Chapter Text
I walk around the town, finding nothing but ruins. After about an hour, I find a stairwell leading into a basement. A foreboding feeling emits from it. But honestly? I've got nothing better to do. I slowly make my way down the stairs, trying to ignore the growing smell of copper. Once I'm at the bottom, all that's in front of me is a featureless concrete corridor. Is it really worth doing this over some TV show I watched as a kid?
Without thinking, I run through the corridor, until industrial lights start showing up on both sides. Eventually, the corridor splits in several directions. "Oh, someone new!" A feminine voice says, echoing in every direction.
"I wanna greet them!" A masculine voice says.
"Quiet, you dumbass machine!" A slightly deeper female voice says, before I hear the sound of something slamming against wood. Suddenly, I hear squeaking footsteps in the distance, which get louder and louder until I'm standing in front of the source of the noise: A towering woman in a nurse outfit. She has ropes around her torso which keep several magazines bound to her body, and a red visor over her eyes. She grabs my hand and starts dragging me off. "H-hey! Let me go!" I yell, to no avail. She doesn't even say anything in response. Once we reach a small room at the end of a hallway, she stops. At the end of the hallway is a small wooden table with a green wristwatch on it, and a panel with a handle on the wall.
"You know where you're going?" She asks.
"Home?" I ask meekly.
"Close enough!" The first voice says.
"Get the annoying watch and put it on him. Two birds, one stone!"
The one with the higher pitched voice, who's wearing the same outfit (save for a necklace made from a broken half of a pair of glasses instead of magazines strapped onto her), grabs the wristwatch off of the table. "Hey! Get your rubbery hands off of me!" A voice says. She forces the watch onto my left wrist, as the other pulls on the handle on the wall, revealing a garbage chute. Then she grabs me by the collar and shoves me head-first into the chute.
I fall down the chute, sliding easily on the smooth metal surfaces. I keep falling and falling, until at some point I fall out and collide with something made of glass, which immediately shatters upon contact with my feet.
I hear three voices, all of which are soft and feminine.
"Oh, God..." The quietest voice mutters.
"Is he dead?" A squeaky voice says.
"He seems fine to me." A slightly deep voice responds.
I slowly get up. "Eh, I'm gonna go. I got a job interview." The squeaky voice says. "You figure it out yourself, BB."
"Come on, ZZ! You can't just- Ugh. She's already gone." The deep voice complains.
I look around the room. It's mostly empty save for a few chairs. Looking behind me, I appear to have broken "The World's Largest Pane of Glass". Unbelievable.
"So... Who are you? I don't recognize you." The deep voice asks.
"Mark. Who are you?" I ask.
"Beatrice." The one with the deep voice responds.
"Circe." The one with the squeaky voice replies, barely audible.
"I... Have a lot of questions." I say, looking at the two of them. Beatrice is wearing an orange dress dotted with black spots, along with black slippers and a yellow bow on her head. Circe is wearing a torn blue shirt, jeans, and a green jacket, along with a bandage over her eye. Beatrice has cream-colored skin, and Circe has pale blue skin.
"Get in the car." Beatrice says, as we walk outside. In the parking lot is a blue 1960s sedan (at least that's what it seems to be). I feel like I've entered a whole new world, which I probably have. All the buildings are a certain solid color, and the sky is bright cyan with solid white clouds. Oddly, a lot of the windows here are boarded up or broken, and despite the state of abandon, I can't help but feel like I'm being watched.
Suddenly, someone grabs me and turns me around. It's some guy with purple skin wearing a ragged police officer uniform (i.e. a threadbare blue coat and white button-up shirt, along with a crude gold foil star as some sort of badge replacement).
"Hey, kid!" He calls, his right eye visibly twitching.
"Oh, God..." Beatrice mutters.
"Wanna see a coin flip?" He asks, getting uncomfortably close and taking a chocolate coin out of his pocket.
"Uh... No?" I reply.
"Kickflip?" He says, taking out a skateboard from seemingly nowhere.
"Nope."
"Backflip?"
"Mark, just get in the damn car." Beatrice mutters. I quickly get in the backseat, sitting next to Circe. "Hey, kid!" The man says again, before forcing open the window next to me with his bare hands, making a gold foil star, and handing it to me. "For you, kid." He says, dropping the star so it flutters to the floor. As we drive off, I swear I can see him run off and do a backflip into a shop window.
"Is he gonna be okay?" I ask.
"Physically, he's fine," Beatrice responds, turning a corner. "mentally, I don't know."
"Okay..."
"I genuinely think he's invincible. One time he shot himself in the head and the bullet just bounced off."
"So when am I gonna get my questions answered?" I ask impatiently as we turn a corner and pass a building with a sign reading "MORAL MURDER INSTITUTE" and a restaurant called "KILLER'S PIZZA". Soon, I find myself in a rather basic yet messy apartment. Clothes and trash are strewn everywhere, and green light floods in through the half-shuttered window giving in a charming, lived-in feel. I sigh softly, and ask "What even is this place?"
"They call it The Edge. Last stop before the void. It's colorful, but it's not a good place to live, unless you're a masochist or something." Beatrice answers, looking at her cell phone screen.
"The void?"
"Yep. The Edge is huge, but you go far enough in one direction and you'll find yourself on a cliff edge reaching out into nothing."
I look at a nearby mirror propped up against the wall. That's how we got in, as the door is boarded up. Just like seemingly everyone else here, I have a sort of cartoonish face. However, my ruffled hair and my tired eyes don't seem to have changed much. I suddenly remember why I'm here. "What do you know about The Lamby Show?" I say eagerly. Circe shudders.
"Not much. Just that me and my sister were voice actors for some cartoons made by the same company. We're mostly concerned with finding a way out, which of course involves a lot of running away."
"I don't even know where to start..." I say, running my hands through my hair. Suddenly, I hear thumping noises that shake the entire apartment building. Beatrice looks like she's used to this, but Circe starts panicking and muttering to herself. The thumping gets louder and louder until it sounds like its right outside the door. "Can't you see, baby, life's knocking right at your door?" A deep, distorted feminine voice says, before a thick, long knife pierces the door. Then the door is forced open. Now standing in the doorway is what seems to be a monstrous creature, taking the form of a vicious mockery of Beatrice. Same features, yet stretched and bloodied.
"Get ready..." The creature hisses. "I'm gonna cut you down..."
She throws a knife, which hits the window and is promptly embedded in it. Circe covers her face with her hands and sobs, but I grab her and drag her along with me, as I follow Beatrice out of the room and down the stairs. "Alaaaaaaaan! Where are you Alan? I love you! I love you!" The creature says to no one in particular. As we run down the stairwell, I can't help but wonder who Alan is.
"I'd rather be listening to that old guy's podcast!" Beatrice complains as we go down another flight of stairs.
"What are you talking about?" I ask, exasperated.
"You know the one! The one where he won't stop promoting the beef jerky!"
When finally reach the basement, BB bars the door with a wooden plank. Whatever's chasing us tries slamming itself against the door several times, before giving up and walking off. There's several missing person posters in the empty concrete room, displaying images of "Max" and "Claude". These names seem familiar to me, but I have no idea why. The room is devoid of anything else, except for the door we entered, and a dark tunnel.
I hear footsteps echoing from the tunnel, getting louder and louder until someone's standing in front of us. It's the policeman! "I'm on the trail of a vicious killer!" He says.
"Who even is this guy?" I ask.
"Just some guy who grinds up politicians and bigots."
"And I'm guessing that's normal here?"
"Yeah."
We start walking through the tunnel, as the policeman takes out a flashlight. We make our way through, and eventually end up outside. The sky is now blue once more, though it seems to be becoming cloudy. Several nearby windows are boarded up, which seems to be the norm around here.
A phone call and an uneventful walk later, we end up at Beatrice's Aunt and Uncle YY's house. I was told it'd be a house, but it's better described as a sprawling Victorian-era mansion. The walls are lined with abstract paintings mostly consisting of white and red. Aunt YY decides to show us around, while Uncle YY goes into the kitchen to make... Whatever he's going to make. When he opens the door to the kitchen, the smell of cooking meat wafts into the foyer. I'm hungry, but there's a bad feeling in my stomach that accompanies the emptiness.