Chapter Text
For once, the chaos that engulfs the once bustling farmer’s market of Arcadia dies down. After what feels much like a lifetime, the angered screams and pained wailing ceases into complete just as deafening silence. Slowly, a small boy slides open the small door of his hiding place. His heart drums against his ribcage rapidly, but he’s already made up his mind on going out.
The full smell of rotting meat hits his senses and he has to shield his mouth with the dirty bandana he brought along, trying his best not to gag or breathe it in. Even after all this time, breaking the rules still feels wrong to him, but starving to death isn’t much of a good feeling either. He only really has a bag of chips left, but that’s for mom just in case she came back.
The money wadded up in his front dress shirt pocket has almost run out completely from the loud circus machine. Oh well, it made too much noise anyway, and he couldn’t even reach the top buttons with the pep bars that didn’t taste like salt. Besides, his dad always advised him to have at least some money. So you could double it later, or something like that. He didn’t really get it at the time, and still doesn’t, but it’s nice to remember and uphold.
His foot connecting to something grossly limp snaps him out of his thoughts. A cry builds up in his throat, but he manages to keep it to himself. Taking a wary, disgusted inhale, he builds the courage to look down…and nearly runs away right then and there. It’s not that he hasn’t seen…a person like that before, but it never gets any better. Especially not when the person lying limp on the sticky cobbled ground looks more like a monster.
The person used to be a man, but it’s hard to tell now–With the face warped and pulled like taffy, boils building up in his right neck like a grouped up hive of erratic bee stings.
‘He’s…sleeping.’ The boy says the phrase slowly in a calming mantra to himself. He shakes his foot a few times as if it would take away the small amount of fluid that now caked onto it (it’s fresh, compared to the other dirt and grime that adorned the shoe). There’s a slight exhaling as he does so, but nothing really comes out. The man used to be a bad guy (his mom called them slicers) but that doesn’t matter much now.
Some minutes into his anxious and quick searching, sour and rancid fruit overcomes the odor of bad meat. He manages to secure the bandana properly over his nose, though it does little in covering up the smell even then, as it sticks to his clothes like some thick syrup. He eventually makes it to an area of small abandoned stalls, where something with a slight sheen catches his eye.
It’s a dented can discarded on one of the rot-caked stalls, though he can’t decipher what exactly it holds from a distance. Despite the fact he’s in a spacious farmer’s market, it’s incredibly out of place– standing there so innocently, like the world was still good and happy and normal with people still around. It’s strange. Strange because it wasn’t out there the last time he was out there.
There used to be one of those 'slicers' who would mumble and ramble about hidden traps, one’s that she made and others set for her. His dad told him never to believe rumors, but after hearing that for ages…
With shaking hands he reaches out, keeping the bandana over his face as if it’d protect him from anything. He picks up a can, it’s pretty dirty, but after dusting it off, he nearly cries in disbelief. It’s a can of peaches, almost entirely unscathed.
Quickly, he shoves it into one of his pants pockets. It barely fits, but he hopes it’s good enough to hide it from…well, he doesn’t know, but it feels like someone’s gonna steal it. He trembles in urgency as the seconds tick by on his retreat back to the dusty bread pantry he’s been hiding in, he's just gotta be a little brave, like...like that Johnny Topside was.
A shrill and anguished wail breaks any slim bit of calm the boy might’ve had. All reason out the door, he turns to a random direction and breaks into a sprint.
He should’ve just stayed in the pantry, he should have just stayed. Panting, and despite welling tears, he spares a look back…nobody’s chasing after him. That doesn’t make any—
An instant blunt pain connects to his turned head, and he’s launched to the ground. He’s as good as dead, ain’t he?
“Ow! ” A deep, but somewhat high tuned voice shrieks. Almost like…a girl? Shaking his now pounding head a few times in confusion over the lack of death, he looks up. He’s in front of one of those vents, not the normal wirey ones, but the tall golden portholes. Though, what stands in front of it gives him panic.
It’s one of those girls, the ones everyone stayed away from, only sparing disgusted looks from time to time. She wears a dress similar to the one those funny statues wore at that weird machine his mom went to sometimes. Beside her is one of those tin men, splayed out on the ground limply. He jumps back, pressing himself as far against the nearest wall as he can, breathing heavily. He hopes desperately she leaves him be.
It must be among the boy's luckier days, because she doesn’t seem to notice or care whatever just hit her. She turns back to the hunk of metal on the floor and starts to break into tears once again. It’s deep and loud sobbing, begging someone named ‘bubbles’ to wake up. He gets ready to make a quick escape –well, as quick as he can with his legs feeling like jelly– She hiccups, crying for the monster not to leave her alone.
Only then it dawns on him that he can’t leave her like that. She’s alone and absolutely crying her eyes out, just like…
Maybe, maybe she’s just scared, and maybe she isn’t so bad without the big hulking monster by her side.
Still partially conflicted (and scared out of his mind), the boy approaches with some sort of caution, eyes flashing over to the metal monster every few moments, but it’s still devoid of life.
Before he can do much of anything, she spins around. Her eyes glow with an unnatural yellow hue. She points at him with the hand free of the giant needle she’s grasping. He squeezes his eyes shut, bracing himself in preparation for the all too familiar muffled shrieks he’s heard before disaster.
…but nothing like that happens.
Hesitantly, he looks up. She’s staring at him intently, sniffling a little every other moment. Her head is slightly tilted. “Danny?” She asks, voice deep and disjointed, like the sound of his dad’s record player when the needle splintered.
“S-sorry.” He manages to squeak out, he hasn’t had to use his actual voice for…he doesn’t know how long. “I don’t know who–”
“Danny !” A big smile appears on her face, and to his surprise, gives him a hug? It's weird, and her clothes are damp and absolutely reek, but he’s pretty sure his do as well. She studies him in awe, as if he’s the one who looks like a…well, her. “You wouldn’t leave me with the monsters, I knew, I knew, I knew!”
“Right. That…that’s me. ” He finds himself saying to himself. Not his name, not really. But his mother was quite insistent on not using it in public, and forbade him to say it at all once things went bad.
“Stop it! ” She snaps, though the smile is still on her face. He notices her hand is now tightly grasped onto his own. It’s sickly.
“..Huh?”
“The golden tears! ” She reaches out to his face, pinching at the corners of his cheeks, he now notices are damp from something that isn’t the sea. Her hands are clammy, like that rotten, dead fish he poked a few days ago. “You can’t cry, silly.” She giggles.
“I’m…I’m not a–”
There’s a harsh bang, then a resounding boom. “The sea demands your sacrifice!” A voice in the distance bellows, it’s followed by another bang and crash.
“The Sea Bulls are coming, the sea bulls are coming!” She recites to herself somewhat nervously while pulling up into the vent.
He glances around frantically, preparing to flee into a crevice or normal vent he could find. A cold hand clasps onto his arm. The girl is still there, peeking out of the shiny porthole. The glow in her eyes is much more apparent in the dark. “Let’s go now. Safe there, c’mon!”
“I can’t go in there!” A big drop into the scary portholes everyone hated, like it would eat them if they got too close. It’s something his mother would definitely not want him to be around.
“We have to go in the hidey-hole now, D.” She says it a bit more urgently than before, grabbing onto his forearms with a harsh tug. No, no, no, no–
“I can’t! I, I–” He scrambles in place, straining against her solid grasp. The last thing he wants is to be there, in that big maw of darkness with no exit. The voices though, they rapidly get closer… what other choice does he have? Reluctantly, he gives up fighting.
After he concedes, she pulls him up and into the small space effortlessly, a bit too effortlessly, as he's practically tugged in with the speed of a slingshot. It dropped off immediately, and he falls head first into the darkness.