Chapter Text
John Doe didn’t remember having fallen asleep. Last he remembered, he was at work, looking at some code Jane had found so he could fix it. But, he was waking up regardless.
His entire body ached, his ears were ringing, and his vision was blurry. He didn’t know why he felt so terrible, he’d felt fine before this. He rubbed his eyes and tried to make out his surroundings.
There was a small TV in front of him with text he couldn’t make out without his glasses, and he seemed to be on some kind of bean bag chair. He wasn’t anywhere he recognized, that was for sure. Before he could even get his glasses on, he heard someone speak.
“Oh, you’re awake! Good timing on your part.” The speaker laughed afterwards.
John quickly looked to find the source of the voice, and found someone standing next to him. A man with what seemed to be a mask covering his whole face stood next to him, looking down at John.
The stranger spoke again. “Alright, come on, we’ve only got a few minutes. Let’s get downstairs and get you introduced to everyone. Apparently I’m the only one who knows people around here.”
John blinked a few times before replying. “Who are you? Where am I?”
“I’m Noli! Nice to meet you for real, John. And you’re in a cabin. In a different dimension. Now come on!” Noli said as he offered his hand to John.
The name sounded familiar, but John couldn’t remember why… his memory was a bit fuzzy, and this was… odd, to say the least. Noli knowing his name wasn’t too weird, it’d be on his nametag, but… meeting him “for real?” Different dimension? What was he talking about?
Since Noli had said they didn’t have that much time, he decided he could save the questions for later. He grabbed the offered hand and stood up. He still had his glasses on their chain, so he put them on and the world became clearer. Noli led him towards the stairs, and they went down to meet the other people who were apparently there.
As the two robloxians came to a sort of lounge area within the cabin, the others turned to look at them. Five other robloxians sat in the area, none looking particularly happy about their current situation.
Noli spoke up before John could, “Alright everyone! This is John, John, meet Davie, c00lkidd, 1x, Sixer, and Nosferatu!” Noli said excitedly, pointing to each one as he said their names.
John waved, but nobody spoke up, everybody opting to just stare at him instead. Not a very talkative bunch, he supposed. He opted to just take a seat on the empty space on the couch, next to the one Noli had called c00lkidd. Immediately after he did, the child spoke.
“Hi! I’m c00lkidd! Your claws are REALLY cool! How’d you get them?”
Claws? What did he mean claws? John didn’t have claws. He looked down at his hands, and saw… well, claws. Not only did he have claws, his entire right arm seemed to be covered in something black and white. On his left side, his hand was covered by the same substance. What in Robloxia happened while he was asleep?
C00lkidd must have noticed him freaking out about his brand new claws, as he asked, “Are you okay? You don’t look okay.”
“Oh! Uh, I’m fine! Don’t worry about me.” John responded, trying his best to look calm despite the fact he was actively freaking out over his transformation. He didn’t want to freak out the kid, even if he was panicking himself.
“Oh, okay! How’d you get the claws?” c00lkidd asked again.
How was John supposed to answer that? He didn’t even know how he’d gotten them! But he had to come up with something, at least. He worked with faulty code, maybe something like that would work?
“I work with broken code, and sometimes it can cause stuff like this to happen?” He didn’t sound sure of himself, but the kid didn’t seem to notice.
“Woah! That’s super cool!” c00lkidd replied. He looked so amazed that, despite the situation, John couldn’t help but smile. “Is that what happened to your eye too?”
Something happened to his eye? He didn’t have a mirror, or anything that would work as one, so he was left to wonder what had happened. Probably something similar to whatever had happened to his arms, he assumed.
“Yeah, the same thing happened.” He didn’t know what other explanation he could give, but thankfully he didn’t need to come up with anything new.
He looked to his other side, and saw Noli looming next to the couch. John decided he might as well ask for more information about what was going on.
“Hey, Noli? Could you tell me what’s actually happening here?”
“I’m not sure myself! I have a theory, but I know you’re not gonna like it. Nobody here likes it. I don’t even like it myself!” Noli responded.
“Well, what’s your theory?”
“So, due to our not-so-amazing performance within the rounds, the Spectre has decided to punish us. So, now we’re the ones surviving the rounds. None of us like that idea, but it seems to be the most likely one.”
“Rounds?”
Noli looked at John. He couldn’t see Noli’s face, but from how long it took for him to start speaking again, he assumed Noli was confused.
“The rounds. Y’know, where you…” Noli made a motion with his hands that John felt like he was supposed to understand, but didn’t. “Quick, what’s the last thing you remember?” Noli said after another pause.
“I was at work, fixing some code. Am I… supposed to remember something other than that?”
Noli seemed to think about that for a moment, before he replied, “Oh. OHHHHH!”
“Oh what?” John said with concern.
“Don’t worry about it.” Noli said. That definitely made John worry about it, but he figured Noli wasn’t going to tell him.
Noli looked past John and spoke again, “One minute left until we see if I’m right!”
John looked towards where Noli was looking and saw the grandfather clock, at 2:59, the second hand ticking towards the 12 on the clock. The person Noli had called Sixer sat next to the clock, leaning forwards and looking at the clock, presumably trying to see the time.
The clock continued to tick. John looked back at Noli, who was still staring at the clock. He then looked back at the clock. Almost to 3:00.
And then they weren’t there anymore.