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Sneeg opened his heavy eyes in an empty room.
He had every inclination to make a break for the exit.
But he didn’t.
And that decision saved his life.
If Sneeg hadn’t changed courses, turned left instead of right, hadn’t slid by the soles of his worn sneakers across the slippery, tiled mall floor, and slammed his back against the wall, wincing, shutting his eyes to everything except the humming, flickering overhead lights which managed to reach him, blinking, even behind his eyelids, he would’ve been dead, ripped apart by that monstrosity, and just another casualty to the show.
Sneeg, call it funny, whatever, hid in the bathroom. Yeah, he was aware it was stupid, and he looked stupid too, but he’d seen that horrific monster thing, been chased by it actually, so he didn’t care that much and this was his best bet.
Seven feet in height, body made of wires haphazardly thrown together in some amalgamation, the monster’s mechanical insides jutted out and wrapped around its form like an exoskeleton of veins. It had an old, analog-style TV for a head with a cracked screen also exploding with wires, and– stop. Stop looking at it– it didn’t see him. Stop looking. He was safe. It was fine, but it wouldn’t be if he kept poking his head outside the damn bathroom.
Across the shadowy space, movement caught his eye. Sneeg jumped.
His reflection gaped at him as scared as he was yet Sneeg hardly recognized it. Tired eyes, unruly brown hair speckled in dust, facial hair somehow still cleanly shaven but a mask no less to the cuts across his face. The blood-stained mirror framed his form with a lower border of dry, rusted sinks. The light of the lonely overhead LEDs rattled and drowned the space in a yellowish-green hue. Its withered, frail touch only reached Sneeg’s face and chest as if trying to lift his head in a pitiful cry for attention.
The droning hum of the mechanical monster grew louder outside. Footsteps in sets of three, a stomp, the screeching of metal scraping through the floor, tearing up the glossy polish from the tiles. Chills ran along Sneeg’s spine, his skin creeping with the sensation of spider legs. He pushed himself further into a corner, practically in the stall beside him. He tried to quiet his breathing and suppress a coughing fit from the dust. Little particles of debris stuck to his palms and prodded at his legs.
Should he go into the stall? Sneeg inspected the claustrophobic space. The door hinges reeked of rust and the lock could not look more insecure. He’d be cornered, too, and he doubted such a thin door could survive even a swipe from the creature’s metal claws. That was, if it didn’t just reach over the door altogether.
He turned his gaze to the ceiling. Maybe he could climb up there. He noticed a vent, albeit disgusting and clogged with mold and grime, but it did present an option.
Who the hell was he kidding? This was real life. As badly as he wished it weren’t, Sneeg wasn’t escaping this through a vent like it was god damn Among Us. He didn’t even know what that thought meant!
His reflection caught his eye again. His breath hitched, his heart rate accelerating.
Shit, from the wrong angle the monster could see him in the mirror couldn’t it? He had to move. Where else was there? Was there a closet? No. Shit. Umm, under the sinks. Yeah, the best bet was under there. Right across. Not too far. He could make that if he moved now.
The glitched growling grew closer. Sneeg darted his eyes back and forth, deliberating his decision. He had to do it. The odds were worth the risk. He crouched down and rushed across the floor. He tucked himself in the corner and kept his head low beneath the countertop, knees pressed against an exposed, crowbar-shaped pipe. It shifted with the slightest pressure. Sneeg could pry it out if he wanted. He might if he survived this.
Well, time to find out.
The monster burst through the doorway. It knocked out a section of decaying wall in a eruption of debris and shrieked.
Sneeg watched, silent, still as he could manage, willing himself not to do anything that might attract attention. The monster’s TV head hung low, then upside down, threatening to be severed from its body. It hung on by a few stray wires, most of which had torn. It shook its head violently, the jerking harsh enough to snap a human neck, and resituated its TV upon its mangled shoulders.
Sneeg held his legs tighter to his chest. The space was not designed to fit a fully grown man, let alone anyone bigger than a child. His muscles were already cramping. The monster needed to get the fuck out and leave him alone already.
He cupped his hands over his lower face and watched the monster inspect the space Sneeg had just been hiding. It clawed at the door, breaking it off its top hinge and then dragged itself forward with a deafening screech to repeat the process. Sneeg, unblinking, watched it destroy each and every door. It staggered, then, poking its half-dismembered head into the final stall. Empty. It screamed with rage, then twitched, electric sparks flying off its body, and bounded like a hungry predator into the expanse of the mall.
Sneeg waited for silence. He held his breath.
It was clear.
He waited still.
…
Okay.
Sneeg let his breath escape with a weak, “Holy shit.” He removed his baseball cap and grabbed sections of his hair, testing its hold on his scalp as he tugged at and cradled his head.
He didn’t want to move. He was frozen. He was terrified. That was more than justified right? To be terrified after that? He slumped against the wall. It smelled overwhelmingly of mold and mildew and the humid, stuffy air stuck to his throat. The cold touch of the floor chilled his skin even through his sleeves and jeans.
He tried to shift in position. His knees caught on the pipe. It wasn’t comfortable under there but did that matter? When was the last time he felt comfort?! The last time he felt like things were normal?!
Sneeg snatched the pipe in his hand. He crawled out from under the sink and secured his grip, then tore it, hungrily, from porcelain and connecting pieces with a loud grunt. The force knocked him onto his back. He didn’t care. He didn’t care anymore. The ugly, indifferent rectangular ceiling tiles above him stared indifferently just like everything else in this mall. Coated in dust and dirt and illuminated by dying lights they screamed, mocked, teased, “You’re in a horror movie! You won’t make it out alive!”
Sneeg caught his breath, running his hand across his forehead and brushing his fingers through his knotted hair. Sweat already formed between his palm and the metal of the rusted cylindrical weapon. It smelled sharp and putrid. Like blood.
Shaking, Sneeg pushed himself to his feet. He stopped at the bathroom entryway and scanned the environment before him. Wires, red ones, black ones, blue, some in tubes, some thin as lines, all snaked across the floor and ceiling and trailed out the doors down, somewhere, everywhere, into the depths of the mall. He turned towards his original target destination, a hall in the far back corner. An exit sign hung there. It glowed red. He regarded it as his beacon of light. It shone as the only sign of hope he could find in this hell hole, and it called his name like a moth to a street lamp.
But Sneeg resisted. He couldn’t go. It was never that easy. He knew it wouldn’t be because why would it? Why would things actually work out in his favor? If Sneeg learned anything in this who-knows-how-long period of time it was that he was asking for too much just by wanting to survive. The monster went to the exit so if he followed, it would find him, and he’d be mutilated, so Sneeg would find another way out.
He studied the opposite direction for obstacles or any kind of danger. Potted plants, dead neon signs, stationary escalators, nothing too threatening. Weird. The masked guys in suits weren’t patrolling anymore. He didn’t mind, they freaked Sneeg out. Unless– actually, wait.
Sneeg squinted to make out a stiff silhouette in the distance. Several of them. Were those not mannequins? No way. Were they actually— they were those people from before, but he couldn’t make out any movement from them at all. Their heads hung in front of them at surely an uncomfortable angle, and their arms, though locked in position, were as limp as ragdolls.
He dragged his attention away and lifted his head, gazing up at the dizzying spiral of stairscases, elevator shafts, and second stories. Someone had blocked out the skylights. He’d guess night had fallen based on his exhaustion but he’d fully lost track of whether it was day or night anymore. He couldn’t remember when he’d last seen the sun. As far back as he could remember it was just cold, dense air and harsh LED lights that wore out his eyes.
Sneeg grounded himself once more. Okay, okay. Where next? Shit, shit! This was– ugh! He didn’t want to deal with this! He didn’t want to have to figure this out. He was just a guy, not some protagonist. He didn’t want this. It wasn’t supposed to be like this.
He swallowed his tears, holding the pipe tighter. His knuckles were turning white and aching. There was another way out. There always was. If it was death, so be it, but Sneeg was, frankly, too pissed off to let that happen now.
“LET ME GO! PLEASE!”
Sneeg scrambled back to the wall, flattening himself against it. He frantically surveyed the common area in front of him– the benches, the plants, the stairs, the skylights, left, right. The anguished cry echoed through the open space. The monster. It must’ve gotten someone else.
“LET ME GO!”
But Sneeg didn’t hear any mechanical screeching. Instead, he heard someone, a second voice, competing to be heard in an unnaturally cheerful tone with the inflection of a radio announcer. He couldn’t make out the words. Something about an audience maybe, maybe “eternity”.
“Please just let me go!”
Why did it sound familiar?
Sneeg’s head pounded.
Why did it sound– Sneeg’s eyes widened.
Ranboo.
Sneeg bolted in the direction of the voices. He didn’t know what possessed him, he just knew his legs were striking the ground with strides that made his muscles scream to stop. He didn’t care.
“I don’t wanna– I don’t want to continue!”
He was tunnel-visioned. He had one goal: save the kid. He pushed himself harder, faster, metal pipe firmly in his grip. He slid around a corner, nearly colliding with a deactivated Showfall employee. Sneeg grabbed him by the shoulders and tossed him aside. The sobbing became louder, more desolate.
He saw light now, too, blended in a collage of colors. Pink, yellow, blue, then pink again, purple, red, yellow, pink. It shone weakly through the frosted glass and painted the floor in lines through a horizontally barred gate. Someone left it propped open just enough for a person to pass through.
“... So I d—… so I die… So I die?!”
Sneeg froze in the doorway. His stomach dropped.
It was Ranboo. He was right. Shit, shit, shit he was right. It was Ranboo up there. What the hell did they do– what the hell were they doing to him? They had him– they had him crucified! What the fuck?! They had him pinned up to the wall like– there was– what the hell?! Was this a game show? What… What was this?!
TVs surrounded Ranboo. Each clung to the eye-straining, colorful backlit wall and linked to Ranboo’s body with hundreds of wires branching haphazardly from him like veins to a heart. Sneeg saw himself on several of the screens, his fear, his puppeted body. He couldn’t tell if he was horrified or humiliated. Both. He was both.
Ranboo’s expression though. It scared Sneeg so much more. When his cries of distress didn’t tear from their throat, their face, even though only their eyes were visible with their mask, screamed it. Tears poured down their upper cheeks, glistening under artificial spotlights, their brows pressed in pain. A piece of their mask had broken off with signs of a struggle. It exposed a section of their chin where fresh, red blood glistened as it trailed from his lips. He choked, struggling to breathe as their chest heaved with the irregular rhythm of a panic attack. He fought against the restraints, dark, braided rope reinforced by thin red wires that had him bound by his waist, wrists, and ankles.
But their head…
Was that box a fucking iron maiden?! If that thing closed the spikes… the image made Sneeg want to… No. No, no, that wasn’t going to happen.
Sneeg twisted the pipe in his hand. Rage built up within him, hungry for autonomy. It feasted on the fear that fluttered in his chest. It might’ve been adrenaline that fueled him. Maybe he was brave enough to call it courage.
Or maybe, dare it be assumed that he experienced something darker. He settled on consequence; the consequence of a human being shoved past their breaking point and a perpetrator to deflect the blame on. Such a target stood right in front of Sneeg at the control panel. How fitting.
This man, Hetch as he’d identified himself to Ranboo unbeknownst to Sneeg, leaned leisurely against the desk. Red and black fabric draped from his arms in a loose hoodie traced in geometric lines Cyberpunk style. His hood masked the back of his head. He gestured to Ranboo with animated, open arms, as if his captive were just some source of content, entertainment for an audience and he the orchestrator.
Sneeg caught a countdown on the monitor screen over the man’s shoulder. He crept closer, steps as soft as possible, and hoped Ranboo wouldn’t notice him (for their sake).
Sneeg inspected the wall to his left. He almost tripped.
Showfall employees lined either side of the room like statues, perfectly spaced in even intervals, spines
straighter and stiffer than a ruler. Sneeg hadn’t even noticed them. If they weren’t so close by he wouldn’t believe they were anything more than mannequins with their hands folded politely in front of them, their shoes surely nailed to the floor. They didn’t react to Sneeg. Neither did the cameramen.
Still, he couldn’t help but be unsettled. He knew what vision looked like behind those masks. He knew dozens of eyes lay upon him, watching. But with such lifeless posture, he had to wonder: beneath their perfectly pressed suits and symmetrical collars, did they have hearts in there? Blood? Were they even human? If Sneeg remained here, would he become one of them too?
The countdown lost ten seconds.
He wouldn’t be stuck here long enough to find out.
Sneeg dropped into a crouch. His hands trembled. He approached Hetch, one step closer, two steps closer. He raised his foot, positioning himself over a batch of large wires. The front of his shoe made contact, then the back, then the next one, then the back. The control panel inched closer. Ranboo’s head was just visible above the makeshift desk. Blood dripped from their chin and trailed down their throat.
“LET ME DIE!” Ranboo pleaded, “I can’t live with this!”
You’re not dying Sneeg told himself, neither of us is dying. He filtered out Hetch’s voice. It buzzed, nothing more than an annoying ringing in his ears. It angered him. Every word just slurred into the haze of hatred clouding Sneeg’s head.
Twenty seconds.
His heart beat furiously.
“Let me die,” Ranboo repeated once more, exhausted, acceptance in place of fleeting desperation. “I saw everything. I saw… everything.”
Sneeg stood just about in range. Just a little further. He lifted the pipe, praying that it didn’t catch the light too brightly. It reflected red. Red, red, red.
Ten seconds.
Ranboo rested their head against the back of the box, gazing off at a distance camera, pleading with his eyes.
Hetch typed something into his laptop, fidgeting with the controls, a progress bar appearing on the monitor.
Nine seconds.
Sneeg positioned the pipe above Hetch’s head, the weapon clutched firmly in his hands, his nose and brows scrunched with anger.
Eight seconds.
He could read the screen. Sneeg caught the corners of Hetch’s lips lifting into a wide grin.
Die. The audience had voted for death.
Yeah, that’s right. Death was what they were getting.
Seven seconds.
Sneeg caught sight of his shadow, pipe wielded like a bat.
He looked scary.
Was he really about to do this?
He faltered, the pipe slipped, its motion reflected in the monitor.
Six seconds.
Hetch whirled around, knife in hand. His eyes were wide and defensive behind the holes in his featureless mask.
Sneeg panicked, steadying the pipe once more
Hetch drew back the knife.
He had no choice.
Five seconds.
Smash.
Metal crushed skull.
Muscle.
Brain.
Hetch dropped. His head banged against the sharp corner of the table.
Four seconds.
It wasn’t over. Not yet.
The timer. The timer. How did he deactivate it? Sneeg frantically searched.
Three seconds.
Um— Um… Shit! Too many buttons! Shit!
Fuck it!
Sneeg raised the pipe.
Two seconds.
He swung it down, smashing through the panel and everything on it. A war cry tore from his throat. He struck again.
Flash bang!
The monitor and its mind, the laptop, exploded in a flurry of shattered glass. The cameras blew out. Live wires breathed their last electric breath, burning up in a wave of electrocution, and the TV screens departed, bathed in static, fried and deadened with black screens, dark mirrors, that reflected Sneeg.
Sneeg dressed in the blood of a dead man.
A breath.
One second.
Silence.
The pipe clattered to the ground. Sneeg stared at the body, eyes wide, jaw parted. His brows twitched. His chest heaved heavily.
He pulled his shoulders back as his back muscles tensed. He tucked his fingers into his palms, squeezing them. They stuck together with blood and sweat. They went numb. He swallowed hard on saliva. It caught in his throat.
“Ranboo?” He asked aloud, retreating. Sneeg bumped the panel. He backed around it. He didn’t, couldn’t break his eyes away from the lifeless body swimming in a spreading pool of red. He did that. He smashed that through man’s skull with a pipe. He killed him. Jesus Christ. He– He deserved it. Right? He deserved it. He deserved it. Look at Ranboo, he–
“Ranboo?” Sneeg asked again, finally breaking his trance.
They did not look good.
“Woah, woah woah woah!” Sneeg rushed over. “Hey. Hey!” The pit in his stomach grew larger, his speech evolving into shouts. His legs moved in autopilot. He grabbed Ranboo by the arms and shook him. “You’re alive, right? Come on, man. I don’t want to do this.” Sneeg cared so much. He couldn’t remember why. Ranboo was alive. He had to be. He couldn’t handle it if he wasn’t okay. “You’re okay, come on. Please, come on. We gotta leave. You gotta come with me.”
Ranboo hung there, limp, their mask, which cut into their nose bridge and cheeks, pressed against the metal frame of the box. The box remained open though. Sneeg stopped it from closing. It was open. Ranboo should be fine. Why didn’t Ranboo look fine? Why were his eyes shut? Was he breathing? Sneeg couldn't tell. Was his heart beating? He couldn't tell that either. No no no no no.
Sneeg turned his attention to the restraints. Everywhere a wire ran a trail of charred fabric and burnt skin followed. The electrical scars traced up their wrists, some on their neck, and Sneeg could only imagine what was conducted to their face through the metal of Ranboo’s mask.
“Come on, we’re so close. Come on!” Sneeg shook him, firmer than before. “Stop pretending to be Jesus— or whatever! You can’t stay up there!”
No response.
“He’s just in shock,” Sneeg stepped back. “He’s fine. He’s fine– I need to get him down.” He turned back towards the panel. Hetch’s blood seeped beneath it. Sneeg fought off nausea. He stumbled towards the body, head spinning, heart pounding so loud in his ears he thought it might deafen him. He needed scissors or… something. He breathed. Just needed something sharp. He had to get Ranboo down. Ranboo was fine. He just needed to get him down.
Sneeg turned the corner. He yelped at the sight of the corpse a second time. Hetch’s knife lay in his twitching hand. Sneeg sank at his knees. His hand trembled. He reached for the knife, its blade stained with crimson, and took it by the handle. His eyes surveyed the corpse, drifting across the lifeless, broken features. He took a step back. Then another. He forced himself to walk back to Ranboo. He couldn’t run.
Everything felt mechanical and methodical. His whole body seemed to stiffen. There were dozens of people in the room with Sneeg but only he was moving. Hetch’s presence, though deceased, loomed over him like a ghost. He must’ve short-circuited every machine in the mall because not even the electrical hum of generators and stage lights remained to fill the empty silence. He missed it. Somehow he missed it.
Sneeg made his way back to Ranboo. They hadn’t moved. Dread pumped through Sneeg’s heart and it trudged inside him like thick, infectious ink.
He kept himself going motion after motion. He went for the restraints around the kids’ waist first and untied what he could. Some of the rope, having been burnt, frayed around the edges which helped a little. Sneeg sawed through the rest with the knife. Ranboo still didn’t move.
Sneeg cut through the binds around their ankles, more frantic now. Ranboo’s weight shifted, suspended by his wrists. Sneeg stood. He freed Ranboo’s left arm, supported them with his right, then turned to the right arm, supporting them with his left. He reached for their wrist. He stopped.
They had to be kidding. “No, no come on,” Sneeg muttered, hysterical, “Come on, don’t tell me you did this to them. You’ve gotta be kidding me. Who would… WHY would you do this to them?”
The sick fuck wove wires through the palm of Ranboo’s right hand. It was supposed to be like a stigmata or something wasn’t it? He noticed more wires, too, due to the missing panel of their mask, feeding into Ranboo’s mouth and throat, others digging into their skin. Shit. Sneeg should’ve been more careful before he blew the fucking panel up.
“I’m so sorry,” He shook his head, guilt debilitating. He sliced through the fried rope and wire around their wrist but left the remaining embedded in their hand. Those in his face would have to stay too. He knew it must hurt but it was too dangerous to take out now. They would need something to stop the bleeding. Medicine too, and something to clean it.
Sneeg’s hand, shaking and functioning only in unsteady, abrupt movements now, slipped up. He pulled at the wires in Ranboo’s hand. Ranboo flinched. “Sorry,” Sneeg jumped back. No. No stopping now. He sawed quicker, too focused to notice their stirring. He pierced colorful wire coating and exposed conductive metal until the kid’s wrist was free.
Sneeg managed to rest Ranboo against his shoulder and cautiously guide their head down through the gap in the box without triggering the mechanism. Thank god.
Sneeg stumbled back then, holding Ranboo to his chest, and untensed his muscles. The stress subsided, even if just a little. He let himself breathe for a minute. He was allowed a minute. He held the kid safe and let his shoulders drop.
He hadn’t realized how exhausted his body was. When did he start crying? Was it selfish to ask for another minute to rest? He needed just a little longer. Sneeg shut his eyes, blocking out the mall, the employees, the dead man behind him. It might’ve been a little longer than a minute that he stood there.
But it was long enough for Ranboo to come back to life.
He shook off a pounding headache to find Sneeg behind his hazy vision. He blinked, nearly slipping back into unconsciousness. His eyesight cleared a little more.
Emotion overwhelmed Ranboo. He threw his arms around a startled Sneeg, squeezing him, gripping the back of his hoodie so tightly it hurt even his uninjured hand. It took all of his energy. He trembled like a leaf. His legs failed him. His body ached from the punches, the electrical shocks, the cuts, the struggles against chairs he’d been tied to, and the fighting, the exhausting fighting to survive.
He relied entirely on Sneeg to keep him upright and sobbed, digging his face into his shoulder. Ranboo couldn’t bring himself to speak, no words would form. But, god, there was gratitude. There was love, and hurt, so much hurt, and sadness, and Ranboo was so scared. He wanted to go home. He was so, so, scared. He didn’t want to be alone anymore. He didn’t want to open his eyes. Not after everything he’d seen. Everything he remembered. He was so sorry. He hoped Sneeg understood.
Sneeg blinked his tears away. He understood.
He rubbed Ranboo’s back with his hand, rocking a little. “Hey, it’s okay. We’re good now. We’re good.”
He felt Ranboo give a slow nod. Sneeg’s hoodie softened the sound of their sobbing.
…
“Hey.”
Sneeg paused.
“Ranboo?”
…Hm?
Ranboo slowly lifted his head to meet Sneeg’s eyes.
No wired gate stood between them this time.
“Remember?”
Ranboo stared at him, a little frightened.
…
“I told you I’d come back for you.”
Recognition flashed across Ranboo’s face.
“I’m not gonna lie to you, dumbass,” Sneeg grinned.
The panic in Ranboo’s eyes dissolved into a smile. He couldn’t help it. His shoulders fell, his expression softening. He laughed at Sneeg’s lighthearted inflection and dropped his head back on to his shoulder.
Sneeg’s tired laughter melted into sobbing. He hugged his friend a little tighter until they were ready for the light of exit signs to guide them home.