Author's Nonsense: Yo guys! The last chapter's release date, June 16th, was Monix Day(Mono x Six) and that chapter had Mono and Six's first appearance. Can you believe that?

Crazy timing, I didn't even know that the community had a day for that until later that day(that chapter was a 1am release if I remember). Normally I don't care for ships, but that is extremely heartwarming to me. Go Monix! … 'insert Lautrec laugh . mp3'.

For real though God bless those two, they deserve better.

Chapter 4: Bullies All Over The Shop

Mono and Six

*CREAK*

The trapdoor swung open as Mono and Six dropped to the crawlspace under the floor. That weird torture room was creepy, neither of them wanted to stay in it.

The two kids started their journey into the school after playing on the swing for a while. It was time for them to get on moving.

They crouched and walked through the crawlspace, squeezing between tight planks. Soon the crawlspace went down and the boy and the girl had to drop to reach the bottom. Then Mono found a vent cover which took both of them to open it up.

After crawling through the vent they finally dropped onto one of the school's hallways.

It was unlit with lockers aligned on the left wall, one of the lockers was thrown on the ground that covered the hallway's width. The hallway was straight with a separate path going left.

Mono and Six climbed on top of the locker when they heard a sound.

*CrOoAaK*

It was a loud, raspy croak that filled the hallway.

*streeeetch*

And then the two children froze as they heard a stretching noise as they saw the source.

Well, at least the source's shadow.

They could see the wall of the part of the hallway that went left that had a light shining on it coming from an open door on the opposite side. In the light they saw the shadow of a person's extended neck retracting into their body as their oversized head appeared and went back into its normal position. The figure then must've shut the door as Mono and Six heard a door close as the light disappeared.

The two children gave each other a look as the same thought ran through their heads.

"I hope we don't run into that thing."

They decided to continue forward, suspiciously eyeing the closed door in the left path in case of any surprises when-

"Oof."

Mono's head bumped into something. He gave a quiet yelp out in surprise.

It was a bucket filled with books that was tied to a rope attached to the ceiling… weird.

Not giving the bucket too much thought, Mono moved past it with Six following him to the next part of the hallway which was now lit up by the fluorescent ceiling lights.

One of the wooden floorboards was raised a bit higher than the rest, but Mono wasn't paying attention to the ground so he stepped on it.

SNAP

A bucket like the one before came swinging full speed at Mono.

Filled with fearful anticipation the boy managed to dive to the left, successfully avoiding getting smashed by the bucket.

Mono ended up on his back as he realized the bucket could have killed him. Looking at the now resting bucket where he was standing just moments before he noticed a brown kickball laying on the floor next to the bucket.

It was an obvious trap.

Mono mentally scolded himself.

How could he have disregarded his surroundings so blatantly? It nearly cost him his life.

Six grabbed the boy's attention with a stern, yet concerned shake to his right shoulder.

"You dummy, you need to pay more attention!" Six worryingly thought, the last thing they needed was one of them knocked out.

She threw a thumb toward the trap. Next she took two fingers and pointed at her eyes through her hair, then she pointed at Mono's eyes through the eye holes in his paper bag.

Mono read her loud and clear:

"Traps everywhere. Keep your eyes peeled." That's what he interpreted.

Mono gave the girl a nod in affirmation. Six was apparently satisfied with that so she pulled him back up to his feet.

Up ahead was a blockade of three lockers. In the left corner there was a little space to crouch under to bypass it.

The duo approached the blockade.

Right when they went under it they heard the pitter-patter of footsteps. Mono saw a child-like figure run past a door frame into the next hallway out of sight.

Getting past the blockade of lockers the children continued forward, jumping over a trap like the previous one.

At the end of the hallway was a left turn and a slightly open door. Mono and Six saw that the door was trapped with a bucket that fell if the door was opened. They chose to not risk springing the trap, plus Mono was sure that room was a dead-end, it looked like a supply closet.

Grabbing Six's hand the boy led them to the left. Up ahead they saw another child-like figure poking their head around a stack of two sideways lockers looking at them. They didn't get a good look though as the figure hid itself away with a loud grunting noise when the kids detected it.

"That must be the thing setting up the traps." Mono thought in annoyance. "Well, we won't get tricked by such bad traps now."

Mono and Six jumped over another trap which led to the stack of lockers. The lockers were partially blocking an open doorway.

The two traversed the lockers, and in this partially lit hallway they saw another obstacle in the form of a large plank and table blocking their path. The plank was blocking the path while the table was standing behind it to keep it steady.

Before that though there was a floorboard trap with a toy duck further away from it to try and trick them.

Six noted that the large plank had a horizontal scratch in the middle of it, and she looked up to see the broken ceiling light fixture was prepped to swing by two ropes.

"Guess I have to spring the trap." The girl thought.

"Psst." Six called Mono, gesturing to crouch down. He followed her lead, she wouldn't speak unless it was important.

Mono watched as Six went to the trapped floorboard and proceeded to step on it.

Bang!

The light fixture swung and crashed into the plank right in the center, narrowly missing Six's head as she was crouched down to dodge it.

When the trap came to rest it was just the right height to allow the kids to use it to jump onto the desk and continue forward.

With Mono leading the way they went down the next section of the hallway. They passed by an entrance to a closed door, probably some classroom.

Up ahead was a strange sight, there was a rug that had a small hammer on it, just big enough for Mono to drag around and swing it like the hatchet back in the Hunter's cabin.

As Mono began approaching the weapon Six lagged behind the boy.

"I don't like this." Thought an uneasy Six.

She looked at the line of lockers that adorned the left wall, the fourth one closest to them stood out from the rest. It wasn't flush against the wall like the others.

Six looked at the top of that locker and saw a big head peeking out before it ducked into the space between the locker and the wall.

Six's body became cold as her face paled.

It was another trap!

She went to call Mono but she froze in fear when she saw that the boy was already in front of the locker.

"NONONONONO!"

The girl couldn't do anything as the locker was tipped over and it fell on Mono.

The locker's door opened during its fall, so the boy wasn't crushed by the trap but instead was stuck in the locker.

That left Six alone to see the culprit reveal itself.

Standing on top of the locker giving Six a predatory glare was a scrawny boy dressed in a school uniform with a large head. It looked like a fragile doll.

"You… you BULLY!"

Six screamed in her head as she snarled at the appropriately named bully. She bared her hands like claws, ready to kill the thing for what it did.

Too bad it wasn't alone like her.

All around Six more bullies appeared from their hiding spots as they started making noises, surrounding her.

A bully behind Six went to grab her. She tried to fight back but it was stronger than her, it started pulling her away from Mono. The other bullies started joining in, all of them grabbing the girl and dragging her even as she tried kicking them away.

There were too many of them.

Hearing Six's furious grunts over all the noises the bullies were making, Mono managed to lift the locker enough to roll out from under it.

He looked down the hall and saw Six and the group of bullies go around a corner toward that classroom's entrance.

In a panic he ran after them. When he made it to the entrance despair filled his body as he saw that the bullies were using a ladder to escape to the floor above him through a trapdoor in the ceiling. Most of the bullies were holding onto Six while taunting Mono from the ceiling, most because one bully was hanging at the bottom of the ladder.

Desperate, Mono tried jumping up to grab onto the ladder. Instead he grabbed the bully's leg and brought it down with him.

"NO, SIX!"

The baggy boy screamed for the girl while he fell, he painfully watched her get taken away from him as the bullies pulled up the ladder and closed the trapdoor.

…

Mono stood dead still as raw agony filled his chest.

…

Six was gone.

…

Mono

"Grrrrr."

The bully, a girl, who was pulled down growled at Mono. It quickly went on the attack by pouncing on the boy.

"You. You took her."

In a flash, Mono's agony turned into unbridled rage as he caught the bully's wrists mid-pounce.

The bully struggled against the boy's iron grip. It was too stupid to realize it couldn't overpower the weak-looking boy even with the beastly growl that was rumbling out of him.

Mono threw the girl's wrists away from him and slipped behind her. Then his hands grabbed the bully's shirt collar and the waist of her skirt.

He proceeded to bend the bully over. Its head pointed toward the wall.

"DIE!"

In a guttural scream Mono rammed the bully into the wall with all his might.

*CRACK*

The bully's head shattered into pieces. It was in fact made of porcelain.

…

Mono dropped the body and hunched over, panting for air. All of a sudden he felt nauseous.

"*pant*, *pant* … what happened? Wait, my hand."

In a pained whisper Mono noticed that his left hand was bleeding from multiple small scratches. He looked down and saw the dead bully.

He stilled as he remembered his rage-fueled execution of the bully, his left hand was right next to its head when it shattered.

Staring at the body Mono felt an urge to keep breaking it… shatter every single limb then the chest, keep stomping on it till there's only ashes-

*SLAP*

The boy slapped himself with his clean hand. He needed to get a hold of himself. He couldn't be blinded by this rage.

"No no no, I lost control of myself! Huuuuooooh… DON'T BE STUPID YOU USELESS COWARD, YOU'LL JUST KEEP HURTING YOURSELF! ACTUALLY, KEEP DOING THAT, YOU DESERVE IT YOU-"

"SHUT… UP."

Mono growled out deeply.

…

It helped, his head cleared up. He was actually able to think now.

Where did that thought process come from? Mono was no coward.

That ambush must have had a greater impact than he realized. Mono didn't really care. He accepted the fact that he was baited into a trap, and he paid the price for it.

Mono shook his head, right now he needed a plan.

"It's not over yet. They may have taken Six, but she's not dead. I can save her and get her back. Then we'll be together again. Then I won't be alone anymore. Yes… save Six… save Six… save Six."

'Save Six' repeated in his head like a mantra. It calmed the boy down. Soon a familiar determination filled Mono's chest.

Yes! That was the plan, he was going to save Six!

The world wasn't going to take away his friend so easily.

Nothing was going to stop him. Mono had a task to do, and he wouldn't give up until it was done.

The boy in the paper bag began running back down the hallway. This time he ran with purpose instead of desperation.

Time to get to work.

Lonesome Road:

Creighton the Wanderer

Huh, Creighton had to admit, this city was awfully linear.

He hated linear.

What was the point of exploring a new area if the only path he was on never branched out? Every alley was a dead end, any other street had a huge chasm or collapsed building locking him in, and why was every door locked!?

There was no sense of exploration, no sense of adventure, just mind numbing walking in a single direction:

Forward.

It also didn't help that there weren't any other viewers around to kill. The most he's seen was that every now and then a viewer would fall from the top of a building with that horrible-

*THUD*

Speak of the devil.

"Gah! Ugh, they keep catching me off guard."

Creighton groaned out exasperated with viewers randomly falling from buildings.

He couldn't help it, each time he heard the sound of a body hitting the ground with that fatal 'thud' he would get startled.

He couldn't get used to that noise, never did. It shook him to the core.

It made him flinch every time.

It was quite rare to actually hear a body hit the ground from such a height since most cliffs in Lothric were usually too much of a fall to hear that cursed noise.

Of course, this was not counting Creighton's own body fatally hitting the ground, but even with his many deaths at the omnipresent hands of gravity Creighton would always get shivers when he came back to life.

Creighton actually liked the fact that something like that still shook him to the core, it made him feel human.

An undead keeping their humanity intact as long as Creighton has was quite impressive.

All of this helped distract Creighton from the elephant in the room:

This freaking city was scary!

Creighton thought he saw it all:

"The Undead Crypt, Harvest Valley, Shaded Woods, Brightstone Cove, Lost Bastille, Farron Swamp, Irithyll Dungeon, Bone-wheel skeletons. Every possible location where dried corpses are the norm and something is always trying to stab you up the arse."

…

"Not the butt, the back… I gotta stop doing that, I only got stabbed in the arse ONE time, and it was a skeleton."

Creighton face-palmed his mask as that unpleasant memory resurfaced.

… Moving on.

Nope, none of those locales compared to this Pale City.

The air itself is tinted a sick blue, hence the 'pale' in Pale City. The dreary and eerie atmosphere the city emits made Creighton's hairs stand on end. The dark clouds completely block out the sun so much that it might as well not exist. The city's emptiness gave off an aura of abandonment, and the place had an everlasting fog that obscured any object in a 50 meter radius like a more relaxed Shaded Woods.

And the worst part for Creighton was the feeling of paranoia that clung to his back that made him want to hide away from something.

"What is there to hide from? There is no reason to be feeling paranoid."

The Wanderer thought that knowing full well that the answer was the tallest landmark in the city: the Tower.

He only ever got glimpses of it between buildings, but it was enough to make him paranoid.

"Nothing to be afraid of here. Definitely not. It's just a bloody building. Out of sight, out of mind… right?"

Trying to shake off his paranoia, Creighton decided to take a look around the stone street he'd been walking on for so long.

Let's see… more street, a bench with a whole outfit sitting on it with a briefcase, more buildings, a dumpster, ooh a collapsed building that wasn't blocking the road.

That was a change of pace, but other than that there was still nothing.

Creighton was walking right past the destroyed structure when he caught a whiff of something.

He stopped walking and sniffed some more.

*sniff* *sniff*

"Smoke? Where's that coming from? Oh wait, it's probably…"

The knight turned to inspect the collapsed building in more detail, and his suspicions were proven right as he saw smoke rising from the rubble.

He could barely see the smoke through the perpetual blue tint of the air, only little wisps of smoke were rising out of the ruins of the building.

It must have been burned down for quite a while, there was only ashes left of the wood and there wasn't a single ember. Creighton could see the piles of ash on the building's metal and cement remains.

This was intriguing, there had been no activity during Creighton's walk that could've caused the building to burn down.

"Hmmm, I think someone burned this down… that would be the best outcome. Maybe I'll get to do something after all."

Creighton spoke out his wish, he REALLY wanted to fight someone right about now.

Looking at the more intact remains, one piece of rubble caught his eye.

"… Oh, what's this?"

He picked it up and inspected it.

It was a circular metal sign or emblem of sorts that was mostly blackened by the fire.

The sign had some words engraved on it that surrounded a logo, but the only words Creighton could make out through the blackened metal was 'fire department'.

"I wonder if that is fitting or ironic?" Creighton curiously asked in his head… eh, probably both.

He inspected the logo. The outlines of the drawings were prominent, and thankfully there was barely enough color to make it out.

It was an image of a water hose crossed over a flame.

"Wait, I think I've seen this before. When though?"

A sense of recognition came over Creighton.

His brain started backtracking through his boring and lonely trek trying to remember when he saw it.

Hmm, where did he see this sign?

Hmmm.

Hmmmm.

!

"Aha, there! Across one of the chasms at an intersection."

The Wanderer perked up recalling the location, his feet already beginning to go back on his trail.

He took up a light jog, excitement filling him up with this opportunity presenting itself.

THIS was exploring!

Soon Creighton was back at an intersection. He swerved left and right trying to find that logo.

Bollocks, this wasn't the place.

Creighton jogged some more.

A few minutes later he was at another intersection.

He rounded the corner and took a right turn.

…

Jackpot.

Across the chasm at the end of the road was the fire department with the insignia on it. Clear to see even through the fog.

Now Creighton just had to get to it, which meant crossing the chasm.

The knight walked right up to the edge and gauged the distance between him and the next street.

… It was definitely impossible to jump it.

Naturally, the next thing Creighton did was look straight down.

The fog made the chasm look bottomless, for all Creighton cared it was basically an instant kill if he fell in.

Now then, he had to find a way to cross the chasm.

Creighton found a possible solution when looking to his left.

Past an apartment building sticking out from another street was a steel beam that might've once been part of a bridge.

The beam went over the gap to the other side, but it was bent in the middle due to the loving force of gravity over time.

It was a risky bridge to cross for an adult like Creighton.

"That's the way to go."

He thought it was better than nothing, so he committed to getting over the chasm.

After hugging the apartment's wall for a brief moment the knight was ready to start crossing the steel beam.

"Wait, my axe will throw off my balance. I have to put it away."

With an apologetic look to the Dragonslayer's Axe snugly placed in his hand, he sadly sheathed it.

"Sorry love, it'll only be like this for a little bit. You will be back home in no time."

…

Uhh, ok?

With that he took the small step down to the steel beam.

Nothing bad happened when he set his foot down, so he carefully walked down the skinny beam with his arms spread to keep his balance.

Now came the hard part, getting across the bent midway point of the beam.

One step forward-

*CRRRR* , "Bloody hell!"

Things started going down the drain with a shriek of metal.

The beam was more damaged than it looked because when the Wanderer stepped forward it split down the middle.

All of a sudden Creighton was precariously tipping back and forth while swinging his arms around so he didn't fall off the beam.

When he finally regained his balance and the fear of gravity wore off he saw the new obstacle that the beam presented.

Since it was split in two he now had to jump from one side to the other to get across.

The part he was on swayed to the right so Creighton would have to jump left to cross the gap.

"Ok ok. *pants* Just have to jump. 1… 2…"

Hup!

Land!

The axe on his hip banged against the steel with a sharp *clang*.

Creighton landed on the beam and dropped to a crouch to hold on to it to try and stabilize himself.

It only took a moment for the Wanderer to become stable again, he stuck the landing quite well.

Maybe he was good at the whole parkour thing after all.

After that jump it was just a simple walk for Creighton to finally make it to the other side of the chasm. Once he was back on solid ground, he immediately reached for his axe to bring it back home.

"What did I say, love? That wasn't so bad now was it."

Creighton comforted the axe. A questionable move, but I wouldn't blame him.

Being an undead was a lonesome road to take.

Then he took a moment to breathe- as useless as it was for an undead- to destress from his dance with gravity.

"I'm glad that's over. *Deep breath* Now for that fire department. It better be worth it."

With no more obstructions in his way Creighton ran as fast as he could to his destination.

The anticipation was killing him.

Taking a right corner and a minute of running later Creighton was finally standing right in front of the fire department.

The building itself was only two floors tall, but it was wide because of the shutter door garage which would hold a firetruck or two.

The Wanderer approached the main entrance, a single door with the insignia above it like a Christmas wreath decoration.

His hand moved to open the door wholeheartedly expecting it to be locked. His axe was already raised ready to bust the door down.

Unexpectedly, the handle turned all the way and the door opened.

Creighton gave a meticulous tilt of his head.

"Huh, well would you look at that." He surmised as he lowered the axe.

The knight moved to go inside the fire department, but his ears heard a noise. He stopped to focus more on the sound.

"rrrrrrrrrr" It was a constant droning noise that Creighton could just make out over the town's silence.

"This place has been very quiet so far. Wonder what's making that noise."

He turned around to face the street.

"rrrrrRRR" The noise got louder. It was getting closer.

Creighton's blue eyes scanned every part of the street in a fervor, something was coming.

He couldn't see anything on the street.

Anxiety tingles up Creighton's back, he feels vulnerable.

"Where is it!?"

"RRRRRRR"

The noise climaxed as it sounded like it was right next to him.

There was still nothing on the street.

With nowhere else to look, he lifted his head.

Straight up above he saw it.

It looked like a person diving with metal- *VOOM*

"Cack! Ack! Coughuh!"

The person suddenly turned to make themselves upright. This caused Creighton's face to get assaulted by exhaust fumes which sent him into a coughing fit.

"RRRRRRRR - …"

While Creighton was coughing the droning noise ended abruptly.

When he stopped coughing he looked back up through teary eyes to see that the new arrival was gone. He walked out to look at the fire department to see that one of the windows on the second floor was open. Whoever that person was inside the fire department.

Seeing the window, Creighton brought the image of the person to the forefront of his mind. The image was right before he was covered in fumes, the person was stuck diving towards him.

The details of the figure were murky, but there were three features that stood out to Creighton.

One was the combo of seemingly metal wings and a jetpack that made the person look like a falcon diving toward their prey.

Second was the long object they were holding in their hands. Creighton had no idea what it was other than it looked deadly. He could still see the tiny flame in front of the small circular barrel.

The object was a flamethrower.

The last and most prominent feature was their helmet.

They were wearing a gas mask that covered their whole head. Its appearance looked heavily altered from its original design, appearing more like the head of a fly than a gas mask.

With that image firmly in his mind Creighton looked back to the still open front door.

Through his steel mask an excited, battle-hungry grin was plastered on his face.

"It must be my lucky day." Creighton thought.

He has a point, it seems his one wish was granted.

The Wanderer walked to the door and entered the building.

He silently closed the door behind him.

Now THIS was an adventure!

End of Chapter 4

Author's Nonsense: 3am release on Saturday lol. I should probably stop doing this. Eh, I always get in a writing mood late at night, can't help it.

I went on summer vacation(still am actually) with my family in the middle of writing this, so I missed that brief weekly update schedule I had going on. Doesn't really matter that much, I'm trying to do this story at my own pace.

Although I felt bad when the 2 week mark passed and I wasn't done with the chapter yet, so I made a goal to finish this before this week ended.

Also I'm still not over the fact that the last chapter was released on Monix day.

Btw the steel beam part was inspired by the fact I booted up Luigi's Mansion Dark Moon 2 days ago heh heh heh... Yeah I'm starting to get tired.

Moving on from my meandering thoughts, I hope this chapter didn't feel like filler with the Creighton section(imo that should be impossible in a Little Nightmares story of all things). I thought that having the guy 'explore' the Pale City is a cool idea for a chapter.

Last thing I'm gonna say here is that if you were wondering, Mono & Six's events are happening side-by-side with my boy Creighton's events. I just feel like I should say that.

Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed it. Have a good day!