Chapter Text
Despite how comfortable the bed was — tailor-made within minutes of his arrival — he couldn't manage to fall asleep. Maybe it was the pillow, and how it was always the right temperature regardless of how long his head rested on it. Or, perhaps it was the mattress, upon which he could spend a week in the same position and never grow sore. Could it be the blanket that never needed adjustment, and that sat exactly how he preferred as soon as it covered him?
No, those never bothered him— How could they? It must have been the light. 'It's too dark', he reasoned, but before he could stand to turn on the desk lamp, its crescent eyes and smile began to glow. He audibly shuddered; Those little black pupils always seemed to stalk him.
"Can you, like– Not… Do that? It's so creepy." He murmured, glaring at the door and gesturing to the grinning light.
The soft amber glow receded, a tiny "click" announcing the return to darkness.
He rolled onto his back and stared up at the shadowed ceiling, watching the colourful static dancing around overhead. In the first few months of his stay, the "stars" were either absent or unnoticed. He was so enthralled with the game that he would pass out immediately after touching the bed, exhausted from all the day's activities— All the time spent with new friends. He scowled at the thought as it burned a hole in his chest.
'Can't believe I was stupid enough to call them friends, they're no better than the NPCs.' But even as he formed the rebuttal, a part of him screamed that it wasn't true— He did have friends. 'Yeah, and look how that turned out.'
He thumped his head against the pillow and forced his focus back onto the static. If he let his eyes relax, he could see it forming into subtle chromatic shapes; Sometimes recognisable, sometimes nonsense. A bouquet of yellow lilies, a three-headed dog, a grazing deer, a white raven, a treehouse, six rats that share a tail, a moth, a brown mushroom dripping black, an hourglass.
It truly was beautiful.
He wondered if the others could see it too— Not that he'd ever ask them such a stupid question. 'Of course they can see it, it's gotta be from the headset or something. It's old tech— It probably can't render low light very well.'
He would never admit to the others that he'd spent several long, painful hours trying to pull the stupid thing off over the years. Come to think of it, the first time he tried was also the first time he saw the "stars". It was a damn good thing that their rubbery cartoon bodies couldn't get damaged, or he would've had to break into Queenie's old room to "borrow" her makeup. She probably had a decent shade match; Lilac would've looked nice on her.
He shakes his head to clear away the thought, closing his eyes and releasing a drawn-out sigh that morphs into a quiet groan. 'Just sleep already. How long can this possibly take?!'
Longer than it took you to drive her away, probably. That, you managed to do in record time!
"Oh my god, I give up!" He stands and stomps over to the light switch. "Whatever." He flicks it on, squinting from the sudden illumination. "Doesn't matter that it's been days, it's not like I really need it anyway."
He flops down into the chunky yellow chair, head resting on his hands, folded on the marred salmon-red desk. His eyes drift past the eerie lamp, to the plain purple walls… Except, they weren't really plain. Small, ragged patches of white, in vague rectangular outlines, littered the smooth surface, the only remnants of dozens of photos and posters long since discarded.
At the time, he thought it was a brilliant idea to destroy them— Surely that would help him move on faster, right? But the holes just hurt worse. He hated those damn holes; The awful feeling they gave made him want to crawl out of his skin. When he looked at those jagged white clusters, all he saw were eyes— Swirling, unblinking, hateful eyes. She had gotten impressively close with her guesses.
He looked back at the lamp. It was a perfect copy of him, albeit with more childlike proportions, standing in a confident pose with a short golden pull-cord dangling from the tip of its left ear. Even over its shoulder, those creepy yellow eyes still watched him. He matched its gaze for a long while, a familiar ache settling in at the nape of his neck, behind his eyes, and in the back of his throat.
The beginnings of a migraine, he soon realised, and found himself wishing for the umpteenth time that he could dull the looming misery somehow.
It wasn't for a lack of effort. As a new player, he had asked Caine on several occasions if there was anything that could be done for them. The first time yielded nothing but a confused stare, the second, a prolonged "Uhhh" before disappearing, and on the third, Caine pulled out a notepad and began to scribble. That one made him cautiously excited, but when the paper was torn out and handed to him, it held only a frowny face and the words 'Sorry, no assets matching that name were found. Please try again later.'
He did try, almost every time they happened, but after… That day… He gave up. It was too embarrassing, and it's not like it had ever turned up anything helpful. Now, the pain was just an annoying roommate to try and ignore, and, not to pat himself on the back, but he'd done a pretty good job of it so far. The adventures helped distract him, sure, and he had a perfect poker face, but what helped most was being in the dark.
'Yes,' he thought, 'That's a good idea.' With that, he closed his eyes again— Forfeiting the staring contest with his little lookalike.
Yeah, you sure have gotten a lot of those lately. He snarled at the voice, face scrunching up. Truly, a stroke of genius to scare away the one person who still tolerates you.
He tugged his already-drooping ears down over his eyes, resting his chin directly on the desk and grumbling.
She's right, you know. You're not the funny one. You're the scared one. Terrified, even.
The stupid lamp smashed against the wall, pieces clattering to the carpet alongside the yellow chair. His arm trembled in the air, still aligned with the large white dent it had just made. He panted heavily and slowly lowered his hand, studying the change. It looked real. He could almost see the plaster flaking away.
When his eyes finally wandered to the floor, they found it empty. Confused, he scoured the patchwork carpet for any sign of the lamp — a screw, a spring, an ear, anything — but it had returned, unaltered, to its rightful place on the desk.
He shouted at the sight, hurling it at a different wall and watching the parts scatter. The head rolled under the bed, an arm tumbled beneath the desk, a leg flew against the door, and the circular gold base embedded into the wall. They all disappeared the moment they stopped wobbling.
He threw it one last time, over his shoulder, and heard glass shatter. A cautious turn to face the impact revealed a fractured full-length mirror, a few jagged pieces now lying on the messy bed. They didn't disappear when the lamp fixed itself again. His left hand lifted the largest one from its resting place on the pillow, catching his partial reflection in the glinting shard.
The colour of his face now matched his clothes, a few stray lines running down the reddened cheeks far glossier than their surroundings. He rubbed them away frantically— He hadn't even noticed the tears falling. He sat on the foot of the bed and tried for several minutes to dry his face, but all he had to show for the effort was a wet hand. Choking on frustrated hiccups, he glared down at the image, willing the fur to regain its original colour.
It looked ridiculous.
He looked ridiculous.
He hated it.
He hated that stupid face, hated how disgustingly pathetic it looked with those big eyes welled up with tears, hated that he didn't have any control over how it twisted with each shaky gasp clawing its way into his aching lungs, hated the pitiful sounds it made when he exhaled. It looked just like that goddamn clone.
"I want you dead!"
He hadn't realised just how tightly he was squeezing the mirror until he let it fall to the floor, little droplets pattering alongside it. It left a biting phantom pressure behind. “Ow, s[boing!]”, he hisses, inspecting the pulsating hand and—
'Oh… Oh shit, I didn't think that was even a part of the code!'
He stares in breathless disbelief at the two wavy crimson lines scored across his shuddering fingers and palm, matching the curves of the fragment he had been gripping. He watches as the wound, deep enough to scratch the bone if he had any, steadily drips with dark red— Witnessing glittering beads splattering against the shard, the carpet, the bed frame.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
'There wasn’t any blood in the last one, how is there..? Is it because we’re not in an adventure? Why does it hurt? They’ve never hurt before, not even when we were fi-… When she went crazy. That was just a nuisance. Why does it hurt?!'
Tap. Tap. Tap.
He could smell the familiar, bitter, metallic tang of the warm liquid. The carpet smudges beneath him, streaking in parallel lines as nostalgia hits him like a freight train. Bike rides, playgrounds, skate parks, untied shoelaces, running just a little too fast, the family cat— What was her name again?
Taptaptap. Tap. Taptap. Tap. Tap.
It was the first real reminder of his humanity that he had gotten in years.
Sure, he’d felt something similar with Ri— when he had friends, but he couldn't take that risk again. He couldn't let anyone in, not again. Not when they're all bound to abstract someday, and he was entirely powerless to stop it.
But this…
This, he could control.
Frightening as it was to feel alive again, he didn't want to lose this feeling either. It was so warm, so comforting, so secure— Like a blanket fresh out of the dryer. He hadn't realised just how much he yearned to be a person again. His heart ached for it, his very soul begged to cling on to that missing piece, and—
The thought that this could be just a fluke occurred.
The monstrous idea of him never being able to experience this euphoria again.
He finds his eyes glued to the reflective surface, the image revealing dark pupils so dilated that they had nearly eclipsed the yellow. Temptation found his right hand twitching on his lap, mouth quivering, heart pounding, leg bouncing.
'Would it happen again if I–'
No.
No— No, what are you thinking? Are you insane? You can’t! What if someone saw? What if Caine saw?! He'd take it away from you! Call you crazy! They'd all laugh at you! They can't know— Can't steal this from you! You have to hide it! Hide it now!!
He hops to his feet and scans the barren room’s perimeter for anything he could use to stop the bleeding, clutching the wounded hand to his chest. Searing cotton adhered itself to the weeping flesh. Desk, chair, lamp, bed, dresser.
'Dresser, there has to be something useful in there!'
He yanks the first of three drawers open, finding it full of identical copies of his current outfit, and reaches for one. It disappears the second he touches it, snapping onto him with a goofy “pop!”, and the empty spot is taken by the set he was wearing before. The only sign of the switch occurring is the dark smear across the top of the asset, and that, too, fades away. He staggers back a few steps, eyes locked on the clothing as though expecting it to leap out at him.
When he’s finally sure it won’t, he turns his attention back to the aching injury, yelping at the sight of an eye bathed in black. He squeezes his bleary eyes shut and his hand into a trembling fist, holding it as far away from his body as possible. As he stands there, shaking like a leaf and waiting for the worst, the air seems to thicken.
Suddenly, it’s become impossible to catch his breath— His chest is on fire, it feels like he’s breathing tar, like the room is spinning, like the floor is rumbling beneath his feet, and he could fall through it at any second—
The terrified one.
His legs give out, and the ground hurries to greet his hip and shoulder. He barely noticed— Could hardly focus on anything beyond the screaming hurricane of thoughts pounding through his skull so fast they overlapped with one another, reverberating so loud they drowned out his rapid wheezing. His entire being quaked with each arrhythmic half-breath.
Now? You’re dying now? Why now? Why only after you remembered how it feels to be human? You'll die alone. What would they think? What would she think? You need to tell her— Need to apologise so she doesn't hate you! She hates you! But, wasn't that what you wanted? You'll die alone. Would you hurt them? Would you want to? Would you care if you did? You'll die alone. Would they scream? Would they cry? Would they laugh? Would they not care at all? You'll die alone. That's what you wanted, wasn't it? You wanted to be forgotten, right? Right?! You'll die alone, you'll die alone, you'll die alone, and you'll like it, and YOU'LL DIE ALONE!! ALONE!! ALONE!! YOU'LL DIE ALONE!! YOU’LL—
He doesn’t care about the hand any more— He needs to block out that horrible noise now. He claws at his ears, pressing them down over his eyes, but it does nothing to stop the flood. You'll die alone! He curls his arms around his head, then tucks them to his chest, then brings his knees up to meet his forehead, but it all had no effect. You'll die alone! His stomach was tying itself in knots, his body was tingling, his head was splitting wide open— Throbbing drumbeats punctuated by corkscrews drilling through the grey matter, armies of bullet ants marching through the holes. She hates you! She hates you! SHE HATES YOU!! He felt the layers of the world shifting out of alignment again, just like they had yesterday. His eyes stole all the moisture from his throat.
YOU'LL DIE ALONE!! YOU'LL DIE ALONE!! YOU'LL DIE ALONE!! ALONE!! ALONE!!
“Stop… Please, make it stop,” He whimpered between sharp gasps. The words sounded more like shivering squeaks than any known language.
Pathetic. What if they saw you like this, huh?
“Please…” That tiny whine could barely be heard by dogs.
You’d be a total laughing stock! Guess we finally know how you could be the funny one.
“P–… P-Pom…” The hell do you think you’re doing?! You don’t want her in here; She’ll just look at you like some poor little bunny with a broken leg! If you’re gonna die, at least do it with some fucking dignity.
He pries an eye open, the plain colour blocks of his shuddering room blurred together in a revolting grey-orange. His veins are filled with acid — he lifts himself onto unwieldy legs. A wave of unbearable nausea crashes over him — he chokes down the bile and yanks the corners of his mouth into a lopsided grin. The ground sways beneath his feet — he shuffles to the broken mirror. Dozens of weary, smudged eyes look at him through the glass — he takes one of them. Trailing vision makes the doorknob jump around — he resolves to apologise to Pomni, no matter the cost.
He shoves the split hand in a pocket to hide the damage, praying it won’t bleed through the fabric, then opens the door and steps past the threshold, keeping a careful eye trained on his footing. Little steps, nice and slow, watch your ankles, feel the ground, check your balance. If anyone asks, you were gonna prank her. He takes a deep breath and corrects his smile while he crosses the hall, releasing all the tension from his ears, shoulders, arms, back, core, and legs. Once he’s finally completed the six-foot trek to her door, he raises his head and—
Two thick, red lines are crossed over the frowning face.
The mask shatters.
He scrambles for the pieces.
“Th-... This is some kinda joke, right?” He laughs nervously, checking his periphery to see if anyone is watching. “I get it. Very clever, Pom-pom!”
He tries the handle, finding it unlocked.
“Pom..?” He peeks through the entry, scanning for signs of the jester, but finding none.
The room beyond is pristine— The bed flawlessly made, oversized baby toys neatly stacked, floor and mirror spotless, ornately framed photos of pleasant moments from all their adventures hanging level on the walls. The same kind of pictures he used to have on his; The ones he rips to shreds as soon as they appear, so they can't hurt him any more.
He approaches the nightstand, drawn to a small golden frame standing beside a digital clock. The polaroid that he couldn't bring himself to damage before discarding.
She kept hers. Kept it on her nightstand. Why? Why would she do that? You were awful to her— Pushed her away. She should hate your guts!
His right eye twitches, ear flicking. He wanted to steal the photo, to destroy it, to spare her from the languishing void of guilt and grief that had plagued him for months upon months— But the longer he stood in the perfect room, the deeper the pit in his stomach sank; The more certain he became that he was too late.
She’s gone…
She's gone, and it's all your fault.
His throat constricts, chest lurches, body shudders, and—
It's all your fault!
He retches, just barely managing to trap the foul surge behind his tongue. The gruelling battle to hold it back leaves his head pounding. With a shaky groan, he lowers the hand that had clapped itself over his mouth.
'Smile. Smile. Smile. Just smile, dammit, someone could see you!'
His twisted face wouldn't budge. The echoes of those horrible thoughts were too loud, and the spasms wracking his body were impossible to ignore. His legs turned to jelly beneath him, and he could hardly keep his eyes open as their lids became magnetic.
She can't be gone. She can't be! She's gotta be around here, somewhere!
He checks every nook and cranny of her room thrice over, hoping — no, begging— for her to be hiding somewhere within.
She wasn’t.
He reluctantly leaves, softly closing the door behind him.
It has to be a joke. It has to! There’s no way she could be… No… No, he hadn’t been that cruel, had he?
“Hey, you can come out now,” He hollers down the hall, “It’s a great joke! You got me!”
He stands in silence with an ear pressed to the wood, listening for the sound of quiet snickering, of little footsteps, of bells jingling, but… None of them came. He stares at her portrait for a long while, grasping for possible answers— Anything to alleviate the ravenous guilt.
'Rags will know what’s going on, right?'
He whirls around, taping the mask back together just in time to see… An identical cross over the doll’s door. The newly repaired grimace holds steady, but his breaths grow shallow and stilted. He gives a shaky nod and turns to the left, finding all of the remaining doors decorated in red.
All of them, save for his.
His body stiffens, eyes wide and darting between all the faces. All the scornful, accusing faces, with their empty eyes piercing right through him. Hating him. He shook his head and blinked away the thoughts, pushing down the rising panic. It’s a joke, it’s gotta be, so—
'Right– Right, of course they’d all be in on it, why wouldn’t they? Just gotta find ‘em is all.'
Trying desperately to remain calm, he checked every last room for any clues as to what happened— Even the ones he swore he’d never re-enter. The only commonality between them was their pristine nature. It was almost as though the rooms had never been used; Like they were the hand-painted backdrops in a children's play.
He couldn’t take the feeling of all those empty eyes on him any longer, so he ran.
Ran past the hollow rooms, the glaring faces, and out of the hall.
“Pomni? Pomni, where are you?!” Heaving lungs formed the weary call without his permission. He attempted to correct the tone with a joke, something about putting spiders in her cereal, but the creeping dread had him too preoccupied to form a coherent sentence. The words fell out of his mouth, quiet and half-baked. He left the humour behind as he ran.
Ran down the stairs, through the atrium, past the long table, the stage, the couches— Calls becoming hollers, becoming shouts, becoming screams. Faster, farther, louder, cutting corners, sliding on the tile, voice cracking, splitting, rasping. Laps on laps on laps, winding through every last path of the Tent, shouting names into nonsense, stinging eyes smearing landmarks, burning feet about to break, heartbeat thudding in his chest, his ears, his hand.
His hand, clenched into a fist, fingertips pressed into the wound, stabbing, pulsing, swinging beside him, dark droplets threatening to leave a trail. Perhaps they already had. He briefly shoved it against his mouth, clearing them away and rounding another corner. Bitter-sweet, metallic, warm like cinnamon, round, nauseating— Exactly as he’d remembered. Too accurate. Impossible.
He tried to swallow the blood, but rapid panting forced it down the wrong way. Choking, coughing, gasping, a few involuntary tears slipped past his closed eyes. At least these, he could dry with ease. He spluttered for everyone through the convulsions, producing little more than the suggestion of his friends’ names.
No… No, they weren’t his friends.
They all hated him, and he deserved it. He deserved every last drop of venom they held, and he wanted it. He wanted them to hate him. If they hated him, they couldn’t hurt him, and he couldn’t hurt them— Couldn’t hurt her.
So, why was he screaming for them? Why was he so desperate to find even one of them? Hell, he’d probably swear off teasing Gangle for good if it meant he could see that weirdo aga—
He tripped over a small flower pot, the buggy collision ruining any chance of him regaining his footing. He smashed headfirst against the checked tile, barely managing to get back on his feet before the migraine returned with a divine vengeance.
He stumbled, falling against a multicoloured cube, and buried his face in the squishy foam, fingers digging into the yellow surface. Every fibre of his being clenched with the waves of anguish, legs quaking beneath him as an invisible vise clamped around his head, twisting, twisting, twisting, until he was sure his skull would snap.
He pleaded to regain his composure, but every time he dared to think, 'Maybe it’s almost over now?', it somehow grew worse. Lava poured over his shoulders, soaking into his spine, coursing through every nerve in his lanky body, squeezing all the air from his lungs. The vacuum of space couldn’t have stopped the shrill whine he’d made.
He had sunk to the ground again, curled into a tight, shivering ball by the time it finally relented.
It smelled like bubblegum and rust.
Beyond shaky breaths, he heard a faint, jaunty whistle approaching and scrambled to his feet; Hopping atop the stained cube and positioning his legs over the crimson trail he had left on the way down. He had no idea how Caine would react to the blood, and he wasn’t about to find out. 'Not today, not with everything that’s happened already'. In the little time he had remaining, he closed his eyes and tried his best to appear content— Leaning back on his right hand, left resting in his lap, forcing his twitching foot into a leisurely tap to the whistle’s rhythm.
“Ah, there you are, Jax, my euphuistic epithet!” Caine mused.
He couldn’t help but wonder what the hell that meant— If anything at all.
“Hey– So, uhh… Where exactly is everybody?” He sat up and looked at the floating figure, right hand gesturing around in mock confusion.
“Oh, you didn’t know? It’s just us now! Think of it as a dynamic duo, a power-hour, a–”
The words melted away.
He felt distant, as if he were floating a few feet above his body, but his viewpoint remained the same; A vacant smile nailed into place. He stared at the air until Caine finally quit talking.
“I’m… A-alone, now?” He scolded himself for the crack in his airy voice.
“Why, of course, my bunny boy! Now’s the time for your solo act, your five minutes of fame! Now, what’re ya gonna do with it?!”
He forgot how to breathe. It should've been you, not them. They didn't deserve it.
Slow as honey, he raised the hand that pushed her away. The hand that ruined everything. The hand that killed her— Killed everyone. He turned its palm to face him. It still shook with his pulse, still twitched like it was alive, still had those deep twin gashes and the torn, inflamed texture he had never imagined this game could produce, still dripped with the same dark ruby beads now crawling down his slender arm.
They looked like stupid, fat worms.
He remembered that old story he’d heard on the playground as a kid — that if you split a worm down the middle, the two halves would carry on as though nothing ever happened. Something about them having two hearts… Or was it two brains? Either way, you could only do it once per worm, 'cuz they’d die the second time.
'Are you the first worm, or the second? The original, or a copy?' He let out a dry, gravelly chuckle that stayed far beyond its welcome— It sounded more like a gentle cough or sob when it finally petered out. An idle hand wandered into a pocket, quickly finding its target.
'You could never really tell which one it was until you tried.' Following a sharp inhale, the noise turned to distinct, serrated laughter. The hand left unnoticed, slowly making its way onto his lap.
'You have to make things right. Be selfless for once in your pathetic, useless life.'
He doubled over with a chest-rattling guffaw, bringing his hands together between his knees.
50/50 odds.
He took the shot and split the worms.
The mirror shard ripped the stupid yellow-gloved hand away with ease, and for just a moment, he could’ve sworn he saw veins and tendons in the little cross-section. He couldn’t be sure— It disintegrated into a cloud of black shards the second it made contact with the ground. An eye with concentric rings of red and blue took its place on the stump of his arm, splitting in two, then ten, then hundreds, clustering together as corrosive black quills rapidly devoured the lilac.
It looked exactly how he’d remembered.
He closed his eyes and lowered his head, unable to bear the sight for even a moment longer.
His agonised, howling laughter grew increasingly distressed as the realisation dawned on him— 'Those kids just wanted an excuse to kill things.'
————————
Caine’s jaw quite literally hit the floor. He had never actually seen this process in its early stages. He ran through all his protocols hundreds of times in the following seconds, searching for anything even slightly related to the current situation, but the hunt only yielded one non-standard return. He snapped his fingers to form a portal.
————————
The sound he made walked the fine line between cackling and crying as though it were a tightrope — only leaning one way or the other for a split-second before returning to the middle — yet even through the lung-searing cachinnation and the ringing in his glitchy ears, he could hear her voice drawing near.
He finally stopped laughing, if only to hear her better, eyes frantically searching for her form in the kaleidoscopic mess of colour.
Need to tell her… She deserves to know.
He wailed her name, running as fast as he could toward the melodic sound, but he never saw her. He couldn't even parse her words through the feedback whine, but he didn't care—
Then, the corruption stole his feet. He crawled on his remaining hand and knees instead, dragging all the anguish with him.
A long, mortified, cacophonous shriek reverberated throughout the I-Spy Inferno.
No, too close. She'll run. Have to tell her.
He tried to find her, to look her in the eye when he told her so she knew he meant it, but the shards of colour were too large. The red one? Periwinkle? Yellow? Lavender? Violet?
He chose lavender and sat up, resting on what once were his legs to face it.
“P– pPpo… oMm-nnnnnn-ii.”
No…
No, no, no nonono, not yet! Not before he could tell her! He had to tell her!
He took a deep breath and held it, waiting for the effect to kick in. He couldn't feel the physical change anymore, but it was all he had left.
“Pomni!” He shouted. The tiny, helium voice was intact. “I'm so sorry, you were right–” A black spine clipped through his throat, and he gagged, reaching out for her, “You were right about everything. I'm no– I’m not…”
The colour blocks had disappeared, replaced by pure nothing.
All that remained was the static…
And the pain.
He still had so much left to say, and he could’ve said it all if he hadn’t been such an idiot.
Then again, would they have even believed him? They probably would’ve just laughed in his face— He was always joking, after all… Because he was the funny one.
He wept until his lungs collapsed.
…
…
…
'Do you think they'll hold a funeral?'
…
No, of course not. They all knew you hated them.