Chapter Text
Slowly, your eyes fluttered open, your vision cloudy with a strangely curious haze. Regaining consciousness after a concussion seemed to be a particularly unpleasant experience, from what you remembered. Unfortunately, this pattern followed you for this haunted moment. Concussions are shit. The faint but constant ringing in your ears was extremely annoying, and the nausea that overwhelmed you after a sudden jolt forward was repulsive. The repetitive and brief jostles that your body experienced were definitely some of the worst experiences you lived in your short but eventful 18 years of living.
Your eyelids threatened to close shut permanently. Every blink made the pounding behind your forehead heavier. It felt as if someone had swung at your head with a bludgeon. Your head tilted, as your forehead came to rest at your steering wheel. Those fleeting moments of stress always reminded you of the times your old girl would act up in the middle of traffic.
Huh? Shit, were you in your car?
Your hands tightened around the driving wheel. Yup, you were definitely in your car; you registered. You were inside your large, particularly bulky, blazing red 2012 Chevy Tahoe. The obnoxious car you adored regardless of any disparaging comment headed your way. Your friends loved calling it a tank, a suburban mom wannabe minivan, a gas-guzzling brick. They could call it all they want, for nothing was going to make you stop loving your car. At the end of the day, none of them could proudly say they bought and now owned a car. She was a fierce companion earned after months of working part-time at a local froyo shop. A vehicle that helped you with everything from driving friends to school and doing quick grocery runs.
Oh!
Groceries, that’s what you were at before this nightmare. You were getting snacks for your Gachiakuta binge of the latest season with close friends. Yeah, that would be—or would’ve been great. You had planned out everything too, spending a small fortune on enough snacks and drinks to feed a town. Chips were probably strewn across the floor and seat, and if you focused carefully, you could hear a few large soda bottles rolling around.
It was all still far too blurry to make out anything but the light-colored wall blob. With another zip, your car hit the wall again. The wall was closer now, and with the proximity, you could focus on its details. It was saturated, strangely so.
Your back hit the driver’s seat as your vehicle jostled back. Your eyes shut tight, and when they opened again, your vision cleared.
It was all wrong. The wall, which you could now clearly examine, was all wrong. Animated, 2D, cartoon-like- the list of synonyms went on and on in a way that seemed to make no sense at all.
Oh.
You blinked once, twice. Still flat.
Fucking great, you’re hallucinating now. You guessed that you probably hit a wall after your run to the local bodega on your street and that this weird dream was the immediate aftermath of the crash. You knew firsthand that hallucinations always seemed real, but as the bumper hit the wall again and again, everything seemed a little too real for your liking.
Your head spun with another wave of revolting nausea as your forehead hit the driving wheel with a soft thud. Oh God, this dream, episode—or whatever was just fucking awful. Ugh. You set both hands on the wheel, and your feet reached their correct place in the pedals. Your foot jerked onto the brake pedal, and to your dismay, nothing happened.
It’s almost as if something else is driving your car.
The remark earned a weak laugh. You checked your right and gripped the gearshift stick in preparation to reverse and stop the crashes. The gearshift shifted to reverse as a sigh escaped your lips. Your old girl isn’t totally wrecked. You checked the main mirror. Nothing behind me except—sun-bleached desert? Behind you was pale sand, and a rough-looking cracked stone wall with a dark tunnel carved into it.
Your surroundings…they didn’t look like any place near home. Where the fuck were you?
Your gaze shifted to your left. Someone was standing a few centimeters away from your window, her golden eyes piercing into your face. She looked exhausted but still ultimately composed. Other than this, she looked tired, her brows settling into a calm indifference.
Her forehead came to rest at the glass window. “Hey, you awake there?”
As soon as your brain processed her voice, you froze in place. You recognized her face from your show. Semiu Grier. Oh God.
“YO SEMIU!” He exclaimed, his glasses shaking from the sheer force of his booming voice.
Another head poked from a nearby pillar. As gloved hands waved frantically, he hobbled closer to you both. His figure jumped to stand right next to your car. His face contorted into an incredibly crude expression of pure glee and amazement.
He slammed his hands down on the hood of your car. “SICK ASS CAR YOU’VE GOT THERE! MAN, LINK ME UP WITH YOUR DETAILER?”
Suddenly, August Stilza leaped onto your car and pressed his ugly mug against your windshield. You could see him much more clearly now. His face was, in fact, animated.
Everything happened too quickly. He shrieked and laughed. You shrieked and stepped hard on the gas. As your car flew backwards, his hands struggled to grip the windshields. The car slid to a stop, and in a second his body tumbled out of your hood and onto the sandy ground below.
It—she kept speeding in reverse, pressing your back flat against the black leather seats as her seatbelts zipped around your torso and clicked into place. Through the rearview mirror, you watched your car halt to a stop with a hard press of your foot on the pedal. Your car slowed to a sudden stop, a whisker away from getting her trunk brutally demolished by the hard surface of the tunnel’s wall
Before you could sigh in relief, she rocketed forward. August’s crumpled body seemed to lie glued to the ground as she closed in for the kill. Your foot kept hitting the brake pedal frantically. Nothing. Again, nothing. Your knuckles whitened around the dashboard as you huffed. The corners of your eyes were tearing up. Your chest began to hyperventilate, and your eyes closed.
“Stop, please make it stop!” The panicked demand left your lips before you could process it.
At a moment's notice, the steering wheel rolled over, and the car swerved sideways, squeaking as it tilted on its wheels, decelerating dramatically and finally coming to rest on her wheels with a heavy thud.
You huffed loudly, your hands slowly leaving the dashboard as your eyes darted to the steering wheel. What had just happened?
Your head sank into the steering wheel as you finally let out a sigh of relief. “Thanks, Chevvy.”
Needless to say, the door was kicked open in an instant as you dashed forward to stand before the man you nearly ran over. August Stilza did not look dead as he seemed to lie unconscious, granted his mighty fall from your car’s hood, but he still wasn’t awake. Your gaze darted from his face to your car and finally to the building.
Semiu. She wasn’t there anymore. The front door was wide open now, and even if you were tempted to, you couldn't get yourself to go inside.
Would they classify you as an intruder?
You were far from equipped to fight any of the Cleaners. They couldn’t kill you. You had only just woken up, and August had scared you. That’s all. If anything, you probably would only have a large target on your back. There was no way you’d die like this. Were you always destined to be torn apart by either sharp blue threads or a giant pair of scissors?
August was heavy, but it didn’t deter you from moving him from the scorching heat. His long blonde hair tickled your shoulder as his face dug into your neck. It glinted in the sunlight, but now in the cool shade of the building’s porch, it was far more muted.
He groaned and shuffled, which made you freeze. When you looked down, his head turned slightly to look at you. Even after it all, he was still grinning.
“That was AWESOME, heh,” he croaked, coughing a couple of times.
A nasty grimace spread across your face. You didn’t quite think it was awesome to hold the body of a strange man minutes after you nearly ran him over.