Chapter Text
“Ugh, my head….” Eternal Sugar opened her eyes. The world was surprisingly bright compared to her last memory. The last thing she remembered was that she was in deep, deep pain all over. Cruel words that were spouted out from the person she believed was her friend. She couldn’t decide which felt worse. The atmosphere that was in front of her was so much different. The sky was very blue and it smelled like blueberries. Giant oak trees surrounded her. Similar to the ones she has seen near the spire of-
“Eternal Sugar is awake!” The voice was booming and that truly woke her up straight up. She sat up and quickly looked around. The voice came from Burning Spice who was standing over her to the left. He was clearly pacing around before judging on the dirt patch surrounded with green. To her right she saw Mystic Flour kneeling over her. She seemed like she was waiting for her to wake up before moving.
”I can tell that, Burning Spice…” Mystic Flour says with a monotone voice. Probably tired. She looked back down at Eternal sugar, and made sure she was alright. She lifted her hand in front of the pink girl's face. “How many fingers am I holding up, Eternal Sugar?”
”We are cookies. We don’t have fingers…..” Eternal said. She sounded mostly confused.
“Ok, that’s good. Better than what Burning Spice said. He said, ‘one’.”
”WE HAVE ONE NUB! IT MAKES SENSE!"
Eternal Sugar stood up slowly with the help of Mystic Flour. “Where are we?” She asked while rubbing her head. It felt light. Burning Spice looked at her and sighed.
”We… I have no idea. We just woke up minutes before you did.” Burning Spice looked at Mystic Flour for any correction. “It is merely nothing familiar to any of us.” He picked up his battle axe that was anchored into the ground near him. “I doubt we even died really. This isn’t what I believed the afterlife would be after all.”
All three of them looked around at the sunny, silent forest. It was calm yet so unsettling. Mystic Flour coughed into her fist, gaining the two other beasts' attention. “We must move quickly. Staying in one spot would dig our grave deeper.” Burning Spice and Eternal Sugar nodded in agreement. Burning Spice tossed his axe over his shoulder, and Eternal Sugar prepared herself to fly by stretching her undamaged wings. But before they could take off, someone ran into Mystic Flour. The random cookie and Mystic Flour fell down causing a huge thud. Burning Spice and Eternal Sugar turned their heads at the sound. Shocked to see who it was.
The strange cookie quickly got up and looked down at Mystic Flour with a worried expression. “Flour?! Are you ok???” The cookie sounded tense, out of breath almost. “I am so so-so-so-so-so sorry! I wasn’t looking and-“
”Shadow Milk?” Eternal Sugar said. Her eyebrows were furrowed with confusion and shocked. She helped Mystic Flour get back up on her feet. His face looked like Shadow Milk but he looked like a memory at best. The black and gold robe. The hair looked like space and time swirled into one. And those eyes… oh those eyes, yellow and blue.
“S-Sugar?! .. Harold? What are you guys doing here-“ Before he could even finish his sentence, Burning Spice threw his axe at a tree that managed to pin onto the cookie’s Cloak. “AAA! What the???”
“You have a lot of nerve showing your yapping face again, Shadow Milk! Especially if you are going to use that title! Where are we!?” Burning Spice yelled as he got closer to the cookie. Close enough to grasp onto the handle of his weapon.
“Wait! It's me! Fount of Knowledge!” Fount screamed, covering his face with his arms. The sleeves of his robe automatically fold up. They all were confused. Eternal Sugar moved and made Burning Spice take his axe out of the tree. Releasing Fount in the process. “Thank you, Sugar.” Fount said while smoothing his robe. He still sounded like he was out of breath. “What was that for?!
”Fogive him,” Mystic Flour said while walking closer. “We are all tense right now. Especially-“ She cut herself off. She then looked towards Shadow Milk Fount of Knowledge. “Why were you running?”
“Excuse me?”
“You ran into me. Why?”
“I….” Fount lowered his head to cover his neck with the robe. “This place is frightening. I am not even sure if I still belong here anymore.”
”Belong here anymore?" Eternal Sugar asked.
“This was my mind after all…” Fount answered with a soft chuckle under his breath. But it didn’t feel whole. “Well it used to be the Fount of Knowledge’s mind. Now it’s just his mind….”
”So we are dead and this is hell. Great….” Burning Spice sounded disappointed with the sound of his tone.
“Burning Spice, We still don’t know if we are dead or not.” Eternal Sugar said. She then turned to Fount. “Right?”
“I assume you aren’t dead but this place is definitely hell. A couple days ago, 3, 4, 5, 6, I do not know, I am still figuring out how time works here honestly, I woke up here. And since that day I have been welcomed by nothing, but endless torture. I have been chased, trapped, waiting for the day of my final breath. In here is a practical endless maze full of memories and fears. I was running because I have been searching for the exit out of this place, although I am still not convinced that it can let me out… but,” Fount looked at them with hope in his eyes. “Maybe you three can be set free.” This perked up the three.
”You know where an exit is?”
”AN EXIT?!”
”Fount, please tell us!”
The cookie looked at the group with wide eyes. Fidgeting with his very doughy hands. He looked stressed, too stressed to even respond. “I-I…” Before the cookie could even respond something fell from the sky about 10 feet away from them. The atmosphere became silent again. Out of instinct, Eternal Sugar floated towards the thing that fell from the sky as the others stayed.
“Sugar-?” Fount tried to stop her but was ignored. He clenched his dough hands together and dilated his eyes.
Eternal Sugar floated closer to the thing. Once she was close enough she descended to the ground, touching the green grass at her feet. She crouched down and noticed that the green grass was slowly turning to a deep pink jam color. This made her concern instantly far enough to investigate. She opened the grass patch and just saw a dead sugar dove. “A sugar dove…” Jam was leaking out of its neck. Like it was just shot down. In its beak held a letter. Eternal Sugar petted the sugar dove and picked up the letter. It had her stamp on it with the name on it he back addressing it to the Salt of Solidarity. Eternal Sugar’s eyes inspected the letter repeatedly. By the stamp at the opening she can tell this was where she was struggling back before the tree. She was sending letters to all of the virtues. Begging for help, yet no one responded. She thought that the Salt of Solidarity would respond out of anyone she knew, but silence. She looked down at the dead sugar dove again. She reached out, wanting to inspect more of the poor bird. But something had other plans. The bushes near her started to rustle. When her hand was closet too the bird and the bushes,
A hand shot out of the bushes and grabbed her wrists. Dragging her towards the bushes.
————-
Burning Spice and Mystic Flour stayed back as Eternal Sugar wandered towards the fallen thing. Staying with Fount. Burning Spice sighed and turned towards Mystic Flour. Physically turning their backs towards Fount. “Do you believe him?” He asked her.
”I… do not know. This is Shadow Milk’s mind after all, anything could be a lie.” Mystic Flour said, her crossed arms tightening, as if it was a form of comfort. “But… he could also be a fragment of a missing soul from the past. From the time we were…” She paused and looked at Burning Spice. She could never finish that sentence because it was interrupted by a loud, terrifying shriek.
”AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!”
Burning Spice and Mystic Flour turned as fast as they could, only to see Eternal Sugar struggling to pull away from arms pulling her into a bush. There were multiple arms pulling on her wings, dress, hair, arms. Burning Spice quickly grabbed his axe and ran towards the scene. He lifted it up and struck down on the arms splitting them in half. Eternal Sugar pushed herself away, looked absolutely scared, and tried to reconnect to the world. Burning Spice panned as the rest of arms slithered back into the bush. He tried to stomp on the bush but as he stomped down a hand shot out to block his attack and pushed him on his back. When that was happening the excess hands on Eternal Sugar poofed and turned into snakes. She let out another shriek and stood up to run towards Mystic Flour, trying to get every last snake off of her.
When Burning Spice was on his back, he saw an upside down perspective of Eternal Sugar, Mystic Flour, and The Fount of Knowledge. He noticed how Fount looked very unamused at Eternal Sugar’s frightened body language. In fact he looked almost bored or annoyed even. Fount finally turned his head to see the state of the bush and Burning Spice, quickly changing his expression immediately. He looked shocked and worried. Not at Burning Spice. No, no, no. He was looking at the bush. Burning Spice sat up to see what was so shocking. Instantly regretted. More and more arms reached out of the bush, and once he cut off the hands from just regenerated them back on. He quickly backs away to give him some distance.
“WHAT IS THAT?!?!?” Burning Spice yelled as he stood up gripping his axe. Getting ready to attack again.
”That’s the thing that’s been torturing me!” Fount shouted. He was the farthest away from the creature, yet he looked the most scared. As the cookies gathered closer together, the army of arms reached down to push up from the ground. They were pulling up a sickening dark creature that was practically made from shadows itself. It didn’t have a face like any normal living thing on Earth Bread. It had blue, red, pink, yellow all over its body. The thing only smiled up towards where regular eyes should be. The eyes looked left and right before making eye contact to the axe and towards the group. It tilted its head and got ready to grab the cookies. Fount saw this and knew what to do. “RUN!” Fount yelled as he picked up his robe so he could run without tripping. The beasts took a second but started to run too. Mystic Flour grabbed Eternal Sugar’s hand so she could run before stopping to panic. Burning Spice ran behind them, wanting to be the one to attack the creature first.
When they ran, it ran too. When they turned, it turned too. It was almost hard to lose track of it. As soon as they believed they could out run it, they came face to face with a dead-end. “Oh dear...” Fount said as he turned to see the creature coming at them quickly. “Herald- Burning Spice! You have a weapon! Use it!” Fount demanded.
Burning Spice made a grunt of annoyance, it wasn’t like he was doing that for the last 5 minutes. Burning Spice stepped forward and was about to swing, “Eat shit-“ Burning Spice was about to thrash down his axe until he stopped abruptly. That thing grabbed the axe and pulled it out of his hands so easily, snapping it in half with a cruel smile before tossing the broken weapon behind him. Burning Spice, now weaponless, tried to walk up to the creature to do hand to hand combat. “OH CAN DO THIS WITHOUT MY WEAPON!!! TRY ME!!!”
The Fount backed up closer to the dead end. The surroundings made it look like it was a forest of endless ruins. No way to escape insight. He backed up closer and closer until he heard a loud sound. The sound of fabric ripping. “What the- AAAAAA!!” Fount suddenly fell backwards. The dead end was just a canvas this entire time. Just a lie. Everyone looked at the gaping hole of loose fabric and then back at the creature.
Eternal Sugar grabbed onto Mystic Flour and opened her wings so she could fly down safely. She then turned to Burning Spice who was still trying to fight the thing with his own hands. “Burning Spice! Get your ass over here now before I do it myself!!” Eternal Sugar exclaimed. Mystic Flour nodding in agreement.
”I got this handled! You two go ahead-“ Eternal Sugar put down Mystic Flour back on the ground and walked over to Burning Spice, picking him up, and tossing him straight into the hole. She picked Mystic Flour up and went down right after.
Leaving that creature alone with nothing to hunt or run after. Its hands banged and clawed at the ground with furious rage. Not fair… Not fair. Not fair! NOT FAIR! NOT FAIR!! It later ran out of stamina. Too tired to do anything. It sighed. Knowing it failed what sent it to hunt those beasts down. Knowing that it would be permanently erased, like the others, by him.