Chapter Text
“Hello?”
That was how it started. That was how most things started, really. Everything important always began with a greeting.
It had been a while since the Lighters left. Coincidentally, it had also been a while since Tenna found the cavern by the cliffs — though “found” probably wasn’t quite the right word. He had known it was there. Everyone did, at least to a certain extent. It hadn’t been Tenna’s idea to go looking. He was far too good at avoiding things, especially things that could look back at him. It was Ralsei who suggested it — in a tone of voice that made it clear that there was still a loose end that someone needed to tie up, and that the “someone” in question was Tenna. He resisted for as long as he could. He told himself there was nothing there, or if there was, it wasn’t actually his responsibility.
However, eventually, hesitation stopped being an option, as the vague sense of guilt had been eating at him for years at that point. And so Tenna went.
Near the cliffs, he noticed the footprints first. They were small and shallow, as if whoever made them hadn’t weighed much at all. They overlapped again and again in the same narrow paths, suggesting repetition. Tenna followed them with a tight feeling in his chest. The place was dark and damp, the air smelling faintly of mold. He hoped that maybe — just maybe — it was this smell that was making it so hard to breathe.
Beside the mouth of the cave sat a loose pile of trash: crumpled wrappers, scraps of paper, bits of plastic and foil. But Tenna noticed that because the arrangement seemed very deliberate, like it wasn’t simply garbage anymore, but some kind of fortification. A wall or a fence.
Tenna sat down a short distance away and waited. Time stretched into an eternity; at some point, it seemed as if it had frozen in place entirely. Tenna’s thoughts stopped as well, too afraid to disturb the fragile peace, and the only thing left in his mind was an eerie silence. He didn’t know how long he waited before he heard the footsteps — hurried, stopping and starting again. Tenna looked up, and the sight immediately made him feel light-headed and, in a way, detached from his body. As if he had been zapped by an electric shock.
The creature standing there was small and malformed, with proportions that made Tenna question how it was even possible that the thing could be alive. Though nothing was particularly disgusting about its appearance — only severely disturbing — it was nauseating to look at. Its arms were filled with stuff from the bakery — misshapen loaves, cracked pastries, the kind that never made it to the shelves. Stolen, perhaps, from behind the shop. Its body was scuffed and dirty, the surface even fractured in some places. It stood frozen, as if it hadn’t decided yet whether to run.
For a moment, Tenna didn’t think. The word slipped out of him on instinct.
“Hello?”
The thing stared at him. It didn’t blink, though Tenna wasn’t even sure it was capable of that. It didn’t even move. Just stood there. Tenna stared back, and the longer he looked, the harder it became to look away. Recognition came not as a revelation, but as a total collapse of the illusion he had been living.
It couldn’t be, it shouldn’t be — and yet…
The shape of its giant, grotesque face, the unnatural tilt of its head, the defensiveness of its posture — it was all completely alien. But when the thing lifted its head just enough for the light to catch its glasses, Tenna saw that behind the lenses, the eyes looking back at him were unmistakably Spamton’s.
Stripped of their spark, weary, exhausted, yet undeniably the same. And in that moment, Tenna understood that whatever stood before him was a mistake.
His own mistake.
They stood like that for a long time, neither of them moving.
Finally, Tenna turned around, shifting his weight and stretching out a hand toward the thing in an uncertain gesture. The movement felt loud, even though his legs just barely scraped the ground.
“Are you…?” he began.
He didn’t get to finish.
The creature reacted instantly. The loaves and pastries slipped from its arms and hit the ground with dull, muffled thuds. In the same moment, it turned and fled, scrambling toward the cave on its crooked little legs. They were short and stiff, moving in a way that looked more like dragging than running. But even in those few seconds, it was painfully obvious that the motion cost it something — that every step was an effort, a strain. Tenna could practically feel its pain.
He stayed where he was, listening to the sound fade into the darkness. When it was gone, the quiet rushed back in, now much heavier. Tenna pressed a hand to his face and breathed, shallow at first, then deeper, until the tightness in his chest eased enough for him to think.
A few minutes later, he stood up.
He approached the cave with the same caution as before, though now there was something else mixed in with the hesitation — something like resolve or boldness. He crouched near the entrance, close enough to peer past the half-finished wall of trash. Up close, the barricade looked even more intentional: wrappers layered over one another, bits of plastic wedged into gaps, foil folded and refolded until it held its shape.
“Hello?” he tried again.
There was no answer. He couldn’t see the creature, only more wrappers and scraps scattered deeper inside, some of them torn, edges gnawed and chewed until they barely resembled what they once were. The cave smelled stronger here — plastic, damp stone, dirt.
Still crouching, Tenna pushed forward. His screen cast a weak, artificial light ahead of him. The glow caught on jagged rock and glinted dully off puddles. As he moved, he heard the faint, uneven sound of something shifting in the dark. Plastic scraping against stone.
He inched closer, the walls of the cave tightening around his body, and then he saw it.
The creature sat on the ground with its back to the cave wall, limbs pressed against its chest. It looked terrified, but also sharp and unstable, like a cornered animal with no clear idea how to escape. Its body trembled, something rattling inside it.
Tenna stopped.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” he said, the words tumbling out too quickly. “I… I’m sorry. I just…”
The creature answered with a beastly sound. It was a harsh, broken noise, full of distortion and static. Then it jerked forward in what might have been a lunge, except it didn’t really go anywhere. Its body strained, limbs scraping uselessly against the rock, the motion more threatening in intent than in effect.
Tenna flinched back on instinct. For a split second, he braced himself for impact that never came. When he realized the creature hadn’t moved closer — and couldn’t move closer — he felt his body relax a little.
“I’m sorry,” he said again, quieter now.
He moved forward again.
Suddenly, without warning, the creature grabbed itself by the hair and slammed the side of its head against the wall. The sound was dull and sickening, followed immediately by another, and another. Each impact echoed in the narrow space. Tenna’s fear spiked into sharp panic.
“Stop, please, stop,” he blurted out. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. This is my fault, I didn’t mean to…”
He couldn’t stay. The sight of it, the sound, the helpless violence of the motion — it was too much. He backed away awkwardly, muttering something about coming back later. He turned around as soon as he physically could and hurried out of the cave, apologies still trailing behind him.
Outside, the air felt painfully open. Tenna didn’t stop moving until he was well clear of the entrance. Only then did he pause, breathing hard, his hands shaking.
Behind him, the cave swallowed the light again, as if nothing had happened at all.
Tenna couldn’t even hear the thing… doing whatever that was from here. He was glad he couldn’t.
Tenna brushed the dirt from his clothes with unsteady hands. His fingers kept missing their mark, slipping over fabric that no longer felt quite real beneath them. He was still trembling, a faint light-headedness lingering as he turned away from the cave, intent on leaving, on putting distance between himself and what he had just seen.
He took only a few steps before he noticed the food scattered on the ground, some of it half-unwrapped or bruised beyond recognition. For a moment, he simply stared at it. Then, for reasons he couldn’t have explained even to himself, he went back. He crouched and gathered the pieces one by one, and he pushed them back into their wrappers as best he could, smoothing the crumpled paper with care. When he was done, he set the bundle down at the cave’s entrance, close enough to be seen and far enough not to feel like another intrusion. And with that, Tenna left.
As he walked, his mind remained eerily blank. Not calm — Tenna wished — but hollow. The emptiness spread through him, as essential had been scooped out and left behind. The illusion was gone. And now there were no thoughts to chase, no conclusions to cling to, only the dull awareness of loss, heavy and undefined.
There was no doubt anymore. What he had seen in that cave was Spamton. His Spamton.
That certainty was, however, useless. He didn’t know what to do with it. There was no next step that made sense. The knowledge existed on its own, disconnected from even hypothetical action or purpose.
Eventually, he went home.
It wasn’t until he crossed the threshold and the door closed behind him that the realization actually caught up. Tenna’s legs gave out. He sank down onto the floor, back against the wall, and for the first time since he left TV world, his composure fully broke.
He cried there, quiet at first, then shaking, the sound tearing itself out of him as everything he had held back collapsed inward.