Mono remembered when he was small. Smaller than small- he was smaller than his current puny human height. He was about half his age then, five or maybe four, when the cruel outside world revealed itself to him. Mono was kept hidden away in a sanctuary where the Transmission couldn't touch him. But eventually it did, along with monsters that destroyed everything he knew and loved. The world never loved him to begin with. It showed its true face of hatred quickly and snatched away his innocence. Mono's face was easily recognizable, as well as the subtle magic that boiled beneath his skin. Soon, only the mask of a paper bag was his sanctuary.
The only thing that was never taken from Mono was his kindness. He was stubborn, yes, especially when it came to his single-minded achievements, but he was naturally kind. The world could never take that away from him.
When he had grown older and learned how the monsters acted, he went back to his home to the Pale City. It had changed horribly.
Buildings tilted and were falling apart, cracks in the ground looked almost terraformed by savage sea earthquakes. The major buildings still existed though. The church, stores, school, hospital... Even some lucky apartments were spared. A new creature had erupted from the masses. A tall tower with seemingly infinite windows crawling up its sides with panels glowing an ominous lighting. Mono could never fathom what its purpose was. It didn't matter much either to him then as he found a group of human children he strived to protect.
Monsters always came back. Mono's heart ached as he learned that. Fire destroyed the hideout he and the children made. People were burnt and killed and found and eaten. A man almost too human but too freakishly tall to be human crawled out from a T.V. It dragged survivors through statics of screens, but could never find Mono. In the end, when everything went silent and smelt of burnt flesh, Mono felt a horrid pain tearing apart his head.
This city was filled with death, and now it was trying to take Mono along with its other victims. The city used to be heaven, but Mono didn't know when that was. He doubted such a place could ever exist in this world.
Mono didn't have anywhere else to go. So he ran. He fished up enough materials to cross the evil waters swallowing the city. He planned on never coming back.
He never believed he came back.
The river of the Pale City brought Mono to a forest. He didn't think much of it at first, simply rearranging his paper bag to accommodate for the unwanted humidity. It wasn't much of a forest but more of a bog or a swamp, but it worked at the price of the awful scent of rot.
Besides the sweat and the suffocating smells, the odd feeling Mono got back at the city after hell broke loose was gone.
Momentarily, there was peace. Before he came across the forest's own monster.
It never talked, thank god, but it lugged itself here and there with snares and traps. There was never a second when it wasn't checking its cages and hidden rope captures. Mono never got too close to it, as he was cautious as well as curious.
He stayed in the first for a while, learning where to hide and how to survive. It was much different compared to scavenging in the city, but he managed.
However, things changed. One night as he sat upon a tree's branch with the full moon shining down from above, the strangest phenomenon occurred. He could hear the rustling of bushes nearby and the gentle moan of the Hunter faintly in the distance. Mono assumed it was hunting and that it would take no reason to come in his direction.
The Hunter was indeed hunting, but it was no animal. It was a girl.
She had made her appearance known to Mono when she burst out from the gloomy flora. There wasn't much to note about her looks thanks to the moon's limited light. Mono was intrigued in her, twisting his poster to try and get even the slightest bit of a better glance. But there wasn't much to do, or that he could do... The Hunter came along and snatched her away.
The event was gone as quickly as it came. Regardless, Mono set a goal to save her if she was still alive. It was far fetched, but he had a reputation for being a stubborn little boy.
Not even a month after their encounter, the next strange phenomenon happened.
Mono had a dream.
He dreamt, of course, but they were more often than not nightmares and horrible memories. Getting a dream that wasn't one of those was rare. Even remembering the good times was rare.
There wasn't much to the dream. It felt surreal as dreams do and almost gave off a blurry picture vibe. But the strangest thing about the dream was the place. Mono had found himself in a corridor unlike anything he had ever seen. The walls looked freshly finished and the floors just laid. The boards underneath his feet were cold though, and the air was too foggy. Gravity acted strange and seemed to play around with Mono's gravity as if he was on the moon. At the end of the corridor there was a door with an eye embedding that took over the entire upper half. Mono wished he could've opened it, but the dream ended.
He woke up suddenly on the floor of the forest, the ground moist below him. Mono's head hurt, and although he was still within the trees, he was unsure where he was. This was not a part of the forest he recognized.
Nearby him, a television's screen flickered from an ominous static to a dead screen of black.
Mono then heard it. The sound and feeling that was known as the Transmission finally touched him. For years it laid asleep until something awoke it, and now it feasted upon those who got too close to its domain or where too consumed by technology. It turned people into monsters for purposes only puppeteers would understand.
At least, that's how the stories went. And everyone knew there was at least a small speck of trust inside every story.
The Transmission didn't change Mono into a monster, but it did awake something wikin him. A power that it could use. The original intent was probably to bait Mono back to the city one last time, but there wasn't anything left for him though.
Well, Mono made something then. The Transmission was a work of evil, and although he was inexperienced and small and just a mere child, he would go back to the Pale City and find a way to destroy the signal.
Sometimes, plans changed. And certainly was the case when Mono found the girl in the Hunter's house.
He thought she was dead, but she was clearly alive. If not slightly afraid of him in the beginning.
She was only a few inches shorter than Mono with dark hair that curled around her head and overshadowed her eyes. She wore only a simple grey cardigan with mud stains and a pair of white shorts peeking out barely underneath. Clearly the girl was no monster, but looked more like a fragile porcelain doll thrown out carelessly and unwanted out into the world.
Her name was Six, Mono was told. And she was not as dainty as she seemed.
Six was fierce and cold. She grew wonderment like a child should but knew how to survive. Mono questioned some of her actions, the rather anti-hero and selfish way she thought, but in a way she cared.
Mono knew that if he didn't have Six was a companion through his return to the Pale City, he would be dead. She knew that as well, as without him she would be dead. Their personalities clashed mostly, but regardless of that they got well together.
It had been half way through their expedition when the freakish man burst through a television screen. Six had blamed him, which Mono understood. He was the one who placed his hands over the front panel of the screen. He was the one who folded through the other world and opened the door on the other side. He freed the monster that sat behind the eye.
There was no way Mono considered himself lucky this time. The Thin Man, the name of the creature as warned in stories when he was smaller, followed the children like a predator as they ran. Mono's heart raced and all he could think about was heavy smoke and flares of pyro.
Somehow, the Thin Man never found him hidden beneath the shadows of a long abandoned bed. Six was hiding close by, trying to make her small physique inconspicuous against an odd looking table. Toys were strewn around the room. Then, the same pattern commenced.
Mono had grown too personally and emotionally attached to Six. His heart and his head pulsed with pains of sorrow and the Transmission's callings.
On one hand, Mono could leave. He could finally leave behind the hells of his past and allow the city to vanish with its waters. The other hand presented saving Six and finishing what he came back originally to do.
Oh how Mono wished he wasn't the way he was. The choice he made was obvious as he crawled out from the shadows.
The path to the Signal Tower alone was not one he enjoyed. With his powers now fully awoken by the previous encounter of this city's monster, he could feel the Transmission dragging him along to his own self damnation. His journey though the place destroyed by itself just showed how far beyond the Pale City was to saving. Even if Mono were to complete his goal, this place of his past couldn't be back to anything that represented its legendary self.
Getting past the corrupted Residents was easy for Mono. The televisions acted as portals, throwing him through the other world momentarily before being plunged back into the normal one through the connect screen.
There were many close encounters. Mono took note of how the civilians turned monsters were lured by the propaganda created by the Signal Tower's source. He needed to accustom to perfect timing that would save his own skin. And his skin was at risk once when several gave chase through the remains of a department store dealing with technology.
After that whole ordeal, Mono was jumpscared by hands banding against glass. A nearby screen bent over with dark hands pressed upon its other other side. He thought it was the Thin Man back again, ready to capture him properly. Thankfully the faint form of a triangle hood grew Mono's hopes high and immediately he came to Six's rescue.
Mono's hands bled through the static almost too easily and he was able to grab a hold of Six. She held onto him with the same amount of tightness as he tugged her through. Shades of yellow peeked out as the color of her raincoat shone out into the normally monochromatic environment. Her head slivered out, as well with words of encouragement. As the majority of Six's waist moved through the screen, Mono couldn't pull her back anymore. In fact, something pulled him forward almost too effortlessly. Six plunged back through the static with a cut off scream, and the Thin Man took her place.
It folded between the frames like a circus performer. Mono scrambled to his feet, twisting to run away and hoping he could escape.
Making it to a train that was torn from its tracks and the city below, he thought the creature wouldn't follow him here. Unfortunately, Mono was dead wrong. It materialized itself with a passenger cart's doorway, too stubborn to let Mono escape. Mono was just as stubborn though. He made it to an end cart, one that was still connected to the rails and pulled a lever that greeted him. The two carts detached and the Thin Man watched Mono as he fled on his moving train half.
Mono's cart barrelled quickly through a former pathway tunnel. The end that once opened to the other side was filled with collapsed tunnel debris and several hunks of broken buildings. The train couldn't stop before it hit hard against the blockage. The collision was too sudden for Mono's tiny body as the feedback spat him out without mercy outside the cart. He landed painfully on the rain slick concrete, flares of red flashing across his vision.
He slowly moved himself to his feet, one hand pressed against his side as if that would rid of his pain. At worst he has a few cracks in one of his ribs. Mono hoped it was just a bruise in the end.
Mud washed off his toes thanks to the water pooling inside the tunnel from the rain. Across the rail and standing on top the ruins of a presumed station's platforms was a glitchy black figure. Mono had seen many of them strewn around the city. He knew what they were; the past shadows of children pulled through the televisions by the Thin Man. Mono wished his powers were advanced enough to where he could free them. But those children were already gone, stuck in a loop just like this horrible city was.
The shadow that stood before him was always like those other shadows, but somehow there was something different about it. The action these remains took was not repeating. In a swift motion it pointed to a specific area, almost guiding Mono. The second odd thing about it was the eerily familiar shape of its hood...
He slowly limped to the section it pointed to. Mono looked at it from behind his shoulder, watching it lower its arm and fading away.
A ladder led up to a lid to a manhole. He climbed, trying to ignore the pulsing wound on his side. The metal cover was not as heavy as it was supposed to be as it slid across the water. Rays of light shone upon him from the drenched lampposts. Along him stood a pathway to the Signal Tower.
Mono could almost predict the Thin Man's arrival. It appeared far out in the pathway near the tower. The lights flickered intensely, then the beast moved up to Mono. Face to face.
This was it. A wave of hopelessness washed over Mono. He collapsed to his knees, water soaking up his legs. The cold only made this moment more real.
Rain pattered upon his paper bag. He didn't need it anymore. Mono reached his hands up and lowered his head, sliding off his last sanctuary. The lights caught several strains of dark messy hair.
Mono placed his bag to his side. The water swept it away, just like this city.
Mono could've given in. He could've allowed the Thin Man to destroy him into a million tiny particles. But Mono was always too stubborn, because the reverse happened.
And now there was only one more thing to do.