Chapter Text
The Tower was alive.
Her legs flying out from beneath her, Six leaped to reach the other side, static crackling from the whirring television behind her. She crouched on top of the overhang, allowing her body to dangle slightly off the ledge, reaching a tiny arm out toward her friend.
Mono stumbled, the gap between them widening at a quickening rate. Several tense moments passed before he leaped too, throwing his body off the crumbling pathway, grappling for the overhang.
Gripping his hand tightly, as she’d done so many times before, Six gave pause for a moment, meeting his eyes. She could feel his body humming with energy, calling out to the signal made by the television behind them both. The screen. Their way of escape.
As Mono’s powers crawled their way up their joined hands and took root in her tiny body, Six could feel her heart thundering in her chest. She thought of the way he’d broken her music box, yanking her from her world of comfort without a second thought. She wondered briefly where the paper bag that typically covered his face was or what happened to the yellow rain hat he’d really taken a shine to.
Her grip on his hand wavered for a moment.
Technically, Six didn’t need Mono anymore. Now she had access to his abilities, and she was almost certain that she would be able to make it through the screen if she tried before the Tower came for her.
Plus, being with Mono had caused her so many problems. She could've spent the rest of her life in the Hunter’s home, wasting away with her music box, but he rescued her and brought her along on his journey. She'd been taken by the Bullies and then by the Thin Man, and it had all been thanks to him.
Six was jerked back to the present, meeting Mono’s teary gaze. The Tower was rushing to meet them in the form of wild eyes and rotting flesh.
Fear consumed Mono’s features as he looked up at her. She hesitated, but the idea of dropping him sounded less and less appealing. But… No. No more hesitation. Mono was all she had, and there was no room for doubt, not in this nightmarish world. The hood of her yellow raincoat fell forward slightly as she banished all thoughts of leaving him at the Tower from her mind. And then, she pulled him upward.
Six didn’t let go of Mono’s hands, tugging him forward to meet the television screen. As she placed her hand against the buzzing screen, she found that she didn’t need his help to feel its pull, to use the screen as a portal to safety away from the Tower.
Their travel through the screen was rather harrowing, and they both emerged on the other side of the screen with heaving chests, taking several stumbling steps forward before Mono collapsed against the floor.
Six doubled over, pain gnawing at her insides.
She could recognize the way Mono’s powers now coursed through her veins. Pulling him up from the ledge instead of leaving him at the mercy of the Signal Tower hadn’t been necessary for her escape… but for some strange reason, she saved him, thwarting all the darker instincts she'd had to let him fall into the chasm.
But now… Now that they'd finally escaped the Signal Tower and the Pale City, traveling to the other side of the screen… She couldn’t shake the feeling that something was horribly, terribly wrong.
“Six?” Mono’s voice was small and shaky, and he pulled himself upright, crawling toward her across the dirty floor. Without his paper bag or any of the many hats he'd accrued during their time at the Pale City, she could see how dirty his face was, tiny scratches marring his smudged cheeks.
With a sharp gasp, Six glanced downward, her stomach rumbling.
A paper… A flyer?
Mono reached out a hand, nearly placing it on one of her quivering shoulders. “Six, are… are you?”
Something was wrong. Something was very, very wrong.
Six’s stomach growled again, loudly, and she jerked away, out of Mono’s reach. “Don't… Don't touch me.”
“But Six,” Mono protested. But then he doubled over too, beside her. “I… I don't feel so good.”
All Six could think of was how hungry she was, how much she needed to fill her stomach, how large a meal would have to be to sate her.
Though her vision grew hazy, Six allowed herself to stand, clutching her rumbling stomach. Something inside of her was missing… something very important… something that not even her new powers could replace.
“How… Did you travel through the screen all by yourself?” Mono asked, surveying the room they were in to the best of his ability.
Hiding herself in the safety of her yellow raincoat, Six curled inward on herself violently. “I don't know.” Something prompted her to look down at the ground again, eyes seeking out the curling slip of paper she'd glanced over before. Though her vision was spotty now and she wasn’t super good at reading, she could register its writing: All are welcome to feast at the Maw.
Mono stumbled toward her side, looking unusually small in his dirty trench coat and almost foreign without a hat on his head. “What is that?”
For a moment, Six fell silent, mulling over the flyer’s message, searching through her memories. “Where I'm going.”
“What?” Mono questioned, his eyes flying to her face. “Six, we only just escaped the Pale City, and now you want to go… to go there?”
Resolve overtook Six’s features as she nodded sharply. “Yes.” The pain in her stomach was becoming more and more unbearable, even despite the way she’d devoured some of Mono’s powers mere moments ago.
As if to confirm her plans, her stomach grumbled again, loudly. She was ravenously hungry.
“But I thought that… I thought that we'd avoid any new adventures for now,” Mono protested. “I thought that we'd escape the Pale City and go somewhere safe.”
“You will,” Six replied grimly. The thin flyer began curling up from the floor, lifted slightly by the wind. “But I'm going to the Maw.” The slip of paper was loose now, carried off on the breeze, but she knew where she was headed. She’d spent much of her short life there, long before ever venturing into the Wilderness or meeting her friend. Journeying to the Maw would be… returning home.
Mono reached out to her, but she jerked away instinctively. He recoiled, hurt evident on his face. “Can I come with you? We're safer together, and something… something feels really wrong, like we didn't quite escape.”
“You need to find somewhere safe, Mono,” she instructed. She needed to leave soon. She needed to find the Maw. There was no place for him there, and she wouldn’t be able to bear to see him consumed.
“But… But you took some of my powers,” Mono finally whispered. “And you want to leave me behind.” His voice was pleading, and so were his eyes.
Six turned away. “It's for your own good.” She began stumbling away, clutching her stomach. “I need to figure out how to control this. If I don't go to the Maw, I'll starve.” Then, she looked at him one last time, as though attempting to map and memorize every little feature of his face with her dark gaze. “And I don't want to hurt you anymore than I already have.”
Dropping to his knees by the screen humming with static, Mono followed her with his eyes as she took step after painful step away. “Will you… Will you come back for me?”
He let the Bullies kidnap her. He made sure she made it out alive. He let the Thin Man kidnap her and steal her soul. He came back for her. He broke her music box. He set her free. He took her comfort. He helped her escape.
And, in return, Six didn't let him go. She didn't claim all of his powers as her own. But now, she was hungry, and remaining with him was a weakness, especially when she was so vulnerable.
“Yes,” Six found herself saying, despite her better instincts. “I'll come back for you once my hunger’s been sated.” If her hunger would ever truly be sated… With the way it caused her head to spin, her body to sway, and her stomach to gnaw, she didn't know if she'd ever find enough to satisfy her. But she had to at least try.
“How will we find each other?” Mono asked, his voice cracking lightly. He sounded as though he was on the verge of tears, and it very nearly brought tears to her eyes as well.
She couldn’t break down and stay. She needed to go to the Maw; she needed something to satisfy her hunger. Still, she allowed herself a small smile, if only for Mono’s sake. “We’ll find each other, Mono. We always do.”
That didn’t seem to comfort him much, but she needed to go. The longer she stayed, the harder it was to leave. All she wanted was to throw her arms around his small body that still somehow managed to be bigger than hers and keep him close. Despite all the mistakes they’d both made throughout the duration of their journey together, he was quickly becoming her weakness, and she couldn’t afford that now… Not with her stomach tearing away at itself.
There was something wrong and something missing.
Six hoped that returning home would bring answers. If there was anything she could remember from her life at the Maw before being sent away, it was that hunger could kill: if it was sated, it led to a grotesque, gluttonous end, and if it went unsatisfied, it led to death and skin and bones. She wasn’t sure which alternative was worse.
Pulling the hood of her yellow raincoat more securely around her head, for a moment, Six wondered if her mother would greet her. For better or for worse, she was going home.