Chapter Text
There’s a huff of cold breath that makes Six shiver , a stinging pain on her throat and it hurts- BANG! The sting lingers, something warm is on her neck but the thing that punctured her throat has fled. Her vision is blurred in the corners, and she sees only a shadow looming over her before she is plunged into full darkness. Something picks her up, her legs swinging around like a doll. A cloth is being pressed to her throat, and it’s warm. It’s warm but then it’s burning, a cold kind of burn and the feeling has spread across her body. She feels as if she can never feel warmth envelop her again. There’s the sound of a raspy breathing like the thing that’s making the sound has a rock lodged up it’s throat. Six can’t open her eyes, can’t get rid of the tingly senselessness that has taken over her body.
When Six opens her eyes again, she’s inside a room with wood plank walls. There’s a rug on the floor, one of the itchy kinds. A wooden desk is behind her, the size too great for it to be for children. She scans around the room more. There’s the door, huge and taunting, beckoning for Six to come and leave this room. She shots up from her place but regrets it, because her vision goes dark and she finds herself on the floor again. She gets up again but this time slower, a tiny huff escapes her lips. Her arms and legs feel wobbly. Six has always been thin (it’s not like there’s an abundance of nutritious food) but somehow she seems worse. She shakes her head swiftly as if her thoughts are ants crawling on her hair and focuses on the task in front of her. Get out of this room, then find out where she was. Six starts to go towards but suddenly her feet touches something cold. It’s a music box, almost the size of her. It has a crank on it that seems to be inviting her to spin it. Six turns to the door again. Then back at the music box. Leaving without playing the tune feels wrong suddenly. Like the music box is pulling her, she latches onto the crank, cozies up in front of it and starts to turn it. The music fills the room, a simple melody. Suddenly one turn isn’t enough and she wants to play it again. And again. And again. Soon the melody is the only thought in her mind. Six doesn’t want it to stop, ever. She doesn’t notice how unusually cold she feels, or how her gums are hurting.
***
Mono is following the songs. The songs that always seem to come from a certain direction. Sometimes he can see others following it, however he knows they’re going in the direction for a different reason. The songs that come from The Pale City, everyone knows about them. Outsiders tend to stay away from the range of the songs, but people get tired. People get tired of the world around them falling apart and everything seeming so hopeless they decide to follow the songs. They never leave. Mono knows this, and yet he’s following the songs as well. But he isn’t looking for escapism, no. He doesn’t want what the songs promise to others. The songs don’t feel like cotton candy, stars around him or floating in the air- as others have described- but rather feel sharp, cold and fresh. The songs tell him nothing but the truth. The songs wake him up when they are a lullaby to the others. Mono is following the truth, or at least he thinks he is.
He’s walking in a forest, a forest full of rotten things when he hears a gunshot. He runs to what the thinks is the opposite direction, but ends up right where the gun has fired instead. There is a creature, a giant compared to Mono, with a sack over it’s head and a rifle in it’s hands. But no- in another hand it’s holding a child. Mono can’t see what the creature is doing clearly, he’s on top of a tree and the leaves are blocking his vision. The creature grunts as it walks away, the child still in it’s hands.
Mono debates whether or not to follow it. Survival of the fittest is the phrase many of the children in this world live by, and everyone accepts it. No child would despise another who runs away when the other is caught. It’s just how things are. The strong live on, the weak perish. Mono abides this rule as well, but he also remembers other children being taken away by a tall monster while he ran away. It wasn’t his fault, but it didn’t feel good to know others died while he went on either.
So Mono follows the creature, and ends up in front of a wooden house. It seems to be falling apart, but what isn’t falling apart in this world? Mono shuffles in his place. Every time the cloth shifts he is reminded of another thing that makes him peculiar; his feathery growths at his back, his “wings”. They’re small, but he knows they’re not natural, like his eyes and his voice. It hurts. His wings are always compressed at his back, never fully let out free. Sometimes, when he’s had enough of the aching he lets them out but doesn’t show them for long. He deserves this, he tells himself. He deserves it for being unnatural. Mono takes a breath and goes into the wooden house.
***
The melody is still going. Six is hunched over the music box, listening to the tune over, and over, and over again. She has forgotten about the door, about leaving the room and her gums hurting. She ignores the feeling of utter coldness and throat stinging. She is ready to spend the rest of her days listening to the melody, but then-
CRACK! Six’s head snaps towards the door. There’s an axe coming through it. The melody has stopped and Six is confused. What was she doing again? The axe breaks through the door once again, and someone steps in. Six flees under the desk despite the fact that she cannot form a coherent thought. It’s only her instincts working at the moment.
A kid with a paperbag over his head steps in. He leaves the axe at the door and carefully approaches Six. The kid sounds a tiny “Hey!” and Six peeks out from her hiding place, strangely drawn to the voice. The kid is reaching a hand out to her, and she almost takes it before the effect of his voice leaves her. This is a stranger. Six dashes out from next to him and goes out the now broken door.
Her attempt at avoiding the strange kid is foiled by the fact that she cannot reach the ladder. The kid comes through the corner. Six holds in a sigh. She does not like the idea of “trusting” this strange kid but the circumstances make it so that she has to work with him. She holds out her hands, inviting the kid to step up and pull down the ladder. The kid is thankfully not an idiot and gets the memo. Next thing Six knows, they are working together.