Work Text:
“WARNING! AN ADMINISTRATOR HAS LOCKED THIS TERMINAL. REDIRECTING TO EXECUTIVE OFFICE…”
You feel yourself slump over onto the terminal keyboard in front of you. Exhausted and irritated, you groan, rubbing your face in exasperation. What is this now? An administrator has locked the terminal? Is there someone, or something here that can do that? How, or why? Why now? When you were so close? A tired groan leaves your throat as you just take a moment to wallow in your frustration and try to think of what to do next. As you do so, your elbow presses a key on the terminal whilst you’re in the middle of thought, closing the popup and allowing the elevator doors to creak open. The mechanisms feel much louder than usual. You can’t even think. You don’t even move at first, only staring at the open elevator like it was the source of all your problems.
After glaring at the elevator for what you think was a couple minutes, you look back at the terminal. You hoped that it was somehow a joke, maybe a trick of the light. Maybe the terminal had malfunctioned, and you’ll be back on track in no time. And for a second, there is nothing. The popup is gone. You thought maybe you imagined it, but a quick tapping of the keys confirmed that wasn’t true, as the warning pops back up. You let out one final huff before standing up straight. You breathe in deeply, attempting to steel your nerves. Maybe this could be good…? If there’s something up there that can mess with the terminals, maybe you could talk to them and get them to help you. It was a long shot, but worth a try in the end. It’s not like you haven’t died already anyways. Might as well try looking at the bright side of things.
Each step you take towards the elevator makes you feel like you weighed a million pounds. You tried to convince yourself that you weren’t scared, or even nervous. But of course, you knew that was a lie deep down. After everything you’ve been through here already, what else could they possibly throw at you now? From the burn scarring over your arm, to the paper cuts littering your face, the fear of what could possibly happen to you up there is palpable. With a shallow breath, you step into the elevator, listening to the gears and mechanisms groaning underneath your weight, which only ends up amplifying your nervousness. You wince, bracing yourself as the doors shut with a foreboding thud.
The elevator whirrs to life, knocking you off balance for a brief moment as the wires pull the machine you’re trapped in upwards. You can hear everything in the midst of your anxiety— including the rapid thumping of your heart in your ears.
The ride upwards felt like it lasted hours, and a few seconds simultaneously. The doors pulling open feels louder than it did several floors down. The sounds of the elevator finally die out as it comes to a complete stop, but that doesn’t mean you’re out of the woods just yet. Though the room in front of you definitely isn’t quite what you expected. It seems like a really fancy executive office, which when thinking about it now, you definitely should’ve expected it. It’s a lot nicer than the previous floors you had been on. Fancy carpet, fancy wallpaper, fancy desk, even escalators leading up to big fancy double doors with golden accents. You feel a bit out of place. Just what is all this?
You take in your surroundings as you step out of the elevator. Yeah, it’s really nice here… everything seems neat and tidy. You probably couldn’t see a speck of dust even if you tried. If a room like this was kept so nice, surely whatever’s up here is conscious enough to help you get through the rest of the office building… You could only hope as you cautiously stepped onto the escalator, holding onto the guardrail a bit tighter than usual as you ascended.
As you approached the double doors, you could finally take in how large and intimidating they were. Such a grand doorframe surely must be hiding something big behind it. Maybe bargaining with whatever is in here isn’t the best idea. But in the end, what else can you do other than die? You suck in a breath, patting your cheeks in an attempt to hype yourself up, which doesn’t really do much. As you reach for the doorknob, the doors swing open on their own. You stand there stunned for a moment before your eyes begin to scan your surroundings. In front of you is what seems like some sort of fancy office, one that seems fit for a CEO of a company. The walls are lined with bookshelves filled with neatly organized books. Large wooden pillars paired with glimmering golden statues lead to what lies in the center of the room, a large desk with an office chair facing away from you.
You briefly see movement coming from the chair and you pause, heart hammering.
“Hello?” You call hesitantly, your voice weaker than you hoped it would be. “Is someone there…?”
The sound of the chair creaking fills your ears as whatever is sitting in it swivels around to face you. Your eyes widen at the sight. Seated in the office chair in front of you is a strange looking humanoid creature. It’s somewhat shaped like a human, but it hardly even looks like one. Its body seems to be as thin as paper, its arms covered in familiar looking pencil symbols. Your eyes linger on the markings for a couple extra seconds. You also take in its attire, noting that the clothing it has on seems like perfectly preserved oldschool office attire. It’s been quite some time since you’ve seen anyone wearing an outfit like that…
The thing about it that catches your eye the most is its head. Or rather, the lack of it. It seems to be.. redacted? In some way? You’re not entirely sure how that’s possible, but compared to everything else you’ve seen here, it's nothing too unusual. Though you rub your eyes and do a double take just to make sure.
It seems to just stare at you for what feels like forever. You nearly jump out of your skin when it finally moves. It stands up, hands flat on the desk in front of it as it pauses for a moment, potentially considering their next move. You swallow hard. It’s tall. Like, really tall. Probably as tall as that library monster, maybe even taller. Its height seemed to double after standing up straight. Your heart thumps loudly in your chest as you instinctively take a step backwards towards the doors behind you.
You resist the urge to start running when it steps around the desk and begins to approach you slowly. You begin to back away carefully, but it only continues to get closer. Your eyes never leave the thing in front of you, until your back ends up hitting the office doors behind you. Briefly glancing at the doorknob, you find it with your hand and attempt to pull at it, but it won’t budge. By now, its standing directly in front of you, slouching over you slightly. You are pretty much blocked in completely. It hasn’t said or done anything yet, it is only existing. You don’t know if that's worse. The only sound in the room is the frantic rattling of the door knob and your quick panicked breaths as the two of you stare at each other.
It then raises its hand and you flinch away, your face turning away and your hands raising in a pathetic albeit instinctive response. You screw your eyes shut in preparation for the worst. Though as you wait, the worst does not come. Not the worst you expected, at least. It ignores your reactions entirely, as its hand finally touches your cheek in a strangely gentle manner. Your eyes fly back open in surprise before you can process, your head turning back to face it. It cocks its head slightly to the side for a moment. It grips your face gently with one hand, tilting your face back to the side without a word. It then raises their other hand and holds the other side of your face with the same kind of featherlight gentleness, tilting your face the other way, almost like it was observing you.
You can feel its paperlike hands running along every texture and feature of your face, including the shallow papercuts you got from that paper monster earlier. It kind of stings, and you try to squirm away at the feeling, but it doesn't let you. It keeps you in its grasp, tilting your head slowly upwards to have you face it. Your stomach sinks as it finally speaks to you.
“HONCHO SEE… LIGHT. IN YOU.”
You don’t even know what to do. It can talk. Its voice sounds odd. Like it's coming from a run down vintage television. And its manner of speech seems almost… telegraphic. You suppose that’s good to know, in a way. But what in the world could it possibly mean by that? The light? What light? You try to wrack your brain for the answer, and then it hits you. Last you were told, most of the monsters confined within these layers of hell weren’t aware of the light’s existence at all, so how did…?
“YELLOW LIGHT. SEND YOU TO ME… TO SAVE ME? SAVE HONCHO. BRING ME HOME.”
At least, they weren’t supposed to know.
That’s what you were told.
You swallow the lump forming in your throat as you will yourself to speak. You utter the first words that come to mind. “I don’t understand what you mean…?” There’s a tad less fear in your voice, now replaced with more confusion than anything.
It tilts its head once again in response. Can it even understand you? The question hangs in your mind for only a moment, because it soon responds to you perfectly clearly.
“YOU. HONCHO LOOKING FOR YOU. FOR LONG TIME.” Its hands trail down to your shoulders, the touch featherlight. “YELLOW LIGHT SEND YOU TO SAVE ME. BRING HOME. BRING US HOME. TOGETHER. AND HONCHO REMAIN LOYAL… FOR ETERNITY. ONLY YOU.”
As it continues to murmur strange prayers to you, its hands move down from your shoulders, fingers brushing along your wrinkled clothing, to your hands. Its hands never leave your warmth for even a second. Paperthin hands envelop yours, fingers wrapping around yours like a warm glove on a cold winter night. It holds you with such reverence that you feel your own common sense begin to waver. You are mildly frustrated at yourself for feeling a bit flustered by its clear devotion, even if the feelings are seemingly misdirected.
You slap yourself mentally, pulling yourself together. Do not let this get too far! You pull your hands away, giving the creature the most serious face you could muster. Which isn’t really much given the situation, but you try your best. You clear your throat forcibly to garner its attention.
“I— I think you’ve got the wrong idea here…—?!” Your attempt at defusing the strange situation at least a little bit is cut off as the creature very suddenly falls to its knees, making you jump. Even on its knees, the size of the creature still makes your stomach turn. But right now, its head was at your feet, hands planted right in front of you, almost like a prayer. You think you can hear it mumbling still, but it’s hard to tell at this point. You don’t really know what to do now. This was really weird.
“HONCHO BEG OF YOU. TAKE HONCHO ELSEWHERE. GOD SEND YOU TO SAVE ME. FROM INFINITE LOOP OF NOTHING.”
You shuffle backwards as best as you can. It isn’t much since you were already pressed right up against the door. Following your movements, it sits up to face you, still firmly planted in front of you on its knees. It then reaches up and gently takes your hands in its own once again, seemingly either ignorant to your confusion, or just oblivious to it. It looks up at you, and even though you can’t actually see its face or its expression, you can feel its gaze full of adoration directed at you. Only for you.
“HONCHO FEEL YOU… WARM… KNOW YOU HERE TO SAVE ME. GOD SEND YOU. GOD SEND YOU…” It continues to repeat the same sentence to you over and over, and you feel your neck grow hot. You try to say something, anything to stop this strange situation from escalating further. You don’t even know this creature! You have never seen it before! Though only strangled sounds of embarrassment leave your lips when it leans down and plants what seems like is supposed to be soft kisses on the top of both of your hands. It doesn’t feel like a kiss, it feels strange. Like warm static tickling your skin. But somehow, you still feel it, and you know exactly what it was meant to be. It can definitely feel the heat of your embarrassment radiating off of you.
Your heart feels like it’s about to burst out of your chest. Just what exactly have you gotten yourself into here?
What exactly has that cursed Starlight gotten you into?
You let out a long sigh, a bit longer than you had meant to. Your cheeks are burning, but you ignore the feeling to finally speak some sense into the current predicament.
“I’ll, um… I’ll try to help you, okay? Just… get up. Please.”
Without missing a beat, it listens to you, standing up straight almost immediately. Though its hands never leave yours… you try to ignore that fact. It stares at you expectantly, waiting for you to continue, which you eventually do. Your voice continues to waver nervously as you attempt to reason with it.
“I’m not… really sure what you’re talking about,” you admit a bit sheepishly. Your eyes dart everywhere around you, anywhere but its redacted face. “But I… I want to get out of here too. We can… do it together? If that’s what you want?”
Its grip on your hands tightens almost imperceptibly. You suppose that’s your answer.
“YES. HONCHO FOLLOW YOU. TO ENDS OF EARTH. WE LEAVE TOGETHER. MY STARLIGHT.”
You inhale, ignoring the feeling of your chest fluttering once again at the sound of its nickname for you. Despite everything you had anticipated, you actually did end up making an ally in this strange place, one that wasn’t either of the lights. You hoped this would make escaping this hell at least a little bit easier. The both of you apparently had the same goal after all…
So what was the worst thing that could happen here…?