Chapter Text
victim was alive again. He was alive, and he was already hurting. Every limb throbbed with the ache of injuries that were no longer there. The ache of life; the ache of existing. He stood blinking in the harsh white light that glared at him from all directions. It was disorienting, all the white. For the first few moments, he could never tell right from left from up from down.
As his vision and sense of space adjusted, he noted the large dark haze dominating the screen in front of him. No face, no details, just an indistinct shadow of a creature; a behemoth. The sight of the giant should have been enough to send his code racing and his heart thumping, but it didn’t. Not this time.
Something moved in the corner of his vision; a pointed, white soulless thing that would have blended seamlessly into the background if not for its sharp dark outline. The monster—or rather, the monster’s tool—jabbed at him harshly, prodding; confused? victim’s last memories were fuzzy, details fragmented in bits and pieces. He remembered running. Or trying to run. His knees were giving off a phantom twinge… Oh yeah, the monster had broken them— erased them. It was strange, given that it was one of the few things the monster had done to him that didn’t actually hurt. Not that it was pleasant either.
The tool sat just inches away, hovering, waiting; threatening. victim didn’t understand. It normally would have attacked by now. It never gave him more than a few seconds to recover from his last death, if even that. Did it want him to run? To fight? Did it derive some sick pleasure from the chase, knowing—fully knowing—he could never win or escape?
…Who was he kidding, of course it did. It was the only reason he was here, the only reason he existed. His whole life was nothing but a twisted game. A joke played at his own expense.
How tired he was of playing. How tired he was of existing.
The haze behind the screen shifted, fidgeting. victim could sense the monster’s impatience. He wondered what would happen if he just didn’t move. Would the monster grow tired, or would he just carry on playing? Creating new ways to hurt and to hurt and to hurt until victim couldn’t move. Whether or not victim was fully conscious had never stopped it before.
The monster’s tool moved suddenly, and victim instinctively flinched, bracing for the strike. Instead, the tool summoned a box that it swiftly moved over victim, stuffing him in, trapping him. The tool moved away… and it stopped. Then the shadow did something victim had never seen it do before; it left.
victim stared at the softly flickering gray left in the shadow’s wake. The tool was still, immobile; abandoned. victim wondered if he should have felt relief, of some kind, or hope. This could be his chance. The monster was gone. He could break free, he could get out.
Except he felt nothing. Nothing but the dull ache in his limbs and the exhaustion in his chest. He leaned his head back, letting his body melt into the cramped space however it saw fit. He should be trying to escape. He might never have an opportunity like this again. But he was tired; so very tired. Even if he got out, where would he go? What could possibly exist outside of the confines of this white space? Was it even worth finding out?
He didn’t want to keep fighting. He didn’t want to escape only to find himself in another, potentially worse situation. He didn’t want to keep fighting and clawing and scrabbling for life when it was just going to be taken from him sooner or later. He didn’t want to keep existing.
He just wanted to rest.
Alan huffed as he sat back down at his laptop. Dinner had taken longer than he thought it would. He had tried to eat quickly and then rush back to the safety of his room, but his mom made him help clean up the kitchen. By the time he was done, nearly an hour had passed. He hoped the program hadn’t done anything while he was gone. He half-expected to find Adobe in shambles, the stick figure running rampant. Thankfully, everything was still exactly as he had left it.
The stick figure was curled up inside the box, arms and legs pressed against the walls, blending with the black lines. Alan switched to the eraser tool and swiped over one side of the box. The stick figure immediately tumbled backwards, catching itself clumsily on one arm. Alan noticed one arm was suddenly shorter than the other, with an awkward flat edge. He must have accidentally caught it with the eraser. The stick figure didn’t seem too bothered, tucking the arm under its head as it lay on the “floor” of the Adobe program.
Alan finished erasing the box and switched back to the cursor. He hovered the mouse over the stick figure, but the animation didn’t react the way it usually did. It wasn’t running or fighting the way it was supposed to. It just lay there. Alan almost could imagine it was staring at the cursor… waiting?
He poked it experimentally, but it hardly moved. Alan thought it sort of curled in on itself, but he couldn’t really tell. The boy frowned, a twinge of frustration pooling in his chest. What was wrong with it? Was the program not working properly? It had been running for a while. Maybe he just needed to refresh it.
He clicked on the stick figure, opening up the edit window, and he hit “ cut .” The stick figure vanished, and Alan switched to the paint tool. He quickly drew up a new stick figure and clicked on it to convert it to symbol; victim.
He could tell the moment the program started running because of the way the stick figure immediately went slack, limbs falling from their stiff, frozen position to something simulating natural human movement. Alan waited for it to do something… but it didn’t. He poked it, and when it still didn’t move, he selected it and picked it up, flinging it across the page. It hit an invisible barrier and fell, crumbling to the “floor” of the program, where it… just lay there. Alan poked it again; nothing.
The boy growled softly. What was going on?! The program had never done this before. Was it bugging out?
At a loss, he tried to refresh it again, deleting the stick figure and drawing a new one. This time, as soon as he converted it to a symbol, it folded like a paper doll, collapsing to the “floor.” He did it again; deleting it, drawing a new one, and converting it to a symbol. Again, the stick figure just fell to the ground and lay there. Annoyed, Alan switched to the eraser and swiped it through the stick figure.
Draw.
Convert to symbol.
Delete.
Draw.
Convert to symbol.
Delete.
Draw.
Convert to symbol.
Every time, the same result. The stick figure refused to do anything but “play dead.” With an aggravated sigh, Alan selected the stick figure and deleted it. He didn’t understand what he could have done to mess it up. The whole feature must be bugged. He’d have to ask his programmer friend about it.
Of course, there were other levels besides ‘victim.’ Alan hadn’t tried any of the other ones yet; Programmer021 warned him it was probably too difficult for a beginner animator. But Alan had had a lot of practice with the ‘victim’ level by now. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to just try another level? If the program was bugged, it probably wouldn’t work anyway…