Chapter Text
A dull aching heat beats in time to his heart. That's what rouses Regto from sleep. His shoulders ache the most, a dull pain from his sockets like they got pulled from his body. He wonders if he even has arms anymore. He wiggles his fingers, feeling the ground beneath him for a moment. A sharp throb running along his entire arm stops him from continuing. Yes, he does still have his arms. That's good news.
Regto groans, just a little more than a deep breath from his stomach. It's enough for his little ankle biter to start trying to wake him up. Rudo presses his hands on his shoulder (Holy fuck OW) and starts to gyrate. The movement shifts his whole body.
While he's deciding on whether or not to ignore Rudo, because it's not his birthday yet and early mornings are only for birthdays, a sound filters into his ears.
“-ake up. Regto, please. C'mon. Get up. Get up you stinky old man.” Rudo sounds close to crying. And a little older. The hands on him can't be Rudo's. They're too big.
Memories start trickling back. Oh right. Rudo is fifteen, not seven. Duh. Sometimes it feels just like yesterday he could hold Rudo on his hip.
Holding Rudo. They were in the holding cells. He was trying to hold Rudo through the bars. He couldn't hold his son when they fell.
Did Regto catch him? He promised he would.
“Regto!” A blurry face alerts Regto to his eyes opening. The person had dirty grey hair, their clothes were likely once white and gold but are now covered in grime and dirt. They smell horrible.
Actually, Regto sniffs the air, the entire place smells horrible. It's not just Rudo. The air stings his lungs, bringing pain with each breath. He rolls over onto his elbows, shifting his weight so he can cough as much of the gunk out before bringing his shirt up to cover his nose.
“Regto!” Rudo yells happily, “You're fine!”
Regto looks at him through his hair. He grabs a hold of Rudo's own shirt and pulls that as high as it can go, “Cover your mouth kid.”
Rudo does what Rudo does and complains. But he does hold the shirt over his nose. Regto knows that just a shirt won't help filter everything from the air, it does nothing against the smell after all. They need to leave this place.
Finally, he looks over his surroundings. As far as the eye can see is mountains and mountains of trash. Heaven for Rudo, the little trash goblin. They had luckily landed on a heap, just high enough to see their surroundings but not high enough to see the horizon. There's a haze in the air, not letting them see too far into the sky or through the valley.
“Are you okay?” Regto asks, pushing past the pain to stand up. “You good? Are you hurt anywhere?”
Rudo shakes his head, “I'm fine. But you, you weren't…you weren't answering me for a while. And I thought you were…” Rudo looks over to his side, to a little spot on the ground. Regto follows his gaze and sees a dirty round object resembling a misshapen ball. It takes a moment to register that it's not a ball, but a human skull.
Damn, Regto sincerely hopes that the skull belongs to Rudo’s sperm donor. If it doesn't, well, sorry owner of the skull for mistaking you for someone else. No harm, please don't bring karma down on them.
Regto looks back at Rudo. The fifteen year old is looking up at him with such blatant relief that Regto is a little surprised he hasn't started crying. Instead, Regto grins underneath his shirt and reaches out a hand to muddle up some hair. “Why? Were you worried?” Regto teases.
“No!” Rudo denies instantly, voice cutting through the air like a knife. It's loud against the quiet wind of this desolate place. He continues, only a decibel lower and still loud as fuck, “Why would I be worried for an old geezer like you?”
Yeah, he was worried.
It's so cute.
Here's the thing. Regto is fairly certain he's not dead. Although his afterlife probably involves Rudo, it would not have this landscape. There would be a whole bunch of trees, a water source for Rudo to splash around in with friends he gets along with and Regto would be sitting on a lounge chair getting fanned by several people in scantily clad silks that barely covered the unmentionables. He would be fed grapes by hand, his encrusted jewel goblet would never empty and he would never run out of new, fresh and exciting books to read about the wonders of the modern and ancient world.
Just like all those kings from far off lands in the books he reads. He doesn't quite understand how they can travel from floating island to floating island only on horseback, but the majority of those books are just fantasy anyway. (Also what's a horse?)
Or maybe this is what the afterlife is like. Regto would've thought there would be less pain and suffering, especially in his lungs. It's a little hilarious, that despite all the gleaming towers and white roads, that the afterlife is just a never ending expanse of trash. No wonder everyone from the inner city is so obsessed with white and clean, if what comes after is a disgusting wasteland.
If this wasn't some form of the afterlife, it begs another, more important question. How the hell did they survive the fall into the Pit? People have died jumping off the wall that separates the slums from the inner city; this fall was immensely greater. There has to be no way that they lived without some kind of intervention. Maybe the putrid air is thicker than normal and that broke their fall?
A shadow covers Rudo.
Regto looks up. And up. And up. Behind Rudo is, well. It's something. It's hard to describe the monstrosity towering behind Rudo other than ‘one giant pile of trash given life’ so Regto isn't even going to try. With a mockery of a misshapen skull and sharp teeth on either side of its long mouth, two horns grow upwards and after this Regto doesn't take anymore time to look at whatever beast it is
He grabs Rudo's arm and books it.
Rudo yelps, stumbling from the force, “What the hell!”
“Fucking run kid!” Regto replies, doing all he can to keep his footing on the uneven, unsteady ground. He could tell Rudo looks behind them as there's a ‘manly scream’ of terror. As they breathe more and more of the foul air in, Regto can feel a slime cover his lungs. It's getting harder and harder to breathe.
“There's four of them now!” Rudo cries out.
Suddenly there's one in front of them, slightly different looking but no less terrifying. Its goal is to get one of the humans, and Regto barely has any time to react as he pushes Rudo out of the way. Pain erupts in his arm, bouncing up to his shoulder like the worst ever bouncy ball invented as the monster made of trash just barely missed grabbing Regto.
“Regto!” Rudo cries out. The pain doesn't subside, as Regto rolls from the force of the thing's skull knocking him out of the way. He grabs at his now limp arm and looks up, searching. He feels like a cornered beast as his eyes dart back and forth. Did he succeed in saving his son?
The monster has put itself between him and Rudo. He can barely see his son running away; away from the monster and away from him. Regto gets to his feet, just in time to propel himself away from where another monster's feet land. Now there's two beasts separating him and Rudo, and Rudo only gets farther and farther away.
Regto would really like to concentrate on getting back to Rudo, but, “Rudo run!” Regto calls out, and he can feel several sets of eyes on him, “Just get out! Run Rudo!”
He has to quickly dodge two more piles of trash as they crash into each other where he stood moments ago. Regto didn't look backwards when he dodged, and his foot met empty air. As he tumbles down the hill, he hears Rudo call out his name one more time. He’s barely made it to the bottom, the extra bruises almost whiting out his vision when there's a rumble in the ground and the sound of what could only be tons of falling garbage fill the air. He stays silent for a moment, trying to bring air back into lungs that just don’t want to work, straining his ears for any sound that Rudo could still be alive.
Looking up, breath caught in his throat, he sees the monsters that caused him to fall. They are still. But searching. Not looking down though, not at him.
A scream of frustration in the distance, Rudo. The elation Regto feels is squashed within seconds as the heads turn to the direction of the scream. They make their way to leave, towards Rudo, and Regto uses that split second to yell at them. Or he would've, but the sound never escapes his throat.
The words lump in his mouth and he spills them on the ground. It smells and looks like blood and he can't stop hacking his lungs out. He can't even look up to see if the monsters are attracted to the sound of his suffering. It doesn't seem like it. He doesn't know how to feel; should he be pleased that they aren't coming after him or disappointed that they're going after Rudo?
There's metal clanging in the near distance. He can hear Rudo calling his name, but he can't respond. He can't breathe. His lungs keep filling with air that tastes like stale ozone but that doesn't do anything. He pukes again. Regto blearily looks around and tries to find anything to use as a filter. Anything at all.
“You freaking monsters and this stupid world!” Regto hears Rudo yell across the way. The poor boy is about to do something unbelievably stupid. Underneath a metal cupboard, all rusted and bent out of shape, is a roll of coarse looking fabric, dirty and grimey. “I'm done with your stench, you stinking turds!”
At least say ‘fuck’ and ‘shit’. You sound like a five year old. Sure, he gets on Rudo's case about appropriate language, but ‘fuck’ and ‘shit’ are perfectly acceptable in this case.
Regto crawls towards the cupboard, hands gripping at the ground. He's never realized how out of shape he really is. When he reaches it, he fails at suppressing his coughs again. It doesn't matter. The beasts are attracted to sound and ‘quiet’ isn't a word to describe Rudo in any capacity.
“You smell worse than when Regto cuts the cheese!” Okay, that was fucking rude. Not untrue, but rude.
Regto grabs at the cloth, he can't lift the cabinet anyways. The fabric is tough, but he only needs a small amount. Just enough to cover his mouth and nose. It takes effort, but it starts tearing. Not quick enough, as Regto can hear the sound of Rudo beating up the monsters. He doesn't know how well he's doing. He doesn't even know if one of those monsters has broken away and he's about to become a flat pancake.
(Maybe he should have encouraged Rudo to be more violent- to fight? Maybe then it would be a possibility he'd lose instead of a certainty.)
There's a loud cascading crash behind him. Like one of the trash hills decided that it no longer wanted to be a hill anymore. Regto works faster, not wanting to be crushed.
The cloth tears completely, and with it the harsh sound of silence rings over the wasteland. Regto immediately presses the cloth to his nose, the fibers scratching his face. He looks up in the direction that Rudo should be, and only sees monsters. They span across the plain, reforming their broken parts.
Is he dead? His boy? Gone?
Rotten garbage sinks heavy in his gut like lead. No. No no no. Not Rudo. Not his boy.
“...and I've been trying to tell you TO SHUT THE HELL UP!” A man's voice, young, but loud rings over the landscape. There's…there's someone else out here.
People can live here? In a dump like this, where even with his makeshift filter, the air stings his lungs. There's even people down here? In the pit? This is…just like the stories.
Regto reaches under his cloak, making a desperate grasp for his book. Is it still there? His hand meets leather, and there's some comfort. The stranger has lowered his voice to a projection volume, but that means Regto just can't make out the words. How far away are they?
“And I'm not a shouting kind of guy!” The man's voice becomes loud again, “This is all your fault, you snot nosed little brat!”
As much as Regto agrees with the strange man's statement, Rudo is his snot nosed little brat. Not that man's. Regto's eyes narrow as his chest becomes tight with anger. This man's only saving grace was that, although shouted with anger, wasn't the kind of anger that spelled out ‘kidnapper’.
A bright yellow light and Regto's entire world erupts into fireworks. If this man is by Rudo, Regto thinks as he sees a speck of a humanoid form in the distance, then they are much further away than he thought. It's too quick for Regto to keep a good track, as the light destroys monster after monster. He can't do anything but watch, his lungs not yet fixed themselves with his filter.
After only a minute, it's silent. Too silent. Regto gets up from his knees. He doesn't care about how much sound he makes now, he has to get to Rudo. Why didn't he try before?
He has to remove the cloth for a second, as bile rises in his throat. It tastes vaguely metallic, and he sees blood on the ground. He has to make it to Rudo.
He looks up from the ground, and sees the world has changed. The hills of trash are gone, replaced with golden fields. The stalks on the field are long, with small little bulbs dotting the top. Is this wheat?
Despite his awe at how quickly mountains of trash can turn into a scene from his books, he has to look for Rudo. A kid, three years old with a puff of white hair stands a little away from him. He wears a white jacket that is much too big, and grey gloves better suited for adult hands. Rudo.
Rudo turns around, sees him and waves his gloved hands at him. Beckoning him forward. Rudo mouths something, but Regto can't hear the words. He can lip read, and the little shit had mouthed, “Catch Me!” before bolting into the fields.
With the air having changed, Regto runs after the kid. Because a little kid's favorite thing to do is to play keep away, Rudo stays only just out of reach. He continues to evade Regto, ducking around corners with a bright smile. Despite his annoyance, Regto can't help but smile back each time. Sure, the smiles keep getting more and more strained each time, but Rudo is sensitive. Regto won't ever catch him if Rudo feels like Regto is angry at him.
“Kid,” Regto pants, as the hills have become flat and the golden wheat has turned into grasslands. His lungs are screaming at him. Never has he done this much cardio in his life. The grass is thick and lush, slipping beneath his feet. Rudo turns around, head barely visible above the tops of the blades. “Kid, Rudo, this game has to stop. I can't walk any further. It's been hours.”
“But how are you going to find me, old man?” Rudo asks, and within one blink and the next, Rudo has grown up. His jacket fits him now, the gloves better suited to his hands. The grass now rests at his thighs.“I'm this way.” And Rudo points behind him with his thumb over his shoulder.
Regto feels something is missing, he doesn't know what though. There's a wall in his mind, separating the screaming that something isn't right until it's nothing more than a whisper in the wind. But Rudo is right in front of him.
Rudo looks to his right, into the distance. “Oh fuck, my bad. I'm right here.”
Regto follows his gaze. A small, weird looking garbage truck rolls up. It doesn't have a square box to hold trash, and the cabin is a lot smaller and more angled. There aren't any steps to get into the cabin, as it's much closer to the ground than a garbage truck. The vehicle skids to a halt, driver's side facing Regto. It kicks up bright yellow pollen that lingers in the air.
Someone gets out of the back door quicker than the one driving. “Regto!” Rudo yells out, and a smaller body slams into him. A stranger, a tall blond man looks around in awe as the green grass around them all turns a navy blue before slowly fading into nothing. The pollen turns into particles of sand, the ground is also sand and everything as far as the eye can see is sand. A teenage boy and girl are hovering, the boy reaching out to touch the fading grass.
Sand is also in Regto's chest. How did he ignore it before? He can't breathe. Sand is everywhere.
“Welp,” the blond man says. Regto can just hear him over Rudo's mother-henning and Regto coughing out his lungs, “Guess we're going back to the doctor.”
Regto blacks out.
“Listen!” Rudo yells for the umpteenth time. “Regto is still out there-”
“Kid,” Enjin says, and he's honestly getting a little annoyed. Zanka is staring out the window, pretending to be nonchalant and uncaring, but there's a twitch in his eye that says he's about to climb over the back of the seat and strangle the new kid. Even Riyo, although Enjin can't see her anymore because she ducked herself down, is nearing her limit.
Enjin honestly feels a little bad for the kid. If he knew that Rudo came down with a buddy, there would be another person in this truck right now. But Rudo didn't tell him until they were almost out of the dump. Regto is…
“I hate to say, but he's gone.” There's no way of putting it gently. Those toxic fumes from all the garbage kill within hours, and that's if a trash beast didn't form and kill him then.
Telling that to a kid is easy, but making him understand it is hard. The sphereite still doesn't understand how things work on the ground. Common knowledge that Enjin grew up with, that everyone on the ground knows, is lost on Rudo.
Rudo, the persistent, skinny little fucker, opens his mouth again to try and convince Enjin through the power of a shrill voice. Zanka cuts in before, perking up from his spot by the window, “What's…that?”
“What?” Riyo asks, looking at Zanka a second for guidance before looking out the window in the same direction. Enjin, being the good, responsible driver with a totally legal license, also looks over. He almost forgets to drive.
A few hundred meters away is like an entirely different world. The sand has turned into grasslands, the sky within the area is blue. The best way Enjin can describe it looks like someone had created paradise and placed it on the ground. The view is simply stunning and gorgeous and-
Enjin almost crashes into a rocky outcrop but at the last minute serves away and towards the grasslands. It's much closer than they thought, but Enjin does have a lead foot.
Riyo points something out, leaning over the back seat, “Is that…Rudo?”
Standing in the grasslands is Rudo. He has his white coat on (that Enjin sold), and he's pointing with his glove over his shoulder. Enjin takes a peek through his rearview mirror to see his Rudo still in the car. He's almost climbing Enjin's seat.
Rudo(?) seems to sense them approaching, as the kid standing in the grass looks at them. It's uncanny.
The fake Rudo almost takes all his attention, but he sees a man kneeling in the dirt just in time. He slides the car to a stop.
The man has shaggy blue hair and is wearing the same white clothing that Rudo had. He has a goatee, but his eyes. They pan towards the car, and Enjin steps out just as Rudo slams into the man. Is this Regto?
The man's eyes are glowing, glowing in the same way that a Giver's glow when using their Vital Instrument. The second that Rudo starts blubbering over Regto, those eyes dim to their natural dark blue, and the surroundings do the same.
An overlay of dark blue covers the grass and floating yellow things, before fading away like soap bubbles or powdered smoke into the real landscape hidden underneath. It's almost disappointing.
Enjin looks back at Regto and ho boy, does the man look like shit. He's barely keeping himself up, one hand is shaking, trying to raise itself to hold Rudo. But he can barely keep himself from falling onto the boy.
“Welp,” Enjin says, swinging his umbrella onto his shoulder. A bit of a detour doesn't hurt nobody, “Time to go back to the doctor.”