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This was stupid.
Battat knew it was stupid. Tenna knew it was stupid. Hell, the bloody table he was sitting at probably knew that! Everyone knew it was stupid; you suddenly wake up in a different world with different rules, expected to go through endless loops in a stupid office with a formless, shapeless narrator who had the most stupid ideas possible for him to accomplish while wearing his stupid Mike costume! Nobody even knew who he was here, and he ended up in the Mike outfit he had for when he was researching who this man really was…
He hit his head against the table, groaning loudly and feeling his eye twitch. How come Tenna didn’t even- He didn’t even seem to acknowledge the situation anymore! For the first few loops (and they were still pretty early in!), he broke character, he spoke, he felt the inanity and banality of their situation, but now…Now…
{Our story begins with a regular office worker called Mike. He had an average job in an average company, working in an average office with a most average task: Pushing a red button once every hour.}
Now he leaned into the role! He kept repeating the same things over, and over, and over, like it was some sort of neverending play! He even stopped replying to Battat sometimes, and- He didn’t ever listen! All he ever called him by was “Mike”, but this wasn’t supposed to be the case. None of this made the slightest lick of sense in the first place! How could someone lose their mind in so little time?! Was everyone so fragile like this...?!
Then again, nothing had made sense to him even before…
Battat pushed at the desk, getting up and swinging the door to his office wide open, groaning and starting to sprint as his heart immediately began pumping blood through his system as he prepared for another mad dash, trying to find out more about this place.
{Mike, of course, wanted more in life, but one day, he found himself getting out of his office and finding himself in a new situation. A situation that would require him to make many very important choices, choices such as- Hey- You- You!! Get back here, I’m not done reading you your role, Mike!}
As if. It wasn’t even Tenna’s story, Battat knew that, but he still insisted on this fact so strongly, more than even stopping his little subordinate from escaping after being held against his will to act it out and behaving like Battat not putting up with it was some sort of act of indecency or disobedience. It was worthless trying to argue with him, as he’d never listen, even if sometimes it felt like he might, but…
Hah. As if he cared. He wouldn’t have looped him for so long if he did.
Or were the loops from his own doing, even…?
{Why you- Oh! Oh, you’re here, just rushing to fulfil your role, right? Well, Mike ran as fast as he could outside of his trusty office for some unknown reason, reaching a room with two doors and-}
Battat had been here before. He rushed to the left, grabbing the door’s handle and-
CRASH!
…hitting the door face-first as it refused to open. He felt his blood pressure rising, and he grit his teeth together as he turned towards the ceiling, rubbing the spot where he had hit his face. There was nothing there, and there was never anything there, but he knew he was watching him from some angle here and there. He just had to be, and there were no cameras, so despite just how little sense this explanation made, and despite how much it would’ve made his little evidence board cry, he had to attribute Tenna’s power here to some invisible, omnipotent force.
{There we go. Mike hit his face, which was not particularly handsome, on the door like a dumb little worker, as the door was locked, and instead he took a step back and walked into the door on the right, like he originally should’ve.}
-“Oh, so now you’s being an asshole!”, Battat yelled at the ceiling, his eye twitching. “Yous knows what’s behind tha’ door! I know what’s behind tha’ door! Lemme try and continue finding somewhere out for us, please.”, he didn’t intend to sound so desperate, and he probably shouldn’t have sounded so desperate, but he couldn’t help but start to lose faith. How many loops had it been now? Tenna knew! He had to know! But he didn’t even treat them as this, he-
{Alas, it seemed Mike was busy yelling at the ceiling, though it seemed that his erratic behaviour amused the audience. Perhaps this would be a most splendid episode indeed.}
Hah! Of course, just another episode for the boss, wasn’t it? Another episode that didn’t make any sense and another invisible audience that was amused or, God forbid, unamused…Tenna never liked it when the audience was not amused…Somehow his oh-so-charitable host had deluded himself into thinking each loop was an episode for...some show or another, who cared? All it meant to Battat was that he couldn't take his suit off, not even if he wanted to. Somehow, it was stuck with him now, part of him that just reminded him of how much control this place had over him, even making him taller to fit the suit better against his will, it was all so-
…
Battat felt like he would melt if his suit got any warmer, or that he might’ve died here and then from how high his blood pressure got and this ‘episode’ would end with a dud. It took an immense amount of self-restraint, one he did not think he possessed, to calmly get up and open the door as he tried to mute the fake, faux-excited tone of his Host as he opened the door, muttering under his breath as his mind tried thinking of back-up plans…
-“Just yous wait, ye’ bastard…I’m going to get out and leave yous here fer the rest of yer miserable life…”, besides, not like Tenna could complain; what Battat had in mind was bound to make things a lot more…interesting this ‘episode’, hah.
{Mike. Get out of the broom closet.}
…
{Mike. Get out of the broom closet.}
…
{The audience will leave if you don’t get out. This episode will be a failure.}
…
{Mike?}
How long had it been like this? Battat didn’t even remember anymore. The ‘episodes’ had gotten too much now. So many deaths, so many unhappy endings, he’d gone everywhere and written notes all the time, but he barely reached anything…It was just useless, and this stupid Host who didn’t even listen to him, who just kept repeating episodes and rebooting the stupid series, each time garnering less and less of an audience and- And yet he didn’t even think of giving him a break! Never!
Battat would’ve walked off the railing somewhere here, but even that wouldn’t have saved him, not when “the audience needed to see their favourite hero” every. Single. Time. The Host didn’t even care about him, why would he?!
And any attempt at rebellion would always invoke some punishment from this petty, horrible, irrational Host who always claimed he was acting in everyone’s best interest, because of couuuuuuuuuuuuurse only he knew! Of couuuuuuuuuurse the Host would, which would in turn push him to fight back, even if just verbally, and it just kept going and going and going and-
And it was tiring.
It was so, so tiring to do the same thing over, and over, and over, but how could he have acted differently? When doing anything would provoke commentary from his tormentor, the one who he had done so much for, and yet he!! He dared to keep mistreating him this way, even after all he did for him as Mike, he could never even thank him!
And so…the solution to being unable to do anything, as to do nothing.
It was quite the counterintuitive solution, but in a place as counterintuitive as this web of offices and disconnected rooms and poorly spaced storytelling studios, what was the point of trying to play by the rules? The ‘audience’, which Battat had half a mind to say that it probably didn’t even exist at all in the first place, would probably appreciate having something more unique, anyways. Wasn’t that always what they wanted? Better ‘episodes’? Fresh ideas? That was what the reprehensible idiot up above was always saying, so how about this!?
He’d gone into a broom closet he knew was in one of the rooms from the many, many loops he’d undergone (he’d lost track months ago…months? What time was it even…? The flow of time didn’t make sense down here, but it wasn’t like anyone could even sense it…
How long has it been already…? Weeks? Months? Years? Did time pass down here at all? He didn’t know…
He didn’t even know how much time he spent in the closet here, bringing his knees to his chest and putting his head between his legs as he felt the world calm down when he was away from it. The Host couldn’t hurt him even if he wanted to; he was only a narrator who could barely manipulate a few things, and there were few things he could do to kill or maim Battat here, if any.
{Mike. Get out.}
Or what, funny man? Are you going to yell? To scream? To say that he’s a worthless nothing and then calm down with another faux-smile and more fake happiness and cheer to convince the audience, if they even exist, that the next episode will be even better, and that the endless reboots of this skeletal husk of a show he was commanding would eventually lead to something acceptable, like hanging a dead, rotting corpse on the wall and hoping it will heal?!
Did anyone even care at this point? Really, wouldn’t they have called after the first hour of their episode showed nothing but Battat cowering in a broom closet? Did this audience exist at all?!
Maybe it was all in the Host’s head. Maybe he went crazy the moment they got here, and he couldn’t let go of how much he craved the camera and lights from his previous life. He was so insistent on Mike taking the spotlight, but maybe he saw himself in that. Was he so stupid that he couldn’t tell who Mike really was now? That “Mike” was just a moniker? Haaaaaah…It was all so….
Stupid.
Maybe he never saw Battat as anything. Maybe the only worth he ever had was his alter ego that just somehow seemed charming enough to disarm the Host and amuse the audience, or so he was told, but amusement went on and on and on and on and on and on and on AND ON-
And it never stopped, and it will never stop. It didn’t seem like it, anyway, it was just. So. So. So-
So useless. What did it matter? He could remain here for the rest of his life and nobody would even care, and he had half a mind to now, since the Host would never allow him to find a way out! He didn’t even care! All he wanted was- Was-
{Get out or I’ll be mad, Mike.}
WAS THIS! ALL HE WANTED WAS JUST THE SHOW TO GO ON! ANY MOMENT OF UNDERSTANDING OR GOODWILL WAS ALWAYS FOLLOWED BY THIS.
{Please.}
Battat barely listened anymore. He couldn’t even bring himself to hear the sound. He was so hurt and upset and antagonised that he felt he could fall apart and scream. He couldn’t even register the desperation and pain in the voice, or-
{Mike, get out. Please.}
Or the fact that he refused to address him by anything other than this stupid mask he melded into, who he was forced into, who he got taller in… His own body was simply no longer his, with the Host making all the modifications to him for the sake of the ‘show’.
But now he pretended to care?
What a sick joke.
{Mike…?}
…
{Mike, if you don’t get out, I’ll-}
Battat almost listened. He wanted to see if he’d actually do anything. Nothing, as always.
{Mike, GET OUT OR I’LL GOUGE YOU OUT YOU UNGRATEFUL LITTLE PRICK!}
It might’ve been shocking before. A yell that shook the whole 'studio' like this, it might’ve even scared Battat, had he not overused it. Now the yells and shouts were something plain, normal, even boring. Like everything else in this parable that seemed to go on and on and on.
{…}
And, finally, it was all over.
{Was it something I did…?}
…
{Mike, if- If you don’t get out of here, then- What will be left for me then?}
Didn’t know, didn’t care.
{Mike, please-}
Battat heard the voice crack, the tremble in the voice, and in a sick moment of glee, he grinned. He grinned from ear to ear, satisfaction rising in his face as he felt that sickening feeling of comfort, knowing that he could also hurt. Knowing that he could make someone be so pained. Knowing that he could do this to someone…
It was so delicious.
{Mike…Please…}
Something resembling a sob echoed throughout the endless office, and Battat laughed into the knees he brought to his chest. He laughed and laughed until his chest hurt, unable to hear anything but himself and the Host’s desperation as it overwhelmed him, and for a moment that was so sinister, he felt in control. He felt happy, like he could die any moment and he wouldn’t have any regrets. Like he finally did something.
The chorus of cackling and sobbing continued throughout the episode.