Chapter Text
“Oh my god, Sunny.” The knife was set on his nightstand. “Hero!” Kel yells out the open door. He still has his arm wrapped around Omori’s wrist. Pushing him back towards the bed. When his knees hit the edge of the bed, he sits.
Omori looks at his finger. The blood is smeared onto his hand, and the blood is dried and crusted around where he cut himself. He looks longingly at the knife, at the chance of getting back to where he belonged.
Kel follows Omori’s gaze before grabbing both his hands. “No. No knife.” He says it like Omori is a dog. An untrained dog who could hurt himself at any moment. The knife has a purpose. He doesn’t understand why they are against that purpose.
“Kel, what's up?” Hero is now in the room; Omori hadn’t even realized Kel called for him. Hero takes a moment to read the scene before him, Omori’s bloody hand, the bloody knife, and the grip Kel had on Omori. “Oh, Sunny. Oh not again.” The last three words are muttered under his breath, in hopes that Omori won’t hear, but Omori does.
Hero is now taking his arm and guiding him out the door. Omori stops at the stairs, terrified again of walking down them; for no reason he can place. Hero stops too, giving a worried look to Omori. He seems to understand the fear better than Omori does.
“Why?” Omori speaks; it's croaky and hoarse. “Why am I scared?” He points down the stairs, his finger shaking.
“What?” Hero's voice is soft like he is afraid of scaring off Omori, but Omori is not alarmed by Hero. “The stairs? Do you not remember Sunny?”
Omori’s mouth is open, and he takes deep breaths through his nose as he stares down at what looks like everlasting darkness. Even though the light is shining from the kitchen, he feels as if it will never end and that he is stuck at the top of these stairs forever. That the shadows will overwhelm him until the end.
Hero tugs on his arm, and the fear passes. He follows behind Hero. Kel follows, and when Omori looks behind him, he watches Kel blink the look of worry off his face. He gives a wide, toothy grin to Omori, but it is not the same grin that he gave them at the end of school yesterday. It still has a wince of worry written into it.
They reach the bottom of the stairs, and Omori is transferred from Hero to Mar. Mari is wrapping a band-aid around Omori’s finger. Then she guided him over to the couch and sat him down. Hero is in the other room now, and a distant murmur buzzing from him talking over the phone bleeds into the living room.
“Now Sunny, did you hurt yourself anywhere else?” She must have been talking for a while, her voice parts the fog in his mind. He shakes his head. He didn’t. He got close, he wants to go back.
He looks through the doorway to the stairs, he can’t quite see the stairs but knows where it is. Another figure blocks his view, Kel again. He takes a seat next to him.
“Sunny, can you hear us?” It breaks the fog again, the silence was becoming overwhelming anyway.
He nods.
“Sunny, Hero said you didn’t remember the incident?” It’s Mari now, but Omori is still looking at Kel. The boy bites his lip and lightly shakes his head at Mari. Implying that now is not the time to ask Omori the question. But Omori does not understand at all.
“What happened? What happened to me? To Mari?” His voice still croaks the words, it's a whisper—hardly even actual speech.
“Sun, maybe this is something you can ask your therapist about.” Mari again, rubbing a hand up and down his arm. “I understand that it can be hard, but we all thought you were doing better. Is there anything we can do?”
It is like a dense fog clouds Omori’s mind, stopping him from accessing any memories that could help him navigate this situation. All he understands is that he doesn’t understand anything, which does not help him at all.
“Sunny. Listen.” He looks up and makes eye contact with Mari, “Mom is on her way home, Hero called her, she’s gonna call Mrs. Bronc and see if she can get you in tomorrow. But for now, you need to rest.” Kel is standing up now, walking upstairs with urgency. “We’re just gonna have you lay on the couch, so someone can ensure you are safe.” She talks like he is a baby. It makes Omori angry, upset, and confused. If he could be more confused.
Kel is upstairs now, heading into Sunny’s room. He comes out a few moments later with the steak knife in hand. Mari is rubbing a circle into Omori’s knee. Hero is pacing back and forth. Pacing. Rubbing. The creaking of the stairs. It is over as quickly as it started He’s pushing Mari’s hand away and standing up. He sees Hero react, moving quickly to block his way from around the couch, but Omori is quicker. He turns the other way. His feet pick up the pace before his brain registers it. He is at the door quicker than Hero can tell him to stop again.
His brain does not start registering that he does not know where he is until he is two streets away from his starting place. This is not headspace, and it does not look similar to headspace. It is a row of streets with barely unique homes, homes with the least amount of character.
One home with character. Across the street. Plants claim the house, and the grass runs wild yet maintained. A boy is kneeling in the garden out front. Holding a pair of garden shears, his hair is a mess and his face is red from the sun beating down upon him. He seems at peace despite this. Any other person would dislike the feeling of dirt in between your fingernails and a sweaty forehead but Basil found peace in the work. The repetitive growth of plants. The push to keep life going in his yard.
Omori knew he found peace next to the blonde-haired boy. Sometimes when whitespace got boring and headspace got overwhelming he found himself sitting next to the boy in his garden outside his shoe.
This was not the shoe house that Omori knew so well, and there was a new lady in the garden. An older woman. Maybe, his mom? He had a blank in his head when he looked at that lady. It made him nervous to walk over but it seemed as if the lady noticed Omori first. Basil looked up and noticed the pale boy across the street. Cocking his head like a confused dog, with big fluffy ears that fall horizontally on the left side of his face. He is standing up, setting his gardening shears in the dirt that has been freshly dug, and taking long strides towards the shorter boy. He looks both ways and moves faster as he crosses the street. There are no cars.
Basil reaches Omori, placing a hand on either shoulder and crouching down to his level. He is not much taller than Omori so it seems counterproductive but he won’t say anything. “Did something happen Sun?” His voice is filled with concern, it pokes Omori’s heart and he feels like breaking down. Tears well in the young boy's eyes, his confidence in the situation is shifting, and he wants to go home. Basil takes a step back, nearly falling off the sidewalk. He looks Omori up and down, assessing the situation to decide what to do. He grabs Omori’s shoulder with one hand, positioning himself behind the boy like a propeller. He moves Omori across the street, making sure to check for cars, and towards his house. The woman Omori had seen before is watching the two with concern, once they are close enough she takes Basil’s position and leads Omori inside the house. She leads him to the couch, with pillows that say various positive terms, and she helps him sit. She does it gently, unlike Kel, coaxing the boy into a state of calm. She does it with a certain sense of familiarity like she has done it before. She hands him a pillow, and he wraps his arms around it in a bear hug. He refuses to meet the lady's eyes, and she takes this as a sign to leave him alone. Basil stands in front of him, biting his thumbnail and shaking his head at Omori.
Omori is hit by a wave of deja vu, the situation feels very familiar to the boy. The gaze of the blond standing over him and the humming of the woman who was cooking something delicious in the kitchen. He leans further into himself, pulling the pillow up to his chin and clutching until his knuckles turn white. Basil has a look on his face that implies he has been through this situation before. He bends down to grab the remote for the TV sitting in front of them and switches it on. He flips through the channels until he finds a rerun of Tom and Jerry to appease the pale boy on the couch. Omori watches with a patient curiosity, the woman from the kitchen is heading towards him now with a plate of food. It is a bowl of tomato soup with grilled cheese next to it. Omori did not realize he was hungry until now, his stomach rumbling with the thought. He had not eaten at all. He picks up the spoon on the side of the plate and guides a spoonful of tomato soup to his mouth. A spoonful of hot tomato soup. He spits it back into the bowl with a visceral reaction at how hot it is. The woman next to Basil seems mortified and Basil is attempting not to laugh at him. The woman hands him a big glass of ice water, he takes it with desperation and chugs it down. It soothes his burnt tongue.
“Let it cool down a bit okay Sunny.” Her voice is very soft and kind. Despite the kindness in her voice she does not seem to act like a mother to Basil. She acts like a caregiver.
Sunny did not have much use for clams. They played no real use even inside his head. Frequently his items needed were discovered through other means. Or just thinking it up? That might work. It may have in the past. The past of headspace was fuzzy to Sunny. Even the headspace version of Mari seemed fuzzy like someone took an eraser to dark sketched lines.
He had time to think during his wander through the backroads of the endless highway. He considered the world around him, and he noticed it. He noticed how he felt. He noticed how things started to feel right, he was a puzzle piece who had found his spot. He knew that he didn’t quite fit. There was still that voice inside, urging him to go back. Yet, he felt a sort of safety here, a strange blanket of comfort provided by this world. He felt protected, yet was the protector. Despite the constant looming threat of enemies around him, he noticed that his friends still seemed happy. Aubrey and Kel continued to fight, yes, but they were still close friends. Hero did not have the constant shadow of doubt and stress that followed him in the real world. His only real worry was Aubrey and Kel.
He was keen to fall back into this routine. Nothing was forcing him back to the real world. For all he knew this was an extended dream. He would find his way back eventually. For now, though, he could take comfort in the nostalgia of this world. The safe picnic blanket contained no tears. He embraced this mindset, wielding the steak knife like it had no bad memories attached. He focused on his current path to Humphrey. He was expected to lead the group and play the role of Omori. Something that should be capable for the one who created Omori. How different could they be?
Quite different was the answer. Sunny lacked control over his subconscious. This may be common for others, but Sunny would be unaware of this. Omori was, he was different, in many ways. One way is that when he was 12, 12-year-old Sunny had different emotions than 16-year-old Sunny. Omori was a different person, and these people, these children he created in his mind, looked up to Omori. He had created a sick fantasy, yet he found so much comfort in this world. Was he giddy about visiting Humphrey? No, but he was giddy about the familiarity of it all. Of finding this world. It was a storybook, Humphrey was. A storybook that now sat in a box in his closet. He reread it once, it was a book Mari had read to him as a child. It used to put him to sleep. Humphrey kept him awake now, a manifestation of his hope. Humphrey ate so much, swallowed worlds whole. Shoved deep into the deeper well. Humphrey was terrifying. Though he held what Sunny needed, he held answers. He was a much better option than Sweetheart’s castle, not that her castle held much value anyway. Sweetheart was a filler, meant to keep Sunny occupied. Humphrey was an answer to a long unsolved question. Luckily Omori had done the boring portions for him, so now Sunny could delve into a sinkhole of questions and answers.
They reached Humphrey, after what felt like an eternity of walking and battling and bickering between Aubrey and Kel. Sunny shuffled to the front of the group, wielding the dull blade tightly in his left hand. He took a deep breath, reminded himself of where he was, a dream, and pulled out the check. He took one last look behind him at his friends, Kel had his false bravery face on, and Aubrey looked fierce, she was ready, as she always was. Hero looked concerned, the brotherly concern that passed over his face every time Sunny seemed to turn towards a bad path. Humphrey may be a bad path.
With a look of finality, Sunny tossed the check into Humphrey's open mouth. It opened, wide, and Sunny hesitated. Kel had his arms around his waist in a bear hug, Aubrey was gripping onto his right hand and Hero was gripping his left shoulder.
They fell into the endless pit that was Humphrey's stomach, his tongue acted as a slide. Soaking through the bottom of their pants. Sunny cringed at the thought of being inside this animal. They were plunged into darkness before the boy could regret his choices more.