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When the stage lights went dark, and the staff had gone home, TV WORLD Theater was nothing short of lonely. No music played over the loudspeakers, the theater devoid of its usual inhabitants. The only ones left this late were yourself, Ramb, and Tenna – sometimes you could catch Battat, but the pippins never stuck around long, muttering something about making preparations for the next day. He typically kept himself scarce even during the air times; you never really figured out why.
Currently, you wandered the halls of the theater, dim lighting a stark contrast from the usually brightly illuminated corridors. The walls of screens that were typically filled with various re-runs and clips on air were dark, giving you a strange sense of unease as you ducked past them. The halls seemed to stretch on longer, the backlighting casting tall shadows from the stanchions lining the walls, stripes of darkness making the ceiling seem impossibly tall, even more so than it already was. You followed the corridors back to the Green Room, deciding the best source of entertainment would be the game consoles there. Without the gatherings of staff and contestants, the Green Room was uncharacteristically quiet, the sound of your shoes on the tile floors disrupting the silence with discontented squeaks. You noticed Ramb wasn't at his stall, as well; at least his absence gave you something to do. You decided to try and find him, and started for the doors to the changing rooms. You vaguely remembered Ramb frequented the S-Rank room, and opened the door to peer down the long hall. The zapper that usually stood posted at the entrance was absent, probably having retired for the night with no-one around to keep out; no-one but you, that is.
You approached the door, the large S emblazoned on the wood in chipped, meringue colored paint. You tried the handle, and were surprised when it turned easily in your grasp, the door swinging open complacently to allow you to step through. You'd been in the S-rank room exactly once, under Tenna's supervision; you had asked him about it, all but begging him to let you see inside for sheer curiosity's sake, and he'd caved on the condition he would escort you himself. Tenna had kept close by as he toured you through the S-Rank room, which gave you a perfect vantage point to see how his cheeks would turn red whenever you took notice of the dilapidated furniture or faded tourmaline hues on the walls.
"We're in the process of upgrading, that's all! Renovation budget is tight, you know!" He had tried to dismiss the obvious neglect of the room, going so far as to stand with his arms out in front of one particular cork board, attempting to hide crudely drawn doodles of himself which were displayed, featuring devil horns and unflattering moustaches scrawled over his likeness in red pen.
You wandered over to the other side of the lobby, keeping your steps light for fear of someone discovering your intrusion, approaching a lone door against the back wall.
"What's back here?"
"Oh dear, no need to go back in there," Tenna had all too quickly rushed to stand in front of you, blocking your path with his large form. You strained to look up at him in your much smaller height. "There's nothing but the controllers for the boards back there, sweetie! It's all dark and dusty and boring stuff. An absolute snooze-fest, really!"
You'd dropped the subject after that, thanking him for letting you quell your curiosity.
The recollection of the backstage area surfacing in your mind, you realized Tenna had definitely been a little defensive about letting you back there. Now that he wasn't here to steer you away...
You glanced around the change room one more time, listening for any sounds that might indicate someone coming. Hearing nothing but wind drafts, you entered the backstage area with baited breath. The door gave way into a long room with rows of controllers against one wall, screens lined up in parallel.
You scanned the wall of controllers, and discovered they were kept locked in some kind of cabinet. As you reached the end of the row, you found one of the cabinets had been hastily shut, probably in a rush to get to stage, and the controller was accessible. You tried clicking a button before you could think it through, but thankfully nothing happened, the console powered off in another unknown location.
You left the door as you'd found it, half paranoid that if you left any evidence of disturbance you'd be found out. You weren't sure what would happen - you didn't really think Tenna would do anything to you, but you'd witnessed the small lash outs he had when someone managed to piss him off. Tenna, despite his hospitable appearances, was downright scary when he wanted to be; which wasn't a surprise, given his stature alone, but the way his smile could stretch just a little farther than what was pleasant, exposing the sharp tips of fangs, and his hands forming into claw-like shapes was enough to motivate you not to get on his bad side.
A dim, but distinctly colored glow caught your attention from underneath a curtain to your left. You slowly pushed aside the heavy velveteen fabric, and found yet another console room. This time, however, the console was on full display, hooked up to a singular large screen on the wall. A game cartridge sat beside it. You walked over to the console, having to hold the cartridge inches from your face to read the title in the scarce lighting.
MANTLE.
Well, you'd been wanting to play a game anyway, right? You'd resigned your search for Ramb, assuming he'd probably gone home with everyone else. It was even possible that you were the only one left in the theater, but you weren't certain if Tenna ever left at all.
You retrieved the controller that Tenna had gifted you some time ago to play his game boards with your own character profile loaded onto it, plugging it into the console's port. The screen flashed in bright colors as the console booted up, the game title appearing over the screen, illuminating the room in an ominous gold. Your 8-bit avatar appeared in the environment, which, as you experimentally moved around, felt strangely familiar - almost like deja-vu, despite having never played the game. You realized after some wandering that it was because you actually had, in fact, played it, to some degree; it was a rendition of Tenna's 'Legend of Tenna' board. This must have been what Tenna had meant by 'leftovers', and why his board was crucially unfinished. It matched up with the whispers you'd heard from the staff, too, about how Tenna had changed things, tailoring material that wasn't his to fit his ideas.
You continued exploring, and began to feel disappointment when you couldn't actually interact with anything, the creatures that spawned in various areas seemingly ignoring your existence entirely. You wondered if that was why Tenna had taken to modifying the game, until you wandered your avatar into a new zone and saw a staircase. You briefly doubted you could even enter, until you went over the tile and were brought into a long, dark hall, a strangely similar circumstance to your own journeying. Your eyes widened as you moved down the hall - wasn't this one of the areas Tenna had deemed off-limits in the board? - and saw a sword icon hovering at the end of the room. You excitedly moved towards it, a sense of progression finally taking hold.
As soon as your avatar obtained the sword, you re-spawned into the above-ground zone you'd started in. Weird, but you experimentally took a swing at a plant. It made an electronic ting as your sword seemingly bounced off it. Well, it was some indication that you could at least interact with more things now.
When you wandered into an adjacent area, you were met with two NPCs that you'd passed earlier; except, this time, a distressed sound played as a little HP bar at the top of the screen went down a tick as your avatar collided with one.
"Ow?" You yelped aloud. Determining that these were enemies, and given you held a sword, you quickly figured out what the game wanted you to do. You obliterated the two NPCs swiftly, earning a new addition onto the LVL 1 bar.
"Oh, let's go," you commented, moving into the subsequent areas to continue wiping the board. At some point, you'd made your way back to the start zone, wandering into the pyramid, and was disappointing to find it still empty, save for a message that simply read, "become stronger". Odd, but not entirely off-putting.
You continued into the rest of the areas, discovering you'd unlocked the ability to destroy plants to access the rest of the board as you'd leveled up. As you slain the last NPC, the game's music abruptly stopped, a looming backing ambience of pulsing wind gusts replacing it.
"Well, that's kind of ominous," you muttered under your breath. As you moved into a new area as LVL 3, a creeping sense of unease became more apparent. Enemies got tougher, and you even had to solve a puzzle or two, but you couldn't shake the feeling that something was just wrong. The smaller enemies almost seemed... afraid of you.
Eventually you reached a point where you thought you'd bugged out the game, with nothing but repeating trees surrounding your avatar after you'd exited the second level; but a chest appeared, and with a slightly racing pulse, you opened it, the game granting you a key, simply denoted as the ICE KEY.
It then promptly booted you back to the main menu.
"Weird."
You went to the next campaign, curiosity sparked by the sense that there was more going on in the game than it had initially let on. The second campaign was similar to the first, an NPC dungeon crawl. This round, you failed a few times, with new NPCs that really didn't seem to like you having conjured new defenses against your avatar, shooting lasers and pulsing orbs at you. Again, the creepy silence ensued as you progressed the levels, giving you chills on your arms. Maybe it was simply the fact that it was the middle of the night, but the nagging sensation that something was off wouldn't leave your mind. Your heart was already racing with adrenaline from the fights as you finished the massacre. A boat appeared in the little river in the middle of the map, and you vaguely recalled an area to the north that Tenna had mentioned being "under construction". You followed your curiosity to the north end of the map, finding an all-white terrain surrounding a door.
The key from the first campaign opened the door, leading into the second level. You played through it, running on pure adrenaline; you were thoroughly a little freaked out by this point, the strange awareness the game seemed to evoke in you was unsettling to say the least. Eventually, you were met with a new NPC, one that you couldn't kill; you debated whether you simply needed to level up more, until they had begun following you through the map, and you realized you could have them help by firing little blue magic blasts. The comfort of a friend spurring you on, even if they were just part of the game's program, you completed the level without a hitch.
Much to your frustration, you progressed into another repeating area. However, you eventually caught on that the clue from earlier, to follow the white robe, was alluding to the fact that the NPC would only follow you down the correct path. You gripped the controller so tightly you couldn't feel your fingertips anymore; you were, in honesty, scared of what could be next, but your curiosity outweighed your natural fight or flight as you came to another door, this time eclipsed by a red, horn-like arch. You watched with wide eyes as an eerie message scrolled across the top of the screen.
THE ICE KEY WAS USED UP.
SHE WAS USED UP.
YOU WERE USED UP.
"What the fuck," you whispered, your pulse thudding in your chest. "What does that even mean?"
YOU GOT THE SHELTER KEY.
The game kicked you out again, and you clicked the next campaign with startling lack of hesitation, ignoring the fear that gripped you. You had to know what on earth was going on here, why everything was so creepy, and why you couldn't shake the feeling that this game was something you truly weren't meant to see.
The next zone booted up, and this time, you weren't alone.
A wave of panic coursed through you - those were Susie and Ralsei's avatars, did that mean they were playing this too? Subsequently, had you been caught? - but you quickly rationalized that was impossible. They weren't even here right now. You had come alone.
You wandered the entire map at least twice, trying to interact with just about everything, obtaining the sword again as you went, but nothing budged. You spun around in place a few times, wondering if you had missed something somewhere. You were about to move to re-investigate a blocked bath, when your avatar collided with Susie's; at the same time, your finger had accidentally hit the A button, and Susie's avatar dissipated with a pixelated blip.
Your heart sunk into your stomach. Had you just...?
Your eyes found the LVL bar had increased. In the past levels, the only way to level up was to...
No, no, you couldn't.
Your heartbeat raced in your ears, drowning out the ambient sounds the game emanated from the monitor.
But you had to.
You closed your eyes, hitting the button. When you opened them, Ralsei was gone, and your avatar was alone again.
"What the absolute fuck," you repeated to yourself. What kind of twisted game was this, anyway?
However, your level now sufficiently increased, you were able to destroy the obstacles that had been blocking the path, continuing down a linear hall. You knew there would be something at the end of it, and you prepared yourself for more enemies.
Or friends, your conscience sneered at you.
"Hey, you-!"
The sudden voice and very tall presence halted as you let out a short scream, your heart practically leaping out of your throat at the scare. Your head whipped around and saw Tenna had shoved aside the curtains, and was staring at you with your controller still in your trembling hands. His posture was stiffened, shoulders risen in surprise, giving him a more pointed appearance - much like a disgruntled cat, though his expression was more perturbed than startled.
"Oh my god, Tenna," you huffed, "you scared the living hell out of me."
"I told you this area was off limits," Tenna frowned at you, his hands firmly planting on his hips. He definitely wasn't thrilled to find you here, but you hoped he'd at least be reasonable with whatever backlash you would face for your transgression. When you glanced at the monitor, a game over screen stared back at you.
"I'm sorry," you began, taking deep breaths to try and reduce the adrenaline rush that was making your hands shake. "I just... got curious about what was back here."
"Well, that's no excuse to be sneaking around at night in restricted areas like some kind of criminal!" Tenna replied indignantly, though his tone wasn't harsh enough to indicate any ill intent towards you; you still winced slightly at his accusation, nerves frayed like chewed-up wires.
"Hey, I didn't do anything," you argued, "I was just playing a game."
Right. It was just a game. You didn't do anything wrong; even though the heaviness in your heart said otherwise. Tenna's frown remained, but he visibly became a little softer, the sharp edges around his form settling down as his anger subsided.
It was then that your eyes began to sting a little, inexplicably choosing that moment to well up with tears as the image of your sword - no, your avatar's sword, you reminded yourself - plunging through Ralsei and Susie's characters flashed in your mind.
"Oh! My dear, oh, please don't cry," Tenna began rambling, his hands fidgeting wildly as he shrunk; in both the figurative sense and literal one, his height reducing by a good few centimeters. "I didn't mean to scare you, not like that."
You bashfully rubbed at your eyes with your hands, embarrassed by the near outburst. You supposed your body could only handle so much stress in a night, and Tenna catching you had pushed your limit. The warm white glow from his screen bathed the backstage room in an incandescent light, illuminating the plainness of the space that had previously been so unsettling.
"It's not you," you mumbled. "I was just startled."
Tenna observed you for a moment, his screen dimming ever so slightly as his antenna downturned, mimicking a wilting plant.
"I see." Tenna seemed to hesitate for a brief moment, before lifting his hands, outstretching them in your direction. "Do you... need a hug?"
You looked at him blankly; Tenna had switched from borderline scolding you, to holding his arms out to you in offering in seemingly five seconds flat.
You found yourself nodding, regardless. In one long stride, Tenna crossed the distance between you and you were swept up into his arms as he knelt down to your height to hold you to his chest. He was warm and comforting, soothing away any leftover adrenaline, your parasympathetic systems responding to him like a flipped light switch. You could finally feel like you could breathe again, despite being slightly crushed by his massive arms. You could hear the electrical hums of machinery in his chest, a raspy, almost whining sound produced by the thousands of electrical signals coursing through him. Your hands delicately found their way around his torso, grasping the fabric of his jacket under your fingers as a sense of relief flooded you.
"Let's head back to the Green Room, okay?" he spoke remarkably softly for someone who was so loud most of the time, as though subdued by the emptiness that surrounded you, as though his demeanor were a reflection of the theater itself.
You mumbled an agreement into his chest, hesitating to let him go; you could swear the electrical humming increased in pitch as you tightened your grip on his jacket.
When you pulled yourself away from him, his screen had a dusting of pink across it, speckles dancing across his cheeks like errant pixels.
Tenna lead you back into the Green Room, inviting you to sit on one of the sofas beside him. He rocked back and forth in place, squeaking the springs of the couch beneath him.
"How about we power up one of the games here? I'll play with you," Tenna offered, offering your controller to you in an outstretched hand.
You forcefully shoved the controller back at him, shaking your head. "No more games tonight."
Tenna looked concernedly at you, the top edge of his screen furrowing, glancing between you and the controller.
"Are... are you sure you're alright, sweetheart? You seem kind of on edge."
"I'm fine," you answered a little too quickly and harshly. You relaxed the grip you didn't realize you had on his hand, pulling away to lean back on the couch, bringing your knees up to rest your arms on them.
"It was just that game, it freaked me out a little," you explained. "It was... kind of creepy. Like it wasn't just me playing a game, almost. It's hard to explain, but... there was something off about it."
Tenna nodded along, stowing the controller away. "It is pretty weird. You can understand why I changed it up," he chuckled dryly, his attempt at lightening the mood with humor lost to the air.
You had an infinite number of questions abiut what you'd just encountered - why did he have it? Why were Ralsei and Susie in it? What happened if you got to the end? - but you weren't even sure you wanted the answers, and part of you wished you hadn't picked up that cartridge in the first place, longing for the simplicity of Tenna's games being one-dimensional, fun adventures.
"Where did you even find that thing?" You asked aloud, deciding to allow one question to help quell the storm in your mind.
Tenna frowned, staring at the empty screen that stood opposite to the couch.
"I... don't know. It just kind of showed up one day. I thought it might've been one of Kris', but... it doesn't seem like the type of game they'd play."
Tenna fidgeted with his tie, running it through his fingers, noticing your nervous energy returning. "Hey, let's talk about something else. Who cares about some weird game, anyway? That thing's old news. You like the one I made, right? That's what really matters!"
He looked at you expectantly for a response. You nodded, running your fingertips on the worn-out fabric of the couch cushion beside you. He was absolutely trying to distract you with idle conversation, to steer you away from the topic; you couldn't quite tell if it was for your benefit or his. Maybe it was both.
"Yeah. I did like your games more."
Tenna beamed at your answer, clasping his hands together. "Aw, you have no idea how good that is to hear. Hey, you could tell me more about what you liked, you know!"
You grinned at his not-subtle bait for compliments.
"Well, they're easy, for one," you teased, watching his expression falter as he tried to figure out if your comment was an insult or not. "In a good way, Tenna. They're fun to play. I like the simplicity of it."
He chuckled lightly, his thumbs idly running over one another. "That's good," he replied, "I'd like to think the physical challenges are a little more daunting, at least."
"They're... unique," you mused, "It's like something out of a variety show."
Tenna nodded eagerly, small circles appearing on the apples of his cheeks. "Exactly! You're one smart cookie."
You shrugged off his praise, but couldn't help the small smile that fought its way onto your face. His silly remarks never ceased to make you smile - you swore it would be your downfall, one of these days - and they were the perfect remedy for whatever hellish experience you'd gone through in the backstage room. He was comforting in the way that a nostalgic cartoon was, or a beloved keepsake that you'd carry with you no matter how many times you moved.
You sat in silence for another few moments, contemplating if you should excuse yourself and find somewhere to rest, but the idea of being alone right now didn't sit well in your stomach. For now, at least, you were happier to stay here, with him; you wondered if you should tell him that.
"Would you mind... putting on something to watch? Something nice."
Tenna's screen lit up, half blinding you with his smile as it grew. "Of course! What kind of shows do you like? I have sitcoms, cooking shows, cartoons, late-nite movies, soap operas, telenovellas, you name it!"
You picked a show that you'd usually put on whenever you were feeling bad, something that brought you comfort. Tenna's screen switched to the opening titles, his facial features disappearing to let you watch on his screen unimpeded. He spun to lean against the arm of the sofa, folding one of his legs to allow you more room. You inwardly took this as an invitation, grabbing one of the throw pillows to place it over him as you shuffled onto your stomach, resting your head on your arms on the pillow to watch.
"You, ah, look comfortable," Tenna's voice remarked, despite the absence of his mouth on the screen.
"Are you?" You asked, preparing to move the pillow to retreat to the other side of the sofa.
"Yeah! You betcha!" Tenna answered all too enthusiastically, his outstretched leg bouncing slightly. He stopped it with a hand placed on his knee, not wanting to disturb you. You smiled at his excitement, any nervousness long since forgotten. You settled in, letting the familiarity of the show and Tenna's presence lull you into contentment.
"Thanks for finding me back there," you spoke quietly over the lines coming from his speakers. You felt Tenna's chest rise and fall, the grainy background noise of his mechanisms a soft drone behind the show's soundtrack.
"Are you feeling better?" Tenna's voice asked you. Out of the corner of your vision, you saw his hand lift hesitantly, as though he were going to reach for you, but he settled it over his chest instead.
"Yeah, I am." You blinked, slowly, starting to feel the consequences of letting yourself relax after who knows how long; this was the first real break from anything you'd had in a while, and it showed in the way your limbs felt weighed, your body sinking into the pillow atop Tenna's stomach.
Your eyes growing heavy along with the rest of you, you murmured out one last thing.
"You're really sweet, you know that?"
You fought the oncoming crash to keep watching Tenna's screen, to hear his response, but he seemed to sense your exaustion, instead remaining still and his voice silent; even when your eyes closed as you drifted off, you could tell that Tenna never stopped watching you right back.