Six is okay. You saved her from the man. But how long will that last? Mono's a buzzing mess of emotions, some he can't understand, but he doesn't have a second to process anything before they're running for their lives again.
He struggles to keep up with his friend just ahead of him, stumbling and falling over from the tremors of the hungry, living walls. Breathing heavy but quiet from the adrenaline leftover from snapping Six out of it, he gets up after a second too long and tries to catch up with her.
Normally when Six ran for her life like this, she was terrified. Her heart drumming in her chest, blood sounding like a tidal wave crashing repeatedly into her ears, the works. But right now, she feels... numb. She's in a daze. She's not even sure what's going on. The Thin Man grabbed her, and then... and then what happened? Mono grabbed her at one point, and then... she was angry- no, furious at him... she was really happy, and then it was his fault that she wasn't. He broke something. Something important. But what?
She can't think straight about this long enough to piece it all together. Not when the building is trying to eat her.
There's the exit. She can see an ordinary road outside, just past a layer of static obscuring her view. Once she's out, she'll be back to normalcy - or whatever counts for her. But the bridge is collapsing under her feet. At a few points she feels as though she's in free-fall, and she realizes Mono didn't start running soon enough to be crossing the same bridge.
When she skids to a stop and whips around, her fears are confirmed. But thankfully, the gap isn't too wide. With practiced ease, she bends down and grips the edge of the platform as tightly as possible, reaching out to catch her friend's hand.
It feels like time itself slows down in that moment, but Mono doesn't falter for long, having practiced confidence in this situation, and no reason to distrust instinct. Natural to him by now, he leaps over the gap without hesitation and grabs onto her hand, dangling his entire life from her grasp as he waits to be hoisted up, which shouldn't take long.
Then they can both get out of here.
Even though they've done this several times by now, Six had a stab of fear that this time he'd be an inch too far, or she'd be too weak - but it goes off without a hitch. His weight on her arm is familiar to her, and she audibly adjusts her leg forward on the concrete to start pulling him up.
Then she looks him in the eyes, and suddenly, everything changes.
She didn't even process that his bag was off until now, but now she can see his face uncovered for the first time. His eyes are... black. Nearly pitch black, to the point of being unnaturally reflective. His pupils and irises are pitch dark, and the rest is a barely lighter dark gray.
They're the same eyes as the Thin Man. His cold, disconnected gaze, usually hidden by that hat, appears in her mind. Her breath hitches, and her own eyes widen as she stares down at him. What does this mean? What is Mono? Is he going to become another monster, like everything else? Did this tower-thing... infect him somehow? Do her eyes look the same?
She recalls that flash of fury. Everything was so hard to parse in her memory after the Thin Man grabbed her... and after Mono tried to pull her out of the TV. Then she wakes up here, and yet again, he's the first thing she sees, while feeling that overwhelming rage and despair, that helplessness of having her happiness torn away from her. Paranoia almost makes her grip falter. Is he in on it? Is that why he was always messing with the TVs? Is he a scout, meant to trick and lure in new people from outside the city? Is that why the Thin Man isn't here? He's letting Mono take care of this himself? What did Mono do that made her so angry? Did he... make her forget it, to trick her further?
No, that can't be right, her reasonable, trusting side argues. Mono tried to save her, to pull her out from the TV. It was the Thin Man that dragged her back. But then... his eyes, and the anger, and…
...what's taking so long? Mono looks up into Six's face, confusion and then anxiety all over his own, now visible one, almost like he's trying to look past the bangs covering her eyes and into her brain so he understands what's going through her head right now. It's not like he's about to look down, anyway. Is it... his face? What's wrong with it? He knows his eyes are scary, but... is he becoming a monster too-?
Six feels the stone shift under her knees, snapping her out of her stupor with a gasp. A short, shrill scream from Mono cuts off any prior thoughts, overridden by raw self preservation. He grips onto her hand more tightly, and tries to pull himself up, but it's of no avail. She frantically pulls, but every millimeter of progress she makes is undone by the platform shifting unsteadily... the reality sinks in fast. She was frozen too long, and now she can't pull him up.
She makes eye contact with Mono again, her expression no longer showing shock and fear. Instead, it's pure sorrow. He locks vaguely more staticy eyes than before with hers, a defeated, bittersweet smile coming onto his face as the reality sinks in.
"...it's... okay." He chokes out, both due to emotion and his voice not seeing much use.
She doesn't even have to drop him. He lets go of his own volition.
At least... Six can get out of here. He could save one of them. Even if it ends with him, alone again, even in his final moments. Maybe it's for the best. He really hoped, and thought, that it could be different. But the world isn't that nice. He really should've accepted that sooner.
As he falls, and falls, his heart pulses in his ears, along with a dull thrumming sound. Nothing feels real. He watches Six turn around and scramble down the collapsing platform out the door, without him, and his only chance of escape and hope gets smaller, and smaller, and smaller...
And then everything goes black.
He comes to, fully surrounded and encased by those horrible walls of people-stuff. He gets up, and aimlessly starts running, clinging onto the smallest bit of hope left that there's something else for him. That he can get out, with Six. Please, give him something.
All he finds is a chair.
He climbs atop it, standing up and slowly looking out across the disgusting reality he's trapped in. Eyes, everywhere. Watching him. It feels like they're closing in.
Stop... looking at me. Stop reminding me. Just…
Stop. Please, stop. He buries his face in his hands, curling up, trying to get away. Trying to get away from the eyes, away from the reality of what's happened. I want to go home. I want to be with Six. Please. They close in faster as tears fall. PLEASE, STOP!
He's fully encompassed, and - suddenly, he's left in an empty room similar to the ones he saw in lower floors of the Tower. Did... he do that?
...oh.
All hope is drained from Mono in an instant, and he slowly slumps down into the chair, defeated and accepting of his fate. And that's where he sits, for what feels like - is - years. Until he's completely embittered, distant, and cold. An adult. The scariest, cruelest thing in the world, that takes away everything. That takes away Six, and then Mono, into their cruel ways. Into becoming the Thin Man. The source of all the corruption and cruelty in this world, at the heart of the Signal Tower. Broadcasting his sickness. The sickness the Signal Tower warped him with, and suffocated him in.
Until he falls at his own hands, and becomes Mono again. And then, again, reveals his true nature to his friend as the Thin Man. Over and over, like a malfunctioning tape in the VCR.
It was doomed from the start, and it always will be…
She falls flat on her face when she exits. She expected to feel cold air, and raindrops, but what she feels is the still air of a closed room. This isn't the street outside of the Signal Tower that they kept seeing while traveling through the city... it's just another TV, isn't it? That made sense. Mono was always-
Mono.
She can't bring herself to look back. She knows all she's going to see is static. Even if she tried, she knows that it would just be a flickering glass screen under her fingers. Mono was the one with the power. Mono was the one with the plan. Mono was... Mono was everything. She had nothing, then he saved her from that basement that she had resigned herself to dying in, just because he could. Mono saved her three times, and Six couldn't even save him once. How could she ever doubt him? How could she ever betray his trust like that? Now he's gone, because she made a stupid mistake, and he took everything with him. She can't even tell him she's sorry.
The first bit of warmth she feels since exiting the TV is hot tears cascading down her cheeks. The static keeps getting louder, filling her brain, feeling like it's trying to swallow her up-
Wait, why is it coming from in front of her?
Raising her head, she sees something she doesn't quite understand. It's one of those... freaky, shadowy figures of kids like them, that Mono would find hidden away in corners. Sometimes Six saw him touch them and his skin would get funny and indistinct, other times they were separated and he only told her about them after the fact. But this one looks like her. The exact same raincoat shape... like a shadow she's casting from the light of the TV behind her.
Six doesn't blink or move her eyes away from it. She wonders if it'll kill her. She wonders if she can bring herself to care if it tries. Then, silently, it looks to the left, and points at a piece of paper on the floor... then just disappears. She keeps staring at the space it occupied, waiting for it to reappear, but it doesn't. Finally, she musters up the nerve to walk over and pick it up.
It's an advertisement flier, but not for any place in the Pale City. This looks like... some kind of resort on an oddly-shaped ship, called The Maw. She never quite learned how to read, but she can pick out bits and pieces. Luxury, food... everything taken care of for a steep price. Why did her double point to this?
That shadow flickers in and out of existence right in front of her again, and memories come into Six's mind that aren't hers, memories of things she never witnessed. Memories of Mono fleeing from the Thin Man, of Mono traveling through more television sets as he tried to make his way to her and rescue her. Of Mono... taking off his mask. And fighting back. And winning.
Reaching up, she opens her mouth and feels her triangular, shark-like teeth. Mono wasn't normal. Six isn't normal either. If he could get power like that... maybe she could, too. And where would she find it? Someone had to be in charge of The Maw, sequestered away so far from the world. Someone like that would probably be powerful.
As she rolls up the flier and stuffs it in her raincoat pocket, she mulls over the glaring missing piece in an already half-baked plan. She doesn't have a boat. How is she going to get to the Maw? She doubts she can find it, let alone float all the way there on another discarded door. Speaking of doors, she has to get another oversized one open, it seems…
And then it swings open in front of her, revealing yet another monster. This one has a face like a melting snail, with eye sockets and an enormous mouth barely distinguishable among the pale green flesh. She can't tell where any other facial features are, if they even exist.
Funnily enough, the first thought she has is that his jacket is a lot like Mono's, and his hat is a lot like the Thin Man's. Go figure.
She scrambles back, immediately searching for a hiding space in the empty, rotted kitchen. She finds it quick enough, she has plenty of experience - but the thing at the door with the drooping face is still there. She sits there for minutes on end, panic-stricken, wondering why she never heard him move. Does he float, like that creepy bald guy back at the Nest? Peeking her head out ensures that's not the case.
"I can't stand here all day." It says, in an inhumanly deep voice. Six blinks. None of the monsters have ever talked to her before. They always just made… noises. Angry, vicious noises. But this one is speaking coherently, and its tone sounds annoyed at worst.
Despite herself, she steps out of her hiding space fully, still keeping a healthy distance. "What do you want?" She hisses out.
"I'm lookin' at it."
"Just like all of the other monsters?"
"Not for the same reasons."
She hesitantly takes a step forward. "Why?"
"You don't need to know that. You want to go somewhere different?"
"...The Maw."
There's a pause. "How do you know that name?"
"Can you take me there?"
"It's what I'm here for. I'm the ferryman."
"Can you tell me who's in charge? Are they powerful?"
"Never even seen 'er up close, and I can tell you that's true." He finally steps in, shaking rainwater off of his hat. "Odd that that lures you in. Scares most of 'em away."
"...You don't work for her, do you?"
Another pause. "Sharp, too. You're shaping up to be my catch of the year."
"Why do you bring them there? Do they eat kids like me?"
"By the dozens. But that ain't what I'm here for."
"I thought I didn't need to know why?"
He pauses, then chuckles. "Look. I want to see that sub sink for good, if you catch my drift. As for why I want that, that's the part you don't need to know."
Six thinks it over for a long moment. He could easily be lying about his intentions... but not about where he would take her. She can tell that part is true, at least.
"...I'll do it."
"Won't be easy."
"Nothing is."
"It's a one way trip."
"I'll find my own way back."
"Can't follow you in."
"I want to stay alone, anyway." With every answer, she walks closer fearlessly, until he has to look down rather than straight ahead.
"...Alright. Let's get moving before those blank-faced freaks start wondering about the noise." He turns around, taking slow, lumbering footsteps to match his heavy frame.
"...Why does it have to be a kid?" Six finally questions.
"Because an adult wouldn't want to leave."
"...I'm starving."
He chuckles. "Then you'll fit right in."
Six takes one last look at the TV set, and mutters "I promise I'll come back". Then she's following the Ferryman.