Chapter Text
Her mind was foggy, far too foggy to think anything more than to turn the handle around and around and around. All she knew was that it hurt. It hurt, and she was all alone with nothing but her music box.
The wooden floor trembled like it was breathing, and every pained sound she made didn’t echo properly throughout the broad room. The air was too heavy to carry her pleas to anyone.
Alone, alone. But maybe not for long! Someone was walking inside from the huge door frame. A boy in a familiar trench coat. Mono. Friend. Her friend! What was he waiting for? Why wasn’t he helping her? Didn’t he know she could see him?
His features were blurry, but Six knew one thing for sure. He was missing something.
Was it his coat? No, no, he had it on. Was it his shoes? No.. wait, did he ever have shoes?
Oh.
It was his hat. The paper bag. Silly Mono. How did he lose it? He never took it off anyways. She so badly wanted to shuffle closer so she could finally see his face, but her arms hurt so much it was like they’d twist themselves to pieces if she stopped playing the music box. So she waited. She could wait.
It didn't take long for her friend to slowly make his way closer to her. Her vision was still so fuzzy. She wanted to throw up. Cry. Do anything to make all the pain stop. She couldn’t even bear to keep her head up any longer. It felt so heavy.
Mono picked up his pace when she curled in pain, though he didn’t seem happy to see her.
“Hey! Six!” he called.
Six? That sounded like a name. Someone's name.
“Who- who did this to you?”
She didn’t know. All she remembered was the pain and the music box and she-
She needed to keep turning the handle. No, wait. Mono looked like he was hurting too! She set the box down, invisible knots squeezing her insides even tighter ( pain, so much–) when she pushed the toy towards her friend. Here! You can feel better now.
Mono looked around frantically, running past her and ignoring her offering. Rude. He swiftly returned with some sort of hammer–It was hard to tell, everything was too hazy.
He looked up at her. “I’m going to fix this, ‘kay?”
She could see him brace himself for something, tense his grip on his… weapon?
It slammed right into her music box.
He-
She couldn’t think. She grabbed something, she pushed something aside, she shrieked in anguish as white hot pain ricocheted through her chest. Pain that he caused.
He- he had betrayed her. She was going to help him! They were supposed to be friends!
The rest was a blur of agony. Twisting and knocking her over time and time again as the music box broke and broke and broke. She cried out for help. She yelled, screamed at him to stop. It hurts. It hurts so much. Please don’t do it, please don’t–
The fog cleared.
She– Six remembered. Six remembered everything.
The ground shook. The walls caved in.
And all she could see was red .
Her limbs pained excruciatingly, like they were broken. But- but they weren’t. And her vision was clear. Her eyes instantly darted to Mono. That traitor .
She could see his face. A swarthy mop of brown hair. Deathly pale skin. So malnourished she could almost see his cheekbones.
His eyes. Dark and static-y, like the television that man had stolen her into. Pinpoints of light almost twinkling as he smiled in relief. What was there to smile about?!
On another day, she would have called his appearance cool, or joked about how edgy he looked.
But today she knew. All the pain, all the hurt…
Those weren’t the eyes of a friend.
They were the eyes of a monster.
“Six!!” He stepped towards her. She glared. “You’re okay!”
She was okay? OKAY!? How, how could anyone say something, anything to her after doing that!? She wanted to make him hurt. She wanted to make him hurt just as much as she had.
The walls moved. Gigantic pupils emerged, calculating her with disdain.
She ran. She ran and ran, ignoring the tears stinging from behind her eyelids. Ignoring the resilient ache that spread from her heart.
Six didn’t know how she managed to catch Mono in the end.
Pity? Or perhaps just a simple reflex, out of habit. He felt lighter than usual, his sweaty palms interlocked with hers. At first he looked relieved. Then his eyes widened in fear.
She sat with him. She laughed with him.
She. Helped. Him.
She killed a monster with him.
She thought they were friends.
She never knew that the real threat was right next to her, trying on hats. Holding a stuffed bear; holding her hand.
“Six. Six please–’
She let go.
He didn’t scream as he fell, didn’t cry out like he should have. He just stared in shock as he disappeared from her into the hell below. As he died.
-
As he should have died.
-
FIVE YEARS LATER
Mono wasn't entirely sure how this happened, or what he was doing right now. The Eyes had just appeared from absolute nowhere, and he supposed instincts must have kicked in. The single look he and Six had traded translated to one simple term- “Run.'
So here he was, face still aching from Six's blow, tired legs somehow managing to carry him through the shifting hallways. Sinewy blocks of flesh slammed from the ceiling behind him, narrowly missing their target as he managed to slip out of his way time and time again.
"Left!!" he directed Six, who promptly turned right. The stairs to the right immediately collapsed and reformed into more staring eyes, judging them both indiscriminately. " Left , Six.”
He grabbed the nood of her coat (to her protest) and dragged her to another room. This one was dimly lit, shelves of dolls, red toy cars (Six pushed one over on her way through?), stuffed ducks and bears looking oddly out of place. Two stairways protruded from the exit- one heading up, the other drifting downwards.
"Which way!?' Six questioned, her voice riddled with impatience.
Mono hesitated. It was pure instinct that had allowed him to know how to navigate the Tower's innards, and it was instinct that he needed to help him now.
Think, Mono, think ! Left or right? Down or up? Behind them, every toy's head turned towards him, eyes black and leaking what a nerd would describe as the "aqueous humor". The flesh poured in from the doorway.
"Leaving already?”
Left or right.
"Mono. Hurry up."
“I'm trying, okay?” His voice came exasperated.
“Try faster .”
Eyes blinked from the walls, the floor, the shelves and even the stairs. Left. Or. right ? Mono closed his eyes, breathing in some of the Tower's dry air. Somehow, he could tell that the left path, going down, would be a dead end. And on the right...? His mind's eye zeroed into the stairway, flying up the steps and一
Somewhere, angels sang. This was perfect .
"Right, he told Six, who pushed him out of the way as she ran up the stairs. "What was that for!?”
"You're so slow ."
”At least I'm not one to leave people behind."
Six scoffed. "I don't leave people behind, Mono. Monsters like you are free rein.”
“That’s so unnecessarily rude—-‘ Mono almost forgot the threat before he felt a rope of slick flesh wrap around his arm.
“Where do you think you're going?”
"Um... Mono shrugged. "Outside?'
The speechlessness his comment brought was enough to motivate him to wriggle out of the Signal's grip and get a foot onto the stairs. He followed Six to the next floor, and a grin one may describe as devious flashed across his face as he observed this room's contents. Set up on the roof, disrespecting gravity, were televisions. Many of them, all showing different locations and all of different shapes and sizes. Round models with square buttons and vice versa. Large frames, small screens. Mono didn’t pay that much attention to each television’s features though. He was just hit with a wave of relief. To some, this would be a dead end. But, as everyone knew, to Mono, this was a ticket to freedom.
Ignoring Six's expected comment of "What are they doing on the ceiling ?", Mono simply stepped up onto one of the already-bubbling walls. He needed to act quick. They needed to act quick. Mono still wasn't sure of his thoughts regarding Six, but at least his moral compass didn't point to leaving her in a demonic corporate skyscraper.
The world wobbled as he put his second foot on the wall, and Isaac Newton (whoever that was) rolled in his grave when his reality came up right again. Mono was now standing on the side of the wall. So was a very dumbfounded Six from his point of view.
“What are you waiting for?" he gave her a smarmy smile, though he could feel panic creep up his chest. They didn't have time.
Out of habit, he extended his hand to her, then immediately retracted it at her cold look. Right. With a huff and a withering glare, Six followed. They ran to the televisions, and Mono gazed down at the plethora of places he could access. The sheer ecstasy that the thought brought was soon drained away by Six's presence. He couldn’t leave her here. So unfortunately, he needed her opinion.
"Where now?' he asked her. “Anywhere you need to be?”
She exasperatedly looked down at the rapidly advancing flesh, then back at him. "You see anything that looks like a forest?
Strange request, but okay. His eyes darted up, down, and-- aha . Moonlight and mist filtering through thick foliage. Two cloudy-looking figures wandering through the fog. The location was familiar to both of them, Mono knew, but he didn't acknowledge it as he pressed his fingers experimentally on to the glass. The screen rippled, image fading into white noise as he felt the cool night air on the other side. Six gave him a skeptical glance.
"What?' he asked her.
“Why didn't you just do this when we were, y'know...'
Together. Friends. Her unspoken words hung in the air like her dead body would if they didn't hurry . But the question stuck in his mind. Maybe if he had explained his abilities to her, then maybe she might have trusted him. Trusted him enough to perhaps not leave him to die. Outwardly though, Mono simply shrugged and was about to spew some cryptic nonsense before suddenly-
"Don’t go̸̥̜̱̔̈́̈́̄̓̈́̈̕͝.”
Oh. Oh no. He and Six traded a look. Welp. Time to go.
"Stay with us.
Return now, and we will not punish̸̡̨̖͈͕̯͎̞̰͚͇̝̖̝̺͕̮͈̐̂̓́̊̀̈́̀͘ͅ you. We shall not h̸̡̨̖͈͕̯͎̞̰͚͇̝̖̝̺͕̮͈̐̂̓́̊̀̈́̀͘ͅurt you as the little one has."
Do̸̥̜̱̔̈́̈́̄̓̈́̈̕͝ yo̸̥̜̱̔̈́̈́̄̓̈́̈̕͝u no̸̥̜̱̔̈́̈́̄̓̈́̈̕͝t see, Broadcaster?”
Mono could feel Six's eyes on him, calculating and untrusting. "Broadcaster?” she hissed. He tuned her out.
“If you leave the confines of the Signal, yo̸̥̜̱̔̈́̈́̄̓̈́̈̕͝u will perish̸̡̨̖͈͕̯͎̞̰͚͇̝̖̝̺͕̮͈̐̂̓́̊̀̈́̀͘ͅ.”
He looked at the Eyes on the floor (the real floor, not the wall they stood on). "What... what are you talking about?"
“You should be smarter than this. Do̸̔̈́̈́̄̓̈́̈͝ you actually surmise that you survived the fall?”
Mono was not liking where this was going.
"Tell us. What is the last thing you remember after this traitor let go̸̥̜̱̔̈́̈́̄̓̈́̈̕͝ of your hand?”
"There...I fell for a while, and -and then everything-" Everything had gone black. And when he awoke, he had already been lying in the sea of roiling flesh.
But... but that could mean a lot of things! He could have… passed out, or...
Oh no . This couldn't be true. It couldn’t. "You you don't know what you're talking about.`
“Oh, but we do̸̥̜̱̔̈́̈́̄̓̈́̈̕͝.
It was h̸̡̨̖͈͕̯͎̞̰͚͇̝̖̝̺͕̮͈̐̂̓́̊̀̈́̀͘ͅeadache enough to bring you here in the first place. But have you considered h̸̡̨̖͈͕̯͎̞̰͚͇̝̖̝̺͕̮͈̐̂̓́̊̀̈́̀͘ͅow difficult it is to breathe life into a co̸̥̜̱̔̈́̈́̄̓̈́̈̕͝rpse?”
He and Six exchanged yet another glance.
“You are our greatest project. A display of our godlike potential.
You belong here. Come back home.”
Silence. All Mono could hear was his own racing thoughts.
“Hurry up.” Six muttered to him.
He gave her a look ( read the room????) before reaching further in. But then the strangest thing happened. He.. he couldn’t . His left arm, the one inside the television, refused to budge. The Screen, once swirling like water, now went deathly still. Wh... what?
“No more games, Bro̸̥̜̱̔̈́̈́̄̓̈́̈̕͝adcaster.”
But the Eyes didn't move either. Didn't take their chance like they would have. Simply watched. Watched as he felt the pain of a thousand needles pierce into his fingers.
His body felt the disturbance before he saw it. A creeping kind of horror raced through his mind when he realized what was happening. Static. Static slowly consuming him from the arm up. He couldn't see the color of his skin through the glitchy monochrome particles.
"... Six?" he asked, voice slowly rising in panic.
Her voice matched his. "What? What is this? What aren't you telling me now ?”
"Alright- calm down,' he said in his very-calm-not-freaking out voice, "So there's this thing I forgot that happens-'
"Forgot!?"
"It's been a day, okay!? Basically it's a safety measure by the Tower so I won't escape-'
"Okay, I get that, but how do we fix it?'
"I... “ How could they? The only way he’d been able to leave with Arcy was because she was on the other side of the screen. “I don't know.”
Her look was priceless. But that thought wasn't very relevant to Mono's current situation because it had reached his shoulders—
"Do no̸̥̜̱̔̈́̈́̄̓̈́̈̕͝t resist. We are simply relocating you.”
To where!? Back to the chair!?
"Okay. Six said, eyes darting to her hands and back to him. "Okay, okay.”
“Okay what!?”
She seemed to concentrate hard before… Before the shadows peeled themselves away from the walls. Before Six's eyes gleamed red as they coalesced into her fingers.
Suddenly, the roam became much brighter as the darkness was stolen away from it. “Here goes nothing.”
Six said that so nonchalantly even though this certainly wasn’t nothing . The sandy black stuff (shadows? edgy teenager energy?) exploded around the room when she let go of it.
The Eyes recoiled. And Mono, yanking his hand free from the static, felt just as splintered as the room appeared.
That... that hurt.
But it did the job. Mono didn't hesitate to follow Six as she kicked the cement, blowing a hole in the wall. Cold air rushed in from their rapidly growing exit. Rain flew into his face.
He spun back around to have one last look at the Eyes. Bleeding all-too fluorescent blood. Looking at him with pure rage .
“Don’t th̸̡̨̖͈͕̯͎̞̰͚͇̝̖̝̺͕̮͈̐̂̓́̊̀̈́̀͘ͅink you have won.
We will find yo̸̥̜̱̔̈́̈́̄̓̈́̈̕͝u. After all, it’s us you need—”
But Mono couldn’t get the rest. Six yanked him out of the makeshift window.
-
Arcy spoke as soon as he stood up.“You dead yet?”
“With the way tonight’s been going, I really wish.” came Rin’s reply. His sweater was still soaking from the seawater, foot still throbbing from the glass shards. These were like, his worst and most socially awkward past two days yet.
Usually in the late hours of the night he would’ve been asleep in the Hideaway, or venturing around the crevices of the Maw. Maybe he’d be raiding the kitchen stores, or talking to his friends next to the fire. He would not be … wherever he was right now.
His eyes flicked from object to object, soaking in just where they had ended up. Evidently, this was not the same place Six had been taken to.
A checkered floor, reminiscent of a chess board. Caked in dust bunnies that took flight when he stepped near them. The room’s dim light constantly flickered— a reminder of its decrepit state– reflecting off the blades of wheelchairs parked in front of him. Wheelchairs that…
Rin jumped, then calmed himself down. Luckily Arcy hadn’t witnessed his terror at the plastic Adults seated on the chairs. Mannequins, as he noticed their ball joints. The one on the bench had some sort of hook in place of a skull, but the wheelchair people weren’t so lucky. They lacked heads (imagine), and all wore patient robes and hunched over in the light. Had Rin mentioned the light yet? It was dim, and every time it flickered he swore he heard the sound of rattling from the rooms upstairs. Oh, and yeah, there were stairs. Had he mentioned the stairs? Why would anyone put stairs if you need wheelchairs?
Arcy gave his comment a “ fair enough” and strode up to the pinboard. Ah yes, the pinboard. (Had Rin mentioned the pinboard —-) Looked like someone had eaten all the dust from the floor, along with a photo album, then vomited all over the cork. Seriously, it was a mess.
Adverts for television programs, print so fine Rin couldn’t see the words. Images of mountains, of rooms and of hallways. Hastily scrawled notes, so messily done you’d believe someone had tried to write upside down. Rin didn’t get a word of it. Arcy, however..
“ Patient no. twenty three,’ ” She read aloud, running a finger down the aged paper. More fluffy motes flew away. “ ‘Name: unknown. Gender: male. Location: Pale City hospital.”
Huh. Well, that explained the wheelchairs. This was a medical report, or at the very least some sort of log.
“ID number 12633900. Reasons for admission: Crushed esophagus, multiple fractures across cranium. Left leg is dislocated by the patella. Right patella is missing. ”
Well. Evidently, that sucked for Patient number 23. Just how could that happen? Were they still alive? With the smallest shiver, he realized they were probably yet to find out.
Ignoring that (a problem for future Rin, no doubt) he looked at the scrawly handwriting. “Woah, you can read that?”
She smiled. Really smiled. “Trust me, you’d be surprised. This is nothing compared to—’’ she seemed to bite back her words, sobered. “Nothing compared to… a friend’s handwriting.” A friend that was evidently not with her. A friend that she had not expressed any want to return to.
That could only mean one thing. “If you don’t mind me asking, what happened to them?”
Before the Lady’s… death, he hadn’t been the only kid trying to escape the machine. He’d had friends too. The girl with her flashlight, who was eaten by leeches without a goodbye. His pen pal he’d send bottles to, waterlogged letters still crammed in his pockets. Even before his encounter with the governess, nomes had always been friends too. It was just sad to see everyone go. Even though Arcy definitely hadn’t been to the Maw, he could imagine her guilt. By the look on her face, she’d probably thought it was her fault. He knew it too well.
She bit her lip slightly, glancing at the floor. “We kind of… lost touch. I don’t know what happened to him. I just wish that I’d been a better friend, you know?”
Yeah. He knew.
-
Six hit the concrete roof, the air escaping from her lungs. Ugh. Getting winded was one of the things she did not miss about being on land again. The rain pounced on her the moment the smoke cleared, making the area seem deceivingly serene. The distinct petrichor scent invaded her hazy vision.
Beside her, Mono groaned as he sat up. The Tower’s abnormally bright blood was spattered on his shirt. It turned the stone beneath him pink, and as he shakily stood up he tried to wring it out with the rain.
Six attempted to do the same, but her chest hurt and her vision was spinning and she ended up just flopping back down.
Her former friend looked to the gray cityscape around, then back at her. “Hey, so um. What was that?”
“None of your concern,” Six replied. She wasn’t about to give up her one secret for now. To quote the wise words of Francis Bacon, ‘ Knowledge is power.’ And she had the feeling that having a little mystery on her would make conversation much more fun. “So what was all that the Tower was saying?”
He somehow paled even further than usual at her question. “I don’t know.”
Terms like “breathing life into a corpse” unsettled her. When you kill something, it’s supposed to stay dead. That was just the way of nature. Well, Six was quickly realizing that almost nothing in this city was natural.
There was still the one thing Mono hadn’t seemed devastated about, though. And Six was practically exploding with curiosity. As much time as they had spent together in the City, she never knew about him. Besides his personality, of course. “Okay, so I get how some things would be a surprise, but what about the other stuff? Like, Broadcaster?”
The man in the hat was the only Adult that had really scared her as a child. Don’t get Six wrong, the other monsters had her hands shaking too, but there was something about it that deeply unsettled her. When she was younger, she’d hear stories about the Broadcaster from other kids, fleeting whispers talking about the tall tall thing that lived inside the channels. It would steal your soul if you gazed into the screens for too long, would punish you if you even dared to peek into the static. Of course, like all campfire stories, ‘no one had seen it and lived to tell the tale’.
When it had come out of the TV it looked so much more normal than the other monsters. It didn’t have a long neck or the second amendment on its side. Yet it still lived up to the tales.
Far too tall, far too smart . It knew what it was doing. That was what scared Six the most.
So why was the Tower naming Mono after it?
“I thought you knew?” he said. “I mean, I promise I’m not like him ,’ Six knew she was talking about the one that had taken her away, though she didn’t like how Mono referred to it as him . “But …isn’t that why you dropped me?”
“No?” Six couldn’t believe what she was hearing.
“No?”
She couldn’t believe her ears. “You- you seriously have no idea why?”
Mono just shrugged like the pathetic soul he was.
She “I didn’t know you were the Broadcaster until like, what the hell, two minutes ago. Don’t you have an explanation for me?”
“Don’t you? Go on, tell me. Why is ruining peoples’ lives so normal with you?’
She shot him a glare. “Stop acting like-’
“I think I’d like to know, Six.”
“Fuck. Fuck, seriously Mono.” She grabbed him by the shoulders, looking him straight in his monstrous eyes. “Don’t you recall anything that happened in the Tower on that day?”
He blinked. Once, twice, then- “Wait.”
“Wait what?”
“Wait, is this about the music box?”
Silence. If crickets even survived in the City, one would have chirped.
“SO YOU DO KNOW!”
“No, but like– you- you were a monster!”
She coldly laughed. Her new favorite thing to do, it seemed. “Me?’
“You were like—’ He motioned with his arms, “THIS tall, and your arms were all–’
“Really funny. Haha.” She wiped fake tears from her eyes, before glaring. “Stop acting, Mono. You suck at it.”
“I’m serious Six–’ He seemed to give up on words, rolling up the sleeve of his shirt to reveal a long scar, like someone had used a real pointy stick and impaled his shoulder, before raking it down the rest of his arm. For funsies. “ This is from you, after I broke your box. I– I was trying to change you back. I was trying to save you.”
That… didn’t make sense. “Really? Because I have this—’ The button came off her raincoat easily, and Six pulled her sweater down to her sternum to reveal the spiderwebbing crack-like scars. They branched from where her heart was, lines only a little lighter than her skin, but by the way Mono’s eyes widened, she knew he had seen them. “From when you decided to oh so heroically save me. Wow, what a day.”
“I would have known if I hurt you.’
“I would have known if I hurt you.”
They both stood there, silently calculating each other. The rain filled up the silence, far too peaceful because Six couldn’t bring herself to believe that– that she was wrong, and that he genuinely had good intentions with that . Something heavy and sticky clawed its way up her throat, making it hard for her to breathe.
He was wrong. He had to be wrong.
“Six,” It didn’t look like he was. He– he just stared at her, eyebrows furrowing. “Six, what happened in there?”