Chapter Text
“Charlie!”
Charlie felt cold stone beneath him and opened his eyes. The voice was Grizzly’s, he was in front of Charlie- were they in his kitchen?
He looked around, and sure enough, this was the kitchen. Why was Charlie on the floor, why was Grizz here? What had he just been thinking about..? He got the sense it was important.
“Jesus, man, you had us so worried when you didn’t show up to dinner, thank god your door was unlocked- are you okay, man?” Grizz helped lift him up so they were kneeling together.
“D-Did I-? Was I just asleep on the floor?” Charlie asked.
“Yeah, when you didn’t show up, I came to check on you. Are you alright?” Grizz responded, concern practically dripping from his expression.
“Uh- fine. How long has it been?”
“Only, like, 25 minutes.”
Grizzly stood up, offering out a hand which Charlie promptly took to help him to his feet.
“Do you need to go to the hospital or something? What happened?” Grizz asked.
“No, no- I’ll be fine. I didn’t eat enough, I’ll just need to grab something. Lucky we’re in the kitchen.” Charlie said, walking over to a counter, opening a cabinet and grabbing the first thing he saw, a cereal bar.
“Yeah, lucky. Are you sure-“
“Sure. I’m fine, Grizz, I’m sorry for ruining the dinner for you.”
“It’ll be okay. Speaking of, we should probably let everyone know that you’re okay.” Grizzly answered, passing Charlie his phone off of the side of the counter, watching as he typed in a response as quickly as he could.
◯ Slimecicle Today at 23:59
Hey guys I’m alive, I just passed out but Grizz found me and I’m fine now
Sorry for scaring yuo all
As Charlie hit send, he heard a sound from the other room, quiet, but loud enough to be annoying.
Click-click-click.
“Hey, do you hear that?” Charlie asked, shoving the phone into his pocket and stepping towards the corridor, before Grizz grabbed his sleeve, pulling him back.
“It’s probably just rain or something, but you need to eat first.”
Charlie looked at the window in the hallway, the orange-tinted evening light shining onto the carpet. There was noticeably no rain on the glass.
“I’ll eat in a second, I want to go check what that is first.” Charlie decided, shaking Grizz’s hand off of his arm and walking over to the living room where the sound seemed to come from, this time without being stopped.
Clickclickclickclick
Though, as he walked into the living room, nothing looked out of place, and the clicking sounded just as far away as it has in the kitchen.
Grizz’s footsteps followed him, the figure of the man stood in the doorway visible out of the corner of Charlie’s eye.
“Why hasn’t it moved?”
“..What? Did you hit your head or something, man-“
“Why hasn’t the clicking moved?”
“Charlie, I think you need to rest, you’re scaring me.”
Charlie turned on his heel, dropping the cereal bar from his hand onto the carpet, looking at Grizz again.
She struggled with making the mouths.
What the hell was he talking about?
His mind felt split in two, grasping at a world that should be there, but just.. was out of reach.
The wall behind Grizz started to crack.
“No, no no no no no no,” Charlie shook his head and backed away until he hit the wall, “goddamn it, what are you doing here? What the fuck are you doing to me?!”
Grizz didn’t give any response.
Charlie was half laughing and half crying, “this is fucked, this is so fucked, I’m not even here, I’m-”
Charlie took a breath, “I’m still in the office.”
When he looked back up, he wasn’t looking at Grizzly. Rachel was standing there, just as unexpressive as Grizz had been, maybe a little disappointed.
“It’s a shame, really. We expected this to keep you busy a little longer.” She said.
“Let me out of here.” Charlie begged.
Rachel tilted her head, raising her eyebrows. “Why would I? We don’t exactly have a time limit. We’re just giving you what you want.”
“Fake realities aren’t what I want. Putting me in your fucking hivemind isn’t what I want. Losing my sanity in whatever the fuck this is isn’t what I want! You can’t just stick me in some fiction, think you can get rid of all the bad parts and be done with it.”
“Fine,” Rachel sighed. “At least this will be more interesting. Just play for long enough for me to get what I need.”
“Rachel, what the fuck are you talking about-“
Rachel raised a finger, pushing it forwards, shoving Charlie backwards as she did, leaving him to topple backwards with momentum.
Where he expected to meet carpet, he fell right through, screaming, tumbling through the air until he hit an unexpected sensation under his back: grass.
The air felt fresher, and sunlight shone onto Charlie’s closed eyes, birds cawing somewhere in the distance.
He opened his eyes, met with a blurry, still blood-tinted form, dressed in yellow, a smaller figure by his side.
“..Slime?”