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Somewhere in between time and space, not quite a void but not exactly a place, there were two guys. Entering the set from stage left, one took off his coat and hung it in the air as he made his way to the window seat. The other stood in front of what could be reasonably called a door, if one considered a piece of stone connected to the wall that would dissolve when asked to do as such. Needless to say the laws of reality did not apply here, causing the house guest to freeze in place in a mixture of fear and confusion.
“Take off your shoes and make yourself at home!” the host declared, lifting up his own leg for dramatic effect only to shamelessly show that he himself did not remove his sneakers.
Still though, the guest let out an exasperated sigh and bent down to undo the laces on his combat boots.
The room had no defined floor or walls, simply just blackness illuminated by the window. There were outlines of some furniture, a couch and table. It would be bold to assume there were no doors, considering any part of the wall could likely vaporize itself. Actually, was there even really an “entrance” to this place? Before he could think about things more, he realized that the host had grown impatient and was now pacing around him in a circle.
“You really should stop doing that here, it’s not good for you” he said with a sly smile while gently using the back of his hand to knock on the guest’s helmet.
Perhaps reflexively, he was pushed away.
“What even are you?” the guest asked, his tone more bothered than curious.
The other simply laughed in his face for what could have been an eternity. “Mikhail, but you can call me Misha if you want”
The guest’s frown deepened, “That’s not what I meant”
Misha just laughed again and teleported across the room, petting the wall before asking it to open pretty please~
“Oh also, Andrei, I don’t think you should follow me too much. Wouldn’t want you to get hurt or anything~” Misha said while disappearing into another black room as the wall reformed behind him.
“WHEN DID I TELL YOU MY NAME?” Andrei yelled, unfortunately at no one in particular. Perhaps the walls were the ones listening, since clearly they knew how to.
Frustratedly, he wandered around the room a bit before realizing he had no idea where to go and plopped angrily on the sofa. And so, he waited.
…. And waited.
…………………………..And waited.
And continued to wait until it felt like his eyelids couldn’t hold themselves up anymore. Perhaps it would be fine to take a nap? Taking his headset off and placing it on the table, it didn’t really feel like he was sacrificing his vision for once since there was literally nothing to see. Still, it didn’t take long after that to get comfy again and soon pass out.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Standing at a bus stop, in the rain, at what felt like midnight, was really testing Andrei’s patience. He pulled up an arm to check the time, only to remember he didn’t have a watch to begin with. He rolled his eyes at that, looking over his shoulder for something to entertain him.
Oddly enough, a young man in a trench coat stood next to him. He didn’t have an umbrella to hold, instead using a hood to deflect rain. Something about him seemed familiar, but Andrei didn’t really care to place it. Soon enough a Beep Beep sounded and a tortoise slowly crawled up in front of them. The shell levitated a bit and a small man inside asked them “Where too?”
Andrei said “Home” and the guy next to him said something, but it was drowned out as the rain got heavier.
Getting inside the tortoise, he took his seat near the window as the shell slowly came back down. The young man followed him, but sat in the seat in front. Something about this ticked him off, and he asked “What the hell do you want?”
The guy just smiled at him.
“What the hell?”
That smile never changed.
Maybe this exchange repeated a few times, or an infinite amount of times, or maybe it never looped at all. Andrei couldn’t tell, and rather than think about it he just stood up and grabbed Misha by the collar of his shirt and pulled him close enough to feel his breath.
“What in hell are you?”
Simply blinking and smiling, it might have been ages before he responded with a cheerful voice “Your catastrophe”
Andrei slammed him into the glass multiple times before dropping him and storming off the tortoise. The driver looked over at him, too scared to ask anything. They just gulped and went back to keeping their eyes on the road as the angry man jumped out of the vehicle.
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Andrei woke up with a start. His brain hurt from the fact that his dream seemed more realistic than what reality he woke into. Still on the couch, though now with the sense of eyes watching him. Even without headgear he made out the vague shape of the thing causing him so much fury. He wanted to roll over and go back to his dreams, but a hand gripped his arm and a voice said “Those will just cause you more turmoil.”
“Fuck off Misha” he said in a half asleep daze. It was the first time he acknowledged the other’s name, causing Misha to flinch a bit. They’d been through all this so many times before and yet he was so used to just being called ‘you’ that he had simply come to accept it.
When he sat up to see Misha’s blurry outline quickly backing away, Andrei reflexively squinted in confusion. Despite knowing next to nothing about the other, the last thing he knew to expect was for it to listen to him. It? Wait what made Andrei think to call him that?
Both just stood from across the room looking at each other, neither daring to progress the conversation. Eventually, Andrei sighed at the realization that he was hungry and had to ask “Is there a kitchen anywhere?”
If he had his helmet on, he would have gotten pissed at the grin on Misha’s face. Instead, Andrei was forced to listen to the other’s laugh. Somewhere between a giggle, chuckle, and the sounds of pure malevolence, it didn’t take long until Andrei found himself unsettled by the fact that this thing had more than one voice. After a serious coughing fit, Misha settled back on the one he had used before- a masculine one that was very punch-able in Andrei’s humble opinion.
“Yeah, I can take you to it if you want”
Getting up and re-equipping his head gear, Andrei responded “that would be appreciated”.
And so he followed the host throughout the ‘house’, going through ‘doors’, heading down hallways and through countless rooms – some that looked like actual places and some that did not, occasionally with the floor being the ceiling to Andrei’s amusement. Eventually they found their way to a kitchen that looked like it was a part of a log cabin, with only a basin on the counter for water and a wood burning stove. What in the homestead was this shit? Were was the fucking FOOD?
Andrei turned over to the one next to him, only to see an incredibly smug face that must really find this shit funny, huh? “You do realize why I asked about a kitchen in the first place?”
A “Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm?” with the resonance of at least five identifiable voices and 1 computer fan was the only response he got.
Andrei kept up a one sided staring contest until he realized that he never once saw Misha blink, and that it wouldn’t matter since it's not like such a thing was visible past his goggles. Instead, he coughed into his hand and said “I’m hungry”
God, could this be any more embarrassing?
“Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh~” the central voice teased “Well why didn’t you say so earlier?”
And so Misha left the ‘door’ they came from and took a multitude of lefts and rights until they arrived… in a bedroom.
Mainly pink and purple, with yellow stars decorating literally EVERYTHING, from pillows to beads hanging from the bed’s canopy. Silks draped down from the ceiling and an absurd amount of stuffed animals adorned the floor, sat in on fluffy violet rugs with tea cups and cookie plates in front of them.
Before Andrei could get mad that this was a bedroom, he had already walked over to one of the plates and was about to grab some to eat– until he felt a tug at the back of his neck.
“Don’t steal from others, it’s rude” Misha teased, this time with a girl’s voice. The serious tone was uncharacteristic of his enterally smug face, but Andrei followed along regardless.
Standing at a pink desk with a white rabbit sitting atop it, Misha simply said “Table for two” and the plush sat itself up, grabbed some menus written in crayon, and walked them over to a spare rug to sit down. It placed the menus down and spoke in a voice akin to a child’s, asking what they’d like, to which Misha responded “The usual~” (again in the feminine voice) and the rabbit nodded as it excused itself to go under the bed.
Meanwhile Andrei looked around at the other animals and felt a tinge of fear at the fact that they were alive and he had just tried to steal food from a bear. Horrible idea, thankfully he didn’t go through with that, even though that was only because of the thing in front of him.
Finally looking up at Misha, he found himself flustered at the fact he was the other’s focus of attention. Had he been staring this whole time? What the heck? Trying to not think of the implications of that, he asked “So what is the usual?”
Before Misha could answer, the rabbit came back with a tray of chocolate chip and butter cookies, along with a polka-dot teapot, two cups, and a tall blue drink garnished with a tiny umbrella. Huh, cute.
Andrei thanked the waitress as Misha grabbed the blue drink from the rug and practically started inhaling it. Andrei could only watch in shock at that, but the waitress had already left and he might as well dig in himself. Pouring himself a cup, the first thing he noticed was the distinct scent of cinnamon… and apples? Was this just apple cider? He brought the cup up to his mouth and was instantly hit with the heat of boiling tea… did he not realize it was steaming? Biting his tongue and setting the cup back down, he looked over at Misha who had put down the blue drink and was nibbling on a chocolate chip cookie.
“Hey since we don’t have water, can I have a sip of your drink?” he absent mindedly asked.
“Uhhhhhhhhhhhhh” this time Andrei could make out the central voice mixing with the femme one Misha had used a moment before, “I don’t think you’ll like it”
“It’s fine, I just need something cold for a bit”
… Misha stared at him with a very uncomfortable expression before directing his eyes back to the drink, then back at Andrei, and finally saying “It’s kerosene”
………………. “What”
“I said it’s kerosene,” Misha repeated.
They could probably go on forever with this bit, in fact Misha was sure that there was somewhere just an infinite loop of “what?” and “it’s kerosene” somewhere else in this place. But luckily he knew better to let things go on for that long, since it was situations like that which caused Andrei to lose his sanity faster.
“I like sweet things” he said to the last ‘what?’
Which prompted Andrei to ask him “But why Kerosene? That shit is used for jet fuel, it’s toxic!”
Misha just shrugged, “Had it at a bar one time when the bartender was too tired to deal with my rambling so he gave me some to shut me up. He wasn’t aware I wasn’t human until I drank the whole thing and asked for another cup”
Wasn’t human. Andrei felt like he already knew this and yet he couldn’t help but feel surprised at the new(?) information. Taking his teacup again, now that it had chilled a bit, he took a long sip before asking “Well then what are you?”
Another bout of echoing laughter and wow, Andrei could understand why a bartender would want to poison this idiot. If this was him sober….. Andrei did not want to meet him drunk. Eventually the laughter died down and Misha gave a command: “Guess.”
Something about the comment ticked Andrei off, maybe it was the tone, but he followed nonetheless. “I dunno, maybe an alien, '' he said while taking another sip, noting that the drink was too watery to really be cider. Cinnamon apple tea seemed redundant though. He couldn’t help but wish the ‘usual’ was a different flavor.
“Beep,” and it was a very real mechanical beep that came from Misha’s mouth, “Try again.”
Okay this was going to be an aggravating experience but it was probably better to play along. “Demon”
“Beep”
“Eldritch horror”
“Eh… you’re not exactly wrong with that but it’s not how I’d describe myself?” Misha responded, before thinking about it a bit and eventually letting out another “Beep”
“Oh come on, I’m totally right with that one though?” Andrei argued.
Misha shifted in his position, straightening out his face to actually look serious for once before asking “Do I look like cthulhu to you?” in a voice much deeper than any of the ones he’d used before.
Andrei looked away and shrugged, “Nah, you look like one of the twinks from military school” in a tone more dismissive than he intended. The conversation went quiet from there, and turning his head back Andrei noticed that Misha was just…. Frozen, and for once Andrei could have sworn he just blinked. His own response to that was to just blink.
The rabbit came back to ask if things were going okay, and the two seemed to have just snapped back to the reality that they were at a tea-party-cafe-thing-in-a-pink-and-purple-bedroom. They both deflected and said everything was fine, in the most awkward way possible that did not convince the waitress. But her job did not involve counseling so she just put down the bill and walked away.
Andrei looked at the check pensively, since obviously any establishment would want someone to pay after eating there. But he had never known an astronaut to bring their wallet with them to outer space– let alone wherever the fuck he was right now, and even if he DID have it, there was no way of knowing what kind of currency this place used.
Before he could think about the logic of things too much, Misha shoved a cookie in his mouth, and then started digging around his pocket. He pulled out what looked like a glowing star and an assortment of buttons, put it down onto the paper, and they watched it dissolve into the paper as the ink formed a big thumbs up to indicate the correct amount was paid. Misha then sprinkled more buttons next to it, likely the tip.
Andrei just stared at him, grabbing another cookie as he did so. They finished their food and drinks in silence, Andrei finding that as the tea steeped more it actually had a very pleasant flavor. Maybe he wouldn’t mind drinking this again.
After finishing, they left. And the awkward silence followed them as they wandered the different rooms.
“Hey, um… Sorry if calling you a twink was offensive” Andrei finally said in maybe the 15th room they’d traveled to.
Misha didn’t turn around to face him, just tilted his head to the side and a sound echoed around them.
………….”Could you use human words?” At least, Andrei assumed that Misha was speaking to him in an inhuman language.
“Ah,” Misha turned around with his eyes all bugged out, stressed maybe “It’s not actually a problem…” he trailed off.
You’d have an easier chance trying to convince me that my grandma’s still alive, Andrei thought to himself. He just nodded, following along the hallway they were in.
Misha did another laugh, sort of… it was one voice, like the scream of a goat but chopped up and left him winded by the end of it. Loud enough to freak Andrei out in a way none of the others succeeded in.
“Haa… so….” staring down at his hands, turning them over and around as he spoke, “how much do you remember from military school?”
“Huh, why?”
Before the conversation could continue, a bullet came out from nowhere and lodged itself in Misha’s skull. His body instantly combusted and Andrei could do nothing but step back gawking at it. He turned to the direction it came from, reaching to his own belt, only to find his pistol wasn’t there. Hadn’t been there for some time. Wait, did someone steal his gun?
The perpetrator didn’t wait for him to run after them, just walking out of the shadows and flicking Andrei in the middle of his visor. The vision of himself, without headgear, and a smug smile not too different from one that had existed just moments ago.
“Don’t worry,” his own voice spoke to him, “they’ll be another one just soon”
There was no way for Andrei to process what the fuck just happened. He just lost balance and fell over, forced to stare at the charred corpse in front of him.