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His sleep schedule had been shredded. Reduced to a pile of scraps you could use for paper machè.
He felt like paper machè sometimes. Something that'd been torn to bits, then reassembled to create something new.
It was a reality that he'd come to loathe. A reality he was already sick of. Living in a shadow. The Lord of this dark world, reduced to a splatter of paint on the floor. Once the most important being there was, now nobody. Nothing.
This new form was almost a constant reminder of how far he had sunk. His structure, his strength, all stripped from him.
That first week had been the hardest. Scraping by in a body he wasn't used to, that he didn't know how to work. This pathetic, tiny body.
If you could even call it that, of course.
It had no structure, no shape. Just a blob. A mush of data jumbled together after being spat out of its tape. Unreadable static.
Not even his head was his own. The one thing that gave him any sort of form to go off of was temporary. Easily broken.
He detested it. Detested his lack of power, detested his lack of resources. Detested the constant pang of starvation, and the chill of sleeping with nothing but a few newspapers to shield him from the cold.
So many new experiences. He'd never been left out in the cold for so long before. Never felt what it was like to be so hungry that it hurt. Never went turned in for the night without any blankets, without a bed. His nice cushy bed, with the thick quilted bedding.
He'd never gone this long without putting on a show.
Never gone this long without seeing his family.
Now here he was. Reduced to a little bucket of sludge who needed to sneak and steal to survive.
Waiting.
Endlessly waiting.
Waiting for the day Spamton finally came back, and put everything right.
Lanino and Elnina were gone. Left to petrify the moment He'd been ejected. Their statues, left abandoned in the snow alongside many others.
Mike had cut their contract when Tenna failed to keep up his end of the bargain. His phone wouldn't work again after their final call.
And anyone else?
Brainwashed. A herd of sheep who believed the words of a green wolf in shepherds clothing.
Spamton had just barely missed the whole thing. You see, just four days before the disaster struck, he had gone on a business trip across Dark Worlds. Pretty bad timing, eh?
Spamton was the only one left who could help him.
Tenna was the the most powerful being in TV World. Their all powerful Lord. And here he was, left desperately holding out hope that an Addison would be the one to save his hide.
How the mighty have fallen.
With all this on his mind, it was… getting hard to ignore.
As the days creeped by, as Tenna found himself growing more and more weary of this new routine. It rolled around in the back of these borrowed minds.
The thought.
The memory.
Months and months ago, before the deal. Before the views skyrocketed and TV Time topped the charts. Before Spamton had joined the stage alongside him.
The Addison had wandered up to him, this worried look in his eye.
And he had given a warning.
He had said it quite simply then. That Mike had told him something. Something dire.
If they were to sign this deal into effect, and begin truly working together, something bad could happen.
That it would happen.
Tenna had brushed it off at the time. He had faith in not only Spamton, but himself.
Whatever happened, he could take care of it! He was the Lord of Screens, after all! If some awful plot twist was introduced, he could retcon it! Make this story work better for them! For both of them!
They had done so well for so long. Tenna had felt so sure they were in the clear.
Now look at him.
This was it, wasn't it?
This was the bad thing that was meant to happen.
Tenna had been so confident in his own abilities, he never expected the bad thing would ever happen to him. He had always assumed- as horrible as this was to say- that he'd get off scott-free, and Spamton would be the one to get burned. Spamton would be the one who needed saving. Not Tenna.
After all, he was just an Addison. Spam was his best friend, but.... Tenna couldn't deny there were thousands like him out there, across the Dark Worlds.
But there was only one Mr. Ant Tenna.
Atleast.... there had been.
The longer time stretched on, the more the thought grazed his mind. As he chewed open cold cans of stolen soup with his teeth, or endured cold words and violence that broke him down a little bit more each day.
As he snuck through passageways and any deep crevice he could find, hopelessly searching for his own body.
The thought remained. And every day, it grew louder.
Was it his own fault this was happening to him?
It felt like it, sometimes.
~~~
It had already been a month.
It never should've been a month. It never should've been a week.
It never should've happened at all.
But the implication of that was scarier. If he hadn't escaped to become this... thing, he'd still be in the loop.
That damn 45-minute clipshow.
If there was one thing he tried to avoid, it was thinking about the loop. Because if he thought for even a minute, it'd come for him.
It'd take over his brain. Infiltrate his words. Appear in his dreams.
He couldn't stand it. Even after this long, it still refused to leave him alone. It remained a constant plague on his coils. A ghost of the past, endlessly haunting him. The only way to avoid it, was to talk about something else. Anything else. Even if no one else was there.
But there was.
There was always someone there.
Who?
He didn't know. He didn't think he'd ever truly understand what they were. He just knew there was something. A force beyond the curtain cast on his world. He'd seen it.
When that tail cut through components in his skull, reshaping, rewiring, it was like a new light had been installed in the great above.
A new color had been added to his RGB, and he'd been given 3D glasses.
He'd been turned around, and shown there was an audience behind him all along.
All along, he'd been on a stage.
Of course he was.
Of course he was.
It's what he was made to do, after all.
Now, it was always there. That vague sensation of being watched. That something, someone was keeping an eye on him. No matter the time, no matter the day. They were always there.
His forever audience. Even in the dead of night, they'd be there to watch him.
He knew this from experience.
He knew this, because he could feel them now. Watching. Watching as he slunk across the hallways unbothered.
After slithering his way past the few Zappers still keeping guard at this hour, he was home free.
Everyone else was asleep.
Everyone, save for him, and them. Tenna, and his forever audience.
"God. These worthless gamblers couldn't pick up a mop to save their lives."
The disarray was getting worse, and it was driving Tenna crazy. To watch helplessly as his precious studio, his home, slowly degraded into a sleazy casino. As the stage equipment was stuffed deeper backstage and grew dust. As chatter of lazy employees not doing their job began to fill the halls. Chatter of small talk. Chatter of wisecracks.
Chatter of how nice it was, now that Tenna ran off to go be glooby on his own. Chatter of how things were so much better, now that he wasn't sticking his big nose in everyone's business.
Chatter of how they hoped he never got plugged back in. That things could stay like this.
And that shame would roll in again. That fear that this was his punishment.
That he was deserving of this treatment because he wasn't good enough. That he was as horrible as they said he was.
As this punishment went on, he began to understand. If he learned his lesson, things could go back to normal, couldn't they?
He just needed to wait for the universe to check in on him again. See that he'd understood his wrongs. That he'd be better now. Kinder!
He just needed to wait.
And until then, he listened.
Listened as the staffs words slowly became crueler, more openly disrespectful. With each passing day, they grew braver. More confident a punishment would never come. That they could say whatever they damn well pleased, and Tenna would never come out to yell at them.
A month's a long time.
The words stung harder than he'd like to admit. And still, he kept coming back to hear them. He felt like a child clinging to an abusive parent. Praying for the day he heard words of comfort, knowing in the back of his mind that they'd never come.
He'd spent a lot more time lurking around lately. Curled within a vent, silently listening in on a conversation below.
The cliffs were just so quiet. So empty.
He'd been determined to catch Spamton as soon as he returned, but... he just couldn't take it anymore.
He couldn't stand the quiet. Couldn't stand the endless whistle of wind being his only white noise.
He was so sick of it. So sick of being alone. So sick of chattering away to an audience that never reacted. Never cheered. Never cried. Never booed.
He never expected them to, really. He was sure this presence had been there long before he first noticed. He just hadn't been made privy to its existence until Mike gave him the insight.
It was just.... maddening. That his only company was this.. omnipotent force. This gust in the wind. Always there, yet never involved.
Not like you really conversate with the audience anyway. He was a gameshow host. Not a stand-up comedian.
"Well. I'm meant to be one."
The point was, the isolation was starting to drive Tenna mad. And, a few days ago, he'd had an idea. A stupid one. One that might not even work.
But at this point, there was no such thing as concepts being rejected. Whatever the writers spat out of their little cubicles, it was going on the air.
And this concept? This one was an interesting one, that was for sure.
What if....he could involve himself in those conversations?
What if, he could blend in? Become part of the crew? All without anyone noticing.
He'd have someone to talk to again. Anyone. Even if it was mindless dribble from a stupid Pippins. It was someone who'd respond. Someone who'd engage him in conversation.
Someone to clear the echoes in his head.
Someone to fill out his cold, horribly empty stage.
But how could he pull off such a feat?
No one knew of his identity, despite how many times he had screamed it out into the rafters. Everyone in the studio just saw him as a pest. A rodent who always seemed to outlive the traps they put down. A cockroach who kept scuttling, no matter how many times you stomped on it.
So what if...
What if, the cockroach became something else?
"What if the cockroach got itself a costume department?" Tenna grinned, gazing towards where he imagined a camera would be.
And therein lied the idea. The plot of tonight's segment.
A new character would be added to the cast. Tony, his name would be. Tony V. Like TV!
Tenna had already figured out all the details. All the little intricacies of his character. He was a Pippins. One Kris had just brought home from the Card Kingdom, or... whatever it was called again.
He was a manufacturing error, of course, on account of the dent in the back of his head. But, he never let that slow him down. Fan of vaudeville performances. Had a nasty sweet tooth.
"Also, recovering alcoholic." Tenna added at the end.
Tonight, Tony would be born. From paper masks and stolen clothes, he would emerge into this world. Spat out into the stage with a grin and a bow. The Cathodes new crew would born, officially a party of two.
All he needed was one last bit of the costume. A Pippins poncho. It was the most important part.
That was what brought him to this particular hallway. An area of the studio he rarely visited, even when he was still their boss: Employee sleeping quarters.
Room by room, he'd been eliminating options. Carefully cramming his antennae under doors to scope out the area. The sludges' endless muttering would finally fall silent for a minute or two during these spying sessions. This was a mission that required stealth. James Bond levels of stealth. Double-0-7 type missions. Tenna had to physically restrain himself from humming either of their theme songs as he worked.
Some rooms had no Pippins in them at all. Some had Darkners still awake within.
"Knew I should've done this later." Tenna whispered through his teeth, his words just barely audible as he slid in between rooms.
"If anyone figures out I stole this thing, it could compromise Tony's whole existence!"
With a huff, the slug slid over to the next viable door.
It didn't matter. He'd find a candidate eventually. The situation needed to be perfect. He couldn't let anyone know this event had occurred. No one could ever know he'd been here.
Tenna wedged his antennae under the door again, slowly scanning the room. In the 2 separate, opposing bunks, there was only one inhabitant. A Pippins. Laying motionless in the bottom bunk.
Bingo.
~~~
The door drifted open at an almost painful pace. Slow. Steady. Ensuring it didn't produce a single creak or crack. There were few benefits to his current form. One was stealth.
Before, he had never even imagined hiding away. To sneak under everyone's gaze. Hiding in the dark, having to worm around all the spotlights that pleaded for his return.
Before, he lived for the moments where he was watched. Being seen, putting on a show. It was his lifeblood. Nothing could bring glee to Tenna's face like making someone else smile.
He missed it. Every day, his last performance got further and further away.
The edges of that memory were already blurring. Already fading. It almost felt like he was watching a family member die. Slowly, he was losing the Mr. Tenna that everyone loved. He was becoming someone else.
Being a TV had been his everything. His entire life revolved around that single fact.
So what was he without that?
A thing. A hijacked channel. A cockroach.
A worthless little slug breaking into people's rooms to steal clothing. That's what he was.
The poncho was in sight, its bright red fabric acting as his goalpost in the dark. It hung just behind the door, draped from a coathanger just barely within his reach. If he tried hard enough, of course. If he stretched himself thin enough, if he reached out far enough.
Another perk to his new form. He'd been flexible before, but... this was a whole other degree. He was like a living lump of clay, his only weakness being how little of it he had.
Tenna's 'gloved' fingers (He wasn't actually wearing anything, of course. They just looked like gloves) stretched up and up, towards the waving red flag. He grit his teeth, feeling how they clicked and fit together unevenly. How solid they were in his mouth.
Almost there.
"HEY!"
And Ant nearly jumped out of his skin. Out of his static?
A voice had punctured the night, its harsh tone ringing in the slugs antennae.
Ant quickly drew his hand back, swiveling his oversized head to face the bunkbed. The bed he swore he checked before entering. The bed he was certain only held one, sleeping Pippins.
But the Pippins was awake now. Bolt upright in bed. And the Pippins was pissed. Glaring. Beaming a look of utter disgust and frustration down into the culmination of Tenna's very being.
Bail.
He didn't even need to turn himself around. In one swift motion, Ant swerved backwards. Around the door, and out into the hall. His head effortlessly swiveled on its axis, rotating to face the direction he'd begun fleeing in.
There'd been a ruffle of fabric. A frustrated growl. Tenna hadn't stopped to listen, obviously. Too focused on his escape. Too focused on wiggling across the tiles like a fat little snake, and finding a corner to hide in. A broom closet to crawl into. A vent to tuck himself inside.
He could still salvage this. Couldn't he? He just needed to wait a little bit. Strike again at a later time. Pick a different room.
A hand gripped his antennae and yanked.
Tenna came to a screeching halt, gritting his teeth all over again when pain shot across his head. It was a unique misfortune. He could feel the pain of cracked or scraped plastic, yet no magic could heal those wounds after they were made.
The Pippins had followed him. Now dressed in the poncho he'd tried to steal, the grubby little Die held Tenna hostage by the antennae.
The slug let loose a pathetic whimper, hands quickly shooting to the Pippins fist in an attempt to pull himself free.
"GET OFF!" Ant demanded, his new voice failing to match the sheer power and authority his old one provided. Vocal performances had come so easily before. Now, he had none of that skill left. He had to start all over from scratch, retrain this new voice.
The Pippins scowl remained, unphased by the yell. He gave another yank, and Tenna felt something pop loose in his head. All the sudden, his hearing in the left antennae was shotty. Flickering.
"Oohh no. Not a chance, you little grub." The Pippins shot back.
"You think you just own this place, don't you? Think you can go wherever you please, take whatever you want. Well I'll tell you what, mister. I've had my fill of your shenanigans. And I know everyone else has."
Tenna continued to pry at the hand holding him prisoner. He found a scowl of his own was splitting his screen open, matching and otherwise exceeding the energy of the Pippins.
"Why do YOU even CARE? HUH? All I did was try to take your stupid jacket!"
He had no proper advantage point. While he didn't want to total this CRT, it was starting to feel like his only way out.
"This isn't just about ME! This is about the whole STUDIO! More importantly, about sucking up to Tenna in the easiest way possible. He hates you even more than any of us do, you know that, right?"
And for once, Tenna found himself at a loss for words. 'No he doesn't', he wanted to say. But how could he ever prove that?
The Pippins continued, despite the lack of response.
"I've heard the rumors about where you came from. You're from a tape, aren't you?"
The scowl on Tenna's face faltered. And a grin enveloped the Pippins.
"I knew it. HAH! I KNEW IT! I bet you wanted that to stay a secret huh? You didn't want anyone to find out how easy it is to get RID of you!"
And the Pippins reached for his pocket. Tenna already knew what he was grabbing, and it made him feel like he was gonna hurl.
The blank tapes tiny little windows reflected light from overheads, directly into Tenna's weakening vision. Again, the slug attempted to yank himself free. He lost sight in his left antennae when the tension was pulled taut, and yet he remained undeterred.
"GET OFF! GET OFF ME!!"
What was practically a howl quickly escaped the sludges' teeth, its syllables interlaced with a newfound fear and panic. He couldn't. He couldn't go back in. He couldn't. WOULDN'T.
His first escape had been a fluke. Incompetence had saved him from the hell that lied on those reels. 45 minutes. 28 segments. Over and over again. Hundreds of loops. Thousands of lines being repeated, over and over, with not a soul to watch them.
There were no breaks. There was no backstage. If he stopped the show, he'd be scolded. The memory of his closest friends would turn to him and snear, somehow finding the perfect words to make him feel worthless.
Trapped on a stage, acting out memories he had once cherished close to his heart. Now, he couldn't even bear to think about them.
He couldn't go back.
They'd never give him a chance like that again. Not again. They'd be more careful. They'd store him away where he couldn't fall and break open. They'd stuff him deep in the back of a storage closet and forget where they put him. And he'd sit there collecting dust for a hundred years. Saying his lines in his memory of the studio, while the real thing crumbled into dust without him.
He couldn't go back.
He couldn't go back. He COULDN'T GO BACK.
With another hard yank of his head, Tenna felt wires snap somewhere inside his borrowed casing. A searing hot pain streaked across his skull.
And the entire world disappeared.
~~~
Vision shifted and returned, though his hearing did not. Now staring out of the eye hidden behind his teeth, the only sounds to keep him company were a low, droning hum. His own brain making sound as it worked.
Tenna couldn't care less. He was free. Free to escape. He needed to escape. Flee.
Where was safe? What if he was followed all the way home? What if they jumped him the next time he returned? This horrible die would tell everyone else, no doubt. His weakness.
It was over. It was all over. He'd never be able to step foot in his own studio again. He'd never seen his office again.
Never get back to his body.
Never see Spamton again.
Never see his family again.
They'd find him and they'd catch him and they'd seal him away. And no one would ever find him. Never ever.
The entire world was a blur. Ant hadn't even realized he was already skidding across the floor, barreling down the hallway as fast as he could possibly move.
He didn't know how far he'd gone. Where the Pippins was. He couldn't look back anymore. All Tenna knew, was that he'd never felt this afraid before.
The first open door Ant saw became his escape hatch. For the first time in recent history, he was lost in these hallways. He couldn't remember where he was. No longer could he feel the connection he once had with the building, able to sense every room under his roof. It was all gone. Now, he just had to risk taking a blind chance.
He'd be cornering himself, yes. Cornered in a room he couldn't immediately place, while being hunted down by a Darkner who was determined to get rid of him. But he could hide. He'd gotten so good at hiding!
Just not good at watching where he was going, obviously.
There were a few short steps you had to take to get into this room. Maybe three or four. Steps were not his strong suit, on account of the whole 'lack of legs' thing, mostly. The sheer speed which he was moving at was certainly not making things easier, either.
A cry Tenna could not hear came out inadvertently as the slug tumbled down the short burst of steps, immediately colliding with a pile of stuff sat at the bottom. Something long and metal came down on him first. Something that cracked him in the side of the head, fracturing the plastic casing and sending a sharp, disorienting pain all through his skull.
Fabric fell on him next. Jackets. Dress pants. Fancy ties and bows.
It was dawning on him what type of room he'd lost himself in. The steps felt more familiar now.
The slime dragged himself out from underneath the clothing, catching only a glimpse of the rolling coatrack he'd crashed into. A cracked case was, again, hardly a problem. Tenna did little other than sweep away the chunks of his head he found in his path, just so they wouldn't slow him down.
The costume room was dim. Cluttered from disuse. Lots of things, some of which did not belong here, were scattered across the floor. Boxes and crates stacked up into towers taller than him. More rolling coatracks that created false walls.
Another storage room, that's what this was now. Through the maze of things, the only light was in the form of strips coming from the hallway, from the open door.
Vent. He needed a vent. Tenna scrambled to the nearest wall, beginning to scan up and down for his steel gateway to freedom.
There had to be. There HAD to be.....
There it was. Behind a crate. A barely-visible edge of metal, reflecting a sliver of the hallways glow.
That was okay. He could ditch this head, and wiggle his way inside. He'd be home free to-
The light coming from behind him was snuffed out.
Tenna didn't even get a chance to turn around. Within a second of noticing the shadow cast over his tiny form, there was movement in the corner of his vision. Peaking inbetween two teeth was a large, grapefruit sized, flashing die.
Well that wasn't fair.
He couldn't do magic like that anymore.
The sludge braced, unable to scoot out of the way in time before the dice bomb went off. He never heard the explosion, only saw it. Felt it vibrate the room. Witnessed magical bullets ripping through his body, and sending more blinding pain rippling through him. The gaping holes in his static form closed themselves up immediately. Though, the pain persisted, and the strength of the blast still knocked him off his feet. (In a metaphorical sense, obviously.)
Curse his top-heavy nature. Tenna winced in pain as the plastic on the back of his head crumpled and broke away, smashed when he hit the floor so forcefully. Something else was loose, he could feel it. Rattling around in between wires and circuit boards.
This third eye really was a blessing. Had he not been gifted it, he probably would've been caught in two minutes rather than five.
The cloud of smoke produced by the bomb cleared. A foot stomped down on the sludgy mass meant to be his body, pinning him to the ground. Tenna winced and shivered under the pressure, feeling the metallic tape that made up his insides crinkle and fold uncomfortably. It was like feeling your nerves and organs get squished, and crushed within your skin.
Ant twirled his head around backwards, gazing up at his opponent with a newfound despair. He reached out for the foot, only for the other to come down on his arm and pin that one too. The options were growing thinner by the second.
As he stared up at the Pippins that was officially holding him hostage, Ant's vision was starting to grow fuzzy. Grainy. He hadn't even noticed how badly his disgusting form trembled and shuttered. How tears were pooling in the one, sunken eye that rattled around in the back of his mouth. How his breathing came in rapid, short waves.
In the growing static, all he could see was the tape. Clasped in the Pippins hand. The Pippins who was shouting something at him. Something he couldn't hear.
All he could see was the tape.
The Die paused for a moment. Then, he scowled.
He leaned in, seeming to demand something. Maybe a response. Tenna couldn't hear it.
All he could hear was the hum of his own static. All he could feel was his back, crushed uncomfortably thin against the cold tile. The loose components rattling around in his shivering head. All he could see was the buzz of static slowly overtaking his sights.
All he could see was the tape.
Rather than respond to the mystery demand, Tenna grabbed for the Pippins wrist. The wrist of the hand holding the tape.
Maybe if he wasn't such a coward, he could swat the tape out of the other Darkners hands.
If he wasn't so afraid of even touching the thing.
If he wasn't afraid that even grazing his finger against the plastic would be enough to pull him back in.
If he hadn't been such a coward, he probably would've been able to get out of this mess.
Instead, Tenna found his own wrist being grabbed. Pried off of the Pippins and held prisoner. The only thing left to do was writhe around like a pathetic, worthless worm on a hook.
'LET ME GO! LET ME GO!' Tenna was shouting. 'I'LL LEAVE! I WON'T COME BACK!!'
He had to just hope the words were coming out the way he wanted them too. The only indicator he was actually making noise were vibrations. Shuttering in the back of his mouth, rattling his components in his skull.
The Pippins didn't care. Ignored the pleas for freedom. Instead he took advantage of the opportunity. Took advantage of Tenna yelling, which just so happened to leave his mouth nice and wide open for the tape.
Things happened fast. The only thing Tenna really recalled was the horrifying sensation of that hard, textured plastic grazing his teeth.
Then, his fist slammed hard into the side of the Dies face.
All the sudden, the pressure holding him prisoner was gone. All of a sudden, he was free. The Pippins stumbled back, probably cursing the sludge out for the attack.
The tape was gone. For a moment Tenna found himself running his thin, flat tongue along the inside of his mouth to make sure it wasn't in there somehow. It was only a second later he caught sight of the thing laying on the floor in between them.
As Ant scrambled to his... well. Into an upright position, he began to officially process what had exactly played out.
Both of his hands were restrained. How did....?
Gazing down, the slug was gifted with a particular sight. Three opened palms greeted him.
...Of course. Yes, of course. He really was just a lump of clay.
Of course he would be able to make more limbs. Sometimes it was easy to forget how... structureless he was now.
There was no time to contemplate his existence. Red hands were reaching for him again. Tenna gazed up just in time to see the vengeful Pippins grip him by the head, and slammed him into the side of a desk. The jolt left a few things clattering to the ground around them. A pen donked Tenna in the head, then joined the rest of the mess on the floor.
This lunatic just wasn't going to let it go, was he??
The Pippins was yelling again. Gripping him by the tie, yanking him around. His free hand was reaching for that horrible, horrible tape again.
He couldn't take any more of this.
Through his increasingly worsening vision, there was a glint in Tenna's peripheral. He gazed down, catching the fuzzy shape of scissors on the floor beside him.
The other Darkner swung an arm out, snatching Tenna's wrist once again. The arm closest to the scissors.
Thoughts of the third arm that grew from his side skipped across Tenna's mindfield. With his lone eye wide and frantically flicking about, a new, forth limb protruded from his torso and molded itself into a hand. It launched itself outwards, gripping onto metal handles just as the tape returned to the scene. The blurry rectangle came at him again.
He couldn't go back.
WOULDN'T.
The scissors swung wildly. Shooting forward like a mini spear at first. While it was getting harder and harder to see, he could feel when contact was made. Catch the outline of a hand he had slashed.
Blind, careless swings. Hands grabbed at clothing through snow.
His target hit the ground, and mushy limbs came up to hold the attacker hostage. A hundred hands. A thousand hands. Pinning him to the floor.
The stage was flipped on its head. A twist. A scene that'd have the audience on the edge of their seats, unable to peel their eyes away from the screen.
Hands gripped at his own. Clawing, trying to squirm away.
He had not been shown any sort of mercy.
Why did his opponent expect anything other than the same treatment?
Wasn't that just fair?
He never wanted to fight. The Pippins was the one who pushed for this to be taken so far. Not him.
He just wanted this to stop.
This whole scene, he wanted it to end. He wanted the director to yell 'CUT!', and watch as the rest of the crew came out of the dark to prepare the set for the next segment. To shake hands with this Pippins, and compliment him on his performance in this scene. And the Pippins could smile and pat him on the back, offer words of respect for writing such an incredible sequence.
He wanted to crawl back into his own body, and see Spamton sitting in a directors chair next to him. To share a coffee break with Lanino and Elnina in between recording sessions.
He wanted to gaze out through the barrier between the Light and Dark, and see his family's smiling faces gaze back at him.
He wanted….
…. To take a nap.
~~~
The hands finally stopped fighting back. The form he was perched on was.... still.
It was only now that Tenna began to notice how... exhausted, he was. How he panted and heaved, his entire sludgy body trembling. Wobbling incoherently, like a tape that struggled to track.
How his head felt…. Pressurized. Tense. There was this whining, coming from… somewhere in his skull. Gave off so much static charge.
It was beginning to come down now, though. Leaving Tenna to focus on everything else.
His hand was gripped so tightly around one half of the scissors handle. Gradually he loosened his fingers, one by one. The scissor stayed in place. Quite firmly, actually. Like it was.....
.... Embedded in something.
To him, it was REALLY feeling like he’d just brought it down on the Pippins chest, blade first.
For a moment there was panic. Still lost in an endless sea of snow, he had no idea if he'd actually hurt the other Darkner or not.
He- he couldn't have! There wasn't any squirming underneath him. Nothing trying to grab at his wrists to stop the attack.
Now that he really thought about it... the thing he was sitting on didn't even really feel like a Pippins either. It felt like.... sand.
A.. sandbag?
A sandbag had no purpose in a costume room. That was for the stage. For the curtains.
It felt like the room was spinning. He felt lightheaded.
…Was he even in the same room? Where was the....?
What happened?
The black spot in his memory provided no answers. Only a heavy pit that formed in his chest. A cold tremble that traveled up his arms and into his fingers.
Tenna leaned forward, feeling the ground for the scissors. As his fingers caught the loop of the blade, his vision was slowly beginning to clear up. He could see a grey outline of the weapon, barely visible amongst something... black. Whatever he was sat on, it was horribly dark.
Tenna gave the scissors a tug, feeling as they pulled loose from the floor itself. He couldn't even be bothered to look at the thing for long, eventually tossing it off to the side.
Color began to flicker back into Tenna's vision.
Red.
There was red.
The black was mostly red, as it turned out. Hesitantly the TV reached forward again, trying to feel out a shape through the fuzz. No... this was all just... a pile of dust. Spilling from something fabric. Fine in his hands. Produced red clouds if you disrupted it even slightly. Each cloud of dust immediately clung to his hands, only adding to the coating already present.
.....Where....?
As Tenna's vision continued to improve, he could make out better shapes. Now, he could distinguish that not all the red was the same dust. No, some of it was fabric. Fabric he'd sworn was only black before.
....A red and black, triangular bit of fabric.
All of a sudden, Tenna wanted to puke.
No. No, no. No. It couldn't be. That COULDN'T be it. It COULDN'T! He couldn't see very well, that was just his brain making things up! Filling in blanks!
The sludge shivered and shook, his breathing picking up once more. Ant gazed down at his hands. Red. All four of them, coated in red dust. Dust all over him. Sticking to his static, to his tie.
He was probably breathing it in right now.
No... no, no! That's-
Tenna scrambled off of the pile, now able to make out the shape better.
A pile of red dust, spilt on the floor in the shape of a Pippins. The poncho, the one he'd come here to steal, had it's front slashed apart. Maybe half a dozen, scissor-sized holes.
Dead.
Dead. He was Dead.
He was Dead. And Tenna killed him.
Tenna killed him.
He killed him.
He...
No, it couldn't. It-
He couldn't think. Couldn't process the sight before him.
The first thing he did was writhe around. Frantic. Desperate to remove the thick film of dust that clung to him.
It just… wouldn't go away. The static charge was too potent. Too intense. And it only seemed to be getting worse the more he tried.
All four hands works desperately, muted whimpers leaving his teeth as Tenna dusted himself off, over and over again. As he shook wildly like a dog, hopelessly trying to cleanse himself of the mess.
No matter what he did, it wouldn't come off. It just shifted to different spots. To his casing, onto his screen. Onto his teeth.
He could imagine the dust curling its way into his casings vents. Its ports, its plugs. Through the large cracks in the plastic. Like an invasive parasite, clinging to every little bit of his innards.
He wanted to hurl at the thought. He wanted to cry, scream. Claw his face open, and shake all the dust out.
It wouldn't go away.
It was everywhere.
Tenna wished he still couldn't see.
Wished he didn't know.
Wished he hadn't come back into the studio tonight.
Wished he had sat and frozen on that cliffside tonight instead.
This was a nightmare. No, it had to be a nightmare. Right? That was the cliché! This was his comeuppance for being so violent towards them all. He was being shown what could happen if he doesn't cut it out soon! He was being shown that he HADN'T learned his lesson yet. That he needed to try harder!!
That was it, wasn't it??
…
But the scene wouldn't end.
The dust wouldn't go away.
This was certainly a cliché,
But that wasn't the right one.
This was the one where a character can't handle something, and wishes for it to be a nightmare. They beg and plead for someone to wake them, like he was doing now.
They can't wake up, because they're already awake.
Tenna had crumbled without even realizing it. He knew he'd begun crying though.
A disgusting, vile, sniveling mess. Sobbing next to the corpse of the man he'd just killed.
What did HE have to cry about, huh?!? He wasn't the one who was DEAD!!
Didn't even know the guy. Didn't even know his name.
He probably had friends.
People who'd miss him. Who'd wonder where he went.
…Why did he even CARE?
It was a Pippins! A stupid Pippins! There were a million of these suckers all across the studio! All they ever did was cause him trouble! Why did he care?
Why?
Why couldn't he stop crying about it?
Why was he digging his claws into his own head over it?
Why did he feel so horrible? So disgusting? So shameful?
Why was he overwhelmed with the urge to go back just five minutes, so he could apologize to the other Darkner?
It wasn’t fair. Not at all.
All he wanted was someone to talk to. To stop spending every single day alone, rotting on a cliffside. To pretend, just for a little bit. Pretend he was something else. Someone that bore value again.
And look where that got him.
It got someone killed.
Why? WHY?! Why was this new life so UNFAIR? Why couldn't he just have this ONE THING?!?
~~~
He waited.
Tenna sat there and waited.
Waited through stifled sobs and wails as he cowered on the floor, still slathered in red dust like the pathetic parasite he was.
Waited for someone to find them. Find him. Him, and the horrible, horrible sin he'd committed. To come searching for the room that had screamed and cried, and gaze in horror at this gruesome murder.
He deserved it now.
To be locked away. Sealed in a tape. That'd be his punishment when they found him. He'd be put back in a tape, and left at the bottom of the cliffs where no one would ever find him. Forced to replay the scene that had him committed in the first place.
When they found him, they'd put him away.
When they found him....
When they found him...............
.......When they found him.......
.....No one was coming.
While he obviously couldn't hear anything, but he could still see the doorframe from this angle.
Five minutes.
Ten minutes.
Twenty.
No one ever poked their head in.
No one ever gasped in horror.
No one heard.
It was just him now.
He was his own judge. His own defense, his own juror.
This room would be his courtroom. No one leaves until a charge is decided on.
And....
No, that wasn't true.
He wasn't alone.
There were witnesses to this whole thing. They'd been here, watching the whole time.
They were always here. ALWAYS watching. That was their whole gimmick! And, God, Tenna had forgotten about them! At the most important point in the story, he'd forgotten!
They had watched him do it.
His forever audience.
And Tenna sobbed again.
They had to understand, didn't they? Couldn't they??
'It was an accident...!!' Tenna was sobbing out into the empty, dusty air. Praying his words were understandable.
‘It was an accident!! You know what, right??
I wouldn't...! I'd never....!’
It...
It wasn't like he MEANT for this to happen! It couldn't be HIS fault if that was the case, right?!
The former host's mind stewed with a thousand thoughts. A thousand pleas for someone to fix this. Any excuse he could use to pluck out the thousands of guilty needles stinging his back. To make this not his fault. It COULDN'T be his fault.
And in his desperate, ever-consuming guilt and madness,
Tenna began to consider something.
Over and over again, he'd heard it.
When he demanded for them to listen. To treat him with the respect he deserved. When he insisted on his own identity.
It was always the same response.
'You're not Tenna.'
For the first week, that phrase infuriated him. 'How could they be this stupid?' He thought. 'How could they not recognize me?'
Eventually, he came to understand. Of course no one thought he was Tenna. He didn't look like Tenna, didn't sound like Tenna. Didn't have anything Tenna had.
Reluctantly, he came to terms with this. Then eventually, he had embraced the role thrust upon him. Playing this new character the crew had created. The hijacked channel.
But now....
He considered it further.
Maybe.... maybe this wasn't just a role.
Maybe..... they were right?
There was so much blur in between his old life and his new one. The day he went in, even the weeks before that, they were hazy. Blurred in his mind. Monochrome, almost.
The transition had been agonizing, mind-numbing. To spend so, so long in that stupid tape. In that....recording.
Maybe that's what he was.
A recording of Tenna.
A memory of a man who didn't really exist anymore. A VHS brought to life though unconventional means. The last spark of Tenna's energy striking a tape, and gifting it with thought.
As the puddle sat curled on the floor, stained red and trembling with sobs he could not hear, the idea sounded grand. A concept worth pitching to the great beyond.
Tenna would never kill. He couldn't hurt a fly. It was impossible! He couldn't even bring himself to SWEAR on air, let alone KILL! It was forbidden by the censors! Killing someone made for horrible TV! It would soil his image! Ruin his reputation!
That's why Tenna's life story seemed to grow more fuzzy every day. Why he had felt the claws of madness slowly digging into his brain, trying to pull the two apart. Why life felt so… wrong, all the time. Like he was still trapped in a horrible nightmare.
He had felt it before.
The sign that something was wrong.
That something was… off.
Just a day earlier. The hours he'd spent sitting alone on the cliffs. Staring at that tunnel.
He had felt it then. His mind slipping. His sense of self deteriorating. Reality had begun to blur around him. For a moment it was like his mind had detached itself from his body, and just realized for the first time that he existed outside of his own perception of himself. Like he'd become part of the audience, for just a moment.
Now he understood.
Now it was all clear.
That was the explanation.
That's why he didn't have to worry about any of it.
The guilt.
The remorse.
Tenna bore no shame. He didn't have to.
‘No…. I… I understand….!’ The static hiccuped, feeling as his words warbled out in a state that was probably barely coherent.
‘Tenna…..Tenna… wouldn't do this…! An…. He'd…..’
In between the sobbing, the sludge could feel laughs beginning to jolt out of him. His amorphous body tingled with a thousand spikes and spears that poked out from his insides. A potato sack full of knives. Writhing, squirming blades.
Yes, yes! Of course! It was so obvious!
‘That's why...! That's... I'm...I'm not him…! I'm.. NOT… TENNA…!’
That's why no one recognized him. Why he barely resembled the man. Lacked his natural talent.
He didn't have those things anymore because he never had them.
He was just a cheap fabrication.
A pirated copy.
A bootleg.
Analog signals melted into a blob that thought it was Tenna.
Until now.
His memories were wrong. Tenna’s memories were wrong.
For years, He- Tenna- had been under the assumption that a blank tape would pull the very culmination of his being from his body. That it'd eject him, and leave him temporarily trapped in a dream-like state. Looping a clipshow of happy moments until someone returned him to his physical form.
But that wasn't so.
A VHS tape copies. Clones. That's all it did.
That Pippins thought the same thing Tenna thought, but he too was wrong.
He could imagine it now. That rotten little diceboy shoving the tape through Tennas teeth and hitting record, only to watch in embarrassment as the tape copied over the Lords memories, and spat itself back out.
Maybe then, he grew desperate. Tossed the tape aside, and turned violent.
Maybe he did something bad. Severed a cord. Cracked his screen. Broke open the bit that held his heart, and watched as it all bled out onto the carpet.
Onto the tape.
That was it.
That was his origin story. The thing that made him different from any other tape.
Memories of a Darkner, brought to life by the last bits of that very beings magic as it left his body.
Maybe someone else would've been devastated by such a revelation. To have your identity crumble into dust at your feet.
But for the slug, it was an utter relief.
What a load taken off of Tenna's shoulders!
.....
He knew.
Deep down, in the depths of his static. He knew.
This was just playing pretend again.
Playing a role.
Embracing the scene and really living in it.
He knew he was making up stuff. Improv. Coming up with anything to make this whole thing hurt just a little bit less.
But.... it just felt... so much better. To pretend. To be someone else.
If he wasn't Tenna, it didn't matter what he did. It didn't matter that he was rolling around in the Pippins dust scattered across the floor. It didn't matter that he'd begun clawing at the floor mindlessly, manically digging his nails into the tile as he did so.
Who CARES what the disgusting, glooby slime did?? No one cares about THAT THING ANYWAY!!
No one expects anything out of the glooby slime. No one would be surprised if they found out the glooby slime killed someone.
No one would look at him with shame and betrayal in their eyes. No one would be afraid of him.
No one would see him as a big, heartless, hulking monster.
Cause he was small.
Tiny.
Worthless.
A pest.
He was a cockroach scuttering across the hallway.
And it didn't matter what the cockroach did.
All he could do was laugh.
So he did.
He laughed and laughed, like this was the funniest thing in the whole world.
He laughed until it hurt, laughed until his throat was raspy and staticy.
Laughed until he couldn't keep himself together anymore.
Laughed until his trembling hands melted into a static puddle on the floor with the rest of him.
What a joke! What a gag! It was the oldest trick in the book!
It didn't matter.
It didn't matter!
It didn't. Matter!
It didn't matter, because Tenna didn't do it!!
~
These days, life as a Zapper was easy.
There was only one guy to look out for anymore. One, easy to manage guy. Catch him sneaking around, you smash his face in. Toss him back out into the snow.
Course, everyone knew by now it was just routine. Didn't do nothin other than deter the little guy for a bit.
For Caesar C. Zapper (Known as CC to their friends), they weren't quite sure what the mysterious slug wanted, or where it came from.
But they didn't think about it too hard. They just did their job.
Today was the same as any other day. Guard the western backdoor. Make sure nothing tries to ooze out of the bottom. Sit here in this dreary hallway until someone came to swap positions.
....Boring...
At least before The Great Gloobing, the walls were fun to watch. Those sparkly stars, gliding down the wallpaper like drops of rain. You could always tell what part of the building Tenna was in, because the shapes in the paper seemed to warp slightly in the general direction. Like he was a great big magnet.
These days the walls were a dull, dreary greenish-grey. The wallpaper didn't move, and the stars had long since faded away. The overhead lights had gone from a warm yellow, to a cold and empty white. The floor tiles had lost their shine, and become a muted checkerboard.
It was dull. Dreary.
Usually there was at least a bit of fun found in the chase, however their little sludgy pest hadn't made an appearance in a week. Perhaps he'd finally given up?
Not for CC to worry themselves about.
The only enjoyable thing about guarding this door was the echo. The sounds of Shadowguy music bouncing off the walls, and curling up at the end of this hallway. That was the most entertainment you got around this place. Music, gaming, or gambling. Those were your options. Personally, CC preferred the music.
The Zapper had been enjoying a particularly long saxophone solo when it happened. A knock at the door behind them. That... was odd. Employees didn't knock. Everyone had keys. And the only person who didn't have keys never knocked either.
How.... perplexing.
Naturally, CC immediately opened the door, and poked their head outside.
Standing out in the billowing snow was.... a Pippins. A strange looking one at that. One they didn't immediately recognize. CC struggled to place what exactly was off about this guy, but it was certainly..... something.
"Yeh? Can I help ya?" The Zapper called out into the wind, speaking just loud enough to be heard.
The Pippins looked a bit nervous. Tired, too. Bit beaten down. Yet, he cleared his throat and began speaking.
"Yeah- Hey, listen. I'm from the Card Kingdom. K- The Lightners just dropped me off here.... think I might've been left behind."
Oh yes, this little Pippins truly was unlike anything they had here. Somehow, the Darkners tone tugged at CCs heartstrings in a way they didn't think was possible. There was a strange... accent, that was also familiar. It reminded them of.... Soap operas. Back when those were still filmed on the daily.
"Daww, gee kid. Youse ain't gotta ask twice!" Without even thinking, the Zapper opened the door wider, allowing the Pippins to almost... slither his way inside.
"Oh, thank ya kindly, bud. Really! Anything you fellas need me to do, I'll do it!" The die took CCs big mitt in his own, giving them a vigorous handshake. He gave a tremendous, toothy grin as he did.
"Don' mention it, eh? Course, I'm not da big boss 'round dese parts. Youse gotta go see Big Mike about dat. He's da one runnin' dis whole place."
The Pippins nodded at this information, releasing CCs hand and sliding back a little bit.
"Right! Of course! So, where can I find this Mike fellow then? Is his office nearby, or-?"
As the newcomer turned to gaze down the hall, Ceasar finally caught it. The thing that had been wrong about this little guy, the thing that had set them off the moment they first laid eyes on him.
He had a dent in the back of his head!
Mystery solved. He seemed like a perfectly fine fellow, despite the deformity.
"Well... I'm supposta be guardin' this door right now, but I suppose I can bring ya over."
Just like that, the Zapper hopped away from their post. They offered a wave of their hand, cuing the Pippins to follow along.
"If Mike gets all uppity 'bout youse comin' in here without his permission, youse can just tell'em I sentcha, alright?"
The Die nodded, keeping up with their pace white easily. Usually Pippins were very jumpy in nature, however this one just glided along, like a little cloaked vampire.
"Sure! And your name would be...?"
"Ceasar. But all my friends jus' call me CC. You are...?"
The Pippins grinned a toothy grin.
"Tony V. But all my friends just call me Tony."