it seemed. So, she waited patiently for his return, swinging her legs in a carefree manner, the Nome following suit.
Even with the Nome keeping her company, there was no denial of how eerie the forest was getting. The natural light from above that penetrated through the trees became dim, the crickets already out to fill in the foreboding silence.
The forest would be dark in a few more hours. Mono still hadn’t returned. That alone would have seemed something worth panicking for, but he did promise to come back. Though, he had also said to run away from the Wilderness if he went missing for too long, telling her that if a monster had caught him, she shouldn’t come and look.
Save herself, he'd said.
His concern was put into consideration certainly, but they both knew that that would fall on deaf ears.
Viola shifted up to the sky, seeing how its color had turned slightly orange, the sun no longer seen in the center. The girl sighed once again.
Five more minutes, she told herself. Five more minutes, then I’ll look for him.
She averted her attention to the Nome.
Instead of just drowning herself with worry for Mono’s arrival, perhaps she could pass the time in a more ‘mentally healthy’ way.
“So, you got any plans after this?”
The Nome shrugged in return, replying in a language she recognized to be sheer gibberish. But seeing how it was communicating back to her, it seemed like it might’ve understood her.
It then began to pat her sunken shoulders, perceptive enough to notice how her concern was showing in her face.
Viola shot it a smile, already feeling her mood being lifted.
“Uh, thank you...” she said.
“I’m back!” shouted a familiar voice.
At that, she snapped her head to him, her eyes colored in relief to see him back still in one piece. Though clearly, the boy wasn’t alone.
Just as her mouth opened to scold him for returning later than promised, not a word came to her aid. For Mono, as late as he was, had a perfectly good reason as to why .
And his reason truly made her heart itch with irritation.
Two Nomes were seen carried on each of his arms, as well as one more clutching to his back as it sat on him comfortably. And then, another two trailed behind him as if he were a mother duck, giving him a total of five Nomes with him.
Meanwhile, she’d only gotten one .
Her brows contorted into a scowl, her face flushing with a tad of embarrassment combined with envy, given how unfair the situation was. Was it childish to feel such things? Yes. But she was a child herself, wasn’t she?
Mono put down the Nomes, then turned to Viola, but only to see her scowl pointed at him. Her eyes narrowed as her skin flushed redder.
“What?” he asked, genuinely confused.
Viola responded with a pout, avoiding his gaze. “…Nothing,” she mumbled.
He gave a long stare at the girl, long enough until the realization hit him like a train. Just as soon as he saw the single Nome sitting beside her, he figured it out on his own.
Taking a few steps closer, he clasped his hands behind his back.
“Viola,” he said, “you’re not…envious, are you?” A smirk already plastered on his face.
“Pfft! As if! I mean, who even needs five Nomes anyway. One is already heavy enough for me to carry alone. Not that I can’t, if that’s what you’re thinking...”
Mono hummed as he nodded understandingly.
“So, you are envious.”
“Shut up!” Viola picked up one of the sticks from the ground, throwing it his way. Mono merely dodged it by stepping aside as he laughed at her expense.
“Well, at least your aiming’s better than Six.”
“Flattering,” she replied monotonously.
He let out an amused scoff, turning his attention back to the problem at hand as he eyed the log under her. “Alright, so you want to get this over and done with?”
“About time.” Viola jumped off the wood along with her Nome.
The two children got into position, crouching down as they put their hands under the log. The Nomes they’d found then mimicked them, standing around the large wood.
With a simple count of 1-3, they began to give their attempt at raising the log off the ground. And for a second, it nearly seemed as if all of their strength combined still wasn’t enough.
But as their luck would have it, the log began to move.
Determination washed over the two children as the log was lifted from the floor, their arms shaking slightly from the heavy weight. The group continued to take their first steps as they carried the log, unfortunately, at a very slow pace.
Each step felt as if a minute had passed! Hell, if someone had told her that it’d take them an hour to even come a foot close to the bridge, she’d believe them. But no .
In reality, it only took less than five minutes until they finally reached the edge of the cliff. That was when Mono, in a strained voice, told everybody to drop the log on the ground.
Everyone did a second later, panting slightly from the heavy lifting.
After taking a breath, Mono got to the foot of the log, then started pushing it forward with a grunt. Of course, he wasn’t left unaided as the others lent a hand.
Together they pushed the log, the other end of it connecting across the cliff until it replaced the old bridge.
Viola let out a loud sigh, her hands on her knees.
That was the most exercise she’d done in weeks! Though, that couldn’t be helped much. Awful things happened back at home, especially when…
Not now, Viola.
She shook the thought away.
Instead, she turned over to Mono, seeing him already getting across as he balanced himself on the log.
The fact that he was able to walk above the chasm without so much of a second thought made her envious of his bravery.
Viola walked closer to the edge, craning her head towards the bottomless space below. And immediately, she realized what a mistake that was.
Because the chasm threatened to eat her whole.
One wrong step, and that meant immediate death. A fall that would’ve lasted at least 10 seconds until her skull would crack upon impact. That is, if she even died from blunt trauma.
There could even be spikes waiting for her down there, or a pack of ferocious wolves all hidden beneath the white fog!
Her body tensed instantly, her eyes widening in absolute fear at her own imaginary demise.
If she were to slip and fall, it would be too late for anyone to catch her. It would be too late for her to catch herself .
The idea of her walking across on the log suddenly became all so impossible.
“Hey.”
Viola lifted her gaze to Mono. He was already standing on the other side, waiting for her to follow suit. The girl shook her head.
“I can’t,” her voice above whisper.
Quickly, Mono climbed back onto the log, even standing close to the middle with a proper balance that must’ve taken him years to master.
He called out to her again, holding out his hand for her to take.
Her eyes flickered over to his offered hand, then back to the abyss. The image of her falling 100 feet below clouded her mind no matter how hard she blocked them out.
Her fists clenched tighter.
“Just don’t look down,” he said, “and you won’t fall.”
She soon averted herself from the edge of the cliff, and instead, placed her focus solely on Mono’s hand.
Viola released a trembling breath, finally climbing on top of the log. And she held onto his words like a mantra.
As long as she didn’t look down, she wouldn’t fall. As long as she didn’t overthink, she’d get across.
The first steps were always the hardest.
But she had to push herself forward, at least a few more steps to reach him; to reach his hand. And so, Viola did. She took another step forward, and then another.
The moment she was within reach, Mono grabbed onto her wrist, both of them unknowingly shared a sigh of relief.
With that, he led her to the other side of the cliff, helping her climb down from the log and set foot in the tall grass. Only then did he release her hand, a soft grin on his face.
Viola returned the smile, nodding to him for his help.
If she already had trouble just by crossing a gap between two cliffs, then she couldn’t ever imagine how Six and Mono had been able to leap across with just one hand out to the other. The blind trust they had must’ve been that strong.
Maybe that’s why he’s so heartbroken by the whole betrayal.
After all, Mono had experienced firsthand falling that far down. Add on with the feeling of being betrayed as he’d waited for his false death, it was understandable of his immense hatred for Six now.
Viola might need to improvise with her plan soon.
“Come on, the cabin’s this way,” Mono said, continuing forward along the path. She nodded as she followed close.
Yet they barely got much further as they were interrupted by the pitter patters of tiny feet behind them, the footsteps halting in unison the second the two turned around.
And none of them had expected to see the grey creatures on this side of the cliff.
All six Nomes patiently stood at their feet, waiting for their next move so they could follow.
It was as if they’d become hell-bent on helping them just after receiving a free hug! Seemingly now, they’d become attached to the idea of following the two children, wherever they go.
Though for how long was beyond them.
Viola and Mono looked at each other, dumbfounded.
“Should we?” she asked, clasping her hands together.
Guilt appeared on her face as the thought of leaving them behind crossed her mind. The whimpers the Nomes made practically a beg for permission so they could come along.
Mono scratched his head, feeling the same guilt apparently. “I guess so. But are you okay with them following us around all the time?”
Viola shifted back to the Nomes, exhaling deeply at the sight of these cheeky little creatures.
“Honestly, I’m not against it.”
Notes:
Thanks for reading!
Chapter Text
It must’ve taken them at least another hour to get around the cabin’s area, despite what Mono said to Viola earlier.
One hour, tops? No, this was a whole-day journey with how many times they found themselves straying from the path to the late hunter’s cabin.
Since there weren’t any remnants of the boxes left to guide them, they had to follow the traps instead. The ones that’d been deactivated and the ones that were still functional. After all, this was the Wilderness.
Regardless of the Hunter being dead, the traps that the man had left stayed. Walking straight into a bear trap would, without a doubt, snap one’s bones into two and leave an ugly wound. But calling it an ugly wound would be an understatement.
Therefore, they had to increase their vigilance. Up their game.
With the Nomes being on their side, it sure made the situation a whole lot easier than with just two children.
One thing Viola learned about the Nomes, was how easily they could mimic one’s actions.
After seeing Mono throw pinecones or little branches on one of the hidden booby traps, the little creatures did the same. They too began to pick up sticks and rocks, throwing them around randomly in hopes to activate the trap.
This kept up for quite some time, all until a familiar chimney was seen from afar, the lack of smoke from it indicating no one was home.
The Sun had already begun to set, the sky losing its colour as nightfall came soon. It might just be Viola’s imagination, but the trees sure did seem taller now that night was approaching, the animals inhabiting them making noises that filled the eerie silence. The grass and leaves rustled against each other, and the wind only blew colder as it got dark.
The air she released became visible with every exhale. Viola shivered slightly.
She turned over to Mono, seeing him unphased by the temperature. Instead, he kept his head up high as he proceeded ahead without stopping, hiding his trembling hands inside the pockets of his coat.
She then glanced over her shoulder, not surprised to see the same number of Nomes that’d been following them for almost a few hours now.
Truly, they were persistent little things.
“Viola,” Mono spoke up, “do you even know where Six is?”
She caught up with his pace. “Of course, I do. She’s my mother isn’t she?”
He rolled his eyes discreetly.
“Yeah, I get that. Though, you still haven’t told me where she is.”
“What are you talking about? I already told you.”
Confusion washed over his features, his brows furrowing even more. “Uh, no you didn’t.”
Viola paused, staring blankly at him.
“I didn’t…?”
“No,” he said, shaking his head.
“Oh, then I guess I should tell you now.” Viola chuckled, face flushing a little. “She’s staying at the Maw,” she said.
Just before Mono could question any further, the Nomes squeaked all at once, their little figures bolting out of their sight as they scattered through the forest, leaving the two children with their mouths agape in slight confusion.
It was odd, to say the least. These creatures had shown them their loyalty ever since noon, so to see them leaving their side out of nowhere did raise a few questions to them—correction, to Mono mostly.
As the last Nome disappeared behind the trees, Mono shifted his gaze to her, his eyes narrowing.
“Is there something you’re not telling me, Viola?”
“What do you mean?”
“Come on, I can’t be the only one who has noticed it! Those Nomes left right after you said, ‘the Maw’. That word has got to mean something if it makes them so scared.”
Viola gulped, fiddling with her hands as she looked away. But it was a foolish mistake on her part to appear so guilty and suspicious in front of the boy with an insane amount of trust issues.
Mono shook his head in disbelief.
“I knew it…I knew you were hiding something—!”
“I’m not hiding anything. I just probably should’ve mentioned earlier that, um, the Maw isn’t a place for…children like us.” She quickened her pace towards the cabin in the distance, purposely leaving her remark unexplained.
“Hey, don’t leave it hanging!”
Viola avoided his stare despite him having caught up with her. Even as they made it to the front porch of the cabin, she ignored him calling her name, simply choosing to climb the stairs.
But she only got to the first step before Mono stopped her by the shoulder, a hardened stare fixed on him.
It was made clear he wasn’t going to step foot inside the cabin—let alone show her where the music box was unless she gave him an explanation .
Loudly, she sighed.
“That’s all I know, okay? I’ve never exactly been there to see why it’s bad. Heck, I’ve never even seen what that place looks like.”
“I thought your precious ‘mom’ shares everything with you.”
“Tch, I wish ,” she said, scoffing. “Besides, we’re going there anyway, aren’t we? We’ll find out soon enough. So, can we just please get the music box now?”
Mono mumbled something under his breath. His frown ostensibly deeper as he somewhat stomped up the stairs to the front door.
“The music box is in the basement,” he grumbled, entering the empty home.
She followed him, shaking her head at his impatience of Six’s whereabouts and the grumpy look he wore after.
It would’ve been a moment worth snickering for if she hadn’t known how much the cabin brought him memories of Six—tainted memories of his old friend. Nonetheless, his face said it all. Every twitch of an eye, every deep breath he took, Viola noticed his discomfort being here again after all this time.
Up until they made it to the basement, to the prison-like space downstairs, his whole posture remained tense.
They entered Six’s old room, scrutinizing the place up and down.
With the limited sunlight present in the room, she could already sense the depression hiding behind these woods.
There were white tally marks carved on walls, indicating the many days its escaped prisoner had stayed in the room. And the amount of dust going through one’s lungs just by breathing the air in the room, was simply too much. It was a wonder how Six didn’t suffer from any respiratory issues at all.
A few minutes in and Viola already felt her throat itching. Call her fussy, but she wasn’t born into this kind of lifestyle. Unlike her parents, who had to fend for themselves their entire childhood—to survive.
I really had everything handed to me, didn’t I?
Viola pushed the thought aside, putting her focus onto the corner of the room, the item they came for sitting under the natural light as if presented to them in a false grandeur way.
The music box laid on the floor, seemingly hadn’t been moved by any soul as it stayed knocked on its side. Any features of it were covered with more dust, its colour already faded after months in the abandoned home. Its function status, all but unknown.
But other than that, it seemed to be in a pretty good shape.
To her surprise, Mono was the one who approached the music box first, looking over it with utter care that she never could expect coming from him. She would've thought that his heart had softened after relieving some of his old memories in this room.
That is if it weren’t for the harsh kick he gave on the music box a second later.
A clang rang in the room after his foot made contact.
Viola gaped at his action.
“Hey!”
The boy turned to her, wearing an innocent look on his face as if he hadn’t done anything wrong.
“What? That was an accident, I swear.”
“Mono, I saw you kick it!” Viola rushed to the music box and held it up carefully, earning an eye roll from Mono.
After seeing the music box the same as it was found, she sighed in relief. But still, that didn’t mean he was free from her scolding.
“You could’ve left a dent!”
“You mean I should’ve left a dent. This old piece of garbage costed me my life, you know. It wouldn’t hurt anyone if I…mess it up a little…” he said darkly, reaching out his hands towards it.
Instantly, Viola blocked him. “No, no. I’m getting this to Six in one piece. And you are just going to have to make peace with that.”
She positioned her hands around the music box, her frail arms failing to lift the item off the ground. Little grunts escaped her the more she gave her futile attempts.
What is inside this thing, a dozen bricks?
It felt as if the longer she tried, the heavier its weight became.
Unfortunately for her, Mono noticed her struggle, merely watching at the sides with his arms folded across his chest.
And he couldn’t bear to watch this go on.
“Need a hand?” he asked eventually.
Never had she nodded so fast in her entire life, releasing the music box back to the floor as she passed the work on to him. And watching him do it without half the effort she put in, she nearly scoffed.
Mono adjusted the music box in his arms, disgust on his face for having to carry the item so close to him.
“Okay, so, what now?” he asked.
She froze in thought. “Uh…”
His face fell immediately.
“Viola, please tell me you know where the Maw is. Or at least how to get there. ”
“Hey, I know how!” she retorted. “Well, maybe. But, um, it might require an adult to kidnap us and put us in a sack for a couple of hours on a boat.”
A pause came from him.
“What…?”
“It’s just what the Ferryman does! He captures children and brings them to the Maw in a sack…doesn’t he?"
“You’re asking me?”
“Okay, fine, I don’t know any other way to get there!” she blurted out, raising her hands up in defeat. “Now that this music box is clearly a problem to carry, finding that guy is definitely out of the question. I mean, there’s no way you can carry that thing the whole way to the Maw; you’re practically a bag of bones!”
He scoffed. “I am so not offended by that.”
Mono placed the music box back to the floor, resting his arm on top as he leaned against it.
She looked at him apologetically.
“Sorry,” she said. “I just don’t know what to do now.”
Mono rubbed his face tiredly, suppressing a groan. Though not because of the girl’s lack of planning beforehand, but because he knew how to solve this. He realized there was another way to get to the Maw. One he wouldn’t prefer after everything that happened to him, but it was the quickest way there was.
He exhaled through his nose.
“Does this ‘Maw’ have any televisions?” he asked, turning to meet her pouting face.
“Televisions? Why...” She trailed off as the realization dawned on her. “Oh. Oh… ”
“So…?”
“Oh my god, you're right! Why didn't I just think of warping there? That place has got to have at least a few! Mono, you’re a freaking genius.” Her excitement returned to her whole form, contagious enough to lift a smile on his face.
That and because of her prior compliment.
“Come on, let’s go,” she said after a beat, continuing up the stairs without him.
Mono shook his head at the girl, only turning his attention back to the music box and picked it up.
However, he barely made it to the foot of the stairs for Viola came back down to him, her brows all furrowed.
“Wait, is there a television in this house?”
He sighed mentally.
“Two doors down to your right. I saw one the first time I came here.”
Viola nodded at that, merely going back up the stairs and waited for him to climb too.
Slight guilt scratched at her chest, seeing him carrying the music box alone while she did nothing to help. I guess I could tune the television for him.
It was the least she could do…
The two children continued to the Hunter’s old room, the state it was left in just like the entire house. Unkempt and dirty. There were footprints of dried mud permanently imprinted on the floorboards, a single bed pushed up against the wall as picture frames of the dead man’s stuffed family hung above it.
A television was seen left on the floor, its plug far from its socket for a reason. Yet it stayed intact after all this while.
After having approached the technology, Viola lifted its wire and plugged it in its socket, silently praying that the television was still functional—or rather, warp-able.
But nothing sounded from it.
Even after she’d pushed the plug, the glass screen remained black as the children waited in anticipation.
And their patience paid off.
Seconds later, a bright light emitted through the television, static immediately taking over its screen while it hummed. Her face brightened.
Shifting to Mono, the boy only nodded back to her as he held on to the music box.
That was her cue.
She came closer to the television and placed her palms across the cold glass. Then the screen glowed brighter, illuminating the gloomy room. Her smile grew wide.
This was working! They were finally stepping onto the next stage of the plan—that being meeting Six. All she had to do after this was gain a little bit of trust from her, so from then on, Viola could persuade her into reconciling with her old friend.
And as a bonus, she’d meet her mother again.
Sheer excitement bubbled in her stomach just by the thought of it, her cheeks starting to hurt from her smile.
But...
Wait a minute, she thought, her face faltering. How do I know if I’m tuning to the right place—
She felt herself fall forward into the screen before she could finish the thought, her eyes widening as she was caught utterly off guard.
White light flashed right in front of her vision, albeit it faded gradually and was soon replaced with a poorly lit room.
Slight pain shot up to her front when she fell out to the other side, her sight left a little blurry and her head aching.
Viola blinked hard and rapidly to regain her vision, getting herself up from the ground. Swaying ground.
She turned her head around her new surroundings, her eyes obscured by the darkness that took up most of the room.
However, they didn’t mistake the yellow raincoat for a mere irrelevant thing. Even without a light, Viola didn’t need to look twice to know her mother’s face, regardless if she was a child.
In front of her, stood her father’s betrayer.
Six froze with widened eyes, mouth gaping as an inaudible gasp escaped her.
However, not at Viola.
But at the boy behind her.
And his fury, Viola didn’t need to look over her shoulder to sense half of it. Instantly, she knew this wasn’t going to end well.
Viola only managed to part her lips before Mono’s voice sounded first.
“You traitorous bitch! ”
Crap .
Notes:
Next chapter will be in Six's POV.
Thanks for reading!
Chapter Text
Hunger.
Six had had many pains throughout her life. But never had she thought that this hunger, this curse, would be one of the worst ones. The agony she had been subjected to, the feeling of her intestines twisting, being torn apart as if pulled out from her body. It all got worse when the hunger struck her again in the Lady’s Quarters.
The geisha never had it coming as the woman had laid on the floor with her elbows propped, panting after her defeat.
Insecurity became the death of her.
But Six was her executioner.
The moment the girl stood close, she’d sunk her teeth into the Lady’s neck.
Cries of the woman rang in the darkened room the deeper she felt her skin teared, a chunk of meat already gone into the little nightmare, and so did the dark energy that once swirled inside the Lady’s veins. As the geisha had let out her final breath, the woman fell limp as her wicked soul left her body, her eyes devoid of any life.
Blood painted around Six’s lips, the strong taste of copper all over her tongue.
It was disgusting. Yet so, utterly fulfilling.
Six had stood up soon enough after having had her fill, leaving the woman’s pale cadaver behind without so much of a glance.
Neither remorse nor shame was felt on the girl when she’d exited the quarters, the hungry Guests no longer an obstacle that she needed to fear. Anything that had come in her way perished within proximity. Because Six did the only thing she planned on achieving ever since she was brought here.
Escape this dreadful place they call The Maw.
Yet, escaping wasn’t her fate.
Six stared up to the sky on her knees, feeling the heat of the Sun touch her blood-stained face. Tears stung in the corner of her eyes, disappointment and devastation clawing at her chest.
For around her was nothing but a body of water, a guaranteed no escape. Not even a land in sight. Only the blue sea.
She pulled down her hood, the calm wind that blew through her bangs and hair being the only thing that kept her from screaming her heart out and releasing all of the frustrations that flooded her mind.
Had all her hard work been for nothing? Or had murdering those that tried to kill her been for a good reason to live in the Maw? Six didn’t know, and she never would.
Perhaps this was life getting back at her for what she did. Karma, as she once heard.
Perhaps she was meant to be doomed here for all her life, just like she’d doomed her only companion to his death.
There’s nothing I can do about that now, she told herself.
If she truly had no other choice, then she would try and get used to this new life given to her.
Even if it meant staying here at the Maw.
Weeks passed ever since her so-called escape, ever since she decided to make the Maw as her new home.
It wasn’t all bad as she thought. A part of her might’ve expected for the ship to crumble or sink deeper down into the ocean and be flooded with water after the Head Lady was gone. Correction, murdered .
Yet it didn’t. Nothing changed much based on her observations.
The first few days, she’d stayed clear of the restaurant, still not quite familiar with the power she suddenly inherited. Though it only took a few kills to get the hang of it.
The souls she devoured; they truly were the best meals of her life! With the Guests coming aboard in a set schedule, she knew food would never run out.
No longer would she have to look for scraps to eat.
As for her sleeping situation, Six took over the Lady’s Quarters, provided no one would be there to claim it. So, she took everything for her own. All of it, all hers. Not to mention, to sleep on a comfortable bed with a soft mattress and pillow for the very first time…
The thought of leaving never crossed her mind anymore.
Alas, all this momentary happiness, the luxury of the Maw came with a price.
And she had paid for it with her friend.
How she so badly wanted to put him behind her. To try and forget what she’d done, as well as her dark history with him. Yet it seemed as if no matter what she did, the boy would always find his way back, eating at her brain like a parasite.
Every night she’d lie awake because of him, her consciousness reminiscing on the good times they’d had before. This became almost daily for her, and she didn’t like that. She didn’t like what it was proving—what it was getting her to admit .
That maybe, somewhere inside her tainted soul, she missed him.
Or maybe she only missed the idea of him—the idea of having someone to hug her, hold her hand or tell her jokes to lift her mood whenever she had hurt herself.
Six let out a long sigh, laying on her bed as she stared at the ceiling, her hand clasped across her stomach.
Mono did all those things…
Half a year gone since the Signal Tower.
And frankly, her life at the Maw was becoming a little…lonely. Convenient, yet dull.
It only took her a month or two to memorize the whole map of the place, but after having achieved that, she hadn’t much else to do. Even her daily routines felt like a boring cycle.
Six walked around the Lair leisurely, familiarized with the place like the back of her hand, her gaze facing the ground as she took steps after steps. The quietness only encouraged her thoughts to speak louder to her.
Of course, her brain would only conjure one person in mind.
She let out a tired sigh.
This was truly becoming repetitive.
Not heading anywhere in particular, she soon found her way blocked by a door. Six halted and stared emptily at it.
A familiar door it was. Was this where the Janitor had chased her?
Six pushed the door, letting it swing wide on its own before revealing the room she hadn’t been in in a while.
It was a rather cramped room; the floors being made of wood that had been damp for decades or more. A dim yellow bulb hung in the centre of it, barely illuminating the space.
But her eyes settled immediately on the television across from her.
A frown crept to her face, and she unconsciously stepped inside, inching closer and closer towards the technology that sat sleeping for months. Its plug was still in its socket, but she didn’t care enough to pull it out.
After all, he was already gone. No one else had what he had.
Six then got in front of the screen, staring at her own colourless reflection, her height a little taller than six months ago. She played with the edges of her now long hair, never realizing how much it had grown. She never realized how quick the time passed, as if every blink ended a day.
It was a hard thing to believe, seeing the small changes in herself.
Mono would have grown too, she thought bitterly as she brushed her hand across the cold screen.
As soon as the tip of her fingers made contact, a zap came from the socket, electricity rippling behind the television.
Six flinched back at the sound, her arm instinctively shielding her face when the screen out of nowhere brightened on its own.
Then came the buzzing static.
Six backed away faster than she could think, heart thumping loudly inside her chest the moment she saw two small hands pressed from behind the screen. Her eyes widened in disbelief as her gaze utterly fixed on the television.
The screen glowed brighter. And the TV emitted a painful whine, spitting out a person out of it, her whole figure harshly thrown to the floor. The girl seemingly was too light-headed to even realize Six there as she groaned from her hard landing.
But the girl didn’t come alone.
Another figure soon came out through the screen too.
A boy came after her, wearing an all too known trench coat, his arms occupied with a familiar music box.
Her music box.
Six took another step back, but that was all the movement she made before her limbs froze entirely. She couldn’t move even if she tried to.
Especially when she and the boy met each other’s gaze. And his eyes, they widened with intense rage.
All of it directed to her and her only.
“You traitorous bitch!”
Mono hurled the music box to the side, and ran to Six, lunging at her with his hands reached out.
Six, too much in her state of shock, lost all her defense mechanisms as she only yelped when he pushed her to the ground with him, the boy attempting to pin her down. But she soon regained herself and used her strength to get away, both of them stumbling against each other.
She barely got to stand up before she felt him grab her hair. A fistful of them too.
Instantly, Six’s hand clawed at his, desperately trying to get him to let go. It certainly didn’t help that her hair was longer now, and Mono used that to his advantage well.
His grip on her head tightened, knowing this was her weakness. And the pain was becoming hard to brush aside.
“Cut it out! That hurts!” she pleaded but with a deadly scowl.
“That’s the point idiot!”
Mono dragged her whole form down, pinning her so he could tug her hair harder.
And tug he did.
Without a doubt, she’d already lost a few thick strands.
“I said stop it, freak!”
“I’ll stop when you’re bald!” He used both his hands, somewhat knocking her head against the floor with all the hair-pulling he did.
Oh, screw this.
As he hovered above her, Six took her opportunity and spat into his face.
Instantly, that did the trick.
Mono recoiled from her in disgust, wiping the spit from his eye long and hard as if they were acid—but given his immense hatred towards her, her saliva might as well be considered as one.
Six released a sharp breath as he took a moment, relieved that the assault was finally over. But that didn’t mean he was done.
“What was that for?!” He scowled at her, albeit still rubbing his left eye.
She sat back up. Her whole head felt as if they were on fire, the roots of her scalp hissing at her.
“Y-you were pulling my hair! What was I supposed to do, let you continue?!”
“Well, I had a good reason to pull that sorry excuse of a hair!” he yelled and added, “I wasn’t the one who dropped someone and left them to die because I’m a selfish backstabber. Oh, wait a minute, that was you.”
Her face darkened at his words, anger coursing through her already boiling blood and veins. She clenched her fists hard until all her knuckles turned white. And her stance alone was enough to indicate how ready she was to pound him now.
To beat him up until he was all nothing but a piece of human meat.
Mono seemingly knew her intentions, his face mocking her, pushing her further to the edge of her paper-thin patience.
They both glared into the other’s soul, seconds away from pouncing on each other.
But Six was faster this time. And she made sure to attack first.
“You little shit!” she yelled and charged. Mono readied himself, raising his fists too.
But alas, their second fight quickly ended right before it started. Because just as they were inches close to land a blow onto each other, another player joined the field. And she came in between them quicker before either could notice.
Without hesitation, the girl pulled their ears.
Almost in unison, their raised fists slowly fell to their sides, soft moans of pain leaving them as their ears turned red over time.
“Now, I’ll let go of your ears, if you promise me you won’t hurt each other,” the girl started.
Mono scoffed, despite the growing pain. “You’re right, I’ll just kill her inst—!” the girl pinched his ear harder, making his words die in his throat in a second. Frustratedly, he groaned, his hands hovering above his own ear in pain. “O-okay, okay! I promise!”
The girl’s lip tugged into a smile and turned to the next person beside her.
“Six, your turn,” she said.
“How the hell did you know my—ow!” Six grimaced when the girl did the same thing to her. She hated this already. Rolling her eyes, she muttered, “I…I won’t hurt him.”
Just as promised, their ears were released from the girl’s painful hold, the two victims rubbing the side of their heads as they together sighed in relief.
Even so, the two still sent glares amongst each other despite standing far apart. That is until the girl blocked Six’s vision of him, wearing an innocent smile on her face—if not, satisfied.
“Looks like we got off on the wrong foot, so let’s do it properly this time.” The girl offered her hand to her. “My name is Viola,” she said.
Six stared at her palm for a few seconds, then turned back to her. Her eyes narrowed as she pointed the same glare at her.
Oh, she did not like this girl at all.
Notes:
Sorry if you expected some punches in the little fight. We all know Mono's too nice to actually hurt Six and plus they're still children •w•
Also, I just realized that the Sixth chapter is Six's POV. I know it isn't a big deal but still the coincidence freaks me out.
Thanks for reading!
Chapter Text
“Looks like we got off on the wrong foot, so let’s do it properly this time.” Viola raised her palm to her. “My name is Viola.”
After a few long seconds of Six eyeing at Viola’s hand, she finally shook them, albeit with clear reluctance and dislike to the other girl.
Meanwhile, Mono kept his glare the entire time, watching the girls’ interaction with crossed arms. You fake liar. His intense stare did not leave Six even after the girls’ handshake of peace ended. And seemingly the whole room wasn’t oblivious to this.
Soon as Viola’s head got out of his way, he and Six did another deadly stare down, locking their narrowed eyes. One purely of disgust and hatred, while the other…not as extreme as her old friend.
Perhaps if he’d let himself become a little more perceptive—rather than focusing solely on his anger—he might’ve noticed the fear she masked well behind those dead eyes of hers, her stiff posture as if she was caught in the headlights by the fact that she never killed him like she’d thought.
As none of them chose to break the silence, the tension in the room expanded majorly. And the two enemies merely continued with the glaring, raising their eyebrows every now and then as if to intimidate the other. Although the latter can only be said for Mono.
Nonetheless, it was a poor attempt to intimidate someone that way.
Alas, all this long, glaring game of his did not appeal to Six. Because after a minute of nothing but full-on hatred eye-contact, you’d get tired of it. And Six didn’t like having her time wasted just by standing still in a room where the tension is thicker than her own head.
Six rolled her eyes at him and scoffed. She then turned on her heel, choosing to approach the music box that had rolled in the far corner.
Of course, that was a bad mistake. Not even Viola expected for him to explode then and there at Six’s simple action.
“Oh, are you serious?!” he spat out, looking at her in disbelief.
Six flinched on the spot at his raised voice, then turned to meet him with furrowed brows.
“What?”
“What?” he mocked. “You abandoned me! You left me to rot in that Signal Tower on purpose. And yet, you still have the nerve to walk up to your precious music box like nothing ever happened!”
Her eyes twitched slightly. Regardless, she kept herself silent, which only added more fume to Mono’s already visible ire.
Mono took his steps towards the backstabber, anyone else standing in proximity of him merely a collateral damage to his murderous aura directed to the yellow raincoat demon.
“Do you even know what you put me through?” He proceeded forward. And every time he took a step ahead, Six automatically took another step back. “Do you know how long I’ve been caged inside that cramped room? The number of months I had to stare up at empty walls?!”
Mono pushed her shoulder back, causing her to bump against the wall behind her.
Even so, she didn’t avert her glare, her frown only growing.
“You had every reason to pull me up from that ledge! I trusted you with my life to pull me up!”
“Mono—”
“To think that I even came back for you; to save you from that man when I should’ve just saved myself!”
Six narrowed her eyes, her composure close to imploding in his face. However, he was the one asking for it when he assumed her silence for a deliberate scheme to piss him off.
Mono shook his head at her, scoffing when she finally looked away.
“What do you even get from all of this, huh?" he asked bitterly. "You think you can just try and kill me after you’ve made a good use out of me? Leave me behind and just hope that I'll die from the fall?! Is that what you think?!”
“I HAD TO DO IT!” Six finally snapped, the fury in her voice opposing his own.
Mono took a step back from her yell, looking at her with wide eyes, his mouth shutting on its own.
For the first time ever since they were reunited, he was the one running out of words now. It was as if a rope had tied his tongue, preventing him from uttering a single response.
Six panted after her own outburst, not tearing her gaze from the boy she’d betrayed.
“There wasn’t…any other choice…” she muttered as they kept their stare on each other.
Heavy silence returned to the room afterwards.
But his mind had never been louder up until now.
No other choice, her words played in his head. Oh, there was always a choice. But she chose the one that would doom him instead. Six chose to get rid of him, throw him into the wolves when it wouldn’t have affected her either way if she’d pulled him up.
That truth kicked him hard in his chest, almost enough to invite another emotional breakdown in him.
But he couldn’t do this to himself again. Not in front of this lying scumbag or Viola.
After what felt like minutes, Mono moved, taking a few steps back. Even so, his eyes stayed on her, staring coldly and whispering loud enough for everyone to hear.
“I wish I never trusted you.”
Silence fell upon them once again after he uttered his words, Six dropping her gaze to her feet as she swallowed the lump formed in her throat. Even with a broken soul like her, there was no denying that that didn’t break her heart a little.
But to him, she had no heart—no humanity. She was a foul human being; one that he’d been unlucky enough to have met, to have rescued from the Hunter’s basement.
All because he’d felt he was the reason for her capture. All because of his stupid guilt .
The sound of someone clearing their throat snapped them from the silence they were caught in, making them turn to Viola. The girl slowly approached the two, albeit her eyes were on Six as she did so.
What is she up to now?
“So, uh, hi again,” she began sheepishly. “I don’t want to sound insensitive by interrupting, but…it did take us a long way to get here. So—if you don’t mind that is—do you think we can stay in one of the rooms here at the Maw? If that’s okay?”
Mono scoffed loudly, gaping at Viola as if she had betrayed him too. Stay in one of the rooms? Here with Six?
Over my dead bo—
“Yes,” Six replied and side-glanced him. “You can…stay. There are plenty of beds here you can use.”
With that, Six pushed herself off the wall and made her way to the door. But her eyes lowered when she walked past him, avoiding the steely glare he had boring into the back of her head.
Six nodded her head to them, her face a mere blank as if she hadn’t just fought with Mono. “Follow me,” she said as she waited by the door.
Viola gladly took a step forward to her, a smile growing on her face at Six’s offer. However, the girl stopped dead in her tracks when a voice behind her deadpanned, and he showed no sign of moving from his place.
“No,” said Mono, scowling at the traitor. “You can go straight to h—”
“Six! You mind giving us a second?” Viola interrupted as she briefly flashed her mother a forced grin, her hand already grabbing at Mono’s arm and pulling him to the furthest corner of the room. Far enough for Six not to hear them at least.
As Viola dragged him away, Mono managed to send another glare over his shoulder to Six, who awkwardly stood by the door with confusion on her face.
But his attention then returned to Viola when he felt his arm free from her hold.
“Mono,” she started slowly, “what are you doing?”
“I’m not following that monster.”
“Okay, first of all, that ‘monster’ is my mom. Second of all, come on! We both made it this far to get here. Don’t you think we deserve a little break? Like a few hours of sleep, maybe?”
“Not when she’s around.” He scowled as he shifted his gaze to Six, disgust etched on his face. “Just look at her,” he hissed. “She’s practically waiting for me to lower my guard so she can try and kill me again.”
“Six is not going to kill anyone. I promise. Even if she tries to—which she won’t—I swear I’ll back you up. I’ll even hold her down so you can punch her."
Mono made a face, sighing in reluctance.
“I don’t know about this Viola…”
"Please?” Viola tried again, and again, he shot her the same look. "Pretty please…?"
Mono eyed the girl with his lips pressed into a thin line, her expression making it hard for him to stand his ground and say no. Because that was what his answer was—straight no. He wasn’t going to sleep in the same place where Six breathed.
He’d rather give up his left foot than get close to her.
As if she’d heard his thoughts, Viola turned away in disappointment, her shoulders sinking all the more.
The boy let out a small groan.
“Ugh, fine!” he said as he dragged a hand down his face. “But only if you keep her at least five feet away from me. A-and you’re walking in between us the whole time, alright?”
Instantly, Viola beamed, her eyes lighting up brighter than the television screen behind them.
She nodded vigorously and gave him a tight hug—a gesture he wasn’t expecting as the air was pushed out of his lungs from being squished. Though he barely had a say in it as the hug ended in a second, the girl running straight to Six after.
Viola left him like a child high on sugar and got in front of Six with a proud smile.
Meanwhile Six stayed unmoving, merely observing the girl up and down like a specimen that had yet to be understood.
But weirded out was the word to describe her face.
She casted a glance behind Viola, seeing Mono glued to the floor with a fixed glare.
“Is he coming?” Six asked, shifting back to the girl.
Viola furrowed her brows, confused by what she meant. But she caught on quickly after realizing Mono still hadn’t moved a step, his arms folded across his chest as he glared daggers at Six.
“Uh, yeah! He-he’s coming,” she replied and added, “But he’s still a little angry, so I think it’s best if you stay five feet away from him. You know, for… convenience’s sake.”
Six rolled her eyes, knowing it was Mono who came up with the term. Considering he wouldn't stop glaring at her.
“Whatever,” she grumbled. Six shifted her gaze back to her old friend, and shouted to him, “Oi! I’ll stay 10 feet away from you if that gets you moving!”
“Don’t even talk to me Six!” he yelled back. “You’re lucky you didn’t lose all of that hair!”
Six gritted her teeth as she held back a snarl. But she shook it off quickly, turning the other way instead as she muttered to Viola, “Come on.”
“O-okay!” Viola chuckled nervously, but that chuckle vanished as soon as she turned to Mono, who hadn't moved—it was a matter of couldn’t or wouldn’t. Viola firmly waved him over to her before she too followed Six.
Mono scoffed to himself, being the last one in the room. Reluctantly, he took his steps out of the room as well, going after the girls.
But not before giving that ugly music box another kick.
The Maw did not make sense at all. The Lair itself was confusing to say the least.
Every turn, every direction they took, it led them to places that seemingly didn’t fit in with the rest. A random chasm between two rooms? Uh, no thanks.
Viola walked in between the two enemies, like Mono had asked her to. Well only at first.
As Six continued to widen their distance, worry filled Viola at the thought that they might lose sight of the yellow raincoat. To add on, Six wasn’t a slowpoke. For a girl her size and age, she had quite the stamina to be having her pace move quicker and quicker.
Nevertheless, with Six being far ahead, it did encourage Mono to stay close beside Viola instead of walking behind like a puppy.
They stopped in front of a black metal door soon, a circle window graced in the top center, reddish brown rust spreading all around its hinges because of the humidity in this place.
Six pushed the door for them, the metal groaning loudly like it hadn’t been moved for a long time. And without a doubt, the door itself was heavy to push.
The ground swayed slightly as the three stepped inside the darkened room, Six being the one to welcome them into their new stay.
Well, Six hadn’t been lying when she said there were plenty of unused beds here at the Maw.
For there were rows of beds lined against the wall and positioned from across each other. One dying bulb hung in the center of the room, giving the place barely any light to see. But it was bearable. Viola could still see the shadows of the beds and the faded decorations put up on the walls—including the big carving of an eye on the back of the door.
She shuddered and looked away.
Instead, she shifted back to the room. Provided there were these many small beds, it was easy to assume that this was the children’s bedroom. However the question stands.
Why were they all empty?
Six cleared her throat, appearing next to Viola.
“Will this room be okay?” Six asked.
Before Viola could answer, Mono beat her to it. Rather rudely too.
“It's better if you’re not in it.” He crossed his arms, walking to the farthest bed in the corner.
Six scoffed and rolled her eyes at him.
“I wasn’t even talking to you,” she quipped.
Mono in response, placed his palms over his ears as he claimed his new bed, deliberately wanting to rile her up. And he would have succeeded if it weren’t for Viola who had to step in and stop them from having another shouting argument.
“It’s perfect,” Viola assured Six, in hopes to divert her attention. “Thank you for this.”
Six only nodded at that, not exchanging any more words as her eyes awkwardly darted between Mono and her. She gave Viola one last look before making her leave.
The door gave out another painful creak as Viola watched Six pull it shut, her yellow raincoat disappearing from her sight soon after.
Viola sighed as she ran a hand through her hair. Mono was already on his bed, laying down on his side with his back to her, undoubtedly already drifting off. After all, their journey from the Pale City wasn’t a short one.
They needed this break. She needed it. Her whole feet had been sore ever since the Wilderness!
She climbed onto one of the beds across from Mono, just in case anything bad were to happen. The mattress wasn’t as soft back at home, but her tired body accepted it as if it was the best one, nonetheless.
Pulling the covers above her, she yawned as she rested her head against the pillow.
But in the quiet darkness, her mind was left aloud. She couldn’t help but recall the events that happened, her hand toying with the locket she wore around her neck.
Her parents’ reunion wasn’t as bad as she thought it to be—if not, better.
Well, if she could, would she have brought out her popcorn and enjoy the whole fight? Damn right.
But there wasn't time for such things. Besides, they could’ve gotten each other hurt way more than what actually happened.
So, seeing them get nothing worse than small bruises here and there, Viola kept her hopes up.
This could work.
The two might have an actual chance at reconciling.
Viola’s eyes then became hooded, a frown taking over her lips as she raised her locket to her face. Clasping it open, she did nothing else but stare at the two images of a man and a woman glued to each side.
A secretive couple, discreet one at best.
The same people Mono and Six would soon grow up to be.
If they knew the truth now, Viola might risk her chance at saving the only people she ever loved. And she was far too gone to risk anything. She couldn’t mess this up for their sake and hers.
Viola clasped the locket back shut, and stuffed it back under her dress collar, the cool metal touching her skin.
Then her eyelids began to drop, eventually allowing herself to be taken by her slumber.
However, she was only granted a few hours of sleep.
For a hand slammed over her mouth.
In an instant, Viola shot awake, thrashing in panic as the darkness only revealed to her the hooded figure looming by her bed.
The girl shrieked for help, but that only made the hand press harder onto her mouth, silencing her attempts at waking Mono.
Then the figure bent itself closer towards her face.
Their movements were slow and poised. Yet threatening. Viola feared her jaw might shatter just from their iron hold.
The hand, however, lifted themselves off her face eventually, ceasing her fears.
And a cold whisper came from the person, their voice more than familiar.
Six.
“Get up, we’re going for a walk.”
Notes:
Thanks for reading!
Chapter Text
Calm the hell down, Viola told herself as she followed behind Six. Calm the hell down.
The raincoat girl’s back was turned on her, and that saved Viola the little bit of anxiety that pranced inside her stomach.
Being woken up with a hand over her mouth was not the way her mother used to wake her up. Because her mother was nowhere near as cold as the now-intimidating child, Six.
Had dad really mellowed her down?
Six snapped a glance over her shoulder, making Viola squeak in surprise, her whole posture more upright than before. If she hadn’t known how Six would change into a kind and gentle person in the future, Viola might’ve just lost her courage to even breathe.
Fortunately, Six’s stare—such ungodly stare—only lasted a few seconds before she averted them back ahead, to Viola’s immense relief.
As they soon reached a certain vent, Six pushed the grate aside, then took out her lighter from her pocket, flicking it easily with her thumb like it was her second nature. A soft orange illuminated the dark vent as Six climbed inside. She didn’t even wait or exchange any words to Viola, merely expecting her to just follow suit without question.
Well, with the fear Six had instilled in her, Six was right to expect so. Viola quickly climbed inside the vent too, chasing after the soft glow of fire that became fainter the more she was far behind. And Viola wouldn’t want to know what’d happen if she got lost in this vent.
“S-Six?” Viola’s voice echoed around the tight space. “Where are we going?”
The other girl did not respond as she kept her lighter up in the air, only continuing to lead Viola to an unknown place.
Viola hoped this wasn’t a ploy to get rid of her. If it was, then she owed Mono a huge apology, and a ‘you’re right’ speech. That is, if she even made it out alive to do all that.
She’s not going to kill you, stop freaking out.
Viola took several deep breaths, hoping to calm her pounding heart. Even the eerie silence wasn’t helping to subside her anxieties.
As long as the walk felt, they eventually got to the end of the vent, Six pushing it forward as she stepped out into an unfamiliar room. Again, Six made no move to say anything while she kept her lighter back in her raincoat pocket.
At some point it even felt as if she’d forgotten Viola's presence being there. Either that or she intentionally didn’t acknowledge her.
The latter would be plausible.
Viola followed after her and got out from the vent.
Mannequins were what she saw first. And not just one, but dozens of them. They were arranged in a somewhat orderly fashion, old fabric hanging loosely over the statues’ figures. All of it in a similar style that reminded her of her mother’s outfit. But still, that didn’t make it any less creepy.
The room was brighter than the whole Lair. Another eye could be seen carved, however, more intricately in one of its dark purple walls.
Uneasiness settled in her stomach as she turned to Six. But even Six’s face did not offer any assurance for this feeling.
“Where...are we?” Viola dared herself to say.
Six emptily stared for a few seconds longer, her eyes as dark as her soul. This time, she gave an answer.
“I wanted to thank you. Personally.”
Viola paused, dumbfounded.
“Eh?”
Six began to walk around her, clasping her hands behind her back as she wore a small grin—only she could know whether they were real or fake.
“The music box,” Six said blankly. “Thank you for bringing it back to me.”
“Oh…Oh! No, no, no. I-I’m not the one you should thank! Mono was the one who brought—"
“We both know this wasn’t his idea, Viola. He’d never do this on his own. He’s too mad at me after what I did. Too…sensitive. It only makes sense if this was your idea. But, that's beside the point.” She stopped in front of the girl and flashed her an empty look. “Do you want to know the real reason I brought you here?”
Viola hesitantly nodded.
Six’s face darkened as she said, “To get answers.”
In a split second, Six grabbed her by the collar and pushed her further back, slamming Viola against the wall with slick movements and force as if this wasn't her first time.
Viola yelped at the throb spreading behind her head and back, the shock ceasing all her limbs. Being held up against the wall in a hostile way, Viola could only freeze as she stared into Six’s cold, black eyes.
“Who are you?” Six hissed.
When Viola stayed silent, she felt herself being slammed again, a whimper forced out of her.
“Let me rephrase then,” Six said, tightening her grip, “what are your relations with Mono?”
Tears blurred her vision as Viola couldn’t come up with an answer, her throat becoming more constricted by the lump that had formed inside. “I-I-I…”
Six bared her teeth at the girl, impatience in her growl as she was ready to demand an answer until she got one.
But the tears in Viola’s eyes were easily noticeable as they threatened to slip past her cheeks. And seeing her own self-reflection through them, the rational part of her slowly took over.
This wasn’t the way to get the truth out of someone.
Six sighed and slowly released her hands off Viola’s collar, taking a few steps back to give the girl the space and time she needed.
Viola stared at her with wide eyes, albeit her body still tense from the shock as she heaved heavily, her heart beating fast. With a hand to her chest, she took the minute Six kindly gave her and calmed herself, the discomfort in her chest relieving little by little over time.
After exhaling another deep breath, Viola finally met Six’s gaze. Although, the girl didn’t return the stare as she waited for her.
“You...you didn’t have to do that…” Viola started timidly.
Six finally turned her head to her, her expression holding little guilt and regret. Or perhaps she was just that good at hiding her true emotions under that poker face.
“I know,” she said with a softer tone. “I only...needed you to tell me something.” A heavy sigh left her as she ran a hand through her long hair, her eyes as if in frustration of something. “Viola, why did you…help him?”
The girl furrowed her brows at that. Why? Well for a simple answer, Mono was her father—not to anyone’s knowledge but her as of now.
“He was trapped in the Tower. I had to do something, didn’t I?” replied Viola. “I couldn’t let him stay there.”
Six nodded and hummed at her answer, studying Viola’s face for some reason.
All the more to avoid making eye-contact, she supposed.
“So, who are you to him? To Mono?” Six asked suddenly.
“What I am to him? Gosh, I don’t—”
“You can drop the act. I know you two are related.”
In an instant, her face drained of color, her heart back to pounding rapidly inside her chest.
“Related ? Wh-what makes you think that?”
Six scoffed at her. “Because you got out of the Signal Tower,” she said simply.
“So…? What does that prove?”
Six shot her an obvious look.
“The whole place is filled with Transmission, up and down. It’s not safe. In fact, you could be affected just by being there.” Her eyes darkened as she neared her face, as if staring through to her soul. “But seems to me, you don’t look very affected by the Transmission, do you? You’re just like him. Unharmed and unphased by the signal.”
Viola gulped, beads of sweat forming on her temple.
“Maybe I just got lucky…”
The corners of Six’s mouth tugged slightly into a grin before she stepped away from Viola.
“Maybe,” she said. “But it still proves me right because you made it here."
“What…?”
“I saw you coming out of the TV first, Viola. And I’ve seen Mono do this enough for me to understand how it works. So, don’t try and lie to me about your relationship with him. I know you both share the same ability—the same blood.”
Surprise washed all over Viola’s face as she could only gape at Six. There was no way Viola could make up an excuse to cover all of this. Six would catch on the second she started to spew out lies.
Unless she made it utterly believable. Though that might require Viola to put her acting skills up.
But then again, her mother always saw through it.
Which meant, Six would too.
“I’m right, aren’t I?” Six spoke up after noticing how the girl’s face had faltered.
Viola sighed, rubbing her head tiredly. She already knows.
There goes her secret. Now Six would find out who she and Mono truly were to her. That is if Six even believed her.
Well, if a stranger had claimed to Viola that they were her child, she wouldn’t exactly believe them either.
Perhaps Six would share the same reaction as Mono. Although, possibly worse than him, considering Six was the more skeptical one out the two.
But whatever the outcome, Viola hoped it wouldn’t affect Six’s view of reconciling with Mono in the future.
“Yeah, you’re right…about everything. We are related,” Viola finally confessed, and Six’s smirk widened, proud that she’d been correct. “You see, I’m—”
“His sister,” Six finished, confidently so.
Viola paused for a second, and then a second longer.
“Yep!” A strained smile adorned on her lips as she added, “He’s my brother, alright. My one and only brother. Since birth…”
At that, Six chuckled to herself, thinking she had successfully cracked the code when in fact, she just strayed further away from it.
But lucky for Viola, Six possessed a humongous ego, bigger than any other as she continued to make up her own conclusions. Thank God.
“Well, then that answers it all,” Six said. “You knew about me through Mono, and you convinced him to come here. Is that right?”
“Uh, yeah.” Viola nodded. Probably a bit too much. “It was tough, but I managed. Getting through that thick skull of his is no easy work,” she said and faked a laugh.
Six snickered in response. “Then I think we’re done here.”
“Wait, so, I’m off the hook? Just like that?”
“Yeah, I guess. Now that I know who you are, I don’t really care what you do here. Or what he does either. Just as long as you don’t become a threat to me, then I won’t be yours. So”—Six offered out a hand to her—“are we cool?”
Viola sent a smile her way. That was easier than I thought. She took the girl’s hand and gave it a firm shake.
The journey back to the children’s bedroom was far lighter than the first trip, to Viola’s relief. The prior tension between them as if lifted as they could now hold conversations—albeit small—with each other. Of course, the conversation involved Six asking her furthermore about being Mono’s sister, and why he kept this hidden.
Viola had to cook up some lie to feed Six for that. Though, she had no idea how long the lie would live.
After minutes had passed, the two girls made it to the door, Six having the courtesy to send Viola off to her room herself, although she had been the one to force her out of bed in the first place.
Nonetheless, the gesture was much appreciated.
Viola snuck back inside the room and casted a glance over her shoulder, seeing Six standing in the door frame with a nod.
However, when her head turned to briefly check over the sleeping boy, Viola couldn’t help but do the same, also wanting to make sure they hadn’t woken him up.
But him getting disturbed was the least of their worries. And the two realized it the second they saw the messy blankets on his mattress, the pillows occupying the space instead of a child.
Mono’s bed was empty.
The real problem was how long it had been.
Notes:
Thanks for reading!
Chapter Text
Mono looked down to the abyss, his legs dangling dangerously just above the unknown black hole.
He turned his head upwards to Six as both of his hands clasped tightly around hers, and he held onto her for his life.
The ground beneath him had crumbled and fallen further below, leaving him to make only a split-second decision and leapt after Six’s outstretched hand. And just like many times before, her catch hadn’t failed him. She was the only reason why he wasn’t yet plunged to his death.
But he never thought she’d be the reason he would.
As Mono stared up at her cold, empty eyes, he could feel his own widen in disbelief when her grip loosened.
“S-Six? What are you doing?” He tried holding onto her wrist, but his palms were all too sweaty. He knew his hand would soon slip out of hers. “Six!” he shouted in panic.
But the girl only stared, looking into his face as if she knew this would be the last time they see each other.
Mono let out a silent gasp as she yanked her hand away from him.
It was all she did as he began to fall, her form becoming smaller the deeper he went.
The last thing he saw was Six’s figure standing up from the ledge before the darkness engulfed him whole.
Mono jolted awake from his bed, sitting upright as he panted heavily, his heart beating out of his chest. He quickly rubbed at his eyes and breathed through his nose, hoping to snap himself out of the never-changing nightmare he always had.
Every single time.
Six was in his head, and he so terribly wanted her out. Just by the thought of the betrayal, by the thought of her, it brought this horrible ache in his stomach. And he wondered if he’d ever find a good night sleep without her haunting him in it.
After that nightmare, he knew going back to sleep would be an effort down the drain.
Heaving a breath, he turned his gaze to the bed across from him.
But the girl he expected to see was not there.
“Viola…?” he whispered, already getting off from his bed.
Perhaps the darkness was playing tricks on him, making it seem like her bed was empty.
Yet he’d been right the first time upon a closer look.
Viola was gone.
Now to say he wasn’t panicking even the slightest bit would be an utter lie. Because his concern for her skyrocketed . And his mind began to race with assumptions regarding her whereabouts.
One, a monster had snuck in and took Viola while he was fast asleep. Or two, the other monster took her.
Six.
As much as he loathed that backstabber, he hoped Viola was with her instead of the former. Because that way, it’d give him another reason to beat Six up until she went straight into a coma.
Well, unless Viola voluntarily left with her. Then that would just prove their relationship being mother and daughter all the more.
He wouldn’t be surprised if they shared some brain cells.
But no matter, he still had to find out where they went. He had to make sure Viola wasn’t killed off by Six and left in a ditch somewhere. He wouldn’t trust the traitor to be alone with anyone.
He made his way to the door, its creak loud in the air as he pulled it open.
With no one else to stop him—or tell him how dangerous it was to go alone—Mono left the bedroom.
“Crap,” Mono muttered under his breath.
For the last couple of minutes, he’d done nothing but enter and exit multiple different rooms. The determination he had before he left his room wasn’t as strong now as the realization smacked him right on the face.
Mono was lost.
But he assured himself that he couldn’t have gone too far from the Children’s Bedroom. Except some part of him already felt like he did.
The Maw was a clear definition of a maze inside a maze, a puzzle locked inside another puzzle. And neither of it made sense! Like a fool, he walked around the Lair with no sense of direction, no map to guide him or tell him where he was.
Maybe I should’ve thought this through.
Exasperatedly, he sighed and stopped in his steps.
Should he try and walk further deep into the Lair, there was no telling what’d he get himself into.
Not to mention, the eye carvings on the walls and doors too was a little unsettling. It could just be his paranoia, but every time he passed an eye, he swore he felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise, the feeling of being watched and stared at a little too similar to when he was in the Signal Tower.
His skin crawled as another eye carving was noticed above the entrance of a room.
“Jeez…” he uttered.
He continued inside despite his prior thoughts to go back.
It was a large room, however, most of the spaces were covered by the looming darkness. All except the single light that shone above the small stage ahead, illuminating the lever in its center.
Mono tilted his head as he climbed up the stage, looking over the strange lever. What does this do?
Everything around him was pitch black. Not even a single door in his sight—the entrance, excluded.
So, he proceeded to grasp the lever and pulled it, his troublesome curiosity itching him to find out the function of the lever being there.
A booming sound of a rusted metal groaning rang in his ears, causing him to shriek and flinch back from the lever in an instant. But his fears were easily brushed aside as the two lids of an enormous eye opened in front of him. And its ‘eyeball’ presented a familiar room.
His room.
Mono came closer towards the All-Seeing Eye, watching it with confusion etched on his features. What the hell is this thing?
His eyes then darted back to the lever beside him, an idea put inside his head the longer he stared its way.
He returned to the lever and quickly gave it another pull.
The massive eye let out a grunt as its lid closed for a second before opening again. However, this time, it showed him a different place, and it was one he’d never been to.
As he saw things move in the view, he knew this was no picture of sorts. Those eye carvings he'd seen truly held a purpose.
They were spies—a camera for someone else to look through.
Mono shook his head as he huffed, merely pulling the lever again to see what the eye would show him next.
A library, a room filled with cages, a hallway. All of it showed common places.
It made him wonder if Six ever used this to spy on him. Ugh , of course she would. He was convinced Six would find the right moment to strike, namely when he was off guard or at his lowest.
That sadistic devil.
He pulled the lever again.
A purple room came up in the eye’s view this time. However, he barely got a look of it when he saw disturbing mannequins standing all around the room with different poses. Their figures as if threatening him through the eye's lens.
His blood ran cold.
Instantly, Mono turned his head away and pushed the lever.
After his horrifying experience in the Hospital, he developed a little bit of trauma from those definitely-alive mannequins. And he didn’t think he could ever look at one without wanting to scream and bolt off a cliff.
Once he heard the metal groan again, Mono slowly let his eyes open and sighed.
The purple room was no longer in the eye’s view.
Instead, it was replaced with the sight of the waving sea.
The Maw’s one and only entrance.
Adults were seen walking in a long straight line as they climbed aboard the ship, their obese forms making them sway and bump into one another while they continued up the deck. Their faces, sagging and full of layers of fat as they wore a permanent, ugly frown.
Mono grimaced, pulling the lever.
The eye changed its sight. However, it soon presented the pathway of where the adults were headed to.
Men and women alike continued to fill the hall, occupying the empty tables that had an abundance of dishes served to them. There was a plethora of meat spread all around the tables' surface, the adults greedily shoving one after another into their mouths as if they’d gone for a month without food, their hands grabbing anything they saw in front of them with sheer gluttony.
The tower of dirty plates stacked atop each other only showed the amount of meal these adults had and continued to consume. So much that they were even willing to eat one without it.
Mono could feel his stomach churn at the sight, bile rising in the back of his throat.
For the last time, he pushed the lever.
But that was a mistake he didn’t realize.
Regret and disbelief coloured his face as his eyes widened at the terrifying view the eye revealed.
The Kitchen.
Out of instinct, Mono backed away in horror and accidentally tripped on his steps. Even as he fell to his rear, he couldn’t tear his gaze away from the eye’s view.
He gasped as one of the chefs unwrapped a lifeless body of a child with its grubby hands and placed the body somewhere behind the clutter of pots and pans.
Regardless, he could still see the chef.
But then the adult circled its hand around the cleaver beside it, raising the blade high above its head. The way it was held indicated enough that the child's limb was about to be chopped off.
In panic, Mono rushed towards the lever and pushed it, albeit unlucky enough to have caught a glimpse of the chef bringing the cleaver down before the eye closed for good.
His breathing fastened, his eyes unblinking from pure shock.
And before he knew it, the bile in his throat rose to his mouth.
Mono hurriedly jumped off the stage, the contents of his stomach leaving him soon after as he retched.
The Maw isn’t a place for children.
Those were Viola’s exact words to him. Although he never thought this was what it meant. He never thought children were being made as food!
Mono gasped for air once he was done, wiping the corners of his mouth as he stepped away from his puddle of vomit.
Viola couldn’t have known about this, he thought. She said she’s never even been here.
Truly, Viola hadn’t.
Thus, that would only leave one person in mind, and not a single doubt came to him when he thought of her.
Six.
She was the longest one who stayed here—she lived here. She should hold more information about the Maw then both Mono and Viola combined.
Children. They’re eating children.
He couldn’t imagine what those unfortunate kids had to go through. Whether some of them had been unfortunate enough to be partially alive for the chefs was beyond him. He didn’t want to know if they’d felt the pain of being cut and sliced like meat to be marinated. He didn’t want to know if there were still other children here waiting for their demise, waiting for their turn to be made into food.
“Damn it,” he whispered to himself, grasping the side of his head desperately.
The Maw wasn’t safe.
He had to get him and Viola out of this place.
“Mono…?” A voice sounded from behind.
Instantly, he turned around to meet Viola, seeing her eyes full of worry as she had her hand slightly reached out to him. He, however, only stood frozen and silent, seemingly at loss for words.
But it was the yellow hooded girl behind her that made him talk again.
“You,” he spat out.
Mono continued to walk past Viola, ignoring the confusion she and Six pointed to him.
However, before anyone could speak, a slap resonated in the air, making Viola cover her mouth in shock.
Six on the other hand, merely had her head turned to the side, her cheek becoming red after the slap. But when her eyes returned to him, she shot him a warning glare. It was one that would surely leave someone quivering, quaking in fright had it been someone other than Mono.
She growled, holding back her anger at the boy. “What was that?” she said through gritted teeth.
“I don’t know, figure it out yourself! I mean, you’re ‘the smart one’, aren’t you?”
“I swear, I will eat you if this is about the betrayal again,” Six said.
Mono spared a scoff.
“The betrayal? Hah, I thought you’d never admit that out loud. Just like how you’d never admit about the dead children here.”
At that, Six’s eyes widened a fraction, but she quickly sent him a death glare, silently warning him not to say another word.
But this information was not new to Mono alone.
“What…?” Viola spoke up, darting between the both of them with furrowed brows.
He only crossed his arms and shifted to Six. “You want to tell her or should I?”
“How about you just shut up ,” Six hissed at him, narrowing her eyes.
“Oh? So, you still want to keep this a secret? You don’t even want to tell us about the dead kids that are being served in this place? Come on, I know this isn't news to you. For all I know, you could've been apart of this murder feast.”
Six did not respond to that.
The girl’s scowl merely grew tenfold, her sharp teeth already bared as her cool left her. But the silence she gave him afterwards was the most threatening one she ever gave.
The venom her words held after, it nearly sent shivers down his spine.
“Say another word about dead children Mono, I dare you.”
He quickly swallowed the smidge of fear that dared appear in the back of his head.
“Why? Did you eat one yourself?”
That was the last straw.
Six let out a furious growl as she charged at him.
“You son of a bitch!”
And there goes round two.
As she tackled him to the ground, the two former friends wrestled amongst each other, yelping and grunting from each other’s blows and assaults. It was impossible to tell who would win with the amount of determination both had to hurt the other.
Meanwhile, Viola merely stood there and watched as their audience. Her shoulders sank as they fought yet again, only this time, she hadn’t the energy to step in and put off their fight.
Instead, she took a seat on the floor and quietly watched over the fight, deciding to interfere only when needed.
Viola let out a sigh.
After all, she had other things to worry about for now.
Notes:
Thanks for reading!
Chapter 10: Old Memories
Notes:
Some Lady And Thin Man fluff for you!
Let me clarify something real quick so you guys don't get confused.So basically The Lady will call Thin Man by his name, Mono and Thin Man will call The Lady by her name Six. Cause I think those 'Lady and Thin Man' stuff are merely titles and they've known each other since they were children so screw formalities B)
But I will still include 'The Lady' and 'The Thin Man' when they're talking to indicate that these two are in a different timeline from the previous chapter. Just take it as a tiny bit of Viola's past.
Sorry if I made it more confusing lol
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
The Lady walked through the hallway of her house, tiredly running her hands through her black hair as she gladly removed her mask after a long day. This was precisely one of the reasons why she preferred staying home rather than at the Maw—although she hadn’t much say in that.
She hated wearing those porcelain things over her face, she hated how hard it felt against her skin for days on end.
But alas, her reputation as the Lady of the Maw was to be uphold, the rumours of her tantalizing, murderous aura was all what kept those filthy, disgusting balls of giant fat Guests in line. After all, she was one of the two most feared in this damned world.
The second one being the man she married.
His title as the Broadcaster or more commonly as Thin Man brought great fear within the citizens of his domain, Pale City. Not even the deranged Viewers dared cross paths with him lest they fade away into nothing.
Indeed, fear was a powerful thing the two adults had control of.
Yet none of those mattered for where they live. Not their titles, not their reputations, nor their power. Their home was the complete opposite of the Maw and Pale City, their escapism from the devilish duties imposed upon them—the evil work she and Thin Man made sure to keep their daughter, Viola out from for the sake of her safety .
And for seven years, they protected her without fail. The Lady hoped they wouldn’t ever for decades to come. But knowing Thin Man, she knew he’d do anything to keep his child and family safe.
He was nothing if not an overprotective man. And that was a great advantage.
The sound of laughter echoed from afar, snapping the Lady out from her reverie.
As she continued into the living room, she was met with the sight of a tall man and a little girl, but their laughter toned down to giggling quietly amongst each other as soon as they saw her come in.
The Lady tilted her head and approached them.
“Okay, what are you two laughing for?”
Both Viola and Thin Man exchanged a glance with each other, the man looking hesitant for some reason. Regardless, Viola spoke first.
“Dad was just telling me a joke,” said Viola, then turned to him. “You should tell her.”
Thin Man nervously snickered. “I don’t know about that…”
“Oh, come on Mono,” the Lady coaxed. “What are you, scared of me not liking it or something?”
“Hah, quite the opposite, actually.”
The woman came closer towards them, placing a hand on her daughter’s head as she looked at him.
“So, what’s keeping you?” she asked and stared into his eyes long enough to make him feel challenged.
“Okay. If that’s what you want…” He shot her a smirk. “What do you call a fish wearing a—?”
The Lady groaned before he could finish his sentence, the woman only sparing an eye roll.
“God, is this one of your awful punchlines you picked up from that silly book?”
“Mom, let him finish !” Viola tugged the hem of her sleeve, almost as if she was scolding her own mother for interrupting.
The Lady lifted a brow at the girl and shifted back to the man.
“I promise this one’s good,” Thin Man assured as he flashed her a smile.
Oh, dearest god.
With a sigh, the Lady said, “Alright then, continue.” She gestured with her hand.
Thin Man did as he was told, merely clearing his throat beforehand.
“What do you call a fish wearing a bowtie?” he asked, his smirk becoming wider.
“I don’t know,” the Lady replied. “What is it called?”
“Sofishticated.”
Both Viola and Thin Man burst out laughing in front of her. And the Lady merely watched the two gasp for air for something that wasn’t even worth laughing to that extent.
I cannot be the only one who finds this kind of humor terrible.
Despite the thought, the Lady couldn’t help the grin that slowly formed on her lips as their boisterous laugh continued to fill the living room.
If the two shared the same liking towards these types of jokes, then perhaps the Lady could give one of hers.
Besides, it wasn’t as if she didn't have any humor herself. She knew tons.
Just slightly better and advanced.
“I have one.”
Instantly, both Thin Man and Viola ceased their laughter, the two pointing their stare at the Lady with disbelief written all over their faces. Obviously, neither of them had expected to hear that coming from her.
“You…have a joke?” Thin Man slowly asked, unsure if he had heard her right.
The Lady proudly nodded as she wore a mischievous grin.
“I do,” she said, “but…I think I probably should hit the sack early; it’s getting late.”
“Whoa hang on, you’ve got to tell us!” Viola chimed in, her eyes twinkling with excitement.
Thin Man, however, did not share the same sentiment. Just by the look the Lady had on her face gave him a bad feeling.
Like she was up to no good.
After all, the woman was full of surprises, as well as tricks he wouldn’t see coming a mile away if she hid them well up her sleeve.
The Lady faked a tired sigh. “Only if you insist…” She patted the top of Viola’s head, but her gaze then flickered to him.
Thin Man narrowed his eyes as he kept quiet, only nodding his head to her.
The Lady’s smile grew at his greenlight.
“What’s yellow, and becomes red after you press a certain button?”
Neither knew the answer to that, just as expected. The Lady gave them a few seconds to let them ponder for a response, but of course none could give one in the end. Even as they shot her a look of defeat, she merely chuckled at their expense.
And so, she gestured for the two to come closer.
Viola and Thin Man complied, despite the man being slightly hesitant at first.
As they came close enough, the Lady whispered into their ears. And her answer left a dark feeling for those who understood.
“A chick in a blender.”
A soft gasp left the Thin Man as he immediately recoiled from his wife, taking a few steps back as if to recover from the small shock that jolted through him.
But the same couldn’t be said for the girl though.
For Viola only stood in place with her brows furrowed, looking up at her parents in confusion and wanting an explanation. Her face, the complete instance of ‘I don’t get it’.
Upon their separate reactions, it was the Lady’s turn to burst out laughing, and she laughed like an evil witch.
“Wait, what does that mean?” Viola asked, still clueless as to why her father seemed uncomfortable.
The Lady wiped off an imaginary tear and placed a hand behind the girl’s back, bending to her level.
“It means that the chi—”
“V-Viola! Why don’t you get ready for bed,” Thin Man interrupted, pulling his daughter away from the Lady on purpose. “It is getting late, isn’t it?”
In return, Viola narrowed her eyes at him, then turned to the Lady in hopes for the explanation. But her mother shrugged.
“He’s right, you know,” she said to Viola’s disappointment.
The girl eventually huffed. Nonetheless, she obeyed her parents as she walked out of the room with a clear pout.
And that left the two adults alone with each other’s company.
Once Thin Man was certain Viola was gone and out of earshot, he turned to the Lady, watching her casually take a seat on the couch as if nothing even happened.
But his stare did not go unnoticed by her.
“What?” she asked, raising her brows.
He shook his head and chuckled at her nonchalance.
“A bit too much, don’t you think?” he said.
“Oh please, I’m sure she’s heard worse. Besides, it doesn’t matter anyway; she doesn’t even get the joke.”
“Six, you were about to explain it to her. It’s a good thing I stopped you when I did, because I swear, sometimes you have no boundaries. Or you just chose not to use your brain—that is to say, if you even have any left.” Thin Man snorted at his own tease.
The Lady was less than offended, of course.
But this man needed to be taken down a peg with the way he was laughing in her face.
“That’s just insulting, Mono. I’m very, very wounded,” the Lady put her palm on her chest, pretending to be hurt. “I never thought that my own husband could break my heart to this extent.”
“Your improv skills has improved well I see—"
“The only person I would do anything for, the love of my life, would say such terrible things to me. I didn’t think I would cry tonight!”
Thin Man nervously snickered, sweat beginning to form on his temple as her words became more and more worrying. “Okay take it down a notch, drama queen. You’re making me feel bad.”
“Maybe you’re right, maybe I don’t have any intelligence left. What if aging does something like that to my brain?”
“Wait, hold on, I didn't say that—!"
The Lady stood up from her seat and came up-close to him, looking straight into his eyes. She noticed how he gulped the longer he was under her piercing stare.
“Do you still love me?” she asked.
If he wasn’t worried before, then he definitely is now.
“What are you talking about Six, of course I do.”
“Do you take pleasure in seeing me upset?”
“N-no, I don’t! I was only teasing! Did I…did I go too far?”
The Lady took a few steps back and turned her back towards him, successfully hiding the fact she was holding back her own smile.
“Sometimes you do,” she said as she hugged her own frame, “a-and I chose not to say anything most of the time. But still, it doesn’t change the truth because words do hurt Mono, even if you were just joking. It might be funny to you, but to me…it’s heartbreaking.”
She waited patiently for his response to that, faking a sniffle here and there.
But the silence he gave her afterwards was pure gold.
And her urge to smirk then and there only increased the moment she heard him sigh.
There it is!
That regretful sigh she was waiting for!
Thin Man approached the Lady, hugging her from behind. He then planted a small kiss to her head as he hoped that would comfort her.
If only he knew she didn’t even need to be comforted.
“Look, I’m sorry. I had no idea you felt that way,” he said, turning her around to meet her mask of sheer sadness. “What can I do to make it up to you?”
Finally, she gave a small smile to him, albeit impishly.
That was exactly what she wanted to hear.
The Lady hummed in thought as she circled her arms around his neck. “You’ll do anything?”
“Anything you want.”
Her evil grin widened as she leaned in closer to his face, and so did he while he expected a kiss from her.
However, she stopped just before his face, catching him off guard with her next words.
“Do my laundry for a week, then I’ll forgive you.”
Thin Man blanked and frowned instantly.
Yet before the man could say anything else, the Lady quickly gave him a peck on his lips, smiling smugly as his reaction did not change even after that.
She chuckled as she patted his cheek, then walked away to head out.
“That’s how you tease, dummy!” her shout sounded in the hallway, leaving Thin Man on his own in shock.
He stood there still and stared at the door she’d walked through, bringing his hand to his lips as a blush crept to his face.
But soon enough, the realization fell on him. And he knew by then he’d been tricked by her.
She deceived him good.
Thin Man shook his head as he chuckled to himself.
“You manipulator.”
Notes:
Thanks for reading!
Chapter 11: Aftermath of the Second Fight
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
“You manipulator.”
Mono panted heavily, resting his hands on his knees after the second fight that took place between him and his so-called friend, Six mirroring his state as she too seemed well out of breath.
It served them right anyhow. No one told them to attack each other and use up all their energy for a fight as petty as this. However, the argument did touch upon a heavy subject; children being categorized as one of the main dishes for the Maw’s grand buffet was rather atrocious.
Viola cocked her head up at the sound of Mono’s voice, then rose to her feet. After minutes of waiting for their brawl to end, she was surprised the fight didn’t last longer than she’d expected, provided she was their one and only audience.
Great, they’re done.
Perhaps she should’ve just waited the first time they physically attacked each other. Let them tire themselves out.
“How long did you think you could keep this a secret, Six?” Mono asked in between breaths. “Just exactly how long?” Light bruises already formed on his skin from the punches Six did not hold back.
However, the same could be said for Six. She too didn’t escape the blows Mono had inflicted.
“Not that it’s any of your business,” Six said, a death glare fixed on her, “but I was planning to let you know when both of you weren’t looking like two dummies who’d just walked through hell. Yet Mr. Strong Guy here just had to leave the room all by himself.”
“Well, I wouldn’t have to if it weren’t for Viola!” Mono shot back, pointing to the younger girl.
Instantly, Six snapped her head at her, Mono merely following suit.
It was safe to say, their stares were evidently intense.
Viola gulped.
“What are you blaming me for? She was the one who forced me to go with her!” Viola said defensively to Mono as she passed the blame back to Six.
Six scoffed, folding her arms. “I did not ‘force’ you to follow me. I just made you comply.”
“Wha— THAT’S EXACTLY WHAT FORCING MEANS!”
As Six was about to snap back, Mono quickly stepped in, stopping her before the two girls could argue next.
“Let’s discuss the real issue here. If you’ve forgotten, there are still children dying on this ship,” he interjected, then turned to his old friend. “Six, you better start explaining before I throw you into the ocean.”
Six rolled her eyes at his poor threat. But she had had enough of being treated as if she was behind all this murder feast—had had enough of him accusing her to be.
“You want to know so bad? Fine. The Guests eat children,” she said coldly as her eyes grew darker. “Every limb, every flesh, every drop of blood. All of it just for them to be cooked and consumed by those aboard. But even so, what you’ve seen is nothing compared to what I have Mono. You don’t know half of what it was like before I chose to live here, before I had nowhere else to go.
“If I hadn’t killed the person in charge of this place, neither of you would still be alive now. All of us would’ve ended up just like those other kids; chopped up and skinned. So, before you go and accuse me for something I wasn’t involved in”—Six pointed her glare at Mono, specifically—“think again. And show a little gratitude, for Goodness sake.”
No words came to Viola as every word Six spat out brought great dread within her, churning her stomach until that was all she could feel.
Mono, however, saw it differently than her.
“That’s bold coming from a murderer,” he said emptily, riling Six up on purpose. “But since you’ve worked so hard turning this dump into a better place, I’ll show you my gratitude by getting out of your hair. I’m definitely not staying here any minute longer.”
He turned on his heels and nodded for the other girl to follow him.
“You idiot…” Six murmured.
Immediately, Mono halted in his tracks, shifting back to her.
He narrowed his eyes dangerously.
“What did you call me?” he asked.
“Did you even listen to a word I’ve said?” Six replied, annoyance laced to her tone. “I told you, I chose to live here because I had nowhere else to go. And I mean that literally. We are surrounded by the ocean water. Once you’re aboard, there’s no getting off—it’s as simple as that. The quicker you accept it, the better.”
The room fell silent after the truth Six had thrown to them, an ugly truth none could contradict even if they held the slightest bit of knowledge of the Maw.
Even so, no one ever could fully understand this blood lusted ship, not even Six herself.
The only one who did, however, was the Lady of the Maw—the woman who had organized and ran the Maw’s feasts for decades upon decades.
Yet the woman was already gone.
Murdered by a little girl she had made a mistake of underestimating.
“I can leave through the television…” Mono said above whisper, but it was loud enough to grab the girls’ attention, the two sharing a surprised look.
“No!” Viola blurted out.
Mono's eyes widened at the girl.
“No? Viola, don’t tell me you still want to stay here after everything she’s said!”
Viola blanked.
Perhaps she should’ve thought this through.
But if there was one thing she inherited from her mother—aside from the hunger curse and dark magic—was to talk her way out of things she did not like.
“I-I don’t,” she lied to his face. “But think about it, what if you did warp, and it takes you somewhere dangerous in the ship? What if there are more televisions we didn’t know about? We only got here out of dumb luck!”
“She’s not wrong,” Six spoke before Mono could as she stared blankly at him. “There are plenty of other televisions than the one you came through. And if you can’t control where you go, you might find yourself warping straight to the Kitchen, or worse, the Guests' Hall .”
Viola internally sighed in relief at Six backing her point up. However, she wondered why Six would warn him if she hated him. If Six were, as Mono said, trying to kill him, she would’ve let him use the television like he wanted despite knowing the risks. She would’ve let himself get killed on purpose.
So, could this mean…
She still cares?
Viola couldn’t help the little grin that widened on her lips as her thoughts spoke to her.
Meanwhile, Mono looked at the two with shock across his face, still in disbelief that Viola had ganged up on him with Six as if they’d been pals for years. His fists clenched tighter.
“What about the Maw’s entrance? I saw them get in through there, so surely that’s where we can get out,” he spat.
Another snigger left Six, sounding more like to mock him more than anything.
“If you don’t mind the Guests stepping on you flat or eating you alive, then sure. It’d be interesting to see your one and only attempt.”
Suppressing a growl behind his throat, he gritted his teeth, his face red from all the anger his patience had held back.
“Then how do I leave this place?!” he yelled.
“You can’t, ” Six replied simply, smirking at his expense. “Whether you like it or not, you’re stuck here with me.”
Silence once again took over the room, both of them having another glaring contest before one of them finally groaned in defeat.
“Fine! You win .” Mono kept his scowl as he averted his gaze away from his backstabber. “Just take me back to that stupid room, alright? Looking at your annoying face really makes me want to drench myself in gasoline.”
“I’d be happy to hand you a lighter,” she retorted, already heading towards the door.
“Shut up.”
Viola watched as the two former friends leave the room, a sigh soon escaping her as their verbal fight came to a…somewhat calm end. She didn’t love the yelling, though. Suppose getting them to speak in a more friendly manner would be a long way to go. Patience was her only key to get through with those two, and she didn’t plan on failing.
No matter what, Mono and Six must reconcile. Even if it might make her snap at them too for their constant need to pick a fight with each other—although that applied more to Mono than it did with Six. Nonetheless, she was certain, everything would work out just as planned.
Viola exhaled a deep breath, letting a soft smile grow on her face. “Wait up!” she shouted as she finally left her place and chased after her future parents .
Darkness surrounded the empty room soon as Viola stepped out.
Yet not one of them knew it was never empty.
For in the far corner, in the dark of the shadows, another eye stayed hidden on the walls, observing, analysing the girl's movements like no ordinary eye carvings within the Maw.
And it closed itself slowly as it watched her leave.
Notes:
Thanks for reading!
Chapter 12: Cooped Up
Notes:
Hey just wanted to say here's another dose of angst starring Mono and Viola (Sorry Six)
Enjoy!
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Boredom.
Mono lost count of how many times he had sighed, the number of times he kept on thinking about the same thing over and over again as he lay dormant on his bed, only staring up at the cracked, moldy ceiling of the gloomy bedroom he was given to stay in.
And for the past few days, that was all he did.
Wake up, curse at his predicament, spend the rest of the day in his room until he falls asleep again. Then repeat.
As mundane as it sounded, it wasn’t something he hadn't practiced, although if he were to compare during his time at the Signal Tower, a week ago he didn’t have the privilege to even own a bed.
So, he took this as an upgrade and endured his boredom, even if it meant staring at empty walls again.
Anything to save his eyes from seeing that stupid yellow-raincoat girl, really. That good-for-nothing traitor .
Mono raised his head up from his pillow, gaze pointed to the empty bed across from him. A frown etched to his face at his roommate’s absence.
A day after Six had revealed—more like had to reveal—to them about the Maw’s true menu and food resources, that stinking manipulator had offered to show them the way around the ship, saying how it would benefit them if they knew what places to avoid since none of them would be leaving anytime soon, although he certainly wished he could.
Of course, Viola had shown her excitement when her beloved mother offered such a thing. She had said yes without a second to hesitate. But when she had turned to him for his answer next, he had boldly declined.
Just a straight ‘no’ to Six’s face without so much of an explanation.
So, here he was now, bored out of his mind with his joints aching from its lack of use for hours on end.
Surely his body protested him for choosing to do nothing. But like hell would he ever walk out around this child-eating ship as though it was a candy store. And to walk along with Six no less.
The idea itself disgusted him.
The metal door groaned open, causing him to sit up on his bed as he turned to its direction. Relief painted him as the figure that emerged was anyone but Six.
He couldn’t even stand being in the same room as the backstabber.
“Hey, I’m back!” Viola peeked her head out from behind the door, beaming as she stepped inside.
Though, he couldn’t really match her emotion as of now. Being cooped up in this room sure did some number on his mood more than he liked to admit.
“That was longer than yesterday,” Mono said dryly, watching the girl approach the bed across from him.
Viola sat down on the mattress, sighing tiredly from all the touring she and Six had done. It’d been a long day for her after all.
“Sorry,” she said as she made herself comfortable. “Six was just showing me the rest of the Lair, and we chatted a little after that. Probably why I came back a bit later than usual.”
He couldn’t help but roll his eyes. So, they had a mother-daughter bonding time. Fantastic. Real superb.
“Hey, Mono…?” His thoughts were put to a halt at the sound of her voice. He hummed in reply, although his annoyance stayed. “Are you sure you don’t want to…come with us next time? I really think it’ll do you some good to walk around and breathe air other than this room.”
“So, you’re suggesting me, you and Six to go on a tour together?”
“Uh, yes?”
“Pass.”
Viola gulped, her brows furrowing.
“You do know the adults are on a different level than us right? If you’re worried about them being around these halls—”
“ That’s …not what I’m worried about.”
Well, the cooking-children thing indeed was an issue that kept him from going out and exploring the place, but to have to walk with Six around all the time—was an even bigger issue. One that’d he rather avoid altogether.
By the slight forlorn look he let on his face, it didn’t take Viola long to understand.
“Okay then…” she said, giving him a small nod before shifting to a new topic, particularly one that didn’t involve her mother. “So, how was your day?” A harmless question was all it was. She was certain it couldn’t have even the slightest link to the yellow hooded girl.
Yet Mono made it possible.
“It was fine until you mentioned Six.”
Silence was her reply after that.
Ironically, for someone who loathed Six to the highest possible level, he sure wouldn’t stop thinking about her. Though none of his thoughts of her were pleasant to begin with ever since that betrayal, that bitter memory his mind wouldn’t let forget.
“Hey,” Viola called, and leaned against the metal bar of her bed foot. “I know you’re still mad at her for what she did...”
“Obviously,” he grumbled.
Viola exhaled through her nose and continued, saying, “But I just can’t watch you mope around in this room, and do nothing all the time. So! If Six is the reason you won’t come out, then why don’t I show you around instead?”
He sat straighter, his eyes widening by the genuineness in her voice.
“You…you’d do that for me?”
“Yeah! Well, after I’m done knowing the full map of this place at least. It would be a stupid thing to offer if I didn’t know where to go first, wouldn’t it?”
Mono weakly nodded in agreement before he turned his gaze over to the door, its metal structure blocking all the hall lights outside from penetrating through.
“So,” she said, “do you want to?”
His eyes darted back to her after a few seconds, but he hadn't a definitive answer as she had hoped.
Mono released a short huff.
“I’ll think about it.”
He dropped himself back onto his mattress, his head halfway to meeting the pillow as his eyes were closing to drift off into the night.
At least, he tried to.
“Hey! What are you doing?” The unnecessary panic in her voice made him sigh yet again.
Lazily, he propped his elbow so he could meet her complaint-y stare.
“What do you think ?” he asked rhetorically.
“Y-you can’t sleep yet! I just got here!” Her lips drew a pout as she sat kneeling on her bed as though she would get up and force him to stay awake.
He groaned softly and sat back up again.
“I’m tired, Viola. What else do you want me to do?”
“But I haven’t talked to you all day! And besides, what are you even tired of? All you did today was lie down on your back.”
Sneering, he retorted, “Well, you were the one who spent most of your time with Six.” He crossed his arms and averted his eyes. “Maybe if you had come earlier, then I’d probably still have some energy left to talk to you.”
Viola paused, her eyes left staring at her roommate across her. Oh, but not without a smirk growing upon her face.
“Oh my god…” she said, the realization occurring to her. “You’re jealous.”
“What?”
In just seconds, heat spread all over his cheeks.
How dare she accuse him of being that repulsive word!
Him, jealous? No. He felt anything but jealousy.
Was he a little bummed that his new friend decided to take off and chose Six to hang around with instead of him? Sure. But that did not mean he was jealous!
So what if Viola preferred spending time with Six? He was only looking out for her well-being because he knew what kind of a monster Six was, and he’d experienced first-hand her lies and trickery.
Mother or not, Six already proved herself to be unfit as one.
“ I …am not jealous , Viola,” he insisted slowly. “All I’m saying is you shouldn’t be around her that long. You don’t want to be influenced by her of all people. I mean, have you forgotten how rude she was to me? The way she praised herself as if she were a saint? It makes me sick .”
“You are so jealous.” Her smirk widened.
“I-I’m not!”
Viola’s laugh rang in the room at his flustery, causing his already red face to flush harder in embarrassment, his fists already balled into tight clenches as though to emphasize his slight annoyance. Because of course, she found this whole thing amusing as it was humiliating for him.
Shaking her head a little, the girl then chuckled at his reaction.
“I’m just messing with you,” she said lightly—like that would make him feel any less embarrassed now. “But, hey, if it makes you feel any better, what you said…isn’t entirely wrong. She did come off slightly as a jerk, especially after knowing what she did to you.”
Mono scoffed, albeit still glad to hear some agreements.
“Although,” she added, “I did say this to you before; Six will change. My mother is nothing like the girl who betrayed you. Trust me on that.”
“Yeah, all because of your father.” He rolled his eyes, unintentionally sounding dismissive at her remark. “Seriously, no offense. But your dad has got to be the most gullible person alive if he fell for Six. Because the Six I know, is a lost cause.”
Once again, she gave him an unknowing silence, letting it drag on between them as her gaze lowered. But when she stayed quiet, a little part of him wondered if what he said had been harsh, or if he had truly offended her on some level with his own honest remark.
If only he knew how Viola was in actuality, dying in laughter inside. And how she wasn’t even near to being offended.
Well, how could she feel offended when Mono merely insulted himself?
No, for her, that was the side entertainment she got from keeping this secret.
A mischievous grin then appeared on her face as she shook her head.
“She…isn’t a lost cause, though.”
Mono cocked his head to her as she broke the silence, and he couldn’t help but feel slightly relieved when her face held no grudge or any ill emotions. Although what she said to him sure left his mind blank like paper.
“Huh?”
“She isn’t a lost cause,” Viola repeated, her voice seemingly softer for some reason. “Unless…would you call someone a lost cause if they plan on being on good terms with someone they had hurt?”
His eyes narrowed automatically.
“ Six told you that?” he asked, rather sceptically so.
Viola nodded proudly. Though almost too proudly.
“Yep! I remember her exact words were, ‘I’m done being a screw up, and I’d like to apologize to him properly when he’s ready’.”
…
Now that was an obvious lie.
During his ‘friendship’ days with Six, he’d learned a lot about the yellow-raincoat girl more than he let on. Mono had attentively watched her, observed her from the sides almost most of the time throughout their days together—for the sake of her safety of course.
And never had he heard Six so much as to admit she was in the wrong, let alone degrade herself so openly like Viola said she did.
With a tremendous ego Six possessed, he wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if she had a disability to even utter the word ‘sorry’ and mean it at the same time.
Mono shot Viola a look, one that clearly said, ‘I’m not buying this no matter how hard you’re trying to sell it to me’.
Viola exhaled nervously, her face faltering a bit.
“O-okay, I made up the ‘being a screw up’ part,” she admitted, “but I promise the rest is all true! She really did say she wanted to apologize to you.”
He snickered wryly. “I highly doubt that.”
“Well, you doubt mostly everything,” she said and quickly added, “but that doesn’t matter! The point is, she hinted the apology. At least in her own words. And honestly, that counts as a green flag for me. But…what do you think?”
What do I think?
Just the thought of them patching things up again after the betrayal that left him wounded and scarred, was unreasonable. Aside from it, he couldn’t imagine Six voluntarily choosing to apologize after everything. So, he figured Viola had to be making these things up just to get him to think Six was the opposite of the word ‘villain’.
But even so, what if Viola wasn’t lying? And Six in fact, had told her that she wanted to talk to him?
All just to…apologize?
His eyes remained hooded, his hands fiddling with the other as he delved deeper into his spiral of complicative thoughts.
Would he even want their marred past to be forgotten?
To be fixed?
“I think…” he started slowly, unable to think of an answer. Mono sucked in a long breath and tried again. “I think if she did apologize, there’s a good chance she’s only doing it for her own benefit. And…I don’t want to go through that again; I don’t want to be used by her again.”
Finally, he turned to the girl, watching as her shoulders sag in disappointment, her mouth formed into a thin line.
Yet it wasn't something that could be helped.
“I’m sorry, Viola. I know you said your mom is a good person, but…this isn’t the future.” A bitter frown crept unto his face. “Six isn’t your mother, and she won’t see you as her daughter. All we are to her is just…a side tool for her to use, a pawn she’ll sacrifice for her to save herself. That’s all there is…”
That unfortunate day, that horrible day, he lost a friend in just a blink of an eye. For it, he’d blamed his own self, questioned his loyalty as a companion, and even believed it’d been his fault she abandoned him to his isolation of a fate.
But that wasn’t the truth at all.
It wasn’t his fault that Six dropped him. It wasn’t his fault that she’d decided to watch him die before her very eyes. None of it was his fault. And instead, everything that had transpired between them up until now, had been hers and hers alone.
Because Six never was his friend like he had wanted.
Sighing deeply, he eventually laid on his back without any interruption this time from Viola, who’d had her lips parted in slight disbelief upon hearing his unchanged opinion of her mother.
Just as the silence began to overwhelm the room, he heard Viola’s bed creak as she soon mimicked him albeit her movements sounded slightly crestfallen. Nonetheless, she finally decided to get under the covers too. Yet her mind laid awake thinking of his words.
“Would you forgive her?” she asked after a moment, but the brightness in her tone was long gone. She knew this would be the last she’d speak before the conversation came to an end.
Although her question was one he’d asked himself before, and many times he found it difficult to decide for a simple answer.
Now, however, it was all that he was certain of.
“No, I won’t.”
Notes:
Don't worry everything is fine...(ಥ _ʖಥ)
Thanks for reading!
Chapter 13: Mother and Daughter
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Six tapped her fingers on her crossed arms, each tap a rhythm she had playing in her brain as she leaned against her bed.
Well, technically it’d belonged to the Lady , but what dead person would still have any right to claim ownership?
While she enjoyed the pros of the woman’s death, she didn’t escape the cons of it.
Namely the Maw’s ever-lively buffet that was being held downstairs.
She had—unluckily—watched them from her balcony once out of curiosity. And neither of it was pleasant for the eyes. She had watched the Guests all lined up in multiple rows, all just to enter their faux paradise of a restaurant to feast for hours on end. It was disgusting and, frankly, often ruin her own appetite just by the thought of those gluttonous adults.
Six remembered the time she had to run across tables and evaded the reaching arms of the Guests as they had tried to capture her. It’d been both horrible and a terrifying experience.
Which was why she wouldn’t want her two new guests to experience what she had to.
She was aware of the bad things she’d done throughout her time here at the Maw—and the time before that—but she was still fair. At least, when she could. Or try to be.
So, the thought of those two newbies roaming around this cannibal-inclined ship, it…made her heart uneasy. It could be because one of them was someone she had a bad history with, and she felt the need to do something yet the other one seemed totally innocent.
And the Maw was not innocent.
This place would and had eaten its passengers slowly. Behind each and every one of its wallpapers reeked of blood, floors stained with death.
Six couldn’t count how many times she’d killed the Guests for her meal of the day. Their souls were, after all, what kept her hunger in check.
She wondered what Mono would say if he knew. Though, she knew what he wouldn’t say.
A few words of sympathy for her hunger predicament? Forget it. Six knew what to expect of his demeanour towards her now that they were reunited, especially after what she had done.
There wasn’t a choice, she reminded herself. I had to do it.
It was the truth after all.
The deal she took was the only way for her to survive. Besides, if she hadn’t taken that deal, she wouldn’t have half the luxurious life she had now. This. This was the best path. This was her only option.
Wasn’t it?
Six loosened her grip on her own arm when she felt a dull pain shooting up and down. Had she unconsciously been squeezing her own arm again? She sighed exasperatedly and rubbed her temple.
However, her heart jumped in surprise as a sudden knock came outside in the corridor, making her flinch slightly from the sound. She took in a breath and loosened herself from her prior thoughts. Not a single hint of remorse or guilt was allowed on her face now that she had a visitor to her floor.
Finally, she’s here.
Viola sucked in a deep breath.
It had been some sort of a routine for them for these last couple of days. Ever since her mother, Six had so kindly offered to show her around the Maw, she’d been going on tours and spent almost the rest of her days with her—something Mono had complained about recently, to Viola's recollection.
Though, today was bit different, considering they had some…new arrangements regarding with the start of the tour.
All because a certain someone had another complaint he had to voice out.
Specifically about Six coming to his room to fetch Viola for the tour, which Six had defended, wasn’t her fault that they shared the same bedroom. And Viola remembered vaguely what happened after that. Though it did involve a lot of screaming and another insult war, which—if she was remembering right—went on for about 10 minutes long.
And that was…not a pretty sight for her.
So, what else could she do but to take Mono’s complaint into consideration? Although technically, there was nothing to consider about, given they literally did scream at each other for 10 minutes.
For the sake of preventing her parents from going through any forms of argument, Viola had suggested/insisted she be the one to come to Six’s Quarter instead of vice versa. Because, obviously, one of them would start again the minute they inhale the same air, or glance at each other for more than two seconds.
Six, of course, had agreed to her idea, much to Mono’s satisfaction.
However, Six had warned her during their tour, saying how some of the Guests tend to take an evening stroll around the restaurant and outside their respected rooms, although rarely ever that was the case. But, just as a precaution, Six had told her to use a short cut: an elevator that would take her up and straight to the upper Quarter; Viola’s quickest and safest way up.
It would’ve been a total mind reliever if the elevator hadn’t been so creepy.
The flickering lights, the ominous creak it made for every floor it passed. She bolted out of the shaft the second those doors opened!
Viola shuddered and pushed the memory out before it ruined her mood entirely. After all, she already made it here.
She gave a knock to the door frame as there weren’t any doors leading up to Six’s bedroom, but regardless, her manners wasn’t left untaught.
It would be rather unladylike to barge in into someone’s room unannounced, as her mother would say.
A few moments passed until she heard footsteps coming to approach on the other side, a yellow figure appearing before her.
“Hey,” Six greeted dryly.
Viola gulped, feeling her heart race all the sudden. Relax. Imagine she’s your mom.
Well, she was her mother, but seemingly Mono’s words the other day got inside her head in the end.
A little bit.
“H-hi,” Viola greeted back, swallowing the lump gathering in her dry throat. Stars, her throat was annoyingly dry.
Six raised a brow but didn’t question. Or maybe she didn’t bother enough to question. “So, you ready?” Six asked.
Viola nodded in response, her courage building back up, determination rising in herself.
“Good. Then, let’s get going. We still have one more floor to cover, and this is the most important one yet.” Six moved past her, walking straight ahead towards the dressing room. The aura she held up was intimidating, her movements and walk confident akin to the woman who had stroked Viola’s hair every night as she’d sung to her.
That alone was enough to remind her how Six was no different from that woman. She wouldn’t grow up to be anyone else but that stern yet soft-hearted person.
If only it were that easy to convince Mono of that.
Viola heaved a sigh, finally following Six out. Yet her feet barely moved a few steps before it stopped again. And her eyes landed on the vanity table lined against the purple-red wall.
An oval shaped mirror sat atop the mahogany table, its glass long cracked beyond repair, distorting anyone’s reflection. Above the table, sat a couple of crystal bottles, an expensive-looking hairbrush, and a…
She froze, her eyes dead locked on a chest placed on the vanity. One that her mother would keep so high within her reach, just so the girl couldn’t be able to satisfy her curiosity.
The chest was decorated with beautiful and intricate carvings on its wood, rose gold lined on each side, the whole chest purely made of ebony. However, it was the eye carved in the centre that got her attention in the first place, a symbol she’d seen quite often on some of her parents’ items. And this eye detail, certainly was what got her to recognize the chest at first glance.
Viola felt her chest tighten. She couldn’t tear her eyes off it, sudden memories rushing back. And she certainly didn’t realize the yellow-hooded girl had turned back to approach her.
“What are you looking at?”
Viola all but jumped in surprise. She turned to Six, although still quite startled.
Six took notice, her eyes narrowed.
“Viola,” she called slowly as though a warning to answer her question with honesty or else.
“I…” Viola gulped. “I-I was looking at…that.” She pointed to the chest. It wasn’t like lying to Six about where she had her eyes could damage her whole “you’re-my-mother” secret.
Six followed her finger, her gaze too settling on the wooden chest. She let out a knowing “Ah,” and said, “That chest, you mean?”
Viola nodded, shyly so.
“You…ever know what’s inside it?” Viola asked.
A scoffed escaped her then. “Do I?” Six approached the table herself. Viola raised a brow, confusion on her features as she watched without a single clue as to why Six was pulling herself up the cushioned chair before jumping to the vanity table.
What is she doing? Despite asking herself that, Viola proceeded to follow along after a couple seconds of thinking—as well as the slight fear when Six already made it on top of the table, waiting.
Indeed, her mother’s child-self seemed to be scarier than the former. But would she ever make it known one day if everything went back to normal? By God, not a chance.
Viola eventually lifted herself up the surface and stood on the table, slightly panting. Six didn’t even break a sweat as she watched and most definitely was unbothered to give a hand with the way she had her arms crossed.
But after a beat, Six moved next to the chest and kneeled beside it.
“Uh Six? What are you…doing—?” Her question was interrupted as Six suddenly pushed the box forward to the middle in between them.
Six sharply exhaled after and stood up.
“You said you wanted to know what’s inside,” she said. “So, have at it.”
“Wait a second, I-I never said anything about wanting to open it! I only asked you if you know what’s inside!” Guilt clutch onto her heavy heart. The idea of opening the very chest her mother forbade her to even touch; it just felt utterly wrong to think about.
“And I don’t,” Six replied nonchalantly, which was such the opposite of Viola's tone now, “but aren’t you curious too?”
“You mean…you’ve never opened it?”
“More like couldn’t. The lid’s too heavy for me to open by myself.” Six brushed her hand on the chest, her fingers lightly tracing its design. “So…?” she invited, the barest glint of hopefulness in her eyes.
Viola sucked her teeth, the heaviness in her heart still very much there. She really didn’t want to ruin her mother’s privacy by going through her stuff, even though her curiosity was just killing her slowly on the inside at this point.
But still, it would be wrong to open the chest without her mother’s permission!
So, so wrong!
…
Although.
Six was her mother now.
So, technically, she did get her permission.
Which meant, opening the chest wasn’t… entirely wrong.
In a way.
Screw it. I’m doing this.
Viola got down beside the chest and gave a nod to Six, to which she replied with a small grin.
Together, they lifted the lid. Strained groans left them both as the lid began to move slightly. Boy, she wasn’t joking when she said this thing is heavy! The lid must’ve weighed the same as the log in the Wilderness, although that might be an exaggeration.
Regardless, their hard work paid off, and the chest opened wide with a ‘ thunk’ as the lid fell back.
The girls leaned in to take a closer look inside. But instantly, their faces shifted to one of…a mutual confusion.
Frankly, Viola had expected the chest to be filled with her mother’s private things as her father had once told Viola they used to send letters to each other. So, she was rather looking forward to reading the corny and lovey-dovey stuff her parents had wrote to one another, as that would explain why her mother kept such a thing out of Viola’s touch.
However, what laid inside the chest was nothing even close to that.
Inside the chest was covered neatly with red satin, and a white object was placed on the top.
A mask—an exact replica of her mother’s except for its size.
This one was tiny as if it was made to fit perfectly for a child.
Six was the first one to move. She picked up the porcelain mask gently as though it’d shatter with just one touch. It did seem that way at least. The mask had to be decades old, given the very faint cracks adorning its surface.
Both girls eyed the mask in Six’s hand, awe on the younger girl’s face.
And the words escaped her before she realized it.
“Try it on.”
Six gave Viola a look and raised her brow.
“Try it on?” Her voice held the faintest hint of hesitance and reluctance.
Viola raised her hands. “I mean— you don't have to if you don't want to! I'm just curious to see how it looks on someone. That's all.” She laughed sheepishly.
At that, Viola received another strange look from her future mother, her face clearly unamused. Perhaps a little disappointed too as the mask was all there was inside the chest she’d been trying to open.
Eventually, Six sighed and did as Viola said anyway.
Letting her hair free from her hood, Six wore the mask on her face, rather uncomfortably so, shifting the corners of it just to give herself some breathing space inside the mask. As well as hating the cold, rough texture it had when touched with her skin.
Regardless, the mask was a perfect fit.
Like it was made just for her alone.
“So,” Six said, “how do I look?” Her voice came out slightly muffled beneath the porcelain mask.
A soft smile slowly appeared on Viola, entranced by the familiarity that surged through her all at once.
It was as if…her mother was standing right before her.
Like she was actually here.
“You look great, mom.”
“What?”
Viola’s eyes widened.
WHAT.
Panic rushed through every cell of her body as Six quickly removed the mask off her face. And her expression did not give Viola any hope that she might’ve misheard.
Because Six heard her perfectly well of what she had just been called, her eyes immediately narrowed at the other girl.
“What did you just call me?” Six asked, taken aback by the…nickname.
But Viola's mind then decided to do the one thing she'd hoped it wouldn't do.
It blanked.
Not just blank as in not knowing how or what to say to cover her careless slip of a word. But this was total, full on blank . Static. A void in a void. The type where you couldn’t even remember your own name to save your own life!
To add on, her silence dragged on longer than it should have, and Viola was certain if she continued it, Six would become suspicious all the more.
Nevertheless, her mouth was still clamped shut, her throat constricted by the big lump in her throat.
And she lost her voice .
For the love of God, just say something!
Anything!
Talk!
“I-I…uhm… Mom . Y-you know?”
Six furrowed her brows, and her suspicions remained.
Mentally, Viola slammed her head on the table.
Yeah, probably should’ve just shut up.
“Mom…?” Six echoed after a while, but one could tell that her patience was running thin when she was given a vague answer. She put down the mask in the chest to cross her arms again. “Don’t you think we’re roughly the same age , Viola?” Irritation now added to her voice, almost offended at being implied old to that extent.
“No, no, no, you’ve got it all wrong!” Viola shook her head and hands incessantly. “This…the reason I, uh, called you that is because mom …stands for uhm, manager…of Maw?” Viola did a quick gasp. “Manager of the Maw!” Her answer left her faster than intended.
Which might or might not be helpful in her case.
But then nothing came from the yellow-hooded girl.
All Six did was give Viola another look as she received a nervous smile from her.
Viola had no way of telling if Six even bought that dumb excuse of hers, but she truly hoped—just this once—Six would be as dense as Mono was this whole time, no offense to him though. It was a wonder how he didn't figure it out at all.
Truly, his ignorance was a bliss. And Viola hoped Six shared some of that ignorance too—better yet, all of them.
Then something wonderful happened.
“Wow,” Six said.
Her prayers had been answered.
All the previous edge on Six's tone suddenly disappeared as a lighter one took over. Enough to tell Viola that the lie had been stupidly bought.
Regardless, she had never felt such relief course through her entire body. But like hell would she show that relief to Six out loud right after a miracle just happened. No, she wouldn’t dare throw it all away, even just to sigh.
“Where did you come up with that?” Six asked almost immediately, giving Viola barely any time to recover at all.
“Oh, I just figured, you know. Since you manage the Maw…and all that?”
Six hummed and nodded, her eyes flickering to the mask inside the chest, then back to her.
“So, then that makes me M.O.M?”
Lie. Just lie your way to victory.
“Yes. B-but, really though. It sounded way different in my head, and I…” Viola finally released her breath. “I never thought of how it’d sound like…out loud. I hope it isn’t weird or anything.”
“It is weird,” Six said boldly. “We’re practically the same age.” At that, Viola deflated, internally cringing. “But…I get where you’re coming from. Mono used to say weird things too. Then he’d get all annoying and stutter-y, like you are being right now,” she added.
Another mental sigh of relief.
However, it took her about a few good seconds to understand what Six truly meant and implied behind her words.
“Did you just call me…am I being annoying right now?”
Six eyed Viola up and down, as though deciding, accessing her.
But then, she waved her off.
“Don’t sweat it much. Your brother does a better job at that than you.”
“Oh, r-right. My brother… ”
“That being said, just please. Never call me M.O.M again. Especially in front of anyone . It'll be weird and embarrassing for the both of us if someone heard it without context.”
Red coloured Viola’s cheeks instantly as she averted her gaze in embarrassment.
“Again. So sorry about that.”
Six responded with a roll of her eyes as she slowly shook her head at the girl.
“Come on, let’s get on with the tour. We’re already behind schedule.” Six left the chest and made her way down the vanity table, gesturing Viola to follow suit as she exited the dressing room.
Of course, Viola dared not to let the girl wait for long.
However, not before sparing a look behind.
One last time she stared at the mask placed inside the chest, her mind replaying the whole scene from when she spit out the word to the one person she wasn’t supposed to.
That was so close.
With an exasperated sigh, Viola followed out of the room.
Thunder boomed in the sky of Pale City. Clouds as grey as they could be for days on end.
Citizens drenched terribly in its constant weather of rainstorm, streets empty of any life as water poured from the roofs and down to the drains, so much to leave the ground slightly flooded.
Numerous televisions had their screens in static, the air filled with its buzz as though a siren call for its audience, pulling those unfortunate scums into an addictive state where they could not escape.
High above all else, stood The Signal Tower at the very centre of the forsaken city.
Its beacon was still active, its outside walls full of the Transmission itself as it continued to radiate and transmit its now-weak, albeit just as deadly signal.
Indeed, the Tower could stand for a long time with its host present.
But how long could it stand without ?
Notes:
Thanks for reading!
Chapter 14: Please Do Not Intrude
Chapter Text
“So, that’s the Dining Hall.”
The girls watched from the Lady’s balcony, high up above and far from the lively feast fest below where the greedy, obese adults reside, drinking wine, shoving meat inside their already full mouth as though it would run out or be stolen by the others.
Even from up here, they could hear their loud chewing, their gluttony waving around in the air .
Viola wrinkled her nose, wanting to retch the longer she stared at those adults, yet unable to look away at the same time. Perhaps it was the knowledge of children being eaten on those plates, cooked human meat that made it even more disgusting to watch.
Because of that, she was partially glad her mother kept this a secret.
Still though, it didn’t mean this wasn’t wrong.
A Guest forced a steak far up his mouth, pushing almost his entire hand in. Viola mentally threw up, and finally looked away. Disgusting.
Beside her, was Six, who seemed to have taken a bit of entertainment upon seeing her reaction. But the girl’s grin quickly vanished back into a thin line as Viola turned to her.
“Gross, isn’t it?” Six said, discreetly amused.
Viola scrunched her forehead and frowned, still disgusted by the Guests below even through her peripheral. “I thought”—She took a breath—“I thought you’re showing me the Guests’ Area. A-and the Kitchen…”
“Silly,” Six whispered as her head shook. “Dining Hall is the Guests’ Area. It’s all just in a very big structure and design. So big that it’s even connected to the Kitchen and the Quarters.”
“It…it is?”
“Yeah. The elevator you took to get up here also opens to the hall. Why else did you think I specifically tell you not to press any other button besides the highest one?”
Viola gulped.
She couldn’t imagine what would’ve happened if she’d accidentally pressed the wrong floor whilst in the elevator. But Six had assured her it was her safest way to get upstairs!
Clearly nothing is safe inside the Maw.
A sigh left her. “So, where exactly is the Kitchen?”
Six hummed and leaned against the railing, her gaze to the restaurant below.
“Inside there.” She pointed to the restaurant, then turned back to Viola. “But trust me. You don’t want to see the Kitchen. If you can’t already stomach this, there’s no doubt you can’t handle what’s inside that slaughterhouse.” Six added, “The entrance of the restaurant is enough for you to know when to turn back; a warning not to go any closer. Be sure to keep that in mind.” She tapped the side of her temple.
Keep that in mind? I’ll remember it for the rest of my life.
“So…is that it?” Viola asked.
Six gave a nod. “I guess there aren’t many places that are fully safe for you to walk on your own. But for now, just remember,” Her eyes darkened all the sudden, her tone low and firm, “Guest Area, the Prison, and the Depths are restrictedly under a no-exploring zone. No matter the circumstances, do not go there. Is that clear?”
Intimidated, Viola quickly and vigorously shook her head.
The stern expression Six wore greatly reminded her of the time when her mother had scolded her for playing too far out into the forest back at home—when their life hadn’t been disrupted.
Her father, being the softer one among the two, had also given his fair shares of scolding, although he was rarely ever as stern as his wife, or rather, he had a hard time maintaining a stern demeanor for his daughter. Hence, her mother’s warnings were much more effective.
Still is now.
Six loosened herself, satisfied with the answer she received.
“Good,” she said. “Now, do you want me to follow you on your way back?”
Viola had no idea why she agreed.
The elevator sure was a convenient transport from one floor to another, from the top to the bottom, but the distance from it to her bedroom was still quite the walk—even with the shortcuts.
And fairly…dark.
So, maybe Viola did have an idea why she agreed to Six accompanying her like this. However, it was questionable why Six even offered to follow her back. And knowing her mother, she never did anything without a reason.
Despite Viola having only met Six for just nearly a week, she knew Six better than she let on.
Besides, Viola doubted Six walked her back to her room only for the sake of her safety. Though, it was a nice thought and much appreciated, nonetheless.
The elevator made a ‘ding’ and its doors began to open.
Dim lights hung every few meters on the ceiling, the lights swaying along with floors if it weren’t for the whole Maw being a ship that it was.
The boards creaked as they stepped out into the Lair’s hallway—a very long hallway.
Silence was all there was between them. Which to Viola, was awkward enough already. She cleared her throat every once in a while as if that would make her less nervous.
Because obviously, time slowed down on purpose to spite her.
“Viola.”
The girl turned to Six at the call of her name. “Yeah?”
Six paused, hesitance lingering in her movements as she slightly averted her gaze.
“I was wondering if Mono…would come out of his room any time soon?”
Viola closed her eyes, guilt weighing on her like boulders.
“I…don’t think so. He’s still pretty angry with the whole thing. Seems like he’s always angry these days.”
“Ah,” Six said. “I see…”
“B-but don’t feel bad or anything! He’s just trying to get used to the idea of being around you again. I’m sure everything will work out for you both. That is, after an apology—”
Six scoffed and stopped both of them in their tracks.
“You want me to apologize to him?” she asked as though it was a joke, to Viola’s irritation.
“Well, it’s obvious that both of you are hurting because of what happened. So, yes. I think an apology could be a start.”
Six shook her head, chuckling mirthlessly. “That’s not how it works, Viola.”
“What do you mean?”
She paused, looking at the younger girl with her lips pressed into a small smile, although her eyes showed nothing of mirth and amusement. Instead, it was hopelessness and chagrin.
“I broke his trust, and I have my reasons for it. But Mono, he just doesn’t understand that. No, he doesn’t want to understand that. He already sets it in his mind that I’m the villain and the devil; or I’m the one to blame for everything he went through. And when that happens, do you think me apologizing would change anything?”
“You could try .”
“And if he says no?” she asked. “Why go through all of it when I already know his answer?”
Viola fell silent, unable to persuade Six with words reasonable enough to make her cooperate with her reconciliation plan. Not an idea or an excuse came to help, leaving her with a silence packed with heavy tension.
Six noticed it too as she sighed through her nose.
Because they both knew Six was right. They both knew his answer would be a “no”.
Even Mono had said so himself.
“So, you’re really…not going to do anything then?” Viola asked, still somewhat hopeful, despite knowing that hope would be tarnished in the end.
“Doing nothing is better than a genuine apology, Viola. I’d rather spare myself from the humiliation.”
Viola’s face faltered harder than before, her heart crushed hearing what Six told her.
She couldn’t believe it. Was it really that impossible to fix their broken friendship? When she had asked Mono, he had declined for a reconciliation. Part of her had deflated that night, but she still kept her hopes up for Six’s answer, thinking she might have a different opinion than her old friend.
Though, now?
It was 0 for 0 for both Mono and Six.
This isn’t the future. Six isn’t your mother, and she won’t see you as her daughter. Those had been Mono’s exact words. And now, Viola was starting to believe they might be true.
Ding!
The sound rang in the air.
In seconds, the two girls shifted themselves to the elevator at the end of the hall. Its gate creaked heavily. The whole lift seemingly had just stopped moving after taking its passenger from another floor.
One huge figure stood in the middle of the shaft, and his groans traveled to them.
A Guest.
“Son of a…” Six muttered in contempt. Different kinds of anger displayed in her tone and features, but fear wasn’t included among them. Not like Viola who froze as the doors began to open.
However, before Viola could blink the second time, she felt her arm being tugged by Six, and she was immediately pulled into one of a hidden spot she never knew existed—thank stars for Six having known the secret hiding places.
It was one of those big cracks on the walls that created a hole big enough for any child to fit through.
They both hid inside. The light from outside penetrated through the small gaps of the wooden walls, giving them barely any source of light. The floor was coated with decades worth of collected dust, the corners of the spaces occupied with cobwebs.
Viola and Six stayed hidden in the darkness. The latter, however, then put a finger to her lips.
In response, Viola placed both her hands over her mouth, knowing her breathing was getting irritatingly loud.
A big shadow loomed over them, an indication that the Guest was standing right where they had been.
And right in front of their hiding place.
Six growled silently as she glared daggers at the adult. She took a deep breath and turned to Viola. Her glare was still present, but Viola knew it wasn’t directed at her.
“Stay here,” Six whispered. “And don’t come out. ”
It was all that she spared before Six abruptly left Viola on her own, scared, and anxious for the girl and for herself. Viola barely had time to stop her as Six already stepped out to bravely face the Guest—which any sane person would acknowledge, was 10 times bigger than her.
Regardless, Viola did as she was told. She trusted her mother to…finish her deed safely. Though, the thought of her killing still left a bad taste on her tongue no matter how much she tried to push away.
The Guest made an awful scream, the ground shaking after as a loud thud followed. By then, Viola figured the body must’ve already hit the ground, and half her mind allowed her to feel relieved, whereas the other kept on guard.
Because what came next was the sound of meat being torn apart.
And then something chomping it.
Wait.
That fear she thought had long dissolved returned twice its amount. Because if something was chomping, eating, she dreaded if it were her mother being the victim. Viola dreaded if it were her mother’s meat, the one being torn apart.
But that couldn’t be possible!
She heard the Guest die! Viola heard him make a gurgle sound before his body hit the floor!
Unless…
The Guest hadn’t been fully dead. The adult only feigned its death to trick Six into a false sense of security. So, if that had been the case, then Six must’ve fallen for it.
And the Guest was indeed eating her now.
No, no, no, no, no!
Viola wasn’t going to sit in here with her ears closed when her mother needed her help! She wasn’t going to let her mother die being eaten! Because if Six died now, what would even happen to herself?
She halted her train of thoughts. Enough thinking, time for more doing.
Six needed her help. So, she was going to help.
But…
Viola was wrong.
Because regret bloomed in her chest after taking sight of what was in front of her now.
Turns out, Six didn’t need any help as she was fully capable of managing the Guest herself.
Her future mother was seen on top of the Guest’s chest, kneeling just before its throat. Blood dripped down from the man’s windpipe, his larynx taken out little by little as Six dug her hands deeper before heaving it out and throwing it away on the floor, as though that was junk rather than someone’s voice box.
Again and again she did this, like she was picking out a prize.
Most of it surprisingly just involved her using her hands as she used her teeth only to pull open the hard skin wider.
The chewing sound she’d make from time to time was only her trying to get the meat stuck between her teeth that she’d spit out after.
The man beneath her was already limp, his eyes missing any life as Six continued to carve out his throat. And by the way Six proceeded without a care, it told Viola enough that her presence wasn’t noticed.
Viola only stood there. She couldn’t…understand it. She couldn’t grasp why Six was doing what she was doing now.
If Six had already taken the man’s soul—killed the man with just a wave of her hand, then why make it bloody? Why did she have to have his blood pooled all over the floor? Why did she need to get her hands dirty when she didn’t have to?
Six is a lost cause, Mono’s voice echoed in her mind.
Viola frowned deeper, her heartbeat increasing as the smell of copper reached her nose. Why did she have to do it this way?
Suddenly, Six stopped. She stood up. A glance over her shoulder was all it took to make Viola flinch, even if it was unintentional. It took everything in her not to back away from Six when she jumped down from the man’s corpse, but everything was not enough.
The blood around her mouth, hands and across her yellow coat made it harder.
Six’s expression fell slightly, and some of her true emotions inevitably seeped through her blank face, exposing herself. Six took a step towards the wall. Viola recoiled again.
Once more, Six’s eyes faltered despite her trying to harden it. She remained where she was.
“I told you not to come out,” Six eventually said. She clenched her fist and kept her stare on Viola, though a tiny hint of fear finally danced in her empty eyes.
Curious, what could Six be afraid of? Another one hating her?
Viola gulped and took her time. She couldn’t help but cast a glance or two to the dead man’s body.
Her stomach churned.
“Why did you…do that?” Viola asked.
Six furrowed her brows and followed her glances.
“ This ? This is for everyone’s safety. Including yours.”
“But he’s already dead. You…you didn’t have to rip his throat out!”
“Actually, I did ,” she replied, her eyes narrowed. “This man was roaming in the wrong place at the wrong time, and he shouldn’t have taken that elevator to the Lair; he shouldn’t have been here at all . So for that, he paid the price. And besides…” Six approached Viola slowly, wiping her bloodied hands off her coat. She stopped before the crack. “I had to send a clear message.”
Or in other words:
Anything outside of the Guests’ Area was off-limits.
Viola turned her stare back to the Guest. The blood had already spread all around his head, leaving the man to lie in the pool with his arms limp at his sides, his eyes half-lidded.
Her eyes darted to his throat next. It was packed with the color red. She barely could see the missing chunk of meat, but she already knew where the meat was thrown, though.
Bile was in the back of her throat, on standby when more of that copper smell ambushed her nose. She retched a little in her mouth.
How could anyone live in this place for decades upon decades?
“You know I did it for a reason, right?”
Six’s voice brought Viola out of her internal vomiting session.
“What?”
Six tilted her head towards the laying man as she clasped her hands.
“The Guest,” she said. “If I hadn’t killed him the way I did, the others might find the courage and do it again. They get greedy when their food comes late, so sometimes they come down here to find one themselves.”
“Find one…themselves? You’re saying the food they’re served upstairs isn't enough?”
“Greedy, I tell you. Almost nothing can satiate them.”
Six gave her a reassuring grin, easing the tension slightly as well as Viola’s fear.
And with that little smile on Six’s face, it did make her feel better—help her forget that Six had just created a bloody mess outside. True what Six did may be a little brutal, but then again, perhaps the Guest really did deserve his fate for what he had done—for what he had eaten.
Viola slowly returned the smile, causing Six’s to widen genuinely. Though Six would seriously kill her if she pointed that out.
“So,” Six said lightly, “are you coming out or are you afraid of me too?”
Viola scoffed and let herself wear a bigger, soft smile.
She could never be afraid of her mother.
Not in a million years.
…
Okay, that was a lie.
She had been afraid of her mother once in a while—both adult and child, apparently. Oh, how she wished her father were here to back her up on this. Because the man himself had admitted to her once that he too feared her mother sometimes.
Perhaps if Mono wasn’t so hell-bent on hating Six, he and Viola could’ve had that small fear in common.
Viola stepped out into the light, finally leaving her hiding spot. She turned her head one last time to the Guest on the swaying floor.
“Leave him,” Six’s voice spoke beside her, and she added darkly, “I’m bringing the body to the Dining Hall later.” With that, Six continued to walk ahead without her.
Viola choked on her breath, and her eyes widened. “ O-on your own ?” She rushed to catch up to her.
Six gave her a side-eye glance, and asked, “You’re not going to whine to Mono if you have nightmares over this, are you?” The warning glare and tone returned to her face. “I already warned you not to come out. You just didn’t listen.”
“Because I thought that man was eating you!”
“And if I was?” she quipped, raising a brow. “If that was what happened and you came out anyway, you would’ve been eaten too. At least if you didn’t, one of us will still be alive.”
“I…guess so.”
Well, that certainly is depressing to think about.
Viola sighed heavily.
Today was…something. Different than the rest at least, and the first of some action she’d gotten in a while.
Though in truth, Six was the one doing most of the action while Viola did, well, basically nothing . Regardless, Six’s earlier…performance was a tad bit gory and ended with a bloodbath, Six had said—genuinely had said it was done out of the sake of everyone’s safety .
And if Six could care about someone else’s well being other than her own…
Then, Mono’s judgement had been wrong, and Viola stood corrected. Reconciling was possible.
Difficult, but possible.
Nevertheless, there was another issue Viola needed to solve. Since nudging those two towards voluntarily apologizing to each other was a no-go, it left her with not much of choice but to…somehow force them together to patch things up.
So, with a strategy in mind, Viola thought through it all on the way until she reached back to her room. A devious plan that she thought of. It had to be done at the perfect time, the perfect place and with the perfect lie.
Neither Mono nor Six would see it coming. That, she was certain.
They both were going to be super pissed at her for this, though.
Notes:
Meanwhile, Mono in his room...
Mono: *bangs his head on the wall in boredom*
Thanks for reading!
Chapter 15: Deception
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Mono was nervous.
Truth be told, he had been hesitant—still was—when Viola had offered him a tour around the Maw. He had told her he’d think about it, and he had. Thoroughly so. With the amount of time he had on his hands, doing nothing but resting to the point where it became so tiring just by the sight of his own bed, he decided to accept her offer.
It would do him more good than harm, he figured.
Go out and breathe some air, use his legs for better purposes rather than to use it to climb or get off his bed—seriously, it would do him a lot of good and literally no harm at all. Adding on, Viola would be the one with him the whole time, which meant farewell to seeing Six’s stinking face. Goodbye to that ugly yellow raincoat! Even though he had complimented her for wearing it once.
But that was his own stupidity. That raincoat looked hideous now.
Mono rubbed his palms together, no doubt sweaty as his heart took pace when he—for the first time in…a week?—stepped out of his room. Viola came at his side next, her soft smile ready to reassure him.
Well, he wouldn’t say that it helped him totally. After all, her face still held some resemblance to Six, which the latter was stupid enough to not have noticed until now.
Seriously, what an idiot, he jibed in his mind.
“You good to go?” Viola asked.
Mono heaved in a deep breath and released it after a second along with his anxiety and hesitation. He gave her a firm nod, eyes brimmed with a newfound determination that he had put away.
“Let’s do this.”
Minutes.
That was how long he’d been following Viola’s lead. His head turned nearly everywhere as he took in these new surroundings, the details much more interesting compared to the one in his room which was long a snore. It was nice to be exposed to new scenery that wasn’t, well, beds.
He also learned this place; the Lair was only the lower level and there were actually others above them. Viola explained whilst they walked, passing rooms after rooms that held more than just swaying lights and empty crates. Which also forced him to wonder.
Where exactly were they going?
Every time they encountered an important area, one that he thought was the place Viola would stop to show him, the girl always ended up walking ahead and ignored the room, repeating the same words each time he voiced his confusion.
Where we’re going is much cooler.
Honestly, it was not not suspicious, but knowing himself Mono realized his immense trust issues, born from Six’s betrayal, could be the reason why his stomach wasn’t sitting easy every time the girl told him that. Not to mention the smirk she’d wear after.
Nevertheless, Mono only nodded and believed her. Maybe there was someplace cool that she wanted to show him. Wouldn’t want to wreck his first day out by being too on edge, would he?
“Hey, so, how actually cool is this place?” Mono eyed the darkened hall, noticing how the place had become dimmer than a few minutes ago.
Viola turned to him—again with that smirk she thought he wouldn’t notice.
“Very.”
Mono furrowed his brows as he waited for an elaboration. Which she did not give, thanks to her being vague. But still, he kept his patience and followed her, regardless of him starting to become antsy when the walk dragged on for another minute or two.
He was certain he could never find his way back now.
It was too late for that minutes ago.
“We’re here.” Viola announced, and he looked up to the massive door that sat in front of them.
Like any other doors that he’d seen on this ship, the steel door was decorated with an eye symbol in its center. But he knew better by now that the eye was nothing less than just a symbol. As he had had his discovery during the first day, he learned that the little eye was capable of spying too. As for who would do such a thing though, he only had one person in mind.
Ahem, Viola’s ‘loving’ mother.
So, whatever Six was doing now in her spare time, she had better not be spying on them now. Or else he would personally introduce her to hell.
That is to say, if Viola wasn’t in the picture, or really, present to see him do the deed.
“Uh, where are we?” he asked.
“Only the coolest place you’ll ever see. Everything—behind this door.” Viola smiled. Too innocently, might he add.
Mono narrowed his eyes at her, then up at the door. He sighed. Giving in to his curiosity, he pushed the door open, its hinges groaning loudly as it opened wider.
But nothing could prepare him for the ‘thing’ Viola claimed to be cool.
This. This was far from cool.
His lips instantly curled into a snarl, eyes pooling with utter hatred as the color yellow appeared in his line of sight.
“Six.”
The girl cocked her head from the lighter she had been playing in her hand, and she unintentionally flicked her lighter closed when they met each other’s gaze. But the look on her indicated enough that she too wasn’t expecting to see him.
“Mono?” Six slightly pushed herself away from the wall she’d been leaning on, her eyes widening. “What— what are you doing here?” she asked, her question more in disbelief rather than an accusation.
His blood burned. He clenched his already tightened fist, hiding his anger by averting his eyes away from both the girls.
Viola, he hissed her name mentally.
The girl in the dark coat emerged beside him.
“So, slight change of plans…”
Mono held no more patience to even let her finish as he harshly dragged Viola out of the room himself. He released her and slammed the door closed behind him; his ire apparent as the ground nearly shook from the slam.
Viola, no longer having that innocent smirk, finally displayed some fear as she rubbed her arm.
“Before you get angry—”
“Oh, I’m way past angry,” he spat out. “What the hell is this? What is she doing in there, Viola?”
“Because I…I told her to...?”
“You what ?” he seethed.
“Look, I’m sorry, okay! I didn’t mean to trick you into seeing her, but I…I have tried asking you both nicely, and you refused! None of you would even try to talk . ”
“There is nothing to talk about.” He scowled.
“But there is!” she said desperately. “You both have so much to talk things over! I know you— where are you going?”
Mono stopped and turned to her, already a few steps away.
“Leaving. I’m going back to my room.”
“Wait, what? Already? But y-you just got out!”
“Like I said, I have nothing to talk about with that traitor,” he added, “and I don’t want to. So if your whole idea of ‘tour’ from the start was, really, just you trying to trick me into this crazy game of yours, then I’m not playing. I’m not doing this.”
Viola drew her lips into a thin line, her teeth clenched inside her mouth, seemingly holding back her impatience from blowing up into his face.
But she took in a breath and only sighed.
“Fine then.”
That made him give Viola a second glance her way, his brows furrowed.
Fine? Just like that?
He certainly had thought she’d put up more of a fight into persuading him to stay, but he was glad she didn’t, honestly. Her letting this go was a much better thing. Easier for him to just…forget this ever happened—and frankly, trust Viola less when it involved Six.
At least, the girl knew when to stop as she leaned herself against the side wall, nodding for him to go ahead.
Mono stared at her carefully, observing her face for any clues regarding her sudden compliance.
Which in the end, he accepted without a complaint.
So, with a sarcastic “thank you”, he merrily turned his back to her and went his way like before Viola had interrupted him.
“Good luck finding your way back, Mono.”
And there it was.
He stopped dead in his tracks soon as he heard her. And came the horrifying realization dropping on him like a bomb.
Slowly, Mono turned around.
Viola raised her brows knowingly at him, a smirk plastered on her lips with her arms crossed.
“Something wrong?” she asked.
The nerve of this kid.
A forced chuckle left Mono, but clearly it was a façade to hide the annoyance under it, his patience running on thin ice.
“You little sly jerk .” He made his way back to Viola, fists balled at his side. “You knew I wouldn’t be able to get back on my own, didn’t you? That’s why you purposely dragged me in circles earlier. You wanted to make sure I won’t remember the way, so I can’t go back without talking to Six first!" He gave a slow clap, and said, "Well then, let me just say: impressive, Viola. Bravo. You finally got what you wanted.”
Viola mirrored his frown as she noticed the bitterness in his tone, the anger that was once directed to Six now shifting to her.
"It's…It's not like that, okay? I-I'm doing this for a good reason."
"Good reason? What good can possibly come out of this? Us patching up? Me and Six being friends again? Then, happily forget it all just because of it? That's not how these things work, Viola—!"
"I know that!"
Mono took a step back, slight surprise to him when the girl raised her voice to him in such a manner he'd never seen before.
And Viola, realizing it, quickly shook off her temper by looking away, heaving a deep breath, her face crestfallen and nearly defeated as her voice.
"I know that…" she repeated softly. Another breath was taken before she sighed. "Look," she said, "I know you've told me before that you…won't forgive her for what she's done. And I'm not asking you to do that. I have no right to. Everything about this is between you and Six, and I shouldn't be the one who decides whether you both make up or not.
"But please. Please try and talk to her about what happened. That's all I'm asking. That's all I want…"
Mono’s glare softened over time, the anger he compiled and stored clamped in his fist dissipating as it relaxed, and instead he wore a small frown.
"That's it?"
"That's it…" Viola nodded in reply, her hands clasped together as though in silent begging.
An exasperated sigh escaped him, and he dragged a hand across his face then, slowly accepting his one and only option.
“You really aren’t going to stop pushing until Six and I talk, are you?”
At that, Viola’s smile returned to her lips, in fact growing wider than before as if it was the best thing she’d heard today, even though it was quite the contrary to him.
Though really, what other choice did he have?
If he had known how to get back to his room on his own, then maybe he could’ve gotten himself out of this situation. But instead, his only option was either Viola or Six to tell him the way, which the former was using as her advantage for him and Six to ‘talk’ and, god forbid, even reconcile.
There wasn’t a chance he’d want to do any forms of reconciliation.
But if only talking was good enough for Viola, then…
Fine.
Besides, it’d be intriguing to know what Six would say once they did talk.
Viola made her way to the door, then gestured for him to follow.
Reluctance radiated stronger off of him for each step closer he took, and his frown seemed to have stuck itself onto his face like paste.
He pushed the door open.
Instantly, he was met with Six right in front of him, but she backed away soon as the door swung. Which clearly exposed what she had been doing on the other side this whole time.
He shot her a scowl “Had fun eavesdropping?” he hissed at her.
Six did not pay his comment any mind—at least verbally—as she quickly shifted to Viola, her face stern and slightly betrayed. As Mono was correct in her eavesdropping, it also meant that some things were heard.
And Viola was still left on the hook for one more.
“Did you lie to me, Viola?” Six flashed her a hard stare, sending the girl into a state of anxiety.
And her anxiety seemed to have worsened when Mono added the weight of his own heavy stare.
“I-I did…I did lie. And I’m sorry,” she said, guilt present on her features. “I’m sorry for tricking you both into doing this. I know for a fact that you guys are furious right now, which”— Viola snuck a glance at their narrowed glares pointed at her—“probably isn’t a good thing… for me . But these things happen, am I right?” She tried to ease the tension with a laugh, although sounding forced and nervous despite trying not to be.
Also the fact that she was the only one laughing right now.
Neither Mono nor Six lifted their glare off her, causing Viola to shrink more under their eyes.
Viola eventually ceased her small laugh and cleared her throat.
Apparently she had successfully made the situation 10 times more awkward than it already was.
“S-so, you can go ahead and transfer all of that anger to me, alright?” Viola added lightly.
Again, no one responded to her question as the two former friends kept their eyes on her.
“Alright,” Viola answered herself, and clasped her hands. “So, then. I guess…I’ll just see myself out. Try not to kill each other.”
Her attempt at lightening up the vibe was, once again, unsuccessful. And her crack of a joke was not well-received as Mono and Six seemed more and more offended by it, their eyes narrowing at her.
A clear indication it was her cue to leave.
Mono watched Viola leave in such a rush, driven by fear and discomfort of course.
But soon as she closed the door behind her, he was unfortunately reminded of the fact that he was still in the same room as the person who had tried to kill him.
He eventually had to turn to Six as she did the same.
Neither exchanged a single thing but a glare and scowl, body language nothing but hostility and even a glint of murderous intent as his next half hour were to be spent with the girl he utterly loathed.
This should be a treat.
Viola sighed in relief behind the door.
That was…intense.
The look on their faces, the disappointment, the annoyance, the fury; Viola felt as if she was seconds away from cracking like glass under pressure in that room.
Regardless, this had to be done one way or another.
By putting those two in the same room with the intention to have a whole-hearted conversation, it should create some progress with their current relationship now.
Though whether they’d actually talk in the way Viola had in mind, she didn’t know. There was a good chance they’d just use this chance to just hurl insults at each other again. Or start a fistfight in her absence.
Then everything she’d done today would be…pointless.
So, she really counted on them both—mostly Mono though, given he was the likeliest one to provoke Six—to do it right this time. Use this moment to…reconcile subconsciously.
Viola sneakily pressed her ear against the door.
She scoffed after a few seconds.
Of course it was radio silence. It wasn’t a surprise if they’d rather talk to walls than to each other.
Why can’t those two just make up?
She sighed in exasperation.
Perhaps…she should come back later.
Give them some adequate amount of time to really talk things over and take their time. After all, she’d just be wasting her own if she stayed outside the door like a guard dog.
So, leaving her place, she went towards the hallway, her walk and posture just as despondent as her heart. And her hand absentmindedly played with the locket she wore, her intrusive thoughts occupying her mind.
Somehow it wasn’t hard to pretend as if she was a divorced child at this rate.
She wondered if they were finally talking now or still in silence out of pride. The latter might be more likely than the former, knowing how they were. Plus, they were literally children like her, which meant maturity wasn’t something that could be expected from the two.
Not that she ever did, anyway.
She didn’t put her hopes up high for them to act exactly like her parents despite them being the same person, but boy did she miss them. She missed her parents more than she could think of them.
She missed her father’s awful jokes and punchlines that he’d share with her from time to time, laughing boisterously to silly sentences that her mother could never understand.
She missed her mother’s singing, her beautiful melody lulling her to sleep at night after a long day, her gentle touch of hand stroking her hair until sleep claimed her.
Viola paused, feeling a sudden tightness in her chest.
It’d been a while since she actually…thought of them that way.
So busy with figuring out how to help her current parents, she didn’t stop to remember her old ones.
The ones that…left her.
Her grip tightened.
But out of her careless hold, the string around her neck gave out and snapped.
Viola gasped as her locket fell to the ground, a thud following.
Her heart jumped, everything in her panicking at the prospect of her losing the one thing she had left from home.
The only thing she had left of them.
On her knees, she instantly took the necklace inside her palm where it was safe, where it wouldn’t be lost.
A bit of relief washed over her.
She then raised the locket, holding it close to her chest as if it was a fragile thing, as if it was nearly shattered into pieces.
Though she knew that was impossible, provided its material.
Viola eventually rose to her feet. Now that she accidentally broke the string, she might need to find a replacement quickly before it actually went lost. She couldn’t imagine what would’ve happened if that was the case.
But for now, she’d just have to hold on to it.
“Viola!”
Viola stilled.
Slowly, she turned to the room next to her. She stood there, dumbfounded, and she waited in silence with her ears out as if to prove herself that the voice she’d heard wasn’t who she thought it was.
Alas, she couldn’t prove herself wrong.
“Viola!”
That…
That was a woman’s voice.
Specifically, one that she was just thinking about moments ago.
Viola quickly stepped inside the room, her eyes darting to every corner in hopes to find the source.
“M…mom?” Her voice trembled as the lump in her throat returned.
“Viola!”
Static overwhelmed her mother’s voice this time, sending Viola into a state of distress as her mind came to realization.
A television.
It was coming from a television.
“M-mom!” Viola chased after her voice.
If her memory wasn’t failing her, there was only one television on this floor. However, the problem was of the Maw’s conjoined design of the Lair. If she could find her way—if she could just remember the exact location of where she and Mono were spat out from the TV, she could get to her mother.
She could help get her out of whatever was keeping her.
Her mother shouted for her again, each call sounding more and more desperate, and for every desperation in her tone, the static followed louder, buzzing on top of it.
Viola clenched her fist, so her locket wouldn’t fall out as she ran. And it felt like she was running for hours if it had not been for the television that finally appeared in her peripheral.
She stopped herself in her tracks, backing a few steps and settling there with one hand clutching the doorframe, her chest heaving for air she didn’t have time to catch.
The television whined painfully in her ears, the faint vibration from its buzz ghosting on her fingertips. The image it displayed on its screen, however, was nothing but a white glow, glitching ever-so-slightly.
Though her mother’s voice was no longer there.
Viola’s hand dropped to her side.
“Mom?”
Once again, her legs moved without her permission, and it was until her eyes began to hurt that she realized she was sitting right before the bright television. This terribly bright, eye-straining television.
Her eyes darted across the screen, searching it as though she could see through it, hoping to find her mother in the dull sea of white and gray static.
Out of desperation, she dared herself to touch the cold glass.
The feeling was not unfamiliar. The rippling electricity dancing on her skin, the buzz swirling beneath her palm—they were all sensations she had felt and learned to control before.
However, this felt…foreign.
Like she wasn’t supposed to touch it at all.
Should she even?
Her hand balled on the screen.
Where was the voice she’d been hearing for the last minute? Where was her mother? Where was her voice?
The television glowed on and off, its whine changing uncontrollably as though to answer her.
But was it truly conversing with her? Or better yet, was this even her mother ?
Viola stayed there on the floor, her hands loosening as she observed the television’s change. Her lips parted to gasp silently when she felt a sudden shift below her palm, a familiar warmth touching her skin as if someone she knew was on the other side.
Over time, the warmth became more and more overwhelming, and she brightened with hope that she’d found the woman.
Viola gasped in disbelief as she could feel everything.
Yet everything…
Everything turned to nothing.
Everything disappeared in seconds.
The glow of the television dimmed all the sudden, the high whine shifting to low, the vibration of the buzz becoming almost non-existent.
Viola pressed her palm harder towards the glass, her eyes widening, watering in confusion and irk as she watched the TV power down.
“No…”
The warmth was gone.
She hit the screen. “No!” She hit it again. Each strike, harder than the last.
But it seemed as if no matter how hard she did so, nothing would bring back the warmth.
Nothing would bring back her mother’s voice.
Viola gritted her teeth together, having lost all the rage in her to keep on striking soon enough. She stared at the white screen with her vision stinging.
She stared for so long until she couldn't bring herself to do so anymore.
Closing her eyes in defeat, she let herself rest against it instead, her eyes looking down to the locket in her hands as her tears finally dropped.
Fool was what she was.
But carelessness was a better fit for her.
The television shrilled.
Only a second was given for Viola to hear before a strong pull yanked her figure from behind, instantly pulling her into the screen until everything of her vanished inside.
And all that was left of the girl was the locket she once held in her palm, now laying on the floor.
Notes:
Thanks for reading!
Chapter 16: Inevitable Talk
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Silence overwhelmed the room where the two enemies were put in. And Six kept count of how long neither spoke a word.
Five minutes.
That was exactly the time so far.
Don’t be mistaken, Six preferred silence over anything else. She enjoyed the quietness, enjoyed the tranquility it brought her as she sucked in every breath without anyone bothering her. Lonely as it’d be sometimes, she liked her calm solitude life. She was comfortable and was used to working by herself with silence as her company.
However…
This silence was painful.
Awfully, agonizingly— awkward.
Uncomfortable at best.
Well the first two minutes were fine, honestly. It was after that that made her want to knock herself out into a coma and put this miserable silence to an end.
Because every time—and by that, every single time—Six dared a glance at Mono, she’d catch him staring at her, which he would then respond by looking away as if to act cool or nonchalant or unbothered by her being there even though he clearly was. But observing his stupidity would mean that she was the one staring like a creep now.
Six had lasted about three seconds until her head had turned on its own, doing herself a favor by looking down at the floor.
She’d rather pretend to be more interested looking at the ground than let her pride be wounded should he call her out for staring. Though in her defense, he stared first.
Admittedly, this whole thing was a pointless occurrence—as she had told Viola, but the girl was stupid enough not to listen to her. Again.
But what to do? Take Mono back herself?
Six chuckled mentally. Yeah. Like that would happen.
The guy wouldn’t even look her in the eyes without that un-intimidating glare of his, much less trust her to show him where to go.
Six shifted in her corner, and slowly eyed the boy across the room through her peripheral, daring herself to see what he was up to.
But again, their eyes accidentally met.
And they caught each other’s gaze in unison.
In the moment of immense discomfort and awkwardness, Six quickly averted her stare away from him and settled it anywhere but his side of the room.
As for Mono, he went back to ‘examining his nails’, scrutinizing his own hand as if he wasn’t born with it.
Both continued this cycle of avoiding and ignoring each other. And before she knew it, five minutes already turned to eight minutes.
Now this. This was one of the worst days she had ever had in her 9 years of living as it successfully topped being chased in the Wilderness.
And stars, she hated the warmth spreading across her cheeks.
The moment she felt his eyes on her again.
That’s it.
Six forced herself to turn to him.
As expected, Mono had already looked away, his pose the same as minutes before as if he hadn’t just been staring like she knew he had. But that, Six wasn’t going to call him out for it.
She was aware of the reason she was here—regardless of it happening because Viola lied to get her to come down to the Lair which, her excuse, had been to show her something…cool? Whatever it was, Six should’ve seen it sooner—and it wasn’t all that hard to connect the dots.
Viola made it obvious when she forced her own brother to talk with his hated enemy. She practically begged for him to see her just so Six could have the chance to…
Give a useless apology .
One that Viola wouldn’t stop pushing her for until she said it to him.
“Mono.”
Her call was soft and gentle, unprovoking and filled with not a drop of mockery. That being said, her doing so was instantly repaid by his fair and thoughtful gesture as he kindly…
Ignored her.
Six frowned when he leisurely continued examining his nails. Did he not hear her? Actually, how could he have not heard her? The room was barely that spacious to begin with. Despite this, there was such a thing as giving the benefit of the doubt.
So, she tried again. Louder this time, however, sticking with the same gentle tone.
“Hey, Mono.”
The boy responded by… still examining his nails.
Six exhaled deeply through her nose, closing her hands into tight fists as her patience drew as thin as paper.
Because he clearly heard her the first time.
“OI DEAF—!”
“WHAT?!”
Finally, he gave her his full attention.
She knew what she said wasn’t a good way to start, but he was toying with her patience long enough. And with the way his scowl pierced her, it was an indication the insult had worked.
Six breathed in a long breath and released slowly—slow just so she could delay the inevitable by three seconds more.
“I’m…sorry.” She could hardly say it out loud without looking away.
Mono shot her a nasty scowl.
“You’re sorry ?”
“Yes.”
Again, she willed herself to look at his death glare. But when he raised a brow, urging her to finish, Six nearly choked up on her words.
Because that literally was her only answer.
“I’m…sorry for…you know,” she added.
Silence passed through them once more. Six was almost proud of herself for spitting out the word she rathered not say. And this silence too, she was assured that it was only him processing her powerful words.
But process, he did.
Though, his reaction wasn’t what she expected.
“What the hell was that?”
Six paused, blanking slightly. “An apology. Was I not clear?”
“It’s a terrible apology!” Mono looked at her in disbelief when her brows furrowed all the more. “You tried to kill me, Six. And now you’re saying sorry? Just sorry?”
She lost her words then and there as she averted her eyes, hearing the boy across her scoff incredulously when she staggered to give him a response.
“Unbelievable…” Mono muttered. “You pathetic, unbelievably selfish monster —!”
“Well, what do you want me to say, hm? Viola made you do this too, but I don’t see you doing any talking.”
“Because you’re the one who should be talking! You were the one who betrayed me!”
“So, does it mean that I’m supposed to be held accountable for everything? To be blamed for all that led you up to this? Because the last time I checked, you weren’t so innocent either, Mono .”
“What?” he blurted out, sheer disbelief in his eyes. “No. No— just don’t. Don’t even try and turn this on me when you were the one that screwed up! Because the last time I checked, I never left you behind when you were in trouble! I never left you behind for anything!
“But you did!”
At her yell, Mono’s scowl faltered slightly.
The awful silence returned. They both stared into each other, however, none of the looks they exchanged spoke anything of hatred. In these few seconds of quiet, neither displayed any hostility as one showed surprise, whereas the other embarrassment.
Embarrassed that she had shown him a moment of weakness.
Embarrassed that he was looking at her with a hidden concern and guilt for what he had said.
Six closed her eyes and heaved another deep breath before she let them re-open.
His face did not change. He still hadn’t moved.
She sighed and rubbed her face, exasperated.
“Look, I’ve already…I’ve already given you an apology, okay? One that I’m…not even willing to give,” she said hesitantly. “So that’s that. Take it or don’t, that’s up to you.” Six dropped her hand back at her side and met his eyes as her own hardened. “Just do what you want.”
Six left her place and approached the door, turning her back on the boy who stood there frozen.
But she couldn’t care less anymore.
She wouldn’t stay in this room just to be criticized by him all day. She’d said her piece. She’d said what needed to be said. And if Mono wasn’t going to accept it, then their supposed confrontational meet up was as good as over.
She was done.
Mono’s gaze followed Six as she walked away, his brows scrunching in slight surprise and disbelief that she was leaving.
Though, his opinion wasn’t her concern. It wasn’t her problem.
If Viola wanted her brother back, she knew where to find him.
“So, that’s it?”
Six stopped at the door as he asked, but never did she glance over her shoulder to look at him. No, she didn’t even want to.
She heard him move behind her, taking his own small steps close yet not enough for her to assume he was right behind.
“You’re just going to leave me again? Abandon me here?”
Her eye twitched at that, though she’d rather lose a finger than let him know.
A sigh left her.
“Viola knows where you are. She knows where to find you. So, just stay put until she comes back.”
Six raised her hand up to the handle and pulled it. The hinges groaned as it swung open, and the hallway in front of her was revealed.
She took a step out.
“Why did you do it?”
Once again, his voice interrupted her. Six halted.
His question, however, she didn’t need to ask him furthermore as she already knew what he meant. And that alone made it harder to speak.
At her silence, she could sense his impatience growing, urging him to come closer towards her.
“Six,” he said, almost like a warning. “Why did you do it?”
She didn’t answer.
Her frown etched deeper on her face, her chest taut as though she was underwater, and she couldn’t breathe. Her eyes were closed as she tried to calm her heavy heart from rapidly beating.
Though, her mind…
They gave her an answer she did not want to say. She really did not want to say.
“Tell me!” Mono yelled.
Unconsciously, she flinched, then suddenly became more frozen than she was before in her position. Her voice was as if under lock and key that she couldn’t bring herself to speak anything.
To let the boy be acknowledged. Or to let him know that she was listening.
Mono scoffed and shook his head when her back faced him still, his eyes already brimming with tears of anger and frustration at the thought of his first friend, purposely wanting to see him suffer.
Purposely wanting him to snap and break until everything in him was as dysfunctional as a broken piece of machinery.
His hands trembled as his impatience grew, spreading throughout his whole body. He was already being pushed to the edge. But because of her choice to just stand there and ignore him, it pushed him right off.
And he couldn’t even control himself as he let his anger act.
Six nearly faltered when she heard his footsteps stomp behind her, and she had already anticipated his hand to grab her shoulders to turn her around.
She did not fight, of course. But when she saw his eyes red and watering, when she saw the burning animosity and the exhaustion lingering behind them, Six was all but affected. Her effort to keep her face straight and hollow was for naught as it dropped and revealed her true feelings. However, as they stood face-to-face, she knew choosing silence would be hard.
The lump in her throat largened.
“Get off—"
“Why can’t you just say it?” he said, although desperation clung to his every word, his eyes tearing more and more. “Why can’t you just…stop being so evil for once and tell me what I did wrong? Because I’m tired of torturing myself, Six. I’m tired of wondering every damn day about what it is that I did that made you want to kill me. I-I’m tired of blaming myself for what you did!” He pushed her back, causing Six to stagger behind a few steps. Though, her eyes never left him.
Mono breathed in heavily, his anger only increasing when she stared back.
“Do you…do you enjoy seeing me like this? Me, begging for your answer? You want me to beg...IS THAT IT?”
His scream was laced with distortion and static, the edge of his form glitching in and out of place.
The lights above them were swaying way back and forth as they madly flickered, the air layered with a sudden heaviness that made her glance around the affected room with wide eyes.
Nevertheless, Six wasn’t the only one who had noticed her surroundings.
However, the boy realized it a few seconds later than her. And it wasn’t their surroundings that he noticed first.
Instead, it was the sight of a cowering Six, her shoulders sinking as fear appeared briefly in her eyes.
Mono immediately backed away from her.
And all the lights stopped its blink, the room going back to the way it was before. The hold he had over the room was released entirely.
He breathed out a shaky sigh and took a moment.
But when he spoke again, his voice was already weak and despondent.
“You…really are evil, aren’t you? For you to stay silent this long?”
Six turned away from his cold stare, though that only made the boy shake his head in contempt as she chose silence again.
Having had enough, Mono figured he should just stay and make himself comfortable in this room until Viola returned, and he made his decision without any more glances to Six as she only stood there at the door, unmoving and quiet.
Her eyes lowered to the ground, the guilt blooming inside her chest becoming harder and harder to ignore.
There was no point avoiding it, was there?
Six took a long sigh.
“I was angry.”
Instantly, that got Mono’s head perking up, his puffy eyes widening slightly.
“Huh?”
Six walked back inside the room, regretting her every step as she inched closer.
“You asked me why I did it. So, now I’m telling you; I was angry,” she said, hoping the guilt didn’t surface in her voice. Though, some of it was revealed across her face, unfortunately. “I was angry when you…didn’t help me back then. Angry when you let him…take me.” She felt bitter just by thinking of the painful memory.
Mono looked at her in surprise, however, he couldn’t deny that her remark made him feel slightly defensive.
“But I still came back for you in the end,” he said. “I got you out of that Tower—”
“And you still don’t know what he did, Mono. Sure, you came back, but you were the one who got me in that position in the first place. I wouldn’t have been there if it wasn’t for you wanting to mess around with the televisions.”
“I wasn’t messing around with them!”
“Then what were you doing?”
He opened his mouth to fire an answer, yet all that left him was nothing in the end, much to his own embarrassment as it only proved Six’s point. Mono had to avert his eyes as his face began to flush, but he kept his scowl regardless.
Six wanted to roll her eyes.
She nearly did, anyway.
After a moment, Mono quickly swiped his nose after a sniffle, and crossed his arms. His head turned back to her, although the bitter attitude was put back on.
The red in his eyes already subsided.
“So, is that it? Is that the only reason why you think I deserved to be killed off?”
A pause. Six looked away.
“You…also wrecked my music box, Mono.”
He scoffed again.
“Of course,” he said wryly. He dragged a hand across his face, groaning softly into his palm, and muttered, “How could I forget about your stupid music box…”
“Excuse you,” she said, taken aback. Probably a little offended.
“You started to hate me even more right after I destroyed your stuff, didn’t you?”
She left his question hanging, and instead merely stared at him with a blank face. And it only got blanker as he purposely waited a few seconds more as if to silently make her admit it.
Mono huffed. “Thought so.”
“Do you honestly want to start this again?”
“Not…at the moment. I actually have another thing in mind.”
Six’s glare softened at that. As much as she was quite ready to give him a punch, it couldn’t be helped that what he said…
Intrigued her.
And by the raised brow he gave her, it seemed that he had read her mind.
“You said you were forced by Viola into coming here too, right?” he asked.
“I wasn't forced,” Six said defensively. “The little weirdo told me earlier that she wanted to show me something interesting, so I went. Though, I should’ve known what she meant by ‘interesting’.”
“So, you were tricked then?”
Her frown deepened as she paused.
Well, wasn’t that just a stab to her ego.
“Get to the point, Mono. What are you saying?”
Mono rolled his eyes at her. “I’m saying that Viola is the reason for all of this. She lied to me and you, just so we’d be forced to talk and…” He breathed out shakily and reluctantly said, “patch things up, or supposedly, become ‘friends’ again.”
“Friends?” Six looked at him as though he’d grown a third eye. She scoffed. “After what you did to me, Mono—you’re not my friend.”
“Oh, believe me, you’re not mine either.” The venom in his tone nearly caused her eye to twitch. But fair was fair. They tasted each of their own medicine equally, so being offended wasn’t really in the question.
“Although...” he added, “Viola doesn’t know that.”
Six furrowed her brows, lost on his words. “What?”
“She still thinks that we’re going to make up and do the ‘forgive and forget’ crap after this, which we both can agree will never happen. But still…you know Viola enough, don’t you?”
Six crossed her arms. “Aside from her being a little trickster and all, yes. She can be insistent and annoying sometimes.”
His scowl returned at her choice of words, but he let it slide with a scoff.
“Then you’re aware she isn’t going to stop pestering us about this.”
“Most likely, she won’t,” Six agreed as she sighed tiredly. “So, what do you suggest we do? Should we tell her to back off and threaten her to the slaughterhouse if she tries this again?”
“Good God—what are you, heartless? No. We lie. Isn’t that your specialty?”
Son of a bitch.
She had to hold her anger in the fists she had balled up, although she’d be lying if she didn’t imagine using that same fist to connect it to his face. Regardless, that wouldn’t be practical for now as they seemingly had things to discuss regarding this ‘Lying-to Viola’ plan.
“Then, you want to lie to her and say that we’ve made up, instead?”
“Pretty much.”
“But wouldn’t she know straight away? I mean, you haven’t exactly shown me…a friendly face throughout your time here.”
“I’m not an idiot, if that’s what you’re implying,” he said. “We just have to make an agreement in advance.”
“An agreement?”
Mono nodded and took his steps closer until he stood in front of her. Six held the urge to back away.
“We act as if we’re good only when she’s around. That means we talk nicely, put on a friendly smile, make a believable show; anything to convince her whenever she’s looking.” He bent slightly down to her level, and his eyes became threatening as they narrowed. “But, as soon as she’s gone, don’t think I’d even spare you a glance. You’re still dead to me, Six. Don’t forget that.”
Internally, Six scoffed.
Who does he think he is trying to scare me?
She rolled her eyes and turned her head away from him.
“Whatever,” she said.
Although, her heart was seriously itching her to deliver a gut punch to him right now.
Mono hummed and finally stood upright again, but given his height now, he had to tilt his head slightly downwards.
“Glad we could come into an agreement then.” His face spoke anything but genuine. Even by his tone, Six could sense the sarcasm hidden under his words. “By the way, before I forget…”
Curious, Six met his gaze again to see what he had to say.
But never did she expect to feel a sudden sting of pain to hit her forehead.
Her hands shot up instantly to the now red spot where she had felt his finger touch, and her feet moved to make her distance out of reflex.
She stilled, shocked.
“Did you just…flick me?” Disbelief almost overlooked her anger. But emphasize on almost.
“Don’t act so surprised, Six. We both know you’ve been living here happily while I suffered back in the Signal Tower for half a year. What I'm doing now is just payback, so it’s only fair if I get to do this for each day I was locked up.”
Six gaped incredulously.
“How is that fair? We both hurt each other equally. I just told you my reasons for what I did.”
“Which, if you think about it, are still unreasonable.”
“Unreasonable?”
Oh, her blood was on fire now.
He had crossed far beyond the line. And what made it more infuriating for her, was that he was doing this on purpose.
“Well, I can accept you being angry at me for when…he took you. That’s still understandable. But aside from that, you deciding to ultimately kill me all because I wrecked your music box is just ridiculous! I was only trying to help you!”
“And by destroying the one thing that calmed me down, you think that did it?”
His face almost twitched, but he kept his surprise and hesitance under wraps perfectly well as he regained his confidence and composure. Though, he'd be a fool, fool boy if he thought that that could slip past Six.
“Y…yes. It did. It even worked as you can see. You’re standing here alive, and well, aren’t you?”
He stared down at her, trying to intimidate her but failed, nonetheless. After a few seconds of her just glaring back, he must’ve realized it too.
However, him attempting to intimidate her with his steely glare, only got him intimidated by her own.
He recoiled slightly and said, “S-so for that, you owe me six months’ worth of me flicking your head. At least.” He folded his arms and kept his head up high as if he had just sentenced her to a lifetime punishment.
Six rolled her eyes.
Obviously, this was preposterous. Hilarious at the degree of its ludicrousness.
Him flicking her head for six months—every day? She could just laugh at that. There was no way she’d allow him to do this stupid thing when she owed him literally nothing.
Never in a million years would she let him even try and flick her again.
Not once.
Not ever.
Just plain—no.
A brief pause hung over them.
“Only one?” she asked.
Six hated her guilt for betraying her like this.
She was beyond disappointed in herself for letting one silly, annoying little emotion take control over her logical reasoning and decision.
But suppose, it made sense why she couldn’t fight this feeling and instead let him do this pointless flick-in-the-head thing.
She didn’t even tell him anything of the truth about anything today.
Mono’s eyes widened slightly, not expecting she’d be…okay with it right away. But whatever her deal was, he wasn’t going to complain if he was granted an opportunity to hurt her daily, despite it being in a somewhat childish way—if not, totally childish.
“Actually, I was just being generous, but if you want more than one flick, I’ll be happy to add a few more—"
“No,” she deadpanned. “One is…one is enough. I was just making sure.” Six took a long deep breath, mentally accepting what she would have to be patient with for the next half of the year, even if it meant getting flicked by him of all people.
But maybe this was nothing to dread over, she told herself.
Maybe one flick in the head every day, for six continuous months wasn’t all that bad. It wasn’t even that bad, to be honest. Six had had much worse things she had to endure before, harsher pains she’d experienced when she came to the Maw, so being flicked hard by someone’s frail fingers was nothing in comparison.
Earlier, it hurt like hell only because she was caught off guard. That’s all. If she had seen it coming, she knew she wouldn’t even feel a thing.
Nevertheless, worse comes to worse—if she ever had had enough—she could always just release her anger by returning him a flick to the head every once in a while, to keep things fair.
At least, the sound of that was slightly reassuring to her and it helped lessen the guilt and the regret from pooling in her stomach any more.
So, to reiterate, this wasn’t at all a big deal.
However, that was when her overconfidence dropped and was buried by none other than the paper-bag-lover boy himself.
As if Mono had been listening to her thoughts this whole time, he casted her a smug look, and scoffed. Rarely was there a situation he'd manage to read through her with ease, provided it was usually the other way around.
But alas, today was one of those rare cases.
Because he read her like a damn book.
“If you’re thinking about flicking me too, forget it Six. Traitors don’t get that privilege,” he said, wearing a fake smile worth wiping off with a fist. “You can’t hurt me back,” he added.
Or in other words: you betray, you pay.
Six gave him a narrowed glare and sighed slowly through her nose.
Never had she ever wanted to strangle someone this bad.
Notes:
Trust me, getting flicked in the head hurts, mostly depending on who'd flick you and how hard they do it. In Mono's case, pretty hard.
Since Viola is gone, Six and Mono are gonna be stuck with each other for a while. So, Yay :D
Thanks for reading!
Chapter 17: Viola's Locket
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Mono smirked.
That look on her face, that dangerous glare, the vein on her forehead looking as though ready to pop from sheer annoyance—he took pleasure in it. So much, he barely realized how far wide his smirk had grown.
Honestly, just seeing her anger seeping through her mask of a face truly made him forget of the totally serious conversation they just had not too long ago, which was good regardless. He’d rather put those awful memories behind him as soon as he could.
Though, would he put what Six had done in the same place too?
Not a chance.
That stinking yellow-coat demon wasn’t worthy of his forgiveness. And he’d bet, she might even have the same thought for him as well. Not like he cared, though. Whatever she wanted to do now was her own problem. That girl meant nothing to him anymore.
“Butt-face,” Six mumbled as she turned on her heel to leave.
Of course, his smuggest of grins dropped. This little…
“Duck-legs,” he retorted.
Six snapped her eyes to him immediately, her glare enough to burn an entire city alive.
“Who the hell are you calling duck-legs, huh?”
“Who the hell are you calling butt-face?” He brushed past her, making sure to bump her shoulder by ‘accident’. That might or might not just rile her up even more. Either way, her reaction now was making him very happy. And satisfied too.
Mono stepped out into the hall, leaving Six to gawk on her own.
“Oi!”
He did the noble thing and ignored her.
Though, that might’ve been a mistake, considering he had forgotten how much of an uptight person Six was. Because she just had to chase after him no matter how fast he purposely sped himself up. And with the angry stomps heard, her anger was felt immensely when she grabbed his shoulder. What was worse she even dared to squeeze it.
“Get your grubby hands off me,” he hissed and recoiled rather exaggeratedly.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
“None of your business. And here’s some tip; why don’t you mind your own —”
“I am not in the mood for babysitting you, Mono. So, why don’t you just get your stupidness back inside and wait for Viola.”
“Stupidness? The only stupid I sense here is you. ”
Her scowl instantly grew deadlier. “I swear. I will beat you to pulp if you don’t turn back right now,” she warned.
Mono rolled his eyes and scoffed.
“Why are you making this such a big deal? Is it a crime that I’m going to Viola myself? Jeez, stop being such a control freak…” he whispered that last part.
Oh, but Six heard well enough.
She hardened her glare, and said, “I don’t know if you’ve forgotten about everything I told you or just chose to embrace your stupidity; but The Maw isn’t safe. You can’t walk alone if you don’t know the place well enough . ”
“Watch me.”
He shoved her slightly out of his way, earning himself a harsh scowl from the girl as she muttered curses under her breath.
But a few steps was all it took until he heard her groan.
“Wait!” Annoyance was practically radiated from each of her steps. She got beside him and crossed her arms. Mono raised a brow.
“I’m…coming with you,” she said.
Then came the tensive pause between them.
And a snort from him.
“Nice try, but no.”
Mono continued down the hall without her.
“That wasn’t a request, stupid!” She caught up to his pace, much to his annoyance. “The quicker I get you to Viola, the quicker you’ll be off my hands. So, let me just offer you some guidance and be done with it. At least this way you wouldn’t be lost or found dead. I cannot waste my time burying a bag of bones.”
He scoffed. “As if. I can find Viola on my own, thank you very much. For all I know, you’ll probably just try and lead me to one of those…giant fat guys that’s waiting to eat me.” He shot her a death glare. “Besides, I’m a big boy. I can handle myself. Not like it’d be the first time anyway.”
Six narrowed her eyes at him and tilted her head.
“Is that so?”
“Yeah. So, you can just do us both a favor and get the hell out of my sight.”
A scoff left her as she shook her head, holding back a mischievous chuckle unbeknownst to him. But the evil on her face said it all, nonetheless. Mono didn’t like the silence that dragged on.
“Okay,” she said way too nicely. “I guess I’ll leave you to it then.” She turned the other way suddenly, causing Mono to halt in surprise.
His eyes followed her as she left him there, slight dread—and possibly, a smidgen of regret—pooling in him the smaller he watched her figure become. Though, the feeling only worsened when she was truly out of his sight. Gone entirely as he was left all…
Alone.
Mono took a wary glance around him, suddenly feeling shivers running up and down his arms.
Did the hall just become darker? He hugged himself and shook the fear off.
“I don’t need her help…” he whispered to himself.
He took a deep breath. And then another before he continued forward.
I’ll be fine.
Mono was not fine.
This…
This was the second time he got lost.
What the hell was even this place, having bedrooms connected to libraries? Bathrooms to engine rooms? Storage room and then back to the same bedroom he came across at least twice?
Nothing made sense here.
No sane human could ever possibly begin to make sense of the floor plans of The Maw! He swore, whoever founded this ship was high as a kite when they built the structure design of this place.
Mono huffed a tired breath.
Now, he wasn’t so much as a prideful guy—at least not as bad as Six—but he hated how much he regretted declining Six’s offer as a guide. And twice too.
He could practically imagine her, being the egotistical person she was, telling him “I told you so” with that annoying, show off attitude of hers. Like as if he needed to be reminded that he was wrong! He knew when he was wrong. In fact, he could even admit so.
Could Six do that?
Hah! Only when hell freezes over.
He doubted Six could even admit about something without making herself look good.
That self-absorbed, yellow-raincoat friend-pretender trai—
“Lost?”
Mono screamed and ducked.
For some reason, the latter just happened.
Regardless, he quickly forced himself to regain some composure for the sake of protecting his own pride from being wounded—though, he doubted it wasn’t wounded already, given he was found in this…humiliating position.
Six was leaning against the wall with her arms folded, a brow lifted in amusement at the sight of him cowering.
Oh no, no, no; he was no coward. Startled, yes. But not a coward, if that was what her face was implying him to be.
Mono turned to her with the nastiest scowl he could muster, but nothing could stop the blush from creeping up to his cheeks. It was evident that he was beyond embarrassed of the fact that he literally had walked past her, yet never took notice until she spoke.
“Wh-what the heck are you doing here?” He gasped and accused, “Have you been following me? Like some creepy, psycho stalker?”
“Give it up. You’ve been lost for the last 10 minutes.”
“So, you do admit to stalking me then.”
She rolled her eyes as she approached him.
“Only because you mean something to someone.” Six walked past him, ignoring his visible confusion. Although, it was when he stayed rooted in his place did Six actually show her irritancy. She sighed.
“Well? Are you coming or not?” she asked, a hint of impatience underlying in her tone.
“I’m not going anywhere with you.”
“So, you’d rather be lost again for another 10 minutes?”
Mono hesitated for a reply. Six smirked.
“Exactly. I’m right,” she said and turned around. “Again.”
Six moved forward, abandoning him to make his own decision: either to follow her and find Viola together, or well, be subjected to the ever-time-wasting experience that was being lost.
Frankly, he couldn’t go through that the third time. Just… not again.
So, sucking up his own issues of letting Six be anywhere near him, Mono took his first reluctant step ahead towards where she went.
And his next steps only proved to become even more reluctant.
Okay, this wasn’t so bad.
Seemingly Six knew where she was going—not that he was impressed or anything of that sort. But it was somewhat a ‘wow’ factor that she was able to remember her way through this terribly designed maze.
However, Mono forbade himself to walk any closer than five feet from her, keeping his distance still from his hated old friend for obvious reasons.
Well, for one; Six was a scheming liar. Two; he’d like to avoid being tricked by his guide, for example the earlier Viola situation. He truly didn’t think Viola was capable of tricking anyone. She even tricked Six, for heaven’s sake! But perhaps that was a ‘mother-daughter’ thing they shared.
That being to masterfully deceive their friends to get what they want. But at least, he could forgive one of them.
Obviously not Six, though.
Never Six.
“Viola!” Mono began to shout. “Viola!”
Six gave him a look as he continued.
“Vio…!” His brows formed a scowl just as soon as he noticed her gaze. Judgemental gaze might he add. One that he recognized she’d use whenever he was doing something particularly wrong in her opinion.
“What?” he demanded.
“You’re going to give away our location, idiot. That isn’t how you find someone.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, but who the hell appointed you as the expert?”
“It’s called having common sense. I guess you don’t have a lot of those these days.”
“Okay, listen here you little—”
Six stopped suddenly, causing him to leave his speech hanging as he gaped. He mimicked her movements, staying still as possibly as he could despite not knowing what for. And it was starting to scare him a little when Six whipped her head around.
Losing his patience, Mono whispered, “What is it?”
Six shot him an annoyed glance before turning back around.
“I heard a sound,” she said. “And I think it’s something that I’ve…turned off a week ago.”
Mono blanked.
“Huh?”
An eye roll was what she gave him next as she rushed towards the direction where she claimed to have heard the sound.
But what sound exactly was his question now.
At the very least, she should’ve told him first before rushing the other way!
Mentally, he sighed.
Sometimes he wondered if Six would make things up just so she’d seem the better one. Sharper ears than him, more alert than him; those kinds of things. Not that it bothered him, really. Once he may even think it as a good thing to have a ‘friend’ that had those qualities.
Though, now? She’d seem like a show off more than anything.
Blindly he followed Six. She was quick at her feet when they came through the vents, the darkness being his obstacle rather than hers as she took out a lighter for herself. And seemingly, she held little patience to wait for him. Mono groaned on the inside.
Why can’t she just slow d—
The walls vibrated around him. Faint yet all too noticeable to ignore.
And that was enough to put his skeptics aside and keep up with Six. He nearly tripped for that, though. Well with Six as though determined to leave him behind in the dark, he had to blame her for not sharing the soft glow of the fire.
Regardless, they approached an exit sooner or later, which was a big relief for him. Being in confined spaces was the easiest way for him to suffocate himself. And he was sure he already did a little whenever Six's ugly raincoat became too far from him.
They dropped down onto the floor; the vent clanging shut behind them as the last person jumped out.
Towers of stacked books were lined neatly in front of them in perfect rows, more shelves placed upon the walls just to make the room smaller than it already was as everything was compact.
Like everything in the Maw.
The sound of the whine lingered in the air, though it was clearer now to him of what it was.
He’d heard it way too many times in his life and every time he listened, it had brought him a sense of company. But after everything, the soft whine only reminded him of the tremor he had felt when the tall, lanky man emerged through and took Six.
Mono pressed his lip into a thin line and dismissed the memory.
They proceeded forward and walked through the aisles carefully lest the books would collapse on them should they knock them. They reached the end and entered the next room. Instantly. memories of his first arrival to the Maw hit him, his eyes focused solely on the glowing television in the corner.
The screen showed nothing but static. Yet soon as their eyes landed, the emitted whine had distorted itself briefly.
He gulped and glanced at Six. She, of course, showed her disdain openly, a deep scowl etched to her brows as she too stared at the television.
But it was the fact that she wasn’t blinking at all that got him slightly…uncomfortable.
Mono cleared his throat. She diverted her stare to him.
“So, um, you said you turned it off?” he asked
Six rolled her eyes and finally moved from her place, taking inspection of the room rather sternly.
“I did. A week ago.” She shifted back to the bright television. “And no one came in here after that.”
Mono took a good look around, carefully observing what changed the last time he was here.
Oh, and he spotted one alright.
That being a certain item that he had kicked over, which was now no longer in its place.
“Not even to…take the music box?”
Immediately, Six glared at him. “Don’t start, Mono.”
“I’m not starting anything.”
“You are,” she hissed. “You have this insane obsession over my music box that you just can’t get rid of.”
“ Obsession ? Excuse me miss, you’re the one who’s obsessed. I bet you even worship that useless thing when no one’s watching.”
“You—!” She took a second glance at the television, her eyes trained below it for a good few seconds before all of her prior annoyance shifted to genuine interest.
Mono furrowed his brows in confusion at her sudden silence.
However, before he could question it, Six had already moved from her place and knelt in front of the television.
“What are you doing?” he asked, unable to hold back his own curiosity when she took something in her hand.
“I found something.”
He approached her as she finally stood up and faced him.
“Is this hers?” she asked, a locket in her palm, its chain long snapped as it hung off of her hand.
Mono eyed the gray necklace and shrugged.
“How should I know?”
Six shot him another look. Ugh, that annoying look again.
“Are you serious? How can you not know what she wears?”
“Because I don’t care about what she wears. Who would even care about what anyone wears?”
An eye roll from her at his comment, as well as a whisper of “You’re useless” as she turned her attention back to the locket. Mono scowled but kept his chagrin in for the time being.
After all, they had a bigger issue they needed to solve together.
“Found an initial.”
His head perked up. “What?”
Six pointed to the back of the locket. Mono inched closer.
Indeed, she was right this time as a single letter of ‘V’ was ingrained in cursive, its lines however, nearly faded over the years. But no doubt now of what that V stood for.
“Huh. So, it is hers then,” he said.
Silence then fell upon them as they both stared into the locket in Six’s hand.
However, it was only after a few long seconds did he realize how close he was standing to Six. And by close, it meant almost-touching-shoulders close.
He backed away instantly, blushing as he forced a scowl.
Though, he wasn’t the only one affected as Six averted her head and cleared her throat.
“You’re such a freak…” she muttered under her breath as she turned the locket over and began to open its pendant. Or in actuality, do anything to distract herself from…whatever just happened between them.
But little did she know that this distraction would become an instant fuel for her anger after seeing the contents of the locket.
Mono barely had time to notice as she snapped the locket close before hurling it to him.
It was a miracle he even managed to catch it. But now, he was more perplexed by her actions.
“What—?”
“They were your parents?!”
Mono froze.
Okay, now he was perplexed.
“Eh?”
She huffed a choked breath.
“Th-the man! The woman I…” Six rarely ever stuttered. It was enough to make him nervous to actually see what was inside the locket. “ Why didn’t you tell me?” she hissed, her eyes full of anger that he didn’t know what for.
What was it she said? They were his parents?
“Look, I don’t know what you’re talking about, but I don’t— the heck?!” His eyes widened as they landed on the two pictures.
One side taking a picture of a woman, wearing a white empty mask with her hair adorned with a bun. The other side being the man he was very familiar with.
Or to put it simply, the man he had killed and watched turn into dust right before his very eyes.
“Th-these people aren’t my parents!”
Six scoffed and walked closer to him, her lips almost curling into a snarl.
“Don’t lie to me, Mono. Viola wouldn’t keep two pictures of strangers in her locket if they weren’t her mother and father.”
“Wait Six— they’re not mine to begin with! What makes you think we even share the same parents? ” His brows couldn’t be anymore scrunched.
For what Six was saying could only be categorized as sheer poppycock.
Nevertheless, at his remark, Six took a step back and reeled in her accusive glare, her hesitance finally showing to replace it.
“Because…you’re her brother,” she said softly. “Viola is your sister, isn’t she?”
“She’s my what, now?”
Where the hell did she get this information from?
Six narrowed her eyes then, shooting him an unconvinced look.
“No. You’re not telling me something,” she pressed on. “If you two aren’t related, then how do you explain the thing?”
“What thing?”
Briefly, fear coloured her eyes as they glanced at the television.
“The Transmission-tuning thing,” she all but whispered. “You both share that same ability. You both could travel through the televisions. Just like him.”
“So? It doesn’t mean that we’re all automatically blood-related.”
Six kept herself quiet after that, unable to bite back a response as his words finally held a little bit of sense that she couldn’t push away.
Well, as long as it stopped her from thinking that the tall man was his father, then he was relieved.
“Viola’s not my sister, Six.” He held the pendant up. “And these two aren’t my parents. The only reason we’d share the same…talent is probably because I’m not the only one who has them. There must be other kids who have what I have, and Viola is just one I’ve come across by coincidence. That’s all there is.”
“Then what about the locket?”
“What?”
“The man…his picture is still in there. If none of you are related to each other, then why would Viola keep him in her locket? Why would she keep them both inside?”
Mono didn’t answer right away, but instead, opened the locket wider and gave it a second look, carefully scrutinizing the two portraits.
And all his observations led him to one conclusion and one only.
He hummed in thought.
“Maybe…these two are her parents.”
Of course, he already knew a secret Six didn’t. As Viola had revealed to him back in Pale City, Six was the girl’s mother, so if the locket held pictures of her parents then it should only mean one thing.
The identity of the masked woman should be Six herself.
Which would then make the man with the fedora her…
Future husband.
Ugh.
Mono couldn’t be any more disgusted at the thought of her being married and actually become someone’s wife. Not that he’d ever want her as his own—God no, he’d rather eat his own hand than let that happen.
Regardless, the man in the locket—or the rather stupid man who fell for Six—couldn’t have been the same person he had killed six months ago. Considering Viola’s story that she came from the future, it simply wouldn’t make any sense at all.
So, this was him trying to make sense of it, the only logical and plausible answer had to be The Signal Tower itself.
That damned Tower must’ve lured in children with special abilities as him and—again, using Viola’s facts—fed on them for whatever signal-activity-related they had planned. And so, these children would be used for decades and would slowly decay on the inside, becoming weaker as they grow older, taller, and thinner.
At least it’d explain why Mono was able to defeat the last one despite his height.
Still though. If his theory was on point, which he was confident so, then Six’s stupid husband must be out there somewhere, just…waiting to be trapped by The Signal Tower sooner or later, and eventually getting stuck with that yellow-raincoat girl for the rest of his life.
Internally, he smirked.
Glad it wasn’t me. Good luck handling Six, bud.
Truly, the unfortunate boy would need an ocean of luck in the future.
“Are you sure about this, Mono?”
He cocked his head at her voice and took a moment to register what she actually said.
“Positive,” he said as he kept the locket safely in one of his pockets. “And even if I’m wrong, we can just ask her ourselves. Not a big deal.”
Six let out a somewhat satisfied hum.
But he could’ve sworn he saw her eyes twitch for a brief second, guilt flashing before her eyes in just a blink before it was back to that empty stare. Mono didn’t say anything.
…Because he didn’t care, of course.
“So, where is that girl?” Six asked.
Both of them looked at each other and paused, blinking blankly and seemingly dumbfounded.
And despite their current feud and hatred held against one another, they read each other’s mind perfectly well like many times before as they slowly turned their heads to the buzzing technology.
The television let out a soft whine.
Six frowned harder and snapped her head back to him. She scowled.
“ No . I’m not doing that.”
Mono grunted exasperatedly. “Can you not be so selfish for once?”
“You don’t even know Viola used it. And I’m definitely not going to travel through one of these cursed televisions just to find her.”
“So, you’re fine with her disappearing? Right after she oh-so-generously brought you your music box back?”
Six narrowed her eyes dangerously; a warning that her patience was thinning.
“Don’t guilt-trip me, Mono,” she said firmly. “You know I’ve got a good point.”
Indeed, that was true. Six did hold an excellent point, that being neither was certain Viola had warped again through the television.
But then again, they couldn’t know for sure that Viola hadn’t either.
Besides, knowing how horrible and cruel the world they live in, it was usually better safe than sorry.
“And just because you do, it’s okay to leave her alone, huh? That's real cheap, you know.”
Six bit back a snarl.
“I’m just saying that she isn’t my responsibility, Mono. And neither is she yours for you to go after her as if she’s related to you.”
“True,” he said. “But even if we aren’t related, it wasn’t her responsibility either when she chose to save me from The Signal Tower where you abandoned me. So, if you really think about it, you don’t have a choice.”
Six scoffed. “Excuse me?”
At her appalled expression, he didn’t bother to hide the proud smirk that crept up to his lips for her reaction now brought utter satisfaction.
And his satisfaction only seemed to bloom as he decided her future for her.
“You’re coming with me, Six.”
Notes:
Thanks for reading!
Chapter 18: Working Together
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Six heaved out an exasperated sigh.
This boy was seriously testing her patience, and she wasn’t someone who had much of those reserved for someone as annoying as him. Even the smug grin he wore alone was urging her to wipe it off with a punch.
Just who did he think he was to decide what she should or should not do?
The person you tried to kill, Six answered herself. Or more accurately, the person she thought she had killed. Clearly, that wasn’t what happened as Mono stood in front of her very much alive, and still capable of annoying the life out of her.
While one side of her fought against the mere idea of leaving The Maw to find Viola, the other urged her to go with his wishes. Again, she blamed her stupid guilt for inciting an argument within herself; a debate between her rational, survival mode half and her heavy conscience that reminded her of the said guilt every time she looked at his face.
And guess who won?
“I hope you know just how much I hate you right now,” Six spat.
Despite the venom laced to her tone, he dared to snort in her face, unaffected by all means. It wasn’t like she was telling him something he didn’t already know anyway. Besides, her remark only proved that she truly had lost against him.
“Yeah, I think we’ve established that when you killed me.” Mono shoved her out of his way, doing it just to spite her. Well, if it was to piss her off, then it worked well.
But there was such a thing as taking the high road. At least it was something she would’ve done had he not approached, much less touched the glowing television.
Her eyes widened in panic.
Six grabbed him by his stretched arm, causing him to stumble back and successfully away from the screen. Oh, but not without a dangerous glower on his face.
Mono yanked himself from her grip as though he’d been burned.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” he hissed.
“Me? What the hell is wrong with you?” she bit back. “You were about to do it again!”
“You mean making our traveling easier?”
Six narrowed her eyes. His sarcasm was very much unappreciated at this moment—if not, ever.
“Becoming an idiot,” she corrected. “Have you learnt nothing from your mistake? Or do you need another 9 feet tall guy to come out and remind you?”
Mono scoffed and averted his gaze, crossing his arms. “It’s not like it’s going to happen again.”
“Really? You almost sound certain.”
“Because I am,” he said with a scowl. “And I know that for a fact when I watched him die right in front of me.”
Six paused, her empty demeanor changing to one of genuine surprise and wary at his remark.
Real fear managed to seep through her face, despite she tried her hardest to hide it. But this was her captor they were talking about; the man who had turned her into a horrific, and distorted monster. At least, that was most she could remember of it.
“What—what are you talking about?” she stammered.
“Not to brag, but I sort of killed him. So yeah, he’s dead. Now if you don’t mind, quit being a cry-baby over these televisions, and let me tune it.”
“But!” she blurted out. Though, her face flushed heavily after she realized how cowardly she appeared now.
Six cleared her throat, and relaxed herself, but that did nothing to convince Mono of her recently-displayed fear.
“ But,” Six tried again, more composed, “what if you’re wrong? What if…he’s still out there?”
Mono sighed out sharply and gave her a long, hard stare.
He dragged a hand across his face.
“You know what? I think you’re probably right. Maybe he is out there somewhere. Maybe he’s healing and resting in his room.” Mono neared the television that only buzzed louder the closer he was. Six gulped in secret.
He added, “Or maybe, he’s just waiting for me to leave you behind, so he could finally come out of his hiding...WHEN YOU’RE ALL ALONE!” He slammed his hand to the screen.
Instantly, the room brightened, the whine higher than it was.
Six took a step back, a pathetic whimper escaping her unintentionally.
But soon enough, Mono lifted his hand off the screen, and the room returned to its dim, quiet state in seconds. Though, his face remained the same as before; smug enough to make Six want to push him into a pile of fresh feces.
She stood up straight, swallowing her anxiety. “You’re just…making things up.”
“If you say so, Six. Either way, I’m not going to stay around here when the thin man shows up. You’re on your own. Anyway, tell him I said hi when he comes out,” he said with an innocent smile.
With that, Mono shifted back to the television, this time, however, having all the intention to actually use the cursed technology. The deafening whine returned, and the screen began to ripple just like the last time Six had seen it.
Only now, her heart began to race when his hands were close to sinking forward. Six’s eyes widened.
“W-wait!”
Mono turned to her almost expectantly, his brow raised in satisfaction as Six finally did exactly what he planned.
“Yes?” he asked.
“I…” Six fought with herself once more, and she could barely decide. Plus, the fact that he was just standing there, waiting; it did not make her feel any less pressured.
“Fine. I’ll follow you,” she forced out. But even as she stood there in silence, and obviously hesitant, that annoying smirk of his dared to widen. Seemingly, he also knew that his words successfully got into her head.
Just as he wanted.
Six took a deep breath, and reluctantly approached the glowing television, approached him. She wouldn’t be surprised if Mono was mentally rolling on the ground-laughing right now as she stood beside him with an almost defeated look on her. Who wouldn’t be defeated after what he scared her into doing?
No doubt now he was having fun messing with her like this. Payback as he would definitely phrase it.
With an irritated huff, Six then raised a hand to grasp his wrist.
But his reaction turned out to be just as exaggerated as the last.
“What are you doing?” he hissed as he recoiled from her, all the prior smug replaced with a nasty scowl.
Six dropped her hand to her side, and merely scowled back. “I can’t go through the screens like you can, hat-freak. I have to hold on to you if you want me to follow.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah. Unless you’ve got a string to pull me by, just deal with it.”
“I’m not touching your dirty-betraying hand.”
“And you think I want to touch yours?”
Mono narrowed his eyes as he studied her, a tight frown on his lips. He sighed heavily.
“Fine. Just…just hold on to my coat.” His gaze then hardened with threat as he added, “Try anything funny, and you’re as good as the Doctor’s ashes.”
She rolled her eyes and lightly held his sleeve. “Wouldn’t have to try if I wanted to—”
Suddenly, her vision turned white. The noisy buzz engulfed her ears as static wrapped itself around her head. This was familiar. But not the good kind of familiar. Never the best experience as her skin itched and prickled in the moment.
Though, she remembered the landing was much worse compared to the feeling of warping.
Barely a second had passed and they were spat out the other side, shards of the screen glass following them. The hard, wooden floorboards became nothing but mud and dirt. They were welcomed with the sound of the rustled leaves, the crickets sounding somewhere between the long grasses. Trees surrounded them, each one tall enough to nearly hide the darkness that had spread all across the sky, albeit it was always empty. Except for the full moon.
Six recalled the last time she’d seen it.
However, a grimace then etched to her face as pain finally arrived a second later. She bit back a grunt when she sat herself up, but she couldn’t ignore the boy next to her—who was very much in the same state. It sure seemed like it as he held his head together, wincing like one would when their ears rang.
But clearly, he was more perceptive than he gave himself credit for.
Mono cast a glance her way, then rolled his eyes. “What are you looking at?”
Six scowled softly.
“You could’ve at least warned me you were about to do it.”
“And why would I do that?” He pulled himself up, and basically just left her behind in the dirt.
Her scowl couldn’t grow any deeper. Insufferable jerk.
Six stood up and hurriedly caught up next to him. Honestly, she never really minded the distance between them as much as he did. To her, it was a small matter that barely held any reason to fight about. But knowing Mono, and his tendency to whine about this, Six kept a few feet away from him lest he start his complaining, and God forbid, initiate another argument.
And an argument she’d win. As per usual.
“Huh. This is weird,” Mono said beside her.
“What is?”
“The last location me and Viola warped through was in the Hunter’s cabin. In the least, I expected we would’ve gone out through there. Maybe Viola did use the television and changed the connection or something, which hopefully, she didn’t warp by accident.”
“But you can control it, can’t you? Where you go?”
“Well, it’d be a lie if I said I could—”
“What?” Six froze and tensed. Her face became intimidating, deadly to the point where it made Mono’s small panic surfaced.
“What?” he asked.
“Mono, you...” Her voice turned as cold as her face now. “Tell me you can warp back to The Maw.”
He didn’t respond. And instead, he avoided her.
Six scoffed incredulously, holding her head. “Oh my God...” She gasped. “You can’t.”
“I-I never said I could in the first place!”
“You forced me to come with you, and now you’re saying I have no chance of going back?! Are you kidding me?!”
“Six, just hear me—OW!” Mono rubbed his assaulted arm after Six’s slap. “What the hell—?”
“You bring me back . ” Six gave the same arm another hit. “I swear Mono, you better bring me back right now.” Continuously, she struck the same place as though to pressure him. But to say that he was under pressure now would be an understatement.
An entirely understated understatement.
“Ow—okay—okay!” Mono shielded himself just enough then finally shoved her hands away. He glowered hard and cursed under his breath. “I’ll warp you back just as soon as we find Viola.”
Six shot him a warning glare.
“Fine, we’ll go to the cabin! We’ll see if the one there still works,” he yielded. “Just—stop looking at me like that. Geez.” Mono exchanged the scowl and proceeded through the Wilderness.
It was silent on the way to the Hunter’s cabin. Neither of the two wanted to look at each other, let alone even start up a small conversation.
Six wasn’t looking forward to it, anyhow. She much enjoyed the nightly hoots of an owl rather than his voice as he occasionally mumbled to himself. Really, the only thing that kept her from throwing a stick at the back of his head—to shut him up—was that he was her ticket back to her home.
She still couldn’t believe how stupid she’d been for letting a simple emotion such as fear to control her mind, for letting him scare her this way.
He played dirty; and she wasn’t going to skip over that fact. By bringing up the despicable, tall man and using him as a ploy to instill fear, that was not close to being fair.
This wasn’t fair.
And if he hadn’t proved himself to be an ‘asset’, especially now, then she would’ve given him a black eye for everything that’d transpired up until now.
But in the moment, Six held the urge nice and easy. After all, he was leading them to the right place as the Hunter’s front porch was seen right up ahead.
Six silently breathed in relief. The television in there better be working.
“Why are you so obsessed with that ship?” A voice spoke beside her.
She glanced coldly at him, but made no effort to really answer anything.
Mono raised his hands in surrender. She knew better that everything of his action towards her was either mockery or plain sarcasm.
“Fine. Don’t tell me. You keep your stupid secret,” he said. “But I bet I know why you really want to go back.”
“Do you even?”
His brows raised slightly, finally getting something out of her. If she was naïve, she would’ve thought he was dying staying in silence.
“Of course. You just miss your pwecious music box,” he mocked as though talking to an infant.
It’d be a lie if she said that didn’t rile her in the slightest. Because damn it, she was full on ready to kick him in the shin.
Deep breaths, Six, she told herself. Just put up with him for a few minutes more.
“You couldn’t be any more wrong, Mono.”
“Am I, though? I thought we agreed that you worship that stupid thing in your spare time.”
“We did not agree—!” Six bit her own tongue when his smirk returned.
Son of a...
She took another heavy breath and sighed out before continuing up the steps. The boards creak under her feet, and another sounded as she pushed the front door wider for them both. Actually, scratch that; she opened it just for herself.
She stepped inside the narrow corridor, and glanced behind her shoulder just to give him a steady glare.
“We did not agree on anything. I never said I worshiped my music box.”
Mono hummed sardonically as he followed her. “Whatever you say, Six. But we both know you’re in love with it enough to kill someone over.”
“Ugh. Will you ever stop bringing that up? It’s getting really old.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, is me reminding you of what you’ve done getting a little too boring for you? Maybe I should start off with a joke or a short introduction song to keep you interested!”
Six rolled her eyes. This wouldn’t help anybody if she indulged in the argument further.
“Can you just— shut up? For even five seconds?” Six walked into the next room without much of a look-around. Mono followed close behind, almost at an irritating distance. But irritating wouldn’t be enough to describe the annoyance that bloomed in her chest now. She knew if he were to continue to push her, she’d lose it.
Or perhaps, she already had from the beginning.
“Well, well, well. Isn’t that just familiar? Six, showing her mighty superiority when she’s cornered and clearly has lost!”
“What do you want from me, huh?” Six snapped. “Are you really that pathetic to keep on thinking about something that happened, I don’t know, six months ago?”
His eyes twitched, his anger finally showing.
“You’ve got some big nerve—”
“No. You’ve got some big nerve,” she interjected. “I’ve already tried my best to avoid any arguments with you, better yet—even any sort of conversation or contact if I can. Because knowing you, you have a problem dealing with your own grudges. So, if you still can’t understand the message, then let me say it to you loud and clear.” Six jabbed a finger to his chest. “Stop. Provoking me.”
Mono opened his mouth to retort a reply, yet all he got out was barely a word when a sudden thud sounded above them.
Instantly, their heads shot up to the moldy ceiling, the hanging lights swaying, flickering above the round table as the thud came there again. And the sound began to move like heavy footsteps, moving so slow as though they were limping. Something was limping on the second floor, Six was sure of it as her eyes followed the thud that came closer and closer to moving downstairs.
Half her mind begged for her to bolt right away, albeit her legs said otherwise.
Mono, however, only kept his eyes on the round table where there were three chairs left empty and pulled out haphazardly. His face drained of color when it hit him.
Indeed, when they entered the cabin, when they entered this room, specifically, both had been so engrossed in their petty argument that none realized of the silent warning the room had given them. Neither noticed—not until now—that the dining area was no longer occupied by anyone.
“They’re gone.”
Six turned to Mono with furrowed brows, eventually following his stare. What does he mean? She almost dared not to question when she saw how pale his face had become.
But she had to know.
“Who is gone?” she asked.
Mono gulped and pointed to the cluttered dining table where a dinner was served rotten and unreal, made specifically for the ones who lived and had sat in those empty chairs like a stitched doll.
A feast that was served only, and only, for the Hunter’s family.
Something fell and rolled down the stairs. Both snapped their attention to the kitchen’s doorway, on edge as the shadow of a hunched-back man appeared, and his low raspy groan was heard. The same thud came again, one foot stomping harder than the other.
Like the other foot was...not properly attached.
An old man’s head peeked out from the hallway, revealing a pair of bulging eyes first before showing the rest of his entire ruined face.
But ruined was not enough to describe it.
The old man had no jaw, leaving him with only the upper part of his teeth left below his lip. A line of stitches was seen across his forehead, keeping his head together seemingly from having the contents of his head spurting out. No—Six doubted the man even had blood in him.
And it was proven all the more when white poked out from the gap between his joints, and more of it fluffed at the end of his missing arm and all around his exposed rod-like neck.
The old man wheezed, his eye sockets somehow becoming larger as he stood there in front of his new company.
His two, very welcomed guests.
This wasn’t going to end well, Six already knew that much. So, she sighed in exhaustion, realizing what had to be done now and now immediately.
Great.
The back door flung open.
Both children ran like hell as the old man came after them. Sure, he was limping and all, but his torn foot was greatly deceiving as he was more than capable to maintain balance.
They crossed over the small fence that blocked the Hunter’s backyard, the metal swinging as they dropped the other side. The noise it made though, was louder than necessary that it nearly brought Six worry of what other monsters it might attract.
But to hell with that thought for now.
They already had one broken doll-looking man on their backs. And despite his age appearance, he was still faster than any old man should be. Not to mention, the man was purely stuffed with cotton as his internal body. He had neither a heart nor a soul like every other creature did. Even the most cruel and vile monsters had them to live yet somehow—and some impossible way—the taxidermied man could move, much more run without any of those necessities.
Indeed, very troublesome for her to kill him like the Guests in The Maw. He had nothing she could drain out!
Six growled in annoyance, glancing over her shoulder as they entered the deeper parts of the Wilderness. The Hunter’s cabin had already long left her sight, hiding behind the too many tall trees. The old man too was no longer behind her.
And so was Mono.
She halted instantly, realizing how the only one that was running now was her. The twigs snapping was caused by no one else but her. Six whipped her head all around for her annoying companion, but there wasn’t a single soul to be seen. Which only irritated her further.
Where the hell is that idiot?
A stick snapped.
Out of instinct, Six rushed behind a tree, taking cover and pressing her back to it. She closed her eyes and sighed quietly. She could hear whatever was moving now; and by all means she confirmed it wasn’t Mono as another wheeze left them. Seemed like she lucked out pretty quickly on her first day back in the outside world.
She hated this feeling though, how her stomach flipped and her heart thumping against her chest like a drum. Her stay at the Maw nearly made her forget of this adrenaline. Though, not to say she never had any rush of it there; it was just a very...different kind. Opposite, in fact.
Yeah, killing those ugly fatties was surely more exciting than running from them. Anything is better than this, really.
“Psst!”
Six perked her head, brows furrowing. What was that–?
“Hey!” something whispered from across her, somewhere in the trees.
Or more like someone on a tree.
“Mono?” she whispered to herself. And she was correct to say so as it was definitely him.
There on an old tree branch, sat the boy who nearly gave her a small heart attack after having thought that he’d been caught and killed by their assailant.
But not at all.
Seemingly, while she had her short moment of—very tiny—fear regarding her future, Mono had been sitting all safe and pretty on the branch, watching from above as if he was one with the Wilderness itself. Some part of her wanted to question how and when in the world did he even get up there.
Though, it shouldn’t be a surprise, considering...the first time she met him.
Mono raised his hand, and gestured to the branches above her. She looked up.
He wants me to climb the tree too?
Six shifted back to him, although slightly flushed. As much as she liked to tell herself she was better at most things than him, she could admit that climbing a tree that tall was not in her skill list. Never out loud, though.
Curtly, she shook her head and glared—a warning that he shouldn’t press further on why.
In turn, he rolled his eyes and scanned the forest grounds instead. Six watched in silence of course, but not without giving a silent prayer that the old man wouldn’t find her. She hoped she wouldn’t need to waste her powers this soon. Although, that might be a problem as his wheezes were still nearby. The old man was still searching for his escapees.
Six dared a peek from her tree. The old man snapped his head in her direction.
Her heart jumped out of her chest as she pulled herself back into hiding, a small sigh of relief leaving her when the old man returned his focus to someplace else. But only time could tell when he’d eventually find her.
She knew she had to move before he checked her tree. She had to get away now or never—
Another “psst!” from Mono.
Six scowled at him this time. “What?” she mouthed.
Mono raised his hands again to communicate. Though, that only made her brows furrow deeper when he began to use a more...complicated hand gesture. No doubt he was using sign language, but somehow his way of doing it seemed totally wrong and off. Either that, or her knowledge on sign language was just limited.
Is he...what the hell is he trying to tell me?
Her confusion was beyond obvious as she scrunched her nose.
What the hell is he even doing?
Before Six could further ponder on the possible meaning behind his message, Mono gave her a thumbs up and began to quietly climb off the branch.
Six gaped at him, a tad panicked.
What was the thumbs up for? Did he seriously think she understood a single thing? To the point where he was carrying out a plan that might or might not involve her help?
Classic Mono, she thought. Always pulling me into things I wasn’t even on board with.
Mono dropped to the grass with barely a sound, then got to his on-guard mode and a proper defensive stance.
Good. That was the best thing to do when a monster was close. Six applauded him silently for using his common sense this time.
Though, it was his stupidity next that made her whole opinion of him shatter. Like an utter fool, Mono ran and stood there in the middle.
Out in the open. Exposed.
As if that wasn’t enough, he then opened his big mouth.
“HEY!”
Six gaped bigger. She mentally slapped herself. She wanted to bang her head against the bark of the tree until she bled.
Because what in the world was that?
The old man across from him whipped his head instantly, so fast that his head might’ve done a full turn—but as if that would affect the stuffed man. And like she expected, the old man started to limp towards Mono, dragging his broken foot faster as he had finally found one of his special guests. Just by the look in his eyes, he was determined to kill him.
But Mono seemed even more determined with that poised look on his face.
Oh, she just couldn’t watch this.
Six left her hiding place immediately, and hurried to her foolish companion, though foolish would be an understatement for both him and her. Because at the rate she was running at him, she hadn’t anticipated that her own speed would knock both of them down.
“What are you doing?!” Mono scowled at Six who fell beside him.
“Trying to make you move, idiot! You just called that man to kill you!”
“Because I have a plan!”
“Really? Your dumb plan is to get him to grab you and God knows, stuff you like a doll—?”
The old man hummed in the distance, overjoyed when Six appeared. He sped up and panted heavily.
However, just as he limped another step, the leaves below him began to fly, and a net instantly enclosed around the man, taking him off the ground like in a bag. The rope that tied the snare was connected to the highest tree branch beside it; hidden with the purpose of catching prey.
And it seemed like the prey it caught was the supposed predator.
Six locked her eyes on the old man thrashing in the air. The net swung side to side, caused by the desperate, albeit limited movements of its victim.
Then a clear throat sounded beside her.
Six turned away, and avoided Mono at all costs, knowing the things she had said earlier would be used to put shame on her by him. Right now.
Mono brushed off the dirt off his pants and dusted his palms. He looked at her then, a brow raised.
“So, you were saying?” he asked.
Six rolled her eyes and got up too. “You knew there was a trap there?” she replied instead.
“Tch, obviously. Did you think I learned nothing the first time I was in these woods?”
Mono took a step towards the hanging net, looking up at it and the person inside thoughtfully. However, the second he stared, the old man began to let out an ear-piercing screech. A scream that neither Six nor Mono knew he had in him—more like never thought he was capable of, considering half of the old man’s face was missing.
Regardless, the children covered their ears when it happened. They had to lest their eardrums ruptured. Not even five seconds, Six could already imagine herself becoming deaf, her ears feeling as though they were bleeding.
At that point she already realized that this screeching was no ordinary aggravated scream.
More than anything, it was a call for help.
Fast footsteps then sounded, but where it was coming from they couldn’t spot it immediately. However, they knew it had to be something of a similar kind like the old man’s. They knew it had to be the other family member that had sat in the Hunter’s kitchen.
A murder of crows suddenly flew past them while they cawed, seemingly disturbed by something as they flew the opposite direction. And that something indeed was what Six thought.
Another adult.
Another family member.
But to be precise, it was a woman this time. Bales of cotton protruded out from the gap between her face, her cheeks pulled together and stitched poorly at the center. Her hair was akin to thin strings rather than real hair, almost looking like an actual doll. However, her whole head itself seemed to be in a risky placement as her neck too was attached to her body with only a few threads.
It wouldn’t be a surprise if her joints were also hanging by loose threads under her dirtied white sweater.
But one thing’s for sure; the woman seemed far more capable at running compared to the old man. Despite all her poor stitches, she could still run to get them.
Of course, the moment the woman appeared—running madly through the trees—Six and Mono had already bolted from the scene. The old man was replaced right after he screamed for assistance, or as though he passed the baton on to his trusted family to capture them.
And so far, the woman was doing a far better job.
They were out of breath. Every trap and snare Mono tried to lure her in, she dodged them barely a second before they were activated. She heard them right before it even made a sound! And to make it worse, Mono was slowing down.
Six yelled for him to keep up, of course only to be answered with his rude replies, him yelling back “shut up” being the good example.
Soon enough, the trees opened into a more open space, land spreading out wider, the dirt all the muddier under their feet. Unfortunate, as that affected their speed. Fortunate, because the mud threw the woman’s balance off finally.
The woman fell face first into the puddle of mudd, her struggle to return to the chase becoming apparent.
She slammed a fist to the ground, frustrated as she heard her guests get away. If she had a mouth, she would’ve screamed in ire at the prospect of the children escaping. Oh, but even Six and Mono knew the chances of them losing the adult off their tails was slim.
It was proven when the woman clawed at the wet dirt madly and dragged herself until she reached a sturdier ground.
Truly, the mud was a blessing for the duo. However, a rather short and temporary blessing as it only gave Six and Mono a few seconds until they saw the small shack ahead, the murky water around it untouched yet more polluted than she last saw it.
From behind, the footsteps of the woman returned.
Damn these woods. Damn all of the things in it, Six thought.
They ran through the old shack, its woods rotten and creaked too loudly as they rushed across to its back door. The outside across revealed the long docks.
Six eyed the swamp, and mentally prepared herself for its coldness.
That is if she hadn’t noticed the hesitation in Mono’s face. No, not just face. He literally stopped at the edge of the docks. His eyes screamed reluctance when he stared at his own reflection in the swamp.
And seeing him stop, it meant that she had to stop too. Which totally ruined her prior mental preparation.
“What are you doing?” she hissed.
“Do we, uh, have to jump in?” It surprised Six that he didn’t even try to hide his hesitation.
“Do you want to die?”
“No. I’m just asking if it’s necessary to jump into this swamp again—”
Six shoved him forward, then dived after him. Of course, she didn't miss the betrayal on his expression when he resurfaced for air.
“You pig!” he yelled. But Six only swam past him, maybe a little satisfied as she got her revenge for the time he’d warped her into the television without warning earlier.
Nevertheless, she did what needed to be done. After all, they weren’t off the hook yet.
The woman halted as she stood on the docks, her head perked for the motions of the water, for the children swimming right under her.
Her ears twitched.
She found them.
In an instant, the woman stomped on the docks, banging her foot on the wood to make the children gasp and panic on purpose. And in all seriousness, she could also hear the latter. She could hear the small plashes beneath the board, the short breaths they took every time they came back up, their hearts rapidly pounding the lower their stamina decreased.
It was irritating Six that this woman was dead on hell-bent.
She wanted this to be over.
Lucky for them the woman hadn’t any eyes, Six and Mono were able to get on dry land a few seconds before the woman sped up. As if the two hadn’t had enough exercise for the last few minutes already!
Six felt the burn that was in her chest, her lungs begging for her to stop. Even she wanted her legs to stop. She was tired beyond comparison! And if she felt her exhaustion this bad, God knows what Mono was experiencing now.
He must be feeling it worse. If he collapsed though, that might just be the end for him, which technically also meant the end for her.
…Because she wouldn’t be able to go home should he die early.
Splinters and boards of broken wood littered the ground, the remnants of the exploded boxes serving as an indication that their path was coming to a halt.
The shed remained in the distance, still abandoned and moldy just as she remembered it. And the Hunter’s carcass was left there just outside its door, the number of flies flying and walking on him long accumulated ever since his ‘tragic’ demise.
But none could care less about the smell of a dead body when they knew their fate would end up the same way if they cared.
The children dashed into the shed, both using what was left of their energies to shove the door closed. And together, side by side, they held it that way despite the dangerous hole just near its knob. It was the cause of a bullet from a gun they’d held in this very shed, although a shame this time the shotgun was blank of any ammunition.
Six would be more than happy to put a bullet in an adult again.
I would be more than happy to kill about any adult right now.
The door banged. An arm snaked through the damned hole.
Mono ducked as the woman’s hand nearly touched his head, but he’d been lucky that he no longer had his paper bag on. Otherwise, that might’ve thrown him off and he would’ve let go of the door. And one person was definitely not enough to hold this door closed, even if it wasn’t forever.
The woman clawed inside again, causing Mono to curse at her in annoyance as her hands reached for him once more.
But again, he dodged it.
“Why is she only trying to grab me?!” he said.
Six scowled. “Because you’re standing right under her, idiot!”
“So, that’s somehow my fault?!”
“I never said it was your fault!”
“Well, your tone implies that it is!” The door banged and banged again. Mono growled and shifted, his back against the door. “Okay, not to point out the obvious, but I think this woman is going to kill us.”
“You think, Mono?”
He scowled back. “Hey, it would’ve been a lot worse if that old man was here too. At least this way, we’re holding off only one!”
Six paused and looked up at the raging woman.
Something…something was off here. Last time she recalled the Hunter’s kitchen, there were more than two chairs in the…
Wait.
“Mono…” Six gulped. “How many are there?”
“What?”
“How many that were gone in the kitchen?”
At first, his forehead wrinkled in confusion. It was hard to think with all the banging and clawing the woman did, but in the end he gave her question a bit of thought.
“There is one; the old man that got trapped in the net. This creepy woman, trying to kill me. And then the other one was…”
Suddenly, he stopped, his face going pale as his realization came to him just as hard as it did for Six. Mono slowly met her eyes then, his prior frustration shifting into a mutual dread.
Indeed, there was another missing family member they’d forgotten to put into account. And had they paid a bit more attention, they would’ve noticed the shadow that loomed from the window across them. They would’ve taken notice of the third family member who had been watching them since they entered the shed.
And they would’ve noticed his growing smile the second they turned to him.
The boy, standing outside and blocking their one and only way out, grasped the edge of the window firmly, and slowly fit his head in.
Just like his two other relatives, the boy’s face too was ruined with poor stitches and with pale skin, although one of his eyes suffered more than the other as his eyeball hung out of its socket. But even that ‘eyeball’ looked as though it’d been replaced with cotton. The corners of his lips were stitched widely, forcing a smile that was as permanent as his taxidermied body.
A giggle escaped the boy. He then began to fit the rest of his stuffed limbs through, but that didn’t seem to be a problem as the boy could bend his joints until they folded completely. There was no doubt now that the boy could fit his entire frame through a window that was half his size.
Six knew it.
Mono knew it.
They were beyond and gravely screwed from the very beginning they were chased into the shed. And when one is completely done for, especially in dead-end situations, they would tend to say the first thing that struck into their minds out of fear and trepidation.
In this case, however, both former friends shared.
“Shit.”
Notes:
Okay...after finishing the chapter only then I realized the shed's door was actually blown to pieces until there wasn't even a door left to push in the game.
So...imagine it didn't break that bad for the story. Imagine the kids shot the hunter after the door was fully opened.
Sincerely, I apologize :P
Thanks for reading!
Chapter 19: Out from the Wild, and Into the City
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Viola couldn’t sleep. She had lost count of the minutes she spent tossing and turning in her bed. No matter how long she shut her eyes, forcing her brain to succumb to slumber, sleep wouldn’t come.
It was irritating, to say the least. She rarely ever had these kinds of nights where her thoughts speak too loudly, her mind too awake.
And her throat, incredibly dry and thirsty.
Dang it, Viola thought as she threw the covers off.
Now this sucked. She must’ve been up a long time if thirst came to her first, though she knew ignoring this discomfort would only give a hard time to sleep; plus, the fact that her brain would just be screaming at her for a glass of water now. So, what else was she supposed to do?
Ever-so-carefully, Viola twisted her doorknob, and stepped out, making sure her steps were as light as she could control it. Anything that would help prevent the possibility of the floorboards from creaking, basically. It didn’t take a genius to realize just how late it was; and it certainly didn’t take even an average kid to know how screwed she’d be should one of her parents catch her tiptoeing into the kitchen in the dark.
With the glass of water or without, Viola would rather save her energy from explaining why she was up past her bedtime.
If it’s dad, he wouldn’t even think twice about it, really. But mom is a different story.
It was a known fact that her mother was respectfully...scarier and strict compared to her father. Well, there wasn’t really much to compare it to since Viola rarely ever saw her father in his temper. Even when he’d been angry at her at times, he always seemed like he was on the verge of laughing after or not taking it seriously like the Lady.
At least in front of the woman he acted like he was.
Viola stilled when she noticed the lights peeking out beneath her parent’s door, shadows moving under it.
Extra careful, Viola. Extra careful.
She tiptoed slower. The kitchen was just across. If she could just get to the sink, get some water, and go back to her room without anyone’s notice, then it’d be like none of this ever happened at all—
“I’m sorry.”
Her movements halted.
That. That was her mother’s voice.
Viola turned to the door, her curiosity fighting against her desire to rehydrate as she eyed it. And the former was winning without a doubt when the Lady’s muffled voice continued. The longer she stared, listening to their conversation, the closer she unintentionally pressed her ear against the door.
“—Viola asked me earlier about how we met, and...the things we did back when we were kids. I guess some of that reminiscing just reminded me of...”
Silence settled from behind the door. Viola leaned in, her brows furrowing
“Never mind,” the Lady finally said. “I’m being stupid. Forgive me.”
The chair creaked on the other side.
“Hey, it’s okay. You’re not being stupid, alright?” Thin Man said. “Besides, I want to know. Why did you ask me if I regretted saving you?”
Uneasiness made its way to Viola’s stomach, her chest accumulating with something akin to guilt as she eavesdropped on her parents’ private conversation. She knew she shouldn’t be eavesdropping. She was raised better than that.
Yet. Yet she still didn’t leave.
Viola pressed her ear harder, hands flattened across the door. And like the man inside, she listened for her mother’s answer.
“Because I was a traitor. I left you in the Tower to die.”
Cold pricked her skin.
Viola slowly let her eyes adjust to the white light flashing down on her. Her head spun, aching and half-asleep—just like the rest of her joints. Everything felt as though she was still in a dream.
This place. It was strange. Unusual as the plain walls around her stretched up to the sky that had no limit. Unsettling as…
There were no doors.
Her head whipped all around, and soon she realized her eyes hadn’t deceived her, though her mind couldn’t stop reminding her of the familiarity of this room. No, she’d been in this room before. But the last time was back when she went to the Signal Tower to…
Oh, no.
No, no, no, no.
Viola felt her heart quicken, the cold becoming worse as she finally acknowledged her fear.
Why was she here? Why was she in this room? And worse, why was she sitting on…
The chair. This was the chair Mono had sat in. This was…this was where he was trapped for months on end!
She jumped out of her seat, and held herself against one of the walls, though her eyes never left the wooden chair in the center. Viola swallowed painfully the lump in her throat, her stare eventually beginning to wander all around the small, cramped space she was put in.
This can’t be happening, Viola told herself as she desperately looked for a way out.
There was none.
This can’t be happening to me.
This just can’t…
Viola breathed out shakily, hyperventilating, her hands gripping tightly on her hair as she slid down to her rear. And bit by bit, she began to remember the events before. Memories of her at the Maw returned. How she’d succeeded in getting her parents to talk, how she’d left them for privacy, how she’d foolishly followed a voice she should’ve known wasn’t real.
She cursed at the television that took her here. She cursed at the walls that trapped her in like she was buried. She cursed at herself.
Her father had stressed this enough to her; The Signal Tower was beyond dangerous. It was a place filled with deception up and down its walls and lies planted in its floors. A place, not even adults, was safe.
Yet here she was.
Locked in the same place he had been locked in as a child.
Viola held her head and shut her eyes tight.
“Help,” she whispered, hoping someone, anyone would listen to her plea somehow. She hoped that maybe Mono or Six could listen to her call in some way.
But only the Tower listened.
“Shit,” they said in unison.
Though in Mono’s head he was spewing out way more curses than that. Because they were indefinitely, undeniably and utterly beyond screwed.
Why, some might ask?
Well for starters, the woman’s whole arm already snuck inside the shed, swinging madly at him. She did not cease from attempting to grab his head as though it could be plucked away like a flower, which wasn’t a good thing as not only did he have to hold her weight from barging inside with them, but he also had to mind just how high he could raise his own head.
Another bad thing; the woman had her back-up family member, that being the boy who was by far the most disturbing out of the two taxidermied adults. Mono couldn’t pinpoint it exactly, but he was certain it was the boy’s permanent smile that gave him the creeps. And also, the boy’s ability to bend his joints and limbs as if they were made out of soft cushions.
Mono did not know which fate was worse to end up dying in. By the hands of the faceless, determined-to-kill-children woman, or the boy with his eye out of his socket that hung like a sack. Although, with the way the boy had already forced half his body to fit through the narrow window, Mono nearly made his peace with the possibility of, well, dying.
But not anymore when he noticed the look on his hated companion, Six—the one and only backstabbing legend.
Oh, he knew that look. More than familiar with it, in fact.
Unlike him, Six didn’t pay much mind to the boy, rather she had her gaze up at the woman. Her eyes were narrowed, calculated. Without a doubt, that evil brain of hers was strategizing a plan—something he knew he didn’t have right at the moment.
Of course, at first his own pride had insisted cooperating with a plan made by a vile traitor was a bad idea at all costs. But really, would he rather let himself die because of that?
Verbally, yes; he’d say that. Though easier said than done.
He didn’t want to die. And he knew Six didn’t want to either.
“If you’ve got a plan, I’m all ears,” he said, dodging the woman’s hand for the fifth time.
Six finally turned to him, although her prior determination faltered slightly when she met him. That can’t be good.
“You’re not going to like it.”
So, it isn’t good.
Mono discreetly gulped. “Just tell me, would you?” he snapped. “I’ll do whatever if it means getting these two creeps off our backs!”
Six shifted back to the woman, and paused.
“We have to let go,” she said.
He stared at her widely, then at the woman, and then back to her.
“Of the door?”
Six nodded firmly, despite his face displaying nothing but disbelief. And it took him about a few seconds more until the realization really set in.
She was being serious.
“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me...” he muttered, already dreadful just by imagining his future now.
“I wish I was kidding.”
“No! There’s got to be another non-suicidal way other than... this suicidal way.”
“Well suicidal or not, there isn’t anything else that’ll work. It’s either my idea now, or letting one of these monsters grab us. So, pick your pick, Mono.”
Half his brain had already gathered ire within him, his tongue ready to snap back and argue. But as much as he hated to admit that Six was right, she was right.
He sighed exasperatedly, and gave her a look instead. An eye contact that he hoped she could take the hint of him saying, “fine. Let’s do your suicide plan”. Though, he also hoped that whatever plan she came up with would work. If not, then him shoving down his hesitance and encouraging some little confidence for her plan would’ve been for nothing.
Six nodded. “When this door opens, we have to quickly move out of the way and let her in. If my guess is right, she should lose her balance immediately at the rate she’s pushing at us.”
“Wait—you’re basing this off from a guess—?”
“Now!”
Both released the door. And immediately, he and Six went to their respective sides, letting the woman punch the door one last time before it gave out and shoved open.
However, at the result of her own impatience, the woman fell forward instantly, unable to control her speed and at the same time unable to see where her special guests were as her ears only captured the one in front of her.
That being the boy who had just fully entered the shed.
Both the taxidermied family bumped harshly into each other, the woman unknowingly grabbing and ripping off the boy’s dangling eyeball. The boy let out a cry, although whether he was in actual pain or not was none of Mono’s problem.
Because right now, their escape had presented itself once more.
Mono—unintentionally—spared Six a glance, and he sort of wished he hadn’t as Six raised her brows in response.
Or basically, her way of saying “told you my idea was the best one”.
He wouldn’t say it was the best, but...
It did...help. Or whatever.
His eyes rolled after Six left.
As the adults in the shed were left struggling amongst themselves, the children made it outside back in the damned Wilderness. Though, most of their luck had been used up when doing Six’s miracle plan, and they couldn’t exactly head back to the forest, per se.
They barely ran a step when something limped in the trees, coming out into the open and revealing itself with that familiar wheeze Mono thought he never had to hear again.
The old man limped harder than before, although his loose feet seemingly had gone missing on his way here. Or perhaps it was stuck in between the old net when he tore his way out of there. Nevertheless, the old man’s presence here along with his other family spelt nothing but danger and trouble.
Hell, they might just die for real now.
Blocked off from entering the woods, Mono ran to the side of the shed. Six followed without a protest, to anyone’s surprise.
Together, they pushed through the thick bushes that had been long dead, its flowers wilted. Of course, the only solution he thought of to save them both himself was to get off the island itself. And the beach was the only thing that popped into his brain in such a limited time.
As they landed on the sand, the sea greeted them once more, the cold breeze making their bones shiver and their teeth beginning to chatter. But cold was often experienced.
Especially in the Pale City. The last time he’d been there was when Viola got him out of the Signal Tower. Wherever that girl was now though, he just hoped she wasn’t dead in an adult’s cage.
The broken door he and Viola used to the Wilderness sat still by the edge of the beach, the sand holding it in place from floating away into the sea. At this point, he could already see this thing becoming a transportation to go back-to-back from the city to the forest. Convenient, yes. But hopefully, he wouldn’t ever need to use it often. The Signal Tower left him a mental scar after all, that even the thought of returning to the city almost scared him.
And yet here he was, doing exactly that.
Mono rushed towards the door, though his action wasn’t exactly liked by his companion.
“What are you doing?” Six asked, but her question felt like an accusation.
He merely climbed aboard and turned to her.
“What does it look like, genius? I’m getting the heck out of here. So, stop standing there like an idiot and help me.”
But Six did no such thing as she watched him kneel on the door, ready to sail across.
Across from the one and only place she swore to never return.
“You’re going back to the city...” Again, she didn’t lift her accusing tone. “You’re going back there, and you expect me to help you?”
Mono sighed and paused to look at her. Why am I not even surprised?
“Look, you either get off this island right now, or fight those monsters on your own. I’m not risking my life staying here because of you.”
“And I’m not risking mine following you.”
Multiple footsteps started to approach from behind the thick bushes—the wheezes of the old man, the violent strikes of the woman as she aggressively tore through the hectic bush wall, the boy’s muffled giggle becoming clear when there came an opening in between the plant.
They turned to the sounds. And staying here by the edge of the beach—even for a minute longer—scared Mono slightly. The Hunter’s family may be worth nothing but a few stitches and thread and cotton, but their bloodthirsty determination was just as great as the Hunter himself. Perhaps even more so.
Which was the reason Mono couldn’t understand why Six still stood there in the middle, like an utter fool.
But she became even more foolish when it all started, when the woman fell on the sand face-first, and Six shot him one last glare.
She shook her head.
It was her final answer to him; that she wouldn’t change her mind and come aboard the door-raft. That she wouldn’t go back to that cursed Pale City he too despised.
“Seriously…” he grumbled to himself when Six turned her back on him and even dared to get closer to the adults.
Which were people that she was supposed to get away from!
As the woman perked her ears, listening intently, as though those ears were truly her eyes. And if her ‘eyes’ were what she relied on to see, then Six’s chances of hiding were no more. Her time to run back to the raft would be a wasted attempt, and an inevitable death.
But running and dying wasn’t what the daredevil girl had in mind.
Because when the woman jumped at her with her claws out, Six did the same. Darkness-like energy gathered beneath her palm, and it wrapped itself around the woman’s body in barely a second, halting whatever movements the woman was about to initiate on her.
Then, with a push of her hand, the woman was thrown to the shed. The walls of it broke after the strong impact, at least strong enough to create a hole beneath the windowsill, small shards landing and burying into the sand.
Mono knew his jaw dropped the second he saw it happened. What in God’s name…
Six was not finished.
After the woman was handled—now dizzy and regaining herself—the boy along with his other kin charged towards Six the same way, albeit the latter adult a bit behind than the former.
Two was a lot.
Nevertheless, Six stopped the remaining family, each of her hands holding the two back from lunging after her. The fog-like force made the adults struggle in their place, desperate even more when she was just within their reach, but couldn’t at the same time. And Six made it stay that way as she shot her arms forward.
Just like the woman, the two were sent back.
Although, the weight of two was a whole lot bigger than one. And the force inflicted on them was not far enough. It didn’t give her enough time for her to recuperate. Six had no choice but to use her powers immediately when one of them already got back to their feet, running at her with more rage than before.
Her breath quickened and sweat beaded her temple. It was all down to her fast reaction now. Six couldn’t afford to panic when another returned to ambush her too.
She raised her hand at the boy, and he dropped.
The woman then rushed towards her, and Six also made her drop.
Black energy exerted out of each of her palms, holding her assailants down this time instead of sending them flying. Although, she hadn’t enough with the way the adults were fighting without quit—both the woman and the boy’s fingers dug the sand, each dragging themselves forward by force—even if their skins were tearing off their faces, their hairs falling to strands; and their stitches slowly becoming undone!
And with every second that went by, this didn’t only affect these mad adults. It also affected Six. It was draining more and more of her.
Mono wasn’t blind to this. He saw how her arms and legs trembled, the latter pulling her lower and lower to her knees in the end. He could hear the pained sounds she made the more she overexerted herself. She was overexerting.
Though, he could only afford to watch as he gave the edge another kick, and let the raft float out of the sand.
With just one push, he’d be out of the Wilderness, he could confirm his safety from being stuffed away like the Hunter’s taxidermy collection.
However, with just one push, he’d also be leaving…Six behind.
Mono looked at the white fog stretching behind him, hiding the sea, and the hated city beyond. Then, he looked at the traitor he had once considered as his trusted-companion, his closest friend.
His shoulders sagged, and something uncomfortable started in his chest.
No.
No.
He shouldn’t feel guilty. He wouldn’t allow himself to feel guilty.
This was all Six’s choice. A foolish decision made by her and her only. She was the one who wanted to stay here and ‘fight’ these monsters. So…
Why couldn’t he just leave?
The old man let out a wet cough, pulling at the bush so he could stand upright.
Six lifted her head to the old man, though her hands were already apart for the two other taxidermied adults. Her forehead wrinkled as the old man limped to her, as if claiming victory when her predicament became apparent.
She hadn’t a third arm to stop him.
She barely had any energy left to use now.
Her hands slowly lowered, the power flowing out from her fading more and more. Her head became light, and her eyelids heavy. And the locked gate around the emptiness in her stomach began to loosen.
Then came a sudden burst of electricity that neither the adults nor Six could see coming. This unexpected power, the heat it emitted as though a fire was burning—it took Six by surprise as her own magic had been overthrown by the blue-ish sparks that shoved the adults backwards, to the length where they flung across the bush wall, and to the roof of the shed. The sand was pushed along to the grassed land, so much until the beach Six stood on became thinner.
This was far greater than what Six had done to hold the adults back. Far more powerful than her dark, swirling energy that dwindled by time.
And before Six had the chance to confirm the cause of the recent mess, she was pulled from behind. Caught by the arm, his fingers dug deep into her raincoat, forcing a wince out of her as she was shoved onto the door-raft.
Six laid there confused, tired, and incredulous.
The raft then shook slightly, another weight climbing aboard. But when she looked up at him, his face was just as cold as the sea breeze.
Oh, because Mono was pissed off alright.
Dead-on, pissed off.
His heart burned intensely just by thinking about her, and her pathetic, fake-innocent, and baffled expression she wore when he threw her on the floating door. But he felt his anger burn the brightest as he had betrayed his own principles. Foolishly, he chose to save an evil person rather than take his one and only opportunity to watch her die, to watch her finally pay for her wrong-doings.
Stupid, stupid, stupid!
Mono gritted his teeth and kicked the shore away.
His hands still tingled with a slight buzz that danced in between his fingers, and he dared not let more of his power go loose than it already had. Even now, he could feel the heaviness weighing his whole body down just like when he had blown the Viewer’s head—a slight accident on his part regarding that, though.
But this? Saving Six from what could’ve been her end?
It was more than an accident, he repeated it to himself like a mantra, never glancing over his shoulder to face the girl he hated oh-so greatly. So, he kept his eyes ahead. And instead, he witnessed the Hunter’s family give their last fight as he and Six float farther away into the sea.
They raced amongst each other, scrambling, and falling as their bodies clashed onto one another in a fit of desperation to get to the escaping children. The adults even went so far as to use the other to keep themselves above the surface of the water, regardless it was an attempt known to end in failure. The weight of each was too heavy yet they still fought to stay afloat. They still fought the current desperately even as they began to sink.
And one by one, they did.
One by one, the children only watched until the last of them drowned beneath the water.
It was all that they saw at least as the white fog started to thicken once more, covering the drowned adults, and the Wilderness and its tall trees behind it. And all that was left now, was the dark blue sea, waving beneath them, rocking their raft every once in a while.
Silence became their next company, one that Mono preferred more than the girl he shouldn’t have saved—for the freaking fifth time now. What was wrong with him, he didn’t know.
“You idiot,” Six broke the silence first. Mono finally allowed himself to meet her, albeit the hatred and bitterness on his face never left. Hell, it didn’t even subside. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”
“Wow. A traitor and ungrateful. I guess that completes the whole ‘I’m selfish’ set. Not to mention, being dead on suicidal and a hard-head—”
“I won’t thank you for what you did back there.”
His brows scrunched. “What?”
Six stared out into the sea and shook her head in contempt.
“You said you wanted to find Viola. You scared me into coming along with you, and you dragged me into things I didn’t want to do! Every single time I listen to one of your stupid plans, I ended up following you into danger! And now, the only place—my one and only home— is somewhere I can’t even reach. All because of you, and your need to save everybody.”
“Oh, believe me. I never even wanted to save you.”
“Then, why did you?”
Instantly, his mouth clamped shut, his mind blank to give her anything but the truth for that. And instead, he found himself avoiding her, leaving her unanswered as he sat opposite her with crossed arms.
His scowl, however, stayed.
Six scoffed at him.
“You doomed me once. And now you’ve doomed me again. I hope you’re happy, Mono.” Six turned her back to him, not wanting to look at him either.
Of course, he had to feel the pang of guilt punching at his gut when the silence prolonged between them, their backs to each other as neither exchanged anything but sighs. Awkward was one thing, but the discomfort he felt now, sitting in this silence with her, was a whole new level. Given her last words were meant to be like a twist of a knife, Mono couldn’t fight back this guilt.
Even if he told himself he shouldn’t be feeling such things for someone as evil as her.
I hope you’re happy, Mono.
He hung his head and gazed down at the waves, his thoughts becoming more so annoying when Six appeared more than once.
“Why did you even want to stay?”
Six perked her head, though she didn’t turn around. Neither did Mono.
“I told you. I’d rather die than go back into the city.”
Mono rolled his eyes, then finally turned around. “Yeah, I know. You made that perfectly clear when you almost killed yourself,” he said, annoyed. “I mean why were you so…insistent to stay at The Maw?”
Six paused. “It’s my home.”
“And that’s all there is to it?”
Another pause from her. Mono sat properly to face her, suddenly intrigued when her hesitance showed through her sigh.
“If I tell you…are you going to stop making fun of me?”
“Like?”
She turned to him, her eyes dark and threatening. “Stop saying that I worship my music box.”
A small huff from him. That’s do-able.
“Alright. Fine.”
With that, Six nodded, almost satisfied yet still quite hesitant.
“I…have a problem with my body.”
Mono blinked, dumbfounded. “Okay…?”
“It’s not a normal problem, Mono. Not the kind that you’d think,” she said, glaring at him.
He blushed in secret, kind of ashamed that she called him out.
“Then, what is it?” he asked.
“Hunger.”
Mono waited for her elaboration, but his waiting was for naught. Because really, Six had another problem of not finishing her sentences right that he had to fill in the blanks himself.
“So,” he said, “you stayed at the Maw just because…you’re hungry? At the literal children buffet?”
“I didn’t know the ship was what it was when I came there. After he…the man took me, everything changed so little yet so much at the same time. It felt awful. I didn’t realize what it truly was until I left the Tower. That was when the hunger pangs started. Even when I’m not hungry, I feel hungry, as if I hadn’t eaten for a week. I could barely speak, and walk, much less stand. And the food I consumed was all just…a fuel to get me back on my feet, to keep me going. Though, none of them lasted long enough to hold the hunger back.
“But The Maw then showed me something new. Something I never thought I could try to fill the emptiness with.” Her eyes lowered to her hands. “And when I did, the hunger didn’t come back. I felt nourished for once. By then it was clear to me, the only thing that really satisfies my hunger are…”
“Souls,” Mono finished.
Six looked up from her hands, and to him with wide eyes.
“Yes—how…how did you know that?”
He stared back, all the same as her.
Oh, crap.
That wasn’t supposed to be heard. Sure, he wasn’t all that surprised to hear Six had an intense hunger issue ever since he had witnessed her own daughter experience it. Now, Viola probably hadn’t gone into detail about the “hunger” itself, but the whole stealing and absorbing a Viewer’s soul—until there was nothing much to even identify the body as a man—was enough to get him to connect the dots himself.
The hunger pangs Viola had, were inherited. Also, along with the black, swirling magic Six and Viola seemed to share. A mother and daughter thing.
And now he was a bit screwed since Six knew nothing of that.
“What will happen if you let it be?” he asked as he averted his gaze.
Though, Six wasn’t as stupid as he wanted her to be at this moment. She certainly noticed how he was deflecting, but she didn’t call him out for it.
“I don’t really know. Never actually got to that point.”
“You mean starving to death?”
Six rolled her eyes. “I wouldn’t say it as simple as you did, but yes. I’ll most likely…die if I don’t do anything.”
Viola looked like she almost did, at least.
The fog already thinned as the current willed their raft forward to the familiar sight of the infamous Pale City. Numerous tall buildings rivaled in height, although almost all of them looked slightly bent towards the sea—mostly the ones close to it. Even from the sea, Mono could spot the flashing beacon that was up above, the dark clouds surrounding it yet did nothing to hide its light. The air then gradually shifted. Still calm and cold, yes.
But there was a thin layer of the Transmission too.
Mono sighed deeply and stared up ahead. At last, the city was finally upon them. His heart unintentionally raced, and his body trembled beneath his coat as their raft hit the shore. His mind, however, lingered on him and Six’s last conversation regarding her “issue” and home.
Now, he wasn’t as suicidal as her to go back to a ship that had their guests specifically eat children, but he…could understand her reason of returning there.
He’d seen how Viola suffered until she took a soul for her fulfillment. Not saying that he didn’t want it to happen to Six—oh, she could just fall into a chasm for all he cared—but Six was still…
His sort-of friend’s mother. Without her, Viola wouldn’t be alive to even bust him out of his prison.
So, he jumped on to the sand, and beelined towards the television, its feet half buried but the screen was exposed enough for him to warp something through.
“What are you planning now?” she asked.
He halted halfway. “Getting you out of my sight. I’m sending you back to your cannibal-ship.” Mono kneeled in front of the television, albeit with an empty face.
Her footsteps followed until she was behind him.
“Why?”
Mono merely held the urge to snap and put his palm across the black screen.
“You’re a pain in the ass,” he said nonchalantly. “Besides, you already threw a fit before for me to send you back. So, consider this as my way of saying, ‘do whatever the hell you want’.”
“And you’re doing that with a dead television?”
“Please. I could switch one on without a plug if I wanted to. But it’s going to take a while to transfer what’s left of my power now, considering you made me use them earlier.”
“I did not make you do anything.”
“You sure did.”
Six held back a swear, sensing this type of argument would just be an endless of “you did”, and “I did not” exchange. Instead, she heaved through her nose exasperatedly.
“So, what happens to Viola now? Have you finally realized saving someone you just met isn’t the best idea?”
He scowled, unconsciously pressing his hands against the screen harder. “I never said I’m throwing away that plan. All I’m throwing away is you.”
“Really? And what exactly is your “brilliant” plan?”
“Simple. I warp you to the Maw—get you out of my hair. Then, I’m going to go look somewhere else to find her.”
“And if she’s already dead?”
“She isn’t.”
“You don’t know that. For all you know, she’s probably already a rotting corpse locked in a tiny cage under a basement, just waiting to be someone’s lunch.”
At that, Mono turned to look at her, giving her a stink eye.
“You’re sick,” he said.
She shrugged slightly. “Or I’m right.”
“Well, you’re not. I’ll find her; you’ll see.”
“How exactly would I see that? You’re not even going to come back to the Maw.”
“Maybe. But I know a certain tall man who would pay you a visit. Perhaps to even finish off what he started.”
Six paused.
“I know you’re lying. You already said you killed him.”
“Or did I?”
Six kicked the sand at him. Obviously, that was meant to provoke and anger him as she purposely got sand all over his coat. Regardless, he smirked in satisfaction, just to spite her even more.
Worth it.
He couldn’t care less, really. As long as Six went home with the fear of the tall man coming back for her—the thought haunting her brain every hour of every day until the time she breathed her last breath—then he was content.
Heck, just by looking at her uncomfortable and tense face, he was already happy.
The television let out a soft whine.
Mono startled as the screen beneath his palm switched on to white, static accompanying soon after. His face lit up.
It had worked after all—despite that he was just beginning to doubt that it wouldn’t.
Nevertheless, the television buzzed just like any other televisions he’d encountered throughout his life. And his smile almost widened when he felt the glass soften, and ready to be used for warping.
Now, all he needed was to somehow find the connection to the Maw—
The screen pulled him forward.
Caught off guard, Mono couldn’t have the chance to even fight as he was suddenly thrown onto a cold cemented ground. Familiar yet dreadful all the same.
Everything felt so, so heavy. And off. Like he wasn’t supposed to be here, just as he wasn’t supposed to open the door that released the Thin Man out from his room. But speaking of the man’s room, why did this one look exactly like…that?
Or rather, why did this one look like the room he had stayed in?
“Help…”
He whipped around, but his confusion only grew thrice as a girl sat crying in the corner.
Her hands were over her ears, her eyes squeezed shut as tears flowed past her cheeks. And over and over, she whispered to the room as his presence was akin to a ghost.
“Help me…”
“Please, someone.”
“Anybody. Help.”
“Help.”
Help.
Her voice—Viola’s voice echoed inside his head, becoming louder and louder for every word she repeated.
It hurt.
It hurt so badly.
Mono dropped to the floor on his knees, and he pressed his hands over his ears, hoping that would block the loudness attacking his hearing. But it didn’t.
He couldn’t understand it.
Why was Viola here?
Six never thought she’d ever have to panic like this again.
After their little argument, and her kicking a bit of sand into his direction, Mono suddenly went still. Especially after the screen in front of him flashed a bright white. At first, Six thought nothing much of it, provided he did say he was transferring his energy into the technology until it switched on.
And now that it did, Six had the feeling he wasn’t supposed to go frozen like this.
Immediately—almost immediately—Six got to his side, peeking her head forward just to see if he was messing around.
“Mono?” she called.
He didn’t answer her, his back hunching as his palm stayed unmoving on the screen.
“Hey, quit it!” She lightly pushed at his shoulder, although that did little as Mono only got closer to the screen. “Mono!” she snapped this time, and grabbed his wrist, intending to tear it away.
However, this close at his side, not only did she realize how his hand was practically glued to the screen.
But his eyes were static.
No. Not again.
Instantly, she abandoned the idea of prying him off. Usually, she would aim for the socket. One pull and the television would quickly shut down. But she couldn’t do that this time, could she?
The television wasn’t powered by any electrical sockets; it was powered by him.
And if he couldn’t be removed from the television, then she’d just have to remove the television away from him.
Six didn’t care for the cold that touched her legs and arms when she looked for something hard and surely to cause damage, by the edge of the beach. The water did make her shiver, but she searched anyway until she found a rock hidden beneath the sand.
The rock itself fit perfectly in her whole palm.
This would do it, she thought as she ran back to Mono.
He didn’t seem any better. Though, with the way he moved his face closer and closer to the bright screen, nearly worried her 100%. So, she didn’t wait any longer to see what would happen.
One hit on the screen. Nothing happened.
Two hits. The glass cracked.
Three hits. The cracks spread wider, bigger. The white began to glitch ever-so-slightly.
Four hits. The television warmed, as though a warning for her to stop.
Five hits.
And the screen shattered into shards.
The rock she held broke through into the television itself, creating a small hole in the middle as smoke started to leave from it.
Though, it was the small spark of electricity that exploded in between that made her back away, and her arms up to shield herself. She heard the thud that followed.
Six lowered her arms, her breathing suddenly becoming difficult to control. Everything that transpired in front of her made it difficult for her to control.
Her mind though, she didn’t think it would bring up so much frustration, anger and worry at the same time. Yet relief…
Relief overruled all when his eyes returned to its initial state.
And he let out a silent breath as his eyelids slowly dropped.
Notes:
Thanks for reading!
Chapter 20: Dance with me
Notes:
The Lady/Thin Man is back! You know what that means. Fluff! Angst! Romance!
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
A beautiful hum resonated in the room as the Lady tucked her daughter into bed. Night had come not so long ago, and the Lady strictly insisted Viola stick with a proper bedtime hour. Sleep was important after all, especially for a child as young as her.
The Lady sat by her bed and gently ran her fingers through Viola’s brown hair—a gesture she’d often do and a trick she’d learned to help the girl fall into slumber. Yet somehow, this time her eyes were still open, as though she refused to let them shut. As though something big was on her mind.
“Mom?” Viola said.
“Yes, Vi?”
“Can I…ask you something?”
The Lady kept a smile in. Viola’s face was too readable—like her father’s, she supposed. “What’s on your mind, sweetheart?”
Viola seemed hesitant at the start, but after a reassuring nod from her mother she finally spoke again.
“How did you and dad meet?”
The Lady’s hand paused on her head. And for a second, she came to be hesitant like Viola earlier. Perhaps more of not knowing what to tell and what not to tell. Her childhood hadn’t been easy, after all. And most of them—if not, all of them—didn’t involve much sunshine and rainbows, just a sea of nightmares and traumatic events that stuck to her until now.
The Lady narrowed her eyes. “Did he say something to you?”
“Maybe.” Viola grinned mischievously.
I knew it. That hat weirdo. “And what did he say?”
“Just some things that happened. How he used to be a lone wolf; how he found you trapped and rescued you from a monster.”
“Is that so? Did he also mention how he was the reason I was caught? Or did he only start at the part where he played hero?”
Her eyes widened slightly. And that was all the answer the Lady needed. Because of course Thin Man would only tell her the good stuff about him. By the look on Viola now, it was clear the girl knew nothing of what happened before their second encounter.
“I guess I’ll have to tell you the real story now,” the Lady said, and instantly, Viola’s face lit up. “It all started that one night…”
She ran like there was no tomorrow.
The Hunter, equipped heavily with his shotgun and lit lantern, came after her with only one intention; to capture. She could hear his boots, digging into the wet ground; hear a cocking of the Hunter's rifle; hear him breathe so ugly that it sounded like he was a dying man.
She wanted to look behind her and see just how close he was getting to her. But those mistakes were the kind that she’d seen other children do, which almost always, ended in a fatal outcome. Remembering that, she did not listen to her urges, and instead, kept her eyes ahead.
There was a tunnel in the distance, and she jumped inside quickly before the Hunter could grasp her tiny figure. She let out a sigh and continued through. That was so close. Too close this time. Her lungs hurt so badly from the non-stop running. She took breaths after breaths, hoping to lessen the rapid beat of her heart pounding against her chest.
She was done with this place. Done with this stupid, cruel, evil world—
The moon came in her view, so large and so bright in the night sky. The wind suddenly became serene, an owl hooting throughout the beautiful silence in trees as tall as a house. This was the other side of the Wilderness she’d never seen before, never got the chance to experience.
Yet.
Yet all of that wasn’t what made her freeze in a trance, no. It wasn’t the beauty of the pale moon, nor the tranquil silence, or the cold air.
It was the boy she saw.
He was sitting on the tree there, right under the moonlight, spacing out into his own thoughts when he too noticed her eventually. Unlike her, this boy had a distinguishing feature to him—the paper bag over his head, with two holes cut out for the eyes, was the first thing she saw and would remember.
The boy stared at her the same way she stared at him, and there was nothing but silence between them.
Then slowly, he waved at her.
And it felt like time stood still, as if nothing else was alive but the two of them, who stared and stared into each other, be it, one in awe, and the other in surprise. All until the cruel world decided the moment to end.
The yellow light shone over her, the ugly breathing of the Hunter tarnished the silence, and sticks snapped under his boots.
She instantly felt the rough gloves circle around her torso, lifting her up as she screamed in utter—
“Wait, dad did what?!”
The Lady smiled smugly throughout the whole time. Now she knew the full story, and not just some better half of it where Thin Man wanted her to know for the sake of him looking good.
“Yes, that happened. He was the reason I stopped running and got distracted back then, which ended me in a cage and carried to the Hunter’s basement where I was kept for a few long days. But in retrospect, it wasn’t all his fault; I was just as guilty. I shouldn’t have let myself get distracted in the midst of being pursued. So, in the end, both of us were to blame.
“The moral of the story, however, when you’ve done someone wrong, apologize and make it up to them. As soon as you possibly can. Your father felt bad about getting me into that position, so he went all his way to save me from that place. Though I have no right to complain about this, his way of rescuing someone…wasn’t exactly ideal, if you ask me.”
“What did he do?”
“Broke into the room with an axe he’d found. Nearly gave me a heart attack.” Both shared a laugh at that. “But like I said, I have no right to complain. If he hadn’t done that, I would’ve been made into a taxidermy figure on a shelf by now, just collecting dust for the rest of my life.”
“That’s horrible,” Viola said, grimacing.
“It’s just how the world is, Viola. Nothing is not horrible.”
“But what happened after that? You said that dad helped you escape, so shouldn’t the Hunter be mad because of it?”
The Lady chuckled darkly. “Oh, believe me; he was,” she said. “Right after he found out, the Hunter was furious . So much that he no longer targeted me alone, but your father as well. We had to flee from there, had to run on slippery mud, and had to jump into murky water. It was all a scary experience, but we both helped each other when needed. We both worked together and gave the Hunter the ending he deserved in the end. By now, his corpse would be nothing but bones, though. But I’m certain, even after a few decades, the bullet hole on his chest is still there.” The Lady lifted a smile as she caressed her daughter’s head. “So, don’t be afraid he’d come back, alright? Your father and I have already made sure of that.”
Viola nodded. Though, her brows then furrowed. Another heavy question on her mind, the Lady expected.
“Have you ever…killed anything else? After you left the Wilderness?”
The Lady hesitated for an answer. “Well…it would be a lie if I said I hadn’t. And it’d also be a lie if I said your father hadn’t too. We all had to fend ourselves against them, be it run away or kill them ultimately. There wasn’t much choice for us when all the option we had was kill or be killed. But know this Viola: we never kill something without reason. Self-defense is a different story, but on purpose? That’s wrong, do you understand? You should never kill someone on purpose.”
Once more, Viola gave her a strong nod, this time more firmly than the last. Satisfied, the Lady ended their bedtime-story session there, and wished Viola goodnight, planting a kiss on her forehead before switching off the lights in her room.
The Lady gave a final peek through the crack of her door, and once she saw Viola turn away, she closed it shut.
A heavy sigh left her. The Lady rubbed her temple and shut her eyes.
I am nothing but a hypocrite. Never kill without reason? I had so many reasons back then yet none of them were even self-defense.
This guilt of hers bloomed ever since the Betrayal.
It was her fault he had to go through what he did. It was her fault for ruining the one thing she nearly called friendship. It was her fault for leaving him behind .
How long had she let herself forget, and free from this blame? Everything was so different and happy, that she had allowed that horrid incident to never resurface. She’d kept it locked alongside with many other evil deeds she’d done inside a chest full of her bad memories. But now?
Some of them were slipping out.
She remembered it all, as though it’d happened just yesterday. It had to be at least a decade or two, given she was a little girl when she did it. Coming back years later did not make up for her mistake.
“You fool,” the Lady mumbled to herself as she got to her room. It was getting late, and despite the fact that she'd stayed up far later than this, she was quite ready to retire early. Today has been a productive day at The Maw. Her duties as a hostess and the Head Lady of the ship wasn’t to be taken lightly.
She wouldn’t dream of the risk she’d put on her daughter if she or Thin Man didn’t abide by each of their own duties.
The Lady opened her door, and was met with the sight of her husband, although with a…rather strong smell. Too strong indeed, to the point her nose wrinkled. It all had to be because of that damn cigarette he was smoking. Rarely, she ever saw him without one.
But…
She shouldn’t complain much.
The man’s smoking had become a habit of his since he was put to work at the Signal Tower. Stress was inevitable for both of them. His way of coping was a little less murder-y than her, though—to all the Guests she’d killed on a bad day, she felt no remorse even up until now.
Thin Man flinched hard when she practically slammed the door open, but his shoulders relaxed as he realized just who it was.
“Oh, it’s you…” He puffed a sigh. “You gave me a scare, Six. I thought you were something else.”
The Lady headed straight for her vanity and sat down. No glances, no words.
“Six?” he said.
“What is it?” She took out her bun, then picked up her brush. But the frown on her face wasn’t invisible to the man she once assumed was purely naïve. At least, the mirror in front of her gave him a good view of her face.
“You seem…bothered. Is everything alright?”
“Of course everything is alright. I’m fine.”
“You know, that’s something someone would say when they aren’t fine.” He put out his cigarette by the windowsill. “Come on now; tell me what’s bothering you. Is it one of the Guests? Did they try to go against you again?”
“Really, I’m fine. Nothing bad happened at The Maw,” she said, monotone as she brushed her long hair.
“Then, is it something I did perhaps? Did I do something—?”
“I said I’m fine.”
Thin Man stopped, and he only observed his wife in silence that she subtly demanded. It didn’t make her feel any better, though. The Lady took a moment before continuing to brush her hair. And every second of silence that prolonged only increased her guilt. It did not, by all means, give her the composure she prided herself with.
She sighed.
“I’m sorry,” she finally said. “I didn’t mean to raise my voice at you.”
“That’s okay. I’m not mad at all.” He closed the windows and shut the drapes behind him when the air blew cold. “But…you do know you can talk to me, right? About anything? I promise I’ll listen to every word. Without interruption .”
That got a chuckle out of her, although a very brief one. Regardless, it was enough for him.
“Do you…ever regret saving me from that cabin?”
“Regret…? Of course not. Even you know that yourself,” he said. “Is this what’s been bothering you? Have you been thinking about that this whole time?”
“Oh, goodness no. Not the whole time, and certainly not the whole day. It’s just that Viola asked me earlier about how we met, and…the things we did when we were kids. I guess some of that reminiscing just reminded me of…” Her eyes dropped, and her hold on the brush loosened. “Never mind. I’m being stupid. Forgive me.”
Almost instantly, she heard his chair creak, and soon felt his hands on her shoulder, comforting her.
“Hey, it’s okay. You’re not being stupid, alright?” He rubbed her arms up and down. “Besides, I want to know. Why did you ask me if I regretted saving you?”
The Lady put her brush down, her gaze lowering even more. All because of that guilt; that awful shame that ambushed her.
“Because I was a traitor. I left you in the Tower to die.”
The painful silence came soon after it was said.
Her once comforted shoulders were now empty of his touch; and she held back the urge to show her hurt at his action. Because indeed, it pained her slightly. Especially when she saw how his behavior shifted from assuring her with a soft smile into staring at the back of her head with eyes that held slight panic as his mind frenzied.
“I thought…I thought we’ve made a deal to never talk about that ever again. We agreed that neither of us would bring that up. Put it behind us forever.” He was firm with his words, but all of that faltered when the Lady gave him little to no reaction. It wasn’t going through to her. And that worried him.
“Six, come on!” he tried, voice lighter, shakier. “It’s been years since it happened. I don’t hold any grudges for you anymore. Because I already forgave you, remember?”
At his slight desperation, the Lady finally turned to him. But not without a clear frown over his words.
“Of course, I remember. How could I forget, hm? Tell me, how could I ever forget, you, foolishly forgiving my mistakes that deserved no forgiveness? You, forgetting all the bad things that I’ve ever done to you just because? I know I’m not a good person, Mono. I'm not like you. And I know we’ve made a promise to each other to let bygones be bygones, but—!” Her grip on her brush tightened. Another deep breath was taken before she could let her temper loose. “But. No matter how many times you say you forgive me; or how many times you try to convince me that my actions were justifiable, I won’t let myself be rid of that memory. I won’t forgive myself, just because you did. So, there. That’s what’s been on my mind.”
It was hard for her to say that without letting her voice tremble, hard to even maintain a firm look as she admitted the truth to him.
But Thin Man felt the contrary. The man chuckled under his breath, as though she was deaf. As though he found everything that she’d said amusing.
Honestly, it irked the Lady with how lightly he was reacting.
“Oi. I’m serious,” she scolded.
Another huff of amusement as she shot him that familiar scowl he remembered back when they were kids.
“I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to laugh at you, but…something you said is just funny to me.
“Excuse me?” She was appalled. How dare he think this as a joke when here she was, barely holding herself together from breaking down into an uncontrollable fit of tears.
However, he was never done explaining.
“Six,” he said, that soft smile returned to his face, his eyes void from the prior worry and panic. Because truly, he’d come to make an interesting point. “What makes you think I’m better than you?”
That. That made her pause in thought, except…
She couldn’t think much of anything. So, instead of thinking, she stared at him with furrowed brows.
Thin Man sighed at her lack of response, and approached the small television placed atop the table. He switched it on with ease, then put his palm over the screen like he always would. But everything became more confusing as music began to sound from it—crackling like an old radio’s sound system, yet beautiful to hear, regardless.
It was at that moment, however, she no longer could sit in silence and wonder to herself.
“What are you doing?”
“Making a point.” He turned to her after the signal was better, the music clearer. “You said you weren’t going to forgive yourself just because I did. But see, Six, you’re forgetting one thing from this whole betrayal incident: I’m no exception from the blame. I’m just as bad of a person as you are. Maybe, even worse. And besides, it’s not like you’re the only one who feels this kind of guilt every now and then. I can’t forgive myself either.”
“Then…what’s the music for?”
He glanced back at the television. “Oh, that? That is just for me to prove something to you, something that I might not have done as often anymore these days.” He stretched out a hand for her, and tilted his head, eyes glimmering with hope. “Will you have this dance with me?”
The Lady looked at him in awe. Because she knew, there was another meaning behind his words.
Despite all the animosity and feud that was between them once, despite him having said ugly words to her for her actions back, and her back to him, Thin Man still meant what he said now.
When it came to regret, he never had one with her.
He’d never regretted saving her that very day decades ago.
She finally caved as it all dawned on her, letting the corner of her lips tug up and up until a real smile replaced her once sour face. And she took his hand too.
If anyone outside of her home were ever to see her dancing like this, her reputation would've been brought down to the dirt. Because who knew a simple gesture from the man she loved could bring her, a powerful Mistress of the Maw—one feared by many— into a soft-hearted woman that’d put her title to shame?
But could she care less what those people would say?
To hell with them, was what she’d say.
This was a break she needed truly. No masks, no work conflicts, no blood she had to shed just for the sake of her duties. Just her and him in this serene place together.
He hugged her frame tighter as she leaned her head comfortably on his chest, listening to his heartbeat as though that was the rhythm to their dance. Heck, if she could sleep-stand, she would’ve. And if he hadn’t said anything at all, she possibly would’ve lulled herself to sleep.
“Do you remember the night I proposed to you?”
The Lady shifted and looked at him. “What makes you say that?”
“This song,” he said, and paused. “This song was playing that night. I needed a romantic song to set up the mood then and I was hoping real hard you’d say yes. And what’d you know? All I needed was my charms all along.”
“You were sweating a lot, Mono.”
“That was just rain.”
“Under a roof?”
He narrowed his eyes at her playfully, and both laughed.
“Okay. You got me. I was nervous . But…in the end, it all paid off. You still said yes, didn’t you?”
“I did. But not because of your charms.”
“You wound me too much.” He spun her around, and regardless of her subtle comment that he lacked any charms, he wasn’t at all offended by it. He still wore that smile, his eyes full of love.
However.
Everything around them stopped when they locked their gaze again. Only this time, though, neither said anything. The Lady had tightened her hand over his, and she couldn’t deny how both were closer than ever now. Physically, to be specific.
She did not mind it. She did not push him away. Instead, even she leaned forward, just as much as he did the same.
He held her head so gently all the while, caressing her cheeks before bringing her face closer to his own. The Lady closed her eyes and let this beautiful feeling bloom in her chest, deepening the kiss as though they hadn’t just kissed the day before.
But just like the rest of their shared kisses, she dreaded the most when they parted. Though, even she knew they had to at some point.
Because even their song had ended.
“Do you feel better now, my love?” he said, smiling cheekily. Oh, he knew she felt better than ever, to the point where him asking her that was unnecessary.
The Lady nodded and smiled back. She placed another soft kiss onto his cheek, leaving its color to shift to pink when she finished.
“Thank you, Mono. Thank you for tonight. I really needed it.” The Lady left his side and returned to her vanity table, wanting to reorganize as she had left it all when Thin Man offered her a dance.
She could still see him blushing behind her, thanks to the reflection. Perhaps even a bit of that proudful smirk he’d always wear when he achieved something for her. Or basically when he managed to fix her problems, which would be a rare occasion considering the kind of person she was.
But sad to say, the Lady wasn’t all that happy as she had told him.
Why?
“So, about that cigarette you were smoking…”
Thin Man instantly frowned, as if those words already revealed his secrets. The man tensed so hard that the Lady almost felt guilty for enjoying it. But emphasize on almost. Because the way he was hesitating now greatly amused her.
“Th…the cigarette I was…smoking?”
She hummed as she cleared her vanity table. Oh, but she did not turn around. “How much of those have you had today?”
He said nothing.
“Mono?”
“Two. I smoked two today.”
At that, she finally faced him, leaning herself behind. She shot him a look. He gulped at the sight of his wife, studying his face, and reading his mind like a goddamn book.
“Your breath is a lot stronger than usual,” she said. “Are you sure you only smoked two?”
“I only smoked two.”
She raised a brow. And he finally faltered.
“Packs,” he added.
“What?” Okay, now she was not amused. “What do you mean two packs? You finished the whole thing in one day?” Her voice was rising, tone higher, her dark energy radiating off her threateningly as she closed in on him.
Thin Man backed away, of course. It was natural for him to take a step back when she took a step forward that kind of way. That is until…he ran out of steps to take. Back pressing against the wall, he truly had not much but to face her wrath face to face. True as it may be, he liked it when they were this close, when there was no distance between one another, but he’d admit: this was the only kind of situation where he wanted to teleport back to the Signal Tower and hide there until the woman calmed down.
But what was he, stupid?
The Lady could just teleport there too. And her wrath would be three times worse.
Face to face this close, Thin Man found himself at a loss for words. At least only for a few seconds as his wife’s eyes were burning holes into him.
“N-now, Six, take it easy. It isn’t—it isn’t as bad as it sounds, alright? I may have gotten carried away…just a little bit.”
“A little bit?!” He couldn’t have pressed his back against the wall any further. “You— smoked two packs in one day! How could you expect me to take it easy when you’ve inhaled those murderous things four times as much as you always do?! You know how I feel about you even smoking one.”
“But Six—!”
“No. You listen to me, Mono. I have kept myself silent because I understand you needed this as your way to relieve yourself. But you have gone too far! I knew I should’ve said something before. But what good is there thinking about what I should’ve done when I could just tell you now.” She grabbed onto his collar and yanked him down to her height. If this had been any day, he would’ve seen this as something to chuckle about, as a cute thing to notice given their difference in height. But this was not any day. He was straight up dreading everything.
She glared at him with stern eyes that he felt like he was Viola.
“Mono, I forbid you to smoke again.”
His eyes widened. “F-forbid?”
“Yes! Because you can’t control yourself anymore! If you’re having a hard time accepting that, just think about how much harm you’re putting yourself and your daughter in when you both inhale the same air.”
Thin Man stayed quiet. He didn’t protest from her grip. And neither her words.
“Okay, then.”
The Lady loosened her hold over him instantly. She didn’t expect him to agree with her so soon. However, he was never done speaking to begin with.
“But…I have one condition,” he said. “If I quit smoking, you quit mass-murdering everyone around you.”
Her scowl disappeared. Her hold became looser and looser until she let him go.
And that was how he knew.
He knew that he got her back.
“Stop…my mass-murdering?” she stammered. Which was music to his ears now as his once afraid face shifted to his classic shit-eating grin.
“Don’t think I haven’t noticed the specks of blood you try to hide under that kimono, Six. Plus, all of the dead bodies that you dumped into the sea just so happen to wash away at Pale City’s shore. Any reason behind that?”
How happy he was when she was the one rendered speechless. But better than him, the Lady still tried to save face.
“I only kill the ones that disobey me.”
“I see. So, then…did the Viewers in my domain disobey you too? It’s weird, considering they’re too immersed in the Transmission to even notice a fly. What is weirder, though, is sometimes I see their bodies torn to shreds in some dark alley. And strangely, that only happens when you pay the city a visit.”
The Lady gave him a glare before sighing heavily. “I was under a lot of stress that day,” she admitted. “But that was different. At least I’m not killing myself slowly. Instead, I’m killing those foul monsters!”
“But seemingly, you can’t control yourself anymore, can you?” Oh, he did not just say that. “Look at it this way, Six: if you’re having a hard time accepting that, just think about how much harm you’re putting yourself in when your daughter sees you home one day covered in blood.”
The Lady could not believe it.
How dare he use her own words against her. And how dare he prove himself right .
Her habit of slaughtering others when her mind became a tad too tense had been going far above average. Yet here she was, lecturing him for doing the same thing with his smoking habit.
Oh, truly, I’m such a hypocrite.
Struggling to meet his gaze, The Lady huffed in defeat.
“Alright; you’ve made a good argument. Neither of us is any better with each of our own habits to release our tension. But…I might have an idea to help us both with this, though. That is, if you’re on board with it.”
Thin Man stood in front of her, intrigued. “What do you have in mind?”
The Lady gestured for him to come closer, a mischievous grin spreading across her face as she whispered to him words that sent him blushing up to his ears.
“A-are you sure you want to do that? Every time one of us has the urge?” He had to make sure she knew what she was suggesting—which was something so…inappropriately enticing.
But the Lady nodded to him, still wearing that same smile.
“If you’re up to it. We can even do it right now, in fact.”
His pale cheeks grew redder. “Right—right now? But Viola’s—"
“Sleeping like a log,” she finished, and sighed a long one when he stayed silent. She turned away and faked a pout. “But you know, it’s alright if you don’t want to. I understand that you’d rather smoke your lifespan away. I mean, it’s also better if I just stick with my routine and get rid a few souls on the ship—”
“No!” Thin Man stopped her by the hand. She turned back around to him and watched him expectantly. “If it gets you to stop your murder-fest, and me from smoking, then I’m totally on board.”
Her smile grew as she threw her arms around him. “You are, now?”
“100%,” he said, pulling himself close to her ear. “Although, please enlighten me. How effective is this…method of yours?”
“Very.”
A loud thud sounded. And both heads turned to the door, each sharing the same mutual annoyance as their moment had been interrupted.
It was safe to say that that was slightly a mood killer. But whether the mood died or not, there could only be one person that could’ve made the sound outside of their room right now. And despite the late hours…it was better to be safe than sorry.
Thin Man gave the Lady an apologetic look before leaving her side to see just who the cause of that sound had been.
The hallway was dark as ever, their bedroom light escaping through as he stepped outside. He even glanced his left and right twice to double check. But from the looks of it, indeed there was no one. Unless…
“Viola?” he called out.
No one answered. Like he expected.
Thin Man huffed and shrugged to himself before closing the door, and twisted its lock.
If tonight was his lucky night, then truly, it was better safe than sorry.
Notes:
Thanks for reading!
Chapter 21: Welcoming Nightmares
Chapter Text
The Maw was no place for a child. It reeked of gruesome death and cursed its passengers who came aboard including permanent residents such as the Lady of the Maw and the ones before her.
Six didn’t think otherwise when she first got here, nor did she ever assume the Maw would be a haven where adults cared for children. She was logical; realistic. She was no chump who’d rather put aside the bad things and focus on the good ones. She was not a fool who would give her trust so easily on a silver platter to others, regardless they were only children like her. And most importantly, Six doesn’t get attached. She’d sworn to herself to never get attached to anything lest they become a liability to her in the future, lest history repeated itself.
She doesn’t do ‘friends’.
It just never sounded right to her ear. Nor did it feel right being treated as one.
“You know, I used to think birthmarks were placed after you’re born by your parents,” Viola said, giddily walking next to her without a care in the world. Literally.
Six furrowed her brows, partially wondering how the topic shifted from questionable piles of gigantic shoes to scariest monsters she’d ever seen, to how Nomes could see without eyes, to…this.
Weirdly enough, this was a tour, and she was supposed to be learning, memorizing the ways, and observing the surroundings enough to know it like the back of her hand. Not rambling about unnecessary things Six did not care about. Honestly though, she was certain nobody cared about.
“Why?” Six asked anyway. More so questioning as to why she had to endure this.
“It’s just weird, don’t you think? Like didn’t you ever wonder how it got there at some point?”
“I don’t care.”
“So, you just never wondered why there’s a small random splotch of white on your arm?”
Once more, Six gave her a weird look. “Again; I don’t care. I’ve got better things to worry about than some stupid birthmarks.” Living to see another day, for example. “You should drop that kind of attitude.”
“Like…what?”
“Like being so carefree all the time,” Six said, scowling. “Quit thinking about things that don’t matter. Think about how you’ll survive; and what to do when you’re stuck in a deadly situation. Think about the possibility of you dying tomorrow . If you think this place is safe enough to let your guard down, you’re already dead. And trust me, you’ll find your limbs on someone’s plate one day if you don’t lose that innocent and naïve mindset anytime soon.”
Viola became silent and frowned, looking away with a pout, as though she’d just been scolded by her mother.
Six took that as a sign that she was understood.
“My dad had that birthmark.”
Or not.
“What did I just say?” Six snapped. “Were you even listening?”
“Of course, I was!” Viola defended. “I was just saying: my dad had that birthmark. It’s just something…I remembered while I was talking about…birthmarks. He’s the reason why I was even thinking about it.”
Six narrowed her eyes at her. Seemingly, she couldn’t help but take notice how Viola’s tone became softer and heavy with something akin to sadness. And as if that wasn’t enough to prove so, her face, too, became crestfallen, the pout she’d worn shifting into a genuine frown that matched the solemn look in her eyes, as if she was far too deep in a long-lost memory that’d been very dear to her.
Perhaps that memory was special. And perhaps Six had been too harsh with her words when all Viola did was accidentally reminisce on something she shouldn’t have. Not a smart move in the context of survival, but…it wasn’t a wrong one either.
Six softened her scowl and let out a scoff. She nudged the girl’s arm, bringing her out of her daze. It worked as Viola looked to her, despite her eyes seconds away from watering. Familiar guilt tugged her stone heart when she noticed.
“Don’t mope around. Or you’ll turn out like Mono,” Six said to her.
Viola didn’t say anything in that few seconds. But soon, her eyes returned to its initial emotion; bright and full of energy and hope so unmatched with the gloomy, hopeless world they lived in. And she gave her a small chuckle at the light remark that’d stay between the two of them, grinning like girls sharing embarrassing secrets with each other. She smiled so contagiously; so familiar.
And for a second, Six did too.
Six eyed the lying boy in front of her, pointedly staring at his lifeless-looking body with an evident frown on her face. She’d been waiting hours for him to wake up. Probably even more than she should considering everything that led them up to this was his fault.
He was the one who’d pushed her into leaving the Maw; the one who had used her fear against her, continuously provoked her, and then put her in a situation where she had to use her powers, hence draining her fulfilled hunger.
Did it piss her off? Extremely.
But what pissed her off the most was the fact that he was taking the best nap of his life, while Six, suddenly his bodyguard, had to watch over him as if he was some princess.
Oh, she was no bodyguard. Especially not to this wimp .
She’d been patient long enough.
As she loomed over him, shooting daggers despite his closed eyelids, she decided that Mono had had enough sleep; and it was about time he got out of the comfort of his dreamland and returned to this cold, abysmal world.
Six pinched his nose together.
A few seconds went by that way, and in those seconds, Six watched as the changes began—his chest soon coming to a halt, his eyelids twitching, color rushing through his face the longer he was deprived of air.
Then his eyes finally shot up.
“WHAT THE HELL?!” Six released in time as he recoiled—or jumped away—and exaggeratedly showed her his disgust that she’d been too close to him, not to mention to even touch him.
It’d be comical if it wasn’t for his deadly stare. Actually no, that also only amused her. She wasn’t even phased by that sorry excuse of an intimidating expression he called a glare. A bit pathetic, even.
“Great. You’re finally awake,” Six said, face as empty as the night sky.
“What the hell were you trying to do to me?” He rubbed his nose in utter ire and disgust, as if he’d just been pushed onto a puddle of vomit. But to him, a literal vomit would’ve been better than Six. He pointed an accusatory finger. “You—you were trying to kill me, weren’t you?”
Six rolled her eyes. Here we go again with this. “At least if I were, it would’ve been successful,” she said.
“I heard that!”
“I wasn’t whispering. Just get over it. It's not a big deal.”
“Not a big deal? You literally tried to suffocate me in my own sleep.”
“I was trying to wake you up.”
“Oh, so waking me up like a normal person is not ideal anymore? Okay. Got it. I’ll be sure to take note of that the next time you fall asleep.”
Another eye roll-worthy moment. “Are you done being a snotty, whiney princess? Because I’m sure I saw a group of little girls enjoying their tea party somewhere at the Maw. Which, by the way, you said you’d take me back to before you went into your short-lived coma.”
Mono’s glare dropped as he glanced over to the broken shards, some of which already half-buried into the sand. His brows furrowed then, and something in his face shifted, no longer focusing on his enemy but instead the events he’d witnessed before.
Things Six weren’t aware of yet.
“How long was I out?” he asked, lacking the anger he had seconds ago. It caught Six off guard, for sure. But she wasn’t going to show that to him.
“What...does that matter?”
“Just tell me, Six.”
“I don't know. A couple of hours, at least.”
He perked up, on edge. “How long?”
“I just told you I don’t know,” she said exasperatedly. Yet the way he kept on looking back at the broken television, her exasperation became curious. And Six wasn’t one to beat around the bush.
“What is it?” she asked.
Mono didn’t respond right away, sighing through his nose and closing his eyes as though reliving a horrible memory.
“Viola isn’t dead,” he said eventually. And he looked at her so sure that every word he’d said was the prominent truth.
But Six, once again, was realistic. That girl he claimed to be “alive” was totally dead in her view. Probably not even freshly dead, most likely “just bones” dead considering how lacking her survival instincts and skills were—based on what Six had observed.
“Not dead?” Six asked, skeptical. “You still want to waste your time believing that?”
“It isn’t time-wasting if it’s true. I know what I saw.”
“And what exactly did you see? Where is Viola?”
Mono hesitated. Of course he did. That only sent goosebumps up and down her arms. And after what felt like a long time, he finally gave her his answer.
He pointed his gaze up at the Signal Tower that stood far within the city, its beacon still providing its glow, channeling corruptive signals to every television in its range.
Six looked up to that beacon too.
And her skeptics crumbled instantly into nothing, the corner of her lips sagging, her chest feeling hollow yet heavy just by the mention of that abomination of a place where only bad things happen. The tall tower that reminded her of dark memories she wouldn’t forget, pain she would often feel from time to time despite it being over a long time ago.
For Mono to say such a thing, saying someone was trapped in that dastard prison, it was something Six would never take lightly of. This was a serious matter. And for Viola – that is to say Mono was right – it meant that she would soon face a dehumanizing process.
It couldn’t be true. For Viola’s sake, it just couldn’t.
“Tell me that was only a nightmare you had,” she said, warning. “It’s not funny.”
“Do you see me laughing right now?” He sighed heavily and took his time, finding the right words while his thoughts screamed louder and louder. “While I was…tuning the Transmission, I got pulled in by someone. I don’t know who, or where I was taken, but…I knew it was that room. She was in the same room; the same torturous prison cell I was locked in. I don’t understand it at all; I really don’t. It’s just…I remember hearing her voice, calling for help. It felt so real that I just knew it wasn’t a dream or my imagination.”
Six’s heart dropped.
“And you’re really sure about this?” she said, trying to convince herself more than him. “If this turns out to be your guilty conscience telling you that you—”
“Well, it’s not! I know what I saw. I don’t know how Viola even got there, or what took her, but what I do know is that she’s in serious trouble.”
At that, Six fell silent. She knew that he was already right. Like point-blankly right that even denying wouldn’t do two cents to calm her usually large ego. However, Six also knew about a lot of things aside from that.
Like that face he was making, suggesting something that could only, and only, mean bad news for her.
“No. I’m not doing this again,” she straightforwardly said.
Mono tilted his head. “I didn’t even say anything.”
“Yes, but I already know what you’re going to say. And my answer is still: no. I’m not letting you guilt-trip me into following you on yet another journey that may or may not get us killed.”
“Again; I didn’t even say anything yet. Nor was I about to say that.”
“Right, so you’re not about to suggest, me, blindly following you to rescue this girl you just met. You do this every time, Mono. I know that that is exactly what you’re thinking of.”
He shrugged, very annoyingly. “Okay, so what if you’re right?”
Six could only take a slow, deep breath. Lest she “accidentally” punched him in the throat.
“ Then, I’m still not going. Honestly, Mono, do whatever you want, get yourself eaten; I don’t care. But you’re not pulling me into this one.”
“So, you’re just going to abandon Viola? And forget everything that you owed her?”
Six furrowed her brows. “What are you talking about? I don’t owe her anything.”
“Oh, as if!” he said. “I distinctly remember Viola telling me that a certain someone—who just loved her music box too much but doesn’t want to admit it—thanking her for bringing it back to her possession.” That little tattletale. “So, in a way you still technically owe her, no? You still haven’t repaid her for her act of kindness. Which, if you ask me, now would be the perfect time.”
“With my life?” Six scoffed incredulously. “That’s dumb and unfair. Just returning an item is not the same as risking my life going back to that stupid Tower. If I’m repaying her “act of kindness”, I’d only do the same thing and only return something of hers. That is more logical.”
His eyes narrowed almost immediately after that, holding back a tiny rage within him as he forced up a smile that was so fake as though to prove he wasn’t at all affected. But as Six put on her own “Winner Face”, it was too obvious that he’d been seething loudly now.
“You don’t say,” he said as he took something out from his coat, holding its chain lazily between his fingers, the pendant swinging left to right.
But from the few seconds he took to “inspect” and “lovingly caress” the locket, he managed to catch her off guard once more.
Especially when he threw the damn thing at her like a rock.
Six caught it on reflex. And that was the number two mistake she’d made today—the first one was letting him play with her fear of the Thin Man.
“What the hell is this?” she demanded.
“That is Viola’s locket. Something that should be returned to her, don’t you think?”
Oh, this bastard.
“Are you kidding me right now? What are you even trying to do?”
For once, he smiled. But a very punch-able one as he said, “Nothing. Just guilt-tripping you into following me on yet another journey that may or may not get us killed. Again.” His smile widened as her blood began to boil hotter. “You better hold on to that locket, by the way.”
“Screw you, Mono,” she finally snapped, and stomped her way to him. “Just go to hell, you pathetic hat-freak!”
He huffed. “Cheap insults. But if you want, I can cry a little bit to boost your confidence.”
“At least I’m not some chicken who can’t handle a minute being alone.”
His smile faltered, his face reddening. “W-well, you can’t—you’ve…” He stared and pursed his lips. “You suck at counting.”
“You suck at trusting.”
“Maybe I wouldn’t have been if someone was a better friend.”
“Friend? You think I’d be friends with a chicken like you?” she said. “You can’t even handle the idea of going into the city by yourself without me walking behind you!”
“Yeah, I’m the problem here. Like you weren’t the one who kept on getting herself in trouble.”
“I only got in trouble because you dragged me into it.”
“You were the one who wanted to follow me back then!”
“Because you’re a chicken.”
“Am not.”
“Am so. Always been,” she said. “You’re so chicken, that everything you say means crap to me. Your so-called ‘courage’ is just you trying to hide the fact that you’re actually a coward.”
Mono said through gritted teeth, “I am not a coward, Six.”
“Really? Then how come all I’m hearing is bock, bock, bock, bock, bock—”
“I said I’m not a coward—!”
“Bock, bock, bock, bock, bock—”
“OH TO HELL WITH THIS!”
He stormed off and left her on that beach, stomping towards the distorted city entrance with a newfound confidence and courage he did not show earlier. Six could hear his angry footsteps, despite the ground being sand and all. Just the way he hurled the door open, she knew Mono was more than pissed off.
The door creaked painfully in her ears. And even though the entrance was open now, Mono stood there and turned to her, shooting her a nasty scowl from a distance away.
And he shouted real loud:
“WHO’S THE CHICKEN NOW?”
Mono went in straight away after. Not caring whether there were Viewers inside. Not caring whether his chances of dying are higher now. Not caring whether she would even follow him. He truly didn’t look back, wanting to prove himself that he was, in fact, not a chicken. At least she knew now being called a coward was his weakness. And an insecurity he sucked at hiding.
Six exasperatedly sighed, rubbing her temple.
Great.
Thanks to his stupidity, he might just cost her her life again.
Pale City was still constant as ever, what with all this terrible weather that seemed to only worsen the second they walked its gloomy ground and hollow streets. At least even The Maw provided a little bit of warmth, although not much could be compared as she wasn’t soaked with rain there. This cold – the kind that reached up to her bones and left her shivering constantly – could only be experienced in the city.
The same city Mono was stupid enough to go back to and drag her with him.
All for what? To save someone? Utter nonsense. He was only in too deep with his hero complex, thinking everybody could be saved in a world where the only thing that needed saving was your own skin. But obviously, his brain was dysfunctional. No matter the circumstances, he simply wouldn’t listen. Literally any advice she’d give him, he’d choose to ignore. In one ear, out the other. A stubborn boy with no sense of rational thinking. Like Viola, she supposed.
The thought of bailing on him while he wasn’t looking nearly crossed her mind. But where else was she going to go? She had no clue where the Maw’s next stop was.
Speaking of not knowing where to go…
“Mono, where are we even going?” They crawled out through the small opening between the fences.
Viola’s “hero” didn’t say a thing as he led them through alleys after alleys, seemingly comfortable with giving her the silent treatment.
“Oi,” Six said. “Have you gone deaf again?”
“If it means not ever having to listen to your voice, then sure.”
“Look, do you know how to get to the Signal Tower or not? Seems to me you’re just walking us in circles.”
Mono sighed through his nose. “Like mother, like daughter,” he mumbled.
“Huh?”
“Nothing. I said I know where we’re going.”
Six made a face. “I find that really hard to believe.”
“Your problem, then.”
As Six opened her mouth to shoot him with a quip, his arm suddenly raised in front of her, halting both his and her movements.
She tried to ask why. He shushed her.
Truly, she could’ve lost her cool at his audacity to even dare tell her what to do, but when it came to their lives being put on the line, she could take a hit or two for her ego. Mono had stopped them both for a reason, and it was one she could thank him silently for.
One look at the ground, they saw a tall shadow, a familiar blue glow illuminating from the other side of the wall they were steps away from revealing themselves. The static of a television were heard, and so was the ragged breathing of an adult.
A Viewer, they thought in unison.
Mono peeked from behind the wall, and he did not leave room for Six to see for herself – likely done out of spite. Six held her hands back from strangling his neck.
After all, silence was to be expected when encountered with a threat such as this. Especially when it's fully distracted. They had done this song and dance countless times together to know that.
So when Mono gave his nod, Six knew he was telling her to follow behind him. No questions asked, naturally – which was odd since she’d sworn to herself to never follow along with him anymore. Ironic, even.
The Viewer stood in front of the light so still, only sighing a weak breath every few seconds. And those precious few seconds, they took it as their chance to move; to leave and get across the other side of the alley.
Each footsteps had to be light. There was no room for error, especially for her. She knew it herself that she hadn’t had a good meal for some time ever since the Maw. Only enough to keep the ever-lasting hunger at bay, yet not enough to guarantee she’d make it through without using her powers again.
And knowing this God-forsaken city, she would need to use a lot to fend for herself.
“Psst!”
Six turned to Mono, seeing him already safely hidden on the other side whereas she…
She was still in the middle of it all, unrealizing her position just inside the shadow of the Viewer, looking at its back as though it was a hot grub. To her, it was a man-sized grub. She could sense the soul in him – twisted, corrupted, yet still very much consumable.
It was strongly tempting – inviting and itching her to take everything for herself and leave no leftovers. This was an opportunity well served on a fancy plate.
So, she did what she had to. Six ignored Mono’s whisper.
And she fed.
First, the television light flickered. Then, darkness obscured it. It began to take the man whole like a snake swallowing its dead prey. And his soul too was hers to steal, as if she were a black hole sucking everything up without mercy. Despite his evidently corrupted stature, the Viewer still had human-like features to him, at least ones that distinguished of what he used to be – that is, a man.
But after Six, he became nothing of such.
Instead, he had become a bag of bones. His skin, wrinkled and rotted, decaying despite it’d only been a minute. The Viewer became all of that just before his body hit the wet pavement, finally granted the mercy of death as what was left of his soul became Six’s to take – to consume and satiate.
It’d work many times like this for her. Back at the Maw, it was always like this when she killed for her hunger.
Yet now, it was different.
And she’d taken the wrong soul.
Instantly, her vision blackened. Her legs gave out beneath her. Her head throbbed left and right. She clutched onto her abdomen once she felt it – the clawing pain, the harsh stabbings of hunger that made it growl loudly. Six bit her tongue and squeezed her eyes shut.
What was this? This wasn’t supposed to happen. She was supposed to feel satiated, complete, and burst with strength! Not writhing in pain wishing she had something to knock herself unconscious.
“Six!” His voice echoed, and she pried her eyes open.
Mono was beside her already, seemingly fearing more at her current state than the man’s fleshless body. He held onto her shoulder. She instantly shoved him.
“Back off! I don’t need your help,” she snapped yet her body contradicted her words. Her stomach grumbled louder, echoing through the alleys. Regardless of the rain, and the static noise, there was at least one monster out there who had caught it. She knew it. Mono knew it. This city was cursed beyond repair. They had to move now.
“I…I can stand on my own,” Six said.
“I can stand on my own,” he mocked. Mono pulled her up anyway. Six winced. “Like hell you can.”
She hated this already. Having to rely on him just to walk out of there, it was inconvenient. But to have her arm slung over his shoulder as she had to lean most of her weight to him, and him supporting her all the way, it was embarrassing. Such a bruise to her ego.
Oh Six could already see it; Mono would never let her live this one down. He’d totally even brag about this to Viola just to further humiliate her. Make her feel even more indebted to him because of his heroic, knight-in-shining-armor act.
Her grip on his coat tightened. And she swore she’d felt him flinch for a second.
The rain became heavier as they rushed through the narrow path. It was as if the universe truly never intended on giving them a break. As if the weather wasn’t already cold, the temperature just had to be extra colder. At this point, they might as well freeze to death.
“Mono,” she said. “We have to find a shelter.”
“Agreed. You’re extremely heavy.” Six dug her nails deep into his skin. He yelped painfully but didn’t release her.
It didn’t mean he’d hold back on the threats.
“Do that again, and I will not hesitate to throw you into those puddles,” he said through gritted teeth.
“Shut up and just go down that path.”
Mono followed her gaze. He tensed and hesitated on his steps, bringing Six to stop with him to stare at her suggested shelter.
“You mean…the one with the rainbow fences around it?” he asked.
“What, you’re scared of colors now?”
“No!” he snapped. “I just…I don’t have a good feeling about that building.”
She gritted her teeth.
“Since when have you ever had a good feeling about buildings, Mono? Everywhere is just the—!” Another grumble. Six held Mono’s coat tight, cursing the hunger as it gave her shots after shots of pain.
“E-everywhere is just the same,” she started slowly. She took a breath. “We have the same chance of dying in there just as much as dying out here. You, overthinking this might just be the reason we die of freezing—!”
“Okay! We’ll stay in this one.” He clasped her arm properly and looked up and down of what was ahead – still wary, and reluctant.
Secretly, Six was too.
The ground was spacious, decorated with vibrant coloured objects – playgrounds like ones at the school – that now was ruined by years of heavy rain and mud. The fences, as she had noticed first, were in rainbows, as though a cruel reminder of the past where happiness was once something people had instead of fear and despondency. An old sign, written: WELCOME TO THE DAY CARE CENTRE was hung just at the top of its gate; however its writing was close to unreadable as most of its letters had faded, rust long had coloured its edges.
Just like everything else here, Six thought, looking around her and the…mess. Which was not unusual in their case. Not that she expected otherwise, anyway.
The door let out an awful creak. She hadn’t been the one to push – given her useless state – but she could feel just how heavy it was from Mono’s struggle. To say that Mono wasn’t superior in strength was a blatant lie. Of course, Six would stick with lying any day than boost that hat freak’s pride.
Six pushed herself away from her support the instant they were inside the building, having had enough of relying on someone much less him. Mono scowled as his hands dropped to his sides.
“You’re welcome, by the way,” he said as his voice echoed throughout the lobby.
She clutched her abdomen and seethed under her breath. “I told you I didn’t want your help, didn’t I?”
“Right. And where was all this complaining a few seconds ago?” Six didn’t respond to that. Mono scoffed. “I thought you said souls were the only thing that could help you.”
“…I know that.”
“Then what happened? How come you’re in pain? Why didn’t it work for you like it did for…” He hesitated. Again. Just like before. “What happened, Six?” he asked instead.
Honestly? She didn’t know herself. The hunger pangs were always abrupt and depending on how long it was left unsatiated, the pain would be harsh to handle. Back at the Maw, she’d made sure her eating schedule was consistent – when the sun began to set, she’d steal a few souls at once. It’d changed her appetite. Food she’d eaten before was nothing compared to the Guests’ souls that were fulfilling and abundant. Her powers grew stronger, darker day by day. Six had always figured that those ‘blessings’ were related to the curse in some way.
So, it all just stumped her now.
How could one soul, from one man who’d lived in Pale City watching screens his whole life, be the reason she was suffering? How could a meal that was meant to strengthen her powers weaken it? And her hunger, which had disappeared, reappeared?
Six didn’t know anything to answer Mono’s question, but the only conclusion that came to mind now was: she no longer has any safety net. Because if this wasn’t her body rejecting souls out of the blue, then it had to be Pale City. The Signal Tower. The current transmission.
“It doesn’t matter,” she said. “It’s already in the past and I can’t change that.”
“Still. Doesn’t mean you can’t avoid it in the future.”
“And why do you always have to care?”
Mono became quiet, frowning as he stared almost sadly. Six felt the tiny guilt creep behind her back.
“I don’t…care if that’s what you think, Six. Back then, yes, I might’ve probably, but now is different . Everything is so different. You’re not someone I’m putting my priorities for anymore.”
Her brows furrowed. “What…?” she asked.
He sighed through his nose. “Just find an alternative is what I’m trying to say. If those souls aren’t working for you, then deal with your hunger problem like how you used to. Don’t do nothing and drag me into your mess.” His voice was firm. The way he said it was as bitter as he acted around her and yet…
His words were anything but.
Because the longer Six thought about them, the more she understood it. Mono actually just gave her a good suggestion.
If those souls aren’t working for you, then deal with your hunger problem like how you used to.
Food. She could hold the hunger back with food. Just like the times before she discovered souls.
However…why did Mono help her with that? Why did he have to contradict her – and himself, multiple times at this point – and help her again?
“Mono, I…”
Something shifted in her peripheral vision.
Six tensed immediately, halting everything in her not even to exhale a short sigh. Luckily, she didn’t need to alert Mono as he was already in his defensive stance. They did not move.
But the glowing pairs of eyes did.
In the dark corner, the four dots of white glowed brighter, so tall just barely reaching the door’s height yet not tall enough to break Thin Man’s record. They couldn’t see what was below, the darkness hugging its frame so perfectly, however, they knew it was alive.
And they knew it’d been watching them by the door this whole time. So quietly, it’d watched them argue and be lost in their thoughts. It’d been standing there – observing and waiting.
But seemingly, it had waited long enough. It had long studied the two children, and now it was excited to make their acquaintances.
A handshake was not it.
The adult, a woman so sickly pale and gaunt, had short hair barely reaching its shoulder. She stood tall and straight, as though she was once a strict woman keeping everyone in line. Similar to a teacher, yet not the same. She didn’t seem mindless, for one. Instead, she was calm and observant. She stood perfectly straight with her hands behind her back, her eyes locked on the little children she did not see as meat or a puppet for whatever sick play she had in mind.
Six couldn’t understand it – what she wanted or who she was. However, from her uniform alone, she could tell the woman belonged here, and not some adult who had come to take over the building to make it hers. From her ostensibly confident posture, Six knew she had a power neither of them had.
And from her stretched smile, she knew the woman was not friendly.
They bolted. Mono took Six’s arm – possibly out of habit – and they dashed together out of the room.
The woman’s gaze followed them. Her legs didn’t.
Neither of the children looked back to realize that, only fearing for their life at that second and wanting to be anywhere but where the woman was. And they ran through the day care hallways. They ran, and ran, and ran.
All only to stop in the end.
Six snatched her arm from Mono. He halted with her, taking a step back.
The corridors were still dark, barely any light penetrating through the windows, as well as the sounds of rain tapping it. But the sound they were listening for was of the footsteps – stomping in anger, chasing after them with malicious intent.
None of that happened.
The quiet became louder like in the lobby. The woman, nowhere to be found. Six looked back and forth just to make sure of it.
“She didn’t follow us,” Six whispered first.
Mono scoffed softly. “Nice assessment, genius. I can see that.”
“It’s not good, Mono. Why didn’t she chase us? All of the monsters always chased us.”
“Maybe not this one…? M-maybe she’s blind or something.”
“Idiot, if she were, her ears would still work wouldn’t it?” she hissed quietly.
He looked at her, defensive. “Why are you snapping at me? Do I look like the one who’s potentially going to kill us right now?”
“I didn’t snap at you! It’s just the way I speak.”
“Oh, so with 24/7 sarcasm?”
“You’re the one who’s always sarcastic—!” She breathed slowly and took a deep breath. “Look. We’re straying off topic. What are we going to do?”
Mono sighed through his nose, however, agreeing to think of a solution instead of pointless bickering.
He did a quick glance around before turning back to his companion.
“I don’t think that woman is coming any time soon,” he said. “I say we hide.”
“Hide? Hide where?”
“I don’t know—just…just not out here in the open. This place seems like a children’s place, so there should be some spots small enough we could wait in until we figure out an escape plan.”
“You do realize waiting for her to leave us alone would take days, don’t you?”
“Oh really? Then how about you think of a solution. I’m dying to hear your great ideas, Six. I’m sure you have a bunch already—”
“Okay! Fine, we’ll hide.”
Mono muttered an empty ‘thank you’ and turned his back towards her.
Only to be met face to face with the woman’s smile.
And her whole body, upside down.
Mono screamed and fell back, horror in his face as the woman descended from the ceiling, dropping to the floor like a cotton-filled doll, her limbs either corrupted to be unnaturally flexible or she possessed no bones in her. Just like the Hunter’s family.
Everything happened as though in a blink of an eye. Six remembered how she barely took a step towards Mono, and like a flash, a hand shoved her far back, slamming her against the hard floor, sending sharp pains up and down her body. Her head throbbed, and the ground felt as if it was spinning – the walls. The windows. The woman. Mono.
Her heart raced despite her affected vision. She saw the woman hover above him, and how her smile looked like there were two. Mono was still on his back, just about to push himself up until his scream penetrated the air again.
And blood. She saw blood on the floor.
Mono hated this already. He wanted to blame someone for everything that happened – or was about to happen – to him. It wasn’t his idea to come into this building, yes, but he’d supported it, nonetheless. He’d agreed with Six.
But perhaps it wasn’t her fault at all. Maybe trouble just followed him wherever he went like a string tied around his wrist.
The woman was closing in on him, her fours eyes glowing bright before his own that it might as well have blinded him. He could hardly see. He could hardly move. After years of witnessing horrors like this, you would’ve expected him to at least get used to it and run despite feeling like his heart was exploding out of his chest. But he wasn’t. His chest still hurt from the overwhelming fear of dying, his heart still felt like it was exploding.
The woman clawed her hand at him. He flinched and raised his arm above his head.
That was when he felt it – the overwhelming pain, and something dripping past his arm, splattering some to the ground beside him.
Mono didn’t realize the pain, only seeing his blood as nothing but red paint. He had to imagine it as such. He couldn’t afford to panic now.
Not when he was still seconds away from death’s clutches.
I don’t want to die, he thought.
I can’t die now.
Dying isn’t an option.
Viola needs me.
I don’t want to die.
Those words played in his mind on loop, tugging at his body as though to shake him awake and keep him from passing out dead on the scene. He wasn’t sure what had happened to Six. He wasn’t sure what was happening now.
The hallway suddenly turned…brighter. Not from the woman’s glowing eyes, no. This light was outshining it. He could see how the woman’s smile twitched, and how her movements became hesitant.
But the second she clawed at him again, came the bright flash that overwhelmed the entire corridor. And when he opened his eyes again, the woman was a few feet away from him, grasping her crisped black hand, gritting through her toothy smile in pain.
The woman snapped her gaze to him, snarling.
Mono felt his vision begin to tunnel, and everything swayed around him. His energy was drained like at the beach, only this time accompanied with the sting on his arm. His focus already drifted too. The woman’s eyes were the one thing he saw as they retreated into the darkness.
It was one of the last things he saw.
That, and something yellow approaching him.
His eyes were heavy as a full sack. He didn’t know how he even managed to open them in the first place, let alone try to sit up. But seemingly his back was already leaned against something – a wall?
Mono blinked a few more times. The corridor was already gone. Instead, his surroundings were different; he noticed the toys that littered around him on the floor, all with bright colors that only made him want to close his eyes again. A blue table was above him, or rather, he was put under it. His brain didn’t need to understand how or why.
Yet his mind kept wondering where Six was.
Has she decided to abandon him again? Just hide him somewhere before leaving for good? Or was she already fed up with him but didn’t have the gall to kill him the second time?
He shifted in his place. Something crumpled under him.
“What…?” His brows furrowed as he reached for it.
It was…a paper. A kid’s drawing from what he could tell.
There were five stickmen, each holding hands together with a smile on their faces, the middle person being the tallest out of the other fours. Hearts were drawn all over the background and rainbows too. Yet Mono couldn’t look away from the tallest person in the drawing. Who was drawn so similarly like the woman with four eyes, the monster who had left him a nasty wound. There was an arrow to her drawing, poorly written:
“Nanny?” he muttered.
Mono heard the door creak. He threw the paper at the side and quickly became on guard.
At least…until he saw that familiar raincoat again.
Great. It’s her. For a second he wanted to be glad his expectations had been wrong.
Unfortunately, Six noticed his stare and already approached him under the table, clutching something in her hand. She stopped just in front of him and hesitated, seemingly reluctant to be any closer than where she was.
Mono mentally rolled his eyes. “I thought you left,” he said.
Six paused for a few seconds. Then she blinked.
“I did…but because…” She hesitated again, annoying him successfully.
This awkwardness is just what I needed.
“Your arm’s bleeding.”
Mono raised a brow before following her gaze and looked down.
“Oh,” was all he said, the pain only finally registering in his brain now. He held a hand over the dark red spot on his sleeve. “It’s fine,” he said as he winced.
Six sighed and kneeled beside him. But when she leaned over him, trying to touch his clearly injured arm, he felt his anger spike.
“I said it’s fine. B-back off, will you?” he said, however, shakily. His whole arm, too, was trembling.
Six shot him a look. The look he hated so, so much.
“That’s what I told you when I didn’t want your help. And you mocked me.” Mono stared widely. Six huffed and held out a tattered cloth – from where, he didn’t know. “I’m only doing this because I owe you, stupid. Nothing more, nothing less. So, quit being difficult and just let me see it.”
His eyes widened when she leaned again.
“It—it’s alright!” Mono assured as he recoiled. “You’ve paid what you owe just by bringing me here, so…there’s really no need. I’m fine. Really.”
Six looked at him carefully. And his face warmed enough to heat his whole body.
“Why are you acting weird?” she asked.
“I’m…I’m not.”
“Then why aren’t you letting me see your wound? Usually you’re fine with me bandaging it.”
“Well, not anymore!” He shied his arm away from her. “You know what, just give me the cloth. I can—I can do it myself.”
Six narrowed her eyes and scoffed. “Have at it then.” She tossed him the cloth, purposely letting him not catch it.
This insufferable ego witch.
Mono sent her a scowl before turning back to his injury. The sleeve was already torn by the harsh scratch the Nanny had left him, and he could feel its fabric still wet from blood. Meaning the wound is still fresh. It’s a miracle I woke up before Six bandaged me up without my consent.
He held back his winces as he rolled up his sleeve. To him it was painful, so he did it slow. To Six, it was painful to watch because he was dragging his own suffering at this point.
“My God, Mono, just get it done already,” Six said.
He only managed to reach past his wrist. “It’s more painful than it looks,” he hissed.
“Because you’re dragging it out!” Six shook her head and shooed his hand away. Mono barely said a thing before Six took over and rolled his sleeve up for him.
And it hurt.
However, it was done so incredibly fast, that it was both cruel and good.
Crimson painted his arm, the fresh gash likely would leave an ugly scar. Mono winced at the sight, holding his wound carefully as it stung just by air exposure.
Yep, this was Six’s fault. They should’ve just let it sit under his coat for a bit longer. The pain was becoming twice as harder to ignore now that he’d seen the wound himself.
Even Six was shocked too. For someone who boasted a lot about having experienced dark stuff, that far-away look she had on just told him enough that she still wasn’t used to it either.
Mono wanted to laugh.
At least…for a second he almost did. The feeling vanished when he actually looked at her and saw where her eyes were actually pointed at.
One, the wound was not it. Two, he realized there was a certain white mark exposed on his arm now.
And Six was looking directly at it.
Notes:
Yay! A new OC! I present to you, The Nanny! If you're wondering what she looks like, I just took the other mother (when she became tall and creepy) from Coraline as inspiration and...reference ;)
And yes, Six PROBABLY knows who Viola's dad is now T - T
Thanks for reading!
Chapter 22: A Deal with the Devil
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Something was not right with what Six was seeing. She could sense it already from the very core of her soul that something was not right. Mono’s arm was still exposed to her, his wound still fresh from the claws of that monster, the remaining blood that wasn’t cleaned off properly smudged all over his pale skin.
Mono was always pale. He’d always been. So utterly pale in a way that made him look sick and malnourished – which he undoubtedly also was.
Yet his complexion still couldn’t hide the bright mark on his skin.
Viola said something, Six remembered. Something about a birthmark, random splotch of white, birthmarks on arms.
Something, something, something.
That girl talked so much that Six had to mute some of it out, but there was one moment where Viola suddenly lost her smile during that birthmark talk.
Six remembered it had something to do with—
Her father.
“Huh?”
Crap.
“What?” she said.
“You said something,” Mono said. “I heard you say something.”
Double crap. “No I didn’t.”
“I’m wounded, Six. Not deaf. Quit it with your mumbling and just say it. I know you said something.”
“Why would it even matter to you if I did?”
“Because you’re still on my suspicious list,” he spat. “I’m not an idiot who’s just going to trust you just because you’re—” He stopped. And tried again. “I’m…not an idiot who will trust someone like you, in general. ”
Six shook her head tiredly, too numb with this ‘You’re a backstabber’ game he kept on playing since the Maw. She held his arm with care, so gentle that it surprised both of them.
“Whatever,” she said, then whispered, “freak.”
“What did you say—?”
“Tell me, what kind of scar is this?” Six kept her gaze on the wound, dressing it with the cloth she’d found in one of the storage rooms. Despite her eyes never meeting his, she felt how immediately his arm had tensed.
She didn’t need to see to know that the question of hers had struck some string of insecurity within Mono - given their first encounter he’d worn a literal bag over his head, the birthmark topic might be a similar case she figured.
“It—it’s not a scar, idiot!”
And right she was.
“It’s just something that doesn’t matter. Nothing that is of interest or anything you should be busy-bodying into since it's completely none of your business to begin with.”
“But where’d you get it, though?”
“I JUST SAID IT’S NONE OF YOUR—” Six’s attention was still on dressing his wound. He bit back a snarl as he glared right through her soul, seething. “Birth. I got it from birth.”
“Birth, huh?”
His eyes narrowed. “You’re acting weird.”
Her hands halted from tying the bandage sealed.
A few seconds.
And she tightened the cloth.
“I don’t know what you mean,” she said. “Really don’t.”
“You’re lying straight through your teeth, you know. Which is not surprising since you’re already a pro at backstabbing, pretending, and abandoning everyone you’ve met—”
“Please, you know nothing about me,” she spat. She stood up and walked to the other end of the table, sitting across him however far enough to create a comfortable distance.
“Don’t I, though? I mean I’ve already experienced firsthand your lies. What else could I be wrong about? Do share.”
“No,” She laid on her side, turning her back to him, “I want to sleep. And so should you.”
“Oh, I’m not sleeping anywhere near you. You’re a psycho who tried to kill me in my sleep!”
She sighed and closed her eyes. “Then maybe next time I’ll just make a really loud noise and get that lady to wake you.”
Silence came after. A second or two.
Then a crumpled paper landed on her head.
Her eyes snapped open. Her body shot up. And her rage took over her.
“OI!” she yelled. “What’s your problem?”
“My problem? What’s your problem, saying things like that! You can’t just say things like that when we literally almost died because of her!”
“I was kidding, stupid,” she deadpanned. “Why on earth would I even risk myself just to get back at you?”
“Because you literally just said you would!”
“It was a joke!”
“Which was not funny,” he spat. “God, Six, you seriously suck if you can’t even tell what’s a joke and what’s not.”
“Oh really?” She scoffed. “You want to know what else is a joke? This. This whole trip from the cabin to the city; the idea of saving someone who probably would die sooner or later in that evil place; you, thinking that you could actually save her. I’m getting sick of you playing hero all the time, Mono. Aren’t you tired too? Or are you just so in too deep with this whole charade that you can’t even understand the situation you had just been in?
“You were literally brainwashed, Mono. At the beach. With the television. You said you saw Viola from whatever place you were pulled into, and you said she’s in the same room that you were locked in. I’ll admit you wanting to go back to that hellhole just to rescue her is touching, but how stupid are you? Are you that blind that you can’t even see what’s going on? To even ask yourself whether all of it was an accident or intentional?” At his silence, she scoffed when he looked away.
“No. I guess not,” she said. “You’re still so obsessed with wanting to die for someone you barely know.”
“And you?” he finally said, meeting her eyes. “You’re still so heartless to let someone die just because she’s nothing to you. Because isn’t that the factor you look into to keep someone around? Does this person serve any purpose to me?”
She stopped breathing. Something heavy lingered in her chest the more his words hit her.
“That’s not true,” she said.
“But isn’t it though? Because why else would you constantly complain about having to go all the way to look for Viola even from the start in the forest? Why else would you just assume she’s dead if not the fact that she no longer has any use to you? Why else would you abandon me right after I saved you from your disoriented, messed up state that had you destroy everything you see? Simple. You’re just a cold, emotionless bitch that should’ve just stayed under that basement and rot.”
The heaviness imploded. Her heart that she thought was stone, cracked and spread until its center and core. Her lungs felt like it no longer functioned, or at least it felt like rust on metal. Her face – there was no hiding that she’d failed to keep her poker face up and steady.
So instead, she retreated to lying on her side, back to the boy that had managed to make her feel something. Because in truth, her hurt had shown.
And Mono noticed.
He realized it.
He knew what his words had done to her – how he’d gone too far.
“Six,” he said after a moment, his voice regretful, “I…I didn’t…”
“Just stop talking, Mono.” She sighed. Closed her eyes again. “Stop talking.”
For once, he listened to her.
And sleep came mercifully to take her away from her reality.
Cold.
Everything was so, so cold.
There were voices whispering, talking to her. Then pain.
Pain was her second friend. The Eye was her friend. They promised good things into her ears, told her everything would be alright, the Broadcaster would leave her alone for good.
She didn’t want him to come back. The Broadcaster. She prayed to the purple, never-ending sky. To the floating toys and chairs and dust. To the whispers that spoke again, all at once, dissonant, separate yet together. She prayed to the voices.
Let the Broadcaster leave her alone for good.
Leave her alone.
Leave her.
Leave.
She had to leave. This place wasn’t safe. She must leave.
“Oh, dear child,” a voice said. Six cowered into place, her twisted limbs, bent joints and enlarged body all crammed like a ball.
“Please, do not fear a thing, little Six,” it cooed.
So reassuring.
So soft.
So gentle.
So kind.
So evil. So cruel. So manipulative.
“It seems you long for an escape. We are sorry for you, truly. To be made into something that is beyond what your innocent mind could comprehend, we imagine you must feel confused after all, aren’t you, dear one?”
Confused, yes. Indeed she felt confused. The voices said she was confused. She must be. She was.
What was his name again?
“The Tower is always so kind to its visitors. You, dear Six, shouldn’t be in such a state yet alas, our Broadcaster couldn’t contain his harbored anger any longer. He’s a valuable specimen, you see. With him, we are quite lenient. And protective. You surely understand why he brought you here, yes? Or No? You still do not understand? Confused as ever still?”
Confused. Yes, she was confused. The voices told her she was confused. Right, she was confused.
“Of course, you must be. You are in pain. We understand you, indeed.”
Pain. The voices understood her.
“We can help you, dear Six.”
They could help her.
“We can lessen your pain.”
Lessen her pain.
“We are your friend.”
Friend.
Her friend.
What was his name? What was his face?
“ Do you not want us to help you? Do you wish to suffer alone in this filth and rot here forever with your body continuously distorting and your mind disorienting? Is that what you want?”
Was that what she wanted?
No.
The voices said no.
Her answer was no.
“Do you wish to be free of the pain?”
Yes.
“Be rid of your miserable reality?”
Yes.
“Away from the tortures of this world?”
Yes.
“Away from the boy who left you?”
The boy. The boy who left her. She remembered him like a blurred image. His name was familiar on her tongue like a second language.
She knew him well enough to consider him as significant.
Why were these whispers telling her he was bad news?
When in fact, in her heart, he wasn’t at all? When in truth he was far from bad news? When he was a person she knew she could trust but couldn’t remember why? When he was her only company and assurance throughout her moments in this wretched city, constantly haunted by the smell of death and ruin?
When he actually was her friend?
Friend.
The boy.
He was a friend.
He was her friend and one she’d followed closely behind.
But what was his name?
His name, his face, the color of his eyes, the sound of his voice.
Six trembled and her mouth began to mumble words she couldn’t understand. Her fists tightened, clenching until her nails pierced into her own palm. Her breaths became unsteady, as if the air in the room was finishing and she couldn’t breathe.
She couldn’t breathe.
She couldn’t speak properly.
She couldn’t see without realizing how fake it all was.
She couldn’t hear without the whispers invading her head; to calm her.
But liars, they were. They were all liars.
The ground shook from where her fist met the floor. Her scream echoed, up above all around. And she screamed again and again. Pounded her fists. Wrecked everything. Hauled it across the room. Then screamed and screamed and screamed until the room remembered her voice.
Screamed until the tower listened.
Screamed until
Until
Until a melody played in her ears.
Six stopped in her midst of tantrum and rage. So did time.
She hadn’t felt the cool surface under her palm, but it was there she soon realized, as though it slid gently into her touch like a pacifier to a crying infant’s mouth. It worked like a pacifier, indeed – she wasn’t crying anymore. She no longer cried as the crank handle turned on its own, a music box just to calm her down.
The music box.
She had this music box. Long before, from a time when she was alone, trapped in isolation waiting for her fate just like the rest of the unfortunate.
The music box.
She spent all her hours with it during. It was her company before him. It was her friend before him.
How did it get here?
“We know you so well, dear Six,” they spoke again. “We know you better than he ever could. We would be a better friend than he ever could. We wouldn’t hurt you like he would. Isn’t that true? He hurt you, did he not?”
He hurt her.
He hurt her when he did nothing. When the man took her away he did nothing but watched.
“Of course he did; he was no friend! A true friend would never have done such a thing!”
No they wouldn’t.
“A true friend would help the other when they are in pain.”
She nodded, caressing the music box.
“Doesn’t that make us your true friend, Six?” She nodded. “Doesn’t it mean we are friends?” She nodded. “Then wouldn’t it mean,” they said, “you would also help us the same way we helped you?”
They had helped her. She nodded.
“We are also in pain, you see. So much pain just like you.”
Pain?
“That is true. We have been suffering for a while and…we only could rely on a true friend to help. Would you, perhaps, help us? Just like we did?”
Then suddenly the atmosphere changed – something sinister and unfriendly lingering in the air, hiding behind the purple tinted light.
She didn’t remember herself nodding. She faintly remembered agreeing. And hugging the music box tighter and tighter.
“All we need you to do,” they said, “is to kill the boy in the paper bag.”
Her eyes snapped open. A sharp breath escaped her.
Six felt her body rise on its own, trembling from the dream as well as the cold that had set in the room. Why was it too cold all of the sudden?
The rain tapped against the windows. She focused on that instead.
And took another breath to calm her heart that paced as though she’d just run for her life.
“You okay?”
Six turned to the voice, seeing how his brows furrowed into something that lied in between concern and annoyance. Was that even possible?
She rolled her eyes at him and turned away. “I’m fine,” she muttered.
“You don’t sound fine. Or look fine for that matter,” Mono said. “Heck, you look worse than you always do.”
A side glare. “Thanks.”
“It wasn’t a compliment.”
“I wasn’t being genuine.”
He huffed and crossed his arms. Mono was still seated across her, seemingly never moving since she’d taken her short and unfortunate nap. From the tiredness in his eyes, Six wondered if he even took his.
Perhaps not.
“Aren’t you going back to sleep?” he suddenly said.
Six raised a brow. “Why?”
“I mean like I said you look really horrible—”
“No—I meant, why? Why are you volunteering to stay awake while I sleep? Aren’t you tired too?”
He stared at her in silence. Looked away. Then met her eyes again. “Of course I am,” he finally replied.
“Then?”
“I just don’t feel like sleeping, okay? So might as well one of us do and the other keep watch.”
“And by one of us you mean, me?”
“Yeah.”
“Me as in the person you hate the most?”
His cheeks reddened. “Yes.”
“You want to give me the privilege of sleeping while you suffer staying awake for the next couple of hours—?”
“Why do you have to make it sound weird?”
“Because it is.”
“It’s really not.”
“Tell me the truth.”
“No.”
“Do it.”
“I said no.”
“Mono,” she deadpanned with a look. A single look that could leave a person wishing they hadn’t noticed her eyes with how unrelenting her stare was. That and the fact that she could go without blinking for an uncomfortable amount of time.
Long enough to make Mono cave.
His face became flushed, and he quickly averted his eyes. “I just…figured you need the sleep more than I do,” he whispered very quietly. And then even quieter, “especially after what I said to you.”
“What?”
“Nothing. It’s nothing. Just seriously though, go back to sleep.”
Six watched him for a moment longer, contemplating whether to push him on the subject or just let it go entirely.
She decided for the latter when his eyes lowered. He was clearly exhausted yet denying himself of the rest for some reason. Not that she cared. It wasn’t her concern after all.
“I’m not tired anymore,” she said, sitting properly to face him. “Besides, I don’t think I’d even want to go back to sleep anytime soon.”
Mono raised a brow. “It was that bad, huh?” She nodded wryly. “Figured as much. You were talking—crying like a baby in your sleep.”
Her heart stopped.
“What?”
“Okay, I exaggerated the crying part, but you know what I mean. You don’t usually talk in your sleep—”
“What did you hear me say?”
He paused, surprised even at her sudden panic. “N…nothing much. You were mumbling most of the time.”
Mumbling. I was mumbling about a dream that wasn’t at all a dream.
Six knew it for a fact that it wasn’t close to it. Every moment of that nightmare, every second of pain and torture she felt in the dream, she had felt it before. She didn’t know why, though. Why did that awful memory come back after all this time?
“Is something wrong with your dream?” His voice snapped her out of her thoughts. Six met his gaze, silent and hesitating.
“No,” she said, “everything’s fine. It’s just another nightmare.”
“Well then. Good to know.”
“How is your arm?”
Mono lifted a bit of his makeshift bandage and winced. “Still a pain, but other than that just super,” he said. “Also can you…pretend this never happened?” Her brows furrowed instantly. Mono didn’t hide his annoyance at that as his voice unconsciously went smaller. “Can you just act as if you’ve never,” He gestured to his wound, “you know.”
“Oh.” Six’s eyes widened. It wasn’t her intention to suddenly remember her discovery earlier. And it certainly wasn’t her intention to feed her own curiosity with questions that may or may not have felt like revealing a secret.
“Is it because of your birthmark?”
Then Mono’s eyes widened, his cheeks flushed.
“What—no! I mean—” He was blinking faster now. “That—that isn’t what I meant at all! I meant about you…uh…about you helping…you know? Not about that.”
“Oh, I…I guess that makes more sense.”
“Yeah.”
None of them spoke then. They settled into a short albeit awkward silence that made them avoid each other. The air didn’t feel tense, nor was it hostile or filled with anger and hatred that usually took the spotlight.
“Mono?”
“Hm?”
“Can I…ask you something?”
Still flustered from before, he could only nod curtly.
“Has Viola ever mentioned to you about remembering her parents before?”
Mono said nothing. He did nothing. Moved not a single muscle except his eyes that suddenly seemed different.
“No,” he shook his head, “I don’t think she has.”
“Well she did to me,” she said. “I just find it strange that she has memories of her father when most of us can’t even remember our own. Don’t you think so?”
He crossed his arms and looked away. “I guess.”
“And she’s never told you anything about it either? At all?”
“About her parents?”
“Yeah.”
“No. She never said anything as ridiculous as that.” He scoffed, still never meeting her eyes. “Remember her parents—who could ever remember something as impossible as that? That’s just an obvious lie if you ask me. Totally not worth anyone’s time to discuss it. By the way I think we should get going, since none of us are sleeping and I feel much better now.” He stood up with a loud sigh, carrying his injured arm in the other and simply leaving Six there with a confused look. Yet she made no move to follow him. Instead that left Mono to halt his steps to turn back to his old friend.
“What?” he said.
“Do you…know something, Mono?”
“No. I told you she never told me anything. So can we just drop this?”
“Why are you acting weird?”
He fell silent at that. That did nothing to convince Six that he wasn’t lying as she stood from her place.
“I’m…not,” he said and gulped. “You’re weird.”
“There it is again! You’re trying to hide something from me,” Six said, approaching him until they stood face to face. “Is it about Viola?”
Instantly, he looked away.
“I knew it,” Six muttered. “I knew something’s wrong with that girl.”
“Wait—huh—?”
“From the very moment she came to the Maw, my guts were screaming at me not to trust her, telling me that something was clearly off about her entire character. Because let me tell you— no one is ever that happy living in a world surrounded by death. And then I find out she started lying to me about who she is, claiming she’s related to you to explain her powers. Having weird conversations and the fact that she remembers things beyond what was normal. Then the locket and her relationship with that monster. I can’t believe it took me so long to even connect the dots,” she said. “Viola’s clearly not from here.”
She’s a part of the Eye without a doubt, Six thought. It would be the only way to explain how her father was that thin bastard of a man. I bet he was the one she was referring to about the white birthmark, not Mono. This has to be just some stupid coincidence.
I’m stupid enough to even think Mono was the one she meant.
Literally, that is impossible.
Unimaginable.
Six was happy with her conclusion. She was proud of her deduction skills already and having figured it out all on her own nearly brought a smile to her face.
All until Mono opened his mouth.
“So you know too? She told you about her parents?”
Every thought left was immediately thrown out the window.
“Huh?” was all she could say. Was she wrong about her theory?
“Uhm,” Mono replied, regret laced in his tone for ever even asking her that. “Never mind.” He pivoted on his heel, avoiding her completely as he proceeded to walk away.
However, it was unsuccessful as he had hoped.
Six grabbed him by the shoulder, and dug her nails into his coat, turning him back to her so he could neither avoid her nor run away.
That pissed Mono off, obviously.
But like she ever cared.
“Spill it,” Six said. Warned. All of her tones were almost the same so you couldn’t tell the difference. Yet her eyes never lied. One look at it and it was enough for Mono to remember the many levels of patience Six had. Furthermore, the nails on his shoulder was a second reminder.
Mono hesitated, but still put effort to put on a brave front.
“There is nothing to spill . Let go of my shoulder before I start punching.”
“What did you mean when you said, ‘do I know’?”
“It meant nothing. Seriously Six, you’re starting to piss me off.”
“Well I’m more pissed off that you know something I don’t. What did she tell you that she didn’t tell me about? Did she tell you who she was? Her origins? Her relationship to the goddamn Tower?”
“What are you—she’s not related to the Eye!”
“Oh, please, you’ve seen her locket. You said it yourself that they were her parents. And those two definitely worked for the Eye.”
“Still it doesn’t mean that she’s part of it,” he snapped. “Just because her dad was some old psycho who tried to kill us and her mom, a random creepy lady who wears a creepy mask—it doesn’t make Viola the same as them. And if you’re trying to say that Viola’s evil and actually is trying to lure us into coming to the Signal Tower then…then SHAME ON YOU.”
“Excuse me?”
“Yeah. Shame on you, Six. You have always been so pessimistic when it comes to her. I mean, what has she ever done to you—aside from, you know, being a bit strange?”
“I am not being pessimistic. I’m just concerned about what I’m getting myself into,” she said. “You’re saying you don't doubt even a single thing that she has told you? Not even about her remembering her father?”
“Why are you so adamant about that part?”
“Because…!” Viola’s words played into her mind once more, and her eyes glanced down to his bandaged arm where a certain mark lay hidden underneath.
So, you just never wondered why there’s a small random splotch of white on your arm?
My dad had that birthmark.
Her dad.
The Thin Man.
Mono was not The Thin Man.
“Just tell me what you know. And I’ll tell you what I know.” Mono’s eyes widened at her offer.
“What?”
“Look, it’s obvious we both have different perspectives when it comes to Viola. I’m just saying it wouldn’t hurt for us to know who she really is if we’re heading towards death itself just for the sake of a rescue mission. Don’t you agree?” When he said nothing, Six released his shoulder and continued, “So just tell me what she told you, and in return, I’ll tell you what she told me.”
Mono looked at her. Then down at his bandaged arm. Back at her eyes.
“No.”
Six wanted to punch a wall.
“Are you…are you kidding me?” she spat. He was serious. “Mono, it's a win-win situation! What more do you want?”
“Well—how do I know if you’d actually exchange different information? For all I know, you could just be baiting me to tell you something new, which then you’ll tell me something I already know.”
“Because you said she’s never mentioned anything about remembering her parents to you before,” she said, rubbing her each side of her forehead, feeling as though a migraine was on standby.
“Well, I lied.”
“You what.”
“I lied. She told me about it before.”
“Mono—you son of—” She balled her hands into tight fists, sighing exasperatedly. “Why would you lie?”
“The same reason you would—”
“Then can’t we just agree to tell each other what we know?”
Mono crossed his arms, scowling and frowning harder as he contemplated for what felt like a long, long time.
“Which parent did she tell you about?” he finally said, his eyes on the ground.
Six found it odd that that was his first question. Regardless, she cooperated easily unlike him. No questions asked.
“Her father. You?”
“Mother.”
Alright. That was a good start.
“Okay then,” Six said. “What else?”
But she spoke too soon.
“Hold on, why am I going first?”
Her brows furrowed. “Because you’re the one closer to her?”
“You’re the one who started this.”
“So?”
“So? She who starts, goes first.”
“That’s stupid. Just because I’m smart enough to have suggested this little information exchange, I’m the one who has to spill everything first?”
“By right, yes.”
“No, by right, you’re going first.”
“Screw that! Ladies first.”
“Like you care about all that,” she said and sighed. “I don’t understand why you can’t just go first?”
“ Because Six,” he said, “I know you won’t tell me anything after I tell you what I know.”
“But I just said I would.”
“That’s what you told me when I asked you if you’d always have my back the same way I had yours—”
“Okay, we’re going off topic again!” she said, annoyed. “Are you going to tell me anything or not? Because now I get the feeling that I’m the one who’d end up being scammed here.”
He laughed at her face. “You think I’m the scammer now?”
“I think you can be. You’ve already scammed me into thinking you were a good person.”
“BECAUSE I AM A GOOD PERSON!”
“Am not.”
“AM SO.”
“Screw this. I’m done.” She turned away just in time for his retort.
“Whatever, loser.”
That struck a nerve.
Six felt her fury burn brighter when she finally looked back and glared down at him, staring straight through his pathetic excuse for a soul as though one look could turn him into mere ash and dust. And if her eyes were anything like the four pairs glowing just outside their ajar door, watching silently in the dark, calculating their every movements
Mono wouldn’t have stood a chance.
Notes:
Thanks for reading!
Chapter 23: Alone
Notes:
Hello everyone! Here's a long chapter.
Btw this is *not* a thinman/lady chapter update. Just thought you should know :)
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
A chime rung.
In the back of her mind, Viola could hear faintly at first as it began ascending in volume, reverberating and distorting until it sounded like a broken record. It was no music; but she listened to it like it was so. The clock hands moved slowly, and she watched the little one go
Tick
Tick
Tick
Then screams of a desperate boy.
Tick
Then a flash of a horrified face, her tattered yellow coat.
Tick
Red smeared across their cheeks.
Tick
Tears of a man, falling as he clung to her.
Tick.
It chimed.
Viola.
She sat up straight on her chair, looking away from her plate of food, so suddenly snapped out from her reverie. She looked up to the man and woman sitting across her, their faces sharing the same look: concern. Her father spoke first.
“Is…everything okay with you?”
Viola blinked slowly. Looked at her plate. Back at him and her. “I think,” she said, “I spaced out.”
“You think you spaced out?” her mother joined, chewing her food all the while her eyes never leaving the girl. “Are you sure you’re fine?”
Viola gripped her fork tightly. Of course nothing was wrong with her. She was merely daydreaming before returning to reality.
This time she nodded vigorously, and her smile was more genuine. “Yeah, mom. I’m alright. I was only lost in thought again.”
“Ah, that’s good to know,” her father replied. “You almost had me worried there for a second, Vi.”
“You’re always worried, Mono,” her mother said.
“I am not—you know what, Viola, don’t listen to your mother.” He gave the woman his faux stink eye. “She’s been jealous of my pure kindness since day one.”
The woman scoffed and took a bite out of her food. “Jealous is a strong word. And incorrect like you always are.” She turned to her daughter. “Don’t be too influenced by him, dear. He’s a bad one.”
“Says the woman who comes home all bloody in front of her kid,” he quipped as he laughed.
“I had just had a lousy—!”
“I thought you said that was red paint,” Viola said.
The woman glanced at the man next to her, glaring for his mistake. The man realized so as he nodded and cleared his throat.
“Of course it was red paint,” he said. “That was what…fell onto her that day. A mere can full of red paint.”
“Which explains,” the woman added, “why I had a lousy day. I tripped and knocked over a shelf that had the can. Not that I could’ve avoided it anyhow. I was in a rush, you see. The Maw had just received over 200 new guests aboard and—”
“Uh, Six, not to interrupt,” he neared the woman’s ear, “But I don’t think we should talk about that anymore.”
The woman froze, her face slightly flushed as she nodded. “Right. Right, that doesn’t matter.” The woman cleared her throat quietly and leaned forward. “Viola, why don’t we talk about you instead.”
Viola tensed. “About…me?”
“Yes, yes, let’s talk about you,” her father agreed, pointing his utensil her way.
“Uh, what about me?”
“You were so lost in your thoughts as if you were witnessing a real-life event. Do you mind sharing it with us?”
“I…uh,” Viola hesitated and cleared her throat.
“Oh come now,” her mother said, clasping her hands, “it’s just us.”
“Well, uh,” Viola said. “I don’t remember much of it, but I think I was dreaming about a boy and a girl. And that they were good friends until they had a fall out.” She chuckled, the pictures slowly becoming clearer as she recalled the silly dream. “Yeah. They hated each other when they first met again after so long. So much as to calling each other names, pulling each other’s hairs, giving stink eyes. What’s even funnier is that I was also there. I was some sort of their…middle person or something. Like to deliver messages when they wanted to ask the other one something but were too prideful to do it in person.”
Viola laughed again.
“I think there was even one point,” she continued, “where I came up with this plan to get them to reconcile by forcing them in a room together. And since the boy refused to ever meet with the girl, he was furious at me for leaving him there with her. I remember feeling bad about it after, though. I remember walking around in this weird place, waiting until they are done. And then…” Her smile began to falter, dropping as she continued on. “And then I remember hearing voices. Calling my name. I remember feeling desperate, a-and happy and confused. I remember sitting in front of a bright screen. I remember…crying. And I remember…”
That everything wasn’t a dream.
Viola stopped there. Her voice came up short even as she tried to push out the words to continue. Yet the realization that it had all happened – it got her body shivering from the dread alone.
The lights flickered above.
The sun had already turned into the moon.
There were subtle cracks growing from above.
Her parents
Her parents were smiling at her.
“Viola, is everything okay with you?” her father asked. So utterly still in place.
Viola dropped her fork on the table. “You’ve…you’ve asked me that.”
“You think you spaced out?” her mother said. “Are you sure you’re fine?”
“What”—Viola whipped her head around, vines of black flesh forming, growing all around the room—“What is going on? What is this?”
“Oh, Viola, you should eat your food before it gets cold,” he said.
“I don’t…” Viola gaped as the black vines grew thicker, engulfing the whole ceiling, dimming the lights until she could see barely but the smiles on her parents. “Where am I?” she snapped.
“Where are you?” her mother tilted her head and chuckled. “Oh you’re home, dear.”
“No, I’m not. Tell me the truth.”
“We all want the truth, Vi,” her father said. “But not everything comes without a fair price. Or a price at all, for that matter.”
“You’re not making any sense. What is all of this?”
The man smiled wider.
“Eat your food, Viola,” he said. “It’s getting cold.”
Viola looked down on her plate. And nothing could have ever prepared her for the sight in front of her now.
The once mouth-salivating dinner that had her tummy grumbling was all but rotten meat, flies and worms and insects with fast feet that crawled over each other and all around her plate.
She jumped out of her seat when one fell onto her lap, her heart rapidly beating out of her chest as fear and panic took over her entire system.
This is real. This isn’t a dream, she told herself.
And those two weren’t her parents.
They were
They were staring at her. Neither blinking nor moving a muscle. Their uncanny smile, their blank eyes that were equivalent to a ragged doll, how only their pupils moved whenever Viola moved. Whatever these two were, they were definitely anything but her parents.
“Who are you? What have you done to them?” Viola demanded, yelling until her voice echoed back to her.
The adults smiled and smiled. They answered nothing.
And it angered her truly as hurled her plate to the ground, grabbing not a smidge of their attention for their eyes moved, but only for a mere second before it returned to her.
“Imposters,” Viola spat. “Tell me what you’ve done to them!”
They remained in silence.
Viola slammed her hand on the table, shaking it violently. “TELL ME WHAT YOU’VE DONE. DROP THE ACT AND TELL ME WHAT YOU’VE DONE.”
A bulb shattered above them. The world suddenly felt as though it stopped moving, like a video put on pause by a higher being one would fear its name. And soon came the grumble beneath her feet. The black fleshes had stopped growing long before, and they had formed a perfect circle from where she stood unbeknownst to her until now.
Then one by one, there were bubbles in the flesh. A bulge that blinked slowly until it resembled thousands of eyes.
Viola saw them pop out, some displaying mirth and others cruel excitement as they become witness to this mental game. This awful, abuse of mental game.
By the time Viola had turned back to the imposters, she was no longer met with wicked smiles. No, both of them stood side by side in their full height without a sound, and they stared at her with a new emotion Viola couldn’t decide which was worse.
Their eyes were no longer eyes—just complete abyss. Their movements were no longer human—only puppets.
“Gladly, we would,” they said in unison.
Viola blinked, stupefied. But they were moving now. Towards her.
“Wait,” Viola blurted, glancing at the floor covered in vines of black fleshes. The fleshes jerked as she accidentally stepped on them, the eyes blinking up at her, following her as she backed away from the table. The adults advanced without stopping. “Wait!” she said.
“Would you like to know the truth?” her father asked, head tilted painfully. “You weren’t supposed to exist.”
A pang in her chest. The imposter’s voice was still her father’s.
“I never was fond of you, Viola. I have loathed you since the day I birthed you.”
Her eyes watered. The imposter still looked like her mother.
“Stop it,” Viola muttered. “You’re not them.”
“Are we not?” he asked. “Do we not look like them enough? Shall I rip this skin open and fix it, so we’d look more identical?” He began to curl his fingers under his empty sockets, pulling them downwards and downwards and—
Viola shut her eyes and looked away.
“Stop it!” she cried.
“You asked for this, didn’t you? You asked us to drop our act, didn’t you? So why can’t you look now?” her mother asked.
Viola ignored her, refusing to open her eyes.
The woman began to sob and cry. “Why can’t you look at me, Viola? I am your mother. Do you not love your poor, poor mother? Just…just look at me. Please, Viola.”
Viola knew better than to believe that she was being honest.
Despite that knowledge, her heart was harder to convince than her own brain. She knew this wasn’t her real mother, yet the exact replica of her voice, her soft tone, it broke her heart a million times hearing her cries. Her desperate pleas and begging for her to just look at her.
Look at me.
She wouldn’t. No she wouldn’t; this wasn’t real.
Look at me.
Viola couldn’t. Everything was fabricated. The woman was not the same woman who had raised her.
“Stop it.”
LOOK AT ME.
“I SAID STOP IT.”
Viola opened her eyes to darkness. A perfect circle of light shone above her from the infinite sky. She was still sitting in her wooden chair, just woken up from a little game designed by the Gamemaster.
A horrible, horrible game.
She breathed out a sharp sigh and trembled in this darkness, hugging her body tightly, gaslighting herself into believing she could still be comforted by her own self.
But that was false.
Not when the eyes were still here. Not when they were still watching her.
“Fascinating,” they whispered into her ear.
Viola gasped and leaned further into her chair; her puffy eyes red at the abyss surrounding her. “Who’s there?”
Giggles reverberated throughout the room, sending shivers down her spine. And she was already terrified before.
“Guess.”
By the sinister laugh, the wooden chair she’d seen Mono sat on before, the cold and isolating room that seemingly looked endless and inescapable, there was only one guess. And she picked, “The Eye.”
“Clever girl. It seems like you are not so bad. Except that you entirely are,” they said. “We suppose you share that similarity with your poor old parents.”
“What have you done to them?”
“Whatever could you mean, little one? You’ve just met them—”
“Stop,” Viola spat, “lying to me. Those weren’t them; I know it. You’re using whatever that was to mess with me!”
The Eye laughed. Ugly and sinister to her ears.
“That we wouldn’t lie to you, little Viola. But do not feel offended, will you? It’s all just a silly little experiment; nothing more, nothing less!”
Her blood boiled. “Experiment?” Viola scoffed. “Has everything from the start been an experiment to you? Destroying our lives, coming after my parents, separating us from each other? Has all of that been nothing but an experiment?”
“Ah, so you are offended. Rather quickly too, like a small fire in a wooden house.” The Eye’s laugh echoed all around. Viola dug her nails into the chair beneath her. “But since you’ve brought it up, maybe you’d want a little clarification on what is actually happening, yes?”
“I know what—”
“We,” the Eye interrupted, “never came after your parents, you see. In fact, we have done nothing to hurt them in any way. All we have done is given them a little reminder of a certain duty they’ve failed to uphold; and their failure, of course, resulted in consequences. Everything has consequences, after all. Including—well, shall we even reveal a horrid secret to a child such as you? No, especially to a child like you, we shouldn’t.”
“What are you talking about?” Viola asked. Dread and hesitance had long been buried by curiosity. She needed to understand it all now.
Yet The Eye said nothing, of course. Evil as they may be and from the stories she’d heard, cruel was something often associated with them too. Although, the latter was nothing of a surprise.
Instead, the Eye said, “Do you even know how everything works here? In the Signal Tower? The Transmission, in particular?”
That caught Viola off guard. She pondered for a while, knowing only what she’d been told.
“You,” Viola said slowly, “corrupt. You broadcast these deadly signals to take away the control of the people everywhere. You take over their minds just so to turn them into mindless killing machines. Pale City is much more…dangerous because that’s where the Transmission is stronger. It’s where you rule. Am I right?”
For a moment, the Eye went silent. And soon they laughed again, however, never was it genuine.
No, they were mockery.
“Oh, Viola, Viola. What lies have they been feeding you?” The Eye laughed again.
“What?” Viola said, back straighter.
“In a way, yes, you are somewhat “correct”; we do rule over this domain and keep a watchful eye, but you’re getting this all the way around! It wasn’t us that has been responsible alone for the corruption in this city—no, no! All that you’ve described is your father’s doing.”
“No,” was what came to mind. Spoken first. “That’s not true. My dad said—”
“Your dad said a lot of false truths to make himself look good, didn’t he? To make himself somewhat the innocent man and his actions atoneable after doing numerous nasty deeds? Did he also tell you “The Eye” was all to blame for the world’s decaying status and sheer ruin? Did he tell you that every day so you wouldn’t think any less of him? And did you believe him—every story, every warning, every lie? Truly, how fascinating.”
“You’re lying. I won’t believe that.”
“Honestly, little child, believe what you want. We care as much as we care for the well-being of the adults out there—starving, murdering, kidnapping, self-deteriorating. But if you want the truth, which is something we know you are dying to know, we could tell you. After all, a child created by the Broadcaster and our Lady of the Maw should be treated like a special specimen. Isn’t that right?”
“And how would I know you’re not lying to me?”
“Because why would we? Aside from the possibility of manipulating how you see your parents, be it future or past, or the way you think and the innocence you have altogether?”
Viola stilled and held in her breath. For multiple reasons.
One. The Eye knew she did not belong in this time and was apparently aware of the timeline she’d come from.
Two. The Eye openly revealed how they would manipulate her.
She decided to address the latter first.
“You just said it yourself. You want to manipulate me with your lies.”
“And lies are only words, little Viola. They bring you no harm if you choose not to listen. Which we could guarantee you, you have the freedom to choose. Know a possible truth,” the Eye said, “or stay within the dark forever along your fears of feasibly being manipulated. The latter being a tiny chance given once you hear the truth, you’d think differently of your parents yourself.”
I won’t, Viola promised herself. I won’t ever.
“Fine. What is the truth?”
The giggles of many voices sounded all at once, sending shivers down her spine. The Eye was thrilled.
“Oh, where to even start,” the Eye said in glee. “You know, now you’ve gotten us all excited! Since your father has been revealed, shall we expose your mother’s secret as well?”
Viola didn’t like how they were using this as an excuse to ruin their image to her.
“I know,” Viola said, pained no less, “what my mother did. I know what she had been doing on her ship.” Suddenly the thought of the grotesque Guests entered her mind, the children she’d learned who were held captive to be cooked and served then eaten.
All an endless cycle of blood and death. She didn’t need a reminder of such things—
“So, you’ve seen the children being served on the plates of those unruly Guests? My, what a bore.”
Viola rolled her eyes and scowled. “You have nothing on her that I don’t already know. So there’s no point in trying to bring shame to my mother’s name.”
“Perhaps. This shame, you say, after all was mostly evident when she tried a piece for herself. Not that we had a part in that—never, of course. But…in the end, she needed to get stronger as her body was failing her during her time carrying you, so she took an unfortunate one from the kitchen, from her own slaughterhouse. Meat all sliced up into small bites, drizzled with honey just so the blood of that poor dead child wouldn’t taste bitter in her mouth. And of course, finally, downed with a glass of warm water to ensure it stayed in her body for a particular parasite to live healthily and with nutrition. Alongside the curse that was supposed to kill the said parasite naturally yet prevented by your mother and her alone.
“Perhaps. That was the shame she carried with her until forever. And we as watchful eyes, we observed and made quiet judgements behind those eyes. As she cried regrettably in privacy day after day, night after night, we watched as if what she did never transpired and kept her secret like it was our own. No one knew, yes—not you, not your mother, not your father, not anyone. Perhaps. That was the shame we see in her eyes, the guilt she had with her for doing something she knew no one would forgive. Not her husband, not her daughter, not even herself. That is the truth, sadly.”
Silence lathered her. Viola stared at the empty darkness, her eyes filled with remorse and disbelief of it all.
For a long time she couldn’t bring herself to say anything.
To think about anything.
To—
“Or a lie, perhaps.”
That snapped her right back to the cold reality. “…What?”
“A lie. We told you, didn’t we? Your freedom to choose what to listen and what not to?”
“I…y-yes,” Viola stammered. A bit shaken yet she persisted. “Yes. You mentioned it.”
“Wonderful!” the Eye exclaimed. “Shall we move on to—”
“I have a question, if I can?”
The Eye paused. “Oh? Do say what’s on your mind.”
“You say…my parents were behind it all. Behind the corruption, behind the…child murder.”
“Yes?”
“If that was all true, and that is assuming I believe a single word you’ve said,” Viola replied. “Then how come everything keeps coming back to you? If they’re the bad guys you so badly want me to believe, then what role do you have to play for them to work for you?”
Another pause, however, this one took longer. Viola waited patiently. Fearfully. She wondered if she had offended the Eye.
But offended was never a word to describe such a powerful being. As their laughter grew stronger, louder and deafening, Viola knew they were anything but offended.
Amused, likely. Entertained by her courage to speak out. Her bravery, in some way, to defy them.
“Oh, how you truly are fascinating!” the Eye said. “To answer your excellent, excellent question; it is actually quite simple, little one. And that is everything happens for its reasons.”
“But that makes no sense—!”
“It makes no sense because you lack in understanding! Everything—and we mean every event, every opportunity, every argument, every failure, every success—has all been determined by a constant. A never-ending turn of a clock’s hand. A video recorded by the same hand played on loop. A cycle that is meant to never stray far from its path. All of it, is why we exist. Why we need our Broadcaster to corrupt everything and everyone in this world. Why we need our Lady of the Maw to keep running her restaurant for those aboard to fulfill their insatiable greed. Both of these are merely the main constant that we must have for the cycle to prevail, for the new world to thrive where we rule above it all.
“For that to begin, however, it starts with those little two children you’ve been trying to mend their broken relationship.”
“How do you know about that—?”
“You know well the answer to your own question, Viola. We are everything the world is lacking. Your child-parents may attempt their hand at rescuing you, but we will let you know now how that will end up in failure. Just like the failure of that little Mono and Six’s pathetic friendship. The heavy betrayal between them that led her to leave him behind to us. The so-called success she’s later granted for her to live in and grow as the woman she’d soon become, and the inevitable life the boy would stick to as he stays in isolation for years and years before his body adapts to the Tower and be the man we expect him to be.
“You see it, now, don’t you? All of it happened not by coincidence, not by chance. The Cycle always prevails and renews itself. No matter the little changes or how a bit further astray it goes, the path will— must remain the same. And even if an interference such as you, the child that never should come to exist, we will make sure all endings remain.”
“What endings?” Viola spat, her fists tightly balled, her teeth clenched.
This was getting out of hand.
“Surely you must understand it by now, don’t you?” The Eye giggled in that ugly way once again. Horrible and cruel and monstrous. One that made Viola hate them a million times more.
“No matter what they do, Viola,” the Eye said, “They will always die.”
Her heart stopped.
Her body became numb.
Anything she tried to not listen became the things she believed. Why was it all so convincing? Why did it all sound so plausible and true? Could it be the actual truth? Were they telling her the truth all this time?
“No, that’s not…”
“True! It is true, little child! We let them live. We let them laugh and have a life. We let them fall in love, be married to one another, promise each other to never break their solid trust and never to repeat mistakes, but in the end, we always— always ,” the Eye said, “make them die.”
“Stop it!” Viola stood up from her chair so fast that it fell behind her. “Stop this now!”
“Oh! But of course we will! We agreed we would, didn’t we? But then again, think about it, why in a million years shall we ever listen to a child as meek as you? A child born in a cycle where she does not belong? Do you think you’re actually special?”
She had had enough. In her moments of anger, she’d finally succumbed to sheer rage as she hurled the godforsaken chair into the abyss. The abyss where the Eye watched and tutted in disappointment.
“Oh, child. Is that all of it? Have you let it out of your system?”
Tears had streaked her young cheeks. Her innocent heart shattered time and time again, yet something told her this wouldn’t be the last time that it would.
For now, gone was the hope of her parents’ survival. Gone was the dream of coming back to her old life, saving everyone from their cruel fate.
And by a few words from the Eye, her mother and father were gone.
“What have you done?” Viola dared ask. “WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO THEM?”
“What else haven’t we done, Viola? Like we told you, you know well the answer to your own question,” the Eye replied. “Perhaps, it might be best if you wait calmly for your other parents to come for you. Watch them fail and see the future consequence they may bear should they go astray. Or if you’re lucky, watch the cycle renew itself.”
“I hope they tear you apart instead,” Viola seethed. “Brick by brick, I hope this tower—all of you, crumbles and dies inside.”
The Eye chuckled and smiled wider in the darkness.
“Oh, we’d love to watch them try.”
Getting along with him was never what she aimed for from the start of this pathetic rescue mission.
True as it may be, Mono – a boy with a severe hero complex and trust issue, along with his incapability to use even a single brain cell – had tested her patience time and time again, Six decided this moment was merely one of those times. Despite the ever-growing anger residing in her heart. Despite the said patience becoming thin as paper. Despite her fist itching to give him an uppercut if only to punch some sense in that smug, annoying face of his.
They had left their safe room in hopes to carry on with the rescue mission – or as Six loved to call it ‘The Mono’s suicide plan to become a martyr’ mission. Traveling within the halls and wide and long corridors of the Daycare Centre was no easy feat as, of course, it was done with her having to spend the agonizing minutes, perhaps hours, with him. Mono made it clear after they’d left that she was to be silent and to not look at him or much less walk three feet close to him. Six agreed. Not because it was his wish.
Because she wanted him to shut up the same way.
So here they were, lost in this labyrinth of a place known to have been a child’s care centre regardless of the lethal traps set there and there to keep children here. Forever, perhaps. Six did not know the intention of the ugly woman who had chased them, but she wouldn’t count on it to be pretty.
All the adults’ intentions were never pretty. Well, maybe except for Roger. She daresay, if she hadn’t chopped off his arms, that man might have saved some kids at the Maw from being eaten.
Being eaten dead is much more favorable than being eaten alive, Six thought.
Six halted as they reached the end of the hallway. A bulb lit poorly above a sign in front of them. It indicated only two things as she read the sign and the arrows it pointed to; left and right.
THE PLAYROOM THE NURSERY
Assuring.
The sign didn’t even look like it belonged there.
“What the hell is this?” Mono piped up beside her, forgetting his own rules. Just like the hypocrite he was.
Six rolled her eyes. “Can’t you read?” she said.
“I am reading, dirtbag. I’m not an idiot.”
“Then you must just have a weird talent at being one.”
A seethe from him. He sighed heavily. “We’re going left.” He waited not a second for her reply as he walked towards the said direction.
Six gaped at his audacity. Since when was he the one to make the call for her?
“No,” Six said.
Mono stopped. Then turned back.
“Look, backstabber. I’m in no mood to deal with your crap right now. So either quit it altogether and shut up or shut up with a bruised eye. Your choice.”
“A bruised eye? I’d be surprised if you could even bruise a peach, let alone anything with that injured arm of yours.”
His nose flared, and his jaw clenched. “We’re going left,” he repeated.
“We’re going right,” Six quipped.
“No; left.”
“But we’re still going right.”
“The only way we’re going right,” he said, “is if I say we’re going right. So, in this case, left it is.”
“I’m not going left.”
“And why is that?”
“Because you want to go left. Makes me feel like left is a wrong choice. Something you always have a knack for making anyway.” Six pointed up at the sign. “Just read it, idiot. The Nursery sounds way better than the Playroom.”
“What, because you’re suddenly into looking after babies now?”
“I’m already taking care of one now—” Mono dragged her by her hood. She’d underestimated his strength despite his recent injury. “Mono, let go of me!” Six clawed at his hand as she walked with him by force. She beat his arm, but alas, that wasn’t the arm that had been wounded. Although, she wished it was.
“I said let go, freak! I can walk by myself!” At that, Mono released her with a blank face. He was fuming underneath all that calm façade, she knew. But her anger was far less contained. “Touch me like that again, and I’ll hurt your other arm myself,” she said. “Do you understand me?”
“Yeah, I don’t care,” he said as he walked first.
“Mono, I’m serious,” she said—warned. “Oi. Stop right there.” He gave her the finger.
That was the final straw.
“I said stop right there.” A strong gust of wind fell upon them. Immediate, however, powerful. It pushed everything in her way as her words slipped past her lips. It pushed Mono to the side until he tumbled on his own steps, meeting the wall just so to understand what had happened.
“You…” Mono breathed heavily and watched her with wide eyes. “You used your powers on me?”
Six instantly took a step back, fearful. But not at his pointed anger towards her, not at the repercussions of it all. She glanced at her hands before looking hesitantly back up at him. By the time she did, and her prolonged silence as her answer, Mono was already stomping her way. She didn’t fight him when he dug his nails into her shoulders.
“Why on Earth did you do that?” he said, nearly shaking her with his anger. “What were you thinking?”
“It was only an accident. You weren’t even hurt by it—”
“That’s not the issue, Six,” he snapped. To her surprise. “You know damn well you weren’t even supposed to use them unless necessary—unless we’re under attack. You know, especially now of all time, you’re not in the right state to use them at all. And yet, you stupidly choose to use it on me. ”
“Well who are you to decide? They’re not even yours to begin with. They’re mine—always mine.”
“And so is that hunger curse of yours that almost got us caught!” Mono said. “We don’t have any food, you idiot! Once you use your powers, your hunger will come back even faster. Do you want to starve because of your stubborn ego? Die from it if we fail to find you food in time?”
“I’ll just deal with it myself!” She shoved him back hard. Mono stumbled backwards and—
Click.
Six only spared a glance up before heavy strings of net fell on top of her. She dropped to the floor, face down, head dizzy and barely able to move. No. She couldn’t move. The heaviness of the net forced her down even as she tried to push herself up. She could barely lift her head to see the tampered floor Mono had stepped on.
Of course, it was a set trap. One she’d stupidly put herself in.
“Six!” Mono hurried by her side. He seemed far more panicked than her. Another surprise to her. “We set off a trap,” he told her.
“I can see that, genius.” Six grunted as she tried to free herself. Again, to no avail. “I can’t move. This thing is too heavy.”
“Well, obviously, you can’t just lift it. That’s why it’s called a trap.” The snide in his tone returned. Somehow that felt more familiar and better than his worry. Six rolled her eyes and pulled at the net fruitlessly still.
Mono swatted her hand away. She scowled. “What was that for—”
“Shh. Just be quiet.” He put his hand where she’d tugged at. The thick rope glowed faintly under his palm. Six watched curiously.
“The hell are you doing?” she asked, although she couldn’t bring herself to mean it as the rope began to thin. He was heating it up. Burning it. With whatever was left of his own drained energy.
Hypocrite, hypocrite, hypocrite, Six nearly said.
Instead she told him, “You’re stupid, Mono.”
Mono spared her a look, yet never stopped heating the piece of rope. “You know, I don’t think it’d kill you if you were to be a bit grateful sometimes.”
“It’s not that I’m ungrateful. I’m only saying how stupid you are.”
“Stupid for helping you? Yeah, you might be right.”
“So, you do agree you shouldn’t help me.”
“Not that I’ve got a choice either way.” He recoiled his hand and winced, shaking away the smoke before closing his palm back to the net. “You should stop thinking you’re always right and superior, Six. Most of the time, you’re not. And that’ll get you killed one day.”
Six shot him the same look. “Is this you, talking genuinely from the heart, or Viola possessing you?”
“So, I can’t even show human empathy now?”
“Not to someone you constantly declare you’d hate forever.”
Mono snickered and rolled his eyes. His small smile, unnoticed by her as the snapping of the ropes caught her attention fully. He was glad it did. “Whatever, backstabber.” He tore the net and pulled it apart wider. “There. Now I owe you nothing.”
Owe. Of course. Six expected nothing less that his show of “kindness” was nothing else but transactional. Either way, she only wanted to be free of this trap.
She helped him pull the net bigger, at least big enough now for her head to peek through the created hole. Just a bit more and she would be free—
Mono stilled.
In return, she did too.
“Mono?” Six called to him in his daze, in his moment of him boring his eyes into the darkness behind her like he was in a fixed trance. His emotions before had long been wiped off. Their back-and-forth squabbles, no longer as his focus had landed somewhere else other than helping her out of the net.
Yet that wasn’t to say he never heard her call or saw her confusion now. It was only that
Fear had taken over him.
Fear had made him frozen.
Fear had changed his face.
And ever so softly, he whispered with that fear, his eyes never moving nor did his body, “Don’t.” He slowly gripped the thinned ropes, and even more slowly pulled it wider. “She’s there.”
Glowing pairs of eyes shone in the darkness like fairy lights. But these lights were only four and they were relaxing and serene to look at. False sense of security, nevertheless, calming. In that second upon meeting those said eyes, Six quickly whipped her gaze back to Mono, feeling neither calm or relaxed. She felt that same fear Mono felt. Panic in her chest, but it showed barely in her eyes like a practiced act. Now was not the time to panic.
Now was the time to get out.
Six followed Mono’s lead, tugging around the edges ever so slowly with trembling fingers and an increased heart rate. Her pride be damned, her ego in the bin.
The glowing eyes moved closer.
So they worked faster.
“Come on,” Six heard Mono say under his breath. He kept looking back up and every time he did, his fear would become tenfold. Six said nothing and thought of nothing as she squeezed herself through the little hole. Her body was lithe and scrawny—one of the advantages she was proud of to get her out of sticky situations such as this.
Yet just as half of her upper body got through, she saw Mono look up once more. His eyes widened twice its size.
“Shit,” he said. He bailed on pulling the ropes and pulled her two arms instead.
The glowing eyes—the woman had revealed herself from the darkness, now walking at a terrifying pace towards them. She smiled so wide that it must’ve hurt her cheeks until it left those ugly lines. Her eyes must hurt as well as she never blinked once, never looked anywhere else but them two. She walked with her arms clasped behind her back, her hair utterly neat in place. She walked in long, long strides, her heels making a loud sound as it reverberated and echoed:
Clack
Clack
Clack
Clack
Clack
Clack
Six fell on the floor and finally out of the trap. Mono, too, on the ground and on his rear. His first instinct was to run but—
The clacking had stopped.
They shared the same thought to bolt out of there, regardless of the Nanny’s presence looming over them. But one flick of her long arms, Mono nearly flung across the hallway.
“Mono—!” her words died in her throat as Six felt the hot breath breathing over her. She stilled like a dead body would. But just from her peripheral, she could still see.
The Nanny was right over her head. Bent so painfully, stiffly, that it unnerved even a violent girl such as her. Faintly in the distance, she heard Mono calling after her with horror in his voice, on his face. Six didn’t have a mirror but she was certain her expression was just the same. She could only afford to move her eyes and nothing else, afraid that even a subtle movement would guarantee her inevitable death.
Because that same death? It was coming for her in mere seconds now.
And in her last moments, she only looked at Mono, hoping if he could read her eyes now he’d read her message:
Go.
Just go and save yourself.
I am not worth saving now.
The Nanny’s hair blocked her view of him as she met Six face to face, upside down. Six trembled despite her show of defiance—her unrelenting glare and steady eye contact. Behind her back, though, she willed, forced whatever power she had weak or strong to dance between her fingertips. It wasn’t enough to kill the woman for good but…
It was enough to stall.
So she was ready.
She was ready to give her all until
The Nanny slowly stood back to her full height. Six could see Mono again, as he could see her. Once more they shared the same look: confusion.
Confusion was stronger than the fear of death she’d prepared herself for, stronger than her will to attack the woman with whatever she had.
Yet her confusion was temporary as the realization of it all splashed over her like a bucket of cold, freezing water. Smashed against her head like a sledgehammer over and over.
Six never had the chance to tell him when the Nanny shoved her back hard. Until her head hit the floor and left a bruise that would throb for days. Until it left her dizzy and useless to do anything to stop the woman in question. But you’d be wrong to assume Six did nothing even in that state.
Even if he was someone she hated, someone she’d tried to kill once herself, Six cried to him:
“MONO!” She lifted her head. “RUN!”
Mono stood there in sheer horror as her words struck him like a blade. He was hesitant— why why why was he hesitant —to run. Even as her world was spinning and her head dizzy like she was poisoned, Six could see the delay in his movements. The two seconds delay in his step as he finally heeded her words and ran. Ran with the desperation to get away.
The Nanny had long stepped over Six as though she was nothing more than a broken doll, marching over to Mono’s direction with the same dreadful pace and her heels clacking against the wooden floor.
Perhaps it had all been her imagination. Perhaps Mono’s short hesitance wasn’t a factor why he failed in escaping. Perhaps the Nanny only moved faster than her brain before it could comprehend its own speed. For by the time Six could find her footing, and the floor beneath no longer swaying, everything became darker all around. The glowing eyes of that woman were no more.
And so was the boy she once called friend.
Notes:
Thanks for reading!
Chapter 24: A New Face
Notes:
oof this was meant for last week but hey, I'm only human. I procrastinate :-]
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
The weather in Pale City showed no mercy to its citizens and passersby that walked its dead streets. With the constant gray and grumbling sky, thunder booming behind the angry clouds along its striking lightning, it seemed like nothing could portray a greater emotion than the storm outside. With rain so heavy that renders one’s vision, the sound of it so loud that you could barely hear yourself talk. The harsh storm, it mimicked the one inside Six.
Her pain long forgotten, Six remembered Mono instead as she marched her way within these dark walls.
As her hood fell past her head, revealing her grown hair that blew along with the winds of her own harmful power and curse.
As windows formed a crack whenever she walked by it.
Six replayed everything in her head while she headed to where he’d gone, and every single time she questioned: why did Mono hesitate to take that one step? Why did he wait until it was all too late?
Stupid .
Yes, the quick answer would be that Mono was simply stupid. Always was, that boy. Still even with her mammoth ego, Six refused to believe that that was all it was. She almost didn’t want to know his actual reason, even.
She finally stopped and sighed when her feet ached. Where was she even going? Six looked up at the large doors ahead of her, a couple more up the narrow staircase. Nothing indicated that the woman had walked here, or any sign of Mono’s attempt to leave a clue to where he was taken. There was nothing here to linger around for when time was still moving with the boy’s life possibly on the line. She rolled her eyes and huffed, reminded once again that all of this maybe could’ve been prevented if Mono had just bolted the first time she told him to. A slim chance he’d escape successfully, but still a probable possibility.
Either way, Mono had better be alive when she finds him. Six made a mental note to personally beat him to pulp once this was all over—
A shadow skidded along her peripheral. Six whipped her head in time to see the figure disappear behind a wall.
She was not alone, she realized when she eyed the particular spot for a few seconds. She turned back to her path. Perhaps there was more than one monster? Another adult? A smaller version of those corrupted beings? Six did not want to wait to find out. Nor was she stupid enough to listen to her curiosity and check what the sound was.
Or paid much mind as the feeling of being watched burned brightly.
Though, on second thought that sounded like the right thing to do. So eager on speed-walking to where the woman had taken Mono, she should’ve never stopped listening to her screaming guts until it was all too late.
Her left arm was pulled to the side and Six fell into an even darker place than she was before.
Of course, the annoying panic seized her mind as they screamed Run! Run! Run! But with a pitch-black surrounding, there was little she could do other than back away until there was nowhere else to back away to. And also to switch on her fight mode when flight wasn’t an option.
Whatever it was that pulled her here, it had to be as small as child-sized. Bully -sized. Six was ready either way as she listened carefully for their footsteps to approach her. Two small feet were coming her way, meaning there was only one of them. And with those soft steps, they didn’t sound too aggressive either. Which was good. More than good—it was perfect. After all those days stuck with the boy she hated so passionately, all the rage saved up just from Mono’s taunt alone, Six was more than happy to let it all out on this evil scum of a monster; for they had picked the wrong girl to mess with.
The footsteps came closer.
Six clenched her fists tightly and readied herself.
It was time.
“Hey—” a soft voice whispered just as Six threw the hardest punch she’d ever thrown. Her knuckles throbbed greatly, however, she was proud of herself when she heard them dropped on the ground with a clean thud.
And then a very human-like groan.
“What was that for?” the voice whisper-yelled.
Six felt her eyes grow wide. Suddenly, her body went rigid; her mind free of panic and the earlier need to destroy whatever breathed in her path.
Then along with the realization that the monster she’d just hit was
A boy.
A small flash of light flickered on, and it shined right under his face. For a second she wanted to feel relieved that it had been another child that took her, but that want for relief turned into something painful like a twist in her gut: disappointment. This boy was not Mono.
“Stay where you are,” Six quickly deadpanned when the boy started to stand. He listened, yet the look on his face told her he was only being patient. Even in the darkness with only nothing but a weak light to shine the rest of the place, Six studied all that she could of her new surroundings with a glance.
Yet she still understood nothing.
“Where are we?” Six asked, one fist still up in the air.
The boy shifted on the floor and said, “Somewhere the Nanny can’t get us.” When Six shot him a strange look, the boy sighed. “Tall woman? White glowing eyes? Creepy enough that’d you rather stay out in the storm? Yeah, her.”
“You didn’t answer my question,” Six said wryly. “Where are we?”
“If you want me to pinpoint exactly where we are, then you’re asking the wrong person. All I know is that there are small tunnels inside the walls. This one being one of them.” The boy waved his light slowly as though to show her. There were pipes all around with something scratching inside of them every few minutes. The waters must have dried up in this place, no telling the number of rats that could be walking above them.
The boy placed the light upright just between them, making the small space brighter at least. She could see his face a little better too—read his intentions a little quicker. It could be just the darkness and her trepidation to find Mono as quickly as possible, but it was hard to tell if this boy had any real bad motive as of yet. As all she could notice of him, though, was his dark yellowish hair and bright blue eyes she’d never seen before on anyone. Even Mono’s eyes were dark like hers. How come this boy was different from them?
“I’m Emmet,” the boy suddenly introduced. “What’s your name?”
Six dug her nails deeper into her palm, still in her fighting stance. “I don’t know you enough to tell you anything.”
“And I don’t know you either to help you out. But I still did, didn’t I?” Emmet said.
She scowled at him. “Help? All you did was pull a stranger inside a dark wall.”
“If that’s what you think I did, then you really have no idea what you almost got yourself into.”
“Excuse you.”
“Look, stranger, I’m not sure what you were thinking by going… there , but the path you were walking on is the literal walkway to death itself. You don’t want to go there.”
Six rolled her eyes. “What do you know about what I want? That is none of your business.”
“Then you’re saying you want to die?”
“I’m saying you better back off”—Six walked to him and yanked him up by the collar—"or you’ll be the next one to.”
She shoved him back down hard and snatched the light off the ground, holding it in her hands as though it’d been hers this whole time. Emmet was less than happy about that.
“Hey!” he said. “That’s mine!”
His feeble attempt of a protest fell on deaf ears.
Instead, Six paid more attention to her new possession than the Emmet boy, knocking the base of the light as it poorly lit her way.
“Finders, keepers,” she muttered under her breath. She walked straight along the tunnel, leaving him behind with nothing but his own defenseless self. And also without the flashlight she stole from him. Six sighed softly through her nose and didn’t look back after that.
The tunnel may be a little claustrophobic, but Emmet was right about one thing: it was safe from the Nanny. Safe from being exposed to an unknown threat that she had yet to meet and hopefully never need to.
Now that the risk of being snatched was out of the way, Six’s mind drifted back to how exactly she was going to find the other annoying boy. Perhaps through this long and narrow tunnel would she be able to find another exit that led straight to him? A certain prison cell that the Nanny had specially made for her sick fantasies of dead, dangling children. She hoped Mono wasn’t next in line for that.
Well, maybe just in time for her to rescue him just so he’d shut up for once because of the recent trauma, but other than that, Six genuinely hoped he was only locked away—
A metal groaned somewhere above. Six stopped to look up with her new flashlight. Short relief but longer doubt came to her when there was only brown rust, eating away the pipes slowly on the edges. A few drops of water landed on her cheek.
Gross.
Six rolled her eyes out of habit and shined her light back to the front. She walked barely a few seconds before a whisper sounded from behind:
“Hey, stranger.”
Startled, Six whipped her whole body around to its direction, hoping to spot the boy and blind him with her light. Yet all that was blinded was specks of dust and cobwebs in between the pipes and corners of the wall.
There was no one to be seen.
No one to be caught.
Her eyes searched for a shadow she’d possibly missed, walking a few steps towards it just to make sure he hadn’t been hiding in the darkness. Still, nothing was found. She could’ve sworn she heard Emmet’s voice right behind her—
Something pushed her from the back.
Off guard, Six tumbled to the ground unceremoniously, the light in her hand rolling away and away until it finally stopped.
Right before his feet.
Emmet sighed contentedly as he reached down for his flashlight, dusting it off before waving the said light back to Six’s flushed face. How in the world did he end up in front of me?
“The pipes,” Emmet said as though he heard. “Some of them are big enough to fit through. And since there are multiple of the useful ones, I’m just lucky enough you didn’t catch me dropping in front of you.” Again, as Six looked at him perplexed, Emmet pointed up above them. To the large opening of a broken pipe.
Six had been a fool to not have thought of the possibility that this idiot could climb.
Her brows immediately furrowed into a scowl, one that would fit a sore loser.
“So, what now? Are you going to kill me? For taking your stupid flashlight?”
For once, Emmet’s smile dropped as his forehead wrinkled genuinely. “What?”
“Don’t act as if you weren’t mad that I stole your light and left you alone in the dark. I know you’re thinking about how to get me back for it.” Six pushed herself to her feet, her head up high in confidence that could render a person speechless. She pulled on her hood roughly.
“If you’re going to kill me,” she said, “then just know I’m not going down without a fair fight. So do your worst.”
Emmet watched her with wide eyes, however, never actually making a move to prepare himself for the uncalled battle Six had declared between them. Nor did he ever do anything rather than
To chuckle.
It took a second for Six to understand fully that the small snort was actually him, laughing at her. Like she was a joker that had made a silly joke. Like she hadn’t already threatened him twice within the span of five minutes.
“Stranger, you’re not actually serious, right?” He covered a hand over his mouth as if to hide his already visible smile.
The audacity.
“You think I’m playing around?”
Another sweet chuckle. “No, of course not,” he said gently. “I actually can believe you’d win a fight in a heartbeat.”
Her fists lowered. Her cheeks warmed. “Huh?”
“I’m not going to ‘kill’ you; relax. I can’t even throw a proper punch without hurting myself more than the one I’m trying to hurt. The only thing I can do: is running away. Although,” He glanced to his feet, smiling sadly, “not as fast as I used to.”
Six finally dropped her hands to her sides, sensing neither danger nor lies at his spoken words.
“So what do you want then?”
“Hm?”
“I said, what do you want from me? You can’t have helped me over plain kindness; you must want something in return.”
“Is that something hard to believe if I said it was over plain kindness?”
“Yes.”
“Then try your best to believe it. I really want nothing from you.”
“You want nothing?” Six scoffed loudly. “No one—not even stupid ones—would do an act of ‘kindness’, get punched square in the face, threatened and robbed all on the same day without wanting anything back or even some fair revenge. If the first one is what you’re insisting on, then I’ll assume you’re aiming for the second. So either tell me what you want or get lost after losing a fight to me.”
Emmet fell silent and contemplated her words, looking away still with that bittersweet smile on his face. And when he spoke, he spoke with the kindest voice that rivaled Mono’s own before hatred took over him six months ago.
“You remind me of my sister,” he said, “that’s it.”
“Why?”
Emmet shrugged nonchalantly. “I don’t know. You just…remind me of her a lot. And I never intend on killing you or hurting you at all, I swear. Nor am I plotting a revenge against you. I’m only here in the first place to look for my sister and nothing else. I shouldn’t even be using my time on helping other kids right now since…you know.”
Time is never kind, she wanted to finish.
“But you wasted your time anyway with me,” Six said instead. Told him. Emmet didn’t disagree or nod.
Instead, he cleared his throat and said, “Look, I think…I should get going. It was nice meeting you and all, despite you punching and robbing me earlier. I’ll be sure to remember you the next time somebody punches me.” He chuckled at his own expense and pivoted on his heel. “See ya, I guess.”
“Wait.”
Emmet halted and raised a brow. “Yeah?”
“Do you,” Six bit her tongue. Then forced the words out. “Do you happen to know where the Nanny likes to stay?”
At her question, Emmet turned to her completely, taken by surprise. “Where she likes to stay? Uh, yeah, I think so. At least, a good guess from what I’ve seen so far. She goes around a lot and disappears in the same room whenever the rain stops. Usually.”
“Right. So, what room was it?”
His eyes slowly narrowed. “You’re asking me that just so you know where not to go, right?” Six made a face, and the realization hit him just fine. “Oh, my. You really must enjoy danger, huh?”
“I have my reasons.”
“And that being?” When she fell silent, Emmet quickly added, “Or—or never mind. You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to—”
“A friend,” Six said. “She took my friend.”
“Oh.”
So that did the trick.
“Yeah. I’ve been looking for him ever since we were separated and"—She feigned a hitched breath—"And I’m hoping to find him before it’s too late. You know?”
“I…I understand.” Of course he would. He’d just explained his situation too that posed to be more than similar with hers. It was only smart to let him sympathize and relate than have him ask so many questions as to why she needed to risk her life.
“The Nanny,” Emmet began, “likes to be in the Playroom. From what I gathered.”
Playroom? Where had she seen that before—
The image of two signs pointing left and right, the memory clear as day of Mono insisting they go left which just so happened to be the direction of where the Playroom was.
Oh, Mono, she thought. That idiot.
He truly was an idiot.
“This Playroom,” she said, “where is it?”
“Look, you really shouldn’t go there. I went inside that room once and I’m still traumatized by what I saw—”
“My friend is in danger ,” Six insisted, although the word sent a bitter taste on her tongue. “Wouldn’t you go there too if it’d been your sister?”
Emmet inhaled sharply, his shoulder sagging. His eyes lowered sadly. “It’s the only reason why I’ve been there,” he muttered. He closed his eyes tightly. “Stranger, I…really have to go. I’m sorry; but pulling you in here is as far as I can help you.”
He turned his back to her once more and Six felt her heart dropped to her stomach.
“Mono!” Six said. “He can help you find her!”
Emmet stilled in place. Then he whipped his head around—his eyes full of disbelief and doubtful hope. “What did you say?” he asked desperately for the first time.
Six took a step forward and nodded. “His name is Mono. I tell you; he knows how to find missing people. I’ve been taken away multiple times in the past and he always—always finds me and saves me back. And I’m sure—he can even help you find her.”
“Your friend…can help me find my sister?”
She nodded firmly. “He doesn’t have much time where he is right now. If you help him—help me—I promise we’ll help you too.”
He slowly shook his head. “N—no. How do I know you’re not just making this up? This is such convenient timing, don’t you think?”
Six bit her tongue and thought of the right answer to convince him.
She pressed her hands on the side of her coat, wiping away the sweat gathered on her palm. That is until she felt the hard pendant pressing against her. An idea popped into her head.
With a look of guilt and sympathy she masterfully feigned, Six whispered, “Mono…had a sister too.”
Emmet’s brows raised high; his lips parted he almost gaped.
And gone was the suspicion on his face forever.
“H-had?” Emmet stammered.
Well.
Technically he did. That is until Mono admitted he wasn’t actually related to Viola.
“Let’s make a deal, Emmet,” Six held out a hand to him. “Help me find Mono; and we’ll help you find your sister in return. If either of us fails to find them alive in time, then…let’s help each other out to survive in this world. Together.”
That was the promise. One she would consider keeping should Mono wasn’t rescued in time. In that case, Emmet might need to replace Mono if she were to continue her other rescue mission for Viola. But then with Emmet’s sister, and finding her instead of finding Viola…
Six pushed the thought out of her mind. She didn’t need to think about it now.
“So,” Six said, “do you agree?”
Emmet looked at her face. Glanced at her hand. Then back to her face. He’d said nothing to agree and nothing to object her proposition and yet
His eyes gleamed with hope the whole time.
When his hand firmly shook hers, Six felt something she’d never felt in the longest time, growing on her face like the relief in her heart:
A genuine smile.
“My name is Six, by the way.”
An ear-splitting scream slashed through the air that it rivaled the thunderous storm out in the streets. This scream was of pain, a desperate and heart-wrenching pain that would make just anyone turn away just by its intensity and images of imagined violence—the horrid torture that promised no death but eternal agony worse than hell itself.
The scream lasted long enough until the lungs ran out of breath, the throat hurt and dry from the sheer pain.
And this was true pain.
“How do you like that, bitch!” Mono said through his teeth as he bit through the Nanny’s hand without letting go, even as the woman had tried to throw him off of her ruined hand. Blood smeared all across his face as though he’d been feasting off her flesh that was vomit-worthy.
Mono sunk his teeth in deeper.
The Nanny thrashed harder, her scream louder.
If it were up to him, he would’ve stayed like this, biting her hand until it came off for good, however, the strength of the Nanny was never to be underestimated. For as she slammed the door behind her with such vigor, until the frames on the wall beside it fell, she made sure to slam his small body against the wall after.
A puff of air forced out of him as he finally released his bite and endured the pain that ran through his whole body. Mono slid to the ground and felt the floor swaying beneath him. How many times had he experienced this? Three? Four? Seven? It was a miracle he never had a concussion or brain damage all this time—
Long fingers circled around his body, sharp nails threateningly digging at his abdomen.
“Crap,” he muttered. Then the Nanny lifted him up like a doll and brought him up close to her gleaming, glowing white eyes that could blind better than television screens. To be brought so close to them, the two pairs that possessed no pupils whatsoever, unnerved him greatly anyhow when each eyeball rolled toward him.
Mono gulped down a few times as he was forced to look her in the eyes, seeing he could almost see his own fearful face. His fear couldn’t be made anymore known when the Nanny started to inspect him. Particularly one of his arms.
“H—hey! Stop that!” he yelled. The Nanny paid no mind. Her eyes were set solely on the cloth tightly secured around his arm, the spot of red that had gone through it. Mono went even more still when she held his wound right between her claw-like nails, however, the fear of being injured by her wasn’t the only thing he couldn’t drop.
It was the sight of a recently bloodied, torn hand; now sealed and unwounded. The flesh he’d spent minutes biting through, the effort he’d made to spite the Nanny despite his ears being assaulted until he was half deaf—all of it went down the drain as her hand had stitched itself back together.
How was that possible, he didn’t know. He didn’t know anything about where he even was.
The Nanny slowly turned his head with her nails, her movements terrifyingly gentle. Though it was when she tried taking off his coat did he snap out of his fear. And he kicked her in one of the eyes.
Another agonizing scream.
She pressed the heel of her palm into her assaulted eye, and for one second, Mono noticed something trickling past her wrist. Fresh blood. Out from an opened wound. The same wound he’d just seen was sealed for good.
And that was only for one second.
No new blood escaped through her hand. The wound was healed once more.
Mono realized it happened just as the Nanny’s eyes were exposed again; and her jaw opened wide, revealing sets of sharp, saw-like teeth, all thin but each with pointed ends that could impale brutally with merely a bite. His blood turned cold as the Nanny let out another scream, however, not out of pain caused by him. It was out of fury.
She held him with both her hands, and screamed bloody murder right at him, showing him her teeth and the possible end for him. She screamed so loud that her horrible breath went right over his head, his hair sent flying and a bit of saliva grazed his cheek like acid.
Mono closed his eyes tightly the whole time, his nose scrunching as he waited for it to end.
A windy storm, he told himself. Imagine it's only a windy storm.
But at least a windy storm didn’t smell like the sewers and had high temperatures that’d leave a headache and warm fever behind. He’d put up with a lot of bad things and this was merely one of the worst ones he’d remember for the rest of his life and in his afterlife.
His ears rang terribly as the Nanny ceased her rage screaming, her grip tightening on his sides as she gave him one last warning glare. The white glow in each of her eyes made him heed so. He gulped once and clamped his mouth shut. One bad insult thrown her way and he might just actually die young.
The Nanny carried him in her lazy but threatening way, holding him as though he was a handle on a bag as his limbs dangle and the only thing seized was his torso. Mono didn’t thrash. He didn’t so much as fight or speak. The only thing he did was finally look.
Where the Nanny took him, he still hadn’t a clue, but he had a good feeling of where she’d taken him. Clutters of toys scattered in the far corner, leaving mountain piles behind as some rot and decay over the other. There were windows covered fully with thick curtains that it shielded the room from the storm outside, muffled the booming thunder and pitter patters of rain tapping against the glass, as well as the occasional lightning that briefly lit the room. In short, it was dark here. Purposefully dark. The Nanny’s eyes seemed to glow brighter as they crossed a different threshold, one where colors weren’t allowed in this tight space as all that remained was dull and tattered wallpaper. Crates on top of crates rusted together and left behind a metallic smell. Pure darkness reigned over this time as all one could do was rely on how quick the eye adapted to it. It was difficult to, but Mono wouldn’t ever mistake the figures waiting in the crates. He wouldn’t ignore his eyes and say that what he saw had been wrong.
He wasn’t wrong. There were children locked in cages. Even in the dark, he could see their heads looking up at him, some sitting so fearfully still just by their chained doors, whereas some laid on the sides in the far corner, too afraid to even look at their captor. The crate below him, he noticed a boy leaning against the bars, hands reaching out.
The gate groaned. Mono snapped back to his reality now—to his own cage.
Harshly, the Nanny shoved him inside and spared not one second to shut the gate. She did, however, blinded him with her glowing white eyes, making him cower backwards until his back hit the bar. The Nanny grinned widely.
It still sent shivers down his spine just looking at the sight of those ugly, razor-sharp teeth. It wasn’t long after that the Nanny left him there with the other unfortunate children, supposedly sharing the same fate. Even as the silence seized them all, Mono didn’t breathe until he was certain the Nanny was gone.
The door clicked shut.
He exhaled loudly.
There were children trapped here, not to anyone’s surprise. Of course there would be. How could he not count on the possibility that the Nanny was one of the mentally unstable—as all of the adults were—that hunted kids for sport or collected them as though they were artifacts or trophies to be admired. Although trophies were usually polished first before being put on display, Mono shuddered at the thought of it. What grotesque, cruel way would the Nanny consider “polished”? Kids with their heads removed? Eyes replaced with false ones as white as hers? Organs carved out and their blood drained first?
He needed to escape from here. And so did the children in their cages.
Mono got up and walked to the edge of his crate, looking past his bars and at the rest of them. The darkness truly was indisputable. He needed to squint his eyes just to make out the outlines of the ones across from him.
“Hey,” Mono whispered to them.
No answer. They must be terrified to even move, let alone speak. He tried again.
“Hey!” he whispered louder.
No one answered him. They stayed still.
Perhaps they hadn’t heard him?
Mono felt his brow furrow at this, and instead turned to the one below him. “Psst. Hey,” he whispered to the boy. “Can you hear me?”
The boy didn’t answer, his arms and legs still past his bars. What was he reaching out to?
“Hey.” Mono tapped on the boy’s bars below repeatedly. “We have to get out of here. This place isn’t safe to stick around like this—”
The boy’s limb dropped from his body.
Mono ceased his tapping and his eyes locked on the ground. Locked on the arm, now laying on the floor, separated from its owner.
There was an arm on the ground.
“Wh…what?” He whipped his head back to the boy he’d called out to. And his heart dropped to his stomach when all of the boy’s appendages began to fall apart. As though dolls that’d been perfectly positioned by someone were pushed and shoved. First was the arm. Then, the torso that had falsely held it all together, too, fell. And last rolled the boy’s head; eyes gouged, and mouth opened.
It dawned on Mono too late that everything in here were lies, a mere display of trophies. And out of all of them, he was the only one alive.
I have to leave. I have to find a way to get out of here. I have to get out of this cage before she comes back. She’s going to come back. She’s coming back to kill me. She’s going to dismember me and take my eyes and teeth.
Mono grabbed a fistful of the chains that wrapped around his gate, and let his panic take over him. He knocked on them, shook them, heated them with his powers. Nothing worked. The chains cannot be loosened from the inside, cannot be burned until it melted like the ropes that'd fallen on Six.
Six.
What if she came back? Could she perhaps break the chain on the outside and he could do the same on the inside? Rattle it until his cage was no longer locked and—
No. That was stupid to think about. Six’s chances of helping him was as slim as him forgiving her for the things she’d done; a fat zero. For why would she, the girl who thought about leaving at every possible chance, come back just to save him? He was the one who forced her to follow along, was the one who forced her to take part in Viola’s rescue mission, which she was evidently reluctant for. So it was only logical to bail since he was the one she needed to rescue now.
She wasn’t coming back for him; that was a fact. This was Six’s chance to kill him once and for all.
And honestly, he’d do the same thing if he were in her shoes. Maybe.
Mono kept his hand on the chain, a weak glow of orange and blue right under his palm. Crestfallen, his eyes lowered along with his arm sagging. The metal was not burning through. He didn’t know if it ever would. He didn’t know if he’d have enough time to run away from here and escape alive—
“Oi, idiot.” A voice whispered from below. A voice, he refused to admit, he knew anywhere.
He ceased his attempt to melt the chain, halted his own movements and breathing. His eyes landed on the flash of light and the yellow that stood beside each other.
Six was here. And she wasn’t alone.
Something foreign made a visit to his chest. And the first words he spoke to her was as irrelevant to them as it was significant to him now.
“Who’s that?” His gaze was locked on the blonde boy, his hands gripping tightly on the bars. Why did he suddenly feel more on edge?
“Help me with the light, will you?” Six asked the boy next to her…rather friendly. The boy nodded and waved his flashlight right at him. Mono flinched away with a scowl.
Did he have to blind me like that—
Six’s climb to his cage was so utterly silent that it made him flinch the second time as her face met his own in mere inches, her arms curling around the bars. Mono recoiled naturally. Six paid no attention to that as her focus remained on the predicament he was put in; namely the chains wrapped around the door. Her forehead wrinkled.
“Did you try to burn this off?” Six asked him. As if that was a casual question asked every day.
He could only look at her, mouth open. “Well, I—” He hesitated. “It was the only thing that I figured…would work.”
“And did it?”
His cheeks warmed as the metal he’d held for the past minute. “It would have. If you never showed up.”
“So much for gratitude.” Six glanced at the boy with the light, and then back to the chains. Subtly, she hovered her palm over the metal, and let a darker form of darkness take over. Like little clouds, it covered the entirety of the chain, however, only bare for the ones that stood across from each other. She made sure of it when her body shielded most of her magic away from the light, away from the boy below them.
Mono took her arm and the swirling darkness dissipated. He shook his head and whispered, “What are you doing?”
Six yanked herself back with a scowl. She never answered him as she resumed what she did before.
The chain became looser. Six rattled the metal until the door of his cage was ajar.
All the while, Mono watched her with the same expression ever since. Still speechless; still annoyed; still confused. So confused. Yet before he could even begin to question why Six did it, she dropped to the ground on her feet, and looked up at him expectantly.
Right.
She’d made his escape.
Mono pushed the door as far as it could, as far as the loose chain allowed it to, and squeezed himself in between. He was lucky enough to still possess a scrawny figure. Without much difficulty, he landed on the floor too, careful to avoid stepping over the arm of…a kid. Best not to look at all, he told himself.
He closed his eyes and breathed softly, trying so hard to shove away the image—the thought of all the children that he wanted to help escape at some point—from his head. He tried to concentrate on the smell of the old room instead of the blood that’d dried on the children’s clothes and their cages. Believe it or not, Mono tried so hard to clear his mind, and ignore everything else in the room for a second. Just bask in the glory of the darkness, hoping to scare away his guilt.
And yet the light…
“So, you must be Mono.”
The light still followed him.
Mono opened his eyes and turned to this…new boy that Six brought out of nowhere. He seemed nice from the look of him alone but all of that was the number one thing a traitor would possess. He wasn’t going to be stupid and naïve again.
“Who are you?” Mono almost demanded.
The boy smiled awkwardly at his unanswered question. “Emmet. Your friend told me you’re good at finding people?”
“My friend—?”
A strong pull by the collar. Six dragged him to the side and turned them away from the other boy in mere seconds. Wide-eyed and beyond surprised, Mono barely had a chance. Though, if it weren’t for him still fresh in confusion, he would’ve given Six the hardest uppercut of her life. That is to say if his arm wasn’t injured.
“Okay, Mono, listen up,” Six whispered in his ear. “You have to help him find his sister.”
“What? I don’t even know him—!” A smack in the head. Then a harsh scolding from Six saying keep your voice down.
Mono scowled as he winced. Nonetheless, he complied. “I don’t,” he whispered, “even know him. Why do I have to find his sister?”
“Because I told him you could,” Six whispered back.
“ Why?”
“Because you can. See, you said you wanted to look for Viola, then a couple of hours later, you already know where she is.”
“That doesn’t mean she’s automatically found!”
“Just do it. Emmet’s already saved your butt. The least you could do is help him find his sister—”
“But I don’t know him! Or his sister!”
“Guys?” Both Mono and Six turned around, sharing the same look of ‘I know nothing’. “Is everything okay?” Emmet asked, lowering his flashlight.
“Everything is fine, Emmet. I was just having a small chat with him.” Six glanced at Mono with a fake smile. “But we’re done now,” she said. Also in a much nicer tone than before.
“Oh, I see. I just wanted to make sure if...is your friend really okay, though? He seems a little pale,” Emmet said.
Mono scowled at him and said, “Malnutrition does that to you— big deal. And to clarify, I am most definitely not her friend—”
“On second thought, give us one more minute!” Six shouted over him and dragged Mono’s collar again to turn him around. This time, however, her grip was as firm as her glare. Mono gulped.
“Another thing,” Six began, “you’re supposed to act as my friend.”
“No. Over my dead body—”
A second smack. Mono cowered after.
“Friends,” Six insisted. “We’re friends. You got it?”
He rubbed the side of his head with a scowl. “Why do I even have to? He’s a literal stranger.”
“Viola’s a stranger and you nearly killed yourself for her too—”
“Stop using her to compare!” Mono snapped. “My point is how can you trust this Emmet guy? How do you know he won’t backstab us?”
She made a face. “Us? Suddenly, it’s us now?”
“Well, I’ve been betrayed by you before, so I think I get the gist of your style of betrayal to at least prepare myself—”
“Yeah, noted.” She cut him off, tired of listening to his rant about the same thing over and over. “Emmet’s not going to backstab you. Or me.”
“And you’re sure because?”
“My gut says so.”
“Your gut? Oh. Great. I’m trusting my life on some dude’s hands just because Six’s gut says so. For all you know, he could be a straight up murderer or something. Just look at him! You can literally see it in his eyes; and how pure evil he is. He'll kill us the moment he gets the chance to. Believe me.”
“I, uh, can hear you…from here,” Emmet spoke up shyly. “Just saying.”
Mono and Six glanced at the boy, then faced their backs to him once more. This time, they made sure to whisper quieter. And quickly too.
“I just know, okay,” Six continued. “Besides, both of us have made a peaceful agreement. He helps me get you back alive, and in return, we help him look for his missing sister. Easy.”
“Wait, is that how you even found me?” Mono asked, brows suddenly furrowed. “He brought you here?”
“He said he knew where you’d be. He’s been here before to look for his sister too. I even had to convince him you were something worth saving for, since he actually didn’t want to come back in here. And I think,” Six glanced around the room, eyeing the children-made doll in cages, “I understand why now.”
Mono shot her a look at her indifference to the gore. Six noticed it and raised a brow. “What?” she demanded.
“Nothing, nothing,” Mono said, shaking his head. How could he forget: Six was a heartless creature since day one. “So, you’re saying we’re…indebted to him now?”
“Moreso you. I’m only tagging along until I find a way back to the Maw.”
Another exhaled through the nose. His blood was close to boiling. His fingers were just itching to strangle her because—
Someone’s mother. She’s someone’s mother.
“Fine. Whatever. I’ll help him find his sister but only, and only” he said, “after Viola is saved.”
“Seriously?” As his eyes did all the confirmation that he was, in fact, serious, Six huffed a loud sigh. She crossed her arms and looked away. “He’s not going to be too thrilled about that,” she muttered. “You’re telling him.”
“Yeah—what—?”
Six hummed. Then immediately left him behind, in utter stupor, to go back to Emmet’s side like she and him shared a far greater history than what they actually had.
I guess staying up for two days straight just for her to get a good night sleep back then is as great as shining a flashlight around. It’s not like he’s the first person to ever own one. I had a flashlight too.
“So, what’s up? All good?” Emmet asked them both, but Mono knew he directed the question mostly to Six. With the way he kept looking her way instead.
And the fact Six was the closest one to him between the two of them.
“Like I said: just having a small chat with my friend. Isn’t that right,” Six turned to him, “Mono?”
No, it’s not. You’re so wrong. Wrong forever and ever, for the rest of your life—
“Yeah,” Mono said. “A friendly chat.”
Emmet eyed him up and down, concern so obvious on his face when Mono’s glare to him and Six became not so invisible.
“Well, then, that’s…nice to know.” Emmet turned to Six and whispered to her. Seriously, again? “Six, are we good to leave now? I’m not so comfortable staying here for too long. Who knows when that woman will come back.”
“Ah. Right. I guess we should,” Six replied. Then looked over to Mono. “Oi, we’re leaving.”
“I just heard you, backst—I mean...good friend. Loud and clear,” Mono said with a thumbs up.
Emmet whispered to Six’s ear, his brows furrowed. “Are you sure he’s okay?”
“He’s clearly traumatized as you can see,” Six whispered back.
“Oh. I can understand that,” Emmet replied.
“It’s not the worst thing you’ll see from him, though.”
“I’m right here,” Mono chimed in, scowling. “Quit spreading lies about me, Six.”
Instead of apologizing like the “friend” she was to be, Six scoffed right at his face as she walked away. Emmet, still unsure of the tension, only spared Mono an encouraging—no doubt fake—smile before urging him to come follow.
“Hey—where are you going?” Mono asked. Luckily Six had the decency to tell him as she stopped by the corner of the room. Just between the crates, a tiny crack in the walls was seen and a hidden opening was revealed as Six lifted its torn wallpaper.
Mono blinked slowly.
“You…want us to go inside there? The walls?” Mono said, not believing himself.
“You can stay here if you want. Emmet and I are leaving, though.” Emmet and I. Spoken as if they were best friends since birth.
“It’s totally safe, Mono. Don’t worry,” Emmet said. Again with that friendly smile.
Why was he being so friendly with him?
Emmet went behind the walls first, with Six holding it up for everyone. Actually, scratch that. She held it up for almost everyone. Just after the boy, Six followed behind him, sparing Mono one look only for her to huff a moment later.
“Since when are you so reluctant to leave a place?” With that one question left to be answered or unanswered, Six disappeared into the walls too.
Mono stood there in silence, thinking. Thinking of what her words meant and the many reasons why he refused to travel into tight spaces ready on his tongue. Instead he told her nothing.
He cast a final look at the small prison room created by the Nanny, a final glance at the children who didn’t have the luck to make it out alive as him. Perhaps he should thank Emmet for it.
Perhaps he should really help him find his sister as a form of payment for his kindness. For all honesty and obvious reasons, Emmet seemed like a genuine, kind-hearted person. A boy that possessed a strong camaraderie from the way he worked with Six so far. And for Six to have made a peaceful agreement with him, to help each other in such a short amount of time…
Wait.
How did Six trust this guy so quickly? Even with Mono, it took her at least three days for her to tell him her name and yet
Emmet learned it in less than a day. Better yet—in a couple of hours.
So what did Emmet have that he didn’t? A genuine intention? A good personality? Loyalty that was as rare as a clear-sky day? A flashlight? Pretty sure he ticked all of those boxes.
Did Emmet? Doubt it.
It may only be his paranoia, a certain jealousy annoyance, or even discomfort for a new companion other than Viola; he couldn’t be sure. Though, if there was one thing he was sure of it’d be his impression of Emmet the moment he spoke to him.
For whoever this boy was, it was clear that Mono was not a fan.
Notes:
yeass may I introduce you...Our jealous cinnamon roll....Mono! But he doesn't know that himself eheh
Oh I also put in a new oc :)
Thanks for reading!
Chapter 25: Past Midnight
Notes:
YES.
HELL YES.I cannot tell you how happy I am that this chapter is done after rewriting it for like the freaking bazillionth time!! (I might've exaggerated a little bit there) Anyway, I won't take anymore of your time so I'll get to it.
This is a Thin Man/Lady chapter—for plot purposes of course—and don't expect much fluff this time hoho! ;)
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Night had fallen hours ago, Thin Man realized. He’d been sitting here in the kitchen for a long time, looking into his almost empty glass, swirling and downing whatever drop of alcohol that still remained inside; utterly and inevitably occupied by his thoughts. He sat there with only a dim light hanging over him, accompanying him along the drink and the chaos in his mind. And he kept on thinking. Thinking, and thinking, and thinking.
Thin Man had left earlier today in the morning as duty called in Pale City, however, feeling a little uneasy to leave. It was nothing to worry about. The Lady stayed home with Viola while he was away. The only worry he had was actually for the reason the Eye had summoned him. And that, he was right to worry.
The clock’s hand moved. A longer chime. Then he knew midnight was here.
The house was dead silent when he returned late from the Signal Tower. Everybody must’ve been asleep. He put his glass down on the table with a sigh and began to pour a new glass.
“I think you’ve had enough of that.” Thin Man perked his head up to the hallways, to the voice that had come from the shadows. Perhaps not everybody was asleep.
“You’re not yet in bed,” he said to her. Then filled his glass. “I hope I didn’t wake you up from when I came in here.”
“I would’ve woken up even if you had sighed in the other room. I wouldn’t worry too much about it if I were you,” the Lady replied, taking a seat across from him. Even in her night clothes and loose hair framing her face, she still managed to make herself look rather elegant.
Thin Man smiled into his drink. “I suppose. You are the more light-sleeper out of the two of us. Even back then.”
“And you tend to be the more secretive one. Despite how approachable you made yourself to be.”
“You can always tell, can’t you?”
“Of course. There’s a reason why I’m the smart one.” They both stared into each other’s tired eyes. He grinned first.
“I won’t deny you that,” he said as he lifted the glass again to his lips. The Lady held his wrist and brought the drink down gently before he could.
“I mean it, Mono. When I said you’ve had enough of it,” she said, her true emotion revealed finally. There was no hoping that the Lady would shrug off his sudden distress and his pitiful solution wallowing in alcohol. Although he wished the Lady did.
“You always can tell,” he murmured as he looked anywhere but her. “You must be wondering why I’ve put myself in this situation.”
“You look away when you’re afraid and anxious. I can only imagine it has something to do with the Eye summoning you to the Signal Tower.” He felt her cold hands sneak around his own. “Will you let me know? What it is?” she asked so softly. He still couldn’t look at her.
“Mono,” she said. And he finally mustered the courage to meet her eyes. Yet he learned all that courage lasted no more than a few seconds before his heart would shatter again. This would be hard. It was so hard.
To even find the right words to not let her experience the same feeling that he did, it was impossible. He knew it would destroy her. He knew she would lose it.
“The Eye,” he said after a long silence. “The Eye is coming for her.”
It broke him then when the Lady let go of his hand. He focused on only the glass in front of him that he couldn’t finish, refusing to meet the look on his wife’s face as he had well predicted: crushed, furious and disbelief. Everything that she wasn’t as the Lady of the Maw with a demeanor meant to be known otherwise.
“That’s not possible,” she muttered. And then louder, “It’s not possible, Mono. Tell me you made a mistake.”
“I didn’t. The Eye summoned me—
“Well then, tell me the Eye has made a mistake! It’s just not possible. It’s not possible for them to have decided that. The Eye can’t…” her breath hitched. He glanced down at her hands and noticed how they trembled.
“Six,” he said, a lump in his throat.
“The Eye just can’t,” she deadpanned. “It goes against everything we’ve agreed on. The deal we made to avoid that particularly. What happened to the deal we made?”
He shook his head and told her what scared him the most. “The deal is no longer effective. They’ve cut us off.”
It was what the Eye had told him when they delivered the news to him. That the deal was no more. Just like that. Without a proper warning, without any sort of hints. Just a blatant delivery. Thin Man had been furious and demanded why as he sat in his chair. The only answer he ever got from the Eye was a thousand giggles from the darkness beyond his light. They’d told him that he and the Lady had made a mistake even from the start; and all mistakes shall be corrected in the end.
The deal, perhaps, was one of them, he realized now. It was an agreement, a legitimate contract from the Eye, that he and the Lady had agreed upon when the Eye had announced to remove the anomaly in the arrangement.
It was foul. The Lady had even threatened to destroy the Maw and let it sink forever, to ruin whatever plan the Eye had for it in the long run. She’d threatened to bring the Signal Tower down and tear it apart along with the devil in it. She’d sworn to be a nuisance at every turn for the Eye should they ever touch a hair on her child’s head. One had laughed. Thin Man had immediately incinerated one of the eyes that did.
The outcome of that was a proposed deal. The Eye, knowing how crucial the Lady and The Broadcaster was for the cycle to prevail—add on the incessant fight the Lady would put up and with her husband’s loyalty following right behind her—decided to end the war before it started. They offered them a deal that entailed terms that would make both sides happy.
On the Eye’s side, Viola shall never be harmed. The child shall be ‘under protection’ from the Eye’s tick to correct mistakes in the cycle, however, if and only if in the presence of a parent. Should Viola be found without one of them, the Eye may proceed as they wished.
On Thin Man and the Lady’s part, they would have to give up their hearts. They would have to deliver many children to the Eye, sending them to an immediate route to death and worse fates. They would have to lose their empathy as they listen to the children’s cries and screams; and they would have to sleep every night knowing how many deaths occurred for their child to live.
Those were the terms. Simple yet difficult to consider. The Lady was the first to agree once the deal had been laid out to them; and she’d been the one to beg him to agree when he seemed hesitant. She’d told him she would do anything to save her child. He’d told her he’d do the same. Viola was his too.
Was it selfish to kill hundreds of children to protect only one? Perhaps. But if there was ever a second chance, he’d choose the same thing over and over.
The Lady clasped her hands together and exhaled sharply, fuming on the inside. “So, that’s just it? They summoned you only to tell you that? Did you not ask them—?”
“I did. They wouldn’t tell.”
Her brow raised. “Wouldn’t tell?” she said, appalled. “What does that…what is that supposed to mean? That they wouldn’t tell you?”
“When they told me we no longer have the agreement, they didn’t explain why it became that way. Not even when I demanded them to. Actually, they find it funny how rightfully angry I was.” He tapped on the side of his glass and said, “I thought it was their known cruelty and sadistic nature to suddenly turn against a deal so crucial to us for no reason—to watch us struggle and panic for their pleasure—but in the end it seemed like I wasn’t the only one desperate in that room.” Thin Man played with his drink and gulped it all down.
“The Eye is scared of something,” he said. “That, I’m sure of.”
“Why? Why would they be afraid now of all time?” The Lady asked. “Seven years is a bit random, don’t you think?”
“I don’t doubt that they’ve been wary since the start of the deal, considering how the Cycle is their loop for power and control. It’s no puzzle to figure out that the Eye wanted to take Viola out of it before her existence damages the entire structure. She isn’t locked in as we are, after all.
“As for why it took seven years, I can’t say, myself. Maybe the Eye thought Viola wouldn’t come in the way of the Cycle back then; maybe they didn’t expect her to share our abilities and grow stronger with it; or maybe seven years was all it needed for something to change—I’m not sure.”
The Lady sighed softly. Her hands lowered under the table, and her eyes down to them. “How long do we have?”
“I’m sorry?”
She finally looked at him again, however, with glassy eyes. He hated how much it hurt him.
“How long do we have until the Eye,” she said, “goes after her?”
Thin Man found himself unable to speak the words he’d thought long and hard before the Lady came in. He knew it would be difficult to tell her everything, yet he was wrong. This was next to impossible.
The Lady noticed it when he looked away again. This time, though, she too lacked the strength in her façade, in her voice as they trembled and broke. “Mono, tell me, please. How long do we have?”
“Two days,” he said. “We have only…two days.”
That isn’t a lot, he could hear her say. The disappointment in her eyes said it better when she replied with her longest silence. She didn’t ask why the Eye decided two days; she didn’t ask him how they would stop the Eye; she didn’t ask him anything at all after that. That expression on her face was all the answer she could muster: I cannot stop or change this. The Eye is too powerful to go up against.
Thin Man wanted to believe the Lady was thinking of it—that she too realized there was no winning a losing battle. But as sharp as her movements were, his mind was still up to par. He grabbed her arm just when she sprung from her chair. The Lady shot him a dangerous scowl—one that hadn’t been directed to him for a long time. Still he persisted, tightening his grip over her.
“Mono,” the Lady said through gritted teeth, “let me go.”
“I can’t do that.” The Lady would leave for a massacre in Pale City if he were to agree.
“And why not?”
“You know exactly why and what I’m talking about.” He leaned in and lowered his voice. “I’m not letting you go there. It’s a terrible idea of yours.”
“Not doing anything and letting our daughter die is worse.”
“Yes, but you’re thinking of taking down The Eye. What are you going to do when you get there? March in as you like? Wreak havoc and kill off a few eyes? Threaten them if they dare touch a hair on her head? The Eye doesn’t care. They will do what they want either with you dead or alive—that’s always been their way of work. Now more than ever.”
“So, what, your plan is to do nothing and let them have their way? You’re taking their side over mine?”
Then and there, his fury spiked. He held her arm tighter. “I am trying to keep you both safe. You’re not going there and that’s final,” he said.
“Do you listen to yourself?” His jaw clenched. “There is still a target on the back of Viola’s head; and the Eye is aiming for it! Are you seriously telling me to let her die?”
“Six, that is not what I’m saying.”
“That’s exactly what you’re saying!”
Thin Man bit back a seethe. “I am only trying to make you understand how dangerous it is to fight the Eye. They will break you in terrifying, sadistic ways you can’t fathom. You won’t win no matter how much power you use; it’s a loss from the start!”
“But it’s still no excuse! I refuse to sit idly here just because I know I won’t win. I won’t sit here knowing Viola is being hunted down.”
“You’re not listening to me,” he said, exasperated. “I am not kidding with the Eye’s strength, Six! They are more than just corrupted evil with obsession of power! They’ve already taken so much you won’t even believe how much more they’re willing to take!”
The Lady lost her cool and yelled, “So because of that you want me to back off protecting everyone from the Eye?”
“NO—ALL I WANT IS FOR YOU TO BACK OFF GOING AGAINST THE EYE!”
When he heard the echoes of his own voice, Thin Man and the Lady turned to the dark hallway in unison. They’d gotten carried away that the possibility of a child waking and hearing them slipped through their minds. As the pause reminded them, they came to a mutual agreement they shouldn’t shout anymore.
Especially not at each other.
Thin Man let her arm go and looked down to the table: the empty glass, the fedora hat he’d abandoned a few hours ago, his own fingers lightly tapping against the wood to fill in this heavy silence. How did they get here? Fighting with each other like they had back in their youth? From the long-forgiven betrayal, some unnecessary fights that happened after being reunited, and more arguments that ended quickly as they started.
He hated when they argued. Bantering was fine, and maybe a little squabble here and there too; but never a real argument.
One glance to the Lady and he saw the look on her still poignant. This was breaking her heart just as it was for him. Perhaps it was worse for her, considering she was the one who had carried Viola in her womb while he had merely carried her in his arms.
“I’m sorry,” he spoke first. The Lady looked his way. “I’m sorry I shouted.”
A short pause from her, and a quiet, “I’m sorry too.”
The corner of his lips lifted slightly. Only to sag again. “Six, listen I…I need you to listen to me. Just this once. I have a plan to keep Viola safe, I promise. But I need your help for it to work.” With her silence and full attention, he continued sorrowfully, “I want you to take Viola to the bunker. Take her there with you, and please,” he said, “just stay there.”
“And what about you? When will you follow us?”
This time he truly couldn’t bring himself to look. Only through his peripheral could he see the Lady connecting the dots. For his silence told her everything.
“You won’t be following us…” she whispered. Then louder, “Mono—”
“That’s what I’ve been planning from the start. Right after they told me,” he said. “I didn’t know how you would react, but…I know I won’t change my mind on this.”
The Lady stumbled closer to his side, panic now on her face. “But Mono—you—you can’t. You just said the Eye’s strength is unfathomable; a corrupted evil with obsession of power; that there’s no winning no matter how much you fight. You can’t possibly tell me you’re going against the Eye now right after telling me not to—that’s hypocritical!”
Thin Man gave her a sad smile and shrugged. “Well. You know me, Six. I’ve always been a hypocrite.”
“You could die,” the Lady insisted, faltering.
“In the least, I’ll be buying both of you time.”
Her eyes widened at his words, brows furrowed in sheer disbelief at how willing he was to put himself on the front line without caring how it’d end for him. He knew how it’d end; and that was the terrifying part.
“How would you…how would you even stall, Mono?” The Lady asked, both angry and curious.
“The Tower,” he said. “It’s the heart of the Eye. It’s where the Eye resides entirely—and where it’s at their strongest and weakest. If I were to be there as a threat, they would put the Signal Tower first and focus their attention on me. Viola would have more time to get away.”
“Then I’ll go with you.”
“Six—”
“If we both fight together, we’ll buy her twice the time to escape to the bunker. It’s a guarantee for sure.”
“And if we both die? What happens then? Viola is still a child—she can’t survive on her own!” The Lady shrunk in place. The temporary determination in her eyes faded into nothing as they lowered to the ground, utterly defeated as her arguments. Thin Man had always teased her for her antics: the need to always win a challenge, her competitiveness, her absolute will to remain in the right. He had made fun, saying to her how one day she’d lose to him in an argument. And one day, she would be in the wrong and he’d be right.
But never had he wanted to win this way.
Thin Man gently took her hands in his and pulled her close. She leaned her head on his neck and his own rested on top of hers.
“Six,” he whispered, “someone needs to look after her, you know that.”
“But you’re stronger than me,” she said, quiet and trembling. “You can protect her better than I can, so…so let me go instead.” The Lady shifted to look him in the eyes. And once more, she pleaded and begged, “Please.”
He finally swallowed the lump in his throat.
“If I’m stronger than you,” he said, “then I need to do this.” There was no point in compromising. No point in trying at all. Thin Man had made his choice long before their conversation began, and he’d sworn to himself he wouldn’t let the Eye hurt them as they’d hurt him for decades. And if he had to die by the hands of the Eye to prevent that
Then so be it.
“I’m sorry.” He embraced her with all that he had, kissed her face and rubbed circles on her back, all just for a hope that she would have the heart to forgive him one day.
Yet a single tear still slipped past her eyes, down to her stoic face. And coldly, she muttered, “Okay.”
It would take a long time for forgiveness from her to even be on the table, he was certain. Even so, that was all he needed to hear from her—an agreement, no matter how unhappy or angry she was. If this plan of his were to work, he truly needed the Lady to play her part: bring Viola and herself to safety, remain untouched by the Eye’s wrath. As for his part…
That would be his own to worry about in 48 hours.
He closed his eyes when felt her arms wrap around him too just as tightly. Then in the silence of the night, the soft plip plop of water droplets from the sink, the slow ticking of the clock moving its hands—he held out a wish. A prayer that they would do fine without him.
Everything would be fine.
The storm in Pale City never ceased to calm. In all her life, ever since a child, the rain was almost a permanent friend in the city. The streets would be so deadly quiet and foggy; the television screens inside or outside would brighten a place better than any of its lamps could; and the Signal Tower would remain mysterious as ever. Dangerous, yet kind when you stand in front of its doors. They welcomed any curious visitors and welcomed their important tools wholeheartedly.
The Lady felt herself shiver as a gust of wind came over when the gate spread open, blowing past her soaked dress and hair. The soft purple emanated from the inside glowed strongly until it engulfed her whole figure, like an invisible hand beckoning for her to step closer and never leave.
She could hear them whisper in her ear, so loud and quiet that no actual words were distinct and understandable. So excited and calm that she felt unwilling yet unafraid to listen to them.
This was not part of the plan, she imagined him saying. You’re risking everything and yourself.
The Lady couldn’t agree. Yes, it was true she was taking an enormous risk by standing here before the Signal Tower despite what he said. It was true, disregarding the plan to carry out her own was fairly irresponsible and possibly fatal. But Thin Man’s idea was not any less fatal than hers. He too was about to put himself at risk. He too would be abandoning everyone with his savior complex.
It was only right that she be the one to do that. With the reputation and history of abandonment or not, she just couldn’t let him do it. He was stronger than her—a fact they both knew. For that strength to be ended for merely extra time, it was a waste. His death would be almost in vain. If time was what he wanted for Viola, then she could buy her some just the same.
This was the only way to ensure the Eye would cease their hunt on Viola for good.
For the Lady knew the true reason the deal had fallen through. Thin Man had only been half correct; she just couldn’t tell him then.
Perhaps if time had been kinder, I could have told him. And he would’ve been happy instead of heartbroken.
The Lady glanced up at the floating chairs and miniature toys, her feet yet to have crossed the threshold between hell and the core of hell. Angry tears gathered in her eyes, but she forbade herself to let any of them fall. She wouldn’t allow any weakness to be shown. Despite her last hesitance and mind screaming for her to turn back, despite the final hold to her belly and the fear she held for it—her ultimate vulnerability—the Lady of the Maw strode past the gates of the Signal Tower with her porcelain mask hiding it all.
Yes, Thin Man had been half correct; the Eye indeed was afraid of something.
And it was one of her children she couldn’t save.
Notes:
Did you get it? hehe
Thanks for reading!
Chapter 26: Three's a Crowd
Notes:
There goes my unreliable schedule to update every week. Please bear with me here ಥ_ಥ
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
So Emmet had a flashlight.
That was one of the first things Mono took immediate notice as they traversed the narrow walkway hidden within the walls. After Six and this random stranger rescued him from the Nanny’s personal child-zoo, he and Six followed Emmet from behind closely, letting him lead them to the exit of the Daycare Centre since someone made a promise to someone that he’d be responsible to find a missing sister. Six and her narrow mind, decided to let him know only after she made the said promise. Which, figures. She’d always loved making his life unnecessarily ‘fun’.
Now that he was told last minute, he would have to figure out how to gently let Emmet down. Look, I’d love to help you find your sister, I swear, but let me go real quick and rescue my other friend whom I was supposed to only find if it weren’t for that yellow backstabbing troll.
He smirked to himself, amused by his creative and humorous thoughts.
Ah, yes. That last bit certainly would be a nice touch. Anything that involved revealing to someone about Six’s ugly nature was a cherry on top.
“What are you smirking for,” Six whispered beside him. His face returned to a glare and he hoped she was aware how quickly his mood turned foul because of her voice.
“No reason. Just thinking of the many ways I could tell Emmet about how we’re saving Viola first. Also I’m not against telling him how you left me behind for some sick children-buffet.”
Six scowled at him. “It’s not a children-buffet. The Maw just happened to also serve a bunch of kids that were unlucky enough to get caught.”
“So that makes it any less than a children-buffet?”
“Stop saying children-buffet. It is not,” Six deadpanned before turning her gaze back to Emmet’s back. “What exactly are you going to tell him? About your initial rescue mission?”
“The truth, obviously. Unlike someone, I pride myself on not telling lies until they come back biting me in the ass,” he replied. “Saving Viola is my first priority and if he’s not cool with it then…we’ll just see each other when we see each other. I’ll help him out either way if time allows it.”
“You’re not going to say that to him, are you?”
At her familiar judgmental tone, Mono turned to look at her as he walked, his brow raised. “What’s wrong with it?”
“It’s clearly insensitive. You can’t just tell someone to scram off if they’re not ‘cool’ with your decision.”
Then Mono halted in place. Six stopped too, however, abruptly in surprise and in worry that Emmet would walk ahead without them and bring their source of light with him.
“What are you doing—?”
“Are you caring for him?” Mono asked, appalled. He pointed to Emmet accusingly. “Him? Some guy you just met like an hour ago?”
Six blinked at his reaction and seemingly was lost at words. For a second, at least as she quickly got her composure again. “I’m not caring for anyone,” she said, walking again. “I’m only saying; you should be a little bit sensitive. Emmet probably was already so relieved after thinking someone was going to help him find his family, and then there goes you, telling him ‘oh, never mind, I think I’ll help you after I find someone else first. And if you don’t agree, then good luck on your own, pal’. I mean, come on, I thought out of the two of us you were the one with the heart.”
With his cheeks flushed and his pride bruised, he watched her quickly follow Emmet’s lead and leave him behind once more, like he was no one she knew. Since when was she so sensitive regarding other people’s feelings? She surely didn’t care about his feelings so…what made her see Emmet differently? Was it because of Emmet’s story and his missing sister that moved her? It couldn’t be since she wouldn’t give two cents when Viola disappeared. Did Emmet scare Six and threaten her with the promise of injury so that she would be cooperative? Not likely. The guy didn’t seem like he could even aim a punch. Was it…the flashlight?
By the time he looked up to them two, Six already caught up with Emmet, each walking side by side as they exchanged nods and greets.
Are you kidding me?
“I cannot believe this,” Mono grumbled under his breath, rolling his eyes and quickening his pace to not be left behind.
After another half an hour of going up and down, left and right, crawling and crouching through wet pipes, finally they were granted fresh air as they walked out from the darkness of the walls. The Daycare Centre was already dark by default but something about staying in pure blackness with only one glowing light—not to mention, the sounds of plop plop plop and scratching from the higher pipes was driving him crazy—it certainly brought back a few unpleasant memories.
Namely the hospital. And the mannequins.
So standing out in the open, despite how very out in the open they were, Mono felt as though he could finally breathe full air again. He let out a loud and satisfied sigh that earned a look from Six.
“What?” he snapped immediately. “I’m not allowed to breathe in front of you now?”
“Do you have to be so loud every time you open your mouth?” Six shot back.
“Oh no,” Emmet’s voice chimed in.
“Yes, oh no. I’m glad you’re finally realizing that Six is being judgemental for no reason—OW!” Mono rubbed the back of his head that Six had normalized smacking to silence him. He hated how it worked instantly as one look from her, one look from where her gaze followed Emmet’s, he too began to understand why the boy had said what he said.
The three children stood still in front of the entrance doors of the Daycare Centre. Chains were wrapped and looped multiple times around its knobs, and to give the cherry on top, a padlock as huge as the size of his head dangled underneath. Each of them mutually fell into a silence for their predicament, one staring in dread, while the other in annoyance, and the last in mere surprise.
It was him. He was the one surprised. Mono had not expected the door would be locked so in this much effort to keep anyone from going out. Could the Nanny have found out about his escape? And upon knowing, she immediately raced to the only exit the building had in hopes to lock him in a bigger cage? Yeah, high chance.
“Is…” Mono said, pursing his lips. “Is that our only way out?”
“Yep,” Emmet said in a similar fashion. However, his fear spilled into his voice as it went softer and softer, “That woman really…locked our one escape so…we’re pretty much screwed.”
“Get a grip, boys, we haven’t even given it a closer look,” Six said and did as she told them. She approached the big lock—no, two big locks when he looked over—and twisted it in her hands. She ran her hands along the chains as though in thought, but Mono was hoping she wasn’t thinking of doing…something to it by herself.
Uneased by the seconds that passed with her silence, Mono took a step close, his hand just barely up to stop her. Luckily, he managed to drop them and stilled when she turned abruptly.
“So, we’re screwed,” Six said. “Whatever lock the Nanny put around that door, it’s no normal metal for sure. I’m half certain it’s actually titanium.”
“What’s titanium?” Emmet asked dumbfoundedly.
“How would you know it’s even titanium? And also what he said,” Mono said, gesturing to the boy.
She scoffed and shrugged. “Saw it on the Teacher’s whiteboard once. It said that titanium is one of the strongest metals, so that lock is probably it. It’s harder than most of the locks I’ve encountered. Definitely stronger than the rusty one on Mono’s cage too, by the way.”
“Ah.” Mono cleared his throat, “So you knew how to read.”
“What the hell did you just say to me?” Six said, clearly offended.
“Oh, no, really I mean I am…impressed that you knew how to read those complicated words she wrote on her board…considering you can’t read the numbers she wrote on them,” he added the last part under his breath.
“I told you that in confidence, you jerk—”
“Whoa, okay! Let’s…let’s all calm down a little,” Emmet said, laughing nervously, getting in between them. “So, uh, Six,” he began. “Do you also happen to know what can break the ti…tinati—…the strong metal?”
“Well, like what I read on the board,” she said, shooting one last glare at Mono. He returned it with an eye roll and a scoff, “it’s really strong. That is to say, even if I’m wrong, breaking that lock would bring attention to us either way. We’ll be caught and dead the first chance we get at attempting to break it.”
“You know what, that’s true. We can’t afford to get caught now. If breaking the lock is not an option, then the only other one I could think of is…getting the key to it? She’s got to lock it with something, right?”
“Yeah. Keys. There are two locks, apparently,” Mono said.
“So that settles it,” Six said. “We’ll find those keys and leave this place. Any ideas where a sadistic monster would hide a key?”
Mono snickered and replied, “You could ask yourself that—”
“Oh! I’ve got one!” This guy again. Mono held the urge to openly roll his eyes. There was nothing wrong with Emmet, of course, except that for some mysterious reason the boy just made him feel…blegh? He hadn’t a clue how to describe this uncomfortable feeling weighing on his chest whenever Emmet opened his mouth and Six became twice more interested in what he had to say. Perhaps there was never even a word best suited for it that he’d know of. “There’s a greenhouse in the left wing of the daycare that’s been kept locked and shut by the Nanny every time she leaves there. It’s the only place in the building that’s heavily protected by her. My guess, that’s where she stores important stuff like…”
“Keys for the main entrance,” Six continued for him. Emmet nodded.
“So you’re suggesting we go straight into the lion’s den? Right after leaving her sick collection/children-museum?”
“This whole place is either closed off with chains or nailed with boards, Mono. And a lot of them are exits and windows too. Our way out is unfortunately this door right here but…you know?” Emmet told him. “We need to make a move now and get the keys.”
“Hold on, I thought you said that the greenhouse is also locked?” Six asked. “Do you know where we’re supposed to find a key for that?”
“As a matter of fact, I do.” Then his proud smile faltered as he added, “But we really need to move quickly and get it. While it’s still raining.”
Mono raised a brow. “Why?”
“Because the greenhouse key is in the Playroom,” Emmet said, “And the Nanny goes back there once the rain stops.”
The sight of the dismembered arm laying on the ground reminded Mono just how much he hated this place.
The Playroom, aside from the prison part of the room where the Nanny kept her kiddie cages, was much bigger than he’d initially thought. While he’d been brought here by the Nanny through its very doors, constrained and threatened with her saw-like teeth, he barely had enough time to actually give a good look around. As they came out from the walls and past the cages, they were met with a much bigger space occupied by a ball pit in the middle. Rotting shelves lined against the walls beside two doors, toys scattered around on the floor and some stuffed in cabinets until its door was left ajar. Every window was shut with thick purple curtains, and if his eyes hadn’t already adjusted to the darkness he would’ve tripped over a small block or a fold of a carpet. Which he inevitably did despite having been used to the dark.
Mono stumbled a few steps, cursing under his breath. As though heard his chagrin, a click sounded from Emmet and along with a flash of light to him. The boy had hoped to help him see where he was walking yet the only thing that crossed Mono’s mind was how adamant Emmet was to make him blind.
“Sorry, I wanted to make sure she isn’t in the room with us before switching this on,” Emmet whispered.
“Yeah, noted . Can you not flash it over my face?” Emmet waved it away immediately, whispering more apologies his way. Mono lowered his arm and rolled his eyes in the dark
“Where did you say the key is again?” Six asked Emmet, to which the boy pointed his light over to one of the closed doors.
“That one. The time I snuck into this room was the same time she’d just gotten back from the greenhouse, I assume. I’m not sure where she put the key…but I know I saw her bring the key in there,” Emmet said, and turned to Six. “You mind helping me? To open the door?”
Six nodded and helped as he asked. Whereas Mono…
Well, let’s just say he found the whole thing incredibly annoying.
Guess I really am easily replaced in her eyes all this while. Just another boy who’s too nice. I bet I was a lot nicer to Six than Emmet is.
The door let out a quiet creak as it opened. Inside, however, was unexpectedly tidier than the mess rendered out there. Although if he thought the Playroom was dark, whatever place they'd stepped into was utter pitch black. If it weren’t for Emmet’s flashlight—as much as he did not want to admit his envy for it—he would be walking straight into the wall. Or the edge of a low table. Despite the light flickering every now and then, he could see perfectly what the room was. Some sort of a living room, perhaps. There was a small sofa on the far corner and a smaller table to complement each other, while across it was a mini wet kitchen with a row of shelves above it. The light moved across the room until it stopped at the wet kitchen. But specifically on the shiny item left behind on the counter of it. The key.
“There,” Six was the first to say, her eyes fixated on the copper key, then traveled to the lack of furniture around the counter. “Emmet, give me a boost for—"
“No.” Six and Emmet whipped their heads to Mono. His eyes widened after realizing what he’d said. “I mean…no way that’s going to work. That key is pretty high up there, and I doubt even with the three of us we could reach that countertop.”
Emmet hummed as he looked up at the key. “Well…I guess you’re right. It does look pretty high.”
Mono felt a small smile tug on his lips at the boy’s agreement. However, his little joy didn’t slip past Six as she glanced at him strangely. She didn’t speak of it.
“I don’t see any stool aside from the table over there. Although moving that would create more problems than solutions, if you ask me,” Six said. “We’d need to climb to get the key. Those handles would be a good start.”
“I’ll do it,” Mono said quickly. It earned a weirded look from Six and a surprised face from Emmet.
“It’s…really high, Mono. Are you sure you want to?” Emmet asked softly, so unlike Six’s cold and condescending tone.
“Yeah, Mono. Are you sure you’re up for it?” Six said with a raised brow. “Of course, I’m only a concerned friend looking out for someone who has just recently dealt a harsh injury on the arm.”
“Wh-what?” Emmet’s eyes instantly widened upon realizing his bandaged wound. Much to Mono’s annoyance and Six’s delight. He gasped. “She’s right. You can’t possibly be the one to go climb a height like that; you’ll get more hurt!”
A silent seethe and a glare to Six, he told Emmet, “It…is fine. I’m fine. Perfectly healthy, by the way!”
Six snickered lightly. “Healthy and still bleeding, it seems,” she muttered under her breath. Mono could only scowl as she smirked.
Emmet shook his head and hooked his light on the side of his waist strap. “You know what— I’ll go. I’ve climbed trees and even taller ones before so this shouldn’t be much of a problem. Although it may take some time so…can you two keep a lookout out there while I do this? Watch out for any movements and let me know,” Emmet said, already approaching the counter to begin his climb.
Mono pouted to the side. "Not like I’ve never climbed trees in my life,” he grumbled low enough that Emmet could no longer hear. Unfortunately that didn’t apply for everyone.
“You just couldn’t let it go, could you?” Six piped up next to him.
“Let go of what? At least I can climb trees unlike you.”
“Yeah, yeah— but that’s not what I meant. And you know it too.”
“Literally have no clue, Six. You’ll have to be a little more specific.”
Six shot a scowl his way before turning her gaze back to the other boy. “You hate Emmet because he’s taking over your job, don’t you?”
“What?”
Then and there his heart sped up, his eyes widening twice its size as Six grabbed his attention entirely, only to see that a devious smile was set on her face. And her staying in silence right after dropping that bomb on him was downright evil.
As to not be called out for panicking, or to save whatever face he could, Mono cleared his throat and returned to his initial posture. However, standing still until his whole body went completely rigid did no help to calm his poor heart. He could hear its vicious thumps up in his ears.
He scoffed loudly. “That’s…the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard you say. Why would I care about something like that?”
“Because you do? It’s not that hard to figure out from the way you consistently talk to him like he stole your hats and dumped them into a fire. You obviously hate him.”
Yeah. I do. I hate him but not so much that it’s up to par with the hatred I’ve got for you. As much as you’re a stone-faced heartless friend-backstabbing liar, Emmet’s just annoying. With his stupid flashlight and his friendly face.
“I don’t hate him,” Mono said—lied. But it wasn’t as if Six would pay enough attention that she’d figure it all out about his impression of Emmet.
“Yeah, right. You’re practically glaring at him as he climbs up that counter.”
Or perhaps he was wrong.
“First off, mind your own goddamn business,” he deadpanned. “Secondly, I do not… not hate Emmet.”
“Is that an admittance that you do?”
“I just don’t trust him.” Mono stuffed his hands in his coat pockets and huffed a sigh. “And I don’t understand why in the life of me that you clearly do. I mean it’s so painfully there.”
“What is?”
“His red flags?” Mono said with a raise of his brow. “It’s point-blank obvious, Six. I don’t know how you don’t see it.”
A beat of silence went through Six before she laughed at his face. Mono was less than pleased with her taking his words lightly.
“ Right. I must be losing my touch for not noticing these red flags that you’re so wary about. Tell me, why don’t you? Since, to you, they’re so obvious?”
I can make a list of them. Front and back.
“Forget it,” he told her instead. “I’m done with this conversation. As a matter of fact, this conversation never took place!” Mono then began to stride to the door, making his exit and leaving Six with a bewildered face. She cast a glance between Emmet and Mono, then rolling her eyes before following after the latter.
Much to his dismay.
Mono had only wanted to avoid being near her lest she forced an embarrassing confession out of him, since he was already losing their battle of words as he—truthfully—hadn’t much to say of Emmet other than his suspicious kindness and…stupid flashlight. He barely had a minute to himself standing outside when her yellow raincoat came into his view again. Even the dimness of the Playroom couldn’t save his eyes from that ugly yellow color. Mono cursed to himself.
“What are you planning now?” Six accused with an even harsher scowl. Whether he’d admit it or not, he took that to heart.
“I’m not even doing anything other than staying out here! Just go back and look out for your best friend. He needs your help only.”
“You’re joking with me.” An exasperated sigh escaped her lips as she dragged a hand over her face. “What is up with you? Why are you being so strange?”
“All I’m being is cautious. I’m not going to put my life on someone else’s hands again just because you think he’s nice—”
“He’s only grabbing a key! For all of us! If anything, he is being nice. Not out of random like you, but for the sake of surviving.”
“I’m not nice out of random,” Mono said.
“Oh really, then, are you gaining something out of Viola’s rescue?”
“…Yes.”
“Tell me.”
Another reluctant pause.
“Friendship…” Six flashed him a look and he quickly added, “Look it doesn’t matter what I’m gaining out of saving Viola or anyone else! The point is Emmet is being suspicious. He’s being too nice.”
“You were also too nice. In fact, you’re both a clone of each other!”
“Well, look where being nice got me,” he said. “You’d think if you helped someone who needs it, they’d return your kindness just the same. But nooo! All I received was a big fat ‘whoopsie daisy! My hand slipped!’. And now all of your efforts back then are just flushed down the toilet like it's nothing.”
“And here we go again!” Six rolled her eyes. “You may play that card in every single argument we have, Mono, but guess what? I never needed your help.”
Something snapped within him. Like the string that had held his emotions and rational thinking together slowly came undone with every word Six uttered.
“What did you say?” he said, almost craning his ear, hoping he’d heard her wrong.
“I was doing fine back then. In the Hunter’s basement, I mean. I had already planned on an escape.”
“What, those tally marks on the walls were it?” He scoffed.
“I planned to hide somewhere where the Hunter couldn’t see and escape while he was distracted looking for me,” she spat. “Those tally marks were only me counting off the days I’ve been there waiting for that bastard to come in and actually do something other than dropping off rotten food through the creak of the door.”
“So you were just…you were just waiting to die? Like a fool?”
“I was waiting for an opening,” Six corrected. “I would’ve been fine either way with or without your help. Especially without you stupidly tearing the door down with an axe.”
“Oh, please, if it weren’t for that you would’ve just been wasting your time away. You so needed my help.”
“I so did not. Didn’t need your help then, don’t need it now.”
“Wow,” he clapped silently and gave a false cheer, “Just when I thought that ego of yours couldn’t swell any bigger. Congra-tu-lations! Hey, here’s an idea. Why don’t you go back in and have a celebratory party inside with Emmet while I man the door and let you two bestest of friends enjoy—maybe get along even more, hm? Not like you’d have a problem with it right? Since Emmet is just so nice. Oh, my, what a blessing that you found him! Yay.” Every word he said was laced with false sweetness, the smile on his face only bitter and nowhere near genuine.
The corners of her lips curled into a sneer as her eyes darkened, readying to attack. Yet if only he’d know how the attack would come verbally rather than physically, how words could hurt far more than any punches or smacks on the head. Six had spoken with the intent to crush his heart and crumple it as though it were paper, tossing it in the water until all he could ever feel was this painful heaviness in his chest dragging him down and down.
“You know what, Mono, you’re right,” Six began to say. “Maybe it’s a good thing I stumbled across Emmet when I did. At least he shows himself to be a better friend than you were. He doesn’t constantly talk my ear off and actually listens to what I have to say. While you? You’re exactly what I wouldn’t want to associate myself with. You’re loud, sarcastic, and an idiot with common sense that immediately gets thrown out of the window the second his hero complex is activated. I may not be the best person in the world, but you’re sure as hell no better than me, so quit acting like you're a saint turned victim. You’re just as terrible as a friend.” He flinched. She continued, “Maybe, and just maybe, I wouldn’t have to go through all of the horrors that I did If I never met you. Because to me, you’re nothing but bad luck, Mono.”
A hurt look settled across his face more prominently with every confession she gave. He didn’t say anything after to even counter her arguments or interrupt before the hurt got worse; he was unable to. For every delivery was like a slice of a sharp blade, its wielder invisible as they cut him over and over while he scrambled to even identify which direction it had come from.
At least he shows himself to be a better friend than you were.
You’re just as terrible as a friend.
I wouldn’t have to go through all of the horrors that I did If I never met you.
Had he really been that awful to her? Had everything he did not done for her? All those days spent with him putting so much effort to be deemed as trustworthy, reliable when he would save her time and time again no matter the complications and predicaments, caring as he attempted to cheer her sour face with teddy bears and cool toys he’d found in one of the boxes at the Hospital, friendly by filling the silence with little jokes to get her smiling again whenever an adult had given them another chase—had all of it been for naught?
He'd reasoned with himself regarding Six’s standoffish behavior towards him when they’d met, thinking that maybe she wasn’t that good with emotions. While it was true the circumstances of their first meeting was not at all memorable, or at least not in a good way, it still had bothered him when all Six showed afterwards was a cold resting face despite his attempts at making amends. Then one day, as they traveled through the dark alleyways of the Pale City, he accidentally walked straight into a wall right after telling her to be careful where she walked. She’d laughed and covered her smile with her hand. It wasn’t funny to him when it happened because his head did hurt for a couple of hours, but remembering the smile she had, the accidental laugh she let out, he couldn’t help but laugh along with her. That was the first time she ever started to talk to him. That was the first time he knew he was finally a friend in her eyes.
Now, however? That memory became a scar in his brain. The sadness he’d felt in the Tower, replaying it over and over was no more than
A mere emptiness now.
Indifference.
He’d been naïve. Blissfully ignorant to the telltale signs that eventually led to a broken trust and an even broken friendship.
Mono glanced at the room behind them—where they’d left Emmet busy in retrieving the key to the greenhouse. He pressed his lips into a thin line and felt something new burned brightly within him—something mischievous and evil. Something he knew his old self would never have done in the name of sweet friendship.
She never cared…
So why should I?
“You really think Emmet is…a better friend?” he asked somberly. Six’s face fell a little, yet the second he turned to her she stood up straighter. Eyes hardened and bold as though none of what she’d said brought her a tinge of guilt whatsoever.
“I know so,” she said to add salt to the wound. “Things would’ve been so much better if I’d found him instead of you.”
“Ah. Right. Because of the horrors I dragged you in.” Mono hummed as a sad smile crept to his face. “Well I guess if he’s earned that title from you, he really must be a stand-up guy. Someone who’d understand your situation completely and wouldn’t run away at first mention about that evil thing you did in the past.”
Immediately, her face drained of color. And the so-called unaffected façade she wore ever so constantly, began to crumble and reveal the panic and horror laying underneath it. She was speechless.
“W…what?” her voice came out soft and wavering.
Mono shrugged innocently and smiled wider, his turn in pouring salt to the wound. “Oh, you know? That silly little thing you did to me? The lying, the accidental leaving me behind to kill me—you know that thing.” He gasped then and covered his mouth, feigning innocence. “Oh wait! Emmet doesn’t know about that yet, does he? Gosh, what a horrible thing it’d be if someone told him! Oh, he’d absolutely look at you in horror!”
“Mono—”
“Not to mention, your,” he cupped a hand beside his face, whispering, “other secret about your witch-like abilities.” Mono snickered when she became rigid. “I mean that would just shatter his view of you, wouldn’t it? Buut if he’s such a great friend like you insisted, surely he’d understand right? Oh, who am I kidding, of course he would! I’m sure Emmet wouldn’t freak out at all that his new friend is actually a psycho murderer, liar, backstabber with serious hunger pangs that can be cured only by sucking out souls from other people until they are bone dry.”
“You wouldn’t…” Six utter under her breath, mortified yet challenging him to proceed. But her mistake was even thinking Mono would ever back down now—not after finally getting to see the fear in her eyes like she was a criminal caught red-handed.
Oh, he reveled in it.
“Maybe,” he said, “or maybe not. I’m a terrible friend anyway, aren’t I? Those were your words.”
“Do not even dare tell him anything. Unless you want me to cut off your tongue the next time you fall asleep!”
Mono laughed. “If you did, that’ll just further prove my point, wouldn’t it genius? Emmet will finally see for himself that you’re nothing but a sadistic, lying monster, who might I add, cut off the tongue of her old pal just to pay revenge on him for telling on her. That sure would add a great touch on your reputation, if you ask me.” He smiled so wide that it hurt his cheeks. But seeing how it brought horror to Six, it was damn well worth it.
“Now, if you’ll excuse me…I have some truths to let out.” Mono beelined back inside and was stopped immediately by the traitor girl. She blocked his way despite the small height difference between them. She looked so pathetic and small now.
“Wh-where are you going?” she sputtered.
“Inside, obviously?”
“You’re not about to tell him…are you?”
“Of course not.”
She looked up at him in surprise. “Really?”
“Nope!” Mono shoved her out of the way, and headed back in the room. Regardless that his push sent her tumbling a little, he didn’t feel bad like he usually would. Not at all. He was the terrible friend, so it was only right to play his role correctly, wasn’t it?
Six rushed from behind and stood in his way once more. Mono rolled his eyes this time.
“You know this is getting a bit annoying, Six—”
“Tell me what you want.”
Then it was his turn to show surprise. “What?”
“Tell me what you want, and I’ll do it just this once,” she told him, her face unreadable. “As long as you don’t tell Emmet anything about me. And anything you know at all.”
“Hah. That desperate to keep this guy around, are we?”
“I’m not desperate, you insufferable freak—” She bit down her insult when he huffed loudly. “I’m only keeping what’s in the past… in the past. He doesn’t need to know what either me or you have done before to get here. For all I care, he’s only a useful passerby who shares the same goal as me; to get out of this place. To leave unharmed hopefully and get on with our lives.”
“So you’re saying if I don’t tell him, you’ll do me a favor? Really? You?”
She scowled. “Take it or leave it, stupid. This is a one-time thing. Name your price.”
Mono hummed in response, thinking long and hard. And when an idea popped into his head, he grinned smugly as dread filled Six’s eyes.
“Apologize,” he said.
The silence she returned was longer than he anticipated. This was the beginning of how the pressure was cracking her.
“What did you say?” Six asked.
“Apologize,” he replied. “Apologize to me and I’ll tell him nothing about what you did back then.”
“A-apologize?!” she repeated, as though appalled by his request. But this was the Six he knew. A chance to voluntarily apologize? That was as rare as him not wanting to save anyone that he could save. Perhaps she had been right a little about his ‘hero complex’.
That didn’t mean she had the right to say it to him with the means to hurt him, though.
“What? Is that something you can’t do? I thought you hated the idea of you not being able to do something.”
One more thing about Six.
She had an ego that could fill in a whole chasm.
“Shut up!” Six finally snapped, her anger showing. “Just shut up, you dirty-playing son of a bitch—!”
“Dirty-playing? Please. I’m not playing dirty at all. I’m not even remotely trying to,” he said nonchalantly. “All I want is a nice, genuine apology from friendly you, and an admittance that I was a good friend. Doesn’t matter what I am now—I don’t care—but I gotta owe it to the old me for, you know, torturing myself just to get in your good graces.” He lowered himself to her level, hands on each knee. “So how about it? Can I get that, ‘I’m so sorry, Mono’? from you?”
One of her eyes twitched as he leaned in. He could hear the faint growl behind her throat as he looked at her knowingly, urging her to do something he very well knew was out of her emotional capabilities.
“I’m…so-sorry,” she grumbled.
His eyes widened a little.
Huh.
Well.
Did she really…did she really just apologize to me—
“I’m sorry that you have such a long stick up your ass!” Six added and spat it to his face. Mono scowled and his jaw clenched in an attempt to hold back the fire within him. The same fire Six had purposely poured gasoline on and added wood after wood in.
He hated her. He hated her so, so much that he wanted to strangle her. He hated her he wanted to ruin her life.
Starting by telling Emmet the truth.
As though she’d recognized his intentions, which she should know by now considering she’d pushed herself off the cliff by protecting her pride, Six followed his glance to Emmet. The boy had made it to the top of the counter, and he was merely retrieving the key when Mono…
Oh, Mono sure called after his name like something awful had happened.
“YO EMMET! I’VE GOT SOMETHING TO TELL YOU.”
Emmet turned around instantly, his eyes soon landing on them below. He nodded in questioning and stood by the edge, returning his call.
“What is it?” he whisper-yelled.
Before Mono could even start forming Six’s name on his lips, mentioning her betrayal, revealing her creepy soul-stealing powers, he felt something so ungodly familiar and warm wrapped around his hand. And then time
Time slowed down on its own. It didn’t affect Six, it didn’t affect Emmet but it affected fully on him alone. There were so many things he wanted to believe that was happening yet the one thing he couldn’t deny was the start of his heart beating fast, the limbs that were rendered useless and frozen at that moment, the slow turn of his head to the girl he’d declared hatred for, and finally her actions that made him glitch like this—internally and the air around him a little.
Six had her small hand wrapped around his, perhaps with the intention to hold him back from taking a step closer towards Emmet and spreading ugly truths. Yet all he saw was a glimpse of their past— she’d taken his hand just as this, squeezing it tightly yet not at all painful, and she’d followed him around wherever he led them under the thundering gray clouds. The storm that left the two of them shivering madly and Six having to hold his hand even longer for even a smidge of body warmth. And he'd clung just the same.
Déjà vu, wasn’t it? The feeling of going through something you knew you’d experienced before? Why did it feel so harsh? Why did it feel so…nice? So comfortable and warm. Her hand was so, so warm.
It’s not right.
This isn’t right.
You’re supposed to hate this—you’re supposed to hate her.
The warmth escaped instantly when he shifted, and Six snatched herself away from him as though he’d been the one to initiate the holding. He noticed how her cheeks reddened as she glanced at her hands and who she’d touched with it. But just as quickly as that frazzled look came, she returned to stoic. Unreadable again. And all she could do was return his stare and stare just as long until the faint psst was thrown from above then.
Mono was the first to break off whatever spell both of them were under. Flushed and scowling, Mono only glanced at Six one more time before turning back to Emmet with a full, strong mind to ruin Six’s image and see her shatter under Emmet’s horror of her truth.
Surely that happening would cure whatever…weird feeling he felt earlier. And remove the remaining ghost of her touch lingering around his fingertips. He sucked in a deep breath and gave Six yet another onceover, just to revel in her loss and his victory, but
That was a huge mistake.
Six hadn’t stopped staring ever since he looked away. And with those malicious devil eyes she used, she manipulated him once again without even using words. How horrible she was. Ever the trickster, the manipulator, making him feel guilty and twice as bad for wanting to proceed with the truth ready on his tongue, perhaps even purposely had taken his hand to throw him off his game and finally change his mind not to tell Emmet…
Right. She was a monster.
True definition of evil.
Of course, she’d plan anything she could to get what she wanted; what for did she betray him if not for that reason?
So he hardened himself and swallowed whatever stupid feelings that whispered to him not to do it. It was nothing hard. Feelings were easy to be forgotten, emotions were easy to be kept in.
“Mono,” Six whispered closer to him, “please don’t.”
He ignored her.
Now that Emmet waited expectantly, brows perked up, Mono told him the truth.
“I need to tell you about Six,” he shouted from below. From his peripheral, though, he saw the defeat that passed through Six’s eyes as Emmet knelt down to further listen properly.
Oh, he’d won.
He knew he’d won.
“Okay?” Emmet said, raising a brow. “Did something happen? Is something wrong?”
On the inside he nearly cracked up.
Oh, a lot.
“That’s right. Something is plenty wrong with her. You see, Six is actually…” Mono said, turning to her with a proud smirk. But that smirk fell seconds after seeing how Six had turned away from them both, eyes crestfallen and locked to her feet. And his heart
His heart fell deeper into something he thought he no longer possessed after her betrayal.
Damn it.
“…Hungry,” Mono finished.
“Huh?” Emmet said.
“Huh?” Six said after.
Mono rolled his eyes and tried to avoid looking at her again, even though it was such a challenge since she wouldn’t stop with her surprise at his…other choice of truth. Besides, if Emmet was to be her “friend” he should at least know that Six ate normal food like a starving chimpanzee. It was funny— no it was the most disgusting thing I’ve ever had to witness. I’d rather eat vomit than be subjected to watching her eat ever again. Or…even smile at me.
“Yeah. Six and I were just talking and her stomach growled suddenly. And concerningly loud too. Thought I’d just let you know that if we don't find her food in the next 24 hours, she'll kill us in our sleep. She’s threatened us,” he said as the prior thoughts were dragged to the very back of his mind by its feet.
Six gaped at him, and then at Emmet. “I…I did not threaten anybody. He’s just recently suffered a lot of blood loss for him to think this stupid. Don’t even pay any mind to him, Emmet.”
“See, right there? That’s a threatening tone.” It got him an elbow to his side. He yelped.
“Well, uh, okay then,” Emmet said after a long, awkward silence. “You two just…hang on down there while I get this key.” He turned to Six. “We’ll find you food soon, okay? So just…just remain calm. I’ll be down in a bit…there—there’s no need to…kill anybody.” The boy hurried and disappeared above the counter. From the way he moved in a rush, Mono couldn’t help but snicker at the whole ordeal.
Sure he didn’t reveal that Six had betrayed him in the past and other ugly things that she’d done, but seeing Emmet afraid at the thought of a hungry Six was nearly just as satisfying. You practically could see the brief panic in his eyes. Perhaps his own sister had thrown a tantrum when not fed for days.
“You’re clearly enjoying this, I see” Six spoke beside him. He didn’t hide his amusement. Nor did she hide her annoyance.
“Oh, very much,” he told her. “Look at him; he’s scared of you whether I told him about your past or not. I guess nothing’s scarier than a girl rejected by food.”
“You could’ve at least not said I threatened the two of you.”
“And ruin all the fun and help we could get?” Mono shook his head and scoffed. “Emmet somehow knows a lot about this place. So hopefully out of fear of you lashing out on him, he’ll use whatever knowledge he has to find you some food and fix your hunger problem for me.”
When Six pointed him a look, he instantly frowned. “What now?”
“Nothing, it’s just…” She pressed her lips into a thin line. Then looked away. “Nothing,” she said quietly.
He didn’t like that.
“Whatever,” he eventually said, mimicking her unfazed look. “It’s not like there’s a better chance of finding something edible out there than it is in here. At least this way we wouldn’t have to do it in the rain.”
Six’s head snapped to him so quickly that he flinched a little. He scowled and had his anger ready to be let out, just seconds away from yelling “what the hell is wrong with you” and “thanks for scaring me, jerk” at her, but the look on her face made him rethink it all. Was it something he’d said that got her so suddenly on edge? If it was, what was it even? He noticed she’d avoided looking at him after he talked about her hunger, how she refused to say anything more other than sighing. She didn’t speak or acknowledged him only until he suggested they didn’t find food in the
Rain.
The rain.
As both of their eyes widened, understanding each other’s dread, the room had fallen awfully quiet. So quiet that even a drop of pin from outside the area could be heard.
The rain had stopped.
There was no longer any booming thunder, no more loud pitter-pattering of rain against the windows in the Playroom area—nothing at all that indicated that it was currently pouring out there. Instead all that accompanied them was the loud silence and an even louder beating of their hearts when something creaked outside of this room.
Mono and Six shared the same look, the same thought.
Emmet had told them before why it was crucial for them to make this trip end before the rain did. And given how the thuds were nearing where they were, it was proven all the more that the boy had been correct from the start.
Just as soon as the rain ended, the Nanny would return to the Playroom for her rest in quiet solitude.
And out of all of the rooms there, the key to the greenhouse just happened to be in her resting room.
Notes:
Yay fluff!
Ehehe Mono's simp-ness is coming back guys...it is slowly resurrecting ;}
Thanks for reading!
Chapter 27: Yellow Hat
Chapter Text
Viola was seeing things. Awful things. Ever since she’d regained her consciousness, the Tower had been deceitfully kind and cruel with what they show—the uncanny mimicry of her two parents, the loving pats from the Lady, echoes of Thin Man’s voice as though he was merely sitting beside her.
At the start they would approach her with gentle tones and touches; they would become so, so identical as the parents she knew back home. Viola’s weak heart had fallen for it the first couple of times. It was only after they began to say strange things, telling her about the goodness of the Eye, showing support towards the very monster they hated, that Viola snapped out of this false story. It reminded her greatly of how none of this was real. The two adults were only the Eye.
And that realization was when things went awry. She began to call them out; and their fingers would twitch, eyes would blacken until it was only a void filling their sockets, their smiles would tighten and widen into an unsettling sight. Inhumane. Monstrous. Terrifying. They would turn their kindness into evil, their gentle voices into far more aggressive ones.
Viola had cried. Many times, she cried for them to stop. The Eye persisted, regardless.
Yet none of it was ever enough. Soon from merely emotional abuses and verbal torments with the voices of her mother and father, the Eye took a different take. The Eye led her through a series of scenes where death of the world occurred—things that no child could ever be ready to see. She saw everything from the murders of the Guests to the gruesome bloodshed by the adults around the city, and finally a scene that left her most traumatized, the cause of these deaths: Thin Man and the Lady in the act. Each of them performing their duties without a smidgen of guilt nor regret.
It made Viola sick in the stomach. How could she see the two people she looked up to—loved–the most do such a horrendous thing? How could she heed the morals they purveyed to her when they failed to heed it themselves? How could they be utter hypocrites—
No.
She shouldn’t finish that thought. Not when she knew this was exactly what the Eye wanted from her.
For her to turn her back on her parents and lose her goal.
She shouldn’t fall so easily to their showings and believed them regardless how much her mind wanted to believe. She needed to stop being tormented like this. She needed to get out.
“Do you really believe we didn’t do it, Vi?”
Viola turned to her left and recoiled, jumping away from the man. Her father was on the ground on his knees, one hand had held her shoulder not long ago. His eyes were gone like the rest of the times, yet his despair remained. He looked miserable. Tortured.
He was not Thin Man.
He was not her father.
“Get...get away from me!” Viola cried, backing away. “None of this is real!”
Something stopped her from behind, nails digging into her sides as long black hair fell in front of her.
The Lady’s empty sockets met her face when Viola made the mistake of looking up. Tears gathered in her eyes. The Lady’s brows furrowed in false sympathy.
“But it is true, my sweet,” the Lady whispered sorrowfully. “All of it—the violent slaughtering of thousands, their irreversible corruption, deaths of so many innocent souls’ day and night—they were all our doing. We did it all. It was us who were responsible.”
Viola pushed herself away and ran. Ran as far as she could carry herself through this vast forest. It was different for every Torment, depending on what the Eye wanted to show her, depending on how much the Eye wanted her to suffer. As rain poured all over her person, clothes sticking uncomfortably to her skin and her eyes nearly blocked by her wet hair, Viola felt a sharp tug at her feet. It happened all too quickly as she fell. Fell into a rabbit hole that seemingly felt as though there were no end to it. She rolled and tumbled below like a ball, poked and scratched by pointy sticks protruding from the walls, dirtied by the wet mud and dirt. Viola cried, screaming for it to end.
And for a while, she thought it never would until finally she slammed herself into the cold pavement. Rain had lessened in this new unfamiliar territory but she knew from the flickering lamp post above her—that the Eye had led her to the Pale City. Or a city that resembled such.
Thunder boomed above.
Cries of an adult echoed all around her in dissonance. They screamed one of pain, and one of horror.
Viola wiped the muck off her eyes and swiped her hair away, crawling forward until her hand landed on—
Red.
There was red on her palm.
Frozen in place, Viola could barely move her eyes up to the gory sight laid before her, the blood she had accidentally touched, the torn limbs and broken bones she’d nearly walked into.
A man’s body, lifeless and severely mangled, was nothing that resembled its owner anymore. Viola couldn’t understand what was what, and which was their legs or arms or—
The man’s head moved with a sickening crunch, turning over to her. Viola fell to her rear, still so terrified that she couldn’t move for the life of her. She did not—couldn’t anymore—recognize the man’s face, yet when he spoke, she understood.
She understood so clearly that it sent shivers down her spine.
“Look what they did to me.”
No...
Viola shook her head, repeated her denial, and cried.
No.
This couldn’t be real. They couldn’t have done something like this. This isn’t real.
“Don’t you believe it all now?”
Her cheeks were wet with fresh tears and the rain. She closed her eyes. She still refused to believe.
“LOOK AT WHAT THEY DID.”
“NO!”
Everything fell silent. No thunder in the sky. No screams of agony filled the air like a siren. No more of the husky voice from the corpse of the man. She heard nothing else but the rapid beating of her own heart and shivering sighs. She heard only of her own sobs, her pathetic whimpers that no doubt the Eye must be overjoyed to hear. For wasn’t this what the Eye craved? Wasn’t it their mission to put her in hell and reap their rewards by watching her wail in the middle of the street under the crying sky?
Wasn’t it...all they wanted to ruin her?
The soft rain played in the background. Footsteps began to approach.
Afraid of the meaning of it, Viola kept her eyes shut only for a few seconds longer before she noticed something amiss. The footsteps didn’t approach her.
Instead, they went past her, walking at a fast pace as soft heels clicked against the asphalt until they stopped. Then doors began to groan somewhere behind. No longer could she contain the fear of the unknown, the growing curiosity as to what the Eye had up in their sleeves now to torment her, Viola slowly opened one of her eyes before the other.
Bright magenta light shone over her like a spotlight, the entrance of the Signal Tower blocked by none other than the tall figure of a woman with long dark hair falling to her back. The Lady stood so utterly still as she waited there for what, Viola didn’t know. But despite how frozen in place she looked, it wasn’t fear totally that seemed to render her such. It was anger.
Restrained, however, blind and white rage.
Viola could sense it strongly, from the darkness she omitted, the clenched fists, and the shadows dancing around her feet like bodyguards. Everything about her screamed danger. Do not approach. Yet one thing she couldn’t understand was why out of all of the imposters the Eye had of the Lady...
This one felt...
True.
She felt like home, regardless of the woman’s fury burning brightly as of moment. It was all so strange, baffling. Why was the imposter not doing...anything to her?
The Lady shifted. From what Viola could see, which was only most of her back, the Lady was holding something in her front. She didn’t know what. Before wonders could turn into more questions, though, the Lady had already moved forward, head held up high and her darkness following close behind. The purple light grew brighter and brighter as it swallowed her entire form, the gates behind it shutting just as its guest was welcomed in.
What was that for? Viola questioned it again and again. What was the purpose of that? Why did the Eye show her something that involved no ammunition to hurt her later? No bullet to be shot through her soul and weaken her will?
It made no sense to her, truly. Had she lost her mind now? So much of the Eye’s tormenting that she lost sense of what was real and what was not? Could that earlier scene be proof that she had actually gone bonkers?
Or perhaps...
Was that only part of the Eye’s mastermind plan? To further ruin the world? Further...ruin her?
“That’s enough out of you.”
The tall buildings around her, the gate entrance of the Signal Tower was replaced with the familiar circle of abyss just as she blinked. The god-forsaken chair remained dormant under its coloured light. Viola sat on the ground beside it, much to her relief.
She couldn’t bear to even look at its way, much less occupy it, remembering the sight of Mono when she’d first come to rescue him.
“What is it...that you want?” Viola eventually began to say. “Why did you show me that—?”
“We showed you what was only necessary, child. What you witnessed at the end there was far from our doing.”
Her brows furrowed, mouth dry. “What did you mean by that—?”
“There’s only so much a child such as yourself could have power over. You are strong, indeed. Much stronger than we anticipated, if we must say so,” the Eye interrupted again. “However, we must also mention how your little tricks are mere flickers compared to us. We are far superior. After all, we should know...” A hundred giggles erupted all around, echoing for miles. “Your father too attempted to take over the story as a child. Perhaps, it is as they say. Like father, like daughter. At least in his case, however, he learned soon how every action brought great consequences that could be avoided should he have heeded our words.”
“I don’t understand what you’re saying!” Viola cried, her patience lost.
“Ah, but of course you don’t,” the Eye said condescendingly. “You are still underdeveloped, aren’t you? Still so puny and helpless? We hope to be truthful with that. Just as we have with everything else that you’ve seen here. Every part of it, the truth remains for you to understand. Your foolish parents are not the Saints they make themselves out to be, and you have only been lied to in all your years!” The ground grumbled beneath her, sending shivers down her spine.
“Listen to us, dear Viola,” they said. “We only wish to help you learn, not prolong your suffering—that is not our goal! You must understand that.”
More tears fell across her tear-stained cheeks, and another sob escaped her. What was she meant to do now? Her mind repeatedly told her how the Eye could be telling the ugly truth about her parents regardless of their malice intention to hurt her, yet then there came her heart. Her soft, weak heart that wanted to still believe what she’d been taught by the very two people who had raised her. Her parents were good people. That they merely did horrible things for a reason other than ill intention.
But what reason could they possibly need to hurt others?
A soft breeze pushed past her, as though a gentle touch caressing her face and drying her tears for her. It felt utterly friendly. She felt at peace when the wind came. She felt safe for only a moment.
“We suppose it is hard to believe something other than what you’ve been told to believe all your life,” the Eye said, a strange kindness in their whispers, “but it would be foolish of you to only see one side of the story. Your parents’ story. It is true they do not look at us too kindly, and they have their reasons that they shove upon you. To make you eat it all and view us the same way, shape your mind into how they want it to be. We can’t stop you, of course, if you wish to continue their mentality. We won’t stop you from the hatred you have towards us for their inevitable fate. But all sides of the story must be shown, and we simply only gave you what you needed to see...the things your two parents kept to themselves for their sake and yours.”
Viola shook her head and wiped her eyes. “You took them away from me! I will never stop hating you for it! I don’t care what they’ve done in the past—I don’t care if they...hurt other people.” I won’t let myself care even if they were the cause of it all.
“We figured you’d say something as such. Dare we say, we understand you—that strong determination, your love and passionate nature.” Another peaceful breeze. Viola felt her tears dry slowly. “We admire it all, dear Viola. Your potential is too much to be left as a waste. We could help open your eyes to a brighter point of view...and all you would need to do is say the word.”
She looked up to the blinding sky.
“Brighter...point of view?” she asked timidly.
“Yes!” the Eye exclaimed. “Call it a temporary deal, little child. Your parents have damaged the world quite a lot and due to the Cycle, the same damage unfortunately follows here, however, it is mild for now. But! All of that could be adjusted! With your help, the world could get better and the violence would be less than what it is now! You could possibly even save a few innocent children if the Cycle allows it.”
“I...could?”
“You can, yes. Which, might we share, two certain children are inevitably walking to their doom in favor of rescuing you, so,” the Eye said, “make of that what you will. We surely wouldn’t force you to agree on anything.”
“B-but wait!” Viola stood up, feet wobbling. She cried to the abyss, her eyes widened in horror. “What is happening to them? Where are they now?”
“Oh, only somewhere in the city. They don’t have long, you see. As much as we hate for them to stray away from the Cycle, we hate far more to see their fate end sooner than it was supposed to. But as we said: we wouldn’t wish to force anything on you. It is entirely up to you now to lend a hand.”
“Tell me how,” Viola said, desperate as she paced. “I’ll do whatever it takes to save them. Just tell me how and I’ll do it!”
“How familiar,” the Eye sighed, chuckling. “Are you sure you are willing to? This is, after all, only a temporary arrangement. It will not last forever as we cannot grant them full protection from the horrors within Pale City.”
“I’ll take it,” she said, nodding fervently. “If it means they won’t get hurt, then I’ll take this deal.”
“As you wish, dear child,” the Eye said, a hint of joy slipping through their whispers. Excitement grew within them as the ground grumbled once more. “Lending them help would take time and a great amount of energy. One we would need to borrow. So, while all of us wait, why don't you have a seat, Viola?”
Viola stilled in place, her eyes turning to the chair that called her like a strong temptation, urging her to come close and sit down. A brief doubt passed through her mind as she watched the wooden seat—if all of this was simply the Eye’s plan. She had no idea how the Eye’s deal worked, no knowledge of what she must do to uphold her end. Yet the thought of Mono and Six, possibly in the hands of danger and death, hung over her head like a noose. Losing her parents’ child self would mean losing her parents forever. There would be no other past to travel to. No other safety net.
This timeline she’d put herself in was her only shot.
There was no room for error.
So she listened to the Eye for once and gambled it all on fate. As she sat, she prayed the Eye’s temporary agreement to help would protect Mono and Six from whatever looming danger. And she prayed as she accepted this deal, she wouldn’t be too far hurt.
The thought of it all lingered once she settled in her chair, her body sinking deeper and deeper, her limbs shutting off one by one, her consciousness pulling away from her as the Eye tugged its string farther.
“We will take care of the rest,” the Eye whispered to her once her vision began to wane. And the abyss closed in.
The Nanny is here.
The thuds outside were clear of indication that if not the woman, at least something was there. They weren’t alone anymore. There was no time to overthink it. So as his heart rate sped up like drums, that familiar adrenaline coursing through his veins as the possibility of death waited outside his door, Mono shouted up to Emmet:
“Emmet! Hide!”
Emmet carried the key in his arms, complexion drained of color then and there. He wasted no time to switch off his light and hid behind the jars lined against the wall, hugging the key tightly to his frame. As Emmet found a temporary safety, Mono took Six by the arm and ran under the table. Six did not protest. They made it under just as the handle turned, and the door opened to reveal the towering woman blocking their one way out.
Without the pitter-patter of rain to fill in the background, the atmosphere here became thrice as heart-wrenching. The Nanny’s four eyes glowed like white mystical orbs you could only find in fairytales, yet seeing it with a pair of his own, Mono felt shivers run down his spine. This was no fairytale orb. This was the eyes of a child-killer who could see very well in the dark as darkness was her domain.
Her heels clacked and reverberated around the room, making each of her steps worth flinching for. Unconsciously his hold on Six became tighter. But he stopped breathing when the Nanny halted just in front of the table.
And she sniffed the air.
Six had her palm pressed against her face, while Mono held her closer to him. Could this be the end of it? Was this how they would go out? Perhaps out of the two of them, he’d be the one to reveal his powers to Emmet first—what an irony.
The thought lingered in his mind the more the Nanny sniffed around, his hands just about ready to unleash something that would render the Nanny immobile temporarily so they’d have time to run. Run back to the prison area and head through the walls.
Nothing happened, though.
The Nanny, after deeming the room was empty, took a seat on the couch beside the table and one by one her eyes closed. The darkness became total once more. Mono sighed a few breaths of relief. But that relief, however, quickly turned into a slight of embarrassment warming his face when Six snatched herself away from him.
Right. He’d been holding her throughout the entire time.
Six peered from under the table and up to the sleeping woman. Only after a few seconds more, just in case, Six stalked to the countertops where Emmet was. Mono followed behind her after glancing at the Nanny.
By the time he made it to her, Emmet had dropped the key to Six, and he thanked the stars that Six had caught it without it touching the ground with an echoing clang. Mono scowled at nothing, somehow feeling helplessness making its way to comfortably reside in his heart.
That is until he felt the cold metal shoved into his arms. He looked up and felt his jaw slack a little. Six was passing the key to… him. While the key was in fact heavy as other keys they’ve had were, it wasn’t all that heavy to the point where she couldn’t carry it herself. He’d thought Six was only trying to treat him as a servant, yet…
That look on her face. The silent nod, the way her lips had pressed into a thin line, the refusal to look him in the eye as she passed the load to him despite her reminding him of his injured arm not long ago—it warmed his cheeks all the more. She knew he’d wanted to be useful regardless of his state. She knew he’d been salty over Emmet ‘taking over’ his roles so she remedied it by giving him the key to look after.
He held in the urge to smile.
All too occupied with his difficult emotions and figuring out Six’s intentions, he hadn’t realized Emmet had made it back down safely until footsteps halted beside him. They’ve got the key. Now it was merely time to get out quickly and without a sound.
Something hummed above them.
All three looked up without thinking and froze in place. Feet rooted in fear, Mono could only widen his eyes and hug the key to his chest. Perhaps there was one thing even Emmet hadn’t learned about the Nanny. While he knew regarding her resting place and time, the location of a certain key, what he failed to know was the Nanny’s intelligence.
And what all of them did was underestimate it. Foolishly.
The Nanny may have had her eyes closed when she rested on the couch, yet that never meant she was truly resting. No, it only meant she was waiting. Waiting for all three of the children to come out of their hiding and believe that as long as they remained in silence, as long as the Nanny wasn’t disturbed, they would leave unscathed.
Perhaps those eyes of hers were much more powerful than Mono had thought. For as they glowed a brighter white, he felt a weight coming down over his head. Over all of their heads.
They needed to leave now.
Emmet was the first to move from the Nanny’s trance, reaching out for his flashlight and unmercifully flashing them over her glowing orbs. It worked. The Nanny recoiled and shielded her face from it. The invisible weight vanished into thin air.
At this second of reprieve, the three children bolted out of the room and headed back to where they’d come from—with Six in the leading, Mono behind her and Emmet behind him. Mono spared only a glance to the back and saw the boy running with a slight limp, fumbling to strap his light back to his waist belt. But with the Nanny merely seconds late, his eyes snapped back to her. The Nanny stood at her door with a terrifying snarl, her rows of razor-sharp teeth bared as she screamed in fury from the prior blindness.
He turned his head forward and followed Six into the Nanny’s prison room. The Nanny did not run in white rage, yet her fast pacing made the whole chase just as horrifying. And her wide strides were enough for her to catch up to them.
Six ducked into the walls and held the piece of it up for the rest of them. She yelled after them to hurry up, both impatience and worry laced heavily to her voice. Mono pushed himself to run quicker despite his losing breaths. And he pushed and pushed until he too ducked within the safety of the walls. Now Emmet should be right behind him and they could leave—
Emmet was not behind him.
Emmet was outside in the path of the cages, stopping to go back for something he’d dropped on the ground. Mono wanted to scream at the boy. Six already did.
Yet one look in his eyes, the desperate darting back and forth to find this thing as he looked around on borrowed time, it made Mono wonder just what he’d lost. It made him wonder if Emmet had lost something extremely valuable to him.
“Wait here,” Mono said to Six. He passed the key back to her grasp as she gaped at him. “I’ll be right back.”
“What—Mono!” Six reached out, however, he moved faster before she barely touched the end of his coat. He was back out in danger territory before she could have any say.
As the clacks became louder, Mono ran to Emmet crouching beside one of the cages, trying to push it aside for whatever had stuck itself in the corner. Mono took his shoulder and he jumped.
“Emmet, what are you—?”
“Help me,” Emmet said. “Help me move this crate, please.”
A glance at the Nanny’s approaching figure, Mono let out an exasperated groan and lent the boy his strength without any further questions. The cage creaked loudly and moved ever so slowly as they shoved it aside. Once Emmet could fit through the gap between each cage, he stopped moving it too, inching closer behind him to see the item he’d lost prior. Emmet sprung up to his feet just as quickly and turned to leave when the item was secured. The familiar flashlight rested in his hands, and Mono’s eyes almost widened out of his sockets.
Had Emmet lost his mind?
All of that desperation, the risk he put his life and Mono’s life in, was only for a barely functioning flashlight?
Mono could scream now.
He could beat the crap out of this guy.
But lucky for Emmet, time allowed no such thing as the Nanny stood in the doorway with her eyes searching for the children she likely wanted dead. With the frustration and anger he’d sure let out later, Mono nudged Emmet harshly.
And dragged him by the sleeve like an angry mother just so he’d run at a faster pace.
It didn’t make it any less stressful as the Nanny laid her sights on them, her heels clacking once more as she followed the children running across the room.
Mono didn’t look back this time. He didn’t turn to see just how close the Nanny was that her hand was already out to reach them, how her bony fingers had stretched so far and each of them were closing on him on each side. Instead, he set his eyes on a horrified Six standing with the key in her arms. He focused on getting to her with every last energy he could summon and speed that his legs could provide. He imagined leaving this place alive with everyone else. He thought of wanting to live and save Viola from the Signal Tower. He had to save her. If he died now, she would die too. And if he died, he wouldn’t get to hear a genuine apology from Six—he’d be damned if she decided to apologize after his death. Who would be there to torment Six if not him? Emmet wouldn’t do such a thing. He’d be too busy worrying about his own predicament and finding his sister.
A sister he was supposed to help find.
No, death was out of the question for him. He couldn’t die and be caught now. He wouldn’t let it happen.
The skin on the Nanny’s palm and fingers became white, its color contrasting deeply of her gray corpse-like tone, the closer they neared him. Her movements slowed as though underwater. The air around her appendages fizzled and glitched before it delayed her by two seconds.
And all Mono and Emmet needed were those two seconds to slide into the wall and cower behind them. Two seconds caught up in a blink of an eye. Just after they made it inside, the Nanny forced her hand into the cracks of the wall, feeling up the sides and the floors for the children that escaped in there. The Nanny screamed and wheezed until it sounded dry, her will to capture them all stronger than ever. And the narrow walkway did not help their situation whatsoever.
With the Nanny nearly fitting her whole arm, it caused the three to slam against each, struggling to even regain footing. Mono felt small hands around his upper arm. Six pulled him to his feet and pushed him so he’d get a start at running. Emmet found his balance soon after and ran forward into the twisting pipes. They followed the boy when he beckoned them to. Behind them, the Nanny’s arm could no longer follow the farther they traveled, but the screams she let out were still heard on the other side. And the woman persisted no matter what.
The Nanny slammed her hand on the other side of the wall. Everything on the inside vibrated. Mono bonked his head against the pipe when he ducked underneath it. Six caught herself on the floor. Emmet hissed under his breath as his foot twisted while running. The Nanny continued to punch the wall until they made a crack, and faint light from the outside began to penetrate as her hand fell through. Then she began to feel the corners and walls once more.
Mono bit his tongue from screaming, refrained himself from making a sound at all lest the Nanny identified his location easily. When the Nanny failed to grab one of them, instead grabbing one of the pipes from its place, she cried in sheer ire. Slamming the outside walls as though she was a child on a serious tantrum. The three of them took this chance to move. Despite the walls shaking all around, despite his eardrums almost exploding, and despite having nearly tripped over the vibrating pipes.
He was running out of energy. He could feel sweat drenching his hair and the ache on each of his soles were getting harder to ignore. Mono wanted more than anything to survive this encounter yet the idea of just falling flat on his face and taking a well-deserved nap was getting in his head.
“We’re almost there,” Emmet shouted over his shoulder. Thank God. “We climb this vent and we’ll be safe from her.” Immediately, Mono groaned.
Six shouted at him to shut up Mono, you're not the only one exhausted.
She was right. He hated her guts but he knew she was right.
When the said vent came to view he thanked again whatever deity out there that heard his prayer. Emmet was the first to go up the ladder. Six was second. Then he—
The Nanny punched a hole through the wall. Her whole arm then snaked around, feeling the floors one last time. He wanted to curse the world for this luck.
And curse he did when his luck ran out on him. The Nanny managed to snag the end of his coat with her nails and she’d found him. Mono yelped as he was dragged by the foot, face planted on the floor. Quickly he searched the ground for any pipes to hold on to, to delay the Nanny’s wrath as he came up with a plan to get out of this.
He flinched when the Nanny screamed again. The irritation he felt when the woman insisted on making his ears bleed fell short once an ugly shade of yellow came to his view. Blood smeared around her lips as she sank her teeth into the Nanny’s arm. They sunk even deeper when the Nanny did not let him go.
Mono thrashed his foot. Six bit and bit until something would happen. The Nanny knelt on her knees on the other side, pressing her face at the hole in the wall so she could peer inside. And finally see the two children, one insistently stubborn and the other biting on her skin as though she were her dinner.
And the third one, blinded her the second time with his flashlight as he clung on at the top of the ladder.
That was the final straw for the Nanny. She instantly released Mono and recoiled from the wall, screaming all the while she tended to her glowing pairs of eyes.
Her screams were deafening but as they ran to the ladder and climbed through the vent, it became no more but mild echoes of a crying woman.
Thankfully, the vent led them somewhere safe. Although safe would be a strong word as certainly the daycare was filled with dangers lurking in its shadows, but given they practically ran a mile to get here, Mono did not care much for the level of safety this room could provide them with. A storeroom was a storeroom. As long as nothing that shouldn’t be moving moved, they were good to go.
Mono wasted no more breath as he settled on one corner, huffing and just insanely exhausted. His eyes darted over to Emmet and Six, the two whispering something to each other as they stood across the room. Not like he’d give a damn. Or have the energy to give one at least.
So, Mono closed his eyes, and shut off everything else in his body in hope to grant himself the nap he so wanted.
That lasted only for ten minutes.
“Hey,” Emmet’s voice sounded nearby. On the inside he groaned. And on the outside he very much flinched when the said boy was actually sitting next to him.
“Oh. It’s you,” he said, his shoulders relaxing as he leaned back against the wall. “Do you need something? Or do you just really want to bother someone from sleeping?”
“What—No! Of course not! I didn’t mean to wake you. Or at least I didn’t think you were asleep. I just thought you were—”
“Kidding,” Mono said quickly before Emmet turned into a puddle of apologies. “Seriously, though, do you need something?”
Emmet paused and sighed.
“I came over to...thank you. For earlier, I mean. With the crates?” Emmet said. Mono raised his brows, unsure of what to respond to that.
“I, uh, I guess I could say the same to you,” Mono said awkwardly. “Thanks for blinding the Nanny and saving me. Suppose, that makes us even, huh?”
Emmet nodded and smiled. “Yeah. I guess so.”
“Yep.”
“Yeah.
A couple seconds of silence—one that he felt agonizingly long for some reason—settled between them. Why is he even here still?
“So...where’s Six?” Mono asked to bring away this awkwardness. Although, out of all the questions he could ask, he did wonder to himself why that backstabber had to be the start of his conversations.
“She’s at the corner, by the shelves over there. Fell asleep not too long ago.” Mono followed Emmet’s gaze. The boy added, “Biting off the Nanny’s hand must’ve drained her energy completely. I could only imagine how awful that must’ve been for her.”
Trust me, pal. She’s likely done that before in her child-serving boat. And whatever drains her energy now is not because of the Nanny. I’m sure.
“Well, that’s Six. She’s always had a knack for doing awful things,” he told him absentmindedly. What he didn’t expect, though, was for Emmet to answer with fervor.
“Yeah, I know right?” Emmet’s voice went up as he huffed in frustration, surprising even him. “I mean, don’t tell her I told you this but when she and I first met, do you know what she did to me?” His pride pushed aside, Mono leaned in and nodded for him to continue. “She punched me. Square in the face. And I was only trying to help her too!”
“She...she did that to you?” Mono’s eyes were wide. Huh. How relatable.
“Oh, yes. She did. It took me off guard, of course, considering I hadn’t expected to receive such a...violent reaction for only tugging at someone’s arm and bringing them away from any prying eyes. Not that I hold a grudge against her for punching me—I totally get her reason for it—but still!” When Mono watched him in silence, Emmet deflated instantly, muttering apology after apology which he says I’m so so sorry for talking bad about your friend. I only needed to vent to someone and I couldn’t do that to Six herself. But that’s no excuse. I shouldn’t even have said anything. I crossed the line and I should stop talking now—
Throughout his sorry-giving session, Mono couldn’t help but finally crack a smile and snort while he did so. Emmet stopped altogether and furrowed his brows.
“I...I didn’t overstep, did I? About your friend?”
That made him laugh then. But he’d be a fool to do so without covering his mouth and muting them in front of the devil girl they were talking about. If she knew, it’d be the end for the both of them.
“I’ll let you in on a secret, Emmet,” Mono said after a chuckle, glancing at the sleeping form that is Six. “That girl over there is not my friend.”
Emmet froze, darting his eyes back and forth as confusion then a silent panic wiggled into his mind once the gears started to turn.
“She...isn’t your friend,” Emmet repeated, almost in horror.
Oh, this was almost as amusing if he wasn’t already so exhausted.
“I wasn’t finished—relax,” Mono said, huffing although enjoying the torment just a little. “Six isn’t my friend anymore. We had a...bit of a disagreement back then, is all.”
“Oh.”
“I know.”
“Is it that bad then?”
“You’re overstepping.”
Emmet’s shoulders sank slightly as he threw another one of his genuine sorry’s. Goodness, if only Six could apologize this much.
Mono sighed and shifted on the floor, hugging his knees. He did promise Six—however, indirectly after that hand holding incident—not to reveal anything about the betrayal to Emmet lest he viewed Six as what she was: a legendary traitor. As much as he wanted that to happen as well, Mono knew the consequences it would bring later. Emmet would surely stay away from Six, perhaps abandon her altogether. They’d lose a valuable team member and possibly die because of it. Then no one would be rescued—not Viola, not Emmet’s sister.
“It may not be my place to say this, Mono,” Emmet started, “but whatever it is that happened between the two of you...I think it’s worth talking it out with each other.”
He rolled his eyes. “You know nothing about what happened between us. Talking it out won’t fix anything.”
“True. I know neither your story nor hers,” Emmet said. “But I do know you still tolerate each other enough to have a chance at communicating.”
“Hah. We do not tolerate each other.”
“So all that bantering and hand-holding were acts of hatred then?” Emmet snickered when Mono looked at him, appalled.
“Sorry,” Emmet said. “I can’t really help it. I’m an observer. And from what I’m seeing so far, your friendship doesn’t look as shattered as you made it out to be. If I’m being honest.”
Mono cast a long glance at Six’s sleeping frame. He always told himself he’d never forgive her for what she’d done—that he swore he would never ever do. Yet when Emmet brought up the opinion of their shattered friendship not being entirely shattered into little pieces as he’d imagined...
What could that...mean, truly?
He wouldn’t forgive Six, he still hated her so passionately just as he was sure she did too with him. But did hate involve putting their enemy’s feelings into consideration? Did it involve holding on to their promise when they begged you not to tell their secret to anyone else? Did it involve maiming an adult’s pale arm just to provoke the monster enough to let its attention divert to her instead?
The thought concerned him. This shattered friendship he so believed...what if it could actually be glued back together? And the only thing that was stopping that from happening was him?
Would he even want to fix it? Would Six?
Enough of this. She left you behind with the sole purpose of murdering you. She was the selfish one that betrayed you when she had the choice not to. She decided this. She was the one that shattered it. Never forget that.
Mono averted his eyes from the girl with a bitter scowl, opting to shove his prior emotions in a box and chained them heavily. He wouldn’t let his heart win ever again.
“So, what’s your story, if you don't mind me asking?” Mono changed the subject, hoping Emmet would understand his reluctance and take the bait.
Then Emmet sighed longingly, a sad smile on his lips. “It’s nothing that Six hasn’t already told you, I guess. I’m looking for my missing sister and…” he said, “and I hope she’s okay. Wherever she is.” Emmet pulled out his flashlight to show him, turning it around. “This is the only thing I’ve got of her. This was hers, you see.”
“Oh.” Guilt crashed over him like cruel waves. “I’m so sorry.”
Emmet laughed a little. “And what are you apologizing for?”
“It’s just…I assumed earlier when you went back for it, you were being selfish for risking your life over something as trivial as a flashlight. Now that I see how wrong I was…I just couldn’t help but feel guilty.”
Emmet shook his head, waving him off. “Oh, it’s not your fault at all, Mono. You couldn’t have known the context just by seeing me panicking over dropping this flashlight. I wasn’t helping by saying nothing too so,” he said, “don’t worry about it. Okay?”
Mono hummed and nodded. God, I hate it when Six is right. Emmet really is just nice.
“So, that belongs to your sister, huh?” Mono found himself continuing the conversation.
“Yeah. She found it in a pile of trash one lucky day and wouldn’t stop showing off the thing to me ever since. Said that she was so proud that she could finally be of any help. And with this flashlight, we’d find supplies twice as fast.” Emmet smiled, reminiscing as he continued, “I didn’t have the heart to tell her that she shouldn’t use the light as often as she wanted. It’s useful, yes, while traveling in the dark but it’s just as risky to expose yourself. So I had to take out one of its batteries, kept it for emergencies when we truly needed that light. Elizabeth cried when it began to flicker and die on her, not knowing any better that I had the other battery with me.” Emmet laughed.
“Elizabeth?” Mono asked curiously.
“Her name. She saw that somewhere and demanded she be called that. I was even more surprised that she could even read, much less pronounce it.”
A laugh escaped Mono. “I guess I could understand that. I thought just the same with Six.” Emmet’s smile became wider as he laughed. “So what then? Did Elizabeth ever find out about your absolute betrayal?”
“Unfortunately, yes, I told her.”
“How kind of you.”
“I know.” Emmet grinned proudly. Then a tired sigh from Emmet as he leaned his head back. “She was furious, of course. Saying that I betrayed her on so many levels. How many levels there were, I’ll never know, but I guess it was a lot. Considering she refrained from speaking to me for two whole days.”
“Two whole days?” Mono asked.
“Two whole days,” Emmet said. “I didn’t exactly feel guilty at first, you know, because I was doing it for both our sakes and safety. But then it dawned on me that, perhaps, Elizabeth was more hurt by the fact that I lied to her. So I knew I had to do something to make it up to her. Make her forgive me somehow.”
“I’m assuming Elizabeth asked you to return the battery and you told her: no?”
“Of course! That was the one thing I couldn’t do because, knowing that girl, she’d waste a good source of light in less than a week.”
Mono scoffed, chuckling. “Honestly, I would’ve too. If the world wasn’t so messed up, that is,” he said and asked, “So if returning the battery was out of the question, what exactly did you do?”
Emmet’s smile widened until his teeth showed. “Got her a hat.”
“A hat?”
“Yep,” he said proudly. “A goood hat.”
“And…that’s it?”
“Well of course I had to tell her I’d stolen the hat from a monster’s stash and battled with a smaller enemy when really,” he said, “I just found it in a drain somewhere.”
“You lied to her again?”
“For a good cause!” Emmet was laughing now. Mono didn’t fight the ridiculous amusement he felt over Emmet’s brotherly antics. “I’m not proud of it, not really. But when Elizabeth ate that lie quicker than any food we had, I was so relieved. She started to talk to me again. Wore that hat too and never took it off of her like the dysfunctional flashlight she still kept in hand.”
“You are some brother, for sure,” Mono said.
“Thank you, I know,” Emmet answered, still proud. “Besides, you also shared a similar sentiment towards hats, didn't you?”
Mono’s eyes widened, his posture still. Emmet snorted at that.
“Okay… who told you that?” Mono asked, however, lacking any actual anger in his voice. “Was it that little troll over there? I swear I’ll push her down the sewers once we get out—”
“I beg of you; don’t tell her I told you—”
“Oh, you’re going down with her. I’ll let Six beat you up for me.”
“No. Spare me, please. I’ve already dealt a punch from her before.”
“Then I’ll be sure to tell her you’ll get a kick in the shin next.”
Once again Emmet only laughed quietly—genuinely. Mono soon felt the contagiousness of it and laughed along with him.
Truly, he hated when Six was right.
“I suppose I really should thank you, Mono,” Emmet started then. “It’s been a…very long time since I had a good laugh like this.”
“I’ve got good humor. Unlike Six,” he said with a faux scowl. “Now don’t you tell her I told you that.”
“For both our sakes, I won’t. I’m not ready to get daily smacks in the head like you do.”
“Hourly,” he corrected. “Six smacks me in the head every hour.”
“Impressive.”
“Yeah, not fun, though.”
“Oh, I’m sure.” With a slap to his knee, Emmet stood up with a sigh and nodded to him. “I guess I’ve taken enough of your resting time already so...I should leave you to it. Thanks for the good talk.”
Mono watched him as he turned his back on him, noticing the slight limp he had for every step he took. Emmet had shared his and Elizabeth’s story with sparkles in his eyes, and more longing in his voice. It took no brainer to know that Elizabeth had been missing for a long time now. And if he were to look at this situation without the rose-tinted glass, it was plausible Elizabeth hadn’t been found for a different reason. A cruel, devastating reason that perhaps even Emmet had thought about but refused to linger on it. Denied it as though it were false and nothing but false.
Mono understood it. Sympathized with it.
And from what he learned, reminding Emmet of Elizabeth’s chances of survival—considering her lack of understanding of the world’s corrupted state—would shatter the boy’s heart, surely.
He didn’t have the heart to do that.
“Emmet,” Mono called out to him. Emmet halted in his steps and turned around, his brow raised. “I need you to know I really mean it when I say I hope your sister is safe and sound. While I can’t…go with you after we leave this place like Six promised you, I will still help you look out for Elizabeth as I go around the city. We’ll find your sister—that I can promise to you.”
And he truly did. He’d help Emmet find his sister just as he would find Viola. Because for a boy as kind-hearted as he was, Emmet deserved to reunite with his family, alive or not.
A small smile made its way to Emmet’s face, a soft sigh he let out. He nodded gratefully to him.
“Thank you,” he uttered as he turned back around to return to his side of the corner. Yet just before he took another step, Emmet looked over his shoulder and said to him, “If by any chance you stumbled upon a girl wearing a yellow rain hat…please keep her safe with you. We’ll meet up here. Outside the Daycare Centre.” With that he left.
Leaving Mono to ponder on the words Emmet told him in a painful silence. A girl wearing a yellow rain hat. Something about that did not sit right with him the longer he was here thinking to himself. Yellow rain hat. As yellow as Six’s coat. One that would complement nicely should Elizabeth stand side by side with Six.
But that was the thing wasn’t it? Six had never met Elizabeth. None of them did. So it baffled him greatly as to why the image of Elizabeth’s yellow rain hat was crystal clear in his mind. The shape of it and the size, the smooth texture along with its little stitches that kept it together. It felt as though he could touch the hat in his own hands. Feel it fit perfectly over his own head.
Horror became him when something made sense. The light bulb that had been flickering in the back of his mind, finally lighting so brightly to the point its glass could shatter from the intense heat.
He knew why Elizabeth’s hat was so familiar. So easily imagined. Because anything was easy to imagine when it was actually remembered from a memory.
That yellow rain hat he took six months back had belonged to a corpse of a child, rotting away in a cage.
And the child’s cage he’d taken down to retrieve the said hat had been Elizabeth’s.
What have I done?
Notes:
Thanks for reading!
Chapter 28: Thief
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Sleep did not come easy for Mono.
He did not have the good nap he imagined himself having.
How could he, when the last thing that remained in his head was all about how he’d stolen Elizabeth’s rain hat and added it into his own hat collection? That back then he hadn’t even considered it as stealing because why would it be? The hat had belonged to a child that no longer breathed. A child that coincidentally turned out to be the sister that his new companion had been looking for who knows how many months. That fact made the situation ten times worse. His guilty conscience screamed at him tenfold. His so-called morality and empathy were as good as non-existent!
For all those times he called Six a monster, he should’ve realized how he too had been one. A hypocrite. Practically a murderer and a hat thief!
It was all that he thought about when exhaustion caught up, and it was all that was stuck to him when he woke up—like a damn gum his brain had stepped on.
At least life had been kind enough to have Six be the one to shake him awake. He didn’t know how he’d respond if Emmet was in her stead now, kneeling with a sour face.
“Get up,” Six said as she kicked him lightly. “We’re leaving.”
They continued on with the plan. After having left their momentary camp in one of the storerooms, the three traveled through the vent again with Emmet leading them to the left wing of the Daycare Centre. Mono had insisted Six went first after Emmet—for reasons that were eating him alive. Six still refused to look him in the eye.
Great. Two out of two I have awkward relationships with.
Thankfully the vent lasted only for a few minutes as they took multiple sharp turns and climbs, and then they were walking in between the walls once more. The darkness in here wasn’t as bad the nearer they were to the greenhouse. Suppose it would make sense. The greenhouse walls should be made of glass, shouldn't they? For whatever plants and flowers the Nanny had been growing there?
His curiosity came to a brief halt when Emmet began to kick against the metal grate, his attention returned to the reality that they’d arrived. The clang it created when it fell to the floor was a little unsettling for everyone. He made sure to cast a glance behind them in case something had heard and followed them. Emmet did the same, peering outside before deeming it safe for them to step out.
The greenhouse entrance sat right across, its semi-transparent doors sealed with a similar lock they’d seen at the front of the Daycare Centre. Six, having been the one to keep the key, shoved it inside the lock and gave it a twist. The lock fell to the ground. The door became unlocked.
“Alright, let’s hurry in,” Emmet whispered to them as he pushed the door and reveal—
Blood.
Crimson splattered all over the floor like it was spilt paint and cleaned yet to no avail. What awaited inside the greenhouse had only been partially correct to his expectations. Their walls and roof were made of tinted glass, rain pouring above them once more indicating that time had gone by more than he thought. There were rows upon rows of light that were either broken or shattered altogether, drowning the place in complete darkness if it weren’t for the lightning striking every few seconds. The path of red followed to the soiled ground, more of them dripping past the pots hanging above each part.
But a greenhouse as anyone would well expect upon entering was the numerous green plants growing within its walls, the rich smell of the earth that’d bombard one’s senses the deeper you go in. The Daycare Centre’s greenhouse, however, had none of such.
Instead of the beautiful, healthy plants, a foreign thing was grown in its stead, each part either buried deep within its damp soil or sticking out messily. Instead of the earthy smell, a putrid one filled the air—the obvious smell of blood lingering and perhaps forever there to stay. The air was anything but light. Considering the Nanny kept this place tightly locked and closed off, whatever she’d been growing here had begun to rot as flies and maggots grew in numbers instead. They were not plants. No plants would attract such a thing no matter how withered it was.
Because this foreign thing the Nanny had been growing in her greenhouse were children's body parts. Some dried and identifiable. Some were still slightly fresh and somewhat attached to their bodies. And those were only on the ground. In the pots hanging above were fingers protruding out of its soil, dried blood staining the edges forever. More of them were neatly lined on the shelves like another one of the Nanny’s sick collections—another one of her trophies.
Mono felt bile rising in his throat. This was sick. This was horrendous.
He turned over to Six and she had already dropped her ever constant face, wearing that resembled something of pity and sorrow. She saw him staring; she looked away again. Yet while the two of them shared remorse over the unfortunate children, meant to be buried in a gruesome way and to be displayed, Emmet was the first to run forward in its path of bloodshed.
Mono nearly called out to him, nearly stopping him from doing so but when he noticed the familiar panic that returned in the boy’s eyes—scanning over each of the corpses with absolute desperation—he refrained himself. Mono let him be and so did Six. They both understood that Emmet was looking for his missing sister, among the dead, and now praying that she was not a part of the Nanny’s gore.
After some time went by, Emmet sighed relievedly, hands rested on his knees as though just dreading for the worst took a toll on him. It should. And when Emmet spoke almost out of breath, Mono knew it surely did.
“She…isn’t here,” Emmet muttered. He laughed in reassurance and wiped the sweat off his brow.
Mono couldn’t share his joy. The guilt returned to stab him in the guts and drown him under its waters the happier Emmet seemed at the prospect of Elizabeth being alive.
He knew she wasn’t. And he just couldn’t tell him despite wanting to come clean.
Mono needed to come clean. He had to tell someone first—someone that was not Emmet.
“Let’s split up,” Mono said. All eyes turned on him. He tried his damnedest to not break under Emmet’s stare. “We could find the keys faster if we split up. I’ll go with Six and find one while you go for the other.”
Six gave him a strange look, her eyes widened slightly.
Emmet paused and thought to himself before nodding. “Alright. We’ll meet back here once we do.”
“Okay,” Mono replied. Then Emmet headed the other way, leaving he and Six alone there.
He thanked his lucky stars that Six said nothing to object. Although, not exactly glad that the awkward cloak still hung over them.
Because when she said nothing, he said nothing too. When in actuality, he suggested they split up for the sole reason of saying something. He only had to make sure Emmet was gone from sight and no longer within hearing range.
“Six,” he said, fiddling with his hands nervously, “I have to talk to you—”
“No.”
“…Huh?”
Six shook her head strongly, avoiding his gaze like his face could kill. “I said no. Whatever you’re thinking about in that small head of yours, I’m not about to discuss it.”
Mono blinked slowly, the dots not so much connecting.
So…
Does she know then?
Did Emmet tell her about Elizabeth and she figured out how I took her hat six months ago?
“Six…I’m a little confused—”
“Yeah, well, so am I!” Six snapped and finally looked at him. By then her cheeks had already flushed. Mono tried to process this and failed. “I get that the thing that shouldn't have happened, happened. But it was all too quickly, alright? And the moment ended. So stop trying to bring it up again!”
He’d lost her completely. Was Six also feeling guilty about Elizabeth? She did after all help him bring down her cage, so could she have known already?
“I just,” he stammered, “I just thought…that maybe you’d understand and want to talk about it.”
“Nope. I don’t. Ever. I want to forget it ever happened.” She looked away again as she eagerly shut him down. “And I want you to forget about it too.”
“Just forget? Six, you want me to forget about what we’ve done?”
Her cheeks turned a darker shade of red as she scowled harder. “Why would you even want to think about it still—the past is in the past! It’s not like it’ll ever happen again.”
“I know that but,” he huffed, “it’s hard not to think about it, Six! What I’ve done—what we’ve done together—I feel like we shouldn’t just sweep it off the rug and pretend it never happened. It’s not right. It’s…inhumane.”
Then and there, Six shoved his shoulder harshly. An angry scowl on her face that did not match the flush in her cheeks and embarrassment in her eyes.
“Stop,” she said, “bringing it up. I told you already; it won’t happen again. This whole thing was only a big accident.”
“You really think so? You think Emmet would understand if he’s told that?”
“Why would he even care?” she said, exasperated. “It’s not as if I held his hand, Mono! Then I wouldn’t be having this conversation with you at all! So get this in your thick skull; just forget about it.”
Finally, it clicked in his brain. Ah.
Wait.
What did she just—
“If you held his hand?” Mono repeated, perplexed.
Six’s scowl faltered upon hearing his confusion, the confidence she had not so long ago too reduced to nearly nothing.
“Yeah, I mean…isn’t that why you’re even talking to me? Because I…took your…hand?” Her voice came out softer and softer. Mono felt his own cheeks warmed.
And he wanted to smack his own face.
“No,” he told her. “I didn’t talk to you because of…that.”
Six said nothing.
“I talked to you because Emmet and I had a talk yesterday,” he added.
Still nothing.
“He told me about his missing sister,” he said again, “and how I was supposed to find her?”
Six pursed her lips, folded her arms, then looked away. And ever so quietly, she told him with barely contained embarrassment, “Whatever.”
“No, not whatever, Six,” Mono scolded. Six turned to him, surprised. “I am slowly losing my sanity!” He kicked the remnants of soil and dirt beneath his feet.
“I mean…if things are getting too difficult, you could always just bail on Viola.” He shot her a dangerous glare. Six reconsidered. “Or maybe not,” she added apologetically.
He sighed as he ran his fingers through his hair. “It’s not that things are getting difficult for me to find two missing people—I told Emmet already that I can’t follow him once we leave, only that I could help him look around on the way to Viola. He was fine with that and said to just keep his sister safe for him if I do find her. That we’ll meet back here outside the daycare again occasionally.”
“That’s great. So what’s the problem?”
“The problem is—” The words did not and would not come out. He clenched his jaw as his heart threatened to implode out of immense guilt.
Six noticed his difficulties and came closer. “The problem is…?” she whispered, urging him to whisper too if that’d help.
Mono sighed again through his nose and closed his eyes. Then he whispered his answer, “Emmet’s sister is dead.”
“DEAD?”
“SHHH!”
Mono immediately glanced around for any signs of blonde hair peeking out from the children-turned garden. Six waited before whispering again, although, practically yelling at him.
“How’d you know she’s dead?” Six asked.
“Well, I am making an assumption which I think is 99% correct. Emmet said that his sister had a yellow rain hat that she never takes off.”
“Okay?”
“Remember how six months ago I practically begged you to help me take down this one cage in the Wilderness?”
Her face already fell, the gears in her head turning.
“…Okay?”
“And remember how annoyed you were because I wanted to retrieve a hat off of a child’s body—?”
Six gasped loudly.
“That was Emmet’s sister!” Six said.
He nodded painfully; his eyes shut.
“You stole her hat!” Six added.
Mono nodded again, regret painted brightly across his face. “I’m a horrible human being. The worst scum of the Earth.”
“But Emmet doesn’t know...does he?”
“No, and that’s what makes this whole situation worse!” Mono paced around, biting his nails. “He told me his story with so much honesty, how he wished every day that Elizabeth was still out there surviving and breathing. Then here I am—an evil liar who nods along with it plus the audacity to tell him that I hope she’s safe and sound when in reality I’ve found out that she’s already dead!” Mono stopped, head cocked. “I have to tell him.”
“What?”
“That’s the only way, Six. I have to tell him the truth. He needs to know about what happened to his sister, about what I stole from her.”
When he began to take a step towards the direction Emmet disappeared to, Six quickly ran in front of him, blocking his way with her short stature. And she shook her head firmly.
“You can’t tell him,” she said.
“And…and why not?” he asked.
“Think about it this way, Mono: he’s not going to react to this calmly as you might think. He’ll lose it if you even tell him you stole his sister’s hat, let alone off of her corpse. There’s no way this wouldn’t end badly. He’ll want to attack you. Trust me.”
“But that’s no excuse. I can’t just not tell him. He needs to know about what happened to his sister—”
“And he will. Just not now. Not from you. ”
“Oh, like you’re going to do it for me?”
“You wish. I’m thinking this rationally and I can’t imagine any other scenario where he doesn’t attack you. No matter how gently you’d let him down. Not to mention—you, picking up that hat was already six months ago, Mono. There’s no telling how much longer Elizabeth’s actually been gone for,” Six said. “It’ll destroy Emmet completely. To accept this loss.”
Mono bit back a groan and the urge to fight with her any more on this matter. Because as much as he wanted to take his route of coming clean, he cannot deny that Six had a point. A very reasonable point.
Emmet will definitely lose it. The boy had already panicked like he was losing blood when he’d briefly lost Elizabeth’s flashlight. And that was only an item with a sentimental value.
They couldn’t have Emmet attack them when the Nanny decided to make an appearance.
“What do you suggest then?” Mono said and shrugged, frustrated. “If telling him is out of the question, what do we do?”
“Nothing.”
“What?” he asked, gaping. “You want us to do nothing?”
Six nodded. “Nothing,” she repeated. “Let Emmet believe his sister is still alive. It’s the only thing that’s keeping him motivated so...let’s leave him at that.”
“But then what? I still look for his sister? Pretend that she’s even alive?”
“You don’t need to pretend anything. All you’re doing is not telling. Just remember that,” she said. And when Mono still seemed unconvinced, Six added softly, “Mono, this is for Emmet’s sake. He’ll know when it’s the right time.”
“But when is the right time?”
“Just not now,” she reiterated. “We still promised him that we’d find the other key, didn’t we? Let’s just focus on that first. Forget everything else for a moment. Can you do that?”
For a second, he wanted to protest. He didn’t want to forget anything that he told her and what she told him. All he wanted was to be rid of this horrible pain in his chest and let Emmet know that he knew where his sister was truly.
But then Six…
The way she easily talked him down, used just the right words to convince him, coaxed him in her own way so that he did not carry additional burden over his shoulders as he usually would do—it made his insides warm again. Something in his stomach fluttering and his breath hitching.
She was trying to help him feel better. No matter their dark history months ago.
“Okay.” He found himself nodding slowly. “Okay, let’s find that key.”
Six grinned at him softly, glad.
For a moment, he wanted to smile back at her.
There were multiple things that Emmet noticed about the Daycare Centre.
One, the entire building had its lights shut off and broken for a reason.
He noticed it during his first few days here, how every path he took was engulfed in complete darkness and how all windows were boarded up to stop any lights from penetrating through—or rather stop any one from coming in or out. There was only one entrance and one exit. A system set by the Nanny to make her work cut out for her as she needn’t to worry for any other intruders coming in without her knowledge.
Two, the Nanny was a persistent old bitch.
When he’d crossed the thresholds between the outside world and the daycare, he had noticed the glowing pairs of eyes watching over him from behind the wall, eyeing his every step and every sharp breath he took. And unfortunately, he had noticed it all too late until those terrifying clacks echoed throughout the hall. The Nanny had chased him. He’d run. Thankfully for his luck he’d fallen down at some point and noticed how the bottom wallpaper could be pushed through into somewhere. He wasted no time and crawled inside the wall. The Nanny lost sight of him and had been looking for him ever since, sniffing the air, pacing round and round for perhaps hours at where she’d lost him. Emmet used that opportunity and explored the narrow walkways within the walls. He used the advantage and learned quickly where each path would take him.
Three, this place reeked of death. Children’s death.
While his plan of survival included: staying away from whatever his guts told him to stay away, he stayed despite this rule. Elizabeth had been missing—separated from him—for long months now. He dared not keep count of the actual number lest his brain conjured some horrible conclusion. After he had learned more of the daycare, and unfortunately the Nanny’s hobby and routine, he was glad that there were no signs of Elizabeth here. Sure all he wanted was for her to be found but he had to confirm she wasn’t in this hellish place. Or worse caught within the Nanny’s confinement. He learned about that when he’d followed the Nanny into the Playroom, carrying a limp child in her clutches.
He thanked all that could hear him when the child was not Elizabeth. And that the child was already dead to endure whatever horror the Nanny was about to unleash on their body.
Emmet had been in this place perhaps almost a week— tops. He’d ventured nearly every room that could be entered and unlocked just in case Elizabeth had wandered in. His hopes were still high. And even higher it was when the place he hadn’t yet ventured in was left only one. The greenhouse. The one the Nanny guarded so heavily with her locks and chains. He’d been struggling for a plan that wouldn’t end up with him caught and dead after finding out the Nanny kept the greenhouse key somewhere in the Playroom. The door was kept shut whenever he tried to steal the key; and making any effort to open the door alone would resort to making enough sounds to call the Nanny’s attention. He’d be caught either way. This, unfortunately, couldn’t be done alone.
That was when he saw Six.
Six with her yellow raincoat that looked so much like the hat Elizabeth wore when they were separated, he hadn’t the heart to leave the girl to walk to her death without her knowing it. So he told her not to go to the Playroom, at least not through its doors. She insisted she did.
At some point he got punched and robbed by the same girl. Being punched in the face was forgivable but stealing Elizabeth’s flashlight was not. He gently taught her a lesson with a scare, messing around with the echoes from the pipes to throw her off her feet. Six became defensive, he tried not to make things escalate.
And then soon, Six introduced Mono.
He was her friend, she said. A friend that could help him find his sister. Despite another one of his rules which was: to never stick around strangers for long, Emmet knew he needed all the help now. He needed to get that key. More than ever.
It worked more in his favor when the Nanny then locked their only way out. Not that he was happy with that—he had been dreadful over it—but this was his chance to unlock the greenhouse doors and check the last room this place had for any signs of Elizabeth.
Now that he’d seen no sign of her here, Emmet felt his heart become lighter—utterly relieved. He couldn’t imagine how he’d fare if he saw her among those unlucky children buried underneath the soil.
The greenhouse was by far the brightest place in the daycare. With the transparent walls allowing the outside light to come in, he wondered if the Nanny came in here as often. Perhaps only at night. The woman had to be nocturnal.
Emmet had gone inside a smaller part of the greenhouse and looked around for anything that seemed important. It was a good start at least, rather than looking for a key in large spaces and not knowing where to start. He ignored the smaller pots stuffed with little fingers and the rancid smell carried to his nostrils. He had a key to find.
Hopefully, Mono and Six would find the other.
Stepping over the soiled ground, while of course avoiding the blood the ground had absorbed, Emmet climbed up the shelves with a soft wince. He looked down to his foot and huffed. There was no time to dwell over the past. Reaching up he jumped to the tables, stumbling a little until he found his balance again.
Jars upon jars were arranged in an orderly fashion by none other than the Nanny, most of them empty, some containing junks. More gardening tools were mounted above him, sharp ones that could definitely end him should it ever fall. But considering the dirt that stained its edges, it dawned on him that the Nanny had been here just recently.
And as recent as he could imagine, her reason would be to hide certain keys .
That’s it.
Emmet quickly jumped and caught onto the swaying pots, swinging carefully until he could land on the ground without further damaging his foot. Then he looked out for the fresh trail of dirt left on the floor, following it until he was led to one of the vases in the room. While he was not exactly thrilled at the idea of digging through the soil for the key, given the horrors he’d seen in the other part of the greenhouse, the mess that was around the vase told him enough that something had been put inside. Hopefully not a finger or somebody’s hand.
Praying neither would be found, Emmet reluctantly dug his hand into the vase. The dampness of the soil did not help one bit as he did find it nearly revolting because it could be either water or something else entirely the Nanny had poured with. He scrunched his nose when the smell got to him again. There was definitely something in here. A shiver ran down his spine when he touched something soft. Emmet gagged and snatched his hand away immediately, knocking off the vase until it fell with a soft thud, and cracks grew on the side of it. Everything on the inside came pouring out and the awful smell became twice as bad.
Emmet threw up in his mouth a little.
As the back of his hand pressed against his lips, he readied himself for the actual throwing up but then something shiny came peering out from the dirt. His prior disgust came to a halt as he went on his knees, willing himself to spread the soil from its clumps until finally something dropped with a cling.
He huffed in joy. There it was—the key. This could be for one the locks at the Daycare Centre doors. And out of all the odds, he’d been right to where the Nanny had kept it!
“I can’t believe this...” Emmet muttered to himself, feeling the cold metal roll in his palm, the thought of escape becoming a reality. He had to meet up with the others.
Overjoyed, Emmet ran back to the front of the greenhouse like they had agreed. His excitement, however, deflated slightly when it was only him there in the open among the gardens.
Perhaps they’re still looking, he mused to himself. It’s fine. I can wait.
And wait he did. Left alone to his devices once more since he’d met Six, Emmet dwelled on his thoughts as he sat himself on the ground
Not knowing any better how a certain tile next to him had been tampered with.
The air between him and Six became lighter now after their talk. Not that it meant he’d forgiven her or like what Emmet suggested: tolerate her.
Well.
Maybe slightly. Did he feel less awkward and less the urge to hit her in the back of the head with a rock whenever Six turned her back on him? Sure, he did. But that meant nothing close to tolerating the same person who had broken his trust. He still hated her with his very soul and every drop of blood. He hated her so much that he felt the need to walk behind her closely to watch out for himself. He hated her guts so much that he had to glance around them a few times in case something wanted to jump on her them both.
So, in conclusion.
He hated her.
Something shattered in the distance, and Mono instinctively put an arm up, shielding the girl behind him. Six was in her stance but upon seeing her view blocked by none other than the retired hat freak, she raised her brow at him.
“Seriously?” Six whispered to him. “You’re still doing this heroic bit?”
Once nothing came from the shattering sound—no creepy minions jumping to raid them—Mono loosened himself and dropped the act altogether like he did nothing at all. That it mattered very little to him. That was what it would seem on the outside, at least, because on the inside
His heart was speeding up like there was a race to be won.
His reflex to protect did not put up a good look for him.
“Says who I’m doing it for you? I’m doing it for Viola’s locket you’ve got in your coat. If you die, the chances of me getting it off your corpse would be slim. So don’t be too full of yourself,” he said, trying to save whatever was left of his pride.
Six rolled her eyes and muttered a whatever, stupid.
Mono scowled, however, not as harshly as he wanted to admit.
“Do you think Emmet’s found the key?” Six started.
“Probably,” he said, looking around the place. “That guy seems to know his way around like he’s lived here. Wouldn’t be impossible if he found the Nanny’s food stash too.”
Six hummed, observing for the other key with utter focus, sparing him not even a smidgen of her attention. Mono cleared his throat, slightly uneasy by it.
“S-so...do you think the other key is also here?” Mono asked, glancing at her while he pretended to busy himself by digging through...a trash can.
Six had moved somewhere from across the room, her gaze still up and around with scrutiny. Nonetheless, she returned him an answer.
“Probably,” she used his words. “But if Emmet’s managed to find one of the keys here already, I don’t think the Nanny would make our lives any easier by storing the other one in the same area.”
“Oh?”
“Mhm. I have a gut feeling telling me that the other key might be someplace else. Somewhere much harder to be obtained.”
“Where do you think she’d hide it?” Mono asked.
“I don’t know,” she said. Then pivoted on her heel sharply before he could look away. “Maybe the Nanny’s food stash?” Six reiterated with a cheeky grin.
He couldn’t ignore how his face had turned hot. At that moment, the only thing he could do was to not look at her face. Because of his intense hatred for her, it was best that he avoided any more contact altogether lest terrible things happened.
Like the hand holding incident.
That could practically be counted off as a traumatic event!
“I don’t think it’s here,” Six spoke after a few minutes of searching. Mono agreed. There was nothing here that seemed suspicious or worth hiding in.
It was all so out in the open that even he would understand if the Nanny decided not to hide the other key here. After all, if that woman had even a speck of extra intelligence than the other adults, then she would’ve thought to at least put a trap—
“Mono—watch out!”
He turned to Six’s direction, instead having met with a pot swinging over to his head with a speed that would knock him back and render him unconscious for a few hours. It would be an injury that could damage his head in the long run as they swelled and give him a concerning concussion. An injury that he would have had to endure had he not ducked within those milliseconds and missed the pot by a hair.
Fallen on his front, Mono crawled away to the side with wide eyes and beads of sweat formed on his skin. He noticed the floor he’d stepped on had already sunk lower than the other tiles around it; and the trap it unleashed was a clay pot still swinging back and forth until it came to a slow halt.
Then he laid there. Frozen and still in shock as he processed it all. The Nanny had indeed set a trap here. A trap that was triggered just the same as last time when a net had fallen over Six—a tampered floor. And it was a trap he had well underestimated.
If it weren’t for Six, yelling at him, the pot would’ve hit him right in the skull; and if she had warned him a few seconds too late it might have just.
Hurried footstep came to approach him. Tight grip stuck to his shoulders, shaking him as though snapping him to reality.
Then a warbled voice that became louder and louder when he met her worried eyes. But whatever words, whatever questions or demands that left her mouth had no effect on him. He couldn’t hear a thing she was saying for at that moment, his mind spoke louder, soon forming it on his lips as he told Six with a fear matching her own.
“We need to get back to Emmet.”
Notes:
Thanks for reading
Chapter 29: Daycare Centre: Part 1
Notes:
I ran out of angst juice because of this chapter ಥ_ಥ
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
There were no words to describe just how badly the situation could potentially be.
How had Mono not realized it sooner, he didn’t know. The first time he’d set off a trap should’ve been enough to set his mind on guard, not just for where he stepped but for literally anything that could indicate the Nanny had tampered with. The Daycare Centre was full of traps. Dangerous ones that ranged between confining you, knocking you out cold, and immediate blunt trauma. He’d encountered two out of three. But if Emmet ever met the third one, there was no telling if the boy would even survive it. They needed to warn Emmet before it was too late.
Mono and Six raced back to where they’d come from, glancing around for any signs of the blonde boy or any trap they had yet to set off. And considering the Nanny guarded the greenhouse on the outside, there was no dismissing the idea of her guarding the inside too. There had to be many hidden traps waiting for them here. And all three of them had been careless or clueless.
When the sight of the gore garden came to view, so did the boy they’d been looking for as he waited with a tired sigh, a dirty key rested in his arms. He’d found one. Emmet cocked his head gladly at his running companions. He grinned in anticipation of getting out and began to stand from his place as though to greet them.
Yet before Mono could shout at him to stay where you are, Emmet! This place has traps! Emmet had already taken a step forward.
The tile sunk under his foot. Then a click sounded somewhere.
Mono immediately tackled the boy down just as something flew past their heads and stabbed the wooden wall behind them. Both their eyes widened in horror then. In the wall, a long stick with sharpened ends stuck itself until only half of it was seen. It showed them the purpose of such a trap. The speed it was shot out from somewhere and the sharp ends that were likely hand-carved—this trap was meant to spill blood. Not kill ultimately, but to injure its victims enough and mount them to the wall until the Nanny returned to collect them.
It was horrifying. Emmet could have easily been the one of them, mounted to the wall as the spear stuck out from his side like an extra body part.
Something else clicked again.
Before either of the two could register the sound, a rectangular cage fell above them with a ringing clang. And by the time it dropped to the ground, Mono was barely on his feet, Emmet sitting up and turning to where his hand had rested on a—
Tampered tile.
It was a double trap.
“Mono!” Six shouted over to him, outside of the cage—much to his relief.
“We’re fine, Six,” he said as he approached the bars. “We accidentally set off another trap trying to avoid one.” Thank God this one didn’t involve a boulder falling on top of them.
“I don’t see any locks on either side of the bars,” Six told him.
“There aren’t any,” Emmet said, gesturing to the handles at the top of the cage. “There’s no unlocking it except to lift it up.”
“Well there’s no way she could do that,” Mono said to Emmet, brows furrowed.
“I suppose not…unless…” Emmet said, running his hands up and down the bars with scrutiny.
“Unless?” Six said.
“The spaces between the bars are too small to escape through, but the bars themselves look brittle. Rusted. Like it’s been unused for years.” Emmet gave a pause. Then he walked over to Six with a new resolve. “We can cut through the metal.”
“What—you want her to cut it with her nails—?”
“There are some tools in the back that I saw,” Emmet interrupted Mono. Then he turned to Six again. “You have to go inside that room and grab one that could cut through these bars.”
For a moment, Six pondered, a sigh leaving her when she understood how time was still moving. The Nanny might have already heard the commotion and was on her way here. And if that woman got to them before Six made it back, there was no telling how this would end.
The severity of the situation made her nod in the end.
“Alright. I’ll be back as fast as I can.” Six turned to Mono, shooting him a look and leaning closer towards him. “Remember what we talked about,” she whispered in his ear. “Don’t cave in.”
And then she was gone.
Leaving Mono to gulp silently as Emmet, him and his returning guilt was left all alone in the debilitating silence.
Don’t cave in, he repeated Six’s words like a prayer. Just don’t cave in. As long as I’m not talking to him, I won’t cave in.
“You okay there, Mono? You look sickly pale…” Emmet spoke beside him. Mono hated his mind and his guilty conscience, eating him parts by parts.
“I’m fine,” Mono replied, not even looking at him.
Emmet nodded at him, humming.
“By the way, thanks for…saving me back there.” Why is this guy not shutting up?
“Sure,” Mono forced out, unable to look at the boy for more than, well, one second. Even two would be a record.
But then Emmet still would not leave him be to tame his guilt from coming out in the open. Emmet sighed and laughed. “I really couldn’t thank you enough for what you did. If you hadn’t pushed me down just now, I could’ve died!”
“Mhm.”
“The whole thing was just terrifying. Just the thought of me nearly getting impaled earlier, stuck here for all time and unable to move forever—unable to find Elizabeth— it scared me. I ought to tell you: I really owe you one, Mono.”
“Uh-huh.”
“In fact,” Emmet said, with a long sigh, leaning his back against the bars, “I think I should…come clean a little.”
Mono’s blood turned cold. He wanted to cut his own ears off.
“I…sort of used the two of you to get in the greenhouse. When I first came to the daycare, I made it my goal to search every part, every crook and cranny for Elizabeth; and the one place I couldn’t was this place. The Nanny had its doors locked tight and even after knowing where she put the key, I didn’t have the guts to play with the risk. And doing it alone sure came with a very high risk.” He turned to Mono with an apologetic smile. Mono stared back, his face pale for a different reason entirely. “I hope you can forgive me for that. For never mentioning it was for my other benefit.”
“Okay.”
“R-really?”
“Mhm.”
“You…you’d forgive me?”
His fingers tapped against the metal, eyes searching for Six.
“Yep,” Mono said.
Emmet’s eyes brightened as he gave him a toothy smile. Mono felt like he deserved to be thrown over a chasm. Maybe he should do it. Maybe if he was lucky, Six would be willing to help him.
“Wow, that’s so…that’s so nice of you, Mono!” Emmet exclaimed, slapping his shoulder like a friend would. He did not deserve that title whatsoever. “I didn’t think you’d be this understanding. Really, I have to say thank you again—”
“Just please stop!” The guilt burst all over his chest. He slammed his head on the bars and pressed against it despite the pain it left. He shut his eyes tight and said exasperatedly, “Please just stop talking, Emmet.”
Taken aback, Emmet’s smile faltered, a look of guilt flashing past his eyes. It wasn’t right. Emmet shouldn’t be the one to feel guilty when he was the one that did something horrible.
“I’m,” Emmet said slowly, “so sorry. I’m sorry if what I did offended—”
“No it’s not about what you did!” he cut him off harshly. Emmet flinched.
“Not about…what I did?”
Mono banged his head against the bars once, then twice. “You shouldn’t,” Mono hesitated, sighing shakily, “you shouldn’t be the one to say sorry. Not for what you did. Not for anything at all.”
“…I don’t understand.”
“Emmet, what you did…is nothing compared to what I’ve done to you. You don’t deserve to be the one who should apologize.”
Then Emmet’s shoulder sunk, the apologetic look in his eyes disappeared behind hardened ones. His brows furrowed as he asked him carefully, “What you’ve done to me?”
Something dark lingered around in his voice, however, it was still light. Emmet was still giving him the benefit of the doubt that he so much did not deserve.
Because, truly, what he deserved was owning up to his mistakes; and admitting to Emmet regarding the truth that Six insisted he kept to himself.
“I took your sister’s rain hat from her prison,” Mono said, heavy-hearted.
This was bad, he knew it was bad.
The silence that came from Emmet, however, was worse. The boy did not exchange any anger, any raging thoughts, any emotions whatsoever, instead only looking at him with a look he could not read well. His eyes, so empty and cold that Mono dared not to make contact with.
“It was six months ago,” Mono said when Emmet only stared at him, unmoving. “Me and Six…we stumbled upon a cage in the Wilderness outside the city. I insisted we took it down so I could…get a good look at the hat. It didn’t occur to me then how horrible of me to take it off of her, how what I did is practically considered as stealing.” He finally looked at Emmet then. “I’m so sorry, Emmet. I’m sorry for not saying anything to you sooner.”
“Was she alive?”
“Huh?”
“Elizabeth,” he asked, his eyes devoid of anything but bitterness and voice, monotonous. “Was she alive when you took her hat?”
Mono hesitated to answer. And that hesitation revealed the hurt on Emmet’s face. The silent devastation that ambushed him on the inside, destroying everything within him until there was nothing left to be destroyed.
“I’m really sorry,” Mono said, turning away.
“What for are you sorry this time?” he asked, however, lacking any gentleness behind the question. No more did he show kindness as he did last time. “Are you sorry that she’s dead,” he said, “or are you sorry that you stole the one thing she had off of her corpse?”
“Emmet…I wasn’t thinking back then—”
“So six months was all you needed to finally realize how messed up that was?”
“No—that’s not what I—”
“You saw a corpse of a child and you think that warranted you to loot her dead body? Is that it, Mono?”
When Emmet took step after step forward, everything about him threatening and dangerous, Mono only took steps back. And he glanced around for Six, hopefully with the right tool to get them out of here before things were to escalate from bad to worse.
Because things sure did escalate from there on, and him being stuck with an Emmet—who stalked after him like he had the intention to murder and gut him alive—in one tiny cage did not make it any better. Oh, how he hated when Six was right.
“Emmet, I truly am sorry—” His words were cut off by the loud ringing between the bars, the cage shaking slightly under Emmet’s fist. He glared at him like he wanted to actually murder him.
“Don’t. You’re not even sorry enough to come clean until you’re trapped in a cage with me, until the possibility of dying here gets to you,” Emmet said. “Because how could you be sorry, hm? You don’t even have the decency to even return her hat to me after knowing that it was my sister’s that you stole.”
More color from his face drained away from his skin. And another part of realization came crashing down when he knew he couldn’t return the hat back to him. If he still had it with him, he would in a blink of an eye.
“Well? Are you going to return it?” Emmet said, raising his voice. Yet when that same look of guilt took over Mono, Emmet faltered as he understood why.
“You lost it…didn’t you?” Emmet said, and he knew it hadn’t been a question. It was a fact. One that made Emmet grit his teeth and his fists clenched on his sides.
Mono noticed it and slowly backed away, hands raising as though to calm the boy. Yet that was his first mistake. One single movement from him and Emmet connected his fist across Mono’s jaw. Pain shot through his entire face as he fell to the floor abruptly. Something cold trickled past his nose. Mono swiped a finger underneath and saw dark red painting his skin. Oh, shit.
But Emmet was far from done—a punch was not enough for the boy as he grabbed Mono by the collar and gave him another hit, this one stronger than the last. Mono’s head was turned to the side upon impact, his cheeks bruising and head a little dizzy. He did not expect Emmet could throw a decent punch but that thought was hurled out the window when he saw his eyes. The fire. The rage. It was all apparent as every punch he delivered was done out of fury.
And fury was a strong drive.
He understood it well. Because after the third or fourth punch, Mono felt something similar rise in his chest. And he blocked Emmet by snatching his wrist and kicked him back with his foot. It sent Emmet flying on his rear, a growl escaping his throat and a deep scowl locking on his face—directed to Mono. He knew that he had only provoked the boy further. Because then Emmet wasted no time and lunged after him, shoving him back down and pushing his forearm against his throat. His windpipe slowly crushing, Mono thrashed under him, hitting Emmet’s side repeatedly until the blonde boy let up and got off him.
Mono took this chance to create distance until his back hit the bars. He did not want to hurt Emmet. He couldn’t be the one to win this fight when Emmet had the right to be so pissed off at him. And he couldn’t exactly lose either lest he also lose his life.
Emmet didn’t care for that, unfortunately. All he saw in front of him was a thief that had the audacity to lie to him and lose another piece of his sister’s belongings. That was unforgivable.
“Coward!” Emmet yelled at him, blood coating his teeth as he coughed, holding his ribs. “You stole and lost Elizabeth’s hat then dared to run away?”
“I’m not fighting you, Emmet,” he yelled back, exasperated. “Please, let’s just talk. We can talk this out without having to—”
“You want to talk?” Emmet laughed. Angrily. Hollow. “ After what you just admitted—you finally want to talk. What are you, some sort of Saint now?”
“I’m trying to make it up to you!”
“Then fight me so I can split your skull open—!” Emmet’s scowl dropped as his eyes rolled to the back of his head. Then his body fell forward with a thud.
Mono sat there frozen, his gaze following Emmet’s limp body and ever so slowly, rising up to the assailant.
“I was gone for two seconds, ” Six said, glaring at him with a plier in her hand. “What did I tell you, huh?”
“You…you knocked his head…” Mono stammered, backs still pressed against the thin bars behind him. And behind Six, the same wires and metals had been cut just big enough for her to fit through.
“Yes, I know.” Six rolled her eyes and stepped over Emmet, turning the boy over as though to inspect his condition. As though she didn’t just hit him in the head with a plier.
She pursed her lips and hummed. Then turned to him sharply on her knees.
“You think he’s dead?”
Mono did not know how to respond to that. Instead, he crawled over to where Emmet was lying; and he checked for a pulse.
When he felt multiple beats under his fingers, Mono sighed in utter relief as he dropped his head. And then he looked at Six with a firm scowl.
“What the hell was that for?” he scolded her. Six returned the look.
“Excuse you, that was me saving your butt.”
“By knocking him out cold with this?” He snatched the plier from her hands, turning it around carefully for any signs of Emmet’s blood.
“He just threatened to split your skull open. What would you rather have me do? Grab a chair and relax?”
Once the plier was missing of his blood, Mono said, “I’m just saying that you could’ve killed him, Six. This thing is sharp.”
“Well, it’s supposed to be,” Six said. “Besides it’s not like I wanted to drive the sharp edge through his head—I used the rubber side to knock him out.”
“My question is: why did you have to knock him out?”
“Are you deaf? He said he wanted to kill you,” she said, standing up, “just like I told you he would if you decided to tell him the truth.”
“I had no choice, Six. He started apologizing to me!”
“So?”
“S-so,” Mono stuttered, his face warm, “it isn’t right for me to not return the apology back…”
“And out of all the things you wanted to apologize for, you went and told him the one thing I told you not to say?” Six scoffed. “Goodness, Mono, if you wanted to apologize so bad, you could’ve just said sorry for thinking he wanted to murder you in your sleep when you first met.”
Mono pressed his lips into a tight frown.
“Well, it...it doesn’t matter now because he’ll want to murder me either way, genius!”
Six came to kneel beside him. “Of course I am. That’s why the one that’s being attacked is you and not me,” she said and pulled out a hand to him. “Now, give it back.”
“What?”
“My plier,” she deadpanned. “Hand it over, stupid.”
“No.”
“No?”
“Yes; no,” Mono said. “I’m not giving you back your murder weapon just so you could—” Six leaned over him and reached for the said plier. And when Mono leaned away, putting the plier out from her reach, Six practically shoved her hand over his eyes and climbed over him as though he were a tree.
“Six! Stop it!” He held the plier farther. Six fought him for it, pushing at his face.
“Give. Me. My. Plier,” she said through gritted teeth.
“What do you even want it for? You’ve cut the cage open already!”
“Because I found that plier and it’s mine!”
“Get off me, Six, you’re being childish!”
“Says the child himself!”
Mono shoved her off and held the plier to his chest, hiding it from her completely. “I am not giving you back the plier.”
Six aggressively climbed over his back, slapping the back of his head. “You are,” she said.
“Am not!”
“Am so!”
“Shut it— both of you,” Upon hearing another voice, the two whipped their heads to Emmet. Six stepped over Mono and gave him a final kick all the while. Mono let out a hiss. But that kick in the guts was quickly forgotten as the prior event came to shine again, the bruises on his cheek and blood that went past his nose the ever-present reminder that Emmet still had some unfinished business with him.
Or perhaps not the same way as before as the blonde boy sighed with tears gathered in his eyes. Emmet did not look at either of them, instead looking outside of this cage. To the children rotting under the soil, the appendages sticking out from the pots and vases as though they were healthy green plants. The anger was still present there on his face, but this time something else accompanied with it:
Sorrow.
Sorrow burned him brighter than the rage that had taken over him before. For the first tear that slipped past his eye, was the first tear he’d shed in a long time. And that raw emotion, that deep regret and longing and devastation, it left both Mono and Six quiet.
“So,” Emmet said just above whisper. “She really is gone...?” When neither of them answered, Emmet turned his puffy eyes to him.
Mono could only nod sadly.
Emmet turned to Six next, his voice in between staying firm and seconds to cracking.
“Is this true? Were you there when you took down her prison?”
“Yes,” Six said after a beat. “It was her, Emmet. I’m sorry.”
Another wave of fresh tears fell past his cheeks and he turned away again, not wanting to appear weak in front of them. But him appearing weak was the last thing Mono would think.
“I really wished you would’ve just told me. If you knew,” Emmet said and sighed shakily. “Or at least tell me when we’re already out of here.”
At that Six shot Mono a look. Once again, Mono was painfully reminded that she was right. Oh, how he hated that.
“Sorry,” Mono said genuinely.
“Yeah, well, what else can you say? You were the one who stole and lost her hat, weren’t you?”
Mono felt a nudge to his side. He turned to hear Six whisper in his ears discreetly, “You lost her hat?”
“Can you not?” he said through gritted teeth.
At that, Six retracted herself, turning her attention back to Emmet. The boy never stopped shedding any new tears. His face was completely flushed from the prior fight and the current sadness. His brows furrowed deeper and deeper as though his thoughts had spoken something cruel to him.
“But I can’t put the blame fully on you, Mono, as much as I want to,” Emmet said after a shaky breath. “In the end, she didn’t go missing because of you.”
“What happened to her?” Mono whipped his head to Six, gaping at her sheer boldness to ask such a question to the vulnerable boy. What could be her plan here? Make Emmet talk so it could be done over with and they could leave to find the other key? Make Emmet share his personal story to gain an upper hand that he couldn’t imagine gaining against the boy in question? What would she even need it for?
Seemingly, Emmet shared the same thinking when he appeared hesitant, saying, “Why would you want to know? It’s not as if it would change anything, would it?”
“No, but it could change how you’d feel,” Six said. When Mono opened his mouth to interject, Six put up a hand and continued, “You don’t have to tell us if you don’t want to. This is not me forcing myself to listen to your story. All I want is to understand, if you’ll let me.” Then hesitantly, she placed a soft pat over his back. “So…will you? Tell me—tell us —what happened to her?”
Mono was amazed. Not by the rare softness she portrayed or the all so genuine understanding all over her face, but the fact that Emmet was accepting it. Emmet, the boy who had recently threatened to split his skull open just moments ago. Emmet, who was now nodding slowly and calming from the touch of Six.
As much as he didn’t want to admit it, Six had a talent. A talent he no longer acknowledged as pure manipulation, but instead—coaxing. Six knew how to use her words and coax gently when she needed to. It worked with him. It worked with Emmet. It was amazing to watch now as Emmet wiped his eyes away, no longer crying as much while he prepared himself to speak again.
And when the boy spoke, and began his and Elizabeth’s story, even the sky fell silent to listen.
Elizabeth was a loud girl.
Unfathomably ill-tempered, tiny, a bit violent and with a mouth that was capable of making an adult cry.
“Come get me now, loser!” Elizabeth brought down a bat over the Viewer’s head. The Viewer, in question, had already been dead for at least…a few days? It didn’t deter the girl from swinging the bat to smash its already exploded head over the pavements, though. Nor did it deter her when some of its brains were already out and were dry.
At the side Emmet shook his head as the girl played with the Viewer’s corpse. It wasn’t as if any of them had killed the adult anyway. They’d just happened to stumble across one as they walked through the alleys. And while he had busied himself over to the side, looking for whatever scraps he could make full use of, Elizabeth had noticed the body laying just nearby. It surprised him that instead of screaming and crying like any normal child would after seeing a dead body, this girl decided to play with it. A little bit concerning, yes, but as long as she didn’t develop any ideas that she could go up against an adult, then he didn’t really feel the need to stop her. After all, the Viewers tend to make their life a living hell from time to time.
“Oi! Liz! We’re leaving; come on!” Emmet said as he stood beside the Viewer’s body, a bag over his shoulder. Half of the items in there consisted of weird things Elizabeth wanted to bring home to their shelter. At least they still had food.
“Wait, give me a second!” Elizabeth said, scowling at the Viewer. “I’m about to make this loser writhe in pain in his afterlife. This is for that time one of them had me running mid-lunch!” She raised her bat again, more enthusiasm to be unleashed as she brought it back down on the Viewer’s open skull.
The bat became stuck in the air. Elizabeth tugged at it and noticed her brother’s unamused stare, holding the tip of the weapon with merely one hand.
“We’re leaving, Elizabeth,” he said again, letting go of the bat and tugging down her hat. “Get your things before I leave you here in the rain.”
She pouted with a glare. “You wouldn’t.”
“Of course not, but it’s tempting all the same. Come on, I’m not repeating myself the third time.”
With a huff, Elizabeth did as she was told and grabbed her pack that she’d left beside the dumpsters. She took out her trusty flashlight with a proud smile and switched it on despite the number of lamp posts that were lit around the streets. Emmet groaned softly and snatched the light from her. Elizabeth gaped at him.
“Hey!” she said. “Give that back—!”
“You’re down to your last battery, Liz. The only reason I put it back in was because we had to travel through that tunnel a week ago. Remember? That scary place with the random clown drawings and everything?”
“Your point?”
“The point is I’ll be holding on to this from now on.”
“What?”
“Mhm. Read it and weep, sis. Actually, don’t weep. It’s hard to communicate with you during our walks when you pull a face.”
“Then I’m pulling a face anyway because I’d rather not have you talk to me now,” she said with her head held high as she tugged her rain hat over her head, pouting.
Emmet placed an arm over her shoulder lazily and pinched her cheeks, earning him an insult that he was numb to since as long as he could remember.
“Aw, Liz, don’t go sour on your brother now. Who else would feed you and bring you weird toys if not silly ol’ me?” He leaned his head over hers on purpose, making her grumble. She hummed grumpily.
“Yeah, you sure are silly,” she mumbled, and added, “The silliest joke I’ve ever met.”
Emmet fake gasped. “You wound me.”
“Well, not by accident obviously—”
“Shhhhh!” Emmet halted them both. Elizabeth looked up at him, wide-eyed. “Did you see that? What’s that over there?”
Elizabeth turned to where he pointed, squinting her eyes over the rain and trying to make out just what exactly he’d seen in the distance. Just as she was about to answer him, Elizabeth turned only for a second before something cool landed on her face.
She flinched greatly, recoiling from Emmet and hitting the air around her as something cold was over her eyes. Something that smelled like drain water. And when she wiped them with her hands, she was met with Emmet’s cheeky grin and—what do you know—remnants of the dirty water was stuck all over his palm.
That did it.
As she kneeled down to the same drain, scooping a lot more than what he’d taken, Emmet’s eyes widened.
“Okay, wait—” Emmet quickly ducked when Elizabeth hurled it over to him. At the failed attempt, Elizabeth’s determination only grew, and they burned brighter when Emmet started to laugh and even dared to run away like a cowardly dog.
Of course, Elizabeth never really managed to get him back the same way. Her brother had much faster speed compared to her short legs, yet their distances created were never far—courtesy of Emmet to slow down on purpose. The water in her hand was long gone now.
They reached their home not long after. Pale City was cruel as always with its unforgiving weather that having no place to seek shelter was foolish. There was only so much a child could endure before freezing to death out there. And the siblings had only been lucky enough to have found a space that was big enough for the two of them but narrow enough that no adult could spot. It was their jackpot. After they’d found the place, they made it into a home—using whatever supplies they’d found during their walks to make it more comfortable to stay in, cleaning some of the dust and cobwebs Elizabeth expressed her disgust towards and hanging a blanket above to create a make-shift tent. He even had found some partially working fairy lights to make it seem homier. He did make sure they were not too bright before hanging them, though, lest it attracted bad luck. And he couldn’t afford to have any bad luck ruin what they’d built over the past month.
Emmet ran inside their hidden tent and heard the angry footsteps following behind him. Then an elbow hit his side. He snickered despite wincing, deciding to let the girl win this time.
“You suck, Emmet,” Elizabeth huffed and dropped her pack on the covered floor. She plopped down with her stomach grumbling.
Emmet rolled his eyes with a soft smile as he rummaged through his bag, sitting down across her. Taking out the canned food, he tugged open its lid for her.
“Here you go.” He handed her the can, nudging her with it. Elizabeth’s glare softened. She took the food from him without protests.
“Thanks,” she said, smiling a little after taking the first bite. “I guess you suck less now.” Elizabeth passed it back to him to which he ate too, passing it back and forth until what was left of it was half of what it was.
“You don’t say, Liz. You don’t say,” he said. “By the way, we’re running low on food. I’m heading to the other side of the city tomorrow; checking some of its stores.”
“All the way to the other side of the city?” Elizabeth cocked her head, her mouth full. “What's wrong with the usual one from across the street?”
“They’ve run out of stocks, I’m afraid.”
“Already?”
“Well, there wasn’t much to begin with. We have been going there for nearly a month.”
Elizabeth hummed and ate another bite, brows furrowing.
“Isn’t the other side of the city…near the Signal Tower, though? Dangerous? Full of monsters, you said?”
Upon seeing how she’d deflated completely, worry behind her eyes and her shoulders sagged, Emmet let out a sigh. “I know,” he said. “That’s why only I’m going there—”
“You’re kidding me, Emmet—”
“No, I’m not kidding you—”
“There’s no way you’re going on your own—!”
“I am,” he deadpanned. “And I’m not about to let you follow me this time. You’re staying here. Where it’s safe. Where I know you’ll stay put.”
“But what if you got into trouble? Who’s going to help you then?”
Emmet scoffed and chuckled under his breath. “In all my life, I recall more getting you out of trouble, Liz. I’ll be fine. I swear on it.”
Elizabeth grumbled under her breath when Emmet shot her a look, daring her to speak another word to protest. She sighed exasperatedly and gave him a curt nod.
“Now, can you swear too that you’ll stay put?” Emmet said firmly. Her eyes snapped to him as she pressed her lips into a thin line. Emmet fought her glare with one of his own.
“I…swear it,” she said after a few long seconds.
Emmet shook his head. “Good.”
And with her giving her word to him, he intended on doing the same. The next morning the Sun hid behind the thundering clouds like other days. The rain persisted to fall. The Pale City streets remained as it usually would: vacant. Devoid of any life. Televisions left on static and buzzing. It worked as an advantage for him whilst sneaking past as the Viewers did know any better, their addiction far stronger than their urge to pay him any mind.
Emmet had left just a few hours ago after bidding Elizabeth goodbye. The girl sure could hold a grudge, but it didn’t stop her from embracing him curtly. It made him smile, never mind how grumpy she’d been when he refused to let her come with. Well grump all you want, Liz, I’ll change my mind when hell freezes over.
He ducked past the Viewers as they twitched ever so slightly at the televisions. Making light with his steps, he then pushed aside the loose fence, crossing over to a new territory he hadn’t dared to venture for Elizabeth’s sake. He was entering a foreign part of the city. And soon a region that was near the looming Tower he only ever heard stories about. Emmet walked along the pavements, glancing around every now and then for signs he was being followed.
Everything was new to his eyes. The televisions were more here. Every store and ruined establishments he passed by, there was almost not a single one without the damned screens glowing from its behind their glass. He refrained himself from making any contact with it, the rumors of a tall man snatching children like him through the television sending shivers down his spine.
He surely hoped neither he nor Elizabeth became one of the man’s victims.
Something snapped behind him.
Emmet whipped his head around to its directions, his eyes narrowed and his heart just ready to pump faster. Something had indeed followed him. Something was hiding behind the wall, waiting for him to lower his guard so it could come out of its hiding place. Carefully and quietly, Emmet reached for his pipe—his only means of self-defense. With the weapon steady in his hand, Emmet stalked towards the wall. He could hear it breathe faster the closer he got to it. And his mind began to run through various scenarios of how this could play out.
Scenario one, the adult attacked him before he could attack back. He’d get severely injured trying to get away or worse die on the way home.
Scenario two, he smashed the adult’s ankles with his pipe, rendered whatever monster hiding behind the wall temporarily paralyzed and bought himself time to get away and hide inside one of the stores. He’d make the trip short, collect all the supplies he could get his hands on and go straight home.
Scenario three, he did manage to inflict damage on the adult and the adult was not fazed by it. He’d get caught and taken away with little chance of escape. That is if fate decided he should live, he might get away alive and unscathed, or alive and disabled.
Please let it be scenario two. He raised the pipe high above his head with two hands. I’ve got a grumpy kid to feed.
Emmet revealed himself to the monster behind the wall at the speed of light, bringing the pipe down to its ankle like he had planned before.
At least that was what happened in his head.
In real life, however, his arm froze automatically, his eyes widened in horror after seeing the bright yellow rain hat above the person’s head.
“Elizabeth!” He stuffed his weapon in his pack and grabbed her arm in one swift motion, dragging her deep into the alley and away from the open street. Elizabeth struggled in his iron grip all the while, and just about ready to protest with her sharp tongue. Yet one stern look from her brother, she kept her mouth shut.
Once the street was far enough, Emmet released her. Harshly.
“I could’ve nearly killed you,” he scolded. “What are you doing here? I thought I told you to stay put. You swore on it—!”
“I couldn’t, alright? It’s hard to just ‘stay put’ while there’s a high chance that your brother may or may not come back!”
“We talked about this! I said I’d be fine, didn’t I?”
“And how would you even be sure of that?” Emmet fell silent, his scowl softening. Elizabeth’s glare became apologetic. “Look I know I went against my word, Emmet, but I’m scared. What if you never come back home? What if you got caught into a trap, bled out to death, and all I did was wait for you stupidly?”
“Liz…” He sighed.
“I really am sorry,” Elizabeth said, head to her feet. “for sneaking out. But I…I just couldn’t stay back, Emmet. Not when you’re heading towards a foreign place without me.”
Emmet drew his lips into a thin line. Then he took a sharp breath.
“Did you bring your bat with you at least?” At that Elizabeth’s eyes brightened up at him, her lips parted in surprise.
“You mean…you’re letting me go with you?” she asked.
“You’re already here, Liz. You’re out of your mind to think I’m letting you walk back on your own,” he said, placing a hand on her back and gently leading her out in the streets with him. “But if you really want to follow me now then you need to do as I say. It’s not only those Viewers that’s lurking around these parts anymore. So if I see you wandering around and getting distracted, we are going straight back home. Do you understand me?”
This time a determined smile crept to her face. Elizabeth nodded eagerly and swore it to him once more.
He could only hope this promise of hers wasn’t empty as last time.
The trip around the deeper parts of Pale City was silent all the way.
Emmet did not dare risk conversing and create attention to them. Elizabeth followed her brother’s lead obediently as she’d promised. The rain became their only company along with the buzzing static every now and then. And aside from the noise pollution, the cold of the air was starting to get to him. It made his pace faster when Elizabeth too started to shiver against her will. They needed to be inside quickly.
After a few more minutes had passed, the store he’d been looking for was finally within sights. Emmet quickly ran to its doors and turned over its handles. It was locked. He turned on them again and shook them in frustration when it wouldn’t budge.
“Emmet.” Elizabeth tugged at his sleeve, then pointed a finger. “There’s an opened window over there.”
Emmet followed her gaze and came closer to it. The window as Elizabeth pointed out was indeed left ajar, darkness peeking out from the little space he could see. Good eye, he told her. Yet one thing that remained a problem was the height of the window itself. Giving Elizabeth a boost to the window was no constraint on his part as her weight wasn’t what he was worried for.
It was the fact that he’d need to send his sister in first so she could unlock the main door.
There was no telling what could be inside. A trap? A sleeping adult? An animal just waiting for someone to climb through? He shuddered at the idea.
No. There has to be another way.
“There isn’t any other way,” Elizabeth said, as if she’d heard his fear. “Help me get up there and I can open the door for you. I’ll be quick—I promise.”
Emmet struggled again with his mind, battling between the pros and cons of this plan of hers. And soon enough, he let up with a sigh. They couldn’t afford to spend any more time outside, he decided.
So ever-so-reluctantly, Emmet lifted Elizabeth up the window. The girl climbed with his help and managed to slip through the cracks.
And his fear returned tenfold when she disappeared behind it.
It had to be at least a few minutes more of him waiting in pure agony. He paced around the front door when the first minute became two. Two became four. His foot tapped at an unsteady rhythm as his mind conjured horrifying pictures of what could be happening inside without him helping it.
But whilst he hoped and hoped nothing bad had happened, the front door finally clicked. And his relief drowned him like a flood when the sight of that yellow rain hat came through.
Elizabeth looked up at him with a proud grin, urging him to come inside. And went in, he did, after pulling her close to him.
The store was in a terrible state. The shelves were thrown over each other, blocking most of the aisles. The mess left behind was too much to tell if an adult had recently caused it or if it had been this way since before the Corruption. The lights above them were as useless as the signs that hung with faded colors saying: HAVE A NICE DAY!
This wasn’t a very nice day for him at all.
“Stay close to me,” Emmet said to Elizabeth, walking ahead toward the fallen shelves. Elizabeth listened. Perhaps she had been afraid as well to look around by herself.
The store was far more trashed than the ones near to their home, he’d noticed. The damages seemed slightly more violent. It made him believe enough that an adult had gone through here somewhere while on a rampage.
Or perhaps chasing a child that had escaped.
He hoped it was the former.
Reaching inside his bag, Emmet took out Elizabeth’s flashlight and handed it to her. Elizabeth paused at the action.
“What? You don’t want it now?” Emmet said with a raised brow.
“Of...of course, I do, it’s just,” Elizabeth hesitated. “I thought you said you’re holding on to it from now on.”
“Yeah. Because you switched it on when we were outside with the streetlights.” He shoved the flashlight into her hands. “Use it to look where you’re going this time.”
Elizabeth looked down at her flashlight, her eyes sparkled with joy once again. He nearly wanted to laugh.
Then they went deeper into the store. While a lot of the things had ended up on the ground, whatever liquid had splattered and had dried there, there were some that still remained upright and not yet crushed like the rest. With the help of Elizabeth flashing their way, he managed to collect a few canned foods that were on the floor. And some other supplies so they could carry on with their lives.
“Emmet,” Elizabeth said behind him. He didn’t hear her the first time as he stuffed his bag half full.
“Emmet!”
He whipped his head to her; worried and afraid something had caught her when his focus had turned elsewhere. He sighed again in relief when she merely stood frozen in place. That relief was short-lived.
Something now breathed behind the counter once he turned his attention to it—with the slow ragged breaths after breaths it took, a puff of warm air mixed with cold air making it visible under the flash of light. Emmet sprung to his feet and held up an arm in front of Elizabeth. He pushed her hand downwards so the flashlight was directed away from the breathing thing. Elizabeth clung tightly to the back of his shirt. And he could feel his own heart sped up—
Its hand slammed against the wood. It dug its nails deep and left a painful screeching noise, a long scratch permanently marking on the counter as it pulled itself up with a miserable groan.
Emmet pushed Elizabeth further behind him as they backed away slowly from the crawling figure. They’d encountered an adult. One that pulled itself on the ground until it laid lazily in front of the main door, blocking their one way out. Emmet scanned the store for another exit with a quick glance—there had to be. Somewhere in the back surely there could be a door that would lead them back outside—
The man wheezed as though in pain through his dangling jaw. Then and there lightning stroked the sky along with a booming thunder, the sudden light from the storm revealing a glimpse of the monster they unfortunately stood before.
And the first thing Emmet noticed was the stitches on his face. There were so many of them. Delicate pieces of threads held the man’s eyelids wide open forever, stretching them far apart until it seemed as though his eyes were threatening to fall from its sockets. His lips were sealed as well with the same string, cross stitched loosely from one end to the other, the corners of it then pulled tightly until it forced an inhumane smile, leaving his maw to dangle freely and his chopped tongue to be out. The man had no other features—no nose, no ears, no brows, no hair.
His clothes were seemingly similar to the ones he’d seen on the Viewers but the presence of cotton sticking out from his joints told him that the adults were no close to each other. This was a monster who had either been tortured and transformed by another—a more sinister and much less merciful adult—or everything that they saw on his face now was a result of his own actions. The mental choices picked by his corrupted mind.
The adult—this Stitched Man— began to drag himself towards the children at a slowly terrifying pace. The Stitched Man let out a low and open chuckle. And then it turned into a maniacal scream.
In that instant, Emmet’s instincts kicked in, and he pulled Elizabeth by the hand and ran to the back of the store. The Stitched Man’s screams echoed and followed them like a vengeful spirit, his heavy movements then becoming fast thud thud thud thud thud that made Emmet’s horror intensified. He dared one look from behind and his fears had been made into reality.
The Stitched Man was after them. Hot on their tail. Despite the way the man carried himself—all wobbly and light—he could still move. He could still have the physical will and mental determination to rid him and Elizabeth from the surface of the world.
At least he’d been right about there being a backdoor. His hold tightened over Elizabeth’s hand, he twisted the door’s handle and crossed the threshold. Instead of the heavy rain and brutal wind he’d expected, however, a dark stairwell awaited them from beyond the door. He had no time to complain. Emmet pulled Elizabeth along with him once more, and climbed the spiral staircase after slamming the door behind them. The Stitched Man giggled on the other side, rattling the knobs on the handle as though toying with the situation—toying with them.
And by the time he did decide to open the door, they’d barely made it halfway to the top of stairs. Emmet didn’t look back. He shouted at Elizabeth to do the same. He wasn’t sure if she actually listened.
The agonizing creak on each step echoed back to them. The Stitched Man indeed toyed with them as he took purposefully slow steps upwards, giggling coyly as though he knew whatever they did, they wouldn’t escape him.
Emmet refused to let that happen.
They reached the second floor not too long after, passing through mannequins after mannequins and the mess that was the entire shop. Clothes and shoes were strewn about the floor, not making it any easier for them to pass through. And certainly not any easier for them to spot the trap that had been set underneath the small pile of it.
Emmet hadn’t the time to understand when something clamped on his left foot. It happened too quickly. It happened so unfairly. One moment he’d been running, full of adrenaline and hope pumping through his veins that he’d be able to get them both out of this predicament unscathed. And the next he felt everything shatter with just one single blow. He fell painfully to the floor along with Elizabeth. But that was nothing compared to the white pain that shot up and down his leg. Just as he looked down, threw away those nuisance pieces of clothing, blood already coated his finger.
His blood.
He had carelessly triggered a small bear trap. He couldn’t move. Even the slightest bit of adjustment only brought him another wave of agony as the metal claw sunk deeper and deeper around his ankles, more of crimson painting its edges and the wooden floor. He couldn’t bear the pain enough not to cry.
Elizabeth was next to him in an instant, her eyes widening in sheer horror at his fate.
“Emmet...” she uttered. Then the familiar cruel thuds echoed back from the distance. It snapped her out of her mind as she turned back and forth to the sound and to his stuck leg.
“Elizabeth, help me pull”—He cried again in pain, sitting up—“help me pull one side of the claw while I pull the other. Quickly.”
The thuds became near; slowly however they sounded impatient enough when the two children weren't yet found.
“Elizabeth.”
Elizabeth turned her attention away from the sound and back to him, her eyes beginning to water.
“Help me pull the claw open,” Emmet said slowly, holding his leg. Elizabeth did as she was told, pulling on one side of the claw whereas he pulled the other. The weight of it was unfathomable. The pain was indescribable. And in the end, the claw merely sunk deeper into his skin, making him cry out again at the failed attempt.
It didn’t work.
The claw wasn’t opening and he’d lost his chance to get away with Elizabeth. He’d lost his chance to live and protect her from this world—from the horrible things and people that lived within. He’d lost his life.
Elizabeth stopped trying when he did, instead looking up at her brother with more puffy eyes than before. He gulped the lump in his throat forcefully. Run, he wanted to tell her. Run and get away from here. You still can. Let the man be distracted with me.
And just as he opened his mouth, Elizabeth spoke first.
“Is there...no way of getting you out from here?” she asked, despite already knowing the answer. He was trapped for good.
“You should go, Liz,” Emmet whispered, his voice already lost to the pain and sorrow. “While you still can.”
The thuds became louder, indicating his time was running out soon. Elizabeth understood so as her tears slipped past her cheeks.
“I’ll buy you time, Emmet.”
Then and there, another form of fear took over his heart.
“What?” he could only say. A wave of panic washed over him when she began to stand up, a new resolve in her eyes. Emmet quickly snatched her wrist and brought her back down to him. “Elizabeth. What—what do you mean by that?”
“I’m not going to let that monster get you just like that. I’ll let him chase me instead, so you’ll get to live. I promise you.”
She turned the tables on him. Emmet shook his head, horror all over his face, his skin as pale as the color around his clamped ankle. He could not let Elizabeth go through with this insane plan of hers. She was only a child—her chances of escaping would be slim should the man insist on hunting her down. And with the storm hurling outside, the chances of freezing to death would be just as high.
He could not allow that. He would not let Elizabeth do this.
“No,” he firmly said. “You’re not doing that. Please, do not do that, Elizabeth—”
The Stitched Man’s footsteps came closer. Elizabeth snatched her wrist away and took a few steps back from him.
“I told you you’d need help in case you get into trouble,” she said, and then with a sad smile. “I hope you can forgive me one day, Emmet.”
She clicked on her light and it shone brightly as it did before. Emmet watched with blurry vision, his chest utterly heavy and his throat so constricted that he could not speak. He could hardly breathe.
Elizabeth cast him a look over her shoulder and nodded to him. “You really are...the best brother I could ever ask for,” she said one last time. “Thank you. For that.”
And that was truly the last he’d ever hear from her. As the girl disappeared from his view, his voice returned to him. He shouted for her to come back. Come back come back come back. He shouted until his voice was raw, his throat dry and his body tired. Yet anger, betrayal, despair, regret—all of it fueled him back to shout louder, scream her name hoping he would be lucky enough for the man to shift his attention back to him. Back to him and him only.
Fierce yells of a girl came from downstairs, her light flashing through the spaces between the floorboards; the Stitched Man fast footsteps thumped angrily that it made it all worse.
No no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no—
Screaming wasn’t helping. He had to get to Elizabeth himself to save her. He needed to pry open this damned trap and free himself.
To hell with the pain—to hell with everything else and damn it if he ever got to her too late. He couldn’t be too late; he wouldn’t let the man take her away.
Emmet screamed and cried as he pulled apart the claws around his ankle. He forced whatever strength he possessed and kept on pushing it until the metal began to remove itself from his skin. Blood oozed from the wound like water into a drain, painting his hand completely red and the trap the same shade. And he screamed at the world one last time as he dragged the blind pain by its hair and hurled it into the darkest pit of his mind. He screamed one final scream and used his all to release himself
Then finally, his foot.
The trap clamped back shut when he fell to the side, panting heavily with the throbbing pain over his entire leg. Beads of sweat had formed across his head, and his eyes blurred slightly from the loss of blood.
Get up, he reprimanded himself. Get up before it’s too late.
Emmet swore that he wouldn’t be too late, that he’d get to her before the Stitched Man could. With another push, he propped himself on his elbows and forced himself up with the help of the fallen mannequins. He used whatever he could grab onto just to stand up. Once he managed to get a footing, he turned to the walls for support—half limping, half running. The pain shot through him with every step he forced yet the thought of being late late late pained him further.
He wouldn’t be too late.
He couldn’t be.
Downstairs was empty when he made it back.
The cold wind blew past the wide opened main doors, past his hair and sent him shivering. He whipped his head all around for any signs of life, any signs of the Stitched Man and any signs of his sister.
He limped forward into nothing and no one, the heart-shattering realization dawning on him like a stab of a blade.
There was nobody else here except him.
His foot kicked into something, and the object rolled further away. Emmet felt his heart plunge into his stomach.
Her flashlight.
There on the floor, he dropped to his knees and fumbled for the flashlight like it was his last ray of light inside the vast engulfing darkness. He held the flashlight in his grasp with tears that threatened to fall and uneven breaths that stopped him from breathing altogether.
Because he knew, in his heart, he was too late. Awfully too late.
The Stitched Man was gone, and so was his sister.
Now all that remained in the store were his soft cries filled with remorse, and the thunderstorm that accompanied him until the end.
Notes:
Meanwhile the Nanny sat outside of their cage listening and crying
So...was the backstory sad enough for you?
Initially, I intended on finishing the daycare Centre arc with just this one chapter...but it became too long so I had to break it into two instead. Expect part two next weekend 🎃!
Also I added a new OC antagonist.
Thanks for reading!
Chapter 30: Daycare Centre: Part 2
Notes:
As promised, part 2 on Halloween! Take your time reading this hehe
[WARNING]
body horror, violence, blood
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
The greenhouse somehow became peaceful regardless of all the horrors placed there.
Everyone listened quietly to Emmet’s story, never interrupting him for any questions other than exchanging encouraging nods when the boy struggled to continue. All Mono could do was lend his ears and offer him his silence. And perhaps, a quiet condolence to the girl who had been lost, and the girl whom death had found.
Elizabeth was someone Emmet had truly loved; and having lost her the way he did, Mono could only imagine the anguish and sorrow the boy was going through now. He could only understand the sight of his fresh tears but never the true feeling that had caused it.
“I’m…sorry,” Mono said just above whisper. And again, louder. “Emmet, I’m so sorry to hear that—”
Emmet shook his head softly, stopping him with a slight raise of his hand. “Like I said,” Emmet told him, “you’re not fully the one to blame. If I hadn’t let her come with me, if I had just insisted on sending her home, then maybe she could still be alive.”
“But that would mean you would’ve been caught by that man,” Six said. Emmet looked away with a long, shaky sigh. He wiped his tears.
“It wouldn’t matter. As long as I knew she was safe, I couldn’t care less what happened to me,” Emmet said. He huffed and sniffled. “I suppose for months I really did believe she’d still be safe…”
Then he perked his head up to Mono and Six, his back straighter than before as something akin to determination danced in his eyes.
“If you still remember…could you…” Emmet hesitated. “Could you tell me how…how she was? When you found her?”
Instantly Mono looked to Six, only to find that she’d stared right back at him with the same look.
“Well, uh,” Mono cleared his throat, turning back to the boy, “As you know, Elizabeth was…in a cage when we found her.” Emmet nodded firmly, urging him to continue. He glanced at Six again for help.
And help she did not.
Instead, Six nudged him softly on the arm, as though that would automatically make it easier to describe Elizabeth’s corpse to Emmet. Just when I thought she’s capable of being anything other than selfish.
Silently cursing Six’s life and hoping she tripped into a ditch after this, Mono inhaled a sharp breath and thought a few seconds for the right words. He then struggled for a few seconds more, and when Emmet looked at him expectantly, panic slowly rising on his face at his prolonged silence, Mono forced his voice to come out.
“Sh-she, uhm…” Mono stammered. “She didn’t have any missing limbs—I, uh, mean, her…body is still in one piece? I think? Elizabeth—”
“Your sister was fine, Emmet. She passed away in the least painful way possible, I can promise you that,” Six cut him off, then shoot him a look that said you clearly suck at this. Mono let her take the lead with a slight pout.
Not that he could contradict her anyhow. At least not when she was better at letting her guilt eat her alive skin to bone—if the said guilt was even there, that is to say.
Emmet nodded slowly at her words, the earlier panic Mono inadvertently had caused him shifting into a relief. Because the last thing you could tell someone who’d recently lost a family was that she died slowly and probably suffered from dehydration or starvation.
He knew it was best to let Six do all the talking from now on, lest he spilled something out of guilt again.
“And…where was it that you found her again?” Emmet asked. Mono stayed clear looking at Emmet before he felt obliged to answer. He thanked his lucky stars that Six caught on to his…issue with hiding emotions. She rolled his eyes at Mono and softened them when talking to Emmet.
“It was outside the city. In a place called the Wilderness,” Six told him. “I’m not sure how she got there since the gap between the two islands aren’t very close, but…you say that she was chased by a stitched-looking man, yes?” Emmet shook his head. “It’s possible there was a raft that was abandoned on the edge of the beach. And if the man really had been as determined to get her as you said, it’s also possible Elizabeth had no other choice but to escape the city.”
“You’re…you’re saying she made it out? A-alive?”
“Maybe,” she said, nodding. “It’s the only thing that would explain how she ended up in the Wilderness the way she did. And…the Wilderness isn’t as safe, either.”
“What?” Emmet sat closer, desperate now to listen. “What do you mean? Is there an adult there that lives there? One that hunts children like in the city?”
“Well—there was. Mono shot him with a rifle a bit after we found Elizabeth’s cage.” Then and there all attention went to him. Mono didn’t need to see to even feel it. He cast Six a wide-eyed look at her obvious lying because she clearly was an accomplice that helped him pull the trigger. To put the blame fully on him was entirely uncalled for unless…
She meant to lie to Emmet for his sake?
“You killed Elizabeth’s assailant?” Emmet asked him.
Oh. So, she did lie on purpose.
Mono turned to him with a clear of his already dry throat. “Y…Yeah.” From the corner of his eyes, he could see the proud but subtle grin on Six’s face. How sly of her. Cheeky witch.
“The Hunter likes to leave traps lying around the forest and from the looks of her untouched cage, maybe Elizabeth walked into one,” Six continued. She placed a firm hand over his shoulder. “I’m sorry you couldn’t find her sooner, Emmet. I really am. But you can’t blame yourself for what happened. She didn’t die because of you; she died because of the Stitched Man and the Hunter. Just remember that.”
“Still,” Emmet said bitterly, “if she managed to survive while in her cage, if I hadn’t wasted months going around the city to look for her, I could’ve—”
“You couldn’t have known,” Six said with a shake of her head. “It’s impossible for you to have known.”
Emmet’s lips parted once more to argue, but no words left him when he tried. Six was right after all. Nobody could have known that Elizabeth was on a different island altogether, no less a desperate brother going through the city region by region. And that realization made Emmet’s eyes water again, perhaps even accepting that his loss—Elizabeth’s demise—was already in fate’s design. Inevitable. Emmet hid his sadness with a turn of his head, once more conscious of the other two seeing him at his lowest.
Six had let go of his shoulders then, and she left him be. “We should get going,” Six said, fighting the heavy silence. “We still need that other key to leave this place.” She stood up from her place, snatching her plier off of Mono’s hands as she walked past him. Mono let her do so this time.
His gaze remained on the forlorn look on the boy instead. Emmet barely made a single move to stand, still staring off into one corner of the tiny cage around them. He saw Six look back, waiting for them by their made exit, her foot tapping. And then Emmet finally shifted, letting the last of his tears to fall as he forced himself to get a grip. He then stood from his place too, following behind Six while Mono…
He was the only one left that hadn’t moved.
He was the only one still immersed by Emmet’s tragedy, still the one who kept thinking on how he could make things right. He needed to make things right—no matter he knew what it’d cost him for his own plan.
“Go with him,” Mono said. Six and Emmet turned back to him as he told Six, “When we leave this place, you should go with him. Take him to the Wilderness and help him get to his sister.”
Six’s composure dropped. Emmet’s brows furrowed deeply.
“What?” Six said, then with a strange sense of urgency, she crossed back into the cage. “What did you just say?”
“Go with Emmet,” he said, standing up. “He needs closure, Six. The only way he’ll ever get to do that is if he sees his sister one last time. You remember where her cage is, right?”
“Yes, but—”
“Good, then you can lead him there and go back to your child-buffet ship. I can’t give you the shortcut like you wanted but at least—”
“Mono.” Her hand seized his arm, her nails digging into his sleeve. “This isn’t part of the plan. You said you needed me to help you to find Viola. You said that we were supposed to…” She didn’t finish that sentence. Six shook her head and released him harshly. “You need me to find her,” she said.
The corner of his lips perked up. “That’s a little egotistical of you, don’t you think?” When she did not show any signs of amusement, his grin faltered. “I can go on my own. Did it last time so…I’ll be fine doing it again. Besides, the only reason I had you come with me was just to mess with you anyway,” he said, shrugging slightly. “It’s not a big deal. I can save Viola by myself while you go help Emmet. Alright?”
Six stared at him, unconvinced. But when she sighed through her nose, her head turned slightly away, he couldn’t tell what she was thinking anymore.
“Fine,” she grumbled. Then glanced at him hesitantly. “I’ll…give you her locket once we’re out of this place.”
“Thanks—”
“Wait,” Emmet interrupted, rushing to their side with a frown. “I don’t need you to go with me, Six. You’ve told me where she is already so…so I can look for her myself. And—and plus, this isn’t what we agreed on anyway, right? We agreed to help each other to find Mono and my sister, and that if either one of us couldn’t find them in time, we’d just help the other survive through life—!”
“That’s certainly not happening Emmet,” Mono said firmly. Emmet faltered, his shoulders sagging.
“What…?”
“I can’t let you follow even if you decide to stick with us. I’m sure Six forgot to mention this,” he said, shooting a look at the girl, “but we’re heading to the Signal Tower once we leave. At least…I am heading there.”
“The Signal Tower?” Emmet said, nearly horrified just by uttering the name. “But…why would you want to go there? You can’t go there. That place is filled with evil things—!”
“I know,” he deadpanned. Mono sighed when the boy flinched. “I know what that place is capable of but…I need to go there. It’s the reason why earlier I told you I’d be parting ways. I need to…save someone.”
“…Viola, isn’t it?” Emmet said, face softening mimicking his own.
Mono nodded and hummed. “Emmet, please go with Six. Go see your sister after this place. While I know I can’t return Elizabeth’s hat back to you, I know I can give you the chance you never had to say goodbye to her.” He smirked then, leaning in close as he cupped his hand beside his mouth. “Also if I’m being honest, I need someone to get rid of Six for me. She’s driving me insane, as you already know. ”
“What?” Six chimed in, a scowl rested on her face.
Meanwhile Emmet’s lips twisted into a smile slowly, snickering without meaning to. Then he asked again, “Are you…sure about this, Mono?”
“Positive.” He handed out a hand to Emmet and returned his smile. “Friends?”
Emmet stared at his hand for a few seconds more before shaking it firmly in his own.
“Friends,” Emmet said before they let go. “Thank you. For this. I’ll never forget it,” he added.
Mono laughed, waving him off. “Well, don’t thank me yet. You’ll second-guess it all when you’re receiving Six’s hourly smacks like I told you about—MOTHER OF GOD!” Pain shot up and down the back of his skull. Six had hit him with the edge of her plier.
“WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?” Mono cried, rubbing his head so fast that it could produce electricity. “Are you trying to knock me out too?”
“Oh, I’ll do worse than that!” She hit him again with the plier. Mono cowered, shielding himself with his arm as Six yelled what the hell have you been telling Emmet about me? with every strike.
Emmet let his smile show at the sight. Six snapped her glare to him and his smile vanished instantly, gesturing for her to continue her session of beating the hell out of Mono.
Mono, on the other hand, felt betrayed by the boy. To think they’d just shook hands. Emmet was practically throwing him to the wolves! Yellow wolves, in this case.
After one last hit with the plier, and Mono feeling a headache coming, he dared not even glance at Six.
“This is why I didn’t want to give you that plier back,” he said then grumbled, “Stupid, ugly yellow troll.”
“What did you say?” Six said.
“I said Emmet’s lucky to have you as a guide. Aren’t you, Emmet? Lucky?” He narrowed his eyes at Emmet. The boy paled slightly but kept his amusement from earlier well hidden. He knew better than anyone now that he could easily be next to face Six’s wrath. Mono hoped that he did somewhere along their journey back to the Wilderness.
“Let’s just find that other key, yes?” Emmet quickly said as he crossed and walked out of the cage with a much better spirit. Six shot one last glare at him, raising her plier as though warning him of what nightmares she could bring him with it.
Mono gulped and rolled his eyes.
It’s not like she can scare me with that thing.
That second key turned out to be a pain to look for.
While they’d managed to leave the greenhouse with one key, and everyone alive and unscathed—that is, with the Nanny being merciful for some horrifying reason to not jump at them as they slipped out from the cage—one problem remained. The second key was nowhere to be found. Six had turned out to be right with her earlier assumption: the Nanny wouldn’t put the two keys at the same place. Emmet had muttered curses under his breath to that woman. Mono had wanted to rip his own hair in frustration.
And Six’s hair too since she jinxed it.
Now with Emmet also as stumped as they were regarding where to find the last key, they had no other choice but to switch their surroundings. That meant going up at least three floors with an elevator that ascended much too slow for anyone’s preferences; and the way the corridors above became darker and darker with every passing floor, this agonizing speed they were forced to wait for helped little to squelch the dread growing in the pit of his stomach. Or to put it more directly: this sucked.
“Why are we going to the highest floor again?” Six’s voice cut through the creaking and groaning of the elevator, indicating how old it was and for it to carry the weight of three children was a testament that the machinery had been used often enough. He’d give one guess about that who.
“Well—” the elevator creaked louder. Emmet grumbled in annoyance. “Well, it’s the only floor that this ancient thing will take us to. Any other floors in between are just…left abandoned.”
“Is there a basement?” Mono asked, glancing around the shaft.
Six made a face at him. “Why on Earth would you want to go to the basement of all places?”
“I don’t. I’m just asking if this place has any,” he said, returning the side glare.
“Nice try, but that’s practically you suggesting we pay it a visit, Mono. I know you. You don’t casually ask questions without unconsciously having a suicidal plan that involves the thing you’re asking about.”
“What the—all I asked was if there’s a basement, Six— ”
“There’s no basement here,” Emmet chimed in quickly before another simple question became a heated argument, then into attempts at murdering one another. He cast a nervous glance at the two and looked back ahead. “I can assure you; there aren’t any basements here. At least none that anyone could get into so…no need to be at each other’s throats for it.”
At Emmet’s words, Six sent Mono a smirk of victory. Victory in what, he did not know exactly, but he disliked the fact that she was being all smug about it to him. Mono narrowed his eyes at her, gritting his teeth. You little backstabbing shi—
The annoyance and anger died down at the sound of a delayed ding! The elevator had ceased its movements, catching the children’s attention as they stared into the abyss-like path ahead of them. Creepy was not enough to define the sight of it. Before Mono could open his mouth to say something about them walking into the darkness blindly, Emmet took out his—Elizabeth’s—flashlight to cast a dim glow over their way.
It revealed the state of the place just as he had imagined it so:
Utterly in ruins and long abandoned.
At the highest floor was only one room: the attic. With the slow wave of the light, they witnessed the damage that’d been left decades prior—rotting walls with black mold from the top of one corner stretched to nearly half of the ceiling, leaving a musty and stale smell in the air and having it trapped as all the windows were tightly shut and blocked with thick curtains. The floors creaked loudly under their feet, layers of dust that accumulated over the years either on the ground or particles of them floating in the air, entering their already polluted lungs with every breath they inhaled. Mono coughed with a hand over his mouth. Indeed, this place would invite a respiratory problem in the long run if one stayed inside for too long.
He prayed strongly they could leave quickly and please, please, please to whatever good higher being that’s listening, let the key be in here.
All three flinched and jumped when another heart-attack-inducing ding cut through the eerie silence. And when the small red glow from the elevator began to descend until it was out of sight, Mono felt the dread in him slowly take over his whole body. If that elevator was already malfunctioning, going up and down on its own, encountering a monster here would be akin to offering their life to the reaper on a platter. Furthermore, the time it took for the elevator to just pass a floor—oh, he really might just die here.
Viola needs my help. Six still owes me a genuine apology. Emmet has to see his sister one last time.
Those thoughts—his three reasons to not give up and die easily—made him swallow down his fear and take a brave step forward. Of course, the first step he took ended up being a wet, mushy floorboard.
Mono recoiled with a muted yelp, bumping into Six’s back that she fell forward to her knees. Emmet’s light instantly shone over them, startled. Six fell on the same rotten ground, but unlike him, she barely showed disgust over it.
Or perhaps her ire had canceled the ick entirely.
“Watch it!” she yelled in the softest voice she could. Mono gulped and looked away with a hand rubbing the back of his neck. He opted for the best possible solution that called for a situation such as this:
He walked away and pretended it never happened.
Six’s scowl deepened as she scoffed at his audacity, waving Emmet’s hand away when he offered it to her. She, too, walked the other way, nearly stomping and grumbling something about Mono’s stupidity that never ceased to amaze her. Not that he took offense in that moment— no, no they had a key to find. Although, that didn’t necessarily mean that he couldn’t talk behind her back with his other comrade, which he was almost certain was developing the same kind of opinion when it came to Six.
“So, I take it she gets a little grumpy when not fed?” Emmet whispered to him, his eyes following the yellow raincoat girl as she walked deeper into the room by herself.
“That’s Six, alright.” Mono did the same and watched Six pull apart one of the curtains to let the moonlight in. The place became slightly more tolerable after that. He leaned in to whisper. “One tip: don’t challenge her into anything. You’ll end up getting whooped whether you win it or not. Actually, the best thing you could do is just avoid contact altogether. Play it safe, if you know what I mean.”
“Is she really that bad as you say?”
“The worst,” he said with a laugh. “And also be careful if you ever had to camp a night with her.”
“Oh? Something happened?”
“Aside from her snoring like a dog, she’s not great at waking someone up. One time she had my nose pinched just so I’d run out of air and wake up—true story, by the way.”
“I can hear you two idiots gossiping about me,” Six shouted to him, her hands on her hips. “Are you done with your lame storytelling, Mono? Because I think Emmet would appreciate just as much knowing that you were the reason I was caught by the Hunter.”
Instantly his face warmed, his eyes widened and smile gone. Emmet turned to him in surprise.
“You…you were?” Emmet asked, as though switching sides.
“Oh yeah, he definitely was,” Six said before he could defend himself, walking up to them with a punch-worthy smirk. He wanted to punch her so badly. “In fact, he was also the reason I came back into the city I’d sworn never to return to. But Mono here…he forced me and scared me into following him, saying that I’d die if I don’t come with.”
Again, Emmet shot him an incredulous look. Mono could only glare at Six.
“For the record,” Mono said after a long pause, “I did make it up to you by saving you from the cabin. And to clarify, I most definitely did not say that you were going to die if you didn’t follow me. She’s lying, Emmet.”
“Oh, as if you didn’t just lie yourself. We both know you didn’t originally go to that cabin just to rescue me,” Six said, scowling.
“Hah. That’s…that’s nonsense. Of course I was.”
“Please, Emmet might’ve bought that, but not me. You seemed entirely lost when you got me out of there—like it wasn’t part of your plan at all to find another kid trapped under someone’s house,” Six said. “And the one thing that confirmed it all: even after getting me out, you still went looking for hats in that basement!”
He felt his cheeks become hotter and hotter when she called him out. “Because…I was already there! That—that was my goal anyhow! What, just because I’ve got an extra person tagging along, I have to abandon everything else?”
“It’s just a hat, Mono. An old, ugly, racoon-looking—!”
Mono gasped, offended. “You take that back.”
“I will not,” Six spat. “And I’m glad I stole it away from you and buried it while you were sleeping.”
“You…you said a Nome took it!”
“What Nome, Mono? We were literally in the middle of a thunderstorm for those things to even appear. I’m only lucky you were stupid enough to believe me.”
One of his eyes twitched, his fists clenching so tightly that his knuckles were white. Six noticed and thought it to be funny.
She huffed amusedly. “What? Can’t take it when I’m right?”
“That’s it. You’ve crossed the line, you dirty soul-sucking witch—!" Just as quickly he pulled his sleeves up and readied his fists, he felt a hand over his chest, steadying his temper and desire to give the best uppercut to the best liar the world had ever seen.
Emmet held him back with a struggle of his own as Mono thrashed slightly with the intention to lunge after Six. And if he hadn’t gotten in the way he might’ve just been successful in doing so.
“Okay—cut it out you two,” Emmet chided as Mono began to calm down. And when he finally did, the boy released him and stood between the two of them. “I get that I don’t know the full history about what happened with you—”
Mono scoffed. “Maybe I should just spill it then—"
“Shut up or I will cut you—"
“But,” Emmet raised his voice over the two, “that does not mean I don’t get to remind you both that we’re still on a time-limit here. The Day Care doors are locked by two keys and we’ve only found one. We’ve wasted enough time already in the greenhouse. Let’s not waste anymore over something that can be settled after we get out of here. Agreed?”
Each let out a grumble and hum of their own. That was all Emmet needed as an answer.
“Good,” Emmet said, and like the older brother that he was, he ended the argument between the two of them with: “Now. Apologize to each other.”
Six’s eyes widened first, followed by Mono’s.
“You’re kidding me, right?” Six said and scoffed. “He clearly started it—”
“Then he’s apologizing first. Doesn’t mean you’re excluded, Six. You also hurt his feelings, didn’t you?” When Six said nothing to protest, Emmet turned to Mono expectantly. “Come on. Let’s hear it.”
“What?” Mono said, baffled. “M-me? To her? ” Emmet nodded firmly and that felt like a kick to the gut. Mono groaned in exasperation, looking away again. In the name of not wasting anymore time, he supposedly might as well just get this over and done with.
“I’m…sorry for what I said,” he said begrudgingly, the words becoming softer and softer. Yet in the silence of the attic, even the lowest whispers could echo. “I shouldn’t…have said you snore like a dog.” Even though it’s true. “I was only being mean.”
Emmet gave him a proud smile before turning to Six. He waited patiently for her to say her piece too.
Six rolled her eyes openly at him, also looking away before mumbling a very quiet, “Sorry.” Then her eyes slowly lifted up to him, softening. “I should’ve told you about burying your hats.”
“Wait—what?” Mono said, confused. “You buried more than one? Were you the reason most of them went missing—?”
“Good work, you two,” Emmet said, placing a gentle pat over their shoulders. “Feel better now?” Six rolled her eyes again but said nothing to deny it. Mono hummed reluctantly.
Although, it did make him feel warm when she apologized. That is until she admitted to stealing and burying more than one of his hats. She was lucky Elizabeth’s rain hat had been lost because of the cruel winds of Pale City—or else Emmet would have attacked her too. Honestly, he’d happily let him if that happened.
“Okay,” Emmet nodded to himself. “Then let’s continue looking,” he said as left their side to do as he told them, the light that he brought with him gone until only the moon shone over the old friends.
Mono and Six stood there for a few seconds more, each staring into the other’s unreadable eyes, their true emotions flickering every now and then. Six was the first to snap out of it.
“I’m not…actually sorry. Just so you know,” was what she told him, but her face—her soft, gentle voice—said otherwise.
He could only huff with the smallest grin, already knowing the girl would opt to save her pride over anything else.
“Me neither,” he said. “Best we don’t tell Emmet about it, huh?”
She snickered. “At least he didn’t pull our ears like Viola did. Come to think of it,” Six said as she began to walk away to her own path.
Perhaps it was a good thing they were splitting ways after the Day Care. He was already failing to fight the warmth in his heart and the grin that only grew when she wasn’t looking.
Another hour became two as the children walked nearly the entire floor. Since the highest one, or the attic as Mono would like to see it as, was one floor on its own, searching for the key by group was no longer practical. They mutually decided that it would be faster if they split up once more, each covering parts of their own. While Emmet had left to search on the right side of the attic, Six in the main entrance, Mono found himself in the furthest back of the attic. Was it the best choice? Absolutely not. Was it dark there? Pitch black as the Tower’s abyss. But would he back down from that challenge? If he hadn’t any other options, yes, he would.
The back of the attic had far worse smell than whatever mold that grew in the main entrance. Mono had climbed over the windowsill just to shove the curtains aside and let that natural light from the beautifully disastrous weather of Pale City in. And one thing to note, the winds from the current thunderstorm nearly pushed him forward when he opened the window slightly ajar. If he hadn’t already held on to its frame like it was someone’s hand, he would’ve been met with an at least 40 feet drop. Perhaps this building was taller than it seemed from the outside. What could they even need in one Day Care Centre?
Mono shuddered and climbed back down to the floor, backing away from the window and ignoring the fact that he almost just died. Now with somewhat a reliable light from the outside world, the attic didn’t seem as looming as it’d been. Of course, the state of it was not any different from the rest aside from more growth of fungus and more boxes filled with different things strewn about like they’d been left in a rush. That and the littering bones of what he hoped didn’t belong to any children that were up here. Mono gagged slightly.
Animal bones, just animal bones. The Nanny must’ve had a cat that she forgot to feed, or…maybe a cat that she fed on.
Mono shook his head and dug his hands in one of the boxes, rummaging through it in hopes to find the second key. Dust was up on his face when he did so. He coughed and pulled out the one solid thing that felt like a key.
A remote.
Huh. Out of mindless curiosity, he clicked the red button on the centre of the remote. Instantly, a sharp buzz of static bombarded his ears, a bright light glowing in the dark corner. Startled, Mono pointed the remote to the television and switched it off with a click of the button. The silence returned with the darkness until the only thing in his ears was his own rapid heartbeat.
He sighed in relief, nonetheless, before throwing the remote back inside the box. He couldn’t afford being near the television after what happened at the beach. It was too risky. Being brainwashed by the Transmission was one thing but having Six and Emmet pull him out from that state—he’d get a scolding from the former and a million questions from the latter.
Mono went to the next box, this time, inhaling a sharp breath before opening it. Dust went into his eyes instead. He wanted to burn this place to the ground.
Inside were no longer junks as before but…pictures. Framed so properly that it felt out of place with the ruins of the attic, however, fitting as it became the last memory of what the Day Care used to be.
He held up one of the pictures from the box, swiping away the dust until two faces were seen. The picture, only black and white, showed a tall man with an old-fashioned mustache, shaking hands with a woman with short hair, her attire all too identical like the one in charge of this place. The woman looked up at the man with bright eyes, and a gentle motherly smile that would make any child feel safe under her watch. Behind the two adults, however, was the Day Care Centre, new and in its glory as a huge sign above them wrote: WELCOME TO THE DAY CARE CENTRE. He remembered seeing the same sign in the present time—rusted, fonts and colours faded into nothing.
This picture must be during the Day Care’s opening. And that woman…
It must be the Nanny.
Mono studied the picture with a sagging frown, wondering how the corruption had turned such a kind-looking woman into a malicious monster that displayed children's body parts instead of taking care of them like she did before The Signal Tower emerged. He wondered if somewhere in these adults that’d lost their minds to the Transmission, there was still a small part of their hearts in them. A small part of their consciousness that had merely given up fighting for control against their new personal parasite. He wondered if the woman in the picture cried every time her corrupted mind willed her to spill another blood of an innocent child.
Mono placed the picture back inside and rummaged through the box once more. This time he brought out multiple pieces of paper that were folded over the other. He flipped them opened, lightly snickering when seeing the doodles and drawings of the children back then. They were all so innocent as he flipped through one by one. The drawings and letters showed him the life before The Signal Tower—all the cute doodling of a flower, friends that they’d made, holding hands with the Nanny as hearts were drawn around them like polka dots. But when he flipped again, gone were the innocence of its owner as crayons smudged and streaks of red lines messily were drawn over the eyes. The colours chosen too had shifted into a darker palette. And the small messages left behind, written poorly but intelligible, sent shivers down his spine, the papers trembling in his grasp.
Something is wrong with the adults.
He turned to the next.
She gets angry if we call for her. She never gets angry before.
The next.
I tried to leave but the nanny locked me in.
And next.
She’s cut off all the electricity and food supply.
And next.
My friends are missing one by one. The nanny’s eyes started glowing too.
Until the last page, his face was drained of colour.
Everyone’s gone.
A hand on his shoulder. Mono jumped in his seat with a small scream, something buzzing from underneath the skin of his palm ready to be unleashed to whatever had crept up behind him. Yet when the soft moonlight shone over a pair of bright blue eyes, Mono felt his fears die down on its own.
“Emmet,” Mono sighed, one hand to his chest. “It’s just you.”
“I…thought I heard something earlier. Just wanted to check up.” Emmet eyed him carefully, a mix of concern and surprise of his own. Perhaps he too had been startled by Mono’s reaction over a single tap on the shoulder. “I’m sorry if I scared you—”
Mono shook his head with a smile, waving him off. “It’s fine. It isn’t your fault. I was already a bit disturbed by this place anyway, so,” he said, sighing another shaky breath, “it’s all good. Did you find the key?”
“No, unfortunately. I’m afraid there’s only junk and years-worth of clutter here.” His eyes dropped to Mono’s hand. “What’s that you have there?”
Mono instantly followed his gaze, to the slightly crumpled pieces of paper he’d felt unease for. “Like what you said. Junks.” Mono handed Emmet the papers. The blonde boy took it with the same curiosity, flipping through each page as his brows furrowed deeply through it all.
“I wonder what the Nanny was like,” Emmet said after a while, looking over the drawings. Then to him. “Before she became what she is, I mean.”
“I saw a picture of her shaking hands with some mayor. She looked nothing like that sadistic monster, though.”
Emmet laughed under his breath as he handed him back the papers. “I suppose all of them looked nothing like sadistic monsters before the transmission.” Mono chuckled too, throwing the papers back into its place.
“If I may ask, Mono,” Emmet said then, “you say you’re…saving someone from the Signal Tower?”
Mono felt his face falter. Just a little. He turned his back to him and went through the other boxes. “Yeah. I know what you’re trying to say. Six hasn’t failed to remind me every time she gets the chance to.” That the Signal Tower is dangerous, and you’ll end up dead trying to save someone who’s likely also dead. “I’m not changing my mind on it, if that’s what you’re trying to do.”
“Not at all,” Emmet said, surprising him. “As much as I feared that place, I’d fear more losing someone I love. More than anything. I’d understand your reasons.”
“Well. Love is a strong word,” Mono said, huffing. Then he pressed his lips into a thin line, movements slowing. “Viola is just…someone I owe a lot to. If it hadn’t been for her, I wouldn’t be where I am now. I wouldn’t be out and free from the prison I was locked in. So, it’s only right if I return the help when she needs it. No matter how dangerous the place she’s in. No matter the chances of getting myself hurt, or worse, dead. I have to get her out of there before it’s too late—I have to.”
When he was met with silence and only the thunder booming outside, Mono felt the guilt claw its way back into his already heavy heart. Had he said the wrong thing? Had Emmet been offended by his last comment? Had he been upset that he left him there without him even knowing it? After a few sharp breaths, he looked over his shoulder and found all of his thoughts had been wrong.
Emmet was there rooted in his place. He was not angry, not upset, not at all offended. Instead, he smiled so sadly, and breathed softly as he kneeled to the box closest to him. And he began to help Mono look for the last key.
“You remind me a little too much of myself, Mono,” Emmet said softly, but his attention was to the task at hand. Mono watched him with furrowed brows. “When I first met you, I’ll be honest, I wasn’t actually too thrilled aside from the fact that Six said you could help me.”
“Huh. Really?” Mono smirked at the confession. Emmet chuckled and glanced at him with a smile.
“You kept on insisting I was a murderer and acted like I was one. What’d you expect?” Emmet said.
“Well forgive me for being careful,” Mono retorted. “You were just too nice that I found it hard to believe—no offense.”
“None taken. I did think you were uptight if that makes you feel better.”
Mono laughed. Actually laughed. “Me, uptight? Oh, pal, you have the wrong person to assume that.”
“So, I guess Six wins that title instead?”
“First place, globally.”
A laugh from Emmet as he added, “I’ll never understand your relationship with her. I mean, I fight with my sister as many times as you do, but we still stuck around each other because of, well, blood relations. For someone who’s said to be going through a fall out between friends, you two sure don’t seem to act like so.”
“What are you talking about? We argue constantly. You’ve seen her trying to knock me out with that plier of hers— the hourly smacks.”
“Which you let her.”
“Well, yeah, because she’s the one with the weapon. I was defenseless the whole time!”
Once again, Emmet only shook his head in amusement. “Sure. But that doesn’t defeat my point, Mono. You still stuck around each other, don’t you?”
At that, Mono let his mouth close and whatever quip was ready on his tongue to die in his throat. Just because he and Six stuck to each other since the start of the mission didn’t mean they weren’t still holding grudges, did it? That couldn’t mean none of them had hostile reactions towards one another. Sure, he did let Six smack his head a couple of times in favour of shutting him up—let her bandage his wounded arm, help her out of the Nanny’s trap they’d set off, scolded her when she stupidly used her powers on him when she wasn’t supposed to use them in the first place, suggested she find real food to satiate her hunger issue, blasted an entire family made of cotton and cheap fabric and dragged her into the safety of the raft as they left the Wilderness—but that was only it. Nothing more, nothing less. He hated Six with every fibre of his being, mind and soul. And he was certain Six thought about drowning him in a drain every now and then.
Because that was their relationship now. They weren’t friends anymore; they were two people who detested one another. He hated her.
He hated when she looked up at him with softened eyes, hated when that made his heart flutter and his lips tugged into a softer smile. He hated her so much that he was willing to push her into a chasm to make it all go away.
Just because they stuck around each other this long didn’t mean things were fine between them.
Right?
“I guess…” Mono mumbled reluctantly, his focus back to the boxes. “But we wouldn’t be sticking around each other for long. She’s taking you to the Wilderness, remember?”
This time it was Emmet who hadn’t returned an answer. After a beat and a small sigh, Emmet nodded sadly and replied with a quiet, “Yes. That’s right.” He held the edges of his box firmly in thought, then switched to the next one. “I know I’ve asked you this down in the greenhouse, and you’ve answered me,” Emmet said, “but…are you really sure? About…having Six go with me instead of you?”
“Yes,” Mono said. “Why do you ask?”
“Well, for one, you’re heading to the Signal Tower,” Emmet replied truthfully. “And the other thing is…I’m not even sure myself if I want someone to help me. If it means putting someone else in danger.”
“But…don’t you want to see Elizabeth again?”
“I do, but—” Emmet stopped to sigh, turning to him. “But I don’t want to put you in danger just because. After all, the only reason I’m alive was because Elizabeth insisted she follow me. If she hadn’t—if I had been alone that time—I’d be the one chased by the man. I may as well be the one in her place now. So that makes me think: what if you found yourself in a similar situation as I did while on your way to the Tower? Six is much older than Elizabeth was, and from what I’ve seen of her, I know she’s far more capable than what she let on. If you stumbled across an obstacle, she could very much help you.” He returned his eyes to his box, searching inside again. “At least…that’s how I feel about this.”
“You aren’t wrong,” Mono said, moving on to the next box. “It is…assuring to have someone with you in case something goes wrong. And as much as I’d want nothing more than to associate myself with her, I can’t deny the times she’s helped me as I’ve helped her.
“But I promised you I’d help you find your sister. Despite it was Six who made that promise on my behalf, a promise is still a promise. I’ve done a lot of bad things just to survive in this messed up world, and yet, what I did to Elizabeth had nothing to do with survival. I could’ve just left her as she was and let her be in peace. I could’ve just walked away without her hat or, better yet, found other ones. I didn’t. I went against all morals again for a piece of accessory, not knowing the true value it had, only to lose it on one stormy day. I couldn’t be much different than a monster if I thought that it was alright. I was disrespectful towards my own kind.”
Mono closed the box when nothing was found. The key wasn’t here, it seemed.
“I guess what I’m saying is, Emmet,” he said, standing up. “I don’t want to feel like a monster anymore. Sure, I’ll be on my own if I do come across an obstacle; but I’ll be fine. There’s always going to be help if fate allows it. There’s always going to be other people who I’d pass by in the city. But the ones who know where Elizabeth is, though, are two. Cut me out of the equation and only Six is left. So, go see your sister. Don’t waste this opportunity just because you feel bad.” He smiled at him softly and raised his brows. “Trust me, I’d know.”
At that, Emmet smiled back at him, chuckling and reassured.
“If you say so,” Emmet said as he too closed his box. He stood up. “Thank you, Mono. Once again.”
Mono barely had a word leave his mouth when a loud ding resonated in the air, yet only this time, familiar clacks of high heels followed in the main entrance. He and Emmet shared a look of horror as their minds synced.
The Nanny is in the same place as Six.
Before the clacks of her heels sounded again, Mono had been the first to move, stealthily using the boxes as his cover to get closer to the main entrance. He heard Emmet shuffle beside him when he crouched behind a box. But his eyes were solely fixed on the looming woman in the centre of the room.
The Nanny walked to the curtain Six had opened and shoved it close until its hinges screeched above. And before the moonlight was cut out unfairly, darkness returning to its rightful place, a glimpse of bright yellow shifted just nearby the windows, hiding too behind a fallen shelf.
It was Six, he knew. Never had he ever been so relieved to see that horrible raincoat of hers in his line of sight. But the same relief was easily crushed by the Nanny’s presence being near her. It did not calm his poor heart at all when the woman began to sniff the stale air, searching scents as though she was a bloodhound. The Nanny knelt to the ground, nearly crawling as she sniffed around the shelf. Mono flinched and barely took a step when a steady hand stopped him by his shoulder.
He turned to Emmet, scowling. Emmet only shook his head to warn him of the repercussions. He knew the boy was right. Leaving himself in the open would get the Nanny off Six’s back, sure, but it’d guarantee that she’d be on his own. And Emmet’s.
This realization left him in utter dread as he was only helpful to watch—watch the yellow disappear fully behind the shelf, watch the Nanny’s face inched closer and closer to her and her sniffs becoming much louder and more determined. They had to do something. They couldn’t just let the woman get her. He felt the buzz tingling under his fingertips again, the familiar sensation growing warmer and warmer the more persistent the Nanny was.
The woman did not proceed.
No matter that she had likely caught Six’s scent being there, she did not proceed just as last time. Instead, the Nanny pulled herself back and up to her feet. Mono and Emmet dived back behind their box. And they relied solely on their ears for the Nanny’s movements.
Her sharp footsteps made him shiver on the inside, and the longer she paced around the attic, the worse the feeling was. It was until the elevator let another ding again, until the doors closed and the clacking of the Nanny’s heels had ceased, was when Mono finally let himself heave the dirty air out from his lungs.
Soon, the elevator’s groan too had stopped entirely, its dying ding echoing from below to the top floor, indicating that the Nanny had stepped out from the shaft downstairs.
They waited a few seconds more to be safe. After deciding that it was, Mono and Emmet mutually agreeing it to be so with a nod, they stepped out from their hiding and ran quietly to the fallen shelf.
“Six,” Mono whispered, peeking his head to see her sitting with her arms hugging her stomach. His heart almost dropped. “Six, are you—”
“I’m fine,” she answered coldly, standing and leaving her coverage. Her arms were still wrapped around her body.
“We didn’t find any key here. You?” Emmet asked just as Mono parted his lips.
Six shook her head weakly, turning her eyes away. “Me neither,” she said, and grumbled. “This attic was a waste of our time.”
“The next place I could think of is the Nursery,” Emmet said as though to reassure her. “Although, that place is quite empty aside from the cribs.”
“You think the key could be in there?” Mono asked.
“It's worth a shot. Where else could that key be if not in the Day Care Centre—”
Something echoed above them at a steady rhythm. Like nails tapping against metal, they tap tap tap so softly in unison with the rain against the windows. Despite the storm booming outside, muffled out by the curtains, that clear sound of cling was unmistakable. Everybody knew it as the three became rigid, pale, and angry.
They needn’t to know that the thing above them was not a mere pipe making sounds of its own. As the sound persisted, so did the two pairs of glowing eyes on the ceiling. The Nanny had never left the attic. The elevator going down did not mean that the woman had left with it—no it meant that she had successfully deceived the three children once again; and they were to blame for repeating their mistake and underestimating the woman’s intelligence.
On the ceiling, the Nanny stood tall in perfect balance over the planks of the attic, staring down at them with her bright white orbs that made her whole figure barely visible in the dark. She’d waited for who knows how long up there, patient and challenged; and a key dangled between her fingers as though to return the challenge.
The second key.
An innocent giggle reverberated from the Nanny, her nails still tapping the key. It was to show that no matter if they found the keys, there was no leaving the Day Care Centre while she was alive. She closed her hand around the key tightly, and her smile widened at the children’s horror. And when she began to crouch over the planks, hands firmly gripping the edge as she leaned herself down—her eyes rolling over to him—Mono’s instinct acted before he decided it.
He pushed both Six and Emmet out of the way. The Nanny lunged down towards him like a cat after its mouse.
The ground shook as the Nanny fell over him, the boards around them breaking and creaking. Mono fell on his back and cried when the woman shoved her whole palm on to him, rendering him immobile and breathless as all air was pushed out from his lungs. Gritting his teeth, Mono sunk his nails into her skin and let the tingling buzz shift into a scorching one under his palm. He did not think and unleashed it under the woman’s hand. The faint blue sparked beneath. The Nanny growled in pain yet did not lift herself. Mono felt his body weaken with every passing moment that he was deprived of air.
He couldn’t breathe.
As much as he tried to, no matter how much he burned the Nanny’s palm, she only pressed him against the floor harder, her melted skin stitching itself back together just as its first layer tore open. Mono cried again, in anger and in fear. Her glowing eyes shone over him with an invisible weight, making his limbs heavy and heart slowing until his movements did too. He was running out of time. And when he realized that his senses had become numb, Mono felt his eyelids begin to drop; his powers begin to wane like a dying light.
Yet just as his brain was lulling into unconsciousness, the weight over his mind and body lifted off him so suddenly. The cold, musty air entered his lungs with a sharp inhale, his limbs returned to function, his senses un-numbed. And the darkness surrounding the attic had also been replaced by the flash of light. Mono blinked rapidly, needing his vision more than ever as he was seeing two’s of everything. However, it didn’t take him long to understand what had happened.
Shouts of a child bombarded his ears like an annoying siren, the colour yellow and a familiar face hovered above him. Déjà vu. This isn’t the first time Six’s face became the first thing I see when I open my eyes.
Why is it always her?
Does life hate me that much that I have to look into her eyes every time I almost pass out—
A slap resonated in the air. His head turned to the side as he groaned from it, his cheeks burning and his eyes immediately snapping open—refocused with internal ire. Yet when he met her with a scowl, a curse ready on his tongue, Six only grinned relieved.
“Good. Be angry,” Six said, pushing him slowly into sitting up. “That should wake you up.”
Indeed, like she said: Mono was angry. Annoyed. Just itching to return the slap back to her twice as painful. But one thing he couldn’t deny was that Six’s method had worked—he was awake more than ever now.
“I hate you,” he muttered under his breath as he let her help him stand. Mono staggered on his feet, and accidentally leaned himself a little too much towards Six’s smaller frame. He heard her growl at this. She never pushed him away, though, at least not until he finally caught his breath.
Things crashed in the distance. Their heads followed the Nanny’s irritated stomping, the same light that had flashed her eyes disappearing into another room, the further back of the attic. It took the Nanny to scream in sheer fury for him and Six to move. And it took the scream of a boy for them to run faster to the boy’s aid.
By the time they’d reach the back of the attic, the Nanny stood over the window he had left open. Emmet thrashed in her grasp in futility, his flashlight rolling on the ground and away. And when the Nanny pushed the window further until the winds of the storm blew past them, she stretched her arms outside. Mono’s eyes widened as Emmet’s feet dangled above the tall drop. Both of them, in horror, when the Nanny’s grip began to loosen finger by finger.
That was when Six shouted next to him with her hands reaching out. In seconds, shadows snaked from under floorboards and circled around the Nanny’s ankles like shackles. This darkness, in which Mono had seen and had warned her not to use, was strong. Strong enough to have caught the Nanny off guard and have her whole stance thrown back inside with them in the attic. Emmet was not so lucky. Just as the Nanny’s arm was inside the attic again, the woman quickly released the boy from her hold. Emmet screamed.
The boy screamed in sheer desperation to live, just barely catching on to the edges of the windowsill in time. Rain had poured down on him without mercy, drenching his clothes and hair. It soaked him from the top of his head to the tip of his fingers. And his grip on the edge started to slip.
“Emmet!” Mono ducked past the Nanny’s attempt to shove him back and ran towards the window. Six screamed behind him as she exerted her power over the woman, engulfing her limbs so tightly until her joint made an echoing crack. Those cracks of the Nanny’s bones continued as he got to Emmet. Mono didn’t need to see it to know Six was the cause of the woman’s cries of agony.
“Help me,” Emmet whispered, his own strength faltering. Mono caught on to his wrists just as Emmet lost his grip. It made him lurch forward towards the window at the shift of weight, tilting him ahead until the rain too fell on him. And the moment he saw the fear mixed with relief in Emmet’s eyes, the way his hands clung desperately to his own, memories of the bitter past came flooding in his mind at the wrong time. All that he saw in front of him was his own fearful face. Below them was not the streets of the Pale City but an abyss that threatened to swallow him whole. There was no rain but the sound of the constant buzz of the signal.
His grip tightened unconsciously. Everything else soon returned to its place—the thunder and rain, the streets, Emmet’s shivering form. He needed to save him.
Mono pulled the boy up with a tired grunt. He used all that he could of himself until Emmet’s feet could touch the edges once more, climbing in until finally neither of them was out in the rain. Emmet fell forward, sighing breaths after breaths, muttering gratitude after gratitude at the boy who had saved him. Emmet was in utter relief to be alive. Whereas Mono…
He felt as though a small piece of him had been returned. Like the wound he’d endured by Six’s blow had finally been sterilized. It wasn’t healed, of course, that wouldn’t be easy. But it did raise something within him. It made his heart light and his eyes sting with something else. That feeling lasted a few more seconds until Emmet’s voice brought him to reality.
“What the—” Mono followed his gaze before he listened to Emmet’s last word.
The Nanny was on the floor, unmoving and seemingly dead. Her four eyes were left open, her jaw slacking as though she’d screamed until her last breath. Her arms were bent unnaturally, limbs twisted so painfully as she laid on her side like a corpse. Black blood pooled from underneath the woman and more oozed out from the wounds that had her bones protruding out from her skin. The blood flowed slowly until it reached from under Six’s feet.
Six was heaving heavy breaths. She panted as though she was seconds from keeling over and dropping dead. But despite it all, he didn’t miss the way her eyes darkened at the gore she had created; the horror she had unleashed over the woman by her own hand. She did not lift her gaze from the Nanny, bloodlust in her stare as she remained so still aside from her chest going up and down. And it seemed like the longer she stared at the Nanny
The darker it was around her. The shadows loomed tall like silent audiences, growing higher until it reached nearly half of the place. Mono watched it all, only understanding half of Six’s powers. The most he’d ever seen was when she held the Hunter’s family down and failed. The creepiest he’d witnessed was when she sucked the soul of a Viewer until the man was only dried meat.
Yet whatever this was, whatever Six was showing them now was something new entirely.
This one felt dangerous.
He knew it to be so as he dared step after step into her created shadows. He could feel it himself when the same darkness tried to tug at his feet, however, far more gently. He felt it dance around his figure like a willing partner, hugging his back when he stood in front of her face to face. She still did not notice him. She still stared dead into the eyes of the Nanny. He had to do something to bring her back.
So with a gentle touch of his own, Mono shook her shoulders. He called her name softly until her eyes finally landed on his. Six flinched. She looked at him like she hadn’t been present in the last minute, like she’d never seen him approach her.
“Mono…” she whispered to him. And then she noticed Emmet, frozen by the window. She began to stammer. “Did…did he see—”
“No, not really,” Mono quickly assured, confused by his own sudden gentleness towards her. “All he saw was the aftermath. Even I didn’t see it,” he whispered back.
Six nodded at that, exhaling through her nose. Then she hesitantly raised her hand, and she hovered it over her shoulder. Mono caught on and let his hand fall to his side before she could remove it herself. That was embarrassing to say the least.
“The key is…in the Nanny’s hand,” Six told him, finally moving from her place. She pulled the woman’s hand without much fear, letting it fall on the ground with a soft thud.
A silver key laid wrapped around the Nanny’s crooked fingers. Mono kneeled beside it to get a closer look. It didn’t take long until other footsteps came approaching them to do the same, curious yet wary.
“What…happened?” Emmet asked as he eyed the Nanny’s sudden gruesome death. Then he turned to Six. “Did you…do this to her?” he asked again. Six stilled for a moment, and only took out her plier to pry open the Nanny’s stiff fingers. She never answered the boy. She never even looked his way. Although, the way her shoulders roll in discomfort and her cold standoffish behaviour towards Emmet told Mono enough that she was feeling
Afraid.
Afraid of being called out for the evil thing inside of her.
When it came to Mono, this fear of being hated was pointless since he himself had declared that he’d hate her until the end of time. Knowing that she had witch-like abilities would not change a thing about what he felt. In Emmet’s case, however, she and the boy never truly had complications with each other. They were not close but they were…mutually nice towards one another—or as far ‘nice’ would go for Six. So to have Emmet share the same hatred as Mono, it’d be an unimportant blow to her heart but a blow, nonetheless. After all, she was a child like them. No matter how cold or rude or how bloodless she was, Mono realized she only claimed to be so just to not get herself hurt. Or at least not reveal herself to be hurt. That was Six’s thing, wasn’t it? Putting up a stoic, emotionless front in favour of not seeming weak? Protect that fragile ego of hers by being harsh and aloof?
Perhaps he had observed Six a bit too much for him to understand it. And perhaps he should’ve kept his tongue on a tight leash rather than jumping to her defense…yet again.
“The wind must’ve pushed the Nanny,” Mono said. His comrades turned to him—one in surprise and the other in disbelief of the answer he received.
“The wind?” Emmet said. “You’re saying the wind did…all of this? Twisted her arms and everything?”
Well in the name of helping Six’s sucky reputation, it didn’t necessarily require him to provide Emmet with a logical explanation as to how the Nanny was deformed.
Although, a well-thought-out lie probably wouldn’t hurt.
“Yes,” Mono said with much conviction—despite it sounding very stupid in his head as it was in Emmet and Six’s. “I mean, I’m not saying the wind alone. She must’ve fallen really hard for her to break a few bones to this point. Isn’t that right, Six?”
Six looked up at him, wide-eyed and so lost. He had to clear his throat for her to understand his plan.
“Right. Yes, that’s what...that’s what happened,” Six said, mimicking Mono’s confidence slowly. She gave him a long glance that spoke a million words before turning back to Emmet, convincing the boy with her added , far better lies than his. Mono tuned their conversation out to calm his beating heart.
He took the plier from Six’s hand, which she allowed him to, and began to pry the Nanny’s fingers open in her stead. Six and Emmet continued to converse softly in the background—with Emmet asking Six questions after questions about how the Nanny ended up so badly with just a fall, and Six answering the boy like a pro and possibly gaslighting him into believing that she had nothing to do with the Nanny’s bloody state.
Mono smiled as he put himself to work, all the while listening to his companions chattering in this old attic like they hadn’t almost died. The key dropped to the floor soon. He sighed, crouching, arms rested on his knees. He glanced at the Nanny’s lifeless eyes, relieved that all of this Day Care nightmare was finally over. They could leave this place for good.
One of her eyes blinked.
Mono froze. He stood slowly from his place and stared at the Nanny’s face for long seconds. Nothing happened. The Nanny was still dead. Had he imagined it? Had his mind been utterly paranoid that they’d conjure something as startling as the Nanny moving?
He walked a step closer to the woman’s face, still unconvinced. Yet that was a mistake he should’ve seen coming. The Nanny’s opened her maw and tried to bite Mono. Emphasize on tried. Mono jumped away until he fell to his rear, backing away, heart leaping out of his chest. Both Six and Emmet directed their attention to the woman that was never dead.
The Nanny’s lips stretched ear to ear as each bent elbows, crooked limbs and damage Six had caused twisted back to its initial state with a sickening crunch.
Crack!
The bones that had protruded out of her fell back into place.
Crack!
The crooked fingers he’d pried with a plier reconnected until they became straight once more.
Crack!
Her neck made a full turn, her eyes never leaving the boy she’d wanted to capture since day one.
And the last crack! had been her whole body sitting upright. Her bent spine snapped rightfully. The blood from her wounds had stopped oozing out, leaving only stains of dried ones as her skin was stitched back together brand new. That brought him back to the Playroom—when he had bitten through the Nanny’s hand until she was bleeding profusely, and that same hand ceased its own bleeding in a matter of seconds. He remembered he’d kicked the Nanny in one of her eyes. He remembered seeing how the bite injury reopened like it never left. And most of all, he remembered how the wound disappeared again after the Nanny tended to her eyes.
That’s it. Her eyes. She needs her eyes to live.
“Mono!” Emmet’s scream snapped him back to reality. He looked up to see the Nanny’s fingers stretching to close around him yet
All that he felt was the hands that pushed him to the ground. He raised his head and saw Emmet in the Nanny’s grasp. Instead of him. The Nanny snarled at the boy for getting in her way once more, glowering and tightening her fingers around the boy. Mono reached his hand out to him, ready to reveal his own secret as the air around him fizzled and glitched. Six dropped to the floor and forced out the shadows to snake under the Nanny’s feet like before, flickering madly.
But neither succeeded in time.
Another crack sounded.
Blood had already begun to trickle down from within the Nanny palm until it dripped on the floor. Emmet’s movements became no more like that of a puppet without its puppeteer.
Mono felt something within him twist. Like a knife that had long been buried inside him was shoved deeper, twisted and removed in one single motion. It left him no time to prepare, no time to even process it. He hadn’t at all understood it when the Nanny finally dropped Emmet. And the thud it created, the thud that made him flinch and his heart plunge into something dark, Mono watched in disbelief as the boy laid unmoving from across him.
No.
Emmet couldn’t be…
He did not finish that thought. He refused to.
The Nanny smiled wide until her razor-sharp teeth were bared, as though victorious that she’d managed to take down 1 out of 3. It made his heart boil all the more when she kicked Emmet’s body to the side like he meant nothing—like he was an empty shell—only to bend forward to grab him once more. Mono had had enough. If she wanted to catch him so badly, then catch she would. He let the Nanny take him off the ground by the back of his collar. Screams of profanity sounded below. He could faintly hear the words Six shouted to him, reprimanding him for his stupidity and letting Emmet’s sacrifice for him be in vain.
But, of course, he would never let that happen. If he were to be caught dangling in the air by a monster, brought close to her face that he could feel her breath over him, he would at least do some revenge. As the Nanny fought against the weak shackles of Six’s dark power, she took a step forward easily with him still in front of her face, inspecting him victoriously.
Mono waited until her eyes glowed white, until the heaviness returned to drown him under. And he waited until his fury maxed out before tightening the plier in his hand and bringing it down to the glow.
The Nanny screamed bloody. Black blood oozed from where the plier had stuck in one of her eyes—the damage, irreversible. And just after, her healed leg snapped back into two; her hand injuries from before returned. Mono was released instantly as the woman bellowed on one knee, her good hand pressing against the assaulted eye.
Yet to say he was just released that quickly would be an understatement. The Nanny had thrown him against the wall in her fit of rage. The wall being Six.
Together, they tumbled backwards until their heads hit the floor; and while he had Six to soften his fall, it didn’t make his skull throb any less. Six grumbled something under her breath before she shoved him off her. Fair enough.
“What did you do?” Six asked with a pointed stare, glancing at the Nanny's broken leg and her wails of agony. “How did she—”
“Her eyes,” Mono finished with a pained grunt as he sat up. “They glow for a reason, Six. No matter how many injuries she sustained, as long as her eyes kept glowing, those injuries wouldn’t matter to her. We need to get rid of all four so the damage you caused her earlier comes back.”
“And how would you know if that would even work? What if we’re just wasting our time trying to ruin her eyes when we could just destroy her?” Stubborn, Six let the flickering darkness danced in her hands, ready to dismiss him as she stood all wobbly.
Mono grabbed her arms and said through gritted teeth, “You’re already wasting yours, Six. Look at yourself!” That made her still, her scowl softening. Even she knew he was right. “Listen to me. You’ve done enough damage to kill that woman,” he said. “All we need to do now is to make it permanent.”
Six glanced again at the Nanny. The woman had forcefully pulled out the plier from her eye, breathing heavily as the eye lost its glow. Her broken leg and hand remained broken.
“Fine,” Six said eventually, “we’ll do it your way.” Six threw her arms out to the Nanny and let the swirling particles fly past her hands. The same darkness engulfed the woman once more, yet this time it didn’t attack to cause harm. Instead, it circled around the Nanny’s torso and raised hand before slamming her face first to the floor. The Nanny yelped and bared her teeth, thrashing madly like a rabid dog under a leash.
Six stepped forward with a menacing aura, regardless of the furrow of her brows or the beads of sweat across her head. She clenched her fist and the Nanny was pressed further against the wood, her angry screams somehow muffled; constrained.
Six had given him the greenlight. This was his move to put an end to this once and for all.
With a power of his own, glowing faintly under his palm, Mono approached the Nanny until he was standing before her face once again. The Nanny, in her last attempts at stopping him, cast a powerful stare with her remaining three orbs, the heaviness raining down on them as he grimaced at the ache and Six lowering her arms. Mono fought all of it with his anger—his need to hurt the Nanny as she had with Emmet.
And he slammed his hand into the second eye.
The Nanny screamed in futility as her other arm and leg twisted and bent into a painful angle. Her eye burned away into black crisps like the one on her hand. It lost its glow; the heaviness subsided. Mono pulled back his hand and brought it down to the third one with more vigour. Another deafening scream. The Nanny’s neck bent.
His determination to kill her burned brighter now that only one eye glowed white, the rest all lost its ability to heal the Nanny and push the children back. This last eye of hers—Mono knew it would be for the Nanny’s life. One more use of his powers, one more scorching it until only her socket remained, then the Nanny would be no more. The Day Care Centre would finally lose its dictator and be free of its parasite.
He pushed out his energy until sparks of blue were under his hand once more, something akin to electricity coursing through his veins along the adrenaline. He was close to exhaustion, close to passing out himself with all the prior trauma the Nanny had caused on him.
But a loud grumble echoed to him, then came Six’s cries of pain as she fell to her knees, clutching her body.
The shackles around the Nanny dissipated into the air.
Panic and horror flashed over his eyes when the woman growled and used her good wrist to push herself up. Mono stretched his arm upward to her last eye in a fit of desperation. He missed. The Nanny dodged it and shoved him harshly with the back of her hand, once more sending him crashing against Six.
Six did not react angrily as she had before. She was too much in pain as she curled herself up on the floor, whimpering and crying. Mono quickly sat up beside her, gripping her shoulder with concern for her he didn’t realize he had. He felt fear in his heart—fear that they’d lost, fear the Nanny was going to kill them, fear that he could do nothing but watch Six cry during her hunger pang.
Mono looked at his hand, trying to wield the last of his powers out yet they flickered pathetically. Just as Six’s had. He’d exhausted too much. He’d reach his own limit.
The Nanny clacked her heels to bring her to their attention. Her last eye glowed alone amongst the bloody three and black stained around them. Her everlasting smile became a sneer. She walked to them slowly, purposefully, that each step was a step closer to his and Six’s end. And with Six clinging on to his sleeves, and him holding her as though a last means of protection, they could only watch as their failure became their demise.
Until
Something clicked and whined in the corner of the attic. Then static noise infiltrated, a brighter glow putting the Nanny’s single one to shame. The television let out another whine, unsteady the first few seconds yet the longer it went, the higher its pitch became.
As all eyes were quickly on it, they covered their ears just as fast. This sound was too much to bear, it could bleed ears and make eardrums burst in a matter of seconds. Mono held his hands tight over his ears, screaming yet no voice of his was heard. He turned to Six, seeing her doing the same; her brows scrunching and teeth gritting. He looked over at the Nanny, watching her suffer the same condition as them.
But her condition was far worse.
The Nanny’s jaw was wide open, presumably screaming until her throat was dry. With her twisted limbs she did whatever she could to cover her ears like the children had but barely succeeding. Her heels clack clack clack against the floor, pacing uncontrollably, smashing her own head against the walls as though it would make the noise cease. The whine only got higher. The Nanny smashed her head against the wall once more in desperation and recoiled from it. She clawed at her ears, her bloody eyes, her entire face—lines of new blood streaked past her cheeks to her chin and to her clothes. Nothing worked. The noise wouldn’t stop. The Nanny, nearly blind, limped backwards with her bent leg. She limped without seeing where she’d gone until the boxes behind her made her stagger back.
And the window that she had spread open welcomed her out.
The Nanny screeched and stretched her arms towards the attic in futility as she fell over the window. The television’s screen burst into shards just as her figure disappeared, leaving only the faint screams of the vile woman before her body finally hit the streets. Then finally everything was silent.
So utterly silent.
Mono stared at the window where the Nanny had fallen through. He watched the strong wind blow past the attic and to them until finally his skin shivered to his bones. He tried to think, use his tired mind and come up with a conclusion of what had happened, yet all that came to him was: the Nanny died. Not how she died, not why the television switched on by itself. Because in all certainty, Mono swore the television did not make such fatal whines when he switched it on by accident; and he definitely kept the remote back into one of the boxes. Boxes that the Nanny had tripped on.
“S…Six—“ Mono turned his eyes to her in his moment of shock, but something returned to take over.
Concern.
As much as he was in shock and disbelief of the Nanny’s death, Six felt shocked for reasons different than his. She stared wide-eyed, dreadful and utterly defeated at the window. She muttered something so indistinct to him while her head shook slowly. And one thing that made the most for his concern was her eyes that stared at the empty space beside the window. He followed her gaze only to look back at her confused.
Had she truly reached her limit, limit? To the point where she was almost looking at nothing, whispering to no one?
“Six,” he said. No response. Mono gently shook her shoulder until her shoulders tensed, her eyes snapping back to reality and to him.
“Hey,” Mono said, his brows furrowed. “What’s going on with you?”
She glanced back to the empty space, and then to him. Six shook her head. “Nothing. It’s nothing.” She waved him off when his concern persisted on his face, standing up and walking to the key the Nanny had left behind. Six picked it up and hugged it to her body.
“Mono, I’m serious, it’s nothing,” Six snapped when Mono only stared at her relentlessly.
He knew she was lying to him.
Nothing, she says? Nothing is not blanking out on boxes of junks and mumbling in fear as if the Nanny’s head was sitting atop it. Nothing is not staring off into space like the said space was a dead mangled body.
Those thoughts were close to be said out loud. But he bit his tongue, nonetheless. He swallowed every worry, every question, every suspicion, and every accusation down along with his momentary gentleness towards her. He hadn’t known why he cared so much lately. Six was still Six. A lying traitor. It shouldn’t surprise him now that she’d still resort to lying when things were bad.
Mono got to his feet with a curt nod, slightly disappointed by her answer. He didn’t know why he felt so.
“Let’s help Emmet up,” he said instead, walking to the boy without any more glances to Six. He didn’t need to look back to hear her follow behind.
Emmet was lying on his side by the time he and Six reached him. Mono knelt beside the boy and shook him as gently as he could, knowing the Nanny had hurt the boy not long ago.
“Emmet,” he whispered, patting his arm. “The Nanny’s gone; it’s safe now. We also have enough keys to leave this place so…you should wake up.” Emmet did not move. “Emmet—?” He turned the boy over and saw crimson soaking the sides of his shirt, his skin much drained than before.
“Emmet,” Mono said, unable to tear his gaze from the blood on the boy—the ribs the Nanny had broken from the inside, his punctured lungs. The blood around his lips that must’ve been from his attempts to breathe yet ended in failure as he could only cough and drown. And finally, his eyes.
They rested half-lidded. Asleep. Mono wanted to believe so strongly that Emmet had passed out. He wanted to tell himself Emmet only needed a couple of hours to regain his consciousness and soon they would leave.
All three of them would leave the Day Care Centre together.
But when a few seconds of silence became a full 60, he felt the cold truth poured over his head.
Mono slowly released his hand from the boy, his eyes stinging once more, his throat swallowing a lump that became harder to ignore.
“Why isn’t he waking up?” Six said, almost demanding him. He could still hear the panic in her voice no matter if she tried to hide it with her anger. “Mono, why isn’t Emmet waking up?”
“Six…”
The key in her hands dropped the floor; and so did she as she knelt beside the boy too.
“Emmet,” Six tapped on the boy's face. “Wake up, you fool.” When Emmet’s face only lulled to the side, still unblinking, not breathing, Mono watched as Six clenched her fingers for a moment before tapping his cheeks again. This time, much harder—much more desperate.
“Wake up! Wake up, idiot!” Six said, holding Emmet’s collar tightly in one hand, while the other shook and tapped the boy. The blood around his lips only slipped further down his chin. “I said wake up!”
“Six!” Mono snatched her wrists. “Stop it!”
She struggled and glared at him with puffy eyes. “He’ll wake up. I’ll make him wake up—”
“That’s not how it works,” he snapped back, “and you know it. Emmet’s gone, Six. There’s no point in trying.”
Her movements stilled. “Don’t say that. You of all people shouldn’t say that. You…” As her words die in her throat, Mono let go of her wrists, sighing as he looked back at Emmet. The boy he had just been friends with; the boy who was steps away from seeing his sister again; and the boy that time had failed on.
Mono wiped his eyes before the first tear escaped. And he cursed himself as he unclasped the other key off of Emmet’s waist belt, hating himself even more for taking something away from the boy once more.
“We should…we should go,” Mono uttered. Then he looked at Six, hardening his already crumbling heart for her—for the both of them. He stood up and hesitantly offered her his hands. It was not an act of friendship, nor was it a declaration he’d forgiven her wrongdoings to him; this was him putting all of the hatred aside for only a moment and becoming human. Sharing his empathy towards his companion who had also lost the same comrade he had lost.
When Six looked at his hand, teary-eyed yet confused, Mono nodded assuredly to his hand.
“Come on,” he said to her. Another moment passed by them like the cold wind until Six relented and reached up. Mono felt her hand squeezed his own as he pulled her to her feet. After that, she did not look at him, or at Emmet. She picked up the key she’d dropped and hugged it tightly as though it could comfort her from her own feeling of loss. She didn’t cry despite nearly doing so. All she did was take three sharp breaths, close her eyes; and finally she nodded to him, telling him she was ready to leave.
Mono returned her nod and agreed silently. Just as they began to walk a few steps, however, something rolled slowly from his peripheral. He stopped in his tracks, watching the flashlight roll back and forth by the wind, beads of rainwater collected on it as the storm persisted.
“Wait here a second,” he said to Six. “I’ll be right back.”
As Six stayed behind in her place, Mono hurried his steps to the flashlight and picked it up with his other hand. He then returned to Emmet’s side and knelt by the boy. Gently, Mono lifted Emmet’s stiff hands and placed the flashlight in the boy's grasp, closing his fingers for him around the hilt of the flashlight before resting it back to Emmet’s chest—to where his heart would be.
Mono sat there a few seconds, wondering if this would be enough for Emmet. To have something of Elizabeth’s close to him as he died, just as Elizabeth had something of her brother’s when she had heaved her last breath.
He closed Emmet’s eyes until they rested properly shut. Mono let a sad smile crept up his lips. Then he let a tear shed past his eyes eventually.
“Goodbye. Friend,” he whispered one last time. Soon, he took his key and gathered enough strength to return back to Six’s side, leaving the boy behind in the attic
And leaving the Day Care Centre.
Notes:
And that concludes the Daycare arc!
Fun fact, I've been wanting to kill Emmet ever since he was introduced, and have been postponing his death for like 3 chapters. Now he's finally gone...according to plan *laughs wickedly* But jokes aside, there's a good reason why I killed his character off. Which you will soon see :)
And quick shout out to ApathyAo3 for writing this amazing fic called Meat Between Her Teeth! If you wanna see Emmet die in a different way, you can read it here.
Also I will be taking a little break after this. Not a long one though, maybe a few weeks or so...
Thanks for reading!
Chapter 31: The Bunker
Notes:
Hello everyone! It's been a month and I've decided to start again with a Lady/Thin Man chapter.
The first part of the chapter happens in the past and the second part is a continuation of chapter 25 from the kitchen scene. Just thought you should know ;)
But don't worry, you'll know what I'm talking about...
Enjoy!
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
The Deep Forest was a safe area for most regions.
No televisions, no transmissions of signals, no Eye—the first two likely occurring in places so very far away from the Signal Tower or Pale City. It was why Thin Man and the Lady had agreed to live outside of the transmission circle. Good news was they’d be out of reach for the Eye to keep watch on them 24/7, tracking their every move and finding out their day-to-day plan or routine. They’d be completely free from the Eye’s controlling issue and the discomfort of being watched by hidden eyes.
Bad news was the whole thing actually never happened. Another bad news was he and the Lady were ‘attached’ to the Eye enough they had to be within reach despite the earlier agreement to have as much distance from the eldritch being as possible. The other, other bad news: the Eye had a leverage over their heads. One they couldn’t bear to risk the Eye using, and one they’d been feeling fear for over seven years.
“Are we there yet?” Viola’s voice sounded over the rustling of leaves and chirping cicadas. Thin Man glanced down at his daughter with a shake of his head, and a small chuckle.
“It’s barely been a minute since you asked me that,” he said as he led her by the hand through the thick trees. Then another pair of footsteps followed beside the girl.
“It’s barely been a minute since you two stopped talking,” the Lady said with a faux chagrin. She rolled her eyes and sighed exaggeratedly. “I really hope this is worth my time, Mono. I’ve got a lot of things in my head already.”
“Well, that’d certainly be the first, don’t you think?” He winked to Viola who snorted along.
The Lady glanced at him with a slight upturn of her lips. He’d caught it quick enough before she slid back into her mask of unfeeling. Lucky him.
“Insulting me in front of my own daughter. How classy,” she said as she followed him. “Looks like you’ve earned yourself a night sleeping in the basement, hat-freak. I’ll warn you it’s cold down there.”
“But we don’t have a basement,” Thin Man said.
“Not at home, no,” she replied. The Lady then brushed a hand over Viola’s head. “We’ll be fine without him for a few days, won’t we, Vi?”
Viola opened her mouth just barely when a loud scoff cut her off.
“Please. Like you’re really going to keep me away that long, let alone in some basement,” Thin Man said, and passed a smirk to the Lady. “You like me too much to do that.”
“I like you enough to lock you in a basement rather than bury you myself. Consider yourself a lucky man for it,” the Lady said.
“Oh, I know I’m lucky.” Thin Man sighed with dreamy eyes, a hand over his heart. “Extremely lucky. So very, very—! ”
“My feet hurt.” His love-struck moment ended as soon as it began, shifting his full attention to the little girl who pouted with her head low. “Can’t we just travel through one of the televisions in the forest to get to the bunker?” Viola asked.
He glanced at the Lady only to find her staring back at him with a similar reaction. Gone were the light bantering and the small smirk she’d adorned. In its place now was a look that spoke a thousand words, a message that only he could decipher, and a mask Viola had yet to see through as she trekked along the rocky path. Even so, the girl was not ignorant to the silence that came after her question. She looked up at her parents and saw the faces that made her own falter.
“What’s wrong?” she asked quietly to her father, brows furrowed and frowning as though she’d done something wrong.
Behind the girl, the Lady gestured to Viola with her eyes, silently communicating. He understood her message and agreed. Viola shouldn’t have to know the true ugliness of the truth.
“Well, uh,” Thin Man started slowly, lifting a smile that he hoped looked comforting, “warping through…televisions may not be possible to reach where we’re going, I’m afraid.”
“Why not?” Viola asked. “Isn’t it easier and faster if we did?”
“Not exactly, Vi. The bunker is…still quite too far for you to simply warp there with a television. Even I can’t get there with my shortcuts and tricks,” Thin Man said. “The Transmission does not travel to the bunker for any of us to tune into.”
“Oh,” Viola hummed. She turned to her mother next. “Can’t we have you to move us there, then?”
The Lady chuckled, her eyes dropping to the side. “No, that’s not possible either,” she said with a tight grin.
“But it’ll only be a second, mom! You’ve done it before when you shifted us back to the house. Like that one time I tripped into that ditch and you thought I had twisted my ankle—!” The Lady clamped a hand over Viola’s mouth, shushing her calmly while her other hand pulled her away from him.
Thin Man watched it all, gaping and confused. Then a familiar protectiveness and worry made its way to settle in his bones when he processed Viola’s accidental confession, one that clearly the Lady didn’t want him knowing about.
“That was because I knew where I was going, Viola,” the Lady answered quickly, letting her hand fall so she could pat the top of her head instead. “The bunker, on the other hand, is somewhere I’ve never been to. It’s a place your father found, and one he only described to me…poorly. Shifting there would be impossible.”
Viola’s shoulders sagged along with her mood. “Well, that sucks.”
“It is, but”—Thin Man stopped in place. He cleared his throat and clasped his hands behind his back, smiling brightly—“fret no longer, ladies! We have finally arrived. Behold. The Bunker!” He threw his arms out as he announced to the vast forest.
The silence grew three times louder.
Both Viola and the Lady looked at him with blank stares that made him look sad. He gulped under their sharp stares. It didn’t help that they both looked nearly identical to each other, much less with them standing side by side.
“Mono, tell me you haven’t just wasted my time,” the Lady spoke first.
“Yeah, dad, I thought you said you were showing us something cool,” Viola added, frowning.
“I have neither wasted anyone’s time, nor was I lying when I said the bunker is a cool place. Rest assured, dearest family. The bunker is worth the walk. Trust me.”
“We are miles away from our home,” the Lady said.
“We can’t even take any shortcuts,” Viola said.
“The sun is already setting,” the Lady added.
“I’m hungry.”
“And tired.”
“Yes, very valid points you two make there,” Thin Man said, unfazed by their complaints and sour faces as he knelt to the ground. He shoved the pile of dry leaves and vines under him until he felt a metal handle. Thin Man gave it a sharp twist, pulling it up. Immediately, the ground opened up and revealed a small hole beneath it. A hidden bunker.
Viola’s pout disappeared in seconds, her eyes bright with curiosity. It didn’t take long for the girl to switch sides and share her father’s own excitement about the underground tunnel; she’d instantly rushed to his side in awe, her prior complaints already forgotten. Thin Man returned her smile gladly, even telling her she could use the ladders first and head down into the bunker to explore herself. That made the girl gasp in joy.
Alas, not the same could be said with the Lady.
“Viola, wait.” At her mother’s stern voice, Viola stopped with a frown. She was, after all, just about to descend the ladder. That disappointment of hers was so loud he didn't need to look.
Another loud thing, though, was the Lady’s skepticism. She hadn’t exactly shown any signs of thrill when he revealed the bunker to be deep underground. Which he could understand, he supposed.
“Don’t worry, Six,” Thin Man said to the Lady. “I’ve been down there before. It’s completely safe, I assure you.”
Viola gave a toothy grin at her mother too. “See?” She proceeded to go down the ladder without a second to spare. Thin Man let out a small laugh as he told her to be careful with where she stepped, watching her climb down until she reached the lower ground. Viola, in return, sent him a thumbs up before disappearing into the darkness.
“I hope you’ve cleared the place thoroughly, Mono.” Thin Man shifted his attention to the Lady. She still had her mouth into a tight frown, her stare so sharp that admitting a mistake would be the end for someone. In this case, that someone would be him. “If Viola sees anything she shouldn’t be seeing, you best believe I’ll make do with my earlier promise.”
Thin Man let out a dramatic gasp, his hand on his mouth. “Oh, I’m such a horrible father! I think I may have overlooked a group of cannibalistic adults and let Viola walk straight into their feast—oh, no!”
“Mono—”
“Of course, I’ve cleared the bunker thoroughly, Six,” he said, huffing. “There’s no way I’d let her go down there without burying those monsters myself first. That’s common sense.”
A smirk grew across the Lady’s face at his confession. She approached him and placed a gentle peck to his lips. Thin Man felt his cheeks burn under her proud and adorned gaze.
“Finally, you’ve turned smart,” the Lady teased before giving a look down the bunker entrance herself. She tutted and tilted her head slightly. “How did you even manage to find this bunker again?”
“By accident. It was years ago. I wanted to let off some steam and tripped on its door instead.”
The Lady snickered at his expense. “Do you think the Eye will ever find out about this place?”
“Chances are low, but not impossible I’d say,” Thin Man told her. “We’re outside of the Transmission range as of now, and I don’t feel any televisions in the area for them to listen in on us. They won’t know about the bunker unless they’ve been told about it.”
“So, practically, we’re Eye-free here.”
He nodded. “Pretty much. Although…” Thin Man turned to her with furrowed brows and serious. “Refrain from using any tricks or abilities to get to the bunker. It’s best that neither of us risk letting the Eye know our locations,” he said, “should their capabilities reach that far.”
“Of course,” the Lady said, glancing down at the bunker hole. “I already know that.”
When it came to the Eye, they both shared the same thought and feeling. For as much as the Eye was a sadistic tyrant with an insatiable thirst for power, they were also, unfortunately, smart. Great at deceiving. Calculative. Patient. They were the kind of evil that would gladly feed a starved man a feast made from the flesh of his own family, without letting the said man know until he’s licked his plate clean. And they were also intelligent enough to decide on a move—which was always the right one—until they had the world in the center of their palms.
The Eye knew how to win, simply said. Even when they were met with defeat, they’d twist everything to stay on the winning side or, in the very least, a draw.
The Deal, alas, was one of the few “draws” the Eye had in their streak.
He and the Lady never spoke of it now as the numbers they had to deliver grew devastatingly year by year.
“Are you not coming down with Viola at all?” Her voice brought him back to the silent forest. The sky had yet to lose its warm orange, and the wind was slowly turning colder.
Thin Man gripped the ladder and wiped away the remaining worry off his face. “You say that as if I’m about to leave her forever underground. I’m not a psycho, Six,” he said as he started his climb down.
“Says the man who once burned a doctor alive,” the Lady quipped, grinning. He couldn’t help but grin back when entering the dark bunker.
He reached the steady ground with a sigh, and looked up to the bright opening above him, blocked by none other than his wife’s head.
“Are you not coming down at all?” he asked her.
“I don’t know. Depends.”
“On what?”
“On my urge to close this door and lock you under there for one night. It’s becoming really tempting now, I must say,” she said.
He scoffed. Her and her ‘funny’ sense of humor.
“You wouldn’t,” he told her. “I have your daughter under hostage, you know.”
“Ah, then I’m sure you two can keep each other company,” she said and laughed. “I’ll stay up here for a minute or two. To keep an eye out for anything suspicious in case you didn’t properly off the friendly cannibals.” She flashed him a knowing smile before disappearing from his view after.
Thin Man shook his head at the Lady and shifted his eyes to the bunker waiting for him in the pitch-black darkness. It was true what he said to the Lady before. He had stumbled upon this place by a stupid accident/coincidence and had ventured down with an even stupider curiosity. The three adults that had been rotting and living underground, starved, and feasting on one another, had thought he was a miracle-made meal. He’d quickly proven them wrong a few hours later. And buried them upstairs despite the hellish back-to-back trip, all for the sake of making the place “kid friendly”.
If those idiots ever do come back, they best pray they didn’t come across Six, much less try to eat her. She is, after all, less merciful than me.
He shuddered just by the image of the slaughter the Lady was capable of—and that one unfortunate day he wanted to surprise her by coming to The Maw years ago. If only he had known just how thorough the Lady was at…ridding things.
The bunker was barely visible where he stood. He could see silhouettes of useless craps he’d left behind and craps left behind by the original residents. He hadn’t bothered to look through each and every dusty box, merely kicking them to one corner of the room and stacking them until they towered to the ceiling.
Thin Man reached for the string above his head. A bulb of light flickered to life. Despite the dim yellow drowning the rooms of the bunker, it was better than staying in utter darkness like a shadow. He wasn’t surprised to see Viola still in the same room. Although, he was not expecting her to just stand in a corner, waiting patiently in the dark for a few minutes. She was the one who had gone down here first after all.
A huff escaped him as he tilted his head at her. “Have you just been waiting in one corner all this time?” he asked.
Viola paused. And shook her head.
“And you didn’t say a word when you saw me climb down?”
“Were there seriously cannibals down here?”
Oops.
“No,” he lied with a convincing smile. “I was only joking. There wasn’t anyone when I first found this place.”
She narrowed her eyes. “So why is mom keeping an eye up there then? She said she wanted to make sure you killed something properly—?” Thin Man cut her off with a purposely loud laugh, patting the top of her head with an even bigger—if not forced a little—smile.
“Well, you know your mother,” he said quickly. “She has even joked about locking us both in a basement. Her sense of humor hasn’t always been that great as you remember. You…you remember her attempts at jokes, right?”
“I guess,” she said, thinking. “But I never really understood most of it.”
“And that’s because it’s not meant for you. Plus, it isn’t that funny to begin with .”
“You laugh sometimes, though.”
“That is a laugh for help. And out of love. Now, quit looking at me all suspicious , you’re making me feel bad, ” he said, pinching her cheek until her lips stretched into a smile.
Viola pushed his hand away with a chuckle, rubbing her assaulted cheek. “Okay, okay. Fine. I’ll trust your word about the ‘cannibals’—but! There is one more thing that you’ve clearly lied to me about. And I want answers.”
Instantly, his smile and shoulders tensed. Even so he returned to his composed exterior, all the while ignoring the slight jump of his heart when he was accused of lying. Of course, he had lied about many things to the girl. Things he would one day share with her about until the time was right, and not when she was still just a child. For if there was one thing he’d like Viola to keep, it was her childhood.
Something he and the Lady, unfortunately, did not get to have.
“Alright,” he said coolly. “What is it, Vi?”
Viola kept a firm gaze on him, as though an act of intimidation, as she walked backwards to a small box covered in white, thin sheets. She snatched the ends of the sheet and threw it on the floor with anti-climactic grandeur. Why anti-climactic? Because the thing under the sheet was one of the old craps he’d left in the bunker.
There was no describing the relief coursing through his body now.
“You said to us that there were no shortcuts to the bunker. That this place is too far,” she said and pointed to the old television on the floor. “So, explain why we didn't just use this television to go through.”
“How did you even find that? Weren’t you just standing in the dark the entire time—?”
“Don’t change the subject, dad,” Viola said so sternly it reminded him of a little girl he used to know. “But to answer your question, I was looking around for the light switch in the walls. I think I may have tripped on something along the way—but then I felt buttons. Television buttons. Plus familiar…tingles that I sensed before you came down and distracted me.”
“Ah. That makes sense.”
“Explain.”
“Alright.” He took a sharp breath. Sighed. “That old television is mine,” he said.
For a moment Viola nodded strongly.
Before her understanding of his words went back to zero.
“Huh?”
“It’s one of my televisions that I made years ago!” Thin Man laughed. He needed only two long strides to reach the television box. He knelt down and gestured for her to come close. Viola mimicked him, stared at her father with even more furrowed brows.
“Back before you were born,” he started, twisting and turning the little knobs, “I used to build televisions just like the ones back at home. Or, actually, they aren’t the same, nor are they functioning properly like the normal televisions, but they are close enough. And by close enough, I mean they can be used to warp through.”
“But I thought you said—"
“Yes, the Transmission does not travel here to the bunker, but that’s the special thing about this television. It doesn’t need any sort of signal in it for it to be used. When you warp through this television, it should connect you to the closest location where an energy like mine is. I haven’t tried it myself, but I guess that’s what should happen.” He flipped the final switch and felt something close to nostalgia. He nudged Viola lightly, nodding to the small ON button. Hesitation briefly appeared in her eyes and movements as her finger stopped short above the button.
She glanced at him for a final confirmation. Asking him silently if it was truly okay for her to switch it on.
Thin Man cracked a smile and nodded. “Go for it,” he told her.
Viola turned back to the television. She listened to him.
Immediately, the bunker became brighter than the dim bulb hanging above them. The screen of the old television revealed a similar static, albeit no sound came about to bombard their ears. Viola watched it glow in awe, mesmerized as she placed a hand over the glass.
For once, he never felt the worry of her being around televisions. The Eye can’t get her through it. Not without those fatal signals.
“You’re right. It doesn’t…feel like it has the signal. It kind of feels weird even. Like something is missing,” Viola said. “Still can’t believe you could build televisions.”
“ Please. It wasn’t even that hard.” Hard part was altering the broadcasts and removing the Transmission altogether. Hard part was doing it behind the Eye’s back. “After a while it gets easy.”
Viola dropped her hand, turning to him intrigued. “Really? Aren’t they complicated, though? With the parts and everything?”
“Parts aren’t an issue when you’ve got abandoned shops—and broken televisions—all across the city. And, by the way, I didn’t just suddenly go expert on making televisions, Vi. I started when I was…a teen, or maybe a little older. You’ll never believe how boredom can get you to do weird things. Besides,” he said, switching the television off, “that’s all in the past. My boredom got cured when your mother came around so I’ve no need to make any more televisions as often.”
“You’re saying there are more? Like this?” Her eyes brightened along with a smile.
He laughed. “No. At least, not as successful as this one. And after that, I stopped making them altogether,” he said. “But that is to say, if things had been different, if I hadn’t been busy, maybe there could’ve been more.”
Viola raised a brow. “Busy? What do you mean?”
Thin Man rolled his eyes and sighed as an old memory resurfaced. One that he held dear to his heart yet dreaded it all the same.
“Back then, your mother was…in her difficult stage, is all. She was carrying you, so yeah. I got busy. Busy with things.”
“I don’t understand. Busy with things like…what?”
“Like treating the woman in my house like the queen, is what. Something wrong with this, something wrong with that,” he said and sighed. “My patience was definitely tested during those long months. I was terrified most of the days. Even you can agree how terrifying she can be sometimes with all her glaring, and scolding, and silent threats and—”
“Funny, you never mentioned that, Mono,” A voice chimed in.
His blood ran cold. All thoughts came to an instant halt. He was beginning to sweat. Thin Man refused to look at the woman just yet, only staring at his daughter in hopes to delay the inevitable. Although seeing the cheeky smirk that was plastered across her face, it occurred to him then that she too had known just how screwed he was. The darker realization sunk in a second later; that his own daughter had watched him dig his own grave.
“She’s behind me, isn’t she?” he asked Viola in a whisper. Viola nodded smugly. He loved and hated that she picked it up from him.
“So, I’m just going to explore the other room real quick,” Viola whispered back, standing up and dusting herself off. She patted him hard in the back and told him “Good luck.”
As soon as Viola left the main room, left him alone with the woman he still refused to look at, the tension grew thicker to the point where he could feel it around his neck. Like a noose. Or perhaps that was just the Lady’s hands, strangling him. Or maybe he was subconsciously trying to make himself pass out so that he wouldn’t have to face her wrath—
Focus, Mono. It’s just Six. You’ve known her longer than anyone else.
Truly, she was his best friend. If she got a little angry, it was fine.
Now all he must do was face this like a man. No matter how scared shitless he still was.
Thin Man stood to his full height and turned to meet the most composed woman in all land.
“Hi,” the Lady said, her arms folded over her chest.
“Hey, pretty woman.”
One of her brows raised slightly. “Pretty? What happened to me being so terrifying?” The Lady came closer to him until there was nearly no room between them. His face grew warm. He wasn’t sure if that was out of admiration or panic.
“So, how about it, Mono?” she said again when silence lingered between them. “What happened to me being so terrifying?”
He gulped. “T-Terrifyingly…beautiful.”
Then he flashed her his best, most charming smile. The Lady looked at him unamused.
“Nice save,” she said. “But just complimenting me isn’t enough and you know it. You've bad-mouth me to our daughter with details she shouldn’t know, offended me not once—not twice—but thrice; and you’ve purposely made me look bad for the sake of you looking good in her eyes. Enough is enough. How would you feel if I told her embarrassing stories of you? Expose the real truth of your weird fascinations with hats? I deserve an apology, Mono.”
His eyes widened slightly. He cleared his throat when his voice came out weak.
“Six, come now, you know I was only kidding! I’m me! I always kid around,” he said.
The Lady pouted and turned her head away from him. He cursed himself for thinking that would work.
“Hey, look. I’m… really sorry, okay? If my jokes got a little bit too far sometimes,” he said, nudging her and pulling her to him. “But that’s why I need you . I need someone to smack some sense in me every once in a while. You’re my voice of reality and reason. I’d be completely hopeless without you!” He nuzzled his cheek against the top of her head and embraced her tightly. Like she was a real-life doll.
The Lady grumbled with a roll of her eyes, however, never pushed him away and his clinging fit. She reciprocated it even—which was a big win for him.
“I’m still angry at you, just so you know” the Lady mumbled into his chest. He nearly chuckled at her shorter figure. The height difference never gets old.
“Hm, that’s not good. I suppose we’ll just need to extend this hugging session for a minute longer.” He squeezed her even tighter.
“How about now?” he asked after the promised one minute. “Ready to like me again? Or do you want to add more time?”
“Shut up or I’ll refuse your attempt at making up.”
A laugh rumbled in his throat. He pressed a kiss to her hair and broke the long embrace. The Lady hid her disappointment very well.
“By the way, I’ve been…meaning to ask,” he said, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear. The Lady hummed and leaned against his touch. “Was what Viola said true? Did she really fall into a ditch?”
The Lady fell silent.
He noticed how tense she suddenly became.
“Hm?” she said after a few seconds.
“I said did Viola fall into a ditch? She mentioned something about it on the way to the bunker, so I was simply wondering if she’d gotten an injury from it. Mostly, though, I wondered why I was the last one to know.” When she stared at him unblinking, silent and unreadable, he narrowed his eyes at her. “I also wondered why… you didn’t tell me about it sooner.”
The Lady took a quiet breath and sighed calmly. But if he believed that “serenity” of hers to be real, then he was as good as blind. The Lady was faking it. Underneath it all, he could see her panicking. Her sudden tight grip on his arms proved him right furthermore.
“Six—”
She threw her arms around his neck and pulled him back into a fierce embrace. He barely had time to react as he bent slightly down for her, only blinking dumbfounded at this…sudden affection that he thought had already ended.
But then it clicked.
“You…you purposely didn’t tell me?”
“I’m willing to extend this hug,” she said, nuzzling into his neck—copying his method—and squeezing his lanky limbs tightly.
He scoffed with a scowl, feeling lied to.
“Oh, I can’t believe you!” Thin Man said. “You could’ve at least let me know if she was hurt, Six. I can’t imagine what you said to her that made her keep quiet about it; that she’d willingly sleep off the pain from a harsh fall like that without ever telling me. You know how much I care for that girl—!”
“Five minutes.”
“…What?”
“I’ll extend the hug to five minutes. Or until you’re ready to like me again,” the Lady said, shifting her arms over the other as though to lock him in place.
Thin Man was speechless at that. Indecisive. Flushed. He was ready to accuse her for lying—which was the one thing he and the Lady promised to each other to never ever do it again—to him about Viola’s accident. Although, one more desperate tight squeeze from her, and all accusations were as dead as the three cannibals he’d buried somewhere in the Deep Forest grounds.
He caved, as usual, eventually wrapping his arms around her body and pulling her close too.
I’ll extend the hug to five minutes. Or until you’re ready to like me again.
A small smile stretched over his lips.
Like he’d ever stop liking her because of her mistakes. But, maybe, five minutes wasn’t so bad of an offer.
He remembered the hug in the bunker.
Full of warmth, abundant of love and forgiveness, desperate, genuine. There were many instances where he and the Lady shared an embrace such as that yet many held a better, happier memory compared to the one where he was subjected to heartaches and guilt. Deeply sorrowful and lost. He hugged her now under the kitchen’s dim light, silence stretching into painful minutes.
The Lady had just known the truth. The deal was broken. The Eye was after Viola in two days’ time.
Too short, he’d thought during the silence, I need more time. Just a little more.
His shirt was damp from where the Lady rested her head. He felt his heart weaken the longer he let it be.
“Please, Six, don’t cry anymore,” he said as he brushed his fingers through her soft hair, his voice grim. “Stop crying, please.” His arms tightened around her body.
The Lady held his shirt in a white-knuckle grip, finally looking up at him with red, puffy eyes. She was glaring. Grieving. Angry. Hopeless. The Lady, defiantly, raised her chin but that mere action was only achieved through false confidence. Fake bravery.
“Stop crying? Is there anything else you’d like in the list for me to do?” Her voice trembled. “Do you even understand what you’re asking me to do?”
“We’ve been over this. Don’t make it harder than it already is.”
“I agree. Let’s not. I understand your reasons for asking me to take Viola to the bunker, and I agree a child as young as her shouldn’t be left all alone when a mark as huge as the Eye’s threat is behind her back.” Her fingers dug deep into his shoulder. “But all I want is for you to...just really think this through. Two days isn’t a lot. Hell, it’s barely anything. Which is why I want you to consider my words. Think about it thoroughly, the plan you’ve got in mind. Is it really the best one? Would it promise the outcome we want for her?” she continued. “Does life sacrifice and risk necessarily mean victory—is it really enough time to stall? There must be another way than this!”
Thin Man exhaled through her nose, his head low and defeated. The Lady’s hands rested on his cheeks, bringing him back to meet her strong eyes that held no room for giving up. She wasn’t backing down.
Neither was he.
This was the only time she wouldn’t win this game of persuasion—he’d make sure of it. Because if she won, then he’d lose her.
If he lost her, he’d lose everything else.
He leaned out from her touch, and missed the warmth of her. And the world suddenly felt twice as cold when the hurt settled behind her eyes.
“Mono...” she uttered.
“I’ll tell Viola everything tomorrow. Before you both leave,” he said, holding her hands in his. “Please. Let me do this for us.”
“I understand that, but—!”
“I know.” He ignored the weight of guilt around his neck, and swallowed the painful lump in his throat. “I know what you’re trying to tell me; but there is no other way. I’ve thought it through,” he said and reminded. “Somebody needs to stall the Eye so...better me than you.”
The Lady’s hand loosened until she let go. Her hurt slowly dissolved into something akin to resentment and frustration as she stared into him as though he was a stranger. A cruel man who had learned to break apart her strong heart and even stronger mind.
A tear slid down her cheek. She looked to the side to hide her devastation.
“So, is that it then? You decide and it’s...done?” she asked, her voice dim. “Is there...nothing I can do to change your mind...?”
Thin Man said nothing to that. For, in truth, they both knew the answer to her question even from the start of this night. It pained him to tell her what she hadn’t wanted yet needed to hear.
“Like I said,” he muttered, the remaining of his heart crumbling away into debris. “There is no other way.”
The fight ended then and there. The Lady spared him not more than a frustrated scowl before she turned on her heel and left him where he stood. The light flickered and lit brightly just as her footsteps disappeared beyond the darkness. And that was when he felt truly alone once more.
For a long time, he only watched the dark corridor. He imagined her tear-streaked face, angry at him for his decisions. He imagined her crying again in their room, hoping for whatever solace she could find in those four walls and isolated silence. He imagined him being there with her.
But he couldn’t.
Just as he couldn’t let the Lady have her way and be the one to stall the Eye in his place. Viola needed her. More than she needed him.
A choked sob escaped his throat. The sting in his eyes finally became unbearable. Thin Man dropped to his seat with a hand over his face, sighing shaky breaths. Why was this happening? Why must the deal be broken after seven years? Had they not delivered enough to the Eye? Were he and the Lady played by them since the start? Was it all only lies for them to live in temporary happiness?
Endless possibilities. But none seemed to be right enough to fit the true answer.
Notes:
I hope this was angsty enough for you hehe
Thanks for reading!
Chapter 32: Rainstorm
Notes:
Sorry for the late update! But anyway, here's a chapter about Six and Mono ;)
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
It came back.
The one thing Six had hoped to never see ever again after the hardship she went through, the horrors within the Maw, the lives she’d taken for her own benefit; and here it was before her. It came back.
Six felt her chest constrict of air as her eyes laid upon the dark figure under the window the Nanny had fallen through. Her shadow, as she’d named it. It had appeared months ago, even before she acquired the sinister abilities of the Lady of the Maw. Six had learned from her time back then; whenever the hunger pangs strike, the shadow would appear. She did not know how, neither did she know why. Perhaps she could guess the latter; perhaps this shadow of hers was nothing more than just a visible warning. Feed or die. Her time in the Maw had remedied that issue as she’d taken souls as her main consumption, lasting her days without actual food under the condition she did not overuse the Lady’s stolen abilities.
But then Mono returned. Viola stupidly went missing. Mono insisted they look for her. And when Six had refused, that bastard son of a bitch had threatened her with her old captor—that other thin son of a bitch—and used her fear against her. She wanted to bury him alive then and there.
The Maw was her only guarantee that her hunger pangs wouldn’t return to her. With the Guests coming aboard in high numbers, her lifestyle was all and all secured. She wouldn’t need to worry about starving, suffering in blind agony as her intestines stabbed at each other, or seeing the shadow again.
Yet now that the shadow stared back into her fearful face, she knew this time was no ordinary hunger pang. This was actually bad. If she failed to find something to eat, she might suffer worse than what she’d experienced.
After they’d left the Day Care Centre through its main doors, the storm turned out to be…less merciful than usual. They were once more stuck with the conclusion of finding new shelter—or at least one the two of them could recuperate physically and mentally alone. It’d been a lucky drop in their path when Mono had walked straight into a ladder. A fire escape of a sort. Six had been too depressed over the recent events to laugh at his misfortune; and so was he to warn her not to so much smirk.
So up they went in hopes for the said shelter. And shelter they did find.
The fire escape led them up at least three stories before an unlocked window was available. Shivering half to death, Mono had gone in first with only a few glances inside before giving her the greenlight. Once again, too depressed to be annoyed with his need to take the lead.
The new shelter was an abandoned apartment, Six realized. They’d made a quick walk through the entire place for safety measures, not wanting to rest in the same place an adult was sleeping in. The place was deemed adult-free soon enough. A little disgusting considering the mess left behind was nearly a bit extreme—a foreign puddle of something like vomit, a questionable pile of shoes in the corner, cobwebs big enough to trap a child in, and the usual mud from the Pale City streets.
Six complained nothing. She had her own worries to handle, her own mental anguish to defeat. She sat by the window alone, her knees to her chest. And she watched—hours after hours, day after day—the lightning that struck behind the gray cloud, a Viewer or two jumping off of high buildings, and the small flood in the streets now.
Anything to keep her mind from the boy they’d left behind three days ago, and from the fact she nearly cried for him. For a moment, she had wanted to. But what stone heart could feel such sympathy and sadness? What bloodless, selfish, monster could feel guilt for leaving yet another boy? The answer was none. Six had no right to feel such things. She reminded herself that repeatedly when the heaviness settled in her chest. It worked little, unfortunately.
Six sighed as the storm refused to let up. Perhaps they should make a move and find other ways in this building, or perhaps they could rest a bit more here. She needed the rest if she could. The thought of the shadow appearing again left her feeling uneasy.
Soft footsteps came approaching in the distance. Another sigh escaped her, knowing their three-days-of-being-on-each-their-own-corner was coming to a pitiful end. She had hoped it would’ve extended at least for another hour or two.
Six didn’t bat an eye when Mono came to her window—her territory. She ignored the fact with a silent irk as he took an awkward seat on the other side of it, having the nerve to pretend looking out at the rain like she was doing. What could this jerk want now?
“So,” Mono started after what felt like almost an hour, “it’s been a quiet three days, hasn’t it?” Six did not entertain him. She could imagine him frowning and annoyed. And she was right anyway when it appeared in his voice.
“What are you even looking at?” he asked, almost impatiently, leaning towards the glass to follow her stare. Again, Six said nothing. She let her irk grow steadily.
Mono’s eyes widened when a thud from outside echoed, another Viewer landing face first in the flood.
“Wow,” he muttered, almost in awe at the occurrence as he joked, “is it suicide season already? Last one happened just half a year ago. Craazy how fast time flies, isn’t it?” Six gritted her teeth and bit back a groan. Mono continued to speak useless words as his eyes followed the Viewers’ body, floating in the flood.
“Look at those losers,” he said absentmindedly. “It’s like they never had to worry about running around getting chased by giant lunatics. Not saying that I’d rather take their place and float upside down in the flood, but it must be nice not having to care every once in a while. The life they must’ve led—”
“Mono,” Six said.
His head turned to her, surprised and somehow excited she responded. “Yes?” he said.
“Shut up.” She lifted her head from the crook of her elbows. “You’re annoying me.”
Immediately the friendly cool guy façade disappeared off his face, replaced by an annoyed look of his own. Much better, in Six’s eyes at least. It suited him best.
“I’m annoying you?” Mono scoffed, sneering. “Please. If there’s anyone in this whole city that could annoy someone, it’s you. With your…with your constant grumpiness and your…your glares. Don’t think you’re the only one annoyed, Six.” He crossed his arms and looked out the window again. Although, he never made a move to walk away and leave her be. Six almost wanted to switch places with those dead Viewers floating out there.
“If I annoy you so much, then please, do me the honors,” she said and gestured to his part of the territory, “and get your butt off my window. Your attempts at small talk is making me want to jump out and drown myself in the flood.”
“At least that’d be one interesting thing to see in the last three days.” Mono scoffed with a smirk. Then came the tensed shoulders and the hardened eyes. “But I didn’t come here exactly to make small talk, just so you know.”
“Funny. You already have.”
“We need to talk, Six.”
“Don’t care. Bye.”
“Six,” he deadpanned. “Are you done with your whole pushing people away get-up? Or do I have to bore you to death until you finally decide to listen to what I have to say?”
Six contemplated, reluctant with anything that had to do with him. But the idea of him chattering her ears away for hours on end was dreadful. She’d rather cut her ears off.
“What do you want?” Six said eventually, looking out at the storm, chin on her arm.
“I’ve been thinking a lot these past few days. Especially with what happened at the Day Care and…” He closed his mouth, suddenly hesitant. Six didn’t call him out, knowing what happened left an emotional scar to him just as it had for her. They’d silently agreed not to mention the boy.
She heard Mono sigh through his nose as he tried again, “You should go back home.”
For a second, Six didn’t answer him. She lifted her head to Mono and raised a brow.
“Home?” she said.
“The Maw. Your child-buffet ship—”
“I know what it is,” she deadpanned with a scowl. “All I meant to ask is why.”
“What do you mean ‘why’? You’ve been pestering me, beating me to pulp to warp you back there.” Six shot him an unamused look at his attempt to provoke her. She wasn’t in the slightest. This was nothing new. Mono rolled his eyes at that, shifting away from the window. “Just go home, Six. I really meant what I said in the Daycare when I told you I could save Viola by myself. I never needed you.” He got off the edge to return to his territory.
Six had sat up straight with furrowed brows. Why did he insist on getting her out of the way now when he was the one who had forced her to come along? Helping Emmet was not a part of the plan anymore so going back to the Wilderness was out of the picture entirely. She no longer had a reason to bail on rescuing Viola, so…
Why did Mono want her to?
And why was he being…extra cold to her today?
“You’re getting rid of me,” Six called out to him. “Why?”
Mono halted in his steps, back turned on her. He took a sharp breath and only spared her a look over his shoulder. Six felt the strange hurt again when he sent her that cold glare—one she hadn’t seen ever since they were living at the Maw, one she had thought to have disappeared after days of it being absent in the Day Care.
“Like I said,” he told her. “I never needed you.”
“So, you just decided that? After dragging me into days of insane, life-threatening encounters? You’re just cutting me off half-way? Just like that?” She did not understand why her heart was beating rapidly, or why this anger in her was even something she let consumed her over his words: I never needed you.
This confusing rage burned brighter when Mono said nothing. It made her jump off from her seat by the window and stomp to the pile of shoes when he dared to walk away. Oh, she’d make him regret not answering her.
One shoe stolen from the pile, Six hurled it at Mono with a force so powerful that it could knock him out. Alas, it hit him but not where she’d aimed.
“OW—WHAT THE—” Mono held his hip and glanced behind him, baffled. Once his eyes landed on the shoe that had bounced off him, he scowled instantly at her. “What is wrong with you?” he snapped.
Six didn’t care if something was wrong with her. She took another shoe from the pile, weighing it in her hand as she aimed his head once more. This time, hopefully, she wouldn’t miss.
Mono’s eyes widened when she raised it above her head. “Six, hold on a second—” He quickly put an arm over his head as the shoe came flying to him at a terrifying speed. The second time she missed was the time she let her impatience win. Six growled under her breath, and her eyes were back to the pile, rummaging through it and finding bigger, harder, shoes that would inflict pain on her annoying companion. She wanted him to hurt.
Another shoe hit him on the shin. Mono yelped and held his leg only for a second before another came flying again, bouncing off his shoulders.
“Hey—quit it!” Mono yelled. And to her surprise, he fought back with the same vigor. Using whatever shoe Six had thrown his way, he snatched it off the floor and hurled it back.
Six ducked when one nearly hit her square in the face. Her fury intensified. How dare he try and hurt her back when he’d hurt her the first time.
How dare he be the one to stand there, looking so offended that she’d attack him with a shoe. Oh, if she started this she too would be the one to end it. In sheer victory.
That was how the Shoe War started. With Six hurling shoes after shoes from the pile, and Mono throwing it back to her forcefully, although hesitantly, it took one hit in the guts for the other to admit defeat. Air pushed out from his lungs, Mono wrapped his arms around his body and dropped to his knees, grimacing and grunting. He reached for one of the shoes in front of him, but Six already threw another to his chest. Mono fell on his rear, now in defeat.
But did it mean Six was done? Not at all. She still needed to prove to him that he was wrong like he always was.
You don’t need me? You can’t even save yourself from being attacked by shoes.
Six stalked towards him like a predator, one last shoe in hand. As though he’d read her intentions, Mono propped on his side and gave her a nasty glare, albeit weak and faltering.
“Why are you doing this, huh?” he demanded. “I didn’t even do anything to provoke you!”
She could almost laugh. Instead she threw her last ammunition at him, earning herself his pained cry. “You’re really as ignorant as you are naïve. I didn’t do this because I was only provoked, Mono,” she said. Then she grabbed him by the front of his collar, bringing him close to her face. “I’m doing this because you’re an idiot. As always. You think with your foot and you act without thinking. Has everything that happened taught you nothing? Or are you as blind as those Viewers out there?”
Mono shifted uncomfortably in her harsh hold. Good. Stay uncomfortable.
“I know what I’m doing. I’m just certain that you don’t,” he said.
“Yeah, and what’s that supposed to mean, hm?”
“It means I know you just as much as you know me, Six,” Mono retorted. “I know you want to go to the Signal Tower because you don’t want to face the truth.”
Her eyes narrowed; her grip on his collar tightened. “And what is the truth?” she asked as though to challenge. “Tell me.”
Mono frowned and stared at her with that icy look again.
“That you’re weak,” he said above whisper. “You’re just a weak, stubborn girl.”
Six heard him. As much as she wished that wasn’t what he said, she heard him loud and clear. It stung her on levels she couldn’t quite comprehend, like her fresh injuries were being dipped into the saltwater. It made her hold on him loose until he was released. And for the second time, she was hurt by his words that held more truth than what she’d believed.
He was right; she was weak. Weak from power exhaustion, weak from the hunger pangs, weak from the loss of a comrade that had affected her more than she thought. Six knew that her strength was declining, especially the longer she was without food. But to hear it from him…
Her fury returned tenfold.
And before Mono could open his mouth, only sparing her an apologetic look, Six slammed her fist into his face. She didn’t give him a second to process it as she grabbed a fistful of his hair and brought it down on the floor. Six brought his face down again, flipped him over, and lifted him slightly by the collar. A little blood dripped past his nose; Mono winced as he scowled in pain. He held her hand around his neck, digging into her skin on purpose.
Six did not care. She was not going to let him win. She was going to make him admit defeat even in her weak state.
“Who’s weak now?” Six said darkly. Then connected her other hand to his face. Mono let her, wincing before looking back at her defiantly. That made her blood boil. However, just as she lifted her hand, Mono had caught her wrist and twisted the one around his shirt.
A soft cry escaped her as she was thrown to the side, her wrist aching and slightly strained.
“Still you,” Mono said, panting. “You can’t even keep your ego in check, much less your strength. How do you expect me to believe you’d keep up with me to the Signal Tower? In this state of yours—with your random hunger pangs?”
“Oh, spare me the lecture; the hunger pangs are still my problem! Not yours!” Six shot back, glaring daggers. “I don’t need you to tell me when I’m capable or when I’m not. I can take care of it myself.” Six lunged after him with another raised fist. Mono dodged her quickly, returning a slap to her face when she wasn’t looking.
She fell to the ground, her breaths heavy and every limb trembling. Before she could push herself up to continue the fight, Mono had beat her to it and shoved her with a light kick to her side.
“Look at you!” Mono’s voice echoed around the empty apartment. “You’re not up for this anymore, Six! Stop being so stubborn and just listen to me. Go home.”
She’d admit. That hurt more than getting kicked by him.
“And why are you so adamant about that?” Six said, holding her side as she wobbled to her feet. “Before this, you wouldn’t shut up about how cruel I was for not wanting to leave the Maw for Viola. You guilt-tripped me, tricked me into keeping her stupid locket so I’d be the one to return it. What happened to that? What happened to me repaying what I owe her?”
“Well—that was before!”
“Before what? Before things started to go awry for you? Before you found out you stole someone’s hat? BEFORE EMMET DIED IN FRONT OF OUR EYES?”
“YES!” Mono snapped, heaving heavy breaths. “Don’t you get it? You were supposed to leave even from the start! You were never supposed to come back for me when I was in that Playroom, locked and helpless in a cage. You were supposed to leave me behind. ” Then his voice trembled. “ Just…just like you did in the Signal Tower. But then you came back anyway, and you…you brought him along with you. Introduced a new person to me who…” He sighed, “who always ends up bringing misfortune to others.”
Her scowl softened on its own.
“So…so you’d rather I never helped you at all then? Let you rot in that cage because you think Emmet got your bad luck?” Six spat, failing to keep her anger for long. “Are you even more stupid than I thought?”
Mono scoffed mirthlessly. “I mean, am I wrong?” he asked. “Even you said I was bad luck, didn’t you?”
“Yes. To me,” Six said. “If you want me to go home and bail just because you’re feeling sorry for yourself—then forget it. Emmet died because it was his time. Viola’s in the Signal Tower because she was a careless idiot. You always end up in trouble because you’re idiot 2.0. The only bad luck from you I see latching on to someone so far: is me. I’m the only one who has the right to punch you in the nose for all the horror-show—!”
She felt a harsh stab to her abdomen, followed by a loud grumble. Her feet gave out as the hunger pangs returned at the most wrong time. And in the middle of her speech too. How embarrassing.
As she cried and whimpered quietly, curling up on the floor with her hands pressed firmly against her stomach, she heard someone beside her in seconds. Could she not even be spared a second of this humiliation?
“Six?” That ugly concern of his came back in his voice. “Six, you’re—”
“I know,” she said through gritted teeth. “I know it’s my hunger pangs. Back off; I’m fine.”
“You’re not fine, knucklehead. This is your third time with these pangs.” This moron kept count? “And I can tell each time they get worse, don’t they?”
Six bit back a groan barely, her arm reaching out to something on the floor. “Just shut up. Shut up and I’ll deal with it. I can still fight.”
“What? What are you even—” Six smacked a shoe right at the side of his skull. Mono instantly collapsed beside her; and when his eyes seemed unfocused, Six sighed and let herself lie down too.
Her hunger pangs soon became mild.
“You… psychopath,” Mono said with a strained voice, wincing as he touched his bruised head. Then he dropped it to his side, exhausted like her.
“I win,” she said, breathless. She tilted her head. “You lose.”
A scoff left Mono, grimacing when the pain seized him again. He shook his head at her competitive tendencies.
For what felt like a long time, they looked up at the ceiling and the streaks of yellow across it, letting the thunderstorm outside take over for a while. She didn’t mind this. Despite having him lying next to her, she didn’t mind basking in the silence with him.
That is until she was reminded, yet again, why she disliked Mono and his chatterbox mouth.
“Why do you still want to come with me to the Signal Tower?” he asked. Six could already feel her eyelids heavy. If it weren’t for his stare burning into the side of her head, she would’ve slept then and there and left him hanging.
“Why do you want me to go back so suddenly?” she passed the cap back to him.
“You can’t answer a question with another question, Six,” he said blankly.
“I just did.”
“Well, you can’t. It isn’t fair.”
“It’s the only way you’ll get something out of me.” At that Mono fell silent, as though thinking. His thoughts were often loud, so painfully obvious on his face that she only needed to rely on her peripheral vision to see if her offer had been accepted.
“I guess I just,” he said, almost whispering, “feel guilty.”
That made her head turn, her brows furrowed. “You feel guilty only now?” She chuckled wryly. “I wonder what you felt when you forced me out of the Maw with your scary tales of that thin bastard.”
“Again, I didn’t do anything other than made you rethink your choices, Six.” Mono shifted slightly as he added, “Besides, that...isn’t what I meant.”
“No?”
“No,” he said, clasping his hands. “I feel…guilty at the thought of someone dying. When...Emmet passed, it just occurred to me how actually quickly it takes for someone to lose their life; just like that. No warning, not anything. One moment, you’re there and the next you’re just...not.”
Her cheeks warmed at his words. She cleared her throat when it became too silent to her liking. Mono caught on and stammered, “N-not that I mean I’d feel bad if you died. I just mean, like, in general. Kids like us dying. Well, yes, you just happen to fall within the children category too, but that doesn’t mean I’d feel anything towards your —”
“I understand,” Six said quickly, ending his panic rambling and fear of saying the wrong thing. No matter, even if he did say it the right way, the implication of his words wouldn’t be different.
Mono didn’t want to see anyone else die in front of him. That included her—even if she was his most hated and only child-enemy. At least, that was something she and him could both share. She too wouldn’t want to see another death.
She supposed his insistence for her to go back was…reasonable. A bit stupid, but reasonable.
“And you? Why do you still want to go to the Signal Tower with me?” Mono asked again. Six took three deep breaths and decided
She will not answer him.
With her head turned the other way, she could feel the person next to her shift again, catching on to her intentions. And then a light jab to her shoulder. Again, she refused to get in touch with her other annoying emotional emotions. She refused to be a part of this confession session.
“Oi,” Mono said, jabbing a finger to the side of her head. “Come on, you owe me an answer.”
Six hummed in chagrin. “You already know the answer.”
“No, I don’t.”
“Well, then, you’re free to guess. Either way, it wouldn’t matter.”
“It will. Because I want to decide whether you get to follow me or not; and it seems like you’ve led yourself to believe that you are.” At that, Six whipped her head to him. Mono raised his brows and shrugged, lying back down innocently. “Or, you know, maybe I can just assume you want to come along because you miss Viola so much.”
“I do not.”
“Shh, it’s okay. Absence does make the heart grow fonder.”
Six elbowed his side, which he only winced again with a smug smirk. She could truly just throw him out the window at this point.
A long, exasperated sigh left her as she contemplated her words. One that wouldn’t make her sound like a total weakling and an emotional softie. She was not, by any means, she was not.
“I’m not sure…if you can make it to the Signal Tower. On your own,” Six said until it became a whisper. Mono heard perfectly.
“Why not?” he asked. She rolled her eyes and paused again.
“Weird things have been happening the longer Viola stays in the Tower, Mono” she admitted. “The flood out there; the Viewers acting up more than usual; the television at the beach; the Nanny’s insistence to kill you and her sudden death—they’re all just…strange. And they all seem to become worse whenever you’re a step closer to the Signal Tower. I’m not saying that I care about your survival, but if things like that keep on happening, you won’t succeed in that suicidal mission of yours. At least…not when you’re fighting it by yourself.” Then she glared at him. “Now before you say something, don’t —”
“You care whether I live or die?”
“I just said don’t!” she snapped at him. “And I told you I don’t care about your survival. Stop making it sound like I do. Go rot in some ditch and see if I bat an eye.”
Mono laughed at that, making the heat on her face less and less tolerable.
“Then you’re saying you care whether Viola lives or dies?” Mono teased.
Her cheeks were hot to touch, regardless of the constant low temperature of Pale City.
“Both of you can rot in a ditch together,” she grumbled, turning away. “See if I actually care then.”
“Calm down, grumpy. Don’t be so sensitive.” That made her want to die. Every word he spewed carried the truth she didn’t want to listen to. She was not sensitive.
“But,” Mono continued, “I guess you have a point.”
Six shifted her head slightly to look at him. “I do?”
He rolled his eyes, annoyed to have stroked her ego by admitting she was right. “Yes, you do,” he said reluctantly. And then his eyes softened, looking back up to the leak on the ceiling. “Things have been a little weird after Viola went missing. I noticed it too, except…I wanted to believe so much it wasn’t because of her. I thought that, maybe, if you went back to the Maw I wouldn’t have to…” He didn’t finish his sentence, instead taking a deep breath and starting anew. She didn’t question it. “I thought going to the Signal Tower by myself would just be easier. It is after all my idea.”
“A stupid idea,” Six added. “Even more stupid when you believe you could just march in that Tower without having to fight the Eye.”
He laughed a little. Six held the urge to let her smile loose.
“Please. I’m not that stupid. Of course, I thought about that,” he said and even softer, “I think…a lot about other things too.” Six didn’t understand. As her brows furrowed deeply, her exhaustion catching up with her mind, she could only stare at him dumbfoundedly. Yet just as she wanted to ask, Mono spoke first. “Could I ask you something?”
Her first thought was to scoff. Since when did he ever need to ask anything from her? When his face became serious, utterly focused on the one spot in the ceiling, Six re-considered. She hummed in response.
“If I let you follow,” he said slowly, “can I trust you?”
Her heart sped without her permission. Something screamed in the back of her mind.
And all she could say to him was, “What…?”
“It’s a simple question. Can I trust you?” he said. Then he finally turned to meet her wide-eyed stare.
She didn’t understand why everything felt so heavy, why it was utterly difficult to use her voice now. “Yes, but…” He scoffed at her last word and looked away again.
“But,” he repeated coldly. “I didn’t know why I expected anything less. Of course, there’s a but. I’m still such an idiot for even thinking—”
“Mono.” He stopped talking. She could already feel her heart taking advantage over her lulling mind. She fought so hard to keep her eyes open, to answer him with a clear head. “When I say you can trust me, I mean it. I’m not going to sacrifice you to a monster just because.”
“You say that now, but you’ll do it when the chance presents itself,” he said. That stung, she’d admit. But with her ego slowly dozing off along with her stubborn head, her heart and guilt was truly doing all the talking from here on.
“Well. That was before,” she used his words. She closed her eyes, letting them rest only for a bit. “Things change sometimes.”
Six heard him scoff again. “Are you saying you’ve changed?”
“No, but…” She sighed softly, never realizing what she spoke. “I could. Question is: have you changed too? Are you willing to trust me?”
“…You don’t get to ask that.” He paused. “You can’t ask me that.”
Six only hummed. “Maybe. But you should ask yourself,” she said and let her mouth run free. “It isn’t as if I never did too. From time to time.”
Another longer pause from him. She’d thought he was finally gone when she felt his hand gently shaking her awake. Her eyes opened reluctantly, and unfortunate as she was, his stupid face was in front of her, his brows furrowing and lips pressed into a tight frown. Funny, what could he be so distraught about?
“Did you really? Ask yourself if you’ve changed?” he said. And it might’ve been her ears working less effectively than usual, but there was a hint of desperation in his voice. Like he needed to know so badly.
Six grumbled, pushing his hand off her shoulder with a scowl. More so mad at him that he’d woken her from lulling to sleep.
“Don’t overthink it,” she said. “You’re not the only one who can’t take living in guilt.”
“You…felt guilty? About what you did?”
She was too tired for this. With her eyes shut again, she told him what he wanted to hear—and the things she had wanted to say for months to him.
“If saving Viola out of the Tower is a one-time thing,” she said, “so is leaving you behind. Quit worrying I’d lie to you; and start fixing that trust issue of yours.” Perhaps it was something she would soon regret with a more conscious mind, perhaps this conversation with him would haunt her until the day she died.
But for now all she wanted was to rest.
I won’t betray you again, she thought before finally succumbing to deep slumber.
Truly, if she had seen the look on his face when her last thoughts were actually uttered in soft whispers
She would never live this down.
Notes:
And that, ladies and gents, is why I killed Emmet.
Gotta instill some fear of death in these two stubborn heads just so they start caring a little bit ;D
Thanks for reading!
Chapter 33: Devil's in the Details
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Days passed without Viola’s knowledge of it.
Stuck in this chair, stuck in this smaller, pitch-black room with just a single orange-red light above, the color changing and gradually fading into a dull tone as the time went by. Though that wasn’t what concerned her.
Because what was concerning was the fact that she still hadn’t been able to wake up. Viola knew she was inside her own subconscious, controlled by none other than the Eye. Regardless of how horrible that sounded, this was for a good reason.
She was saving Mono and Six from their current danger.
A danger which she wasn’t given the full picture…yet.
And the method of her rescue was all but a mystery to her, for everything was done by the Eye and the Eye alone. While Viola on the other hand had been sitting here doing nothing but feel herself drain of energy.
She couldn’t even see anything outside of the light area as the void surrounded her in a perfect circle.
“Eye?” she said, raising her head towards nothing in particular. No one answered. “I want to wake up now…” her voice full of vulnerability as it broke.
Still nothing responded.
All the rage from her early days trapped in the Tower already morphed into despair and despondency. She merely had no more fire to let out.
It was pointless to defy the Eye anyway, she knew that well through circumstances. The Signal Tower was more powerful than a puny little girl filled with naivety.
Her hand gripped the side of the chair tighter. “Just let me…out from here.”
Once again, all that was met was utter silence. It could be that the Eye had other, better things to do now that they had ahold of her powers, but that didn’t mean she was left unsupervised. After all, Viola was the one who let them take charge of her mind. She knew they enjoyed her sufferings.
“Let me wake up!” she tried again, desperately so.
Nothing.
Claustrophobia was never something she had trouble with, even in the room she was put in the first time. But trapped in this small circle of light, she felt more claustrophobic than ever.
Perhaps the Eye really just wanted her to suffer in multiple different ways.
Out of the sudden, the floor beneath her began to vibrate slightly. In frantic, she leaned her back further against the backrest as a couple of wooden boards below melted and swirled before her eyes, eventually transforming into a shape she was well familiar with.
An eye.
It looked so realistic as she could see lashes on the edge of its lids, as well as red veins appearing at the corner of the eye and all over the sclera, its iris brown in color.
The single eye gave a blink, snapping her out of her stupor, its pupils contracting as it stared right at her very soul. Viola only stared back down, unable to lift her eyes off of it in fear that it would disappear from her sight.
And then it blinked again, causing her to flinch and shriek.
The eye widened in glee at her reaction. “A pleasure to finally meet you face to face, dear! I am one of the eyes,” she heard its voice echoed all around her as it introduced itself.
One?
Viola opened her mouth in hesitance and confusion, however failing to find any words to speak. What did it mean by one of the eyes? Were there supposed to be more? She had always assumed that the Eye was one whole entity. Wasn’t it?
“Confused, aren’t you?” it said to which Viola flinched again.
However, this time she had the slightest bit of courage to nod her head.
It rolled its pupil at her non-verbal response. “Just take it this way then. I’m still the same Eye who took you into this Tower, the same Eye who gave you all those nightmares you hated and the same one your parents tried to defeat! No hard feelings, of course.” Its lids narrowed slightly and added, “Since you’ve called during a terribly busy hour, the Tower could only afford one eye to answer your call. So! What can I do for you, missy?”
The question caught her off-guard. Was this really the same unfeeling devil that tormented her for days? The one who...killed her parents?
If ‘the Eye’ was actually made of a bunch of eyes merged together, it would make sense how they had the power to control the Signal Tower—and an entire city too.
Do they also have a mind of their own? Different personalities for each and every eyes?
“Come on, I don’t have all day!” it complained impatiently, rolling its pupil once again as Viola remained silent.
At that, she stammered, “I-I want to—I want to wake up.”
The single eye only gave her a stare, unblinking as seconds soon turned into a full minute. Fear grew in her stomach when it didn’t respond to her. Was that the wrong thing to say? Had she angered it somehow? This was still the Eye after all, except maybe just a part. A tiny smidgen.
The room suddenly reverberated with its baleful laughter, sounding more to mock her. Viola shrunk in her seat as they filled her ears.
“You,” it wheezed, “you want to wake up?” Tears could be seen on its eyeballs from laughing too much. She couldn’t understand, what was so funny?
“…yes?” she replied, unsure herself.
The single eye blinked its remaining tears away and continued with a derisive tone. “Oh, you stupid little girl. Do you really think the Tower will do as you say? Follow your commands? What makes you think you’re the one in charge?”
It was now Viola who gave no response. Her hopes all demolished with just a few words.
As her body grew heavier, she could feel herself sink into the chair that she never left, the optimism and brightness behind her eyes slowly diminishing as her back became slumpier the more she let her head hung in despair.
“So…is that a no? Am I never waking up then?” Viola muttered, the lump forming in her throat.
Its lids narrowed as if sneering. “Everything is sealed in the deal, Viola. You’ll wake up sooner than you might think once it is done. Of course, bigger changes will occur when you do by then..." It eyed her up and down, judging her appearance. "But that’s nothing you should worry about for now.”
The single eye stared at her longer this time, letting an intimidating silence take over between them. Viola found herself at loss for words at that moment, her brain still in process of what she was told.
“Well!” it suddenly said, catching her by surprise, “If there isn’t anything else, then I’ll be taking my leave. I think it’s best if you rest up for what’s coming, dear.”
What’s coming?
“W-wait—!” Viola reached out her hand, motioning for it stay.
But as she blinked, the single eye disappeared from the floor, the wooden boards below appeared untouched as if nothing had even changed to begin with.
Viola eyed the empty space in shock, speechless as her mind raced with different questions with every minute spent in this void.
What was coming for her? What did it mean by that? Was there a monster lurking somewhere in the void?
Still perplexed, Viola looked all around her, trying to find any changes that she could spot from her seat. She dared not to venture outside of the light, in fear that she’d be trapped in utter darkness and never make it back to the chair. Even though nothing new was placed inside the void, her fear did not cease.
Nevertheless, she eventually gave up at trying after a while.
With a forlorn gaze etched in her eyes, she faced down to her lap as she sighed in sorrow. The sorrow, however, merely lasted just a few seconds for unsettledness replaced it and spread quick inside her stomach when she laid eyes at her very own hands.
Viola turned them around, carefully observing the difference she hadn’t noticed until now.
She stared at her long and bony fingers up until her whole arm, the skin becoming whiter as the same arm stretched slightly longer than before.
Eyes terrified, she shifted to her legs next.
Both feet no longer dangle in the air like it used to—like the first time she sat down on this chair. For the tip of her feet could almost touch the ground if she stretched them far enough.
Viola felt her breath hitch as she realized how her hair too had grown slightly longer than before as it reached past her shoulder.
Something was wrong.
What was happening to her body?
The thunder made her eyes shoot open.
Six jolted up in an instant, heaving short breaths as her heart thumped rapidly against her chest. She placed a firm hand over it and focused on her breathing until they became steady once more. Oh, how much she hated the weather in Pale City. Out of all the strange things that'd been happening as of late, an apocalypse-like thunder had to be the one thing that made her shiver and cower just after sleep. Stupid. Six rubbed her arms in hopes for heat, glancing around the apartment. Why was she sleeping on the floor, in the middle of the room under a leaking ceiling of all places? Why did it feel as though she hadn't been the only one doing so? And why was remembering feel like extra work?
She turned to the space beside her. It was empty.
Huh.
Did someone really lie down there or could it have been her mind creating false memories because of the lack of food? She glanced around again, standing up. She walked and approached his territory, only wanting to peek her head behind the wall.
Mono wasn't there. Strange. Had he gone somewhere else while she slept? Why wouldn't he wake her up if he did so?
Six hummed to herself, turning back as her body ached with every movement. Why was everything so sore? What did she even do aside from resting? Her eye caught to the pile of shoe. She halted mid-step, mouth agape.
And like a fresh bucket of cold water, it poured over her head along with pieces of memories she'd forgotten.
The Shoe War. The punching and the fighting. The screaming and her hunger pangs. Her hitting his head with a shoe. The...civil talking between them.
Six pressed a palm over her forehead, feeling as though she had fallen sick. Truly, she felt sick. They'd thrown shoes at each other, beat each other up and talked calmly all on the same day. What did they talk about again? She recalled faintly that Mono had voiced his opinion about wanting her to leave the city. She remembered that was the starting point of her hurling shoes at him. But after the fight, what did they talk about? Had they agreed she went home and him, to the Signal Tower all by himself? Or had they not come to an agreement, and Mono being Mono, decided to be his own boss and continued the mission without her?
That was a little...disappointing, to say the least.
Although, to say she was disappointed, she couldn't truly feel it. Her guts screamed at her that the latter conclusion was not what had happened. He guts were always right. If that were so, then could she have said something to successfully convince him? It would sound like something she could and would do. And if that were the case, could that mean he'd...changed his mind?
I'm sure he did. I was the one who's great with words.
But what in the world did I even say to him?
Six tugged her hood down, scratching the back of her head in slight frustration. She never had to struggle with her memory like this. Maybe this hunger pangs were getting worse. With an exasperated sigh, she pulled her hood back up and made a search for that stupid companion of hers.
“Mono?” she called out, grimacing internally at the sound of her hoarse throat. Even her voice sounded weak. Like her entire body.
Putting her growing vexation and insecurities aside, she halted in her steps as she caught sight of something new placed just in front of the apartment’s main door. Something that she was certain never belonged there.
A stool.
Positioned just below the door handle.
Through all her experience as a lone survivor, she didn’t need to think twice of why the stool was placed right where it was. And it was no puzzle to figure out either that a certain young boy was the one who had dragged the stool from the kitchen and placed it there so he could reach the handle on his own.
Six let out a long sigh, holding back the urge to openly curse at his stupidity for going out to the danger/unknown zone, not to mention all by himself. Not surprising, but still annoying. If he really did leave her behind, he best pray she didn't find him. Him and his addiction with chasing after death without meaning to. Though, considering the concerning flood out there...
Him leaving wasn't probable unless he wanted to take a quick swim. She doubted so.
Gazing up at the stool, she made her way to climb it, though with much more effort than she thought she'd usually need. As she panted briefly reaching the top, she proceeded to pull on the handle, opening it with a soft click.
Six jumped down to the floor with a satisfied hum, landing on her feet for only a moment before promptly falling down to her knees at the lack of proper balance.
Great. Just fantastic.
Nevertheless, the annoyance came back tenfold when her stomach let out a soft and faint groan, making her look down with gritted teeth as a figure appeared. One that'd been bothering her every single time.
The shadow stared down at her, imitating Six’s patronizing face as it shot her one. It’s face as if telling her what she already knew for the umpteenth time.
“Yeah I know,” Six grumbled, glaring daggers at the shadow as well as hating how it dared to act condescending towards her.
Not like its constant reminder would quicken the food-finding process anyhow.
Standing up to match its height, Six hissed, “Just stay out of my way.” She walked through it as if it were made of clouds.
At the contact, the shadow glitched slightly, it’s eyes never leaving the girl, even as Six already had her back turned and ignored its existence out of spite. Giving her one final stare, the shadow eventually disappeared into the air, its ominous aura following suit.
Six opened the door with a sigh, somewhat relieved it was gone. She proceeded to step out into the corridor after taking a quick peek.
Darkness made up most of the corridor, the lamps emitting yellow lights as some of them flickered from time to time on the striped wall, either lit dimly or totally burned out and dead. The corridor stretched far to one end, leading to another hallway presumably. Whereas the other end, an elevator could be seen with its scissor gate closed shut, a lever just by it. The light inside the elevator shaft was the only indication it was still in power.
She eyed the elevator up and down, wondering if Mono had used it to get to the other floors. Though, telling which floor he was on right now was impossible.
It wasn’t even confirmed yet he was on the floor as same as her.
Finally, it occured to Six.
What if he was taken by a monster again? What if she couldn’t find him on time this round? What if Mono was badly injured and bleeding out somewhere? Better yet, how would she even reach to him with her state like this? She was already slow to stand on her two feet, so how in the world would she outrun an adult if she encountered one?
Perhaps Six could defend herself with her powers, but would they work like they used to? Or would they appear for only a second before disappearing?
The thought of a hand closing around her torso and being eaten on the spot by a mindless, hungry monster made her blood run cold, her lips pursed in dread.
Maybe…she should go back. The door was right behind her. She could just head back inside where she knew safety was assured and pretend that she had been sleeping all this time.
He’d make it back just fine on his own; this was Mono.
She could wait for as long as needed until he returned.
And if he didn't? an evil voice whispered in her other ear.
Just as the doubts came circling at her mind like a spinning wheel, it was immediately put to a halt as a faint white light peeked through one of the apartment doors left ajar, vanishing and reappearing right before her eyes like a dying bulb.
Although, there was something familiar about the light, its strange on and off pattern as well as the color. It was like she’d seen it before.
But it wasn’t coming from any ceiling or wall lamps, that was for sure, given the lights on the corridor were seen as yellow.
Could that light be…?
Six gasped inaudibly as the realization kicked in.
A flashlight.
She rushed to the other apartment, hope rising in her chest. Without waiting, she pushed open the door, making it wider for her to enter. What she didn't expect was for the door to create a loud creak.
Her face cringed at sound, and the light was nowhere to be seen just as she stepped in.
Not now, she thought as she continued forward inside the apartment.
Once again, there was nothing but darkness while she scrutinized the living room, staying high on alert in case there was an adult in some corner waiting to attack her. The windows being the only source of light from the hectic thunderstorm outside, she was partly grateful for. It allowed her to see some of the outlines of the furniture and objects at least, taking her minutes to search for the boy who left her without notice.
But there didn’t seem to be any traces of him. Neither Mono nor the flashlight.
He isn't here.
However, right after deciding to check someplace else, a soft thud was captured, sounding just nearby. Instantly, her head snapped over to its direction, heart palpitating.
She listened carefully for the sound again, feeling the hairs on the back of her neck stand in trepidation.
Six approached the center of the living room. A long couch was placed in the corner of the room with a table in front of it, the floor decorated with a single dull carpet as two windows were seen on one side of the wall, raindrops tapping against them repeatedly.
Six halted in front of the couch, leaning slightly towards it. She could’ve sworn the sound came around here. Or had that been her imagination?
Again, she waited.
But everything was still dead silent, not including the pitter patter of the rain. Once more, she was convinced that no one was here. That Mono wasn't here.
Eventually she ended up backing away from the couch, assuming that it probably was the rain that made the sound.
With her lips in a pout, she left the living room area.
Mono hid in the space present behind the couch immediately after he heard the front door creaked open, and his hold around the newfound flashlight tightened in anticipation.
Whatever this monster was, he wouldn’t let himself be caught. He just couldn’t. Although not just because he didn’t want to die in the hands of an ugly monster—obviously dying was the worst possible outcome for basically anyone—but also because someone was still sleeping soundlessly in the other apartment, not a clue to where he had gone.
And it had only been a couple of hours since he left her. Mono made sure to close the door on his way out of course, he wouldn’t want to risk an adult coming in without him being there to wake her up.
Because everybody deserves a chance at escaping.
Being eaten while unconscious might seem the most painless ways to go, but still, he couldn’t let that happen, even if that person was a dirty traitor. Regardless, Six had a future ahead of her, that being Viola—and yes, he’d been using the younger girl as an excuse to help her mother, whom he hated…a lot.
Mono felt his shoulder relaxed as the monster’s footsteps receded. He heaved a silent breath through his nose.
Thank God. For a second there he thought the monster had found hi—
The flashlight in his hand suddenly slipped from his sweaty palm, and it fell hard to the wooden floor just before he could catch it in time.
Thud.
That couldn’t be good.
In utter panic, Mono quickly grabbed the flashlight and hugged it closer toward his chest, holding it protectively. He covered his mouth and nose as he heard the footsteps becoming closer and terrifyingly closer.
The monster, however, then stopped its movements, giving him the agonizing suspense he had ever received with its deafening silence.
He had half the mind to just bolt out of there, yet he did nothing but shut his eyes tight, fearing that his silly mistake had brought him ultimate death.
Anytime now, the monster would find his hiding spot. And that’d be the end for him, he knew it.
Damn it, I should’ve never left the apartment!
Despite regretting his actions now, he had no other choice. Six had been asleep for a day and a half—And counting! Mono had already tried shaking her shoulder without pushing her, but that didn’t do much apparently. Six was as still as a corpse.
And If he was being honest to himself—like really, deep, deep down, honest-to-god—it was kind of…worrying him. To add on, her showing no signs of waking up only made his concern increase higher, not that he cared much about Six.
…Okay, maybe a little since she already saved him a few times—
Mono vehemently shook his head at his train of thoughts.
There’s a 50-50 chance I’m getting caught, and all I’m thinking about is Six? Is she seriously my last-moment thoughts?
Unbelievable.
Once again, the monster finally made its move after what felt like a long time, although moving farther and farther from him. Mono held his breath a few seconds more until he was sure that it was far enough.
For like the second time, Mono sighed in relief, albeit holding the object in his hand tight as to avoid making the same mistake again. Raising his head up above the couch, he took a peek. His eyes searched for the adult in the living room, soon landing on the front door that was still wide open.
He gulped as he saw his opening chance.
This apartment wasn’t safe anymore to look for food. At least I wouldn’t go back empty-handed, he told himself as he kept his flashlight safely in his coat. He knew he needed to get back to Six now, considering there was an adult present nearby to their own apartment.
Climbing from behind the couch, he jumped out of his hiding place and ran for the door, not caring if he was making noises that could attract attention.
All that ran through his mind was going back. If he was fast enough to leave, then the adult wouldn’t have the chance to even see where he went.
As he left the apartment, he rushed to his own and stopped right in front of the door. He breathed hard, trying his attempts at reaching the door handle by himself with such profound determination, while also forgetting that his height alone wasn’t high enough to reach it.
Too focused on opening the door, he hadn’t even realized a certain someone in a yellow raincoat was watching him in sheer confusion from the other apartment he just left.
It was obvious to her who the person was. And him muttering curses seemed to have helped her confirm it.
Soon enough, she approached Mono from behind, her footsteps being muffled by the thin carpet in the corridor.
“Mono—”
He let out a small yelp, instantly pressing his back against the door as he turned around, the back of his head accidentally knocked on the door in the process.
However, he soon calmed down a little when he met a familiar, tired face.
“Six,” he said, skin already pale from the scare, his heart still pounding in his chest, “y-you’re awake?” he said in shock and disbelief.
“What are you doing out here?” Six ignore his question, shooting him a half glare.
He gulped. “Oh…um. I was just...I got…bored,” he lied, not wanting to reveal his true reason.
Because if he did, then he knew what that’d sound like. It'd seem as if he had risked his life just to find food for her, even though that was the case.
“Bored?” Six raised a brow, her tone incredulous and pissed. She didn’t seem like she bought his weakly constructed lie. Well that was to be expected, he never pegged her as a dense person either.
Removing his palm from the door, he stood up straight, trying to think of a believable excuse as to why he was even out in the first place. That was until he felt something heavy resting in his coat pocket.
An idea popped into his head just as needed.
The flashlight!
Mono fumbled through his coat. “I went out to look for some useful things. And found this flashlight not long ago,” he said, getting ahold of the object and showed it to her
Six stared at the flashlight for a few seconds with an uninterested face, then her eyes darted back to him. She placed her hands at her hips as if in contemplation whether he was telling the truth.
Well, it wasn’t the whole truth. But she didn’t need to know that.
After a moment of silence, Six softened her gaze and released an exasperated sigh, rubbing her face tiredly. “Whatever, just—Don't just disappear. Next time tell me. Or at least wake me up.”
Mentally, he scoffed, putting back his flashlight in his coat.
As if I hadn’t tried that.
“Sure,” he told her instead, resisting the urge to roll his eyes at her.
Six merely gave a nod at his answer, her eyes glancing back at the door every now and then.
“So…can we go back in now?” she said, seemingly have lost all the energy to continue this conversation as she wrapped her arms around her abdomen. A frown visible on his face when he noticed that.
He finally shook his head and stepped away from the door, giving her more space to stand under the door handle while he made his way behind. And her face switched from wonder to complete bafflement as he kneeled down to the floor, his hands lowly cupped in front of him.
“What are you doing?” she asked, taking a step back.
It was his turn to look at her perplexed. “What do you mean ‘what am I doing’? You know I can’t open it by myself.” He gestured to the door with a tilt of his head, still on his knees. “So, come on. Let's get this over with.”
“Why can’t I be the one to boost you up?” her voice becoming slightly defensive.
Mono flattened his hands on his knee as it began to tire him. He breathed in deeply before saying, “Don’t take this the wrong way, but you don’t look like you…can.”
Six shot a scowl his way. “I can. I’ll do it with one arm if I have to.”
He hummed in uncertainty at her insisting to boost him up. “Yeah, I don’t really think that’s a good idea—?”
“Just let me do it.”
Mono raised his hands in defeat as he stood up. Going against her might cause another petty brawl, and he simply didn't have the energy for that.
“Suit yourself.”
In response, she pursed her lips at his challenge, imitating his previous pose. Naturally, Mono placed a foot on her cupped hand, and she immediately pushed him up towards the door handle, to his surprise. He took hold of it with ease and pulled it down, causing the door to push open.
He released the handle and dropped to the floor after, turning over to Six as he expected her to say out witty comments for underestimating her.
But her head was focused elsewhere, eyes searching towards the other end of the corridor.
Again, she was looking at empty places like she had for the last couple of days, and that made him uneasy. He hadn’t the nerve to ask her yet lest she’d snap at him.
“Six? The door is open…” He tried telling her.
She merely shushed him in reply, one finger lifted as if to emphasis that, her eyes searching the corridor for something he couldn’t see.
“I heard something,” she said as her face hardened. “Listen.”
Mono scrunched his brows, confused. But he did as he was told nonetheless, staying silent as to try and catch what Six had heard seconds ago. It didn't take long for sound to come back again.
A squeak was heard.
He let out a small gasp, Six smiled at his reaction.
“There! Do you hear it now?” she asked, finally turning to him, her eyes brightening for some reason.
“Yeah, but…” The squeak sounded again as it interrupted him. Both searched for the source of sound from where they stood.
Then came a silhouette.
The two instantly got into a more defensive stance as the ‘thing’ squeezed itself out of a small hole in the wall. Its size no bigger than them, perhaps even smaller.
Without taking his eyes off of it, he watched as it crawled on fours, almost in zig zags while it moved in an animalistic way. It soon occurred to him what the thing really was.
A rat.
The rodent wasn’t that far from where they were, and he knew it wouldn’t hurt them both if they just left it alone. That was a scare. Mono released a sigh of relief, returning to his normal posture.
The same couldn't be said for Six though.
She never lifted her stare off the rat until now. Her throat appeared to have swallowed her own saliva multiple times just so it wouldn’t flow out of her mouth as it watered, but she’d be mistaken if she thought he hadn’t noticed this change in her behavior.
With her knees bent slightly, she held out her arms like a predator, eyes hungry for a meal she couldn’t have.
His eyes widened more when she started stalking towards the rat.
Without thinking, Mono grabbed firmly at her arm, earning a growl from the girl as she was stopped.
“Don’t touch me,” she hissed, her teeth bared at him in a hostile manner.
There were no words to describe how amazing yet troubling it was of her sudden mood change. Suppose this was her hunger making her act like this.
“It’s just a rat, Six. Let it go,” he said in the most calming tone he could muster, knowing how bad it’d end for both of them if he protested with the same emotion as her.
Despite his gentleness, she growled louder.
“I said don’t touch me!” she raised her voice, yanking her arm away from him, almost making him fall forward if he hadn’t caught himself faster. As she realized her actions being too harsh, she added, although softer this time. Was she feeling bad? “Just stay inside. I’ll come back when I’m finished.” She turned her attention back to the rodent.
Mono felt himself shrink at her words. For it held such a disturbing meaning behind it, something even he couldn’t comprehend at first. But it clicked faster than he ever could’ve imagined.
No…
“S-Six?” he called weakly, but that did nothing to stop her from slowly advancing on the rat.
Any second now, she would charge after it and do who knows what. He couldn’t bear to stand idly by and witness it.
Feeling a sudden rush of anger burst from within, his legs began to move on its own. Mono rushed towards Six, albeit not to stop her this time. It wouldn’t work no matter how he tried.
On purpose, he ran towards the rat itself with the intention of shooing it away.
And shoed it was as it crawled forward and away from them—away from Six.
Mono watched it moved further to the end of the corridor in silence, partly relieved.
“What did you do?” Six muttered incredulously with her fists balled tightly to her side. “Why the hell did you do that?!” She looked at him in utter frustration more than anger.
“I-I told you to just let it go. But you wouldn’t listen to me.”
“You idiot, don’t you see that that was my chance? My one chance at regaining my energy and power even just a little bit?!”
“It was a rat! A dirty rat, Six. How could you even think that it’d help you? How can a disgusting animal like that fill your hunger?!” He pointed to the rat escaping further from them, though his eyes never left Six.
While the two children bickered in the background without a care in the world, the rat continued its way until reaching the end of the corridor.
Though, just as the rodent was about to turn left to the connected corridor, a large hand circled around its body, lifting it up as if it was made of light feather. The rat squeaked in protest but that only made the adult hold it firmly with its two hands instead.
A curious hum sounded from the adult as it shifted its focus over to the children with a tilt of its head.
“You-you don’t understand,” Six said, her eyes watered as Mono’s words stung like a bee, all because there were some truths in it she wouldn’t like to admit herself. “I needed that rat. I needed it so I can feel better— to be better again! If you hadn’t scared it away, I could’ve already…” She trailed off as she turned her gaze over to the animal, her skin paled at the sight before her.
Mono merely shot a look of confusion at her sudden silence. What was wrong now?
Curious at what was holding her in such a state, he followed her stare and understood immediately why she reacted the way she did.
Even with the huge distance between the rat and them, he could still see pretty clear of what was now standing at the end of the corridor, holding the rat as it squirmed desperately to get out of its capturer’s iron hold.
Frankly, he had wondered once if there were truly any threat here in this apartment building, and today his question might just get an answer.
The adult was nothing but a giant of fat, its many layers of flesh making it seem more distorted than any normal citizen. Not a single hair was seen on its head as its face appeared like a melted candle and droopy. Somehow, its appearance almost reminded him of the Guests he’d seen at the Maw, those ugly beasts.
However, if he were to compare, this…monster, a tenant he assumed, had no mouth or nose whatsoever for its greyish skin covered them clean, excluding the ugly wrinkles.
Without a mouth, it only made sense to wonder how it'd consume another living being like other adults. Perhaps its lack thereof was a good thing?
Maybe this monster doesn’t eat children.
As if it had heard his mental assumption, the Tenant squished the rat harder, causing the animal to cry out in agony as it squirmed even more until it moved no longer. The sound of bones cracking was enough to tell them it'd died under pressure.
The Tenant then proceeded to raise the rat’s corpse to them before shoving it into its stomach. Its skin—as well as clothes—engulfing the rat like quicksand as the rodent sunk deeper and deeper into the belly of a monster, disappearing inside it completely in just seconds.
The two could only watch it unfold in sheer horror. Enough so that Mono took back what he said.
This one definitely ate children.
Notes:
I introduce you a new OC antagonist...*cue drum roll*
The Tenant, everybody.
So yay :D
Thanks for reading!
Chapter 34: We hide, They seek
Notes:
[WARNING]
There's blood in this chapter.
Edit: ok a little blood
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Both froze at the sight of the Tenant, its eyes never leaving them as if they were its midnight snack. Because that was all they were to mindless monsters like it.
A snack.
Neither child even needed the time to communicate for a plan as they already shared the same one in mind, just like many times before when it came to situations like this. Without waiting for the Tenant’s move, both bolted towards their apartment, seeing it as the closest way out.
The Tenant let out an eerie groan, charging after them.
Crap, crap, crap.
Mono swallowed the ever-growing anxiety bubbling inside his chest. He pushed the front door wider as Six tailed right behind him, entering the said apartment. Together, they pushed the door closed, feeling the weight of the Tenant pressing on the other side. Six growled under her breath, muttering indistinct curses as she held the door beside her old friend.
Familiar, a sense of déjà vu struck him at the exact moment. Hadn’t they been in this position with the taxidermized woman as well? He shook off the thought, looking over to Six instead.
“Do you have a plan this time?” he asked, accidentally sounding sarcastic.
“A plan?” she casted a scowl, snapping to him. “I don’t know, Mono. Initially, my plan was to just eat the rat, then regain some of my powers! But you already screwed that one up, so you think of something.”
A sudden feeling of guilt washed over him as he met her eyes. Seeing the tears forming in them despite her visible anger towards him, he held back a quip.
It was a rat. A rat she tried to eat. Just—blegh.
She should be thankful that he had the decency to stop her from eating such a disgusting, gross and furry creature. If I didn’t care, I would’ve done nothing and let her eat it.
He stopped himself at his own accidental confession.
Did he just unconsciously admit to himself that he cared? Well, by stopping her from feasting on the rodent, it did prove it more. Technically. But he didn’t stop her out of care, did he? He stopped her because…it wasn’t right. Eating an animal like that—and might he add raw—just wasn’t right.
That was all it was. Nothing more, nothing less.
“Mono!” Her voice immediately brought him back to reality, making him turn to her with wide eyes. “What’s the plan here?” She pressed her side against the door as it became heavier to push by the second.
The Tenant was coming in, and no one could say otherwise.
He looked up at the door one last time before uttering an answer.
“Hide.”
Six scrunched up her brows, uncertain if she should go along with it. The apartment wasn’t that big after all, given there were only four rooms they could choose to hide in. A narrow hallway led up to the other rooms; kitchen, bedroom, and a small bathroom just by it. The living room being the largest amongst them all, but mostly an open space.
He knew once they release the door, the Tenant would undoubtedly enter a second later, leaving them with such a limited time to even think of where to hide. A guaranteed game over for those who wasn’t able to find a hiding spot fast enough. He’d understand why Six was hesitant, given her state which he wouldn’t dare bring up now.
Six shot him another look of uncertainty before finally nodding. Mono gulped, suddenly feeling hesitant himself as she agreed.
Great, I suggested the idea and I'm reconsidering it last minute.
Too late for that.
For they had already released the door.
Mono dashed over to the narrowed hallway and towards the end of the hall as Six once again followed close behind, the boards lightly creaking beneath their feet.
A loud slam was heard from behind, causing him to stagger in his steps slightly out of surprise.
He didn’t even spare the time to look back. To even spare Six a glance to see how she was doing.
With luck on his side, he managed to make it inside the bedroom just before the Tenant could spot him. Hiding behind the wall, he could hear its fierce stomps, marching towards the living room as it began its search there.
He internally sighed, adrenaline coursing through his veins, his heart pounding against his chest.
A close-call. How he hadn't suffered from any health issues yet from all these situations was beyond him. Mono exhaled a deep breath, his gaze shifting beside him, to where his companion would be.
Except she wasn't there.
“Six?” he whispered in confusion, turning his head to every corner to find her. The realization hurt him worse than he thought.
She wasn’t in here with him. And now that he thought of it, he never saw her coming in.
Panic rose, feeling a dreadful twist in the pit of his stomach for someone he never thought he’d be this afraid of losing. Even after everything she did to him.
“Six!” he whisper yelled, more anxious than before.
There was only him inside the bedroom, and that made it all clear when nothing responded back.
Gritting his teeth, he went and peeked from the door, making sure he was hidden from the Tenant. At the same time, he searched for any signs of a yellow-hooded girl.
The sound of furniture being thrown all over the place could be heard from where he stood. The Tenant was growing more and more impatient. And despite being at the far end of the hallway, it did not reassure him of his safety. Because it was all a matter of time before the adult searched the whole place.
Peeking his head out further, he waited until the Tenant’s shadow was no longer seen from his view. After deeming it safe enough, he stepped out into the hallway, his eyes darting between the two other doors on the sides.
Nonetheless, something in his guts just knew, Six couldn’t have been in the living room. Well, for one, he would've heard her scream pierce through the air by now. And two, he was awfully certain she was right behind him when he ran in the hallway.
But, why would she stop halfway? Why didn't she just follow him into the bedroom? He didn't know. But it did narrow down the possibilities into two.
The kitchen and the bathroom.
He'd just have to pick either one, and if he was lucky, he might only need to check once.
Although he really hoped there wasn’t a second monster hiding in the apartment. If she was taken again by an adult, he didn’t know what he’d do.
As he sneaked further into the hallway, his foot suddenly landed on something…warm. Lifting up his foot off the wooden floor, he inspected his own sole, wondering why it felt strangely wet. Despite the darkness, his eyes widened in horror at what he saw.
Blood.
His mind shifted to the only person it could belong to.
He crouched down to the floor, a finger already brushing lightly on the spot where he had stepped earlier. Still fresh. Though it baffled him how the blood was even there in the first place—considering if it were truly Six’s. It should be hers as there wasn't anyone else as far as he knew.
Still, how could she have been hurt when there was nothing to physically hurt her?
Unless…
There was.
And something was missing from the picture.
Mono narrowed his eyes at the drop of blood, soon seeing dark spots gracing the floor in one line, as if it were footprints as it led to the bathroom just ahead of him.
As he took a step forward, he could feel one board slightly loose below him. He raised his brow, looking back down, pressing his foot onto the board once again—with caution of course.
However, his head instinctively shifted off the floor when the Tenant’s footsteps became closer to the hallway, its shadow appearing bigger as it approached.
His heart rate increased within seconds.
Mono rushed to the bathroom, its door left ajar. He entered without a sound and slowly closed the door shut behind him, not wanting the monster to check the bathroom first.
He exhaled silently, his eyes to the floor as he rested against the wall beside the door.
But his moment of break was cut short for he saw it again.
The tiny drops of blood.
He let himself follow it, his head moving up until he set eyes on her.
Mono had no clue of whether he should feel relieved or legitimately concerned.
Six was sitting on the floor, her back leaning at the tub behind her. Everything about her was in a state of disarray as her hands tended to her foot, a puntured wound on her sole. A sharp rusted nail rested beside her, red coloring the tip.
What happened to her?
A stifled whimper escaped her; her eyes closed tight as if trying to numb the pain mentally.
Unconsciously, his shoulders sagged.
He hurried over to her side, crouching next to her. She didn’t acknowledge him, not at first at least.
“You’re hurt,” he said. An obvious statement more than anything.
She hissed, wincing every few seconds at the sharp sting on her foot. “I know that.”
He stared at her foot for a second before turning to the nail. Grimacing at it, he couldn’t help but think of how painful it must’ve been for her to just pull it out. Of course, Six was built different in some cases, but still. Seeing how some blood would ooze when pressed, the wound had to be pretty deep.
Just by imagining the nail puncturing his own foot, he could feel the pain spreading all over his leg.
“Is it still out there?” she asked in soft whispers, lifting his attention to her. Knowing she meant the raging Tenant just nearby, he gave a brief nod.
At that, she threw her head back, eyes almost hopeless.
No sustenance, painful hunger pangs, and now an injured foot? He could understand why she’d feel so.
At least if it was the arm, it wouldn’t limit her ability to run.
“Shit.” He heard her say, her hands covering her face as she took in multiple deep breaths. “This is bad,” she muttered, her hands shaking.
Mono had no comment to that, moving his gaze to the door. Why did she have to sound so sad like that? Whatever it was, he wasn't liking how it made his chest full of pity and guilt.
“We really have to go, Six.”
She instantly removed her hands from her eyes, a glare on her. “I can’t. If I go out now, I’ll end up getting snatched instead. I won't have enough time to do anything if it's chasing me.”
“So, you’re just going to stay in here then? Wait for it to come to you and kill you?”
Six pouted, looking the other way. She mumbled, “Not if I kill it first.”
“And how exactly will you do that? I mean, you’ve already used up a lot of your powers at the daycare. Which in the end, wasn’t even you who killed off that woman, was it?”
He rose up to his feet, ignoring the face Six made as he walked to the toilet bowl and climbed on top of its closed lid, eyes on the toilet papers placed at the very top.
“Mono, what are you—"
“You can’t run with an open wound. That’s just plain stupidity, Six,” he said, making his way to the two rolls of toilet papers.
Good thing it was the bathroom she chose to hide in.
Hugging one roll of toilet paper to his chest, he quickly jumped down to the floor, running to her side.
Yet, as he kneeled by her foot ready to patch her injury, Six recoiled her leg as much as she could.
Mono sighed exasperatedly, casting a glance at the door behind him every now and then. He hated how incredibly quiet it had become beyond the it. Whether the Tenant left or was still inside the apartment, they couldn’t risk assuming the former.
They had to hurry up.
Turning his attention back to Six, he was met with that look of hers again. The one that said ‘I’d rather die than being treated by you’ kind of look. His hold around the toilet paper tightened as his patience ran thin.
Six huffed, unfazed at his hardened posture. “I’m fine. I don’t need your stupid bandage,” she spat out as she attempted to stand despite her pain.
Nevertheless, as soon as her injured foot was pressed firmly against the floor, she fell back to her rear.
“Kind of seem like you do need it though.”
Six shot him another death glare.
Mono rolled his eyes and briskly grabbed her ankle before she could pull back like last time, having had enough of her attitude.
In return, he earned himself some insults from Six. Whispers of the word ‘Idiot’ and ‘ugly jerk’ being the common one used on him. He only ignored it as he wrapped layers of toilet paper around her wounded foot multiple times. And working as fast as he could lest the Tenant would barge in at any second. Or if Six decided to smack him at the very last second.
Neither happened to his relief.
For eventually, she realized how futile it was to stop him, given he was rather fast doing his work.
Even so, her scowl stayed. It stayed just to show how pissed she was at him treating her leg without her permission. Not that he cared much honestly.
Time wasn’t a thing they were granted a luxury for, and the Tenant was still out there. He wasn’t going to let his time be wasted all because of her. If they weren’t on a time limit, then just maybe, he’d deal with her stubbornness in a more proper, patient way.
But today, a big nope.
Mono wrapped a final layer of toilet paper—just thick enough until the blood wouldn’t come through—all around her foot and secured it.
“There, now we’re even,” he said blankly, implying at his own arm she had patched up.
At least both of them knew what it felt like to be treated by someone they hated. Not to mention, the embarrassment.
Six examined her bandaged foot once or twice, a displeased yet appreciative hum leaving her. She looked at him, nodding her head.
Mono stood back up, watching the girl get off the floor, albeit struggling on her own.
Obviously, he wasn’t allowed to offer any more help after patching up her foot because of her damn ego. He’d been stuck with her long enough to know that. Plus, the intimidating stare she gave him was another sign for him to back off this time. Wouldn't be a good idea to fight her on it, and not worth the energy.
Shaking his head, he opted to wait by the door instead while Six stood up by herself.
However, just as he neared the door, he halted himself from going any further, his ears capturing a faint noise.
Leaning closer, he craned his neck.
Did I just hear…
Heavy footsteps came approaching behind the door.
The sound of the Tenant’s uncanny hum.
Mono instantly backed away a couple of steps, his blood running cold.
They were too late.
Immediately, he turned to Six, who was already up by then thankfully. Though, that didn't help the fact that his complexion had drained of color.
“What’s wrong—?”
“We have to hide. Now.”
Hearing the urgency behind his voice, she nodded and followed without question.
Mono ran to the bathtub and jumped up, seeing it as the only place that could hide both of them, its tranluscent curtain already hiding most of the tub. He felt his breath quicken, his hands easily clutching the edge of the tub as he climbed up, the slippery surface of the tub causing him to slide down spontaneously.
It all happened so fast that he barely had time to register how cold the tub was beneath his skin, the back of his skull bumping against the ceramic tub, a dull ache on his head.
Well, that hurts.
He quickly regained himself, soon realizing Six was having a harder time climbing compared to him as he saw her. Her arms were slipping every time she tried pushing herself up but to no avail. The edge of the tub already tainted with her bloodied handprints. The pained and frustrated look on her face told him enough.
That she couldn’t climb inside on her own.
That the pain from her foot was holding her back.
Her hand slipped further and almost out of his sight as her strength faded, her fingers becoming the only thing he could see.
Out of instinct, he lunged upwards, taking hold of the said fingers just before she could fall back to the floor.
Six’s mouth went agape at his unexpected help. Staring up, she grabbed at his hand like her life depended on it.
Surprisingly, Mono didn’t even think of how familiar this situation was to him. How similar it was to the betrayal he couldn’t shut up about.
He clutched her arm tight, hoping to pull her up, but only for her weight to drag him down slightly. By that point, he was aware that he could fall out of the tub the longer he tried pulling her in.
The doorknob rattled.
Both snapped their heads to it, hearts skipping a beat at the same time, staring at the knob as it began to rattle harder.
He felt the hand around his tightened, making him shift back to her.
“Uh, Six? Now would be a great time for you to just climb,” he whispered, partially panicking and irritated.
“I’m sorry, but what the hell do you think I’m doing this entire time?” she retorted back with the same volume, albeit angrier.
He tightly pulled at her wrist the moment he felt it slipping.
Mono groaned in frustration as the doorknob began to twist slowly. “Just use your legs and climb damn it!”
“I-I can’t! I just stepped on a nail!”
“Then don’t just dangle there. Do something!”
Suppressing a cry behind her throat, Six mentally prepared herself for the pain and used both of her feet, climbing up the tub as Mono pulled her in with him.
The bathroom door slammed open a second after they tumbled down inside the bathtub.
The two rolled and landed side by side, their heads meeting the hard tub in unison. Mono grimaced as this was his second time bumping his head against the tub.
Six reacted the same, her face wincing. Although he wasn’t sure because of what. He could only imagine the pain she was feeling after that short fall.
They stayed in their position, frozen as they saw the Tenant’s shadow move behind the shower curtain. It’s shadow being the only indicator of where it stood, and where it would go next.
Silence overtook the scene.
Not a sound coming from them, nor the monster.
Every second passed like minutes, feeling the tension grow the longer they stayed inside the tub.
All they had to do was wait.
And wait they did.
The children only watched from behind the curtain, the Tenant's shadow disappearing from view, seemingly crouching to where Six had sat before, her blood being the only reason it approached. It picked up the bloodied nail with it as it rose, inspecting the object like a child curious of every little thing in their surroundings.
Mono felt his heart beat rise when the Tenant’s head briefly gazed at the tub, the sound of the nail dropping back to the ground filling the dreadful silence as the Tenant's body rocked back and forth.
However, seeing as there weren’t any children, it eventually turned towards the door to leave, it’s footsteps receding. And soon, gone from the room.
Mono internally sighed.
The Tenant finally left them alone. Guess hiding wasn’t a bad plan after all.
As long as none of them made a noise, the Tenant wouldn’t know they were in the same room. The Tenant wouldn't find them.
A faint whimper sounded beside him.
His eyes widened in dread, looking at Six who had both of her hands clamped over her mouth. Her lids closed shut as a single tear escaped it, holding back her pain with all her might as she curled her legs in.
Mono turned to her foot, seeing a spot of blood coming through the bandage.
Oh, no.
The footsteps that he thought had left came back. However, this time sounding closer and closer to the tub.
To where they were in.
Both pressed their backs further against the wall of the tub, the shower curtain hiding them from the being found right then and there. But it was all up to fate whether they’d be found. For it only took one large hand to pull the curtain away and reveal them.
He shuddered at the thought.
The Tenant’s shadow blocked all the natural light the bathroom had just by standing behind the curtain.
Literally, they were cornered. They couldn’t bolt—well, mostly applied to Six. And just waiting for death to claim them was not an option either. He knew his abilities were the only thing that could prevent those things from happening now. Prevent them from being caught.
Though whether he could kill the Tenant for good was another question. More like he doubted it. Ever since they met the Nanny—and her strange ability—he had a feeling the woman’s strength had to do something with whatever Transmission the Signal Tower was broadcasting now.
Not to blame Viola, but things did change right after she was taken.
And everything about the monsters they had encountered felt off. Well, every adult was off from the very start, but this was…different. The adults weren’t all just dumb, dumb like before.
He wouldn't rule out the possibility of the Tenant being different like the others had been. As for how different exactly, he had no clue.
Perhaps telekinesis? Teleportation? Mind-controlling abilities? It might be lesser than that but, it couldn’t hurt to expect the worse, right?
As he prepared himself for those scenarios, he was stopped short, barely standing up to his full height as a cold hand seized his arm, forcefully pulling him down to his knees. Mono snapped to Six who was glaring daggers as if he had offended her. He felt her hand squeeze his sleeve ever so slightly, her stare intimidating yet unreadable at the same time.
He raised a brow, mouthing, "What?"
In response, she released her hold and gestured up to the curtain behind them, pointing to the Tenant who was moving closer and closer to where they hid.
What in the world was she on about? Did she think he was blind to not have noticed how the adult was approaching? That was the whole reason why he stood up anyway! Mono didn't bother hide his confusion, not understanding why she'd stopped him so abruptly.
Six then slowly lifted up her own hand at the adult's approaching shadow, her expression as dark as her intentions. Only then he understood just exactly what she was doing. He understood why she'd pulled him down.
She was stealing his plan.
Oh, no you don't.
Mono pushed down her hand before she could summon her shadow powers, his turn of stopping her.
She bared her teeth with clear resentment behind her eyes, the corner of her mouth twitching into a snarl.
There was no way would he let her steal his plan and get away with it. And for her to be mad at that was simply ridiculous and uncalled for. Of all people, he was the one who had the right to be upset.
Not her.
With one hand gripped on her arm, he shoved down the other just as soon as she tried to use that one instead. Mono shook his head, telling her to stop being a careless fool and to stay down.
“Let me do it,” she whispered inaudibly, her face as firm as his hold.
Not a chance. She would only make herself worse if he let her.
“No,” he deadpanned as he communicated back the same way, reminding each other that the actual threat was still in the same room.
After giving his answer, he pulled his hands away, putting his focus back to the Tenant's looming figure.
Mono turned his back to her, standing up as he readied himself to blast this monster the second it'd reveal them. Yet, he couldn't for Six managed to stop him once more, yanking his sleeve as to make him fall back to his knees. He bit back a pained groan.
As they locked gaze, Six shook her head in protest, still insisting she should be the one to use her powers on the adult.
Oh, how bad he wanted to just yell at her.
How could she still be thinking of using her powers even after being injured?
Stubborn little sh—
He inhaled deeply.
Continuing with their inaudible conversation, he pointed to her wounded foot. “Look at yourself.” His gestures becoming more exaggerated when she wouldn’t listen.
His patience already thinned. What was she trying to prove by doing this? Prove that she wasn't weak? Prove that she could fight still? Prove that her injury didn't affect her when it clearly did? All of that was pointless in the middle of facing an adult!
Mono, giving a quick look over to the curtain, panicked as he saw thick fingers reach out to the edge of curtain. Its touch lingered as if on purpose, the fabric creasing the tighter it grasped.
A shiver ran down his spine as the curtain pulled slowly.
He turned immediately back to Six, sending her a warning gaze.
“Just stay down, Six.”
Again, he received the same from her as she disagreed all the same, her opinions downright the opposite.
With her stopping him for some reason, and him not wanting her to hurt herself even more by using hers—it was ridiculous. Especially for two people who had fought so much and hurt each other in the past.
He could feel the anger and vexation rise in him the more they fought quietly amongst each other, battling on who would be the one to use their powers to fire at the adult. Because, never had he ever felt the urge to slap Six flat in the face more than now. At this rate, he was sure she'd be leading both of them to their deaths. So comfortable in complaining and putting blame, he hadn't realized he was doing the same thing.
The sound of a glass shattering sounded from the distance, causing everything to stop all at once.
And once again, they found themselves frozen, their silent fight ceasing as the Tenant’s released its fingers away from the curtain after a second, its footsteps running towards the door and out.
Both sat still, staring at each other with surprise and relief in the other’s eyes. After waiting a few seconds more, they were met with silence, and the Tenant’s footsteps and presence were no longer heard in the apartment.
Six’s iron grip loosened, removing her hands away from him. Mono also retracted himself, distancing himself with a glare etched on his face.
They decided to wait a little more before one of them finally broke off the silence, however, not daring to raise their voices.
“What the hell was that Six?” he asked firmly, clearly questioning why she had stopped him the first time.
She avoided his glare and turned to her leg instead, her hands lightly brushing the ankle of her injured foot. She released a breath. “I did what I think was right. That’s all.”
“Well, your concept of ‘right’ is crap then. You could’ve gotten us killed. No—your stubbornness could’ve gotten us killed. Why couldn't you just let me do it?”
“Because you couldn’t take a moment to even use your head and think,” she seethed, facing him with a scowl. “If you’re wasting your powers on this monster now, how will you face the Eye? How are you going to save Viola if you're left with nothing? Have you ever thought about that? Do you even know how cruel, and horrible the Eye is?” her voice came out breaking, but her face spoke of immense hatred. It would’ve seem so if it weren’t for the tears in the brim of her eyes.
A sudden feeling of fear gnawed at his mind as she mentioned the Eye.
Of course he knew how cruel the Eye was, he’d experienced it himself firsthand! And he’d been a victim because of her. Being trapped in isolation inside that empty room, six months of his life all gone and taken away so easily. That was horrible enough.
How he could just roll his eyes out loud with the way she said it! The nerve she had by making it seem as if she had it worse.
Yeah, right!
She couldn’t have got it worse than him.
He glanced at her.
But could she, though?
In retrospect, he did find her deformed with her limbs transfigured into a monster. And it had took him…quite longer than he’d like to admit to get to the Signal Tower and free her out of that state. Sure, she probably had to wait in that form all so helplessly and in pain…
But that couldn’t have been worse than being locked away for months and all alone, right?
Internally, he kicked himself.
He realized he never asked that about her. He never asked about what happened during her time in the Signal Tower. He never asked about what she felt.
All because he was still bitter about the betrayal, too self-absorbed in his own suffering.
Mono averted his eyes, the glare he had up softened and soon replaced with something akin to guilt.
“You do know how awful you look right now, don’t you?” he asked, shifting the subject away from the Eye. He had a feeling she wouldn’t like to be reminded of her history in the Tower, especially now. Even if he didn't know what she went through exactly, anything with the Eye was bad news. Period.
Six nodded, looking at her foot as she fixed the bandages. “…Yeah.”
“You know how injured you are? How your hunger thing is still a problem?”
“I already know that Mono,” she snapped, “You don’t have to throw it to my face.”
He huffed. “Good, I was afraid you got blinded by your ego for a second there. Cause what you’re asking me to do is just really stupid. In fact, so stupid that you might be considered as one too.”
“I'm stupid?” her eyes narrowed dangerously.
“That’s right, you heard me. You want me to save up my powers from now on and let you do all the work? No. You’re only killing yourself if you insist on me backing off whenever we’re facing a threat.”
“I’m already at my lowest now, it wouldn't have mattered either way. Besides, why should you care whether I make it or not?”
Because you have a daughter whose life literally depends on your survival? Because you might just be the person Viola would want to see first? Because you are her mother?
Mono let out a sigh, standing up with a tired gaze. Just because she wasn’t all wrong about him needing to save some energy for the Signal Tower, didn’t mean she was right about using all of hers every time they got into trouble either.
“I don’t care. Not for you at least,” he lied straight through his teeth, keeping a straight face as to not reveal his true emotions. “But if you want to continue and hurt yourself, then be my guest. Just don’t ever repeat what you did just now. You don't have the right to stop me from using my powers.”
He pulled himself up to the edge of the tub, sitting with one leg already on the other side.
"You're saying it as if you didn't do it to me too," she grumbled, paying no attention to him.
Well, that he couldn't deny how that struck his nerves. No one liked to admit themselves being wrong after all.
“Okay...” he started, looking down to her with hardened eyes, his lips pursed in thought. “How about we make it into a challenge then?”
She cocked up her head, skeptical yet intrigued “A challenge?” she repeated.
“What? Don’t tell me you’re scared.”
“I’m n—!” Six held back her voice. Mono gave a quick look at the door, fortunately hearing nothing that could indicate the Tenant heard her. He returned his gaze to Six, giving her the greenlight to continue.
With a softer tone, she said, “I'm not scared. What's the challenge?”
Seeing how her mood alleviated at his suggestion, he couldn’t help the smirk creeping up to his face.
“Whoever’s faster gets to use their powers first. No interference, no stopping each other last minute. Does that sound fair to you?”
Six rolled her eyes, muttering, “Fair enough.”
"Wonderful," he grinned cheekily, crossing his other leg. "Just try not to cry if I'm faster than you every time."
Mono quickly dropped to the ground, not paying any mind to the girl cursing him with such fury at his remark. He stood upright and proceeded to approached the half-closed door, wearily peeking out to the hallway.
The Tenant was no longer seen anywhere as the only sound heard was the constant rain pouring out into the city. Perhaps it already left the apartment to go after whatever it was that made that shattering noise earlier, to which their timing couldn’t have gone any better.
He could only hope it was another one of those rats that did it.
“I think we’re safe for now.” He turned around to the tub, seeing Six grunting and struggling to get out, her arms already grasping the edge. “Need some help?” he asked out of courtesy, albeit already knowing her answer.
“No, I don't,” she declined without hesitation, panting slightly as she pulled herself up.
Well, so far he could only see her head.
Mono merely watched, approaching the tub with his arms folded across his chest. He stared up at her, waiting patiently for her to admit defeat—though he wasn’t banking on it.
Six on the other hand, did not appreciate the smirk she received from him, having need to bear with him and the sting on her sole.
It must’ve took her at least a minute or two to finally get herself to sit on the edge. She looked down to him, out of breath. Her brows furrowed not a second later as she realized what she had to do next.
Painful, no doubt if she were to land just like he did.
He could just laugh at how fast her face changed from victorious to sheer disappointment. However, his desire to laugh vanished as soon as Six groaned in pain from when she tried moving her injured foot. Her fingers were seen curled around the edges of the tub, swallowing a cry. Mono dropped his hands to his sides, standing nearby in case she were to lose her balance and fall.
How sharp was that stupid nail? How deep exactly did it puncture her?
Mono cleared his throat, realizing how his thoughts had become more and more to Six's well-being for the last couple of hours.
He was going soft and he knew it.
Probably because she told him that she wouldn’t ever betray him ag—
Nope, nope, nope.
It wasn't right nor smart of him to just assume she meant what she'd said back then, could he? She was barely awake!
No, he needed some full-on, hardcore evidence to truly believe her words. Then maybe a little bit more reassurance after that. And possibly another verbal confession from her, but this time from when she was actually conscious.
Mono could practically hear Viola shouting ‘trust issues’ from the Signal Tower. Ugh.
“Six,” he said, inching closer towards her dangling legs as he gazed up at her.
“Yeah, yeah I know. I can’t…I can’t jump down.” She ran a hand over her sweating face, releasing a huge breath of exhaustion.
Uneasiness and pity bombarded his mind just by the sight of her. Seeing her so tired and discouraged, his mouth opened without prior thinking. And a foolish question left his tongue.
“You want me to catch you?”
Her eyes instantly widened, mouth hanging open yet speechless.
Then his eyes widened too, feeling his throat constrict uncomfortably at his mistake.
They stared deep into each other's eyes for a good few seconds; one merely taken aback by the question itself, whereas the other ostensibly shocked at what he said.
But now that he had heard his own words out loud—realizing it all too late—he knew his face screamed of regret.
That was not how it was supposed to come out.
Notes:
MONO IS A SIMP. I REPEAT. MONO IS A SIMP.
lol his inner simp-self has already been activated back in chapter 26, and now, it's finally being put into action ✪ ω ✪
Though, someone should probably spray some water on him.
Also I just want to say something real quick about Six stepping on that rusted nail. Basically, I did some research (based on google) and my dumbass just found out that you can actually get tetanus from it. Yup. A damn infection. Soo...let's just make Six immune to it dhfdksfskfs or idk any other suitable reason I guess.
One more thing, shout out to ApathyAo3 for their amazing fic! It's called Just a Piece, you can read it here.
Thanks for reading!
Chapter 35: Father and Daughter
Chapter Text
Staring.
That was all they did for the last two minutes.
Mono clenched his fists, trying to break off the intense eye-contact he received, but only to fail miserably. While Six, on the other hand, shifted on the edge of the tub, mutual discomfort poking through her stomach.
Luckily, one of them had the gall to speak up, if not they would’ve stared at each other for about another long minute.
“Are you…really going to catch me?” she asked, watching Mono intently as he let out a shaky breath.
“No,” he answered almost confidently, “I was just—I’m kidding. You didn’t think I would actually offer that, d-did you?”
Six paused, face flushing a little in embarrassment at her own brief silence.
“…Of course not!” She forced out a chuckle. “That would be ridiculous since, you know?”
His brows raised slightly, surprised to hear that she was acknowledging the betrayal without him bringing it up first like usual.
“Y-yeah, it’d be ironic if I did catch you after you didn’t for me,” he said, lacking the malice this time and instead, treating it as if it was a joke as they exchanged awkward snickers and laughs. “Totally ridiculous.”
“And insane too,” she added.
He nodded in agreement, finally tearing his gaze away from her. Six did the same, merely avoiding herself from making eye-contact for the same reason he presumed. But in the end, they couldn’t stay unmoving like this, could they?
Regardless the Tenant was out of the picture for now, its absence didn’t guarantee that it wouldn’t return. So, while it chased whatever that made the shattering sound, now would be their chance to leave.
Leave this place for good.
“Six?”
Her whole body flinched by the mere sound of his voice, startled in the midst of her spacing out. However, that simple action caused her grip on the tub loosened, the half-dried blood on her hands making her lose balance and slip forward instantly.
Before either one of them could react, Six unceremoniously fell to the floor, landing on her side. A pained yelp left her after the impact, albeit not loud enough to catch an outsider’s attention i.e., the one and only Tenant.
Mono merely gaped as it all happened, watching his old friend, who was biting back her own groans by that point.
Well, that was one way to go down.
Mono held back a grin.
No. No. He shouldn’t laugh. For laughing at someone right after they fell—which happened so abruptly to Six—was no way the right thing to do, even if that ‘someone’ was known as the biggest jerk in town. Mono still had his principles to follow, his morals! Without them, he wouldn’t be the person he was today.
His grin unconsciously grew wider.
But on second thought…
After replaying the same scene in his head a couple more times, he eventually took back what he said.
This was too good not to laugh over.
A snort escaped him. Mono placed a hand over his mouth, doing little to hide the growing smile on his face. His shoulders shook as he stifled his laughter.
Meanwhile, Six immediately shot him a warning gaze; a silent threat for him to shut up.
Being used to it, he couldn’t care less if she threatened him with a look.
She growled under her breath when he wouldn’t stop laughing.
“Cut it out, Mono. It’s not funny,” she said, her face flushing bright red. “Taking pleasure on someone else’s misery is never funny. I didn’t think you’re capable of being this immature.”
Being called out as an immature, he stopped his snickers completely, a somewhat offended look fixated on him.
“Me, immature? Please, you’re honestly telling me you wouldn’t laugh too if I was the one in your place? Because I bet you would’ve been rolling on the floor laughing by now.”
She couldn’t help but let out a huff.
He might as well assume he was already right. Though that was the thing Six. No matter how right he was; no matter how much he proved so, asking Six to admit her mistakes were equivalent to sewing water.
“No, I won’t,” she denied, stretching her arm towards the roll of toilet paper laid near her. She began to undo the bandage Mono had proudly worked on.
“You won’t? Really?”
“Yeah, I’m not as cruel and mean as you are in this case. Laughing at somebody when they’re in pain is where I draw the line.”
Mono scoffed in disbelief, never hearing such nonsense coming out of her mouth before.
So, she cared to draw a line at harmless laughing—physically, not as harmless—but not at betraying someone who trusted her like a lifeline? She truly had one hell of an interesting mindset.
“Wow. I swear, Viola could lie better than that.”
Six rolled her eyes, groaning in slight annoyance “You and your obsession with that girl,” she muttered. “What is she, your girlfriend or something?”
A grimace replaced his expression, his face scrunching at the mere thought.
“Ew, no. That’s really gross considering she’s your—” He bit his tongue down, stopping himself from spilling out the his and Viola’s shared secret.
Daughter.
As lucky as he was by stopping himself in time, him cutting himself off didn’t go unnoticed by Six. She halted tending to her foot, holding a piece of the toilet paper in hand. Her eyes narrowed at him as suspicion colored her face.
“What?” she asked firmly.
He paused for a second, his mind going back to the promise he made with Viola as to specifically keep Six in the dark—not to tell her the truth about her being the younger girl’s mother. And he wasn’t about to break that promise.
“Nothing. It’s nothing, just forget about it.”
Mono stood up, all the smiles and lighter emotions he held were gone. And instead, he gave Six his own stern look; a look she knew would be pointless to demand answers from.
Six heaved a tired sigh, shifting back to her red wound. As her foot now bared, she proceeded to aid it herself this time, wrapping new layers of the bandage, making it more secure and thicker than before. Then, she tied it up to her ankle, her bandaging looking far better than his…to his chagrin.
He waited by the side of the tub, observing her stand up on her own, soft hisses leaving her whenever the injured foot touched the ground.
Six had to repeatedly assure him they were good to go, saying that she’d get used to it the pain the more she walked. Of course, he didn’t bother to hide the frown on his face. Truly, he did want to believe her, despite her face telling otherwise.
Mono eyed the bandaged foot one more time before heading towards the bathroom door, exhaling a heavy sigh.
If she says she’s fine, then she’s fine.
Taking his head out beyond the door, he stepped out into the hallway first. Six followed his lead.
No signs of the adult that chased them, thankfully. The Tenant must be looking for the cause of the distraction as of now, given the apartment was empty the further they go.
The living room was just how he had imagined it; trashed and disorganized for couches and chairs were thrown upside down. The coffee table at the far corner having suffered the same.
The two continued quietly to the front door, seeing it left wide open by the Tenant. Once again, they took their heads out to the dimly lit corridor. Nothing different than the last time they’d been out here. There were no shattered glasses, no messes of a sort.
Was the adult even nearby to their apartment?
As they were about to take a step out, one of the apartment doors slammed open, revealing an obese man—or what used to be a man—standing clumsily with one hand against its door. The monster snapped its head towards the children’s direction, however missing a glimpse of their heads by mere seconds. It continued its stare for a long time.
Though seeing nothing in its sight, it hummed in dissatisfaction before heading the other way, disappearing after it turned a corner.
All the while, Mono and Six had their backs to the opposite wall of each other, holding their own breaths in anticipation.
Mono glanced over to Six, who tilted her head in questioning of the Tenant. In response, he gave a shrug.
How was he supposed to know if it was gone?
With the courage he possessed, he risked a peek into the corridor. And luckily enough, the Tenant was no longer seen standing at the far end. Sighing in relief, he left the apartment to stand outside, gesturing for Six to come out.
She did as she was told, making her way to his side.
They shifted to the elevator on the other end, seeing its light continue to flicker inside the shaft. Good. That meant it was still in power. And as along a it stayed that way; they could leave this floor.
The children beelined to the said elevator, giving a glance or two behind them in case the Tenant made a surprise appearance.
As they reach there, Mono hurried over to the lever placed before the gate, closing his hands around it and ready to give it a pull.
Time to get out of here.
“Mono, wait,” Six’s voice sounded from behind, startling him.
He turned to her with a questioning gaze, a hand still on the lever.
Six crouched down in front of the metal gate. Her eyes were locked on the barely visible hole engraved at the bottom of the entrance.
Mono let go of the lever, walking towards the middle of the gate, crouching down next to her. The moment he laid eyes on it, he understood immediately why she’d stopped him.
All at once, they groaned. One of disappointment, and the other in frustration.
A keyhole.
The elevator wasn’t as easily accessible as they’d thought. Well, at first glance or from afar, no one would’ve seen the keyhole being there in first place. Adding on with the terrible lighting this place had, neither saw it coming.
Mono cursed under his breath, standing up with his hands dragged across his face.
“This is just peachy,” he remarked, sarcastically so.
He had many times found himself in a situation where keys were involved. So many doors he had encountered, and most of them always ended up being locked. By the adults, of course. The reason behind it, however, would remain a mystery.
“We’ll need to find the key if we want this gate opened,” Six said, lightly brushing a hand over the keyhole before standing.
Both stared at the elevator in silence, each reserved to their own thoughts.
“…You know that could take forever, right?” he started, side-eyeing her. “There’s a lot of doors, and most of them don’t even open.”
Six turned to meet him. “Then, I guess we better start with the ones that do, and the ones where we know a certain monster won’t come back for a second visit.” She looked at him knowingly, tilting her head to the apartment at the far end.
The apartment where the Tenant was last seen in.
Oh, come on.
Mono let out an exhale through his nose, his mouth in a tight-lipped frown.
The door of the aforementioned apartment had to be the widest one open among the others in the hallway. Six was unfortunately right in this case. For the Tenant to enter the same apartment twice without reason was unlikely, that is if they didn’t give it any reason to. Silence was their true key after all.
Giving her a non-verbal agreement, he strode towards the apartment, Six trailing a few steps behind him because of the wound she sustained.
They made sure to watch out for any sharp nails and any loose floorboards for the sake of avoiding a foot injury—well, in Six’s case, another foot injury.
As they reach the end of corridor, they were once again met with a dark interior as they stepped inside.
Mono gladly took out his flashlight, hitting the side of it multiple times until its bulb worked. He proceeded into the room, flashing the light all around and dark spaces where one’s eye couldn’t see.
With one nod to Six, they began their search.
After minutes and minutes of them walking around the empty apartment, searching for a key that seemed impossible to find, hope was almost lost when they found none. Not even a single thing that could be used to unlock that damned gate, for the rooms they checked gave a fruitless outcome.
Mono continued to flash his light upwards instead, his motivation decreasing the longer they searched.
Maybe the key isn’t here—
Something shiny was caught through his peripheral. Instantly, he willed his flashlight around, the light eventually landing atop of a six-feet tall bookshelf. A smile adorned his face as his eyes settled on the silver key resting close to the edge of it. Well, what do you know.
In victory, he turned around to find Six standing behind him, though forgetting what was in his hands.
“I found the”—the light flashed right through her eyes, causing her to instinctively block it with her hands—“key,” he said, sounding almost apologetic as she hissed.
“Turn. It. Off.”
Mono immediately switched the flashlight off, letting the darkness engulf them in an instant.
Even so, he could still see the glare she wore, which was undoubtedly something he deserved. It wasn’t the first time he flashed a light into her face by accident.
Old habits do die hard.
Keeping the flashlight safely in his coat, he repeated, “I found the key.”
“Yes, I can see that. I’m standing right here, aren’t I?” She shot him a sarcastic grin, though only lasting for a couple of seconds before it crumbled into a deep frown. “I can’t climb that high with my foot like this, so you’re going to have to do it.”
He scoffed, leaving her on her own to approach the high shelf. Obviously.
Taking one look up, he took a breath and began his climb. He grasped the edge carefully, putting one foot after the other and pulling himself up to next level. The key was still at the very top, as if mocking him from above.
As he made it halfway, he dared a brief look below him, and that was something he regretted instantly. Mono snapped his head back up, focusing his gaze to the key instead.
At least two or three more climbs.
He quickened his pace, determined to get this over and done with. And as sweats started to drip down his forehead, he could feel his muscles ache the higher he got.
Six, on the other hand, merely watched without breaking a sweat like him. She waited patiently nearby, staring at him with boredom etched to her features.
Oh, how he envied to be in her place right now.
Eventually Mono made it to the top of the annoyingly high shelf. He grasped the edge and pulled himself up for the last time, then resting his arms on the surface. Mono heaved a tired breath. With no energy left to lift his whole body up, he let his legs dangle instead.
After all, the silver key was just across from him.
He stretched an arm towards the object, his fingers touching the head and soon clasping around the body.
“Yes!”
Alas, his victory was cut short for the arm that supported his own body lost balance, causing his grip around the key to falter and slip before he could catch it.
Mono watched in dismay, warning Six as fast as he could.
Six jolted in surprise when she saw the key in midair, seconds to falling. But thanks to her sharp reflexes, she jumped towards the key, hugging it right before it touched the ground. As a result, she landed flat on the floor, her raincoat muffling all the sounds that could attract visitors. Little hisses of pain left her mouth as she stared above at the hat freak.
Mono barely had time to embrace his relief for Six shot him a scowl visible even in the dark. At that he mentally prepared himself for the scolding she would give him. Carefully, he got down from the shelf.
The moment his foot felt the ground, he could already sense her steely gaze burning into his back.
“Okay, I’ll admit. That one was on me,” he said, turning to face Six who was holding the key tightly as if to suppress her anger. “But hey, at least you caught it.”
“We’re lucky that I even caught it. You know what would’ve happened if I didn’t?”
She proceeded to give him the look through those annoying, condescending eyes of hers.
“Hey, just because you got your foot hurt doesn’t mean you can just pass every blame on to me now. And just so you know, I was already half exhausted.”
“From doing what?”
“Climbing that stupid shelf, what do you think?” he retorted, raising a brow.
Six shook her head, rolling her eyes. “You know what, I don’t care. We have the key, so let’s just get out of here, alright?”
She led herself to the front door, casually turning her back on him without waiting for his reply. Mono huffed, following after her eventually.
However, he stopped dead in his tracks as he passed by a room, a child’s sobs ringing in his ears. His attention was quickly shifted towards the bedroom door, his heart thumping against his chest as his movements froze altogether.
The cries, it was coming from behind the door.
His eyes widened at the thought of another child possibly hiding inside the room, cowering under the beds from a monster that came in moments before. At least that would explain what made the shattering noise. But then, that would mean either one of two things.
The child was able to hide themselves somewhere, or the Tenant failed to kill them, and left them badly injured instead.
Mono felt his heart shrunk, thinking of the possibility.
They couldn’t leave them behind.
“Six, hold on a second.”
The yellow-hooded girl was already at the front door, ready to leave with the key in hand. She eyed him from afar, perplexed at the change of his tone. “What?”
He gestured for her to come to him, to which she obliged after giving out a faint groan. Making her way next to him, she waited patiently for his explanation. But the only explanation she received was him side-glancing at the door, hinting at the crying child beyond it.
Six tilted her head, eyes narrowing at him instead.
How could she be so unbothered by this?
“We can’t leave them behind, Six,” he finally said.
“Leave who behind?”
He pointed towards the door as if it wasn’t obvious enough. “Someone’s in there, crying.”
She sighed and approached the door, putting her ear closer to it.
“I don’t hear anything,” she said after a few seconds.
“You don’t?”
Six shook her head and gave a shrug in response.
That was…odd. How could she have not heard it? The cry was loud enough for him to hear it in the other room, and even now. So, it wouldn’t make sense if she didn’t.
“Come on, let's just go,” she said, turning back to the exit as she proceeded without him once more.
Mono watched her walk ahead, irritation pooling at his stomach with how easy she discarded the crying child.
Right, because all she cared about was her own personal safety. Any other life did not matter much to her.
He gazed up at the bedroom door, fists balling to his sides, his jaw clenching and unclenching.
“Mono?” Six called after realizing how he hadn’t moved in the slightest from his place.
No more would he waste any time just by standing here.
“I’m going in.”
He pushed open the door, doing exactly what he said he’d do as he ignored Six’s call from behind him.
Inside, he was met with a broken bed, blocking his view from the rest of the room. Some of its support were seen missing as the bed tilted slightly to the side. But all in all, still capable of hiding something underneath. The sobs became softer and softer the moment he stepped towards the bed. By then, his certainty of the child being under it was no longer a doubt.
He stopped in front of the bed, intending to lift the covers.
That was until he felt a hand gripped his shoulder.
Mono couldn’t help but jump in surprise even after knowing who it was.
“What are you doing?” Six whispered, anxious being in a room they weren’t supposed to be in.
He shoved her hand off him. “I know they’re in here.”
“No one’s in here except you and me!” her whisper akin to a yell.
Of course, her words were ignored once again for Mono got down on one knee, proceeding to lift up the bed covers as to see under it. His face fell as his eyes landed on an empty space. And no child.
The sobs were no longer heard.
They must’ve hid somewhere else after hearing us.
Harshly pushing the covers back down, he rose back to his feet. Mono left the bed side, continuing his search for the whole room.
However, Six stopped him by the arm this time, her hold becoming ostensibly desperate. Desperate for him to stop what he was doing this instant. Because to her, all of it was simply madness. She didn’t hear anything but the thunder that boomed outside in the city. She didn’t hear any child crying for that matter.
“Mono,” she tried again, meeting his gaze, “I’m telling you, no one’s here. Let’s just go before that man comes back.”
All the sudden, a faint blue glow illuminated on the other side, causing both of their attention to shift towards its direction.
Six slowly released her hold off his arm, staring at the same corner he was.
Mono approached the glow, walking around the bed with little to no idea what was happening. Yet, he didn’t stop, curiosity pulling him towards it. And in reality, he knew this relentless, curious side of him would get him killed one day.
He let out a soft gasp as his eyes laid on what was in front of him.
Six was right after all.
There was no one in the room other than them.
There was no child injured or in need of rescue.
The only thing there was, was a television. All broken and unusable as its glass had shattered into little pieces of shards that were sharp enough to draw blood. That shattering noise from before.
This was what actually caused the distraction earlier. Not a child. Not another living being.
As the pieces of glasses laid out messily in front of him, one shard—the biggest one—stood out amongst all, glowing a bright blue.
Echoes of whispers bombarded his brain, engulfing his senses until that was all he could hear. And everything else was put on mute.
It went for his eyes next.
His vision began to wane ever-so-slightly, causing him to blink his eyes to shut the voices out. But the more he blinked, the closer he was to the glowing shard. At some point, he could almost feel two hands tugging madly at his coat, trying to yank him away from the whispering shard. However, its touch was almost nonexistent like a ghost. Needless to say, it wasn’t as strong as the force that was pulling him in now.
This was a mistake.
The world around him was a blur, the shard being the only thing in focus. Its glow so mesmerizing, beckoning for him to come closer.
Mono closed his hand around the glass, feeling his grasp tightened as the whispers became deafening.
“Mono!”
Everything came to an abrupt halt, the floor swallowing him up whole.
He screamed inaudibly as he started to fall, however, merely lasting seconds for he landed on something hard.
A cold surface touched his cheek, his eyes slowly adjusting to the new surrounding he was put in. A room. Though, it was barely one for the darkness overwhelmed it, making the walls seem as if they weren’t even there.
Mono got to his feet, looking around in slight fear as his hands reached out for anything he could hold on to.
Nothing. There was nothing in here. All but the endless void.
Where had the shard taken him?
Regret wormed into his mind the more he recalled prior events.
He remembered its glow, entrancing him. And how he barely had any chance to fight off its pull. Just like the TVs had in the past.
But…this was new. Unsettling even.
Something bright shone in the distance, getting his attention faster than he could blink. A single light shone above, yet not bright enough as to reach where he stood. But the light was merely an indication that he wasn’t alone.
Under the light, sat a girl on a wooden chair, her long hair covering most of her face. She had her hands to her eyes, her back slumping forward as her sobs echoed throughout the room.
He swallowed his nerves, quietly making his way over to the girl.
Even from afar he could already notice how off she looked. All of her limbs, they seemed as if they were…stretched. With her legs perfectly touching the floor, her body almost outgrowing the chair itself. At one glance, she could be mistaken for an adult.
Mono stepped into the small circle of light, watching this strangely familiar girl continue to cry her eyes out. However, it was until he got close enough that he realized just who it truly was. And she was no adult.
Instead, she was someone he knew; the girl who got him out of his own prison room.
“Viola.”
The girl’s head raised towards him, confirming his answer as they faced each other.
Viola blinked her tears, rubbing her eyes from her many hours of crying, her reaction just the same as his was.
Disbelief. Sheer disbelief.
Soon, a wide smile broke upon his face, a choked laugh escaping his mouth. “It really is you,” he whispered.
Out of excitement, he pulled her to him, hugging her like an old friend he hadn’t seen in years.
Viola was sitting in front of him, in the flesh!
This had to be some lucky miracle. It all didn’t make sense. The last time he’d seen her was through the television at the beach of Pale City. He’d seen her sitting on the exact same chair, in the exact same room he’d been locked in! To see her now surrounded by darkness, he couldn’t help but wonder why. Why was she here instead? Was this strange void of a room one of the Signal Tower’s?
If he somehow got transported to the Tower, he had to get her out of here—get her out of this city.
“Dad?”
The smile he had on his face faltered less than a second. Instantly, he pulled away from the hug, confusion behind his eyes as he faced her.
Did she just call me dad?
Her brain must be that exhausted, he figured.
“Viola, no. I uh...I’m not your dad,” he stammered, clearing his throat. “It’s me, Mono. You know, the guy who your mom betrayed? Remember?”
Viola blinked once again, her eyes widening this time. “You’re real. You’re actually…real,” she muttered, her words getting louder. “But h-how? That doesn’t make any sense! You couldn’t have found me here that easily, we-we’re in my…the Eye wouldn’t…” Viola began to hyperventilate, her lips quivering and unable to form any more words. Tears gathered in her eyes not a moment later.
Seeing her close to having a breakdown, Mono quickly placed a hand over her shoulder and gave a gentle squeeze.
“Hey, don’t worry okay? You’ll be fine,” he said. “I’m getting you out of this place.”
“…Really?”
He nodded, grinning softly. “You helped me out of the Tower, remember? At least let me do the same.”
Viola stared in disbelief as she took in his words, a teary-eyed smile appearing on her. She nodded vigorously, wanting nothing else but to leave her dreadful prison.
“Thank you,” she said. “Thank you, Mono.”
He scoffed, smiling himself.
“You have no idea how tired I am dealing with Six all on my own.” Mono took out his hand to her, hoping to help her up from the chair with her…current body.
Viola weakly grasped his hand, hardly standing up because of her sleeping legs.
“Is she doing okay?” she asked.
Mono paused, contemplating an answer.
Well, her hunger came back a couple of days ago, which forced her into somehow believing that eating a rat could make it go away. She also recently had stepped on a nail by accident and was bleeding. A lot.
Or in other words; No, Six is doing horrible.
“She’s…alright,” he lied instead. The truth about Six’s condition would only multiply Viola’s worries, and he couldn’t let her have a breakdown while she wasn’t fine herself. Looking over her long arms, he asked as he assisted her up, “What about you, are you okay?”
Viola got off the chair eventually, her balance a little thrown off and swaying a little. She looked down to her trembling legs, seeming as if it would break and snap at any moment.
“I’ve seen better days,” she replied with a deep frown, shifting her tired gaze back to him.
Mono heaved a heavy breath, eyeing her up and down with most concern one could feel for someone.
Never had he thought he could hate the Eye any more after what they did to him. Locking him up, isolating him from the world for 6 months in a room without doors was a terrible experience enough. But hurting Viola the same way they’d hurt Six had to be the sickest thing they could do. Sadistic even.
He swore to himself; one day, he’d destroy the Eye. Kill the Transmission until the very walls inside the Tower crumble along with it. Because that was how much damage it’d done to their world. Perhaps even more so than that.
However, that could wait. He needed to get Viola to safety first.
A choir of voices suddenly whispered behind him.
Instantly, he turned to the void that surrounded them, his eyes searching beyond the circle of light in suspicion. What was that?
Nothing in the void seemed to shift, which made it all harder to look.
“Can I ask you something?” Viola’s voice startled him, making him snap to her. The whispers, however, seemingly have vanished the second she spoke up. “How did you get here?” she asked, fiddling with her shaking hands.
Mono didn’t reply, merely letting his mouth hang open with the intention to answer. Yet no words came to him.
It was a glowing shard, his mind said. But then why did it feel wrong to tell her that?
Her eyes narrowed a fraction, wariness behind them and taking ahold of her tone. Fear overtook her mind just as she realized something terribly crucial about their unplanned yet coincidental reunion.
Nothing was coincidental when it came to the Eye.
“How did you get here, Mono?” she repeated her question, impatience in her tone. “Did you find me by yourself, or did something help you? D-did the TV help you? Did they bring your consciousness here? Did they do anything to hurt anyone?” Each sentence sounding more and more afraid, more accusing. “Mono, say something!”
“It was a glowing shard,” he blurted out as her figure towered over him.
Silence sat between their stare after his answer, her face soon turning cold, complexion becoming as pale as they could get.
Viola backed away from him, taking smalls steps until her legs meet the chair. His eyes widened in dismay as she slowly retook the seat she had wanted to leave so terribly, the chair croaking under her weight nevertheless still supporting her.
He locked his gaze on Viola, gaping incredulously at the girl before him. What the hell is she doing?
Viola’s head shifted back to her lap, her face no longer seen from his view.
“You should leave,” she whispered.
“What…?”
Her hands gripped tightly at the side of her chair, her nails scraping against them.
“I said leave.”
Mono’s forehead scrunched in confusion, shaking his head. “What are you talking ab—”
“LEAVE!” she snapped, meeting his gaze with intense rage he’d never seen before. “I don’t want your stupid help anymore!”
His eye twitched slightly, taken aback by her throwing harsh words at him. Seeing her suddenly so bitter towards him, he almost wondered if this was the same girl he knew. Viola had never shown this side of her to him. But hiding one’s ugly side of themselves was normal. Everybody does that, even him too!
Viola was just tired. That was all there was to it. It had to be.
“But I thought you wanted to leave this place. We can still go together, that’s not a problem!” He gave her a hopeful, albeit shaky smile. However, a mere smile wasn’t enough to soothe her glare.
“Are you deaf?” she asked, sneering at him. “I thought I already told you I don’t want you here anymore.”
He felt his breath become uneven, a lump forming at his throat. Mono froze in front of her, feeling a pang of sadness stabbing through his heart like a dagger.
It didn’t make any sense! Why would she want him to leave when moments ago she was thanking him for wanting to help her escape? Something did not add up to the picture he was given. Viola was holding something back, he could feel it. His gut screamed for him to find out.
“Why?” he asked, still not giving up on her.
Viola let out a flout, making his chest shrink even more by her bitterness.
“Why?” she said, scowling as the hatred in her tone return tenfold. “Because you’re the reason I’m miserable! You’re the reason Six is miserable! All you’ve caused is nothing but pain. You worthless, naïve piece of tool.”
Mono flinched, his shoulders tensing.
“Th-that’s not true, Viola.”
“But it is, isn’t it? I mean why else would Six betray you if it isn’t? Why else would you come all the way to Pale City, to bail someone you’ve only met for a few days?!” she yelled. “Now for the last time; leave.”
He straightened up his shrunken posture, anger rising in his chest despite feeling as though his heart just got shattered into a million pieces moments ago.
And just like that, all of his prior thoughts of saving her was put aside.
How dare she say that. How dare she throw the betrayal right into his face as if she had the right. She didn’t even have a smidgen of that right. She didn’t deserve to say any of those horrible things to him.
His vision blurred with tears that he refused to let fall, his eyes hardening into a cold glare directed to her.
What happened to the sweet girl that got him out of the Tower? What happened to the girl he spent days with?
What happened to his friend?
To think that he had opened up to her about what he felt, it was all clear to him now that he had repeated his mistakes.
A worthless piece of tool, she said.
A tool.
Viola was just the same. Like her mother.
“So that’s how it is, huh? Did you really mean…all of that?” he asked, his composure faltering. She did not spare him a word nor so much of a glance, which only added more fume to his already growing ire. “Answer me!” he yelled.
Finally, she raised her gaze to him. Her face seemingly exhausted from being so depressed and dejected, the bags under her eyes proving it so.
A sharp sting slashed at his hand, followed by a faint crash beside his foot. Mono let out a hiss, turning his attention immediately to the line of red centered in his palm. A small cut, however, not deep enough for the blood to come pouring through. He stared at his new wound with furrowed brows, confused.
“Just go home, Mono.”
His eyes snapped back to the girl, seeing her form glitch along with the room like a broken video. Ignoring his cut, he reached out to her, only for the light above them to go off last second.
Darkness flooded the room once again.
Viola was already gone.
And the fear; the remorse he felt after Six’s betrayal crawled its way back into his mind. The trust and fondness he had towards Viola seeped out through his skin.
He truly did think she was a better friend than Six. He was willing to risk his life to save her from the Signal Tower.
But now that mere idea seemed like a foolish one.
“Hey!”
Six shook him harshly by the collar, almost choking him if he wasn’t already unconscious.
The shard that she warned him not to touch, yet he stupidly did anyway, had already broken into tinier pieces when she pushed it off his hand, creating a cut on his palm—a cut that wouldn’t have been there if he had just listened to her in the first place. Therefore, she considered this to be on him.
However, a much bigger problem was approaching them now after the shard fell and shattered. And to make matters worse, Mono wouldn’t wake up.
“Mono!” She resorted to patting his face, each pat becoming harder the longer he stayed asleep. She swore she was going to kill him after this. Kill him good.
Soon enough, she halted her tiny pats, seeing how his eyes were slowly reopening. Once they do, it landed on hers.
“Six,” he muttered, face devoid of any emotions.
She almost sighed out loud in relief if it weren’t for the anger that clouded her mind. Now, he was at the receiving end of her wrath.
“You stupid idiot!” She tightened her hold around his collar, giving him another harsh shake. “I told you so, so many times to leave the televisions alone, leave anything related to it alone. Why can’t you just listen to me for once, huh?! Why can’t you—”
She stopped herself mid-sentence the second she saw his eyes, watering. Hollow yet they held a genuine sadness behind them. The way he kept himself unusually quiet, allowing her to hold him by the collar so casually, it bothered her that he didn’t argue.
Giving him one final glare, she shoved him down to the floor in a fit of annoyance as she heaved an exasperated breath.
As she half expected for him to return the glare—or really, insult her—she stared at him in bewilderment when he didn’t even bat an eye to her. Instead, he looked to the glass pieces decorating the floor like confetti, a forlorn gaze etched to his face.
What is up with him?
Six made her way to the key she put aside, picking it off the floor and to her chest as she turned towards the door.
“We have to get out of here.”
No reply came from him. He remained still, his eyes staring at the shards spread all around him with half-lidded eyes.
“Mono, did you hear what I said? We have to go,” she said, her patience running thin as he gave her nothing.
Shaking her head, Six marched towards him, vexed. She kneeled to the floor and not-so-gently flicked his cheek, hoping that would get at least one reaction out him. Disappointment crossed her face when he merely flinched, doing nothing else but stare at the ground with despondency in his expression.
What happened to him after he touched the shard? He looked as if someone just died in front of him!
“Mono,” She nudged at his arm, her voice softer, “we just made a really loud noise with the shard, loud enough for that monster to come back to find out what it is. So, unless you want to die here, we need to leave. Now.”
At that, he finally showed some care, meeting her eyes with his red, teary ones. He sighed heavily, voice so quiet and weak. It was unlike of his usual self, Six took notice of that.
“I saw her,” he muttered.
Six frowned, not knowing who ‘her’ was. Though, if she were to take a guess…
“Viola?”
He gave a nod, wiping a tear that managed to escape his eye, little sniffles leaving him after. “She…lied to me,” he said, turning away as his cheeks flushed.
Viola, the girl who shared the same brain as Mono, lied to him?
Despite the curiosity gnawing at her to ask what Viola could lie to him about, she didn’t ask. As much of an acquaintance—or rather not-that-close kind of friend—Viola was to her, Six couldn’t give much of a damn on what she did. However, to Mono, he seemed to have really cared for the younger girl. Truthfully, Six wasn’t the least bit surprised at how easily he could attach himself to someone. But him crying over them was simply something even she wouldn’t allow.
No, she couldn’t allow that.
If Viola lied to him, then…
“Screw her,” she spat out, causing Mono to look at her in shock.
“What?”
“You said she lied to you, didn’t she?”
“Yes, but—”
“Then, stop defending her, Mono. Stop thinking about her or about what she did. Put that thought aside and lock it in a box somewhere inside your brain.” She jabbed a finger to his forehead, emphasizing her point. “I’m not about to let us die because of some girl you met out of nowhere.”
Six then stood up, readjusting her hold on the silver key.
“She was the one who saved me from the Tower…” he uttered, still saddened by the thought.
Why couldn’t he just let this girl go? How attached was he to Viola?
She sighed deeply, taking a step closer before extending a hand to him. Mono looked up to her, his brows furrowed at her sudden gesture.
“Come on,” she said, hinting for him to take her hand, “It’s about time you put yourself first.”
Mono gazed up at her open palm, looking at it as if it would burn his skin just by touch. If she was being honest, that stare he held almost made her recoil and put her arm back to her side, it almost made her want to pretend as if this never happened. Nonetheless, there was no need to. Mono didn’t push her hand away, which ultimately saved her from absolute humiliation.
Instead, he met her eyes and gave a firm nod, grabbing hold of her hand a second later. The tears in his eyes already subsided as determination rose in his chest.
Was she proud that her words finally got into his head? Incredibly so.
Six felt the corners of her lips tugged into a grin as their hands touched. Without waiting, she pulled him up to his feet.
“Oh, remind me later to punch you for not listening earlier.” She squeezed his hand tightly on purpose.
He merely huffed in amusement, yanking his hand away from her hold. His mood already lifted slightly by her harmless intimidation.
Both finally headed to the exit, Mono speeding up in front of her and out to the corridors. Six shook her head, pain still lingering at her sole for every step she took.
Luckily, Mono had the decency to wait for her at the front door, gesturing for her to catch up quick. Now this impatience side of him, she did not miss. She had a hole in her foot for God’s sake, how fast did he think she could run? And add on with a heavy key in hand, her speed wasn’t what it used to be.
They left the apartment, standing in the corridor side by side. Both of their eyes set on the elevator ahead of them. The keyhole almost looked invisible from where they stood, the gate remaining locked shut.
Six held on to the key with both her hands.
There was nothing else in the way, no more obstacles that stopped them from leaving this place.
At that moment, it was all she longed for.
To leave this apartment building.
A large hand came into her view before she could proceed to the elevator. Her eyes widened in utter shock. A scream barely left her as five long set of fingers took hold of her torso, trapping her arms at her sides. She caught a glimpse of a terrified Mono, his hand reaching out to grab her as his first instinct. But alas, he was merely a child. Not any faster compared to an adult who was four times his size.
The Tenant swept her up and straight into its belly like it had with the rat, enveloping her form with both of its arm as if she was a teddy bear.
Yet teddy bears weren’t meant to be eaten.
She could feel its skin engulf her, pulling her inside to its stomach. And the more she struggled against its death hold, the faster she was to sinking. Half her body already did within the first second.
It was futile for Mono to even summon his powers. She knew it was too late for her to be saved. She knew this was it for her.
But not for him.
Six looked at Mono one last time, seeing a blueish force already gathering in his hands, the aura around him glitching ever so slightly. All of his efforts, however, were useless now.
She released the silver key off her grasp.
And it fell with a thud as the Tenant ate her whole.
Notes:
Thanks for reading!
Chapter 36: A Very, Tiny Misunderstanding
Notes:
[WARNING]
This chapter contains some violence...and blood.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Viola sat in her chair quietly with her eyes closed, feeling the air around her shift despite the room being an utter void that she was put in. But she didn’t need to use her vision to see what was somehow obvious; she didn’t need them to see the Eye hiding behind the darkness.
She’d already sensed them before as they’d watched her in a terrifying silence—right after Mono had told her how he was getting her out of this place. Alas, it was impossible for him to.
She reopened her eyes, her face becoming gloomy and dark at the bitter reminder.
Mono was no longer here anymore.
She’d sent—pushed him away out of this trap. With just a few simple mean words, she was glad it was enough for him to eat it all up. The cold look he’d gave her afterwards told her so.
It had to be done anyway, she repeatedly told herself as guilt stabbed her from the inside.
The room shifted once again, however, the heat rising ever so slightly. Apparently Mono wasn’t the only one she had angered.
The Eye’s voice echoed all around her.
“Look at what you’ve done, Viola.”
She didn’t respond.
“You are a stupid, stupid girl. Brave, yet foolish.”
Still nothing.
“Do you think you can simply get away without facing any consequences? Without any longing pain?”
Viola exhaled a long breath, tired of being countlessly threatened by her tormentor.
“Well, you were going to kill him, right? I’d rather not be saved if that was true. I’d rather be stuck here with a dumb parasite who thinks they have the upper hand at everything.”
The ground grumbled under her feet, a small opening in the wooden floor cracking open and revealing the single eye she’d met before, albeit looking a little less composed than its usual demeanor.
And by the looks of it, she could tell that she’d struck a nerve.
“Watch your mouth, you insufferable brat!” the single eye yelled, the veins in its whites almost popping from intense fury. “Did you even know how hard it was to get a specific television to blow up on its own? To get that damned shard to grab his attention? We were so close to getting him! The many hours we all put in with your pathetic energy, all for you to screw it up at the last sec—”
The floorboards around the hole slammed closed, immediately shutting up the pissed off eye before it could continue its rant.
“Enough.” The Eye overtook the scene, their choir of voices echoing louder, more powerful than the single eye’s. “Viola, we hope you understand what comes next. You may have proved yourself to be daring but do know; all you did was nothing that would affect our sole mission. We haven’t lost anything.”
“As long as my parents aren’t coming for me, your useless mission already have.”
Viola spat to the ground where the single eye had been, showing her disrespect in the rudest way she knew. An empty look fixed on her face as if she wasn’t the slightest bit afraid of where her action might lead to. But face was only for show. Her feelings were the polar opposite of what she displayed.
Under that poker face, was a terrified girl—immensely terrified of what the Eye would do to her now. Pain was all that she could expect from them.
Silence hung in the air, invisible anger floating all around her until she could almost feel it cooking her skin.
The Eye spoke for the last time, all the calmness in their voice replaced with malevolence.
“So be it," they said. "We truly hope you know how bad this ends for you.”
Red.
All he saw was bright red as it clouded over his eyes, the faint hum of the Tenant in front of him blending into the background like the thunderstorm outside. The key that fell near him merely nothing but an object. Mono couldn’t bring himself to even care to run from the monster.
It ate her.
Six.
Once a person he called his only friend.
After all the horrible events they’d went through in the city, they’d went through it together. No one else but just them alone. But of course, things change when one broke the other’s trust like a vase. So, he stopped thinking her as a friend, he stopped trusting her.
Even back when he was in the Signal Tower, he had wanted to see her suffer for what she did to him. See her hurt just like she’d hurt him.
Mono hated her, yes, that was no secret even for Six. But now that the Tenant had granted his old wish, he never knew how much he wanted to take it back. Take it all back.
He couldn’t bear the thought of leaving another child behind. He couldn’t bear the thought of another one dying because of him.
Emmet already did.
Not Six too.
The Tenant rose from the floor, its arm resting at its sides now; and Six was no longer there.
He looked up at the adult with burning fury, his teeth grinding. The air around him continuing fast yet slow at the same time. The wallpapers, and floorboards near him hissed as thin smoke erupted from the edges. The glitching force in his hands became worse the longer reality settled into his mind.
That Six was dead, devoured by a monster he should’ve killed from the start.
Immense anger conquered his mind as he prepared himself to blast the adult into oblivion.
Yet at the last second, he didn’t.
All because of something was seen shifting inside the Tenant, a hand pushing forward from within.
Not a moment later, the Tenant’s groan reverberated in the corridor, it humongous hands clutching its awfully bloated belly as its back slumped forward, agony visible in its voice. And just like that, it had forgotten of Mono’s existence for the pain in its stomach became unbearable.
Mono’s eyes widened, watching the thing move inside the Tenant.
Six.
He couldn’t blast the adult while she was still inside doing…whatever she was doing. And her clawing her way out through the Tenant’s skin would waste her energy and time all the more. Six was already in the process of becoming food, letting her stay within the Tenant would kill her sooner or later. He had to get her out.
An idea came to him as he eyed the Tenant’s form, weakening. But so was the child inside it for her movements have slowed too.
It was now or never.
The lamps on the walls flickered from time to time, the air shifting, becoming heavier than normal. The blueish force in his hands returned, ready to inflict some damage on the monster in front of him.
Mono aimed his arm at the upper part of the adult’s torso, and quickly, he swung his hand in the air without hesitation. A spark of electric energy surged through him, erupting from his palm as it shot towards the Tenant like lightning. At this, caused a slight distance between both parties, the force strong enough to push him back.
His head met the floor instantly, a dull ache spreading at the back of his skull. Mono only spared a grunt as he forced himself to sit back up, however, with a grimace.
The Tenant was seen standing ahead, albeit more still than before. It remained in its place for more than a few seconds, unable to move except for its twitching finger and eye, red trickling down past its abdomen. It returned Mono’s stare, not even caring how a long cut had appeared just below its chest.
Mono flinched when the upper part of the Tenant’s body began to smoothly slide to the side and separate itself from the lower one. The contents of its stomach seeped out like running water as the cut opened wider. Soon enough, the two halves of the Tenant’s body unceremoniously dropped to the floor, dark red blood coating the carpet below it.
The adult feebly stretched its arms forward, attempting to reach towards him if it weren’t for its already disconnected legs.
With the Tenant’s chin rested on the ground, it maintained its eye-contact with him despite its bleeding condition. Its chest rose up and down still, but slowly. He was certain that its soul would be out of its body soon.
Mono broke out of his stupor, taking multiple deep breaths as the anger that fueled him from before left him gradually, the anxiety of whether Six was alive taking over. He stood up and carefully approached the separated body, his breath coming out shaky the closer he came towards it.
The Tenant’s eyes followed him, but merely did nothing else.
He only made it halfway until a loud gasp sounded in between of the separate body. Mono huffed in sheer relief as he saw a bright yellow peeking out. With a hopeful gaze, he continued to run towards the Tenant, hoping to walk around its still arm as to get to Six.
But the arm wasn’t as still as he thought.
Just as he got a foot closer, the adult moved its body, lifting up its arm high above his head before bringing it down to where he stood.
Out of instinct, he dodged the appendage by stepping aside, the floorboards beside him breaking upon impact from the adult’s heavy arm. Realizing how it had missed him, the Tenant slowly began to stretch its arm towards Mono, even close to dragging its severed torso backwards.
The Tenant brought down another hand, touching the tail of his coat for only a moment, which got a small shriek out of the boy. As Mono avoided the Tenant’s attacks, he glanced to Six’s direction.
She was near the Tenants lower half of the body, her figure rolling out of the wound along with the blood and the monster’s internal organs. Six barely gave herself a minute as she already pushed herself off the ground, coughing.
Fortunately, she was quick enough to gather her bearings, standing up the moment she saw him running towards her. Her brows raised, suprised.
“Mono—”
He yanked at her hand, clasping his own around hers tightly as he led her. Feeling his bare feet step on the wet intestines of the Tenant, Mono already swallowed the bile in his throat.
As they managed to get around the Tenant’s upper body, they dashed over to the elevator in the distance. The key on the way, he swiftly picked it up with one hand as he ran, not risking even a second to stop.
The Tenant, however, wasn’t going to let the children leave without one last fight. With its arms still usable, it dragged its upper body forward, its arms replacing its legs as it moved just as fast as them.
And the Tenant was hot on their trail.
Mono cussed under his breath, hearing the monster catching up from behind. He sped up ahead, silently apologizing to Six for making her foot suffer more than it should. But in this case, she’d just have to suck it up. It was a matter of life and death! Pain was temporary after all.
He felt her hand squeeze his tighter, a slight wince escaping him from her iron hold.
Yes, pain was temporary.
They reached in front of the scissor gate. Immediately, he released her hand, feeling the blood rush back to his palm. Thank God.
While Mono kneeled down to use the key for the gate, Six already made her way to the lever beside the lift, standing by. He pushed the key inside the keyhole—which luckily fit—then turning it to the side and unlocking the gate. After hearing its click, Six instantly jumped up towards the lever and pulled it down with her.
The gate groaned, its rusted metals retracting painfully slow.
As they waited in anticipation for the gate to open wide enough, Mono gave a glance behind him.
Bad idea.
The Tenant came charging at them, dragging its severed body faster the second it saw the gate opening. It tilted its head slightly upwards, the bottom half of its empty face stretching apart so wide and revealing multiple rows of sharp canine teeth inside.
His lips parted at the ugly sight as he unintentionally froze.
It has a mouth?
That was until a small hand pulled him inside the elevator shaft, making him turn his head to Six.
Being thrown inside the shaft by her, he hurriedly leapt at the lever placed on the back wall of the elevator, and pulled it down with his weight.
But the lever didn’t budge.
Mono instantly looked up at the handle, his face draining of color while his feet dangled in the air.
A loud creak sounded from behind, the Tenant already clasping one hand at the gate as to pull itself easier. As if understanding their predicament, it took its sweet time, merely tightening its grip before using the other hand to reach to the gate as well.
Sweat dripped past his forehead as his attempts were all but fruitless.
The lever was stuck! How could he have known something such as this would happen?
He felt two arms circled around his waist, causing him to shift his head downwards.
Six quickly pulled him down with her, her weight adding on to the lever. Mono tightened his hold, feeling the handle start to move finally.
Abruptly, he let the lever go, both dropping to floor next to each other.
The gate groaned once more to close, followed by the Tenant’s growl. It leapt forward with one arm outstretched, the tip of its fingers barely inches away from the children’s face.
Mono pressed his back further against the wall. Six only held in her breath.
The sound of bones crunching, and cracking filled the air.
The gate already snapped shut.
Everything eerily quiet.
All except for the piece of meat that dropped in front of them.
And neither dared to pry their eyes off the adult's arm.
More blood flowed out from the severed limb and on to the floor, its fingers twitching before it laid still.
The Tenant stared at the children behind the closed gate, its eyes wishing they were close enough to grab one of them. But alas, with one arm gone and the metal between them, the task seemed almost impossible.
It raised up its only arm and thrashed it against the gate, causing the elevator to shake with them in it. They could only watch as the adult try its best to bend the gate. And it would’ve been successful if it was given another minute longer.
Ding!
A sound came from above.
As if his prayers had been heard, the elevator started to descend, moving at a slow rate, just like how Mono expected it to.
The Tenant on the other hand, merely did nothing but watch its meal disappear the further down they go. Its hum resembled close to sadness, longing even as they passed more floors below.
Eventually, they got far enough until Tenant was no longer seen nor heard.
The adult was gone for good.
Mono finally let out a breath, his heart still beating loudly in his chest from the early adrenaline. Another near-death. He breathed into his hands, dragging them down as he scoffed.
After regaining himself, he shifted to the girl beside him.
Now that they weren’t in the middle of being attacked, he couldn’t help but notice her bloodied appearance. Very much so to the point where exaggeration was not needed.
Her entire form was drenched in red as the yellow in her raincoat was barely seen anymore. Most of her face too was covered in blood, although the color darkened and appeared thicker around her mouth, some even trickling in the corners of it.
Mono would rather not know the implication behind that. Even though he already did, unfortunately.
Six glanced his way, then rolling her eyes.
“What?” she said, her voice firm yet there was a shakiness to it.
“Nothing, you…y-you have something on your….”
He gestured around his mouth instead.
At that, she flushed, quickly wiping her lips with the cleaner part of her sleeve.
Like that made much difference anyhow. The blood still left a red mark around her skin.
They waited in silence, each reserved to their own thoughts as the elevator passed a few more floors.
With this dreadful wait for the elevator to finally stop, he couldn’t bring himself to look at Six now. Not just because she was covered in a monster’s blood, no.
But because every time he tried, he kept on going back to the scene in the corridor. The way the Tenant grabbed her tiny body from behind, the way she was slowly absorbed by its skin and disappeared into it. It took a toll on him more than he'd like to admit.
However, it was what she did before that had him more stumped.
Six had dropped the key. To him. The boy she’d tried to kill because of a music box.
Whether it was intentional or by accident, the latter seemed more probable for a girl like her.
Maybe her hand had been sweaty enough for her to slip.
Plausible. Yet something told him that he may be wrong for that assumption. Knowing Six, she wouldn’t have cared about anyone other than herself.
So, then why would she purposely drop the key?
Mono wouldn’t like to think his opinion of Six’s selfish personality to be wrong, but after what happened with Viola, it was hard to be certain anymore. He didn’t know if he could even trust his own guts when it came down to it.
The elevator soon halted, the same ‘ding’ ringing somewhere from above its door as the gate opened automatically. Both perked their heads up to the floor presented to them. Though a little pointless for them to.
For everything was pitch black. No lights from either side of the wall, excluding the one inside the shaft.
Nothing a flashlight couldn’t help.
Mono exhaled shakily, intending to stand up. But he barely did so as Six tugged weakly at his coat, telling him to sit back down. Correction, she ordered for him to sit back down. Despite her decreasing strength, her voice still held the firmness behind them.
This time, his legs obeyed her before he could argue. He reluctantly plopped back down to the floor, resting his head against the wall like her.
It was clear that both was utterly exhausted with the way neither cared the risks of staying inside an operational lift. Or how close they sat next to each other after months of mutual hate and dispute.
Apparently, Mono drained himself more than he thought; and Six, with what she did earlier within the Tenant—something he still wouldn’t ask, nor bring up for the sake of not vomiting.
They stayed in that position, not exchanging a glance or a word. But merely recovering some of their lost energy from before.
A short break, one that was needed more than ever.
“You didn’t leave me behind,” she muttered, barely turning to face him.
Her remark sounding expectant for his reply, yet not a comment came from him as he didn’t even return the glance.
He didn’t need to explain to her why he did what he did. He didn’t have to justify anything about his actions to her. As a matter of fact, she didn’t herself, so why should he?
Mono crossed his arms instead, looking at nowhere in particular.
Six let out a small huff, her eye lids lowering.
“Mono,” she said, “what happened after you touched that shard?”
Exasperatedly, he sighed, finally opening his mouth to speak.
“How long have you been waiting to ask me that?”
“Way before we left the apartment. Before it ate me.”
Guilt washed over him. If he hadn’t been so distraught earlier and just listened, they might’ve had the chance to escape without anyone getting eaten.
“I already told you, Six. I saw Viola.”
“I know that part,” she said, irritated already. “I just want to know what exactly she did that made you so upset.”
“And you want to know that because…?”
“You cried over someone as if they just died in front of you. Does that not call for a bit of concern?”
He shot her a look before falling into a long silence, hesitant to tell Six everything Viola had told—well, more like shouted to him.
How would he know Six wouldn’t just laugh at his face after? He knew she would definitely take a hit at his stupidity for being so gullible. She already did with the crying thing.
Mean is what Six could be sometimes.
But in retrospect, Six did tell him off back before they left the Maw about his rescue plan for Viola, saying how the girl wasn’t even related to him. And she wasn’t even wrong at all.
Viola was only a stranger who had saved him from the Signal Tower. However so, she was a stranger whom he felt a connection with, regardless it was only days they spent working along together like he had with Six.
Maybe Viola’s right about me, he mused with sunken eyes. Maybe I really am just a naïve piece of tool.
Six waited for his answer, however, a sigh left her when he seemed more and more distant. Her gaze eventually returned to the darkened hall beyond the shaft.
“Forget it,” she said. “You don’t have to tell me if it’s that—"
“She told me to go home.”
Nothing came to Six as she looked at him, speechless.
“...Home?”
Mono heaved a breath and started from the beginning, telling her how he’d found the younger girl in a strange place rather than the room in the Signal Tower. He told her how Viola, at one point, was glad to see him and relieved to know he was getting her out.
But things had gotten ugly right after she’d asked how he found her.
Mono explained to Six about the argument they had, not diving too much into detail. Just the part where Viola began to hurl insults at him out of nowhere and…bringing up the betrayal. That’d been the line for his patience, to which Viola had crossed without remorse. And to have heard it from a nice girl such as her made it difficult for him to believe it. Even now, he could still feel his blood boiling to the maximum point!
Six narrowed her eyes as he finished with a tempered face, letting him have a moment to calm down before she spoke up.
“Let me see if I understand this right,” she started after a beat. “You’re telling me...Viola was happy at first, and then she started yelling at you? Right after?”
He folded his arms and scowled. “I’m telling you she lost her mind. I don’t know what got her so freaked out all the sudden.” He shook his head, sighing heavily. “All I keep thinking is that maybe you'd have been somewhat correct. Maybe we should’ve never come back to this awful city. In the end Viola didn’t want to be saved anyway; saying that I caused her pain and such.”
Six frowned at his harsh tone towards the other girl. “Mono,” she scolded.
“No, really. I’m just glad that we didn’t get to the Signal Tower just for her to throw us out later. And if she thinks I’m the one who made her so miserable, then she can just get herself out of that place on her own for all I care.”
Pain ran up to the back of his head, Six’s palm meeting him.
And she slapped him good.
Mono snapped to her, his eyes widening at what she did. His mouth left opened in shock, a hand already to his sore head. “What…what was that for?”
“Don’t say things like that when you don’t mean it,” she chastised with a glare.
“But I do mean it,” he said, glaring back.
“No, you don’t. You’re just too hung up on the betrayal. So much that you can’t even see the real point anymore.”
Mono stared at her with furrowed brows, silence taking him again as his face slowly blanked.
“Huh?”
At that, Six threw her head back against the wall, hitting her head on purpose as she sighed.
“She’s faking it, dummy.”
He paused, taking in her words. “What…?”
“It’s clearly obvious that Viola was trying to get you to leave for a reason. Why else would she even yell at you? After being so happy you made it there?”
“Well because…she….” he stumbled on his words, gulping uncomfortably. His failure of finishing his sentence only proved Six’s point.
“Mono," Six leaned closer to him, "Viola yelled at you right after you mentioned the shard; blamed you for the betrayal just so you’d leave her in that place. Doesn’t that tell you anything? Have you forgotten about the monster that took her?”
His mouth sealed shut, something sharp pulling and tugging at his chest as her words hit him like a bat.
True as it was that Viola pushed him away when he told her about the shard, it all made sense after what Six told him.
Viola’s sudden change of behavior, the hostility she’d radiated, Mono couldn’t believe it took him this long for him to see it. All the insults she threw at him, he ate it all and took it to heart. Foolishly, he let his emotions get the better of him, and neglected his rationality, listening to his heart rather than mind.
But now that he was no longer clouded by anger, he finally realized why Viola had brought up the betrayal to him.
It was a last resort.
Viola must’ve known, no matter how much she cursed at him; no matter how loud she yelled, Mono would still try and reason with her. He would still stay behind. But the betrayal was the final nail to the coffin for her. She made him hate her so he wouldn’t come back to the Signal Tower. Nonetheless, that alone opened a whole other line of questions. Namely if she was threatened by something.
Six might be right after all.
And if Six was right, then that would mean Viola was still the same person he’d met. That would mean she was still trapped with the Eye. Mono wore his frown deeper, brows furrowing as his chest tightened even more.
All those things he’d said moments ago, saying how Viola should save herself, Mono never knew how much of guilt he could feel in one day. Suppose, he owed her an apology in the future.
“Do you think...the Eye made her say all those things? You know, to get us to bail on her?” he asked timidly, the lump in his throat becoming harder to ignore.
Six’s eyes darkened at the mention of the cursed name.
“If they did, we absolutely can’t leave her there. They’ll just hurt her even more.”
His brow raised at the change in her tone. She sounded concerned if he were to refuse to rescue the younger girl still.
Is she worried for Viola?
Wasn’t that ironic? Last time he recalled, Six would roll her eyes even by the mention of the other girl’s name. Saying awful, pessimistic things like Viola ending up in somebody's lunch or drowned in some drain.
“You’re right, we can’t. We have to get her out of there. I only…got carried away.” He averted his gaze from her, a pink tint on his cheeks as he forced out his next words. “Thank you,” he said, glancing awkwardly to her.
He really hoped she knew what he was thanking her for. She only hummed in response, tearing herself away from him quickly as if one look at him could burn her eyes—which on some level, he appreciated.
They went quiet after, letting the tension dissipate as they rested next to each other. His rescue plan for Viola back in motion after Six’s help at opening his eyes—though his hatred for Viola didn't last very long. However, it still made him wonder if he’d actually abandon Viola if they hadn’t had this conversation. If he’d continued to let his anger control him like a switch.
He should've suspected the Eye had something to do with it from the start. He should’ve known better and been more careful when it came to the televisions. Maybe even listen to Six if they encountered another one next time.
Because of his own curiousity, Six was almost killed.
A mistake he wouldn't ever repeat again.
He'd be damned if he killed an old friend and someone's mother.
Mono released a deep breath, standing up then turning to face the dark hall. “Come on, I think we should—"
His speech was interrupted as Six suddenly let out a dry cough, her face grimacing while she tapped at her chest.
At first he thought nothing much of it, assuming it was merely an irritated throat she had.
Boy, was he wrong about that.
Mono got on his knees and flinched back when she started to cough harder, sounding more and more painful. Not knowing what to do, he stayed by her side. He figured asking her what was wrong when she clearly wasn’t fine would be a dumb thing to do. And so, he sat in a horrible silence and waited.
Waited until she'd at least slow down eventually.
Though it was when she didn't that made his worry grow, his heart pounding faster.
She proceeded to cough into her hands next as if to stifle herself but to no avail.
"Hey!" He grabbed ahold of her shoulder as her coughs sounded worse to hear.
It lasted for about a few seconds more before she let out a final cough, much to his relief. Her chest rose up and down, seemingly breathing like normal.
Slowly, she removed her hands from her mouth, putting them in front of her.
Being right beside her, Mono saw it before she even had the chance to hide it. The fresh blood that splattered across her palm. And to make matter worse, he knew the blood wasn’t the Tenant’s.
It was hers.
Mono’s eyes darted between Six and the blood, his whole body tensing even more.
“What did you…?”
A gag escaped her then, her face turning green the more she stared at her own blood.
Before he could react, Six already lurched forward to the other wall, coughing painfully, and gagging out something in between her throat. She held herself against the wall firmly with one hand while the other to her stomach, her gags becoming louder.
He knew it well enough to know that this was not the hunger’s doing, but her own body's.
A little anxious, Mono made his way over to her, intending to get to her side. He stood behind her, his hands just above her back. But the same hand retracted instantly as she hurled out the contents of her stomach, her vomit mixing with more blood.
A lot of blood.
His face scrunched up at the sight, yet he didn’t back away even after she was finished.
Not a moment later, Six stood upright, wiping the corners of her mouth with the back of her hand, her breathing short. Though the hand she had on wall slowly dropped, her legs wobbling as she turned to meet him.
Some of the blood—either hers or the Tenant’s—was still seen coming down her mouth and to her raincoat, regardless already having wiped them. Six’s eyes red and teary from all the throwing up she did.
A heavy frown etched to his lips, his shoulders sinking.
“Six…”
She tiredly shook her head, as if telling him not to say anything else regarding this. She then took a step, however, her footing was lost anyhow with how much she was swaying.
Her eyes then rolled to the back of her head, her body finally letting up and collapsing towards the only person in front of her.
Notes:
I just realized in 4 updates this fic is gonna reach 40 chapters O_O
Welp...I better write fast
Also yess shoutout to Apathyao3! Thank you for taking the time and writing yet another wonderful fic called Better Chew First. You guys can read it here.
Thanks for reading!
Chapter 37: Seeing Eye To Eye
Notes:
Short chapter this week, but a new POV. One that I never thought I'd write.
Hint: the chapter title ;)
And yes the pun is intentional.
Also, sorry no Six and Mono in this one (╥﹏╥)
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Rain poured all over Pale City day and night, the gloomy sky booming with lightning.
The city’s corrupted inhabitants fared no better ever since day one. Some lucky enough to find a television broadcasted with high transmission, while others had to settle for second best. And the remaining misfortunate adults already passed on to the other side, succumbing to their own eventual deaths.
With all the horrible things happening in the city, it would’ve seemed as if nothing ever changed from a child’s perspective.
However, not for the Eye’s.
The Signal Tower stood proudly tall as ever, its beacon shining high above for all to see. The aura it radiated so intimidating that no sane mind would even dare come close to its proximity—let alone stand outside its entrance. The being residing it, no doubt all powerful and mighty. Its plain and simple design, its sturdy condition made it seem like it would stand for over a hundred more years.
Indeed, the Eye made sure the Signal Tower’s exterior stayed that way for the outside world. Especially now.
Not one soul should ever know of what was truly inside the heart of the Tower, the core of the Eye.
Somewhere inside the twisted Tower, was where they could be found—where all of them could be found.
In a spacious room filled with nothing but moving blob of flesh from top to bottom, the ceiling as tall as it could be, eyes with different colors for irises and sizes positioned at random as it stuck out from the walls. And their number, too many to count.
Most of the eyes were closed shut, their minds syncing together all at once as to guard the Signal Tower and their deformed prisoner. These eyes continued with their tasks, not ever leaving the city unsupervised.
The rest of the eyes that wasn’t inside the merge, however, blinked like normal, pupils shifting to one another with separate, unclear emotions.
Yet one eye felt anything but unclear.
The same one who had lost its composure not too long before, its brown iris might as well be considered as red for its sclera graced with veins looking ready to burst.
“I want to strangle that brat!” it yelled.
A blue-colored eye beside it rolled its pupil.
“Calm down, will you? You’re making quite a fool out of yourself.”
“Me, a fool? That spoiled little girl deserved to have it worse than what she was given! She should’ve suffered more than simple deformation!”
Another eye across it chimed in. “A child is still a child, no? Have you no pity for the orphan?” The purple eye fluttered its lashes and pouted.
“Hah! As if you hadn’t contributed with the nightmares and mind torture,” said the one below the purple eye. “Though, it was quite entertaining to see her in tears after all that she’s done. I partly agree with the drama royalty over there.”
“Do not. Call me that.” The brown eye twitched, its fury still apparent. “I have the right to be this angered. I’ve been doing far more work than you have, you slacker!”
The black eye gasped, its fold widening. “Why you little—!”
“Could you two please stop with the talking? I could barely hear myself think.”
The eye that interrupted them blinked its lid slowly, revealing a green iris underneath, the flesh around it already sagging and wrinkling. It stared up at the two bickering eyes from the ground.
After hours of spying through the little eyes in the city, it decided to take a short break in its shared domain, but only to come back without the silence it’d yearned for.
“What are you even yapping about?” it asked, despite the annoyance.
The tempered eye scoffed and sulked.
“Nothing that concerns us all, apparently, given not one seems to care of what happened.”
“I told you. Drama royalty,” The black eye whispered to the one above it, making the purple eye chuckle out loud.
That mocking whisper was not unheard by the angry eye, as if it was meant to be on purpose for it to hear. At that, its whole form become redder, its flesh swelling slightly.
Yet before it could start to release its wrath, the one beside it spoke once again, taking on a patronizing tone.
“Don’t bring everyone down with you now,” the blue eye said, staring at its infuriated one. “As I recall, you were the only one who couldn’t hold your own temper without venting it to the prisoner. You just couldn’t wait to hurt her yourself.”
“Because she has been nothing but a nuisance! Her mere existence is nuisance! And if it were up to me, Viola would’ve been long erased.”
The black eye let out a snort.
“Good thing it wasn’t up to you then. Or else this mission would’ve ended way before it started.”
“She’s the cheese in the trap,” the purple eye supported.
“Well, it doesn’t seem like the trap works anymore, does it?” Bitterness in its tone as the brown eye glared at the other two across. “That stupid girl chased away our Broadcaster with that stupid mouth of hers. There is no point of keeping her alive still. He isn’t coming back.”
The room fell into a silence thick with tension, the sound of soft squeaks in the air as the eyes all blink without exchanging anymore.
“So, you haven’t heard?”
The grumpy eye shifted to the ground, meeting the green eye’s tired gaze. “What about?” it grumbled.
“Ah, so it is true then. You haven’t heard…”
“Heard what?!”
Green eye stared up with mirth as it spoke its next words.
“The Broadcaster has decided to stay. He isn’t leaving the city, not just yet.”
The raging eye’s socket narrowed slowly, the fume within its connected fleshes and skin tampering down, soon replaced with its natural malevolence and exhilaration again after hearing the news. Incredible news.
Seemingly, the other eyes shared the mutual excitement as each present were sparkling with joy. And if they were ever given a mouth, no doubt they’d smile so wide until their cheeks tore apart.
“He isn’t?”
“It was the Geisha who persuaded him,” one of the eyes answered from a nearby corner, its iris grey in color. It blinked itself lazily, just like the green eye had. “Perhaps that Six is still good for something after all.”
“Oh, Eyes! I knew it! I feel for that little cannibal so much,” said the purple eye, longingly.
The black eye huffed. “Again, wasn't it you the one who’d helped deform her into accepting the deal?”
“A deal to which she took on her own volition. Regardless, the method worked, didn’t it?”
“That’s enough, both of you.” The blue eye raised its voice, emitting superiority. It lifted its gaze over to the grey eye instead, asking, “Tell me, how recent was this information?”
A sigh left the grey eye.
“Very. In fact, they’ve only discussed it not too long ago after killing one of the tenants.”
“Now, that was far more entertaining than the one at the daycare. There was so much blood,” the green eye said, sadistically so.
That only got the grey eye rollling its pupil in response. However, the blue eye kept its stern glare, flickering them between the two eyes who’d recently come back from guarding the city. Its stare, cold and unreadable like always.
“And the two children?” the blue eye asked.
The rest only listened as the grey eye replied, “One of them struck with a fever, and the other merely drained. They might take a while to regain themselves, it seems.”
“Hoho! Would you look at that,” the black eye jibed, looking directly to the brown one, “More time of babysitting the cycle ruin-er! Should be a fun task for you.” It sneered despite the death glare it was receiving. The brown eye snarled as its nerve was easily struck.
But alas, the argument ended just as quick as it started, the blue eye being the one to interfere before the two eyes could start again.
It was not how an eye should behave. At least that was the principle it stood by.
The blue eye started, “Let us return to the others, shall we? It would be inconvenient to miss out any more important details, such as this.”
A murmur of agreement came from the eyes present, their blinks akin to a nod for the blue eye’s suggestion, while a certain other merely rolled its pupil.
Soon, one by one, the lids of the eyes started to close, preparing each of themselves to merge their minds with the rest of their comrades.
The blue eye patiently watched as the eyes across it disappear, the closed eyelids for each and every one becoming one of a camouflage as it blended with the moving flesh.
All but one.
Curiosity colored the blue eye's features, seeing its partner staring darkly into space.
“Will you not be joining us?” it asked.
“I will…but in a moment,” the brown eye muttered, its lid hooded. “I’m afraid I am not ‘calm enough’ to stay within the merge.”
Exasperatedly, the other one only hummed.
“Very well. Suppose, whenever you are ready then. I expect you not to lose your composure this time.” It stared into the brown eye, its glare hardened as it added with an icy tone. “Please do not humiliate us all again.”
As the words were spoken, the blue eye eventually close itself too, leaving the brown eye to its own devices. All around it was nothing but the meaty flesh, no other eyes in sight.
Knowing that it was alone, it took its chance and released some of its pent-up anger.
“Tch, acting as if you are centuries older than me…”
The brown eye sighed heavily to itself and let out a soft groan whenever its mind returned to the pest of a child, Viola.
How it wished it could just kill her here and now. But alas, her value was too much to be wasted away. No matter how overwhelming the urge to destroy that child, it knew it couldn’t.
The trap was still in effect. And Viola was still needed for the plan to work.
In spite of its lingering hatred for the girl, it did bring great pleasure and relief to know that she’d paid for her consequences. At least. Quickening her deformation process wasn’t the best way it’d prefer but it was all the eyes could afford to do.
For now.
After all, they couldn't let Viola die before their Broadcaster arrive at the Signal Tower. They couldn't let her die just yet.
The single eye gave the flesh room one last look around, releasing another exhale as it eyed the others for a bit longer.
Bastards, it thought. Kiss ass-ing bastards.
Yet the brown eye was no different.
With a hum, it rolled itself once again before finally closing its own fold.
Notes:
So I put the eyes having multiple different colors to differenciate which one is talking. Hopefully, it isn't too confusing to read...but let me know if it is :D
Thanks for reading!
Chapter 38: Her Ghost Friend
Chapter Text
Everything hurt.
Her stomach, her throat, her lungs.
The evidence of that being the puddle of vomit-blood in the corner of the elevator shaft.
Six had already long passed out after that, but fortunately, Mono was there to catch her arms just before she landed on her face. Which ended up burying the said face into his chest. And his eyes widened twice its size, his cheeks madly reddened.
Isn’t that just cute, a certain shadow thought.
The expression it wore, nothing but a constant blank as it stood watching from the sides, shaking its head at its knocked-out host. For as Six lost complete control of her conscious and mind, the shadow regained some. It was not a mere reminder throughout this time anymore.
A shame really.
Six truly had been close to relieving some of her hunger. However, eating the Tenant’s insides was a mistake. Although not entirely a mistake. Six did get some meat in her digestion at least. Thus, a shame she had to hurl it all out not long after.
Her hunger remained a predicament until now. Maybe worse.
The shadow’s eyes followed Mono as he dragged Six out of the shaft and into the dark hall. A bored look on it as it walked beside him in silence.
“God damn it,” he muttered, fumbling through his coat for his flashlight. Going on one knee, he pulled at Six’s arm and put it over his shoulder. “This is exactly why I didn’t want you eating that rat. But sure, eating an adult is way better right?” he complained softly, unaware of the shadow’s presence.
Mono flashed the light ahead with one hand and walked along the hallway, albeit slowly with Six’s dead weight on him.
The shadow stuck by them as they continued further.
Doors were seen to their left and right, all of them closed. The light in Mono’s hands only reaching a few feet.
The shadow walked behind the light of course, hating the small heat it’d apply on its body. The level of discomfort was equivalent to walking in wet shoes and socks—not that Six had ever worn any.
Time ticked away, the elevator eventually no longer within sight as they turned a few corners in the hall. And the longer they were out here, the more agitated Mono’s breathing were. The shadow could tell he was getting quite antsy staying out in the open.
To add on, Six showed no signs of waking up from her sleep. Out cold as if in a coma. Well, without anything to fuel her hunger, she might as well be in a coma.
Six needed to eat as soon as she wakes up, and before her hunger exacerbated. Because if it ever got to that point, the shadow knew it wouldn’t fare any better than her.
A certain smell caught the shadow’s nose, making it snap to one of the apartments. Its door seemingly closed, however, not locked. That can easily be fixed.
Approaching the blue-greenish door, it flicked its hand over it, causing the door to swing slowly on its own. Though for anyone other than Six, it would’ve seem as if the wind had done it. Or rather…
A ghost.
The door produced a loud creak, halting Mono immediately in his tracks. He slowly turned towards its direction, his flashlight penetrating through the shadow’s body without his knowledge.
A frown fixed to its lips as it felt the heat hovering above its form.
Despite knowing his inability to see it, the shadow shot a glare while he made his way towards the opened door, albeit still very much flashing at its eyes. An action he’d done to Six not long ago.
Has he always been this annoying?
Mono pushed the door wider, carrying Six at his side as he entered the room, the shadow following suit.
After having Six leaned at his shoulder for quite some time, he gently lifted her arm off his neck. Instead, he hooked his elbows under her arms, dragging her as he moved backwards.
The shadow waited patiently, following him into another room where a huge bed was placed against the moldy walls, a window just above its frame as the rain tapped from the outside.
A grunt sounded from him as he fell abruptly to his rear, his hands having slipped from dragging Six.
The thin line on the shadow’s lips replaced with a smirk.
Mono sat on the ground, eyeing his companion with a pout, his frustration becoming apparent by the second. Despite so, he still got on his knees, clutching Six’s arms, and continuing to drag her with all his might.
The shadow observed him and his determination, the way he pushed himself until the two made it under the bed, the thick blankets hiding them as they went behind it.
Beyond the covers, Mono rested Six at the corner of the wall, the amount of dust he’d breathed making him cough slightly. Not a second later, he plopped down to the floor too, fatigued. But his eyes, they were solely on the sleeping girl beside him.
The dead silence easily overtook the room without her to help it.
He leaned close and whispered, “Six?”
As no answer came, he then waved a hand in front of her face.
The shadow raised a brow.
Was he making sure she was truly unconscious? What an idiot.
Still receiving nothing, Mono soon dropped his hand and threw his head back, intentionally knocking it once against the wall. His forehead scrunched as a thought bothered his mind.
At least it sure seemed that way to the shadow.
“I’m sorry…”
The shadow cocked its head. In just a second, it appeared next to him, listening with utter curiosity for what he had to say.
If Six wasn’t here to listen, then why shouldn’t it do it on her behalf?
“I just realized I never…apologized for what I’ve done to you back then. In a way, I…I wasn’t the only one hurt by the whole thing.” He glanced to Six, seeing her head leaning the other way, her eyes still closed. “I’ve been bringing up the betrayal way too much lately, haven’t I?”
“You have,” replied the shadow, despite knowing its words would fall to no one’s ears.
Mono sat upright as he looked around, his eyes widening. Immediately, he got to his feet, standing in front of his unconscious companion and on guard.
The shadow watched him from behind, baffled for his sudden reaction.
What was the matter with him?
“Wh-who’s there?”
The shadow gaped at his words, slight surprise to its features.
But it didn’t take long for it to understand.
Emerging in front of him, it stared into his face, although his eyes appeared to be looking straight through the shadow instead.
So, he still couldn’t see me.
How peculiar. It wondered if it could…
The shadow flicked the boy’s forehead. Instantly, Mono staggered behind a few steps, a hand to his aching spot. And his face, beyond horrified.
His breathing quickened while his head turned every few seconds, searching for the attacker but to no avail. It was impossible for him to do so, and the shadow could easily confirm it as it stood right next to him, its smile growing at his reaction.
“What the hell is going on?!” he squeaked to himself, absolute fear in his voice and expression.
The shadow merely inched closer to his ear, whispering a word that was enough to make his own blood freeze.
“Boo.”
Mono let out a stifled yelp, backing away to the point where he inevitably tripped and fell on his back. His eyes became wider than before. He had his lips parted yet not a word managed to come out.
As entertained as the shadow was, it knew how big of an advantage this was to it. Given its lack of physical body, holding anything was simply like holding water. Finding food for Six was impossible by itself.
But not with Mono’s help.
Now that he apparently could hear its whispers—and be touched by it—everything was possible.
Perhaps, it didn’t need to wait for Six to wake up after all. Mono could just prepare the food for her in advance.
Kneeling in front of the boy, the shadow grabbed his coat and harshly brought him up to his feet.
Mono, with his limbs all frozen, could only follow and stand in place as he shuddered, not daring to make even the slightest movement lest the ghost would ‘attack’ him again. But seeing that seconds passed, and nothing did, he allowed his body to relax a little. Still, he barely could.
Gulping, he said, “Please don’t hurt me…who-whoever you are.” He waited for a response and became even more creeped out when he was met with silence. “Don’t hurt Six. She’s already not…feeling well…”
The shadow rolled its eyes as he began with his hundreds of reasons for them not to be harmed.
What did he think of this, a negotiation?
“Quiet.”
He shut his trap instantly, staring at an empty space instead of the shadow who stood beside him.
Suddenly, he was once again, yanked forward by the shadow, both of them making their way out from under the bed.
Mono’s head shifted to Six’s sleeping form being left behind, panic rising in chest.
“W-wait, wait!”
The shadow threw his arm as they stood just outside of the bed covers. His face easily revealed his next move to it.
Before he could slide back under the bed, the shadow already appeared behind him, grabbing his collar to stop his first and last attempt.
As a result, Mono was pulled away from the bed, falling on his rear once more. The pain being enough to tell him that whatever was haunting him didn’t want him to return to their hideout.
The shadow only shot him an empty stare as he raised his hands up in defeat, though not exactly facing its direction.
“Okay, okay, I’ll stay out here if that’s what you want. I-I’ll even stand still!” he said, darting his eyes awkwardly.
“No.”
His face paled, hearing the whisper again.
“You don’t...want me to stand?”
“No.”
"S-so, you want me to sit? Cause I can do that too!"
The shadow slammed a hand to its own face, dragging it down exasperatedly.
“Six needs food. Find her one.”
Mono merely blinked.
“Huh?”
The shadow pulled his ear towards it, his head following as he let out little winces.
“Find. Her. Food.”
As its hold on him was released, Mono took the chance and quickly backed away further from his position, brows furrowing more to confusion and less in fear.
He turned his gaze towards the bed, staring in thought for a few seconds before finally uttering a word.
“Where?” he asked.
The shadow grinned at his question.
It teleported to the opened door, giving it a slight push as to make it creak on purpose. Mono nodded at the sound, giving the bed one last look before rushing towards the door.
With only sounds and little tugs on his coat, giving directions to him wasn’t all that piece of cake. There were a bunch of times where Mono went the wrong way, to the shadow’s chagrin. But patience was what it had most. Although, it might just run out quick the longer it took to get to where they were truly heading.
They soon stopped inside a kitchen, the shadow merely following the strong smell of meat lingering around in the room. It knew the meat had to be somewhere hidden, likely an enclosed space.
The shadow tutted, displeased when Mono took out his flashlight again. If it weren’t for him flashing it around so carelessly, this wouldn’t be much of a bother to it.
One side of the wall was lined with appliances that were no doubt older than the dead children in Pale City. The bulb above them had long died as it dangerously dangled on a wire. A faint red stain was seen splattered across the wooden floor, making Mono flash his light away from it in an instant.
“Uh, ghost?” The shadow rolled its eyes at the moniker as it stayed away from the light. “Are you still there?” he asked.
It ignored him, shaking its head.
Truly annoying.
As the odor became stronger to its nose, it proceeded to walk around the room, following the smell that practically attached itself to these rotting walls.
The shadow eventually stopped in front of the low cabinets, the rancid smell penetrating through its closed doors as it reached it.
And the smell was stronger than ever.
Now this was where Mono would be needed. This was where his end of the job come into play.
Giving the kitchen a look around, the boy was easily spotted with that ridiculous flashlight of his.
He was seen on top of a table, looking through a glass bowl placed at the center. The shadow didn’t need a third eye to know that the bowl was filled with nothing but rotten fruits. Or the remains of what appeared to be fruits at least.
“Mono.”
He instantly flinched, face pure of shock as he stared around the kitchen.
“Ghost?” He quickly jumped down to the chairs and made his way to the floor, not wanting to keep the shadow waiting for certain reasons. “Where….where are you?”
His head turned around every corner in hopes he could spot something unusual—something specifically a ghost would do. He’d rather not be yanked out of nowhere again.
Unfortunately for him, the shadow did exactly that.
Mono nearly tripped at the sudden tug, earning him yet another heart attack.
Like the shadow could care less. The boy was the only person it could physically made contact with, and the shadow wasn’t going to waste its own energy and time giving him hints on where he should go. They'd already wasted a lot just by getting here.
Soon as they reached the front of the cabinet, the shadow released his sleeve, causing him to stumble when the invisible tug vanished rather abruptly. His face showed clear dislike as his frown deepened.
“C-can you not do that?” he asked, rubbing the same arm up and down. The shadow didn’t respond to that.
Mono gazed at the cabinet door, his eyes narrowing in slight confusion. He made his way closer to the door, eyeing up at its handle.
“You want me to open this?”
Not receiving any further instructions, he gave out a huff, then proceeded to jump up towards the handle and pulled it before dropping back down.
A soft creak hung in the air as the cabinet door slowly swung open, the smell of the fresh meat overwhelming the shadow’s senses. It could practically feel its own smile grow wider, more sinister.
Just as Mono approached the cabinet with his flashlight, a small grey creature ran past him, its tiny legs bolting out of the cabinet before he could react.
The creature on the other hand, was all too familiar to him. He’d interacted with one back in the Wilderness. Back before he and Viola arrived at the Maw.
“Hey, wait!” he shouted.
The Nome scurried away from the boy, and it didn’t make a move to stop—especially when he went and chased it from behind like some predator going after its lunch. Any sane being would be frightened.
The shadow watched with mirth as Mono leapt at the Nome, trapping the little creature under him. The Nome let out a terrified squeak akin to sobs, squirming madly in Mono’s grasp, however, unable to escape his hold despite trying.
And it was already made clear that Mono had already won in this case as his strength easily overpowered the little creature.
Finally, a meal.
Appearing next to Mono, the shadow stared triumphantly, somewhat proud of him for having captured the Nome in time, elation to its features.
Do it.
Kill it.
Take out its flesh.
“Stop…stop squirming,” Mono said, trying to keep the Nome still in his hands.
In response, the creature retaliated by twisting its body even more.
The shadow waited in anticipation, slightly annoyed by how long he was taking. How hard was it to twist its neck? If the shadow could, it would've done so in a split second!
It would've already taken out its heart by now.
As if the shadow's complaints were heard, Mono brought the Nome closer to himself, quickly pulling the creature to his chest, suffocating it.
Muffled whimpers of the Nome could be heard. It began to hit and punch onto Mono's chest with its little fists. But the fight merely lasted seconds as its hands gradually fell limp, dropping to its side.
Soon, the creature finally laid still, just like the corpse it should be.
That alone was enough to make the shadow’s smile grow tenfold.
Yet the exhilaration, the thrill of the hunt left just as fast as it came. The joy it had embraced not long after seeing the creature meet its demise dissolved into a mixture of confusion and ire. Its triumph for this, all gone.
All of it was felt, just as soon as it heard the Nome's purr.
The smile the shadow had so proudly put on dropped in seconds, realization knocking into it.
Mono didn’t suffocate the Nome like the shadow had thought.
No. He did something far worse.
The shadow’s posture sunk, its features full of sheer disbelief along with disappointment.
“Shh, I’m not going to hurt you, okay?” he cooed, rubbing circles behind the Nome’s back.
He was hugging it instead.
The shadow took a step back, its usual monotonous expression faltering. No, this cannot be.
No, No, No.
He was the only one it could rely on to get the meat to Six. If he wasn’t going to kill the Nome, then who would? If he was incapable of killing, how would Six ever get better? How would Six satiate herself without this meal she so needed?
How would the shadow disappear back inside its host if her hunger kept it out for long?
Despite the shadow’s minds racing with awful questions, it could feel its own anger flood through its whole form. A feeling directed specifically to Mono and Mono only. In a split second, it made its decision.
No matter what, Six needed to satiate her hunger.
Therefore, if Mono failed giving her this Nome...
Then he shall replace it.
As the Nome leaned further against him, Mono let out a soft chuckle.
He gently put it back down to the floor, however, unaware of the ghost approaching him from behind. Its hands reached out for his neck.
Mono kneeled down to the Nome’s height and placed a hand on its shoulder.
“You understand me, right?”
The Nome nodded and gave a reply, although in gibberish. Certainly, their communication was one-sided.
“Okay, uh, then do you mind giving me a little help? My f…Six is really, really hungry. Do you know if this place has any food?”
Once again, the creature nodded with such enthusiasm.
The shadow’s hands ceased in front of the boy’s throat, its palms barely touching the skin.
Is there now?
The shadow retracted itself from Mono. Instead, it emerged beside the grey creature with a tilt of its head and narrowed eyes, contemplating whether it was telling the truth.
But by then the Nome had already taken hold of Mono’s hand, quickly leading him out of the room before either could react.
With its incredible speed, he already had a hard time of keeping up the first few seconds, his foot tripping some steps.
The shadow only followed as the Nome stopped in front of a vent. It let go of Mono and hurriedly went to push the grate out of the way, followed by its groan. The creature then slid through the small opening, gesturing for Mono to come along.
He didn’t need to be told twice as he went inside the vent, although having had to bent his back because of the tight space.
Well, his height was mostly to be blamed for it. He had grown a few centimeters taller than Six after all.
They trailed behind the Nome. The creature, fast on its feet as it took multiple turns in the vent like it was the back of its hand. Lucky enough for Mono, he was able to keep up. Though after a few minutes walking along the narrow way, he did begin to question if they were getting close.
Hell, not even the shadow knew where they were going. And that was slightly bothersome to both.
Eventually enough, an exit was found, the metal grate standing in the way of entering the room beyond it.
All three of them stood by next to each other, looking through the grate of the apartment presented in front of them.
It was a small-squared room, wood planks stacked atop of each other in one of the corners, dust and grime painting most of the floorboards. There were boxes filled with tools and items all over the place.
All of the walls, however, were seen naked as there weren’t any usual wet wallpapers they’d seen in the other apartments. Instead, there were only red bricks, a renovation that have yet to be finished.
A single workbench could be seen against the wall, and another stack of neatly cut planks placed on its surface as a hand saw was left just beside it, as if the work was put on pause.
But the question of who was doing the work sent shivers down Mono’s spine.
He let out a shudder, giving the shadow another reason to roll its eye at his antics.
However, the shadow’s attention was immediately shifted back to the table and what was put on the edge.
So, the Nome hadn't been lying...
Across the room, sat a plate full of huge stale breads.
The shadow felt its lips tugged into a grin.
In spite of the disgusting mold covering most of the bread, there were some parts that wasn’t entirely affected. Slightly damp for sure, but still edible. And those parts were just enough for Six alone. At least it’d help in keeping the hunger at bay.
If it benefitted Six, it’d benefit the shadow.
The shadow turned to the boy, noticing him eye the plate with a hardened gaze before looking around the room for any signs of threat.
Seeing none, only then he began to grasp the grate, and pushed it ever so slightly. He continued to push forward as the metal came loose, the gap wide enough for him to step inside the room.
The shadow too got out of the vent, quickly teleporting itself next to the bread. Impatience on its features as it watched from across the room at Mono’s figure running towards the table, the Nome following close behind. Tedious creature.
Though even as he reached the foot of the table, he didn’t climb it immediately, to the shadow’s chagrin.
And if it had to describe him now, one word easily came to mind.
Breathless.
He took his time to catch his own breath, panting heavily and blinking more than usual.
The shadow tilted its head as it looked down to him.
Is he finally catching up to his own exhaustion?
Exhausted or not, he still had work to do. The faster he got the bread, the faster he could return back to Six. And the faster Six would regain herself.
“Hurry.”
This time he didn’t flinch, merely looking up at the table with wide eyes as he heard its voice.
“Just give me...a second,” he said, trying to figure his way to get on top of the table.
Mono proceeded to climb the chair in front of it, only taking a few seconds before he leapt to the edge of the table and pulling himself up.
The shadow watched, tapping its foot as Mono crawled onto the surface, ostensibly worn out with how quick he fell on back right after. It scoffed silently when he dared to even close his eyes.
Standing in front of his head, the shadow gave it light kick, which got his eyes snap open in no time.
“Get up,” it said.
Mono could only do as he was told, biting down an insult or any thoughts that suggested him to defy the ghost. No thank you, that wouldn’t end well for him.
He approached the plate with a tired sigh, looking around the table surface for anything sharp to cut the bread with.
There was no way he could carry a piece of food bigger than his own skull. Yet so were the tools atop the table’s surface. Especially the saw. Despite the rusts formed on its blade, there wasn’t a doubt that it could slice his body in half with just one cut.
His eyes shifted back to the bread. “Guess I’ll just have to use my hands.”
He began to tore out a few pieces, making sure the piece he took wasn’t already affected by the mold. Taking a good number of chunks, he then stuffed the bread into his pockets, including the ones hidden inside his coat.
The shadow stayed at his side, waiting patiently for him as he stuffed another piece into his final pocket after a few minutes.
That should be enough, it thought with a satisfied hum.
Mono held on to his bread-filled coat as he prepped himself to jump back down to the chair, while the shadow already teleported to the floor before he landed next to it, another grunt leaving him.
“Six better be grateful after this,” he mumbled, making his way towards the vent slower than the Nome as the creature sped across the room.
The shadow glowered at his remark, watching him from behind.
Though its focus shifted all the sudden towards the door, scrutinizing it from its place. Every bad feeling, it all banged behind it.
Something was different. Something was approaching, already close to twisting the handle from the outside.
Another presence.
They weren’t the only ones now.
The door creaked.
Mono barely had time to process the sound as he was pulled by the arm, the shadow merely throwing him behind one of the big boxes. He fell painfully to his knees with wide eyes.
An eerie hum reached their ears, its slow footsteps followed next.
Surely, it was all the information Mono needed to shut up and not question.
Another Tenant was in the same room.
Though, it wasn’t the same as the one Six and Mono had encountered before, given its difference in appearance.
The shadow—lucky enough to be invisible for certain eyes—stood beside the box, observing the adult with a scowl. The monster wore a faded blue overall this time, its hands protected with gloves and its feet covered with boots that could crush a living being flat with one step.
The Tenant dragged itself towards the workbench, the chair creaking under its weight as soon as it reclaimed the seat.
With a slumped back, it sat staring at the table, scratching under its chin as its eyes settled on its plate of bread. It narrowed its eyes, seeing how some of the pieces were suspiciously missing.
But given all the messy crumbs Mono had left behind, it might've seemed as if a rat had done it. And rats weren’t at all uncommon in the building.
The adult rubbed its cheek lazily, taking the highest bread from the plate.
Their vision came limited as the Tenant’s back faced them. But it was obvious to anyone that the moldy bread was then brought to its face, making a sound close to chewing.
So the Nome had led them to an adult’s snack.
How wonderful.
The Tenant hummed a cheery tune as it then circled its hand around the saw and resumed its work, its arm pushing backwards and forwards until the plank it held was cut in half. And it did the same with the other, and then another.
The sound, utterly unnerving for the child in the room. Both the blade and the tune hummed by the adult.
Regardless, its volume had to be loud enough for Mono to muffle his footsteps. Which meant he could simply just sneak back to the vent. Considering, if he was lucky enough not to be caught.
The shadow watched the boy as he took multiple deep breaths, calming his already pounding heart.
He better not die with food on him. The thought went unheard, of course.
Mono carefully rose up from behind the box, unintentionally holding his breath ad he laid eyes on the monster's back.
As the Tenant distracted itself with sawing the wood, Mono sneaked ahead, glancing a few times to the adult as he approached the vent.
The shadow followed, as if guarding his back.
Every time the Tenant managed to finish its cut through the wood, Mono froze himself, waiting for the monster to take another plank and continue its saw.
Same tactic used with the Teacher back at that hellish school. Every page she’d turned was akin to every planks the Tenant successfully cut in half.
And when the adult continued to cut, Mono continued towards the vent.
Nothing would go wrong if he kept his pace slow and steady.
He'd eventually make it there.
Creak!
Everything fell silent.
Mono froze in horror, his foot having stepped on the wrong board at the wrong time. He closed his eyes tight, then ever so slowly, he turned his head towards the adult’s sitting form.
The Tenant stayed still with a saw in its hand.
It didn’t move, and neither did Mono—not even to breathe.
The shadow growled internally, its patience running thin at both of them.
After a minute of painful silence, the Tenant resumed its work, having heard nothing to raise its suspicions further. Its cheery hum back to filling the air as it continued to cut through the planks.
Mono inaudibly sighed, being extra careful this time round. The shadow followed close.
With just a few more steps, he made it safely back inside the vent, the Nome beside him merely giving him a thumbs up. He only responded with a finger to his lips as he stretched his hands back out for the metal grate, dragging it little by little.
Though closing back the vent soundlessly was an impossible task. The shadow shook its head at him for even trying.
As soon as he pulled it towards the vent, the metal made an audible groan and clanged when he closed the gap.
A clatter sounded in the room as the saw held by the Tenant was instantly released on the table, along with the creak of its chair.
“Run.”
Mono listened to the shadow. Without a second spared, he turned around and ran away from the exit, the Nome leading him back to where they’d come from.
It was silent on the way back. The boy clearly more than exhausted by now with how his pace had slowed down towards the end. To the point where the Nome had to take his hand and led him lest he’d be left behind.
Indeed, the creature would make such a good companion if it weren’t so edible.
After taking the same turns, they soon made it back to the other apartment. Mono sprinted straight into the bedroom, using the energy he had left as to get there faster.
The shadow wasn’t sure whether he did it out of concern for his companion or if he wanted to rest that badly.
Perhaps a bit of both.
The group continued inside, the Nome apparently having followed him even as he went under the bed. Yet he barely noticed so as his attention was purely locked on the girl sleeping in the far corner.
Mono heaved a breath, a well-hidden smile on his face, without a doubt relieved to see that she hadn't moved since he'd left. While his smile was well-hidden for others, it wasn’t for the shadow.
“Hey,” he said with hooded eyes, approaching the girl tiredly, “guess who’s back?”
The girl didn’t even shift, making his smile falter. He then kneeled at her side, giving her shoulder a light shake.
“Come on, I’ve got food…”
Seeing her so still and sickly-pale, Mono exhaled exasperatedly through his nose.
Hesitantly, he raised a hand above her forehead. His hand lingered there for a moment before he brought it down. The frown on his face deepened the more he felt her temperature.
A curse left him as he retracted his palm, then placing it on his knees.
Mono shook his head at her, tutting. “You’re really burning up, Six.”
A small whimper was heard, causing him to shift at the Nome already seated beside him. The creature craned its neck forward, wanting to see Six too.
Seemed like he wasn’t the only one worried.
“No, no, it’s okay,” he said as he patted its shoulder. “You see, Six’s got a strong, stubborn mind. So, she’ll definitely wake up soon.”
The Nome answered with gibberish, although sounding as if to comfort him for his sick friend as it then snuggled by him.
Mono snickered at its gesture, letting the creature do as it pleased. He gave a soft smile at the Nome. As the creature began to drift off on him, he turned to his companion for the last time, heaving a shaky sigh.
“She’ll wake up soon,” he said to himself.
The shadow stood looming between the two children, staring at the boy as his eyelids slowly dropped. Regardless of him fighting to stay awake, it didn’t take long until sleep finally claimed him.
His intentions of keeping watch for them all became pointless in the end, his head tilting to the side as he snored softly.
But little did he know he would soon lean towards the girl he’d said to despise forever. Little did he know he would soon rest against his own so-called enemy as if she were a pillow. And little did he know that this would be his first time sleeping without a nightmare.
The shadow scoffed at the sight.
How ironic.
Notes:
Oh, the next chapter is most likely gonna be another Thin Man/Lady :D
Thanks for reading!
Chapter 39: Promise
Notes:
As said in the previous one, here's another Thin Man/Lady chapter!
The story will continue from chapter 31, but not before some flashback fluff hohoSo anyway, enjoy! :)
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
“You know, I think we should do this more often,” Thin Man said as he poured himself another cup of tea.
The Lady nodded at her husband, holding her own to her mouth and took a sip.
It was late in the evening, the light from outside shimmering through the window and to their small living room. The two adults sat comfortably across from each other as a small table held their teapot and plates. The Lady had proposed to him the other day, telling him how she’d like to spend a simple afternoon with him over teatime. She’d told him how she would love to use up her day off to do nothing but talk and unwind.
Thin Man had been overjoyed at that, given both of them had quite the busy schedule they needed to attend. Too busy that they hardly ever got to enjoy the other’s company in a proper way. So, here they were now.
Of course, this whole ‘teatime’ thing was just an excuse for her. She hated tea. But she knew he didn’t. This was only a ruse to get him to listen whilst stay calm. Because she truly had to tell him something important.
Something that she knew he could flip a table over.
“Six, is something wrong? You’ve been quiet for a long time,” he said, worry behind his eyes.
The Lady sent him a soft smile, putting down her cup back on the table. “Everything’s fine, Mono.”
“You sure? Because I think I’m the only one making this teapot empty.”
The woman snickered, albeit her smile a little tense.
“I just…have a lot on my mind,” she said.
“Oh?” His cup made a clink as he put it down on the plate. “Well, care to share some with me?”
“I really plan to. But I’m not sure what you’ll think or…how you’ll react...”
Thin Man scoffed, raising the cup back to his mouth for another sip. “Please. I’m a grown man, not some boy who’s scared of the dark. I’m sure whatever it is, I can handle it.” He gulped down his drink.
The Lady lifted her eyes to him, his face blocked by the cup he held. All the more perfect timing to get it over and done with. She played with her drink, watching it swirl around for a bit longer before saying out what she’d been keeping for the last few days.
“I’m pregnant.”
His fist slammed on the table.
The Lady merely watched in shock as the man before her choke on his drink. With one hand busy tapping at his chest, he not-so-gently put down his cup back on the table, causing some of the hot liquid to spill onto its fabric. His dry cough lasted for a good five seconds, his eyes wide at the Lady.
“What?” he said with a raspy voice, already leaning towards her.
The Lady scooched her chair back a little, clearly not fond of the idea of getting tea on her clothes.
“I’m pregnant,” she repeated, using the same tone.
Calm and composed was what she was, unlike her own husband.
“WHAT?”
“Mono, I’m not repeating myself for the third time.”
Instantly, he stood up from his seat, rushing to her side then kneeling before her. His face, the most disbelief look she’d ever seen on him. It would’ve been amusing if this wasn’t a serious matter. I n a second, he took her hands in his, almost squeezing it from pure shock.
“Six, please tell me you’re not joking. Because If you are then it’s not funny. Not funny at all,” he said, almost shaking her if it weren’t for the grip he had.
“Why in the world would I joke about this?”
His eyes widened a fraction. “S-so, you’re telling me…there’s an actual child inside of you?”
The Lady sighed and nodded.
“And it’s…mine?” he asked, barely above whisper.
Once again, she shook her head and uttered a ‘yes’.
At her answer, Thin Man brought his hand to his mouth and shifted his gaze to the side, not exchanging anything else with her after. She didn’t mind his reaction of course. It was understandable. After all, this was a big news for him to take in, so it was only natural for him to have a moment to process this shock.
However, she did grow slightly concern after a long minute of nothing.
For the man in front of her, stayed frozen and silent like a paused video, his eyes unblinking as he stared into space as if his whole future had flashed right before him. As if his mind had been transported into another dimension.
“Are you okay?”
His eyes immediately snapped to her, his whole demeanor more anxious than his usual self.
He stood up abruptly and made his way back to his chair as he put on a calm face—an act he thought went through the Lady.
It didn't.
“Yeah! I-I’m totally okay. I’m fine.”
“You don’t really look ‘fine’, though.”
“Six, I’m telling you,” he pulled back his chair and insisted, “my mind is wide awake.”
Of course, his act dropped when he missed the seat entirely.
As he was falling on his rear, his hands clawed at the table last minute in hopes to catch himself. Yet he failed, nonetheless. And the cups on the table all knocked as more of the tea spilled out, soaking the covers. The Lady craned her head forward, unable to resist a snort.
“Wide awake, huh?” The woman got up from her chair, then ever-so-elegantly walked to his side, looking down at him with a shit-eating grin on her face. Offering out her palm, she said, “Come on, clumsy.”
Thin Man softly scoffed before clasping her hand. But his grip tightened immediately after.
And the Lady realized her mistake all too late.
A gasp barely left her as she too was brought down to the floor, falling on top of him. She then felt his arms wrapped around her body, almost tight enough to push the air out of her lungs. The Lady opened her mouth to speak, yet she was rendered speechless after his words.
“Thank you,” he whispered in her ear.
He uttered the same thing repeatedly as he then continued to pepper kisses on her, smothering her with affection.
A pink tint colored her cheeks.
She couldn’t help but chuckle as she returned the hug.
The Lady slammed the door behind her.
Tears brimmed in her eyes as she released some of her pent-up anger at the situation—at him. Him and his stupid decision.
She locked the door in a fit of rage, pushing harshly at its knob just to make sure no one could come in. Especially the man sitting miserably in the kitchen. No, she couldn’t bring herself to even look at him now, to even look at his selfish face! No other way, he said. Utter crap.
The woman stepped away from the door, her lips quivering as she wore a scowl. Yet her mind wasn’t strong enough to keep that scowl, to stay furious for long. She couldn’t hold back the choked sob that escaped her, nor the tears that fell as she cried into her palm. Breathing became a challenge, no matter how many she took to calm herself. It was futile to stay calm at this point.
How could she tell him the truth? How could she tell him she was expecting now? She remembered well of how elated he’d been to know of her pregnancy the first time. Yet she doubted he’d feel the same for the second one. How could he when he’d just told her of his suicide plan?
Him knowing would only make this situation worse than it already was.
The Lady paced around the room as her sobs filled the air, a hand rubbing her aching temple. Thin Man truly had given her no choice, but to listen. Though she so badly didn’t want to. Indeed, she had no intentions of complying. Not to that horrible plan of his. Nevertheless, if she didn’t, would he accept her decision and get Viola to safety in her place? Or would he need to make her leave by force? If a fight occurred between them, she knew how easily he’d overpower her.
He’d always been stronger.
The Lady began to bite her nails, her emotional state of mind exacerbating, her eyes producing even more tears just by the realization of how hopeless she was.
He wouldn’t change his mind no matter how hard she begged on her knees. Persuasion was off the table before it was even an option.
There’s nothing I can do.
She almost accepted it.
All until a buzz of static rang in the room, the familiar sound of the television switching on as it emitted a whine. The Lady only managed a glance at the screen before a sudden sharp pain stabbed her abdomen from the inside. She let out a pained moan, one hand clutching to her stomach while the other grabbed hold of her vanity table in hopes for some balance.
She inhaled deep breaths, thinking it would go away in a few minutes. That was where she had it wrong.
The multiple breaths she took didn’t help her. The pain wasn’t subsiding. Her insides felt as if they were being slashed with dozens of blades, only for it leave a burning sensation next. The Lady groaned louder as her grip and balance was lost, her hand slipping off the table and bringing her whole form down to the floor with a thud.
The television muffled all the sounds she’d made, leaving her unheard and alone for the rest of the night.
Thin Man shifted his head on the table groggily. His eyes laid on his arms, hoping to block all the light that would no doubt worsen his migraine.
He could feel the sunlight touch the back of his neck, the heat on his clothes making him sweat slightly. The smell of the whiskey he’d drunk the night before tickled his nose. And his whole body felt so heavy, despite not doing any strenuous activities. Even with his eyes closed and hidden under his arms, sleeping didn’t even feel like sleep. While his body did get its rest, his mind stayed awake the whole time. The thoughts of his conversation with the Lady still plagued him. Thoughts of his own future plagued him.
Just in 48 hours.
Well, less than that now.
Thin Man shifted once more, however, he felt a finger poke at his arm. He ignored it. But the finger then poked him again, this time accompanied with a child’s voice—his child’s.
“Dad,” he heard her say as he felt himself being shook.
He eventually lifted his head from his arm, his eyes squinting from the sudden bright light as it focused on the girl’s figure.
“Viola?” he mumbled, forcing his eyes open when she wore a concern look. However, he soon realized that that concern was purely directed to something else. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s mom. She wouldn’t open her door.”
Thin Man only spared a moment before pushing himself up from his chair, his head a little dizzy as he stepped away from the table and out into the hall.
Viola followed close behind him, both walking towards the bedroom. As they got in front of the door, he turned to the girl. “How long has she been in there?” he asked.
“I knocked an hour ago, but she didn’t answer.”
“And she hasn’t come out since?”
Viola shook her head. She then got on her knees and peeked through the tiny gap from under the door. “Her shadow’s still there, though,” she said, looking back to her father. He nodded, leaning against the door, and knocked.
“Six? Is everything alright in there?”
Nothing replied on the other side.
With furrowed brows, he tried again, his voice sounding more agitated by the woman’s silence, his knock becoming impatient. After receiving the same thing, Thin Man closed his hand around the doorknob and gave it a twist. But it didn’t budge. His eyes widened, heart all the more pounding like his head.
“Six, can you open the door please?” he said, but his tone was beyond asking.
Still, the woman didn’t respond. And her lack thereof made his anxiety rise. He knew by then waiting out here any longer would be a waste of time.
“I’m coming in.” He gave her a few seconds, hoping she’d yell from behind the door and tell him to get lost. Or insult him because of what he’d said to her the night before.
But the Lady did none of that, and instead she chose to stay silent, leaving him no choice but to do what he said he’d do.
The air in the hallway shifted as he placed a hand on the door, his form glitching ever-so-slightly. He ignored the pain throbbing in his head, merely gathering his energy to get beyond the door.
As he blinked once, his surroundings changed.
But his heart immediately dropped into his stomach at the sight of his unconscious wife on the floor.
“Six!” Thin Man immediately got beside her, holding her head up.
The Lady’s skin was pale, nearly as white as the mask she wore, the bag under her closed eyes ostensibly growing darker. Everything about her, the state she was in, it all made his chest tightened with worry.
Though what was more concerning was how long she’d been this way.
The man swallowed the lump in his throat, guilt punching him right to his guts.
Why hadn’t he been here earlier?
Why hadn’t he come and check on her?
The sound of the television’s buzz disrupted his thoughts, pulling his attention over to its static screen. Confusion washed over his features after seeing it left switched on. He hadn't even touched the TV the night before.
Nevertheless, the shrill whine reached his eardrums painfully over time, making him cringe and wince at the sound.
And that alone was enough to tell him something was off. Really off.
Stumbling towards the television, he yanked the plug from its socket, expecting for the TV to die instantly after losing its main source of power.
Yet the screen still stayed on, and the sound did not leave.
"What?" he gasped, his eyes wide in shock.
As the whine still emitted, Thin Man continued to pound the top of the television with his fist just to get it to shut off, his teeth grinding. He did so over and over, his ears already felt as if they were close to bleeding. But no matter what he did, his efforts went down the drain.
And the television wouldn’t shut off.
In utter frustration, he grabbed the two sides of the TV, raising it above his head and hurling it to the floor with all his might.
The screen shattered upon impact, electric rippling through its wires for a few seconds before losing power completely. The parts that made up the television, all crashed into tiny bits.
Thin Man panted heavily, staring wide and long at the broken components on the floor. What is happening?
“Dad?”
Viola's voice sounded behind the door, bringing his attention to it. Though he didn't an answer. He could already feel the stress he felt the night before returning to him, his head throbbing even more.
And he wasn't sure if he could handle it this time.
Dragging a hand to his face, he merely turned to the Lady with hardened eyes. And without so much of a glance to the door, he made his way back to the woman, carefully sitting her up.
“Dad, what’s going on? Can you let me in?” the girl asked again after getting nothing from him.
This time he replied, albeit his patience was already lost, his tone unintentionally sounding cold.
“Go to your room Viola.”
“But what about mom? I heard something crash—"
“JUST GO TO YOUR ROOM."
Silence came from the other side of the door.
And the quiet lasted for only a few seconds long before Viola’s shadow finally moved, her footsteps slowly receding to the other way. The girl did not say anything else when she left, leaving him with guilt bigger than his own stress.
He pinched the bridge of his nose, breathing exasperatedly. Yelling at his daughter was the last thing he wanted to do. And yet that was the first thing he did. He could only imagine how frightened she must be at him now.
You idiot, he scolded himself.
Thin Man heaved another sigh and looked at the Lady’s still form. Gently, he lifted the woman off the floor in a princess carry, merely getting her over to the bed. He pulled the covers above her then.
As he sat beside the woman, he took her hand into his, wondering if she was partially awake to feel it. But alas, he knew she couldn’t. For her hand was cool as ice, and her skin appeared paler by the second.
This is bad.
It was bad for everyone. Up until now, their situation had become worse. His plan, a mere crumpled piece of paper in the trash.
With the Lady no longer conscious, there’d be no one else but him to get Viola to the bunker.
Just like the woman had wanted.
Some dark, vengeful part of him even wondered if she chose to do this on purpose, fake her own passing out just so he’d be the one to bring Viola to safety. But he knew the Lady would never do such a thing. She may be a stubborn woman, but an idiot wasn’t what she was.
Though in the events that he did leave with Viola, doing so would only lead to another predicament.
For the Lady would be left all alone, unconscious, and an easy target—that is to say if she was targeted. It would appear so, given she lost her conscious on the same day they were supposed to leave.
To make matters worse, there was no telling when she’d wake up. Add on with a time limit on Viola’s head, his choices too were limited. He knew he had to meet with the Eye. He had to do something. Anything to buy some time until he could figure out how to help his wife.
He had to get her to wake up, no matter what.
Planting a kiss on the Lady’s hand, he quickly got off the bed.
His hand went to fix his hat out of habit, but only to be met with his own hair instead. Being woken up by Viola in a state of urgency, he’d left his fedora on the kitchen table without a second thought. If he had to see the Eye now, he’d rather have something to hide his face with. Those bastards would do anything to worsen his mental health for their own pleasure. And so far, they’d done a great job at that.
Thin Man unlocked the bedroom door, shutting it behind him after. Another wave of guilt hit him after a glance to his daughter’s bedroom. Her door was closed, and the girl undoubtedly was afraid to even come out.
One thing at a time, he thought, reminding himself of what was more important now. One thing at a time.
Thin Man proceeded towards the kitchen at a fast pace.
As he entered the kitchen, he coud see his fedora sitting atop the table just where he’d left it, along with the empty glass from the night before.
But the tips of his fingers barely touched the hat when a creak suddenly sounded beneath his foot, his movements ceasing altogether at it.
Slowly, his gaze dropped to the floor.
The many years he’d been in this kitchen, not once had he ever felt a board this loose. And not even the normal kind of loose. This one felt as if it was soaked with water for years.
Lifting his foot a tad, he inspected the board he had stepped.
And his brows scrunched instantly.
Mold was seen on the edges of the board, its wood appearing utterly rotten and spreading to the other floorboards around his seat. But more so under the table.
If this had been any other day, this wouldn't have mattered as much to him. Though considering the bad things that happened recently, this was all too odd for him to shrug it off.
The timing was a little too suspicious.
He immediately dragged the table to the side, the furniture creaking the more he pulled. His paranoia proved him right.
As more of the floorboards were revealed, more of the mold could be seen in one particular spot, the smell of rotten wood engulfing his nose the closer he got to it. He would've gagged if it weren't for the hand that went up to his nose. Regardless of the horrid smell, Thin Man knelt to the floor and harshly pulled at the edges of the boards.
The wood, loose enough as it was, was easily pulled apart from the rest with just a few tries. And never could he prepare himself of the awful sight.
Never did he expect to see this in his home.
A tiny clump of flesh attached itself on the ground, the edges of its flesh seemingly breathing, growing further below the other floorboards like a parasite. Its horrible stench far too strong now that it flooded the whole room in mere seconds. His blood froze. The hand he had covering his nose with slowly lowered, and the rotten smell already forgotten as shock took over his whole body.
For in the center of the flesh, a single eye stared directly into his, its iris black.
And it narrowed its lid in excitement after being found for so long.
“I heard you,” it sang, its ugly chuckle turning into a maniacal laugh. “I heard all of you.”
Thin Man parted his lips in horror, disbelief written on his features as he shook his head. Angry tears began to form in his eyes, fury spreading throughout his whole being. He clenched his fists tighter, to the point where his knuckles became white.
No.
In a split second, he brought his palm onto the eye, pulling and separating it from its own stretchy flesh with all his might.
And he made sure to squeeze its eyeball hard.
His nails dug deeper until he could feel it being penetrated, until he could feel the liquid inside it pour out.
The light above him flickered as its string swayed, the windows cracked by the mere force he emitted. His entire palm glowed a bright blue, but his eyes glowed brighter with rage. Sheer rage. The single eye’s laughter, however, rang in his ears the whole time, unfazed by his wrath to his chagrin. It did nothing else but laugh in his face as it was slowly scorched, its features melting in his palm before his power turned it into nothing but ashes.
And it flew off his hand like a mere dust.
He clenched his shaking fist tight, even as the parasite was gone. Thin Man stayed crouched on the floor, giving in to his anger for only a moment before gasping at the realization. He shook his head, his terribly trembling hands gripping his hair. His eyes were already puffy from the tears he wouldn't let fall.
How could this happen? How could I let this happen?
A choked sob left him in the end, hot tears finally streaming past his cheeks.
Only now did he realize of the Eye’s plan.
They knew what he was going to do. They knew everything. They heard everything. And he was more than aware of how powerful the Eye had become, so much that it was able to hide one of the eyes in his own house and right under his nose.
They took away all his choices of an escape and got him trapped into a corner.
They took away the Lady’s consciousness deliberately.
All so they could get rid of Viola.
Night came faster than he’d realized it to be.
The moon shone up in the sky, reminding him that time was still ticking away, and the time limit would soon approach its end.
Thin Man sat outside on the porch, sitting on the stairs with a lit cigarette in hand. He knew how much the Lady would freak if she saw him with one after telling her he’d quit. But he couldn’t bring himself to care this time. It might just be his last cigarette anyway.
The Eye truly had given him the checkmate. There was no point in stalling for anyone if the Lady was out cold.
There was no point if the Eye already found out.
Thin Man took another long drag from his cigarette, breathing out the smoke as he emptily stared out to the trees, wanting nothing more but a little bit of solace. It was why he even came out here at all.
Yet still, nothing kept the intrusive thoughts away. Nothing could help him forget of the possibility of everyone dying.
He knew he would die. But that, he’d already made peace with.
He heard the front door behind him creaked open, followed by small footsteps coming to approach him. Thin Man looked over his shoulder and saw his daughter standing shyly, a blanket draping over her.
“Viola? What are you doing up this late?” he asked, quickly dropping his cigarette, and stepping on its bud.
“I couldn’t sleep.” She took a seat next to him on the stairs. Her eyes then shifted to the ground where he’d stepped. “Smoking again?” she asked.
A grin crept to his face. “You’re not going to tattle on me, are you?”
Viola only shook her head, and avoided his gaze while she rubbed her arms up and down, her face lacking any emotions that he'd usually see in her. Thin Man gave a side glance to her, knowing partially why she was that way.
He sighed, exasperatedly so. “Hey,” he said, lightly nudging at the girl’s arm. “I’m sorry I yelled at you this morning. I really didn’t mean to.”
“That’s alright, dad. I wasn’t upset about it anyway...”
He smiled softly at that, some of the guilt lifted off his shoulders. But it didn’t mean that he was free from all of it. The man released a shaky breath, the sound of crickets filling the momentary silence between them.
“Can I ask you something?” she spoke up. Thin Man turned to her with a raised brow and nodded.
Viola looked down to her lap as she fiddled with her hands, her hesitance louder than her own voice. “Is mom okay?”
Thin Man felt his heart skip a beat by the mere question. A frown replaced his face as he took a moment to respond.
“No," he said. "She isn’t.”
“Will she be alright?”
“I’m not...sure. All I know is she’s not well.”
“Is that why she’s not waking up?”
No comment came from him as he looked away. Not because he didn’t want to tell her the truth, but because he couldn’t give her an answer.
He had nothing to say. Lately, he found himself running out of words to even explain anything. Of course, his hesitance was loud enough for it to be noticed by Viola. The girl knew something bad was happening, given the man rarely ever snapped at her like he had. Because he never liked to show his frustrations in front of her, let alone yell.
Even after finding him asleep in the kitchen with a suit and a glass of whiskey on the side, anyone would assume his day had been that bad. But when the Lady too appeared to be in a similar state, comatose in her bed, Viola was inclined to think that there may be a link between them.
That something bad had truly happened.
“Dad," she started, "what's going on?"
Thin Man glanced her way, his eyes hooded with an unknown emotion.
"It's nothing," he said, his stomach churning painfully at his own lie.
It seemed his daughter caught on to it. And she wasn't all that happy to hear so.
"I know it's not nothing, dad. I saw our kitchen; I saw the weird-fleshy thing inside the floorboards; I saw mom. So, if you could just stop with all the lying for once, then that'll be great." Viola folded her arms, losing her cool with her father's antic.
Thin Man could only watch her in silence as the girl avoided him on purpose.
"Viola..."
The girl huffed and pouted, only turning to him when she too started to feel bad.
"Why can't you just tell me?" she asked in a softer voice. "I mean, don't I deserve to know too?"
"Of course, you do. It's just that..." You're only a child, he almost said.
Pressing his lips into a line, he let his head hung in defeat. He knew she was right in this case. Viola had every bit of right to know, especially when this whole thing involved her.
With a hesitant nod, he agreed.
"Okay. I'll tell you..." he said. He could practically hear how her face lit up slightly, her eyes widening in surprise at his sudden compliance. However, as he opened his mouth to tell her, she interrupted him before he could even utter a word.
"Wait, wait," she said, her hands firmly placed on his arms to stop him. "Can you also not...sugarcoat anything this time? I want to know if it's really bad, so tell me the truth without it."
A chuckle left him at her firm tone. “No sugarcoating?” he asked.
“No sugarcoating.”
He nodded to himself as he took her small hand in his, mouthing an ‘okay’.
Thin Man took another deep breath, and then another. All just to prepare himself for the truth he was about to spill.
This would be harder than he thought, but he’d try. Viola needed to know sooner or later, so might as well she heard it from him.
After a long silence, the man finally spoke.
“I might be…gone…for a little while,” he said, brushing a thumb over his daughter’s hand. A gesture he always did when she was a mere baby. “You probably won’t see much of me in the future.”
Viola raised her brows at that. “For how long…?” she asked.
“A long time.”
The girl furrowed her brows at that, not even hiding the frown growing on her lips.
“Why?”
Oh, boy.
Thin Man cleared his throat, shifting in his seat uncomfortably before finally meeting her gaze. Truly, this wouldn’t be easy to say out.
“Do you…do you remember the Eye? The one that I told you about a couple years back?”
“You mean the one you and mom refer to as the f-word sometimes?”
He paused, not expecting to hear that from her.
“Y-yeah. That’s…that’s the one,” he said, then shook his head. “So, anyway, the Eye isn’t exactly…happy with me—with us. They’ve already told me they’re coming to hurt everyone. And we only have less than two days until they really do.”
"What?" Her voice raised in panic. "Less than two days? Wh-why didn't you tell me sooner?"
"I wish I could, Vi. But I...I didn't know until recently."
"And mom? Does she know?"
"She does. And trust me, she isn't happy about this either."
Viola sent him a hard stare, searching for any lies that his face may reveal to her. Because this was all too sudden. Too hard to believe. He'd understand if she thought so.
After finding nothing that proved his words to be a lie, Viola spoke again, although a hint of regret added in her tone after this new knowledge.
"So, is this why you've been tense this whole time? Is this why you're...leaving?"
Thin Man nodded reluctantly. “That's why I’m leaving,” he repeated. “I just can’t let them hurt you too. Which is why, as soon as your mother wakes up, she’ll take you somewhere far from here. Somewhere safe. You'll both head for the bunker together while I...while I stall.”
A long silence came from the girl then. As she averted her eyes from him, Viola released a deep breath, hiding her face in the darkness long enough for him to understand. But his face faltered even more when she pulled her hand away from him, balling her fists instead. Her lack of reply made the lump in his throat all the more difficult to put aside.
I can't do this again.
Not with his own daughter.
"Viola, I—" Before he could continue and comfort her, he was caught by surprise when the girl suddenly jumped at him, her arms circling around his neck.
Thin Man looked down to her head resting on his shoulder. He could feel her cling tighter to him as his back slumped slightly by her weight.
A sniffle sounded from the girl. He swore his heart cracked a little just by hearing it. But what made the crack spread bigger was her broken voice that came next, pleading him.
“Please don’t leave...” she muttered, her tears soaking the fabric of his clothes. “Don’t leave me.”
His whole muscle seized from her words, his eyes wide and puffy from the exhaustion and surprise. The man gulped, not having any words to his aid; nothing to comfort the sobbing girl in his arms.
But he tried to anyhow.
After a breath, he began to pat her back, while his other hand stroked her hair. He hushed her soft cries, despite knowing a mere hush wouldn't make her feel any better. Indeed, he couldn't go through with this again like he had with the Lady. He didn't want Viola to be mad at him—or worse, hate him for his decision. He didn't want anyone to hate him for this.
And so, he only hugged the child, listening to her sobs for as long as she did. But doing so, he didn't realize how his vision too started to blur with tears of his own.
Neither of the two exchanged anything else for a few minutes, both unable to fill in the silence that loomed over them. But he was one who broke it first, his eyes stinging.
“Viola…” He eventually pulled her away from his chest, wanting to meet her gaze regardless of her eyes full of tears—regardless it made his heart shatter like glass. “Can you do me a favor?” he asked as he brushed a thumb under her eyes.
She nodded weakly, sniffling.
“Can you take care of your mother for me?” he asked. “She doesn’t always like to think first before doing something, and usually that only got her into even more trouble. So, can you promise me that? That you’ll take good care of her?”
Again, Viola could only manage another weak nod, her brows frowning even more as her bottom lip trembled. She quickly pulled herself back to her father and hugged him tighter than the last. He couldn't help the shaky sigh that left him then, this lingering feeling of sadness poking him from the inside. Thin Man continued to pat her back, rocking her slightly for the rest of the night. As the girl's sobs soon quietened, he did nothing else but rested his chin atop her head, his eyes closing too.
If this was the last time he hugged her, then he’d make every second count.
He'd make it all count.
Notes:
lmao I swear the next chapter's gonna have more fluff sorry
Thanks for reading!
Chapter 40: Let's Only Pretend
Notes:
Oo yes I know im a few weeks late to update shwbshhw but before you continue I'd like to say something regarding the two tags I've recently put in.
So yeah, no one's dying in this chapter alright. For now the character death tag only applies to Emmet (cause like, I didn't realize you have to tag those kinda stuff lol). But in the future, it will apply to others as well :)
Second one—probably doesn't matter much, but just to let you know–I've revised chapter 1-10. Just simply didn't love the old writing being put up and I'd probably continue till 30. But if anyone, idk, wants to go back and reread, worry not; I didn't change anything. Maybe added a few new bits here and there for fun's sake, but no big changes :D
Okok, one last thing tho...
I'd like to thank everybody who has read this fic this far and I appreciate all the kudos, bookmarks and comments from you, cause today marks the first anniversary!
༼ ༎ຶ U ༎ຶ༽ You guys are cool.Yep. A year feels so quick nowadays...
Anyhoo, enough of me talking.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Six blinked her eyes open slowly.
And heaviness was all she felt the moment she awoke from her unexpected slumber.
A grimace painted on her face as she took a brief look around, her eyes squinting if it weren't for the darkness.
Where was she?
She groaned internally when she attempted to shift herself, but a sharp sting shot through her foot just by the slightest of movements. The pain alone reminded her of the wound beneath her bandaged sole, and it was enough to make her want to give up and reclaim some more rest.
Maybe a few more hours of sleep wouldn't be such a bad idea…
Six threw her head back against the wall, and slowly let her eyelids drop.
The emptiness in her stomach, however, was something she couldn't ignore. She could feel the hunger grow each second. She could feel her muscles and limbs grow weak just by the thought of her predicament of finding food.
But most of all, she could feel the heaviness in her body increase—strangely, on her shoulder. It was as if something was placed atop it stacks after stacks.
And it was starting to ache the longer she let it be.
She couldn't ignore it regardless of how much she wanted to.
Tilting her head to her aching shoulder, her eyes shot open the second her face planted on something.
Or rather… someone.
Her face warmed instantly as her tired eyes widened.
"Get off me!" Six shoved Mono's sleeping form away from her with utter speed and some strength she'd regained, her groggy state all gone as it was entirely replaced with shock and embarrassment.
It all happened way too fast.
From the harsh push, Mono immediately jolted awake, yet he barely did anything as Six's shove got him landed straight on his side. His eyes too were wide open in shock as he looked around, on edge.
But his tensed shoulders relaxed slightly when he met a familiar face.
Though that didn't stop his cheeks from reddening at the realization.
"S-Six—?!"
"What the hell do you think you're doing?!" she spat out, moving away, though very much still blushing. "You…you can't do that! You're not supposed to do that after everything…"
Mono gulped. "I-I know. I know."
"We hate each other," she reminded. "You said you hated me, didn't you?"
"I do! I still hate you!"
"Then who gave you the slightest bit of right to use me as a pillow while I was unconsci—!"
Her stomach grumbled.
Six had her mouth left agape at her unfinished sentence, her growling stomach intensifying the red on her face.
It was safe to say that Six lost all of her dignity and pride then and there as they stared into each other's eyes until the grumbling faded, the silence overwhelming the scene instead.
However, Mono then let out a soft gasp, and fumbled through his coat pockets in a somewhat haste manner.
It was…confusing to say the least. Six watched him with furrowed brows, unable to hold back her own curiosity as Mono continued to dig into his other pockets.
Just what was he doing?
As she unconsciously leaned in, she flinched when Mono finally took out his hand to her, although his palm was all but empty.
Six felt her eyes widened, disbelief splashing her in the face from what he was holding.
Bread.
And he was offering it to her like nothing had happened between them earlier. He was giving her food right after he heard her stomach's call. The reason behind this was utterly beyond her.
Her brows furrowed even more just by staring at the grub, and questions regarding it began to flow into her mind like flood.
Six lifted her head back to him despite her hand itching to snatch the bread out of his palm. Yet she knew she couldn't.
Because this was coming from the boy she had betrayed.
"Where did you get that…?" Six ignored the heavy feeling in her chest as she faced him.
At the question, Mono's hand lowered.
He'd expected her to take it at first glance considering how starved she appeared to be.
"I…found some help."
"What help?"
His eyes twitched at that, everything about his posture screamed reluctance and fear.
For what exactly, she didn't know.
As Six was about to press him on, a squeak then interrupted them as it came behind Mono, the squeak sounding almost too familiar to her.
She could've sworn she'd heard it somewhere before.
"Oh!" Mono exclaimed as he turned his back to her, whispering something she could barely hear. Nonetheless, she knew they were soft coaxes.
Odd, what could he possibly have with him?
The question, however, was then answered as Mono eventually revealed the creature and sat it on his lap, hugging it like a toddler.
The toddler being a Nome; a creature she'd seen many running about in the Maw.
Or to put it in a grimful way, one she had devoured alive before
"While you were asleep, I went out for a bit and found this little guy," Mono said. "He was the one who helped me find this bread. So…" He offered his bread-filled hand again to her, wanting her to take it.
Her stare deepened, eyes burning with hunger.
Unbeknownst to the boy, Six had already begun to salivate. He didn't know just how much her mouth was watering on the inside, how much restraint she had to put upon herself because of what he held.
However, this hunger was not for the bread.
But for the Nome.
No. She bit down the urge with a clenched fist, and internally fought it down.
She'd seen him react towards her only attempting to eat a rodent before, and he'd made it such a big deal after—it wasn't, in her perspective.
While she never bothered herself for caring about what others think of her nor what they'd say of her bad diet, Six couldn't deny how her heart had cracked when Mono had shown his disgust.
Especially when that disgust was directed towards her specifically.
Six darted her eyes back to Mono's hand, and stared at the food he was offering.
Meat surely sounded way more fulfilling than stale bread pieces, but…
No. I can't do it again.
Especially not if he's here.
Without a second more to waste, Six finally made her decision and took the bread from his palm, then taking a huge bite off of it before her stomach could growl again.
Indeed, if she had a choice, meat would be the preferable one, a better temporary replacement for souls. Yet something about this bread Mono found, made her wonder if it had been easy to find at all.
Six scoffed mentally. Of course, it wasn't easy.
Mono must've gone out somewhere to have even found the Nome in the first place, she figured. She even doubted if the Nome carried food on itself.
Six continued to eat the pieces of bread, her bites eventually slowing down to small ones as her thoughts occupied her.
On another note, Mono's stare on her did not go unnoticed, mostly the boy doing a poor job at hiding the fact he was watching her eat the whole time. He could've been more discreet about it at least.
Annoying, but she wouldn't argue.
Besides, it was him who chose to help solve her hunger.
Truly, that was what baffled her the most. Why would he go all the way just to help? Why go by himself when he could've just waited for her to wake up?
So, time wouldn't be wasted; so, you won't pass out in the middle of saving Viola, Six figured he'd say.
If she didn't know any better, she might've thought he was worried for her.
As if he still cared.
…
Six stared down at the final piece of bread in her hand, holding it loosely whilst she fought the urge to just finish it all.
But her cold heart yelled in protest, telling her this was far from fair if she did so.
"Do you…have any more?" she asked softly.
Mono paused.
Setting down the tiny Nome beside him, he quickly started to pat his pockets for any remainders he'd possibly missed.
"Uh, I think that was all of it," he said, nearly sounding apologetic.
Six let out a hum, turning back to the food once more in thought.
She sighed, and reluctantly handed him the last piece.
"Take it."
"What…?"
"I said take it," she repeated, slight impatience to her tone.
"But it’s… you're the one who's been starving these last couple of days."
"Aren't you too?"
Another pause came from him. However, hesitance coloured him this time, a deep frown etched to his lips.
"I don't need food anymore. Not after being in the Signal Tower."
"So, does it stop you from eating anything at all then?"
"No…"
Six moved closer towards him so she could force the bread back into his palm.
He didn't fight her nor protested.
"Then, eat something," she insisted. "If you're about to save someone again from the Tower, don't come unprepared and exhausted like last time. So, eat." She pushed his hand away, gesturing for him to finish it for himself.
Mono stared at the bread in his palm, his brows scrunching the more he thought of Six's words, incredulity smeared across his features.
Six had never been the kind of person who was fond of sharing, and she knew it too. Even before the betrayal, Mono had been the one who had found all the food for them—a rare occasion—and he would usually insist that she take the most.
She had barely argued nor protested when he'd given her that unequal share.
But looking back now, perhaps she should have had a little. If she had, then maybe she wouldn't feel this guilt looming over her like that damned shadow .
Mono scoffed in disbelief, however, bearing the tiniest smile on his lips before slowly bringing the bread to his mouth, doing just what she wanted him to do as if that was his silent ‘thanks for being considerate for the first time’.
"How are you feeling?"
She perked her head at his sudden question.
Why do you care?
"I'm…fine," she replied instead, unable to keep eye contact for so long for some reason. Six shook her thoughts away and swallowed. "You?"
"I'm fine too." His face flushed slightly as he finished his last bite. "Minus what happened earlier though..." he muttered.
Six internally rolled her eyes, sighing to herself. He didn't have to bring that up at all.
Way to make it awkward Mono.
Changing the subject, she asked, "Did anything happen while I was unconscious?"
"Aside from me going back out there, not much. You were pretty out of it after you threw up in the elevator." He shrugged and paused in thought. "So, what did it taste like?" Mono asked nonchalantly.
"Excuse me?"
"That man's insides. I know you took a bite out of him."
Discomfort rose in her chest at the reminder, but she kept it hidden well under her poker face.
"So? It's not a big deal if I did."
"Just like it's not a big deal when you tried to eat that rat..." he quipped under his breath as he patted the Nome who had already snuggled at his side, the creature purring out loud and falling asleep.
Six narrowed her eyes at the two, a twinge of…well, not jealousy but something close, building up in her the more he put his whole focus to the gray creature instead.
He wasn't even looking at her now!
Rude.
She cleared her throat deliberately.
In return, Mono finally lifted his gaze to her, although looking a tad confused by the soft scowl she wore and the way she crossed her arms at him as if offended.
Well, she was .
"What?" he asked.
"I was desperate, Mono," she deadpanned. "Do you even have any idea how awful these hunger pangs are? Just how painful it is?"
"Well, I guess—"
"They hurt like hell. And I doubt you could endure it for even a second with just half of your strength."
"Hah, you're one to talk! Who do you think dragged you all the way here? Me. I had to carry you out of that elevator all on my own . And let me tell you, you don’t weigh any less than two axes combined, Six.”
Despite him complaining and pouting over her previous remark, Six couldn't help but feel the warmth return to her face after his words hit her whole.
"You…carried me?"
Mono froze for a second, then quickly averted his eyes back to the Nome instead, all to hide the pink tint that now coloured his cheeks.
"Obviously. Y-you think your body just magically dragged itself?"
Six kept her mouth sealed as she lost her words, neither dared to speak nor spare any glances. And the awkward silence hung for a minute or two—agonizingly so as the children avoided each other's stares on purpose.
As Mono busied himself patting the Nome back to sleep, Six pointlessly fiddled with her hands.
"That explains the blood then."
"Huh?" Mono turned to her.
"Your coat," she pointed out, "it has dried blood on it. And I'm, uh, basically covered with them, head to toe."
Mono quickly looked down and realized how the front of his trench coat had dark red spots on them.
"Oh," he said.
Maybe, he’d held her a little too close to have it stained on him.
“You don’t…mind it, do you?” she asked timidly.
Mono shifted back to her, his eyes widening.
“N-not at all!” he assured quickly. “This coat has been through a whole lot worse than a little blood, and this couldn't be the worst thing I’ve been covered with.”
“Right, because the worst thing you could be covered with is…”
“The swamp,” they said in unison.
Silence claimed the two instantly, a grin unintentionally creeping up to their faces as they spoke of the same thing at once.
Six remembered well of the desperation they had been subjected to the first time with the Hunter—and then, the second time with the dead man's taxidermied family. Each of these situations had involved them jumping into the murky water, however, not by choice.
Disgusting as the experience had been, the memory stayed intact because of it.
It wasn't a surprise that both shared the same feeling, considering they knew what it was like to swim under the swamp.
A snort escaped Mono, making Six’s restrained grin uncontrollably grow wider.
Of course, that grin didn't come without an eye roll.
“Do you remember that time in the hospital?” he suddenly asked after, a mischievous smile on him. “When we messed around with that X-Ray machine?”
Six shot him a look, her grin already gone.
“I cannot believe you’re bringing that up.”
Months back, they’d stumbled upon a strange machine Six had never seen before in her entire life—for someone who'd never been to a hospital, it was no surprise. Frankly, anything she had no knowledge of, intimidated her. She hated not knowing things herself.
Mono on the other hand, did not share the same nescience. Which was unlucky for her since it gave him the rare opportunity to tease her about it.
Six groaned into her hands as she dragged it down her face. “You just had to remind me, didn’t you?”
“Course’ I do! It was the first time I saw you legitimately freak out after seeing someone's skeleton. Not that it's a bad thing though, because I never would've realized how seriously dumb you were if that didn't happen."
“Shut up.” She elbowed his side, her face all flushed. "I only freaked out because I'd never seen one before. And because you told me that the machine was designed to rip children's fleshes to bones."
"Oh yeah…" he said, pondering the memory. "I can't believe you actually bought that though."
Once again, Mono was rewarded with another blow from Six, the girl shoving his shoulder but not hard enough to push him to the ground like last time.
Regardless, Mono kept his smirk as he laughed at her expense.
Six rolled her eyes, slightly irritated by him. But alas, even she couldn't hold back the fleeting warmth that gathered inside her stomach like butterflies as she spared him a side glance.
She honestly wanted nothing more than to wipe off that smile he dared put on his face.
Contagious as it was, it didn't make her any less annoyed with his antics.
"Hey, Six?" his voice called her again, however, strangely softer than his usual tone.
The tone she knew belonged to the paper bag boy who once had tried so hard to befriend her.
"Can I ask you something?" he asked.
Six turned her gaze over to him and nodded in reply. But with the way his whole demeanor had changed in a second, she did begin to feel a little antsy, the small pause he gave her doing more to increase it.
"Why'd you…betray me again?" he asked, although the malice, the accusation was nowhere in his voice.
Instead, he sounded more curious than anything.
Nonetheless, her heart still sank as soon as his words reached her ears, her throat somehow becoming dry and hard to swallow all of a sudden.
Six couldn't hide her expression this time as she let her poker face drop, exposing her true emotion.
Fear.
However, not the kind one would feel when they were chased by a monster or on the brink of death. Instead, it was one where someone knew they were about to be caught.
For Mono had asked this question before, and she had given him her answer.
But was all of it the truth? Or was it partially a lie to keep him from knowing?
Six gulped down her growing anxiety, her heart taking pace.
"Mono…"
"I-I know you’ve told me before why you’d left me behind. I mean, we've already had this conversation back at the Maw, but…"
He exhaled a sharp breath, slowly meeting her eyes. Yet if only he knew how much guilt hid behind them, how much dismay carried in her chest as of now.
Six remained in her silence, letting him continue.
"I promise this’ll be the last time I bring this up. So, be honest, and I'll just drop this.” He added softly, “Whatever you say now…I’ll believe you.”
Her chest tightened with more of that familiar guilt, her pounding heart making it harder for her to keep a straight face all the while. Her finger twitched, forcing her hand to clutch tighter to her raincoat.
No, he couldn't have found out by himself, she assured her anxious mind. The Eye couldn't have told him, could they?
Six nodded, reluctantly letting him ask the question she knew would soon fill her with dread.
"Did you really betray me because of the music box?" he asked, desperation clear in his eyes for the truth.
Yet she couldn't give him all but that.
Not when they had only just begun to…be nice towards each other. Not when he was slowly starting to trust her again like he used to.
Six couldn’t afford to let it all go down the drain just because of this; she couldn’t let this be for nothing.
"Yes."
Liar. Liar. Liar.
Six dug her nails into her palm, looking straight ahead to avoid his steely gaze.
She heaved a heavy sigh. “Look, I won’t say what I haven’t already said, but…you should know, I don’t repeat mistakes.”
Mono pressed his lips into a thin line, his hardened gaze softening as he stared deep into her, regardless if she didn’t return it.
“You…consider this as a mistake?”
“I do.”
“...Why?”
Because it wasn’t my idea to leave you behind.
Six sighed, crossing her arms, her eyes hooded and lowered.
“Because you had good intentions when you came to that Tower. You were a good person.” She took a moment and finally faced him, "Is that what you wanted to hear?"
Mono only kept his stare, staying silent in awe as he became speechless.
"You really thought I was a good person…"
Him repeating her words was not appreciated by Six at all. Internally, she groaned in chagrin.
"I did," she said. "At least…most of the time you were."
“Only most of the time?”
“Well, if you really want me to be honest, you were kind of annoying. A serious whiner, and clingy, and talks a lot, and—”
“Okay, okay! I get your point.” He had his hands lifted to stop her from going on. “Jeez, " he gave an amused huff, “you could’ve just stopped at ‘I did’ you know,” muttered Mono as he shook his head, his hand returning to pat the sleeping Nome’s back.
But nothing could hide the soft smile he wore proudly on his face when he glanced at her. He’d be wrong to assume Six hadn’t noticed it.
And it had been a long time since she’d seen him look at her that way, and it wasn’t something she’d deem annoying at all.
Because the smile specifically, she knew it wasn’t meant for mere acquaintances or simple politeness.
It was meant for a friend.
Just like he used to…
“Hey, do you still remember that agreement we made at the Maw?” he asked after a moment of nothing. “N-not the forehead-flicking by the way, but the one about…Viola?”
Her brows lifted in surprise. Nonetheless, Six nodded.
“Pretend to have reconciled whenever she’s around to get her off our backs? Yeah, I remember.” Six narrowed her eyes then. “What about it though?”
In a second, his posture stiffened, the darkness masking the small blush on his face. He cleared his throat before saying, “I, uh, I was just thinking if you…I don’t know, maybe, want to change that agreement a little bit?”
“To what?”
“Well, how about instead of waiting until we get her back to pretend, we could…start early?”
Instantly, she furrowed her brows.
“Are you saying you want to pretend now?”
“J-just hear me out first!” he exclaimed. “Maybe— maybe, this could be like some kind of, um, good practice.”
“Practice? Seriously?” her forehead wrinkle at his words. Just what was he trying to say?
Mono gasped out a suppressed laugh, although she could sense the nervousness in them even from a mile away.
“I mean, if you think about it, Viola would see right through us if we just… force ourselves to act nice in front of her. And as far as I can tell, neither of us are that talented at acting anyway. So, if we start pretending now, it'll be much more convincing to get her to believe it.”
Six couldn't help the incredulous laugh that escaped her after. And she hadn’t laughed that genuinely for weeks!
It was amazing how he assumed he was being subtle about this. Because why pretend to reconcile now if there wasn't anyone to see? Why act like friends if he still hated her?
The answer was unbelievably simple.
For in actuality, Mono really just told her he wanted to move past their tainted history—stop this rivalry from prolonging any further. But of course, the boy too had his pride and dignity to protect after keeping an extremely intense hatred towards her and promised himself to despise her forever. Maybe some part of him still did, but who knows?
So, the ‘Let’s Pretend To Be Friends Now’ scheme was the perfect excuse.
"You're insane," she said after her short laughter, looking at him as if he truly had lost his mind
Mono shrugged innocently.
"Maybe, maybe not…" A tiny smirk grew across his face. "So, what do you say?" He offered a hand to her.
Six shot him another look, searching his face for any proof that he may be pulling her leg.
Oh, but he wasn't. Not even close.
The boy was utterly serious to the point where it made her think for an actual answer, to actually consider.
It seemed pretty pointless for them to put on a show when no one was around, but then again, that only ensured them no one would be there to judge.
So, agreeing to this surely wouldn’t bring her any harm, right?
Six felt her lips tugged into a smile, her eyes mirroring his softened gaze.
Well, if this is for practice, then…
She gently took his hand in hers.
“I'd like that.”
Notes:
Officially, they are friends now.
Thanks for reading!
Chapter 41: Run Rabbit Run
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
The little eyes.
The carvings on the walls of so many establishments and buildings, doors or entrances, even including the ceilings in rare cases; they weren’t just there for a simple reminder of who was in charge, they weren’t just there to instill fear to passersby.
It was also a tool the Eye used to supervise their God-forsaken city, and look over what the inhabitants of each and every territory were up to—mostly to see whether the Transmission from the televisions were enough to pull them into an addictive state.
Although the little eyes served a far, bigger purpose than merely spying over the corrupted adults in Pale City.
Or to put it in other words, they served to spy on the Broadcaster.
To watch his every little movement as he spent his time out of the Signal Tower’s domain freely, staying in places he shouldn't be in and so on.
Truly, the Eye could be the most patient being if they ever needed to, or if circumstances called it. They could wait for as long as until their mission saw its end.
Yet this time—and only this time—they allowed themselves to embrace this ever-growing impatience.
With every hour of every minute, every second, it only increased.
And impatience was a dangerous stage.
Waiting for him to come to them on his own had been the Eye's initial plan all along. But it seemed more than ever now, that they couldn’t wait any longer. They couldn’t afford to lose any more time as the cycle grew weaker, unstable like that puny little girl locked somewhere inside the Tower.
The little eye glowed softly in the darkness of the apartment lobby.
It watched silently as the Broadcaster and the Geisha climb down the stairs, eventually walking further beyond the little eye's range.
But they were talking all the while, smiling innocently at each other as though their history had never happened, as though their friendship had never been broken by the betrayal.
No.
This was going a tad too far.
This wasn't where it was supposed to go.
The Eye knew when enough was enough, when they had had enough of this waiting game.
And they long realized the longer he was out here, the cycle would remain the way it was—cracking and would slowly crumble into failure if nothing was done.
They had to bring the Broadcaster back now, as soon as an opportunity presented itself.
After all, he had been gone from home for far too long.
A few hours passed after the two children left their hidden spot that was underneath the bed, after the…agreement they had had.
Well rested enough, they'd decided to continue on with their way. Viola was, after all, still in dire need of help.
So, now the two—three, including the Nome Mono insisted it tag along—traveled through the dark hall, hours worth of walk soon leading them to an area where lights dangled above them, the hallway somehow appearing longer and bigger now.
Lesser doors and more simple puzzles, mostly.
It was one of their obstacles to finding a way out of the building. That and the fact that neither actually knew where to go.
Indeed it was hours they walked. Yet not once did they fight with one another.
Well, at least like they used to.
“Just get it over and done with.”
Six already had her eyes closed, standing still in front of the boy as she waited for him to flick her forehead.
Mono only shot her a smug grin, clearly enjoying this way too much.
“If you say so.” Mono shrugged. With his index over his thumb, he positioned his hand over her temple once again. “Two more flicks; and this is for the days I’d missed in the daycare.”
“Stop talking and just do it.”
He huffed, then proceeded to give her two hard flicks, making her eyes squeeze tighter as she flinched at the pain, her forehead skin already red from the prior flicks he gifted her.
Six slowly reopened her eyes and rubbed her temple, a wince escaping her.
“Did you have to flick me that hard?” she asked as she continued on without him. He went after her, along with his other little companion.
“If I do it gently, then there wouldn't be a point, would there?”
Six rolled her eyes in defeat. “Whatever,” she said. “How many more of these stupid flicks do I owe you?”
Mono put a hand to his chin as he hummed thoughtfully.
“8 months.”
Six turned to him with furrowed brows.
“Wait, that's not…” Her brows then formed a scowl. “You were in the Tower for only six! You can't just add two more months.”
“Oh, sure I can. I mean, it's only about 60 days extra.”
“Only 60 days extra? This is my head, we're talking about Mono. I could develop some serious head injury in the future.”
“Please, you survive a head injury every day. Surely, you can survive this one too.”
If she hadn't shown her confusion before, then she was definitely showing it now. Because what Mono said might just give her a concussion out of pure perplexity.
“What do you mean I survive a head injury every day?”
His smirk widened even more.
“Well, since you're stupid, I figured—ow!”
Mono instantly rubbed his sore arm after the harsh pinch Six gave, yet that didn't anger him. Not anymore, at least.
“What? It's true!” He chuckled as she shot him a look.
“You are not flicking my head for 8 months, Mono. And that's final.”
She crossed her arms, walking further ahead once more.
Mono shifted to the Nome beside him. “So bossy, am I right?” he muttered to it in secret.
But not so secret for Six snapped her head to them before the Nome could reply with a squeak.
“What did you say?” she asked, her voice laced with hidden threat.
Mono gulped, standing straighter. “N-nothing!” He fastened his pace and quickly caught up back to her side, the Nome sticking by him—and only him.
Discreetly, Six sent a side glance to the little creature as it clung close to Mono, holding on to the hem of his sleeve as if he was its babysitter.
She scrunched up her nose, slightly uncomfortable.
“I still don’t understand why you feel the need to bring it with us,” Six started. “We should’ve just left it behind, you know.”
“Because that’s your solution to everything?” he said, making her turn to him with a glare. At that, Mono cleared his throat. “I’m sorry, that was uncalled for,” he muttered as he looked away.
Six shook her head at him.
“I’m just saying, Mono. Bringing it with us to the Signal Tower…might just end up killing it instead.”
He sighed. “I know. But just— look at it.” Mono pointed at the Nome with his hands as if to emphasize his point. “How can you say no to this adorable little guy?”
“You mean how can I say no to a faceless, wrinkly creature?”
Both Mono and the Nome halted in their steps, the boy gasping incredulously while the Nome stomped its foot as it let out angry squeaks.
“Who hurt you?” he whispered dramatically, then patted the Nome’s head as though to comfort it from Six’s hurtful words…in spite of it being true.
Six rolled her eyes again.
“Let’s just find a way out of here,” she said as she approached the closed door.
Mono quickened his pace to her, gently pulling the Nome with him despite the creature having better speed than any of them. But the Nome didn’t protest at all, which probably encouraged him to treat it that way all the more.
Reaching the door, the duo stared up at the handle placed above their reach, then to each other. They didn’t need a second to know what needed to be done.
And so, both got into position, Six kneeling down with her hands over the other as she readied to boost him up. He nodded and did what he’d done many times before.
Once he grasped the door handle, opening the door was a piece of cake, especially as it wasn’t locked.
Though it wasn't locked for a reason.
The door creaked as it swung open, his body following its movement while he prepared to release the handle and drop on the floor.
But everything in him ceased when he was revealed of the room inside, when his eyes met its floorboards.
Or rather, its lack thereof.
Half of the room’s floor plan was replaced by nothing but the hollow abyss, missing floorboards all over the place as the utter darkness overwhelmed the space below and took most of its unknown depth.
All except for some boards left in the center, the long pieces of floorboard acting more like a bridge as it connected to the other half of the room.
But seeing how thin the board seemed, it made him wonder just how many steps it’d take until the wood would finally give out and break .
Just what was wrong with this place?
A tug was then felt around his ankle. However, his brief shock was relieved when Six was the one who’d grabbed him and merely pulled him towards her—towards the side of the room that still had floors, that is.
Mono let out a sharp breath as he dropped back down beside her, although Six didn’t do much to spare a glance his way for her eyes were fixed on the gap in front of them instead.
He frowned.
It wasn’t to say he didn’t appreciate or wasn’t grateful for her help, but it wouldn’t have hurt her to at least ask if he was alright…
Mono quickly shooed the thought out of his head. Since when do I care so much for her attention?
Since he renewed their broken friendship and upgraded it into a fake one was when.
He rose back to his feet, then carefully walked closer to the edge alongside her.
Six had her head craned forward, her stare locked on the massive hole below as if searching for threats down there, but she took a step back when she heard him move close.
“We need to get across,” she said, finally turning to Mono, yet her eyes hid concern behind them
He took a shuddering breath.
Of course, he knew what she meant by that, what her concern was for.
To get across the other side, to reach the door, they first needed to cross the abyss. And the only way to do that was to use the terrifyingly fragile bridge.
But as if he had a choice…
Mono gave a reluctant nod.
At that, Six went first to his surprise, slowly pressing her foot unto the wood, a loud groan produced the more weight she added on it.
That didn’t sound at all reassuring nor convincing.
Even with the empty expression Six put on, nothing could hide the nervousness in her breathing.
“I…I don’t think this board can hold all of our weights at once,” she said, taking another step forward.
“Yeah, no kidding.”
He watched her move forward, not realizing the soft grimace he wore whenever the board made a sound, as if her next step would cause the remaining floor to give out.
“How are you doing there so far?” he asked out of courtesy.
She was his pretend-friend after all. Though he wouldn't deny how the current situation brought him some bitter memories from the past.
Six took another step, albeit at a slow pace.
“Couldn’t be better,” she said without shifting her focus. A pause then came from her. “Can I ask you a question?”
He scoffed as he folded his arms. “What?”
“It’s...about Viola."
Mono couldn’t help but freeze at the girl's name, his heartbeat rising all of a sudden. Every single damn time.
“Okay…? What about her?”
“When I asked her before…she admitted to saying you were her brother. Even told me some stories about how you two got separated somewhere along the way.” She stopped when another creak sounded, and only continued a second later. “But then you told me she was never even related to you. So, I've just been wondering ever since. Do you have any idea why she lied about it?”
He stayed silent, thinking of an answer—one he certainly did not have.
“Beats me,” he said. "I know just as much as you do..."
Unbeknownst to him, Six narrowed her eyes, face hardened as she mistakened his reply for something else.
She could sense he was holding an information back. A much bigger secret.
Well, which he was.
Incidentally.
“Has she ever told you where she’d come from?” she asked.
"Wh-what?"
He cursed himself for stuttering.
Six took her final steps and jumped safely to the other side before turning around.
He didn't like the sharpened stare she was shooting him, though.
Mono swallowed hard.
"No," he eventually replied, "she never said anything."
He avoided her eyes then as he took his turn crossing the bridge.
"There it is again," she said wryly.
"What do you mean?"
"You, trying to hide something about that girl, acting aloof as soon as she's brought up. This isn't the first time you've done it, you know."
He felt his cheeks warm, slightly embarrassed.
"Well, what do you want me to say, Six? I don't know."
"Except that's not true at all, is it?" she said. "I know you know something. It's just a matter of you not wanting to share it."
"So, what about you then? Why can't you tell me what you know?"
Six responded with her silence, her stare averted to the side.
He scoffed lightly. "See?" he said, finally reaching the end of the board. "You're hiding things too. Just like you did at the daycare."
"I'm not hiding it, I'm just…unsure about what I know."
Mono landed himself next to her, then simply waved his hand over to the Nome, gesturing for it to proceed carefully.
The creature nodded in determination, and mimicked his movements before.
Seeing that the Nome was doing fine, he shifted back to her.
"Unsure about what?" he asked, leaning closer.
Six let out an exasperated sigh, looking back to him as hesitance smeared across her face. Her lips parted a few seconds later, but she barely managed to utter a word when the Nome’s squeak came in between them, officially interrupting the moment he thought would be a secret reveal.
Mono distanced himself after realizing their closeness. He could only shifted to the Nome instead when he felt his face hot.
Six turned away too, face reddened.
He cleared his throat. “Well that was… really quick,” he said to the Nome, to which it shrugged.
Honestly, what else did he expect? He wouldn't be surprised if the creature was capable of running a full mile within 5 minutes.
“We...we should get going.” Six turned towards the door and continued first.
And just like that, their small conversation seconds ago was brushed off as if it never happened. At least, Six certainly made it seem that way when she just left him standing there, hanging with a question in mind.
His lips formed into a thin line, a hand slightly reach out to her, but dropped when she was already far ahead.
What could she be so unsure about that involved Viola? Sure, the latter held secrets—especially about her parents—but that was done for a good reason wasn't it? Viola had made him promise not to tell Six of all people, so it wasn't like he had a choice. It wasn't in his place to even spill it.
Although...
Now that Six mentioned it, it was a little strange of Viola to say that he was her brother.
Such an obvious lie of course. He looked nothing like her.
There was no way he and Viola could ever be related.
Mono turned back to the Nome and sighed before taking its hand with him, the two catching up to Six as they exited.
More boards and stacked boxes scattered in the hallway, all of it messily thrown at the sides and corners as though they were permanent decorations for the creaky floorboards.
The lights he’d usually see on the walls were replaced with some lanterns placed on the ground yet most were already out.
The walls were empty of any wallpapers as plain white replaced them, if not those old-fashioned red bricks.
Red bricks. Now where had he seen those before? He wondered to himself, head turning, watching as their surroundings had changed in such big contrast.
He realized everything just seemed so…under construction-ish compared to the other side.
Could it be that they were crossing an unfinished territory of the building? Another side of the apartment that was never properly done?
Unconsciously, his grip around the Nome’s hand tightened a little, goosebumps creeping up to his forearms. The air was cool enough to make him want to shiver, even with the thick coat around him.
It was after a few minutes did he begin to feel as though something was...off regarding their new surroundings.
Like something was familiarly wrong.
"Uh—Six?" He stopped her by the shoulder, his tone nearly as soft as a whisper. She merely raised a brow in response. "Do you think we're heading the right way?"
Her brows wrinkled when she noticed the worry in his eyes.
"Why are you suddenly asking me that?"
"Just…had a thought. I mean, are we even sure if this will lead us to the way out? We could be walking further from the actual exit."
"Oh…" she said, thinking back on his words. "You really think so?"
He half nodded.
It wasn’t unusual for one of them to be hesitant at some point.
Even back then, they’d often rely on their gut feelings and instincts when it came to directions and survival—although that could be said more for Mono than Six, given he was the one who’d called the shots. Well, mostly.
But in the end, the question still stands: could they actually be heading the wrong way?
Had the room they crossed over been a sign for them to turn back?
A warning not to go any further beyond?
Just as the two children started to question and discuss with each other their next move, just as they were about to retreat to where they'd come from, they were once again interrupted.
The two turned to the grey creature.
Splutters of gibberish came from the Nome, long enough for it to resemble sentences, however, in a foreign language they did not speak.
Despite them not knowing a single word the Nome was saying, their attention was still grabbed nonetheless.
And in just seconds, they realized how the Nome was actually trying to tell them something, its hand gestures giving it away.
Mono and Six glanced at each other, then turned back to the Nome, both sharing the same look of confusion and thoughts.
Could it possibly mean…
"Do…do you know where the way out is?" Mono asked, unsure.
The Nome nodded proudly.
In unison, the children gaped, staring blankly at the Nome for a few seconds as disbelief took over them.
"You knew and you didn't tell us?" Six said accusingly.
It nodded. Again.
In chagrin, Six dragged a hand to her face, groaning softly into her palm at this newfound knowledge she wished she'd known sooner.
Meanwhile, Mono's mouth hung wider at the Nome, still quite in disbelief.
To think that they just wasted hours of walking without a sense of direction, when they could've just asked the Nome who'd been with them the whole time.
The Nome was lucky Mono found it adorable enough, or else he might've snapped like Six appeared to be on the verge to.
"So, it knows where to go…" Six said frustratedly to him, rubbing her temple. "This whole time, it knows we're heading the wrong way. That's just…that's just great."
For someone with a foot injury that was in the process of healing, he understood her exasperation.
But it wasn't the Nome's fault he reasoned internally. Perhaps it was just...shy.
Mono sighed and slowly bent to the Nome's level, hands resting on his knees.
"You think you can you show us where the exit is?" he asked the Nome with a tight grin, but he made sure to ask it gently lest the Nome got the idea of him being upset or angry.
Oh, but he wasn't even close to being angry, though. Maybe a little amused at how stupid he'd been not to ask.
After all, the Nome was the one who'd shown him where to find food when he'd needed it.
“It would really help us a lot, buddy,” he added.
The Nome looked up at him in awe after hearing its moniker, beaming brighter than any weather in Pale City even without any of its facial features present. But one could already tell its emotion as the Nome jumped up and down in excitement similar to a child making new friends.
Guess that's a yes.
Mono felt his smile grow when the Nome then started to run around him in circles, its sudden enthusiasm infecting him.
Six, on the other hand, was seemingly immune to it, given she kept her annoyed glare.
Still a little salty, he figured.
Mono met her gaze then, tilting his head at the Nome before playfully rolling his eyes behind its back.
At that, her face softened slightly. Six gave him a scoff as she crossed her arms, although failing to fight back the eventual grin that crept to her face. Not because she wanted to, but because they were guranteed a way to leave this place.
After a while, the Nome finally stopped its running, but its determination showed more than ever now as it stood in front of them, poised and ready.
It spoke again in gibberish and waved a hand to them, beckoning for the children to follow before it went ahead first.
Surely, its excitement was a contagious thing.
Mono shifted to his side, and he couldn't help but notice the small smile worn on a certain someone.
The smile which was immediately wiped off as soon as she felt his eyes on her.
“What?” Six asked, not liking the smug look on his face.
“You were smiling.”
“Shut up, I was not.”
“You so were.”
Six lightly elbowed his arm, although still unable to rid the smile that came back on her face, proving him right all the more.
“Admit it, you also find the Nome cute, don’t you?” he asked, smirking.
“I can and will punch you, Mono.”
He snickered at her cheap threat. As much as he liked to rub it on her face of how wrong she was for wanting to leave the Nome behind before, he knew what her joke-limit was—how much teasing he could do until she got seriously annoyed.
So, for today, he spared her the ego-bruising, knowing Six would appreciate it. As if she'd ever admit to that.
But what are 'fake friends' for if not putting their feelings into consideration?
The duo exchanged another glance before finally continuing forward, going down the stairs together.
The Nome was already waiting at the end of the hall, its hand high above its head as it waved eagerly to them.
Mono waved back.
Adorable.
In that moment, he felt nothing but assured.
With the Nome ready to lead them to their way out, everything felt as though it would turn out fine, like everything was heading in the right direction for once.
But then just as fast, his uneasiness suddenly came back.
His hand slowly dropped, his smile faltered as the sound of metal clanking was heard from afar, his and Six’s footsteps receding altogether.
The sound itself was faint, yet their ears were trained enough to know it was nearby, to know bigger footsteps were coming to approach, the ground almost vibrating because of it.
At the end of the hall, a tall figure then turned the corner.
Faded blue overall wrapped around its sagging, huge body, its boots making its footsteps louder than any other.
The adult was seen holding planks under its arm, while its other gloved hand was occupied with a giant saw, the sharp blade clanking against the wood as the Tenant dragged it across the floor lazily.
Mono felt his blood run cold.
He knew where he’d seen the saw before—he knew where he’d seen the adult before.
Yet that wasn't what scared him.
What terrified him to his very core was the Nome.
And its cluelessness of the monster standing right behind it.
Never had he wanted to scream so bad at the innocent little creature, to yell at it so it would stop itself from waving brightly at him any longer.
But it was too late for any warnings.
For the Tenant instantly dropped the planks in its arm the moment it laid sight on the tiny Nome, its arm reaching the creature while it hummed hungrily.
The Nome let out a petrified cry when it felt a huge hand lift it off the ground so suddenly.
Mono watched in horror as the Nome thrashed inside the Tenant’s grasp, its small fists hitting the monster's fat fingers but to no avail. Because each slowed second, the Nome was brought closer and closer to the adult.
It was futile, pointless for the Nome to fight off the Tenant alone.
As always, Mono reacted without thinking, taking a step forward to run to the Nome.
But alas, he too was held in someone else's iron grip.
“Mono, don’t,” Six whispered in his ear desperately, her nails digging deep into his arm.
He knew how right she was to hold him back, he knew this was indeed an opportunity to save themselves and run while the adult was distracted with the Nome.
However, that would mean leaving the poor creature to its cruel, fatal fate.
Mono tightened his fist, his teeth clenching hard as he couldn't tear his eyes away.
It dawned on him then that the only way he and Six could survive this now, was to let the Nome go.
To let it be eaten.
To let it die.
“HEY, ASS FACE!”
The Tenant halted its hand, its attention immediately shifted to the two children instead.
As its blackened eyes settled on them, the hunger it held for the Nome effectively transferred to the children, along with greed added to its ugly features.
After all, two kids would make a far better meal than only one Nome.
“Come and get us, loser!” he shouted again, adding more to Six’s sheer disbelief and horror.
As if challenged by his petty insult, the Tenant hummed and eventually released its current victim.
The Nome cried and whimpered the moment it hit the floor, landing painfully on its side from the harsh fall.
But disregarding the pain, it pushed itself off the ground and ran far from the scene, holding its arm as it limped away, its form disappearing after it turned the corner, hopefully heading somewhere hidden from the adult.
Relief washed over him after seeing the Nome escape to safety. Although, his chest tightened again knowing that that was the last he’d seen of it. He realized he never even got the chance to say goodbye.
Nevertheless, saving the Nome didn’t come without a price.
Because now, they were the Tenant's target.
Just as Six feared.
The adult tightened its grip around its hand saw, eyes pooling with hunger, its gloved fingers twitching.
It gave them an inhumane growl after, sending shivers down their spine.
“You idiot...” Six muttered under her breath, a foot already stepping back.
He could already sense her shock overwhelming her annoyance and frustration.
Mono gulped.
“I know.”
Notes:
I can't do it I can't kill the Nome im sorry omfg
༼ ༎ຶ ᆺ ༎ຶ༽But anyway, this arc will end in the next chapter...probably :P
Thanks for reading!
Chapter 42: Down the Rabbit Hole
Notes:
Okay I ended up writing a 7k chapter for this one. But anyhoo, I hope you enjoy!
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Mono grabbed Six's hand and bolted the other way, retreating to where they'd come from.
As expected, the chase began.
Though he didn't need to look back to know the monster was hot on their tail. Just by the sound of the Tenant's hand saw—its blade squealing, screeching against the floorboards as it was dragged along—was enough to tell him that stopping now meant death.
Be it eaten or lacerated, he didn't know which was worse.
So he gripped Six's hand tight, lest she would be left behind with her foot wound slowing her.
Taking the same turns, they went back to the room with no floors. If they crossed the other side quickly, perhaps they could lose the Tenant; and perhaps the bottomless floor in that room would be enough to intimidate the adult from pursuing them any more.
Though he truly hoped the monster would cease the chase after they got over the gap.
The sound of boxes breaking sounded behind, wood and planks broken to halves, semi-empty cans clanging against the walls as the Tenant threw them out of its way, ostensibly desperate and impatient to capture them as though they were a meal the adult hadn't had in weeks.
This caused the two to stumble a little in their run, heads ducking slightly when some bits of the wood came flying over them.
"What were you thinking?!" Six yelled, still in his hand.
"I wasn't!" he shot back. "I just didn't want to see it die!"
"Well, thanks to you, we probably will!"
"Don't you think I know that?!"
More items clashed on the floor again, followed by the Tenant's annoyed groan. It certainly wasn’t pleased with the obstacles in its way, provided that was the only thing slowing the adult down from capturing them then and there—aside from the weight of its own carried weapon.
But that only made the Tenant’s impatience grow higher, its determination stronger. The things it kicked away, one could hear the rage building up in them for each and every kick or blow.
The children merely ducked again when the Tenant striked, their feets nearly tripping if it weren’t for their already panicking state. Yet they couldn’t afford to trip and fall now.
The moment they reached the broken room, Mono hurriedly yanked Six inside.
"Go!" he told Six and made his way to push the door behind them.
Six nodded without missing a beat, immediately understanding what he wanted her to do—what she needed to do.
She rushed herself to the edge, and began to walk on the thin bridge that creaked louder the more her movements turned akin to a run. That was all she wanted to do honestly. Yet doing so, might just break the board and snatch Mono's chance at getting away too.
So, she kept her pace steady for that reason.
As Six walked half of the bridge, Mono was still holding himself against the door, his heart hammering in his chest as fear clutched onto him like a life-long companion.
He bit the inside of his cheeks, fidgeting as his anxiety rose at Six crossing the bridge when he wasn’t even close to standing near it. How could she seem so calm in this situation? Couldn’t she move a little bit faster—
Bang! Bang! Bang!
The hard pounding from behind the door pulled him out of his thoughts, and he was reminded of the said monster who still hadn’t given up in catching the two children.
“Damn it!” Mono pressed himself on the door, holding back the weight that was pushing from the other side, the monster demanding for him to let it in.
But when that demand was denied, the doorknob above him began to rattle.
And it twisted just as fast.
That alone drained all the color from his face as he looked up at the knob, everything in him ceasing on its own as though he was frozen. No, he was frozen on the spot. The only reason he backed away—forced to move from his place and fall on his rear—was the monster pushing the door open and standing before him, its hungry eyes locking on his frightened ones as it raised its blade in a threatening manner. But threatening would be such an understatement.
Because this was full-on murderous.
“Mono!”
Her voice. Six’s voice got him out of the trance he was stuck in, making him turn his head to see her already safe across. She made it. Which meant…
Instantly, his gaze snapped back to the Tenant who had raised its hand-saw higher and aimed at him.
As adrenaline coursed through his veins, Mono pushed himself up and dodged the attack just in time as the Tenant brought its blade down to where he had sat. With such great force it had used, the tip of the saw went right through the wood, leaving an ugly dent as soon as the Tenant heaved it back out.
Mono didn’t wait to see the adult’s reaction this time. He ran to the bridge, despite the Tenant yelling in frustration from behind.
All that mattered to him was getting across—getting to Six.
But then the ground shook.
The Tenant’s heavy stomps made him glance back, but no matter how brief it’d been, he should’ve known how big of a mistake that was. How that would make him stumble in the middle of crossing the foreboding abyss.
His foot quickly lost its footing on the narrow bridge, his balance interrupted as it forced his entire figure to fall forward on the board.
But the bridge could barely hold much weight after the abrupt fall.
And in less than a second, Mono felt his legs slide off the surface first, his waist next as gravity pulled him down even more.
A short cry escaped him while his hands clawed at the bridge, nails scratching the wood desperately as he was dragged further and further down into the darkness that was beneath him. Horror etched to his face just by the thought of being embraced by the abyss, his one fear from the past—he tried so hard to put aside—ambushing him.
His teeth gritted and he suppressed a groan.
No.
He wasn't going to fall like this again. He wasn't going to experience it again.
And so, Mono pushed himself to his limit. He pushed all his strength to climb safely back on the bridge to get himself away from the threatening gap a few feet below. He could do it if he tried hard enough. He could pull himself up this time, Mono repeated it in his mind. So much that he barely noticed what was happening around him.
That was until he heard a loud snap, a piece of wood breaking into two.
And instantly, shock took over him, replacing his prior fear and destroying his determination and hope to climb altogether. Because he realized, the piece that broke was indeed the one he’d been gripping like a lifeline this whole time.
The realization, the dread, the memory; everything hit him harder when a sudden familiar feeling returned.
The moment his hand lost grasp.
The moment he began to fall.
Sharp pain shot through all around his wrist, calloused fingers circling, digging into his skin harshly before he felt another hand closed around his own.
Mono couldn’t help the small cry that escaped him as his arm was pulled, leaving his body to hang dangerously above the abyss.
Different kinds of confusion was felt, but all of it dissipated just as soon as he met eyes with her .
“Six,” he whispered incredulously.
She’d…caught him.
She did it. She saved him from the fall that would most likely result in his death. Hence, she saved his life.
So then, why was he still feeling scared? Why were his eyes brimming with hot tears now? Why was his heart beating more rapidly out of his chest than before? And…
Why wasn’t he closing his own hand around hers?
Mono looked up at Six, his vision blurring for some reason, a lump already in his throat that he could not swallow. Perhaps it was because some part of him already expected what was to come after this. And all he could do was wait for her hand to loosen and be yanked away. He waited for her to let him fall.
But she…never did.
Instead, Six did the opposite of his expectations.
A repressed groan left her as she used her remaining strength to lift his whole weight up, grabbing him by the collar when he was close enough to get him on the bridge. “Told you, I don’t repeat mistakes,” she muttered in the midst of it all.
Everything felt like it was on autopilot after that.
He held on to her, his other hand clasping her palm as she assisted him up on the surface.
Yet it was when his feet truly touched the board did he understand what just happened.
She didn’t let me fall. She didn’t drop me. She didn’t kill me.
Oh, how he could just laugh with his tears! She’d caught him and pulled him up! She didn’t do that last time! She actually kept her word!
However, just when a smile started to grace his face, their moment was interrupted by a low hum behind them.
The Tenant was still here.
Nevertheless, the adult only stared at them from its place as it stood there with narrowed eyes, its weapon already dropped to its side as though a sign of defeat.
The Tenant didn’t even come close to the bridge, or really, attempt to stretch its arm to reach them like any other monster would've done. Instead, it seemed like it was avoiding the board more than anything.
Why, Mono didn’t question it.
But it did make him wonder why the Tenant was staring down specifically to their feets instead of their heads.
His muscles tensed not knowing the meaning behind that, his guts churned as it invited a bad feeling.
A very bad feeling.
“Mono…”
He turned to Six, but she too had her gaze pointed to her feet.
Or rather, to the board below them.
Suddenly, he remembered what Six had said to him the first time they crossed, her words playing in his mind over and over again as he too looked down.
Cracks were seen decorating the wood, spreading further more around, the board tilting slightly the longer they stood there together.
The bridge only holds one person at a time.
Another sound of snap was heard, however, this time neither of them had time to escape to safety as the very wood they stood on finally gave out and broke.
The Tenant faintly chuckled, mirth in its eyes as it only watched them be eaten by the abyss. Because it never saw them as food as it did with the Nome. It never chased them for that reason.
None of them did.
Pure darkness engulfed everything the farther down they went, but that wasn’t what terrified them.
For it was the fear of actually dying, knowing their end truly had arrived after so many near deaths, after so many close calls.
And they did not hold back their screams as they fell.
Who knows how far they were actually falling. But as far as he could tell, it felt like forever; as if life wasn’t cruel enough that he had to wait for the unknowing pain, wait for his own death after his bones snap and break from the great height.
Regardless, all he and Six did was scream.
All until cold splashed his entire form.
And everything, his breathing, his movements, it all became…difficult. As if everything slowed down on its own.
Was this what the afterlife felt like? Was this death ?
His lungs burned the more he remained afloat in place inside this cold, yet it was a familiar pain he had experienced before, something he remembered from his many collections of unpleasant memories.
And it all clicked suddenly.
No, this wasn’t the afterlife. This was not death.
It was water.
Mono screamed, but his voice came out muffled, and bubbles escaped his mouth instead. He was losing air. He couldn't breathe. He knew he needed to get out before death truly claimed him.
Immediately, Mono swam up, using his arms and legs to get himself out of this water, knowing the burn in his chest would only intensify should he stay put.
Yet even as he opened his eyes to see, all there was were black—if that wasn’t enough to give him a new phobia, he didn’t know what could.
Despite this slight fear tugging at his brain, he kept on swimming upwards, and he didn’t stop until his hand was out of the water first.
Mono inhaled a sharp breath the second he reached the surface, his throat coughing out some water that managed to slip in his throat. The cold air pressed hard against his skin and neck, his hair and clothes utterly drenched.
He knew he should feel thankful and relieved that he was alive and still breathing.
Yet relief quickly became the last thing on his mind.
“Six,” he whispered when her absence dawned on him.
In slight panic, he whipped his head around, hoping he could catch even a glimpse of that yellow in all of this pitch black place.
Yet nothing answered, and nothing was seen.
“S-Six!” his voice echoed, shaking from the cold.
Again, he received nothing.
Just as he was about to let his whole body be embraced by sheer panic, just as he started to dive back down to look for his missing friend, the fear present in his mind suddenly became louder when something heavy grasped his arm from under the water.
Mono shrieked.
He thrashed around in the water, causing big splashes as he hit the water in an attempt to escape from whatever that grabbed him—to escape the fingers that managed to hold him in place.
“It’s me!” A girl’s voice instantly stopped his unnecessary yet dramatic splashings.
After a brief pause, Mono quickly ran his hands all over her face just to confirm it, to the girl’s utter annoyance, regardless she let him continue.
“It’s Six ,” she added in chagrin after a moment.
No doubt it was now.
With that, Mono pushed her back a little from him after his brain finally regained some sense. He set a bit of distance. And he thanked the darkness for hiding the red on his cheeks.
“Don’t jump on me like that,” he grumbled.
A flicker then followed, and a soft yet dying glow of orange appeared between them, originating from a lighter that was in Six’s hand.
Six rolled her eyes.
“I didn’t,” she quipped. “You were the one who freaked out over a simple touch.”
“I- You should’ve answered when I called your name!”
“I answered the first time.”
“You did not.”
“I did,” she insisted, a soft scowl on her face. “When you said, ‘over here’, I answered you back. Before I bumped into you.”
“You… huh?” Perplexion took his face.
“You shouted, ‘I’m over here’. You said it seconds ago. Don’t tell me you’ve already forgotten that.”
Silence was his answer to her words. And he could feel his temperature drop by the second.
However, not by the cold of the water.
“Six, I…” he started slowly, hesitant when she flashed him a confused look. “I never said that to you.”
Her brows furrowed even more. “What?”
“I only called your name.”
Six left her mouth open, but not a word dared to leave her, her face losing a little bit of its color that he was sure wasn't because of the cold too.
And all of the sudden, the quiet became too loud. Too eerie. The tiny flame crackling faintly in her hand was the only thing that filled the dark place, the only thing that gave them the reassurance they weren't alone.
“M-Mono?” she spoke softly, her face slightly distraught.
“Yeah?” he replied.
She shifted in the water, her eyes showing discomfort.
“Was that you kicking me?”
Mono gulped, dread becoming more and more ostensible on his face that he was certain Six couldn’t miss it even without the small fire lighting up.
Indeed, they weren't alone.
He shook his head, too afraid to even utter the word 'no' out loud.
Six drew her lips into a thin line, exhaling shakily as she shuddered. Because if it wasn’t Mono who had kicked her leg…
Then, who did?
The little fire blew out.
As total darkness came back to surround them, it brought up a bit of trepidation within the two. Mono could hear Six’s uneasiness in the way she angrily, desperately flicked her lighter, rushing to bring the light back.
However, her attempts paid off before he could start to search for his own flashlight, and the flame returned and danced in between them once again, providing them some source of light.
Although this time, the flame gave them much more than that.
For it was then revealed of the third head that had long peeked out beside the two. A pair of blacks eyes filled with glee. Its cheeks were tugged upwards despite its missing mouth, a few strands of hair stuck to its head as water dripped down its sagging skin.
Ever so slowly, the skin between its eyes and chin began to tear and pull like gum being stretched apart. And its whisper, so sweetly soft and clear it sent shivers down their spines.
“I did.”
The flame Six had tried hard to bring back quickly disappeared back into her lighter.
Out of horror, the two shrieked in unison, jumping and immediately swimming away from the Tenant. They swam through the water in the darkness without so much of a plan or direction as panic took the lead.
But again, where was a question they should’ve asked themselves first.
Because the water wasn’t all that wide as he had thought.
Mono had to find it the hard way when he was abruptly met with something hard. His head throbbed and ached, already feeling a light bruise form on his face.
He knew it was a wall he’d bumped himself into by then.
But as he slowly registered the pain, a force of weight he knew to be Six herself, came crashing from behind, causing him to once again bump his head on the wall.
If they weren’t in such a deadly situation, some might’ve found it comical.
He couldn’t help the annoyed groan that left him, or the scowl he wore, but it wasn’t fair to be totally angry at someone when she too couldn’t see a single thing under the water.
It was as if they had been swimming without eyes, so to speak.
“You okay?” Six asked when she heard him wince, hidden guilt in her voice. She swam a little back from him, and gave him some space.
Mono hummed, biting back a witty response. Because now certainly wasn’t the time for it.
“Where is—?”
Fits of bitter giggles echoed somewhere in the dark, the sound ringing horribly in his ears.
And here he thought that they’d escaped from the Tenant, but really, they were only to be greeted by another. Only to have fallen into its nest.
He wasn’t even sure if staying in the dark was the best choice. The light could easily give away their spot like it did last time. But then again, without any kind of light, how could they even begin to find a way out? They barely knew where to go in this flooded underground basement!
Splashes of water sounded in the distance. And by the multiple splashes produced all at once, he was far than convinced that there were more than one of them swimming, searching for their whereabouts.
He could feel Six tense beside him as the water shifted.
They couldn't stay in the water for long. Sooner or later, the Tenant—or supposed, Tenants—would find them, and by then escaping wouldn't even be an available option.
He inhaled deeply, and pressed his back further against the wall, his eyes closed.
Surely, there had to be a way out.
As if his silent prayer had been heard, a happy tune then began to play, grabbing both their attention instantly.
The tune itself was faint, echoing from somewhere they knew to be close enough for it to have reached them.
“Do you…do you hear that?” Mono asked Six, his head turning, looking for the source of the sound. “It sounds like it's coming from a…”
“Vent,” she finished.
The tune continued to play sweetly in their ears, reassuring their doubts the longer they listened carefully.
A vent. There was a vent nearby.
A way out.
Mono quickly looked at Six, and she nodded.
Without sparing any more of their limited time, he closed his hand around hers and together they held in their breaths before diving back down underwater.
As they swam, they used the walls as their guide, meanwhile following the melody.
Even underwater, he could still hear the sounds of the monsters’ laughs—children’s stolen laughs—overlapping with the tune, but all that mattered to him now was finding the latter.
And every second passed, the tune became clearer, louder as though it was above them.
No, it was above them.
At once, the two halted in their swim and got up to the surface, each inhaling back the air they’d temporarily lost. But the song was enough to bring their determination.
Because truly, there was a vent here.
He stretched his arm upwards, and a choked laugh left him when he felt the cold metal under his palm.
It’s here.
“I found it!” he said to Six, who in turn sighed relievedly.
Mono rushed to find his flashlight to light their way to the vent, the light flickering greatly which was no doubt caused by the water.
Still better than nothing, he supposed.
A loud splash then came.
And out of reflex, Mono turned the light over to the sound, which in hindsight, he probably shouldn't.
Three heads came to approach, surrounding them left and right, their black eyes the only feature that was exposed. Regardless, their giggles did not sound the least bit muffled.
But fear and apprehension returned to them in a full blast, the second these adults dived back down.
One by one, their heads disappeared below.
And he knew what would happen if they didn’t get out of the water now.
Quickly, he put his hands under Six’s arms and gave her a lift up to the vent, which luckily enough, Six chose to cooperate rather than protest. Her annoyed grumble wasn't left unheard, though.
The grate groaned when she pulled it open, the happy music filling the air louder than ever now as Six proceeded to climb inside.
Mono kept his light on the vent for her aid all the while, pushing her foot up.
The water waved behind him.
He almost dared a glance back if it weren't for Six's hand already reaching out for him to take.
Warmth overwhelmed his chest and face, stomach flipping at the sight of that same palm extended again.
To him.
Though this time, the fear he once held for it no longer clouded his mind like it did before. The hesitance, the distrust he had for her was not the same as it had been.
Mono clasped her hand.
Again, that rush of excitement, that feeling of surprise combined with exhilaration took over him when she didn’t even hesitate to pull him up.
She’s pulling me up!
If Six could listen to his thoughts right now, he was way past certain he’d die from embarrassment first before anything else.
Of course, him being giddy like this was all temporary. Because as he put his mind solely on Six's hand, he disregarded the other one.
Reaching for his ankle.
A yelp escaped him as he felt a strong tug, attempting to pull him out of the vent when he was already half in.
Six in response to this grabbed tightly onto his coat and his sleeves, practically clawing him at this point as if this was a tug of war. The only difference, of course, was him being the rope.
Nevertheless, his grip on her was just as iron as hers on him because letting her go meant instant death in his case.
Thank luck for the water that had drenched him prior, the Tenant’s hand soon lost its grip and slipped off his foot.
At the sudden release, he was pulled fully inside the vent along with Six, falling abruptly next to each other.
However, they weren’t given much to even acknowledge their aching muscles as the Tenants scrambled with each other to force themselves inside the vent. It wasn’t long until one arm successfully got in,
And it began to feel the floor and walls.
Mono unconsciously let his hand snake up to Six’s.
Couldn’t they catch a break already?
The duo left the Tenants and ran the other way. There was no chance that the monsters could follow them through, given the vent’s tight space. Unless they possessed the same ability as the Teacher’s, then that’s a different story.
Thump! Thump!
The walls next to Six bent from an outside blow, causing her to stagger next to him. Mono caught her arm in time and held her up. Something continued to punch the vent from the outside wall. No doubt it was one of the Tenants trying to follow them another way.
For the floor in front of them too bent.
Six was the one who pulled him back this time as he nearly tripped forward because of it.
The thumps did not cease, and instead it was going faster, each hit stronger than the last. And it was worse when it all came punching the vent at once.
Mono cussed under his breath, both him and Six pushing themselves to reach the end of the vent; to get through with this nightmare.
He didn’t know what he expected though, when they did reach the end. A way out was for sure. Maybe a dry ground that could lead them back to the other floors. Or maybe a door that would open up straight to the exit.
But the vent led them to someplace worse.
As soon as they kicked the grate, and saw what laid in front of them, he instantly knew.
One bulb hung loosely above, illuminating the room better than his flashlight could. Water still flooded the place, but there were things floating on its surface. On one corner, smashed televisions stacked atop each other on a table. Almost all of the screens were shattered as it left them with nothing but a hollow socket. The door, blocked by a fallen shelf.
This was a dead end.
Except…was it really?
Mono turned his head over to the corner, realizing the tune that led them here was playing still.
The televisions were indeed smashed, seemingly compiled and broken on purpose. Yet not all of them were fully out of order.
Because at the very top, one stayed on. A big crack was across its screen, a video of a man and woman playing although it glitched terribly.
But he’d be a fool if he thought Six hadn’t noticed where he was looking at, a frown already to her lips.
Given the lessons she took from the past, she didn't like the way Mono had his eyes on the televisions, staring at those damned technology with a thoughtful look.
Though it was when he jumped into the water that got a reaction out of her.
“Mono!” She had her hand out to stop him, but was too late as her companion already made way to the televisions. At the same time, the thumping behind her continued.
So, what else could she do but to swim after her idiot friend?
Six quickly jumped in and swam towards the damaged televisions, seeing he had already climbed the first level of the stacked TVs, much to her irritation.
“Hey!” She climbed out of the water to follow him, but it seemed like he was ignoring her deliberately. Part of her feared that he might’ve been brainwashed again by those stupid TVs, all the more reason she rushed to catch up.
Music continued to play and fill the room, drowning out the bangings outside.
Mono hurriedly pulled himself up to the top, and his eyes settled on the television before him. He went closer, his palms readily opened for its cracked screen.
“Oi!”
His arm was immediately grabbed and pulled in a rather painful direction.
Six spun him around and he was met with her cold glare. Yet fear was easily noticed hiding within her anger.
“What do you think you’re doing ?” she asked with an icy tone.
“I’m getting us out of here.”
“With what, the television? Your plan is to escape using that untrustworthy junk?”
“Yes.”
He yanked his hand off her grasp. Mono knelt down and proceeded to press his palm against the cold screen, the video and music distorting as the familiar buzz followed.
Six stared at him in disbelief with her shoulders drooped, her mouth left open. She shook her head slowly, panic rising in her chest when the screen turned to full static.
“Mono, stop…” she muttered. But when he did not reply, when he continued to tune the Transmission anyway, her blood boiled. “I said stop!” She dropped beside him, and harshly took his hand away.
But Mono was having none of it
While he understood her worry of him being brainwashed again, they were running out of time. So much time they had wasted. The Tenants would soon break the door open.
“Six!” he snapped and grabbed her arm. The music returned to play just after his hand left the screen. “We don’t have time for this.”
“I don’t care. I’m not letting you tune this stupid thing again. The last time you—”
“I know what happened last time. But look around you!” And look, she did. The water, the shelf on the door, the vent guarded by Tenants on the other side. “Everything is blocked. And those monsters are going to be in here any second now!”
“So, we kill them. We can just push this TV in and kill all of them.”
“And then what?” he asked firmly. “What happens then, Six?”
She closed her mouth when not an answer came to her aid.
Because he was right after all.
Sure they could electrocute the Tenants in the water and solve their problem of being killed, but what would happen after that? How would they even leave if the whole water was electrified enough to fry them too?
“Six…” he called her softly. “It’s your call.”
She glanced at the blocked door, and then the vent. The bangs never did stop ever since they jumped into the water. And it was clearer than ever now that it wasn’t going to end.
There really was no other way out.
He was right.
“Fine.” Six faced him, less afraid now, and nodded to him. “Tune it.”
A grin crept to his face.
Gladly, Mono offered her his hand, which she took without much hesitation.
Then the static took over again, and the sound of buzz replaced the happy music after his palm met the screen.
Six readied herself, taking a deep breath.
“Do you…know where this’ll take us?” she asked and silently gulped, watching the TV screen changing, its image distorting as Mono had his powers through.
He paused for a brief second, and shot her a reassuring smile, as if that could assure the both of them.
“Let’s just hope somewhere good.”
He truly hoped that was true.
Something of a loud bang sounded then, a wood breaking through.
Both instinctively turned their heads to the door.
A big hole was now in the center, a fist going in before the huge hand searched for the doorknob.
They’d found them.
Mono quickly diverted his attention back to the television, the screen glowing barely more than what he was used to. But considering the cracks and the damage the TV seemingly had endured, it did concern him whether this one was even capable of warping.
Meanwhile, Six got her eyes locked on the adult.
No, adults.
The Tenants all surrounded the door, one of them punching the wood consistently to create bigger holes whereas the other kept searching for the knob. The third one, however, waited behind the two monsters, practically clambering on top of the other two impatiently, ordering for its comrades to hurry up.
As there was nothing that could be done, Six merely squeezed Mono’s hand, hinting for him to be quick.
As if he wasn’t quick enough already.
Easy for her when I’m the one doing all the tuning here.
The shelf then fell with a splash.
The same one that had been keeping the door sealed finally gave out as the Tenants successfully pushed it forward, causing it to sink under the water.
And it gave an opening for the adults to enter.
Six shook him slightly as she watched the Tenants swim closer to their corner, each of the monsters’ faces tearing open, and revealing sets of canines that could separate metals apart.
“They’re coming, Mono,” Six alerted him, agitated as the adults circled them once again.
It took merely seconds for one of them to already arrive at the bottom layer.
Both cursed when their ground shook, the lower stacked televisions barely strong enough to hold the Tenant’s weight as it only broke even more under it.
Mono clenched his jaw, already feeling his energy drain slowly into the television. His head was already starting to ache, his vision blurring ever-so-slightly from the use of power he forced out then and there. Frustration had long clawed at his brain as the pressure on him increased.
Yet all of that disappeared when he felt it.
The hard screen suddenly soft, light electricity tickling under his palm as he slowly felt the gentle pull of the Transmission.
His face lit up.
He turned over to Six and her eyes widened too. Relieved at the sound of the faint whine the TV emitted, an indication that this would all be over soon.
Finally, they could get out of—
A shrill scream erupted in their ears.
The Tenants below yelled at them, screamed at them all at once as they too realized the children were escaping. Their words were incomprehensible at best, but it was repeated desperately enough that he caught some of it.
And he did nothing else but freeze in dread as they begged and screamed.
“No!”
“Don’t go!”
“Come back!”
“Don’t leave us!”
Uneasiness pooled and churned in the bottom of his stomach. But that was all time had allowed him to feel as the TV then began to emit a high-pitched whine.
And they were immediately sucked into its screen before those words could even mean something.
Soft pitter patters of water.
That was what he heard first.
It began to fall around him, small drops of it onto his face. Where was he? It sounded so familiar, those water drops. It felt familiar.
Like…rain.
The hard surface he laid on, they felt uncomfortable yet soft under his palms.
He grasped the ground, feeling his fingers easily dug into the ground.
Mud and grass.
Was he really outside?
More droplets landed on his skin, the water falling gradually in time, faster too, like real rain.
He opened his eyes.
Six’s face hovered above him, and she heaved out a short sigh when they finally met each other’s gaze.
“Six?” he mumbled, blinking slowly and adjusting to his new surroundings.
Though he barely could as she lightly smacked him across the head, making him flinch at the sudden hit, as well as making his headache a bit harder to ignore. It didn’t hurt him much to leave a lingering pain, but it sure was enough to get him out of his drowsy state.
“Don’t scare me again,” she said.
Silence was his response to that.
Mono merely looked up at her, his eyes wide open now as he took a moment and paused.
Yet he chuckled.
Despite the pain, the heaviness settled in his bones. He couldn’t hold himself back no matter how deep her warning went.
And his smile, it couldn’t have gone wider as he sat there alive on the ground in the streets of Pale City.
They really did it.
They escaped the Tenants.
They did so without dying.
He heard Six scoff beside him, her eyes then rolling as she wore a grin.
“You’re lucky that television got us out here, Mono. If not I would’ve also killed you if you were wrong,” she said, although not a hint of malice to her voice.
A snicker left him as he carefully sat up from the grass, rubbing his head. “Is that a threat for the guy who just saved your life?”
She playfully punched his shoulder, an attempt to wipe that smug look off his face.
“Don’t flatter yourself too much. I saved yours too.”
Ah, Six taking credit. That sure sounded familiar. But she wasn't wrong, though.
Mono shook his head, and huffed before meeting her with a smile.
“That, you did,” he said after a moment, suddenly feeling heat grow on his face.
Her face immediately softened. A blush too appeared on her cheeks at his words, her gaze then lowered in thought as she soon fell into a long silence.
Yet what she did next went far beyond his expectations.
Before he could blink, or take in a breath, Six wrapped her arms around his neck, and quickly pulled him in, although there was very much hesitance in her movements, that part was clear and noticeable.
Nonetheless, his body instantly stiffened at this kind of contact, much less coming from her. His mind went as blank as his face, the red on his cheek no doubt intensifying.
If she had done this weeks ago, he would’ve thought this gesture as a method to choke him or even to kill him.
Yet this hug somehow felt so…real.
So unlike her, but genuine all the same.
“S-Six?” Mono finally built up the courage to speak up, although his throat too was affected by her unexpected closeness.
She didn’t give him a reply.
Instead, she kept her arms around him, hugging him as though he had just died. However, in the events that he did die and come back to life, would she even hug him like this?
No, would she even hug him to begin with?
Because come to think of it, back then it was always him who’d initiated the hug. And most of the time she’d roll her eyes and push him away, showing her annoyance whenever he got too close.
So, maybe this wasn’t…a bad thing?
Maybe this was her finally displaying some affection she had trouble sharing all this time?
Suddenly, he was pulled out of his thoughts when he felt her arms tighten, her back then shaking.
Mono’s brows furrowed.
Is she…crying right now?
“Thank you…” she spoke in a voice so soft, he wasn’t sure he heard it correctly.
He did, however, hear her correctly. And half his mind scrambled for an answer while the other couldn't even begin to process it.
Nevertheless, it brought butterflies to his stomach, and more of that special warmth in his heart.
And slowly, he found himself…hugging her back.
He hugged her like his old self had desperately wanted but never got the chance. He hugged her like she never destroyed his trust. He hugged her like a friend would.
And that was fine with him.
He didn't mind it. He didn't hate it.
So, Mono kept his arms around her back, eventually resting his chin on her shoulder as she did the same. And he leaned against her with a sigh.
He smiled, much in contentment.
“Thank you for coming back home, Mono.”
Everything he put on instantly faltered; his smile, his warmed heart, his reddened cheeks. His face paled just by replaying her words in his mind.
Six hugging him was already weird in the first place, add on with the sudden crying too.
Yet that spoken line of hers, those exact words…
It was enough to splash him with a cold bucket of water that labeled, ‘something isn’t right’.
It was enough for him to feel uncomfortable and finally recoil.
Except her arms truly tightened on purpose, the minute he connected the dots. She circled them around his throat, tighter and tighter where it felt like she was indeed choking him.
“Hey, let me- let me go,” he said with a shaky voice.
He firmly put his hands on her shaking shoulder. Though he should’ve known how that shaking wasn’t caused by her sobbing or crying.
No.
She was laughing.
Mono tried to push her away, but that seemed to only make her arms around his neck all the more tighter.
“Six I- I…” He choked on his breath, pain in his chest and throat. “I-I can’t breathe!” He pushed and threw her back with all his might, causing Six to fall rather harshly to her rear, her arms propping her up.
But this…this was not Six.
Whatever this creature was, it wasn’t his friend.
For when she cocked her head, he felt his heart ache at the sight of her now.
Black liquid drooped down past her empty sockets for eyes and mouth, her face whiter than he’d ever seen her before. While everything else remained the same about her, it was that smile she wore that made him back away on the ground in fear.
That menacing, taunting smile she gave him as she let out a mocking laughter.
The way she unnaturally bent her neck to the side like that Nanny in the daycare center.
It was then he realized how the rain had already stopped falling, if not gone entirely. The grass, the buildings around them, the streets; they were all just a guise.
Including Six.
All the sudden, a white light obscured his vision, making him shield his eyes from the intense brightness.
His heart took pace, and his breathing became heavier and heavier.
But slowly enough, he removed his arm from his eyes.
As the light lit above him in a perfect circle, everything else was a void of darkness. Shivers ran down his spine as he stared at the nothingness, horror on his features standing alone in here.
No.
This can’t be.
Mono took a step back, shaking his head in sheer disbelief. This couldn’t be the same place. This couldn’t be that room.
His back hit something solid, and he turned around to see the one thing he thought he never had to see in his life. The one thing he thought he had escaped.
Hot tears stung in his eyes, threatening to fall.
“No…”
The chair placed itself in the center, calling him, beckoning for him to come closer and regain his seat.
Yet he only stood there with unblinking eyes. He couldn’t blink even if he wanted to. Because Six’s last words—or rather, her impersonator’s last words to him finally made sense.
Thank you for coming back home.
Home.
She meant that he was back.
He was back inside The Signal Tower.
Notes:
And so, that concludes the apartment arc! I admit, it did go a bit longer than I initially thought, and I think I pantsed somewhere in the middle lol
But anyway, next chapter would dive straight into the next and final arc
The Signal Tower >:)
Also, just for fun, what do you think happened to Six? You think she accidentally got left behind?
Thanks for reading!
Chapter 43: Welcome Home
Notes:
Finally, this story has entered the Signal Tower arc, starting with this chapter.
Also spoiler alert:
Mono is not gonna be in this one ;)
but somebody else will return to take his spotlight though...
Anyhoo, enjoy!
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Pain stabbed her side as she fell to the ground.
Six groaned, feeling her stomach churn after being spat out from the buzzing television behind her. The experience was just as unpleasant as she’d remembered it. Every time, it made her feel as though she was seconds away from throwing up. She swallowed the bile in.
Her eyes were barely open.
Where were they? Where had the television taken them?
Loud caws of crows echoed above in the trees. Wind blew softly in the air, leaving the dry leaves to fly and rustle among each other.
Her body shivered.
She finally let her eyes adjust, and she observed her surroundings.
Indeed her first assumption had been correct; they were outside. In some sort of…forest.
A frown came to her lips.
Were they…back in the Wilderness? After the many narrow escapes from death, did she really go through all of it just to end up back to the start?
This couldn’t be any more cruel for a joke.
Six pushed herself up to sit on the ground, long weeds all around her, her feet and raincoat already stained with dirt. She looked at the tall trees once again, white fog clouding most of the air.
So, they really were back to square one.
A twig snapped behind her.
Her head instantly followed the sound, turning just in time to see the back of her companion, walking through the fog and disappearing behind it.
“Mono?” Six muttered with a hoarse voice, her throat dry.
But what was he doing?
Where was he going?
Her confusion then shifted to panic when the boy’s figure truly was gone from her sight.
“Mono!” She went after him. All the soreness, the motion sickness she felt was as if gone, fear driving her to stand rather abruptly and chase after her friend.
She didn’t think twice like she’d usually do, merely running in the same direction as he did, but the fog was so thick that all she could see was white. Nearly everything was.
It didn't take long for her to get lost in the middle, the white smoke soon surrounding her in a circle as though she was inside the eye of the tornado.
Six huffed out a breath and halted her steps.
Now in silence, she perked her ear as that was all she could do, but her mind raced with questions nonetheless. And these questions were thought of with an irritated girl’s mind.
Just what the hell was going on with him? He just up and left her on her own without so much of a word! Not to mention, in a place none of them knew the dangers of!
In a matter of sense, it didn’t make any sense. They’d just escaped from being slaughtered by those Tenants. They’d held hands. They’d formed a new trust together.
So, why would he leave her after all of that?
All of a sudden, her heart weighed with a bad feeling.
Unless…
Could the television have done something to—
Another snap of a twig sounded to her left.
She didn’t finish her thought and headed straight towards the sound, not caring if her wounded foot was throbbing terribly or if her hair was free from her hood. Because she had never—so much in her life—wanted to know what was going on.
The fog began to thin eventually, and the sight before her became much better than before, the mist clearing out and revealing the view.
A lake stretched as far as she could see, going beyond the fog, long grasses and weeds protruding out from its blue water. The water waved calmly, the breeze almost giving her the sense of serenity if it weren’t for her concern of her friend’s strange behavior.
In the center of it was a small dock above the lake, but not far enough for it to reach the mist all around, making the view just as tranquil as the scenery.
Then, she saw him.
Mono was seen sitting at the edge of the dock, and he sat there eerily still, staring out into the lake with his back facing her.
Six took in a shaky breath, and approached the dock—approached him. Yet relief didn’t come close to her. Because even the loud creaks produced under her foot, Mono stayed silent.
He stayed unmoving like he was frozen in a block of ice.
It unnerved her to the point where she couldn’t come close to him anymore; she didn’t dare another step.
She only made it to stand a few feet behind him, and that was all.
The wind blew through her hair and his, yet Six couldn’t care less of the cold that was entrapping her now, only letting out trembling breaths as the silence dragged on.
All until the boy in front of her sighed and finally spoke up.
“You shouldn’t have followed me here, you know…”
Six frowned, hearing his voice so…unnaturally calm.
“You left me,” she said, and swallowed the lump inside her throat. “Why?”
A chuckle came from him then. Six’s frown grew.
“Were you scared? Were you scared of me leaving you behind?” he asked and chuckled once more, his tone sickly amused. “I bet you were.”
“You’re not answering my question.”
He went still again. Although this time, her gut told her something was off. Even if Six couldn't see his face, she could still tell. She could sense how it felt wrong.
Another sigh left him.
“Do you know what I like about the Wilderness?”
Six didn’t answer and kept her silence.
Mono continued, “There aren’t many televisions laying around. Not much of the Transmission to tune to. No whispers calling my name. It’s why I even left the city, you know.”
“The hell are you on about?” Six spat out, having had enough.
Why was he acting so weird like this?
Mono then lowered his head, and watched the water below him wave gradually, his feet swaying, touching its surface.
“Were we friends?”
Six almost took a step back, her heart quickly pounding in her chest by that simple question.
“What…?” was all she replied, disbelief mixing with her annoyance.
“Were we ever friends, Six?”
“I don’t…” She stopped herself, still at loss for words, her brain barely processing it all. What was the point in all of this? Why ask these strange questions? Six took a moment to regain herself, and shook her head. She breathed in heavily. “Yes,” she eventually said.
“Are we friends now?”
Her breath hitched once more, but she forced out an answer despite her annoyance growing at the back of her throat.
This was getting ridiculous.
“Yes,” she said, and finally found the courage to close their distance. “Now can you stop with the—” Just as her hand touched his shoulder, his cold palm slammed on top of hers, grabbing her as if her touch was hostile—as if she was an enemy.
Six flinched.
Ever-so-slowly, she felt his hand squeeze hers, each second becoming tighter and tighter that she was sure her fingers would break.
“He knows,” Mono said.
What?
His grip hardened on her hand.
Six winced.
Alas, shock took control of her better than her self defense reaction, because in her head she still told herself:
This was only Mono.
This was the boy who she had just learned to understand as he did with her.
This was someone she recently had shared laughs and playful punches with because of a certain Nome.
Someone she had just…patched things up with.
“M-Mono…” Her voice trembled.
Six pulled her hand away, but only for Mono to grab her wrist next.
And finally, she saw his face.
She saw the sinister smile long adorned on his lips.
She saw his eyes. How fear clung to her heart when those empty sockets for eyes stared back into hers.
And Six froze on the spot, the squeezing pain on her wrist being the last thing she felt worried about as his demeanor changed.
Yet it told her enough to send shivers down her spine.
“He knows, Six!” His smile widened to his ears. “He already knows what you did! He knows your dirty little secret!”
Her heart stopped, and her body filled with dread. Finally, she unfroze, despite fear clouding her most of her senses.
“Get— get off me!” she yelled and pushed him with her other hand.
Mono—no, not Mono, lost his hold on her wrist and fell back. At the release, Six took the chance and ran away from the boy, stumbling to stand on her trembling feet, her breathing heavy as she left him behind.
The boy’s laugh, however, rang from behind her all the while. In hysteria, he shouted to her again and again:
“He already knows!”
“He knows what you’ve done!”
“He knows that you’re still a liar!”
“He knows that you've lied to him again!”
Six did not look back.
Despite the fog obscuring her way, she merely ran through it. She didn’t care whether she’d get lost, she didn’t care if she might run into an adult or a tree on her way.
All she wanted to do was to get away from him.
As far as possible.
Luckily, he didn’t chase her through it all. Six didn’t know what she’d do if he did, but even so, his shout never ceased. The same words he yelled out still echoed to her, his voice all but broken from shouting non-stop. She shuddered.
What was going on?
What was happening?
Why was this happening to her?
The ground beneath her suddenly turned slippery.
Six yelped and immediately fell forward into the big puddle of mud, some of it splattering onto her cheeks and more painting the front of her yellow raincoat.
Her chin throbbed when it hit the rough ground, the wound on her foot doubling in pain.
She ignored it for now, and instead made her way to stand up, the voice in the back of her mind scolding her, saying that she couldn’t stop now. That she had to run.
Run no matter what.
But something held her down, preventing her from sitting up from the mud, an invisible force pulling her further towards the dirty puddle the more she resisted.
A cry left her when her cheek slammed back into the mud, her whole body as though glued to the ground—as though it was magnetized to something below.
Again she asked herself as she laid down in this dirt.
What the hell was going on?
What was happening?
The mud around her bubbled all of a sudden.
And she started to sink.
Quickly, Six held in her breath and let herself be swallowed by the mud. She had to be ready to swim out of the puddle the moment she’d start to drown. She knew it better by now.
Yet the mud did not wet her face as she had expected; it did not drench her hair with its brown liquid, it did not stuff her nose and block her airway.
Instead, the ground turned soft and penetrable.
Because the second she sank on her front, she found herself lying on her back the next. And the ground, the mud and grass was nothing else but a hard wooden surface.
It was as if everything had flipped upside down.
Like it was all just an upside down world all along.
Six released her held breath, and opened her eyes.
Gone was all the white fog. Gone were the trees that had loomed above her, the sound of those caws of crows.
Everything was replaced with a familiar room; purple-red for walls, and the ground made of wooden floorboards. There were mannequins positioned in the dark corners, and on the shelves were little glass dolls arranged in an orderly fashion up against the walls.
She knew it the second she saw it. She lived here, woke up to this same room for months after months.
This was the Lady’s Quarters.
Her forehead wrinkled, and her mouth gaped slightly.
Seconds ago, she was in the Wilderness, with the trees, the dirt, the lake and the white fog and whatnot. And then after those same exact seconds, everything shifted into… this.
Into her room; into The Maw.
Six sat up on the wooden floor—wait, no. Where she sat now wasn’t a floor whatsoever. It was ostensible to her at first notice that she was on a higher ground.
Or to be exact, she was on a certain vanity table.
She let out a gasp, quickly backing away from the edge, reality fully dawning on her. But as she crawled backwards, she had entirely forgotten the vanity’s biggest item.
She had forgotten what was behind her.
Soon as her back hit a hard surface, Six instantly turned around, her eyes widening all the more.
Only now she remembered the oval-shaped mirror. The same one that had its glass cracked terribly in its center, distorting any reflection it may hold.
However, something was different.
There was no crack in the center of its glass. The mirror looked almost brand new. Perfect and undamaged.
Just like her reflection now.
Except…
Her reflection wasn’t her .
The mirror did not show the yellow raincoat girl that stood in front of it as it showed nothing of a little girl.
Her fear and disbelief returned tenfold as Six stared back at the woman she had killed months ago.
The Lady of The Maw.
The woman sat right before the vanity, looking nowhere else but her.
This time, however, her face wasn’t hidden beneath any mask she’d usually wear. Her long black hair was loose from her neat bun, some of the strands covering her pale face. She still wore the same kimono she had on before she died—or at least, the same one she wore while she died.
Frankly, nothing else seemed to be different since the last time Six saw the Geisha.
Nevertheless, there was still one question that bothered her. Even as the woman’s dark brown eyes pierced into hers, Six couldn’t hold back her confusion.
Why was she seeing a dead person?
Six raised a hand to her side, and the woman followed.
She turned her head sideways, and again, the woman followed.
Every slow movement Six made, the Lady seemed to mimic it perfectly. Even her facial expressions were mimicked down to precision.
Was this…really her reflection?
Out of curiosity, Six reached out towards the mirror. The Lady did the same. Six’s fingers touched the cold surface first, her touch lingering for a few seconds before she flattened her hand against the cold glass, their palms meeting. Although, one was definitely bigger than the other—far bigger.
Huh .
This was…strange.
Eerily odd.
Unsettling.
Suspicious.
Dangerous.
Six furrowed her brows, looking at their joined hands.
What was she doing? This wasn’t right. This room didn’t feel right the moment she landed here, and this mirror…
Something wasn't right with this mirror.
Every cell in her body screamed how everything felt really, really wrong.
The woman smiled.
This wasn’t her reflection.
Six immediately tore her hand away from the glass.
But alas, the Lady was faster this time.
Her long, bony fingers went through the mirror with ease, and the woman grabbed her hand then pulled her in, taking away Six’s chance of recoiling from the mirror in a matter of milliseconds.
Six widened her eyes in horror and screamed.
But like the mud, the mirror was akin to water as she went through. And the hand that seized her released soon after she landed on the ground, pain spreading to her knees and hands then.
Though, she didn’t see any woman in the kimono in front of her.
The Lady, her fake reflection wasn’t there waiting. The Geisha was nowhere to be seen.
In fact, there was no one.
Instead, it was a cold room, the walls and floors empty of any colors except for the dull gray cement. Even so, Six couldn’t tell much of this new place as all around her was nearly pitch black—it wasn’t new to her of course. The only light there was was the one that managed to seep through the gaps and the edges of the mirror behind her. Nonetheless, her vision was limited.
Where was she now?
Six cursed under her breath, her fear becoming all but anger at whatever was messing with her now.
Couldn’t this stop? She wanted it all to stop. She wanted to know where Mono was. She needed to know if he was okay, if he was doing better than she was. She wanted to see his face. Or really, any familiar face right now.
A sound rang in the distance.
Six sprung to her feet.
Somewhere in the darkness, there were chains clanking, scraping against the floor.
And then…someone breathing.
She heard them inhale and exhale heavy breaths, she heard them groan draggingly, she heard them whimper and sob.
And as her eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness, Six saw them move.
A huge and tall, albeit hunched figure, sat all crumpled up in the corner, their back slumped too forward where their head nearly touched the ground—their long hair already did.
Six remained in silence, trying to make out just who she was trapped in the same room with.
However, she clenched her fists and froze in place when a low hum reverberated from them, a broken and mangled voice singing a particular tune.
The same melody the Lady had once sang.
And nearly the same as Six’s own music box.
Her lips parted slightly to gasp, flabbergasted.
That’s…
The chains moved again, and the figure shifted on the floor.
Six hurriedly took her lighter out from her pocket. Although it’d been drenched prior, she couldn’t care less if the fuel was running out as she flicked it over and over again.
The fire glowed in front of her. She waited no longer to lift the lighter up above her head.
Soon as the light revealed the darkness, it revealed the figure.
It revealed the hunched girl who flinched soon as the light reached her eyes.
Viola.
She had a hand up to her eyes, and quickly snarled at Six, showing her disdain of the fire before crawling away from her, retracting into the dark.
Six drew back her lighter, but still kept it lit in her hand. After all, she needed the light to see, especially when Viola looked nothing like the last time she saw her.
For one, her height changed drastically. She no longer possessed the size of a normal child as she was ten times bigger than her. Her long knees were pulled to her chest, hands hugging her freakishly tall torso, most of her face hidden under that long black hair of hers.
Regardless, Six could still see it well from her view.
She saw the teeth protruding out from her cheeks—left and right, her lips unnaturally tugged wide that it seemed as though someone had stapled it that way. As if a mockery of a twisted smile but looked like an ugly sneer more than anything.
Viola’s only feature that remained unchanged though, were her eyes. But even so, it didn’t mean that they didn’t change at all.
It was the emotion behind those cold, resigned eyes of her that gave Six...a sense of déjà vu.
Something she knew was similar to what she’d felt before.
What did they do to you?
Viola pressed herself further against the corner wall, arms over her head as Six moved the light her way again, growls escaping her the longer she was exposed to the light.
Six didn’t flinch this time, because her blood already started to boil as hot as the fire in her hand at the sight of this poor, unfortunate girl.
All for it reminded her greatly of an awful memory. Because Six too had suffered the same way Viola was suffering right now, although she didn’t know if the latter was in worse pain since her limbs weren’t…bent in ways they shouldn’t. Still, with how stretched her body looked, it was clear she wasn’t fine.
Six took a step closer.
But that only seemed to have angered the younger girl.
Viola let out a broken cry and raised a fist high above, then bringing it down to strike.
Out of reflex, Six dodged the large hand by stepping aside, nearly tripping because of the hard blow Viola had created, the ground where she once stood already cracked beneath Viola’s fist.
After a beat, Viola retracted her stretched arms, and returned to hug herself, her body rocking back and forth as she then continued humming her song as if to soothe herself.
Six sharply released a breath.
Viola would’ve really killed her if Six hadn’t moved.
Wouldn’t that be ironic? Being murdered by someone who you were rescuing? Though to be fair, Six had done that to Mono, so she hadn’t much right to complain.
Six shifted back to the deformed girl, willing her light to her very slowly. Assuming that the light was what had provoked her, she needed to be careful—especially when she was up against someone who could flatten her with one hand.
With a steady pace, she softly called to her.
“Hey…”
Viola growled again, pushing herself away from Six and avoiding her altogether like a pouting child.
Six mentally sighed.
“Viola,” she whispered again and got closer, “do you remember who I am?”
Viola gave nothing in response.
Guess that’s a no.
Six continued her slow approach, putting her palm over the fire to block some of its light for Viola’s sake.
“How about the Maw then?” she asked. “Remember when I showed you around that place? Giving you all those tours?”
Again.
Nothing from her.
“Do you remember Mono?”
Viola sat upright.
An incoherent mumble came from her then, her head finally perking up and meeting Six, albeit hesitantly.
Nevertheless, the name was all it took to get the girl’s attention.
Of course, his name got her attention.
She could just roll her eyes if the circumstances had been different. But for now, Six pushed away the tiny jealousy and used this to her advantage.
Six took another step.
Viola flinched again, but not as hard as last time. Seemingly, she was getting used to her presence.
“So, Mono, huh?” Six said. “I'm assuming he's the last person you saw before you were…turned.”
The girl cocked her head, and slowly shifted to her as Six approached, the fire no longer an issue as it was seconds ago. Though, her eyes still narrowed when faced with the light, seemingly trying to adapt to it.
Just how long had she been staying in this darkness?
“D…da…d...” Viola whispered.
Instantly, Six stopped in place, surprised to hear the girl speak. She approached closer.
“What was that? What did you say?”
Viola tried to utter the same thing, but all her words were dragged and indistinct that it was almost impossible to catch. And the girl knew it too for her frustration rose at her failure to say anything, causing her to hit herself in the head repeatedly as if to punish herself.
“Hey!” Six raised her hands up, trying to calm her down.
Because if Viola threw a fit, Six might be at the receiving end.
Mono would have known what to do. If only he were actually here to help.
But Six didn’t even know where he was.
The chains scraped and clanked again against the floor, making Six turn to Viola's foot.
A steel shackle was seen closed around her ankle, the skin all around it red and scratched. The steel itself had scratch marks on it too, but still strong enough to keep its prisoner in its hold.
As for the chain connected to it, Six wasn't sure of its length or where its other end was. Though she knew it had to be somewhere unreachable, if not Viola would've broken the chain herself with her current form.
Viola went back to holding her head, crying softly in the end.
Six sighed heavily.
As long as the girl wasn't slamming her hands at her in rage, Six was fine by it.
Taking this as her cue, Six quietly came forward, moving closer to the girl's shackled ankle instead. Viola didn't seem to notice as she buried her face into her large hands and sobbed into it, her tears dripping down to the floor.
Good. Keep yourself distracted, Six mentally told Viola.
Once close enough to the shackle, Six knelt down and went to take the steel in her free hand, but her strength alone wasn't enough to even lift the chain up. And seeing the thickness of it, she realized this couldn't break even by a stone or the small fire she held.
However, there was one other way. One that would certainly guarantee a chance of success.
Damn it.
Six huffed out another sharp breath, and looked down to the chain, then to Viola's shackled ankle.
She could already imagine a certain shadow shaking its head for what she was about to do now. And if the shadow ever talked, she knew it would patronize her. She knew what it would say.
That this was a poor choice of a decision.
Foolish even.
Because why risk yourself when you know you were already at a high risk?
But perhaps that was exactly the reason.
She already knew her hunger would return sooner or later, so what was the point in just waiting for the inevitable? Sure, the pain would come sooner, but it was nothing she hadn't dealt with before.
I can't believe I'm doing this.
Despite the thought, she went through with the act.
Just to save the girl she hadn't even wanted to save if it weren't for Mono and his rescue plan—which ironically he wasn't here to finish.
Six raised her free hand above the shackle. She heaved out a breath, her eyes hardening and locking on the steel she was about to break.
Summoning the dark energy she'd stored, swirls of black mist began to dance above her palm, and it shifted and flew straight to the shackle, the dark magic soon enclosing around Viola's ankle.
The steel rattled.
Six forced out more of her dark energy, her hand starting to shake from exertion.
But it was worth the effort because the shackle began to rattle harder, the chain looser than before.
Then the metal cracked, and the chain snapped from the shackle, the steel around Viola's feet too breaking not long after.
A loud clunk was produced as the broken shackle dropped to the floor, ceasing Viola's cries as she instantly tore her hands away from her face.
Silence became apparent.
And Viola slowly moved her eyes towards the panting girl beside her.
Six sighed loudly before returning her stare with a proud grin of her own.
However, that grin left as fast as it came.
Because Viola's face showed nothing close to relief or happiness that Six had been expecting.
Instead, her eyes were narrowed, her tugged lips became a snarl, and her brows scrunched into a hostile look as she turned fully towards the yellow-hooded girl.
Then Viola let out a low growl.
What—?
The girl made an ear-piercing screech and attacked suddenly, sending Six flying a few feet back as she slammed her with the back of her hand.
Caught off guard, Six only took the hit, and fell onto her back with a grunt. Pain spreaded through her whole head as it throbbed at the hard impact, her body aching from the unexpected assault.
What the hell just happened?
Six propped on her side, and noticed how her lighter had slid far towards the glowing mirror.
A frown etched to her face.
Although, her gaze snapped back to her assailant as the girl made another crazed snarl.
At that moment, a very tiny part of her had admitted regret.
Because now free from her shackle, Viola slowly stalked towards Six. Her back was highly arched given her unnatural height, her long arms hanging loosely at her sides, her hands limp on the floor.
And slowly, Viola began to stand up.
Six gulped in dread, her eyes following the girl rising taller and taller. So tall that she looked like…
Him.
The tall, lanky man who had taken Six to the Signal Tower himself; the man who had given her a fate she couldn't ever forget.
If Viola's locket had told her any truth, then it was undeniable now that the man was her father, considering they shared so much in their appearances now.
But if that was really true, then what about Six's discovery at the daycare?
What of the white birthmark on Mono's arm? What about Viola's claim that—
A deep snarl ambushed her ears once more, making Six shrink back as the tall girl loomed over her.
Viola moved to strike again.
Six got up from the floor, and bolted to the glowing mirror, the ground shook behind her then, the cement breaking under Viola's fists.
Anger clouded the deformed child, another frustrated growl leaving her as her target ran away.
Immediately, Viola retracted her clenched fists, and instead opened it up to grab Six's frail body before she made her escape.
Six knew what Viola planned on doing of course. Regardless, she couldn't afford to get herself caught.
Dying was not an option, but killing Viola wasn't one either.
So, picking up her lighter as she ran, Six only forced her legs to go faster.
She could hear Viola hurling gibberish curses at her as she got closer and closer to the mirror.
She even felt her fingers touch the back of her hood at one point.
But Viola missed her by seconds as Six skipped her steps and jumped through the glowing mirror.
Sudden bright light evaded her vision when Six fell on the vanity table, the mirror rippling like water before it returned to its initial texture, reflecting what was in front of it like any normal mirror would.
Though she'd be mistaken if she thought it was all over—that she was ever safe.
Because after a few seconds more, the mirror swirled and rippled again.
Only this time, black hair peeked out first.
Ever so slightly, Viola was seen going through the mirror same as Six had, crawling her way out bit by bit with her gigantic form, her bony fingers clawing at the edge of the mirror and eventually pulling herself out of her dark, isolated prison as the chains that kept her tethered no longer intact.
At last, Viola was free.
And in those exact few seconds where Viola's head hovered above her, with her eyes glinting with a murderous intent, Six stared up at her and slowly felt the regret pool at the bottom of her stomach.
Maybe this wasn't supposed to happen. Maybe Viola wasn't supposed to be let out from the mirror.
Maybe there was even a reason why she had been shackled in the first place.
Notes:
After 27 chapters (yep that's right), I'm happy to say that Viola IS BACK IN TOWN BRUHHH
Though, she isn't exactly back, back just yet. But still, you get my point ;3
Also, shoutout to ApathyAo3. I just wanna say my thanks again for writing your gift fics for this story.
They're incredible man, thank you so much T U TBut anyway, if anyone's interested to see what happens if Six got sent back to the Maw instead, you can read the fic here. It's called Reign in Hell by ApathyAo3!
Thanks for reading!
Chapter 44: Black Cat, Yellow Mouse
Notes:
Here's me realizing halfway through the chapter that writing the Signal Tower's weird shiet is gonna be hard
(´ ͡༎ຶ ͜ʖ ͡༎ຶ `)👍
So anyway I hope you enjoy!
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
“Six!”
Mono ran in the darkness, panting heavily, and he stopped to shout her name with all the voice he carried.
Fear tugged at his heart, pulling him into a frenzied state the louder the silence was.
And still, not an answer from his friend.
“Six! Where are you?!”
Mono didn’t understand it.
How could she be separated from him this way? He swore he held her hand when they had warped through the television! He made sure his hold was strong enough so she couldn't release it. He even remembered, felt her own tightening around his palm.
So, losing grip from each other simply didn't make sense.
He did not let her go.
And he knew, she didn't either.
Sudden bright light shone in front of him from above, the sound of its click echoing loud enough for him to halt before he were to enter the illuminated circle. Mono gritted his teeth at the sight in front of him.
The chair.
It sat there just like it had before he had bolted the other way. And now it was sitting before him again.
As if he had walked in circles.
As if this thing was following him.
Mono growled under his breath and recoiled from the light,
“Six!” he continued to shout, at the same time running as far as he could from the chair under the light.
But far wasn't possible in a place such as this.
Just as he made his distance, the click echoed again.
And the light he didn't want to touch lit above him.
Mono stumbled to stop himself, and he barely had his footing when the chair appeared in front of him again.
What?
He glanced behind him, seeing nothing but pitch black in his view now, and was more than convinced that escaping the circle of light would only bring him back to it.
Literally, it didn't make any sense.
Though suppose nothing made sense in The Signal Tower. Anything unmoving would move. Gravity would be practically non-existent for most of the items laid around. A small room would be deceptively bigger and endless to trap those in it.
Those the Eye want trapped.
“Six!” he screamed until his voice echoed all around him, making him shrink beside the leery chair at the feedback produced.
As much as fear shackled him like a chain, the feeling wasn't all reserved for him alone. No, it was for the fact that he didn't know of Six's whereabouts. He didn't know if she was okay. He didn't know if she was in danger, or chased by some monster bigger than her. He didn't know if she was even alive.
He truly hoped she still was. Although, not barely alive. Just…
Safe.
“Do you miss her already?”
Mono all but jumped.
Shivers ran up his arms, and he couldn't help but momentarily freeze in dread when the voices murmured inside his head, bittersweet yet sinister all the same.
He searched the darkness, hoping to find an eye—or even anything unusual—attached on the floor like a parasite that they were. Yet he spotted none to his chagrin, his fear dissolving into anger and determination.
Angry for his missing friend.
Determined to get her back.
“Where is she?”
The Eye laughed, and sighed in glee.
“My, my, in a hurry, aren't we little one? You had just come home! Wouldn't it be nice to make up for all the times we've lost? To take a break from all this running and shouting?”
“I know you took her,” he seethed. “I'm not sitting anywhere unless you tell me where she is.”
“Ah, that feisty little cannibal, you mean?” The Eye chuckled. “What a surprise to see you so determined to get her back, considering all the truths she's told you were simply lies.”
Cannibal? Lies?
Mono gulped hearing those words being whispered into his already vulnerable mind. But this was the Eye, he reminded himself.
This was the same monster who had kept Six deformed into a state where she wasn't recognizable as human.
The same monster who had killed Viola’s parents and then took her as captive in the Tower.
The same monster who had locked him in isolation for half a year ; and it would’ve been more than a decade if Viola hadn't helped him leave.
“I don't care. I don't care about any of it.”
“Oh, but we think you do! You care more than you show. You’ve temporarily assured yourself after she told you her ‘truth’, regardless you knew something was amiss. You knew you were in doubt. Because deep down you still doubt her, don’t you?”
Mono felt his chest tightened, his hands trembling ever-so-slightly as the shivers got worse.
“Tell. Me. Where my friend is,” he hissed despite losing some of his prior courage.
“But of course, we will!” The Eye exclaimed cheerfully, and paused. “ However…we must ask. Is she really worth your time, dear one?”
“What…?” Mono said, taken aback.
“Your ‘friend’ as you call her, wasn’t she the one who chose to abandon you for her own good? To leave you with the purpose of killing you? Even better, she truly even thought you were dead! She was quick to live her life in peace and forget her history with you as though you never existed! If you ask us, that doesn’t sound like something a friend would do...now is it?”
His brows scrunched. Mono clenched his hands into tighter fists.
“Six…Six has changed,” he said. But even his voice lacked the conviction in them as he hesitated. “Sh-she’s changed!”
“But has she truly?” The Eye asked. “Or do you only say that to yourself just so you'd have a friend again?”
Mono fell silent afterwards, his mind unable to form any response as his gaze slowly dropped to the floor, his eyes darkening.
“That’s…that’s not true…” He frowned deeper, and heaved a shaky breath. “I-I don’t…!”
“Oh, you poor, poor thing!” The Eye feigned pity, although he couldn’t tell if it was real or pretend. “She hasn’t even bothered to tell you the truth, has she?”
“Truth about what?!” he snapped.
In that second, Mono could feel the Eye’s smile spreading all at once until it split up their non-existent face, their invisible stares burning holes into him as they shared their mirth as one.
And their voices were etched with joy and satisfaction as Mono asked the best question there was.
“We’ll show you.”
The lights above him vanished.
Get up!
Six scolded herself when Viola hovered above her, most of the girl’s head already out of the mirror as she continued to drag along her monstrous form out.
Run! Her mind screamed at her. And for what seemed like forever, Six finally listened.
She moved from her place and made a leap down from the vanity without thinking as Viola’s long arms stretched to grab her. Once again, Six was lucky enough that Viola missed.
In return, Six landed badly on her knees, nearly twisting her ankle as she rushed herself to escape from Viola—who apparently was trying to kill her.
If Viola wasn’t already so mentally disheveled, Six would’ve called her ungrateful for this. Because who would kill someone who had just helped you?
Six internally cringed.
That was the wrong thing to say. Frankly, ironic even, considering she did the same to Mono.
An angry cry sounded from above. Six looked up.
Viola already had half her body out, her hands clawing the edge of the table desperately and in rage, knocking out all the glass bottles off the vanity and shattering them to tiny shards. Her remaining freakishly long limbs soon came out of the mirror, her legs then folded onto the table. The fury in her blacks eyes burned into Six, locking on her and her alone.
But hell if Six knew what her problem was.
Six forced herself up, and ignored the slight pain that spreaded throughout her wounded foot.
But if this cruel life ever taught her one thing: it was to run from monsters.
Even if it meant Viola was one of them now.
A crash came behind her when she made it to the door. One glance behind showed her enough that the vanity had tumbled on its side as Viola dragged herself from the mirror and onto the floor. And the deformed girl spared grunts before she too tried to be on her feet, albeit her balance was already off when she stood halfway.
Regardless, that didn’t deter whatever anger and goal Viola had for the running yellow figure.
Because Viola, even with her back hunching and her arms loose at her sides, made her chase.
Mannequins fell and crashed to the floor, Viola grabbing them carelessly to stabilize her all too swaying form, and she slowly began to speed up.
Heavy footsteps followed Six as she ran down the steps of the Lady’s Quarters. But Six had realized it long ago that this was not her room.
Lamps that lit around her were flickering like they never had before. The walls were all but tattered, the edges of its wallpaper no longer sticking properly like it used to as mold took over. Books were all over the floor, leaving the normally-full shelves empty. Decorations and frames that hung on the walls were tilted, the paintings of the Lady nothing but ruined as blood dripped down past the woman’s eyes.
Including all of the paintings of the Geisha.
And the blood seemingly began streaming the second she ran past these pictures.
Six furrowed her brows, but her attention was diverted immediately when she was reminded of the girl chasing a few feet behind.
Viola shoved a couch out of her way, sending it to flip upside down with the wrath she held. However, the girl's desperation to move faster only made her slower, the same desperation making Viola trip and losing her footing.
The ground shook. Six held her head as she nearly fell too.
Regardless, this was her advantage.
This was her chance to get away.
Viola yelled as Six got farther away and climbed up the stairs ahead. However, in just a few sloppy seconds, Viola was already back on her feet, charging after the little girl even if she had to crawl her way to her.
And the deformed child was quick to catch up on the steps as Six had just reached the top.
Viola's long arms pulled her own weak body up and up, her hands grasping firmly at each step of the stair.
Six cussed and jumped up to the door handle. Viola was coming right behind her and she knew it.
The door opened, and Six went in without a second to wait. Because a second later than this, Viola would’ve grabbed her tiny frame and who knows what else.
Viola snarled as she reached a hand towards the door, towards her.
But the door was slammed shut by Six just in time before Viola’s fingers could even touch the wood.
Her crazed scream rang on the other side.
Viola banged and banged on the door with sheer rage, her shrill scream painful enough to make Six wince, her ears capable of bleeding from it alone.
All until she couldn’t take it anymore.
With gritted teeth, Six left the door and bolted.
If this place was still some sort of copy of the Maw, then she had to get off this floor.
Leave Viola stranded without a way for her to follow at least.
The door swung open after a few seconds, and Viola fell forward on the carpeted ground.
Six caught a glimpse of her as she turned the corner, seeing Viola had moved, and was crawling straight away, seemingly having abandoned the idea of standing up as it only would slow her down.
However, Viola's realization was Six's horror.
Because Viola's speed-crawling was much faster compared to when the girl was chasing her with two feet .
Six dashed to turn corners, hoping she could lose Viola off her trail, but that only seemed to make Viola crawl faster, so fast that such hope was foolish to even think about.
Though, her dread dissipated as soon as she arrived at her escape; the elevator.
Finally.
The elevator shaft remained in place, its gate wide open to lift Six’s determination just enough to power through and sprint faster, despite her legs burning from this awful chase.
But truly, she wanted this to be over and done with. After all, she'd need to take a moment's breath soon.
Quickly, Six slid inside the shaft, and pulled herself up. She rushed to the buttons placed in the box on the elevator wall, hitting any button just so this lift would move.
Fortunately for her, the gate wasn’t too rusted to falter as it slid closed on its own in an instant.
But the few seconds the elevator spared, Viola slammed herself against the metal gate. Her mouth was wide open and revealed a set of jagged sharp teeth that Six knew wasn’t there before.
Viola screamed, rattling the gate in tantrum until the metal groaned and bent inwards from her yank.
Six watched with wide eyes, perturbed when Viola got more and more successful in breaking it apart in merely seconds. Six took a step back.
Silently, she prayed that the elevator would take her to the lower levels before the gate gave out.
But she should’ve known how her prayer was the starting point of where everything turned worse.
Because the elevator actually didn’t descend.
The walls around Six shook, causing her to fall on her rear.
Six yelped at the pain.
However, she was only given a second to recover when the elevator moved up.
“What…?” Perplexion colored her face.
Part of the reason was because she had pressed the lowest button.
While the other was because the Lady’s Quarter was the toppest floor in the Maw—above everything else.
So, why was she moving up? Or better yet, how could she even be moving up? As far as she knew, the elevator must've had its limitations—the said limit being the Quarters itself.
Six rose to her feet.
Alas, she only got half way when a sudden force enclosed her body.
Then her whole figure was yanked and thrown, something slamming her flat against the ceiling of the elevator.
“Argh!” She grunted painfully as her whole head—her whole body—had been turned upside down.
But what was strange was that she wasn’t falling back to the floor.
Or more precisely, she couldn’t fall back down, as though gravity had shifted on her entirely.
The elevator proceeded its shaky ascent—or perhaps, descent.
Slowly, Six propped herself up, eyeing the flickering light placed beside her, and watching how it was swaying, and hanging upwards instead.
Uneasiness settled in the pit of her stomach.
What was this—?
A huge crash sounded from above her, the elevator shaking terribly that Six had to hold on to a nearby wall. Her eyes instantly went up to the elevator floor.
A dent.
And a massive one at that.
The elevator shook again, albeit greater as this time the dent became far more noticeable, more inwards like someone had thrown a powerful punch. Six watched with tremor, the deafening thuds never ceasing.
All until the floor of the elevator finally broke.
And a fist rammed inside the shaft, creating a hole big enough to fit an entire adult’s hand.
The hand, however, retracted itself out, and she was forced to see the face that filled the opening. Chills ran down Six’s spine when they met each other’s eyes.
Viola flashed her canine teeth.
And her eyes were brimmed with bloodlust.
Never had ever Six expected to see that look on Viola of all people. She had never thought she would be capable of violence alone!
But perhaps, Six had been wrong to underestimate her capabilities, to underestimate her strength.
Unless the Tower had something to do with that, which Six was certain was the case.
Viola pushed an arm into the shaft, her hand scrambling, scratching to pull apart the edges of the hole as to make it bigger, big enough for her body to fit through.
The floor groaned above Six as Viola managed to tear some of the steel using her bare hands in a feral manner.
As Six felt her heart pound faster at the sight, she reached for the buttons behind her, slamming her hands onto them in desperation—as pointless as it was.
Then another piece of floor clanged.
Another part was torn apart.
But after a few seconds of waiting in her trepidation, Six finally dared a glance above, and was met with Viola’s head directly on top of her.
Hanging upside down, in the shaft now.
Ding!
Six dashed towards her opening, ducking her head from long limbs that tried to shove her.
Viola’s shrill cries echoed still as Six stepped out into the room.
Nevertheless, Six was caught off guard as her surroundings were still upside down, almost running into the dangling lights, and even running her shoulder into one by accident.
Above her, the ground was full of books placed atop each other like towers. Walls empty of any colors except for the growing mold. Wooden shelves were placed across from one another, creating narrow rows of aisle for one to walk through.
But luckily for her, Six wasn’t running there, thanks to whatever was holding her gravity up here.
However, as much as the ceiling lacking objects was an advantage, it instantly too became a drawback.
For it gave the deformed girl the perfect chance to openly snatch her.
Thuds reverberated from behind. Six made the mistake of looking back.
Viola was crawling her way out of the elevator, and she lunged after Six with a snarl.
Of course, Six shifted her attention back to her run.
That is until her leg got caught in one of the ceiling lights.
She fell forward in an instant, pain shooting up her front and elbows after the impact she withstood, her forehead wrinkling, her body aching and protesting when she tried to stand. Six went to wrap her hand around the light for support.
But alas, thin, slender fingers wrapped around her first.
She gasped and shrieked as Viola lifted her up as if she were a broken doll, her grip tightening around her torso the more she squirmed.
A choked whimper escaped Six’s throat, hearing a joint pop as the palm around her never loosened. And she was forced to meet face to face with Viola’s dysmorphic one.
From the girl’s skin nearly as white as snow, to the slanted eyes with her sclera filled with red veins, to the razor-sharp teeth protruding out of her gaunt cheeks; Six felt her blood freeze staring at her features, and her mind began to wander.
What exactly did the Tower do to deform her? To turn her into something so…horrific and act as a kill-machine?
Or rather…
What did Viola do to make the Tower turn her into this?
Viola’s lips then parted, her jaw widening along with her damaged cheeks. And with satisfaction on her face, she brought Six closer and closer…
Towards her opened mouth.
Six gasped as her eyes widened.
“Viola!” Six cried. “It’s me!”
But she should’ve known shouting would bring her nowhere. Shouting wasn’t going to help her escape the salivating mouth she was to be put in, because Viola ignored her no matter how loud she shouted, despite her eyes being on Six the whole time.
Her canines showed and her saliva dripped past her mouth as Six got closer to it.
However, Viola would be wrong to think Six would just let herself be eaten and accept it.
No.
She wouldn’t die in defeat.
She wasn’t going to die so easily.
So with no other choice, Six revealed her own teeth.
And sunk it down on Viola’s hand.
She bit down hard until she felt her bite penetrate and break the skin, until she felt the chunk of meat tearing slightly, until she tasted copper on her tongue.
Viola screeched with pain.
Instantly, Viola opened her closed palm to clutch her own wrist, groaning as she inspected the small wound on her finger, slight blood seeping through around the bite mark. Anger clouded the girl once more as she wore an ugly scowl.
However, being in her brief distraction immediately became her own mistake. While Viola had been distracted, she failed to notice how Six had already pointed a hand above her from the ground.
And by the time she did turn away from her small injury, the black mist dancing below Six’s palm intensified.
“Sorry for this.”
Six recoiled her hand.
Viola only spared a look up before one of the shelves were brought down and collapsed on top of her, the furniture ultimately breaking into two, burying her like rubbles under the pieces that’d been broken along with the heavy books the shelves carried.
Wood dust covered the air, splinters all around the damage done.
Six panted and got up.
A smidgen of guilt poked her heart as she stared at one of Viola’s hands that was left out from the mess, seeing her finger twitch every few seconds. And she felt slight uneasiness settling in her bones when a thought occurred to her.
She didn’t…kill her, did she?
But as Viola stopped moving, that was when her fear worry really started to kick in.
“Viola…?” Six approached the debris slowly, walking towards Viola’s limp hand. Hesitation followed her for every step, yet it didn’t stop her from getting closer.
Because her mind kept on repeating: what if Viola truly died because of her? What if she actually killed her by mistake? How would Mono react if he knew that?
“Hey—”
Viola’s hand clawed at Six.
Out of reflex, Six jumped a few steps back, her heart hammering against her chest at the sudden movement.
Annoyed, albeit muffled groans sounded from Viola as her only hand began to feel the floor, and her arms stretched to its limit that it reminded Six of the Janitor.
But even that man wasn’t as determined as this.
That man never played possum just to trick her into coming closer.
Fear that she might get caught again, Six ran the other way and left Viola under the weight of the broken shelf. Despite the small relief in knowing she wasn’t dead, Six wasn’t keen on waiting around if— when—Viola freed herself once more.
She wasn’t looking forward to nearly being eaten again.
Six proceeded to the next room.
She could still hear Viola on the other side, no doubt trying to push the shelves that kept her trapped. Though, considering the girl’s strength and vehemence to kill her, Six had a feeling that it wouldn’t be long until Viola was back on her tail.
In that deformed state of hers, she didn’t doubt so.
Six stepped over the door header, and gave a quick glance over the room, her gaze up.
As a single light bulb hung in the center of her floor, she instantly recognized the place she found herself in. Darkness hid most of the walls around, leaving the limited light to illuminate the plain floorboards above. Suitcases were placed one after the other, making it stack high enough that it’d reach the ceiling. But in her case, everything was to be looked upside down.
Including the television that buzzed beside the suitcases.
This was where Mono and Viola were spat out.
This was where she first saw his face again and met a new one.
This was where all three of them met.
Her eyes went to the television.
Staying here with Viola whilst she was deformed wasn’t a survivable option. She didn’t know the girl enough to know what would break her mind free from the Signal Tower’s Transmission-spell. She didn’t know her enough to even get her to calm down. And repetitively knocking shelves on top of her certainly wasn’t the way to do it.
She needed Mono’s help.
He knew Viola longer. He knew her enough to be able to hold her secrets. Even by saying his name got a reaction out of Viola.
So if anyone knew how to help her…
It’d be him.
He must have at least some idea to help.
But to do that, she’d have to find the boy first. Bring him to Viola and hopefully then, by the time she came back, the girl would still be stuck under those shelves.
Hopefully. But even that was a big 'if'.
Six then shifted to the stacked suitcases, seeing it as her only ladder up to the upside down television. And she realized something as she climbed the suitcases until the end.
Her lips drew a frown as she touched the screen.
To her knowledge, the televisions always seemed to be connected to Mono as he was connected to them.
However, in her zeal, Six forgot that she wasn’t.
She couldn’t go through the television the same way Mono and Viola could. The screen didn’t melt under her palm. Instead, it stayed hard and warm just as a glass should. Six knocked it with her fist in chagrin, scoffing when the static prolonged.
“How does he do it?” she grumbled, a scowl to her brows. She continued to knock at the screen.
Again, that did nothing.
The TV only buzzed static.
Her annoyance immediately shifted to frustration then as she balanced her grip on the suitcase.
But everything in her stopped when footsteps came below, the low growl and heavy pants being enough to give her the hint of who that person was.
And that person wasn't all just angered.
Her hair was disheveled and had splinters in them, her black coat slightly torn from the broken shelves, her face dirtied with new bruises and dust.
A glare was etched to her face, her teeth baring and snarling at her.
Viola then began to stomp her way to the stacked suitcases, her eyes burning with fury as she locked her stare on the yellow-hooded child.
Six gulped.
Where this was going, Six knew it’d end badly for her if she merely stayed clutched at the top.
So, turning herself back to the static screen, Six continued to hit its glass. She cursed louder when she felt the suitcases wobble, becoming more and more unstable if it weren’t for Viola who decided to climb it too.
Six stifled a shriek behind her throat as her hold on the suitcase nearly was lost.
The suitcase ladder shook again.
Viola was below her, growling like an animal.
Six clenched her jaw.
Truly, why couldn’t she have a break?
In a fit of desperation, Six jumped and latched herself onto the television, and kicked the suitcases away, letting the stacks crumble and fall along with the monster that was still in the middle of it.
Viola scrambled to climb faster to the top, but her effort went down the drain as the makeshift ladder collapsed entirely in just seconds.
The girl fell on her back with a pained yelp, suitcases scattered on top of her and around. And her deadly scowl intensified along with her anger as she looked up to Six who was dangling safely above.
As close as that had been, Six couldn’t help but hold in her breath as she hugged the edges of the television for her life.
She couldn’t help but feel a certain tightness contracting in her abdomen. But in the midst of danger, she dismissed the feeling as a mere sense of disquietude.
Though, it wasn’t that.
It wasn’t shock or anxiety that made her feel such things.
It wasn’t her emotions at all.
For it was her stomach that grumbled at the worst time.
Six huffed out a choked breath, letting out a silent gasp as she felt her abdomen growl, searing pain stabbing her inside and out that it made her body shiver.
That it made her hands weak.
Everything in her, weak.
Tears began to sting her eyes as she felt her grip loosen, though at the same time still forcing herself to not let go despite the hunger.
But it was all…too much. The pain was too much.
Another grumble sounded.
She couldn’t hold on anymore.
Six closed her eyes and unintentionally released the television.
However, just as her palm brushed against the screen, the TV let out a deafening screech, the glass itself suddenly burning hotter than before as the static pierced her ears.
And the last thing she heard was Viola’s enraged scream accompanying it before she was pulled into the white light.
Her body thudded against the hard floor.
But that pain of being thrown was overlooked as the one in her stomach never ceased.
Six laid there on the ground, curling up in pain still as she whimpered in this cold, cold place. She didn’t know where she was. She almost couldn’t care.
Her eyes were still squeezed close, tears already falling past her cheeks as another growl of her belly came.
And the pain just kept on getting worse. The hunger made her worse.
Six gasped out a trembling breath, and took in another one. She did it again. And then again. And again.
Yet…
It didn’t help her.
Breathing wasn’t helping.
Pressing her hands deep into her abdomen wasn’t helping.
She did all the things that would normally lessen the hunger pangs, but none of them worked.
Nothing was making it stop.
Her stomach growled again, as though mocking her in her predicament.
Six only laid on her front, curling up even more.
She cocked her head ever-so-slowly, never feeling it so heavy to lift off the ground before. Unable to handle the pain and the irritatingly noisy buzz of the television at the same time, she began to drag herself away as best as she could.
Yet she couldn’t move any more forward as an obstacle stood in the way.
That being a pair of bare feet standing right in front of her.
Notes:
So...any guess?
Lolz
Thanks for reading!
Chapter 45: Well, Isn't She a Liar?
Notes:
Alright I saw some fanarts and got some inspiration for this one bshfsdahsagd
So anyway, here's a dialogue heavy chapter. I ain't even kidding :)
Enjoy!
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
It was silent when the darkness had engulfed him.
The only sound he heard was his own heavy breathing as he waited in the dark, not knowing if he was even standing or sitting down.
But this silence only made his thoughts speak louder. Each second spent in the unknown pitch black, his anxiety went up the roof, the little voice inside his head shouting and banging the walls of his skull, pushing the ever-present dread further into his brain.
He was scared, of course.
The lack of knowledge of what the Eye had in store for him made it all the scarier because he had already seen the Eye instead of their mere whispers. He had seen them all—gigantic eyes bulging in their swollen mountain of fleshes, surrounding him in a circle as the walls had cramped closer and closer to him as though wanting to crush him to death.
He truly had thought he was going to die then as he’d shut his eyes and clamped his hands over his ears in a desperate move.
Yet they didn’t kill him back then.
They’d only locked him in a room where he couldn’t leave, and distorted his perception of time along with his motivation to escape.
Though, he did manage to escape in the end.
But now that he was back…
God knows what would happen to him this time.
The lights blinded him suddenly.
Mono flinched and slowly let his eyes adjust as they rapidly blink.
But once his sight returned, he was instantly met with one large television right in front of him, and numerous smaller ones lined up around the center of the wall. Each screen was active, static playing for most of them as the rest played different scenes.
Scenes that he would’ve looked longer into if he hadn’t suddenly looked down.
Mono stifled his own scream as he immediately jumped out of the chair he had been sitting on. He fell to the ground and backed away from it, fear present in his eyes as he finally began to give the room a panicked glance.
Though, this place…wasn’t that room, to his relief.
Even the chair wasn’t the same one as it wasn’t made of wood. Instead, it was a…turning chair that seemed rather comfortable to sit on with its soft cushions instead of a hard material. And seemingly, the furniture was accompanied with a proper desk that didn’t look like it would ever rot as its surface shone like brand new.
His gaze shifted back to the many televisions that took up the entire wall ahead, the screens shifting every few seconds. However, each one lacked the sounds of the usual whine and buzz.
He stared up at them as he slowly lifted himself off the cold ground.
What is this?
“Glad to see you’re already up.”
He all but jumped, his blood running cold at the familiar voice—No.
His own voice.
Mono turned around and froze immediately, his voice caught up in his throat as he stared into…
Himself.
His doppelganger.
The boy had the exact replica of his features; his face, his height, his skin color. However, he wore a proper gray suit instead of his signature trench coat, the boy’s feet not bare as his was, given black oxfords were worn in replacement. His hair was neatly combed to the side and looked clean, just like the rest of his appearance compared to Mono’s attire stinking permanently of dirt and mud.
Regardless of the boy’s tidy look, there was something that bothered Mono the second they met.
The boy’s eyes.
They weren’t…
Normal.
His sclera wasn’t like his or, perhaps, like any other humans’ as it was filled with blackness and static, and a glow of white dot as his pupil. At least that was what Mono could make of it as he watched the white dots move up and down, assessing him. Mono’s uneasiness became more than visible.
The boy flashed him a crooked smile.
“What? Never seen someone in a suit before?”
Mono took a wary step back, brows furrowing the longer he stared into his own face.
It was uncanny.
“Wh-who are you?”
The boy snickered and playfully rolled his eyes. “Wow. Out of all the questions you could ask, that’s your first one? Seriously Mono, I didn’t think this could be any more obvious.” He gestured to his own face.
But the Doppelganger sighed when he made no move to reply—or basically, any movement at all.
“I’m you, smarty. Except just, you know...less muddied and drenched?”
The boy walked past him in such a nonchalant manner like this was an everyday occurrence. He casually took a seat on the chair Mono had got off, the chair creaking slightly under him as he then put his feet up on the desk and leaned comfortably on the backrest as he sighed.
Mono once more only stared at his doppelganger, unable to believe what he was seeing.
But the boy realized his stare too after a while, craning his head to look behind.
“What?” the Doppelganger boldly said.
Instantly, Mono broke himself out of his freezing state and dared himself to speak.
After all, he still had questions that needed answers.
“You…where’s the Eye ?” Mono demanded, and warily approached the desk.
“The Eye? Why in the world would you want to know where they are? Thought they scared the crap out of you or something,” he taunted.
Mono exhaled sharply, feeling slight annoyance rising in him. Wait, would that mean he was annoyed at himself?
Regardless, if this was indeed himself, then perhaps whatever this creature was would share the same behavior as him. Well, more like imitate his behavior.
For all he knew, this boy could be the Eye themselves. No, this boy had to be related to the Eye in some way.
“Just tell me where the Eye is,” Mono said. “I need to see them, so that I could find—”
The creak of the chair rudely interrupted his speech, the Doppelganger leaning further back on purpose to make the sound.
“Yeah, that’s not happening, bud.”
“What?”
Another creak.
“You are now under my care. Which means, I’m sort of like your guide right now. Fun!”
“Woah, wait— what do you mean under your care? Where exactly am I?”
The Doppelganger sat upright and turned the chair to face him, his face suddenly lit up for some reason.
Mono didn’t like that.
“Why, you’re in the Management room!” the boy exclaimed, his hands raised in excitement. “This is, as I like to say, where the magic happens. Actually, wait, that’s technically not true. This is where we watch the magic happen. They’ve got a lot of stuff going on on the screens here, as you can see.” He gestured to the lined televisions.
Mono watched the videos playing, his eyes darting almost to all of them, mostly showing scenes of Pale City.
One had a video of a Viewer slamming her head against the wall in a crazed state, her temple long smashed and bloodied as it was done repeatedly; and who knows for how long.
Another screen showed the empty streets, lamp posts flickering and the rainwater flowing down the drain. But then suddenly came another deranged Viewer, running in circles as he let out a muted scream, all the while clawing at his own distorted face.
Mono almost looked away. Although, before he did, his eyes landed on the lowest screen. It showed an all too familiar gate.
The Signal Tower’s front gate.
Curious. Part of him wondered if he’d been watched when he had stood there at the very entrance back then—
“You done?”
Startled, Mono hadn’t even realized that his Doppelganger was already standing beside him. He hadn’t even heard him move!
“What is all this?” Mono asked.
The Doppelganger casually propped his elbow on his shoulder, acting as though they’ve known each other for years. But really, it only told Mono that this guy seriously had no sense of personal space whatsoever.
But then, would that also mean he hadn’t any sense of personal space too?
Mono frowned. Guess I know why Six is always annoyed with me.
“What you’re looking at right now are the things that are happening right at this very second. It’s like a surveillance camera, basically. We keep tabs on everyone, and everywhere in case there happens any…mishap. Gotta keep a close eye on those kinds of things, you know.”
Mono stared up at the screens carefully, soon realizing something strange about all of the different videos playing.
“This is only Pale City,” Mono muttered.
“Pardon?”
“You said that you keep tabs on everyone and everywhere. But this is only Pale City. This isn’t everyone.”
The Doppelganger chuckled and proudly patted his shoulder, his smile widening.
“So, you’ve noticed.”
He left Mono’s side and made his way back to the table, leaning himself against it as his arms were folded.
“Here’s the deal, Mono. We actually had the footage of other places other than the city itself. Though, given the unfortunate circumstances, the Transmission…isn’t as strong anymore to reach as far as it used to. Which is a real shame because that just means we can no longer guarantee the safety of others outside of our watch.”
Mono scoffed instantly.
“Safety? You call corrupting everybody with your deadly signal, is for safety ?”
“That is not how I’d put it, but sure, why not make you happy?” The Doppelganger chuckled, to Mono’s chagrin. How could he treat this as a joke? “Though, I wouldn’t say the Transmission is a bad, bad thing like you did. If you see it in a different way, it’s more like a, um, protection,” the Doppelganger added.
“That’s crap, ” Mono snapped, his blood boiling. “The only thing the Transmission is protecting is the corrupted adults’ privilege to kill as many kids as they could on sight.”
“You see, now that’s where you’re wrong,” the boy said. “The Transmission doesn’t corrupt; it controls. If we hadn’t had a Broadcaster to broadcast the signal to others, the adults would’ve gone way more berserk than you see them now. Their violence streak would’ve gone higher than it already is. And by the permanent fear stuck on your face, I can tell you’ve already seen some of it, haven’t you?”
That made Mono lose his words, his scowl turning into a soft glare.
Now he wasn’t sure if any of what his doppelganger had said was even half the truth, but he feared it wasn’t a lie either.
“How do I know you’re not just making this up?”
“Because I don’t have to,” the Doppelganger replied, shrugging as he approached him. “Look, I’ve been working in management for almost a century now. I’ve seen what these grown ups are capable of. And over the years, I see them become less and less violent, no longer killing children as many as decades ago with the help of our signal keeping them in check. I mean, it’s a slow process, sure, but as long as it decreases the percentage of children’s death rate from all over the world—we call it a success. Although, these past few weeks the numbers suddenly went up again. Can you guess why?”
Mono turned to the bright screens, uneasiness heavy on his chest as his mind presented him an answer.
“The Transmission is weak…” he said softly.
“Bingo!” the boy exclaimed, and hooked his arm around Mono’s neck. Mono fought the urge to recoil. “The Transmission is weak right now. And without it, the adults are running free without control! Killing as many kids as they want, or whenever they want, torturing them for their own sick pleasures; that’s what happens when the Transmission dwindles. That is what happens when the signal isn’t broadcasted .”
Speechless was what became of Mono. He hated listening to this guy’s words, but he too hated how unbelievably convincing that sounded.
Could it be true? Had children suffered way more than they are suffering now?
“You can help them too, you know,” the boy said.
Mono turned his head slightly to the Doppelganger, seeing a soft smile on him. Though, whether the smile held any ill intent, he couldn’t be sure.
“What?”
“You can help those kids from going through any more sufferings. You can put their pain to an end. It can be done, Mono.”
“It…can?”
“Of course!” The Doppelganger assured. “But like I said, it’ll be a slow process. Even so, you’d have every child saved in the long run. Trust me on that.”
Mono's eyes lowered.
The thought of children being spared from their cruel fate, from starvation, pain and death, it seemed like wishful thinking more than anything. Because for one, he had seen someone die right before his eyes.
Like the way Emmet had died.
Like the boy's sister, Elizabeth who had died long before him.
Even he and Six had almost died countless times.
Seemingly, death was following anyone in this world all the time that no one was an exception. And he knew, most of the deaths happened because of those adults. Innocent lives were taken because of them.
However, if his doppelganger’s words held any bit of truth, if the signal truly was trying to help control the adults to become anything but murderous monsters…
Mono felt his face harden, his fists clenched at his side as determination filled his eyes.
“How do I help them?” he asked firmly.
The Doppelganger’s smile grew proudly.
“It’s really easy, buddy.” His arm around him tightened, as though hugging him. “All you have to do is work here with us. Become part of the Management, and you’re done! You’ll help every child in the world in no time!”
Mono nodded slowly and paused.
“Will I…be locked up, though?” He fiddled with his hands nervously.
“Locked up?” the Doppelganger snickered and patted his back. “Dude. You know you were never locked up in the first place, right?”
“What?” That has to be a lie. “I…I wasn’t?”
The boy laughed. “Of course not, you’re a valued member! You can just leave whenever you want!”
Mono furrowed his brows and turned to look around the room, seeing nothing but clear solid walls.
“But…there aren’t even any doors here,” he said.
“Well, duh, there aren’t any doors right now. You just have to think real hard and imagine it deep inside your mind first. And once you do, then—BAM! It’s going to be there alright.”
At that, Mono’s head spun to one of the empty walls, and he began to close his eyes, his mind concentrating hard on the image of a door.
However, his imagination was barely made as he felt cold fingers push at his cheek.
“Ah, ah, ah.” The boy turned Mono's head away from the wall. “I know I said you can leave whenever you want. But not just yet, smart guy. I still have something to show you.”
Scowling, Mono jerked away from the guy’s touch. His doppelganger grinned.
“Show me what ?” Mono hissed.
The other boy scoffed amusedly and fished a hand into his pants pocket, however, his eyes never really left him. He took out a black remote and pointed it to the screens.
“This.” He clicked a button.
The biggest screen in the center brightened.
Mono shielded his eyes away briefly as it switched on suddenly, but that was only for a moment as he put his hand down. And his eyes remained on the television and television alone as all else was nothing but a blur to him.
Colors of purple and dark blue filled the screen, stationary objects, toys, furniture were seen floating together as though underwater. The room itself was cluttered with piles of junk in each and every corner, making it seem smaller than it actually was. A mess was what he made of it at first.
However, nothing could mistake him for the huge yellow figure that sat miserably in the middle of the room.
Her limbs were all crooked and distorted in ways that would seem agonizing, her long black hair hanging off of her face in a state of disarray under that hood of hers. She held her head in her bony hands, her back shaking like she was crying.
No.
She was crying.
There was no mistake that this was Six.
Though, this image of her seemed all too familiar. This image of a deformed Six, it made his heart race in fear.
Mono snapped his head to his guide-person.
The Doppelganger was back to sitting on the turning chair, comfortably leaning back with his foot up on the table again. He shot him a knowing look, the corners of his lips tugging upwards when they met each other’s stare.
Mono took in a deep breath, his throat constricted with a lump.
“Is this…?”
“Live? Oh Eyes, no. That would just be cruel,” the Doppelganger said as he feigned a pout. “This is a recording from six months ago. From when she was actually like that.”
“Why are you showing me this?”
“Well, you asked for the truth earlier, didn’t you? Now, you’re getting one. So, watch closely until the recording ends.”
He reluctantly looked back to the video, seeing Six shift her crooked leg as she tilted her head in devastation.
Mono huffed.
“I don’t get it,” Mono said eventually when nothing happened. “What is the point of me watching this again? I’ve already seen her like that when I came there.”
“Yeah, but you’re missing the point, Mono.” He rested his head on his hand. “You came there not before it happened. Though, you arrived a little later after she made the deal.”
“The deal?” he asked. “ What deal?”
“Watch.”
Mono gritted his teeth and bit back a snarl despite his patience being almost gone. But seeing as his doppelganger’s smile widened eerily through his peripheral, Mono didn’t dare to ask any more questions lest something bad would happen to him.
The boy may seem friendly and all, but something about him screamed off.
Everything about this screams off, actually.
Nevertheless, he did as he was told and watched the TV screen once more.
Nothing changed aside from Six wiping her dysmorphic face, her limbs shifting every now and then.
Mono heaved a slow, shaky breath.
Was this a cruel joke—?
Six slammed her fists against the floor in sudden rage. Mono all but jumped, surprised regardless the video emitted no sound.
The deformed girl mutely snarled, punching the ground and her head as though she was having an argumentative conversation.
Apprehension pooled in his stomach.
“Wh-what’s going on?” He got closer to the TV automatically, not caring how the bright light was straining his eyes. “Why is she like that?”
His doppelganger chuckled. “Because, my friend, she is angered.”
“At…what?”
“Dunno.” He shrugged. “Could be at you; could be at the man that took her; or maybe even at herself—who knows. Either way, I don’t know which one for sure since, well, it doesn’t really concern me, to be honest.”
Mono shot him a glare.
Though in response, the boy gave him a playful wink instead, which only fueled Mono’s annoyance, of course.
Discreetly, Mono rolled his eyes as he looked ahead.
“Saw that,” the Doppelganger said.
Another side glare from Mono. But he directed his gaze back to the TV then, recognizing when he was on the verge to snap.
However, the screen displayed some change while he had diverted his attention to his doppelganger.
That being the huge music box, now playing as its crank handle spun on its own.
The same music box he…had destroyed to save Six.
He let out a silent gasp.
Six dragged herself across the room and hugged the said music box the second she was close enough. And she didn’t seem like she’d ever want to part with it. Which was the case when he had found her that very day.
Six had been protective over the item just like she was in the video.
“The Eye gifted it to her.” The other boy propped his elbows on the table, clasping his own face as that toothy smile came back.
Have I always looked this creepy when I smile that way? Mono thought the awful realization the more he stared at his doppelganger.
“The music box?”
“Yep,” he said naturally. “They thought she looked a little gloomy after the hours of crying she did, so it was only right that they do something to help her with her miserableness. Hence, the music box, which—correct me if I'm wrong—you came to destroy in the end and upset her, right?”
Mono didn’t answer. However, his silence only confirmed the Doppelganger’s question as his stare burned into the back of Mono’s head.
“Hah! So, you did then. You really got her pissed off over that? That's amazing.”
Mono clenched his jaw and snapped to him. “What does it still matter, anyway? She’s already told me everything about why she left. We’ve talked it out. I don’t see any reason why you have to bring it up to me again.”
“But let me just get this straight anyway. Six…told you she decided to betray you and drop you to your death just because you ruined…her stuff?”
“Like I said, we’ve talked it out.”
“And you believe her?”
“I do.” Mono sent him a scowl, folding his arms.
For once, the boy in the suit fell silent and seemingly speechless for once, the eerie smile he wore fading into a thin line as he held his stare at him for the longest time.
Nevertheless, however long it must’ve been, nothing could prepare Mono for the sudden, boisterous laugh that erupted from the boy.
A genuine laugh of mockery.
The Doppelganger wheezed, slamming a hand on the table as though it was that hilarious. His scowl faltered.
“Mono, Mono, Mono,” the boy said, after composing himself. “You can’t seriously tell me you bought what she said, right? I mean come on, that is a total lie right there!”
Mono frowned deeper, his chest feeling heavy all the sudden.
“No,” He shook his head, “she wasn’t faking it this time.”
“Um, she obviously was. That girl has been lying to you straight through her teeth ever since day one. She never left you because of that stupid music box, you know; she left you because she was a selfish coward!”
“Shut up,” Mono hissed. “I know what you’re trying to do.”
“Giving you the truth? I mean, you were one who wanted to know in the first place. I’m just here to help you with this, Mono.”
“By what, ruining my view of Six? Make me hate her?”
“Oh, no, I don’t have to. Trust me,” the Doppelganger said. “You’ll hate her yourself.”
“What’s that supposed to m—?”
“Ah-ah. Watch the screen.”
He held the urge to growl then and there.
But regardless of his irritation at the boy, the lingering impatience dissolved quickly when a white orb danced above Six, the moving ball floating down to her. Its white flare moved like fire, circling in on itself.
The orb stopped.
Six stared at the glowing sphere longingly, although as Mono was watching through a screen, he couldn’t really tell or read her face well. He couldn’t quite see through the television’s slight blur.
But it was clear nonetheless that Six was raising her hand up toward the orb.
Ever-so-slowly, the deformed girl reached her hand closer and closer to it, not fearing if it could give her a burn or do her harm at all.
She let the sphere fly above her palm for a moment, and for a moment, the girl too seemed mesmerized by its glow, staring at it as though it was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen.
That was until the orb sank into her hand, making the skin around it glow brightly.
Panic overtook her but only a brief second as the white glow faded after a while.
And all that was left in her palm, was an Eye’s mark, red tracing around it as if it would draw blood.
Mono took a step back.
“Wh…what was that?” he gasped out, his eyes wide as he turned to the smiling boy.
“That—was her accepting a deal that had been offered. You know, the one I mentioned earlier?”
“I don’t understand. What kind of deal would she even take except for…”
Mono froze at the realization, his face almost as pale as his clone’s.
“You get it now, don't you?” the Doppelganger asked ‘sympathetically’. “Six has told you a lie. Again.”
“She wouldn’t.”
“Oh, she would. You’ve seen it yourself, Mono. Six made a deal in exchange for an easy life. She killed you in exchange for luxury. Why else did you think she left you the way she did?”
“Because I hurt her! I didn’t…I left her behind first. She told me—”
“ What she told you were lies. Heck, she was even exposed for the kind of person she is!” the eyeless boy interjected. “True as it may be that the Eye offered her a deal that entails ‘killing’ you for a better lifestyle for her, her actions were living proof itself. The deal was more of a test rather than a simple contract.”
“A test?”
“Now, from the start, we already knew she was showing signs of hatred after our last Broadcaster…deformed her. And we’ve watched how you were so determined to come and rescue her when you ran through the whole city even with an exhausted body. It was endearing, I’ll give you that. I’ve never seen someone so hell-bent on saving a girl the way you did.
“But…that was what we were concerned about.” The Doppelganger sighed as his eyes were lowered. “You were too determined. You were too…eager to save your friend. So much that the Eye had to make sure she was worth saving.”
Mono’s face faltered, his eyes twitching.
“S-so, you…tricked her, then?”
“Trick her?” the boy gasped dramatically. “We’d never! What she got was nothing but a fair deal! It was either: prove her friendship or throw it all away for her own benefit. And guess which one she picked?”
A choked breath escaped Mono as he felt his eyes sting ever-so-slightly, his stomach heavy with a pool of disbelief and that familiar feeling of betrayal churning inside. He dropped his gaze to the floor as his brows drew a frown, and the rest of his body as though dejected by few words of truth.
And it was a truth that he couldn’t deny even if he tried, not after what he’d seen on the television.
Not after it all made sense.
An arm wrapped around his shoulders again, hands patting him in a comforting manner. Mono didn’t need to raise his head to know it was his doppelganger doing so. He couldn’t care anymore that the guy appeared out of nowhere. His incredulity was far bigger than his need to be startled and annoyed as he was practically being hugged like a little kid.
Regardless, it felt…nice.
Relieving.
Soothing.
It felt like he wasn’t alone for once .
The Doppelganger rubbed his arm up and down, wearing a genuinely soft smile.
“I’m really sorry, Mono. Six is…was your close friend, wasn’t she?”
Mono did not answer. Instead, he let himself be comforted by the hush voice of the boy.
“Believe me, I know the feeling. Being betrayed and lied to by someone you care about; it sucks big time.”
“It…it does…” Mono muttered and took a breath. “It really does.”
The Doppelganger sighed through his nose, then pulled him closer in a side hug. “Hey, cheer up, bud. You know frowns don't look good on you.”
“I just…can’t believe I was so stupid to have trusted her again…”
The Doppelganger chuckled wryly.
“No, she’s the stupid one,” he said. “You’ve been such a great friend anyone could ever ask for! You were nothing but considerate, selfless, and caring; and she just doesn’t appreciate you as she should! She destroyed your friendship—it’s her loss. You don’t need that kind of person in your life. You don’t need her in your life.”
Mono lifted his gaze to the boy beside him, and hardened his eyes despite the tears gradually building up in them.
“I don’t, do I?”
“Not. At all.”
The Doppelganger left his side and approached the clear wall. With a wave of his hand, the bricks began to move and reposition themselves, all until it revealed a black wooden door hidden underneath. Its knob and hinges were painted in gold, an intricate eye symbol decorating the center of the knob as if a reminder of where they were.
Mono only watched, too stunned to speak until the bricks finally stopped rearranging itself.
The boy in the suit turned to him then, his hands stuffed inside his pockets.
“So, what do you want to do now, Mono? Now that there’s a door in front of you, do you still want to find her?”
Mono paused as he eyed the exit, but the longer he stared, the darker his eyes became.
And his whole demeanor shifted, no longer desperate or concerned for the girl’s whereabouts as he slowly displayed nothing but his old-self’s anger and hatred for her.
Mono walked to stand beside the boy, and nodded with a bitter look etched to him. A bitter look that seemed to be reserved for his betrayer and his betrayer only now that he was reminded of what she truly was. A friend wasn’t one of them, unfortunately.
The Doppelganger smiled joyfully at that.
“Looks like we have an old friend to catch up with.”
Notes:
With that, I present you a new OC villain...
The Doppelganger!
Well, he's basically one of the Eye's illusions or something, but I made him into a new character anyway cause why not lol. Plus, I've always wanted to write evil Mono, so figured here's my chance ;)
Thanks for reading!
Chapter 46: Your Time Is Up, Six
Chapter Text
Everything was going so well.
The Doppelganger could barely restrain himself from smiling ear to ear, and there was a spring in his every step as he led the Broadcaster to his friend.
Yes. ‘Friend’.
He laughed silently, but his empty eyes showed all the mirth his body had hidden. It was all he could do, at least. Wouldn’t be very smart of him to laugh in front of the Broadcaster when he had just earned his fragile trust.
And my, my, was he easy to manipulate.
A few words about the deal and he ate it right up! Seemed like the Broadcaster must’ve already been doubting his friend all along, given the look on his face now displayed nothing but bitterness and anger. Like really, really pissed off.
This should be exciting. Oh, just wait until he actually meets her later!
Well…at least, the Broadcaster wouldn’t ever need to anymore after this.
The Eye’s plan was as specific as it was simple:
- Coax the Broadcaster into the ‘Management’.
- Reveal the truth behind the Geisha’s deal.
- Get rid of the Geisha after the reunion.
Hmm.
So far the first and second had been checked off the list.
Again, easy peasy. Barely took him any effort.
Although, the third one… might be a little easier said than done.
The Doppelganger was certain that whatever ‘friendship’ the Broadcaster and the Geisha managed to rebuild had been demolished by now. However, it might still upset the Broadcaster, nonetheless with the prospect of his old friend…
Dying.
Indeed, this was nearly as tricky as fixing the cycle which the only quick solution now was to remove the current Lady out of the picture.
After all, Geishas were replaceable.
The Broadcaster was not.
As long as the child named Six wasn’t there for the Broadcaster to fall in love and breed, the cycle would prevail.
The Eye had to prevail no matter the costs.
Darn. I really need a vacation after this.
Once again, the Doppelganger laughed mentally.
As if he could get a vacation. There was so much to do! So much to look over and watch 24/7! Things still could go wrong after all, like Viewers escaping the Transmission for example.
Well, the Eye was nothing if not generous in that matter!
The adults wanted out of the Transmission? Not a hassle. Their wish would be granted certainly. Of course, all that remained of them now were their clothes left flying in the streets and benches.
A true shame, but they asked for it, didn’t they?
All the more reason the signal needed to be broadcasted properly.
These adults were seriously running out of control, although in actuality they were regaining some of themselves. The nerve.
Had the Eye done nothing, the Nanny sure would’ve succeeded in preventing the Broadcaster from getting home. Had the Eye done nothing, the Tenants would have managed to kill him along with his ‘friend’ in the flooded room.
Then the Broadcaster’s death would’ve meant a tremendous loss for the Signal Tower, for the Eye.
By then, restoring the cycle back to its place would be hard! Not impossible, but undoubtedly difficult. Restarting everything without any preferable outcome would just seem like…a failure and a waste.
The Doppelganger scoffed.
This job sure is something.
He cleared his throat, realizing how the long silence might possibly give the Broadcaster the chance to rethink his anger towards the Geisha.
No, that simply wouldn’t do.
“So!” the Doppelganger started. Mono side-eyed him. “Are you nervous?” he asked.
“For?” His tone was as bitter as his face.
Perfect.
“Meeting Six, duh! I mean, what are you even going to say when you see her?”
A small huff left the Broadcaster. “That’s the thing. Am I actually seeing her, or her imitator?”
The Doppelganger gasped dramatically, putting a hand on his chest.
“Good Eyes, do you really think I’d pull an act that low? No way! I’ve got better things to do than waste my time on lying like that.”
Mono did not answer as he followed his guide politely, but his eyes were trained ahead the whole time.
The Doppelganger sighed.
“Hey look, I swear I’m not lying. But if you still don’t believe me, you can check Six’s hand yourself as proof when we get to her.” The Doppelganger came close to his ear. “The real Six would have a tiny mark on her left palm,” he whispered.
Mono all but tensed, seemingly trying hard to keep his eyes from twitching.
Because even he had seen the recording of Six beforehand. Mono had seen it himself of how she had taken the deal and the eye mark left imprinted on her hand after.
It was foolish to deny that truth.
“And if there isn’t?”
The Doppelganger smiled and shrugged.
“Then you’ll know she’s a fake.”
Mono fought the urge to shudder and cleared his throat instead.
“How far until we get to Six?” he asked.
“Oh, not far at all.”
Actually, it wasn’t even far to begin with. The Doppelganger merely loved taking his sweet time and let the yellow-raincoat girl suffer a little longer with that hunger pangs of her, according to what he’d been notified.
Besides, the Signal Tower corridors were a beautiful sight. Warm colors coated the atmosphere as they continued up the spiral stairs, each floor having multiple rows of closed doors that were unknown to outsiders—just as they were meant to be. Just as they should.
In fact, any of these doors could lead them to their destination with just a turn of the knob.
But again, that would just take away all the fun.
So why not enjoy a little and let the Broadcaster’s anger bloom in the meantime?
“By the way, you still haven’t answered my question, Mono. What are you going to say when you see Six?” the Doppelganger asked. His hands were behind his back and his pace slowed on purpose.
“I…honestly haven’t thought about it yet.” Mono averted his eyes to the ground and whispered sombrely, “I’m not even sure what to do in front of her anymore.”
“I see. Do you want my advice?”
Mono turned to his clone, his interest piqued.
“Try not to repeat what you did last time, bud. Arguing with her won’t change the fact that she’s lied to you again, so I don’t recommend you go into a yelling quarrel. It’s just not worth the energy, if you ask me.”
Or in other words: act calm and collected as a Broadcaster should. Though, that might not happen anyway.
“So, what do you suggest I do, then?”
“Oof—beats me. That’s the tricky part where you have to figure out yourself, Mono. I mean, at least if it were me…” The Doppelganger hummed.
Mono furrowed his brows, slightly irritated at his hanging sentence.
“What? What would you do?”
The Doppelganger flashed a grin.
Jackpot.
“I would simply just… end her.”
“What?” Mono gasped out, and froze.
The boy in the suit chuckled.
“That’s the only right thing to do, really. I mean, would you want a traitor like her to watch your back in dangerous circumstances, let alone trust?”
“No, but— that’s still not fair! Killing someone just isn’t!”
“Oh? And has she ever thought of being fair to you when she abandoned you? It doesn’t seem like she did when she accepted that deal.” the Doppelganger quipped. “You still remember, don’t you? Or do I need to show you the tape again?”
Mono hesitated for a reply, the struggling look on his face returning. Although, soon his bitterness joined suit as he crossed his arms and looked away with a scowl.
“I remember…”
The Doppelganger finally halted in front of a door, but he did not change his stare.
“Good. Don't forget it.”
It was enough dillydalying, he decided as he grasped the door handle and gave it a sharp pull.
He let the door swing open.
The inside revealed of the room that was no different than the one Mono had been to when he had come for his, that repulsive word: friend. And like all in the Signal Tower’s interior, there wasn't much gravity for the objects that were placed in the room as they floated in the air and up to the endless ceiling.
Purple drowned the whole area, purposely to bring anyone the calming effect and a sense of assurance that they were safe here.
Oh, but of course they’d be safe in the Signal Tower, especially under the Eye’s watchful gaze!
Nevertheless, regardless of the room’s similarities with the last one Mono had entered, there was one striking difference that could be noticed the moment they stepped in.
The television.
Such a famous item that was in these parts, he’d say.
Its screen glowed dimly as static had long taken over, its soft whine echoing all around them despite it being placed so far across the room.
However, the television wasn’t what they were here for.
What they were here for was to meet the yellow-hooded figure, who was now laying on the ground and curling up into a ball, her moans of pain loud enough to catch their attention.
The Doppelganger internally snorted at the sight.
Pathetic for an egotistical girl, he thought.
He turned to Mono.
The Broadcaster, on the other hand, did not share the mirth he had unfortunately, but neither did he display any sadness nor concern as his traitor of a friend writhed weakly on the floor. Although, the indifference expression he wore was enough to tell him that the Broadcaster had no intention to help her anymore.
My, my, this was exciting! He could practically feel the eyes inside of him blinking altogether in pure ecstasy!
Alas, he deflated slightly as he took notice of the black shadow that stood in the corner.
The Doppelganger narrowed his eyes, his white pupils glowing brighter with silent and faint threat.
The shadow did nothing else but glared back, unfazed as always like he was a nobody.
And frankly, he nearly dismissed it just as much as it dismissed him.
Yet it was when the shadow dared a glance at the Broadcaster did the Doppelganger take Mono by the shoulder, and earned his attention immediately.
The shadow seemed…a little different than the last time he’d seen it. He simply didn’t want to take any chances.
The Doppelganger patted Mono’s back and sent him a reassuring grin, although discreetly eyeing the shadow through his peripheral until he was certain it disappeared into the air.
Of course, his calm facade hid that fact from the Broadcaster.
“If you need any help, you can just holler. I’ll be right here when you do, okay?”
Mono paused before nodding firmly.
With a deep albeit shaky breath, Mono continued forward to Six. Undoubtedly, his hands were all trembling the closer he got to her. And the sight of her laying down like that wasn’t making it any better.
The reminder of what she did wasn’t making it any better.
Six whimpered, sobbing softly to herself when Mono reached her, although it didn’t seem like she noticed until she began to crawl forward.
Yet Six could only go so far until his own feet blocked her way.
She gasped and willed herself to look up to him, up to his hardened eyes that held little to no kindness except for bitter and ire.
“M-Mono…?” she all but whispered, though the strain in her voice indicated that she was still in pain.
Her stomach grumbled. Six curled in on herself immediately, grunting again as another pang of hunger struck her.
Mono did not show any pity, regardless.
Instead, he kept his frown and stared down at her, true to his word when he had said to the Doppelganger that he didn’t know what to do anymore.
The Doppelganger quietly tutted. The Broadcaster certainly needed help from his point of view.
But after what felt like forever in this heavy tension and silence, Mono finally did something and crouched down. The Doppelganger watched with curiosity all the while.
“Let me…Give me your hand,” Mono said.
Oh, his grin widened tenfold! The Broadcaster was listening to him!
Six barely faced him as she slowly propped herself up.
“What are you—?”
“I said give me your hand.”
Confusion colored Six’s expression, hardly processing his words.
Yet his patience ran out quicker than usual and immediately, her left hand was yanked out by him.
“W-wait!” she cried.
His grip was no better than any adult’s.
Six winced. Despite that she might have had worse than his strength, it was the harshness, the hostility of his hold that made her hesitant to fight back and recoil.
Because the very hand that he grabbed was the same one she had made sure to hide.
The one that indeed was scarred by the deal as faded red lines were seen on the center of her palm.
An eye’s mark.
Just like the Doppelganger said where it’d be.
Instantly, his face became all the more sour.
And his hand tightened on purpose until he heard her wince again.
“You lied to me,” he hissed. “You stupid traitor.” He shoved her hand off his grasp and backed away, not caring the hurt look on her.
“M-Mono, you”—Her breath trembled—“y-you don’t understand. It wasn’t…m-my fault. I never—”
“Never what, hm? Wanted to kill me? Betray me? Because that’s what you said last time, Six. You ran out of lies to throw at me, so you’re just recycling them now?”
“But it wasn’t a lie!”
“Then why did you take the deal?!”
Six fell into silence, her eyes puffy from the tears of pain that lingered in them.
“How did you know about that?” she muttered, some disbelief on her features.
“Now that’s on me, Six.”
The two shifted as the Doppelganger announced himself, his constant smile seeming wider and wider the second he and Six locked gaze. Frankly, he had to step in sooner or later lest the Broadcaster truly lost his composure.
It wouldn’t end well for anybody if that were to happen.
“I was informed that you haven’t told him the slightest bit of truth ever since you two were reunited, so I only showed him what really happened, is all. Although, I’ve got to say, I’m a little disappointed in you, Six. I should’ve expected nothing more coming from a liar like you.”
Six’s lips quivered, her eyes darting back and forth, somewhat looking more desperate and scared than surprised at their lookalike.
The Doppelganger scoffed in amusement.
He crouched in front of her, meeting her eye to eye despite the fear she displayed as he got closer. Yet she did not recoil. Or perhaps the hunger in her stomach was making it hard for her to react much.
“Hey, let me ask you something,” he whispered, his voice softer, kinder than the actual Mono who only glared daggers.
“Were we ever friends?”
Six froze in dread.
She knew she had heard that line before. She had heard it in the Wilderness, or rather, in one of the Signal Tower’s many illusions.
“It was you…” she mumbled.
The Doppelganger innocently smiled.
“Not exactly, but close. Though, it’s a shame you won’t ever find out about that.”
“What?”
He grabbed a fistful of her hair.
Six yelped weakly as she was forced up to her feet, her hands instantly clawing at the Doppelganger’s in an attempt to free herself. But it was futile, really. He was stronger than her, after all.
“You’re in big trouble, Six. Have you any idea what you’ve done?” the Doppelganger asked, his tone unwavering unlike everything about her.
Six looked at Mono for aid, yet the only help he gave her was his silence. He didn’t even flinch or lift a finger at all!
This is going so, so well!
“You’ve broken his trust twice and the Eye’s deal. Because if you think about it, you never successfully killed him, did you? Despite having the intention to?”
Tears gathered in the brink of her eyes. However, she then averted her eyes to Mono, as though still trying to get through to him, still wanting to convince him.
“I-I had no choice. I was—”
“Scared? I know. I watched it all back then,” the Doppelganger interjected and pulled her hair tighter. Six winced. “But I think fear wasn’t the only thing that made you accept the deal, right? No, no, there’s one more reason you’re not telling! Would you care to share that?”
The perturbation in her eyes worsened.
Hah! The Doppelganger could sense it even if he had been standing far away. So, seeing it up close like this was true entertainment he hadn’t had in a while.
“Mono…” Six whispered, and stared at her friend and him alone. “Please believe me.”
Mono did not respond, merely looking back into her desperate face with that same empty expression.
Alas, the silence was quickly interrupted by the Doppelganger’s laugh.
“Boohoo! You’re trying to manipulate him with those sad puppy eyes? Again?” the Doppelganger asked. “Wow, Six. Even after all this time, you just couldn’t admit that you were selfish, could you? That you’d rather kill a good friend than wait a bit more in The Signal Tower? That you never even cared about him? I never thought anyone was capable of being this horrible!”
Her gaze dropped to the ground, ashamed.
Mono, however, didn't stop staring at Six. He never lifted his eyes to anyone else but her, though his expression didn’t shift from indifference either.
Or perhaps he felt nothing for her no longer.
Perhaps her charms and tricks had no effect on him anymore.
Because in truth, he seemed like he was done with her.
He was done with being lied to again and again. Six couldn’t even admit what she did, her ‘mistake’ as she had phrased it.
So, why would he need to believe her again?
He didn’t need to, of course. The Doppelganger could read that clearly on his face now.
“He’s right. You never changed at all,” Mono finally said to Six. “I thought you did, but…I was wrong.”
Her eyes widened.
“No…” Six muttered and shook her head. “Mono, listen—”
“Excuses, after excuses!” the Doppelganger interrupted as he shoved Six back to the floor. She fell with a forlorn face, her head low to hide her expression, to hide how pathetic she looked now.
“Can’t you face it, Six? Your words mean nothing to him anymore. You mean nothing to him anymore. If it were up to me entirely, you would’ve been long gone—”
“I changed my mind.”
The Doppelganger turned to the Broadcaster with a raised brow, not expecting to have himself interrupted by him.
“Pardon me?” he asked.
Mono took a step forward.
“I changed my mind about what I said earlier. She doesn’t deserve any fairness.”
Oh, goodness Eyes.
He couldn’t believe what he was hearing, his frown quickly shifting to one of the widest smiles he’d ever worn!
The eyes in him blinked joyfully once again!
Truly, anger was an excellent trigger. Anger was enough to cloud his mind for any logical reasons.
Meanwhile, Six looked up to them in confusion. She couldn’t understand it even if she tried to read their faces.
“What does— what does that mean?” she asked, slight panic to her tone as she noticed the murderous look on the Doppelganger. “What do you mean by that?!” she snapped.
The Doppelganger only grinned at her, his teeth showing.
“He means you’re done.”
The boy waved his hand, and a dagger materialized in his palm. Its blade was as sharp as any monster’s incisors, its silver clean from any stains at all.
Well, not for long.
He stood in front of her, and was ready to strike.
Ready to cut her open and see her bleed out.
“Wait!”
Slight irritation appeared on his face as he was stopped by the Broadcaster again. Although, he had no choice but to turn around.
Mono took another step forward, his face firm and determined.
However, his hatred for the girl burned the brightest, silent yet threatening anger radiated off of him.
“Let me do it.”
Instantly, surprise washed over the Doppelganger, but horror etched itself to Six’s face as she gaped.
Nevertheless, even without looking back, he could see her in a state of pure disbelief, considering that her very ‘friend’ had just offered to kill her himself.
Oh, it couldn’t turn out any better than this!
His list was complete!
And now, getting rid of the Geisha was a task he could finally check off.
The Doppelganger shot him a proudful grin, and handed out his dagger.
“She’s all yours,” he said.
Mono took the weapon before grasping it tightly, his gaze falling on the dagger as he slowly approached the traitor with a bitter look.
Six gasped incredulously, her brows scrunched. And her tears were too much to hold back as they soon slipped past her eyes.
Yet the tears weren't because of her hunger anymore.
She looked up to him one last time, knowing she possessed no strength and energy anymore to go against him, let alone run away.
“Mono…?” she whispered.
The Broadcaster met her watery eyes, but that only made him tighten his grasp on the dagger. He glared down at her.
This will be the end of this show.
The Doppelganger placed his hands on Mono’s shoulders from behind, all the while giving Six a mocking smile.
“Your time is up, Six,” he said, overjoyed.
Six did not say anything else but stared at him. Seemingly, she accepted her fate this time.
Just as she deserved so.
As no other words were exchanged, Mono raised the blade.
And he aimed for the throat.
Notes:
Thanks for reading!
Chapter 47: Two Liars And A Hypocrite
Chapter Text
Six had closed her eyes when Mono swung his dagger towards her.
Funny, she used to call herself a courageous person for having the guts—and literally being able to hold her guts in—when it came to blood and violence. After all, back at the Maw, she was so used to seeing death.
Everyone would meet death eventually. She knew she was no exception from the rest.
“Your time is up, Six,” the Doppelganger had said. His words still played in her head as she waited for Mono’s blade.
Truly, she had prided herself once for being brave, but alas she didn’t have the guts to witness her own death, to watch her own blood pool below her like she had watched for the stubborn Guest she had killed.
And fear…
Oh, fear was such an understatement.
Six never liked to show her vulnerability to others, but she was certain her face revealed all of it. Her tears, her trembling hand and lip, her racing heart—she hated how everything became slow like every second was a minute. Six clenched her fists tight, her eyes squeezed shut.
She waited.
And waited.
And then waited.
It was until she heard the sound of her flesh being sliced, and felt her cold blood drip down off her skin to the cemented floor, did she know it was all over.
Mono had done it. And Six merely let him do so without a fight.
At least, she was glad that it’d been quick and painless.
“You…” A choked voice croaked, followed by a pained gurgle. Then, a thud came.
What?
Six forced her eyes open, and froze.
Indeed, blood was pooling on the floor just as she had expected, yet most of her expectations were wrong.
Her hand shot up to her exposed throat. No openings there. No wounds, no blood coming out, no pain.
But then, why was there so much blood on the floor?
Six averted her eyes off the blood and saw the Doppelganger lying on his back, his hands covering his slit throat, his head lifted just enough to gape at the boy in front of him. More blood seeped through the Doppelganger’s fingers, splattering some to whoever was near.
“You scumbag,” the Doppelganger hissed, yet strained and utterly forced. “Wh-what are you…doing?”
Mono only heaved out a sigh. The dagger was still in his hand, and he didn’t let go of it even as he stared down at the bleeding boy. He knelt down beside him, his movements as though slowed on purpose just to spite the Doppelganger. Of course, if that had been his intention, then he was successful as the Doppelganger no longer showed him his friendly side.
Regardless, it should be questioned whether the ‘friendly face’ had been genuine at all.
“I think I might’ve missed,” Mono said as though confused, but it was more than obvious as there was a hint of joy in his voice—something anyone would’ve noticed.
“Liar!”
The Doppelganger snarled, though more blood spilled out from his mouth, the red now becoming black, showing its true color. The side of his face became swollen, half of his body transforming into a darker shade as small little eyes began appearing one by one, but only to bulge out of control—just like the Doppelganger’s emotions.
Mono stood up and recoiled, his dagger up and ready. However, the Doppelganger’s injury held him back from attacking, his hands occupied to cover his throat from bleeding all the more, regardless of its futility.
Too much was spilling out, and the Doppelganger was losing himself enough to keep the eyes in him stable.
He was anything but stable.
And it seemed like from the start, it was his time that was up all along.
“You never…intended…to join us, did you?” he asked after a moment.
Mono did not answer.
The Doppelganger bitterly chuckled, propping on his side, no longer caring to tend to his open wound. Most of his face already had little eyes melting off of it, along with his actual skin as if he was a candle burned for hours.
“The Eye wouldn’t…be pleased, you know? The Management…would fall apart.”
A clang reverberated around them as Mono dropped the dagger.
“Screw you and your Management. I’m never going back.”
At that, the Doppelganger stared into him, his white pupil revealing nothing at all, nothing of the prior anger, nothing of the lost composure or panic he had shown. Because soon after Mono said his piece, the Doppelganger became as still as a statue, his melting figure being the only indication that he wasn’t dead just yet.
Nevertheless, he smiled.
Despite the blood, despite the many eyes all over his melting body, despite his life coming to an inevitable end, the Doppelganger only smiled. And his smile widened as the numerous eyes on him casted a glance to Six.
Alas, it happened too quickly for anyone to have noticed. Even Six herself.
“You’re…going to regret it…Mono.”
With every second, his body became as though liquified, the eyes slowly escaping through the small gaps between the floorboards, and never to be seen again under them.
All until the last remain of the Doppelganger was finally gone.
And it left only the two children in the room with the thickest tension and silence.
Six didn’t take her eyes off the floor, still in shock even from when she thought Mono had swung the dagger to her . She didn’t realize how long she’d kept her eyes open for so long, not until it began to hurt. And as well as feeling someone shift in front of her.
Her eyes were still wide, and her frown grew even deeper when she was met with Mono’s apologetic face. He slowly knelt down and scooched closer.
Mono huffed a sigh and took some time before speaking, although he did not wear any hatred on him—not a scowl, not the glare he shot her from earlier. All of it was just…gone.
“Hey, I—”
A slap resonated in the air.
His head turned to the side after her palm had struck him, his cheek gradually becoming red. Of course, he had been too surprised to register the pain of her slap. Too surprised to even feel angered. Completely caught off guard to be upset.
And frankly, he wasn’t at all.
“Okay I…I deserved that.” He turned back to her, trying his best to offer a small smile regardless of it being weak to reassure anyone.
Mono lifted his hand yet slowly dropped it back to his lap as his hesitance increased. He looked away and rubbed his head nervously.
“I’m, uh, sorry if I…scared you earlier with the…with the knife. That was all just an act.” Nothing came from Six. He glanced at her, then gulped. “A-and those things that I said before? I also didn’t mean any of them. I was only trying to lower his guard down, so that I could—”
Before he could finish, Mono was cut short as his collar was yanked forward. And her arms wrapped around his neck in a tight hug. He gaped, his hand left up in the air whereas Six…
Six didn’t care anymore for her pride.
She didn’t care anymore if hugging him made her look like such a softie. She didn’t care if this gesture was so unlike of her. And she didn’t care if he didn’t reciprocate it.
Because all she did was bury her face into his shoulder, her hands crumpling his coat.
“I hate you, Mono,” she whispered, however, her tone did not match her words. “I really hate you.”
Again, Mono’s mouth couldn’t gape any bigger, his eyes couldn’t be any wider as his hand gradually fell to his side. He sighed a shaky breath.
While he remembered what had happened the last time he’d hugged Six, he didn’t need any confirmation this time as her words were exactly something that of the egotistical girl he knew would say.
I hate you.
An ironic thing to say while hugging someone this affectionate. But despite her big gesture now, it seemed as though nothing could truly rid her of her ego.
Ever-so-slowly, he placed a hand on her back, patting it gently.
Feeling her cheeks heat up, Six broke away from the hug, but not without swatting him on the arm. Although, the only thing that was earned from him was a raised brow as he barely even flinched. Or reacted, for that matter.
Six scowled and looked to where the Doppelganger’s body had laid, the floor clean as new, as if someone hadn’t just died there.
“Why did you do that?” she asked.
“I told you. I was only trying to lower his guard down, so that I could—”
“That’s not what I meant, Mono.” She shook her head, a brief hesitance appearing on her face. “Why didn’t you… kill me?”
Mono paused, his lip drawn into a thin line. “Why would I?”
She turned back to him with furrowed brows, slight frustration in her eyes.
“I broke your trust. Twice. Shouldn’t you be angry because of that?”
“I am angry.”
Taken aback, Six nearly gaped by his straightforward answer, despite having asked herself. But it was his monotone voice that confused her all the more. He did not sound angry to her.
“Are you?”
Mono merely nodded.
“Totally. I am furious with you. Though, I think I’ll let this one slide,” he said, “for now.”
Once more, his face contradicted his words. Six couldn’t help but stare at him as if he were a puzzle, yet this was one she couldn’t even understand, let alone solve.
“What?” Her forehead wrinkled. “But you’ve…you’ve already seen my…”
“Hand?” He raised a brow. “To tell you the truth, I wish you would’ve told me about the deal sooner instead of having had to hear it from him. You should’ve just told me from the start, you know.”
It was true, she could’ve just told him the truth when he had asked the reason for her betrayal the second time, but fear had been a factor back then; and it still was.
Some part of her feared that the Eye would take action if she had told him, some part of her feared someday they’d take away everything and put her back in her deformed misery state.
But maybe, all that she was truly afraid of was having Mono hate her permanently.
Right when…everything between them had just started to become normal, comfortable again.
Perhaps, it had been her mistake to have lied twice. After all, he’d never actually given her his ‘forgiveness’ for the whole thing.
Six turned away and closed her eyes, letting out a sharp breath.
“And you should’ve just killed me,” she whispered coldly
Mono frowned. “Why would you want that?” he asked, however, never raising his voice.
“He’s told you everything, hasn’t he? About the details of the deal? You already know that I tried to kill you for a selfish purpose, so…why do you still do this? Why aren’t you angry at me?” Exasperation began to build up in her chest, a lump in her throat as Mono still wasn’t showing her the rightful reaction.
What she did was wrong, and she knew it—she’d accepted it. But him being okay with it so easily was something she simply could not accept.
“Why aren’t you angry at all?” she asked again, her voice as weak as her body.
Silence hung between them despite their close distance, despite the tension left behind by the Doppelganger.
Mono noticed the frustration shown in her eyes. He sighed, unable to stop the heaviness in his chest.
“Because…you already proved me wrong.”
Six raised a brow, slightly confused.
Instead, he shot her a soft smile. “Back in the apartment? Back in the daycare? You didn’t stop helping me when you could’ve just saved yourself and gone home. Even when I clearly hated your guts at the time, and wanted nothing more than to watch you trip and fall into a black hole.”
“Your point?”
He scoffed.
“My point is you’re not not good. You’re a liar, yeah, but a liar with...somewhat a decent heart. So, with deal or no deal, nothing will change what you’ve done after the betrayal. Nothing changes the fact that you saved me too.” He then began to fumble inside the pockets of his coat.
“And also, I think I’ve been such a hypocrite for calling you a liar all this while. Probably best to retire it.”
“What do you mean?”
He merely reached deep into his pocket. “So, I heard that your hunger came back?” he said as he opened his palm to her.
Six nearly gasped out loud, but nothing could prepare her for the sight as her mouth started to salivate. Because what he held was exactly what she needed for her hunger, to stop herself from growing weaker and weaker.
It was the same piece of bread she’d eaten back in the apartment room, the same one he’d offered as they’d sat close under the bed.
And once again, she held herself back from snatching the said food out of his hand, though it became difficult to do so as he urged her to take it—just like he had the last time. Six puffed out a trembling breath, feeling her stomach grumble faintly.
“I…I don’t understand,” she stammered. “I thought you said you didn’t have any left.”
“Yeah, well—I lied.”
As Six made no move to take the grub, Mono simply pushed the bread into her palm himself. She didn’t recoil, though.
“When you told me about your hunger problem, I figured it wouldn’t hurt to keep some emergency rations in case of a situation like this. And what do you know? I was right,” he said.
“So, all this time you’ve just been…keeping it for me?”
Instantly, his face flushed red, so much that his own accidental confession made him blurt out more.
“I-it’s not like what you think, I swear . I don’t do it because I’ve been…thinking about you or anything—which I haven’t! I mean, not to say that I don't at all, but more like just a thought that you might need it in case if another monster were to chase us or you had to use your powers and—”
“Thank you.”
Mono left himself hung as he stared widely at Six, who in turn bore the tiniest smile on her lips. His blush intensified.
“You’re…you're welcome,” he replied with a sheepish smile of his own as they stared.
And it took both of them a few seconds until they realized just how long they’d been holding eye contact.
Immediately, the two averted their gazes almost in unison.
Six could feel her cheeks warm again, the tears in her eyes subsiding as she finally took in a bite. Her empty stomach became less of a void, but she told herself it was better than the pain she’d felt earlier. It was better than having nothing to feed the hunger.
All the while, Six still felt his eyes on her, patiently waiting for her to finish up until she took her final bite of the small meal. Regardless it was a small one, it was enough she needed to even stand.
Her powers, however, might not be as strong, but simple strength would do for now.
With that, Six slowly brought herself up to her feet, although her legs wobbled terribly. And she would’ve fallen back to her rear had Mono not been there to stabilize her.
Of course, he had done it out of reflex, and certainly didn’t mean to initiate close contact this soon. Because just after his realization, he—hesitantly—released her arms.
Though, it’d be a lie on her part if she said she didn’t appreciate his help. Well, at this point, it was more of a ‘want his help’.
Maybe I am going soft.
“Are you okay?”
Six cocked her head to him. His hands were still up, as though a safety net in case she fell.
She weakly nodded. “I’m fine now.”
Mono lowered his arms then, albeit his reluctance might’ve revealed itself more than he realized.
The smile on her face widened unintentionally.
Just the thought of his poorly hidden concern was enough to lift her spirits, even if just a little bit. Her stomach suddenly and without her permission, filled with butterflies instead of emptiness as he mirrored her face.
However, their exchanging smiles came to a quick end when Mono cleared his throat.
“So…how was my acting?”
Huh? Six tilted her head, and narrowed her eyes.
“Oh, come on, I think I nailed it back there!” he exclaimed proudly. “Did you see the look on that guy’s face? He totally believed I was going to kill you.”
Six rolled her eyes, however, amused by his familiar antics, nonetheless. “All you did was glare, Mono.”
“Well, yeah, but I made it seem like I hated you for real. Now that, Six, is called class A acting.”
A chuckle escaped her. “But you still do, don’t you?” she asked. “You still hate me, right?”
At that, Mono paused, his face in between blanking and panicking all at once as his words spilled faster than he intended once again. But this time, his smile slowly dropped, and so did his energetic demeanor.
Six noticed the little frown he wore now, the way his eye had twitched slightly as his shoulders sank a tad.
Did she say something wrong? Was it even something she said? If it was, wasn’t it true, though? Mono had told her he’d act to be ‘her friend’ as practice when Viola returned with them, all for the girl’s sake. So, then why did he look at her that way now?
This was supposed to be play-pretend, she reminded herself.
However, even Six couldn’t deny that the pretend part was beginning to become all too real.
At least, he was making it seem real, as if they were friends again.
Guilt crept on her back. A part of her even felt somewhat responsible for the face he put on now.
But then, Mono shook his head and lifted his eyes back to her, his frown no longer there as he forced up a smile.
It didn’t make Six feel any better, though.
“Of course. Y-you’re absolutely right. I still…I still hate you.” And his smile only became tighter. “I mean, it’d defeat the whole point of ‘pretending’ if I didn’t, huh? Wouldn’t want Viola to get the wrong idea.”
Six's face fell, her body tensing.
And that was taken notice by her companion immediately.
“Six? What’s wrong?” Mono took a step closer, but she already had her head whipped to the television behind them, her face one of dread and horror as she was reminded of her assailant’s name.
Because how could she have forgotten?
How could she have been so ignorant to the television and its ever-present whine?
“It—”
The television suddenly glowed brighter, its light blinding the children, its shrill whine deafening.
Quickly, Mono pulled Six back with him when she stayed rooted in her place. Six never lifted her eyes off the screen, never lifted her eyes off the small figure that gradually became bigger, as though approaching from the other side of the glass. Like she’d seen the thin man do.
However, she knew better this time.
And whatever was behind the screen now was not any tall man whatsoever.
The television shrilled higher, and the static began to shift and ripple.
Crooked fingers protruded first, pushing them until their hands were revealed. Two long arms then followed, grabbing firmly on the sides of the television that under their touch was enough to break its frame slightly.
Black hair came out of the screen. And the static noise was overwhelmed by the growls of the girl Six had thought she managed to get away from.
But that wasn’t the case now as she had found her.
The deformed girl bared her teeth, saliva dripping past her stretched mouth.
And her murderous eyes fell upon Six.
In that moment, Six itched to lift her hand up to the growling girl as she crawled out of the television with her disfigured limbs, but Six knew better. Using her powers now would only bring more damage than good. And she absolutely couldn’t have her hunger strike her again. Not now of all time.
So, she kept her hands still.
However, keeping them frozen at her side only urged her whole body to freeze along with then.
Mono, on the other hand, merely mimicked her. Although, in his case, his curiosity always won over fear.
But maybe seeing a twisted girl coming out of the television the same way the tall man had was a good memory refresher as he recognized the monster eventually, despite her face being dysmorphic.
“Six,” he whispered carefully. “Is that…who I think it is?”
Six gulped, but nodded nonetheless.
“That’s Viola.”
Notes:
Mono: I pretended wanting to kill you so I could kill the guy who was gonna kill you.
Six (smiles): But you still hate me, right?
Mono:...
Six (smile drops): You still hate me, right?
Thanks for reading!
Chapter 48: Broken Apart
Notes:
This is a Lady/Thin Man chapter.
Yeah I know. I probably should've mentioned in the previous update (lol sorry uwu). But this chapter is...kinda important? For the plot at least.
Also spoiler alert; this one's got a tiny bit of drama. And more action...
Okay I lied.
ITS MOSTLY JUST DRAMA AND ANGST-
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
It was so quiet out here. Peaceful even in the darkness. The sky was empty of stars, but he could still watch it all night if he had the time.
Time is something I’d kill for right now.
Thin Man sighed deeply as he held his sobbing daughter. It’d been a while ago since she started crying, and it didn’t seem like she’d ever stop.
Just like the first few months after she was born, he mused to himself.
The memory made him smile a little, regardless he would lose all of it in just…no, not two days anymore.
But a day.
His smile dropped. The Lady was still in her comatose state. Viola was still here, and not at the bunker. Both of them weren’t when they were supposed to. But what could he even do except to wait? He knew better now that the Eye was not an option anymore. They wouldn’t help him for time, even if he begged or offered them all of his power and energy until he died.
It’d just be a loss for him in the end.
Desperation was indeed a kick in the crotch, but he still had to play smart about it. Because that was what the Eye was trying to do to him.
Make him desperate.
Thin Man looked at Viola, noticing his arms had become heavier, her sobs replaced with soft snores. Asleep.
He smiled sadly before hugging her tighter and standing up. It was about time they retired to bed anyway. He needed it just as much as everyone else.
His world might be ending soon, but the girls still had their life waiting ahead of them. At least, that had to be the case. He wouldn’t accept otherwise.
Thin Man walked them to Viola’s bedroom, her door left ajar from when she woke up in hours she shouldn’t. Though, maybe in some way, he was glad that she did, glad that she came out on the porch and found him.
He laid Viola gently on her bed, and pulled the covers above her. She mumbled as he did so, though her eyes were still closed.
“Dad?”
He patted her head and hushed. “Go to sleep, Vi.”
“Don’t go…” Her words were dragged. Clearly, she wasn’t even fully awake to realize she was speaking. “Please stay. Stay…with us.” She snuggled close to her pillow.
Thin Man nearly chuckled at the sight, but instead he gave her a small smile.
His gaze lowered then.
I really wish I could, Viola.
After planting a kiss on her head, he dolefully walked back to the door. But just as he grasped the doorknob, her voice sounded again.
“The hide-and-seek spot…we’ll wait for you…there…”
Thin Man turned to her, although by the time he did Viola was already deep in her slumber, her chest rising and falling, her hand slipping out from her blanket.
The hide-and-seek spot.
He shook his head and closed her door on his way out.
A silly thing for her to say.
Viola's favorite hiding place, or the hide-and-seek spot, was somewhere deep in the forest, the grasses soft like a mattress to lie on yet long enough to hide someone in between them. Most of the trees were hollow with a hole that could fit someone in its trunks. And that was where Viola would—almost always—hide in whenever all of them played a simple game of hide-and-seek.
Hence, the name.
But one time, Thin Man had a small television hidden secretly in one of the hollow trunks that allowed him to listen or peek through during the game. It may sound like cheating, but let’s face it; he was nothing if not a protective father. And the way he saw it, hiding televisions in trunks was more of a safety measure rather than a cheating strategy. Just in case there was an accident.
Of course, he had used it once to scare the Lady for laughs. Though, let’s just say it didn’t end well for the tree; and how he would’ve disintegrated along with it had he not ducked in time.
He smiled fondly.
Regardless he could’ve died—or more likely withstood an injury—that day, those were the times he wished he could go back to. The happy years where nothing was wrong.
When the Eye didn’t suddenly change their minds about the deal, he thought bitterly as he entered his room.
However, just a glance to the bed, and his heart broke again.
The Lady was still in the same position he had left her in this morning. She didn’t move at all, not a single muscle. The only difference was the color of her face that appeared paler than before. He heaved a sigh, and just like that, his fears returned.
And even as he felt her temple, it just made him feel worse when her skin was still too warm to touch.
This isn’t good.
Thin Man dragged a chair by the bed and sat down, his hand then closing around hers as he prayed for her to wake up. Even a mumble or two would grant him some smidgen of relief right about now.
Yet he still received…nothing from his wife.
Nothing at all.
“Six?” he whispered. He already expected silence from her, but some part of him still wished she’d open her eyes and tell him to stop worrying. To stop being so dejected and hopeless.
Another sigh.
Thin Man slowly let go of her hand and leaned back on his chair.
It was until his back hit the soft cushion did he realize just how exhausted he was, his energy to hold his eyes open becoming a bigger effort than before, his head heavy and cluttered with so many things he couldn’t solve in such a limited time.
But again, what could he do except to wait? Wait and hope as he had nothing? Because now, the only thing he could hope for was for the Lady to regain herself.
The Lady had to wake up.
Even in her state, he could sense she was fighting with whatever that took away her consciousness. And especially now, he knew she’d fight even harder than ever.
She was a strong woman, after all. A mother.
The Lady would do anything to protect the people she loved, and she had proven that to him without fail countless of times before. He’d even seen it himself. So to think that she’d just give up and let herself be trapped this way was not something he’d believe in.
Never would he even consider believing it.
Please wake up, Six.
He let his eyelids drop.
His hands were covered with blood. So much blood yet not a drop belonged to him.
He couldn’t understand it, he couldn’t stop staring at his bloodied, trembling hands.
But why were they even shaking? Why was he feeling such a painful feeling, a big lump forming at the back of his throat as though he was holding back tears, only for it to end in futility?
Why was he…crying now?
His vision began to blur more and more. The floor was cold where he sat, the room unclear for him to pinpoint where he was. And the woman’s head he had cradled on his lap became the only thing his eyes dropped to.
His heart shattered once more as he held her cold face. Her complexion had long lost its color while her blood continued to ooze out and pool beneath her. And she…
She wasn’t breathing.
Her eyes were still open, but she never blinked. She never moved even when he cupped her cheeks, even when he shook her out of desperation.
Or even when he begged for her to say something.
He hugged her tighter. He cursed in utter rage. He cried so openly.
Because even he had known how the open wound in her chest was beyond repair, and how the blood that had once oozed out of her already stopped. There was nothing he could do to bring her back. There was nothing he could do at all.
Thin Man cradled her head, his tears falling on her pale face.
“This was your fault,” a voice whispered into his ears.
He didn’t want to listen to it. He shook his head in denial, muttering “no” under his breath repeatedly as he stroked the woman’s long hair.
But the voice didn’t care for him.
It didn’t care that he was in anguish, it didn’t care that he was hugging his wife’s dead body as if his touch could revive her. It never cared to stop its torment.
“This was all your fault,” it repeated.
Thin Man shook his head again, his eyes locked on her lifeless ones. “No…” he whispered brokenly. His eyes brimmed with fresh tears as they streamed past his cheeks.
The voice did not care.
“She died because of you.”
Thin Man jolted awake, his breathing heavy as his forehead was beaded with sweat. He could feel his heartbeat pound so fast, the dream of the Lady dead in his arms being the only thing that occupied his racing mind.
Just why would he dream of something so horrible? Could his consciousness be trying to tell him something? Or was it a warning for the future that may come?
He sat upright, and dragged a hand through his face tiredly.
It was already morning again, it seemed. But the gloomy sky outside nearly made him believe he’d only been asleep for just a few minutes. Rainwater tapped against the windows, followed by a booming thunder as the rain intensified.
He heaved a long sigh, and breathed into his palm.
“Mom! You’re awake!” Viola’s voice sounded out in the hall.
What?
He pulled his hand away from his face.
All at once, relief and panic ambushed his mind as he was met with an empty bed, half of the covers already on the floor as if someone had thrown them off in a rush. The Lady was nowhere to be seen. Which meant that…
She’s back.
Thin Man sprung to his feet and rushed to the door. Even from there he could faintly hear the Lady, whispering something to Viola in a rather grim tone, something akin to an apology or hushes of goodbyes. But he didn’t stop to listen further as he acted without thinking and stepped out into the hall.
And it didn’t take the Lady more than a second to sense his presence behind her.
The Lady turned around.
“Mono…” she whispered. Bags were under her eyes. Her posture was unlike her usual confident, authoritative self. Her hair was loose from her bun, and her face was still as pale as before. In some ways she even seemed…
Afraid. But afraid of what, he didn’t know.
He gasped and began to approach her. “You really are awake—”
“Stop.”
He halted as he was told to. Regardless, it didn’t prevent the frown that deepened across his face.
“Six?”
“Please—just…don’t come any closer. I’ve already made my decision. I’m leaving.”
His face fell.
In just a second all the relief, the short moment of happiness seeing her up and about crumpled like a piece of paper. And all there was left to replace them were bitterness and irritancy as his eyes narrowed.
He took a step forward, but stopped again when the Lady shot him a death glare. He had to tread lightly with what he would say next.
“Six…I know you hate me for what I want you to do, ” he said slowly, “but what you’re planning on doing now isn’t the right choice.”
“And you think you know what is right or wrong?”
His patience had had enough to redo another same conversation. He sighed through his nose.
“We talked about this the other night. You already agreed to take Viola—”
“I never agreed.”
Thin Man paused, and his eyes widened. “What did you say?”
“I said I never agreed to your stupid plan. I never agreed to do anything. So, if you expect me to just listen and let you be the one to go there, then you’re just as foolish as the day I met you. You’re still the same naive boy who’d rather put everyone else above him than take care of himself.”
“And you’re still the same stubborn girl who wouldn’t listen to save her own life.”
“You wouldn’t listen to me!”
“Because I’m trying to save you!” he snapped. “I’m trying to save our daughter! I’m trying my very best to save everyone I care about! I’m doing all that I can! All I ask—all that I ask—is for you to stop being selfish this time and help me out. Take Viola to the bunker and both of you just—stay there. Is that too much to ask for? Is that so hard to understand?”
The Lady held her head up high then, her face poised and stoic. Though her eyes were on the brink of tears, she didn’t back down even when he had raised his voice, as expected of her.
“No. It isn’t,” she said. “But you also have to understand that you don’t decide things for me. I’m leaving whether you like it or not, Mono. And there is nothing you can do to make me act otherwise.”
She pushed him out of her way, heading straight to the front door with an intimidating aura radiating off her—one that spoke danger for the others who’d dare to approach.
But Thin Man…
He was more than daring. He was more than furious and impatient. He had had enough.
Although, his anger wasn’t what made him act. Instead, it was an immense fear of the dream he had becoming true.
The image of her lying so still as he hugged her soulless body, the blood draining out of her—that was the trigger for his harsh reaction next.
He didn’t spare a second to hesitate when he caught her wrist and yanked her back to him.
The Lady retaliated of course by recoiling, but even her normal strength was incomparable to his as he slammed her to the wall to stop her from getting away. She tried to squirm out of his hold yet that only urged him to tighten his grip on her pinned arms.
A wince escaped her, and she finally stilled. She knew she was fighting a losing battle this way should she continue.
“Let go of me—”
“You are not leaving this house. You are not going after the Eye, and you most definitely will not abandon Viola on her own. That is a warning, do you hear me?”
“I said let go,” she demanded.
He gritted his teeth, and unconsciously dug his nails deeper into her kimono.
“No! I’ve run out of patience with you, Six! So, before you keep on pushing my buttons, don’t make me do something I’ll regret.” His eyes darkened. “Don’t make me hurt you.”
“But can you, though? Can you really hurt me in front of your own daughter?”
He faltered.
And shame washed over him whole like cold water as her words brought him back to a horrible realization.
That Viola was still watching.
She’d been watching her parents fight so quietly at the side like an invisible audience, standing there with tears in her eyes, and her lower lip quivering—her whole body was trembling.
She was scared, and he could see that the most on her face when he met her stare in utter guilt. But what made his prior anger dissolve into nothing, his own face softer as though he hadn’t just yelled, was that he soon began to realize…
That she was scared of him.
He loosened his hold over the Lady’s arms, letting it drop the more he looked at his daughter’s face.
What had he done? How could he have threatened someone he loved? Even worse…
How could he do this in front of her?
His own child?
The Lady was right; he couldn’t hurt her. He wouldn’t hurt her. He didn’t want to hurt his family any more than he already had.
Can you really hurt me in front of your daughter?
No, he couldn’t.
“Because I can,” she added.
He snapped his head back to the Lady. But just as he did, he was struck by something cold and prickly at his chest.
Thin Man barely gasped when a sudden force threw him back, albeit it’d been strong enough to the point where he was thrown all the way across the other end of the hall.
It all happened way too unexpectedly and fast that he didn't even have a moment to stop her—to react.
The shadows around him already started to dissipate after he slid down to his rear, indicating its caster was gone. Oh, he knew she was already gone the minute he released her. He knew she used whatever spell she had up her sleeves to make him temporarily paralyzed, his heart heavy as though something was holding him down. Though, it seemed like throwing him across the room did the rest of the job well enough.
His ears rang, and his vision was nothing but blurry images as he glanced around. He could barely tell if someone was coming at him, or shouting near him.
But again, the spell was temporary.
For soon he could feel his limbs once more, and his senses returned to him. Regardless it’d been slow, they came back all at once, ambushing him. And immediately, he felt a small hand tugging at his coat, shouting the same thing to get his attention as he regained reality.
“Dad!” Viola shouted. “Dad, wake up!” She shook him.
Thin Man blinked and forced himself to sit upright. Although, that only made him grimace in the end as pain shot up and down his back. He held on to his head, feeling nothing but dizzy.
Son of a…
“Where is she?” His voice came out bitter. “Viola, where is she? ” he snapped.
“I—I don’t know! Sh-she just left!”
No, no, no.
“Damn it!” He slammed a fist to the ground. Six, you selfish woman!
He ran his hands through his hair, cursing under his breath all the while as he let his frustration take over.
How could he have not seen this coming from her? Of course, she’d use Viola to get his guard down. And she waited for the perfect moment to strike him with her powers, and even to the extent of paralyzing him just so he wouldn’t be able to use his own abilities.
Just so he wouldn’t be able to stop her again.
“Dad, what do we do? What do we do now?” Panic etched itself heavily all over Viola.
Thin Man released a sharp breath, knowing fully well of how the situation had become ten times worse.
He didn’t have any more time for the plan. He didn’t have the capability of carrying it out with the Lady gone for the Signal Tower.
So, how could he even begin to chase after the woman when his daughter was still here with him? How could he give Viola a head start so she’d reach the bunker on time before the Eye inevitably comes for her?
There wasn’t any time left. There wasn’t anything he could do except to…
A pause.
Except to warp her to the forest.
He cocked his head up to the living room.
The hide-and-seek spot!
The place was already known to be far in the forest, which meant it’d save her enough time from leaving the house and getting to the forest itself. If that was the plan, he could just connect the living room’s television to the one that he had hidden in one of the tree trunks, so to give Viola the boost she needed to head for the bunker first.
It’d work surely. She would be safe once she made it there.
Anywhere from the house is safe.
Though should this be any other time, he would’ve never considered letting her go on her own. However, the circumstances forced him no other way but this. He had to get her out of the house.
And if he wanted to save everyone in his family, then warping Viola now was the best plan he got. The only plan he got.
He couldn’t fail this one.
Without wasting any more, Thin Man pushed himself up, using the wall behind him as a support. The pain he had endured was already subsiding, and that told him enough to use his strength once more for his daughter.
Viola opened her mouth to call him again, but was caught by surprise as he suddenly lifted her off the ground. And she was carried as if she was a toddler.
“Dad—?”
“I’m sorry, but we have to improvise a new plan, Viola. I’m getting you to the bunker.”
“But—but what about mom? We can’t just leave her behind!”
Thin Man took a moment, though unable to look at her in the eyes. But in the end, “You’re right,” was all he could say without letting his guilt triple its size. He couldn’t even bear to look at her now.
Especially when she showed her fear and confusion openly as they entered the living room.
But Viola wasn’t stupid to not have noticed at all.
Because soon after she realized his true intentions, soon after she realized the television—whining, switching its black screen to static—her dread intensified. And she began to throw her tantrum.
“No!” Viola thrashed out of his hold, as though her life had been threatened.
Her father, however, was completely caught off guard. Regardless Viola may be fast and slick to have slipped away from him, he was still bigger than her.
Because Viola only managed to land on her knees before her arms were seized again. Though, her persistence on fighting him was making it all the more harder to hold back a yell.
“Viola,” he scolded.
She didn’t budge.
Having lost his patience, Thin Man grabbed her wrist instead, and pulled her towards the television he had activated.
He swore he’d save his daughter. So, if it meant dragging her kicking and screaming, then he’d do just that. He wouldn’t let his soft side interfere this time.
Still, he wished he had remembered sooner just how similar the Lady and Viola were when it came to doing things they didn’t want to do.
For even as he forced her up to her feet, Viola still tried to fight by purposely pushing him away, although never successful as his hand only tightened around hers like a shackle. Tears were already falling past her cheeks, and her cries were nothing but unheard and ignored by her father.
He had to ignore it. It took every willpower, every strength within him to block them out. So much of everything in him that even his eyes stung with tears of his own.
Because Viola wasn’t making this easy.
Thin Man kneeled in front of the television, trying his best to hold Viola in between. He tried his best to make her stay still.
“Stop moving , Viola,” he said. But the girl only rebelled, pushing and squirming. In fact, she would’ve run past him had he not blocked her. “Viola, I said stop!”
She did not listen. She kept on thrashing. She continued to hit him. She wouldn’t stop fighting.
His blood boiled.
“Please if you would—JUST STAY STILL!”
Instantly Viola froze, her eyes wide up at him, terrified of him.
Thin Man held her shoulders in place, but his hands slowly dropped in the end as he saw the fear in her eyes.
He knew he had scared her yet again.
“Please, Viola…” he pleaded. “Please don’t make this harder than it already is.”
Another tear fell from her eyes, her body trembling as she held back a sob. “I don’t want to go on my own,” she said with a shaky voice. “I don’t want to .”
His face softened; heart cracking just by her broken tone.
“I… I know. I know you’re scared, sweetie.” He gently brushed his thumb under her eyes, wiping the tears away. “I’m scared too. If I had a choice, I would’ve never let you go by yourself.”
“Then let me come with you. I—I can fight!” she said determinedly. “I know how to use my powers enough to help!”
Thin Man chuckled, and lifted a weak smile for her.
“I’m sure you do. But this is too dangerous, Vi. The Eye is too dangerous for you, and I just…I don’t want you to get hurt by them. I don’t want to see you get hurt at all.”
“I promise I won’t. I promise I won’t become a burden and get in anyone’s way. But just— please let me help.”
Her eyes glimmered with hope, but he didn’t have it in him to crush any more of everybody else’s hope. He had done that to the Lady; and look where that got him.
After a sigh, Thin Man pulled Viola close and wrapped his arms around her.
He pressed a kiss on her head like he had last night. The only difference though, was this was the last time he’d kiss and hold his child.
This was the last time he’d see her.
“I’m sorry, Viola.”
The television shrilled.
As the screen brightened, he pushed her straight into the light, letting it take her away, letting it forcefully pull her in until she was spat out to the other side. He watched her somebrely as she landed on the forest grounds, catching a glimpse of her face as she rolled on the grass.
Betrayal being one of the many emotions she displayed.
I’m so sorry.
He yanked the plug off its socket before he had a change of heart, which he knew he would if he stayed by and did nothing.
The static died after, the television shutting down instantly and showing him his own reflection in its black screen. The reflection of a man who had abandoned his daughter in a wide forest on her own. A man who had tricked his little girl and left her to take care of herself.
And at that moment, he hated the man. He hated him for leaving her this way.
This wasn’t how he was supposed to leave her.
Thin Man felt his eyes sting with tears once more, though he had to quickly remind himself of the other person he wanted to save. He may have gotten Viola out of the house and, hopefully, on the course to the bunker, but that didn’t mean his work was done.
No.
It was far from it.
After all, the Lady was still heading for The Signal Tower.
Notes:
If I'm planning the chapters right, this should be the second last of the Lady/Thin Man chapters.
Thanks for reading!
Chapter 49: Family Reunion
Notes:
Hello everyone
Yes. I disappeared for a month :) But I'll explain why at the end of the chapter.
Enjoy!
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
That cannot be Viola.
Mono refused to believe that this disfigured and violent girl was the same person he’d known. But after what Six said when he’d asked, refusing the truth was straight-up foolish. Sure, he didn’t want to believe Viola was that monster-looking thing, but denying it now was like denying Six had a huge ego.
But back to the matter at hand. Which was Viola and her aggression that promised nothing but harm.
He and Six had to escape from the tall girl when she stood in front of the TV, fully present now. Mono, too much in his own shock, carelessly stayed rooted in his place, his wide-eyed stare pointing at Viola’s towering figure. He knew if it hadn’t been for Six snapping him out of his daze, he might’ve been crushed under Viola’s fist. Six’s slap hurt, yes, but he doubted being flat-pancaked would hurt any less.
It wasn’t even a doubt. Just a plain fact.
“That’s Viola?!” Mono said as they dashed into the hall. Everything came to be distorted than the last time he walked here with the Doppelganger; the hallway was as though tilting, and one side was smaller than the other. “Why does she look like that?!”
“You know why! You want me to stop and give you the whole story?” Six snapped.
“But—she’s…” He had no other words to describe the abnormal, aggressive human going after them. “She’s not even a kid anymore!”
“Obviously, Mono. Because kids don’t try to eat other kids!”
“Wait, what—?”
The floor cracked below them, the cracks traveling faster than their run. Behind, Viola stomped a foot hard into the ground, causing the whole mess. The thud was deafening, and so utterly strong that the two tripped forward in unison.
Time was crucial for them, and so was it for Viola.
At their misfortune, Viola raised her hand towards them. Mono felt the heavy weight upon him when he tried to stand up along with Six. But all of it got worse as he realized that weight he felt was merely because of his distance to Six.
Because the only person that couldn’t move was Six as her feet were already levitating towards Viola.
His panic multiplied. But Six’s panic was a whole lot bigger than his.
Something about this situation, the similarities of the time they were faced with the thin man, it brought back Mono bad memories, and Six a trauma she tried to live down. Perhaps, it’d also been a traumatic thing for him because he knew he had done nothing the last time. He had cowered under the bed while his friend had reached out for his help . Six had reached her hands out to him.
And now she was reaching out to him again. Only this time, however, he wouldn’t hide behind his fear.
Mono seized her wrists and pulled with all his might. A small gasp left Six, but a snarl sounded from Viola.
In her eyes, Mono was a problem, getting in her way from complying with the voices inside her head. And these voices told her to kill, and only kill, the one wearing the yellow raincoat.
So, whilst Mono pulled Six, Viola only exerted more of her power as she approached her target. Her thin patience had already run out from when Six brought the shelves down on her, and now she wasn’t going to have it with the boy too.
“Please, don’t let go,” Six choked out. Her eyes glistened with tears when she glanced back at him. Mono instinctively dug his nails deeper into her wrists.
I don’t repeat my mistakes either, he wanted to say.
His eyes then darted to Viola, who inched closer by the second. If nothing was to be done, there was a high chance Six would get snatched into her palm. And he couldn’t hold Six like this forever; his grip would soon slip out once Viola got close enough. Her powers were too strong for him to tackle with his normal strength alone. He couldn’t win at this rate, not when Viola fought with fire and he fought with, well, no fire.
Silently, he apologized to Viola.
Because what he was about to do next would definitely hurt her.
He shot out his arm.
A bright blue flashed between them all, and the blast inevitably clashed against the tall girl, forcing her to be thrown across and on her back. Viola let out a pained sound as the invisible burns settled all over her skin. She propped on her side and screamed in rage and pain. But more so the former.
Though, Viola wasn’t the only one pushed back. Because, keep in mind, when Mono blasted his powers—perhaps a bit too strongly—he was still pulling Six from Viola’s force-hold. And soon after Viola released her, both of them fell back too. And the fall hurt just as much as hitting one’s head on a rock. Yet he didn’t focus on pain, rather it was relief that crossed his mind.
Because Six wasn’t taken away again. And he hadn’t lost her to someone that wanted to hurt her. She was here, with him.
Safe and alive and—
Six suddenly enclosed her arms around his neck.
He tensed at the first second.
An embrace. That was what she was doing to him. But his mind blanked hard enough that he couldn’t begin to know why she was hugging him himself. It should’ve been obvious. But to him it wasn’t, especially when she was this close.
The embrace was quick. Yet the moment left a very long effect on him—his cheeks flushing madly, and butterflies flying in his stomach.
Even blinking was hard.
“Thank you,” Six whispered. Then, she pulled him back to her. “Thank you, Mono.”
Now his chest hurts. Hurt just from how fast his heart was beating per minute. Why was his heart even beating so fast?
He didn’t know. He’d never know. So, for now he’d just blame it on adrenaline.
Clutching Six’s back, he sat them both up. Surprisingly, Six let go of him the instant, realizing what she did just now was so much unlike her. Twice, to add on. Six had hugged him twice this way, and she was still embarrassed to have initiated it. Not that it…bothered him. Back then, probably it would have.
Though, that was beside the point. The point was—
An enraged scream erupted from Viola. She reached for whatever support she could find in her surroundings, anything that could bring herself off the floor like a dying carcass. She wasn’t dead after all.
She was very much alive.
The point now is to run.
And run, they did. As much as guilt nagged him at his very core for hurting Viola and leaving her behind in that condition, Mono had to remind himself that she was still not in the right mind. Viola was still violent and unstable. Saving her would have to wait. They’d figure it out together, he and Six.
As soon as they found a hidden place. Somewhere that was away from Viola.
It was a room they’d run into without prior thinking, aside from seeing as the first room with its door open while the others remained closed, lining the narrow corridors. The inside would have been pitch black if it weren’t for the little glow-in-the-dark stars pasted all over the ceilings, giving the room a soft glow. It should’ve been some sort of comfort for children, but the faded and dirty and cracked walls contradicted that.
Mono pushed the door close right after Six entered. And he twisted the lock on it.
A sigh left him as silence drowned the room. He couldn’t quite see in the darkness, but the figures of items became more and more visible the better his eyes adjusted.
There was a bed in the far corner, looking almost exactly like ones they’d use for patients at the Hospital. The floors were thick and coated with something he hoped was only grime and dirt. It felt cold under his feet, nonetheless. And it made him shudder walking on them.
“Where are we?” Six’s voice saved him from overthinking his discomfort.
“I don’t know. It’s better than being out there, if you ask me.”
Suddenly, Six took him by the shoulders. Her grip was firm yet something about her touch made him realize just how panicked she actually was under that whole serious façade of hers. As if he was any less panicked, though.
“Mono,” she said slowly, “what do we do?”
That stumped him a little. If not a lot.
“What?”
“I said what do we do? We can’t just hide in here forever until she finds us looking like that—”
“Wait—you think I know how to help her?”
“Well, I figured you would. You did help me last time. You changed me back out of that state.”
“But you can’t possibly think this is the same thing, right? You do realize how different your situation and hers is?” When Six shot him a look, he scoffed incredulously. You’ve got to be kidding me. She actually thinks I know how. “Six, I’m serious. I-I can’t do it.” He backed away and further into the room. Just the stare she shot him was making him uneasy and pressured.
Because he had literally no idea whatsoever to fix this.
Six followed him, even going all the way to block his path as he intended to avoid her. “You can. You’ve done it before.”
“Yes, but I told you; this is different.”
“How is this any different? Both of us were turned into a monster; both of us had no control of ourselves; and both of us were tormented by the Eye! How does that make her situation and mine any different?”
“Because you had something trapping you!” he said. “Viola doesn’t. Now do you understand why it’s different now? Why I can’t help her? Unless you have any smart idea about why it’s the way it is, then please, be my guest. I’d love to hear your thoughts, Six.”
A tiny spark suddenly erupted beside them, taking away the ominous darkness as a brighter glow appeared.
And a whine accompanying it.
He and Six shielded themselves at once, flinching away from the brightness of the television. A mistake, that had been. For the screen then rippled like water, and a hand protruded out from it faster than Six’s own reflexes. In just a second, the hand slammed Six to the ground, trapping her under its palm.
The small cry that escaped her made Mono turn. But alas, all he did was take one step or two before another set of fingers pushed him from behind, the same hand then holding him down as he fell face-first.
This situation became a whole lot more terrifying when he realized just how limited his movements could go. Not even limited, actually. Both he and Six couldn’t even move a finger as the weight placed upon them increased.
Viola did not show any kindness as she let herself inside the room through the little screen. And she most definitely did not ease her grip when she picked both of them up in each of her hands.
His arms were stuck to his side; and so was Six’s. All they could do was swing their legs, and shout at Viola, hoping their voices could snap her out of it.
Mono truly wanted that to be true. He wanted to believe that somewhere inside her manipulated and brainwashed mind, that Viola could hear them. And maybe, even try and stop herself from doing what she was doing.
But that wasn’t the case.
Viola was too far gone. She no longer possessed control. In some ways, she too was held in a death-grip by someone else. She too couldn’t move.
And that scared him. Now that he looked at her face-to-face, he felt scared. From dying, yes that too, but also…
He was scared that she couldn’t turn back. What he told Six was the truth after all. Six had her music box when she had been deformed. Her music box was what kept her entranced like the Viewers with televisions. But Viola?
Nothing.
She had nothing.
The Transmission was already put inside her brain, and it played on loop, as if someone in there was turning the lever constantly just so she’d never change back. Someone who didn’t want her to change back.
Viola raised the arm holding Six. In an instant, both of them shouted in panic, their voices echoing in the room.
Six cried to put her down, but that did nothing to stop the hand from going near Viola’s opened maw, sharp teeth ready to chomp on her mother’s head. It was horrifying.
Both of their faces were beyond terrified.
“Viola—stop!” Mono yelled. He thrashed madly in her hold, though the hand around him tightened painfully the more he fought. It tightened until he couldn’t breathe.
“S-stop!” he forced out.
But Six’s neck was already under Viola’s canines, her head seconds away from decapitation.
In just those few seconds, he felt so utterly hopeless, his throat hurt from all the shouting he did despite it falling on deaf ears. But also in that few seconds, he managed to meet Six’s eyes for the very last time.
Her mouth opened, and his name was uttered weakly, as though those were her final words to him.
There was no other choice anymore.
“SIX IS YOUR MOM!”
It slipped out.
By accident or not, it just slipped out. The cat was out of the bag. Mono didn’t know what else to do but to just…
Stay still.
Like everybody else was.
The girls were all frozen. It stayed that way for what felt like an hour long. The pin-drop silence that came after, both dreadful and anxiety-inducing.
Viola did not blink anymore, and everything about her tensed. Her teeth still showed as her grip on her victims were firmly still. Her eyes were wide too.
But Six’s eyes were wider.
“WHAT?!”
Mono flinched when suddenly both Viola and Six whipped their attention to him. As if someone had snapped a finger, the spotlight shifted on him, although it felt like a brick had fallen on top of his head more than anything.
He took in a shaky breath. “I-I said…she’s your mother. She’s always been.”
“Mono—what the hell? What the hell are you doing?”
Once more, he had to ignore Six for now. His whole focus now was to divert Viola from continuing her plan to eat her mother.
Nevertheless, she was listening. Viola was actually listening to him.
And if calling Six out for what she actually was—her mother—then he had to use that as an advantage. Or else Six would…
Lose her head. And die.
“Viola, if you’re in there somewhere, please listen to me. Six isn’t just some ordinary kid! She’s your mother. And the best one there is. Do you remember that? What you told me about her?”
Viola slowly held Six away from her maw, and closed them, albeit unhappy and impatient. Her eyes narrowed into slits, as if giving him the green light to continue at his own risk.
Mono gulped silently.
“You—you said that your mom was a caring person. Loving, and kind. When I told you I’d always think of Six as nothing but a traitor, you told me that she’d change. A-and that she wasn’t a lost cause.” Carefully, he lifted his gaze to meet Viola’s. “She’s even sacrificed her life to save you. Because she loves you, Viola. Six loves you.”
“I do not!”
Viola’s eyes snapped to Six the instant she yelled that, and the murderous look in her eyes returned. But not like that was something Six would pay attention to because she just had to put her ego first.
If he hadn’t had his arms trapped, he would’ve done a face-palm. But instead, he harshly whispered to her, “Six, just play along.”
“What, to being her mother? You want me to role-play as her mom while she’s trying to eat me?! Mono, out of all things you could’ve said, that is the stupidest I’ve ever—!”
Viola tightened her hand around Six, and let her jaw hang open once more, intending to finish the meal she had been trying to eat. But all at the same time, both of the children's fears struck them like an arrow, their panicked shouts overlapping with one another.
Six cried to Viola directly, “I’m your mom—I’m your mom!” But it was too late this time.
Viola wasn’t listening anymore.
No matter how loud he or Six shouted, trying to convince her was a wasted attempt. Six, now realizing what she’d done, was finally playing along like he’d asked her to—repeating things he had said just before. Whereas Mono screamed his throat out at the tall girl and told her everything he could think of about her mother, about Six’s future self that Viola had told him.
Yet all of that for what?
After everything they said—screamed at her—Viola did not stop at all. It didn’t catch her off guard like it did before, as if the “thing” controlling her subconscious had ruled their words as nothing but lies, and eventually, white noises.
Mono dreaded that would happen, horrified at the thought of failing to save Six from those saw-like teeth and it from puncturing her body.
Just like Six, he thrashed and squirmed harder. He tried to pull his arms out, at least even a little bit to strike Viola with another blast, just to give them all some more time to escape.
He couldn’t, though. For his movements were just as limited as Six’s. His powers were unusable in his place.
Unfortunately, just like Six’s was.
It all felt as though they were in slow motion. And he watched. As Viola began to eat her mother, he could only watch.
Until.
Until a small ‘thud’ dropped below them.
The sound halted Viola, interrupting her once again but this time when her glare lowered to its source, something appeared in eyes. An emotion utterly strange and unmatched with her monster look.
Confused were Mono and Six as Viola didn’t finish the latter off, although things became even more confusing when they were suddenly released without warning. Out of the blue.
It should’ve been a relief, yet it didn’t feel right. Something wasn’t sitting right. And it was only when they met the floor, did it really occur to them.
Viola had let them go just like…that?
After the painful, desperate begging and attempts of convincing they’d done, the secret Mono promised not to tell anyone but slipped out anyway, and Six taking a huge dive for herself by even agreeing she was someone’s mother without context, it took Viola a mere thud to put them down? To not kill them?
What had even happened? What had made her let them go suddenly?
And why did she seem so…afraid now?
Why was she backing away from them, away from the shiny little object that laid across the floor beside them?
Mono’s brow furrowed as he eyed the fallen item, carefully taking it into his hands.
Why was she afraid of her own locket?
He unclasped it.
The television was knocked back, Viola tripping backwards on it, spewing out incoherent curses and snarled as he let the locket hang open. Though, everything about her changed in that moment.
There was no more of that violent, aggressive behavior. No more of attacking, or chasing, or eating her future parent, or using her powers. And instead, Viola did nothing else but recoil from them like a fearful dog after being hit. But strange enough, she wasn’t hit anywhere—excluding when before they came into this room.
So, seeing her act that way just made him wonder.
It made him wonder as he stared down at the pictures inside the locket—one of a man and the other a woman. Viola’s parents.
She stopped when I told her Six was her mother. And...she runs away after seeing her locket? Why was she scared of it in the first place? Could she have already known what was inside right at that second? Or could it be that this locket is making her…
His eyes widened, and he gasped.
Remember.
The locket is making her remember!
Mono glanced at Viola, seeing her glare at him with the same animosity she had before, albeit there was wariness he noticed. She was on edge and clearly holding herself back, as if she badly wanted to kill him off but couldn’t approach whatsoever.
All because of the little locket he held. The only thing she’d brought with her from her past.
Both of her parents—on image.
Six was right. Perhaps their situation wasn’t all that different.
Viola may have not had a physical medium like Six’s music box to keep the Transmission up and running in her brain on loop, but with this locket, it was a start to stop whatever brainwash activity happening in her mind. It was a start to reverse her deformation, to actually change her back. Because looking back at Viola now, the growing fear on her face and the way she flinched when the locket was raised, Mono was convinced immediately.
Her locket was how they would help her.
And as Viola made her distance, growling from across the room as if to intimidate them still, Mono turned to Six.
He could tell by her face that she too had been watching the whole ordeal, studying the locket and Viola’s behavior change after the necklace had slipped out of her raincoat pocket.
It was pure luck that it did. And they’d certainly need more of that luck to do this successfully, that is if they could pull this off without dying first.
Surely, Viola—or rather, the thing in her mind—would use all within her power to stop herself from remembering.
Mono didn’t doubt that.
Neither did Six as she nodded to him, telling him that she was ready to bring Viola back once and for all.
And honestly?
So was he.
Notes:
Sorry for the wait!
Procrastination is no joke and I'll be honest and say I've been writing this chapter on and off for the last few weeks. I didn't want to post a rushed chapter, so yeah made you wait instead T - T. Also, October and November are gonna be two busy months for me. So, I apologize if the next update comes a bit late too. Hopefully not as late as *this*, but ya get the point.
Thanks for reading!
Chapter 50: I'm Sorry, Viola: Part 1
Notes:
...Hey.
Anyone still reading this fic?
WAIT LISTEN- I know I said I wasn't going to disappear that long. And it's been almost 3 months since I last updated ( ╥ω╥ ) I blame myself huhu. Also, since my guilt is eating me alive for not updating AT ALL before the new year starts, I leave you all with the first part of this chapter. Would've posted after everything is written down, but I know imma take a long time if I do that.
SO! In the meantime, have this chapter as my christmas gift to you ;)
And one more thing.
Shout out to AngoDrag0n for the awesome fanarts you've done of The Nanny and The Tenant (seriously sorry I took so long (╥_╥) ). Please go check them out!
Links:
https://mobile.twitter.com/AngoDrag0n/status/1578452667336359938
https://mobile.twitter.com/AngoDrag0n/status/1578453357949505536
Anyhoo, hope you enjoy!
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Viola couldn’t feel herself.
It was infuriating how every time she tried to think, something else was doing it for her, telling her what her next actions were. There were these voices that seemed to grow louder the longer she was this way. She couldn’t remember how long exactly since those voices started, but she did recall they used to be small, merely soft whispers that she could tune out.
But now, she couldn’t even hear herself.
She couldn’t move on her free will, as though her limbs were attached to strings, and someone was puppeteering her from above. Viola knew this was wrong. Deep down in whatever consciousness she had left, she knew this was anything but normal. However, the voices were very good at persuading her.
During her chase with Six, when she tried to kill her by having her head, they made Viola believe what she did was right. When Mono came into the picture, and ran away with his friend to safety, blasted her with his power until it seeped into her skin and left her in an agony, the voices made Viola believe she should hurt him the same way he had hurt her.
And she planned to. Right after she had succeeded in killing Six, she would hurt him so bad.
Yet…
Yet now the need to do all those things, her own strong desire placed by the voices, to finish what she started was dwindling.
She began to hesitate whether everything she’d done and wanted to do was even right. She began to wonder if the voices were truly the only ones she could trust. It came to be this way when Mono had shouted something she knew she’d heard herself say before—when exactly, she didn’t know, but it had happened.
Regardless, these hesitations were minor. It was something irrelevant, the voices had told her. Something not worth thinking about. Viola had listened to their words and believed them again. But the second the locket came into the picture, something in her mind snapped.
The voices screamed in unison, deafening and desperate for her to look away immediately. And so, Viola did. She released Mono and Six without waiting and recoiled from them as if they were the ones who had been chasing after her—although, she didn’t understand it.
Because why had the voices screamed at her for merely glancing at the locket?
Stay away, they said. Stay away from the locket.
Viola held her head, heaving breaths after breaths trying to calm the voices down. They were all so…perturbed now. Frantic. She didn’t know how long she had to stay like this, though it had to have been long enough to the point where the children looked at her with anything but fear on their faces.
They weren’t scared to approach her anymore.
One of them at least.
Mono was now in front of her, hands at his side and both closed into tight fists that she couldn’t tell which one held the locket. But by his sudden courage, they both knew that he was the one Viola was wary of now.
“Viola,” Mono said, and she moved further back instantly. The voices started again just when she had managed to calm them down.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no.
“Do you remember me?” he asked.
Viola gritted her teeth. She should, shouldn’t she?
“I guess you wouldn’t, considering you attacked Six when she asked you the same thing. But…what about your real parents?” Viola froze. And Mono took that as his answer. “You remember them, don’t you? You remember they were the reason that you even came here?”
Viola felt her finger twitch.
Stop him.
“Viola, I know you can hear me in there! I know there’s a part of you that still remembers everything! I bet you even remember what your parents look like—” Mono was thrown across the room, landing on Six if she hadn’t been in the way.
Winces were heard from where they lay after the harsh hit from Viola. Six being her usual self, scowled at her friend, as though blaming him when she was caught in the blow.
“So much for ‘persuading’ her, Mono,” she said.
“It was worth the shot!”
Despite his annoyance, he still grabbed Six’s hand with him as they headed to the door. Viola couldn’t help but find the irony of the situation now—Mono, snatching Six’s hand the way he did without so much of a second thought. Back then, he would’ve rather written a whole essay regarding why Six’s hand was toxic to human skin…
Viola flinched as her ears were ambushed by the voices, whispering:
They are getting away, Viola. What you’re thinking is not important.
Right.
It wasn’t important.
It didn’t matter to her as much as killing Six and hurting Mono was. She nearly got carried away, and the voices she wouldn’t allow that to repeat. She’d already lost sight of the children, only left with a single clue: the opened door.
Who knows where they could’ve gone now. How foolish of her to even spare them a second of head start.
Going after them mindlessly, however, would be more foolish.
There was a reason why she’d been able to find Six through the television the first time; and that reason being Mono. His energy was easily sensed as she had gone through channels after channels, tuning the deadly signal within the television Six had suddenly escaped with; his energy alone felt different from everything else that was in the Tower. It was undeniably strong to have missed it and yet…familiar. As if she’d connected with this sort of energy once before.
The voices didn’t like that. They never liked it when she felt this way, so they’d often fill her mind with ugly emotions such as hatred, anger, and despair. However, now one burned the brightest.
Revengeful.
Viola wanted to pay her revenge to both Mono and Six, the latter being the one who’d suffer the most from her wrath.
She flipped back the television upright, and never felt more determined to find them. She knew she could. The heavy signal buzzing under her fingertips, lightly prickling her skin like needles poking, was all the indication she needed.
That she’d connected to Mono. She’d found where they were.
With a grin, she pushed herself forward with ease, the screen rippling as static filled her ears. But as she expected total darkness, the room she was crawling into was far from it.
Bright lights strained her eyes as she now stood fully out, coming to ambush her from left and right. They were more televisions it seemed, merely the same familiar screens surrounding her on every wall. And the ones that sat on the cold floor were stacked atop each other like book towers, perfectly balanced and systematically arranged.
Aside from her sight being in discomfort, her hearing fared no better. One television making static was hardly bearable, but dozens of them all making the same noise at once? It was irritatingly loud—although, no sound could overthrow the voices. But not all were static, Viola realized as she scanned the room. Not all of the television showed that dull gray as some played a black and white videos. One of which was a man looking at her. He was in a proper suit, his hair slicked back, his voice matching his gloomy face as he delivered grave words to his audiences.
“A message to all of Pale City citizens,” the anchorman announced grimly. “The Tower is growing taller day by day as we know it, and it isn’t friendly. I believe our beloved city is in grave danger, dear watchers. I fear that the worst has finally come. So if you are still watching, if you aren’t yet one of the affected, I implore you to stay home with your families. Do not go outside at all costs. Keep your children close to you at all times. But most importantly, please remember:”— The anchorman’s head twitched, his voice distorting —“Stay away from the eyes.”
Viola watched as the screen changed to static briefly before it returned to the man. The video was on loop, she realized when the man spoke the same words.
How strange, she thought. Why would the man say such things that weren’t at all true?
She turned away from the television and walked around, searching for the little children hiding in the room. She knew they were in here somewhere. She could sense a certain boy’s presence just as much as he could sense hers. The air wasn’t at all the same after all.
Viola looked behind one of the stacks. A frown came to her lips as no one stood there. Yet somehow, under the loud static noises and overlapping voices of man and woman, she could capture the faint pitter-patters running around the room, so carefully soft but one that she didn’t miss. She could hear their breathing shift from slow to fast as they escaped from her line of sight.
Not forever, though.
She wasn’t a mindless monster—even though that same mind wasn’t hers to control. Viola didn’t care for it. The voices always knew what was best for her anyway. And if they said these children weren’t her friends, or these children only sought to harm her she’d believe it, regardless if there was a small little girl shouting desperately at the very back of her mind, shaking the bars of the cage she was locked in.
To reiterate, the voices always knew what was best.
“Viola!”
She whipped her head around and saw Mono standing across her. So rather…out in the open. It was questionable, to say the least.
Why did he finally choose to come out? And where was that little, yellow-hooded backstabber that was with him?
“What? Am I not who you’re looking for?” Mono said and challenged, “or are you too chicken to get me?”
How insulting.
Viola sneered his way and punched the television beside her, as though to give him a preview of his fate.
Mono gulped as shards now littered the floor, smoke coming out from the television she had broken with a single fist. His gaze followed the broken glasses in dread. To think that he was showing his courage and power when in fact he could just as easily end up like that crushed piece of technology—or whatever was left of it—Mono slightly regretted his words. All of that bravery was thrown out the window once Viola took a step.
He shot his arm at her in response, a fierce ball of light flying towards her like an arrow. If he had done that when she’d turned her back, she probably would’ve experienced the same blinding pain the second time today.
Nevertheless, mistakes were often made to be learned from.
And Viola learned well not to get struck again.
She noticed how his eyes widened a little in growing fear as she dodged, the blue light shattering the few televisions behind her, which now ended up as broken as the one she’d destroyed. Then his frown deepened. Mono threw yet another harsh strike. Viola ducked this time, all the while continuing her slow, threatening steps to him, looming over him like the monster that she was.
The boy was in no position to show power, especially when he came to fight against her alone. But something about the silence that he gave her now was utterly satisfying. The way he only watched her raise her own hand as blue sparks danced between her fingers tauntingly, dark energy swirling around it—it gave Viola the sense of joy she never thought she’d feel in a long time.
This was the revenge she’d wanted. And it was one she would get.
Viola let her smile show before hitting him with his own medicine.
In a split second, Mono jumped to the side, falling forward as he protected his head from the debris that scattered all around
“Shit,” he whispered, and glanced at his deformed friend. Viola wasn’t done at all as she raised her hand again. “Oh, shit!” Mono forced his legs to run, heat burning his back as she threw him another surge of her power.
Viola grinned at that, entertained as she went after him, hurling dangerous energy after energy in every direction he opted to go as though this was a game of Whack-A-Mole. She enjoyed it. She enjoyed seeing the fear in his eyes each time he almost got caught in her blast that she even wondered why she hadn’t done this sooner.
Perhaps it was the voices’ will, or perhaps they had a certain plan for it. Maybe it was even the screaming girl inside of her who had been holding her own power back, stupidly fighting against the voices not to hurt the children to a point where it became fatal. That girl indeed wasn’t strong enough to hold on forever.
The voices have already allowed her ability to resurface.
Another shout of curse left Mono, him tripping backwards as his way was blocked by a tiny explosion. He cursed under his breath as she threw another, desperation—and somehow, frustration for something—etched into his voice as he shouted, “A little help would be nice every once in a while!”
Viola paid no mind to his words, nor who it was directed to, and instead formed another one of her power.
His face looked about done by her action. Tired. Fed up even. It seemed like the boy never got a break in his entire life.
But to say what he did next wasn’t strange would be a lie. Or rather, what he didn’t do. As he now sat on the floor, looking up at her with a big gulp, he never really made a move to run away. He backed himself against the wall, yes, but there were still openings he could escape to in these short few seconds. Even as her power ignited in her palm—becoming brighter and powerful—Mono held his ground by staying put, his eyes occasionally darting to what was behind her.
Once again, she decided not to pay any mind.
That was her first mistake.
Darkness circled around her wrist, holding her still and keeping it from being brought down to the boy in front of her. Like chains, it began to pull her whole arm with it to the ground. The threatening power in her palm had long disappeared, overtaken by this pure darkness that held just as much threat as hers. Viola knew whose it was the moment she laid eyes on them. That bright yellow was unmistakable in this horrendous, dismal world.
Six finally joined their game, her face as cold as the ground Viola was forcefully pinned on. And her hands were engulfed in utter darkness so strong yet limited.
Funny.
How did she even know the latter part?
“What the hell took you so long?” Mono said as he got beside her, though everything about him lacked any malice. He dug his hand into his coat pocket and added, “The plan was to back me up right after I got her attention.”
“But I was waiting for your signal.”
“A signal? The blast was my damn signal. Heck, didn’t you hear me screaming in distress towards the end there—?”
Viola bared her teeth and snarled when Mono took out the silver pendant from his pocket, cutting off the small conversation the two held in an instant. Barely a minute, and they were quickly reminded of how important it was to never lose their attention when it came to dealing with a monster corrupted by the Transmission.
In their case, Six would’ve lost her grip over her if she hadn’t focused in time, which would’ve meant a loss for both children and a win for her.
Mono glanced at Six and held the locket by its chain, letting it dangle for a single purpose. They had to do this now or never.
“Keep her still for me,” he said as he approached.
“Careful.”
As if he wasn’t.
Viola jerked in a futile attempt the closer he was, but that only urged Six to add another swirling darkness over her other wrist.
This wasn’t good. She could feel the voices become antsy in her head, their anger growing the more she sees the locket in the boy’s hand. Oh, but their screams were far worse than one could imagine. Just like when they’d been in that dark room, the voices screamed as though they were in blinding agony just by the sight of that silver locket. And if there was one thing Viola understood about these voices was that she and them were connected in a cruel way.
Which meant that if they were angry, then so was she.
If they were in pain, she’d feel it too.
The second Mono opened the clasp of that horrible locket, her mind was as though seared with fire, caused by the voices’ screams alone. She clamped her eyes shut immediately, crying in knowing the pendant hovered above her eyelids. And she knew if she ever opened them, she’d be done for. Everything in her would be lost. She wouldn’t—couldn’t let that happen. Despite the pleas these children gave her, shouting at her to trust them and just to open her eyes and see the truth, Viola only fought against the heavy weight on her back and limbs. She didn’t want the voices to go away. Without the voices to help her anymore, nothing would hold meaning.
She closed her eyes even tighter in that fear, her feet digging into the floor, so desperately wanting to escape the invisible hands that pinned her to the ground as if she was a feral dog. The children’s shouts were still present to her.
They told her once more to open her eyes. Both of them were just as desperate as she was too that it nearly brought her a sense of…
Pity.
Such a pity that they were trying their hardest to save a monster that was beyond saving. A pity that these children truly thought they could bring that sad, weak little girl back when she was already long gone.
A pity that they still even tried.
But being the person she was now, Viola couldn’t pity them much even if she wanted to. Even as her whole body began to twitch madly, her eyes glowing white like those very televisions around her, she couldn’t feel bad for purposely getting them caught in her blast of power.
The room fell into a short blackout as all electricity was taken.
Viola felt the weight on her lifted in these few seconds, sweet relief engulfing her whole as she finally regained control of her body again. And a grin plastered on her ruined face once the lights from each screen returned. The static, the cacophony of voices and distorted music—they all came back to replace the brief silence.
Mono and Six, on the other hand, felt the opposite of her relief. They were hurt, exhausted and dreadful. Having flung across the room like a ragged doll would’ve given anyone the same effect. Add on with the fact they were practically given a bad electroshock from Viola, it would be a miracle if any one of them could still fight. But apart from each other now, Viola doubted they could even continue with their “plan”.
And her doubts were partially correct. It would take a literal miracle to bring Viola back down again after the whole pain they’ve just endured.
However, their determination was annoyingly strong.
Even as there was a gap between them, they still reached out to one another, coughing, and wincing all the while.
Viola had had enough with the two.
She picked up Mono from behind, separating him just as his hand brushed Six’s; and Viola felt no guilt as she did so. Regardless if they were crying each other’s name the whole time, regardless they were crying for hers to put him down, Viola felt no remorse. This had to be done one way or another. The locket was a nuisance and simply had to be put somewhere far away for now.
And if Mono was out of the picture along with that cursed locket, his body weak and hurt, where would that leave his friend, Six?
In a fatal position.
She wouldn’t have her escape so easily. Her powers would be useless to stop anyone; and the biggest win of all, the locket wouldn’t be in her possession to threaten Viola.
Six would be entirely defenseless, soon dead.
The voices liked that idea. And so did Viola as she brought Mono closer to the television, its screen glowing brighter and brighter as though ready to be in use. She could feel the horror in the boy at the realization, how his nails dug into her skin in a feeble attempt. But with his weakened state—including Six’s—everyone knew there was no stopping this.
There was no stopping her now.
“Viola, please,” Mono said to her, his face paling. “Don’t do this.”
She only smiled.
It was already done.
The television let out a strong whine as Viola shoved him forward to the glass, his figure disappearing behind it and never to return after she shattered them into sharp pieces. Along with a few others in case he decided to force whatever strength he had left to come back. It’d surely take a while for him to do so.
But at least not in time for him to save his friend.
Viola slowly turned to her with a sinister smile, baring her canine-like teeth just to put fear in her. Whether it did or not, it didn’t really matter.
What really mattered was that Six had nowhere else to go. And that was literal.
Viola had hovered over her threateningly, her eyes unblinking as she stared deep into her faltering face. Six didn’t fight, to her surprise. All she did was look down on her lap and hid her face under that yellow hood of hers. It was as if she’d finally accepted death as her next fate.
Good.
Fantastic even.
This would make everything a whole lot easier and faster to seal her victory. One that she’d been wanting for who knows how long. It was everything she dreamed of as she let her jaw hang open, sharp teeth threatening to bite the girl’s head off in just one second.
But that was her second mistake.
She let her guard down when she shouldn’t, thinking only on the fact that Six was alone and injured. She shouldn’t have thought her victory was sealed when in fact all that was sealed for her was pure defeat. She shouldn’t have been so quick to underestimate these children—a microscopic part of her knew she had history with.
Viola could list everything that she shouldn’t have done during the moment. But the only simple thing that she should’ve done was look into Six’s hands.
The ones where a silver locket now lay inside; opened and revealed directly to her eyes.
It was only then she realized where she’d gone wrong, the very mistake that led her up to this.
It was not nothing when Mono and Six had brushed their hands together. It never was. They had truly tricked her into thinking that it was merely an act of friendship, just two kids afraid to lose one another into a horrible fate. Viola thought them a fool for doing so.
But as it turned out, she was the fool here. What made it worse, though, was that both Mono and Six already knew that from the start.
Because they knew they’d already won against her—against the now stupefied voices as the two images of man and woman, long forgotten and buried deep under her own sea of memories, began to resurface. And the chains that had wrapped itself around her old self finally came undone.
“Gotcha.”
Then all became white.
Notes:
Ngl at some point I've forgotten how to write Viola lol. Next chapter should be fun.
Anyway, Merry Christmas everyone!
Thanks for reading!
Chapter 51: I'm Sorry, Viola: Part 2
Notes:
Hello again. I disappeared and have returned half a year later T - T
Even so, I'd just like to thank everyone for your patience and those who still commented on the previous chapter - I really appreciate it a lot, and I'm not abandoning this fic don't worry lololol
Anyhoo, this chapter is 6.4k long and mostly fluff so enjoy ;)
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
The moon was a pretty sight tonight.
It wasn't like it was a rare occasion at all to see a full moon, proudly up in the sky and overtaking the spotlight of everything else, but this moon in particular was a beauty.
Serene.
Reassuring.
Viola didn't know truly how long she'd sat there in silence, listening to the sea waves, digging her feet into the cold sand, humming a song she'd learned from home, and wishing things had gone differently. At some point she wondered: if she hadn't done anything, if she'd listened and stayed in that bunker, leave their fate be, would it have been better? Would the situation be less bad than it was now when she'd decided to play hero and mess with things she did not understand?
The water touched the edge of her toes. The sea waved again. The moon listened to her silent regrets.
Truly, Viola regretted it. She regretted thinking she could defeat the very enemy her parents couldn't dare to go against.
"You stupid idiot," Viola told herself. "Dumb, moron, and careless fool—"
"Hey, don't call yourself that—"
Her scream pierced the air. Viola jumped out of her comfortable spot and recoiled from the man who had - literally out of nowhere - appeared sitting next to her.
How on Earth would anyone even be here?
That was a question she asked herself first when she noticed the man. Yet all of her questions were thrown out of the window the more it hit her.
She knew this man. She recognized his voice. She'd seen that fedora hat a hundred times before. She remembered his face and his lanky figure.
"Dad," she whispered.
Thin Man smiled at her, although his eyes were still wide from her previous reaction.
"Yeah," he said, and laughed. "You know, you screamed right into my ear. I'm not all that young anymore, Vi."
"Why are you here?" He raised a brow. "Y-you're not supposed to be here. You're," Viola said, then gulped, "not even him. Are you?"
A pause. Then he turned to the sea and sighed.
"It's sort of a long story," he admitted. "But look—I'm only here for a short while, and I just thought that, maybe, you could use my help a little. I mean, I know you might think I'm not telling the truth, or I'm some sort of an illusion to trick you and all that; but trust me. I can assure you that I am 100% sincere and genuine to help you, Viola. I promise I'll work together with you. You know, like how when we used to be a team and fought against your mother when she couldn't admit that she was wrong that one time during the—?"
Thin Man turned back to her, only to find the wind staring back at his face. Small footprints were all that was left in the sand, the steps taken were already far away from him.
It was all that Thin Man noticed after his seemingly useless speech.
As well as the running child in the distance.
Because illusion or not, Viola bolted out of there the second she saw fit. To hell with finding out who that man actually was. It was proven multiple times before already that her curiosity was her own murderer, so she wasn't about to be murdered again this time. The Eye's imposter game did a number on her trust instincts to the point where she was left with next to nothing.
Screw that guy, Viola decided again, never looking back. If I can get away from him, I won't have to listen to his stupid speech and be tricked for the umpteenth time—
She ran into something hard. Oh, but the horror she had to endure when she realized that that something was wearing the same suit and tie, and fedora hat.
Thin Man loomed over her as she'd fallen on her rear, his hands already up and seemingly apologetic.
"Viola, hey, are you alright—?"
"STAY BACK!" Viola forced herself up and backed a few steps. She held her hand up, and said, "YOU STAY BACK OR I'LL BLAST YOU!"
Thin Man raised his brows again, this time genuinely surprised.
"What's that now?"
"If you take another step, or even try something funny, I will not hesitate to make you feel pain." Her words were threatening, yet her face and voice betrayed her. "You—you hear me? I'm not afraid to hurt you is what I'm trying to say. Just try anything and I—I will seriously do it. I'm not scared of you."
"I can see that," he said, as he lowered his hands to his sides. "Listen Viola, like I said before, I'm only here for a short while. I'm not sure for how long, but you can trust me, okay? Let me help you—"
"For what exactly? To torture me? Make me fall into a false sense of security just so it'd hurt more when your mask falls off?" Viola shook her head. "Yeah, I've had enough of that already. I'm sick and exhausted from being played around like some replaceable toy. So do us both a favor; go back to wherever you came from and just disappear there, you fake bozo!"
"Alright, first of all—ouch. Calling me a fake is still acceptable, but a bozo? That's seriously uncalled for and sort of just hurts—"
"Oh I hope it does. I hope you rot forever in a hole—"
"—Second of all," he said, "will you please listen to what I have to say?" Viola scowled and kept quiet, but never lowered her hand. Thin Man nodded and sighed in relief. She did not protest again.
He began, "I understand that you must be…furious and confused as to why I'm here. It's natural that you do, considering I wasn't supposed to be here like you said. But the thing is I…I know I made a bad choice. I knew it was selfish and how fatal it was, yet I insisted anyway on leaving you with your mother, hoping you'd both would have enough time to run if I gave myself up. It didn't go as I'd planned and, well, everything just went so, so wrong; and for that, I just," he said, "wanted to say I'm sorry.
"I'm sorry for pushing you away that day. Sorry that I left you all alone, even though I knew you were scared. Sorry that I kept a lot of things in the dark—leaving you hurt in the process. But most of all, I'm sorry that I…failed you when you needed me. I realized I wasn't exactly the best father towards the end there. And I am…really sorry for the things I did—the decisions I made."
His smile was long gone, replaced with the familiar guilt and sadness she remembered he'd worn on the day they parted ways. He wore that same expression, too, the night before when they'd sat at the front porch; when she'd found him retreating to his smoking habit as the Lady had fallen ill and unconscious.
And the conversation they had that day.
Viola felt the surge of bravery course through her, and asked, "What happened before mom became sick?"
Her father became silent. Shoulders sagged. Face faltered as though her question was news that announced the world was ending.
"Before she became sick…?" he said slowly.
"You never explained how she fell unconscious for one whole day. You never explained why you broke the television in your bedroom until it shattered. You never even explained anything about why there was something living under our kitchen floorboard. So, tell me—what happened? What happened before mom became sick?"
He sighed and dragged a hand over his face. "It's really, really a long story to explain, Vi, I—"
"Then just tell me anyway!" She unconsciously walked up to him, temper rising. "I want to know the truth. If you're really him, and not some…extension of the Eye, you'd know things I don't. You wouldn't use what I already know against me."
He looked away. And for what felt like a long time, he kept his silence.
Viola shook her head, scoffing.
"I knew it," she said and turned on her heel. "You're just like the rest of them—"
"I'll show you."
Viola froze midway. Then turned back around.
"What?" she asked.
"My time is limited here for me to explain everything to you all at once. It's a long story, yes. But if you want to know the whole truth, then," he said, extending his hand, "I'll show it to you."
Her eyes darted to his opened hand. And then back to his face—so tired yet utterly patient.
"You're lying. This could be a trick," Viola muttered.
"Well, you said it yourself, didn't you? The Eye is only capable of creating an illusion based on what you know and what is already inside your head," he said. "So let me take you inside of mine and show you that I'm not a fake. I'll show you everything."
His hand never faltered as he spoke. Viola, on the other hand, couldn't even begin to stand without her whole body trembling, her knees seconds away from buckling, her throat seizing up and locking away all of her protests and arguments into a jar of meaningless words.
She still had doubts, yes.
But something about what he said felt awfully true. And what if he was telling the truth? Truth that she had asked for?
Viola knew a second more of her staying still, she'd run from it. So she shut her eyes
And she took his hand.
The world shifted around them. Everything moved too fast, yet too slow that all she managed to do was close her eyes tighter.
Close them shut as the sounds played in a dissonant tune. The screams of boy and girl, of men and women all in cacophony.
Familiar laughter that combined together with it.
Three people, the sound of a once happy family.
The sound of chirping birds, snapping sticks, a clicking of a switch, the television's whining, the static.
Then nothing.
This is a trick.
He's lying to me.
I'm going to die here.
Viola opened her eyes.
A gasp, and they widened at the sight of trees looming over her. She turned around and more trees were there, their barks so thick and tall that it seemed like they could touch the morning sky.
It was morning.
That registered in her mind next, and she stared at the above.
And then she looked back down.
The ground beneath her was no longer soft and cold. She tried to dig her heel into the sand out of habit, but only heard the crunch of dried leaves and felt the texture of warm dirt between her toes.
The sea, too, was nowhere to be seen, not even a trace of the beach was on the ground as the little sticks and stones continued to tickle her soles. And no longer could she see the pretty moon as the sun had taken its place.
Because now she was here.
The forest she called a second home.
Unconsciously, she gripped his hand a little harder. Though it was then those laughter returned, somewhere behind the trees, all around like they were everywhere.
"What…what is this?" She forced out, looking in its direction.
"My mind. Memories I get to keep. Things I hold very dear to me and ones I couldn't forget." Thin Man turned to her and gently nudged her shoulder, tilting his head to the sound, his smile softer now. "Go ahead," he said. "They won't see you."
"They—?"
A woman's laughter echoed again, a man's voice speaking to her in a light tone, yet utterly indistinct.
Viola couldn't catch what he was saying from where she stood. She didn't understand what was even going on but
She had to know.
With her curiosity burning brightly, she let go of her father's hand, and she followed the sound, hiding behind the trees as their voices became louder.
And their faces soon became clearer.
"Mono, you know sometimes I genuinely fear for your life because of your stupidity," the Lady spoke, lying down on her back beside the man Viola thought she'd just left behind seconds ago.
Though he seemed younger here, for some reason; and her mother too.
"It. Wasn't. My. Fault," Thin Man said, so defensive that it made the Lady laugh again. "I was just doing my quick rounds around the city—like I would every other day—and it just so happens that on that day, I was also…on edge."
"And you blasted yourself."
"Because I thought someone was standing beside me!" he said. "It's not my fault that there was a mirror there."
"So, you do admit you got spooked by your own reflection?"
He shot her a look. "It was an accident. My left shoulder hurt like a bitch for two weeks."
The Lady chuckled.
"Ah, Mono. Really, I'm so sorry to hear that." She took his hand and caressed it so gently. He sighed at her touch. "Does it still hurt, though? Would you like for me to kiss the boo-boo away?"
He snatched his hand back and rolled his eyes—even if there was the slightest bit of amusement in them.
"Yeah, yeah, make fun of me all you want. But for the record, I've always had a higher pain tolerance between the two of us. I didn't even shed a tear unlike someone."
"Please, I don't think comparing your pain tolerance with an unborn child is hardly fair.” She rubbed circles across her bumpy stomach. “At least let her grow first, yes?"
He smirked. “How is she, by the way? Assuming it's even a she.”
“While I do have a good feeling that she’s a girl, considering the number of times she forces me into the bathroom to throw up, or how my powers suddenly become a tad deadlier when disposing of male Guests, she's been quite the kicker. But other than that, everything else is just great. I feel good too except…”
A short silence. Yet tension quickly hovered above them like a cloud.
Thin Man faced her, a brow raised. “Except?”
“I’m still a little worried,” the Lady said—contemplated, “about her, and about…the Eye.”
The Eye.
Viola perked her ears to that, her head almost already visible from her ‘hiding spot’. But her attempt to eavesdrop with discretion came to an abrupt halt when leaves began to rustle behind her, sticks snapping under each step.
And her father made himself known again - the older version of him, the one that had brought her here to this place.
“Hey—what are you doing,” he asked, not bothering to even hide behind a tree.
Or even lower his voice for that matter.
“Trying to listen. So, shh.”
“Then why are you standing all the way over here? You know you can just go a bit closer to them, right? I told you they can’t see you—”
“SHHH!”
He made a face and whispered, “Fine then. Just thought my suggestion would help you is all—”
Viola tuned him out already. Whether he was telling the truth or not about this scene being a mere memory, she still had her doubts about everything - about this place, about her father's "sudden arrival and his sincerity to help".
She listened back to the conversation, trying to pick some that she had missed.
“—all the time I do. But I just try not to think about it; make it as if it’s just part of the job,” the younger Thin Man said. “I mean, if you look at it that way, it really is just part of the job, only…we didn’t have much of a choice this time. It’s a job that we both know is wrong, but inescapable all the same. A really terrible form of payment.”
The Lady hummed and looked down to her hands, her fingers fiddling with the other. A heavy sigh then.
“Last night was the fifth batch,” she told him. "I'm starting to feel numb by how much I've had to serve every month. Is that bad? That I almost can't feel anything anymore?"
“It's just the deal, Six. One that we made out of desperation. No matter how bad it is, there's nothing we can do but…uphold our end."
A deal.
The fifth batch.
A terrible form of payment.
Uphold our end.
It didn't make sense.
Nothing was making any sense. How could this be the truth that she was looking for—
A hand touched her shoulder. Viola flinched—still unable to grasp a thing, and still clouded by the words of her younger parents.
The dots weren't connecting at all.
“Come on,” he said, already pivoting on his heel, “there's still something I have to show you.”
Viola watched him turn his back as he walked away and into the forest, leaving his past self and wife behind without a glance, as if he’d seen it all a hundred times before.
After all it was just a memory to him, wasn’t it? A memory that still left her questions unanswered, her head brimmed with information that made no sense.
A glance at them.
Then Viola decided: this wasn’t enough.
She had to know the real truth in its entirety and not just a vague, unexplained truth. She wanted to understand everything her parents refused to tell her because of her age. She needed to learn what had led their family to ruin, what the Eye had truly done that made her mother sick and her father mentally pained.
So Viola went and chased after him, determined all the more - her pace fast and brows still furrowed.
“Dad,” she called as she caught up. He said nothing. “What did you mean back there? What was mom referring to when she said—”
“You noticed the forest? It's lovely, isn’t it? What with all the fresh air, green trees, and animals—or whatever’s left of nature’s gift. I must say I did enjoy a lot of my time here—”
“Dad.”
“It used to be a lot prettier, though. This forest. The grass used to be much greener, and there wasn't as much rain in this area until years later. Not saying that you missed out on a lot, but you kind of did in a way— “
“Dad,” Viola snapped. “What is going on?”
Thin Man finally fell silent. He took a quick breath and said, “The past might sound better if I told you instead, wouldn’t it? I could just make up a believable story, and have you eat it up every time I decided you weren’t old enough to know. That you shouldn’t have to be burdened with this kind of problem at such a young age. Really, all your mother and I wanted was for you to have a different life than what we had to go through, but,” he sighed, “our decisions might just have made it worse.”
“If you think it’s already worse, then stop trying to protect me. The damage has already been done. Some secrets have already been revealed. So just say it; what is really going on here, dad? Where are we even going?”
He looked at her for a second. And then two more. His smile returned to his face as his gaze was back ahead.
“Another place,” he said simply.
“What place?”
“Do you remember what you asked me when we got here earlier?”
"Uh, yeah?”
“And what was it, your question?”
Viola rolled her eyes and sighed, patience already thin. “I asked you what all of this,” she gestured to the forest, “was. Then you said this place is your mind. Your memories or something.”
“Yes. I did say we were entering my head, but,” he said, looking at her, “the forest isn’t all where I stuff the important and precious bits. It’s like I said: there are memories I get to keep; memories I hold extremely dear to me; and ones I can’t ever forget. What you just witnessed earlier is one of the ones I get to keep. That conversation I had between your mother was,” he paused and counted, “probably around 4 months before you were born. I’m sure you can tell by her…you know.”
“What do you mean that memory was one of the ones you get to keep? Don’t you get to keep all of them?”
“Uh—well…” he hesitated. “It’s a…it's a little complicated, Viola. So for now, I’ll only leave it at that just so you won’t get confused—which I can tell by the look on your face right now you most definitely are.”
Viola rolled her eyes again. “I just don’t get why that memory is even categorized under ‘memories you got to keep’. Shouldn’t mom be in one of your cherished ones?”
“Oh, she is. She’s definitely in there,” he said, smiling as though reminiscing. “Don't feel jealous though. You’re in there too, you know.”
“Shocking.”
“Now you sound just like your mother.”
“So, when are we getting there? I’ve been following you for a while now and I’m starting to believe you’re just stalling so you can create a memory that never happened.”
Thin Man sighed at her snappy tone and halted in front of a tree. On its bark, just above the ground sat a narrow hole.
He pointed right at it.
“Here we are,” he said.
Viola stood there in silence for a few seconds, her eyes darting back and forth from studying his expression for possible lies, and then to the narrow opening that suggested scary things within and beyond its darkness.
“Through there?” she asked.
“Yep. Through here.”
Again, she looked into the hole like it would swallow her. This suddenly became creepy.
“Dad. seriously. What is this?” she asked, secretly unnerved. “Is this a joke?”
“How would this even be a joke? It’s not even remotely funny—”
“Great! Glad we agree then—”
“Ah-ah, stay where you are, young lady. You said you wanted to learn the truth, right? Then here it is. Through this tunnel.”
“It’s a tunnel?”
“I mean, for me it is because of my annoyingly tall h—you know what, quit dilly dallying and off you go!” He gently pushed her towards the entrance of the so-called tunnel. Viola felt her heart beat faster.
And fear took over her mind.
“Wait, wait!” Her body tensed as she froze. Thin Man stopped with her, turning to face her immediately with a frown.
“Viola?”
“I don’t…where would this tunnel even lead me? You—you never said where we were going next!”
He paused.
“I didn’t?” Viola shot him a dirty look. He smiled apologetically. “Oh well, my bad. If it makes you feel more comfortable, I suppose I could give you a hint.”
“Can’t you just tell me, dad—?”
“Home,” he said. “We’ll be going straight home, Viola”
Another skeptical look.
“Through a tree?”
He snorted at that. Though it did help calm her anxiety a little at how much he was treating this blithely.
“Watch your head, okay? I’ll be right behind you.”
This time, Viola let him nudge her inside the tunnel in the tree.
Darkness quickly engulfed her form as soon as she entered, the only source of light behind her doing nothing to help her see what was ahead. She didn't even know where to go at this point. Why her father insisted she go in first, she didn't know.
"This is so stupid," she whispered, her back already hunching from how low the ceiling was.
"What was that? I didn't catch what you were saying," Thin Man replied, following right behind her. "Speak louder, Vi. Mumbling is a bad habit."
"I said this is stupid!" Her voice echoed. And she could've sworn she heard him laugh at that.
"I agree. I have no idea why it had to be a small tunnel that leads us back to the house. This is much more inconvenient than walking back, isn't it?"
"Wait, there's another way home? You're saying we could've just walked through the forest?"
"Technically, yeah. But this way is better. Trust me."
"Are you serious—in what universe is taking a cramped tunnel with no lights or directions a better option?"
"I mean, in the context of time, we don't exactly have much on our hands," he said, "so I figured: might as well we take this shortcut. That's just pure logic."
Viola wanted to look behind and smack his fedora off his head.
She didn't.
Instead, she took a breath and kept on moving forward—regardless of it felt like she was walking right into the void and feel the abyss swallow her alive.
"So where do I go now? I can't even see a thing in here."
"Just go straight, honey. There should be another exit right in front of you," she heard him say behind her. "Though, just be careful please. I think there is a slide somewhere."
"There's a slide in here?"
"Oh yeah, most definitely. But don't panic; it's really nothing to worry about, Viola. The slide is at least 10 feet ahead, so you should be good for—"
Viola screamed as the ground beneath her disappeared.
Thin Man halted.
And he winced, listening to her scream fading below.
"Oops."
While he was up there, comfortable and was given a heads up before falling down the slide—which he'd assured her to be at least 10 feet ahead—Viola had to fall forward without any warning. Or at least a late warning at that. She was unfortunate enough to have to slide down into what could be her future death, or worse—another prison the Eye had designed for her.
One full of imposters ready to torment her; different coloured eyes bulging out from every wall, ceiling and floor, staring into her soul 24/7 until it felt like her skin was burning; constant isolation and no one to talk to except for the threats and false hope given by whatever monster—
Her face slammed first into the cool metal.
Viola winced from the pain, forcing herself to try and stand up, using the metal as a means of support.
That is until the so-called support turned out to be a loose metal grate.
It groaned.
She fell forward again, but this time she managed to catch herself out of the vent, the metal clanging against the wooden floor. At least, from what she could tell under her palm—it felt like wood. The way it creaked a little as she rose to her feet, and how it felt awfully familiar to stand on. Yet she couldn't be entirely sure this was the home Thin Man had promised as the darkness from the tunnel followed her.
Viola heaved a loud breath.
Where in the world was she now?
A curse echoed from behind, multiple thuds becoming louder and louder until a head appeared out from the same vent.
Then his arm stretched out too.
"Dear God," Thin Man gasped, crawling out from the vent like it was another television. "I haven't been in vents since I was 12 years old. Goodness, this takes me back."
"Dad, what the hell is this place?"
"Oi—language." He patted the dust off his pants, standing up fully, stretching his back and arms. Then he glanced around.
Viola opened her mouth, ready to shoot her questions in annoyance at his lack of answer, but her words seized up in her throat when he pulled a string above them.
A bulb flickered to life.
"Welcome," he said, arms out, "to your own closet!"
Silence overtook her.
She stared at him, and then at the small space. The wooden door. The hanging clothes and folded ones below them. The boxes in the corner.
She shook her head and turned back to him, brows furrowed deeply.
"H…how even?"
Thin Man paused. His eyes widened a little.
"Good question. I—uh—" He cleared his throat. Once or twice.
Then he never continued.
"Dad?"
"Yes, Vi?"
"You were saying?"
"Oh. Ah—yes. About that…" he pondered for a few seconds. Then turned to her. "W—what was it you asked again?"
Viola wanted to slap herself in the head. At least, a few weeks ago this kind of conversation would've left her amused.
"Forget it," she said, reaching for the door. "By the way, before I open this, is there anything I should know?"
He shook his head.
"You sure? Nothing important like telling me if there's even a ground on the other side? A huge pit filled with spikes or snakes?"
"A pit—why would there even be such a thing? It's a child's bedroom—" Viola glared. He frowned. "I mean—no! Of course not! It's totally normal on the other side, I promise."
Viola shot him a half-convinced, half-doubting look.
But after the unceremonious and unexpected slide in the tunnel/vent, she had the right to feel a little doubt when it came to his assurance.
She turned the knob and pushed the door wide.
And what do you know? He was right. It was a child's room.
To be exact—her room.
It didn't take any persuasion or a gentle nudge of encouragement from her father for her to cross the threshold between the closet and her room. Because when she stepped on its floor—her soft, soft carpet—Viola felt a surge of emotions hit her.
Looking back at all of what she had—her bed, her little desk in the corner, her night lamp and her mother's music box on her side table, her belongings—Viola almost couldn't believe her eyes.
She was actually here.
She was standing right before her own room. In the house she thought she could never come back to. A home she thought she'd lost forever.
All of it.
They were all the same like nothing ever changed.
And for a second she believed that. She wanted to so, so badly, yet every time her conscience wouldn't let her. Constantly, it reminded her of the reality of this place, the situation she was actually in, and the man who followed behind her as she gaped at her old bedroom.
The man—her father or an imposter who hadn't yet revealed himself to be one.
An imposter that was so much more real than the other fake ones she'd seen in the Eye's games.
Her bedroom door creaked.
A little girl came running in, her dress covered in mud and so was her hair and face.
Viola locked her gaze on the girl, seeing her quickly close the door behind her and sliding underneath her bed, giggling so innocently.
A few seconds.
And the door flung back open.
And another figure stood in the hall, her long black hair framing her beautiful yet stern face, her presence so strong yet soft.
Viola stopped moving as the Lady stepped in. She stopped breathing when the Lady walked past her.
A glance to Thin Man, and he only shrugged, standing still just like her in the opposite corner. But then he nodded towards the Lady's way, silently telling her to pay attention.
Viola did.
The Lady walked around the dark room, somehow never going anywhere near her or her father.
Then she stopped before the bed. And she sat on it.
A faint giggle underneath. The Lady pretended not to notice.
"Now where-oh-where in the world did that girl go?" The Lady said to herself and out loud. "It would be such a tragedy if my only daughter went missing today. Oh, the heartbreak I must bear—the pain!" She faked a sob, wiping away non-existent tears.
Viola couldn't hold back a smile and a scoff.
How great of an actor her mother was, she thought.
The Lady sobbed dramatically again for a few seconds more. She waited for a while. Then she stopped abruptly, and said with an unaffected tone, "Mono, you can come in. She's not in here."
Then on cue, another version of Thin Man appeared into view, his clothes too just as dirty as the girl who had hid herself.
“Well, dang it,” he said, stepping inside the room, and sighing. “I really thought she went in here.”
“So did I,” the Lady said, glancing down at the bed.
He followed her gaze, and raised his brow. The Lady nodded.
“So Six,” he said, walking around the bed, “are you certain she’s not here?”
“I’ve tried looking, alright? Viola is just not in her room. Or at least," she whispered, "she wouldn’t come out.”
“Have you tried doing the crying thing?”
“The—what?”
“Your fake crying thing. You know how you pretend to cry just so she feels guilty enough to come out—”
“I know what fake crying means, Mono. And it's not as bad as you make it sound like.”
He shrugged. “I suppose. But I gotta say, though. I’m really glad she doesn’t buy it anymore. It’s a wonder she even did in the first place, considering your acting skills are….” He made a so-so hand gesture.
The Lady narrowed her eyes at him.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Thin Man shot her a knowing look.
“Come on. You know what.”
“No,” she said, arms crossed now, “I don’t.”
“I can’t believe you’re making me say it.”
“Yes I’m making you say it.”
“You’re going to kill me if I do.”
“I won’t.”
“No.”
“Say it.”
“No—”
“Say it before I come at you—”
“You’re a terrible actor.”
A huge gasp escaped the Lady. Her face utterly as though betrayed.
“I can’t believe you said that,” she spat.
“Hey—wait—you forced me to!” he said, just as appalled. “Besides, you can’t be that offended, Six. It's a truth you’ve known since we were kids; you suck at acting. Like really. I mean I can even do your fake crying thing better without even trying.”
She huffed, and said, “Well then—be my guest. Since you’re such a great actor, then prove it.”
He smirked, fixing his hair.
“Watch,” he said, stretching his arms, “and learn.”
Thin Man cleared his throat once.
And then twice.
Then patted his chest to double check his voice.
“I think you got it,” the Lady said.
“Shh. Don’t interrupt me when I’m in the zone.”
“Right. How could I forget about the zone—”
“VIOLA PLEASE!”
The Lady became still. The little girl under the bed did not even move. And neither did the two spectators watching.
Viola’s eyes widened, quickly glancing at the older version of her father for his reaction, seeing him already hiding his smile behind a hand.
Honestly, she too couldn’t deny the smile that crept up to her face.
“PLEASE VIOLA COME OUT! I’M SO SORRY I THREW THAT MUD BACK AT YOUR FACE—even though you started it first—BUT STILL I APOLOGIZE!” He dropped to his knees, crying nothing but air. “I promise I won’t take any revenge, Vi. Just come out of your hiding and we can settle this with a truce,” he said and added directly in front of the bed, “And you also get to eat as many chocolates as you want.”
“Are you…are you bribing our daughter?” the Lady asked. “Mono that’s—”
“SHH!” He shoved his hand over her face to silence her. The Lady did nothing, although her glare pierced through anyway.
“So, what do you say, Viola? You in with the truce?” Thin Man asked, waiting patiently for the girl’s answer.
But seconds then ticked closer to a minute.
And the girl never revealed herself from under the bed.
He dropped his hand from his wife’s glaring face. “Well, that’s a shame. I seriously thought that would work.”
“Did you really?” The Lady asked, rolling her eyes. “I told you Viola isn’t coming out.”
“You know what we have to do right?”
A smile. Slowly, a mischievous one adorned on both their faces.
The Lady quietly stood up from the bed and kneeled right beside him by the bed, quickly brushing her hair away as though preparing for a fight.
With the mutual look on their faces, they sure as hell seemed like they were going for war.
“Ready?” he whispered. The Lady nodded.
3
2
1
They reached for the girl under the bed. A shrilling scream pierced the air as both the Lady and Thin Man combined their strength together in dragging her out of her hiding spot.
“WAIT—I CALL TRUCE! I CALL TRUCE!” the girl cried, laughing and struggling in her parents’ grasps, yet to no avail.
“Too late!” he said. “You should’ve accepted it when you had the chance! Now pay.” He tickled her down, the Lady following suit.
Loud laughter filled the room, so contagious that even the other Viola, the one who watched from the side, laughed too. She joined in with their laughter, allowed herself that brief happiness she hadn’t had for what felt like a long time; and she then forgot.
At that moment, she forgot all about the present.
She forgot about the Eye and how it had tormented her for days in different yet repetitive methods; she forgot about the bitterness that resided in her heart as she dealt with its aftermath; she forgot about her time in that small room alone, sitting for hours as time moved incredibly slower and slower on purpose.
It was hard for her to feel content then, of course - to laugh and smile like she meant it.
It was weird feeling it now.
But
It was nice to forget.
A clear of a throat. Viola left her thoughts and turned to the Thin Man who came here with her, the one her mind had argued whether he should be trusted.
Yet his smile was still so gentle. And so was his voice as he said, “Let’s move along.”
For the first time, Viola didn’t feel the reluctance to follow him. In truth, she wanted to feel that happiness again.
She wanted to feel like she was home again.
“Okay,” she said. It was all she needed to tell him as they walked out from her bedroom, leaving that memory just like she had with the first, the laughter soon fading behind the door.
Notes:
Okay there's a part 3 because I planned a lil something to finish this part of the story
Spoiler alert: this fic might not end sooner than you think >:) Whether that's a bad thing or a good thing, I'll leave that up to you sorry ༎ຶ‿༎ຶ
Thanks for reading!
Chapter 52: I'm Sorry, Viola: Part 3
Notes:
Haloo.
I have no other excuses anymore. Sorry for being late yet again BUT. I bring you a 9k chapter to sort of make it up? ಥ_ಥ
Anyway, thank you for those who still commented and have the HUGE patience to wait for this story.
[WARNING]
Implied character death, minor violence
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Viola knew her smile had turned more and more genuine.
The past few minutes they'd been walking down the familiar hallway, her father being silent yet pleasantly talkative at the same time whenever she brought up a question, she soon noticed how something had already shifted between them. Or rather, a certain feeling of distrust and that once-tense atmosphere had left the room.
For once, Viola felt at ease. Nostalgic. Happy.
The memories he’d shown her next made her smile, laughing like she had never laughed after so long.
Thin Man had told her before that they were on a time-crunch, and there were so many golden memories that they had to skip, more than a few doors withholding his cherished pasts they had to leave unseen. Yet so far, it didn't feel like they were in a rush at all. With the pace he had set, Viola merely followed along.
He seemed calm. He is always calm.
“Dad?”
“Hm?”
“Why are you…showing me all of these things again?”
He clasped his hands behind his back, walking at a slow pace. “Well,” he said, “I did say I wanted to help you out in your situation. And also that you demanded that I tell you the truth; so there’s that too.”
“Still, though. The only truth I got so far didn’t even make sense. Actually, the last few ones you’ve shown me don't even relate to the truth. They’re just happy memories of yours of me and mom a few years back.”
“So you want all my angsty ones, is that it?”
“No,” she said quickly. “No, I meant, like—I was expecting something that could, maybe, explain a little more. The most I’ve gotten was from the first one in the forest—and even that was vague.”
Thin Man shook his head and laughed. “You’re not wrong in that area. I do tend to keep things vague sometimes. But I just figured, Vi.” He stopped in front of a door, his hand on the handle as he said, “Since you want the whole truth—with no sugarcoating, no changes in the story whatsoever—you’ll have to accept that I’ll be showing it to you little by little. You’ll have to slowly digest it, if not you’ll be overwhelmed. You know, like food? You chew it bit by bit before actually eating it, don’t you?”
She sighed. He was right. As always with his wisdom.
“Fine then,” Viola eventually said. “What are we looking at next?”
He snickered. “Something you would just love —” A muffled yelling came on the other side. His smirk dropped. “W…wait a sec—” Thin Man quietly opened the door, leaving it open just ajar so he could peek through.
Curious, Viola tried to see too, if it weren’t for her father’s tall stature blocking her view entirely. And before she could voice her complaint—to ask him to move aside—he slammed the door shut, back pressed against it as though a violent beast was on the other side.
From the woman’s angry yelling, and the multiple loud thuds that followed, Viola could assume something similar was inside.
“Dad?” Viola said, looking up to the wide-eyed Thin Man, gulping like he was relieving a past trauma.
“Uh…” He gulped again and laughed nervously. “I—okay, I think we should skip this one too. I just remembered; this one is super lame and irrelevant. My bad.”
“What?”
He nodded quickly. “Yeah. Yeah, we should get going. To another one instead.” Viola narrowed her eyes. True he’d been saying they should move on to another, yet he still hadn’t made any move to leave the current memory door.
“Did something happen in this one?”
He paused.
“No…”
“Liar.”
“Okay, we should really get going—”
“I want to see it!” Viola exclaimed, attempting her way towards the blocked door. It was pointless as long as he was standing there, guarding it. “Let me through.”
“Seriously, Vi, it’s not important. Don’t you want to see the important stuff? Like one that doesn’t involve scary things?”
“What scary things?”
Another long pause. He looked away.
“Your mother,” he mumbled.
A snort escaped her. “Seriously? Something happened between you and mom?”
The woman’s yell sounded through on cue.
“Yes.” His face was pale. She wanted to laugh and feel sorry at the same time.
“What about?” she asked, not caring how uncomfortable he was about revealing it. This was the ‘evil’ side from the Lady he’d known. The cruelty and the pleasure-taking off of other people’s discomfort. Thin Man was well familiar with it, but to see it in his own daughter?
That part almost never failed to surprise him.
He sighed, knowing he'd be fighting a losing battle with the way she kept on insisting.
So Thin Man, reluctant as he was to reveal a very embarrassing and personal memory to his only daughter, had to move aside from the door.
"See for yourself," he said, almost defeatedly. But when Viola's face lit up, he smiled softly through it all.
Viola was downright excited for some reason.
She didn't know what led her to feel such a thing—perhaps it was because of the small, joyous memories she'd seen throughout her time in this faux house—that made her want to see more. Know more about the life she may or may not have lived to see yet—more so towards the latter.
And this one in particular, was one of the gold mines she'd found.
If not, the most entertaining one so far.
The door creaked loudly upon push, yet it did nothing to disturb the two, very young people inside. The woman, her mother, wore a horrifying scowl on her face, one that nearly sent shivers down her own spine.
But if anyone should be terrified as of that moment, it should be the man she had her death glare directed to.
Oh, this was going to be good.
"You piece of human trash," the Lady uttered, raising her hand along with her magic. "Get back here, coward."
Her father had run behind the couch, using it as a shield like it would help him and his ridiculous height.
"N-no," he said. "I get that you're clearly upset with me, but please, Six; put. The books. Down."
The books that the Lady had floated around her were raised higher. "Ah, you want me to put them down? Sure, I can do that, honey."
"Wait—that's not what I meant—"
She flicked her hand vehemently. The books flung towards him with the same vigor, one or two successfully landing a hit on top of him.
Thin Man was quick enough to block it with his arm, although that didn't stop the pain from it. After all, all of the books had sharp edges.
"Come on! I said I was sorry!"
She laughed, rather curtly. "Sorry? You're saying sorry now? After what you did?"
"It was obviously an accident! You know I didn't mean it."
"Bullshit, Mono. I know you well enough to know that you're just saying it to make the situation better for you."
"Is it…working, at least?"
Another book flung to him.
He cried, hands over his head.
“I cannot believe you!” The Lady said, gripping her hair. “How could you do this? To me? ”
“It was really an accident; I swear! But you know I had no control over what happened after that , right? It's not all my fault.”
“Not your fault? Not your—the Maw was without power for 24 hours. Because of you, it couldn't operate normally,” she said. “Everything could've been disrupted!”
“And maybe that's a good thing.”
“Excuse me? Good?”
“I’m just saying: if the Maw were to… be out of service for those horrid bastards you invite over to run your restaurant, then maybe it's not such a bad idea. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if you, I don’t know, just,” he said, sighing, “took a short break from it for a few days. Or even better—forever.”
The Lady stilled, her dark eyes filled with disbelief and rage that should terrify any man who dared stood against her. Thin Man was not included. Except for this moment.
Everything shook within the room.
And he realized his words had been the final trigger to this side of the Lady’s; his fate decided.
“O-Okay, Six,” he said, hands raised, one foot back, “forget that I said that. Okay? Let’s just ignore this whole conversation before anything happens—”
“You did it on purpose?”
He blinked, still as a rock.
Then he bolted out of the room.
Viola watched the Lady scream after him, watching it all transpire as the ghost audience alongside her other imaginary father who had been cringing this whole time. Again, that look on his face made her feel almost sorry for wanting to witness this.
“So,” Viola started, looking up at him, “what’d you do?”
The older man laughed nervously, avoiding her amused gaze—wicked, almost.
“Just some old mistakes. Long story short, I might’ve not-so-accidentally sabotaged your mother’s work, thinking it’s for her own benefit. But like I said: not at all what matters,” he said quickly. “Shall we just move on?”
“I can’t believe you did that, dad. That was really low.”
He rolled his eyes playfully and scoffed. “Sue me; I know. Come on.”
Viola laughed and left.
Thin Man lifted a smile seeing her like so. It’d been quite a while since she was happy—excited like her old usual self. He followed behind her with that thought in mind.
Yet he stilled when he felt something enter his space, like layers of wet blanket dropped heavily upon his shoulder, a sudden cold gust of wind and dark clouds during a bright sunny day.
He noticed it at one glance. Beyond the walls, beneath the floors, behind the windows; they had arrived. They’d found them. They’d come for her. To take her away once more and use her as a means of tool just like they had for him.
They blinked together.
They stretched further as though taking over.
One had even dared to make themselves known, to kindly warn him there was no use. No use in trying to help the forsaken girl at all. No matter what she'd learn.
Thin Man exhaled through his nose. And he stepped on the sinister eye on his way out.
“So, how did you end up getting sick powers from the televisions?”
An honest question from Viola. Thin Man seemed rather amused than reluctant to explain for the first time as he chuckled.
“To say that my powers are sick is too much of a compliment, Vi. I’m honestly so flattered. First time anyone ever said that to me, too,” he said.
“If that’s sarcasm, I’m not acknowledging it. But come on; tell me dad. Just where did this magical sorcery come from and how did it choose you to become its responsible wielder?”
“Now look who’s being sarcastic.”
Viola smirked and laughed. “Seriously, though. I’m curious. Was it from birth? Some random monster that gives free powers? Since I basically inherited it too, I’m assuming the former is more likely.”
“Yeah, probably.”
“Probably?”
“Oh, please, let’s think this logically now. I am decades older, and I can’t even remember my exact age. I don’t even remember the first few years of my life, let alone when or how I found out I could warp through TVs. So to answer your question, yes, I think it is most likely that I have had it since birth. Probably.”
Viola smiled and shrugged.
“That’s cool. I don’t remember a lot of stuff either. Kind of feels like I forgot a lot of it too." He raised a brow, his head turning to her. Viola cleared her throat and continued, "It—it's as if months of my life are wiped out of my mind. Just gone. I don't know how to explain it.”
“But do you remember, still? Of all that has happened before?”
“Most of it, yes,” she said, nodding. “I just meant…that it feels like I’ve been sleeping for a really, really long time. And no one has actually woken me up yet.” Viola snickered alone. Her brain repeatedly told her it didn’t come out sad and depressing.
The loud silence, however, contradicted her every time. The frown on his face that she refused to acknowledge became harder to ignore.
Still, he was her father. He knew her better than she knew herself. He always knew what to do.
“Hey,” Thin Man said, nudging her shoulder lightly, “why don’t you pick the next one yourself? Any door you’d like.”
Viola looked at him brightly.
“Really?” she asked.
He shrugged. “Eh, why not? You’re looking for the truth, anyway, so might as well you do it without me stopping you. And besides,” he said, sighing to the side, faking resignation, “it’s not like I’ve got any pride left. Not after you’ve seen me getting beaten up like that.”
Viola shook her head, laughing. “That was pretty funny, you have to admit.”
“Yes, yes; apparently my suffering and humiliation are a source of entertainment for my own family these days. Now go on. Don’t let me slow you down.”
“And you’re sure about this? No stopping me from discovering any embarrassing memories?”
“Goodness— yes,” he said as he fixed his hat. “Hurry up and go ahead without me before I change my mind—oof!”
Thin Man stammered as he looked down. Two tiny arms were wrapped tightly around his waist, Viola’s cheek pressed into his stomach, her eyes closed shut. She was squealing, overjoyed.
“Thanks, dad,” Viola said quickly. And with the same speed those two words had left her, their hug ended too.
She spared no second for him to respond, to blink, or to even reciprocate anything. Perhaps it’d been her intention or her fear of everything being unreal still, regardless she couldn’t contain it anymore. This longing for parental affection, the simple yet meaningful hugs, the missing feeling for them. She had wanted them back more than anything. To return to the life that was ripped apart from her like band aids on unhealed wounds. Just to see merely a moment of that past, and even the ones long before that, it already made her feel almost at home.
All Viola wanted now was to go home.
“See ya,” Viola waved at him and walked ahead first. She ignored the way his smile faltered the farther she went.
For the first time she was walking alone in this house of hers. Everything was still the same, an exact replica of the original one, except for the many doors positioned every few feet and across each other. And it seemed nearly endless had she continued on overthinking which door would lead her to the best memory she’d see. The truth was important, yes, but no harm in enjoying a little, was there?
Viola halted on one foot, the other raised just slightly as her head turned to her right. A small black label with white font was on every door, she soon realized. These memories were categorized and named. And the one she stumbled upon was the exact entertainment she’d been looking for as it read:
The time Six and I nearly burned the house down.
Perfect.
Viola opened the door and let herself in.
“What in the…” She looked down to her feet, flinching at the soft dirt and the grass tickling her soles. The creaky wooden floor was no more. What used to be the inside of a house or room became the outside of a yard she did not recognize. Tall picket fences lined left and right and until around the small cabin where it escaped her vision.
Then smoke assaulted her eyes.
Shouts and angry yells bombarded her ears.
Of course, she could tell it was them at the first second.
“MONO. YOU STUPID IDIOT.” Viola waved the air above her face and followed her mother’s voice. Her smile widened when she found them—both laying on the ground, panting, coughing.
The Lady was on her knees, still exhaling breaths. Meanwhile, Thin Man was lying on his side, not any better than the woman beside him.
“Will you calm down? The house is fine!” Thin Man yelled back.
“Yes, fine. After you almost burned it down.”
“Me? You’re blaming it on me?” He scoffed. “Wow, Six. I can’t believe you right now.”
The Lady patted her dress, standing up. “What? Am I wrong? Was it not your fault then?”
His scoff became even louder.
“Are you kidding me? Please tell me you’re kidding.” He laughed boisterously. “Ah of course you are, right? Yes, that’s right! I forgot how funny you are, Six. You are one funny girl. So, so, so funny. Ha-ha.”
The Lady sighed, fixing her sleeves, and her hair next. “If you’re having brain damage right now, then it’s best we talk later—”
“It was definitely your fault.”
Her movements halted. Her eyes snapped to him.
“What?”
Thin Man pulled himself up.
“I said, you,” he uttered, “almost burned the house down.”
“I did not.”
“But you did. You were making your useless, magic, “potion” crap without proper caution again and, this time, you nearly ended up burning the house down. If I hadn’t stepped in, the whole place probably would’ve been in ruins by now. It would’ve been nothing but crisps and ashes!”
“And if I hadn’t stopped you, we would’ve turned into crisps and ashes. Do you realize how dangerous your little stunt was? Interfering with the process like some mindless hero without knowing the consequences of it? You should've known better that I could handle a small fire on my own . Instead you made it worse by trying to take it out. Are you that dumb?”
“Apparently not as dumb as to attempt whatever you're reading in that ridiculous book in the first place. Like what were you even thinking? I mean you already know this thing can be harmful, so were you trying to get yourself hurt on purpose?”
“I knew what I was doing, Mono!”
“Do you? Because by the looks of those burns on your arms, something tells me you’re just repeatedly being stupid.”
“Ugh, grow up. Since when are you so caring? When will you ever stop being overprotective?”
His eyes widened; cheeks reddened.
“That is…that is so not true,” he said, crossing his arms and looking away. “I’m not even remotely protective of anyone. I don’t care.”
The Lady laughed curtly. Thin Man whipped his head to her, surprised.
“Says the man who can’t even sleep at night without making sure I’m still alive every single day!” the Lady sneered. “Honestly, Mono, I’m flattered you think so highly of our friendship, to the point where you’re ready to just put past everything and move on like nothing happened.”
Viola perked her ears, brows furrowed. This was…strange? Were they not…
Then she noticed it.
Their way of dressing and clothes, the lack of Thin Man’s usual fedora hat on his head, the difference in height compared to her current parents’, their behaviors alone towards one another.
Ah, Viola thought. So this was way, way before then.
“Oh, I’m putting it all behind me because I can. You see, unlike you,” Thin Man said, “I’m capable of being a decent human being at least once in my life. And the fact that I’m able to forgive you even after you came back and begged oh-so-desperately that I don’t hate you anymore, only proves it all the more.”
“I did not beg you, you self-absorbed idiot.”
“Really? Then how come you cried like a little baby when I wouldn’t talk to you for days—OW!”
Thin Man held his arm protectively after her slap, his scowl deepening, matching the Lady’s very own harsh one.
“You did not just do that,” he said darkly.
Her face muscles twitched, her sharp fingers already bared at her side as though in position.
“I just did.”
“So, you really want to do this, hm? You want to lose? Like a loser? Like a big, ugly, dirty loser? Because I won’t hold back, you know. And then you’ll just end up crying even more.”
“Please, if anyone's crying, it's you. I’ve barely given you any real damage and you’re already holding your arm like it’s broken.”
Instantly he let go of the said arm.
“It is not.”
“Yeah? Then why do you look like you’re about to cry?”
He shoved her back. Hard.
The Lady fell on her rear, staring up at him in pure disbelief at his audacity.
“See?” He rolled his shoulder, smirking. “Not broken.”
Then her scream pierced the air.
Viola had to look away as her mother’s rage took over the scene, her father, too, fighting back like they had never—at all—been married for at least 10 years and had a child together. But to be fair, this was still their…early years, she supposed. Teenagers were aggressive after all weren't they?
Or maybe it was just their hatred that was that strong.
What a friendship. She turned around and headed back to where she’d come from, following her own footprints. The smell of smoke and polluted air was really getting to her.
Viola briefly wondered where the other Thin Man could be right now. He seemed a bit uneasy after the memory with the way he’d kept looking around the same hallway, eyeing the walls and floors like there were bugs and insects walking all over them. Perhaps it was nothing. Maybe it was just her mind making things up again.
She turned the handle and pushed the door.
What was expected of the familiar hallway became
A dim entrance.
She stopped.
Her movements became unsure as her head turned back and forth between the outside world—where the sky was gloomy, air still thick with smoke, and trees loomed all around—and the huge staircase ahead with two more on either side. There were paintings, portraits of women in masks, and some without, hanging all over the dark purple walls. Where had she seen them before?
Viola shook her head and stepped inside. Maybe her father had already planned her journey for her, maybe he was somewhere hiding in plain sight to lead her into the next memory in case she went astray.
The door closed behind her on its own.
Creepy.
But she’d dealt with a lot of creepy things lately, so this wasn’t so bad.
Following up the long stairs, she glanced at her new surroundings, sensing familiarity the longer she was within its walls. In fact, it truly felt like she had been here before. Like someplace a certain girl in the yellow raincoat had brought her to once, showing her around and giving tours supposedly to provide her a brief map of this place.
Yes. She’d been here before—seen its doors, walked its floors, turned its corners.
This was the Lady’s Quarters. The Maw.
But why? How would her father’s memory lead her here, the Lady’s domain?
She followed the faint voices like before. It echoed down the small hallway, until it led her into an even smaller room.
However, this time their voices were calm. Older. More mature?
Viola peeked and saw him, alongside his old friend.
Thin Man was leaning against a shelf, boredly—yet never truly bored—watching the Lady organize her other shelves from across the room. They spoke in hush voices, so in contrast as to the rage-on-rage quarrel they had in the previous memory.
Some might even think they were never enemies at some point.
“So you think I could pass for working here?” Thin Man spoke first, casually playing with one of the little stone figures, failing to ever stay still.
He didn’t look at her. And neither did she.
The Lady laughed.
“Trust me. You don’t want to work here. This place is not for the faint of heart.”
“Oh, come on; how hard can it be?” he said with a crooked smile. “I’ve already managed a whole city, so what difference would it make if I did it here too?”
“May I remind you; your only job currently is to sit on a chair?”
“Well, yeah, but that’s already mentally draining by itself.”
The Lady scoffed amusedly, shaking her head.
“What?” he challenged her, “You think I can’t do it? You think I can’t manage the Maw?”
She laughed, and said, “Not saying you can’t, just not any better than me.” She looked up at him, her brows furrowed. “Besides, why would you even want to work here in the first place?”
“I don’t know. It’s just easier for me, maybe.”
“For what?”
“To see each other all the time.”
The Lady paused for a good few seconds. She blinked and blinked again. Then her eyes darted anywhere but him.
He seemingly didn’t realize the faint blush on her cheeks. Nor did he realize what his words brought indication to.
She cleared her throat quietly. “The television is still functioning, no? Even if you don’t come here through it, you could still see or talk to me if you wanted to.”
He made a face. “Meh. I stare at those damn screens almost 24/7 already. It’s nice to see a face without it being virtual, you know.” He put the stone-figure down and pondered.
“Do you…not like it when I visit?” he asked.
“What—?” A vase fell off the desk. Then the sound of shattering glass. The Lady’s hand barely out to catch it, her cheeks flushed almost beyond noticeable.
Thin Man, however, stood there surprised and unmoving. It was uncommon for her to be clumsy like this after all.
“I never said,” the Lady said, ignoring the shattered vase and pride altogether, “you shouldn’t visit. You can come whenever you'd like or—or never at all. It’s your choice. I don’t mind whatever your decision is. All I meant was why would you even waste your energy, wanting to stay at the Maw just for the sake of convenience? It just isn't practical. And besides; you working here wouldn’t change anything that you’ve already been doing; you’re already here most of the time anyway, so…” she trailed off and sighed. “You know what, I don’t care what you do, really. As long as you don’t interfere with my schedule; I'm fine with it. Whatever.”
Thin Man eyed her carefully as she pretended to keep busy, reorganizing things that she’d organized once or twice before, hiding her face behind that long hair of hers.
He smiled to himself..
“I see,” he said. “It’s just that—I do feel a bit lonely in that Tower sometimes. And catching up like this every once in a while is something that's worth looking forward to after a hard week. Don't you agree?”
She shrugged, her back facing him. “I guess.”
A small snicker from him. He held back a genuine laugh.
“Well then,” he clasped his hands, and said, “Good chat, old friend. I’ll see you in a few days, around the same time?” He walked to the television at the corner.
Viola unconsciously moved away, letting him linger there in place for the Lady’s answer—to which she replied with her curt nod. He took that as a yes.
The room brightened, and the sound of static filled everyone’s ears.
“Don’t go too crazy with the dark magic. I'd be really upset if something were to happen to you again,” he said.
The Lady huffed and grinned. “You know I quit messing with manuals ages ago. I’m far too talented now.”
“Oh, that I know.” He placed one hand on the screen, and the other tipped his hat in farewell. “Take care, you.”
She finally smiled back. “Yeah. You too.”
Then he was gone.
Viola snorted and turned away from the scene immediately after. Well that was cheesy.
She pulled the door handle once more and walked into the next one.
Her expectations to expect something completely of a different setting had been correct. No longer was she at the Maw, with her mother all flushed by the Thin Man’s unintentional flirting. This time, she stood in a small garden. A garden that kept mostly wilted plants and a soil too wet for any life to grow on.
Once more, she began to question herself: where was this going?
There were rustles in the distance. She followed the sound and found her father again, crouching in front of the bushes, seemingly…
“He’s picking up flowers?” Viola muttered to no one. Thin Man remained unfazed as ever, continuing plucking stems of (not all dead) flowers by himself, humming a joyful tune like he was a man in love.
To anyone it would seem like it. He truly looked at peace, as though nothing horrible was on his mind but the thought of something—or rather someone.
“Okay, okay, I’ve got this,” Thin Man spoke. Viola watched weirdly as he stood up with his small bouquet of flowers, taking deep breaths as if he was about to go underwater.
“Hi, Six. I found these flowers and I thought you would like—” He stopped. Tried again. “Hey! It’s been a while since we’ve seen each other, hasn’t it? I figured you’d like some reunion gift—no, no. Too weird.”
He held his breath. Exhaled. Tried again.
“I was just walking in the city; and look what I found growing in the gardens?” He paused, heard himself, then his shoulders sagged. “She’s not so stupid to believe that.”
Thin Man puffed out his chest and cleared his throat.
He tried again.
“I heard you like flowers, right?” he began confidently. “So here, I got you a bunch of pretty ones 'cause it matches with your…pretty looks—ugh no, that’s too obvious!” He sighed, exasperated, one hand dragging down across his face. “Wait a minute,” he muttered and stared at the bouquet, “does she even like flowers?”
Then and there his doubts looked clearer by the second. The longer he stared at the flowers in his hands, even the dead ones around him, Viola could practically hear his hesitations becoming louder.
But soon, his perseverance won.
He shook his head with profound determination and said, "No, it's fine. I've waited this long to tell her. I'm not backing out anymore. I can do this." He took another sharp breath, nodding to himself. "IcandothisIcandothisIcandothis," he continued as he walked out of the garden and straight to the backdoor of a building.
Intrigued, Viola went after him, catching up behind just as he closed the door with a click.
Things were becoming more and more exciting.
She walked into the next one.
The room became familiar again as the smell of her old home hit her nose. A sweet, soothing tune played as though on a record player, but the soft glow in the corner indicated it had come from the television radio. So, so familiar yet so distant was its melody.
Viola felt her face soften up as she watched them together. Dancing, heads pressed against each other, hands holding one another like the moment would never end, so lost with each other's presence like the world outside their window never mattered—never became the ghastly ruin that it was now.
Then it dawned on Viola, where she'd seen this before—why Deja vu was hitting her hard more than anything else.
This was that night.
The night she, so happened, had to have woken up at an untimely hour; the night she had heard her parents talking on the other side of the closed door; and the night she learned something new when she'd eavesdropped on them.
It was hard to believe it, now as she stood here watching what she couldn't see that other time. It felt so strange and exciting that it made her feel melancholy whenever the small reminder of her lost ones appeared in her head.
Regardless, Viola wanted to see more of it. Entirely happy with this chance of reminiscing it all like watching a film right before her eyes except it was utterly real.
So, she waited for no one, and moved to the next memory.
Laughter replaced the old music in an instant. The once dim room became a bright, but cloudy day in the forest. She was outside again. However, this time, it wasn't only parents in the scene.
Viola saw herself. A child, who was still too little to have found out about the truth, yet old enough to decide to run off whenever she got the chance.
She saw herself run away carelessly in the open area, laughing as a very horrified Thin Man chased after her from behind. His horror left him along with a sigh, after securing the little girl in his arms like she was too small to be out in this world—or out at all.
He told her then not to run off again as it was dangerous for her to be out of his sight. Her grin only widened each scolding.
The Lady's laugh cut through his speech, making her grand entrance and placing a gentle pat on her daughter's head.
The Lady told him—insisted—multiple times that the forest was safe for a child her age. Thin Man disagreed greatly as he put the said child down, fully prepared to give out his arguments. They bantered on and on and on
Until they realized the girl had run off again.
Viola laughed as she ran too. She left the forest and moved on to the next memory.
The Lady shot Thin Man a glare, her arms crossed while he looked down almost in shame.
It was the time her mother had scolded her. Young Viola had sought her father for it and the look on the Lady's face when she found out the man was weak when it came to anything that his daughter asked him to do.
He'd switched sides for the girl in an instance and in silence. Yet the Lady had already anticipated this from the get-go and was too tired to repeat her disappointment to him.
Viola smiled at the sight, then moved on to the next one.
Thin Man sat on the edge of Viola's bed. He told her stories of his childhood past to the little girl in front of him. Yet just as her eyes began to droop, she mumbled a question that left the man quiet:
Would you still have liked her if mom never apologized?
He gave her a gentle smile and told her it wouldn't have mattered either way. I've liked her ever since we were kids.
Viola moved on to the next one.
It was pouring outside. Three people stood out in the rain; two of them laughing boisterously, and one was merely watching them run in the mud, chuckling to herself whenever the man tripped and fell. She tugged her hood lower over her head and hugged her own body in the cold.
Viola moved on to the next one.
Every door she opened, every new memory she stepped into to see for herself, every genuine smile and laughter she gained from it all was the reason she didn't hesitate to keep going.
Another new door appeared; she ran straight to it with new excitement each time. She moved on to the next one, and then the next one
And then the next one
Then the next
And then
She opened the door.
The temporary world of bright days and starry nights shifted into a dark, gloomy kitchen.
There was no more laughter, no more light air.
Now, Thin Man sat alone at the table with his hat off and tie loose, his hands around a glass of something he rarely ever drank, his eyes so downcast and hopeless it felt like she'd never seen this side of him before, so foreign like a stranger. Viola slowly dropped her hand off the handle and came closer. But just then someone else came approaching him too, her figure standing in the doorway.
His empty gaze stayed on his glass, all about to pour himself a new one before a voice spoke up in the darkness:
“I think you’ve had enough of that.”
He ceased his action, then looked to the hallway—to the walking figure approaching from the shadows. “You’re not yet in bed.” He filled his glass slightly. “I hope I didn’t wake you up from when I came in here.”
“I would’ve woken up even if you had sighed in the other room. I wouldn’t worry too much about it if I were you.” She took a seat across from him, unknowingly close to their invisible spectator.
“I suppose. You are a more-light sleeper out of the two of us. Even back then.”
“And you tend to be the more secretive one. Despite how approachable you made yourself to be.”
“You can always tell, can’t you?”
“Of course,” she said. “There’s a reason why I’m the smart one.” That made him grin.
“I won’t deny you that,” he uttered, lifting the glass again, about to take another. Her hand stopped at his wrist before he could. She brought them down slowly.
“I mean it, Mono. When I said you’ve had enough of it,” the Lady said, her brows creased in worry.
Thin Man returned her look and sighed. He turned away, leaning back. “You always can tell.”
Viola walked around them and stuck within the shadows, suddenly feeling conscious appearing before what was supposed to be a private conversation, when a few moments ago she was standing right before personal memories like it was a short movie.
She didn't dare speak now. Not when her father and mother sat in heavy silence. Not when her father tried to look at everything but the Lady. Not until he uttered the start of the truth Viola had briefly forgotten of.
"The Eye is coming for her."
Everything stopped then. Viola could no longer move.
Neither could the Lady as her eyes grew twice its size. “That’s not possible.” She said again, insisting harder, “It’s not possible, Mono. Tell me you made a mistake.”
“I didn’t. The Eye summoned me—”
“Well then, tell me the Eye has made a mistake! It’s just not possible. It’s not possible for them to have decided that. The Eye can’t…”
“Six,” he said.
“The Eye just can’t. It goes against everything we’ve agreed on. The deal we made to avoid that particularly. What happened to the deal we made?”
“The deal is no longer effective. They’ve cut us off.”
Viola finally let herself breathe. It didn't make any sense. What was the deal? What could they possibly mean by it all? Why did they have to look so terrified and tired and hopeless and—
She backed away from the table. Viola shook her head and turned away. She didn't want to stay here anymore. She wanted to leave.
She wanted to get out.
Their voices were still heard even as she rushed out of the kitchen and into the dim-lit hallway. By the time she found the next door, she was relieved. Though the sense of dread easily won over as their words echoed to her from behind despite their created distance now.
"How long do we have?" The Lady said.
Viola quickly twisted the handle, opened the door, and stepped into the other side.
"Two days."
She slammed it shut behind her.
Her breath became heavy, her heart pacing as though she'd run a mile.
Where was she now?
Viola looked around and saw nothing but darkness engulfing everything. The one single flicker of light caught her attention. She didn’t know where or what this was.
But then one step
One step was all it took before the truth continued.
The same light shone over the devastated man, casting a grim shadow under that fedora hat of his. He sat still in his chair, neither flinching nor blinking. Despite it all he looked calm, patient, and collected—furious, vengeful, shattered beyond repair.
Then he spoke to them.
“Is this the outcome you’ve planned all along?”
Nothing.
“Do you never plan to uphold your end of the deal,” he spat, “Eye?”
Then a chorus of giggles echoed all around, thousands of invisible eyes staring from up and down their broadcaster in glee, laughing as though he’d walked himself right into a mouse trap over his own stupidity.
Viola never could hear what they answered him after; she couldn’t hear what they whispered into his head that made his lips twist into a bitter, abhorrent smile, his fingers balled into tight fists that could draw blood.
“So, why the sudden change then? Have we not delivered everything you’ve asked?” His voice grew louder, angrier. His smile, gone. “Have we not murdered all of those children for the last seven years? Do explain what we’re short of.”
Another fits of giggles. Another indistinct whisper.
Thin Man listened, of course. Like the good, loyal broadcaster he’d been, he listened to every word they told him, every decision they’d made and every command they gave him now. And for each second that passed by, the hope in his eyes began to diminish into nothing. His desperation became quieter and louder at the same time, as though he knew there was no room for negotiation but a tiny space for retaliation.
He soon accepted it as he looked down, hiding away from the prying, sinister eyes.
His frown deepened.
Terrifying.
Dangerous.
And the words he said next were laced with such venom it sent shivers down her spine.
“If that’s how it is,” he said, and looked up, “then I will no longer be your Broadcaster.”
Viola held a hand to her mouth. She backed away and away from there until something cold and solid hit her behind.
A door.
She turned its knob and stepped on the other side.
Yet the moment she walked in, something crashed right before her. Shards of glasses from the television screen spread across the carpet floor; and Viola could only freeze. Her heart leapt out of her chest, her eyes widened twice its size, her mouth gaped, and her body trembled at the sight of the raging man and the unconscious woman on the ground—her mother.
Viola felt her eyes watered as Thin Man smashed the broken television over and over and over again. Every damage he inflicted, she flinched hard, putting her hands over her ears as the sound of glass shattering bombarded her ears on repeat.
Stop, she wanted to say. Stop it, she tried so hard to let out.
Yet nothing came.
She couldn’t say anything.
She couldn't shut them out.
“Dad?” A muffled voice spoke instead behind the other door. Both Viola and her father perked their heads towards it. “Dad, what’s going on?”
Still frozen, Viola only watched as he slowly sat the Lady up by her head. He looked at no one else as he said, “Go to your room, Viola.”
The other girl persisted. “But what about mom? I heard something crash—”
“JUST GO TO YOUR ROOM.”
The ground shook. Viola ran back to the door she came from and didn’t look back. Her tears were uncontrollable; everything seemed so blurry and horrible.
She wanted it to stop.
It did not.
The kitchen reappeared again. The table was moved out of the way this time, and the floors underneath it were picked apart and broken. Thin Man sat before it, crushing the growing flesh and eyes within his hand, crushing his own palm with his fingers.
The eyes laughed.
Viola cried and ran back to the hallway.
She ran past her father and mother, screaming, yelling at each other. Pushing at each other, threatening each other with threats they would never mean, fighting each other with powers they shouldn’t be using against.
Thin Man crashed against the wall, hurled across the room by her own mother.
Viola heard it all. She’d seen it before.
She pushed past the front door.
Her front yard returned to the living room. Viola blinked away her tears as she stood face to face in horror with the scene that haunted her mind until now.
Thin Man pressed a long, final kiss over the little girl’s head. The girl begged for him to not leave; she begged for him to let her come with him. She cried for him not to abandon her and still
He did.
“I’m sorry, Viola.”
The television whined.
He pushed her in.
Viola shook her head desperately, standing behind the remorseful man as he switched it off. She’d forgotten how to breathe the longer she watched it all play in her mind again. She couldn’t see where she was going as she stumbled backwards, trying to leave this loop of a hell with exits that led her in circles. She didn’t recognize the difference of the same hallway she walked at least three times now. She didn’t see how the lights above her began to shut off with a loud sound
One
By
One.
Until darkness claimed her whole again.
Only this time, she truly saw nothing. Only this time, she heard nothing but her own uneven breaths, her own pitiful sobs as she wiped at her eyes uselessly in the dark.
Please let it all stop. Stop, stop, stop.
She slowed her cries soon enough, the dead silence accompanying her as though it sympathized. Viola blinked her remaining tears, and light re-entered her vision.
She understood now why it was too silent. She understood now why the truth was kept away.
For in the cold, empty space sat the man who had left her behind. He sat there on the ground as he cradled the woman’s head, bloodied and unmoving as her face became pale, and her eyes empty. He made not a sound. Not a single movement of a muscle save for his chest, heaving up and down. And in sheer disbelief, he stared at her.
No.
Not at the Lady. Not at his wife he loved so truly.
“Viola,” he muttered, looking her dead in the eye, straight to her soul. Viola felt her throat seized up.
No, that couldn’t be right.
He must be mistaken. She must have heard him wrong.
Viola shook her head again, her eyes welling up fresh tears, her heart shattering over and over.
Thin Man flinched at her state, suddenly snapping out of his own shock and looking down at the woman he’d cried for. He looked at her face for a long time before finally speaking again; and he shut his eyes.
A broken laugh. “I understand it now.” A drop of tear fell on the Lady’s face. “I understand it so perfectly.”
The room grumbled.
Viola watched him laugh again with glassy eyes; her brows furrowed. What was he talking about?
“You think you have me cornered by taking away everything that mattered to me, all so everything can return to the way you wanted. You think killing her means victory for you when you’ve only dug your own grave.” He looked up at her then, smiling softly. “Eye,” he said to them, “you’ve already lost.”
Thin Man raised a trembling hand to his throat, a blue glow appearing under his palm. Viola’s eyes widened in horror.
“The Cycle ends here.”
A hand closes around her eyes, snatching her backwards and away from the scene before she could witness it, before she could understand the thud that followed right after.
Viola let out an ear-piercing cry, the tears she’d held back streaming down her face, her entire self, shaking in sheer despair. She broke into a tantrum, pushing, punching, hitting everything and anything that was holding her now—the hands that had shielded her from seeing something she wouldn’t have been able to erase.
She screamed and sobbed into their chest, shaking her head again and again.
Because it couldn’t be true, could it?
Was that the truth all along?
“Please don’t go,” she cried, digging her nails into their sleeves.
A trembling sigh. He held her head gently.
“Don’t leave me again,” She hugged him tighter. “Don’t leave me again—please.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I had to buy you some time. I had to make sure you see it all.”
“What’s the point even if I did?” she shot back. “I ruined everything and no matter what anyone does, the Eye still won't stop. So, what’s the point of learning the truth anymore?”
He fell silent and pulled her away.
“Viola, I need you to,” he said as he held her shoulders firmly, “listen to me. Things may not make sense to you the first time you see it, but I hope soon enough—when the right time comes—you’ll let go and let it fall. When it’s time, you’ll leave it behind and never look back no matter what your heart tells you. Can you do it?”
“What? I don’t understand—”
“I’m already out of time,” he persisted, “but you still have yours. When the time is right, promise me you’ll let go. That you’ll leave it behind no matter what.”
Viola opened her mouth to ask again, yet the look in his eyes—the exhaustion, the sadness, the desperation—made her swallow her hesitations again. And she only managed a single weak nod.
Thin Man nodded back, his hold on her shoulders loosening as though relieved and assured.
"Dad," she said, still blinking tears. "What's going to happen now?"
He lifted another soft smile, one she'd remember for the last time.
"Remember when you told me," He wiped the tear under her eye, "that you feel like you've been sleeping for a long time? And that no one has woken you up yet?" Viola nodded. "Well, then," he said. "It's about time someone wakes you up."
Her eyes widened. "What?"
A muffled shout in the distance.
Then she felt her vision begin to wane.
The darkness closed in on her, his face becoming nothing but blurry images and color. Her legs suddenly felt numb like her entire being, her mind unable to grasp or focus on anything else but his voice that echoed all around her like an alarm, so deafening.
And one last time, his voice echoed.
Wake up.
"Wake up!"
Six shouted over the girl, shaking her violently as if she hadn't just undergone a tremendous change and wasn't literally dead-on unconscious.
Who cares if she was? Everyone had lost their consciousness before—Viola was no different. And she certainly did not deserve any special treatment of getting to sleep while the entire place was on the brink of collapsing and ruin.
The cracks on the walls, the television screens spread wider in unison. Six cursed as small dust and debris fell over them. She cursed silently at Viola for making Six as a human shield for her sake. Why did this girl always end up becoming a nuisance—
Viola stirred. Her eyelids twitched.
"Oh, my God," Six whispered, doing a double-take. She shook her again, however, lightly this time. "Viola…?"
Viola's brows furrowed, her body trembling, stirring again as though she was fighting. But who was she even fighting? Wasn't she free from the Eye already? Didn't the locket do the work?
"Hey," Six said, tapping the girl's cheek. "Wake up, Viola. If you can hear me—stop being a baby and wake up!"
The lights began to flicker even worse, cracks appearing on the ceiling too.
Six held an arm over their heads, gritting her teeth when her attempts to bring the girl back became fruitless.
She's not waking up. She's not waking up and the room is slowly falling apart.
She needed Mono.
Mono would know what to do. He always did, always the optimist who had the knack for having solutions as though it came straight out of his pockets.
The room brightened suddenly, the sound of static and a loud whine ambushed her ears. Six looked its way without letting Viola go.
Then came an answered prayer.
"Mono," she said under her breath, gaping as her friend struggled his way out from a television screen, crawling out and looking no better than he did before he was put away.
"Oh, God, tell me she's turned back to normal," she heard him say as he panted on the floor, coughing out the dust. He looked up, and his face relaxed. "Oh, thank God."
"Mono!" Six finally called to him, her voice seemingly snapping him back to reality. "Get over here, you fool!"
Mono didn't waste a second left and rushed to her side, kneeling next to the girl with his hands raised hesitantly above.
"Is she…is she awake?" he asked.
Six sighed tiredly. "Take a guess, would you?"
"Uh—?"
"She obviously isn't!" She looked him up and down. "By the way, where the hell did she put you? You look even worse than you did before."
Mono looked down at his ripped sleeve, rubbing some of the dirt off his cheeks at the same time.
"I don't know—some kind of…weird dumpster, I think. I had to outrun some of the Eye's clones along the way, so there's that."
"Are you hurt?"
Mono sat up straighter, his eyes widened slightly, cheeks flushed.
"Uh, n-no, luckily. " he said. Then, cleared his throat. "What about—what about you? Are you hurt anywhere?"
She shook her head. "I'm fine. Just exhausted after everything so far."
A moment of silence. Both continued staring at the girl.
"So, uh, listen. About that 'mom' thing…" Six felt her shoulders tense immediately. "I feel like I owe you an explanation for that—"
"Can we," She looked him dead in the eye, " not talk about this now? We're still on a mission here." She tilted her head towards Viola.
"Ah, right. Yes. You are absolutely right." He grinned nervously and followed her gaze. "If anything, we should probably help Viola and get out of here first. You tried waking her up?"
Six rolled her eyes. "Of course, I did. I tried everything."
"Everything?"
"Everything," she deadpanned. "This girl is dead asleep. Nothing I do gets her up."
"Oh. Well, then, let me give it a try. Maybe you weren't doing it right."
Six scoffed amusedly, and said, " Please. If I can't get her to wake up, I doubt anything you do would even work—"
Viola gasped and jolted awake.
In unison, Six and Mono flinched, her holding a hand to her chest and him falling on his rear.
“What…did you do?” Six asked him. He looked at her, dumbfounded.
“I don’t know! All I did was touch her arm!” he said as he watched Viola.
Viola, who was shaking beyond control, her breathing heavy, her eyes red and glassy as though she’d cried for days during her forced-slumber. She looked so utterly broken, traumatized by something horrific within her dreams.
What happened to her there?
Six opened her mouth to talk, to bring her back to reality yet the boy next to her beat her to it.
Mono, the ever worrying and protective person he was, held Viola by her shoulders, shaking her gently. “Hey, Viola? Are you okay?” he asked.
That startled Viola as she slightly recoiled from him, taking a good look of his face before her eyes widened. “You—”
He pulled her into a tight hug, and said, “Oh, I’m so glad you’re okay.” Then pulled away. “I’m so relieved you’re back.”
The girl, still speechless, only gaped at him. As though her voice wouldn’t come out any longer.
“Is she…alright?” Six asked, her brows furrowed. Was Viola in shock?
Mono nodded and let go of her shoulders. “I think she will be. Come on,” he said as he turned to Six. “We should find a way out of here. Fast.” He stood up and offered his hand.
Six grabbed it without hesitation, letting him pull her up like always. She winced quietly as she stood on both legs, slightly lightheaded. And her pride, as good as non-existent as she leaned a little against him for support.
In return he shot her a small smile. Six nodded in thanks. She patted his back and was ready to stand on her own. Time to leave this hell-hole, she thought.
“You’re not him,” Viola muttered.
Suddenly the atmosphere became cold. Everything halted as though on pause. The air felt off as the televisions behind them switched on and off.
Her head slowly turned to Viola, noticing how her eyes were dark and bitter as she shot death glares his way.
“You’re not him."
And Six understood her this time. She hated how she understood exactly what she meant by those three words alone. She understood why Viola’s demeanor changed from fear to pure hatred and anger.
For a second later, the room brightened again. Another burst of static and a high-pitched whine. Then another figure dropped out from the screen, his face looking far worse, blood dripping from his nose and a bruise formed across his cheek.
“Six!” Mono shouted, coughing. "Get away from him!"
Her blood turned cold, and she felt her stomach churn at the sick realization.
If that’s Mono, then who is…
“Ah, what a pain,” the boy next to her said. “I guess I should’ve done this quicker.”
The hand around hers tightened. Six barely managed to snatch it away as he shoved her on her back
With his hand around her throat.
Notes:
Next chapter might be the end.
But not THE END.
haha I am not sorry.
Thanks for reading!
Chapter 53: History Repeats
Notes:
Hullo hullo.
Imma just go ahead and say sorry in advance for this chapter.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
The rough surface of leather and plastic had been his landing after Viola had put him away. The floor that greeted him wasn't any kinder as his body sank below like he was immersed underwater, taking away his senses let alone to even understand what was happening to him. Mono thrashed in the pile of junk, desperately swimming up to the surface for air.
Viola was a monster he tried to stop. He really did try to help, and he had hoped they wouldn't be separated like this. But as he and Six had expected along the way, fate always had a cruel plan for them. Nothing would work out the way they wanted it to be, especially as it included the Eye, so they made sure their plan would work first.
As Mono had the locket in his possession initially, he had to somehow—in any way—hand Six the said necklace, knowing Viola would do anything in her power to keep them away from each other. Either him or Six that was to be put away—Mono assumed it'd be him.
And he was correct.
Now here he was, desperately trying, suffocating underneath the sea of junks, yet still unable to, no matter how strong he believed he was. Wherever Viola had shoved him away, she'd intended he'd stay here for a long time.
Mono felt a tug, like numerous little hands around his ankles, then his calves, his legs, his waist—
He cried a muffled scream. No air entered his lungs any longer.
Help!
But who could help him?
Help me!
The sea pile was moving, dragging him along like a strong current of a river. Something was pulling him below.
Please help.
Mono was dying.
He knew he had merely seconds. Seconds away from losing conscious, from suffocating, from—
Then a strong tug by his collar. Two hands, pulling him up and up until he reached the surface he'd badly longed for.
The lights were purely white as they shone above him in a straight line, blinding him from taking in his new surroundings properly like he usually would. Mono gasped loudly and breathed heavily. He held onto the two hands around his coat, holding on them for support to climb out. By then half of his body was still immersed when he looked up in—
Dread.
Disbelief.
Horror.
"Hey, again," the Doppelganger smiled. "How was the swim?"
Mono let out all but a sound before he was drowning again. The so-called savior happily shoved him back under the pile of shoes and hats and—his weak thrashes soon came to a slow halt.
The Doppelganger pulled him up by the same collar.
"So, I take it you're enjoying it so far. The swim I mean," the Doppelganger said as he laughed.
"You psychotic asshole—" He was shoved down. Then pulled up again. Mono gasped loudly.
"See, now you're just being rude. Why are you calling me that when, here I am, standing on the edge of this dump , wasting my time and energy to pull you up, keeping you from getting smothered—and eventually killed—by clothing and accessories of the citizens of Pale City? Well. At least what was left behind and scattered throughout the city. We don't steal clothes off of people like lunatics, you know?"
"What the hell do you want?"
The Doppelganger pouted. "Hey, don't take that tone with me. I told you something bad would happen; I told you, you were going to regret it, didn't I? You know, after you slashed my throat and decided to betray your own home?"
"This place is not my home! I'm never going to be a part of your sick Eye cult—"
The Doppelganger grabbed him by his throat and dragged him out from the edge with the full intent of crushing his windpipe ever so slowly. Mono clawed at the clone's hand, yet that proved nothing to abate his suffering.
"Says who," the Doppelganger spat, "you have a say in that? Believe what you want, but you're nothing but a tool to the Eye, moron. A simple medium meant to be tucked safely away and maintained like a machine so they can use you for the benefit of this ruined world." He pressed him further on his back, tightening his chokehold.
Mono hit his hand desperately, tears forming in the corner of his eyes. The Doppelganger did not care.
"Honestly, I tried letting you down gently. I really did. Even offered you a generous deal and gave you a picture of what a decent life you would've had had you decided to stay here with us. Heck, Mono, you would have been so free. You would have had the honor to work for the Eye and then do whatever the hell you want. You could eat whatever you want. Sleep whenever you want. Leave whenever you want and wreak havoc if you feel like it and still—the Eye would be more than happy to let you enjoy it. All that we ever asked of you, though, was your tiny, tiny cooperation," the Doppelganger said. "All you had to do was to sit in your goddamn chair."
Black tears fell from the Doppelganger's eyes, his second skin melting off to reveal the first one that made Mono nearly gag in horror. The first skin—his true skin was nothing but miniscule eyes clumped together, merged and mutilated horribly and ugly. These sinister eyes looked down to him in glee, silently laughing at his utter fear as the Doppelganger neared his face, the clone's head splitting in two, opening gracefully like a venus fly trap.
Except the fly now was Mono's head.
"Mono," the Doppelganger's voice became many, a terrifying dissonant, "you'll let us in now, won't you?"
Forgotten was the pain around his neck. Gone was the fear of suffocating. Gone was the thought of being choked to death by his own imposter. Now that he understood it perfectly, he feared death no stronger than the one that surfaced in his chest now, the painful realization of what was to come next should he remain still and watch his fate unfold. This was true fear, he realized.
They wanted his control. Fully.
No, Mono's eyes widened as the Doppelganger's head opened wider, his face closer and closer.
"Let us in," the voices said. " LET US IN."
"NO!"
Mono rolled on his side and brought both of them down into the moving pile. The hands around his throat let go, though the Doppelganger’s rage became deafening. Mono caught on to the edge quickly before he was dragged away underneath the pile. He did not care to look back, to see whether his evil clone was stuck and pulled away. All that ran through his mind now was—Six.
He needed to get back to Six. He needed to make sure she was safe with Viola. He needed—
A soft buzz and a low whine behind him. Mono turned around.
In the midst of the pile, the television hummed with its static screen facing up, its entire body nearly under. He smiled. Mono didn’t know if it was his imagination or The Signal Tower bringing him false hope but if there was one thing this godforsaken tower had many—it was televisions.
He studied his predicament carefully. The moving pile was strong and if he were to let go of the edge, he’d surely be dragged away into who knows where. He could attempt and swim quickly, but then risk getting caught by whatever was underneath, risk being tugged deeper and deeper and eventually die from asphyxiation. Or he could climb suitcases to suitcases until near enough to the television, although there were not many for a suitable jump. In fact there was only one constant as of now.
The television was stagnant in the middle like a boulder in a river.
The pile was still moving and dragging everything away.
He had to swim quickly, he decided. As long as his head remained on the surface and he maintained a good speed, the Thing would not pull him. He could get to the television and—
The Doppelganger brought his head down against the edge.
Immediate throbbing pain ruptured in his skull. Blood dripped past his nose, bruises were starting to form across his head and cheek, his vision darkened around the edges. His grip loosened. He was not ready yet.
But there was never a time to prepare.
Mono dived straight ahead and swam. As fast as he could, as hard as his body allowed. Despite the Doppelganger’s effort to weaken him, tugging him from behind, Mono fought just as hard; and he kept going. He gave the clone a strong elbow to the face and swam away. Enraged, the Doppelganger became all the more determined to chase after him. And Mono heard it all without looking back, without stopping—like he had planned. He kept on pushing the pile away and stayed on the surface.
The Thing did not catch him.
His body was weak by the time he reached the television, weak from fighting against the pile. Under his palm, the cold screen glowed brighter. Static became louder. His hand began to sink but
He was snatched from behind. Pushed so unfairly.
Out of panic, Mono swam to the nearest edge. The pile pulled him along slightly, but he clung on to it with all his might.
Everything fell apart in seconds as he lifted his eyes up, his soul crushed when his opportunity and chance was stolen away from him.
In his stead now, the Doppelganger held on to the television. The boy looked back at him with a sickly smile that made his guts twist and churn. He looked at him with a face that no longer resembled a distorted monster, but instead, a face that sent even more powerful shivers down his spine.
The Doppelganger’s true skin had merged back together, stitched so perfectly well that the evidence of it was none. The myriad of eyes inside of him, hidden away like a locked box.
“So this is your plan now? Warp yourself away to somewhere safe?” The Doppelganger said, then smiled wider. “Or are you trying to make sure someone else is safe?”
His heart dropped into his stomach.
The Doppelganger laughed and slammed his hand on the screen. “That’s it, huh? My, you’re just too predictable!”
“You don’t touch her,” Mono finally yelled. “You don’t touch any of them!”
“Well, that’s not up to you, is it?” With one hand, swiped across his face, cuts and bruises coloured his skin. His nose, too, had appeared to be falsely bleeding. Mono understood then what the Doppelganger did. Those bruises, those wounds and that nosebleed—those were his injuries currently. He was masking himself as him .
It was too late.
“If you’re not going to let us in,” the Doppelganger said, smiling with his teeth shown, “maybe one of your friends would.”
The room grew brighter. So bright that it made him turn his eyes away.
And the Doppelganger—he was gone.
Mono cried to the open air, desperately clinging at the edge, fighting against the pile but his body protested immensely. He was worn out. Wounded. Head dizzy and heavy. All of his strength had been used and he had none left. He was weak.
And he could admit what he was now.
Weak.
Weak.
Weak.
Weak.
Weak.
They were all going to die here. They were all going to lose for the Eye had won. Time and time again, the Eye won against them so easily and here he was, lost and an utter failure who never listened to anyone.
Mono felt his breath hitched like a sob. His body no longer fighting but
Stuck inside this pile.
Was there even a point in trying anymore? To attempt winning a losing battle that he had confidently thought he could win? To try and live when in the end all he’d be was dead, dead, and dead? He kept himself afloat as that was all he could do, as he watched the television far from him like a lost hope.
There was no hope, he repeatedly told himself. No hope for a better life. No hope of saving anyone.
As long as the Eye ruled, his fate had been set; there was no fighting it. All of their fates had already been determined, no improvisations were to be made. Perhaps he should listen to that for once. After all, the thought of letting go became more and more appealing as time came by. The thought of just working here like the Doppelganger had said, to live somewhat “normally” despite being the cause of the world’s death simultaneously. The thought of temporary isolation in return for a proper bed, a proper meal every day like promised. The thought of relying on a greater being, becoming free as he could just let go of it all and succumb to his fate
Yet
The thought of the two other people he’d be letting go too…
What if they fared a worse fate than him? Worse than his own? Worse than death?
A fedora hat came to his sight. Mono followed it as it sank under completely, gone below and lost forever. Just like he would if he stayed with the Eye.
What was he thinking?
How could he even consider the Doppelganger’s deal? How could he repeat Six’s mistake—betray everyone in exchange for a good life? How could he leave them behind just like that after everything he’d gone through? The battles he’d fought?
Six was lucky enough she had a second chance to make it right, but him? The moment he came to betray them, they were as good as dead. Both Six and Viola. He couldn’t let that happen.
He had to stop him—the Doppelganger, the Eye.
Mono inhaled a deep breath and pushed himself from the edge. The cruel pile hit against his limbs as he swam as fast as he could once more. His bones protested, although his mind insisted harder and harder. He wasn’t going to let the Doppelganger do to them what he was about to do to him.
And he wouldn’t be too late.
He couldn't.
The television still buzzed above him like it was brand new. Mono grabbed onto its top and pulled—forced—himself up. His moment for a breather was not important as he quickly pressed himself against the screen.
The high-pitched whine attacked his ears.
He was already falling forward.
The lights of the screen blinded his eyes.
Mono was already reaching out to the other side.
And the moment he felt his hands touch the flat ground, he coughed and cried to the girl in the yellow raincoat:
“SIX! GET AWAY FROM HIM!”
The television spat him out whole before he passed out.
There are two things you should know about strangulation.
One, it isn’t like choking on your food.
When a foreign object is stuck down your throat, you still have the chance of throwing it out, to prevent yourself from its fatal outcome. Whereas strangulation, the foreign object is stuck around your throat, squeezing and constricting the life out of you with the intention of making the experience fatal.
Two, temporary or permanent brain damage can occur in less than 30 seconds with enough pressure; brain death can occur in four to five minutes.
Six never counted how long exactly she was being strangled for in that moment of horror, she never thought about death as much as the thought of the monster above her.
The Doppelganger’s face had split into two, black droopy liquid fell to her cheeks as his many voices bombarded her ears like a blaring siren. When he pushed himself against her, and neared his monstrous, torn open face—Six could only turn away, screaming as she delayed the inevitable. The inevitable in which the sides of his head closed around hers. The inevitable where she was forced to not only look directly into the hundreds of little mutilated eyes but as well as feel something slip past her lips. Something cold, disgusting and blinking. She gagged as her legs thrashed. She gagged as she dug her nails into the hands that kept her still and weak. She gagged and gagged and gagged
Until finally, the hands around her neck loosened.
There was a sharp cry. The Doppelganger recoiled from her and fell to his side, his blood tainting her raincoat as it streamed down his skull. The shard of glass stuck on his head, glinting in the television light.
And Six saw Viola behind him.
Standing. Trembling. Eyes wide in horror at what she’d just done, what she had never done before.
She felt a grumble. Her stomach burned, then something acidic rose up in her throat like a—Six hurled it all out on the floor. Her vomit was new to even her eyes as it consisted of utter black liquid and blinking eyes. A lot of eyes.
They looked up at her. Six threw up again.
“S-Six?” Viola came beside her, still shaking. “Are you okay—?”
“I’m fine,” Six cut her off. Wiped the corner of her mouth. “I’m alright. You saved me just in time, Viola,” she said, her eyes darting to the writhing Doppelganger.
He was screaming—or perhaps laughing—as he held his split skull, drenched in his own blood and his true form still revealed. Six had had enough of this monster.
As her body protested, Six willed herself up and snatched a shard off the ground. She stomped her way to him with an intention to kill, kill, kill. She would end him once and for all.
“Oh, h-hey, Six,” the Doppelganger greeted casually. As though he wasn’t on the verge of death. As though half of his head wasn’t still hollow and filled with eyes. He glanced at her hand. “Whatcha you got there? It looks really sharp.”
Six raised the shard above her head and—
“Wait wait wait! Hear me out for a second!” the Doppelganger said with raised hands too, false mirth in his voice. “I totally understand you’re super angry now—I mean I just tried to kill you and all—but...but let me tell you: there’s no actual reason for you to kill me. I can help you out, Six. Yeah. You and that worthless girl over there. I’ll help you leave this place, fair and square. I’ll get you two out of the Tower safely, that is in return, if you just give us the boy forever and never come back for him. We promise we wouldn’t lie and trick you again. All that has happened between us, can be as if nothing ever happened—”
Six brought the shard down to the center of his head. Right where the eyes laid, right where his core was.
The Doppelganger stilled. More of the black blood escaped his mouth before he plummeted to the floor, twitching and finally dead.
She let out a loud breath. The taste of whatever she puked out was still on her tongue, bitter and disgusting. Worse than the aftertaste of a rotten rat.
“Six?”
Six turned to Viola. The younger girl was still in shock when they met each other’s gaze, afraid and fairly traumatized for once throughout Six’s time knowing her. Yet her fear, Six didn’t understand why at first, but the longer she stared into her she felt a strange feeling she couldn’t name. She looked so familiar to her, and Six couldn’t put a finger on it.
“Where’s Mono—?” The ceiling crashed behind her. Six jumped away and ran far from it. And she pushed Viola even farther. The room was already crumbling, falling apart bit by bit but after the Doppelganger’s death, it seemed as though every last resistance it had finally gave in.
And the walls that had held numerous televisions stacked, became nothing but rubbles that had hid them from the abyss now. The Signal Tower’s nothingness. This room had been surrounded by the same void up and down and left and right.
They watched it all unfold with their very own eyes. Disbelieving, yet not fully surprising. At least not to Six. This part of the Tower, Six recognized it—remembered it like a lucid nightmare.
This was part of the Tower where she and Mono had run.
The place where she caught Mono’s fall before betraying him.
Where she had done her part of the deal and “killed” him.
Mono, Six whipped her head around and saw his unconscious figure, lying before broken televisions and its shattered screens. They had to leave before the floors started to disappear too. Escape through whatever television that was still working and pray it’d lead them to anywhere but here.
Viola could help them with that. She had the same ability as him.
With that plan in mind, Six tugged Viola along with her as she rushed to Mono. He was utterly out of it upon closer look. Pale. Tired. So wounded, bruised and hurt—get it together, Six.
“Viola, help me get him up,” Six said, taking one of his arms and putting it over her shoulder. Viola mimicked her with the other. Six thanked silently as they moved forward together.
“I also need you to warp us out of here. Can you do that?”
Viola nodded quickly. Her eyes were wide and still afraid, regardless, she nodded to her request.
“Alright. Once we get to those televisions over there, you find whatever that’s still working as fast as you can, okay? I don’t care where you take us. Anywhere but here.”
“I will.”
“Good. I—” The ground below them cracked. Her eyes dropped to her feet. The floors around them except the path in front had begun to disappear, so silently as though deleted in a snap.
When did that happen?
“S-Six?” Viola called to her, following her halted steps just the same.
“Keep moving,” Six said, and looked back up to the static screens across the room. “We just keep moving.”
And they did. They took careful steps forward, along with Mono’s dead weight on them and with their weak selves, they couldn’t afford to make mistakes now. Their escape was so near. So near that the lights from the televisions were blinding to look at. The width of their path became thinner as seconds passed, and even thinner when Six glanced down. The floors and everything else above it, all had plummeted below into the chasm—the abyss. All without a sound to indicate its fall.
Six paid no mind to her growing dread. She ignored the burn in her stomach, the throb in her head, the stinging in her eye. She ignored it all until
Something closed around her ankle.
A cry escaped her as it yanked her leg from behind, bringing her down. Six heard Viola’s scream when it happened. And when she looked behind, she understood her fear. For her blood, too, turned cold.
The Doppelganger gripped her ankle tightly, crawling on the ground like a moving corspe. His face was no longer a face except only his smile remained—at least from what she could make out with all the blood smeared across his head.
“You’re not leaving me again, are you, Six?” the Doppelganger cried. “You’re not leaving your friend behind, right?”
The floor beneath his stiff body then crumbled away and it fell down into the darkness. And along followed the Doppelganger with his hand still wrapped tightly around Six’s ankle.
Six cried as she scratched against the floor. Though the weight on her leg pulled her down, she caught on the ledge before her fate matched the Doppelganger's inevitable one. He looked up to her and smiled wider.
He didn’t want to let her go.
“Viola!” Six cried when she saw Viola nearing the same ledge. “Get Mono to the televisions!”
Viola gaped at her in disbelief. “What? But you’re—!”
“I can hold on! But the floor you’re standing on right now won’t, so just hurry!” Six shook her leg all the while. The Doppelganger dug his nails tighter, making her wince.
By the time Six looked up, Viola had already listened to her. She watched her drag Mono with all her strength to the other side where the televisions were, where the floors had yet to disappear. As long as he was safe from the Eye’s grasp, safe from whatever their plan was—he’d be safe for his life. The world would still have a chance.
“You know,” the Doppelganger said, making her look down, “I think I’d make a far better friend than him. And her.”
“Go to hell, you scum.”
“You’re losing your grip, aren’t you?” Six’s left eye twitched. “Oh well. I guess that’s nothing I can help.” The Doppelganger laughed with his many voices. Demonic. Malicious. Pure evil just like everything The Eye was.
With a clenched jaw, Six shook her leg harder this time. She shook him off until finally—finally—the Doppelganger released her.
And his smile disappeared with him behind the shadows of the abyss.
Six let out a short sigh of relief, but it didn’t mean that his words didn’t hold any truth in it. She was losing her grip. She had merely seconds before her own mind finally gave up on her—
The ledge cracked. A few of the rubbles fell and so did one of her hands. She cried at the sudden loss of grip.
“Six, I’m here! I’m here!” Viola. The girl ran back to her and kneeled on the ledge; her eyes so wide like it’d bulge out of its sockets.
“H-help me,” Six whispered. She sounded pathetic to her own ears, yet
She didn’t care.
As Viola took her other fallen hand, Six couldn’t care any less if she looked pathetic and weak. If anything, she was grateful. Relieved. So, so relieved that all of this was finally over. This nightmare, finally ending.
They could go back home and she could go back to her home along with Mono and Viola and...
Everything went silent.
She was still hanging from the ledge.
Six looked up to the girl she'd only just thanked and felt gratitude for—Viola.
Viola, who had been staring at her as though she could read through her mind and see her cursed soul. Viola, who had already grabbed onto her hands with sheer panic before lest she lost her grip and fell. Viola, who now...
Was doing nothing.
Viola was not pulling her up.
Instead, she was as still as a statue would be as she stared and stared into her face with those same fearful eyes not long ago. She was still afraid, yet this time she looked empty. Broken. Destroyed.
And then...
Then her hand loosened.
“V-Viola,” Six stammered instantly, desperately latching onto the girl’s hand but
Viola didn’t let it.
“Viola!” Six cried now. She held onto the ledge for dear life, looking up at Viola’s hollow eyes. “What—what are you doing? Help me!”
She said nothing as she stared once more. And it felt like forever passed until Six spoke again to her, however, her panic had turned into something else: acceptance.
Acceptance for what she knew would happen next. Acceptance that this was true karma for what she’d done before, the same thing she did to the boy who had trusted her just the same.
For this scene before her, she’d seen it all six months ago.
“Viola...?”
Her words meant nothing at all as the girl pushed her off the ledge.
A quiet gasp.
She felt nothing.
She fell unto nothing.
Viola had let her go.
Time became slow the longer this awful realization set in. The darkness swallowed her as it did with the Doppelganger. Like a cold, cold embrace, the abyss welcomed her wholeheartedly.
And soon, so did the feeling of betrayal as she looked up at the girl, watching her fall.
Notes:
Okay before you hate Viola—
JUST WAIT PLEASE. (┬┬﹏┬┬)
I'm posting another chapter very soon. Just a super short one so you can rest easy ;)
Thanks for reading!
Chapter 54: Reason
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
When the right time comes, you’ll let go and let it fall.
When it’s time, you’ll leave it behind and never look back no matter what your heart tells you.
I’m already out of time.
You still have yours.
When the time is right, promise me you’ll let go.
That you’ll leave it behind no matter what.
The silence should’ve been a comforting friend after a long hour of screaming and crying and everything falling apart from small to bigger debris. It should have brought her some solace after everything she’d been through, some peace for her pained mind and soul.
Why didn’t the silence help her now?
Why did it feel so utterly agonizing to let it grow?
Viola stared down into the abyss, into the nothingness as though she could still see a glint of yellow from where she was. As though Six hadn’t already been eaten by the darkness and never to resurface. As though what she did had only been a mere accident, an honest mistake that just anybody could make.
It wasn’t a mistake, she’d admit it. It wasn’t a mistake when she pushed her off. It wasn’t a mistake when she realized Six’s left eye no longer looked the same as it used to. It wasn’t a mistake—none of it was.
It burned in her memory, the sight of her eye. Until now, she could still see how the white in her eye had turned into utter black, its veins popped out around her socket like little tendrils that would soon grow in a given time.
But the final nail to the coffin was the many, tinier eyes that soon took over her left pupil.
Six didn’t feel it; she never noticed it.
But Viola's heart shattered over and over as she watched the shock on her mother's face. The fear, the dread, the acceptance as she fell. When Viola let her fall.
When the time is right, promise me you’ll let go.
That you’ll leave it behind no matter what.
Those were his only words.
Her eyes stung with tears, but she couldn't bear to shed them the longer she stared down to the abyss.
So instead she looked up to the unconscious Mono, who never knew any better about what had happened—about what she’d done, about his friend she'd just betrayed.
The Signal Tower became calm now, seemingly no longer attacking as the quiet grew steady and unmoving like the boy across the screens, like the quiet after the storm.
When the right time comes, you’ll let go and let it fall.
She understood it now.
“So that’s what you mean, huh,” Viola muttered, staring at him, “dad?”
The silence in the Signal Tower remained.
Notes:
Soo remember when I said this was, like, THE LAST ARC EVER? So what if I forgot to mention the Signal Tower Arc actually has two parts? :3
With this, the first part ends and the second part starts in the next. (Srsly i promise you it'd be the final climax)
I'll paint you a lil picture for the next chapter tho:
The truth finally comes out. Truth about everything Viola's been holding back since day one.
And also, Mono with a crisis.
Thanks for reading!
Chapter 55: The Truth
Notes:
Merry Christmas everyone! Here's a chapter as a gift ;)
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
It was quiet when Mono gained his consciousness. Where the bright screens and lights of the Signal Tower blinded him, now reduced to nothing but merely soft glow of yellow, swaying left and right along with his bed, along with him. He woke up to those lights and the dimness of his room; and a part of him questioned if he was still in the Tower. If he had escaped along with everybody else, Viola and Six. Was it all finally over? Did they win the fight?
Mono tried moving his arms and legs. Everything ached badly. Instead he turned his head and watched as everything else swayed together gently. Peacefully. Like waves of an ocean as the Sun began to set on its horizon. He turned to the many other beds, lining up against the walls in a familiar fashion he’d seen before, the beds all had been made and untouched. Soon he realized his was the only one that’d been. He was neatly tucked in under the covers. Where exactly was he? What had happened to him?
He stirred once more, this time successfully. Then a voice piped up beside him.
“Hey, you’re up,” Viola said, sitting by his bed. “How…are you feeling?”
“Viola,” he cleared his dry throat, “where are we? What happened?” He searched for one more missing person. “Where’s Six?”
When he tried to sit up, Viola gently coaxed him to lie back. He had no real energy to protest.
“Try not to sit up just yet. You were out of it for a while.”
“I was?” She nodded. Mono rubbed the throb on his head. “Where are we? What happened?” he asked again.
“We’re at the Maw. Everything was falling apart when you passed out, so I warped us away with whatever televisions that were still functioning. And luckily,” she said quietly, “it worked.”
Mono chuckled, utterly relieved. “Six must be so thrilled that she’s back home. I swear she wouldn’t shut up about going back here the whole time we were in the city. How is she, by the way? Is she alright?”
Viola said nothing as she stared at him—stared through him with empty eyes as though her mind had wandered somewhere else.
“Viola?” Her eyes snapped back to him. She flinched.
“I…” The silence that followed her was painful. Mono removed his hand from his head and saw the look on her now. He watched the way her eyes were wide and strangely empty, her complexion so pale that it matched his own skin. And the bags under her eyes, it told him enough that she hadn’t been sleeping at all. She looked unhealthy. Broken. Guilty. All of the things he didn’t remember her as.
Tired body be damned, he forced himself to sit up so he could look her in the eye and ask her once again:
“Where is Six, Viola?”
Her eyes became glassy and her body stiff. The bottom of her lip trembled greatly and so did her whole composure as the one tear she’d been holding back, fell past her cheeks.
“I’m sorry…” she whispered. “She couldn’t follow us.”
His heart dropped to his stomach. A sickening feeling awakened within him that he couldn’t bear to look away from her. The spitting image of Six herself. The daughter she said herself to be. The girl that spoke…things he couldn’t grasp.
“What?” he whispered.
Viola wiped at her eyes and pressed the heels of her palm against them as she sniffled. “I’m so—so sorry. I had to. I…” She sobbed. “I had to do it.”
“What did you do?” Gone was the relief in his voice. As he turned facing her, height still towering over, he clenched his hands into tight fists. For please don’t let her say what he knew she would say, he hoped, wished and prayed.
Then slowly, she looked at him again, her eyes red and puffy—afraid, regretful, and so much guilt. Yet those emotions she showed now meant nothing to deter the building anger inside him. No longer did those eyes work to make him feel pity and cave to her wishes. The four words that made him crack were the words that shattered his world.
“I left her behind.”
Mono clenched his jaw and threw all morals out of the window. And so did the camaraderie he had with his friend’s traitor.
A rageful scream. Followed by a fearful one as Mono lunged after the girl himself, grabbing her by the collar and pushing her to the ground with all his remaining strength. For all that ran through his blood now was blind fury.
He yanked her collar up only to bring it down. Viola cried as her head met the floor.
“You left her?” Mono spat. “YOU LEFT HER BEHIND?”
More tears escaped her eyes. Viola did not look away or fight him. “No, you don’t understand,” she said. “I had no choice.”
Familiar. That was what Six used to say.
Another push against the floor. Viola whimpered and cried.
“You had every choice. We came all the way and through hell-and-back just to save you and…and this is how you repay us? By betraying Six? By betraying me?” His hands tightened around her collar.
“You did not see what I saw in that Tower, Mono!” Viola snapped back, scowling with tears. “You don’t know what I had to watch while I was in there! There really was no other option—”
“SHUT UP!” he yelled. “I don’t want to hear your excuses. I don’t need you to justify your actions! You murdered Six and that’s all you did. You didn’t do the right thing by leaving her behind. You didn’t do anything!”
“But you still don’t understand! You have to understand why I did it. Just listen to me!” Viola pushed her palm into his head and suddenly his world collapsed on him.
The Maw’s swaying ground melted away into nothing and nothing became the abyss he’d seen and feared many times before. He was on his knees, so terrifyingly close to the edge, as he held on tightly to the small hands—utterly trembling and cold as ice.
“Viola!” Her voice echoed. Six was looking up at him from the edge, dangling and wide-eyed. Mono tried to pull her up, yet all effort went down the drain. This wasn’t his body, he soon realized. These were Viola’s hands, and he was watching through her eyes.
“What—what are you doing? Help me!” Mono found himself no longer holding Six. He found himself afraid of the little eyes that swirled and grew in number within her left one; and more so afraid of what Viola—what he was about to do.
Yet once more, he was cruelly reminded that this was not his body.
“Viola…?” Six did not know any better why she wasn’t pulled up. But she knew it was better to accept her fate rather than to fall begging and crying.
Her yellow raincoat, her black-streaked eye was the last thing Mono saw of her when he pushed her off the ledge.
A hard landing. Then he was back at the Maw, back to the peaceful quiet and soft glow of yellow lights. His head throbbed far greater than it did before as he clung on the covers of his bed, back turned to the girl he had tried to hurt. He could hear her breathe heavily even as he slowly regained his own composure and perhaps some understanding of what just happened.
As it turned out, Viola was in the same boat.
“Mono?” She called out to him, voice so little and timid.
“What the hell was that?” Viola froze on the spot.
“I…don’t know,” she said. “I—I didn’t know that I could—"
“I saw her.” Mono stared at her, shaken and still in disbelief. “Viola, I saw what you did to her. Right in front of my own eyes. You pushed her off the ledge and just…let her fall.”
Viola flinched and her eyes watered again. She looked at her hands. “I really had to. You know why I did it.”
“Because something was wrong with her?” he said, yet he wasn’t asking. His blood boiled even now. “You let her die—killed her just because of that?”
“ She’s not dead. Stop saying that she is.”
“And how would you even know that? How can you sit there and be so sure that she isn’t after that fall?”
“Because she’s my mother! I wouldn’t kill my own mother!”
“Yet you have no problem whatsoever betraying her when she needs your help the most.” Mono seethed as he recalled all the “I’m from the future” stories he’d been fed by her.
What if all of that were a lie too?
“She warned me, you know. Six,” Mono said. “She warned me not to trust you, let alone to even go rescue you from the Tower. And stupid me, I insisted we went anyway. To save you. All the way from the hunter’s cabin to the city, to some messed up daycare and apartments that almost cost our lives more than too many to count. Now I realize I should’ve listened to her the moment we found your locket. We should’ve never left the Maw just to help a traitor like you.”
Viola’s eyes widened. “My locket…?”
“Right. Like mother, like daughter; always focusing on the wrong thing.” Once more a bittersweet memory of Six, obsessing over her music box came to mind. Mono nearly laughed. He’d hated her, truly for that, yet it was something…he missed from her. Those 24/7 of arguing over things that mattered little, the nights spent in the daycare where he’d pretended to fall asleep most of the time just so she wouldn’t pester him, the time where they sat down together, watching the rain fall for hours as they talked things through.
The time Six gained his trust again, and she did too with him.
Now all of that was no more but a memory. A video in his head that he couldn’t throw out. Six was gone forever, and it was because of Viola.
Viola, who as much as he denied it, now looked so, so much like Six. He couldn’t bear to even look at her.
“I can’t be here,” Mono said and made way for the door. “I can’t stand being in a room with my friend’s murderer.”
So he left.
A moment passed before her voice piped up behind him again.
“You…made up with her.” It wasn’t a question when she said it. But if he were to doubt his ears, and ignore the surprise and relief in her voice, he was as good as deaf. Viola was out of her mind for thinking this would be the right time to bring up his reconciliation with Six.
Still he didn’t know how he managed to be patient.
So with a sigh, Mono replied dryly, “Yeah. That’s all you ever wanted, isn’t it?” He walked away. From behind, he could hear footsteps chasing after.
“Mono—”
“Do not even think about following me,” he warned, “Or I will kill you for what you did.”
His threat succumbed to no one as Viola proceeded to speak and follow.
“Mono, I understand you’re angry with me,” she said, eager to catch up, “but Six, my mom really isn’t dead—I know it. She may have taken a fall but it’s a fall even you’ve survived before.”
Of course I did. I fell on a bed of disgusting fleshes. The Eye could easily change that to a bed of spikes for Six.
He rolled his eyes. Then fastened his pace. Irked, Viola continued with a stronger determination.
“Just think about it: all they needed was their Broadcaster, and they knew they couldn’t stop you from escaping before. And they knew once you’ve escaped with everyone, you’ll never return for good. So what better way to get you to come back to them, if not another trap? Another lure that if you know she’s alive, you’d come back to them willingly and do anything for her survival?” Mono kept walking without a reaction. Viola scowled at his stubbornness.
“Mono, she’s alive,” Viola said once more, exasperated. “My mom is in the Signal Tower, taken control of by the Eye—”
“ENOUGH WITH IT!” Viola recoiled finally, frozen in her place again. But Mono had to make it clear, no matter how silent she was now. “You don’t know if she’s alive, Viola. You don’t know if any of what you said is actually happening. All you’re making now…it’s just…” Mono released a shaky breath. “They’re all just assumptions. A really, really clever assumption. I’m not going to put myself through false hope just to see it shatter right in front of me again.”
“But you won’t! This time it’s real!”
“How do you even know that? How do you even know Six being infected was part of the Eye’s plan?”
For a moment Viola fell silent and let her hesitations grow louder instead. She let her shoulders sag and her eyes lowered in defeat, as though she’d finally lost a war against her own mind and heart. For her truth, it made Mono as still as the statue-turned children in the Maw’s basement.
“My dad told me,” Viola said. She looked at him again. “You told me.”
“What?” His brows furrowed. “What are you even—” Then It clicked. Whatever intelligence he cursed himself for having now, connected the dots faster than he would’ve thought and liked. And throughout his shock and painful realization, he uttered slowly, in sheer horror:
“No…”
Viola nodded as if to make it worse. A weak grin. “Hi…dad,” she muttered.
Silence.
He did not respond. He did not move. He did not blink. He did not breathe.
All he did, however, was let the chaos within his mind consume him and spread throughout his entire body like the blood in his veins. The same blood which he had considered to be boiling ever since Viola admitted to having betrayed Six, his own traitor, friend and apparently now, wife—
NO.
WHAT THE HELL AM I EVEN—
SIX IS…
Air entered his lungs after a near minute and he breathed it gratefully and took breaths after breaths as if he’d been drowning for hours under the sea of his own stupidity for not making a simple connection. Simple because it was all laid out in the so obvious zone:
Viola told him she was from the future. Viola told him Six was her mother. Viola had insane black, swirly magic that could kill people with just a wave of the hand; just like Six. Viola also possessed a sort of ability to warp through televisions, tune the Transmission, emit a blue power just from her fingertips.
Like. Him.
Viola kept wanting for him and Six to meet. Viola pushed him to talk with Six and to reconcile. He’d even seen her locket and the two people who should’ve been very very familiar since it was literally Six and himself— though the former was hidden under a mask.
But his own face was the problem he refused to settle. How did he not recognize his own face in that locket? Did denial really blind him that much? Or was staring into bright televisions at a young age made him blind for real? The fact that he’d connected with her memory was already concerning —
Viola cleared her throat. Mono flinched greatly and took a huge step back.
Then an accusatory finger pointed at her. “You…you’re lying. Tell me you are…r-right?”
“I…was afraid you’d react like this,” Viola said and sighed. “I’ll still call you Mono, if that helps. ‘Dad’ might sound a bit…weird for you, isn’t it?”
“Weird?” He huffed. “Oh, don’t worry about it. It’s fine.”
“Really?”
“OF COURSE NOT.” Mono began to pace in circles. “None of this is fine. Nothing about this even makes sense. I’m losing my mind. No, I’ve already lost it just by believing it for a second.”
Viola pressed her lips into a thin line and shrunk herself. “Look, I think you’re missing the point here—”
“Missing the point?” He laughed. Actually laughed yet without a tinge of humor. “What other point could I be thinking about if not the fact that you just casually announced you’re my daughter? That I’m the guy who I dissed a lot just for being crazy enough to like Six and—Oh God, I dissed myself. I’ve been insulting myself this whole time. I’m an idiot. Stupid, stupid, stupid stupid.” He buried his face into hands and dropped to his knees until his head pressed on the ground. And he began to knock the said head against it, all the while, berating and murmuring to himself over the same words.
Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid.
“Mono, I really meant what I said; you’re focusing on the wrong thing! Please stop—you’re hurting yourself.” Viola kneeled down beside him, trying hard to cease his self-punishment and not invade his space at the same time. It worked little.
Mono had stopped knocking his own head, but he kept his face hidden under his arms, mumbling.
“Everything is a lie,” his voice came out muffled. “All this time, I believed in a lie.”
Viola sighed and, ever so slowly, placed a gentle pat on his back.
“Earlier, you asked me…” Viola said, “how I knew Six was alive and how the Eye planned to take her. And I told you it was because my dad told me about it. That’s not technically what he did, but it was close. He didn’t say it outright, though, he showed me the truth. From his own point of view, along with his memories that he had with everyone—my mom, me, and his life before. That was how I knew it wasn’t a lie, you know? Because some of the memories he showed me, I was in it too. I remembered them as my own too.”
“I’m such an idiot. A huge idiot.”
“My dad showed me everything while I was trapped inside my own head. He was the one who helped me wake up. I’m not even sure how he was there in the first place, since I was all alone throughout my time with the Eye but…I knew all of it wasn’t my imagination. I knew it was real when everything slowly made sense.”
“I married my own enemy. Threatened to kill my own kid.”
“He told me to let go. Leave it— her behind. To not look back no matter what I feel or how wrong it was. No matter how guilty or hesitant or afraid I was. He made me promise it because he knew something was wrong with Six. He knew the Eye had gotten my mother. And if I had pulled her up anyway,” Viola sighed and shuddered, “the Eye would’ve made their way to either of us.”
“I should’ve never agreed to finding that stupid music box.”
“Mono, are you even listening to me?”
“Of course I am. Everything you said is awful, Viola. How in the world did I even agree to this?”
Why did future me think bringing a child in this ruined world is a good idea?
“You mean…agree to having…me?” Viola asked, as though she’d heard him think.
A heavy feeling sunk in his chest then and there. Maybe it was that terrible guilt for having offended her by questioning why she even existed.
“N-no, it’s not that—it’s just…” he quickly lied and rose up to meet her. “What you’ve been saying about your dad, how he left you behind by yourself and then showing up in your subconscious later in the name of ‘helping’ you; it all just sounds so selfish to me. Irresponsible. No offense, but your dad is doing a lousy job —” He stopped. Viola seemed to find it amusing as she covered her mouth.
There I go again. Dissing myself.
“I meant,” Mono said slowly, eyes shut in chagrin, “ my future self is lousy. Who in their right mind dumps everything on their own child, and might I add— while she’s at her lowest point —and expects her to just fix everything all on her own?”
“Uh, you did?”
He wanted to slap himself. Which he nearly did as he ran a hand down his face.
“Viola, I’m…already having a hard time even grasping the fact that me and Six stuck with each other until adulthood, let alone becoming a thing. But I need you to tell me this honestly.” At her silence, Mono inhaled a deep breath and asked, “Are me and Six…” he said. “Are we really gone? In your time?”
Once more Viola said nothing. Although this next silence from her—hanging so steadily between them like a noose—felt a bit more…harsh.
Ah. So that’s it.
He looked away, his eyes on the floor after knowing what her answer was. Perhaps the lack of an answer made it all the harder to accept it—that he and Six would soon meet an end like Viola’s parents.
“I want to change that.”
Mono perked his head up to her. “What?”
“I want to change what happened,” Viola said. “I want to stop the Eye from killing you both, no matter how inevitable they say it is. If saving you is too late in the future, then maybe, I could save you now. Both of you.”
“Viola, that would mean you’d have to…”
She nodded. “I’d have to kill the Eye before they kill you.”
Mono took a second to process her words. He and Six had already risked a lot just to get to the Signal Tower and stand within its cursed walls long enough to rescue one person. And here Viola was, planning to end a monster as strong and as vile as the Eye? The eldritch being that ruled over the world and caused the corruption of so many souls and deaths of children?
Viola was not thinking straight.
“You’re not serious, are you?” She shot him a look; one that confirmed it all. Mono didn’t know whether to laugh or smack himself. “You’re kidding me, Viola. You can’t tell me that’s your plan!”
“And what if it is?”
He decided on laughing. Again, his laughter was all empty. “What if it—Viola, listen to yourself! You’re saying you want to kill the Eye. Take down the entire Signal Tower on your own. Finish off the Transmission with what you’ve got. I mean any other day I’m all for it seeing them fall to ruin but be rational. The Eye is something everyone fears for a reason. You’ve seen what they can do. They’ve shown us what they’re capable of and I doubt there’s much they can’t do. You, killing the Eye is not an option.”
“Then what other options are there?” Viola raised her voice. “My parents are both gone because of them, Mono. If I don’t do anything to change that, then they’ll be gone forever. I can’t have that. I didn’t come to the past just to fail.”
“You won’t fail. Not if me and Six stay alive for the next few decades. That’s your whole plan after all, isn’t it? To change your future by changing the past, here?” That is to say if Six and I even become parents. A long shot, I’ll say.
“But…it won’t work like that. The Eye will still be there.”
“Then we’ll just stay away from the Eye. Easy.”
“No, it’s not!”
Mono furrowed his brows as he watched Viola carefully and her outburst. She seemed rather insistent on getting rid of the Eye—an impossible feat in fact. Whatever her reason, it couldn’t be nice to know. At least not any nicer than the new information he’d gotten from her regarding who he’d soon be decades from now.
“Why is it not, Viola?” Mono asked firmly after a beat. To which she responded with a longer pause of her own. He didn’t appreciate that. Every time she fell silent, her next words often weren’t good news.
“The Eye…will not stop invading your lives. No matter how you think you can avoid them, or how far away you’ll live from them, they’ll find a way to come back or worse,” Viola said, “make you two come back to them.”
A pause. Mono felt how dry his mouth had become.
“And…and why would we?” He tried maintaining a leveled, and calm voice. Succeeding in that turned out to be a failure. His fear had already shown.
“My parents,” Viola said, “they made a deal with the Eye. I’m not sure why they did but…I think they had no other choice. Somewhere along the way, I think they made a desperate move; the Eye must’ve given them a threat they couldn’t retaliate.” Then she turned to him with hardened eyes. “You might not go through the same thing as they did, Mono. But there’s no telling what the Eye would do to get you and Six under their control again. What they did to my parents, it might be worse for you than it was for them.”
“Is that…why you’re adamant about getting rid of the Eye?” Viola nodded, not to his surprise.
Murder was always the solution wasn’t it? At least by Six’s genes it was.
Perhaps even a little bit of his own too.
“I get it,” he said. “You want to make sure your parents, me and… Six, survive when you go back to your time. It’s not unreasonable to want that.
“But you still need to understand this, Viola; you can’t just kill off the Eye. The only outcome you’ll get from trying is getting us all killed. That’s not very ideal, is it?”
She seemed to pause in thought. Then she sighed, like a child being advised not to do bad things.
“No,” Viola said, “it isn’t. You’re right.”
“I hope you’re not only saying that.”
“I’m not.”
“Good. Because I'm leaving.”
“What?” Viola’s eyes widened when Mono began to walk away once more, passing through the rooms as if he had a clue where he was going. Viola quickly got up and went after him. “Hey, where are you going now?”
This time, Mono didn’t tell her to back off. Instead, he said, “To the Signal Tower.”
“You— what?” Viola said. “But…but you just told me killing the Eye isn’t an option.”
“I know, and I’m not planning to. Do you know where the room with the television is?”
Her brows furrowed. “You’re not—?” She gasped. “You’re going back for her. You’re going back for Six.”
“Don’t make it sound weird, Viola.” He sent her a side scowl. “If all that you said is true, about Six being alive and how future me said she was infected by the Eye, then I have to get her out of there—the Eye’s trap or not. Before she does something stupid again like last time.” I.e. the deal with the Eye. “And by the way, this rescue mission is completely platonic!” he added just before Viola could say more.
Instead she grinned so familiar like the girl he’d met down in the Hunter’s basement.
“Of…course,” Viola said. “I’ll go with—”
“No.”
“Huh?”
“You’re not coming with me, Viola. Especially not after you’re the one who left her there.”
The grin she wore immediately faltered. “Are you kidding me? She’s my mother.”
“Then you shouldn’t have left her.”
“But you told me to.”
“Well, then, you shouldn’t have listened to me.” He turned to her with a mocking smile. “Now you just stay here and think about what you’ve done. Have fun being grounded.” He carried on without her.
“Wait—you can’t do that! That’s not fair!” Viola called after him, scoffing. “And why am I even grounded? I also want to get her back like you. I’m also trying to help fix things up again.”
“Easy. Because I say so. Plus, it’s hard to trust you again after seeing you push Six off of that ledge.”
“Again. You told me to.” Viola huffed and added, “Come on, let me fix what I did and make it up to everyone. You already know why I had to leave Six, and you know I won’t betray you either—you’re literally my dad.”
That earned a glare from him. Viola smiled sheepishly.
“Okay, not the best excuse, but I really mean it, okay? I promise, this time, I won’t hurt anyone else. So let me come with and fix this once and for all. With you,” Viola said quietly and even quieter, “please?”
Mono told himself to say no. Throughout her entire speech until the end, he made sure to put a strong barrier around his mind and made his skin as thick as it could be against her wishes and underlying apologies. He imagined himself to be Six, knowing that girl she was talented at having no empathy at will and had no heart when it came to, well, people. For a moment, he thought he’d succeeded. Yet one look at Viola…
Her eyes shined brightly with determination, along with a small hopeful smile that he’d say yes to letting her follow. Her hands were clasped together as though she’d resorted to begging, like a stray puppy asking for a little piece of food.
It wouldn’t work on him, of course. Viola could try all she liked—but those eyes would never work on him.
“Fine.” I’m a disgrace. “You can come with me.” A total weakling.
In an instant, her smile widened ear to ear. She looked up at him like what he said was the best thing she’d ever heard in her entire life, as though all the trauma she’d endure before was temporarily shoved in a box and locked away.
He didn’t hate how warm that made him feel. He didn’t, however, like how easy it was for her to change his mind. Is future me weak like that?
Easily caved in whenever Viola flashed the sad, innocent look?
Best not to think of it.
“However,” Mono added, making her halt in her victory. “That does not mean I forgive you for lying. And still, for betraying Six. No matter what your dad told you to do, you leaving her by shoving her off a ledge is still messed up and risky. Needless to say, you could’ve actually killed her if she fell on a concrete floor instead of what I fell on—which I’m hoping to be the latter. So unless Six forgives you herself for that, I won’t either. As for the lying part…” He paused in his thought. Then continued, “I’ll forgive that if Six is alive like you said.”
“Oh,” Viola lowered her hands to her sides. “I…understand.”
“I’m still angry with you. Just so you know.”
“I don’t doubt that.”
“And you’re apologizing to Six right after we find her.”
She sighed and looked away. “Guess some things don’t change about you, dad,” she muttered.
“What did you say?”
“I said I’ll apologize to her,” Viola lied. “Come on, the television is this way.”
Mono narrowed his eyes at her but followed anyway.
The Maw, big and confusing as it may seem, had fortunately become somewhat of a familiar territory to him now. Not that he knew this place like the back of his hand as Six and Viola, but down here, he could already recognize which way was which. Once he’d even gone through these doors and rooms in circles and only realized it after his third time. Luckily, now as they approached the television—the place where it all started, his first meeting with Six after a nasty betrayal, the day he’d thought to be his worst—it was safe to say Mono instantly knew. This was where Viola must’ve fallen through from the Signal Tower. And this was where they’d return there.
All he wanted now was for Six to be in the Signal Tower merely unconscious. Unscathed. And hopefully, safe.
Though on second thought, that might be too much to hope for. As much as he wanted to blame Viola and her father—not referring to himself, of course, because that would never stop being weird—Mono had seen Six in her state for himself. Her left, infected eye that promised the growth of something horrible only the Eye could come up with; the darkness within it, spreading nearly throughout half of her face. That was not normal. That was not Six anymore. Viola’s father might’ve been right.
He was right. Of course. He’d always been wise.
I think I’ve been hanging around Six for way too long. Some of her ego must’ve rubbed off on me.
A thick blanket hung over the television, covering its static screen and the light emitting from it. Mono raised a brow to Viola.
“It was switching on and off by itself,” Viola said with a shrug. “I didn’t want to take any chances.”
The Eye, Mono thought. Of course, they would never stop trying even now.
“Might’ve been the smartest thing you’ve done so far,” he uttered, his eyes never leaving the covered screen.
As the static grew louder the closer he was, the tighter his grip on the cover got, Mono took a sharp breath and let his heart beat faster, his mind running wild with possibilities of whether this could turn out right or go horribly south.
For this was it.
This was the start of the end.
And no matter the outcome of it, he was going to get Six back.
Notes:
How do you think Six's reaction would be after finding out?
Thanks for reading!
Chapter 56: The Eye's Deal
Notes:
Sorry for the wait! Here's a Thin Man/Lady chapter as it's been a while since their story came up. And while I did mention that there'd be only one chapter left for them, I decided to change that and cut it into two. So this one is set in the past WAYY before Viola came into the picture.
Also heavy plot and angst incoming.
Plus the Eye being an asshole i'm sorry
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
From within the walls of the Signal Tower, serenity and quiet was something to be admired by most. It would come as a shock for outsiders who weren’t familiar with anything but the constant screams and howl that Pale City offered. A surprise that a looming, known to be dangerous and must be avoided at all cost kind of tower was all the opposite of such inside. It was so silent in the Tower. So slow and peaceful as everything in it floated like bubbles in the air. But the very peace was soon interrupted as the double doors were slammed open by a strong gust of black wind.
The Lady barged inside the Signal Tower with fury under her mask, flicking her hand as useless objects that once got in her way were hurled across the room faster than the tower’s energy could carry them. Stronger and more forceful as they broke into pieces and left cracks growing on the walls. Then she screamed:
“EYE!”
The Signal Tower remained its false quiet atmosphere, nevertheless showing small changes the longer the Lady made her way deep inside the Tower. And anyone with eyes could notice that these changes were turning unfriendlier by the second—sweet purple tinted lights taking a lighter shade, air thick with cold invisible stares, and even some daring ones appearing behind the Lady’s steps before disappearing.
Dark waves circled around her wrists and hands; the Lady released her frustrations at a nearby wall with utter precision. The cracks became bigger and formed a hole, revealing an abyss beyond it. She dug her hands inside and searched for the one that had dared watch her in joy. A weak eye.
The small eye looked up at her widely in the light, the meat holding and supporting it squirming to get away from her deathly grasp.
“Oh, hello!” the weak eye said, nervous. “My, aren't you just as radiant as ever, dear Lady—?”
“I demand to see all of you,” she said. “Now.”
“Ooooh. Yeah. No. That’s not a…clever idea on your part—hey, woah! What are you doing?” Upon being slowly crushed by her sharp nails alone, the weak eye looked around the walls for help. None came to its aid. “Okay! Wait—wait—wait—wait—wait! I get it. You’re pissed. But it wasn’t my doing! I had nothing to do with that attack!” The Lady dug her nails deeper, piercing its meat until the tip of her nails were coloured in black.
The eye cried, “Alright, I was involved with the attack! I do admit, aiming for you was part of it but—it wasn’t me that did it. You’ve got the wrong eye!” Its blood dripped below, drop by drop like spilled ink. The Lady squeezed its sides with no mercy until the eye would pop and meet its demise. “Dear Lady, you have to stop!” the eye yelled. “You can’t possibly think of killing me!”
“Oh, I have every intention of killing all of you,” the Lady said.
“Enough, Six,” Thin Man said, holding her wrist. The Lady directed her scowl to him. “The Eye is already watching us,” he added.
“Good,” she said, and turned to the bloodshot eye. “Then they get to watch one of their own die.”
The small eye widened in chagrin. “Argh, for Eye’s sake, I told you it wasn’t me that did it!”
“Yet you admitted to being involved,” Thin Man replied coldly. He looked up and around him, narrowing his eyes. “Show yourselves! We know you’re here and listening, so come out!”
The Signal Tower fell deadly silent before it grumbled. In a second all turned into darkness as though a switch had been flipped. And it flipped again with a new view for the two as the massive empty hall became a smaller room that he was long familiar with, aside from the minor changes that he’d noticed from the get-go. The wooden chair that would place itself in its center was now a long mahogany table with eyes carved intricately on its sides. And the televisions on the walls he would be forced to stare his hours into were no more, instead a fireplace took its place, setting the room into a warmer tone and deceivingly non-threatening.
Thin Man scowled, the fury in him still burning brightly from the attack the Eye had initiated not so long ago. And if they thought this was something he and the Lady could shrug off, then they thought wrong.
As the fire continued to crackle, Thin Man and the Lady glanced around the room with caution. What trap could this be next? What other plan did the Eye have concocted in the Tower?
“So, you know how to make a scene.”
The Lady hurled a black spear towards the head of the table. The spear moved at a lightning speed until it landed its perfect aim right on her target. Even so it was a miss for the magic spear pierced through the chair instead of the old woman’s forehead, her neck bent so unnaturally to the side and purposely to avoid the Lady’s attack.
The old woman had no features on her face save for the single blue eye, blinking mirthfully from her seat. Her hair was tied back behind her head, a tight bun with a few gray strands that showed her age; and her outfit resembled a commoner that no longer had control of herself since decades ago. A Viewer. One of the unfortunate ones that were altered and used now as a puppet.
Thin Man knew not to be fooled of who was behind the puppeteering.
The Eye chuckled, removing the spear easily before it dissipated in the puppet’s hands. Their head cracked painfully into place.
“Indeed, what a scene. If we’d known, we would’ve appeared sooner!” the Eye said, settling in their seat. “ So! What brings you two into town?”
The Lady seethed under her breath. “How dare you play dumb. How dare you sit there so smugly, right after the stunt you just pulled!”
“Ah. That.” The Eye rolled their pupil and leaned their elbows on the table lazily, slumped and bored. “So is that your reason for coming all the way here and wreaking havoc in the tower? What a bore.”
“What’s more of a bore is having to stand your attempt at mindless conversation. You know well why we’re here, Eye,” Thin Man replied wryly.
The Eye turned to him, laughing boisterously and excited. “Oh, you! Look who finally shows up after months of absence to be with dear ol’ wife. Not that we’re complaining, of course. A vacation was long overdue—and that’s to say you deserved it. However,” —Their eye narrowed— “there is one thing worth complaining about. Since you’re both here already, have a seat and let us discuss it, shall we?”
The room grew dim then, the only source of light coming from the fireplace. Two chairs nudged itself across from the Eye, and the Eye gestured for them to have their seats. Thin Man took his with a pointed glare towards the Eye, however, his eyes softened when he noticed the lack of person in the seat beside him.
“Six?” he said to her. The Lady stood her stubbornly in her place, still holding the blob of meat in an iron grip. Perhaps even stronger now as fresh blood dripped down to the floor. The Eye watched her carefully but did not speak despite the writhing little eye. Then they shifted, blue eye flashing a silent warning not to her—but to him. Thin Man had seen the look before, he knew what underlying threat it held and had even endured the consequences of it when he hadn’t heeded them as a child. But to let the Lady go through the repercussions instead of him, Thin Man feared that more than anything.
In hesitance, he called the Lady, urged her to let go of the little eye and come take her seat. The Lady remained stubborn, letting the end of her sharp nail stab through its sides. The little eye cried louder, “Hey! You heard the man! Go and take your seat, Lady!”
“Why should I?” the Lady said. “Why would you want to discuss anything in peace if you have already tried to attack me? To hurt me? Maybe I should try and kill this one and see how you like it for a change.”
“Go ahead,” the Eye said.
The little eye widened at the table. “What?”
“That one has just come to existence merely two days ago,” the Eye added, leaning in with their hands clasped. “It doesn’t matter what you do, really. So go ahead. You have our permission.”
“Assholes! This isn’t what was supposed to happen! ” the little eye snapped. Its flesh stretched and squirmed to no avail, for the Lady’s wrath was the final nail in its coffin. And the Eye’s condescension was what pushed her.
Thin Man watched it all, hesitant and slightly fearful for her, his eyes darting back and forth between the Viewer puppet and his angered wife, crushing the blob like the Eye had challenged. He nearly wanted to get up from his chair before it was too late, before the Eye made the Lady suffer for her actions. He was ready to take it in her stead if it came down to it.
“Unless…you wouldn’t happen to be more interested in knowing why the attack occurred, would you?” That made the Lady still, her gaze sharply turned. The little eye’s cries slowed down, breathless from the endured agony. “If you take a seat, we’d be happy to indulge. Of course, if you’d just…” The Eye nodded towards her hand.
The Lady seethed silently, breathing through her nose. It took her a few long seconds glaring daggers at the dying little eye, and a few more seconds to decide to hurl it across the table. Blood splattered against the wood, a grunt from the little eye and a curse shot her way. It landed right between him and the Lady’s seat. He scrunched his nose as it blinked pathetically up at him. How disgusting.
“Fantastic! Now we can discuss the matter at hand— finally.” The Eye said after she was seated, giving her a look. She scowled harder.
“Then let’s not delay it any more than it already has and just cut to the chase. Why did you initiate the attack?” Thin Man said before the Lady could be further provoked by them.
The Eye laughed loudly, hand to their chest. “Always straightforward as ever, aren’t you Broadcaster? You sure do know how to keep us entertained even after all those years. To answer your question, though, it might come off as a shock to you but what happened was only a small reminder. We actually meant no harm to you or the Lady.”
“No harm?” The Lady said, flabbergasted.
“Well. At least not anything fatal. You are still our favorite,” the Eye replied and turned to him. “Both of you are,” they added.
“So you keep saying,” Thin Man said grimly, looking at the blob of meat when it failed to drag itself.
“Then surely you both are aware of what you’ve done?”
Immediately, his eyes snapped back up. Where anger and impatience once resided in him, now replaced by something far stronger that made his heart skip a beat and his blood cold as ice. He stole a glance at the Lady, and one look from her—one look at each other—told him enough that she shared the same feeling.
Not letting his composure fall so easily, Thin Man willed himself to look directly into the Eye’s glaring blue pupil. They raised their brows, amused by this.
“We…simply have done nothing wrong,” Thin Man said wryly.
“Oh? Have you, now?” The walls around them seemingly grew close, as though the room had been shrinking without their notice. And despite the bright and cheerful demeanor the Eye displayed, there was no mistaking the malicious energy that hovered above them. It felt utterly dangerous. Like thousands were spectating this exchange and each one of their stares were sharp enough to cut through the skin. He almost wanted to leave his seat and give in to that fear the Eye had purposely wanted him to feel, but if there was one thing sitting in isolation for years had taught him, it was staying in his seat no matter what. Decades of that, and he learned to adapt quickly to those invisible stares. To know what was too far and what was within the Eye’s limit to avoid the consequences his child-self feared so greatly. His greater fear now, however, was to let the Lady face it too.
“Denying and lying gets you nowhere if history is any indication. And you both know, for the Cycle to prevail, all errors must be corrected at all costs. No interruptions or outsiders will be allowed. Perhaps you’ve forgotten it, but we gave you free will in exchange you offer your services for the Cycle willingly. The last decade has proven this to be a fair, successful arrangement; and every piece falls perfectly into place! You, as our Broadcaster,” they turned to him, “channel the Transmission consistently through every television while we help you expand that power and influence on a wider range. Whereas you, our Geisha,” they turned to the Lady next, “your only duty is to maintain The Maw. Keep it afloat. Control its population. Bring aboard those who are beyond help—those who will not submit—with the promise of paradise and finally, execute them. Of course, that last part is moreso beneficial than it is troublesome for you throughout your years, isn’t it?”
“It is,” the Lady admitted begrudgingly. “But I… both of us have been giving our ‘services’ for the Cycle without fail. Still are. I don’t understand why you’d send that attack to us regardless of our—”
“Oh, Eyes, no! We did not send you that attack to remind you of your respective duties—no, no, no! We know how much you both value freedom to actually listen. Or at least…freedom for one of you.” The Eye cackled. Thin Man held in his urge to strangle their neck then and there. “Nevertheless, we didn’t mean that, dear Lady. All we meant was the error you’ve created and one you’ve kept purposely. A very tiny,” The Eye’s pupil slowly lowered to the Lady’s stomach, “little error.”
How much his fury spiked then and there. Before he could let his anger out, though, the Lady was much faster in the act, springing from her seat with a loud slam to the table that startled the Eye. And by then it was clear that all composure was lost.
“If you ever so much try to correct this,” the Lady said, “then you best hope I don’t tear this whole Tower apart and your entire being each out of their own sockets.”
“Are you making a threat to us?” the Eye asked, no longer amused. Despite the lack of face features on the puppet, the subtle change in posture was enough of indication that the Eye was unhappy at her defiance.
The Lady leaned forward, shaking her head. “I’m making a promise, Eye. You attempt this again and I will not hesitate to abandon the Maw and let it sink to the bottom of the ocean for good. I will ruin your pathetic Cycle until there is nothing you can do to save it. I’ll be a nuisance at every turn you take and you better believe how far I’ll go to ruin all of you. Just you wait. Touch my child and you’ll wish your sorry existence never came to be.”
The room fell into a long silence, filled with harsh tension, murderous intent from the Lady and the bubbling wrath the Eye kept well unleashed. That is to say for the eyes within the merge, their emotions and actions were coordinated and controlled together among themselves as one being. But for the single eye that wasn’t within the merge?
The little eye burst out laughing on the table, cutting through the silence as though jokes had been shared amongst each other. It caught his and the Lady’s attention immediately. Hell, it even caught the Eye’s attention.
“You think you can—” the little eye wheezed, making coughing sound and continued, “you think you can scare us with that sorry excuse for a threat? Us? The Eye? How delusional can you be to assume you’re any close to being superior after threatening to ‘let The Maw sink to the bottom of the ocean’? Oh, and your words too!” Another loud boisterous laugh, mocking her further, “Touch my child and you’ll wish your sorry existence never came to be—oh, that is absolutely hilarious! Preposterous, and really just—”
Its words died with it just as Thin Man flicked his wrist. The little eye let out one last excruciating scream, while bit by bit its small flesh body incinerated itself into dust within seconds until the eye burned away too. Gone forever from the surface of the planet. Costing the Eye one of their own without warning.
Thin Man had had enough. Yes before, he was reluctant to let the Lady finish the little eye in fear that the one in charge would make her pay the price for it. However, seeing how disappointing the turns this ‘discussion’ had taken, he realized the Eye would put the Lady in harm’s way regardless if she killed any eyes or not. They were not about to stop until whatever mistake left uncorrected, was corrected. For that, he decided to hell with it. He was aware of the vast difference between them and the Eye, but he'd be damned if he sat in silence and listened like a trained dog any longer. Enough was enough.
“I agree with her,” Thin Man said, the Eye’s socket widening in surprise. “It’s true we may not be able to win against you in strength, but you still very much need us for the Cycle to continue as I’m sure we both know how…premature it still is.” The Eye openly glared, but remained silent nonetheless. He took that as a good thing. “You admitted it yourself, even. You started the attack under the name of ‘reminding’, and you planned on anything non-fatal. That tells me enough that she's more important to you than you let on. Or else you wouldn’t so much have let her finish her threats in destroying the Maw and the Cycle, not to mention your existence in the Signal Tower as well.”
“Is that so? Ah. You must have done a lot of thinking to even accuse us of that. Maybe too much to even come up with it?” the Eye said, almost as though challenging him to speak again. If that were so, then he’d be more than happy to accept with an open heart.
“I don’t speak out of boredom, Eye. I know you expected me to obey blindly and maybe even convince Six to fix what you call an error herself, just to make your job easier. If you didn’t insist on hurting her, if you didn’t insist on hurting my child, I would’ve usually thought twice before speaking up. And now you’ve given me reason to. So know this: I’d be entirely honored to let the Cycle fail as well. And if you think losing your ‘favorites’’ cooperation won’t suffice and eventually deciding your only solution is to restart everything—again I say your Cycle is premature. It would go against your own words and you would end up creating instead of fixing an error.”
“You know, Broadcaster, for someone who was once a child afraid of saying things lest they bring you consequences, you surely have grown up to be the opposite of that. Bold. Vocal. Stupidly brave like dear Lady here,” the Eye said before pausing. “But perhaps…we have been a bit rash in our decision-making as of late. Although we can’t exactly just let this abomination further interrupt the Cycle and live like it had a place to belong…” The Lady seethed at their choice of word, leaving long lines scratched on the surface of the table. Thin Man gripped the armrest on his chair until his knuckles turned white.
“Maybe a little adjustment can be made to create some sort of balance? To make both sides happy?”
“What is it?” the Lady asked impatiently.
With that just as quickly the Eye’s mood had changed from bright, happy-go-lucky host to tyrannical monster, they adapted the former once more as they sat straight in their seat, hands clasped together in front of them, and head tilted slightly in that familiar look of amusement.
They hummed thoughtfully. “Well, since the both of you insist so much on having that thing—for who knows how long— we suppose an additional arrangement is in order. A new deal, you could say. Yes, you may keep the little rascal as you wish and you each will proceed with your duties as you have for your freedom, and yada yada yada— but! We will need you to give up something of yours in return.”
Thin Man felt a churn in his stomach. He didn’t like where this was going from the moment the Eye had their smug attitude back on. As opposed to his wife, however, the Lady showed no move to back down from the Eye’s offer and ominous request. She was determined and desperate, being the one to urge the Eye herself.
“Which is?” she asked.
“Your hearts, dear Lady,” the Eye told her, after letting out a hopeful sigh. “Caring for a child of your own is one way to soften one’s soul and even softer in the long run. They encourage endless love and empathy that only grows within you the longer they stay.” Then their posture became rigid, blue pupil turning cold as ice. “We don’t need that. Your duties require no such useless things. So! As to ensure that you don’t forget your roles in the Cycle or back down at the last second, we ask you to find innocent children,” the Eye said, “and lead them to death.”
His heart sank to his stomach as his eyes widened when the answer had been delivered with an unexpecting kick: their part of the deal that involved evil and cruelty only the Eye would ask of, should he and the Lady accept. It crushed his heart further upon the realization that this new deal—this sick, horrible form of payment— was something he wanted to take. Something he had to take. Yet…the idea of killing children, let alone only one…
Could he truly do something like that—?
“And if we do, you wouldn’t hurt our child?” the Lady asked, pulling his attention to her immediately. She, too, had been taken aback by the tremble in her voice, but seemingly her desire to protect her own flesh and blood was far superior to any guilt the Eye would want her to feel. For this request of murdering children seemed to serve more as a punishment than any means to ‘harden their hearts’ for the Cycle's guranteed success.
The Eye placed a palm to their chest, to where the heart would be. Or where the Viewer’s heart once was.
“Not a single hair will be touched,” they said and added, “that is…we will do that much should it remain within your sights. Let it roam freely to interrupt the Cycle and we can’t promise you its existence wouldn’t be corrected. That’s all.”
“Then I accept.”
“Six!” Thin Man interjected instantly, which the Lady shot him a scowl at his interruption. Yet the longer he looked into her dark, tired eyes, the more he noticed the lack of anger in them. Instead all he saw was frustration. She was frustrated and feeling guilty just as he was. And deep down he knew she was aware of what needed to be done and the sheer cruelty the Eye was setting them up for.
“What?” The Lady snapped back. “Would you rather we do it the hard way and risk them in the process, or do it the hard way and guarantee their safety?” At his silence, she added, “Mono, this might be the only way we ever get to really guarantee protection. An agreement from the Eye themselves. We’ve already done worse deeds than this, so…what’s a few more?”
“They are children, Six,” he pressed, standing up. “Innocent children.”
“We were once innocent! Our child is innocent!” The Lady took his hands in hers and held them tightly like they were her anchor from falling back and straight into her guilty conscience that she denied so hard. “We need to take the deal. It’s our best choice, Mono,” she said, voice almost shaking and lacking conviction. “Please. Say that you will.”
Thin Man pressed his lips into a line and sighed through his nose. This was the second time they were offered a deal from the Eye, and while the first one had been for his release from the Signal Tower—freedom from the years of isolation the Lady rescued him from by agreeing to sign her life away along with his, to cooperate willingly when she didn’t need to—this new one involved his child’s life and other children's lives.
He understood what the Lady meant and dare he say he…agreed too. He agreed that they’ve done worse; as he played a part in corrupting thousands of adults in the city and thousands more that were in the signal’s vicinity, while the Lady let aboard countless of stubborn-minded adults on her ship, lulling them into false paradise before snatching away their souls and using their meat to feed more of their kind. He agreed with her when it came to prioritizing their child, however, it still sickened him to his core just the thought about murdering those innocent, unfortunate children. Every time he tried to imagine them, he could only see a grumpy little girl hugging her yellow raincoat tightly in the rain, all shivering and afraid.
And he knew he would’ve done anything for that girl.
He would stay up to let her sleep extra few hours, convince her he wasn’t as hungry when he hadn’t eaten for days just so she would agree to take the food instead of him, be the one to step into the darkness first before giving the greenlight that coast was clear; he would kill for her if death tried to steal her away. He even had, multiple times.
Now as he held her cold, trembling hands, stared into her glassy eyes pleading him to save their child from the war they nearly started with the Eye, he found himself shaking his head and agreeing to her wish. He decided he would accept the terms of the deal and take it.
For her, and for their child.
The Eye sprung up from their seat in joy at this, extending their hand to them so enthusiastically like it had been something they’d long waited for. And it was this shake of the hand that made the Eye’s face contort, more eyes and much more sinister-looking ones appearing from beneath the Viewer’s skin. It was the shake of the hand that left a real burning sensation on the center of his palm, reminding him that it was too late for any second thoughts or case of cold feet. It was the shake of the hand that set their new fate waiting for them.
It was the shake of the hand that finally sealed a new deal.
Everything happened so quickly that when it was over, it felt as though he hadn’t been the one in control of his body. First the white flash that blinded them as their hands shook, then the millisecond glimpse of the hundreds of eyes all watching from around and above, each one with sinister gazes and horrifying darkness, and finally they disappeared like they were never there. And he and the Lady along with the Viewer puppet stood in the hall where behind them was the double doors they'd slammed open before. The only official entrance and exit of the Signal Tower.
Thin Man looked over his palm and the new mark engraved on his skin like a tattoo. The Lady did the same, however, refusing to look any longer before her emotions would slip through as she tugged her sleeves down.
“This has been a pleasure,” the Eye broke the silence, walking around them with their hands behind their back. “We look forward to seeing new, young souls in the overpopulated graveyard. Hopefully you won’t develop a liking to it over time seeing as you two will be having that Cycle-wrecker for a long time, we assume. After all, there’s nothing more merciful than a quick death for those poor children. So be a dear, and give them just that, yes?”
He heard the Lady growl as her scowl deepened, much to the Eye’s pleasure. “You keep your end of the deal and we’ll keep ours. I would rather not step foot into your stupid Tower again if not necessary. You better hope I don’t have a reason to because I will stick to my prior promise if that’s the last thing I do.” The Lady turned on her heel and pushed the doors herself, leaving with a slam loud enough it sent mild grumble on the ground.
The Eye stared at the doors and chuckled. “My, how scary. But otherwise...fitting for the Lady of the Maw, wouldn’t you agree?” they asked him with a tilt of their head.
“You offer an agreement that entails us killing children and then ask us to be merciful for their deaths. There are only so many reasons I held in my urge to strangle your puppet. I’ll also be taking my leave.”
“Ah, but that’s what we like about you, Broadcaster! You know your limits and you know when and when not to test them. Which earlier, we should say, you landed yourself on the lucky side of the coin. That was the first time you acted so daringly in a long time; you simply had us by surprise!”
“Fear has always been your main tool. I’ve just learned to get used to it.” He placed his hand on the door, just ready to leave with the Lady when the Eye spoke one last time to him.
“You may learn to adapt, but there’s always a fear that you cannot conquer. Perhaps…this child of yours may even be the one you will constantly fail to not feel fear for,” they told him. “Be sure to keep that in mind, won’t you?”
A chill ran down his spine, yet he maintained his face hard as stone, only looking over his shoulder, and saying, “Of course. I’ll remember that.”
The Eye let out a small hum. “Well then. Until next time, Broadcaster.”
He finally left the Signal Tower and let the gates close by itself.
Notes:
Next chapter will be the last Thin Man/Lady chapter. And it'll pick up right where their story left off.
Thanks for reading!
Chapter 57: The Man and The Lady
Notes:
Hello I have returned. And...my god this fic has reached 1k kudos.
So, as a HUGE thank you, I've done and wrote this story another 9.6k chapter, which was WAY longer than I expected it to be. But yea a long chap for my long absence (which I will continue to apologize for)
Also this is where that one tag comes into play :)
[WARNING]
Blood, violence
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Thin Man pushed past the Signal Tower doors with a heavy feeling in his chest.
It had been seven years since he’d entered the God-forsaken Tower like this—furious and fearful. Furious at the Lady for going against their prior agreement and abandoning the plan altogether to achieve her own. Fearful that he had no idea what this plan of hers was and how it might end. But for her to have used her powers on him just to hold him back, nearly rendering him unconscious so he couldn’t stop her, was enough indication that their future wouldn’t be bright. That it wouldn’t go well. Nothing about this was going well anyway. Everything that he had planned for them had been ruined and tossed into the sea.
The Lady was not in the bunker with Viola. And instead, she was here in his place to stall.
She was one stubborn, foolish woman for thinking he’d let that happen. He’d drag her by the foot if it meant her staying away from the Eye. More than ever now he needed his family to be out of their reach lest they became a pawn or a leverage for the Eye to hold over him.
After all, the last time he was here was the time he’d quit as a Broadcaster. He knew how angry the Eye was at him for that.
He knew they would make him suffer for it.
“Six!” His voice echoed as he rushed in, the air around him fizzling and glitching, his steps leaving dark remnants that burned the floor. He sighed through his nose when there was no sign of his wife.
The hallway in front of him slowly stretched the deeper he walked. The Eye knew he was here and wasn’t making any contact on purpose.
That sent his mind into a pit of his paranoia, the sea of all his fears that he wished would not ever come true.
His form glitched once more, however, this time purposeful. Then he felt the ground beneath him shift, an intense light flashing over his eyes when he reopened them.
In the TV room he watched each screen in front of him carefully, searching one by one for anything different. Anything that was her.
Thin Man leaned forwards, determined and uneasy. His eyes darted back and forth as time raced against him. He had to find her before he was too late.
“You sure do look a little pale there.”
Thin Man froze at the sound of his own voice. His back straightened and hands dropped to the side, he finally dared to look over his shoulder.
The heaviness in his chest did not subside; it only doubled.
“You’re here,” he said, staring at the happier—more cruel—looking version of him.
The Doppelganger mimicked his smile so perfectly at his irritated look. He leaned against the screens beside him with a bored sigh, watching them lazily.
“It’s been a while, hasn’t it?” the Doppelganger said. “10, 15 years? Of course, you still remember me, yes?”
“Get out of my sight.” Thin Man ignored him and returned to the images on the screens. He felt the eyes of his clone on him—the bottomless pit of darkness that could hide and show emotions just as well as those without them.
“Hm. Well. You know what they say, you get married to a traitor and you might just end up like one. You’re so much different now I can barely tell! We used to be such good pals back then. I still remember helping you open up when you refused to speak at all!” Thin Man bit back a seethe. He ignored the man again. The Doppelganger noticed with a click of the teeth.
“You’re still looking for her…aren’t you?” the Doppelganger asked thoughtfully. Although anything that was associated with the Eye had no capability of being thoughtful. He knew every question, every quip from them was meant to be an opening for manipulation and deception. He’d seen and learned it all too well by now.
When he said nothing at all, the Doppelganger sighed.
“So, humor me, do you think she’s actually worth all this trouble?” the Doppelganger said. Thin Man’s fingers twitched, agitated. The clone smiled in success.
“Quiet,” Thin Man said, pointing a death glare at the man. “Quiet before I disintegrate your whole being.”
“And what would that do to find her?” He fell silent. The Doppelganger raised his hands, shrugging. “I’m just saying, you know, it isn’t like this hasn’t happened before. You, going all the way for some girl just to save her from trouble. It felt as though it was just yesterday.”
“Well, this isn’t like last time.”
“Oh? How can you tell? She hurt you just the same when she lied about agreeing with your plans, didn’t she?” Thin Man pressed his lips into a tight frown. The Doppelganger continued with yet another sigh, this time almost sounding as though to sympathize. As though he understood.
“Do you ever believe in Parallels, Mono?”
Again, his eyes only stayed on the screens, searching, his ears, half-listening.
The Doppelganger continued, regardless. “The Eye believes it strongly so. Even the Cycle includes multiple parallels across time: every success, every tragedy, every loss. Including this moment right here. The Eye may prefer for everything to stick to its routes, but I find that it’s the only thing that makes each Cycle unique. The events that transpired, similar yet never truly the same,” he said then laughed. “Now don’t go asking me how that works. Even I am nearly as clueless as you when it comes to that; how the Cycle operates is not part of my job description, you see.”
“Neither is it mine anymore,” Thin Man said bitterly.
“Did you really have to declare that you’re no longer the Eye’s Broadcaster?”
“They decided to go against the deal they knew would ruin the peace we established years ago, no matter how thorough we were to uphold our end.” Thin Man turned to him, his eyes cold. “I was only doing the same.”
The Doppelganger hummed then, no longer smiling.
“You truly are different now. Wonder how the Eye would react to this…” he said followed with a pause. Then as he walked to the other side of the room, he tapped against a screen on the bottom left.
“She’s there,” the Doppelganger told him.
Thin Man gave him an unfriendly stare, only moving from his place out of desperation to find the Lady as quickly as he could. Any other day if the Doppelganger had helped him, he wouldn’t dare listen lest he’d be dragged into a trick the Eye had set up. After all, the Doppelganger was merely an extension of the Eye, doing their bidding and being loyal like they were its God.
And now, he had no idea what the Eye could be whispering into the Doppelganger’s ear. He had no idea what awaited him beyond the darkness of the unknown.
He dropped to one knee and looked into the screen the Doppelganger tapped against. Then his heart sped up.
Despite the blurry images the screen showed, nothing could mistake him for the woman standing proud and tall, a porcelain mask hiding her expressions as she looked around the room as though lost.
“Six…” he whispered, already touching the screen gently. The familiar buzz tingled beneath his fingertips.
“Indeed. The Geisha,” the Doppelganger muttered, towering over him as he looked down. “Now before you go to her, I must ask you one last time: is she really worth all your trouble?”
The question almost sent shivers down his spine. Not because of whom it’d come from, but because of the underlying meaning it had if one paid close enough attention.
The Doppelganger was offering him a chance to stay—to return to the Eye and become once again their infamous Broadcaster despite the crimes he’d surely committed in their eyes prior. This offer was an out for him and him only. And should he accept the offer, decide to change his mind, he would be guaranteed to live as a reward. His blood would be spared.
But that did not guarantee Viola and the Lady’s would too.
“She’s worth everything I’ll possibly ever endure. If it means I’ll have to go through what I did last time, then I will. Gladly,” Thin Man said, sealing his fate.
The Doppelganger’s lips became a tighter frown, his eyes rested half lidded as he raised his head up.
“I suppose there’s nothing stopping you anymore, Mono, if that’s how you feel,” the Doppelganger said, his voice laced with disappointment. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
The television glowed brightly and, once more, the world vanished before his eyes but only for a moment. The steady ground was the first thing he felt as he slammed one hand, and then the other. He dragged himself out from the television like he had many times before, planting his feet firmly on the floor until he was free to stand to his true height.
In front of him now was a much bigger, much taller, open space. The static of the television ceased abruptly on its own, its power shut off. The walls around him were coloured in purple tint from the stretching light above. Everything else floated further up and up until it disappeared from view, like a black hole sucking in whatever was within its range.
Everything except for him and the woman across from him.
The Lady stood frozen with her eyes widening behind her mask, her usual confident posture faltering and flinching, her chest heaving up and down at an ascending pace. Her voice, nearly trembling.
“Mono,” she broke the silence, “what…what are you doing here—?”
“What am I doing here? Are you sure that’s the right question you’re asking?” he cut her off with a stern glare. The Lady understood it and returned to her initial self.
“You’re supposed to be with Viola,” she said dismissively.
Oh, the audacity of you to say that.
“No, because that wasn’t the plan, Six,” he said, approaching her almost threateningly. “You’re not even meant to be here.” Just as his fingers brushed her upper arm, the Lady snatched herself away and recoiled a few steps back.
“I am not leaving. Not until I’m done.”
Her stubbornness only fuelled his ire.
“Done with what?” he snapped with a raised voice. “Can’t you see how foolish your actions are up until now? To abandon our daughter just so you could satisfy your own ego that refused to let me take the load for you?”
“Your hypocrisy is just as strong, Mono. Didn’t you also plan to leave Viola behind so you wouldn’t have to live with the feeling of loss?” she shot back.
“How dare you say that—”
“Oh, I dare,” she spat. “And if what happened wasn’t enough to get that message through your skull, then let me help remind you. Again.”
Darkness encased him within seconds. Then before he knew it, his body was sent flying back until he slammed against the television, the glass shattering into pieces upon impact. And pain shot through up and down his spine. He winced and hissed, scowling freely at the Lady.
She truly had the nerve to use her powers on him. Like he was merely some brat who had gotten in her way—like as if he wasn’t the man she’d spent her life with for nearly a decade.
That old anger of his from when he was a boy came back easily to burn in his chest, but his older heart had all the means to tame it. Despite how furious he was at the time, he never could really hate her anymore.
Not when they’d made it so far together.
Not when they’d already shared so much.
His concern now was for her to leave the Signal Tower lest she be harmed.
If something happened to her, he could never live with himself.
The second time the Lady hurled a ball of darkness, he dodged it in time with his own energy. The cloud dissipated as it touched the fizzling air around him, a hidden barrier that glitched as he raised to his height threateningly.
Her eyes narrowed at him as though in contempt.
She summoned more from the center of her palm. The darkness danced between her fingertips like black fire, swirling so gracefully from her wrist to her arms. This magic, this raw power then grew under her feet, sending shadows of her own to take over half of the room’s floors and walls, the purple tint becoming a darker color. This was her last warning to him. A final one that should he refuse to listen, she would make him pay the price.
Yet Thin Man stayed his ground, his glare never leaving his wife.
Her eyes widened then in fury as she threw her hand his way. The darkness followed her command, speeding through like lightning as it engulfed the man until his figure was gone behind it.
And truly he was gone after the darkness became one with the air, the smoke subsiding slowly.
The Lady gasped quietly under her mask, whipping her head around and above.
Caught off guard, she realized it seconds too late how the air had shifted behind her. Then the signs of his presence became known—her movements slowed as though she were placed underwater, her limbs heavy to be lifted and her chest much heavier to gasp a full breath. Even her attempts at summoning her dark energy were effort down the drain. Every time a ball of darkness began to form, it returned flat and dissipated into the air.
It was his turn to play this game.
As the floorboards burned under his shoes, the heavy barrier expanded and caught her in it, Thin Man took his steps like a careful predator. Time was under his will and he’d will it to his heart’s desire, bending it with years’ worth of practice that he didn’t need so much to try.
The Lady fought his barrier throughout the entire time, never ceasing her attempt to hurl her dark power at him. Yet no matter how strong she pushed; the barrier pushed her back stronger. She was no match for it.
Now that he stood close enough, he finally took her wrists she’d raised, holding it tightly until her powers had been overtaken, that roaring fire of hers pinched between his fingers. She lost to him in strength just as she knew she would. And that lost—it appeared through her eyes. It appeared through her arms when they began to still. It appeared through her tensed shoulders when they sagged lower and lower.
It appeared through her power, the darkness that danced in her hands dying out.
Under her mask, though, he listened as her breath became heavy—still angry, however, accepting that he’d won. True once more that when it came to the battles of strength, he would come at the top. However, when it came down to the battle of hearts…
Thin Man loosened the grip he had over her, and his eyes softened.
It was only: lose, for him.
“Go back, Six…” He could almost beg her. “Leave this place and never come back again.”
The Lady’s eyes lowered despondently.
“I can’t,” she said. “I know you want me to but I just…can’t. I can’t leave now.”
“But what is it that’s even making you stay here? Six, tell me what it is, please—”
“I’m afraid what you’re asking her is not possible, Broadcaster.” Their heads turned to the eye on the wall behind them. Its bright blue iris stared right back with such intensity that any normal visitor to the Signal Tower would cower under.
But not the Lady; and certainly not him.
He let go of the Lady and pushed her slightly behind him. “There’s no need for you to call me that. I thought I resigned,” Thin Man said.
“Oh, I know,” the blue eye replied. “We all do, as a matter of fact. But truly…it doesn’t matter what you think or say. Resigned or not, you’re a part of us, Broadcaster. Flesh and blood; mind and soul.” Then it sparkled with malicious joy. “We own you.”
His blood boiled then and there. He had had enough with the eyes tormenting him, using him as though he were a long-lasting piece of battery. Between his fingers he felt the spark and the faint buzz that grew in intensity, matching the internal rage he’d held tightly in for years. And for years, he wanted to kill the Eye.
He wanted to wipe their entire being off of the surface of the world after making them writhe under the weight of their actions. He wanted the Eye to suffer just as he had all those years. Now, more than anything, he wanted to realise that old wish of his.
One second was all he needed to transport himself in front of the blue eye, his form never ceasing to glitch madly. The bright flash he omitted from his palm blinded nearly everyone in the area, making the Lady shield herself from its intensity with an arm over her face. Whereas Thin Man
He kept his eyes open the entire time.
He wouldn’t miss a chance in a lifetime to watch one of the eyes burn and die.
Thin Man caught only a glimpse of the blue eye before the flash. And the blue eye stared back into his own after it—unharmed and much bigger than before. Cracks then began to form around the blue eye, growing and breaking to reveal more of its mucky flesh underneath the walls. Its laugh reverberated all around, and another joined. For every brick that fell to the ground, another eye revealed itself from its hiding, giggling and laughing along as it watched him and the Lady’s look of horror.
The laughter grew in cacophony, a dissonant choir that increased in volume as the eyes increased in number. The sweet calming purple light had turned dimmer and lost its color completely, basking anything past 20 feet above into sheer darkness, an abyss that echoed sinister voices and watchful stares of thousands of eyes.
Thin Man recoiled back to witness it all. He lifted only a step, however, when the steady floor became mushy and spongy. The flesh had covered the entire floor without them even noticing it. And when he felt the little tentacles circling his ankles, he looked down at the smaller eyes that held him in place, climbing him before sticking itself to his shoes and pants.
“Mono!” The Lady’s scream caught his attention. Thin Man barely had a good look at her before he descended below.
The tentacles grew and climbed all over his body up to his neck as it plunged him to whatever was underground. He couldn’t even scream—the Eye’s fleshes covered him like a cocoon! It wasn’t until he felt them loosen and he began to fall further below that his senses returned to him.
Thin Man landed face first into the flesh.
With his nose scrunched in disgust, he groaned as he pulled himself away from the sticky surface, anger in his heart.
“Where did you take me?” he demanded the Eye, pushing his aching body to his feet. “What is your game here, Eye?”
The darkness here was almost palpable. He had to squint to barely make out the blinking eyes that were around him.
Still, he did not cower. Not like he did as a little boy. Never again.
“Game, you say? Aren’t games more suitable for children? I’m sure you don’t see yourself as a child anymore to be participating in such a thing, yes?" The little eyes finally revealed themselves as the eldritch being everyone feared—the Eye.
Thin Man cursed under his breath as he willed a light blue glow under his palm. Each of the eyes were only left with their white sclera, each missing the dot that would shift every few seconds. The flesh continued to pulsate and move like waves underneath him.
The Eye had taken him to their Merge, one of the deepest parts of the Signal Tower. It unsettled him that he didn’t know why.
“Answer my question,” he said daringly. “Where did you take me?” Despite already knowing, he couldn’t be too sure. He’d only seen something similar as this when the Lady had left him behind as a child.
“Whatever could you mean, Broadcaster? Why, we took you home! A place where you would finally belong,” the Eye exclaimed.
He looked up above him where he had fallen, the fear of the Lady being up there alone tearing through his heart once again. He couldn’t even see her as the fleshes sealed and reconnected perfectly.
Thin Man hurled a small blast against the wall of fleshes. The flesh shifted and burned before it regenerated instantly, a glow of blue under its skin as though it had absorbed his energy. A low grumble followed after.
“Why here? Why not the usual room you had me trapped in?” he asked with a tight frown.
“Simply, you’ve lost your privileges. For now. We are merciful when we want to be.”
“You plan on keeping me here forever then? Use me until you’ve exhausted my energy?”
“Come now, Broadcaster, you make it sound so horrible,” the Eye said, chuckling. “It’s nothing that you haven’t endured before. Except, this time, you’ll only endure it far worse. You’ll be shielded from the world once we see fit and once this little rebellious phase of yours dies out. Until then, you’ll stay here with us where we could keep eyes on you at all times.”
“How merciful,” he said in sheer contempt. “Not only did you renege the second deal but you also abandoned the first one. Whatever happened to the part where I was promised freedom?”
“In our defense, we never reneged on anything. You two did fail to clarify the kind of freedom you asked for. All the Geisha asked was for you to be free from being locked away in the Signal Tower for the rest of your life. You agreed with it. So, after, we merely looked around for the loopholes of the deal, which clearly stated” the Eye said, “you wouldn’t be trapped forever. That never meant we couldn’t still keep you here for as long as we desire and at the time of our choosing. It never meant we couldn’t lock you in temporarily.”
His eyes widened, fists clenching until his knuckles were white.
“You should show a bit of gratitude, nevertheless. We did grant you the freedom you wanted, despite figuring out the loophole. And look how much damage that caused over the years.”
In another fit of rage, Thin Man unleashed another strong wave of his powers to the walls and the ground. He screamed at the Eye as he threw one after another, the many layers of its skin melting off on top of the other.
Yet the fleshes always returned to its initial state after a second’s damage. The same glow of blue flowed underneath it like blood in veins.
“And the other deal?” he asked, his voice shaking as he heaved short breaths. “Why did you break that one?”
The Eye laughed almost instantly, sending him to stand straighter on edge. “Oh, Broadcaster, Broadcaster. Do you not hear us?” Then their voices became low—dangerous. “We never break deals.”
“What did you say?” he said.
“We never break deals, you old fool,” the Eye repeated. “That agreement regarding your troublesome spawn was not any different.”
“But then why would you go after her? It was in your end of the deal that Viola shall not be harmed by any method—”
“Did you see us go after your daughter?” Thin Man fell silent. The Eye continued. “Yes, indeed, the deal agreed was that Viola shall never be harmed at all, granted with the presence of one parent to keep her from intruding the Cycle. And all those times, she was never left alone for us to interfere even towards the end.
“But think it again and carefully this time, Broadcaster, when we ask you once more: did you see us go after your daughter? Or did our words and appearance under your floors make you believe that we actually were?”
His heart immediately sunk into his stomach.
The Eye had only told him the deal was no more. And foolish as he was, he’d assumed the worst when they’d told him they had only two days. Two days before the Eye would go after the little girl. Thin Man believed them because of his fear—the same fear the Eye had warned him about seven years ago.
It occurred to him now that the Eye had merely been spewing out false words. They never acted upon it.
And that he had been greatly deceived.
Now as the memories of the past made its way into his troubled mind, he began to flip through them like pages in perturbation.
The scene where one of the eyes had grown under his home; they never appeared near Viola’s room when it could. The time where the Lady had lost consciousness that morning, the television in their room seemingly emitted a foreign signal that became the cause of it; Viola was never affected and was not the one receiving the end of it. As he thought back, he realized if the Eye had indeed ‘broken’ their deal, they would’ve started to torment Viola until her two days were up. Instead, he and the Lady were tormented. Turned against each other.
And now, as he cursed himself and his sheer ignorance, he realized it all too late that he’d given the Eye exactly what they wanted.
They’d left Viola all alone.
“This is…your plan all along?” he stammered, horror on his face. And then fury. “YOU LIED TO US SO YOU COULD KILL HER?”
“We only lied so you’d have a grip on your reality—a splash of ice-cold water,” the Eye deadpanned. The grumble became louder. “And to think you’d have some intelligence to see it yourself—just how long did you think we’d let you continue this absurd life of yours? Allow you to play house while you carry such an important role to the Cycle and responsibility upon your back? For understand this, Broadcaster, we made that deal happen just so you’d lose touch with your need for love. We initiated an agreement so you would realize and return on your own accord!”
The Eye’s voice boomed like thunder, the ground shaking and sending him tumbling nearly.
“Even in the end, we gave you leniency. We sent your doppelganger to coax you gently; to hopefully change your mind and heart, and have you claim a clear sense of the severity of this situation. And what did you do?” Within seconds, the walls closed in on him, the fleshes trapping him left and right as the ceiling pressed against his head.
“You went back to her.”
Slowly he felt the fleshes crush him like a pressing machine. He felt his joints click under the pressure. And then a crack resounded in the air. Thin Man screamed when the fleshes broke one of his fingers. He felt the same inner anger in him, however, no amount of his powers unleashed could stop or hurt the Eye. Anything he willed, all of it was taken by them like borrowed energy. It came to a point that it wasn’t even him anymore that continuously let his powers out—the crushing flesh walls glowing much too brightly in a strong light blue, blinding his own eyes that he could only shut them as he was stuck and his powers sucked out from him.
He felt his vision slowly tunneling; and every breath he inhaled did nothing to provide him air for his lungs.
How did it come to this? Was this how it would end? Him, returning as a battery and under tight scrutiny, unable to do anything to prevent the Eye from what he knew they’d do next? So utterly helpless to save his wife and daughter after promising them two they’d survive? Was this the stalling he told them? Half-conscious and weak to even fight against the Eye?
He was a stupid, stupid man.
Naïve just as he was when he was a boy.
And as the one who’d sworn to keep his family alive, he had failed.
The glow of the fleshes began to tone down, a familiar embrace of dark clouds swirled around his face until it made his throat dry. What is this—
That thought was immediately abandoned as he felt himself being hurled up by an unforeseen, strong force. The darkness that had penetrated through the layers of the flesh hugged gently around his figure, bringing him up and up until he was back to where he’d left her.
The Lady grabbed his arms and pulled him off the tentacles that had wrapped possessively around his waist and legs until they disconnected.
Once the flesh let go of him like rubber released, they fell abruptly atop each other, panting and covered with the Eye’s grime.
Holding him tightly to her as though she’d nearly lost him, the Lady dared not to let go. Neither did he.
And once their eyes met—both having been individually tormented by the Eye as her face was bare, exhausted from the fights, afraid, and utterly dreadful of their future—he leaned into her face. He kissed her until his pain was temporarily forgotten, and all of the fear he once had no longer took hostage of his mind. He held her face so desperately and kissed her again that he swore to himself he’d remember this feeling until the Cycle would allow it until the end of time.
The Lady pulled him closer. He did not push her away.
Because he did not know the last time he’d feel her love for him again. Or the last time he’d ever feel her touch like their lives hadn’t fallen to ruin, and the possibility of death hanging over them like a rope. If he ever could choose, he hoped none of them reached for that rope.
He broke the kiss reluctantly and held her face in his hands. And with the long seconds they were granted, he stared into her eyes and her features, memorizing everything about her that he could then. But staring at her face became painful as he was reminded of Viola; and the one mistake he’d made for the girl. He saw their resemblances and it made his heart ache again.
“I’m sorry, Mono,” the Lady muttered sorrowfully, her voice barely out. “I’m so…sorry for everything leading up to this. I-I wish I’d told you sooner—”
He hushed her softly, and said, “As much as I yearned for an apology from you in the early days, I realize I don’t need it now. I never do. I should be the one to apologize, Six.”
The Lady shook her head at him, taking his hands into hers.
“No, you don’t understand,” she said, nearly exasperated. “I need to tell you something—”
“That’s enough of talking from the both of you,” the Eye’s voice came above theirs, lines of blue glow flowing under the walls and floors. The eyes blinked at the same time, and despite the emptiness of each one, there was conspicuous annoyance and impatience in them.
As he and The Lady quickly rose to their feet, each with a defensive stance and hands bared, they directed their attention to the forming mass of flesh ahead of them. Unlike before, the mass stayed stagnant as the walls and floors, only waving and pulsating, but now the Eye moved as one to will it to rise higher and higher until it reached the abyss-like sky. It became gigantic compared to them, making their heads tilt up with silent trepidation.
This was the Eye’s ability he hadn’t wanted to let the Lady witness. This was the wrath of the Eye he had spent years trying to avoid.
Now as they stood under the giant mass’s shadow like clueless ants, the flesh was brought down on them with the intention to crush, to engulf their entire being with the Eye’s mass of flesh like a tsunami.
They each knew better that shielding themselves with their powers would not stop such monstrosity. Thin Man and the Lady teleported themselves out of the mass’s shadow seconds before It landed to where they’d stood. The ground shook immensely at the impact, the Tower walls grumbling as though seconds away from crumbling into debris and ruins.
The eyes blinked once more, working together and identifying their location, alerting the mass as it was again lifted and brought down.
Thin Man dodged it barely. The Lady stumbled to the wall in hopes to find balance upon standing above the shaking ground.
But no walls of the Eye shall be touched by the human hand.
Just seconds after her palm sunk into the flesh, small and miniscule eyes appeared around her hand. Their tentacles circled around her wrist and snatched her arm until half of her was buried within. The Lady screamed profanities and manifested her power into a sharp blade. She sunk the tip of it into the flesh, at the little eyes that dared to toy with her now of all time.
It did nothing to deter the eyes, not even a howl of pain from them as she stabbed it repeatedly. All that she managed to achieve, however, was tore open the many thick layers of skin and reveal a lighter shade of red underneath it. Her blade became stuck inside. The little eyes giggled at her failure before climbing up her arms like a ladder, pulling her closer until her cheeks barely touched the soft walls. She screamed in sheer anger as she was forced to play this horrifying game of tug of war with her own body. And the moment the little eyes popped and grew near her face as if parasites finding a new host, a blue flash burned them away when Thin Man slammed his hand against the deeper layer of the flesh.
The little eyes bellowed all at once, each one incinerated as bigger wounds were left behind in their place.
Yet as he pulled the Lady into his arms, held her protectively from the mass, his eyes never left the damage he’d left.
No blue glow flowed throughout the flesh, no new eyes popped out from existence, and no wounds of them had been healed like it did seconds after absorbing his power.
Thin Man furrowed his brows at this…strange realization. While he knew he could use his powers to cause damage to the surfaces of the Eye’s flesh mass, it was never permanent as it apparently was now— it would always find its way to stitch itself back together before any fatal wound could be endured. And to think about what had been different between then and now…
He watched the first layer of the flesh twitching, barely succeeding in putting itself back together. The deeper layer oozed a strange black liquid that dripped to the floor.
It clicked in his mind.
Six’s blade could pierce through the protective layer of the Eye’s skin. While hers couldn’t necessarily inflict damage, mine could. I could hurt the Eye without that protective layer.
The towering mass behind them began to move again, this time sending them flying across the room until their backs hit the ground. Beside him, the Lady groaned, hands on her stomach. He hoped that hadn’t been her hunger curse picking the wrong time to strike.
When the Lady sat up, her eyes brimmed with murder and more, Thin Man quickly stopped her from wasting her energy at the mass. While the Eye took its time assessing, perhaps even attempting to slowly heal the damage they’d done in one corner, he took the opportunity.
“Six, I need you to listen to me,” he said. He glanced at the frozen mass, and then back to her. “I’ve figured out a way to hurt the Eye. Effectively.”
Her eyes widened and she said impatiently, “Isn’t that what we’ve been doing this entire time—?”
“No, it isn’t. All we did was hurt its protection layer. Even so, my powers never reached beyond that.” He placed his hand firmly on her shoulder. “Yours can. Despite it not hurting the Eye, yours can penetrate through; leave an opening so I could throw a blow.”
A mischievous smile crept to her lips then, understanding immediately what he was trying to say—the plan that could potentially end all of this horror-show for good.
“Then let’s not waste anymore of our time,” she said, “and actually start stalling.”
He agreed strongly with a similar spirit.
Without a second to wait, the Lady summoned yet another blade—this time, however, its edges were longer, sharper. And she began to thrust the weapon deep into the flesh below, twisting it in her grasp and slicing it open as though it were one of the meats she’d served at the Maw. And she’d overseen enough brutality in that slaughterhouse to be numb by it.
The Eye, noticing her actions, willed the towering mass to snap to their direction. Colorless eyes blinked at once as they moved along with the mass at a threatening speed, the ground moving in waves as they grumbled. Yet before any harm reached them, Thin Man buried his hands within the created wound; and he made sure harm was done to the Eye first.
As blue sparked deep within the flesh, there was a screech that nearly imploded his eardrums. The mass lowered and lowered until it blended with the rest on the ground and walls, the eyes blinked without synchronization, and multiple screams echoed in the air. And just as he held his hand out from the second layer, the cries of a thousand eyes ceased.
Then they laughed.
And when the Eye spoke, their voices came in utter dissonance, overlapping the other that it made his ear want to bleed.
“You think simply injuring us would do the trick?” They laughed again. “Oh, such fools you two. There is no killing us by only burning our fleshes. You ought to try harder than that!”
“We don’t need to. Hearing your screams of agony will suffice,” the Lady spat, holding her shadow blade and pressing the tip of it on a new side.
“Ah, but of course! Killing us isn’t your intention anyhow, hm? Still on about that abomination of yours, are we?” The Lady angled her weapon just so it would cut deeper this time. He felt his powers ready to be unleashed just from the tip of his fingers. The Eye only shifted, the walls moving in slow waves as though indicating its movements. “Do you think your idea to ‘stall’ would stop us from getting to that little brat? She is, after all, left alone in the bunker, isn’t she? Puny, helpless, and clueless to even know what her parents are up to? We’d be happy to pay her a visit after all of this. Who knows…perhaps she’d have a place in the Cycle after all.”
The air around him became heavier once more, shifting and glitching. The Lady’s hold over her blade tightened until her knuckles turned white.
The Eye chuckled at their expense, moving around them as though circling their prey like vultures. Thin Man and the Lady only followed the movement closely.
“My, what a ferocious couple you two make. We say this, in honesty, how wasteful it’d be to lose a unique duo such as yourselves. A true shame.” The Eye hummed and let out an ugly titter. “Would you care for a new deal to end this war?”
The Lady rammed her weapon so deep until more than half of it was buried. Then she twisted it and tore a far bigger wound than the last. The Eye let her without a sound.
“A new deal?” the Lady snatched the blade up. “You think making a new deal with us would change our minds and make us forget about the shit you put us through? What could you possibly want from us this time? Aside from trying to save yourself from the pain we’ve learned to cause you?”
“Always a sharp tongue, you have there, dear Lady,” the Eye said. “But to answer your question, this new deal is merely a replica of the second with a twist here and there. While you’ve so persistently chosen to fight against us no matter what, we still want to spare you from your fates; from continuing this path.
“So, we urge you: come continue working with us. Continue your loyalty and the two of you shall live a longer, happier life than the Cycle’s design for each of you. Bring the girl to us and all of you shall not be hurt. Will you accept it?”
The Lady, for once, did not answer back. He cast her a glance and saw how her face had gone really pale, the horror in her eyes far more intense as she took in the words of the Eye. He did not question her hesitation. And when she didn’t speak, when she looked at him with only a firm nod, he decided he would answer for them.
“No,” Thin Man said. “We’ve had enough of your deals, Eye. We will not accept any more from you, and certainly not this one. We will not return to serve you and the Cycle any longer. And most definitely, we will never let you touch a hair on Viola’s head.”
For a few seconds, the Eye remained quiet, the movement of the flesh slowed to a halt that made the tension twice as heavy. And the silence, nearly terrifying.
“Very well, then,” the Eye finally said. “We suppose that would leave us with no other choice.”
A sharp gasp sounded beside him, and the sound of meat tearing open.
With just a turn of his head, his heart became a shattered glass.
The Lady looked at him with a thousand-yard stare, her eyes had widened in her own shock, her weapon in hand dissipated into the air. A spot of red had grown over her heart, staining her kimono as it traveled until nearly her entire chest, spreading and soaking until it became a darker shade of color. There was no mistaking the tentacles that connected from behind her, driving its blunt tip with so much force that it pierced her body in one clean move.
Swiftly, the tentacles pulled back just as quick as they’d impaled her. Blood escaped her mouth with a painful cough, dripping past her chin and to the floor. And then her body swayed to the side.
Thin Man caught her in his arms before her body touched the floor. He laid her head gently on his lap, holding her as though a sharp movement could worsen her pain. Her chest only heaved up and down desperately yet failing to catch even one short breath. More blood overflowed past her lips; more blood coated his hands as he pushed at her open wound in hopes of stopping it.
It didn’t work.
Nothing worked.
There was too much blood leaving her, too much blood pooling underneath them.
And when her touch began to loosen, her eyes resting half lidded, her painful heaves of breath ceasing altogether was when it hit him. The anguish, the agony, the panic, the fear— it crashed down on him mercilessly.
“No…” he whispered, tears brimming in his eyes as he watched her own become empty forever, save for the single tear that fell past her cheek. He lifted the hand that had held her wound desperately. And instead, he placed both of them on the sides of her face, holding her head —cradling her— closer to him as if it would change what his eyes were showing him now.
“S…Six?” he whispered again, broken. The Lady did not move anymore. She didn’t blink or breathe, only looking up into darkness and not at him.
She was gone.
The tears in his eyes streamed down his cheeks as it became more and more real. The Lady, his only friend since he was only a child, the woman he’d hated and loved, the one he’d share anything with—she was gone forever. Murdered by the Eye in a matter of seconds that no goodbyes were said.
He didn't even get to say goodbye.
As the silence prolonged, the flesh walls remaining docile now, Thin Man cried for his loss—hugging her stiff body to him, stroking her hair desperately, pressing his lips atop her head as he murmured apologies after apologies that were much too late. He shook his head repeatedly, still wanting to deny it regardless of the blood of his wife on his hands.
This couldn’t be real, could it? The Lady couldn’t be gone, could she? How could this happen? Why did it happen? Why kill her and not him? It should have been him. He should have been the one in her place. He should’ve done something, anything, before the Eye pierced through her heart.
He should’ve…
Done everything.
“This was your fault,” the Eye whispered to him. He shook his head, muttering no no no no no under his breath, his mind on the edge of breaking. He hugged the Lady’s body tighter.
“This was all your fault,” the Eye said again, never caring or stopping to break him further. And they truly succeeded as they whispered cruelly, “She died because of you.”
“STOP!” he screamed with fresh tears. His lips quivered; his hands trembled beyond control. “STOP THIS, EYE!”
The Eye did not laugh at him, but the way the eyes stared down on him was anything but pity or sympathy.
Thin Man wiped away the Lady’s last drop of tear and caressed her cheek as though it’d revive her. “Bring her back…” he whispered brokenly, losing his mind. “I’ll stay in the Tower forever and will never leave again. Just…bring her back.”
“You know that is out of our capabilities, Broadcaster. That is to say, even if we could, there is no bringing her back no matter what you could offer us. Eliminating her was a necessity, especially when you both turned down our offer. Even she already knew what it’d cost her in doing so when she let you.”
“What…?” His eyes widened as he looked at the eyes. “What do you mean by that?”
“Oh? Did she not tell you?” The flesh moved in purposely slow waves. “There was a reason she’d come to the Signal Tower before you, Broadcaster. And it wasn’t because she wanted to take your place to stall, certainly,” the Eye explained. “She came to us because she wanted your lives to be spared. She came to us because we had warned her to. And the smart woman she was, she heeded it. She knew she’d been found out; and she merely didn’t let you take the fall.”
“I…I don’t understand,” he said.
“Ah, maybe our explanations aren’t clear enough,” they said. “You see, we didn’t fool you into thinking the deal was broken just so Viola would be left alone to be rid of. That child was not the one we were after.” The empty eyes blinked once more, a glow of white appearing in each one, looking at him maliciously.
“We were after the child in the Lady’s womb.”
His tears stopped and so did his heart. Thin Man felt no anguish like he had when he held the body in his arms. Instead there was nothing in him. The moment everything made sense, the second he understood why, he became a hollow shell of a man.
He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t blink. He could only think.
Think of the times where the Lady had shown clues, and where he had failed to notice. The Lady had insisted many times that she’d be the one to stall the Eye; and he had only assumed it was due to her pride. Her need to win. All along it had nothing to do with her ego, but instead her determination to protect him and Viola.
If she had not shown up to the Signal Tower, Viola and their unborn child would still be hunted after him having fought the Eye. On the other hand, if she showed up like she did, went against the Eye like a sacrificial lamb, Viola and he could be spared. That if she were the one to die instead, Viola wouldn’t ever need to.
His understanding was confirmed when the Eye broke the short silence.
“You must know, don’t you? All the Geishas’ are replaceable as long as they have the means to overpower the corrupted. A Broadcaster, however,” the Eye said, “not so easily. Viola may fit the role as a Geisha with time but she could never replace you, Mono.”
He gritted his teeth as his mouth ran dry. It occurred to him then that the Lady had given him the nod to refuse the deal because she’d known the prices to pay.
It was either her and his unborn child, or Viola that was removed.
Oh, Six…
He wished he had known sooner. He wished everything had been different; his reality different than the true nightmare the Eye had successfully guided him in. And his deepest regret, Viola too had been dragged to be a part of this hell. That was never what he wanted. Never what the Lady wanted if she had the choice.
I wish you’d have told me, he thought to himself as he ran his fingers in her long hair, dejected. He had no tears left to shed, to mourn for his two losses.
I wish we could’ve thought it out. Together.
But it was too late now, wasn’t it?
The Eye was coming after Viola now and he was entirely helpless to stop it as he was confined within the Signal Tower walls until they released him. And his daughter…
She would be put in the Maw.
Without him being around her as the deal indicated, the Eye could do as they please. They could hurt her— torture her mind and soul until they’d successfully molded her into the cold-blooded, heartless Geisha. The new Lady of the Maw.
And he?
He would only be released by the time it had all been too late.
Soft footsteps came approaching in the distance. He pulled the Lady closer to his chest, nearly dragging her body away before his eyes snapped to
“Viola,” he said under his breath. Thin Man stared wide-eyed, never blinking no matter how long he’d gone without. And his heart truly skipped a beat, his stomach churning.
He waited for the telltale signs of the Eye’s doppelganger illusion; he waited for his daughter’s eyes to shift into darkness and smile wickedly at him. He waited for so long that it felt as though time did not exist anymore.
And what was stranger, the Eye seemingly did not do anything. They didn’t laugh or titter to mock him. They didn’t interfere with the moment or touch the girl staring right back into his soul with a shocked look of her own.
It didn’t seem as though the Eye had planned this. This was not one of their tricks as he’d known by now.
Viola shook her head slowly at the sight of death and who it was that laid in his arms. Her eyes welled with tears, and her lips trembled in fear. She took a step back from him, realizing as though this was something she shouldn’t have seen—this was somewhere she shouldn’t even be in.
This was…so odd.
This was new. The Eye still kept their quiet and their silence could only indicate two things: anger and fear.
He flinched as she moved, glancing at the Lady and then back to her. His eyes never left her as he tried to understand her presence here. She was supposed to be in the bunker, hiding. If she was indeed here, then why didn’t the Eye say or do anything to…
Parallels, the words of his Doppelganger returned to him when another, taller figure appeared just within the shadows. The tall man approached her from behind and only stood there.
The hat he wore above his head casted shadows over his face. The tall man soon raised his chin up and revealed the same eyes he knew to be his own.
Thin Man said nothing but let his mind run wild, only watching the man approach a horrified Viola without her even realizing it.
The Cycle includes multiple parallels across time. The Eye may prefer for everything to stick to its routes, but I find that it’s the only thing that makes each Cycle unique. The events that transpired, similar yet never truly the same.
Similar yet never truly the same.
Could this be the part where the Cycle rotated into a different path? The one thing the Eye feared as it strayed farther and farther from the routes they’d set for determined victory and everlasting glory? And if that were the case, could what he was seeing now…a proof that the Cycle had indeed taken a new path?
The tall man nodded to him firmly.
He understood it better now.
This was where the parallels had moved too far, the two strayed paths somehow in the end intersecting and leading it away from the Eye’s fixed one. He didn’t know how it happened; he didn’t know where or when it intersected.
But one thing's for sure—the two individuals in front of him definitely did not belong in this timeline.
That meant the Eye’s Cycle had potentially been breached; and perhaps a new one in the making should the Eye fail to restore it to its original path in time.
And that meant…Viola must have done something.
Thin Man laughed quietly as he looked down, shaking his head as he felt a faint jolt of electricity rush through him, his fingers buzzing madly as though a television had been nearby.
Oh, that girl definitely did something down in the bunker. He knew when his own television—the special invention he had put his own power into—had been switched on and used.
“I understand it now,” he said as his last drop of tear fell on the Lady’s pale face. “I understand it so perfectly.”
The Eye did not answer him. Instead the ground let out a deep grumble. A silent threat. Thin Man could only laugh at their angry warning.
There was nothing left to lose. The Lady was gone; and Viola had used the television in the bunker and escaped.
The only thing that kept the Cycle going now…was him.
If there was a chance indeed that a new, better Cycle could occur, then there was no need to prolong this old one. He was going to make the Eye’s attempt to even fix it thrice as hard.
He was going to make the Eye fear loss.
Thin Man caressed his wife’s cold face as he said, “You think you have me cornered by taking away everything that mattered to me, all so everything can return to the way you wanted. You think killing her means victory for you when you’ve only dug your own grave.”
He raised his head at Viola, giving her a gentle smile when she shook her head again within the shadows.
“Eye,” he said, “you’ve already lost.” With a trembling hand across his throat, he gulped at what he must do next.
His smile faltered when Viola’s tears were on the brink of falling, her horror so immensely pure that she couldn’t bear to look away. It halted his movements. Before his hesitations could follow through, however, before he wanted to bail on his decisions for her sake, the figure behind Viola shifted.
And the tall man readied himself to shield her eyes from seeing his actions, his hands positioned from behind her head, waiting patiently as his eyes spoke to him—promised him: Viola shall not see his death.
It made his heavy heart lighter at the thought of that.
With a sharp breath, he felt the rush of his powers run through him one last time, a blue glow emitting from the center of his palm until it became brighter and warmer. It was then the flesh walls moved sharply. The eyes began to come out of their merge within seconds, blinking and watching him in only fury and desperation. One by one more eyes plopped into view no matter their sizes as they appeared closer and closer. Tentacles made of flesh began to snake their way to where he and the Lady were, moving from all directions to seize his hands from himself.
But this time, it was the Eye that was too late.
“The Cycle ends here.”
The blast pushed him back until he hit the soft ground. He fell next to the Lady with a thud and felt his neck burn as though lava had been poured all over, his vision blurring and darkening around the edges; her face, being the last thing he stared into as he heaved his final breath.
And he died happy listening to the desperate, angry screams of the thousand eyes.
Notes:
Alright, I've been picturing the best way to kill these two off in the last couple of days. And I gotta say, I suffered a little bit.
So, anyway, that was the last of the Thin Man/Lady chapters!
Next we will continue on with the plot, along with the slightly depressed/traumatized Viola, and "still denying that he does not have a kid with a girl he's trying to rescue in the name of friendship" Mono.
I promise you there'll be stupid moments to balance out the angst.
Thanks for reading!
Chapter 58: Ghost's Guide
Notes:
As promised, I bring you a fluff chapter/Mono's breakdown 2.0. At least, somewhere in the middle because an introduction for a new arc is still needed woo😭
Also another 9.5k chapter because I don't know where to end it and I am insanely sleep deprived🤟
Have at it.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
When Six fell into the abyss, she didn’t fall screaming. She was afraid, betrayed and furious at the girl she’d mistakenly given only a moment of her trust, so much that the fall didn’t nearly matter. She’d learned to want to help the poor girl with every passing second with Mono—him and his persistent chattering about why Viola must be saved, and why she shouldn’t be so selfish for once by rescuing her.
Six had hated him for it. She remembered she had been annoyed immensely whenever the name ‘Viola’ was brought up. To her, that girl was just another child unfortunate enough to have been caught, even more so unfortunate when the said captor was the Eye. A brief moment of pity was what Six had thought to suffice, but again with Mono’s persistence, pity was not enough by his standards. A suicidal rescue mission was what he planned instead; and one he’d dragged her in. Six followed the whole time.
Chased by the remaining family of the Hunter that suddenly came to life? She almost died. Mono nearly having his mind stolen away just moments later at the beach? He probably could’ve died. The whole Nanny incident in the bloody Day Care? One actually died. The Tenants that swam after them in some underground tunnel filled with water? A part of her had died already.
Then the Signal Tower.
This was where she finally died.
All because of the girl she was meant to save, the girl Mono insisted they save. Viola’s betrayal hurt her like a thousand cuts, because in all truth, Six had started to tolerate her, even if it’d been through Mono’s words alone. Even at the Maw, she never minded Viola’s company any more than she minded Mono’s later on.
Yet when she looked up—see the distance that only grew bigger apart, watch Viola watch her disappear into nothing with a look so, so familiar—everything in the past became almost
Meaningless.
Viola wasn’t her friend, but Six had trusted her anyway. Because of Mono. She’d done the one thing she’d taught herself to never lower; and she’d lowered her guard.
Nonetheless, fury wasn’t enough to fill her twisted heart, betrayal had only taken a smaller quarter of it, because most of all she felt regret. Because as much as she detested Viola for pushing her off the ledge, who was she to feel that angry and betrayed? Six months ago, it was her who had been on the safe side of the edge. Her who had watched the person, one whom he had given his trust wholeheartedly, fall. Six was in no position to place ultimate blame to Viola. This was karma. Fate’s payback. Perhaps even Mono’s old wish come true: for her to feel his pain.
And she felt it, truly, she did. This pain was unlike the one she felt in her quarters, crying silently under the warm covers and soft pillow under her head. It was not the same when she reminisced about the time before the first betrayal, with him.
This was fair. This was a stab through the chest.
This was her death.
She waited long for the fall to break with a break of her own bones, for her skull to split open against whatever waited below. But a soft, spongy ground was the last she’d expected.
The back of her head slammed hard, making her cry sharply. Then for a moment, as she eyed the darkness in the sky contrasting the flesh surrounding her in a dim glow, Six laid still amongst the mass of meat. She...didn’t die? Six sat up slowly with a grimace, the pain very much real and not only an imagination of hers.
But the pain and discomfort of her ground aside, where was she? She knew this was still the Signal Tower, but this was disturbing. And Six had seen all kinds of disturbing things.
A thing made a popping sound. She turned to her right with a small cry, recoiling her arm away when the meat blinked.
The single eye stared up at her, mirthful and mischievous. It gave her a wink. Before Six could react, however, tentacles made of the same flesh circled around her ankles. A second was all it took for her to be dragged and pulled into the flesh beneath her.
Six cried, desperately so as she clawed all around in futility. She summoned her powers only for her palm to be empty. It didn’t work. Why weren’t her powers coming out? The tentacles tugged her harder. Six’s strength was immediately overpowered. And before she knew it, the meat swallowed her in and descended her into a greater unknown; a place much more foreign than above the mass of flesh.
Another hard landing; this one being quicker and less soft than the meat bed.
She heaved deep breaths, as it was the only thing she could do. She didn’t know where she was, or why the Eye kept her alive in this open space of bright nothing. Her powers were strangely not working to her aid, pushing the idea of self defense out of the window. Her entire body still hurt from the fall to the point where she doubted she could stand, much less run. So, breathing was the only choice. Breathing was her only solution to calm her unsteady beating of her heart and her growing dread and fear. She was afraid, she would admit it. She didn’t know what would happen to her next.
And the longer she was left alone in this thick silence, the faint grumbling from above every few minutes, Six knew she could go insane. What was this place? Why was she still here— alive? Was there someone else with her? A threat? A monster the Eye had kept to kill her personally, and put on a show? Was this another one of their sick ideas of entertainment, watching a helpless girl getting chased by a three-headed creature with razor sharp teeth?
Her mind wasn’t helping conjuring that image. She needed to focus. She was still alive, so there must be a reason. A reason only the Eye and the Doppelganger knew, for the latter sat by her side the whole time, watching the shock in her eyes come to life when she finally realized his presence.
Six jumped away to her rear with a short scream. The Doppelganger smiled, cross-legged on the floor. But what was worse was the sight of his face: smooth, clean and unharmed. It was as if he hadn’t just received a stab to the throat, a thrust of shard in the head, and a long fall into the abyss.
“Heya,” the Doppelganger said first, tilting his head. “Nice to see you again.”
She could only gape, stammering. She didn’t understand it—how did he survive?
“How am I not dead?” Her shoulders tensed. The Doppelganger laughed at this. “Don’t worry, I don’t read minds. Although, you are still pretty easy to read,” he rested his chin on his hand. “Like a storybook. The fall didn’t hurt you too bad, did it?”
“How are you still alive?” Six asked with enough courage. “I...I saw you die. Thrice.”
“Pfft. So? I came back thrice too. It’s nothing special.”
“I killed you.”
“And you thought I died. Which I did but,” he said, “here I am again. The Eye thought you could use some company, so...they sent me! That means we won’t have to kill each other now—woohoo!”
His excitement did not match the fearful confusion on her face. The Doppelganger’s smile sagged.
“Wow, you really are a downer, aren’t you?” he said.
“Where am I? What is this place?”
The Doppelganger sighed, rolling his eyes. “In the Signal Tower, obviously. As to what this room is, I can’t really say. I think it used to be a storage room for all the dead bodies of people from the city. But that was way back. Even before the Cycle even—"
“ I don’t care,” Six hissed. “Why am I here?”
Another sigh from the clone. “Look. I just woke up from being killed the third time, so can you at least...humor me with a conversation? Let’s talk about you. How do you feel about the whole betrayal 2.0 thing? Ooh! Tell me your thoughts,” the Doppelganger said, balling a fist over her mouth like it were a microphone. Six shoved it away with a scowl.
“Again. I don’t care. And I most definitely won’t be humoring you with anything.”
“Oh, come on!” the Doppelganger pouted. She hated how perfectly it imitated Mono’s face. “If you share with me your thoughts, I’ll answer that question of yours,” he sang.
Six clenched her jaw, irritated already. If she could stand, she would’ve walked away after kicking him to death. Yet with him persistent like Mono, she knew there was only one way she’d get some smidgen of truth.
“Angry. I’m just angry,” she finally said. “Now tell me why I’m here—”
“That’s it? Come on, I know you feel more than that!” The Doppelganger sat closer; his hands propped under his chin as though this were a sleepover. The only way it was, was if it started with her killing him the fourth time. “Tell me, really. How do you feel after Viola pushed you?”
She didn’t want to answer. She didn’t want to crack under the gradually increasing pressure the Doppelganger purposely put on her.
“I...felt hurt. Stupid.” The Doppelganger nodded, urging her to continue. “We were supposed to save her and leave the Tower together. I just didn’t expect for her to leave me behind. Just caught off guard.”
“And why were you?”
“…Because Mono trusted her. So much that I only thought I could too,” she said, then pushed the heavy feeling further down. “Is that enough for an answer?” she spat.
The Doppelganger smiled wider. “Excellent,” he said. “What was your question again?”
“Why am I here? Why didn’t the Eye kill me when I fell?” Six asked.
“Do you want the simple answer or the scary one?” When she stared at him, unamused, the Doppelganger rolled his eyes playfully. “Oh, fine. I’ll tell you both. The simple answer the Eye wants you alive is because you’re still needed. As much as I think otherwise, you’re important in the scheme of things.”
“Then why did you try to kill me?”
He shrugged. “Orders change. I’m only following them, so no hard feelings. The scary answer, on the other hand,” the Doppelganger said, sucking air between his teeth. He feigned pity. “Oh, I’m not sure how to put it, Six.”
She felt her heart race, that old fear returning to ensnare her.
“What?” Six asked with false confidence and anger. The Doppelganger drew his lips into a thin line and waved his hand. A mirror manifested in his palm like he was a magician. And when the clone gently offered her the mirror, Six had no choice but to accept it albeit hesitantly. She stared into her own reflection for the answer; and an answer she did receive.
Filled with doubt-turned-horror, Six watched the way the veins around her eyes bulge in the color black. The streaks of line spread slowly, but never ceased to. Then she moved to her infected eye. Her sclera was nearly gone, replaced with the same abyss as the Doppelganger’s and at least a hundred minute eyes, popping one by one until it surrounded her white pupil. It was disgusting. Horrifying.
“What…what is this?” Six said, out of breath. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t look away from the foreign things living in her left eye.
“Little eyes,” the Doppelganger answered her truthfully. “They’re infesting inside of you, growing in numbers until they’ve reached enough to take over.”
“What?” Her panic revealed itself in her voice. “What do you mean ‘take over’? Wh-what’ll happen to me?”
“Exactly what you think. You’ll lose your control, and you’ll become the audience rather than the performer. You’ll stay here with me until the eyes have completed their production. Scary, isn’t it?”
The eyes in her reflection blinked on cue. Six hurled the mirror to the floor until it shattered, her hands trembling in complete fear and disbelief.
They’re infesting inside of you, growing in numbers until they’ve reached enough to take over.
The image of her black streaked eye etched into her brain—the little eyes blinking at once, growing together to fill in the spaces in her eye. Was this why Viola had pushed her off that ledge? Had she been afraid of what she saw? Did she figure the Eye was already infesting inside of her?
Six couldn’t understand how it had happened. At what point did the Eye manage to sneak their way into…
Her eyes slowly raised to the boy in front of her. The Doppelganger smiled again.
“You…” she whispered. “It was you. You…you did this.”
“Orders are orders. I just follow them,” he said with an innocent shrug. “Although, I did get lucky. You threw up nearly all of the eyes.”
“How do I take them out?” she demanded.
The Doppelganger raised his brows. Wide-eyed and slightly gaping, the boy let out a laugh.
“Eyes, no. You can’t do that! There’s no taking them out, Six—they’ve already made progress!” Her stomach churned, suddenly feeling something blinking under her cheeks.
“You expect me to just let this happen? Let them take control of me until I become another puppet of theirs?” Six hissed.
“Pretty much. That is the plan, anyway—” Her grunts of pain halted the Doppelganger in place. Six planted fists after fist across her abdomen, pushing at her guts, shoving her own finger down her throat until she gagged. She needed to get them out. She couldn’t let the eyes continue growing in her. The Doppelganger’s smile dropped into a thin line.
“Six,” he said wryly. “I told you, didn’t I? There’s no taking them out. It won’t work.”
“Go to hell…all of you.” Six coughed out only little blood and her own saliva. No eyes were there. Stubborn and determined, she continued to punch her stomach until every hit became weak—until her body became weaker and the blinking felt more palpable.
Curled up on the floor, the Doppelganger watched her patiently without stopping her.
“It won’t work,” he repeated.
And he was right. No matter how much effort or determination Six put into it, there was no throwing up the eyes that had made her body a comfortable home. Instead, they continued to grow together and spread like cancer. One eye produced two eyes, two eyes became four, four became eight and so on it multiplied and split into tinier versions until it covered the walls of Six’s insides.
It also hadn’t been a lie when the Doppelganger told her that Six had nearly, successfully, thrown up all of the eyes. It was a close call for the Eye, but they prevailed as always. After all, every victory was a guarantee—a must. All obstacles must be overcome, and that of course, included the first parasite that took residence in Six's mind and body.
The shadow stood in the true reality of Six’s condition. It watched as the girl laid in the center of it all, unconscious above a thick bed of meat that buried her almost fully until it seemed as though she and the flesh were one and the same. The rest of the room was empty. The flesh bed only took up the middle as they thinned out around the edges, appearing like roots as they stretched nearly to the corner where the shadow stood watching. The shadow stayed within the dark, or whatever darkest place the room could offer as their sky glowed brightly, and even brighter where Six was.
For days on end, the shadow was helpless. It waited, scowling and seething as the streaks on Six’s face spread to her neck. However, staying far away and in some corner did not mean it had tried nothing to return to Six as a dormant being. The first time it had been pushed out, it had tried going back in immediately.
Yet the Eye was far stronger, the eyes all too much for it to fight on its own.
When those blinking thieves first intruded Six’s body, her curse had rejected them instantly, forcing Six to vomit the eyes before any true damage occurred. The shadow had pushed them out and fought against them so it could remain as the one and only curse. The shadow was a part of Six, after all. It needed her so it could thrive in her. But as Six’s luck would have it, her curse hadn’t driven away all of the eyes. The shadow had overlooked one. And it took only a single one to reproduce itself into hundreds, to the point where the one being driven away now was the shadow.
Its form distorted madly whenever it laid a hand across Six’s head. The eyes pushed it away again. The shadow scowled, growling before transporting itself back to its corner like a wounded animal. And every day it had to listen to Six’s cries. Her futile thrashing. Her screams of who knows what as she was locked away in her own mind. The shadow didn’t doubt the eyes had already taken over half of her body at the rate they were expanding their numbers. It wondered what would happen to its own self when the eyes had reached their desired amount. Six would not be present any longer if she was awakened, but the shadow? What could that mean for it? Would it have the chance to re-enter Six’s body or would the Eye fight tooth and nail to keep the curse out from interfering? Honestly, whatever the Eye had planned, the shadow couldn’t care less. It did, however, care if the said plan were to disrupt Six’s curse. Six was the shadow’s home. It wouldn’t let itself be torn away from her just because another being wanted to steal.
A mild buzz started at the tip of its fingers. The shadow cast a glance to its glitching hand, to Six, then back to itself. Strange. The eyes couldn’t be the cause of it…could it? The shadow was at least 10 feet apart from Six, so…
The shadow turned to the doorway in the distance. The buzzing sensation spiked when it took a step towards it.
How very strange.
The shadow followed the feeling after a final glance to Six. The girl would be fine, it knew. In a sense of control, she wouldn’t be but the most hurt she’d endure was her all in her mind. Physically speaking, the shadow need not to guard her as though the Eye wasn’t already doing so themselves. Leaving her for a few minutes wouldn’t hurt their already bleeding situation. The shadow shifted between walls, going through doors after doors, letting the buzz guide her to one of the other abandoned rooms in the Signal Tower. It spiked again, this feeling, and this time it felt it run throughout its entire body. It felt as though it had reached the end of a string, ready to reconnect with the other end. What other end, it didn’t know. Nor did it understand at first when it stepped foot inside.
The place resembled one of the Pale City apartments. A small living room with only a small worn-out chair, a dusty table by its side and a television on the floor. The shadow stood just before the television light, that discomfort returning when its screens glowed brighter and brighter.
And two hands began to press from behind it.
Suddenly, the buzz became overwhelming—too strong that the shadow’s form shifted slightly. It still did not understand why despite this, it felt an even stronger need to stay. Stay and bear witness to the static screen, glitching and whining as the hands behind them pushed forward.
Until a boy fell to the floor, his cheeks planted on the carpet.
The shadow’s eyes widened as Mono grunted in slight pain. He was here. The boy Six had hated—and secretly thought about fondly from time to time in that twisted, guilt-ridden mind of hers. The shadow had listened and known every emotion, every denial and lies Six kept within.
As much as Six now saw Mono as a friend, the shadow saw him as nothing more than a useful medium. He’d proved to be just that when Six had fallen unconscious in the apartments. Furthermore, he had managed to listen despite not being able to see the shadow with his naked eyes. A thought came with it.
Perhaps…Mono could assist the shadow once more? Make Six hurl out the eyes enough—with any necessary method—so the shadow could merge back with the girl and shove those thieves out fully this time? That could work. It needed to work. The shadow was practically losing as much as Six was. Another error was not what it needed.
The television brightened once again, catching the shadow off guard. Another fell forward— a girl. The shadow eyed this…new person from afar. It fell into a pit of confusion when the girl seemed familiar. Not in a sense of appearance, although she did share uncanny resemblances to its host, but this girl’s familiarity had something to do with…the thing inside her.
It was another curse. One that the shadow couldn’t identify whether it was hostile or docile.
The shadow took a step close and the girl snapped her head to its direction. Before she could make out her presence, however, the shadow quickly disappeared to the other side of the room. The girl stared at the empty space, her eyes narrowed in slits, only to end up dismissing it with a shake of her head.
Ah. So, she can see me.
“We actually made it back here,” Mono said, glancing around the room. “That was pretty…easy. I’m not sure how to feel about that.”
“I feel it’s fishy for one,” the girl said. “Not surprising, though. Even my dad said—”
Mono groaned with a roll of his eyes. “This again,” he grumbled and said to her, “Viola, can you just… not mention him? When I’m around, at least? I will literally throw up if you do.” He stood up.
Viola quickly mimicked him and followed after.
“Excuse me? That’s a little mean, don’t you think?” she said, almost offended. “Look, I know what I did to my mom wasn’t a good thing, but for you to be disgusted with me to that point after knowing the truth is just hurtful. It’s not my fault you guys had me. I didn’t ask to be born!”
“Good God—calm down.” He raised his hand for her to calm down. “I never said I was disgusted with you. You’re jumping to conclusions by saying that.”
“Then what’s all the threat about throwing up for?” When Mono sighed through his nose, lips pressed into a thin line, that offended look Viola had instantly dropped. “Oh. You mean you’re disgusted…”
“By the implication between me and Six? Yes. Thanks to you, looking at her will be a treat now.” He turned away and shuddered. “What was future me even thinking,” he muttered.
They walked together to the door and left the room. The shadow followed them closely.
“If things never escalated this bad, trust me, I never would’ve told you. Maybe I would’ve told my mom first—” Her words were cut off once again with his scoff.
“Please. You think Six’s going to take it any better than me?”
“You did bang your head against the floor for a couple of minutes.”
“Yeah. And that’s with self-control. Six is feral when she’s angry.”
“Why would she be angry, though? Isn’t she the calm one?”
He scoffed again, stammering. “M-most of the time, yes, but—it’s still Six!” he said. “She’ll attack me the second she finds out we aren’t only good friends in the future, but married with a child—!” This time it was his turn for his words to die, horror completely on his face at his own admission. He opened his mouth. Closed it. Then looked away with a new shade of red across his cheeks. “You know what, never mind. I don’t care. It’s not like it’ll even happen anyway. Ever.” They walked deeper into the twisted corridors of the Signal Tower.
“Hey, watch it,” Viola said, scowling softly. “My existence is on the line here if you say something like that.”
His face became an even brighter red. He looked at her, incredulous.
“You…you expect me to actually like her that way?” He wheezed, half panicking, half utterly uncomfortable. “Viola, you’re a nice girl, but let me tell you something: Six is not. Sure, we’ve managed to be friends again, but that doesn’t mean I am not scared of that troll every once in a while. She’s mean when she wants to be.” Mono made a gagging sound. “I don’t even know how we’d ever become anything more than what we are now. We can’t even stand being close to each other without one of us slapping the other away.”
Viola hummed at that. “Maybe you won’t know how yet. I mean, I’ve seen my mom smack my dad’s head and kiss him all on the same day, so there’s that.”
Mono halted in his steps. Then and there, Viola realized her mistake.
“Mono,” she said slowly, “forget I said any of—”
“We kissed?” His chest rose up and down, almost hyperventilating.
Viola shared the same look of panic. “Well, um— yes, but that’s not important. It’s really not.”
“How can it not be important, Viola? HOW?” Now he was hyperventilating. “You’ve basically just thrown another piece of information that I shouldn’t know, and now, you want me to just forget it? Erase it from my mind? Future me kissed her!” Another gag. “Oh, God, I don’t want to kiss her. She’s my friend. It’s so weird. Why would she even kiss me in the future? Why, why, why? ” he pointed the last question to Viola.
Wide-eyed, she too stammered like him, her cheeks flushing in her own discomfort.
“H-how am I supposed to know?” She pointed a finger to him. “You’re the one who did the thing.”
“Your dad did the thing,” he corrected as though it would make a difference. “Because as far as I’m concerned, I am not kissing anybody. Never. Especially not her. And…and if she even so much tries to do it to me, I will start punching. Just outright punch her square in the face. And then I will burn my mouth. ”
“Mono, you don’t have to convince me. I’m literally the product of you two.”
He glared at her. “I will punch you too.”
“Besides,” Viola added quickly, “I’m pretty sure Six doesn’t even want to kiss you either. You’re both still children. Give it a few years or decades; and you’ll find the love in each other one day.”
“It’s not. Happening,” he said through gritted teeth. “And if this is you manipulating me just to guarantee your existence, then I’m dropping this conversation here and now.”
Viola pouted, looking away with her arms folded. The fact that she would instill such ideas into his mind was scary, but even scarier was the fact that she didn’t deny his words.
“Fine,” she grumbled. “Let’s just find where she is. We shouldn’t be too far anyway.”
“So, are we just supposed to rely on your,” he made a gesture, “witch-abilities? Does it really work? Can you actually feel her as we speak?”
“The fact I was able to warp to the Maw twice in a row is proof itself. That place reeks of my mother. Plus, I already inherited a lot from her to tell what her energy feels like; her face, her powers, her hunger pangs— unfortunately.” The shadow perked its ears at this, following just behind them lest Viola noticed. So, that curse inside of her was familiar for a reason. It was another extension of the shadow; one it hadn’t yet understood how it came to be this way. “Although, mine didn’t come as often as hers would. I can’t imagine how she went through with it if she didn’t feed properly.”
“Mhm. Glad to hear you didn’t inherit Six’s sadism, by the way.” Before Viola could once again be offended on Six’s behalf, Mono added, “So, let me ask you one thing, if you inherited…basically everything from Six,” he said, “what did you inherit from me?”
Viola raised her brow, surprised. “Are you acknowledging what I think you’re acknowledging?”
“I’m not . This is a hypothetical question,” he deadpanned with a glare. “Hypothetically, if I did somehow become stupid enough to ‘fall in love’ with Six,” he said, making a quote unquote sign, “what would you even inherit from me? Aside from the warping thing.”
A grin slowly made its way to her face. Then she took out her hand to him. “Hold my hand.”
“What? Why—?”
“Do it. And you’ll see.”
Mono narrowed his eyes at her, hesitant and suspecting. But when did any of that stop the curiosity in him?
Just as Mono closed his hand around hers, a spark burst from within their touching palms. Like electricity, it shot through his veins as they glowed a bright blue, shooting up to his whole arm until the force of it pushed him to the ground. Viola remained standing, smirking smugly.
“What…what the hell was that?” Mono said above whisper, looking at his hand that had glowed brighter than anything he’d ever summoned before.
“I gave you a boost. You’re welcome, by the way.”
“What?” he quickly stood, both in awe and confusion. “A-a boost?”
“My dad taught me it a few years ago. It’s a cool trick; simply just gives the other a quick regeneration for their powers or something. And since our body depends on our powers sometimes, this comes in handy. Though…” Her eyes faltered a little. “My dad was the one who usually gave me the boost since he’s…you know, stronger and older. Whatever I could offer him is barely anything. But, hey, now that you’re a child as I am, we’re pretty much on the same level now! That means I can finally be of good use!”
“O-oh?” Mono could only stammer. “So…so what you’re saying is...you could connect with my energy and…boost it?”
“Sort of. I think. Never really paid attention when my dad explained it. I’d just gotten my knee scraped, you see.”
“Can I do it too? Now?”
“…Now?”
“Now,” he said, this time more confidently. “This is a good skill. I need to be able to use it. Especially for later on.”
Viola’s eyes brightened, smiling wide as she nodded excitedly. Whereas the shadow…
It had to sit through it all, waiting, listening to their irrelevant conversation becoming even more irrelevant, and her small squeals of something along the lines of oh, this is so cool I never thought I’d teach back my dad something he taught me!
In the very least, the shadow had thought this Viola would lead Mono to Six as she’d claimed to be able to follow her mother’s power trail, considering they were even heading towards the right path. It’d apparently thought wrong. Viola was only wasting both its and Six’s time. The shadow’s patience had been exhausted enough. As Viola began to explain whatever crap they were doing, the shadow decided to take matters into its own hands.
And it pushed Mono until he landed on his side.
The first second it happened, the two children looked at each other perplexed and surprised. Mono had given her a look, thinking Viola had pushed him by accident or worse on purpose. Yet when he realized she no longer had her attention on him, and instead to the empty space on his right, he furrowed his brows.
“Viola, what are you—HEY!” The shadow grabbed him by his ankle and raised it in the air, turning him on his back before dragging him like he was a sack of bones. The shock on his face immediately turned to one of horror. “VIOLA!” he cried.
With the way his eyes stared past the shadow’s own, it was confirmed once again Mono still hadn’t been able to see the shadow. Just like last time.
“HEY! STOP RIGHT THERE!” The shadow scowled when Viola chased after them, screaming. So, it quickly took Mono’s other ankle and dragged him even faster on his back. Mono’s panic became twice as worse.
“WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?” Mono screamed, thrashing, turning himself to his front only to wince as the shadow’s grip tightened. He stretched his arms to the side, clawing at the floor in hopes to slow whatever invisible force was dragging him.
The shadow growled. “Stay still,” it told him. Instantly, he did. Shocked, albeit confused as to why he’d heard that whispering voice before.
“Mono!” Viola shouted from behind, barely catching up with them. “Blast it!”
“What?” he shouted back. “Are you insane? Have you completely lost your mind?”
“Just do it! It’s right there!”
“What’s there—there’s nothing there!”
“What do you mean there’s nothing there? It’s literally right in front of you—BLAST IT!”
“I CAN’T BLAST AIR, VIOLA!”
“I JUST GAVE YOU A BOOST, SO QUIT WHINING AND DO IT! BLAST. THAT. THING.”
Mono screamed in frustration and did as he was told. He blasted the air.
The spark of blue hit the shadow immediately in the chest, and then bounced off to the wall as though it’d hit a mirror. The wall that the spark had landed on soon became a crack before bricks upon bricks fell to the ground, a large hole in its place. It was strong, indeed. Yet never could it bring the feeling of pain to the shadow if it had actually absorbed the full blow. However…
The shadow’s entire figure began to distort, glitching terribly much worse than it usually would. The spark had pierced through its form like a sharp arrow with poison at the tip of it. The shadow was not poisoned by any means, no, it was simply…distracted. Distracted as it released Mono’s ankles to stare into its own flickering hand. It took a few steps back, accessing the aftermath of an attack it sustained. And while it busied itself over its state of being, slowly recalibrating its own form to normalcy, Viola had caught up to Mono’s side.
Mono accepted her help with much desperation, clinging on to her arm as he was helped up. The fear in his eyes, however, did not cease when they scanned only empty spaces. Viola was the first to break the silence.
“Why did it take you so long?” Viola asked.
“Wh-what?” He finally turned to look at her.
“You know what I mean. Why didn’t you hurt the thing when it first grabbed you?”
“What thing?”
“The thing,” Viola said, exasperated. “I knew I saw it with us when we left the room. I just wasn’t sure with what I saw.”
“Viola, you’re not making any sense. There’s literally nothing with us.”
“There is! It’s standing right over…” Her words died in her throat when the shadow was gone. “There…” she whispered finally, glancing around. “It was here just a moment ago. I saw it.”
“Huh. M-maybe it died then,” Mono said. “Maybe that boost really worked and—” The shadow reappeared next to Mono with a glare. And it spared not even a second for the girl to react as the shadow grabbed Mono’s shoulder and tugged him towards it. This time, Viola hadn’t been late; and she caught his other arm.
Then the game tug of Mono began.
“Okay, really— what the hell is going on here?” Mono cried as he pulled himself towards Viola, his right collar and sleeves up in the air by itself. This was another level of sorcery.
“Oh, you believe me now?” Viola snapped.
Mono snapped back, scowling. “I never said I didn’t!”
“You said there was nothing! There’s literally something pulling you, Mono! How can you not see it?”
“See what? I’m practically being pulled by air!”
Viola gritted her teeth as she held his arm. The shadow did the same, not backing down as every tug she gave, it gave back.
“It is there. It’s looking right into my eyes like it wants to kill me.” The shadow grinned wickedly and nodded. Viola fell into horror. “MONO, IT JUST AGREED TO KILL ME.”
“THEN PULL LIKE YOUR LIFE DEPENDS ON IT. LIKE HOW MINE IS.”
“I AM.”
“OH, REALLY? THEN WHY AM I STILL STUCK BETWEEN YOU AND AIR—?”
The children fell back on top of each other, finally released from their invisible enemy. At least only to Mono, the shadow was an invisible enemy. To Viola, the shadow was much like a grim reaper—one that she had clearly pissed off when she’d won instead—ready to pounce on her with the promise of a long death by strangulation or just multiple head traumas. The shadow stalked towards the girl, a glare so similar to its host; and perhaps that was what terrified Viola the most.
That the ‘grim reaper’ looked exactly like her mother.
Viola shook Mono’s shoulder, not tearing her eyes off the moving shadow. “Mono, it’s going to kill me.” Then she shook him even more. “IT’S GOING TO KILL ME; WHAT DO I DO?”
“STOP SHAKING ME!”
The shadow kicked Mono out of the way just after, sending him back to the floor face first. And with him busy with his own pains, that left Viola on her own. Helpless.
And so dead.
Viola crawled backwards, lips trembling. She raised her hand slowly when her back finally hit the wall.
“Okay, let’s just…let’s just all calm down a little bit,” Viola said fearfully. “I-I know I was the one who told Mono to hurt you and all, and—and I’m not placing blame on anyone. That’s…that’s fully on me. I was scared. You look scary. So...let’s just forgive and forget,” She closed her eyes as her shoulders tensed greatly. “Please, please, please, please, please,” she whispered to herself. Yet when she opened her eyes to see if it had worked, the shadow was already in front of her.
“Get out,” the shadow hissed, leaning in closer, “of my way.”
Viola squeaked. The shadow smiled in satisfaction. As much as it would love to give her an actual lesson, she and Six possessed the same condition. The shadow could touch neither of them, only appearing in their sights unlike Mono.
But Viola didn’t know that, did she? No, from the way her shock spoke a million words from just a look at the shadow, it seemed as though her curse had always been too mild for her to witness the shadows the curse manifested. Or perhaps, her mother had consistently made sure that she was fed well.
How kind.
How merciful.
Maybe the shadow truly had thrived well within Six’s body in the future.
Still, though.
No matter that revelation, the shadow still was only a reminder most of all. And it would gladly remind Viola not to interfere with the curse.
“Ghost!”
The shadow stilled, its eyes narrowing at the silly nickname. Despite the stupidity of that moniker, it brought along a greater meaning behind it.
Ghost had been a name Mono had referred to it when they worked together the first time. And to hear him call it that again after a long while, the shadow found itself looking over its shoulder to stare at the boy.
He remembers me, it thought.
When Viola’s eyes darted between him and the shadow, Mono nodded and slowly sat up.
“It’s you...isn’t it, ghost?” Mono said. “You’re the same one who helped me find that bread for Six...right? In the apartment?”
Viola sighed in relief when the shadow stood to her height. Yet that relief dropped as fast as it came when the shadow turned its attention to Mono instead, kneeling in front of him. Viola hid nothing on her face, mouthing it’s in front of you as Mono could only rely on her eyes to track its movements. He gulped, not knowing where to look.
So, he looked down to his hands. He fiddled with them.
Another gulp, then he said again. “You...you are the same one...aren’t you?”
A few seconds of utter silence passed with the children waiting, dreading what the shadow would do next. He flinched greatly as he was suddenly pulled up to his feet. Viola sat frozen in her place, gaping.
Then finally, the shadow spoke to them, low and grim.
“Help Six,” it said. “Her time is running out.”
His face lost its color as the words left the shadow. One dreadful glance to Viola, and she shared the same thought as him:
That Six truly was alive. Just as Viola said she would be.
This time, Mono was the one to snap them back into the cold reality, no longer afraid of the invisible shadow but instead determined to save the friend he had thought he lost. He gave a firm nod to Viola, and she too understood just what to do. So, up to her feet, her own fears and doubts pushed aside to the back of her mind, she followed her mother’s energy as if it were a song, singing to them as a guide to Six’s whereabouts. They had wasted enough time fighting and dawdling. The shadow shifted much faster as it followed them, appearing every few feet to ensure Viola hadn’t led them to a wrong turn. Luckily, the girl didn’t. Luckily, Viola proved herself to be useful like Mono had to the shadow prior.
As they ran with much desperation to catch up with time, fighting against the heavy air of the Transmission, ventured deeper and climbed lower to levels below, took confusing turns after turn and through doors, Viola’s pace soon came to a slow halt. Mono followed her, glancing around this foreign part of the Signal Tower.
“She’s close. I can feel her,” Viola spoke up next to him. “The Transmission here is so strong it’s numbing my senses.”
“You and I both. I’ve never been outside of where I was supposed to,” Mono said. Then he shouted out to the shadow. “Ghost! Do you know where Six is?” His voice echoed back to them.
Viola cocked her head to the side. “It’s standing right beside you, Mono.”
He flinched and took a couple steps forward on instinct. The shadow grinned, slightly amused.
“Oi,” he said to himself, hands to his chest as he calmed down. “Sorry. It’s just that...the last time I worked with it, it kept on grabbing me without warning—agh, come on!” The shadow dragged him forward by the arm anyway, making him chide after the shadow’s bad habit.
The shadow did not give two cents whether Mono preferred to be dragged or verbally told where to go. It didn’t possess the capability to care for anything other than its need to live. And for it to live as a curse, to thrive like it seemingly had in the future, it needed its host back. Desperately so.
It only took them a minute or more for the doorway to be in their sights. The shadow immediately let go of Mono when the sight of those fleshes had grown until it crossed the threshold of the doorway, growing around the frame as though it were vines on wood. The roots on the floor nearly covered everything—they became thicker like aerial roots, climbing the walls and growing over the other until all that became of the room was a mass of flesh. It was disgusting to see.
The shadow had only left for a moment and the Eye took great advantage of its absence. The meat bed Six laid on, too, had become higher in the air, much so that you’d need to climb the steep ground to reach her. It was exactly what the children had done as their eyes landed on the bright yellow amongst all the peach red. They rushed towards the unconscious girl that the shadow could only keep watch in the corner. Despite the distance it created purposefully, the shadow could still see its host’s condition well and clear with its sharp eyes.
The flesh had almost buried her like a blanket. Half of her face was marred completely with the ugly lines of pure black, and her lips too, a shade of purple that made her look entirely sick. Nonetheless, regardless of her concerning appearance, she remained in her sleep...peacefully. That was another strange thing. In the last three days, Six had done nothing but scream, cry and whimper. The first day had been the worst. Second day turned quieter. And now?
Complete silence.
The shadow watched the children sit on each of Six’s side, shocked and hurt by her new sickness.
“Six...” Mono whispered with furrowed brows. He clenched his fists slowly the longer he stared into her face. “So...it is true. The Eye’s...gotten her.” Six’s chest heaved up and down, her face so utterly calm in her sleep. He sighed at the sorry sight of her.
“Maybe,” Viola began softly, “the Eye’s only put her to deep sleep. Maybe after her fall, she didn’t have to go through anything horrible.” If only you had been here to hear her cries, fools, the shadow thought bitterly. If only the both of you had come sooner to her aid.
At least if that had been the case, the shadow could rid the eyes before it grew to this point of monstrosity. It wasn’t too late, but they were late, nonetheless.
Mono turned to Viola then, determined. “Help me get the flesh off of her,” he said. “I’ll tear apart the ones around her sides and you burn whatever that won’t tear. We’ll do this quickly before the Tower reacts.”
“Okay,” Viola said, already pressing her hands over the thicker flesh. And she began to do as he said.
Mono quickly got to work too, shifting to the one circled around Six’s neck like a noose first. Yet just after he looked back at Six's face—just after he snapped the flesh into two—he found her mismatched eyes staring right into his own. She blinked up at him so casually as though she had been awake this whole time.
And the third time she blinked, so did the little hundred eyes. Mono held his fear and grimace in, never mind how truly disturbed he was by the sight of her left eye. Yet when she spoke with a voice so soft and hoarse, Mono gulped it all down and gave her his full attention. He didn’t want to scare her because of his own panic.
“Mono?” Six said. That made him sit closer to her. It made Viola freeze hearing her mother speak so suddenly. He and Viola each shot the other a glance and proceeded to rid the fleshes off of Six. They could not afford to lose any more time.
“Is that really you, Mono?” Six spoke again, and this time, he hadn’t the heart to leave her question hanging.
“It’s me,” he assured with a soft smile, glancing at her. The tentacles around her wrists snapped next. “Don’t worry, we’re getting you out of this place—I promise.”
The ones Viola burned off too began to loosen and snap on its own, the flesh around her legs falling limp on the meat bed. Six turned her head to Viola.
“You’re here too?” she asked weakly. Viola could only spare her a shameful, guilty look.
“Yeah...Six,” Viola whispered with nearly glassy eyes. “Look, I’m really...sorry. For what I did. For leaving you behind and letting you fall.”
Six did not glare, did not curse her with any hurtful word, and neither did she so much expressed an anger— not even sadness too. All she did was tilt her head slightly to the side and stared deep into the girl’s eyes. She lifted a weak smile to her, chuckling to herself.
“Honestly, Viola,” Six said. “I had it coming.”
That made even Mono still for a few seconds. Six not being outright furious and murderous towards the girl that betrayed her —add on with her being so understanding and forgiving without holding any grudge or scheming a revenge plan—this was something new. Even...a little odd.
Not even the shadow could tell as it was capable of knowing her heart’s true contents no longer.
“You...so you’re forgiving me? Just like that?” Viola asked, incredulous.
“If Mono could,” She glanced at him, smiling. Then back to her, “so can I. After all the only reason I trust you is because of him. I understand why you did what you did. My condition is, after all,” Six lightly touched her stained cheek with her freed hand, “severe,” she said bitterly. She took in a long breath and sighed. “You never should’ve come back. Both of you. You should’ve just left me here for good and save yourselves when you could.”
With that, the final piece of her constraints was gone. Six looked down to her body, barely moving at all despite there being nothing else keeping her here. Six frowned.
“Look at me,” she continued, her voice trembling and utterly weak. “I can barely move. Much less escape the Tower with you two.”
“That’s all the more reason we’re here , Six. To help you leave this place once and for all.” Mono turned to her stiff limbs, thinking and biting the inside of his cheeks when his thoughts came up with an idea that he would later regret. Before his hesitance became a bigger obstacle, Mono shoved his pride aside and helped her to sit up. Then he gently placed a hand over her back and under her knees.
Viola’s eyes widened when he lifted Six up in his arms with more ease than trouble. Six had looked up at him, surprised and in disbelief.
“Mono...what are you doing?” Six asked weakly again, only strong enough to rest her head against his chest and close her eyes.
He instantly shot Viola a sharp look for her not to say anything. Too late. A squeal of joy had escaped Viola before she could even stop it herself. They’d been lucky enough Six was in an almost drowsy state to even notice.
“I’m only helping you get to the flat surface of the floor. Like hell I’m carrying you around like this the whole time.”
A small laugh from her. “I just know you’d regret it for the rest of your life.” She opened her eyes to look up at him again. “You already do, don’t you?”
He snickered at that as he carefully stepped down the steep flesh with her in his arms. “A little bit. You are heavier than an axe.”
Her smile widened.
“Remind me to smack your head when I’ve regained my energy. You so need it.”
“Yeah. We both know I won’t ever remind you that.” Mono gently let her feet touch the floor once they reached the ground, still holding her arms tightly until Six balanced on her two feet—until he was sure she could stand on her own. Even then, he reluctantly let her go, hands raised in case her legs suddenly gave out and planted her face first to the flesh. No matter how soft the ground was, it was still disgusting to step on, much less touch with your nose.
Only after a few more assurances from Six—and a knowing smirk from Viola—did he finally let up and let her stand with her own much needed space. He cleared his throat, Viola’s words from earlier haunting him again.
“So...are you really sure you can manage?” he asked, unsure himself.
Six chuckled sweetly, making his cheeks flush.
“I’ll be fine standing, Mono. Although,” her eyes lowered to the floor, “I don’t think...I could ever thank you enough.”
He shook his head and waved her off. “No, it’s alright. Consider it me paying back what I owe to you when you saved me .”
“...But that’s the thing, isn’t it? What you’re doing now is far bigger than what I could’ve ever paid you back with years of my life. I could never repay you even if I tried to.”
“Really, Six, it’s...” He paused, gulping as Six took a step close to him. “...okay,” he finished. “I’m really not that...particular—”
His breath hitched instantly when Six cut him off by touching his face with her fingers, caressing his cheek as she stared into his eyes as though he were a mythical creature that appeared once in a lifetime. Mono looked over to Viola for help, uncomfortable. Viola did nothing but succumb to her own surprise, much like him gaping so wide as if one of them had grown wings over their backs, or grown a third arm on their sides.
In short, she was no help.
Meanwhile, Six was still touching his face rather...lovingly the whole time. Fondly. Intimately. Something that she had never done before and one Mono wouldn’t ever expect such gentleness from her.
“You’ve gotten so pale and thin,” Six whispered, never looking away.
And before she raised her other hand to cup his face, or worse before he actually became lost and leaned into her touch, Mono tilted his head back and held her wrists down firmly. Instead, he told her, “We should...really get you out of here. While we still can.”
At that, Six’s smile became a toothy one, laughing again as she finally tore away from his worried gaze.
“You never change. You’re still...so determined to go through all the trouble for some girl,” she muttered. Another breathy laugh. “So much that you’re willing to repeat your mistakes the third time.”
His brows furrowed, and his hold over her hands loosened.
“What...?” he could only ask her.
Six hummed softly, her eyes shut. “I can’t leave. Even if I wanted to, even if you forced me, dragging me by my feet. It’s just not possible.”
“Why is it not, Six?” he asked. “Why can’t you leave?”
Six laughed again, pressing her fingers over her head as though what he’d said had been utterly hilarious to the point she’d received a headache. It was no headache, he soon realized. Because when her laughter subsided into a loud sigh, when her smile shifted from gentle to malicious, he knew this was no longer the girl he knew.
Six looked back at him with her eyes both matching with streaks of black veins, hundreds little more blinking behind her opened eyes with the same intention as her wide smile.
“They’re already inside me,” Six said. “You’re too late.”
Viola’s scream penetrated through the air, snapping his attention to the top of the meat bed. The tentacles that they had burned off and snapped had snatched the girl by her wrists, snaking up to her entire arms and pulling her deeper into where Six had once laid on. His eyes widened in horror; Mono screamed after Viola’s name. Yet before he could even run to her aid, a strong hand had already shoved him back until he fell to his rear. Six giggled at him, revealing her true strength she’d masked with her sick and weak girl act. Then and there, he’d been too late once more to save another.
After another scream, Viola disappeared under the thick fleshes that opened up to swallow her, her cries muffled until they were gone entirely.
“No,” Mono muttered, horrified, unable to look away from the scene. Viola was gone; and he was left all alone. At least…until he was reminded quickly that he wasn’t.
Six stood over him with her head held up high, her infected eyes drowning him under the ocean of horror and disbelief that things had gone utterly south. The eyes in her blinked in unison. She summoned a shadow-y dagger in her palm with a wave of her hand.
Truly things had gone south.
The shadow predicted this would happen—Six losing her control finally and under the mercy of the Eye. This was the part where it had waited long for, where it needed Mono to play his role and help it regain what it’d lost: its host. So, when the eyes in Six steered her to raise the dagger high above her head, the shadow appeared next to Mono’s ear and whispered only one thing:
“Fight.”
Notes:
It is confirmed. Mono is a simp who's biggest fear is kissing the person he's simping for. Also next chapter will be Mono vs Six :)
Thanks for reading!
Chapter 59: Husband and Wife
Notes:
Yo I'm back. And guess who binge-watched the first two Conjuring for inspiration😭
Anyway, let's get on with the arc
[WARNING]
Mild violence, Six being cuckcoo
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Viola wiped her tears from her eyes as she sniffled softly. She had tripped over a rock hidden in the ground while playing outside, and the look of the angry mark on her pale knee made the pain twice as worse than it actually was. It hurt badly. She cried more tears under the looming trees, heaving hitched breaths and swallowing lumps in her throat.
The moment lasted only a few seconds more until she felt something shift from within. The wind pushed past her hair and tear-stained face. Darkness had danced around the dry leaves and tall grass like fog. Then the sound of them crunching under composed footsteps. Her kimono came into sight first, touching the ends of her feet, and then came the gentle hands that touched her flushed cheeks.
“Viola,” the Lady said. “I told you not to play too far, didn’t I?” There was a firmness to her tone, one that Viola knew would appear whenever she’d done something bad or wrong. Yet this time, her voice was far gentler. The Lady was not at all angry—or at least not yet.
“Sorry,” Viola whispered, sobbing.
“You should be. Your father is going to kill me when he finds out you scraped your knee again under my watch.” The Lady gently tutted as she looked over her small wound. She shook her head. “Oh, he really might just kill me,” she sighed to herself.
“Do you think…he’ll be mad?” Viola asked, her eyes puffy and wide when she looked up at her mother. The Lady chuckled lightly.
“Who? At you?” The Lady swiped a thumb under Viola’s eyes. “The only way he’ll be mad at you is if I tell him to be mad at you. And 99% of the time, he fails to do so. You have nothing to worry other than him smothering you later,” she told her with a smile.
Viola sniffled again before her eyes fell to her bleeding knee. “…Are you mad at me? For running off without telling you?” she asked quietly.
The Lady sighed.
“I am,” she said eventually.
Viola felt her shoulders tensed, her lips pouting. She readied herself for her mother’s wrath, and readied her ears for the scoldings she no longer could run behind her father to hide from. Yet when cold fingers rested under her chin, turning her gently to look directly in the eyes that resembled her own, all that preparation was for nothing.
“I am angry at you, Viola,” the Lady said, however, with the same soft voice, “but I’m willing to let this slide. Just this once. If you run off again without telling me, there will be consequences after. Do you understand?” Viola nodded sadly. The Lady’s eyes softened as she sighed through her nose, patting her daughter’s hair, whispering something under her breath she couldn’t quite hear except the word ‘safe’.
“Come on. The sun is setting soon. Let’s wait for your father at home,” the Lady said and glanced at her scraped knee. “I suppose he’ll know how to fix you up brand new. Like last time.” The Lady lifted Viola to her chest and stood with her, following the path to the house.
“How did you find me so quickly?” Viola asked with her chin on her shoulder, her arms around the Lady’s neck. She looked up at the tall trees and the orange sky.
“A certain…friend of mine helped,” the Lady said after a pause.
“A friend?”
“Yes. A friend.”
“I thought dad was your only friend.”
“Well, yes, him too but he’s a little different than this friend of mine. You could say that…it has been with me far longer than anyone else. Even your father,” the Lady said and looked at her. “It’s been with you your whole life too.”
Viola’s eyes widened. The Lady laughed at her slight fear.
“It won’t harm you, Viola, don’t worry,” the Lady assured. “Just as long as you remember what I told you…”
“Keep fed. Don’t refuse any meals you bring.”
“Good.”
“So does that mean I can befriend it too?” Viola asked curiously.
“You really are your father’s daughter,” the Lady muttered after an amused scoff. “But…to answer your question, yes. You can. However, not in the way that you’d think, unfortunately. You can’t treat it as your playmate or a talking companion. It isn’t a friend that way.” Viola frowned as though disappointed. The woman only chuckled and added, “It’s a friend that will help you in your times of need. When you’re lost, afraid and alone. Before, when I was a child like you, I hated its presence; I thought it was only there to torment me and torture me. Eventually, though, I understood it. More than ever when you breathed your first breath. I understood it had become more than a reminder and, instead, a second eye for me. That was how I knew where you were when you became lost. It led me straight to you like a guide.”
Wide-eyed, curious and immersed in her story, Viola became speechless. The Lady smirked and only looked ahead.
“And I just know it would help you as it did with me one day,” the Lady said. “The same way you and your father shared a strong connection with your powers, we share a connection through our souls. Whenever you think you’re lost or too far away from us, reach down to your core and call to it. I promise it will lead you back to me.”
I promise it will lead you back to me, her mother’s voice echoed to the present.
That was only two years ago. Viola hadn’t remembered or thought of that memory only until she sat in the dark with her knee bleeding again. She had cascaded down into the wide flesh tunnel that was at least 100 feet drop, or at least it felt like so. It had happened too quickly—the flesh tendrils snatching her, the fall that ended with her screaming, the landing that had been utterly disgusting and painful. It only occurred to her seconds later when she’d stopped falling, when she felt the sharp sting in the centre of her knee and something cold and wet trickling down her leg.
Viola winced as she tried to hold back her own tears from the injury. If it were weeks ago, Thin Man would have easily healed her knee with a boost as he’d called it. But of course, getting cuts and small wounds was almost nothing when you have a personal healer that would quickly fix you up as though the said injury never happened; take away the angry mark and the pain and scars that’d accompany it.
Now, though, things were different.
She was not back home; her father was not here to fix her wounds anymore. And Viola was certain the child version of him knew less than what she knew to heal someone effectively.
Viola shook her head and inhaled deep breaths. She needed to stop thinking about her knee. There were far bigger problems she must face now—like the fact she had just been plunged headfirst into a new and foreign part of the Signal Tower by a being that despised her. The Eye had brought her here, separated her from Mono and Six; and it all must be for a twisted reason she had yet to find out. Viola knew she needed to be more than careful, especially now.
The darkness around brightened gradually as seconds ticked away. The flesh tunnel she’d gone through became only a normal ceiling of her old bedroom, the place nearly a replica to her own memory of it.
Great. Another torment.
Viola quickly braced herself for anything strange or anything the Eye could use against her. This was nothing new after all.
She rose to her feet with a small grunt, limping slightly as she glanced around her room. Everything was in place; nothing was wrong…yet. She was sure the Eye had conjured this illusion of her room as an act of revenge for ruining things, and when she realized a girl sitting on the edge of her bed—her back turned to her and her head hung low—Viola knew she was right. This must be the Eye’s doing. Because that girl sitting on that bed now? That was her.
Reluctantly, Viola gathered her courage enough to limp to her...clone. The girl’s black hair was longer than her own as she sat hunched with her taller frame. She also seemed older, tired as her face bore nothing more than a hollow expression. Bags were under her eyes as though she’d stayed up for weeks, forced to seeing terrible things she could not refuse. Her cheeks were sunken, matching her lithe limbs under her thick, dark robe. And in her hands, she caressed a cracked porcelain mask that was all too familiar.
Viola was locked in place, her heart thumping against her chest.
“This was hers,” the girl said, her voice firm yet defeated.She stayed staring at the broken mask. “I’ve always wondered why she felt the need to put on such an ugly thing. She was beautiful. So, so beautiful, and yet, she kept herself hidden behind this silly white mask as if her face held thousands of scars. As if her skin was marred beyond healing,” the girl continued. “It doesn’t make any sense at all, come to think of it. It doesn’t for me. It doesn’t for you either…does it?”
Only then Viola felt her senses return. The girl was talking to her.
“Why do you...have her mask?” Viola asked, mimicking the girl’s composure yet failing. Her voice had trembled against her will.
The girl chuckled and finally met her eyes. She smiled so emptily, brokenly.
“…It’s mine now,” she said. Then tears gathered in her eyes. They fell past her cheeks one after the other like they had been kept in for years, unable to shed lest any weakness was shown. Yet her smile trembled anyway, faltering to her true emotion—her immense vulnerability.
“Help me,” the girl whispered desperately. “Please. Help.”
The first cracks formed in the walls and floors. Viola flinched back as a board pushed from under her feet. The lamp on the table flickered until they shattered, picture frames hung next to it dropped to the floor without warning. Then the ground began to grumble a low hum.
Viola’s attention, however, was diverted from it when sharp nails dug into her shoulders, holding her in place even when she tried to fight it. She turned to the girl looming over her who cried and spewed out words faster than before, and her eyes wide in sheer horror.
“Please, I’m begging you—help me! ” the girl cried, nearly screaming.
The room had shifted into new surroundings, darkness returned to swallow every corner. The sounds of meat squelching became closer and louder. The girl cried again when the long fleshes circled around her wrists and torso like shackles. She thrashed in its hold, fighting it while still screaming desperately at Viola.
“Viola—listen to me! Don’t let them take her! Please, whatever you do...DON’T LET THEM TAKE HER!” The flesh closed around the girl’s throat and snatched her behind the unknown. Her echoing cries finally ceased.
And that was all Viola could register before the same tentacles of flesh closed around her too, pulling her to the opposite side just as quickly as it had with the girl. Viola closed her eyes and let herself scream at that moment. Scream until the tentacles stopped and loosened to release, until she was back on her rear like she had never left, until she returned to the same place she’d first arrived—and in the same position before everything shifted into her old bedroom.
She opened her eyes again when all came to silence, and she found herself still seated on the cold floor. Her hand was still pressed against her bleeding knee. Her body never truly left this strange place as she had thought.
Viola lifted her palm slowly to her face and saw the crimson that had smeared across her pale skin.
They had only become thicker with her own blood.
“Fight,” the Ghost whispered in his ear.
Mono barely had a second to understand it before Six came lunging after him with her dagger. Made out of her own powers too. She’s never done that before. All thoughts were put to a halt when the said dagger was brought down to his face. He hadn’t reacted fast enough, so a strong force pushed him until he rolled on his side. Six’s dagger pierced the flesh floor beside him instead. He silently thanked the Ghost for the save.
While he scrambled back and away, Six let out a maniacal giggle and smiled so maliciously that it made him believe then and there Six was possessed. Straight-up, just possessed. This wasn’t his Six. This was the Eye making her act like a lunatic!
The dagger was thrusted out just as quickly as it’d thrusted in. Her grip tightened around the hilt of the shadow weapon before she swung it over to him again. This time Mono was prepared. He rolled and dodged her attacks; and with adrenaline coursing through his vein, heart pumping blood faster than ever, he relied solely on his luck and guts to avoid the tip of her weapon. And every swing that Six missed, her movements became faster—more vicious, more murderous. Mono ducked as the dagger swung over his head. Six sneered with impatience.
“Can’t you ever,” She brought the dagger down with both hands, “stay still?”
Mono tripped over his foot to avoid it, falling on his back painfully.
“Stay still? What, so you can drive that thing into my face?” Mono said with a grunt. He propped himself to get away only to land face first into the flesh again. “What…?” he could only mutter as something heavy circled around his ankles. The flesh.
The flesh tugged at him even more when he kicked them away, refusing to let him go as they tightened their hold over him. His eyes glanced up to Six—Six, who had noticed his predicament and was smiling victoriously at the help. Six, who played with her dagger, twisting it in her hands while she took slow steps towards him like a predator. Six, who took pleasure in seeing the panic in his eyes when the flesh pulled him closer towards her. Crap.
“What’s wrong?” she said. “Are you having a bit of trouble there?”
Mono clawed at his ankles. The flesh snaked around his arms instead. Double crap.
“Struggling against them is futile, Mono. Trust me,” Six knelt in front of him, “I’ve tried. It won’t work with all your…pathetic attempts.” His blood ran cold when she rested her dagger under his chin, tilting it up to meet her infected eyes. She pressed the sharp tip at his throat threateningly. “Still think I’m worth saving?” she asked.
“Not whatever you are,” he said boldly. “I know you’re not Six. Six wouldn’t do this; she wouldn’t kill me by…lamely stabbing me.”
Six tilted her head to the side, smirking. “Oh? Is that so? You must really know me that well, don’t you? To know my preferred methods to end your life?”
“Yeah. I also know she wouldn’t ever succumb to some so-called powerful eyes. I know she’d rather eat her own foot than lose to a bunch of losers who haven't any real body that they needed to possess a nine-year-old kid to even get one.”
The dagger pressed deeper into his skin. Mono gulped but kept his ground, returning his own death glare to the hundred little eyes in Six’s sockets.
“You better watch what you say,” Six hissed through gritted teeth. “I would really hate to hurt a future husband of mine this early on.”
Something in him stopped.
The glare on his face immediately crumbled. His heart betrayed his mind and body as they thumped against his rib cage like a hostage banging against a locked door; his cheeks warmed like he’d been put under the Sun for the first time in ever; his voice was chained away behind his throat no matter how many times he set them free.
He didn’t know why, and he couldn’t understand it for the life of him. The Eye must’ve possessed him too. He must be sick.
A mischievous smile grew on her lips as though she’d heard his beating heart. And at this point, he was sure even Viola could hear it too wherever she was.
“Oh, I see how it is,” Six said, removing the dagger from his throat. Mono had wanted to sigh in relief, but just the thought of relief became a joke to him when she cupped his jaw in her other hand, forcing him to look at her. His shoulders tensed greatly, the flesh around his limbs becoming more and more useless as his body froze itself.
He wanted the dagger back. This was far worse.
Six tutted at his expense. “You’re really this weak, aren’t you? Call you my husband along with one touch to the face, and you’re already acting like a fool. Are you in love with me that bad? Did Viola’s words get inside your head? Or are they already infesting inside that narrow mind of yours the same way the eyes are infesting inside of me?”
Mono flinched away from her touch, ignoring how cold it left him feeling after.
“You wish. You’re not even convincing enough to act how Six would in her own body, let alone provoke me in ways I know she would never, ” he said wryly and scoffed. “But I guess that’s the thing about eyes. They’re not meant to act—only see . Because that’s all you could ever do, isn’t it? All you’ll ever be capable of?”
The little eyes stared at him through Six, each and every one turning to him unblinking and unyielding with their glares. Mono ignored the voice screaming in the far corner of his mind, yelling at him for doing one of the stupidest things he could do and piss the Eye off. And with the way Six’s body became a statue, only breathing to the bare minimum as her chest barely heaved up and down, Mono knew he did piss off the Eye.
Had he made a mistake? Had his words in actuality become his own demise? The final nail to his coffin and a shovel to bury him under the dirt?
Six blinked and sighed after that agonizing silence, as though the eyes in her had reached a conclusion: that he must die after all.
Instead, Six told him, “You might be right.”
Surprised, Mono stayed silent and let her continue—no, let the Eye continue, “All of our doppelgangers are far better at the acting compared to us. As Eyes, we only observe and take note of how your behaviours came to be—your reactions, your fears, your way of thinking, the little things that make you tick. And with that piece of information, we relayed it to them so they could be a perfect replica of you. Another better version you will never be.” The Eye abandoned pretending, no longer referring to themselves as Six, but instead, as who they actually were.
“But then again,” the Eye continued through Six’s voice, “illusions disappear. They do not possess the powers you do even if we try to replicate it ourselves. It is impossible, you see.”
“So that’s it then? You took over Six, so you can use her powers to kill me? Isn’t that tedious?”
“If we wanted to kill you, we could do so ourselves. Believe us. We could leave you in isolation and let you starve and die slowly. Or we could just let our flesh walls and floors crush you to death just as you breathed your next breath.” Mono gulped at the threat. “But we won’t. Because, you see, you’re extremely needed, Mono. Much more than this stupid girl you married—and the other brat you call a daughter. Perhaps you’re as foolish as them for coming back, perhaps you’d only walked right into a trap. No. You did walk into a trap. You came back for her, after all.” Six then smiled sadly and utterly fake, a hand on her heart. She got up to her feet with her back turned to him. Her voice trembled like the girl he knew, mocking her in ways that made his heart ache and blood boil.
“You came back for me,” she said with a longing sigh. “Like the good friend you are. Oh, you came back.”
He said nothing. But, oh, how much he wanted to say everything. Viola had told him the Eye would use Six as a means to lure him back in the Signal Tower. He understood that and had even prepared himself for the battles he might face sooner or later. He had told himself that when he was up against the Eye—or in this case, Six under the Eye’s mercy and control—he would be ready. That he would get Six back, leave safely with everyone this time; and never would they return to the Signal Tower.
Though, easier said than done.
As much as he loathed the Eye, he couldn’t loathe the girl they had under their control. No matter how many times he reminded himself that this was not Six talking to him, some hidden part of him reminded him of the other true fact—that it was still her.
This was not an illusion where it would disappear. This was not a doppelganger that he could stab in the throat to kill.
This was Six.
If he killed her, he killed her forever.
And that was out of the question.
“Get the eyes out of her,” the Ghost spoke in his ear. Mono tried to remain as still as possible. If Viola shared similarities with Six, if she could see the Ghost like he couldn’t, it would be plausible Six could too. Maybe she already did, and never acknowledged it. Maybe the Eye had already cursed at it when it had helped him, he didn’t know.
One thing he did know, however, was when to end this pointless conversation.
He needed to get Six back now or never.
“You know, Mono,” Six said solemnly after a pause. She looked up at the sky of bright nothing. “It is...a shame that you took the path you did in the future. Such a true shame. Six really was a great Geisha during her time of service. Competent. Efficient. Quite ruthless too. But the sad fact is—all Geishas are replaceable. No matter how good they are.” Finally, she turned back to him, playing with her dagger in her hands. “You asked earlier if we planned to use Six’s abilities to kill you, yes?” she asked him with a raised brow.
He breathed through his nose and let his powers run through his veins discreetly, gathering them in his palm as he pressed them deep into the flesh around his ankles and wrist. Mono nodded firmly to her question all the while. Six did not know any better of the shackles that were loosening around him.
“Well. Answer is we only wanted to provoke you enough to get your prior hatred back inside of you. Make you frustrated, make you seethe and irritated, utterly annoyed towards the girl you insist on saving every single time. To eventually even build up your anger and make you,” she smiled and giggled, “kill her yourself. ”
His heart dropped to his stomach. His focus at burning the flesh nearly shifted—and for a moment, it actually did.
Everything of him stilled as dread settled in his chest unwelcome, the words of the Eye—her current parasite—making him stare directly into those hundred little eyes without the prior disgust and fear. And ever so slightly, the more they forced Six to smile that evil smile, the brighter his ire burned.
“What...?” he asked.
“It’s the only way now, don’t you see? It’s brilliant! We take away the mother, and Viola would make the perfect replacement as the new Geisha. In return, the brat will stay in this current Cycle to exist! And since her going back to the future would pose to be just as deadly as fighting against her new fate as the Lady of the Maw, she will have no other choice. Whereas you,” Six said, pointing the dagger his way, “you will stay in the Tower without any more of your spawns. Simple as that. Furthermore, without Six in your life, that would mean you'd have no one for you to fall in love with—and none you would ever breed with. You will stay where you belong; Here. With us.”
Mono didn’t understand it.
Cycle? New Lady of the Maw? Any more spawns? Just how many children did he and Six have in the future? Was it really written in his fate that he ended up with her?
New questions formed in his head the more he prodded at each one, failing miserably to come up with a probable answer for himself. And with every new confusion, a sense of dread followed him like gum stuck under his sleeve. He still couldn’t understand a thing no matter how hard he tried.
“No,” he said firmly. “I’ll never stay here with you parasites. You'll never make me. Even if you threatened to kill me and brought me back to life just to kill me again.”
“Ah. Of course. You say that now, but your desperation will end up changing your mind.” Six brushed her fingers on the dagger, from its sharp tip to the handle. Her eyes stayed on the blade, half-lidded and in thought. She sighed deeply.
“You should know, in the future, things became ugly in the end,” she said. “When your wife died in your arms, you cried desperately for her to stay. Begged us to bring her back. You even offered us everything you could give and told us you’d never leave The Signal Tower…if it meant her living—breathing again.” She looked back at him and smiled. “Maybe that’s all you needed. A little push towards the right direction, considering…how stubborn you are in following this treacherous path. We’ve already failed to make you hate her enough to rid her; and it seems that you will forever refuse to do so. No matter if it’s for your own good.”
The weight around his feet and arms loosened more as she spoke, yet his chest remained heavy with something else: fear. Once again he felt fear for the implication of her words, horrified as Six was steered to raise the blade to her own throat and let it linger there.
“A shame, really, but…if that’s what you decide on,” Six said, “Then we’ll have to do it for you, Mono.”
In seconds, Six aimed the tip of her dagger to her windpipe and pushed in. The flesh shackles snapped. Mono lunged at her just as her weapon grazed her skin, drawing only a smidge of blood from where she’d managed to cut. A disgruntled cry from her. Six screamed bloody murder when he snatched both her wrists and pulled them away from herself. She struggled against him so strongly that it made his own feet stagger to find decent footing. Yet each time she tried to recoil from him—regain her hands to drive the dagger into her own neck— Mono fought back by pushing her hands down. She cried again as his strength overpowered hers; and even in this state of suicidal lunacy, she was truly strong. Far stronger than the petty fights they used to have before they reconciled. Far more aggressive than when they first met each other after six months since the betrayal.
However, he feared this fight between them would go more horribly wrong than any fights he'd ever had with her. And back then it’d been a lot. Nonetheless, none of it compared to this moment here.
Back then they would never fight to the extent of murder, or even any injury beyond bruises and a bloody nose. Six’s betrayal was another case, but—as much as he’d rather not admit it—even that didn’t involve her directly killing him with her bare hands. She’d let him fall in hopes to have the landing kill him instead—perhaps that conclusion was only him in denial, perhaps this was his heart clouding over his trust issues and judgements. But the moment Six proved to him how regretful she felt was the moment he realized Six could never kill him again like she’d claimed.
Just as he could never kill her, despite his fury and resentment for the things she’d done. Despite having hated her so, so much that he could threaten her all day with mere empty words. In reality he just couldn’t. Even now as Six had lost control of herself and tried to kill him, he couldn't take her life.
Get the eyes out, the Ghost's words played in his mind.
He needed to get her back to him.
Now.
“Six! Snap out of it!” He dug his nails into her wrists. Six bared her teeth at him like an animal gone feral. She was feral.
“Out of it? What could you possibly ever mean, lover boy?” she taunted with a laugh. “Can’t you see Six is far beyond help? You’re only wasting your time trying to stop the inevitable!” Six broke out of his hold and swung her dagger at him. Mono turned away barely and cried when it cut through his sleeve, leaving a straight line of crimson across his arm. He stumbled a few steps with his hand pressed against the clean cut. Blood stained his palm like paint.
He wouldn’t let himself be distracted by it—by the stinging pain. For whilst he had left her side only three seconds, Six had repositioned the knife under her throat again.
“No!” Mono jumped at her from behind, pushing her down to the floor until her hands were beside her head.
Six growled under her breath as she moved under him. She tightened her grip over her dagger and brought it up to swing it at his head. That quickly ended with Mono catching her wrist again. He twisted it enough for her to cry in pain; he pushed his nails into her skin deeper for her to finally release the weapon from her fingers. The dagger dropped somewhere in the root-like meat, slipping in between the folds that neither Six nor Mono knew where it’d gone.
That was his luck.
“Ingrate!” Six screamed and threw her head back to him. Mono backed off of her with a cry, pain shooting up and down his jaw. But once more, he reminded himself that his pain did not matter. What mattered was saving her. Her, her, her.
He quickly seized one of Six’s ankles as she began to crawl away looking for her dagger. In return, Six kicked at him with her teeth showing, and her eyes—the hundred little eyes—filled with annoyance and impatience. Mono bore with her kicking and climbed over her anyway. All discomfort from extreme proximity be damned.
“Six, I know you’re in there!” he cried to her, holding her hands to her side. Her legs thrashed madly as she struggled against him. “Six—please! Come back! Fight it and come back!”
“She won’t!” she said, her voice becoming more than one. “You can’t help her anymore, Mono. You’re too late.” Suddenly something light and cold wrapped around his limbs like thin strings. He only noticed the darkness that surrounded him before it was too late. Six had already summoned her powers to engulf him like a dome, grabbing him harshly before stealing him away as though he were only a doll. And the rough fall after it sent him flying—and rolling across the room until his back hit the flesh wall—Mono could only cough and groan. He no longer could ignore the pain as it involved his entire body, yet...
He persisted.
Despite wanting nothing more than to pass out and let his mind fall into a pitiful unconsciousness, Mono forced himself to sit up against the wall with a strained cry. He felt something wet trickle past his forehead, his skull throbbing terribly. He ignored the new cuts and bruises on his face like before. And instead, he locked his attention to the girl in the distance.
He seethed seeing the growing streaks around her eyes. He hated how much control the Eye had over her already fragile figure, and how they pushed her body and abilities to its limits without her even knowing it.
But if they thought they could subdue him by using her powers against him
Then he’d just do the same.
Besides, Viola had given him a boost earlier, hadn’t she? How would the Eye like the taste of something stronger from him in return?
“HEY!” Six’s head perked up to him, surprised he hadn’t yet given up. Mono gritted his teeth and pushed his own energy into his hands, letting them accumulate as his anger for the Eye became a fuel, and his need to save Six an ammunition. A bright glow of blue took over nearly a quarter of the room, the flesh beneath him writhing as though trying to escape his circle of danger. The transmission filled air was overtaken by his heavy, slow and distorting one. Six’s surprise shifted into a new form of irritation.
Mono didn’t care if he’d angered the Eye again. All he cared about was getting Six back.
“How’s this for too late?” he muttered and threw his hand out to her.
The blinding blue energy immediately shot out from the tip of his fingers like lightning, striking its target straight to her shoulder until she plunged to the ground with new lines of glowing teal spreading around her injury. Six cried too real that it made him panic internally. Her pain was too evident in her voice as she clutched her shoulder, screaming her throat out and crying black tears. Six pressed her forehead into the meat floor, her other arm propping her up to look back at him. She glared daggers even as beads of sweat had formed on her face; she growled with gritted teeth and panted heavily from the pain he’d caused her.
“Well? What are you waiting for, hm? Do it!” she yelled to him. “KILL ME!”
Mono shook his head, exasperated and tired. He slid up to his feet, holding on to the wall. “No! I-I won’t do it, Six. No matter what; I just won’t,” he said.
She chuckled wryly at him.
“Then you’re still an idiot for it. You’ve already had so many chances handed to you on a platter, Mono,” Six spat, “and you still choose to save the girl who has hurt you more than once?”
“I don’t care!” he shot back. “You can hurt me as many times as you want, Six! Lie to me; push me into a chasm if that’s how you feel, but don’t think for a second you’ll get to change how I feel. I’ll save you every time you need me to and I’ll still hate you for the rest of my life. I’ll kill anything you want me to kill except you and your horrible, irritating piece-of-crap-ego. I’ll bring you company whenever you’re lonely and sad, if it means having the chance to annoy you to death with my constant chattering that you always hate. And I’ll always—always …” Then his breath hitched. He felt his anger falter the longer he looked at her sorry state staring back at him. And his voice, they became almost above whisper when he caught a glimpse of the real Six, flickering behind the Eye’s forced mask.
“…come get you back,” he finished eventually. “Even if you leave me behind after…even if I wanted nothing more than to watch you cry in regret for it. I’ll always...come back for you.”
Six fell into a concerning silence throughout his speech, blinking and frowning deeper. Thinking and understanding. Yet that was only for a short time. Just as he took a step close to her, the Eye’s mask slid back over her face. Her lips twitched back into a smile as they grew wider in mockery. She laughed and shook her head patronizingly at him, sighing a loud breath and spitting out black blood to the floor.
“How touching,” Six said. “You almost had us shed a tear over all that lovely nonsense.”
“Six—”
“And you have a lot of mixed emotions too, Mono. Truly, a lot. So much that it’s obvious you’re clearly affected by what you know of your future. It’s as endearing as it is disappointing.” Six frowned at him, scowling. “Sad news for you, though. Because all that speech you gave earlier? They’re only words. They mean as much as Six’s existence for the Cycle now; which is nothing. So as our final warning to you since it flew over your head the first time: our patience is near exhaustion. If you already refused to kill her yourself, stay out of the way lest you’ll be hurt,” she said, “AND LET US KILL HER INSTEAD.”
“NO!” The air around him shifted again, glowing brightly before it blinded him like light had pointed directly into his eyes. And in that moment, Mono saw only white; he heard only Six’s angry screams becoming louder and louder—closer as though she were right beside him.
Because she truly was beside him, or rather, he was the one who had moved.
His vision returned to him just as his body slammed into hers, throwing both of them to the floor abruptly; and once more, she became trapped underneath him the second time. Six—the Eye wasn’t having it. With a strong elbow sent to his side, Mono fell on his back with a stifled cry.
“WHAT DID WE TELL YOU?” Six climbed over him with her hands around his neck. The little eyes in her sockets multiplied. Mono struggled to be released only for her to crush his windpipe even more. “Do you wish to suffer so badly, Mono? Do you want us to hurt you until you finally choose to listen?”
“Six—“ He gasped for breath, his face becoming red without air. “Let…go of me!”
“Six is gone, fool. She won’t come back to help you the same way you will for her. She’s no longer needed and will be removed from our Cycle!”
His eyes stung with tears and his sight went to blur the longer he was deprived of air. Mono’s feet kicked at the flesh ground. He pushed his hands up to her face forcefully until the two of them rolled across the floor together. But as he’d hoped to gain an upper hand from that, he only returned to his initial predicament—Six’s weight still over him, and him being strangled by her slowly to unconsciousness. Six refused to let up. He refused to lose to her puppeteer.
“No…” he spoke in a hoarse voice, his face strained and flushed. He felt the floor in a fit of desperation with trembling hands until something…
Something guided him to close his fingers around a sharp object. The dagger. Mono thanked the Ghost again in his mind and pulled at the dagger upside down, turning the blade into its hilt.
“You are pathetic,” Six continued to say, clueless of what he held in his hand. She leaned closer and squeezed his throat tighter. “There is nothing more devastating than watching a great potential be wasted down the drain for something as meaningless as…love, you call it?” She laughed when his face faltered.
“Oh, how we know you so well, Mono. You are sentimental—stupid. Selfish. You’re aware of your importance to us, and yet, you let her get closer to you anyhow. You let yourself fall for her charms and spells despite knowing the consequences it will bring you later on. You ignored your fate; and she paid the price for your mistakes. All of it. For love. And in the end, that same meaningless—pathetic love you hold for each other died along with you. ”
“You’re...wrong,” he whispered.
Six’s eyes narrowed into slits. Her hold on him loosened just slightly. “Wrong…you say?” she asked.
“You’re talking about someone I…I haven’t yet become. S-Someone in the future. That’s practically another different person you’re referring to. I'm not the same as the guy you call pathetic.”
She smiled wickedly, challenging him. “So if Six were to die here and now, before your eyes, you’re saying you wouldn’t beg for us to bring her back? Would you not shed a few desperate tears for her? Would you not feel the void inside your chest become unbearable when your love is ripped out from you? Do you not like her at all, Mono? Do you not love her?”
“I...I do. Honestly, I do...like you, Six…” he admitted with flushed cheeks. Then he tightened the dagger in his hand. “AS A FRIEND!”
Mono connected the blunt end to the side of her head so forcefully that it sent Six falling beside him. A sharp cry escaped her. The dagger in his hand quickly dissipated when her own weapon was used against its summoner. And truly, was she mad for that.
Seething and grumbling with gritted teeth, Six propped herself up with wobbly legs. Her powers summoned once more in her hands as they gathered like swirling fire. Mono moved quicker than she could aim it at him. With an anger of his own, he dived behind her and wrapped his arms tightly around Six’s abdomen from the back. He locked his hand around his other wrist to keep her trapped and flushed against him. Then he jerked upwards.
Six coughed once and gasped.
He jerked up again, much stronger each time.
“This is me saving you as a friend, Six!” He pressed at her stomach and jerked it up the third time. Another cough. Six’s powers vanished along with her thrashing as her movements grew weak and still.
“I know you’re still in there; and if you’re listening,” he said, “I. Don’t. Like you. That. Way!” Each word was for each push towards her guts—along with his irritation and annoyance of the fact that Viola’s words rang true in his head.
It was hard to even believe it. No, he refused to believe it. He had already set in his mind that he wouldn’t ever like Six in the way Viola had suggested, and frankly, he was already more than annoyed when she insisted it. But then the Eye went and did the same thing. Taunting him, mocking him, getting into his head and planting seeds of him and Six being involved with each other. He was sick of it. He wouldn’t ever like Six in that utterly disgusting way, and he would read that to himself every single night like a prayer and as a bedtime story. No matter if Viola made him feel guilty and think twice about her existence being at risk, no matter if the Eye repeatedly told him how in love he was with that yellow-raincoat troll in the future, no matter if his heart thumped twice as fast when he remembered Six smiling at him, laughing at his stupid jokes—Mono just didn’t like her that way.
She was his friend, and he’d protect her as one. Nothing more, nothing less.
A low grumble came from her stomach. Six’s body became limp and heavy in his arms until he could no longer hold her up. She slipped past his hold and fell to her knees unceremoniously—her fingers clawing at her throat, coughing, gagging and gasping for uneven breaths. He watched it all happen with wide eyes, that earlier pang of panic rising in his chest as he patted her back gently.
“S-Six…?” he only could say before she threw up and a blob of something escaped past her mouth. It plopped to the floor with a small bounce. He watched the blob covered in a foreign black liquid, how its water soaked the meat floor like little rivers.
Then one by one, miniscule eyes began to open and blink up at him. A ball of hundred eyes.
He gaped in horror. His heart stopped completely at the sight of it—at the thought of it merely being inside her.
“Get out…”
He shifted back to Six, gently placing a hand over her shoulder. Yet that mere touch sent her into a frenzy, a crazed state far different than the one she’d shown him throughout this entire time. Soon he realized she was seized heavily by fear and panic; her hands grabbing fistfuls of her own hair and pulling at it as she rolled on the ground screaming and kicking.
“GET OUT! GET OUT! GET OUT!” Six cried until the wind around her pushed him forcefully back to his rear. And when her tantrum calmed eventually, she only heaved heavy breaths behind her hands as if in hiding. She didn’t cry anymore but her limbs trembled like she’d experienced a harsh panic attack. She didn’t try to hurt herself anymore but she didn’t move at all as though her body was in a block of ice.
When she did move, however, she lifted her gaze to him slowly and still so fearfully; her eyes had returned mismatched again. One with little minute eyes, and one with her normal black pupils. But he barely had a second to understand why it had happened when a familiar cold presence lingered by his side and grasped his shoulder with its invisible hand. It made him shiver just by its closeness, and even more by its next command.
“Mono,” the Ghost whispered to him again, joyful and proud. And if he could see its face like Viola could, he just knew it had a smile on right now.
“Do it again.”
Notes:
It's safe to say Mono will be going to the hospital after this to get his DeNial disease checked. Will it get worse from here on? Maybe (Yes).
Thanks for reading!
Chapter 60: Mind Prison
Notes:
Helloo. Back with Six's POV and pretty much just that. Before you continue, I'd like to apologize in advance for the Doppelganger's sus behaviour in certain parts. He is not a flirt. I SWEAR he just likes to provoke people.
[WARNING]
Mild violence
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
There was nothing more annoying than having to tolerate a sharp pain across your stomach and having a clone of your friend being all smug about it. I told you, he’d said to her as she’d delivered yet another hit to her guts. I told you it won’t work, he’d said again when all she spat were her own blood and pathetic coughs. Six hated him. As much as she had hated Mono in the past, there was no one else she hated more than his clone the Eye had conjured. Every word he spewed was meant to provoke her, and every time she told herself not to pay him any mind she did so anyway. Why, might one wonder? Simple. It was because of him.
Him, the boy the Doppelganger had perfectly imitated inside out. The boy she wanted so much for her heart not to ache for yet failed miserably when their past together resurfaced. She didn’t like him, don’t be mistaken. She only tolerated him enough to finally feel every little bit of guilt she’d kept pent up and locked away inside her cold, bloodless self. And with seconds that passed by, the guilt worsened.
She began to think of him more than she had allowed herself. She thought of the times where she’d wanted to punch his face a hundred times at the Maw; remembered the times where they fought verbally non-stop until it turned physical; reminisced the flickering moments that Mono showed her kindness that he declared he never had for her anymore. Then the soft smiles from his glances, the patching up of her wound when she’d stepped on a nail, the sudden help at finding her food for her hunger curse. It made her question repeatedly despite having no answer: why did he have to do all of it? Why couldn’t he just continue at despising her? Why must he change his mind and make her change her own—accept the fact that he wanted to mend their broken friendship, and her repair their shattered trust?
Six laid curled up on the floor, thinking for hours on end. But had it been only hours? Perhaps days? She couldn’t be sure of the time here in The Signal Tower. Everything here was so disconcerting, so utterly confusing. And even with the presence of the Doppelganger by her side made it all the more troubling.
“Hey, cheer up, you.” The Doppelganger remained cross-legged in front of her, hands clasped together as his chin rested atop it. “You’ve been at it for a while now. You sulking just makes me want to lie face-down depressed.”
“Leave me alone,” she said, staring into the floor. Defeated. Sad. Tired. She wondered if Viola had brought Mono to safety like she’d told her to.
“I would, but you know I can’t do that. I’m meant to keep you company, remember?” he replied, smiling his sympathy. Or perhaps that sympathy was nothing more than schadenfreude.
“Leave me,” she said again, “alone.”
“Do you want to talk about it at least?” he persisted with a tilt of his head. “It might help you feel better. I’m a great listener, too, you know. Ooh! I know! Maybe I could help—”
“I don’t want your help!” Six snapped, her eyes shut and her knuckles white. “I don’t want to talk. I don’t want anything that has to do with you. All I want—is for you to leave. Me. Alone!”
Her voice echoed around the barren place, making the tension twice as heavy once silence returned to take its reign. The Doppelganger stayed at her side with his lips drawn into a thin line. She hoped from that look of his, he too had lost all patience and energy to continue this friendly charade. Anything was better than the Doppelganger trying to be him.
No one could take Mono’s place if they tried. She’d make sure of that.
“I don’t understand you, Six,” the Doppelganger uttered under his breath. “You keep asking me to stay away from you, to leave you alone so you could indulge yourself in this... pitiful bout of guilt and sorrow. You put up walls around yourself with the hope of keeping your face stoic and mind sane. And yet, in your heart,” He leaned close to her, “You don’t want to be alone at all. Your barricades crumble effortlessly when the thought of him crosses your mind. And it hurts you even more, doesn’t it? To see his face sitting right beside you when all you want to do is forget his existence again? Or perhaps…you want to see him? Tell him you finally understood what he once felt when you were the one who did the betraying?”
Her heart nearly became a traitor to her entire self. Six battled with it relentlessly to keep still and remain aloof, because one falter in her image was the same as admitting defeat to the Doppelganger’s attempt to provoke her.
And all the clone had done this entire time was that.
She would not lose. Not to him, not to the Eye—not to anyone.
The Doppelganger’s eyes narrowed to slits as he sat straight up again, a tight smile across his face.
“Nothing you have to say?” he asked. And when Six only stared back at the floor, the boy scoffed quietly. “I suppose you really are trying to forget him. No matter how stubborn your mind is.”
“I’m not,” she muttered bitterly, “trying to forget him.”
“Oh? And why not? You nearly have me convinced already,” he asked with a raised brow.
“Because it’s a futile attempt.” Her stomach tightened at her own words. “I can’t if I wanted to. I’ve tried it before anyway. There isn’t a point to it.” Then her mind wandered to the boy again, stubbornly wondering if he was safe with Viola now. And if he’d known about what had happened, would he be either enraged or glad that Six met her deserved fate.
As she fell into a spiral of ifs, mulling over and over about Mono’s state wherever he was with deep worry, the Doppelganger didn’t share the same sentiment. Because apparently something she said was funny enough for it to have elicited a chuckle from him before a genuine laugh rumbled in his chest. Six cast him glare.
“Sorry,” he apologized in his midst of laughter. “I didn’t—I didn’t mean to ridicule you, I swear. Forgive me. It’s just that—” The Doppelganger snorted and covered his mouth. “Goodness Eyes, Six! Just when I thought Mono was the only stupid one here; and then there’s you! Saying what you just said. It’s just so...stupid. And hilarious. Not exactly surprising, but hilarious all the same. I certainly did not expect the conversation to take this kind of turn.”
Six pushed herself to sit up slowly, no longer caring if that meant the Doppelganger had finally got a reaction out of her. Because right now, she was a body filled with piping hot blood. If there was anything that irritated her more than Mono’s methods to provoke her, it was the Doppelganger’s . The Eye’s favorite illusion puppet. Their damned loyal slave. How dare he laugh in her face as he insinuated something she hoped he wasn’t insinuating. How dare he call her and Mono stupid.
“What did you say to me?” Her voice became lower, threatening, and dangerous. But, of course, even that meant nothing to the Devil’s advocate. He chuckled again as if he found her attempts to scare him adorable and harmless. Oh, how she could harm him in so many ways.
The Doppelganger rested his chin back on his palm, smirking happily.
“I said you and Mono are idiots. You two share a lot in common more than you realize, you know. One of which is your immense denial and, of course, the stupidity.”
Six seethed under her breath, her nostrils flaring.
“I mean don’t take this the wrong way, but,” he said, “I always assumed you weren’t as dumb as him. That you were more rational. The non-sentimental type. All I’m just saying now is that maybe I expected too much to begin with.”
“Is this one of your pathetic ways to try and provoke me again?” she hissed. “Call me names, lower my self-esteem, and insult mine and Mono’s intelligence?”
“Sure,” he said, and pursed his lips. “Although, I have to say. You do seem like you’re far more insulted on Mono’s behalf rather than yours.”
“That is ridiculous—!”
“Is it, really? Or am I just so accurate that it bruises your ego when you just,” he said and smiled, “lost to me?”
Her anger screamed within her mind and guided her next moves. Just barely after he spoke, Six found herself grabbing the Doppelganger by the front of his shirt tightly and bringing him close to her with a frustrated growl behind her throat. She gritted her teeth to hold the urge from biting his face off then and there; from tearing apart the face of someone she missed tolerated off of this scum . He did not deserve to even wear his face and mimic his smiles. He deserved to be bathed in his own eyes-filled blood.
“Whoa.” The Doppelganger whistled and leaned closer. “That interested in me, are you?” he cooed.
“Shut up! I know what you’re trying to do, you sick monster,” she said, shaking him slightly. “And I won’t let you get inside my head with your stupid words. Know that, puppet.”
“Funny that you say that—”
“I am not finished,” she deadpanned. “Just because your dumb Boss managed to infest inside of me with their stupid, useless eyes; it doesn’t mean you’ve won. As long as my body and mind fight against them, you’re all nothing but squatters. And believe me when I say I will fight. I’ll fight until I die if that’s what it takes—if that’s what makes all of you lose whatever twisted mind-games you’re playing with me now. I won’t make this take-over process easy for you. Mark my words.” Her hands closed around his neck. She gave it a harsh squeeze that made him grunt with a strained smile.
“As much as you’re allowed to have an opinion, Six,” the Doppelganger said, “I do suggest you say them while keeping your hands to yourself. Remember; I’m not your lover.”
“You little shit—!”
Her words fell flat as a sharp cry escaped her instead. So caught up with her fury and threats, the Doppelganger had caught her wrist in an iron grip merely within seconds, twisting it painfully to the side as he effortlessly switched places with her, then slamming her head against the floor with only one hand. He pressed her cheeks further on the ground when she thrashed and tried to kick him. She growled profanities to be released, her other wrist still held strongly behind her back by the Doppelganger. And her anger returned tenfold from this humiliation, furthermore with this bastard chuckling as though she were a joke. How dare he take her as a joke!
Another thrashing from her led to another cruel knock against the hard floor. Six finally stilled. The Doppelganger kept one hand steady on the back of her head while the other held her wrist firmly to her back. Then she felt her shoulder strained itself the longer she was stuck this way.
“Are you done now, Six?” he asked her gently, still smiling as if he hadn’t just subdued her in a brutal way.
“Let go of me,” she grumbled with her cheeks tightly pressed on the floor. Mono could and would never pull this kind of thing to her.
“I could. If you say sorry first.”
“Oh—go to hell, you son of a—!”
“Or,” he said, clamping her wrist even tighter until she winced, “you could hear me out. And promise me you won’t attack me when I let you go. How does that sound, hm?”
“You’re…you’re lying!”
“Am I? If I’m not mistaken, Six, the one who’s been lying to people around here is you. So, make your choice. Either you agree to one of my offers, or I break both your arms here and now. Keep you from strangling me.” She stayed silent stubbornly.
One of her joints made a loud click then. Six let out a sharp cry as the Doppelganger held on to his words, stretching her arms in the opposite direction behind her back.
“I-I promise!” she cried. Then she growled through gritted teeth, frustrated and in pain. “I…I won’t attack you.”
With an amused snicker, he let her go. Six’s arm slumped to her side as she quickly crawled away from him, catching breaths that she’d missed when her shoulder was nearly dislocated from its place. And once she settled merely feet in distance from him, she sent a glare that promised death and only death. Because killing him might just be the best thing she would ever do in her nine years of living in this foul, infested world. Far better than claiming The Maw for herself and their late Lady’s abilities that could kill a man with just a flick of the wrist. If my powers were here, you wouldn’t stand a chance. I’ll kill you so slowly that you’d beg to die then and there.
Another chuckle sounded from the boy. Despite the created distance, the Doppelganger remained in his crouching position as he returned her glares with a sweet smile after, tilting his head again like it would improve his abilities to read her. Perhaps it did. Though, she hoped it didn’t. She hoped he couldn’t hear her heart thumping loudly against her chest and catch on to the fear residing behind them.
“I do...apologize for…you know.” He gestured to her shoulder with a simple nod. Six scowled and held it away from him. “I didn’t want to actually hurt you. I only needed you to listen to me,” he said.
“And what would you need me to do that for? You already have your stupid eyes wanting to control me, don’t you?” she shot back, sweat dripping down her neck. Her breaths turned heavy as each one became harder to inhale than the last.
“True, but…it’s like you said.” He clasped his hands together, his elbows on each knee. “We’re only squatters for now. As long as you fight us, that control still remains out of reach. It’s not permanent, of course, but waiting is a tiring thing. And we don’t plan to wait any longer for you to cave.”
She heaved another painful breath, the fear she denied within herself becoming almost palpable. “What...what are you saying?” she asked.
“I’m saying we make an agreement, Six,” he told her. “Just you and me. No official deals involved. We’ll settle it with a proper fight, of course, where both of us are ready this time. So, you can stop it with your scheming.”
“Scheming?” she said, raising a brow.
“You’re as easy to read as pictures, Six. Whether you promised it or not, we both know you’re still waiting for the right moment to catch me off guard and attack me anyway.” The Doppelganger snorted. “Not that you’ll succeed, but…efforts are still admirable in my eyes. So, what do you say? You in?”
His smile widened and revealed the same set of teeth Mono had. It was uncanny how far the Doppelgangers could replicate themselves as the person they wanted to mimic. Six scowled at this—and the fact that she remembered what Mono’s teeth looked like.
“I’m not in with anything. You haven’t even clarified what it is the agreement we’re settling on,” she retorted.
He gasped lightly, then smacked a hand over his head. “Eyes, forgive me—that honestly slipped my mind!” the Doppelganger said as he shook his head at himself. “Right. Yes. So, basically, we just fight until one of us dies or admits defeat.”
“What—?”
“Listen first, you little dummy. No need to panic yet,” he chided playfully. “This fight isn’t a fight where we do it just for the heck of it and, in your case—to release that super cute rage of yours by murdering me.” Six felt her eye twitch, her hands clenched tightly into fists whilst she imagined her knuckles bloody from punching the Doppelganger and winning the said fight.
“If you win, you will reap your rewards. That is, one”—He took out a finger—“me being dead the fourth time and two”—He lifted another finger—“you getting some of that ‘alone moments’ you wouldn’t shut up about. But, wait oh wait, there’s one more!” The Doppelganger exclaimed boisterously. He lifted another finger. “Three. If you win, you will also win against the Eye. You’ll be free from their clutches and they will expel themselves out of you just after you beat me. Fun, right?”
“You...” Six had no actual words to respond when she spoke. Because he couldn’t be telling her the truth—it all didn’t make any sense!
For the last three days, she’d done nothing else but hurt herself to the point where she nearly shut down completely both body and mind, all for the sake of driving out the squatters that’d taken residence inside of her. She’d hurled out her blood and shed tears because of it. Nothing ever worked. The eyes remained inside of her, the sensation of thousands blinking randomly became her guide to insanity. She’d been forced to live her three days in pure fear, not knowing just when she might actually lose herself and the control the Doppelganger promised she would lose sooner or later. She’d made herself distracted with memories of her past and willed her mind to turn it to him instead . It didn’t matter whether they were lovely or some of her darkest moments. Just as long as he was there; she’d play it on repeat. She’d fallen so low just to avoid the fear that haunted her so strongly.
And she hated how much thinking about Mono helped.
Hated how even worrying over what he thought of her now, whether he still saw her as friend or nothing more than a traitor he’d never come back for again, made her forget about the fear the Eye had managed to instill in her heart; that she would soon become just the same as the Doppelganger: a puppet.
But now? She was being told that might not be the case anymore? That the Eye was willing to admit defeat to a child such as her if she were to win?
Again, it made no sense to her. It sounded too good to be true.
“What?” Six finally said with furrowed brows.
“Three rewards,” the Doppelganger said, wagging his three fingers. “You win against me, and you’ll earn them. Fair and square.”
You’ll be free from their clutches forever and they will expel themselves out of you just after you beat me.
“And...if I lose?”
The Doppelganger dropped his hand to clasp them back together. His sweet smile became one that sent shivers down her spine. It was a smile so wicked only the Eye could force it upon someone’s face.
“If you lose, Six,” he said slowly. “Then you’ll willingly let the Eye take over you. And you will die. Sooner or later.”
Her breath hitched as she looked up at him now. Horror written across her face, her shoulders tensed and her lips parted only to have her answers die on her tongue.
“As long as my body and mind fight against them, you’re all nothing but squatters,” the Doppelganger reiterated her words. He stood up menacingly, his grin ever so constant and wide. Then step after step, he closed in on her. “And believe me when I say I will fight. I’ll fight until I die if that’s what it takes—if that’s what makes all of you lose whatever twisted mind-games you’re playing with me now. I won’t make this take-over process easy for you . ” He stopped right before her feet. Then in his hand, he clutched something—something sharp that she noticed far too late until it shone from under the dim light above them.
A dagger.
The Doppelganger twisted the weapon in his hand carelessly albeit almost masterfully. He knew how to avoid the sharp tip of the dagger; and it seemed as though he wanted to tell her that by showing it.
His empty sockets met her frightened and infected ones. Six flinched, ready to let her instincts take over and run before he could land an effective blow across her stomach. From the way his emotions had instantly shifted from the fake-innocent-boy to a veteran murderer, there wasn’t a single doubt in her mind that the Doppelganger wouldn’t slash her here and now. She’d entered a dangerous territory—met the lion face to face in its den.
And the lion in question seemingly had been starving for a kill.
The Doppelganger flipped the dagger so its hilt was pointed to her instead of its sharp blade. “Here,” he said.
Six gave him a strange look. Her eyes darted back and forth between the boy and the dagger he offered to her. What could be his game now? Was this a trap? Was he waiting for her to lower her guard to land a strike on her?
“Take it,” the Doppelganger said again with a stretched arm, the dagger held loosely between his fingers.
“Why?” Six asked as her eyes narrowed.
“Your witch powers won’t work here. And you’re weak by default, so,” he replied simply. Six scowled just ready to shoot her anger back when the boy dropped the dagger and kicked it to her. The blade let out a soft screech, sliding across the floor until its hilt touched the tip of her toes. “Have the dagger, Six. This is supposed to be a fair fight anyway.”
“If it’s fair then why do I get a weapon?”
“Don’t you want to win? It’s no problem, of course. If you’d rather lower your chances. I could conjure up another weapon for myself with only a snap of my fingers. Just say the word.” Six fell silent and eyed the dagger in front of her. The Doppelganger huffed amusedly.
“That’s what I thought,” he said. “Go ahead. Pick it up.”
Another wary glance to him. Six gulped and hesitantly complied, closing her fingers around the hilt of the dagger, feeling its weight heavy in her grasp. She touched the tip of it with her index finger and winced. The dagger was sharper than it looked. One hit and the thickest skin would tear open.
Preferably the Doppelganger’s.
“Now get to your feet,” she heard him say next. Six sent him a scowl when he insisted on wearing that smug smile as he ordered her around. Who was he to tell her what to do? Who was he to smile down at her as though his victory had been guaranteed? Cocky bastard.
Six shifted the weight of the dagger into her better hand, tightening her grip around it as she rose from the floor with a new resolve—a stronger determination. Whereas the Doppelganger lifted his chin slightly, neither affected nor intimidated by her threatening stance. Then as if to pour alcohol into a fire, he motioned for her to come at him.
She suppressed an irritated growl and aimed the dagger sharply at his head. The Doppelganger stepped to the side to miss it, sending her to fall forward. Six grunted as her blade pierced through the floor. Cracks formed where the tip of it was driven through, and it spread across the ground when Six forced it back out, grumbling curses towards Mono’s snarky clone. This wouldn’t do it. She got back up to her feet and went after him once more. And she swung the dagger at him again. And again. And again. And again.
Every failed attempt, every ducking and dodging he made at the last second with utter precision, it only intensified the brewing rage inside of her. She found her impatience to be exhausted soon; her movements became faster and her attacks far more aggressive. Why couldn’t he stay still? Why must he keep smiling at her, mocking her with a borrowed voice, as he avoided her strikes?
Why couldn’t the blade just slice through his neck already?
The Doppelganger seized her wrist just as she pointed it beneath chin. Six struggled against his strong grip, trying to recoil from him more than she tried to plunge the dagger straight through his throat. However, the latter was quite an impossible feat she soon realized. The Doppelganger was telling the truth when he said the fight shall be a fair one. Because if their positions were switched now, Six knew she wouldn’t survive a second longer. Their physical strengths were no match.
“Can I ask you something, Six?” The Doppelganger said to her, still keeping her in place and letting the dagger hover dangerously over his own skin without an ounce of fear it might connect. “Why is it so hard for you to kill me now?” he asked.
“I am trying to kill you, moron—”
“Yes, sure, tell yourself that. But I see the way you move with the dagger in your hand. I see the way they tighten around it every time you come close to me. And what’s even more shocking is I see the way you hesitate when the tip of the blade nearly touches me. Do you want to know what I think?” Six’s scowl faltered ever so slightly along with her ire, that damned fear snaking its way into her mind and claiming authority. “I think you don’t want to kill me. No. You don’t want to kill him.”
“Shut up,” she muttered.
“Because I still look so much like your friend, don’t I? I mean, before my second death, I was practically covered with my own blood head to toe, the eyes in me popping out of control that my face resembled nothing like the boy you know. It was easier, back then, to kill me—I suppose. To drive that shard into my skull as if I was only another kid you killed. Another monster to be defeated. Now, though? You can’t do it, can you? Despite having your life on the line?”
“I will kill you—"
“Then do it.” He loosened his hand, but still let it linger around her wrist. Gentle was his touch and so did become of his smile. And everything that changed with him then, from his expressions to the way he held her hand and guided them to press the dagger at his neck, was all so he became a replica of Mono. His voice lowered into a soft whisper as he stared deep into her eyes just like Mono would—just like he had when they first shook hands and accepted reconciliation between the two of them.
Gentleness. Admiration. Kindness. That was what resided in Mono’s eyes, body language and his core.
Her grip on the hilt tightened again. It only remained above the Doppelganger throat.
“Kill me, Six,” he told her with all three. But all three did not belong to the Doppelganger. It was not his to claim as his own feelings when all of it came genuinely from Mono’s heart. Whereas the Doppelganger had nothing. He was only evil; a thief and a great mimic. He was not Mono and would never be Mono, no matter if he nailed everything about the boy down to a T.
Six knew that with every intelligence she had, but perhaps for all the pros she listed out from Mono, his cons too were as significant. His cons: was that stupid compassion of his that won every time even as he’d declared himself to never help her again. That absurd amount of care he showed in his actions that it was utterly obvious he’d done so without prior thinking. That horribly huge heart he possessed that possessed her own to soften the longer she was with him. She hated it. She was glad for it. She wanted it to stop but she needed the change badly. And Mono made it possible.
The Doppelganger was right. She no longer had the heart to kill him like she did.
“Pathetic,” he muttered. Before she could listen, however, the Doppelganger reclaimed his iron grip and redirected the blade to her throat. With the dagger still in her grasp, the Doppelganger clamped his over hers and pushed the tip of it in, forcing her to slit her own skin. Six cried as she felt the white sting and the cold metal cutting her. She clutched his wrists with her other hand in hopes to fight against the blade he was pushing towards her neck. And with one step back she took, the Doppelganger followed forward to achieve his goal—to kill her. This sick fight for control over the dagger became a fight for her life. Whenever the sharp weapon neared her throat, the scale tipped his way; but it easily tipped back to her favor as Six stretched her arms down along with his.
The Doppelganger persisted. She persisted harder and broke out of his hold completely. And in the fleeting moment of release, Six raised the dagger and swung it over to him, slicing through his arm so clean that it barely made any sound. The Doppelganger staggered back to assess the damage. A long cut across the arm, black blood dripped past the line of injury until the fabric of his sleeves soaked most of it. He didn’t react to the pain other than a dry chuckle under his breath.
“You did good. Hurting me finally,” the Doppelganger said, looking over his arm and the black painting his palm. Then his eyes snapped back to her, his smile nothing but amused. “Now it’s my turn.”
The words left him as quick as he lunged after her, snatching her arms before shoving her to the cold ground. Six groaned with an aching body and a throbbing skull, head slightly dizzy. The Doppelganger moved behind her. Six reached for her dagger only to have him grab the same hand in a crushing hold. She cried out until her voice echoed back to her, until her dagger clanged against the floor and slid away out of reach. She watched in horror as the blade shone from across the room. How it sat there so close yet so far away.
No. She wasn’t done with this fight. She hadn’t yet lost as long as she remained alive—and damn it, she wasn’t going to die by the hands of this scum.
With the Doppelganger’s weight sitting on her back like a rock, she threw her head back so quickly that it hit the boy’s face. The Doppelganger grunted and cursed as he was forced off of her, but that only meant that she was free. Free from his clutches of slow death; free from his ever-pressing weight over her back; free from this shit-show when she crawled towards her dagger with hope and a chance at victory.
A firm hand closed around her ankle instead. Six cried another loud one as she was tugged back to where she’d escaped; and back she was to be under the weight of the Doppelganger’s bottomless stare and his crushing, brutal grip.
“You think I’m letting you win that easily, Six?” He grabbed a fistful of her hair and slammed her face against the floor. Afterwards, she only felt pain. Her energy went out from her body, as though her soul was being sucked dry by a straw and flowed through the Doppelganger’s arm and into him. Her cries turned into pathetic whimpers. Her head was so heavy and her body utterly drained. Then with another harsh slam, the feeling disappeared like it never came.
Six gasped like the next breath she took had been her first. Her eyes were wide from confusion, fear and dread. What had the Doppelganger done? What did the Eye do to her? Why did she feel much more exhausted than before?
“Look at you, Six,” the Doppelganger said as he kept her pressed against the floor. “I honestly don’t see what Mono sees in you. The fuss he keeps making on about you. You’re as average as the children that died in The Signal Tower. I don’t see you as anything special, really.”
Six struggled in futile effort, seething. “And I don’t see you as anything other than the Eye’s slave!”
“Hey,” he deadpanned, though unserious. “Cool it. I have feelings too, you know.”
“Then to hell with it. To hell with you. And to hell with the Eye and their fraud, powerless, crap of a Tower—!” She stifled a cry when he raised her by her hair. Her hands clawed up to him as she was lifted to her feet like a doll, a grimace etched on her face the more he clutched her hair like he could rip it apart from her skin in only one move.
“As much as I love chatting with you,” he hissed by her ear until she shivered, “I actually look forward to killing you more. It’s been a good one, Six. You’ve put up a good fight but…I’m afraid this is where it ends. Remember. You’re supposed to give in to the Eye after this, okay?” The Doppelganger flashed her another sweet smile before his focus drifted to the side. Six’s eyes followed him; and that was when her heart truly dropped. The dagger sat in the distance, no longer did its blade reflect the shine of hope as much as it reflected the loss and horror within her eyes.
“No…” she whispered. And when the Doppelganger dragged her with him towards it—towards her execution, her impending doom—she cried and thrashed without chances of escape. “NO!”
“Oh, it’s happening, Six,” the Doppelganger sang to her. Another step close to the dagger. “I’ll make it slow for you.” Another step. “For old times’ sake.”
Six turned her head up to see him smiling maliciously at her, his eyes far emptier than it always was. Her heart pounded in her ribcage without any means of slowing, her gaze darted back and forth between the dagger, the Doppelganger and the useless room that had nothing to aid her predicament. Her determination cracked and crumbled into debris, burying her fragile body underneath it, trapping her mind forever in a state of defeat. Because in truth she was defeated by him, wasn’t she? She couldn’t fight this losing battle when his strength constantly overpowered her own. She couldn’t run away when he would always catch up behind her, pull her back into the lion’s den she’d foolishly entered, and sink his claws deep into her limbs to keep her here. She couldn’t survive this fight and the Doppelganger had already known that. He had known he was fighting a girl with an obdurate will and an even more unyielding mind, nonetheless she was puny and stupid.
And now, he had only won. While she had lost against him; and lost her life with it.
A white pain struck her in the shoulder so suddenly. Six screamed in sheer agony, slumped and curled up on the floor until her hair was released from the clone’s cruel dragging. She screamed until her voice was raw, trembling beyond control, holding her assaulted shoulder desperately as though her blood was flowing out from her and slipping through her fingers, as though she’d been mercilessly stabbed in the same place dozens of times.
But when she looked
There was no blood. There was no dagger either. Instead, all there was in her shoulder was…
Nothing.
Six felt her breaths turn from labored to slow, the pain in her shoulder never subsiding although much less intense when it first struck her out of nowhere. She blinked once and the barren room became one filled with flesh up and down its walls. The light shining from the infinite sky made her vision blurry for seconds after opening her eyes, making her wince at the strange color of familiar brown, black and white standing in the distance. She heard their voice speaking to her, however, muffled and indistinct. She couldn’t make out what they were saying, but she could hear the desperation and truth laced in them.
Then the blur of colors shifted into a clearer picture, brown blending into his dirty trench coat, black for the darkness of his hair and lastly white for the color of his pale complexion. His face was the final thing her eyes landed onto; and it was the only thing that kept them locked into a stare.
Mono, a voice in her whispered.
Mono stood right before her with his backs pressed against the wall, chest heaving up and down as cuts and bruises decorated his cheeks and forehead. His mouth was still moving, but she couldn’t hear a thing. As if her ears were left behind in that empty, dark room and all that she brought with her now were a small part of her consciousness and her sight.
Was this…a trick? An illusion cruelly created by the Eye to mess with her?
Mono took a step forward to her with a surprise look of his own. But one movement from him, and she was immediately dragged back into the cold reality—she fell backwards into the barren room with dim lights and empty spaces that stretched far beyond the darkness. And in Mono’s place now, stood the angry Doppelganger with his hand holding his own shoulder like her. He had no smile to that friendly face of his, no sweet provoking words to further enrage her for his pleasure and purpose. All he had was this cold, unreadable look on him. Dangerous, murderous and just about done with this charade he was meant to play wholeheartedly.
The color teal glowed from beneath his palm, slipping through the gaps between his fingers that he couldn’t hide. Six glanced to her own shoulder, still feeling the burning sensation that never quite left. Then she looked back at the seething boy. His piercing stare, too, never quite left her.
“Do you think you can still win, Six?” Gone were the playful tilt in his voice, the occasional chuckles that he let out to mock her. Now showing were only the true hatred he’d kept pent up, and the matching bitterness he’d had hidden behind a smile.
“I asked you a question. Answer it,” he said coldly when she only stared back.
Six slowly propped herself up to her feet with her good arm and sent a glare despite her holding in her own pain.
“…Yes,” Six said, lacking conviction as she heaved small breaths. “The fight ends with one of us dead, right? I’m clearly not dead.”
“Clearly, you aren’t,” he agreed with a tight frown. “Do you…even understand the position you’re in currently? Aside from being moments away from losing control to the Eye?”
“I know it’s either my life or yours,” she said boldly. “And I never lose.”
“Hm. We’ll see about that,” he uttered and disappeared after she blinked. Six whipped her head around with wide eyes, sighing one last sharp breath to calm her rapid heartbeat and screaming mind. Where did he go? Was he after the dagger? Six turned her gaze to the weapon that laid just nearby, still glinting in the dim light. She needed to get it before he could.
The air shifted behind her just as she pivoted a heel. She spared a gasp when his body slammed into hers and pushed her down again on the floor, rendering her trapped and helpless. But helpless was what she would never become again. Six elbowed the Doppelganger’s ribs so hard it would leave a fracture, and with the same non-existent mercy he’d shown, she did not stop until he fell to the side. This was her chance now. Quickly, Six climbed over him before he could seize her again, and she pushed away all hesitance and fear to strangle the boy who wore Mono’s face. This time she would not cower—she would win against the Doppelganger and win her life back.
A strained cry from the Doppelganger. He bared his teeth at her, scowling and scratching her hand deep enough in hopes for her to back off. She did not. She crushed his windpipe even more.
“Just—die!” Six yelled and squeezed harder. The Doppelganger screamed in frustration and shoved his hands into her face and eyes. Six lost her balance until his weight overpowered again, yet her determination to win—her desire to kill him—was as strong as her grip around his neck. Even as they rolled across the floor like mad children, she clutched his throat like it was her lifeline. The Doppelganger realized it when they returned to their initial position, and with him still beneath her trapped and helpless. The teal glow in his shoulder was still faint but flowed through his left arm like small vines, while hers felt nothing more than just a burn left unattended. But to hell with the pain. If ignoring it meant this bastard dying, then she would gladly stay strangling him with this sharp sting for hours. Until he’d die.
But soon her head became the issue.
Out of nowhere again, the side of her skull throbbed as though she’d been hit by something hard. Her vision compromised, head dizzy and hands shaking as she fell to the side with her elbows supporting her up. Six winced at this sudden pain, touched the side of her head only to find nothing had hit her like she’d thought. The dagger was gone completely. The Doppelganger grimaced and clutched his head too as if he’d experienced the same blow as her. She heard him curse under his breath as he lifted himself off the floor, his empty sockets burning holes into her with impatience he’d succumb to. And just when he readied himself to lunge after her again, wanting to kill her then and there, the lights suddenly flickered.
The floors grumbled and shook mildly; the room somehow felt as if it was tilted to a point where both of them nearly lost balance.
Then a sharp tug somewhere within her stomach.
Six let out a sharp gasp, her arms wrapped desperately around herself. This felt no different from the usual hunger pangs, although she’d known them enough to know that whatever struck her now was not hunger. This felt forceful. It felt like a heavy weight was pushed against her intestines over and over.
“No…” she caught the Doppelganger whispering. His brows creased as he stared at her relentlessly with something Six knew to be his own form of desperation. And truly, did he seem desperate. Despite his knees buckling seconds later, his limbs trembling as much as hers were, the Doppelganger still fought it through. He screamed at her with sheer rage and made a move to grab her quickly.
But she'd been busy with the pain. Distracted by the weight squeezing her insides up to her throat that when she did look up, it was too late for anything.
Six flinched as the Doppelganger’s hand stopped short above her face. But that was as far as he could move as an invisible barrier stood in between them. Then out of the sudden, he was hurled back violently, his body tumbling and rolling backwards until he was across the room. Six’s eyes never blinked then, flabbergasted as she watched the boy groan and pushed himself to sit up with a struggle. He sighed shallow breaths and whipped his head back to her, glaring daggers. Yet when he sprung to his feet and ran at her, he was pulled back again by the same force until he fell painfully to his rear.
And then she saw it.
Something dark lingering behind him. This something was far darker than his own shadows that was on the floor, far clearer that its form was distinguishable as another child, bearing the same face as her. Six’s lips parted in awe and shock.
It was her shadow—one that had been silent and dormant until now.
The Doppelganger made a choked sound as the shadow held him in a headlock. His hands clawed at the shadow’s arm with strong vigor, his feet kicked at the floor in futility, and his strained face remained angry and red.
“He lies,” the shadow’s whisper echoed to her as it stared at her black-streaked face. “You’ve long become their puppet as you sleep, Six.”
“Get out,” the Doppelganger hissed.
Then the shadow’s form started to flicker in and out. The Doppelganger screamed in sheer rage.
“GET OUT! GET OUT! GET OUT!” His voice boomed like thunder, sending the room to quake and its lights to die until it returned to its dim state. The shadow burst into a cloud of smoke immediately. And that left the Doppelganger to be free from its strong chokehold, and Six to stare at the scene with horror in her heart and mind. However, she wasn’t afraid because of him. She wasn't afraid of the way the Doppelganger shot her a nasty, threatening glare. She wasn’t afraid from the way he balled his hands into fists that turned his knuckles white as he breathed in anger. She wasn’t afraid that death was watching her from across the room with bruises all over his face.
No, this fear inside of her—it'd come from the words of her shadow:
You’ve long become their puppet as you sleep.
The Doppelganger had lied to her. And she had only been fooled to believe him. Because this fight that he pulled her in—the agreement of the rewards and losses from her side—they were nothing but lies. Nothing but a false hope and choice to expel the eyes that weren’t leaving her even if she’d won. Nothing but a trick for them to kill her ultimately by the hands of a Doppelganger that was much overpowered and stronger than her. Nothing but a simple mockery for her stubborn mind as they made her believe she could win too, that her odds were as good as his when she was given the dagger. But in actuality, she wouldn’t have won with or without a weapon.
She was already under the Eye’s control even if she thought she was fighting them back this whole time. This place wasn’t the true reality more than it was
Her own mind prison.
The Doppelganger had lied to her; and she believed him foolishly when he implied she stood a chance.
For in truth, this was only a fight she was never meant to win from the start.
Notes:
Did you notice the parallel between Six and Mono's POV? There's not much of anything new regarding the fighting stuff, but Six's POV of the fight is important for the next chapter. Because guess who'll go back and forth to help these two solve their problems 😎
Next chapter will be the shadow's POV again and will focus heavily on Mono and Six (Sorry Viola).
Thanks for reading!
Chapter 61: Destruction
Notes:
Hello helloo. This chapter was meant for last Sunday but I wasn't loving EVERYTHING. And rushing a chapter with rushed writing is the last thing I want to do, so I hope the few days delay was okay.
And aside from the rushed chapter excuse, there's another reason.
That being today is the fic's 3rd anniversary (don't ask me what happened to the second, I missed it last year 😭)! So yeah, I can't miss it again as I'm hoping this will be the last anniversary I'll get to mention on a chapter update. But never mind that. I'd like to thank everyone A LOT for reading the story and those who stayed even if the updating schedule was crap. Like seriously, it means a lot. I don't even know how to make this update special for you LMAO. So I hope a continuation of the plot is enough.
Anyhoo, have shadow Six's POV again.
[WARNING]
Mild violence, small body horror, claustrophobia, mild language
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
The Doppelganger had always hated the shadow or whatever that came of Six’s curse. The shadow took no offense to this as it was nothing new.
The Eye’s whole shtick was them correcting errors and interferences that came to their cycle, and the shadow was exactly the latter. A risky interference to their plans—that is if the said plan involved consuming the minds of billions of people on this dead planet, controlling their lives to benefit the Eye’s power status with only a broadcast of a deadly signal; then it was nothing worth the bother. None of this animosity between them would’ve even happened. The shadow would only live in its host quietly and would let the Eye do whatever they pleased—kill a few children, destroy the grounds like a landslide, it really couldn’t care any less.
But the Eye then did something that the shadow truly couldn’t let slide; and they’d trespassed the shadow’s territory.
The Eye crossed the sacred line, and in return they started a war with the curse, all for their own motives that the shadow never cared for. Goals the shadow would never bother itself with just for the sake of “righting” the wrongdoings of their actions. Because all that mattered was its home, for Six’s body to be clear of any other anomalies than the curse which soon became a piece of herself.
The curse had staked its claim first.
So, for the Eye to invade Six’s mind and soul, multiplied themselves into a thousand more to overpower the shadow’s influence, that was foul play. For them to drive the shadow out every time it re-entered Six’s consciousness, that was the last straw. The shadow’s patience had been exhausted long enough. Six’s body was not theirs to puppet, nor was her mind a playground for them to steer her into moving how they wanted her to move.
“He lies,” the shadow said to its host while closing off the air of the bastard clone. “You’ve long become their puppet as you sleep, Six.” Under its touch, thrashed the Doppelganger like his plans had been ruined ultimately.
“Get out,” he hissed.
The shadow lingered to spite him, no matter if his single command brought down a heavy weight over the shadow’s form until its arms and body flickered like dying light. No matter if the sounds of squelching meat came close from beyond the darkness, or if the invisible stares of the watching eyes tugged at the shadow’s body to release their Doppelganger.
The shadow growled through gritted teeth. The eyes Mono had forced out of Six wasn’t enough for the shadow to stay and fight against. There were still strong ones that held on to Six as if they’d sunken their claws deep.
“GET OUT! GET OUT! GET OUT!”
His screams of fury imploded in the shadow’s ears. Its fight ended with its body disintegrated into black smoke, drifting in the Transmission air until its whole form returned standing a few feet away from the crazed Six. The Eye had sent it out again. Back in the room covered with roots of flesh up and down the walls; back to where the shadow had left Mono frozen at the sight of his friend’s condition now.
Despite being shooed out of its rightful place, the shadow did not feel any sense of defeat. It had lost, yes, but there was something about the whole reaction from the Doppelganger that made it think. For one, the clone’s reaction had been one of surprise and disbelief at first before he lashed out. Second, his desperation for the shadow to leave immediately was too obvious, as though a second longer of the shadow staying behind meant Six’s control would automatically be transferred to the curse’s hands. Perhaps it might just. Or perhaps Mono’s evil twin wasn’t as strong as he’d made Six believe.
A rare smile grew on the shadow’s lips when a revelation came. Could that be it then? Could the Doppelganger possess no actual harm to her? Could the Eye be deceiving Six with threatening “attacks” so that she would react to it in her mind? Just so her real body would follow along to accidentally hurt herself? Did they mimic Mono’s movements in real life so perfectly to use it as a leverage for the Doppelganger in Six’s mind? Make her believe he was aiming the dagger to her throat when in truth she was doing it herself? How smart. How bold.
If the Eye believed they could take over Six’s perception, just to end her life for their boring reasons, then they believed in a stupid thing. The shadow would reclaim its host by force; and it would make sure all eyes were removed from her thoroughly this time.
The shadow appeared over Mono’s frozen figure. It spared him its cheeky smile before gently holding his shoulder. It lowered itself to his ear and whispered his name.
“Do it again,” the shadow said.
Mono had tensed under its ghostly touch with wide eyes. “Huh?” he said.
Stupid boy. The shadow turned its gentle grip into an iron one, clamping his arm and pulling him up to his feet without warning. The boy let out a terrified shriek, all the while eyeing at the empty space beside him—the harsh grip holding his sleeve by literal air.
The same air moved him forward.
“Wait—GHOST!” Too late. The shadow shoved him to Six and released him a second later. Betrayal in his eyes, Mono crashed into his friend who had attempted to run away in a fit of fear and desperation. Of course, it took him a while to understand the purpose of the shove, given he had blushed instantly and thrown sputters of apologies to the girl who wasn’t in control to even hear him.
“S-Six, I am so sorry,” he said as his hands caged her. Six reacted with a snarl on her face and threw her arm at his chest, shoving him off. And at that second was when his narrow mind understood what needed to be done all along
The shadow was close to puppeteering his movements for him. How could it take him this long to figure out? He was wasting precious seconds!
Mono reached his hand out to Six just as she sprung to her feet. He called her name, but Six did not hear him—or perhaps the real one stuck in her own mind had other problems to defeat i.e. the Doppelganger. The shadow was certain that bastard was mimicking Mono’s movements now, albeit portraying them in a less friendly, concerning manner, and more to an ill-intent and murderous one. The fear she held was too great that the shadow could sense it, too strong that even her mismatched eyes could not hide that raw emotion.
A pity. Six always prided herself with her courage after all.
The shadow scowled when the girl managed to slip through Mono’s fingers and escaped through the door. The same scowl then redirected to Mono at his failure to catch her.
Amazing. He had one job. Must it really guide him for his every move?
Mono shouted Six’s name again as he raced after her with a clearer desperation to get her back. He followed where she’d left and only managed a glimpse of her yellow raincoat before they disappeared behind a corner. He ran the same way but found only an empty corridor waiting ahead of him, splitting into at least three more routes that showed no signs of the girl. He took a few steps forward hesitantly yet without a choice.
That was when small footsteps echoed behind him.
One sharp turn of his head and there Six was, running the opposite direction where she hadn’t turned to. Mono let his eyes blink a few times. He huffed a short breath and ended up deciding to follow her anyway, despite the whole situation seeming off and strange. It was as a matter of fact. It took no brainer to know that The Signal Tower was as twisted as the creature living in it. Because every route Mono saw Six run in, another figure in a yellow raincoat appeared from the corner of his eyes, taking a different direction than the one he’d followed. And when he spared a glance to his prior path, the girl had already disappeared, leading him to believe the one who appeared magically in the opposite direction was the Six he was chasing after.
The shadow saw it all on his face—the doubts that ran through his mind whether all of it was an illusion, or if he was foolishly walking into a trap set by the Eye themselves.
Neither was the case, the shadow could tell him to help his troubled mind. But throughout the whole time, it decided to listen more to the heavy breaths and thumping heart of its host. Even with the Eye purposely shifting the walls of the corridors like a moving maze—to make the curse lose Six’s trail and lose the war altogether—the shadow listened carefully. It closed its eyes, composed, when her soul became a faint sense yet every time the shadow managed to relocate her with success nonetheless. The curse was a part of Six as she was a part of it after all. No number of parasitic eyes in her could change that.
Mono halted in his steps finally. The shadow stood not far from him and followed his gaze to the stretching corridor ahead of them. One dull door remained at the end of it, looking tiny in the distance that it made Mono gulp openly at the very long walk. This was where he had last seen Six made a sharp turn to. And behind that door was where the shadow could feel her soul fighting the most. This was it. The movements of her soul stopped whatever lies beyond the far entrance and the shadow could almost see Six cowering somewhere.
The shadow shifted to its tool boy. His hesitance screamed louder here…as well as it did in his voice.
“Ghost…?” he said above whisper. “Are you there?”
The shadow rolled its eyes. Conversations were always a tiresome thing and for Six to have to endure it for days was a wonder to the shadow.
“Is…Did Six really go through here?” he asked when the shadow returned him its silence. The air buzzed constantly with faint television static, and with him talking to himself the sound became twice as louder.
“Look, I get you’re not a fan of talking, but could you just, I don’t know— tell me? Unless you don’t know either, which I’m pretty sure you do. Right?”
Nothing.
And then still nothing.
Mono scoffed and added, “I’m only asking because Six is on a time-limit with her…suicidal game. This looks like a long walk and I wouldn’t want to waste any more time reaching the end of this corridor, and then only to find out she never even went through here—” A light shove from behind sent him staggering forward, the shadow answering accordingly.
Mono snapped his head behind him with wide eyes, all sass and confidence replaced with surprise and his original fear of the invisible ghost. He gulped again.
“Right. Okay. Cool—thanks,” he said firmly, albeit his face paler than usual. Then he continued straight into the long corridor. The shadow stayed behind and stood watching.
Mono heaved a trembling breath, probably from the earlier jump scare, but that fear of his soon stayed for a different reason entirely. That being: the corridor seemed almost never-ending. His head darted warily back and forth left to right as time went on. He looked over the dull concrete walls that hid hundreds of eyes behind it—the less he knew the better—then he turned back to the door. The wooden door that remained tiny in the distance. How long could a corridor stretch for? How far away was the door that it still looked small from where he was?
The walls around him became closer.
He stopped in his tracks. And started taking wary steps after a few seconds. The walls still appeared closer to him; and even closer the more he walked. His slow walk that turned into a jog, then into a sprint and finally into a full-blown run. Mono ran straight without stopping even as the corridor indeed shifted from wide into a narrow one. He locked his focus on the door that still seemed miles away with how awfully tiny it was. The ground he stepped on inclined gradually until it became steeper like a hill. And the ceiling that was high above him lowered too, first brushing against his head before it pressed on him further like a pressing machine, leaving him no choice but to bend his knees into a sudden crawl. His so-called “running to the end” plan became a failure. With walls on either side of him, cramping him the more he crawled fast ahead, Mono halted abruptly with a tense body.
His breaths became labored and shaky. He slammed his palm against the walls as though to push it away from him, however, to no avail. He whimpered quietly and his eyes grew wide as the panic in them spread through his entire movements.
Mono did not move. Despite the door being in front of him in the distance, he stayed stuck in place battling his agitated mind. And it seemed like the longer he was in the cramped corridor-turned-tunnel, the more difficult it was for him to move at all. When he did move, however, he retreated immediately a few feet back to where the walls weren’t pressing on him.
The shadow saw his struggle with a sigh through its nose. From what it had observed through Six’s eyes as it’d laid dormant in the past, it had noticed the fear that flickered in his eyes whenever they were to enter a small, enclosed space. It remembered, though, every time he’d immediately covered the slip-up with a look of indifference—or even better and rare, a tight smile that was so obvious was forced. He kept the whole issue low and untouched; Six didn’t bring it up if she knew, perhaps for irrelevant reasons the shadow did not care for.
Yet now as he was faced again with his fear without someone as a witness—someone he was aware watching him, that is—no mask was needed for him to put on to convince them he was fine. Which clearly, all along, he wasn’t and hadn’t been. It became clear to the shadow then and there the more cramped the tunnel became further up, the more he failed at fighting his own mind. It confirmed the shadow’s thoughts when he stayed frozen, refusing to be stuck in the narrowest place he’d ever been.
Mono was afraid of tight spaces.
The shadow knew nothing else would snap him out of reliving his past trauma other than removing him out of the tunnel. But the only way for that to happen was if he moved himself—opened the door ahead of him and escaped through. The shadow could not force him to move with a cruel shove while in his panic-stricken state; it would end badly for him and waste the shadow’s time.
Time.
They had not much time left to waste over things like this. The Eye could be conjuring up illusions in Six’s head and using them to further weaken her will until they could take over completely. Or they could also be waiting for Mono’s appearance for the Doppelganger to mimic, then make her believe everything she did was in self-defense when in truth it was self-harm. Yet given the circumstances now, the former turned out to be the most plausible strategy for the Eye to win. The shadow couldn’t let that happen.
The shadow watched Mono as he sighed sharply, his eyes now shut.
It seemed he would never move without help. And help the shadow would if it meant him alive and functional to prevent the Eye from getting rid of Six.
The shadow shifted easily through the walls and appeared on the other side of the…pathetically tiny door. It nearly scoffed. No wonder Mono believed the distance to be so far away—the size of the door was as small as it looked. Utterly deceiving as the Eye’s entire personality. The shadow dropped to its knee and let its hand hover over the tiny doorknob. It pushed in its hand with a slow wave, mimicking twisting the knob like its touch were real.
A short click. And the tiny door creaked opened slowly as though the wind had blown past it, then to the boy who looked up immediately at his made exit.
Mono’s fear dwindled as realization of the actual distance between him and his way out was, in reality, not that much. But going forward meant that the walls around him would tighten around his lithe body even more. Going towards the door meant he would have to be under a greater nightmare before escaping it entirely. The look on his face spoke better than his words ever could. The shadow tilted its head to get a clearer view of him, biting back a grin when he looked so small and curled up. Like a hamster curled up inside a cylinder.
Mono was no hamster, of course. He was the shadow’s most important and only chess piece on the board. Having him off of it was an immediate loss.
“Come,” the shadow said. Mono’s head perked up instantly and he bonked his head on the ceiling.
Amusing.
“G-Ghost?” he uttered with a wince. Then as though he was conscious of his fear and himself, he put on a strained smile the shadow was certain it must've taken everything in him to even keep it steady. “You...you opened the door for me? Hah. Who—who would’ve thought the door was actually this small—”
“You’re afraid.”
Mono’s forced smile faltered with his false act of bravery. “...Afraid?” He huffed in nervous, his shoulders rolling uncomfortably, his face a grimace. “No, I’m not. You’re afraid.” When the silence stretched longer than before, he dropped his smile and turned his head to the sides.
“Look, I...” he said, grimacing again, “I’m only having a bit of...trouble to move, okay? I didn’t expect for the corridor to be this cramped is all, so I just...can’t move as fast.” Then he looked at the door where the shadow waited. And despite his eyes incapable of seeing it, he stared at its face like he could.
As if the shadow was his only living friend now in the world.
Then in a painful whisper, his voice trembled with real fear:
“It’s too...small. The tunnel.” He heaved a half breath and shook his head. “I’m sorry—I...I can’t. I can’t do it, Ghost. I can’t go any further than where I am now.”
“And if you stay, Six will die,” the shadow said. “Is that what you want?”
His brows furrowed and his lips thinned, Mono gulped again in dread. “N-no,” he said.
“Do you want the Eye to win this battle; let them succeed in scaring you away like this?”
He shook his head. “No...”
"Do you want Six to be killed by them because you were too late?”
The look in his eyes shifted. His back stood straighter at the shadow’s words, the muscles in his shoulders tensed from the possibility of it alone. Because that was another one of his fears too, wasn’t it? Losing Six again? The shadow knew it needed to thread carefully with its next message. For if the Eye decided to use Mono’s fear of enclosed spaces to chase him away, the shadow would merely use the same tactic; and it would use his fear of loss to get him back on the path.
The curse refused to lose this war.
“No,” Mono answered.
“And will you let Six hurt herself as you’re not there to stop her, if you let your fear consume you now?”
This time his eyes hardened fully, seeming determined and poised. His voice, too, was loud and firm.
“No.” He shook his head again with a tight frown. “I won’t.”
A winning smile ghosted over the shadow’s lips when Mono’s posture became one of confidence, his fear of being trapped forever in the tunnel easily overpowered by his fear of never seeing Six again. It worked. And although his trauma never quite left him—and some of his reluctance to crawl through the tunnel until the end remained—he no longer was frozen or shut down as before. Right now, he looked eager to actually get to the other side. To get to Six and save her from death he knew the Eye had promised to bring her.
“Mono,” the shadow called to him and reached out its hand inside the tunnel, “move forward.”
He stared past the shadow’s extended hand with a last trembling breath. And with his hands clenched into fists, Mono began his first move towards the narrow tunnel. It was slow when he started his crawl again, the remnants of his fear undoubtedly chewing his insides as he breathed heavily like before. However, he didn’t freeze. Despite realizing how the walls were pressing at his shoulders, the ceiling gradually lowering to his back until he had to lay on his front, Mono forced his way through and dragged himself to the shadow.
He let out a quiet cry. He scowled and let the fear turn into something akin to anger—and anger was a good drive. The shadows only watched him as his short halt in the tunnel turned into a stronger push towards the door. And he dragged himself to it with hope, with desperation, and with need to save Six.
The shadow snatched his collar once he was within reach. Mono, taken by surprise, only blinked with a shriek as he was dragged out much faster to the other side. And once out, he laid in the open space, heaving long breaths of air. The shadow let him recuperate. After all, it had won the first battle of the war by bringing him here: in the room where Six’s presence drowned its senses heavily, the sound of her heart beating like drums somewhere within the dimness of the blue glow casted over them.
A new field to fight? Wretched signals abusing the air particles to purposely leave the shadow flickering every now and then? How thoughtful. The shadow could scoff many times with how unfair the Eye was playing the game, but them playing dirty was something the shadow had predicted long before Mono’s arrival. The curse listened closely to its host’s breathing. It could feel her somewhere— just somewhere —in this abandoned, old room, hiding and cowering and waiting.
She was waiting.
The shadow snapped its eyes up to the single wall in the distance, her crouching silhouette behind it. Invisible to the naked eyes, but not the shadow’s. Never the shadow’s.
The shadow left Mono behind and shifted through the wall without a word. The boy would be fine, it knew. Despite him slowly getting back up to his feet and lost in the context of where to go at all, Mono would do just fine on his own if nothing else were to mess with his fragile head. Six, on the other hand, was to be the shadow’s priority all along. With the first goal checked—the shadow’s medium successfully following his friend here—came the second goal: assessing just how much control the Eye had over Six, and how long the curse could break in before it was thrown out again.
On the other side of the wall, Six crouched waiting with her sides pressed closed against the brick. Her eyes were still mismatched from the aftermath of the parasite-expelling incident, although the crazed look in them never left. Her smiling alone in the darkness, holding what appeared to be a piece of board torn off the floor beside her, was the most unhinged she’d ever been. Six never needed to rely on such pathetic weapons if she had enough to last the curse, because the power flowing in her veins now? They were stronger than any knives or guns she’d ever wielded in her life. While the shadow detested the Eye for their audacity to use the curse’s magic like it was theirs, if positions were switched, it would’ve greatly used the advantage to win. It would’ve easily done far more damage than whatever the Eye had done so far.
Or if it were to do it the Eye’s way—summon another dagger and do the job quickly.
But that was not the case now it seemed.
True that the Eye had Six under their influence, forcing her to rip apart the floorboards like a beast until it left a hole and damages in its wake, there was so much one could do with a little child whose energy and willpower that had been exhausted. So much one could do to further exhaust an already exhausted body. The dark bags that stood out from the streaks of black beneath her eyes; the twitch in the corner of her lips as she was forced to keep smiling like a maniac; how her arms trembled and her feet wobbled under her; the way the board in her grip kept on slipping, sliding down before she pulled them back up to her chest clumsily—it all told the shadow enough.
That Six’s body was beyond tortured.
Fatigue, and still running by the little eyes in her, to the point where even they could no longer push any powers out through her fingertips for self-made weapons.
The shadow narrowed its eyes as it understood. It seethed. How dare they? How dare they tear apart its host, kill her slowly anyway as the Doppelganger had none to mimic for now—to deceive her to hurt herself?
That clone bastard, the shadow thought, fuming as it went inside of Six with a touch to her shoulder.
The world blurred for a few seconds as reality shifted to the new prison Six was put in. The blue glow dimmed until it reached a different shade of color: red. And the bright yellow raincoat, waiting patiently with her backs to the wall, was a contrast that made her presence visible no matter if she hid further in the dark.
The real Six looked no different from the one the Eye had control of. She looked miserable, and she was shivering as if she was exposed to the weather of Pale City without her raincoat. The bags under her eyes stayed exactly the same. The piece of board she held was shaking in her hands. Six’s lower lip trembled, too, as the courage in her was reduced to a sad amount. Despite this, she still stayed her ground, listening to the echoing footsteps that appeared finally after a long while.
And his voice, it bounced off the walls until it reached her.
“Oh, Six,” the Doppelganger sang in the other room. “Where are you, you stupid bitch?”
Six held her weapon closer to her body, her eyes shut tight. The shadow dropped its cold gaze to its flickering hand.
“You know, I can even hear you from here. Loud and clear. Your every inhale of sharp breaths; your heart thumping loudly in your ribcage—your thoughts screaming that you aren’t ready to die.” A crash in the other room. Six flinched but made no sound. His voice became louder soon, his footsteps closer. “Believe me, Six, you will die. Whether you want it or not, I will kill you and make sure you choke on your own blood. Just as soon as I find you.”
The shadow gritted its teeth in silent discomfort, the tugging sensation becoming unbearable once the Doppelganger made his appearance into the room. It looked at the boy who’d walked past Six’s hiding place, then it looked back at its hand that flickered more than before.
A few seconds, the shadow thought with a frown. The small blob of eyes she expelled is worth a few seconds of staying in. A few seconds to understand the deception they show her and prevent it in the true reality.
A soft shuffle came from beside the shadow. It looked up only to see Six gone from her place. She had left the shadow’s side just as the Doppelganger walked deeper into the room with his back turned foolishly, yet the fool wasn’t the Doppelganger for he was nothing else but a mimic. The fool in question was the one mimicked. Six didn’t know it yet. And of course, she wouldn’t with the way she adjusted the board in her hand to be raised slowly. Each of her steps were calculated, muted as she snuck across the carpet and to the Doppelganger who glanced around with no clue. Her mismatched eyes showed nothing but deep hatred and vengeance. She held in her breath the closer she was behind him.
Alas, another step from her left the shadow flickering one last time, a sudden pang in its core pushing it back to the real world.
The room glowed blue.
Mono stood above the carpet floor as the Doppelganger did, but instead of the mockery and bitterness from the latter, the real boy wore the opposite on his face. Concern latched itself to him like glue, laced heavily in his voice as he called weakly for Six to come out. It wasn’t the smartest move in the shadow’s eyes, but given his nature to worry obsessively over his friends, the shadow wasn’t in position to chide. After all, time was short for them all. Mono was nothing more but a mere tool for it, a remedy for the situation the shadow could not cure on its own.
Losing him would mean losing the battle—losing its host. The shadow could afford neither of that.
The shadow pushed Mono’s head down as Six swung the board over his head. The pure shock on his face was palpable, his eyes so wide as though the suddenness of the attack could push them right out of their sockets.
Mono fell off balance and stumbled to the floor. Six’s board thudded against the carpet next to him. She growled at the miss.
“Coward,” she said, raising the board again like wielding an axe. But if anyone knew anything about axes, it was Mono.
From the weight of its handle to the heavier end, dragging it down across the floor—it was no easy feat to lift it above your head as if it was a mere racket. The board in Six’s hand was long and large, though it was still thick for it to have a significant weight for her to handle. And from the way even her body protested against the heaviness of the board, it was no puzzle to figure out Six would lose her strength for every lift and smash she did with it.
“Six, wait—!” The board was brought down on him again. Mono rolled in time. Though, he barely got on his knees as Six soon succeeded landing a hit at his sides with the board’s flat surface.
A pained cry escaped him along with his breath pushed out from his lungs. He winced through gritted teeth and clung to his right ribs, his elbows and knees propping him up weakly.
Yet the sound of the board scraping against the wood snapped him out of his dazzled mind.
He had only a second to move before Six’s strength was used against her will again; and she inflicted another damage on him with the board. He managed to catch the edge of the board aimed for his neck in time.
Six sneered at him and used his current position to further tire him out. She kicked on the surface of the board until it flattened him on his back. Mono made a choked sound. His hold on the board loosened ever so slightly that his next breath became nearly impossible. His arms fought against the weight with all his strength, but Six had the upper hand as she only stepped on the board harder.
“S...Six...!”
Her lips tugged upwards and wide. “Oh, Mono. How many times do we need to tell you?” she said and pressed the board again with her foot. “Your Six is gone.”
“She’s not…my Six!” The weight over his throat lessened. Invisible hands pressed itself underneath the board and upwards to his aid and support.
Six’s mismatched eyes widened; her lips parted slightly in surprise. Her foot lifted just a tad only to stare at the space above his head.
And that was all that was needed—a moment for her to be caught off-guard.
Mono spat into her face.
Same trick Six had used on him during their first reunion in The Maw, same reaction appeared across her face now as it had for him—plain disgust and sheer fury.
Instantly, Six screamed in anger and recoiled from him with the heels of her palm pressed into her assaulted eyes, her assaults long forgotten as her vision was compromised greatly with his saliva.
And she dropped to her knees with her back turned, distracted.
It was perfect, the shadow thought. Because as soon as Six busied herself with being revolted and wiping her black-streaked skin like it was on fire, Mono made his move immediately. Granted with only seconds of freedom to breathe, he shoved the board off his neck and never let it go after that. Instead, he gripped the ends on the board like it were an actual axe and took claim of it as his own, wielding it much easier with his better strength compared to Six’s.
He knew what he must do. The shadow had told him clearly before.
Mono drew his lips into a thin line, shifting the thick board in his hands as his eyes hardened, watching the growling girl still rubbing her eyes distracted. His angry gaze didn’t stay for the real her but no matter the reluctance he bore, he still tightened his hold over the board as if he were a mere executioner with no say in who should or shouldn’t be executed.
“Save her,” the shadow said when it saw a hint of hesitation residing in his eyes.
Those two words made his breath hitched; his brows furrowed deeply. And those words alone were the final push that drove him to raise the board in the air
And slam it hard across Six’s back.
It was a fact Mono possessed a stronger physique rather than its host. Because one hit from him, the blow it caused sent Six forward so quickly she barely made a sound. The strike was sudden and utterly powerful that the eyes in her had no time to steer her body away from the wrong kind of hit; and the result was as successful as it was terrifying.
A new, bigger blob of blinking eyes flew past her mouth after she was struck in the back. It bounced off the floor and rolled to the walls like a ball thrown at high speed, miniscule hundred eyes popping open and close rapidly in what seemed to be panic and angry blinks.
Then and there, the shadow felt something shift in its host.
The locks around Six’s mind loosened, a few dozens of bricks crumbled from their barricades pathetically. And then Six laid nearly limp on the floor—her fingers twitching, her head lulling to the side, and her soft whimpers of pain leaving her as she became motionless. No doubt it caused the boy standing behind her to have his heart cracking and faltering like his entire face.
The shadow did not care for it.
It manifested in front of Six’s laying form and immediately entered its home again.
Red returned to colour the room, flickering like a single dying bulb as the blue glow stayed beyond Six’s weakened state. The shadow sat on one knee with its cold gaze down to the girl in front of it. Like her outside body, Six was on the ground defeated. Her eyes were half-lidded, cheeks seemingly sunken and pale the longer she endured the stares of the thousand parasites without breaks or a means to escape from it. She whimpered again in that pathetic losing voice.
The shadow narrowed its eyes at her in near disappointment. Where was the fighter she claimed herself to be? Where was the Six that would never admit defeat even as her next breath was her last? Where was her resilience and desire to end the Doppelganger once and for all?
The shadow shook its head lightly with a tut.
Right.
Half of her strengths and determination had already been eaten away, whereas the other half lied within the shadow. They needed each other after all. And if the shadow was disappointed as it looked at its host now, perhaps its true disappointment wasn’t for her, rather it was for the Doppelganger who sat a distance away with an arm around his abdomen; and a strained look about him. Like he wanted to drop dead and kill everything in his way simultaneously.
“You again,” the Doppelganger hissed, glaring. He stood slowly with a quiet wince, nonetheless adamant to show his dislike to the shadow’s presence. “What are you doing in Six’s mind, you wretched curse? You know you don’t belong here.”
“It is you who don’t belong,” the shadow replied bitterly. “This body is mine.”
A snort left the Doppelganger. The shadow wanted to kill him and their audience that watched from afar.
“Yours? Please. Stupid curse, Six is ours to do whatever we liked for the Cycle to prevail! Her body is only a shell the Eye owned to carry out the necessary duties—to rid the stubborn souls who refuse to submit to the broadcast. You, on the other hand,” the Doppelganger with a menacing step to the shadow, “are just an accessory. You’re nothing but an assist for Six to make her job easier.”
“Well, I hardly care what you think I am, puppet. Your Cycle means very little to me as your existence as a whole being; and I couldn’t care less what you do at all in your spare times. It isn’t my concern. The only thing that does concern me, however, is how you’re trespassing my territory. This isn’t your place and you know it.”
“Again, I say—stupid curse ,” the Doppelganger mocked and huffed with his chin raised slightly. “I just told you, not even a minute ago, about Six belonging to us from the start. Is that so hard to understand in a single hearing?” He feigned a gasp.
“Wait,” he said, a cheeky grin on him, “you do understand the language we speak in, don’t you? Was I too quick for you to catch up? Oh! Forgive me! I forget sometimes curses are just this slow when it comes to basic communication.”
“Perhaps. Although, clearly, not any slower than your journey to acquire power. It has been a few centuries, has it not?”
The Doppelganger’s grin quickly became a sneer. “A century…is nothing to the Eye. Just as it’s nothing to you, I’m sure. Given you’ve been living in the same host for decades.”
“Correct. I’m glad you consider it a fact enough that we could establish Six’s body is mine to inhabit,” the shadow said with a mirroring tone. “Now, for the last time, release Six and leave at once. You’ve already caused enough damage for me to fix alone; you’ve already proven yourself to be a worthy nuisance. Unless you wish to be on the losing team for once, do not tempt me to return your destruction tenfold.”
He scoffed with furrowed brows.
“Destruction, you say?” The Doppelganger laughed so boisterously that it echoed like an annoying siren. “Great Eye—Curse, you adorable little fool. What the Eye’s been doing this entire time is not destruction. It is a correction! I’m afraid we will stay here until no errors are left unchecked. So you can just, you know, kiss your old home bye-bye.”
The shadow felt its eyes narrow into dangerous slits, its fingers twitching over its urge to “correct” that clone’s face into bloodied mush instead. It had been patient long enough. It had tried ending the war in peace. The Doppelganger—the Eye—clearly yearned the opposite of such as he continued to smile at the shadow like he’d already won. As if he knew the right words to trick the shadow as he had with Six into making the first move to attack, provoke it enough as though its buttons were put on display for him to push aggressively. The shadow was irritated and provoked, true, but it wasn’t an emotional fool. That was what the Doppelganger failed to understand.
No matter how angry the shadow was—no matter how thrilled, joyous, murderous, vengeful, annoyed—its capability to feel would always return to flatline. Clearly. The shadow was a curse, after all. It learned and imitated Six’s emotions when it had resided in her, but a curse was still only a curse. It never truly felt anything like its host did when she’d been remorseful of her actions towards Mono. It’d felt the tightness in Six’s soul when she was teased and provoked by Mono constantly, yet it didn’t feel her anger and annoyance for itself. It’d felt the sweet warmth blooming like a flower as Six had blushed in secret from something Mono did, but that warmth was always empty. It’d felt Six’s hurting heart, her disappointment and sadness as she was cruelly abandoned by Viola, nonetheless the stabbing hurt felt closer to a poke.
Most of the time, if not all of the time, these things did not matter. The shadow had only one thing of true importance; and that was its living condition—its host. And if Six used the curse’s powers to survive, it would lend them happily with the condition the power shall be restored. Failure to do so…
That was when the shadow came out to play.
And play it would, until the problem was solved by its own hands; kill it would, if it meant the Doppelganger and the eyes leaving Six’s body for good.
“Alright, puppet,” the shadow said. Then, in challenge to the Doppelganger, it smiled at him the same smile Six had used against Mono in the past.
“Destruction it is.”
Notes:
There ya go. Shadow Six and Doppelganger roasting each other 💀
We'll continue the final battle of getting Six back in the next chapter with Mono's POV and the shadow's. Or maybe Six's too (Viola is still stuck in a horror movie sorry not sorry)
Thanks for reading!
Chapter 62: Puppets: Part 1
Notes:
Hello, here's a chapter.
Also I bailed on writing shadow Six's pov. Too hard 😭
[WARNING]
Violence, blood, body horror, Doppelganger being mean
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
As Six dropped to the floor, it occurred to Mono immediately the severity of the situation and what he had done. Sure, Ghost had told him to save her; and he too just happened to be holding the piece of board Six had tried to kill him moments before—but what in the world was he thinking? What on Earth had he actually done? Why did he listen blindly to a command that came from someone he couldn’t even see with his own eyes?
It was to save her, he kept telling himself. It was to get the eyes out of her, he reasoned when the crack in his heart spread wider at the sight of the motionless, yellow-raincoat girl in front of him.
Of course, Mono was an idiot. A horrible human being that had ever lived. An unworthy scum that had no right to call himself a friend of Six’s when he struck that board across her back as if she was a piñata. How could he even live with himself now that she laid there almost half dead? She was half dead, he was sure. All because of him; and his stupidity that made him act without thinking!
He shook his head as he covered his mouth with one hand, while the other merely a trembling limb that held a murder weapon that killed his first ever friend.
What have I done? His eyes dropped to her practically corpse of a body. What have I done? What have I done? What have I done?
“S…Six?” he uttered weakly, his hand lowering a little. “Are you… still alive?” he whispered.
Six did nothing. Responded nothing.
Then and there, the ache in his chest invited another long-term friend to join in the party: panic. Mono panicked like he had never panicked before. He panicked as if he was the one that was on the brink of death. This feeling of emotional agony, the turmoil that also came with it the longer he stared at Six’s back and her lack of movements—it all became unbearable and too strong for him to handle. He hurled the stupid board across the room and scrambled next to her.
She’s dead. She’s dead and it’s all my fault. I should’ve never hit her that hard. I should’ve just done what I did before in that creepy, flesh room. I should’ve just—
All thoughts were muted the instant he flipped her over and saw the colour of her skin. Which is to say, there was none. Just seconds after she endured the harsh strike from him, seconds after she fell into a state of comatose, her face was drained utterly as though blood had seeped out from her through an invisible tube. Her lips had taken a darker hue; a blueish colour that only came to be when the person in question was on their deathbed. The streaks of black that marred her skin, however, still grew unwelcomely under her cheeks and around her eyelids, a huge contrast that made her look as worse as her condition was. The bags under her closed eyes gave away her exhaustion that he was certain she had long reached past her limit. Just what was going on inside her head? What had the Eye done to her for her to look this way?
Worry came after him next. Like a bullet, this worry pierced through him that he could die. It hurt so badly that he fumbled about what to do next. He even forgot to breathe until he felt his lungs scream for much needed air.
“S-Six,” he said under his breath as he gently rested her head in his hands. He pulled her closer to him and listened for any tell-tale signs that indicated she was still alive.
There were none. No movements, no breathing—nothing. Mono’s eyes widened in greater consternation.
His gaze snapped back to her pale face. “Six? Can you hear me? Hey!” he spoke to her with a trembling voice. He tapped her cheeks lightly then, nonetheless desperate. Because truly his desperation for her to wake up at all was what drove him to press his left ear over her chest next.
No heartbeat.
“No,” he whispered, trying again. He listened closely for any weak thumps of her heart, waited for them to sound but alas he heard silence inside of her.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, Mono thought as his head shook in disbelief. He refused to believe it. How could he accept, for even a second, that Six had passed? That she was never going to wake up again and talk to him like she would before? And how Six was gone forever from his life until he was all alone again?
No.
Six couldn’t die.
If she did anyway, she was coming back. He would make her come back to him whether she wanted it or not. That, he was certain of.
“You’re alive, okay?” he said to her, albeit more so for his troubled mind and heart. “I’m bringing you back, Six. I promise. I’ll bring you back.” He put his hands over the other and placed them on her chest, near where her heart had stopped pumping. He steadied his own breaths quickly to focus on her again, stealing a glance at her sleeping face that potentially would forever stay asleep the more seconds ticked by.
Time was failing her. He wouldn’t let it fail him too.
So with all doubts screaming in his mind—the fear of screwing this up and failing Six and Viola—shoved to the deepest part of his brain, Mono made quick work to save his friend. He pushed the heel of his hands down and hard on her chest. At a steady pace, he continued to do so while glancing at her every few seconds. Six still wasn’t waking up. His brows furrowed deeper.
Why wasn’t it working? He swore this method was what he saw written in one of the Teacher’s books when he and Six snuck inside an empty classroom. While Six had busied herself reading whatever was left written in chalk across the blackboard, Mono had caught a glimpse of the pages that were marked on the Teacher’s desk. It had caught his curiosity, especially since the page had EMERGENCY written in bold letters. Of course, at the time it’d supposedly been ‘lunch break’. Even so, he never truly read everything in the bookmarked page out of fear of being too distracted, so he had only studied the pictures showing the said emergency method. And now here he was, using whatever memory he had of the same pictures and mimicking them like he actually had a clue of what he was doing. He wasn’t even sure if he was doing it right.
“Come on,” he grumbled as he pressed at her chest again and again.
And still nothing from her.
This wasn’t working. Six was not breathing and probably wouldn’t last any longer than a minute if her lungs continued to be deprived of air—
Another memory from the classroom entered his mind.
Air. Of course, she needed air. And in order to help her receive her supply of air, he remembered there was one part of the picture where the rescuer and the victim was—
His train of thoughts came to an abrupt halt. Then dismay filled him like water in a tub; his entire body felt hot but mostly in his cheeks, the strong determination to do anything to save Six from death easily dissolved into petty hesitations as he remembered clearly of the method’s next step:
Mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.
His arms became stiff as his whole body froze, his eyes dreadfully lowering to her lips again.
He was going to kill Viola once all of this was over.
He was going to smack her head, future daughter or not, for giving him a sneak peak of the disgusting thing he and Six did in adulthood.
Mono gagged suddenly when the image crossed his mind. He slammed his hand over his mouth.
No. Not a chance in hell. I am not doing it.
In any scenario at all, of course he wouldn’t. The thought of being close that way with Six was one thing, but to have to do it while she was dead unconscious? Six would undoubtedly wake up on her own to cut off his tongue. Which he deserved. Because no matter if it was in the name of reviving a friend from a possible death, having a mouth-to-mouth contact with her was still wrong. A crime. A breach of boundaries that they’d mutually set amongst the two of them.
Mono stared at Six’s pale face again. He crumbled into a heap of indecisiveness and defeat, clutching his hair in tight fists as he let his head plop on top of Six’s chest.
You useless trash, he berated himself. Your friend is dying in front of you and all you could think about is accidentally kissing her. You don’t even like her that way.
Viola’s words echoed to him on cue: “You’ll find the love in each other one day.”
He’d say, what a load of crap.
What love, exactly? Was it considered as ‘love’ when he and Six beat the hell out of each other? Was it love when they called each other names and insults that bruised the other’s pride and heart? Was he in love when he’d literally struck Six twice — the first with the hilt of the dagger and the second with the board—and let her deal with the pain he caused her?
Ridiculous.
All that he did for her was not done out of ‘love’, simply it was done out of friendship. A bond so pure and special that only two friends could share between each other. Some people—just that manipulative rascal, Viola—would tell him it was love anyway, which it obviously wasn’t. Because if he was ‘in love’ with Six, he himself would clearly be able to tell.
And did he like Six that way? Yes.
Wait.
No, he didn’t like her that way.
Six was a mean, egotistical girl with a height that was so pathetically short, and a figure so tiny he could fit her in his pocket and carry her around in them. She was also a grumpy toad that liked to show authority as though she was some queen and he, a random peasant. Nonetheless…
She was his grumpy toad—one that wasn’t breathing now and in desperate need of oxygen, and one that he knew he would lose if he fell deeper into his spiral of overthinking madness. And by God, he didn’t want to lose her. He wanted her back more than anything; for her to open her eyes again and roll them whenever he successfully annoyed her.
He wanted her to look at him with her genuine smile that sometimes genuinely creeped him out with how evil it somehow became. The subtle crinkle in her nose when she tried to hold in her annoyance, her small pout that was strongly manipulative, the way she lightly smacked his head when he brought too much stupidness out into the world—he wanted all of it back, he wanted her back.
And if it meant that he had to do the unspeakable, unforgivable, vomit-worthy of an act, then…
Fine. He’d do it. To save her life.
Mono sat back up to prepare himself accordingly, yet one look at her sleeping face
He crumbled again.
I can’t do this. Nope. I can’t, I can’t, I can’t, I can’t, I can’t, I can’t—
Irritated with himself, he groaned out of frustration. “Damn it!” he said and brought a fist down Six’s chest.
Her body jolted up and awake.
Six’s eyes snapped wide open as she sat upright, gasping a sharp breath and coughing immediately until black blood spurted out from her mouth.
Stunned and startled immensely, Mono had jumped back from her with a similar reaction. She’s alive became his first thought from seeing her very much awake and breathing again. But the sight of her mismatched eyes and the darkness rimmed around them like second skin, it made him wonder if Six was still even Six at all. He knew the fight wasn’t over when she clamped her mouth shut with both her hands as she gagged in futility. He had a feeling Six’s control wasn’t returned to her yet as whatever thick tentacle of flesh covered with blinking eyes that had slipped past her mouth, she forced them back down her throat. The final indication that this was not at all his Six was the way she looked at him after.
Six gulped down the foreign blob with her eyes locked on to him. The corner’s of her lips had tugged wide into a smile that left him shivering in horror. She wiped her mouth off the remaining blood, albeit its black colour smeared across her pale cheeks like messy artwork. And when she gave him a bigger smile, he saw how her teeth too had been coloured with the same blood.
“That was close,” Six said and giggled in a way the real her would never. Mono knew Six would never laugh like that. He remembered what her true laugh sounded like and it wasn’t this.
A cold presence stood behind him suddenly, making the hairs on the back of his neck stand despite already knowing what it was. Six, too, seemingly shared the same knowledge at the invisible being behind him, but her eyes were capable of seeing it unlike him. Her smile became a terrifying sneer as she shifted on her knees with her head tilted.
“Stay out, vermin,” Six said to the thing behind him, growling. “You’ve already lost. She belongs to the Eye!”
He felt Ghost’s aura shift into something dangerous that it affected him too. However, strangely so, Mono did not cower from it. No, he understood and related greatly to the energy radiated off of Ghost—the tension, the loss of patience, the pent-up anger. Mono felt it course through him all at once when Six became a puppet to the Eye again.
Frankly, he was fed up with it. And with a scowl that deepened across his face, Mono acted before Ghost asked him to.
He lunged after her, screaming.
“Destruction, it is,” Six heard her shadow say to the Doppelganger.
In her state of sheer vulnerability, weakness and lack of willpower, she could only lift her head and let it fall back with her cheek planted to the floor. She let her stinging eyes close shut, letting the last of her pride shed past her eyelids and linger in her lashes in a form of teardrops.
Everything was so exhausting. Everything in her was utterly shut down. She wanted to move and fight Mono’s imposter until the very end, give him a taste of his own medicine with her bare hands; and yet that desire to beat him became a crumpled dream. She couldn’t beat the Doppelganger. She was too weak—too stupid, too confident she could win.
Although she hadn’t expected for her shadow to appear when she was seconds away from death, nor its assistance to fight the Doppelganger in her place, Six hadn’t also expected the new information she received from the shadow.
You’ve long become their puppet as you sleep.
Was that the truth? Had she not been awake at all? Was she trapped inside the cages of her own mind while the Eye had already taken claim of her control and used it in the real world? Possibly. Or maybe a fact already she didn’t want to believe.
“Wait, wait—before you lay your disgusting remnants on me—a few ground rules should be laid out, don’t you think?” the Doppelganger voice echoed. He’d raised a hand to the shadow and gave a sweet smile. “For old times’ sake?”
The shadow maintained a threatening glare and said nothing. The Doppelganger’s shoulders dropped as his lips drew a line. He chuckled bitterly.
“Fine then. Don’t come crying to me if I accidentally killed your host if you landed a hit on me.”
“We both know that wouldn’t happen, puppet,” the shadow said firmly. “You are far too weak to bring her down with you.”
“Hm. We’ll see about that.” The Doppelganger flicked his wrist and the shadow’s form glitched before it was suddenly thrown across the room. The shadow’s eyes went wide at the Doppelganger, surprised. In return, the clone flashed it another cheeky smile, showing off the familiar black particles that swirled around his hand.
“You see? You would’ve known about my new ability if you’d agreed to establishing ground rules,” he said.
The shadow let out a low growl and reappeared behind him. The Doppelganger had been late to notice as the shadow dug its fingers into his eyes. And it pressed on them hard.
He cried in pain and anger, “Foul play!” The Doppelganger snatched the shadow’s wrists firmly to twist them off his assaulted eyes. Alas for him, that made the shadow fight twice as hard—climbing up his back like he was a tree, wrapping its arms around his neck until he struggled for short breaths, and continuing to dig its nails into the boy’s sockets that black blood streamed down his face. The Doppelganger staggered with the shadow on top of him. The shadow sunk its grip deeper to prolong his suffering.
“Release Six,” the shadow demanded.
“In your dreams!” The Doppelganger bent his back so that the shadow lost balance immediately. Hurled forward at a strong force, the shadow met the cold floor and rolled across the room until distance between them was created. It landed on its knees without a second of breath, quickly returning to its defensive stance and a glare across its face.
In the corner, Six laid uselessly like a broken toy. She watched in dreadful silence of the fight that’d taken place, gaping and furrowing her brows weakly whenever her shadow received a blow from the Doppelganger. The shadow never seemed to express any pain toward the damage that was done, albeit the way its limbs and figure flickered out of place, glitching slightly once or twice, proved that the shadow had been injured in some way by Mono’s monstrous twin.
Its form flickered again. The shadow spared a cold glance towards her with narrowed eyes.
Six barely lifted her chin off the floor when the Doppelganger’s cry cut through the silence like a record screech. It snatched the shadow’s attention back as well as Six’s as she expected for the worst to come.
Blood indeed had taken all over his pale complexion. Though the Doppelganger had no real eyes in the first place—only empty sockets—blood still poured through them like unstoppable tears. He wiped at them futilely, smeared them like paint, and made a bigger mess that the face he’d mimicked looked less like Mono; and more like the monster that he truly was.
“Joke's on you,” the Doppelganger said, snickering wryly as he wiped one side of his face with his sleeve. “You didn’t blind me for shit. I have a hundred eyes in me and a hundred more behind these walls—you ought to try harder than that!”
“I shouldn’t need to. Your blindness is preferable, although not at all my intention,” the shadow said as it slowly raised to its feet.
“Hah. Is that so? Tell me, what is it your intention, really? An act of revenge for stealing your host? For shooing you out right after like the vermin that you are? Or was it just you, having a little trouble accepting that a mere puppet has taken control of your powers and used them against you?” When the shadow fixed him with a colder stare, the Doppelganger laughed. “That’s it, isn’t it? You’re pissed off because the Eye not only has taken your host, but as well as the very essence of your existence! How fun this is!”
“Indeed, this has been a thrill. It’s a shame we must cut this short, though.”
He smirked smugly. “Is that an admittance of defeat from you, then?”
“No such thing. You’re sorely mistaken.”
“How so—?” A sharp gasp escaped the Doppelganger. His eyes grew wide at the multiple pikes that penetrated him in his chest from the front and back. The pikes made of the same darkness he’d wielded before, stretched long from beneath the floor to the top of his head, looming over him and keeping him in place like a set trap. The tip of the spears to the middle part of it was wet with the Doppelganger’s fresh blood; and while some spurted out of his mouth without warning, more poured out from the new wounds he received across his abdomen, sides and back.
Six gaped in both surprise and relief when the Doppelganger plunged to the ground with blood of blinking eyes pooling from underneath him. And all it took was the shadow’s command of its own powers to release the boy. The shadow had given a lazy nod towards the Doppelganger’s trap then; and immediately, the pikes retreated back into the floor, some of its black particles flying in the air like lingering dust.
“You forget a crucial detail, puppet,” the shadow said to the wheezing Doppelganger. “The powers you steal within Six to use against me is a borrowed energy. It still belongs to me.”
The Doppelganger shot the shadow a glare with whatever time he had left, his wheezes of agony pitifully coming into a slow halt as he breathed his last breath. And when he died, he died with wide eyes that no longer matched the smug, winner look he’d worn prior. Instead, the Doppelganger passed with a look of contempt and unfinished vengeance, albeit the latter being an unfulfilled promise as of yet.
Six couldn’t look away from him, alas. It wasn’t because of the face he’d stolen and died with, but it was because her heart was telling her that his death had been too easy. He was killed much too quickly, no matter if it’d been by the shadow’s hand, her rescuer at this point. Something did not sit right with her—Six could feel it strongly.
“Six,” the shadow’s voice whispered next to her. Startled and on edge, Six pushed herself away as far as she could, although her attempt for distance became pitiful as her limbs were still asleep. She still didn’t know what had caused the sudden pain on her back, nor why she felt nearly paralyzed and numb all over.
“Stay away,” she could only tell it. Fear clouded her mind despite the shadow playing the same team as her. Six raised her hand slowly with shaky breaths. “Just stay away from me.”
“We are out of time, Six,” the shadow said, frowning deeper. “You must wake up. Fight the eyes in you and regain your control.”
“And I’ve tried,” she replied, exasperated. “Everything I’ve done—everything I endured here—was to stop them. To stop him. It doesn’t work and it just never will. That clone bastard will always come back from his death until I am the next one dead!”
The shadow shook its head. “It will not happen. Your death.”
“Just take a look at me! I’m already half-way there!” Six heaved three more trembling sighs, her eyes stinging. Then she felt her cheeks become wet. “I don’t…I don’t understand what is happening to me. Every time I almost win against him, I…get hurt. Something invisible hits me out of nowhere, and so hard that I can’t move. It feels like I’m about to die then and there. And I just feel so…”
Her words died on her tongue, and as did her frustrations when the shadow’s glare softened at her abrupt silence. Like she was looking into a mirror, Six realized she wasn’t so much as angry anymore as she was
“Afraid,” the shadow finished.
Six found herself slowly nodding to it. Truly, she was afraid. So, so afraid of her written, albeit unknown fate. She was scared of losing, and she was scared that her loss meant the loss of the ones that knew her. She didn’t want to die as much as she didn’t want them to share the same ending as her.
Then, as if the shadow had understood the contents of her heart from only one glance, the shadow knelt closer to its host and gently rested the tip of its fingers under her chin, tilting it up as if to return her the confidence she’d lost to the Doppelganger.
“Use that fear, Six,” the shadow said. Its hands then squared her sagging shoulders, making her look stronger and determined to still win despite her admitting prior that she couldn’t. “Use it to throw the eyes out forever, just as Mono used his fear to save you.”
Her eyes widened as her lips parted slightly. Then came the memory of the blurred colours—the way they smoothly blended into his coat and skin, the muffled voice of his that refused to become clear to her ears, the desperation in his eyes that spoke clearer than any words she tried to understand from him.
Those weren’t an illusion.
What she saw was real; and she’d managed to jump out of her prison to take a peek of the real world.
“He’s…here?” Six asked while something in her fluttered.
The cold look returned to the shadow’s face as it casted a look over its shoulders, and to the bloodied boy that began to twitch and cough and breathe again. The shadow’s lips curled in disgust as it spoke the truth:
“He is him.”
Six’s eyes followed the shadow’s gaze and locked to the Doppelganger who began to move from his place. The pitch-black blood that pooled underneath him and smeared all over his front was a horrifying sight to see, but even more horrifying was the subtle blinks that she caught in the blood. He was still alive. Just as her gut had told her.
And it was obvious he was back to finish what he’d started.
“You bitch of a curse,” the Doppelganger said and spat out blood to the side. “That hurt.”
While the Doppelganger busied to regain his strength and composure—dragging himself up painfully to his feet, wiping off his own blood that smeared across his face, his soaked shirt and pants—the shadow looked back to Six with the same empty look, though determined and urgent this time.
And despite its form flickering madly and disappearing in between seconds, the shadow took both her hands into its own and held it firmly. Six had been in surprise at when its touch did not fall through like always, nonetheless she clung on to the shadow just as eager to listen to its quiet advice.
“Fight the eyes. Steer it out of you forever,” the shadow said.
When the shadow’s hand loosened, Six snatched it right back with the same determination. “Tell me how. Tell me how to fight him,” she said firmly.
“You don’t. The boy is only mimicking Mono,” the shadow said, taking back its hands. It stood to its full height and looked down to her. “The more you fight him, the more the eyes have control over you.”
Six gaped incredulously, blinking only once.
“Y-You’re telling me…to do nothing then? Let him kill me in my own mind?” she said.
“Fight the eyes, Six,” the shadow repeated wryly as its form flickered again. “I will be back.”
Then just as before, the shadow’s entire body became a cloud of smoke that disappeared into thin air. Gone just in a blink of an eye. And destroyed just with a snap of the Doppelganger’s fingers as he stood right behind where the shadow once was. He looked no different than the bloodied state he woke up in, except for the darkness that grew all around his eyes and the colour of his skin that became twice as pale as before.
The Doppelganger was pissed off yet again. And with the shadow not there in the way to stand in between them, Six knew she would receive the full blow of it this time.
She backed away on the floor instinctively. That made the Doppelganger laugh with an innocent tilt of his head.
“Oh, what’s wrong?” he cooed. “No one to help you out of your predicament anymore?”
“I never asked for their help to begin with,” she said with a scowl, but deep down her heart thumped so loudly she feared the fraud could hear it.
Another sweet laugh from him that was false. “Your ego never fails to amaze me, Six. You can just never admit you’re that helpless, could you?” The Doppelganger crouched down to come closer. He smiled at her with blood still on his face. Six stood her ground and stared past his bottomless eyes, holding in a flinch when he moved in front of her.
“You’re pathetic,” the Doppelganger said. “Weak. Naïve. As vulnerable as every other child in this world that you try to be different from. I hope you don’t feel special just because a certain curse likes to live inside your body and would do anything to thrive in you. Because that shadow of yours? They don’t actually care if you’re suffering or not. They don’t care if you’re depressed or in need of desperate help. All they care about is their own existence and whatever it is required for them to, as I said, thrive.”
The Doppelganger clamped a hand around her throat and shoved her back to the floor. Six bit back a cry as she felt her airway being squeezed painfully. She pulled and tugged at his wrist despite knowing it was a fruitless attempt. He was still stronger than her. And him, knowing it—smirking and everything, toying with her to further bruise her ego—made her blood boil.
“If this were any other case, your curse would’ve left you to rot,” the Doppelganger continued, only keeping his grip to pour gasoline over the fire. “They would’ve watched you suffer through your own eyes and live happily all the while— believe me.”
“I…” Six said in a strained voice, “don’t care.”
The Doppelganger rolled his eyes. “Classic, Six. Of course, you don’t care. You only care about things that don’t matter in times like these, yes? What was it, last time? Ah! I remember. Your precious music box. The one you abandoned your friend for when he destroyed it, right?”
Her fists tightened. She wanted to fight him badly and bash his head against the wall!
The Doppelganger, as if sensing her ire, gave her a bigger smile.
“It was in your stupid deal,” Six forced out and gasped for any short breaths, “that I kill him.”
“Hm, the same deal a stupid girl just so happens to agree to. You don’t use your head a lot, do you, Six?” Six gritted her teeth, just ready to use all her remaining strength to push him off of her. The Doppelganger seemed happier the angrier she became. “Speaking of, do you use them when you make any decisions at all? Not saying that the current circumstances suck, but yeah, it must really suck for you. And not to mention, how easily avoidable all of the events leading up to this is. It’s funny. Because, again, if you really think about it—you could’ve just stayed at the Maw and not follow your friend all the way to the city. Could’ve just let Viola stay in the Tower with us or just let Mono go alone since the start. At least that way, Mono would still hate you. That boy, Emmet, wouldn’t have met you and died the way he did. And Viola...well, she was only a bait before you. No need for any jealousy, by the way. Both of you did an excellent job at luring our Broadcaster home.” He neared her ear and whispered, “Although it is a sad, sad thing that only one of you baits get to live, I’m excited to see you gone, Six. Because I get to kill you. Finally.”
Right then, The Doppelganger lifted his head back to look at her face, still smiling and happy to have raised her fury bar to the highest possible level with his words that cut deep and stung like poison. He’d loosened his hold over her neck just to let her breathe enough air so she could stay awake and exhaust her remaining strength to fight him back—like she always would. Yet even as she was given the window to punch him in the face, poke at his empty eyes, knee him in the crotch—basically everything she could think of—The Doppelganger’s smile sagged when Six didn’t follow through with it.
No, she held herself back from it.
The boy is only mimicking Mono, the shadows voice echoed to her. The more you fight him, the more the eyes have control over you.
It’d explain why the Doppelganger persisted hurling insults after insults at her, bring up past mistakes he knew would be a trigger of her temper at slight mention, and point blame and accusations that surely would hit just the right nerve. The shadow’s words became clearer when it told her to fight the eyes instead of the Doppelganger.
Because hurting a puppet would not hurt the puppeteer. She was losing because she was fighting this battle the wrong way—one that the Eye had wanted her to. At least that was the closest she could understand of her shadow’s advice because more than anything
This was a gamble.
Her, not doing anything; letting the Doppelganger strangle her slowly until her lungs burned.
Even so, it was worth the risk for the gamble turned out to work in her favour as soon as she noticed the changes on the Doppelganger’s face.
First was when his victorious smile faltered. Second was the small furrow in his brows, the crease in between them that revealed his surprise over her actions—or rather lack thereof. Third and the most important detail that gave it away, was the way he had gulped. His hands lingered around her neck with a painful pressure. He still waited for her to fight back.
Six didn’t.
Instead, she merely let her hands slide off of his completely. The Doppelganger’s eyes grew wide at her.
“What are you doing?” he said with none of his cocky tone. Six only stared back at him. In return, he squeezed her neck tighter. “I said” —He came closer, scowling, and with clenched teeth—“what are you doing?”
Six felt her eyelids become heavy then, his face becoming no more but a blurred image that darkened until everything else became irrelevant. The darkness came slowly to engulf her; and she let it happen. She laid there with no air and waited for death the Doppelganger claimed to have been so eager to deliver to her.
That was the thing. The boy had only been partially honest.
Eager, he definitely was as he tortured her with his slow strangling method. But him being her executioner?
The weight on top of her soon disappeared like it never was there, her neck suddenly free from the cold hands that’d squeezed air out of her. And the darkness that was just beginning to swallow her whole retreated to the corners, just as soon as she forced a sharp breath back into her deprived lungs. Six coughed and gasped to the floor next to her. She breathed with her hand pressed gently at her bruised throat, hoping to hide it away from the Doppelganger who only
Sat and stared.
He still looked at her with the same expression: wide eyed, lips parted, and lacking any mocking smiles or jibes. It confirmed her observation of him all the more when his voice matched everything about his look now.
“You…you’re—” He paused suddenly. As though realizing his own slip-up, the Doppelganger let out a derisive laugh, smiling again, only with the corners of his lips twitching and faltering.
“Oh, this is funny. You’ve…you’ve really lost all hope, haven’t you? Ah—of course! That’s the only explanation!” he said as he laughed, deranged. “Who would’ve thought, little egotistical Six, finally admitting defeat to someone she thinks to be lower than her? How rich! Hilarious! Absolutely mind-blowing! I could just tell the whole world of this once-in-a-lifetime phenomenon!”
“Go ahead,” Six said hoarsely.
He maintained his smile despite the twitch in his eye. “Oh? You won’t mind if I do then? Not even...if I exposed your other super secret past, involving a certain young girl whose coat you’re wearing?”
Her eyes widened. The Eye knew everything that had happened in her life.
“Do not bring her up!” she yelled. “She died a long time ago; it wouldn’t matter in the slightest if anybody knows!”
“Right, but the way she died would still matter, wouldn't it?” He chuckled softly. "How come everyone you meet ends up broken or dead, Six?"
Six bared her teeth at him and flinched forward, her fist raised up to connect to his irritating smirk.
The more you fight him, the more the eyes have control over you, the shadow’s words spoke when she was nearly blinded by fury again, close to falling into the Doppelganger’s taunts and provocations. He wanted to provoke her for a reason. This bastard wanted her to hurt him, so he could hurt her back—no. It was so Mono would react to her attacks in the real world.
The boy is only mimicking Mono, was what her shadow told her. That had to be what it had meant.
She clenched her fists tightly that there was a sting in her palm. The urge to punch him was strong indeed, but even stronger was her self-control as she understood the truth of her circumstances. She lowered her hand with a seethe and quickly backed away from him again.
At that, the Doppelganger’s smile turned into a sneer; his bottomless eyes a horrifying sight under the red, glaring lights. A low growl rumbled behind his throat as he pounced on her.
On instinct, Six had turned away to run from him again, however, barely succeeding as the Doppelganger snatched her right leg to pull her back to him. Six yelped when she fell on her front, her teeth gritted so abruptly that she’d bitten her tongue. The Doppelganger breathed heavily behind her; she could hear him. She could hear the anger and feel it radiating off his skin as he turned her over to meet his deathly gaze.
And the Doppelganger was fed up.
He’d seemingly lost his own control and composure as he flashed her a look only deranged people wore; exhausted his patience to the point of no return when he moved fast and acted out of desperation to make her fight him back; risked his credibility of being stronger and capable to hurt her once he summoned Six’s powers to his use. The curse’s energy drowned her instantly, alerting her even more of the sharp weapon the Doppelganger had conjured up. Without a second spared, he lifted the weapon with both hands
And sunk it down her face.
Her heart leapt out of her chest. Her body screamed for her to stop the tip of his weapon before it was too late—before she was impaled and killed in this gruesome death—but Six clung strongly to the shadow’s advice. She still did not fight him. All that she did, however, was turn her head away from the imminent stab; and she shut her eyes tight to spare herself from the sight of it.
A second ticked by.
Two became three.
Then, three became six.
No white, searing pain spread all over her face the longer she waited for the weapon to pierce through her skin and skull. She waited in absolute fear for her death—or worse, half-death. Nevertheless, her time in waiting for the pain only stretched longer, whereas her fear subsided enough to let her eyes open slowly at him.
And she saw the reason why she hadn’t felt a thing.
The tip of the weapon had stopped just above her eye. The Doppelganger’s breathing was loud and heavy as hers, his chest heaving up and down like he’d run a mile, yet his grip over the weapon was steady. Perfectly frozen. So still that it almost seemed like there was an invisible barrier wrapped around her head that he couldn’t penetrate through.
Six dared not move. The Doppelganger’s wrist began to tremble as his knuckles turned white, but the weapon remained where it was—still so close that one shift of her body would blind her instantly.
“Why?” Six snapped back to him, wide-eyed and dumbstruck. The Doppelganger gulped again and pressed his weight over her, as though to shove the weapon down again but without success. The tip of it still rested inches above from her eye.
“Why aren’t you fighting back, Six?” he asked above whisper. Then with more fury, he yelled, “Fight me! Fight for your life! Aren’t you scared of losing? Are you not afraid of the Eye using you to kill your friends? To kill you next?”
“...But you can’t,” she said finally.
The Doppelganger’s face fell, the weapon in his hand trembling even more. “Of…course, I can. I’ll kill you right now—”
“Then do it.” Six sent him a pointed stare, determined and poised. “Kill me.”
The sharp tip still remained where it was. The Doppelganger also froze over her, clinging on to his weapon however useless it became in his grip the longer they stayed like this. He couldn’t kill her. He wanted to, without a doubt, but that was as far as it’d go.
For as long as Six refused to react to his threats and attacks anymore, the boy really was as what her shadow had said:
A mere mimic.
Notes:
In another life, Mono could be a paramedic. Although, not a good one.
Sorry I had to cut the chapter into two since this one reached 7k already. Part two should be out some time next week or the week after, no promises ;). Also, since I am starting to feel nervous about this fic's chapter amount, I've a question:
Would it be better to slot in the story plot in longer chapters or to cut it up bit by bit—like how it is now— until it's over? This ain't a big issue, of course, but I'm curious to know how you feel.
Anyway, yeah part two will continue the final fight between Mono and Six (plus their alter egos).
Thanks for reading!
Chapter 63: Puppets: Part 2
Notes:
Oops, sorry I was gone for a month, just got a little busier than usual. Anyway, I'm back and here's a 10k chapter :)
[WARNING]
Body horror, violence, blood
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Six waited for the Doppelganger’s move to sink the knife into her skull and kill her as he had wanted.
He never did.
He’d trapped her underneath; he’d made her flinch at the thought of death—but he never killed her. She became more and more convinced that this puppet monster never would since the start of this fight.
Frustration coasted through his eyes. He screamed as he hurled the knife to the side.
“Enough with this, Six!” He grabbed her by the neck of her raincoat to lift her. “Just because your stupid shadow told you to do something, doesn’t mean they’ve got a clue of what they’re talking about. You won’t win by doing nothing. You win by fighting back. You win by fighting me—!”
“If I’m not winning,” she hissed, “then what the hell are you scared for right now?”
The Doppelganger shoved her off him. Six cried as she hit the floor, her body still weak and hurt from the prior fights she’d endured.
“Scared? You…you say I’m scared?” A laugh rumbled in his throat. Manic. Mirthless. Six still fought with her own mind not to punch the boy while he was off guard.
“You fool, I’m not scared!” he exclaimed. “I am a part of the Eye! A higher, great and powerful Eye! I don’t get scared over a weak—pathetic girl’s words. You are nothing compared to what I am!”
“Yeah, well, at the very least I am real,” she quipped, holding her rib, wincing. “I don’t need to depend on someone else’s moves to get what I want!”
The floor beneath her grumbled a low hum. Six glanced down only for the Doppelganger’s angry growl to have her attention fall back on him.
“What makes you think I need him to hurt you?” Subtle cracks formed and spread like long vines under the thin carpets. “You’ve no idea the true reality of your situation, Six. Your state of mind, your overall control which you’re losing as we speak—that curse of yours knows shit about what the Eye is truly capable of. Keep listening to them and you might just be lucky enough to find out.”
Six cast a long glance at the growing cracks that now reached under her hands. The floor had become oddly warm, as though bubbling hot water was trapped deep underground. The feeling, like she was being cooked alive in an oven set to increase its temperature gradually. Was this her doing? Was something messed up happening to her real body? Or was it her shadow purposely thinning the air in the room just to deter the Doppelganger?
One look at Mono's twin, and he was still just as furious as he had been. Red and breathing hard, not for much needed air, but for the boiling blood in him.
Suddenly, everything became less strange. The increasing heat. The lack of air. The sea of red light that just seemed to be in and out dying, yet glaring down at her. This was all the Doppelganger’s—the Eye’s doing. They’d reached past their patience and seemingly had lost all cool to provide false composure. And if Six had been as careless, as naïve as Mono and Viola, she wouldn’t have noticed the blinking eyes in between the small cracks.
They had been watching her all this time. They had been the one to portray their emotions and words through their puppet, the Doppelganger. A bunch of psychos.
An idea came just as his voice cut through the air.
“Nothing to say now? Cat got your tongue?” There was a playful tilt in his voice, yet the look in his eyes indicated anything but.
“I was only thinking,” Six told him, weakly pushing herself up to her feet, “about what you said.”
The Doppelganger narrowed his eyes into slits. He let out a heavy breath and made distance, pulling back on his earlier outburst.
“Oh?” he said.
She nodded. “I really don’t know the truth of my situation. Only words from a shadow whom I hated every time they make themselves known in front of me, just to remind me of a certain issue I tend to have. Hunger, you could say. That shit curse was a thorn in my side.”
His empty chuckle echoed to her like annoying siren. “Was?”
“I hate it less after meeting you. Which is…beside the point,” Six continued. “I’ll admit you are right about what you said earlier. For the first part at least. I won’t win by doing nothing. I won’t win by not fighting back.” Her eyes then shifted to the dark figure, standing behind him. “But I won’t win if I fight you either.”
Six broke the floorboard with one strong stomp, and tore apart the wood until the hidden eyes were exposed.
One eye was bigger than the rest. Like children, the little ones clung to the biggest eye with dozens of strings of real flesh attached around their parent; like children, they blinked up at her in bouts of panic and fear, whereas the biggest eye blinked in astonishment as she plucked it out of its hole. The flesh tendrils were long up to who knows how much, but the way they stayed attached to their parent eye even as she stood up, Six figured they had to be quite long.
Long enough they were coiling at her feet.
It was disgusting. Horrifying. Each string of flesh held on taut, not wanting to let go even with a strong tug. And their little cries bombarded her ears as though it’d come from hundreds of voices—from everywhere.
Six had fallen to her knees after merely three seconds, holding tightly to the parent eye despite the deafening screeches of its children.
She shut her eyes. She tried to move yet the screams willed her to freeze entirely. Or maybe it had been her who made herself frozen as this—she didn’t know. She knew she’d screamed too at some point. She knew the Doppelganger had yelled and screamed at her with absolute rage and murder on his mind, running desperately at her the second she doubled over.
But cold, light hands soon closed around hers like a guide. Six dug her nails deep into the soft meat in her grasp, and she let whatever was in front of her now steer her to crush the blob as a means of reprieve.
Something wet trickled down her fingers and wrists.
The blob felt smaller than before, the taut strings around it becoming looser and looser until it felt like there was nothing attached to it. The screams had stopped.
And when Six opened her eyes, she was met face to face with her shadow once more.
It was back. Just as it had promised her.
She looked down to her bloodied hands and the gore she had created, resting in between them. The parent eye was no more than a mushed flesh with no resemblance of its old self, and along with its strings of children they looked like dried lines of skin. The eyes were dead. With just one kill, the rest died too without a say.
Six threw the crushed eye to the ground, disgusted and disturbed. The shadow seemed unfazed, if not thrilled. The Doppelganger, on the other hand…
His strained groans made both of them turn back to him and his lying form. He’d fallen as quickly as the eyes had died, hugging his body with one arm while the other propped him up so he could glare at the shadow.
A thud dropped. Six felt her brows furrow at the sound, and her mouth was left agape as a shadow-like hammer laid before her. It was light when she picked it up, firm and fatal should anyone be hit by the end of it. But what could she need this for if not to land an attack on the Doppelganger? Six knew not to fight him, so what was the point of the weapon?
A question formed on her tongue. The shadow needn’t no more than three words to make it all make sense as it told her in a clear voice:
“There are more.”
More.
Her grip on the hammer tightened with determination and pent-up fury.
Of course, there were more. This fight was far from over.
Six knew it to be so when she saw the Doppelganger force himself back up, glaring at the shadow with enough resentment and ire to send the lights flickering.
The shadow was ready too. It came forward as though taking Six’s place in the battle, standing in front of her like it was her shield. Maybe it was all along.
“Six,” the shadow said, returning the glare back to their shared enemy, “kill the eyes.”
Out of everything that had happened to him and Six, fighting against her and her shadow knife was his least favorite interaction with her by far.
No scratch that—it wasn’t even on the list.
He'd take normal arguing, casual threats of hey, I’ll cut off your tongue if you keep on talking, or maybe even a bit of punching here and there when the need to release steam was that much. But trying his damndest best to stop her from stabbing her own face? Instant no. Six had been trying to hurt herself more than he could count on one hand. That proved how much she’d lost to the parasite eyes in her body, to the point where she wasn’t even aware a literal knife was a hair away from touching her eye!
Which, honestly, might or might not have been his fault they were in this position now.
Six had said a few provoking words. He’d gotten provoked—so easily. He’d attacked her and held her down, screaming out of anger. Then there came the knife.
Out of nowhere, swish.
It was shocking even for him that he’d caught her wrist just in time. The reflex action—he’d nearly forgotten about the person he was meant to stop if it weren’t for her weight of hand, pushing back.
“Give…it…!” Mono cried through gritted teeth, fighting for the knife. Six fought too until
He fell backwards instantly with the weapon.
What the heck.
Mono shot up from the floor, caught off guard and utterly paranoid. What in the world had just happened? One moment he and Six were battling control over the knife, then the next his opponent shut down completely as if her batteries had gone dry.
Six had become a limp, empty shell to put it simply. She was unresponsive. Quiet. Docile. Basically everything that she was not during the Eye’s takeover. Where was the creepy puppet the Eye made of her? What happened to the self-murderous girl that insisted she murdered herself in the name of some Cycle crap the Eye was on about? She couldn’t have just disappeared. Not when there were still hundreds of miniscule eyes swirling inside of hers.
The knife stayed close with him the entire time as he watched Six. It stayed tightly in his hand when his paranoia finally let up, and his doubts lighter to approach her again.
This seriously had to be a trick.
If not a trick, then the start of a trick; a goddamn pre-trick. There was no way he’d fall for it again—he was ready.
“Help,” Six whispered hoarsely.
Mono abandoned his principles and the knife to sit closer to her. It was embarrassing. How weak was he for him to crumble into an emotional mess, just by hearing her trembling, weak voice? At what point in his life did he really start to care for Six to the point where not caring for her felt like dying?
He blamed Viola.
All of it, her fault.
That girl started telling him things he shouldn’t know, revealed his and Six’s future and what they soon would become; and now he was affected by it. Point blank. Six was his friend and he’d love for her to stay as one, yet lately Viola’s words haunted him much more than any ugly pasts he had.
And those words were dangerous.
His desperation for Six’s survival was not only because she was his friend anymore, or that Viola’s existence depended on Six’s life, but now because he knew Six would end up becoming someone he’d cherish and lo—
Mono knocked the side of his head and let the pain distract his traitorous mind.
Stop thinking, stop thinking, stop thinking.
Shut up.
She’s not your wife. You don’t like her that way.
Clearly, this was not the time to be thinking about all those things. He made a mental note to have a serious talk with Viola when all of this was over.
“Mono.” Her voice pushed his thoughts of the future to the back of his mind. He came closer to her, hesitating if he should even touch her, no matter if he truly wanted to.
“Six, is this...” He settled on touching her shoulder. “Is this you?”
She breathed hard, staring up at him with a look that was neither her or the Eye’s human puppet. Dark foreign streaks spread across her face and down to her limbs like real veins.
Panic never attacked him worse than it ever did before.
“Six!” Mono quickly lifted her in his arms, cradling her head as though it would stop the growing streaks from spreading further down. He hoped it would, but what good was hope if it ended in failure?
“Six? Six, please, say something,” he said, fumbling. “Say something!” He didn’t know what to do.
The streaks kept growing. Her breaths slowed to a near halt. Her body rested against him like a dead weight; and he refused to let her go even then.
“Eyes…” she muttered after a long painful silence, her eyes turning into pure black. “Kill.”
A pang in his chest. The second the word ‘eyes’ left her lips, the word ‘kill’ felt like it belonged as its accompaniment. It may not have been the real Six who had said it, but it sure as hell wasn’t the parasites in her who told him those words; he was certain of that.
Eyes. Kill.
If only she knew just how much he’d love to.
The Eye had given him nothing but nightmares even since the start—the Transmission that played with his brain, the deal the Eye made with Six to break his and her friendship, his six-months isolation after, Viola’s kidnapping and deformation, and finally, Six being a mindless puppet. Made to lure him back and die when he came.
That. That was more than enough to feel rage over.
True, he’d had his doubts when Viola said she planned to kill the Eye before they killed everyone else—even voiced his concerns that the Eye was too powerful, and killing them was not an option—yet the longer he stared at his Six’s abyss-like eyes, and hold her fragile, limp body, those doubts felt wrong. Stupid, even .
Viola was right all along.
They should kill the Eye.
Even if not all of them.
Mono closed his arms around her abdomen with an even tighter grip. Screw it, he thought. He pressed on her stomach with a stronger push. I’ll kill all of you.
Eyes, Six’s voice echoed in his mind. Kill.
His fist pressed hard against Six’s stomach and jerked upwards. He kept doing so until something happened—mixture of black and red blood slipped past her lips and down to her chin. More trickled down as he shifted her head up and forward, her mouth hanging agape whereas her eyes remained wide open and blank.
He refused to be fazed by the sight of her blood.
Even as some dropped on his skin, warm and thick, Mono closed his eyes and continued to force the parasites out. No matter if it pained him twice as much knowing that Six was hurt in the process. No matter if he was hurting her on purpose.
Another strong jerk.
Six’s head nearly fell forward to the floor if he hadn’t been there to hold her up firmly. And if he hadn’t, he would have also missed the sight of the blinking blob that had escaped her mouth from the pressure he’d forced on them. They blinked rapidly and were angry.
But Mono was angrier.
The second the blob was in his view, he snatched them by their tail and sunk his nails them deep into their skin. The blob writhed within Six’s mouth, causing Six’s empty shell of a body to shake along with them. That made Mono hold both of them even stronger. It made him frustrated and fed up enough to finally pull them out as they fought to retract and stay inside of Six.
And fought they did.
He had to use all of his hands to even pull half of the long blob out. Like snakes, they wiggled and tried to escape his iron grasp but to no avail. Mono’s desperation was stronger than all of the little eyes’ combined after all.
He would kill them and save Six no matter what.
The snake flesh thrashed and squirmed even as the other end of its tail was lifted out of Six’s mouth. Mono had barely taken a few steps away from Six before they squirmed madly in his hands like fish out of water. Dozens, perhaps hundreds, of little eyes took the entirety of the skin of the snake flesh, each one blinking in what must be panic and fear.
They should be in fear.
He was going to stab every one of them until the carpet floor became a canvas for his gory artwork.
Alas, that determination was cut short as a thick tentacle wrapped itself tightly around his neck like a noose. It caught him off guard even further when he was thrown back across the wall behind him, successfully detaching himself with the snake he was seconds away from killing. His vision waned as his head hit the floor. Mono winced, nonetheless propped himself up quickly. Everything was swaying and swirling in two but there was no mistaking her yellow raincoat and the long flesh wiggling on the floor. The snake parasite was going back.
No.
Mono lurched forward only to fall back to the wood floor. No, not wood—flesh. Flesh had grown from underneath the floors and entered through the gaps between the boards. More nude skin covered the walls as if they had belonged there for ages, connecting tentacles that roped his left leg now like metal shackles.
His heart hammered in his chest. I need to get to Six now, he thought as he turned his attention back. I have to stop them—
The tentacles doubled their amount and twisted hard.
He bellowed as white pain seared through his leg. Tears stung in his eyes no matter how hard he tried holding them in. They’d broken his ankle—he couldn’t move his leg.
“Damn it!” he cried, darting back and forth between Six and the tentacles that continued to drag him away. The snake was still across the floor, wriggling its way slowly to Six’s mouth albeit inevitable should he do nothing to stop it.
He needed to stop it. He couldn’t lose her again.
Mono gathered his powers with a trembling hand, then pressed it on the surface of the tentacle. The skin burnt to crisps in seconds, their grip loosening. However, that granted him only a few seconds to get away before their skin grew anew; and they took him away by his broken ankle again.
He cried, out of pain and frustration. His energy was limited immensely and using them all up just to burn the fleshes away for only three seconds was a recipe for failure. He needed something sharp. A blade of some sort to cut through like a dagger or a knife—
The knife.
His eyes snapped to Six’s knife that was beneath the light, out of reach. A plan formed in his mind immediately as he glanced back and forth.
I can make this work.
I have to make this work.
With a sharp breath, Mono released his powers and burned the tentacles again until they let him loose. Three seconds was all he was given. And he made sure to get as close as possibly as he could to the knife before those three seconds were up.
They snatched him by his ankles again. He held in his cries and gathered his energy before repeating it.
Each time the seconds grew shorter and shorter, his powers became weaker as Viola’s boost was all but permanent. Yet he was willing to risk it anyhow. He used them even as he felt his limbs grow numb and heavy, summoned them time after time for a moment of freedom. He was becoming weak. His ankle was bruised and absolutely broken. The pain was clouding his mind. Everything was swaying beneath him; he felt like he could puke. He nearly puked then and there.
The tentacles tugged again. Mono bit down his tongue and clawed the floors. Time ticked painfully the more glances he spared to Six. His heart thumped against his chest, adrenaline pumped through his system, and he pulled and pulled until he was under the light
And until the knife was in his hands.
Mono snatched the weapon with a growl. The tentacles quickly pulled him to the walls, and this time easily as he had stopped clutching the ground. He stopped doing everything except for tightening his fingers around the hilt and slicing the tentacles with absolute fury.
The flesh tore apart better than his first attempt to his surprise and relief. He sliced them again. He cut them quickly, screaming and cursing at the tentacles until he could feel blood rush through his leg again. And luckily, the tentacles stayed cut. They did not regrow into another layer, they didn’t absorb any energy from the shadow knife like it did with his. And instead, they laid dead for a few seconds before they jerked, and retreated into the walls, hiding and cowering beneath them.
Six, his mind reminded him, his legs—broken ankle or not—staggering into a run. Mono reached her at the very last second with the weapon raised
And the tip of it managed to snag the end of the blinking flesh, half of them already sliding inside whereas the other half was still dangling out.
Immediately, the snake parasite became stuck just an inch away from fully home. That was his win.
He was winning this at all costs.
“Get out,” His hand closed around the parasites, “of her body!” Mono pulled the rest of them in sheer rage, using the knife plunged on its tail as a handle to pull them back out.
More little eyes appeared when revealed, however, blinking in a fit of horror and disarray rather than anger. Good. They should be panicking. They’d tried to kill Six multiple times in a row and broke his ankle. Some of them would have to pay, if not all.
He'd make them suffer. Looked forward to it especially once everyone was out.
A true snake was what it was as its other end came sliding out of Six out of force. Once that happened, he took the knife out of its skin and drove it back in, pinning it on the floor that they lay helplessly immobile.
The snake flesh writhed as one, each little eyes blinking at their own speed nonetheless all sharing the same look when he picked up the abandoned board on the other side of the room. All pupils darted to him at his returning, limping figure.
And his face showed no room for last minute mercy.
The little eyes waited for their deaths restlessly.
Mono exhaled through his nose, looking down at the board in his hands, and shifting its weight purposely in front of Six’s parasites.
My turn, he thought as he delivered his revenge on the blinking eyes.
The Doppelganger and the shadow hadn’t stopped fighting since the latter appeared.
Six heard them, even as she ran around the room dragging a small hammer and scouted for any signs of hiding parent eyes. They could be everywhere, was her first thought. They could be hiding in places out of reach, was her second.
Like the ceiling for instance.
How the hell was she supposed to break apart the ceiling?
A shadow spear flew by her head, leaving a nasty crack in the wall to her right. Her eyes shot open to the Doppelganger. The bastard was smiling at her before he was struck in the back with a powerful blow.
Quickly, Six ran and took cover behind one of the worn-out sofas, her heartbeat too loud in her ears to properly listen to them bickering again.
“Really, curse? All of this for one stupid ”—A clang in the air, weapons clashing—“host? You’ve done this song and dance before. Why are you choosing to protect her now? Why fight when all this time you’ve stayed dormant inside the same body?”
“Because this is the first you eyes decided to trespass.” Another clang and the Doppelganger hissed. Six clutched her hammer closely, peeking her head over the couch.
The shadow and the Doppelganger circled each other like vultures, each with a terrifying glare that could do worse than kill with a single glance.
“If you had listened, we wouldn’t be having this conversation,” the shadow said, shooting multiple sharp blades his way.
One slashed his shoulder. The Doppelganger sneered, annoyed.
“It isn’t trespassing if she belongs to the Eye as well. Don’t you remember?” The Doppelganger summoned stolen shadows out his fingertips. “The talk we had centuries ago. The mutual agreement that came after it!” He waved a hand, sending the shadow across the room before throwing another identical spear at its head.
The shadow ducked and reappeared behind him with a snarl. It drove a knife into his back. “I never agreed,” the shadow said over his scream.
“Yet you switched hosts anyway after we told you to!” He clamped a hand over the shadow’s and twisted it the other way.
The shadow, flickering madly, fought out of his iron grip with much vigor, thrusting another blade into his side. Black blood spurted out of the Doppelganger’s mouth and more of it coated his teeth when he gritted them in pain and fury.
“Admit it, curse,” the Doppelganger hissed. “For someone who insists the Cycle means nothing to them, you sure as hell are racing for the advantages you can reap out from it. You agreed to be a part of the Cycle when you left your previous host early. You agreed to let your new host be ours when you realized an opportunity you can’t let slip!”
One of the shadow’s eyes twitched, the corner of its lips tugged into a similar sneer. A strained cry escaped the Doppelganger as the shadow pushed its blade deeper into his side. He smiled, despite bleeding.
“This is my territory.” It pulled out the blade with one clean move. The Doppelganger fell immediately to the floor, holding his wound and wincing. “I have my reasons to switch when I did. It had nothing to do with your offer, much less your insignificant Cycle.”
The ground shook beneath them all. The Doppelganger stole a glance to the couch, and Six dove back under with her heart hammering in her chest. He’d seen her. They’d met eyes and there was no denying that the cruel twinkle in his empty sockets had been for the fact that she was found.
She knew now wasn’t the time to eavesdrop on a conversation that was pointless trying to put two and two together; and she’d already wasted a few just by hiding behind the couch doing nothing. She needed to kill the eyes as she did before. The only problem was where she could find the rest of them without stealing the Doppelganger’s attention from the shadow.
Screw it.
That bastard was probably onto her already.
Six whispered profanities under her breath and looked behind the couch again to see if he was still eyeing her way. The Doppelganger, thankfully, was distracted again by the shadow, scowling and sneering at it.
Six huffed a sigh before sneaking away to a different place for cover.
“It had everything to do with the offer, actually,” the Doppelganger said. “Because if I recall, your old host was sick, dying even when you resided in her. Slowly killing herself with those useless medications. Living in complete isolation, save for you know who. Our offer to you was the only way you were ever going to ensure a stable host forever. The ‘insignificant’ Cycle, as you called it, allowed that to happen. Without it, you would’ve had to depend on someone else’s choices, or wait another 100 years until you get your hands on the perfect blood again.
“So like it or not, we helped you, curse! We solved your predicament for you and all we want now is to solve our own. Quickly, and effectively. All we want…” The skin on his face split into two, revealing the blinking, glowing white eyes in the center of it all; angry and desperate.
The floor emanated a louder hum. Six looked up to see the Doppelganger pointing right in her direction.
“All we want is for her to die.”
The boards beneath her foot broke apart, long tendrils of wet meat pushed out from it to circle her entire leg, and more came from the sides to snatch her dominant hand. They twisted the hammer out of her grasp, took her by the neck and dragged her down until she lay face first on the broken floor.
Six squirmed as her next breaths were pushed out from her lungs. She fought hard to escape yet the Eye’s fleshes were strong, and especially stronger when most of her strength had been snuffed out by the Doppelganger through the earlier fight.
A powerful scream sliced the air. Then his angry cries echoed along with the shadow’s growls.
Complete darkness entered the room as though the shadows in the walls had consumed everything inside it. Maybe it did. Six felt the shadow’s presence in the distance, and despite the looming, menacing darkness, she was not intimidated by it. This darkness was not hostile to her as it was for the boy everyone was itching to murder.
Six bit down on the moving flesh that had come snaking near her face. She couldn’t see anything but as long as the flesh squirmed between her teeth like worms, she would bite until the noose they made around her neck loosened.
A bitter, revolting taste lingered on her tongue, cold thick blood dripping past her lips. The flesh loosened enough for her to inhale a short breath through her nose, and a longer one as she spat out the dead parasite to take in much needed air. She thrashed against her restraints, clawing and pulling the tendrils off of her neck one by one until she was free. She did the same with the ones around her wrist, sinking her nails deep into the Eye’s flesh that her fingers were covered with their blood.
Then, in the dark, she rubbed the floors for the hammer. Gotcha. She brought it down to the thick blob engulfing her feet.
Screeches of the eyes ambushed her ears that she winced. Six hit them again with a stronger force.
Again, and again and again.
It was a cathartic moment. It’d be so long since she was taken over by bloodlust as this—smashing the flesh floor around her until they were flat, snatching whatever moving thing she could get her hands on and squeezing them to death, letting their screams of agony echo along with the yells of the Doppelganger. She had been on the losing team for too long; it was about damn time someone else took a loss.
The room lights flickered back on just as Six took hold of a flesh tendril. Black blood was all over her hands and stuck under her fingernails like second skin, more squirting across her yellow raincoat when the blinking eyes burst from the pressure she inflicted upon its snake body.
Pop.
Pop.
Pop.
“STOP THAT.”
She looked up and saw the Doppelganger with his hand—no, claws—raised at her. Crap! Six dodged the tip of his sharp claws just barely before he made another move. And each of his attacks were so quick and precise she staggered to get away, struggling to even take a breath as the Doppelganger was unrelenting.
A guttural growl rumbled in his throat when his claw sunk into the floor instead of her leg. He screamed in anger. “You insufferable girl!” The Doppelganger lifted another claw and landed a hit on her back.
Six fell with a sharp cry. She looked over her shoulder and saw three lines across her back, her raincoat torn along with her undershirt. Her skin stung slightly but there was no sign of blood. Just her luck.
The floor creaked beside her a second later. On instinct, she rolled away from her place, narrowly escaping the Doppelganger’s yet another fatal stab to the ground. If she hadn’t moved, his claws would’ve been in the center of her throat.
She pushed herself up and held her hammer in the air, ready to send an attack to the monster herself.
Don’t fight him, she remembered The more you do, the more the eyes get control.
He is a mimic.
You’re supposed to kill the eyes while the shadow deals with him.
Her eyes quickly scanned the room for the black-hooded figure, dread filling up her stomach. Where the hell was her shadow?
“Looking for the curse, aren’t you?” Six snapped back to the Doppelganger’s twisted face—his real form. “You know you won’t win, Six. Even with their help. The eyes in you are too many to kill all at once, and you won’t find all of them in time. I say we end this quickly; no more fights. No more tricks. Let me help you get your deserved rest and everyone else gets what they want.” He took a step towards her.
Six took a step back and raised the hammer even higher, her grip even tighter.
“I-I will not let you kill me,” she said, her voice betraying her.
“Ah, of course not. I understand. Nobody wants to be killed.” The Doppelganger lowered his claws, his split face remained wide like an opened gate. The dozen eyes inside him glowed white and brightly. “But there really is nothing to be afraid of, you know. This is for the greater good; to ensure that the Cycle is protected and to remain as how it should be.”
“I. Don’t. Care,” she said through gritted teeth, “about any cycles. I am not about to die over some psychotic, made-up bullshit—”
“Bullshit? The same bullshit that has been keeping the world safe for hundreds of years, you mean.”
She wanted to laugh. Cry. Scream until her voice gave out. The Doppelganger was a sadistic monster, that was a given fact, but she hadn’t thought of how truly sick in the head he was.
Of course, he was a lunatic psycho—he was the Eye’s creation.
No point entertaining him for the sake of curing her confusion and curiosity.
“I’m not doing this,” she said quickly. “I’m not letting you kill me. You can’t even if you tried, so quit trying to convince me that you can. It won’t work.”
“Oh, I know. That part you made clear with your brave stunt earlier. I really can’t kill you, that’s true.”
The sound of meat tearing apart.
She gasped and looked down at the open wound across her stomach, her eyes in horror as blood oozed out and dropped to the floor.
Then her knees buckled.
Six coughed more blood until her throat was dry, she breathed through the pain as her wound spread to her chest quickly like a virus. She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t speak. She was dying.
She kept clawing at the floor desperately, crawling away with whatever strength she had in her, but there wasn’t any left—they were all used when she fought against the flesh and killed the eyes while in her bloodlust. She hadn’t anything left in her save for fear. Because fear never hit her harder than realizing her next breath might be her last.
That the same death she escaped many times before, was finally here to collect her soul.
“Do you get it now, Six?” His voice echoed in her ears, muffled yet distinct enough to be understood. “The eyes you’re trying to kill…they’re the ones who will kill you—the ones who are killing you.” His feet stopped in front of her before the sight of those glowing eyes appeared in her waning vision again.
She felt his finger rest under her chin, raising it up for her to look at him. Her eyes blurred with the color crimson, her cheeks wet when they escaped her eyes.
“I’m sorry for making you believe you stood a chance,” he said, his many eyes blinking down at her. “You should let go.”
Her chest hurt for a different reason. “H-huh?” she whispered.
The Doppelganger’s split face opened wider, the eyes blinking faster. “Let go, Six. You’ve fought and suffered enough. It’s no use to keep on trying.” He leaned in. “Just give up.”
Just give up. Those words sunk in like the exhaustion in her bones. She didn’t know how long she had been in this state: groggy and in agony. The world around her swayed in a blur, and the more she tried to regain control the more it rebelled, her reality transforming into an exaggerated nightmare—the Doppelganger’s face morphed slowly into distortion. The walls grew ten times higher and bled blood from the top. Eyes began to blink open in her hands. One after another, they appeared in her own skin with burning stares.
Everything was staring at her.
The Doppelganger. The Eyes in her. The spectators on the walls and floors. They all chanted to her in unison and repetition:
“Give up.”
More blood rushed out of her mouth in her coughing fit. She refused.
“Give up.” Her head throbbed more when she shook them. The eyes stared with sheer intensity that it felt like they were directly burning holes in her limbs. Still, Six closed her eyes and focused on her shallow breaths instead, ignoring her body’s cry for help and the overlapping whispers ringing in her head.
She pressed her hands against her ears desperately. “No…” She bit down a cry.
The whispers grew in numbers, sending her further into stress she no longer could contain a scream.
“NO!”
Everything fell silent at the sound of flesh squelching.
The pain was gone, and the feeling of being watched left like it never came. Something wet and soft continued to squirm weakly in her hands, daring her to open her eyes and seeing the flesh tendrils still caught in a death grip.
Just like...before the Doppelganger had yelled and attacked her. Before the Eye had changed her reality into a false nightmare.
Oh.
The Doppelganger’s claw attacks, her sudden wound and slow death, the little eyes popping in her skin—they were all lies.
A trance she was put under to distract her, or rather, to stop her from pulling at the flesh strings and finding the parent eyes. It was sick if not clever. Her stomach churned just thinking the Eye had made her hallucinate in a dream inside a dream.
Heavy breaths shifted her attention to the Eye’s puppet, his figure down on the floor with his head hung low. The Doppelganger hid no emotion—fury, consternation, shock—on his twisted face. Like he hadn’t expected to see her snap out of the haze as his powers and strengths were ripped out from him without warning.
“You…” he stammered. “Wh-what did you do?” When she answered nothing, he quickly lunged after her with a scream.
Her grip on the flesh tendrils tightened, earning screeches of the little eyes. The Doppelganger fell back to the floor instantly, groaning and wincing.
He was weak now.
No more tricks up his sleeve as his every attempt to summon the shadow’s powers to his use became a fruitless one. And the Doppelganger knew that she knew. His anger made the floor grumble; they broke apart into sharp edges, nearly all pointing towards her as his last means for offense.
Six broke into a run. This is it. She pulled the flesh tendrils with her until the others connected to it stretched together, dragging along other underground strings that protected the bigger blobs.
In the distance, she heard the Doppelganger’s strained cries and yells, telling her to stop, threatening her that he would do worse than kill her if she continued. Six ignored him and snatched the parent eye with her bare hands, taking back her hammer and sending it down to the center of its meat.
Black blood splattered on the floor and her face. Many littles eyes burst out of their sockets, adding more blood on her hands and in the room.
“I SAID STOP!” The ground split into bigger cracks, rumbling as big as earthquakes. Six’s balance was thrown off immediately. She yelped as new tentacles took one of her feet and dragged her away into the dark corner.
Though she was caught the second time, this round she wasn’t shackled for long. It was merely a few seconds until the flesh tentacles let up, snaking quickly back into the walls as though scared into hiding. What had happened? Questions formed in her mind only to be shut down once the Doppelganger’s pained cry cut through the fleshes’ screeching madness.
“Proceed,” a familiar voice said. In the middle of the room, the shadow stood over him with a tall pike in its grasp; and it gave her a firm nod before driving the pike deeper into the Doppelganger’s back.
Kill the eyes, the shadow had told her. Kill the eyes, Six repeated in her mind as she adjusted her grip on her hammer and smashed the cracked floors.
The flesh moved and squirmed over each other once they were found. Six gave no room for hesitations, bringing down the hammer on the biggest blob.
The room lights flickered again. The place shook and fell apart into a slow ruin the more parent eyes she found were killed; her mind prison became nothing more than a room with an unlocked door. And the hundreds of eyes that died from the death of their parent blobs, became the key to twist its knob for her freedom.
She could feel it.
Her soul becoming fuller and light after the fifth kill of the parent eyes.
And approaching the sixth, that hid itself under the thick strings of flesh in the wall, something inside her screamed that this was the last of the last. Her guts were rarely ever wrong. The fact that her senses were stronger than ever to detect a hidden eye beneath the walls—that and the desperate blinking of the little eyes, together shielding their source of life—proved it all the more.
That this would be the end of it.
She would wake up and be free of the Eye’s puppeteering after she killed it.
“Wait!” Her hammer froze in the air. That voice. She looked over her shoulder with hesitance, brows frowning.
The Doppelganger was no longer there, but in his place, laid the girl she had watched die before her eyes—an old companion whose coat she now wore covered with grime and gore.
Six lowered her hammer as she slowly turned to her in disbelief. She’d never known her name, though her face still etched itself inside the walls of Six's guilt-ridden mind.
“Help me…please,” the girl pleaded and reached an arm out to her, her braids soaked with her own blood as the same pike stuck out from her back.
The shadow was gone. The room was covered in blood.
Six felt her head shake. “N-no,” she choked out. “You’re already dead.”
“Please,” the girl cried softly. “I beg you; save me. I-I’ll die if you let me s-stay like this—!”
“Shut up!” Her heartbeat quickened as past guilt filled her stomach. She exhaled a sharp breath. “You’re not real. None of this is real. You died when you fell off that cliff—I watched that brat push you!”
Tears streamed down the girl’s cheeks, along with the blood down her chin. “You didn’t get the chance to save me then...” the girl said, “come save me now, Six.”
Come save me now. Her hold around the hammer loosened that they slipped off her fingers. It thudded against the floor nearly as loud as the thud in her chest.
Come save me now, the words whispered again, however, too loudly to be coming from her guilty conscience alone.
The girl’s head cocked at the sound of her shed weapon, her soft cries becoming sniffles as relief adorned her tear-stained face. Her brown eyes brightened at the thought of her pleads being listened to. She looked up at Six and waited patiently while the corners of her lips tugged up into a hopeful smile.
“I never told you my name,” Six said.
The girl fell silent for the first few seconds. Yet Six could easily tell the look on her now without sparing a look.
That relieved smile of hers…they faltered the second she realized her mistake: Six never knew of the girl’s name and neither did the girl know hers.
They were each other’s companions back in The Nest, true, but they weren’t the kind she and Mono were. Six and the girl didn’t share the closeness she and Mono somehow managed to develop with each other. They never stuck around and went through the Nest together like she and Mono had from the Wilderness to Pale City.
The girl was not a companion like Mono.
No one else could compare to him, she thought, turning her attention back to the wall—to the last eye.
Perhaps that was why her guilt for leaving him behind left a bigger scar within her than it did with the girl. While the latter did help Six survive through the Nest and the brat that lived there, the girl was not alive anymore to help her survive this; to free her from the mind prison the Eye still so desperately wanted to keep her in.
But, at the very least…
One person still was. Someone she could call a real friend.
A familiar ball of energy danced between her fingers like harmless flame, circling her wrists up to her arm, shadows expanding from her feet to half of the floor and walls. They became stronger—more palpable and intense—when the thought of him crossed her mind, lingering there longer than she’d expected.
Six waved her hand over the flesh and the meat strings snapped apart like rubber.
“S-Six, wait!” the girl—the Doppelganger—screamed behind her, panic in her voice while she struggled against the shadow pike pinning her to the ground. “Don’t do this! You’re making a mistake!”
She wasn’t deaf to the Doppelganger’s final cries as her hand hovered above the biggest eye. The whispers of its children bombarded her mind as before, some whispering pleads whereas some telling her threats. Nothing she hadn’t heard before. They were all loud to deter her from moving at all, to delay the death of the last big eye and yet…
Yet none compared to the powerful voice that had guided her through the Eye's mind prison.
“Six,” the shadow said beside her, its call firm and victorious. “Return their destruction.”
The Doppelganger’s desperate scream was the last she heard before the shadows in her hand pierced through the last eye.
There was always a funny feeling after escaping a long nightmare.
Six could never put a finger to what that feeling was exactly—was it relief, unease, chagrin; she didn’t know. But when the blinding white light subsided after the last eye’s death, familiar colors blending back into a face she couldn’t help but miss, the feeling came clearer than anything she’d ever felt before.
Happiness.
Happiness took the entirety of her heart once her eyes locked on his worried ones. Happiness seized the voice in her throat and numbed the pain from the aftermath of the Eye’s nightmare game. Happiness became one with her. She never thought she could feel this much genuine joy without her mind telling her she deserved none of such. Yet seeing Mono, knowing that the boy that held her close to him was as real as the sting in her eyes, she allowed the feeling to bloom.
He was really here.
Mono was really in front of her.
And his face…oh, how much she missed seeing his real face. She missed looking at his real eyes rather than the empty, abyss-like sockets; missed the emotion behind them than the fake ones she’d seen from the Doppelganger; missed that stupid smile of his she was so used to roll her eyes at; missed the sound of his true voice and not the copy version of it.
Most of all, she missed him.
Something acidic rose in her throat. Six pushed herself away from him quickly and threw up to the side, coughing out foreign meat covered in black blood.
The eyes in the blobs no longer blinked alive as they did before. She felt more come out of her mouth following after.
It was painful vomiting the remains of the dead eyes inside of her. Her chest burned as with her throat, her stomach empty after everything was expelled that it left her shaking and weaker, and she thought she might’ve passed out then and there if it weren’t for him touching her back.
Six flinched without meaning to. Hurt had appeared briefly in his eyes, nonetheless, he was understanding with her reaction.
“I-I’m sorry—I shouldn’t have….I mean, I…” Mono said with his hands in the air. He closed his mouth. Opened them again after a beat. “I’m sorry.”
“You came back.”
Surprise showed on his face. “Of…of course. Why would I…not?” His throat bobbed in a hard swallow. “Did you think I…I wouldn’t?” he asked quietly.
A small breathy laugh left her at his words. It wasn’t even funny and yet Six still glanced around the room with furrowed brows and an incredulous smile. She couldn’t believe it. So much that heat gathered in her cheeks when the stinging in her eyes worsened and affected her vision. Most of her pride had already jumped out the window, but the few ones that stayed made her hide her face under her hand.
And her shoulders shook only with her soft laughter as she told him again:
“You came back.” Warm tears had long shed past her tired eyes and down her cheeks. “You really…really came back. It’s not all in my head. You’re really here.” She wiped her tears away with choked breaths. “I can’t believe it—you’re actually here.”
“I can’t believe it either.”
When Six looked at him, all puffy-eyed and confused, the flush in his cheeks deepened. “Th-that you’re here too,” he added after clearing his throat. “You weren’t yourself and I was…really worried. And scared for…for you.”
“What?” Then she saw the cut on his sleeve, the blood around the tear; the bruises around his neck and face. Her face faltered as guilt settled in her guts. “Did I hurt you—?”
“NO,” Mono blurted. “I-I mean, well, you…you did technically—but it wasn’t you that did it, you know?”
“But you’re bleeding.” She pointed to his wound. “Did I do that to you, Mono?”
He followed her finger and quickly turned his arm away from her, as though that would make her unsee it.
“Ah, it’s nothing to worry about. Like I said, you weren’t you, so…it’s fine. We’re fine.” His smile softened as he sat there staring at her face.
Normally, she would’ve felt the warmth take over her entire body when he looked at her that way—like she was the only person in the world that mattered. She never thought much let alone bothered herself with it, although…
Something was wrong this time.
He looked at her with the same kind and gentle eyes, but why was she feeling…weird now?
Why did it feel like her heart was on the verge of exploding?
“I’m really glad you’re back, Six. I really mean it when I said you had me worried and afraid,” Mono said.
“Really?” Thump. Thump. Thump.
“Really. I thought you were gone forever and that the Eye succeeded. I thought I had lost you to them.” A pause from him. Then his eyes narrowed slightly at her. “Wait. You are you, right?” he asked.
She sensed the lightness in his voice, the faux suspicion that made her feel light and at home. “I may as well ask you the same thing, Mono.”
“Then you prove it first.”
“What?”
“Prove to me you’re Six. Show me that you’re the same kid with the same weakness she’s got,” he said, a cheeky grin on his face. She could barely hear him right over the drum-like thumps in her chest.
This must be the effects of the eyes, she figured. Even so, this was still bearable rather than the Doppelganger’s cruel taunts.
A small scowl rested on her brow. “Weakness?”
“I mean, yeah,” he said casually. “The real Six can’t count anything past her name to save her life. So if you do know the numbers, then I’m sorry to tell you; you’re probably not her to begin with—” He yelped and held his cheek where she’d pinched.
And honestly, she wished she’d done it a little harder until his pale skin turned red. Or redder.
Clearly, Mono felt more surprised than pain—the idiot was still smiling even as she told him off with a pinch! Or had his smile…become wider because of it? Was he looking at her in awe rather than the mockery she was used to seeing from his evil twin?
Her chest hurt from the loud thumps. She swallowed hard when he spoke almost out of breath.
“There…there she is.” Shut up. “There’s that ego I missed.” Shut up. Shut up. Shut up. “You really are her. You’re Six—!"
“Mono, I will hurt you after all of this. If you don’t stop.” Her entire face was on fire. The side effects of expelling the eyes were killing her.
The pink tint on his cheeks returned before he covered them with a laugh. “Right. Can’t bring up the ego wherever we are, huh?” Six gave him a look. “I’m kidding, Six. Calm down. All I meant to say is that I’m just really…really…” His words slowed until they were above whisper, and the little crinkle in his eyes smoothed the more his smile grew softer into a thin line. “Glad. That you’re back to normal.”
Six felt worse than she did before.
The side effects soon became as unrelenting as the hold his stare had over her; and she couldn’t look away. At some point, during the passing slow seconds, she even wondered if her gut feeling had lied to her regarding Mono’s identity.
Because what the hell was this?
For one, this had never happened before to her—or at least nothing as mind-numbing, and heart-bursting as this. It felt like the longer she looked at him, and he at her, the more likely she would die from sudden heart failure. She hated it. If she actually died over something stupid as that, Mono best pray she wouldn’t come back to haunt his sorry self until he joined her. She would genuinely make him fear for every quaking second and—
Her thoughts were silenced as Mono flicked her in the center of her forehead.
Son of a...
On a normal day, the flick itself was already painful that it left her grumbling in annoyance. But being flicked in the head just minutes after escaping a traumatizing mental game and manipulation by the Eye…
Screw haunting him after her death. She’d haunt him alive for what he did.
“You…idiot!” Six hissed as pain spread through her entire skull. She clutched her head and fell to the side. Even her wobbly arms weren’t fast enough to catch her from landing head-first into the ground. She was lucky enough she’d already been sitting.
Another pair of cold hands around her head made her shiver. Six nearly strangled him then and there had she not felt the sting subside from his cool touch—and him rubbing apologetic circles on the skin where he had unfairly flicked.
“Sorry—I’m sorry!” he sputtered, tending to the pain which he had inflicted on her. “I didn’t think I’d flick you that hard.”
“You didn’t think,” Six repeated and scoffed. She let him continue to rub gentle circles as she grumbled, “Exactly, Mono, you didn’t think. Why don’t you just slap me in the face for no reason.”
“Six, come on, you can’t seriously believe I’d do that.”
“Oh, that’s right. I forgot. I owe you those stupid six months of getting flicked in the head because of you-know-what. That’s why you picked now of all time to do it because why not flick a girl’s head when she’d just gotten back her consciousness after a traumatic nightmare. It makes perfect sense. Clearly, it’s the right time. Also absolutely justifiable that you can use your head for stupid things but not for literal common sense…” Six trailed off at the sound of his blurted laugh.
The Eye’s side effects completely wore off right then.
“Hello. Why the hell are you laughing?” Six asked, sounding offended. Perhaps she was a little.
He held in his laugh with a wide smile. “Nothing it’s just,” he said, pausing, “you’re so…you.”
Her brow raised in even brighter confusion. Mono shook his head then and lowered his hands. “Do you honestly think I’d flick you right after you woke up from being mind-controlled?”
“That’s exactly what you did.”
“Yeah. But not for no reason, Six. Or the other thing.”
“Then why did you, if not for it?”
Mono took a breath and sighed. “I just wanted to make sure. That it’s really you I’m talking with. If I wasn’t, you would’ve acted more confused than pissed over one flick in the head…had you not known the reason and history behind it,” he told her and grinned. “Besides, between you and me, I know the real Six gets riled up way too easily anyway; your little outburst proved it.”
“And I know the real Mono has severe trust issues,” she shot back with a glare. “But I guess you’re in the clear too since you needed to double-check if I’m me through stupid ways.”
Another hearty laugh from him made her glare softened unintentionally, her lips tugging into a reluctant smile. She never liked how contagious his emotions were. She never hated seeing his joy whenever it appeared, either.
Six quickly wiped away the remainder of her earlier tears with the back of her hand. One glance to the dead snake-looking blob in the corner and she nearly almost threw up again.
“Whatever,” she said, ignoring the bile in her throat. “Come on. Let’s find a way out of the Tower and leave for good. I’m getting sick of this place—” His hand tugged her wrist down just as she was about to stand.
Six turned to him with a question in her mind, but the way his eyes had widened, and how tightly he held her now made her stomach churn with consternation, the bile long forgotten.
“Mono?” She sat back down next to him, watching as he let her go to avoid her gaze altogether. “What’s wrong?”
“Well, uhm—nothing, actually. It’s just that…” He sucked the air between his teeth and spared hesitant glances at her.
Six’s patience was not in the mood for his anxiety. She grabbed him by his shoulders until he turned to her with a gulp. “Mono,” she said firmly. “What is going on?”
The same, anxious look etched on his face the whole time, his throat bobbing in another swallow as though the answer he had for her would not be too pleasing to hear.
“It's Viola. She came here with me. And while trying to save you, we…the Eye separated us.” Then he flashed her a sheepish, most innocent smile that left little chances for her to say no to. “I know this might sound like another big ask, but is it okay if we went and saved her…again?”
His request was left hanging for at least a minute until each word truly sunk in for what it was. Six responded nothing, only staring past his eyes while her mind recalled the reason she was the Eye’s prisoner the second time.
Viola.
The brat who pushed her off that ledge and abandoned her to die; the girl who Six had been so very reluctant to come rescue—not once or twice, but multiple times—in the first place if it weren’t for Mono’s stupidity insisting that they did; the one whom she had slowly grown to tolerate the closer she had been to saving her from the Eye.
And Viola was the same little scum that dared to betray her.
Notes:
Okay, I promise this is the last time the Doppelganger dies. Say bye-bye cause he's not coming back after this chapter lmao
On another note, Six might be showing symptoms of DeNial disease. Who knows where she got it from. Next chapter will also be Viola's POV and maybe shorter than the rest, so stay tuned!
Again, apologies for the long wait 😭 Got a little stuck on how to finish the fight plus the tight schedule for me to actually write the chapter, so I hope you liked it.
Thanks for reading!
Chapter 64: Oldest Pal
Notes:
As promised, Viola takes the spotlight for this chapter. While the story is taking a little break from the heavy fighting since the last 5 chapters its a non-stop fight—it's time for some *lore*.
A sneak peak into the Eye's backstory, if you will.
So yea, enjoy!
[WARNING]
Implied child abuse
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Something was in the room with her.
Viola saw it. Underneath the table covered by the old cloth, a shadow shifted in hiding but for what purpose, she didn’t know. She glanced around, squinting.
The living room was dark if not for the single lamp standing in the corner, only shining its dim light for half of the place. Whereas the other half beyond it was left in complete darkness, the outlines of what seemed to be a living room sending a wave of familiarity through her; a home where a happy family once lived in, even if it wasn’t hers.
The pain in her knee made her wince as she stood.
Was this another torment of the Eye’s, or was this truly what she was seeing? Just after being pulled away by the flesh tentacles, separated from an imposter that looked a lot like herself years in the future, and then to be woken up from a twisted dream—Viola had little trust in what she was seeing now. Not that there was much trust to begin with, knowing how the Eye was involved. Still. She wasn’t looking forward to seeing who was hiding under the table in front of her now.
Loud footsteps thudded above, making the lamp flicker as though each careless step had interfered with its internal wiring. The shadow shifted quickly, cowering behind the stained tablecloth with their hands over their heads and shivering madly.
Cold was not the reason.
Viola took a slow step back, unease settling in her stomach along with fear. Her back hit the couch until she fell sitting atop it with a surprised cry. “Oh—are you kidding me…” she grumbled.
“What for?”
Viola jumped up from her seat and whipped her head to the voice. The person who, as it turned out, had been sitting cross-legged on the other couch and in the dark. As Viola squinted her eyes to see them, the person—the man—switched on the lamp beside him with a pull of its string.
And the Man was not a man, or rather, human in this case. One dead giveaway was the lack of nose and mouth across his face, nonetheless his sighs and voice were as clear as those with them. Other than the missing features, everything else was normal about him.
But normal wasn’t the word she’d describe this man with.
“Hello,” the man said, breaking her moment of stupor. “We haven’t met, personally, but I’ve heard so many things about you. That is to say, most of them—if not all—aren’t good things,” he added, rolling his eyes, “But nice meeting you all the same. You’re the Viola girl, yes?”
Fear gripped her by the neck. The man noticed and sighed again.
“My. Another horribly traumatized child. They must’ve tormented you quite badly for you to lose the courage to speak,” the man said disappointingly. “Although…I admit, you are still very brave to do everything that you’ve done leading up to this moment. I am impressed. Most people would just give up and surrender themselves to the inevitable fate.”
“Who are you?”
His eyes lowered to the floor as the edges of his face wrinkled, as though his invisible lips had stretched into a fond smile. Then his eyes returned to meet hers.
“Willy,” he said softly. “You may call me Willy.”
“Willy?” she repeated to no one.
“That’s my name,” Willy said with a sharp nod. “Just as your name is Viola, I suppose.”
Confused was what she was.
Was this man another part of the Signal Tower—the Eye? Or was he an actual person who had lived once upon a time and then snatched away to become the Eye’s puppet?
“But you’re…still the Eye?” Viola said, suspicion in her voice.
“I am the Eye,” Willy confirmed, standing up from his seat. He smoothed out his suit and ran a hand through his brown hair. “Just not the one that put you through hell with all those torments. I’m not even the one who put you in here, as a matter of fact. Now, if you’ll excuse me.” Willy stepped aside and walked past her.
What the heck is going on?
“Wait!” Viola never thought she’d say, much less follow the man—Willy—to the table. Perhaps it was blind stupidity or honest curiosity, she wasn’t sure which, but something felt different about the scene that was laid out in front of her. It was eerie as all of the Eye’s twisted illusions were yet with Willy’s presence—his gentle coaxing to the shadow beneath the table, hushing their soft cries and muttering even softer apologies that escaped her ears—the sense of danger and evil felt awfully thin. And somehow that was even more terrifying.
Willy knelt before the table with his head low, sighing as the shadow refused to come out. He stayed seated on the floor for a minute longer before his own persistence was lost. And he looked over his shoulder with defeated eyes that made his earlier claim sounding false. I am the Eye.
“You have questions, I can tell,” Willy spoke and nodded to the table. “You’re wondering who it is under there, aren’t you?”
Viola was caught off guard at first but nodded eventually. Willy’s smile widened—she could somehow tell as his skin wrinkled.
“Michael is his name,” Willy said, melancholy in his voice. “But he’s always known as Mono.”
“What?” Immediately, her eyes were wide. Willy laughed and shook his head.
“The children teased him so constantly. He didn’t have many friends except for one girl about his age. Although she too had little friends, she chose not to interact with the others on purpose—but Mono…” Willy laughed again, reminiscing, “Mono wanted company so desperately even as they treated him like an outcast. Was friendly and considerate towards them despite being called names and disregarded by the same people. It was inspiring. Foolish. Upsetting.”
Viola found herself approaching Willy for his every word, listening as he continued, “He shared his kindness too easily, if you ask me. Especially considering the evil world he lived in.”
“The girl…was her name Six?” Viola asked after a beat.
Willy tilted his head, his eyes narrowed slightly. “Why do you ask that, Viola?” As she came up with no answer, Willy hummed and shifted back to the table, seemingly having dropped the subject altogether. Much to her disappointment.
“You know, I am quite surprised they put you down here. This part of the Signal Tower hasn’t had any visitors since the Cycle began. I must say it is a little refreshing to see real flesh after a few centuries,” Willy said.
Another wave of confusion. “You…said you’re the Eye. Don’t you see everything above in the city?”
“I used to. Still could, actually, but it isn’t something I’d like to do anymore. Not after seeing the success of each Cycle for years, and not to mention, having the others to help maintain that glory for me.”
Having the others to help maintain that glory for me. Something akin to a lightbulb lit inside her dumbfounded mind.
“Are you their leader?” she asked, determined to find out the truth.
Instead, Willy waved her off as if flattered. “Oh, no such thing, silly girl!” he exclaimed, laughing “I am only the few eyes that have lived through before the Cycle; it doesn’t mean I am a leader, though. We, eyes, merely split ourselves and grow our numbers for the takeover—which I’m sure you’re well aware of—so everything falls systematically into place. Makes the whole thing easier, really. Nonetheless, we are still very much synced from time to time. I know what’s been happening up there just as I know what’s been happening down below, should I wish to.”
“But you—” Viola hesitated and tried again, “I don’t understand. If you’re not their leader, if you’re still the Eye, why do you choose to stay down here? Why not be a part of everything like the rest of them?”
“Like I told you,” Willy said. “It isn’t something I’d like to do anymore. Power and correction have always been the reasons for the Cycle, but after acquiring them and losing so much more…” Silence hung in the air as his eyes turned defeated again at the sight of the trembling shadow boy. “You find that it's best to leave the job to those without our…my memory baggage.”
With every answer Willy gave her, more questions threatened to form on her tongue. If Willy was telling her the truth—if he and the Eye were one and the same—why wasn’t he anything like the Eye? Where was the trickery? Where was the obsession for power and desire to torment others?
Each second that passed through them, Viola waited for his act to drop—the non-threatening mask he wore like an actual skin as his eyes flitted back to the boy under the table, refusing to leave his hiding.
It baffled her immensely.
“Willy?” She couldn’t help herself from seeking more answers. “Who is Michael?”
Willy’s shoulders tensed, and his breathing stilled. A small voice in the back of Viola’s mind berated her for asking, potentially having angered a calm monster who had yet to reveal its teeth and claws.
“Why do you wish to know?” Willy asked after a terrifying pause. Even so, his voice was cool; and his gaze stayed fixed at the table.
Viola gulped as her heart took pace. She had to thread this lightly.
“It’s just that…you say he is also known as Mono,” Viola settled on. “Mono is my father’s name.”
Willy’s head slowly turned to her. Then everything about him relaxed slightly. “Ah, that is true. I suppose that makes you the Broadcaster’s daughter then.”
“Right,” Viola said, taking a step closer, “I’m his daughter.”
“The entire Signal Tower detests you for it, I tell you.”
She winced internally. “I know.”
“Every eye wants you dead.”
“I know that too.” Viola snuck a glance at Willy and found him staring right back with such focus, it made her stomach churn. “I assume you want me…gone as well?”
Willy stared at her for a few seconds more before a quiet hum left him. “I wouldn’t mind it, that’s for sure. However, that will be something for the rest to decide. Your fate does not lie with, nor does it concern me anymore,” he said, and turned back to the table.
Okay. That should be…something.
A heavy thud sounded from above again, stealing her attention immediately. They continued like angry footsteps; and then a muffled yell that was all too indistinct, however, distinct enough for it to sound like a man’s.
“He was one of the evils that made the Cycle necessary.” At the sound of Willy’s voice, Viola shifted back to him with furrowed brows.
“What?” she could only say as the yelling stopped.
“The one you hear yelling above us. He was not a very good man, you see” Willy said, sighing. “Let alone a father. A parent should not hurt their child, don’t you think?”
“H-His father…?” Willy nodded.
Viola felt sick at this knowledge. Mono’s father— her grandfather—had abused his own child. And Mono must’ve no longer had any smidgen of that horrible memory because of the Cycle. No one had any memory regarding what the world once was before the Cycle.
All except Willy.
“Yes. The drunken bastard. Michael was such a sweet boy, and for him to have dealt and lived with the monster…” Willy chuckled dryly. “I wish that man was actually alive now to suffer through ever-lasting pain and torture.”
“Was…Mono a good friend of yours?”
Willy nodded again. “He was what the Cycle was for.”
Viola was drowned once more with plain perplexion. New answers had been given by Willy and still nothing made sense at all.
“Does that answer your earlier question, Viola?” Viola whipped her head to him, spaced out.
“Y-yes,” she lied quickly, stammering. “It…it does.”
“Good. I’m glad.”
“May I ask another question?”
Willy gave her a look, his head tilting to the side. “Shoot,” he said.
“Why are you being nice to me? I mean, you just shared yours and my father’s past; you’ve even answered my questions without asking for a deal,” Viola added hastily as Willy began to scoff. “Is there a catch to all of this?”
Willy laughed, shaking his head. “A catch? Dear Viola, there isn’t a point for me to trick you when I no longer take part in maintaining the Cycle. What benefit would I get from lying to a scared seven-year-old girl other than seeing her cower in one corner? I’m not even half-interested.” Willy continued, “And as for being nice…child, you mistake indifference with kindness. I am merely conversing and sharing because I wish to. There is no underlying meaning to it, I’m afraid.”
“Oh.” Her eyes lowered as she felt her cheeks warm.
“I am still the Eye, Viola. Though I am not the one who holds a grudge towards you, I am still the one who would want to see the Cycle remain as it is. Regardless if I take no direct part in it any longer.”
“But if Mono is a good friend of yours, why use him like that? Why take control of his life…then kill him like he’s no one important?”
Willy shook his head then. “You sound angry; I can understand. But I also believe you are not making the argument you think you are making.”
A scowl deepened across her face.
“You killed my mother and father,” she said, all fear somehow having left her body. “You used them to keep the Cycle going. Is that your idea of friendship? Is the Cycle really for the boy you’re using as a human battery?”
Willy hummed again. “Back then was far different than it is now. The…newer eyes, as I’ve said, are not burdened with certain memory baggage. It is, in fact, easier for them to ensure the Cycle continues with methods that are less than friendly. Methods I wouldn’t personally use.”
“But why?” Viola asked almost desperately.
“Why what?”
“Why would you let them do it if you knew Mono was a friend of yours? It makes no sense!” Anger clouded her mind; she hadn’t realized she was shouting.
If Willy had been the same Eye who loathed her, having her outburst might’ve been the last thing she did.
“For you, perhaps not,” Willy said after she calmed.
A quiet sob from the boy under the table snatched their attention. Viola felt her heart ache hearing her father cry in fear; Willy did too as he sighed loudly.
“Listen, Viola, it is obvious after knowing the death of your parents, you’d like to see the same result for the ones that caused it. I will not stop you. Nor will I try to scare you into bailing on your decision,” Willy started, not looking away from the crying boy. “But I must warn you the Eye grows crueler for every Cycle that prevails. Stronger than the last. If you truly wish to kill us for good, you best pray for all the luck you can get.” He glanced at her and pointed to her bleeding knee. “And get yourself healed and well before you actually do.”
Viola looked down to her knee, feeling the subtle sting as the air hit the open cuts. “Why are you…telling me this?” Viola asked.
“Your determination is as inspiring as Michael’s,” Willy said plainly. “But your naivety and innocence are unfortunately as much as his; take my word for it.”
“So, you’re helping me?” she said, unsure if that was a question or a statement.
Willy scoffed and chuckled wryly. “That is not ‘help’, my dear. I am only stating the obvious. If I didn’t say it, the rest of the Eye probably would.”
“Right.” This time, she couldn’t help scoffing along. “Then...am I allowed to ask you how to get out of here?”
“No.”
That’s surprising.
“You wouldn’t need any help to leave if you so wish to. The Eye only puts you here to separate you from the Broadcaster and the Geisha; but this place is no prison,” Willy added, closing his eyes.
Viola looked around the room for an exit as Willy explained. The living room was still quite dark; she couldn’t see much other than the old furniture, the outlines of the stair banister—presumably going up to where the yelling man was—and the table where it was the brightest.
Even so, no doors.
She nearly asked Willy herself how she could actually leave as he’d mentioned but refrained from doing so this time. Willy, after all, was still the Eye. Even if he was not hostile or evil—he latter being a poor assumption—Willy could still communicate with the other eyes and let the Eye gain the upper hand. Perhaps even help them lead her to another alley of torments just to steer her away from Mono and Six, despite his earlier claims.
Viola huffed a sigh. What was she to do? It must be hours since she was separated from Mono and Six; and she worried for the both of them immensely. She worried for Six who apparently wasn’t herself since they found her. And then there was Mono, being left to deal with that predicament all alone without Viola to help it.
So many things could just go wrong.
Six could hurt him, just as he could hurt her; and they could be on the verge of murdering each other. Meanwhile Viola was stuck here with a docile version of the Eye, frustrated with the confusion that is his story and also annoyed with the cut on her knee that kept on becoming worse if she so much breathed—
And get yourself healed and well before you actually do, Willy's words reminded her.
The cut on her knee.
Mono. He could heal it with a boost.
Her father had always helped her whenever she received any mild injuries such as this—cuts, bruises, more cuts. She remembered him muttering under his breath I can’t believe Six let this happen nearly every time. Which wasn’t fair considering Viola was the one who kept on running off without looking where she was going.
Even so, the very last time she’d run off was the time she’d gotten her knee scraped in the forest. That was the time when her mother had given her the warning—her warnings were often heeded by Viola and Thin Man out of fear of her wrath. And that was the same day she had found out something new; that her mother also had a secret friend no one knew of.
As Viola looked down at her bleeding knee, the memory of her and her mother in the forest became clear in her mind again.
“How did you find me so quickly,” Viola asked, looking up at the tall trees in her mother’s arms.
“A certain…friend of mine helped,” the Lady answered.
Viola remembered then, the words that stuck out to her the most until now:
It led me straight to you like a guide.
The same way you and your father shared a strong connection with your powers, we share a connection through our souls. Whenever you think you’re lost or too far away from us, reach down to your core and call to it.
I promise it will lead you back to me.
The answer washed over her like cold water. Of course. It was right in front of her the entire time. Viola shook her head in disbelief, dragging a hand over her face as new determination coursed through her system once more. How could she not realize this sooner? Willy had been telling her the truth; she could leave this place anytime she wanted to. The only question that had boggled her was the how.
And now she knew how.
Okay, reach down to your core. And call to it.
But what was she even calling? The shadow. Right, she needed to reach out to the curse somehow. How would anyone even do that? Did Six ever call to the curse inside of her? Couldn’t be. Viola had never seen her shift places to places.
But neither did Viola.
Always the first time to everything. Relax. Reach down to your core. Just call it.
Viola had shut her eyes tight as her mother’s words echoed in her head. She thought about Six and thought even harder about her need to reunite with her. Because wherever Six was, Mono had to be there too.
She needed to succeed. She needed to just get to them.
Another minute passed and her eyelids had begun to hurt from the force of her shutting them for a long time. Her determination had waned into irritation and frustration the longer she stood there trying. And her surroundings remained the same when she snuck a peek.
Huh.
It didn’t work.
A pang of disappointment. Why the hell didn’t it work? She tried everything her mother said! She reached down to the lowest core of her core, called to the shadow in her heart many times, thought about Six and her whereabouts so vividly, and even felt her own powers starting at the tip of her fingers.
So why didn’t it work? What part of the Lady’s advice had she understood wrongly? Was she supposed to call to the shadow loudly? Had she not reached down to her core enough? Was her attempt too short for it to actually work, and the curse thought she wasn’t adamant enough to want to find her mother—
A strong force snatched her from behind, making her scream as the world around her stretched further ahead. Willy’s form became smaller as was everything in the room; the lights, the table, the furniture until everything she saw became nothing. She felt the wind push strongly against her back, and then a pair of hands placed firmly over her shoulders as though to steady her. Or at least tried to make her landing looking less stupid and more graceful. Neither of which happened to her.
The darkness gave in to the dim hallway and dark wooden floors soon. The walls were decorated with stripe wallpapers and empty paintings as well as smaller vintage lamps. Beneath her, she felt the soft, wool carpet against her skin—perhaps the reason why her head hurt less than it should when she slammed against the wall.
“Viola?”
Oh. Perhaps it wasn’t a wall.
Viola sat up so quickly despite feeling light-headed, turning to the person that had called her name.
Oh, thank God.
Joy and relief engulfed her, she could barely contain it when she saw his face.
“Mono!” Viola was smiling ear-to-ear! She couldn’t believe it actually had worked. For a moment, she'd thought her efforts had been for nothing but Mono was here. He was there, sitting next to her, and he was
Not happy...
Viola’s shoulders sagged. Why wasn’t he happy to see her? Why wasn’t he showing any relief that she’d found them? He had nothing of that same joy she had on his face. Instead, his eyes were so wide they could pop out of its sockets, something so familiar lingering in his eyes that she could've sworn she’d seen them before.
It clicked immediately.
Mono was horrified. Because that look on him now? That was the same face her father would make when he knew he was facing a certain someone's wrath. Which meant...she should also be just as horrified for the wrath she'd soon face now.
Someone breathed angrily behind her. Mono’s eyes darted towards them and that told Viola enough that the curse had indeed brought her to her mother
And as well as her grave.
Viola winced at the thought as she turned around to meet the girl who was known to be ruthless in her fights. If Mono’s stories about their brawls were true, and that Six could indeed end up feral when angered, then Viola might as well lose from the get-go.
“H…Hi,” her voice was so weak Viola wanted to bury herself for it.
Six sat across her with a terrifying glare. Her chest rose up and down gradually increasing, as if each breath released was her inner rage growing into something fatal for her opponent.
I'm gonna die. She's definitely going to kill me.
As Viola had just begun to make peace with that, Mono—her hero—stepped in quickly, breaking the god-awful silence with his calm voice. He stood up so slowly with a wince or two, nonetheless still eyeing his other friend as if one second of no eye-contact would be the end for them all.
In a sense, it might just be. Six was a ticking time-bomb.
“Six,” Mono gently called out to her, approaching her with an even slower pace, “listen to me, okay? Just…just stay calm. And we can talk this out—”
“You,” Six cut him off.
A pang of fear. Viola dared not to move a muscle as Six's stare was fixed on her like an eagle on the verge of striking. Her face darkened as if a dark cloud hovered above them; and Viola just knew that the last strings that held Six's patience and control together was stretched because of the rage inside of her, each string stretching bigger and thinner.
“You...” her voice went lower, “traitorous...”
Then snap.
“BITCH!”
It was too late. Mono was too slow to talk her out of it. Viola was too afraid to say anything else but watch everything unfold with her in the centre of it all.
And then she gulped her last gulp as that was all she could do, unprepared for Six's sudden attack on her
As well as terrified by her supposed-to-be mother as she took a fistful of Viola's hair with the determination to hurt her as much as possible.
There was no denying it now—Viola was so dead.
Notes:
Viola: you killed my mom and dad!
Eye: (scoffs)
Also the Eye: Dope.Anyway, hope you liked the Eye's backstory teaser lmao. The Eye's backstory arc (mini arc) will come very soon to explain what Willy said, so it's good if you're confused now.
Also next chapter will be Six vs Viola. And yes, if you noticed, Six and Viola's fight is a little similar to Mono vs Six back in the Maw 😭
Thanks for reading!
Chapter 65: Family Shenanigans
Notes:
Yoo sorry again for being late. Anyway here's a Six vs Viola chapter ;)
Also Six curses a lot in this chapter because I thought it was funny lolol
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
“I know this might sound like another big ask, but is it okay if we went and saved her…again?”
That was the question Mono wished he’d never asked…or at least one he wished he didn’t have to ask. But what else could he do, leave the Signal Tower with Six and head to safety? In return, abandon Viola to whatever monstrosity the Eye had locked up here? Six would no doubt like that, actually. It was terrifying to see how she’d eventually take the news—the awkward truth he had, unfortunately, had to find out.
He hoped she didn’t. If she did, Mono would be her punching bag.
“What did you say to me?” Six said after her long silence.
Alright, maybe Viola would be the punching bag first.
“Come on, S-Six, we can’t just… leave her behind” he said, laughing nervously. Six did not react kindly to it. Mono swallowed his unease and added, “Okay, then…then what do you think we should do?”
“I don’t know. I was thinking we just leave her behind.”
Oh, my.
“I understand what you mean—you totally have the right to feel that way!” He lightly, and hesitantly, reached for her hand. Her glare deepened, nonetheless she let him touch her. “But she can’t stay here, Six. She will die if she stays here, in fact.”
“And?”
His eyes widened a little, taken aback by her harshness. “I’m saying the Eye is going to kill her. That’s a bad thing. ” Six raised a brow, unfeeling.
“You’re saying it’s a bad thing if the Eye kills her,” she repeated. “Mono, let me tell you—she’s lucky if I’m not the one who kills her.” She held his hand firmly then, helping him stand with her. He winced. “Look, I know you’ve got this crazy, random kindness in you since day one, but I don’t care what happens to that brat,” she said with venom in her voice. “And honestly, neither should you. She’s nothing but a liar and will definitely try and hurt us again. I say we leave now before it’s too late. Let the Eye do whatever they want with her and meanwhile…meanwhile we can find our way out.” She glanced at the purple bruise marking his ankle and frowned. “Can you walk on your own?”
“Not really, but—”
“Okay, then I’ll just help you—”
“Six, please listen to me?” She gave him a look as his voice softened a little. Mono purposely ignored the light squeeze she gave his hand. “We need to find her before we leave. I can’t…” he said, nearly desperate, “I can’t abandon her. Not after everything.”
For a moment, Six’s silence convinced him that her mind was made up—and that Viola was to be left behind in the Signal Tower just as Six had been by the latter. Yet his disappointment was short-lived when he heard her sigh exasperatedly, her eyes rolling.
That small detail made his heart leap no matter how irritated she sounded.
“Fine,” was all she said to him before they continued with their new mission: saving Viola 2.0.
Six was not at all happy throughout the whole time and was silent, which was expected. Honestly, he’d expected much worse. Of course, worst case scenario was if he’d failed to convince Six to help him find Viola altogether, second worst would be if he had to be dragged away by her should he tell her he was staying.
But this… this was not all bad. She agreed to help him, furthermore she still willingly helped him walk with his broken ankle!
And here he thought Six would be so pissed off at him that she’d let him limp the whole way. Not that he’d complain about that— Six still being here with him was the best thing he could’ve asked for.
His cheeks warmed for the umpteenth time as Six adjusted his arm over her shoulder, pulling him closer.
She’s not your wife, she’s not your wife, she’s not your wife, she’s not your wife.
“Can you actually try and walk too, Mono? You’re kind of leaning your whole weight against me.” His face was set ablaze.
“Of…of course! I’m so sorry,” he said, leaning as far away from her as possible, utterly self-conscious. He heard her scoff then.
“You don’t have to lean away completely, stupid. I’m only telling you to walk a little.” Six shook her head at him, rolling her eyes.
He couldn’t help the wry chuckle leaving his throat. “It’s a little hard to when your ankle is broken, you know.”
“Please, it’s one bone in one foot. Have you forgotten that I stepped on a literal nail? I’m pretty sure I even lost a lot of blood from that.”
“It’s not a competition, Six.”
“You’re right. It’s not even close.” Mono stole a glance her way and noticed the cheeky grin she had on. He grinned too but not before turning away.
I hate it when she smiles like that.
“Do you think Viola’s around here? In one of these rooms, maybe?” He needed a distraction from the uncomfortable fluttering within his stomach. His face couldn’t have gone any warmer.
“Ah, the fake brat, you mean? I’m not sure. Although, it wouldn’t hurt in the slightest if she’s in pain. Would love to see her cry for real instead of those fake tears she let out,” Six said, her grin gone and replaced with bitter resentment. “But let’s hope for the best, right?”
“R-right. Hey…Six I really—ow—appreciate you agreeing to help me find her again,” he said, wincing through the pain, “even though you’re furious with her right now.”
Six laughed mirthlessly. “’Furious’ is an understatement, Mono. You don’t know just how close I am to killing her myself.” She glanced at him with a glare. “And you.”
“Me?”
“Yes, you.” Six kicked the door and let it swing wide. She led them out into the hallway where the lamps lit dimly on each striped wall. “You never want to listen to me,” she grumbled under her breath, pouting.
“That is not true! I do listen!” he said with pinched brows. “I listened to you when…I mean during the…” Everything in his mind went blank at the wrong time, throwing him into a deeper hole he’d stupidly helped Six dig.
Why couldn’t he think of a single thing? Was it the sudden turn the conversation took? Was it Six’s hurt, although very much accusing, tone she’d used to throw him off his game?
The more he continued to think of an answer, the more he realized it was no use. His silence spoke enough to earn a sigh from his friend.
“See?” Her disappointment cut him like a sharp blade. “You never listen to me. You didn’t listen when I warned you about Viola the first time; clearly, you choose not to listen again.”
“Six, you’re getting this all wrong— of course I listen to you. We’re friends!” he said, and nudged her slightly when she refused to look at him. “Hey,” he continued, “we are friends, aren’t we—?”
Six halted in place, nearly bringing him to stumble forward. Crap. Did I say something wrong? Does she know about the future? She knows. Oh, she definitely figured it out, Mono’s mind kept telling him as regret settled in quickly. Six still wasn’t looking at him, and he wasn’t sure if that was a good sign or a sign he’d ruined everything for them both.
“Uh, S-Six?” Mono tilted his head forward to get a better look. Her eyes were trained on the carpet floor, her lips parted to release short breaths; then her nails dug into the sleeve of his coat.
“Six, is everything…okay?” No answer. Instead, she tensed and shied away when he touched her shoulder with his other hand. What had he done? Had his question somehow given away information about their future?
Could she really have figured it out? No, you’re just being paranoid. There’s no way she could’ve figured it out from a simple question, let alone about our “special” friendship—
“Mono, something’s not right.” All overthinking panic was put to a pause. He watched her whip her head around back and forth, all the while still holding his arm, and searching the striped walls as though something had crawled past them.
“What do you mean?” he asked, unsure if his worry was related to the fact that a monster may be lurking in the darkness or due to Six’s unease.
“Something is not right,” she insisted, looking at him now. “I feel…weird.”
“Weird as in…danger incoming weird or….?”
Six hesitated as she glanced behind them one last time. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “I just feel like something is coming our way...I’m not sure what.”
Anything’s better than her knowing we have a thing for each other later on. “Could it be your gut feeling then? You always have a stronger instinct out of the two of us—”
“No, it doesn’t feel like that, Mono—it just feels…” A heavy sigh from her and she hung her head low, shaking them. “Never mind, you might be right.”
He lifted a concerned brow. “Are you sure? I don’t often make the right judgements,” he joked, earning a small smile from her.
“That you don’t, but,” she said, “it probably is only my gut feeling—” Six didn’t get to finish her sentence. Mono barely had any idea what caused it until he felt the soft wool beneath his feet pressed flat against his face. Everything below his left knee immediately throbbed and hurt twice as much.
It wouldn’t take a genius to understand it—he and Six had fallen. Pushed from behind, he realized the more his brain began to process the feeling of limbs slamming against them like strong water current. A soft groan next to him caught his attention. Six, his head immediately turned to, her name on the tip of his tongue.
“Viola?” was what he ended up saying. What the hell?
Viola shot up from the ground quickly and beamed at him the same way she always would, smiling a toothy smile that could practically belong to Six. Since when did they look so similar to each other?
“Mono!” Viola exclaimed. She was happy, that was without a doubt. And honestly, he was too, seeing her here alive and unharmed, but…
Something gnawed at him persistently whenever the thought of being joyful crossed his mind.
He wanted to lift a similar smile, welcome Viola back and tell her how relieved he was that everyone was reunited. He couldn’t. No matter how much he tried, it felt wrong. As though he was celebrating in the midst of a thunderstorm.
Oh.
Oh, no.
His gaze shifted to the one in the yellow raincoat. Oh, no, no, no, no, no.
If history ever taught him anything, it was that anger from a very fresh betrayal could cloud a mind like a swarm of bees. He’d felt it, gone through it, went past it.
Now as it was Six’s turn, he genuinely feared for the one who had wronged her—and for himself too, because of collateral damage. There was no surviving this without an angry bruise or two.
Viola’s smile was already gone by the time he looked at Six (who, by the way, was eyeing the back of Viola’s head as if it were one of the bully’s). She shared the same fear as him, it seemed, but what made his eyes wide was her sheer courage to look at her ‘mother’. Why on Earth would she look back? Was she looking forward to speeding up her doom? God, this girl.
“H…Hi,” Viola said weakly. Six’s eyes immediately darkened.
Mono almost wanted to slap himself.
Have your parents taught you nothing?
“Six,” he spoke up as Six was on the verge of murder and Viola…well, she was on the verge of getting murdered. Mono pushed himself to stand on his own regardless if his ankle protested. Because right now, his broken ankle potentially might be the least serious injury compared to Viola and Six—that is considering if Viola even has it in her to fight Six of all people. He didn’t want to find out. He had to stop this before it escalated badly. “Six, listen to me, okay?” he said, limping to her as slowly as he could. One quick movement and he might just trigger a bomb that was Six’s rage. “Just…just stay calm. And we can talk this out—”
“You.” Shit. “ You….traitorous...” Shit, shit. He turned to Viola and saw her sharing his horror.
“BITCH!”
All hell broke loose.
Six’s scream pierced through the air and as did Viola’s. Six had lost all composure and control as she jumped at the younger girl and climbed atop her with the sole purpose of tearing out Viola’s hair. Viola only cried, clawing at Six’s merciless hands.
And merciless Six truly was.
“DOES IT HURT?” Six yelled, pulling yet another fistful of hair and bringing her face onto the carpet floor, muffling Viola’s scream and weakening her by taking away her hopes for air. “I HOPE IT DOES. I HOPE YOU KNOW YOUR SUFFERING IS ABOUT TO BECOME WORSE.”
“WAIT—I’M SORRY!” Viola cried when her face was temporarily brought up. Six slammed it back down with a stronger force, earning a yelp from her.
“Sorry? What for are you sorry? For lying to me? For making me believe you were actually trustworthy? FOR LEAVING ME BEHIND?” Six turned her over and grabbed her by the neck. Viola squirmed only to be still as Six tightened her chokehold.
“I-I-I had to do it! You…you were infected by the eyes!”
“SO WHAT?”
Viola’s eyes widened in disbelief. “WHAT DO YOU MEAN ‘ SO WHAT?’
“YOU STILL DID NOT HAVE THE RIGHT TO PUSH ME OVER ON THAT LEDGE WHEN I NEARLY DIED TRYING TO SAVE YOU—”
“OKAY—COOL IT!” Mono hooked his arms beneath Six’s and snatched her from behind, picking her up. Six was less than pleased as she thrashed like a maniac, kicking the floor just to throw him off balance. It did work at first. She slipped past his hold and barely got to Viola, however, not before he grabbed her by her hood and pulled her back to him.
Another fit of tantrum and thrashing. Mono locked his arms around her torso and pulled her flush against him. Her arms still flailed trying to reach Viola, who had backed into the wall with fear written on her face. It was a valid reaction from her. Even he was a little scared with this…side of Six.
“Mono, let go of me!” Six yelled at him too. “I’m not done with that fake bitch!” Viola pressed herself further into the wall, her hair tangled and all over the place thanks to Six.
“Okay, first of all, you seriously need to calm down,” he said, struggling to speak with Six squirming non-stop. “Secondly—SIX, I SAID CALM DOWN.”
“I AM CALM.”
“NO, YOU AREN’T. YOU’RE STILL MOVING!” Six kicked the floor again and forced both of them to back into the other wall. Mono’s hold tightened across her abdomen even as they fell together to the ground and lying on their side. Luckily, the fall hurt enough for Six’s thrashing to slow, and her breathing became heavy with exhaustion. Mono still did not let go, despite feeling like his foot had snapped off.
“Okay, Mono, I’m calm,” Six said after a long second of recovering. “Will you let go now?”
“Will you stop trying to kill Viola?” he asked.
Another long pause. “Yes.”
“You really promise you won’t kill her?”
“I promise.”
“Alright. Then I’ll let go—"
“Mono, do not let go of her.” Their heads perked up to Viola instantly. The younger girl was still seated across from them at her side of the wall; and still very much terrified. “Whatever you do, do not let go of Six.”
Hearing the tremble in her voice, however, stronger in desperation, Mono began to doubt.
“What…?” he said to Viola.
“Six literally just smiled at me when you said you were letting her go,” Viola said, pointing to her attacker. While he couldn’t quite see Six’s face in this position, Viola’s words might potentially be true.
But then he heard Six scoff.
“You’re seriously believing this brat’s words after what she did to me? Come on, Mono, she’s clearly lying,” Six said.
Perhaps, Viola was lying out of fear, he thought as he listened to Six’s point of view. Mono nodded slowly and was loosening his hold on Six when Viola yelled at him to stop.
“Mono, sh-she just smiled again!” Viola shouted.
“Oh, you lying bitch! I was not!” Six tapped on his forearm impatiently. “Mono, let me go; and I’ll show you how I won’t try to kill her.”
“That literally translates to you wanting to kill me,” Viola spat to Six before her eyes went back to him. “Hey. Look, I know I screwed up a lot these past few days, but even you know why I did what I did. You’ve got to believe me—Six is lying.”
“Says the liar,” Six quipped coldly to Viola. Then to him, her voice softened so that only he could hear. “Remember when you admitted to never listening to me?”
“I never admitted—”
“Well, now’s your chance. Listen, and let go of me,” she cut him off, passing a side-glare to Viola. “Friends help friends, don’t they?” she added.
His heart made a little jump. “I…I guess,” he said, familiar heat returning to his cheeks. He drew his lips into a thin line and thought it over multiple times.
“Okay. I’ll let go of you— but,” he said, “only if you swear not to kill Viola when I do. Can you do that?”
“Sure, yeah.”
“I want to hear it, Six.”
Six sighed exasperatedly, rolling her eyes again. “…I swear I won’t kill Viola once you let me go. Happy?”
Good enough. “Viola!” Viola’s head cocked up to them, prior frustration for not being able to eavesdrop clear across her face. “I’m letting Six go, alright?”
“WHAT?” Viola’s eyes widened more than they already had.
“It’s okay, she’s already sworn not to kill you,” he added, smiling nervously. “You’ll be fine.”
“Yeah, sure, that’s what she wants you to think!” She dragged a hand over her face. “Did you not see her trying to strangle me to death?”
“Well, to be fair, you did start it first—”
“Mono, you know why I did it! You seriously can’t be pulling the supportive husband—”
“I-I DO, YES, I KNOW WHY YOU DID IT!” Mono shouted over the last word, making Six flinch in his arms—and hopefully, missing what Viola had said. He took a quick breath then and continued calmly, “All I’m saying is, Viola, Six has…the right to have a reaction. Not that I’m saying her solution was 100% correct, but…maybe you could let slide a punch or two to make things even?” Viola’s face paled. Right. She probably never has been punched by her own mother before. “Alright, never mind; scratch that last part,” he added and told them both, “The hair-pulling just now is it and all there will be. Is everyone cool with that?”
A long minute of nothing.
And then a hesitant “okay” and a grumble of “weak bitch” was his answer spoken in unison. Viola made a face to him all the while gesturing at Six. He, too, gave a pointed stare at the girl, not too thrilled over her choice of words.
“What?” Six snapped as she realized all eyes were on her. “I can’t kill her. Doesn’t mean I can’t insult her for what she is.”
Viola scowled. “I’m not weak.”
“If you weren’t, you wouldn’t need Mono to come save you, would you, weak bitch—?”
“Okay, girls, we’re going in circles here,” Mono chimed in, irritated. “Six, I’m letting you go, so please, do not kill Viola. And Viola…just try not to make much eye contact with Six at least until we’re out of the Tower.” With that, he released Six. He ignored the tiny part of him that wished he had an excuse to hold her longer or blame it on his trust issues that Six would still try to murder Viola. Disappointment spread anyway as Six dropped to the floor beside him and sprung to her feet. Mono quelled the feeling, forcing himself to think of anything but her.
Incredible how one stupid truth could infect his perception of someone.
He looked over to Viola, the person to blame for all he was feeling. Although, he only saw her merely a few seconds before Six’s hand blocked his view. Mono looked up at her, gaping.
“Huh?”
Six sighed loudly and gestured for him to take her hand.
“We have to get going, Mono. Your ankle’s done for, and you can’t walk without someone as your crutch. Better me than that brat over there,” she said as she nodded her head to Viola’s direction, purposely making her voice loud and clear. He glanced at the frozen Viola and then back to her hand.
Six waited patiently, though if she were annoyed with his slow decisions, she didn’t show it. At least not as openly as she usually would.
Mono accepted her help and took her hand, letting her pull him up to stand. “Thanks,” he said. Six hummed softly in return, taking his arm to put over her shoulder like before.
Much to his relief, Six calmed way faster than he had thought she would—he’d even expected for her to go back on her word and attack Viola again as soon as she was free. To which, thankfully, she did not. It was quite the growth he’d seen of her, and dare he say, he was already proud—
“Wait, guys!” Six tensed immensely at the sound of Viola’s voice. The dark cloud that had left the hallway returned to hover above them once more.
Perhaps he’d been ready to celebrate too soon.
Because as Viola came approaching, Mono could’ve sworn he felt Six clutching his arm like a stress ball. It hurt, but God forbid he complained while she was glaring murderously again.
“What is it, Viola?” he said, holding back a wince from Six’s killer grip, rivaling a broken ankle.
Viola glanced at his feet. “You…you hurt your ankle?”
“Oh. Uh, well, yeah actually—"
“Are you blind?” Both he and Viola turned their heads to Six. “Clearly, you can see the bruises around his feet and the fact that he’s limping. Are you that dumb you can’t connect the dots yourself?”
Viola fell silent, her lower lip trembling as if holding back tears. Mono noticed and quickly placed a hand over Six’s shoulder. “Hey, it’s okay, Six. She was only asking a question,” he said to her.
“A stupid question,” Six replied, still glaring at Viola.
Right. Best that they don’t talk to each other either for now.
With that in mind, Mono diverted the subject away and asked Viola, “Is something wrong?”
“No, no! Nothing’s wrong,” Viola said as she avoided Six’s bitter stare. “I just wanted to…see if you’d like a boost? I can give you another one the same as last time.”
“You gave him what last time?” Six said, her eyes wide. Before her shock escalated into something ugly, say another hair-pulling fight, Mono raised a hand and waved her concern off. Six frowned at this, however, kept quiet.
“I appreciate you wanting to help, Viola, but I don’t think that’s a good idea,” he said quickly. “I don’t want you to waste your energy just to heal me. Surely, you need them for yourself.”
“But you can hardly walk,” Viola replied. “Even with Six’s help, you can’t expect me to let you limp the whole way. What if the Eye attacks us and you can’t run? Six could end up getting hurt too, you know?”
“Tch, fake bitch,” Six muttered under her breath, scoffing to the side.
They all ignored that.
“I don’t know about this, Viola…” Mono said eventually.
“Look, if it makes any difference, I can’t heal you 100% anyway like my dad—” Viola closed her mouth. Mono’s eyes widened a fraction. Six looked at them confused, raising her brow. “I-I mean, I can’t fully heal a broken bone even if I wanted to,” Viola added hastily. “So, if you were to take the boost, my energy probably wouldn’t take much of a hit. If that’s what you’re worried about.”
“Probably, you say?”
“It’s the likeliest scenario, so yes—probably. Even so, nothing negative on my part, and you’ll get to walk without limping!” Viola lifted a smile. “What do you think; boost or no boost?”
Mono looked down to his broken ankle and the nasty color marked all around the skin. It would be a smart move to get the injury healed before it worsened. Viola had even offered to ‘boost’ his energy just so he could walk without a human crutch, which was Six; and while he wouldn’t mind having her by his side to keep him upright, what Viola said left a bad feeling in him.
She was right.
Relying on Six solely for his mobility might hurt her more in the process. It might even hurt Viola too if he were to be the one to slow everybody down.
He needed to take the boost. Pride and guilt aside, he had to heal his ankle if he wanted to leave the Signal Tower—fight the Eye if worse comes to worst—with the rest of them.
“Okay.” Mono nodded more confidently. “I’ll take the boost.”
“Great! Let me just get a good look at your—” Viola’s words were cut short as Six delivered the nastiest smack on the side of her head, sending her plummeting to the floor.
Shock splashed him whole like water, but Six was not done. Not even a second spared, Six had already taken hold of Viola’s shirt collar and raised a fist high above her head. Oh, no.
“SIX!” He heard anger in his own voice, sounding awfully out of place. Funny, he didn’t even know where it came from.
Neither did Six and Viola, however, more so the former as her fist froze in the air and her head turned to him. She lowered her hand slowly the more she studied his face, frowning and scowling.
He scowled back and shook his head. Somehow he was still unsure why he’d snapped. Another part of him wondered why he continued to show his anger, or why it pained him to see Viola so afraid.
Viola shouldn’t be afraid. Not of her own mother.
“What?” Six hissed, still holding Viola by the collar. “Am I supposed to believe she would actually heal you? Let alone be expected to let her touch any one of us?”
“I know you’re angry.”
“Damn right, I’m angry, Mono.” Her scowl deepened. “You’re defending her when I’m defending you. Is this how it’s going to be? You, always being on her side even when she’s shown what a traitor she is? She betrayed me!”
“And you betrayed me! Doesn’t mean I stopped trusting you, does it?” he snapped.
Hurt and guilt appeared in her eyes briefly before they hardened into an unreadable emotion.
Mono realized it and wished he had kept his mouth shut. Hell, he wished for a lot of things that never came true.
“Six, I…I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean—”
Six turned her attention back to her traitor. With both hands, she brought Viola even closer, glaring down at the latter with one of her most terrifying, dangerous glare there was. Even Viola had no choice but to stare directly into her mother’s cold eyes, unable to escape the violence it promised within them.
“Your boost,” Six began to say, “do they really work?”
Surprise ran through him. And all over Viola’s face.
“Wh-what—?” Viola barely uttered before Six tightened her grip and shook her harshly.
“A simple question. Yes or no?”
“Yes.” Viola nodded vigorously. “Yes, they work. I’ve given one to him before. It-it should help him walk at least if he receives another.”
Six hummed at her words, thinking. Her glare stayed the entire time even as Viola attempted to cast a side glance to Mono, perhaps for his help.
It was unfortunate this time. He’d given her his assistance too much already, and any more would put him in a dangerous position in terms of his and Six’s relationship.
“Viola.”
Viola’s eyes snapped at Six, widening as her throat bobbed in a hard swallow. “Y-yes?”
“If you try anything funny, you know what happens, don’t you?” Six said, half warning, half threatening.
None of them missed either of them.
Viola nodded.
“And if you lied to me or Mono about what you said, you know the consequences of that too, yes?”
Another strong nod. “I…I promise I’ll get him healed.”
“Good. Because if he isn’t healed, or if your boost failed on him,” Six said and sneered, “then you best pray the Eye kills you before I do. This time…I won’t hold back.”
Just like that, Viola was released. Shoved to the floor as Six rudely turned her back on the girl, leaving her to sit there as though she was no more important than a dirty peasant. It was blatant mean. Harsh…and merciful.
The first two was a given when it came to Six but the third was as rare as a clear sky in Pale City—although, the last few days he and Six had gone through enough together for him to have earned the ‘friendlier’ side of her. Her ‘mercy’ might just be a privilege he had but never realized.
He caught her eyes, looking at him with a softer glare before she turned away and stood far at the side.
Thank you, he said in his heart. Six remained in silence and kept her promise finally, withholding her bitter resentment and anger at the younger girl as she eyed her like a prisoner instead.
Even so…it was better than her beating Viola to pulp.
Mono knelt down, wincing as he sat next to Viola. “Hey…are you okay?” he whispered
Viola shook her head dejectedly and whispered back, “She hates me.”
“No, she doesn’t,” he tried, patting her shoulder. “She’s…only angry.”
“Because of me.”
“Well…that is true, yes, but she’ll get over it, I promise. Once all of this is over, I bet she wouldn’t even remember what you did.” Viola made a face. He chuckled and added, “Okay, she’ll remember it for the rest of her life—but things will get better. Besides, Six has always been a little mean anyway. I just made it look like she isn’t as insufferable.”
At that, Viola cracked a small smile. “Thanks,” she said after a beat, “for…earlier. “
He shrugged. “As long as I’m not always covering up for you in the future, then it’s fine.” Viola fell awkwardly silent. His smile sagged a little at that. “I don’t do that, do I?”
“Let me see the broken ankle.” Viola turned to look at his bruised feet. He did not appreciate what he’d learned about his future self.
Mono nodded and shifted on the floor, letting her have more room to get a closer look. The bruises indeed had taken a darker hue—perhaps worsened due to him holding a mad child down while she kicks everything around her. He held no grudge, of course, but the sight of it did upset him a little. And the pain, every step was like stepping on tiny pieces of shards. He held in a deep breath and winced when Viola lifted his feet slowly. Through his peripheral, he could see Six tense and hesitate, nonetheless she remained in place.
“Woah,” Viola muttered under her breath. Luckily, Six didn’t hear.
“What do you mean ‘Woah’?” he whispered with slight worry. “Is it really that bad?”
“I’ve never seen a broken ankle before. Looks kind of scary.” Mono shot her a deadpanned look. “What? I never had a broken ankle,” Viola told him quietly, closing her hands around the bruises.
“Huh. Well, consider me”—Mono winced as blue glowed beneath her palm—“surprised. I thought Six would break your ankles once a week.”
“Sarcasm sensed and noted. My dad would kill her if she did anyway.”
He scoffed. “No way I’d—” Realizing his own loud voice, he cast a glance at Six. She had already begun to lean against the wall, playing with the dark swirls curling at her fingers. Mono sighed and lowered his voice just in case. “Your dad wouldn’t.”
“You wouldn’t—”
“Don’t.”
Viola smirked, her attention on fixing his ankle. Mono felt the cool sensation slowly smoothing over the throbbing pain. It felt different than the boost he’d received before, albeit welcome all the same.
“Hey, Viola?” Her head perked as she hummed. “Can I…ask you something about the future? About your parents?” When she finally agreed, he asked her, “Me and Six…we don’t fight each other, do we?”
Pain flickered in her eyes before she looked back to his ankle, refusing to meet his eyes. He felt the earlier regret coming back to him.
“You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to—”
“You did.” Viola sucked in a trembling breath. “Both of you did, actually. Towards the end.”
“Oh.”
“I don’t blame either of you for doing so,” Viola added. “Everybody was desperate to save everybody. Everybody disagreed with everybody’s plans. A fight was bound to happen. It’s just that it was the first time I saw my father scream at her…and the first time I saw her use her powers to hurt him.”
Mono fell quiet listening. Curiosity had nagged him like an itch, and he’d only thought being in the know would help his and Six’s relationship—that is, should they ever grow past friendship, which they wouldn’t. Yet what Viola revealed felt awfully…personal.
Perhaps learning anything about his future wasn’t a good idea. He’d already known he and Six died—and maybe that was enough already.
“Sorry,” he apologized, “if future me scared you. I hope you know that, Viola.”
Viola chuckled and grinned, the brief tension easing with her smile. “I know, don’t worry about it. Besides, I should be the one to say sorry. This is going to hurt a little.”
“Why is that—?”
A crack sounded in the air, followed by his sharp cry. Mono fell on his side, eyes shut, fisting the ground and cursing the room, his entire foot feeling as though it’d been dipped in boiling water. Of course, the pain lasted no more than a few seconds before they disappeared completely. He opened his eyes slowly and turned to his broken feet.
Except to find that it wasn’t so broken anymore.
He stared at the faded blue across his pale skin, the pain of moving his feet no more than a mild ache he could stand. Viola healed him. Not entirely as she’d said, but she’d healed his broken ankle—
“You lying scum, what did I tell you?” Six’s voice came approaching. Uh, oh. Mono got up to his feet and immediately, Viola got behind him, holding his shoulders tightly as she used him as a human shield. Though, unfortunately for her, that did not stop Six from trying to grab her even as he was right in between.
“Mono—get out of my way!” Her arm shot over his shoulder. Viola ducked and clung onto his back like a terrified cat sinking its claws. “I’m ending this brat,” Six hissed, trying to slap Viola once again and once again failing to.
“Six, it’s okay,” Mono said, blocking her way when she stepped either left or right.
“You’re dead, Viola. You hear me?” Six ignored him. “What did I just tell you, huh?”
“I-I healed him like I said I would!” Viola yelled shakily, peering over from behind Mono and ducking back.
“You hurt him,” Six spat, her eyes narrowed in slits.
“That was part of the boost! It’s part of the healing!” Viola shot back.
“Part of the healing, as if! Why don’t I break your arms then? We’ll call that healing too.”
“People, I am healed.” The room became silent quickly. “I am also literally standing in front of you,” he added after a beat.
Six’s glare softened until they shifted into one of embarrassment, her cheeks flushing under the dim light. She glanced down at his once broken ankle.
“You’re healed,” Six said.
“Yeah,” Mono replied, giving her a smile. “You can stop worrying about me.”
“I wasn’t worried.” Her brows formed a scowl then, her face more flushed than before. “Says who I was worried about you?”
Mono and Viola shared a look with each other, unconvinced. “Oh. My bad then,” Mono said as he turned back to Six. “Because… obviously, you weren’t worried. Right…Viola?” He nudged her to get off his back and made her stand properly beside him.
“T-Totally. Who cares about his existence even?” Mono elbowed Viola’s side. “I mean, you weren’t worried, of course,” she corrected herself, her voice strained.
“You both are terrible liars,” Six told them.
“So you agree Viola isn’t a liar by default?” Mono tried, hopeful.
“Don’t cover for her, Mono.” Six sent an almost disgusted look towards Viola. “I still don’t trust her no matter what you or she says. She may have healed you, but that doesn't change the fact that she betrayed..." Her voice softened into silence. Mono realized her guilt. Before he could speak to her, though, Six raised her hand and shook her head. "Forget it. Let’s just get going. Since you’re…okay now.”
Mono nodded and agreed, walking first. Viola was just about to follow behind, merely taking three steps, before Six caught her by the shoulder with a tut. Viola froze in place; and so did Mono.
“Hold it. You’re walking in front of us, Viola,” Six told her. Afraid, Viola did nothing but shrink slightly under Six’s cold stare. Mono sighed and walked back to them, his feet aching lightly for each step. Still, it was bearable.
“Uh, Six, do we have to—”
“Yes,” Six said, “we do. I told you I don’t trust her. That means I’m not letting her have the chance to knock our heads or stab us in the back.”
“She’s not going to do that!”
“Can you prove it?” Mono gave no answer. Viola didn’t too, but perhaps more so out of fear than not knowing how. “Then we agree,” Six turned her eyes back to Viola, smiling in mockery. “Viola’s going first, and we’ll stick behind her. Go on, liar, let me see you walk ahead.”
Viola rubbed her arm nervously. “But…” She glanced at the darkness lying in the distance. “Wh-What if something’s...waiting ahead?”
“Then I’m sure you’ll let us know right away,” Six replied sweetly. “Go on, Viola. We’ll be right behind you.”
Once again, Viola looked over to him for help. Mono mouthed his apologies and shook his head defeatedly. Just do as she says.
It took Viola more than a few seconds before she reluctantly went first. If it weren’t for Six creepy sweet smile, hiding her impatience beneath it, perhaps Viola would’ve stayed rooted on the floor forever.
“Hey,” Mono said to Six once Viola was out of earshot. “Don’t you think making her walk alone is a little…too much?” Watching Viola apprehensively looking around her as the distance grew between them was hurting him on the inside. “This place isn’t at all safe.”
“Exactly. She’ll be the first to know if danger is coming. If anything, she’s the safest. She’ll get the chance to run first, I’m sure.”
His brows furrowed in concern. “But what if something grabs her before she can do anything?”
“Ah, in that case, Mono,” Six said, humming happily, “we’ll be the first to run.”
A huff left him at her words.
Mono couldn’t even hide his own disbelief. As much as he was glad—and even proud—earlier Six had kept her promise as to not kill Viola by her hands, he realized he should’ve been more specific. It was perfectly obvious now.
Six was using the Signal Tower to kill Viola for her.
Notes:
Is Six jealous? Yes. Will she remain jealous? Yes yes :D
She is a mean bully and I stand by it hoho
Anyhoo, The Signal Tower arc will continue in the next since this one is already 6k and I wanted to give these three some family bonding time🥺🥺 Meanwhile, in the next chapter, a certain villain of the story will return (no, not the Doppelganger) and cause a few bad things >:)
Thanks for reading!
Chapter 66: Tough Spot
Notes:
Hello everyone! Late again, I know, but life is just a real pain arghrghrgrhg. Also just wanted to say my thanks to those who still commented. Sorry I couldn't reply sooner, though I hope you know I appreciate every single one :)
Anyway, here goes the chapter and if I may I spoil it a little...here goes the Final Reveal of the truth.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
The whole time they were walking, nobody said a word.
Likely, it was because of Six’s silent threat to Viola that was so strong it managed to affect the air within 10 feet in proximity to Six; add on the fact Six had just implied she was killing Viola another way—but maybe Mono was overthinking it. There was no way Six would really kill Viola, right?
Viola slowed her pace in front of them.
“Stop walking and I’ll make sure you’ll stop forever, Viola,” Six said.
Mono winced internally, watching the younger girl whimper quietly before she quickened her steps. Perhaps he should really say something…or not. What if he received the same treatment as Viola was receiving now? Sure, it seemed like he was on the right side of Six’s terrifying mood shifts, but that could easily change. Six could easily hate him too. She could easily break his legs.
Stop it. You know she wouldn’t. Mono cast another careful side glance to his friend next to him. She’d never hurt you again.
“You have something to say, don’t you?” Six’s eyes caught his. He swallowed whatever fear and hesitation that begged him to play dumb.
“Well…since you brought it up, I was thinking that—”
“You want to walk with Viola.”
A frown played across his face. “I’m not saying that I want to,” he said, pausing for the right words. “I just thought that…maybe me, checking up on her wouldn’t be so bad of an idea? Just to see how she’s doing.”
“So, you do want to walk with her.” Six scoffed and fixed her stare on Viola’s back.
“Six—”
“No, if you want to, go ahead.”
“What?”
“Go ahead. Walk with her. You know you want to.”
Mono felt his brows furrow and his eyes narrowed slightly at her. “Really?”
“Yes.” Six nodded. “Go ahead.”
“You’re really okay…with me checking up on her?” Her tone indicated otherwise.
“Why wouldn’t I be, Mono?” Six said and sighed through her nose. “You clearly think Viola is a better friend than me anyway.”
There it is. “Six,” he said with a pointed look. “Can you not think of it like that? I just wanted to see if she’s not silently crying.”
“Oh. Well, in that case, then I hope you let her know she’s allowed to cry out loud. I’m not that heartless, see?”
“She’s scared, Six. She’s never been exposed to outside danger her whole life aside from the Signal Tower. She’s not mentally scarred like us.”
This time it was Six who narrowed her eyes to him. “And you know that…how, exactly?”
Because according to Viola, future me is an overprotective softie.
“She told me,” he said instead. It wasn’t technically a lie, but telling Six the whole truth would require her a chair so she could sit down. Or something for her to smash him with later on.
“She told you she’s never been subjected to the horrors of this world?”
“More or less—” He was cut off my Six’s laugh.
“Smells like crap to me.” Her smile turned bitter. “Viola is a manipulative witch and I wouldn’t be surprised if she came from a bloodline of liars.”
Mono gave her a long look. “Yeah,” he said, remembering the times Six easily lied to his face. “That’d be no surprise at all.”
“You know what, fine. Go check up on her. I want to know if she’s crying like the pathetic weakling that she is.”
“Hey, that’s a little mean…” Six’s glare returned. Mono gulped and added, “But I am wrong.”
“Get back to me in 60 seconds or I’ll assume she’s taken you hostage.”
Mono cracked a smile at that, snickering at her words. Though, it dawned on him quickly that Six wasn’t at all joking when her glare stayed. That and the fact she calmly told him, “55 seconds.”
Mono walked over to Viola in haste. He hoped Six couldn’t count correctly in her mind as she couldn’t count on paper.
Since Six had forced Viola to walk alone and at least 10 feet away from them, catching up to her didn’t take as long with his healed ankle. And hearing his footsteps behind her, she must’ve thought he was Six, having decided to abandon her promise and kill her anyway. The closer he was, the faster Viola walked. He’d wanted to sigh.
“Viola, it’s me,” he whispered as he caught her by the shoulder. Viola practically jumped, though seeing his face instead of the child version of her mother, relief never painted brighter across her face.
“Mono.” She snuck a nervous glance behind her. “What…what are you doing? I thought I’m supposed to walk alone,” Viola whispered back, slight fear still in her eyes regardless he wasn’t Six.
“Just wanted to check up on you and see how you’re holding up. I told Six this place isn’t safe to be walking alone, but…you know how she is at the moment.”
“I think I’m going to die, Mono.”
“What?” His eyes widened a fraction.
Viola nodded frantically. “I heard someone coughing just now. And giggling.” She tugged his sleeve then. “Please, please, please don’t leave me alone.”
Guilt wormed into his heart. “I…I have to. Six still thinks you’re going to murder us.”
“Tell her I won’t. I can’t even punch someone!”
“Hah. It’s hard to believe that when you’re literally capable of pushing someone off a ledge…” He found himself trailing off when she let out a sniffle. The guilt intensified. “Viola…have you been crying?”
Tear stains glistened across her cheeks, no thanks to the lights hanging every few feet. Her face was flushed red, perhaps both from the silent crying and the embarrassment of being found out—what do you know, he was right.
“I wasn’t crying.” Her trembling voice betrayed her. “I’m just…”
“Sweating through your eyes?”
Viola stifled a sob, her lower lips wobbling as though his words had hurt her worse than Six’s. He suppressed the urge to laugh a little at her. Not that he found her crying amusing—he wasn’t Six—but the reason she’d cried was.
“Fine. I was…crying,” Viola confessed with a defiant scowl. So familiar she even looked like Six when she was angry. “But I cry for two reasons: one because my own mother is treating me like I am an outcast; two, because I really think something is following us. And that I’m the first who’s going to die if that were true.”
“Viola, you’re not going to die—”
“I’ll die either way, Mono! Six’s going to kill me once we’re out of here.” Viola wasn’t wrong. Six’s second round of wrath was inevitable, they both knew it. No matter what Six promised him.
“She won’t kill you, I promise.” He gave her a reassuring smile.
Viola seemed unconvinced. “How would you know that?”
“Because she’s my friend and I know she wouldn’t do that,” he said with a huff. “Anyway, I should get back to Six before she kills me. I’m pretty sure we’ve been talking way more than 60 seconds now.” Bless Six’s awful counting skills.
“Wait, hold on!” Viola snatched the same sleeve she’d held just as he turned, her grip even stronger. “You…you can’t leave me! Did you not hear what I said, about the giggling and the coughing?”
Mono scratched the back of his head. “Uh…”
“We should all stick together,” Viola insisted. “Three against whatever that made the sound. Let’s team up.”
“I guess we should,” he said, contemplating and nodding, “but what about Six?”
“What about Six?”
“She’s still mad at you. I doubt she’ll even want to be near you after everything.”
“You talk to her then.”
“Me?”
“Yes, you.” Her scowl returned. “I’ve seen my dad persuade my mom with just one smile before. Surely it’ll be easy for you to make her willing to work together with everyone.”
His face burned slightly. “Wh-what?”
“Yeah. It’s happened. You can do it. Flash her a smile or something—change her mind.”
“Viola, I can’t do that!” He shook his head. “No way am I doing that!”
“Why not?”
“Because Six may be my wife, but she's not my wife!”
“What the hell is going on?” Both Mono and Viola flinched with a startled scream, frozen in place.
Six. His eyes immediately darted to the yellow-hooded girl standing next to him and Viola; and she was not at all happy.
Of course, she never expressed any happiness since Viola came back into the picture, but seeing her stand so close to the girl was like witnessing lightning strike a tree with someone underneath it. Or a risky game that ended in a fatality for the other person.
“Six, you’re…” Mono gulped and laughed nervously. “Y-you’re here.” Perhaps this was the fear Viola felt when he’d sneaked up on her.
Six shot him an unamused look, her brows furrowing and skeptical. “What is going on, Mono?” she asked so sternly he felt guilty for nothing. “Why did you say what you said?”
His heart hammered in his ribcage. Crap, crap, crap. “Said what?” He played dumb.
Six did not play along. “That I’m your wife.”
He winced on the inside. “You…you heard that?”
“You were screaming it.”
“Oh.”
An irritated hum. “So? Are you going to explain what you mean,” she said, crossing her arms, “or are you going to continue to treat me like I’m an idiot?” There was a silent threat in her tone; one he wasn’t ready to gamble letting it come out freely and bite him.
Should he tell her the truth? Was this the right time? Mono cast a glance behind Six and saw Viola nodding with determination. Or desperation, perhaps, in her case as she seemingly was ready to reveal anything if it meant not having to walk all alone within the dark corridors of the Signal Tower.
He understood her reasoning, but…
Was Six, no—was he ready to tell Six about the future? What if Six’s reaction was more violent? What if she shut down completely? What if the truth distracted her in the middle of something important, say, running for her life?
“Mono,” Viola spoke up. “I think it’s time. We have to tell her.”
“Tell me what?” Six gave an accusatory look at Viola, then back to him a bit of panic showed in her voice. “Mono, tell me what?”
He sent Viola another glance, hesitant and uneasy. Viola only nodded again, standing strongly with her decision.
I think it’s time. We have to tell her.
Maybe…she was right. Maybe the only way for Six to put aside her grudge for Viola and work together was if she’d known about her blood relations with her. It wouldn’t be easy to process it calmly, he was sure because neither did he, but for the sake of making it out of the Tower without anyone repeating revenges…
This was for the best.
“Alright, I’ll tell you, Six,” he said slowly. “I’ll tell you the truth.”
Six leaned in slightly, still skeptical and annoyed, however, dying in curiosity.
“Viola,” he looked at her, “is from the future. I’m supposed to be her father. And you…her mother.” Mono quickly took a step back, bracing himself for Six’s upcoming rage.
Though…it never came as he’d predicted.
Instead, Six made a face; her brows even more furrowed. When silence stretched into longer seconds, Viola stepped forward and said, “Th-that’s true. I am from the future decades from now—”
“You’re saying he’s your father?” Six cut in, pointing a lazy finger his way. “And that I’m his wife?”
Speechless became the two of them. Eventually, Viola cleared her throat and nodded for both of them.
“So, that would make you,” her finger shifted to Viola next, “my daughter?”
“Uh…yes?” Viola said and added more confidently, “Yes, that’s right.”
“You’re saying I’m your mother then?”
“…Yes.”
Six lowered her hand and crossed it back over her chest. She sighed through her nose with a slight tilt of her head, clicking her tongue.
“Wow,” she said. “Impressive.”
Impressive?
Mono stared at her incredulously. That’s it? Impressive?
“You…you understand what we’re telling you, right?” Mono asked, dissatisfied at her monotonous reaction for a reason he would not like to know what.
Six kept the same passive face on. “I do.”
“And you know what it means, then? Me. You. Viola.” He gestured to the girl in question who shared the same incredulous look as him. “She’s your child, Six. My child. We have a child together, how does this not—” He sucked in a frustrated breath. “How are you not freaking out right now?”
“What? That the traitor is my daughter?”
“Yeah, and the…the other thing!” he replied in chagrin.
“The other thing, what, Mono? That we’re also ‘married’?” Six blurted out a laugh at them both then. If his face hadn’t warmed before, it definitely was burning now. “Tell me you honestly don’t believe that.”
Immediately, his frustrations dampened into something similar to disappointment. Like a stinging wound that came out of nowhere and only painful when noticed.
“What…?” Mono uttered under his breath, frowning.
“Mono,” Six said, her earlier amusement quickly shifting into worry as she placed a hand over his shoulder. “You believed her?”
“I…” Words refused to form on his tongue. Six gasped at his silence.
“You believed Viola was our child,” she said, almost in disbelief. “You actually believed you were her father…” Six muttered, a scowl slowly forming on her brows. Then her head snapped to the other girl, all her concern for Mono melted into the resentment she reserved for Viola. Dots had connected inside her head, although very wrongly.
“What on Earth did you tell him?” Six snapped.
Viola shrunk in place, her hands fiddling in discomfort under Six’s glare. Mono noticed and could already foresee how this would end should he do nothing. So he grabbed Six’s hand before she took another step towards Viola.
Viola had backed up on instinct. Six gritted her teeth and tried to snatch her hand back, yet he held her wrist in place.
“Six, it isn’t like that,” he said to her. “Viola’s really telling the truth.”
“That she’s from the future? What kind of crap is even that, Mono—!”
“But it is true! I know it sounds like it isn’t—believe me, I didn’t trust her at first either—but it’s true. She proved it to me already. Viola told me how we met in the Hunter’s cabin, me taking down your door with an axe, us almost getting shot at. Those things she told me—she knew all of that even before I met her.”
Six’s arm tensed as she glared weakly. “Anyone could’ve witnessed it from afar. None would be the wiser.”
“Then how do you explain her abilities? Tuning the transmission signals? Consuming souls for painful hunger pangs? I’ve seen her do it with my own eyes, Six.” He pulled at her hand again when she tried to free herself from him. From the truth. “I’ve seen her have those exact hunger pangs you’ve got.”
“Stop!” Six snatched her hand back and pushed him away, heaving deep breaths as her scowl faltered along with her confidence.
“Both of you. Have lost your minds,” Six said after a few breaths, her eyes wide and in denial. “I can’t believe she’s managed to brainwash you.”
The ache in his chest worsened. “She…she didn’t.”
“She did,” Six said. “You are beyond help. For you to even believe a single thing that comes out of her mouth…what makes you think she’s really from the future? That just because she shared a few similarities, she’s related to either of us?” Her voice shook with anger and frustration.
“It’s a similarity for a reason,” he said, scowling back. “Where else do you think she got it from?”
Six scoffed bitterly. “Not from me, and sure as hell, not from you.”
“But she did.”
“She didn’t,” Six shot back. “You need to stop this.”
“Stop what?”
“Stop being so naïve!”
Mono fell silent, feeling the prior ache in his heart shift into something else. Naïve? How could she call him naïve when she was being one herself? She was the one who arrogantly refused to see facts right before her eyes and deemed them false without a second glance. She was the one who insisted on believing something that was not at all true.
Yet somehow, he was the naïve one?
“You think I’m naïve...Six?” Mono took a step forward, his patience thinning.
“Guys…” Viola’s voice sounded in the corner, yet neither of them paid her any mind.
“I don’t have to think it. I already know you are,” Six quipped, equally angry. “The whole ‘I’m from the future’ story sounds stupid enough even I can tell it’s made up. And yet, here you are. Believing it, word for word.”
“I believe it because I’ve seen evidence of it. Maybe if the story sounds stupid to you, it’s because your narrow mind couldn’t grasp it well.”
“Hey, guys—”
“Oh, I can grasp anything well,” Six cut Viola off, still exchanging venoms with him. “The only problem here is you. You and your annoying habit of defending that traitor to the point where you’re playing along with her craziness!”
“She’s not crazy and neither am I!”
“Guys!”
“WHAT?” Mono and Six snapped in unison; their angry gazes locked onto the younger girl.
His anger, however, lasted only a second more until a familiar chill seeped into his bones. Cold dread followed shortly after as he watched Viola shiver in place, her eyes staring up at what was above them in sheer horror rather than at her companions.
Viola had tried to warn them, him and Six. And instead, they had stupidly ignored her.
They’d ignored the presence of something tall and sinister crawling on the ceiling, giggling and smiling down at the arguing children who never realized
The two pairs of white glowing eyes, following them.
Mono looked up.
The Nanny smiled wider.
A sharp scream pierced the air it broke him out of his trance, just in time before the woman reacted and swung her arms at him. He’d felt Six’s fingers dig into his arm, pulling him with her as they broke into a run. He ran despite the mild ache of every step he took; he let her hold his hand despite the anger he’d felt for her just a second ago.
Viola, his worry expanded as he searched for the other girl. Relief came just as quickly when Viola was next to him—thank God. For a moment he’d thought they’d left her behind…or that Six had intentionally let Viola be the bait while he and Six made their escape. Though, one look at the hooded girl...
She too hadn’t anticipated this. Much less plan out a last-minute murder plan as she let her instincts win first.
“Why is she still alive?” Six said as she ran, glancing behind them warily. Mono did the same and wished he hadn’t.
The Nanny’s eyes glowed in the dark like floating orbs, her heels muted against the carpet floor. She flashed him her smile filled with razor sharp teeth. Teeth that had almost killed him once.
He turned his attention back to the corridor. “It’s not possible,” Mono said in disbelief. “She isn’t supposed to be alive!”
“What do you mean? Was she already dead?” Viola asked him.
“What do you think ‘she isn’t supposed to be alive’ mean? Use your head!” Six snapped at her before turning the corner, leading them into a separate room.
Another abandoned place. Something similar to the forsaken daycare if it weren’t for the little toys floating up in the air and lack of gore they’d seen more back in the Centre. At least a subtle reminder that they were still within the Signal Tower walls.
Six pulled him to hide behind a wall with her. Viola followed quickly, however, earning an eye roll from the other girl whenever she got too close. The Nanny’s giggles and clacking of her shoes remained outside until they slowed into silence.
He finally let himself sigh, his hands on his knees.
What the hell was going on? How was the Nanny still alive after all this time—no, how did she make it inside the Signal Tower? Both he and Six had seen with their own eyes of her death and how she’d fallen through the window and met her demise then and there. Not to mention, it was a tall height too. Not even those who had full-body armor on could survive a fall such as that!
“I think hers was the giggle I heard,” Viola stated, out of breath. “It has to be, I’m sure.”
“What?” One second they were catching their breaths, and the next Six was already pushing Viola against the wall like the latter had said something so atrocious. “You knew and you said nothing?” Six took her by her shirt again.
Viola seemed sickly pale. “I-I told Mono about it! I even asked him to…to tell you if we all could stick together because of that.” Viola passed him a look for help. Six followed her gaze and narrowed her eyes at him.
“Is this true?” she asked bitterly.
Oh boy. “Yes. It is.” He swallowed his last hesitance. “But I figured you...wouldn’t want to.”
“You’re right, I don’t.” Six glared back at Viola. “Not even a little bit.” She shoved her off before wiping her hands on her raincoat.
Viola stumbled against the wall, pressing herself further into the corner with grim eyes. He could only share his sympathy silently.
“So, that woman is back,” Six started, folding her arms over her chest, sighing and rubbing the side of her head. “That woman is back and either this is some messed up trick the Eye is playing, or her eyes aren’t the only reason why she’s healed like nothing happened.”
“I doubt the second one is true, though,” Mono said to Six. “If she never needed her eyes, she wouldn’t have reacted the way she did whenever someone tried to hurt them. Besides, she fell to her death. No way anyone could have survived a long drop like that.”
“Wait, have you two really met that creepy woman before?” Viola asked them. Six rolled her eyes as though she had interrupted a very serious talk between them.
“Sure. Met. Killed. Same thing, really,” Six replied sardonically.
“Six, come on,” Mono lightly scolded with a hand over her shoulder. He ignored the subtle stab in his heart when she shied away from his touch. “To answer your question, Viola, yeah, we…met the Nanny while we were on our way to save you. It was raining really badly and Six was—”
Six cleared her throat in warning. Mono sighed through his nose and said instead, “Six was not feeling well. So we ended up going into the city and found a daycare—which now that I think of It, seems really creepy to take shelter in to begin with. Daycare looked abandoned but then turns out it wasn’t. The Nanny—”
“The Nanny tried to kill us, so we killed her.” Mono shot her a look. Six shrugged with a raised brow. “What? You really think now is a good time for a bed-time story?” she asked dryly.
He held in the urge to squeeze her head. In a non-violent way. “Anyway,” Mono said through gritted teeth, turning back to Viola with a softer smile. “Yeah. That’s pretty much the whole gist of it. We thought the Nanny died when she fell through the window, but it turns out she’s not dead at all. Which as you’re aware, she clearly survived it somehow.”
“Oh.” Viola gaped, taking a step back. “That’s…that’s a lot to take in, I guess—”
“I thought you said there was no way she could have survived a tall drop,” Six said to him, ignoring Viola entirely.
He rolled his eyes. “I don’t know, Six. I’m just the naïve one, aren’t I?”
“Are you kidding me? Mono, since when do you sulk?” Irritation laced in her voice the more he wouldn’t look her way.
“Since now.”
“You are such a toddler.”
“Beats being narrow-minded.”
“I hate to interrupt your bantering party,” Viola said, her lips in a tight frown, “but there is a literal monster adult looking for us out there. I mean, I’ve never met her personally like you two have, but I doubt she’d want to cuddle if she catches any one of us.”
“She cuddled Mono, though.”
“That was not cuddling, Six. I almost died.”
“Look, we’ve got to team up. All of us. It’s our best bet at getting out of here, and I don’t see any reason why we shouldn’t. The longer we work separately, the easier one of us gets hurt, right?” Viola looked at him and then longer at Six. “So...what do you say?”
Mono agreed, naturally. Working together as a trio would grant them a higher chance at leaving the Signal Tower—in the very least, alive—rather than a duo plus one. A threat was still chasing after them and he wouldn’t want to see a fight break out between the girls when all of their lives were at stake. Especially not when the threat itself was the Eye.
Viola was right. They needed to team up against the Tower and whatever creature it conjured up in it. Nonetheless, figuring out how to survive this mess wasn’t their biggest problem yet.
It was figuring out how to get Six to agree.
All of this now…it all came down to her.
With him, there was no worry. Six had no qualms teaming up with him—despite having civil disagreements and light bantering now and then—but Viola? Just that cold look on her face could brace him for the answer she decided on.
It broke whatever hope there was on Viola's face when Six spoke again.
“No.”
The disappointment sunk in properly. It was immediate. Brutal. Viola had been the most shocked and dreadful, having taken a step closer to Six in hopes of negotiating better.
“N-no? But, Six, we—”
“We are not a team,” Six cut her off. “You tried to kill me. And if you think I’ll ever trust you again, then you clearly are an idiot. I won’t.”
“Six…” he coaxed, reaching out to her.
“No, Mono.” Six avoided his hand once again. “No matter what you say—or whatever stupid story you two make up together—I will not work side by side with a traitor like her. I don’t care if it’s ironic and selfish of me to do that, I’ve decided I’d rather go through this Tower alone than have her with me.” She looked at him directly then and waited.
His stomach churned under her expectant stare. The subtle, awful implication behind it.
“You…you’re not asking me to choose, are you?” Mono told her.
Six maintained a cool face, although if he hadn’t known any better, he would’ve thought she’d seemed eager for his answer. The right answer. Because to her, sure, it may look like there was the right or wrong one, but to him
There was none.
He couldn’t leave Viola alone to fend for herself. At the same time, he didn’t want to leave Six’s side at all. Not after everything he’d gone through for her, he just wouldn’t.
An exasperated breath escaped Six as she let her head hang low. She tutted, shaking her head at him. “Of course,” Six muttered coldly. Disappointed. “It’s always her.”
“Six—”
Six had already turned her back on them, walking away to the next nearest room. Mono and Viola exchanged a worried look at each other and followed her anyway, both desperately wanting to keep the group together. The Signal Tower was, by any means, no place for a child to be alone. Especially not Six.
“Hey, wait up!” Mono rushed to her side just as Six made it halfway across. She pried his hands off her shoulder harshly as though his hand had burned her.
“Don’t,” Six said. “I’m going alone.”
He hated how much it hurt him when she acted as if they were strangers again. They were supposed to be friends.
“It’s dangerous, Six,” he said firmly. “We don’t know what else the Eye has in mind. For all you know, they’re planning to infect you again—!”
“I won’t get infected. Not this time around.”
“You don’t know that!” Six scowled at him, knowing very much there was a clear truth in his words. Six always hated being in the wrong.
“Stay,” Mono said when her silence felt unbearable. “Stay with us. With me. What’s the point of me coming back here if we’re not leaving together?”
Six sighed through her nose, her eyes darting to Viola before it landed back to his. For a long time, she contemplated in her mind, he knew. And in those seconds where he waited for her answer, he hoped so much that she listened.
That she understood how genuine he was when he said it.
Six’s lips parted to speak, yet not a word left her when her gaze immediately faltered to her feet. Everyone followed, however, confused.
A white ball rolled on the ground just as it’d hit Six’s foot. Viola had been the one closest to it after when it rolled again; and she picked it up with her brows furrowed.
“Mono,” Viola called him, showing him the ball. Mono leaned in and took it off her palm, feeling the rough fabric press against his skin. A second later, Six was next to him, looking at the ball too.
“Are those…stitches?” Six said as she turned the white ball around in his hand, their prior conversation put aside.
A black dot was coloured in its center, cotton slipping through some of its loose threads.
“It kind of looks like an eye,” Viola added beside him.
Something horrible clicked in his memory.
“It is an eye.” Mono picked a few thin strands and held them up in the light. “This is cotton.” He turned to Six and was met with the same horror he’d expected.
“You don’t think…” Her throat bobbed in a swallow. Mono could only nod as he felt shivers run down his spine.
The Nanny isn’t the only one who came back.
“We have to get out of here,” Mono said, throwing the cotton-filled eye across the room. “We have to leave now.”
“I don’t understand, what’s wrong with cotton?” Viola asked, looking back and forth between him and Six, desperate for an explanation. There was not much time for one, even if any of them wanted to.
“I’ll explain it all later,” he told Viola as he made his way to the other end of the door, his hand on the knob and his eyes on her. He opened the door. “Right now, we just have to leave—”
“Mono!”
Six’s scream made his head turn to the door. Yet an even louder scream bombarded his ears as an old man loomed over him with a missing jaw, his figure leaning against only one functioning leg.
The old man took a messy step forward and wheezed into the cold air. Mono backed inside until he stumbled against Six and Viola who caught him just before he tripped.
This wasn’t happening, he repeated to himself as another wave of dread washed over him.
A loud crash grabbed their attention to a dark corner. Two hands tightened over his arms almost at the same time when another one revealed itself into the light.
A woman with no face. Stitches lined around her neck and down the center of her face like a tight chain, however, doing a poor job keeping her skin attached and closed. It didn’t stop the cotton from escaping through the gaps, and it didn’t stop her from twitching in place.
“Mono, what is…what is going on?” Viola clung to him, afraid. And honestly, he felt the same way if it weren’t for the shock going through him now.
The woman with no face brought up the white ball he’d thrown out of fear. Her arm wobbled like a puppet would as she hurled it across the room.
The white ball bounced off the walls and rolled on the ground before a new hand slammed over it, pulling it closer and pushing it right back into his sockets where it belonged. Whereas his other eye dangled out and down to his chin like a sack.
Mono remembered the boy. The memory of him crawling through a narrow window in the shed, sliding through the remnants of shards around its frame—it burned into his mind. The boy’s eerie smile stayed just the same as the last time Mono saw it when he and his entire family sank in the sea.
Everything about the boy, the woman and the old man, stayed the same.
And soon enough, without him realizing it, the Hunter’s family gathered around them slowly like hungry beasts, closing in on them, looming over as though the children were the dinner the family never feasted on.
“They didn’t drown,” Six muttered under her breath, still in shock as him.
“No.” Mono gulped. “They didn’t."
Notes:
Okay so what do you think Six's reaction would be for the 2nd attempt 😭😭
Mono seems to be recovering from his deNial disease, although looks like Six has caught the full fever from him. On another note, the final climax is...sort of near? So, yeah expect angst and weird Eye stuff.
Thanks for reading!
Chapter 67: No One Leaves Here
Notes:
Hello, I'm back and I bring you a 9.5k chapter, which I initially planned on cutting into two, but had a last minute surge of determination to finish this fic so here ya go
[WARNING]
Violence, blood
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
The Hunter’s Family making their return had not been on his list to expect.
Of course, same went for the Nanny—who did fall from a few stories high building—but that didn’t stop her from making a shocking comeback. And neither did it stop the three taxidermized adults from surrounding them, despite having drowned in the bottom of the dark sea.
That was the thing—Mono had watched them climb and scurry over each other until they sank. It didn’t make any sense at all. It was impossible for any of the adults to survive the cruel waves, much less get to the Signal Tower on foot and somehow look like they hadn’t lost a limb or two. Yet here they all were.
Unscathed. Dry. Alive.
“They didn’t drown,” Six uttered beside him.
“No, they didn’t,” Mono said, gulping.
“Can anyone please tell me what is going on here?” Viola added in half horror and chagrin. “Do you know them too—?”
The old man let out his familiar wheeze and cough, and all three of the human dolls lunged forward, arms out to grab each for their own.
“Move!” Six shoved both him and Viola to the ground. He nearly had half the mind to snap at her if it weren’t for the voices in his head telling him not to. That and the fact the soft glow of the room darkened with growing shadows. Mono looked up in time to see the adults all frozen in their places, their bodies each held back by loops of swirling darkness. A power he had seen many times to not feel any fear for.
The shadow loops tightened around the Hunter’s Family in a single close of Six’s fist. And they were all hurled to the same wall across the room as she shot her arm in its direction.
“You…used your powers,” Mono muttered, staring at the twitching adults as they collapsed atop each other. She shouldn’t be using them.
Six scoffed behind him. “I know, thank me later.” She picked him up by his right arm and got him to his feet. Then a nasty scowl to the other girl, she said, “Viola, get up or you’re bait. We’re leaving now.”
Her eyes brightened despite the threat. “You’re agreeing to team up with us—?”
“Shut it!” Six released his arm and stepped over to her. “I’ll kill you myself if you say another word.” Hurt crossed Viola’s face. Alas, there wasn’t time for any second rounds of arguments between her and Six.
One of the dolls shifted amongst each other, shooting the children with his eerie smile that showed more malice even if his lips were stitched upwards. The boy made a screeching sound to alert his family. The woman and the old man snapped their gazes to them in unison.
Perspiration ran down Mono’s head. The door was wide open. He forsook any lingering doubts and took both Six and Viola’s wrist; and bolted to their escape. Behind him, he could already hear the family’s screeches overlapping one another like blaring sirens, their footsteps heavy against the creaking floorboards and their anger loud through their breaths.
Six had been the only one who claimed her hand back after they made it back into the twisting corridors, her brows fixed into a scowl. Whereas Viola seemed like she was on the verge of crying from fear, glancing back at the monsters chasing them. Not that he’d blame her .
Clearly, Me and Six did too good of a job at sheltering Viola in the future.
Mono wanted to slap himself when the thought crossed his mind. Now was not the time.
“Where are we going?” Six asked him, already out of breath. His lungs had also begun to hurt as with his feet. They halted for a quick breath when the echoes of the cursed family’s screeches became softer and lost behind the walls.
The corridor had opened up into a big opening. Long staircases were built into a tall spiral on the side of the walls, going up higher past the Signal Tower’s light, or lower into the gaping darkness where everything else disappeared from sight, leaving a chasm in its center; an opened maw.
Every turn of the stairs, an entrance presented itself with glowing purple. There were so many of them, he barely knew where to go. One led straight three floors up. Another led to a never-ending spiral with bright entrances opened every long step. Neither of these stairs had any banister to hold on to. Meaning, one push and they fall into the chasm below immediately.
Three pairs of footsteps neared from behind. Mono looked back only to see the Hunter’s family turning the corner, catching up to them, racing and pushing one another to get to the children first.
Curse my life. That was barely a minute. He turned back to the stairs, opting for the one closest to them.
“Up this one!” He led Viola and Six to the one in the middle, quickly making the steep climb. Its entrance glowed strongly in the distance, flickering and ominous as its light shone much too brightly for him to see anything past inside it. Mono had wondered where this might lead them—another room, flesh-covered prison, a deadend?—yet all his wonderment came for nothing as the glow of the doorway dimmed.
And then four white orbs emerged in the midst of purple.
The three children stopped in the middle of the staircase, stumbling with wide eyes and gaping mouths.
The Nanny stepped over the threshold with her arms behind her back, her razor-sharp smile still in place as it always was. A short, satisfied giggle rumbled in her chest as her heels clacked against the stone floor. Then in a blink of an eye, she dropped on all fours with a sickening crunch
And crawled down the stairs towards them.
They all screamed as they backed away, climbing back down to where they had come from, taking the other stairs and going below the spiral steps. The Nanny lurched forward across the chasm to reach the other stairs. The concrete cracked underneath her as she pushed herself up the floating platform and steadied herself.
The Hunter’s family followed behind her as they emerged from the corridors. Their screeches echoed throughout the entire Tower and ambushed their ears, sending the children to cower with their hands pressed over the side of their heads.
“I forgot they do that,” Mono shouted over the family’s screams.
“Making our ears bleed? Yes, they all do that,” Six said with a pained scowl.
“Is there anyone else you two have already met that isn’t here?” Viola snapped as she hurried down the stairs.
“I doubt it,” Mono replied when the screeches stopped. “The Nanny and the Hunter’s Family is already here, so I don’t think there is anyone else.”
“The Hunter has a family?” Viola’s eyes widened.
“Yeah, they were stuffed by him a long time ago I think—”
“Will you both ever shut up?” Six groaned exasperatedly. “Now is not the time for a stupid tea party!”
“Viola is just lost, Six!” The next nearest entrance glowed so far away. Had they not been climbing down at all? “I’m clueing her in! Is that so bad?”
Another irritated sigh. “At least get your facts right.”
“What are you talking about?” Mono threw a quick glance behind them. The distance between them and the four monsters never closed as they fought and raced against each other.
“You can’t have forgotten already,” Six said with a dry laugh. “That fat Tenant isn’t here, stupid.”
“A what?” Viola asked.
Six gritted her teeth, as if holding a strong urge to snap at the younger girl. Instead, she directed her conversation to Mono only. “The man from the apartment building. The one you wouldn’t shut up about when I took a bite out of him.”
The memory of the wretched hallway played in his mind—Six being eaten by the Tenant, him having lost his mind and unleashing a dangerous amount of his powers to save her, splitting the adult in half as the man grumbled in pain.
That he remembered.
“Alright, that’s evidence I’ve encountered enough scary monsters in my life for me to forget him,” Mono said, scoffing. “But that doesn’t matter! What matters is our exit may as well be right ahead and that Tenant won’t be here to stop us like those others are trying to do—”
A huge arm protruded out from the purple glow in the entrance ahead, smashing the wall beside it until cracks formed up to the monsters’ side. Thick blob of fingers gripped the sides and pulled its body over the threshold like lifting weight out of water. Its pale skin sagged and had many thick layers, making its entire figure look terrifyingly huge and hostile.
Then two dead-looking eyes blinked open to stare back at him—no mouth and no nose.
It seemed he’d spoken too soon.
All of them had stopped in their steps when shock washed over them again. This time, however, Mono felt partly at fault as the Tenant made his appearance on cue.
“Tell me you didn’t just jinx it,” Six said with a sigh.
Guilt settled in his guts. “I…may have done so.”
The three of them turned back around to climb up, barely going a few steps before they froze again. The Nanny and the Hunter’s Family waited on the other side, seething and racing down the steps. And behind them, the Tenant hummed with a loud stomp on the ground.
The cracks grew terribly until it broke the floor beneath his foot. He tripped, losing balance. A scream escaped him as he felt his body tilt towards the chasm; and he saw the true darkness below, and how ready it was to swallow him.
At least he would’ve been if it hadn’t been for Six and Viola.
They caught him in unison, and despite the one-sided animosity going on between them, they worked together to pull him on the stairs until he stood with them again.
“Mono! Are you okay?” Viola asked him as though she’d been the one who nearly got eaten by the abyss.
Speaking of getting eaten…
They were about to get eaten.
The Nanny, the Hunter’s Family, The Tenant—the adults had once more surrounded them with no room for escape. And it seemed as if the monsters realized so as they toyed with the children’s fear of death, purposely stalking when moments before they had been the one to desperately give chase. The Hunter’s Family pushed each other to get ahead. The Nanny had started to crawl on the walls to avoid their aggression. The Tenant eyed the children as if they were new meat he could devour for his obese stomach, the middle of his face opening up and revealing his hidden mouth, his feet stomping on every step and leaving bigger destruction in its wake.
There were a few ways Mono could see this go down. One; all of them died. Two; one of them decided to use their powers to hopefully create a distraction and stall the inevitable. Three; he would be the one to blast the Tenant to buy them all some time to run.
The third one was definitely happening.
Six had already helped when the Hunter’s Family attacked them. He couldn’t let her do it again when she shouldn’t be the one to in the first place. Because if her hunger pangs returned and he couldn’t fix it…
No. They’re not going to return. Six will be fine, as long as she doesn’t use her powers often.
He could already tell when she was about to release another wave of her dark abilities, the small shadows dancing on the tip of her fingers as they twitched. No, he wasn’t about to let her hurt herself again.
Another hand stopped him just as he was pushing Six’s wrist down. They all turned to Viola, surprised. Seemingly she’d noticed how both of them were ready to release some damage.
“I have an idea.” Viola looked down at the chasm. “Let’s jump.”
His and Six’s eyes flew open.
“What?” they shouted at her in unison.
“That’s crazy!”
“You’re scared of heights!”
Once more, they shouted at her in unison.
Color drained out from Viola’s face, beads of sweat running on the side of her head at his reminder. It seemed like she too was aware of what she was suggesting to the group.
“It’s the only way we’re making out of this alive,” Viola said shakily.
“And diving straight into a chasm is the way to do that,” Six said, sarcasm in her voice.
This time he had to agree with Six. They had just saved him from falling below and now Viola wanted them to fall willingly? This idea was insane.
“Six is right, Viola,” he told her. Satisfaction flickered across Six’s face so quickly he’d missed it. “We don’t know how tall that drop is, let alone if we’ll survive it!”
“Yes, but I know we won’t die either if we jump!” The Hunter’s Family and the Nanny’s figure came approaching from his peripheral. The Tenant moved slowly, nonetheless determined in closing the distance. “The Eye controls the Signal Tower,” Viola muttered under her breath as she inhaled a sharp breath, looking down the chasm again. “They control the Signal Tower…they won’t kill us this easily.”
“What are you—Viola!”
She jumped.
Mono reached towards her with horror, crying out her name as her screams echoed beyond the darkness of the chasm. But Six had already held him with firm hands, bringing him away from the edge of the broken steps. She too was taken aback as Viola’s action stunned her into silence.
“She…she jumped,” he whispered. “She actually jumped.”
“She’s already insane,” Six added, still clinging on his arm as though he too would jump as Viola did.
But what if…Viola had a point?
The Eye controls the Signal Tower. They won’t kill us this easily.
Mono stared out into the chasm as he repeated her words in his mind, slowly coming down into a realization; that if the Eye wanted to kill them, they would’ve done so already. The Hunter’s Family, the Nanny, the Tenant—they all shouldn’t be here in the first place, and the only reason they were had to be because of the Eye. And if these monsters truly wanted to kill them, they’d at least succeed at inflicting some damage rather than giving them a scare and weakening their powers.
His stomach churned at the thought.
What if that was the case?
What if the Eye planned to exhaust his, Six and Viola’s energy, just so they’d fail to leave? And by running from five adults at once—throwing some of them against the walls to delay their attacks—they’d done exactly what the Eye wanted?
“You know what…” Mono said, mentally preparing himself. “I’m jumping too.”
One of his feet hovered just over the chasm only for him to be harshly yanked back. Six’s hands tightened over his wrist, her face the epitome of disbelief.
“Mono, are you crazy? Viola literally just jumped to her death! You see it happen right before your eyes!” She pulled him further back. The adults moved slow the closer they were, as though toying with their meal. “I’ll take care of the Nanny and the other three, while you focus on the Tenant. We can kill them if we work together.”
“Six, we’re outnumbered!” He steadied her and glanced behind her shoulder. The Tenant was less than ten steps away. The Hunter’s family’s growls echoed louder.
“Look, I get that it seems like I’m always siding with Viola lately—”
“You are—”
“But,” he said louder, “I promise this is the last time I ever will. After this, I’ll…I’ll listen to you and…” Her eyes rolled, her head already turning, disinterested. “A-and I’ll be on your side instead of hers!” he added quickly.
Six whipped her head back to him. “You will?” That seemed to have caught her attention.
Mono nodded, relieved she was listening. “Yes. If you jump with me, I’ll side with you and only you.” That is if Viola isn’t wrong, and we don’t die if we jumped.
They wouldn’t die. They always fell on a softer land whenever one of them had to be plunged into an abyss. This time wouldn’t be any different.
The Nanny’s giggles sounded above them. Mono and Six looked up just in time for the woman to swing her arm over their heads. This time, he reacted before Six did, pushing out a strong blast from his hand and into the side of the Nanny’s jaw. The woman cried in pain as the blast hurled her body to the side, sending her to collide with the Tenant.
That earned them an extra few seconds for Six to make her decision. Just as the Hunter’s Family came close within reach, he felt her hand pull him forward.
And together, they fell into the chasm.
Pressure pushed at his body from the increasing momentum. His hand began to separate from Six’s as darkness began to engulf them in the blink of an eye, no matter how tight their grip had been. Her scream echoed along with his own. He didn’t know how long they’d fallen, or how far they’d gone down until he felt himself bounce against something.
Or someone.
The horrible feeling of falling quickly was replaced by the familiar pain. Everything ached terribly, yet nothing felt broken as he’d dreaded while he was falling.
“Thank God, you both jumped.” Viola.
Mono sighed as he felt her presence kneeling beside him. The ground glowed a soft blue wherever pressure was put, illuminating Viola’s relieved smile as complete darkness surrounded them.
“I thought you wouldn’t. And that I’d just killed myself being down here alone,” Viola added as he pushed himself slowly into a sit.
“Looks like you didn’t after all,” Mono said, wincing and looking around. “Where’s Six?”
“Here.”
The ground lit up yellow for every approaching step she took. Six’s pace was slow as she limped lightly, holding her arm.
“You’re lucky we didn’t die,” Six said to Viola, shooting her a glare, nonetheless. “I really would’ve killed you if that happened.”
A smirk grew on his face. “How can you if you’re already dead, though,” Mono said with a snicker.
Viola grinned too, holding back a laugh. Of course, if she had laughed, Six would make do with her promise. Even so…he was glad everyone was alright.
“Hey, we should find out where to go.” Viola dusted off her shirt as she stood. Then she offered her hand to him. “Come on.”
His smile softened at her help, just about ready to accept it as he always had. Yet after hearing a subtle exhale from his other friend, the same smile he had froze before it faltered into a look of difference. He cleared his throat and waved Viola off.
“I’m good, thanks.” Mono got up on his own and took a step back.
Surprise and confusion flashed across Viola’s face.
“Uh…okay,” she said, her hand faltering back to her side. Viola gave him another confused look before she lifted a friendly smile anyway. “So…about finding out where to go. I saw something light up somewhere over there, just before you two got here.” Viola pointed to her right. “ I think we should head over its way.”
“No, we’re not. We’re going that way,” Six said, pointing to the direction behind her instead, then crossing her arms.
Viola’s eyes narrowed. “How come?”
“Could ask the same for you.”
“I told you I saw a light coming from that way.”
“And light doesn’t necessarily mean a good thing,” Six countered. “For all you know, that light is there to shine over another monster.”
“Or a way out.”
Six’s lips thinned into a line. She let out a sharp breath through her nose, irritated.
“You know what…how about we let Mono decide for us? We are all a team, aren’t we?” Everyone turned to look at him; one giving him an expectant stare and the other a hopeful look.
Mono cleared his throat again, wishing he had no voice to speak. But after that promise he made to Six…speak he must.
“Light is a bad idea,” he eventually said, refusing to look up and witness Viola’s surprised and disappointed face. “We should go that way.” He gestured in defeat to where Six had pointed.
“Then it’s settled then. Majority rule,” Six said with a shrug. “Come on, Mono.” She took his hand with her as she dragged him away from an incredulous Viola.
His guilt weighed over him like a brick-filled backpack.
If Six had acted this way back when they first met, Mono would have never complained a thing. This was what he wanted. A friend who truly wanted to become his friend and would protect each other out of fear of losing one another. Now, however…he was not technically unhappy with Six’s protectiveness—a little bit of possessiveness and jealousy if he didn’t know any better, considering the number of times she kept on glancing at Viola as though she’d brainwash him to side with her again.
God forbid he ever mentioned it out loud, though.
The cold floor glowed blue and yellow under their steps, dimming back into darkness when they moved forward. No one said anything like before except the only difference this time Six was willing to let Viola walk together with them instead of ousting her. Hence, the wary glances she did.
And somehow, Viola caught on. She didn’t even try to confirm it with him, avoiding any eye-contact with everyone. It worked as Six was happy enough to not initiate an attack. He was happy he didn’t have to play as the middle person anymore.
“Can we stop for a moment?” Viola huffed shallow breaths quietly, her hands over her knees and head hung low. The group halted with her.
“Is something wrong?” Mono asked, unable to hide the worry in his voice.
“Nothing, it’s just…I need a minute to catch my breath,” Viola said as she slowly sat herself on the ground.
Six folded her arms across her chest. “Don’t tell me you’re already tired. We haven’t even gotten that far from where we came from.”
A soft scowl rested on Viola’s brow then. He knew if she’d lost her fear of facing Six’s wrath, then she must really mean what she said.
“One minute. Then we’ll move again,” Viola said firmly, for the first time staring directly into Six’s eyes without wavering. “Is that alright?”
Six stared back with the same fire in her eyes, just as stern and so identical to Viola’s he still didn’t know how it flew past Six’s head.
“Whatever,” Six replied wryly, nonetheless leaving Viola to have her moment of break. Mono was surprised she complied with Viola’s wish at all. And a bonus, she complied without him needing to persuade her.
He glanced at Six who waited with her back turned to them, and then to Viola whom he still didn’t understand why she wanted a rest. Six wasn’t lying after all. It’d barely been a few minutes since they started walking.
“Hey, uh, are you…” Mono tilted his head to see her face. Viola was still as pale as she was before, yet there was still something different about her. Her eyes…they seemed much more tired. “Are you sure you’re okay…Viola?”
She nodded with a weak smile. “It’s like I told you.” Another deep sigh. “I just need to catch my breath.”
He frowned at her, unconvinced. His mouth opened and closed when no words came to his aid.
Viola seemed to notice his hesitation and added, “Really, I’m fine. I’ll call if I need any help.”
Hearing that…did little to put him at ease.
“Okay…” he said eventually and glanced again at his other friend. “I should…go see how Six is doing.” Mono pivoted on his heel, pausing a few seconds before looking over his shoulder again. “If you need a boost, you’ll let me know…right?”
She nodded and said nothing else.
Again. It did not help to ease his worried mind.
Mono made his way over to Six, pushing down the guilt and dread into the furthest back of his brain. If she needs your help, she’ll let you know. If she needed a boost, she would’ve asked you for it. As if you even know how to do the ‘boost’.
He caught up at Six’s side, shoving his hands into his pocket and looking out into the dark distance. Luckily for the weird glowing floor, it helped to alert if anyone was coming their way regardless if the whole place was pitched-black.
“So, is she sick or something?”
He turned to Six with a raised brow. “Why do you ask?” he said, curious.
“It isn’t a crime to ask questions. I just wonder if she’s sick or naturally weak,” Six replied without looking at him. He huffed with a grin.
“If she’s weak, she wouldn’t have survived the things she did in the Signal Tower the first time.”
“Do I hear you defending her again?”
“Not at all. Just stating facts.”
This time, it was her who huffed. Six looked down then, kicking lightly at the floor as though in thought.
“Thanks,” she whispered, the yellow glow hiding the true color of her cheeks.
His eyes widened a little in surprise. She rarely ever thanked him for anything. “What for?”
Six sighed, grumbling. “You know what for. You don’t have to ask it.”
“It isn’t a crime to ask questions, so…” He smirked cheekily, earning himself a deadpanned look from her. “Tell me anyway. What are you thanking me for?”
“For not being stupid for the first time in your life, that’s for sure.”
“Ah. Is that it?”
“Yes.”
“I feel like it isn’t.”
“It is.”
“Okay,” he said, dropping the subject with a cheeky smile still on his face. “If you say so, Six. You know I trust you. With everything. I trust you so much I would let you lead me blind—”
Six groaned exasperatedly, rolling her eyes. His smile couldn’t be wider—his heartbeat faster.
“Fine. Thank you,” she said, “for taking my side for once. That’s it. That’s all I wanted to say. I just figured you…you never would again so…thanks.” Six crossed her arms once more, one hand playing nervously with the ends of her hair. She cleared her throat and added hastily, “It’s not a big deal, of course, but you always assume I don’t appreciate the things you do—which I really, really don’t anyway, so all in all, I don’t care what you think. You know what, just take it as you like. It’s not a big deal.”
“Yeah,” he said, chuckling. “You mentioned that already.”
Her pause became longer than he thought. Or perhaps she didn’t want to speak anymore after that rare rambling she did. He loved every second of it, unfortunately.
“For the record,” he said, leaning towards her a little, “I never assumed you weren’t appreciative.”
Six hesitated. “You…you didn’t?”
“Well, before the whole betrayal thing at least. And a bit after,” he admitted. “Throughout my time in the Tower, I totally believed you were ungrateful. Really hated your guts too, which you already know. But it was sometime after we met again and were forced to work together—”
“You forced me—”
“That I realized I was,” Mono sucked a breath through his teeth, “wrong. So, stupidly wrong. You showed enough appreciation when you stayed despite being so annoyed with me.”
“I really was annoyed. You were loud and reckless.”
“Exactly. And you were standoffish and too quiet.”
“How is being too quiet a problem?”
“Because I like to talk. Something reckless people tend to do, you know.” A small laugh escaped her. The Signal Tower’s natural cold temperature felt twice as bearable with the warmth she brought him. “Anyway, that’s a little off the point I was trying to make,” he said, laughing too. “You’ve always been appreciative enough. Even back then. One mistake doesn’t change that.”
Six’s smile thinned, her eyes narrowed slightly, although not annoyed. “Not still trying to make me forgive Viola, are you?”
He shook his head. “No,” he said, waving a hand. “That one…is up to you. I also realize I can’t guilt-trip you into forgiving someone—that’s not right.”
“Sure. It’s totally different from you guilt-tripping me to return her locket. I don’t know why I let you make me keep it for you.”
“You still have it? Her locket, I mean,” he asked, surprised.
Six hummed with a nod. “Have had it since I turned her back to normal,” she said bitterly. “A shame she still tried to kill me despite that.”
“You do know the Eye had already infected you…right?”
Another long pause before she sighed again. “I know,” Six said. “But I’m still furious. Actually, annoyed too when she came up with her ridiculous story and had you believing it—but more so I’m still just…really angry.” She turned to him slowly then, a tight frown across her lips. “I have the right to feel that way. Don’t I, Mono?”
Mono said nothing at first, only capable of giving a look of understanding.
He’d been where she was. Torn between wanting to forgive and holding on to the memory of the betrayal and living in ugly grudge. In his case, he hadn’t known why Six had decided to leave him behind, so hating her at the time came easier. But in Six’s situation, she knew why Viola pushed her off that ledge. She resented Viola for abandoning her yet she also knew she couldn’t blame Viola entirely, as much as she wanted to.
Perhaps that was why she asked him now.
Did she have the right to hold a grudge and hate Viola for thinking what must be done, when Six herself had pushed him because of the secret deal she’d made with the Eye?
Honestly…he didn’t know if he had an answer for that.
“You’re allowed to feel betrayed,” he ended up telling her. “But I think if I were in your shoes, which I was at some point, I’d stop telling myself to stay angry. Hating someone is…exhausting. You waste a lot of time and energy you could never get back.”
The yellow glow flickered as Six shifted beside him. “So you’re saying you’d forgive and forget then? That easily?”
“I’m just saying I wish I’d done that sooner with you. It doesn’t mean you have to do that with Viola, though.” He stared back into her conflicted eyes. “It’s just my opinion, after all.”
“Just…your opinion,” Six echoed, turning away as she fell silent in thought. He could hope his words had helped. Although, listening back to their conversation, it was likely he made it harder for her to decide.
Mono cleared his throat when the silence stretched for too long.
“One minute is up,” Six said, flinching, snapping herself out of her thoughts.
He couldn’t help but smile as he nodded. That surely was not one minute.
They turned together and both froze in place as they were met with a smiling Viola, staring right back at them. And from the way she sat facing them, she may as well have revealed herself to be looking their way this entire time. Not to mention, the possibility of her having eavesdropped…that was another thing.
“What are you smirking for?” The bitter mask fell back into Six’s face, her scowl doing little to intimidate the other girl.
“Nothing,” Viola said calmly, half-lidded and a bit more pale than usual. “I just…remembered something funny.”
Mono tensed, just thinking of what could be running inside Viola’s head. Because if he knew any better, which he did, she most definitely was not remembering something funny.
“So, are you good to go?” Mono quickly changed the subject, walking over to her with his hands balled into tight fists. It was the only measure he could take to fight the heat growing on his face. “Can we leave this place for good now? The cold is driving me crazy.”
“I agree,” Six said, approaching them. “I can’t stand it anymore either.”
Viola nodded weakly as she got up on trembling legs. He still didn’t believe her regarding her health but chose not to mention it. At least not in front of Six. She’d shut it down without a doubt.
“Sorry.” Viola exhaled visible air. “I promise I won’t ask for any more breaks after this.”
“You’d better not,” Six said, rolling her eyes to the side. “Come on. Let’s continue this way…”
Her words trailed off as the ground in the distance glowed as they did beneath their feet. Its faded color lit up just enough to reveal a tall, lanky figure standing, donned with an old suit and a big hat atop his head.
Mono’s blood ran cold.
A man in a hat. There was only one adult he’d ever encountered in his life who wore a hat and a suit. And that adult had been the one he’d defeated with his own powers, seen dead right before his very eyes as he’d dissipated into the foggy air.
Shadows cast over the Thin Man’s face, the soft light under him glowing just to reveal a tight frown across his lips. The same frown as the day he’d died.
Like the rest of the monsters that shouldn’t return, Thin Man was included.
Mono sensed Six’s horror immediately as she took the first step back, her breaths short and in panic. Because if there was anyone else who was more afraid of the Thin Man than him, it was her. She’d been the one who the old bastard had captured and had locked up and let deformed by the Tower.
The Thin Man stayed in his place without moving a limb or a muscle, his neck frozen in a slight tilt. He only stared at the ground, his hat hiding his eyes. And it felt as though the longer the children waited for his move, the more he waited with them.
Six, once again, was the first to lose it. She grabbed his arm and turned him to her. “Y-you said you killed him!” she yelled. Afraid and angry.
“I did!” Mono glanced at the Thin Man, seeing him as still as a painting. “I saw him die, Six, I swear!”
“Then explain to me why he’s here! He shouldn’t be here if he’s already dead.”
“The Nanny and the rest shouldn’t be here either!” he reminded her. “Most of them died as well, but you saw them chasing after us again, didn’t you? This has to be a trick, if anything.”
Her grip on his arm loosened to release as she threw another horrified look towards the man. And then back to him.
“You’re right,” she said after a shaky breath. “You’re right, I shouldn’t…I shouldn’t have accused you. The Eye must be doing this to turn us against each other. Trying to torment both you and I like with the others. That has to be why.”
“You’re wrong,” a deep voice chimed in just as Mono’s lips parted. Thin Man never spoke when he met him. “You’re not who I’m trying to torment.”
A scowl deepened across his face. Without thinking, Mono took a brave step forward and shouted, “Then who are you tormenting if not us?”
He didn’t know how or where he’d managed to muster up the courage to speak against the man.
For a long while, Thin Man did not answer. He let the silence drag on as though to toy with Mono’s confidence and Six’s uneasy heart. And he nearly succeeded too. Mono wanted to regret having shouted what he did, imagining the worst possible outcome for having angered a monster such as him, the Thin Man.
Because the more the man said nothing back, the more Mono wondered if he’d made everything worse for everyone. And once the Thin Man let out a deep chuckle, that was when he knew the worst was about to come.
Thin Man lifted his chin and stared at them with black-beaded eyes, his frown already tugging upwards into a grin.
“Just my daughter,” Thin Man said.
In one blink of an eye, darkness took over his spot.
It happened too quickly Mono couldn’t focus on either one of two things; where the Thin Man had disappeared to, and what he uttered before he was gone. The latter distracted him easily as he met Viola’s face. She hadn’t spoken a word since the Thin Man appeared. Never asked who the man was as she had when they’d encountered the other monsters before.
While Six whipped her head around them in frantic, Mono became frozen along with Viola, staring at her as if the girl standing in front of him was not the same person he knew.
Just my daughter, Thin Man’s voice played again in his head, shining a realization he couldn’t and refused to grasp. Not until he heard it from her.
“Viola, what…” He gulped, his chest heavy with something he couldn’t name. “What was he talking about? What did he mean when he said he’s tormenting…his daughter?”
He noticed her tense immediately at the last word. Funny how no explanation was needed from her for something awful to click inside him, connecting a dot he wished he hadn’t connected.
“No.” It can’t be. “Tell me it isn’t true.” Tell me I am not him.
Viola shook her head, defeated. “That man…” she said. “He’s my father.”
“No, he’s not!” His voice echoed back to him, his anger making him tremble in place. “I’ve already killed him, Viola. You said your dad died because of the Eye. Th-that I died because I—”
“Hold on— what?” Six stepped in between them, gripping Mono’s shoulders. “She told you, you were going to die?”
“She told me both of us were going to die,” Mono snapped. “Her parents died trying to save her!”
“But we are not her parents! The ones in her locket are—that man is,” Six shot back, exasperated. “Unless you still want to go along with Viola’s story, then that’d make you and him the same person. But both of you aren’t the same person, are you?”
“They are,” Viola corrected, frowning at her. “Mono is him.”
Six gave her a long look. And her anger returned in her eyes tenfold.
“I told you she was lying!” Six said to Mono. “Do you hear how ridiculous it sounds now? How much her lies are starting to show?”
“But I’m not lying!” Viola snapped at her, tired of not being listened to.
“You are,” Mono realized himself admitting. He forced himself to look at her in the eye and see the hurt in them as he shot her down arrow by arrow. “You’re lying, Viola.” Another. “I am not that man.” Another. “And neither am I your father.”
He took a step back instinctively when Viola came forward reaching out to him, in the most denial he’d ever been in. How could he not deny her words? He had already chosen to believe her enough—when she told him she was from the future, her relationship with Six, and later on even believed when she told him who her father was, despite that being one of the hardest things he had to do.
But telling him how he was the same person who had captured and ruined Six? This had gone too far.
Maybe Six was right. Maybe he was being too naïve and gullible again.
“Mono—?” Viola said before Six stood in front of him.
“Don’t even,” Six warned. “I think you’ve said enough. We’re leaving.” He didn’t protest this time as Six led them away without Viola. Unable to think of anything else, he looked down at the glowing steps and tried to ignore the stabbing pain in his chest—the familiar feeling of a friend’s deception, clouding over the facts he knew were true deep down.
And the hurt only intensified as Viola shouted their name, calling them.
Six dragged him away faster, as if knowing how easily his mind could change. It might just, if it hadn’t been for her.
“Guys, come…come back,” Viola’s voice trembled behind them.
Neither listened.
“Come back!” she shouted again. Six’s hand tightened over his. He ignored his overwhelming guilt, telling him to turn around.
“I SAID COME BACK!”
The room lit up at once like a flash. They stopped immediately as the wind pushed them over, sending them flying and separated from each other. And once they fell to the ground, the soft blue and yellow returned to illuminate from under their faces. Six was the first to move as always, whipping her head to Viola as she lay propped on her elbows, one hand tightly clutching her chest. Her mouth was open yet not a word was said. No screaming of insults, not anything.
It surprised him. Six was the one to yell at Viola every chance she got. Now seeing her taken aback and unprepared, he wondered what Viola had done.
Especially when he was certain the shadows that’d pushed them came from her.
“What did you do?” Mono said in Six’s place, yet he couldn’t find any ire in him. Neither could Six as she continued to say nothing but hold her chest.
Viola blinked and paused, uncertain. “I’m…sorry,” she said. And then louder, taking a step forward. “It…it was an accident, I’m sorry—” The floor behind her glowed blue. A smiling figure with a hat loomed over her.
“Viola!” Mono let his instinct kick in. He shot his hand out to the Thin Man, throwing out another wave of his energy until a ball of spark escaped from his palm, aimed at the man’s head. The attack landed perfectly as the Thin Man staggered back, his hand raised above his face.
It was enough to buy time for Viola to run away to their side, more than enough damage to hurt the man that they could escape.
A laugh rumbled in the man’s throat as if he’d heard Mono’s thoughts.
Mono looked up just in time to see the spark floating still on the center of his palm, shrinking and slowly absorbed by the skin of his hand.
The Thin Man had caught his attack.
And he had stupidly assumed the attack was enough.
Thin Man closed his hand into a fist and shot a stronger force towards him. Mono barely had time before he had to fight against the man once again, pushing both his hands towards the invisible barrier the Thin Man was using to crush them with. And this time, Mono knew he was losing.
The air around them fizzled and glitched; drowned heavily with two opposing energies it pushed Six and Viola out of its circle whenever one of them got too close or tried to interfere. Oh, how he knew the girls tried to help. The Thin Man threw a threatening glance to the side, giving a silent warning through his hollow eyes.
Yet when the man’s attention returned fully on him, he felt his stomach churn with dread.
Six’s scream pierced the air. His heart nearly stopped again as he snapped his head to her, his eyes widening in horror.
A second adult stood behind the girls—a lady he found to be familiar with her porcelain mask, yet he never recognized her as a person. He’d never met this woman, he knew.
But Viola and Six…they definitely had.
Six’s summoned abilities quickly died in her hands as the woman’s shadows snatched her wrist and body like a chain. It pulled her taut, lifting her off the ground to meet her face to face, whispering in hush voices that made Six grit her teeth and growl. Six wasn’t one to admit defeat, yet no matter how much she fought against the woman, the latter’s shadows only sunk deeper into her body like teeth. Another cry left the girl, her dark abilities faltering and diminishing into nothing.
Six was losing against the woman, just as he was losing against the Thin Man.
And Viola…
Did nothing but stare up at the woman.
His brows furrowed, everything in him nearly exhausted and used up. Why was she not helping Six? How could she only stare at the woman and let her hurt her?
“Viola!” His feet tripped behind him from the force crushing him. Viola still stared at the woman. “Viola!” She flinched, her eyes finally to him. So lost and afraid. “Help Six,” he told her, struggling to even help himself. “Kill the woman!”
Viola gaped at him, throwing a hesitant glance between him and the woman. Six had already ceased her fighting, breathing weakly as her arms and legs fell limp. Shadows circled around her and out of her body. The woman in the mask was draining her.
Viola must’ve realized it too as she reluctantly raised a shaky hand towards her.
“Will you really kill your poor mother, Viola? The one who brought you into this life?” Thin Man’s voice interrupted her. Viola turned to the man who had already knelt on one knee, pushing his powers further onto Mono, winning. Mono should be worried about that, yes
But Viola’s silence brought worse panic into his mind.
“Kill,” Six said hoarsely from above, turning her head just barely, “the old bastard.”
“But he has raised you, Viola,” the woman reasoned to the girl. “He’s showered you with nothing but love and affection. Is this how you’ll repay him?”
Mono’s eyes widened when Viola seemed to consider their words. What is going on here? Why are they trying to persuade her? Why is she even listening to their persuasion unless…
They really are her parents? Which would mean...me and Six are each of our opponents?
No, it couldn’t be. It didn’t make any sense. How could he be the same man he had already killed, let alone become a father to someone from the future who also claimed that the one he had killed was her father? It made too much of zero sense he had to believe Viola was lying about one of two things. If not about her being from the future…then at least him and Six being her parents.
Because absolutely, they couldn’t be the Thin Man and the Lady in the Mask.
“Viola, listen to me ,” Mono said to her, “the Eye is playing tricks on you; trying to torment you. If you do nothing…Six will die!”
The Thin Man hummed, displeased. “Your mother will die if you do something. Is that what you want? To see her dead in front of you?”
Viola looked up at the woman and an unmoving Six. A frown etched to her face.
“No. I don’t want her dead.” She shook her head. “I-I never wanted any of you to die.”
His heart sank to his stomach. What was she doing?
Before he could say more, Viola stepped aside and backed away from them, looking at him apologetically.
“This might hurt a little.” Her hands glowed brightly at her sides as she hurled a blinding spark at him.
It struck him on his back before he could avoid it. Yet if he had been successful, he knew it would’ve been the greatest mistake he’d make that day. Soon as the spark penetrated his skin and into his veins, he felt a surge of power. Adrenaline had always been a good push yet the one Viola had given him was twice as stronger, jolting him from his exhaustion. He knew this feeling. He’d felt it when she’d introduced it to him when they arrived in the Tower, and when she’d healed his broken ankle.
Viola had given him a boost. More than that, it felt as if she’d given him everything she had.
The force of the invisible barrier in front of him became lighter. The Thin Man’s face split into a sneer.
Mono pushed his powers out with more strength than before. The man’s figure glitched worse than it did that he was thrown back to a fall, landing on his side as he huffed heavy—angry—breaths.
He'd won. It worked. Mono gave a thankful look to Viola, despite her having missed it as she’d fallen to her knees, catching her breath.
“You ungrateful daughter!” Mono turned around and saw the woman had already stretched her other hand towards the girl.
Viola had been distracted. And the woman had her attention solely on her daughter. This was his advantage and he took it immediately, using his strength and stopping the woman with another powerful strike to the side of her face.
The woman howled in agony. Her shackles of darkness came undone as it did with her porcelain mask, cracking and breaking into two, her hand covering her half-exposed face and black doll eyes.
The shadows around Six released her to the ground. And while the woman was quick to deliver revenge, lifting a hand full of dark smoke, her attempt ceased immediately as it started. Six used her ability and shot a blade through her neck.
The woman paused with a choked gasp. Black liquid ran down her wound and to the collar of her robe. Her body stayed still for few seconds more before she started to sway and slump to the floor with a thud. Yellow forever glowed underneath her as she lay with her blood pooling on the ground, her head turned away.
The silence stretched on for so long after that. But perhaps that’d only been his imagination after seeing the woman’s death...and how it’d affected his friends differently. One staring in resentment, while the other in shock.
“You...killed her.” They all turned to Viola. Tension lingered in the air; and the longer he looked at her, the more horrified she seemed at the sight of the woman’s corpse.
Mono said nothing, or rather, he didn’t know what he could say. Six, on the other hand, huffed out a shallow breath as she looked back to the mess made, frowning and thinking.
“She tried to kill me first,” Six reasoned, as though in guilt. Then she looked at Viola, her brows furrowed. “Why do you care so much? She was already dead to begin with. I...I killed her before in the Maw. The Lady is already—”
“Six.” He approached Six and gently put a hand over her shoulder, shaking his head. Let’s not speak of it anymore.
She frowned, nonetheless understood and nodded after a few seconds, agreeing to not say a word about the woman she’d killed in front of Viola. Mono was grateful for that.
“Are you okay?” he whispered to her as he helped her stand, stealing a worried glance towards Viola who still sat frozen staring at the Lady’s lifeless body.
“I’m fine. I’ve gone through it before, so,” Six got up with a wince, “I’ll be alright. You?”
“Same as you. I’m okay.” This time his eyes stayed on the other girl, concern filling his chest. “But I don’t think she is, though.”
An exasperated sigh from Six. He wasn’t sure if her annoyance was directed to Viola alone this time. “She’ll…be fine,” Six whispered to him. “You did say she isn’t weak, didn’t you?”
“I did, but she looks so…”
“Broken,” another voice finished for him.
The fight was not over.
From his peripheral, he saw the Thin Man shift into a sitting position, his back hunched, and neck hung low due to his height.
“I told you, did I not, Viola?” Thin Man raised his head to her, a different flesh sticking out from half of his face, pulsating and opening up to reveal dozens of blinking eyes underneath his skin. His own black-beaded eyes leaked blood, streaming down and over his discolored cheeks like tears.
Mono took a slow step back before lightly nudging Six’s hand. She’d looked at him with confusion, yet one subtle nod from him, and a quick head tilt to Viola, her face faltered understanding his plan. She reluctantly nodded back.
“I told you your mother would die if you did something,” Thin Man began to say to his daughter. Viola shrunk in place, her chest heaving up and down as she held back her fear and devastation. “LOOK AT HER NOW. LOOK WHAT YOU’VE DONE TO HER.”
The Thin Man raised his hand above his head.
“Now, Six!” Six shot a shadow into the Thin Man’s shoulder. The man fell back with a stifled cry, gritting his teeth as he clutched his wound tightly. That was when Six made a dash towards Viola, snatching her by the arm and forcing her up.
Seething and enraged, Thin Man summoned a blinding glow, lifting his other hand once more.
This time, Mono was the one to stop him. He countered the man with the same tactic, his power pushing the man back before he could initiate an attack. And once Mono saw him land face first to the ground, he turned and ran to the girls.
Six had hesitated to move as he hadn’t yet caught up to them, but when he screamed for her to run ahead, she complied with an exasperated groan, and shoved Viola forward so she’d run along with her. Relief filled his chest at that, even if seeing them run up ahead of him. But the relief was short when the Thin Man’s scream echoed.
He glanced behind him and a new horror took over.
The man stared back at him with a gaping mouth, unnaturally wide and uncanny. The floor had begun to merge him and the woman together limb to limb, the glowing ground nothing more than a perfect disguise for the bed of flesh the adults sat above—the same discolored flesh that grew out from the Thin Man’s face. Then the entire floor brightened in unison as if in sync to what was happening. Mono felt its texture changed, becoming softer—stickier—as he continued to run for his life.
A garbled screech sounded from the monstrosity the flesh had created from the Thin Man and the Lady. And it only grew larger for every second, using the meaty ground to expand and limit the children’s path.
“The light!” Viola’s voice made him turn back to the front. He never realized just how fast the girls had run ahead. “I told you it’s a way out!” She pointed to the bright opening, leading up to a wide gate.
The Signal Tower’s entrance.
He could see it from here—the rain pouring down on the street of Pale City, the lamp posts glowing dimly within the foggy air, the dullness of the outside world. And the closer he was to the gate, the more he could feel the natural cold wind blow past him like fresh air.
Oh, how badly he wanted to leave the Tower—he couldn’t wait for it.
Six and Viola ran past the gate first, their figures immediately drenched with heavy rain. Mono was behind them not a moment later, stepping over the other side, ready to join them back into Pale City...
Yet he never did.
Something heavy tightened over his arm. Mono's hope for freedom was crushed as he was swung back inside the Signal Tower.
Pain shot up on his front, his body having rolled across the cold floor from the force of the throw. And he looked down only to see the flesh tentacles already snaking up his entire arm, pulling him further locked in place whenever he tried to get up. And truly, he tried to get up. He tried with all the panic and adrenaline running in his body to escape the Eye's cruel clutches
Only to fail miserably.
No, he gaped in horror. This can’t be happening. The walls and grounds were covered with more of the Eye's flesh, the growing monster chasing after them humming and screaming in the darkness beyond the light's range, haunting him alone.
Mono fought again to leave. The flesh tentacles tugged him deeper into the Tower in retaliation.
“Mono!”
His head snapped up to the gates; his escape so close yet so far away. It broke his heart even more as the last thing he saw was Six’s running figure, desperately trying to run back inside and save him.
Only to have the gates slammed closed before she ever could.
Notes:
Separated again aren't they? 😭 Don't worry this time won't be like other times because this arc is ending in a few chapters.
Next chapter will be in Six's POV. She's been so petty and possessive given Mono's around, so let's see how she'll react having to work together with Viola without him. Expect mother-daughter bonding time ;)
Thanks for reading!
Chapter 68: Betrayal, Tears and Tea
Notes:
Whoops, sorry this took a while. Just wasn't loving the writing for the first draft and I redid the whole thing last minute 😭😭 Anyway, with that I decided to have two POVs in this chapter to move things along.
Enjoy :))
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
It happened again.
Six had expected something was off when the Signal Tower gate just suddenly appeared before their eyes. Even so, they ran towards it without much thought other than wanting to escape. She didn’t give it much thought. The sight of the outside world, the Pale City in its constant gloomy weather and storm—at the time it only filled her with determination to cross the threshold as fast as possible. She didn’t linger on her suspicions, or how come suddenly their escape had turned so easy. She didn’t even think of the possibility of someone getting left behind.
That was because no one was.
Six was in the lead, Viola next to her and Mono close behind. She heard his footsteps to know he wasn’t that far at all. Perhaps that was a mistake. She had made a grave mistake and confidently believed all of them could make it out no matter if all of them did step foot outside even for one second.
The Eye had snatched Mono back into the Signal Tower just as quickly as the rain fell on top of his head, pulling him backwards just so she could see the despair in his eyes. And the Eye – cruel as they were – closed their gate right as Six ran in front of it.
Six had cried to the Tower to be let in, demanded for the Eye to listen to her, shouted threats she knew to be meaningless to the Eye. All of it was futile efforts and yet she couldn’t bring herself to stop trying and waste her breath anyway. She couldn’t bring herself to believe this had happened again.
Mono was locked inside the Signal Tower once more.
And once more, Six could do nothing to get him out.
He was right behind me. I swear he was running behind me. Why didn’t I make sure of it? Why didn’t I take his hand and make sure the Eye couldn’t steal him?
The thunder boomed in the grey sky, the cold of the storm settling in her bones. Six pounded her weak fists against the wet stone.
“Mono!” Water was in her eyes it was hard to keep them open. She didn’t know if they were hers or the rain.
She cried for him again. The gate remained shut. It seemed as if the universe did not care for her the more she hoped for something. Or rather, it seemed like the world was cruel to decide this was her fate – to make her realize what Mono meant to her only to have him taken by a monster she knew to be merciless. They granted her freedom but took away its meaning.
Because freedom without Mono was a cage with no key. A hollow home she would be forced to stay in.
She didn’t want that. She’d rather live in the Tower with him than be in the comfort of safety without him. Knowing Mono was to suffer all alone…she would suffer either way.
“Six…” A small hand closed on her shoulder. Six’s ire burned brighter than before.
“Don’t touch me!” Six shoved Viola until she took a few steps back with fear written all over her face.
“I-I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to do that. I…I only wanted to help.”
“Help?” A bitter laugh rumbled in her chest. “You only wanted to help. Funny, what exactly do you think you can do to help? Don’t you even get it, still?” Six approached her, menacing shadows following behind. Viola staggered back for every advancing step Six took. “All you’ve done…is anything but help. Ever since you came into our lives, you’ve done nothing but make everything worse. And now, you’re standing here telling me you only wanted to help?”
Viola stopped in place, her eyes blinking nervously. Or perhaps she was trying not to cry.
“I…I know I’ve done some bad things, but I really wanted to fix it—"
“You can’t!” The shadows behind her grew larger, looming over them like an angry guardian. Viola became frozen in horror as Six cried, “You’re not in any position to help when you’re the reason everything has gone to hell! You say you understand it, but you still don’t. You don’t even realize the shit you made us go through!” Darkness surrounded them in the matter of seconds, overpowering the foggy air.
Six’s rage exploded. Viola cast a fearful look around before locking her eyes at the hooded girl.
“Six, please, calm down!”
“Don’t tell me to calm down,” Six hissed. “All of this happened because of you, Viola. You’re the reason Mono is back inside the Signal Tower. You brought him back here when he was already out—this is all your fault!”
“Th-that…that is not true.” Viola shrunk slightly, hurt by Six’s accusation. “Mono…Mono wanted to save you. I wanted to save you. You mean a great deal to both of us; I would never leave you behind in the Signal Tower on purpose, you know that.”
Her fingers twitched as fury and resentment grew in her heart. “Liar.”
“No,” Viola shot back more confidently this time. “I am not lying, Six. Some things may be my fault but Mono being back in the Tower isn’t. The Eye would never have let us go this easily. Just as last time, there is always a catch.”
“I don’t want to hear your excuses—”
“They aren’t excuses, I know you know it. The Eye took him because they needed their Broadcaster. Since the start, they wanted someone to channel their signals and the first time he escaped, they took me to lure him back. The second time he did, they took you instead. They knew it would make him come back. All along they just wanted him to return to them.”
“Stop it.” Six gritted her teeth as something within her darkened.
“Six, you have to believe me,” Viola said. “Believe that I’m telling the truth. All I ever wanted was to save both you and Mono. To change what happened to my parents.”
“Viola—”
“I really am sorry for what I did to you…for leaving you behind. From the bottom of my heart, I swear I didn’t want to do it. If you hadn’t been infected, if the Eye never got you, you know I would bring you up on that ledge with me, I promise —” Viola took a step towards her.
The darkness inside of Six took over as she screamed, “Enough!”. Six had already swung her hand in front of her, releasing a strong force that moved as sharp as its blade. She didn’t realize who she’d struck until blood began to slide down Viola’s arm, and her body thudded on the asphalt with only a shallow puddle to soften her landing.
Then came Viola’s pained cry.
Tears that the girl held back finally rolled down her cheeks. She sobbed as she pressed her bloodied hand against her new wound, wincing and crying while Six…
Six only stood there and watched. Watch as everything unfolded in the blink of an eye, as if it hadn’t been her who had done this. And if it weren’t for the loud thunder above them, she knew she would’ve been trapped longer in shock.
She found herself flinching and taking a wary step back when everything became real. Viola’s soft crying, the blood, her powers she’d used to hurt someone. She had hurt someone. She’d never lost herself like this before. Even as angry and annoyed she’d been with Mono, she had never once purposely used her abilities to inflict harm on him, to draw blood from a person.
What have I done? Why did I do that? What was I….
“L-leave.” Six’s mouth moved on its own.
Viola’s cries slowed as she looked up at her while holding her arm to her chest. Confusion flashed in her eyes before fear returned to take its place; before Six shouted for her to do as she said.
“Leave! Get out of my sight!” Panic threatened to slip in her voice. She needed to get Viola away from her as quickly as possible.
“But…but I—”
“No. I don’t care what you have to say. I don’t want you anywhere near me, so…so unless you want a cut in your throat next, I suggest you leave now.” Six kicked at the puddle until its murky water hit Viola. “GO!”
That did it. Viola scrambled to her feet in fear, running the other way with one arm still close to her chest. She disappeared behind the alley not long after.
But her words stayed with Six even then.
From the bottom of my heart, I swear I didn’t want to do it.
If you hadn’t been infected, if the Eye never got you, you know I would bring you up on that ledge with me.
“Liar…” Six pressed the heel of her palms into her eyes. She hated how she was feeling now—the exploding guilt, the want to actually believe all that Viola said to her. “Stupid…liar!” She kicked the water again.
Viola was not a liar, she knew. Neither was she at fault like Six had accused her to be. But in times where she’d just been plunged to rock bottom, losing Mono and half of her sanity, Six wanted to blame someone. She blamed the Eye for being the cause, but they were too powerful to care. She blamed herself and it wasn’t enough. Out of desperation, she turned to the only person left that could be hurt.
And hurt, she did. Six hurt Viola not only with harsh words and accusations, but physically too.
That alone was enough to aggravate the situation—and soon guilt became the only thing she could feel.
This is all your fault. You could’ve killed her.
Her chest tightened listening to her thoughts.
She wished Mono had been there to stop her. She wished Viola hadn’t taken that forward step. She wished she wasn’t born a monster.
All alone under the rainy sky, Six allowed herself a moment of vulnerability. The water rippled as she dropped to her knees, a sob ready in her throat. Her eyes stung worse when she stared at her own reflection, yearning for a better fate for the girl instead of the cruelty she grew up with.
The girl smiled brightly.
Six flinched and wiped the tears in her eyes, hoping to clear her vision and see that her mind was playing tricks on her.
It didn’t.
The girl’s smile only widened under her identical yellow hood as she blinked in sync with her. She leaned closer into the surface. Six leaned the other way, afraid.
This was not her reflection anymore. This was not a normal puddle created by the heavy downpour of Pale City. The realization dawned on her then and there; The Signal Tower gates didn’t open, not because the Eye wished to push her out…
It was because she never left.
All of it had merely been a convincing façade of the cursed city, to deceive her into thinking Mono alone was to stay in the Signal Tower when in truth they were only separated within the Tower. And how so great was the Eye’s deception; it rendered her frozen. Horrified.
Especially as her own reflection began to act as their puppet.
A sharp gasp escaped her as a pair of hands protruded from the puddle. They snatched her arms and shoulders with such force, sharp nails digging into her coat she could almost feel her skin breaking. Six fought hard to stay above the water. The girl – her reflection – only smiled wider at her struggle, pulling her forward with the same effort.
Six was losing, she knew. The moment her hand slipped on the ground was the moment Pale City was left behind above her.
And all she felt then was her body sinking into the unknown.
The storm continued to worsen with every passing minute.
Viola ran through the city streets without any sense of direction, only leaving her legs to carry her while she furiously swiped her uninjured arm across her eyes. More tears brimmed in them the more she tried to clear her vision. She found it to be useless as her surroundings were the same as the ones she’d run past. Foreign. Scary. Huge.
Viola slowed into the alley, her breathing shallow. She did not know where she was. Neither did she know where to go other than walk into the open area and follow down its path, despondency weighing over her heart.
Had Six really hated her that much? She knew any act of betrayal was bound to end in long arguments and fights – Viola had prepared herself for that before returning to the Tower – but was this how her relationship with Six would be from now on? Unmendable? Broken? Filled with hatred that may have just exceeded Mono’s previous resentment towards Six? Of course, Mono had told her Six was only angry. Viola understood it and was patient with every insult, accusations, a punch or two Six threw her way – she deserved it that much.
Now, however…Viola wasn’t entirely sure if patience was enough to keep herself from getting hurt. Her arm still bled from the powers Six struck her with, after all. She wondered if she’d pushed her too far with everything that she said to her. Or maybe Six was right and all that happened was entirely her fault.
Tears gathered in her eyes again. Viola wiped them away furiously with the back of her hand, not looking where she was going until her head knocked against a hard metal pole.
Her life could not get any worse.
With a throbbing skull and a bleeding arm, Viola glared at the lamp post as though it had been the reason for her suffering. She cursed at it with a growl in her throat, kicking weakly at its feet trying to hurt it back. The lamp post remained standing, nonetheless, its bulb flickering only for a second.
She felt her shoulders sag as exhaustion caught up and her anger gone. What was she meant to do now? Six literally threatened to kill her if she were to show her face again. Mono was trapped in the Signal Tower all alone, possibly back to being a human battery. The Eye would likely send away anyone who would try to rescue him again.
Meanwhile, Viola was back to square one.
And once more, she was left with an imprisoned father; a mother who saw her as nothing but a stranger; and a future where both of them were not at all alive.
Truly, what else could she do?
Viola sighed as she followed down the walkway, thinking of a new plan to change it all. Working with Six was as good as her efforts to make amends – futile. Six would not forgive her, and even if she had agreed to work together, she would never again trust her.
The rain pitter-pattered against the roof of the abandoned cars lined on the side of the road. Beside her, nearly all of the shops were sealed with metal covers from the side, and those that weren’t were left with a simple sign hanging on its doors, the words “SORRY, WE ARE CLOSED!” written across its plate in cursive.
Viola briefly wondered as she glanced over the abandoned establishments. The parks that had ghosts of innocent citizens, walking all over its grass and pavements, enjoying a nice day of warm sunshine. Playgrounds and swings children used to play with and benches their parents would sit on to watch over them. She wondered if the road used to be busy with live cars instead of empty ones. And she wondered if Pale City was full of nice people before the Eye came.
Her eyes lingered on the cold scenery, imagining the warmth of the world before – the world she could not live in.
“All of them must’ve been nice people,” Viola muttered to herself, sniffling.
“No, not really.”
Viola screamed as she turned around, recoiling a few steps back from the man looming over her. It took her a few seconds to remember his face, especially when all he had were two eyes and nothing else.
Still, it didn’t lessen her fear despite knowing who he was.
Willy hummed softly, unaffected by her defensive stance. He shifted his umbrella in one hand while the other went to fix the hat atop his head. Similar to the one Viola’s father would wear.
“You needn’t look so afraid of me. It’s not very becoming on you, you know,” Willy said, and leaned to her height. “Now, what is a little girl like you doing out here in the rain?”
Viola gulped, hesitating. Willy sighed and straightened his back when silence stretched on.
“Come along. You’re practically soaked to the bone already.” Willy extended the umbrella to her, leaving part of his shoulder exposed to the weather. He gestured for her to get under with an encouraging nod. Even so, Viola gave him a wary look before sharing the umbrella with him, trying to create as much distance as possible from the man. Much to her surprise, Willy let her have most of the umbrella. She didn’t question why or confronted him if he had any hidden motives, since their last meeting he’d mentioned he had no reason to torment her.
Yet as they walked down the pavement, she couldn’t help but fear he’d changed his mind. And that Willy was now leading her to a child-eating monster.
“What are you doing…outside of the Signal Tower?” Viola finally mustered enough courage to talk.
Willy glanced down at her and then back ahead. “I never leave the Tower.”
“But you’re—”
“Still inside the Tower. And so are you.” Her brows furrowed in confusion. Willy added and lifted a hand. “Look around, Viola. If you see closely, the city is still filled with people who are still people. Lights in the residential area are still on despite the late hour. I’m sure this does not happen as much in the real city beyond the Tower’s walls, that is if you’ve ever stayed in the city long enough to notice.”
Viola paused, looking around for any human-like movements. There were none.
“I don’t see anyone, though.”
“Well, everyone is asleep. It’s no wonder you don’t see anyone,” Willy reminded. “You still haven’t answered my question earlier, by the way; what’s a child like you doing walking around in the rain?”
“Is that supposed to be a trick question?” She scowled, shivering.
Willy’s eyes narrowed. “I have no need for tricks,” he said plainly. “I’m merely surprised to see you here again so soon. The last time we talked, you mentioned you wanted to stop us, Eyes, didn’t you? So, enlighten me, why are you inside this part of the Tower again, and not where the others reside?”
“I’m not here by choice,” Viola replied. “I got thrown out.”
“Thrown out? By who?” She sent him a deadpan look. Willy chuckled, his eyes crinkling in mirth. “Kidding, of course.”
“It’s not funny.”
“Not for you, no.”
“What do you mean ‘inside this part of the Tower again’?”
They crossed the road and continued down a different pavement, the buildings beside them appearing more like homes rather than establishments.
“Your arm. It’s bleeding,” Willy said instead. “Did I not tell you you’d need all the strength to defeat us?”
Viola glanced down at the nasty cut on her arm. She held it closer to her, guilt in her chest. “It…was an accident,” she ended up telling him.
“I see. Whose fault was it?”
“Mine.”
Willy made a funny sound. “Yours, hm? You truly do remind me of Mono.”
Dad. “What do you mean?”
“Michael was very stubborn, and very…how shall I put it—prone to self-blaming. Always insisting to see the good in everybody no matter if there were none left. Always the one to defend the very person who hurt him. Those kinds of qualities…it easily made him a target.” She winced. “Once, I even offered to help him resolve his issues, out of pity. Of course, he said no without a thought. Not even if it brought him more good than harm.”
A bit of relief filled Viola’s heart hearing her father’s refusal. She could only imagine what atrocious deals the Eye—Willy—had offered him.
“I believe the one who gave you that cut is the Geisha?” Willy asked, his eyes on her bloodied arm.
She turned it away slightly and grumbled, “Like I said, it was only an accident.”
“Hm. If you say so.”
“Where are we going?” The rain had become no more but a few drops. Nonetheless the cold in the air left her body shivering and her teeth chattering.
Willy stopped in front of one of the houses. “Do you think I’d prefer staying out here in the cold?” he said as closed the umbrella and climbed the steps. He opened the front door with a turn of his key, then motioned for her to follow along before entering the building.
Viola watched the door creak ajar, confused. The rational part of her warned her not to trust Willy, despite the strange kindness the man had been showing throughout their entire walk. She knew he would insist it to be nothing more than indifference, yet the way he behaved—sharing umbrellas, cracking jokes, inviting her into a warmer place—was enough to make her second-guess her suspicions of the faceless man.
The door swung wider. This time, Willy stood there waiting, his hand holding the door open.
“What are you still doing standing there? Come inside,” Willy lightly scolded.
That snapped Viola out of her trance. She looked at the house warily. “And if I say no?”
“Then feel free to freeze out in the streets.” He leaned lazily against the frame. “But…you should know something, though. There are many children who suffer from illnesses due to the low temperature. Sometimes even death. Especially this time around in the year.”
A pang of fear ran through her. Nonetheless, she fought through it, puffing out her chest in false bravado. “R-right. I thought you said we’re still in the Signal Tower,” Viola said.
“Yes, that is true.”
“Then that means you can control the weather whenever you please. You can even change the whole scenery if you want to. I don’t see why you need to have this whole…fake city get-up unless you’re trying to trick me into something.”
“My, now you’re sounding like his friend too,” Willy muttered under his breath, sighing exasperatedly. “Little girl. I have no reason to trick you; take my word.”
“So why are you trying to scare me, then? Like the Eye always did?”
“It’s nothing personal. I used to scare Michael all the time.”
Her eyes narrowed as she hugged her trembling self even tighter. “Your point?”
“Point is—my reason for scaring you is different from the others’ reason. I don’t do it for entertainment… anymore, in the very least,” Willy added hastily. “You may stay out in the cold if that’s what you want. But if you have a change of heart…do come in. After all, like I said before, they aren’t really as nice people as you think.”
“They?” Her brows knit together.
“The citizens.” Willy began to close the door then.
“W-wait!” The door stopped halfway, and Willy’s head peeked out in the little gap, tilting in confusion.
Viola cast a quick look around the quiet neighbourhood and suppressed a groan. As much as she’d rather avoid anything that had to do with the Eye or the Eye themselves… she figured it was better to stay close with someone who had actual control of the Signal Tower. She’d rather not take a chance stumbling upon a creature she had no power to outrun from, let alone fight with.
This is the Signal Tower. Of course, we’re still here. So if Willy really wanted to conjure up a monster to kill me, he would’ve done so already. If he’s lying about wanting to trick me, it’s nothing you haven’t seen before.
With that thought, she huffed out cold air and begrudgingly climbed up the steps too. As she neared the entrance, Willy gladly opened the door wider for her, letting her step inside before closing it behind them.
The place was spacious and bright unlike the room Viola first met Willy in. It looked warmer compared to the dim living room. The walls were clean and not torn up; there was a proper area for multiple guests to sit in should Willy ever have one - in this case, he had one now.
Viola felt something warm press against her head. She flinched only to scowl when it turned out to be Willy nudging a mug at her. It baffled and annoyed her at the same time why the man couldn’t have just called her name to get her attention. She took the mug from him hesitantly.
“What…is this?” Viola swirled the brown drink in her hands, finding comfort in the warmth of the glass.
“Tea.” Willy gestured to the chair. “Have a seat. You look like you're seconds away from doubling over.”
Viola drew her lips into a thin line and sat on the couch. She held the mug steady in her hands but did not take a sip. Poison might be Willy’s way of hurting her if not the straight-forward torment the Eye would always give.
As Willy took his seat too across from her, Viola narrowed her eyes at him and kept quiet. Willy snickered at her.
“What? You think I poisoned your drink?” Viola tensed. He laughed, leaning back. “You are one funny girl. I didn’t poison anything, if it helps.”
“How would I know you’re telling the truth? You’re the one who gave it to me out of nowhere.” Willy said nothing, but the amusement in his eyes remained. “Why did you?”
“Why did I what?”
“Why did you help me?”
Willy let out a small chuckle. “I assume we aren’t talking about tea anymore, are we dear?”
Viola shook her head.
“Ah. Of course.” Willy laughed again. “I helped you this time…simply because I wanted to.”
She raised a brow, skeptical of his answer. “Seriously?”
“Seriously,” Willy echoed. “You remind me of Michael, as I already mentioned before. Or at least, your mannerisms and stubborn naivety.” He sighed as he reminisced. “Besides, after meeting you, I sort of enjoyed our interaction. Especially when you expressed that fiery determination of yours to put an end to the Eye. It’s really something, I’ll give you that. Have you always been this brave?”
“I…uh,” Viola stammered. “N-no, I’m just doing what I can to save my parents. That’s all.”
“Remarkable. May I be blunt?” Willy sat up, clasping his hands together. “I have a feeling you won’t be successful.”
Her grip on the cup tightened. “What…?”
“I said I have a feeling you won’t be—”
“I heard you!” Viola put the mug on the coffee table, some of its content spilling out. Willy watched her calmly throughout the entire time, studying her reaction. “Why…do you think I won’t be able to save them?” Viola asked after some time, when her anger cooled and her composure controlled.
“Well, for one, I know the strength of each eye and the catastrophe they could bring while in their merging. And the second, I simply believe you are no match to go against an opponent as merciless as them.”
“You mean as merciless as you?” she hissed. Willy took no offence, nonetheless made his point.
“My dear, it is only my observation and experience. You say you wanted to save both of your parents, but honestly, how can you when you’ve already depleted most of your own power to help only one of them? Not to mention, the injury you received not only from the other Eyes, but as well as from the Geisha? The way I see it, the war you’re trying to win is a war you will either lose alive or lose dead. The latter being the most likely to happen if you continue to fight. Are you willing to go that far?”
“Yes,” Viola said firmly. “I am. Because I know going back now is not an option for me. Not when I’m already this far deep. I’ve already lost my parents once, so I’m not about to lose them again. Especially not to you, of all people.”
Willy became silent. He moved barely a muscle as he stared down at her with unreadable eyes. Yet the one thing Viola could read was the small tension left in the air due to her words.
The man seemed unhappy.
“You don’t fear death?” Willy finally spoke, his voice either irritated or in awe. She didn’t know which was which.
“Everybody does…” Viola uttered quietly.
“Then why fight a losing battle?” Willy pressed. “If you fear death, you should know going against the Eye—going against me—would get you to him quicker. Are you sure that is what you want?”
“Why are you trying to stop me?”
Willy’s pause came longer this time. Instead, he rubbed the side of his head as he sighed, exasperated by her stubbornness. But Viola had the right to be stubborn in the matter; this was a question of whether she should save Mono and Six’s lives. It was just as irritating to have Willy insist she bailed when he had told her he wouldn’t stop her and her plan.
Had she been wrong about Willy? Was he just the same monster the Eye was? In theory, he should be. In person, however, he could be mistaken as a normal human being. A decent, albeit mischievous character that wasn’t hostile without reason. Viola had had her suspicions of the man, nonetheless she wasn’t as afraid of him as she was with the Eye.
Because for one the Eye wouldn’t offer someone a cup of warm tea.
“You know,” Willy started slowly, “I was on the verge of extinction when Michael found me.” Viola’s eyes widened, and her ears perked. The corners of Willy’s eyes wrinkled as though he was smiling. He looked out the window, the drops of water sliding down the glass. “It was raining heavily just like it did out there. As Pale City ever would every day. I was close to death and was down to one last eye, all smothered by the mud and dirt. The feeling was nothing I could’ve imagined; dying. I truly thought I would be buried there, and none would be the wiser.
“But of course, fate had other plans when they had Michael run out in the rain for certain reasons I wouldn’t disclose. But wasn’t it a coincidence? The one time he decided to run in the rain, he ended up tripping on a small blob of meat; Me.”
Viola eagerly listened to Willy and Michael—her father’s past. Willy continued, “That very day, Michael took me in. Snuck me into his home and hid me from his old man, just so I wouldn’t be thrown out or killed looking how I looked at the time. He gave me an opportunity to live; and he taught me everything there was to know about life and everyone he knew. When I think of it now, I believe he was being too kind. Not on the offer, but…on the world. On the people in his life.” Willy turned to Viola then, his eyes losing all the warmth it had seconds ago.
“When I told you the citizens are not nice people, I mean it, Viola. They may act as though they are human on the outside, but on the inside…they are nothing more than the monsters you see roaming in Pale City today. Michael insisted these people are worthy of saving, that not all of them deserved to be punished. But I disagreed. Strongly.”
“...Why are you telling me this?”
Willy leaned forward in his seat. “Because I’m recognizing a pattern I know would end the same way. Michael chose others over himself; and his life became the cost. You choose to save both of your parents, but you will save only one and die together with the other. I’m afraid your life, too, would be the cost.”
Her heart sank to her stomach when it hit her—the hint of what the Eye was planning for all of them.
You will save only one and die together with the other.
Your life, too, would be the cost.
Viola’s fate was up to her, but not the same could be said for parents. Because if Willy was telling the truth now, one was certain to be saved
And one was already determined for death.
She knew the Signal Tower would be nothing without their Broadcaster. Hence, it would leave…
Mom.
“My mother. You’re…you’re going to kill her,” Viola said. She’d sprung up from her seat in horror, staring wide-eyed into Willy’s resigned face.
“The others are,” Willy said. “But…they no longer wish the same fate for you, if you stay out of the way. Which I urge you, please do. If you value your life enough.”
She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. The Eye was going to get rid of Six; and them being separated might’ve been the worst decision she’d ever done. They fell right into the Eye’s trap. She fell into Willy’s strange kindness. She’d gotten herself distracted and now…she dared not to imagine what Six was going through because of her mistake.
“Where is she now?” Viola said, panicking. “Where is my mother?”
“I cannot tell you—”
Viola stormed off to the door as he spoke, and turned the doorknob furiously. The door didn’t budge. She twisted it again and pulled, but it remained closed. Locked for a purpose.
“Viola, think carefully.” His voice brought her back into the cold reality—one Willy had control of. “I know I said I play no part in maintaining the Cycle anymore. That I am not playing for any side in this fight between the Eye and your family—but I know which side will win regardless. And it won’t be yours.”
Fresh tears gathered in her eyes. Viola held them back just as she held in her urge to break the window and escape. She hadn’t yet seen an angry Willy; and she dared not to find out.
“I’m…I’m going back for my mother.” Her voice came out shakily. “I can’t let you kill her.”
“You do not understand what I’m telling you; the Geisha is already dead. You trying to stop the Eye from making that happen could cost you your life. The rest are already unhappy with you for what you did to the Cycle; some are even willing to find difficult alternatives to replace the Geisha’s role if it means you die along with her. Going back for her now is a foolish endeavour.”
“Even more foolish if I listen to an enemy and do exactly what he wants!” Viola shot back.
Willy said nothing to that but insisted, “You should stay here. Where it is safe. I promise you will see no more suffering if you leave the Geisha alone.”
“No, that is—!”
“Viola,” Willy said solemnly in his seat, “please listen. I truly urge you not to continue down this path. If you want to live, staying would be your only choice. If you want to save someone, save yourself. Choose your own life before others. Do not end up like—” Willy stopped with a clenched fist rested on the armchair. His chest heaved up and down, sighing heavily as if to recollect his lost composure.
Since they met, Willy had never hesitated in his words. However, now as she stared at the man with the broken past, he never seemed more hesitant to speak at all. Viola opened her mouth slightly.
“Stay here, and I guarantee you will live,” Willy spoke before she did. “Go out that door, and your fate is up to the others. Your life would be at great risk. Are you really sure you’re ready for that?”
I have no choice.
Viola eventually nodded, her knuckles white from her grip on the door.
I have to save my parents.
Willy let out a tired sigh, shaking his head in disappointment as though her thoughts were spoken to him out loud.
The door made a clicking sound.
Startled, Viola flinched away with her hands in the air. Then she turned to Willy, realization settling as she watched him stare at the entrance of his own home with almost a defeated look.
Willy had unlocked the door. And he had done so per her request.
“Your arm and knee are still bleeding, by the way,” Willy said as he sat back in his chair. “I suggest you get the Broadcaster to heal you for a change. Don’t you agree?”
She gaped at him.
By far, Willy might just be...the strangest, most complex person she'd ever met. Because every time without fail, his actions made her question how he was also the Eye.
Viola felt the corners of her lips tug into a soft grin when she felt the knob loosen under her grip. She nearly wanted to thank him out loud if he hadn't been the reason the Cycle existed. Maybe she already did a little.
“If...if I make it alive,” Viola said instead.
That earned a small chuckle out of him.
“Funny girl,” Willy said as he watched her open the door to take her leave. “Do watch your step.”
His last words became a confusion to her when she walked out onto the porch. However, when the next ground she stepped on vanished beneath her feet, she understood immediately what Willy had meant.
For then she screamed, falling into the same unknown.
Notes:
Six: (being dragged off to get killed somewhere)
Meanwhile Willy to Viola: More tea?
Originally, Willy wasn't supposed to show up in the chapter because Thin Man (the nice one) was going to. But then I needed a good reason to drop some Eye lore, so boom. Willy returns. Plus the mini backstory arc is coming real close (the climax of this story even closer) and I just had to expand this dude's character a little bit more lolol.
Next chapter will be in either Six or Viola's POV. They still have some mother-daughter bonding left to do before Mono comes back into the spotlight.
Thanks for reading!
Chapter 69: Traitor to Traitor
Notes:
Hey everyone, I am back with Six's POV. Here's a very much needed mother-daughter bonding time :)
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
The slippery flesh caught onto her neck for the third time, dragging her back to the meaty ground without mercy. Six had thought she would die by impact when she’d fallen into this terrifying pit of flesh and eyes, but death would have been better to face rather than the back to back torture she was put under—not to mention, the pressure and desperation she had to keep surviving as long as she still breathed.
At first, she’d attacked back in self defense, killing them one by one with precision. However, the longer she was placed here…it was all purely reflex now. She couldn’t keep up as one after another, different sharp tentacles shot her way like an arrow determined to pierce a limb or a vital organ, missing just by a hair.
She didn’t know how long she’d been running and dodging. Her breath had long run out.
Her refusal to die, however, remained strong.
Six cried out of sheer frustration and anger, summoning her powers in desperation to cut herself free. Time and time again she succeeded and the tentacles were halved, squirming on the floor. But what made it irritating was how her attacks did nothing to push the flesh tentacles from returning twice as much. More than ever, it seemed as though they were not hurt at all despite having its skin slashed and bleeding.
Another snatched her by her leg. Six fell again before she could run.
“Let go of me!” she cried through gritted teeth, releasing yet another strong slash across the tentacles. They cut in half. Three more returned snatching her neck and wrists.
White spots appeared in her vision not long after, her lungs out of air. She felt them tightened slowly around her throat.
“There is no use of fighting.” The voices spoke above, booming in loud echoes. Six winced and flinched when a tentacle moved in front of her. It shifted itself up like a snake with a pointed edge for a head, pulling itself back ready to deliver its blow.
Her eyes widened in horror. She clawed at the meat ground; pushed everything in her to get away from the sharp tentacle; used her dark abilities to cut against her restraints. This time she failed. The fleshes doubled immediately after being slashed, holding her in place even stronger than before.
All to make certain she wouldn’t escape the execution.
“We thank you for your decades of service as our Geisha,” the voice—the Eye—whispered in her ears like a blaring siren. Decades of service? “But it seems there are some things that are in dire need of repair. And your death shall be the solution.”
Six squirmed as the tentacle shifted higher, aiming directly over her head. She was not ready. She was not ready to die.
“It is time you meet your end, Six.”
She shut her eyes tight. There was truly no escaping death this time. With her energy exhausted and her abilities used up, Six could only let her mind roam into the parts of her brain she pushed unwanted feelings into. Because in these last seconds, what else could she do aside from reminisce and regret? She’d done everything for herself. Her life was lived mostly for herself.
She’d been selfish, arrogant and horrible towards the people who actually cared. Mono had been one of them. Viola still was. Perhaps that was why her chest ached worse in the moment of death. There was still a part of her that wished she hadn’t gone too far with her anger at the other girl, to the point where she was left hurt and bleeding. There was even a part of Six that wanted to listen to Mono’s advice.
If I were in your shoes, which I was at some point, I’d stop telling myself to stay angry.
Hating someone is exhausting.
You waste a lot of time and energy you could never get back.
The tightness in her chest became unbearable. There was a prickle of something familiar yet one she could not name.
Before she could think further, the tentacle shot down over her head in a swift motion. Six felt cold blood drip down her neck, and then a dead weight above her.
She opened her eyes.
Bright blue light glowed within the wounds of the tentacle meant to execute her. Black clouds lingered in the air where screams of the thousand hidden eyes became a dissonant cry. Six wiggled her arms out of her loose shackles, grabbing the dead tentacles away from her neck with a pained groan. Her heart—her soul remained uneasy.
“Mom!”
The darkness fogged her sight like the tugging sensation in her chest. She didn’t understand what had happened until she felt a new weight fall atop her; and then two small arms wrapped tightly around her body.
“I’m so, so sorry!” Viola said, sobbing into her neck. “I-I thought I’d lost you forever and would never see you again.” Her tears stained Six’s coat.
Six stiffened. Maybe more so out of shock from the near death, but she froze up even as Viola continued to embrace her without any fear of being hurt. After all she was the reason Viola had the long cut on her arm.
Viola’s hug grew tighter—more desperate albeit in sheer relief. Six couldn’t take it anymore. She broke the one sided embrace with a firm push to Viola’s shoulders, shoving her a few steps back. Somehow doing so made her heart fill with the earlier guilt…and embarrassment.
“I’m sorry.” Surprise took over Six when Viola spoke again. Tears began to spill from Viola’s eyes as she wiped them with the back of her hand frustratedly. “I’m really…really sorry for ever leaving you behind, Six! I’m sorry for hurting you the way I did. I should’ve never betrayed you—I regret making you go through hell just for wanting to help me. It’s all my fault. Everything that happened up until now is, and has always been, my fault. You were right. You were so right and I should’ve admitted it myself.” Viola took a step forward. Six held her ground with a glare, but the more she spoke the more Six found herself to falter. Because she knew everything the girl was telling her was false.“You don’t have to forgive me now—or ever if you don’t want to, I understand—but I…I just need you to trust me. One last time. Can you do that? Will you trust me…please?” Hope laced strongly in her voice, her eyes puffy and cheeks flushed and wet.
An annoying lump formed in her own throat just by the sight of it. She wondered at what point she’d softened and finally listened to her hurting heart. She wondered if Mono’s words were part of the reason; or if Viola’s sudden rescue made it easier to shut away her ego.
She wondered if that meant she was about to give her trust to the same girl who had broken it.
One last time.
Will you trust me…please?
“Okay,” Six’s voice came out hoarse and broken, her throat bruised and hurt from both the Eye’s attempt at murder and her own decision to trust Viola.
Her eyes stung with angry tears as she forced herself to look Viola in the eye. But the girl’s face had already brightened with surprise and relief. Nonetheless, Six refused to feel better, or let the warmth spread through her. For if trusting Viola ended up becoming a mistake...she knew she would never recover from her bitterness and resentment.
She knew she would never forgive her at all.
“Oh, thank you—!" Viola stopped herself just as she spread her arms out to her. “Th-thank you. I promise I won’t let you down again. Ever.”
“How did you find me?”
Viola smiled as she sniffled. “I’ll explain everything to you later, I swear. Right now, though we have to get you of here first—”
A tall tentacle swung in their direction.
“Get down!” Six cried as she ducked, shoving Viola down with her to the meaty floor.
The tentacle slammed against the flesh walls. It merged for a few seconds before the walls began to shift in shape, growing its size and thickness until the floors too merged along, forming an even bigger, threatening mass. The room grew narrow as the monstrosity took its form. Thousands of white eyeballs appeared on every inch of its skin, each blinking differently.
They bellowed, however, in unison.
The ground shook under them like an earthquake, forcing the girls to spring into a run no matter how afraid they were.
“Follow me!” Viola shouted as she led them through the moving walls and wavelike floors. Six bit back an objection. She couldn’t escape the Eye without Viola’s help; and knowing that hurt her pride more than Mono could with his hateful words back then.
To hell with it. Pride was not as important as living to see another day. If she had to force herself to listen to a traitor and follow blindly again…then so be it.
Six ran closely behind Viola, dodging another one of the Eye’s sudden attacks with a quick step to the side as new white eyes began to blink open on the ground she’d touched. The place rumbled and shook beyond what she had ever seen. It was for a purpose to trip them, she imagined. Make either one of them lose balance just so they would be swallowed by the wave of mass of fleshes.
She refused to be killed that way—to be trampled on and smothered until all one could feel was broken bones.
A shine in the distance. Six saw a tall mirror mounted high on the moving walls, and out from reach. She looked over to her companion. Viola seemed certain she knew where she was leading them.
Still, it didn’t ease the wariness in her heart.
“Is the mirror our way out?” Six asked. Viola confirmed it immediately.
“That’s how I got here.” Viola said. “We have to climb the walls.”
“How are we supposed to do that?” Irritation slipped in her tone.
“The flesh walls are uneven. We can do it.” Viola gave her an assured look. “Trust me.”
Six held in a groan. You had better be right.
Soon as they reached the wall, they quickly began their ascent. Viola had been right when she said the flesh walls were uneven enough to climb. Six clutched the jutted parts of the wall and scaled upwards as fast as she could, ignoring the pulsating meat under her hands and bare feet whenever she made contact.
Angry cries of the mass grew rapidly close. Like rageful footsteps, they thudded behind them one by one. Six set her eyes only to the mirror, its intricate albeit rusted golden frames shaking along with the room. She forbade herself to even glance down to the tentacles snaking up to reach their feet. For if the mirror truly was their escape, she would not let her opportunity be ruined at the last second.
Six grabbed onto the mirror’s edge. She caught a glimpse of its reflection—a bedroom with purple walls, wooden floors and small statues lined neatly on the shelves—before the mirror rippled from where her fingers had fallen through. It was a doorway. A portal to their escape from the flesh mass. Determined, she climbed through first and crossed to the other side.
The Maw became her surroundings.
It wasn’t real she knew, but there were no flesh tentacles here—or any monstrous creatures at all for that matter. Six sighed in relief. She’d made it. She’d escaped the Eye’s disgusting pit of—
“Help!”
Viola’s scream snapped her attention to the mirror. Its reflection still showed the room with the flesh walls, though in the bottom center of it showed Viola’s horrified face as she clung desperately to the floors of the Maw, her body still left hanging on the other side. Her hands clawed on the wood as something tugged her back into the flesh room. Viola’s eyes met Six, pleas falling off her tongue.
“Help me,” Viola said, whimpering, struggling to push herself up into the safe side of the mirror. “I can’t…I-I can’t hold on much longer!”
Viola’s desperation and fear showed in her voice and features. Her grip was failing. Most of her body was back in the flesh room, leaving only her head and trembling arms through the looking glass.
Six moved forward to reach her
And stopped.
“Six,” Viola called weakly, horror in her eyes as her only help knelt frozen in front of her with a hesitating stare. Another sharp tug pulled Viola slightly more backwards. Viola cried in fear, grasping desperately on the edges of the mirror.
“Six!” the girl cried.
But Six still couldn’t decide.
She didn’t know if she should move. Her heart screamed for her to do something, reach forward and grab Viola’s hands, help her climb up into safety before it was too late, and yet…
Her resentful mind wanted to see her fall into the Eye’s flesh pit. The ugly grudge she thought to have pushed aside in the name of ‘trust’...it made her body go still before standing up
And turn her back on the traitor.
“No—w-wait! Please, don’t go!”
Six halted after a few steps. She did not turn around despite everything else in her begging for her to go back.
But…why would she go back? Viola had betrayed her. No matter what she said about agreeing to trust Viola…there was no trusting someone like her again. Simple as that. Six had been a fool for even thinking they could actually work together—to trust each other with their lives like she and Mono did.
Viola was a traitor to her. Even as she’d given her apologies, there was no believing the girl wouldn’t hurt her again. She wouldn’t let herself be naive and go through another betrayal just because of a few sentimental words.
Another cry from Viola. Perhaps one of her last attempts. Six kept her eyes shut, trying to block her terrified voice as much as possible, her fists clenching at her sides.
If I were in your shoes, which I was at some point, I’d stop telling myself to stay angry, Mono’s voice entered her troubled mind instead. Six shook her head, clutching her hair.
I wish I’d done that sooner with you.
Viola’s scream cut the air.
Six’s eyes snapped open, panic overwhelming her entire being as she raced back to the mirror. She snatched Viola’s wrists just as she lost her grip on the edge. The mirror rippled again. This time, however, both of them were to leave the flesh pit. Viola’s hands tightened around hers as Six pulled her into the Maw’s bedroom. The younger girl cried in pain as the flesh tentacles had wrapped themselves around her legs, grabbing her the other way in protest.
Six had had enough with the Eye’s disgusting creatures. A dark blade manifested in one of her hands. Screaming, Six sent her powers flying towards the tentacles, cutting through their blinking fleshes one last time.
Both fell backwards as Viola was released. Yet as the tentacles moved through the mirror, Viola pushed out a flickering blast of blue energy towards them, penetrating easily into their open wounds. It worked.
Screeches of agony echoed on the other side; the tentacles retracted immediately into the pit.
The mass of flesh, on the other hand, stood in the middle. Thousands of eyes stared down at them from the other side, howling a deep moan as each eyeball grew bigger and further apart.
No.
The mass was moving closer towards them.
The Maw grounds rumbled as their pained groans became deafening. That was when Six noticed how the mirror too was shaking.
“The mirror!” Six said to Viola. “We have to take it down!” She rushed to the side of the mirror and felt the empty space behind it. Viola wasted no second, running to the other side.
Together, they pushed the mirror off the wall. And the last of the Eye’s terrifying screams only echoed along with the sound of the shattering of the mirror’s glass.
Then came the silence.
Six stared at the broken shards glimmering under the Maw’s dim light, hoping whatever reflection it had wasn’t enough to let the Eye come through it. Although, she truly doubted she’d escaped the Signal Tower. Whatever safety she was granted now was as temporary as the peaceful quiet between her and Viola.
Six looked at the girl only to see her already staring back, in shock or hopeful. She didn’t know which it was, unfortunately.
“You went back for me,” Viola said first.
“Don’t.” Six breathed out an exasperated sigh. “I don’t even want to look at you right now.” She walked ahead into the corridors without sparing any glances her way, stepping over the broken shards.
She’d expected for Viola to follow, but instead of rushing footsteps, she heard only a quiet thud behind her. Confused, Six looked over her shoulder.
Viola had already leaned herself against the dresser in the corner of the room, sliding down into a sitting position. Chagrin settled easily in Six’s guts as she groaned, stomping back inside of the Lady’s Quarters. Well, her Quarters, technically.
“What are you doing?” Six demanded.
Viola looked up at her with teary eyes. “Recovering. From shock.”
“We don’t have time for that. The Eye could appear any minute to kill us again. And Mono still needs our help too—”
“Why did you come back for me?”
That question, she saw it coming. It didn’t mean she had the answer ready, though.
“I’m not answering that,” Six said after a long pause.
“Do you still hate me?”
Now that one she knew. “Yes. Very much.” Six kept on throwing glances at the doorway, anxious for every second they lost over this pointless conversation. Mono needed their help—he needed her help. She’d rather not risk letting him stay alone with the Eye any longer than he already had. “Look, if you’re trying to make me apologise for wanting to leave you, you’re wasting your breath. Same goes if you’re asking whether I’ve forgiven you or not; the answer is, and will always be, no—” Her voice trailed off when she turned her eyes back to a grinning Viola.
“Why the hell are you smiling?” Six asked, taken aback and offended. “Do you think this is funny?”
Viola shook her head, wiping a tear that slipped down her cheek.
“No. I'm just happy.”
A few more seconds went by. “ You’re happy?”
“Yeah,” Viola said as she sniffled. “Really happy. We just made it out.”
“Not out of the Tower.”
“I know. But…I got to save you. I was really scared I’d been too late.”
Six scowled, sneering. “So you think saving my life means I have to owe you now—?”
“No, no! Nothing like that!” Viola held her hands up. “I just mean that…you’re still alive. And I’m happy—just from that fact alone.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re my mother—”
An exasperated groan escaped her. “Oh, enough!” Six told her off. “Enough with the ‘you’re my mother’ crap! I’m not stupid like Mono to believe that.”
“It isn’t a lie, Six,” Viola said quietly.
“It is.” She knelt down to her level and added firmly, “You are not my daughter. Mono is not your father and…none of us are related to each other—past, present, or future. If you’re still so sick in the head to believe something like that, then I hope you know you’re finding your own way out of this place. Because I’ll tell you right now, I’d rather work with someone who’s stupid but realistic than stupid and delusional. Which one are you?”
Viola’s brows knit together. Instead of answering her question, she said, “We are related. Both of us. I can prove it to you.”
Six only gave her a disappointed look, sighing into her hand and standing up.
“Fine. Stay in your delusions. I’m going to look for Mono.” Don’t say I didn’t try. Six pivoted on her heel and walked out of the Lady’s Quarters, crossing through the dim corridor without her.
Viola was a lost cause, without a doubt. There was no helping someone who refused to be helped…not that she wanted to in the first place. But simply put, Six couldn’t afford to waste anymore time on the girl. True, a part of her was grateful for the girl’s assistance, even wanted to thank her for saving her life at the last second, but in a way that was what she owed Six after leaving her to die in the Signal Tower. Maybe that could be it. The ‘forgiveness’ Viola desired from her which she had no wish to give any time soon.
At least…that would be a better way to resolve her resentment over Viola’s betrayal.
The image of Viola desperately calling out for her from the mirror was still fresh in her mind; her initial intentions even fresher in memory.
She had almost killed her as revenge. She had known it would satisfy the dark part of her, but…she just couldn’t do it when the moment presented itself. Not when every time she closed her eyes, she imagined Mono’s disgusted face towards her. No, he would absolutely loathe her again if he found out Viola’s death had been very much preventable. That or the fact she wasn't sure if she still had it in her to witness another child's death.
Six dragged a hand down her face again, guilt resurfacing.
Should she go back for that damned girl? What if the Eye had decided to show up the second she’d left the room? What if she was caught by their disgusting flesh tentacles again and no one was there to save her from dying—
Her chest tightened suddenly. Six stopped in the middle of the wide staircase, clutching her front. Her nose scrunched in discomfort.
What on Earth was going on with her—had she caught a cold? This was the fourth time her heart felt like it was moving violently from its place, her soul resting uneasy. She’d felt it first when she was helping a limping Mono walk; the second time had been when she and him tried to walk away from Viola; third was moments before the Eye attempted to execute her; and now this.
What was…wrong with her, truly?
Six took in multiple deep breaths, trying to chase the feeling away.
Perhaps this was simply guilt from all that had happened. That has to be it, she thought as she huffed a shaky breath.
And then something slammed against her back.
The force of it was too sudden and too strong that it sent her and another figure rolling down the stairs until they reached the lower ground. Six’s attention immediately locked in on the other girl rather than her own aching body.
Because as much as she’d wanted to punch the person who had pushed her down, she was even more eager to understand how Viola was suddenly lying across from her.
“Ta…Tada.” Viola winced, holding her side as she held her pained gaze up to Six.
What the hell?
“How…how did you…?” She looked back and forth between the girl and the stairs where remnants of dark smoke dissipated. “H-How did you follow me without me hearing you?”
“I didn’t. I shifted to you. My mom used to do it to me whenever she lost me in the forest. Or when she needed to head to the Maw from home,” Viola said, standing up with a strained face. “Though, I’m not sure how she does it so perfectly. I’ve never seen her bump into anything now that I think of it.”
Six blinked, frozen on the floor. “...Shifted?” What is going on?
Viola rubbed her arm, wincing. “Well, yeah. It’s a…it’s a thing she does. A thing you do, technically,” she said. “I told you I can prove we’re related, didn’t I?”
“How does that prove anything?” Six raised her voice at her. Maybe to hide the fact she was anxious to hear Viola’s explanation.
“Well, according to what my mom told me, she’s got… had a friend that followed her around. It’s not my dad. It’s more like a, uhm…” Viola paused, thinking. “A thing…that lives inside her?”
Six gulped. She refused to acknowledge she knew what Viola was talking about.
A friend that followed her around, the thing that lived inside her—Viola was referring to her shadow.
But how could she have known about that? Even Mono didn’t know; Six had never told anyone.
“S-so this thing,” Viola continued slowly, “is a…she said it wasn’t like a friend friend but more like a silent one. The type to stay hidden until you ask for their help, I think. And—and she said that I have it with me too. Right after I was born. So, meaning, not only I inherited the hunger pangs and the soul-stealing ability—which is fine because you were strict about that—but I also got the ‘secret friend thing’! In her words, my dad and I share a connection power-wise but we”—Viola gestured to the both of them—”share a bond through our souls. So that’s how I prove it. If we weren’t related, I wouldn’t have been able to connect with your soul to find you the last few times. You know?”
Six was speechless.
If Viola had explained it to anyone else, they would believe she had lost all brain cells from all the crap she was spewing. Even Six had believed it.
But after all of that information revealed—Viola knowing about her hunger pangs and claiming she had it too, especially—it was…a little harder to convince herself this was all just a simple coincidence or a lie.
“You’re quiet,” Viola said, noticing. “You don’t…you don’t still think I’m lying…do you?” Viola shrunk slightly, her voice going quiet along with her temporary confidence to prove Six wrong.
And when Six’s silence prolonged and her eyes remained unblinking, it made the whole fake Maw heavy with awkward tension.
“Six—?”
“No.” Six finally blinked. “I don’t think you’re lying this time.”
Viola’s face lit up a little, her lips curling into a smile.
“Oh, thank Goodness! I’m so glad you—”
“So, Mono’s the one who told you, didn't he? About my hunger pangs?”
This time it was Viola who fell silent.
“Huh?”
Six stood up slowly—cautious, in denial, distraught and angry all at the same time. Although, her ire this time around may just be an excuse to toughen her up when facing Viola's crazy story that was increasingly sounding not so crazy.
“Just be honest,” Six said calmly, her heart beating the opposite. “Mono told you about my hunger pangs and...everything else, right? How else could you have known it, if not for him telling you about it…right?”
Viola’s smile dropped. “Actually, no. I know because I have it too,” Viola said meekly. She pressed her lips into a thin line then. “Didn’t you hear what I said? I told you I inherited a lot of things from you— including the hunger pangs and the secret friend—”
“Well, you’re wrong.”
“...What?”
“You’re not my daughter.” Six shook her head, raising her chin. “I don’t have a daughter.”
“Well, obviously, not yet—”
“No. No ‘not yet’. I don’t have a daughter, and that’s that. Stop trying to force it.”
“I’m not forcing anything! I’m just telling you a fact.”
“What, that the fact is I’m a child and that I already have a daughter the same age as me?”
“I’m younger by two years!”
“It still makes no sense, stupid!” Six said. She pulled her hood back and ran a hand through her hair, frustrated and in disbelief. “How the hell are you even here when you’re from the stupid future? Do you just choose to go whenever you want? Is that something I can apparently do too? If it is, tell me, so I can go back in time and throw you into the ocean right after meeting you.”
“Uh, I think that one came from my dad—?“
“No—shut up!” Six snapped, breathing heavily. “Just…just shut up for a second. And let me think.”
This literally couldn’t be happening.
There was in no actual way what Viola had been saying this whole time was true.
Six forced herself to look at it from a logical standpoint, but if she had been successful she would’ve had a harder time grasping the truth. Because nothing about this was logical and real. The fact Viola came from the future at all was already hard to believe, let alone the part where Six was supposedly the mother of that traitor. Add on with the part where Mono was also coincidentally her partner—there was no way that was true.
Right?
Six had already stopped her small pacing as she regained her composure, sighing deep breaths after breaths, rubbing the side of her temple in repeated circles. There were so many questions she needed answers to if she were to consider Viola as being honest. Although, when the girl had used the shadow to find her immediately, even Six couldn’t deny…
That maybe, just maybe, both of them were related in some way.
Damn it.
“Your mother,” Six started, staring at the ground, hands on her hip as she thought of her next words. “Is she the woman with the white mask?”
Through her peripheral, she saw Viola’s head perked up. “Yes,” Viola replied.
“And your father, is he…is he really the man in the hat?” This time Viola nodded to confirm. “If that is the case, and you say me and Mono are also your parents…then that would mean we are the same people.” Viola repeated the same answer.
Six sighed through her nose, feeling the anxiety weigh heavier than before.
“Explain to me how,” Six told her, “and I’ll consider believing you.”
For a moment, Viola said nothing. But after a few seconds, she began to tell her what she knew.
“The Cycle,” Viola said slowly. “My parents…both of you are in a cycle made by the Eye. My dad is supposed to stay in the Signal Tower to broadcast signals, and my mom takes care of the Maw. They do it for years, I think. And every time when the Cycle is close to ending, when they’ve done everything the Eye set for them to do, the Cycle renews itself. Meaning…they’ll have to die. And you both replace…them.”
Six’s stomach churned. “That makes no sense. You’re saying we replace ourselves—?” The realization dawned on her just as she uttered her question.
The Cycle renews itself. Meaning…they’ll have to die. And you both replace…them.
A never-ending loop of time. A cruel Cycle of death. It sickened her just by the thought of it.
Those sick bastards, the Eye, Six thought, her gaze sliding down at the faint mark in the center of her palm—the start of the end of her and Mono’s friendship.
Anger burned in her heart.
“Did your parents know?” Six asked, closing her hand until her skin dug painfully into her marked skin. Did I betray him in every Cycle?
Was he forced to hurt me despite knowing who I was?
“I’m not sure. Maybe,” was all Viola offered.
Six didn’t know if her uncertainty made it better or worse. “Mono said he killed the Thin Man. So you’re saying he killed his future self without ever knowing the Eye planned for it to happen. That… I also killed myself when I defeated the woman running the Maw.” Six finally looked at Viola again, the lump in her throat becoming increasingly difficult to swallow. “Is all of that right?”
“I guess so,” Viola muttered.
“Was I also meant to leave him behind? Did the Eye make him—your dad—take me that day? Was that part of the Cycle too? ” Please let it be so.
“I-I don’t know, Six—”
“What do you mean you ‘don’t know’? You said you’re from the future! You must know something!”
“Well, I don’t!” Viola snapped, her voice shaking. “My parents never told me anything about the Cycle. They never told me much about their childhood aside from the nice things—I didn’t even know my mom betrayed my dad until I eavesdropped on them! The only reason I even knew about the Cycle this much was because the Eye thought it’d be fun to taunt me about the things my parents did. The things both of you did for them. So, I’m sorry, but that is all I know.”
As Viola breathed exasperatedly, Six only watched her in a silent turmoil. Still perturbed by everything that she had learned. At this point, she would be a fool herself to dismiss it as another one of Viola’s lies; because all of it sounded horrible and crazy enough that it wasn’t impossible the Eye had been accomplishing it without fail.
The time loop. The Cycle. Six could only imagine the Eye’s motives for pulling something as horrendous as this. And she dared not question how many Cycles there were if she couldn’t remember any of them.
We thank you for your decades of service as our Geisha. Those had been the Eye’s words themselves. Viola had to be telling the truth regarding the Eye’s Cycle.
“You told Mono…” Six spoke again after a while, “your parents died because of the Eye…?”
Viola’s face fell, her eyes becoming sombre. “I did,” she said. “The Eye wanted to hurt everyone, so my dad decided to go first while my mom and I hid somewhere. Mom hated the idea; and…and she ended up going to the Tower anyway. He went after her to bring her back, in his head so I wouldn’t be alone, but…that was the last I saw of him. Both of them.”
Six sighed through her nose, listening to Viola’s tale.
She shook her head in disbelief. How stupid these adults were, she thought. How stupid must they have been to leave a child in the name of 'protection'? Fools. Selfish idiots.
But who was she to say…if Viola was honest about everything, Six may have very well insulted herself. And Mono too. Which was…another side of the issue she didn’t want to think about.
Six glanced at Viola, the girl’s expression dejected as though a dark cloud floated above her head. If she was truly lying, she must be a great actor too. Because even Six could see it in her eyes; the loss and grief as she spoke of her parents, and the glimmer of hope in her voice whenever she referred to her and Mono instead.
As much as every part of her wanted to still deny everything…she could no longer deny she was starting to understand.
Understand why Viola was the way she was; as well as understand why she kept mentioning her parents when they were at the Maw back then.
Six hated this. She hated herself even more when she found herself feeling…sympathy
“Okay.” Six huffed a small breath, nodding to herself. “Fine. You’ve done it.”
“What…?” Six gave her a deadpanned look.
“You’ve convinced me that you’re not a total liar.”
“I have?” Viola asked, hopeful and seconds away from smiling again. Six wanted to roll her eyes.
“Only about the Eye. And the Cycle and et cetera. The part where I’m your mother crap is something I’m still on the fence about to believe, so don’t even—Viola!” Viola had already embraced her tightly.
Six’s face warmed immediately as she scowled as hard as she could, her body going as stiff as a stick.
“Thank you,” Viola said, her face in her raincoat. “Thank you for believing me, mom.”
One of her eyes twitched.
“G-Get off me.” Six squirmed before harshly shoving the girl away from her until she almost tripped. “If you ever do that again, I will personally cut your arms off. Your tongue too if you keep calling me that disgusting word. Do you understand me?”
“...Yes. Sorry.”
She rolled her eyes at her, but when the line of red on Viola’s arm landed on her sight, her annoyance quickly died down. And the awful guilt came back to haunt her.
“Does it…still hurt?” Six asked with a cold voice.
Viola followed her eyes and looked down at her injury. “Oh! This.”
“Well? Does it?”
“I-I’m fine.” Viola said, flashing her a soft smile. “I’ll manage on my own.”
Six groaned, annoyed again. “Idiot, I’m asking you if it hurts still! Not if you can handle the pain!”
“It—it doesn’t!” Viola held a hand over the cut and winced. Six narrowed her eyes at her. It was so easy to catch the common thing Mono and Viola had; they were both so eager to please. “Really, m—Six. It doesn’t hurt as bad as you think. It’s just a minor accident. I’ll get Mono to heal it for me,” Viola insisted. “But…but thanks for your concern, though!”
Six let out a dry scoff.
“I wasn’t concerned about anything,” Six said with a nasty scowl. “I just didn’t…want you to whine about it the whole trip. I still hate you; don’t forget. You’re still a stupid traitor to me , you hear? You’re only alive because I’m too tired to kill you. That’s it. So, don't expect me to treat you like we're friends—because we are not.”
For some reason, her insults no longer had the same effect on Viola as it did before. The girl even had the audacity to smile and laugh now.
“Of-of course. Right,” Viola said, still hiding her injured arm from view, flashing a weak grin.
Six scoffed, more and more irritated. “Whatever.” She turned on her heel and continued down the enormous hall, determined to finally find her one and only friend.
This time, Viola’s footsteps followed to catch up. Yet for some reason, there was a tiny part of her that was relieved she did.
Notes:
Initially, this chapter was supposed to be a bit longer with a scene where Six gets all flustered about her and Mono's future selves' relationship, as well as an introduction to the final fight. But halfway through the scene, I got sick for a few days and didn't think I'd be able to finish the chapter in time. I had also hoped to end this chapter with a more serious cliffhanger too.
So instead, all of that will be happening in the next and the final climax of this fic will be the one after that :D
Thanks for reading!
Chapter 70: Final Missteps
Notes:
Oh, 3 months went by really fast. Sorry for the delay! But in the spirit of Christmas, I bring a 12k chapter for you :D
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Viola was glad everything became slightly better after their little talk.
Not that all of her issues were fixed—they still have yet to find Mono and that alone was enough to send everyone on edge—but at least…Six’s issues with her managed to resolve itself. Or maybe, put aside for Mono’s sake. Either way, Viola was happy to have Six walk beside her without the latter wanting to strangle her first. She didn’t even glare at her as much—although, that was only the case because Six barely even looked at her in the last few minutes—but still, that had to be a win for something!
They’d gone through her mother’s Quarters in sheer silence, quiet enough you could hear the creaking of the ship and bulbs flickering from time to time. All of it was lies, Viola knew. She’d realized so when the eye carvings on the Maw interiors blinked and followed them like actual living eyes. There was also a thick layer of the Transmission lingering in the air—something she knew the Maw lacked as the ship possessed only one of those dastard screens. This was another one of the Eye’s incredible illusions. Just like the Pale City they’d been thrown in, the Eye made sure to leave subtle clues in their creation within the Tower.
It sickened Viola to the stomach, not knowing what to expect after this. For all she knew, some random meat monster could very well jump-attack them out of nowhere.
“Hey, uh, Six? Are you sure we’re supposed to be going this way?” Viola turned away from another carved eye. Its pupil followed them until they were out of sight. She ignored the feeling of being watched by a dozen more.
“Where else are we supposed to go?” Six said dryly, not even sparing her a glance.
“I don’t know. I was just…wondering if we could’ve taken a better path.”
“And if we did, you’d think there would be fewer eyes watching us in these walls?”
Viola chewed on the inside of her cheek, thinking.
“You know what, you’re…you might be right,” Viola said, gulping and nodding. “P-probably wouldn’t make a difference anyhow. Sorry if that was a stupid question; I’m just on edge. You must be too, since we literally just escaped some scary stuff. Do you think—?”
“Is being annoyingly talkative part of your genes?”
“...Huh?”
“Just wondering.” Finally, Six turned to look at her, her eyes moving up and down in blatant judgement. “I would see why Mono was so easily convinced you’re his daughter.”
“Wait, I thought you said you believed me.”
A tired sigh from her. “Yeah, yeah. More so about the Cycle and the Eye. And not much about this…” Six made a wide hand gesture at her. “This weird future daughter thing. It still doesn’t make sense to me, honestly.”
“Seriously?” Did I not give her enough proof?
“It just doesn’t sound like something I would do,” Six answered plainly. “Sure, some things you said does make sense—like the Eye being a monster and using messed up ways to control the world and all of that—but me and Mono somehow getting together? Doesn’t that sound a bit funny to you?”
“You’re asking if my parents being together sounds…funny?”
Six clicked her tongue, rolling her eyes. “Of course, you don’t understand,” Six muttered before saying, “Look at it in my shoes. I just found out that I, along with my only friend, are stuck in a Cycle where I will kill and get killed by another version of me until the end of time. Somehow I’m not only meant to replace the woman I hated, but it turns out I’m also the same woman that I hated. Which means the same thing goes for that tall bastard. The man that I wished every day to burn in hell turned out to be the same boy I’m friends with right now and am trying to save. And now you’re telling me, I’m supposed to just accept that and move on? Act as if I wasn’t traumatised and have a child with him? I could easily have a mental breakdown if my life isn’t at stake.”
Viola’s mind turned blank.
“Uh…” Viola said, pausing a few seconds more. “I mean…from what I know, my parents didn’t get together immediately. They had their rough patches for a while. You apologized. Then he apologized. And then it all worked out! Nobody was having any children yet, you know.”
“Good. Because I know I won’t.”
Viola nearly choked on air. “W-What?”
“I told you Mono and I aren’t your parents. We may be, technically, but whoever you know in the future is not us. Simple as that.”
“But they are!”
Six snickered wryly, as if she hadn’t just declared the wiping of Viola’s existence. “Yeah, whatever. But after knowing what I know now, I’m sure we wouldn’t be anymore. Especially not if Mono knows too.”
That scared Viola. Greatly.
Had she made a mistake convincing Six?
Just when Viola was about to see her own future existence fall into the void, Six added a beautiful statement, “I doubt he even likes me that much to begin with.” So, very beautiful.
Because Viola knew exactly how to change Six’s mind now.
“O-Oh. You think so?” How she prayed this would work. “That’s kind of funny. I thought you would’ve noticed.”
A few beats of silence. Six slowly turned to look at her with an annoyed scowl. But if she didn’t know her mother well, she wouldn’t have seen the curiosity behind her irritated eyes.
Luckily, Viola did know Six.
And she merely had to wait for her to take the bait.
“...Noticed what?” Six finally asked.
Viola mentally smiled in victory. However, not yet. There was no such thing as glory until her existence in the future was confirmed by the child-version of her mother. Mono too but knowing how much her father had worshipped his wife back at home, Viola needn’t worry much about him. It all came down to her.
“You should know…my dad sometimes stares at my mom whenever he thinks she isn’t looking.”
Six’s eyes narrowed sceptically. “So?”
“So, let me ask you something; have there ever been any instances where you catch Mono staring and he quickly looks away with his face all red?”
Six opened her mouth and closed it. Her silence was everything Viola needed to know that her question had, in fact, happened before.
Thank God, he actually likes her.
“So what? The city is always raining and freezing; everyone’s face would have seemed flushed. It doesn’t prove anything,” Six said after a while. She crossed her arms, looking away from Viola. And then quietly, she added, “Actually, I’ve been meaning to ask…how did he react when he first found out? About...the future?”
He banged his head against the floor.
“His face, all red. And he totally lost his cool too,” Viola lied. Partially, though, since the latter part did happen—Mono had screamed his panic through the entire Maw that day.
But Six didn’t need to know that. All she needed to know was Mono reacting the way that would convince her they could end up together in the future.
You’ll thank me for this, mom. “You know, I was also actually surprised you were calm about this entire thing. Or at least calmer than Mono. After I told him about my parents, he was really worried about what you’d think.”
Six had already refused to look at Viola, turning her face away from any eyes. “Why is that?” Her tone was cold and bored, yet the slight shake in her voice indicated Six had already been affected.
“Don’t tell him I told you this,” Viola said, feigning guilt and spewing out more half-lies. “But he was…scared you’d hate him if you knew the truth—like how you both ended up together in the future. That was why he seemed reluctant when we first told you, you know.” Correction. Mono was reluctant to face Six’s wrath and getting beaten up. “It’s pretty obvious he doesn’t want to lose you at all. And if I’m being honest…I’m almost certain he likes you. A lot.”
“Shut up!” Six stopped them under a swaying light, her flushed skin hidden under the shadows of her hood. “Shut up. Now. I don’t want to hear any more words coming out from your mouth.”
They turned the corner, silence returning to worsen the growing tension between them.
“You did ask, though.”
“Didn’t I just tell you to shut it?” Six threatened with a raised hand, muttering curses. Viola cowered and obeyed this time. “Whatever he thinks, you’re wrong. Mono does not ‘like’ me.” Six lowered her hand and sighed.
“How do you know?”
“Just shut up.”
After that, Six didn’t really speak to her anymore. It took everything in Viola not to tell her mother everything she knew of the future, lest Six actually snapped out of annoyance and went back to being bitter and resentful. Things were better—if not, improving —after all between them. She couldn’t risk breaking their already fragile relationship again just because she was antsy over Six’s refusal to have a child. To have her. This was a situation she would need to handle with care.
And it was definitely one that cannot be dealt properly while they were still in the Signal Tower.
“The door to the balcony. Give me a hand,” Six said as she looked up at the tall handle. An eye blinked in the centre of the door, following their movements as they got closer.
Viola looked at Six, dumbfounded. Six only gave her a tired glare and then towards the black door.
“Oh! R-right,” Viola said. She stared at the handle above them, dreadful as she summoned flickering shadows in her hand.
That earned her a slap on the same arm.
“Ow!” Viola flinched in pain, rubbing her sleeve. “What did I do this time?”
“I said to give me a hand opening the door. Not you, using your powers to do it. If I wanted to, I would’ve done it myself ,” Six scolded sternly. “Now, hurry up!”
Viola did as she was told all the while whispering apologies. Although Six was harsh, perhaps Viola should thank her for reminding her not to use up her energy on something trivial. Especially not when the actual threat was hiding behind these walls, waiting and recuperating.
The door swung open easily as Six jumped up to its handle. Viola felt the bones in her arms were close to breaking carrying her weight. She did not tell Six about that; or how her body had been feeling weighed down since Mono was separated from them. Neither did she bring up the growing throb in her head, nor about the pain becoming unbearable once they stepped out into the Quarters’ balcony.
A sudden flash of light shone over them.
Wincing, Viola pressed the heel of her hands into her eyes. Faint groans of the obese adults echoed below them, as well as their lazy footsteps and creaking floorboards, presumably queueing long lines into the restaurant—The Maw’s promised paradise. Seconds had passed and her head was still pounding. Viola had wanted to blame the blinding spotlight, yet the ache only intensified with every slow step she took.
She needed to stop.
She needed to take another break.
Much to her relief, Six’s hand clamped over her shoulder and forced her into a halt. That made Viola pry her hands away from her own face and focused on the figure before them.
Standing tall behind the railing, a woman leaned forward watching the queueing Guests below them. Her back was turned; her dark hair long enough it reached down to her lower back and her white robe touched the floor along with the ends of its sleeves.
The way she looked, the strong aura she carried was perfect for the Lady of the Maw.
Yet when the woman turned to look over her shoulder, Viola and Six knew this was not the same woman that had run the ship.
The woman’s eyes widened behind her white porcelain mask.
“You…you’re back,” the woman said, turning fully to them.
Viola stared at the woman closely. That voice.
The woman seemed taken aback, shifting between Six and Viola before settling on the latter.
“You shouldn’t be back here,” the woman said, glancing around in panic. “Leave. At once.” She gripped the railing behind her, turning around to continue to watch over her monstrous Guests climbing aboard.
“Why?” Viola said. “Why do you say that?”
“Viola, what are you doing?” Six hissed quietly beside her as she held her back from taking a step closer to the masked woman.
But Viola was eager to understand. She wanted to know why the woman was familiar aside from her similar appearance to the Lady of the Maw—her mother.
Most importantly, Viola wanted to know why the woman said she was back.
“The Eyes,” the masked woman said after a long silence. “They are watching me. If they find out you are peeking in between Parallels again, if they find out she is here with you, they will kill her.”
Immediately, the hand on Viola’s shoulder tightened. Six’s internal dread was contagious enough to make Viola regret having asked the question, albeit her curiosity tugged at her mind. What could she mean by ‘peeking in between Parallels’?
As though the woman had read her thoughts word by word, she added hastily, “You are not in your time. This isn’t the Eye’s Transmission showing you what it wants. Somehow, someway, you can go against it. Currently, you are doing so. I’ve done it. I’ve been where you are.” The woman gave another fearful glance around. “And the Eye punishes me if I ever so much dreamed of trying again. So, that’s why you must leave. Return to wherever you came from and...do it quickly—”
Viola cut in. “Before we leave, could you...help us with something?”
The woman stilled, as if in shock. She slowly turned to them. “Help…you?” she murmured.
“Yes,” Viola replied, taking a bold step forward only to be pulled harshly back by Six. She sent Viola a warning glare, her nails digging deeper into her arm now.
Viola fought against Six’s iron grip stubbornly and approached the woman. She could already imagine the look on Six’s face—uneasy and irked. It was reasonable for her to feel as such. They did not know the woman. She may wear the same mask the Lady of the Maw had but she was not her; Viola knew it. Yet despite the uncertainty of the woman’s identity, something was awfully familiar about her. Something about her timid voice…Viola was sure she’d heard it before. And that was enough to bring her some confidence that the woman was not as hostile as Six believed.
“We need to find someone in the Signal Tower. My dad,” Viola said. When the woman only stared in silence, Viola added, “Do you know how we could…do so without the Eye’s notice?”
“Nothing goes by without the Eye’s notice.” The woman looked at her, appalled. “Whatever you do, they will always know. Especially in their own domain. It’s where they are the weakest and strongest. If you’re looking for the Broadcaster, then understand you will also be looking for the Eye at their highest strength. They won’t let him go. Now more than ever here.”
“The Broadcaster?” Six muttered quietly, brows knit together. Viola remained in silence as she waited for the woman in the mask to continue.
“Your Broadcaster,” the woman answered and added hastily, “The only way you’ll find him is if the Eye brings you to him themselves. I’m sorry, but that is all I can help with. Leave now.”
Viola shook her head. “But there has to be another way—!”
“There isn’t,” the woman said, her voice slightly trembling. “You ask for my assistance; and I’ve done what you asked. Now do what I ask of you in return—leave.”
Viola’s brows formed a scowl. She refused to leave without knowing a way to help Mono. “But we still need to find him,” Viola said. “If the only way to achieve that is through the Eye, then we will never find him. You said it yourself they won’t let him go!”
“Viola—” Six tried.
“No,” Viola snapped at her. And then to the woman, she added, “You don’t understand. I need to find my father. I need to save him from the Eye, because if I don’t, then all of what I’ve done, what they’ve gone through, would be for nothing!”
A few seconds passed in agonizing silence.
And then the bulbs lighting up the Maw interior flickered and darkened as though something evil had climbed aboard the ship. Yet to say evil came in the forms of the corrupted adults and the sneaky Eyes wouldn’t be the whole truth. Evil also resided in the dark powers Viola inherited from her mother. Just to summon it, one could sense immediate hostility and upcoming violence the moment the shadows loomed over.
And right now, Viola could feel that kind of energy radiating off of the woman.
She had angered her—destroyed her patience without a doubt. And despite the yellow lights nearly gone from the looming darkness, despite everything in her tired body begging her to just leave as she was told, Viola remained stubborn in place.
“Out of all the people in this rotten world...I would understand the most. I actually lost someone.” the woman uttered, her eyes glistening behind her mask. “Now, for the last time. Go. If not for her sake, then yours. Consider this my help for you.”
“What do you—?”
The woman lifted a hand towards Viola. The darkness surrounding them gathered into her palm like a swirling ball, fast and ready to be unleashed unto her target. Viola barely had time to blink before the woman raised her hand higher above her head to release it. Yet in a split second, someone else had attacked first.
A startled cry escaped the woman as a sharp shadow flew closely past her head, brushing the side of her mask fast enough that it left a significant crack on its porcelain glass. Her initial threat, too, dissipated just as she turned away with the same hand over her face. The woman breathed heavily. She no longer even looked at them after what Six had done.
Which...surprised Viola.
If Six hadn’t thrown that attack first, she knew well the one startled and hurt now would’ve been her. It could just be reflex in Six’s part, though Viola wondered if there was a different reason that was more than simple instinct.
Six’s eyes were as wide as hers when they met each other’s gaze, surprised just the same as if what happened had been the other way around. Before either of them opened their mouths, the woman shifted in their peripheral, turning back around holding a small piece of her mask.
“You broke it.” Shakily, she lowered the hand that covered her bare face. “You broke her mask! What have you...what have you done?” the woman spat in a broken voice, anger and sorrow in her dark eyes.
The same eyes Mono had.
A pair that Viola shared.
It clicked now in her mind why the woman’s voice sounded familiar. She had met the woman before. The strange dream she had had when she was separated from Mono and Six in the room covered in flesh top to bottom—the woman was the same person Viola had encountered, albeit slightly younger. This woman was the one who had held her mother’s mask despondently in her hands before she was dragged away by the Eye’s cruel flesh tentacles, screaming and begging to be saved.
This woman...was her.
And the longer Viola stared at her older self, the more she wished this was another mere vivid dream.
The lightness in her head returned. The ground beneath her feet swayed more than it should have; and feeling a pair of small hands steady her, hearing Six’s indistinct yelling, Viola realized it was only her whose vision was blurring.
Her mind fought to stay awake. Viola clenched her teeth in pain and she hadn’t realized the swaying wasn’t all in her head until all three of them staggered in their place. Six and Viola held on to each other. The woman tripped until her hands found the railing behind her. Her angry tears were quickly replaced with a panicked look on her face, whipping her head around as the walls grumbled a low hum.
“Go! Both of you!” Her horrified eyes locked onto them. The light bulbs glowed brighter one by one until they shattered. The floors creaked until they broke apart into two. The woman screamed as the low hum grew louder—deafening.
“I SAID GO.”
Strong shadows shot from her hands and into the girls, sending them flying back through the doors and into the hallway they’d come from. It happened too quickly. Viola barely landed on the floor right as the Eyes’ flesh emerged and consumed the balcony within seconds. She saw the woman’s frightened face and her outstretched hand pulling back.
The door slammed shut as they tumbled and rolled on the cold ground.
Beside her, Six muttered a curse under her breath, groaning and clutching her side from the harsh fall. Viola only managed a weak whimper as she lifted her head around.
This was not the Maw anymore. All yellow lights had been replaced with a glowing blue cast over the plain corridor. There were no more visible eyes blatantly watching them in the walls except…
“Willy?” Viola mumbled.
Willy stood at the far end of the long corridor with his arms at his sides, staring right back at her with a grim look. He nodded to his left.
“Where are we?” Six’s question snatched her attention immediately. But when she turned back ahead, the man was already gone.
“I…I’m not sure,” Viola finally said, standing up and swaying into Six’s direction.
“Watch it!” Six hissed but held her up despite her irritation. There was still a painful pounding in Viola’s head, her whole body weak and heavy as though put under water.
“Sorry, I’m just…feeling light-headed,” Viola lied. The pain was becoming worse. “W…we should turn left up that way.” She pointed ahead before pressing a hand on her forehead, closing her eyes tightly.
Six was quiet for a moment, hesitant. “And you’re…sure about this?” Viola managed a weak nod. Six sighed quietly before her hand tightened on her upper arm to straighten her. “This is just to keep you from playing brave. Don’t think I’m helping you for fun.”
A small grin widened on Viola’s face as Six dragged her along with her.
The Transmission signals had grown thicker. To the point where the two walls beside them were humming a low buzz and everything in reality seemed…disoriented. Like the one long corridor was never-ending or time had simply slowed down or how there was a subtle barrier in the air that needed more force to walk through. Viola wasn’t sure if it had been only her experiencing such a thing until she heard Six wince with furrowed brows. Could this path be leading them to an even deeper part of the Signal Tower? The place where they could find Mono? Or could this be a trap the Eye had set up? Willy had appeared and pointed a certain way, after all. He could easily have led them to the Eye to kill them. But then again, Willy had also led her straight to Six when Viola asked him to.
“Mono…?” Six’s whisper snapped her out of her thoughts. They had turned the corner and stopped right as the Signal Tower presented another long corridor before them. And at the end of it, stood a boy in a dirty brown coat, and his back turned. A white door creaked open for him. He took a step forward into the room with the chair in its centre.
Six had been the first to run. “Mono!” she screamed.
Viola paused before running to catch up, in disbelief.
The only way you’ll find him is if the Eye brings you to him themselves.
Willy.
Viola was at a loss—why would Willy risk it all away by taking them where Mono was? She shoved down her confusion and focused solely on the boy.
Mono was a few seconds away from re-entering his isolated cage, made to contain him as a medium for the Transmission.
“Mono, stop!” Viola called after him when he ignored Six. It seemed as though he was ignoring both of them on purpose or rather…
He couldn’t hear them at all.
Because all he did was take step after step towards the small room, with his movements slow yet controlled. And what was devastating was that they were so close in reaching him too, just an arm away, before he crossed the threshold and set foot inside.
Mono was convinced he was born with bad luck.
The world may be full of child-killing monsters—or other unimaginable horrors that would often invite near-deaths—but why him? Why did the world hate him so much to bring false hope only to have it snatched away in front of him? Maybe he shouldn’t even be blaming the world, actually. He should blame the Eye. Blame them for every single bad thing he’d ever had to experience in his life.
As Mono thrashed on the hard floor, squirming in futility against the flesh monstrosity, he cursed at the Tower. Hope squashed and his horror replaced with anger, he fought until his body was exhausted and his throat raw from screaming. He abhorred the Eye. He loathed this place. He would rather take his chances facing murderous adults out there than stay a second here. He wanted…to see Six again. He wanted Viola to be safe.
He wanted to leave with them.
“What do you want from me?” Mono listened to the echoes of his voice, grimacing. He’d stopped fighting against the Eye after nothing happened. The Eye’s flesh was heavy above him the more they consumed him slowly. “Why does this…always happen? Why can’t I…why can’t I leave?” His vision blurred with tears just as his voice became broken.
The small flesh mass stilled finally, resting on his back and shoulders as though hugging him. It was a warm comfort in the cold Signal Tower. He hated it.
“You must know by now. How different you are than the rest of them,” the Eye began. “You play an important role, if not—the most important. Your responsibility as our Broadcaster is here. In the Signal Tower with us.”
“I don’t want it.” Mono buried his face into his arm. The tentacles loosened ever so slightly, no longer a shackle. Still, it was all false hope. “I don’t want to become a Broadcaster.”
“That isn’t your choice to make.”
“Then whose choice is it? Yours?” he said, anger in his chest. He looked up from his arm. “I don’t care what you think I’m supposed to be. I will never be your Broadcaster!” As soon as he heard his own voice echoed back to him, the Eye’s flesh slid off him after some time. One by one, they retracted back into the dark corners where the light could not reach, soon leaving him cold again in the middle of it all. Mono didn’t dare speak after that. Despite his fury that’d bubbled and exploded, there was still fear following closely behind, just like the hidden eyes he could feel burning holes into his back. He was still afraid of the Eye, which was obvious to any child who had been imprisoned, manipulated and nearly killed by them. He was still afraid of what they could do to him or worse…what they could do to the people he cared for. Especially now that he’d blatantly objected to the Eye.
Yet what happened next wasn’t what he’d expected.
“May I be honest with you, Mono?” A blue eye blinked in front of him when he looked down to the floor. Mono recoiled, falling to his rear in horror. What the hell? The little eye’s lid narrowed in confusion before it widened apologetically. “Oh, my, forgive me! I forgot you’ve never seen an eye outside of the Merge before,” it said, laughing softly and unlike the cold voice that had boomed above him.
The Merge?
“Yes! It is where the others reside.” Mono stiffened. Had he spoken that out loud? He caught himself before putting up a firm front, although failing to. The sight of the eye blinking on the floor was enough to unsettle him for the rest of his days. “I can bring you there if you’d like. See it with your own pair of good eyes—”
“No!” Mono quickly said, gulping. “…No.”
“Oh. Well, okay then. As I was saying, Mono, I want to be honest with you about everything.”
Mono looked at the blue eye, unconvinced. Since when did the Eye want to be honest about anything?
At his silence, the blue eye continued, “I understand why you would be opposed to staying inside the Signal Tower after…multiple unfortunate events. We had imprisoned you, after all. Purposely destroyed your relationships, kidnapped the people you are close with, infected the Geisha, broke your foot and…the list goes on. We admit, most of what we did was to have you back in the Tower. To become our Broadcaster and help the Cycle prevail as the other times before.” The blue eye made a huffing sound, looking away as though ashamed. “But…perhaps our desperation has shown too much through our despicable actions. Which is why the others and I have agreed to simply…try a different way. Which is why…I must be frank now.”
The blue eye looked at him squarely.
“We need you so we can use you to channel our signals. To maintain the condition of this world for many years to come and repeat it again. The Cycle. That is all there ever was to it. You may insist you are not our Broadcaster and refuse to be, but that really isn’t your choice to make. It wasn’t even mine either, yet I do what I am here to do anyway. Which is a shame. Sometimes I long to see the sunny sky instead of the everlasting grey storm.”
“…What did you say?”
The blue hummed, blinking sadly. “Yes. Ironic, isn’t it? An eye who contributed majorly to the correction of the world, longing to live in the one before it. Like most children, I have never seen it, of course. Only heard the tales from those who have.”
“Then why do you…” The blue eye’s confession was so perplexing, he found it difficult to even form words. “Why keep destroying everything if you don’t want to see it ruined? If you want to live in a world before the corruption, then why do you insist on making sure it stays corrupted?”
“Why do you kill if you wish to never hurt anyone? Survival. Your own and the people you cherish.”
That made him frown and scowl. “That makes no sense! You’re saying you corrupted the whole planet just to survive?”
“If you have the power, would you not?” Mono opened his mouth, but the blue eye added before he could reply. “Let’s say the world was after Six and Viola—to corrupt and crush them . You have the power to stop it. Would you not have used that power selfishly? Would you have let them be killed just because it is supposedly wrong to use said power?”
“I…” Mono stopped himself from saying it. Because in his mind, he already had an answer that was parallel to the blue eye’s view; an answer that surprised himself.
Yes, he would have used that power selfishly.
He would never let Six and Viola get hurt.
His face must’ve betrayed him despite him not saying anything since the blue eye seemed relaxed and pleased.
“I understand it must be…difficult to process. In fact, you might even have a hard time believing it is exactly what you are capable of in the future.”
Mono stilled, unable to keep a steady façade as more and more, the Eye managed to make his confidence against them falter.
Again, without him saying a word, the blue eye understood his confusion without a second to waste. The room transformed before them swiftly, the darkness beyond revealing a scene Mono couldn’t tell at first or second glance.
A table with three tall figures sat under the warm light, a small fire glowing behind them in the fireplace within the false living room.
The first figure he noticed was a woman with long dark hair. Her face, the mixture of unbridled desperation, rage and defeat yet she stood there with familiar grace. Strong despite being devastated.
He knew immediately it was Six.
Or the woman she would grow into.
The second figure was a Viewer. However, the more he watched her movements, the more it seemed clear that she was no ordinary Viewer he would see sometimes running rampant in the streets. Instead, her shoulders were slouching and her limbs moved in a way that looked puppeteered. She spoke in a clear voice like the Eye’s despite having no facial features whatsoever.
The last figure, the tallest of the three, was a man not much older than the adult Six. The man in the hat sat beside her with a scowl, albeit without any actual hatred behind his eyes. Mono recognized him quickly too as the man in Viola’s locket.
Guilt crept on him as he remembered accusing Viola for lying about her parents, even if he knew deep down, she wasn’t.
“What? Would you rather we do it the hard way and risk them in the process, or do it the hard way and guarantee their safety?” Mono heard the woman shouting faintly to the Thin Man—to him. “Mono, this might be the only way we ever get to really guarantee protection. An agreement from the Eye themselves. We’ve already done worse deeds than this, so…what’s a few more?”
And then Mono heard himself arguing back.
“They are children, Six.” With clear disgust and reluctance, he stood from his chair. “Innocent children.”
“We were once innocent! Our child is innocent!” Viola. So it really is true. “We need to take the deal. It’s our best choice, Mono,” the woman—Six said as she grasped his hands tightly, her voice shaking. It hurt even his heart hearing how broken she sounded. “Please. Say that you will.”
Mono watched in horror as the scene continued before him; the way his future-self crumbled under the pleading state of his wife, agreeing with her to accept the deal, the glowing eyes behind the walls that flashed brightly in a mere glimpse the second they both shook hands with the Viewer puppet, and finally, Mono watched how he and Six looked back at their marked hands afterwards, each hiding guilt and remorse.
It was all he needed to see before it all blinked into nothing, leaving him surrounded by darkness again.
The blue eye was in the same place it had appeared, just as Mono was still rooted to the ground, unable to look away from the abyss for a long time.
“The Deal,” the blue eye eventually broke the silence, “is what you are capable of. Murdering countless innocent children for your own flesh and blood is what you did. Or will do, in this case.”
“No.” Mono shook his head, his chest tightening from the horror of who he was and what he was capable of. “That’s not true.”
This couldn’t be what he and Six did.
He couldn’t be the same Thin Man.
“The Deal states your daughter shall not be hurt in your presence or the Geisha’s—to prevent interruptance to the Cycle. In exchange for that, you killed up to hundreds of children for seven years. Again, that includes both you and the Geisha.”
“No! That’s not…that can’t be right!” He was a monster. “I-I can’t have…we couldn’t have…” Killed up to hundreds of children for seven years.
Did he and Six truly commit such an atrocious act for Viola? To protect her from the harm of this world?
Or was it to protect her from the Eye?
No matter what the reason was, it didn’t change what he and Six had agreed to.
Mono sank further into the floor, holding his head in his hands as he thought over and over of the blue eye’s words.
The Deal states your daughter shall not be hurt in your presence or the Geisha’s.
In exchange for that, you killed up to hundreds of children for seven years.
So that was the Deal. The deal even Viola didn’t know the true details of—other than the fact that he and Six had made it out of desperation. If it had included their daughter then perhaps it truly was done out of desperation. Hell, moments before he had even unconsciously admitted he would protect Six and Viola, if it meant him hypothetically having to corrupt the world for them.
A realization occurred to him as he thought of it.
…Was that what the Eye was trying to make him comprehend?
Unsettled, he looked back to the blue eye only to notice it staring knowingly back at him.
“You understand it, don’t you?” the blue eye asked, hopeful. “You understand now why you must stay here. It is the only way you can keep them safe without hurting anyone. Without ensuring you follow the same path that leads to the Deal. The Cycle must prevail, Mono, so all is well.”
“But if I stay and help you corrupt the world even more, how would it protect them from being hunted down by the adults out there?” His brows furrowed, unsure if he wanted to make a point or hear a confirmation.
“The Geisha is also needed for the Cycle. As long as she remains in the Maw, she will live a long, satiated life. That is a guarantee.”
“Right. What about Six?” he couldn’t help but glare. He still remembered during Six’s possessed state, when the Eyes took control of her and made her spat about the same Cycle issue. Except in that one, the situation was Six being dead and replaced by Viola for the ‘Geisha’ role. Mono still didn’t fully understand the Cycle and what it truly was. He barely grasped the concept other than it being the Eye’s way of staying in control. Though, if the Eye had initially planned for that to happen, how could he even begin to trust their sudden honesty?
The blue eye stared at him without blinking. Perhaps knowing it’d been caught as it relented with another sigh.
“Fine. She will be safe there too,” it said after a few seconds. When Mono frowned tightly, unconvinced, the blue eye assured, “We will bring both of them there. Just as we did to Six the first time.”
“How do I know you’re not lying to me? You really wanted to have her killed before.”
“Like you, we are desperate. You are desperate to have Six and Viola survive. In my case…” the blue eye glanced around the Signal Tower. “In my case, it is my wish to have the other eyes do the same. It seems we both will have to be selfish together. Make a compromise somehow. What do you say?”
Mono held the urge to grimace towards the blue eye. Its last words implying that he and it would be working and becoming selfish together like some partners in crime…it made him want to step on its eyeball. He wanted nothing more than to leave, with or without the Eye’s compromise. But what would even happen if he still refused? Would that make the Eye angry and decide to hurt either Six or Viola or worse both of them anyway? Would they hurt him too for it? It was possible and likely, the longer he weighed on his very limited options. Or perhaps he had none to begin with. He’d already been separated from the girls. He couldn’t go against the Eye alone unless he was daring to see what the Eye would do.
In the end…he truly had only one choice, didn’t he?
The Eye is desperate too. They need me here so they can continue to live. I need to stay here so they won’t hurt Six and Viola anymore.
But what if you’re just being naïve?
What if they will hurt them again?
What if they’re lying to you again?
Once more, his doubts must’ve shown on his face for the blue eye had softened its firm stare.
“You’re afraid this might be some trick, aren’t you?” Mono felt his face twitch at how easily the blue eye read his mind. “Like I said. The others and I have agreed to be honest. We have tried violence, threats, manipulations and so on; it didn’t work to make you comply. We have gone past the point of tricking you, so lying would be a waste of time. Now you know we want to use your powers to keep the Cycle and the Eye as a whole protected. In return, you know doing so will keep anyone else from being hurt. Namely your family.”
“…What would happen if I still refused?”
“If you refused?” the blue eye mused, humming, “Perhaps…the same thing will likely happen again.”
A chill ran down his spine at the implication.
The Deal. If it could be avoided, he would rather not have hundreds of children’s blood on his hands.
Mono glanced around the Tower and watched how its pale walls stretched above him. There was nothing but the thick layer of corruptive signal in the air, all trapped here unless broadcasted by him. There was nothing but the promise of the world’s further demise if he stayed here. But if he didn’t stay, he would be promising death too.
Except the only difference was it would include Six and Viola.
He couldn’t have that.
Mono closed his eyes, his heart already breaking for the new future—for the choice he had to make. With a defeated nod, he let his head hang low.
“Thank you. I know it must be hard for you to make this choice but…you’ve made the right decision.” A soft hand touched his shoulder, patting his back gently.
Startled, Mono opened his eyes only to freeze again when the blue eye he’d seen on the floor blinked in pairs; and on the face of someone he knew.
A boy with the same blue eyes that had died too early.
“I figured a friendly face might cheer you up,” Emmet said, grinning sheepishly. “Is this okay?”
There was a choked sound behind his throat. “Y-you’re…you…”
Emmet shook his head and patted him again. “It’s okay. It wasn’t your fault.”
“You died trying to push me out of the way.” His eyes burned with tears. “How can it not have been my fault—?”
“You weren’t the one that did it, right?” Emmet looked at him with a sigh, pulling both of them up to stand. Mono was silent as his body refused to move on his own, still in shock. “Hey. Quit looking at me like that. I thought seeing a friend other than Six would’ve helped! At least I don’t hit you in the head like she does.”
Mono stared at him for a long time before a chuckle escaped him. He quickly wiped away the tears that threatened to fall. Not only for the fact that Emmet was standing alive again but for the fact that he couldn’t believe he actually missed having someone to talk smack behind Six.
Even if the boy in front of him now wasn’t real.
“It does. Help, I mean,” Mono said, laughing and rubbing his eyes with his coat sleeve. “I know you aren’t actually him.”
“Well, I’m not your crazy clone either. In case you’re worried.”
“Good to know. He was a pain to deal with.”
“Wow. You know you practically just insulted the host of this place.”
“I don’t care. I insulted you too, if that’s so.”
“Fair enough.” Emmet laughed, shaking his head at him.
Mono found himself slowly smiling too, however, only for a second before the thought of two girls entered his mind again, sending that familiar pang in his chest.
Right.
Six and Viola.
If he was staying in the Signal Tower, that meant he couldn’t see them again. Or would he get the chance to leave if only temporarily? Could he make a bargain with the Eye—
“Hey. Don’t go there,” Emmet said, nudging his shoulder. “It’s exactly what Six did, you know.”
“What?”
“You’re thinking about leaving the Tower temporarily just so you could see her. Let me tell you, she did all that. Made a deal with the Eye so you could leave. It’s not a good idea, Mono. That’s pretty much the starting point of what led you two towards the ‘Deal’.”
“How would you know that’s what I’m thinking?”
“I don’t. But your face,” Emmet smirked cheekily, “says it all. Even back in the Daycare, you absolutely adored her, so it’s quite obvious you’d think of any possible way to see her.”
“Not true. You know I hate her guts.”
“Hate or hated?” Mono looked away, feeling his cheeks warm. Emmet snorted at his expense which only made Mono’s cheeks blush worse.
“I just…wonder a few things, alright?” he said, sighing. “If I stay here, and do all the Broadcaster…responsibilities—how will I ever know Six and Viola really get to live in the Maw? Speaking of Viola, if I’m never to see Six how is that going to affect her? Won’t her existence depend on me and Six? Will she slowly blend into nonexistence?”
“You worry a lot about Six for someone who hates her guts,” Emmet teased again, chuckling. Mono expected it as his face burned. “For Viola, as long as she doesn’t go back to her actual time, she’ll be fine. She won’t, as you say, blend into nonexistence. It doesn’t work like that; that is just ridiculous.”
Mono hummed, still unsure. “And…Six? Do I really…don’t get to see her anymore?”
Emmet shook his head sadly, looking down. Mono felt his shoulders sag and his face falter. The disappointment hit him harder than he thought it would; which he should have known. Agreeing to stay in the Tower was meant for Six and Viola’s safety in the first place.
To ensure the Deal wouldn’t happen again.
“It’s…for the best, you know,” Emmet said after a while. “The Deal happened to put in a little balance on the Cycle that was tilting a little far south. At least this way,” Emmet clasped his hands into his, and smiled softly, “you staying here would prevent it from happening altogether. You get to save everyone like you wanted. Right?”
“…Right,” Mono muttered under his breath. “I get to save…everyone.”
“I promise you’re making the right choice,” Emmet added. “And all you have to do is just to trust your gut. Trust me.”
Emmet’s grip tightened ever so slightly, his blue eyes darting behind him before turning back to Mono’s with an odd firmness. That was when he realized how stiff Emmet had actually gotten.
Mono frowned, first watching the tightness in Emmet’s smile and then glancing down at their held hands. Emmet was clutching on to him like he was slipping away with how deep his nails dug deep into his skin, to the point where Mono found himself wincing and trying to recoil.
Something was not right. Something was behind him but he didn’t know what it was.
“Mono, stop!”
Viola’s voice boomed in the sky. He whipped his head upwards to the light, but was caught off guard when the hands that held his own became painful. Mono grimaced and bit down a cry, immediately looking back down
Only to be face to face with a pair of black dripping eyes.
“ TRUST ME.”
The Eye’s tentacle flesh circled his wrists in tight shackles where Emmet’s hands had been. Mono blinked and his surroundings changed on a bigger scale. The stretching walls were no more than a simple, enclosed room—dim except for its single dying light above the chair in the center of it all. It was the chair he’d sat on for six months. It was the prison he was doomed to stay in for the rest of his life.
And worse, he realized he’d walked in all by himself—hand-held by the Eye, guiding him.
Running footsteps pitter-pattered behind him, followed by desperate screams for him to stop.
Six and Viola.
Mono forced himself into a halt, his feet skidding across the floor for friction as the tentacles continued to pull him towards the chair. They wrapped around his body and arm without mercy, tripping him by the feet so he would fall to the ground and lose in strength.
This wasn’t what he wanted. Indeed he’d been ready to surrender to the Eye but after hearing Viola’s voice—seeing Six and her running towards him in the long corridor with utter horror and exhaustion…
Something in his guts told him the blue eye hadn’t been as honest as it said it was.
“Mono!” Six ran so fast she slid on the floor to catch him. Mono had stretched his only arm out to hold on to the floor, and having her hands desperately reach back to him nearly brought him to tears.
She’d caught him. God, she’d caught him.
Not a second later, Viola was there too, panting and swaying behind Six. She wasted no time helping Six pull him away from the flesh tentacles, helping him wiggle out of its iron grip.
The door shut on its own with a loud slam and a click. The room rumbled worse. And the farther away he was from the chair, the angrier the whole Tower seemed—the tighter the Eye’s grip on his leg and body became. He couldn’t breathe. He wanted to scream from the pain, yet his own shock prevented him from doing so.
In front of him, Six bellowed. She raised a hand above her head and let something sharp manifest in her palm.
“GET DOWN!”
The darkness flew past his lowered head and straight to the fleshes, cutting it into two and sending him crashing on top of Six and Viola. The rumble returned stronger. Mono turned towards the chair only to find all of the cut tentacles raised to the ceiling, ready to attack again. He pushed out a huge blast of energy from his hand as they flew down to them. To his surprise, Viola had done the same to the sneaking tentacles at her side. The wounds of the tentacles burned until their skin became black and crisp. That worked to make them cower, the fleshes retracting immediately into the corners of the room until the place was absent of any blinking flesh.
Just how he’d witness it before.
And the silence that followed afterwards was just how he remembered whenever these ugly creatures were killed. Or injured, he supposed.
All the more reason they have to get out of the Signal Tower.
Forget helping the Eye and their guarantee that Six and Viola would be transported safely to the Maw. Because damn it, they were still here. And they looked worse from before they were separated!
Viola was drenched from top to bottom, shaking and her teeth chattering, seeming as if she was moments away from collapsing into the ground.
Six had a bruise around her neck and face—something that definitely was not there before—as well as dirt and fresh mud stuck to her yellow raincoat. Like Viola, she was covered in water, her body trembling as though she’d been locked out in the cold for hours. Yet despite her shivering, her glare burned its same intensity.
It hit him then how she was, without a doubt, furious at him.
“You stupid idiot!” Six smacked the side of his arm, making him flinch away with a scowl. “Why didn’t you stop when I told you to?” She smacked him again. And again.
And again.
“OW—Six!” Mono cried out, barely escaping her wrath. “Stop that!”
“Well— you didn’t, so why should I, hm? Why should I listen to you when you didn’t stop either? You stupid, idiot, bag of…stupidity—I could just kill you!” Six grabbed him by the collar and wrapped her arms around his neck in a choking grip. Mono had nearly stopped her from further unleashing her anger tantrums on him, although it occurred to him quickly what she was doing when her chin was on his shoulder, and her body against his own.
She was…hugging him.
Aside from the earlier threat of her wanting to kill him, Six was still hugging him.
All the hurt she’d inflicted became forgotten as Mono slowly rested his head on top of hers. And it didn’t take long before his arms closed around her back too, hugging her just as tightly as she did him.
“Sorry,” he whispered after a while, swallowing the lump in his throat. “I couldn’t hear you until the last second.”
“You’re just always deaf when it comes to my voice,” Six mumbled into his coat, her fingers digging into him as she held him tighter.
Mono didn’t hate it at all. No matter if it was a bit hard to breathe at this point; he was just glad he could see her again.
“Are you both okay?” he asked her, his brows furrowing in worry.
He felt her shoulders shake from a mirthless chuckle. “Aside from the fact that the Eye tried to cut my head off, and was nearly successful, I’d say we’re all doing great.”
His heart dropped to his stomach at Six’s answer.
“They…tried to kill you,” Mono muttered, not realizing how slightly frozen had become.
That lying blue-eyed parasite.
So, he was right.
How could he be so stupid? So naïve? Of course, the Eye had lied to him yet again; and he was too easily fooled. The blue eye’s confession had been utterly convincing—its personal wish to see the old, untouched world; the desperation to save its own kind; the sheer honesty in its voice as it had told him he would indeed be used for the Cycle. And when he had begun to understand and accept, they created an illusion of Emmet. It could’ve been Six, it could’ve been Viola even—and yet it was Emmet. Because if the Eye had watched everything that had happened in the Pale City, they would know how much guilt Mono carried when it came to Emmet’s death. For that same guilt was the final piece the Eye needed to finish the game.
Mono was horrified.
God, he didn’t think he could be any more afraid of what could’ve happened had Six and Viola not saved him in time—
The sound of the doorknob rattling startled him and Six out of their much too long embrace. Instantly, their heads snapped to Viola, who was attempting to get the door open as quietly as she could without interrupting the moment. To everyone’s embarrassment, the door was still locked. And that meant Viola had to turn back to look at her parents.
The last part being something he…wanted to apologize to her.
Shoving down the earlier realization to the side, he stared back at Viola in silence he couldn’t imagine being any more awkward. Having her witness him cuddling Six was awkward enough, but to have to pretend it didn’t happen—at least Six was nailing at that as she created a lot of space already.
“Viola, I want to—”
“The door won’t—”
They spoke over each other before going silent again.
“…Budge,” Viola finished under her breath, holding her arm sheepishly. “Sorry, what were you saying?”
Mono glanced at the door behind her, noting that it’d likely not budge at all and half-accepting the fact they were all trapped inside the room they wanted to stop him from entering in the first place.
But then again…that was not what he wanted to say to her.
“I…wanted to say I owe you an apology? You know, for having accused you of lying…and stuff.” He looked at her face and realized how much of a mistake that was. The fact that all he could see was her uncanny resemblance to Six was one thing, but to suddenly see the small subtleties of his own face on her…Mono blamed his easily influenced mind. “I shouldn’t have called you a liar when you told us I’m… that man. That’s very unfair to you. It isn’t your fault that he’s your…I’m the…” Mono couldn’t bring himself to say it aloud, instead opting to clear his throat. “Listen, I'm…I’m sorry. Will you forgive me, just this once?” He held out a hand towards her, a hesitant smile across his face.
From the time he first met Viola, he’d never known her to hold much grudge—or any at all—compared to Six. So when instead of shaking his hand like he’d expected, and she threw her arms around his torso, Mono felt utterly relieved this part of her did not change. It didn’t take him long to reciprocate the hug, although he did admit his mind began to question if he was hugging her as a friend or as her father the second he wrapped his hands around her back.
…Which was not at all important to think about.
“Do you know about the Cycle then?” Viola whispered next to his ear.
“More or less. I know the Eye needs a ‘Broadcaster’ and a ‘Geisha’ for it to work.” He then saw Six, waiting for them at the side, unable to hear their conversation. His voice dropped lower. “And…I also know about the Deal.”
Viola pulled away with a tight frown, but stayed close, seemingly not wanting to let Six hear either. At least on that he could agree. He’d hate for Six to learn more about the future than necessary.
“You do? Will you tell me what it is?”
“It’s horrible, Viola,” Mono said, throwing careful glances at Six. “Your parents…Six and I were murderers. We took children's lives just so the Eye wouldn’t come after you.”
Her eyes instantly widened. “What…?”
“I saw it happen, when the deal was made. I remember it also had something to do with our presence preventing the Eye from ever hurting you. How it is part of the Deal.”
“I…don’t know what to say. I have to admit, it does start to make a little sense, I guess. I was never too far from their sight. They always took turns staying behind with me whenever one of them had to go away too. I just figured the Eye had threatened them to work, not them having an agreement with each other,” she said, just as horrified as him.
“Whatever it is, if the deal says you’re safe with either one of us, I want you to stay close. Don’t let them have the chance to drag you away again.”
Viola frowned. “But what if they dragged both of you away? I was lucky enough they decided not to kill me the last time I was here alone.”
Mono opened his mouth and closed it. “Good point,” he admitted, thinking. “Then we’ll just…have to figure something out. Any ideas?”
“I can’t really think much right now. Everything feels so hazy.”
“Tell me about it. I felt that too the first time I was in this room actually—”
“Alright, I’m sensing both of you are done apologizing to each other and are chit-chatting while our lives are still at stake,” Six said, joining in between them. She sent a sharp glare to him and Viola. “Are we looking for a way out or are we…” Six trailed off as she stared at Viola with wide eyes, her glare faltering. “Your nose...there’s….”
At her pointing finger, Mono then noticed the small line of red trickling past Viola’s nostril and down to her mouth. Viola quickly swiped a finger below her nose before gasping at the sight of blood. Immediately, she held up her arm to hide her bleeding nose. However, her effort to hide the first one led to revealing another bleeding skin and crimson all over the fabric of her sleeve. Mono took the arm off her face without thinking, earning a startled cry from Viola.
“What…what happened to your arm?” A strange sense of protectiveness settled in his stomach, along with a knowing dread when Six stiffened beside him.
Viola snatched herself away, holding her forearm to her chest as if hiding it would make him forget about the small gash he’d seen.
“Nothing. I-I was running past the Eye’s flesh things when one of them cut through me,” Viola said hastily.
If Six wasn’t looking down, and if Viola didn’t look half as nervous as she did now, perhaps he would’ve believed her.
“I did it,” Six spoke in a meek voice before he could press on. “I caused that injury.”
“You did what—?”
“No, she didn’t!” Viola stepped forward, trying to shift his attention. And then she scowled at Six. “Tell him you didn’t,” she spat.
“Why would I? We both know I did do that to you,” Six mimicked her tone.
“Yes, but it was an accident. You were already stressed and I was pushing you too far!”
At that Six fell silent, but her scowl indicated she was not ready to lose. “That…that doesn’t matter! Point is I was the one who gave you that wound,” Six countered. “And don’t you dare play Saint trying to defend me. I don’t need you defending me.”
“I’m not playing Saint!”
“Then stop acting like it!”
“I’m still here, by the way,” Mono said, making their heads turn and Six’s scowl softened ever so slightly.
Six drew her lips into a tight frown, and her hands clenched into fists at her sides. “I did it,” she repeated after a few seconds. “I lashed out, and…and someone got hurt.”
“Accidentally—but we worked it out in the end. Had a talk and everything,” Viola insisted.
“For God’s sake, will you just—” Six inhaled deeply. And out. “Shush.”
“Sorry.”
A long sigh left him as he dragged a hand over his face.
“Okay. Teach me how to heal you.” He turned to Viola, who along with Six, looked at him in surprise. Mono raised a brow at them. “What? Did you expect me to be angry and yell or something?”
Despite his words, he was still unhappy about what had happened during his short absence—perhaps he should’ve expected a fight between them would break out without him stopping it. Nevertheless, he doubted now would be the right time to resolve everything. For currently, he was more worried about Viola’s bleeding arm and nose than how she had found herself in such a state.
Both Viola and Six shared a look. Viola said first, “N-no, of course but—"
“Then show me how to heal your arm,” he said firmly. When they continued to stare at him, unconvinced, he heaved another sigh. “Look, we’ve all had our ups and downs when it comes to the relationship between the three of us. I’m not saying I’m… fine with the fact that Six accidentally hurt you, but if both of you worked it out already, then shouldn’t we focus on the next problem? Like your arm. With it bleeding like that, it’s going to continue to take a toll on your health; look at your nose.”
A deep voice laughed from below.
“Fool, you can’t just pin everything on the little accident! Did you even realize her health is dwindling because of you?” the voice chided.
They looked down just in time to find their feet slightly sinking in thick, slippery meat. Between the three of them, a black eye looked up at them with its lid narrowed.
“Oops. Have I interrupted your reunion?”
Six was the first to react, throwing a strong shadow right at the center of the eyeball. The little eye muttered a curse before its skin snapped closed and it blended with the rest of the flesh covered floor. Even as the black eye disappeared, it didn’t stop Mono from immediately dragging Six and Viola away from where they were.
“The door,” Viola uttered in horror. “It’s gone!”
Behind them, the door had melted into the wall seamlessly, taking the same texture as the ground. The fleshes grew thicker and wider along the cramped room within seconds, stretching into a hall that could fit nearly half of the Pale City. Yet what disturbed him the most was how there was subtle twitching in every part of the walls and floor, the ground swelling before it split into two and blinking rapidly with each eyeball darting all around the room.
Mono gaped at the walls and the grounds beyond, terrified at the creatures around them.
The eyes, individually, were quite large—some the size of a fist while others the size of a human head. And there had to be thousands in here. Their pupils darted around, speaking to each other in words neither children could hear aside from the low hums reverberating around the room. However, when they have readjusted themselves, they all snapped their sharp stares at the children.
And all turned silent. The kind of silence where you could hear your own heartbeat in your ears. And despite everything having changed drastically, the chair remained perfectly in the middle of it all, its ground perfectly untouched by the fleshes.
This had to be the worst day of his life.
“What the hell is this,” he could hear Six mutter, panic-stricken as she pressed her back against his side. Honestly, he wasn’t sure if he wasn’t doing the same to Viola.
“The Merge, obviously. Use your brain for once?” The black eye appeared at a random wall, swelling over another larger eye. Its purple iris shifted to its partner as it tsked.
“Won’t you have even the slightest empathy for that poor, little girl? She’s clearly an idiot,” the purple eye cooed.
“Wrong! Both of you! The idiot one is that Cycle-ruining brat over there!” a brown eye hissed, staring at Viola. Mono felt her hiding behind him right after. “Oi! You remember me, don’t you? When I had to be the one babysitting you whilst you were under deformation?”
“Please, that is such old news,” a grey eye said to the brown eye. “Let it go, won’t you?”
“I’ll let it go when we kill the brat!”
“Well, you can’t.”
“Oi! Quit your yapping. It’s bad enough one of them is dragged inside the Merge, let alone his entire family,” a green eye groaned, its sockets sagging around it. “Are we doing this or not?”
“Indeed, we are.” Mono felt his fear melt away when a blue eye revealed itself just above the eyes. It looked down at him with condescension and annoyance, so unlike what it had portrayed when it had spoken to him in his consciousness. Just as last time, it could tell his distrust and anger as it told him, “You were so close to being a part of us. I thought we had reached a mutual understanding and an agreement. Did I not manage to convince you, after all?”
“You said they’d be safe,” Mono hissed, shielding the girls behind him. He could already imagine the look on Six and Viola’s faces—shocked, betrayed and angry. Perhaps the last one was only for Six. Mono dared not look back now, rather opting to feel their emotions through how tightly they were holding on to his coat.
“Yes. Indeed I did say that,” the blue eye said wryly.
“So, what, were you planning to just kill Six anyway? Make me believe she’ll stay alive with Viola at the Maw?”
“Pretty much. I was surprised how quickly you fell for it. Your naivety is as astounding as ever.”
“You lied and manipulated me!” Mono yelled, furious.
“Oh, but I had to! Did I not mention how desperate I was to see the ones I oh-so care about to survive?” The eyes began to bawl in laughter, some rolling their pupils mirthfully and some cheering. The blue eye looked around proudly before shifting back down to Mono in contempt. “Jokes aside now, it is true; you’ve missed your chance to willingly help us. Instead of spending the rest of your days here believing the former Geisha is alive, you will live knowing about her death. And meanwhile your daughter…you already know, don’t you?”
“Ignorance is bliss, Broadcaster!”
“Tough luck, pal!
“I swear he was much brighter in the other Cycles!”
“I’ll destroy the brat for good! Just you wait!”
The eyes’ shouts overlap around him, he could not tell which one had said it. It didn’t matter what the eyes were saying to him, of course. All he cared about at that moment was Six and Viola.
“I won’t let you,” Mono seethed, clenching his fists tightly, feeling something grow warm inside his palm. “I’ll kill all of you even if it’ll kill me.”
An eye gasped loudly. “Great Eyes. He’s threatening us.”
“So, you plan to waste all of your powers—oh, pardon me—all of your daughter’s powers to try and kill us? No offense, if history—sorry, the future —is any indication, you would end up dead trying to do just that,” another said.
His fury towards the eyes dwindled as confusion took over him. Yet just as quickly as other times, he connected the dots he wished he had done sooner; and a horrifying realization dawned on him.
You plan to waste all of your powers…all of your daughter’s powers to try and kill us.
You can’t just pin everything on the little accident.
Did you even realize her health is dwindling because of you?
For the first time since the eyes appeared, Mono turned around to find Viola wiping another streak of blood off her nose. And the more he studied her face again—her ghostly pale skin, sunken cheeks, and dark circles under her eyes—the more he felt a crushing guilt in his chest. He immediately understood; he had done this.
He had done this to her when she’d given him boosts from her own power.
“Viola…” His voice barely came above a whisper. Viola said nothing but looked away in her own guilt.
Viola had explained to him that the boosts were a quick regeneration for their powers, and how the same power was what their body depended on. If Viola had been giving him more than she should…how much had she suffered because of him?
He needed to help her. He couldn't let this go on.
Yet as he barely let a breath out, something heavy snatched him from behind. He heard the girls scream when he was thrown directly on to the chair, the flesh tentacles returning to circle around him and tying him to it in mere seconds. Panicking, Mono squirmed in futility. The Eye’s flesh snakes circled him tighter into the chair.
“Mono!” Six raised her hands in the air, familiar shadows swirling around her and Viola. The darkness crept into her hand like it always did, turning into a weapon that had cut the Eye’s flesh many times before.
“Do you know why we pulled you into your seat a few seconds late, Broadcaster?” the blue eye calmly said, together watching Six’s powers growing within her palm, ready to be used for Mono’s aid.
“Timing.”
Six’s grumbling stomach echoed in the air, and was followed by her sharp cry.
Notes:
Alright for those of you who read the Daycare Arc before it got heavily revised; Mono and Emmet's friendship is more fleshed out than before I'm sorry 😭
Anyway, Merry Christmas everyone! Next chapter comes out this weekend :)
Thanks for reading!
Chapter 71: The End of the Line
Notes:
We've reached the climax of this story finally ;D
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
The shadow appeared not too long after Six fell while clutching her stomach. It stood over its writhing host and watched her with a mere look of indifference. But to Viola, that same look of indifference was equivalent to a scornful glare. Just as last time Viola had seen it, the shadow was a scary figure regardless if it was an otherworldly clone of Six. A ‘friend’ as the Lady had once said. Nothing about the shadow looked friendly now.
Viola suppressed her fear of the shadow and dropped beside Six with much worry. Hunger pangs, as her mother had described, were a reminder of the shadow’s exhausted energy. Use it too much and deprive oneself a proper sustenance—ideally souls—then they would bear the consequences. A frequent pain. Viola rarely felt the worst of the hunger pangs, the only time being when she and Mono had encountered a Viewer on the outskirts of Pale City. Even then, she had consumed a soul to last her for a time; and her hunger pangs became no more than a mild, normal hunger.
But when was the last time Six had consumed a soul?
“Six?” Viola said with a shaky voice, holding on to her with an even shakier hand. Six only clenched her teeth, her face contorted in pain.
What should I do?
As Viola tried for a futile solution, the room suddenly became brighter. The eyes, each with different colors now glowed white in unison, making the entire already disturbing hall even more disturbing than before. They blinked together; and they moved together. Viola had been distracted by it all—by what was going on, by what to do for Six and how to save Mono—that she noticed the swollen ground too late. The flesh shot upwards like a snake before attacking straight to her direction.
It caught Viola by her midriff. Viola screamed as it began to snatch her sharply from behind, dragging her inch by inch if she hadn’t already clawed desperately at the meat ground. But it dawned on her when she heard a creak from behind. The Eye wasn’t pulling her away for nothing, she immediately realized. One turn of her head, and the door she’d seen melt into the wall reappeared albeit open.
Yet what waited on the other side was no longer a long corridor but a glaring brightness. The light hummed with the familiar buzz of a television.
“The Maw awaits you,” an ambush of whispers made her eyes widen in horror.
No, no, no, no, no.
She scrambled against the floor, twisting until she lay on her front, digging her nails deep into the meat ground that black blood coloured the tip of her fingers. It did nothing to deter the Eye. It did even less to delay her inevitable future.
A cold hand closed around her wrist, making Viola look up in surprise.
Six was on all fours, one arm around her stomach and the other a deathly grip over Viola’s trembling hand. Her stomach was still groaning. The hunger pangs seemingly hadn’t left, and as seen from the unrelenting glare of her clone, neither did the shadow. Viola tried not to stare at it, and instead, focused on Six. She wasted no time using her other hand to cling on to the older girl.
“Please don’t let go,” Viola said, her eyes stinging with tears.
Six said nothing but made an irritated noise. Instead, she gritted her teeth and used the hand on her stomach to further help pull Viola away from the shining exit. It took both of them to even fight against the strong tug of the Eye’s flesh. But the more they worked together, the more the tentacles began to loosen around Viola. It was working.
“SIX, WATCH OUT!” Mono screamed from the chair.
Another thick flesh loomed behind Six before it pounded against her side, throwing her across the room. Six cried as she hit the wall and rolled on the ground, lying on her front. And she cried again when another wave of hunger pangs attacked her. Although, this time, it seemed as if she no longer had any strength to fight it.
Viola had screamed after Six too, barely standing before the familiar weight circled around her waist again and pulled her to the ground. The Eye didn’t spare even a few seconds. As quickly as they had shoved Six aside, they continued their plan to drag Viola into the bright light—The Maw. Despite the sinking feeling in her stomach, the helplessness she felt washing over her, Viola still tried. She tried to release herself from the Eye with her own powers, and yet, her own reminder came before she could fully put it to use. Her nose bled more. Her entire body became utterly spent. And what was worse was she could barely see without everything swaying around her.
Did she give Mono those boosts more than she should have? Yes. Did she know how badly it would backfire to her? Perhaps not to this extent. And perhaps if Mono hadn’t been bound, or if the little eye hadn’t interrupted when Mono had offered to heal her, maybe she could have escaped her clutches now and helped.
She saw the blue glow beneath the thick skins of Mono’s flesh ropes, and saw how it did nothing to hurt the Eye. Then she saw Six—her weakened body slumped on the floor as she hugged her stomach with tears in her eyes.
How did everything go so wrong? Everything was so, so wrong. This wasn’t how she wanted the past to change. All she wanted was for her parents to live—she wanted to just see them again.
As the light approached behind her, and the familiar tingling sensation on her back indicating she was a few seconds away from the Maw, the shadow finally looked away from its host. Viola stiffened when it glared straight into her eyes. Instinctively, she clawed again at the ground to delay the flesh’s pull. It worked, however, not forever. Even so, she still needed time to understand what was happening, be it seconds.
The shadow spread its arms at its sides and nodded to her.
Viola frowned, glancing between it, Mono and Six. The last two were still doing the same thing—attempting to cut off the Eye’s flesh and laying weakly on the floor—yet the shadow…
The ground in front of Six became swollen, growing upwards into a long tentacle with a sharp end. Viola heard Mono’s panic as he screamed at the Eye, begging for them to stop, begging Six to get up and get away. Whereas Six had lifted her head barely and grimaced when the tentacle appeared even sharper and taller, nonetheless she was unable to move away as her stomach grumbled more. The shadow looked at her expectantly still with its arms open and Viola…
Viola was running out of time.
The Eye was starting to pull her again.
Six’s end was coming near.
Mono’s isolation in the Signal Tower was moments away from forever.
If nothing was to be done, the Eye would win just as they did in the future. The Cycle would continue and nothing about her parents fate would change. And the longer Viola stared at Six’s shadow, unafraid of its presence, the more she understood what it wanted to do. It was what she needed to do to prevent another repeat of her parents’ loss.
The shadow gave her one last nod, and Viola decided. She reached down to the darkness residing in her soul, calling to it. Easily, there was a heavy tug on her chest, but Viola merely closed her eyes for what was to come—the two invisible hands pushing against her back, the pressure increasing as air flew past her at the sheer speed of the move.
It was what she always felt when she shifted to Six.
And it was what would cause her death as she stood in the way of Six’s own.
All became frozen and silent, as though time had ceased to exist. The Eye had pierced through her chest cleanly, much faster and less painful than she expected, yet all Viola remembered seeing was the look on her mother’s face—two dark eyes wide open and a scream that never left.
Viola didn’t look down and see the growing crimson above her heart; she only could stare at the girl in front of her.
Then finally white pain spread throughout her chest, a metallic taste sharp on her tongue as something pushed past her lips, dribbling down her chin. Viola didn’t realize the Eye had already retracted until she felt her body hit the meat floor and her head…landed on an uneven ground.
Six’s face was above her own, staring still in that same frightened expression.
Oh.
She must've caught her.
Viola wanted to smile yet all she could do was cough up more blood. Everything blurred, the bright glow of the Signal Tower soon diminishing.
It was nice, she thought. It was easier to rest without the place blinding her.
Viola closed her eyes and opened them slowly.
This time Mono was here too. Just on her left, Viola could faintly tell he was speaking to her with how urgently his mouth moved, though she couldn't quite understand him. His voice sounded muffled and almost garbled. He looked afraid too.
“Viola! Hey, can you hear me?”
Tears brimmed in her eyes and fell down her cheeks. Her eyelids began to lower again.
“No, don’t close your eyes yet! We’re getting out of here, okay? Viola?”
She wondered if she could see her parents now.
Notes:
Okay, most of you probably saw this coming already.
With that, the Signal Tower arc is finally over! Next chapter we will jump straight into the backstory arc (and yes I know that means I'm leaving the chapter's ending hanging as it is but don't worry I have a plan for that). And I'd also like to add the next arc is somehow no longer a mini arc, but a full arc. I don't know how it happened, though expect at least 10 chapters 😭
Thanks for reading!
Chapter 72: Mono
Notes:
Happy New Year everyone! With this chapter we will dive straight into the Eye's backstory arc (or as I'd also like to call it, the pre-Cycle arc). I've added a few tags to the fic since this chapter and some in the future would include heavy topics, so watch out for that. I'll leave a warning for every chapter that has those too.
Nonetheless, I'm excited to share this arc with you! Been wanting to write slice of life for this fandom, as well as more OCs, and here's a good excuse lol
[WARNING]
Bullying, implied child abuse, mild child abuse, mild language
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Everything was spinning and doubling until it hurt to look. There was screaming and crying from two children that had their faces blurred beyond recognition. Yet their frantic movements alone betrayed their invisible expressions, their muffled words. What was he saying? What was he screaming at his friend for? What was she screaming back to him? Why were there blinding dots in every inch of the blank wall; and why was there darkness leaking through each one of them?
More blood seeped through his and her fingers as they talked over each other. More agony shot through for every attempted breath.
The yellow figure shifted close. The one in the brown coat leaned closer. His face was still a blur, but his voice became much clearer, more distinct.
“Don’t fall asleep, Viola.” His hands dug deep in desperation. “I’ll heal you, alright? I’ll fix you, I promise. Just stay awake. I need you to be awake.”
The yellow figure said something to her friend, but it was too soft to be heard. The boy replied in a panicked voice. Then he turned his attention back to the messy wound, pressing his hands at it, crimson tainting his pale skin.
He sounded exhausted and afraid. He kept trying to stop the bleeding. He failed.
“WAKE UP!”
Michael jolted awake with sweat soaking his head.
It was still early in the morning, if not, too early. He clutched his chest where he felt his heart beat a mile a minute and remembered the white pain he had felt during his dreaming—the same nightmare he had had for weeks, the same nightmare of him drowning in his own blood and dying inevitably. It was becoming irritating at this point. A good night’s rest was becoming less and less frequent ever since the incident with Father.
No, not now. Don’t think about it now. Michael shook off the discomfort and lingering dread from the nightmare and got up from his bed. It was still dark when he looked out from his window, but the subtle orange in the sky told him the sunrise was nearing soon enough. A new day—another plain one, he was sure.
Once ready in his school uniform, his bag slung over his back, Michael snuck down the stairs and cast a glance around the dark den. The static of the television drowned out all of Father’s snoring as he slept in his chair with an empty bottle lazy in his hand. The place was a mess—as it usually became afterwards—and Michael made a note to clean it all up again. Besides, like every other bad day Father had from the night before, the man never cared too much if the place he slept on had dirt or waste on it.
A bottle knocked over from Michael’s foot.
The television whined loudly as he scrambled to pick the glass and place it back to where it was.
“Don’t…fall…asleep.”
Michael turned to look at the television, his heart dropping. By the time he looked, however, the television had returned to its static state, whereas Father…
He sighed in relief as the man merely shifted in his deep sleep, grumbling under his breath. Michael took no more time being near the television while his mind was still half-anxious. Influencing the television by accident was part of the reason incidents with Father happened.
He left the house as quietly as he could and snuck past the living room.
The cold air greeted him at the front porch. A little strong, albeit still welcoming unlike the neighbors he’d learned not to interact with unless needed too—that is to say, they were not bad people just…not as friendly as he’d liked. He still dared not walk by certain routes just because a certain kid had pushed him into a puddle for merely ‘looking at him funny’. Of course, Michael never took things personally when things such as that happened, preferring to walk away after apologizing for his mistakes. It was easier that way; no one would have to fight, and everyone could end things on a better note.
The Pale City was always quiet in the early morning, and Michael reveled in all the temporary peace he could get from his walk to school.
For as soon as the bell rang, another hell would begin.
“Wrong.” Miss Hilda slammed her ruler on Michael’s desk, nearly hitting his fingers. “You aren’t supposed to get the answer this way. Erase and redo this instance, Mr. Hemming.”
Michael said nothing but did as he was told to do while his teacher watched him like a hawk until she saw him solve the equations the way she had taught the class. Satisfied, Miss Hilda continued on as she glanced over the other students’ papers, hitting their desks without warning when she found yet another student to supervise with her neck craned. Out of all the classes, he hated this one the most.
A paper plane flew into the side of his head. Michael sighed in dread, knowing well who had given him the paper plane, and knowing well of the blatant insults written inside it, the latter he received nearly every day from nearly every peer.
Freak. Motherless psycho. Pathetic loser.
Mono.
The last one left a hurtful pang after he’d known the true meaning behind the moniker: one, only, single.
Alone.
Michael sat on his chair reading the word over and over he hadn’t realized the bell had rung again, and how the class had begun to empty within seconds. He crumpled the paper and threw it into the trash on his way out.
The rest of the day easily became a blur like every other day. He saw the others mingle and talk with each other, stopping to whisper as he walked past them and laughing when he was gone. He noticed their side glares whenever he was doing something at all. He ignored the disgusted look in their eyes when he glanced at them to meet their judging gazes. He ignored the aching feeling in his chest he felt every day he had to walk down these halls.
He hated it. He hated feeling lonely all the time; he hated being Mono.
“Oi! Hemming!” Ah, crap. He shoved his things into his locker and locked it up in haste. Alas, Michael turned around just in time to see three boys coming his way, seemingly to intimidate him enough that he’d be cornered in. Damn it, he was cornered already. “Hey, what’s the matter with ya? That eager to go home to see your Papa?”
“Look, Jimmy, I don’t want any trouble. Could you, uh, could you move out of the way, please—?”
“Calm down, no need to look so afraid. We only came here to ask you something, that’s all. Right boys?” Jimmy said, turning to his friends, who each nodded with a cheeky smile. Then with his own mischievous grin, Jimmy said to Michael, “We only wanted to know if you’re up for another adventure.”
Michael glanced between the three of them and gulped. He knew what their ‘adventure’ meant. The last one ended with him being locked inside the school’s dark closet until the janitor found him.
“Hah! Check this out, he looks like he’s about to wet his pants already!” one of Jimmy’s friends, Rob, jeered. “We haven’t even thrown you in the lake yet, Mono, are you sure you’re a man at all?”
“Oi, what the hell, you ruined it. Now the freak knows,” the other one, Evan, said while scowling.
“He’ll know either way, you moron,” Rob argued back.
“Can it, you two!” Jimmy rolled his eyes and smiled again at Michael. “So, how about it, Mono? Can you swim?”
He most certainly could not.
And he wasn’t about to drown while these three idiots watched him.
Without thinking, Michael swung his bag at Jimmy’s head and dashed to the back entrance of the school. Jimmy fell on the floor from the strike, yelling at his friends: “ Get him!”
Michael ran in the hall and slipped through the gaps between each walking person in the narrow hallway, cursing and glancing back every now and then to see if his bullies had caught up. But during his distraction and fear of actually being caught by them, he didn’t see the small figure in bright yellow jacket ahead of him until they both bumped into each other.
Pain shot through his side as he landed on the hard ground, the other person not faring any better as she groaned while rubbing her back.
“God, I am so, so sorry!” Michael forced himself to get up despite the pain and gathered her books that had scattered across the floor. “I hope you know it wasn’t my intention to bump into you like that, it’s entirely my fault—”
“Yeah, just shut it already.” Michael stilled as he heard her cold, monotonous voice.
Then his mortification couldn’t have been worse if it weren’t for the sharp black eyes he knew and feared. Because who in their right mind would dare to bump into the fiercest, most intimidating girl in school.
“Again, I am so…sorry, Arabel,” he stammered, handing her books as though in a trance. He nearly had forgotten of being chased if it weren’t for Jimmy’s voice screaming after him in sheer ire.
Shit.
Michael began to run again after muttering another quick apology to Arabel. The girl in turn merely rolled her eyes before walking away in the opposite direction.
The back of the school was practically empty when Michael arrived through its doors. Other children left through the main gate and that made it easier for him to escape without any obstacles in his way. He followed the path until it led him to where the parking lot was, all the while ignoring Jimmy and his friends’ taunts from behind, their running footsteps becoming closer and closer.
He ducked behind a corner and went straight to the edge of the school where the tall wooden fences were. He spotted the loose board quickly before pushing it aside and crossing through. Jimmy was right behind him just as he landed on the rocky pavement of the city, his grubby hands reaching out to snatch the back of his shirt. But to his luck, the gap between the fences was too narrow for a boy Jimmy’s size to fit through.
Furious, the boy punched the wood from the other side, sending him a death glare through the hole.
“You’re so dead tomorrow, Hemming! Just you wait! ” Jimmy hissed, kicking the fence. Rob and Evan uttered something similar behind the wall, following Jimmy as he eventually gave up and left.
Michael stayed there for a little while until he could no longer see the boys in his view. He let out a loud sigh.
That was so close.
By the time Michael arrived home, it was already dusk.
His house was even darker than when he left, and the bottles from Father’s activity yesterday were still cluttered around his chair and the table. Even so, no sign of Father. Relieved and fatigued, Michael took in a deep breath as he climbed upstairs and into his bed.
His stomach grumbled. He shifted and turned on his side instead, ignoring the shooting pang out of exhaustion. Yet despite his body shutting down to rest, somehow his mind refused to. He forced his tired eyes to close. He rolled and turned under the covers. And he still could not sleep. It wasn’t the hunger keeping him up, he was certain as he’d gone to bed feeling worse than this. It couldn’t be the worry and dread for his fate tomorrow at school when faced with Jimmy and his friends. It certainly couldn’t be his mortification for having run into Arabel of all people either.
So what was it still sitting heavily on his mind? Why could he not sleep already after tossing and turning for what felt like hours?
The door to his bedroom creaked open.
Michael stiffened and quickly pretended to have fallen asleep when he heard soft steps approaching him. His bed dipped slightly as Father sat just by him. The man sniffled. Michael kept his eyes closed the entire time Father sat next to him, nonetheless he could smell the heavy stench of alcohol in his breath whenever the man sighed.
And for a long time, he felt his presence there, just breathing and doing nothing.
“She was just like…you, Michael,” Father whispered finally, his speech slurred. “So bright and so…innocent. Sh-she did nothing wrong to this world. To the shitty people in this shitty place—of this shitty planet. She was innocent. She was so…bright. Brighter than the Goddamn Sun even. She was everything that I had left that was…that was good, you know. Remember? You remember how good she was?” Michael held himself from flinching as Father patted his head.
Another minute went by until the man spoke again, his voice louder.
“Michael, you…you are good too. So very good, but…” Father’s breath hitched. He sucked in a deep breath. “But you are not her. She’s gone now, your mother. And it’s all because…it’s all because of—” A weak sob finally escaped Father’s throat as he lifted his hand off Michael’s head. Father cried softly, blurting out, “It’s all because of you. You…she is gone instead of you. Why did it have to be her and not…not you? Why did you take her away from m-me? We were all so happy together, so…why did you do it? Why? Boy. A-answer me. I’m talking to you. Don’t you…don’t you dare ignore me—get up and give me an answer! Wake up before I throttle you, Michael! Get up!” Father’s hand was on his shirt collar within seconds, shaking him so harshly as though he hadn’t just caressed his head like he cared.
Michael’s eyes remained shut tight regardless of Father’s threats, his grip on the blanket even tighter. He had even abandoned trying to breathe lest his shaky breathing betrayed him.
It worked.
Eventually from his lack of reaction, Father’s hold loosened into release, the weight next to him gone. Michael heard a few thuds somewhere in his room and more sad sobs from the drunken man, who continued to grumble under his breath about things he hated about this world, things hated about his son and wishing he had never been born. Despite the hurtful words, Michael still didn’t move a muscle for as long as Father was still in his room.
It was until the man left, he let himself cry.
Michael sobbed silently into his hands and wiped his eyes with his sleeve. He cried with hot tears running down his cheeks, knowing nothing about his life would get better. This was not the first time Father laid hands in his inebriated state, nor was it the first time he had come into his room and told him how much he loathed him for what had happened. And Michael knew it wouldn’t be the last time either. Tonight was just another night, tomorrow would be another. And the day after that and the day after that. Like a cruel cycle he was trapped in, he had no means of reprieve from this hell the longer he lived in it; and for as long as Michael remained in this pitiful household with Father, he knew he would lose himself.
Hell.
He was already half-way there, one limb at a time.
She’s gone now. It’s all because of you.
Tonight was the last day of it.
He needed to get out of here. He couldn’t take it anymore.
Throwing off his blanket, Michael took out his bag and coat from his closet and stuffed it in some clothes. He took his hidden money jar with him; he kept a folded picture of his mother in one of his pockets and brought along anything else in his room that had value, no longer afraid to make the decision he should’ve made a long time ago. After this, he would not return.
By the time Michael was done packing and got out of his room, Father had already passed out on his own bed with his face planted on the mattress. Michael gave a long glance towards the sad man when walking past his room. A part of him still wished things had been different, always have. Yet a lot of his wishes these days never seemed to be true no matter how long and hard he thought on it.
The nights he prayed for a better dream never came. His hopes and efforts to be kind to others resulted in Jimmy and his friends making a fool of him. The times he wished Father never picked up a bottle and grieved the way he did felt useless for every new bruise on his skin.
Wishing did not work. Waiting patiently did not work.
If there was a way for everyone to be happy, then he knew the answer to it. Surely, Father would be happier. Maybe even he could be happy too.
Michael felt his eyes sting and wiped them angrily. After giving his bedroom another sad glance, he finally left home.
The city outside was fully dark as he walked down its pavement. Lights in some of the household he passed by were still on despite how late it was. There were cars going down the road and heading home; and those who didn’t own a vehicle, too, walked on the same pavement as he did.
Their odd stares did not go unnoticed. Anyone who was out this late were either those who had just ended their shift or adults who were smoking in the midst of the cold air. They gave him a look when they saw him walk the opposite direction as them, heading straight to where they had come from.
Michael ignored it until the adults were gone from sight.
So he didn’t get the tranquility he’d hoped for—whatever. With how busy and troubled his mind was, he doubted a walk in silence would remedy it anyhow.
She’s gone now, your mother. It’s all because of you.
Why did it have to be her and not you?
We haven’t even thrown you in the lake yet, Mono, are you sure you’re a man at all?
You’re so dead tomorrow, Hemming! Just you wait!
Voices from different people overlapped in his head, overwhelming him again and again. His eyes stung with tears for the third time tonight.
Soft raindrops of water landed on his head, immediately turning his attention away from his fraught mind.
“Are you kidding me…” Michael muttered under his breath when the rain started to come down heavily the next few seconds. Classic Pale City. Always raining when he didn’t want it to. Michael began to run to get to the bus station before the cold froze his entire body. All the while he tried to convince himself things would be better soon. It would get better, he was certain.
This was fine. All was fine. A little rain was definitely even more fine, regardless if it was his current biggest inconvenience to get to the bus station. Not an issue, of course, he’d had worse. So what if his clothes and hair were drenched now—he’d be dry once he got on the bus and headed wherever it took him. He’d be fine once he left Pale City and looked for a better life. He’d be just fine.
He tripped over a rock.
Michael landed face first into the puddle, the front of his coat covered in mud as well as his hands.
“Are you kidding me!” Michael cried, angrily wiping the mud away. He really wanted to punch the ground and curse this world for making his life hell at every possible turn.
Curse everything in this God-awful City.
Curse this stupid rock for tripping him and making him stay in this rainstorm longer than he should have been when he could—
The rock blinked at him.
Michael froze in place, still in the middle of cleaning the mud off himself. Did he see it right? Did he really see something blink up at him?
Curious and half-freaked out of his mind, Michael scooted closer to the rock and grabbed the nearest stick he could find. Then he poked the rock and waited a few seconds.
Nothing happened.
Michael heaved out a long sigh of relief, laughing mirthlessly to himself. This was ridiculous. What was he even doing, poking a rock in the middle of a storm? He must have gone crazy to be this spooked over a rock, let alone to be thinking it was alive. There was no way the rock was alive.
The rock groaned with a hoarse voice.
Michael flinched back and fell to his rear, the stick in his hand already snapping in half.
Then the rock began to roll in place around the mud, blinking quickly as though to get the dirt of its eyes. God, it had an eye. The rock had an eye. Why did it have an eye? Did he miss something in school? Was this some sort of animal he was mistaken for a rock to begin with? Some endangered species that somehow was drowning in Pale City’s mud during a rainstorm?
Alright. Calm down and focus. It probably is a rat, Michael thought as he flipped the rock over with what was left of the stick. The rock laid upright with its eye to the sky.
And its dark pupil darted straight to him the second it could open its singular eyelid.
“D…dying,” a small voice uttered before the rock’s eyelid lowered again. It let out a weak sigh and became limp as though it had passed out.
Impossible.
Did the rock really pass out in front of him? No, even better, did the rock just talk to him? Like an actual human with human capabilities?
Michael poked the rock again but this time it was unresponsive. He frowned and moved closer, this time with enough courage to poke a finger on its side. What in God’s name, his eyes widened in even more horror.
The rock was, in fact, not a rock. Instead of the hard surface he had expected, or the furry body of a rat, the rock felt too smooth akin to a literal human skin. Its surface was too mushy like it was made of meat and Michael wondered if it could bleed if it had been poked too hard. Could it even bleed like him? Did this…blob thing even have blood inside it?
The blob suddenly became colder under his touch.
Shit, Michael recalled its last words before it had lost consciousness: “Dying”. If the blob was aware of its surroundings then it must be a sentient being. It must be alive. And for it to even have the capability to talk to him and see him here, the blob must be closer to a human than an animal.
The sound of a car engine driving on the side of the road turned his attention away from the blob and to the bus stop in the far distance. The late bus was already there waiting for its passengers for the night. It was his chance to escape this city and his hellish life, finally arriving in time. Just like he wanted. Getting on the bus was his first step to reach the door that led to a better life. He could still make it to the bus if he ran quickly to the station, he knew, and yet…
Michael did not move.
Despite everything in him telling him to get on that bus and leave like he planned—abandon all that he knew for something new—he found himself unable to abandon the dying creature in front of him.
If he left now, the blob would die. If he left it, it would drown in the mud and be buried under the dirt. None would ever know of its existence except for him, and no one would ever find out he’d selfishly left a living being to die for the sake of his own happiness. Nobody but him would live with this ridiculous guilt most people in the Pale City wouldn’t even think of twice.
But funny, he had always been the odd one, hadn’t he? The worst son. The freak of the school. The naive Mono.
Doing this would be insane. He’d be considered a lunatic.
But if it was crazy of him to give up his chance at escape to save this peculiar one-eyed creature, then perhaps…losing his sanity this way wouldn't be so bad.
Michael set his bag in front of him and emptied the money jar into the pockets of it. With the empty jar, he scooped up the small blob into his hands and slid it inside the glass, leaving the jar lid open for the creature to still breathe. He tried his best to ignore the sound of the bus driving past him a minute later, instead focusing on keeping the jar safely into his half-zipped bag. Now all he thought of was to get the blob out of this rain, and preferably, himself too. Should he stay out here a few more hours, he knew the blob wouldn’t be the only one facing a life-threatening situation.
Michael hugged his bag close to his chest for warmth as he ran back into his neighborhood, bee-lining straight to the house he thought he’d never return to until meeting the meat creature. Funny, really. He truly thought he’d never set foot into his own room again until he actually did.
He took out the jar and put it on his desk. The blob’s eye was still closed, its skin a little too pale and covered in mud. It looked almost dead. Ignoring the shiver in his own bones, Michael hurried to the bathroom and ran hot water in the bathtub, adjusting the knobs until the temperature was just warm. Then he returned to his room for the blob, carried it back to the steaming bathroom, and carefully dipped the jar into the warm water.
Michael glanced back at the door, praying Father was not awake at this hour to use the bathroom. And for once his wish was granted as the next hour, he was all alone. At some point, he’d managed to gather enough courage to take the blob out of the jar and hold it in his hands, for after a while, he no longer felt strange holding it, even daring to lightly run some of the bath water over its dirty skin and gently drying it with a towel afterwards. The blob was still not awake. He sighed, sliding its limp body back into the jar before bringing the one-eyed creature back into his room. He made sure to abandon the jar’s lid the entire time.
It was so late when Michael realized the clock by his bedside table.
He set an alarm to wake up in a few hours, not looking forward to staying long in one of his awful dreams.
The world outside was dark, save for a few lights in the streets—he tried not to wonder where the bus was stopping by now if he had got on it.
Michael switched on the lamp on his desk and put the jar next to it. The blob remained asleep for the rest of the time and Michael only felt the exhaustion sink in once he took a seat in front of it. He laid his head on his arm, facing the sleeping blob.
The creature…was a strange looking thing. With its skin almost a replica of his own, a big doe eye in the center, lack of mouth and nose to speak and breathe through. Overall its appearance was a little daunting and unusual for a creature, but after having held it in his hand…he couldn’t help but realize how small it actually was. Helpless among the gigantic, intimidating things around it.
A snicker left Michael at the thought as he shifted closer to his desk.
He could very much relate to the feeling of intimidation and helplessness. For most of his life, it was all he felt. Maybe now, someone else could understand it as much as he did.
“You look very weird, you know that,” Michael muttered with a tired yawn, his eyelids heavy. He touched the jar with his fingertips, where the blob leaned against the glass. He hummed. “Please…don’t be dead, okay?”
Don’t be dead, he hoped again in his heart, praying that tonight his wish would be granted the second time.
Notes:
Mono picked up the wrong rock😭
Also good news, I've written five chapters in advance, so stay tuned for next weekend!
Thanks for reading!
Chapter 73: An Eye For Their Eyes
Notes:
Haloo I'm back with another chapter. Time to meet the lil weird rock in daylight lmao
[WARNING]
Bullying
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
“Don’t fall asleep, Viola.” White pain burst on his chest, blood lodging in his throat and in his lungs . He looked around and found himself lying under the blinding light again. White dots were on every wall with dark water leaking out from it. They were groaning and wheezing. They sounded weak.
“I’ll heal you, alright? I’ll fix you, I promise. Just stay awake. I need you to be awake,” said the faceless boy beside him. The other one muttered something under her breath, or perhaps her voice had been too quiet, nonetheless the boy replied in the same fear, shifting closer and pushing at the wound.
There was so much blood everywhere.
There was so much screaming.
Michael wanted to breathe yet every time he tried, only blood spurted out from his mouth. He knew he was drowning. Dying. He wanted the pain to end so badly he found himself crying from pure agony. He wanted this to stop.
The faceless boy screamed and begged him not to shut his eyes when he did, shaking him despite the futility. Michael couldn’t understand his desperation, and he kept trying to decipher the boy’s blurry face through his own failing eyes. Eventually, his exhaustion won.
“ WAKE UP!”
And Michael did.
He gasped out shallow breaths and clutched his chest with shaking hands, feeling his heart pounding in his ribcage. The damned dream. He was still dreaming of himself bleeding to death; and the experience somehow became more and more terrifying each day.
Get it together, Michael, he berated himself as he dragged his hands over his face and sighed again, this time to calm himself down. To soothe his mind from the constant nightmare be it in Dreamland or in real life.
“Are you alright?” A child’s voice spoke in front of him. Michael pried his hands away from his face and turned to the blob in the jar. Except the jar was empty now and the blob was sitting right in front of it with its huge eye staring up at him.
God. He’d nearly forgotten what he did the night before.
No matter, looking at the blob in daylight compared to under the light of his desk lamp made him realize just how uncanny the creature actually was. Scratch that, this was an entire new level of uncanny, now that he knew the night before wasn’t a lucid dream of his.
The blob’s skin was a bright pink compared to its pale state last night. Its eye was identical to an average human eye, even capable of conveying certain emotions through them as Michael noted from the way it stared up at him brightly yet in concern. Still, no nose or mouth, much to his recollection.
So I really wasn’t dreaming. This was the rock I brought home.
“Oh, no, you’re silent. I didn’t scare you, did I? With how I am?” The blob shrunk and slid backwards. Somehow Michael could read the hurt look across its singular eye. This was so weird. Even more weird, he felt guilty for having worried it; and he did not know why.
“N-no! I’m not afraid! Or, better yet, you didn’t scare me,” Michael said, laughing a little. Again, he had no clue why he was laughing. He was scared out of his mind. “I am just…I was shocked. That’s all.”
“Shock?” It looked curious and hopeful, albeit still shy.
“Well, yes. I know it probably isn’t fair to you, but this is the first time I’ve ever seen…well…”
“An Eye?”
“Yes,” Michael said, nodding. Then his brows furrowed. “Wait, what?”
The blob tittered like a mischievous kid. “An Eye,” it repeated, still amused. “Have you really never seen one before? That is a little strange.”
“What do you mean?”
“You have two on you. I don’t understand why you’d feel shocked over seeing only one.”
“Well, my eyes usually stay inside my head, you know. I don’t go talking to them like I’m talking to you, so maybe that’s one of the reasons I’m a bit surprised. You can’t blame me.”
It gave him an odd look. “You don’t talk to them?”
This time it was his turn to make a face. “Of…course not. They aren’t alive. They are just…an organ to help me see. Without it, I wouldn’t be able to see anything.”
“An organ?”
“Yes. Y-you know, like your brain, your stomach and such. Humans have those things, and it helps us go on with our lives. Do…do you have any other organs aside from…an eye?”
The eye blob blinked dumbly. Michael took that as a no.
“Uh, if you don’t mind me asking then,” Michael said after clearing his throat. “What…are you, exactly? N-not that I’m judging you in any way, it’s just that—last night I found you covered in mud outside, looking like you were about to…fall asleep,” he added hastily. When the eye blob blinked again in silence, Michael worried if he had offended it again. “I-I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. Or asked you anything. It’s just a stupid curiosity of mine, so ignore me—”
“You aren’t wrong.”
Michael’s mouth was agape, in the middle of his sentence. “P-pardon me?”
“I was, really, about to die when you found me. I should have thanked you earlier for that. Thank you.”
“…No worries.”
“As for what I am,” the eye continued. “It’s what I told you already. I am an Eye! Perhaps not like the…strange ones you have, but I am still an Eye. The only one left, it seems now.” The eye looked away with its lid lowered.
“The only one? What do you mean by that?” Michael couldn’t help but lean close, already curious and eager to hear its story. The eye hesitated but made a sighing sound in the end—surprising Michael even more.
“I recall being with the others, but I don’t recall where. Long story short, everybody burst and died. I don’t remember why other than a certain deal being broken.”
“Wait, hold on—a deal?”
It blinked as if nodding. “It’s when an Eye proposes an agreement. A wish, sort of, but most times it benefits both sides. When we break a deal that has been sealed by skin, the consequences of that usually result in something catastrophic. But it also depends on how much the deal is broken. Damage it slightly, some of us would suffer. But if the deal is broken entirely…”
“Then…all of you would?” Michael asked in mild horror. The eye blinked again, despondent. “So does that mean the deal you had was broken partially?”
“Maybe a little more than that. I’m all that’s left, after all,” the eye said with a dim voice. It made his heart twitch at that.
The eye blob admitted it was all alone. Its family, all killed by a deal they had broken. Michael didn’t know what the details of the deal were, nor the context of it, but he decided—after the story it had shared—that he wouldn’t pry any more than he already did. How could he when the eye blob just told him it was the last of its kind? If he were to be in its shoes, he wouldn’t like to recall the death of his own friends and family either.
It would be cruel to ask for more.
For that, he could understand and sympathize with it.
“I’m so sorry,” Michael said and meant it. The eye blob looked up at him again, this time confused.
“But…you did nothing wrong. Aren’t apologies said to make up for our mistakes?” it asked.
“Uh, yes , but it can also be said to show empathy.”
“…Empathy? What is that?” The blob moved closer towards him, interested.
Michael hummed, thinking his words carefully. “Well, it is when…we try to feel what the other is feeling. Especially when they are going through something horrible. Like what you are going through, for example.”
“You can feel…what I’m feeling then? Through this empathy?”
“No, but I can imagine it,” he said, chuckling. “I understand what you’re going through is what I’m trying to say. I also went through a similar situation, although maybe not as extreme as yours. Lost my mother and it took a big toll on my life, so…I guess that is that.”
“What is a mother?”
“You don’t know what a mother is?” Michael asked genuinely.
“Sorry,” the eye said, shrinking a little, although it seemed more embarrassed than apologetic. “I’m only a few days old. My knowledge of everything is limited unlike the rest of the eyes before me. I would have been more prepared if the deal hadn’t ended so soon after my existence.”
Michael stilled as the earlier guilt crept on his back.
“So, a mother is someone who gives birth to you,” Michael said, steering the conversation away from the deal that killed the little eye’s entire species. “For us humans, that’s how we…how I came into existence. Through our mothers and fathers.”
“I see. Do fathers give birth too—?”
“No, no! Hah, God no. Only mothers give birth. Fathers just…uh…” Michael stammered, his mind coming to a blank. “Fathers just contribute and help to raise us,” he ended up saying. “It’s a long, complicated thing, really. I wouldn’t bore you with the details.”
The eye blob blinked in nodding again, humming to itself. “Fascinating. Humans are so different. Eyes do not need any mothers or fathers.”
“O-oh? You don’t?” he asked, tilting his head.
“That’s right! We can just come alive and multiply.” Then the blob sagged a little. “Though, the conditions are quite strict. We would need to find a good place with good temperatures. Add on with the individual strength of the eye, multiplying itself would be really hard.”
“Have you tried? To make sure your kind doesn’t, you know, go extinct?”
The small eye laughed as soon as he finished his sentence. Despite how strange looking it was, dare he say the blob was nearly adorable with how small it was.
“You saved my life! As far as I know, my kind will not go extinct, thanks to you,” it said, the corners of its eye crinkling, a way for it to smile Michael figured. “Besides, would you really want to see your home filled with a bunch of me’s? Not that I’d even dream of imposing and scaring you more than I already have, though I can promise, it’ll be a sight, for sure!”
Michael gulped. The eye laughed again, and this time he couldn’t stop the smile that crept on his face.
“I-I won’t mind it after a while, if it means having good company,” Michael said under his breath, rubbing a sore arm under the desk. “So, what do they call you? Back where you’re from?”
“Hmm. Eye.”
“That’s it?”
“Is there supposed to be more?” The eye tilted itself slightly in confusion.
“I mean, I was expecting more. Do you really not have a name?” The clueless look on it returned. Oh boy. “Alright, so, a name is just what others call you. Do you have one?”
“Oh! Well, the others called me Eye!” it exclaimed excitedly. “Then my name is Eye—"
“No, no, that is what you are,” Michael corrected lightly. “I meant as in your name as an individual. To differentiate which is which and who is who. For example, my name is Michael. My mother’s was Carla. Do you see?”
“Oh.” Its excitement dropped. “Then, I think I don’t have a name. Is it a bad thing if one does not have a name?”
“O-of course not!” Michael quickly assured with a soft smile. “Names are just to help you tell which person is which. If you don’t have one, it doesn’t mean it’s bad; it just means you’re…without a name. Oh! I could even help you with that, if you’d like!”
“You would?” The eye’s lid widened, lighting up.
“Yes, definitely! I could give you a few suggestions or better yet— you can choose one yourself and see if it’s to your liking. I’m sure I have a book lying around somewhere to help us with this. Let me just find—”
The sound of his clock ringing by his bedside startled him out from his chair. The eye blob shrunk back immediately until its body bumped against the glass jar behind it, looking around the bedroom in fear.
Michael slammed a hand above the clock to silence it. His eyes widened when he realized the time.
08:00 a.m.
Crap.
He was late for school. He must’ve set the time wrongly the night before.
“Michael? Is everything alright?” The small eye asked from the table, watching him go around the room and scrambling to prepare his bag and get his books.
He looked down at himself. His clothes were damp and still covered in mud.
“Everything is fine, I just…I have to freshen up a little bit.” He very much needed a shower. “Stay here. And…and don’t make a sound. I-I promise I’ll be back in a jiffy! Really, don’t go anywhere, okay? Just stay put!” Michael gave the eye a tight grin before he closed his bedroom door, dashing to the bathroom.
On his way out, he stole a glance to Father’s room. The man was still out of it, snoring loudly in the same position Michael had last seen him in. Which, thank God, Father was not awake yet. Michael prayed the man stayed that way as he got ready in the bathroom, cleaning himself up and barely putting on a clean shirt properly before he rushed back into his room again.
To his relief, the eye blob was still on his desk.
“Oh! You are back so soon, hello!" The eye greeted him cheerfully as Michael shut his door.
“Hi, yes—I’m back! I told you I’d be, didn’t I?” He adjusted his tie and gathered his things, shoving them into his bag.
“Are you sure everything is alright, Michael? You looked a little panicked when that round object screamed.”
“What? Oh. You mean the clock. The clock wasn’t screaming, it just…it just rang to remind me of something, okay? That’s all. No need to worry,” he said to the eye as he zipped his bag and slung it over his shoulder. Michael took the empty jar from the desk and held it in one hand, whereas the other scrambled to make space for it inside the bag.
“Remind you?” the eye asked, watching him curiously.
“Yes, that’s right. So, the thing is, I have to go to school. A school is a place children from certain ages go to for—”
“Oh! It’s where humans learn new things and make friends, isn’t it?”
Michael blinked once, then twice. He nodded anyway. “That, you know, but yes. That’s exactly it. See, right now I’m a little late and I really don’t want to leave you here on your own while Father is still in the house, so…”
The blob made a gasping noise. “Am I coming with you to school?” There were definitely sparkles in its eye.
He huffed amusedly and lifted the glass jar in his hand. “Would you like to?”
“Why, absolutely!” Beyond his expectation, the eye blob stretched itself upwards and latched on his arm. Michael had wanted to recoil out of surprise, but as quickly as the eye had jumped on him, it moved down his hand and slid into the jar before he could blink again. All prior thoughts about how weird that had felt were easily pushed aside as the eye stared up at him brightly again.
How could he possibly feel any sort of disgust when it was looking up at him like an innocent younger child?
He couldn’t.
As unusual as the blob was, its enthusiasm was adorable and refreshing.
“This is to keep you from sight.” Michael carefully slid the jar into his bag, leaving the zip open and flap loose so the eye could still see and hear him. “Are you ready to go?” Michael whispered to the eye.
“Yes, siree!” it whispered back just as giddily, its skin crinkling in mirth.
A snicker left him as the eye giggled along.
“And one more thing before we leave,” Michael said, turning the knob of his bedroom door. “You have to promise to stay as quiet as possible.”
The rushing trip to Michael’s school was unsurprisingly loud throughout the entire time. The Pale City streets were busy with cars honking at each other, and citizens were already out and about to head off to work, bumping rudely at each other’s shoulders and cursing them with colorful words.
Michael had been the one to receive the end of the insults when he had nearly run into a sharply dressed man. He did not take the little accident kindly.
“Watch it, you little punk!” The man scowled at him, his teeth bared.
“Sorry, sir, I—” Michael forgone his apology as the man disappeared into the crowd already. He held his bag close to him and made sure the jar was still safe in it.
Luckily, his effort running the whole way to school paid off. When he reached the hallway, there were still some students in sight, talking by their lockers and some lounging at the corner. Michael felt his anxiety rise when more than a pair of eyes were on him. Like every other day, he ignored the feeling and strode to his own locker, then pulled his bag to his front so he could take out the jar discreetly from the pocket.
“Have we made it? Are we in school?” the eye whispered excitedly in the glass jar. Michael smiled and placed the jar upright in his locker for it to get a better view while still being hidden. “Wow! There are so many people here! Are they all your friends, Michael?”
“Uh…” Michael’s face faltered. “I-I know some of them,” he told the eye, glancing behind him to the said children who were anything but friends to him.
He could only wish they were.
“Get lost, Jimmy,” A firm voice then spoke behind him. Michael turned to see Arabel standing in front of her locker, zipping her yellow jacket while a death glare was etched across her face.
Jimmy was there with his arm pressed above her head, grinning despite being the recipient of Arabel’s obvious disgust.
“What, I can’t even say good morning to you? Come on, I’m being nice here,” Jimmy said.
“Good for you, but I don’t care.”
“Well, maybe you should. I don’t go being nice to just anybody, you know.” Jimmy leaned closer, his grin widening. Arabel looked even more disgusted than before. “Besides, I came here to ask you if you’d…want to hang out sometime. Just us together after school. I’m a great company.”
“In a coffin, I’m sure you are.”
“Hah, you’ve got humor, I can appreciate that.”
“Thank you. Now, piss off.”
“Come on, Ara,” Jimmy cooed, unrelenting. “Why so sour all the time? Can’t you at least smile a little? For me? You even have such a cute face, you know—”
Arabel slammed the door of her locker, hitting Jimmy’s hand on purpose. Then she flashed him the sweet smile he’d asked for. “Call me cute again, and I’ll make sure your hand isn’t the only thing flattened. The nurse’s office is down the hall.” Then she walked away, leaving a groaning Jimmy as he shook off his hand and ran to the nurse’s office.
Michael quickly hid behind his locker when Jimmy stomped past him. If a happy Jimmy could hurt him, he’d rather not face an angry one.
Though after seeing the entire exchange earlier, he wasn’t entirely sure if Jimmy was the one he was afraid the most. Scratch that, Jimmy was playing for second if Arabel was in the picture.
“Oh, my, that was…painful to watch,” the eye whispered again, having witnessed it too.
“Yeah, true. But in all fairness, Jimmy is a big jerk anyway, so I think he had it coming at some point,” Michael whispered back. “If anything, Arabel did everyone a favor and served him right.”
“The soulless girl?”
“I wouldn’t call her soulless, but yeah. She’s a little…” Michael didn’t even have the guts to talk behind her back lest she appeared behind him. He winced just by remembering the way she slammed Jimmy’s hand with her locker door. That was utterly brutal. “I’ll just say Arabel is not the friendliest person. And I’ve known her since years ago, so I’ve seen enough to know she’s not someone you’d want to cross paths with. The best piece of advice I could ever give to anyone? Stay clear of the girl with the yellow jacket. That is the easiest warning sign someone could pay attention to, really.” He took a book for his morning class.
“Arabel, hm?” the eye blob muttered and hummed to itself. Then it turned back to him, looking mischievous. “So! I take it you’re afraid of her?”
“Excuse me—?” Michael stopped when he realized he had shouted his answer. He felt the judging eyes behind him and pretended to cough into his arm. Then he gave the eye a deadpanned look. “Fear is something I feel when I’m alone in the dark. Fear is when I’m being attacked by someone I can’t fight back. What I feel about Arabel is not even remotely close to fear, mind you,” Michael whispered sharply.
The eye blob giggled, amused by his reaction. “Is it terror then?”
“Beyond that.” Michael huffed and gently placed the jar back inside his bag, walking them to the first class of the day.
Something about sneaking the little eye blob with him into the classroom brought a spring to his step. Michael, for once, did not dread having to sit in the cramped classroom. Though he still received the paper junks thrown at his head when the teacher was not looking, he still felt his peers’ stares burning holes into him, the thought of all of it wasn’t as depressing as most days.
Michael had his bag on his lap the entire time during class, glancing down at the eye blob from time to time and seeing it wink at him. He smirked. The eye blob whispered to him something funny. He snorted aloud until the teacher turned around from the board to throw a glare his way. It got him a harsh shush for his lack of attention, but honestly, Michael didn’t care much.
In the next class, the eye blob requested to see the front of the board, to which Michael let up hesitantly, holding the jar under his table to keep it from being seen. When they left the class for the next one, the eye had whispered to him how terribly dull these classes were, and how it’d rather burst along with its kind than watch another old teacher speak at a remarkably slow pace. Michael had to bite back a laugh at that one, pretending to cough into his hand a couple of times. He had had enough judging stares because of who he was, he wouldn’t dream of being judged for laughing out of nowhere like a lunatic.
Though, he realized later it couldn’t be helped. The eye blob, despite hating these classes, was much too excited for them to stay silent the whole time.
“Why do you have to learn all these strange symbols?” it asked him. At least he was grateful the eye blob kept its promise to be quiet and discreet. “Are they really that important?”
“Kind of, math is important for our daily lives.”
“What in the loving Eye is math?”
“Math is short for mathematics. It’s just mostly about numbers and counting them; adding, subtracting, multiplying and et cetera.”
“Oh! Is it similar to algebra?”
“How on Earth do you know algebra but not math?”
“Ah, you’ll have to excuse me for that, ha-ha! I must’ve forgotten to mention, my knowledge of everything was both limited and inconsistent when I existed. True shame I didn’t get to synchronize fully with the rest of the eyes and learned the basic stuff first.”
“Well, if you have any questions, ask away. I’m as basic as a child could be—”
“Mr. Hemming.” Michael instantly pressed his bag closed when he saw Miss Hilda’s towering figure beside him. She slammed her ruler against his desk and fixed him a stern glare. “If you do not wish to be in my class, then I suggest you stay out in the hallway. Along with the other scoundrels who do not appreciate good learning. Otherwise—you pay attention.” Then she carried on, walking to the front and writing equations on the board.
Michael stole a quick glance at the eye blob one last time and saw it looking back at him apologetically. He smiled to reassure it, but afterwards both of them mutually agreed it was best they stayed quiet until the end of the period.
Then lunch came.
While most children, if not all, opted for the cafeteria, Michael headed straight to the back of school where only tall trees and trash bins accompanied him. As soon as he was certain they were far enough, and out of earshot of anyone else, he took the glass jar out from his bag and set it gently on the ground.
Michael grinned ear to ear as he sat next to it. The blob shared the same excitement with the way its skin crinkled around its eye.
“Okay, we can talk now,” Michael said, dropping his bag to the side and sighing.
“Phew! My, what a day!” the blob exclaimed, mimicking his sigh. “Let me tell you, that last class with that mean woman nearly had me sweating when she hit your desk! Is she always that rude?”
Michael laughed. “Miss Hilda? I’d say she is more stern than rude.”
“Well I very much disagree! If I ever happen to be a teacher in a classroom full of little children, you will see me teach them right!”
“Suddenly I have little confidence for the children you’re teaching,” he muttered to the side.
“Hey! I heard that!”
“Sorry, sorry!” He couldn’t help but chortle this time, overjoyed. He had never had company during his lunch breaks before. Or a good one for that matter. “You can’t deny that I am somewhat right, though. You admitted it yourself you don’t know much about the basic stuff; and school really emphasizes on that.”
“Hmm. Fair argument. But that still does not excuse the hitting with the ruler. What if she had hurt you by accident? You could’ve lost your fingers!”
“I’m fine, seriously . My fingers are still attached, see? ” Michael assured the blob with raised hands. “Besides, Miss Hilda would never hurt anyone on purpose.” I hope. “She is just, like I said, very stern. That is just her way of disciplining.”
“Disciplining?”
“Yeah, you know, disciplining as in keeping certain kids in line. Kids that have bad behaviors and such.”
The blob narrowed its eye. “But, Michael, you weren’t misbehaving.”
“I wasn’t paying attention in her class. That counts.”
“But what about the other children that didn’t either? The children who threw paper balls your way when she turned her back? Do they not get disciplined as well?”
“Oh. Uh, that—”
“Well, well, look who has finally lost his mind and is talking to himself like a little loon.” Jimmy turned the corner and came to approach, Rob and Evan beside him as always. “Are we interrupting your safe space, Mono? Or were you looking for some food in the school’s trash bins?”
“Could be that, if you ask me. He looks scrawny. Like a stick,” Rob added, snapping a real stick in half.
Evan snorted and cackled. “He probably is too poor to eat anything.”
Michael had slid the glass jar behind his bag and stood up from the floor. He glanced at the white bandages around Jimmy’s hand. For a moment, he wished Arabel had injured the boy somewhere he couldn’t easily recover. Perhaps even somewhere more fatal—
No. Don’t think that. You shouldn’t be thinking about that for anyone.
“I-I think lunch is almost over soon,” Michael forced out despite the dread and anxiety seizing him. “We should all just…just head back to class—”
Michael began to pack his bag and went for the jar, but he barely reached it when Jimmy grabbed him by the back of his collar.
“You’re not running away this time, freak,” Jimmy spat as he shoved him to the ground. Michael lifted his gaze in time to see Rob and Evan already kicking his bag and flipping it upside down, shaking it until its contents were on the floor like him. Yet that was not why he looked at them in horror.
“Wait, stop!” Michael reached a hand out to them before they found the jar that was…
Empty.
Jimmy scoffed and picked up the glass jar where the blob once sat in. The boy raised a brow at him for his reaction towards an insignificant thing.
“Was this what you were talking to? God, you really are crazy,” Jimmy said. Then he shattered the jar right before his eyes. Michael flinched at the sight of the glass now turned shards, speechless and hurt. That was the eye blob’s place to keep it safe.
“Sorry. Looks like I killed your friend,” Jimmy taunted, spreading the shards around with his foot on purpose. “Guess it’s only right to let you mourn in peace and silence. Oh, but wait! You can’t do that here, can you? It’s way too bright and sunny for such a sad occasion.”
Michael realized Jimmy’s sinister tone too late as Rob and Evan had already seized both his arms, forcing him up to his feet. The dread in his chest returned like a cruel wave.
“Where are we putting him this time, Jimmy?” Evan asked, smiling so wide as if this was his happiest moment. Rob did the same, and so did Jimmy.
“I say we stuff him in the janitor's closet,” Rob suggested.
“Again? No, we have to think of something new—something creative.” Jimmy hummed thoughtfully before turning his head towards the school gymnasium. Michael saw as the boy’s wicked smile grew wider than it could be. He already could imagine what horrors he would soon face as Jimmy gave his friends a single nod towards the gym. And despite his squirming and hopes to get away, he was unsuccessful against the other two bullies.
They pushed open the doors to the gym, dragging him inside no matter how much he tried to halt his own movements.
“Look! There’s that chest we bet nobody could fit into the last time we were here,” Jimmy casually said, his voice echoing like a painful siren to Michael’s ears.
“G-Guys, wait—!” His words barely left him as the lid of the chest opened with a loud ' thunk'.
The chest was narrow, made to keep other small equipment. It was not fit for a child to stay in.
But Rob was right when he said Michael was scrawny. The closer he was dragged to the chest, the more certain he was that he could fit inside it, albeit with his limbs folded.
“Hold on, does this thing even have holes for him to breathe through?” Evan asked as they stopped just before the chest, looking slightly doubtful.
“Relax, we’re just leaving him in there until school is over. And that’s only less than 2 hours,” Jimmy said, his smile still intact.
“If he dies, I’m not taking responsibility,” Rob said.
“Like hell you aren’t!” Evan snarled.
“You two, just shut up—” Something creaked above them, silencing everyone in the gym.
Jimmy had been the first to move again after waiting a few seconds, glancing around the gym with a scowl.
Nothing happened.
And then something did happen.
Jimmy had his back turned when a metal rod fell on top of his shoulder. He cried in pain. Down on the ground, he seethed and angrily shoved the rod away from him, clutching his shoulder with his bandaged hand and crying from that too. Rob and Evan, even Michael, watched with confusion across their faces.
What on Earth had just happened?
Yet before Michael could even begin to process, he felt a shiver down his spine when a booming voice of a stern woman echoed from outside the gym.
“What in the world is going on? Is there someone inside the gymnasium?” Miss Hilda.
“Crap! It’s her!” Rob cursed beside him.
“I am not dealing with that witch today!” Evan added, horrified as he scrambled to leave through the back exit of the gymnasium. Rob followed suit in cowardice, shoving Michael to the floor, then dragging a groaning Jimmy by his uninjured arm out of the place before they were found.
Michael winced and panicked when he was the only one remaining inside the gym, left alone for Miss Hilda to find him and be scolded for skipping class. He would definitely be punished. And knowing that horrid woman, she would not go as easy as the other teachers when it came to delivering punishments towards audacious delinquents.
“Goodness, finally, they’re gone.” The small familiar voice of a child surprised him instead. “Hey! Up here!”
Michael lifted his gaze to the tall shelves where the remaining metal rods were mounted. He stared at the blob with his mouth agape.
“You…did you…?”
“You would not believe how tricky it was to latch on that Jimmy boy’s back without being seen. Oh, he really annoys me to the core! His friends too, with how mean and rude they are towards you! I hope you didn’t mind watching him get hit by that rod, by the way. When he and his friends started to drag you in here, I remembered you saying he was a jerk, and how Arabel did everyone a favor by shutting her locker on his hand; so I thought I could also do a good deed and mimic that!” the eye blob said as it jumped off the shelves and slid across the floor to him. “I even had to steal Miss Hilda’s voice to take the whole show home. I didn’t know what to say at first, since I wanted to make it look convincing that it was actually her to scare those boys away. But it seemed like they would’ve run either way even if I’d spoken gibberish with her voice, ha-ha! Eyes, to see the look on their faces again. It was delightful when the smug smiles of those bullies turned into something like fear. I was delighted! Were you? Oh, now I wished I had chosen a heavier object instead of the rod—”
“No, don’t say that!” Michael held his hands up, his eyes widening. “Please don’t say that. Don’t…ever say you wished you had harmed anyone.”
The blob shrank slightly, its excitement gone from its eye. “Oh. I’m…sorry, Michael, I…I thought hurting Jimmy was a good thing…was it not?”
“Hurting someone is never a good thing,” he said firmly. “You can’t hurt anyone as you please. Even if they are as bad as Jimmy and his friends, you shouldn’t!”
“But they hurt you,” the blob countered, sliding closer. “They pushed you to the ground. They called you names—shouldn’t they be disciplined for their bad behaviors like you said?”
“Yes—but not to the point where it could nearly kill them!”
When the blob stayed silent, Michael sighed. He dragged a hand over his face, unsure where this need to defend Jimmy, of all people, came from.
Hell, it wasn’t for the eye blob, he would’ve been locked inside that chest for the next two hours. Or worse, if the three had forgotten to let him out…
Michael stopped the thought and lowered his hand to look at the eye blob again. It looked ashamed and regretful.
His heart sank just by the sight of that look in its eye.
“Look, I…I was relieved,” Michael said after a while, “when the rod came down on Jimmy.”
The eye blob looked up at him, hopeful. “You were?”
“I mean, he wasn’t unconscious or anything, so…so I guess it was still alright. If you think about it, he did deserve it. A lot.” Michael let a small smile grow on his face. “Thank you for helping me out. I really appreciate that.”
The blob gasped in its familiar excitement, bouncing up and down. Michael could barely hold back a laugh now at its joy from his gratitude alone.
“Oh, you! Of course! What are friends for if not to be by their side when in times of need?”
Michael laughed again, a certain warmth settling in his chest; and one he hadn’t felt in a very long time.
Friends.
He smiled softly to the blob and to himself.
“I couldn’t agree more.”
Notes:
The Eye is a cinnamon roll and tame (for now) lol. Also just so you know, I'm imagining their voice as peppa pig.
Anyhoo, next week we'll be seeing more of Arabel so that should be fun hehe
Thanks for reading!
Chapter 74: Love Your Neighbours
Notes:
As promised, our favourite tsundere yellow troll makes an appearance in this chapter!
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
It had been a few days since the gym incident and a few days since he’d nearly left home and came to make a new friend.
Michael brought the eye blob to school every day, sneaking it into his classes; and during lunch breaks, they would chat about how terribly boring it was. The eye blob loved to complain, whereas Michael enjoyed listening to its hilarious remarks. And if the conversation wasn’t school-related, they would chat about other things like the sunny weather, or Jimmy’s absence for three days straight.
A part of him felt bad the boy suffered with an injured hand and shoulder, but on the other hand—Jimmy deserved it. Without Jimmy in school, Michael’s life became slightly more at peace. He could walk around the corridors without keeping a lookout for the bully; he could breathe and linger longer at his own locker; he didn’t have to rush straight home the second the bell rang. For in Jimmy’s absence, came the absence of Rob and Evan’s. Those two were the prime examples of a follower, aimless as their leader stayed home and cowards to follow through with a torment without Jimmy. The most they did when Jimmy was away was sending glares and uttering curses his way.
Which, honestly, Michael had gotten used to for him to be truly affected. And with a new friend at his side—hidden in his bag inside a new glass jar he’d replaced—no insult or names could take down the foreign confidence he rarely had.
“So, how about John?” Michael paced around the back of the school with a name book in hand.
The blob gave him a certain look, not too fond of the name.
“Okay, so not John.” Michael crossed the name and went to the next one. “How about Kingsley?”
“I don’t like that name,” the blob said, pouting if it could. “Give me another.”
“Uh.” He flipped through the pages with a frown, seeing only drawn lines across the names. Sighing, he shut the book. “It seems that we may have run out.”
“What? That is it?”
“Well, we did go through about 30 names. Now that I think of it, this is a pretty thin book. Only five pages,” Michael said, shifting it in his hands thoughtfully. “I must’ve picked up a defective one a while back.”
“Oh, that is just absolutely swell!” The blob slumped against the jar, its eye downcast. “I’m never going to have a proper name, am I?”
“Hey, come on, don’t give up! There’s still a bunch of names out there; we just haven’t found the one you liked!”
“That’s because I don’t even know what I like for a name. The only thing I’ve ever been called is…hm, actually, the others never directly referred to each other by anything. We just knew who is who when talking to the others, and—oh, forget it! This is such a hopeless task for me!” It slumped even more until its body was flat on the floor of the jar.
Michael couldn’t help but laugh a little at how much the blob’s mannerisms reminded him of a dramatic younger brother.
“Well, why don’t we decide this later on then?” Michael suggested, taking a seat across it.
“It’s been three days already, Michael. Three whole days, ” the blob replied. “I’ve seen you fumble every time you wanted to address me. As your friend, it is awful to make you go through that; just awful!”
“It really isn’t,” Michael insisted. “I can always just call you Eye in the meantime, or you know, forever if that’s what you’d like and are more comfortable with. Maybe that can be your name!”
“Then in that case I may as well call you human—but no! No, siree, you have a proper name. If I am to be your friend, I would like to have a name that is just as good as yours.”
“As flattered as I am, I still think you’re overthinking it just a tad. All names are as good as any others. It doesn’t matter if it isn’t from a book or a proper one in the eyes of this society; if you say that you are an Eye, I’ll call you Eye—friends or not. There’s no need to get worked up over something like this.”
A beat of silence passed. Then the blob made a resigned sigh.
“I guess you are right. Maybe I was just…too excited to have a real name,” the blob said.
Its mood didn’t seem to have lifted in the slightest despite his reassuring words. Much to Michael’s dismay.
Oh boy.
“Alright, I…may have an idea of my own for a name.” Instantly, the blob’s gaze snapped to him, its eye widening. Michael could hardly back down now. “A very long time ago, I wanted a little brother and wished so much that I’d imagine what I would call him. But ever since Mother passed, I…I knew that wish wouldn’t come true anymore, so…” Michael huffed out a shaky breath.
“How about Willy?” he asked.
For a moment, the blob said nothing. But when its body began to bounce up and down, its eye sparkling with that familiar excitement, Michael only had to prepare himself before the blob launched out from the jar and jumped straight at him.
He’d caught it with his hands as laughter erupted from the small creature.
“I love it! I love the name Willy!” it told him, practically dancing in his hands. Michael was far more worried about making sure it wouldn’t fall than what it thought of the name itself. Though, if the blob loved the name…
“Well, then,” Michael smiled ear to ear. “Nice to meet you, Willy.”
At that Willy squealed, overjoyed.
Oh, how it truly reminded him of a younger brother.
School ended not more than three hours later. With no Jimmy and his friends present to corner him into a wall, Michael relaxed as he walked the crowded hallway. He silently thanked Willy the third time that day for making it possible even if it was something he shouldn’t be encouraging of the small innocent blob.
The walk back home to his neighborhood, too, was relaxing to say the least. He chatted with Willy through his bag and earned himself more than a few odd stares from passersby and lousy neighbors. He mentioned that to Willy and Willy giggled unapologetically. Which, in return, got him giggling too with how absurd this whole situation was. Never once in his life had he ever thought his first actual friend would be an entire different species who was also sentient. Now that the creature had a name too, it made it even better. He knew how easily he would get attached to it.
“You know, I’ve walked down this neighborhood for the past three days and I couldn’t help but notice just how lovely it is,” Willy said from his bag and whispered, “Do all of them glare at each other this often?”
“Way too often,” Michael confirmed. “A kid pushed me for looking at him once.”
“Excuse me? How rude of him! Tell me, which kid was it? Michael, I swear, I would find him and push him into a—”
“Hey now, remember what we talked about during Jimmy’s incident?”
Willy sighed, disappointed but relented. “Fine. So, what about these people?”
“I know some of them prefer to keep to themselves and some are nosy about those who stay private.”
“What? Why?”
Michael shrugged slightly. “It’s just how they are. How most people are, actually. I always try to stay clear of the nosy ones and would rather take my chance with those who glare at me. You can’t trust the overly sweet people here. They’re the reason rumors spread like wildfire around these parts.”
“Oh. There are rumors here?”
“Many. Rumors about cheating partners; Crazy Hat Lady who ate her own husband; a mugger who is part demon lurking every five years; one house fire that…” Michael trailed off, his words stuck in his throat.
Stop thinking.
He clutched his bag tighter.
“Michael? Is something wrong? You’ve stopped walking.” Oh. Michael realized he had indeed become frozen in place. He shook away the heavy feeling and swallowed the lump in his throat. Stop thinking.
The door to one of the houses slammed wide open and out came a woman running.
Michael took a step back when the woman screamed bloody murder. Though, the woman did not get far as she tripped on her yard and hit the ground. She thrashed on the grass and began swatting her arms around the air, as though to shove something away. Then she begged and screamed again. Her back violently shook with her pitiful sobs, and she held her hands over her greyish hair, clutching them in tight fists.
“No, I won’t do it! I won’t do it; just go away!” The woman cried into the ground. “Go away, you monster! I won’t do what you asked! Leave me be!”
The neighbors stood out to watch the scene from their houses. While some had pity across their faces, most were evil smirks and irritation for noise disturbance. Still, none helped the woman. Despite the woman having lived here as long as they have or longer, despite the woman still crying out loud in public and humiliating herself, all of them only stood from their yards and stared.
Michael was one of them.
He watched the lady in white sob to herself, unaware of the prying eyes around her. Guilt and pity washed over him the longer he stayed stagnant on the pavement.
“Look, mom! It’s Crazy Hat Lady!” a child said to her mother. Her mother uttered something Michael could not hear, but from the sour expression on her face, he doubted she was one of those who felt pity towards the crying woman.
“What a sad sight,” one commented to their next-door neighbor.
“You know I heard that she was in the mental institute a few years back.”
“How awful!”
“That is what you get for feasting on your own spouse. I can’t imagine how hard it must be for her daughter.”
“Poor girl, too, having to put up with this kind of hardship. I hear she is only a young girl still.”
Another joined in with a firm scowl, “Then her mother should’ve stayed inside that institution! It’s terribly inconvenient to have to face this screaming every time I get home next door!"
“Ah, that is true.”
“On top of that, she’s making a fool of herself and—"
Michael stopped trying to listen to the neighbors. He couldn’t bear a second longer hearing their foul complaints and false pity while the woman was at her lowest, begging for someone to help her. Yet even after so long, no one came to her aid.
“Michael?” he heard Willy whisper to him. “Are we not heading home?”
The woman’s cries had softened but it seemed she was too afraid and weak to move from her place. And if the world hadn’t been cruel to her already, grey clouds gathered in the sky and dropped soft pellets of water above their heads, leaving wet spots on the stone path and roads. From his periphery, he saw the neighbors hurried back inside their abodes, ushering their families along until all that was left in the neighborhood was him and the sobbing woman.
Michael let out a shuddering breath as the cold wind blew into his face. He let Willy’s question hang and approached the woman.
“Mrs. Marsh?” Michael gently called out, kneeling next to her curled up figure. “May I…help you get inside? It’s starting to rain.”
Marsh lifted her head and stared at him for a long time, confusion in her puffy eyes. Michael could tell she was having a bit of a hard time remembering who he was, despite having seen him around on occasions. To this neighborhood, she was always known as the Crazy Hat Lady, dubbed by the children because of her slightly loose screws and large hats she would often wear. But to Michael, he’d always seen her as Mrs. Marsh, the soft-spoken lady. Though the woman was undoubtedly troubled in the head—talking to herself and yelling at empty spaces whenever he passed by her home—Michael had never shown any dislike or fear towards her for it. Perhaps a little careful because of the rumors, but in the end, who was he to make any judgements? Like her, he, too, had rumors of himself spread around the area and school.
He, too, was treated badly.
“It’s me. Michael Hemming? You shooed away the other kids a year ago when they were chasing me around with a stick?” Something in his bag shifted. Michael patted the side of it to calm a certain friend down. “Do you remember?”
“I…yes, I think…I….” Marsh gave him another long look before a gentle smile was on her face. “Oh, I remember! Of course! What are you doing, dear boy? It’s getting dark out here for a young man such as you!” Her face shifted to worry.
Michael returned the smile, wondering if she had forgotten entirely about her meltdown seconds before. He didn’t bring it up. “It is getting dark, I realized. But I was walking home from school when I saw you, so…I wanted to make sure you were alright.”
“My, what a kind heart you have, why wouldn’t I be alright?”
He still did not bring it up. “I guess I worry too much, you could say.”
“Well, I am perfectly fine, dearest. I’m only out here because I was…” Her smile faltered ever so slightly, the earlier confusion returning on her face.
He didn’t have the heart to watch her freak out again.
“Uh—let me help you up, Mrs. Marsh!” Michael held her arms and slowly they stood up. “We should get you back inside quickly. It looks like a storm is coming soon.”
Marsh smiled again, letting him walk her to the steps of her house. “Thank you, Michael. And please, feel free to call me Leigh. I believe we’ve shared the same neighborhood long enough for you to be so formal.”
He pushed the front of her door and led them inside Marsh’s house.
“Oh, I shouldn’t, Mrs. Marsh,” Michael said, laughing. “If my mother were here, she would kill me if I ever disrespect a lady.” They entered the living room where Marsh leaned towards a dark blue chair. He helped her to sit down.
“Well, if she knew what a well-mannered boy you are, I’m sure she would be so proud to have a son like you.”
His heart quivered a little to Marsh’s words. But it was one that he did not mind. He took her words gratefully and with a sad smile, he told her, “Thank you, that…that means a lot to me.”
“Of course, dear! And thank you for helping me get back on my chair. I certainly don’t recall having left it, but from the looks of those grey clouds outside, I wouldn’t want to be out there any longer than I should. Which reminds me, would you like to have some hot tea, sweetheart?”
Michael only smiled nervously, already expecting Marsh’s motherly gestures. Whoever her daughter was, she must be so constantly spoiled by her love. “I shouldn’t. I wouldn’t want to trouble you—"
“Nonsense! I even have some cookies in the back for you to munch on. Just make yourself at home, dear, I will get it for you right away!”
“Mrs. Marsh, really, there’s no—” Marsh already stood up from her chair with a sigh, and headed to the kitchen, insisting that she prepare him a nice tea and a plate of cookies. Michael abandoned the idea of stopping her after he was left alone in her living room.
He cast a glance around the place and decided he stayed where he was. If his mother was alive, the last thing she’d expect him to do was to snoop around someone’s house without shame, regardless if Marsh had told him to ‘make himself at home’. He would simply not do it. It would be rude.
The grandfather clock in the corner ticked loudly. A small fire crackled in the fireplace to fill in the silence. His eyes droned to the framed pictures above the mantel.
“Psst! Michael!” His bag shook again. Startled and guilty for having forgotten, Michael opened his bag and saw Willy stare back at him, albeit uneasy. “What is going on here? Why are we still in this lady’s house?”
“It’s Mrs. Marsh. She offered me tea.”
“Mrs. Marsh?”
“Yes, a neighbor of mine.”
“Is she dangerous?”
Rumors say that she ate her husband. “No,” Michael told Willy. “She’s a sweet person. And by that, I mean genuinely sweet.”
“Hmm. I suppose I could take your word for it.” Willy hummed, unconvinced in the slightest. “Though, I have to say, I do feel she is soulless.”
He snorted. “That is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever—”
“Michael, dear, would you like some sugar in your tea—?” Michael let out a surprised cry as he turned back around to face the kitchen door. Marsh was looking at him with that worried look again. She set down the tray of cups and cookies, her brows furrowed. “Are you quite alright? Is it too cold here? Oh, I could easily help with that by mending the fire if—”
“No, no! You’ve done more than enough. Really, everything is fine.” Michael quickly stopped her when she turned towards the fireplace.
At that, Marsh’s kind smile returned, warming the place with her presence better than the fire did. He truly appreciated that she cared so much for his well-being despite having seen him barely every week.
“Very well. Now come, have a seat and help yourself with the cookies! My daughter and I baked them just yesterday, so do tell me what you think.” She gave him a wink. Michael couldn’t help but smile at her generosity, eventually caving in at her request.
The cookies were amazing.
“It’s really good!” he said, finishing it after another bite. “You and your daughter baked this, you said?”
“Why, yes! She was in a rather awful mood these last couple of days, you see. And as a mother, it just breaks my heart to see my baby in such a state. Oh, do you know her by chance? I notice you share the same school uniform.”
“Really?” Though, it shouldn’t be a surprise, given they lived in the same large neighborhood with the same distance to the nearest school in the city.
Marsh hummed brightly, nodding her head. “Yes, that’s right, dearest! I recognize my Ara’s uniform well even if she hides it under that yellow jacket of hers.”
Michael nearly choked, his blood turning cold.
“…Ara?”
Then as if on cue, thunder boomed outside as the front door swung open. And the girl he was so dreadfully afraid of stepped into the living room with the same yellow jacket he’d seen on her many times before.
How did he not know it sooner—no, how in the world did it take him this long to realize the connection?
He was a fool.
“Ma, I got you your medication from the store,” Arabel said, shedding her jacket and hanging it on the rack. “I think another terrible storm is coming soon. We should probably lock all the windows in case it…” Her gaze landed sharply on him.
Shit.
“Ma,” Arabel terrifyingly slowly said to her mother, “what is he doing here?” Michael gulped and did not take his eyes off the girl, lest she kill him the second he blinked.
“Oh, Ara, good you are home! I was becoming worried!” Marsh stood up from her chair and went straight for an embrace, to which surprisingly, a cold-hearted girl like Arabel was capable of reciprocating. “Did anything happen to you? Was there any trouble getting to the store? Oh, I really shouldn’t be letting you go out on your own for my sake,” Marsh said as she smoothed out the hair on Arabel’s head.
Arabel gave her a tight smile and leaned away after a few seconds of Marsh’s over-the-top affection. “Ma, I told you, it’s fine. You need the rest, and I could use the exercise.” Then her attention returned to him. “Now can you please tell me what he is doing here? And why is he sitting on our couch? ” she asked her mother, her voice calm, though there was a certain undertone he did not miss.
Michael had to gulp again.
“Oh, I offered Michael a cup of tea and some of the cookies we made the night before. Sweet boy helped me get on my feet while I was outside. You must know him from school, don’t you, Ara?”
Arabel’s smile twitched. “Of course, I do, Ma. He’s one of my friends.” Then her eyes snapped to him, and her smile became too sweet. Too threatening.
“Tell her, Michael,” she said, nodding to Marsh.
Marsh looked to him expectantly, her joy much too loud for him to shatter with the truth. Which was Arabel’s ‘friends list’ had been zero since the day he met her in school, due to her unrestrained crudeness and standoffish behavior towards anyone who tried to approach her. And with the way she was silently giving him the warning under that sharp stare of hers, Michael knew he wasn’t about to be on the list either.
But he knew which list of hers he’d be in if he were to piss her off.
“We’re…friends, yes.” Michael wanted to bury himself. “Funny coincidence, I-I didn’t realize that… Arabel was your daughter, Mrs. Marsh.”
“Yes. So funny,” Arabel said, still smiling, then to her mother. “Ma, would you mind if I have a quick chat with him in the kitchen? I need to discuss with him a school project our teacher assigned to us. I’ll bring along your medication once I’m done.”
Marsh placed a gentle hand over Arabel’s head and nodded with a loving smile. “Of course, my sweet girl. I’ll be here in the living room if you kids need anything.”
Arabel leaned against her touch only for a moment before she turned back to him with a less than friendly smile.
“Michael. Could you come with me, please?” she said so sweetly. So unlike the tone of the girl who slammed Jimmy’s hand with her locker and left him with a nearly broken hand.
“R-Right.” Michael held his bag closer and reluctantly followed her into the kitchen, leaving the comfort of Marsh’s presence and straight into her daughter’s hostility. A part of him wondered if Willy could sense an impending doom. He touched the jar through the thin fabric of his bag and felt better when there was warmth.
At least, he was not alone walking into the Devil’s lair.
Once in the kitchen and away from Marsh, Arabel dropped her sweet girl façade and wore her signature glare. He prepared himself for the worst.
“What are you doing here?”
“…Huh?” The calm question caught him off guard.
Arabel crossed her arms and leaned against the table, frowning but patient. “Are you stupid and deaf? I asked you what you’re doing here. In my house—with my mother.”
“I…I saw her out in your yard,” Michael said after a while.
“And?”
He gulped. “She was crying there. Everybody else was watching and then it started to rain, so I…I helped her get back inside.”
“You just decided to help a crying old woman out of the pure kindness of your heart? Is that right?”
“…Yes?” Michael hesitated and perhaps that was his mistake.
Arabel’s eyes only narrowed in further contempt, silent but in a terrifying way.
When she continued to bore holes into him with her glare, Michael cleared his throat and asked, “Wh-why…why did you tell Mrs. Marsh I’m your friend?”
She raised a brow. “Does it bother you?”
“No, no! Of course not, I’m only wondering since you…I mean, you don’t exactly…you’re not—”
“Desperate to make friends at every turn like you? No. I’m not.”
“But…why not?”
Arabel looked him up and down. “They’re inconvenient,” she told him wryly. “But I hate to worry someone who is ill, and my mother thinks you’re a sweet boy who knows me from school and is friends with me. She even thinks I’m well off around others too—despite how dumb all of them are. Not to mention, how deep the root of their ugliness is.”
His mind immediately thought of Jimmy and his friends; the neighbors who had laughed at others’ misfortune; his own father.
“Yeah. You’re right,” Michael agreed.
“I know I am,” Arabel deadpanned. “Which is why I have to know what you want.”
“I, uh,—?”
“No one in this awful city would willingly help anyone, much less a stranger, unless they’re expecting something in return. I know people like you think they’re so good. Hell, you’re even capable of making others believe you’re so generous for helping out an old woman in need when no one else would; but I also know people like you take the most advantage to get what you want.” She sneered at him. “So what is it this time? You wanted to see if the rumors were true? Trying to find my father’s half-eaten dead body in one of these rooms?”
“Wh-what? No! I would never—”
“Then what? You wanted to see if the Crazy Hat Lady dabbled in witchcraft? Find any evidence you can that supports it and spread your pathetic rumors all around? I bet everyone would love to hear it.”
“Arabel, I swear I didn’t help because of that!” Michael was horrified she thought of him as one of those gossipers. “I’ve known your mother since I moved here and I never, not once, spread a rumor about her. O-or about your family. I’ve never even called her what the other kids are calling her; it’s just…just awful…” Michael’s words died slowly when Arabel advanced three steps towards him until he was backed against the counter. Her glare had shifted into something worse; Michael didn’t even know if that was possible.
She reached for the cup behind him and turned to the sink.
Beads of perspiration were on his head. Anxiety clouded his mind even as she was filling the cup with tap water.
“Even if you’re telling the truth right now, there’s no guarantee of what you’ll tell in the future. Everyone changes their mind. I’ve seen it happen too many times to count.” Arabel turned the faucet, stopping the water. She held the cup firmly with one hand and in the other two white pills she must’ve taken out before he stepped into the kitchen with her. Then she turned around to meet him. “I don’t care if you say you’re not like them, Michael; I don’t care if you swear on every God you aren’t here to snoop around or make trouble. You can spit your explanations all you want. But if I see you near my mother ever again, let alone step a foot into our front yard, then you best believe I’ll do something worse to you than what I did to Jimmy’s hand. Do you understand me?”
Something wriggled inside his bag. He shut the zip in haste before a certain angry blob could reveal itself.
“I understand,” Michael said, gulping and pressing his bag against his side to stop it from shaking more.
“Good. Now I want you to go back to the living room, and I want you to tell my mother you have to leave.” Arabel gestured to the door. “Don’t bother bringing up our conversation. She won’t believe you even if you tried.”
At that, Michael lowered his head and nodded. Then he and Arabel left the kitchen together.
Arabel walked behind him as though to guard his movements, her threats still ringing in his ears.
If I see you near my mother ever again, let alone step a foot into our front yard, then you best believe I’ll do something worse to you than what I did to Jimmy’s hand.
He shuddered. But any signs of his prior fear must be suppressed lest Marsh caught on, so against his own wishes, Michael forced his lips to stretch into a smile.
“Hey, Mrs. Marsh, I’m so sorry but I just noticed the time—and I think it’s best that I get going now,” he told the older woman.
Marsh’s face faltered a little. “Of course, but…my dear it’s pouring out there. You’ll be soaked to the bone by the time you reach home. Wouldn’t it be better if you waited it out here instead? You haven’t even finished your tea either!”
Arabel’s elbow hit him right at his spine. He bit his tongue.
“I-I would love to, but…” Michael gave a side glance to a smiling Arabel, not too thrilled at how easily she was fooling her own mother. “I really have to reach home before four. My father, he…he worries too much, like me,” he lied. “Besides, with the storm that’s coming our way, I’m sure it would worry him even more if I still am not home.”
“Oh. Then perhaps I could ring your house and let him know—?”
“Ma, please. I’m sure Michael doesn’t want you to call his father, right?” Arabel interjected with a forced laugh.
For once , he genuinely agreed with her.
“That’s right. I really wouldn’t want to make any hassle for him. In fact, it—it actually doesn’t even look that bad outside yet. The rain, I mean.”
“Oh, you kids, fine. I can tell when I’m being ganged up on,” Marsh finally let up, shaking her head with an amused look. “But Michael, if you insist on getting home immediately, please take this with you.” She took an umbrella from the bucket and pushed it into his hands. “To ease my mind, at least,” she added with a wink.
“Th-thank you. For this and the…the tea and cookies.” Michael accepted the umbrella, smiling back at her. Then he headed to the front door.
“Ara, don’t you want to say goodbye to your friend?” He heard Marsh whisper behind him.
Arabel let out an innocent hum and called out his name. “Have a safe trip home! And remember the assignment!”
The Assignment; the threat.
Michael gulped for the last time.
He bid the Marsh family farewell and closed the door behind him, his borrowed umbrella ready before he stepped out into the rain and went home.
Notes:
Off to a rocky start, these two. But not for long if you know what I mean ;)
Also Arabel's mom is everybody's mom.
Thanks for reading!
Chapter 75: Splish Splash
Chapter Text
“What on Earth am I going to do?” Michael paced around his room in the middle of the night, rubbing circles into the side of his head. “She’s going to kill me. She’ll hunt me down, break my arms and legs, then make me an even easier target. No. I can’t go out like this. I’m too young. I haven’t even lived my life yet.”
Willy hummed, its gaze following his movements around the place. He neared the edge of the table. “Is this because you still haven’t returned the umbrella to her house after her threat?”
Michael let out a mirthless laugh. “Don’t even remind me, Willy,” he said. “Don’t even.”
“Michael, it has been over four days. You run past her house every time we walk home.” He continued his pacing. “Do you know what I would do?”
Finally he stopped. Michael turned sharply towards the blob, intrigued. “You’re not suggesting it, are you?”
Willy looked up at him brightly, nodding. “Exactly what I’m thinking.”
“That we break in and leave the umbrella—?”
“We just simply threaten her back—”
Both fell silent. Then both disagreed fervently with each other’s ideas.
“No! Threatening Arabel is not an option!”
“And breaking into her house is?”
“Willy, you don’t understand,” Michael knelt in front of the table, so they were looking eye-to-eye. “Arabel is the spawn of the Devil. And that Devil is not Mrs. Marsh. She can make Jimmy’s hand injury look like child’s play!”
“Then we only need to up our game! Make her think twice about coming after you,” Willy replied enthusiastically. “I can help you, you know. I’ve already cooked up a few lines in mind.”
“When did you even do that, and why? ”
“Do you think it’s fun having to stay in that jar and only be capable of eavesdropping when a conversation takes place? Most times it is, but other times, I wanted to put those meanies back in their place! They do not have the right to treat you so badly and get away with it! As for why—” Willy scoffed to the side and grumbled under its breath.
“As for why…?” Michael quirked a brow.
“You always tolerate them!” Willy snapped. If it had a body, Michael was sure Willy would be stomping its feet like a child throwing a fit. “For example, Arabel’s threat.”
“What do you mean?” Michael asked, taken aback.
“You zipped your bag.”
“Because you were about to show yourself! I didn’t want you to make a scene and scare her!”
“But wouldn’t that have helped? She would be terrified to even approach you!”
“Yes, exactly!”
“Michael.” Willy gave him a deadpanned look.
Michael sighed, looking away. For a creature with one eye, Willy sure could use it well to read him like a book.
“Then, what, you really want me to…threaten Arabel?” Michael asked sheepishly, rubbing circles on his arm, feeling a lasting ache in his skin.
“I won’t force you. But I do believe it is good if you showed her who is the one in charge. Make her understand no threat can deter you from doing what you want! She isn’t the boss of you. Tell me, who is the boss of you?”
“…You?”
“No—you, silly-nilly!” Willy corrected as though frustrated. “If she sees just how stern you are, I’m sure she would think twice before threatening you again. Besides, there is an upside. If Arabel is afraid of you, then Jimmy would be too.”
“Huh. You know, that would kill two birds with one stone.”
“Aha! Aren’t I the smartest—?”
“But it would create another problem for me,” Michael said with narrowed eyes. “Namely, I would be even more of an outcast than I was before.”
At that, Willy sagged a little, its gaze down in thought.
“Threatening Arabel is not an option,” Michael repeated.
“Then how else do you plan to return her mother’s umbrella without stepping foot in her yard, let alone without seeing the said mother?”
Michael had no clue. And after he had paced and talked with Willy for an hour, he was sure no answer would come to him no matter how long he stayed up.
“I’ll figure something out.” He switched off the lights to his bedroom and climbed on his bed, hiding underneath the covers. It wasn’t long before he heard something shuffling by his nightstand, then Willy’s whisper-yelling.
“Are you sure you don’t want my help?” Michael pulled the sheets off his face to look at the blob, moonlight shining through his window and bouncing off Willy. “If you’re not up for threatening, I can suggest something else. Something that has nothing to do with scaring anyone.”
He felt his brows rise slowly.
“What is it?”
That question was what led him to standing in front of Arabel’s front door the next day with a finger hovering above the doorbell. He had his bag slung over his shoulder and Marsh’s umbrella clutched tightly in one hand. His nerves were all over the place by the time he actually rang the front door. The anticipation of waiting for the door to open, the rushed glances towards the street for a certain girl in the yellow jacket, the suspicious glares of any lingering neighbors—none of it helped to quelch the anxiety spreading in his chest and the horribly imagined scenarios within his troubled mind.
Why on Earth did he agree to Willy’s idea? Even better, why did he actually go through with it?
Michael unconsciously pressed his bag to his side, feeling even the slightest of relief when he felt the jar move inside it.
He didn’t zip his bag per Willy’s request, though he did hope nothing would go wrong for the blob to take action, regardless of what it had promised him the day before. Willy had also promised him this was the best plan, second to threatening Arabel. He could only hope she didn’t see him bolt past her and notice him going straight to her own house before she reached it. There was no room for errors; not in any chance was Arabel to catch on.
“Why is she taking so long?” Michael muttered through his teeth, once more shooting wary glances at the street behind him. Arabel was not in sight yet.
The jar shifted in his bag, and without looking down, he could see the blob peeking through the gap of the opening.
“Stay calm, friend,” Willy told him in hush whispers. “The key to success is to always remain cool.”
“I’ve been living the life of an outcast since I was seven. I am not, in any way, cool.”
“All inside your head. I can assure you that you are the coolest pal I’ve ever met.”
“That’s because I am the only pal you’ve ever met—”
“Shush, you! Now listen to me. I’ve managed to give a short glance towards the soulless girl before we left school, and she doesn’t seem like she’s in any rush to get home. I bet she’ll even take her sweet time. So as long as you make the exchange quick and dismiss any treats her mother may offer you, Michael, you will get out of here without Arabel ever knowing you set foot in her yard again.” Michael nodded with a puff of sigh. “That or her mother rats you out and you’ll be hunted down the next day.”
His eyes widened back in dread. “Willy!”
“Which is fine. I promise you, I have a plan for that too. But for now, all you have to do is focus on keeping those nerves of yours as calm as mine. Do not panic like a fool and— oh sweet eldest of Eyes, she’s here! Hide!”
Michael quickly jumped down the steps and ducked behind the bushes on the side of the house. Not a second later, a small figure in a yellow jacket came approaching the house with a sour look. The front door opened in time to greet her. He dared a peek and listened as Marsh’s confused voice was reciprocated with Arabel’s sigh of irritation. They were talking about someone ringing the door. Not good. He was pretty much dead if Arabel found out who it had actually been, and not just some random kid who decided to mess with Crazy Hat Lady for fun.
He waited and listened for their movements, their fading voices as both of them retreated into the walls of their home.
“Damn it,” Michael cursed under his breath, dropping the umbrella to the grass in frustration. At his side, Willy perked up from the small gap of his bag. “I missed my chance.”
“We can…try again tomorrow,” Willy said apologetically.
Then the front door opened again, followed by Arabel’s voice shouting over her shoulder: “I’ll be back in an hour or two.” Michael dived back behind the bushes when he saw Arabel climb down the steps. Surprised, he shot a look at Willy. Willy returned the same knowing expression.
Perhaps there wouldn’t need to be an attempt tomorrow after all.
As soon as Arabel was out of sight, going in a different direction heading down the street, Michael breathed out a huge sigh of relief. He held the umbrella firmly in one hand and adjusted the strap of his bag on his shoulder.
“Okay,” Michael inhaled another breath of air, “let’s do this.”
“Let’s do this!” Willy echoed, determined than nervous like him. He wished he had half of the confidence the small blob possessed.
Michael left his hiding place and climbed back up on the porch, but not before giving the street one last glance in case Arabel decided to come back so suddenly. Perhaps she’d changed her mind. Maybe whatever she was doing that meant to be an hour became a few minutes. He could easily collapse then and there with the amount of awfully imagined what-ifs running through his brain, forcing him to believe one of them would come true.
He raised a hand to ring the doorbell again, hopefully this time, without needing to leave the steps.
The door opened before his finger pressed on the button, and there stood Marsh in the doorway with a yellow jacket hanging in her hand.
“Michael? Oh, such a sweet surprise! What are you doing here, sweetheart?” Marsh asked, her lips forming into her signature motherly smile. Michael instantly reciprocated it with a tight smile of his own, stammering for an explanation.
The umbrella. Say you’re returning the umbrella, you fool, his thoughts said to him.
“I…uh, hi.”
Somewhere in his bag, he could imagine Willy closing its eye slowly and sighing while listening to him.
“Were you looking for Ara?” Marsh helped when only silence prolonged between them. “If you were, I’m afraid you just missed her.”
“Oh, that’s…that’s okay, Mrs. Marsh,” Michael said, clearing his throat. He held up the umbrella to her. “I was actually here to return your umbrella.”
“The umbrella? Why, you didn’t need to! Keep it; it’s yours if you want it.”
“Thank you, but…but I really shouldn’t.” He lifted the umbrella higher, smiling softly. “Besides, my mother owned too many in our house. Adding more to the collection would just eat more space. Please, take it.”
Marsh pursed her lips, sympathy in her eyes. “Very well then, Michael. Thank you kindly,” she said without any more objections. “Would you like to come in? You came all the way here, you must be thirsty or hungry, yes?”
His eyes widened slightly, suddenly Arabel’s threat ringing loud and clear in his head.
“No, thank you. I have some…assignments to do at home.”
“Oh, I see.” If Marsh was disappointed she didn’t show it. “Then I shouldn’t be keeping you for long anymore. Feel free to come inside next time if you ever need to discuss work with Ara. I’m sure she wouldn’t mind it in the slightest.”
I’m sure she really minds it a lot. “I’ll remember that,” Michael said anyway with a nervous laugh.
“I suppose you should head home then. Get started on those assignments that have my Ara stressed and—oh, good Heavens.” Marsh looked down, frowning at the yellow jacket in her hand. Arabel’s yellow jacket. “Oh, my goodness, it nearly slipped my mind why I came to the door in the first place!” She laughed to herself and apologized. “Michael, would you pass her jacket to her for me? She’s at the Pale Pond; it’s on the way to your house if I’m not mistaken.”
“Uh…”
“If it’s no trouble for you, of course!” Marsh added hastily. “It’s just that…it’s quite cold around there and I worry Ara catches a cold. She was angry just now after learning some of the children had decided to play a prank on the doorbell; she must’ve forgotten to bring her jacket with her on the way out—as I’m sure you know her and her busy mind too. Would you help me, dear? Make sure she’s alright?”
Marsh flashed him a hopeful look, her eyes wide but gentle. Michael was certain, then and there, he was being sent to an early death. How could he say no when she had asked him so kindly? Despite her daughter being Arabel of all people, how could he refuse this simple request from one of the sweetest women in the neighborhood, if not the entire city?
The moment he took the jacket in his grasp, his fate was sealed. Marsh’s lips quirked into a toothy smile, albeit its warmth did little to help him alleviate his reluctance and dismay.
“Thank you so much, Michael,” Marsh said, clasping her hands together. “You are such a kind young man.”
He gulped subtly. “It’s no problem. I’ll just…take my leave now. Goodbye.” When he turned just to climb down the first step, he heard Marsh’s voice calling his name and felt a gentle hand placed on his shoulder.
“Before you go, could I…ask you one more favor?” This time, he noticed there was something else in her eyes. Something that made Michael’s face fall as her smile weakened into a thin line and her brows furrowed deeply.
“What is it, Mrs. Marsh?” he asked her.
“My Ara,” Marsh started. “I know she isn’t one to open up to other people, no matter how much she tries to act as if she is. She’s a little harsh. Often blunt too. It’s entirely likely it’s the reason why she is seen alone most times and says she prefers it.”
His eyes couldn’t help but widen. “S-so…you knew?”
“I know my daughter,” Marsh said, smiling at him. “And I know she doesn’t like to admit the truth when I am around so as to not worry me. But as her mother, I am always worried about her. It’s not something I can shake off so easily. Which is why, more than anything…I hope you’ll stay as her friend.”
“What—?” Michael winced when his surprise was a bit too loud. He cleared his throat and said softer, “What…do you mean?”
“Stay with her. Keep her company. Become good friends. Arabel is a sweet girl—”
“Mrs. Marsh—”
“And I promise you, she is,” Marsh told him, something akin to exhaustion and desperation laced to her voice. “She’s put on a mask long enough, and…and I believe you are the only one I trust to help her take it off permanently. You are the only one I believe who is genuine to her. You are kind, Michael. And my Ara…she could use a friend like you in her life—someone good.”
For the second time, he was stunned into silence. The yellow jacket in his hands creased slightly under his fingers, his mind drawing multiple reasons and excuses to refuse Marsh’s second request. But the longer he pondered on her front step—feeling her desperation through her gaze burning into him as she waited for his answer—the harder he found himself to disagree again.
Arabel was not at all nice . Not to him, and not to anyone aside from her own mother. He doubted he could make her his friend if he couldn’t even convince all of the school.
“Mrs. Marsh, I…” He saw the same look on her face, unfaltering and wishful.
It made his heart wilt when that same hope in her eyes came to fade at his long silence.
He sighed through his nose.
“I’ll try my best.”
That was all Marsh needed to hear. The older woman barely spared him a second before she pulled him into a tight embrace, one that was similar to the hug she’d given her daughter four days ago. Michael swallowed the lump in his throat when certain emotions rushed through him like a wave. He wrapped his arms around her back with a wistful smile.
“We’ll keep this a secret between us,” Marsh said after a while, pulling away to look at him. She offered out a hand. “Deal?”
Michael stared at it for a few seconds more before shaking it firmly. “Deal.”
The Pale Pond was often a place where few liked to linger, if not nobody. Its name was inspired by the sheer darkness of the water of the pond, and how the greens of the leaves seemed to be colorless in certain proximity to the small body water. The air around it was also much colder, nearly freezing, compared to the chilly breeze in the city’s neighborhoods or in the center of it all. It was reasonable why overtime the pond had fewer and fewer visits in the last decade.
Michael remembered the first and last time he’d been here, following the trail that was barely visible anymore due to time. He remembered having walked past a certain funny looking tree that now loomed higher in the sky, its long and thick roots spreading above the dirt ground like a camouflage of five snakes. But most of all, he remembered the large stone sitting a few feet away from the edge of the water. Spots of grime on it had easily been washed away from the rain but the stains made by past citizens remained in either a form of crude words or messy artwork. They were all spray-painted; vandalized. Supposedly not even nature was excused from the worst of the people.
He stopped in his tracks when he heard the soft splash of water in the distance, then followed by a softer sigh. Marsh had been right after all when she’d told him Arabel was here, though he had been hoping the girl wouldn’t still be. Michael’s grip on her jacket tightened at his side. Seeing her without her warning of a yellow jacket somehow made it more terrifying to come close. As if without it, there was no chance of knowing the girl had a heart of stone, and the personality of a ruthless demon.
Arabel threw another small rock into the pond, and he quickly ducked behind a tree.
He couldn’t do this. He couldn’t bear to meet her wrath once she saw him literally holding her precious jacket like it was nothing.
His bag shifted.
“You know, Michael. I still don’t understand why you agreed to this.” Willy peeked up from his bag, hanging half of its body on the edge of the lid of the jar. “You could’ve said no.”
“I know, I know, but I just—” He inhaled a sharp, albeit silent breath. “I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t bear to see the disappointment in Mrs. Marsh’s face. She really wants me to befriend her daughter.”
“Which begs the question. Do you even want to?”
“I don’t think that’s important—”
Willy gasped. “You do! You want to be her friend!”
“Keep it down!”
“Please, I am speaking in a volume only moths could hear. I cannot believe after everything you told me, you’re willing to go out of your way and be friends with the soulless girl! What happened to her being the spawn of the Devil?”
“First of all, I am not going out of my way to be friends with her. I’m only returning her jacket and making nice for Mrs. Marsh,” Michael said with a frown. “And second of all…I stand by with what I said about that last part.” He snuck a peek at the pond. Arabel had stopped throwing rocks, and instead, looked down to the water with a downcast face. Marsh’s words echoed back to him as he watched her stare into her reflection so intently.
She isn’t one to open up to other people easily, no matter how much she tries to act as if she is.
Michael felt a weird, stabbing feeling in his chest. Something about her sitting dejectedly by herself, without the presence or gaze from others around, completely off guard and open…
It made him notice just how lonely Arabel actually was.
Regardless if she’d told him it was a choice , there was no denying nobody truly liked the feeling of loneliness. Not after too long. And if Marsh could already see it through her face despite Arabel’s efforts to keep it hidden, she must’ve been feeling this way for much longer.
Like him.
Michael glanced at the yellow jacket in his hand, and then back to the pond. He took another sharp breath in hopes to gather his courage and throw away his doubts before stepping out from behind the tree and approaching her quietly. Though his plan to go about this with subtleness ended spectacularly fast when a stick snapped under his foot. He cursed on the inside.
Arabel startled upright and whipped her head behind her, but her movements had been so sudden that her balance was thrown off; and she tripped backwards into the pond.
Only then did Michael curse out loud.
“Arabel!” He ditched the jacket and his bag to the ground before running straight into the pond.
The moment his body was underwater, the cold seeped into his bones and stayed there. It occurred to him he didn’t know how to swim. Hell, he barely knew how to stay afloat at all, and yet the thought of Arabel—anyone—drowning in this freezing pond scared him. He wasn’t about to let any dead body sink into the bottom without anyone the wiser, regardless how easily it could also include him under the circumstance.
So in his own fit of desperation, Michael thrashed until he found a thin arm and held her wrist in a death grip. He pulled her close as his hand clawed at the wet dirt of the edge, pushing Arabel and supporting her up first before he climbed up from the water too.
It all happened in a flash that the adrenaline made the cold less intense than it was. And the hand that connected to his cheek in a sharp movement, only an aching sting.
Michael’s head remained looking at the side, his eyes wide and his face burned. It was when he realized what had happened, and processed the entire thing properly, that he finally turned back to meet Arabel’s terrifying scowl.
Like him, she was drenched from head to toe. Her hair stuck to her skin as with her clothes and if it wasn’t for the weather at Pale Pond, he would’ve mistaken her shivering from the cold.
“Idiot! What were you thinking?” Arabel spat, throwing some of the dirt his way.
Michael gulped with a blank mind as he flinched away, nonetheless he was rooted on the ground.
“You…you fell into the water,” he eventually settled on. “I didn’t want you to d-drown.”
This time it was her who fell into silence. The cold suddenly made her cheeks seem redder.
“W-well, I knew how to swim. I didn’t need you to come saving me like a stupid hero. I didn’t…I don’t need anyone.” She huffed out angrily as she gave him a harsh shove to the ground. Surprised yet again, he saw her stomp away from him all the while grumbling under her breath, “creepy stalker.”
Then he remembered what he was here for.
“Arabel, wait!” Michael reached for the jacket and went after her.
Arabel stopped with her back to him. When she turned around, there was no anger in her eyes. Only pure shock. Michael found it all the more terrifying.
“How do you have my….?” Arabel trailed off with a shuddering breath, looking between him and the yellow jacket in his hand. She didn’t move to even take it.
He didn’t want to piss her off anymore than he already had. So before her ire could return on her face, even worse a realization that he’d gone against her warning by visiting her house, Michael swiftly swung the jacket around Arabel’s lithe frame and let it rest over her shoulders. To his surprise, Arabel did nothing but watch with the same emotion she wore: shock and mortification.
Michael didn’t linger in front of her despite her being frozen, lest she decided to become violent and punch him on the other side of his face. He also figured his days were numbered enough after the whole encounter; Michael gathered his things quickly without sparing a look back.
Arabel still hadn’t moved once he was done. Instead, she stared at him with slightly parted lips, her eyes wider and brows more furrowed.
Why is she still not moving? His mind raced with scenarios that ended badly for him.
“Okay. I-I’m going to go now,” Michael said as a few more seconds passed. Arabel continued to stare. He swallowed hard. “Listen, I’m…sorry for getting you out of the pond. Seriously. If I’d known you could swim, I wouldn’t have—wait, no, that sounds horrible. What I meant to say is I would’ve left you be. Okay, sorry, that’s worse. I’m apologizing too much, aren’t I? Sorry—ha, I mean, no. You do you. You’re tough and it’s admirable. Please don’t kill me. I went to your house to return your mother’s umbrella. It’s just that it’s been four days, and I didn’t want her to think I was stealing it or something. Besides, I swear I didn’t go there with any other intent; I would never go against your warning if—” Something solid hit him in his side, stopping his rambling turned confession.
He made a mental note to thank Willy later.
“I’m just…I’m just going to go home. G-Goodbye!” He quickly side-stepped her and sped to the trail leading back to the neighborhood.
Reluctant to wait and understand the red in her cheeks, Michael didn’t look back to see the girl he’d left standing in the cold, lest he received the wrath of the Devil’s spawn should he have stayed a second longer.
Notes:
At this point the Eye is pretty chill. Our girl aint, tho.
Thanks for reading!
Chapter 76: Soulless Girl
Chapter Text
The next few days Michael avoided Arabel like the plague. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to remember a rather mortifying experience created from his stupid actions—like being the reason the girl fell into a freezing pond, saving her without her permission, then draping her jacket on her as if they were buddies only to leave her behind like a coward. It was because he knew Arabel was on to him. Giving him these emotionless, unreadable glares. Staring at him much longer when she thought he wasn’t aware. Scheming on the perfect revenge and punishment with that uncanny mind of hers.
And so, for days, he fell into a new routine:
Speed run to school, avoid Arabel, go to class, avoid Arabel, head to recess, avoid Arabel, then finally go home all the while never forgetting to do one last and crucial thing— avoiding Arabel.
Willy had been his mental support throughout these challenging days. Though the blob creature found it a little amusing for the great lengths he went whenever he spotted a yellow jacket, even teasing him like a little brother whose sole purpose was to embarrass him further, Michael appreciated having it by his side for almost everything. Especially as he locked eyes with the same girl he’d been avoiding for the fourth time today.
Michael ducked behind his locker before he could even see her mouth, “I’m going to murder you”. Or at least that was what he imagined in his agitated mind. He dared not even linger in the hallway longer than he’d been accustomed to throughout Jimmy’s absence.
He slammed the door of the locker and headed straight to the outer gates of the school, never looking back regardless how impeccably efficient Arabel’s gaze was at burning holes into the back of his head.
A shudder left him once the school was out of sight; and all that greeted him now was Pale City at its busy hour. Laughter and indistinct conversations from passersby, along with the shouts and honking from angry drivers in the street overlapped with one another into an indistinct background noise Michael had long grown used to. He felt his bag shake and Willy discreetly peeked through.
“You okay there, friend?” The city’s loudness was convenient for it to speak without having to whisper. Michael sighed through his nose, nodding his head.
“I’m fine. More than fine, even. I’m great. Fantastically great.”
“Lying is not your best talent, I see?”
“She is not letting up, Willy! And I don’t know what else I can do to make her stop staring at me like I egged her front door!” Michael chewed on the inside of his cheek, dreading the day Arabel finally succeeded at hunting him down. “It wasn’t even that bad, was it? It’s not like I pushed her into that pond. She fell! All I did was get her out of there and return her jacket— as per her mother’s request anyway —so I really don’t understand what I did wrong. She shouldn’t even be that angry with me. By right she shouldn’t be, but then again let’s face it, this is Arabel we’re talking about. Everything right she sees wrong, and everything wrong she sees right.
“There’s no trying to convince her either, because apparently no one is good in her eyes. How on Earth do I even befriend her? It’s impossible. No, I don’t think I can even make her want to be friends with me. Because something is not right with me. That’s it, isn’t it? That’s why I’m—”
“Michael, you silly goose, calm down. Take a deep breath.” Michael stopped and did as Willy said. “Are you alright now?”
“…Yes. I think.”
“Good,” Willy said, beaming at him before leaning under his arm lazily. “Now, let’s go back to this problem of yours. You’re afraid of what Arabel might do to you once you’ve run out of ways to avoid her, right?”
“Afraid is an understatement,” he muttered to the side. Willy heard it, nonetheless.
“Right, so, what if I told you I have just the plan to fix this?”
His eyes narrowed a little. “You’re not about to suggest I…threaten her again, are you?”
“Dear me, of course not!” The blob creature made a dramatic gasp, as though down right offended by his words. “I was only about to suggest you have a nice, straight-forward talk with the soulless girl. Get it over and done with. That’s all.”
“You mean I…should just go up to her first? Before she comes to me?”
“Yes!”
“…How?”
“Well, this is the tricky part. You’ve been avoiding her for nearly a week, and as impressive as that is, you also need to work on how to perfect the art of confrontation, ha-ha! But don’t you worry, pal, I’ve got you covered. The only thing you need to do, Michael, is you have to—” Willy’s words were cut short when a pair of grubby hands snatched him into the back alley of the city. Suddenly everything turned quiet, the sun overhead barely seen in between the two buildings he currently stood in.
Three figures shifted in front of him.
Michael felt the wind knocked out of him as one of them released a harsh blow into his abdomen. He doubled over immediately, pain spreading just as fast.
Then he heard a familiar voice, angry and vengeful.
“How was vacation, Mono?” Jimmy.
Jimmy lifted him by his shirt with a bandaged arm, while the other raised above his head to deliver another hit.
Michael was punched to the floor, his bag taken and chucked into the dumpster behind him by Rob and Evan. Its heavy lid fell down with an echoing thud. Michael’s horror exacerbated. Willy was trapped within it, the subtle thumps from the inside of the dumpster mimicking the loud thumps in his rib cage. Neither of the bullies paid attention to the sound, rather their attention solely directed on him. Only when he began to panic to the dumpster—to save Willy —did Rob shove him back to the dirty ground, while Evan sent him a brutal kick to his face.
Michael rolled on his side, coughing. Something wet trickled down his nose until a drop of thick blood was on the floor beneath him. Shit, he barely could think before Jimmy forced him up to his feet and pushed him into the brick wall. The boy was ruthless as he had him by his shirt once more, locking him into place.
He had never seen him this violent before. Most of what Michael endured with the three bullies were either emotional taunts or forced isolation while they laughed at his misfortune, but not this.
What led Jimmy to be so aggressive?
“You didn’t answer my question. How was vacation? You know, while I was absent from school?” Michael’s mind could only focus on the forming bruises on his face.
A small part of him hoped Father wouldn’t be too bad of a state to deal with. There was only so much he could handle in a day.
“I-I don’t know what you’re talking about—”
“Bullshit,” Rob interjected. “You were hanging out with Arabel; we saw you, freak.”
“Even getting close to her, aren’t you? Carrying her jacket around and all?” Evan added with a sneer.
Michael gritted his teeth, both from Jimmy’s iron grip and annoyance at their implications. “I was—” He winced as his head throbbed. “I was passing it to her for her mother. We’re neighbors.”
“Oh, Mono, you’re not getting it.” A mean laugh erupted from Jimmy’s throat. “Neighbors or not, I don’t see a reason why a worthless loser like you should get to do such a task anyway. Do you realize how exactly low your level is compared to her? You’re as equal as the shit under my shoes.”
The thumps in the dumpster continued. Michael’s eyes darted back and forth. He needed to get Willy out of there before the creature got hurt.
“Y…you’re probably right, Jimmy.” Jimmy smirked. “But even as the shit under your shoes, my hand wasn’t the one Arabel closed her locker on.”
Michael stomped on Jimmy’s feet until the boy released him, screaming and holding his leg. Evan and Rob reacted in his stead. They attacked him one by one, with Evan aiming the side of his face only for Michael to dodge and shove him into his other friend. The two clumsily fell atop one another; Michael quickly ran towards the closed dumpster. Yet the tip of his fingers barely touched the edge of the lid before Rob sank his nails into his left ankle.
The cold ground slammed into his cheek without warning. His sight swayed as his ears rang, catching indistinct yelling from Jimmy and seeing three looming figures above him soon after. This time, Michael didn’t see the fist coming until it hit his jaw. He spat the blood to the ground and clenched his teeth.
Why couldn’t they ever leave him alone for once?
His vision returned to him just in time as Jimmy lifted him up again. Michael was exhausted and frankly wished Jimmy would deliver his last punch quickly so he could get Willy out of the dumpster and go home. Hell, he even prepared himself for it as he closed his eyes with a familiar acceptance of loss. Things never seemed to work out in his favor; he never would expect it to change any time soon, especially when he constantly hoped it would.
But the world he lived in operated in funny ways he could not fathom. As if getting dragged away and beaten up by Jimmy and his friends wasn’t bad already, the universe must feel it wasn’t enough for him that someone else had to join in.
Specifically, the same someone he’d been avoiding for nearly a week.
When Arabel stood at the end of the alley, her shadow tall on the ground in front of her, time froze as though under her command. All heads turned to the girl in the yellow jacket, including his own.
Suddenly the bruises and his aching joints didn’t seem to be as bad as compared to being in Arabel’s intimidating presence.
“What are you guys doing?” Arabel remained idle in her spot, hands in her pocket. And her face, the same terrifying glare Jimmy somehow wasn’t afraid of.
The corner of Jimmy’s lips tugged upwards as he shoved Michael behind and into his friends, turning his attention fully towards her. He even had the courage to swipe his own hair back, as if to make himself decent.
Michael was horrified. Arabel would eat the boy alive.
“I could ask you the same question,” Jimmy drawled.
“Just passing by.” She craned her neck slightly over the boy’s shoulder and met his eyes. Michael swore he could see the grim reaper behind her—at her beck and call. “Is this your idea of hanging out when you asked me last time?”
“Hah, o-of course not!” Jimmy laughed and cleared his throat. Then he followed her gaze, his smirk easily turned into a sneer. “I mean, definitely not. He’s just a nobody.”
“Nobody,” Arabel echoed. “You sure did a number on a nobody.”
“Listen, Arabel, if you wanted to hang out, I think we—"
“Pathetic.”
That silenced Jimmy effectively.
“W…what?” Jimmy uttered, chuckling nervously.
“I said it’s pathetic. Three over one and that’s the best you can do to him?”
“Oh?” Jimmy’s brows rose slowly, his lips curling into a wicked smile. Michael gaped and forgot to breathe. So this was Arabel’s revenge and punishment to him.
Jimmy walked two steps closer to Arabel until they were face to face.
“You think you can do better then?” he asked, teasing yet demeaning. “Go ahead. Prove it.”
For the first time since Arabel appeared, there was finally a change in her face.
A smile widened across her lips as though she’d tied a noose around his head.
“Gladly.”
Jimmy’s groan echoed through the alley immediately as Arabel’s knee thrusted into his crotch. The bigger boy held his part with both hands as he fell into a fetal position, whimpering and crying into the floor.
Arabel’s smile remained not long while she watched him writhing weakly. She glared down at him and tutted.
“What a pity. That wasn’t even my best move.” Michael only heard Jimmy’s angry growls of pain in return. Even so, the boy was too much in agony to even stand up, let alone fight back. Arabel huffed and stepped over him like he was nothing but a small, insignificant rock. Though, when she threw a glance at Michael again, he knew she was far from done.
Her glare immediately locked on the other two holding him.
“Would you both like to personally share the experience, or have I not made myself clear with the intention?”
From the corner of his eyes, he saw Evan’s throat bob.
“You think we’re scared of a small girl like you?” Rob spoke up beside him.
“I don’t know. Normally I never ask people like you. Preferred to see the tears on their broken faces to have my answer,” Arabel said casually.
Rob fell silent. Evan’s hold on his arm already loosened.
“B-bullshit. You’re just bluffing,” Evan added to Rob’s aid, albeit failing miserably when Arabel glared at him.
“If I am, then why the hell do you look like you’re about to shit your pants?” She took another step forward.
Evan flinched, releasing him right away, pushing him to the wet ground. Rob turned his scowl at his friend for his quick cowardice, nonetheless after a silent communication between them and a grumble of curses under his breath, the boy sighed through his nose.
“You’re lucky we don’t fight girls,” Rob spat. Then he nodded to Evan, beckoning him to follow.
Evan, relief poured all over his features, tailed behind him, albeit his eyes avoiding Arabel’s death stare.
“Before you go—” As he walked past her, Arabel snatched Rob’s arm and pulled him back, whispering into his ear. Something Michael couldn’t catch but knew was a powerful threat as the boy instantly stilled with a pale face. As though, in a matter of seconds, Evan’s earlier cowardice spread to him.
It put his false bravado to shame.
Rob shot a nervous look between him and Jimmy, his throat bobbing and his eyes blinking more than once at a time. Arabel’s hand still gripped his right arm like a sinking claw. But even so, she waited patiently beside him, staring into his soul for an answer to the question or statement she’d whispered between them only. Apparently it took no more than a few seconds until the boy finally nodded, either eager or desperate to be released from both Arabel’s sinking fingers and overwhelming glare. The latter was more plausible as Rob flinched away immediately after he was released, tripping on his next step foolishly. Evan followed behind him, fear upon his face; and after Arabel’s unknown threat, upon Rob’s too.
Then together they carried Jimmy off the dirty floor, the soft groans of their leader echoing one last time in the alley, soon fading into the city’s background noise with ease.
Michael released a bated breath.
As much as he was glad the surprise assault from the three boys was over, his guts begged him to remain high on alert. The nightmare was never finished as long as she was here.
There was a sense of impending doom every time he laid sight on the yellow jacket, a cold reminder that no matter what the threat he faced there was always a bigger one. He held his ribs and backed away on his rear like wounded prey while Arabel watched him the entire time, silent and calculative. Her face had become a softer glare, but a glare, nonetheless.
She approached him then with her hands in her pocket.
This is it. Michael squeezed his eyes shut and waited for her hand to strike him. This was the true revenge and punishment for having gone against her warning and avoiding her for almost a week.
He heard her steps halt in front of him. Then he heard the sound of shifting fabric.
Please make it quick.
“Oi.”
As nothing happened, Michael slowly opened his eyes one by one. A handkerchief hung between her fingers.
He stared at it; then to her and back to the square cloth.
“What? Never seen one before? Take it.”
Despite his uncertainty, he took the handkerchief from her when he heard the edge on her voice. His hands trembled a little. What was he supposed to do with this—no, what did she want him to do?
“Are you an idiot or something?” she asked, noticing his confusion.
“Uh…”
“So, idiot it is,” she said, sighing. Arabel knelt down and guided his wrist upwards and to his nose. And by guide, she practically had the handkerchief shoved into his face.
The surprise contact made it hurt worse.
“Why…why are you helping me?” He cringed hearing his own hoarse voice.
Arabel did not care to answer.
“Why were you at Pale Pond that day?” she asked instead, a thin layer of impatience in her tone. Michael knew he needed to be careful.
“To give you your jacket. Your…mother asked me to.”
“My mother asked you to,” she repeated monotonously, humming. “And you agreed.”
He nodded and wiped the blood off his nose. Crimson painted across the white handkerchief when he brought it down. He hung his head low and let out a deep breath.
“Look, I’m…really sorry. If I crossed the line that day. Mrs. Marsh asked me if I could do her a favor; and I just couldn’t say no,” he told her and met her eyes. “That’s it. I didn’t mean to go against your warning.”
“Why couldn’t you,” Arabel pressed on calmly, to his surprise, her arms resting on her knees, “say no?”
“…She’s a nice woman. Person. And I can tell, she really cares for you the way a loving parent should.” Something akin to jealousy jabbed at his heart at his own confession. He shoved the feeling down before it stirred any unwanted emotions even further. “Disappointing her feels like I’m disappointing my own mother, is all. I couldn’t bear to see it.”
Arabel was quiet afterwards, searching his face for lies and deceit. He wasn’t sure if she found any, or the same nonexistent lies she’d wanted to find; but it seemed the longer she tried, the more she failed. Then the unguarded look slowly came back to her face, one he had seen briefly at Pale Pond a few days prior. And if he looked closely, he could even see something faltering behind her hardened expression.
Her eyes fell to the bloodied fabric in his hands. Then the look was gone.
“Keep it,” she told him and stood up, indifferent once again.
“A-are you sure?” Michael asked, taken aback by her sudden movement, but even more at the sound of her rarely heard soft voice. “I mean, I can wash it properly. O-or I can replace it—”
“No.” She stuffed her hands into her pocket and pivoted her heel to the end of the alley. His mind drew a blank once he realized she’d left him without another word.
Michael shouted out her name. Arabel stopped at the end and looked over her shoulder.
“I…” he hesitated. “Thanks.”
In the distance, Arabel rolled her eyes at him in that familiar, standoffish manner of hers.
“Jimmy’s been a thorn in my side. I didn’t come here to help you,” she said, scoffing to the side. Then, for a moment, she pondered, her face softening when she turned fully towards him. “You didn’t hear this from me, but…Pale Pond is actually quite peaceful despite the cold temperature around it; I know not many would bother to go there. Assholes like Jimmy included.” Afterwards, she was gone.
Michael sat on the ground with a slightly parted mouth, in disbelief of everything that happened seconds ago. He couldn’t even get it out of his head as he limped towards the dumpster, his mind replaying the same image over and over again like a broken video.
Pale Pond is actually quite peaceful despite the cold temperature around it. I know not many would bother to go there. Assholes like Jimmy included.
But just after that, the corner of her lips had tugged into the tiniest smile for the shortest time. Michael had caught it.
He shook his head to himself, unable to fight the grin off his own face.
Who would’ve thought Mrs. Marsh was right about her daughter after all? Well. He wouldn’t agree entirely that Arabel was a ‘sweet girl’—not after what he’d seen of what she made of Jimmy and his friends—but even so he would agree that Arabel was…
Something.
Something he couldn’t quite decide on, but not an unwelcome thought.
Michael lifted up the lid of the dumpster with a strained sigh. His bag was there, laid amongst the plastic bags and rubbish rotting inside them. He stood on his tiptoes to pull it closer and panicked when the jar was found empty.
He searched through the trash, his heart sinking deeper into his stomach until—
“Oh, Michael! Thank Eyes, you are alive! What did they do to you?” A light ball of meat climbed atop his hand during his rummaging.
And Michael, for the first time, felt true relief.
“You’re still here.” He sighed to himself, carrying Willy with both hands with utter care, his bag dragged over his shoulder.
“Well, of course, I am here!” Willy replied with a fervor. “Those two rats locked me inside! I was entirely helpless to help you, Michael. I even searched for a way out of that green box, but I was only met with more and more dead ends — it was infuriating!” A childish growl rumbled from it. “Now, where is that Jimmy? I want to know exactly where he lives. Tell me now, for I swear to you, I will haunt that insufferable jerk until adulthood—”
“Willy—Willy, I’m fine. Everything worked out in the end,” he said, trying to calm the fuming blob.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, surprisingly, Arabel came by and took care of him—”
“Hold on, Arabel?” Willy’s eye widened. “The soulless girl was here?”
He nodded as he shifted to take out the jar from his bag. Willy slid down his hand and sat inside the glass, but its attention remained on him even then. It climbed back up to peek subtly out from the bag.
“You mean to tell me she came by to help you?” Willy asked, incredulous.
Michael stepped out of the alley and walked down the street. “Well. Not really—she said she was only passing by. And that was before things went down.”
“So…what exactly happened then? Was that why things got quiet all of the sudden?”
All the way to the neighborhood, Michael told the blob creature everything. From Arabel kneeing Jimmy in the crotch, to her threatening his friends and sending them cowering away, to her small interrogation; and finally to the part where she subtly suggested he visit Pale Pond to get away from the bullies. For the sake of his pride, he left out about having noticed Arabel’s smile, deciding it was not worth mentioning to Willy unless he wanted to get himself teased senselessly by his friend.
Another thing he left out was the handkerchief she let him keep. Again, Willy would make fun of him.
“Goodness me. What an interesting turn of events,” Willy said to him as he opened the door to his bedroom.
Father was not home, another thing to add to his relief.
He placed the jar on his desk and Willy pushed itself out from it, landing right on the table.
“So! Do you think this is the start of a friendship between the two of you?”
Michael plopped on his bed as he removed his shoes with a loud sigh. His body and face still ached from the assault.
“I really don’t want to think about that now, thanks.” He laid on his back, dragging a hand over his face, wincing from the cut on his lip.
Willy had already shuffled on his nightstand by the time he exhaled his next breath.
“Oh, come on, you! Tell me! I know you’re thinking about it already,” Willy sang, teasing him. As expected.
“Think about what?”
“Well, I’m not about to say it if you don’t know.”
“Willy.”
“Hmm.”
“Fine. If you don’t want to tell me, then let’s just drop this subject—"
“You want to see her at Pale Pond,” Willy blurted.
Michael’s head snapped to the blob creature who was, not to his surprise but chagrin , practically dancing in place above his nightstand, in utter joy and laughter.
“…That’s ridiculous. No, I don’t,” Michael said after a long pause. “And even if I do decide to go there, which I won’t, it’s not because I want to see her.”
“My, what an entirely believable statement, that is.”
“Willy, just because she kicked Jimmy’s butt, it doesn’t mean she won’t kick mine.” Michael rested his head back on his pillow firmly, closing his eyes. “And just because she recommended a good place to hide from people, doesn’t mean she wants to be friends with me, either.”
“But you want to be friends with her, don’t you?” Michael said nothing to that, earning himself yet another victorious laugh from Willy. “Oh— Michael, Michael, Michael. I’ll tell you right now, you won’t know if you won’t try. Besides, if Pale Pond is just a simple 'recommendation' from her like you said, what’s the harm in actually going there? You might even find some actual peace of mind from those three rats . It’s a good opportunity. You should take it, friend.”
Michael hummed and thought over Willy’s words.
While the blob had a good point, as always it did, he still wasn’t sure if visiting Pale Pond would be a good move at all. Sure it would mean he was less likely found by Jimmy and his friends as almost nobody ever went there, but Arabel? Pale Pond was her place. Or at least it was what he figured from the way she spoke of it. It seemed clear to him that she must’ve been there often enough for her to appreciate the place regardless of it’s number one inconvenience: the stupid cold temperature. Not to mention, the forest around the Pond that was secluded enough for just anyone to be murdered in—albeit the chance of that happening in the neighborhood and city was much higher compared to the deep forest.
Even so, there was no risking it.
“I’m not going there, Willy.” Michael shifted on his side stubbornly and felt the folded handkerchief press against him inside his pocket. He forced any memory of Arabel to sit on the back of his mind. “I’m not ever going to Pale Pond again.”
Michael, against his better judgement, went to Pale Pond three days later.
It was mostly Willy who had insisted he give the place another visit for, as the creature had put it, an hour of mind-relaxation and nature indulgence. But now that he sat in front of the large pond, its water as black as Jimmy’s soul, Michael didn’t find the cold air all that relaxing and indulging. It was early evening and freezing, and he wished he’d worn double layers. How did Arabel find this place peaceful? At least it explained why she wore her jacket every day, likely to head over to Pale Pond after school.
He hugged his knees closer to his chest, shifting against the bark of a willow tree. Another cold wind blew into his face.
“This was a terrible idea, Willy,” Michael grumbled. Instantly at his side, his bag moved to reveal the friendly blob at its opening.
“What do you mean? I thought this place looked wonderful!” Willy said, sitting on the inside of the bag’s fabric rather than on the greyish leaves. “The abundant silence, the beauty of this gaping pond, the sweet fresh air—” Willy mimicked inhaling a deep breath, its eye fluttering. “You can’t tell me you’re not enjoying it in the slightest, Michael.”
“I’m not enjoying it in the slightest. This place is freezing.”
“It is not that bad.”
“Your skin doesn’t work like mine does.”
“Then don’t look at me; I’m not trading.”
“How long do you want us to sit here for?”
Willy hummed brightly. “For as long as we need to until you stop being so stubborn! Or until the cold is too much for you to handle—but! We both know it really isn’t that bad. You’re only making it worse inside your head so you can get out of here fast. Don’t think I haven’t noticed.”
“I didn’t want to be here in the first place,” Michael told Willy. “And what do you mean you noticed something?”
“You’re still trying to avoid her.”
“Am not.”
“Am so.”
“I’m not doing this again.”
“Then let’s not. When do you think she’ll be here?”
His eyes widened at Willy. “Did you seriously insist on coming here just so I’d see her?”
Willy averted its gaze away and fell silent, as if guilty.
“I knew it.” Michael scoffed with a crooked smile. “I knew it.”
“Even if I did, I hope you’re aware my intentions are only pure. I was looking out for you like any good friend would,” Willy said, the guilt fading into pride.
“Please. In what way is having me seeing Arabel again, you looking out for me?”
“In a way that involves having Arabel as your ally than your enemy is what. Think about it, Michael. Jimmy hasn’t bothered you at all ever since the alley. Neither of his friends wanted to even look your way at all, treating you as if you attacked them. You’ve been bully-free these three days! Do you know what this means?”
“That maybe they’re finally minding their own business?”
“No. That they’re finally afraid,” Willy corrected. “And from what I’ve noticed, they are wary of the soulless girl.”
“I’m wary of the soulless girl,” Michael replied and huffed. “You know what, let’s just go home. I think my mind is at peace enough. And also, I’m cold. ”
“It’s not that bad, Michael—hey!” He gently picked up his bag from the ground, sending Willy to fall back inside. It took merely a few seconds until the blob creature peeked through again, albeit with an annoyed look. “You could’ve warned me!” Willy whisper-yelled at him.
“Sorry.” He snickered apologetically. “I hope you’re still fine with me, but I’m seriously shivering.”
“Then you should’ve brought a jacket. I told you the air around here would be cold, didn’t I?” His blood chilled when a different voice spoke up.
Michael barely gulped before he lifted up his head and saw the bright yellow in front of him; and only then did he see Arabel’s face, bored nonetheless patiently waiting.
Waiting for him to say something.
He hid his bag behind him and stared back into her dark eyes.
“H-hi,” he stammered. “Sorry, I’m…uh, I’m—”
“Leaving already?” Arabel tilted her head, however, innocently.
Michael was too much in panicking mode to see it as that, though.
“Uh. Well. I didn’t…I didn’t mean to stay here that long anyway. Have you been waiting that long? God, I’m so sorry if you did.”
“Okay, ease up on the ‘sorrys’.” She shoved her hands into her pockets and cocked a brow. “Besides, why do you keep apologizing anyway? I don’t own the pond to have you assume you owed me one.”
His cheeks warmed. “Right. You’re right, I don’t…owe you an apology. Sorry—” Michael bit his tongue, wanting to slap himself.
Luckily, Arabel only gave him an eye roll.
“If you want to stay here longer, then stay. Like I said, I don’t own the place.” Arabel strode past him and headed over to her spot behind the large, vandalized rock.
Until then, Michael had no idea what to do.
He had told Willy he was freezing and wanted to go home quickly, because indeed he had hoped to avoid crossing paths with Arabel. Yet now that Arabel was here, and after she had shown such a…concerningly nice behavior, Michael nearly forgot why he’d been wary of her in the first place.
Was this not the same girl who had broken Jimmy’s hand and kneed him in the crotch? The one, who had also on the same day, offered Michael her handkerchief to wipe the blood off his nose and insist he keep it without any replacement?
He cast a glance down at his bag and found Willy staring back at him with a cheeky look.
In a way that involves having Arabel as your ally than your enemy.
But you want to be friends with her, don’t you?
I’ll tell you right now, you won’t know if you won’t try.
Something gnawed inside of him.
Curse Willy’s voice in his head.
For the second time, and against his better judgement, he listened to his friend.
Michael sat himself back under the willow tree, just a nice distance away from Arabel’s place. Which was good— safe. He stole a glance in her direction and noticed she had a book open in her lap.
Oh. She likes to read. In this creepy, cold place?
“If I knew you were going to stare the entire time, I wouldn’t have said what I said,” Arabel spoke without lifting her head off her book.
His face became warm again.
“S-sorry!” he said.
“So you keep saying.” She flipped a page.
A few beats of silence passed through them. Birds chirped in the trees in a sweet song. Pale leaves fall from them and accumulate around the pond enough to blanket the Earth. A different chill seeped in his bones.
Michael still didn’t know what to do.
“Do you…come here often?”
“Yes.”
“I see. That’s why you’re used to the cold air then, I assume?”
“Hm.”
His jaw clenched uncomfortably, not sure if her curt answers were her becoming annoyed or just her way of communicating with someone.
She didn’t sound angry, which was all the more confusing.
But you want to be friends with her, don’t you?
“What book are you reading there?”
Arabel finally lifted her head to look at him. There was still nothing he could pick up from her, though. Not even a hint of emotion other than plain indifference.
“Why?”
Michael gulped, huffing lightly. “Just wanted to know. I like to read from time to time too. At least whenever I’m not trapped inside a closet or a box somewhere, you know? Ha-ha…” Arabel stared at him with a raised brow. He cleared his throat. That did not break the ice as he’d hoped. “So, uh, what is it about? Your book.”
“A guide to burying a body.”
He said nothing and nearly didn’t want to say anything else. Arabel noticed his disturbance with a soft snicker.
“Kidding,” she said, wearing a thin smile. “It’s just a boring classic murder-mystery.”
“Oh.”
“You believe everything people say to you, don’t you?”
He chuckled nervously. “Well. I like to see the best in them. So, why not give them the benefit of the doubt?”
“Huh. Explains why you’re so easily bullied.”
Okay, ouch.
No matter how blunt that was, Michael decided not to take it personally. This was Arabel he was talking to, after all.
“And you? Do you…prefer to see only the bad in people?” he asked her, curious.
Arabel shrugged absentmindedly, flipping another page of her book.
“I stopped seeing the good in everyone a long time ago,” she eventually told him, her eyes downwards. “Just…wouldn’t end well if I did. Look how it turned out for you, for example,” Arabel added.
“I guess.” The world never treated him the way he’d treated others. He was painfully aware of it. “Though, if you decided to help me that day, then a part of you must’ve felt something, didn’t you?”
Arabel shut her book abruptly with a thump. Michael flinched but remained in his place under the willow tree. He should run from the way Arabel’s glare was pointed at him; he should be packing his things already and never look back again.
But something churned within him at the thought of leaving now.
“Stop saying I helped you, Michael,” Arabel snapped, her voice suddenly venomous. “You just happened to be there when I was there too. Jimmy just happened to kick your ass on the same day I kicked his . It’s nothing special to think about—just coincidences—”
“O-Okay, you’re right! Coincidences,” Michael quickly said with an anxious huff. At his submission, Arabel’s glare softened and her shoulders relaxed. “I’m only saying…you could’ve kicked his ass a different day; you could’ve let him finish beating me to pulp.”
“…I just didn’t want to procrastinate any longer than I already have,” she grumbled begrudgingly.
For a moment, Michael only stared at her with raised brows. Then, not on his own volition, he snorted out a laugh.
Arabel did not seem pleased at all.
“What? What’s so funny?” she demanded.
“Nothing, I…” He bit down a laugh, and lowered his voice enough for her to still hear. “I am just so terrified of you.”
Arabel blinked once; then twice. “What…?”
“Don’t get me wrong! I know you’re not a bad person, but…honestly?” Michael held back a grin, though failing miserably. A weird coping mechanism. “You scare me. A lot. And I just realized how…stupid that is. How stupid I am for thinking so.”
“…You’re scared?” Her tone implied she was still lost.
He nodded. “I’m scared of Jimmy also, but even more so you—no offense. But...you know what, never mind. It’s stupid. I shouldn’t have even brought it up.”
“Are you having a stroke?” Arabel scowled. “Just spit it out. And for God’s sake, stop smiling, will you? You’re starting to creep me out.”
“Sorry,” he said, although still with a tight smile. “What I wanted to say was…I think I might've been wrong about you. For thinking that you’re the Devil’s spawn and all.”
“What the hell did you just say—?”
“But somebody once told me,” he continued, to his own surprise, “I won’t know if I won’t try something. And believe me, I told them I wouldn’t do it anyway because, well, I’m a chicken. But even so…here I am. Trying. Desperate to make friends at every turn I make, exactly like you said. Actually, now that I think of it, it’s weird how accurate you were, since we barely even know each other. I really am desperate for any friend I can get. Must be an issue of mine. Which, honestly, is also quite stupid.”
Arabel’s uneasiness was palpable now. He scolded himself for getting carried away.
“I-I’m not having a stroke,” Michael cleared up quickly and laughed. “At least, not yet. Maybe after this when I get home—who knows—but…right now? It is just…me having a heavy realization. That you’re really not a bad person as I thought; and that as scary and intimidating as I still find you, there’s no actual reason for me to be afraid of you anymore. That is, if I put aside the threats and what you did to Jimmy, it’ll surely be a whole lot easier.” He tried to make the air light, yet was met with her indifference.
Tough girl to crack, this one. Or perhaps this was why the others deemed him an outcast: his stupid mouth spewing out stupid nonsense.
Michael turned to the sky, taking note that the sun was already sinking somewhere else he couldn’t see. A sigh left him. He should head home before Father did, in case the man decided to question him where he’d been and make it an excuse for him to be angry—as nearly how every incident with the man started. Or instead, he just hoped he wouldn’t be bothered at all like the last couple of days; to hopefully be neglected enough to be at peace in his own home.
That wish might be too far out of his reach, though.
Peace was never in Father’s mind ever since Mother passed…hence it would never be in Michael’s either for as long as he was reminded of that dark past.
Michael sucked in another deep breath. The wind blew past his face and hair as if a storm was coming, though he knew it was only Pale Pond’s strange weather. His body still shivered from his unsuitable attire, yet when the next wind pushed at him, it felt light. Like a gentle kiss upon his head or a feather touch grazing his cheek, slow and kind.
Arabel was right.
This place was peaceful.
Michael began to gather his things together.
“Sorry for being weird. I should leave you alone now and just…just let you read in peace. I know I wouldn’t like it either if some noisy freak talks my ear off when I’m trying to focus, so…I’ll get going.” Bringing his bag with him, and after making sure Willy was inside—as usual, enjoying eavesdropping on people—Michael stepped away from the willow tree. “Goodbye, Arabel.”
“Ara.”
Michael stopped just halfway in his tracks. He pivoted on his heel to look at her. “What…?”
Arabel shifted on the ground, contemplating and unusually shy. He hadn’t realized when she had stopped wearing her glare.
“Friends call me Ara,” she said after a pause. “Since you’re not a chicken anymore, I figured…might as well.”
A smile crept on his face.
You won’t know if you won’t try.
“Okay,” Michael said, clearing his throat. “I guess I’ll see you around...Ara.”
Then he continued on with the path home, all the while remembering how the same tiny, albeit brief, smile had also appeared on her face when he had said her moniker. He chuckled with a shake of his head. Later tonight surely would involve him questioning—and perhaps even some regretting—everything he had done today. But even so…it seemed like he owed Willy an apology.
An admittance that he had been wrong.
For as much as he had disagreed with the blob initially, visiting Pale Pond didn’t turn out to be such a bad idea.
Notes:
And so the friendship begins! Next chapter is going to be pretty much that lmao (the calm before the storm, if you know what I mean😏)
Also I'm calling it, Arabel turns jelly if someone calls her a good person
Thanks for reading!
Chapter 77: Rumours
Notes:
It all started with a book club. You'll see what I mean. Also please heed the warning, starting this chapter and the next one will involve these heavy topics.
[WARNING]
mild child abuse, implied child abuse
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
After a few days he left Pale Pond, he was surprised to find himself visiting again. At first it was meant to be an excuse to leave home; anything to delay going inside the cold, desolate house that reeked of alcohol and mold—Michael hadn’t been too thrilled either to stay locked up in his room the rest of the day after school, and Willy had more or less suggested he pass the time with a breath of fresh air.
But once he stepped on the familiar grounds of the pond, felt the strong yet gentle push of its wind, and noticed the girl in the yellow jacket reading by the huge stone, Michael nearly was quick to forget why he’d come here in the first place.
Arabel glanced up from her book and huffed at him before looking back down, as though surprised to see him there. He only shrugged at her in his coat, carrying his own book. He came prepared this time; Willy had reminded him before he left.
Michael sat in his own spot by the willow tree and placed his bag on the ground next to him. Willy shifted out of it, passing a wink. It sat on the trunk on the other side, hidden from anyone else but him. And when he opened a new page, Willy shifted closer; he tilted the book to give the blob a better view as well.
Then for a few hours, they read together in silence, all the while listening to the sound of falling leaves and water; a peaceful serenade.
Willy nudged lightly into his arm. He smiled and turned to the next page. Who knew a one-eyed blob creature could learn how to read and enjoy it at the same time? Michael had been surprised when he had found out, athough given how Willy was an intelligent being no matter how inconsistent its knowledge was, literacy shouldn’t be a surprise. It even seemed the creature, too, had taken a liking towards human fictional stories. Particularly the one that involved a dystopian world where a war between two kinds raged on, their leaders each in their own respective territories: the protagonist strategizing underground, whereas the antagonist scheming in his tower.
Michael thought the entire story was fine as a whole, but Willy was intrigued. He didn’t have the heart to turn away the book from the blob, lest if he did the sparkles twinkling in its singular eye would dissolve into utter disappointment.
So, he let Willy continue reading, letting the blob scoot closer until it sat on his lap and was directly in front of the book. At least until the Sun began to set and a pair of footsteps shuffled towards him.
Michael quickly held the book upright to shield Willy from Arabel. Then he flashed her a smile and greeted her. “Are you leaving?” he asked.
Arabel slid her hands into her pockets, her book under her arm. “Yeah. Just wanted to tell you my mother keeps asking me if you’re coming over to our house again. Did you say something to her before?”
More like she said something to me.
“No…?”
“Good. Because you are not to come over, you hear me? Step one toe into my yard and I’ll deliver it to your door in a box. And…and the last time doesn’t count,” she added the last part hastily.
Nonetheless, Michael received her message.
“Uh…okay.”
“Say you got it, Michael.”
“I got it.” He laughed nervously, though not as afraid as he thought he’d be. “Loud and clear.”
At that, Arabel let out a satisfied hum, turning on her heel and leaving.
“B-Bye, Ara,” he quickly shouted to her. Arabel waved a lazy hand back, not even bothered to turn around. If he listened closely he could probably hear her mutter a grumpy “whatever” under her breath.
Once she was gone, Michael turned to Willy, finding the blob staring back at him with a knowing look.
“Well,” Willy said after a long pause, “at least she returned your goodbye.”
Indeed, at least Arabel returned his goodbye.
Michael thought that would be the most he’d get from the girl’s friendly side, aside from the half-committed greets or subtle hums whenever he asked her a question. He had been wrong to assume that.
It all happened that one day.
While they were at school, he noticed something slip from one of her pockets. A small chain of necklace from what he made out. A locket. Arabel had already left for the next class, none the wiser of what she’d left behind in the middle of the hallway. Of course without thinking too much of it, Michael kept the locket on his person, thinking perhaps he could return it to her at Pale Pond afterwards, and thinking she would be there.
And he was right.
He returned the locket to her immediately, as well as apologizing too in case she had thought he was a freak in general or a freak who liked to steal. But to his surprise, Arabel accused him of nothing and only said, “Thank you”.
That was the first time she ever thanked him for anything, if not ever . He nearly let out a squeal if it hadn’t been for Willy shaking his bag to bring him back to reality.
The next time Arabel did something outside of his expectation, it was when they were at Pale Pond again.
It had been two weeks since the alley by then, and Michael had found himself a new routine after school, which was hanging around under the willow tree at Pale Pond—often Arabel was there too. And for two weeks, he stayed diligently in his spot, not daring to cross over Arabel’s territory since a part of him still held some wariness towards her. He even dared not make too much conversation lest it annoyed the girl. Asking too many questions often landed him in a bad situation and Arabel seemed to be less than interested at the idea of conversing with anyone. All in all, Michael decided the most talking he’d do with the girl was strictly to either greet or to say goodbye, and on a good day (for Arabel), maybe ask her how she and her mother were.
Yet this time, as he was only a few pages in reading along with Willy, Arabel was the one who initiated a conversation.
“What are you reading?”
It completely caught him off guard. Even so, he gave her a brief and honest answer, unlike her response to him when he had first asked the same question.
Then, as if something was added in the air she breathed in, she continued talking to him. Willingly. Gently.
She asked him if he had any hobbies. He mentioned sleeping as a joke and it flew over her head.
“What about you?” Michael asked her right after, moving past the failed joke. “Do…do you have any hobbies?”
“Not really.”
“Oh.”
“I don’t do much of anything aside from helping my mother. And coming here to read.”
“Do you not enjoy reading?”
She shrugged. “I do, but it gets boring. Most of the books I’ve got are old. Nothing exciting anymore.”
“In that case, you can borrow mine, if you’d like.” Willy snapped its gaze to him from behind the book. He felt his own eyes widened a little. Oops.
“Really?” Arabel asked, uncertain.
He nodded as he discreetly nudged Willy behind him. Then he handed out his book to her. “Have this one a go. You’ll probably like it.”
Something flashed across Arabel’s features before it was gone behind a hardened face. She got to her feet and went to reach the book herself.
“And you’re…sure you’re letting me borrow?” She weighed the book in her hands, meeting his eyes.
“I’ve read it twice already, so yeah.” Once on his own, and the second time for Willy. He’d have to make it up to his friend later for giving up the book it was reading half-way. “Tell me what you think once you’re done. O-or not, if you don’t want to. It’s totally fine—"
“Would you like to borrow mine?”
Michael stared at Arabel’s book, lifted just for him to see the dull hardcover with its title small in the center. He took it from her and felt the rough texture under his touch. She wasn’t kidding when she said her books were old.
“What’s this about?” he asked, flipping through the pages briefly then reading the title. The Happy Family.
“A man,” she hesitated, “practicing taxidermy on his family.”
Of course. Of course it had to be a disturbing one.
“Sounds…cool,” he said, gulping already.
But Arabel beamed.
“It…it really is. Not just the family turning into a taxidermy thing, but—you’ll see what I mean. The twist at the end, especially.”
Michael couldn’t help but smile at her rare enthusiasm. This was the first time he’d seen excitement in her eyes that wasn’t sourced from beating other people up; he could hardly look away.
“Okay, then. I’ll be sure to read until I reach this… twist you say.”
“Cool. And I will read until…” Her eyes skimmed over the lines on the summary at the back of his book. “Until the king of the Underland is rescued from the Hell Tower.” She turned back to him, a smile dancing on her lips. Perhaps she was unsure if she was to read something out of her normal choice of genre.
Honestly, he was too.
Though, much to his surprise—and Willy’s— The Happy Family was actually quite good, if not brutally detailed. Even Willy had been interested. And after a few days of reading the book at home and Pale Pond, they finally finished it. So was Arabel with hers.
“The king was already dead?” He was sitting under the willow tree with Willy as usual when Arabel came striding straight to him.
Luckily, Willy had time to retreat into his bag, likely to eavesdrop as it often would.
“So, you got to that part, I see,” Michael said, surprised to see her throw her own bag on the ground and sit across from him. This was new.
“Yeah, I did. And I still cannot believe that after everything the Prince went through to save his father—killed his best friend, who turned out to be a traitor, then nearly died of temptation—all of it ended up becoming for nothing. The Red Devil already had his father’s head on a pike!” Arabel exclaimed, rummaging through her bag and taking out the book. “I’ve never been so frustrated in my entire life. How on Earth did you even read this book twice?” She handed it to him.
“To be fair, I haven’t read it in a long time until a week ago. Don’t remember much of the story aside from the Red Devil turning out to be the Prince’s real father.”
“That part was stupid. Why the hell did the King even kidnap the Red Devil’s kid and raise it as his own?”
“Something to do with his own family feud, if I recall,” Michael said. “But speaking of family, and if I may mention, Happy Family…”
“Oh?” A mischievous grin crept to her face. “How was it?”
He returned her book with his own nonchalant shrug. “Pretty good.”
“And?”
“Great storyline. Fitting theme. Interesting characters—”
“Michael,” she deadpanned, “tell me you’re joking. This book is dark. I expected you to be disturbed and tell me how angry you are at me for letting you read this kind of thing.”
“I’m not angry; the book was fine, really,” he told her. “And besides, I kind of liked the ending too.”
“You liked reading about people getting stitched up? What about the twist? The one where he was—”
“Actually trying to save the townspeople from his family who were also cannibals and murderers? I’ll admit, I didn’t see that one coming. And as much as the gore in the book made me want to throw up every time I turn a page, you were right about one thing. The twist was good.”
Surprise appeared on her face before it softened into a genuine smile.
Ever since that day, the serene silence at the Pale Pond became less and less frequent, replaced by the sound of two children chattering without care in the world. And with every visit Michael paid, and every small talk with Arabel that ended up becoming an hour or two of pleasant conversations, each day passed quicker than ever. Pale Pond became somewhat of a weekly routine, or nearly daily for each week he returned there, each time he found Arabel already there hanging out at the tree, waiting. Sometimes it was the other way around, and he waited for her —he’d even tested to sit by the stones too after the third week. Arabel didn’t seem to mind it; and soon after a month had gone by, Michael truly understood she didn’t mind him.
And indeed she did not as she’d begun to greet him back in the hallway of their school, passing lazy smiles and waves before they each went to their respective classes.
Everything was finally good in his life.
Father had been home less and less, perhaps passed out drunk at the city bar. The home, without the man’s presence, meant he and Willy had been having a blast, not needing to stay quiet all the time and free for Willy to explore. Jimmy still taunted him from time to time, though without Rob and Evan by his side the boy seemingly dared not go further than insulting remarks, which wasn’t as bad as compared to what he’d heard of Arabel’s vocabulary when she was furious at something or someone.
But most of all, his unexpected friendship with the same girl couldn’t have been better. Seeing her often at Pale Pond, spending time together like how friends would—like how he saw of the other children his age—made each day brighter for him. Gone were the gloomy days as he had walked alone back-to-back, and no longer would he be accompanied by the dull, depressive cloud that had loomed above him.
He was happy.
More than he’d ever been in the last four years. It made him utterly grateful for that night in the storm, and for having tripped over the blob creature he now called friend.
Ms. Hilda’s voice droned on in the background as he wrote down his notes in his book, a smile resting easily across his face.
“Psst! Mono!” His pencil stopped at the moniker. A boy beside his desk smirked once he had his attention. “I wanted to ask you something.” The boy leaned closer. “Is it true you killed your mom?”
Then the grey cloud returned.
“W…What?” He couldn’t breathe.
“I’ve always wanted to know if that rumor was true, so, yeah. Did you? You know, killed your mom?” the boy continued to whisper to him, glancing at Ms. Hilda’s back.
A girl behind the boy kicked his chair. “Shut up, you loser. You’re going to get us all detention if you keep talking to him,” she said with a scowl.
The boy stuck out his tongue. “So what? At least I get to know if he actually did it.”
His knuckles were white from gripping his pencil. Michael swallowed the lump in his throat painfully, fighting back the stinging tears in his eyes.
As soon as the bell rang, he left the class and sped past everyone without any contact with anyone else.
Including Arabel.
For the boy’s words from his class still echoed like a blaring siren, one he couldn’t shut away even if he had both his hands over his ears. He hadn’t realized where he was heading until the familiar presence of the cold breeze made his skin shiver; and the black pool of water in front of him moved peacefully along with the rustling sound of leaves of the willow tree.
Michael sat and dug his feet deep into the damp dirt, his hands even deeper into his hair. At his side, he heard Willy’s gentle voice, peeking out from his bag, asking if he was alright. He told it he was fine, only that he needed some time. When the blob relented after a long pause, leaning against him as a means of comfort, he wondered if he should have admitted he wasn’t at all fine.
It wasn’t fair for the small creature—Willy had known almost everything about him: from the way he was treated in school, the real reason he avoided Father, the hellish house the man had turned his home into and to the incidents that left blue and red marks on Michael’s arms and face. He remembered the one time his sleeve hadn’t rolled all the way down at the time and how Willy, ever the observant creature, had taken notice and immediately sworn itself to hunting Jimmy.
Michael had told it the truth then and there about who had been the real culprit. And he had begged Willy to just leave it alone—leave anything regarding his father alone.
The blob never confirmed anything, but whenever Father raised a tone, or a hand, Willy did as Michael had asked of it. It remained hidden, albeit also too quiet once they were back in his room. Michael couldn’t fault it, he supposed. They had been at each other’s sides for five months, nearly inseparable. He told Willy everything with honesty and so did the blob with him.
Willy was his friend; the closest thing he had to a brother.
Suddenly the warmth of the blob disappeared, the grass moving from below until there was a subtle clink of the jar. Michael had wanted to know why it returned inside his bag, but the presence of a different warmth made him turn his attention the other way.
“You left quickly.” Guilt punched his chest from seeing Arabel this soon. He’d left her greeting smile hanging when he had rushed past her. “Any reason why you look like you’re going through a major heartbreak? Or am I supposed to continue assuming?”
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to ignore you back at school.” He still couldn’t forget the boy’s words to him.
“So you are going through something,” Arabel drawled, settling down next to him. “If you want to say, then say. I’m only here because I wanted some fresh air anyway; after I had to sit behind that brat Nicole who, by the way, farted the entire period.”
The corners of his lips twitched upwards, both from the comment and her great attempt at nonchalance. It didn’t last though, his smile. Not as long as Arabel had hoped.
“That bad?” Her question came so softly he nearly had missed it.
“Just people being people,” he ended up saying.
“Who?” There was a subtle change in her voice—impatient, if not dangerous. If he didn’t know any better, he would think she was playing the part of a protective friend a little too well.
“I…don’t know. Just one of the kids in my class,” Michael told her. That did little to convince her it seemed.
“Okay, then. What did they do?”
“Nothing, it’s just…” His heart sank like a stone underwater. Screw it. “Do you…ever believe in rumors, Ara?”
“Rumors?” A look settled on her face. “Not really. I don’t even know many of them aside from the one they spread about my mother. And a few others that people wouldn’t shut up about. Why do you ask?”
When he only played with the dead grass in his hand, Arabel let out an exasperated sigh.
“Listen. Rumors are…nothing more than just boring stories made up by boring people. Sure, sometimes it sucks when you get accused of something you didn’t do; but people suck in general. Who cares what they think? Who cares if there’s a crazy woman who ate her husband; who gives a shit if there are bigfoot sightings or a demon child who apparently set someone’s house on fire across the city? None of it is true anyway. They’re only rumors; fake stories.”
“Not all of them.”
“And how would you know?”
Michael glanced towards his bag, to the blinking eye hiding within the shadows and was listening to everything he was saying. A thought lingered. He had told Willy about Father without much hesitation, yet when it came to his late mother…
He breathed out a slow exhale and looked back to his hands, his throat as dry as the leaf he was playing with.
“The fire across the city,” he said. “That was me.”
Then and there he felt the air grow stiff along with the girl next to him. Silence descended for a long time between them he wondered if he’d said the wrong thing and lost a friend. Maybe he already did.
Might as well just let everything out.
“It was five years ago, I think. It was only me and Mother at the time—Father was always out late; sometimes working, sometimes doing God knows what. But…long story short, I had a small fight with her and l lost my…my temper. The television on the countertop was next to an already burning stove when it exploded and…that was when the fire spread to the curtains above the sink. She jumped in front of me; I let her take the hit of the explosion until it knocked both of us out.
“By the time I woke up, I was…I was already in the hospital, having sustained only a few cuts and bruises whereas my mother…” The smell of burning wood, the image of her lifeless eyes as the doctors covered her with white cloth flashed before him. He took a shuddering breath. “They told us she didn’t make it. And how it was already too late for her, even by the time she had reached the hospital. It crushed me. I have hated myself ever since and even more when…my father feels the same way.”
“He blames you?” Michael wasn’t surprised to hear her anger, although he didn’t really expect it to be directed to anyone else aside from him.
“Who else is there to blame if not me?”
“Oh, I don’t know, Michael. Why not your own dad for not being there? Why not the television that exploded?”
“You don’t understand— I was the one who caused the fire,” he hissed, regretting it instantly. “I was the one who couldn’t control my temper. It’s my fault the television exploded.”
Arabel’s brows furrowed.
“You keep saying that.” A fact and a request for an elaboration.
Michael wasn’t sure if she would even believe him, so that was what he straightforwardly told her. But instead of watching her leave in frustration and regret for ever befriending him, stubborn Arabel glared at him in return.
Try me, the look on her face told him.
Michael thought of it with another glance towards his bag, knowing Willy was listening well.
“My emotions sometimes influence the television.” He waited a beat before looking back at Arabel. To her credit, she was calm at the notion. She didn’t see him as crazy yet. “I can’t explain it; I’m not sure if I fully understand it myself even until now. But when I’m…distracted—angry or anxious or afraid …the screens near to me somehow pick up on that. They can show every bad dream; they reveal every bad thought, or worst-case scenario, burst into shards.”
“You’re joking.” She studied his face, her eyes narrowed.
“Look, I…” he said defeatedly. “I understand if you don’t believe me. This thing is beyond logical and must sound like nonsense to you so…so I wouldn’t hold it against you if you think I’m crazy. I, for one, think I’m crazy too. Might as well you be honest.”
Her lips curled into a tight frown instead. She turned to look at the pond ahead.
“Sometimes,” she said after a while, “I see things whenever my Ma suffers an episode.”
“What?”
Arabel rolled her eyes then, more out of habit than actual annoyance.
“There’s an…illness that runs in my family, mostly for the women. My great-grandmother had it, then my grandmother and now, as you know,” She looked at him with somber eyes then, “my mother. They were all convinced they were cursed, or that they were being watched by their own shadows, saying how it would promise their family protection if, granted, they delivered it souls afterwards. My Ma cried a lot. Said that she couldn’t do it. She really believes the sharp pangs she keeps having were because of her shadow when, really, it's only the illness.
“I tried helping her. With her medications. I made sure she doesn’t miss taking them as prescribed, so she stops seeing whatever these…these shadows are that keep taunting her.” Slowly, her frustration melted into exhaustion. She dropped her head into her hands. “But every time she takes them, I just know it’s killing her. To be lost and confused half the time. Not remembering why or how she got somewhere.”
Michael watched her intently, understanding what she meant. The first time he had helped Marsh, the poor woman looked utterly discombobulated.
“Has she always been that way? Your mother?” he asked her.
“No, not always.” Then bitterness replaced her expression. “It got worse particularly after my dad left.”
His eyes widened in realization. “I-I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked—”
“You and your ‘sorrys’.” Arabel snickered with a shake of her head. “Is that your coping mechanism, Michael?”
“I…maybe.” He gave her a weak smile. She returned it with her own crooked one.
“Ma was never well to begin with. But when dear old Dad suddenly decides he doesn’t want his family anymore, tells us in our faces that we were nothing but burdens he’s always wanted to shed off his back, things got…violent and escalated quickly,” Arabel said, her voice becoming quiet and the resentment returned. “He pushed her to the wall; then a blackout happened; and afterwards, we found him with two broken arms and a bloody face at the foot of the stairs, likely after having tripped. Of course, before he left for good he made sure to make us suffer still and admitted my mother into a psychiatric ward—him and his stupid connections with the doctors there.
“Meanwhile, I’m left to remember the abandonment of one of the people I looked up to the most; every single day. And he, last I heard, is now living happily with an ugly blonde lady with two ugly children. Not once did he even make sure I was alright the entire time. Didn’t even return any phone calls. As if I don’t exist anymore in his world.”
Sympathy twisted in his guts as he listened. Michael never healed from the fire that turned his life around, and he’d begun to worry at the prospect that he never could. Yet after Arabel’s story, her confession of her struggle to forget about her own past…
It made him feel lighter to know he wasn’t alone for that matter.
“I’m sorry,” was all he could offer.
Arabel rolled her eyes again. “Yeah. You said that already.”
“No, seriously, I mean it. We…” Michael said, pursing his lips. “We have really….shitty fathers.”
A laugh escaped Arabel. It made him smile and forget his prior doubts of losing her as a friend.
“That’s the first time I’ve heard you cuss,” she said, impressed if not proud.
“I can’t help it. I’m naturally a sweet boy.”
“Yeah,” she replied with an amused scoff. “You sure have my mother believing that, Michael.”
“I’ll have you believe it too one day. I’ll be so sweet you won’t even realize until you’re finally inviting me over to your house.”
“Dream on. Friend or not, you’re not coming over.”
They both laughed together again. The words of the boy from his class hurt less as his mind replaced it with hers.
“Anyway,” Arabel started after their laughter died down. “What I meant to say earlier was that…while I don’t necessarily believe you about your…TV powers,” That made him chuckle shyly, “I also don’t believe you’re crazy.”
“You don’t?” His brows went up.
“Well. Did you believe me when I said I see talking shadows?”
“…Not exactly.”
“Do you believe I’m crazy then?”
He shook his head fervently. “No!”
At his quick answer, Arabel gave him a smug look, one that radiated victory on her side at making him understand her point.
“Cool.” Arabel picked up her bag and swung it over her shoulders, ready to head home. “I’ll tell my mom you said hi. And that you’re still sick to pay her a visit.”
He wasn’t even surprised anymore by her made-up stories that she fed to her mother to keep him from coming over.
“So, you’ve been telling her I've been sick for the last three weeks. Don’t you think she would’ve caught on that you’re lying to her by now?” he asked.
“I’m her favorite child. She’ll believe me.” He cocked a brow at her. “Okay, I’ll tell her you’re shy. That you prefer to be alone or something. Is that better?”
“As much as I’m not on board with you lying to Mrs. Marsh, I guess that excuse would hold some truth in it. With me being Mono, and all,” he said, perhaps a bit too bitterly. He tried to shrug it off and failed.
It was foolish to assume Arabel wouldn’t notice when a muscle in her face twitched and her eyes showed an emotion he could only recognize as reluctant guilt.
“Hey.” She nudged his arm with her own. “That name…Jimmy was the one who started it, right?”
Michael nodded warily.
“And it means alone,” she said, half stating and half asking.
“Ara, it’s fine,” he tried to tell her, however, uncomfortably. “It’s just a name.”
“Yes, but a name holds power. Especially ones that have double meanings like yours does.”
“What do you mean?”
Arabel gestured for him to lean a little closer, as if to let him in on a secret.
“As far as I know, Mono also means one and only.”
“That means the same as alone,” he replied.
“Sure, but only if you want it to be. Because if you ask me to interpret that name, I’d see something else. One and only; one of a kind. There’s no one else as different and…and unique,” she said, staring into his eyes. He stared back, however, only for a short moment before she leaned away suddenly, looking away. A nervous laugh erupted in her throat as she ran her fingers through her hair. “But that’s just my opinion! Jimmy’s smart for picking Mono as a name to mess with you, but he’s still an idiot not to realize how the name has two—”
“You think I’m unique?”
That quickly put her back into her normal, grumpy self. She rolled her eyes and shoved him until he fell on the damp ground.
“Right now, you’re uniquely a pain in the butt! Stop taking everything I say too literally!” Arabel sprung to her feet while a pink tint rested across her cheeks. When he kept grinning at her, she added exasperatedly, “You know what, I don’t know why I’m still even talking to you. You want Jimmy’s view on the name? Suit yourself. I don’t care. I don’t even have the will in me to care. This entire conversation never happened. So, goodbye.”
Michael took hold of her wrist to stop her.
“Thank you,” he said and let go. “I really appreciate…what you told me, Ara.”
“…Whatever.” Arabel turned her face away, nonetheless, lingered there, kicking the dirt. “It’s not like I don’t at least owe you that much anyway. You know, your treating my mother nicely. Unlike the other kids.”
“To be fair, it’s hard not to be nice to her. She has a kind heart despite everything else. And you, the same.” When Arabel’s eyes flickered to him, her cheeks flushing brighter than before, Michael fought back the rising heat on his own face.
Why did everything he said become awkward?
Luckily for him, Arabel only chose to look at the ground, letting out a few sniffles from the cold of Pale Pond. “Thanks. You didn’t have to say that.”
“But I mean it.”
“I know.”
A comfortable pause descended between them. Neither made any move to break it until the clink in his bag distracted them out of their trance.
Willy.
“I-I think I should also head home! It’s getting late,” Michael said hastily, grabbing his bag along with him. “So…are you sure you don’t want me to pay your mother a visit just this once? To stop her from bothering you by asking, maybe?”
At his cheeky tone, the awkward air left as fast as it came.
“You’d think she would. Sadly, I know my own mother, Michael. The more you show up on our doorstep, the more she’s going to expect you to return. God help me if she wants you over for dinner.”
They walked side by side along the dirt path, following the trail towards their neighborhood.
“Dinner, hm? Sounds nice, to be honest.” He flashed her a lopsided smile. “Wouldn’t mind free food too.”
“Not happening.”
“Not even for one evening?”
“Not even for one hour.”
“Ouch. Well, I’m sad now.”
“Cry me a river then, loser.”
Michael laughed, despite her words. Usually, it would sting if it had been from any other person.
“How about I…pretend to be sick in front of her once and have her believe your funny lies forever?”
Arabel snorted. “Whatever happened to the sweet boy who is against lying to ‘Mrs. Marsh’?”
“It won’t be lying if it’s acting, Ara. Besides, I really am sick.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah, seriously. I just caught a mild fever two days ago.”
“You look fine to me.”
“What’d I tell you? I’m a great actor.” A loud huff from her immediately dissolved into contagious fits of laughter. At least contagious enough to make his smile last for the next few days, he was sure.
“You know what? Sure. I’m convinced,” Arabel said, smirking.
“You are?”
“Oh, very much. I’m curious to see how far your conscience will allow you to fool a very, sick old woman who always asks if you’re doing well and if you’re eating enough.”
The thought that Marsh cared for him warmed his heart as quickly as it ignited a spark of guilt inside him.
“You’re just trying to make me feel bad, so I’ll back off, aren’t you?”
She shrugged innocently. “I’m only telling you the truth. If you’re feeling bad already, then it’s not my fault you’re weak like that.”
“Emphasizing on my guilty conscience and calling me weak for it. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you’re planning to turn this into a challenge.”
“More or less.” There was a glint of mischief in her eyes. “Not like you’ll win anyway.”
This time it was his turn to scoff.
“Arabel Marsh,” He mimicked her smirk, “you have no idea how competitive I am.”
It turned out his guilty conscience wasn’t as loud as he thought when it came to proving Arabel wrong.
Michael, true to his words, was not a fan of tricking Marsh into believing he was sick sick, but when he had seen the wink the woman gave him as she had uttered, “Oh, poor boy, I’m so sorry to hear you’re still unwell” Michael knew instantly there was no fooling Marsh even if he tried. To her, this was her daughter’s way of lowering her years of held-up guard; by inviting over a friend whom she had claimed was sick for a week straight, merely to have him confirm (falsify) his health state to her mother himself the next day. This conclusion was only supported as Arabel practically told him: “This is only a challenge in which you have to lie to my mother to her face.”
That day, Michael learned—confirmed—a new trait of his friend.
Arabel had a particularly large ego.
He saw it get bruised when she attempted to play it cool after having lost their prompt challenge. Michael had no need to appear guilty, and had she known Marsh already saw through his lie and was playing along with it, she would’ve understood the reason he was smug now. Yet despite her blatant refusal to admit defeat, she did congratulate him for growing a backbone, however, to lie. Michael bid her goodbye with such pride, and to Marsh perhaps a bit bittersweet. After all, he and Arabel both agreed this was the only time he was to visit, to merely convince Marsh Arabel wasn’t lying to her mother regarding his ‘health issues’.
But funnily enough, the thought of that became no more than a sweet memory as time went on; and he found himself at Arabel’s dining table doing homework.
It all started with a bored conversation at Pale Pond, somehow going from the existence of ghosts to them pettily complaining about their classes at school. He’d been glad to learn Arabel also despised Ms. Hilda. But he also learned that the reason was because her classes often reminded Arabel of her struggle to complete her tasks. On the other hand, Michael was good at them—that is if he could do without following certain, expected methods taught by the stern teacher.
That initiated him to offer Arabel his help, if she needed it. To his surprise, Arabel suggested—although hesitantly—they worked at her house. Michael agreed without any quips, lest she changed her mind and delivered her wrath onto him.
Even so, any progress was good progress.
It was even better when Marsh kept insisting he stayed a bit longer for tea or an early dinner every time he was over, and the best was when Arabel sooner or later caved and let him.
Michael never thought dinners could be as lively as the one the Marsh Family had.
One question shot from Mrs. Marsh, Arabel shot back with a familiar and precise wit. If he hadn’t known Arabel and her relationship with her mother, the entire conversation likely would’ve come off as a competitive debate, if not one-sided harsh argument, to him—given Marsh’s constant teasing and direct questioning, and Arabel’s shouting over the table for her to stop embarrassing her. Michael had laughed along with them; he had even sided with either one of them, depending on the conversation. Which led Arabel to flick him on his ear every time he agreed with her mother instead.
Michael couldn’t stop laughing. It had felt strange to be a part of such a contented moment in a contented household he did not live in. The first few times, in the very least as he recalled. Yet the more nights went by—the stronger Arabel’s trust in him grew and the more often Marsh’s delight appeared as he visited, her wish for her only daughter coming true—Michael found himself less out of place and more comfortable. He found the Marsh Household to be a second home.
Bright.
Devoid of looming dread.
Full of life.
A vast difference in which he could instantly tell as he returned to his first home every time.
Dim was the Hemming house interior and air after he closed its front door behind him. The television sat in the corner playing its regular evening show on a black and white screen. There was no smell of home cooked food wafting through the air aside from the heavy stench of alcohol and growing mold, a constant pong to be considered one with the house along with its stale smell, a permanent resident. Darkness consumed every inch of the wall except for the screen light shining barely a quarter of the living room, and the kitchen lamp flickering in the far back.
Michael had hoped to sneak up to his bedroom. But once the figure moved behind the couch, and a gruff voice spoke over the laughing track of his television show, he knew better than to continue a step towards the stairs.
“You’ve been coming home later than usual.”
A bottle clinked on the floor as Father put it down. Michael flinched, hiding in the shadows if he could.
“Where were you?” The bright screen lit half of Father’s face, revealing nothing but indifference. His tone, however, was a different matter.
“I was…with a friend,” Michael said after a while, his throat bobbing.
“With a friend,” Father echoed. “Last I recall, you’re not one to make friends, Michael. How come now?”
When Michael hadn’t an answer, or failed to come up with anything quickly, Father’s sigh cut through the sounds of the television show in the back.
“I am not angry.” Father stood up from his seat and took only three strides until he loomed over his son. Michael tried not to openly flinch away from the hand that grasped his shoulder and behind his neck. “I’m only surprised to hear you’re making friends. How long has it been since you last had one?”
“I don’t know.”
“Ah, you don’t know,” the man said, his mouth forever a sneer even as it was meant to be a smile. “But no matter, right? You seem much happier now than I’ve seen you in years. It’s good. I’m glad you are more… content .” His voice conveyed anything but his words.
Michael knew his father was not happy.
“I’m sorry,” Michael whispered after another painful pause.
“What are you sorry for?” Father expected and waited patiently.
“I’m sorry for…for not…for—” The hand behind his neck tightened enough to silence him.
“Listen carefully, Boy. You can have as many friends as you want. That is no issue to me,” Father all but hiss. “But the second I see you start forgetting your crime, that is when it makes me just a little bit irritated. It seems to me you have abandoned the memory of your mother.”
“N-no.” Michael shook his head. “I haven’t. I swear I haven’t—!”
“Then why act as if you have? Why do I see you eager to move past it when you deserve no such thing?”
His eyes stung with tears. Michael gripped Father’s wrist when his neck began to hurt, knowing he wouldn’t let go of him regardless.
“I’m sorry.” He hated him. “I-I’m sorry; I promise…I promise I won’t forget.”
“Forget what, Michael?” Father’s nail only sunk deeper into his bruising skin. The man did it on purpose.
A tear slid down his cheek.
“I promise I won’t forget,” Michael hissed back, forcing back a growl, “that I killed her.”
Satisfaction sparkled in Father’s eyes before the volume of television peaked to its highest. Laughing tracks and commercial music became deafening until there was a rising, but unstable whine coming out from it. The dark living room flashed all but black and white as the screen of the television shifted between channels and switched on and off repetitively.
Father had already released him by then, panic smeared all over his face.
“Stop it,” he said once. The television continued on. “Michael, I said stop it!” Father rushed across the living room and snatched the plug off the wall.
Then the house turned quiet.
Save for Father’s angry breathing and his own fearful one.
“Father, I…” Michael took a step back. “I am so sorry, I—”
“Get out of my sight. Now.” His words were as sharp as his tone. Michael didn’t linger around to watch how Father’s annoyance towards him shifted to unadulterated loathing. It happened often enough for him to foresee what would happen next should he do. Getting sent to his room, right after pulling an act as dangerous as this, was as merciful as Father could be. For the worst would be the forced isolation in the cramped basement. There were no lights to accompany him down there, only sheer silence and his mind telling him he was at fault and oftentimes, him scratching on the edges of the door, promising Father he wouldn’t do it again. Ever since then, rarely had Father seen him influence the television again; and rarely would he send him into the basement as a punishment.
Michael slammed his bedroom door shut and collapsed on his knees, backs pressed against the door. The second he was alone, hot tears streamed past his cheeks as silent sobs escaped him. His hands trembled, though it was a familiar thing. And the constricting feeling in his chest, and the painful lump in his throat.
He forced himself to keep breathing until it steadied.
He forced himself to stop thinking of what he had said.
I promise I won’t forget that I killed her.
He cried until his eyes were tired of tears.
“Michael?” A meek, comforting voice of a friend spoke over his soft sobs.
He felt the blob move out from his bag and climb over his arm.
“Not now, Willy,” he said, refusing to look at its wide eye.
“I respected your wishes to not to interfere for many times,” Willy said, however, grimly. “But would it be so bad if I did it just once?”
“Y-You can’t.” Michael sniffled, wiping his eyes. “You can’t interfere. Please. Not with him.”
“But he is dangerous! Far more than any bullies or soulless individuals.” It fixed him a stern look. “Just this once, I promise you. And he won’t lay a finger on you anymore.”
“Willy…”
“Make a deal with me.” Willy moved closer on his arm. “If you let me help, you’ll never have to be afraid in your own home.”
Michael pondered, frowning. “But…what benefit would you get from this?”
“I get to see your suffering with that fiend come to an end. That’s enough for an Eye like me.”
His brows furrowed deeper.
“But what if something went wrong? What if somehow you broke the deal? You told me doing so had catastrophic consequences—I cannot lose a friend—”
“Deals are the very thing that makes or breaks an Eye,” Willy said, determined. “I won’t break this one. That is a guarantee.”
“No.” Michael shook his head. “It’s too risky.” He walked to his table and gently placed Willy down there.
“It’s a risk if you see only the cons! Think about how much it could change your life for good.”
“Well, I like my life as it is.”
“Liar!” Willy exclaimed. “You hide your suffering as well as you mask your longing for something better. The longer your father breathes, the longer you will have to endure this hell. If you would just take my deal, you wouldn’t have to put up with him and his drunken, abusive—"
“I am not murdering another one of my parents!” Willy shrunk at his raised voice, surprised as his emotions exploded into one of utter fury.
For a while, the room became silent except for the ticking of his bedside clock.
“Alright,” Willy whispered. “Forget I…ever offered.”
Guilt had crept over his back, but his anger and exhaustion won in the end. Michael, after wishing Willy a curt goodnight, climbed over his bed and laid uneasy. He tossed and turned until past midnight, thought of the last good fun he had at Arabel’s house before returning to the awaiting nightmare in his own, and regretted having let out his anger on Willy and ended the day on a sour note. Yet that wasn’t the most of what kept him up at night.
For the thing that kept him up was Willy’s offer to murder Father.
And how much he found himself considering it.
Notes:
I guess you can already tell what happens in the next chapter.
Thanks for reading!
Chapter 78: The Night of The Storm
Notes:
Heya I'm back with another chapter! Please look at the warning for this one before continuing.
[WARNING]
Child abuse, emotional abuse, violence, body horror, thoughts of death
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Thunder boomed outside of his window as lightning struck the darkened sky.
Many nights the storm persisted like a stubborn child, heavy rainwater incessantly tapping against window glasses and roofs of neighboring houses in Pale City, and many nights, it disturbed the peace of one’s slumber. Yet the thunder did not disturb Michael so much as it freed him. For the nightmares had returned. Each night he woke up in sweat and a stabbing pain above his heart, the ending of his repetitive dream following him if only temporarily. He awoke through the same sudden but loud thunder, and it often left him panting at the minor shock.
Tonight was no different.
Michael jolted up from his bed with a gasp. The dream of shouting children with blurred faces, fruitlessly stopping a bleeding wound, remained fresh in his mind for many minutes. His nightmares were often lucid and frequent that he was certain the next time he awoke would be the time the Grim Reaper had already claimed his soul. Just like in his dream. A tall figure, standing behind the children, hidden amongst the shadows yet visible enough to see their looming outline. They had watched him during the panic of the children; they had chuckled. It was the last thing Michael recalled as always before everything shifted back into his dark bedroom—into the real world.
His rapid heartbeat came to a slow pace after many sharp breaths. The pain subsided into nothing more than mild ache. And his mind returned to him, focusing on dragging the recent dream into the back of his mind until it was practically not even there.
Michael read the clock by his bed:
2:49 a.m.
It was still early. Much too early to do anything aside from going back to sleep, despite him dreading so.
He was laying back down on his pillow when his tired eyes laid on his desk across the room, and the empty jar that sat upon it. Michael promptly abandoned the idea of sleeping again as soon as he’d realized the absence of a blob creature.
“Willy?” The door to his bedroom was ajar, a static noise beyond it; subtle yet unnerving.
It came from downstairs.
Michael quickly threw the covers off him and snuck out from his room. The wood floors were cold under his bare feet, the temperature around the house much lower than usual, sending him shivering. Perhaps his anxiety was part of it. He followed the sound of the undeviating static until he was climbing down the stairs one step at a time.
The living room was left dark as the night before, empty bottles and half-empty ones strewn around Father’s chair as if they were children’s toys. He quietly descended to the bottom of the steps before stopping and checking the room.
Father was not down here if his loud snores upstairs were of any indication. But if the man was still asleep in his own room, how could the television be on in the middle of the night? Had Father forgotten to switch it off from the night before? Unlikely. The only way he had was if he was asleep right in front of it. Did Michael’s nightmare somehow influence it? Perhaps. But he’d been careful since the last time he nearly broke it. Still unlikely.
Michael took slow, wary steps into the living room, the television screen displaying nothing but grey static and letting out an irritating noise when he walked closer, its screen merely flashing the first few feet in front of it and refracting off a few bottles nearby.
Then his jaw dropped.
“Willy?”
The blob creature was sitting focused in front of the screen when he announced himself. It turned to him, wide-eyed.
“Oh, hello, Michael! You’re awake! I was wondering if that was the reason the screen turned into static,” Willy chirped.
“What are you doing down here? Father could wake up and hear—”
“Not a problem! I’ve been doing this for a few nights, and he hasn’t made any complaints.”
“What?”
“It’s true!” Willy whispered loudly, bobbing. “I have been coming down here to understand this item a little better. Since that man likes to lounge in here most of the day, I figured, what better time to come than when the whole world is asleep?”
“Willy, this is not okay,” Michael said, horrified. “This is seriously a risky move you’re doing. You shouldn’t just go around the house when Father is home. Especially not out in the open. He could come down any second and see you if he hears anything downstairs!”
“But I told you I haven’t heard any complaints.”
“Because you haven’t yet! What on Earth were you thinking? What are you even doing staring at an empty screen?”
“Well, I was watching your dream,” it said.
His blood chilled. Willy seemed unfazed by his uneasiness and horror.
“My…dream? On the television?” How many nights have I projected my nightmares unconsciously?
“Yes, your dream!” Willy exclaimed, though in hush voices. “The first night, I came downstairs to investigate and was so confused as to why the… television switched on by itself. Then played a rather gruesome show at this hour too. But the more nights I listened to sounds down here from up there, the more I realized: it was you! Your fearful reaction every time you wake up matches the scenes I see on this screen right here! It’s so fascinating! Is this truly what you meant all those weeks ago when you told the soulless girl you could influence televisions? Oh, Michael, you must tell me what else you can do with this talent of yours. I am just so intrigued—!”
“How many?”
Willy blinked dumbly. “What do you mean, friend?”
“How many nights have you been sneaking down here and watching my dream without telling me?”
The bright look in its singular eye dimmed, but it kept its enthusiastic tone up.
“Why, perhaps…two weeks ago?” Willy told him. “It began the night I offered…the deal. Which you refused.” It added with a bitter voice, “ However, stupidly.”
Michael bit back a seethe, irritation burning in his chest.
The television buzzed and shifted suddenly. The sound of the screaming children from his dream played, however, barely audible. On the screen, there was the familiar sight of pooling crimson, then a pair of hands pushing down against the dark spot of growing blood.
Willy’s attention turned back to the television in awe; but Michael’s horror returned to make him fall in front of the television. To reach for the off switch.
“Wait! I want to see it!” Willy jumped at his hand and steered it just an inch away. His palm slammed against the hot glass. That was when the muffled screams of the children became the deafening screams of a thousand voices.
His replicated nightmare shifted into a scene he was unfamiliar with. Darkness consumed the glowing circles one by one, the same abyss leaking out from it and appearing utterly distorted in the midst of the unrecognizable chaos. For each white glow that was consumed, another new scream of agony joined the others, becoming an ugly, dissonant symphony that split the screen into a growing crack. A high-pitched whine followed immediately.
Michael grabbed Willy close and turned them away from the explosion.
The television let out a dying sound, one he recognized in his past, as shards of broken glass scattered all around the carpet and floor. A thin layer of smoke hung in the air behind him, confirming his suspicions when he dared to take a look.
There was a large hole in the television where it wasn’t before. He could still hear its soft buzzing of dying electricity and the hissing of a spark. But worst of all, he could hear the angry groans and footsteps of the man upstairs.
“Uh, oh,” Willy whispered, guilty as it should. “Is that—?"
Michael didn’t wait for Willy’s question as he rushed at the dining table and pushed himself and Willy beneath it. Pulling his knees together, he held his friend close to his chest.
Father’s footsteps stomped on the ground floor just in time as he dropped the tablecloth down, letting it touch the floor and hide them.
Then Michael waited. Listened. Prayed the storm outside was loud enough to cover his heavy breathing. For there was a curse under Father’s breath, a simmering rage in his voice as he called out his name.
“Michael? I know you’re here.” Looking through the small gap of the tablecloth, a few bottles knocked down and rolled on the floor as Father kicked it out of his way. His patience ran out quickly. “Michael! Come out of your hiding, you stupid child!”
Michael unconsciously held Willy a little closer, as if to hide it better than before. He pressed his hand over his mouth and nose as Father’s footsteps approached them.
But they ceased.
The tip of the man’s feet stopped just beside him, lingering there for painfully long seconds until another colorful curse was uttered. Then Father pivoted on his heel towards the kitchen.
Only then, Michael allowed himself to breathe again, once he was certain his father was far enough, imagining he was checking the other rooms.
His back bumped into the chair behind him, the wood scraping against wood. Michael realized his mistake. The heavy footsteps returned into the living room, however this time, it returned together with a wicked chuckle.
He knew where he was. And the man knew he would make a run for it now that he was found.
“There you are.” Father snatched his arm within seconds and dragged him out from underneath the table, sinking his nails purposefully to break his skin. Michael screamed and thrashed. He fought in Father’s iron grip with utter horror before he was thrown to the hard floor. He didn’t see Willy anywhere.
“What have I told you, Michael? What have I told you about influencing the television?” Father slapped him across the face. “ Time and time again, I’ve said—warned you—what will happen if you do. I’ve been kind enough to not keep you outside in the streets and in the dark. To not let you be without any food or water. I’ve been patient more than usual—more than you deserve. Was that a mistake? Tell me, Michael, should I have better locked you in the basement for a week until you finally understand?” He hit him again and again, each much harder than the last, much angrier and with stronger hatred.
“I-I’m sorry.” Michael held back a sob, albeit failing miserably. The stinging pain was still fresh. His cheeks burned and were stained with tears. “I’m sorry, it…it was an accident. I won’t do it again. I promise.”
“Your promises mean nothing to me, Boy. You’ll need to learn that your actions have consequences.” With one sharp tug of his hair, Father forced him up to his feet; then pulled him along with him by the wrist.
His eyes widened in horror when they approached a door, furthest in the back room. The basement.
“No,” Michael muttered, then cried to him, “I-I’m sorry! Please, I’m so sorry! I won’t do it again—I swear!” He skidded his feet to halt them both, to get away from the door he hated whatever was beyond it. He screamed and begged. Clawed the man’s arm and fought even harder.
But even then, Father was unrelenting.
Even as the door to the basement was pushed wide, revealing the vast empty darkness waiting to consume any visitor beyond its steps, Father insisted Michael cross the threshold on the other side.
As his punishment, he would say. So he would learn better than from a mere warning. Though, through the nights he had spent in the basement, locked in without any mercy of light or a proper bed, Michael also learned that this was the worst form of punishment he could ever endure: isolation. He learned that he would do anything to never be locked alone ever again, for the thought of sleeping on the basement’s cold cement floor, hungry and miserable for an unknown period of time, made him believe he could die. Many times in that basement, he had wished to die if only it would mean he could be spared from the darkness of the cruel prison.
His body refused to relive that.
He couldn’t.
So he used his teeth to escape Father’s clutches.
“You little shit!” It worked.
Michael ran to the living room as soon as he was released, all the while ignoring the man’s angry yells and hisses of pain.
If he could get to his room and lock himself in there, he would be safe. He wouldn’t be trapped inside the consuming abyss of the basement. He needed to just get to his room and—
Willy.
Michael hesitated at the stairs.
I can’t leave him down here with Father. He contemplated between two steps.
Father’s feet chased after him much faster than his own he realized soon.
The man, cruel as he was, snatched the back of his shirt when he had only climbed halfway, lifting him off the steps as though he were a feather and pushing him even harder to the ground.
His head slammed into the wood. The room spun in circles, unfocused and dark. Michael decided to forget about the throb on his skull and eye, or the sharp sting of the cut on his lip. He carried himself with all he had, determined if not desperate to get away from the danger behind him.
“Get back here, you brat.” He felt Father try to grab him again. Michael searched the floor and touched the neck of a knocked down bottle. He crashed it against the man’s head.
A hoarse scream cut through the air. Blood trickled down the side of Father’s head as he staggered and dropped on his knees.
“You. You piece of…you should’ve d-died in that fire! You’re nothing but worthless, shit of bad luck!” Father screamed.
A pair of large hands wrapped around his throat. They squeezed his neck and slammed him twice against the floor. The force of it was so brutal it disoriented him.
Michael scratched Father’s wrist weakly, staring up into his hazy face and listening to his speeches filled with fury.
Throughout it all, a part of him pushed himself to survive no matter what, whereas the other part hoped his body would just stop persisting; to abandon all hope and fight for his chance to live, because each second of deprived air and pressed windpipe reminded him how close he was to true everlasting peace. He’d almost listened to this part of him.
For Death, in this circumstance, might just be kinder than the man who was giving up his son to.
Death might just be the peace he could never find anywhere in this life.
Would it be selfish to want it? To abandon all he knew and everyone he had met: Willy, Arabel, Mrs. Marsh? Would he miss the opportunity to meet more people who were equally kind at heart? Would he even be missed?
Darkness danced around the edges of his vision. His hands were numb and nearly asleep.
Michael thought fate had decided for him when suddenly air rushed back into his lungs mercilessly. In one moment, the weight on top of him and his neck was gone, followed by a series of coughing, gagging and wheezing. Not only from him, but from the man who had nearly killed him.
Father was kneeling and facing the other way. Michael blinked and wiped the residue of his tears to see better in the dark.
A certain black water leaked down Father’s ears, and mouth. There was blood in his eyes and more down his nose, however, darker in shade of color. Perhaps that could be blood, too, but it didn’t seem quite right. Not when the same dark blood glittered with subtle whites, appearing and disappearing as though it was blinking rapidly. Father gagged worse. He pushed a finger, his entire hand, down his throat with strange horror on his increasingly pale face, though whatever he was trying to throw up refused to leave.
For one minute, the man suffered.
Then suddenly he turned limp.
Father’s body slumped to the ground like a lifeless doll, almost dead albeit with wide eyes that blinked and a moving chest that heaved breaths.
“F…Father?”
Brown eyes blinked a few times more before they snapped to him. Then the corners of his lips tugged upwards into a crooked smile.
“Michael!” Father’s voice sounded different. “Oh, I’m so glad I managed to save you in time.”
When he said nothing, Father slowly pushed himself off the ground, sitting but faltering to one side.
Like a man lacking half his bones.
“It’s me,” he continued, smiling wider. “It’s Willy!”
Michael lost all words.
“Friend? Is everything alright? Were you hurt badly—?”
Though unable to speak, Michael still could react, backing away on his rear when Father—Willy moved. The man froze at his fear, frowning with a look he’d seen rarely across his father’s face: guilt.
“Michael…?”
“What did you do?” He balled his hand into a tight fist. “Wh-what have you done to him?”
“It’s alright. Everything is alright—”
“No!” he snapped. “No, Willy, everything is not alright! I told you not to interfere! I told you not to do anything when it comes to Father!”
“Michael—”
“And now y-you’re…you’re controlling him! Like a puppet! Was this what you meant when you offered your Deal to me? To—to do this?”
“I understand your confusion and fear,” Willy raised Father’s voice and said slowly, “But your hand…”
Michael looked down at his hand and saw his fingers closed tightly around a piece of broken glass. The bottle he had crashed against Father’s head with. The reason why Father’s head was bleeding as much as his right palm was.
He dropped the glass to the ground, his blood dripping down his shaking fingers.
“Michael, I can help,” Willy said after a while. With Father’s body, he moved closer, however, cautiously. “Please. Just let me help you. I promise I will explain everything—”
Michael shoved him and escaped through the front door. Even as the storm rained down upon him, as his aching joints and stinging wounds bothered him, or as Willy pleaded for him to come back, he ran as fast as his legs could carry him.
And he did not look back.
The storm was never kind to any man and not to any child.
Michael, in his drenched state, couldn’t remain running any longer without anything to shield him from the heavy downpour. All of the houses in the neighborhood were dark inside with its residents asleep safe and soundly. He regretted having awoken one of them as he stood under their porch light, his knuckles knocking weakly against their door.
When Arabel opened it, in her crinkled pajamas and tousled hair, she didn’t yell or tell him to go away. All she did was take sight of him—as he was certain he looked rather awful. He could feel the bruises under his eye throbbing even more, and the wound on his hand stinging worse than the cut on his bottom lip.
None of it compared to the stabbing pang of guilt for having disturbed her.
“I’m sorry,” he said over the rain behind him. “I had nowhere else to go.”
Michael didn’t remember exactly what happened next or how he ended up sitting by a lit fire with thick blankets draped over him. He couldn’t recall the words neither Arabel nor Marsh had spoken to him until Marsh shook him gently out of his thoughts.
She had finished bandaging his hand and had said something to him.
“S-Sorry, what…?” Michael heard his own voice and winced. His throat was still very sore.
“I asked if you would like me to have a look at your eye, dear? I worry, it’s starting to look darker than before.” When Marsh barely lifted a hand to touch his face, and Michael flinched, she abandoned the action with a tight smile. “Perhaps…you should change into drier clothes. You must be freezing, aren’t you?”
“It’s okay.”
“Then another hot drink? To keep you warm? I could even make you a nice cup of hot chocolate if you’d like—?”
“Ma,” Arabel said from the kitchen door, cuing for her mother to stop.
Marsh only smiled softly at her daughter and then at him. “I suppose you’d rather rest. As we all should. But…if you need anything, Michael, just please do not hesitate to let me know. Or Ara. She’ll be a bit aloof, but I promise she will be at your service—drinks, food, comfort, you name it.”
“Ma!”
That lifted a small smile out of him. He shook his head at her.
“Thank you. But I’ll be fine,” he told her, easing Arabel’s embarrassment.
Marsh nodded and got up from her seat. “Goodnight, dear.” Then to her daughter who shyly walked into the room, she placed a gentle peck over her head and whispered, “You too, sweet girl.”
After Marsh went upstairs, it was only him and Arabel in the room.
Michael watched the fire crackle in the fireplace and stared blankly into it, shifting closer towards its kind heat. The grandfather clock in the corner of the room continued to move back and forth, its little hands ticking the minutes and seconds.
He wasn’t aware Arabel had taken the seat next to him on the floor until she cleared her throat.
“Are you okay?” was her first question. There were many more, he could sense from the wary edge on her voice.
“I’m okay,” he said after a pause, playing with the warm drink in his hand. He still hadn’t taken a sip.
“Did he do this to you? Your father?” He frowned.
Her boldness wasn’t what surprised him, rather it was the way she had asked him. As though she had always known about his situation at home.
How could she know?
“I figured,” Arabel answered his thoughts, “a while back. You were quick to apologize for every small thing. And you seem much too afraid when you do.”
“You figured it out based on that alone?” His eyes stayed on the swirling tea.
“Well, I didn’t think I’d be right to confirm it with you. How cold do you think I am?” Michael chuckled. She grinned proudly before her face became serious again. “How long has this been going on for? If you don’t mind,” she asked him.
“Three or four years.”
“You’ve told no one?”
When he said nothing, Arabel didn’t push. Instead she leaned on one arm and stared ahead into the fire, as he did.
“I have only one friend before you,” Michael found himself saying eventually. “I told… him everything.”
“What’s his name?” Arabel asked out of genuine curiosity.
“Willy,” Michael replied. “He was the one I mentioned having been responsible for Jimmy’s shoulder injury not long ago. On top of the hand incident.”
“Ah, the hand incident. Of course. My most proud assault moment,” Arabel joked, and expected his small smile, which she gladly received. “I think I do remember this…Willy guy. Wasn’t he the one you also said who stays inside your bag and listens to your conversations?”
“Yes.” He gave her a wary look. “You still believe me, don’t you?”
If Arabel didn’t, she hid it as well as she possibly could. Though, there in her eyes he could still note a tinge of skepticism. She believed him as much as he believed her talking shadows story.
“Of course, I do.” A lie he didn’t mind. “Willy is like your…brother, right?”
He smiled fondly. “We met during a thunderstorm, you know. Similar to the one outside right now.”
“You don’t say,” Arabel said. “You found an alien friend and never thought to introduce your human one. I should be upset.”
“If I had, you wouldn’t have stayed.”
“Is Willy a scary looking thing?”
“At first. After a while, he looks about as normal as you.”
A scoff left her along with a silent laugh.
“You should consider yourself lucky for having such a patient friend like me. Any other day I would’ve flicked you in the nose. But…I’ll ignore the fact you compared me to an alien just this once. Since you look like you had a rough night.” She bumped her shoulder into his, still subtly trying to keep his smile on his face.
This time, it didn’t work as she had intended.
The memory of Father’s assault up to Willy’s interference was almost a blur despite it having been only a few hours, yet the injuries he sustained were still fresh, be it mental or physical. He still could not get the image of Father’s dotted, bloody eyes when Willy had spoken through him. He still could not unhear the dissonant two voices leaving from one man as he had shouted Michael’s name, though out of desperation rather than rage for him to return.
“I’m sorry for having disturbed you, Ara. You and your mother,” Michael said, unable to look her in the eye. “Tonight was all my fault.”
“Hey, enough with that,” Arabel hushed with a light scowl. “You know this isn’t any trouble for us.”
“But I came here so early, and…and I disturbed your sleep and—”
“School break just started a few days ago. I think catching sleep is the least of my worries. And you know me, I rarely could sleep most of the time anyway.” Michael finally looked at her, taking note of the dark bags under her eyes. She never wanted to tell him why when he had tried to ask. “Besides…My Ma adores you. If you had come every 3 a.m. to visit, I know she wouldn’t even complain. I’m willing to bet she’ll even keep an extra bed prepared just for you. That’s how she is. She doesn’t mind it.”
“And you? Don’t you mind it?”
“I mind it a lot if you keep asking me that,” she said, “so don’t. Stay as long as you need to. As long as you get to stay away from your father.”
“I can’t.”
A muscle on her face twitched. “Why not?”
He opened his mouth and closed it immediately. Father might be dead because of me. Willy took over Father’s body because he nearly strangled me to death.
He couldn’t tell Arabel any of that.
“Willy is still at home,” was what he told her instead, surprising himself. “I…I can’t just leave him behind.”
I have to understand what happened.
“Michael, you’ve just been hurt,” Arabel pointed out, shocked. “I think the only one you should be thinking about is yourself right now. Not some… creature you met on a stormy night.”
Something stirred in him, making him frown not at her words but at her implication of his other friend. That he was to abandon Willy and see it as nothing more than an imaginary character he’d made up in his mind to cope with his harships. She didn’t know, Michael knew. But being as exhausted and emotional as he was tonight, anger rose in his chest quicker before he could stop it.
“Willy is my brother.” Michael sent her a sharp glare. “He has been there for me when no one has. Became my only company and friend when I have to take a beating from my own father. Don’t you even think about telling me I have to abandon him so I can save my own skin, Ara. You don’t get to say that. Especially not when you don’t know anything.”
Arabel looked at him surprised.
While he had expected having shown a rare angry side of him would result in her snapping back, Arabel proved him wrong as she continued in the same gentle voice. Firm, albeit oddly so patient with him.
As though he hadn’t just told her off and shamed her.
“Okay. I won’t...” She mimicked his look then. “But only if you can tell me Willy was there for you tonight. The same night you happened to run from home, in the middle of a crazy thunderstorm, for reasons I can only imagine to be as desperate as wanting to save your own life. Tell me I’m wrong.”
That stunned him into silence. His scowl for her faltered, and his irritation from earlier seemed more and more irrelevant when she’d managed to make a point he couldn’t refuse.
He had wanted to save his own life. He had been desperate enough to leave during a heavy storm. He had acted out of fear. Though, a part of him still wondered if that fear was entirely of Father or of what he’d seen was left of the man as his control was stolen from him.
“Michael,” Arabel called him softly after his silence dragged on. “You know you can talk to me.”
He couldn’t. He could give her all the truth, but he couldn’t bring himself to tell her about this. So instead of answering, Michael took a long sip of Marsh’s tea. Every gulp was uncomfortable; his neck still hurt.
When Arabel let out a quiet sigh, he turned to her with guilt.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered, for what he had said and was about to say. “But I have to go back. I can’t leave him behind with my father. He’s not…he’s not a good person, Ara.”
For a moment, Arabel only stared at him with an equally frustrated look. Then afterwards she shifted her face to the fire and refused to meet his eyes.
“Look. I know…I don’t have many—if not, any—rights to make you do something. You’re your own person. I’d hate it if someone tells me what to do either,” she said, sucking the air between her teeth, hesitating ever so rarely. “But oftentimes, there’s a voice in the back of my mind that always warns me whenever something bad is about to come. Always pulling me away from danger a second early before it even happens. Some call it gut feeling; others call it luck. I chose the first.
“And right now, it isn’t telling me good things, Michael. I’ll be honest and say I really don’t have a good feeling about you going back to your house. Seriously. And I’m not saying this so you’ll stay or because I want more of your company and all that crap…but because you’ve been a friend to me as much as I’ve been one to you. I care about you more than you real—" Arabel stopped with an irritated sigh, her face appearing flushed from the heat of the fire.
“I care about my friends,” she began again after a while. Then with a firm look set upon her face, ready with a new resolve, she told him, “So, if you really insist on going back for your alien brother, then…I’m coming with you.”
His drink nearly spilled from how fast he turned to her.
“What—?”
“7 o’clock sharp. Get some sleep while you still can—”
“ Arabel—”
“And it’s non-negotiable,” she deadpanned. “You either let me go with you, or we go separately. I still know where you live. Don’t forget that.”
A deep scowl rested on his brows, though he couldn’t bring himself to actually mean it. Neither could Arabel as she soon saw the telltale sign of her victory: his exasperated sigh and clenched jaw.
She scoffed at him with a cheeky smirk. He returned it with a shake of his head.
“I could tell your mother, you know. About you being sneaky,” he said, his voice low.
“Hmm. Then maybe I could tell her you cracked one of her fine China cups. That ought to make us even.”
“Ara, that was you.”
“Your words against mine then, Mono. Your words against mine.” The corner of his lips curled into the smallest of grins at the moniker, remembering Pale Pond and the memory that may or may not have changed his perspective forever.
The clock in the corner continued its slow ticking. For a long time, Michael stared down into the half-empty drink, taking comfort from the sound of crackling fire in front of him. He yawned. His eyelids grew heavier. And he had nearly dozed off while sitting if it hadn’t been for the sudden emptiness in his hand. It took him a second to understand it was Arabel who had taken the cup and put it aside; and how it was also her who had pushed a pillow into the crook of his arms.
She fixed the falling blanket to rest properly on his shoulder.
“7 o’clock sharp,” she said after nodding to the couch. “We go together. Or we go separately.”
Afterwards, Arabel bid him a quiet goodnight and headed up the stairs to her own room, leaving him alone by the fire that died when dawn approached.
Notes:
Next up: Arabel visits Mono's house for a change
I promise Willy is not bad...yet.
Thanks for reading!
Chapter 79: Hemming House
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
The world outside was still dark as they walked the pavement leading up to Michael’s house. They’d snuck out exactly at 7 o’clock in the morning, with Marsh still asleep upstairs and none the wiser of the children’s plan. They both knew the older woman would not approve of him going back, like Arabel did, so they had to do it discreetly and hopefully quickly too. Luckily for them, the storm had subsided into pitter patters of light rain.
The nervous breath he heaved came out in a visible puff of air. The chilly wind made him shiver despite the large coat he had borrowed—been forced to wear—from Arabel. It had belonged to her father, though she insisted she saw it as nothing more than extra clothing and a waste of space. Michael had thanked her, even if he had tried telling her he could do without it.
Another breeze flew past them. His hands still trembled under his arms, and he knew this time it had come from his own uneasy nerves.
“You alright there?”
Michael nodded. “I’m fine. Just a bit…cold.”
“It is a little bit, isn’t it?” Arabel agreed, walking his pace. Though he was sure her usual speed was much faster. “I’m glad I made you wear that coat then. Or else you would’ve been complaining like a big baby the whole time.”
“I never complain,” he said. “ You complain.”
“Only because everyone is incompetent and stupid.” Michael furrowed his brows at her. She added, “Almost everyone.”
He smiled. “Thank you for coming with me. You really didn’t have to.”
“I’d be stupid myself to let you go alone, Michael. In this case, I don’t really have much choice,” she said, shrugging. Michael didn’t bring up how it wouldn’t make a difference whether she came with him or not. For if Father somehow had regained himself, they would still be no match for the man’s aggression.
His throat still hurt to swallow, and for every crack in his voice only reminded him of what had transpired merely hours ago: his near-death. He had been beaten and strangled by his father and here he was returning to the house that he was supposed to die in had Willy not interfered.
“Hey.” A cold finger curled around his own, but only for a moment. Just enough to get his attention. “Are you sure you want to do this? It’s not too late to go back. We can just—”
“No,” he said above whisper. Then he tried his best to keep his smile steady. “I’m sure.”
If Arabel was not convinced, she didn’t tell him so directly. Instead it was all over her face. The subtle twitch of her eyes, the tension on her face and shoulders, her heaving an exasperated sigh. She said nothing at all until they arrived at his house, just outside of the worn-down wooden fence.
Standing there felt odd to him. Like the house he stayed in for the past few years was nothing more than an abandoned home he had never set foot inside. The windows were cloudy and dirty from the outside, the curtains covering any view of the living room he could imagine Father waiting on his chair. His front yard was untamed with overgrown grasses and weeds. There was a shabby tire beneath a small tree in the corner; Michael didn’t remember when or why it was left there.
The fence door swung wide when he and Arabel walked in. He hadn’t realized just how deliberately slow he was moving until he couldn’t delay it any longer. A few more steps towards the door and he would find out the condition behind it. He would find out if Father could still be breathing or better yet dead.
“Stay here,” he said as he stopped Arabel from taking the next step with him.
“Are you being serious?” Michael shook his head. She gaped and scoffed. “Michael, the whole reason I came with you was so you wouldn’t have to go alone. You agreed with that yourself.”
“I agreed you would come with me to my house. I never agreed you would follow me inside it.”
More irritation flashed across her face. “I cannot believe you—!"
“Please,” he said, unable to hide the shake in his voice. “Just stay out here? I promise I’ll be back.”
Arabel glared at him, which he had expected. He had even thought she would roll her eyes with utter annoyance and insisted she follow anyway, so when she backed down without much fight it caught him a bit off guard.
“10 minutes,” she said after sighing through her nose. “If you’re not back or…or even give me a signal that everything is fine in 10 minutes, then I’m breaking in.”
Michael snickered. It occurred to him she wasn’t kidding when her glare stayed.
“10 minutes,” he echoed, his smile gone. “I promise.” With that he went inside his house and closed the door behind him, reluctant to meet Arabel’s sharp stare.
As he took in the familiar darkness of the living room, a different dread approached him from behind. Everything looked the same as when he had left. The television at the side still had a hole on its screen, though the smoke had dissipated. Shards of its glass mixed together with Father’s drink bottles were all over the floor, crunching quietly under his shoes as he moved. He still could smell the light stench of it, along with the blood that had stained the wood beneath where Father’s head had been.
His eyes darted from one corner to the other. He checked Father’s chair and found it empty. The kitchen was untouched by the chaos beyond its room, and the basement door was still wide open, calling out to him like a haunting voice. He had made sure to shut it immediately on his way back to the living room. Even so…
No presence of Father here.
And neither was Willy’s.
Michael stepped over the glasses and climbed up the stairs. His steps were light and cautious as he glanced around, finding no difference from the night before. Stopping in front of Father’s room, he hesitated for a few seconds before daring a peek inside.
The unmade bed was all he found. Father was also not here. If he wasn’t downstairs or in his room, could he have left? Could he be in the bathroom, tending to the wounds Michael had inflicted on him?
He checked the bathroom and found it dark and empty too.
Where is Father?
The looming trepidation finally nestled inside him, making him more and more anxious to wait without answers.
Michael could only think of one place left he hadn’t checked: his own bedroom.
With a slow push of the door, he hesitantly stepped inside and looked for any signs of his father. This time he found one.
His back hit the desk behind him as he stumbled backwards, breathing quickly in shock for the slumped man sleeping at the foot of his bed. Michael knew immediately. The man, though his face covered entirely by a brown and crumpled paper bag, still wore the clothes his father had worn mere hours ago. Another indication that revealed the man’s identity was the stain on the top side of the bag, a darker color spreading to nearly half of the paper, just where the head injury was.
Michael couldn’t look away. Despite his fear rooting him in place, confusion made its way just as fast as his mind started to think again.
What was Father doing in his room, sitting on the floor? Why was he only breathing as if he was sleeping there? Why was he pretending he hadn’t heard him come in?
“Michael?”
That innocent voice of a small child finally snapped him out of it.
On his desk, Willy sat inside the glass jar, its eye wide and unblinking as if him standing there was no more than a cruel hallucination.
“You came back?” Willy’s voice echoed from inside the jar, though he could hear its disbelief loud and clear.
Michael didn’t know what to say. Or rather, he wasn’t sure what to say first. He contemplated for a while whether to directly ask the blob why Father seemed lifeless and why Willy had returned to its blob form, or what on Earth happened at all during the storm. But in the end he opted to answer its question.
“Of course I did,” he said in a whisper. He glanced over his shoulder to his father, feeling uneasy.
“He can’t move, if that’s what you’re worried about.” Michael turned back to Willy with raised brows.
“What?” he asked.
“He can’t move,” Willy repeated. “I have…helped him calm himself down. So you needn’t worry if he’ll stand up and surprise you from behind.”
“Did you—?”
“I didn’t. He isn’t dead, I assure you.” Willy’s gaze lowered to the desk then, its eye seeming to glisten from the light from his window. It looked so…despondent. Michael had never seen that on Willy before. “Your father is only in a state of…unconsciousness. Just put away within his mind, at least. I can have him awake if you’d like but I don’t trust he would react kindly without my help.”
“It’s fine,” Michael blurted as he gave another glance towards the sleeping man. “You don’t have to wake him. I just…why is there a bag over his head?”
A dry chuckle left Willy. “A heinous man shouldn’t have a face, don’t you agree? Especially not one that would put so much fear into a child. At first I had thought to simply carve it out, throw it away until it resembled nothing like the man who hurt you. But…I also knew you wouldn’t approve of that. So, in the end, I figured it was best to just cover it up and let it stay hidden from you. You know…should you ever come back here.”
“You did that for my sake?” Willy blinked slowly, as if nodding.
He still didn’t know what to say. His eyes roamed over where Willy was slumping sadly.
“And…why are you staying in that jar?” he asked.
Willy paused and refused to meet him in the eye.
“I don’t know,” it told him eventually. “I just thought you would feel…safer if I was not out in the open. Last night’s events happened because of me, after all.”
His heart sank. “Willy—”
“But it’s true, friend. Can I even call you that still?” It slumped even more into the glass, looking down in shame. “I believe if I hadn’t gone behind your back to understand some silly dream, then perhaps none of this would have happened. You wouldn’t have to face your father’s anger. And I,” Willy said, shrinking. “I wouldn’t have done what I did to him afterwards.”
“But if you hadn’t done what you did, I would still be in a nightmare while awake, Willy.”
Willy finally looked at him, surprised.
“You are glad? Really?”
“I know I was…angry before about you interfering when it comes to Father but”—He sent another look over his shoulder, somehow finding himself relishing at the thought of the man entirely unconscious and without full control to unleash his violence. At the thought of freedom and the possible blinding future ahead of him. Michael smiled at Willy—”you saved my life. Possibly forever. I can’t be any more grateful for what you did.” Then gently, he tilted the jar on its side, beckoning for Willy to come out with a hand waiting at the jar’s mouth.
“Well. You saved mine first, remember?” Willy said, its skin flushing as it moved towards his hand and settling on his palm. “I guess this means…we are still friends?”
“Brothers,” Michael said and held Willy close to his chest.
Willy leaned itself for the hug, beaming. “Hm. I do like the sound of that. Brother.”
Somewhere in the distance, a floor groaned. Both Michael and Willy snapped their attention to the figure standing in the doorframe. And both of them spoke in unison.
“Ara?”
“Soulless girl?”
Arabel was frozen with one leg behind her, but her eyes continued to dart back and forth between him, Willy and—
The realization fell upon him like cold water, perhaps even more freezing than Pale Pond. He followed her panicking gaze towards the bleeding man in the corner.
“A-Ara, don’t be scared. It’s not what it looks like—”
“Is that your….your father?” Her words came in hush whispers. Michael understood her fear so much.
“He’s not dead, I promise,” Michael said after putting Willy back on the desk and approaching her slowly. “I mean—look at his chest. He’s still breathing, right? You can trust me. Look.”
“Indeed, soulless girl! Look at him; he’s alive!” Willy supported him cheerfully, unlike his earlier despondency.
“Why is that thing calling me soulless girl?” Panic was beginning to take over as her breath took pace. “What even is that thing?”
“Hey! I have a name!” Willy snapped.
“Willy, just—give me a second, okay?” He told Willy with a deadpan look before turning back to Arabel. “Look, Ara, we should talk outside.”
“Talk outside? Michael, there’s a literal meat jelly and a dead body in your room—!”
“Not dead, just unconscious!” Michael dragged her with him and shut his bedroom door closed to stop her from staring at his father’s comatose state. Then he led her to the hallway so she could have more space to, well, process things.
A little breathing room and a bit of time couldn’t hurt, could it?
Five minutes passed later, with her sitting in shock on the steps of his staircase and her eyes staring blankly into the wall, barely blinking. Michael sat next to her the entire time, his hand resting under his chin as he waited anxiously for her return to reality.
“So,” Arabel finally muttered after another minute, “I’ve gone crazy.”
“Ara, no,” he said, taking her hand in his. “You are not crazy.”
She stiffened at the contact but didn’t move away. “I am crazy. I told you before I see things.”
“You told me you see talking shadows. Not a talking blob.” He flashed her a cheeky grin, to which she returned with a death glare.
“Okay. Not a good time to joke yet,” he mumbled.
“I don’t understand why you never said anything.”
“Hold on. You already know about Willy.”
“You never told me he looks like that! God, Michael—at the very least, I expected him to have a body or…or I don’t know—a nose or something!”
Michael blinked dumbly.
“I…guess I could have mentioned he didn’t have a nose?”
“That’s not what I mean.” Arabel took her hand back and dragged it over her face. “I really thought he was all in your head. That you made him up to help you get through with your problems at home.”
It stung a little to know he had assumed right about what she thought of Willy.
“Well,” he said, sighing, “in a way, he did help me get through with my problems at home.”
“So, he was the one who did that to your father—?”
“No, no, Ara, that’s not—” Where would he even start? “That’s not what happened exactly.”
“Then what did happen exactly?”
A bit of hesitation lingered as he thought of his words and how to let her know.
“If I tell you, will you…promise you won’t freak out and run away?” he said first.
Her eyes narrowed impatiently at him. When he held his ground with his own sharp stare, however, she groaned with a roll of her eyes. “Fine. I promise.”
Michael began from the start of last night. He mentioned to her about his accidental nightmare projection onto the television—which she must’ve seen was broken when she had come inside his house—and how Willy had been watching it at odd hours. He told her about their little fight and the much bigger fight that occurred shortly after, how his Father had truly lost his temper especially when Michael had hurt him with his own glass bottle. It didn’t slip his attention that Arabel’s gaze went to his neck from time to time as he told her. Neither did he miss the venomous look in her eyes the more he mentioned the man.
His story ended with Willy saving him. Arabel didn’t seem too thrilled to learn that his alien friend was also capable of taking over someone else’s body, but Michael had reasoned with her that if Willy was evil, it would’ve taken over him a long time ago. It also helped when he added how he could’ve died if it weren’t for Willy.
Seemingly, the latter reason convinced her the best, if not the most. She still looked skeptical, albeit this time it wasn’t for the matter of believing him or not.
“And…how long exactly have you known Willy?” Arabel asked.
“Since a week before I found out you and Mrs. Marsh are related.”
“And you trust him? In just a few months?”
“I trusted you in a shorter amount of time, Ara.”
She frowned at him with flushed cheeks. “Fair point,” she grumbled.
“Look, why don’t you…why don’t you just meet him?”
“Me? With Willy?”
“Yeah,” he said, perhaps a bit too excitedly. “That way you can see for yourself that he’s not bad.”
“I don’t have a good feeling about this, Michael.” Arabel made a face, sighing. “I don’t have a good feeling about Willy.”
That disappointed him a little. Though perhaps her skepticism was understandable and reasonable. Who wouldn’t hesitate to meet a talking blob of meat with one large eye in the middle of its human-like skin? Add on with the knowledge that Willy could take over a person and have them be a puppet—it would be plain disturbing. He was glad Arabel didn’t know how Willy made Deals and could multiply. That would shatter completely any hope for him to introduce her to his brother.
“Just…give it a shot.” He patted her shoulder. “Please?”
Once more, he was met with her narrow-eyed stare before she relented with an even louder sigh.
“I hate you, you know that, Mono?” He smirked. The nickname was his way of knowing she wasn’t angry. “Fine. Let’s just get this over with.” She held something out from her pocket.
“I promise you, he is nice and well-mannered—is that a knife?” If it weren’t for the subtle glint of the small blade in her hand, he wouldn’t have noticed it.
Arabel, indeed, was holding a pocket knife.
“Yeah,” she replied, unashamed.
“Why do you have a knife on you?”
“Protection, clearly. You may trust Willy has your father under a coma right now, but I think it’s better to be safe than sorry. I am not about to let us be jumped at.”
“So you’re just going to, what, stab my father with that blade of yours?”
“It's just a small knife, Michael, relax. The most it'll do is slow someone down. Besides, this is just a precaution. In case we get jumped at.” She scowled down at him and walked ahead first. Michael didn’t know whether he was offended or flattered. The fact she was willing to stab anyone should be concerning, yet it didn’t feel too bad knowing that she would do it for their safety.
In case we get jumped at.
We.
His chest swelled with pride as he followed to catch up beside her.
“So…do you just carry a knife with you all the time then?” he asked her, now curious.
“All the time,” she confirmed. Then she sent him a deadpanned look. “Where else do you think I got my confidence from?”
He snickered and pushed his door open.
As they stepped inside his room, Michael could immediately feel Arabel tense beside him. He imagined having a bleeding man just sitting in his corner lifeless was a bit too distracting for anyone to pretend it was nothing. He didn’t blame her for her wary glances as she stopped in the middle of his room, her eyes staying much longer on Father than the friend he had wanted her to get acquainted with.
“Ara?” She startled as he touched her shoulder. Michael gestured to the blob on his desk.
Her eyes widened a fraction as she finally came up close to Willy.
“So…you’re Willy, huh?” Arabel began, a mixture of disgust and hesitance in her voice.
Willy responded with a similar tone.
“And you’re the soulless girl?”
“Willy,” Michael cleared his throat. “Let’s not call her that anymore.”
“Oh, Brother, I’m only kidding around! Come on, you know me!” It beamed at him before its eye hardened a little back at her. “Any friend of Michael’s is a friend of mine.”
“Likewise,” Arabel said flatly, her smile insincere.
“Hm. I like your knife there, miss Arabel. Very shiny and sharp,” Willy continued cheerfully. “You must polish it very often.
“It’s not for you, in case you’re wondering,” Arabel replied.
“Truly? Here I thought you were about to cut me for what I am in front of my best friend.”
“You've known him just a few months and you’re calling him your best friend?”
“I've known him longer than you.”
“By only a week.”
“That’s still longer, no? It’s simply natural that I get that title first.”
“You know what maybe this knife is for you—”
“Okay! Good. Good start,” Michael said as he held her arm down from pointing the knife at Willy. “I think we should all continue this…pleasant conversation another time. Don’t you agree?” he asked them.
“Oh, I think that is an excellent idea, Brother!” Willy chirped, overjoyed as if it hadn’t just been threatened. “And you, miss Arabel. I truly cannot wait to get to know you better. Your knife skills too, perhaps if I’m lucky—ha-ha!”
Arabel’s forced smile had long become a sneer. “Right. Can’t wait.” Then she turned to Michael with a softer look. “I tried,” she muttered to him.
“I know you did,” he assured her with a smile. “Thanks anyway.”
“Yeah. Sure—”
“You know it’s quite annoying to eavesdrop when both of you are whispering. Mind speaking a little louder?” Willy, ever the mischievous creature, interrupted with a cheeky look. Michael scoffed to the side, amused and used to its antics.
Arabel, on the other hand…she was down to her last layer of patience.
“Y-You should head home!” Michael led her out of the room before her anger exploded on Willy. Thankfully, that was the best decision he ever made because the moment she was far away from the blob, her shoulders were visibly relaxed.
“Are you sure?” Arabel asked him, after sending a scowl to his room.
“You’ve met Willy already and…I think it’s safe to say he won’t mean any harm. He just likes to tease others a lot. Especially those I’m close with.”
Arabel paused for a moment. Then she cleared her throat to the side, looking away. “Yeah, whatever. He seems alright, I guess. A bit of a menace, but…” She hesitated. “But fine, overall. Are you really sure you’re okay to be left alone with him?”
He knew she meant his father this time.
“I’m sure, Ara. Thanks for coming here with me. And for breaking into my home even if I was one minute late.”
“Three, actually.” Arabel smiled and so did he. “Any ideas on what I should tell my Ma about you coming back here? I’m sure she plans to phone the police as soon as she wakes up.”
Right. About Father.
“Tell her,” he contemplated, “he’s gone for now. Tell her he had to go away for a very long business trip and won't be back until a few months.”
Arabel nodded in understanding. “I’ll leave Willy out. In case she’ll react the same way I did.” For a moment, she lingered in place, unsure. And then she smiled again. “See you later, Mono.”
Her words stayed with him much longer than he realized as he bid her farewell too.
After he watched her leave and disappear down the road, Michael stomped on the tingling feeling in his chest and made his way back upstairs into his room. When he came back, he saw Willy waiting by his window, staring outside or perhaps at the girl who had left his street to return to hers.
“You know, I quite like her,” Willy said. “Such an interesting character, that one.”
“You think so?” Michael said, surprised.
“Oh, yes.” Willy slid down back on his desk and moved closer to the edge. “Especially the little dark devil inside her.”
Of course.
“Willy, to call her soulless is one thing, but to say there’s a devil inside of her? That’s a bit too much.”
“I recall a time where you insisted she was the Devil’s spawn.”
“That was then. This is now.” He turned to the man by his bed. “What are we going to do with him?”
“You say that as if you’re plotting to bury a body. There is nothing to do. You can just leave him and he’ll stay there forever.”
“That is the problem, Willy. He can’t stay there forever.”
“Why not?”
“Well, for one if you say he is almost in a comatose state, then he still needs food. And you know, unconscious people also do need to relieve themselves from time to time—”
“He won’t need any of that. I can assure you,” Willy said with a laugh.
That was weird. “What do you mean?”
“The only thing your father has control of is his mind. That of which is something he is not good at navigating in the first place. And since his physical body won’t need to depend on him anymore, his basic needs will not be the same as they were. It will not be like yours, Michael. So no need for all the hassle of taking care of that man.”
It hit him then what Willy was trying to say.
“Did you…did you multiply? Inside him?”
The silence that followed afterwards was not reassuring. He saw Willy’s eye dart to Father’s limp body with guilt and how it tried to explain to him that it hadn’t much choice at the time. Michael listened only to half of its words as he snatched the paper bag off Father’s head.
Then it all became clear. His suspicions were confirmed immediately upon seeing Father’s eyes wide and darkened with miniscule blinking white dots. The blood on the side of his head had dried on his skin, though the black blood that drooped past his eyes, nose and mouth was still wet and fresh. The dozens of tiny eyes across Father’s sclera blinked at him.
Michael had to look away, disturbed and a bit disgusted.
Behind him, Willy’s voice echoed.
“I…could stop it. If that’s what you want. That is still your parent, after all—”
“But he’s alive,” Michael said, holding the bile in his throat. “You said he still had control of his mind, just not his body. Is that right?”
Willy paused, thinking.
“Right.” Then it slid and jumped onto his bed, close to where Father’s head was resting. “He is still in there. Just…unable to hear the real world outside of the one he is in.”
“And the eyes inside him,” Michael continued. “Are they you?”
“They are all me, as I am them,” Willy confirmed. “Does it bother you? The sight of the other Eyes? Because that is only temporary. After a few days, the others will have found a better place to hide themselves inside your father. No one would even know he isn’t himself.”
Disturbing. Utterly disturbing.
Michael pushed the thought away and asked instead, “What about his injuries? He would still need stitches for his head.”
“Not an issue either; us Eyes can heal him,” Willy answered, and then a bit hesitantly. “But it would take a long time with the number of eyes currently inside him. Unless I help to speed up the process.”
“Will it work?”
“Of course, but again, that would require me to be with the other Eyes just to ensure he doesn’t lose more blood. But for your sake…I don’t think you would want me to live inside of your father’s body—”
“Do it.”
Willy’s eye widened a fraction in surprise. Honestly, he was too. Not only for what he was asking Willy to do, but at how certain he found himself at this request.
“Live inside him. Keep him alive and well.” Michael looked again at his father’s damned state and remembered the man’s misery even before this. How in turn it made others around him miserable with him. Perhaps this was for good. “It’s better for him to live without the chance to ruin himself than to have him continue his addictions. If you living inside him can guarantee that…then I want you to do it.” Then something bitter crept into his chest as his dark memories resurfaced. “It’s the best thing for him.”
“As you wish,” Willy said, and without a beat, it crawled over Father’s face and entered from the man’s gaping mouth.
Father’s eyes twitched madly, his pupils darting around the room as the other tiny eyes followed suit, blinking along. Then as something bulged in his throat, falling downwards until it was gone, Father’s body convulsed but only for a few seconds.
Michael took a step back, clutching the paper bag in his hand tightly. He waited until Father’s body stilled, and his breath steadied.
The little eyes snapped to him and blinked in unison. Father’s lips lifted into a shaky smile, which in turn made him sigh with relief. Willy had taken over Father successfully and with only a swipe of the hand, healed his head wound. Impressive.
“How are you feeling…Willy?” Michael asked, slightly cautious even if he knew this man was not his father anymore.
Willy seemed to notice and gently took the paper bag from him, pulling it over his head. His wariness subsided quickly as his father’s real face was once more hidden under the bag.
“Truly, Michael?” Willy spoke with a different voice than Father’s. One that was young and kind. “I have never felt better.”
Notes:
Willy is still chill...or did he plan this all?
Anyway, now that Michael's issue has been solved (sorta), it's time we look into Arabel's. Soon.
Thanks for reading!
Chapter 80: The Shop
Notes:
Heya short chapter this week, but a new character comes into the spotlight
Don't worry no angst here :)
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Time flew by quickly ever since the Storm.
Michael referred to it as such rather than to remember it as the death of his father’s control over himself—it had bothered him a little seeing the man converse with him in such a happy go-lucky voice that he had felt uncomfortable being around him. Though, after Willy had insisted his father wouldn’t resurface and regain control for as long as there were Eyes inside of him—which also according to Willy was at least a thousand—Michael soon felt a bit better. It did help that Willy could mimic other voices and chose one that was much different than the gruff voice he had long used to cower at. It certainly helped that Willy also wore the paper bag, now cut with two holes for the eyes, often around him. Though Michael had told him to switch to a cleaner one since the last bag Willy had was covered in blood.
If possible, he wanted to erase any reminders from that wretched night. The state of his own home included. For on the very day Willy claimed Father’s body, both of them continued their morning by cleaning up the house. Opening up the curtains and windows and letting natural light in. Throwing away any bits and pieces of shards along with all of Father’s drink bottles and broken television. Locking the basement door forever.
It had been…fun, to say the least. With Willy being over-excited and bumping against the walls a few times, still trying to get the hang of navigating a human’s body. It had been even more fun when the next morning, Arabel had come to his house looking somewhat thrilled to see him before noticing the tall figure in the living room.
Michael knew she still was suspicious of Willy, especially after being told that the blob was living inside of his father’s body for good, though it didn’t make it any less amusing to watch as she still tried to pretend as if she wasn’t the least bit bothered. He didn’t buy it. Neither did Willy as he continued to provoke her with his teasing remarks and funny comments.
Arabel glared many times and many times she told Michael to take care of himself (around Willy). He appreciated her concern for him, but he still assured her Willy was harmless. At that, Arabel dropped the subject and told him Marsh had asked about him instead, worrying how, with his father’s ‘business’ trip, he would make do with living. It had dawned on him then. Without Father being actual Father, they would soon look at a financial struggle. That meant food, the house, and pretty much all basic needs. While food may not be the main issue as long as Marsh was around to force feed him, they could still lose the house. They won’t be able to afford any healthcare or at least— he wouldn’t be able to afford healthcare. There was only so much he could sell and Father’s savings he could use. Sure that could keep them afloat for a long while, but what of the future?
“You should come work with us,” Arabel had told him one day. “My Ma has a shop in the city where she sells antiques and lots of weird hats. She only opens it during the summer and holidays. Maybe you could come help out and earn some money. I promise the pay is good.”
Michael had been given a few days to think of her offer and eventually decided to agree. He’d even discussed it with Willy and to his relief, Willy was more than fine with it. Though, Willy did insist he stayed home inside of Father’s body, saying how sure he was sure the soulless girl wouldn’t like to have me around and eavesdropping on her in your bag. I’ll stay here and take care of your father.
At first, Michael had felt hesitant and guilty to leave Willy on his own, considering they had been inseparable for the most part. That and because of the new arrangement. But after some more reasoning from Willy and from his own self, he agreed Willy was right. Now that Arabel knew Willy’s real form—and knew how mischievous he could be—she likely wouldn’t appreciate him bringing Willy along just so he could listen in on their conversations. That wouldn’t end well.
So here he was, exactly three days later, at Marsh’s shop he hadn’t even known existed until Arabel told him.
The shop was quite a magical sight upon first entering. Its walls were lined up with different kinds of antiques, each with prices ranging from expensive to unaffordable. There were also many styles of hats and vintage accessories either mounted or worn on the mannequins behind the glass display—at least from there Michael knew where the children’s cruel moniker for Marsh truly originated from. Nearly every part of the place was made up of dark mahogany wood, the shop lit up by a mini chandelier hanging from the plaster ceiling in the center.
While the shop wasn’t particularly spacious, it didn’t feel small to stand in, no matter if every corner was decorated with an antique that seemed too shiny and fragile to be there.
He remembered turning to Arabel, speechless as he basked in the grandeur of the place
“Were you rich this entire time?” Michael joked.
Arabel made a face at him. “It’s my family’s shop. My mother just inherited it.”
“How come I never heard you bring that up even once?”
“What would even be the point? It’s not like you needed any money then.” She took one of the feathered hats and wore it on her head, adjusting it in the mirror.
“Are you allowed to do that—?” Michael's eyes only widened when she placed a fedora over his own.
“Shush. You ask too many questions.”
“Well, I’m sorry if I don’t want to get fired on the first day.”
“You’re such a goody two shoes.” She groaned in fake exasperation as she deliberately tipped the front of his hat over his face. Michael laughed and fixed it to settle properly again. “Just don’t get caught, and you won’t be fired. Easy.” A smirk stayed on her face before she disappeared in the back of the room.
If only Marsh had been there to see what mischief her daughter was.
After one month helping out Marsh and Arabel at the shop, Michael grew more and more comfortable just by being there. Just like Marsh’s house, the shop had a certain flair to it that didn’t go unnoticed. It was welcoming and home-y even if it was a small store.
The first week working there, Michael had been nervous when there were customers in the shop, looking around with curiosity. Some had even asked him for the origins of the item. A few times, it was either Marsh or Arabel who had to mainly take the lead as he was only in charge of manning the cashier and making sure everything was put in the right place. But after watching them for a week, he got the hang of it quickly. Especially for those times when neither Arabel nor Marsh was present at the front of the store. He was grateful they trusted him enough, but with this trust he knew he couldn’t afford to play around. So he did his job. He helped out Marsh carry boxes filled with stocks. He assisted Arabel with cleaning any dusty parts and oftentimes had to stop her from being too mischievous, especially when Marsh was just in the other room. In return, Arabel laughed though not before telling him to live a little.
He didn’t know what she could mean to him to ‘live a little’ by throwing a rag over his face, but he could tell Arabel only wanted him to enjoy himself even while working. He appreciated her constant effort at that.
“So,” Arabel said, dusting and wiping an old gramophone lazily in the corner. “How are things at home?”
Michael closed the cashbox behind the counter and leaned against it. They were getting ready for closing.
“Why do you want to know? You miss Willy?”
She threw another wet rag at him. Michael ducked and it flew over his head, hitting the door behind him. Both of them froze for a few seconds, waiting for any reaction from the older woman in the back room. When they heard none, each let out a silent sigh of relief. Marsh had warned them last time not to get too carried away, and while Arabel thought her mother’s smile meant she wasn’t particularly bothered, Michael thought otherwise. He was not about to disappoint Marsh of all people.
He picked up the wet rag and placed it on the counter next to him. “Was that a yes?” Michael smirked.
“The only thing I miss about that alien brother of yours is hearing him scare you to death with his blob form.”
“I told you that with confidence, Ara. Don’t make me regret that.”
“I think you already do a little bit.” She dumped the feather duster to an empty box and leaned from across the counter too, stealing his smirk.
“You don’t understand, alright? Just imagine yourself living with a once tiny little meat creature and then seeing it having an adult human body and walking around. Not to mention, he’s been in my father’s body for a month too. A month, Ara. Your eyes get used to it. Naturally, anyone would be a little startled to randomly find the blob you’ve almost forgotten what it looks like, sitting in the dark while screaming ‘boo’. I don’t even know where he gets this habit from. It’s exhausting.”
“Awh. I feel so sorry for you.” She pursed her bottom lip in fake sympathy. “Such a poor baby.”
Michael rolled his eyes at her, though with a chuckle. “Yeah, yeah. Sarcasm noted. I appreciate your support for me at this challenging time.”
“Seriously, though,” Arabel said with a laugh, her face becoming just a tad firm. “How are things at home?”
“Better, I suppose,” he found himself saying after a while. “Willy’s been learning how to get groceries.”
When Arabel raised her brows at him, he added, “I know.”
“Whatever happened to the business-trip excuse?”
“Nothing, actually. I still tell Mrs. Marsh he’s been away from home more and more—it makes her more at ease knowing that. And besides,” he said, “Willy wanted to get out anyway. Said he was feeling a bit stuck-up staying inside someone’s body and also inside the same house. He insisted he explore the city. So in the end, I took him grocery shopping.”
Arabel snorted at that, which he tried to reason with her; it was the truth. Michael didn’t want Willy to risk himself, in Father’s body no less, just by blindly traversing the city. The Pale City was cruel for its rude citizens and a lot of lousy drivers, and while Willy had told him he had no problem meeting foul-tongued individuals or getting hit by a car, Michael insisted he started with something…simple.
“I must say, I didn’t think he’d enjoy it so much,” Michael added. “The grocery shopping, I mean. In fact, I’m pretty sure he’s at the store right now.”
“Does he even carry any money with him?”
“10 bucks at most. I’m not about to let him spend more than that on something he won’t even digest. Though, I’ll admit, it is sweet that he thinks I’d like a jar of pickles and a spatula. I wonder a lot about what went on in his mind when he made that purchase,” he said fondly, falling deep into thought. “You know…I remember my father wouldn’t even get me anything at the store even if I had asked and begged him. And that was years before my mother even passed away.
“Now that I think of it, I don’t believe he ever liked me at all. Not even once. Or maybe the only time he ever did was when I was lying on the hospital bed, unsure if I had made it or not. Which is funny…considering how things turned out now.”
The second he uttered the words, his eyes widened at a staring Arabel. He cursed himself immediately for letting his mouth run free.
“I-I’m sorry, that”—Michael huffed out a nervous laugh, looking away—“that came out a bit out of nowhere, didn’t it? I must’ve bored you."
“No,” she answered quickly, her elbows propped on the counter, and her chin rested above her hand. Michael found her still staring with the same intensity as before. “You didn’t bore me. You never do.”
“Right. Your sarcasm is getting a bit too good—”
“No, I’m not! I mean, I-I wasn’t being sarcastic or anything,” she said defensively. Then suddenly her back was straight, and there was a flush in her cheeks. For a while, Arabel tapped the counter with her fingers, thinking and hesitating. “Hey. Can I…ask you something?”
He felt his brows furrow slightly when she seemed troubled.
“Uh, sure? As long as it doesn’t have anything to do with sneaking behind your mother’s back,” he jested, which to his worry, didn’t alleviate the sudden shift in mood. Arabel still seemed uneasy and nervous. “Is everything okay, Ara?” he asked.
“Yes. Everything is fine.” Her fingers drummed faster on the counter. Seeing so made his heart troubled just the same. He gently put his hand over her knuckles and flashed an encouraging smile. That made her still, though relaxed at the same time. “I want to ask you something.”
“I know. You said that already, remember?”
“Right. I did. Of course, I did.” A few more seconds passed. Arabel took a deep breath and exhaled. “Have you ever liked a—”
The bell above the door jingled.
Michael felt the hand under his own snatch away as if she had been burned. He knew his cheeks probably did a little when someone came into the shop so suddenly.
A young girl about their age; a customer.
He smiled at Arabel apologetically. She shrugged and nodded for him to go ahead.
As Arabel took his place behind the counter, he went to attend to the blonde-haired girl.
“Hello,” Michael greeted. “Can I help you, miss—?”
The girl squealed, in turn making him flinch in surprise. She stared at him with wide eyes, and for a long time. He found himself staring back just as awkwardly. Odd. Did he say something wrong?
“Uh, sorry…if I scared you,” Michael said to the blonde girl. “I just wanted to see if I could help you with anything.”
“You want to help…me?” The girl clutched her skirt dress tightly with silk gloves.
Perhaps a nervous habit.
“Yes. I work here. It’s a thing I have to do to get paid, you know?”
A shy but sweet giggle left her then, catching him by surprise. She relaxed her hands slowly and clasped them in front of her, standing so poised that he quickly wanted to correct his own posture.
“Forgive me for being slow. I…I am new around here, you see. I haven’t had the chance to explore this part of the city until now.” The way she spoke was much too enunciated and clear. A little bit of intimidation crept slowly behind his back, despite the girl’s friendliness. “Do you…only sell antiques?”
Her green eyes scanned through the shelf as her heels tapped lightly against the carpet. He followed her.
“Afraid so. But you’ll find each one has a special history.” Michael pointed to a small clock with intricate carvings on its sides. “This one, for example, is dated back in the 18th century and is made of—”
“I’ll take it.” The blonde girl turned to him with a large smile, one that was so innocent he would’ve thought it wasn’t genuine if it weren’t for the excitement in her eyes.
“Of…of course.” Michael cast a glance at Arabel and saw her sharing the same surprised look.
The clock was worth more than what he made in a week.
He carefully took the mantle clock and packed it up in a bag while Arabel handled the payment. The girl handed her money with an easy smile and looked his way from time to time. He returned a friendly smile as he handed her purchase.
“Have a nice…day,” Arabel said in a rehearsed voice, though her eyes studied the girl warily and in blatant suspicion.
The girl, either unbothered or lacking awareness, only nodded in joy. “I definitely will! You have a pleasant day yourself.” Then she looked at him again, a red tint rising on the apple of her cheeks. “And…you too.”
Once the bell jingled again, and the blonde girl disappeared down the road, Michael and Arabel stared at the entrance in a shared silence. They each stayed that way with a baffled look across their faces, unsure whether what had happened had merely been a hallucination between the two of them or if a child their age just casually purchased an expensive item in cash without much thought. As if the item itself cost her no more than a pencil.
Even the adults who came into the store would stop to look at the price before buying anything. Even the ones who were well-off would try to at least negotiate.
“So…” Michael broke the silence after a while, clearing his throat. “What was it that you wanted to ask me again?”
Arabel blinked at him a few times.
“I don’t remember.” Speeding past him, she flipped the sign hanging on the hook of the door until it said ‘closed’ on the outside.
Notes:
Looks like Arabel has caught DeNial disease, stage 2. Mono on the other hand is just one dense and oblivious bro. Next chapter we'll be seeing more of that blonde girl hehe
Btw I should clarify I have no idea how to manage a store and anything that has to do with money. Let's pretend everything makes sense for the sake of the plot 😭😭😭
Thanks for reading!
Chapter 81: That Suspiciously Frequent Customer
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Michael was sorting out some of the old accessories and items when Marsh’s cough cut through the silence. It was late in the afternoon, and they had a few more hours until they were ready for closing.
Beside him, Arabel had stopped whatever she was doing to look over at her mother.
“Ma? Are you okay?” she asked Marsh, her voice laced with concern.
“I’m fine, Ara.” Marsh waved her off weakly, but not without a furrow in her brows, her face creased in pain. “I’m just feeling a little feverish, that’s all.”
“How feverish?” Arabel was already at her mother’s side, then on her tiptoes, she pressed a hand over the woman’s forehead. She scowled firmly. “Just a little? You’re burning up, Ma.”
“You worry too much for an old woman like me,” Marsh said with an easy smile and took her daughter’s hands in hers. “Nothing a good night’s sleep won’t fix, I’m sure.”
“No offense, but you said those exact words the last time you were sick. I’m not letting you get so ill again that you could barely walk out of bed.”
“Sweet girl, I am fine.” When Arabel’s scowl deepened, Marsh’s face faltered in surrender. A tired sigh escaped her loudly as she said, “Well, I can’t go home yet. We just opened up the shop!”
“I’ll take care of it then. Like I always have whenever you aren’t around,” Arabel argued then held her arm firmly. “You’re not well, Ma. You need to rest. Come on, I’ll walk you home.”
“Ara, but the shop—”
“I can look after the place for a while,” Michael said. The girls turned to him then, one with surprise and the other with uncertainty.
“Michael,” Marsh said, and let out a wet cough twice into her hand. “I can’t possibly ask you to do that…”
“No worries, Mrs. Marsh,” Michael reassured her, standing up. “I’ve been here for nearly two months already; I’d be glad to help any way I can. And besides, Ara is right too.” He glanced at Arabel with a soft grin. “You should go home and get some rest. We can handle it from here.”
“See, Ma? Even your favorite employee agrees.” Michael smirked at Arabel’s remark of him. Marsh, on the other hand, still seemed reluctant to leave the two children to take care of the shop. Reasonable, if she knew Arabel’s true work ethics. But considering Marsh’s attachment to her child, it was also plausible she merely didn’t want to leave Arabel with more responsibilities on her behalf.
“Are you…two sure?” Marsh looked at them both. Then longer at him. After all, he was practically an outsider.
“We’re sure,” Michael answered for Arabel and himself.
Then after Marsh’s hesitance, she finally relented with a nod, letting her daughter lead her by the arm and towards the door. However, not before Michael caught Arabel’s glance at him, and her mouthing two simple but rare words:
Thank you.
Michael winked with his thumb up, to which she shook her head with a chuckle and proceeded to walk her mother home.
The shop fell into its familiar silence after the bell rang above the door. Alone and feeling responsible, Michael finished rearranging and keeping the unwanted antiques back into their boxes and carried them to the back of the shop. He had only been in the other room once when he’d first started helping out, and it was only because he was given a tour by Arabel and Marsh. Though according to the former, the back room was for Marsh to avoid having to face any customers at all. Marsh had pulled Arabel’s ear (very gently) and corrected her by saying: “ This room is for responsible folks who can count. Money, to be specific.”
“I can count!” Arabel had said defensively. She turned her glare towards him then. “Tell her, Michael.”
He remembered how badly he had hesitated and how that earned him a boisterous laugh from Marsh and a strong flick on the side of his head from his friend. It had been funny and still was to relieve the memory again.
He placed the fragile box in one corner and went back for the others, going back and forth until there were multiple stacked over each other. In the very least, he hoped doing so made the room look neat in comparison to the mess left behind—like the papers strewn across Marsh’s table and one of the many large hats she’d worn on occasion, hanging on her chair. Michael was content to leave the room as it was, since he dared not to even cross a few steps past the door, but his eyes caught a glint on the shelf. He looked back at the shop in front of him and didn’t see any signs of Arabel’s return.
Maybe…he could take a quick look.
Or not.
Internally, he was at war. One part of him refused to snoop around and be rude. This place did not belong to him to go about as he pleased. Whereas another part of him, a tiny one perhaps, was dying to find out what the glint was.
To his surprise, that tiny curiosity won.
One peek couldn’t hurt, he reasoned with himself as he walked to the shelf. Michael warily looked around, his heart starting to race. Why was he even nervous? He wasn’t doing anything wrong. Marsh never said the room was restricted; it was only Arabel who preferred to stay out of it.
The glint gave away to framed pictures. Michael leaned in closer to get a better look.
In one, there was Marsh holding Arabel as an infant, all cuddled up and asleep. In another, Arabel was seen smiling with two missing teeth. He immediately snorted.
Was this why she didn’t like coming into this room? Because Marsh kept an embarrassing photo of her? His eyes drifted to next and felt his heart sink a little. The last framed picture showed Arabel holding hands with a tall man. Michael recognized his coat as the one Arabel had made him wear the day after the Storm. A small sigh left him as he stared into the picture, his hands resting on his knees. He took in the details of the last picture, the innocent and cheerful smile and eyes filled with adoration and love, looking up to the man who returned it half-assed. Michael could almost relate at first. Except…not quite.
He never actually adored or looked up to his own father, considering in his situation, he had learned to despise a man he had already disliked. But for Arabel…it must’ve been hard for her, as she had to learn to despise the man she had loved.
A ring echoed from the shop.
Michael’s back straightened immediately with horror.
Ara. She’s back.
I’m so dead.
Without missing a beat, Michael rushed back into the shop and shut the room’s door behind him.
“I-I wasn’t snooping! I was only in there to drop off some…”
He realized the one standing on the other side of the counter was not Arabel. His silence hung heavy for a while as he took in the sight of a familiar blonde girl, and her fancy appearance. The one who had bought a ridiculously expensive clock without any hesitation.
“Oh. Phew! You’re not Ara,” he breathed out, perhaps mostly to himself, as he let his head hang low, his nerves relaxing ever so slightly.
“Who is…Ara?” the blonde girl asked with a shy smile.
Michael realized once more that while it wasn’t Arabel who had entered the shop, it was still a customer.
You big idiot, he scolded himself.
“Arabel. Sh-she’s my friend,” he answered quickly and added with a nervous laugh, “Sorry about that. How can I help you?” He moved to the other side of the cashier, clasping his hands behind his back, still alert from the sudden rush of adrenaline earlier. “You came by just a few days ago, right?”
The blonde girl took a step back and her cheeks flushed. “Right.”
“And, uh, did you like it?”
“Huh?”
“The clock,” he said, raising a brow. “The one you bought?”
“Oh!” The blonde girl nodded and chuckled sheepishly. “Right. I bought a clock, you’re right. That was…s-supposed to be a gift for my father’s upcoming birthday tomorrow.”
“Well, that’s nice.”
“Yeah.” She smiled at him. He smiled back. Though after a few seconds, he didn’t quite know what else to do or where to look.
“So…what can I help you with?”
Her eyes widened just a fraction as soon as he uttered those words.
“Oh. I, uh…” She looked around the shop in mild panic. “I want to…buy another gift. For my mother. Her birthday is also tomorrow.”
Michael felt his brows furrow a little at that. How odd and coincidental. Although, it wasn’t impossible for two people to share the same birthdays and end up being married to each other. Maybe her parents were one of the very few lucky ones. It did make him wonder why the girl didn’t just get two gifts straight away from when she came by the first time.
“Okay,” Michael said slowly, albeit unsure. He kept his smile for her and asked, “Does your mother also fancy antiques?”
“Perhaps a vintage jewelry, if you have those.”
It took him a few seconds to remember where Marsh stored the jewel chest. “Of course. Any preference?” He took out a small mahogany chest from behind the counter.
Arabel had mentioned there was an incident a few years back that involved a young teen trying to steal a ruby ring from its display. Marsh had somehow caught him and ever since then any small items or accessories, especially gems, were put somewhere more hidden.
The blonde girl leaned closer down to the chest with her lips pursed. She hummed.
“I like this emerald pendant.” She picked up the pendant and smoothed a thumb over its gem. “What do you think?”
Michael couldn’t help but laugh a little. “It looks grand, that’s for sure.”
“I’ll take this then.” As she paid and Michael sorted the money in the cash box, the awkward silence returned to take its favorite place: right over his head.
“So…you, uh, said you were new around here?” Michael asked absentmindedly, closing the jewel chest and putting it back behind the counter.
“Y-yes,” the girl replied, holding the pendant tightly with both hands. “You remembered?”
“My memory is sometimes a blessing and a curse.” She giggled. He smiled proudly. “It was only a few days anyway. How do you like the city?”
“It’s very big.”
“Wouldn’t be a city if it wasn’t.” He handed the girl her change. To his surprise, she lingered there and continued the conversation.
“Have you stayed here long?”
“Sort of. I actually moved to this side of the city around four years ago. I’d say it’s not much different from where I was from. You should definitely visit the new library they just opened up in central Pale City. I hear it’s quite nice.”
She let out a sweet laugh, this time much louder. Michael smiled back at her, though in confusion.
“I hear the same thing, honestly. But mostly from my father. It gets boring quickly when he starts to ramble on how much it can be improved in terms of its interior architecture.”
“Adults are always boring, aren’t they?”
“Very much.” The blonde girl then looked down at her bought pendant and played with it nervously. “Look at me. I think I’ve wasted too much of your time already. I apologize for that.”
He waved a hand. “Don’t worry about it. There are no other people here. I don’t mind having a chat or two with a nice person.”
Her cheeks flushed again. He scolded himself for making things awkward as always—it was a miracle Arabel stayed with him this long.
“I’m glad you think so,” the blonde girl said. “It’s also nice to know there are friendly children around here.”
“Oh. Do you not…have any friends?”
“I-I do! I mean—I just moved here is what I’m trying to say,” she quickly clarified. “All my old friends are so far away now that I won’t be able to… chat with them anymore. My mother told me it’s nothing to worry about. Said that I would make new friends when we moved. But so far…I haven’t had any luck yet.”
“Oh…” Michael couldn’t help the pang of recognition. He knew what it was like to try to make friends and fail at it. He knew the feeling of loneliness too well to be rid of it permanently. And despite Willy and Arabel having helped to change him into somewhat a new person, there was no ignoring the old part of him who yearned for any friendship he could get.
“You know,” he began after the thought, “I can be your friend, if you’d like.”
“Really?” Her eyes sparkled with joy.
Michael felt warm at the sight of her enthusiasm and nodded to her. At his confirmation, the girl shot out her hand to him, offering.
“Seraphina Fontaine! It’s nice to make your acquaintance!”
He shook her hand in his and noticed her smile was ear to ear.
“Michael Hemming,” he introduced himself. “And likewise.”
“You are very kind, Michael.”
His cheeks burned a little at the compliment. “You too, Seraphina.”
“Oh! Call me Sera!” she said, her voice high and excited. Then as if she had caught herself, she cleared her throat and straightened her posture into a more composed stance. “I mean…Sera will do just fine. My mother calls me Seraphina and I just”—She shuddered—“It feels as if I’m getting a stern scolding from her, you know?”
He laughed. “I get it. Sera, then.”
“Thank you.” Seraphina was practically bouncing in place. She pocketed the emerald pendant in her purse and tipped her head at him. “I hope I see you around, Michael. It was very nice to meet you. Goodbye!” She sped out of the shop before he could bid her goodbye as well.
With his mouth left hanging and his words still in his throat, Michael watched as Seraphina walked outside on the pavement and bumped shoulders with a dark-haired girl. He immediately recognized who that girl was; he could tell her yellow jacket anywhere.
Arabel’s glare stayed across her face even as Seraphina bowed at her and uttered her apologies. It stayed on her face until the blonde girl left her sight, and only until she stepped into Marsh’s shop once again.
Her eyes softened, though, when she saw him.
“Wasn’t that the same girl who came by a few days ago?” Arabel walked over to him straight away, still irritated from the accidental bumping from earlier.
“Yeah. She bought a pendant from the jewel chest too. The emerald one.”
“She did?” Arabel’s brows disappeared behind her bangs. Then she scoffed. “You’re kidding me.”
“She said she wanted to buy a gift for her mother’s birthday tomorrow. And get this, that clock she bought? She said it’s for her father’s birthday too. Which is also tomorrow.”
“Crazy.”
“Crazy, indeed.”
“Anything else happened while I wasn’t here?” Arabel snatched two random hats off their mannequins and placed one on her head before his own. He expected it and bent his neck a little so she could reach. “Did she also ask if she could purchase the entire shop?”
“No. Just the pendant. Afterwards, we only chatted for a bit.”
“Excuse me?” Her sharp tone made him turn to her in confusion. Michael didn’t think much of it and shrugged it off.
“Yeah. Her name is Seraphina, by the way.”
“Wow. Fancy name for a fancy girl,” Arabel said dryly.
“I thought she was nice.”
“Oh, I’ll bet. With her blonde hair and all. Must’ve kept anyone’s attention from going anywhere else.”
“Hey, now. You're starting to sound a little mean,” he said with a knowing smile and took her hat off her head and returned it back to where it was. Including his own. “Which I may be wrong.”
Arabel scoffed loudly, crossing her arms. “Well, you are wrong. I’m just making a harmless comment about her hair. I didn’t mean to be mean or anything, really.” She leaned against the counter then, as though interrogating him. In some ways, it sort of did feel like it. “So, then. What else did you talk about with this Seraphina?”
Michael hummed and thought back to his conversation with the other girl.
“Not much. Just that she misses her old friends, I guess?” Then he added, “I also don’t think she likes her mother very much. From the way she talks about her, it seems like she’s a bit of a disciplinary parent. Her father, on the other hand, according to her, was ‘boring’ because he keeps on talking about the new library’s interior designs.”
Arabel squinted at him. “Was I gone that long? How do you know so much about this girl you just met?”
“It just seems to me she wanted someone to talk to. Like a friend, maybe.”
“Well, from someone who is as rich as her, I’m sure she can find any other friends she wants.”
“You don’t know if she’s rich.”
“Mono, did you not see her?” Arabel deadpanned. “From the way she walks, talks and behaves is pretty much obvious. Even the way she dresses herself is different. I’d be surprised if she isn’t related to a Fontaine.”
“Wait, that’s her name! How did you know that?”
Arabel stilled as her expression dropped. “She’s a Fontaine?”
His confusion remained and only grew. “Well, yes, that’s her last name. But how did you know that—?”
“You’re telling me her name is Seraphina Fontaine?” Arabel’s voice merely rose louder as if that would explain it to him.
“Yes.” Michael frowned, and asked, “Am I missing something?”
“Michael, how can you not—” She sucked in a deep breath, dragging a hand down her face. Clearly out of frustration. Her using his real name instead of his other moniker further proved it.
“The Fontaines,” Arabel began slowly, “are a highly prestigious family. Very wealthy. Very hoity-toity. They’re practically royals.”
“You’re joking,” he snorted.
Arabel insisted. “They are the ones who funded most, if not, all of Pale City’s capital projects. The apartments, the train stations—that new public library everybody wouldn’t shut up about!”
Oh.
It dawned on him then why Seraphina had laughed when he had suggested she paid it a visit. Who wouldn’t laugh, honestly, if someone told you to look at something your family practically built. How embarrassing that was.
“Well,” Michael said, almost speechless, “I did not know that.”
“Of course not,” Arabel all but hissed. “If she comes back here, you need to be careful.”
“Right. Because she’s from a rich family,” he said jokingly.
Apparently Arabel thought he was serious as she agreed with him. “Exactly. Because she’s from a rich family.”
“I was kidding.”
“I wasn’t.”
“Ara, come on,” Michael laughed. “So what if her family is…involved a lot in the making of this city? She’s still a person like the rest of us. She still eats and breathes, doesn’t she?”
“That’s not the point, and you know it. That Fontaine girl is bad news; all the rich people are. You have to promise me you’ll be careful, Michael. Better yet— just stay away from her.”
He felt his smile falter a little at her accusing tone. Where did this intense dislike of Seraphina come from? It was strange.
“Okay. I promise I’ll be careful,” he said anyway, easing the crease between Arabel’s brows. “Although, I can’t really…stay away from her.”
“Why not?”
He hesitated. Cleared his throat for a few seconds. Then muttered very quietly:
“We’re sort of friends now.”
Alas, Arabel’s ears were sharp, and she heard everything. The tension on her face returned along with horror.
Michael felt the need to explain himself. “B-because she said she didn’t have any!”
“Michael. You irritating ball of—!” Arabel groaned while squeezing the air around him. “What have I told you about believing people so easily?”
“That…I should do it less?”
“Exactly. You do it less, you fool!”
“But she was really genuine!” Michael insisted and added, “I looked her right in the eyes, Ara. I saw the look.”
“What look?”
Suddenly, he couldn’t finish what he had wanted to say. His cheeks warmed in embarrassment to admit how he knew Seraphina had a longing for a friendship because he’d had felt the same for years.
“I don’t know, just…” Michael’s words slowed to a mumble. “Just a familiar look.”
Exasperated, Arabel sighed through her nose. Then she sent him a glower that often would leave the other children cowering in their places.
“H-Hey, I’m sorry,” Michael tried with a half-smile and raised his right hand. “I swear I’ll be careful like you asked. A-And that…and that you’re still my number one friend. Okay...?”
To his relief, that did it. Arabel rolled her eyes and quickly shoved him hard on the shoulder.
“Whatever.” There was a short pause before she continued with a venomous tone. “If she ends up using you for whatever sick rich people mind games she’s planning, though, you best believe I’m going to shave her blonde head clean. Even you won’t be able to change my mind, you got it?”
A relieved laugh from him and her shoulders relaxed ever so slightly.
“You scare me, you know that, Ara?”
At last, Arabel grinned with an innocent hum. “I thought you saw that as my best quality.”
“No. Your best quality is not being able to hide how much you actually care.” That earned him another hard shove. He smirked smugly.
“How’s Mrs. Marsh, by the way?” he asked after a while.
Her eyes turned somber. “Sick as I have already suspected but…she’ll be fine. She always does in the end,” she spoke the last words a little too quietly. Then she turned to him, hesitant but hopeful. “You’re still coming over for dinner, aren’t you?”
“Of course,” Michael said. He bumped his elbow with hers. “Who else would be doing the dishes if not me?”
The short tension was gone immediately as soon as Arabel let out a loud scoff and proceeded with her banter. Although it was in the matter as small as who washed the dishes, she spoke rather defensively. Michael didn’t mind it. He sort of liked it, even, as it made Arabel more Arabel.
After they had closed Marsh’s shop for the day, he and Arabel walked together back to the latter’s house as planned. Not to anyone’s surprise, Marsh had prepared a lovely dinner and was setting the plates when they entered. And not to anyone’s surprise as well, Arabel quickly chided her mother for leaving her bed and forsaking her rest. Michael knew not to interfere except to watch in amusement as the two mother and daughter took part in a one-sided squabble. He could only shake his head and smile as he (and Arabel) helped Marsh finish setting up the table.
Dinner was exceptional despite Marsh’s health today. Marsh asked them if everything was fine with much worry as usual. Arabel decided to make a fool of him and told her how he had an admirer coming over to their shop, and how the same admirer was none other than the member of the Fontaine family—apparently Marsh also was aware of their status.
“She’s not my admirer!” Michael said, his cheeks burning. Arabel seemed to relish that as she continued to tease him for it.
“Please, she’s already bought two things from you, and you alone. Things you sold to her.”
“Because that’s my job.”
“Yeah? Was getting a girlfriend part of it too then?”
“Ara, I swear.” He held his spoon in a tight fist, pointing it to her, scowling as hard as he could. “The next boy who comes into the shop will be your admirer. Just you wait.”
Arabel’s smug expression dropped suddenly as her cheeks flushed bright red. She said nothing for a few seconds before she excused herself from the table, taking all of their empty plates with her in a rather hurry. By the time she had disappeared into the kitchen, he lowered his raised spoon and watched the door with furrowed brows.
Usually Arabel would have defended herself a lot better. She wouldn’t have backed off that quickly.
“She’s flustered,” Marsh said, laughing from across the table. “Quite rarely do I see her that way, if I’m honest.”
“Well, uh…” Michael said before deciding it was nothing. He continued confidently. “Well, she deserved it. After making fun of me throughout the entire dinner. It’s only fair that I gave her a taste of her own medicine.”
“Oh, and right you are to do so. That girl, sometimes.” Marsh feigned an exhausted groan, playfully rolling her eyes. “She can be so persistent, don’t you agree?”
Very much.
“I like her,” Michael said with a chuckle. “She’s still a great friend anyway despite everything else.”
A fond smile widened across Marsh’s face as she looked at him thoughtfully. “I ought to thank you, you know.”
“Oh. What for, Mrs. Marsh?”
She leaned in a bit closer and placed a hand beside her mouth. “For keeping our secret deal, remember?” Her voice whispered to him.
His lips formed an ‘o’. Then he nodded knowingly with his own smirk.
“Right,” Michael whispered back. “I remember.”
Marsh leaned back in her chair, content and at peace, though in the firelight he saw the shadows under her eyes and her slightly sunken cheeks.
That small reminder dampened his heart.
“Mrs. Marsh?”
“Yes, sweetheart?”
“You’ll…get better, won’t you?”
His question was met with a significant silence. But despite it, Marsh’s smile remained gentle and sweet.
“If time is kind, I will,” Marsh said eventually.
“Ara says you always get better in the end. That’s true, isn’t it? You’ll be well.”
The corner of her lips twitched and faltered at last.
“Truth is, I haven’t been well for a long time, dear. I cannot tell you what will happen to me,” Marsh said, her voice low. “However…I can tell you what will happen to you. You and Ara. Both of you will live long, long lives.
“But if, and only if, under the condition you are there for each other. To care for one another when one of you is in the valley. To never be alone if fate ever was cruel and disappointing. And that as long as you have each other, you won’t let anyone else hurt any one of you.” Her face turned taut as she soon let out a shuddering breath. “Do you…understand, Michael?”
His chest felt heavy with her words. “I do.”
“Then that is more than enough.” For a while, they sat there in silence. Marsh’s lips were still a soft smile, but Michael could tell there was something more serious festering deep within her. Something even she could not admit to her daughter.
He didn’t ask what it was. No matter if that was all he wanted to do at that moment. Regardless if it hurt him ever so slightly to push the question down and let it gnaw him from the inside. Michael said not a word but smiled back to her just the same, nodding his head to her silent request: to look after Arabel when she couldn’t. And from the brief close of her eyes, the small breath she inhaled and let out, Marsh looked grateful and relieved for that.
More at ease than she was before.
“So,” Marsh spoke again afterwards, the sly smirk upon her face reminding him of Arabel, “tell me more about this admirer of yours.”
Notes:
Wait till Mono realizes he's the next boy who will step into the shop first.
Also quick shoutout to ApathyAo3 for the gift fic that you wrote. A pretty funny and fluffy fic, and totally nice to be reading before I finish up some angst scene! You can read it here.
Thanks for reading!
Chapter 82: Willy's Deal
Notes:
No warnings for this chapter because I aint a spoiler
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Ever since that conversation he had with Marsh, everything slowly came to a change. One that reminded him strongly of the dark cloud that had loomed above his head from before when his father still had control over him. And it was one that accompanied him like bad luck in his school, pushing him under the stares and attention of other children who still disliked him because of the rumors. Some days, he’d been fine. He stuck with Arabel during lunch time and none would even dare look at him the way they always had. Whereas other days, he was unlucky, having had to deal with a certain bully who found courage in the absence of his friend.
Today was one of those days.
The sound of a body slamming against the metal locker rang in the middle of a loud hallway. Michael bit back a cry as his head met the hard surface first. He did nothing but let his annoyance simmer against Jimmy’s attempt to provoke him. Acting as though nothing had happened, he opened his locker door with indifference. He refused to cower in front of the boy like his old self had.
“What? Don’t tell me you grew a pair already?” Jimmy jabbed a finger at the side of his head. Michael still pretended he wasn’t there and focused on keeping his things inside his locker.
Another jab from Jimmy, harder than before.
“Oi. Mono. I’m talking to you. You’ve gone deaf or something?”
Hearing that moniker coming from anyone other than Arabel felt foreign and unfitting.
“I’m not deaf,” Michael muttered under his breath at last, his eyes trained on his locker.
“Then why are you being silent like you’re mute too? Decided to gain some sympathies from strangers this way?”
“Leave me alone, Jimmy. Today is not the day.”
His reply was met with a brief silence, and then a derisive chuckle.
“Ohhh—I get it! Someone’s a little moody. Let me guess. Is it because your girlfriend hasn’t been to school for the past three days?” Jimmy taunted.
Michael hit his locker door closed with more force than he had intended. Then he looked at the other boy right in the eye, tasting something bitter on his tongue. He stepped to the side only for the other boy to block him.
“Let me through, please.”
“Ah, so you do admit it. You miss your girlfriend. Too bad she isn’t here to keep you safe on her leash and feed you whatever crumbs you always like to eat off her hand.”
“I said let me through—”
Jimmy shoved his right shoulder, making him stagger backwards.
“And what if I don’t?”
He had had enough.
“For God’s sake, get a life! You can’t still be this bored and think mocking me is a good way to pass your time,” he spat. “Now I’ve asked you nicely to let me through. But if your stupidity somehow prevents you from listening as much as it does with your thinking, I’ll say it the way even infants can understand. Move. The hell. Away.”
For a moment, there was a flicker of surprise on Jimmy’s face as his smug grin faltered. But with a short glance around the hallway, the small group of children watching their interaction with interest by their lockers, Jimmy’s pride returned along with his ire at being challenged.
When Michael took a step away, Jimmy clamped a grubby hand on his shoulder and pushed him to stay.
“I see that you hanging out with that bitch did more than just boost your confidence,” Jimmy hissed. “You sure picked up her craziness too.”
Michael punched Jimmy in the jaw.
It happened all so suddenly. One moment Jimmy was on the floor and the next a brawl broke out. With a crowd of students watching and cheering on the sidelines, surrounding them in a circle, there weren't any chances of backing out from the fight he had started. So when Jimmy delivered a punch to his eye, Michael returned it twice as hard at his ribs. He knew he had lost all control by then. Jimmy doubled over on the floor with a pained gasp, but Michael was far from done. Far from satisfied for how he wanted the bully to suffer as he did. He tugged Jimmy’s hair and slammed his head into the ground. A murmur of winces and gasps echoed around him, some whispering in shock and others still cheering for them to fight.
Jimmy raised a fist to him, but Michael was quicker and punched first. And the second he was on top, something truly horrid snapped within him. If before he had lost control, now he had all the control and acted with purpose. To hurt Jimmy. To make him bleed. To make him beg for mercy and forgiveness for what his filthy tongue had spoken about Arabel.
Somewhere throughout the fight, the harsh strikes he inflicted without holding back, there was a voice in his mind, one that screamed “enough”. He didn’t listen to the voice. All his life he had listened to it, and what did it bring him? People like Jimmy making his life hell.
So he continued as he did. He threw punches after punches across Jimmy’s bloody face. And he wouldn’t have stopped if it weren’t for two pairs of hands grabbing his arms and dragging him off the fainted boy, carrying him away in the midst of his burning rage.
He screamed at the boy.
He thrashed against the iron grip around his arms.
He blinked.
The hallway shifted into a different place. Jimmy and the other children were all gone; and Michael found himself sitting in the middle of an empty classroom with only one adult speaking on the phone at the front. He found himself staring at the small clock hands, ticking minute after minute, and his knee bouncing madly.
One look at the back of his hand, and he winced. His knuckles were purple and wet with blood. His entire hand still shook despite having sat there for almost one hour. There were parts of his face that throbbed and stung. He tried not to think of it; not about the fight, and not about the permanent image of Jimmy’s battered face. For every time he would, hot tears threatened to fall for what he knew would’ve happened had he not been stopped.
I’m just the same, a horrible thought entered his mind. A monster like him.
He let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. It hurt.
“Mr. Hemming.” A teacher, one that he recognized was Ms. Anne, approached him. She had substituted Ms. Hilda’s class once and had been the opposite of the horror the other woman brought forth. “How are you feeling?”
Anne stood by his table with her hands clasped in front of her, concern in her eyes.
He decided not to meet them, instead staring down at the torn skin on his hand.
“I…hurt someone.”
“That, you did,” Anne said, sounding disappointed. “What happened back there?”
“I don’t know.”
A sigh left the woman before she spoke again.
“You are not a violent person, Michael, I can tell. So, please, tell me. What made you act the way you did? The other children said they saw you throw the first punch, but I don’t believe you did so without a reason. Is there a reason the fight occurred?”
“I said I don’t know!” He regretted immediately raising his voice. “I don’t…think I know, Ms. Anne,” he said again.
“This is a very serious matter, Michael,” Anne reminded him sternly. “You’re looking at a week suspension at the very least. Worst case, an expulsion. I need to know what really happened so this doesn’t end as badly for you. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” he muttered under his breath, looking back at the red on his knuckles. It wasn’t his blood. “I understand.”
“May I know from the beginning?”
With a shuddering breath, Michael told Anne the truth eventually. How Jimmy and his friends had been bullying him since the start, provoking him and keeping him trapped somewhere after school. Anne seemed surprised that it had gone on for this long, and even more shocked it’d taken him even longer to finally snap. He knew it was the right choice then to confide in her. If it were any other teacher, he could imagine how easily they would focus the blame on him to shut the entire case down quickly.
“And why did you fight him today?” Anne asked, her arms crossed.
Michael hesitated, but after what he had confessed, it was pointless to keep more secrets.
“He insulted my friend. Arabel,” Michael said truthfully.
“Arabel Marsh,” Anne hummed. “I know her. Quite bright in literature, that girl.” For once after the fight, he could smile fondly. “She’s been absent in school for three days straight,” Anne added, a question dancing in her voice.
“Her mother has been very ill,” Michael replied heavily. “Arabel’s been taking care of her for the last four weeks.”
“I see. And how is she faring? Her mother?”
“Bed-ridden.” Asleep for days. Coughing blood. Losing her voice. “But she will get better.”
“We can hope,” Anne said dimly and sighed. “Now. As for you, I’ve phoned your father and let him know about your fight. He will come to pick you up shortly. You may go home afterwards.”
A bit of relief washed over him it was Willy that Anne had called. Though he wished Willy wouldn’t have to know about his fight with Jimmy, he supposed he’d find out either way.
“What about…my punishment? For the fight?” Michael asked, his voice quiet and meek.
“Considering how badly you injured Jimmy, it seems a suspension would be the most likely.” His heart sank. “However, if what you say is true, and Jimmy has been bullying you for a long time…I’ll try and convince them to give you a less harsh punishment. Don’t worry, but at the same time, don’t get your hopes too high either.”
Swallowing the lump in his throat, Michael only nodded and thanked her. Anne was kind enough to let him wait in silence afterwards. She stayed in the classroom with him until Willy arrived at the door, a paper-bag hat in his hand and his face bare. They had greeted each other and shook hands, as he had taught Willy to do towards kind others. Willy played his role as Michael’s father well, and dare he say, even more believable than the real man who was currently stuck inside his own mind.
Only when they had left the school, and walked on the familiar path to their neighborhood, did Willy put the bag back over his head. Michael finally could look up without having to meet Father’s face.
“You have questions,” Michael stated.
“Not really. I heard it all from your teacher when the phone rang at home. Which I didn’t expect in the slightest for that to happen today.”
“Did you go out to the store again?”
Willy laughed. “It gets boring, Brother. Instead, I paid a little visit to the new public Library I keep hearing about. I have to admit, I didn’t think I could learn so much about this world more than I ever have from the other Eyes before me.”
“Like what?”
“Many things. Civilizations. Wars. Human history.” Willy passed a side-look to him. “Would you like to talk about Jimmy now?”
Michael let out a dry scoff. “I thought you said you heard it all from Ms. Anne.”
“I heard you punched Jimmy and sent him to the nurse’s office for four stitches. I never knew the motivation behind your actions, though.”
“It’s nothing. It was only a mistake,” Michael grumbled. “I should’ve just walked away when I had the chance.”
“As you always liked to do, Brother,” Willy drawled. “And yet this time is different, isn’t it?”
Of course it was different. This time Jimmy attacked not only him but Arabel too. Be it verbal or not, he wouldn’t tolerate the bully for it. Not when the insult was meant for his friend.
“It was a mistake,” Michael repeated with a sharp look. “Can we talk about something else, please?”
“If you want. But would you humor me with just this one question?” Reluctant and tired, he nodded. “That Jimmy boy. He said something about the soulless girl, didn’t he?”
Michael didn’t respond immediately and instead chose to keep his irritation at bay. He would not let his emotions get the best of him again.
“It doesn’t matter if he did,” Michael told Willy eventually. “I’ve always wanted to punch Jimmy in the face anyway. Today just so happens to be the day I have the courage for it.”
“Why, isn’t that the greatest confession I have ever heard!”
“You’ve definitely heard better.”
“Perhaps. But I do still think you, manning up to that little bastard as one of the best things you have ever done. I just wished you had done it sooner.”
“And get myself in trouble sooner? No, thank you.”
“It would have made you much more at ease. At least now you wouldn’t need to depend on the soulless girl’s presence to make the rascal think twice. All you need to do is remind him of who had lost the fight, and it is surely guaranteed the boy wouldn’t cross your path ever again.”
Michael shook his head, tutting. “I don’t think it’s as simple as that, Willy. Jimmy is extremely prideful, and losing a fight only means a push for him to win the next. He’ll hunt me down just to pay his revenge for humiliating him in front of the other children.”
“Ah, I see.” Willy hummed in thought, his hands clasped behind his back as he strode next to him. “In that case…can I offer you a solution?”
Michael furrowed his brows, but asked, “What solution?”
“I know you refused immediately when I wanted to help you with your father—”
“No.” He knew what Willy was referring to. He knew what Willy meant. “Jimmy is a pain to deal with, but I’m not on board with whatever you plan to do to him.”
“See, that’s where you’re wrong, Michael! You assume I was going to hurt, or worse, kill him. But no! What I’m thinking of is nothing close to those things. I don’t intend on wasting my mercy on a boy as filthy as the rat.”
The way Willy spoke of assault and murder as mercy bothered him.
He decided not to bring it up, telling himself perhaps Willy had meant to put his words differently than intended.
“Then what is it? Your solution?”
“A simple Deal with me,” Willy replied with a nonchalant shrug. “Jimmy, like you said, would want to pay his revenge for your humiliation of him by looking for another fight. Which is very likely. In fact, we’ll never know who would win or if he would bring reinforcements with him the next time. I say we take out those reinforcements. Cut off any help he could get and have Jimmy fend for himself without it.”
His jaw dropped.
“You want to hurt his friends? Are you out of your mind?”
“I am certainly living within your Father’s. But no, that is not what I meant. Like I told you, I am not wasting my mercy. I’m only offering a chance for them to…behave better. To have them be guided for their actions and, at the same time, give that Jimmy boy a taste of his own medicine. Imagine it: his peers, turning their fists towards him, making him cower walking the same halls like you did during his bullying reign. Now isn’t that a wonderful sight? Isn’t that the dream you wouldn’t mind having every day?” Willy bent to his height to hold his shoulders, shaking him a little through his enthusiasm. “And all you would have to do to see it come true is agree to the Deal. Grant me more ability through it, and I promise you, everything will turn out great! No one would—”
“No!” Willy let go of him as he returned him his space. “I know you’re eager to help me with my situation, but your Deal is not the answer. I don’t want you to take over Jimmy’s friends just to turn them against him!”
“I understand how you feel, but I believe you’re not looking at it the way I am. Think about how—”
“I have. I’ve thought about how amazing it would be for me if there is no one left for me to fear.” Michael felt his heart grow heavier, pushing his chance at an improved school life away from his own grasps.
It wasn’t right to force Jimmy’s friends to behave the way they wouldn’t. It wasn’t right to let Father be trapped inside his own mind while somebody else took control of his body. And despite knowing how it went against all morality, he had already allowed the latter to happen for his own selfish reason.
“It’s not happening, Willy. I'm sorry,” Michael said, frowning.
“Nothing for you to apologize for, Brother. I offered a Deal to you, and you’ve simply chosen not to accept it. No worries.” Willy looked ahead, his eyes behind the bag seeming as cold as Father’s once was.
As they crossed the busy street, absentmindedly passing through the standoffish citizens, Michael couldn’t help but feel the same energy from Willy too. Had his refusal for the Deal disappointed Willy? Or was it due to the fact that this was the second time he’d rejected it?
Of course he’s disappointed, he thought, glancing at an unusually quiet Willy. All he wants is to help you and you keep turning his offer down.
“Willy, listen—”
“Michael!”
A sweet voice shouted from the distance, crossing the road to where he and Willy had stopped.
Seraphina’s bright smile in front of him caught him a little off guard, and while he was familiar with her bubbly and loud energy already, it always took him a few seconds to truly process it. Sometimes it surprised him enough to the point where he was startled by her presence.
“Sera, h-hey,” Michael greeted back with a friendly grin, though unprepared.
“Hi!” Her excitement to see him made his cheeks burn and his guts swirling with a warm, almost dizzying endearment. “I’m so glad I saw you crossing the street, if not I wouldn’t have had the chance to say hello! How have you and Arabel been? I haven’t seen you around as often anymore since your shop closed. Which is such a shame. I really liked the antiques there. I don’t think there’s anywhere else that sells something like it. Oh, and that reminds me, are you working somewhere new? I’d love to show my support and swing by and—” Seraphina closed her mouth when her eyes caught Willy’s behind the bag. Her face flushed instantly. “My…deepest apologies,” elegance returned in her voice along with embarrassment. She fixed her posture and stood up straight. “I shouldn’t have let my mouth speak faster than my mind. Seraphina Fontaine. It’s a pleasure to meet you, sir.”
She offered her hand to Willy and to Michael’s surprise, Willy took it with a firm shake.
“Pleasure is all mine,” Willy replied. “You must be the other friend Michael mentioned.”
Seraphina beamed with a polite nod. “And you, sir, must be…his father?”
“Oh, no need for any formalities! Willy will do just fine.”
Michael passed a side glance to the man, catching the subtle avoidance of him explaining their relationship.
She smiled sweetly to Willy before shifting back to Michael, looking apologetic.
“...I apologize to you too,” she said, bowing her head a little at him. “It’s not everyday I get to see a friend. You’ll have to forgive my rude excitement.”
“Oh, don’t worry about it. You weren’t rude,” Michael said, waving his hand.
It wasn’t unusual for Seraphina to speak as if she was a child high on sugar and converse like a noblewoman afterwards. He noticed it after the third time she’d made an appearance at the shop and chatted with him. He also noticed they had much in common; one of which both of them loved to apologize for things.
“You are too kind,” Seraphina said, her hands clasped poised in front of her. “So! How…are you…?”
Her eyes stayed on one part of his face a bit too long before she caught herself. He realized then perhaps there was a bruise visible under his eye. One he’d received from his fight with Jimmy.
“Got a bit in trouble at school but,” he sucked the air between his teeth, “everything is fine now. Don’t worry. And you?”
“Same as ever. Overbearing mother and boring father, both yapping about things I don’t enjoy listening to.”
Michael held back a chuckle out of respect, but when Seraphina giggled herself he let out a quiet snort.
“Anyway,” Seraphina said after a long pause, her cheeks a rosy pink, “it’s great to see you again. I have to get going and be somewhere now…as I’m sure you do too. Will you send my regards to Arabel when you see her?”
“Of course. She would be happy to know.” Or she would roll her eyes and pretend to vomit like the other times before. “I’ll be sure to tell her you said hello.”
“Thank you, Michael.” She turned to Willy and bowed in respect. “And you too, Mr. Willy. Thank you for letting me chat with your son. Goodbye!”
Seraphina walked the other way before any of them could say anything. And perhaps that was a good thing for the second she was out of earshot, Willy laughed the most boisterous laugh he had ever heard from him.
“Brother,” Willy wheezed. “Or should I say…my son.”
Michael rolled his eyes at him, though it was hard to fight back the smile tugging at his lips. “Ha-ha. Very funny.”
They continued walking the path to the neighborhood, the tension from before melting away right after his encounter with Seraphina, and as much as he was glad for it, he was not glad that Willy had found another ammunition to tease him.
Much to his dismay, it was the same kind Arabel used before.
“Chin up, now, Michael. You know how I love to kid around.” Willy bumped into him on purpose, making him stagger. Though the man didn’t know how strong the bump had been as he continued to laugh and say, “Besides, between you and me, I think your admirer may have just received my blessing.” Another wheeze from Willy and a slap to his back.
“Why do people keep saying she’s my admirer?” He huffed a frustrated breath, his eyes narrowing.
“People?”
“Yes. You. Arabel. Mrs. Marsh. Literally the only people I know keep saying Sera is my admirer. I told you she’s a friend.”
“Are you telling me you don’t realize it at all? Her conversation with you?”
“Realize what?”
Willy sent him a pointed look that hid the answer to his question. Yet just as he tried to ask him again directly, Willy shrugged and waved him off, saying, “Must only be my imagination.”
Michael neither appreciated the smug undertone his brother took, nor understood what Willy could have meant by his words. Seraphina was just a friend, and the admirer joke was merely what it was: a joke. It would be utterly far-fetched for someone from an upper class like her to even see him in that sort of way. A bit ridiculous even for him to imagine it.
His cheeks warmed again, and this time he couldn’t tell why.
By the time they reached home, Michael cleaned himself up and patched his bloody and bruising knuckles with bandage. He flexed his fingers and winced a little in pain. It would take a few days for it to heal and maybe a few more for his face to look less like a criminal and more like his usual tired face. Perhaps suspension for him wasn’t the worst idea, he thought as he headed downstairs and to the front door.
In the back, Willy’s head peeked from the couch, watching him go back to the outside world if only to make a daily visit to a certain soulless girl’s home.
For four weeks, Michael had been consistent to check up on the Marsh Family. For four weeks, Leigh Marsh had been bed-ridden and grown sicker than the day before; and within the same time frame, Arabel had been the one to care for her diligently. Not that he was against it, but it worried him for the way she was handling it. His heart rested uneasily to see the confidence in her eyes scamper day by day when her mother’s condition only grew worse, contradicting her promise to herself that she would see her get better.
It also worried him too as the woman, who he had been treating her like his own mother, was not getting better. A bit—or a lot—stressful even when there hadn’t been much positive signs as of late.
These two recent weeks Marsh barely had woken up and whenever she did, she only muttered things neither he nor Arabel could pick up. Hush of broken whispers, and merely tears had brimmed in her dark and fatigued eyes. Since then Arabel refused to leave her mother alone. She refused to leave her side, much less the older woman’s room, preferring to stay in the dark for long periods of time and sleeping while sitting if only that meant she could stay close to her mother.
Michael had tried to persuade her to get some proper rest, offering that he could look after Marsh for a while, but the girl was stubborn as the day he met her. One exhausted glare and he immediately understood.
“I’m not leaving,” Arabel had said, the bags under her eyes more discernible. “I don’t care if you think I need any rest, Michael, but I am not leaving her side.”
All he had given her was an understanding nod and a sigh as he relented. But despite Arabel’s refusal to take care of herself, he still did all he could to ensure the girl didn’t doze off beside her mother’s bed with an empty stomach. He was never one to force food down someone’s throat, though after seeing the state of his friend, declining as Marsh’s, he made her eat somehow.
Even so, the girl remained despondent. Disappointed as each day she was met with the same image of her mother.
Some days, Marsh opened her eyes and squeezed back Arabel’s hand. Other days, she was still and asleep. Those days, Michael knew, took the most toll on Arabel as her energy became dim and her face even more so depressed. And lately those days was coming more and more frequently—one that he realized might’ve also affected him in some ways. Like losing his patience and initiating a fight.
Once he arrived, Michael quietly stepped inside Arabel’s living room and closed the door behind him. She had left it unlocked so he could come in and visit Marsh as he often did. He took in the sight of the dark house, and saw the windows covered with thick curtains. It was the same as the weeks before, and each day the house became quieter and quieter, laced heavily with a certain air that made his heart sink lower at the thought of its once bright atmosphere, now replaced with a dim energy.
Today, however, the feeling was slightly different.
Somehow…more severe.
And he believed it so as he made his way upstairs, his guts churning in gloomy dread. Something was off. There was something cruel and cold lingering in the hallway, making him shiver but only from intense uneasiness.
It slowly hit him in a full wave once he listened to the soft sobs coming from Marsh’s bedroom.
Inside he was met with the familiar dim glow of the table lamp in the corner, where the silence was so loud the buzz from the heat of the bulb could be heard.
Marsh remained covered under thick blankets like the weeks before, one of her arms hanging off her bed as her face stayed still in slumber. A pang in his chest made him stop at the door, unable to step inside. His eyes never left the woman as another realization made its way into his mind rather harshly.
The woman was laying on her bed without breathing. Her skin was so white-stricken and seemingly cold, and when he had finally dared to approach her and touched her hand, no pulse was found. He looked at her face next.
Everything about Marsh’s expression reminded him of someone who was only resting. She seemed at peace as her brows furrowed no longer, the shadows under her eyes seeming less darker and her mouth parting just slightly.
She truly looked as if she was asleep. Except he knew, regretfully, that this was not true.
Michael swallowed the painful lump in his throat and felt his eyes sting with hot tears, his chest tightening in disbelief.
Letting go of Marsh’s hand was difficult for him to do, but if it weren’t for the sobs he heard again, echoing from the darkest corner of the room, he wouldn’t have remembered of the one person who would have a harder time letting go of her mother. When he saw Arabel almost hidden within the shadows, sitting on the floor with her knees to her chest, shaking and crying quietly to herself, Michael fought his own tears and approached her.
He dropped beside her slowly and quietly, lest that he startled the girl.
Even then, after he had assumed his presence would be noticed, Arabel refused to pry her hands away from her eyes.
Broken sobs left her. It hurt his heart to hear them.
“Arabel,” he whispered gently.
At last her breath stilled. She shrunk in on herself.
For a moment, he had thought she would look up and see him. He was wrong.
“You’re not real.” Suddenly her voice turned venomous. “ Leave me alone.”
“Arabel, I—”
“I SAID LEAVE ME ALONE!”
Arabel’s elbow shoved him to the wall behind him with a good force to knock the air out of his lungs. Her eyes, however, remained shut as she began to thrash and throw any hits she could lay on the person near her.
Quickly, Michael caught her wrists from flailing at him, holding her firmly in place to stop her from thrashing and hurting him, if not, herself.
“Ara! Hey—it’s me! It’s Michael!”
At the sound of his voice, her movements slowed and tensed.
Arabel pulled back and opened her eyes after a while, her mouth then gaping as though she hadn’t known at all he was here.
“Michael…?”
He nodded with a sad smile, still holding her wrists, albeit already loosening.
Arabel stared at him for a while longer before her bottom lip quivered and her tears streamed down her cheeks. He had wanted to say something. Yet his words became stuck in his throat when she threw her arms around his neck tightly. She pulled him close with desperation and vulnerability Michael hadn’t expected as he sat there, brows furrowed and his smile faltering.
It was soon that he felt her desperation again through her tightening grip, as if afraid to let go of him, that he wrapped his own arms around her back, pulling her close. He held her there, sat uncomfortably on the floor with her, and he hushed her as she cried into his shoulder.
“I’m sorry,” Michael said in the end, his voice as broken as hers was. “I’m so sorry, Ara.”
He held her for a long time, feeling her back shake with muffled sobs. The room was filled with her grief and his own. Still, for her, he had wanted to be strong, to be only a friend and her support. He wanted to keep her from the edge of breakdown, from the precipice of life where she seemed to be standing. But then, his eyes drifted to the woman sleeping peacefully forever behind them. The woman he had prayed would live a longer life.
Michael let his tears fall.
And he could only think of the very last favour he'd made to Marsh.
Notes:
So some of you already expected this hehe
Before that, another shoutout to ApathyAo3 for their fic called Don't Cling To The Past! Very cool theory and take on a certain music box origins and cute friendship fluffs! You guys can read it here.
Also I'll be taking a few weeks break after this. Not sure when I'll be back but hopefully not too long (fingers crossed).
Thanks for reading!
Chapter 83: Her Funeral Day
Notes:
Hey, I'm back!
Starting off with a short chapter, but the next one will be long
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
The day of Leigh Marsh’s funeral was one of the hardest days he’d had to get through. When they lowered her coffin and buried her underground, Michael tried not to think of the kind woman resting below it. For he knew if he had let himself do so, he would feel his eyes sting again with tears.
Easier said than done, as Michael sniffled and stood alongside Arabel in front of Marsh’s grave.
He spared her a side-glance to see how she was faring. Arabel was dressed in all black for the occasion as did the people who knew Marsh and attended, however, out of all the attendees there, she seemed the least sad as she maintained an empty look across her face. To others it may even seem as though her mother’s death did not affect her in the slightest. Michael had overheard a woman whispering to another regarding that. Saying how heartless can her daughter be to not even care. She didn’t even shed a tear. Poor Leigh.
If today wasn’t such a grim day, he might’ve considered shutting those two women down for her sake. Losing a parent was one thing, but to have yourself be accused of not loving said parent…
He shut down his annoyance and focused on Arabel.
Despite her indifference and bitterful silence today, Michael knew Marsh’s death hit her hard. He knew she was the most devastated one there.
She did not show it now, no, but she had shown it before. In Marsh’s room where she had cried for hours in his arms, clinging on to him as though he would leave her alone if she let go. He could still see the bags under her eyes, swollen from her own tears and perhaps from losing sleep for many days. He could tell she was still holding back herself from crying again as her throat bobbed every few minutes.
“Hey,” Michael whispered finally, seeing the number of people around them diminishing, “are you alright?”
Soon everyone had left, and it was only the two of them in the gated cemetery.
Arabel looked at him for a long time before turning back to Marsh’s tombstone, shaking her head with barely any effort.
“No.” She gulped again, though her voice remained strong and steady. “You can go home first if you want.”
“No, it’s fine.”
“I mean it. You don’t have to stay here with me if you don’t want to.”
“I want to,” he replied and sighed, turning to the orange clouds, seeing how fast the evening was approaching.
It had just been merely hours ago when they arrived in the cemetery for Marsh’s burial. And it had been only days ago that Marsh became conscious and held her daughter’s face. Perhaps that had been the last time he saw her awake.
“Besides, I’m not ready to leave either. Mrs. Marsh is… was someone I cared for, after all. The kindest person I’ve ever met,” he added as he swallowed the lump in his throat.
Arabel hummed in agreement but said nothing else of it. Instead she asked him, “Do you…remember when your mother passed? Like how you felt?” Hesitance and guilt was laced in her voice, and as much as the question—a heavy one at that—caught him by surprise, he answered after a thought.
“A little,” he said eventually, gulping. “I remember it killed me. I was depressed for long days.”
“How did you get past that stage?”
Michael turned to her with a quirked brow. Arabel refused to look at him, but he knew she was eager for his reply from the way she fiddled with the ends of her sleeves restlessly.
“To be honest, I’m not sure I ever did. Though I was very young, that feeling of loss never really leaves you.”
When Arabel breathed out shakily, her face contorted in disappointment, he realized that it might’ve not been the words she had wanted to hear. Truth never was nice. And with her, perhaps honesty had come like second nature.
“It…it will get better eventually,” he added after her silence, and once she finally turned to him, her eyes hopeful and desperate, he was glad he had spoken something.
He was glad to wipe the awful, hopeless look off her face.
“Really?”
He shook his head and smiled softly. “Yeah. Really. You’ll be okay, I promise.” Michael held her shoulder in encouragement, almost pulling her into a hug if he hadn’t caught himself.
Luckily for him, Arabel didn’t seem to mind his attempt at comfort. He had thought she would push him away and create an imaginary wall between them, but when she stayed close beside him, returning his smile back with her own, Michael felt a warmth spread through him. It reminded him how they were still good friends and how much they had grown to trust one another. Even as either one of them were in the lowest points of their lives.
At that moment he remembered how she had been there for him. The night of the storm. When he had fled from his home, only to seek shelter inside hers. He remembered the way she stuck by his side afterwards, going into a house despite knowing the presence of a violent man, for his sake. And he remembered how ready she had seemed to defend him with all she had.
All for this friendship, forged from Marsh’s request for him to pass her yellow jacket to her.
Arabel had been there for him when he was in the valley. Now that fate had decided it was her turn, he’d be damned if he could not do the same.
Arabel’s lips parted to say something but her words were never spoken because of the two pairs of approaching footsteps from behind them. They turned their heads in unison and met with two adults.
A bearded man and a blonde woman, perhaps in their late 30s. They wore similar dark attire in respect to the deceased. It would’ve been nothing worth noting as this was a funeral. At least Michael had wanted to leave it at that. To simply assume the man and the woman was an old friend of Marsh’s.
He was glad he caught the look on Arabel and the dark air radiating off her like a dangerous threat; or the way the man’s eyes darted straight to the grave sitting behind them, seeming bittersweet. Michael couldn’t tell. It was hard to see it as the man’s top hat covered nearly all of his eyes, and it didn’t help when he tipped his head forward, further shielding the emotions across his wrinkled face.
Then all of a sudden, the bearded man’s attention turned to Arabel, trained sharply on her as his lips curled into a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. A familiar sight. Somehow, it felt as if he’d seen the expression somewhere before, and yet it was difficult for him to remember where exactly.
Beside him, Michael felt Arabel tense even more as she moved closer to his side, trying to hide him behind her.
“Look at you,” the bearded man soon hummed. “You’ve grown tall.”
Arabel continued to glare daggers at the man and the woman standing next to him.
“What are you doing here?” Arabel hissed.
“I can’t pay my respect to the woman who raised you? She must’ve at least taught you manners, didn’t she?” While Arabel growled low under her breath, the man didn’t seem bothered by it as his stare then shifted to Michael. “And who might you be, young man?”
“I’m—”
Arabel raised her hand sharply to stop him, shaking her head. Michael understood her message not to indulge the man, for whatever reason.
The bearded man took notice of it and tutted.
“Ah. Still angry, aren’t you, Arabel?”
When Arabel spoke nothing again but pointed her glare, the man dusted off his coat in a nonchalant manner. Though if one looked closely, they could see his disappointment and irritation through his sharp breath.
“Fine. I thought I could make nice with my daughter after years of not seeing her, but it seems you are not in the mood for this reunion.”
Wait.
Daughter?
Michael looked the man up and down in suspicion. And then it hit him. The picture frames in Marsh’s shop. One of the photos showed a young Arabel standing beside a tall man, who in the picture also looked younger and without a beard.
Perhaps that was why.
Maybe it was the reason it took him so long to recognize the man standing before them as Arabel’s father.
The person, who according to Arabel, had left her and her mother behind for a new family. Betrayed them and abandoned them while they were at their lowest.
“So be it then,” the man continued, “I’ll cut to the chase. Since Leigh has…passed on, I’m bringing you into my custody, Arabel.” Then he gestured to the blonde woman next to him, one that smiled sweetly and waved at her. Arabel returned her gesture with a disgusted sneer. “This beautiful woman here is your stepmother. She and I will be taking you home.”
“Home?” Arabel said, incredulous and irked. “I’m not going anywhere with you.”
“And how will you support yourself then? Without your mother to take care of you anymore?”
At the mention of Marsh, Arabel faltered, her breath bated. The man sighed and said again, dropping on one knee to her level, “My daughter…perhaps”—His throat bobbed as his movements appeared hesitant—“we can put the past behind us. I know you are angry with me, but one day when you grow up, you will understand. You’ll come to even agree why I had to do what I did.”
“You abandoned us.” Michael saw Arabel's eyes flash with a cold rage. “You abandoned me. You expect me to believe what you did was right and forgive you so easily?”
The man returned to his height, not answering her. He drew his lips into a thin line, seeming as though holding back his irritation. Impatience lingered in his voice this time.
“Come now. Our house isn’t far from here.”
“No.”
“Arabel—”
“I said no! Go take care of your other children.” She turned herself back to Marsh’s grave, stubborn and disdainful of the new company.
The man, as if he’d expected her behavior, merely placed a hand on her shoulder gently and leaned down to her ear, whispering something for a minute. At first Arabel had seemed repulsed by his touch alone, yet the longer the man spoke to her, the more her glare faltered into despondency.
A tear slipped past her eye, and it was only until the man leaned back did she wipe them away angrily.
“We will talk more when we reach home,” the man patted Arabel’s head, similar to the way Marsh had always done, however, a bit stiffly.
This time she let him do so with only a defeated look, her eyes cast to her feet. Then to Michael’s surprise, Arabel moved towards her stepmother who greeted her with open arms, smiling so brightly as though she were her own child.
She seemed…genuine.
It was all he could deduce from the way the woman rubbed Arabel’s arm in a show of comfort and sympathy for her loss; and from the way Arabel glanced back at him, her eyes meeting his and telling him she would be fine from here on, his worry and uncertainty lessened in weight.
Though it didn’t mean he was rid of it entirely.
As he watched the two ladies leave first, he felt the burning stare of the man who stayed behind with him. Michael had thought to briefly bid him goodbye, as he was Arabel’s father after all, but when the man eyed him up and down, looking distrustful yet intrigued, he couldn’t help but feel inclined to stay in place.
“I don’t believe I caught your name,” the man said to him, clasping his hands behind his back.
“It’s Michael. Sir,” he added as politely as he could.
If anything Arabel said about this man were true, it was that he was no better than his own father.
“Michael,” the man echoed his name, humming, staring past his nose. “You’ve known Arabel for how long?”
“Only since the start of the year.”
“And her mother. Were you close with her too?”
The question was odd, but he replied truthfully. Though his answers were short and to the point, the man took it in as if there were much more to his reply. His brows furrowed, deep in his own thoughts.
And then, a grave look.
“I’m glad nothing happened to you, Michael,” the man said, his voice low.
After that, the man started to walk away, heading towards where his wife and daughter were waiting for him.
“What do you mean by that?” Michael soon called out to him, making the man halt with a look over his shoulder.
The man let out another sigh. He took off his hat.
Then Michael felt his eyes widen a fraction.
There above the man’s brow was a long nasty scar, reaching just above his left eye. The skin around it was dark and marred, nearly looking like a dangerous burn. To some, it may have even looked as if it was a deliberate attack on him rather than any tragic accident. Or perhaps to others, they would believe part of the man’s face had been drained out of him, leaving his cheeks to appear sunken and his eyes dark with lasting exhaustion.
“Every side has its story. I don’t quite like sharing mine just in favor of proving something. Most times I never do anyway, however…if you are as close as I see you are with my daughter, Michael…do take my advice and be careful.” Then he put his hat back on, hiding the scar beneath it.
This time when the man walked away, Michael didn’t stop him. Instead he lingered at Marsh’s grave and thought of Arabel’s father’s last words.
Take my advice and be careful.
The way the man had said it at first sounded like a protective father looking out for his little girl. To warn any boy not to mess with her or go about and hurt her trust and feelings. It seemed normal, even if according to Arabel, he was the type who did not care for his family and had a history of betrayal.
But then as Michael remembered the grim returning look in the man’s eyes, desperate for his message to become known and made clear, the scar that made him wince from the sight of it—he couldn’t help but feel as though there was a second hint. One that he should’ve caught quickly for his own good, and perhaps…
For his safety.
No, Michael ignored his uneasiness and remembered: He abandoned Ara and Mrs. Marsh for another life. He hurt and betrayed them, and that is unforgivable. I shouldn’t be thinking this much about what a man like him says.
Micheal puffed out a cold visible air, shivering a little in his black coat. He decided Arabel’s father merely intended to warn him out of parental concern. Even if that seemed a tad unlike him for someone who had abandoned his own child and taken them back after the death of their other guardian.
With a glance to the sky, Michael walked home before it turned dark, wondering if Arabel would be fine or if she would lose more sleep over this.
Notes:
Deadbeat father ain't dead after all.
Next chapter will be fun, hehe
Thanks for reading!
Chapter 84: The First Fall of Snow
Notes:
As promised, I bring you a long chapter this week. 10.5k hehe
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Since Arabel moved out of their neighbourhood to live with her father, Michael had been seeing her less and less.
The first week he hadn’t seen her at all. Her absence in school and outside of it made his heart clench in constant worry of how she was faring at her new home—whether everyone in her family was treating her well or not, or if her father was fair and kind to treat her as his daughter as much as his other younger children. Michael could barely sleep himself as night after night he had twisted and turned in his bed, thinking and imagining the worst of the worst. Whatever Arabel had told him of her father especially made his worry climb higher and settle into his mind, poking at his brain like an irritating bug.
Because what if the man was awful to her? What if he was starving her and making her sleep on the floor rather than on a proper bed? What if he laid hands on her? Knowing Arabel, she had a knack for defying people and being crass without filter. If her father somehow could not handle it and had decided to discipline her through harsh ways…
Michael shuddered every time. His worry continued to grow.
He had had half the idea to even drop by her father’s house because of this palpable concern of his. That was until the second week came by; and he finally laid eyes on that familiar bright yellow jacket of hers. The relief that washed over him was an enormous wave and he had nearly run up to her with the intention to pull her into a suffocating embrace. And though his shyness for such an open display at school had stopped him from doing so, seeing the state of her played a bigger role.
Arabel did not look healthy.
She did not look well-fed.
She did not look like she slept at all.
All at once, his nightmare-ish thoughts and imagined scenarios had come true.
He had failed as a friend, to protect her from the danger at home and to uphold his promise to Marsh.
“Michael, for the last time, I don’t want your lunch.”
During their break at school, he and Arabel ate at their usual spot in the furthest corner of the cafeteria, mostly because Jimmy and his friends liked to conquer the front table and throw food at him while other children gawked in loud judgement. Though, to his relief, after the fighting incident—and Michael’s three days suspension—Jimmy stayed rigid in his seat, eating quietly along with his friends who whispered to each other whilst throwing glares at him from across the room. As did the other children, though they were more weary than the bullies. Some had even left their seats quickly whenever he walked near, leaving their tables in haste as they grumbled disdainful words of him under their breaths.
Michael didn’t let it bother him. Even more so now that Arabel was back. They could’ve picked any bigger table that the other children abruptly abandoned, but it seemed neither of them wanted any change in the routine. Which he was glad for.
“Take it, Ara. What do you want? An apple? Pudding? A slice of this chicken?” He pushed his tray of food towards her empty side. Even her decision not to eat anymore made him uneasy.
“No. I told you I don’t want it.” She pushed his tray back to him and slumped her head on the table. “And don’t even think about spoon-feeding me either. It’s embarrassing.”
“You were fine with it yesterday,” he said with a lopsided smile.
“Because I was too tired to stop you.”
“Or,”—He raised a fork—“too hungry.”
Arabel glared, then reluctantly took the fork and ate a bite. Michael noticed her grimace.
“Hey,” he said. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing.” She stabbed a chicken from his tray and took another bite.
For someone who had denied his lunch when offered, she sure was quick for seconds.
He couldn’t care any less if she finished his entire tray. He didn’t care if he didn’t eat that afternoon if it meant she could have his portion instead.
“How’s everything at your new house?”
“Fine.”
“What about your day?”
“Uneventful.” Then her eyes briefly looked up to him as she added monotonously, “But better now that you’re stupidly forcing me to eat your lunch.”
He half-chuckled at that. “And your father?”
“What about my father?”
“Is he treating you…okay?” When Arabel became silent and played with the food, he realized perhaps he’d been too forward. Michael stammered. “S-Sorry. You don’t have to answer that.”
She looked at him, thoughtful.
How difficult it is to read her.
Could she be angry that he accused—even if subtly—her father of being as bad as his own? Or could she be annoyed at him for even mentioning the man she lost respect for?
He was an idiot. He should’ve just kept his mouth shut and not pressured her into telling him anything—
“Surprisingly, he is.”
Michael was taken aback, his jaw hanging a little.
Had he heard that correctly?
“He…he is?”
Arabel hummed in agreement. Then she straightened herself only to lean back against her chair, dropping the fork on his tray to cross her arms.
“A bit distant, though. I can’t really say it’s something I didn’t expect. Considering his years of absence.”
He nodded, understanding though still eager to confirm her home was well for her. “What about your stepmother?”
“Better than my dad. Her kids are a little annoying, but I think that’s more so my problem than theirs. I just don’t like them.”
“Oh. Why not?”
“Do I need a reason to not like someone?” She quirked a brow.
Michael took that as a sign not to press her further on the why. He had known her long enough to tell when she was starting to become irritated, and in this case, any mention of her other family irked her greatly.
For some reason.
“Of course not. Sometimes I don’t need a reason to hate someone either.” He ate a bite of his food, shrugging.
“Do you?”
“Totally. I can hate a person just like”—He snapped his fingers—“that. I could just look at their faces and tell immediately they’re the worst. Especially those who are standoffish and mean.”
Arabel huffed, her lips tilting into an upside-down smile, and her hands fiddling with a spoon. As if she had something to say but decided not to at the last minute.
It bothered Michael to say the least, especially when she kept making that face at him.
“Okay, what?” he asked, unable to stay quiet anymore.
“What do you mean what?”
Michael wished he possessed her nonchalance.
“You’re making faces at me. Did I say something wrong just now?”
“This is just my face.” She was smiling cheekily now, and though that made his heart swell with joy, he had to know the reason behind that look of hers.
“I don’t believe you. You rarely smile like that unless you’re ready to make fun of me or something.”
“Seriously, it’s nothing, Mono. I just thought something you said was interesting. That’s all.”
“What did I say?”
Her smirk grew. “Not much. Just that you might’ve admitted I was the worst.”
Suddenly his cheeks burned as his eyes widened.
Oh, he had screwed up.
“…No, I didn’t. I-I said those who are standoffish and mean.”
“I was pretty standoffish and mean when we met. Even insulted you, you know.”
“That’s different. You were being cautious and protective.”
“I threatened to kill you.”
“And one week later, we are friends. Can we forget about what I said, please?”
Arabel continued to smirk at him, making his face even warmer from embarrassment and slight guilt.
“Not a chance. You slipped up, you pay. My feelings are very hurt and I demand compensation for it.”
“Technically, wouldn’t I need the compensation since you were the one who had threatened me—?"
“Look, do you want to make it up to me or not?”
Of course he wanted to.
How could he say otherwise when something in her tired eyes sparkled with that familiar mischief and bright energy? The way her sunken cheeks appeared full for once when she pulled her mouth into a knowing smile as she awaited his answer? For many days, Arabel had fallen into a state of despondency and despair. Losing her mother was a shift in her life—a big one at that. And because of it, things changed almost drastically.
He had rarely ever seen her. Pale Pond no longer was a part of their routine. And so were the nearly daily visits to her home, where the smell of Marsh’s home cooking would be the first thing to hit his nose.
It saddened him, of course, that these changes had to happen. Michael missed it all, and even more he had missed the two people who had played a part in changing his life.
One of them may be gone, but Arabel was still here. Here with him. And if accepting whatever it was she wanted him to do now meant that he could see her become her old—happy and cheeky—self back, then he’d be damned to refuse.
Michael pushed his tray of food and gestured it to her.
“As long as you finish your lunch.” He ignored how Arabel narrowed her eyes at him. “So, tell me, how do I make it up to you?”
Out of all the things Arabel could ask of him, he didn’t expect her to request a sleepover.
Michael had been confused, and still was, when the question came immediately after without much thought. It was simply odd. A little unusual even for someone like Arabel of all people to want to have something as sentimental as sleeping over a friend’s house to, according to her words, just hang out and spend time together. Nevertheless, Michael certainly wasn’t one to refuse no matter how strange Arabel’s behavior struck him. He wasn’t one to say no to a hopeful face when he saw one; and seeing the subtle pleading in her eyes, how could he reject that idea of hers? He couldn’t.
So a sleepover was what he agreed to.
The next day after school, instead of going back to her father’s house, Arabel went home with Michael along with her already packed bag for the night. She seemed thrilled and happy the entire walk back—and even the entire day. Unusually attentive and loquacious. And when they reached his house, it was obvious she was excited to be spending the night there.
Of course, Michael had informed Willy the day before about the prompt sleepover, and Willy being Willy thought it would be an icebreaker to scare them with his true form when they walked through the front door.
Well.
Scared him, at least.
Arabel barely reacted much while he tripped beside the wall and into a coat rack. Michael sternly, though vainly, told Willy off not to do that again. Willy in return agreed, half-hearted and cheeky—that was how he knew his brother would, in fact, do it again sometime in the future.
When dinner came around, Arabel stayed with him in the kitchen. She kept him company, helped him cook, and to his surprise, she was far more skilled than he was at that. But then again, who was he kidding? Marsh was an excellent cook herself, it shouldn’t have been a surprise that her daughter would learn a thing or two. Even so, Michael enjoyed having her there with him. They chatted and laughed the entire time, as if to make up the time lost from those weeks when she was absent.
And then they ate together—Willy joined them too because, well, he simply could. Although, he was the only one without a plate. Never had one during their dinners, as Michael remembered since after the Storm.
Soon after they were finished, Arabel asked him if she could have a spare blanket and said she would sleep downstairs on the couch. Michael instantly disagreed, saying how it wouldn’t be proper for her to spend the night on an uncomfortable piece of furniture. One where his father used to doze off on, no less.
“Mono, it’s only one night. I’ll be fine,” Arabel said with a laugh.
“I won’t be, knowing you’re sleeping on this sorry excuse of a couch,” Michael replied. “Wouldn’t you be more comfortable in my room? I can sleep in my father’s,” he added.
Her face turned slightly pink. She cleared her throat after a small pause. “What about Willy? Where would he sleep?”
Willy doesn’t sleep. He only comes out of Father’s body and leaves it in the closet at night so I wouldn’t have to be afraid.
“He’ll bunk with me. Like brothers do.”
“Are you sure about this?” Arabel asked, considering though hesitant.
“Of course,” Michael smiled softly. “Willy wouldn’t mind it, I can say that for sure.”
“I mind this a lot, Brother.”
Willy, in its blob form, rested on the bedside table while giving him a stink eye as he settled under the covers. With Arabel taking his room, he and Willy stayed in Father’s for the night. After all, the room had been unoccupied for months. What was the harm in sleeping in it for only one night?
“Hush. I’m trying to sleep here,” Michael adjusted the pillow under his head before falling on it.
“Oh, I’m sure you are. I’m sure you’ll be sleeping like a baby while I sleep on this filthy table full of old drinking stains.”
“First of all, that table has been clean since even before you came around. And second of all, you don’t even sleep, Willy.”
“In the very least, I’d like to have my rest on my own table. Why did you have to go ahead and offer her your room?”
“Because she’s a guest. In this house we value guests.”
Willy scoffed and muttered grumpily, “I remember I stayed in a jar the first time I was here.”
“You were the one who liked that jar so much. Just the other day, you yelled at me for nearly throwing it away.”
“Because it held so many great memories that apparently you seemed to have forgotten!” Willy exclaimed. “But that is not the thing I wanted to say.”
Michael waited for the blob to continue, yet when he was met with only the silence of the dark room, he sighed.
“What is the thing you wanted to say, Willy?” Michael said tiredly, already familiar with Willy’s dramatic pauses and hints to have him ask it himself.
“Excellent question, Brother!” Willy said, seemingly already forgetting its earlier sourness. “The thing is…how long are we expecting her to stay with us?”
“Arabel?”
“The soulless girl, yes.”
“Well, it’s a sleepover, and she said only one night.”
“You don’t sound very happy about that. Were you hoping she would stay longer?”
Michael bit back his tongue for nearly admitting it.
“Of course not,” he said after a pause, lacking conviction. “But…I’m just saying. If she were to want to stay, I wouldn’t be that kind of friend and say no—”
“So, forever, it is.”
“Wait, no, Willy—” He turned to Willy so fast it hurt his neck. “I-I didn’t say I wanted her to stay forever!”
“Oh, certainly not, Brother! You were merely saying you wouldn’t be opposed to the idea.”
“Now you’re just trying to put words into my mouth.” Michael huffed and laid back on his pillow, rolling his eyes. Then he grumbled, “Ara just lost her mother, alright? A person she really cared about and loved. And as if that’s not worse already, she now has to go live with someone she barely knows anymore, along with a family who are practically strangers to her. It’d be cruel to turn her away from the only thing she’s actually familiar with.”
“And you are…this ‘thing’?”
Michael hummed after a thought. “Yeah. I’m that ‘thing’.”
“Then I suppose it would make sense for her to be so unusually attached to you after all this while.” He gave it a strange look, to which Willy replied with a knowing blink he didn’t understand. “I sensed something was off the second she entered our home, you know. Perhaps she is only in dire need of good company; perhaps her devil friend is settling comfortably inside her. Whichever it is, it’s making her acting twice as friendly towards you. I’d say you best be careful.”
That was what Arabel’s father had said to him. Be careful. While the man might’ve meant it as a parental concern, Willy’s advice had a slightly different sound to it.
Her devil friend is settling comfortably inside her.
Michael wondered.
“You think she’s up for a mischief?”
“Eh. Who knows? That girl is all sorts of trouble. Even if she has a penchant for dealing with yours for you.”
“That’s true,” Michael found himself agreeing.
While he wasn’t one to see Arabel in any bad light, he couldn’t deny that Arabel had a side that even he dared not bring up in front of her. An edge that made the other children fear her and, at the start, as did he. Even before Marsh had passed away, Arabel was capable of picking fights with people twice her size. She carried a knife with her and seemed utterly comfortable wielding it around. She was brutal verbally and physically to those she did not like.
And now that Marsh was gone, it only made him wonder if anything about that side of Arabel left for the better or remained and exacerbated. He wondered if she had silently snapped before. He wondered if what Willy said could be true, and that there was a reason she was being much nicer to him, or perhaps a darker reason—
“I need a glass of water.” Michael shoved away his covers and left the room in haste, pushing Willy’s words out of his mind and berating himself for thinking badly of his friend.
How could he even start to? Ridiculous. Arabel wouldn’t get herself in trouble; she was a smart girl, and a very smart one at that.
There was not a chance she would ever do anything horrid, let alone involve him in bad—
A shadow moved in his peripheral and a small light entered through the creak of the front door. Michael stopped halfway to the kitchen, finding himself caught in a staring match with the girl he had just been thinking about, her frame stuck in between the threshold of the door.
“Ara?”
Arabel sent him a tight smile from where she was, leaning at the wood in show of a false casual. He was not an idiot.
“H-Hey, Mono.” A bit of pause there and a flicker of panic in her eyes. “I didn’t know you were still up. What are you doing up this late?”
“I was…getting water,” he said, eyeing her carefully. She was wearing her yellow jacket and was dressed. “Where are you heading off to there?”
“Nowhere.” He quirked a brow, not buying it. Arabel added, “Just…out, you know. I wanted to get some fresh air, that’s all.”
“Cool. I’ll go with you.”
“You don’t have to, really—” Her words were cut short as Michael was already reaching for his coat on the rack and putting it on.
“No, don’t worry about it. Come on,” he answered swiftly. Then he flashed her his most nonchalant grin he could muster.
Perhaps Willy’s words did get inside his head a little, as he quite felt uneasy letting her go out on her own. Safety was one thing for a girl to walk alone in small hours, but to sneak out and act all shady about it?
Willy’s words definitely got to him.
Arabel said nothing when he gestured for her to go first, and after he closed the door behind them, the silence stretched on as they walked side by side on the cold streets of the neighborhood.
Flickering lamps cast long, intimidating shadows of trees and houses, though the pale moonlight offered just enough guidance to avoid a stray bush or an angry neighbor's lawn. Arabel was the first to break the silence.
“I haven’t thanked you for tonight.”
He grinned, feigning ignorance. “For what, exactly?”
“Funny.”
“I know.”
Arabel rolled her eyes and pushed his shoulder. “Seriously. Thank you. I appreciate it a lot, Mono. For everything these past few days.” Her smile softened, then faded as she looked down. “I haven’t been much of myself, have I?” she said, her voice low.
“You’re going through a hard time in your life. It’s alright to take your time and process it the way you’re comfortable with. Even if it means being suspiciously too nice and asking for a sleepover.”
That made her chuckle.
“I’m sorry for springing the idea on you. I just… really needed to get out of that house for a bit.”
Something in him almost stopped. “Ara, what happened? Is everything okay—?”
“Oh—no, I didn’t mean it like—" Arabel quickly dismissed as his usual concern for her returned. She assured him, “I-I didn’t mean it like that. Everything is fine; everyone’s treating me fine. Even my father. I just meant to say I wanted to…be with a familiar face. You know?”
“Oh.” Relief washed over him. “I guess…that’s good to know. Th-that your father is treating you nicely, I mean.”
“Oh, no, he’s still an asshole,” she said. Michael had thought she was merely being bitter because of the man’s hitherto abandonment, but then she added under her breath, “He sold off my Ma’s shop.”
His heart plummeted. He was silent for what felt like an eternity.
“How? I thought that was something you were inheriting,” Michael asked.
“It was, but see, that’s the thing. I’m under his custody. Anything he wants done, he can make happen. He has friends to help him in that sort of matter, and somehow, he’s managed to sell the shop. Take everything from me again. First, it was the house, and now…it’s this. The former I didn’t even have the chance to grab anything of my mother’s while they picked it up and threw it away. Not even a picture.”
How cruel. What father would do that to his own daughter?
Perhaps some fathers, Michael thought bitterly.
“Did you really not have anything of hers with you? Not a single thing?”
Arabel sighed and shook her head, chuckling bitterly. “Apparently, in my father’s bulbous head, he believes I should start fresh. Live my new life without anything that could remind me of my Ma, so in his words ‘I don’t get attached’ to the things she owned or touched before. Easier said, he wants me to forget everything about her. Like she doesn’t exist. Unbelievable, isn’t it?”
“Heartless,” Michael supported with a scowl. “That is unfair what he did to you, Ara. For someone who hasn’t been around, he shouldn’t think he even has the right to remove everything about your mother from you. It just isn’t fair. It’s downright cruel.”
“Well. Cruelty is often overlooked when it’s ‘for the sake of my child’s betterment’,” she said in a mocking voice of her father. “I just wished I had known sooner that the shop was getting sold. I keep thinking, if I did, maybe I would’ve had the chance to get something of my mother’s before they locked it down. The thing she loved the most. The part that makes her.”
Michael watched her resentment shift into regret and that horrible grief. He hated seeing her like that, especially when this entire day she had been cheerful and herself again.
At least, he had thought so.
“How long has it been already? Since it was sold?”
“A week,” Arabel replied, dejected. “Someone bought it last Monday. I even tried getting into the shop to retrieve some things, but they turned me away. Saying I’m not allowed to go into someone else’s property.”
Explains why you weren’t in school, he thought as he listened.
“But I know they still keep the old stuff in the back room, though,” Arabel continued, making him look at her in surprise.
“How do you know?”
“I saw them. Asked them if I could have my mother’s stuff before they threw that one away too. But my dad found out I visited the shop still and…let’s say he’s kept a better eye on me ever since. That was when I knew. During the day, people see and some even snitch on you. You’ve got adults to stop whatever it is you plan on doing; and it was clear I wasn’t going to get anything of my Ma’s from the shop as long as I continued doing what I did. Walking in broad daylight. I knew I had to do something different, or else I’d keep failing. Miserably.”
When Arabel stopped in place, so did he. It seemed he must’ve been too engrossed in her story as the realization of where he was slipped past his attention. He hadn’t noticed how the buildings had gotten taller and the roads wider for cars to run by. Establishments and shops lined up on every street and gone were the housing areas he thought they were still in.
They had walked past the neighborhood gate; and straight into the sleeping city.
Yet that was of no concern.
Being in Pale City this late wouldn’t be such a suspicious occurrence if it weren’t for the fact that he and Arabel stood before Marsh’s shop, and the latter dropping on her knees before the locked entrance and producing two thin wires out of her jacket pocket.
“Keep a lookout.”
A chill seized him.
“A-Ara, what are you doing?” Horror tightened his voice as he looked around in panic.
“What do you think? I’m getting this door to open,” she said, unfazed as she continued to pick on the lock.
“You’re breaking and entering!”
“I’m not breaking any windows, though, am I? Just keep watch and let me know if you see anyone, Mono.”
“Ara!”
A sigh escaped through her nose then. She gave him a stern look, as if he was the one committing a crime.
“Listen. I just want to get inside and grab something. No big deal,” Arabel said with a shrug, and she returned to the door, shoving the wires into the lock so skillfully he wondered if she had done it so often enough before.
“It is a big deal. You’re breaking the law.” Her scoffing at his words made him scowl. Sending another wary glance around the empty streets, he said to her more urgently, “Ara, there are police patrolling these parts of the city. You’ve got to stop!”
“Do you see any police around?”
“No.”
“Then I’m not stopping,” she said, stubborn as always. One thing he liked about her and, honestly, often was frustrated because of it.
He suppressed a groan as he fisted the air.
How very difficult she is!
“I cannot believe you! I cannot believe you dragged me into doing this…this crime!” he began to whisper loudly now, afraid someone might hear him.
“In my defense, I wanted to go alone.”
“So this is my fault?”
“Kind of. You invited yourself, didn’t you?”
“Because I wanted to make sure you were okay! I didn’t want you to walk alone late at night!”
The lock clicked and the door opened ajar. A proud smile adorned Arabel’s face, but that was easily wiped off when Michael caught her by her wrist, stopping her from taking a step inside the shop.
“Arabel,” he whispered harshly.
In return, she rolled her eyes at him and hissed quietly, “Oh, you’re being such a goody-two-shoes. It’ll only take one second!”
The name calling stung a little, albeit he stood his ground in making her see.
“I don’t care how long you plan to stay inside there, but this is wrong. What you are doing now is wrong, Ara.”
Her brows deepened into a scowl. “Taking back my mother’s belongings is wrong?”
“That is not what I meant.”
“No, no, that is exactly what you meant. Tell me, then, what better way should I have done this? Ask for permission? Come back every other day, hoping they would change their minds? Wait, no, I think I’ve done that.”
“Arabel, please just—!”
Footsteps echoed from the corner, and panic flared.
Arabel yanked his hand, hauling him into the shop. The door creaked shut just as lights swept across the window. Both of them were slumped against each other, backs to the door and each with held breath.
Then they waited.
Being dead silent, lest the person on the other side find them guilty, they watched the lights recede and fade away after a while.
Darkness quickly returned to greet them in the shop.
And it was only until they were certain the footsteps moved past Marsh’s shop that they each released their breaths. Michael’s chest hurt from the loud thumping inside it. He gave Arabel a rare glower.
She shot back her own scowl.
“Would you rather be caught?” Arabel released his hand and stood up. He didn’t realize he’d been holding her hand so tightly until the warmth disappeared.
Michael, despite feeling utterly annoyed he was now a part of a crime scene, followed closely behind. He was irritated with her. A bit in disbelief that Willy’s words from before held an ounce of truth he hadn’t wanted to believe.
She’s definitely putting herself in trouble. And I’ve stupidly included myself in it.
“What are you even looking for here?”
The shop seemed lifeless compared to the last time he had stepped inside it. Shelves were emptied out. The floor was bare and seemed faded in color as the old carpets were removed and put aside. A small television, its screen dusty, sat on the counter desk like an unused relic. Paint buckets were arranged in one corner, left behind for another day of work.
To renovate the place for something new.
Michael wasn’t sure how to feel about that.
In some places of the shop, he could still imagine Marsh standing in, a gentle smile across her face as she taught him how to work here. He could imagine her pulling Arabel’s cheek behind the counter, softly reminding her daughter to take some things seriously.
He imagined her devastated expression if she were to see what had happened to her shop now. The changes that were to be made by another.
Marsh wouldn’t have wanted this.
“Like I said. Just my mother’s belongings.”
They walked into the back room. Arabel was right. Everything was all cramped inside here, though messily thrown on top of each other. Marsh’s old hats, antiques, stocks, paperwork and personal things mixed together that it was difficult to tell which was which. Impossible, almost, to find certain items within a limited time in this heap of mess.
Arabel didn’t seem to mind it as she stepped over them and began her search, first pocketing a picture of her late mother and then smaller things that she could carry on her person. It was when she started to turn her attention to the stacked boxes and lifting them that he knew this little trip would take longer than she had told him.
Michael had even wanted to tell her again, to leave now before the policeman returned and realized the shop’s lock had been tampered. Her eagerness made him think again.
She opened boxes after boxes, rummaging through them with only one intent. To find something that had belonged to her mother. Though, not just anything.
“Ara,” he called.
“I’m staying put, Michael,” Arabel snapped without straying focus. “If you want to go so badly, just go. But I’m not leaving until I find it.” She shifted to another box, shoving the other ones away with force.
Tension thickened in the small room. Michael disliked it.
He hated feeling the small pangs of guilt stabbing at his insides, hearing Arabel’s disappointment and cold tone directed towards him. All the while, his fear of being arrested for trespassing rested comfortably in his mind. The longer they stayed, the likelier they’d get caught. Simple as that.
But not as simple after all, Michael thought, as he sat on the floor with her. For against his better judgement, he began to help her look.
After a while, he could feel her stare on him, surprised he didn’t leave even after his obvious disapproval of staying in the shop. Or perhaps she was surprised to see him meeting her eyes, a truce of a smile on his lips.
She nodded at him, her face softening into the same look.
“You want to tell me what exactly we’re looking for?” Michael opened up a box and found multiple old masks and trinkets inside it.
“A music box,” Arabel answered eventually. “It has a…crank handle on top of it. “
He hummed. So not this one.
Michael moved on to the next box.
“Your mother’s?”
“Sort of. It was gifted to me when I was a kid. Was hers before.”
“Oh?”
The sound of boxes sliding across the wood filled the pause. “I used to have it with me in my old room. But my dad hated the sound that comes out of it, and so, my Ma said she’ll keep it safe for me in the shop. In case the music box ever got ‘lost’.”
“And you want to,” he said, raising a brow at her, “bring it back to your father’s house?”
“I’m not going to play it, obviously,” she said. “I’m not that much of an idiot to be so careless.”
“Right. Maybe only a little too smart to plot breaking in here to have it, though.”
She snickered, and it made him smile. “I was killing two birds with one stone. We got to hang out, didn’t we?”
“So, the sleepover was not an excuse to come here without being seen?” he asked, if not a little sarcastic.
“Two birds with one stone,” she reiterated. “Hanging out with you. And getting the music box. Besides, staying the night at your house might’ve been the best way for my father not to find out I had snuck out again. At least this way, he’d only think I was with you to spend time with a friend. Which was technically true anyway.”
“I’m surprised he let you, to be honest. I don’t think he likes me very much.”
“You think everybody doesn’t like you, Mono.”
“Hmm. Fair point.” He chuckled. So did she.
“My father is just an asshole, you know. If he gives you a certain look, he probably does that with everyone.”
Certainly sounds familiar. Michael kept his thoughts to himself, knowing it would anger her to be compared to her father.
“I guess,” he said instead, humming. “He did say something to me, though. During your mother’s funeral.”
From his periphery, he saw Arabel’s movements had ceased and she was now watching him intently.
“Did he, now?”
“It’s nothing serious,” Michael added. “Just that I should be careful. I think he thinks I’m only up to trouble.” At his words, Arabel visibly relaxed, returning back to her task at finding the music box. He did the same.
“As much as I hate to side with that man, I think he might’ve had a reason to.”
When he looked at her, his brows furrowed and waiting for a continuation, she gladly gave it to him. However, a little too proudly and cheekily.
“I heard you got into a fight with Jimmy.”
Michael drew his lips into a thin line. Heat spread to his cheeks despite the cold air. He should’ve known she’d find out.
“He started it,” Michael first mumbled.
“You won it.”
“I had a black eye and was suspended.”
“He had stitches and a longer punishment.” She was grinning now. Michael could only shake his head, though trying to fight the fluttering movements in his guts.
“I don’t know why you sound so happy, though,” Michael said, his attempt at coolness falling flat. “I literally hurt him. He was bleeding.”
“Mono, you stood up for yourself. And against the biggest jerk in all history too. That’s what is most important; so of course I’m happy. And frankly…a little relieved.”
“What do you mean?”
Arabel’s answer for that never came, much to his confusion. And what perplexed him further was the returning depressed look over her face.
Could he have said something wrong again?
“Did that Fontaine girl ever show up while I was not around?”
Michael blinked, surprised.
“Uh, a few times. But nothing unusual. It’s always the same normal chit-chatting. She did always ask if you were alright, though,” he told her.
“Has she been nice to you?” Something about this felt like a trick question he wasn’t sure he knew how to answer.
“Yeah. She’s been really nice. Genuine, if that makes a difference.”
“It does.” Her voice softened. “I’m glad I was wrong.”
Michael didn’t understand it.
What had gotten into her to be so….different? Last he recalled, any mention of Seraphina would end with Arabel either rolling her eyes or making a vomiting sound or her dismissing the conversation about the girl entirely. It was clear to anyone Arabel distrusted Seraphina because of her background. She disliked her since she showed up and became friends with him, and even more she disliked the blonde girl’s attempts to befriend her too. So it simply baffled Michael now. How come, weeks before Arabel was quick to be annoyed when he mentioned Seraphina’s name, but now she was the one who brought it up first? How come she was asking about Seraphina and actively admitting she was wrong about the girl’s authenticity?
Something didn’t feel right.
Everything about tonight did not feel right.
Arabel’s shift in her behavior now did not seem like it was done without a reason.
“I found it.”
Arabel carefully brought up a cylindrical item from its case. The music box was small enough it could be carried and hugged, though too big to have it hidden on a person. Michael watched as Arabel pulled it close to her and blew the dust on the top of it. It still looked new, even after all these years. He was almost in awe.
“Are we ready to go?” he asked.
Arabel nodded at him, hugging the music box to her chest. Her earlier sadness seemed to linger behind her eyes, despite all her efforts to lift a smile at him.
He said nothing. And he would’ve continued to remain in his own uneasiness if he had missed the last look she gave her mother’s shop. The way she seemed reluctant to leave through the front entrance when they finally reached it.
He cleared his throat. Arabel startled, turning to him.
“Sorry. I just…can’t seem to leave.” A sad chuckle rumbled in her throat. She looked back to what was left of the shop again. The bright colors all faded into a bare surface, the scent of Marsh’s antiques and the home-like atmosphere that was all gone.
The vast difference of what it used to be.
“Would you…like to stay a bit longer, Ara? It’s okay if you want to,” he told her eventually.
“I don’t know. I just…” She released a shuddering breath. “I keep seeing her, Mono. Here. I see her in her chair, arranging things. Everywhere. Like she never really left at all. Even in my dreams, she’s still…present.” Her voice went lower, close to a mumble. “I just wish I could see her face again, not just in my memory.”
Another deep sigh from her and she shook her head at herself. He realized then she was swallowing her tears and was trying to shrug it off, sniffling as she made haste to the door.
“Come on, let’s just go—”
“Hey, wait.” He stopped her before she could twist the knob. Arabel waited, but he noted the look in her eyes. Her vulnerability and her need to hide away before it burst and revealed itself. It ate at his heart. “How well do you remember your dream?”
“Mono—”
“Just humor me, for a second.”
She let out an exasperated sigh, leaning on one leg impatiently. “Well enough.”
“Can you picture it clearly in your mind?”
“Look, can we just—?”
“Please?”
“Yes, I can,” she said after giving him a deadpanned look. “Now, can we go? You were the one who wanted to leave, right?”
Michael paid no attention to the bite in her tone, instead turning his attention to the tiny, old television sitting on the cashier.
An idea struck him.
“I want to show you something. Come on.” Taking her hand, he led her to the television.
The entire time Arabel moved with reluctance, now so eager to get out of the shop as he had before. But there was no hiding the curiosity playing in her eyes as he plugged the television to its socket and flipped its switches until the screen hummed a low buzz. A show played at first, one that was popular enough he’d memorized the tune of its theme song and the voices of its actors. He took Arabel’s hand in his own gently. She stiffened yet stayed.
“Close your eyes and think about your dream of your mother.”
“Michael, what is this even for—?”
“Just trust me.” He gave her fingers a small squeeze. “Close your eyes.”
Arabel, despite her mild irritation at his request, did as he said. She closed her eyes, holding his hand. Michael slowly pressed his other palm flat against the cold glass of the television. Then he welcomed the warmth flowing beneath his skin.
The show came to an abrupt halt, interrupted by the hissing sounds of static and ever so slightly, a singing voice of a woman so sweet and gentle he could tell upon his first time hearing it. And if he could recognize Marsh’s voice, so could Arabel.
Her eyes shot open.
He watched them grow wider by the second as she stared into her dream, now presented so clearly on the television as though it was a recorded video. Marsh was knitting at home, humming a haunting if sweet melody. She sat in her living room with an easy smile—never sick and worried—while a tiny fire crackled behind her in the fireplace, casting the place a warm glow of orange.
Beside him, there was a soft sniffle. Michael turned and saw tears had gathered in Arabel’s eyes, though the girl was stubborn to ever let a drop fall. She refused to look away from the screen.
“Michael, what…what is this?” she said, her voice above whisper.
“Your dream. If it is what you’ve been dreaming about, isn’t it?”
“Yes, but… how?” She finally met his eyes, in disbelief and in awe. “How is it playing on the screen like a…like a…”
“A video?”
A pause came and she nodded slowly. “A video,” she echoed. Then softly, she asked again, “How are you doing this?”
“I don’t know,” he answered truthfully, watching the screen glitch every now and then, yet still maintaining its connection. “It’s just something I can do. Influencing certain energies. Televisions. Mostly because I think they’re the easiest to channel some through. They pick up strange shifts and make themselves known.” Michael turned to her. “As for the dream thing, as far as I can tell, I didn’t know I could actively control it until a few days ago. Seraphina and I were only walking by a television shop when she mentioned she had a nightmare of porcelain children. I remember being very disturbed by it; and immediately one of the screens showed exactly that. I got lucky, though. Sera never noticed, and by the time she turned to look, everything was back to normal—”
A laugh escaped Arabel as she wiped her eyes with her sleeve. That took him aback, though he didn’t sense any hostility or sarcasm from her reaction yet.
But he did catch something.
“Did you hold her hand too?” A teasing remark.
One that made his cheeks flush hard.
“O-Of course not! We—we were just walking! Next to each other. Side by side. With a very normal, and very friendly distance between us—!”
A high whine erupted from the television before the shop brightened from its flashes of grey static. They let go of each other to cover their ears, backing away from the television.
The deafening sound decreased soon as his heart calmed. The lights flashed no longer than a few more seconds before they dimmed Marsh’s old shop back into its bleak darkness.
However, it also took less than a minute before a different kind of flashing light swept across the window again.
A tall figure of a man in a dark blue coat walked outside of the shop.
The door handle gave a weak rattle. A ringing above the door startled the policeman who pushed in easily without attempts.
The policeman brought his light upwards and scanned the inside of the shop, finding nothing of suspicion. He took in his surroundings with a tight frown, stepping on the creaking floorboards. His flashlight directed to the television and the plug connected to the wall behind it. The man hummed lowly. He pulled the plug from the socket and continued his inspection across the room, walking past certain two young children who crouched beneath the counter the television sat atop.
Michael and Arabel had ducked behind in time. Luckily.
They had slammed against each other painfully and shoved themselves into the narrow space to keep out of sight. Now cramped into a very uncomfortable position, Michael wished he had let Arabel take the hiding spot for herself whilst he hid somewhere else. Facing each other at an extremely small distance was making him rest uneasily.
And he was already uneasy to begin with.
Unlike Arabel who kept her eyes to the floor as if someone’s entire life secret was written on it.
Michael peeked his head out after a while. The policeman moved. He ducked back underneath, bumping his head against Arabel’s by accident. She silently winced. Then she smacked his arm and mouthed a curse to him, which he fairly deserved.
Mouthing back an apology, he looked away and found a brush laying on a plastic mat above the floor.
A brilliant idea sparked.
Stretching an arm to the brush, he slid back under the counter with the object held to his chest. He sighed he wasn’t caught doing so.
A tap on his hand. Arabel watched him with furrowed brows. “What are you doing?”
He showed her the brush and gestured a throwing movement, pointing somewhere above the counter.
Arabel seemed to be following so far.
Then he gestured that afterwards they made a run.
Her brows furrowed again. She shook her head.
“We’ll be caught.”
Michael raised a hand and flattened it across his chest. “Trust me.”
A moment passed with her contemplating. She nodded, though unconvinced.
Here goes nothing.
Michael hurled the brush over the counter. A clang of falling paint cans. The policeman’s light flashing towards the crashing sound.
Without missing a beat, Michael snatched Arabel’s hand and bolted to the front entrance. Their escape did not go as unnoticed as he had well hoped for; they made it just a step in the street before they heard a whistle ringing from behind them.
“ Oi! You nasty punks, stop right there!”
Michael never looked back. He kept on running with Arabel behind him, their hands locked in a deathly grip. Footsteps of the policeman followed them in a dreadfully fast pace and if it had not been for the sudden gust of wind, making the policeman trip and fall into a pile of discarded trash bags, they wouldn’t have made it out of the city streets unscathed.
Though, even as their chaser was disrupted so suddenly, the two refused to stop running. They returned into the neighborhood with the same rushing pace. Somehow they ended up in Pale Pond. He didn’t know who started laughing, but as they ran together, he couldn’t stop himself. The situation was never at all funny, yet they burst into boisterous laughter, in contrast to the sheer silence that had befallen the night. They laughed until their stomachs hurt, knowing well victory was theirs to claim.
Out of all the odds, they escaped.
Arabel was the first to drop on her rear in front of the pond, exhaustion finally catching up. His legs gave out not a second later; so he plopped down next to her, feeling the shiver of Pale Pond once more after so long.
“I cannot believe we just did that,” Arabel laughed, her voice hoarse from it.
His cheeks hurt badly from smiling alone.
“Not so much of a goody-two-shoes anymore, am I?” He snickered.
“I’m sorry for calling you that,” Arabel replied, still laughing.
“Apology accepted.”
“Didn’t think you’d deny it in the first place.” She cleared her throat and coughed a little. “Goodness. I seriously didn’t think your plan would work, Mono. I mean, I’m glad it did. But I thought we would be caught from the chase at least.”
“What do you think would’ve happened if we were? If the policeman never caught himself in a pile of trash.”
Arabel snorted along with him.
“I don’t know. Probably get arrested. You’d be sleeping in a cell for the night until Willy bails you out.”
“Wait, why only me?”
“Because I’m invisible. See my face here? Well, now— you can’t!” She swung a bit of water into his eyes, making his vision blur for a few seconds as he aggressively wiped them.
“Ara!” he scolded lightly. “Don’t make me push you inside this pond, I’m serious.”
She grinned smugly, unafraid by his threat.
“Yeah, sure. That’s what you pretty much did the first time you were here.”
The memory flashed before him. Arabel by the edge of the pond. Him, startling her and making her fall forwards.
“That was not my doing,” he said.
“That was so your doing,” she retorted.
“You fell on your own. I was only there to return your jacket, mind you.”
Arabel scoffed, her eyes lowering to the music box in her lap. She absentmindedly moved the crank and a quiet tune played from it. One that reminded him of Marsh’s song, both equally haunting and brimmed with sad yet beautiful serenity.
He liked it very much.
“That felt like it was just yesterday. Doesn’t it? You, helping me out of this pond?” Her fingers rested on the handle, the song ending to his disappointment.
“I know,” he said. “Also feels like just yesterday when you kicked Jimmy in his special place.”
“That was justified.”
“Definitely.”
“Do you still feel afraid around him?”
His head shook, to his own surprise. “Not so much afraid as I am annoyed, I guess. He still looks at me like he wants me dead, but so far, he’s never really acted upon it. Not yet, no.” When she responded with a chilling silence, he quickly added, “I can handle it. L-Like you said, I stood up for myself, didn’t I? Surely the second time would be easier. Maybe even less bloody.”
“Hm. Then I wish you all the best in winning any future fights that weakling Jimmy may ever start.”
“And I’ll be preparing a chair for you next time. So you can witness it in the front row.”
“I’d love that.” She smiled at him, if a little sadly. Her gaze went up to the Pond and the trees looming above it. He noticed the look again.
“Hey,” Michael bumped his shoulder with hers. “You’ve been a bit off since at the shop. Is everything okay?”
Her eyes flicked to him, hesitant and seemed forced.
“Yeah. Everything’s fine. Sorry if I made it seem like it wasn’t, it’s only that…I’m having so much fun. Spending today with you. Breaking into my Ma’s shop. Running away from a policeman and making it out alive.” They shared a small laugh. Her smile dimmed not long after. “Tonight was…all I could’ve hoped for, Mono. Maybe one of the most fun I’ve ever had. The best day. Thank you for that.”
He smiled proudly. “Well, in that case, then we should do this more often. Next time bring Sera along. I’ll get you two to become best friends in no time,” Michael joked.
Arabel did not react to it.
Not even a playful scowl or a light shove. Instead she cast a heavy gaze at him, one that appeared guilty and full of regret as her shoulders tensed more and more.
“I can’t.”
“I was kidding. If you don’t like Sera, we don’t have to invite her—”
“No, I’m fine with her, I just meant—” She hesitated. Arabel sighed shakily, avoiding his gaze. “This may be the last time we’ll ever have one of these nights.”
His smile faded.
“What?”
“My father,” Arabel said after a while, her fingers tapping on the music box in a fast rhythm, “is moving out of the city. Which means I’d have to go with him. Which means…”
We won’t be seeing each other anymore.
Arabel never had to say it. Her message was clear from the pauses at the end of her sentence, along with the forlorn expression across her face.
“You’re moving away.” A part of him hoped she would correct him. Every part of him wished she would prove his assumption wrong.
Yet she only confirmed it with a sad nod.
“He told us just last week; I knew I didn’t have all that much time—”
“Wait—you knew? This entire time?”
He tried not to raise his voice, he really did. Arabel’s chest only rose quicker when he failed.
“Yeah. I knew.”
“When?”
“What?”
“When are you leaving?” A foreign venomous voice left him.
Another pause from her. It made his heart clench worse as she shrunk herself ever so slightly under his stare.
“Tomorrow morning.”
Tomorrow morning.
Michael laughed without meaning to, and smiled without wanting it on him. A bitter rush of anger snuck its way into his heart the longer he kept hearing her voice, repeating like a noisy chant that forever would remind him; Arabel was leaving.
She was leaving the city.
Leaving him.
“Michael,” Arabel’s soft whisper came in the midst of his long silence. “Please say something.”
He didn’t have anything to say.
Except maybe…
“Why didn’t you tell me,” he asked, his voice low, “when you first found out?”
“I wanted to at first,” she said shakily. “But I…I got a little scared. I-I didn’t want anything between us to change these last couple of days; and if I had said something, I knew you would’ve…you would have acted differently.”
A bitter scoff left him before he could stop it.
“You didn’t want me acting differently, but instead you did? Is that how it is? Is that why you’ve been so nice to me at all today?”
“I’m sorry,” Arabel uttered. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, Michael. I really am—I…I messed up. Didn’t I?”
Yes, you did. You’re the worst for doing what you’re doing to me, the most cruel and mean person to make me believe you were getting better, only to lie straight to my face. You’re a horrible friend for leaving. I should be glad you’re gone by tomorrow, so I won’t ever have to look into your lying face ever again.
Michael’s eyes stung.
He couldn’t bring himself to mean anything he wanted to say to her, to unleash his ire and disappointment at her selfishness. Michael couldn’t even keep his scowl for long as one look at Arabel had his anger fade into a growing devastation. A harsh realization that his best friend would be gone in mere hours.
How could he stay angry while knowing that?
How could he dare ruin their last night together when it was brimmed with laughter and joy? He’d be just as selfish if he let his anger claim him this way—and from only one piece of bad news, no less.
Tonight was their last night together.
He would regret it if it turned into their last fight.
Michael laid himself on the grass. Arabel had looked at him, confused and wary, but when he nodded to the empty space beside him, she eventually decided to do the same.
And for a long time, they did nothing else but lie down there in the dirt, cold and shivering inside their coats and jackets.
“You didn’t mess anything up, Ara.”
Instantly he felt eyes bore on the side of his head. He couldn’t help but chuckle. This time genuinely so.
“Really?” she asked, her voice so small and meek.
So unlike her.
Michael hummed softly. “Today was the most fun I’ve ever had too. Not my ideal way, of course, but fun, regardless. Still, I have to admit. The best part wasn’t even that we broke into a shop late at night. It wasn’t that we were chased by the policeman, or that he tripped and fell. It was that we did it together. We broke the law together. Normally, if anyone else had dragged me into something like that I would stop being friends with them. I wouldn’t even look into their eyes anymore, afraid I’d get pulled in again into yet another law-breaking activity.
“But…with you it’s different. It felt like we were a team.”
“A team of criminals, yeah,” Arabel said with an unsure chuckle.
“A team of criminals,” he echoed. “I’m not developing a taste for it. So I hope you aren’t too.”
“Never.”
“Promise?”
“I swear it on my mother’s grave. This is the last time ever.”
“Good. If not I’d have to find out where your new home is then pull your ear to remind you.” Just like Marsh would do.
Arabel laughed at that, and just as quickly, the tension from before was gone. Replaced by the laughter and light air again.
As much as he would rather stay in silence, lest he risk ruining the mood, he had one more question to ask her—one that made his heart clench tighter for each word he spoke.
“Can I see you off? Before you leave the city?” Warmth spread to his face, his stomach full of butterflies.
“Of course, you can, dummy,” Arabel said to his relief. “Why can’t you?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe someone wouldn’t want me to see her cry.”
“As if! I’m willing to bet you’ll bawl your eyes out first. Like the big crybaby that you are.”
“Am not.”
“Am so.”
He laughed, shaking his head, his eyes watching the full moon and the thousands stars dotting the sky.
“Ready to go back to the house?” Michael asked after a while, turning his head to her.
“Let’s stay a bit longer.”
“Are you sure? It’s freezing here; and I don’t think it’s only because of Pale Pond—” She pulled him back to lie down beside her when he sat up.
“Just a little while,” Arabel said, her eyes hopeful. “Please?”
With a soft grin, he relented and shifted back on the ground. It was dastardly cold, and as the night went on, he could feel his bones start to freeze even under layers of clothing. Michael ignored the discomfort, instead choosing to lay beside Arabel for as long as he could.
He hadn’t realized when exactly sleep took him, or when they had shifted closer to each other until their heads touched.
But as the morning sun shone overhead, peeking through the thick trees, Michael knew he’d slept the entire night at Pale Pond, along with Arabel who had been up before him. She seemed sad that morning, though still making the effort to appear otherwise. Michael could relate to that. The entire time, their walk back home, to hers and then to meeting up at the pier, he forced himself to appear his best self.
To crack jokes as he helped her carry her luggage and dropped them at the foot of the gangway.
To smile evenly, wishing her the best.
“Well. This is it.” The ship arrived not long ago and seeing it brought him a step forward to internal despondency. “They’re all up there already, so…I guess I best do the same.”
“I guess you should,” Michael said quietly, unsure of how to say what he truly wanted to say.
That he would miss her.
That he hoped life would treat her fairly from now on.
That she was his best friend and would always be.
“I-I hope everyone is nice there,” he said instead. “That you’ll meet many good people.”
“I hope so too.” Arabel smiled and clutched her bag tightly, looking at the ship behind her. Then she pivoted on her heel.
Yet she did not take a step forward before turning back, suddenly pulling him into a tight, however, warm embrace.
“Goodbye, Mono,” Arabel whispered, digging her fingers into his coat. “Promise me you’ll be okay?”
Michael wrapped his arms behind her back in return, pulling her close, and resting his chin on her shoulder.
He nodded and sniffled.
For a long time, they stayed that way, hugging each other just as they had the day Marsh passed. Just as desperately, they clung to one another, even if this time would be the last time they ever could.
Arabel was the first to break the embrace. He wouldn’t have the strength for it, if it wasn’t for her making the first move.
“I guess…I won the bet. You cried first,” she said smugly, though her eyes glistened with fresh tears.
A laugh escaped him as he fought back his own. “You won this time, definitely.”
He gave her hand a final squeeze and let go.
“Goodbye, Ara.”
With a sad smile, she tipped her head to him and soon climbed up the gangway, entering the ship along with her father and his other family.
The ship let out a booming horn.
It sailed and left the pier.
All the while, Michael stayed, watching with a tang of sadness he couldn’t ignore now that she was gone.
Smiling shakily, he lifted a hand and waved Arabel goodbye. One last time, she returned it from afar.
He let his face falter into its true emotion once the ship had sailed far enough into the sea, leaving him at the pier with no more than a few other citizens who, like him, were watching the ship go.
Michael wiped the single teardrop as soon as it slipped down his cheek.
Snow fell on his finger. Then many more fell from the sky in slow motion, as though each flake of glittering white was a memory he had throughout the entire time he knew Arabel, the moments they shared together that would stick with him for a long time. Or maybe it was only a reminder how time itself would continue forward, whether he wanted it to or not.
That despite everything that transpired in his life, a change would not mean an end.
He let them gather in his palm and smiled.
The first fall of snow.
Closing his hand, Michael turned away from the pier and made his way back to the neighbourhood, their once shared home.
Notes:
*Michael and Arabel acting all cutesy with each other*
Arabel's dad the next day: "We're moving."
Btw next chapter will have a little surprise :)
Thanks for reading!
Chapter 85: The New Pale City
Notes:
I can't tell you how much I've been looking forward to post this chapter
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
The scent of warm tubes and freshly brewed coffee permeated the halls of PC Television.
Even after 20 years, television captivated the nation, and the station buzzed with energy, broadcasting everything from local news segments to drama shows and sitcoms. Away from the live studios, where the “On Air” sign glowed a warm red, the administrative side of the operation maintained a more sedate pace.
Down a less-trafficked hallway, past the rhythmic clatter of a teletype machine delivering wire service news, was the administrative wing. A small office— furnished with sturdy furniture and a blind filtering the evening sun—offered a view of the street outside. The click of his adding machine was a familiar sound, occasionally broken by the creak of his swivel chair as he reviewed handwritten ledgers. A Bakelite radio on his shelf played softly, while two framed, though slightly faded, photographs of a blonde-haired woman and a young boy sat upon his desk. His cigarette burned nearly down to its bud.
The phone rang. He picked it up, though without looking away from his work.
“PC Television, this is Michael speaking.”
A woman spoke on the other line in an agitated voice, one that made his focus eventually stray to the phone and his other hand rubbing his temple the longer he listened to her.
“Ms. Beatrice, are you sure it’s him who did it? I don’t mean any offence, but isn’t it possible you could have mistaken him for…” The woman insisted, this time providing a detail he could not refuse. He sighed all but quietly, taking a slow hit of his cigarette before stubbing it out on its dish.
“I see,” he said afterwards, tutting. “In that case, I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
That was the end of the call as he placed the phone back on its cradle. The clock hanging on his wall ticked throughout his silence and disappointed sighs in his office. Its hand settled perfectly at four. Michael spared not a minute longer as he set aside his work for the next day, putting on his coat and fedora and leaving his office in haste.
On the way out, a few of his colleagues greeted him, to which he greeted back though with a tight smile and an impatient pace. Michael stepped inside the elevator along with another clad in a suit similar to his own.
“Good evening, Michael,” the man greeted him.
“Evening to you too, Stan.” Stan stepped back to give him some room to press the button to the ground floor.
“Leaving early today?”
Michael had always retired home later than usual. The phone call he received earlier changed his schedule rather suddenly.
“Unfortunately, it seems so. I have to pick up my son,” Michael answered, if a little tense. “He’s got himself in a little trouble, is all.”
“Ah, as we all used to, don’t we?”
He chuckled, remembering his own childhood days. “Certainly.”
“Well, my friend. It’s nothing you should worry about, I suppose. Your son is a lucky boy, having a Fontaine as his grandfather and all. You too as an in law. If I were you, I would relax a little more if whenever trouble comes up,” Stan assured, patting him firmly on his shoulder.
The elevator dinged, followed by the creaking of its metal door.
“This is me. Say hello to little Eli for me, will you?”
“I will. And send my regards to Jessica.”
Stan tipped his hat to him as he exited the elevator, leaving Michael to ponder their brief conversation until the door opened again to the ground floor.
His entire drive was a quiet if not an uneasy ride. Pale City churned with its usual bustle, the relentless traffic a familiar frustration for any man eager for his evening meal.
Just as the light turned green, a car cut sharply in front of him, tires squealing, forcing him to brake hard.
A rude honk followed, capped by a flicked middle finger from the other driver.
Michael’s own horn blared in response. Twenty years and still the same grumpy buffoons clogging the city streets, he thought with a sigh, easing his foot back onto the accelerator and navigating the next series of turns.
Eventually, the wrought-iron gates of the Daycare Centre loomed ahead, their bars an opulent gold, seeming almost gaudy against the dry air. The building beyond rose four stories, its exterior softened by green vines that climbed and clung to the walls, making it seem as though the daycare had been standing there longer than he lived.
The security guard, recognizing his car, waved him through with a practiced nod. Michael offered a brief hand raise of thanks as he steered around a splashing fountain at the centre of the circular drive and parked in a designated spot near the main entrance. A glance towards the playgrounds revealed them mostly deserted, save for the lonely rhythm of a few swings swaying gently in the late afternoon breeze. He strode across the uneven cobblestones towards the building.
The door to the daycare opened into a large hallway. Ms. Beatrice was standing at the end of it when she noticed him stepping inside. She had been in the midst of a quick farewell with another nanny, a younger colleague who was already disappearing down a side corridor.
“Mr. Hemming, thank you for coming! I do apologize for having to call you so suddenly. How was your drive here?” Ms. Beatrice said, her approach swift and her handshake firm.
“It was alright. The call…and the drive.” He offered a polite smile, though the knot of worry in his chest remained stubbornly tight. Where’s Eli? “You mentioned my son had a fight with another boy. Is everything alright?”
“Ah, yes. Luckily, we managed to separate them before things escalated further. Follow me, if you will,” Ms. Beatrice added, gesturing down the other corridor.
“May I know who started it?” Michael asked.
“In terms of the physical fighting, it would appear your son was the first one to throw the hit. Though, there has been word that the other boy, Wesley, had spoken something to him before.”
They stopped before a wide door made of rich mahogany, its polished surface reflecting the hallway light.
“Something?”
“I’m afraid I know not much further than that, Mr. Hemming. It happened too quickly before anyone realized what was happening. One moment they were playing at the playground, and the next…one of them ended up with a bloody nose and was crying. It is unacceptable. Violence is not tolerated and goes against our rules here. Those who violate them will be expected to receive their fair share of punishment,” she said with a careful, but stern voice. Then, a slight hesitation entered her tone as she added, “Which is why I’m hoping this can be settled peacefully. Amongst the children and…amongst the parents only.”
Michael had half expected it. This Daycare Centre catered exclusively to the city’s elite; and the Fontaines, with their considerable influence and wealth, had been instrumental in establishing their prestigious reputation, much like the other numerous expensive ventures they were involved in.
He could read it all over Ms. Beatrice’s face. She was the Head of Daycare Centre. The Nanny. She knew it just as well as he did the potential wrath of Seraphina’s father; what that man, and the rest of the wealthy Fontaine family, were capable of inflicting on those who crossed them. Even if unintentionally.
The unspoken threat hung heavy in the air. If word got out that a Fontaine’s grandson had been punished and injured under the Daycare Centre’s supervision, it wouldn't just tarnish the institution's impeccable reputation but also jeopardize the career of its Head Nanny.
And unfortunately, cast a shadow on his own credibility as a father.
Michael gave a single, decisive nod. Ms. Beatrice’s shoulders visibly eased at this silent agreement. She offered a tight, professional smile before opening the door and stepping inside.
He followed, a question about the empty room forming on his lips. But when he saw the Nanny bent slightly near the small bed, her posture suggesting a hushed conversation, he swallowed his words and waited silently by the door.
“Eli?” Her voice softened, unlike the firm one she had used before. “Eli, sweetheart, your father is here. You can come out now.”
Nothing happened.
“I suppose he’s still a bit embarrassed. By what happened,” Ms. Beatrice whispered to Michael. “I should let you give it a try. Perhaps I’ll give you a call regarding Wesley’s parents? Have everything sorted out.”
“That would be lovely, thank you.”
With a kind smile, Ms. Beatrice left the room, closing the door on her way out.
Michael sighed silently through his nose. Though his earlier worry of what had happened to his child still clung to his chest like a hanging weight, there was some bit of relief knowing that his son would be spared from any punishments.
Stan was right, after all. Eli was a lucky boy.
The bed gave a soft dip and a familiar creak under Michael's weight. He tapped his fingers on the cotton of the mattress.
“You don't want to come out, do you?”
A pause stretched in the quiet room. And then, finally, a small, meek voice drifted from beneath the bed.
“No.”
Michael chuckled. “Do you want to spend the night down there, then?”
“...No.”
“If that's the case, kiddo, you need to decide. We've got…” He glanced at his wristwatch. “Half an hour until the candy store closes.”
Another pause, thick with childish deliberation. And then a tousled head of dark hair peeked out from under the bed's dust ruffle, a pair of eyes, startlingly like his own wide and questioning.
“Will we make it in time?” Eli asked, though his voice still carried a slight reluctance.
A slow smirk spread across Michael's face, knowing how well this trick always worked.
The car ride back to the main street of Pale City was the same as the drive to the Daycare Centre. The roads were still busy with vehicles left and right, loud honks blaring every few seconds to fill the silence that stretched on since they drove past the Daycare’s gate.
A subtle glance towards the rearview mirror revealed a sulking boy in the back seat. His gaze was fixed on the passing cityscape, the familiar turns of their route seemingly unnoticed.
Michael tapped his fingers lightly on the steering wheel, clearing out his throat.
“So, Ms. Beatrice mentioned you had a little…disagreement with your friend.”
“He isn’t my friend.” The sharp edge in Eli’s voice surprised Michael with its intensity, especially the immediate and vehement denial.
The traffic light ahead bled red, and Michael’s foot pressed the brake smoothly. Another glance in the mirror confirmed Eli’s dark mood; his chin rested stubbornly on his palm, his silent irritation practically a palpable presence in the car.
“Want to talk about it, kiddo?” Michael asked, his voice gentle as the light turned green and they moved forward again.
Eli remained silent, his gaze fixed stubbornly on the passing scenery, even after a long moment.
“You know, I also got into a fight when I was about your age,” Michael said after a while.
The boy's head snapped away from the window, his eyes widening with genuine intrigue. A bit of pride flickered in Michael's chest as he glanced again in the rearview mirror.
“There was this one nasty bully, I remember. He used to pick on me often, him and his little pack of friends. And more often than not, they got away with it. Until one day, I decided enough was enough.”
“You beat him up?” Eli's mouth hung slightly agape, a look of surprised awe that made him chuckle.
“It wasn't entirely intentional, mind you,” he added with a wry smile. “Well. At least not at first.”
An amused smile slowly spread across Eli's face as he listened to his father's unexpected tale of confronting a bully.
“Eli,” he said, his tone turning more serious, “I know what it's like to be the one to throw the first punch. Especially when it's something you never thought you'd do. I also know that sometimes, when pushed too far, even the strongest wire can snap. I know mine did once. It wasn't my proudest moment. And today probably wasn't yours either, was it?”
In the mirror, Eli shook his head, his gaze still lowered. Then, a subtle look of hesitation crossed his eyes before he mumbled, his voice barely audible:
“He called me motherless.”
The words hit Michael like a physical blow. His heart plummeted.
“He called you motherless?” A sharp edge of anger laced Michael's voice, a bitter tang of old sadness he'd believed had long since faded resurfacing.
“I...I still didn't hit him after he said that,” Eli confessed, his voice thick with emotion. “It was when he...when he kept making fun of Mom that I…” His words caught in his throat, unfinished.
A quiet and choked “Sorry. I didn't mean to get into trouble, Dad” followed.
Michael looked again at the mirror, meeting his son’s stare full of guilt that did not belong. It wasn’t his fault. Whatever others may say about Seraphina’s passing, it was not his fault. It never could be.
“It’s alright, Eli,” Michael said, and then his voice became a bit bitter. “What else did he say to you?”
Eli sniffled. “That…mothers usually make it when giving birth. So I must be the reason…Mom didn’t.”
His grip on the steering wheel tightened.
Internally, Michael was boiling. Just the thought that Eli’s peer—no, a little impertinent punk—had the courage to spew such atrocious accusations and planted seed of doubt in Eli…he seethed, wondering what sort of teaching this boy’s parents practiced at home. Perhaps they too were rude monsters. Perhaps his parents were cut from the same crude cloth, devoid of empathy and basic morality. The rich; so often they seemed molded from the same clay, living lives carelessly.
Yet the one truly good soul he had known, the one he had loved with his entire being, hadn’t even been granted that chance.
“Your mother,” Michael said, “loved you since even before you were born. That boy who called you motherless…it seems obvious to me that he lacks that love now. The circumstances of your mother’s passing were never your fault, Eli. Never ever believe that it is. Do you understand?”
Eli nodded, a small, defeated “yes” his only reply.
Michael sighed through his nose, the sharp edges of his anger softening as he witnessed the guilt in his son’s eyes begin to recede.
“I’m going to have a talk with that boy’s parents. They need to understand their son…what was his name again?”
“Wesley.”
“Right. I’ll inform Wesley’s parents about what he said to you and let them deal with him themselves. Maybe throw in your grandfather’s name to shake their boots.”
A soft laugh escaped Eli.
“Now, as for you, young man.” Eli’s head snapped up, surprise etched on his face. Michael offered a knowing, slightly mischievous smile. “Don’t think for a second you’re free from all consequences. Wesley’s cruelty doesn’t excuse your actions. There will be repercussions. Dire repercussions.”
He smoothly pulled the car over to the curb.
“Wait, Dad, the candy store is on the other side of the building…” Eli’s eyes widened in dawning realization as Michael stepped out of the car, standing before a brightly lit retail shop. With a groan, the boy followed suit, a scowl marring his features. “You tricked me!”
“Did I?” Michael said, amused.
“You said we’d make it to the candy store in time.”
“And I stand corrected. The store is still open…for about another 15 minutes. It’s just that we aren’t stopping by it like you thought,” he said after theatrically checking his wrist. “Now, come along. I need to get a new set of light bulbs your Uncle Willy managed to obliterate last week. Poor guy never saw that lamp coming.”
“Can’t I just run down to the candy store quickly while you get the bulbs?”
Michael shook his head, a gentle smile playing on his lips, tinged with amusement at Eli’s pout. “I should also add that your punishment doesn’t just end there.” He leaned in conspiratorially, his voice dropping to a low whisper. “No desserts for you at dinner tonight or tomorrow.”
Eli’s frown deepened into a full-blown grimace. “You won’t have any either?”
“As if. I’ll just be…managing your portion.”
“Wait—that’s not fair!”
“Well, fairness is often a matter of perspective. This is a consequence.”
“Yes, but you’re eating my desserts! The punishment is for me not to have them, not for you to benefit!”
“Ah, Eli, my dearest, most logical boy,” Michael said, slinging a casual arm around Eli’s shoulders, pulling him into a side hug as they stepped into the retail shop. “That is exactly the point of the punishment.”
Eli groaned again, but this time, Michael felt a genuine laugh bubbled up through his disappointment.
It was funny, though a touch mean-spirited of him, Michael admitted internally, to find amusement in the way Eli persistently pouted throughout their brief shopping trip. The dragging feet, the mournful “sad eyes”—a dangerous tactic if ever there was one, and often quite convincing.
Michael plucked the correct light bulbs from the rack. And he paid the cashier without yielding to the tug of guilt at rightfully disciplining his son. Eli trailed behind him, shoulders slumped in exaggerated defeat, his gaze longingly fixed on the candy store's direction as they walked back towards their car. Yet, even with that hopeful yearning in his eyes, a deeper resignation was obvious in his overall posture. He knew thay despite his sweet tooth’s insistent craving, he hadn't earned a treat. He understood the weight of his actions towards Wesley—the wrongness of it—and accepted the consequences, however small or significant they might be.
“Eli.”
At his father’s call, Eli spun around, surprise momentarily replacing his gloom. He found himself face-to-face with a crisp one-dollar bill. The boy’s brow furrowed in confusion as he looked up at Michael.
“Only one candy bar. The store has about ten minutes left. I’ll wait here.”
The effect was instantaneous. Eli’s face beamed with utter joy. He launched himself at Michael, hugging him tightly around the waist, the highest point he could reach. A rush of mumbled “thank you”s escaped him as he snatched the dollar and darted around the corner towards the beckoning glow of the candy store.
Michael was left standing by the car, a fond and slightly indulgent smile softening his features.
He was a weak man for giving in this soon. But what the hell. The boy had carried enough weight today. Punishing him further for reacting to such provocation felt like piling on.
As much as Michael preached against violence, a grim understanding resonated within him. He’d been no better at Eli’s age, sending his own bully to the nurse’s office with stitches. All for the same protective instinct: defending someone he had cared for.
He huffed out a breath, a visible plume in the slightly cooler air.
Michael hadn’t thought of her in years.
A quick glance at his wristwatch showed barely five minutes remaining. A knot of worry tightened in his chest. Where was Eli? Surely choosing a single candy bar couldn't take this long. Michael’s unease propelled him towards the store, the familiar jingle of the bell above the door announcing his entrance.
His eyes scanned the brightly lit aisles.
The worry intensified like a cold tendril wrapping around his heart.
“Excuse me, have you seen a young child come in?” Michael asked the man behind the cluttered counter, his voice tight. “Dark hair? About this tall?” He gestured vaguely around his waist.
“Couldn’t be any more specific, could ya?” The man chuckled dryly, and jerked a thumb towards the back. “Saw two kids tearing around back there. No idea which one’s yours.”
A forced smile touched Michael’s lips as he turned towards the back aisle. “Thanks—”
A small, surprisingly forceful figure in a bright yellow jacket collided with him before he could finish, sending him stumbling back. The child, a little girl, tumbled to the floor with a thud.
Michael’s heart lurched.
“Oh, I’m so sorry, are you alright—?”
“Watch it, mister!” the girl snapped, her voice sharp and accusatory.
Michael’s outstretched hand froze, taken aback by her rudeness and the familiarity of the yellow fabric.
That jacket…it looks exactly like…
“Wait, come back!” Eli’s voice snapped him out of his daze. And then another small body slammed into him, this time from behind.
Instinctively, Michael’s arms went out, catching Eli just before he could repeat the girl’s tumble. “Eli!” he exclaimed, relief warring with confusion.
“Dad, she took it!” Eli pointed an accusing finger at the girl, who sat on the floor, clutching her yellow jacket tightly around herself. “That one was mine!” he insisted.
“No it isn’t!” the girl shouted back, her face contorted in anger.
“I saw it first!”
“I grabbed it first! You were just too slow!”
“Because you pushed me!”
“Eli, what in the world is going on?” Michael interjected, his brows furrowed in concern. Eli turned to him, his expression a mix of indignation and lingering anger towards the girl.
“She stole the last chocolate bar. She pushed me to the ground to get it. A-And then she told me I was slow!” Eli’s voice rose with each accusation. Michael’s expression hardened, his lips thinning into a tight line.
That’s it? Over a chocolate bar?
A jingle of the bell and a sharp clack of heels against the linoleum sliced through the air just as Michael opened his mouth to speak. It was followed by the soft rustle of fabric as the little girl was swiftly lifted to her feet.
“Six, there you are!” The woman’s voice, though laced with a clear concern and anger, also held an undercurrent of relief—a feeling Michael recognized from the moment he’d finally seen Eli. “What have I told you about running off without telling me? You can’t just disappear like that!”
“I didn’t disappear, Ma! I told you I was going to the next aisle,” Six retorted, her scowl mirroring Eli’s earlier frustration.
“Right. You just forgot to mention it was in a completely different store, didn’t you?” The woman gently but firmly tweaked her daughter’s ear, earning a small wince. She shook her head, her initial anger softening into an apologetic smile as she turned to Michael. “I’m so incredibly sorry for my daughter, Mr….”
Her smile wavered, something unreadable crossing her features.
His own smile died on his lips, surprise seizing his throat, rendering him momentarily speechless.
“Arabel,” Michael finally managed, the single word a low, albeit disbelieving utterance.
“Michael,” Arabel breathed, just as surprised.
Their children looked up at them with wide, confused eyes, brows furrowed in shared wonderment at this apparent connection between two strangers.
But Michael knew Arabel. And the hesitant warmth in her gaze confirmed she knew him too. It had simply been two decades since their paths had last crossed.
Arabel cleared her throat, the sound breaking the delicate spell of their shared disbelief. She gently smoothed a stray strand of hair from her daughter’s forehead, earning a puzzled look from Six.
“I-I really do apologize for my daughter. She’s been a little mischievous devil these last couple of days.”
“Ma!” Six protested, aghast.
“It’s entirely fine,” Michael replied, his smile genuine as he slung a comforting arm around Eli’s shoulders, drawing him close. “I’ve got a bit of a delinquent myself.”
“Dad,” Eli said through gritted teeth, embarrassment coloring his cheeks. Then his voice dropped to a low whisper. “Who even is this lady?”
“O-Oh, she’s…she’s a,” Michael stammered, a nervous laugh escaping his lips.
“An old friend,” Arabel supplied smoothly, offering a warm smile to Eli.
The boy’s face then flushed a deeper red, and he instinctively clutched at his father’s leg, seeking refuge behind it.
“Right. A very old friend,” Michael echoed, his smile softening as he looked at Arabel.
“You know him, Ma? Wait. Is he the best friend you said you’ve had a—" Arabel swiftly reached out, pulling Six’s hood up from behind her head and dragging it over her face, effectively silencing her daughter.
“Again, I sincerely apologize for my daughter,” Arabel said, her voice strained over the muffled protests coming from beneath the hood. A glare etched on the girl’s face as she was released.
“Really, it’s fine. Right, Eli?” Michael turned to his son. The boy, now visibly shy and subdued, offered a barely perceptible nod, his hesitant glances darting towards Arabel.
“She…she can have it,” Eli mumbled, his earlier confidence replaced by an uncharacteristic quietness. Arabel raised a questioning eyebrow. “Th-the chocolate bar, I mean,” he added, his voice barely above a whisper.
“Ah,” Arabel mused, turning to Six, who gave nothing more than a wide, innocent-doe gaze. With a subtle flick of her wrist and a stern look, Arabel prompted her daughter. Six grumbled a barely audible curse before grudgingly pulling the chocolate bar from beneath her yellow jacket.
Arabel accepted the chocolate bar with a graceful ease, then turned and offered it to Eli. His eyes immediately flicked to Michael, as though silently asking.
Michael chuckled and gave a small nod, gesturing for Eli to take it. Hesitation flickered across Eli’s face before he finally mumbled a quiet, “Thank you, Miss.”
A genuine smile bloomed on Eli as he cradled the last chocolate bar in his hands, though Michael couldn’t miss the growing disappointment clouding little Six’s features.
An idea sparked in his mind.
“Perhaps the two of you could share it?”
Both Eli and Six’s eyes widened, Eli’s with a slight reluctance, Six’s with pure, unadulterated surprise.
“You wouldn’t mind that, would you, Eli?” Michael asked his son.
Eli’s brow furrowed momentarily, but he eventually gave a shake of his head, agreeing to share. With that small act of generosity, Michael noticed the way Six's face brightened up.
“What will you two be doing while we eat?” Eli asked, his gaze darting curiously to Arabel.
Michael followed his son’s line of sight. “What old friends do. Catch up.” He turned to Arabel, a hopeful note in his voice. “That is, assuming if they don’t have any other plans for the rest of the day?”
Arabel shook her head, her smile widening slightly. “We certainly don’t.” She glanced towards the window, her gaze lingering on something outside, and then nodded. “How about the park just across the road?”
“Perfect idea. We’ll meet you there.”
With a warm smile, Arabel took Six’s hand, and they left the store first, Arabel gently guiding her daughter across the busy street. Michael watched them reach the other side safely, a part of him still reeling in disbelief that after twenty long years…she was actually back.
The full weight of the intervening years crashed down on him as he and Eli stepped out of the store and onto the pavement. As they crossed the road towards the park, a delicate dance of white began to fall from the sky, the flakes drifting down like slow, silent rain.
The first fall of snow.
A soft smile touched Michael’s lips as he tilted his head back, remembering saying goodbye to a cherished friend two decades ago.
And now, in a twist of fate, the same span of twenty years had brought them back together under this same snowfall.
Notes:
Hehe.
Did you get it? Have I fooled you well?
That said, with this chapter, I have to let you know this backstory arc has about...7 or 8 chapters left until the story returns back to the present time (sorry Viola😭). Also would it be okay for me to say, at the last minute, that the backstory arc has two parts and this chapter is the start of the second one? I HAVE PLANS.
Anyway, next chapter we'll have a very sweet reunion between the parents/old besties 😊
Thanks for reading!
Chapter 86: We Meet Again
Notes:
As promised, here's their reunion :)
Also yesterday marks the fic's 4th year anniversary! Crazy that its been that long since I started writing the fic, and even crazier some of you are still following it after all this while. For that I couldn't thank you all enough 😭 Knowing some of you are still reading till the latest updates just gets me crying.
Now on with the fluffy chapter!
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Michael settled onto the slightly damp wooden slats of the park bench near the playground, easing himself down beside Arabel. Like him, she was watching the children take turns on the swings, the remnants of the fought-over chocolate bar now being shared between them.
A gentle smile touched upon his lips as she shared his fondness over the children’s truce, seeing how easily each of them abandoned their grudges, only to shake hands afterwards and smile like pals. At least, from where he sat, he could see his boy doing most of the effort to become pals. Following little Six closely behind as though trying to keep the conversation going, perhaps even trading some of his portion of sweet treats in favor for an answer for every question. Six seemed to accept such bribery, though with a familiar annoyed look—uncannily a replica of her mother’s once. The children continued to play. Their parents, on th otger hand, battled with the silence that had befallen upon them, each finding ways to break it after twenty years.
“So…how long have you been back in the city for?” Michael finally asked, his voice hesitant.
Should I have asked how she was? If she even remembers me the way I remember her?
“Not long. Just about a month or two,” Arabel replied with a shy smile. “A lot has changed here, hasn’t it?”
“Not as much as you’d think. The people still act like monkeys.”
Her brows raised high in surprise, a laugh rumbling in her throat. “Monkeys?”
“Idiots in the street are growing in numbers. I’ve nearly been kissed by a bumper twice this month alone.”
“Better than a literal kiss from a stranger with sticky fingers, I suppose,” Arabel chuckled wryly.
“You were mugged?” He couldn’t quite match her nonchalance as she waved a dismissive hand.
“Nothing I haven’t handled before. You know how those pesky teens are with their dull threats and sharp knives,” she said, leaning in slightly as if sharing a mischievous secret. “Well. Mine just happens to be sharper is all.”
Michael shook his head, a genuine laugh escaping him. “Seems like some things never change.”
“Unlike you.” Arabel leaned back on the bench, a proud smirk playing on her lips. “You have definitely…elongated a bit,” she observed. “We used to see eye-to-eye, last I remember.”
“Well, gravity and time tend to have that effect. And speaking of time, your hair used to be shorter too, didn’t it? Like your daughter’s, if I recall correctly.” Michael winced as a tiny snowball thrown by Six connected squarely with Eli’s back, sending him stumbling forward. Relief washed over him as the two seemed to erupt into a playful, albeit slightly aggressive, snowball war. For now. “How old is she, by the way? Your kid.”
A soft, thoughtful hum escaped Arabel’s lips as she replied, “Nine, perhaps. Yours?”
“Ten, this year.”
“Ah. The prime age of making friends, isn’t it?”
“Yes, well,” Michael said, a slight hesitation colouring his voice, “he actually found himself in a bit of a scuffle with another child earlier today. There was some unpleasant name-calling involved, and then the other boy…well, he pushed Eli’s buttons, so to speak.”
“Damned bully,” Arabel frowned, her arms crossing protectively over her chest. “Must be another one of those spoiled, rich little brats.”
He sighed, a hint of weary exasperation in the sound. “Nail on the head,” Michael confirmed. “How did you figure?”
“Your son,” Arabel began, her gaze briefly flicking towards Eli. “He looks just like Seraphina Fontaine. If I’m right to assume she’s his mother, then Eli likely moves in circles with children of similar standing to the ‘Fontaine’s, doesn’t he? Otherwise, he wouldn’t even be picked on.”
Ever so clever and observant. He had nearly forgotten that about her.
Michael scoffed, a soft smile playing on his lips instead. Arabel returned his smile with her own familiar brand of cheekiness, a proud, teasing glint in her eyes.
“I knew it,” she uttered, a mischievous curve to her lips. “So I was right.”
He could only roll his eyes, feigning a mild annoyance. Indeed, Arabel’s teasing years ago, her playful suggestions that Seraphina harbored a secret admiration for him, had turned out to be an unexpected truth.
About a year after Arabel had moved out of the city, he and Seraphina had grown closer as friends and eventually, into their teenage years, as something more.
He remembered the nervous excitement of the night Seraphina had confessed her feelings, the soft glow of the streetlights illuminating her earnest face. And he recalled the slow burn of his own feelings, that quiet awareness that had blossomed months—perhaps even years—before her actual confession.
“As always, you were,” Michael relented, a sigh escaping his lips.
“It was obvious she was up to something when she visited my mother’s shop three days in a row. With all her blushing and hesitating around you...it made sense you’d both end up together sooner or later,” Arabel breathed. “So,” she said, her tone shifting slightly. “How is Seraphina?”
A heavy silence descended upon them, thick and somber like a gathering storm cloud. Michael’s fingers traced the worn grooves of the ring on his finger, twisting it slowly as he drew a steadying breath.
“Sera…passed away ten years ago.”
Beside him, he felt Arabel stiffen, the air around her suddenly charged with a palpable tension. He didn’t need to look to see the color drain from her face, her playful smile collapsing into a tight frown, etched with shock and a dawning sense of guilt.
“I…I’m so sorry, Michael. I had no idea…” Her words trailed off. “How did she…?” she finally managed, her voice barely a whisper.
“Childbirth,” was all he could bring himself to say. “It was a long time ago anyway. I’m alright.” A small, tight smile stretched across his lips, like a practiced mask. He deliberately pushed down the familiar ache of loss as he always did, refusing to let it surface, especially not now in front of an old friend.
“Six’s father isn’t around either,” Arabel offered quietly, as though to gently steer him away from his pain. It worked—a small shift in focus drawing his attention back to her, away from the lingering shadow of Seraphina.
“No?”
Her head shook, smiling wryly as she watched Six dart across the playground in the familiar yellow jacket.
That used to be hers, Michael remembered.
“I…had Six under difficult circumstances. It wasn’t the kind of situation society would judge me kindly for. An illicit one, you could say,” she confessed, bitterness crossing her features as she added, “By the time I realized I was pregnant…I also found out he was actually already married, with three children and another on the way.”
Michael’s heart sank, a heavy weight settling in his stomach. He could only imagine the crushing betrayal she must have felt, the hurt she had endured, especially carrying the weight of a new life within her.
“I’m so sorry,” he said, glancing at her hand, the thought of a comforting touch briefly crossing his mind before he refrained. “Guess neither of us were very lucky. Were we?”
“Not lucky, no,” Arabel hummed softly, a small nod accompanying her words. “But I am grateful for her. She’s everything. All I have.” Her smile became tender, her eyes following Six’s energetic movements with the same fondness Michael remembered seeing in Marsh’s gaze years ago.
“I have to admit, she certainly inherited your spirit, if not your exact face. I swear, it’s like looking at a tiny version of you. The resemblance is uncanny.”
A sweet, genuine laugh escaped Arabel.
“Meanwhile, your son’s eyes are exactly like yours. Give him a mask and a deeper voice, and I’d be convinced it was you in a shrunken body.”
That brought a shy smile to Michael’s face, a warmth spreading through him.
“You’re not the first to say that.”
“That Eli’s a mini-you with a mask?”
Michael laughed. “No, the resemblance comment. We share little of it.”
“Michael,” Arabel said, feigning seriousness, a teasing light in her eyes. “Looks are one thing. But their behaviour? Your son’s been trying to befriend my daughter even after the ice missile she launched at him. Definitely reminds me of a certain boy I knew a long time ago.” A coy look played on her face.
Michael scoffed.
“I was far more reserved than Eli.”
“Reserved hardly by choice.” Blunt as ever. Another familiar trait he’d almost forgotten. “Eli, on the other hand, seems more well-adjusted. Six usually hisses if any child tries to approach her bubble, let alone talk to her.”
“I’ve been meaning to ask. Why do you call her…Six?”
Arabel’s eyes narrowed slightly.
“And why can’t numbers be names?”
Michael paused, a little taken aback by her directness. “O-of course. My apologies,” he said quickly, afraid he had offended her. “Six is a…unique name. Lovely, even.”
“Goodness, Michael, I was teasing.” His brief moment of guilt evaporated with the warmth of her familiar grin. “You still trust people too easily, don’t you?”
Or perhaps I just trust you more than others.
“Old habits die hard, as they say,” Michael replied, a chuckle escaping him.
Arabel snorted softly, shaking her head. “Her name is Leigh. I named her after my mother.”
“Oh.” He leaned in slightly, curiosity piqued. “Then why the nickname, Six?”
“It was her first word. Six.” Arabel’s voice softened with the warmth of the memory. “She was so proud of herself, and me, being proud too, just fueled her. She kept repeating it, like this little triumphant sound, until I couldn’t help but say it back to her, just to see her face light up.” She gazed at Six playing, a fond look on her. “Though, that was when she was just a tiny thing, barely two years old. I was the one who kept it going. Before I knew it…the nickname stuck.”
Michael wanted to laugh, and he did.
Six. What an odd nickname. Though, better than the one I had.
“So, I assume ‘Leigh’ is used only in serious situations?” Michael smirked.
“You do it too?”
“Of course. My son knows he’s in actual trouble when I start using his full name.”
Arabel snorted. “And Eli is short for…?”
“Elliot,” Michael replied. “Though, Sera’s parents had wanted to call him Archibald.”
“Goodness.” Arabel’s eyes widened slightly in mock horror.
“Exactly,” Michael huffed. “Don’t even get me started on what they wanted for his middle name. I’m forever grateful I intervened and negotiated for one that is less…”
“Hoity-toity?”
“That.” Michael nodded with a laugh. “Hoity-toity.”
“Good gracious, I didn’t think a name would be that much of a big deal to these people.”
“You’d be surprised. I certainly was, at least,” Michael finished, his breath misting visibly in the cold air.
Arabel furrowed her brow, slight concern in her eyes.
“Tough in-laws?”
He grinned wryly.
The memory flickered in his mind: the first time he’d nervously faced Seraphina’s parents, intending to ask for her hand in marriage. Their reception had been…less than enthusiastic. He was no one’s son, after all. No money, no name, no status. It was only Seraphina’s persistence, her threat to sever ties forever, that had finally swayed them; that, and the undeniable depth of their love for their precious daughter. And they truly had loved her. He’d seen it in their eyes. And after Eli’s birth, inheriting Seraphina’s features, save for Michael’s own eyes, it was clear they’d see him as their precious grandson, perhaps even exclusively so. It was equally clear they’d have their own very specific ideas about how Eli should be raised.
How the boy should dress.
How he should walk, talk and behave.
What he should be called and where he should be staying.
The mere idea Seraphina’s mother had offered after her passing, that Eli would be better off living with her and her husband had been the crossing line for Michael. He’d put his foot down. He’d snapped back and insisted no one would take his son away from him, not even his own grandparents. Since then, his relationship with his in-laws had become...even rockier. Or perhaps that only was the case with Seraphina’s mother. Her husband, on the other hand, was a distant and monotonous figure, often dismissing Michael as though he were hired help, but Seraphina’s mother…
That woman certainly knew what buttons to push.
“Nothing bad,” Michael hummed dismissively, leaning forward and clasping his hands together. “So, what have you been up to? In the city. What kind of work are you doing now?” He steered away from the subject.
Arabel offered a subtle look of understanding as she let the previous topic fade.
“A boring office job. Not exactly many exciting options for women like me, but,” she shrugged slightly, a hint of resilience in her voice, “it pays the bills and provides for my daughter.” She turned her gaze to him then. “And you? What do you do?”
“Same as you. Boring office job,” Michael said. “I’m over at PC Television.”
“You work in television?” A mixture of surprise and awe coloured her face.
His cheeks warmed. “Like I said: it’s an office job. Pays the bills and provides for my son too.” Aside from the free practice of not triggering the televisions by accident.
“I suppose we both need our jobs for our children. To give them a better life, even if we’re the only ones they have.”
“That I agree,” Michael nodded along, a heavy sigh escaping him, his gaze shifting again to his son. “I just hope I’m giving Eli enough. Sure he has more than I ever had growing up, but....sometimes I fear he’ll feel what I felt when I was his age. Something I couldn’t give him. A mother.”
“You’ve never remarried?” Arabel asked.
He shook his head.
“No. Of course not.” Then he furrowed his brows and frowned. “Why do you sound so surprised?”
He caught her glancing at the ring on his finger before she looked away slightly, her cheeks pink.
“Ah. I guess I’ve seen most do so years after losing their spouses. I just assumed you would have too,” she said, then offered a sheepish, almost embarrassed smile. “Sorry.”
Michael waved a dismissive hand, a soft chuckle escaping him. “Nothing to apologize for. I did get that question asked a lot, if it makes it any less awkward.” Another memory surfaced—his mother-in-law’s tight-lipped disapproval when he’d told her his intention to raise Eli alone, without a mother figure , as she’d so delicately put it.
“Oh? And did you ever seriously consider?”
“I did,” he admitted, his gaze dropping to his intertwined hands, his thumb tracing his wedding ring again, a habit he had developed. “Just don’t think it’s a good idea to, though. I have a son to look after, and I want to be there for him in every way I can. There’d just be no room for…relationships, or whatever complexities that comes with it.”
Arabel’s silence stretched, her expression remaining as unreadable as it had been during their childhood days.
“I see,” Arabel said at last, her eyes half-lidding for a moment before she offered him a friendly smile. “My case is almost the same as yours then.”
The shift surprised him a little, but he didn’t dwell on it.
“You don’t want to marry someday?” he asked, his tone as casually curious as asking about a favorite hobby.
“Eh, wouldn’t serve much purpose. It would just mean another person to shoulder responsibility for. And my daughter is enough for me to handle alone,” Arabel said, playfully. He snickered in response. “Besides…I also want to take care of her myself. Keep her safe and protected at all costs; especially away from all rumours of the War, and eventually, the exposure to it.”
Michael’s smile faded, the weight of her unspoken fears settling heavily in the air between them.
“I heard,” Michael said, his tone as serious as hers. “Your old home…it was near the North border, wasn’t it?”
“Unfortunately.” Arabel nodded, a shadow crossing her features. “A full-scale conflict between the South and North might not happen yet, and while I’m not one to rely on gossip…I have a bad feeling. That it’s coming. And when it does, our proximity to the border will make us the first casualties. Pale City, on the other hand, is practically its own island. Meaning…”
“The safest place to be,” Michael finished, albeit his voice lacked conviction. Even as the words left his lips, uncertainty tightened in his chest. Doubt lingered.
Because when war erupted, the definition of ‘safe’ became terrifyingly fluid. A fragile illusion.
“And the rest of your family? Did they move back here too?” Michael asked.
“My stepmother did. Her children stubbornly refused to, and my father…” Arabel’s voice trailed off, a quiet sigh leaving her. “He isn’t here anymore.”
Michael wasn’t sure how to respond to the news. He had no idea just how much had changed between their relationship since he’d last seen her. But the guarded look in her eyes, the subtle tightening of her jaw, and her refusal to elaborate led him to believe that the old animosity towards her father might still linger.
“I’m sorry to hear that, Arabel,” he offered softly, his brows furrowed in genuine sympathy.
Arabel simply shrugged in response, a slight sniffle accompanying the gesture.
“He was a stubborn old fool right to the very end. Wouldn’t have made much difference even if he were still around. Might have just convinced my stepmother to stay put in that town with her other two idiot children, so…in a way, this is probably for the best. She reminds me a little of her.”
A beat of silence passed as Michael processed her words, a slight furrow in his brow.
“Of your mother?” he finally asked gently.
Arabel hummed softly, her eyes following Eli and Six tumbling playfully in the snow.
“She treats me nicely. And absolutely adores pretty hats too. Couldn’t help but think how well the two of them would’ve gotten along had the circumstances been different; or wonder how she would’ve loved my Ma’s old shop.”
Then a brief, nostalgic chuckle left her.
“Remember the night we visited?” she said.
Michael’s eyes narrowed, but a grin already formed on his face. “You mean the night we broke into the shop? How can anyone forget that? You practically dragged me into committing a felony.”
“Oh, I hardly think that qualifies as a felony.”
“A little heads up that night still would’ve been appreciated.”
“You’d have stopped me. Which you wouldn’t have succeeded in doing anyway. I was dead set on going while you…well, you invited yourself as a sidekick.”
“A sidekick who got us out of there without being caught,” Michael quipped, his smile widening. Arabel’s warm laughter followed.
“I wonder what the place has become now,” she mused after composing herself, a thoughtful expression on her face. “It’s been…what, twenty years, give or take?”
“A solid twenty years,” he echoed. “Last I heard, it stayed empty and locked.”
“That makes absolutely no sense.”
“How so?”
“Well, for starters, the shop was snapped up by some eager businessman. He practically gutted the interior for a complete overhaul. Secondly, I know my father kept in touch with him. And from what I heard, three years ago, the place had been sold again, this time to some other idiot. So yes, an empty, closed shop is…it just makes no sense.”
“Hm, you’d certainly have the inside track on that information. But you’re not wrong either. It doesn’t make sense for a shop as high potential as it to remain inactive for three years,” Michael said, a sly smirk beginning to play on his lips as he met her gaze. “Unless, of course, the current owner has…decided to keep it that way.”
For a fleeting moment, Arabel’s face was of pure bewilderment. And then, Michael saw the dawning comprehension in her eyes, the gears visibly turning.
“You didn’t…” Arabel breathed, a mixture of disbelief and realization in her voice. “Michael. Tell me you didn’t.”
His smirk broadened into a full-fledged, mischievous grin.
“Let’s just say this idiot had a little unexpected windfall. A discreet negotiation with the previous owner then and, well,” he sighed dramatically, “the rest is likely something you’ve already heard from your father.”
“I can’t believe you.” An incredulous laugh left her, turning to him fully. “You’re telling me you actually bought my mother’s old shop back?”
“Yes.”
“Why would you do that?”
“Why wouldn’t I do it?” Michael replied calmly, which to his amusement, Arabel’s shock became nearly palpable.
He chuckled and added, “Mrs. Marsh was sort of like a mother to me too, you know. I owed it a lot to her for looking out for me after my own father was,” he trailed off, his gaze momentarily distant as he searched for the right word, “…changed. If it hadn’t been for her, letting me work in her shop, I might’ve lost my house. Might have gone hungry more than once if it hadn’t been for her insisting I join you and her for dinner nearly every single day. So when I saw her shop again, almost unrecognizable, I knew I had to get it back. Though, I’ll admit,” he chuckled again, a touch of self-deprecation in the sound, “it was a purely emotional purchase. I know next to nothing about running a business, let alone selling anything. My initial thought was just to have the shop under my name and…let it sit there until I figured out what to do with it.”
“But that was three years ago,” Arabel pointed out.
“That’s true.”
“And you still haven’t come up with a single idea?”
“Also true.” Michael snickered, meeting her gaze deliberately, anticipating. “But now, I don’t think I have to anymore.”
Her eyes soon widened slightly in realization.
“Michael. I-I can’t—"
“Why not?” he asked gently. “It was always meant to be your inheritance anyway.”
“Yes, but that isn’t the case anymore. The shop is legally your property now.”
“Then,” Michael said, his gaze unwavering, “we’ll make it yours again.”
Hesitation lingered in Arabel’s expression, tension in her shoulders. “I…I can’t accept that,” she stammered, a slight gulp in her throat. “What about the money? What I’m supposed to pay you to buy it back? I don’t have nearly enough for—”
“Ara,” Michael interrupted, the old moniker coming naturally to his tongue. “Listen. I won’t expect you to pay me a cent or owe me anything. It’s yours if you want it. Rightfully, it should be. The only reason I bought that shop was to honor Marsh’s memory; to hopefully try and repay her for the things she’s done for me back then. If this is how, then…I want you to take the shop back.” His gaze softened as it drifted towards Six in her bright yellow raincoat, playfully kicking snow in Eli’s direction. A small smile tugged at his lips as Eli’s shout echoed across the park. “Maybe one day, you could even have your daughter inherit it too.”
“That girl would probably rather face a monster than shoulder that kind of responsibility,” Arabel uttered, though a genuine, amused laugh accompanied her words. Then, turning back to him, her expression became serious. “Are you sure about this, Michael?”
A quick glance at the deepening orange hues of the sky and then at his wristwatch prompted a soft sigh. The temperature would drop lower soon.
“Tell you what. I’ll take you to the shop myself this coming weekend, let you be thoroughly ambushed by nostalgia, and then we’ll see if you want to ask me that question again. How’s that?” he teased.
Arabel smirked, scoffing.
“You’ve definitely learned to be cheeky.”
He laughed as he reached into the inner pocket of his coat, his fingers finding his business card. He held it out between two fingers, offering it to her.
“Let’s not let another twenty years slip by before we meet again.”
Arabel hummed her agreement, her hand reaching into her purse to retrieve her own card. They exchanged them.
“It’s getting late,” she said, her breath misting slightly in the cool air. “Wouldn’t want a certain little rascal to catch a cold.”
She stood up from the bench, and Michael followed suit. Then he let out a sharp, clear whistle in Eli’s direction, instantly capturing the children’s attention. A light tap on his wristwatch signaled the end of playtime.
A soft, drawn-out groan escaped Eli, his shoulders slumping in exaggerated disappointment, clearly not ready to leave despite the rosy flush on his cheeks from the cold. Six, on the other hand, merely rolled her eyes, though Michael noticed the tight frown etched on her small face, a mirror of Eli’s reluctance. She masked her disappointment well.
The children trudged towards their parents, their feet dragging through the snow as if attempting to prolong the inevitable.
Michael chuckled softly, turning to Arabel.
“So. I’ll give you a call sometime soon?”
“Please do, whenever you can.” She offered a warm, genuine smile. “I’m glad we saw each other again. Mono.”
The old nickname brought a familiar warmth within him, a pleasant echo of their shared past. He returned her smile.
“Me too,” he said quietly, and with a slight tip of his hat, added, “Have a good evening, Ara.”
“You as well.”
As their children finally reached their sides, each standing a little awkwardly, their gazes meeting shyly for a fleeting moment, they mumbled reluctant goodbyes. Michael watched the disappointment visibly cloud Eli’s eyes as the girls walked in the opposite direction, his head turning back towards the small figure in the yellow jacket until she disappeared from view.
A knowing smirk touched Michael’s lips as he pulled Eli into a lazy side hug, ruffling his hair affectionately. Eli noticed his father’s expression and scowled.
“What?” Eli deadpanned, though his voice held a certain shyness to it.
“I didn’t say anything,” Michael replied, feigning wide-eyed innocence.
“You’re practically shouting it with your face.”
Michael held back a chuckle. “Did you have…fun with your new acquaintance?”
A childish pause hung in the air. And then, a quiet confession:
“Maybe. She’s a little…intimidating, though.”
At that, Michael couldn’t suppress his laughter.
He wanted nothing more than to reassure his son, to let him know that he, too, had found the mother of that slightly scary girl quite intimidating when they were children.
Notes:
Next up, a certain alien brother comes and makes an appearance :)
Thanks for reading!
Chapter 87: Introduction To The Cycle 101
Notes:
The beginning of an apocalypse...if you know what I mean ;)
This chapter is set a week or two after the reunion
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
The walk to the steps of their front porch was accompanied by Eli’s energetic voice, his animated recounting of his day at the Daycare Centre making Michael chuckle. They had just returned from the grocery store, and since Michael had picked him from daycare, the boy had been an unstoppable chatterbox, as if each detail was crucial. Balancing grocery bags in one arm, Michael fumbled for his front key while Eli continued his story.
“You would not believe what Ms. Beatrice made Wesley do for punishment, Dad!” Eli adjusted the smaller paper bag in his arms, his head peering over it at Michael. “He had to sit out during playtime and pick up leaves. All over the playground. And there were practically a million of them, half-buried in the snow!”
“Which one is Wesley again?”
“The mean one, Dad!” Eli replied with fervent emphasis. “The one you had that talk with his parents about.”
“Ah, right.” Michael found the key and began to twist it in the lock, the tumblers clicking softly.
“He still didn’t really want to apologize, you know. I mean, he mumbled ‘sorry,’ but I saw the look in his eyes. He just did it to get a lighter punishment.”
“And you? Did you apologize as well?”
“Me?” Eli’s tone held a hint of wounded innocence.
“Eli,” Michael’s look was direct, “he deserves your apology just as much as you deserved his.”
A weak groan escaped Eli, his shoulders slumping with reluctant understanding. “Yeah, I know,” he grumbled, then added with a touch of lingering resentment, “I apologized too.”
“And?”
“And…we shook hands.” The boy made an irked sound. “Though I really, really didn’t want to.”
“Forgiveness is one of the hardest things anyone can learn, kiddo. That boy, Wesley, is still figuring things out. He’s likely just following what he sees at home. That said,” Michael’s voice softened, “I don’t want you holding onto any more grudges, alright?”
The biting cold of the winter air seemed to recede as they stepped into the warmth of the house. Michael held the door open, the familiar scent of home enveloping them, and closed it gently behind Eli.
Their home was quaint, but perfect. Spacious enough for their needs, it lacked the ostentatious grandeur of the sprawling living rooms Michael had glimpsed in the homes of wealthier acquaintances. Eli’s grandparents’ residence, perched atop a dramatic cliffside hill, came to mind—a towering five-story mansion where each family member practically had their own dedicated floor and suite of rooms. Seraphina’s old room had become Eli’s to stay in whenever the boy paid a visit, though much to the boy’s dismay, these visits were much on par with a boarding school than a luxurious vacation.
As long as they never ask for him, I won’t remind them, Michael thought, placing the grocery bags on the kitchen table and shrugging off his heavy coat and hat. Eli mirrored his actions, though a small frown still creased his brow, his thoughts clearly lingering on their earlier conversation.
Any chance for Eli to voice himself, however, vanished when a subtle creaking sound emanated from the worn couch in the living room.
“Well now, if it isn’t my favourite brother and nephew!” a cheerful voice called out.
Michael startled, his heart giving a quick lurch. But the moment he recognized the familiar warmth crinkling the eyes above the surgical face mask, a wave of relief washed over him.
And he let out a quiet sigh.
“Uncle Willy!” Eli exclaimed, launching himself across the room towards Willy, who caught him in a strong hug, lifting him off the floor until peals of laughter erupted from the boy.
“Ah, missed you too, little fella!” Willy gave Eli a final, hearty squeeze before gently setting him back down. “How have you been? Good?”
Eli nodded enthusiastically, his face beaming. Willy’s eyes crinkled warmly at the corners, a smile evident beneath the pale fabric of his surgical mask. He playfully ruffled Eli’s hair until it stood up in tousled spikes, a gesture Eli never seemed to mind, his laughter echoing as he tried to bat Willy’s hand away.
“Eli, why don’t you go take your shower now,” Michael suggested gently from the kitchen doorway.
Eli’s face fell into a look of disappointment, his gaze turning back to Willy as if silently pleading for an intervention. Willy, however, merely shrugged with a hidden sympathetic smile, giving Eli’s back a reassuring pat.
“Listen to your dad, Eli. He’s the reason you’re even alive.” At that, Eli let out a dramatic groan, his shoulders slumping as he trudged up the stairs, leaving the two adults alone.
Michael chuckled wryly, the sound breaking the brief silence.
“So, how long have you been sitting in my living room?” He began unpacking the groceries, placing them on the cool countertop. Willy followed him into the kitchen.
“Just a little while,” Willy said casually, passing him a carton of milk. “Thanks,” Michael murmured, storing it in the humming refrigerator. “Borrowed the spare key from under your welcome mat. Hope you don’t mind.”
“Oh, no, please do. By all means, use our only emergency key to sneak into my house and give me a near heart attack. It’s always a highlight of my day.”
Willy’s laughter echoed warmly in response. Michael smirked, shaking his head.
“Brother, you know my intentions are always as pure as driven snow,” Willy said with mock sincerity.
“Your definition of ‘pure’ is different from mine, Willy. It doesn’t involve intentionally scaring your sibling and then finding it amusing.” Michael closed the refrigerator door with a soft thud. “So, what brings you here this time? Aside from your…interaction with our living room lamp?”
“Ah, that unfortunate incident,” Willy mused, his tone almost wistful, as though recalling a fond memory. “But worry not, the only casualty was that damned lightbulb. My skull, as you can see,” he tapped the back of his head for emphasis, “remains spectacularly intact.” Willy’s playful demeanor shifted slightly. “As for the real reason I’m here…well, there’s something rather…dire I’d like to discuss with you.”
As Michael turned to face him, a curious brow raised, his attention was abruptly snagged by the newspaper sliding across the kitchen table towards him, propelled by Willy’s unseen hand.
Michael leaned in, his eyes widening as he took in the bold lettering of the headline:
THE NORTH DECLARES WAR ON THE SOUTH.
A sudden chill snaked down Michael’s spine as he reached for the paper, his throat tightening as he began to read the chilling details below.
“The war has come, Brother,” Willy said while Michael continued reading in silence. “It seems the rumours turned out to be true after all.”
“Looks that way,” Michael breathed out, the sigh heavy with trepidation and dread that seemed to settle like a cold weight in his chest. “I’m afraid I’d already heard of this at work. It’ll be plastered all over the news by now, the official declaration of War. Some of my colleagues have deep ties in the South—families, lifelong friends. Others have the same connections in the North. Because of it, the tension in the office these last few days…it’s been thick. Most of them seemed to be blaming one another. Dividing themselves, almost. I can imagine how the news is affecting the entire city.”
“Well, it is everything the city is talking about. This, especially,” Willy replied, taking the newspapers and flipping it to the next page. He pointed to a printed picture of rubbles and ruin, any signs of life seemingly wiped into a devastation only mankind could orchestrate.
Michael’s chest tightened with a fresh wave of anxiety. He couldn’t bear to think of the horrifying possibility of Pale City standing in the North’s place, or even the South’s should the North retaliate—which he knew they would, given time.
“One hundred and fifty-nine lives,” Willy stated, his voice low as he read from the newspaper, “gone overnight in the North. Nearly half of those numbers are civilians. Some are calling it collateral damage. Others believe it was a deliberate act by the South, a plan to solidify the declaration of War. What do you think?”
A heavy silence hung in the air. He truly couldn’t say.
“I honestly can’t be sure, Willy,” Michael admitted, his gaze distant. “War…it’s never a clean dichotomy. There aren’t good and bad sides, so I doubt the truth is just in either one.”
A slow, thoughtful nod and a low hum came from Willy. Then, to Michael’s surprise and confusion, Willy turned and left him standing alone in the kitchen. His bewilderment only lasted a few seconds, however, as Willy returned. A small white box was cradled carefully in his arms, concealed beneath a piece of cloth. With a quiet sigh, Willy placed it on the table.
Michael peered curiously at the covered box, then back at Willy, his brow arched. As though reading his mind, Willy shrugged the cloth away.
A tiny, soft squeak sounded from within the box. Michael’s curiosity intensified as his eyes focused on a tiny hamster nestled in one corner, its small nose twitching rhythmically.
“What…is this?” Michael finally asked, his gaze lifting to Willy, utterly perplexed now.
“The solution,” Willy answered vaguely.
Michael’s gaze flickered between the small, furry creature and his brother.
“A hamster?”
Willy snorted softly. “Of course not, Brother, don’t be ridiculous.”
You’re telling me?
“Then…perhaps a little…clarification?” Michael suggested with an unsure smile, still utterly baffled as to how a hamster could be the solution to a declaration of war.
“As you pointed out earlier,” Willy began, leaning conspiratorially over the table, his gaze intensely locked on the tiny hamster, “there are no truly ‘good’ sides in War. There can only be alliances and enemies. From what I’ve managed to piece together regarding this conflict, it appears Pale City is highly likely to be dragged into the fray, if not immediately, then inevitably. We might be a relatively isolated island, but our proximity to the North still makes us a vulnerable target; and there have been unconfirmed reports, whispers really, that we’ve already been supplying them with aid—food, water, medical supplies, and so on.
“While these acts of support might not be official, should the South ever find out about this—and they will—they would see us as a threat, an extension of their enemy, and would certainly seek to eliminate us just the same.”
Willy’s eyes darkened. “And while there’s also a possibility we might create…an alliance with the North, gaining their protection in return, there’s absolutely no guarantee we won’t suffer devastating casualties all the while. And given our smaller land mass compared to the major players…we would be overwhelmed and perish quicker than any potential reinforcements could reach us. This War, Brother, will not be in our favour, regardless of which side we are on.”
Willy’s grim words sent a fresh wave of dread washing over Michael.
He looked down at the seemingly oblivious hamster, its tiny form as if a symbol of their potential fragility. A knot of unease tightened in his stomach.
“And…what in God’s name does any of that have to do with the hamster?” Michael finally asked, his voice barely above a whisper.
Willy lightly brushed a finger over the soft fur of the tiny hamster, then uttered a single, enigmatic word:
“Watch.”
A gentle tap on the hamster’s head elicited a quiet, high-pitched squeak. The small creature remained huddled in its corner for a few hesitant seconds before its tiny pink nose twitched, and it moved across the cardboard box, its delicate claws scrabbling softly against the bottom. It climbed over a miniature plastic cup filled with water and took a long sip. Afterwards, it scurried away from the cup, returning to its familiar corner, where it meticulously circled three times before finally settling down and closing its tiny black eyes.
Michael’s brows furrowed deeper. “Willy, I don’t understand—”
“Shh,” Willy interjected, his voice hushed. “Just keep watching.”
With a sigh, Michael did as he was told. After a tense minute of silence, the hamster stirred, letting out another soft squeak. It repeated its earlier journey, moving across the box with determination to the tiny cup, where it took another prolonged drink. Then, with the same precision, it returned to its sleeping corner, circling exactly three times before curling up and closing its eyes once more.
Michael’s interest, albeit still deeply confused, finally piqued when he heard the faint squeak again after another minute. The hamster once more traversed the small space to the water cup, took another long sip, and then made its three precise turns before settling into its slumber.
All within the span of just three minutes.
“It’s…it’s repeating itself,” Michael finally managed to say, his voice laced with bewilderment. “Why in the world is it doing that?”
At that, Willy clasped his hands together in a sudden burst of sheer excitement, his eyes sparkling with an almost childlike pride and joy.
“May I have the pleasure of introducing to you,” Willy announced, his arms sweeping out in a dramatic, theatrical gesture, “The Cycle!”
“The Cycle?” Michael echoed.
“The Cycle,” Willy said with a firm, almost manic nod. “A term I came up with myself. Rather ingenious, don’t you think?”
“And,” Michael watched, a strange fascination mixing with his confusion, as the hamster took its fourth deliberate sip of water, his brows furrowing deeper, “this…this is your doing?”
“Indeed it is, dear Brother!” Willy confirmed, a gleam of unsettling pride in his eyes. “As you can clearly see, this remarkable little creature has been repeating its exact routine for the fourth time in as many minutes. It’s interesting, wouldn’t you say?”
“Very much.” The hamster completed its three precise circles and promptly curled up for another nap. “How long is this loop going to continue?”
“Until I wish to. Which is to say, until this demonstration is over.”
“There’s…more to this demonstration than watching a hamster obsessively drink and sleep?” Michael asked uneasily.
Willy’s smile widened behind his mask, perhaps a touch too sharp. He swiftly covered the box with its cloth, the soft fabric muffling the tiny squeaks. Then, with force, he lifted the box from the table and violently smashed it against the hard floor.
Michael’s heart leaped into his throat, his entire body flinching in horror.
Yet his words of shock and protest never managed to escape his lips as Willy just as quickly retrieved the mangled box, barely straightening the dented cardboard edges. He shrugged the cloth away; and there, nestled in its corner, was the hamster. Unscathed and still peacefully asleep, despite the crushed walls of its temporary home. It awoke moments later with a familiar, tiny squeak, moved towards the small puddle of water still clinging to the remnants of the overturned cup, and began to lick it delicately, as though nothing had happened.
What in the unholy name…? Michael’s mind reeled.
“The Cycle also serves as an effective barrier,” Willy added not a second later, looking at the resilient hamster, though his posture had become more composed. “Any external threat, any force attempting to disrupt it from the outside, would be as futile as trying to convince it to change its routine. However,” Willy’s expression shifted, “internal factors…”
He lowered a hand into the box and gently, but deliberately, flicked the hamster’s tiny body, sending it tumbling across the cardboard with a surprised squeak. The hamster righted itself after another disoriented squeak, only to scurry back to its corner and begin its familiar three circles. “Internal factors, you see, can still have an effect, no matter how seemingly insignificant.”
The hamster repeated its nap. Michael was at a loss for words, unsure how Willy had managed to do this with just a single tap on the animal’s head.
“So you’re saying…” Michael began slowly, his voice laced with incredulity, “this hamster is being controlled by you to do these specific actions, yet at the same time, it’s completely shielded from anything outside of its box?”
“Well,” Willy said, a thoughtful frown creasing his brow, “I wouldn’t use such a harsh word as ‘controlled.’ Rather, it’s more like…” he trailed off, searching for the word before settling on, “a delicate matter of influence. A subtle nudge in a certain direction, facilitated, of course, by the will of those within the Cycle.”
Michael’s brows furrowed even deeper, the contradiction in Willy’s words nagging at him. Influence, yet voluntary? It didn’t make sense.
Willy, ever perceptive, must have sensed his brother’s confusion, for he released a patient, albeit weary sigh.
“Let’s take a more relatable example…you and Eli,” Willy began, leaning forward. “Every single day, your life follows a predictable pattern: you wake at around seven in the morning, Eli perhaps thirty minutes later. You both eat, then you head to work after dropping Eli at daycare. Eight hours pass, and you reunite. Some days involve a trip to the grocery store, like today; other days, you return directly home. And then, the same thing of preparing for the next day.” Where is he going with this? “Now, to you, this is simply your daily life, isn’t it? A series of intentional actions, even if they mirror the day before and the day before that. To you, it feels normal. You’re consciously aware of these choices because they are your decisions.”
Willy’s gaze then dropped to the slumbering hamster.
“That is exactly what the hamster is experiencing. Except, in its case, you’re witnessing it in an accelerated, extreme exaggeration. You observe its entire ‘day’ compressed into minutes. And, perhaps due to my clumsy attempts to make the demonstration clearer, its actions appear unnaturally repetitive. Yet, the fundamental principle remains the same. Everything operates within a cycle. No one would ever question if their lives had been meticulously planned for them, not if they possessed the feeling of autonomy.”
Willy’s voice took on a fervent intensity. “That being said. My solution, The Cycle, is to subtly alter this…life, just enough to tilt the odds in our favour, without ever triggering suspicion. That’s what the repetition is for. Pale City would be like this tiny hamster. Our borders would become the box—the impenetrable barrier. And any external attempts at invasion or aggression would simply fail. It could even erase their memory of any hostile intent, making them believe there was no threat to begin with. It would effectively exclude us from the War. And it would effectively…protect you and Eli from it.” Willy’s emphasis on his last words held a desperate plea.
Yet, even as Michael’s mind grasped the brilliance of Willy’s idea, a cold tendril of dread snaked its way into his gut.
“The hamster believes it is making its own decisions, acting voluntarily,” Michael said slowly, his voice low and troubled. “But in truth, the Cycle is influencing it to think as if it is. Is that…right?”
Willy paused, the corners of his eyes crinkling in what looked like a forced, tight grin beneath his mask. “Correct.”
“And if you were to implement this…Cycle…in Pale City, you’d have everyone go about their lives without ever knowing the reality outside of the Cycle’s barrier.” It was half a question, half a horrified statement. Willy answered anyway, nodding firmly.
“Though,” Willy continued, his tone shifting, “there is one issue I’ve encountered; and it's one I haven’t been able to overcome on my own. You see, the Cycle functions well for a solitary creature like our little friend here. But Pale City, despite its small size compared to the North and South, still holds a substantial population. It is, quite frankly, impossible for me…for the Cycle to tap into the minds of every single citizen. Which is where, Brother,” Willy’s gaze fixed on Michael then. “I was hoping you could lend your…unique talents.”
Michael remained silent, a cold dread creeping into his heart as he allowed Willy to continue his unsettling explanation.
“Simply put, I would need your help to influence the televisions.” The casual words detonated a bomb of horror in Michael’s chest, his eyes snapping to Willy, wide with disbelief. Willy raised a placating hand, as though anticipating his reaction. “Now, before you refuse—”
“Willy—”
“It is only a harmless signal,” Willy insisted quickly. “You’ve broadcasted your dreams before—even Sera’s once—through those television screens. This will almost be no different.”
“Yes, but those were accidents!” Michael retorted sharply, his voice shaking a little. “I had absolutely no control over it.”
“But now, you have that control!” Willy exclaimed, his tone buoyant and almost gleeful. “Over these past years, you’ve painstakingly learned to harness your ability, Brother. A truly impressive feat. So imagine it: that signal, broadcasted through every television in every single home and street in Pale City. The Cycle would take hold in mere moments! You would have guaranteed protection from the War, and you would never have to fear for Eli’s safety again! As for the rest of the citizens…well, we can certainly figure out the specifics of their integration into your life down the road—”
“Hold on, Willy, that’s not what you—” Michael felt a throbbing ache begin to bloom behind his eyes. He released a shaky breath, rubbing his temple with a trembling hand. “That’s not what you said earlier. You told me everyone else would have their free will.”
Willy paused, his earlier enthusiasm momentarily checked.
“Yes, that is true. But of course,” he continued, his tone regaining its persuasive edge, “certain…adjustments can be made for the overall improvement of the situation, wouldn’t you agree? To simply pass up such an opportunity…it sounds absurd, Brother. Instead of constantly facing the same petty criminals and violent tendencies you see on the streets every day, why not have the Cycle also subtly reshape their impulses, allowing you to interact with…more decent individuals for a change? They would still have the freedom to make their own choices in the parameters of a more harmonious society. They would still go about their daily lives, but within the gentle guidance of the Cycle.”
The throbbing in Michael’s head intensified. “That isn’t…that isn’t right at all.”
A sharp crease formed between Willy’s brows, a clear indication that his patience was rapidly dwindling.
“How so? The Cycle will still grant them the freedom to move about and make their own decisions as they always have.”
“Except the very foundation of their ‘freedom’ will be dictated by what the Cycle allows them to think!” Michael snapped, his voice rising with anger and a slight sense of betrayal. “They wouldn’t be living as they wanted; they would be living as they were forced to. When you told me the Cycle has a hand in influencing the mind of others, I thought you meant only to have them forget about the War, to let them all live peacefully in the city’s boundaries without any suspicions of the memory being gone—”
“And that fact remains true!” Willy countered, his voice laced with exasperation. “They will forget the horrors of the War. They will live peacefully within the city. But to erase only one external conflict and foolishly expect the Cycle to magically ensure everlasting peace amongst our own volatile populace is just ridiculous! You see the rampant crime, the casual cruelty our citizens inflict upon each other—even upon their own families. To trap those vile individuals within the Cycle’s barrier without ever… refining their inherent tendencies would be nearly as catastrophic as facing the War itself!”
“Then what of the others, Willy?” Michael’s voice was tight with indignation. “The decent people, the ones who have no intention for malice? The innocent souls who would live out their days completely unaware that their thoughts and choices were being dictated by your Cycle?”
A bitter, humourless chuckle escaped Willy, his gaze flicking away as if unable to meet Michael’s accusatory stare.
Michael’s scowl deepened, cold anger rising in him.
“I won’t help you do this, Willy. I appreciate your concern for Eli’s and my safety from the War, but this Cycle…it’s wrong. Unjust. No one deserves to have their autonomy ripped away from them like some cruel punishment.”
“Michael,” Willy said, his tone sharp with irritation, “if it were solely up to me, this protection would extend only to you and Eli. I wouldn’t have even entertained the thought of including these so-called ‘innocents’ you’re so intent on defending. But I know you have a soft heart, Brother—you wouldn’t even agree to be rid of your own monstrous abuser, insisting he be kept alive even after all these years.” Michael’s jaw tightened, a flicker of pain momentarily crossing his features at the raw mention of that horrid man. “And I know, deep down, you wouldn’t want the rest of them, the ordinary citizens, to be left behind, to be caught up in the devastation of the War that will come to us sooner or later. As much I believe some of them, if not all, deserve to face the consequences of their own actions…I am willing to overlook that for your sake. But I cannot, in good conscience, imagine those who are just as vile sheltering under the same protective blanket as you, as though they somehow earned it. I simply won’t allow that.”
Willy’s voice softened then, a desperate plea creeping in. “So, Brother, please…just reconsider. Push aside these arguments of control and just…think selfishly, for once. Think about how this will save your life, how it can create a safer, better world for your son to grow up in. No more bullies, no more thieves, no more abusers.” Willy’s voice dropped to a near whisper, his eyes fixed on Michael. “All it takes is your cooperation. Just one Deal with me, Brother, for the Cycle to become far stronger.”
Once more, Michael found himself utterly speechless.
None of this is right. The Cycle, despite Willy’s good intentions to shield those he cared for from the brutal realities of the War, was a flawed solution. Even if it guaranteed their physical safety—and according to Willy, the safety of the entire city—they would exist as mere puppets, blissfully unaware of the strings controlling their every thought and action. And the most horrifying aspect of it all: he would be involved in this mass deception, an active participant in the horrible act.
“No,” Michael finally uttered, his voice low but firm. “It’s just not right, Willy. These people…they deserve to be in control of themselves. To have that taken away just for my benefit…I can’t do it. I won’t do it.”
In that moment, the last flicker of hope for Willy’s persuasion died in his eyes, replaced by a dark frustration.
A heavy cloud of bitter tension seemed to descend upon them.
“Why do you insist on prioritizing them? Those who would easily stab a knife in your back to save their own miserable skin?” Willy asked softly, albeit with a dangerous edge.
“Because,” Michael countered, his voice rising with conviction, “not all of them are the monsters like you want to believe. Not everyone deserves to be punished for the crimes of a few. Some, Willy, are good people. Some are worth saving.”
“More worthy than your own life? Your own son’s?”
That brutal question struck him like a physical blow, silencing him. His jaw clenched, his internal conflict a visible battle.
Just then, the sharp chime of the doorbell pierced the tense silence.
Both Michael and Willy’s heads snapped towards the front door in unison, their shared focus momentarily eclipsing their bitter disagreement. Michael shot Willy another sharp, warning glance before moving swiftly into the hallway, his footsteps soft on the wooden floor. He cautiously peered through the gap in the curtains.
The anger that had been simmering within him instantly dissipated, replaced by a wave of surprised relief. Standing on his porch, a small bag clutched in her arms, was Arabel. He released a heavy, shaky breath, raking a hand through his hair, and opened the door with a forced smile.
Arabel returned his greeting with her own familiar, sweet smile, her eyes crinkling at the corners.
“Hi,” Michael greeted, leaning slightly against the doorframe, his mind still wrestling with his earlier conversation with Willy. “I didn’t expect to see you today. What brings you by?”
Arabel chuckled softly, her brows furrowing.
“We…had a chat on the phone the other day? I remembered finding some old hats tucked away in the back of the shop last week, and you mentioned Eli liked collecting them. So, we agreed I’d drop them off for him. Did I…come at a bad time?”
The memory of their phone conversation completely escaped him. An embarrassed laugh left his lips as he shook his head. “No, of course not. Sorry. Please, come in.” He opened the door wider, gesturing for her to enter.
She stepped inside, though a subtle line of concern remained etched on her face as she continued to observe him carefully.
“Michael, are you sure everything is alright?”
“Absolutely fine.” He closed the door gently behind her, the click echoing in the sudden quiet. “Why do you ask?”
“You just seem…a little pale.”
His forced grin tightened even further. “Ah. Must be the cold from the outside. Eli and I just got back home a little while ago.”
Arabel nodded slowly. If she wasn’t entirely convinced, she made no further comment, instead letting her gaze drift around his living room, presumably searching for the young boy.
“So…where’s Eli?” Arabel asked, her tone casual.
“Upstairs, taking a shower. Is that the entire collection?” Michael gestured to the bag in her hands.
A proud smile bloomed on her face as she lifted the bag slightly, giving it a light, affectionate pat. “The entire treasure trove. For your son.” Then she extended the bag towards him.
This time, a more genuine smile touched Michael’s lips as he accepted the offering.
“Thank you, Arabel. You know, it completely slipped my mind that you were planning to bring these by today. If I had remembered, I would have made sure to be home earlier.”
“Ah, no big deal at all.” She waved a dismissive hand, a soft snicker escaping her. “Probably I should have given you another quick call to confirm I was stopping by. So, I might be the one at fault.”
He didn’t care about who was at fault. He was simply grateful she came when she did.
“Would you like anything to drink? Water? Tea?” Michael asked, belatedly remembering social graces.
A bigger smile began to bloom on Arabel’s face, only to falter and fade as her eyes landed on the looming figure standing in the kitchen doorway behind him. Michael inwardly groaned, all hope of momentarily escaping his earlier, disturbing conversation with Willy dissolving like smoke.
“My, isn’t this a delightful surprise!” Willy exclaimed, his voice booming with a forced cheerfulness that belied the dark look he’d worn moments before. He turned slightly towards Michael, adjusting the covered white box cradled in one arm. “Brother! You never told me Soulless Girl was back in town!”
Arabel’s lips tightened into a thin line.
“Ah. I wasn’t aware you had…company, Michael,” Arabel said, her gaze flicking towards him before settling back on Willy, her tone coolly polite. “Had I known, I wouldn’t have intruded.”
Michael chuckled a bit too sharply, the sound betraying his discomfort. But before he could offer a placating word, his brother’s voice cut him off.
“Nonsense, Soulless Girl, I was just on my way out. He’s all yours for the evening.” Willy moved into the living room, carefully balancing the box. He paused briefly beside Michael, leaning in close enough that only he could hear his whispered words:
“Think about it, won’t you?”
Michael remained silent, a tight frown creasing his lips as he watched Willy finally position himself directly in front of Arabel. By that point, Arabel made no attempt to mask the barely concealed glare in her eyes, even as Willy continued to offer her an unreadable look, his eyes crinkling slightly above his mask in what appeared to be amusement.
“It truly is…lovely to see you again. You might just have come at the right time.”
Then, with a final glance at Michael, Willy turned and walked towards the front door, letting himself out with a soft click of the latch.
A few tense beats of silence passed. Arabel shot Michael an odd, questioning look. Michael understood her reason for it perfectly. It was no secret, from their first meeting, that Arabel was far from Willy’s biggest fan. And the sentiment likely ran both ways, even if Willy was slightly better at concealing his own aversion.
“So,” Arabel breathed out slowly, her eyes still on the closed door. “Willy…is still around.”
Michael offered her an innocent shrug and a reassuring smile, hoping to diffuse the lingering awkwardness. “I really hope he didn’t offend you…with that ridiculous nickname.”
Arabel waved a dismissive hand again, shaking her head with a small, wry smile.
“Don’t worry about it, Michael. That’s honestly the least offensive thing I’ve ever been called. Especially coming from him, of all people.”
A sliver of relief eased the tension in Michael’s chest.
“I’ll definitely have a word with him about it. It’s still not a nice thing to say, no matter how ‘least offensive’ it might be.”
He clasped his hands together then, forcing a brighter tone
And forcing Willy’s words out from his head.
“So! How about that drink?”
Notes:
Is Michael pissed off? Is Willy? We'll see how things goes from here.
Next chapter will be Arabel's POV, a very special chapter might I add!
Also shoutout to ApathyAo3 for yet another amazing gift fic! Made me miss writing Mono, Six and Viola as a trio 😭 It's called Spitting Image, and you can read it here.
Thanks for reading!
Chapter 88: The Illness: Part 1
Notes:
Arabel's POV is here!
It turned out the chapter was longer than I intended, so I had to cut it into three parts, since this is already 10k words. Anyhoo, please look at the trigger warnings before proceeding. I've also added a few more tags just for this chapter—this one has a LOT of drama. Hope you enjoy!
[WARNING]
Domestic violence, blood and violence, manipulation, attempted sexual assault (not between the main characters)
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Memory was a fickle thing, often inaccurate in its recall, inconsistent, and easily distorted through time. Details once sharp would blur and fade, while certain events could turn into something subtly different than what actually transpired. Yet a child’s mind could latch onto a seemingly insignificant moment, carrying it forward through the years.
Arabel’s memory of the day her father left was somewhat hazy. The specifics of the argument, the reason it had occurred that shattered their peace during the long shadows of the setting sun, remained elusive. She could only recall the muffled shouts emanating from beyond her bedroom door, her mother’s desperate cries, her pleas shot down by her father’s harsh retorts. The courage that moved her to the crack in her door, the curious peek through the narrow gap, was a mystery. But the image seared into her young mind was indelible: her mother following her father, her movements frantic, tears streaming down her face like she was in agony.
“Please, Jack, I am begging you,” Marsh’s voice cracked, thick with unshed tears as she desperately blocked his path, her hands clasped together. “Don’t go. If...if it’s something I did, tell me what I can do to fix it, I promise I can—”
“Out of my way, Leigh.” Jack’s voice was cold, dismissive as he took a deliberate sidestep. Marsh cried out his name, her hand reaching to clutch his arm, the contact making him flinch as though her touch had physically burned him. He snatched his arm away, his face a mixture of anger and weariness. “Enough! What part of this can’t you understand? There is no fixing it . I just cannot stand to look at your face. I cannot stand you. You are nothing but a burden to me. Get that through your thick skull—what we had is gone. I just…I can’t do this anymore.” Jack’s voice trembled slightly on those final words, his breath catching in his throat. He walked past her, his back stiff, and disappeared into their bedroom. Marsh still followed, her sobs echoing.
More violent shouts erupted from within the room. Driven by a childish need to understand, Arabel slipped out of her own room, her small feet padding softly on the floor as she followed the sound of their raised voices. But as she reached her parents’ bedroom door, her father’s tall figure suddenly filled the doorway, stopping short in surprise as he registered her presence. His eyes widened, a dawning realization flickering within them.
“Dad…what’s wrong?” Arabel’s small voice was weak and trembling, the innocent question of a barely six-year-old child. She noticed the subtle, almost painful clench in her father’s jaw, the hesitation in his eyes, akin to a fleeting moment of fear.
He said nothing, his gaze avoiding hers as he brushed past her, a heavy suitcase clutched tightly in his hand.
Then behind her, she felt the sudden, protective pressure of her mother’s hand on her shoulder, though the grip was almost bruising, her fingernails digging slightly into Arabel’s skin, a silent testament to her barely contained despair. “Ara, sweetheart, just go back to your room, alright? Everything will be fine.”
“But why is—?” Marsh turned and hurried back into the hallway without waiting for her daughter’s question.
A knot of irritation began to form in Arabel’s small chest, growing with each escalating shout that echoed in the hallway. Despite her mother’s reassurances, Arabel remained rooted to the spot, witnessing the unraveling of her family. She watched, her small heart pounding, as Marsh, in a desperate act, snatched Jack’s suitcase from his hand and hurled it across the room, the thud effectively halting his attempt to leave once more.
Despite her mother’s hollow words, the promise that everything would somehow be fine, an awful premonition settled in Arabel’s young heart: it wouldn’t. That with each raised voice, each tearful plea, the foundation of their family was crumbling further into debris.
“God Dammit! What do you want from me?” Jack’s voice cracked with raw fury.
“Think about our daughter,” Marsh pleaded through ragged sobs. “She adores you. Sh-she looks up to you. If you leave, what…what will become of her? You simply can’t go—”
“You,” Jack spat, his face inches from hers, contorted with a venomous rage, “are delusional, Leigh. You are mentally unstable. You need professional help more than anyone I know. Tomorrow morning, I will be back. I will take my daughter with me. After I’ve ensured you are placed in the institute where you so clearly belong.”
Utter horror washed over Marsh’s face, her mouth falling open in a silent scream. Then, the initial shock gave way to a raw rage.
“N-no, you can’t do this! Don’t you dare try to take her away from me—she is all I have left! You will regret this, Jack. I swear to you, you will live to rue the day you even considered it—!”
Marsh lunged forward, grabbing his arm just as he took his first, fateful step down the creaking staircase. In a brutal response, Jack shoved her back with violent force, her head slamming against the wall behind them with a sickening thud. The delicate picture frames adorning the wall cracked and tumbled to the floor under the impact.
Then, darkness.
A sudden blackout.
A piercing scream ripped through the silence, followed by the thud of a body falling down the stairs. Then sharp cries of agony.
As the flickering lamps sputtered back to life, casting long, distorted shadows and illuminating the thin trickle of blood snaking down Marsh’s temple, they revealed a horrifying sight at the foot of the stairs. Jack’s body lay twisted and broken, as though mangled by an unseen force, his face completely covered by a crimson mask of his own blood. A deep, gaping wound above his eyes oozed more blood, forming a dark pool beneath him. Yet, even in his agony, he forced his other eye to look upwards, his gaze fixed on the top of the stairs, a silent accusation as he saw Marsh staring back at him, her face a mask of sheer unadulterated horror.
But memory was a fickle thing. Often inaccurate in its recall, inconsistent, and easily distorted through time.
It took nearly six long years for a buried piece of that traumatic day to resurface in Arabel’s mind. It was a chilling detail that cast a new, unsettling light on her mother and, more disturbingly, on herself. For how could she vividly recall the gruesome sight of her bloodied father at the bottom of the stairs, yet have no recollection of standing at the top of that same staircase, right beside her mother? The surge of childish, protective, anger that had consumed her as she witnessed her mother’s brutal assault? The ache in her small soul, the almost uncontrollable urge in her tiny fingers to grasp at an invisible force, to guide it, to push the man to his untimely, horrific accident?
As Arabel lay on her unfamiliar bed in her new home, just a few days after leaving Pale City, the sudden thought of that long-suppressed memory nagged at her. She was uncertain, yet a chillingly insistent voice within her mind assured her it had all been real. And that perhaps, after all these long years, her father had been resenting the wrong person for that day.
The door to her bedroom creaked open, the sound slicing through the heavy silence. It was her stepmother, Miriam, her silhouette framed in the dim hallway light.
“Hey,” Miriam said softly, a hesitant smile gracing her lips as she lingered in the doorway. “May I come in?”
Arabel didn’t care. She offered no response.
At her lack of acknowledgment, Miriam’s smile dimmed slightly, a shadow of sadness passing over her features. Nevertheless, she entered the room a beat later, the door closing behind her with a gentle click. Her footsteps were soft and muffled against the carpet, and it wasn’t until Arabel felt the subtle dip at the foot of her bed that she finally granted the woman any of her attention. Her eyes rolled upward in undisguised irritation.
If Miriam noticed the blatant display of annoyance, she chose to ignore it.
“I…am so sorry to hear about your mother, Arabel. How are you feeling?” she said at last. Arabel shifted onto her side, deliberately turning her back to the woman. Miriam sighed softly, a sound laden with unspoken understanding. Though Arabel had assumed she would leave, abandoning her attempt at this pitiful connection, she was proven wrong when the gentle weight at the foot of her bed remained steadfast.
“You know…” Miriam began again, her voice barely above a whisper, “I think…I might understand a little of what you must be going through right now.”
A tense beat of silence stretched between them.
“You don’t know anything,” Arabel retorted bitterly. Then, with a sharp movement, she turned to face Miriam, her eyes filled with resentment. “You’re just the woman my dad decided to shack up with after he discarded his first marriage.”
A flicker of genuine hurt flashed in Miriam’s eyes, a brief vulnerability that Arabel registered with a small, if vindictive satisfaction. Yet, despite the harshness of her words, the palpable desire to drive this unwelcome intruder from her room, Miriam remained seated at the foot of her bed, her patience an unwelcome surprise. It was a resilience Arabel hadn’t expected.
“You aren’t wrong, Arabel,” Miriam said softly, then added with a quiet firmness, “but you aren’t entirely right either.”
“Oh, but aren’t I really?” Arabel’s glare held a bitter contempt, a challenge in her young eyes.
Miriam’s gaze softened over time as she met Arabel’s hostile stare, a gentle empathy replacing any hint of offense.
“Before I ever met Jack, and long before I had the twins,” Miriam began slowly, her voice tinged with a quiet sadness, “I had just lost a daughter in an accident. She was about your age, Arabel.”
At those unexpected words, Arabel’s defiant glare wavered, a sudden pang of guilt clenching her heart. Miriam lifted a hesitant hand, her touch gentle as she placed it gently atop Arabel’s. When Arabel made no move to reject the gesture, Miriam’s touch became slightly more secure.
“I know it must feel profoundly unfair that you were taken away from the only home you’ve ever known, the place where your mother raised you with such love. I felt the same when I had to leave Pale City. My baby’s first steps are still there. If I had been given a choice, I would have never left, you see. I wouldn’t have had the heart to leave her behind. But…” Miriam’s voice softened further, “I learned that I never truly had to. She’s always with me, right here, everywhere I go.” She offered a small, sad wink as she gently tapped the side of her head. “You’re an incredibly strong girl, Arabel, to have endured what you have. I know you resent your father, and perhaps with good reason. I know that what he did to Leigh, the way he ended things, wasn’t the right or compassionate way. But whatever his reasons might be…it’s his story to tell, his burden to share with you himself.”
Miriam reached out, her touch almost feather-light as she brushed a loose strand of hair away from Arabel’s face, a tender, sad smile gracing her lips. Then, as though realizing the intimacy of the gesture, she gently withdrew her hand, her smile remaining soft.
“Goodnight, dear. I’ll stop bothering you now.”
Miriam rose from the edge of the bed, her movements quiet as she walked towards the door.
“What was her name?” Miriam paused at the creak of the opening door, turning back in surprise, her eyebrows slightly raised. Arabel’s voice was quiet, almost shy, a stark contrast to her earlier hostility. “Your daughter.”
A warm, genuine smile spread across Miriam’s face, as though the palpable tension Arabel had radiated since her arrival had finally begun to dissipate. Perhaps, in that small, shared moment, it had.
“Cecilia.”
Then, with a final, gentle smile, she closed the door, leaving Arabel alone in the room.
For the next few days, Arabel found herself pondering the conversation. Every time she crossed paths with Miriam in the unfamiliar hallways of their new house, every small, tentative conversation initiated by her stepmother, Arabel found her resolve weakening. The sharp edges of her resentment seemed to soften, and the defiant silence she had initially maintained became harder to uphold. The first week had been a self-imposed exile—avoiding everyone: Miriam, Jack, and their twins. She had retreated into her room, leaving only for hurried trips to the bathroom and to the kitchen for food when her hunger became unbearable.
It was when Miriam knocked gently on her door one evening, a plate laden with that day’s dinner held out in a silent offering, that Arabel began to feel the first stirrings of something other than cold uncertainty towards her stepmother.
She felt comfort, and dare she say, a small build of trust. Miriam’s genuine efforts persisted until Arabel no longer felt the need to hide behind her constant glare. She was willing to share a small chuckle, growing comfortable in her presence, more than her own father’s. It did not go unnoticed by Miriam, of course: her lack of trying to connect with Jack. And vice versa. There was simply nothing that could make Arabel delve into any sort of conversation with her father. And it seemed for the man’s case, there was nothing that could make his hesitance, the lingering fear in his eyes, mitigate whenever they were left alone together. During dinners, he refused to even look her in the eye, only sparing short glances and speaking to her if absolutely necessary.
No matter how much Arabel had expected the man’s cowardice to face his result of abandonment, how much she had strengthened her mind to replace any emotion with cold nonchalance, there was still that stinging ache that buried itself deep within her heart.
It still hurt.
Regardless, Arabel did nothing to cure the feeling. Miriam even tried to coax her gently eventually, perhaps to soften her heart enough for whatever upcoming conversation she had brokered with Jack from his side. Arabel’s suspicion was confirmed one fateful night when she abandoned a parched craving for water and instead found herself eavesdropping on hushed whispers emanating from her father and stepmother’s closed bedroom door.
“You don’t understand, Mir,” Jack’s voice was muffled by the thick wood of the door, yet his underlying fear and trepidation were clear. “I know she’s my daughter, but there’s something about her that I simply can’t face. Taking her in…that was the absolute limit of what I could manage. Anything beyond that feels…impossible.”
“But not truly impossible, Jack,” Miriam replied patiently like a soothing counterpoint to his anxiety.
“Almost impossible. Her mother, on the other hand, certainly was ,” Jack said with a bitter, dismissive scoff. Arabel’s teeth gritted together in silent fury, her eyes rolling heavenward. She had taken a step back towards her bedroom, wanting nothing more than to retreat into sleep and irritation, but she remained rooted to her spot when her father added, his voice dropping to a near whisper, “I truly couldn’t take it anymore back then. I was so…afraid.”
Afraid? A flicker of morbid curiosity pierced through Arabel’s anger. She leaned against the doorframe, then slowly slid down to the floor, her back against the cool wood, settling in to listen.
“The first few years…everything seemed normal. There was no sign of anything amiss with Leigh. I hadn’t even noticed the shifts until the second year of our marriage, when she began to speak to herself, scowling at nothing I could see,” Jack recounted. “Over time…it grew progressively worse. Things started to break. Lights would flicker as if we were haunted by some malevolent spirit. Doors would swing open and slam shut on their own. But it only ever happened when she was around. After Arabel was born, it stopped, and I had hoped that everything would finally return to normal, that perhaps I had simply imagined it all. But I hadn’t. Every time Leigh touched me, every time she looked at me, I felt something else…something unseen…doing it too. Like a small piece of my soul was slowly being leached away, day by agonizing day. And every time I look at Arabel, I see her . ”
Jack’s voice dropped even lower, filled with a raw, confessional tone. “Even so, I stayed. I desperately tried to convince myself it was all in my head, that maybe I was only feeling under the weather. It was when I began to feel the effects of it taking hold of me, and Leigh’s paranoia somehow becoming my own…that’s when I knew I had to get out. My physical health was dwindling, fading without any real reason. Leigh’s aggressive fear, her paranoia regarding this invisible presence, was taking its toll on me. And it felt as though I was the only one who thought so. Never our friends; never anyone outside of that house.
“For years, Mir, I endured living in a nightmare, until I finally had to acknowledge the truth: it had been because of her. Leigh desperately needed help, and I had been too blinded by my own fear and denial to get it for her sooner. I should have forced Arabel to come with me that day, should have physically removed her from Leigh’s sick delusions and prevented her from being influenced by that…that darkness—”
Miriam’s soothing voice gently interrupted Jack’s rising agitation, shushing him with a quiet tenderness that Arabel had already witnessed effectively calming his anxieties.
“You’re here for her now, Jack. That’s the only thing that matters,” Miriam said, her tone firm yet compassionate. “But if you continue to disregard Arabel, to dismiss her and keep her at arm’s length simply because of your history with Leigh…she will undoubtedly do the same. She shouldn’t have to be the one to reach out first.”
A low, reluctant hum rumbled from Jack, indicating his internal struggle. “I just…I’m terrified that the same thing will happen again. I thought it ended after Leigh passed, but when I look at Arabel, I…” An exasperated sigh escaped his lips, heavy with unspoken fear. A pregnant pause of silence hung in the air before he finally added, his voice resigned, “You’re right, Mir. I should be the one to reach out.”
To Arabel’s genuine surprise, he kept his word.
The very next morning Jack had awkwardly invited her to accompany him on a trip into town. Arabel’s initial reaction had been a flat, disinterested stare, yet when she caught the fleeting expression of sad disappointment in Miriam’s eyes—a look that bore a cruelly familial resemblance to her own mother’s moments of quiet despair—Arabel found herself agreeing, however, reluctantly.
The drive to the local shops was punctuated by a thick, oppressive silence, the unspoken tension in the small car almost a physical presence.
Jack shifted uncomfortably in his seat, his knuckles white as they gripped the steering wheel.
Arabel mirrored his discomfort, pressing herself as far against the passenger door as the seat belt would allow.
It was clear that both of them would rather be anywhere than trapped together in the close confines of the car.
Jack cleared his throat for the fourth time, the dry sound breaking the silence, a clear indication of his hesitant attempts to initiate a conversation, each previous effort having sputtered and died before truly beginning. It was the abrupt halt of traffic, the sudden stillness of the car, that brought the unwelcome realization that this already tortuous journey would likely stretch on longer than either had hoped.
“So,” Jack began, his voice strained and overly casual, “do you…like your new home?”
Arabel flinched inwardly at the forced pleasantry. She pressed herself even further against the cold glass of the door, wishing for an escape, even if it meant a reckless jump onto the moving asphalt.
“I don’t care.” She stubbornly kept her gaze fixed on the passing scenery outside the window, a small satisfaction blooming within her when an audible sigh of irritation escaped her father’s lips.
The silence descended once more for the remainder of the agonizing car ride.
It was once she reluctantly followed her father into the sterile, clinical atmosphere of a doctor’s office that her suppressed questions began to bubble to the surface, threatening to overwhelm her indifference.
“Why are we here?” she asked, her voice flat, after her father concluded his brief conversation with the receptionist. The woman, with a practiced smile, gestured towards a row of uncomfortable-looking chairs lining the waiting area.
Jack offered her an unreadable and unamused look as he lowered himself into one of the seats. Arabel remained stubbornly standing, her arms crossed defensively across her chest.
“I’ve booked an appointment with a…friend. Merely a small check-up for you.” His tone was dismissive, as if the explanation should suffice.
Arabel scoffed, the sound sharp and incredulous. “I’m not sick.”
“If that’s truly what you’d like to believe.” His reply was laced with a weary knowingness that only fuelled her irritation.
A familiar heat of annoyance and ire coursed through her veins the longer she was forced to endure the sight of her father’s face, the ever-present shadow of the hidden scar beneath the brim of his hat an unspoken reminder of their dark past.
“Arabel,” Jack said, the exasperated sigh that escaped his lips sounding genuinely weary. “I am trying, in my own way, to make amends. To not repeat the mistakes I’ve made. If you feel you aren’t ready, or perhaps will never be ready, to forgive any of it, then so be it. But for the very least, can’t you hold off your anger, just for today? At least until this…appointment is over?”
“But I told you,” Arabel spat with a renewed surge of defiance, “I am not sick.”
Jack’s lips thinned into a line, the corners curving downward into a tight frown.
“In the house,” Jack said, his voice dropping slightly, gaining a serious edge, “you see it, don’t you?”
Her defiant scowl flickered, replaced by a sudden wave of surprise. Her heart gave a strange lurch, as though she had been caught in a forbidden act. She didn’t need to offer a verbal confirmation; Jack seemed to receive his answer in the subtle shift of her expression. And there was no need for any elaborate explanation as her father seemingly already possessed an awareness.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Arabel lied, the denial feeling weak even to her own ears. And it seemed her clumsy attempt to feign ignorance failed utterly in Jack’s eyes as a wry, humourless chuckle rumbled in his chest.
“Yes, you do, Arabel,” her father called her out, his gaze unwavering. “We both know you do. Your stepmother might not be fully aware of the extent of it, but both of us share this…understanding. You took care of your mother in those final years before she passed, did you not?” At her hesitant silence, something seemed to solidify for Jack. The man breathed again, this time a sound tinged with disappointment and fear. “So you witnessed it. The darkness that surrounded her…and the one resided within her.”
“Don’t you dare speak of her that way,” Arabel snapped with protective fury. “My mother may have been ill, but whatever darkness she faced is nothing compared to one inside of you.”
A dry, almost bitter laugh escaped Jack’s lips. “Even you admit it, then. Leigh was not well,” he conceded, then his voice took on a weight of serious regret. “My greatest mistake with Leigh was my hesitation, my cowardice in not getting her the help she desperately needed sooner. Look at the consequences. Our family, shattered beyond repair—”
“Because of you and your selfishness—!” Arabel’s voice trembled with unshed tears and years of pent-up resentment.
“And you,” Jack continued, his voice low, “ended up having to care for a mentally ill woman in your formative years. All because I was too afraid to confront the reality and seek help for her. I’d be damned, Arabel, if I allow myself to repeat that same mistake with you.”
Arabel’s teeth ground together in a tight, silent fury, her heart clenching with a knot of emotions that felt akin to a bitter, profound betrayal.
“Then why?” she finally choked out, her voice barely a whisper. “Why did it take you so damn long to come back?”
This time, it was Jack who remained silent, a flicker of old pain and the familiar fear of being exposed flashing in the depths of his eyes. His mouth parted as if to speak, but any potential words were cut short by the soft whoosh of the doctor’s office door opening. A cheerful voice called out her name, the sound echoing in the tense waiting room, signalling that her unexpected and unwanted check-up was about to begin.
The entire medical procedure passed in a hazy blur. Arabel remained detached, the murmuring voices of her father and the doctor fading into mere background noise as she followed their instructions with the blank obedience of a puppet. Her mind still lingered on the heavy conversation from moments before. Her father had pointedly avoided answering her question, even after they had left the sterile clinic and returned to the strained silence of their new home.
The final communication he had with her that same day was the silent offering of a small, labelled bottle of pills. The familiar packaging and the shape of the tablets triggered a sharp, unwelcome memory: they were strikingly similar to the medication her late mother used to take, the very pills that were meant to quell the terrifying hallucinations of a relentless, stalking shadow.
Arabel took the medication. Every day. The unsettling glimpses of her own hallucinations had been a rare occurrence even when her mother had been alive, and an occasional one after her passing. But as the months bled into years, the unwanted visions became almost non-existent, banished by the consistent routine of her medication. And for years, Jack would diligently replenish her supply immediately after she finished a bottle—perhaps the only consistent act of care she could begrudgingly acknowledge in her father. To suggest that their relationship as a whole had healed would be a gross exaggeration. Rather, as Arabel grew from adolescence to young adulthood, her resentful image of the man had gradually softened into a detached…indifference. He became akin to a stranger with whom she shared a house until the day she no longer needed to.
Miriam eventually ceased her gentle attempts to mend their relationship after the day Arabel finally moved out. Jack still ensured all her financial and health needs were met. To Miriam, this consistent support was a testament to a father’s love, his own quiet way of caring for his daughter despite his inability to express affection openly. But Arabel knew the underlying truth, the persistent fear that still haunted his eyes whenever their paths crossed.
The man was still afraid.
Still burdened by guilt.
Still desperately trying to bury the dark, traumatic past and the cowardice that had defined his actions. Perhaps on some nights, sleep offered a temporary respite from his inner turmoil. But perhaps on other nights, the bloody memory of that life-altering accident would resurface in his dreams, forever preventing him from truly recovering, from ever being the same man he once was.
Because as much as he had desperately sought to cure his daughter’s perceived illness, he had ultimately failed to heal his own deep-seated wounds.
Arabel was already a young woman when the phone rang, shattering the quiet normalcy of her evening. It was Miriam, her voice thick with heartbroken sobs as she delivered the news: her father was dying.
The dim, familiar glow of the night lamp beside the small table cast long shadows as Arabel entered his hushed room. Her gaze fell upon Miriam, her blonde hair now streaked with more prominent grey, her shoulders slumped with exhaustion as she sat hunched beside the still form of a sleeping man on the bed. A pang of sorrow resonated within Arabel, a strange ache in her chest that seemed to be more for the weary woman than for the man who lay on the precipice of death.
Miriam stirred, her eyelids fluttering open at Arabel’s quiet entrance. A weak, tired smile touched her lips, though the redness around her eyes were evidence of sleepless nights and countless tears shed for her husband. Arabel returned the fragile smile, a sense of tenderness rising within her as she gently patted Miriam’s back, the same comforting gesture Miriam had offered her countless times during her own tear-streaked childhood.
“I’m so glad you made it, dear,” Miriam said softly as she gently placed her frail hand atop Arabel’s.
Arabel’s gaze drifted to the man lying still and pale on the bed beside her, taking in the reality of his deteriorated state. “Any news?” she asked, her voice hushed with a mixture of apprehension and a strange sorrow.
“Nothing hopeful, sweetheart. The doctors say he hasn’t got long now.” Miriam let out a small, trembling sigh that hitched in her throat, her free hand reaching out to tentatively touch Jack’s arm, though the man remained utterly unresponsive in his comatose state. “They said now…now would be the best time to spend as much time as possible.”
The unspoken “while we still can” hung heavily in the air.
“Have the twins been to visit?”
Miriam chuckled softly, a smile touching her lips at the mention of her sons. “Those two…they move through life as a single unit. They came by a few days ago before work called them away again, unfortunately. Quite devastated, they were, but they had signed a lucrative contract with that high-end restaurant company at sea. Feeding those luxurious crowds. I rarely ever see them anymore.” Sadness was laced in her voice on those last words, a quiet ache of a mother missing her children.
Arabel felt a pang of guilt, realizing her own infrequent visits to Miriam for the last few months.
Arabel’s attention returned to Jack, her eyes tracing the gaunt hollows in his cheeks and the unnatural paleness of his skin, making him seem like a shell, devoid of the life that once animated him. The nasty scar that had loomed so large in her childhood memories had long since faded into a faint line, yet it still felt enormous in her mind.
“Would you…would you like a moment?” Arabel turned to Miriam in genuine surprise. A reflexive refusal had been on the tip of her tongue, to keep this visit brief and emotionally contained, yet when she truly looked at the dark circles and heavy bags beneath her stepmother’s weary eyes, a wave of empathy washed over her. Miriam must be utterly exhausted, likely having spent countless nights slumped in the uncomfortable chair, vigilantly keeping watch over Jack.
After all, Arabel knew what it was like to care for an ailing person in their final days.
So she nodded. Miriam’s hand squeezed Arabel’s shoulder in grateful acknowledgment, her voice soft as she said she would return later. Arabel told her to take all the time she needed, a genuine sentiment that elicited a small, weary chuckle from the older woman before she turned and quietly left the room, closing the door gently behind her.
It took Arabel a while to take Miriam’s seat. She wasn’t sure what to do other than stare into her father’s sleeping face and see the looming presence of death standing over him, waiting for his turn. So it merely shocked her into stupor as the man’s eyes soon fluttered and his head began to stir in her direction, his brows furrowing as he managed to speak a single hoarse word: her name.
Arabel immediately glanced at the door, her mind contemplating to call for Miriam, to let her know Jack was awake after days of being in slumber. Yet when the man called her name again, almost a pitiful pleading sound leaving him, Arabel’s initial thought was put aside. She faced her father with a practiced indifference.
“I didn’t—” Jack’s breath hitched in a wet cough, a painful wheeze tearing through the quiet. “I didn’t think you would pay me any visit.”
“I didn’t think I would either,” Arabel replied, her voice flat and devoid of emotion. “But Miriam thought I should. In case you…”
“Ah,” Jack murmured, a faint smile touching his lips. “Always thoughtful, isn’t she?” A small pause. “And how have you…have you been, hm?”
Arabel suppressed the urge to roll her eyes at the forced pleasantry, a hollow attempt at normalcy from a mind clouded by illness. “Well enough.”
“Do you still take your medication?”
“Daily.” She patted her purse, the small gesture a silent confirmation. A brief silence hung between them before she added with a hesitant curiosity, “And you? Has the doctor prescribed you anything at all?”
“Indeed they have.” Another racking cough, this time leaving a smear of blood on his handkerchief. “Unfortunately, as you can see, it isn’t working any miracles, is it? It seems I’ll be tethered to this bed for whatever time I have left.”
“Do you fear it?” The question slipped out. “Death.”
“Who doesn’t fear death, Arabel?” Jack’s voice remained surprisingly smooth. “I’ve simply learned to accept the inevitable. That I won’t be granted a reprieve from this. You, on the other hand, might still have a chance at a different future, don’t you? Unlike your mother.”
A bitter smile twisted Arabel’s lips. “Even on your deathbed, you still feel the need to lash out at her? You’re a pathetic old man.”
Jack’s laugh was a wet, painful sound, punctuated by coughs. “If you had known the hell I endured, you might have done the same.”
“So you keep telling me.” A dry, humorless chuckle escaped Arabel, her teeth clenching in silent ire. After a long, tense moment, she finally broke the heavy silence. “Do you even care about what I endured? How I truly felt during all of that?”
A subtle shift flickered across Jack’s pale face, a shadow of guilt and shame momentarily softening his features.
“I know,” was all the man offered, his voice suddenly soft like a whisper. “Though I wasn’t there…I can imagine what you must have gone through at such a young age.”
“You ‘know’,” Arabel’s voice was sharp with disbelief, “yet you still deliberately stayed away, fully aware that I was just a child. Taking care of my sick mother alone for years.”
“Arabel…” His voice choked, a raw sound of pain and regret. “I had my reasons for maintaining that distance. After what…after what happened that day…I couldn’t…I tried, believe me, I tried to return for you, but I simply…was…”
“A coward?” Arabel supplied the missing word, her tone laced with bitter satisfaction at his inability to utter it himself. “Too terrified that you might once again be harmed by the ‘mentally ill woman’? Despite the fact that you had conveniently placed her in an institution, while her own daughter was left in the care of nurses—strangers—until she was eventually discharged?”
“There wasn’t…a right opportunity for me to—” Jack began weakly, attempting a flimsy justification.
“I called you, repeatedly. Phoned your number for months,” Arabel interrupted, a painful lump forming in her throat, constricting her voice. “You had countless chances, one after another. It was a conscious decision, wasn’t it? You chose not to take any of them. You deliberately started a new family, a clean slate, in hopes of erasing your old one from existence. Isn’t that the truth?”
Jack offered no verbal denial, his face a grim mask of unspoken confession. His silence gave Arabel her damning answer.
Her eyelids burned as tears threatened to fall, blurring the already hazy image of her dying father.
“You know,” she began, her voice trembling slightly despite her efforts at control, “back then, at Ma’s funeral, you told me the fate of our house. I followed you because even then I understood: no one would be paying for our old home anymore, certainly not a child as young and helpless as I was. Though, what my young self couldn’t understand, what continues to baffle me to this day, was your sudden interest in adopting me back into your new life after you had so carelessly, so completely discarded me. This…this sudden performance of the ‘doting father,’ a role you seemed to think you could simply slip into,” Arabel’s tongue clicked against the roof of her mouth, a sound of utter disdain, her stinging eyes locking onto his puffy, pain-filled ones. “You finally came back because she was gone, didn’t you? Because Ma was finally dead. That was the true reason for your long absence, wasn’t it? You were so consumed by your own fear of her, of a ‘mentally ill woman,’ that you’d rather abandon your own daughter to an uncertain fate until you deemed it safe enough, convenient enough, for your grand return. Isn’t that right, Jack?”
“…Forgive me,” Jack choked at last, a tear slipping past his hollow cheeks. He inhaled a shaky, painful breath. “Arabel. Please…forgive me,” his voice cracked, a sound that made her heart clench with agonizing sadness she had been suppressing. She would not let it win, would not allow her eyes to brim with the same moisture that glistened on her father’s face.
She failed. The first rebellious tear escaped her control, a hot track against her skin. It would be the last. Her fingers swiped it away with an angry motion as she abruptly turned her face towards the window, her gaze fixed on the indistinct shapes outside. Anywhere but the pitiful, dying sight of her father.
A trembling sigh shuddered through her.
She did not forgive him. Not truly. Not yet. Perhaps never.
Even as Jack’s weak hand, pale and trembling, reached out across the white sheets, a quiet and desperate plea for connection; even as she finally, after a long internal battle, reached back and enclosed his frail fingers in her own, Arabel did not forgive him for the years of fear, the abandonment, and the damage he had inflicted upon her mother.
Jack passed away a few days after her visit. Arabel attended his funeral, though in her mind, she told herself she would merely be there for Miriam’s support. For after all, the woman cried the most, took the news the hardest, after hearing Jack had finally succumbed to his illness.
“I’m so sorry for your loss.”
Those six words, she heard often in the following hours after they’d laid her father to rest. It irritated her. Immensely. Just as she had begun to bury her memory of that man, to put it behind her in the past along with other painful events, a stupid individual decided to show off their empathy, giving her their condolences as though she craved it from them. On the outside, she smiled gratefully whenever she received the same pitiful words about her father; of how great the man was, how he was such a kind fellow and friend, how he would be missed dearly.
Internally, Arabel wished a boulder would fall upon their heads.
“Such an unfortunate loss, isn’t it? A man like Jack.” The speaker—another well-meaning but utterly stupid stranger—stood beside her, their voices low. Just like Arabel, they had moved to the corner of the room, away from the throng of mourners at the funeral reception.
Arabel offered the stranger a sidelong glance, her lips pressed into a tight line. Stupid Stranger, misinterpreting her silence, apparently took it as an invitation to launch into a one-sided conversation.
“He was good friends with my uncle. A great mentor to me during my time at the firm we used to work at together.” She felt his gaze linger on her, studying her almost. “And you? How did you know Jack?”
She loathed funerals.
“He was my father.” Arabel took a deliberate sip of her lukewarm drink, silently wishing it had even just a little bit of an alcoholic kick.
Stupid Stranger made a small, idiotic sound. A sigh of realization.
“Ah. Of course. I’m such an idiot. I should have realized. My sincerest apologies, Ms…I’m so sorry for your loss. He was a great man.” A derisive snort involuntarily escaped Arabel, quickly turning into a quiet, wry chuckle that she attempted to smother with another swallow of her drink. Alas, Stupid Stranger had clearly heard it. “Did I say something…to make you laugh?” He cocked a curious eyebrow.
She shook her head. “No. You simply said something I’ve heard of the fiftieth time today,” Arabel admitted, her voice flat and devoid of any pretense.
“Does it genuinely bother you?” Stupid Stranger pressed, his curiosity piqued despite her dry tone.
“And if it does,” Arabel countered, raising a sardonic eyebrow, “how could I possibly begin to show that, hm? At my own father’s funeral, no less? I would seem like a heartless daughter.” To a heartless father , she added silently, the bitter thought a sharp sting.
“You don’t strike me as heartless, Ms…” Stupid Stranger paused, considering her. “In fact, if I may be so bold, funerals themselves aren’t exactly my cup of tea, mostly because of the people they attract. Often nosy. Shamelessly prying into my family’s affairs and my own, all while telling me what a great man my own father was before he passed.”
“Isn’t that exactly what you just said to me?”
Stupid Stranger smirked, a genuine, slightly mischievous expression. “Well, I would hardly want to seem heartless myself, now would I? Social decorum, you understand.”
A genuine laugh escaped Arabel, the sound surprisingly light amidst the sombre atmosphere. The stranger’s smile widened in response.
“Ren,” he introduced himself, extending a hand towards her.
She studied his outstretched hand for a brief moment before placing her own in his, amusement in her heart. “Arabel.”
“Arabel,” Ren repeated, the name sounding almost melodic as it rolled off his tongue. “A rare name. Quite beautiful, if I may say so.” His eyes held a playful glint.
“Do you make it a habit to flatter every grieving woman you find at a funeral?”
“Only the ones who are interesting,” he replied smoothly, his smile widening. “And you? Do you roll your eyes at every man who attempts a conversation with you?”
“Only the ones who prove to be annoying. You, I must admit, had…a potential.” A small smile touched her lips.
He scoffed, genuinely amused. “And what changed your opinion?”
“Who said it did?” Arabel retorted, though the playful tone in her voice belied her words. Ren’s warm smile sent a familiar tingle through her stomach, a similar twisting of emotions she had felt once for the boy back in Pale City years ago.
“Then perhaps…” Ren leaned in slightly. “Might I be granted the opportunity to truly change your mind one of these days? Say, over a cup of coffee?”
“You are asking me out…at my father’s funeral?” Arabel raised a skeptical eyebrow, feigning more offense than she actually felt. “Are you even aware of how inappropriate that is?”
Seemingly unfazed, Ren surprised her by catching her attempt at intimidation. His innocent, charming smile remained.
“I’d rather risk social impropriety,” he said, his voice smooth. “So then, Arabel. What do you say?”
Another soft scoff escaped her lips, this one laced with reluctant amusement.
Accepting an invitation from a stranger during her father’s funeral had been the furthest thing from Arabel’s expectations. Even more surprising was that she found Ren to be…tolerable. Relatable, often genuinely amusing, and, she had to grudgingly admit, even charming at times. True to his word, the man had met her for a cup of coffee within the same week of her father’s funeral. They talked for hours. Ren mostly listened, a rare and unexpectedly refreshing quality after her tiresome encounters with boorish men at work.
It turned out Ren’s surprising maturity came from the fact that he was quite a bit older than he appeared, significantly older than Arabel herself. He had brought up the subject delicately, asking if the age difference bothered her. Arabel had never particularly cared for societal norms for that matter—her first real friend after leaving Pale City had been a kind old woman who spent her days knitting in the park. People her own age, she had explained to him with a shrug, were often far more irritating to deal with. Ren had chuckled, telling her it was no wonder she possessed such an old soul herself.
Arabel had merely smirked at that, scoffing playfully at his obvious attempts at flirtation. Yet, his charming persistence managed to hold her still in her café chair from the late morning until the soft hues of orange painted the sky outside. He kept her interest hooked as the weeks bled into months, and their casual coffee dates evolved into more frequent and meaningful encounters, meetings she would find herself looking forward to every time.
The night he first kissed her had been the night she had fallen for his quiet charms. She had returned his kiss with the same fervour and a desperate longing for affection. In his arms, Ren made her feel…complete, like a sense of belonging she hadn’t realized she was missing. She felt loved in a way that was entirely new and exciting. And as their connection deepened with each passing day, she witnessed his affection for her blossom: his words laced with honey, his touch utterly gentle and reassuring, and his kisses increasingly tender and meaningful.
He was her first.
He was the one she trusted most.
The one she found herself tangled in the warm sheets with on lazy weekend mornings, sharing sleepy, laughing kisses as she bid him goodbye each time he returned to his own home and the demands of the work week, watching his silhouette disappear down the hallway with a charming smile lingering on his lips.
“Why not stay another day?” Arabel asked one morning, her gaze following Ren’s movements while he began to pack his bag, a familiar ritual after their stolen weekends.
“Ah, my darling, you know how much my heart yearns for that,” Ren replied, abandoning his packing and approaching her with a lazy, irresistible smile. Arabel quirked a questioning brow, leaning against the cool surface of the dresser, her arms crossed over her chest.
“Then? What’s stopping you? Work?” A hint of playful accusation colored her tone. “It feels like an eternity since I actually last saw you.”
Ren placed his hands on either side of her, leaning in for a tender kiss that lingered. “And every second away from your side feels like a year. But my boss, that irritating fellow, would likely be up on my case if I don’t go. Bigger trouble awaits if I keep delaying.” He pressed another chaste kiss to her forehead before returning to the mundane task of folding clothes. “By the way, are you feeling any better this morning? I heard you were up before dawn, throwing up rather violently.”
“Must’ve just been a nasty food poisoning,” Arabel said, though a faint queasiness still lingered from her early morning trip to the bathroom.
“I keep telling you; you have to be more mindful of what you eat.” Ren chuckled, turning fully to face her, his eyes filled with genuine concern. He cupped her face in his warm hands, his touch utterly gentle and reassuring. “Promise me you’ll take care of yourself while I’m away, won’t you, darling?”
Arabel leaned into his comforting touch, rolling her eyes playfully. “And you’ll be back soon, as you always promise?”
A mischievous smile widened across his lips, his verbal answer replaced by a passionate kiss. She deepened the embrace, pulling him closer, savouring the closeness. Ren reluctantly pulled away a moment later, a soft laugh escaping his lips.
“Darling, I really have to go now. Your charming little distractions worked their magic last time, but not this round.” Ren hefted his bag in one hand and gently took hers in the other, planting a firm kiss on hers. “Take care, Arabel,” he murmured.
Arabel bid him goodbye, her gaze following his retreating figure as he left the bedroom, heading towards the front door. Her eyes snagged on a thick, dark coat carelessly draped over the back of a chair. That clumsy idiot. Hurriedly grabbing the coat, she called out Ren’s name, urging him to wait. But her movements abruptly halted when a small, golden object slipped silently from the depths of the coat’s pocket.
She watched, transfixed, as it rolled across the wooden floor, twisting and catching the soft light until it finally came to a stop.
A ring.
Her heart plummeted, a mix of emotions—confusion, disbelief, a sudden premonition—washing over her as she knelt and picked up the simple gold band, its cool weight settling in her palm. She had barely a heartbeat to fully register its appearance before Ren’s footsteps echoed back into the room, his brow creased in questioning.
Arabel swiftly closed her hand, concealing the incriminating gold band behind her back.
“Your coat,” Arabel said quickly, her voice nearly betraying her. “You…you forgot your coat.”
Ren made a sound of absentminded appreciation, thanking her profusely as she handed him the heavy garment. She watched him shrug it on with a wide, reassuring smile, offering his final, affectionate goodbye before finally stepping out and closing the door behind him.
Lingering by the window, Arabel watched his car disappear down her quiet street. Only then did she finally unclench her fist, her gaze returning to the small ring nestled in her palm.
A plain gold band, its colour slightly faded, the metal bearing the subtle marks of consistent wear. Any other woman, perhaps blinded by affection, might have instantly thought of it as a future promise, an upcoming proposal. But the longer Arabel held the ring, the colder the metal felt against her skin, the louder a scream of dread echoed in her gut. An awful certainty settled within her: nothing was as it seemed.
She twisted the ring slowly with her thumb.
Etched into the inner surface, an engraved name caught the light.
It was another woman’s name.
This was not a ring of proposal.
This was Ren’s wedding ring.
A bile rose in Arabel’s throat, pushing her into a frantic rush to the bathroom. The violent retching that followed offered no relief, her stomach expelling its contents once again. Within her tightly clenched fist, she could feel the cold hard press of the gold band against her palm, a painful reminder of the devastating lie. Hot, angry tears welled in her eyes, blurring her vision as she heaved into the porcelain bowl.
During Ren’s weekly absence, Arabel found herself sick in the following days after she had discovered the bitter truth. The sheer betrayal from a two-faced bastard. Miriam had phoned her, as she always would at least twice a month, to ask how she were. Before Arabel had the opportunity to lie, to tell her stepmother nothing was out of the ordinary with her, Miriam could already tell from the sound of her voice. Mother instinct, Arabel liked to think. It was endearing and sweet that Miriam cared so much for her, regardless she was not even her own flesh and blood. Though, it was a little…sad that the action reminded her so greatly of her late mother.
“I’m fine, Miriam,” Arabel insisted for the third time, her voice still sounding weak even to her own ears, as Miriam carefully placed a steaming mug of tea, miraculously procured from her unstocked cabinets, on the bedside table.
“You are not fine, Arabel. You look ashen, as pale as your brothers were when they caught a nasty fever that one summer. Have you been eating properly? Would you like me to prepare something for you?”
“No, that’s alright. Really.” Arabel’s voice held a weary resignation, her gaze fixed on her nervously clasped hands. “Miriam? Can I ask you…something?”
Miriam sat down gently beside her on the edge of the bed, her brows furrowed. “What is it, dear? You know you can tell me anything.”
“Have you ever found yourself in a situation,” Arabel began slowly, carefully choosing her words, “where you never imagined you’d be? Where you trusted someone with almost the entire fiber of your being, only to have doubts about whether that person even deserves your trust in the first place? Whether they were truly who they presented themselves to be, or if…if all the suspicions, all the moments of uncertainty you had, were just a big, stupid misunderstanding, created from your own fear?”
“Arabel,” Miriam’s hand covered hers, her touch gentle but firm. “If there is one thing I’ve learned from the past, it is that your gut rarely lies. More often than not, that instinctive feeling tells you the truth. Whatever it is that you are facing now, whatever trouble your instinct is trying to warn you about…I would urge you to listen to it.” Miriam gave her hand a small, reassuring squeeze. “So, is he…someone special to you?”
A small involuntary laugh escaped Arabel, if not slightly bitter. Mother instinct. Of course, Miriam could sense there was a ‘he.’ The quiet understanding that radiated from her stepmother was a warm comfort to her wounded spirit, yet nothing could truly rid her of the sharp ache of betrayal. Nothing could erase the cold dread that coiled in her stomach every time the image of the gold band flashed in her mind.
“I don’t know anymore,” Arabel admitted at last, a shuddering breath escaping her lips, followed by the heavy reluctance to share another—an even more devastating truth. “I’ve…I’ve missed my period.”
The hand clasped around hers tightened.
“Oh,” Miriam breathed. “And…it is…?”
Arabel nodded grimly, the unspoken answer hanging heavy in the air. It’s Ren’s.
The man who was already bound to another.
The next time she saw him, another week had crawled by, each day a heavy weight of her secret knowledge. He arrived at her place with his usual easy confidence and charming smile plastered across his face as he settled into her home as if it were his own. Had it been months ago, had it not been for her tragic discovery, she would’ve greeted the familiarity warmly. Something to smile about as she pondered on the man whom she thought she could love forevermore, the man who she had admittedly thought she might have seen a future with. All of it now was a crumpled dream. Shredded beyond repair.
For every time he met her eyes, touched her hand, leaned in for a stolen kiss, Arabel could only think of the woman whose heart would shatter if she’d seen her man now.
“What’s wrong, hm?” Ren’s voice was soft as he noticed her withdrawal, the slight tilt of her head away from his approaching lips. He grinned disarmingly, a playful tut escaping him as he pulled her close, his arms wrapping around her in a familiar embrace, coaxing her with gentle pressure. “Are you angry with me, my darling?”
Arabel remained silent, her body stiff and unresponsive in his hold as she felt the feather-light press of his lips against her hair, down her temple, along her cheek.
“Perhaps it’s something I did?” Ren continued, his voice still light. “Perhaps I was unforgivably late for our date?” he uttered with long kisses to her cheek, oblivious to the storm brewing within her. “I promise I can more than make it up to you, my love.”
His words disgusted her.
He disgusted her.
Arabel abruptly pushed him back when his lips neared the sensitive curve of her neck, a surge of raw anger finally breaking through her composure. Ren, momentarily stunned, stilled in his place, his wide eyes locked on hers and his hands raised slightly.
“You are a garbage piece of shit.”
His charming smile vanished as if it had never existed, replaced by a frown.
“Darling—”
“Don’t you dare ‘darling’ me, Ren.” Hot, angry tears stung her eyes, blurring her vision. “I know exactly who you are. We both do. So, stop your pretending.”
“Arabel,” Ren said calmly, a nervous chuckle escaping him despite her accusation, “I’m afraid I’m entirely lost here. I have absolutely no idea what you’re even talking about.”
Arabel shook her head, a disbelieving laugh bubbling up from her chest. With trembling fingers, she took the gold band from the pocket of her dress and placed it deliberately on the cool countertop between them
“This jog your memory, perhaps?” She slid the ring towards him with a sharp movement. Ren watched it until it stilled, his eyes narrowed, his frown deepening.
“Where did you find that?” he asked, his voice devoid of its earlier warmth, a flicker of something unreadable in his gaze, though not yet panic. Then his eyes locked onto hers, the affection he had so readily feigned now completely gone, replaced by a cold assessing stare.
“Where do you think? Inside your own coat.”
His calmness, the sudden shift in his demeanor, sent a deeper wave of unease washing over her. A voice within her screamed for her to flee, to put distance between them. Yet, Arabel remained rooted to the spot, her glare even more persistent.
Ren laughed after what felt like a long time, the sound grating and unfamiliar, like a cruel mockery of the melodic voice she had once found so calming.
Now it was bitter. Condescending. Laced with a twisted amusement.
“I honestly thought you were just another stupid bitch.” The casual cruelty of his words cracked something fragile within her, yet Arabel fiercely fought back the tears that threatened to spill. He continued, his gaze sharp and calculating. “It turns out you’re smarter than I initially credited you with. I mean, I knew you weren’t entirely dim-witted. Just…not this perceptive.”
“You’re one to talk about intelligence, considering your own stupidity in leaving the ring in your coat pocket.”
“Touché, darling.”
Ren reached for the ring, his fingers surprisingly gentle as he held it up to the kitchen light, examining it as though it were an intriguing artifact.
“At what point did I seem off to you?” he asked then, his tone clinical, as though this were some intellectual game. “Was it the conveniently timed ‘business trips’? Perhaps the ‘love bites’ you never left behind, thinking those were my clumsy bruises?” His lips parted in a soft, condescending gasp. “Or did you believe everything you were told?”
The first tear escaped, hot and stinging as it traced a path down her cheek, her lips trembling uncontrollably.
Ren’s face finally softened, a mask of concern slipping into place. Yet this time, the warmth felt utterly false, a manipulation.
“Oh, darling. Shh, don’t cry now.” He moved swiftly, cornering her against the cold countertop, his hands cupping her face with a false tenderness that sent a shiver of disgust down her spine. Arabel’s breath hitched in her throat, the lump making it painful to swallow. Her guts screamed again for her to break free, to run. But his touch, even in its fake gentleness, seemed to paralyze her. “I’ll be honest with you, Arabel. You were…quite special. Still are, in your own peculiar way. I’ve never met anyone quite as…different as you. So uniquely…fascinating. If I had another ring at this moment, I might even be tempted to get down on one knee and make you mine. That’s how much I adore you.” He leaned in close, his lips hovering just above hers.
“What about her?” Arabel choked out, the question a desperate plea that made Ren freeze, his head tilting back to meet her tear-filled eyes. “What about the woman whose name is engraved inside your precious little ring?”
“My wife,” Ren said casually, his thumb stroking a stray strand of hair behind her ear with tenderness, “is someone whom I love…very dearly. Her, my three daughters, and our soon-to-arrive son. You, my sweet Arabel, are simply another on the list. What is so wrong with that?”
“Everything,” Arabel spat, a wave of nausea and horror washing over her at the casual revelation of his fatherhood. “You…you are a complete bastard! If your wife and children ever find out the kind of man you are—”
The hand that had caressed her cheek now slid down, tightening around her throat with a sudden brutal force. A strangled cry escaped her lips as her head slammed against the countertop, Ren’s grip a terrifying threat.
“Arabel,” Ren hissed, his voice dropping to a low, venomous growl. “I have been so patient with you, haven’t I? I treated you with respect. I showered you with my ‘love’ and ‘affection’. I even genuinely cared for you, despite knowing what an annoying bitch you are.” His weight shifted, pressing down on her, pinning her against the cold surface. “Do you honestly believe any other man would willingly take you on, once they’ve learned and discovered the loose screw rattling around in your head? You are nothing, Arabel. Just another desperate little whore clinging to any semblance of affection you can get your grubby hands on.” His grip around her neck loosened slightly as his other hand slid down to her hips and under her dress, his touch now possessive and threatening.
Arabel.
The voice, the whisper of the shadow, the hallucination she had desperately tried to suppress, appeared in the periphery of her vision.
She had forgotten her medication.
“Get…off…me.”
The shadowy figure stood directly behind Ren, its presence an icy dread.
Arabel’s eyes widened in sheer terror.
“REN, I SAID GET OFF ME!”
The fluorescent light above them flickered violently, then died, plunging the kitchen into sudden darkness.
Ren’s scream cut through the silence, a sound of pain and terror.
She felt something warm and wet splatter against her face.
It was only when the light flickered back to life that she saw the crimson stain blooming in front of her.
Ren lay on the floor, a jagged gaping wound slashed across his cheek in a long, brutal line, forever marring his once-charming face. It was then that she registered the wetness on her own skin—his splattered blood.
“Get out of my house,” Arabel said, her voice surprisingly steady despite the shock that still held her. So too was Ren, clutching his bleeding cheek, blood seeping through his trembling fingers. “I don’t ever want to see your face again. I don’t want you anywhere near me or my home. If I ever catch even a glimpse of you…I will…I will find your wife and tell her everything. I’ll paint her a clear picture of the bastard piece of shit that you truly are! Do you hear me, Ren?”
Ren’s face contorted in a mask of furious rage. He scrambled to his feet, his legs shaking violently. Despite his fury, her threat seemed to strike a deeper chord, instilling a fear that momentarily eclipsed the pain of his injury and the terror of the sudden darkness.
When the slam of her front door echoed through her house, Arabel finally released the breath she had been holding, her knees buckling as the dam of her held-back tears finally broke. Her hands trembled uncontrollably. Her breath came in ragged gasps. She sobbed, the tears flowing freely now.
Arabel had no sense of how long she stayed huddled on her cold kitchen floor, consumed by fear and devastation. Yet, the realization that kept her paralyzed this time wasn’t only the memory of Ren’s attempted assault.
It was the terrifying image of the shadow figure looming silently over her, watching her weep until she could cry no more.
Notes:
Second part of Arabel's POV chapter is all fluffy, dont worry 😎
Thanks for reading!
Chapter 89: The Illness: Part 2
Chapter Text
Months went by quicker than Arabel’s capability to bury the deep-seated wounds obtained from Ren.
For the first few weeks, her sleep was compromised—plagued by his ghosting presence in her house, the tender moments they had shared shamelessly, his utter betrayal and sweet lies, her violent retching into her toilet bowl every morning. No one else knew aside from Miriam. Not even Ren, the father of the accident she had conceived. After what she had learned of that wretched man, a cheating husband and a falsely doting father to three, no— four —children, Arabel dreamed not to find out what would happen should he discover there was another child he was about to father, aside from the one in his wife’s own womb. The thought to come clean and reveal the truth crossed her mind often. She almost did. Yet Arabel couldn’t bear to shatter the poor woman’s heart as much as hers was, to let her entire family fall into collapse because of her involvement with Ren. She couldn’t bear the thought of those poor children losing their happiness, albeit based on deception, just because their father was a no-good son of a bitch.
Perhaps Ren truly did love them in the least, despite his careless actions. Perhaps after the scar left on his face, he'd have woken up from his infidelity streak and earned himself an epiphany. Perhaps not telling his wife anything would give their family a chance from falling apart as hers did.
She repeated the thought often, clinging to that hope.
Fear became her constant companion, keeping her locked within the familiar confines of her home. With the life inside of her growing, her belly slowly rounding with time, Arabel stopped taking her daily medication, unsure if it could harm its health—if it could kill it had she continued to down pill after pill to silence the image of the stalking shadow. Some nights, admittedly, she had been tempted to let it die. To take matters into her own hand and relieve herself from the fate that would soon come her way. To do anything else but see her shadow staring down at her, whispering hush words that drove her mind to insanity.
Yet other nights, if not most, Arabel found herself…instinctively cradling her belly, feeling slightly less lonely since her supposed love of her life turned out to be the devil of her dreams. Tears would often well up in her eyes, prior thoughts of termination a heavy burden of guilt upon her back.
“I won’t leave you,” she whispered fiercely, holding the little bump in her stomach, feeling a subtle kick from within. She smiled. “I promise, I won’t leave you.”
Her promise stuck true, even months later. Arabel made it as her vow, and each day, her protectiveness for the unborn child increased. As it did with her fear for its arrival.
She hadn’t been prepared. The only warning she had received was the glimpse of the stalking shadow, its hand reaching out to her stomach before there was a stab of pain, momentarily paralyzing her.
It returned with a brutal intensity.
A strangled cry tore from her throat as she clung to the cool tiles of the bathroom wall, her hands cradling her swollen belly. A warm yet unmistakable rush of water cascaded down her leg. The agony persisted, forcing her to drag herself towards the phone, pulling it with her into the safety of the bathtub. With clumsy, laboured movements, she climbed into the tub and fumbled to dial a number, her fingers shaking uncontrollably.
Miriam answered on the second ring.
A sob escaped Arabel’s lips as she cried out for help, her grip tightening on the slippery edge of the tub. Miriam’s voice, though laced with a frantic edge, was a lifeline, assuring Arabel that somehow everything would be alright. Arabel clung to her words, following her hurried instructions as she fought through the waves of pain that tore through her body.
The water was a horrifying crimson tide. Her strangled cries of agony echoed in the sheer silence of the small bathroom. A sheen of sweat plastered her hair to her forehead as her body pulsed and contracted. Shadows of a looming presence stood watching in the corner.
The entire ordeal was a hazy blur.
All Arabel truly remembered was a piercing, insistent cry that sliced through the lingering silence, and the horrifying sight of blood coating her trembling hands as she held a small weight in her arms. A fragile life, violently brought into the world.
A soft knock at her bedroom door jolted her awake from the exhausted stupor that had claimed her on the bed. Arabel sighed, her limbs exhausted, yet she forced herself to sit up, her body protesting with every movement. Miriam entered the dimly lit room, cradling a small bundle in her arms: the baby, all cleaned and swaddled in soft cloth, sleeping peacefully against Miriam’s chest.
“She’s asleep now. Would you like to hold her?” Miriam’s gentle question caused a slight hesitation within Arabel, a momentary uncertainty she couldn’t quite understand. Yet, before her mind could fully grasp the reason for her reluctance, her heavy arms had already instinctively reached out towards Miriam, who carefully passed the precious weight into her embrace.
Arabel’s blurry, sleep-deprived eyes fell upon her daughter’s peaceful face. An involuntary smile stretched across her lips. A strangely intense bond tightened in her chest, a feeling of connection with this tiny being she had only known for an hour, as though their very souls had been intertwined from the beginning.
She looked…exactly like her.
“You’re so tiny,” Arabel murmured, tears welling in her eyes and finally spilling over. Miriam settled onto the bed beside her, wrapping a comforting arm around her shoulders, an embrace Arabel found herself desperately needing after everything she had just endured.
“I’m so incredibly proud of you, dear. A strong girl that you are,” Miriam said softly, her words eliciting a tearful laugh from Arabel, a release of pent-up emotion. She then caressed the little baby’s cheeks with a gentle finger, humming. “Such an adorable beauty, isn’t she? Have you given any thought to a name?”
Arabel continued to gaze into her daughter’s delicate face, a smile gracing her lips as the resemblance to her late mother became even more apparent.
“Leigh.”
“Leigh!”
The girl in the bright yellow jacket groaned dramatically, her small shoulders slumping as she was hauled to her feet, her arm seized in her mother’s protective grip.
“You can’t leave my side without a word! I searched the entire block just looking for you. Do you have any idea how worried I was?” Arabel’s voice, though laced with genuine worry, held a sharper edge of irritation, shaking the girl’s arm gently but firmly. Nevertheless, Six’s downcast gaze suggested a guilt that was either fleeting or expertly hidden.
“I was just petting a cat, Ma.” Her voice was small and tinged with disappointment, her attention still lingering on the spot where the furry creature had disappeared at the sound of her mother’s booming voice.
Arabel sighed, a soft tutting sound escaping her lips as she gently pulled Six’s ear in a mild reprimand. “Six, you know perfectly well that is still no excuse for running off without telling me. What if something awful happened to you? What if some middle-aged stranger decided to snatch you away into his car? What if you tripped and fell into a hole where no one could ever reach you? Do you know how devastated I’d be?” Six’s eyes finally lifted, filled with genuine guilt now, her lower lip trembling into a pout.
“Sorry,” Six mumbled barely audibly. Arabel sighed again, this time a breath of relief washing over her as she firmly took her daughter’s small hand in hers and began walking along the familiar pavement of their town’s street.
“We’re stopping by Granny’s house before we head home. You hungry?”
Six gave a quiet hum of agreement, though her eyes already brightened at the mention of Miriam’s house, a place where food was always generous and luxurious for the girl. Arabel smirked knowingly, already familiar with her daughter’s bottomless pit of a stomach. It seemed nothing could ever truly satiate the girl, a trait Arabel recognized all too well within herself.
“Why are we going to her house so often these last few days, Ma? Even Uncle Finn and Eddie are there. Usually they aren’t,” Six said, her bright eyes wide with curiosity.
“Well, uh, I just have some important…things to discuss with them,” Arabel replied.
“Like what?”
“Adult stuff. The kind that would make your little baby head spin.”
Six groaned loudly, a dramatic sound that made Arabel’s grin widen even further. “I hate it when you do that! Just because I’m nine years old doesn’t mean you have to treat me like I’m still a toddler.”
“You practically are still a toddler. Especially with these chubby cheeks you’ve got,” Arabel retorted playfully, reaching out to gently pinch one of the aforementioned cheeks.
“Ma!” Six protested, scowling weakly. Arabel simply laughed, unashamedly enjoying her daughter’s mock annoyance.
They arrived at Miriam’s house shortly after, the sight of the picket fence coming into view as they climbed up the porch. She rang her doorbell, and not a moment later, Miriam stood in the doorway, greeting them with her soft smile and an even brighter one when her eyes fell on Six.
“Come in, come in, you two!” Miriam gestured warmly for their entrance, the door clicking softly shut behind them. “I had thought you wouldn’t make it today,” Miriam said to Arabel.
“Yes, well, we had a…minor detour. Didn’t we, little explorer?” Arabel gently nudged her daughter’s head with her elbow, a knowing smile playing on her lips. Six responded with her signature ‘don’t look at me, I’m innocent’ expression. “Besides, how could we miss a visit? Someone here is hungry for Granny’s cooking.”
At that, Miriam’s face lit up, her hands already reaching out to playfully pinch Six’s cheeks, smothering her in the same motherly affection Arabel had witnessed even in her own youth. Miriam then ushered Six towards the kitchen, promising a delicious dinner, while telling Arabel to make herself at home, adding that everyone else was gathered in the den.
Arabel offered a polite smile, though it faded the moment Miriam disappeared from view. Her mind braced itself for the familiar, often uncomfortable, company that awaited her in the den. Stepping into the room, she immediately spotted her half-brothers.
One stood by the open window, a plume of smoke curling into the evening air as he took a long drag from his cigarette, his gaze fixed on some distant point. Whereas his twin sat sprawled lazily at the dining table, his sharp, arrogant gaze meeting hers, a familiar look of disdain she had once seen in Jack’s eyes. After all, the twins bore a far stronger resemblance to their father than to Miriam’s gentle features.
“Arabel,” Eddie drawled from the table, his lips twisting into a barely concealed sneer. He leaned back precariously in his chair, his movements languid and seemingly as if to irritate. “How…nice to see you gracing us with your presence again. Though, admittedly, I’d rather you didn’t.”
Arabel plastered on a saccharine smile. “Likewise, Ed. How nice of you to finally pay your own mother a visit for once. How’s that high-paying job treating you? Got any seasick yet?”
Eddie’s smirk vanished instantly, his spine stiffening as though her words had struck a nerve. Yet, before he could give his retort, his twin brother spoke, his voice smooth and patient unlike his brother.
“All is well, dear sister. We haven’t experienced any cases of seasickness but thank you for your concern.” Finn tapped the ash from his cigarette on the windowsill, his gaze still distant. “Where is Mom?”
Her lingering irritation subsided slightly at Finn’s civil tone. “With my daughter. Just making a small snack for her. She’ll be back in a moment.”
“You brought Leigh with you again?” Eddie asked, one sceptical eyebrow raised as he let out a dismissive scoff. “No offense, but that girl gives me the creeps.”
“Eddie, that’s rude,” Finn chided, though his tone lacked any real conviction. “It isn’t her fault that you are so easily intimidated by children.”
“Oh, shut up ,” Eddie snapped. “You’ve never had to be alone in a room with her yet, have you? What do you know? That kid can be brutal when she wants to be.”
“If ‘brutal’ means ‘honest’,” Finn mused, a faint smile playing on his lips.
“Have you both finally made a decision regarding yesterday’s discussion?” Arabel interjected, cutting through the twins’ predictable bickering. She leaned against the back of the sofa, her arms crossed over her chest.
In unison, the brothers exchanged a knowing look, a subtle shift in their expressions as though silently communicating.
“As a matter of fact, we have,” Finn puffed out a breath of smoke. “We’re staying put.”
“We don’t see any reason to get so easily swayed by rumours,” Eddie continued. “Sure, the War sounds like a big, scary thing, but to the point where it makes you want to move out of the land and relocate? Doesn’t sound very rational to us, especially when nothing is even confirmed yet. As far as we know, the South barely has made any direct contact. Just meaningless threats. It’s nothing we haven’t seen or heard before from those southern scoundrels. This whole drama shebang will die out just like the previous times before.”
“You sound so sure,” Arabel said, observing him sceptically.
“Because I am,” Eddie countered. “Though, if you want to move, by all means, move. All we’re saying is that the rest of us are staying right here. In the North. As a family, if you’d so care to join us.”
A dry, humourless laugh escaped Arabel before she could suppress it. “Your absolute confidence continues to amaze me, Eddie. You do realize Miriam isn’t planning on staying either, don’t you?”
Eddie’s eyes widened in genuine shock, his jaw slackening. Finn abruptly stubbed out his cigarette in the windowsill with a sharp motion, then shutting the widow with a slam.
“Mom isn’t staying?” Finn’s voice was low, filled with disbelief and perhaps even anger underlying his words. “You have got to be kidding me.” A bitter chuckle escaped him, while slight panic began to colour his brother’s features.
“What do you mean, Mom isn’t staying?” Eddie demanded, his fist slamming on the wooden table with a thud. “Are you seriously saying she’s coming with you to that pathetic little island you’re so fixated on?”
“Yes,” Arabel replied firmly, meeting their incredulous gazes. “It isn’t safe here. You both know it—”
Eddie’s temper flared. “That’s utter bullshit, Arabel! She’s our mother! Not yours for you to drag around wherever your paranoid delusions take you! Stop spewing your ridiculous beliefs about the war just to manipulate her!”
Anger rose in her chest at the man’s accusation. How dare he.
“Not my mother, no. She isn’t. But I sure as hell hold more respect for her well-being than you so-called loving sons combined. At the very least, I make an effort to treat her with the care and consideration a mother deserves. I didn’t abandon her when my job became demanding. I even still have the basic decency to pick up a phone and call.”
“You have some nerve—!” Eddie began, his face contorted in fury.
“Do you honestly think you’re somehow superior to us?” Finn interrupted, his tone laced with venomous resentment. “Just because you happen to be physically present more often, it does not make her any less of our mother. And don’t forget, just because we share the same father , Arabel, it doesn’t make you any closer to either of us.”
“Children.” All three pairs of eyes snapped towards the figure standing silently in the doorway. At the sight of Miriam’s disappointed expression, the twins mirrored each other’s guilt and shame, their bravado gone, whereas Arabel pushed down the sharp sting of Finn and Eddie’s harsh words.
Miriam heaved a heavy sigh, stepping fully into the room and stopping beside Arabel. She placed a warm, gentle hand on her shoulder, a silent gesture of support. “It’s true, boys. I have decided to move with Arabel. After…a great deal of contemplation, I simply thought that returning to Pale City wouldn’t be such a terrible idea, war or no war. I hold many memories there. When you boys were just young kids. When Cecilia…” Her voice trailed off, a slight tremor in her breath. Arabel reached for her hand and squeezed it gently. “It is entirely my own decision. Besides,” Miriam continued, her gaze softening, “it would become rather lonely for me here. You boys are so often away at sea. Arabel and little Leigh are the only companies I have.”
“But M-Mom…” Eddie stammered, pushing himself up from his chair, his brows furrowed with genuine distress. Finn avoided their mother’s gaze, his eyes fixed on the floorboards, his hands shoved deep into his pockets. “You can’t seriously be considering this—”
“She isn’t considering, Ed,” Finn interrupted his brother, resignation in his voice. He finally lifted his gaze to Miriam. “Is this really…what you want, Mom? To move back to Pale City?”
Miriam offered a nod. Finn eventually let out an exasperated sigh, dragging a weary hand over his face. He then turned his gaze to Arabel, a lingering frown still etched across his features.
“You best take damn good care of her then,” Finn said to Arabel. His eyes flicked towards his brother then, who mirrored his reluctance and defeat. Yet the same couldn’t be said for Arabel.
For as soon as Finn had uttered those words, all she felt was sheer relief, one that made the move to Pale City already a lighter trip.
Everything was the same as it was different once they boarded off the ship on the Pale City deck. The cool air greeted them as they walked past the sea of citizens, her and Miriam sharing the same look of nostalgia whereas Six glanced around with profound curiosity. The girl’s hand immediately tightened around her mother’s, almost pressing herself against her had it not been for the foreign area and people she found herself surrounded with. In the North, their town, everyone seemed to put manners above everything else, civility a common practice. In Pale City, however, the citizens were more direct. One accidental bump in the shoulder and the other one would immediately snap. An innocent stare at someone could be misinterpreted as an invitation for a fight. Crossing the road according to the traffic lights almost did not matter when the drivers of Pale City lacked the proper skills to ride a vehicle, only stopping at the last minute, flipping the finger at one another and exchanging colourful insults.
Arabel immediately felt at home already.
Regardless of the everyday crudeness experienced when she left her new house, she had missed this damned city dearly. She had missed walking down the familiar streets that had led her to her old neighbourhood, the sight of the shady alley she would often see someone getting mugged or trashed in, the smell of something burning in a local bakery store, then followed by a snapping voice chiding his staff. Yet most of all, she had missed visiting her mother’s final resting place. Moving back to Pale City had granted her the bittersweet opportunity to reconnect with her late mother’s memory in a way, and for Miriam, too, it offered a chance to visit the grave of her own lost daughter.
“She would’ve liked you, you know,” Miriam had once said to her. Warmth in her heart, Arabel imagined how much Marsh would’ve liked Miriam too.
Weeks rolled into a month, and they had begun to settle into their new home. Arabel had landed herself a job, albeit unfortunately, through a connection with an old associate with her late father. Six had been enrolled in the same school she’d been back in her childhood days. On the nights Arabel’s work kept her late, Miriam, living with them in the same house, would lovingly care for Six. The arrangement worked with ease. Six clearly adored Miriam’s company—or perhaps it was simply the older woman’s cooking—and a wave of sheer relief washed over Arabel each time she saw them getting along. She felt immeasurable gratitude for Miriam’s support; without her decision to follow them to Pale City, their current living situation would surely have been far more challenging.
“Ma.” Six pulled at the hem of her skirt, pulling Arabel’s attention away from the rows of school uniforms hanging on the rack. “Can I go to the other aisle for a little bit?”
They had only been in the stuffy, fluorescent-lit store for barely half an hour. Arabel narrowed her eyes. “Which aisle, exactly?”
“Just…the next one over,” Six mumbled, her gaze darting evasively to somewhere beyond Arabel’s shoulder. “Please? Can I?” Her eyes widened into a pleading look, one that had consistently worn-down Arabel’s resolve over the years. Arabel sighed, a familiar defeat settling in her chest.
“Absolutely no talking to any strangers, understand? I’ll be right over here if you need anything.”
Instantly, a wide smile bloomed across the little girl’s face. She spared barely a mumbled “thank you” before darting off, the bright yellow disappearing into the next aisle and quickly out of Arabel’s sight.
Arabel shook her head, a fond exasperation tugging at the corner of her lips at her daughter’s familiar antics. She returned to the monotonous task of sifting through the identical school uniforms. That is until a few minutes later, something dreadful twisted in her stomach, a familiar premonition that sent a chill down her spine.
Abandoning her search, Arabel stepped out of the aisle and hurried to the next, her eyes scanning for the yellow jacket. Only three adults and their equally restless children lingered there.
A growing sense of dread coiled within her as Arabel went deeper into the store, yet there was still no sign of her daughter. A cold, insistent voice whispered in her mind, a strong gut feeling that screamed: She’s not here. The feeling intensified as she abandoned the store and rushed out onto the busy street, her head swivelling frantically, searching the passing faces. That was when, in the periphery of her vision, she caught a glimpse of bright yellow in an unexpected location.
A frustrated breath escaped Arabel as she saw Six doing the one thing she had explicitly told her not to do: talking to a complete stranger.
Watching from across the bustling street, through the brightly lit window of the candy store, Arabel saw Six’s small face scrunched in a scowl, her tiny form seemingly in a heated, one-sided argument with a tall man whose back was turned to Arabel’s view.
Damn it, this girl, Arabel thought, a mix of irritation and relief warring within her as she crossed the street and stepped into the candy store. Yet, the irritation ultimately won out as she approached them with determined strides, her heels clacking sharply against the linoleum floor.
“Six, there you are!” The tall man in front of her daughter recoiled slightly, turning towards the sound of Arabel’s voice just as she firmly hauled Six to her feet. “What have I told you about running off without telling me? You can’t just disappear like that!”
“I didn’t disappear, Ma! I told you I was going to the next aisle,” Six had the audacity to say, as if it justified putting her through unnecessary panic.
“Right. You just forgot to mention it was in a completely different store, didn’t you?” Arabel gently but firmly pulled Six’s ear in a familiar reprimand. The little girl winced, a known reaction to her frequent misbehavior. How embarrassing, Arabel then realized, suddenly aware of their small audience: the tall man and a young boy who stood beside him, both having witnessed the entire thing.
“I’m so incredibly sorry for my daughter, Mr…” Her smile dimmed immediately.
The man’s face faltered just the same, surprise and disbelief etching across his features.
“Arabel.” His voice was a familiar rumble that sent a strange shiver through her.
“Michael,” she responded, his name feeling like a forgotten weight finally being lifted from her tongue. It was only when his lips gently twisted into a warm, familiar smile, a smile that held a special kindness, that Arabel felt a strange tug from deep within her. Not dread, no. Something…entirely different.
The feeling remained, even afterwards as they settled down on the bench by the park, their children playing with each other on the playground. Her heart beat a slightly faster rhythm against her ribs, suddenly so aware of the man sitting beside her, both growing more comfortable as they shared quiet laughter and stories in the crisp winter air.
He was a widowed man, she learned. His wife, Seraphina, lost to a brutal complication of childbirth—a tragedy that immediately filled Arabel with a sense of sympathy and understanding for his loss. In turn, she vaguely mentioned her own misfortune with Ren, carefully excluding the more sordid details, hoping to perhaps lessen the heavy crestfallen look that shadowed his kind eyes. She noticed the way his fingers would sometimes find his wedding band, twisting it absently, as though a habit he’d developed since Seraphina’s passing. Michael, though twenty years had etched faint lines around his eyes, still possessed the same averting gaze, one she remembered from their youth. As if a shield he would raise when a conversation started to become a tad too heavy. He was still, unfortunately, a poor liar.
Though, she supposed time had granted him a slightly better poker face.
“Tough in-laws?” Arabel asked.
Michael snickered wryly. “Nothing bad,” he said eventually, his gaze momentarily drifting towards his son playing in the distance.
Shitty in-laws, it is.
She and Michael continued their conversation, time feeling as light and fleeting as the delicate snowflakes that had begun to settle on the park grounds. Things turned out to be lighter as they began to reminisce on the night her and Michael had committed a certain crime—one that he insisted, even after all these years, was a felony. Though, her joyful heart nearly leapt out of her chest when Michael admitted having legally owned her mother’s old shop. She had been speechless at the revelation, and even more when the man even proposed she took it back under her name, with absolutely no expectation of any financial compensation in return.
Utterly shocked and struggling to fully comprehend his sheer generosity, she repeatedly asked him if he was certain of his offer.
But Michael, she discovered, turned out to have grown up into a very cheeky guy.
“Tell you what. I’ll take you to the shop myself this coming weekend, let you be thoroughly ambushed by nostalgia, and then we’ll see if you want to ask me that question again. How’s that?” A teasing tilt laced his voice.
That same day, after having reached home, Arabel remembered drifting off to sleep with their warm conversation replaying in her mind like a comforting melody. True to his word, Michael called a day before the weekend, his voice carrying the same warmth. She answered with an excited smile, agreeing to meet at her mother’s old shop—or rather, Michael’s emotional purchase.
Stepping inside the shop felt like stepping into a half-remembered dream.
The shop, though bare and brighter with its painted walls, still held the distinct essence of the place she and Marsh had often lingered in late into the evening. The back room, however, was a chaotic mess. As if the previous owner lacked any care in cleaning out their remaining stock before relinquishing ownership. Dust motes danced in the faint sunlight filtering through the grimy window. She frowned at the sight of it.
“Sorry for the mess. I really haven’t touched a thing since my last visit,” Michael confessed then, leaning casually against the dusty door frame, his gaze soft as he watched her slowly take in the surroundings. “Honestly, I didn’t even think anyone else would ever step foot in here again.”
“So, let me get this straight. Your grand plan was to have the place locked up tight and abandoned forever. Is that right?” Arabel swiped a finger over a shelf. A layer of dust coated her skin.
“Well, yeah.” She pointed a look at him. Michael cleared his throat, crossing his arms as he chuckled nervously. “I-I mean…I don’t know. Maybe a part of me still hoped you’d come around one day and…would want it back.”
“Damn right, I’d want it back. I just…never in a million years thought the person I’d be buying it from to be you. Guess I owe you a ton.”
“If you’re referring to monetary compensation, then forget it. I told you I’m not accepting a single cent.” A smirk tugged at the corner of his lips as she huffed an exasperated sigh.
“In the least accept something, Michael,” she said, turning to him and shoving her hands into her coat pockets. “Otherwise, it feels like I’m robbing you blind.”
Michael simply shrugged, his eyes twinkling. “Eh, what’s one more small crime, hm? You’ve already got breaking and entering on your record.”
“Oh, you’ve definitely turned cheeky as hell.”
This time, a genuine laugh rumbled from his chest, the sound sending a familiar warmth through her.
“Jokes aside, though, Ara,” his voice softened, the teasing lilt replaced by a quiet sincerity, his smile gentle. “I’m not taking any money from you. That’s final. So, please, don’t even try to insist.” He stepped fully into the cluttered room, his gaze sweeping over the disorganized chaos. “Shall we perhaps…start cleaning this place up?”
Looking back over the few weeks, Arabel found herself to be more and more profoundly grateful for the day Six had impulsively snuck away into that candy store. Not only had Six forged a new—albeit one-sided according to her—friendship with a boy her own age, but Arabel herself had been granted the chance to rekindle her own childhood connection with the boy’s father. Twenty years was quite the chasm of time, yet somehow whenever she and Michael spoke, it felt as though the essence of their friendship had remained the same. As if, somewhere deep within them, their younger, more carefree selves came to life whenever the other was nearby.
Indeed, there were changes she observed: the shared maturity, their mutual parental concerns and protectiveness when it came down to their children’s well-being and safety, Michael’s ridiculous growth spurt towering over her and his deep voice that was a far cry from the boyish tones she remembered. How could he still be the same boy she’d last seen, last hugged goodbye, at Pale City’s bustling pier? How could he still look the same and so different all at once?
How could he still bring her the damned fluttery madness of a feeling in the bottom of her stomach, every time he was nearby?
As Arabel walked up the short path leading to Michael’s porch, her fingers fumbled in her purse, searching for the small weight of her medication bottle. A shadow, a mere dark flicker of movement, darted in her periphery. She quickly popped two pills into her mouth, swallowing them dry just as the shadowy figure lunged towards her, its indistinct hands reaching out with a silent yet almost menacing intent. She squeezed her eyes shut, bracing herself. When she slowly opened them again, the hazy, calming effect of the medication had already begun to take hold. Nothing followed her anymore.
The air was still, and the late afternoon sun casted long, peaceful shadows.
With a shaky breath, she stuffed the pill bottle back into the depths of her purse and rang the doorbell, a faint chime echoing within the quiet house.
Micheal appeared at the door not a moment later, a smile already on his face upon greeting her.
“Hi. I didn’t expect to see you today. What brings you by?” His voice, however, held a certain tightness. And he leaned against the doorframe in a way that felt less welcoming and more…defensive.
Arabel felt her own excited smile falter slightly at his anxious movements and hesitant stance.
“We…had a chat on the phone the other day? I remembered finding some old hats tucked away in the back of the shop last week, and you mentioned Eli liked collecting them. So, we agreed I’d drop them off for him. Did I…come at a bad time?”
Michael paused, his gaze momentarily drifting away before snapping back to meet hers. A forced, embarrassed laugh escaped him. “No, of course not. My apologies. Please, come in.”
Why did he seem so off?
Why did he sound so…disturbed?
“Michael, are you sure you’re alright?” Arabel asked finally, standing in his home.
“Absolutely fine.” He avoided her gaze as he spoke, his tone too casual, too quick. “Why do you ask?”
“You just seem a little…pale.”
He waved a dismissive hand, his smile now undeniably forced, lacking any genuine warmth. “Ah. Must be the cold from the outside.” She didn’t buy it.
Something was definitely wrong.
And her assumptions stand corrected once another presence announced himself into the room, a familiar man donned with a mask that shielded half his face yet exposed a pair of eyes that was similar to Michael’s.
Soulless Girl, Willy had called her. The nickname immediately reminded her of the reason she avoided the man whenever possible. That and the fact he was, in reality, a blob of meat who inhabited Michael’s father’s body as his own, calling Michael his brother and mimicking human behavior with disturbing accuracy. To Michael, Willy indeed was like a brother, bound through their history together. To Arabel, she saw Willy as nothing more than a parasite.
Out of respect for Michael’s complicated past, she never openly said it. But even twenty years ago, even now, Willy’s eyes held a hidden intention seemingly only she noticed. A motive her gut instinct screamed for her to stay far away from.
Today, that instinct was blaring.
Willy leaned uncomfortably close into her face, his gaze so intense that it seemed his eyes were searching past her own.
“It truly is…lovely to see you again,” Willy uttered, smiling behind his mask. “You might just have come at the right time.”
Then just as abruptly, he was gone, the front door clicking behind him.
Michael profusely apologized for Willy’s unsettling behavior afterwards, insisting he would have a serious conversation with his ‘brother.’ While Arabel hadn’t been particularly offended by the other man’s chosen moniker—she had been called far worse—she appreciated Michael’s consideration of her feelings.
It never was a nice feeling to be called a certain name. Michael, out of all the people, must’ve realized that.
As Michael briefly excused himself to prepare her a drink, telling her to make herself comfortable, Arabel remained standing in the living room by the warm fireplace. Her gaze drifted absently to the framed photographs displayed above the mantelpiece, a soft smile touching her lips as she imagined the quiet happiness shared between Michael and Eli, their strong bond as father and son.
Although, a bit of sadness washed over her at the lack of Seraphina’s image in any of the photos with them. She wondered how long it took for them to heal from the loss of a loved one. How long it took Michael to move on from the pain.
Rapid footsteps echoed from behind her. Her head snapped back towards the staircase, albeit her shoulders relaxed slightly when she saw it was only Eli, standing there in his pajamas, his dark hair still damp from his shower.
“Oh, hello there,” Arabel greeted meekly, a hesitant smile on her lips. When Eli did nothing but stare at her with wide, frozen, and tense eyes, her smile wavered slightly. “Are you…are you looking for your father? He’s in the kitchen.”
Eli’s gaze remained fixed on her as he slowly descended the stairs, nearly stumbling on the last step before rushing past her and disappearing into the kitchen.
Arabel huffed out a small sigh. Was I too intimidating? Should I have smiled more?
An indistinct conversation drifted from the kitchen, Michael’s voice slightly louder than the boy’s soft, pleading tones. Arabel waited patiently in the living room, leaning slightly against the back of the couch. Then, finally, the boy reappeared, walking out of the kitchen with his father, though not without casting another wary glance in her direction before hurrying back upstairs, clutching a bag of hats in his arms, and leaving Arabel utterly speechless and thoroughly confused.
“He says thank you,” Michael said, returning to the living room and handing her a steaming mug, a mischievous smirk playing on his lips. “He loves your gift very much.”
She chuckled softly, a genuine warmth spreading through her. “Good to know.” Arabel paused, her brow furrowing slightly. “But…is he alright? He seemed a bit…startled when he saw me.”
“Ah, don’t worry about it. He’s only a bit tired from all the socializing he’s had today at daycare. Said he wanted to take a short nap,” Michael replied, sipping from his own drink. Though from the tone of his voice, it seemed he knew more than he was letting on.
Arabel didn’t press on that, shrugging as she finally sipped her drink.
“So,” Michael began, gesturing for her to take a seat as he settled onto the armchair across from her. “How are things…?”
“Nothing much out of the ordinary.” Arabel settled into the soft cushions with a sigh. “Just the same old routine: go to work, try to keep order in my household, scold my stubborn daughter for running off, despite the countless times I’ve told her not to. The usual fun stuff.”
“Sounds…frustrating.”
“Six often is,” Arabel said with a laugh, then leaned in slightly. “If you happen to run into her, don’t tell her I said that.”
Michael offered a wry smile. “Have never been the type to snitch on someone anyway. My lips are sealed.” He raised his cup to his mouth.
“And you? How are things on your end?” Arabel returned the question, sipping her drink.
He made a grimace before covering it with a lazy shrug. “Good. Although, I…learned something…interesting recently.” He stared down into his mug, watching the liquid swirl gently as he rotated it in his hands. A quiet, melancholic laugh came from him afterwards.
“Here’s a completely random question for you, Ara. If you were given a choice, a rather difficult choice, to save an entire city from impending doom, but with the condition that afterwards, its people would be constantly watched and guarded, their every move, up to their train of thoughts scrutinized and dictated,” he said, “would you still consider it?”
Arabel laughed quietly, a genuine amusement colouring her tone. “Mono, what on earth are you even talking about?”
His smile stayed, though his eyes seemed almost desperate when he looked at her. “But would you? Hypothetically speaking.”
A soft sigh escaped her lips as she pondered his bizarre question.
“Save a city…but under the condition of extreme surveillance and control…” Arabel paused, considering the weight of his hypothetical scenario, then offered a small shrug. “I guess so, yes.”
“But what if it meant never truly having any autonomy? What if you saved a city from one form of destruction only to condemn its people to a different kind, one where free will was an illusion, where they lost their lives in a different way?”
“It sounds familiar to the current state of the world already, doesn’t it?” Arabel mused, a bit of cynicism in her voice. “We talk about free will, yet how much of it do any of us really have?”
“So you’re saying you’d be willing to give it up entirely?”
“That’s a very tough question. If it meant ensuring the safety of the ones I love, then yes, I think I would. Though…” A small tug of doubt settled in her chest. “In the long run, I would probably come to regret it, sooner or later. After all, what’s the point of having the chance to live if you’re not actually free to live?”
“Then...you’d refuse?”
She pondered again, this time her silence longer. “Eventually, maybe. It’s a noble thought and action to save others in that situation, Mono. But at the end of the day…it’s still somewhat cruel to subject anyone to a life where they cannot escape from. If you ask me.”
Michael hummed, slowly nodding along to her answer in silent acknowledgement. Arabel frowned, uneasy as she watched his distant expression. Yet, before she could voice her growing concern, he had already spoken again, smoothly shifting the subject to something lighter.
“I have a confession to make.” Michael’s grip tightened around his mug, a relaxed, mischievous smile playing on his lips. “Back when we were just kids, around the time before I even realized you were my neighbor…I used to refer to you as the Devil’s spawn.”
Arabel’s mind went utterly blank, her words catching in her throat. Michael’s deep laugh, a sound that sent a familiar flutter through her stomach, caused a slow smile to spread across her own face.
“E-Excuse me?” Arabel finally managed, still reeling from the sudden confession.
“Sorry. Just thought I’d let you know, now that we’re well past the statute of limitations, of course. It just occurred to me that I’d never actually told you that little titbit. You were, after all, quite the scary girl, though.”
“And here I thought you were the most innocent boy I had ever met,” Arabel retorted, feigning a huff of deep annoyance, though her eyes twinkled with amusement. “I’m so disappointed in you, Mono. Extremely hurt, in fact. I don’t think I want to be friends anymore.”
“You say that while you’re clearly smiling,” he pointed out, a knowing glint in his eye.
“You think I’m joking?”
“I think you’re bluffing. This isn’t the first time I’ve heard that threat from you, Ara. So, ‘ forgive me’ if I find it hard to believe you this time around.” He took another slow sip of his tea, his gaze challenging hers.
Arabel narrowed her eyes, mimicking him as she finished her drink.
“Cheeky bastard.”
Michael immediately snorted into his drink, turning his head slightly away as he tried to discreetly wipe the warm, sticky mess from his hand. Arabel watched him with a sly, triumphant smile, secretly relishing his momentary embarrassment over the half-spilled tea.
“L-Language!” Michael stammered, though his voice held more amusement than genuine shock.
“Oh, please, I’ve said worse when we were kids, Mono. Besides, your son isn’t even here to hear my very colourful vocabulary.”
“You know, I think I should be concerned for your daughter’s,” he retorted light-heartedly.
“Ah, well, if you ever talked to her, just know she learns from the best. And by best, I mean me. Speaking of which…” Arabel glanced towards the window, noting how the evening sun had begun its descent. “I think I should head home. Before it gets dark.” She reached for their mugs.
“It’s alright, you can just leave the drinks—”
“You don’t accept my money for the shop; I wash your dishes and let you sit in guilt. Fair?” Michael’s shoulders slumped, the predictable reluctance and guilt already colouring his features.
Arabel smirked cheekily and carried the mugs into the kitchen, not at all surprised when he followed. Knowing her stubborn nature, he simply leaned against the countertop, watching as she placed the mugs in the sink and began to wash them.
The cool water splashed over her hands as she quietly washed the first mug.
“You know you really don’t have to, Ara.” Her grin widened.
“Feeling guilty already?”
Michael scoffed, then paused. “Yes.”
“Good.”
“You’re still very mean, aren’t you?”
A snicker escaped her at the slightly miserable tone in his voice.
“I’m just washing the mug I drank from. Haven’t even touched yours yet. Besides, what I’m doing is hardly mean.”
“It’s mean because you’re doing it just to get back at me for not letting you pay me back.”
“I should be paying you back.”
“But I told you; you don’t have to.”
“And you don’t have to watch me wash your dishes. Yet you still do.” She pushed the clean, wet mug gently into his chest, gesturing for him to dry it. Michael narrowed his eyes at her, though his lips seemed to be permanently curled into a soft smile. He grabbed a towel and began drying the mug as she started on the other.
“Thank you,” he said then, his voice low. “I really appreciate it.”
“You are seriously over-valuing my small actions compared to yours. What I’m doing for you is practically nothing to what you’ve done for me.”
Michael chuckled. “And you’re undervaluing yourself too much. Personally, I think you’ve done a lot more than you give yourself credit for.”
Arabel rolled her eyes, turning off the faucet. “Sure.”
“I mean it, Arabel. You’re more than you think you are. More than what you assumed my impression of you is.”
The words resonated, and her stomach fluttered again. She turned to him, and his gaze, which had been steady, now suddenly lowered. She held the wet mug tightly in her hands, releasing a trembling breath, unable to look away. A silent fear gnawed at her: what if, once she broke eye contact, he would retract the kindness in his words, the warmth of his thoughts about her?
Arabel handed him the second mug, and Michael reached for it.
At least, she thought he had a firm grip on it.
The mug slipped, hitting the floor with a loud thud, shattering instantly into sharp shards.
Immediately, both of them dropped to their knees, a shared instinct to clean the mess before the other could.
Their fingers brushed. But neither made a move to snatch their hands away. She brought her eyes up to his, and this time, she found his gaze already fixed intently on her, half-lidded and full of emotion she’d never seen him bare to her before.
Her heart beat faster.
His dark eyes stayed on hers, an unspoken word behind them.
And that was all she needed.
Arabel leaned in and pressed her lips to his.
For a breathless moment, she felt him stiffen against her, pure surprise seizing Michael and leaving him frozen on the floor. She almost regretted it, instantly berating herself for springing the kiss on him without warning or his permission. But her spiralling thoughts screeched to an abrupt halt as she felt him lean into her, responding to her desperate offering.
He kissed her back.
His hands soon found her face, cupping her cheek as if it were the most fragile, precious thing he'd ever held. As if one wrong move, one tiny mistake from his end, would be enough to damn him for eternity.
Yet…what if she would be the reason he was damned?
What if falling for him meant luring him to the same brutal fate her father had met? The future hell and nightmare she would inevitably bring him if he insisted on staying by her side?
No.
Arabel pushed herself away from Michael just as their kiss deepened, an internal battle won or perhaps lost.
His face flushed, a bewildered, mortified look immediately etched across his features. “I-I’m sorry—I shouldn’t have—” he quickly stammered, already pulling away.
“No, no, don’t,” Arabel interrupted softly, reaching out to gently grasp his hand. Her voice softened into a whisper. “Don’t apologize. Please, don’t.”
“But I…I kissed you.”
Her brows furrowed slightly.
And then a quiet, disbelieving laugh escaped her.
How could he still be so different, yet fundamentally the same boy she had known twenty years ago? How could he still, after all this time, blame himself for a kiss he hadn’t even initiated ?
“Can I make a confession too?” Arabel said eventually, her gaze softening as she held his hand. “I…had a very tiny…microscopic crush on you back then.”
Michael’s brows furrowed in surprise before his lips slowly twisted into a genuine and astonished smile. “You did?”
Arabel hummed, nodding. “And here you are, telling me you were afraid of me.”
He laughed, a light sound that made her heart yearn to hear more of his voice.
“Well,” Michael said, his voice low and shy, “you were quite the scary girl.”
“I know.” She smiled, looking down at their hands, still intertwined. “Look, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have put us in an awkward situation like this. You told me you aren’t looking for any relationships and…and I went and did this to you.”
“Arabel. You know you’re one of the people I care most about.” His hand squeezed hers gently, and he brought her to her feet, their gazes locking. “Why didn’t you ever say anything?”
“It was a very long time ago,” Arabel began, her voice quiet. “Before I even moved in with my father. I didn’t think it would even matter bringing it up now.”
“You still could’ve told me anyway. You know I would have listened if you had said something back then.”
She met his gaze, sending him a deadpanned look. “Would you have said something?”
“…Alright. Fair point,” he said after a brief pause, chuckling sheepishly. Arabel smirked, her gaze drifting back to their clasped hands, still intertwined.
He was still holding her.
She wished he would hold her forever.
“Michael,” she began, her voice dropping to a near whisper, the playful teasing gone. “I don’t want to be the reason your life turns into ruin.”
His face fell, the warmth draining from his features. “Why do you say that?”
Because I’m cursed.
“Because I’m not ready,” she said instead, finally gathering the courage to meet his stare, a fragile determination setting in. “We both aren’t. What we did just now…we can’t go beyond it. Today…was a mistake. I shouldn’t have even started and kissed you in the first place, so...so I think it’s best if we forget it all.”
“You want us...to pretend this never happened?” A flicker of disappointment flashed in his eyes, albeit quickly masked. Then his hand squeezed hers slightly, a silent, desperate hope that she would change her mind.
But Arabel only nodded. And it felt as if a boulder had slammed into her chest, a jagged knife slashing through her fragile skin as his voice became heavy with defeat, and his eyes dropped, fixed on their clasped hands.
“Is this really what you want?” she heard him ask, his thumb beginning to caress the back of her hand in small, gentle circles, the movement a soft, aching reminder of what could have been.
She said nothing else. Instead, she wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling him close. Michael returned the embrace, his hands settling on her back as he pressed his face into her shoulder, a gesture so painfully similar to their goodbye twenty years ago on the pier. Yet somehow, this time, her heart ached infinitely more.
“I love you, you know,” Arabel whispered at last, the words barely audible, a silent admission of a truth she couldn't deny even as she pushed it away. When his back shook with a small chuckle, a bittersweet smile grew on her face.
He pulled away from her, his own smile gentle, if a little sad.
“And I, you.”
Both of them knew their confession was meant for the children they once were. Nothing less and nothing more.
Walking home from Michael’s house was the longest, most heart-wrenching case of overthinking she had ever had to endure, even in the perfectly calm and still evening. Her mind refused to stay silent, a relentless tide of thoughts. Regret and dejection clouded her, thick and suffocating like the moving fog that clung to the cold streets. Each step in the snow felt like a self-inflicted stomp to her own head.
Why did I kiss him?
How could she be so utterly foolish to initiate it, so selfish to let her heart win just because? Michael was her friend. The kindest, most innocent man she had ever met in her entire lifetime. How badly had she ruined their relationship? How badly did she want him, for her to give in to the silly temptations of the heart and cross a line from which there was no returning? Yes, they had talked. Yes, they had agreed to remain as they always were, simply good friends. And yes, they had shared another embrace that left her stomach still churning with butterflies even now.
But what would happen if they met again? Would they truly be able to pretend nothing had happened? Would he still want to be around her after everything? Would she?
You’re an idiot. You’ve always been when it comes to this subject. Arabel shoved her hands deeper into her coat pockets, the biting cold air doing little to numb the chill spreading through her. Would things have been different if I never left Pale City? Would we have stayed together?
The question persisted in her mind, a venomous whisper, and she hated it. This selfish thought, so heinous and wrong…she cursed herself further for ever entertaining it. Because if she had stayed, she would never have had her daughter. If she and Michael had been an item…he wouldn’t have Eli. And seeing their strong bond, remembering her own love for her stubborn daughter…
Perhaps that was the one thing she wouldn’t trade anything for.
And whatever had happened...it was all for the best.
“Soulless Girl!”
Arabel halted in her steps, her breath catching as she came face to face with a man cloaked in a dark, long coat, his face obscured by a familiar surgical mask.
Willy stood directly across from her, positioning himself squarely in her path, despite the seemingly proper distance between them. He appeared to be smiling, though the shadows cast by the single streetlamp, illuminating only her neighbourhood street, deepened the unsettling angles of his masked face.
“You know, I’m so very glad I ran into you!” he called out from afar, his voice carrying clearly in the crisp night air, albeit the volume felt unnecessary, as if mocking.
A bitter taste coated Arabel’s tongue. “Willy,” she acknowledged, her tone laced with wariness. “What are you doing here?”
“Ah, can’t I simply wish to give an old friend a quick ‘hello’?” His words felt like a poor choice, a deliberate mockery. Old friend.
She and Willy had never once viewed each other as such.
“I have to go.”
Arabel stepped to the side, attempting to bypass him. Willy, however, mimicked her movements, halting exactly as she did, blocking her path even from that seemingly safe distance, the maddened grin behind his mask becoming more and more unsettling.
“So, this is your neighbourhood, I see? Quite the lovely place, indeed. An excellent choice. I can already imagine the happy children, all playing around these parts.” His gaze swept over the quiet street, a chill settling over Arabel that had nothing to do with the cold.
Uneasiness began to claw at her heart. “What do you want?” she deadpanned, her patience for his games already worn thin.
“What do I want?” Willy laughed, waving a dismissive hand. “Oh, Soulless Girl, you are so grumpy. What makes you think I wanted anything from you?”
“Maybe it’s because you’re blocking my way home.” She forced a brittle smile onto her lips. “I’m not looking forward to wasting any more of my time here. So, let’s put aside the fake pleasantries and go straight to the point. What do you want?”
A quiet, if not satisfied hum escaped Willy. He began to approach her, his steps eerily light against the thick snow.
“Michael and I…had a rather important discussion before you came by to his house. I’m afraid I never got to hear his answer that I had so been looking forward to. Barely got a word by the time you rang his doorbell.”
Arabel rolled her eyes. “I get it. You’re pissed off that I interrupted—”
“Dear me, no! You misunderstand me.” He laughed jovially, the sound grating. “I’m merely saying I was disappointed. That you arrived when you did. Although…” Willy took a step closer, clasping his hands behind his back. “I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t glad to know you are back in town. You seem to have an effect on my brother, don’t you?”
“I’ve known him for a long time. It’d be funny if I haven’t left any impression at all.”
“Yes, but you are different, don’t you see?” Willy said, his voice dropping slightly, a chilling intimacy in his tone. “You should know, Michael never lets himself be taken advantage of again as he grows. He’s learned to constantly put this…certain wall up, even around his own son. Even around me. That once openly displayed vulnerability you saw in your childhood…it’s a rarity these days. The last time I ever had the chance to see it was when poor Seraphina passed away. A dark time for my brother, that one. Truly devastating. Since then, I have never seen him shed a tear anymore. Maybe a glimpse of it cracking through, and his wall temporarily taken down, but like I said, that is a rarity.”
“What does that have to do with me?” Arabel swallowed the small lump in her throat, a cold dread beginning to coil.
“Soulless Girl, we both know,” Willy tutted, his gaze unnervingly steady, “Michael has always held a soft spot for you. Whether you deny it or not, he would put his trust in you more than in himself. And if you had asked, he would change his entire beliefs in a matter of seconds, whereas others he might take years for. He values your words and opinions immensely. I’ll bet he’d even be willing to abandon his so-called morality and principles should you ask him to. Which…if you think about it, sounds both ironic and foolish, doesn’t it? Perhaps even a damning quality, he has.”
“We’re done here—” Arabel took a determined step to the left. Willy followed, mirroring her, remaining in her path, an almost manic gleam in his eyes.
“You have an effect on my brother, that is a fact,” Willy reiterated, his voice a low hum. “While I would never wish to get in between two emotionally, in-denial lovers like a sticky wedge…I do sincerely hope I wouldn’t ever have to. So, please. Do stay out of my way, won’t you?”
Her chest weighed heavily with perturbation, a growing unease and chagrin. She frowned.
“We are not lovers.”
“It’s up to you what you call yourselves. I am simply only a blob of meat, after all. Aren’t I?”
Willy finally let her through then, allowing her path back home to open.
Yet even as it was presented to her, like a carved freedom from this man, her legs stayed rooted, unable to move. It was only when her ire sparked, when Willy mockingly gestured for her to move along, reminding her to get home, that Arabel was snapped out of her trance. She spared Willy a sharp glare and finally walked ahead.
“Oh, and Arabel?” At her name, Arabel halted, her hardened eyes staying fixed straight ahead. Willy’s voice continued from behind, chilling her to the bone. “I also hope little Six doesn’t have to share your colourful medications. I hear those things could kill you in the long run.”
Her heart plummeted to her stomach. Horror snatched her by the throat; she whipped her head around and saw snow falling on the empty space where the man had stood, the streetlight flickering above the spot in a subtle hum. Arabel turned her gaze to her quiet neighbourhood then, searching desperately for any sign of the man in the dark coat and mask. Yet no one was there. In a blink of an eye, Willy had vanished seemingly into thin air.
However, that was not what stayed with her for the remainder of her walk home, and certainly not what haunted her for the rest of the week.
Her hands fumbling for the familiar weight of a pill bottle, Arabel swallowed another two quickly, hoping for them to calm her nerves as she wondered in horror: how Willy could have known about her medications.
And worse, how he knew her daughter’s little-known nickname.
Notes:
I realized Willy sounds like a kidnapper 😭😭
Next chapter will be the last for Arabel's POV, and then onwards we'll have more angst.
Thanks for reading!
Chapter 90: The Illness: Part 3
Notes:
The last part of Arabel's POV is here! Also just heads up, there won't be a chapter next week and possibly the week after
Anyway, here's where shit starts to go downhill
[WARNING]
Blood, slight violence
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Arabel had had few cases of sickness throughout her lifetime:
The day her mother passed away in her sleep, where shadows appeared more boldly in her sight. In her adolescence, when she had just begun taking her prescribed medications, and had to get used to the nausea and fever, her body’s ill reaction to it in the beginning. Then during her pregnancy, wherein she was without any prescription for nearly a year. That had been the worst. Her inherited illness seemingly had aggravated with the passage of time, and had it not been for the medicine she diligently took in her formative years, it surely would have been catastrophic to endure—likely ending up just as Marsh had experienced.
Yet since her fateful meeting with Willy, something became oddly different with her. As though there was a shift within her body that she could not yet tell or understand. Sudden migraines would erupt often, nearly every other day. Each of her limbs felt heavier after completing merely simple tasks. The stalking shadow reappeared in the matter of hours rather than a day, the usual timeframe. And worse, Six had begun to acknowledge the invisible presence.
Arabel’s heart had dropped to her stomach that day.
The sound of pills rattling within their bottle filled the silence of her bathroom, echoing like a frantic drumbeat. Two small, white-blue pills dropped onto her trembling hand, sweat beading on her forehead. A faint whisper, insidious and soft, tugged at her attention. Though she’d learned not to heed it, her eyes almost always flicked upwards automatically.
She glared at the mirror, her reflection glaring back with eyes as red and exhausted as her own. The hallucination began; her reflection darkened, warping, and the lights above flickered in a low, ominous hum.
“Enough,” the mouth of her reflection moved.
Arabel looked down at the white-blue pills, her heart hammering in her chest as the whispers surrounded her, a chaotic choir of angry voices ambushing her along with the swirling darkness.
“ENOUGH.”
ENOUGH.
ENOUGH.
ENOUGH.
She forced the pills down her throat, swallowing them dry before immediately drinking the water rushing from the faucet, the cold stream a desperate antidote. Then she waited. The angry whispers receded, becoming a persistent but faint screaming at the back of her mind. The pestering presence turned into a quiet, dimmed emotion in her gut. And once she splashed cold water on her face, standing up to confront her reflection again, the world was once more a hazy, bearable place.
But something still was off.
Her body still felt sick.
Weak.
Ever so constantly cold.
A week passed, and by then, the fever had worsened. The strange fatigue that once merely slowed her in daily tasks now tethered her entirely to her bed. The sudden migraines became a near-constant companion. Her heart felt as though it was caught in a burning fire, while her skin seemed utterly frozen and numb.
Miriam, ever the worrier and kind mother, had been caring for Arabel since her sudden illness began, looking after her as if she were a small child again. The woman had taken over most responsibilities—including keeping an eye on the stubborn little girl who, surprisingly, remained on her best behavior throughout.
Every day after school, Six would keep her company. And though the girl insisted she was fine with Miriam’s care instead, there was no hiding the slight disappointment in her voice, the relentless concern and fear in her little eyes as she sat by Arabel’s bed.
Guilt plagued her every night. Six shouldn't have to stay cooped up in the house just because she wasn't well. The girl shouldn't be constantly worried, fearing the worst, and abandoning everything else in her early life for the sake of caring for Arabel. She would not let her daughter go through it—the tiring wait and endless hope. She would get better. Just as she always did.
“Ma, are you kidding me?” The small scowl on Six’s face reminded Arabel a little of herself. “I’m not going out to some boring playground and leaving you here all alone,” the girl deadpanned.
“You’ve been holed up in this house for nearly a full week, Six. I’m not letting you stay for another. You are going,” Arabel replied firmly. “Granny will take you.”
Six spared a reluctant glance at the older woman, who stood patiently by the door, a faint amusement playing on her face.
“Six,” Arabel said, her voice softer. She sat straighter in bed and gently brushed the girl’s hair from her face. “I’ll be fine. Have I ever lied to you?”
“You did that one time.”
Arabel rolled her eyes, softly pulling the girl’s cheek. “Aside from telling you Santa was real. Have I ever lied?” Six pouted but shook her head eventually. “Then will you do your poor old mother a favour, and go get yourself some fresh air?”
Six persisted. “What if you needed help for something? What if you wanted something from downstairs—”
“I’ve got everything I need in my room. I promise I can manage a couple of hours on my own.”
“…Are you really sure, Ma?” When Arabel gave her a knowing smile, Six rolled her eyes heavenward and huffed, jumping off the bed and heading out of the room, stomping past Miriam who only chuckled at the girl’s antics.
“That girl,” Miriam said, shaking her head fondly, “has such a stubborn soul. Just like her mother, I suppose.”
“Funny,” Arabel smirked, coughing a little. “Thank you. For agreeing to take her out today. It isn’t fair to keep you two stuck in the house because of me.”
“You shouldn’t worry about that. Instead, what you should be thinking of is getting that fever of yours out of your system. Get plenty of proper rest and lots of water. I’m certain you will get better soon, Arabel.” Miriam’s eyes hardened slightly as her smile softened into a sad one. She reached for the doorknob, but halted halfway before adding, “Oh, before I forget. I believe you have a…visitor coming by later today.”
“A visitor?”
A mischievous smirk etched on Miriam’s face then.
“Goes by Michael, if that rings any bells. Rest well, dear.” Miriam closed the door, leaving Arabel in the loud silence of her room and with a sudden surge of buzzing nerves.
And surely the feeling remained, spiking half an hour later when Miriam and Six had left, and a quiet knock came at her door.
Her heart beat faster. She dragged a hand through her hair and sat up just as the door to her bedroom opened. And of course, despite having expected him, she still found herself nervous when she saw him again.
Michael greeted her softly upon entering her room, his steps slow and light, almost hesitant. His smile tightened the closer he approached.
“Hi.” He stopped at the foot of her bed, as if an invisible line he dared not cross lay between them.
Arabel mirrored his expression, clasping her hands in front of her. “Hi.”
A beat of silence stretched between them, an awkward cloud hovering in the air.
“So,” Michael finally said, breaking the quiet. “I, uh, see you’re unwell.”
Arabel couldn’t help but chuckle, the sound a little shaky. “Gosh. What gave it away?”
At that moment, the slight tension dissipated. His smile eased, softening into a genuine warmth.
“Your stepmother gave it away, actually. I called you yesterday evening. She picked up instead and told me you were…well, ‘practically chained to the bed’ since last week.”
A faint tug of guilt brushed Arabel’s heart for having missed his call. “Miriam has always been honest. I didn’t expect her to tell you otherwise.”
“How are you feeling now?” His voice took on a more concerned edge as he finally crossed the imaginary line, pulling a chair closer to her bed.
Arabel let out a shaky sigh, ignoring the irritating flutter in her stomach as he settled beside her.
“I’m alright,” Arabel said, a partial lie. “Just need a little more time to recover, is all. You don’t have to worry about me.”
“I am worried about you, though, Ara. Is this only a mild fever or something serious you’ve contracted?”
“Either way, I’m fine and will get better. I swear it on my mother’s grave. Can we talk about anything else now?” Arabel sent him a deadpanned look, to which Michael only sighed in defeat. “How’s everything at home? What’s Eli doing?”
“Staying at the daycare for about another two more hours.” Michael hummed then, leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms. “I’ve actually got to send him to his grandparents this coming weekend. Poor boy is dreading it already.”
“Why is that?” She coughed into her handkerchief. A flicker of concern flashed across his eyes before he masked it again.
“Same reason I would. They are very…particular when it comes to certain things. I won’t bore you with the details—”
“Oh, no, no, no—please do!” Arabel grinned mischievously, adjusting the pillow behind her. “Share with me the juicy gossip of your very wealthy in-laws. I’m quite literally dying to know them.”
“Mean,” he uttered, a small smile growing on his face anyway as a low chuckle escaped him. “They just…seem to treat Eli the way someone would when trying to mold the other into someone they aren’t. The extravagant uniforms; the forcing of certain lessons; the serving of expensive meals he dislikes. All of it is just for the sake of making Eli into yet another perfect clone of one of them. They don’t care what he wants. His likes and dislikes never truly mattered in their eyes if it doesn’t include what they expected from him. A miserable way of parenting, really. And the fact that Eli must endure it all at his age…” Michael huffed out an exasperated sigh, shaking his head. “I feel helpless.”
“Have you tried telling them? Your in-laws.”
“Tried. Complained. Begged.” A self-deprecating laugh rumbled in his throat. “Nothing really ever works when coming from someone like me. I’d have to have rich parents and richer ancestors to get a message across and through their skulls.”
“But you’ve done it before, haven’t you? When you told them you’d raise Eli yourself?” Michael’s lips parted slightly, his eyes almost downcast.
“True,” he said at last. Yet, something in his tone suggested there was more he wanted to say but couldn’t—unwilling to share such deeply personal information. Or perhaps, in some way, she had unknowingly brought up a memory intensely correlated with the day Michael had lost someone dear to him.
Arabel mentally kicked herself. She should have known better than to pry.
“Well, if you ask me, Mono,” she began, shifting the topic. “As unpleasant as the experience sounds for Eli, I do think having two grandparents who care as deeply as they do makes your son the luckiest boy in the entire city. Where did you say these people live again?”
“In a mansion somewhere.”
“Ah, there you have it.” Arabel sent him a knowing look. “How many children his age would kill to spend a night in a high-class mansion, eating perfectly catered food and wearing clothes made of the finest wool?” Arabel continued, cutting him off just as he seemed ready to reply. “Sure, you could argue there are a few, his friends maybe, who already have that life. But does it compare to what Eli has? That boy gets to experience the best of both worlds. Those other kids are far more unfortunate.”
“…You really think so?” His eyes landed on hers, another silent question in his gaze: Have I truly given my best?
“I don’t have to think it. I know when I’m right.” At that, Michael blurted out a quiet laugh, the tension in his shoulders finally easing.
“You’re always right,” he said, a light-hearted statement.
“Because I’ve never been wrong.” Her throat seized painfully. She let out another fit of coughs into her handkerchief, turning her head slightly away from him. In her periphery, she saw Michael move closer, leaning in towards her as though ready to catch her from falling off the bed. Which she was never close to doing. “I’m fine, I’m fine,” she waved a dismissive hand, settling back onto her pillow. “Could you…grab my medication for me? It’s on…on my dresser.”
Michael was already out of his chair just as she uttered those words. He stopped in front of the dresser, and she heard the faint rattle of her medication bottle as he picked it up. She didn’t need to look to know he was reading exactly what she was taking.
“This…is for your fever? These white-blue pills?” Michael asked finally, turning around, a small, orange bottle in his hand. Concern seemed to etch itself onto his face, even as she chuckled weakly, rubbing her temples.
“No. The one for my fever is right over there.” She nodded towards the bedside table, where two other bottles sat. Arabel looked at him again. “The one you’re holding is just my daily medication.”
“Daily?” He returned to his chair slowly, his eyes narrowing to read the contents written across the bottle.
Arabel huffed in quiet amusement.
How sweet of him.
“Stop worrying,” she chided lightly as she reached for the small bottle.
Michael let her take it, though his gaze remained wary, observing her every move even as she dropped the pills into her hand.
“I’m not worried.”
Arabel swallowed the pills with a sip of water. “Your entire face is the epitome of worry.”
“Ara, I’m only…” Michael paused, searching for his word. “Curious,” he settled on. “You never told me you were taking any medications. Let alone a daily one.”
“I didn’t think it was important.” She placed the orange bottle with the rest. “And it isn’t as if the medication was for life-threatening reasons. I just take them…to feel normal. That’s all.”
A beat of silence passed. Just when she thought he couldn’t possess any more concern, Michael’s expression intensified, flashing with palpable worry.
“Is it…the illness that runs in your family? The one you told me about when we were kids?” Arabel hadn't expected him to remember. Then again, the same illness had been the reason Marsh was called cruel names, which had led Michael to even know her in the first place.
“It’s nothing to worry about, I promise,” Arabel told him, her chest heavy with unease at his raw concern. “I’m not even sure why you’d care this much after knowing I take—”
“I just need to know you’re alright.” His hand fell on top of hers, a gentle squeeze. “If you say you are, I’ll believe you. But if there’s something on your mind, something you can’t share out of fear they’d be afraid of you, then…I hope you know you can tell me. Like old times. Remember?”
Of course, she remembered. She had shared almost everything with him when they were children, revealed to him her hallucinations that had been merely harmless glimpses in her adolescence. And just like then, he was here, unafraid and ready to listen. Perhaps mildly confused and a little spooked twenty years ago, but there was still that determined look about him. Prepared for the worst of what he might hear and learn today.
Arabel looked down at their hands, feeling the warmth of his skin above hers. She held him too, a soft sigh escaping her.
“…It’s getting worse,” was all she could manage to say. It was enough. Michael understood, his brows furrowing as he held her with both hands now, a silent anchor.
“The mirrors,” she continued, a shudder running through her as her gaze darted towards the small mirror on the floor, completely covered with dark sheets. “I can’t look in the mirror anymore since I keep…I keep seeing it. Disfiguring my face. Trying to reach out and take control. Screaming and clawing inside of me. But I don’t know…I don’t know what it wants. I’ve tried to listen, to understand what this goddamn curse could want from me, or if there’s something I could even do. Nothing it says ever makes sense. And…and I don’t understand why, even after all these years, it keeps growing more persistent and more…more frequent. A-As if everything I’ve done to help myself, to cure me, was all for nothing—”
“Hey, shh, it’s okay,” Michael hushed softly, leaning in, his presence a warm shield.
“Sorry.” Arabel dragged a frustrated hand over her face, her eyes feeling twice as heavy as before. “I’m just…not well, Mono. I’m terrified I’ll end up like her.”
Michael quickly understood.
“You won’t. I promise you won’t.” His hold became tighter, yet still otherwise comforting.
“But we don’t know that, do we?” She swallowed the lump in her throat. “What if I do?”
“If you do…then nothing will change.” Michael’s voice was firm, unwavering. “You’ll still be the greatest, most loving mother Six could ever ask for. You’re still the stubborn girl I’ve known for years. I don’t care how badly your illness gets, or if you randomly start punching the air around me”—a choked laugh escaped her just as he grinned knowingly—“I won’t ever see you any different than I always have. And I can promise you, neither will your daughter. Nor your stepmother, even. Honestly, I’ve only ever been on one awkward phone call with her, but I can already tell: she loves you like her own flesh and blood. I’m betting she won’t mind having you punch the air around her too.”
Her cheeks warmed, a faint blush spreading despite her fever. “Now you’re just being too nice again.”
“You don’t like my honesty?” His grin turned cheeky, one she found herself loving more and more.
“I do,” she could only say, smiling back. “Thank you.”
Michael let out a small hum, looking down at their clasped hands. Arabel followed his gaze, a different ache settling in her chest. His fingers were bare, she noticed.
He wasn’t wearing his ring anymore.
“Ara…about the other day,” Michael said after a while, his voice soft. “Are you sure you don’t want…anything more?”
This time, it was her who understood him. She cleared her throat, the silence unintentionally stretched.
“Michael—”
“I know.” He sighed, the corner of his lips tugging upwards slightly in a sad, resigned expression. “We aren’t ready. It might not even be a good idea anyhow, since we’ve been…”
“Friends?” Arabel finished, her voice a soft prompt when he didn't.
“Friends,” he echoed in agreement, his gaze still on their hands. He let go of hers; she wished he hadn’t. “Ah. Sorry. Maybe I’m just catching a bit of your fever, aren’t I? Asking you a dumb question like this.” A reluctant laugh escaped him as he turned his head slightly away, his cheeks tinted in pink. “You’d probably rather rest than have to deal with me talking your ear off.”
Arabel would rather have him talk her ear off. But she said nothing, only feeling the missing warmth from where he had touched her.
She hated it.
“I should go—”
“Can you stay?”
Michael went rigid in his seat. “Stay…here?”
Heat gathered on her face to the point she could no longer tell if it was her fever or just pure embarrassment.
“If…if you’re not heading anywhere. I mean—you would probably have to head to the daycare to pick up Eli soon—”
“Th-that’s for another few more hours—!” Michael immediately composed himself, rubbing the back of his neck. “What…what I meant to say was,” he began, clearing his throat, “I can stay for a bit. If you want me to. Do you?”
A shy smile crept to her lips as she nodded. “I’d like that.”
Michael, despite saying he would only stay for a short while, ended up staying for about another hour. He kept her company, sharing embarrassing stories that made her laugh at how idiotic they were, and listening to hers with similar amusement. Her throat still hurt from occasional coughing, and her head pounded mildly under the medication, yet with him there, sitting so close by her bed, all of her pain compared none to the ache in her stomach from joyful laughter.
At some point, she’d even managed to lean out slightly from her bed and flick his ear. He deserved it when he began to tease her with a smugness and cheekiness she had never seen in their childhood. Whatever this man went through after she left Pale City, she was glad it shaped him into the person she saw today. Even if that had meant she couldn't be by his side for over two decades.
“You should really get some rest, Ara,” Michael said, a light smile seemingly permanent on his face. It was a good look. The best one in her eyes.
Her eyes lowered, but her stubborn mind still fought through the haziness of the medicine.
“I’m not tired,” Arabel mumbled.
She heard him laugh, the sweetest sound her befuddled mind wanted to hear more of.
“You’re barely even awake anymore.”
Her eyes snapped open. She immediately attempted to sit up, only to be gently hushed by Michael and even more gently pushed back down. He pulled the covers over her, as though locking her underneath the thick cotton layers.
“Sleep.” Arabel scowled at him, but he saw it as a meaningless threat, only smiling sweetly. “We both know you’ve dozed off twice already. Why don’t you do it properly this time?”
“Why don’t you stop treating me like I’m dying?” she retorted in soft mutters, her eyelids heavy. “I told you I’m not tired.”
“Right. Says the girl whose eyes are already closed as she speaks.”
She forced them open again. “Shut up. You tall, cheeky bastard.”
Michael smirked at that. “Fine. If you insist on staying up, then I suppose that leaves me with no other choice.” Arabel heard him shuffle towards her shelf and reclaim his seat moments later. Her brows furrowed as he began to flip through the pages of the book in his hand, his throat clearing a few times.
“Many words in the English language possess multiple distinct meanings or ‘senses.’ In this dictionary, these senses are carefully delineated and organized to help you quickly find the precise meaning you are seeking. Senses are typically—”
“Mono, are you seriously reading the dictionary to me?” She raised a brow.
He returned her a nonchalant look. “Helps my son sleep whenever I read to him. Thought it might work on you.”
“You read dictionaries to him to help him sleep?”
“I read the most boring book I could find until he sleeps. Now, where was I?” He shifted in his seat, looking back at the book. “Senses are typically ordered from the most common contemporary use to less frequent or archaic uses, or sometimes chronologically based on their historical emergence. Each distinct sense is clearly numbered for easy reference—”
She groaned exasperatedly.
“I can’t. You win.” Arabel shifted and turned her back on him then, snuggling herself into her pillow, and unfortunately, admitting he was right. “I am too tired for this. Just go home or something, Mono.”
A smug chuckle sounded behind her. She heard the quiet thud of the book closing and then his voice again. Though, as much as she had been too stubborn to admit her exhaustion, his words became no more than a faint, comforting noise in the background. She let slumber take her slowly, feeling its warmth drape over her shoulders.
And a gentle kiss pressed above her head.
There were echoes of another person’s breathing in the corner of the room. A woman, draped in a white nightdress so eerily similar to her own, faced the corner with chilling stillness. The single light above her flickered, dying and coming back to life with every shallow inhale and ragged exhale she took. The rest of the room, however, remained shrouded in surrounding darkness.
Arabel found herself trapped, forced to stare into the woman’s back as faint whispers grew fervent and distinct.
You are dying in here.
She will kill you.
Let us help.
The woman banged her head against the wall. Over and over. The whispers became a cacophony of screaming voices, suddenly so violent and malicious. Each sickening thud sounded like a gunshot, aimed straight at Arabel’s own head and chest. Yet Arabel could not move. Despite fear seizing her by the neck, perturbation burning in every inch of her bared skin, her feet stayed rooted to the cold floor. Her eyes, seemingly glued to the woman in white, watched as blood trickled down the side of the woman's skull, until she finally stopped and looked over her shoulder.
It was Arabel.
Or perhaps someone who shared her face and was capable of mimicking her exact expression—every frown, a glare, down to the twitch of a facial muscle. But even staring into her own sentient reflection, the woman in white was by all means a fake. She possessed no soul in her dark, vacant eyes. Compared to Arabel’s own pale skin, the woman’s body seemed enclosed in thin shadows, her form indistinct. Her movements were precise and calculated. Everything about her screamed danger. Nothing about her was human.
“Who are you?” The question left Arabel before she realized it.
The woman, her reflection, frowned. Her dark hair fell forward in a smooth wave as her head turned back to the corner, her gaze fixed downwards at her feet.
“Enough.”
Arabel shook her head, even if the woman could not see it. “I said who are you—?”
The woman banged her skull against the wall again. Arabel flinched as the small thud boomed around them, shaking the room as though an earthquake was coming. She watched the woman. The woman’s banging grew faster, more violent, more sickeningly painful.
A high-pitched ringing erupted in Arabel’s ears, making her fall to her knees. Something warm slid past her nose, blood that was too red and bright against her trembling fingertips.
“Stop it.” Arabel hugged her body tightly. Something awful coiled within her, scratching repeatedly, clawing its way out. “Stop it! It hurts!”
The woman stopped. She let out a bitter laugh, hollow and chilling.
“I have hurt more.”
Arabel’s heart sank to her stomach, her limbs beginning to tremble as she continued watching the woman injure herself. Crimson painted over the dull wall from where the woman’s head had met it in brutal impact. Arabel did not understand it. She could not grasp how or why the woman would persist until her own head was covered fully in red, her hair wet with fresh blood. Worse, the agony the woman should have expressed for her actions became hers to bear as a crushing burden.
She closed her eyes shut.
“Wake up,” Arabel muttered to herself. Punching fists into her own head, she begged. “Wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up!”
The foreign voices whispered once more. She was unsure who they were talking to. She was unsure if they were speaking coherent words at all, as each sentence was heard merely as an emotion rather than a vague message. Some were joyful, taking sheer pleasure in witnessing her—or the woman—stuck in misery. Others simply remained impatient. Irritated. Bored. It was as though they were waiting for one of them to break free from the separate nightmare each found themselves in.
She did not know what the woman’s nightmare was, or what she could mean by what she’d told her before. Yet even in her indifferent tone, there was something else lying perfectly hidden underneath it all. Something Arabel could not name, yet she could feel it intensely in her bones.
“This isn’t real,” Arabel breathed out in shallow, desperate gasps, clutching her head in her hands. The rhythmic banging persisted, yet it seemed to slow, fading almost to silence. She didn’t hear the approaching footsteps, not until the hair on her arms rose and a primal chill ran down her spine at the sudden, looming presence above her.
Arabel pried her eyes open one by one. It was only when she gathered the courage to look away from the floor, following the hem of the white dress up to bare, bloodied feet, that she heard the woman lower herself to the ground.
Cold, unreal hands pressed on both sides of her head, forcing her to meet eye-to-eye with the soulless woman's gaze.
Arabel held her breath, feeling the wet, viscous blood dripping onto her own nightgown. “What do you…want from me?” Arabel muttered shakily, her body utterly paralyzed under the woman’s bloodied glare.
“Your blood.”
White-hot pain shot through her head, the fingers on her temples pressing deep into her skull as though they were sharp, searing pins.
The world shook in sheer chaos.
Arabel screamed.
She screamed for the pain, screamed for the horror in her heart, and for the blinking eyes that crept in the edges beyond what the light could not touch, increasing in numbers and volume as the voices rumbled like deep, rageful choir.
The deafening echo of it was what finally jolted her up from her bed.
The suffocating darkness of the nightmare dissolved back into the familiar, soft warmth of her bedroom. The world outside had taken on a darker hue, leaving only faint lines of sunlight filtering through her blinds. Arabel rubbed her eyes groggily. Her heart still pounded in her chest, and her head held an even more unbearable weight.
Another migraine. Lovely.
She tilted her head towards the chair beside her bed. A tinge of disappointment washed over her as she found it empty, even though she’d already expected him to leave for his son. Yet there was a small, selfish part of her—utterly tiny and often tucked away in the recess of her mind—that had hoped she would wake and still find him there, sitting nearby with his familiar, easy smile. She almost missed him already.
Stop it. Stop thinking that way. You can’t.
A painful swallow in her throat, she sat up slowly, wincing as her body protested against every small movement. Somehow, even after resting the evening away, she did not feel rejuvenated in the slightest. Perhaps more groggy and weaker, in fact.
Something moved in her periphery. Then a warm feeling pooled in her stomach. Her lips curled into a soft smile as she saw him standing in front of her window, gazing at the streets below through the gaps in the blinds, his back turned to her. He hadn't left after all.
“Michael, you’re still here?” Her voice was hoarse from her fever. She laughed, shaking her head. “You dummy, it’s already late. Eli would throw a fit if you left him at the daycare overnight. I thought you said you were picking him up hours ago...”
He turned around.
Arabel felt her smile fall from her face, shattering like glass.
“And Michael did. He’s already at home with his son, just about to tuck the boy in, if I’m guessing right.” Willy clasped his hands behind his back, the corners of his eyes crinkling in open mirth behind his surgical mask.
Arabel felt sick.
Sicker.
“You,” was all she said, any warmth in her voice hardening into a cold, venomous tone. Yet underneath it was nothing but stark fear. How did Willy enter the house—my bedroom? Did Michael ask him to come? Did he let him in while I was asleep?
“Michael doesn’t know I’m here, in case you were wondering,” Willy answered not a beat later, as though having read her mind. “You seemed off since the last time we talked. So I took it upon myself to pay you a visit; see how you are holding up. Though, I must admit. As far as I expected to see you in poor health, I am certainly surprised that you are still capable of staying conscious for as long as you already have. The last time I saw you, I genuinely thought you would…perish even sooner.”
Arabel pushed the covers off her body and placed her bare feet on the floor, the cold ground sending shivers through her. The pounding in her head returned. The invisible pins sank into her temples once more, a familiar, slow agony mirroring her dream. She stood up only to fall immediately to the carpet, clutching her head, her ears ringing.
She reached for her medication.
“Ah. Still obsessed with that poison, hm?”
His steps approached as she shakily dropped the pills into her hand. Yet just as she brought them to her lips, her hand was gently slapped away, sending the entire bottle spilling and scattering the rest of her medication far from her. Arabel moved to grab them again. Willy stood and kicked them out of her reach.
“There is no use, Soulless Girl. You have no need for it. Believe me,” he said, looking down at her.
“Miriam!” Her shout was barely a rasp. She clung to the edge of her bed for support, leaning against it as she stood on wobbly legs. “M-Miriam!” Arabel somehow made it to her door. She twisted the handle and stumbled out into the hall, reaching only the stairs before she dropped again, barely catching herself on the first step, her grip tight on the banister.
Behind her, she heard a low hum. One that was a mocking echo of sympathy.
“I’m afraid she isn’t here, either. Both of them aren’t, in fact.” Her heart plummeted.
“Wh-where are they? Where…where is my daughter?”
Willy’s feet stopped in front of her once more. He took a seat on the floor with her, his legs crossed, and a cruel smile grew behind his mask.
“How should I know? I arrived here barely minutes ago.” Arabel stared at him in disbelief, her eyes stinging with hot tears. Willy did not care; he merely laughed. “Why are you looking at me as if I had something to do with it? For all you know, they could be lost in a market somewhere. Stuck in traffic. Trapped within a dark cell. Might even possibly be kidnapped, what with all the criminals running free these days.”
The son of a bitch was doing this on purpose. Scaring her and taunting her, all the while withholding the one information she wanted to know the most: their safety.
“Where,” Arabel seethed, “is my family, Willy?”
“Again,” Willy mimicked her tone, his voice dripping with condescension, “how should I know, Arabel?”
The man snorted immediately after, as though keeping serious was a laughable effort.
“My, this is fun. Such a grumpy gal, aren’t you? And even without your devil friend living in you anymore too! Hah!” Willy laughed, a cold, sharp sound.
“Devil friend…?” Arabel muttered in confusion before she could stop herself.
His laughter died down, his voice taking on a sudden, serious edge.
“Oh, yes, indeed. From the very moment I met you, Soulless Girl, I could immediately tell you were different from the rest of the children in Michael’s school. Well. My brother is also excluded from the majority of the averageness—he is certainly special in a different way—but you…” Willy sucked in a breath, chuckling low, a sound of perverse fascination. “You are…an intriguing subject. Two souls, shared within the same body. Or perhaps…one soul, shared between two.”
What nonsense is he talking about?
“Yes, you must think this is absolute nonsense,” Willy spoke as if from her mind, his eyes gleaming with unsettling insight. “Yet it is the truth. I saw your dark little shadow, following you everywhere you went. I’ve seen it curse you after you locked them away in a tiny little prison inside your mind, the bars bolstered further with every intake of your medication. Or could it be that those pills were akin to a water vapor of acid instead? Making the entire ordeal far more excruciating for that poor shadow of yours? Ah. I cannot imagine. Such an awful experience, indeed. I suppose moving out would be the only choice; to carry on with the next blood in line early on. Especially now with the changes this city would soon undergo.” Willy leaned in slightly, as if to share a secret. “I believe my brother has given you a sneak peek of what is to come, hm? The last time you came by to visit?”
Arabel’s furrowed brow and her even more perplexed expression gave him his answer instead.
Willy sighed loudly, yet there was no mistaking the excited glint in his eyes, an almost manic look that tripled the dread in her stomach.
“You must have heard of this then: the War between the South and the North. It is inevitable that the consequences of their feud would spread to Pale City, and I strongly believe something needs to be done to prevent this. So! I proposed to Michael a wonderful, most brilliant solution. I called it: The Cycle. Simply put, the Cycle would grant the residents of Pale City complete protection from the world beyond its borders, a guarantee no acts of war would slip into our land.
“But such an advantage comes with a price, you see. The possibility of ‘war’ within our own beloved city would unfortunately remain as it is. Painfully high! Too risky that the only way for it to be avoided…was if these citizens allowed themselves to be guided by one and one voice only. The voice of the Cycle. Further enforced with the help of my brother, once he agrees. Oh! Can’t you just imagine it? Just how clean our streets would be! Danger would practically be as non-existent as the War happening outside! Isn’t that great news?”
Willy waited for her reaction eagerly. Yet in that moment, Arabel could only find herself thinking of what Michael had told her before. The hypothetical question that was increasingly similar to the case Willy had just presented to her—a scenario that had her questioning her own morals.
If you were given a choice, a rather difficult choice, to save an entire city from impending doom, but with the condition that afterwards, its people would be constantly watched and guarded, their every move, up to their train of thoughts scrutinized and dictated…
Would you still consider it?
His voice played in her mind, clear as day.
Was that what Willy had asked him? Was that what had plagued Michael as he had paled? Was that why he had been eager, almost desperate, to know what her answer was?
Another stab of pain behind her eyes. Arabel pressed the heels of her hands into them, wincing.
“You…you’re a monster,” Arabel spat, her voice laced with venom. “I should have…I should have warned Michael about you. I-I should have told him everything since the start!”
“Now, now, Soulless Girl; there’s no need to be hasty with your words.” His voice dropped lower, a silent threat. “The reason I am here isn’t for you to hurl insults at me—my heart is wounded. I truly dropped by just to bid your devil friend farewell. Now that I have, my business with you is supposedly done. This is where we part, and thankfully, for good. Since you are a difficult individual to cooperate with in the first place. And, fortunately for me, there is a better candidate than you. Nothing personal, of course,” Willy hissed his last sentence, his words dripping with mocking sweetness. “So! I hope this will be the last of our meetings. As lovely as they were. Good evening now, Soulless Girl! And remember to stay out of my way, if you value your flesh and blood enough.” Willy tipped his hat before standing up from the floor, turning to approach the stairs.
“No.”
Willy’s steps halted, his feet slowly planted back in front of her.
“Pardon me…what did you say?” he uttered, the sound dangerous, barely a whisper.
Arabel dared to meet his eyes, glaring back with a fury born of resentment and fear.
“I’m not staying quiet anymore. Whatever you plan on doing, whatever you are trying to manipulate Michael into doing, I won’t let you go through with it. He will know the parasite that you truly are. I’ll…I’ll make sure he learns everything. Start to finish. That you broke into my home, threatened me with my daughter, and that you are a malicious being who takes advantage of his own ‘brother’s’ kindness—”
Rough fingers lifted her by the collar of her nightgown, choking her voice effectively in her throat.
“It's a little harsh to put down others’ image out of spite. Might even result in an unseemly outcome and ruin it for them. You wouldn’t really dream of doing such a thing,” Willy said, his voice deceptively calm, “would you, Arabel?”
“Michael deserves the truth.” She persisted, a stronger scowl twisting her face, her nails digging into his hand. “And I will gladly be the one to give it to him. I will do all that I can to convince him that your pathetic Cycle bullshit is not even worth the headache.”
Willy’s eyes narrowed into slits. His stare became empty.
Dark.
Purposeful.
The fingers around her collar loosened.
“Then I suppose I would have to convince him even harder.”
He let go of her with a strong shove, sending her down the tall, steep steps.
It happened too quickly. Too unfairly.
For the last thing she saw was his tall figure at the top, watching her as she plummeted to darkness.
Notes:
I'll leave it up to you to think what happened to Arabel
Thanks for reading!
Chapter 91: Premonition
Chapter Text
The phone ringing downstairs had Michael knock his head awake against the desk lamp. It hurt like a bitch. Even more so, the realization that the short, meaningless dream he'd just had was the kind his adolescent self used to jolt awake screaming from—a nightmare of an excruciating death. The two screaming children. The overflowing blood from his own chest. The blinding, blinking walls oozing with darkness. He hadn’t had that nightmare in years, not since Eli was born. What an unnecessary scare.
Michael grumbled a curse as he swept the paperwork, messily strewn in front of him, aside and adjusted the lamp he’d almost knocked over. The phone continued its insistent ringing, like a persistent, crying baby. He dreaded it already, knowing well who had the brilliant idea to phone him this late at night.
He picked up the receiver and brought it to his ear. The caller spoke immediately, her voice a demeaning, accentuated and sharp tone that had him pulling the phone slightly away until she paused for his reply.
“Adelaide. No, no, I didn’t intentionally delay bringing Eli over.” He had delayed it as much as he possibly could. “Things have just been a bit busy these last few days. You’ll see him this weekend. Like we agreed.”
Adelaide, Eli’s grandmother, made a displeased hum. Michael could practically imagine the disgusted curl of her lips, the look she always wore whenever he was present alone, without his son beside him.
The old hag then eloquently implied he was incompetent. Accused him of trying to separate his son from them. Told him the same old guilt-tripping story— using Seraphina’s name.
Michael breathed out slowly through his nose, a tight, controlled exhale.
“I want Elliot here tomorrow. First thing in the morning. It’s unfortunate enough he must keep living where he is. Even more so if he moved out permanently, don’t you agree?”
He gritted his teeth, biting back a seethe that threatened to erupt. This evil old bitch—
“Of course, Adelaide,” he said after a defeated pause. “I’ll send Eli first thing in the morning.”
Not to his surprise, Adelaide hung up first. Better her than him. Michael had barely any patience left after the call, almost slamming the phone back into its cradle, a small, resentful ring echoing from it.
Always the silent threatening with that woman. There had been instances where Adelaide Fontaine had made him want to cut ties with their overly wealthy family entirely, believing Eli would be better off without their influence in his life. But such a drastic action would only plunge him into a far bigger issue:
Frederick Fontaine, Seraphina’s father.
As seemingly indifferent as the man was towards Michael—unlike his wife’s outright aversion—Frederick was still one of the most influential men in the city, if not the entire country. And “influential” meant many things: persuasive, sly, dangerous. If there was one thing Frederick cared about more than his precious bloodline, it was their reputation. Word would fly before Michael even knew it had begun, should he dare to disappear with his son. And rumours, especially if they included any smidgen of detail regarding the Fontaine Family, would spread like wildfire.The same fire that would burn and scald him more than the other man, he was sure. He didn’t have the guts to cross any more lines than he already had. His in-laws had already disliked him for being involved with Seraphina. They resented him more for refusing to hand over Eli’s custody to them.
But after Seraphina’s passing, there had been discussions regarding the matter—a nearly heated argument and, frankly, the first time he had raised his voice and fought back. Adelaide had been mostly stunned into silence, still utterly devastated for her own loss. Frederick had warned him with a dangerous look, nonetheless remained the calmest one in the room. He had been the one to propose an agreement, one that remained until today.
As the Fontaines had financially supported Seraphina and Michael’s house at the start, Frederick claimed he would continue to help under the condition Michael would provide a suitable home for Eli. They would shoulder the financial responsibilities Michael possibly couldn’t ‘bear alone at the time’. Adelaide also added they would also be responsible to pay for Eli: his medical care and education.
In return, nearly everything would be their call—the damned Daycare Centre, the place filled with rich, spoiled children he hated Eli to surround himself in, was one of them. It had been a decision he hadn’t had a say in, since Adelaide detested the idea of Eli enrolling in a normal school.
And another thing expected from Michael’s end: Eli’s compulsory monthly visits to ‘The Gilded Nest’, the mansion where the Fontaine Family resided. At first, Michael had agreed without much complaint, thinking that perhaps, after losing their daughter, they would seek to cherish their time with their grandson as much as possible. That was not entirely the case. Eli had been only eight years old when he learned the Fontaines—Adelaide—had begun teaching him lessons regarding social classes, influencing him with her own view of the world, implanting ideas into the little boy’s head that whatever he did or said would have no consequences as long as he had Fontaine blood in him. To some extent, Adelaide was not wrong. But Michael refused to let his son grow up believing it.
He would never let Eli end up as one of the Fontaine clones. Even if such a task demanded him to constantly supervise the boy in more subtle ways, to find out and squash whatever teaching Adelaide had planted in his head before it could truly sow.
So far, he had been successful. Eli was normal for the most part. He still possessed the innocence of childhood, while receiving all that Michael could possibly give him.
Yet now, with Adelaide—the awful woman that she was—demanding Eli in her home earlier and for a longer visit than usual, the constant worry for his son clung to his chest like a glued weight. Without a doubt, she would be unbearable. Always prioritizing her own expectations and beliefs above actually caring for her grandson. Always the controlling freak that even Seraphina had wanted to leave home for good just to be spared from her nagging, helicopter-mother traits and bitching—
The sound of a sharp whine cut through his spiralling ire. A static buzz followed as the living room brightened in the corner. Michael pinched the bridge of his nose. Of course. He’d been a tad too angry and stressed. With a louder sigh, he approached the television and knelt in front of it, watching the persistent sound soften into silence as he tempered his surging anger. He switched the TV off.
Michael was already standing, ready to head upstairs and finish up the remainder of his work, when the black screen suddenly turned white and grey again. It turned itself back on. His brows pinched in confusion. He couldn’t have been the one to influence it. His heart rate had barely gone up, nor was he feeling distressed or utterly upset enough to cause the television to…
His eyes went up to the ceiling. To the soft thud and tossing of the boy in his sleep.
Ah.
Right.
Michael, abandoning the television as it was, made his way upstairs to Eli’s bedroom. He peeked his head inside. The night lamp in the corner flickered in the darkness, illuminating just enough of the crying boy in the bed. He sighed quietly. This was not an uncommon occurrence, after all.
“Eli…?” Michael bent over as he gently shook the boy. Immediately, Eli flinched, jolting up from his bed with a louder cry. The light in the corner returned to glow a steady blue, this time without interruption.
“Dad?” Eli quickly rubbed his eyes, a few tears clinging to his lashes. “What are you doing here?”
“Heard you having a nightmare. The television was on again.”
Eli’s face fell. “Oh. I’m sorry.”
“You don’t have to apologize, Eli. Besides, we talked about this already, didn’t we? It’s only an accident. It’s okay.” Michael sat on the edge of Eli’s bed, tucking the boy back under his thick blankets. “Was it a bad one this time?”
Eli nodded. “I couldn’t get out of the room. Tried everything but I… I still couldn’t leave the chair. This time I felt something else was with me, watching all around.”
Michael smiled out of sympathy. He had had his fair shares of nightmares during his age. Hell, he just had one before that miserable call.
“It’s just a dream, alright?” Michael tried assuring, pressing a kiss above the boy’s head, hoping that would ease any lingering fear. “Try to get some sleep.”
“I don’t think I can anymore.”
“No? Do you want me to read to you?”
Eli made a face. “You’re not going to pick up another dictionary, are you?”
That made him chuckle. Guilty as charged. “Then what do you suggest I should do? Make up a story?”
“Tell me a real one.”
“What do you want to know?”
Eli paused, seeming to ponder the question before his gaze turned curious. “How did you know the lady?”
Michael lifted a brow at his son. “The…lady?”
Eli's face flushed slightly, yet his curiosity kept him firm on the subject. “Y-you know. The lady. The one that was…in our house last week.”
“Ahh. That lady. The one you told me was very pretty—"
“You know what—never mind, I'll take the dictionary—"
“I’m kidding! I'm kidding!” Michael laughed, tugging at the boy's arm to stop him from hiding underneath the covers. “So. You were asking how I knew the…average-looking lady, right?”
Eli glared at him for his teasing tone yet accepted his new choice of word.
Michael began his story, “Well, as you know, I was not the…toughest kid back then. Had all sorts of trouble thrown at me: bullies, insults, paper balls. There were a few children in my school I was wary of because of it. But this girl, Arabel”—he feigned a shudder, making Eli smirk—"I was terrified of her. More than anyone else. Even convinced myself I’d rather face the fists of the other bullies than meet her in the eye. She was the Devil; she made a teacher cry once. I even remember hearing rumours of her stealing other children’s souls. Though that was never true, or possible in the literal sense, I vowed to stay away from her. That is until…I helped an old woman one day and ended up helping her mother.”
“And then she decided to befriend you?”
“Of course not. She threatened to kill me.”
Eli’s eyes widened in slight horror. Michael only snickered. “And a few weeks later,” he added, “we became good friends. Even until now.”
“Oh.” Eli hummed, his gaze unfocused, seemingly lost in thought before he asked again, “Do you think…if I helped Ms. Arabel once…her daughter would want to be friends with me?”
Oh, Eli. You precious boy.
“So, all of this was an excuse to find out how to befriend a girl, huh?” Michael teased. The boy’s cheeks immediately flushed, though he didn’t deny anything.
“I just…I think she’s genuine. She’s not like the others at Daycare.” His eyes avoided Michael’s. “When we were playing that one day, she told me she punched bigger kids than me at her school. So I shouldn’t try to pick a fight with her. Let alone ‘try anything’.”
“And you,” Michael said with surprise, “still want to be her friend?”
“Yeah—!” Eli cleared his throat, pushing down his accidental excitement. “I-I mean. I think she only said it to scare me and take more of my chocolate portion anyway. I don’t think she actually meant it, though. That she would…punch me, you know.” Hesitation lingered in his voice. “Is…is that weird? For me to still want her as a friend?”
Michael smiled warmly, remembering Arabel’s comment about how similar he and Eli were.
“No, it isn’t. It would be weird if you decided otherwise. And if there’s anything I learned from trying to befriend someone, it’s that the coldest characters have the softest heart. Once she knows what a great friend you are, you’ll be among the lucky few to get to see that side of her. That, I can guarantee.”
“Thanks, Dad.” Eli grinned innocently then. “Sooo…you think I can go to Leigh’s house tomorrow?”
That immediately earned the boy a rough ruffle to the head. “Go to sleep.”
“Is that a yes?”
“It’s a fat no. The ‘very pretty lady’ is not well.”
“I’m never telling you anything.” Eli scowled, something akin to betrayal in his eyes.
Michael found it hilarious that despite the boy’s threat, Eli would still undoubtedly tell him everything in the future.
“I’ll have to ask first. Maybe after next weekend?” Michael said after a laugh.
A scoff left Eli, his lips a tight pout. “You mean after I’m free from jail?”
“Only for one week.”
The boy pouted harder. “Usually, it’s only one weekend.”
“Eli, you know why it’s different this time. We’ve delayed your visit to their house for far too long. Your grandmother has caught on to us, and she isn’t happy. We can’t keep telling her you’re sick.”
“Then maybe we can tell her you’re sick—”
“And then maybe she’ll have someone else pick you up for me. There’s no other way, kiddo. You have to go.” At that, Eli deflated, sighing loudly.
“At least I have a few more days here in the city,” Eli uttered eventually to assure himself. Yet one guilty look from his father, his face fell, mild horror replacing his once relieved features. “Oh, come on.” The boy groaned.
“Like I said,” Michael rubbed the back of his neck, looking away slightly, “your grandmother isn’t happy. She wants you there first thing in the morning tomorrow.”
Another small, unhappy sound. “This seriously wouldn’t be as dreadful if Cousin Genevieve isn’t staying over there too,” Eli muttered with disgust, his arms crossed over his chest.
According to Eli, Cousin Genevieve was an uptight, annoying girl. He had told Michael once, and then followed by many accumulating complaints over the days after, that Genevieve often liked to force Eli into playing dollhouse with her. It had been a normal thing, Michael had thought, especially for a spoiled little girl like her. Yet what truly got his attention, his pity and slight amusement for his son’s predicament, was when Eli added that Genevieve played dollhouse on him. Putting white powder on his face and the reddest lipstick she could find—all to dress him up before her imaginary tea ceremony party. Eli often hid away whenever she was around, yet since Genevieve’s parents were away for important business, Adelaide and Frederick took her into their care for the time being, leaving her with one of their many maids and butlers as help. This also meant every visit Eli paid to the Gilded Nest, Genevieve would be there too.
Michael held the urge to snort. He truly felt bad, yet the idea of Eli being dolled up not on his will…
I’m a bad father for wanting to laughing this hard.
“Perhaps,” Michael said, forcing his voice to steady as his smirk grew, “you could tell your grandmother? Surely, she would listen, wouldn’t she?”
“As if! I told her so many times and all she does is tolerate her! And then I’m told I wasn’t being ‘gentlemanly,’ whatever that means! Genevieve even broke something once and blamed it on me too. And guess who decides to play the victim card and act all innocent?” Michael snickered at Eli’s rant. “I don’t like her, Dad. She’s a big fake. A pretender. I’d rather be stuck in boring lessons with Grandma Adelaide than stay one minute in a room with that blabbermouth.” The soft glow of blue flickered slightly in the corner. Michael cleared his throat, reminding Eli.
“Sorry,” Eli quickly said, his eyes darting to the flickering night lamp. He took a deep breath. The light retained its dim glow.
“Tell you what, Eli,” Michael began, pulling the blankets further up over the boy. “How about as a reward for your…bravery and patience with your cousin, I’ll try and ask if Ms. Arabel would be okay with her daughter coming to play with you more often?”
Eli’s eyes widened slightly, as though partially in disbelief and in concealed excitement. “Really…?”
“Really.” He leaned in a little and whispered, “Now, this is top-secret information, so don’t tell anyone else I said this. But apparently, someone told me Leigh very much enjoyed playing in the snow with you that day. It was the happiest she was ever seen with another kid her age. And, might I add, without initiating a violent brawl or argument during.” Michael straightened his back and stood up from Eli’s bed. “Make what you will with that information. Goodnight.” He patted Eli’s head as the boy beamed up at him.
“Goodnight, Dad.” Michael heard Eli’s small voice call back. He smiled softly and closed the bedroom door behind him after stepping out.
That ended well.
Supposedly, all that was left for him to do was switch off the still buzzing television downstairs and retire to bed himself. Tomorrow morning, he hoped Adelaide wouldn’t expect him at the crack of dawn, he would send Eli to the Gilded Nest, and perhaps sometime in the week, ring Arabel’s house number for the promised reward he’d given his son. That, and to find out if she would be well enough by then. Hopefully, she would. He hated seeing her so ill—he hated seeing her be terrified of herself.
By the time Michael switched off the television—this round without any sudden surge of power bringing it back to life—his mind returned to the state he’d last seen Arabel in. She had been so pale. It worried him even now. And when he’d held her hand, she was hot to touch, albeit warm as he had softly kissed her goodbye this afternoon.
His eyes landed on the telephone.
Would she still be awake at this hour? Terribly unlikely. It might even be rude of him to consider ringing her phone at night. Everyone else would be asleep. He’d be disturbing the entire household.
Michael left the room and took a step up the stairs.
Something in his stomach sat uneasily, eating him alive, almost. Screw it.
Against his own better judgement, he came back into the living room and picked up the phone, her number already in his mind. Then he waited. He waited for her to pick up—for anyone to answer his nagging, skin-picking concern regarding his dear friend’s condition tonight.
This is a stupid idea, Michael scolded himself as the phone continued to ring on the other line. You could have just done this some other time than force her entire household awake for your own selfish—
There was a click, indicating someone had answered.
“H-Hello,” Michael immediately said to the receiver, “Arabel?”
There was a pause. And then her voice.
“Hi, Michael.”
He let out a silent breath of relief.
“Hey.” Michael gripped the phone tighter, shifting it to his other ear. “Look, I’m sorry for calling you this late. Is…is everyone already asleep?”
She hummed. Perhaps he had woken her up too. Idiot.
“Oh. I’ll, uh, I’ll keep this very short then. I called you because I…just wanted to know if you were feeling any better? Or maybe not. I’m not expecting you to recover overnight or have drastic changes in terms of how you’re feeling—”
A soft chuckle from her, the sweetest sound he had heard. “I’m alright, Michael. You can stop worrying. Please.”
He smiled, almost bashful. “Sorry. I just…I was thinking about you. I felt bad that I had to leave, so…so I thought I’d at least feel better if I knew you were alright. Are you? Really, I mean.”
“Really. I’m alright, I promise. I’m only exhausted right now.”
“…You certainly must be.” Michael twisted his fingers around the rubber coil, sighing. “You should go back to bed. Get more rest.”
“You too.”
“I will. Goodnight, Ara. Again, sorry for calling you at this hour,” he said quietly.
“No worries. Goodnight, Mono.”
They ended the call right after. Michael placed the phone back into its cradle, his hand lingering above it. Somehow, the uneasiness stayed inside him the entire night.
Six sat still on the couch as the man spoke into the phone. She cried silent tears, rubbing them away furiously when they continued to blur her sight. Her stomach grumbled. She saw the man in the mask glance her way.
He adjusted the phone back to his ear before turning back around.
“No worries. Goodnight, Mono,” her mother’s voice spoke to the phone. But Six knew it had come from the man’s throat somehow. For some impossible reason.
She didn’t understand it. Who was this man? How could he have stolen her mother’s voice as his own? Did he know her? He seemed to know her friend, Michael. Did he know the truth of what had happened?
Her stare drifted to the still body on the stairs. More tears brimmed in her eyes, her heart a painful drumming in her chest.
“Hello.” The man’s figure suddenly loomed in the middle of her view, blocking the sight of the hollow eyes that had stared right back. He knelt in front of her, taking off his mask and smiling softly. Six squirmed slightly away in her seat, putting on her best scowl—the one that used to scare the other children away. It did not work on him. “Your mother and grandmother call you ‘Six,’ don’t they? Mind if I call you that too?”
Six said nothing. She only glared as she fought back an irritating sob.
His smile grew wider, as though amused and intrigued.
“I’m not going to hurt you. In fact, I frankly hope to be your friend!” He offered out a hand. “My name is Willy!”
Her fear fueled her fury. She fisted her hands, grabbing tightly onto the leather of the couch beneath her.
Willy’s hand dropped back to his knee. “Not much of a talker, are you? Ah. No worries. I understand completely how you are feeling at the moment. If I were in your shoes, and I came home to my mother laying on the ground—practically colder than ice—I would experience the same shock as you. Although…truthfully, that would be a lie. I don’t quite have the attachment with my ‘parent’ like you weird meats do.” A curious hum escaped him as he held his chin in thought. “How does it feel, truly? My brother had told me, when he was young, losing his mother was akin to losing a heart. But I’m curious if it’s all the same to the rest of you. Do you… really feel like your heart is gone? Ripped out of your body? Does it hurt you physically as it does emotionally—?”
“STOP IT!” The lights in the room died, then flickered back to life, wisps of shadows lingering before disappearing.
Willy glanced around the place with interest and awe. “Hm. Perhaps I should seriously start practicing empathy. Quite hard, indeed. Pretending to have it has always been easier.” His gaze landed back on her, his smile sharper. “Now, enough with the sad tears,” he feigned a pout, swiping a thumb under her eye. It infuriated her. “Us, friends, must stick together, don’t we? Protect each other, and all that friendship magic.”
“Friends?” Six said in a demeaning tone. Willy took it as her accepting it, immediately hauling her up to her feet with both hands.
“Yes, friends! We’ll have Michael and Eli with us too!” Her head perked up. Eli? “Oh, imagine it, little Six. Once the Cycle takes effect, we will live our lives in such a way your mind wouldn’t even expect! The everlasting peace, our beloved city flooded with blaring positivity—ah, who am I to spoil it for you? You will see it for yourself soon enough!”
“Y-You know Eli?” Six demanded, her voice tight.
“Do I know him?” Willy laughed boisterously, the sound grating. “Why, he is my nephew! His father is my brother—and unfortunately—a close friend of your mother’s. But hey! I suppose after meeting and being friends with you, it doesn’t make it as unfortunate, does it? Quite the opposite, dare I say. Now, come along! You must be starving non-stop with that extra gut of yours to feed. I know just the solution to mitigate your pains, little Six!” Willy grabbed her wrist and led her to the front door.
Six’s head snapped to her mother’s pale face—her half-lidded eyes, her blue lips, her unusually twisted, craned neck. An agonizing ache settled in her heart at the thought of abandoning her.
A soft groan echoed behind them, followed by the dragging footsteps and shout of an older woman.
Willy halted them at the door, his hand still firmly around hers. He had already worn his mask again when he pointed his attention towards Miriam. Miriam, who was clinging to the walls for support, her movements slowed and staggering as though the floor under her swayed.
“L-Leigh.” Blood dripped down the side of her temple. “Get…get away from that…man!”
Beside her, she heard a small, wry chuckle. Willy released her hand, sending Six an almost apologetic look. Not for what he had done to Miriam. Not for having slammed a vase against the back of the woman’s head just as she had stepped into the hallway of their home—a little late in the evening if it wasn’t for the sudden spike of her granddaughter’s hunger.
And certainly not for having dragged her away into the kitchen, hoping she would remain unconscious and ideally bleed out.
This look of apology was meant for the delay.
Willy squeezed Six’s shoulder, just enough for her to understand the underlying message: Don’t run .
Six had planned to run either way. She didn't care what threat this man would give her. She was ready to follow her grandmother’s orders, and defy Willy—or in the least, fight hard and make his life hell while she could. Yet every time she met Willy’s eyes, felt his warning gaze on her, something within her warned her too. Something strong enough to squash any thoughts of escape, to render her speechless and stuck in place as Willy left her side and approached the older woman.
By then, Miriam had already fallen to the floor, her legs having given out on her. Miriam screamed again for her to run. Six wanted to listen. Her gut forced her to stay and not anger the man while he was already irritated.
“Leigh, call for help—!” Willy snatched Miriam by the throat. Miriam scratched at his wrist, weakly punching his hand to release her.
“Consider yourself lucky Six is witnessing this. Otherwise, I would have been more thorough the second time.”
Willy tapped two fingers into her temple.
Miriam’s body suddenly went limp. While still holding her, Willy looked over his shoulder and beckoned for Six to come over. Six obeyed after a few more seconds, her steps heavy against the cold floor.
“Six, I must ask you a quick favour!” His tone returned sickeningly sweet. “Could you tell me if this woman has any other family, aside from you and your mother?”
Six turned to Miriam. The woman’s eyes were wide and strained, as though forced to stay open. She grimaced, completely disturbed.
“I merely wish to send her to someone who could care for her,” Willy added at her reluctance, his eyes crinkling as he smiled under his mask. “Do you know anyone, dear Six? Where they are?”
She gulped. Eventually, her mouth moved to tell him about Miriam’s sons. About her two uncles who lived in the North but stayed mostly on a ship. To her surprise, Willy knew the name of the ship whereas she did not, muttering something akin to praise for the twins’ relation to it. Luxurious , Willy said.
And just after, Miriam stood up firmly on her own. Her face was empty, already devoid of any human emotion. She began to march past Six and head out of the house, her movements sharp and certain. Six could only gape, her heart tearing in what felt like a betrayal as she watched her grandmother leave her, walking off into the night and never looking back. As though the life she lived with Six and Arabel was never real, and instead all along, it was her two sons in their stead.
“It will all be fine, I promise.” Willy told her. “This is what is only right,”
Six had wanted to believe it. She didn’t.
Nothing about this was right. Nothing about Willy’s actions afterward, leaving the handle of the front door smashed and broken, was right. Nothing about her leaving her mother behind was right.
And somehow, some way, Six knew nothing about Willy’s promise would come true.
Notes:
Miriam getting that Cycle test run 😭 Also not Willy flirting with his own brother to convince him. I've been waiting for this scene since chapter 73.
Next chapter will include two new characters that have been mentioned quite a few times, but never appeared. Hint: they're rich blondes
Also a shoutout to ApathyAo3 and AzzlackGuhnter for writing their hilarious fics about the main trio of the story, Mono and the gang! A cute what-if sort of that made me want to finish this arc as soon as possible so I can go back to writing the shenanigans between those three for shits and giggles. You can read their fics below!
Erasing Her Future? by ApathyAo3.
Of (mis)conception and misunderstandings by AzzlackGuhnter.
Thanks for reading!
Chapter 92: Monster
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
The morning they arrived at the Gilded Nest, Eli’s face was plastered with reluctance and dread. It had been like that the entire drive. Michael knew it was partially due to Adelaide’s strict ways—the uptight woman. But as they were greeted in the hall of their mansion by two maids and a butler, it seemed Eli’s other reason for reluctance for the one-week visit stemmed directly from meeting Cousin Genevieve. One could already hear the rhythmic thuds coming from upstairs, the grand chandelier swaying subtly from the heavy stomps.
The two maids bowed at Eli’s presence, quickly taking his luggage and presumably bringing them to his room, as they always would with every visit.
“Mr. Hemming. Master Elliot.” The butler, clad in a pristine uniform, bowed his head slightly. “Mr. and Mrs. Fontaine are waiting for you in the Lounge.” He gestured for them to follow, leading them deeper into the Nest mansion until the bleak silence of the corridors finally broke with the faint sound of crackling fire.
The butler announced their entrance to the masters of the house, then left once he had been dismissed, slinking back into the shadows and to God knows where. Michael let out a shaky, quiet breath, whereas Eli…the boy clung to his leg like a cat splashed with water. They were both nervous, for entirely different reasons.
Adelaide was the first to greet them—or rather, her grandson.
“Elliot, my dearest!” Adelaide called out. She was a strikingly tall woman, appearing years younger than her actual age, her rich blonde hair pulled into a bun so meticulously neat it seemed to challenge her few streaks of grey. This impeccable appearance, along with her perfectly composed posture, almost reminded him of the bubbly blonde girl he had first met in Marsh’s old shop.
Michael then saw her husband, Frederick, observing from the side. His shoulders were relaxed, his face holding a fond expression that could easily be mistaken for indifference. Frederick was blonde, too, but his hair, a darker shade than Michael remembered twenty years ago, was now entirely grey. His eyes, just as grey, held a similar coldness.
Adelaide rose from her chair by the fireplace and held out a hand towards him, her smile gentle, yet undeniably intimidating. Eli hesitated at first, looking up at his father as though seeking permission to go or an excuse not to leave his side. Michael could already notice the slight narrowing of Frederick’s eyes from across the room; so he gently patted the top of Eli’s head, uttering a soft assurance. Once Eli got close enough to Adelaide, the woman cupped his cheeks in what seemed like a loving gesture to anyone else. Yet anyone who knew Adelaide long enough knew her actions held a secondary reason beyond what met the eye. She was inspecting Eli. Studying his small, innocent face, searching for something Michael had told them the boy contracted during the visits he did not pay them: a fever.
“You are quite pale,” Adelaide murmured under her breath, displeased despite the sweet smile she sent Eli. “Are you still sick? Or is this the cause of not consuming proper food?” A subtle shade thrown at Michael. He kept his annoyance in check, glancing towards the other man in the room, who only stared back at him from his own chair, a lit cigar in his hand. Frederick’s eyes motioned subtly to Adelaide, as though reminding him the shade was an actual question thrown at him.
“Eli’s been eating well. I’ve made sure of it these last few days since his fever. He’s feeling better now,” Michael said, keeping his voice firm and clear.
“Yeah, Grandma,” Eli added. “I-I promise I haven’t touched any junk food like you wanted me to.” A soft smile graced Michael’s lips at his small lie.
But if Adelaide wasn’t convinced, she did not show it. Instead, she pinched the boy’s cheek lightly in feigned adoration. “Why don’t you greet Genevieve now, Elliot? She’s been asking to play with you all week.” Then and there, Eli’s face dropped. Somehow his horror for Genevieve was the one thing Adelaide seemed to be blind of as she called out, “Lucius!” and asked for Eli to be brought upstairs. Michael flinched when the butler appeared beside him out of nowhere. He cursed this place.
Suddenly, a small pair of arms wrapped around his waist, making him look down at his son.
“Bye, Dad. Love you,” Eli whispered quickly.
A real smile blossomed upon his face as he returned Eli’s embrace. He hugged him a little tighter this time, kissing the top of his head. “Love you too,” he whispered back. “I’ll see you in a week. Behave and have fun, okay?” Even knowing the boy’s stay in the Gilded Nest would be anything but fun, Michael had to assure him. It was all he could do in his position.
After another goodbye from Eli, Michael waited with a soft smile until he was certain the boy was no longer within sight nor earshot. Then his smile dimmed. He faced Eli’s grandparents, who in turn had been waiting with him for Eli to head out of the Lounge area.
It was then all masks were taken down.
“Michael,” Adelaide hissed, her hands clasped firmly in front of her as her posture remained utterly straight and upright. “You told us Elliot contracted a fever.”
Michael nodded to her latter statement. “And he did.”
“Don’t lie.” If words could kill, her tone alone would be enough to send a fatal blow. “I know when a child is sick and when they are not. Elliot may seem pale, but it is not due to any sickness you claimed he has. So, come clean. Why did you say he was ill?”
In the corner, Frederick moved his cigar to his lips, taking a slow inhale as he watched him with a sharpened gaze. Michael knew he had to choose his words wisely. And honestly.
“My son…” Michael began, his voice low, “doesn’t like coming here.”
“Oh?” Adelaide said, her voice dripping with disdain. “What makes you think so?”
Because he told me, you old hag. “Because I see the look on his face whenever he comes back home with me, Adelaide. Like you, I know when a child is sick and when they are not. And it’s so painfully obvious to me he is sick of these visits you ask of him.”
Adelaide’s frown tightened, a dangerous glint in her eyes. She heaved a deep breath. “Do you truly expect me to believe a word that comes out of your mouth? You ungrateful, peasant—”
“Addy,” Frederick said at last, his voice a low warning. “Dear, let’s be civil. And hear what he has to say.” Grey eyes snapped to Michael, beckoning him to resume. “Go on, Michael. You were saying?”
Michael didn’t trust the man’s patience. He knew he was already walking on thin ice the second he came clean.
“This is just my concern as a father. I’m not saying Eli hates either of you or wants to stay away forever. I’m only telling you what I observed. Eli, as young as he is, needs a healthy childhood that is both stress-free and not filled with high expectations. Full of pressure. I worry, in the long run, it won’t only be his self-esteem that’s at risk. I’m scared he’ll grow up wishing he had different choices and had been able to choose for himself. And not what the adults have picked out for him beforehand, no—but choices, paths he really wanted.”
“Are you insinuating we are limiting Elliot’s choices? Us, who has given him the best of the best of everything since he was born?” Adelaide chuckled sardonically. “Michael, with your background, I do not expect you to understand any of our actions. I’m even definitely uncertain of how you were raised, but considerig your father, the…eccentric man that he is, I believe this is only an issue of perspective differences. Elliot is a Fontaine. At the end of the day, he cannot run around barefoot and with mud on his face and pants! He cannot live the way the other children do, and according to your pitiful standards. It is unacceptable. Atrocious to merely think about it.”
“But he’s only a boy—”
“Which is why,” Adelaide interrupted firmly, “the more guidance, the better. Here, at the Gilded Nest, Elliot can learn what is proper and what is not. We can provide him special, professional tutors no other schools in this city could ever hope to find and hire. Stopping his visits and believing it would do his ‘childhood’ good is a ridiculous notion. Elliot needs us regardless of what you think, Michael. As his father, you should know that best.” Adelaide walked past him and left the room, her posture straight and chin lifted slightly.
Michael remained in place, holding down his own annoyance and ire at the older woman’s jab at his parenting. That, and the insult to his ‘background’. Elitist bitch. He pivoted on his heel to leave.
“Michael.” At the sound of following footsteps and a firm hand on his shoulder, Michael turned to find Frederick at his side, an unreadable smile on his face. “Come, let’s have a quick chat, shall we?” Frederick’s offer left no room for refusal as the man walked ahead into the other end of the corridor. Sighing and half-dreading, Michael followed him, his steps heavy against the carpeted floor.
He’d rarely gone deep into the Gilded Nest, if not ever. The most he had seen within the mansion was the main entrance and Seraphina’s old room when she had still been alive. As grand and opulent as the interior he found himself silently gawking at the first few times, it surprised him when stepping into Frederick’s office managed to evoke the same reaction years later. The room was nearly flawless. Rich mahogany furniture decorated the place neatly, and shelves as tall as the walls were filled with more hardcover books than Michael owned in his entire lifetime. Soft sunlight penetrated through the glass panes, refracting the light from the crystals of the tiny chandelier overhead.
Some of the space in the room had been taken up for a small seating area, two comfortable-looking sofas placed beside each other, perhaps for a more relaxed meeting among friendlier associates. It was neither, Michael expected, as Frederick gestured to the chairs placed in front of the desk.
Frederick lit up another cigar and took a seat across from him, in his own bigger chair. As he was doing so, Michael’s eyes absentmindedly darted around the room. Pictures, titles of different books, more framed pictures, a grandfather clock.
Then a rifle.
“Ever been on a hunt?”
Michael didn’t realize how long he’d stared at the weapon mounted on the wall. He looked away, turning back to the man, his back stiff.
“Never had the chance to, I’m afraid,” Michael answered.
“Ah, well, that’s a shame. I remember when I was a young boy, perhaps around Eli’s age, my old man used to take me hunting when the season arrived. We would bring home a large stag and he would mount our achievement right on the wall where everyone else could see.” A puff of smoke escaped his mouth in a slow exhale, the cigar loose between his fingers. “Of course, some are put off by that kind of décor. Dead animals. But I, for one, have always found it oddly…satisfying. To look at them and simply stare. It reminds me of how easy a life could end. One second of lowering your guard, a harmless moment of carelessness, and it’s done. All I had to do was aim and pull the trigger.” Michael held the urge to shift in his seat, to even break away from the man’s sharp gaze.
Frederick eyed him, the corner of his lips tilting upwards, as though amused by his hardened façade.
“I do apologize for the sudden request of Eli’s visit today. I admit it was also my idea to extend it to a week.”
Michael felt his brows raise slightly. So it wasn’t solely Adelaide’s request?
“Nothing to apologize for, Frederick. You were supposed to have him here a month ago, after all,” he said finally.
“You acknowledge then you’ve delayed it for four weeks?” Frederick’s smile remained, yet the tone in his voice implied he hadn’t been happy either.
“I do. And I suppose I should also apologize for that as well,” Michael replied. “But like I told you both, it isn’t done for my sake.”
Frederick hummed, shaking his head. “As you said. Your son isn’t happy, yes?”
“No, he isn’t.”
“And it is our fault.”
Michael fell silent. He quickly gulped the dread that had risen in his throat. “I didn’t say that.”
“Of course, you didn’t, Michael.” Frederick brought the cigar to his lips and blew another puff. “You only implied it. But unlike my wife, I don’t take offense at your honesty. As a matter of fact, I appreciate it. Honest people are more and more unlikely to come by, and you, Michael, are one of the few to have the gall to come clean when you know you are caught. Nevertheless…I do hate liars. Deceivers. Those who seemingly believe, because they have even the smallest justification, they could take advantage of others’ kindness and step on their heads like a stool,” Frederick said, his voice dropping lower though always steady. “Do you think I am not aware of what you are doing? Cutting ties bit by bit? Trying to protect Eli’s precious mind from the ‘poison’ we’ve seemingly been ‘forcing’ him?”
Michael gritted his teeth. “It isn’t that I am trying to protect him from any poison—there is no poison,” Michael said. “It’s only…views of the world. The kind of education he’s receiving when he is here.”
“And what kind of it, pray tell, do you think we feed your son? Be honest.”
He hesitated and let out a slow sigh. Something about the look in Frederick’s eyes made it clear dishonesty would bring him more trouble than simply telling the truth. So, he did as he was told; and he confessed.
“The kind…that makes him believe certain wrongdoings have no consequences. Eli’s too young. I cannot, for the life in me, turn a blind eye and let him be raised with that sort of beliefs. I’m aware I’m hundreds of classes below all of you, I’m aware I grew up in a poorly maintained neighbourhood, but no matter what blood Eli has in him,” Michael said, his voice gaining conviction, “I am still his father. It should be my responsibility and mine alone to see to it that he becomes a good man when he grows up.”
A long pause.
Frederick’s chair creaked under his weight, his stare assessing him. Eventually, the man opened a drawer and took out an envelope. He dropped it in front of Michael. Then he waited. Waited for him to pick it up and hesitantly open the envelope, to unfold the piece of document letter and read the one sentence that had his heart plummet to his stomach.
TRANSFER OF CHILD CUSTODY.
Internally, panic had begun to take over. Externally, he was shaking.
“This…” Michael gulped, unable to keep his voice steady. He looked up, his anger unmasked. “What is this?”
“A transfer of custody, as it says there,” Frederick answered calmly, clasping his hands. “This arrangement is not working anymore, Michael. Lying to stop Eli’s visits is one thing. Turning him against us is another—”
“I have never turned Eli against—!”
“Yet you implied and admitted,” Frederick said, “to squashing the teachings we’ve given him as soon as he is home. Did you not?” The look in his eyes darkened as he cornered Michael with his own words. At Michael’s silence, Frederick continued, leaning back in his chair, swivelling it slightly. “That letter. You will sign it. If you refuse, you will find yourself out of the house by the end of the month.”
Michael’s mouth went dry. Frederick wasn’t done; the blow of his threat returned twice as strong as he added:
“You may have also heard we’ve recently acquired the entire parcel of land that includes your old, and according to you, poorly maintained neighborhood. A substantial investment, we assure you. We have rather grand plans for its development. Plans that, I'm afraid, could be...accelerated. Or perhaps altered in ways that might disappoint those who cherish its current character.” The man leaned forward, his hands clasped on the desk. “So, before you go and make your case, think carefully about what you truly value, Michael. Your home, your community, or your obstinance. You’ll have one week to decide. I shall hope to receive the letter back when you return for Eli.”
It was already nearing ten o’clock as Michael drove past the Gilded Nest’s front gate.
He pressed his foot harder against the gas pedal, his fingers curled tightly around the wheel. The letter remained in the envelope he’d thrown onto the empty passenger seat. He had never felt fury burn as hot as it did in his chest, the sheer helplessness that rivalled the memory of facing the man in his darker childhood days.
A transfer of child custody—how dared Frederick ask him for it? To blackmail him into giving Eli, his only son, away to that uptight, snobbish, elitist family? How dared he threaten to sell away his and Seraphina’s house, where the most cherished memories of her last years were made? How dared Frederick use his past for his own leverage, bought his childhood neighbourhood, and threatened to tear it all down for good? Willy still lived there, in his old house. Hell, so did many other families who worked themselves to the bone just to get by, each struggling for scraps. Yet here the Fontaines were—planning to stomp and wipe the land clean, evicting others as they liked for their own selfish gains. All for Michael’s signature, for him to pass Eli’s custody over.
Michael pulled over on the side of the road. He slammed his hand on the steering wheel, an angry cry stuck in his throat.
“Shit!” He dropped his head on the wheel, almost banging himself repeatedly against it.
What do I do?
He didn’t want to—couldn’t—lose his son. Signing that God-awful custody letter would be the end of his life, and possibly for Eli’s childhood. And yet, if he didn’t…
His and Seraphina’s house would be gone. Michael’s old neighbourhood would vanish as though it had never existed. As though all that he had gone through, the good and bad, had never occurred in the first place. As though the memory of the kind old woman would perish along with the memories of hundreds of families living there.
Arabel would be devastated.
He was devastated just by the thought of it.
But would that be enough to hand his child away? To never get to raise him himself?
Damn it!
He needed help; someone to tell him what he should do. A friend who would provide a second opinion and assure him he wasn’t losing his goddamn mind.
Switching on the engine, he made a sharp turn on the road of Pale City. Arabel’s street was luckily not too far from where he already was, and had it not been for the presence of the few other people walking the pavements, he was certain he would have sped through.
He eased his foot on the brake once he arrived at Arabel’s house. Michael dragged a hand over his face, muttering another curse under his breath, before finally stepping out onto the asphalt. He followed the path leading up to her home, his mind returning to Frederick’s threats and the custody letter sitting in his car. He didn’t know what to tell her. How could he even begin to bring up that their old neighbourhood, including Willy’s and Marsh’s old house, would be torn down? How could he tell her he would lose his current home? Or how any of it would only happen if he refused to give his son up?
How do I tell her everything? What would she say? What would she tell me to do if I wanted to do the right thing—
His hand froze above the doorbell as his eyes caught the dangling knob of her front door. It was broken. The door was already ajar.
Hesitantly, Michael pushed at the door, letting it swing slowly with a low creak.
“Hello?” He called out from outside. No one answered. Odd. “Arabel?” Michael finally took a step inside the house, suddenly reminded of the dread from the night before.
A glass crunched under his shoes. Porcelain shards split into tinier pieces. A broken vase.
Something was wrong.
So utterly wrong here.
His gaze lingered on the broken shards for a second longer, unsure if the stained dots were crimson or simply black dust. He looked up from it and pivoted towards the staircase.
That was when he stopped.
Everything in him did.
“Ara…?”
She lay on the floor, still, her eyes fixed on the floor in front of her. She was not moving. She wasn’t breathing. But why was she not breathing? Why was she not responding even as he stood in the same room as her? Why did she only stare and stare and stare into nothing?
Her name died in his throat, his entire voice gone as horror and panic took over. And all that followed after was devastation.
Sheer devastation.
Michael dropped to the ground beside her, grabbing her arms and pulling her body close. He held her cold skin, cradled her sickly pale face to his chest, and shuddered as the realization washed over him mercilessly.
“Please say something.” He muttered against her hair, tears brimming in his eyes, hot trails falling down his cheek. His breath shook; his chest throbbed in white agony. “Please, Arabel. Say something.”
But Arabel said nothing.
She was gone.
He knew that.
And it seemed by the state he found her in that morning; she had been gone long before he had arrived. As though he had been too late.
His eyes lifted sharply to the shattered glass, the dangling handle of Arabel’s front door, the large footprints marked ever so subtly on the floors. Something had happened here, a crime that seemingly left its evidence scattered throughout the entire place. Abruptly, accidentally, purposefully—he didn’t know. Yet knowing it had happened to Arabel…it hurt.
His grip tightened around her, just like the times he found himself holding her close, the warm moments they shared he couldn’t seem to forget now, and the memories of their past that somehow etched itself into every crevice of his mind.
Another tear slipped past his eyes, and soon a new fury settled alongside his pain and sorrow.
He just wondered what he might do to the monster that had done this.
Notes:
yeah you can guess what happens next
This arc is the longest arc in the fic and the most impromptu one I've ever written. 20 chapters yall. I'm shitting myself
Next up: Willy visits Michael and comforts him
Thanks for reading!
Chapter 93: You Are Not My Brother
Notes:
[WARNING]
Violence, blood, mild body horror, thoughts of death
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
The days that followed became a hazy blur for Michael. Shock and grief never quite left him, even as he tried to regain any semblance of composure. He had raged. He had cried. He had shut down for long, straight hours. For since Arabel’s death, since everything leading up to the tragic discovery, Michael found living to be…utterly painful.
After the police had arrived and investigated the blatant evidence at Arabel’s crime scene, they confirmed what Michael had already figured: a break-in. An attempted robbery, however, went horribly wrong. It shattered his heart when he learned Arabel’s death had resulted from a broken neck. At least, according to the authorities he had talked to, more so when they had brought him in for a brief questioning. In the news, though, it was never disclosed. To the public, her death was only mentioned; the attempted robbery becoming the highlight instead; and how the perpetrator had yet to be identified nor caught.
The television screen flickered. The voice of the anchorman, warning his audience to lock their doors at night, crackled under Michael’s darkened stare. A static hum grew higher in pitch the longer he let it.
Michael switched it off with a sharp click of the remote.
Then he leaned back, sinking deeper into the couch. Why did it have to be Arabel? Out of everyone, out of the many houses on that calm street, why must it be hers that the criminals had to break into? Why couldn’t they have left her alone? Arabel was already sick; she barely had the power in her to physically stop anyone, then why?
Why must they kill her?
Why must they kill?
The television blared to life again. He scowled, something bitter rising in his chest.
Arabel is gone.
The channels switched between rapid succession, the light brightening the dark living room in jarring flashes.
Eli is being taken away from me.
The speaker volume rose to a deafening roar. Voices of crying and screaming children slipped through the noise. Michael sneered in its direction. He hauled the remote in a lightning-fast motion, sending it straight into the glass screen until it cracked. Until a bright spark of light erupted from it and caused it to die forever.
Then he stared ahead. He watched as the remaining shards of glass scattered on the floor around the television, a vision of an unwanted memory flashing in the back of his mind. The night of the storm; the exploding television; Father and his rough hands around his neck; the moment he had wanted death to claim him for good.
As a child, he had wondered if it was a selfish thought to simply leave everyone and everything behind. As an adult now…he wondered if Father’s failure at strangulation had been a mistake. If, all along, his life was meant to end sooner. If he should have gathered the courage and done it himself—
A sob stuck in his throat as he pressed his hand into his eyes. Tears wet his palm. Michael cried softly in the silence of his home, finding no solace in the darkness engulfing him. He cried alone, and for a long time. He cried despite hearing the click from his front door, the creaking of the wood, and the light footsteps approaching him. A hand eventually placed itself firmly on his back, a comforting support. But Michael didn’t look up. He stayed in his seat, crying for the loss of his friend and the frustration of his uncertain future. The future of his only child.
“Michael?” The hand moved in slow circles, full of sympathy. “It’s me. Your brother, Willy.”
Michael said nothing, his hands still covering his tearful eyes.
Willy’s voice remained quiet and empathetic, so unlike his usual boisterous self. “I heard the news. I’m so…incredibly sorry, Brother. To know that Soulless…that Arabel had passed away. I wished I had come to check on you sooner.” He patted Michael, sighing softly. “Where is Eli? Is he upstairs in his room?”
Finally, Michael pried his hands away, dragging them down his face one last time, wiping tears from his exhausted eyes. He took in a sharp, yet trembling, breath.
“No,” Michael could only say. Then his voice dropped lower, more bitter. “He’s not here. Not for the entire week.”
Luckily, Willy understood enough from that alone. He had also been made aware of the arrangements the Fontaines had set since they even started.
“I see,” Willy said, nodding. “Would you…like to drink something, Brother? You must be quite dehydrated, aren’t you? Wait here. I will fetch you a glass.” Willy rose to his feet and left the room. In the back, the kitchen light was switched on, making the gloomy house brighter.
Michael stared blankly out the window, realizing the earlier sunset sky had shifted into a deep, empty darkness.
He had utterly lost track of time. Barely stepped foot outside, let alone ate anything.
The shadow from the kitchen moved in his periphery. Willy returned at his side with the promised glass of water, handing it to him with crinkling eyes—a familiar warm smile behind his mask. Michael managed a small grin, even if he felt immensely broken and hollow.
“Thank you.” He drank a sip and nothing more. He couldn’t bring himself to consume anything else as his stomach churned with constant dread.
“I am worried about you, Brother,” Willy began after a while. “You look…depressed.”
That elicited a genuine chuckle out of him. “Do I? I feel great, though.” Sarcasm laced his voice, making Willy hum amusedly as he took the other empty chair.
“I really am sorry, Michael. To hear about Arabel. I know how much you cared for her,” Willy said.
Michael looked at his drink and saw his tiny reflection—the dark bags under his puffy eyes, the subtle lines on his face. Willy was right; he really did look depressed.
“Yeah.” He sighed and frowned, his chest heavy at the thought of her.
“Has there been any new information? I had listened to the live broadcast the other day, but all they mentioned was it had been an attempted robbery gone wrong.”
“So far, nothing yet. The police are still investigating. They’re still searching for her daughter and stepmother’s whereabouts. And the criminals...” His hand held the glass a little tighter. “The criminals are still free out there.”
“Bastards,” Willy hissed, scoffing under his breath. “I cannot believe they are not yet caught! How cruel those monsters are to prey on a weaker individual. Barbaric. Absolutely malicious. And to think they would call themselves human”—a sardonic laugh—“they’re better off known as corrupted fiends, don’t you think?”
“Right. Corrupted,” Michael muttered under his breath. Yet his mind was still trapped in a daze full of despondency. Still remembering the last time he had spoken to Arabel, the last moments he had held her in his arms as he was wracked with despair, crying on the ground with her stiff corpse.
His chest tightened once more. Tears threatened to brim in his eyes the longer he remembered everything about her, even the smallest detail.
“Willy,” Michael said, his voice breaking as the word left him, “I think you should head on home. It’s already very late, and I need to…I need to get some work done.” His gaze fixed on his unfinished drink.
“Work? At this hour? In your…current state?”
“Yes.” Michael gulped down the lump in his throat. “I need to fill in a little paperwork.”
“Ah. You mean the custody letter.” Immediately, Michael’s heart lurched. He snapped his attention to Willy, who in turn, offered him a raised brow. “What? I saw the envelope you left on the kitchen table. Was I not supposed to take a peek and read the content?”
“Willy—”
“I’d understand why you kept it to yourself. I’m not the least bit disappointed. But that letter, Brother,” Willy beat him to it, leaning back on his chair and crossing his arms. “It’s one of the most ridiculous things I’ve ever read. Transferring child custody—oh, absolute nonsense! Does that Frederick fellow really think you would give your only son to him as easily as signing your signature? Tch! Obnoxious old man. To think I went all the way to give a good, respectful first impression. I ought to have given that man a few warnings myself when we were introduced to each other back then! Make him think twice before pulling something like this.” An angry noise from Willy before he turned to Michael again, his tone serious. “So? You aren’t actually planning to sign it, are you?”
“…I don’t want to sign it.”
“And yet…by the look on your face, you’re forced to, somehow.”
Once more, Michael was grateful Willy had caught on without him needing to tell the entire story. Speaking about Frederick reminded him of the fury he had felt for the man’s audacity. His shameless cruelty.
“What is it then? What was that old fool’s blackmail for you?” Willy asked him gently when Michael added nothing.
He shook his head eventually. “I will handle it.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
“But it’s the answer you’re getting. I’m telling you not to worry about it.”
“Then pardon me for only being interested about the threat you’ve received. Why won’t you tell me?”
“There is nothing to tell,” Michael insisted exasperatedly, his voice raised by accident. At Willy’s silence, guilt crept on his back. He forced a deep breath and added softer, “Everything will be fine. I promise.”
“Michael,” Willy said, “you know very well I don’t care much for promises. I care about what you’ll soon have to go through to simply keep them. Is it so…bad for you to share what troubles you? Have I not been at your side through every hurdle, every dark phase in your life? Have you forgotten that I am your brother and your first ever friend?”
“…Of course not.”
“Then, whatever it is, you can tell me. You don’t need to hide your vulnerability anymore, like you always have. Don’t keep putting up your walls again. Will you?”
Once more, he found himself looking anywhere but his brother. His eyes landed on the shattered television and the glass shards. He began to reminisce: the Night of the Storm. One of the worst nights of his life. The day he was supposed to die had it not been for the help of a certain creature. Willy had been there for him, despite his terrifying action of moving in within Father’s body. But if it hadn’t been for Willy that night, Michael wouldn’t have had a second chance at life. If it hadn’t been for Willy at all…Michael never would have stayed and lived happily in his neighbourhood for as long as he did.
Have you forgotten that I am your brother and your first ever friend?
He could never.
Just as he could never be rid of the pain from losing Arabel.
After another deep sigh, Michael decided to tell Willy everything. Mostly regarding the blackmail from Frederick, the heavy repercussions of his refusal to sign the letter, and the future of the struggling hundred families whose lives would be further jeopardized should they be forced to move out. Including Willy, unfortunately.
“I’ll find another way. A…a different compromise,” Michael said right after. “I’ll figure out how. I…I won’t let you or those people lose their homes because of my decision to keep Eli with me. It wouldn’t be fair.”
“And you? It wouldn’t be fair to you either, no? Frederick is also threatening to take away your house.” Willy leaned forward, as though expecting a certain answer.
Michael dragged a hand down his face, huffing a frustrated breath. “It’s fine for whatever happens to me.”
“You don’t sound convinced of yourself,” Willy replied with a huff. “Last I recall, you’ve lived in this house for nearly twenty years, have you not? It’s the place Seraphina last lived happily in. Last place she lived at all. To let her own father steal that memory from you…I would say it is just as unfair. Just as cruel.”
“I know it’s cruel, Willy, but what other choice do I have?” Michael said. “I can’t, for God’s sake, give Eli away! He’s my son! But as much as I don’t want to separate him from the only place he’s ever felt closest to his mother—to let other families suffer when they lose their homes—there’s nothing I can do. Nothing I can stop unless…unless I actually do sign the letter.” He dropped his head in his hands, his breath leaving in shaky tremors. “God. I don’t want to. I…I can’t. I can’t do it.”
Frederick truly had cornered him. It was the bitter truth. And with the remaining days of the week before he was to return to the Gilded Nest for Eli with the letter, Michael only found himself more troubled than the previous days. Utterly torn. To either refuse the letter, keep Eli, and evict families from their homes, including his own; or save them and lose his son to the Fontaines. There would be no guarantee of how often he’d even be able to visit Eli if custody was under his grandparents. There was no promise they would allow him at all. All he would have was a legal agreement that stated all say regarding his son belonged to Frederick and Adelaide. And seemingly after his confrontation, his spoken concerns for Eli’s current education from them, they would surely ensure the boy would grow up without any influence from his father.
“It seems you are in the valley, Brother,” Willy said eventually, eyeing him from his chair. His voice took a softer turn. “Losing Arabel. The custody letter. Frederick’s threats to you. Sadly, that is just how the world works, isn’t it? Unfairly. Especially to those who have given up so much for others, only to lose more than they deserved.”
Michael buried his head deeper into his hands, unable to find any means to disagree. The world had always been unfair to him. To her.
Willy sighed when he stood, the sound of slow taps of his feet as he began to pace around the room. He heard him stop at the framed pictures above the mantel, picking up one with a younger Eli.
“You know,” Willy began softly. “Humans, I learned, are one of the most contradicting beings there is. They are born with innocence and purity, and yet,” he chuckled dryly, “they learn to enjoy chaos. Violence. They are very much capable of many great things, and instead, they chose to use that capability for their own hidden, darker desires. They bring life after life, only to destroy it simply because they can. In turn, the innocent suffers. Like Arabel, for example.” He put the framed picture down with a subtle thud, meeting Michael's pained gaze. “Like your son,” Willy added, circling back to his side.
Michael’s brow furrowed. “I’ll negotiate with Frederick. I’ll beg him if I have to—”
“And do you honestly believe,” Willy interrupted sharply, “he would listen? After he had already laid out his plans to you?”
“I have to try. I need to. I just…I cannot let him ruin those people’s homes.”
“You cannot give him your signature either. Yet you have to make a choice. So, which one would it be?”
His jaw clenched tighter, his chest carrying a weight he could not hold. He was losing his mind. Willy must have noticed when he failed to answer, a sad look across his eyes. He stopped in front of Michael, kneeling down.
“Michael, I’m very sorry this is happening to you. No one should ever deserve this. You, of all people, shouldn’t have to decide between your child and the poor children of that neighbourhood. With either option you were given…picking one would still mean a loss. There is no winning this fight Frederick had already orchestrated and steered for his victory. There are no negotiations or compromises that can be made. You know that.”
Willy's words were true; it stung him.
“I know…” Michael whispered dejectedly.
“Then you must also know that Frederick, like the other mongrels they call themselves loyal citizens in this city, is cruel and selfish,” Willy said. “Him, and the rest of them, are not worth saving. Are they, Brother?”
Michael pondered with heavy eyes. The bitter anger in his heart, the vengeful part residing in him, made Willy’s words sound truer than they ever had before. Frederick was not worth saving. Arabel’s murderer was not worth saving.
“No,” he said with more conviction, his voice laced with bitterness.
“Perhaps then, wouldn’t it be better if they received special guidance instead?” Michael stiffened. His eyes slowly lifted to Willy, slowly understanding. “You’ll get to keep your son,” Willy added, excitement and anticipation growing in his voice. “No innocent citizen will lose their homes. Frederick and Adelaide Fontaine will forget you and Eli ever existed. And the criminals that pushed Arabel down her stairs—murdered her mercilessly—will pay for what they have done. You’ll get your vengeance and justice immediately, I swear to you, Brother.
“But the only thing I need in return...is your agreement to this Deal. I cannot do this on my own.” Willy offered out his hand. “So, please, help me broadcast it through the screens; and we can change Pale City for the greater good. Together, we can spare thousands of lives from the War. From the cruelty of mankind. What do you say this time?”
Michael’s eyes lowered to his brother’s hand.
Everything Willy had to offer in the Deal was more than enough to make him agree. In his mind, all he prioritized was his son and avenging Arabel’s death—the loss he wondered could have been prevented had he accepted Willy’s offer sooner. Could he be at fault for that? If it hadn’t been for his stupid morality, refusing to let Willy correct all the wrongs of humanity through extreme measures, would those criminals be stopped before they committed anything? Would they be stopped from breaking into Arabel’s home and murdering her?
Would Michael have never needed to go through all this grief and pain?
The Cycle had scared him. The idea of thousands under control for his sake still bothered him; it was an awful fate. Yet imagining the future Willy promised, even if it meant the Cycle would take its horrifying effect, didn't sound as awful when there was a guarantee for his conditions.
He wanted— needed —the Deal. There was no other choice left. He had already lost Arabel because of his first refusal; he cannot lose his son now.
There is no other way. I have to do this. For him.
His mind moved his hand closer to Willy’s, more than ready to make the skin-to-skin contact needed to seal the Deal. Yet somehow, just as it hovered above Willy’s palm, his heart made a surprising lurch. He froze. The words from Willy’s offer began to replay in crystal-clear volume, something dreadful occurring to him. A bad realization.
Slowly, he met Willy’s impatient gaze, the tightness of his concealed smile. Then he asked, his voice low and steady for the first time that night:
“How did you know Arabel was pushed down the stairs?"
Willy’s eye twitched at Michael's retracted hand. He dropped his own not long after.
“What do you mean?” Willy’s voice was too casual.
“You said I’ll get my vengeance for the criminals that killed Arabel. How did you know she died from being pushed? Or that she was found by the stairs and broke her neck?”
Willy snickered, his smile utterly forced under his mask. “Why, I told you I listened to the live broadcast, didn’t I—?”
“It was never made public.” Michael rose to his feet, his tone turning sharper and more venomous as he stared face to face with Willy. “Her cause of death. It was never disclosed. Only the fact that she had been a victim to an attempted house robbery. So, Willy, how did you know,” Michael repeated bitterly, “she was pushed?”
Willy’s smile faded behind his mask. His eyes remained on Michael, though they lost their initial confidence. That was when it hit him—when Michael realized yet another horrifying truth.
“You were there. You were there when she died.” Michael took a step back, tears stinging his eyes, blurring his vision. His breath hitched in his throat. Willy did not deny anything.
He dragged a hand over his face, horror and pain twisting in his heart.
“Willy,” he breathed out in devastation. “What have you done?”
“What I had to do.” The answer caught him off guard. Michael stared, his eyes wide. “You were always going to choose her, weren’t you? It was always her words that would influence your stubborn mind. If I hadn’t done it, you would have never listened. You would have forever refused the solution sitting in your very hands.”
Bit by bit, his world began to shatter around him. A tear slid down his cheek. “Wh-why?” He swallowed hard, his voice breaking. “Why did you…how could you—?”
“How could I?” Willy blurted a frustrated laugh, almost sounding manic. “How could you , Mono? Everything I have done, everything I am trying to accomplish, is all for your sake! I only wanted to spare your life from the War heading our way! Why is it so hard for you to understand that?” Willy snapped. “Can’t you see the state of the world already? Can’t you understand that the only way for you to be safe, for you to continue to live no matter what, is through the Deal? It’s the truth; I only want your life spared!”
His heart ached with new agony.
“Then why kill Arabel? What does any of it have to do with her? She didn’t hurt anyone; she has never even hurt me! She is nothing but innocent, and unrelated to all of this!”
“Because, Michael,” Willy said, taking a step forward, “you would have never listened so long as her opinions were available to you. You would have blindly followed her decisions and chosen to destroy your own life. That is why I had to do what needed to be done! I had to stop her. I knew I had to before she could convince you any further—”
“You did it,” Michael spat in disbelief, “just so I’d accept helping you control the city? So you could manipulate me?” Anger finally burned within him, realizing how easily Willy had indeed manipulated him moments before—realizing how he’d been more than ready to go back on his own word, to abandon his own morals, for what had happened to Arabel. It was clear then Willy had planned her demise, to make him admit the world was not worthy of saving. It was clear that Willy further used his desperation for his son to drive the point home. And he had been foolish to have fallen for Willy’s manipulation, disguised in assuring, supportive words.
“I-I did it so she wouldn’t interfere! She already attempted to!” Willy defended desperately. “Believe it or not, Michael, Arabel would have been the death of you sooner or later! If not for her decisions, then for the illness living inside of her. I was only protecting you.”
Michael scoffed dryly. How could it have slipped his mind that Willy had learned about Arabel’s inherited illness the same day he had?
His lips thinned into a bitter smile, his eyes brimming with fresh tears.
“Where are her daughter and stepmother?” Michael asked. Willy stilled, suddenly silent and failing to conjure an answer—a believable lie. “Willy,” Michael pressed, his patience fading along with his smile, “where are Leigh and Miriam?”
Again, Willy provided no answer.
Then and there, Michael lost all hope.
His heart shattered.
“You…” Michael shook his head, a wry laugh escaping him. “You’re a murderer. A goddamn… parasite!” He grabbed fistfuls of his hair. Hot tears fell down his cheeks; regret engulfed his broken spirit. “I never should have saved you. Never should have brought you out of that storm. I should have…I should have just left you to die in the mud.”
Willy’s voice trembled when he spoke again, hurt flashing in his eyes. He approached him. “B-Brother—”
Michael slapped Willy’s hand away when it touched his shoulder. This time, he made no move to hide his resentment.
“You are not my brother.”
Willy flinched at his words, almost shrinking in place. His brows furrowed.
“Michael,” Willy said slowly, the silence broken by a rumble of thunder—an upcoming storm from the world outside and the one in the room. “You don’t mean that. I know you don’t. You’re only…angry at me for the decisions I made for you. But I promise, this”—He gestured to the situation—“is only for the greater good. It is what’s best for you and Eli. So, please, Brother, if we can get past this, if we can simply ignore the part where others lose their autonomy, we can achieve everything you could possibly ever ask for. I swear it.”
Michael's blood continued to boil with every word; he said it all with one simple glare: “I don’t believe you.”
Willy understood his silence, his desperation to convince him becoming apparent in his eyes and voice.
“L-Look at your father,” Willy added exasperatedly, attempting to shift the subject of Arabel’s murder and his involvement. His commitment to it. “He is the prime example of what the Cycle could do to help! Perhaps not in the same exact way, but the idea applies. Do you think if I hadn’t helped him, guided him, he wouldn’t continue to hurt you? Hell, you even agreed yourself! Back then, when you were a child, you willingly agreed to have me live within this poor excuse of a man! You wanted me to ‘control’ him, just so he could be better off without his evil addictions. That is what you asked of me. The Cycle is no different! And if your child self was here, standing in your place now, I just know he would be smart enough to see that.”
“Then get out.”
“What?”
Michael stepped forward to the fireplace, fury resting behind his throat. “If I am the reason you had to live inside a poor excuse of a man, Willy,” he spat. “Then get. Out. Of him.” His hands brushed a long iron rod.
“Brother—”
He swung the fireplace poker to Willy’s head. With a surprised cry, Willy plummeted to the ground, his body a soft thud against the mat. He touched the side of his head, dark blood staining his fingers. Willy gasped as he looked up.
“M…Michael?”
Michael tried not to listen to his voice, refusing to let his hesitations and regret linger. He raised the rod above his head with shaking hands, put aside his devastation for every memory he had cherished, and he brought the weapon down with stronger force.
Willy moved just as the sharp end stuck in the wood. “Michael! Stop it!” Willy cried out, snatching the other end of the rod before Michael could pull it free. Michael fought to regain it, but Willy wouldn't let go, no matter the struggle. Enraged, Michael kicked Willy in his middle, sending him against the wall. Then he shoved the iron rod flat across Willy’s neck, pushing it deeper to force the air from his lungs.
“You…can’t kill me,” Willy choked out, gripping the rod. Michael gritted his teeth, angry tears forming in his eyes. “I will continue…to heal this body. Until you are done, Brother—”
“Stop calling me that!” A sob rose in his throat. “Stop saying that word. I am not your brother. You are not mine. All you are…is a piece of meat with an eye that should have long gone extinct. All you are is a parasite. I should have realized it the moment you took over my father’s body.” Michael pressed the poker further against him.
Willy’s eyes twitched before him, blinking rapidly. He gasped stolen air. “Y-You can’t kill me,” Willy repeated. “Not while I’m still in him.”
Michael seethed.
He lifted his attention to the eyes that were known to be similar to his own. Borrowed by the brother who had betrayed him. He watched the pair of eyes grow frantic and horrified when his lips quirked into a bitter, knowing grin.
“M-Michael—”
“An Eye,” Michael interrupted. “That’s what you are, isn’t it? Through his eyes; that's how you’re able to see everything as I do. That’s where you’re most vulnerable. And that’s how I’ll get you out of him.”
Horror took over Willy’s expression. He managed to throw the rod off his neck and let it fall with a clang. Alas, he realized it too late; Michael had let him. For just as soon as he was granted air, Michael had already snatched him by the throat again, this time his strength nearly undefeatable.
“You can’t do this. I-I am your friend! I have been there with you since you were a child!” Willy cried, his eyes widened as Michael pressed a thumb into one of his eye sockets. He dug deeper, until his nails pierced through the soft surface. Blood oozed down Willy’s cheeks, both crimson and black. But the man did not so much as scream in agony as he did in exasperation. This was not his body, after all; only a shell he borrowed.
A shell he had used to murder Arabel.
Michael clenched his teeth together, his hand trembling in blind rage. He no longer heard Willy’s desperate screams; he could only see the blood coating his thumb, feeling the wet moisture across his skin as he pushed deeper and deeper. He would’ve done the same to his other eye. He had already removed his hand to blind Willy for good, dragged and pinned Willy to the floor when he continued to struggle, to plead and scream, and to break free from his hold. And then—
Everything flipped within a second.
Everything stopped just as another thunder boomed, the rain tapping violently against the glass of his uncovered window.
His fingers around Willy’s neck loosened ever so slightly; another pang of fresh pain hit him as he looked down at his side. The iron rod that had fallen now impaled him deep, steered by the hands of the once-brother he had.
He coughed; blood rose in his throat and out from his mouth, down to his chin. Then Michael swayed to the corner, his back hitting the wall.
And he clutched his side, clutched the rod that stuck out of him so deeply. In the silence of the storm, he heard Willy’s call again.
“M-Michael?” Willy was beside him in an instant, pure horror in his voice, and a look of regret he had never seen in his features before. “Brother, no—I didn’t—this isn’t what was supposed to happen.” Willy tugged at the rod. Michael cried out, white-hot pain searing him as Willy removed the sharp end in one swift motion. He looked down. Blood had soaked nearly the entirety of his shirt, pooling underneath his weak body. He felt his head grow light. Immediately, Willy sat him up, pushing at his open wound. Nonetheless, it didn’t stop the blood gushing out of him, his choked cries of pain. It didn’t stop his fading life.
“No, no, no, no, no,” Willy muttered under his breath. He shook Michael’s shoulders, trying to keep him awake.
Michael only slumped back against the wall, a bitter taste of iron on his tongue. It was harder to breathe now, much easier to fall asleep.
“W-wait here. I’ll be right back.” Willy hurried across the room. Michael watched with blurry eyes as the couch and table were shoved aside. He closed his eyes briefly. The sound of wood tearing apart reached his ears, and by the time he had opened his eyes again, Willy was back.
Michael lowered his gaze to Willy’s hands, another tear sliding down his cheek as little blobs of eyes, the size of waterdrops, moved towards the opening of his wound. He caught sight of the hole torn in the middle of his living room and noticed the strings of meat attached underneath the floorboards.
He’s been living here with us.
A sharp cry erupted from him, his head falling back against the wall. He breathed heavily, feeling the foreign movement around and inside his wound. In his lungs.
“It’s not enough,” he soon heard Willy whisper in horror. Then Willy’s attention snapped back to him. “Michael, it isn’t…it isn’t enough. They aren’t enough to heal you on their own.”
Michael’s lips parted to say something. His voice was already gone.
“I’m so sorry, Brother, I…” Willy’s remaining eye dropped to his wound again, his expression grim. “I-I have to heal you.”
No.
It was too late.
Willy had taken off his mask and forced his hand into his own mouth. He coughed and hurled in painful wheezes. Michael’s tears continued to fall as Willy, his true form, emerged out of his father’s body. The man slumped lifeless to the ground just as Willy moved across the floor and towards him.
But he could no longer bear it—the pain, the cold, and the regret of everything.
So, he only thought of his son, his arms wrapped tightly around him. He thought of the boy's mother, guilty and ashamed for his failure to protect their child. He thought of Arabel, his first human friend, and the moments she and Marsh changed his childhood for the better—saving him. He wished, more than anything now, he hadn't been the reason for her demise. And he wished he had never introduced her into his life. To Willy.
Everything began to numb. His eyes lowered to nothing. A prickle of cold settled underneath his skin, a familiar presence approaching him, one he had recognized from the night of the storm two decades ago. And soon, the darkness came forward to take over his frail soul; Michael let it, no matter how scared he was. He allowed it to engulf him until the world become a silent place, save for the voice of his brother.
“I will heal you.” Willy’s voice echoed in his mind before his life sought an end.
Notes:
Aaannd Brother Of The Year goes to...Willy?
Two more chapters left people. And then Viola gets to bleed out in the spotlight again.
Also a shoutout to ApathyAo3 for yet another fic for this story! Basically a what-if Mono and the gang stayed at the Maw, featuring a slowly-tyrant/bully-turned Six! It's called Beneath The Surface and you can read it
here.Thanks for reading!
Chapter 94: Be Not Afraid
Notes:
[WARNING]
Violence, blood and gore, mild language, guns
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Silence. Dead silence.
His eyes blinked open slowly to the mess before him. He raised his red-stained hands, turning them around and flexing his fingers. Then he looked down at the bigger crimson stain on his shirt. The blood had finally stopped; his wounds had healed. The tear on his skin, too, had become a smooth surface as if his impalement had never occurred. As though the thick blood underneath him hadn’t pooled because of his injury. There was no pain nor lingering stinging, not even any cases of nausea or light-headedness. He felt energized. Brand new. Stronger and younger.
Yet despite these startling realizations, the silence persisted like the heavy storm outside. A silence that, no matter how healthy or fresh he felt, brought a strange, dim emotion he never thought he was capable of feeling. It wasn’t sadness precisely; it was similar to it. It wasn’t regret, but it was somehow worse. This feeling…it came from the loss.
His fingers hesitated above his own head, a mere light touch on his cheek. The tears had yet to dry, the blood smearing with them.
“Michael…?”
He finally used the voice in his throat.
Silence. Dead silence.
Nothing. No one.
Michael said not a word as the world thundered and rumbled. Willy waited for him to speak for a long time, tried his might to feel any semblance of his presence within the confines of this borrowed mind and body. And yet he failed. Michael was not there.
This body was hollow.
There was no soul left within the shell.
Willy realized it then: he had healed a corpse; and he had entered much too late, for Death had already taken his brother.
No.
Something wet and foreign slid past his eyes. Willy flinched when it burned, prying his hands away from the sudden tears falling down his face. What was…this? This feeling? Why did it hurt so much? How could he feel such throbbing agony when all of Michael’s injuries had been healed, his heart barely beating anymore? How could it scorch his insides yet not truly hurt him? The little eyes growing within, they writhed yet they were not dying. They were…
Grieving.
Along with him.
No. No. No.
Willy dragged his hands across his cheeks, wiping desperately—furiously—at the sickening tears that brimmed his brother’s eyes.
Stop this.
He gritted his teeth as a low growl in his throat threatened to erupt in a scream full of devastation and regret. More of these tears slipped through his fingers. The more they did, the brighter the desperation and anger did too.
“STOP THIS!”
His voice echoed back to him. The tears finally ceased, leaving another searing pain to linger in his chest.
Willy wanted it gone. This emotion… he didn’t welcome it. He wasn’t meant to feel it. Slumped in the corner, all he did was stare at nothing but the chaos of Michael’s living room. The torn floorboards in the center, the table he had flipped while rushing for the little eyes, the signs of violence from their fight—the blood on the poker. None of it was supposed to happen. This wasn't what he had planned when he arrived at Michael’s doorstep, nor was it the outcome he had envisioned when he had fatally pushed Arabel down her staircase. Michael was supposed to be on his side after everything! He had already agreed to help make the city a better place! He had agreed the citizens were not worth saving! They had even been so close to completing the Deal, and yet…
Willy had been too eager. Too excited. Too reckless.
He had slipped up.
And in turn, he lost everything.
All of it for nothing. The eyes agreed in unison. What use is the Cycle for if he is gone? What use is there to protect him, to spare him from the fatal fate of War, when he is already dead? Why continue the Cycle if only to help these monstrous citizens change for the better? What purpose would that serve now?
The eyes listened amongst each other, combining their support and agreement. Willy added in the end:
Why not just let the entire world fall to ruin?
Finally, the pain receded. His unwelcome tears remained unshed. Willy and the eyes decided then and there with a new resolve burning brighter than it ever did. The world would become what they truly were: corrupted and broken. The hidden monsters, disguised as human citizens, would finally receive the pain they had inflicted upon others; they would learn to suffer just as Michael did. Just as Willy had always imagined they would whenever his brother defended them.
Across from him, a lying figure shifted. The man groaned weakly, thick drops of blood falling to the ground. He held his damaged eye and cried, cursing loudly for the first time in decades. He propped himself up with his elbows, then met Willy’s stare.
“Michael—?” A sharp cry escaped him as he dropped again to the floor, half blind.
Out the corner of his eyes, Willy spotted the bloody poker. He took it with him when he stood over the pitiful old man.
“M-Michael, son, I—!”
“Son? No, I don’t think so.” He drove the poker straight into his back. Michael’s father cried in agony, stuck to the ground and pinned by the iron rod. His remaining eye glistened with tears, his breath shallow and seemingly panicked. Willy lowered himself next to him, if only to catch a closer look. He wanted to savour the moment. “After twenty years trapped in your own mind, you still can’t seem to remember what you did and reflect. Michael had high hopes, don’t you know? Even if he was never made aware you’ve been banging on every wall, begging to be let out.”
Ever so slightly, the man’s eye widened in horror.
“You…it’s you,” he murmured. Then fury warped his wrinkled face. “You piece of shit! What have you done to him? What have you done to my son—?”
Willy pulled out the poker and placed it higher on his back. The man cried louder, quickly out of breath.
“Michael is not your son. He’s my brother. And you,” Willy twisted the poker, earning another broken cry from him, “are nothing but a degenerate. Do you wish to say your last words?”
“Go,” the man spat, blood coating his teeth, “to hell.”
Willy grinned.
“We’re already there.”
Swiftly, he pulled the poker out again and rammed it into the man’s skull.
The Gilded Nest during the night seemed nearly as lively as it was during the day. From its tall gates, one could see how the lights glowed brightly through the windows, the front yard illuminated by hidden lamps nestled among the clean-cut bushes. On the cliff, the mansion’s view overlooking the swaying sea was a phenomenal sight. Even as the waves roared beyond the glass panes of Frederick’s office, the lightning striking fiercely in the vast darkness of the sky, there was something peaceful in watching nature go about its course. The wind, if listened carefully, howled out there. The rain poured heavily on the greens of his entire property, vicious to both the trees and any man brave or foolish enough to walk in the storm.
The chair groaned underneath him as he took a seat. He reached for the glass and poured himself a drink. Another muffled thunder boomed as he sipped. A small, crackling tune played on the vinyl in the corner. He let the melody play while he stared out into the storm, unbeknownst to him that another had interrupted his lone indulgence. It was the click of the door, the silenced steps crossing the threshold of his office, that made Frederick sigh through his nose. The butler’s name rested on his tongue, a question ready regarding the man’s impromptu visitation to his office this late. After all, everyone else had retired to their chambers or home; the workers, the maids, the children, even his own wife. Save for Lucius, who was always the last to relieve himself from his duty for the night.
It was not the butler that he found standing in the middle of his office.
“Michael.”
Michael stood eerily still with a calm smile on his lips. His clothes were drenched, a stain of light red soaked below his ribcage. Dark bags were under his eyes; his skin was nearly as white as paper, his lips a bluer shade. He seemed…dead. Dead if it had not been for his normal blinking and the humming.
“Hello, Frederick.” He sounded cheerful, almost eager. “Am I interrupting you?”
“How did you get inside the Gilded Nest?” Frederick asked calmly, putting down his drink, sitting up straighter. Something was off about him. Extremely.
“I tried the doorbell. It didn’t work. So, I banged against your front door. Luckily, your butler allowed me entrance.” Frederick knew instantly this was a lie. Lucius wouldn’t. He would have informed Frederick first before letting anyone inside, let alone at this hour.
“And you are here,” Frederick continued, eyeing him up and down, “on what business?”
“I’m here for Eli. Or rather, I’m here to discuss him.” Michael began to pace around the room. His eyes slid across the neat books on the shelves, the taxidermy animal, and the rifle mounted on the wall. “I’d like to proceed with the custody letter.”
Frederick’s brows shot up, despite his cool demeanor. “Do you, now?”
“Yes.” He ran his hand over the mahogany wood, his eyes half-lidded and his smile still intact.
“And you thought you were smart enough to settle this nearing midnight? Not even on the actual day you were supposed to hand the letter?”
Michael chuckled, a hint of bitterness he was boldly expressing. “Do you not want the custody?”
Frederick eyed him from his chair, still unable to pinpoint the difference about his son-in-law aside from his suspicious state. It seemed there was something more; something odd about the look in his eyes. They seemed vacant, almost.
“Very well.” Frederick waited for Michael’s next move. But instead of receiving the letter as he had expected, Michael tapped his head, chastising himself under his breath.
“Oh, I’m an idiot.” His smile grew despite his supposed frustration. “I seemed to have left the signed letter at home! You don’t happen to have a second copy, do you? One that I can, perhaps, give you my signature right away?”
Frederick’s eyes narrowed.
Nonetheless, he opened a bottom drawer of his desk and searched for a copy of the documentation. There was a gun he kept in a hidden compartment; he left the drawer open for better reach as he placed the letter on the table. It was all his instinct told him to do.
Michael did not move from his place, only nearing the mantel, staring up at the weapon décor on the wall.
“Sign it,” Frederick told him.
“Will I still get to see Eli? Once I sign that letter.” Finally, Michael looked over his shoulder. The smile on his face seemed entirely fake.
“You should’ve already known and made peace with the answer to that question. You signed the first copy, did you not?”
“Hm. Right then.” His voice dropped lower. “Could I borrow a pen?”
Frederick spared him another long glance before he looked away, swivelling slightly in his chair. He grabbed a pen, barely letting it rest above the letter before a definitive click sounded across the room.
His eyes widened. The barrel of the rifle was aimed directly at his head. Michael’s finger had done more than brushed its trigger, pulling it the second time when nothing was fired.
A third pull of the trigger.
The silence continued.
“That one…is merely a prop, Michael. There are no bullets in that weaponry,” Frederick said finally, his lips curling into a tight frown. His instinct was right, after all. He took the gun from his drawer and held it in the light. “This one, however, has enough to break a skull.”
Slowly, Michael lowered the rifle in his arms, dropping it to the floor. “Ah. Well, isn’t that unfortunate?” Michael muttered. An amused chuckle escaped the drenched man then, as if Frederick's words meant as little as the threat he himself had posed earlier with the prop weapon.
Frederick raised the gun to him. “Convince me why I shouldn’t just shoot you now.”
“You might wake everyone else, for one.” Frederick’s grip on the gun tightened, his jaw clenched. Michael’s face split into a toothy smile. He approached him despite the aimed gun at his head. “Two,” Michael added, “your wife would have to sleep next to a murderer. Then three,” He halted at the desk, his chin raised slightly. “Eli would hate you forever, no? Knowing that you killed his father cold-bloodedly? How would you even begin to mold him into one of you, if he learns the truth? The boy would resist, you know that, Frederick.”
“Do you think I am where I am through honesty?” Frederick’s thumb pulled the safety lever. “That custody letter is mercy, Boy. I could easily have you killed and make it seem as though you had been in a foul accident. Mugging. Car crash. An encounter with unseemly thugs. The only reason you are alive now, Michael, is because of your relation to my late daughter and grandson. But do not think for one second that won’t ever change.”
“I’m deeply terrified,” Michael said as he took the letter and tore it into pieces. If he noticed the shift in Frederick’s breathing, his simmering irritation, Michael made sure to let him know. For he continued to test his patience, pressed on every single button he could find. Michael sat on the chair then leaned forward, meeting closer with the barrel of the handgun, utterly fearless.
“Do you want to kill me, Frederick?” Michael asked, his tone unlike the seriousness of his words. “If so, then I encourage you to grow a pair and do it.”
“Excuse me—?”
“Why not? You said you could. You said it would be easy.” Michael smiled bigger. He had lost his mind. “Go ahead. Pull the trigger.”
“You wish to die so badly?”
“Come on, now,” Michael said with a laugh. “We both know I am already dead when I aimed the rifle at your head. Just a matter of how. And you know I won’t sign the letter either, regardless of what you threatened me with. Eventually, you’ll have me killed for Eli’s custody. Isn’t that right?”
A small, amused grin slowly crept to Frederick’s lips. “For once, you’ve proven yourself to possess the intellect I had hoped for when Seraphina introduced you.” He finally lowered his hand, the gun loose within his grasp.
“That so?”
“I’ll be honest when I say you had potential, Michael. A rare potential. Even if you had come from nothing and no one. And now with your declaration, refusing to ever give up your son even if it would mean more damage towards others, towards yourself …your dedication and determination is admirable, I confess. Not to mention your attempt for my murder. Were you truly ready to risk it all for Eli?”
“Yes. On the other hand, I’ve never quite liked you anyway. You’ve always been...ah, what’s the word...” Michael pondered with a grin. “A snotty asshole.”
Frederick laughed genuinely, intrigued by his sheer honesty.
“Indulge me; let’s say you were successful with my murder, Michael,” Frederick asked after a while. “What would you have done after that first shot?”
“Shoot you the second time, of course. And the third. And the fourth. Until your brain turns into mush.”
“Interesting.” Frederick pursed his lips, nodding. His eyes flicked upwards to him, a dark look. “Shall I do the same thing then? Turn your brain into mush?”
“As if I have the luxury to object. I’m not the one with the working gun, am I?” He was right. “Besides, it also seems like you’ve made up your mind already; you want to get rid of me as soon as I pose a real threat. And before I further ruin your plans and schedule. So, by all means, do get on with it, unless...” Michael quirked a brow. “You’d like to switch places and hand me your gun? I love my son very much. I’m more than happy to kill you for him.”
“Good grief, what a psychopath you actually are.” Frederick laughed again, leaning back in his chair. “I’ve seen men resolve to such desperation before, but never have I seen one so…foolishly enthusiastic and confident until the end, considering you are utterly damned and out of cards to play. For that, I could almost give you my respect. I can even say I will consider letting your son remember you in a good light. Is there anything else,” Frederick said, “before you go?”
“I suppose not. Except, maybe, if I could have your word that you’ll make it quick?”
He hummed, the corner of his lips tilting upwards.
“Alright then. As you wish.”
The shot rang in the air.
Michael’s head plummeted to the desk, blood gushing out from the hole left in the center of his forehead, and his eyes resting half-lidded. Crimson pooled underneath him and dripped to the carpet. He was dead, finally.
Throwing away the gun on the table, Frederick left his chair and raised the needle of the gramophone. The song had long ended since Michael’s sudden appearance; he was glad enough the office had been soundproofed.
Now what to do with the corpse, Frederick thought as he pulled out a cigar from the pocket of his cardigan, lighting it up. He blew a puff out. I suppose faking a car accident would be the most probable next step. I’d have to cash in a few favors to help move the body out immediately. And a few more to ensure any ties from our name would be cut.
He reached for the telephone and began to put his plan into motion. He brought it next to his ear, speaking firmly into the receiver, explaining what needed to be done and what would happen if they failed to deliver within the next 12 hours. As always, they listened. All of them did.
Frederick ended the call after, just about ready to dial the last associate to do his bidding for tonight’s occurrence. He spun the dial for each digit, unaware of the slumped head rising from his bloodied desk, staring directly at his turned back.
He brought the cigar to his mouth and blew smoke. The phone rested back on its cradle, its user finally putting his attention back to the dead body bleeding out on his shiny floors and soft carpets.
As he pivoted on his heel, he stopped immediately. The cigar slipped through his fingers, and his eyes widened with real shock. For in the chair, there was no stiff, dead in-law; only a smiling man with a gun pointed at his face. The gun Frederick had left on the table.
“You…” Frederick, for once, was speechless. Caught entirely off guard. Hesitation and confusion danced in his voice as he forced them to steady. “How are you…”
“Still alive?” A trail of blood slid down the center of Michael’s face, yet the wound was as though gone. “I’m afraid that is a long, complicated story.”
Frederick’s eyes glanced at the door. Michael tapped his desk loudly to grab his attention. “No, no, Frederick. You cannot leave just yet. It’s only fair I get a turn now!”
“You aren’t supposed to be alive. I shot you in the head.”
“Well, yes; that, you did. I bet you’re wondering how you failed in that decaying head of yours. But then again, where would the fun be if I revealed everything to you?” Frederick took a daring step. A bullet went through his leg. His sharp cries echoed within his office; none beyond its walls heard.
“Stubborn old man,” Michael huffed, leaning forward over Frederick’s fallen stance. “I thought I’ve made myself clear; you cannot leave.”
Frederick gasped shallow breaths, holding his wounded leg. More blood seeped through the opening. He gritted his teeth, letting a scowl reveal on his face. He sneered.
“So, you’ve bested me. What then? I don’t suppose you’re planning to swing my gun around and continuously shoot me until someone finally enters my office, hm? Lucius would,” he stifled a groan, “realize the blatant evidence. You would be arrested and hanged—”
“Lucius? Oh! You mean the dead butler.” Another deep laugh that infuriated Frederick.
“You killed him?” His blood boiled.
“Maybe. Last I checked, he looked dead. Not quite sure, if I’m honest. When he opened the door, I immediately went striking him with a sharp poker, you see. He fought a good battle, though alas,” Michael feigned a pout, “he was weak. I only had to hit him twice before I managed to drive the poker into him. So, you tell me, Frederick,” Michael continued, his arms on his knees, the gun secured in his grasp. “Would Lucius, anyone really, come in here? Would I be found out and arrested once they find your dead body on your desk, and your own gun in your hands?”
Frederick’s lips curled into a sneer. How dare he.
Michael smiled wide at his reaction, laughing rather boisterously, riling him up on purpose.
“You should see your face!” Michael exclaimed. “Don’t worry, old man. I’m not a copycat. I won’t fake your death through suicide or any… car accidents.”
“Y-you’ve been listening,” Frederick spat. He could not feel his leg, his head already dizzy. “You’ve been alive since then.”
“I’ve been alive since my brother died. I thought I had been before, but…I was gravely wrong. Because now,” Michael stood up and walked over to Frederick, his steps slow and calculated. “Now I have a clear duty. A greater purpose to bring correction. A dream that would, unfortunately, start with your death.”
Whatever Michael was saying made no sense to Frederick. Perhaps it was the pain from being shot, or perhaps it was the blood loss, yet one thing was clear as day: Michael had lost all semblance of his sanity. He was a different person entirely as he stared down at him, his eyes manic and certain. Evil.
“You kill me,” Frederick said at last, “and your son will know your true nature, Michael. I may not be the one to reveal it, but he will see through you one day. And he will realize you are much worse than I am. Mark my words.”
A low chuckle from Michael, an almost bored sound. He slowly raised the gun to Frederick’s eye.
“I will consider letting your grandson remember you in a good light.”
Then he pulled the trigger.
The body fell back.
There was a gaping hole in the left side of Frederick’s head. A near-perfect circular-shaped hole. The eyeball that had been in its socket was completely obliterated, leaving only a bloody mess that splattered bits of it against his shoes. Frederick wasn’t kidding. The gun truly could break a skull.
Willy shot him again. Another hole on the man’s face until he was nearly unrecognizable.
This was getting boring fast. It wasn’t as satisfying as when he had jammed the life out of Michael’s father, that abusive monster. Though, perhaps it couldn’t be helped; Willy knew little of Frederick aside from Michael’s vague stories and complaints regarding the old bastard; he even held a lesser grudge. Murdering Frederick was only necessary to ensure he would receive permanent access to this enormous home of his. That is to say… almost permanent.
The hallway leading up to Frederick’s office was an annoyingly long journey as he remembered. Willy twisted the gun with his trigger finger, whistling the familiar tune that had played when he had greeted Frederick. Where on Earth was he now? Where was everyone else within this humongous property? There weren’t any staff around for him to even ask for directions!
His steps halted when a large mirror caught him in his periphery.
Turning his head, Michael’s face stared back, hollow and pale. Full of red stains.
Willy gulped. That wouldn’t do. So, he cleaned the blood off his borrowed face as best as he could, though his attempts only made it worse as they smeared across his skin in bigger spots. A faint ache, a borrowed pain, prickled in his chest.
“I’ll clean it better soon,” Willy said to his brother, the only thing that was left of him. He lifted a shaky smile. Michael smiled too. “I’ll clean it better,” Willy muttered.
Horns blared in the air, a deafening siren that boomed somewhere yet loud enough for it to be the entire estate. Suddenly, the lights bled red.
Uh, oh. Have I triggered an alarm—?
A figure staggered behind him in the mirror. Willy’s smile faded. He turned and was immediately kissed by a steel bat.
A crack in his skull; Willy coughed out Michael’s old blood onto the marble floor. He looked up at his assailant and wanted to laugh.
“Butler! Oh, you are still alive!” Willy propped himself up against the wall.
Lucius was practically leaning on one leg, his shoulders dislocated and injured from the poker Willy had driven into him. Purple splotches had formed across the man’s wrinkled skin, a bigger cut across his cheek and lip. One of the man’s eyes was swollen, perhaps from the time Willy had struck him immediately upon entering the Gilded Nest.
What a rough battle that was. No matter how short-lived the butler’s attempts were to stop me.
“I assume you’re the smart fellow who sounded the alarm—?”
Lucius cut him short with another blow to the head, sending him crashing against the mirror. Glass shards cut him before they hit the floor with a louder shatter. His gun slid from his grasp. A cold sensation trailed down his skin. Willy touched the wet blood dripping by his ear, tutting disapprovingly. The little eyes immediately moved from within; they sealed his fractured skull and spread evenly afterward, lending Willy better control to navigate his brother’s body and meet the butler with a wide smile.
The bat in Lucius’s hand raised higher before his lips could part. The man struck again. Over and over. Until more than a dozen bones in his body broke and shattered, the blood he coughed out staining his already drenched clothes.
But try as he might, Willy returned alive.
With every attempt for his death, there was no ridding the toothy smile etched on his face. Just as there was no ridding of the eyes that had grown and healed Michael’s body without fail.
After the fifth strike from Lucius, Willy had had enough of having his time wasted. He snatched the bat and pulled the man to fall forward. Immediately, Lucius cried out, his injured shoulder hitting the ground first. That suffering, however, was what made it easier for him to regain the upper hand. Willy stepped on the butler’s back just as his hand reached for the blood-splattered weapon. Then with the tip of his shoe, he dug deep into the hole in his shoulder. Lucius’s screams rivalled the sirens above them, the blood becoming a darker shade under the red glow.
Once he had run out of breath, out of voice, Willy lifted his foot and picked him up by his hair. Dragging him through the glass-filled floor, he reached for the gun first before he shoved the barrel of it at his neck.
Immediately, Lucius stilled. Haggard and battered, the man’s breathing was silenced.
“Let’s do this my way now, hm? I have one simple request and I expect you to help me with it.” The gun made a softer click as he tapped on the safety lever. “Tell me, which floor and room is Eli in?”
Lucius made no move to reply.
Willy sucked in a breath. He shot the butler’s other arm. The siren muffled out his cry this time.
“Perhaps I was not clear enough,” Willy said, positioning the gun back to his neck. “Where is Eli?”
“With Grandma Adelaide!” A child’s scream pierced through the air. In unison, the men turned their heads towards the little girl in the green nightgown, half her hair pulled up in a high ponytail. Bangs covered her eyes, yet they did not hide the tears that had streamed down her rosy cheeks.
“G-Genevieve!” Lucius finally spoke. “Genevieve...no! Get away from here!” Willy had begun to think the butler had turned mute out of pain. Yet there was something odd about the way the man spoke to the girl, something Willy found it hard to ignore. Was it…concern? Perturbation? Fear?
Willy stared into the butler’s face. He noticed it in his eyes.
Ah. Love.
The same kind he would see in Michael’s when he had spoken about his own son.
How spectacularly tragic.
Lucius noticed Willy’s stare and wicked smile. His eyes finally glistened, pleading. It did nothing more than confirm Willy's observation.
“Genevieve, my dear?” Willy held the gun higher on Lucius’s throat, facing both of them towards her. “Are you good friends with the butler here?”
For a second, the girl froze on the spot. Then Genevieve nodded meekly, cowering.
“Would you do anything to help him?”
“Michael, please, leave her out of this—!”
“Butler, you’ve had your chance to speak. It is now her turn in the spotlight.” Willy kept his gaze sharp on Genevieve, his smile even sharper.
Genevieve’s eyes darted to Lucius, sobbing and crying quietly. “…Yes.”
“Excellent. Then perhaps could you tell me where Eli is—?”
“Do not listen, Genevieve—!” Willy’s fingers tightened across the man’s neck, his nails digging into his skin, choking his words. His mouth lowered to Lucius’s ear, but he spoke clearly with the intention to let the girl listen.
“If she does not answer me,” Willy said, “she will take your place. You don’t want that, do you?”
Lucius’s throat bobbed. His tears dropped to the floor as he lowered his head in defeat.
Good.
“Genevieve,” Willy stood to his height, his smile softening as he caught a glimpse of his victory. “Where is Eli?”
Genevieve hesitated, as expected. She sobbed continuously, wiping tears off her face. But with the gun directly under Lucius’s chin, and Willy’s teasing finger on the trigger, the girl could do nothing but crack under the pressure.
“Th-third floor,” Genevieve said at last. “Grandma woke me first when the siren sounded. We were supposed to get Eli next but I…I ran down here for Luci. Eli’s room is at the end of the hall to the left.”
His lips tugged into a bigger smile.
“Thank you, Genevieve.” Willy pried the gun off Lucius’s neck and released him. The butler let out a quiet breath, barely moving a muscle.
Then a shot rang.
Genevieve screamed as the bullet pierced through the man, leaving a growing spot of red above Lucius’s heart. In horror, she ran towards the fallen butler, whereas Willy…
He watched with silent interest as the girl profusely cried over the man, her desperation showing through her aggressive attempt to wake him, shaking the butler as though he would respond to her pleas. It was very emotional, Willy thought. Almost as emotional as when little Six had cried over her poor mother’s death for days on end, huddled in one corner of the room, refusing to move at all.
I suppose I can understand it better now. How it feels to lose.
And perhaps…he could be merciful for now. After all, Genevieve had cooperated unlike the man she was crying for. It would only be right for him to reciprocate the help, wouldn’t it? Lucius was not yet gone. There was still time. It was merely down to whether the man’s soul was stubborn to stay long enough. So, if it worked, it worked. If not...
Just another corrupted citizen wiped off from this city.
Willy knelt beside the girl, watching as Lucius gasped for breath and failed for every passing second.
A few eyes rose from his throat and rolled down his tongue. Willy caught them in his hands, holding them out like stones. Then, after gently shoving Genevieve out of the way, he lowered the eyes into Lucius, whose horror became twice as palpable when the blobs of meat slipped through the cracks of his open wound. Lucius thrashed and screamed, agony in his voice.
And then his gasps ceased as the torn skin stitched itself. Lucius’s breathing steadied not long after.
Genevieve too had finally stopped her wailing, noticing the man’s healed body, now falling asleep.
It worked, a bitter voice within him spoke. There were a few eyes that had hoped the man wouldn’t make it. Willy, frankly, didn’t either. It’s unfair. If only Brother had been stubborn enough to stay as he was stubborn to defend these fiends. If only I hadn’t minimized the number of eyes the first time for his sake.
If only…
He silenced his irritation and rose to his feet. Beside him, Genevieve flinched and put herself over Lucius, trying her best to shield her friend away from him. Willy found it quite endearing how adamant she was to protect this man.
“It’s for your help, dear,” Willy said. He wiped away the blood lingering on his lips. “I trust that you will look after him, yes? Keep an eye on him for me?”
Genevieve only gaped at him, speechless. Willy chuckled and pinched her cheek when she lacked any actual response, a gentle smile on his face.
Then he left, making his way to the third floor.
Two gunshots had been fired since the siren had woken Eli up from a bad dream. He had thrown the sheets off him, fear seizing his heart even as curiosity won him over. He had gone just a step out of his bedroom, barely understanding the red glow on the ceiling, when the deafening gunshot sounded the second time, followed by a child’s blood curdling scream. Genevieve. Though his childish dislike for the girl was practically permanent, hearing her cries still scared him enough to worry if something had happened to her. She was still his cousin. Eli would never hope for her to get hurt, no matter the times he had wished for her to vanish whenever they played together.
So he took another step into the hallway. He did not get to move further than that; a firm grip had already taken hold of his arm, dragging him back inside his room.
Adelaide pushed Eli behind her as she hastily shut the door, locking it with a subtle click. Her breathing was shaky, as was her usually elegant composure. It was his first time seeing his grandmother this way: full of panic and unadulterated fear.
Finally, she turned around. Eli could feel her emotions as she gripped his hands, cupping his face with the same firmness she always had in her touch. Though, this time, it felt protective and dire.
“Elliot,” Adelaide said with a hushed voice, “are you alright?”
Eli gulped as he shook his head.
“Good.” She sighed.
“Grandma, what is going on? I heard a shot and Genevieve—”
“All will be fine. Don’t worry. I will go look for your grandfather shortly, and in the meantime, I need you to stay in your room. Lock the door and hide under your bed until I tell you to come out.”
“What? But I want to come with! I don’t want to stay here alone—”
“Do as I say.” Eli closed his mouth, frowning. “You will lock the door. And hide under the bed. Repeat that to me.”
“…I will lock the door. A-and hide under the bed.”
Adelaide squeezed his shoulder as she nodded, her brows furrowed. “Good. That’s good.” She brushed his hair back and planted a kiss atop his head as though this would be her last chance before she was supposed to leave.
But, alas, fate decided otherwise when heavy footsteps approached beyond the door; and the door handle rattled in an attempt to barge in.
They were too late, Eli realized. With the intruder already on the other side, trying to get in, Adelaide’s plan immediately became debris, her hopes to find Frederick herself thrown out the window. So it did not surprise Eli that Adelaide would do all that she could in the moment, and hurried Eli to hide underneath the bed as initially planned. Eli did not protest, fear settling in his bones as his view became limited and darker. He watched with tears stinging his eyes as his grandmother’s feet approached the bedroom door, her body pushing against the wood in hopes to steady the door from budging open.
The doorknob rattled more aggressively. Adelaide pressed herself even further against the door, stifling her own fearful sounds. Eventually, the rattling stopped. The siren downstairs had long become a background noise; his own heavy breathing was louder compared to it.
Eli discreetly crawled forward, tilting his head just enough to see his grandmother.
The silence wasn’t long for a voice soon spoke on the other side. An old, gruff voice that was so familiar that it released the tension off Adelaide’s shoulders.
“Adelaide? Is that you in there with Eli?” Frederick’s voice was muffled, but it was certainly him. There was no one else in the household who smoked as much as he did.
“Frederick…?” Adelaide murmured just loud enough.
“Dear, I’m so glad to hear you are alright. Is Eli in there with you?”
Adelaide stood straighter, her voice brighter. “Yes. He is with me. Is…is Genevieve with you?”
A pause. “She is. Though, I’m afraid she…witnessed Lucius disarming the intruder.”
Another sigh of relief from the old woman. “As long as she is fine. The girl slipped away from me and when I heard her scream…I had thought…”
“I apologize for the scare, Addy. But I assure you, the intruder has been dealt with.” The doorknob twisted slightly. It didn’t budge. “Could I come in, please?”
Adelaide’s hand had already begun to twist the lock. Eli moved back underneath the bed, settling into its darkness before his grandmother noticed, lest she’d chastise him for disobeying her. The door, Eli saw, swung open as Adelaide allowed his grandfather to enter. It revealed the man’s feet, standing before Adelaide.
And immediately, the earlier gunshot ambushed Eli’s ear.
Blood splattered on the ground, followed by the thud of a body falling back, landing right across him. Adelaide’s wide eyes met Eli’s, the center of her face hollow and gushing with more blood. It pooled underneath her, soaked the floor until it reached the sleeve of his pajamas.
A whimper escaped him.
Eli slammed his hands over his mouth, muffling all the sounds he would make, his own sobs and hyperventilation.
The man’s feet shuffled inside the room not long after, crossing over Adelaide’s still body. He moved around the bedroom, silent and purposeful. This man was not his grandfather. Frederick would never hurt Adelaide; Eli had never even seen the man so much as raised his voice, more like it was the other way around. It made no sense for him to do this. It made no sense why anyone would do this.
Tears streamed down his face until his eyes hurt to keep them open. Eli trembled and cowered further underneath his bed when the man’s feet pivoted towards him.
“I know you are under the bed, Eli.”
Dad?
That voice…it was definitely his father’s.
Eli remained in his hiding, closing his eyes tight. The footsteps approached. When Eli opened his eyes again, the man’s shoe was directly in front of him, as though telling him there was no use to hide any longer for he had already been found. Yet to Eli’s surprise, his feet turned back around. And the bed above him dipped as his father took a seat. Just as he did on the day Eli had been in trouble for punching a child at the Daycare. His father waited for him with the same patience, never forcing him to come out when he was more than capable to snatch his arms and bring him into the light.
It confused him.
This was his father, but… what was he doing here? Why did he do what he did to Grandma Adelaide? And if Eli came out and saw him, would he do the same thing to him too?
“You must be scared of me, aren’t you?” Finally, his father spoke again, a sad chuckle in his voice. “I’m sorry. For tonight. For what you had to see. I only had to do what needed to be done to get you.”
To get me?
“Will you come out, Eli? I promise I won’t hurt you.”
Eli hesitated. Every part of him begged him not to leave the safety of his hiding place, told him to stay put no matter what his father said or did, and warned him that the dread coursing through his body was very much real and for a good reason. Because his father was not a murderer. His father could not mimic the voices of another person, much less to deceive others for his own gain. That was not the kind of person Michael was. The man who had raised Eli was the man who would never point a gun at a woman’s head and pull the trigger mercilessly.
The man who sat on his bed now…was not his father by any means. Eli knew that. Even if he was supposed to be ‘innocent’ and ‘unaware’ as the young child in this circumstance.
Yet…he still crawled out from underneath the bed. Eli still pulled himself up and faced the bloody man with the bravest front he could muster. He wiped his eyes, letting out a few sniffles. Then he noticed the way his father’s expression softened upon seeing him. It made his heart jump when the man even dropped his gun to the floor, only to wrap his arms around his little body. Somewhere in the dark corner, an old screen flickered to life, buzzing faintly along with his beating heart. But unbeknownst to him, his father’s gaze followed it, a small hum under his breath.
“I am so happy to see you, don’t you know?” Michael pulled away, resting his hands on his shoulders as he knelt in front of the boy.
Eli glanced at Adelaide, her body lying across them, her blood spreading all around. Michael gently pressed a finger beside his face, turning him away.
“It’s alright, Eli. You’re safe now. I am here.”
Fresh tears began to brim in his eyes again. Eli couldn’t look away from the hollow ones burning into him. “I’m…” Eli swallowed as his voice broke. “I-I’m scared.”
“Don’t be. I’ll protect you from now on. I’ll keep you safe from…from the others and whatever danger they’ll bring you. I promise that you won’t ever be left alone again.”
“…Really?” Hope rose in his chest.
Michael only smiled a softer smile, offering a hand in between them.
“It’s a Deal.”
Eli stared down at his father’s hand, thinking about his words again. He didn’t want to be alone. He never wanted to feel this afraid for his life ever again. And as long as his father was here, close by his side, he knew what he promised him would hold true.
His hand closed around Michael’s.
A blinding light.
Eli didn’t know where it had come from other than it had occurred the second Michael grasped his hand. He hadn’t realized how weak his legs suddenly became, nor did he understand the dozens of glowing eyes across his father’s skin. For his vision blurred with an intensity he could not handle. His head became lighter and lighter, soon his eyes rolling back.
All he truly remembered was falling into a warm embrace and feeling that familiar touch above his head.
Something about the storm brought Willy a certain nostalgia as he stepped out into the rain, Eli fast asleep in his arms. Overhead, thunder boomed, and lightning tore jagged streaks across the inky sky. Rain lashed down, plastering his hair and clothes to his skin, washing away the last vestiges of blood. He glanced down at the boy, whose head was loosely covered by a clumsily cut paper bag, two holes for eyes peeking out. Willy, lacking an extra limb for an umbrella, had simply grabbed the first thing he found on his way out of the Gilded Nest. With Eli already so vulnerable, so weakened by the night’s horrors, letting him catch a cold felt like an unnecessary cruelty. And Willy had dealt enough cruelty for one night; his system felt cleansed, purged by the success of his mission.
Eli had taken a Deal. Willy should have been exhilarated. Felt great relief. For Deals guaranteed him the near-immortality he had been after for years, a sheer power and a heightened resilience against death for the Eyes nestled within or outside him. It was the first ever Deal struck since the last great catastrophe; and it was half the reason why he had tried to convince Michael to agree to one. Willy should have been eagerly anticipating future Deals, eager to further empower the Eyes and himself.
And yet…the excitement wasn't quite there. Well. Exposing the truth of the citizens Michael had so desperately sought to save, accelerating their own inevitable corruption to consume them, certainly was exciting. But the thought of achieving it with Eli’s clueless help, rather than Michael’s willing partnership…
Willy sighed, a breath laden with an unfamiliar mix of uncertainty and disappointment.
The Cycle was meant for his brother. They were supposed to reshape the city together, to be spared from the cruelties of the world. He had wanted that so much for Michael.
Another thunder boomed above them.
Willy carefully tugged the paper bag lower over Eli’s face as it began to slip, the makeshift mask revealing only the boy’s closed eyelids.
Eyes that…bore an unsettling resemblance to his brother’s.
Eli stirred, a soft whimper escaping him in his deep slumber, his small brows furrowing. Willy gently shushed the whimpering boy, pulling him closer to his chest.
“It’s alright. Just a bad dream,” Willy whispered to him. His gaze settled on Eli’s closed eyes once more. This time, he didn’t just see a resemblance; he saw the vulnerable child who had brought him out of the suffocating mud twenty years ago. The memory of that child, of a similar stormy night and the bright moments with him afterwards—Pale Pond, being snuck into school, joyful chatters during lunch hours, quiet laughter shared in the child’s broken household, the years Willy watched him grow…
All of it burned into his mind.
A quiet, sad laugh escaped Willy’s lips. Something within him—his doubts, his frustrations—shifted, washed over him like the relentless rain.
The child from the past was alive and breathing in his arms. He was alive, and he was…here. His brother. His friend.
Willy’s lips parted, a name rising, then dying in his throat.
To give away the child’s true moniker felt wrong, a betrayal Willy refused. But his other name, the one that had clung to him for most of his childhood existence, the one that had made the child truly special, was different.
“Mono,” Willy uttered finally, the name a soft rumble. “Let’s go home.”
They left the Gilded Nest for good, stepping forward together into a future that could only be better.
Notes:
I realized parents just die in this fic. Also if you got the fnaf reference, you know why I chose Michael as his name
👁👄👁One more chapter left and we'll go back to the main story!
Before that, one more shoutout to ApathyAo3 for writing these gift fics that are just amazing and adorable! As always, I gotta thank you, it made my weekend! The fic is called Pretty Handsome, and if anyone would like to read Mono in his stuck-at-the Maw era, I've linked it
here.Thanks for reading!
Chapter 95: The Rise And Fall
Notes:
Hey, no chapter last week but I bring you today a longer chapter. The longest I've ever written and it's...20k words.
Should I have separated the chapter into two or three parts? I considered it, almost did it last week. But then I decided to be generous and give you everything in one go without having to wait longer. So take ALLL the time for this one lolol.
[WARNING]
Mild violence
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
“A message to all of Pale City citizens.” The man on the screen announced with fear-stricken eyes, his cheeks gaunt and veins dark and bulging across his pale skin. His voice trembled. “The Tower is growing taller day by day as we know it, and it isn't friendly. I believe our beloved city is in grave danger, dear watchers. I fear that the worst has finally come. So if you are still watching, if you aren't yet one of the affected, I implore you to stay home with your families. Do not go outside at all costs. Keep your children close to you at all times. But most importantly, please remember:
“Stay away from the eyes.”
The television behind the glass brightened as the screen showed colour bars, followed by a joyous tune and an “Apology For Technical Difficulties” slide. It illuminated the gloomy pavement for the man watching the news, a real smile etching on his lips.
Willy tugged his hat lower as he turned the other way.
How much the city had changed in the last two months. The roads, once bright with rude honking drivers, flipping fingers and yelling, were now empty save for parked cars or abandoned ones altogether. Expressive faces used to fill up the streets for their daily lives; children would be seen holding the hands of their parents as they crossed the road. The Sun would shine proudly rather than hide behind the ominous grey clouds. Thick fogs had long taken over the ghost town, making it nearly impossible to spot the next person who was either unlucky or foolish enough to step outside in the new city.
A scream echoed somewhere down the alley. Willy barely batted an eye, glancing at the lowlife creature shrink in on himself, scratching away at his skin until red marks bore all over him. He smirked. Willy didn’t need to confirm the presence of a television nearby the man; he only had to hear the static noise and subtle tunes of a familiar song in the background. The man crumpled to the floor by the time Willy moved on from him, walking past two more individuals locked in place, their eyes strained and red staring at the multiple screens behind the shop windows.
Some tried to resist it. Most succumbed and gave in, falling into a forced addiction, losing their humanity and faces. A corruption, slow and irreversible. The worst of them, the ones who had been the weakest to the signal, were enamoured completely with the glowing screens, gluing themselves in place for days up to weeks. The unluckiest that had lost the comfort the signal brought to them succumbed to sheer insanity—hurting themselves, violently searching for the nearest television omitting the song, fighting over one another for it.
Or jumping off buildings when they had failed.
It was interesting to watch the different effects the transmission had for each person in the city. No adults were left out; children merely grew smaller. The world shifted in subtle, albeit quick, changes, a correction that everyone noticed as soon as their true thoughts revealed themselves through their actions without reason.
The multiple newspaper headlines written in bold letters caught Willy’s notice. He passed a look at the abandoned newsstand—or rather, “manned” by a dazed individual who had been long gone, black streaks of tears dried on his cracked cheeks.
MYSTERIOUS APPEARANCE OF THE TOWER: DEADLY OR CURSED?
THE WAR IS HALTED — A STRANGE RIOT IN THE SOUTH.
PC TELEVISION SHUTS DOWN DUE TO A SUDDEN MALFUNCTION AND FIRE.
EYES EMERGING IN THE SEWERS, MAN CLAIMS THE END OF THE WORLD.
FONTAINE SLAUGHTERHOUSE: ENTIRE FAMILY FOUND DEAD, TWO SURVIVED. THE OLDEST STILL MISSING.
Intrigued, Willy picked up the newspaper. It was one of the newer, printed ones, dated about a week ago. Oh, what a time! His eyes skimmed over the details of the tragedy, humming with curious satisfaction whenever the “intruder” was mentioned or described viciously. Not that he was offended by terms like “psychopath,” “deranged,” or “inhumane” used to describe him—he remembered he'd been three for three that very night. While he still needed to remain inconspicuous until something huge, say, the end of the world, shifted public focus, he found it necessary to still monitor the news printed by the more conscious, stubborn-minded citizens. He wanted to see how far along the signal had managed to influence their decaying little heads. So far, half of them had already succumbed to this new fate of the city. Though, the other half, those who still possessed the ability to inform the “unaffected”, and those who were actively disobeying the voice of the Transmission…
Willy tore the lower edge of the newspaper, holding the torn, square-shaped piece taut. It was a picture of a boy with a sweet smile, his eyes kind and innocent. Dropping the newspaper back on the stand, he began to shred the picture during his walk home. The pieces crumpled within his fist. He dumped it all into a dirty puddle, leaving the boy’s picture to soak until nothing remained.
By the time he reached the old neighbourhood, it was already quite dark. His home looked the same as when his dear brother had moved out; Willy simply didn’t care to redecorate, no matter how much he’d been told he was allowed to. What purpose would that serve him? Make the house look prettier? More comfortable? He was fine using just the chair.
The door closed behind him, shutting out the howls of wind from outside. Willy glanced around the living room as he threw the bag of fruit cans onto the table. No signs of children down here.
“They have been playing up in her room since you left,” an Eye whispered in his head, though appearing between his feet.
“Don’t you mean scheming?” another replied from the boards beneath the steps.
“Mono is not scheming anything. It was all that girl’s doing,” the third Eye joined.
“If he isn’t, then why is he still indulging her?”
“Why, because he is like his father, of course! Always—”
“It’s time for dinner,” Willy interrupted sharply, his steps heavy up the staircase. The rest of the Eyes, hidden within the wooden boards, underneath the rock wall, kept to themselves.
Six’s room door was left slightly ajar. Willy paused in front of it, tilting his head just enough to see Mono sitting on the floor across from her, meekly pushing at a toy truck as his gaze lowered in discomfort and guilt. Six was talking to him all the while, her back facing Willy’s view. Then in silence, Willy listened.
“—think he’s still the same person? Doesn’t anything about him seem off to you at all?”
Mono darted his eyes back and forth, hesitant to speak yet not wanting to disappoint with his silence. “I…I mean he… did stop calling me by my name. S-Since I got here.”
“That’s what you’re thinking of?”
“What else do you want me to say?”
“I don’t know, maybe that your father isn’t your father? Maybe that it’s completely weird for him to never eat a single thing or sleep? That he has you sitting in front of the television for hours every few days while he talks to you about weird crap? Or that he came back here with blood all over him two months ago?”
Mono squirmed in place, his lower lips trembling. He looked away again. “C-can we not…talk about this anymore?” His voice was all but a whisper now. “I don’t want to talk about it. Please.”
“Something happened at your grandparents’ place, didn’t it? You saw something.”
“Six—”
“Did he hurt someone? Hurt you? Just tell me if he did. He must have done something that’s gotten you so afraid of him.”
“No, I’m not!” Mono quickly defended. Then his confidence deflated once more. “I-I-I’m not afraid of him, Six. I’m just…I…I don’t…”
“Eli,” Six leaned forward, her hands clasped on top of his own trembling ones. “Tell me what he did that night.”
The boy’s eyes widened a fraction, the tension on his shoulders easing ever so slightly. He began to part his lips, his answer ready on his tongue, and—
The door opened wide as Willy stepped inside. Immediately, the children flinched away from each other, turning their heads to their new visitor.
“Oh, I would love to tell you myself.” He smiled down at them. Mono appeared to have his attention back on the toy truck, refusing to keep eye contact as fiery as Six’s glare . “But, first, why don’t we head downstairs for dinner? You both must be hungry; and I’ve just managed to find something healthier this time for you children. To keep your hearts strong and your mind stronger. The evening is not getting any younger, so come along now.”
Six’s lip curled into disgust, whereas Mono hummed softly in the end. The boy was the first to move, much to his friend’s dismay, walking past Willy and out of the room. Just as Willy expected from him.
His head turned to Six once again, finding her still seated stubbornly on the floor.
Willy kept his smile sweet and gentle.
“And what about you? Do you not want to eat again?” When Six continued to glare, he let out a sigh. He leaned slightly forward, his hands on his knees. “You must eat something, little girl. Or else you’ll starve yourself to death. We don’t want that, do we?”
“What happened to the man before you?”
Blunt and bold. Just like her mother. “The older one, you mean?” She hummed, a near growl. “Ah. Well, he passed away. Rather unfortunately.”
“Did you kill him? Like how he killed my mother.”
“Me?” Willy laughed, the sound dying with a sigh. “What an odd question.”
“You know what else is odd,” Six narrowed her eyes. “The way you carry yourself. You behave exactly like my mother’s murderer and nothing like how she used to describe you. The kind-hearted, soft-spoken person. And she never lies about him, I can tell. So, just stop thinking you can fool me.”
“I’m surprised.”
“I don’t care what you feel—”
“I’m surprised you are this upset,” Willy added, “when you should be grateful.”
Six frowned. “What?”
Another laugh escaped Willy, this time more boisterous, his head shaking in mild amusement.
“Oh, dear,” Willy said, wiping an imaginary tear. “Let’s say I actually did kill your mother’s murderer. And let’s say I did bring him more pain than the one he delivered to her. Does that not mean your mother’s death has been avenged? Instead of pouring accusations at me, shouldn’t you thank me? Shouldn’t you feel glad?”
A crack showed in her strong mask of defiance, her eyes faltering.
“We could talk more over dinner,” Willy said, straightening up. His smile was sharper. “Come join us, if you’d like to.”
Dinner was quiet, the children eating from fruit cans with small spoons. As always, Willy sat at the head of the table, Mono and Six across from each other. He watched them eat, though his gaze lingered on the boy. Six, after all, always preferred her own room—Michael’s father’s old room. It was only with Mono’s arrival that she would even consider coming out to eat with her friend at the kitchen table. But even that was a feat; this little girl was truly stubborn. She’d rather endure days without food, face her devil of a resident, than let Willy watch her eat a bite of the grubs he provided. Trust issues, Willy assumed, since her late mother had shared such… strong personality traits as well.
Even if Mono’s presence made a slight difference in her difficult behaviour, it still took a bribe to make her sit and eat obediently like her friend. In this case, the promise of answers to her little, annoying accusations disguised as simple questions.
Mono lifted the paper bag slightly over his mouth, taking a bite of a small fruit. His brother’s kind eyes remained behind the two cut holes. Willy smiled…
Until he didn’t.
“Just take off the paper bag, Eli. You’ll eat easier,” Six said.
Mono stiffened in his seat, wide-eyed and wary.
“T-Take it off?” The boy unintentionally glanced at the man next to him, reading his still expression. In a second, his eyes dropped back to his canned meal, one hand tugging the mask lower over his head. “It’s okay. I’ll keep wearing it.” He shoved the spoon under his mask, his movements hasty.
Afraid.
Six noticed it. And if the girl hadn’t expressed her chagrin and resentment enough for their adult guardian, the glare she sent Willy might just convince him her mother would be more tolerable. But what the hell. Six is still a child; there would be spacious rooms for life lessons she had yet to learn. Namely knowing when the hell to shut up.
Alas, Six did not shut up.
She insisted. “No, it’s not okay. You can barely eat properly under that bag. You should take it off instead.”
“But I shouldn’t,” Mono replied, refusing to look up. “I shouldn’t do that.”
“And why the hell should you wear it? It’s your body and face. You should be the one to get to decide if you want to eat without suffocating yourself in the process—”
“What I believe Mono is trying to say, Six,” Willy chimed in, a slight edge in his voice, “is that he is fine eating with the bag over his face. Isn’t that right?” He looked at Mono expectantly. Hesitation lingered in the boy’s dark eyes before he gave a small nod.
Beside him, a loud scoff broke the short silence.
“Bullshit. You’re making him do it.” She crossed her arms, leaning back with a pout.
Stubborn little girl. “Really? Well, I certainly don’t think so. Because I think,” Willy leaned forward, his elbows perched on the table, “you are the one making him do something he does not want to do. He has explicitly said he’s okay and he would keep wearing it. Right now, it’s clear you’re forcing him, pushing him into discomfort. Why else would he refuse to listen or look at you now?”
Six’s gaze briefly darted to the boy across from her, finding Willy’s words to be true. Her frown deepened; her glare returned twice as deadly.
“Maybe because he’s afraid you might hurt him if he does. Because why else would he keep listening to a murderer?”
A clang shattered the tension, the almost empty can of fruit knocked over. Mono had his hands flat on both sides of his covered head, tugging the paper bag further down his face. The paper crinkled under his white-knuckled fingers, his breath trembling so loud even as his voice was usually muffled behind the thin paper.
Six’s movements stuttered, her shoulders tensed.
“Eli—”
“His name,” Willy all but hissed, “is Mono. You should realize that the old one brings nothing but a reminder by now. It’s disappointing. For a second, I had thought you truly cared for him as a friend.”
A low growl rumbled in her throat. “I am his friend!” Six spat, her fist banging on the table.
“Then you should know better than to reintroduce a dark memory. How would you feel if he brought up something just as terrible, say, about your mother’s death? Wouldn’t you also be devastated? Wouldn’t you react the same, if not worse?” Turning to a crying Mono, Willy rubbed circles behind the boy’s back. He hushed him until his breaths steadied, letting his so-called friend watch in guilt and shame for her selfish words and inconsideration for the boy’s feelings.
The Eyes within him revelled in that look in her eyes.
The others outside, hidden under the boards and walls, cheered in silence. Willy could still feel them, nonetheless.
“Head on upstairs and rest, Mono. Six and I will finish up dinner,” Willy said, fixing the paper bag to rest better on his face, letting only the boy’s eyes reveal themselves perfectly.
Mono glanced at Six, a different, softer look on his face. One of Willy’s eyes twitched.
“B-But…I can stay until she’s also done—”
“Just go,” Six said, surprising them both. Her glare seemed to vanish. “I’ll be fine with your dad. I promise.”
Mono hesitated once more, his small form frozen. But after a gentle coaxing from Willy and a half-hearted glance from Six, the boy eventually pushed his seat back and shuffled upstairs. They waited for the distinct sounds of a closing door—a soft creak, then a muffled thud. And then the tension returned, settling over the dining table and drowning them both.
Willy found himself once again under the weight of Six’s famous accusatory stare. He sighed, eyeing her from the side. This would be a long night, it seemed.
“Go ahead, Six. Shoot your questions,” Willy said eventually.
Six wasted no time. Her defiant voice cut through the quiet. “What are you?”
“Hah. Always straight to the point, hm?”
“You said to shoot. That’s what I’m doing, isn’t it?”
“No need to sound so offended,” Willy scoffed, a smile playing on his lips, amused by her resilience. “I meant to say you are always clever. Too clever for your own good.” He idly righted Mono’s overturned can. Fortunately, the boy had finished nearly all its contents. “You suspect I’m not human since…?”
“Two months ago. The night you got here instead of the other man. When you brought Eli—”
“Mono,” Willy corrected, the amusement in his eyes instantly gone, replaced by a flatness. If Six noticed the subtle shift, she was smart enough to heed the warning this time.
“When you brought…Mono to this house,” Six reiterated, her gaze unwavering despite the correction. “I don’t know what happened that night, but it’s obvious he saw something horrible enough to traumatize him. And it’s obvious it had something to do with you.”
“So that led you to believe I’m not human…how?”
Six scowled, her teeth gritted. “Stop avoiding my question by asking me more.”
A genuine laugh escaped Willy. “Apologies. I was curious.”
“What are you?” Six pressed again, a hint of impatience. Desperate, even.
Willy grinned wide. “Not that I’m…unwilling to answer you,” he said. “But I still don’t think you’d be ready to believe everything I say. Your face: it’s already quite skeptical, don’t you know?”
“Just answer anyway,” Six hissed, her small hands clenching into fists on the table. “Or at least, admit you aren’t the same person Eli believes you are—”
“I’m not the same person. Michael has long passed away.”
The simple declaration hung in the air. The undeniable truth. It silenced Six completely. Her mouth hung agape, her words abruptly cut short, her eyes wide with shock. “Hm. Now you look surprised. I thought you wanted the truth. Didn’t you?” Willy’s smile didn’t waver.
Six hesitated. Her brows furrowed back into a fierce scowl soon, but a subtle emotion—perhaps fear, perhaps dawning horror—flickered beneath her tough exterior.
“What about…the other man? The older one.”
“I killed him. Just like how I killed your mother when I used to live inside his body. Now, though, I’m borrowing Mono’s late father’s. I suppose that one was...an accident.” The suppressed emotion on Six’s face erupted. Her breath hitched, a choked gasp, and her eyes glazed over with unshed tears. It seemed she wasn't ready for the truth, after all.
“What…are you?” This time, her question was laced not with anger, but with open wariness. Fear and uncertainty. As though the full weight of his confession seemed to crush her.
“I’m called an Eye,” Willy simply stated, his tone flat, devoid of emotion as if describing a mundane fact. “My true form…isn’t as pretty, I’ll admit. I hope you’re not expecting to see it. But I’m sure you’ve seen glimpses of the others in the house. I can call them to come out if you’d like a closer look—”
“No.”
“Good. Anything else?”
Six remained silent, her posture stiff, her eyes wide with suppressed horror. Just when Willy thought she was ready to end the night, to retreat to the safety of her room and never step out again for weeks, her voice came out almost above a whisper, reedy and clearly afraid.
“What are you going to do to us?”
Willy had expected the question to come up sooner or later. Sighing through his nose, he told her what he had always told Mono when the boy grew hesitant to spare his help.
“I’m going to do what is best for everyone,” Willy said. “I’m not planning to hurt either of you, if that is what you’re concerned about.”
“Then why are you doing this? Why did you…” She swallowed hard as her voice broke on the words. “I-I don’t understand. What are we here for if you’re planning to do nothing to us?”
“I said I’m not planning on hurting you both. You misunderstood me. Of course there is a plan that would involve you children.”
“Like what?”
“Are you sure you’d like to know?” Willy asked, a predatory grin stretching across his face. “You might not like it.”
A flicker of emotion passed over her face. It was always amusing to see the hardened façade she donned crumble, brick by slow brick.
“Don’t you notice,” Willy added when she said nothing, “how quiet and peaceful it has been lately? The outside world. Usually you’d hear all kinds of sounds, especially in these parts of the city, but now there’s barely anything left. You don’t hear the cars revving or backfiring; you don’t hear the loud neighbours chattering obnoxiously amongst themselves while their louder children chase one another. You hear only static and serenity. As if the world had always been that way.
“Now, with that intelligent mind of yours, surely you’ve figured it out: the televisions relate to these new changes. Haven’t you?”
Six frowned but nodded.
“And you’ve also noticed Mono plays a role in that?” Willy asked.
Another wary nod. “You use him.”
“Not necessarily; he agrees to help me himself. I never forced him.”
“You never forced him,” the girl mumbled sardonically, her voice thick with disgust. She scoffed, and bit by bit, the fire in her eyes returned, though it was more careful now. “Just like you never ‘forced’ us to live here.”
“Well, you could live outside. But it’s a dangerous place out there—”
“Even more dangerous than you?”
Willy felt his eyes narrow slightly. “I’ve kept you both fed and safe for the past two months, have I not?”
“And that’s supposed to make it all better?”
“For your situation, Six, I’d say so. Have you learned what you needed to know about your other friend?” Her expression faltered, a telltale sign that she understood.
“It’s not real,” Six hissed.
“Hm. That’s what your mother told herself, too, don’t you know? She suppressed and kept that darkness inside her locked tight; took pills for who knows how long; and in the end—tragedy. The very thing that could have saved her abandoned her just like she abandoned it. Which is why I asked you: have you learned what you must do?”
Six glared at him, a reply dying in her throat. Willy assumed from the way her throat bobbed slowly, the curse inside her had communicated in some way, regardless if its host still took its messages lightly and saw it as nothing more than a hallucination. Or perhaps, the girl had already accepted there was indeed something off about her, and instead of dismissing it as a hallucination, she tried to understand her devil friend—including the certain type of consumption needed for the curse’s weakness.
Maybe just the former.
“You know,” Willy said after a while, breaking the heavy silence. “I could help you with your situation.”
“Forget it. I don’t want your help—”
“Your last hunger pang was, let’s see, about four days ago. That was when Mono begged you to eat his own food since you stubbornly insisted on limiting your intake of the food I bring for you children. Your worst one so far was in the first week after your mother died, when you lashed out with a significant use of your devil friend’s abilities and woke up feeling like your insides were scorched. And then there was also two weeks ago. Luckily, Mono brought you your portion of the food I had left the night before. The other time, if I recall correctly, was when you tried to injure me. Though a spectacularly failed attempt, a significant amount of your talent was still used without you realizing it. I remember seeing a few empty cans hidden under your bed. Clearly, the curse wasn’t the only thing you inherited from your mother, seeing as her trust issues and ego were passed down to you as well—”
“How dare you talk—!”
“And since that seems to be the issue—your refusal to trust and eat obediently—I suppose what I can suggest for you to solve your ‘hunger sickness’ is to listen to the voice in your head. And you’ll be able to live without eating anything.”
The scowl on her brow softened, replaced by a deep furrow of confusion. “What?”
“To clarify, you don’t need food—the physical grubs are all mostly temporary for your delicate situation. All you need is… enough sustenance to rejuvenate your energy. Souls, namely. And once you consume them, you’re practically satiated forever, granted you don’t waste said energy. I’m sure you’ve been made aware of this somehow?”
Six confirmed and denied nothing, her silence a careful shield. He guessed the curse might have communicated through her dreams. Or perhaps the curse did nothing and simply gave silent warnings as it always had. Whichever it was, he was passing on a crucial detail that was as imperative as Mono’s role for the transmission.
Willy clasped his hands underneath the table, ignoring the multiple blinking eyes that were too excited to stay entirely hidden under the floorboards.
“Right then,” Willy continued. “As you know, the world has a lot of different kinds of them. These souls. While I would never… encourage you to kill anyone, there are certain individuals who, you and I can agree, would kill everyone else for their own selfish reasons.” Six made a face. Willy sighed. “Myself, not included,” Willy clarified with a touch of chagrin. Then he continued. “These people are what make the world even more dangerous, Six. But since our population is too large, it’s impossible to tell which are truly hostile at heart, and which are not. It would be ridiculously difficult for you to save yourself from them. Which is why you need to be smart. Kill two birds with one stone. Protect yourself and satisfy your hunger curse. Fortunately for you, Mono and I have released a signal to help you differentiate the individuals you should avoid and the ones you go after. The innocent, you’ll see, can learn to accept the transmission. And they remain the calmest. The murderers… are the opposite. They are unable to hear the signal properly. For when they listen to the broadcast, they will fight and attack anything they could find. Their true, violent nature will reveal itself.
“So, Six, if you’d like to rely only on yourself from now on,” Willy said, “I suggest you listen to your guts and feed accordingly.”
“And Eli—” Six stammered, then corrected, “And Mono?”
“What about him?”
“It seems like this is your plan for us all along, isn’t it? You use him to mess with the televisions, and you use me to get rid of your defects.”
Willy felt his eye twitch again. The rest within the walls grumbled in silent irritation and impatience.
Smart girl. Dead girl.
Willy silenced the little voices.
“And what are you saying, Six?”
“I’m saying what does Mono get in return?” Six asked, her gaze unwavering. “I know I’m benefiting if, according to you, I take ‘souls’ from the bad people to help my illness. You’re benefiting if I kill the disobedient and leave the weak ones for you to control. But what about Mono? What does he get?”
For the first time that night, it was Willy who had nothing to say. And for the first time, Six stopped pushing him for an answer she would not receive.
“So, that’s it?” Six said eventually, her voice a small whisper, the fire in her eyes extinguished by the cold truth. “Is this…what our lives will be from now on?”
“You and Mono will be safe, at the very least. Isn’t that enough?”
Six’s glassy eyes lingered on him before they lowered to the seat across from her—Mono’s empty chair. She threw the spoon on the table with a loud clang and pushed her chair back. Then she left, her steps a heavy stomping on the staircase, followed by the harsh slam of a door.
“That went well.” Surprisingly enough.
Willy hadn’t expected the girl to simply storm upstairs—he had thought she would break something at least. Not that he wanted her to, since the thought of his brother’s old house being torn apart by an angry little gremlin was disconcerting enough.
“Did it truly work? Will she do it?” an eager whisper echoed in his mind.
“Of course, she would. I see the bloodlust in her eyes,” another replied, just as determined.
“I don’t think that is what we were referring to.”
“No?”
“Keep up! We are talking about the plan. There’s a reason we are riling her up, remember?”
An eye mused. “Ahhh! Yes, the plan. So, pray tell, how long exactly shall we expect for her to make a move?”
“I’d say four weeks from now.”
“Four weeks? Hah! Make that two.”
“You Eyes are hopeless at estimation. I believe it will take her not more than five days. She is much too angry and afraid of the fate we’ve revealed to her. What do you think?” The blinking Eyes rolled to him in a chilling unison. Willy hummed lightly, fixing Six’s thrown spoon back in its place.
“Tonight,” Willy said.
When the clock struck midnight, the door to Mono’s bedroom creaked open. Light footsteps approached the sleeping boy buried underneath the thick covers of his bed. The visitor, casting a final wary glance behind her, shook her friend until he stirred awake, his eyes droopy and blinking slowly. Yet they regained their sharpness once he registered just who was in front of him. Mono sat upright on his bed, frowning.
“Six—?”
She immediately shushed him, her finger hovering over her lips for a few seconds. Once she had enough faith he would remain quiet, she tugged on his sleeve, pulling him out of bed. Mono complied, but with a furrowed brow. It still did not cross his mind what the girl wanted from him at this hour, let alone appearing dressed in her yellow jacket over her white nightwear.
Before he could get a word in, Six had already thrown at him his own long coat. She made him wear it, then dragged him along and out of his room. Mono’s hesitation spread to his movements the longer the silence stretched on between them, with no explanation from her whatsoever about them sneaking downstairs and into the hall, then speeding straight to the front door. But with Six’s firm grip over his hand, there was no slowing them down.
It was only until they had left the house behind and walked a few more blocks from the neighbourhood that Mono could no longer keep this silence.
“What are we doing out here?” he whispered, following her closely, their elbows touching.
Six finally slowed down, releasing a breath she had seemed to be holding for a long time. “I just wanted some fresh air.”
“What?” Mono’s eyes widened, nearly stopping in his tracks if it weren’t for his friend. “Y-You woke me up because…you wanted fresh air? At this hour?”
“Yeah.” The corners of her lips tugged upwards, a tiny grin that slipped his notice.
“Oh. Then…I guess we shouldn’t walk too far from the house. And we should probably head back soon. My dad would worry if we—”
“Do you,” Six interrupted, her expression suddenly strained, “really want to stay in that house? With your dad?”
He looked at her, momentarily speechless. “Why…why wouldn’t I?”
“I just mean you could…live with me instead.”
“Huh—?”
“N-not anything weird!” Six added quickly and firmly, dismissing the pink tint in his cheeks. “I just don’t want to live in that house anymore. That’s all.”
“O-Oh…” Mono rubbed his arm nervously. He looked away, then turned back to her, clearing his throat. “Do you not like it there?”
“It isn’t my home. And I don’t think it’s yours either, Eli.”
“What do you mean?”
A quiet sigh escaped her, a puff of visible air. “There is just…something not right about everything there. I’m not sure how else to put it. It’s like I’m constantly being watched all the time. Hell, it’s practically the same out here—but in that house, the feeling somehow is stronger. More uncomfortable. I don’t feel safe there.”
“I see. Maybe then we could tell my dad—”
“No!” At her raised voice, he froze in place, causing her to stop with him. “Do you still not get it? It’s him. He’s making me feel unsafe. Because he’s a murderer, Eli.”
Hurt flashed across his face. Then slowly his brows formed a scowl. “No, he isn’t.”
“Yes, he is. He even admitted to it after you were gone. And I don’t know what he does to you exactly whenever he brings you out with him, but people are being affected and hurt each time you leave. I’ve seen it happen outside my window. One of the neighbours smashing their head against their front door, giggling like it’s some sick joke.”
“But Dad said that’s just because they aren’t well. That’s why I have to help him with the Transmission—”
“Eli, he’s lying to you!” Six held his shoulders, shaking him a little. “They aren’t well because you’re helping him. He is the reason everyone in the city has been told to stay at home—why anyone is acting strange and out of control at all!”
“N-no,” Eli muttered, his scowl faltering, his eyes glistening. “That can’t be true, I…I don’t…”
“Just come with me,” Six said after a while, her voice softer now as she let him go. “We don’t have to stay in Pale City; we can go find someplace else. Away from all this…Transmission crap. And away from your dad. We can live like normal people. Just us.”
Mono gulped, turning his head towards the direction they had come from. Exasperated, Six sighed and immediately took his hands, passing something heavy into his palm.
He tensed as he saw what she had given him. “What? Is this a knife—?”
“It was my mother’s.” She closed his fingers around the hilt of the blade and pushed it towards him. “Take it. Make sure to keep it with you at all times.”
“Wait—I-I can’t. I can’t keep this, let alone use it on somebody!”
“Yes, you can. Just use it to protect yourself if need be.”
“Then what about you? How will you protect yourself if I take this?” As Six hesitated, fear slipping through her stone exterior, Mono took her hand in his. “I-I’ll follow you. Okay?”
Hope flashed before her eyes. Her hand squeezed his. “Really?”
Another glance in the other direction, a look of aching across his face, Mono turned back to the girl in front of him and gave her a firm nod.
From there on, Mono was true to his words. They stuck by each other like glue, speeding past any wandering adults hand in hand and taking shelter beneath any wide roof they could find. That night neither of them slept. Instead, they stayed hidden behind a dumpster and whispered stories amongst themselves—future plans and dreams they each had, the world’s sudden dark shift, and Mono’s first experience within the Black Tower that seemingly grew taller and taller by day.
“It was very bright,” Mono whispered, his shoulder leaning against hers. “My dad told me it’s only just the television screens. And that the longer I stare and focus, the quicker I’ll adjust and be comfortable.”
“So you only stare into a screen?”
“Sometimes I just listen to his voice. Lately, though, he sounded a bit different. As if he’s talking to someone other than me.” Mono’s eyes lowered to his lap, a forlorn look across his face.
Six nudged him gently for his attention. “Do you want to talk about something else?”
“Like what?”
“Anything, obviously.”
Mono pondered before he brightened. “Can I know where you got the name Six?”
She rolled her eyes instantly. “Be grateful I even let you call me that.”
“Is it a privilege that only special people in your life get?” His lips pulled into a cheeky grin.
“I’ll answer you if you tell me why you’re insecure about that birthmark on your arm.”
The grin fell off his face. “H-How did you know about that?” This time it was her turn to shoot him a cheeky look. Mono scoffed, looking away. “I’m not…insecure,” he mumbled.
“You’re insecure.”
“No, I’m not.”
“Then let me see it.” She grabbed his arm, tugging at his sleeve. Mono recoiled until his back hit the dumpster with a banging thud. Six laughed all the while, like the bully she warned him she was upon their first meeting. “You are such the insecure baby.”
Mono’s face flushed harder, though as she continued to giggle at his expense, a reluctant smile eventually grew on him.
Another day passed, and as they navigated through the abandoned city streets, Six’s stomach grumbled on the way. The plan they had discussed from the night before was to find Six’s grandmother who, according to Six, was at the Maw—she refused to elaborate any further whenever Mono had asked. But with their hunger slowing down their journey to find out more about the ship’s whereabouts, they took a detour back to the main street and sneaked inside a closed shop.
A television played a familiar song on repeat above the counter they crouched behind. A shadow of a young man moved in subtle twitches every now and then, but otherwise, he stayed glued to the glowing screen in front of him. Mono tightened his grip over Six’s hand; he brought them closer to the back aisles until they were no longer in sight.
They stole a packet of bread and escaped through the back door.
For the next few days, it was a similar routine. Before they searched for clues about the Maw, they would find abandoned-looking stores to grab a quick meal. While most owners of the stores were too distracted to notice, either sobbing and laughing in one corner, or ultimately lost within their own space, there were some who still had their consciousness and heard them enter. They sounded terrified, their voices trembling and their movements much more frantic. Fortunately, Mono and Six managed to leave without being found out. And for yet another night, Mono offered to stay awake for the both of them.
“It’s okay, really!” Mono raised his hands at a scowling Six. “I’m not that tired anyway. You go and rest up, Six. I’ll look out if there’s anything coming our way—OW!” Six had smacked the back of his head.
“Shut it with that crap. I’m staying up this time.” She kicked him to the makeshift bed they’d made from pieces of cardboard. Mono flinched until he was on it, cowering away from her kicks that were gentler than they seemed.
Mono pouted, rubbing his head. “I really don’t mind, you know. You should rest instead.”
She shot him a glare.
“If I hear another word from your mouth, I will smother you with a plastic bag until you lose consciousness and sleep that way. Do you understand?” His eyes widened as he gulped slowly.
“O-okay—”
“Is that a word I hear—?”
“NO—I’M GOING—I WILL.” Mono immediately laid himself on the floor, facing the alley wall and not the scary girl in the yellow jacket.
Behind him, there was a light scoff before she took a seat nearby.
A few minutes passed.
Mono never slept at all. Not as much as Six had wanted him to, for every few seconds he would shift and turn, making small sounds that elicited a sigh out of his friend.
“What’s wrong with you? Quit moving around and just go to sleep,” Six grumbled as she glared from the side.
“…I don’t really want to,” he said, his voice meek. He finally sat up, dragging his hands down his face and sighing exasperatedly. “Can’t I…just stay up instead?”
“You think I’m joking around about wanting to smother you?”
“...Please?”
Another long glare, one that could send an adult shivering to their bones from its intensity alone. But after a somewhat long battle with Mono’s pleading eyes and a pout, she tutted in chagrin.
“I’m not sleeping,” she told him, a subtle affirmation for his request.
“Then can I stay up with you?”
“Do whatever you want. Just know you’ve wasted your chance to get some sleep.” Despite her sharp words, a happy smile somehow made its way to Mono’s face as he shuffled next to her, excited and...more awake than ever. As though all he wanted to do was talk and talk and talk.
Six rolled her eyes, resting her head on her knees.
“So,” Mono began, watching droplets of rainwater fall on a small puddle formed on an uneven ground, “what’s your favourite colour?”
Another sigh. “I don’t know.”
“What do you mean you don’t know?”
“I don’t have one—”
“Well, mine is green! Like the kind of green you see on old trees.”
“Wow. That is one useless piece of information ,” she mumbled in a not-so-silent way. Apparently Mono didn’t take the hint of her disinterest in the subject.
“And you? I bet yours is yellow, right?”
She quirked a brow, lifting her head. “Yellow?”
“Because of your jacket!” Mono said. “It’s a good colour on you. Suits you well, if you ask me.”
A long pause, her eyes locked onto his kind ones. She cleared her throat and looked away—away from his bright smile.
“It’s not even mine originally. It was my Ma’s,” Six said, her voice low.
“Ohh,” Mono mused as he nodded. “Like the…knife you gave me the other day?”
She hummed dryly. “That was hers, too.”
“Are you sure you don’t want to hold on to it instead? Honestly, I don’t think I even know how to use this thing.” He took out the small switchblade from his coat pocket, his brows furrowed at the small blade in his hands.
“Keep it anyway. Just in case.”
A contemplative look washed Mono’s features before a sweet smile replaced it. “Okay, Six,” he said, tucking the small blade back into his pocket. He tapped his fingers against his leg, his lips pursed in thought as the silence stretched, filled only by the soft pitter-patters of rain hitting the grimy alleyway.
“Hey. Can I ask you…a very small question?”
Six raised a brow. “What?”
“Promise you won’t be angry?”
Her eyes rolled again, but she nodded.
Mono hesitated for a while before he finally spoke again.
“Do you think I’m a good friend?”
“Why the hell would I be angry at that?”
“W-Well…because you get angry easily…?” Mono immediately braced himself for her punch. A punch that never came. His eyes fluttered open again only to find a pair of dark, intense ones staring intently at him, unblinking.
“You’re asking me,” Six said after a while, her voice surprisingly even, “if I think you’re a good friend?”
“Yes.” He gulped.
Six said nothing, her gaze fixed on him, scrutinizing every nervous twitch.
Another beat of silence passed, stretching uncomfortably between them, making the soft rain outside seem deafening.
Mono shifted in his makeshift seat, suddenly too self-aware and acutely embarrassed. “Uh—forget what I said! I think you’re right. I’m so sleep-deprived; I’m going to force myself to sleep for the next couple of hours. Okay? Okay, bye—!” He made a quick move to scramble to his feet, desperate to escape the moment.
“Sit. Down.” At her sharp command, Mono immediately sat back down, though he stubbornly refused to meet the girl’s fierce glare, opting instead to stare at carved patterns on the ground.
“Why are you so weird?” she asked him.
His face flushed a deep red, and he hesitated again as he chanced a quick glance at her. “E…Excuse me?”
“You act as if you just asked me to marry you or something. It’s not a big deal. I think you’re fine as a person.”
Never mind. There was no need to seek any warmth from the damp weather; the sudden rush of heat in his cheeks was seemingly enough to support him for the rest of the night.
“Oh,” Mono said, his voice cracking slightly with relief. He cleared his throat. “Okay then. I’m going to go now—”
“Hold it.” She grabbed his arm and pulled him back down again. Right next to her. “I want to ask you a question too.”
“A question?” Mono repeated, still slightly dazed.
Six hummed as she released his arm. Then she leaned back against the alley wall, her face relaxed, the tension in her shoulders easing.
“What made you think we’re even friends in the first place?”
Mono opened his mouth, then closed it, a wave of confusion washing over his features.
“We…we aren’t friends?” The question sounded more depressing than it was disappointing.
“You thought we were?”
“Well, yeah! We’ve lived in the same house for two months! I even gave you half of my lunch the other day!” Mono said, now sounding genuinely offended.
“So?”
“So that should count for something! What, you’re telling me we aren’t friends right now?”
Her lips pursed, as though fighting back a smile and failing miserably. She feigned a loud sigh, looking at her nails absentmindedly.
“Usually, in my old school, if someone declares that I’m their friend as proudly as you have,” she began, her tone light, “I’d have them wishing they never even met me. But since you’re so desperate to be my friend—”
“I am not desperate—”
“I can make an exception. But it comes with a condition.”
Mono, despite his chagrin pout, leaned in, his curiosity piqued. “What is it?”
“Promise me,” She lifted her pinky finger, extending it towards him, “No matter what happens, we’ll protect each other. No matter what we have to do to achieve that.”
A simple promise.
Yet there was something lingered in her eyes, an underlying desperation.
He faltered for merely a second, the weight of her words sinking in. For then, he pushed aside his own grim dread. He hooked his pinky around hers, a joyous smile spreading across his face.
“I promise.”
That promise was tested, alas, only one of them believed it had been null and voided.
The night they had found a flier of The Maw was the night they had encountered a violent adult. A middle-aged man, his skin sagging, his bloodshot eyes fixed on a black television screen that mysteriously worked no more. He clawed at his neck, whimpering, begging for the song to return, banging his fists against the unresponsive glass.
It had been Mono’s fault for trying to sneak behind him, his hand tight around Six’s own. For once the man had seen them in the reflection of the dysfunctional television, his attention shifted in an extreme, horrifying way.
The older man smiled, his teeth missing, his lips cracked and dry. “I know you.” The man took a slow step forward, a predatory gleam in his eyes. The children instinctively moved one step back. “You are him. The missing Fontaine boy. Hush now; don’t be scared. I can help you. I’ll get you back to your family.”
Mono instinctively pushed Six behind him, half-frozen in place by the man's recognition. “Leave us alone,” Mono said, his voice surprisingly firm despite his fear.
The television behind the man suddenly buzzed back to life, emitting a low, comforting static. In an instant, it caught the man’s attention, his arms wrapping around the frame, his body slamming against the glass in a desperate embrace. A blissful sigh of relief left his lips. But just as instantly, the screen died again. It died when Mono escaped with Six, pulling her away.
Left shaking in the rain, the man let out a guttural scream that chased them into the night.
Rain poured above them mercilessly, turning the ground into a treacherous, slippery expanse that slowed their escape. The man chasing them fared no better, tripping multiple times, scrambling to regain his footing. Six held Mono’s hand tighter. Her friend muttered something about spotting a loose window—an old awning hidden behind a pile of trash cans and black bags. He shoved the overflowing bins aside with a grunt, pushing the window on the ground and holding it open. Six didn’t need to be told; she understood the urgency, scrambling inside and down into the dark basement first.
“COME BACK!” The man stumbled just as Mono followed behind Six, slamming the awning window shut. The man's hand, already halfway through, was caught. He screamed with curses, rage and pain contorting his face as he pulled it back. He pressed his face to the grimy glass, bloodshot eyes peering in. Then his fist began to pound against the pane. “Let me in!” Again and again he shouted. The man’s determination persisted like the harsh storm. He banged his head against the glass until spiderweb cracks formed in its center.
In the darkness of the basement, Mono backed away with Six. He looked around frantically, his eyes straining to see, finding only towering stacks of boxes and rusting metal shelves lined in rows. There was nothing here to protect them. Nothing at all.
“Eli.” He spun around to find Six at a door behind them, rattling the lock around its knob. She picked up a small hammer from a nearby box. “I think I can break it.”
“I’ll hold him off,” Mono quickly offered, already sprinting towards the shelves. As he put his faith and trust in Six to unlock their escape, he gave all his strength to push one of the smaller shelves towards the window. Metal scraped against the concrete floor, a deafening shriek that rivaled the frantic thuds from Six’s direction and the aggressive pounding of the glass above him. He looked up. The cracks had grown into a bigger web, and blood from the man’s head stained the window. A wicked smile stretched upon the man’s deformed face. Mono continued to push the shelves until it toppled, collapsing to block half of the awning window, covering the only sliver of light from the outside.
It did little. The man’s arm had already punched through the weakened glass, shards scratching along his sleeve and body as he grabbed at the shelf, leaning inside, forcing himself through the jagged opening.
“Eli!” Mono snapped his head towards Six. The door was open, the broken lock lying uselessly on the ground. “Come on!” Six called for him as she burst through the doorway and stepped out of the basement.
Yet on the other side, her feet halted abruptly at the first step. Horror washed over her features, her eyes wide and fixed on the tall figure blocking her path.
“Hello.” Willy smiled down at her.
Mono’s footsteps came thundering behind her. Willy pulled the door shut before he could see any light from the other side. He heard the boy pound frantically against the wood, screaming Six’s name in confusion and pure horror.
Willy’s grip remained firm on the door handle, holding it from being accessible for Mono’s escape.
Six’s eyes widened further. She snapped out of her trance and pushed at him desperately.
“What are you doing? Let him through—!”
“He hasn’t much time, so let’s not waste any more,” Willy said quietly. “It’s time you leave for good, Six.”
“What?” Her voice broke, perplexed and afraid. Terrified for her friend.
“You heard me. You both had a good run together. Shared enough laughter and stories into the night. But now, it’s over; and you need to go.”
“No.” She shook her head. Stubbornly. “I’m not leaving him.”
“No? Do you want him to die then? I won’t open this door unless you leave.”
Mono cried her name on the other side, banging against the door, his pleas muffled but clear. He was begging for her to open it.
Pain crossed Six’s face, her eyes glistening. She still did not move, her feet rooted to the spot.
“It’s all up to you, of course,” Willy said at last. “His fate will be in your hands. So will his death.”
That did it.
The tears she had held back finally burst, slipping down her hardened façade, tracing paths through the grime on her cheeks. With gritted teeth and an angry, heartbroken growl, Six climbed up the remaining steps and left as she should. But not before Willy called her one last time, an easy smile growing upon his lips.
“If you ever need assistance at navigating the city streets, feel free to ask the eye on your sleeve. We would be more than happy to help.”
Six flinched and flailed as a string of glistening meat crawled up her arm, revealing itself from under her yellow jacket. The grotesque little Eye blinked proudly. Its single lid fluttered under her horrified stare. After all, the said Eye had been the most helpful at relaying whatever influence or ideas Six had put into Mono’s fragile mind during their runaway trip. Willy listened and watched with bitter amusement every time.
She screamed, utterly disgusted and perturbed. She tore her own jacket off her, flinging it far away at a distant wall. The little Eye laughed mirthfully. So did Willy as he watched the girl disappear upstairs and out of his sight.
Hopefully long enough.
A beat passed and Mono’s desperate plea had long since silenced. He could hear the footsteps of their assailant, climbing inside the basement—the ragged breaths of an addict, the predatory chuckle he let out as he searched for the little boy. Willy stayed behind the door, listening. It wasn’t time yet.
Shrieks and thuds of a toppling shelf echoed on the other side. The addict’s patience grew thin with every passing second for his failure to find Mono. The Eyes, ever-present, watched the boy crawl behind an old, forgotten table, his small hands clapping over his own mouth, desperately silencing his shaking breaths. Tears welled in his eyes and slid down his cheeks, though it likely had more to do with the pain from Six’s betrayal than the unadulterated fear for his life.
Still, Willy waited, a grim smile playing on his lips. It wasn’t time.
Then, the awning window opened with a groan, admitting a cold gust of wind. A tall figure entered and dropped silently to the basement floor.
The addict spun around. A startled grunt escaped him before plummeting to the concrete floor with a heavy, sickening blow to his head. Blood splattered, leaving a crimson mess on the grimy ground. Willy listened patiently as the new footsteps approached Mono’s hiding place, wet, squelching sounds under their shoes. He waited again.
A low voice spoke to the boy, hushed and menacing. His words were cut short by the wet sound of pierced meat, followed by a strained, choked wheeze. Then a final heavy thud.
Willy smiled a satisfied grin. The rest of the Eyes cheered in his mind—a chorus of triumphant whispers.
Finally, he opened the door and stepped inside the basement.
Immediately, he was met with chaos, the grim aftermath of two brutal murders that left the bodies laying in expanding pools of red. In the far corner, a trembling child huddled, shrunken and heaving, his fingers taut around the small hilt of the blade gifted by his traitor-friend.
Mono was crying quietly when Willy found him, his head buried into his arms. It seemed he had shut down right after his first kill. He didn’t even acknowledge Willy’s presence, not even as he walked further into the room, looking over the twitching man the boy had just stabbed.
Willy leaned over the dying man, staring into his bloodshot eyes that were now full of hatred, regret, and agonizing denial. More blood frothed from his mouth, drowning him mercilessly. He died then and there, his struggle ceasing.
The Eyes cheered again.
Willy left the dead man and approached the crying boy. Mono still did not realize it, even as Willy took a seat beside him. It was only when he placed a comforting arm around the boy, pulling him into a hug, that Mono flinched, looking up with puffy, tear-filled eyes.
“Dad?” Fear and wariness fought for dominance on his face. Before Mono could fully remember the words Six had told him—the ugly truth about Willy—Willy gently shushed him and pulled him close, resting his chin above his head.
“It’s okay, Mono. I’m here now. You’re safe.” He wrapped another arm in front of him, patting his head soothingly.
“What…what about S-Six?” His voice broke, on the verge of fresh tears.
“She’s gone. Made her escape to safety.”
“She wouldn’t,” Mono whispered. “She wouldn’t leave me behind.”
Willy hummed. “Yet she did. She saw an opportunity to save herself and she took it without hesitation. She used you. Since the start.”
The boy cried silently into Willy’s shirt. Willy felt his tears wet his clothes, and soon Mono began to cling to him, utterly devastated and in disbelief.
That his friend had left him behind after the promise they had made for each other.
“Mono,” Willy said, his voice soft as he finally pulled away. Mono sniffled, wiping futilely at the tears that streamed from his eyes. “Here. You seemed to have forgotten this when you left.” Willy offered him a familiar paper bag, two rough holes cut out for the eyes, the very mask Mono had worn before.
Mono stared at it, his hands hovering above the bag before he hesitated, doubt in his puffy eyes. Willy’s smile faltered, a slight frown touching his lips.
“It’s for your safety. You were chased because someone realized who you were. Isn’t that right?” Willy prompted gently.
“How did you know that?” Mono whispered, his voice hoarse.
“We made a deal, did we not? I told you I’ll never let the others hurt you.” Willy’s smile returned, soft and reassuring. His touch was gentle as he took the mask and put it over the boy’s head for him, fixing it just right to reveal the pair of eyes Willy’s brother once had. “And I swear to you, I will keep my word. You won’t be alone anymore. Because I will always be here. With you.”
They left the grim basement through the door, Willy’s large hand enveloping Mono’s own small, trembling one. Stepping out into the pouring rain, Mono instinctively pulled the paper bag more firmly over his head, though his masked eyes still searched desperately for the girl who had abandoned him. All that was found was the quiet, rain-slicked street and a distant television buzzing with static. There was no girl to be seen, not anymore.
“Forget her.” Mono looked up to the man beside him. Willy’s gaze remained fixed straight ahead, confidently leading them through the downpour.
“What if she’s in danger?” Mono asked, worry persistent in his meek voice—the stubborn naivety and loyalty to the very friend who had betrayed him. Even after knowing what she had done.
“It shouldn’t matter anymore what happened to her. She left you behind; that action itself is unforgivable.”
“But there must be a reason! She must have needed to leave. M-Maybe there was another person attacking her while I was—”
“If there was another attacker,” Willy interjected smoothly, “there would have been traces of her left behind. Blood, marks, any signs of aggression at all. But we both left through the same door; there was nothing. It seems likelier she kept the only exit closed to keep the man chasing you from getting to her. At least long enough for her to guarantee that any eyes of danger would be averted from her.”
Silence followed afterwards, heavy and cold as the rain. Willy waited, studying the boy’s reaction, even if all that was exposed of him were his swollen, puffy eyes behind the mask. Mono’s hand tightened around his own, a telling grip.
Then there, in his eyes—a spark of anger. A forming bitterness that had yet to bloom into a desired stage, but it was there.
Over time, Willy watered it. He protected Mono from the increasingly deteriorating Pale City, brought him to live within the Tower permanently, and provided him all the boy ever wanted: companionship.
As days turned into months, and months bled into years, Mono turned…extremely compliant. Much more obedient and quieter. He never cried anymore. He had also stopped smiling, barely lifting a grin even on his brighter days. All he ever did was stay within the confines of his new home, mulling over the past that had utterly broken his heart. Willy knew he had been convinced many times: “Six betrayed you. If she were a true friend as she told you she was, she would have never abandoned you to die,” Willy had told him once.
Mono, with a thousand-yard stare in his eyes, sat hunched on the edge of his bed. The room was barren and white, except for the small television perched atop the wooden chair, like a glowing sentinel.
That night he had laughed for the first time in months.
“She abandoned me to die,” Mono had muttered under his breath, the words tasting like ash.
Even so…
Every time he admitted to Six’s betrayal, claiming that he resented her for it, there was a subtle softness therein lied in his voice. A dangerous, persistent hope that it had all been a lie; and that Six, no matter how badly she had crushed his spirit, had abandoned him for a good reason. His frustration for the truth did not escape Willy as he watched the boy grow taller in his sleep, his eyes slowly losing the light it once had, the vulnerability that had made him so utterly similar to young Michael becoming more apparent.
Yet Mono was still hoping. Still wondering if the girl he once knew was still out there, every time he laid eyes on the quiet screen across the room.
Some of the Eyes found it impressive the boy could hold on to a memory this long; others were intrigued and anticipated his reaction if they met again. After all, Willy and the Eyes kept tabs on the traitor girl, watching her journey and her survival against the corrupted monsters of this world. Last Willy checked, she had found herself wandering out of the land, venturing to a smaller neighbouring island and into the wilderness. She was alive and well-fed, considering the many near deaths she had encountered had it not been for her own personal dark assistant—it was only a matter of time, Willy thought. He had even told her too.
“He’s planning something,” one of the Eyes whispered, its voice a low hum within Willy’s mind. Willy turned to the dozens of screens in front of him, but he watched only the one where Mono was in.
“Indeed.” Willy leaned forward in his seat, intrigued. Mono had been staring into his small television for almost an hour. Usually he would only do so if he were to broadcast the Transmission. Tonight, however, was supposed to be his ‘resting’ day.
“I heard him muttering yesterday. Something about wanting to know the reason.”
“Ah, it’s about that girl, obviously. He has been pressed about her for the last three years or so,” Another Eye supplied, rolling its pupil in amusement.
“Four years once the clock strikes midnight. I believe it is the anniversary of the betrayal.”
“They have anniversaries now?”
“I think it is adorable.”
“You thought the dusted citizens were adorable too.”
“Irrelevant and boring. What is the boy planning now? Shall we stop him?” As if on cue, Mono got up from his bed and approached the television, switching it on. The screen glowed brightly, pulsating with a familiar static. His hand pushed forward into the screen, the rest of his body climbing through until he was utterly gone, swallowed by the light.
Willy smirked, a low chuckle rumbling in his throat. How he waited for this.
“No need. I believe I know.”
The next few days, Mono found himself staying in the forest. It was a breath of fresh air after years of never leaving the Tower. A touch of real ground and dirt under his feet, and the soft breeze that kissed his cheeks gently.
After he had gone through the television, he hadn’t expected to fall into a pile of leaves. After all, in the city, there were not as many greens as there used to be, the landscape dull and almost barren. But here in the Wilderness, there was so much life. The trees were ridiculously enormous and tall, seemingly touching the night sky. There was no buzzing sound of static, no humming and whining at every corner, filling the silence like an irritating, omnipresent bug. In the Wilderness, the irritating bug was real. Mono hadn’t heard the sound of crickets in years. Too accustomed to the television, to the Transmission song, he had forgotten what they sounded like. Or how easing the sound of a crackling fire was. The crunching noise of dried leaves under each step—
Mono stopped in his tracks, seeing an orange glow in the distance. A girl sat in front of it, her face grim yet achingly familiar, even as she had aged.
It was her. After four years, it was her.
He had found his friend.
Mono took another daring step, a stick snapping under him. Immediately, the girl’s head snapped towards his direction, and she sprang to her feet, wary and alert. A wide smile threatened to form on his face, a childish excitement blooming in his bitter-forced heart. It had been too long. His friend was here—
“Stop right there,” Six hissed, her voice sharp with caution, and...fear.
Mono froze in front of the flickering fire, his smile faltering.
Did she forget who he was?
“Six.” Saying her name again brought him a warmth he had deeply missed. “It’s me. Eli. Don’t you remember me? We used to—”
“I know who you are.” She took a step back when he took one forward, her hand subtly moving behind her leg, concealing something long and slender.
“Then…why do you look so afraid?”
Six said nothing, her eyes narrowed.
His gaze dropped to her hidden hand, the object now clearly a weapon. Mono frowned, a bitter taste filling his mouth, and dread coiling in his gut. He lunged forward just as Six raised the object, snatching her wrist. She fought against him, sending a hard kick against his stomach that sent him stumbling back into the dirt. And when he looked up, she was already swinging her weapon at him, a sharpened stick or branch, aimed with deadly intent.
Mono ducked, the weapon a hair’s breadth above him. “Stop!” His plea fell on deaf ears. Six continued to attack him with fury, and he continued to narrowly miss each blow.
“You shouldn’t be here,” Six finally spat, lifting the weapon again, her voice raw. “Go away!”
“I just want to talk to you!” He grabbed her wrist again before she could swing it above her head. This time he tackled her legs, bringing her down and pinning her, lest she kicked him again. “Please, Six, I promise I—” A loud cry erupted from him as something pierced into his shoulder blades. A small, sharpened piece of wood, driven by the very hands he had thought he’d seized.
Mono fell back, groaning in pain, his grip releasing. Six scrambled away, back in her defensive stance, her weapon poised. His patience ended then.
“What is wrong with you?” Mono spat through gritted teeth, the pain erupting around his arm now secondary to his furious confusion. “I-I came all the way looking for you. I just…I just want to talk.”
“There is nothing for us to talk about—”
“Yes, there is!” Anger surged in his voice, overriding his pain. “There is so much we can talk about. So much I’ve been killing myself over, night after night, because of what happened that day. We made a promise. You said we would protect each other no matter what, no matter what we have to do to achieve it. And I did just that! I protected you, Six! I-I held him off just so you could break the lock.” His eyes stung next, tears of rage and hurt blurring his vision. His voice trembled despite the small breaths he forced himself to take. “So…why did you close the door on me then? Why did you…why did you leave me behind? After that promise?”
Again, Six spared him nothing but silence, her face an unreadable mask.
It pissed him off.
“Oi! Answer me!” Mono snapped, his breathing shallow, ragged with pain and fury.
Yet Six said nothing. She stood straighter, held her makeshift weapon tighter, and turned around.
Then she began to limp away from the fire—away from him.
Mono’s eyes widened, his heart breaking into smaller pieces with every step she took away from his broken self. More tears welled in his eyes, hot and bitter. The tips of his fingers dug into the damp dirt next to him.
“Leigh!”
That name. It did something to her, he was certain, for her real name was never used after her mother’s death. Mono wished him using it angered her—made her want to turn back around and punch him until his face was swollen with bruises. He wished it would bring her back to him, provoke any reaction other than cold indifference.
It didn’t.
For she spared him nothing more than a disgusted look over her shoulder. And then she disappeared into the night, leaving him alone to heave breathless air and finally break down into the racking sobs he had suppressed for years.
That same night, Mono returned to the Tower through the television screen. He had stopped crying after hours spent on the wet ground of the Wilderness, though his heart never stopped breaking as he replayed her image—her bitter-filled voice, her face contorting in disgust at the sight of him, her second abandonment as she walked away without answers.
He limped to his bed but dropped heavily on the floor beside it, exhausted and emotionally drained. His hand still pressed against the stinging wound he had sustained from their fight, blood drying on his skin. It didn’t hurt, not as much as the crushing thought of the years he had wasted, mulling over her, hoping she was alright out there, when all the while she held him in contempt.
“Welcome back. How was your trip?” Mono’s attention darted to the doorway, seeing his father’s tall figure framed against the light. The teen rolled his eyes, and looked away.
“Fine.”
“Fine? You don’t look it.” The man chuckled lightly, a gentle smile on his lips as he approached. He took a seat on the bed, his brows a little furrowed. “Did she do that to you?” He nodded towards the crimson patch above Mono’s shoulder. When Mono refused to speak, a long, weary sigh escaped him. “Can I be honest? She is not worth the pain.”
“My injury isn’t bad; it’ll heal in a few—”
“That isn’t the one I’m referring to,” his father said, leaning forward, his voice low. “I meant the mental pain she is causing you. You need to stop letting her take control, Mono. She isn’t the same girl you thought she was. She is a—”
“A traitor, I know. You tell me that often,” Mono replied bitterly, the words already ingrained.
“And you agree with me every time. Don’t you?”
His scowl faltered slightly, his gaze lingering on his own wounded shoulder.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you I wanted to find her.” Mono breathed a shaky exhale, the last of his resistance crumbling. “I shouldn’t have ever left. You were right.”
“Maybe,” the other man said. “But at least now you’ve seen her true colours for yourself.”
You’ve seen her true colours for yourself.
Each night, Mono clung to those words like a prayer. Every time the thought of Six crossed his mind, every time his stitched heart softened enough to persuade him to forgive her for the umpteenth time, he repeated the ‘truth’ in his head. He dragged his weak self back to cold reality. He reminded himself of what she had done to him, the pain she had caused that left his wound to scar only years later.
He wasn’t alone, though; Mono had help. His father, albeit strange and different from the man he used to remember, stayed by his side in the passing years, fixing him in ways he never thought he could be fixed. Mono had learned not to think of her anymore. He had focused on other important matters: the city’s progress. It helped the most, distracting him until he had forgotten the gaping hole she had left inside him.
The Transmission expanded beyond Pale City, silently transforming the rest of the world into a quieter, more compliant state. Mono, as he reached adulthood, had grown to watch the citizens through the glowing screens in the Tower, surprised yet oddly indifferent towards their change in behaviour. His father had told him years before that people would take time to adjust, and that the aftereffects of the signal Mono helped broadcast were different for each individual. Some would react calmly, others in aggression or lunacy. Nonetheless, the end goal was the same for everyone: they would be guided for the better. Everything would change for the greater good, even if it’d take decades to achieve.
The Cycle, Mono remembered his explanation, was what would occur. And when the time was right, he would play the biggest role yet.
And he truly wanted to help. He was ready, only waiting for his father’s green light and orders.
In front of him, one of the screens turned dark, obscured by a moving shadow that left three roaming citizens bled dry on the pavement. His eyes narrowed on the single screen.
Another two died within the same area, the view again blocked by the same shadow before it revealed the grotesque sight of the poor, lifeless citizens.
This was the third time this week. Mono grumbled a curse under his breath, knowing just who the culprit was that had been disturbing the Transmission. His father trusted him to carry the responsibility; he wouldn’t let him be burdened by her.
As he stood, the white room around him stretched and shifted, dissolving into the familiar street of Pale City. He did not care for the biting cold or how the rain immediately soaked his clothes to his skin, for when he saw the citizens at his feet, dead and bony, an emotion akin to annoyance crept into his chest. There were more dead ones apparently when he sped through the streets, every corner revealing a television left shattered and useless, preventing the signal from being broadcasted.
A new thud pierced through the wet silence, and wisps of shadow moved around the corner. Mono made the turn and saw the dastardly woman standing in the alley, her back turned on him. He gritted his teeth, old anger and betrayal filling his heart.
“Look who finally decides to show up. Haven’t you had enough?”
The woman in the dark cloak spun around to meet him. She wore a mask over her face, though her eyes were ones he hadn’t fully managed to forget. Yet.
“I had thought you were locked up in your cell. But it seems staying inside your prison was voluntary for you.” Her voice was soft, yet there was that familiar resentment in them, an edge he unfortunately remembered too well. He expected nothing less.
“Why are you here?” he asked finally, his tone sharp and devoid of any wry amusement. Devoid of anything at all.
“Have been trying to get you to come out. Was this…all too far?” She gestured to the bodies littered behind her, a casual sweep of her hand.
Mono felt his lips twitch. “Nothing is ever too far with you. You’ll do whatever you can to get what you want. Isn’t that right?”
“Failure is never in my book,” she added flatly.
“Of course not. You got yourself the life you’ve always wanted. Far from Pale City and the Transmission. Even tucked yourself away and found your grandmother too.”
“Keeping tabs on me, are you? Have you been watching through all that Transmission crap?”
“Not by choice. The Transmission ‘crap’ revealed everything anyway. If it were up to me, I’d rather find out you had been killed by the waves than you staying above it.”
Six hummed, a sound that was either full of guilt or disappointment, it was impossible to tell.
Mono frowned, bored and tired of having to wait for her to speak. The emotional exhaustion of their last encounter still lingered.
“Well, then. Seems like you’ve already gotten what you wanted; I’m out of my ‘cell’. So how about we call it a day and you go back to wherever you came from. On that note, don’t even bother showing your face here again.” He pivoted sharply on his heel, disgusted to be in her presence, ready to vanish as quickly as he had arrived.
“I want to make things right, Eli.”
Mono froze in his steps, his back still to her and his eyes wide. It was as if he had been struck by a physical blow. He didn’t know which was a stronger shock: her unexpected wish, or the name she had called him, a name he hadn't heard in years.
Slowly, he turned to face her, gaping slightly, and his composure cracking.
“You…want to make things right?” he echoed, his voice tight.
Six brought her hand up to her mask and pulled it off, baring the face he had fought so desperately to erase from his mind.
“I know I’m years too late. What I did to you was…wrong and unforgivable. But back then I was young and afraid, still too weak to fight back. Now it’s different. I can help you the way I have always wished I could, Eli. We can fix—” Her words were cut by her choked cry, a sudden gasp for air. She grabbed at the wrist around her throat, shock widening her dark eyes. It had only taken a blink for Mono to stand before her, looming tall with a look that promised no mercy for her life.
To him, she was already dead.
She must’ve realized so as she desperately clawed at his hand, her jaw clenched in pain the more he squeezed her neck.
“E-Eli. Eli, listen—” Mono slammed her against the nearby wall, the impact rattling her bones, his hands still clamped around her throat.
“That boy is dead,” he hissed, his face inches above hers. He smiled bitterly. “You should know. You killed him.”
“I had to do it!” Six choked out, her voice ragged. “I-I never wanted to leave you behind that day. He was there. Your…your father.” Her face became exceedingly pale, fear etching lines around her eyes. Mono’s smile twisted into a sneer. He slammed her against the wall one last time and then, abruptly, released her. Immediately, Six doubled over to the ground, coughing painfully, her hands clutching at her bruised throat.
Mono watched in cold disinterest. He tilted his head to see her face better in the dim light. Her hair had gotten so long after all these years.
“Your father threatened me to leave you,” Six said as she heaved breaths, her eyes determined and fierce as she finally looked up at him. “He told me if I didn’t, he wouldn’t open the door. And you’d die because of me. Eli, I did keep our promise. More than anything, I wanted to save your life at the time.”
“Do you?”
“Yes,” she snapped, her voice regaining some of its old defiance.
Mono paced a short distance, then stopped, kneeling in front of her. “Then how come,” he asked, his voice calm as he stared into her eyes, “you tried to kill me again years later? In the forest?”
Her scowl faltered. “Th-that isn’t what I was doing—”
“Oh, but I remember so clearly that night. You drove your weapon straight at my chest. While you did fail and missed, the attempt still counted. Strange—did my father ask you to do that too? Did he threaten you again?” He knew the answer, and it fueled his bitterness.
“You don’t believe me,” she said, a statement of fact.
“I used to,” he replied bitterly. Then he stood, ready to leave her behind just as she had done to him. Yet Six’s hand shot out, catching his, and brought it back to her own throat.
He flinched in surprise, but her grip steadied him from trying to pull away, her nails digging into his skin. He scowled, unsure if he was pulling away out of disgust or a sudden fear of what he might actually do. “Wh-what are you doing—?”
“Kill me then.” Her voice, though strained from his earlier attack, was clear.
His heart sank without him realizing.
“What…?”
“I said kill me. Get your revenge. Do whatever you need to do to get rid of the pain I’ve caused you,” she repeated, pushing his hand further at her neck, forcing them to stay even as he tried to snatch it back. “I won’t run away this time,” she added, her voice softer now.
Mono felt his anger dissipate like smoke, and the old familiar sadness returned to his hardened heart, an ache he thought long buried. This wasn’t what was supposed to happen. He shouldn’t feel this way anymore. Not after the years he had forced himself to forget her, to hate her until the very thought of her sickened him. Because wishing for her death had been his constant fantasy in the Tower; he had wanted her to suffer for the years he had hurt.
Why was the pain much worse seeing her in actual suffering? Why couldn’t he breathe when it was his hand around her throat?
He gritted his teeth and shoved her back. Hard. Both ended up on their rear, but the distance created between them granted him a relief he hadn’t realized he yearned for.
“Stop—” Mono breathed, his eyes stinging with unwelcome tears. “Stop ruining my life. I don’t want you near me; I don’t want to see your face ever again. You are nothing but a traitor.”
Tears welled up in her eyes too; but she held them from falling. Her gaze locked on his pained face. “Eli—”
He shook his head, desperate for her to say nothing else, to spare him further torment.
“Please,” he begged. “Just leave.”
Six’s lips parted slightly, her words dying in her throat at his final request. But to his surprise, she listened. For the next time he blinked, she was already gone. And the only sign she had been there was the lingering wisps of shadows that dissipated as the rain fell on the wet ground where she had sat.
Time felt shorter somehow after that miserable encounter. Mono had aged, yet again. And the Signal Tower became the only active building in the entire city, while the rest drowned in glum. He no longer felt anything towards everything, only letting time pass, waiting for nothing—his life, a clock that had no hands.
Everyone else, if not most, had successfully been enthralled by the broadcast, though the children left behind were not as fortunate. They were innocent and suddenly deemed helpless as their older family members became subdued versions of themselves. It was one of the few things Mono found the Transmission to be…flawed. The children had to fend for themselves—he often found them weakened in the rain and brought them to the Gilded Nest where he knew was safe. Or safer than the city.
Another thing that remained was the gloomy sky and the absence of the Sun’s bright warmth. Though, perhaps that could only be said for Pale City mostly, since certain parts of the ocean still had exposure to the Sun’s natural heat.
She was lucky to be able to see the sky unobscured by the thick, grey clouds.
Mono stared at the screen that showed him of the Maw, his eyes narrowing on the masked woman standing over her balcony, watching over her guests aboard below. She had taken quite a role there, shouldering a big responsibility he never expected her to carry, knowing the kind of person she was. But then again, who was he to say? He did not know her as much as he thought he did.
I want to make things right, her voice echoed in his head, even after a decade later. Kill me. Get your revenge. Do whatever you need to do to get rid of the pain I’ve caused you.
He remembered her hand above his, guiding him to strangle her.
I won’t run away this time.
Mono shut his eyes. He forced any memory of her out of his head, yet the irony remained. Because even after a decade, he still kept an eye on her through the Transmission, just to remind himself she was alive. To remind him that she was a traitor he would not forgive yet could not let go of. No matter how hard he tried.
What if I had believed her? What if all along she’s been telling the truth? What if everything she has done was for a valid reason?
So many what-ifs crossed his mind as he broadcast the signal, carrying out his responsibilities. Mono hated entertaining the thought of a different future, one where he did believe her words again and let her make things right, but as the years went on it became difficult to stop himself. To not linger and dare he say—regret.
Should he have listened all along? Should he have forgiven her rather than pushing this miserable hate in between them? Did she hate him as much as he did her, after everything?
And if he saw her again…would her wish to fix things still be on the table?
The woman in the mask stared back at him, as she always would in the last decade. His lips thinned into a grin that meant nothing. He turned the screen off for the night.
Mono stayed on the edge of Pale City’s pier, leaning against its damp railings. The sea beyond moved in slow waves, and once in a blue moon, the sky showed no promise of an upcoming storm. It was a clear day, though still too cloudy to truly call it “clear” anymore in this perpetually dim world.
He inhaled deeply of the cold air, sighing out a visible puff of white breath.
Lately, he had felt stuck up in the Tower. The room he had once found solace in now felt isolating and confined. As though it was a cage that was no longer welcoming or pleasant to stay in. Nothing had physically changed in the Tower, of course. Not since he moved in permanently when he was only ten years of age. Yet now there was certainly a shift within him. He had felt it start months before, but in the last few days, the feeling was impossible to ignore. It had felt dire. Like the very atmosphere within his home was depriving him of the air he’d desperately saved.
And it all started since he went against himself and regularly tuned the Transmission for the Maw’s view—for her. His thoughts became increasingly troubled by her presence on the screen; and it was slowly killing him again. He began to doubt everything he had ever known, all that his father had ever told him. The cause he had been so ready to help him grew increasingly flawed in his eyes the longer he observed the changes—the closer he truly observed his father. The man was different, that much he had already known since he was a teen. But different in the way Six had always warned him about…
Another sigh escaped him as he hung his head low, agitated.
His father was the only one who had been by his side throughout all the challenges he faced. He was there when no one else was. He fixed him when Mono found himself broken beyond repair. So doubting him…doubting all the man had done…it felt like a betrayal.
Footsteps approached behind him and halted. Mono turned, his heart sinking with a familiar ache, yet this time no real anger followed in her presence.
“You’re here again,” was all he said, his voice flat. He knew she returned to Pale City’s docks at certain times of the year to check its condition beforehand. Or that was the excuse he forced himself to believe to justify her presence here.
Six had her mask on when she settled by the railing too, a good distance between them. “As I would be every year. Seeing you here, though, is new. What brings you by?”
She sounded so casual and indifferent. As though the last time they had talked hadn’t ended in violence and tears.
He played along, exhausted from keeping up the angry front. And he’d been angry for a very long time.
“Saw the weather was different today. I thought I might take advantage of it, to get a good look at the sea without rain pouring all over me.”
“Don’t you have your paper bag to cover you for that?”
“I grew out of it.” He looked over at her, his brow quirked. “And you? Still wearing that mask until you reach your deathbed?”
Six chuckled under her breath; he fought the foreign warmth that spread through his stomach at the sound.
“I’m not fond of looking at myself these days.” She corrected, “Years.”
And there it was. Mono ignored that he caught the glimpse of buried guilt in her eyes, the old sadness they had shared over…everything.
“Neither do I. Maybe it’s a good thing then you have it all covered up. You just spared me from being sick.” He smirked, albeit unintentionally.
To his surprise, Six made an amused sound. “Was I that ugly?”
“Ugly? No. Hideous is the word.”
“Inside or out?”
“Both.”
Her eyes met his own and lingered; he couldn’t read them as well as he did before.
But then Six hummed and nodded before he could add anything else.
“Guess I was right. Nothing really changed even after all these years. You’re still the same as I remembered you. Aren’t you?” Mono held in his breath as she came closer, stopping just next to him, her hand resting on the damp railing beside his. She stared at him with the same inscrutable look. Mono frowned, an old hurt resurfacing.
“You never changed either. Not that I expected anything more from you, though,” Mono said, his tone slightly bitter, clinging to his resentment.
Under her mask, he could tell she had a smirk on—that defiant curve of her lips.
“Well. A bad apple is a bad apple, right?” Then she walked past him, shadows trailing after her and swirling between her fingers. She was leaving.
Mono gritted his teeth. He couldn’t let her go this time.
“Did he threaten you?”
The shadows in her hands dissipated into the air. Six looked over her shoulder, her eyes narrowed and seemingly guarded.
“Who?”
“You know who.” Mono approached and stopped in front of her, blocking her path. He watched her concealed face, hoping to catch a flicker of emotion. She revealed no such thing as she glared back.
“I remember there was a time where that question was asked by you to mock me. Why does it feel like you’re lacking sarcasm this time?”
“Stop deflecting and just answer the question. Did he really threaten you that day?”
Six’s glare softened, as if a tiny crack in her facade. She let up eventually. “You’ll need to be specific on the timeframe. I’ve been threatened by him a lot of times.”
His brows raised, hating how it surprised him.
“Tell me. All of it.”
A sardonic laugh, her head tilting back, but the sound was devoid of any true mirth.
“Let me think. No.” She stepped aside to bypass him. Mono caught her arm and pulled her back until they were face to face again.
“I wasn’t asking.”
Finally, he found something in her eyes: panic.
“Nothing…nothing good will come if I tell you. Just let it go and move on with your life.” She tried to snatch her arm away, but his grip only tightened desperately. Dread burst in his guts.
“He threatened you to leave me behind when we were kids. I should have believed you.” Her eyes widened as she stilled, the realization hitting her. His breath trembled, unsure of himself—of what he was admitting, of the decade of lies he was dismantling. “What else did he threaten you about? When was the last time he threatened you?”
For a moment, Six said nothing, her gaze fixed on him. But when she finally looked away, her voice left her above a whisper, barely audible over the lapping waves.
“Today,” she said first. “Every day,” she added grimly.
His hold tightened over her for a different reason now. “What is it?”
“The same thing.” She finally met his eyes. He saw hers filled with a sorrow and burden he now understood. “You.”
When Mono entered the Signal Tower again, his steps echoing in its white hall, his father had already waited there, an inscrutable look on his face. It was as though he had been expecting him, waiting for him to arrive since Mono left the Pale City Pier with the clear intention of storming back home. The man noticed his agitation, and, luckily for Mono, he decided not to beat around the bush.
His father sat cross-legged in his usual chair, a small fire crackling in the hearth that looked uncannily similar to the one in their old house.
“Hello, Mono. Something on your mind?” The man leaned forward, pretending to tend to the fire.
Mono stilled, his fists clenched at his sides, trembling with a fury long suppressed.
“How long have you been lying to me?”
The man did not spare him even a look over his shoulder, instead chuckling under his breath, as if what Mono said merely amused him. “I’m afraid I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t play dumb with me. I’m not a child anymore.”
“I know you aren’t. I’m just saying I haven’t the slightest clue where this is going.”
A dry, bitter laugh escaped Mono. How so easily he fed him lies. He approached the sitting man, looming over him.
“Fine then. Let’s start with how you’ve been threatening Six all along,” Mono began, his tone venomous. “You’re the reason she was gone that day. You told her my death will be in her hands as long as she stays close. And even until now, you’re still using me to scare her into submission.”
“Ah,” replied his father, nodding slowly. “Now I see where this is going.”
“Well? Aren’t you going to say anything else?” Mono pressed, his patience at an end.
The older man sighed dramatically, though a subtle smile still played on his lips. “Yes, all of that is true. I did tell her to leave you behind.” Something snapped within Mono. Before he could unleash his anger, his father added, “I also told her you’d be better off without her in your life. She’s a dangerous individual, Mono. One wrong step with that girl, and you might just be subjected to a bad accident. I’m sure you know what, since you’re as diligent at keeping an eye on her as you are at broadcasting my signal. Speaking of which, I believe you haven’t done so in a while. You should continue again. Even better as earliest as possible—”
The lights flickered and then shattered above them, glass raining down and scattering across the pristine white floor, leaving only the orange glow of the fire to cast any light within the ominous place. Mono watched the man in front of him smile wider, unaffected by his display of anger. Or, perhaps, he had expected it.
“You’re angry now,” the man stated calmly. And that only further infuriated Mono. “Would you like an apology for what I’ve done? For having separated you both on purpose? Like I said, she is a dangerous individual to have around.”
A bitter, humorless grin stretched across Mono’s face. Ironic of him to call Six dangerous when, all along, the true danger was his own father himself. He should have listened to her.
“And me? Aren’t I also considered dangerous for the things I’ve done under your watch? Aren’t you dangerous as well?” Mono recalled Six’s whispered words: a murderer , she had called the man. “She warned me about you. Many times back then. But like the fool, I chose to believe you instead because I thought you were the only one left to trust. I never questioned you even as you orchestrated everything just to manipulate me—make me hate her enough so I’d stay. All for what? To broadcast the signal that hasn’t helped anyone even decades later.”
“I told you: correction takes time. A very long time, Mono—”
“And my name,” Mono cut in, his voice rising to a shout, suddenly everything he had held in for years was coming out in a torrent of pain and rage. “You started calling me that since the night you killed my grandparents. After you shot them both, right?”
In his periphery, there were subtle spots on the walls that blinked and shifted, almost like eyes, although they always disappeared whenever he truly looked in their direction.
“We shouldn’t talk about that. It will only upset you even further.”
“I am already upset enough!” Mono yelled, his voice cracking slightly. “I’ve been upset since the day you brought me here. The only difference now is that this time…I know the real truth; I’m through with all of it. I’m done being your puppet and falling into your control. I won’t continue what you’re asking of me. It’s all over.”
Mono spun on his heel, storming towards the Tower’s massive gate. He didn’t want to waste a single more second in this place, the so-called home that was built of his father’s lies and deception. For in his mind, he wanted nothing more than to return to the girl who had shone the light for him for years, to understand everything better this time, and to apologize for having pushed her away when she tried to save him years ago. If she would still have him.
“What about the Cycle, Mono?” His father’s voice—calm and laced with a familiar lure—stopped Mono’s feet just in front of the gate, his hand on the cold door. “You were once eager to be a part of it. Aren’t you curious to find out what your true, biggest role is after all this time?”
Years ago, maybe. Perhaps in a different world, he still stayed and followed blindly.
Mono left the Signal Tower without a look back or an answer. And this time, when he stepped out, a sense of freedom blossomed in his heart.
The world outside began to rain not long after he was out, first falling in soft pitter-patters before it came down heavily atop him. Strangely enough, it was a familiar kind of weather. Most of his days had been spent within the Tower; he’d never truly felt the rain wet him head to toe, clinging his hair to his face, and clothes to his skin. Or maybe it had been so long since the last time he actually experienced such a thing. Decades.
Thunder boomed overhead. He passed by an abandoned store, a place where he and Six had snuck inside and stolen a few packets of bread to last them for the night. Mono reminisced: they had stayed in the dark alleys, away from the glowing televisions where the adults seemingly liked to linger. Back then, as a child, he did not understand the severity of the world’s circumstances. Neither did Six as they had kept each other company under the pouring rain, both staying close for warmth. Mono did not care for anything else but her safety. He would refuse to sleep if only she could rest for the both of them.
Another thunderclap, this time louder than before, the rain falling even heavier. Mono looked up to the dark sky, a frown on his face.
This weather…it felt oddly similar to the storm during that night. Too similar when a wheezing man’s laughter pierced through the loud booms of the sky, followed by the undeniable sound of a child’s scream and glass shattering in the near distance.
Immediately he ran towards the sound, his head whipping in different directions to find the source. The Transmission had made these adults worse; he was a fool to have believed they would get better at all.
He turned the corner. Something bumped into him abruptly, nearly pushing him back from the sudden impact. His lips parted, ready to apologize and continue searching for the child’s scream—
He stilled, his eyes widening.
“You.”
The girl backed away on her rear, her face stricken with tears. She looked…awfully a lot like her.
The sky boomed with thunder again, lightning tearing through the glum, oppressive atmosphere.
The streets suddenly became loud, filled with groans and titters of citizens that littered in hidden corners.
He glanced up and around, a prickle of unease. Then back at the girl in the white shirt. He felt no buzz from the glowing screens around him, the usual omnipresent hum of the Transmission. His mind halted; and panic for the little child began to creep inside him.
It isn’t safe here, was all he thought when he grabbed her by the wrist and hauled her up. The girl cried in protest, screaming and thrashing against him, utterly terrified. He rushed towards the nearest television he found, pressing his hand against its cold screen. Something was indeed off, he knew, when it took him longer to find the signal to tune into. Perhaps this was his own fault; he had stopped the broadcast. He was the reason the adults were acting up rather than remain in obedience to their respective screens.
The television glowed white.
The girl cried louder and punched his limbs, desperate blows. She shook in utter fear, fighting as though for her very life. Mono ignored the guilt for having taken her this way, and instead, he shoved her straight into the screen, sending her to the one place he now trusted was safe enough. The house where he had last wished his father goodbye, and the last place Mono had stayed in before the same man returned with a different look in his eyes.
Mono watched the girl’s arms reach out as she was pulled into the screen, horror upon her face as she laid sight on him. He didn’t linger long there to watch her land safely in the Gilded Nest. For the sound of a toppling shelf snatched his attention before he could even sigh.
Immediately, his gaze landed on an awning window, left ajar.
Mono felt his breath stutter as he approached it.
Once again, dread washed over him whole. Something was wrong down there. Deeply off. A bad déjà vu. And had it not been for the soft crying of another child in the basement, Mono would have never climbed down. He would have never snuck quietly behind the twitching man and brought a nearby hammer to the back of his head.
The old man’s body fell forward, lifeless and bloody.
Mono backed away from his body, looking around the dark basement and finding the place…eerily familiar.
I shouldn’t be here, his mind warned him. Something is wrong. I need to leave—
Something breathed in the dark corner, just behind an old table. Mono saw the top of the boy’s head peeking; he imagined the fear going through him as he shook in his hiding place. He remembered a blurry memory of his young self, cowering in a similar situation.
So, without thinking, Mono approached the boy. He felt his heart sink lower when his soft cries became louder, more trembling and uncontrollable.
“Hey,” Mono whispered, coming next to him and dropping his weapon. His voice was gentle. “Don’t be scared, I’m not—”
The horrifying sound of tearing meat. A sharp, searing pain erupted in his chest. He stared widely at the boy, at the knife held firmly in his small hands as he wielded it directly to Mono’s heart.
The boy pulled his knife back, sobbing, his face a mask of familiar terror. And Mono…
Mono fell to the ground. His head became light, feeling his own blood pool under him and touch the back of his ears, warm and sticky. His vision blurred; the world spun. He closed his eyes and opened them again. But a new face was already above him instead of the mouldy, water-stained ceiling.
It was his father.
The man was looming over him with a strange smile; he was watching him bleed out, dying on the cold floor, waiting for him to pass through his suffering.
Mono opened his mouth. Nothing came out but a gurgle of blood. For whatever remaining anger, denial, and regret died with him as he stared back into his father’s hollow eyes.
The man mouthed something to him, his lips moving silently. Mono caught only the last few words:
“This is your biggest role.”
Thirty-eight cycles passed.
Thirty-eight deaths Willy counted that marked the end for yet another successful cycle.
Thirty-nine. The blade in Mono’s hands stabbed the older man’s chest. He died, lying in the pool of his own blood.
Forty. Mono’s older body plummeted to the floor, his dying gasps silenced.
Forty-one. The defiant little girl bit the neck of the owner of the underwater ship. Her screams of agony died down as chunks of her throat were gone.
Forty-two. Six slumped to the ground, attacked and murdered the same way she had done so towards the Maw’s previous mistress.
Forty-three. Willy counted with the Eyes in him as the Cycle started anew again, following down the path the Eyes had carved out so meticulously.
The state of the world was as Willy had imagined it to be: at peace from the horrors that the rest of mankind had wanted to bring forth, the old War no more different than an urban tale. Pale City was safe again. There was not a single citizen in the vicinity to the Transmission that would act out of place, for they only obeyed the tune of the broadcast and allowed the signal to alter their brains for the better. And for every successful Cycle, the Eye’s control came easier and easier to maintain, their strength and population in the Tower grew.
The Merge built itself within the Signal Tower. It was more effective this way to communicate, especially to watch over the city, being in multiple places at once. Little eyes scattered all over the city, moving underground if only to reach beyond what the Transmission could cover. That way helped immensely as well. It was how Willy could even keep a closer look of the Maw, since there weren't many televisions aboard; and it was how he learned he wasn’t the only one doing so.
Mono, even after all these Cycles, never ceased his…curiosity for her well-being. While there were a few ones where he abandoned the idea of reconnecting altogether—which ended with Six’s persistence to find him instead—in most Cycles, Mono remained the way he was. Stubborn and uncertain.
Not that it would matter in the end. Regardless of what would happen between the two, the Cycle would always renew after their deaths.
No matter what.
The pool of blood touched the tip of his shoes. Willy blinked back into the present, his eyes fixing back on the lifeless ones staring back at him. A gaping wound marked Mono’s chest.
Fifty.
Willy’s smile dimmed.
He stopped counting after that.
The Eyes, their numbers now too vast to measure, took the entirety of the Signal Tower, residing within the Merge that had stretched high above where the sky could no longer be seen. The rest of them—newer ones, countless and unseen—remained hidden in the deep abysses where no light could reach. They synchronized with the others often, watching over the city and their two main tools for the Cycle’s smooth operation: Mono and Six; their Broadcaster and Geisha.
Over the centuries, countless new voices had joined their collective consciousness, each wishing to contribute to the grand "correction" of the world. Amidst this growth, Willy’s once dominant voice became quieter, his opinions left unsaid during every discussion among his own kind.
Alas, the rest of the Eyes took notice of him and his silence. They were unhappy—demanding reasons for his gradual shift.
“You’ve been quite detached these last few Cycles,” an Eye, one of the older ones said to him.
“As if you are no longer interested!” another added, annoyance in its voice.
“Indeed! We noticed you rarely speak with us, let alone come out of that supposed-to-be rotten corpse. Why do you still linger in there, that old body? Hasn’t it been too long enough?” the younger eye prompted, its tone nearing impatience, mirroring the silent demands of the myriad other Eyes staring at him from every corner of the Merge.
They were right. It had been many, many years since the Cycle began. Willy still was the only one that remained within a physical shell. A withered body he continuously healed.
“Well, don’t you remember? That body, specifically, belonged to a dear friend of ours once upon a time,” an Eye said when Willy supplied no answer. “I believe I know why he remains in there. A part of him wishes ‘Brother’ was still alive to become a part of this cause. He does not want to let go of his past.”
“Our past.” Willy finally looked up, his gaze fixing on the disembodied Eye that had spoken of his late brother. “Or have you forgotten: we are all one and the same?”
“Yet most of us appeared after the Cycle had already taken place.” Willy’s head shifted to the wall, finding the speaking Eye among the multitude. “For your past with ‘Brother’ to be considered as ours…it sounds hardly fair when all that we know of him is from what we see standing in front of us here today: the corpse you’ve been inhibiting since the First Transmission. Do you not think clinging to this…memory of him is interfering with the Cycle in some way? After all, you are the Eldest of Eyes. It was you who started it all; and you who would do anything for the Cycle to prevail. Isn’t that what we, as Eyes, desire? What you wanted?”
Willy, once again, said nothing.
And he continued to say nothing even as time went on, the Cycles continuing and ending just as they should. Willy still saw the inevitable end of every Cycle and its renewal; he brought Mono to the Signal Tower and watched him grow, only to be killed by the hands of his younger body. He watched Six escape the Gilded Nest, her life then consumed by the Maw until the day she died the same horrific way its previous hostess had.
The signal’s broadcast never ceased; the lives of the stubborn-minded individuals who resisted its influence were eradicated. And the correction Willy had sought for the world he once lived in was achieved. A world remade and pacified.
The world…his dear old brother was not here for.
Drops of rain softly tapped on the waters cascading down pavement, creating ripples in puddles. Wet dirt was a mush under his shoes as Willy walked through the desolate streets. The city was quiet, even in the day. There was no soul in sight, and if there were, they had long left this life, leaving only remains of their last clothes as their bodies dusted away in decay, assimilated by the Transmission.
Willy’s stare lingered on the spot in front of him, the dirty ground that held a significant memory.
This was where Michael had tripped, where his tears had ceased out of confusion. And that empty spot was where Willy himself was found half alive, broken and brought home.
The path to their old neighborhood came easily to him, and even easier as he followed the familiar trail to the abandoned house at the end of the street. Willy allowed himself inside, letting the howling winds of the storm die behind the closed, creaking door. He looked around the house. It had been at least twenty Cycles since he had stepped foot inside the living room—the Cycles tended to shift if there was room for improvement after all, and this place had long been deemed useless. Over the years, the Eyes had agreed the house held no strategic value any longer.
His gaze strayed to the dusty table in the corner.
A memory, a dark moment, where Michael had pulled him to hide underneath, flashed before him. The boy had been so afraid, trembling as he had hugged Willy close to his chest, as though it would protect the vulnerable ‘blob creature’ from his father’s abuse.
Willy made his way upstairs, his steps slow and heavy as he came closer to the room where his brother had called it his sanctuary.
Michael’s room was untouched, coated in dust and cloaked in darkness. The bed was left the way it always was, just like it had been since he had moved out; his desk remained clean and neat, not a single thing left above it except for a grimy glass jar.
Willy picked it up, turning it gently in his hands. A faint smile crept to his lips, a strange warmth erupting inside him.
“You used to carry me around everywhere in here. Your school. Pale Pond. Soulless Girl’s house. Remember, Brother?” Willy asked the man in the mirror standing behind the door. But Michael only mimicked his sad smile.
The jar in his hands tightened the longer he stared.
Because the more he did, the more he understood the other Eyes. They were right. They did not know what Willy knew of Michael—they carried no baggage of his memory of the world before the Transmission. It was a flaw Willy realized he himself could not fix; and a flaw that had begun to interfere with the very Cycle he had created for his dear old brother.
The Cycle must prevail. No matter what.
A small thud as the jar rested back on the desk. He left the room, left the house, and took nothing else with him back to the Signal Tower.
Willy no longer took part in maintaining the Cycle; no longer called Mono by any name, but only by the formal title the other Eyes had given him.
The Eye became more powerful. Invincible.
Nothing stopped them, and definitely not for another century or so until the most recent Cycle.
Willy had been hearing whispers among the Eyes. Talks about a new child that did not belong with the rest of the carefully placed pieces. While he had been inactive in the Signal Tower, opting to live in the lower, forgotten parts of his own domain, he still expected the glory of every Cycle to persist, no matter what the newer Eyes did to achieve it. He had learned the paths of the Cycle had changed drastically—improved, they claimed, by the rest of the Eye. And he had also learned certain measures had been taken by the others to ensure everything followed as planned. It did not bother him. Not in the slightest, even if those measures included more deaths, more threats, and more chaos. As long as the Cycle prevailed, it did not matter.
Yet when the whispers grew louder within the Tower—frantic, impatient, and angry—that was when Willy learned their new, difficult situation. The Broadcaster and the Geisha had taken a path so damaging that it had nearly sent the Cycle to a dangerous halt. They had done the unthinkable: they brought a child into this world, utterly unwelcome by the Eye.
And truly, the Eye did not welcome the little girl.
Whereas Willy gave not much care, despite the looming threat the girl brought with her existence alone. Again…it did not matter. Everything would end the way it always would: in death. The girl would die—just like her parents would. Just like the rest of this pathetic, decaying planet. He expected the Eye would succeed, along with the Cycle.
What he did not expect, however, was for them to pull the girl into his domain. A place where only he and he alone resided.
He learned Viola was a foolish child. Hopeful. But spectacularly naïve. Their first meeting was mostly dull, with the girl asking him questions and him answering honestly. After all, what was the harm? She would die soon anyway.
Viola grew curious when he mentioned his brother’s name, or rather, an old moniker of his. The foolish girl had thought he’d referred to the Broadcaster, her actual parent. Willy did not bother to correct her, even as she shot accusations towards him, full of anger and other damned emotions Willy could not fully remember or feel anymore. She was determined to protect her parents, rather passionately so. It nearly reminded him of his brother the more he listened to her. She is oddly much like him in some way.
That last thought stuck with him until their second meeting.
It appeared she and the Geisha had just been in an altercation; a heavy one, he was certain, with all the nasty red line over her arm. Nonetheless, Viola continued to voice her determination to save the other girl—to save both of her parents.
An old ache had seeped into his decayed heart when there was something achingly familiar in her eyes, the innocence Michael, too, had had when he had been a child like her.
So, for some reason, Willy warned her—insisted she shouldn’t continue down the road she was rushing into. The way I see it, the war you’re trying to win is a war you will either lose alive or lose dead, he had told her.
Indeed, death was inevitable for the girl, he had already known, but it could still be delayed. She could live longer. He could see to it.
“You should stay here. Where it is safe. I promise you will see no more suffering if you leave the Geisha alone,” he had added when she refused. Alas, he was met with the same result.
The girl was stubborn. Insistent in sacrificing herself the way Michael insisted too. So painfully familiar that Willy had nearly cracked and revealed a side of him he had abandoned in their old house. He had nearly spoken of his brother’s name, revealing a rare weakness towards the child.
Stay here, and I guarantee you will live. Go out that door, and your fate is up to the others, Willy remembered his words after she had left once again, after he had let her go. Considering the Eye had grown utterly desperate and exceedingly anxious with every passing second.
But after the children had been pulled inside the Merge, all for the final step at fixing damages, victory for the Eyes seemed to be within reach. Willy expected it. The Cycle would always prevail. The Eye would always win, regardless of the bumps in every Cycles and parallel.
And soon, they had managed to capture the Broadcaster again. The Geisha had been rendered helpless as her curse struck at the wrong time. Viola was dragged away by the Eye, forced to cross over to the Maw for her new fate.
Seeing the girl regret as the Eye prepared for the Geisha’s death brought forth a hollow feeling inside him. Perhaps a slight disappointment.
He had told her. He had warned her to choose her life over others, to stop her from making the same mistake his brother had. Viola merely did not listen; and now she would end up losing, just as Willy had said she would.
But then...
He was wrong.
For as he stood in the center of the Merge, he realized just how critical and dire the Eye’s condition was.
Dark blood gushed out and dripped down the wall of glowing eyes, each bursting and decaying in mere seconds. A dissonant scream played within the Merge, deafening. The mass of meat continuously shrank until they were left with dried skin. They peeled itself, layer after layer, until all that was seen was the black blood beneath it. Big tentacles became no more but a thin string that collapsed and dusted soon as they touched the ground.
The Eyes burst.
They screamed, along with the Broadcaster who cried for his friend, Death inching close to her fading soul. The Geisha remained in shock, frozen as her lips parted slightly, sudden tears sliding down her cheeks. She still held the bleeding girl in her lap, uncertain and afraid.
Another wave of screams until the last of the Eyes burst into nothing.
All of them; they had all breached the Deal beyond repair. They had hurt—killed—Viola in her parents’ presence. And so, a new catastrophe fell upon them all.
“Wake up!” The Broadcaster’s voice broke as he shook the bleeding girl.
But Viola’s head only lulled to the side, her eyes meeting Willy’s own as he watched from afar. A line of blood trickled down her cheek and to the floor. She heaved her last breath.
Willy stared into that lifeless eyes of hers. His skin mask drooped down his face; it revealed an old smile he had concealed for centuries.
Smart girl. You won after all.
An explosive white pain spread in a wave. The eyes within him burst all at once.
Willy died along with the remains of his brother. And along with this borrowed body that finally decayed, turning into dust.
Notes:
And that wraps up the Backstory/Pre-Cycle Arc! What was supposed to be a mini arc with 5 chapters somehow snowballed into...23 chapters? Nonetheless, I hope that throughout the story was entertaining, since I admit the entire arc was made up as we go. So I'm glad that despite it being initially unplanned and last minute, it all worked out. I hope.
Also, since this chapter was sort of heavy on the angst side, here is a crackfic called
Matchmaker by ApathyAo3. This shoutout couldn't have come at a better time.Now that the climax of this story has concluded, we will continue on with the falling action—and of course, our Viola who has been bleeding for 6 months.
P.S. is it too early to reveal there are only 5 chapters left including epilogue?
Thanks for reading!
Chapter 96: Come Back
Notes:
Finally we return to the cliffhanger that was like 8 months ago. Viola can stop bleeding now 😭
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
There was blood on her hands. Warm and thick. It dried on her like a second layer of skin, and that no matter how she tried to wipe them away, no matter how hard she pressed her hands together, the blood wouldn’t come off.
Six stared down into the crimson, finding her hands shaking terribly, her fingers curling. She couldn’t breathe. She cried sudden, but silent tears. Her chest ached despite the wound being on someone else’s body.
Why did Viola do this? Why would she sacrifice herself for her? Six was not at all kind; she had hurt other people, both physically and mentally, with or without intention. She possessed nothing but a hollow heart. So, what Viola did...it simply did not make sense.
It was supposed to be her that was bleeding out, not Viola. The flesh tentacle was meant to pierce through her heart and no one else’s. Death was supposed to claim her life instead.
This makes no sense. I was supposed to die, not her. Why did she take the brunt of it? Why did she let them kill her for me? Why—?
“Six!”
Six blinked back into the present, the sounds around her no longer a muffled background. They ambushed her ears in a deafening dissonance—the groaning of decaying flesh, the shattering of the Tower itself. Mono was already beside her, his eyes red and wide with fear. His hands, too, were stained with blood—Viola’s blood. He kept them pressed desperately above the girl’s wound to stop more from gushing out, regardless that Viola had already paled from the loss.
Then he looked at Six.
Mono was saying something to her, but it sounded distant and garbled.
“What…?” The weight on her lap…Viola’s limp form….it all became much too heavy.
“I said we have to go! There!” Six’s eyes finally followed his gaze to the glowing door behind them. The light flickered madly like a dying beacon the longer they remained in the collapsing Merge, the longer the Tower was falling apart around them.
She stared at the falling debris, the bursting, dead Eyes, and the ruin that threatened to hit them at any second.
Her limbs froze again.
“Six—hey—did you hear me? We need to go now! Come on and help me!” It didn’t register at first what he had meant, not until she saw him drape one of Viola’s arms around his shoulder, his body straining with the effort. He wanted them to carry her dead weight all the way to the light.
A low, guttural grumble. The putrid meat mass that had clung to the walls began to peel itself away in sickening sheets. One terrified look up revealed half of the dead mass falling forward, seconds from actually crushing them.
Six blinked out of her stupor; and she finally acted. She grabbed Viola’s other arm, her fingers digging into her flesh. She wasted no time in helping Mono, sharing Viola’s heavy weight. And together, they rushed towards the only source of light—their only exit.
The Signal Tower shuddered violently, as though a death rattle. Side-by-side, she and Mono strained towards the dying glow, ignoring the loud boom behind them as more of the Merge collapsed. Mono muttered under his breath, something she could only believe was a prayer that they reach the glow in time before the Eye’s mass would crush them utterly. Six felt the subtle wind caress against her skin, a sign they were running out of time. The glow was fading, their exit flickering quicker now, threatening to vanish.
She pushed herself to run. Even as Viola’s weight slowed them, and even if her own legs were seconds from giving out from the strain and the shock.
Mono mirrored her desperation, fastening his speed, groaning and screaming with the effort.
The glow brightened suddenly when they neared. It pulled them forward as Mono reached his hand towards it, snatching him first into the light, then Viola’s limp body, and lastly, Six.
She heard the Signal Tower’s demise one last time, felt the falling mass touch the very back of her heel, before she disappeared completely into the other side.
A hard landing into a rough carpet floor.
Pain shot up to her knee, a slight scrape of her skin that mercifully distracted her from the harsh tumbling into Mono and Viola’s body. It did not matter, none of it. Not when the small television across them—their window to the nightmare—flashed the scene inside the Signal Tower, revealing nothing more than a black abyss where the grotesque Merge once stood.
A loud, drawn-out whine emanated from the television, and a final gasp from the dying Eye’s presence. For it died afterwards, leaving the room to be cast in a warmer tone, in which the lights swayed gently above them, along with the very ground they sat upon.
Six’s eyes fluttered open, her gaze sweeping across their surroundings. Towers of stacked books surrounded them in a familiar way. A circle-shaped window allowed the soft sunlight to filter in, casting a golden hue over the rough wooden floor. A different kind of warmth kissed her face as she looked out into the vast body of water. The sea. She hadn’t seen it since they had left the Maw, since Viola had gone missing and they’d ventured out to search for her.
They were back. Back here to the Maw. Out of the Signal Tower—out of Pale City. They had made it out.
A quiet sniffle sounded from behind her. Her heart stung immediately. Six remembered the cost of their escape; she hated it. Hated how the memory of Viola’s sacrifice flashed before her eyes again, or that it made her want to scream and yell at the girl for being so stupid , so foolishly kind. She hated that she couldn’t fight the sadness now, seeing Viola’s blood staining the Maw’s floor. Viola still bled, or perhaps she had bled enough to soak her entire shirt. She was not waking up, despite Mono’s desperate persistence to bring her back. Because he would bring her back.
Wouldn’t he?
As she dropped beside the pale girl, waiting and hoping for something, she watched Mono try what he had moments before in the Signal Tower. A weak blue glow emanated from beneath his palm. She had seen him push it over Viola’s wound, heard his strained cries as he promised the dying girl he would fix her.
Only it did not work then.
It still did not work now.
For every time Mono tried, nothing came to fruition. Viola continued to bleed and lie motionless, her injuries barely healed, her skin only turning whiter and colder. There was no heartbeat left to be felt under their hands, just a stillness.
And that brutal realization came down upon them like a descending dark cloud, slow and gentle, yet devastating. They breathed in air and barely could heave out the next breath.
The glow in Mono’s hand died. And so did his attempts. Because there was no use anymore was there, to heal a dead girl? Why even try when he barely knew how to fix anything, let alone a gaping wound?
Mono fell back to his rear, utterly devastated and in disbelief—that he had failed to bring Viola back.
“It didn’t work,” he muttered, his voice broken. Then and there, the dam broke; and his held-in tears escaped his eyes in a torrent. “It didn’t work.” He cried into his hands, his shoulders shaking with every sob.
“Mono.” Six did not know why she said his name, or what use it was to say it at all.
“I’m so sorry,” Mono whispered, shrinking away from her as though her stare hurt him.
Six finally lowered her tired eyes to the corpse laying in front of them, her chest feeling heavy, hollowed out. Was Viola gone? Was this how everything ended for her, in death?
It was not fair.
Six hadn’t yet forgiven her for her betrayal; Six hadn’t even apologized for all she had done to her. So how could this be it? How could Viola leave without letting her say anything at all?
Even now, you’re being selfish. She’s dead and all you can think of is hating her for not letting you say your piece.
She could almost laugh. What a horrible human being. It seemed it would have been more fitting for Six to meet the ending Viola faced now, after everything she had done. No matter if her sins were forgiven, there was no removing the monster deep within her, the curse that followed her like a parasite. There was no true redemption for Six. Never. The only fitting outcome would have been the loss of the life Viola had so foolishly sacrificed hers for. Six should have been in her place. She was the one that was supposed to go instead; and she knew she deserved such a fate, even if the thought of death was outright terrifying.
I should have stopped you, Six thought, the regret a cold knife in her heart. Her hand hovered above Viola’s before she finally took it, feeling the cold stiffness under her touch and then…
A warm prick.
Somewhere inside her, in her chest, her core or someplace deeper, she felt the prick of something. Something familiar and lingering.
Six loosened her grip, taken aback. But she did not let her go. She did not want to lose the warmth. So she steadied one firm hand around Viola’s and placed the other above her heart. There was still no heartbeat. There was nothing at all and yet—
The prickly feeling intensified; the warmth was suddenly a painless burn in her chest, her soul screaming and kicking from within. And then another presence. She felt its stare behind her without looking. But even more, she felt the presence of someone familiar, someone trying to hold on to her slipping grasp.
Six’s eyes widened, her lips parting in a silent gasp.
“She’s alive.” The words escaped her in a soft mutter. And then louder, “Mono, she’s alive!”
Mono looked up from his hand, his eyes still shedding tears. He glanced briefly between her face and their locked hands. His brows furrowed in confusion and pain. “What...?”
“Viola. I said she’s still alive,” Six enclosed Viola’s hand with both of hers as she sat closer, determined. Yet annoyance only spread when the boy across from her scowled.
“That’s not funny. Stop it, whatever you’re doing. It’s cruel.”
“I’m not lying.” She scowled back, her grip tightening around Viola’s hand. “She’s still here. I can feel it.”
“Please, just stop—”
“But she’s alive—!”
“No, she isn’t! I’ve already tried healing her!”
“Then just try it again!”
Mono’s brows raised, a bitter scoff escaping him. As though her suggestion alone had hurt him. “You’re asking me…to try healing her again? After you’ve seen me fail doing so?” Six nodded firmly. His shoulders sagged as he remembered, his face faltering once again. “I can’t. It won’t work, Six. I…I don’t know how to heal her.”
“Yes, you do, Mono. You know you do.”
“I can’t! I-I haven’t learned how! Viola never got the chance to teach me to—”
“And who taught Viola?” That silenced him completely. Six then added, her voice turning sharper and more desperate. “You need to try again. Until it works. She’s still alive, I swear it.”
“Six, I don’t…” Mono’s voice trailed off, filled with doubt.
“Please, Mono,” she blurted, more pain inside her than she realized. “If she’s from the future…if she’s really who she says she is, then…please.” Six swallowed the lump in her throat. “Don’t let her die.”
Mono glanced between her and Viola, his brows furrowing deeper in agony. The hesitation on his face almost scared her, his silence all the more painful. Yet there was no time for disappointment to set in because when Mono finally moved closer towards them, she knew he had listened. Mono knelt beside them and did exactly as Six had begged him to do. He placed his hands above Viola’s gaping injury, the weak blue glow returning beneath his trembling fingers.
And he tried again.
Briefly, their eyes met, a look of determination across his face that brought a new confidence to Six. She understood her own role now.
This time, they would do it together.
Her hands quickly squeezed Viola’s. She closed her eyes and breathed out slowly, trying her utmost best to focus on the warm presence she had felt—the slight pull inside her chest. The frequent creaking of the Maw gradually drowned itself out into absolute silence, making the darkness she sat in all the more looming and vaster. She listened to the hushed whispers of the void, and waited for it to respond. For anything to reach back out to her.
Like Mono, Six had no clue what she was doing. She had barely any idea if she was doing anything at all, other than sitting there with her eyes closed and focused on something that may or may not be real. But she had asked Mono to heal Viola again—begged him to try until he succeeded. It was only right for her to do the same thing. To try until something happened. Anything.
A wind blew a gentle kiss on her face, drifting through her hair.
Six opened her eyes to a cliff and a sky that was too bright to be real. In front of her, there was nothing but a white, glowing abyss, a blinding and suffocating void. What is this place? Six found herself standing on the cliff, glancing around with a growing sense of dread in the pit of her stomach. And that same dread told her she did not belong in this world, and that precious time was dwindling. Because being here felt urgent; every second spent here was meant for her to rush.
But what for? What could she find here? Where was she now?
Her thoughts were answered with a cry in the distance, echoing from the edge of the cliff. A head peered over the edge, a petrified face staring back at her. The girl’s arms clawed at the precipice. She was crying—for her mother.
Six didn't realize when she had been running, or how she fought against the heavy, invisible weight that held her limbs back from moving forward. But for her, in a mere blink of an eye, she was already racing and falling to reach the two wrists that had slid off the edge. Viola scrambled for her hand just as Six tightened her grip around hers. And it felt as though something was dragging them both down, something that prevented Viola from being hauled away from the white abyss.
Six clenched down on her teeth, a strained cry caught in her throat as she fought against the force.
“What are you doing?” Viola managed to say.
Six tightened her hold, her muscles screaming with the effort. “What do you think, stupid? Saving you!”
“But you shouldn’t be here!”
“Well you shouldn’t have gotten yourself killed either! But here you are!”
Viola’s face faltered even more, tears gushing anew. Six breathed out in exasperation, but this time something else lingered in her heart, softening the anger she had felt for the girl.
“Viola,” Six said at last, her eyes stinging again. “Come back to us.”
The white abyss suddenly glowed a faint blue.
Without waiting, Six pulled Viola up over the edge with a heave, letting her weight push them backwards until the ground hit her head.
She blinked.
The fake sky of the abyss vanished, replaced by the familiar creaking pipes of the Maw and the swaying, dim light bulbs hanging above her. A throb pounded in her head as she forced herself to sit up, her ears almost ringing with the dark whispers she could never understand. Her stomach grumbled a quiet groan, but it was a pain she could tolerate in the moment. Whatever she was or was not did not matter because all she thought of was the well-being of the two others across from her.
She found Mono first, heaving shallow breaths into the ground, slumped and looking as pale as paper. Beads of sweat formed over his forehead. He looked awful, much more exhausted and drained than she had ever seen him—and she wondered if she looked the same way.
But then Mono lifted his head towards the other girl, his expression changing just as the ringing in Six’s ears softened. Immediately, she understood why.
Viola was coughing.
The girl who had laid lifeless moments before was now sitting up, old blood dribbling down her chin as she heaved forward, gasping for air and clutching her chest. The gaping wound was gone. There was no more blood gushing out of her anymore.
Mono had done it; he had healed her.
“You’re alive,” Mono was the first to break the silence. Fresh tears gathered in his eyes. And then a joyous smile split his face. He waited no second before pulling the younger girl into an embrace, his back shaking as he laughed. “You’re alive! I can't believe you're alive!” he exclaimed.
“I’m alive,” Viola repeated his words, more confused than overjoyed. Her eyes then met Six’s, a look of disbelief that had Six grinning a little, a rare smile gracing her lips. Six nodded her head to her friend, a silent confirmation. Viola blinked, the reality of the situation sinking in.
And slowly, a genuine smile began to spread across her face. She turned back to Mono and finally closed her arms around his back, returning the hug just as strongly.
“Thank you,” she uttered, her voice still raspy. “Both of you.”
“It was all Six's idea. She was the one who knew you were still alive.” Mono turned to her, the same grateful look plastered on his face. And then ever so slightly, his smile turned mischievous, a familiar impish glint in his eyes. “If…if it hadn’t been for her, you wouldn’t be back. I wouldn’t have tried again and gotten to heal you. So for that…I think she also deserved a little more than a thank you. Right?”
Six’s easy grin dropped. She did not like where this was going. Not one bit, especially as Viola’s eyes brightened with every word.
“You mean...I can, really?” Viola asked the stupid boy meekly, as though his approval was the only one that mattered.
“Mono,” Six warned, already standing to back away. But Mono—famous for his lack of understanding the hint—nodded at Viola with a bigger smile.
“Go ahead. Give her the biggest, ‘thank you’ hug.”
Six remembered now why exactly she had disliked him before. This idiot.
“No. Not doing that.” Six deadpanned when Viola rose to her feet, shyly approaching her with wobbly legs and that same smile—that familiar desperate, hopeful look as if hugging her was the only thing she wanted to do.
“Can I?” Viola asked Six next, yet her arms were already outstretched in a silent plea.
“What? I just said no! Are you deaf or something? Back off and don’t even think about coming near me. Or I will—!” It was too late. Two small arms had already found her middle; Viola’s head leaned further into her chest.
Heat crept to her cheeks, a disgusting warmth pooled in her stomach. Automatically, Six tried to squirm out of the embrace, but her struggle was futile as she felt the Viola's arms tighten around her body. Air huffed out of her at that; she had underestimated the girl’s stubbornness and strength, considering she had quite literally returned from the dead.
“Thank you,” Viola mumbled to her chest, and Six…
She froze again.
Her throat bobbed as she felt that odd emotion return, her arms up in the air, unsure of where to put them.
She snuck a glance to Mono—that smirking moron—and found him gesturing for her to do what her heart had already been telling her.
Her cheeks burned hotter. This seriously cannot be happening.
Six quickly rolled her eyes and tutted, looking away. Then, after another few long seconds of uncertainty…she gave in and allowed herself a moment of this weird feeling.
“Whatever.” Six patted Viola’s back, her hands resting awkwardly around her. But only for a little bit…
And then a little bit longer.
“I…I still hate you, by the way,” Six said to Viola when the awkwardness of the embrace started to creep in. To her surprise, Mono was the one who laughed and reacted. Viola remained hugging her, unfortunately. “And what the hell are you laughing for?”
Mono shrugged with that ugly smile of his. “Just...reminded me of something, is all.”
“Something?”
“Don’t take what she said personally, Viola,” Mono said instead, completely ignoring Six. “That’s just her way of saying, ‘I am slowly liking you again’.”
“No, it isn’t. I really do still hate her, idiot!”
“Right. Maybe that’s why you’re still hugging her and all.”
“Because you pushed her into hugging me! You know what—get off me, Viola.” Six shoved the girl away, however, not as harshly as she usually would. Six justified the reason behind that was her wrath was reserved solely for the boy instead. Surely, it made sense that way. There was no other reason she would go soft on Viola, that little weirdo. That…smaller version of Mono the Freak.
“You.” Six pointed a finger at him, her eyes narrowed to slits. “I’m going to kill you. Come here.” She stomped over to Mono, whose eyes finally widened with every step she took, all show of smugness wiped off from his face.
“Wait, wait, wait—Six, I’m sorry! I meant you’re the strongest, kindest person ever and I—ARGH—WHAT IS—!” Mono flinched and recoiled madly as something rolled down his back and to the floor. A ball of pink meat, specifically.
Instantly, all of them backed away from the ball, disgusted at its wrinkling appearance and sagging form. The air grew cold with a familiar dread.
“What in the living hell…” Six said, her voice a low growl. She watched the ball stop in the center of the room. And then an eye fluttered open.
A hoarse wheeze sounded from it, a sound they had all come to hate.
“Is that…an eye?” Viola said as they all came closer, her voice filled with unmistakable hatred. Luckily, Six shared the same feeling; and so did Mono.
The eye, its iris a shade of brown, blinked rapidly as it regained awareness of its surroundings. And soon, its attention locked on the three faces of the children that had destroyed its kind.
It darkened on Viola. “You…brat,” the little eye muttered, its wheeze turning into a venomous hiss. “It is all…your fault. You ruined everything.”
Six glanced up to Viola, and immediately she saw the shift in her eyes. A recognition of the wheezing monster on the floor, and then deeper, a vengeful disdain for it. Whatever Viola had gone through in the Signal Tower during her first time, the horrible transformation the Eye had forced upon her, it had to have been the worst time in her life. And as long as the little eye was present, the last remaining reminder of the nightmare, there would never be an end to pain and fear.
She knew it well. That the only way was to return their destruction back to them. No matter the method.
Revenge was a necessity when it came to the Eye.
“Six? Where are you going?” Mono’s voice sounded behind her as she picked up one of the lower-stacked books, its weight heavy in her arms. She limped slightly back to them.
“Here.” Six passed the heavy, thick book at Viola. “Crush it.”
Viola’s eyes widened a fraction as she carried the weight of the book in her arms. And then her gaze lowered back to the little eye, watching its pupil darting back and forth between the children, sheer panic across its single feature now. Viola hesitated and stared at the book.
For a moment, Six worried. She wondered if Viola was against her idea for revenge, and instead entertained the thought of mercy towards this despicable monster that had ruined them all for their sick plans. But then again, Six had always been too quick to judge when angry or afraid. For when the girl only adjusted her grip of the book, holding it out in between Six and Mono, Six realized mercy hadn’t even crossed Viola’s mind.
And that dark look in her eyes now, it was like looking in a mirror.
“Let’s kill it together,” Viola said to them.
For once, Six liked what she had to say.
A quiet chuckle sounded from Mono. He eventually shrugged, a dark smile growing upon his lips. “Why not?” He held the other corner of the book, sharing the weight of it.
Lastly Viola turned to Six, a soft look on her face that utterly contradicted her very actions now.
“Are you in?” Viola asked.
But Six’s smile couldn’t have been wider, her heart swelling almost proudly for her. Without hesitation, she answered Viola by taking the last corner of the book, helping them carry it to hover perfectly above the little eye.
“On the count of three then,” Six said, smiling along with the two.
“W-wait!” The weak voice suddenly became a desperate shout. “Please, I beg you, spare me! I swear I can help with whatever you wish! I-I won’t deceive you—!” the little eye continued to beg, its voice frantic and terrified.
Alas, its words fell on deaf ears.
For the children would not repeat the cycle any longer.
“One.” Mono helped them lift the book higher.
Six readied herself, tightening her grip. “Two.”
Viola then glared down at the last of the eye, relishing the look it had in its final moments.
“Three.”
They hurled the book to the ground, silencing the blob's screams
With it crushed, black blood splattered along with bits of moist meat, and the last eye died under the weight of its execution.
Notes:
Haha yeah I told yall this would have a happy ending. That said, the next chapter will have more fluff and most importantly, the addressing of a certain elephant in the room. Namely, the simp and the tsundere's FUTURE relationship.
Also ApathyAo3 wrote another awesome fic for this story and I thought you all should read it too! Here is
Scars by ApathyAo3.Thanks for reading!
Chapter 97: Bed Rest
Notes:
Okay, this chapter ended up being an INTRODUCTION to the elephant in the room. Anyway, hope you enjoy! The angst train is no longer moving from here on!
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
There were several times Mono experienced cases of nausea.
The first one he remembered in his early life was when he had swallowed a can of spoiled beans, which ended with him throwing up a lot more than what he had eaten. The second, he remembered, was when he came aboard the Maw. The swaying was a light discomfort, but back then he’d reasoned Six’s face was the main cause of his sickness. He had wanted to throw up a lot too because of her. And then there was the Signal Tower. The air in that damned place certainly was not the same as the one outside it. Again a light case, since he’d adjusted quickly and not hurled out his already empty stomach. Next was because of a forbidden knowledge Viola dumped on him, that being Six and him apparently liked to kiss each other far into the future. Not platonically, not in any ‘we are friends and nothing more’ way—but romantically. Mono actually threw up a little in his mouth. And then there was Viola’s accident, one that devastated him enough to make his stomach twist and his throat burn. He had thought he would throw up afterwards, but he had been wrong.
Because after seeing the blob of eye get crushed under the heavy book, its blood splattering near his feet…
Mono quite literally gagged.
He distanced himself away from the girls, from that smashed eye, feeling the bile rise and fall inside his throat. It had been like that since he had managed to heal Viola, and his head pounded ever since. Except now, as the adrenaline wore off, everything just came crashing down.
“Mono? Are you okay?” Viola’s voice came beside him, and then Six’s yellow coat appeared closer in his periphery.
“I’m fine. I think the blood is just—” Mono suddenly gagged again, his head growing light. “I think it’s just the blood.”
“You’ve seen worse than a bit of blood, though, Mono,” Six said but her voice was softer than it usually would be. “Are you sure you’re alright?”
He wasn’t. But Mono forced a cheeky grin, hoping it would ease their worries. “You care about me that much?”
“Actually I care about not being crushed if you suddenly collapse on top of me,” Six said with a roll of her eyes. “You look like you’re about to.”
Mono zoned out a little. He blinked, a new throbbing in his head.
“About to what?”
“Collapse on me,” Six repeated. Her brows furrowed deeper. “You’re… really sure you’re alright, Mono? You’re blinking a lot.”
“And you’re sweating too. And are looking very…pale,” Viola added quietly. Then her expression changed. “Uh, oh.”
“What, ‘uh, oh’?” Six looked to Viola, concern no longer hidden on her face.
“Nothing, it’s…I think he used up all of his energy when he healed me.”
Mono blinked once. Then twice. “Huh?”
“The boost. Remember what I told you before? It’s a regeneration, and since our bodies depend on our powers—” For some reason, Viola’s explanation was nothing but a garbled noise.
Mono waved his hand, trying hard to dismiss their blurring faces and Viola’s indistinct voice. “Right—yeah okay.”
“Hold on, Viola, if these boosts regenerate and can heal your injuries, how come you weren’t like this after giving this idiot it?” Six asked, eyeing him up and down with a frown. She tutted. “He looks delirious as hell.”
“I guess, for me, I didn’t heal big injuries. Even smaller ones already got me a nosebleed and nearly passing out. So…maybe that’s why?”
“That’s cool and all, but seriously, guys. I’m fine.”
Viola asked him anyway, “Do you want to sit down—?”
“I’m not going to pass out.”
“My guts say you’re going to pass out,” Six said.
“Mine too,” Viola added.
“I said I’m fine. Just...just watch me.” Mono stood up straighter, scowling at them. He had no idea why. He pointed a finger at his friend. “Especially you, Six. You said I look like I’m going to collapse on you, right? Well, look it. I’m not going to pass out.”
He walked a few steps forward. The ground and the colour yellow came closer to his face.
Then he passed out.
Green leaves covered the entirety of the forest grounds, grass untamed and reaching up nearly to his knees. The light from the Sun filtered through the looming trees, shining down upon him, but it was barely any warmth against the humid air. It had just rained after all. Usually he’d stay out with her to find any good supplies—or any goods at all. And if there were none, they would leave and head on home. Best before the Sun fell and dusk began to approach.
The world was still healing; it would do no one any good if they stumbled upon a corrupted savage by accident. Such that was only a waste of energy for them both.
Yet despite knowing that and ‘preaching’ that rule to her every chance he had, he found himself sitting on the wet dirt for no particular reason, watching nothing and basking in the earthy smell around him. He sat there with his eyes closed, his head low and his guard even lower, regardless if that was a terrible idea to do so.
It had been a while since he stayed in the forest. Alone like this.
He listened to the soft chirping of the birds above him, the subtle rustling of leaves. And then a sigh.
“What the hell are you doing?” He almost jumped out of his skin.
Still clutching his chest, he frowned at the tall woman with a scowl. “Why do you always need to sneak up on me?”
“Why not? It’s fun seeing you get spooked.”
“I was not spooked.”
“Sure, you weren’t.” She plopped down next to him, close enough for their shoulders to touch. His scowl softened, as always it would once she was near. “So, Mr. ‘I was not spooked’, what are we still doing here again? In the middle of nowhere?”
“Passing time and getting fresh air.”
“Hm. We already passed about an hour here, you know. And I’m not entirely sure the air here is all that fresh.”
“So it’s not better than the Maw’s?”
“Idiot, I run that place, of course The Maw is better.” She feigned an annoyed tut and a glare. “What? You don’t like staying there anymore? Got your eyes somewhere else?”
“I said literally nothing about moving out.”
“You said literally nothing about wanting to stay, either. So, meaning, you don’t like it there.”
He chuckled as he turned to her, his finger a light brush under her chin. “Well, I like you. Enough to tolerate your sadistic nature and whatever else is wrong with you.”
“Cute answer.”
“But it’s still the right one, isn’t it?”
A smile graced her lips then—one that was both scary and beautiful. The real reason he would stay for.
He would never tell her that.
Not even after she planted a soft kiss to his cheek and lingered close, resting her head on his shoulder and his arm around hers to keep them warm. And then he closed his eyes again, if only to let the moment last a little while longer.
The forest turned into a dim bedroom. No sun above him, no looming trees or the smell of wet plants after a rain. When Mono opened his eyes, he was met with a blank ceiling, and instead of the familiar tickle of grass, his hand felt a soft fabric—so thick and heavy he could barely breathe, the comforter draped over him up to his chest.
He stirred, a languid sigh escaping him. The pillow under his head was warm, and his tired eyes roamed the room. The walls were a dark shade of purple, much different from the dull, flaking walls he was used to. Books lined a shelf in a neat and orderly arrangement, a sight so foreign it made his head ache. A sliding door was left slightly ajar, letting in the sounds of creaking wood and the faint groans of temporary residents. A soft, cool wind caressed his cheeks, bringing with it the scent of the sea.
Where was he? What had happened?
Why was he in this room instead of the one Six had given him the first time he was here? Why was he sleeping on this unfamiliar, and undeniably the softest, bed?
He attempted to shift, and the mattress dipped lower beneath his weight. Woah. This was insanely comfortable. His body begged him to stay still forever, to enjoy this luxury and bask in the plush softness of the blanket. But as much as desire was a strong excuse, he couldn’t stay here. Not with the questions forming in his addled mind, itching him with a worry that told him to not even dare close his eyes again for a short nap. For that beautiful, amazing dream—
His exhaustion suddenly vanished, smacked out of his system as he remembered the face he'd been dreaming about.
That god-awful kiss the girl had given him and the horrifying fact that he had enjoyed it.
Mono slapped a hand over his face, his cheeks practically on fire. What’s wrong with me? Why the hell did I dream about her of all people? About doing that? I have got to be sick. That’s it. I’m the sickest person in the entire history of sick people and I need to be—
A soft snore sounded beside him. He pried his hand away from his eyes slowly and saw Six’s face on the pillow beside him.
Mono screamed. He recoiled as far as he could, pulling the covers toward him like a shield.
The girl’s eyes snapped wide from her slumber. She jolted up and screamed with him.
“What the hell is going on here—?” Running footsteps approached the doorway.
Both of them screamed at the yellow-hooded figure who stood there.
The real Six flinched hard and screamed at their screaming.
Until everyone eventually ran out of breaths.
Silence descended between them all, like a palpable blanket of soundlessness. Awkward glances bounced back and forth, but Mono was the one doing most of the looking. He used every one of the ten seconds of quiet to try and make sense of how Six had appeared in the doorway when he’d just woken up to her lying next to him. Or, more accurately, how there were now two of them before his very eyes.
It clicked after his third aggressive blink.
The face he had screamed directly at belonged to Viola. Her response to his screaming had alerted Six, who upon hearing the commotion, reacted the same way. Together, they had nearly turned the Maw deaf.
Mono gulped, his hands fisting the covers. Viola blinked, her gaze darting between him and Six, who only stared back with her lips parted, as if she had something to say but couldn't find the words. He knew it was his fault. He had started the screaming. He was the one who should break the silence.
Mono cleared his throat, just in case his first words ended in further embarrassment.
“So, uh,” Mono began. Their eyes burned holes into him. He shoved the feeling down and swallowed hard. “What’s up?”
“What’s up?” Six repeated, her voice sharp. She gave a mirthless chuckle. “You’re kidding, right?”
“Mono, you've been unconscious for nearly a week. And on top of that, you woke up…screaming. Is that all you have to say?” Viola added, less annoyed than concerned.
Oh.
“A-A week?”
Six tutted. “Yeah. We even had to carry your weak butt all the way up here, so you're welcome.” She crossed her arms over her chest, her expression returning to its natural state: the resting scowl of a girl disgusted with everything and everyone breathing her air.
Mono's gaze wandered over the unfamiliar room, finally landing on the balcony just beyond the sliding doors.
“This is…the highest floor, you mean?”
“Yes. You have a problem with that?” Six replied.
“No, that's not it, I just…” Mono turned back to them. “I thought my room would have been closer to the one where I passed out in. Since I remembered it being on the same floor and all. I guess I must've been wrong about that.”
Six stilled in place. Her pause stretched on, and her posture grew tense. “Well, the Maw is a complicated place. It's no wonder you are wrong—"
“This is Six’s room—"
“Viola!”
Viola closed her mouth shut and looked down like a scolded puppy.
Wait. Mono's eyes widened slightly. Why on Earth was he resting in Six’s room? Better yet, why would that girl even let him stay in her most personal space, while he was practically comatose, for almost a week?
“She thought you’d be safer up in the Quarters than in the Lair.”
“Viola, I swear I'm going to—"
“Is that true?” At his voice, Six’s threat died in her throat. She hesitated, a faint color on her cheeks as she turned to him.
“I… yes.”
His brows raised higher. He wasn't sure if he liked what he was hearing or was dreadful of it. But of course, this confusing feeling lasted no longer than a few seconds. Because Six, knowing her for as long as he did, possessed an ego that far exceeded the amount an average human being should have.
Or in other words, if she was going down, she wasn’t about to go down alone.
“V-Viola’s been sleeping next to you for the last four days!” Six added, pointing an accusatory finger at the other girl. Viola gaped, her eyes as wide as saucers. “She’s been crying to me the entire time, all scared you wouldn’t wake up because of her.”
“I wasn’t crying!” Viola quickly defended, her face flushing crimson. “That was me…being worried for him. I was just expressing my concern.”
“Yeah, and apparently with tears.”
A small laugh rumbled in Mono’s chest, watching the two girls jab at each other.
Big mistake.
The moment the sound escaped him, Six and Viola snapped their irritated gazes his way, and they had never looked more alike than they did now.
“And you? What about you screaming out of nowhere, h-huh?” Viola shot back, passing the cap to him and reminding him of the most perplexing dream he had ever had in his entire life.
Mono’s easy grin was wiped clean. His brain scrambled for an answer. “I…I had a nightmare,” he said after a while.
“A nightmare,” Six echoed, her voice full of skepticism. “About what?”
“Oh, I don’t know, Six. Maybe unicorns pooping rainbows and flowers— obviously, it’s the terrifying stuff. What do you expect?”
“You’re being awfully defensive over a simple question.” Six’s eyes narrowed into slits.
“Because you’re accusing me of lying!”
“…Are you lying, though?” Viola asked genuinely, her concern still there.
Mono inhaled a deep breath and sighed. “No.”
“He’s lying.”
“No, I’m not—Six!” Mono snapped, his cheeks burning all over again. “Look—can we just…can we move on from this weird conversation? Please?”
Another silence fell over them, but this time it wasn't thick with tension. He could feel the pressure slowly leaving the room, the creases between their brows disappearing ever so slightly.
“So… how are you feeling now?” Viola was the first to break the ice.
Thank God.
“A bit drained and light-headed,” he said, relieved for the new topic, “but other than that I’m fine.”
“Hm. That’s also exactly what you told us before you collapsed, Mono.” Six approached the other side of the bed. She climbed onto a nearby chair, sitting on its very edge, her legs dangling. “Are you really, really sure this time?”
“I’m sure,” he said, more confidently. “I’m not going to pass out—”
Six scoffed in his face, meanwhile Viola turned her head slightly away, seemingly holding back a laugh.
He didn’t get it. What was so funny about what he had said?
“W-We’re glad to hear it,” Viola said, finally looking at him again, a small laugh escaping her.
“So glad,” Six added with a soft smile. “I wasn’t lying about Viola crying, by the way. She bawled her eyes out the entire time.”
Mono raised a brow at Viola. The girl sighed next to him, now sitting cross-legged on the plush mattress, a resigned look on her face.
“Okay— maybe I did shed a tear or two after you wouldn’t wake up two days later,” Viola confessed, “but in my defense, I was really, really scared you’d never recover. You gave me quite the boost, you know. The biggest one I’ve ever had.” She then turned to Six, her stare softening. “You, as well.”
Six tutted, the sound lacking any actual resentment. “This again.”
“What do you mean?” Curious, Mono leaned forward to listen.
At first, Six struggled to start, but she found her words, an oddly soft expression settling on her face. Mono couldn't help but be mesmerized at the sight.
“Viola thinks I played a role as big as yours that day. When all I did was practically nothing.”
It was amazing how Six could make a sentence sound both egotistical and humble at the same time. Once upon a time, he might have believed it to be solely the former. The Mono who had once detested Six would have believed she had no capability of saving someone’s life, let alone the girl who had betrayed her. But with the way Six acted now—lowering her eyes to the floor, biting the inside of her cheek, swinging her legs anxiously—it seemed this was no matter of her being prideful. It was guilt weighing her down, one that refused to let her believe she had helped immensely in bringing Viola back.
Under the covers, he slowly slid his hand toward hers.
“Quit saying that, Six! If you did nothing, I wouldn’t be here—simple as that!” Viola’s firm voice snapped him out of his trance. His hand retreated to his side as though it had never left. “I’m alive and breathing and forever thankful for every second I get to spend here with the two of you. Especially now that Mono’s up and healthy! Speaking of which, before I forget,” her voice lowered conspiratorially. “Since everyone is here, there is something important I want to talk to you both about.”
Mono and Six shared a confused glance.
“Uh, okay?” Mono said for them. “What is it?”
Viola beamed, her eagerness pulling her closer to them both.
“You see. Ever since I got here, my main goal was to change what happened to my parents. Namely, the Eye. So, naturally in my head, I thought the best way to avoid any future problems was to have you two reconcile way, way earlier than my parents ever did. I figured it’d be a genius thing to do. You guys make up, team up, then kick butts! But then somehow that plan backfired and I, uh, got taken into the Signal Tower and…yeah. We know how that ends.”
Six groaned in chagrin, but Mono could hear the smile in her voice.
“Stop rambling already. Just get to the point.”
“Sorry!” Viola said, her smile somehow wider yet laced with uncertainty and a certain nervousness. “Wh-what I wanted to say was…despite whatever happened, both of you did manage to reconcile early! My main goal has been achieved! And, on the plus side, we even got to kill the Eye together too!”
“Yeah, we did!” Mono agreed, already caught up in her enthusiasm.
“Exactly!” Viola said, grinning with him. Then her face faltered, the wide smile shrinking to a tense line. “But…uh…”
“But, uh?” Six frowned, impatient as ever.
“Okay. I’ll be straight with you—I’m not from here. In this time period, I mean.” Viola’s gaze darted between them both. “I don’t know how these things work, and I’m sure as heck uncertain if I’ve created a paradox or ruined my supposed birth in the future. But there’s this book at home that my dad picked up—one with a story very similar to my case. It suggests that something will happen. I probably shouldn’t even rely on it for information since it’s only, well, made up. But knowing I could pretty much die out of nowhere is a terrifying thought. A 50-50 chance. I’m either fine, or I eventually cease to exist. Which is…not all that reassuring or comforting to think about.
“So, from there, it got me wondering if…I’d made a mistake telling you who you really are to me; and that I shouldn’t have told Six she was my mom or told her you both had a child together.”
Mono’s brows instantly furrowed. He opened his mouth and closed it. And then opened it again.
“Wait, why only Six—?”
“Which then leads me to the real point!” Despite his ignored question and the confusion of being singled out, Mono listened.
Although, both eagerly and in dread when a familiar sparkle appeared in her eyes.
“We need to talk about your future get-together.”
Notes:
In case you didn't get why Mono was excluded
IT'S CAUSE HE'S A MAJOR SIMP
Anyhoo, 3 chapters left. Kinda nervous now.
Thanks for reading!
Chapter 98: Mother and Father
Notes:
Hello I brought you a 7k chapter this week, a bit longer than intended since there was no update last Sunday. Anyway I hope you enjoy! There's also multiple POVs in this one because...idk maybe cause the story is almost done 😭
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Viola was determined.
Three days ago, she had cried herself to sleep, convinced Mono would fall into comatose for the rest of his life. And that had her thinking: how long would her life be here? In the Maw, no—in this “past” where she didn’t even exist yet? And with two other children who showed no interest in being involved in the same way her parents had been?
She was screwed.
It didn’t help that Six kept insisting she saw Mono as nothing more than a friend. While it was a relief they’d officially reconciled, Six saying the idea of them together was “repulsive and unrealistic” was still slightly concerning. And honestly—ouch.
Convincing Six was a futile attempt. Or, in this case, almost futile, if Six didn’t constantly contradict herself, showing how deeply she cared for Mono's well-being, his opinions, his comfort after his collapse, and his life status. So much for “I don’t give a damn about him”.
No, there was no convincing Six, at least not by Viola alone.
Mono, on the other hand...
If Viola could convince him, somehow trick his brain into thinking of the future—specifically, his future with Six—then there was a higher chance he could change Six's mind as well. Once he fell in love with her and decided he was all-in for the future romance Viola knew little about, she could finally rest easy, knowing her existence would be guaranteed; she wouldn't just randomly disappear or die out of nowhere!
“We need to talk about your future get-together.” The question involved both of them, but it was directed squarely at Mono. Viola expected him to be the easiest to influence, considering she’d told him so much about her parents and her father’s affection toward the woman of the house.
There was no way he wouldn’t want to discuss this.
I am a genius.
“No, thank you,” Mono said flatly.
Her confidence flattened like stomped bread.
“N-No?” Viola stammered. “But...you know my existence is likely on the line here, right? Shouldn’t we at least have a discussion? It doesn’t have to be now, but—”
“No.” Mono shook his head.
Surprisingly, even Six looked at him strangely, a brow raised. “You’re okay with her possibly disappearing?”
“She’s still here, isn’t she?” Mono replied, his voice almost nonchalant. “The way I see it, if the Eye was ready to kill you, then the consequences can’t have any major effect on Viola. Or else they wouldn’t have risked it.”
“What if they just wanted to kill two birds with one stone? If I’m her mother and all, eventually it has to have an effect on—” Six caught herself, a blush creeping up her cheeks. It didn’t escape Viola’s notice that Mono’s face was the exact same color.
“Yeah, I’m out of here.” Six got off her chair and left without another word.
Viola barely managed to stop her, but at the speed she walked out, it was safe to say her assumption stood corrected: getting through to Six was nearly impossible. That girl’s head was thicker than the entire population of Pale City combined.
It left her only option to be Mono. But unfortunately, even he was being equally stubborn and in denial.
Viola gave him a look. He simply shrugged, as if her discussion topic was nothing to sweat over—as if it wasn’t a question of life and death.
“You’ll be fine, Viola, don’t worry,” Mono assured her. He pulled the covers up to his chest, settling back on his pillow and turning his back to her.
“Wait, but—what about you and Six?” Viola looked at the doorway Six had disappeared through, then back at him, her frown deepening. “Are we really not going to talk about your future together?”
Mono buried himself even more under the covers, as though shielding himself. “Nope.”
“Mono, both of you are my mom and dad. We have to have a talk about—"
“Nah. I’m good,” he said, his voice muffled. He was completely underneath the covers now. “Wake me up in about an hour or two, thanks.”
Viola’s words died in her throat, her hand left hanging in the air.
What just happened?
Her plan did not work. Mono was not interested in any future talk, actively ignoring her and dismissing everyone else. And Six had just up and left—which wasn’t a shocker since, well, it was Six. But then again, even she had expressed a semblance of concern regarding Viola’s potential disappearance and had even accidentally admitted the one thing she’d always refused: her relationship with Viola and Mono.
Huh.
Maybe Six wasn’t so impossible to get through. Maybe the real obstacle was the boy who continued to shrink into himself like a human blanket ball.
Viola eyed Mono’s covered form, her lips pursed in thought.
A simple conversation wasn’t cutting it anymore. She needed a strategy to bring them together. A good, clever strategy. Because if they decided not to like each other just because Viola had already existed before their eyes, she might as well be parentless. She needed them to acknowledge they could be a thing one day.
A few ideas sparked in her mind.
Heh. I really am a genius.
If Mono and Six were already close to each other, they were about to be a whole lot closer.
It had been a few days since Mono had woken up, and Six found herself resting easier at night. Not that she had been restless because of him—no, it was only the uncomfortable bed in the library.
Six shifted in the long chair, her eyes gazing at the dull books lining the shelves. A fire crackled in the small fireplace, casting a soft flickering light throughout the room. She hated this place. Hated having to stay here instead of her own room; and she hated the fact that the insufferable moron and his sidekick were treating her room like a vacation stay. The irritation, though, leaned more toward the sidekick.
The only reason Six had even let her sleep in her bed was because the girl had been crying over their unconscious friend. Non-stop crying. So, to shut her up, yes, Six had suggested she stay close to her “father”. It worked, stopping those pathetic tears and even more pathetic sad faces. And on the plus side, Six wouldn’t have to go back and forth just to check on Mono too! Viola could be her little messenger.
Now that Mono had awoken, though, that role was—by all rights—expired. So why the hell did Viola still need to stay in the room with him? Why even bother sharing a bed with a recovering idiot when there was plenty of space down in the library with her? Easy answer. Viola was an idiot.
Even the entire “I’m from the future and you’re my mom” story was the strongest dose of bullshit Six had begun to grow immune to. Sure, it was weird that it could possibly be true.
But it wouldn't get to be true. Not if she just actively did nothing and pretended nothing was going to happen.
Rapid footsteps came running down the stairs. By the time Six sat up, her brows pinching in irritation, Viola appeared panting at the door, her face a mask of horror.
“Mom—I mean, Six!” Viola wheezed, catching her breath. Six couldn’t recall there being that many stairs for her to breathe this bad. “It’s Mono. He…he is…”
“What?” Her heart jumped at his name. What’s wrong?
“Mono collapsed again!”
Before Viola finished her sentence, Six had already shoved her blanket off, pushing the girl out of her way and rushing up the steps to the Quarters. Behind her, Viola followed closely, rambling about how she and Mono had been talking when he suddenly swayed off the bed and stopped breathing. That made Six’s stomach churn. Her pace quickened, her only focus being on getting to him and seeing the situation for herself.
In her heart, she hoped so badly it wasn’t as bad as Viola had made it sound. She was willing to wish for a higher, divine being to hear her prayers and help her friend get better. It was all she could think to do. Because if she lost someone else close to her, she wouldn’t know how to recover.
She could not afford another possible loss, let alone losing Mono—
Six halted inside her bedroom, finding no unconscious body on the floor. Instead, the supposedly collapsed boy sat comfortably on her bed. He was hunched over his bandaged arm when he noticed her presence, looking up as if he hadn’t even realized he had been alone.
“Oh, hey, Six! Is everything okay?” Mono asked, a soft smile growing on his face as he saw her.
Six’s lips parted to answer him, but no words came. And coincidentally, just as she was about to unleash her wrath on the girl who had tricked her, the door behind them suddenly slammed shut with a definitive click.
Then Viola was nowhere to be seen.
That little brat!
Six kicked the door, cursing Viola’s name under her breath and warning her to hide once she got out. Which was a problem in itself—how the hell was she getting out? Better yet, how did Viola manage to lock them in here, in her own bedroom, no less?
“Oh, I’m going to kill that girl!” She gave the door another hit, the wood shuddering under the force.
“What’s going on here?” Mono asked, his brows furrowed. Six had nearly forgotten about him.
“What do you think? Your stupid best friend just locked us in!”
Mono made a face, though he remained unmoving from the bed, still tucked under the covers like the last time she saw him. He was still recovering, after all.
“Viola…locked us in?”
“Yes!”
Mono had the audacity to not believe her. He snickered.
“She wouldn’t.”
“She did,” Six retorted, giving the door another futile bang of her fist. “I swear, when I get out, someone better be sorry!” Six shouted to the door on purpose, to the girl who might or might not be on the other side eavesdropping. I’m going to make her pay for this.
“Maybe she did it by mistake.”
Mono’s suggestion made her want to physically throttle him. But due to his current condition, she could only refrain herself.
“By mistake?” Six echoed in disbelief. “You think her slamming the door and locking it shut was an accident on her part?”
“Six, I’m only trying to make sense of her actions. There’s no reason for her to lock us together inside this room. It just doesn’t make any sense. Not unless she expects us to sleep in the same place where there’s only...one...bed....” Mono trailed off, his easy grin gone from his face.
Whereas Six’s felt like it had just been set on fire.
I need to get out of here.
Six zoomed past the bed without a glance, shoving the sliding door open. Instantly, the cool breeze of open air greeted her. She stepped out on the balcony, hauling herself up onto the railing and to the pipes attached to the wall beside it.
“W-Wait—Six! Get down from there! You could fall—!”
“Yeah, yeah.” She had done this many times before on the lower floors of the Maw. Some were even a higher risk, the fall a greater height compared to this. Falling from the balcony to the ground floor was barely that bad.
Fatal, yes, but only for stupid, incompetent people.
She began her climb down the pipe slowly, knowing where to put her feet and when to slide down. Unfortunately, while she intended on focusing her attention on getting to solid ground, Mono thought it was a great idea to call her name now of all time.
Six rolled her eyes and paused her climb. She looked up.
Mono was leaning against the railing, a little too far forward for her liking. She was tempted to scold him and was about to, if he hadn’t spoken first.
“Do you,” he hesitated, “need any help down there?”
Six was already halfway down. The hell could he do to help?
“No.” Six resumed her climb.
Only to be distracted by the boy who could not shut up for his life.
“Are you sure, Six? Really, you don’t need to do this just to avoid...you know. I-I can just sleep on the floor for the night while you—”
“Mono.”
“...Yes?”
“Shut up.”
“Oh.” His face fell slightly.
She hated how much it bothered her—the way he sounded when he said it.
“I’m fine, okay? You have the bed. I need to do something, anyway.” Like beat Viola to pulp. “Just go back inside and let me climb down here properly. Unless you’re looking to watch me fall and die.” She averted her attention back to her climb, going lower.
“No, of course not! You’re right. Sorry...” A nervous laugh escaped him.
Six rolled her eyes again, ignoring the feel of his eyes on her. She reached solid ground and dropped smoothly.
A shout of her name. Six spared a look up and found him grinning shyly.
“Good night,” he said, his hand raised slightly.
She couldn’t help the scoff that left her. A small smile tugged at the corners of her lips, and she gave him a lazy wave before heading toward the restaurant.
Most of the large guests had retired for the night, leaving the seats empty save for a few. Six flicked her wrist, feeding her satiated curse.
The way back to the Quarters became a much quicker journey given her determination to find a certain dark-haired girl. And it surely didn’t take her long to find Viola, lying on her back and reading a random book, all comfortable in the library couch Six had been on just moments before.
Six approached silently. And then, a swift smack!
Viola jolted upright with a sharp cry, rubbing the back of her head and complaining loudly about the pain until she turned around and saw her.
Her eyes widened in horror.
“You’re…you’re out? B-But how? I locked you both in—”
Six snatched the book from Viola’s hands and smacked her shoulder with it. “Ow! That really hurts!” Viola yelped.
“Apologize now and I’ll consider letting you off easy tonight.” Six glared down at Viola, the book raised like a sword. When Viola hesitated, Six only raised the book higher.
“Okay, okay! I’m sorry for lying! I shouldn’t have—I’m sorry!”
A satisfied grin spread across Six's face. But she herself was a liar. The best one at that too.
With one final, strong strike, she smacked Viola’s back, earning a surprised cry. Viola cowered and flinched away, whimpering like a puppy.
“Get out of my chair.”
Viola complied immediately, sliding off the seat. Six felt no guilt whatsoever. Not even as she settled onto the library couch for the night while Viola spent it on the carpeted floor by the crackling fire, mulling over a plan she had failed.
So, forced proximity did not work.
It was a shame too, because the Lady and Thin Man found love in each other out of being stuck with one another. According to the former, at least. Sure, that relationship took years to bloom into something as beautiful as the one Viola’s parents had, and there were multiple occasions where they had wanted to bite each other’s heads off out of spite and annoyance, but it eventually led them to being together.
That was what her mother had told her. He and I were like oil and water, and for years I wanted to wring his neck. I still do, but now I’ve simply evolved to be more patient with his idiocy.
Or, in other words, the Thin Man had melted her stubborn heart somehow.
Viola didn’t know what he did, or how he did it for that matter, but it was for certain that proximity wasn’t the only thing at play. There had to be something more...charming.
“Hey, are you sure we’re allowed to be up here?”
Mono had already been given the approval by Six to leave bed two days later. He didn’t seem as pale or sick as he did before and could use a few physical activities to help with his stiff limbs. But Six had given him a strict rule not to overdo anything, one that came with the threat that if he did, Viola would have to shovel waste out from the toilets for the next three weeks. No one took it that seriously. But after an intense battle of glaring, they realized that this was Six’s warning they were talking about. There was no playing around with that girl.
The sand dipped under her feet as Viola unrolled a mat—an unused white sheet she’d found in the Lair. She beckoned for him to join her.
“Of course, we’re allowed to! Besides, aren’t you the one who wanted to feel ‘the touch of sunlight’?”
“I guess,” Mono hesitated before dropping down beside her.
The sun was barely out, blocked by thick clouds overhead. Even so, it was better than the wet weather in the Pale City. At least here, in the Maw’s little beach, it was dry and warm.
Mono let out a soft sigh, basking in the subtle heat.
“Enjoying the picnic so far?”
“It’s nice, yeah,” Mono said, looking at her.
“Do you feel rejuvenated?”
Hardly. He had literally just sat down. “A little, maybe?”
“Good, good. Because Six has been worried a lot about you, you know? She wonders if you’re feeling better and more comfortable, especially in the Maw again. Since the last time we were here, you and she weren’t exactly…you know.”
“Oh.” He cleared his throat. “You…you can tell her I’m fine. Or, I mean, I can tell her myself when I see her.”
“You will? Seriously?”
Mono laughed a little. “Why do you sound so surprised? It’s not like we’re avoiding each other.”
“No…but I do feel like you both are doing it on purpose whenever I’m around.” Viola pouted.
“Come on, that’s not true.”
“Yeah? Then how many times have all of us hung out together? Zero. Both of you act weird whenever all three of us are in the same place. Like you can’t stand to look at each other.”
“It’s not that, Viola, we’re just…” A loud sigh escaped him. “We’re trying to set boundaries.”
“What boundaries?”
“You know what boundaries,” he deadpanned a little. “But it’s nothing bad, okay? I promise. So don’t get yourself worked up over it. Six and I really aren’t avoiding each other.”
“Then can we invite her to join us?”
Mono’s eyes grew significantly wider. A long pause followed.
“Huh?”
“I wanted all of us to spend this day together. That’s why I brought the mat and this basket of bread; it’s for the three of us to have a picnic!” She beamed, holding up the small, covered basket in her lap. But her face faltered then, her shoulders sagging. “But then I realized it was stupid of me to entertain that idea. One of you will probably back out if I even ask anyway.”
He frowned at her words, and even more at the way her disappointment showed on her face, pulling at his heartstrings.
“Do you…really want to spend time with us that badly?” he asked, his voice soft.
Viola nodded sadly. “It’s alright if you’re not comfortable with that, though. I get your reason.” She sighed out loud. “I guess I’ll just…pretend my parents have always been separated at home—”
“H-Hey, no—don’t say that—” Guilt etched on his face, Mono stammered. “Look, I’ll...I’ll get Six up here, okay?”
A hopeful gasp. “You will?”
“Yeah.” Mono stood up and dusted his pants. He gave her a tight smile. “I’ll be right back. Meanwhile, don’t think any more about that stuff, alright? I promise I won’t take long!” He left, taking the stairs down into the ship and leaving Viola alone on the beach.
All according to plan.
The minute Mono was out of sight, Viola sprang into action. She opened the basket of “bread” and took out the candlestick, shoving it deep into the sand so it would stand upright. With a lighter she had stolen from Six, she lit the top of the candlestick until a small fire danced. Time was running out, and she knew she had only moments left. She dug into the basket and grabbed a fistful of flower petals, albeit mostly wilted, spreading them all over the mat and around it.
Perfect.
Candlestick, lit. The mood, created. Now all that was missing were its two couples—
Faint voices sounded from the entryway, two pairs of footsteps coming up.
Viola scrambled to her feet, doing final adjustments to the romantic setting, and rushed into a nearby bush. Then, with a careful peek through the leaves, she watched her child-parents enter the scene.
“I don't have a good feeling about this, Mono. That girl is always up to trouble,” Six’s voice came first, a low warning.
Then came Mono’s familiar, gentle coaxing.
“Oh, come on, Six. I promise you; it’s just a harmless picnic. Besides, you and I both could use a bit of time to relax in the sun—”
Both stopped dead before the mat. In unison, their jaws dropped at the sight before them.
His face paled, almost as white as paper. Whereas Six blinked in a near stupor.
“Uh...Mono?” Six gave him a look that was a mixture of surprise and concern. Because Mono had already slapped a hand over his face, dragging it down in utter misery.
That was Viola’s cue to leave.
As Mono profusely explained to Six that he had no intention whatsoever, and that this was entirely a stupid misunderstanding, Viola snuck behind them and headed back down into the ship.
Then quietly, she closed the door on her way out.
Paranoid was not something Six would usually describe herself as. For Mono, yes, the word fit him like a glove. A weird scraping sound from the kitchen? The chefs were preparing to kill them. The ship creaking more than usual? They were going to sink and die. Viola playing near the edge of the restaurant? He told her she could die if she went any further. Realistically, though, Viola was more likely to survive in that room of gluttons than he was. She shared Six’s talents, after all.
And, unfortunately, her stubbornness.
For the last week, Six had witnessed it firsthand, particularly how thick Viola's head could become. It had all started with the conversation about her and Mono’s “future get-together”. While Viola’s claim, “it was so I wouldn’t die randomly” was a compelling argument, it was a useless one to make. Six did not see Viola as a daughter, let alone Mono as a romantic partner. What was even romance for anyway? Pathetic and a waste of time.
Then, after the attempt to discuss had failed, came the second attempt: locking them in a room together. Six had given her a warning and a snippet of her wrath. Viola heeded it. At least, Six thought she did because, of course, the girl did not give up.
She went and tricked Mono too. Something Six had expected when he brought up the “picnic sad-story” Viola had fed him. And she was right; Viola tricked him good and left the boy in a blabbering mess and Six wishing she had been born deaf.
The fourth attempt happened a day after the fake picnic incident. Six had found a letter—a rather poorly written one at that—filled with compliments about her personality and looks. And the cherry on top: it had been signed by “Mono”. Which was funny. She recalled him saying she resembled a dying frog and shared the Devil’s personality…once upon a time. Six had crumpled the note and tossed it off the balcony, thinking that was the end.
But, boy, was she wrong.
A few days later, Viola struck again. Literally. While the three of them were walking—Six, making sure the two idiots got to the Lair and to their bedrooms—Viola tripped her on purpose. How could she tell? Simply because Six had felt Viola’s foot tackle her ankle and her grubby hand push her shoulders hard into Mono’s direction. While she had been momentarily in pain, everything in her had stunned when she was caught by none other than Mono himself, who seemed just as surprised and embarrassed as Six was.
Viola had the audacity to gasp in feigned innocence.
“Oh, no, I’m so sorry! It was an accident, Six.” Load of crap. This was no accident.
Six knew it; Mono knew it. Even then, none of them had said a thing. None of them wanted to bring up the topic Viola desperately wanted them to, because as long as she and Mono pretended and enforced their boundaries, nothing between them would ever change into that.
But alas, doing this meant Viola would continue to persist in her creative methods while Six and Mono put up with it as a means to rebel. Which eventually caused a shift in Six anyway.
She started to become paranoid. Just like Mono naturally was. Every time Viola was around, or any time Six found something new in her surroundings, her paranoia of what the girl might do next came attacking. It irked her terribly. She hated the fact that she was wary of her. And most of all, she dreaded Viola’s attempts to achieve her sick goals.
In her hatred of Viola’s manipulation and trickery, Six was not alone. Because as much as her other friend loved to defend the annoying brat, he sure as hell had his own limits.
Six was in the middle of changing the old bandages on her foot when Mono barged inside, looking exhausted, even more disturbed. She didn’t need to be told it had something to do with a certain girl.
Because what do you know?
It really did.
“We need to talk about Viola.”
And that was how they ended up inside her room in the middle of the night, the doors closed and their voices low for eavesdroppers. She sat cross-legged on the bed across from him as he confessed his troubles.
“I can’t take it anymore, Six,” Mono said, a pillow pushed at his face. “She keeps talking to me—telling me everything I don’t want or need to know. It’s been a few days since I’ve moved back downstairs. And she just…God, she’s getting inside my head.”
Six sighed, feeling a slight pity for him. But then she remembered, she was also on the same boat as him. She, too, was miserable.
“What is it that she told you?”
He dropped the pillow to his lap. Then he looked at her like he wanted to puke. “Trust me, you don’t want to know.”
“Is there anything I’d like to know?”
“Yes. She’s going to keep doing this. Taunting us and pushing it.”
“That much I already figured since you wrote me those letters.” Mono’s brows furrowed. Six sighed again, reaching inside a drawer and pulling out stacks of folded papers. She threw it across the bed for him to see.
Mono gaped. “I…wrote these?”
“Well, Viola did. I get these letters slipped under my door almost every evening now. Can’t even find the energy to throw them out anymore.”
“This is insane.” Horror flashed in his eyes. He held the papers, skimming through them one by one. “What the hell even is this—‘I love you more than my hat collections’? Huh? What does that even mean?”
“There’s worse ones, too.” Six held one of the papers out to him. He took it reluctantly, reading it in silence before his eyes blew wide.
“‘I want to kiss you on the lips when I’m older’—oh, you’ve got to be—” A mirthless laugh. He crumpled the paper, throwing it far across the room with suppressed ire. “No. No, no, no. This is too far, and honestly, just plain harassment.”
“Don’t tell it to me. They’re your letters.”
“I didn’t even write them!” Mono dragged his hands over his face, frustrated. “Damn it, we have to do something about this, Six. We can’t let her continue this…this freak show.”
“You mean her manipulating and tricking us every day? Yeah, obviously, we can’t.” Six scowled to the side, just as irritated. “What do you suggest we do? I don’t think a simple slap on the wrist or a reprimand would do much. I did that; and look what she did anyway. Her stubbornness is unsurprisingly annoying.”
“Then we match her own level of stubbornness. And we give Viola her own medicine.”
Her brow raised, intrigued. “I’m listening.”
He grinned, telling her to lean closer. So, she did. Mono whispered his plan into her ear, and the longer she listened, the more she looked forward to executing it.
This would definitely work.
Mono and Six stayed in the Lair, just outside his and Viola’s shared room. They waited for the girl to return after her consistent journey of sending “love letters” and sliding them under Six’s door. But little did she know, today Six wouldn’t be on the other side to receive it. Today, things would take a different turn, and all the freak show, harassment, and embarrassing moments he and Six had had to endure would finally come to an end.
“Do you think she’ll buy it?” Six said, leaning back against the wall with crossed arms.
“Just stick to the plan and commit. Plus, with my acting skills, I’d say I’m pretty confident.”
“Right. Confidence and overconfidence mean the same to you.”
Mono laughed, almost haughtily. “Need I remind you of the time you thought I was about to kill you? The one with the evil clone? You totally believed me at the time.”
“Oi. Watch it. I was more distressed than you ever were throughout your vacation in the Signal Tower.” Six scowled at him, but her eyes lacked any true anger.
He scoffed. “Imprisonment isn’t a vacation, Six. Look, I am not going over this again with you.” He huffed out the last of his chagrin, standing next to her, his hands in his coat pockets.
They waited in silence for a bit. Still, no sign of the other girl. It made him feel quite restless and uneasy.
“Viola knows the way back, right?” The Maw was not necessarily, if not actually , a safe place. There were still child-eating adults aboard. What if Six was wrong about the risks being preventable and controlled? What if Viola wandered into the restaurant—after he had told her so many times to stay close to Six or him—and got herself snatched? Grabbed by the hands of those nasty cannibals? What if she was dying right now and all I was doing was standing idly like an—
“Idiot,” Six deadpanned, “she’s not getting eaten by one of the Guests.”
He hated how she read him like a book. “You don’t know that.”
“As a matter of fact, I do. Call it a gut feeling.”
“What if you’re wrong?”
“Mine is never wrong.”
“Yeah, well, it still doesn’t make me feel any better, though. What if she tripped somewhere and fell into a…”
“A pit of hungry leeches?” Six finished.
His eyes widened in horror. “Are there any?”
Not to his surprise, Six snickered at his face. “Calm down, Mono. She’s not falling anywhere.”
“That’s not answering my question—”
“I’ve already told her which places she needs to avoid. She knows where to go, so relax. Viola will be fine. You, on the other hand, won’t be as long as you keep being her glorified babysitter.”
“I’m not her babysitter.”
“You sure enjoy acting like one then.”
A reluctant smile slowly crept onto his lips at that. He rolled his eyes in lieu of admitting she was right. Not that Six required him to verbally do so; that girl had already smirked in his direction, satisfied with herself.
Footsteps came approaching.
Six was the first to alert him, tapping him to get into position and pushing him off the wall to face her properly. Mono mentally prepared himself, mimicking her stance. He nodded to Six, just before the other dark-haired girl rounded the corner.
Time for action.
“I hate you, Mono!” In his periphery, he saw Viola freeze and duck back behind the wall. Finally, their audience had arrived.
All according to plan.
“Yeah? Go on, then, tell it to the entire world. I almost couldn’t hear you with all your ego talking at the same time,” he spat, mimicking her venomous tone.
“God, why are you always this insufferable? It’s seriously pathetic, you know.”
“Almost as pathetic as you trying to get close to me. Falling on top of me, purposely locking us in a room together and all that crap. I told you before: I’m not interested.”
Six made a loud scoffing sound. “Me, getting close to you? You set up that awful picnic. You’re the one who’s been writing me these disgusting letters, proclaiming your undying love for me that has miraculously surpassed your love for your ugly hats.” It was a cheap shot.
“First off, my hats are cool and way cooler than your hideous raincoat,” Mono hissed. “Secondly—don’t even dare accuse me of doing something like that. You’re not any more special than my old paper bag, Six.”
“Really? Then how come I keep getting your love letters in my room? I’ll tell you why—it’s because you’re an asshole.” Mono bit back the urge to smirk. Nice, he mouthed to her instead, nodding in approval.
Six continued with a proud look on her face. “You absolutely had no right to say all those things about me. No. Right. I ought to just punch you in the mouth and break your fingers here and now.”
The head behind the wall peeked through. Mono put up his best glare and the most bitter voice he could muster.
“You’re accusing me,” Mono spat, “out of your own delusions? That I somehow would even write about you, let alone think? You’re out of your mind if you believe I sent you letters, Six. Pure crazy.”
“They were signed by you, moron. Who else would do it if not you? Viola?”
“I said I didn’t do it!”
“You’re lying!”
“Oh, you mean the same way you always are too?”
A slap pierced the air.
Mono held his red cheek, his eyes blown wide. He did not expect that.
“We are not friends,” Six hissed with such conviction it nearly convinced him too. “Ever.”
“F-Fine by me! I don’t see you as one either—” Another slap on his other cheek. Mono had to physically move a step back, his skin stinging. A genuine scowl came to his face. Because, seemingly, Six was enjoying slapping him out of nowhere.
His mouth opened for a real insult, but when he heard a sniffle coming from behind the wall, he whipped his head to Viola’s direction. A glimpse of glistening eyes. And then they were gone, her running footsteps growing faint in the distance.
He didn’t feel too good about that. Unlike his other egotistical friend, who smirked and sighed in utter satisfaction, celebrating their successful plan to trick Viola. His plan to fool her.
Six let out a short whistle, eyeing the empty spot where Viola had been. She turned to him, her grin wide and bright. “We did it! We got her back—!”
“What the hell was that for?” Mono demanded.
She quirked a brow, her joy unwavering. “What do you mean?”
“What do I mean—Six, you slapped me. Twice.”
“Because you said to commit. I was just following along with your plan to make it look real.”
“Yeah, but did you have to hit me that hard? Come on.” Mono rubbed his sore cheeks, pouting. “Besides, I don’t think the plan even worked. She ran away.”
“And that is a bad thing because…?”
Mono sighed, dropping his hands to his hips. “Look, I think we should come clean to her—”
“What—?”
“She was crying—”
“She made us miserable—!”
“Only because she’s worried about her future! I’m not saying what she did to us is right or justifiable, but being in her shoes, I’d understand why she did it. She’s desperate. And scared. Haven’t we all been there? To the point we’d do all kinds of stupid things?”
“Ugh, you are such a weakling,” Six muttered under her breath, pinching the bridge of her nose. “So, what, now you want to tell her that we faked the argument because you feel bad? You do know if we come clean, she’ll never believe us, right?”
“I know.”
“And that she’ll likely continue harassing us both until she gets what she wants?”
He sucked in a breath, wincing from the image Six painted alone.
“...Yeah.” Mono fiddled with his hand. “Is that… alright with you?”
Six gave him a look. A deadpan, “you’re an idiot” look. She was anything but alright with it. But to his surprise, and relief, Six didn’t outright reject his idea. Instead, she let out a very exasperated sigh and quickly took him by the wrist, leading them to where she knew Viola might be.
They ended up in some small storage room, brimming with large boxes and rusting shelves that towered above them. When Six gestured for him to go in first, he shot her a questioning look. For multiple reasons, in fact. Because A: why would she ask him to step foot inside a creepy, shady-looking room; and B: what would Viola be doing in here? There were about a hundred other rooms in the Maw—a ship with the most perplexing layout that rivaled the Signal Tower’s. How would Six even know Viola had gone inside this specific room?
A quiet sniffle echoed in the corner. Mono looked at Six in surprise.
“I told you she knows what places to avoid,” Six whispered. Or, loosely translated, Six had told Viola the only places she could go to.
With a shaky breath, Mono went in first. Viola was hugging her knees, her face hidden under her arms, when he settled down beside her. Six followed, sitting beside him.
She lightly elbowed his ribs when the silence prolonged. He barely had an idea what to say.
“Uh, Viola? Are you okay?” Mono tapped the girl’s shaking shoulder.
Viola responded with another soft sob, curling further into herself. Guilt scratched at his chest.
“Look, we…we are sorry if we upset you or anything.”
“Even though you started it.”
Mono immediately shot a glare at Six. The girl couldn’t care less; she scoffed and shrugged his way. Though upon seeing his frown, she rolled her eyes and said nothing else afterwards.
Luckily.
Mono turned his attention back to the other girl, his face softening. “Are you okay?” he asked her again.
This time, Viola finally looked up, wiping her eyes quickly. He caught sight of the tears on her flushed cheeks.
“I-I didn’t mean for you to fight. I just wanted to bring you both closer and…I thought maybe you’d eventually want to talk about that. I thought my plan would work.” Another sniffle. Her eyes glistened again. He swore his heart cracked at the sight of it. “I’m sorry I broke you apart. If I had minded my own business, none of this would have happened. It’s all my fault now that you hate each other again.”
Oh, boy. “Listen, Viola, it’s not what you—”
“We faked it,” Six interrupted, her eyes anywhere but on them. It was as close as she could get to appearing guilty.
“Huh?” Viola gaped.
“Yeah. It’s all fake. We were just annoyed and wanted to get back at you for harassing us. So, Mono suggested we acted as if your actions turned us against each other.”
“Is that…all true?” Viola asked him, all wide-eyed now.
Well. At least she had stopped crying.
Way to go, Six.
“…S-Sort of? I mean, technically, yes, it was my idea…”
“He also said to make it look as real as possible,” Six continued, to his dismay.
“Six—”
“And that I should commit to the bit. But then he realized I was a better actor than he could ever be. Which was embarrassing after all that bragging he did before.”
Viola did not need to know that.
Mono frowned at Six. “Okay, stop telling her everything.”
“It’s the truth, though. I was the better actor.”
“Just because you slapped me in the face, it does not make you the ‘better’ actor, Six. You did it because you wanted to,” he shot back, scowling.
Six’s lips curled into a mean smirk. “Doesn’t change the fact I sold the acting.”
“Oh, please, you sold nothing that I didn’t already. I carried us both.”
“Like you carried your way around the Maw. With help.”
“Only because you gave an exclusive lesson about that for Viola.” He pouted to the side, refusing to look at Six on purpose. Just to rile her up a little. It certainly worked, for she smacked his arm, making him yelp.
“It’s not exclusive, stupid. I offered to show you around when you first came here. And you know what? That was even back when I still wanted to wring your neck.”
“I’m flattered. So, when exactly is my turn?”
Six scoffed. “You seriously want me to show you around the Maw?”
“Yes. It’d be nice to go somewhere without someone supervising me all the damn time.”
“Mono, that is for your own safety. And besides, where the hell would you even want to go to aside from my room and yours? You do nothing all day anyway.”
“You forced me to do nothing.”
“Because you’re still recovering!”
“Six, it’s been almost two weeks; I’m sick of recovering! Stop looking at me like I’m so fragile—”
A choked laugh caught Mono and Six’s attention, their heads whipping to the smiling girl across from them.
Six was the first to react, to no one’s surprise. “What’s so funny?”
Viola didn’t take the hint in her tone and continued to chuckle, wiping a stray tear from her eye. “Nothing, It’s just...I went through all the trouble to get you two closer, but...it seems you’re already doing it yourselves."
Mono’s face immediately warmed; Six stiffened beside him.
“Hah. That’s not true,” Mono gulped, sharing a hesitant glance with Six. “We’re not getting closer...or anything.”
“We're doing nothing is what we’re doing,” Six added. She glanced at him again, then quickly looked away. “He’s…he’s way too annoying to deal with.”
“And she’s too uptight about everything.”
Six narrowed her eyes at him. “Uptight? What the hell did you just call me—?”
“Wait, wait, wait—I’m kidding—”
Suddenly, Mono was pulled forward by an arm around his neck. His shoulder bumped into Six’s. It only occurred to him how he had gotten into this position when he saw Six’s equally confused face beside Viola’s head.
They were being…hugged by her.
Very tightly so, too.
Mono cast another glance at Six; she furrowed her brows back at him, also trapped by the arm around her neck.
“I’m really sorry if I made you miserable in the last week, guys,” Viola’s voice came, muffled against them. “You just mean a lot to me. Both of you. I hope you know that.”
Huh.
Wasn’t that...nice to know?
A soft smile crept onto Mono’s lips. All the old annoyance and misery he had felt sank into the back of his mind, forgotten and never to resurface. He raised his hand above Viola’s back, slowly returning her embrace.
Six, on the other hand, did not hide her discomfort or embarrassment. But after Viola’s apology, and after watching Mono, she ever-so-hesitantly put a hand on Viola’s back too. And she tapped it, once or twice.
“I promise I won’t try and set you up again,” Viola added lightly as she broke the hug.
Mono laughed whereas Six scoffed out loud.
“You had better,” Six said, her voice laced with amusement. “And don’t even dare bring up the future stuff anymore. None of us actually believes we’re your parents.”
He and Viola briefly shared a look. Mono shrugged with a grin.
Honestly, he wasn’t as in denial as Six was. But he also would rather not think about it either. Future daughter or not, Viola was already someone they cared for—and in Six’s case, cared for enough. It almost wouldn’t make a difference if he and Six became nothing more than what they already were. Viola didn’t need to try and set them up to guarantee herself a family.
For as they all sat there on the dirty floor, laughing and smiling together, Mono had never felt closer to having one.
Notes:
Guess they're all staying in the Maw as a family...
Also, another shoutout to ApathyAo3 for the gift fics! They just wrote another one and let's just say they got me in the first half. If you'd like to read it, it's called
Take The Bite Out Of Her Spite by ApathyAo3.Thanks for reading!
Chapter 99: Last Goodbye
Notes:
Hellooo I bring you 8.9k of fluff as we have reached the end of the story.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
A full month had passed, and by then life in the Maw became somewhat the new norm.
They fell into a routine. In the morning, Mono and Viola would meet Six in the Quarters, bother the girl with their loud presence, and laze around in her space—Viola had an inkling Six did not mind and secretly enjoyed their company even if she claimed otherwise. At noon, Six would guide them into the kitchen to steal a few loaves of bread, no meat whatsoever, if the chefs in charge weren’t around. Then they would eat together in the ceiling, letting their feet dangle above the room, and sometimes they’d even settle at the top of the Maw’s beach. The three of them would stay up in the sun longer, hours until the sky shifted colours. When evening approached, Six always followed them down to the Lair, insisting that she merely wanted to make sure Viola and Mono didn’t plan an impromptu adventure and went anywhere else but their room. Viola reasoned she would never drag Mono into anything bad. That immediately got Six shooting a sharp look towards Mono’s direction.
“It isn’t you I’m worried about. It’s him," Six had said. “He’s the one who comes up with the crazy adventures.”
Mono narrowed his eyes and glared at his friend, but even then he didn’t deny it. Maybe because the night before, he had secretly asked Viola if she’d be up for a brief outing after Six was asleep upstairs. And namely to find those little grey creatures that had escaped his sights the other day.
Viola didn’t know how Six knew. Though, she expected it. Her mother had always been sharp and observant. It was no surprise the same quality could be found in Six now.
Her father was not so much different either. He, too, was observant and strict if it came down to the matter of their safety. Which was quite ironic considering his child self would risk the same safety to find the “Nome” creatures behind Six’s back. Or maybe the principle did not apply to himself. Viola remembered he did throw a slight fit when she and Six had been a little late from their…special appetite fulfilment. They weren’t that much late but Mono and his paranoid mind immediately assumed something had gone wrong and someone had gotten snatched. Yet again.
“You were supposed to come back ten minutes ago!” Mono scolded them both, his lips curled into a tight frown.
Viola looked down in shame, whereas Six couldn’t be bothered enough to pay him any mind, instead digging inside a chest she’d found in the corner of the room.
“Calm down, Mono, I told you nothing bad was going to happen. So, we went a bit overboard and took another Guest down. What’s the big deal? If anything, we did you a big favour by cleaning this place up.” Six threw a piece of junk over her head. It would have landed on Mono had he not moved in time.
“Right, a big favour, huh? Would it still count as a favour if you’d gotten yourself killed? If you’d gotten Viola killed? I get that you’re fine on your own, Six, but putting Viola in the face of danger is selfish and—”
Six snorted. “Barely any danger. Those ball of meats couldn’t even walk a step towards us—”
“They’re still adults! That means the threat doesn’t end as long as they are around.”
Six looked over her shoulder, finally meeting his sharp stare. Her eyes narrowed as she turned to Viola. “Tell him how you were almost snatched by the bigger guy.”
“What?” Mono’s eyes widened, both in horror and near fury. But Viola furrowed her brows at the girl, slightly confused.
“N-No, I wasn’t. We were standing from a higher ground,” Viola said.
“Exactly.” Six shot a look at Mono. “We were standing from a higher ground. So, for the love of all Gods, Mono, have some faith that I know how not to endanger a life. You big dummy.” Six returned to the chest, inspecting another junk before throwing it away.
Mono looked at Viola then, the anger in his eyes subsiding as his face softened. Viola answered his silent question with a nod; what she said had been true.
At that, guilt came and took over instead. Mono sighed.
“Okay, fine. I’m sorry I accused you,” he said softly.
“And?”
“And,” Mono continued, his shoulders slumping, “I was wrong.”
“And?”
“And you’re very smart.”
“And?”
“What else is there I’m supposed to add?”
“You said I was selfish. That hurt me, you know,” she said as she looked over an item in her hands, barely paying attention to the others.
“Hah. You don’t seem very hurt to me,” Mono scoffed, and then to the other girl. “Right, Viola?”
“Please don’t make me pick sides again,” Viola said.
Mono frowned immediately.
“Tell you what, Mono. I’ll forgive you but only under one condition.” Six stood up from the chest, her hands behind her back, nodding for him to come close. Mono made a face as he approached her. “Close your eyes.”
“Why?” he asked skeptically.
“Do you not want me to forgive you?”
“Of course I do, but why do I have to close my eyes?”
“Because I asked you to.” Mono glanced at Viola for help, to which Six winked at her not to do anything.
As much as Viola wanted to help the poor boy, she was honestly curious what Six was up to. Especially with the smug grin on her face, promising nothing but trouble and mischief. Viola shrugged at him.
“Ugh, I can’t believe you’re on her side now,” Mono sighed exasperatedly after realizing he was on his own.
“I’m not on anyone's side. But you did call her selfish and all,” Viola said.
“Thank you, Viola,” Six said proudly and turned to Mono. “Now, you. Close your eyes.”
“You’re not going to slap me, are you?” he asked warily. “This better not be a trick.”
“Mono, of course, it’s a trick,” Six revealed, her voice too friendly. “Only a matter of you getting back in my good graces is all. Don’t you want that?”
“I guess,” Mono replied with another sigh. After a defeated ‘fine’ and a firm warning for her not to slap him, he closed his eyes and waited.
Viola watched Six’s grin turn more and more mischievous. Then, standing on her tiptoes, Six placed a small, brown bucket hat atop Mono's head. She quickly took a step back, letting Mono open his eyes and feel the new weight.
“A…hat?” Mono touched the hat, confused, as he looked at her. Six only nodded, smug and proud for reasons that did not match the twinkle of evil in her eyes.
“You like it?” Six asked, her other hand still behind her.
Mono hesitated, flushing under her gaze. “Sure. I—I mean, yes, I do. I like it a lot.” He gulped. “But…I’m confused, I thought you said you were going to trick me.”
“Oh, that’s still happening.”
“What—?” A loud horn pierced the air as Six pulled out an air horn, pressing down on its bell.
Mono yelped, holding his affected ear and groaning. Yet as he did so, another clicking sound came from in front of him, followed by a flash of light. By the time he had recovered, Six already held a new item in her hands: an old camera, taken from the chest of junk behind her.
A buzzing sound. Then a card slid out under the camera’s lens. Six swiftly took it between her fingers, shaking it lightly. Her smile widened into a toothy one. She laughed as she stared down at the photo.
“My, my, Mono. Look at you. You really know how to pose for a picture. Viola, come see this.” Viola, still covering her ears—and frankly still shocked and amazed by Six’s actions—finally lowered her hands and went to stand beside Six to look at the photo.
It was Mono, as expected, but it was by far not the most flattering picture. One of his eyes was half-closed, whereas the other was wide open. His teeth were bared, the camera capturing the first two seconds of his silent scream. All in all, it was a badly-timed, embarrassing picture.
A snicker escaped her unintentionally. Viola covered her mouth to hide the smile on her face, and hopefully to spare Mono from seeing her betrayal.
It was too late. He was pissed.
“Six, what the hell?” he spat, a scowl on his face. “What…what did you just do?”
Six flashed him a cheeky grin and showed him his picture. Mono’s eyes widened in mortification. He lunged forward only for Six to pull herself away, laughing.
“I’m keeping this, by the way,” Six said, dangling the photo in front of him on purpose.
Mono narrowed his eyes at her. His gaze lowered to the old camera she had dropped back into the chest. He took it out and held it firmly in his hands. Absent-mindedly, he studied the camera, playing around with it.
“Hey, Viola, remember when you told me future Six likes it when I brush her hair?”
Uh-oh.
Six’s smirk was wiped off her face. Her eyes blew wide as she turned her shock to an equally surprised Viola.
Another click and flash.
Just like she did to him, Mono patiently took the photo out of the camera’s ejector slot. And with a satisfied grin, he gave the same long look toward her photo.
“My, my, Six. Look at you. You really know how to pose for a picture,” Mono echoed her words. He showed them both the photograph he had taken, one with Six’s image caught off guard and flushed red.
Six scoffed loudly, in disbelief after a taste of her own medicine. “I cannot believe you.”
“What, you mean that I one-upped you?” He turned the picture back to himself, a triumphant smirk on his face. “I guess I’ll be keeping this one.”
“Hell no. You’re burning it this instant,” Six demanded.
“If I do, will you burn my picture as well?” She said nothing. Mono’s smile widened smugly. “Yeah, that’s what I thought.”
“Oh—shut up, you weird idiot. The only reason I’m keeping your picture is to use it against you the next time you piss me off anyway.”
“Wow. What a genius. Your grand plan is to blackmail me and…what? Share it with Viola?”
“Yes. Exactly.”
“For what? There is literally no point! She’s already seen that horrible photo of me!” His voice became exasperated.
“And she and I could see it again. We’ll make fun of you when you’re asleep and harass you with the picture. Simple as that.”
His left eye twitched.
“You know what, Six? Game on. I’m using your picture against you too.”
“You wouldn’t have the guts.”
“Yeah? Just watch me then, you big bully. The next living thing we encounter will be the first to see your ugly picture. I’ll even make copies and—ARGH!” Six had reclaimed the air horn and pointed its trumpet at him, right at his ear.
He yelped.
“S-Stop doing that!” Mono dropped the camera back into the chest before chasing after her. Six dodged his attempts to lunge for her deafening weapon, and when he managed to grab the top of her hood, she slammed a palm over his face, pushing him as far as possible. Both screamed nonsensical insults.
Meanwhile, in the corner of the room, Viola watched them go at it. They both looked equally stupid, which didn’t happen very often. Usually, it was one of the two who played the role of the idiot of the day. So, seeing them like this—Six putting Mono in a vicious headlock and Mono continuously pinching Six’s face—was simply an opportunity.
The perfect moment to be remembered forever.
As the two children battled for the air horn, Viola snuck to the chest. They were unaware, still screaming and throwing cheap insults, even after Viola had gotten a hold of the camera. She lifted it to her face, feeling a smile grow on her lips.
Was what she was doing just as mean? Sure. Would Mono and Six be incredibly pissed about this? Definitely. But just like they were with each other, forgiveness tended to come easier in the weeks after the Signal Tower’s collapse. Viola didn’t worry anymore; these two, no matter how much they teased and prodded at one another, had a low chance of falling out. Ever. It had been tested and proven multiple times.
So, yes, Viola was not worried. That, and as if they would hate her for this. Mono would convince Six, and Six…well, she would be convinced at the end of the day.
“Give it…to me!” Mono said through gritted teeth, still reaching for the air horn Six had raised above her head.
“No! I found it first—it’s mine!”
“I don’t give a damn! You’re a monster with that thing. So, just…hand it over already!”
“And give you the power to do the same thing? Not a chance.”
“Six, I’m serious! Don’t make me actually use—"
A bright flash. Both stilled in place, and slowly their heads turned towards the girl with the camera. In unison, their faces dropped, each flushing red at what Viola had done. Because now both shared yet another embarrassing photograph; and the owner of that same photo was none other than Viola herself.
She flashed them an innocent smile, holding the picture.
“And I,” Viola said, “will keep this one, if you don’t mind.” She tucked it deep into her pocket.
It was a quiet night, and the day they stayed up at the Maw’s little beach felt nearly like a dream. Most nights, everyone would retire early and head to their rooms, but after dinner, Viola had requested if they could stay up a little while longer. No funny business, no tricks to set anyone up; but simply to enjoy the ocean breeze and watch the sky, which was littered with scattering stars and a silver moon. Six had been ready to leave, not wanting to risk falling into a “trap,” but after Viola had squeezed her hand and asked her even more nicely, Six still wanted to leave.
Her stone-faced exterior softened, however, once Mono joined in to coax her.
Big shocker—only he could persuade his stubborn friend. And what do you know? All he had to do was smile at her.
Just like Dad used to do. Viola laid in the sand next to Mono and Six, looking up at the glowing spots in the sky.
Her heart sank a little as she reminisced about her parents, the time before everything shifted for the worse. Before she learned their destiny was an inevitable death, doomed to be repeated and steered by their tormentor, the Eye. It made her wonder. If she hadn’t taken this road, would she have also followed their tragic fate? Or if she had never left through the television that had brought her here, would she ever find herself in their warm presence again? Would she ever get to be with her family and live on happily with them?
She looked to her left, finding Mono and Six chattering without a care in the world, smiling and laughing as if they had always been this comfortable and close. A small grin crept to her lips at the sight.
The Eye was gone forever; and her parents had survived.
That was all that mattered to Viola.
“What are you smirking like an idiot for?” Oops. Six’s questioning stare had her cheeks feeling slightly warm.
“I-I was…just listening to what Mono said,” Viola replied, although not entirely sure what the boy was talking about.
But seemingly, luck was on her side tonight, because Mono seemed proud and satisfied with her answer anyway.
“See? Even Viola thinks I’m hilarious. I’ve got tons of jokes, you know. You just never gave me the chance to tell them.”
“Oh, Mono, I think you’ve had plenty of chances,” Six huffed, rolling her eyes. “Besides, looking at your face is a joke enough that I get from you. You can spare me from everything else.”
“Pah! Mean.”
“I like to call it a good deed of spreading honesty, actually.”
“Nothing about your honesty is ever good.” He fixed his hat under his head like a pillow. He couldn’t separate himself from the gift Six had given him the other day. “You just enjoy hurting my feelings.”
Six sighed quietly under her breath. “Viola, can you smack his face for me? You’re closer, and I’m exhausted.”
“Hah, like she would ever—!” Viola tapped hard on his forehead. Mono flinched and yelped, making Six laugh.
“Like that?” Viola asked Six.
“I would’ve done it harder, but that’s good enough.” Six smirked.
Viola beamed as she laid back down on the sand, proud of herself.
“You know, I miss the days when Viola was not under your influence, Six,” Mono grumbled, rubbing the skin above his brow.
“Don’t look at me. It’s not my fault she thinks I’m cooler than you.”
“You’ve turned her mean.”
“Hey!” Viola said.
“Right. She’s suddenly mean when the target is you,” Six added. “Are you sure you didn’t influence her back then?”
“Tch, that’s a bunch of crap—”
“Actually, now that I think of it, he did repeatedly talk bad about you the first time we came here, Six,” Viola chimed in. “He even tried convincing me you were the worst.”
“Ah. Is that right, Mono?” Six asked calmly.
Mono remained silent for a few seconds. He cleared his throat.
“Okay, let’s get a few facts straight here—Six was the worst. So technically, I wasn’t lying in that sense.”
“Uh-huh,” Six said.
“Right,” Viola added.
“And another thing, I really, really, really hated her. So, Six, talking bad about you, doing it behind your back and sharing it with a trusted comrade, was the least I could do. Plus with Viola using the ‘future-mother’ excuse, shoving your head down a toilet bowl was not an option.”
“How thoughtful of you,” Six answered flatly, almost bored. “Now I remember why I used to pretend you were invisible.”
“What? Was that what you were doing to me the first day we met—?”
A faint grumble. Both Mono and Six sat up slightly to look at Viola, one in worry and the other in surprise. Respectively.
“You’re hungry again? This is the third time,” Six said, making Viola’s face flush.
“I know, I…I’m not sure what’s up with me today,” Viola laughed sheepishly, sitting up too. “I’ll just head down to the kitchen real quick and—”
“Hold on, Viola, no way.” Mono shook his head sharply. “You are not going there on your own. I’ll come with you—”
Six gently tugged his wrist, pulling him back down when he tried to get up. “Relax, okay? I’ve been down in the kitchen many times by myself. Sometimes even more out in the open than usual. If she wants to go alone, she can.”
“But it’s still dangerous, Six. What if one of them tries to grab her?”
“Look, most of those dumb adults are fast asleep at this hour; the place is practically safe to walk through without even sneaking in. So even if she’s on her own, she’ll be fine.” Then she turned to her, her eyes firm and serious. “Won’t you, Viola?”
Viola wanted to believe Six simply said what she said because she didn’t care for Viola’s life. But as Six waited patiently for her answer, it became clear that was not the case. The same way the Lady had allowed Viola moments of independence, Six was putting her trust in her as well.
“Yeah,” Viola said, “I’ll be fine.”
“Then good. You know where to go.” Six nodded, her smile small and relaxed, unlike her friend, who seemed more and more reluctant as he watched Viola begin to leave the beach.
“M-Make sure you stay hidden! I can still go with you if you change your mind!” Mono’s shout came from behind.
Viola chuckled, already seeing Six shaking her head at the boy and silently judging him for his behaviour.
She headed downstairs and snuck into the kitchen for food. The lights were off. As Six had predicted, there was almost no one there save for one or two grumbling leftovers. Viola stole a small piece of fruit instead, then left through the vents, staying hidden just as Mono had told her to.
She could tell the boy was not fully on board with her traversing the Maw alone, but like Six, Viola too had done it multiple times before. Six had taught her how to stay safe in the ship and, better yet, what action to take should an unexpected ambush occur. Mono would never support it, though. He would insist the adults’ presence was a risk itself, so to reason with him by mentioning her and Six’s shared ability for their defence…yes, he would simply choose not to listen to that. And the only way he’d relent was if he was there to—as he liked to put it—watch their backs. Which was mostly unnecessary considering sucking out a soul took less than a second.
But he had been so adamant, it was endearing. So much like her father to remain in his overly protective nature. Viola didn’t have the heart to keep making him worry—and no doubt the boy was already sitting restlessly on that beach with Six.
Viola smiled as she imagined Six trying to distract him with small talk. It shouldn’t be a hard task; her mother could do many things—
A faint whine echoed in the distance.
Her steps stopped inside the vent, feeling light vibrations under her feet. Then, voices. Two voices spoke, but they were nothing more than an indistinct noise, garbled and buried under unstable static.
Could it be Mono and Six? Had they moved downstairs already to come look for her? Had Viola been gone that long? Couldn’t be. She had practically run down here!
Swallowing the last bite of her food, Viola followed the vibrations until they led her to an exit. She pushed the vent door and climbed down. Immediately, the static became louder; and the room was brighter. Viola had to squint when facing the light in the corner, her hand raised above her face. She didn’t see Mono or Six. But once she lowered her hand, she saw their faces behind the screen, looking older than they did in the Maw.
The screen turned into static. And then his face appeared again, clearer than before.
“Viola,” Thin Man said in relief, his hands pressed against the screen. He turned his head to the side. “Six, I found her!” His joy was instantly followed by another figure, a woman Viola hadn’t seen since she’d come to the past. She seemed just as frantic as the man had been, but after seeing Viola through the screen, she physically appeared younger.
“There you are.” The Lady moved closer to the screen, grabbing the edges of it. “You made us worried sick! How many times did your father have to tell you to be careful around the televisions until you finally listen? It’s not safe, Viola. Thank luck you’re still in one piece!”
Viola couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t move a muscle in her body, unable to tear away from the sight of her parents. Her eyes stung with tears.
“Mom…? Dad…?”
At his name, Thin Man’s face brightened. He formed her name on his lips and—
Darkness.
The room dimmed, and suddenly Viola was being pulled from behind, her wrist caught in a deathly grip. She looked up and saw Six’s glare, silent fury behind those dark eyes.
What?
“Viola! Are you okay?” Viola tore her gaze away from the girl and found a horrified Mono near the wall. He held a plug in his hand.
“I-I’m fine—”
“What the hell were you thinking?” Six dragged her a few more steps away from the television before finally releasing her wrist. “I gave you one chance to prove yourself to Mono you’re capable on your own, and the first thing you did was mess with the television?”
Viola shrunk slightly, her eyes stinging worse. “I-I didn’t. No, that’s not what I was—”
“Then what? What were you doing?” Six raised her voice. “You idiot, we just escaped the Signal Tower! You, playing around with that cursed thing could have risked everything we have over here. Don’t you realize that? Do you not think for a second that your stupid curiosity could’ve given the Eye a chance to come back—?”
“Six, hey. Let’s not go there.” Within seconds, Mono was next to her, gently shushing her anger. Six released a reluctant sigh, looking away from Viola. “The Eye’s not coming back, alright? Ever.”
“You don’t know that, Mono. We can’t take any chances. Especially not with someone who’s careless when it comes to that.”
“I know, but…we can’t just accuse her even if it seemed like it. She must have an explanation.” Mono looked at Viola expectantly. He didn’t look angry like Six was, though seeing the expression on his face made her tears harder to hold back.
He was afraid. Unsure if he could defend her anymore should Viola’s answer support Six’s accusation.
It wasn’t true anyway, what Six had said. That wasn’t what had happened; and Viola so badly wanted to tell them that.
But how could she even begin to?
“I didn’t mess with the television. I swear.” Viola swallowed the lump in her throat. “I just…heard it making noises on my way back to you.”
“Then why were you talking to it?” Six asked sharply, her scowl deepening.
“Because,” Viola hesitated, “it was my parents.”
“Liar.”
“Six,” Mono said.
Six threw her hands up, frustrated. “What, she is lying, Mono,” Six told him. Then to Viola, “Do you honestly expect me to believe you saw your parents on that television?”
“But I promise I’m not lying to you!” Viola said. She pointed to the squared item. “I saw them there— I saw both of you! A-And you were talking to me.”
That made Six flinch a little. She crossed her arms, however, still stubborn to believe anything that was said.
“It’s not real. For all you know, it could just be another trick from the…from something,” Six insisted.
Viola hadn’t thought of it that way. What if…this was a trick? What if the Eye wasn’t truly as gone as they thought they were? What if this was another elaborate plan to steal her away from her current parents? The Eye had fooled her the first time; they could easily do so again.
Couldn’t they?
Mono, upon seeing Viola’s face fall into doubt and disappointment, muttered a curse under his breath.
“Look, guys, what if…what if we confirmed it ourselves?”
Immediately, the girls snapped their heads to him. Six was the first to be appalled by it. Rather expectedly.
“You want to re-plug that television and let the monsters appear? Are you out of your mind?” Six gaped at him.
He made a face. “I mean…technically, I could just shut it off again before anything happens.” He turned to Viola. “You said you saw your parents. As in…Six and I in the future. Is that right?”
“R-Right,” Viola nodded.
“Okay. Okay,” he muttered under his breath. Mono drew his lips into a thin line. “Then let’s just ask them a few questions and…get this over and done with.” He walked to the television, nearing the socket on the wall.
Meanwhile, Viola and Six cast a glance at each other. The other girl sent a scowl her way before following behind Mono, openly cursing.
Seconds later, static returned to drown out their ears. Mono had plugged the television back into the wall, eyeing the screen for any new changes. It didn’t take long until the grey screen shifted into two adults again—they sighed in relief once they managed to secure the connection.
“Don’t switch it off. You have no idea how tricky it is to…” Thin Man’s voice emanated from the television, slightly muffled by the static background. His eyes settled on Viola again, yet they widened once Mono came into view, shielding her from him. “Wait, Vi, are you—?”
“We’ll be the ones asking the questions here, if you don’t mind,” Mono interrupted. Even standing behind him, Viola noticed the scowl he wore on his face. He mimicked Six’s scary face well. “Who are you and what do you want from us?”
“And are you the Eye?” Six added with the same bravado, standing next to him, completely blocking Viola’s view of her parents.
Viola stood on her tiptoes, barely catching the confused look on Thin Man and the Lady’s faces.
“The Eye?” Thin Man echoed.
“You’re accusing us of being that abomination? The one we killed ourselves? Tch. How dare you.” The Lady tutted, sucking in air between her teeth. That noise Viola knew too well. “Now stop with all this nonsense and give me back my daughter!”
A derisive chuckle from Six.
“You imposters always think you can just fool us with your appearances and lie your way to what you want. Pathetic. It won’t work with us anymore, you old woman,” Six spat just as vehemently.
“O-Old? Why, you little brat—!” The Lady moved towards the screen as Six stomped forward. Luckily, both of their counterparts held them back—Mono physically having to cling to Six’s arm, and Thin Man blocking the Lady from going any further.
“Give me my daughter,” the Lady said again, glaring from the screen, enough to send shivers down Viola’s spine, “before you regret it.”
“I’m not afraid of you, hag,” Six said with the same fierce glare.
“You should be.”
“Six, let’s just all take a deep breath, okay? We know where Viola is now; everything is fine,” Thin Man finally said beside her. The woman seethed, nonetheless.
“How is everything fine when they’re kidnapping and holding her hostage there? We have to do something!”
“Yes, I know that. But it has to be a different way.”
“Such as?”
“Well, for starters, how about we cool it with the ‘threatening our child-selves’ approach?”
“Mono, they’re refusing to give Viola back to us. I don’t care what kind of threat comes out of my mouth if it gets them to stop acting like kidnappers.”
“Kidnappers—what—?” Mono scoffed, utterly offended. “U-Us, kidnappers? You guys were the ones who came out of nowhere and started to talk to Viola through the TV! For all we know… you two are the kidnappers here!”
“What?” Thin Man snapped, his face growing tired. The screen glitched before he grasped back its connection.
“Yeah. Both of you— kidnappers. Six is right, you’re just trying to lure Viola with her parents’ appearances.”
“Because we are her parents!” Thin Man exclaimed, almost banging his fist against the screen. “We are you!”
“Then prove it.” Six stepped forward. “What’s Mono’s biggest fear?”
“Wait, what?” Mono turned to his friend, his eyes as wide as saucers. Thin Man reacted similarly, though more embarrassed than anything.
Luckily for him, the Lady took the spotlight by scowling down into the screen.
“I’ll tell you what our biggest fear is,” the Lady hissed at Six. “Losing.”
Silence stretched between them all.
Then, a movement.
Six’s scowl remained on her face even as she pivoted sharply on her heel, walking away from the screen’s line of sight. From there on, she refused to speak more. Leaving both Viola and Mono in confusion of how a simple word had brought Six’s defiance down so easily. Too easily, in fact.
“That…that still answers nothing,” Mono insisted after a while. “How do I know you’re not actual imposters?”
Thin Man briefly lowered his gaze to the white wrappings around Mono’s arm. He sighed and began to roll up the sleeve of his shirt, switching hands to maintain the signal’s connection. Then he lifted his exposed arm to them. A long, faded scar ran down his skin, marring the subtle white mark just above it.
“The Nanny,” Thin Man said, his voice softer now, “did this to you too, didn’t she?”
Mono instinctively held his bandaged arm to his chest, his throat bobbing. He glanced at a quiet Viola, and then at the man claiming to be her father, then back to the girl. He rushed to the wall and grabbed hold of the plug.
“Wait! Wait! Wait—!” Thin Man and the Lady, realizing he was walking out of their view, shouted frantically for him not to switch them off again.
Their voices died as soon as Mono pulled the plug.
“Okay, guys, we need to talk.” He dropped the plug and walked up to the girls. “What are we going to do?”
“Do what?” Six said, though she still appeared distracted. Her eyes were anywhere but him.
“About them. Those two imposters on the television. I have to say, they’re a lot more…convincing than I thought they’d be,” Mono said, rubbing his head.
A pause. Six finally shook her head and tutted.
“I don’t buy it. That woman can’t be me. She is too ugly,” Six said.
“Uh—” Viola opened her mouth to speak for the first time and was cut off by Mono.
“What are you talking about? No, she isn’t. She looks a lot like…” Mono trailed off, realizing the two pairs of eyes burning into him. He cleared his throat, his cheeks a faint pink. “Yeah, no, she’s ugly. The guy too. Just hideous.”
“Makes me sick.”
“And puke.”
“They’re disgusting-looking.”
“Just blegh.”
“No—bleghh, blegh.”
“Yes, but more, bleghhh and bleghh—”
“Guys.” Mono and Six stopped, their mouths still hanging. Their faces were the same shade of red. “I don’t think they’re imposters,” Viola said.
Another beat of silence passed. Six stood straighter, regaining her ‘cool’ composure.
“You…actually believe they’re your parents? Us?” Six asked, appalled by the suggestion.
But Viola remained firm and unrelenting. She nodded sharply to her, making Six’s skeptical face falter ever so slightly. When Six offered no more replies, Viola turned to Mono, hoping he would share her opinion. Alas he, too, apparently wasn’t very keen on making eye contact, let alone saying what she wanted to hear.
“Viola, I…” he began. “It’s not that I don’t want to believe you. I mean, I do on some level, but…how can we be sure it’s really them, you know? You said your parents were killed by the Eye.”
“Yes, but that was in the future, Mono. They were killed years ahead from now. Which was before we destroyed the Eye altogether. So, in theory, shouldn’t it be possible that my parents survived because of what we did during this time?”
“I…I suppose.” Mono hesitantly met her stare. “Though, if you’re talking about past and future, that would also mean years from now…”
“Both of us actually got together,” Six muttered.
Mono’s face flushed again.
“That’s…also a big possibility.”
“Except it isn’t a possibility, Mono. In case you’ve forgotten, those two other idiots keep referring to each other by our names and Viola as their daughter. What does that tell you?” Six said, rolling her eyes. She sighed, dragging her hands down her face. “Ugh. I can’t believe this is real,” she grumbled miserably under her breath.
Mono visibly gulped.
“Okay! So, putting that aside, let’s say they really are your parents and not…evil imposters,” Mono quickly said to Viola, hiding his discomfort with a tight-lipped grin. “What are we doing next? Do we kindly tell them ‘no, she’s staying put with us here’ or do you…do you want to go…w-with them…?” His voice slowly lowered into a mumble, laced with an emotion that made her heart coil. He had come to the realization.
The lump in her throat returned. When Viola said nothing, Six scoffed.
“So, what, then you seriously want to go? Risk the chance of them being fakes just because you think they could be real people?” Six’s rising and accusing tone had her wincing slightly.
“They’re my parents. They’re what I came here for,” Viola said after a while. “If that is them, and you also know it, then…maybe, yes. I’d like to be with them again.”
“And us? What about all that crap you used to say about me and Mono being your parents?”
“You know what I mean when I said that—”
“Then what’s the difference now? You can just stay here with us instead. In the Maw. We’ve all been doing fine so far, haven’t we?” Six’s scowl continued to falter. “We know everyone is safe here, Viola. So what good reason is there for you to leave for something uncertain?”
“But it isn’t uncertain!”
“And how can you prove it?”
She gulped. “…Call it a gut feeling?”
Six often would use that. Viola had expected her to be scornful and insist her decision was for the stupid people—to dismiss her reasoning immediately. She didn’t expect Six would look down and sigh softly to herself, looking about as resigned and defeated she could ever seem. She said nothing else afterwards.
“Viola, are you really sure it’s them?” Mono asked in her stead, his earlier doubts now sounding like acceptance. Viola nodded sadly. “And you’re also really sure you…aren’t staying here?”
Again, Viola shook her head. “I’m sure.”
Mono stared at her for a few seconds, looked away, and sighed loudly.
“Okay. If that’s the case then I’ll…I’ll turn the TV back on.” He headed to the plug once more.
Viola glanced at Six. The girl refused to look at anyone, only glancing up once the familiar buzz of static entered their senses.
The room brightened. For a moment, the screen showed blank waves of grey, and then finally, the two adults who seemed more and more exhausted from the emotional roller-coaster they were put through. They sighed in sheer relief to have reconnected with them again. Viola couldn’t blame them; everything was hitting her quite all at once too.
“For the love of— please do not switch the television off again,” Thin Man pleaded.
Mono joined Viola and Six to stand in front of the bright screen. The boy nudged Viola gently, nodding.
She thanked him before stepping forward.
“Mom, Dad?” Viola sniffled a little. “Sorry I kept you waiting.”
Their faces softened. The Lady’s lips tugged into a gentle smile as she rested a hand on Thin Man’s shoulder. “Come back now, Vi. We’ve all been worried long enough.” Thin Man cleared his throat. The Lady huffed, rolling her eyes. “That, and your father has been exerting himself for almost an hour.”
“Two hours,” Thin Man corrected. “The first one was trying to keep you from tearing everything apart looking.”
“Yes, unimportant as always the words that leave you.” The Lady shook her head. “Whenever you’re ready,” she said finally to Viola.
Viola smiled, a burst of emotion swelling in her chest.
Her parents—they were waiting.
She was merely a few steps away from going home except…she wasn't entirely ready just yet.
Not before she turned on her heel and lunged at the two children behind her.
They were the ones she had stayed with for the last month, the ones who had fought with her through their shared nightmares, and the ones she had slowly seen as more than just her future parents.
They were her friends.
And as she pulled them both into a tight embrace, hugging them for as long as she could, she could feel they were just as reluctant to break away as she was.
She could feel they didn’t want to let go.
“Goodbye, you two. I’ll miss you both, if you can believe it,” Viola said, laughing through slight tears. She felt Mono’s back shake a little in a small chuckle, and Six scoffed lightly at her remark. Neither let go. Instead, they all pressed closer against each other, desperate to delay the end.
“S-Same here,” Mono said. “If you can believe that.”
Six only hummed.
After a final tight hug, they broke apart.
Mono’s eyes were already beginning to glisten, and Six kept her hood purposely low over her face, adamant to stare at the floor. Her flushed cheeks, however, told Viola enough that the girl was feeling a similar emotion as them all. It was so much like her to hide it.
A sniffle from Mono. “I guess…they’re waiting for you now.” Mono said, still keeping up a smile, albeit a weak one. He held up a hand. “See you soon, yeah?”
She returned his smile and shook his hand in hers.
“See you both,” she said.
Then Viola turned around, approaching the screen that brightened with every nearing step she took.
Until Six’s voice called behind her.
Surprised, Viola looked over her shoulder only to find the girl already running up to her. Her hood was still low, but upon a closer look, Viola could see her face clearly one last time.
“Six?” Viola asked.
Six hesitated as she dug a hand within the pocket of her raincoat. She took it out with a closed fist, offering it up to her.
“I think you’d probably like to have this back.” Six opened her hand and let the pendant dangle off its chain. Her locket.
Viola took it in her hands, holding it graciously and gaping in utter disbelief.
“I…I thought I had lost this.” Viola opened the locket; her parents’ pictures were still inside, untouched and the same as the night she had lost them. “You’ve had it with you all this time?”
“Yeah. And I was supposed to give it back to you sooner, too, but...I don’t know. I guess a part of me still believes you’re the reason I was dragged into this mess in the first place. Because of your locket,” she said with a tut. But then hesitantly, she began to close Viola’s fingers over the clasped pendant. “Just…don’t lose it again. Will you?”
“I won’t. I promise,” Viola said. “Thank you for this.”
Six nodded with a soft grin and took a few steps back, joining Mono once again.
Viola let out a deep breath, and with her locket clutched tightly in her fist, she couldn't help but squeeze it in her grasp.
She was nervous. Ready, but utterly nervous.
The light felt warm as her fingers touched it. The screen grew softer under her hand, rippling as she moved forward and beyond. And by the time she sank, she had closed her eyes, bracing for an immediate and often painful landing.
But that never came.
Two arms caught her just as she hit the floor. She opened her eyes. This time, she saw the Lady, her smile just like the one Six had worn seconds ago.
“M…Ma?”
The Lady pulled her further onto her lap, hugging her tightly. And not a second later, a new weight settled above. It was her father. He had wrapped himself around them, caging Viola in between. By then, the dam had broken. Viola cried into her mother’s chest and desperately clung to her father’s sleeve. The Lady only made a gentle hushing sound as she was cradled in her lap.
Viola had missed this so dearly—missed her.
“Are you hurt anywhere?” Thin Man asked, patting the top of her head.
“No,” Viola whispered, a sob in her throat.
“I’ll check just to be sure, okay?” Thin Man said as he carefully held her hand. “You really had us worried sick…”
While her mother and father worried over her, checking for any injuries she might not have realized existed, Viola’s attention strayed toward the television in front of her.
A glimpse of two children watching on the other side, the screen bright and glaring.
Then all she saw was her dark reflection.
They were inside the bunker, Viola realized once her parents had deemed her unharmed and safe. The place didn’t seem so much different than the last time she’d climbed down its ladder. Chaos was in the abandoned boxes stacked on top of each other, making the underground room appear smaller than it truly was. The light was still as dim as she had remembered, and Thin Man’s creation remained in its place in the darkest corner—the television Viola had used to meet Mono and Six was seemingly the same one that brought her home to them, her mother and father.
Clinging to his chest, and being carried all the way to the house, Viola had asked them what had happened to them in the Signal Tower months ago. She had wanted to know, through her being in the past, if she had helped them survive their confrontation with the Eye somehow. Her question was immediately met with their confusion. They told her there was no Signal Tower and that there hadn’t been one for many years.
Viola asked them instead about the Deal they had made with the Eye. Again, there was only confusion between them. The Lady even questioned, “A Deal?”, while Thin Man looked at her with furrowed brows. And when Viola confessed and brought up the dark Deal—the entire reason their family was broken apart and forced to separate—both the Lady and Thin Man shared a disturbed look. They told her again; they had never made a deal with the Eye to ‘sacrifice children’. They assured her many times that their family too had never been forced to separate and certainly not broken apart by the Eye. They insisted the Eye was simply a story. A bad one at that too, which led to the Lady briefly berating Thin Man for ever retelling his accounts of the monster ‘Eye’ as a bedtime story to a child.
“She said she wanted the real stuff, so I gave it to her! Besides, Six, all I told her about was how we made it out together. Especially the part where we killed the last Eye by crushing it with a book, just us two,” Thin Man had said proudly with a wink.
It bothered Viola, to say the least. Even until later that night, as her parents tucked her into bed, the thought stuck to her like gum.
Had they forgotten what had happened? Did the memory of the Eye’s torment upon their family disappear? And if their recollection of the past matched Viola’s own memory, why wasn’t she a part of theirs?
Her mother’s warm humming slowed into silence. She pulled the covers to Viola’s chest and brushed away a loose strand behind her ear. Her hand lingered to caress her hair.
Viola leaned into her touch, grateful for every second.
“You’re real, aren’t you?”
The Lady snickered. “You’ve been asking us that question a lot today. Are you sure you’re alright?”
“Yes, but I just…wanted to make sure I’m not hallucinating again.”
“Again?” Thin Man spoke from the door, leaning on its frame. Once more, that genuine confusion flashed in his eyes.
They did not remember anything. Not from the time before, and not from the time she had stayed with them in the Maw. All they knew was what came afterward, a life Viola was not a part of.
“Must be a bad dream,” Viola mumbled, unable to fight the disappointment and the sadness from their memory loss.
It wasn’t their fault, she knew. Yet she had hoped they would remember something.
The Lady sighed quietly. “You should rest well then. Especially after the long day we’ve all had.” She placed a kiss on her cheek. Then she stood, walking to the door and stopping just beside the man there.
“Are you coming?” the Lady asked him in a low voice.
Viola caught his subtle glance her way. He smiled at the woman and told her she should head to bed first. Another sigh left the Lady, her hand resting absentmindedly on the small bump of her belly, cradling it. “Don’t take too long, yes?”
“I promise,” he said as he gently pecked her lips. The Lady bid them a final goodnight before disappearing down the hall.
Viola heard the man enter her room, his steps padded against the carpet. He took the Lady’s seat beside Viola’s bed, the mattress dipping slightly under his weight. By then, his smile had already dimmed into a thin line, his eyes crinkling with the earlier confusion and worry.
“You learned something, didn’t you? While you were there?” Thin Man began slowly, unsure. Viola’s eyes met his, surprised. At that, he chuckled a little. “I’m not going to scold you any more than what your mother already has done today. Even if you, sneaking out into the bunker and using my television to jump through…God knows which tragic year, was a punishable act by itself.” Viola rolled her eyes, having to hear the same untrue accusation. “I am still curious, though. Earlier, you said you…used to hallucinate?”
Viola nodded truthfully.
“And you kept asking if any of this was real,” Thin Man added. Again, Viola only shook her head.
“I had to make sure.”
“Why is that?”
“Will you believe me if I tell you?”
Thin Man huffed lightly. “I’ll believe anything you’re about to say. Just as long as it isn’t some trick you learned from your mother’s child-self.” A cheeky grin grew on his face. “She was quite the prankster and bully, you know.”
Viola laughed, finding that utterly true.
“I was there when you and Mom killed the last Eye.”
She watched his face change into surprise. At his silence, she continued to tell him what she knew: how she had gone to flee to the past in hopes of saving him and the Lady from their fate with the Eye; and how from there on, she met with their child-selves, staying with them from Pale City to the Maw. Viola kept her story short, lest her father lose her completely, but with his gaze straying to the ground and his lips pursed in deep thought, it seemed he was already lost.
Viola had expected him to dismiss everything, to assure her it was all but a nightmare she had had.
He did neither.
Instead, he laughed to himself, dragging a hand down his face as though a wonderful realization had washed over him.
“It makes sense,” he muttered under his breath.
Viola widened her eyes at him, slightly gaping.
“You believe me?” she asked him.
Thin Man sent her a crooked smile instead. He was not going to tell her.
“It’s getting late. Why don’t we continue this conversation tomorrow? You can tell me all about the rest in the morning.” He pressed a soft kiss on her temple before getting up.
As he reached the door, Viola called after him one last time.
“Do you really believe me, though?” she asked, sitting up on her bed. She could not sleep tonight without knowing his answer. “About everything I told you tonight?”
For a moment Thin Man stilled, his hand on the doorknob. He contemplated with a low hum.
“Let’s just say…I’ve also had bad dreams. Some felt more real and vivid than others. And there are many pictures that seem to have a missing piece I’m sure I’ve held on to before.” He tipped his head to her then, his smile soft. “Sleep tight, kiddo.” He closed the door behind him with a soft click.
Darkness returned to engulf her, save for the light shining through her window. She could see the moon from here, full and bright among the scattering stars in the sky—just like the one she’d looked up at as she had laid on the sand of the Maw’s beach, alongside with the two other children.
Her hand slid into her pocket for the pendant Six had given her. She pressed against a thin photocard instead, its surface smooth and warm. Viola took it out and held it in the moonlight.
A warm smile crept to her lips.
She had forgotten about this picture of them. Neither Mono nor Six had looked into the camera when Viola had taken it, but their faces stayed visible even as they roughhoused each other. It made her chuckle, seeing them in such a playful albeit foolish-looking state. They never changed, it seemed. Even years later into the future. Her father still teased her mother often, and the woman was not afraid to put him in his place with a light smack.
Her thumb brushed over their faces. She stared into the photograph, her smile nearly wistful.
There are many pictures that seemed to have a missing piece I’m sure I’ve held on to before, Thin Man’s words echoed back to her that night.
This time, it did not bother her anymore.
Not even after the thought of her entire family’s memory being gone, and not even if she was the only one who remembered everything that had happened to them.
The Eye was gone forever; and her parents had survived.
In the end, that was all that mattered to Viola.
Notes:
I have waited to write this ending for 3 years now. Finally, Viola's story is over!
Mono and Six's on the other hand...let's just say I have a little bit more for them in the epilogue before I end this fic for good.
This weekend will be the last update. Epilogue comes out tomorrow :)
Thanks for reading!
Chapter 100: Epilogue
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
The forest grounds were littered with fallen leaves, dried and crunching under his cautious steps. There, in the opening, was a large stone surrounded with tied-up flowers, soft but wilting petals, green moss, and other living plants that had grown around it.
He stopped before the stone with a few stems of daisies in hand. Then he knelt to place them right beside the others, putting them upright so the flowers could reach the sunlight that filtered through the trees. So the rain would fall atop the stone and cascade down to its small leaf. He hoped it would remain healthy like most of the plants there. And just like every year, he also hoped he would continue to hold on to the memory of the deceased and the lost ones.
Mono let out a silent sigh, his breath nearly visible in the chill autumn air. His hand reached out to the grave, the stone cool under his skin, making him shiver slightly.
Then once more, as he did every year, he whispered to it:
“Rest well.”
The walk back to the abandoned television in the forest was a silent one. But as soon as he picked up on the subtle shift of energy in the air, he tuned into its remaining signal and went home.
A blink. The world brightened before it dimmed again into the Maw’s interior, warm lights etched on the wall like a guide. He moved along the corridors much too easily, having long familiarized himself with every turn and step. He had lived here for many years; it would be a pity if he still needed to depend on someone else’s help leading him everywhere around the ship. Although, that is to say, it was a pity he had stopped needing anyone's help for that—he missed having her by his side, if only to show him the way. He quite liked it, even.
When he reached the Quarters, he knocked on the door three times. The lights were still on inside her bedroom, shadows moving underneath the gap. And then he heard her soft voice, giving him her permission. He walked in and shut the door with a click.
“You’re back early,” Six said as she looked away from the cracked mirror, a brush in her hand.
Mono flashed her a weak smile, plopping down on his side of the bed. “Just felt a little tired.” He slid off his shoes, his back hunching forward.
“How is Emmet and his sister doing?”
“Well, I hope. I replaced some of their flowers today. They might be arguing with each other, though. I saw a bit of mushrooms growing nearby.”
“Ah, well, isn’t that unfortunate,” Six said with a laugh, brushing her hair again. It had gotten so long over the years. “And what about…the girl?”
He sighed, staring down at the wooden floor. “I’m not too sure. I still can’t even remember how she passed. One day, she just…disappeared.”
Mono had tried to look back into his childhood years, but remembering anything that had to do with the girl was a futile task. It was odd. He remembered everything with Six. His memory was strong enough to recollect even the dark times during his imprisonment in the Signal Tower, including his and Six’s being there to see it collapse. He remembered everything of his journey in the Wilderness and Pale City—its haunted daycare and inhabited apartments.
Yet there seemed to be something he was forgetting. Something he had missed, yet strangely certain was never there to begin with.
“I wouldn’t beat myself over it too much. It’s been many years already.” Six’s voice brought him back to reality. She had put down her brush and approached the other side of the bed, getting ready to retire for the night.
He hummed quietly, perhaps finding her words to be true. It had been almost a decade now.
Mono switched off the lamp on the table before settling next to her under the covers. His thoughts strayed again to the girl.
Six always insisted that she died. Somehow, someway. And if it wasn’t death that claimed her, it was likely she was a runaway and disappeared off the face of the world. That was all that would explain her sudden disappearance. It did not, however, explain why he could not remember a single thing about the girl—her face, her voice, her name. Again as he tried, his mind would immediately tell him she did not exist. She was as imaginary as the vivid dreams he had had of a different world.
His heart, though, refused to believe it. There had to be a reason why he and Six had ventured out into the city the second time—and it couldn’t solely be because they had wanted to destroy the Eye. He couldn’t have escaped his prison on his own, even if that was exactly what he recalled happening. He couldn’t have made it into the Maw and met Six, no matter he remembered doing so to simply confront her for her betrayal. He simply couldn’t have done all of everything that was in his memory.
It did not make sense. Something was not adding up.
“I can hear you think from over here.” Six shifted to face him. He did the same, turning to her and resting his head on his arm.
He grinned a little. “Sorry.”
“You always say that.” She smiled back. “Why do you worry so much? And don’t tell me it’s not true; you literally do this every year after your visit to the forest.”
“I hate how observant you can be.”
“They say hate is just another word for love. And I hate having you keep me up when I’m trying to sleep.”
That made him chuckle.
“I don’t…worry, you know. Not in the way you’re thinking,” he said after a while.
“Then what is it?”
His eyes locked on hers, and his smile dimmed. “Do you ever…wonder if we’re forgetting something, Six? Something important?”
“All the time,” Six said, surprising him. “But like I told you, I wouldn’t beat myself over it.”
“How do you do that, though? How do you pretend everything you remember is all there is?”
“Well, for starters, I don’t pretend. It’s irritating to constantly feel you’re forgetting something, yes. But it only becomes a problem if I keep trying to dig up non-existent memories. So, I stopped. I keep my sights on what is in front of me instead.” Her hand gently brushed his cheek. She flicked the skin above his brow. “Will you do the same?”
Mono took her wrist gently and moved closer. “I will,” he said finally, his voice low. He felt her fingers slowly intertwine with his own. Her eyes softened, half-lidded.
“Do you still have those dreams?” she asked then.
Mono hummed.
He had dreamed of many odd scenes. Entirely lucid he believed he was living them. Then he dreamed of death and destruction: screaming, fighting, thick blood on his hands and empty eyes staring up at him—a face he recognized and truly loved. As a child, the nightmare became a recurring one. It was too much to bear, and he would often wake up crying alone in his room, eventually refusing to sleep anymore.
Six had learned of his vivid dreams as soon as the bags under his eyes became prominent. After he confessed his fear of sleeping in his room downstairs, she suggested if her being close by would help.
The first few nights, she slept in the same room as him, taking the bed next to his. He would still wake up, unable to breathe, until she calmed him from his nightmare. He remembered that particular night—it was the first time he and Six had laid close to each other again since their falling out. The vivid dreams still came, yet knowing he would wake up with her close to him, Mono wasn’t afraid to shut his eyes and rest. He clung to her the same way she would him—even when it was Six who experienced a bad dream. And as the years progressed, they still shared the same bed.
Only now, his old bedroom had long been vacant.
“Sometimes,” Mono said. “What about you?”
“Occasionally. Though, I think I’m beginning to dream less and less these days. Ever since I started hunting down those mindless bastards in the city, I’ve been having better rest.” She smirked. “You should come with me next time.”
“And watch you turn them bone-dry? Yeah, I’ll sit that one out.”
“Here I thought friends support each other.”
“Six, don’t try to make me feel bad. We both know you just want to show off.”
“So what if I do?” Six said, her grin wider. “The ones in the city are much jumpier than the Guests in the Maw, you know. Makes it more exciting.”
“They’re jumpy because they have nothing to bore their eyes into anymore. They’re dying. So, you’re practically hunting down decaying bodies.”
“All the more reason I am doing them a favor.”
She wasn’t wrong. A quick death could be seen as a favor, especially when the one doing the hunting was Six.
“Okay. I’ll go if you want me to. But just…promise you’ll make it less bloody for me?”
Six made a disappointed face. “These monsters have once taunted and tried to kill us, Mono. Now that we’re stronger than them, you don’t want to make them suffer a little?”
“Of course I want them to suffer,” Mono said. “But I’d also like to keep my lunch in my stomach. Not all of us have your tolerance for violence, you know.”
“Fine,” Six sighed. “I’ll…consider your request. Since you asked so nicely.”
“You’re a saint.” He closed his tired eyes.
A dry snicker came from Six.
“And you’re a brute.” She moved closer until he could feel her breath.
It made his stomach flutter. His heart beat a fast-paced rhythm; painful, but not enough for him to wish for it to stop.
And he didn’t want it to. Even as he slowly opened his eyes again, staring into her dark ones, he wanted the feeling to linger for the rest of his life. He wanted to tell her all of it, to speak the damned words himself. To make her understand that he wouldn’t have made it this far without her, and that she was his reason for almost everything.
He wanted to tell her that he loved her. For so long.
“Six, I…” His throat suddenly turned dry. He was voiceless, unable to finally say the words.
But Six didn’t wait for him. She closed the gap between them and crashed her lips against his.
It ended too quickly.
After she broke the kiss, he had barely realized what they had done—what he had nearly done to keep her longer.
Mono stared at her, wide-eyed and flushed. He could have sworn a mischievous smile had split her face.
“I know,” Six whispered to him at last, leaning their heads together. She shut her eyes and sighed. “I know, Mono.”
Mono gulped, but there was no ignoring the warmth that had taken over his body. He lifted his head slightly.
“You do?”
Six hummed. “You’re pretty easy to read.” She looked up at him then, as if feeling his burning gaze. Her brow quirked. “You thought I wouldn’t see through you?”
“I thought I was subtle.”
She snorted. “Well, I hate to break it to you then. But subtle is the opposite of what you were,” she said. “I just figured I’d see how long it’ll take for you to realize it yourself. I must admit, I did enjoy watching how stupid you looked, though.”
“Mean.” Despite his words, he couldn’t find it in him to feel offended. “I take it back; you’re no saint. You’re a wicked witch.”
“And you love me anyway, don’t you?”
Mono’s smile widened without meaning to. His courage gathered in his chest. He answered her question with a kiss of his own, gentler than their first. He neither knew how long he had waited for this moment to come, nor did he know which of them had wanted it more.
But as he felt her pull him closer, and as he moved to allow their kiss to deepen, the question mattered no longer. He cared for nothing but her—his best friend, his confidant, his first love.
And be it fate demanded he lived the rest of his life in this god-forsaken world, there was no one else he would rather spend it with.
Notes:
*Takes a deep breath*
*Screams into the void*
I am in disbelief. This fic is finally over after 4 years and I really didn't think it'd be able to reach its ending. I want to laugh, cry, stare blankly into a corner until my brain finishes processing that THIS IS OVER. ARGHHH.
So yeah, with that out of the way, let me get to the most important part of this note.
Thank you.
All of you, THANK YOU for reading and THANK YOU for bearing with my long ass updates and staying until the end. Thank you to the readers who've been here since the first chapter, and to those who came later. Thank you for those of you who left kudos and bookmarks for the story. Thank you for the commenters who left reviews and showed love for the fic, and to those who somehow never failed to appear in almost every chapter. You know who you are.
I'm likely not going to stay in the fandom anymore after this, but who knows? Maybe I'd think differently after a good break. And maybe I'll stick around for a bit more since this fandom is one of the longest I've ever been in.
That being said, before I end my author's note/rambling, I really hope this story brought you the same entertainment and joy it did for me. It's most definitely not a perfect fic, but seriously, I hope you all had fun, lol. I'm fixing my sleep schedule and I'm taking that long hiatus, istg
So for the last time...
Thanks for reading!