In a lonely and barren place known as East Virginia, a one-handed individual named Resident casually approaches a strange mask-wearing creature in the center of the purgatorial void. This creature, which has given itself the name of "Sans the Gamer Wolf", is currently playing an odd pixelated game on his computer, a game which he's played through countless times, yet never seems to grow tired of.
"So, S, whatcha got there? Same thing as always?" Resident asks when he reaches the center, and Sans doesn't bother looking away from his computer while he responds.
"Yes. Let me guess, you got bored of talking to the others down here?" Sans says.
"I mean, there's only two other people down here, right?" Resident responds.
"A few more than that, but I guess you probably wouldn't encounter the others." Sans shrugs, still not taking his eyes off the game.
"Say, you never seem to really make any progress in that game. It feels like you're always doing the same thing whenever I look at it." Resident notes. Nearby, a very large and sentient slinky called Big Slinky slinks on over to observe these two.
"Hey, that's not true. Look, I'll make progress right now." Sans says, before navigating to the next screen of the game.
"I've seen you on that screen like, 80 times before!" Resident says, and Big Slinky makes a motion of agreement.
"No, that was on one of my other playthroughs! I like to mix things up a bit. This time, I'm going for the True Bad Ending 2!" Sans proudly explains.
"Wait, how is it a true ending if there's 2 of it?"
"Simple. At the very end of the game, you can choose either 'yes', 'no', or the secret third option. This time, I'm going to press 'no'."
"So wait, are they all bad endings? And why does a single choice at the end require an entire new playthrough?"
"They're not ALL bad endings. There's a good ending where something happens, and then you do something. I'm sure you know what I'm talking about, considering the fact that you're down here."
"What's that supposed to mean? I don't know what you're talking about at all."
"How did you get here then?"
"Well, it all started a long time ago…" Resident explains, as he begins an in-depth retelling of his backstory. "Yeah, it all started when I moved into my new apartment in my home town of West Virginia. Of course, I'm here now, so you already know things didn't exactly go super well. The first sign that something weird was going on was that for some reason all of my compasses, which I had been collecting for years, suddenly started pointing south instead of north. Even electronic compasses would consistently display the wrong direction. It was pretty strange, but I'd heard of places having weird magnetic fields and such, so I figured that it might just be an odd quirk of West Virginia. Other than that, things were normal for a while. I eventually ended up going to school in East West Bumblefuck, majoring in the field of interpretive dance, one of my personal passions. Then, one day, my professor and instructor died in the middle of one of his lessons. He had a spontaneous heart attack, but nobody realized until it was already too late, because it just so happened that he was doing a dance which involved faking a heart attack and playing dead for several minutes. A rather cruel twist of fate, I must say, but it was far from the last time something like this would happen. With the death of the instructor, the course couldn't go on, because no other schools in the nation offered it, and no other professors were willing to replace the instructor. My three classmates and I decided that since we couldn't continue our dancing as a course, we would form a club instead, and we did just that. For a while, everything continued normally. We all had a great time. We even got invited to perform at Broaderway! It's like Broadway, but even broader! We were of course honored to accept the invitation, but during our performance, tragedy struck. Three of the stage lights fell down directly onto my clubmates, and again, nobody noticed until it was too late, because we were doing a dance where you pretend to have a stage light fall on you. None of them survived, and at this point, I was starting to think that maybe I was cursed or something."
"I mean you definitely are in one way or another. Even I can tell you that." Sans says. "Anyways, keep going. I want to see where this goes."
"Right, yeah. I was getting a bit sidetracked. So anyways, after that concert, everything really started going downhill, and at the bottom of that proverbial hill was another hill, and at the bottom of that hill was a pit of spikes. Just a few days after the concert, my dog died, which was really weird because I didn't even have a dog. I figured I might as well give it a proper burial anyways, and while I was burying the dog outside of town, a gang of hooligan arsonists came along and burned the entirety of East West Bumblefuck to the ground. Due to the rural setting of the town, news never even got out about what those hooligans did, and the entire place was just completely wiped off the face of the planet. So, of course, I became a vigilante, and I hunted down each and every one of those arsonists. I slaughtered them all, but of course, when I tried to explain my reasoning to the sheriff, he wasn't listening, and he said that since the prison had been burned down, they would need to send me somewhere else instead, somewhere where I wouldn't make everything go wrong all the time. That's right, they sent me to boarding school. Surprisingly enough, this boarding school actually offered an interpretive dance class, but I immediately got blacklisted from it thanks to my reputation. I went to see their performance, anyways, which was a reenactment of the sinking of the RMS Titanic circa 1912. I told them beforehand that going out onto a lake on a hastily made replica of the Titanic was a bad idea, but they wouldn't listen, and wouldn't you know it, that hastily made replica sank way faster than they had planned, and the entire cast drowned in the icy water. Anyways, at this point, word had reached some higher-ups in the government, and they had begun looking into me under the assumption that I was some kind of terrorist. A few men in black suits showed up at my apartment, which they had trouble doing thanks to the whole compass thing. They said they wanted to talk to me, and I said that was fine, since I had nothing to be afraid of. They sat down in my apartment with me, and I told them that they really shouldn't sit on chairs teetering precariously over the edge of the balcony, especially not with the only harness being around their necks. They ignored me, though, and said that it was official government business and that they could do whatever they wanted."
"I feel you, bro. My family kicked me out when I was 7. I was homeless for a while until I decided that prison was the only place I could get a proper education. I killed 8 people with my bare hand before they ever even suspected me." Big Slinky comments.
"Yeah, the system is really messed up." Resident responds, before continuing his story. "Anyways, these government agents revealed that they had actually come because they wanted to get me finally dealt with, since everyone was sick of the strange ironic tragedies that occurred wherever I went. They tipped themselves over the balcony and hung themselves, while making it look like I was responsible. As a result, I was taken to Federal Superprison, which let me tell you, isn't a very nice place at all. They only feed you two meals every day, and those meals are just breadless bread and waterless water. I did get to meet some nice people, though. My cellmate was a guy who assassinated 4 presidents with a single bullet. Oddly enough, just a week after I arrived, they finally extracted that bullet from the last president's skull, and in a morbid but undeniably hilarious turn of events, the people who extracted the bullet dropped it on the floor, and it rolled all the way into a laundry chute, which made it drop into a pocket of a guard's uniform. During manual labor time, a stray bird noticed this shiny object in the guard's pocket and dive bombed him, grabbing the bullet and trying to fly away. The guard pulled out his gun and shot the bird, which made the bullet fall from its talons and directly onto the head of my cellmate, killing him instantly in what can only be described as a very bizarre case of karmic retribution. It was a bit sad, though. That guy told really good jokes, and he was gonna run for president after they let him out."
"Shame, if that bullet had waited a bit longer, it could have killed 5 presidents." Sans jokes.
"Yeah, that would've been funny. Anyways, I was of course suspected for his death, so the Federal Superwarden took me in for questioning. After a thorough analysis of my psyche and the spontaneous deaths of several researchers, it was decided that I held a deeply-rooted remorseless hatred for all of humanity, and that as such I should be put in Federal Supersolitary Supermaximum Supersecurity Superconfinement, which I honestly viewed as quite the honor, since I'd never really been the center of attention like that before."
"By the way, I'm here because I touched the Rat." Big Slinky comments, which confuses Sans, but he doesn't bother asking for elaboration.
"Weird. Well, wouldn't you know it, just a few days after I was put in this brand new security level that had never been used before, all of the Federal Superprisoners went through with this elaborate escape plan, which had been in the works for three whole generations. The entire Federal Superprison was hit by several meteors, which was COMPLETELY unrelated to the escape plan, but it helped a lot. However, I was left all alone in the Supermaximum Supersecurity wing, since nobody was there to break me out, and all the guards had been killed. I tried to find a way out of my cell, which was just a metal box specifically molded in the shape of my body so that I couldn't move at all, and of course I couldn't find any escape method. Just when I thought all hope was lost, though, one last meteor fell down and broke the box open, and I was able to get out with just a few scrapes. I headed outwards into the expansive deserts of the New Mexican Area, looking for any signs of civilization. I remembered reading something about moss growing on rocks pointing towards civilization, but I couldn't remember if you were supposed to head towards or away from the moss. Instead, I found a mossy rock and threw it forwards, hoping this would help me somehow. I underestimated my own strength a bit, though, and the rock ended up sailing over a dune and embedding itself directly in the skull of the Multiversal Chancellor who just so happened to be visiting the area at the time. Almost immediately, I was apprehended and brought to Multiversal Superprison, despite my warnings about what had just happened at Federal Superprison. They claimed that with their security, they would never have to worry about such events, and I said to not say I didn't warn them. Turns out I didn't even need to warn them, though, because before we even reached the prison, both of the guards that were escorting me suddenly froze over and shattered. Turns out they pissed off the wrong person at some point, and they had a legendary Super Assassin called in to kill them. This was a problem for me, though, because I was trapped in the middle of literal nowhere, since that's where the road to Multiversal Superprison is. I went the rest of the way to the Superprison and asked if they had any directions, since I had no better ideas. They of course recognized me, but they also wanted me absolutely nowhere near them, so they tried to find somewhere to send me where there wouldn't be any way for me to cause harm to those around me. They were running out of options, and didn't want to risk me getting close to any higher members of authority. After digging through some deep forbidden scriptures, they managed to surface information of a place that seemed like it might work: a place called 'East Virginia'. Minutes after the two researchers that were working on this found and reported this information, they died under mysterious circumstances. Apparently, the entire building they were in collapsed, which killed one of them, and when the other one tried to get away, they were impaled on a pipe that was jutting out from the wreckage. This really got people scared, since these researchers had never even gotten close to me, so people started thinking that my 'curse' was somehow managing to affect anybody who even knew of my existence. Of course, despite these deaths, the information about East Virginia's supposed existence got out, and many researchers were hired to find out any information they could on how to get here. Without fail, all of them were killed shortly after taking the job. The causes of death were extremely varied, too. Burning to death, freezing over, mysterious loss of organs...there was no clear pattern whatsoever as to what was causing the deaths of these people."
"I think one of those researchers actually did manage to get here. I remember someone falling down a while ago and asking how to contact the outside world. I told him he could probably find a way in the basement, but when he saw what was down there, he came back up and offed himself." Sans notes, gesturing towards a corpse leaning against the wall of one of the abandoned buildings of East Virginia. "I don't know why it hasn't decomposed yet."
"Wait, this place has a basement?" Resident asks, but doesn't wait for an answer before continuing to talk. "Okay, so, for a while, there was only one researcher who actually managed to find any significant information before their unfortunate demise, and all that info said was that East Virginia did, in fact, exist. No elaboration or anything, just that it was real. It wasn't until many moons later that another researcher managed to find any more information. They had noticed a brief mention of East Virginia buried deep inside of a forbidden tome known as the Necronomicon 2, which was hidden behind several layers of mistranslations and coded messages. Finding this information drove the researcher insane, but they still managed to report their findings before they went missing, and their body was never found. Nobody knows where the Necronomicon 2 is being kept these days but that's not really important to the story. Anyways, they started sending in research robots to analyze the Necronomizon 2 safely, and of course these robots were all disposed of through unknown means, but nobody cared since they were robots. It was around this time that they let me return to my home in West Virginia, which they also thought was kinda weird since they were looking for East Virginia, but they couldn't figure out any way to use that information. They slowly gathered details from the Necronomicon 2, and eventually found that there were accounts of several techniques that had been attempted in order to access East Virginia, as well as how successful those attempts were. However, all of these techniques were extremely destructive, requiring at the very least the destruction of several universes to complete, so in the end none were even attempted. Once again, it seemed that the search for a way into East Virginia had gone cold, and word had spread enough that people were apparently even talking about me in other Trifectas. They didn't know me by name, but they'd heard about my 'curse', and were scared that they'd somehow end up being affected by it. At this point, they tried going back to basics with me, and they put me in a normal county prison, hoping the smaller scale would mean less trouble would be caused. At first, they were right. No tragically comedic demises happened at the prison. But then, of course, the county nuclear power plant had a meltdown. I told them it was stupid to put me anywhere near a nuclear power plant, but they didn't listen to me. The meltdown caused a sudden evacuation, but due to poor communication and the sudden nature of the evacuation, everybody ended up running directly into the county lava pit, except for me of course. At this point, I went back to my old apartment, and the phone was ringing. I picked it up, and the voice on the other end was somebody I didn't recognize. Before I could ask how they got my number, they mentioned to me that if anybody would be able to safely research East Virginia, it would be me. Seconds later, the line went quiet, and it was quite clear that they'd died on the other end, so I just hung up. I decided what that guy said was true, so I tracked down a copy of the Necronomicon 2 and had a look for myself. It was a pretty good read, not gonna lie. When I finally got to the part about East Virginia, it dawned on me that it had all been connected since the very beginning. I took a compass from my collection and started reading out a line from the Necronomicon 2, and as crazy as it sounds, the needle on the compass started slowly pointing away from south, and instead started pointing towards east. I thought I had it; I'd finally discovered my way into East Virginia...but then the compass exploded. Took my right hand with it. I was determined, though. I'd gotten so close, and I needed to delve further. I wrote down my findings and put them in a mailbox without an address, hoping they would end up in the hands of somebody who could help. A few days later, I received an unsigned and unlabeled package. I opened it, and it contained an extremely advanced compass. It was unlike anything I'd seen before. It worked in three dimensions, like a sort of gyroscope, but it still served the purpose of a compass. Interestingly enough, it pointed north, even when I was around. When I noticed this, I also realized that the reason the other compass hadn't worked was because the east it was pointing towards was actually west. Anyways, with this in mind, I read aloud those words from the Necronomicon 2 to the new compass, and it began spinning out of control, before abruptly stopping and pointing dead east. When I looked east, I saw something weird on the horizon, which I'd somehow never noticed before. I walked over to it, and it turned out it was some kind of abstract computer of sorts. The computer greeted me by name, and a text box appeared. My obvious first instinct was to ask about East Virginia, and when I did that, the computer crashed, and apparently caused a Realmwide blackout. I guess the computer was hooked up to some fundamental part of the Realm or something? I don't really know what happened. I manually rebooted the computer, and everything seemingly went back to normal. It seemed like that had somehow also fixed the whole compass thing, because all of my compasses worked normally. I was thinking maybe the curse was gone too, and that I could just pretend this never happened. Of course, this was just wishful thinking, because it turns out that blackout got a lot of attention. Not really sure who it got the attention of, but soon enough, I received another unsigned package. This time, it was a similar computer to the glitchy one that had caused the blackout, but it seemed more stable. It greeted me by name again, and when the input box appeared, I made very sure not to mention East Virginia. I asked how it knew my name, and it responded that it greeted everybody the same way. I said that 'Resident' isn't a word you just call random strangers, but it didn't respond to that, at least not directly. Instead, to my surprise, it talked as though it was an actual person on the other end, even though it very clearly couldn't have been based on the nature of the computer. It said that I'd made quite a name for myself. It also referred to me as '9114' a few times, not sure what was up with that. Anyways, I asked why the computer had been sent to me, and who sent it. It replied that it couldn't tell me who sent it, other than that they really wanted me to get to East Virginia and stay there. It was a bit weird, because the way it was worded made it sound like the computer was IN East Virginia, even though that makes no sense whatsoever. It also obviously didn't directly call it that, but it was clear what it meant. Anyways, without mentioning East Virginia by name, I asked the computer how I could get there, and after a few moments, it told me to head over to a certain statue in West Virginia and repeat the compass ritual one more time. I knew exactly what statue this was referring to, and I'd always wondered about it whenever I saw it. It was some guy with an abnormally long name, nothing crazy long but it was just one of those foreign names, like 'Schmogbog le Cragglesnaggle' or something dumb like that. Not even sure if it was a real person. Point is, I went over to the statue, and did the ritual one last time. After I finished reading the words from the Necronomicon 2, a computer appeared on the statue, and the screen simply displayed two words: Game Over. After that, a trapdoor opened up underneath me, and I fell in and ended up down here, and well, you know how it goes from there." Resident finishes his backstory, and then reaches into his pocket and pulls out a small black stone with a smooth surface and an odd symbol on it, which is in fact his Stand, Paint It Black. "Turns out, the whole time it wasn't actually a curse or anything. It was just this thing. I've tried throwing it away, but it always just shows up in my pocket again. It doesn't seem to work here, anyways."
"Weird that both you and that coil guy didn't get here through the proper method. This place is supposed to be a sort of punishment. Though, I didn't come here the proper way, either. In fact, I'm the reason this whole place exists. I'm technically supposed to be 'punishing' anybody who comes down here, but I decided that it's way more fun to just play my favorite game." Sans says, staring at his screen. "How long have you been around again?"
"A few years, I think? Easy to lose track of time down here." Resident responds.
"Huh. You and that coil are the newest ones here. Say, where's that other guy around here? I'm surprised he hasn't died yet. What was his name again?"
"Uh, hang on, let me think. Oh, it's engraved on the rock! 'Old Jimmy Wilson'. Wait...does that mean he's going to die soon?" Resident realizes the potential danger here, and quickly rushes away to find Jimmy Wilson, who is in fact another interpretive dancer who ended up in East Virginia, though for very different reasons from Resident. While he's walking away, Resident starts to slowly remember something he asked Sans a while back, about what exactly the punishment he's supposed to give is. Resident pushes away this thought when he sees what appears to be the dead body of Jimmy Wilson, though it could also just be asleep. Resident leans down to listen for a pulse, but Jimmy suddenly jolts awake, and he accidentally impales himself through the throat on Resident's crown of thorns. As Jimmy bleeds out, a faint scratching sound can be heard, as Paint It Black scratches Jimmy's name off of its surface, before the name fades away entirely. With this distraction out of the way, Resident fully remembers what Sans told him, and he goes completely pale and begins quickly trying to get as far from Sans as possible. Resident reaches the border of East Virginia, which actually just loops back to the other side. After several more loops through, Resident realizes that attempting to escape is futile, and is forced to accept that he needs to just make absolutely certain that Sans never does his job.