Chapter Text
Here, there is only darkness.
But at the same time, here, there is only light.
Here, the thousand eyes watch restlessly. Hundreds of teeth gnash as if they have not eaten since the day they spawned. A singular voice sings out to everybody and nobody. The flow of time is interrupted by maniacal laughter. A tentacle thrashes at anything that gets near it, or rather at the absence of movement.
It is loud here. But despite all the noise, it is still silent.
And in the silence, the loud thump of a tentacle hitting the ground is what quells all other attempts at noise. As if called to court, four horrific figures immediately appear by the tentacle’s side as it morphs into something truly horrible.
With the tentacle’s transformation complete, five amalgamations beyond human comprehension are now arranged in a perfect semi-circle. They each emanate a strange and colourful light, which both obscures and enhances each being’s unnatural features. They are not human. They are not monsters. They are beyond those titles, beyond the concept of species, beyond the confines of earthly ideals.
Again, the tentacle, which has become part of something mouth-adjacent to a much larger presence, slaps the ground, this time with more urgency. And right on cue, from the depths of the Black-And-White, the ghostly remains of what used to be three human men fade into the middle of the half circle. They stand in a straight line, and each is in a worse state than the man beside him. What’s more, all of their faces are bathed in the burning green aura of the entity towering in front of them.
The youngest of the three men, a teenage boy that appears pale and almost zombie-like, loses every ounce of self-righteousness the moment he looks up. He does not feel welcome in this void. And rightfully so. Nobody is welcome here.
But feeling welcome has nothing to do with this situation. This boy is one of three called to meet with these creatures, and he hates to think about what could happen to him if he denied the order (not that it was possible to). This is unnatural. He’s supposed to be the one with the power, not the one taking orders. But he was in the Black-And-White now, and all power he may have had over others was left back in Hatchetfield.
Hatchetfield. What a funny place. The eldritch beings had been meddling with it for some time now, and it only became more intriguing with each timeline they saw. But in every timeline, they were known by the same name: The Lords in Black. A fittingly horrifying title.
Speaking of timelines, they were exactly the topic being discussed today. Why the Lords called the three men was simply for entertainment - their opinion wasn’t really relevant. But it was so much fun to torment the youngest. The older two were no longer scared - the first, clad in denim, had become loyally allied with the creatures, while the second had been dedicating his life to building up a tolerance to them through the military. But the new one? He was paralyzed with fear. And it was wonderful.
”Do you know why we called you here today, fwendy-wends?” A voice echoes through the void from the direction of the green mass looming above, and chills make their way down the spines of the three men. Some are better at ignoring it than others.
“Hell if I know-” The youngest snaps harshly, and immediately feels every eye in the infinite space bore into him. He shrinks, losing every inch of bravery that had been laced in those words. Anxiously, he awaits the assumed divine punishment, but that is thankfully cut off by the man in full denim.
“Timelines. You’re getting bored of the current ones you’re meddling with, you want ideas.” Interrupting the frightened boy, the man in the ‘Canadian Tuxedo’ waves his hand in the air in a quick and almost elegant gesture. This causes a crisp green apple to instantly materialize in his palm. and he raises the fruit to his lips, taking a harsh bite.
”Glad at least one of you saw that!~ Gosh, Wiley, if you weren’t Wiggly’s favourite, I’d want you all to myself!” A cluster of one thousand eyes bats every eyelash in unison, its purple glow enveloping the man. Its voice is sickeningly sing-songy.
“Honoured you think that.” The Wiley in question inches out of the violet light as he takes another bite of his apple.
“...Wait a second, timelines? The hell?” The teenage boy raises his eyebrow, snarking a little bit before catching himself. For the first time ever, he has some self control. Fear does that to a person.
”Oh boy, he doesn’t know about the split! Typical!” A goat-like creature with a yellow glow begins to cackle hysterically, and the air around it shakes with the gravity of the noise.
“I’ll explain. You see, my boy, an event back in 2005 triggered a break in the space-time continuum. Hatchetfield has an infinite amount of timelines, and very few end happily.” The man decked out in a black military uniform salutes a little at the younger boy as he explains. The teenager feels disgustingly safe in his presence.
”Ahaha! Correct! But everything here, inside or outside of my toybox, exists outside the constraints of time!” A yellow cube levitates menacingly, bathed in the glow of its beholder. Within it, there are millions of screams begging to find their way out, most of them belonging to several different versions of the same man and his family.
”Hushy-wushy about your stupid ‘toybox’, Tinky. So, you three know what you’re here for. Any ideas?” One of the many green tentacles reaches across the semicircle and smacks the yellow cube. It goes flying across the void in a way similar to a boomerang, as by the end of it, the box is right back in the possession of the goat-like entity.
”What do you want, boys? Anything you desire in a timeline can be real…” Blue goo drips from porous cracks in a long, masked creature’s face as it sings to the group of humans. Or, well, they used to be humans. Two of the men stand tall and silent, and the one that has shrunk so far into himself that he might as well be two inches tall stays silent for a little while too. That is, until he has an idea.
“...How about one where I don’t die like this? One where I get to play in the big game? What about that, huh?” His voice is bold but still almost meek. He stands up a little, puffing out his shoulders. His suggestion is met with silence from the Lords for a while. And then, they all begin to chuckle.
”Ohhhh~! Hungry for redemption, huh?” The largest mouth imaginable licks its lips, gnashing its teeth in joyful hunger. Its piglike features are indescribably gruesome, and make even the stomachless (as in quite literally void of a stomach organ) nauseous.
”Does the boy understand that he won’t come back to life through another timeline? You’re inevitably stuck here~” The sticky, glowing ooze drips onto the former athlete as the singing god slinks around him menacingly. The adults beside him do not even flinch. So the boy decides he must stand his ground. It is a poor decision, but those are his specialty.
“I know that, damnit! I just… there’s gotta be a timeline where we beat Clivesdale!” Shaking, the suggestor tries to keep his point afloat through rage against his beloathed rival city. The blue creature returns to its spot condescendingly as it listens along with its brothers.
“S’that your biggest concern? Beating Clivesdale?” Another loud bite of the apple is taken as the denim-clad former colonel looks on in smug disbelief.
“My boy, I think there are bigger issues to resolve than the big game.” A cigarette materializes into the hand of the other man beside him, and the general takes a long drag before exhaling loudly. A Lord responds to his comment, almost as if they are on equal footing. But they are not. And they never will be.
”No, no, no, I’d like to see where this is going~” Putting emphasis on all sight related words, the purple eyes continue to stare at everything and nothing, speaking coyly from a mouth that is not present. But before much attention can be paid to that fact, any further interaction is interrupted by the disembodied voice of an outsider.
“Hellooooo? I don’t know if I’m s’posed to be hearing this. What’s going on? Should I be worried?” A perky yet still malicious feminine voice rings through the empty space. It belongs to nobody on this plane, and yet it is all too familiar.
”Don’t worry about it, Gracie, just keep devouring souls.” The wet schlep of tongue on teeth blares from the glowing pink mouth. Its teeth are bared. It is hungrier than ever, but can still somehow become more starving.
“Okay!” The voice of the outsider bounces away, continuing whatever she had been doing before she had been unable to ignore the conversation sounding in her brain. It was then the young boy trapped in darkness came to a realization on just who that girl was.
“Wait, Gracie? As in… Grace Chasity? You can talk to her? Grace! Grace, it’s me-” The ghostly boy begins to jump up and down with an embarrassing amount of joy. He really does lose his cool around her. He doesn’t know why. She was the one that sent him here. But still, the schoolboy crush was not quenched, although usually well hidden under sexual advances. He wasn’t kidding when he said getting sent here was totally worth it.
”She can’t hear you, you buffoon. Only us.” The hiss of the entity drenched in blue light sent small droplets of ooze flying everywhere, and the substance only continued to scatter across the void as the creature laughed.
”Did you see how desperate he just was?” The many eyes spread across the void in hysterical laughter, appearing above, below, and even on the men before returning to their original location.
”I thought you’d already tasted her enough~” The pig-like lips chuckle through the thinly veiled innuendo, chomping wildly at the end of the sentence. The violent chatter is swiftly cut off by another tentacle slapping to the ground.
”Can all of you shut up?” Pure rage echoes through the Black And White. There is silence. And then it is interrupted.
”Sorry, can’t hear you over the screams of terror from my toy box~” The snide comment coming from the yellow glow is not ignored. Instead, the toy box in question, which is in fact bursting with very loud screams, is immediately sent flying. It does not return, and the goat that had been holding it signs, for it knows it will have to go looking around the void for it once the meeting is over.
”You miss Gracie-wacie, don’t you, boy?” There is no right answer to this question. Either way, the teenager will be insulted greatly.
“Mm…” Unwilling to admit anything, the boy just squeaks out a noise. But unsurprisingly, it is accompanied by a weak nod. This is not lost on the horror above him.
”Pathetic. No matter! We can work with your itsy-bitsy… idea.” The many tentacles twiddle together, as if plotting something that the men below them would not want to know.
“So that’s what you’re going with? Then, pray tell, what do you need us for?” Wiley takes another juicy bite of the green apple in his hand, before tossing it over his shoulder. It immediately disappears into thin air.
”We don’t. Back to the void with you boys. Maxie-waxie will stay here with us, to watch the world of his own design fall to the ground~” One of the tentacles sweeps the ‘Maxie-waxie’ in question closer to the Lords, and the two men that had previously been supporting him look on, knowing that there is nothing they can do now for the terrified teenager.
Cacophonous laughter echoes through the void as those two are somewhat unwillingly sucked back into conscious nothingness. And the boy that used to be Max Jägerman feels more fear than he could ever put into words as he is forced to watch this new timeline’s events unfold.