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One minute, Jake is on a bridge, looking into the endless deep blue of the sea below. Watching the moon reflect off of the cascading darkness. He lets it swallow him whole, surrendering his body and mind after he’s unable to keep going. His days are mundane and repetitive, no longer having a purpose.
But now he’s here, waking up inside of a large cabin by the beachside. His head hurts, and he’s coughing, gasping for air as he sits up. He sees people, a few of them crowding around him. It feels a little suffocating. He’s never been good with large numbers of people.
A man, not too much younger than Jake himself, kneels down beside him. He’s dressed in red, a uniform of sorts. It reminded Jake of a pizza boy uniform.
“Hey…” the stranger greets him. “Welcome, I guess. I feel like we’ve been getting… a lot of new people lately,” he shook his head.
“Where am I? What is this?” Jake asks.
“Hell. Basically– not exactly. Purgatory?” the pizza boy says. Jake’s eyes widen beneath the visor. Jake knew he’d fucked up– made some bad decisions… but hell ?
“Hey, hey– Back off, Elliot. You’re scarin’ em,” someone walks forward, placing their hand on the pizza boy– Elliot’s– shoulder.
Elliot looks back at the person, standing up. “I’m just– confused, Chance. First it was the four all at once just last week, and now him ? It’s weird. We’ve never gained this much people rapidly like that.”
Jake looks around, and… there's a few younger people– children and teenagers. It makes Jake’s heart hurt. What had they done to be here? They were just kids. Jake knew better– they didn’t. There’s also… older people. Troubled, just like him.
Off in the corner there’s a man in a soldier’s uniform, eyeing him warily. Jake feels eyes on him from all around the room. Jake gets up to his feet, and Elliot’s attention snaps back to him.
“Woah– okay, you’re okay? You can stand– good. Good.” Elliot walks back over, before a hand on his shoulder stopping him in his tracks. It was the person Elliot had referred to as Chance.
“Eli, give him space ,” Chance sighs, their hand pulling Elliot back.
“It’s fine,” Jake says. A helmet hugged his head tightly, giving Jake a small headache. He doesn’t know how it got there. He didn’t have a helmet back home, nor did he put one on before… that happened. Jake tugs off his helmet, and cradles it in his arms.
It was just like the one he wore on his roblox avatar. It was almost funny how his sins followed him even in death. But he couldn’t bring himself to laugh, not when he was… wherever this was.
A young boy comes up. He was adorned in black robes that looked just a tad too big for him, the sleeves spilling over his hands, and the tail touching the floor. He couldn’t be older than fourteen, fifteen, Jake guesses.
“Can I show him around?” The boy asks Elliot and Chance, who were both quietly bickering with each other.
Elliot sighs. “Yes. Go ahead.”
The kid smiles, and walks up to Jake. “I’m Brandon,” He introduces himself.
“I’m Jake,” He tells Brandon. “It’s… nice to meet you. Do you know about this place?”
Brandon nods. “Mhm! I’ve been here for… a while now, I think,” he hums.
“This… is the Lobby… or the main cabin. This is where we wait in between the games.” Brandon explains, showing him around the cabin. Jake had appeared here, on the first floor.
There were couches and chairs, a fireplace, a place with a small restaurant. There were people sitting at the tables– a lot of them. There seemed to be a lot of people in this place. Trapped like him, Brandon, Elliot, Chance– his hope depletes the longer Brandon shows him around.
There’s some entertainment. A… broken TV. That wouldn’t be useful… and a dance machine all up on the second floor. Posters litter the walls, all memorabilia from everyone’s past lives. Flyers advertise a Casino’s grand re-opening, wanted posters of Mafia men, army propaganda, and photos of people blacklisted… from a pizza place? Circus flyers, missing posters for children and adults alike. Memorial drawings, funeral advertisements, advertisements for employment at a headquarters.
It was a lot for Jake to process, but something catches him off guard. That symbol– the ring of thorns. Join us in Worshipping Spawn Today! Jake feels a shiver down his spine.
Brandon leads him outside of the cabin. Jake can taste the salt of the sea on his tongue, and he breathes in the salty air. Fresh air… it felt so real. He sees two cloaked individuals kneeled down on the beach, seemingly in prayer. Two others sit upon the dock.
“The outside area is really nice. It’s not that big– we can’t go into the woods past the barricade. There’s monsters out there. I’ve seen them– they’re really scary.” Brandon tells him. “But the beach is nice…” Brandon smiles softly.
“It looks nice… relaxing,” Jake says, trying to make conversation. He felt… outcasted. But he also felt like these people knew heartache and suffering. Brandon nods.
“But come on, I gotta show you the cabins. I think your room might be in the one closest to the beach.” Brandon takes him by the wrist, and drags him, excited to continue his tour. Jake is almost reluctant, his heart feeling a magnetic pool to the beach, his eyes fixated on the people that seemed to be spending their time on the sandy bank.
But he follows Brandon.
He steps into the cabin, wiping his feet on the mat, and walking into the cabin. Brandon tours him around. Jake holds his helmet close to him under his arm as Brandon takes him down a hallway that seems to look… infinitely long. After a bit of walking, Brandon’s eyes light up.
“There! A new door. This is yours,” Brandon hums, and opens the door. He lets Jake walk in first. It’s not all that special– just a cabin room with another door that upon further inspection, led to a bathroom. The bedding was blue. Everything else was seemingly devoid of color. He looks in the drawers and finds repeats of the outfit he currently wore now.
This was… weird. Unsettling, uncanny, weird. That's what this was. Jake constantly felt like there were eyes burning into the back of his skull, like there was something more. Even as Brandon waited outside in the hall and he was seemingly alone… he didn’t feel like it.
He walks out of the room, and back into the long hallway. He and Brandon walk until he hears a door behind him. Jake flinches, and turns around, looking to see what it was.
He’s met with… a familiar face.
“Jake?”
“Echo?” Jake’s eyes widened. Why was Echo here? Echo was dead . So were the rest of the fragments. So was Sean. But… Jake was also technically dead.
But it warms Jake’s heart to see a familiar face, and he rushes forward, pulling Echo into a hug. He’d never been able to hug them properly… now he could. His arms wrap around their body, holding them close. Echo returns the embrace, their arms hugging him tightly.
“It’s so nice to finally be able to hug you,” Jake tells him.
“It really is, dear,” Echo hums, their voice soft, and filled with emotion. It’s the first time Jake had heard it in a while. They stay like this for a while, until they pull away.
“You know Echo?” Brandon asked Jake.
Jake nods, smiling softly. “Yeah. We knew each other in life.”
“Well, do you know the others?” Brandon asks.
“Well, Jake… I wasn’t the only one to get Forsakened.” Echo hums. The word Forsakened seemed… terrifying. But Jake had Echo.
Echo wasn’t alone, either. “The others?” Jake asks.
“Anima, Painbody… and Sean.” Echo tells him.
“Sean?” He mumbles.
Echo nods. “He’s out by the beach with the Cultist… Two Time, right, Brandon?” Echo asks. Brandon nods and smiles. “He spends most of his time out there… praying.”
“Praying?” Jake asks.
Echo nods. “It brings him comfort, I think. Or he’s trying to bargain.”
“I see…”
“I don’t think it will help. This is out of…whoever is in charge’s control, dearie,” Echo tells Jake, letting out a soft sigh.
“I… wow. We’re really… in it, I guess? This isn’t a part of nilspace…?” Jake asks.
Echo shakes their head. “No, it’s not… it’s something totally new that I’ve never seen…”
That in itself worries Jake. This isn’t nilspace. This is… something. Some other thing that was taking them in. Was it really hell– or purgatory like Elliot had told him? Or was it something more?
Jake wasn’t too sure. Time would only tell, it seemed.
“Can… I see Sean?” Jake asks.
Echo gives him a hesitant look. “I don't know… if that's the best right now. He's been… unstable… since he got here,” Echo tells him. Jake frowns. Echo sets a hand on his shoulder, gripping it softly. “I’m looking out for you, dearie.”
Jake lets out a soft sigh. He feels… defeated. He’s so close but so far– but deep down no matter how much he wants to rebel– he knows that Echo is right.
“I know,” Jake hums softly.
“Come on. Let us introduce you to the others in the meantime.” Echo says, nudging Jake farther down the hall. He and Brandon walk in front of Echo who leads him back to the main cabin.
Jake listens. It’s a new place, and while Echo hasn’t been here much longer than he had– they surely knew more. It was a safe bet, and Jake trusted Echo. He felt… at peace. He doesn’t understand why everyone here is seemingly so miserable.