Chapter Text
Four days.
It took me four days to complete the game.
It was finished.
It was over.
There would be more. Soon.
But I wanted more. Now.
Because without it, I’d…
…
I sat there in the silence and dark of my living room. The only thing present with me was the low hum of my fridge. And even that stopped eventually, leaving me alone with my thoughts again.
Prophecy. Titans. Dark World. Light World.
Words that meant nothing without context. But to me, they were part of my escape for the last few days. An escape into magic, fantasy, adventure.
Friendship. Love.
…Longing.
And now it was over.
And I couldn’t stand it. I ached for company.
My phone was nearby. I had already scrolled through my WhatsApp relentlessly. No messages. No pings. Nothing happening on a Saturday night.
At least… not to me.
Everyone was hanging out with someone.
Just… not with me.
I sighed. It’s fine. No big deal. I had something (or rather someone) much more interesting to think about. ‘Cause even with everything and everyone I saw in the game… even with that ending (or maybe partly because of that ending) I couldn’t get him out of my head. Of course, I didn’t mind. I only wished there was a way to…
It’d been a couple of days since I saw him. And I wanted to see him again. It would have been pretty easy to browse the internet for fanart (I was sure there was plenty at this point), but I didn’t feel like it was enough. A restless energy burned in my chest and traveled down the lengths of my arms into my fingertips. I squeezed my fists mindlessly, cracking each knuckle as I thought about the best way to satisfy this need. This need to feel the art. This need to…
I rushed to my bookcase, grabbing some printer paper and a few colored pencils before sitting cross-legged at my coffee table, the urge to draw overpowering.
I took a gray pencil in my hand, the length of it growing warm in the crux of my fingers as my heartbeat quickened. My hands shook too much at first, but once I started, it was like I slipped into a trance, ‘The Board’ theme music simmering quietly in my throat, an occasional mirthful note interrupting the beat as I thought about him.
“Mike!! The lights!! The sounds!! The whatzits!! The doo-zits!! Turn 'em all on!!”
First, one gray square outside, then lighter pressure for the smaller gray square inside. A small purple curve for his smile. I smiled back.
“MARVELOUS!!! Mike, rebuild the set!! Rebuild my kids!!”
Two long black rectangles wobbled out as I laughed.
Two rectangles for his arms, a larger rectangle for his torso, thin triangles for his coattails. I lightly cursed as I scribbled out the scarlet I used by accident with red.
“I… can’t lie. I’ve been a bit, alone…”
I slowly drew in the yellow ovals for his shoes and diamond for his tie.
I know exactly how you feel.
Thin slivers of dark gray topped with circles for his antennas. Dark gray squares as interpretations of his gloves.
I wish I could tell you that…
One last finishing touch– the cone in the middle of his face for his nose.
And there he was. Mr. Ant Tenna.
I mean, it pretty much looked like him. I didn’t say I was good at drawing. Just that I wanted to draw. I needed to draw. To see him right in front of me.
Right in front of me… hmm…
An idea popped into my brain. I grabbed a large book from my bookcase and stood it up on my coffee table. I taped the drawing to the book, careful not to crease the paper. With the camera app open on my phone, I set a timer and propped it up against my couch. At the countdown, I dashed to the front of the living room, knelt down and looked slightly up, cupping my face in my hands with a slightly agape mouth to boot.
The shutter sound went off and I raced back to the couch. The phone jittered in my hand as I eyed the picture.
It was perfect. Me in shock. As if I was actually meeting Tenna in person.
I clutched the phone to my chest and squealed.
Then it hit me what I just did.
I tossed my phone and dropped my head onto the coffee table with a loud THUMP.
“Ugh… what are you doing, you creep? This is why…” I groaned.
I brought my head up and sighed through my nose, my eyes aimlessly wandering my apartment, but they only really took notice of my computer.
I stared at it a few minutes and thought.
If I really want to play the game again, I could just… play again… can’t I?
I literally just finished the game minutes ago. I hadn’t even looked up what I missed. But I… I wanted to play again so bad.
Well, what’s really stopping me? I could just look up Easter eggs and secrets while I play. I don’t have to spend time reading through everything before another playthrough. So… I could just…
Not a moment more and my laptop was opened. A few clicks of the keyboard and a slide across the touchpad, and Deltarune was up and running.
I came to the Chapter Selection Screen.
A few clicks down.
Chapter 3 highlighted.
Chapter 3 selected.
The sound of brief applause.
Then I waited for the intro to play before I clicked further.
But it never came.
The screen stayed black.
I wondered if I needed to reboot my computer. Just as I reached for the power button, words finally appeared on screen in that blocky font that anyone who’s ever played Deltarune even once would recognize. And it read as follows:
“DELTARUNE.
MY DELTARUNE.
IS IT NOT ENOUGH FOR YOU?”
I cocked my head. “Huh. This is new. Must happen before I create a new save file I guess. Although… I haven’t actually done anything yet, so maybe it’s something else…?”
The words continued to write and rewrite themselves on the screen.
“…PERHAPS…
…PERHAPS…
WE CAN TREAD THE SAME GROUND.
BUT TAKE
A DIFFERENT JOURNEY.
HOW SOON OR HOW LATE
IT ENDS…
WHO IS TO SAY.
NOT EVEN I WILL KNOW.
WILL THIS SUFFICE?”
The options ‘yes’ and ‘no’ popped up in the same blocky text. I didn’t know what this was leading to, but in what world would I give up a chance to view extra content? I happily highlighted the ‘yes’ option in yellow. But the choices disappeared before I could confirm and these next words took their place:
“BEFORE YOU ANSWER…
UNDERSTAND.
THERE IS ONLY ONE
CONNECTION.
THERE IS ONLY ONE
PLACE.
IT IS ONLY ONE
WAY.
YOU ACCEPT ANY
AND ALL
CONSEQUENCES.
THIS IS YOUR ONLY WARNING.
DO YOU UNDERSTAND?”
The options ‘yes’ and ‘no’ came back.
“Uh… what?” I teased out a knot in my hair as I thought hard about the answer to this puzzle. I was never good at riddles. “‘One place… one connection?’ What the heck does that mean?” It was tempting to look up the answer on my phone but the last thing I wanted was to be spoiled. I shrugged. “Eh, whatever. Maybe it’ll make sense later. Let’s just play already!”
Without further hesitation, I highlighted ‘yes’ and pressed the ‘z’ key. The words changed again.
“EXCELLENT.
THIS.
WILL BE VERY,
VERY
INTERESTING.
WE SHALL PROCEED.”
Those words then faded. And in their place stood one sentence that was less… cryptic. More… instructional.
More commanding.
“REACH OUT TO ME.”
“Hm? Reach… ‘reach out’? Uh… how do I… um… is it like…?” I held out my hands like I was receiving a gift. “Like this? Or, um… how does that… do anything?” I chuckled a bit, realizing that this little miming game was exactly what I was expected to do as a truck freak Toby Fox fan.
There’s probably gonna be some message with the annoying dog song playing over it about how I look like an idiot.
But that didn’t happen. The words ‘Reach Out To Me’ faded in and out on the screen. Pulsing. Almost like… breathing.
I relaxed and pressed the ‘z’ button. Nothing. I started tapping all the keys. Still nothing.
“Oop. Found a bug. It froze.” I took the computer in both hands, meaning to bring it closer to me.
Then the words changed.
“PICK THE ONE—”
I put down the laptop. The words reverted to the original command. Surprised, I touched the computer again with both hands. The words changed once again. I repeated this action several times, baffled yet astonished.
“Woah. How is it doing that? That’s so cool! Maybe it’s using my camera? Like, it’s motion sensed or something? I didn’t know it could do that!”
After several more times of messing around, I lightly laid my hands out to rest over the keyboard. Then it read,
“PICK THE ONE PLACE.”
But there were no options to choose from, and nothing came up after a minute of waiting. Removing my hands only put me back a step. My eyes wandered about as I tried to think of the solution.
“‘Pick the one place’, huh? Like, the chapter? Or just some random place? And what? Do I just think about it? What is even happening right now?” I wondered aloud.
Then I saw the picture I drew. Still taped to the front of a book. Still making my heart leap in place. I sighed, softly smiling. “If I had to pick anywhere, I wouldn’t mind…”
“IT IS DECIDED.”
“Hm?” I reread the line. “What is? What’d I do?”
“FOCUS.”
I tsked. “Okay, now I really don’t know what to do with that.” I gently tapped on the keyboard and thought. “Well… I guess I ‘focus’ better with my eyes closed.”
So I closed my eyes and took in some calming breaths. Though I couldn’t help but peek a little.
There was no change.
“Alright. If this doesn’t work, I’m only waiting, like, thirty more seconds,” I huffed, closing my eyes once again and not peeking. “After that, I’m just going to have to look up the ans—”
Something like ice pierced my palms. I jolted back and onto my feet. “Wha—?! What was that?!?”
I flipped my hands over. They weren’t bleeding. They looked normal. But they trembled. I could still feel whatever that was sticking to my skin like wet paper. I rubbed my hands, trying to wipe it off. But it stayed.
And started inching down my wrists.
Crawling down my arms.
Then there was a flash of light from my laptop. Strings and strings of code flickered on screen. Too fast to read. Too fast to understand. It burned my eyes.
And suddenly, I felt very, very sick to my stomach.
Dizzy.
Weak.
“Wha… What’s… happening…?”
I dropped to my knees. I felt a strong desire to take a nap on the floor.
“I can’t… feel… my…”
Then my whole body refused to work. The screen passed my vision as I went down.
I barely caught a glimpse of the last words scrawled in the dark before all light left the world.
“YOU HAVE LISTENED WELL.
NOW…
LET US BEGIN.”