Chapter Text
Tick tock.
Tick tock.
Tick tock.
The ancient analogue clock droned on and on and on. dedf1sh didn’t know if it was correct. They couldn’t remember the last time they even looked at it; granted, none of that really mattered. Time had lost all meaning to her long ago. The Deep Sea Metro was wholly shielded from the outside. No sun, no moon, no stars. No day or night, just the incessant hum of the fluorescent bulbs that illuminated the dingy depths in which dedf1sh resided, only broken up once in a while by falters and flickers.
A small notification came up on her computer monitor, breaking them out of their trance. There was a reminder to take her medicine. It was the only notification they got now, having not heard from Mr. TarTar since he stopped commissioning them for music. Even though she awaited the go-ahead with vigilance, she occasionally tried to make something new, but nothing came to mind.
Pushing away the thoughts that hung in their mind, she went and grabbed the small tube hanging from the ceiling by their desk, pushing the needle at the end into the same spot it always went. It had scarred long ago. They flicked a small switch nearby and soon the fluorescent liquid streamed through into their veins, cleaning away the thoughts of boredom, cleaning away the distraction, making them better. They didn’t know why they had to take it so often. The other Sanitized Octolings never needed to be topped up. She didn’t question it though, simply letting it flow for twenty seconds before shutting off the device as instructed and removing the needle, watching the skin heal over before their eyes.
The medicine was good, they supposed. It healed their wounds, not that there was anything to heal beyond the spot she inserted the needle into and it meant they never felt hungry or tired or thirsty, wholly maintaining their body. More importantly it cleared their mind; no emotion, no boredom, no distractions. Now they were focused, they stared at their monitor, mixing software open, the old battered pad controller they’d brought from their old life sat in front of them, and they did nothing. They rarely did anything now, just staring until some kind of inspiration hit or an order came through but those things didn’t happen. They had sat in this studio for almost three years now, there was no external stimulation to give her ideas and no emotions or memories they could draw from, they hadn’t seen another face in years, not even their own.
It was life. Probably. Their hearts still beat. Occasionally. They could see, hear, smell, think, touch. That constituted life enough for them. Besides, they chose this, that’s all they could remember really. They knew this was their doing so there was no reason to complain. Besides, with no feeling they couldn’t lament it anyway.
She leaned back in her chair, looking around the studio. It was an ostensibly large room but overfilled with mostly unused equipment, like it was put there by some entity that knew what a music studio was for but not how it worked so just threw in anything it could think of. It was almost maze-like with shelves of blank tapes and other various things they’d never really looked at. They couldn’t even see the door. It was still silent, aside from the lights in the otherwise empty atmosphere like a whining bass line.
dedf1sh heard the door creek open.