Chapter Text
Welcome to Headspace
You’ve been living here for far too long…
Sunny woke up in Neighbor’s Room again, barely able to keep his eyes open.
Sunny couldn’t really remember when he first found himself here, just that one day he woke up in what seemed like a dream come to life, he could hang out with his friends all day;
he never had to go to school;
he never had to stop being with his friends to rehearse his violin;
he never had to worry about the approval of his parents.
All Sunny ever had to do was hang out with his friends, hang out with Basil, Hero, Aubrey, Kel and…
Mari…
For whatever reason, Mari wasn’t always in Neighbor’s Room, or the park just outside. At some point two years ago it seemed like nobody could find her anymore.
For some reason this… didn’t bother Sunny that much…
Of course Sunny misses her every now and again, as do all of his friends. They even made a mission to try and find her somewhere in Headspace not too long ago, traveling from the highest parts of Otherworld to the deepest sections of the Abyss.
That was the first time Sunny had ever been to the Abyss, a place that made him deeply uncomfortable. The pervasive darkness, the pressure of water all around him, paralysed him with fear, and a gnawing feeling in his head grew with each step he took down there. Something about the Abyss terrified him. He couldn’t go alone, but, clutching Hero, Aubry, and Kel, Sunny found himself at the bottom of the Abyss.
And he met Abbi.
And it felt like all his fears melted away.
Abbi was so… sweet. So much kinder than anything else in the Abyss or even Deepwell (Sunny did not enjoy working for Mr. Jawsum for a year when he first came to Headspace), she was fun to talk to and play with, and when it was time to leave Sunny offered to walk with her back to the playground so that she could play with them again. Abbi looked happy to hear the request, but still turned down the offer, saying that she was needed here in the Abyss.
In the end, they never did find Mari. Sunny wasn’t all that surprised, some part of him always knew she’d leave him…
Sunny sat groggily as he recounted the previous few years, he wondered if he should try to visit Abbi again sometime soon. See if she was willing to change her mind about leaving the scary Abyss.
A loud clash of pans accompanied by shouting jolted Sunny out of his daydream.
Aubrey and Kel had decided that today was the day they competed for the title of Breakfast Champion, this being the once in a lifetime day where they decided to cook food instead of letting Hero handle all food preparation. Their dish? Pancakes.
Kel: “Hey Hero? Which spoon is best for scooping out the batter?”
Hero: “Well Kel, I think ladles work well enough, although I think you might have some problems with, uh, scooping…”
Kel had, apparently, found whisking the ingredients together to be a tad boring at some point, and instead decided to use an electric whisk he bought from the Last Resort, on its highest setting, in one of the smallest mixing bowls Hero owned. Needless to say, the intrepid cook had roughly half as much batter as he started with, and decided to make up for this by just…
Adding more flour. The batter had the consistency of mortar and probably the same uses.
Aubrey was faring much better by comparison. Her batter wasn’t spread across the room and actually looked like it could be made into a pancake.
Aubrey: “Sunny! Make sure you try mine first okay! They’re made with love!”
Sunny blushed a tad at that, and it would have made him a little more excited for breakfast if it weren’t for how long Aubrey was taking to flip the first few pancakes…
She knows she has to flip them, right?
Hero: “Uh, Aubrey, don’t forget to, uh, actually flip the pancakes, okay?”
Aubrey: “Oh shoot!”
Hero really is true to his name, Sunny thought to himself.
The off white disks of batter were hastily flipped with her spatula, revealing their nearly burnt bottom side. Sunny was very relieved that the pancakes, and by extension his only breakfast, were saved and let out a barely audible sigh of relief.
When the last pancake left Aubrey and Kel’s pans (Kel finished considerably earlier) It was up to Sunny and Hero to taste test and decide who was “the best”. Sunny decided that it handily went to Aubrey, since her pancakes were actually edible. Hero was torn between the two choices presented before him; on one hand he had slightly overcooked pancakes; on the other hand he had a brick, made by his favourite and only brother. A tough choice indeed but, ultimately, Hero was hungry.
Kel: “No fair… my pancakes were just as good!” A loud yawn escaped from Kel’s mouth.
Nobody had the energy to correct him. In fact, ever since Mari left everyone had been becoming tired faster and faster every day. Now they rarely ever left Neighbor’s Room, just playing cards in what felt like a never ending sleepover. Nobody seemed to mind that much, after four years of exploring and adventuring there wasn’t all that much to do anymore.
Breakfast served as lunch and dinner that day as Hero, Aubrey, and Kel found themselves falling to sleep after a few rounds of Go Fish. Sunny was getting tired as well, but something kept him awake. A gnawing feeling in the back of his head, like something was missing. Some important piece of information, just out of reach.
One name kept floating around in Sunny’s head all day.
Sunny: “Abbi…”
Abbi: “Yes?”
Sunny whipped his head around to the sound of her voice, and found her standing in a small puddle on the other side of the room.
Abbi: “Hello, Sunny…”
Her voice was quiet, almost sad.
Sunny: “Abbi?”
Sunny was happy to see her, but something about her tone, her expression, just didn’t feel as welcoming as last time.
Abbi: “Are you going to go to sleep?”
Sunny: “Well” Sunny said in an almost hushed whisper, worrying about waking his friends “No, I don’t want to fall back asleep.” His voice was picking up some volume. “I don’t just want to sleep forever.” He was growing tired of the lack of energy these past few months.
Abbi: “So then” Her voice was also picking up volume as well. “Do you want to wake up?”
Sunny was… confused by her phrasing. It implied he’d been asleep this whole time, and it made the gnawing in the back of his head grow. He felt so close to something...
Has he been sleeping this whole time? That would explain why he just showed up here in this fantasy world one day.
Abbi: “If you want to wake up, the door to my side is the only way I know of”
Sunny looked to her left, then to her right, then back to her left. What door?
Abbi noticed his confusion, and motioned him to come closer to her.
Sunny stood up slowly and deliberately, and walked quietly so as to avoid waking up his friends . He didn’t notice his friends were no longer there. And he never noticed how dark it had been since Mari left two years ago.
Sunny made it to Abbi, and she guided his hand to what felt like a metal door handle. He was shocked he had never noticed it there, ignoring its apparent invisibility. He had lived in this room for four years, he should have found this by now, right…?
Abbi: “Just turn the handle.” There was the sadness in her voice again, “and I’ll try to help you from there”.
Sunny did as he was told, and as the handle turned, as the door opened, Sunny felt the gnawing grow and grow in his head. It was painful now, everything hurt as he opened the door and saw a blinding white light.
Which gave way to total darkness.
Which slowly crept out of the room.
Which quickly covered everything in Neighbor’s Room.
And Sunny finally woke up.
It was pitch black.
His eyes wouldn’t open.
He felt an intense pressure all around him.
It felt like water.
And as Sunny tried to move he found his limbs wouldn’t listen.
And as Sunny tried to scream he found his mouth wouldn’t open.
Sunny was afraid.
Abbi: “Sunny, it’s going to be okay.”
Her voice snapped him out of the panic in his head.
Abbi: “Try again to move your right arm”
Sunny tried, and found that he could move and feel his right arm. It was just stuck in… mud? He still couldn’t feel his left arm though...
Abbi: “Good, good. Now work on getting your arm unstuck, okay?”
Sunny did as he was told, and he went from wiggling his arm to moving it more and more. Eventually he felt his arm entirely free itself from the mud that had encased it.
He still couldn’t see, so he tried rubbing his eyes… eye?
Where… was his other eye?
He began to panic again, for where his right eye should have been was instead a hollow, boney opening into his skull.
Abbi: “Focus on your other eye, Sunny.”
Sunny was fighting himself not to panic as he did what Abbi told him to. His other eye, as it turned out, was also just buried in the mud, still attached to his head thankfully. After clearing away the mud he was finally able to see.
He was at the bottom of what he thought could have been a pond or lake. But it may as well have been the bottom of the ocean for how dark it felt. Looking up he saw the blue of the sky distorted under several feet of water.
Digging himself up out of the mud was more of an ordeal than it should have been, owing to his apparent lack of his left arm. The shock of his situation was beginning to waver, he wasn’t in any pain, and with Abbi walking him through the process he could finally calm down and think.
Was…
Was Sunny a zombie?
Sunny didn’t know if that was an alarming train of thought or not. He didn’t know if there was another explanation for what was happening or not… but he decided not to worry about it for now, not until he could pull himself out of the water he woke up in.
…
Okay.
Sunny was out of the mud.
And besides his left arm and right eye he was intact. If he had to guess why that was, he didn’t know. It might be because those parts weren’t fully buried? Hard to tell when he can’t really see himself, just feeling his body can only tell him so much in the dark that surrounds him currently.
But that didn’t matter. He had to know what happened to him. Why was he here? How was he alive?
Where was Mari?