Author's Nonsense (AN): *siren noises* ELDEN RING ALERT, I REPEAT ELDEN RING ALERT: Yoooo that Elden Ring trailer at summer games fest was sooooooo COOL, dude! A "straight up banger" as some would call it. Thanks Geoff Keighley, you are no longer on my imaginary villains list.

Also shoutout to TLK9999 for their review, I appreciate your kind words.

I mean there's only 3 reviews on this story as of right now so... uhhhhhhhhhhh… ah to hell with it. Thank you thewolfgod99 for your correct prediction of Creighton when chapter 2 wasn't released yet and to that guest dude for the positive reassurance. :)

Ok, just needed to get that out the way. Let's go.

Chapter 3: Street Fights and Soccer Games

CRASH

The sound of glass breaking was the first thing to greet Creighton as his senses came back to him.

His body then registered the fact it was thrown sideways through a window. Though his armor made the impact merely a footnote to Creighton as his body was overloaded with more important sensations.

Firstly, the weirdly spiritual sensation of literally seeing his own afterimages that came with being teleported through a TV in a void of static. Creighton felt like he was leaving his own body.

Secondly and more importantly, the feeling of weightlessness as he realized he was suspended in midair.

Gravity acted a microsecond later as Creighton began twirling his way back down to the ground with the horizontal and vertical momentum combining to make controlling his descent impossible. He caught sight of the ground rapidly approaching while he desperately flailed around trying to gain some form of fall control.

All this did was make Creighton let go of his axe as he waved his hands.

*Kerchink*, *Crackle*

The Dragonslayer's Axe hit the ground blade-first as lightning sparked off the blade into the ground it was now embedded in (1).

*Thud*, "Ooohhh"

The axe's owner landed next on his back letting out a moan of pain as his spine fractured.

In a reaction trained from countless fights Creighton's hand snapped to his Estus Flask on his belt, grabbed it, and promptly brought it up to his mouth in prime chugging position. Creighton lifted his steel mask just enough to take a swig of the life saving Estus.

The effect was instant, with the taste of what Creighton describes as "fiery orange juice" the burning Estus spread throughout his body as his spine was healed.

"That leaves four uses left. Thanks gravity."

Thought a bitter Creighton as he stood up and looked to the source of his fall. It was a television that was actually made of physical materials instead of static particles, and this one hung up on the third-story of a five-story building. This TV was noticeably larger in size compared to the ethereal one from before. Though now it was broken with a Creighton-sized hole in the middle of the screen.

Creighton stared at the television in confusion as he spoke to himself.

"What is that thing? I've never seen anything like that."

Taking note of the hole in the screen, the knight quickly connected the dots.

"Hmm, it being broken means that this was a one-way trip… Bollocks. That means I'm stuck in this place. Well, at least the unkindled won't find me now."

tap tap tap tap tap tap

The Wanderer heard multiple footsteps approaching him from behind.

He turned on a dime, prepared to fight whatever group of hollows were trying to sneak up-

Creighton froze and he couldn't help but gasp in shock as he saw his opponents.

They were viewers.

The first thing Creighton noticed was how they moved.

"This isn't right." That thought ran through his head.

Their movements were stuttered and twitchy. It looked like they were trying to move normally but their bodies could only move in ticks, like stop-motion animation.

It was similar to how Creighton felt when he saw a Pus of Man for the first time, they both shared that corrupted aura that sickened his soul. However, the Pus of Man made him feel squeamish. With the viewers he was unnerved as a part of him realized that they weren't supposed to be like this.

The viewers looked like normal adult men and women with slightly oversized heads dressed in average city clothes, the only other thing that looked wrong were their faces. There wasn't really a face on most of them, all discernible features were gone, replaced with a series of vertical wrinkles that usually converged to make it look like the viewers' faces were stretched until they weren't visible anymore. Some had the reverse look as it looked like their faces shrinked in on itself.

Creighton snapped out of his analysis trance when he saw how close the nearest viewer was getting to him.

The Wanderer bent down to grab his axe from the ground, and with a firm pull he was ready to fight.

"It doesn't matter if they freak me out, they're just another enemy in my way."

As Creighton approached the closest viewer he noted how they were taller than him by a head(a viewer head to be exact), but that was par for the course to the knight as almost every humanoid enemy in Lothric was at least twice his height. It was a change of pace though as at least he was eye level with their shoulders without having to be on his toes.

"At least I can chop your head off."

And that he did as he swung his weapon at the first enemy. The dragonslayer's axe cut through the viewer like butter as their head came clean off.

With the first kill Creighton's focus heightened with the thrill of another fight. He moved on to the next, slicing the viewer's outstretched arm off who was trying to grab him. Then he kicked the viewer into another one, setting them both up for a swift decapitation as Creighton delivered a horizontal swing of his axe.

"That makes 3 heads. Ha, this is more my style." He thought as a wild grin set on his face. Creighton was back in his element.

Another viewer tried grabbing him from his left. Creighton hopped out of the way. The viewer proceeded to stumble after the failed grab while the Wanderer closed the distance.

slash, slash

Two diagonal strikes across their chest was enough to get the viewer to fall to the ground dead.

The next viewer Creighton saw was a few feet away from him. Going on the offensive he rolled toward the viewer and then brought his axe down on top of their head. The Dragonslayer's Axe went right through the viewer's skull and got stuck in its brain as the yellow lightning ran through its body with an oh so satisfying crackle.

The wild grin on Creighton's face turned feral as it got even wider. He removed his axe from the viewer's head as it fell to the ground.

The Wanderer searched for the next approaching viewer. He saw one to his right, but the disfigured man was close.

Too close. There wasn't enough space for the knight to dodge.

The viewer grabbed Creighton's shoulders.

*R O A R*

With a guttural, crackling roar the viewer started emitting a sonic frequency from their face that made his head start ringing like before. This time the ringing was weaker and it didn't paralyze the Wanderer, but the frequency drained his health like he was poisoned.

Before Creighton could try escaping the grab another viewer, the last one of the group, joined the other as it got close enough to attack him.

*R O A R*

The combined damage from the viewer duo was similar to getting caught by a darkwraith's life drain.

"Get off!" Creighton had enough of these two.

Using the axe's pommel he bashed their heads to push them away from him. Without wasting a second he targeted the viewer who grabbed him with an upward swing of his axe.

The axe hooked the viewer's chin. Creighton continued the swing as he lifted the viewer off the ground and swung them around in a semi-circle over his head to slam them back down to the ground.

*Boom!*

The viewer's impact cracked the ground.

Just like that, there was only one left. The viewer ran toward Creighton to try and grab him like the others.

"Oh, I don't think so mate."

Right as the last viewer lunged forward, Creighton threw out a parry with his left hand knocking their arms to the side. It was surprisingly effective as the thing tumbled past him and fell to the ground on its stomach after getting its momentum redirected.

Creighton capitalized on the successful parry with a devastating axe strike to the viewer's back.

The riposte instantly killed it, and with that Creighton's street fight came to an end.

The thrill of battle died down and Creighton took a few deep breaths to calm down as he looked at his handiwork.

"Hoooh, that was a nice, simple fight. Looks like these hollows don't have any other tricks besides a weaker life drain."

Taking a look at the dead viewers, the knight was looking for the 3 heads he chopped off during the fight when he noticed something.

"... Where are the heads?"

Creighton asked in confusion as the heads were in fact nowhere to be found. Speaking of body parts, there was a lack of bodies on the ground as the only ones Creighton saw were the last two he killed.

Then he noticed a few sets of clothes lying on the ground.

"What?" Creighton asked, even more confused. The clothes on the ground were set up to look like someone was wearing them. Creighton looked back at the two viewer corpses that were still on the ground. He walked up to one of the corpses and looked at its outfit: beige polo shirt with black pants and brown shoes. The Wanderer gave the corpse a kick expecting something to happen.

Nothing happened, the corpse was still a corpse.

Creighton was about to look away, but the corpse started doing something.

In a haze of static the corpse quickly disintegrates into the sky. At the end the only proof of the dead viewer were its shirt, pants, and shoes which now lay flat and empty on the ground. Creighton snapped to look at the other viewer to see that it already disappeared with only its clothing on the ground.

"Hmm they do disappear after death like some of the enemies back in Lothric, but not into a cloud of souls. Instead it's that black and white stuff like in the thing that brought me here. Interesting, wherever this place is it sure is freaky."

Creighton thought in fascination as he began to walk down the street. Storing that thought away, the Wanderer decided to look up at the sky. It was covered in dark clouds that looked like it could start raining at any moment.

"I hope it rains soon, it has been a while since I felt rain. Pretty sure the last time I got rained on was all the way back at Drangleic Castle… that was so long ago wasn't it? Huh, I can't remember. Oh well it doesn't matter, it'll be nice to feel the rain again."

Creighton spoke to himself fondly as he continued walking down the desolate street with a small smile through his steel mask.

After all, he was in a new area and that meant it was time to explore to his heart's content!

The Pale City was quite expansive with its maze of streets and apartment buildings. Although one such building stood out among the rest. Far wider and more complex than most with an analog clock on its face, this building struck fear and dread into the hearts of all children because of its sole purpose in society.

It was a school.

In front of the school within the fenced in playground were two small children, a boy and a girl, playing soccer with a brown kickball. The girl was dribbling the ball trying to get past the boy guarding the goal.

She successfully juked the boy and tripped him up, the goal was open.

*smack*

GOAL! WHOOOOOOOOO, AH YEAH!

With a strong kick a goal was made on the netless goalpost. The girl basked in her triumph standing tall and proud with her hands on her hips for a little bit.

In this world it was so rare to enjoy such simple activities in life.

Then she walked over to the boy who was on the floor because of her jukes. She offered a hand in sportsmanship for the fun soccer match.

The boy looked up at the girl seeing the victorious smile on her lips. He crossed his arms and tilted his head in a slight pout, exaggerating his defeat. The girl giggled lightly at the scene he was making. The boy quickly stopped his little facade and grabbed the girl's hand, she pulled him back to his feet as he revealed his true feelings for their soccer match by giving her a thumbs up for her performance. The pair of children separated and stood next to each other taking a break from their exhausting soccer game.

...

The boy's name was MONO.

A rather unique child with a unique appearance. He wears a brown paper bag on his face with two round eye holes cut out for him to see which left his real eyes covered in darkness.

Mono's clothing consisted of an olive-green trench coat that reached below his knees with only the very top button buttoned over a brownish-gray button-up shirt. The shirt was tucked into his pants that also had a brownish-gray color. His feet and hands were bare and were covered in plenty of dirt and dust to show how much he traveled.

Mono was pale-skinned, short and scrawny with seemingly paper thin limbs which betrayed how strong he was for a child his size. He was able to swing a hatchet to break down parts of a wooden door, and pull the trigger of a double-barrel shotgun twice his size to shoot down an over-ambitious Hunter.

...

"That was fun!" The boy thought cheerfully about the soccer match. He wasn't really sure if playing in an abandoned playground that they entered through a hole in the fence would be fun, but it was enjoyable to do something that wasn't trying to stay alive for once.

He looked at his newest friend.

Unlike Mono she wore nothing over her head. She had short, black hair that didn't even touch her shoulders. Her long bangs covered her eyes leaving only her tiny nose and still grinning mouth visible. Like Mono, her hands and feet were bare with similar amounts of dirt and dust on them too. She was dressed in a button-up, dirty gray cardigan that reached her knees, and only the lowest button was unbuttoned. The cardigan was worn over her charcoal shirt that was only visible at her neckline above the cardigan. She also wore white shorts, although normally Mono wouldn't be able to see them as they were covered by the dress.

Mono was quite thankful for those white shorts because he nearly had a heart attack a while back when he climbed down the ladder to the attic back in the Hunter's cabin, and he looked up to see the girl climbing down when he realized that there was a chance that maybe she wasn't wearing anything under her cardigan. Instead of intruding on his friend's private parts he just saw her white shorts when he accidentally looked under her cardigan.

"That would have been horrible for us, not to mention embarrassing."

Mono thought to himself as the memory played in his head in slow motion. He breathed out a nearly silent sigh of relief as he thoughtfully tilted his head as he and the girl continued to stand in comfortable silence.

She said her name was SIX.

Mono remembered that they only just 'told' each other their names not too long ago.

Mono and Six were sitting on a door floating on the fog-shrouded sea that was moving away from the wilderness that they were previously in. They were sitting a fair distance away from each other as they were taking a well-deserved rest from their recent chase through the woods.

They just defeated the hunter by shooting him with one of his own guns. Mono could still hear the ringing of the shotgun blast in his ears.

He was better now, but he felt guilty for killing a person like that. Mono knew that the Hunter was gonna do anything he could to kill him, but the guilt of pulling that trigger hit Mono like a sharpened bear trap.

The guilt was still gnawing away at him… sitting around doing nothing wouldn't help him at all.

So he got up and walked over to Six and sat down cross legged next to her curled up form. She glanced at him for a moment before staring back out to the foggy sea.

Ever since he saved her from the Hunter's basement they've been constantly running through bushes, swimming through swamps, and avoiding bullets trying to survive. Now they both finally had a brief respite from all of the fleeing.

Mono wanted to ask her what her name was, but he didn't want to risk speaking. Despite the calm waters he didn't want to find out if any monsters were hiding beneath its surface.

Both of them didn't like to speak. At most they called each other with noises like 'hey', 'psst', and 'oi'. They relied largely on actions and body language for communication.

After all, in this cruel world a single word could be the difference between life or death.

So Mono looked down at the door they were sitting on and scratched at it with his finger. The white paint flaked off as he scratched the door, this gave the bag-headed boy an idea.

He carved his name into the door and looked at the girl… it seems she was still staring at the water lost in thought.

"Hey." Mono whispered to her as quietly as he could.

She looked back at him to see that he was pointing at the door. She turned to where the boy was pointing to see the word 'mono' roughly carved into it. She tilted her head in confusion until the boy brought his hand to point at himself.

He saw the girl open her mouth into an 'o' as she realized his message:

"I'm Mono"

…

"Mono?"

She pointed at the boy and tested out the name with a raspy whisper.

Mono nodded in response. This was good.

Mono pointed at the girl and gestured toward the door's surface with an open palm, the untold question was obvious:

"What's your name?"

Six put a finger on her chin as she decided whether or not to answer the question. A moment later a small smile appeared on her face as she started carving her name onto the door.

It spelt out 'six'.

Mono was confused, last he checked six was a number.

Testing the waters he whispered out her name while pointing a finger at her.

"Six?"

She nodded her head as the smile on her face grew larger. Six wasn't expecting this from the boy, it touched her heart.

Likewise Mono's heart also warmed up at the sight of Six's smile, so he said her name again more confidently.

"Six." It rolled off the tongue quite well, Mono liked the name.

Six thought the baggy boy's name was quite fitting for some odd reason, it just felt right. She whispered his name again.

"Mo-

-no."

Huh!? Oh, Six just called Mono. He zoned out and was just staring in Six's general direction.

The boy snapped out of the memory with a startled jump. Then he actually looked at Six and lifted his hands up sheepishly to apologize.

Six gave him a playful punch to the shoulder in exasperation. With a shake of her head she walked over to the single swing that was in the playground. She sat on it and waved at Mono to come over.

Six always wanted to play on a swing, though this one was just a wooden plank connected by some rope so she needed a little help.

Mono felt a bit conflicted. He looked behind him to the school's only entrance, a rope of tied white cloths that led up to a window on the third floor.

He wanted them to start venturing into the school so he could get closer to their destination, the Signal Tower. Well, it was his destination. His new friend hadn't expressed any desire to go elsewhere so far.

But looking back at Six waiting for him expectantly made him doubt that choice. It was very hard for Mono to resist Six's wish. Especially with her swinging her legs around with that smile on her face as she sat on the swing. It was too cute for the boy to handle, so with a huge blush on his face (thank god for my bag!) he began walking toward the swing to give Six a helpful push.

"We're not in a rush. We can have some more fun together!" Mono thought with a carefree happiness that only a child could have.

End of Chapter 3

(1)- This is the image that ended Chapter 1 that teased Creighton as our undead protagonist... Actually you would have to wait for Creighton to hit the ground for that to be true, but you know what I mean.

...

AN: Ah yeah, Mono and Six are here to destroy you with cuteness. I always wanted to write a scene with these two just being children and playing around in the school's desolate playground.

Honestly it is very fun to write them. I love the dynamic of these two children just trying to survive in a world that constantly wants to murder them.

One of my goals in writing this story is to build on the whole development without dialogue concept that the original game did so well in. Of course I didn't commit 100% on that because you can't have a Little Nightmares story without some 'heys' in it. I just hope I can execute the concept well.

Quite a few things happened in this chapter like my first ever Creighton fight scene and Mono and Six's debut.

So tell me, what did you think about it? I want to hear your thoughts. Feel free to review.

Anyway that's all for now so have a good day and see ya next time!