genloss

by gerberk833

#genloss

Escape from Showfall (Genloss)

Posted originally on the Archive of Our Own at /works/47936992.

Rating:

Mature

Archive Warning:

Graphic Depictions Of Violence

Category:

Gen

Fandom:

Generation Loss (Web Series)

Relationships:

Charlie Slimecicle & Ranboo The Hero & Sneeg The Taken

(Generation Loss), Charlie Slimecicle & Ranboo The Hero

(Generation Loss), Charlie Slimecicle & Sneeg The Taken (Generation

Loss), Ranboo The Hero & Sneeg The Taken (Generation Loss),

Ratkkuno & Valkyrat (Generation Loss)

Characters:

Ranboo The Hero (Generation Loss), Charlie Slimecicle (Generation

Loss), Sneeg The Taken (Generation Loss), Valkyrat (Generation Loss),

Ratkkuno (Generation Loss), Original Characters

Additional Tags:

Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Angst, Roommates, Gore, Body Horror, Escape,

Vomiting, Trauma, Panic Attacks, Complete

Language:

English

Series:

Part 1 of The Show Never Ends

Stats:

Published: 2023-06-17 Completed: 2023-07-08 Words: 46,469 Chapters:

9/9

Escape from Showfall (Genloss)

by Blip_x

Summary

"Is that..?" Charlie asked, pointing into the distance. Sneeg saw what he was talking about

and could've laughed at the sight if it wouldn't hurt his chest a lot to do so.

There, in the middle of fucking nowhere, was a car. Parked right up next to the mall from

hell.

"What...the fuck?" Sneeg said with a grin. He looked over at Charlie and smiled even wider

when he saw the spark back in his eyes. It felt like an eternity since he'd seen Charlie this

happy.

Aka...

What if security didn't kill Sneeg and Charlie, what if Ranboo's head was still intact after the

box?

Notes

The first chapter is about their escape so it's gonna have some angst, but the following

chapters are mostly silly stuff of the RGB trio hanging out with only little bits of angst

sprinkled in, so u can probably just skip to chapter 2 if u wanna get to the fun stuff (tho that's

even if I can get to that point , I'm not very good at finishing fics)

I love these characters so much I can't let them be dead I wanna see them live and have a

good time together agghhh

See the end of the work for more notes

Chapter 1

Sneeg had been pretty sure he was dead. But then again, it was hard to be sure about anything

in this hellish place.

He had been so close to escape, almost an arm's length from the exit, when he was slammed

to the floor by a nightmarish tonne of wire and steel that screamed in his face as it scratched

and tore into him.

As he lay there, feeling his breath being replaced by his blood, he realised he didn't really

have a life to even flash before his eyes, so in the absence of memories he simply thought

that maybe he should've realised this was gonna be an ambush. Sure, the dead employee guy

behind him with his guts on the floor might've been a clue, but showfall was never going to

make it that easy. This was what they liked to do- give you that sense of hope, that subtle

taste of freedom, and then tear your tongue from your mouth as they mocked you for being so

stupid.

The monster stopped. Sneeg hardly realised, he didn't know if any of his nerves were still

intact, and his vision was splattered generously with red. Maybe the creature atop him was

revelling in its bloodlust, or maybe it was to do with those two guys over there near the

employee's corpse. He didn't really know. It was already over, anyway.

But then it wasn't.

Sneeg woke up. "Not what I expected hell to be" was his first thought. Then he realised he

was in the mall. Nevermind, definitely hell.

He tried to move and would've screamed with the pain if his throat wasn't a mangled mess.

The most he could push himself to do was angle his head and see what else hell might have

in store.

Off in the distance there was a familiar sight- that employee, still slumped over in a pool of

their own blood. Much closer to him was a hat- his hat. Just as bloodstained as the last time

he saw it.

Wait, this was...was this just where he'd died? Was he even...dead?

No, surely, not after that- there was no way he was still alive after THAT. But then...why was

he here? This didn't seem like a dream...why did it all feel so real..?

Memories flashed into his head. There weren't many, and they weren't great, but his mind

kept forcing them upon him. He winced whenever he remembered that creature, which only

brought more pain with the movement. If this was real then he had to get out, he was so close

to the door, he just had to get through. Once again he strained his torn up muscles and tried to

raise himself, grasping onto the exit door for support. That was right, just through this door

and he'd be free. The creature had probably gone after those other two, this was his only

chance.

Those two...didn't he recognise them? No, he definitely did, even through the blood and

wires. It was Ranboo...and Charlie..? How had they gotten there? Shit, were they still in this

fucking mall?!

He looked at the exit door- hell, maybe that sign was wrong and it only lead deeper into this

place, but either way he wasn't opening it now. Not when Ranboo and Charlie might still be

trapped somewhere in this hellhole.

He clung to the door, then pushed from it and used the momentum to stumble into a walk- for

a few seconds, at least. Then he immediately fell to his knees and let out another distorted

scream that barely sounded human as it gurgled and crackled through his throat.

For a minute he stayed on his knees, catching his breath and waiting for his blurred vision to

focus. He couldn't tell if everything was still tinted red or if he had gotten desensitised to the

colour shift and couldn't even notice it. At least he could see red, though- there would be

more of a problem if he was kneeling in a puddle of slime rather than blood.

As he got ready to get up again, he saw that he'd fallen pretty close to his hat. Bloodstained as

it was, he might as well take it with him. It had helped him before.

Hat in hand, he strained to raise his knees once again. Worries began to set in that he was

draining all of his energy and would soon be collapsing from exhaustion, but he couldn't give

in if Ranboo and Charlie were still here. He had to keep going.

At last he rose into a limping walk, practically dragging one leg and hopping on the other.

He'd worry about if it was broken later. There would probably be a lot of things for him to

worry about later.

He stumbled past the dead employee, barely glancing at the corpse and could finally glance

around the corner to see where to go next. It was...quiet. Far too quiet for it to be a good

thing. When he was running to the exit an alarm was blaring and sure, that was scary, but he

didn't know what this meant. He realised he probably wasn't going to know the meaning of a

lot of things and would just have to hope that they didn't mean death.

He continued through the mall at an annoyingly slow pace and reached the atrium, hoping

that he might be able to see some kind of clue down one of the hallways or on the balconies

above and below. He was happy to see something- the body of an employee on the floor

above, seeming to have been stabbed or something- but then dread set in as he realised it was

on the floor above. Showfall could've at least gotten a mall with functioning escalators...this

was going to be a pain.

After a longer time than Sneeg would've liked to admit, he was on the higher floor. Getting

closer to the employee he could see it was indeed stabbed, and the knife left by its side. He

hoped that was Ranboo or Charlie's doing, but...were those wires? He sighed. No point in

questioning this place.

Looking up he saw a door was open and assumed that might've been where they headed next.

He was also happy to get away from the employee- looking at those masks put a pit in his

stomach.

There was a body on the floor as he staggered into the room.

It wasn't an employee.

"Wait...Charlie..? S-shit, Charlie!"

Without thinking Sneeg ran across the room and managed to make it halfway before he

collapsed and felt the impact far worse than he was expecting.

"Agh- fuck! C-Charlie!"

He called out to Charlie as he half crawled, half dragged himself across the floor towards

him. He was lying facedown, and there was blood- a lot of it. He was barely in a better state

than Sneeg. But he was alive, surely. He had to be.

"Charlie, please! Come on, you're ok, right? Please, just say something!"

Charlie still didn't move and with a final push Sneeg reached his side and shoved him over,

maybe a little too hard, but he was desperate. His back seemed to have been torn apart more

than his front, which Sneeg supposed was good, but none of this was good. This was the kind

of hell that Satan would have second thoughts about.

He continued to shake Charlie and yell at him, his voice still as gargled as before but he could

at least make out some of the words he was saying. Charlie's hand twitched and Sneeg

abruptly halted.

"Ch...Charlie?"

His eyes started to twitch, then his mouth. Sneeg's eyes lit up- he didn't know what he'd do if

Charlie really was dead.

"...Sneeg..?" Charlie managed faintly.

"Y-yeah, it's me!" Sneeg said though tears and choked laughter.

"Your voice, are you-?"

"Don't worry about my voice, as long as you can understand me it's fine. Do you know where

Ranboo is?" Sneeg asked, realising he should probably give Charlie a minute but knowing

they might not have enough time.

"Ranboo? He was just..." Charlie glanced behind him and Sneeg followed his view, landing

on a big red button at the far wall. Sneeg looked back as Charlie started trying to talk again,

"there was Hetch, he told us to...he said to shut it down, but there was...employees, there was

the monster, I-I...I don't understand, I was attacked, but then he hit the button and-"

"The monster- that fucking TV thing, right..?"

"Y-yeah, it was on top of me, I couldn't...but when Ranboo hit the button I-I think it stopped,

but...t-there were those masked guys, they were everywhere, they were shut down too, right?

B-but then where..."

Sneeg had managed to get himself back up into a kneel and tried to help lift Charlie up by his

shoulder. He could see Charlie getting more distressed and cut him off.

"Look, if they're gone then it's a good thing, right?" Sneeg countered, "but we still gotta go

find Ranboo, and then we'll get out of here"

"No, Ranboo left, they got out! W-we just had to shut it down and then we could leave! T-

they left, right..?"

Sneeg saw the fear setting into Charlie, that something had gone wrong, that Ranboo hadn't

made it. He couldn't let him linger on that thought.

"Y-yeah, maybe Ranboo did get out, but either way we gotta get out too. Can you walk?"

Charlie tried to push himself up and with some help from Sneeg they were both eventually

standing. Slanted and unstable standing, but standing nonetheless.

"C'mon, let's-"

Sneeg began, but all of a sudden the lights came back on. They both paused, heart beats

rising in time with one another.

"N-no, he- he shut it down, Sneeg, this shouldn't-!" Charlie started to worry.

"Wait, Charlie, hold on, can you hear that?"

Sneeg met eyes with Charlie and worried as he saw the sheer panic in them, but as they both

listened they could hear something in the distance. They couldn't make out the words, but it

seemed to be someone talking.

"Who...who is that?" Charlie asked. Sneeg didn't know.

"Let's go, come on," Sneeg ordered, leading Charlie as he supported his shoulder. He needed

just as much support himself, but he wasn't going to show it.

"Sneeg, hold on, the exit- the exit's back there, wait!"

"We're not leaving Ranboo in here!" Sneeg shouted with anger that wasn't directed at anyone

in particular. He stumbled a few steps ahead and looked back towards Charlie who was

swaying and looking confused.

"Wait, but- y-you said Ranboo got out? They got out, didn't they?"

Sneeg hesitated to answer.

"I don't know. But if that's something to do with him then I don't think we have time"

"W-what if, what if it's a trap? What if-?"

"Which way did Ranboo go?"

"Huh?"

"Which way, Charlie? Because you see that door there?" Sneeg pointed to the door in the

distance with an exit sign flashing above it, "that's not a fucking exit. I found the floor plan to

try and escape here myself and I know for a fact that that is not a goddamn exit. These

fuckers were gonna do everything in their power to keep us trapped here"

He could see Charlie getting more distressed every second but he had to tell him the truth.

"Wait, b-but, no, that's-"

"Charlie. There's no time. Do you want to get them out of here?"

"Y-yes, fucking yes, obviously!"

"Then come on"

Sneeg didn't wait another second before turning and going back out of that room. He quietly

sighed in relief when he could hear Charlie following after him.

They made their way past the employee, back down the escalators and through the halls in

silence. Sneeg was trying to listen in to the distant voices that got louder with each step but

he couldn't make out a word. He could at least recognise that one of them was Ranboo,

though. He was happy to get confirmation but moreso angry to know that he was still trapped

with them in this fucking mall. They were getting him out.

Sneeg turned a corner and realised too late that the room in front of them was blocked by a

wall of employees. He felt death crawling up his spine at the sight but Charlie quickly tugged

him back before a wall in time.

"Did...did they see you?" Charlie whispered.

Sneeg dared to peek back around the corner, and all the employees were stood exactly as they

were before, "I don't think so...fuckin idiots"

"What are they doing there..?"

"They must be on guard duty or something...that's definitely the room," Sneeg continued to

peer at them and could definitely hear that the dialogue was coming from somewhere behind

them. He thought he could finally make out a few words when suddenly-

"LET ME DIE"

Sneeg could sense Charlie freeze up beside him. That was definitely Ranboo.

"W-what the fuck is going on in there?!"

"I don't know, I don't know!"

"You said you saw the floor plan, there's a back entrance or something to that room, right?"

"No, shit, that's the only entrance, how the fuck are we gonna get through there?!"

Charlie stepped out and Sneeg instinctively threw an arm out in front of him.

"The hell are you doing?" Sneeg demanded.

"You said that's the only entrance, right? Then I guess we only got one choice"

"Charlie, you're not thinking straight, we just need to hold on-"

"You're the one who said we don't have any fucking time, Sneeg! I'm getting into that fucking

room one way or another!"

"Charlie, wait-!"

But the moment that Charlie made a dash past Sneeg, a sound rang out, like some metallic

bang, and the absence of the dialogue that had come before it became ever more louder.

There was silence from the room, and the employees began moving. Charlie flinched

instinctively in fear but they seemed to have no interest in him or Sneeg, instead they

formally dispersed around the mall until they were all out of sight.

Charlie hesitated for a moment, but then continued towards the room, Sneeg following after

him now that there was nothing blacking their way. They were both confused, but soon got

their answer.

Charlie immediately collapsed, and Sneeg felt like some invisible force had slammed into his

legs, but he kept standing. He couldn't move.

Illuminated in a terrible red and strung unto the wall like some kind of display, Ranboo

stayed. Unmoving.

Charlie tried to scream or sob or say anything but all that came out were barely formed words

and incomprehensible sentences. Sneeg remained stood. There was nothing to say.

After a moment he stepped forward, "w-we need to get him down"

Charlie made some noise but didn't move. Sneeg almost collapsed against the desk at the

centre of the room with wires spreading outwards and up the walls. Was this what they would

call the heart..?

He looked over the screen and the controls. After a moment he pushed a button.

Charlie wailed out in horror from behind Sneeg. He felt deaf to the noise as he continued to

look onward in silence. The box was opened and Ranboo's head slumped down, stopped from

falling completely by the wires wrapped around his waist. There was so much blood. Sneeg

couldn't see their eyes.

Charlie continued to cry as Sneeg pushed himself around the desk, resisting the bile rising up

in his throat with every step. He had to look at the floor, staring at the puddle of blood to

know where he was supposed to go. When he looked back up Ranboo was there. His head

had slumped forward, protruding from the wall of screens and wires like the head of a deer a

hunter might display of their wall. Sneeg could see the blood sticking strands of hair to one

another. Sneeg could see the holes.

Sneeg threw up.

When he was done, he decided not to look straight up this time. Instead he gradually rose his

gaze until he was looking at Ranboo's hand. He had to ignore everything in his peripheral just

to stay standing, but seeing those wires not just tying Ranboo to the wall but also going into

his skin still made him feel weak.

Sneeg raised his hands to Ranboo's and started trying to untie and break the wires. He didn't

deserve to be kept up like some sick display, he was going to get them down.

As he continued to take apart the wires, almost completely dissociated from the task he had

given himself, he could feel something. He slowed down and pressed his fingertips to

Ranboo's wrist. There it was again- small, but there.

"Charlie...Charlie, he's still alive"

He only realised that Charlie had still been wailing when he fell silent again.

"Help me get him down"

Sneeg worried his voice was too faint for Charlie to hear, but eventually he heard movement

behind him as Charlie started to get back up. Sneeg didn't move and continued to look in

exactly the spot he had been looking already, and kept breaking the wires, one by one.

By the time he noticed what he presumed to be Charlie approaching in his peripheral he hat

gotten most of them off and freed Ranboo's left arm. Sneeg had to hold up his shoulder to

prevent him slumping much further but their body still moved; Sneeg saw Charlie retching in

the corner of his view as Ranboo's head rolled limply.

Charlie eventually regained composure and carefully began doing the same as Sneeg had

done to the wires on Ranboo's right hand. Sneeg shifted himself to reach the wires wrapped at

Ranboo's waist and angled his head down, the front of his hat blocking Ranboo's head from

his view.

They worked in silence for an amount of time that neither could discern. Charlie finished the

hand as Sneeg finished untying the waist and let Ranboo fall down to a kneel. He held their

hand again, and undeniably, there was a pulse.

"Okay, you support one arm, I'll support the other. We'll carry him out of here between us"

Charlie didn't say anything and just nodded. They both each raised an arm over their shoulder

and pulled Ranboo up, the blood running down his arms staining both of their backs. In this

position their face still hung down between Sneeg and Charlie, the only thing stopping them

from both throwing up once more being that his face was out of view. They would just have

to ignore the holes.

Sneeg began to doubt how long he could bear to carry Ranboo, especially with their heads so

close together, but due to the proximity he could make out breathing, despite how rough and

faint it was. He kept going, just hoping that Charlie could do the same.

Through the mall they went, akin to snails not only with a slow pace but also the trail they

left behind, albeit a trail of blood and not slime. Sneeg lead them, knowing an exit on this

floor that wouldn't be fake. He didn't know why none of the employees had come after them

yet for trying to escape, he was just thankful they hadn't.

"Hey, is that..?" Charlie began, speaking for the first time in a while. His voice was hoarse,

he'd almost completely lost it.

"Yeah. There it is"

Ahead of them glowed an exit sign, and below it a door. Finally, their escape.

"And you're sure this is a real one?"

"Yes. I'm sure," Sneeg assured him.

Ranboo began to stir between them and they slowed their walking, out of surprise and

concern.

"Ranboo? Are you..?" Charlie trailed off, and Sneeg wondered whether it was him losing his

voice again or if he couldn't bring himself to ask someone who looked like that if they were

ok.

Ranboo's head rose and Sneeg tried his best to look at him without processing the state he

was in. Through the blood and wounds he could see Ranboo's eye moving up, looking

towards the exit ahead.

"We're getting you out of here Ran," Sneeg assured them.

But something was still wrong. Sneeg heard their raspy breath quickening and their arms

begin to shake. He didn't break his gaze from the exit ahead, or rather, from the sign above it.

"Hey, Ranboo, it's fine, it's-" Sneeg tried to tell him but Ranboo was already trying to move,

dragging his feet up and futilely trying to kick himself away from the door but being far too

weak to move Sneeg and Charlie so much as a step backwards.

"Ranboo, you're gonna hurt yourself, it's ok!" Charlie tried, but Ranboo seemed unable to

hear either of them. Their breathing rose, their kicks became more desperate and their eyes

shook with tears when suddenly something aligned in the shattered remnants of the mask still

clinging to his face and a sudden jolt of voltage shot through his spine.

Sneeg and Charlie held onto them as they seized up and suddenly fell limp once again.

"R...Ranboo..?" Charlie worried.

Sneeg watched as his eyes closed and his breathing slowed, but not to a halt.

"It's fine, they're just unconscious...I can understand why they'd get so panicky in this place.

Let's just get out of here"

Charlie nodded and they both started walking again with Ranboo's feet dragging along the

floor. Sneeg pushed himself up against the door and shoved against it as hard as he could,

gradually opening it up to bright sunlight from outside.

The three made their way through and stopped to adjust to the light, and to take it all in.

"Are we...outside..?" Charlie asked in disbelief.

"Yeah, I think we are," Sneeg said with a hint of a laugh. He'd never have guessed that this

stupid mall was somehow built in the middle of a big empty field that seemed to stretch on

into the blue sky forever.

"Is that..?" Charlie asked, pointing into the distance. Sneeg saw what he was talking about

and could've laughed at the sight if it wouldn't hurt his chest a lot to do so.

There, in the middle of fucking nowhere, was a car. Parked right up next to the mall from

hell.

"What...the fuck?" Sneeg said with a grin. He looked over at Charlie and smiled even wider

when he saw the spark back in his eyes. It felt like an eternity since he'd seen Charlie this

happy.

"Well, what are we waiting for? Let's go!" Sneeg shouted out, pushing forwards to get to the

car, his mind swimming with ideas at what they'd be able to do now. Just walking through the

grass felt like enough of a luxury.

"Wait, you don't think they left the keys in it, do you..?"

"Don't worry, I know how to hotwire a car," Sneeg proudly announced.

Charlie smiled again as he held onto Ranboo, letting Sneeg go around the side to break the

window and make his way inside. After a few minutes the engine kicked into action and the

two laid Ranboo in the back before getting into the front seats themselves. Sneeg giddily put

his hands on the wheel.

"So, where to?" He asked.

"Anywhere but here," Charlie replied, gazing out into horizon. It felt as though the whole

world was theirs.

Chapter 2- Home

Chapter Summary

Sneeg, Charlie and Ranboo have finally escaped from Showfall. What's waiting for them

in the outside world..?

Chapter Notes

A bit of a shorter one to give y'all a break from the angst :)

I think I'll upload a new chapter every other day, but don't hold me to that I'm not too

good at staying consistent lol

Ranboo, too, had been pretty sure he was done for. Having your head in a box seemed like a

pretty definitive way to go. But despite that, he woke up.

Slowly his eyes opened to a room filled with light that spilled through all the windows and

draped itself over every surface. They could hardly see anything at first, it was hard to adjust

their eyes, but eventually things became clear.

Across from them was a desk with a lamp and pile of books stacked atop it. There was a door

besides it left slightly open, and a window on the wall next to it.

Ranboo shifted his head and felt a sharp pain as he did so, but could see the end of the bed

they were laid on. They were...on a bed..?

This wasn't right, he didn't recognise this room, he hadn't been here before. Was this...a set?

No, no, it couldn't be, they weren't...

Ranboo started to panic. He rose up against the wall behind him and tried to ignore the

dizzying pain that came with every slight movement of their head. Their head, it felt...tight.

He started to shake. A mask over his mouth wasn't enough, they'd put something all around

his head that he could never take off. Tears swelled in his eyes, his vision blurred as he felt

the fabric of the bed slipping beneath his hands that could barely hold him up anywhere.

Death wouldn't stop them. Showfall would keep playing with him forever.

Forever.

For-

"Ranboo?"

Ranboo turned their head to the side, shaking and crying. They suddenly locked eyes with

Charlie.

"H-hey, don't move around too much, ok? I don't know how many bandages we have in this

place so you don't wanna reopen any wounds..."

Ranboo started to slow their breathing. He raised a hand to his face and tried to steady it as he

ran it down his cheek. Fabric. Bandages.

He pushed against them and flinched away from the sudden pain. They hadn't even pressed

that hard, but it seemed that was still enough to irritate his wounds.

"Are you ok? We have some painkillers," Charlie offered.

Ranboo shook his head, regretted it a little when he felt the pain, then turned back to Charlie.

Wait a second-

"-Charlie?" Was what Ranboo tried to ask, but they instead just shocked themself with their

own voice. The noise that came out barely sounded like what they were meaning to say.

"Oh, um, you might need a few days before you can talk. When we took your mask off there

were wires and some of them...went into places it was difficult to take them out from"

Charlie looked at Ranboo apologetically. Ranboo looked at Charlie and the tears returned to

stream down their face again.

"You're alive?" was what they meant to say, although it didn't sound at all like that.

"H-hey, don't use your voice, it's-" Charlie began but was cut off as Ranboo leant over the

side of the bed to embrace him. Charlie stopped in shock for a moment, listening to Ranboo

as they cried over his shoulder, but after a moment he put down the book he had been reading

and hugged Ranboo too.

Neither of them wanted to let go, and Ranboo only seemed to want to hug tighter. After a

while Ranboo was silent and Charlie slowly pushed them away.

"Jeez, what a sleepyhead. Wish I got as good a sleep as he does," Sneeg said from the

doorway, catching Charlie off guard.

"Heh, he's had a long couple of days, I can't really blame them," Charlie said as he lay

Ranboo back down in the bed. He looked back at Sneeg and sparked with jealousy when he

saw the coffee in his hand, "you didn't make any for me?!"

Sneeg laughed and angled his head towards the desk that Charlie had dumped his reading list

on. Hidden under the lamp was a cup of coffee in a "world's best dad" mug.

"Didn't wanna wake you up," Sneeg explained smugly, "you both look so peaceful when

you're sleeping"

Charlie wanted to be annoyed but instead he laughed sheepishly, taking the mug and having a

sip. It was good.

Sneeg looked over at the stack of books as Charlie took back the one he was reading and

opened it up, "damn, wish I knew how to read"

Charlie stopped as if the programming in his brain had malfunctioned

"You...what?"

"Never learnt. Couldn't really be bothered"

Charlie contemplated for a moment, then abruptly closed his book and walked past Sneeg.

"Where you going?" Sneeg asked, a little worried by the determination in Charlie's walk.

Charlie didn't respond and only came back with a chair, since he had been using the one

originally sat at the desk. He placed it next to his chair and sat down.

"Sit with me"

"H-huh..?"

Charlie patted on the seat beside him.

"Sit," he commanded.

Sneeg, with a bit of concern, obliged.

~*~

When Ranboo next awoke, it was to the sounds of an unusual argument. He tried to pretend

to still be asleep, as this didn't really sound like something they wanted to be dragged into.

"That's, uh...that says 'rat'," Sneeg said hesitantly.

"What"

Ranboo could hear the fear in Sneeg's silence.

"That- that says 'rat', you think?" Charlie continued. Ranboo tried not to flinch- they'd never

heard such threat in Charlie's voice.

"Uh. Y-yeah" Sneeg replied.

"Sneeg. That spells mouse. How in the FUCK did you misread that as RAT?!"

"I-I dunno, I thought that was an R, and that looked kinda like a T, I- a-aren't you supposed to

be helping me as a teacher??"

"Sneeg, I think you're beyond help at this point"

"H-hey!" Sneeg responded in offence.

Ranboo involuntarily let out a laugh and tried to mask it as a snore, but it was too late, his

cover was blown.

"Oh, shit, too loud," Sneeg realised.

Ranboo opened their eyes and after a moment to adjust saw Sneeg and Charlie sat by the

edge of the bed, Charlie holding a book between them.

"Sorry, we probably should've done this in a different room," Charlie apologised.

Ranboo shrugged and tried their best to smile to show that it wasn't a problem, since they

probably shouldn't try to talk yet. He realised his mouth was covered by bandages and

worried how he would be able to convey anything now, but Charlie and Sneeg seemed to

understand.

"You doing okay?" Sneeg asked as Charlie put the book back on his pile. Ranboo nodded,

trying his best to ignore the pain that came with doing so.

"I'll go get you something to eat- you might just be eating soup for a while though, I think

that's the only thing we can get through the bandages," Charlie explained. Ranboo responded

by just putting their thumb up, and realised there were bandages on their hand too. But more

importantly, he started to realise how long it had been since he'd eaten- could he even

remember the last time?

No, he didn't want to think about his memories right now. That was something he could

confront later.

Charlie left to go fetch something to eat and left Ranboo and Sneeg together. Sneeg seemed

unsure of how to start a conversation, so Ranboo was happy to just look around the

environment. His eyes settled on the window...it had been a while since he'd seen the sun.

"Do you remember much about what happened..?" Sneeg asked quietly.

They didn't want to. But they did.

"I'm sorry, I probably shouldn't be asking shit like that right now. You sure you're ok?"

Ranboo nodded again. They could still remember what it felt like as the box closed.

"Hey, we got out, ok? There's no need to worry about that stuff anymore," Sneeg reassured

him. Ranboo realised that he'd started crying and wiped the tears away, trying to muster as

genuine a smile as he could to Sneeg. Sneeg sighed with a smile.

"I'm glad you're ok, and I know Charlie is too. You're miraculously intact, the worst damage

seems to be some fractured skull, but other than that it's just a lotta blood loss from...sorry,

gotta try not to talk about that. Point is, as long as you rest for a bit, we should be all good"

Ranboo smiled again, not needing to put in effort to be genuine this time. Sneeg seemed to

notice and smiled the same.

Charlie returned with what looked like a juice carton with a straw in it.

"Bone apple tits, cold soup in a carton. A true delicacy," he announced sarcastically, seeming

a little ashamed that this was the best option they had. Ranboo sat up excitedly regardless-

with how hungry he felt, anything would probably taste like a delicacy.

It was a bit of a struggle to get the straw through his bandages, but one he got a taste of that

sweet, sweet, cold tomato soup, it was all worth it. They felt like they were speedrunning it,

devouring the whole box in about a minute and making the slurpy straw noise for a whole

minute more in an attempt to get every last bit from the bottom.

Whilst Ranboo was eating Charlie left again, and returned excitedly with a notepad and pen.

Since Ranboo wouldn't be able to talk for a while, he explained, they would be able to write

stuff on this instead. Ranboo drew a penis first, just to make sure that the pen worked of

course, and then started actually writing.

"Where are we?" was the first question.

Charlie and Sneeg read it, then looked at each other hesitantly.

"Well, uh," Sneeg began, "we don't really know. Once we got out of the mall we stole a car

and drove it as far as we could get. Wherever we are it's just a bunch of fields, but there were

houses here and there, so we stopped in this one when it got dark"

"We were kinda worried that people might be in here," Charlie continued, "but when we got

in it was empty. Plus there's lots of food and the electricity works, so we got pretty lucky"

"The plan is to stay here until we're recovered, and then keep driving. There's houses out here

so there's probably civilisation too if we drive far enough. We can get more help there, and

try to do something against Showfall if we can. But no need to worry about that right now,"

Sneeg assured.

Ranboo nodded and tried to shake away the doubts building in their head. Now wasn't the

time.

"Are u guys ok?" they wrote next.

Sneeg laughed, "jeez, you're worrying about us? Compared to you we're fine man, I thought

my arm was broken when we got out but I was probably complaining just to get Charlie to

sympathise with me"

Charlie laughed, "yeah, I think we've got a bit of a limp each, but other than that we're all

good"

Ranboo thought for a moment before writing the next question.

"Do u think I'll get super sexy scars when I'm healed?"

Charlie laughed so much that he started to cough a bit and Sneeg tried to cover his mouth in

an attempt not to do the same.

"Pshh- yeah, definitely Ran, they'll be the sexiest scars anyone's ever seen, trust me.

Nobody's gonna be able to resist you," Sneeg joked.

Ranboo laughed too and regretted it a little as it hurt his throat, but he didn't really mind. This

was the first time they'd laughed in a long time, so they were gonna enjoy it.

Charlie paused for a moment, "wait, Sneeg...you can't read, can you..?"

Sneeg's smile dropped suddenly from the accusation. Considering Charlie's tone, Ranboo was

also feeling worried for him.

"U-uh, well...nnooo?" Sneeg responded, sounding terribly unsure of his own answer.

"So all that time I was trying to teach you, and you could read. The whole time?" Charlie

asked, and Sneeg thought he would probably need to choose his answer very carefully.

"Yyyeeeeesss?" Sneeg answered.

Charlie put his head in his hands, seeming to resist his urge to beat the crap out of Sneeg right

there and then.

"Hey, maybe it's just because you were such a good teacher I learnt to read so fast, huh?"

Sneeg tried to rectify, shakily placing a hand on Charlie's shoulder.

"You told me that house was pronounced how-oose," Charlie seemed exhausted just by

recalling the memory. Ranboo was happy that he'd only heard the end of their conversation.

"Hey, I can't pronounce everything, but at least I can pronounce Worcestershire sauce," Sneeg

said confidently. Charlie and Ranboo looked up in shock.

"What...did you just say?" Charlie managed.

"What? Worcestershire sauce? It's not that hard"

"Y-yes it is! How are you pronouncing that so confidently? That's like, a perfect

pronunciation!"

Sneeg shrugged, "eh, guess I've got a few hidden talents, y'know"

Charlie looked about ready to punch him, but instead he laughed, and Ranboo started to

laugh again too.

The three of them talked (and wrote) together for a while, until they realised the sun was

setting. Charlie was happy to stay with Ranboo another night and Ranboo was happy to not

be alone while he slept. Sneeg bid them both goodnight as he went to the bedroom he'd been

sleeping in these past few days while Ranboo was unconscious, and before long the house

was silent and the sun set on another day.

The three of them drifted to sleep, each knowing that they had finally found somewhere to

call home.

Chapter 3- Rats

Chapter Summary

There's a noise coming from the basement...

Chapter Notes

See the end of the chapter for notes

Charlie was, admittedly, pretty shocked he wasn't dead.

It had been about a week since he had left the mall with Sneeg and Ranboo but it still hadn't

quite set in.

He still felt trapped in that moment, perpetually held under those wires as they dug into him

and threatened to destroy everything that he was. The scars were still visible. He didn't know

if they'd ever heal.

They thankfully had changes of clothes in this house they'd all discovered, but Charlie always

kept on the body armour he'd left with. Sneeg had joked about it starting to smell if he never

washed it, but Charlie wasn't comfortable without it. He felt vulnerable, like someone was

just waiting for him to take it off, and that would be when they striked.

That was dumb, of course. They were safe now, Charlie knew that. They were far away. But

despite how much he could tell himself that the wires never felt more than ten inches from

his neck. He could still feel them. They were sharp.

"Hey, Charlie, uh-"

He suddenly snapped back to awareness as Sneeg wandered into the kitchen. He looked back

down and realised he'd been washing the same cup for the past 5 minutes. It was probably

clean by now.

"Y'know how there's a, uh, basement? In this place?" Sneeg asked. Charlie grabbed another

cup so that he could actually finish washing up sometime soon.

"Uh, yeah? We don't need to look for any more supplies though, we're pretty stocked up on

food and everything"

"Yeah, I know, it's not because I wanna look for more food, it's, uh...I heard some noises

coming from down there earlier"

"Did you check em out?"

"Fuck no"

Charlie opened his mouth, then realised that was a very valid reaction to spooky sounds in

the basement, so he closed his mouth.

"I dunno, I just...I don't think it's the noises, I just really don't vibe with basements right now,

y'know?" Sneeg tried to explain.

Charlie realised that Sneeg was talking about when they'd been in that cabin. Those

memories were some of his haziest, but he knew Sneeg had been in the basement. He

probably didn't want anything that would remind him of that. None of them did.

"Do you want me to go check it out?" Charlie offered.

"W-well, you can, but like, obviously it's spooky mysterious noises so if you don't wanna go

down there it's completely understandable, it's probably just some rats that are gonna find a

way out into the field soon and then leave us alone so you don't have to-"

"Sneeg if there's stuff weirding you out in the basement I will go into the basement. Is there

stuff weirding you out in the basement?"

"Uh- yeah-"

"Let's go then," Charlie cut him off with a smile, dismissing Sneeg's concerns. Before Sneeg

could protest any further Charlie had walked past him and into the living room, which had

the door to the basement.

The living room was between the kitchen and Ranboo's bedroom, and now that they had

recovered a bit Ranboo was mostly found hanging around in here. He looked over as the two

entered and held up a scribbled note.

"What u doing?"

"We're gonna go check out the basement, apparently it's gonna be super spooky so if I die I'm

leaving all my possessions to you, Ranboo. If you're lucky Sneeg I'll give you a rock or

something," Charlie joked, poking fun at Sneeg. Sneeg sighed tiredly but a smile crept

through.

"Alright then," Charlie cracked his knuckles, "no biggie"

It was, in fact, a biggie.

Charlie only hated the basement a little less than Sneeg, but he saw how timid Sneeg got

whenever it was brought up so he wasn't gonna let him worry about some mysterious creature

lurking within, or even worse let him go down there instead. No, if anyone was going to

check the basement it was gonna be Charlie, so he might as well do it now.

"Good luck 3" Ranboo held up as Charlie undid the lock they'd secured onto the door on the

day they reached this house. Charlie smiled back at them one last time before he turned to

face the darkness that crept down below.

Audible gulp*

Charlie, slowly and carefully, lowered his foot onto the first step into oblivion. It was fine, he

assured himself, he just had to get down these steps and then there would probably be a light

switch at the bottom or something.

Another step, and a loud creak echoed around the basement, no doubt reaching every corner.

Great, now the rats were gonna be totally prepared for him. So much for the element of

surprise.

Another step, and another, Charlie tip toed deeper and deeper down the wooden steps that he

really really hoped weren't gonna break or anything. That would be terrible and he would cry.

Something seemed to flicker in the depths. Charlie's breath caught in his throat. What the

fuck was that what the fuck was that man.

No, calm down, it was probably nothing, probably. Only a few more steps.

One by one, the light from above faded with each step. Charlie didn't dare look back to see if

Sneeg was still in the doorway out of fear that when he looked back there might be

something suddenly right in front of him. That was a horror trope, though, he just needed to

be realistic.

There- something caught the light! Was that...a string..? It had to be, that was the light. In

desperation Charlie reached forward and gave a swift pull that he hoped might banish the

darkness once and for all.

And banish it did.

However, with the activation of the lights, some new things were revealed in the basement.

Such as the six foot humanoid rat whose face was currently inches from Charlie's.

"AAAAAHHHHHHH," Charlie screamed out, tumbling backwards into the opposite

bannister of the stairs.

"EEEEKK," Squealed the rat, scuttering backwards into a conveniently placed pyramid of

empty bean cans that fell apart upon impact.

"AAAAGHH," screamed Sneeg from above, maybe just because he wanted to be involved.

"MY BEEANNNSSSS," Squealed a second rat, mourning the loss of its now rather

inconveniently placed bean pyramid.

Silence suddenly returned as Charlie stared in bewilderment at the two rats, who looked at

each other and then back at Charlie.

"W-wait, do I...recognise you two..?" Charlie asked.

The rats looked back at each other, then back at Charlie, and the female rat (who had

previously been mourning her beans) spoke up, "oh, wait, yeah! You were that patient guy!

Y'know, mega chet, or whatever you said your name was"

Charlie just stared at them for a moment, then brought his hand up to his face and rubbed his

eyes, "holy shit did I really say that"

"Hey, you ok, Charlie? What did you find..?" Sneeg called out from above.

Charlie ran his hand down his face, pulling down his bottom eyelids, "well, you were right

Sneeg, it was rats"

~*~

Charlie, Ranboo and Sneeg sat on the sofa at one side of the living room while the two rats

crouched at the opposite side, seeming to be pretty content with their sitting arrangements.

For a while it was silence, then the female rat spoke up again.

"So, uh...what happened there?" she pointed up a finger towards the broken window in the

wall.

"Well, there used to be a TV in here, but we didn't really want that, so we...chucked it out,"

Sneeg explained while he rubbed the back of his neck. He didn't really mind the rats, he just

found it a little concerning they'd been living in the basement the whole time without anyone

knowing.

Ranboo seemed the most put off by their two new housemates. He held his pen as though he

were about to write something to ask, but never did and kept simply glancing warily back at

the rats.

Charlie cleared his throat and interrupted the silence that once again had stretched across the

room, "so, how did you guys get out of the mall, exactly?"

"We chewed a hole in the wall"

"Wh...what?"

"We chewed a hole in the wall. A bunch of the exits didn't actually lead outside so we just

gave up and started nibbling"

"Right..." Charlie responded, not feeling like he had really gained anything from that answer,

"and how did you get to this house?"

"We found a car outside and got in the trunk because it was comfy, then the car ended up here

and we went into the basement because it was dark, then the basement got locked so we

started eating beans"

"Mhm, ok yeah makes sense," Charlie nodded.

"How did you guys get here?" the male rat inquired.

"We, uh...we drove," Sneeg replied. The rats nodded thoughtfully.

"Weird, that car we were in the trunk of seemed to be the only one outside. Was there like, a

secret second car?"

"Yeah, totally," Sneeg responded, seeming to be too tired to try and explain what had actually

happened.

"So are you guys cool to just...stay in the basement?" Charlie asked

The rats looked at each other for a moment, then nodded happily to the trio.

Problem...solved?

"Hey, do you two mind if we have, like, a private conversation? With just the three of us?"

Sneeg asked.

The rats nodded again and scurried back to the basement, "yep, yep, take all the time you

need!" the female one said before closing the door.

Sneeg, Charlie and Ranboo looked at each other in silence for a few moments.

"So...I guess we just have rats in the basement now?" Sneeg said, seeming to be unsure of

what he was saying.

"They seem nice enough," Charlie commented.

"Well, yeah, I just...I dunno man, something about them being here feels weird," Sneeg

pondered. Sneeg and Charlie were quiet for a moment before Ranboo started writing and then

held it up.

"They're a reminder of the past that we all want to forget"

"Oh, yeah. That," Sneeg realised. Charlie thought it might not be that at first, but he realised

whenever he saw those two his stomach dropped, because the last time he'd seen them, he

was...

Yeah, Ranboo was right. That was definitely something he was wanting to forget.

"But, I mean, it wasn't really their fault, y'know? And they both seem super nice. I don't think

we need to kick them out or anything," Sneeg proposed. Ranboo seemed more hesitant. The

three were silent in their own thoughts for a bit longer.

"Why did I...say that..?" Charlie asked to nobody in particular, just thinking out loud.

"Huh?" Sneeg looked over with mild concern.

"They reminded me...I called myself mega chet, and now I'm just remembering all the weird

shit I said. Those weren't things I'd normally say, i-it was like...like they were making me

play a character, like they'd turned me into s-someone that wasn't me," Charlie's voice began

to shake more and more as he spoke and was only taken out of his thoughts by Sneeg firmly

putting a hand on his arm.

"Charlie, hey, it's ok! We don't need to think about that shit anymore," he told Charlie.

Charlie wasn't convinced.

"So we're just gonna act like it never happened..? Sneeg, am I even me?" Charlie asked. He

couldn't keep pushing down his thoughts and longer and tears came to the surface with them.

This time it was Ranboo who tried to bring him back to reality.

"I know how u feel. But we got out now. We're safe," read the note they placed on Charlie's

lap. Charlie wiped his tears and tried to smile.

"Yeah, sorry, that's right, s-sorry for bringing the mood down guys," the other two still looked

at him with concern despite his attempts to make out he was fine, "w-we should get back to

talking about the rats, right? It feels kinda mean to just leave them in the basement"

After a moment Sneeg nodded and took his hand off Charlie, "yeah, but we don't have

anywhere else for them to sleep. Me and Ran are in the bedrooms and I already feel bad

enough leaving you on the couch, Charlie"

When Ranboo decided he was happy to sleep without Charlie by his side, mainly because he

felt bad that Charlie had to sleep on a chair, they realised that there were only two single

bedrooms in the house and the only other option left to them was the living room couch.

Charlie had assured the other two that he was fine with that option, which wasn't a complete

lie. He'd slept in worse places.

"If its ok with u guys we can let them in the house at day and they seem happy to sleep in the

basement at night," Ranboo wrote out. While Sneeg and Charlie thought he wrote a follow

up.

"I know they bring bad memories but they probably have those memories too. If we all help

each other it will probably be easier for all of us"

Charlie nodded, "yeah, I think so. I mean, if that's all good with you guys..?"

Ranboo nodded, then Sneeg. Charlie walked over to the basement door and shouted down to

the rats.

"Hey, uh, you guys can come back up now"

The rats made their way out of the basement and they all sat back in the living room together.

"So, uh, if it's alright with you guys, you can wander around the house whenever you want,

but we don't really have anywhere else for you to sleep, so you'll have to go in the basement,"

Charlie explained. The rats nodded enthusiastically, to his relief.

"Hey, by the way- what are you guys' names?" Sneeg inquired.

The rats went quiet and looked to each other.

"Uh, we never really had names, I think," the female rat said.

"Oh...you wanna just make them up?" Sneeg suggested.

"Oh, that's fun!" She responded, "okay, so I'll uh, I'll be Valkyrat. Yeah, Valkyrat! That

sounds cool!"

"How about...Ratkkuno for me?" the other rat more timidly suggested.

"Yeah, yeah! Valkyrat and Ratkkuno, at your service!" Valkyrat excitedly exclaimed.

"Cool, I guess that sorts that out," Charlie laughed, a little surprised by the speed at which

they'd decided on their names. Housemates with a couple of rats, huh? It probably wouldn't

be too bad.

The day went on and everything returned to normal. Charlie started showing the rats around

and making sure they knew how everything worked, since he didn't know if rats were too

familiar with microwaves and faucets. Now that he knew the basement was safe, he

eventually decided to go back down and properly check it out.

The basement was much more inviting with the lights on, casting a warm glow throughout

the room. It was mainly boxes and junk, seeming to just be used for storage. And of course,

lots of beans. They'd only been here a week or two but the rats had managed to eat through

about 50 bean tins, which were now a tripping hazard scattered around the floor, yet to be

reconstructed into a pyramid.

Charlie did start to worry that with the new guests they might struggle more with resources,

but as he turned the corner he found a hundred, maybe a thousand more cans of beans stacked

up, shelf upon shelf of them. They would probably be fine for a while.

He turned another corner and a much more unexpected sight befell him, which was

impressive because he really wasn't expecting that many beans; a shrine of sorts, with a spiral

at the centre and big words painted around it-

"RIP THE PUZZLER"

Charlie stopped in shock. This...this was almost exactly what had been in the mall. When he

was running with Ranboo he had seen this shrine, but he had tried to forget about that. Now it

was staring him in the face.

He couldn't look at it anymore, he turned to leave but found a rat stood right behind him.

"Gah-! Hey, d-don't try anything, you-!" he looked around for anything he could grab to

defend himself, but the rat didn't make any move to attack. He didn't even seem to be looking

at Charlie, rather he was looking past him- to the shrine. Charlie looked to the shrine, then

back to the rat.

"Did you...make that..?"

The rat nodded, "we made one in the mall too, but we couldn't bring it with us. We...wanted

to bring the Puzzler with us, wherever we went," he explained.

Charlie nodded slowly, "yeah...guess you really liked the guy"

"I know you were talking about your memories earlier, if this- would you like us to remove

it?" Ratkkuno asked.

Charlie took a second to process the question then shook his head, "no, no, I wouldn't get you

guys to take it down, if having that here makes you happy then...yeah, it's fine. I think we're

gonna have to come to terms with what happened eventually"

"I'm...sorry about what happened to you"

Charlie looked down.

"It's fine. We're okay now"

He could feel the stitches that they'd put in his chest without even touching them.

Charlie startled when Ratkkuno went to touch his hand, and the rat also flinched in response,

looking apologetic.

"You can talk to me about stuff if you'd like. Valkyrat would probably also be happy to listen,

but I know she likes to talk just as much. I think she'd help you if you needed a distraction,"

the rat offered.

Charlie smiled, "y-yeah, thank you. I will"

Ratkkuno smiled, as much as a rat could, and went with Charlie as he wandered out of the

basement. It was much less of a suffocating space than he was expecting it to be.

They emerged into the living room and he saw Sneeg had found a chess set, and was playing

against Valkyrat. Sneeg seemed to be struggling, which confused Charlie at first, but then

Ranboo tapped Sneeg on the shoulder to get his attention for something he'd written. The

moment his attention was drawn, Valkyrat grabbed one of his pieces and started chewing on

it. Sneeg turned back to the chess set after a few moments and became even more distressed

at how badly he was losing.

Charlie laughed and went to sit on the floor next to Ranboo to watch, "my bet's on Valkyrat"

"H-hey!" Sneeg responded, sounding offended. He moved a piece at last and Ranboo nudged

Charlie's arm, showing him what they'd written.

"They've been going at this for almost half an hour. It's quite entertaining"

Charlie laughed, which got an annoyed grunt from Sneeg, who thought his last move was

being mocked. Charlie looked closer and saw that he'd moved his pawn two spaces to the

side.

"Hey, wait-" he stared, but Ranboo nudged him again and put a finger to his bandages to

signal Charlie be quiet. Charlie looked back at the chess game and saw Valkyrat move her

rook diagonally. Oh, of course. He should've guessed that neither of them knew a thing about

playing chess.

But Ranboo was definitely right, this was entertaining, and for a while they had some fun

poking fun at Sneeg and watching the nonsensical game unfold. Valkyrat won in the end, as

Charlie had expected, and she'd also gotten a meal out of it. If that was the only chess set they

had then he guessed they wouldn't be able to have a rematch anytime soon.

The evening drew closer and the rats said goodbye as they descended into the basement.

Sneeg left soon after and Ranboo lingered in the living room as Charlie got ready to go to

bed- or would he have to say 'go to couch'? No, that definitely didn't sound right.

"U ok?" Ranboo wrote.

Charlie thought for a second, then nodded and smiled.

"Yeah. I'm good"

Chapter End Notes

Ty everyone for all the kudos and comments :D

I haven't posted writing stuff like this before so it makes me so happy to see that u all

like my silly story 3

Chapter 4- Road

Chapter Summary

The gang decides to go on a road trip. Nothing will go wrong, surely..?

Part 1/2 of the road trip.

Chapter Notes

See the end of the chapter for notes

The rats didn't really know what death was, but they sure were glad that it wasn't something

that applied to them. It didn't really sound like a good thing.

It had been about a month since the five first arrived at the house, not that anyone had made

any sort of attempt to keep track. Not much had been happening, which was a good thing by

all of their standards, but a few days ago Valkyrat had suggested a road trip. "Sounds good,"

was the general reaction.

This morning she had gotten up early to get ready. Road trip day was a big day, she had to be

prepared. Out of the basement and through the living room she went, careful to go quietly

and not disturb Charlie who was sleeping on the couch, book open on his chest that he had no

doubt fallen asleep in the middle of reading.

She wasn't sure what time it was, but as she opened the door she saw the sun starting to rise

over the fields and fields of something that looked similar to wheat. First it was a red, which

looked a little scary, but as Valkyrat lingered in the doorway to watch the sunrise it faded to a

golden yellow that made the fields look like they were glowing. She stepped out and looked

up, seeing the whole sky enveloped in that yellow glow that slowly faded into a blue that

somehow still seemed warm.

In the last few weeks she had become familiar with sunsets, and it was almost every other

night that the five of them sat outside and talked until every last glow had faded from the sky,

signalling the time for them to return to the house. But she had never seen the sunrise yet,

none of them had alarms and they all slept late into the morning each day. This day, however,

she had gotten up in time to see it. She was too excited for the road trip to be asleep that long.

She then remembered why she had gone outside in the first place and headed over to the car.

Sneeg had used a lot of fuel to drive as far as he could from the mall, but Valkyrat

remembered there were some containers of what she thought might be fuel in the trunk, so

she went to retrieve them.

As she rounded the car her ears perked up and her head followed. There were some weird

noises coming from the fields. They weren't off-putting, it was just something she wasn't used

to hearing. Was it...bugs?

From the field before her came all kinds of chirps and clicks that made the silent morning

less lonely. They must be having a party or something in there. Good for them.

Valkyrat retrieved the containers and got to work trying to find where the fuel went. She

knew that cars had holes where the fuel was supposed to go but there was nothing on the

outside that seemed to resemble that, only a bunch of lines in the metal and a weird circular

one. She wondered what that might be for but didn't linger on it for long, she needed to get

this fuel in.

She couldn't find anything on the outside so she decided it must be inside the car. The doors

were unlocked so she hopped in and started sniffing around. The last owner hadn't left

anything in the pockets of the chairs or around the sides which Valkyrat found quite sad as

she would've liked to find more random things to add to her collection.

After a while of fruitless searching she perked up at a noise from the house and saw Ranboo

emerging. She waved and scurried back into the back seats to leave through the door she

came into.

Ranboo's wounds had thankfully been healing, and a few days ago they could take the

bandages off the top half of his head. They decided to leave the bandages over his mouth

since that still needed more time to heal.

Puncture wounds were still visible all across his head but for the most part they had closed

up. A few weeks ago Ranboo might've been able to fit half a finger in there- not that they

would've tried doing that. That would be pretty painful.

Their vocal chords had been healing too, but they'd been advised to keep using the paper and

pen anyways. It wouldn't do him any good to put strain on it.

"What r u doing?" He wrote.

"We gotta get ready for the road trip! I've been trying to find the place where the fuel goes

but I can't find it..." Valkyrat admitted.

Ranboo hoarsely laughed and came over to help her. They took the container, quickly

checked that it was actually fuel, and went over to the circle in the side of the car that

somehow opened up into the hole Valkyrat had been looking for.

"Whoa!" she exclaimed, "so that's where it was, huh?"

She wandered over and watched as Ranboo poured the fuel in until it was full. When they

were done she excitedly held out her hand for a high five. Ranboo was caught off guard at

first, but then high fived her, which resulted in an excited squeak from Valkyrat.

"Yeah! We did it! Teamwork!" she celebrated, but stopped when she hear more movement

from inside the house, "oops, too loud"

Sneeg emerged next, adjusting his hat and still looking half asleep. His exhaustion turned to

confusion when he saw it was Valkyrat and Ranboo standing outside.

"What, you guys doing a drug deal out here, or somethin'?" he asked.

"We're getting ready for the road trip!" Valkyrat explained, "gotta make sure everything's

prepared!"

Ranboo held up a note saying "volume" and Valkyrat squeaked in apology, realising Charlie

was probably still asleep.

"Oh, right, we were gonna do that," Sneeg said, "alright, I'll go get the list"

"The list..?" Valkyrat inquired.

"Yeah, don't wanna forget anything before we go so I made a list of everything we need.

Charlie's lucky that he's still asleep because you two are gonna help me gather it all," he

replied with some smug threat laced into the last few words. Valkyrat considered running

away to avoid responsibilities, but there wasn't exactly anywhere to run to here, so she

dramatically hung her head as she followed Sneeg and Ranboo back inside.

It turned out that she was right to fear the list, as it was about two pages too long.

"When did u write all this?" Ranboo held up, the handwriting looking shakier than normal as

they beheld the monumental list.

"Mostly on the day that the road trip was suggested, but I added things here and there when I

remembered. It's not just things, mind you, we've got tasks to do as well"

"Can't we just...y'know...start driving?" Valkyrat suggested in desperation.

"And what, get stranded in the middle of nowhere? If we don't check the tires one of them

could go flat, forget to pack enough drinks and we're risking dehydration out there. Not

gonna take any risks"

Valkyrat sighed and nodded, taking one of the three pieces of paper as Sneeg and Ranboo

took the other two. She scanned the list to try and see what was in store...

Trail mix, of course, "check the tires", paper bags, wrench...duct tape? Why the heck were

they gonna need duct tape?

"Y'know what," Valkyrat thought, "I'm sure that we're only gonna need about five of the

things on here. If I miss out a few it'll even make the car lighter, then we can go full speed!"

And with that she set off, determined to find...almost everything on the list. She was sure

Sneeg wouldn't mind.

Once she was done going to every corner of the house in search of the wild assortment of

items, making sure to tiptoe through the living room and basement to not disturb either

Charlie or Ratkkuno, she returned to the car to do her checks.

Windows were clean, tires were good- she even asked Ranboo to roll the car forwards a little

so she could check the undersides- and once all that was done it sounded like Charlie was

finally waking up. Well, she had gotten most of her third of the list done, so everything would

surely be fine.

Excitedly she dragged Ratkkuno out of the basement and after breakfast everyone was

gathered and ready to go.

"Alright, road trip time!" Sneeg announced, spinning the keys in his hand as he strode over to

the driver's seat. Charlie sat in the passenger seat and the other three huddled into the back

with Ranboo in the middle.

Snacks, water, a piece of paper for Charlie to try and draw their path onto (they couldn't find

a map), Sneeg made his final checks before deciding they were good to go.

"Wait-!" he suddenly stopped himself with the key in the ignition, startling everyone in the

car, "seatbelts"

The other four sighed in relief, but also mild annoyance as they all fastened their seatbelts.

"Jeez, none of you ever heard of safety? You'd better be glad I'm here," he laughed, turning

the keys and sparking the engine into action.

With a triumphant vroom the car shifted into motion and drove down the road, leaving their

house behind for the day. The mood shifted just as quickly from tiredness as everyone looked

at the bright fields going by and got excited with the prospect of brand new sights.

"So, Valkyrat," Charlie sparked the first conversation, "what made you wanna do a road trip"

"Cars go so fast!" she replied, "I've always wanted to go this fast on my own, but my legs

don't spin really fast in circles like wheels do, heh"

She leaned over Ranboo a little as she talked to make sure her words reached Charlie and saw

him writing notes and drawing arrows on the vague sketch they had of the surrounding

landscape. The road out here only went in one direction, and seemed to do so forever, but

they still wanted to note down landmarks and directions incase they turned off the road at any

point and needed help getting back. And by "they", Valkyrat probably meant Sneeg.

Valkyrat realised she probably shouldn't be judging Sneeg so much, there were much worse

things to be than careful. It was probably just some bitterness she had over the list of tasks he

made her do.

"Yeah, it is pretty cool to be able to go so fast. I can't really remember the last time I was in a

car before all this," Charlie mentioned, then regret subtly washed over his face. There was a

moment of tension in the car- of course, none of them could remember things like that. But

the moment passed.

"Do you guys think this is all farmland or something? If it is then this is, like, way too much

bread..." Sneeg observed, looking over all the fields that surrounded them on every side.

"Thought we would've seen some tractors out here by now if they were. It's so weirdly quiet

out here," Charlie replied.

"Its peaceful though," Ranboo wrote on a note that he passed to Charlie to read out to Sneeg,

who nodded.

"Yeah, I don't think I mind the quiet," Sneeg said.

The noise in the car returned to just the humming of the engine and the tyres on the road as

everyone gazed out the windows, all in their own thoughts. Even Sneeg seemed to have his

attention drawn by something in his own head, although it wasn't a particularly hard road to

follow so he wouldn't need all his attention on it anyway.

Time passed and eventually Charlie suggested they stop to eat. Sneeg pulled over into one of

the fields since it would be nicer to set up a picnic there than on the road.

Everyone got out and Ratkkuno helped Ranboo set out the picnic blanket whilst Valkyrat

gathered the snacks. Charlie and Sneeg seemed to be having a chat so Valkyrat didn't

interrupt.

Before long they had set up the picnic and Charlie and Sneeg came over to join the three of

them, at which point they all dug into the food. Valkyrat was quite hungry after all the

excitement so she had to keep reminding herself not to eat it all herself. Sneeg would

probably get mad at her if she did that.

"U guys know any games we could play?" Ranboo asked.

Sneeg grinned and went to open the car's trunk. Of course, he had been prepared for that too.

When he returned he was holding some wooden sticks in one arm and rings in the other.

"Ring toss!" Ratkkuno seemed quite excited by the game, "where'd you find that?"

"There is so much random shit to find in that house I'm telling you. But hey, I'm not

complaining if it's just shit like ring toss" Sneeg said.

He set it up and gave everyone a ring. Ranboo went first.

They missed.

"Dude, this game is so easy, how did you not even hit the closest ones?" Charlie taunted.

Ranboo spun around, the offence evident on his face.

"Yeah dude, this shit's easy, watch," Sneeg boasted, taking a step forwards to go next.

He missed.

"Lol" Ranboo wrote.

"T-that's just because I was going for one of the further ones! Yours didn't even get far!"

Sneeg tried to explain, but Charlie had already turned on him.

"Alright, alright you guys, lemme show you how a real pro does it," he said with confidence,

taking an exaggerated pose of preparation before throwing.

He missed.

Ranboo had to try and stop himself from laughing too hard otherwise it could hurt, but Sneeg

was already roaring with laughter the moment his ring landed right next to one of the sticks.

"Hey, I still missed less bad than Ranboo, y'know?" Charlie tried to defend, but his words

weren't really reaching the two of them.

Whilst those three tried to justify being so terrible at throwing, or rather how great they were

at "throwing", Valkyrat stepped up to take her turn. She raised her arm with the ring held

firm, prepared to release it as she threw down her hand, and...

(Throwing is a term sometimes used to say that someone is deliberately failing at a task,

hope this helped ])

...she managed to hook it on one of the furthest poles.

"Oh! That's good, right?" she looked to Ratkkuno who was nodding proudly, "oh, yes! I did

it, wahoo!"

The other three were put into a few moments of stunned silence as they looked at the ring so

gracefully tossed onto one of the highest scoring poles.

"Uh...beginner's luck, beginner's luck," Sneeg dismissed as he went back behind Ratkkuno

for the next round. Now it was Ratkkuno's turn to throw, so he raised his ring up, and threw.

He also landed it on a pole.

"W-what the hell?! Are you guys using cheats?" Sneeg accused. Ranboo laughed again in a

raspy voice.

"U guys suck lol," they wrote.

"Hey, so did you," Charlie pointed out.

"At least I didnt throw a tantrum over it :)"

"I did not-!" Sneeg stopped himself mid sentence and huffed, "you guys are so mean..."

Ranboo smiled and took a ring to throw for round 2, and so the game continued.

Valkyrat won in the end, which she was very excited about, but Sneeg said he was going to

sue her for using cheats. Whatever that meant.

They all took a break to lie around for a bit and enjoy the bright afternoon. Valkyrat started

making snow angels- more accurately, grass angels- and the others lay down, while Sneeg

stayed sitting up.

Valkyrat began to think about things while she looked up at the sky. She wondered what she

might do tomorrow, what they'd be doing in a month...how long would would they be staying

in that house? Would they ever leave that house?

She didn't hate the idea of being there forever, exactly, but the Puzzler would probably have

something to say about it. He might've been looking down at her now from that big, great sky

and saying something like, "you shouldn't be lazing around, you should be working on

puzzles! You haven't even gotten close to your puzzle quota for the month!"

She sighed. The mystical sky Puzzler was right, she had completely forgotten about her

puzzling responsibilities since she had gotten out of the mall with Ratkkuno. But if she was

happy to be rid of her responsibilities, did that mean she was also happy to be rid of the

Puzzler..? No, that couldn't be right! She would never think that about the puzzler! Sure, he

could be quite unusual, and demanding, and careless, and she did sometimes question the

difficulty of some puzzles, but he was the Puzzler! He may have been all of those things,

but...he taught her everything she knew. And she was thankful for that.

She was broken from her thoughts as she saw Sneeg getting up and stretching in the corner of

her eye.

"I suppose we should start heading back before it gets dark, don't wanna be driving at night

or anything," he explained, walking towards the car. One by one the others began to arise, not

in any kind of rush to get up.

"...oh shit," Valkyrat suddenly heard from behind her. She turned and saw Sneeg looking at

the car, and something seemed to be worrying him.

"What's the matter?" she asked as she wandered over.

"Something happened to the tyre, it's deflated almost completely," he said, poking the tire to

demonstrate.

"Huh?! No way, how did that happen?" Valkyrat exclaimed in shock and annoyance. She

checked the tires before they left, but one had still gotten punctured? They were in a field, she

wasn't expecting anything that sharp to even be here! Jeez, she'd really messed up this

time...what would the Puzzler think of her...

The others started to approach in more of a rush to see what was going on.

"So, I'm guessing we can't drive like that, right?" Charlie asked.

"No, shit...b-but it's fine, we have stuff to fix this with," Sneeg reassured himself, "we've got

an air pump and when we find the hole we've got some duct tape to seal it"

Oh.

"Guess that list wasnt for nothing," Ranboo held up with a chuckle.

Oh no.

"Alright, where would they be..." Sneeg said to himself, rifling through the trunk,

"hm...Valkyrat, you had the duct tape, didn't you? You remember where you put it?"

She had REALLY messed up this time.

"Ah, heheh, uh," she stuttered, not really sure how to break the news, "well, I, uh...I didn't

bring it"

"You. What."

Chapter End Notes

Apologies for the cliffhanger but I thought it would be fun to make the road trip a 2

parter!

Little bit of incoming angst in part 2 though :)

Chapter 5- Trip

Chapter Summary

The gang is stranded far from their home. Hopefully this doesn't cause too many

problems.

Part 2/2 of the road trip.

Chapter Notes

Little angst warning for this one ;)

See the end of the chapter for more notes

It had taken about five minutes for Sneeg to stop pacing.

"I made that list for a reason, Valkyrat! Everything was on there for a reason! And you just

thought it was okay to ignore the duct tape?!" He complained, looking out into the fields and

the sky rather than Valkyrat, who was sat with her head down by the deflated tyre.

"I...I also didn't bring the rope," Valkyrat admitted.

Sneeg screamed into his hands.

Ratkkuno winced. He needed to tell Valkyrat one day that she was too honest for her own

good.

So there the five of them were, stranded in a field in the middle of nowhere and currently

without any way to get home. Breaking down wasn't an uncommon thing, so it might've

seemed unusual for each of them to be so stressed and scared, but this wasn't just being

broken down; this was being trapped, with no way out, defenceless in an unfamiliar

environment. A mall or a field, it was shocking how quickly they could turn into hell.

"We never should've gone on this road trip...maybe we should've just left you locked in the

basement," Sneeg complained.

"Hey!" Ratkkuno interjected, standing between him and Valkyrat, "stop now, that was

uncalled for!"

"Yeah? Who suggested this road trip?" Sneeg argued, "and who was the one who decided not

to bring half of the shit she was told to? Because I know it wasn't me!"

Ratkkuno heard a sniff from Valkyrat behind him and his hair stood on end. He had to stop

himself from snarling.

"Guys, please," Charlie stepped in before it devolved into a screaming contest, "this isn't

helping! There's no use in being angry about what's happened. Let's just find a way to get

back, okay?"

"Fine, you got any ideas?" Sneeg asked with an edge of sarcasm which Charlie tried to

ignore.

"I mean, if worst comes to worst we can make our way back eventually by walking, but I'm

sure there's other ways to fix the tyre," he thought for a moment, then turned to Ranboo, "you

got any ideas..?"

Ranboo shook his head.

"Great, so we're walking. We're fucking walking through this place, no, yeah, perfect," Sneeg

ran his hand through his hair and turned around for the fourth time in a minute.

"What's your problem, Sneeg?" Charlie asked, trying not to sound confrontational but not

really having any way around it, "we're all in this situation too, you know"

"Well at least I was trying to do something to prevent shit like this! None of you had bothered

to plan what to bring, half of you were asleep while we were getting ready and one of you

actively got us into this mess!" Sneeg's last comment provoking a growl from Ratkkuno.

"Flat tires barely happen, this wasn't anyone's fault, this was just bad luck!" Charlie reasoned.

"We were never gonna use half the stuff on that list anyway!" Ranboo aggressively held up

for Sneeg to see.

"What, so now you're all calling me an asshole for wanting to keep us all safe? Gee, thanks

guys, real great," Sneeg spat.

"If we're calling you an asshole then it's because of how you're acting now, trying to blame

someone! Valkyrat obviously didn't want this outcome, Sneeg, none of us did!" Charlie

pointed over to Valkyrat, who was still looking at the ground and trying not to be involved in

the argument.

Ratkkuno looked over and decided to crouch by her. As the other three continued their

furious arguing and scribbling, he gave Valkyrat a light nudge. She angled her head just

enough to see Ratkkuno, and he angled his head in return, as if to ask "is everything ok?".

Valkyrat's eyes wandered and she paused a while, eventually shaking her head and putting it

back between her knees, which she had wrapped her arms around like she was trying to be as

small as she could.

Ratkkuno looked down as well, before the shouting from the trio grabbed his attention once

more.

"-and we would be going home right now if you had all just listened, but you guys never

fucking listen! When all I'm trying to do is help, why do you always ignore me?!" Sneeg was

demanding.

"Because checking all the doors and windows every night isn't helping, Sneeg! Keeping a

box cutter under the fucking couch isn't helping, it's making me feel worse, and I can tell that

it isn't making you feel any better either!

"I get it, I really do, I get that you don't want what happened there to ever happen again, but if

you keep worrying about every tiny little thing you're only gonna wear yourself down until it

fucking breaks you! You're worried about us Sneeg but for once would you fucking worry

about yourself?!" Charlie gave in response. Sneeg couldn't reply for a second so took to

scowling instead, but it was enough time for Ranboo to add his own piece.

"U always say ur fine but I can hear you when u wake up from ur nightmares at 3am. I can

see that limp u always try to hide and I notice u flinching whenever anything creaks. We dont

want u to be perfect and fearless. We want u to be honest with us"

Sneeg was once again hesitant to reply when he had finished reading, so Ranboo flipped the

page.

"Because ur our friend"

Sneeg bit his lip and looked away. The echoes of their screaming faded away into the

landscape and left the silence that made every new noise sound magnified. Sneeg covered his

eyes but they could all hear his sniff that drifted on the light wind.

"I-I just wanna...I just wanted to- to keep us all safe..." he explained shakily.

"We'll feel safer when you're not worrying yourself to death, Sneeg," Charlie assured him.

"How am I not supposed to worry, Charlie..? We don't know where we are, or what the fuck

is even going on here, how the fuck am I supposed to-?!"

"Hey, hey, stop, it's okay," Charlie put a hand on Sneeg's shoulder, "we can't do anything

about it, can we?"

"W-well, yeah, that's kinda the issue," Sneeg replied with a confused laugh.

"Well then there's nothing we can do. So don't worry," Charlie said, as though it were just as

simple as that.

"Wh...what do you mean..?" Sneeg asked.

"I mean don't worry. You don't have much control over anything right now, and that's fine. As

long as we're not in that mall, it seems like we're safe, and we've been safe for a month now.

So if there's nothing we could or should be doing, then there's no point worrying over any of

it, right?"

"Uh...I, uh...I guess?" Sneeg still seemed to be processing the suggestion.

"If anyone evil shows up then we'll kick their ass for u dw," Ranboo added.

Sneeg let out a quiet laugh, and then a few more quiet tears.

"There's just...we got out of that place, but what if...w-what if they-?" Sneeg began.

"Then we'll deal with it when it happens, Sneeg. We can't be prepared for everything. And

that's alright," Charlie smiled warmly and suddenly Sneeg was hugging him, which he

returned after a moment to realise what was going on. Ranboo joined, then Ratkkuno, then

Valkyrat followed after, until the five of them were in a big hugging huddle.

"T-thank you...you guys," Sneeg sniffed, a little muffled by everyone surrounding him. They

all returned the love with a hug twice as tight.

~*~

The sun had passed overhead now and was lowering ever closer towards the horizon. Sneeg

and Valkyrat sat near each other in the field and Ratkkuno stayed at a bit of a distance,

playing with the grass as he listened in. He knew Sneeg had wanted to talk just to apologise,

but he couldn't help being protective after the argument earlier.

"I...what I said back then...I'm sorry, I wasn't thinking, and I know that's not really an excuse,

but I was being stupid and didn't realise what I was saying," Sneeg tried to explain.

Valkyrat nodded, "sometimes you got too much going on in your head to think, and that's

ok!"

"I- yeah, but, I said some really mean stuff, and now matter how stupid I know it was now, I

still said it, y'know? You're not really gonna let it go that easily, are you?" Sneeg doubted.

"You said you're sorry, so it's fine! I know you're a good guy!" Valkyrat said with a smile.

Sneeg looked sheepish and turned his head down to look away from Valkyrat.

"You're really gonna forgive me so soon..?" He asked.

"Mhm!" Valkyrat nodded with enthusiasm, "we're all friends here, and I know friends don't

hold grudges!"

Now it was Ratkkuno's turn to look down bashfully. He knew he wasn't going to be on good

terms with Sneeg so easily; he knew better than to be sarcastic or rude towards him, but he

would probably try to avoid conversation where he could. Just an apology wouldn't be

enough for him to forgive the sadness that had been strewn across Valkyrat's face only an

hour ago.

Ratkkuno decided to get up and check out what Charlie and Ranboo were doing, since they

were making some noise back near the car.

"-still works?" he heard the end of Charlie's question.

Ranboo held up a sign too far for him to read but he saw Charlie shrug in response to it.

"Eh, suppose we might as well give it a try," Charlie said as he hopped into the driver's seat

and Ranboo stayed leaning on the open door.

"What're you doing over here..?" Ratkkuno inquired as he approached.

Charlie looked up in surprise, "oh, uh, we were just wondering if we could get the radio to

work. We didn't try it on the way here since we figured a quiet drive would be nice but we

could play some tunes while we're out here like a mini concert in the field!"

Ranboo nodded, holding up, "I shotgun choosing the song we listen to on the drive back"

"Hey, no fair! I'm in the passenger seat so that means I should get radio duty, right?" Charlie

reasoned.

"Nope I shotgunned it first hehe :)" Ranboo wrote.

"You even added the evil smiley face? Not cool dude..." Charlie sighed, resigning himself to

his radio shotgun-less fate.

He turned back to the radio and looked over the dials before putting his finger up to one.

"Okay, this might be the button...here goes nothing," Charlie said, and pressed in the button.

The radio screen above it lit up, however the sound was only static for a few moments.

Until...

" Doot doot dee doot, doot de doot- "

"Oh, yes! What is this, the kazoo station or something? Whatever, I like it!" Charlie

celebrated as Ranboo rounded the car and got in the passenger seat to get at the radio too.

After a few more seconds of hearing unusual kazoo music they had analysed the controls and

clicked a button. The static returned for a few moments.

"You better not have broken it..." Charlie warned.

But then-

" -JORT STORM, JORT STORM'S COMIN' TO- "

Ranboo switched the station again.

"Hey, I was liking that one!" Charlie complained.

"Too intense /" Ranboo wrote as they waited for the next station to connect.

" -ell me is it normal, to totally lose your mind, I won't announce my sheer descent but holy

FU- "

Charlie switched it this time, "sorry, I think I heard that somewhere before, had a bit of

profanity in it"

"We're all adults" Ranboo wrote, giving Charlie a quizzical stare as he showed it.

"You might be, but I dunno how old Ratkkuno here is. Last I heard, rat lifespans don't even

go up to eighteen," Charlie looked over to Ratkkuno to check he was right. Ratkkuno

nodded- he was, technically, right.

" -ied to call you everyday, I'm rehearsing what to say, when the truth comes out (of my very

own mouth) "

Charlie went to change the station again but Ranboo slapped his hand away. Seemed like this

was the song they were gonna listen to.

Ranboo did turn the volume down, though, as he saw Sneeg and Valkyrat walking over to the

car.

"So...would you guys be okay with us, like, camping out here tonight? And we can think

more about how to get back home tomorrow?" he suggested.

Charlie looked to Ranboo, then back to Sneeg, "yeah, I don't think that's a problem. Camping

out kinda sounds like fun!"

Ranboo gave a thumbs up and Ratkkuno nodded as well, he thought the idea didn't sound too

bad.

For a while afterwards they all stayed by the car, listening to music, eating what remained of

the snacks and talking about nothing in particular. Ratkkuno only realised how late it had

gotten when he looked back at the sun and saw it was less than an hour away from touching

the horizon.

They had brought some blankets, so after laying those out on a flat patch of field everyone

decided where they would be sleeping and settled down. Ratkkuno sat down next to Valkyrat

and saw Charlie going for a wander through the field before he joined them.

"It's nice that we can watch the sunset each night...it's always so pretty," Ratkkuno

commented, gazing off into the reds and oranges that faded into the sky.

"The first time will always be the best for me, though. That's when it felt...real. Like it finally

hit me that we were here, and it somewhere else. If that makes sense," Sneeg rambled.

Ranboo nodded in agreement. Valkyrat hummed a tune to herself.

After a few moments Ranboo reached for their notebook and placed down a question so that

everyone could peer over to see it.

"Do u think we'll ever get bored of the sunset?"

There was silence for a bit as they processed the question, and Valkyrat offered a response

first.

"I guess, but there's always more things that you can find that are just as pretty. When you

stop wanting to see the sunset you can start watching the sunrise, which I think is very pretty

too! We'll never run out of stuff to love when we all have each other, hehe!" Valkyrat

would've admitted that the end of her speech was a little cheesy.

Ranboo started to move their pen again, but stopped.

"What is it?" Sneeg asked. Ranboo shook his head.

"Don't worry man, you can ask us anything," Sneeg assured him. Ranboo hesitated, but then

wrote their question.

"Do u think we'll ever get bored of freedom?"

There was a longer silence this time as they thought.

"We...shouldn't have needed to be entertained by freedom in the first place. I think the day we

stop thinking about the fact that we're free now is, y'know, the day that we've kinda gone

back to normal. What we should've been like without all...this," Sneeg said and looked to

Ranboo. Ranboo seemed to be thinking about it and slowly nodded, as much to himself as to

Sneeg.

The sound of the breeze brushing through the fields faded and was replaced by careful

stepping as Charlie made his way back to the others. They all looked over, Sneeg noticing

that he was holding something.

"What did you find?" he asked.

Charlie got out of the tall grass and held it up, "I, uh...there was just some...duck tape? Just

kinda lying in the field pretty close by?" he still seemed confused by the fact that he'd found

it, but they all looked over and it was, inexplicably, duct tape.

Ratkkuno looked quizzically at Valkyrat, who simply shrugged.

"Well...I guess we found how we're gonna repair the car then, huh," Sneeg laughed quietly in

disbelief.

"Yeah, but...it's getting kinda dark now. We could fix it in the morning? I mean, we're all

ready to sleep here tonight, so..?" Charlie hesitantly suggested.

Sneeg nodded, "yeah, it'll be easier to fix it in the morning since we can see what we're

doing," he added.

Charlie smiled and sat with the rest of them, "sleeping under the stars is pretty cool, huh?"

"Heh, yeah it is! There's so many constellations, too...I bet I can find one that looks like a

rat!" Valkyrat gloated.

The starts gradually began to fade into the sky, one by one, as the sun finally faded out of

view and the warm reds receded below the horizon. Ratkkuno looked up from the sunset and

even more stars were appearing, the brightest easiest to see but millions more were in

between them once his eyes started to adjust.

Valkyrat was trying to point out the rat-like shapes in the sky, but everyone else was

struggling to pick up on what exactly she was seeing. Ranboo was drawing the ones he

found, and Sneeg had found one that looked like a penis, which he seemed quite proud of.

Ratkkuno, meanwhile, was on a search for the brightest star. It was hard to tell, since he

would look at one and then in the corner of his eye see one that looked brighter, but once he

looked at that there would once again be an even brighter one somewhere in the distance.

Eventually he settled on one that was near to the penis Sneeg found, and wondered if he

could find a constellation with it too. Lots of shapes appeared and disappeared, lines forming

and fading between the stars as his mind played with ideas of what it could be.

He couldn't settle on an idea before falling asleep, and soon the five of them were sleeping

under the stars, the warm breeze drifting on through the field.

Chapter End Notes

Sleepover!!

Chapter 6- Mall

Chapter Summary

The gang returns home, and encounters something that Charlie in particular had been

trying to avoid.

Chapter Notes

Welcome to the chapter where I learnt how to use italics lmao (at least I hope I did)

See the end of the chapter for more notes

There was blood. A lot of blood.

No, it didn't look like blood, it never did, but Charlie knew beneath that sickly green illusion

was a stark red.

It was his own blood...why did they never even let him see his own blood..?

It was cold. Where was he? He was in the house...no, they were all in that field...but this

wasn't the field. Had he woken up somewhere else entirely?

No, he shouldn't focus on that, he was bleeding. The wound on his chest had reopened and

the slime-blood was pouring down onto the table he lay on like he was some sort of endless

fountain. He tried using his hands to close the wound or at least put pressure on it but nothing

worked, it continued to pour out in-between his fingers and with the blood coating his fingers

he couldn't even get a good grip.

Someone was approaching. Charlie looked over in hope. From the darkness emerged a figure.

It was Ranboo.

"R-Ranboo? Ranboo, please, help me, it's- I don't know what happened b-but-" Charlie

stumbled over his words, still fumbling with his own organs as they tried to worm their way

out. He felt like he could be sick.

Ranboo didn't respond. He looked back at Ranboo. Ranboo was holding forceps.

"No, no- Ranboo, please, no, PLEASE-" Charlie begged, trying to move away but something

stuck him to the table and forced him to remain as Ranboo approached. They looked soulless,

their eyes so blank they might as well have not had any.

Charlie cried and kicked and screamed. It didn't matter as Ranboo dug out each organ, one by

one, his hands becoming coated in that same vivid green as Charlie's.

Charlie cried and begged. Ranboo didn't hear him.

Charlie cried. The tears were warm. If the feeling of something real hadn't pulled him out of

this nightmare then he may have been on that table far longer.

As he woke up he had to realise what was real. The tears were real, he was certain, but

everything else that he just saw- his wound, the blood. He could tell himself it wasn't real but

he still grabbed it to be sure. The stitches were still there. He was fine.

Another thing he realised was real were the four people staring at him, in a mixture of fear

and concern. Or rather, two people and two people-ish rats.

Sneeg and Ranboo were right by his side, and the pressure on his shoulders he discovered to

be Ranboo's hands. They must have been trying to shake him awake.

He wasn't on a table, he was in a field. The sun was rising. This was real. He was fine.

"Charlie..? Are you okay?" Sneeg asked. Charlie took a second to realise he was being talked

to.

"Huh-? I, yeah, uh, I'm fine, I'm...I'm all good," he responded, moving to sit up. Ranboo

helped to raise him up, to which he nodded in thanks.

"Seemed like a pretty wild nightmare...you sure it's fine..?" Sneeg checked. Before he replied,

Charlie realised there were still tears running down his face, which he quickly wiped away.

"I'm good, Sneeg. It's just a nightmare, y'know?" he smiled, trying as best he could to relieve

Sneeg's concerns. Sneeg, to his disappointment, didn't look convinced.

Guess it was time to change the subject.

"We were gonna go back to the house today, right? We should start fixing the car now in case

something happens and it takes a while," Charlie diverted. He tried not to look at anyone's

faces as he picked up the duct tape that he left nearby and headed over to the car. He didn't

want to see them all looking at him like he was the most pitiful creature they'd ever seen.

After a moment he heard the rats coming to help him. Ranboo was probably talking with

Sneeg about him. Great.

Seriously, can he just not freak out, once? It was a goddamn nightmare, and he just had to

make a scene in front of all of them. It was like his efforts in trying to forget every last thing

about Showfall went to waste the moment he fell asleep.

It wasn't the first, no, of course it wasn't the first time that he'd had that nightmare. He had

one every few days, and that one- the one in that fucking surgery room- was the most

common. Out of the ones he could remember. He dreaded to think how many times he woke

up in a cold sweat each night that his mind had the sympathy to let him forget.

He and the rats looked over the wheel and saw that the puncture wasn't underneath, but they

would still need to move the car to be able to fix it easier. Valkyrat skipped back to Sneeg and

Ranboo and asked for one of them to help drive it.

Charlie glanced at Ratkkuno. "I think we're gonna have to come to terms with what happened

eventually," he had said on the first day they encountered in the house. He felt a little bad for

telling such a blunt lie.

"You guys need me to move the car?" Sneeg asked, Ranboo following him over to the car

lazily. Charlie nodded.

"Yeah, it's a little cut near the bottom, we can get the tape on better if you just back the car up

a little bit," Charlie requested.

"No problem," Sneeg obliged with a grin, spinning the keys around his finger as he went to

the driver's seat.

Once the car was moved he could also get a better look at the cut. It still have him no better

idea of what could've done it, but it was notably thin and not too rough around the edges. But

he didn't know much about how car tyres usually tore, so maybe that was normal.

As he and Ratkkuno affixed the tape, Sneeg fished around for the air pump. Duct tape

wouldn't hold up forever but they were at least hoping for it to last until they got back home.

And if it came off, they could just put more on. The wonders of duct tape.

The tape was placed, the tyre was being pumped up, everything was good. Soon they would

be back on the road. It was almost as if that nightmare had never happened.

And Charlie really did wish it had never happened.

"Uh...that should be good?" Sneeg looked for affirmation as he stepped away from the tyre. It

seemed to be holding up, and was about as inflated as the rest, so Ranboo gave a thumbs up.

The sun was steadily rising as they all hopped back into the car, taking the same positions as

they had the day before, Charlie in the passenger seat reaching for the map he'd drawn to help

them get back.

"Alright, everyone ready? Seatbelts?" Sneeg checked as he adjusted the mirror and raised his

eyebrow to the three in the reflection, sitting huddled in the back. They all responded with

sighs as they clicked their seatbelts into place.

"Alright, once we get back onto the road, we pass by seven houses, and then we should be

back at home," Charlie announced, just ready to get back somewhere familiar. It had been

nice out here, but he'd felt uneasy. It was probably more open of a space than he was used to.

"Okay then, if everyone's ready, let's go!" Sneeg said with enthusiasm, shifting the car into

motion and leaving that little patch of field behind.

On the way back they had the radio playing, not particularly loud, but the humm of music

helped fill the comfortable silence between then. They passed by the first house and Charlie

crossed it off his map.

Then, after a few more minutes of driving, Sneeg slowed down.

"Uh...any reason we're stopping, Sneeg..?" Charlie asked, confused. Sneeg didn't reply, he

was looking at something in the distance, but he didn't peer or lean in, as if he was worried to

get any closer.

"The car didn't break again, did it?" Valkyrat leaned over to squeeze her head past the seat in

front and try to get a look at what was going on.

"Charlie, you...you said we passed seven houses on the way here, right?" asked Sneeg,

sounding worried.

"Yeah? We went past seven of them, not including the one we're staying at"

"And we only just went past the first one, right?"

"...yeah?"

"Then what's that?"

Charlie leaned forward and squinted to see what Sneeg was talking about, then his eyes went

wider than they had been before and he pushed himself back into his seat as if to try and hide

in it.

"That...no, that's not, that's-" he stumbled.

"That wasn't there before, right? I'm not going crazy, right?" Sneeg asked but didn't seem to

be looking for an answer from any of the other four. Ratkkuno peered around the seat to see

what the two were looking at as well.

Charlie could tell that Ranboo was seeing it just fine. Why else would they have started

hyperventilating.

It was small and distant, but...he immediately knew how big that building was up close. And

it wasn't somewhere he had been wanting to return to anytime soon. It wasn't somewhere he

wanted to see ever, ever fucking again.

That cursed fucking mall.

The car was silent. He only realised the radio had gone quiet when it started to fuzz again,

something distorted and unintelligible coming through from the other side.

He wanted to turn it off, but he couldn't move. Would the mall start to get closer if he took his

eyes off it? That sounded stupid, but what else could he expect at this point?

"Why is it...there..?" Sneeg mumbled. Nobody replied. Nobody knew.

"Great, yeah, no, fucking fantastic. This is just wonderful," Charlie spat out. He wanted to

scream. He wanted to give the same pain to Showfall that they'd given to him. He needed to

grab something and tear it apart but his hands remained at his sides. Shaking.

"Ok, well, clearly we don't wanna go that way, so...let's just head back to that house we went

past, shall we? I'm sure that one has supplies too," Valkyrat suggested, taking the situation far

better than anyone else in the car.

Sneeg nodded slowly like he was being pulled out of a dream- although more likely a

nightmare- and was raising his hands to the wheel as the radio suddenly made its presence

known, the static raising up all of a sudden and then dropping down, as if it had just cleared

its throat.

Sneeg paused, and then-

"-ey're within range? Fucking finally, are we-? Oh shit, we're going through? Ranboo,

Charlie, Sneeg, can you hear me?"

All three of them seemed to flinch at the mention of their names from a female voice none of

them had ever heard before.

The car was silent besides the quiet static still coming through at a lower volume from the

radio. What the fuck was going on..?

"Hello, am I coming through? You can reply, this radio works both ways. They've been using

it to listen in on you"

Charlie turned off the radio.

"Hey, uh...that sounded important..." Sneeg looked at Charlie, who continued staring at the

radio. No. Not this, not now.

Sneeg raised his hand to turn the radio back on. Charlie stopped him

"We're gonna have to talk about Showfall eventually, Charlie..." Sneeg tried.

"No, Sneeg, we don't!" Charlie said with a laugh that he thought must've made him sound

insane, finally looking up and meeting Sneeg's gaze. The concern in his eyes made him

hesitate and he looked away, back to the radio. "Everything about that place is a fucking

nightmare, and as you can tell, I think I have enough of those already!"

Charlie tried to smile but that only helped to give away his fear as the sides of his mouth

trembled.

"Listen, we can just talk to whoever this is, and then if we don't wanna deal with it we can

turn the radio back off. We have no idea what's going on, maybe she can- I dunno, tell us

something?" Sneeg reasoned.

"Yeah, we don't know anything, Sneeg, but maybe I wanna keep it that way," Charlie said

angrily. He wasn't angry at Sneeg, Ranboo, heck, not even at whoever-it-was talking through

the radio. He was just angry. Every time it seemed they'd left this place behind it returned and

dragged them by their ankles back into hell. He wanted to be done with this. He wanted to

cry.

"Ignoring everything wont get us anywhere," Ranboo passed his note to the front seats.

"Really? I'm pretty sure it did, I'm pretty sure it made me happy," the tears started to prick at

his eyes. Shit, why was he such a crybaby. He looked pathetic. "Because the only times in my

life I can remember that I've actually been fucking happy was when that place was far away

and I could distract myself enough to just forget it. Just for a little while"

There was a pause.

"Can we go back home," Charlie asked, but it wasn't a question. Sneeg didn't move. "Sneeg. I

wanna go home"

"I think we'll lose signal with her if we drive away," Sneeg commented.

"Sneeg," Charlie pleaded.

He didn't move.

"What if she's just another employee, huh? You wanna think about Showfall, why don't we

think about how everything we thought we knew about them was a lie and every fucking time

we found some kind of truth to hang onto it dissolved through our fingers because it was a

facade, just another fucking facade, all of it!"

Sneeg pressed his fingers to his forehead and looked down the road in front of them as

Charlie tried to slow down his frantic breathing.

"If we go back to the house it won't change that this happened," Sneeg told him.

"Okay, fine, at least we won't still be looking at that fucking mall"

He saw in his peripheral as Sneeg looked at Ranboo. He glanced up to the mirror and could

see "wo

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ɘꙅꙅɘɿƚꙅ

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H" written on Ranboo's notepad.

Sneeg turned the car around and drove back to the house they went past. The trip was silent.

Charlie got out of the car and looked at the house. It wasn't the same, it was the seventh one

they'd gone past past, but the design was unnervingly identical, like someone had been

copying and pasting houses all down this road.

He walked inside as everyone else left the car.

Oh fuck.

It was the same.

Ranboo saw him paused in the doorway and came to look over his shoulder. It was all the

same- every decoration they'd put up, every scuff on the floor, but this was 6 houses down the

road from theirs, wasn't it?

Charlie walked into the living room and to his stack of books. He took the top one. The

bookmark was on exactly the same page as he'd left it.

"Did someone make this look like our house? Why..?" Sneeg trailed off as he entered the

living room too. Charlie shook his head.

"No, I think...this is our house. But it's...here now? Unless...it was always here..?"

He sat down on the couch and put his head in his hands as though all the questions swimming

through his mind were making him too heavy to stay standing. He felt the couch move as

Sneeg sat down next to him.

"So this is probably Showfall, huh. Don't know what they've even done here but it's probably

them who did it. It's always them," he put his hands over his mouth and groaned. If Sneeg

wasn't there he'd have gotten a pillow and screamed.

"I know why you don't wanna talk about it. Yeah, it feels easier to think as though it never

happened, but it did. And now it's staring us in the face," Sneeg sighed, clearly also

exhausted by all of this. But he stayed determined to get Charlie to confront it. Charlie

continued to not want to do that.

"They've left us alone in our house for this long, maybe as long as we stay here and out of the

way we can just...live. Like normal fucking people"

"Well, I don't know that, none of us do. But maybe that person on the radio could answer

some of our questions..?" Sneeg suggested.

Charlie sighed, "I don't fucking trust her, Sneeg, I don't trust any of this, and honestly it's kind

of worrying me that you're so willing to just accept all of this. Haven't you learnt anything

from how it went back there? That everything is a lie, that you can't fucking trust anyone?"

Sneeg thought for a few moments. "Showfall taught you not to trust anyone...so you're just

gonna follow the advice that they gave you?"

Charlie paused. "You- you know that's not what I meant. Seriously, you're not the slightest bit

suspicious of this lady who shows up out of nowhere the moment we get near that fucking

mall again?"

"Yeah, obviously I'm suspicious, but...there's nothing bad that could come from hearing her

out. If she says something stupid or we still don't trust her, we turn the radio off. Simple as

that," Sneeg smiled.

Charlie sighed and looked away. Sneeg was probably right, but that didn't stop him from

feeling a pit in his stomach.

"...why won't they just leave us alone?"

"I don't know, Charlie," Sneeg admitted, "we might have to keep fighting a little longer. But I

promise you that one day all of us will be free of Showfall, for good"

"Can you really promise something like that..?" Charlie doubted.

Sneeg chuckled nervously, "I guess I can't see the future, but I know I won't stop fighting

until we're free, however long that might takes. We will get out of this one day, or die trying."

"Dying seems like a little too plausible of an outcome right now"

"Mm," Sneeg hummed in acknowledgement, "but either way, we'll stay with each other. We

won't let them take that from us again"

Charlie nodded, a hint of a smile starting to appear on his lips.

"Do you wanna stay here a bit longer?" Sneeg asked.

"Uh- yeah, if that's alright...I just wanna...think for a bit," Charlie shifted on the couch,

looking at the floor.

Sneeg nodded, "yeah, we'll be outside if you need us. I think I heard Valkyrat squeaking

about something so I should probably go check that out"

Charlie let out a quiet laugh as Sneeg got up and wandered back outside. For a moment he

just sat on the couch, not even thinking, but that just left his mind absent for other things to

move in.

"You- where were you before this?"

Charlie shifted on the couch, instinctively looking for anything to think about, to distract

himself. No, he needed to do this. Was he really just gonna stay in fear all his life, desperately

trying to ignore everything just for the chance to have some moments of ignorant bliss? He

could do this. He had to do this.

"I, uh...I grew up in a, uh...a cabin-"

"A cabin, huh?" the man interrupted, predicting what Charlie was going to say. "Don't you

see?"

Charlie gritted his teeth. That asshole- Hetch, Ranboo had said was his name- was the one

behind everything, the one who had fucking trapped them there, and yet he still ended up

being more helpful than anyone else. Sure, he tried to lure all of them to their deaths, and

Charlie wanted to see him bloodstained and crying for mercy at his hands for the hurt he had

caused, but he had still been the only one able to help them see what was going on.

Why did he even want them to know that they'd lost their memories? Was it just to get a

reaction out of Ranboo, because Charlie supposed that stabbing a guy was a pretty strong

reaction.

It maybe, after that...maybe he just wanted Charlie to see that bedroom and thing, reminisce

just long enough for that fucking-

Charlie winced. He didn't like to see that creature, even when he was just thinking about it.

Of course he wouldn't, it fucking killed him. Well...it tried to. From the scars on his body

Charlie could tell it definitely wasn't holding back. Would he have to see it again, if they went

along with whatever the lady on the radio wanted them to do?

He didn't want that. Obviously, he didn't want that. He didn't need to get up close again, all he

needed was to think about it to feel the pain he felt back then. He felt the wires digging into

his skin. He wondered if some were still there that had split off and become trapped in his

skin. If when he looked at his arm those were just wires masquerading as veins.

He closed his eyes. This wasn't helping. What was he even trying to do?

The radio lady said something about signal, so would they have to go closer to the mall again

to talk to her? Would Charlie be able to look at that thing without throwing up if he

remembered all the shit that happened there?

But then what's the reverse? Ignoring it all and then having all these memories invade his

mind against his will when he saw that mall again?

He'd go through it all. One by one, at his own pace. He couldn't come to terms with

everything in a day, but he knew there were some things he'd have to confront before he went

back down that road towards the mall. It was time to stop ignoring it all.

~*~

Just as the others were starting to get worried, Charlie emerged from the house. He looked up

at Sneeg and prayed he didn't notice his eyes had gone a little red since they last spoke.

"Hey. You ready to go?"

Charlie nodded, "yeah. Let's get this over with"

Chapter End Notes

We're getting close to the finale now gang, hope you all enjoy what's to come :)

Chapter 7- Show

Chapter Summary

The return to hell.

Finale 1/2

Chapter Notes

I have forsaken the way of the short paragraphs I must apologise to u all

I tried not to let any of my paragraphs go on too long but I had some stuff to say this

chapter lol

Anyways, enjoy the story :)

See the end of the chapter for more notes

Sneeg struggled to trust his own eyes, nevermind a complete stranger who he couldn't even

see.

But as the five of them returned to the car, in the same seats as always, he took a look at the

radio. The voice of the stranger hadn't said much the first time they heard her, so in the time

between that and their soon approaching second talk, Sneeg had prepared plenty of questions

he wanted answers to.

The main one on his mind currently, as he raised his hands to the wheel, was what the fuck

was going on.

He didn't want to go back near that mall, of course he fucking didn't, but if that was the only

way he was getting answers then so be it. He would walk up to the gates of hell and demand

Satan himself point him to the nearest fucking exit.

A few weeks ago, he would've been prepared to stay here forever, but in a few short

sentences the lady on the radio had given him the knife with which to cut through the final

few strands of his ignorant bliss.

"They've been using it to listen in on you"

They were? Of course they fucking were. Of course those Showfall fucks hadn't left them all

alone, of course they had prepared for all this too. Hell, maybe this was the plan from the

very beginning. It didn't make any sense but that was perfectly on brand for Showfall.

The possibility had been in the back of his mind for a while. He didn't know if he should feel

better or worse for getting confirmation.

And so if all this time they had never been free, if that house had been created just the same

as another goddamn show set, then it was an understatement to say that Sneeg was starting to

get sick of it. If they needed to bring the fight to Showfall to finally be rid of this shit then he

would walk right into that mall and egress with a face covered in blood and a hand gripping

the founder's wretched head.

He glanced at Charlie, whose eyes held the last remaining hints of red around the edges. If he

had to walk back into the hell mall a hundred times over to make sure Charlie never had to

cry again, then so be it.

He put his foot on the pedal and drove.

~*~

Sneeg put foot on the brakes the moment he saw the vague silhouette of the mall in the

distance. It hadn't even taken that long- had they really been this close to it all this time..?

The trip had been fairly quiet, but the tension was at least not with each other, but instead

with the task ahead. Maybe they could stay here and escape without going any closer to that

mall, but considering their proximity to the mall had a direct influence on their radio signal,

he didn't want to get his hopes up.

Charlie turned the radio on and they all waited as it hummed in static, as though considering

whether it should connect their signal or not. Charlie sighed.

"Do you think we'll see that house again?" he asked.

Sneeg shook his head, "no...I don't think there's any going back now"

"Even if it was all done by showfuck, I still liked that place," Ranboo wrote.

Charlie laughed, "yeah, even if it was just for a little while...it was nice"

Sneeg smiled. When they got out of here he'd get them a proper house- with enough

bedrooms for everybody, and big beds in each room so they could all have a sleepover in the

same room and forget about the other four if they wanted to. He was definitely super rich in

the outside world, so maybe he already owned a dozen houses just like that. And even if he

wasn't super cool and rich (which was unlikely), he'd just steal whatever money Showfall had

and buy it with that. They probably wouldn't mind. Because they'd hopefully all be dead.

He thought he might have to suggest they drive closer when noise started to break through

the static, and then-

"Hello? Hellloooo?"

It was the same voice as before, at least.

"Alright, let's get this out of the way first, who are you?" Sneeg initiated.

"Getting straight to business, are we? No problem, I understand. Well, you can call me,

uh...Taurus. I'm from an organisation that's been trying to take Showfall down for a long

time, and we're here to save you guys, too"

"You're expecting us to take your word for all that?" Ratkkuno challenged.

"No, of course, I understand how Showfall has been fucking with all of your heads, and I'm

not gonna ask that you trust me without proof. However, with our current situation, there's

not really any way for me to give you proof," she said with an uncomfortable laugh added at

the end.

"So...you are asking us to trust you without proof," Sneeg corrected.

"N-no! Well...the rest of my team is with me- in the mall, you might've guessed. It was our

only way to get this close to you and the company, and once you're here, it's notoriously

difficult to get out. However, one of the team members is situated outside of the mall, about a

mile from the entrance. If you can get to them, they can show you we're not with Showfall.

And if you still don't trust them then you can run them over, since they don't have a car,"

Taurus seemed to mean that last part as a joke, but Sneeg was giving it some consideration.

"...are we really going to go that close to the mall?" Charlie asked in a quieter tone to not

direct the question at Taurus.

"I...I don't want to either, but if it's true we'll still be a mile from the mall, and if we see

anything weird going on then we turn around immediately," Sneeg reasoned, as much with

himself as with Charlie.

"I guess, but I...this could all be another fucking trick, couldn't it?" Sneeg shied away from

eye contact with Charlie as he voiced the doubt that had been plaguing his mind. Sneeg

couldn't give a confident answer to that question.

"I apologise in advance for giving you such an ominous reason, but...at the minute you don't

have much other choice," Taurus said carefully, and was followed by silence.

"Look, my team member should be unarmed- if they even have so much as a rock in their

hand when you arrive I give you full permission to turn right back round and never turn this

radio on again"

Sneeg tightened and loosened his grip on the wheel, contemplating.

"Okay, we go to your team guy and they convince us. Then what?" he asked.

"Then..." Taurus hesitated, "then you'll need to enter the mall with them and make it to our

base of operations"

She might have been able to sense their apprehension through the radio.

"You're really gonna ask us to just walk back in there? That's asking for a fucking ambush!"

Charlie argued.

"I know, it's not ideal, none of this is, but you saw how empty that mall can be when you got

out, and our team members are stationed throughout the building. Getting you here safely is

something we've been training a long time for"

"Where even is your base? How the hell have you set up camp in the dead fucking centre of

enemy territory?" Sneeg demanded. He wanted to trust her, he really did, but he knew it

wasn't that easy.

"We had to set up here because everywhere for miles around is open field- try to set up a

structure out there and Showfall would find us in minutes. The mall is big and lots of the

rooms are out of use- we've even managed to set up a safe zone that those drones can't make

their way into, but I can't disclose where over radio. We're vulnerable to interception here"

"What, so- so is Showfall listening in on this whole fucking conversation or something?!"

Charlie panicked.

"N-no, it's unlikely, but...we have to admit that it's a risk"

"It's a pretty big fucking risk now that you've told us your whole goddamn plan!" Sneeg

pointed out.

"Yeah, you think I don't know that? But like I said, you don't have any other choice, and

neither do we. This might be the only chance we're gonna get. I am telling you the truth when

I say we are doing everything we fucking can for this to work. We just need you guys to trust

us"

"Trust is a pretty limited fucking resource as of late," Sneeg countered. Silence followed from

the radio, but Taurus' voice soon returned.

"...we couldn't save the others. I wasn't fast enough to save Niki, or Vinny...even the Puzzler,"

a quiet squeak came from the rats in the back, "so I am making a promise to you all, on my

life, that no more of you are going to die. I will not allow it for as long as I am here. If I need

to then I will lay my life down to pay for my mistakes. I know it's not as strong as proof and

evidence, but for what it's worth, you have my word"

Silence lingered in the car. Sneeg looked at his hands, then back at the radio.

"We run them over if they've got as much as a rock?" he asked.

Silence, and then, "Yes, that's fine by me"

Sneeg looked at everyone else in the car, "I'll turn us around the moment one of you says

something feels off, alright?"

He waited until he had gotten a nod from everyone, and then turned back.

"Alright. We're heading towards the mall," he confirmed, shifting the gear stick and pushing

the car back into motion. He thought he could hear muffled victory noises through the radio

static, but then Taurus' voice returned.

"Great, I'll try and get eyes on your location"

"Huh?" Charlie questioned.

"From where I am in the building I have a window- well, moreso a hole we made in the wall-

that soon I should be able to see you from. I'm afraid you won't be able to see me through it,

though," she explained.

"Right...how far do you think we are from your guy?" Sneeg squinted ahead but couldn't

make out much besides the mall that grew ever larger.

"I think I can see you coming into view now...they're still a fair distance away, but it won't be

long"

Sneeg nodded, then remembered she couldn't see him, "alright, cool"

In his peripheral he saw Ranboo pass a not to Charlie, who read it out.

"We never actually punctured our tire, did we..?" Charlie made the realisation as he read it

and made the question sound rhetorical, but Taurus answered regardless.

"...no. That, along with the tape, was Showfall. They were probably looking for more drama,

but forgot you guys still needed a way back"

"Yeah, of course they were. Jeez..." Sneeg felt stupid for not having made the realisation

sooner. Of course they just wanted drama. He turned his head to look at the radio and asked,

"hey, how much of our lives were still being scripted in that house?"

"I don't know for sure, but they still-

-HEY, WATCH OUT!"

Taurus suddenly screamed, the radio not taking well to the sudden volume and turning her

voice mangled and static-y. Sneeg whipped his head up and sort of wished he hadn't when he

lay his eyes upon a 7 foot discordance of wire and metal with an old broken TV perched atop,

without eyes yet Sneeg felt its gaze as the car sped towards it. It didn't move from the centre

of the road like a deer in headlights, however its stillness seemed less of shock and more of

malice.

Sneeg panicked and without a moment to think he swerved the car into the field, avoiding the

monster but heading straight into-

CRASH

~*~

The floor was cold. It was quiet. His head hurt. A lot.

Sneeg tried to open his eyes. Nothing changed. In confusion he raised a hand to his face. Oh.

That had changed.

Because as he tried to feel the top half of his face, he found that his hand was quite abruptly

stopped by a large piece of metal that had been placed in front of it. His nose and mouth were

fine, it was only his eyes that had been covered, as though someone had severely

misunderstood what the point of goggles were.

Wait, what? There was...metal? In front of his eyes?

Sneeg carefully traced his fingers down the surface and found where the sheets of metal met

his skin. He flinched away, the contact causing more pain than he was expecting. Wait, they

weren't? No, no, they wouldn't be...

Sneeg went back to trace his fingers lightly over where the metal and skin met. Oh. Oh fuck.

He screamed. Not in pain, although he could definitely describe his current state as painful.

He didn't know if it was fear or horror, he just screamed until his lungs threatened to collapse

on him.

He shakily caught his breath and tried to think. No more screaming. Now he had to do

something about it.

The metal was soldered onto his face. Just for admitting that to himself he had to again take a

moment to control his breathing. Fuck. Fuck. It was fine, it would be fine. Shit, no it

wouldn't. This metal was attached to his face in exactly the same way Ranboo's mask had

been. What the fuck did that mean, why, was he-?

Was he in the mall..?

His breaths felt like they were getting stuck, he was suffocating- it was cold, he couldn't see,

what the hell was going on? Why was he here, why had they brought him here?! Shit, they

were gonna kill him, they were-

He put a hand to his throat as he backed up against the wall behind him. Something was

going to get him, something was going to kill him. His chest rose and fell like a child going

feral with an air pump. He was defenceless. Completely defenceless. They were gonna kill

him, so why didn't they get it over with before he suffocated himself?

He didn't know how long someone else had been there, but eventually his ears picked up on a

voice that broke through the sound of his own breathing.

"Hey, Sneeg? It's ok, you're ok, just breathe. I'm here, I'm not letting anything hurt you, okay?

We're fine. Breathe"

He felt contact on the hand that he had pressed against the floor whilst the other one was by

his throat and tried to process what the words even meant. Breathe? Okay, he could do that.

He could breathe.

"In, and out. You can do this," the man assured him. Sneeg followed, his breaths still shaking

and pained, but getting less frantic. The man squeezed his hand in time with the breathing,

and gradually he slowed, and started to feel the floor beneath him again, as cold and

unpleasant as it was.

After some time that he wasn't bothering to try and keep track of, the man released his hand.

"Hey...you alright now..?"

"Just...just a second...sorry," Sneeg requested, letting his other arm rest on his chest for a

moment. He didn't usually like how quiet it was in here, but right now he didn't mind. The

silence helped.

"...who are you?" Sneeg finally asked, breaking the silence.

"Oh- my codename is Ophiuchus," he replied.

"...what?"

He laughed nervously, "or, uh, you can call me Cetus. I should probably use that one instead,

it's easier to pronounce"

"Yeah..." Sneeg mumbled, trying to think.

"You've spoken to Taurus, haven't you..? I'm on her team, I came to get you and your friends

out of here"

Sneeg didn't know if he should be too happy to learn Cetus was working alongside Taurus,

"really? Because the last thing Taurus got us to do was drive to one of her friends who turned

out to be a fucking monster that crashed our car"

"The monster wasn't a part of our team, heh, that was Showfall's- but I apologise, we

should've had some way to know they were going to try and intercept you on the way"

"Yeah, you should've," was all that Sneeg added. Cetus was silent in response.

"What was that thing?" Sneeg asked.

"The one with the TV..? We're not quite sure...all we know is that it's dangerous and tends to

be used for security. We rarely see it deployed outside, but today was an exception"

"Is it still outside now?"

"...no, it'll be in this building. But we can avoid it. I'll make sure we get to our destination

safely"

"Oh, yeah, your base of operations, Taurus mentioned," Sneeg paused, "w-wait, it's in here?

Where the fuck is it?!"

"It's fine, it's not nearby! I'll make sure we don't run into it," Cetus assured him.

"S-shit...what about Charlie? Ranboo, the rats? Did they get brought here too, why aren't

they-?"

"We can find them, Sneeg, it's okay, but for now we just need to return to base. They'll

probably already be with other members of our team and heading to rendezvous there"

"Why are we back here? Why did they fucking bring us back here and dump me in a hallway-

what the fuck is this?" Sneeg demanded, pointing a finger aggressively at the metal plates

over his eyes. At least he hoped that was where he was pointing.

He felt Cetus touch his hand again and flinched, "we don't have all the answers either, but

you'll be the first to know when we do find out what's going on. Now...can you walk?"

Sneeg thought and after a moment started moving his legs, leaning against the wall behind

him for stability. Gradually he got himself up, having to pause every few moments as the

change of stance made him a little dizzy. Cetus offered help, but every time he held Sneeg up

without warning it only risked him falling over in surprise.

Sneeg was eventually shakily vertical, and Cetus patted him on the shoulder. It seemed he

would just have to get used to the unannounced contact around this guy.

"Alright then, time to get to base. Wanna hold my hand on the way?" Cetus asked.

Sneeg felt a little demeaned answering yes, but it was better than being arrogant and then

tripping over as soon as he started walking around. He still didn't want to say yes out loud,

though, so he held out a hand, hoping that Cetus might get the hint. After an awkward silence

it seemed that he didn't.

"Y-yeah, fine, if it'll make sure I don't get lost then let's hold hands," Sneeg tried to say

quietly, but the echo in the mall wasn't doing him any favours. Cetus grasped his hand and

Sneeg flinched harder than ever, he just hoped that Cetus wasn't quietly laughing at his

jumpiness.

He wasted no time leading them both away from where Sneeg had awoken and through the

mall. Sneeg hated everything about this, if it wasn't already apparent- not seeing where they

were going, just having to trust this guy to lead the way, not having any answers. None of this

made any fucking sense and although he should've gotten used to that by now it was still

putting a pit in his stomach that made him feel sick.

"Alright, there's some escalators up ahead, you think you can get up without tripping?" Cetus

suddenly asked.

"Huh-? I, yeah, I'll try- shouldn't we be more quiet right now?" Sneeg whispered with worry,

aware that he wasn't the one who would know if any threats were nearby but still being aware

that in this mall there were plenty of corners for those fucking employees to be hiding

behind.

"Well, like I said, it's empty, but a lot of the drones seem to have difficulty hearing anything

besides commands. They were probably designed with more focus on their ability to chase

rather than their skills at tracking, that's what the Security's for," Cetus explained.

"The Security? Oh, right, Ran told me- that's what they called the TV monster, wasn't it?"

"Yeah, the people here have come up with plenty of names for it. But don't worry, we don't

have to worry about it right now, we just gotta get to base. The escalator is just here, get

ready"

Cetus guided Sneeg up the steps, and as they carefully made their way up, one by one, Sneeg

thought about the exchange they'd just had. Not on the words, but it was something about

Cetus' voice that seemed unusual, and Sneeg finally realised what it was.

"Have you got something over your mouth or something?" Sneeg asked, making his way up

another step.

"Hm? Oh, I see- yes, it's just a mask. We wear them when we have to go around the mall, just

as a protective measure. You can still hear me fine, right?"

"Yeah, it's-" Sneeg suddenly cut himself off as his leg landed short of the next step and he fell

forwards. Cetus was quick to catch him and make sure he didn't hit his head on the steps.

"Whoa, close one- let's save the talking for when we get to the next level," he said with a

nervous nod. Sneeg nodded and continued his way up.

Once they were at the top Cetus continued pulling Sneeg along, though he was beginning to

realise it was less of a maze than he thought.

"This way- is this heading towards Jake's, or whatever the hell they called it?" Sneeg kept to

a quieter tone despite being told earlier it wasn't necessary.

"Huh? I- yeah, how'd you know that?" Cetus asked in surprise.

"I memorised the floor plan to try and get out of here the last time...guess it's still in my head

even after a month," he laughed. He didn't mind keeping that knowledge so much, there were

worse things he was trying to forget.

"I see, I suppose that's quite useful right now, you- shit, move!"

Before Sneeg could react to the sudden command he was tugged to the ground and found

himself kneeling on the floor, pressed up against Cetus and the wall behind them. At first he

could only hear his and Cetus' breathing. Then, gradually fading into earshot, came footsteps.

Was it an employee? Or...something else..?

If it saw them he wouldn't even know until it was too late, so all he could do was pray that it

hadn't.

The footsteps seemed to get louder, was it approaching? The only other sound Sneeg could

hold onto was Cetus' breathing, which didn't get any faster as the footsteps echoed closer and

closer. That meant it was fine, right? He could only hope.

He listened to each breath as it was drawn in and pushed out through clenched teeth, he felt

every footstep as it sent vibrations across the tiled floor.

They couldn't keep getting louder forever, right? Were his ears tricking him? He would've

liked to know that he was wrong about the footsteps getting closer, but also knowing his

hearing, one of the few senses he could still trust in, was tricking him? He might just cut his

ears off at that point.

And just when the echoes of breathing and walking were overloading his mind with stress

that was close to breaking him-

BANG, BANG, BANG!

What was that- what the fuck was that?!

Sneeg tried to move anywhere that wasn't where that had come from but Cetus sensed his

movement and quickly grabbed onto his arm, keeping him in place. He couldn't hear Cetus'

breathing anymore, he could only focus on his own. He started to worry that he was breathing

too loud. So he panicked and started breathing faster. And louder.

He felt squeezing on his arm- that was right, just slow down, think about your breathing. Just

breathe in time with the squeezes, don't think about the the footsteps, don't think about the-

BANG, BANG-

"GRRAAAHHHH"

Shit, SHIT, what the FUCK was that?! It sounded like some beast with its battle cry being

shoved through a ten year old broken speaker, mangled and distorted, almost like it was in

pain just to speak- if that even was an attempt to speak, there wasn't much way for him to tell.

There wasn't room left for control of for thought, the only thing that could push its way to the

front of Sneeg's mind was primal fucking fear. But as every inch of muscle screamed out to

move, to run, Cetus held strong. And so there he stayed, terrified, blind, on the cold,

confining mall floor of Showfall.

The banging stopped. The footsteps faded. And there was silence.

Cetus loosened his grip on Sneeg's arm once he was no longer breathing like a dog after a ten

mile sprint, and only then Sneeg realised how tight his grip had been. If he could see his arm

he wouldn't have been surprised to find a red hand-shaped mark on it. He must've been pretty

worried that Sneeg was gonna make a run for it.

"Hey...you alright?" Cetus asked after the silence had stretched on for a while. Sneeg didn't

have a good answer to that question.

"What...what the fuck was that?" he asked in response, not moving his head. It didn't really

matter if he was facing Cetus or not, anyways.

"An employee, and...something else. But it seemed they didn't see us. Or maybe they weren't

interested in us in the first place"

"They really didn't notice..? Well, I guess those hearing difficulties you mentioned earlier

came in handy," Sneeg tried to smile as he said, but struggled to get any expression onto his

face other than the worry that always came after fear. The worry that it wasn't over yet.

"Heh, yeah. Now come on, we're almost there. Can you stand?" Cetus asked, almost getting

carried away with his enthusiasm to get back on foot. But Sneeg was fine now, or something

approximately fine, so he nodded and got himself up, then begrudgingly held out his hand for

Cetus to hold again.

Cetus grabbed ahold and they continued on towards the part of the mall Sneeg remembered

as "Jake's". It was a pretty typical shop name but knowing Showfall he was expecting it to be

anything but. Or perhaps this rebel group had repurposed for their goals, and it was actually a

bearable environment. Either way, he would be finding out soon.

Walking this path now was involuntarily dredging up memories- not of the floor plan he

knew, but of a time he'd actually walked this route in person. When was that..?

Cetus abruptly released Sneeg's hand, to which Sneeg responded by stopping in his tracks.

"Cetus? Why-?" He began.

"Sorry Sneeg, I just need both hands to get this door open, it'll only be a second," Cetus

explained.

"Oh, uh, alright. Well, I was gonna ask anyways, which floor are we on?"

"Huh? Why'd you wanna know that?" He asked with a little strain in his voice, suggesting he

was currently trying to pull the door.

"Well, I've gone this way before. It was where I found Charlie. It was where that cabin was,"

Sneeg recounted, trying to focus his mind on the cabin rather than the bloody state he found

Charlie in.

"Oh, yes, that's right. You did come this way in order to save him," Cetus recounted, then

after a short pause let out a grunt alongside the sounds of scraping metal. It must've been

some heavy sliding door he was opening. It made a lot of noise.

Which is why Sneeg didn't hear the other people approaching before they already had their

hands on him.

"H-huh?! Who the hell-?! Get off me!" He shouted as hands suddenly pulled his arms behind

his back and held firm as he tried in desperation to shake them off, "C-Cetus, you-!"

"Sneeg, you truly are too smart for your own good. I would mean that as a compliment if it

weren't causing...unnecessary complications," Cetus mused.

"Cetus what the fuck are you talking about, what's going on?!" Sneeg continued to struggle,

only causing the ones holding him to hold tighter and with less consideration for any bruises

they might cause.

"Come on, I'd rather talk in here. Much better acoustics," he said and walked away, the ones

holding Sneeg pushing him forwards too. Shit, were they employees? But then why the fuck

wasn't Cetus doing shit about them?!

"Yes, as you guessed, we are in the room of the cabin set. I didn't realise you had our mall so

well memorised, I might've been more careful if I had. But oh well, no going back now. At

least we had employees ready nearby to stop you from running when you realised this wasn't

all what it seemed"

Sneeg was still struggling to process the second sentence, "wait, so you...t-this wasn't you, it

couldn't have been, you're with Taurus! What, then...that was all bullshit? Was there never a

fucking rebellion?!"

He couldn't believe it. He was close to breaking. Every time, every fucking time they had

something to cling to, any tiny piece of hope, Showfall would tear it away as though it were

the most entertaining thing in the world to watch someone's spirit crumble and break. Cetus

had been holding his hand and leading him into the jaws of hell, and he'd walked right in

without second thought.

"Ah, I wouldn't like to give you a conclusive answer, it ruins all the fun there is to be had in

theorising! Who knows what the answer could be..."

"What, so...you were gonna bring me here all along? What was the point in all that, what was

the fucking point of dragging me through this place when you could've just dumped my body

here in the first place?!" Sneeg demanded as the employees holding him stopped. They

must've been in the middle of the room, with Cetus a few steps in front.

"It's not all about you, Sneeg. There were others we thought might need to see you on your

way. And speaking of others, those two shouldn't be far away. Hopefully your friends aren't

causing as many problems as you were threatening to, hm?" he said like he was berating a

child for being troublesome. Sneeg spat- he didn't care where it landed, although he really

hoped it had gotten on Cetus' clothes.

"What the fuck have you done with my friends you asshole?! I swear, I'll tear you apart if

you've so much as-" Sneeg was interrupted as he heard a metallic screech sound in the

distance and footsteps that scraped along the floor as they approached, like metal on tile. In

fact, that was probably exactly what it was.

Sneeg didn't know whether to be more relieved or worried that he couldn't see the monster as

it crossed the threshold into the cabin room and its lazy, heavy footsteps that dragged along

the floor got louder and louder as they approached. Sneeg shakily drew in a breath. From the

sounds of it, it was right beside him, breathing. The only thing he knew that thing was made

of was wires, the last think he wanted to hear it do was fucking breathe.

No, it wasn't just the monster, something else was breathing next to him, more raspy and

panicked...Cetus had said "those two," hadn't he? So who was the person next to him..?

"S-Sneeg...shit, what the hell did they do..?" came a strained voice that he could hardly make

out, not helped by the speaker seeming to slur some of their words. But he didn't need to hear

the words to know that voice was Charlie.

"Charlie? Are- are you okay? Shit, what's going on?!" he shouted, the employees holding

firm as he tried to shake them off. He waited but didn't get a reply.

"Ch- Charlie? Is- are you-?"

"He can't hear you, Sneeg," Cetus drawled, "as much as I'd love to wait for you to figure it

out, I-"

"You-! Where's Ranboo you fuck?! What the fuck have you done with- gh-!" Charlie started

shouting, seeming to have only just noticed Cetus was in the room, and interrupting as

though he didn't realise Cetus was mid sentence. Sneeg took that as confirmation something

was stopping him from hearing, but now he was much more worried about the thud next to

him as Charlie was cut off.

"Charlie?!" he shouted to the void, hoping despite all odds to figure out what was going on.

"Such a foul mouth, Charlie. I'm glad we settled on using our dear Security to track you

down, he does wonders quieting you down," Cetus said with a smile that Sneeg could hear.

A small whimper sounded from the floor beside Sneeg and he winced. He could tell from the

few times Charlie had been able to bring up the TV monster that he hated even thinking

about it. He must have been terrified right now. Maybe Sneeg should've been relieved he

couldn't see it.

"Don't worry, it won't be long now. Such a simple plan, but so satisfyingly effective..." Cetus

seemed mainly to be speaking to himself at this point. Sneeg thought about the metal on his

eyes. He had to get out of here. A low, electronic growl came from the TV monster. He had to

get that mask off.

If it really was designed the same as the one that had been over Ranboo's mouth, then he'd

just have to get it off the same way.

"We can't just leave it on him..." Charlie had said, a shake in his voice as he looked at the

bloodied mask over Ranboo's mouth. The box had punctured and split the metal but even then

it still held together, the top and bottom seeming to have been welded to their face. It made

Sneeg feel sick.

"I...yeah, we gotta get that off, but...we don't exactly have surgery tools," he saw Charlie

flinch, "shit, sorry...but we don't wanna hurt them when we take it off"

Charlie nodded but a frown was firmly set on his face, "maybe we can just try take it off piece

by piece, y'know? It's all broken up so some stuff might come off easier, then we can get a

better look at the damage and go from there"

"Yeah- yeah, that sounds good," Sneeg agreed and carefully raised his hands to the mask.

Ranboo was set on the bed, and the sheets under them were already turning red, but it was

fine, they could change them. They just needed to get Showfall's shit off his face.

It had been about a day since Ranboo had collapsed leaving the mall. Sneeg prayed they

wouldn't wake up during this.

He saw a smaller shard of metal that seemed to only be hanging on by a thread and carefully

took hold of it. As he started to pull he realised it was literally a thread- well, a wire- that was

keeping it secured. It seemed thin enough. So he pulled.

"Sneeg-!" Charlie made him jump with the sudden interjection, but the piece was off and it

didn't seem to have caused Ranboo pain, unconscious or not.

"I think they've all got wires going through them to keep them in place...if we want this off

we're gonna have to break them," Sneeg told him. Charlie grumbled and turned away with

his head in his hands.

Sneeg turned back to Ranboo and raised his hands again, "alright, I'll get it done. We'll get

this mask off you soon, bud..." he mumbled under his breath, searching for the next piece he

might be able to remove.

One by one he took the pieces off, setting them down on the bedside table. There was a book

underneath them so that they wouldn't have to try and remove any stains from the table.

Charlie stood by, seeming to move like he was about to help but never being able to get close

enough. In the end he took a step back.

"I'll go find bandages or something. I think there was a first aid kit somewhere in the

kitchen," he said and went through the door, Sneeg only nodding as he left. He needed to

focus. This wasn't something he could fuck up.

A lot of the pieces around the front of the mask were gone now, and Sneeg tried to gauge the

damage below. Maybe it was just all the blood making it look worse than it was, but it looked

pretty fucking bad. Some of the skin around their wounds was so fucked up it almost started

to look like the wires. Jeez, there were a lot of wires...what the fuck were they all for..?

Were those ones going...into his mouth..?

Sneeg rubbed his eyes. That wasn't...was he really seeing this right? Shit, what had those

assholes done to them? He couldn't keep going like this, taking off one piece at a time. This

fucking mask was coming off. Now.

Sneeg put his fingers on the top of the mask and found a place to grip. He braced himself and

heard Charlie coming back to the room but by then it was too late, he wasn't stopping until

every fucking piece of thing was off. He gripped. And he pulled.

"Sne-? SNEEG?!" Charlie called out in horror as he came back into the room. Blood stained

Sneeg's hands and the metal he was holding- fresh blood. Charlie moved his gaze to

Ranboo's face, where the red seam going over their nose and under their chin was flowing

blood back down their neck and filling the duvet like a sponge. He also saw their eyes were

open.

Charlie had to cover his ears as Ranboo screamed, clinging to his face with wide eyes staring

straight ahead but not seeing anything. Sneeg dropped the remnants of the mask he was

holding in shock, on which the welded edges still had traces of Ranboo's skin that had been

torn off.

With Ranboo raising his head to scream and clutch his face, Sneeg now saw the Showfall

logo that still remained wired into his back. Charlie probably wouldn't let him back near

Ranboo for a while after this, but he was done letting Showfall keep their clutches on his

friends. He grabbed the back of Ranboo's neck and tugged before Charlie could get across

the room to stop him.

He heard the wires snap, and then Ranboo collapsed.

"What...w-what the fuck have you done?! Sneeg, you-!" Charlie stopped and put a hand over

his mouth to stop himself throwing up on the bedroom floor. Sneeg saw the bandages in his

other hand and took them, his own eyes unfocused as he turned back to Ranboo.

"I'll put the bandages on now and we can sort out any of the wires that are left when these

wounds have stopped bleeding," he decided. Charlie didn't argue and looked away as Sneeg

slowly wrapped the bandages around Ranboo's head. They both hoped that Ranboo wouldn't

remember this.

Sneeg's consciousness was drawn back to the mall as something was making noise behind

him. There were footsteps, getting louder.

Was he being given a chance?

The room was silent, the footsteps got louder. Who was it? It didn't matter as long as it gave

him a moment. Just a moment.

Hands on the door. The metal slide as it was opened. The employees holding him shifted,

their attention drawn. Now.

With a sudden tug he pulled his arms away from them and raised them to his face. Don't

think, just do it. There wasn't time to think.

He found a place to grip. He had to do it now.

He pulled.

When the employees went to grab his arms his hands were already by his sides, clenching

blood-stained metal.

And when they went to cover his mouth, he was already screaming.

Chapter End Notes

I probably should've split the finale into more parts but oh well, long chapter time it is

I totally did not spend ages drawing a map of the showmall for this chapter and then

ended up hardly using it

Also fun fact I actually proofread this one and considering the mistakes I found I'm

worried how many typos were in the previous chapters lmao

Chapter 8- Fall

Chapter Summary

The egress of Hell.

Finale 2/2

Chapter Notes

Hello everyone!!!!!! Sorry this is being posted a bit later than I usually post, this chapter

ended up being. A little longer than I was expecting

Anyways, enjoy the finale ;)

See the end of the chapter for more notes

Ranboo had been pretty sure they were dead a lot of times before. That didn't make his latest

near death experience any less traumatic, though.

He heard the tires screech as they veered from asphalt to dirt, felt himself pulled to the side as

the car swerved and then flung forward upon impact. What had they hit? No, nevermind that,

where was he?

He tried to ground himself as his eyes flickered open, detaching from watching the crash

happen over and over in his mind like a film reel stuck on loop in the same way as a record.

They weren't in the car seat anymore, their fingers were intertwined with blades of grass-

they were in a field? How did they get here..?

He opened his eyes further but struggled to focus on much as the first thing coming into view

was the blinding sun and everything else around it seemed to blur together into dazzling

yellows and greens that overwhelmed his senses.

Instinctively he turned his head down and saw that his body was thankfully intact, but also

that there were two others beside him. They glanced up to one and let out a sigh of relief

when seeing it was only Ratkkuno, and the one on the opposite side of them was Valkyrat.

He wanted to ask something, anything, but not only was their beloved notepad and pen gone,

both of the rats were holding up a finger (or would they be called toes?) to their mouths

(snouts?) to signal for silence. Ranboo obliged, concluding they knew more about what was

going on right now than him.

In the meantime, they could look around a little longer with their more adjusted eyes. They

were definitely in a field, but in the distance they could also make out the mall. It seemed to

be around 20 minutes' walking distance away, but without the walls of the car between him

and the building it seemed to feel much closer.

Ranboo realised he was leaning on something and angled their head to get a look. It was..a

wall..? Yeah, that was a wall, made of bricks and everything, but it seemed awfully unnatural

for it to just be in the middle of a field with no apparent purpose.

A little further down the wall, on the opposite side to them and the rats, smoke seemed to be

rising from something. They moved to try and see what the source was but Ratkkuno put a

hand on their shoulder. Oh. They were hiding.

Instead of looking he started trying to listen, and he soon found what it was they were hiding

from. In the distance, beyond the wind, was the sound of static and distorted growls. He'd

recognise those sounds anywhere. Of course it was that fucking TV abomination.

It had been the thing that stopped them on the road- had Taurus been leading them all into an

ambush that entire time?

Wait, Sneeg and Charlie- where were Sneeg and Charlie?

Ranboo looked at Ratkkuno but couldn't think of any way to get his message across. They

glanced back at Valkyrat and saw she was facing the other way, intently listening to the

sounds in the distance.

That smoke must have been their car. When they hit the wall all of them must have been

knocked out, except the rats who appeared to have dragged Ranboo out. But shouldn't there

have been airbags or something? Oh, wait. That wasn't the issue.

None of them had put seatbelts on, had they?

Ranboo would've laughed at the stupidity of the situation if he wasn't hiding to stay alive. But

that still didn't tell him where Sneeg and Charlie were; if they were still in the car, shouldn't

he try to do something? After all, the TV creature was over there, they didn't want to let it

hurt them.

But with the rats staying where they were, maybe there was some other reason they needed to

stay put. Ranboo didn't want to act recklessly and get them all killed, so they stayed down for

now.

The tense silence continued. Valkyrat's ears seemed to twitch as she listened. She had a much

better chance of hearing what was going on than Ranboo.

But still, Ranboo thought he could hear the creature getting louder. Maybe it was a trick, they

hoped it was, but the static and intermittent growls only seemed to be getting clearer.

He noticed Valkyrat starting to shift and tap her leg nervously. Shit. This wasn't good.

If it found them they were fucked- there was nothing but empty fields for miles, nothing they

could feasibly hide behind, and he really doubted that any of them could outrun that fucking

thing once it found them.

They were running out of time, they had to do something now, or-

Valkyrat took off her shoe and threw it.

Ranboo looked at her in bewilderment. Ratkkuno raised a hand to his mouth to stop himself

letting out an alarmed squeak. Valkyrat stared dead ahead at where the shoe had landed, quite

a far distance away. And, through some miracle, the monster took the bait.

As soon as it was halfway towards the shoe she leapt back over the wall, taking care to land

softly on the floor, which was made easier by one of her feet no longer having a shoe on.

Ranboo peeked over the wall and was scared to follow as he laid his eyes on the TV monster

again. It was broad daylight but seeing it there, stumbling over its own wires and letting out

all sorts of sounds they couldn't identify, made them feel as scared of it as ever.

Just then he saw Ratkkuno hop over the wall too and follow Valkyrat to the car. It was now or

never- the monster wouldn't be distracted forever. He crawled over the wall and followed the

rats as quietly as he could.

When the three of them made it to the car, the first thing they noticed was that it was empty.

"Wha...where..?" Ranboo mumbled, surprising themself with the sound of their own voice. It

had been weeks since he'd last attempted to talk and the result was still croaky and weird, but

without his notepad he might have to get used to it.

Valkyrat put a finger to her lips but approached Ranboo and whispered, "we got you out, but

when we tried to get the others the monster came back...and then all those masked guys"

The employees..? Had they taken Charlie and Sneeg? Ranboo panicked and looked around.

And there, half a mile down the road they had swerved off, he could make out people. There

must have been a dozen of them, and two of them were being dragged along the

asphalt...those must have been Sneeg and Charlie.

Ranboo instinctively starting walking towards them, but Valkyrat held them back.

"Hey, it'll see us! If we're going to the mall then we'll have to go through the field. Then we

have a chance to stay hidden," she hissed.

"T-there's no way we'll catch up with them if we go through the field- we have to get them,

we have to go down the road," Ranboo begged, their voice scratchy and sounding as though it

was coming through a radio with bad signal, but that at least helped keep the volume down.

"We can save them once we get into the mall, we just have to get there in the first place and,

y'know, not die on the way," she whispered, her eyes darting around. The employees, then the

monster, then back to Ranboo. Ranboo looked at the monster as well- it was searching the

grass about fifty metres away. Despite Valkyrat's impressive throw, they probably didn't have

long.

"But once they're in the mall it's too late- we have to help them now, Valkyrat, we have to-!"

She shushed him and interrupted, "no, we just gotta stay alive- once we've gathered supplies

we'll head over to the mall and figure it out from there. If we try and go straight for them,

we're dead"

Ranboo started to see the last time he had been in a situation not too different from this,

however he had been the one dragging Charlie away from that computer and begging for him

to just go. He wondered if it would've been better to leave him there, in that illusion, instead

of very nearly getting him killed. He seemed to be happy when he was streaming, didn't he?

Why were they even thinking about this? If they left Sneeg and Charlie in the hands of those

employees then Showfall would have them in their grasp, and Ranboo wasn't just gonna let

that happen. Not again. He wasn't just gonna stand by, never fucking again.

But Valkyrat clung hard to their wrist as they tried to walk away from the car and back onto

the road again.

"Ranboo, there isn't time, please, you have to trust me"

"Wh- but, we can't- V-Valkyrat we can't leave them! We have to- we have-" Ranboo tried

with croaking that started to sound like static, but in his mind he already knew Valkyrat was

right. "So we're just gonna let them go?"

"You know we don't have a choice," Ratkkuno intervened defensively, returning from the

boot of the car with as many supplies as he could carry in hand, "so make yours now. If you

want to go on the road then me and Valkyrat are going through the field without you. There's

no time left, Ranboo"

Ranboo looked back at the TV monster. It seemed to be more agitated as it continued to

search. Not long left.

They paused but knew there wasn't time for regret or reflection or- whatever, they needed to

pick.

After a moment they nodded, and Valkyrat took no time in taking off her other shoe and

chucking it as far as she could manage. Now that she was standing instead of being crouched

against a wall it managed to fly even further, and once again drew the monster's attention. As

soon as it was stumbling towards the second distraction, Valkyrat pulled on Ranboo's arm and

the three of them made their way away from the crumpled, smoking car and back over the

wall.

Through the field they went, going as fast as they could while crouching. With their heads

down they couldn't see how long it would be until the monster caught onto their second

distraction, so each of them simply prayed they would be making it out of here alive.

Ranboo continued following without any attempts to run back to the road but Valkyrat still

held onto their arm with a grip that might end up leaving a bruise. Maybe it was for her own

comfort, she couldn't exactly look back right now to check that Ranboo was there, or maybe

she just thought that Ranboo needed the help to keep crouch-running with them. It wasn't

particularly easy on the knees, but he wasn't holding back. They had to get into that mall.

The long journey through the field gave him some time to think. There was lots to think

about, but he didn't really want to think about most of it. Most prominent it their mind was

that TV creature monster thing- what even was it? He wasn't sure he would be any happier if

he found the answer.

The image of it standing in the road was so fresh in their mind. Sat between the rats in the

back of the car, they had a front row seat to the moment they all realised they'd been lead into

a trap. The creature had no eyes as far as Ranboo could tell but as it stood there, unmoving,

Ranboo felt as though it had been staring right at him.

Enough of that, it was in the past. They needed to think about where they were going now.

But thinking about that mall never brought anything good, especially now that it was growing

ever closer and the reality of their situation was staring him in the face. They were really

going back into that nightmare, and of their own free will, or as free as his will would ever

be. It didn't seem real. They wished it wasn't real. But wishing wasn't going to do much.

The wind blew. The rats quietly panted. And the mall grew closer.

Before long, they were at its doors.

Ranboo tried to control his breathing. Charlie and Sneeg were inside. They weren't too late,

there was still time to save them. He just had to get in and get out. This would be fine. This

wouldn't be fine. They were fucked.

"Alright, so...Ranboo, do you think you can fit in the vents?" Ratkkuno asked.

"Huh? The...vents?" Ranboo puzzled, his voice even more distorted by the breathlessness that

lingered after their journey.

"It was how me and Ratkkuno got around the mall most of the time! The vents go

everywhere!" Valkyrat insisted. Ranboo knew the monster had gotten far out of sight, but he

still looked around anxiously as Valkyrat returned to her usual, raised volume.

"Uh...y-yeah, I can probably fit," their voice was already starting to get overcome with

scratches and rasping, but they were surprised it had held up this long. Valkyrat understood

and nodded.

"Alright, through these doors there should be a vent on our left. There might be someone

waiting for us when we go in, though...so..?" she looked to Ratkkuno for a suggestion. He

took out a wrench that he had stuffed in his clothes, as he had done with most of the supplies

he brought to keep them from making noise in his hands, and handed it to Valkyrat.

"Alright. We ready?" she asked with a look to Ratkkuno and Ranboo. Ranboo was most

certainly not ready. He nodded.

Valkyrat nodded in response and after a moment of tensely holding her fingers over the

handle, she pushed the door open and swung the wrench wildly around the corner. Thankfully

there was no one there for it to make contact with, although Ranboo might've liked to see one

of the employees get their face smashed in.

He followed her in, then Ratkkuno, and they briefly looked around. It was as quiet and

unnerving as ever.

"Alright, the vent," Valkyrat whispered to herself, leading the other two towards a vent at the

top of the wall beside them. She hopped up to try and get the grate off, and after a moment of

watching her struggle Ranboo stepped in and raised his arms to gently remove it.

Valkyrat seemed a little embarrassed standing next to them and realising how tall they were,

but nodded her thanks regardless.

One by one they climbed into the vent, Valkyrat first with some help from Ranboo, Ranboo

next without requiring much assistance, and then Ratkkuno whom Ranboo pulled up behind

him. It was a little difficult to turn around within the cramped vents but once they had they

wasted no time getting going towards their destination. Which was...

"Hey, uh, where are we heading now?" Ranboo quietly asked. He started to worry how soon

it would be until it hurt to speak.

Valkyrat slowed down in front of him.

"...good question"

"I...you two seem to know the layout better than I do, any rooms you think they might've

taken them?" his throat was already starting to burn a little. Not a good sign.

"All the important rooms are on the next floor up. Maybe we'll find Charlie in that streamer

area," Ratkkuno suggested.

"Alright, yeah," Valkyrat agreed, "the nearest way up is, uh...this way, follow me"

Ranboo obliged and followed her past several grates looking into empty, abandoned rooms

and a few corners that were a little difficult to get around. These rats must've had the vents

system memorised or something.

Valkyrat stopped and Ranboo looked past her to see the vent rose up at an angle.

"Alright, it's a steep incline, but we can do this," she encouraged and started her way up.

Ranboo felt like the encouragement was mostly aimed at them, and they would probably

need it. There were indents and seams to grab onto once he started going up, but it was still a

struggle not to slip and fall right onto Ratkkuno below him.

The three clambered up and Ranboo was relieved to be on level surface again, but there was

no time to stop and enjoy it. They continued, grate after grate, corner after corner, until

Ranboo started to recognise what he was seeing outside.

They were approaching the atrium...did that mean they were somewhere above the Puzzler

shrine right now? That would've meant Charlie's streaming room was just ahead, and they

could get him out!

Ranboo approached the next grate with anticipation, but was met with disappointment. The

room was the same as it had been the last time he was here, but Charlie was nowhere in sight.

"Not here then...where next?" Ratkkuno asked after he'd gotten a look.

They were all silent for a few moments, and Valkyrat was eventually the first to make a

suggestion.

"The rooms further up ahead are used for storage, they could be holding them in there for

now"

Ranboo nodded but just as he was about to get moving again, something beyond the grate

caught his eye. It was difficult to know exactly what it was beyond the metal, but something

was definitely moving in the distance. It seemed to be going towards the escalators.

Ranboo tapped Valkyrat to stop her going ahead, then put a finger to his lips before she

questioned what was going on. If it was an employee they didn't want to risk being heard.

Whatever it was went up, and was soon out of sight. Ranboo thought they could make out

talking, but it was too far away to be sure, and soon they couldn't hear anything.

"...that could be them," Valkyrat whispered. Ranboo nodded.

"Where's the closest way up?" He asked with some difficulty. Valkyrat started moving ahead

and beckoned for him to follow, so he did.

After another difficult ascent they were on the floor above, looking out onto the atrium. They

approached the escalator the figure had gone up but Ranboo couldn't see any more movement

as he looked through each grate. The three continued moving but Ranboo suddenly stopped

at the next grate, looking down onto one of the indoor plants situated in the middle of the

hallway.

It wasn't one figure, but two, and both of them were sat with their backs to the plant, like they

were trying to hide. Valkyrat noticed them stop and backtracked to get a look through the

gate alongside Ranboo and Ratkkuno. It was difficult to see through the metal bars, not made

any easier by the three of them being squished together, but as Ranboo looked down from the

vent onto the two figures below he seemed to recognise a hat one of them was wearing.

Then suddenly they noticed movement- someone was approaching from the right, where they

remembered that Showfall banner was hung up. If it was Sneeg below then he worried that

this new figure might be an employee, but as they slowly stepped closer into view Ranboo

saw the body armour and let out a sound that might've sounded like the rats' squeaks, if not

for the torn up throat.

They were both there- Charlie and Sneeg were there, and they were fine! Ranboo wanted to

get excited, but a sense still lingered that something was wrong. Why was Sneeg hiding?

Who was the one next to him that Ranboo couldn't see?

He had to get to them. Without warning he banged on the grate, scaring the rats beside him as

the loud noise reverberated through the vent. Valkyrat stopped them and held onto their arm,

looking panicked. Ranboo tried to get their arm out of her grip as they looked back at the

grate and past it, at which point their eyes locked onto Sneeg.

The banging had clearly startled him, and now that he'd shifted Ranboo could see his face.

Ranboo decided he'd never be satisfied until every single bastard that did this to his friend

was dead by his hands.

That covering over his eyes, made exactly to match the style of the mask that had once been

over Ranboo's mouth. It made them sick to the stomach and fucking infuriated that Showfall

thought they could do this. They thought they could just treat people as toys, to modify and

maul at their whim.

But he'd let them do it. Ranboo had arrived late and given Showfall all the time they needed

to put their claim on his friends with metal and wires. Maybe if he wasn't such a coward he

could've saved them from this.

They weren't thinking anymore, there was no room left in their head for anything that wasn't

blinding, deafening rage, searing his throat and the back of his eyes, demanding to be

released.

So he obliged.

BANG, BANG-

"GRRAAAHHHH"

Tearing their hand from Valkyrat's grip they pounded on the grate again, denting the secured

metal and cutting their hand, but they couldn't feel the pain. He liberated his furious scream

that sounded more beastial than human, scratched and distorted, a nightmare of broken radios

and anguish.

Valkyrat put a hand over his mouth, and it was probably for his own good, but he pushed her

away. His eyes darted to Charlie, hoping that they might see each other and they could get

him out, but he didn't even seem to have noticed. He got a few steps closer to Sneeg and then

turned away.

Ranboo wanted to scream again but realised it would be futile. Metal, the same style as that

which was over Sneeg's eyes, had been placed over his ears.

And so Charlie walked away, oblivious. Sneeg remained on the floor, catching his breath.

Ranboo watched as they were separated once more, and he couldn't do anything to stop it.

In desperation they tried to call out to Sneeg once more, but their voice failed them. That

scream had been the killing blow.

As Sneeg got up and walked away with the other figure, there was nothing he could do.

"Ranboo, are you..?" Valkyrat went to ask. Ranboo shook their head before she could finish.

Unable to speak he simply angled his head, beckoning for them to go.

"Let's just catch them up ahead, alright? We can't do much from these vents, but we can talk

to them properly if we get out somewhere and catch up to them," Ratkkuno suggested.

Ranboo nodded and Valkyrat began leading them to the nearest grate they could hop out of.

"Aha!" she soon exclaimed, fiddling with a grate and finding it was loose enough to push out.

She braced to give it a strong shove, but Ranboo noticed something from below and quickly

shoved an arm in her way, unable to call out for her to stop. She looked down and her eyes

widened in horror witnessing the scene below.

The TV monster had caught up with them and now it was here, dragging someone along as it

made its way towards the doors that Ranboo remembered lead into the cabin set. He then

realised with distress that the person it was dragging was Charlie.

The three looked on, holding their breath, as Charlie and the monster disappeared into the

dark room in front of them. Charlie was still conscious but didn't dare to make any move to

get away. He must've been terrified. Ranboo felt sick.

After a moment, and an approving nod from Ranboo, Valkyrat pushed out the grate, grabbing

it at the last second to stop it from loudly clattering on the ground.

Carefully they all climbed down to the mall floor and Ranboo looked at the room Charlie had

disappeared into. He couldn't see anything within, the door must've been shut once the

monster was inside. Had Sneeg gone in there too?

Ranboo approached, the rats following behind. There would only be one way to find out.

"Wait," Ratkkuno quietly interrupted, "are you sure you want go in there? We don't know

what could be inside"

Ranboo knew the monster was in there, which was about the worst thing they could imagine,

but it was in there with their friends. There was no hesitating this time. Too many times had

he let them slip through his fingers. Too many times had his choices to leave them behind

almost killed them. He was getting them out, whether he died doing so or not.

They opened the door.

And were met with Sneeg's scream.

It was nice confirmation he was also there, but Ranboo was a bit more concerned about why

the fuck he was screaming. The rats ran in and squealed in horror as Sneeg fell to his knees,

two employees holding his arms behind his back as blood streamed down his face.

Ranboo looked down and saw the metal that had been dropped by his feet. He'd torn the mask

off.

"Ranboo! So nice of you to join us," purred a voice from across the room that made Ranboo's

hair stand on end. He looked to Sneeg, being held down and still screaming but his voice

clearly giving out, he saw Charlie across from him pinned to the ground under the TV

monster, and then standing between them both...

Fucking Hetch.

"Speechless, eh?" he said with a chuckle, smug as ever. Ranboo wanted him dead. They

wanted that stupid masked head on a fucking spike.

"I'm a little disappointed Sneeg was so eager to ruin our lovely mask, it took quite a bit of

effort to make sure it fit your face perfectly. But I can't be too sad, at least now you'll be able

to see the show in all its glory!" Hetch announced triumphantly, raising his arm in a motion

that Ranboo realised too late was a signal. Employees suddenly appeared behind him and he

just barely dodged out of their grasp, seeing in the corner of his eyes as the rats skillfully

skittered around the further employees that were reaching to grab them.

Ranboo fell backwards into the cabin room, however the rats were now behind their attackers

and backing towards the door.

"Don't let those two get away," Hetch warned. The rats were now blocked by a wall of

employees as the ones who were going after Ranboo changed their target on Hetch's

command.

Valkyrat paused and gave a knowing look to Ranboo. They couldn't fight, but they could be a

distraction. Ranboo nodded, as did Valkyrat, before spinning on her tail and pulling Ratkkuno

with her out the door. The employees gave chase and Ranboo heard Hetch sigh behind them.

"Those employees with never be fast enough...Security, if you don't mind..?" Hetch cooed, to

which the creature responded with an affirmative growl and made its way past the frozen

Ranboo and out the door.

Ranboo grounded themself and turned their head to see Charlie was now unrestrained, but he

remained on the floor, covering his head. Ranboo stumbled over and kneeled by him, taking

hold of his shoulders.

"Charlie..?" he tried to say, but as his voice was only barely recovering from the scream

earlier it came out sounding like a scratched record.

"He can't...hear you..." croaked a faint voice behind them. Ranboo turned their head to see

Sneeg, who had stopped screaming, but his voice had already paid the price. Ranboo could

barely make out the eyes that were looking at him through the red. The bleeding seemed to be

slowing down, at least.

"Sneeg..." another indiscernible sound, but Sneeg seemed to understand.

"I'm glad...you're okay..." Sneeg smiled, but his expression still betrayed the pain he was in as

it looked somewhat more like a grimace.

"So sorry to interrupt the reunion, gentlemen and others, but we have a schedule to stick to!"

Hetch called out, making Ranboo wince from the change in volume, "by the way, very happy

you arrived on time Ranboo. I knew you just couldn't resist the hero's entrance once we let

you see your friends being taken away!"

Let him see..? So that was planned- this room was a trap and they'd fallen straight for it?

Whatever, trap or not, he and his friends were getting out of here.

Ranboo started to lift Charlie up, ignoring Hetch. Sneeg weakly turned his head to face Hetch

and spoke.

"So you...you're Hetch..?" He rasped, his frail voice a mixture of accusation and betrayal.

"Yes, yes, so sorry to have fooled you. Those two may have described my mask to you, but

it's quite difficult to accurately describe a voice, isn't it? How convenient that was for me,"

the grin was evident despite the mask in the way.

Sneeg spat at him, now with his vision regained having it land more accurately at the base of

Hetch's trousers. It seemed to be more blood than spit that ended up on his clothes.

Hetch sighed and disregarded Sneeg as he began walking towards Ranboo, who was still

trying to help Charlie to his feet. Charlie seemed determined to keep his head in his hands

and ignore the world while Ranboo kept making unintelligible noises in an attempt to get

through to him.

"H-hey, get away from him!" Sneeg called out in as loud a whisper as he could make, giving

Ranboo just enough warning to spin around as his face met Hetch's fist.

He staggered back, dropping Charlie and desperately trying not to fall over. He clumsily

managed to remain standing and threw a glare at Hetch, who had stopped approaching next to

where Charlie lay.

"The show must go on, Ranboo, and we can't continue it without our star. You have no idea

how much they adore you," he drawled, raising a foot to nudge Charlie's body and chuckling

to himself as Charlie flinched in response. Ranboo didn't waste a second running over there

and hitting Hetch across the face.

It gave them immense satisfaction to see Hetch stagger back from their punch, but they soon

realised hitting the edge of that mask had also done some damage in return to their fist. The

wound they received earlier from hitting the vent had reopened and blood was dripping

between their fingers once again.

"Good hit, Ranboo, I'm glad this won't be as easy as I was expecting. A struggle before defeat

is much more captivating for our audience," Hetch divulged. As if Ranboo needed any more

convincing that this man was fucking insane.

Ranboo swung again but Hetch stepped back, watching as Ranboo stumbled with the

momentum of his anger.

"Not waiting for me to have my turn? How you've changed, Ranboo," he taunted as he

charged a fist into Ranboo's side before they could balance themself. Ranboo tumbled

backwards but hastily got back up the moment he hit the floor, not wanting to be on the

ground at any point in this fight. He took a moment to breathe, then once again raised his

fists.

The fight continued and the two of them stumbled through the room, exchanging punches

and the occasional kick. Ranboo could catch glimpses of Charlie trying to get to his knees or

Sneeg trying to get out of the grasp of the employees, but it seemed Hetch was only waiting

for those moments to land his stronger punches.

Ranboo was still landing plenty in return, but with that mask they couldn't gauge the damage

and started to worry they were tiring before Hetch did. Even worse, it crossed his mind that

the mask could be some kind of impact protection, and if that was the case had he even hit

hard enough to leave a bruise?

This had happened before. When Hetch and been waiting in that "exit" and dragged him

kicking and screaming to what should've been his death. That had been where they got the

crack in their mask. Were they going to lose to Hetch a second time? Were they about to

throw away all the sacrifices everyone had made to get to this point due to their own inability

to fucking fight?

Hetch grabbed them by the neck and threw them to the ground. Maybe the answer to those

questions was going to be yes.

How pathetic.

"Get your fucking hands off him," demanded a voice across the room. Ranboo raised their

head to see Charlie on his knees, his hands on the floor infront of him seemingly to keep him

upright. He heard Hetch standing over him, chuckling.

"Nice of you to finally join the conversation, Charlie. I was starting to worry I might've

broken you. Nothing a reset can't-" Hetch began to spiel.

"Get away from them you fucking psycho!" Charlie spat, cutting Hetch off. It seemed he still

couldn't hear when Hetch was in the middle of something, which Ranboo was quite enjoying

the results of.

"Now Charlie, I-" Hetch tried again, looking down at his hand.

"You fucking bastard! You piece of shit asshole, I'll fucking kill you! I'll tear you apart! I'll

skin you alive motherfucker, leave my fucking friends alone!" he screamed, slamming his

hands down on the floor and threatening to fall over every time he did.

Ranboo looked up at Hetch, who slowly turned his head back to face Charlie with all the

energy of an unimpressed theatre kid.

"Maybe I should've made you the "speak no evil" one. Such a foul mouth," he complained

and clicked his fingers. On command one of the employees holding Sneeg stepped away and

started approaching Charlie.

Charlie started shifting away but his limbs were still too weak to get him far. The employee

dug a cloth out of their pocket and stretched it between their hands.

"S-stop, don't...d-don't come near me!" Charlie shouted, outstretching an arm in an attempt to

stop the employee. The employee grabbed his arm, manoeuvred it behind his body and

pinned him to the floor.

Ranboo let out a distressed sound as Charlie's head hit the floor but Hetch placed his foot on

top of them to keep them down.

"Just enjoy the show, Ranboo," he sneered. Ranboo instinctively went to claw at his legs but

Hetch anticipated the movement and stomped on his ribs. Ranboo grimaced and clutched his

chest. He really hoped that wasn't a crack he heard.

From the corner of their eye they could do nothing but watch as the employee put the cloth

over his mouth and tied a knot tightly at the back, causing a pained growl from Charlie that

was muffled through his gag. The employee dragged him up with his hands behind his back,

where his legs seemed limp below him, hardly able to hold up his own weight. Despite this

his cursing continued, his obscenities could no longer be made out but his intentions and

hatred were still clear from the way he snarled and spat them.

Ranboo glanced towards Sneeg and saw that he now had an arm free. Blood still coated his

face and he seemed to come in and out of consciousness, so the remaining employee holding

his other arm didn't seem too worried about completely restraining him.

Hetch gave Ranboo a painful nudge of his foot to bring the attention back to him.

"You like what you see?" he jeered, "sorry to silence your friend, but heckling isn't an

appreciated form of audience interaction"

Ranboo tried again to claw at Hetch in instinctive wrath, to which Hetch only stepped back

and sighed as though he pitied Ranboo's attempts.

"This didn't end well last time, Ranboo, you know that. Though I suppose you don't have that

crack in your mask anymore as a reminder...I'm quite sad you took it off, it was a rather large

part of your iconography. Oh, don't worry though, I know how we can fix that"

Hetch grabbed Ranboo's hair and yanked him up until he was somewhat standing, barely able

to support his own weight but having to try to stop Hetch's grip from ripping out some of

their scalp. His arms rose shakily to the top of his own head, but he didn't have the strength to

try and battle against Hetch's own hand.

"Don't worry, my dear Ranboo, you'll be back on the stage in no time"

Ranboo made a sound adjacent to a growl, his eyes wide and furious as they tried to stare

behind themself to give Hetch a taste of their anger. Hetch only laughed and dug something

out of his pocket. From the corner of their eye Ranboo saw a switchblade being flicked out.

"It's best you don't struggle now, Ranboo..."

Without a chance for reaction, Hetch swiftly scratched his blade twice over Ranboo's cheek,

earning a scream of pain in response.

"FUCKING ASSHOLE," Sneeg suddenly screamed, returning to consciousness and

assuming that Hetch was just intending to undo the bandages and being a bitch about it, but

gradually a colour faded into the scratches. A stark red. Just as it had been on that old fucking

mask.

Charlie howled in fury, thrashing and kicking with all his might, and yet it was clear how

futile his efforts were. Hetch only grew more amused.

"That's better, isn't it? Asymmetry isn't really my thing, though...hold still, would you?"

Hetch purred as he shifted Ranboo to get to their other cheek. Ranboo tried again to struggle

and scream but his movement was sluggish and his voice ached. They could sense Hetch's

grin from behind that mask.

And without warning, he struck again. Twice more that blade dug into him and Hetch let out

a celebratory laugh before throwing Ranboo to the floor, then wobbling a step back as though

he was drunk with joy. Ranboo could feel the blood draining from their cheeks and hated that

it felt just as warm as the LEDs used to. He'd been branded again- like some kind of fucking

livestock.

Hetch nudged Ranboo's body with his foot. The sensation felt numb, the noises around him

sounded like they were coming from a different room that he was just listening in on.

Charlie's protests and screaming started to resemble the humming of machinery. It was all too

familiar.

"How pitiful...weren't you the hero?" Hetch taunted, "it's not very heroic to curl up and cry,

you know"

Ranboo started coming back to reality. That word...he hated it.

"Is this your choice, hero? To just sit and watch in your front row view as your friends are

taken by Showfall once again? Well, I can't exactly judge you for that, I'm sure their kicking

and screaming will be a sight to remember," Hetch said with another nudge of his leg into

Ranboo's ribcage.

Ranboo grabbed him.

As Hetch wobbled a little from the sudden grip on his leg, Ranboo smashed their legs into the

other shin.

"I'M NOT A FUCKING HERO"

Hetch started to fall and Ranboo dragged him down while trying to raise himself, digging his

nails into anything he could, the fleshier the better. If this thing was even made of flesh

anymore.

Hetch raised the knife and threatened to plunge it into Ranboo but he responded faster,

holding Hetch's arm down onto the floor with the strength of both of his own, the adrenaline

threatening to make their heart explode.

Hetch raised his other arm to attack but Ranboo kicked it down with his leg, now pinning

Hetch down in a pose reminiscent of a game of twister that went horribly wrong.

But as Ranboo focused on keeping the knife held down, he forgot about Hetch's other limbs,

and was reminded with a sudden kick to the ribs.

Ranboo was pushed back but managed to stay standing, his legs shaking and his fit of

coughing starting to bring up blood.

"Ah, there we are...much more recognisable now," Hetch sneered. Ranboo drilled into him

with his eyes. His face was bruised, two cuts on either cheek and now blood steadily

absorbing into the bandages in front of his mouth, too.

"KICK HIS ASS RANBOO, KILL THAT FUCKER," Sneeg screamed out, struggling

against the employee that held him down. Ranboo looked at him, then back at Hetch. Hetch

flicked the knife mockingly.

Ranboo definitely had some broken ribs and he was losing more blood by the second. But

there was a chance, a tiny, fool's chance that he could save someone. It didn't need to be

himself.

They ran towards Hetch.

At first it was more like a cat-fight as Ranboo struggled to keep the knife blade away, but

soon he was landing punches and kicks, and receiving about as many. At this point he knew

better than to worry about himself and just kept fighting, no matter how much blood was

seeping between the fingers he held clenched in a perpetual fist, no matter whose blood it

was.

Through the chaos of entangled limbs he caught glimpses of Charlie and Sneeg, who seemed

to be breaking through as well. There really was a chance that someone could get out of here.

But just as soon as hope began to glow in their eyes it was dashed by a well-placed punch

that very nearly rendered Ranboo unconscious. A few moments later they came to, and saw

Sneeg in front of them, but Sneeg wasn't looking back at them. He was looking at the knife

Hetch was holding to their throat.

"Not another step, Sneeg," his voice was raspy. Ranboo was happy to know that the punch he

landed on his throat had actually done some damage.

Behind Sneeg, Ranboo saw Charlie on the floor, still thrashing against the employee holding

him down with a knee against his back. His screaming was furious as he stared Hetch down.

"You wouldn't kill him," Sneeg tried to sound confident in his assertion but a hint of

questioning broke through in his tone.

"You've seen us bring people back to life before, haven't you? Heck, we had to give you a

little help after our Security mangled you in front of the exit. We did want you damaged, but

not quite as badly as you were..." Hetch claimed. A realisation seemed to dawn on Sneeg's

face. Or maybe it was something he had just been denying.

"Yes, that's right," Hetch continued, "you only escaped because we let you. I'm sure you were

already coming to that conclusion anyway but did you really think we would make a box that

bad at finishing the job?"

Hetch laughed mockingly and held Ranboo closer when he mentioned the box, the knife

blade grazing his throat. Ranboo felt numb to it. They realised that had been a common

feeling over the last month. Looking back on all the time they'd spent in that house, it felt like

they weren't there, they were just watching from somewhere else. Perhaps that was how

they'd gone so long not thinking about the horrors that happened at Showfall- by just being

absent from their own mind.

And as much as they wanted to resort to that again now, they had to find a way out. He had to

save his friends.

"What's your obsession with these fucking shows? If you won't let us out can't you at least let

us fucking die?!" Sneeg questioned as Ranboo noticed the blood on his sleeve, and the lack

of it on his face except for the lines where the mask had been on his skin that were still

bleeding. He must've wiped it off at some point. Ranboo worried how bloody their own face

was.

"The audience needs to be fed, Sneeg. After our first show with you was a booming success,

we realised that you three truly are stars. But we couldn't keep putting you in death trap after

death trap, no, an audience needs variety, not oversaturation. It hit me then- how about a slice

of life show to bring down the adrenaline in between our more...intense shoots? Yes, I

thought that would be a wonderful idea," Hetch mused. Sneeg looked ready to spit on him a

third time, if only Ranboo wasn't also in the firing zone.

"Fucking slice of life..? Our lives aren't there for your entertainment, you sick fucks, when

are you gonna understand that?!" he shouted, clenching his fists and looking severely

dissatisfied that he couldn't pound them into Hetch's face that very moment.

"Oh, but you do such a good job entertaining them, Sneeg...I don't think any of you will

outlive your usefulness for a while yet," Hetch observed, "don't worry, being recast won't

hurt. None of you remember what happened before that cabin, do you? It's just like waking

up from a dream"

"It's a fucking nightmare you sicko! You've got no fucking right to keep using our lives like

this, we're done with your shit, we're getting out of here!" Sneeg's voice cracked and Ranboo

caught his eyes.

They looked at each other, eyes welling with grief. Neither knew how long they had been

here, but they both knew the pain of having their lives taken, of being controlled and

manipulated, of being worn down until their lives were no longer discernable as their own or

the product of something else.

And here they were, stood at the site of their revelation that the cabin they thought they once

lived in was only a set, bloodied and bruised, Ranboo with a knife to his throat and Sneeg

watching on, powerless. The man that had done this to them, that had used their lives like

playthings, that took joy from observing their anguish, now stood behind Ranboo, breathing

down their neck. And they could do nothing. None of them could.

Ranboo's throat shook as he began to sob, bringing him worryingly closer to the blade but he

could no longer hold it back. This was bullshit, all of it. What did they do? What had any of

them done to deserve this?

Fine, maybe he did, maybe this was just the consequences that had been a long time coming

for him leaving his friends to die every chance he got. Hell, sometimes they even pointed

them in the direction of their demise. But his friends didn't deserve this- not Sneeg, not

Charlie.

Sneeg clenched his jaw to stop himself crying the same tears as Ranboo. Charlie was panting

behind him, pinned to the floor, the cloth so tight around his mouth that Ranboo worried it

might choke him.

Why were they here. What fucking world were they in that was letting them suffer like this

and just watching passively as they were torn apart from within. Was this justice? Was this

Ranboo's punishment for letting everyone else die? If it weren't for Showfall's intervention

then the three of them should've been dead already.

Maybe he had died back in that box.

Maybe this mall really was Hell.

Something was approaching the door quickly, and Ranboo felt Hetch moving to look behind

himself and see what it was. Sneeg took that as his chance and ran, but by the time he

grabbed onto Hetch's arm the knife had already been plunged into Ranboo's chest. Hetch

really wasn't bluffing about letting them die.

Ranboo was dropped to the floor as Sneeg let out a war cry and grappled with Hetch, the

desperation to kill him and get his revenge etched upon his screaming face. Hetch fought

back but with the knife sheathed in Ranboo's chest and his energy already quite drained from

the previous fight, Sneeg had a chance.

Ranboo shifted their gaze from the furious combat as they clung to their consciousness. At

first he thought Hetch had landed a strong punch on his ribs, but looking down it was hard to

deny the knife hilt protruding from his chest and the blood that started to pool around it.

The world started to spin. The fluorescent lights overhead hummed louder and brighter as the

sounds of a struggle between Sneeg and Hetch echoed into infinity. And then as it all seemed

to be swirling together to an empty black, a roar pierced through and brought them back to

reality. The thing that had been approaching and almost distracted Hetch for long enough.

The TV monster had returned.

Ranboo tried to get up but any movement shifted the knife and sent searing pain through the

rest of their body. They could only watch and fear as it made its way across the room towards

Charlie, still pinned to the ground. Why was it back? Where were the rats it had been sent

after?

And as Ranboo tried to come up with an answer, he saw something that would only give him

more questions. The creature leapt up and dug its wired claws into the employee atop

Charlie, shoving it down to the ground as it screamed in static and broken signals, the

employee struggling but unable to do anything as the beast dug its claws further and

screeched its deafening battle cry. Charlie stared on in horror, but the moment he was able to

tear his eyes from the spectacle and look at Ranboo he didn't dare look back.

The roaring continued, as did the growls from Hetch and Sneeg, as Charlie crawled to

Ranboo, trying to get onto his feet every few moments but ultimately stumbling back to his

knees. With one hand he clumsily tugged the rag out of his mouth and took in a proper breath

before speaking.

"Ranboo- Ranboo, hold on, I can...just hold on, I'll help," Charlie tried to convince them,

rising up onto his palms when he got a metre from Ranboo, "ah, shit- they...what the fuck

have they done to you, man..?"

Charlie held up one hand to run through his hair, almost costing him his balance but he

remained on his hand and knees. Ranboo remained lying on his back, breathing slowly and

carefully and looking up at Charlie. From this close the first thing they made out were his

wide eyes, staring at the knife that drew more blood by the second. Ranboo couldn't tell what

was behind that stare- he saw fear, sadness, anger, but knew there was much more in that

expression he couldn't make out. Next to draw his eyes were Charlie's ears- or at least the

things covering them.

They were cut sheets of metal, quite reminiscent of Ranboo's mask, with wires going around

the back to what Ranboo prayed wasn't the Showfall logo. If they were just meant to deafen

him then why did they need wires..?

"Ranboo? Ranboo, can you hear me? Stay with me!" Charlie begged, and Ranboo gave a

weak nod in response. The lights above were blinding, the mix of electronic screams and

grunts of violence and pain were echoing inside their head and becoming deafening. All he

could do to stay sane was focus on Charlie and his breathing. For a moment the room faded

and it was just them. There was no knife, no fighting. They were sitting together. It was nice.

But Showfall didn't like to give them a single moment of peace.

A shadow looked over Charlie's shoulder and Ranboo tried to choke out a warning but even

with the meaningless, broken sounds coming from their mouth Charlie couldn't hear a thing.

The monster swiped and Charlie's body was thrown five metres across the floor.

Ranboo desperately tried to sit up despite the pain and see what was going on. Charlie had

landed not too far from the cabin, his face obscured but Ranboo heard a crack as his head hit

the floor. Hopefully that was one of the fucking ear pieces.

The monster stalked back towards its prey, at which point Ranboo saw the remains of the

employee that lay on the floor near Charlie. He resisted the urge to throw up.

Charlie shakily raised his arms and tried to get back up but seeing the TV creature wading

towards him he started backing away, murmuring pleas as the beast only continued to get

closer.

Ranboo looked down at the knife. He knew you weren't supposed to remove items from their

wounds. But he also knew he didn't need to live.

Ranboo pulled out the knife. Ranboo ignored the pain, ignored the sensation of every muscle

in their body screaming for them to stop. Ranboo ran.

Just as the creature raised its wired hand to swipe and Charlie shut his eyes, Ranboo plunged

4 inches of blood-stained steel right where that thing's spine should've been.

It drew its hand back and reeled its head back as it screeched, stunning Ranboo but he held

tightly onto the knife and yanked it back out, prompting a second screech that sounded even

more horrific. Charlie flinched and covered the metal over his ears. At least that meant he

could hear.

Ranboo went to strike again, and whilst the creature was strong, it still wasn't fast enough to

stop the blade as it returned into its neck, splitting and sparking wires, as well as hitting

something that Ranboo really hoped wasn't flesh.

Charlie was paralysed against the pillar he had backed into, watching motionlessly as Ranboo

plunged the knife in and out as many times as they could. But soon it caught them, grabbing

onto Ranboo's wrist on a downward slice and twisting with force that would've broken

Ranboo's wrist if they didn't give in and fall to the floor beneath it.

But now looking up at that horror, and knowing it was looking back, Ranboo might've

preferred the broken wrist.

The knife had been dropped to the floor and now the creature moved ever closer, wires

leaking out of the face between shards of broken glass, trailing over Ranboo's face and

threatening to spark and shock him if any of them made contact at the wrong moment. Clicks

and growls reverberated from the beast. Ranboo felt heat emibating from it as it pressed

against them, getting ever closer like it was just toying with its food before eating it.

Ranboo started to hear breathing and involuntarily lurched. His eyes darted around and his

body shook, he desperately searched for any kind of way out, but with the monster at their

throat any wrong move would have them dead. If he couldn't live he could at least be a

worthy distraction and keep this thing occupied.

But it seemed the TV creature was done playing and raised its head, along with a sharp hand

of wires ready to swipe. Ranboo closed their eyes in preparation for the impact, and then-

Drip.

Something fell and trailed down their cheek like a drop of rain. Ranboo dared to open their

eyes just a crease and witnessed a blade not far from their face, but the sharp edge being held

to the monster's throat. Ranboo winced as the blade cut again, slicing through the wires that

made up the creatures neck one by one. Slice after slice, wires fell apart, what could've been

oil dropped down from the gash that got deeper as the cuts became more frenzied and

furious.

Slice, slice, slice.

The creature made pained gargles and muted screeches but could do nothing as wires

disconnected and that voice died, crying out with each cut in a dimmer and more distorted

voice.

And with a final cut, the body fell.

Ranboo expected to need to brace for its head to fall on top of their own, but as the wiry mess

of a body fell down on their chest the head remained up, a hand clutched around the wires

once making up its neck.

There, stood over the corpse like some victorious hunter, stood Charlie, panting, dark stains

splattered and running down his face. He looked down at Ranboo. Ranboo looked up at him,

scared- not of Charlie, but of everything. Charlie looked back, empty.

After a few moments of staring and breathing in silence, the adrenaline seemed to altogether

drain from Charlie's body. The knife and the TV were dropped as he collapsed down to his

knees and stumbled round to Ranboo's side, helping to lift the limp wire body off their chest.

Charlie's breath caught in his throat when he saw the state of the wound.

The blood that had once been contained to a circle around the impact area had now spread

down to their legs and leaked onto their throat. They must have lost a litre of blood already

and the wound showed no sign of slowing down the leak anytime soon. So that was why you

weren't supposed to remove the knife.

Charlie was saying something but Ranboo's attention was drawn to Sneeg as Hetch shoved

him to the ground of the cabin's living room and pressed a foot to his ribs. The couch was

torn up, the shelves were all destroyed and barely any props remained in their original places.

Both Sneeg and Hetch were bloody. Ranboo just hoped that under that mask Hetch was

bloodier.

Further away from Ranboo was another employee on the floor, presumably that Sneeg had

knocked unconscious to escape. And of course the one that had been holding Charlie was

torn apart elsewhere, thankfully somewhere that Ranboo couldn't see them.

Hetch, given a moment to rest from the fighting, looked over the scene before him, but his

eyes eventually landed upon his dear, beheaded security. Through the holes in his mask,

Ranboo thought he could see some kind of spark alight, or flicker, in his eyes. Either way, it

seemed they'd found something with which to hurt him back.

"Security...what have you done..?" he asked, provoking a laugh from Ranboo that Charlie

tried to advise against. They only realised then that the sensation on their chest had been

Charlie putting his hands over the wound to stop the blood, but at this point Ranboo didn't

care if they died.

"We killed your pet bitch," he responded with mild delirium, his voice weak and still

mangled enough that Hetch could only just make out the words. Hetch steeled himself and

turned away from Ranboo, which almost caused a second mocking laugh. Was he really

needing to stop himself from crying about that thing? Hetch sighed.

"Alright, no matter. You sure are a feisty bunch but we can reprogram the obedience. I hate to

dull your genuine emotions, but this is quite tiring to have to deal with," he nudged Sneeg

with his foot, who Ranboo realised hadn't moved for a while. That was worrying.

"Which one of you to do first, hm? Eeny, meeny, miney..." Hetch articulated with an arm

pointing to each of the three, one by one, and settling on Charlie, "...moe"

Charlie winced but kept his hands pressed on Ranboo's wound. Hetch stepped over Sneeg

and slowly meandered over, trying his best to drag out the moment.

"I'm happy for you that you've been able to face your fear, but we might need to reinstall

some of it for the next show. After all, we don't want a fearless sidekick to overshadow the

real hero," Hetch proclaimed with a look at Ranboo. Ranboo wished they could've spat.

Charlie stayed where he was, Hetch inching closer and closer. Ranboo looked at him. Ranboo

looked at the bloodied knife on the floor behind him.

"Charlie...fight him...please..." Ranboo begged, raising an arm to push him away, but Charlie

barely moved at the resistance.

"W-what, and let you bleed out? We can't bring you back, Ranboo, we need- we need you-"

Charlie stuttered, glancing back and forth between Hetch and Ranboo like the deer that

waited in the headlights, preparing to be hit. Ranboo tried to push harder but couldn't

summon the strength.

"Charlie, go, go!" the last word was only a desperate sound as Ranboo shouted for Charlie to

leave him. They couldn't fight like this, and they worried about the state that Sneeg was in.

Charlie was the only one left to fight, but he refused.

"Ranboo- Ranboo, I can't..." he began shakily as tears formed. Hetch continued to close the

gap.

"Charlie. Please," Ranboo said, waiting for Charlie to meet their eyes before they continued.

He tried his best to summon a smile that reached his eyes.

"Just let me die"

Charlie slapped him.

In the shock from the impact he hardly noticed three new figures stumbling into the room.

From the entrance came Valkyrat's voice:

"Hey, uh, we found someone!"

Ten minutes earlier...

Valkyrat and Ratkkuno were dashing through the mall, skittering around each corner as they

struggled to grip the tiled floor and almost hit the wall at every turn. The employees chased

relentlessly, but it was something behind them Valkyrat had noticed that scared her more.

Some strange beast she had only been seeing from afar- on the road, in the field, and then

with Charlie only a few minutes ago. Seeing it now, she didn't really want a chance for a

closer view.

The rats' knowledge of the mall was coming in handy to not run into one of many dead ends

that lay everywhere, but Ratkkuno knew there was only so long and so far they could run. If

Showfall still got to them, then at least they had bought some time, but he also quite liked the

idea of not dying here.

So on they ran, hallway after turn after hallway after turn, until someone stood in their way.

Both the rats worried that an employee had somehow predicted their path and gotten in front

of them, but as they unsheathed their claws they realised the masked figure was set apart

from the other employees. She seemed to be one of few female ones, but more significantly

her mask was split down the middle and two horns were affixed to the top.

She looked beyond the rats and held out some kind of remote. Valkyrat panicked at what it

could be but she had pushed a button before either of the rats could make it to her. And then,

the stampede stopped.

Valkyrat faltered in disbelief, thinking she might've abruptly gone deaf, but as she glanced

behind herself she saw that undeniably the half dozen employees chasing after them had

stopped in their tracks. Valkyrat and Ratkkuno halted beside the masked figure, about to ask

what was going on when something behind the employees rounded the corner, undeterred by

whatever force had stopped the employees.

"Shit, he sent Security after you too?!" The masked figure exclaimed, in a voice Valkyrat

took a moment to recognise. It was the lady from the radio, but no longer with a static radio

filter over her voice. So this was Taurus..?

"Okay, this guy's harder to get into, but if I can't stop him then maybe..." she rambled as she

inputted command after command on her remote, the TV monster getting closer and closer as

she did, "I can change his directive," she said decisively, and with a dramatic final button

push, the beast stopped.

It was quite good timing since its wires were currently a meter from Ratkkuno's face, which

may have seemed like a fine distance, but Ratkkuno was feeling anything but fine looking up

close at that fucking thing.

With a jolt it began to move again, and Ratkkuno feared the worst, however it simply turned

away and with a mangled roar it returned the way it had come.

Ratkkuno caught his breath and Valkyrat went over to take his hand, before turning to the

masked figure.

"You're...Taurus, right?" she checked.

Taurus gave an affirmative nod, "yep, it's me from the radio! Sorry if the mask gave you a

scare, we kinda need it to stop the employees killing us on sight"

Valkyrat looked over the mask again. It held the same logo as all the others, the tower

without a grid in the middle, and a clear crack that split it down the middle. And also...horns.

"Hey, what's with, uh, the horns?" Valkyrat questioned.

"Huh? Oh- oh! The horns!" Taurus realised as she tapped the plastic horns affixed to the top

of the mask, "oh, my team all had to get different stuff to modify our masks since we couldn't

recognise each other with them on. I just stole these from the prop department before they got

gooed"

"Gooed..?" Valkyrat thought, but nevermind, there were more important questions.

"Where did you send the wire thing?" Ratkkuno jumped in.

"Well, I couldn't stop it, so the next best thing was to change its target. I didn't have time to

send it after a specific person so instead I sent it to a room- the one with the cabin"

"You- you sent it back to where Ran and the others are?!" Valkyrat squealed in disbelief.

"It was the only room I knew had people inside- if I sent it to an empty room it would just run

straight back to us here, and then we would probably be fucked"

"Doesn't this mean our friends are gonna be fucked, though?" Valkyrat reasoned.

"N-no, they're not in immediate danger- I set the Security to prioritise employees, you see?"

Taurus held out her controller that was displaying some weird text, then withdrew it after a

few moments when she realised Valkyrat couldn't read it, "w-well, all that means is that it'll

ignore everyone in a room besides the active employees that are in there, so if anything it'll

be helping your friends right now"

Ratkkuno paused, "and what if it runs out of 'active' employees to attack?"

Taurus hesitated.

"Well...then, we..." she looked at her controller and then down the hallway the Security had

gone down.

"Then we should probably go"

And suddenly she began running down the hall, the rats exchanging a worried glance before

they followed after her. They weaved through the frozen employees with some apprehension

before the three of them broke into a full sprint, no communication needed to know where

they were going. They just needed to get there soon.

When they got back and burst through the door, Valkyrat was the first to speak.

"Hey, uh, we found someone!"

~*~

Charlie looked at the rats in shock, then beheld the person between them with concern. It was

an employee..? She wore the same suit and mask as all the others, however there was a dark

line running down the centre of the mask, and...were those horns?

Ranboo looked instead at Charlie, seeing the confusion as it dug deeper into his expression.

They had hardly noticed the rats, they were more taken aback by the fact they just got

slapped. Even with the knife wound in his chest still bleeding through Charlie's fingers, his

cheek stinging was more noticeable.

"You get the fuck away from them Hetch!" they suddenly heard the voice of Taurus call

through the room alongside an assertive step forwards. Hetch remained where he was.

"Ah, so the final member of that little group finally decides to show up. It took you long

enough- Taurus, do you go by?"

Taurus ignored him, "nobody's getting rescripted, nobody's getting recast. We're getting the

fuck out of here, and you're not stopping us"

"Really, now?" Hetch asked, like he was indulging the fantasies of a small child.

"Look around you, Hetch!" she shouted, "it's over, you've lost!"

Hetch trailed his eyes over the employees and the Security, and then returned his gaze to

Taurus.

"I should ask the same to you. Wherever is the rest of your team?"

Taurus was quiet for a few moments.

"They're in the rest of the building carrying out our plan," she responded with less certainty.

"Your plan?" Hetch inclined his head, "the plan in which you were supposed to seal off the

exits to this room and ambush me once you had given the signal? You've given the signal,

haven't you? I'm still waiting for my ambush"

Taurus' face was unreadable but Ranboo could angle his head just enough to see her

shoulders fall a little.

"That's- plans go wrong, if something's held them up they'll be here soon, and even without

my team it's still six against one!"

Hetch tilted his head, "hm," he looked at Sneeg, at Charlie and Ranboo, then at Taurus and

the rats, "maybe 4 at a stretch," he angled his head to indicate Charlie, who remained by

Ranboo's side. Ranboo still wanted to urge him to grab the knife but they didn't want to draw

attention to it whilst Hetch was standing only a few metres away.

Taurus remained silent and Hetch sighed, "would you like me to tell you how I knew your

plan?"

Taurus didn't reply. Ranboo could just barely make out her hands at her side were trembling,

whether from anger or fear he didn't know. Hetch took it as confirmation and continued.

"Because, to put it simply, you're predictable. Boringly so. If you'd come up with a more

interesting plan then maybe I would've let it play out, but ambushing me? This is Ranboo's

story, Taurus, do you have any idea how much of a letdown it would be if you were the one

to take me down instead? Terribly unsatisfying.

"This conversation has been going on a little too long, in fact. We can't expect our audience

to be engaged with a conversation about a character they've never met before. They're

practically begging for us to get to the next action scene already"

Ranboo tensed. Audience? Were they still being broadcast, even now?

"I don't care about your show, Hetch, if that wasn't clear already," Taurus spat, stepping closer

and the rats following, "I'm not here to change your mind because whatever is going on up

there is beyond saving. I'm just here to save the people you've hurt and I'm not leaving until I

do"

Hetch opened his mouth to reply but Ranboo knew before he spoke that it wasn't anything

worth listening to. Their attention was drawn instead to Ratkkuno who walked past Taurus

and knelt by their side, next to Charlie.

Charlie looked at Ratkkuno pleadingly, only noticing his presence when their legs made

contact, "h-he's bleeding out, we need to go, w-we need to get him help-"

Ratkkuno nodded and looked at Ranboo, "we can carry you out while Hetch is busy talking-

Taurus told us she could keep him occupied. It might hurt but-"

"Hetch isn't letting me out that easily. You have a chance to get out if I stay," Ranboo

croaked, some of the words not getting across but they knew the meaning was understood as

he watched Charlie's expression change from hope to...something else.

"Ranboo, you're not doing this, d-don't be stupid! You're leaving with us! We're not going

without you, Ranboo we're not leaving you here!" Charlie sobbed and Ratkkuno nudged him

as he raised his volume, but it seemed Hetch was still distracted with the sound of his own

voice.

Ranboo shook his head, "they have control, they always have control. I'm not leaving this

place. I never was"

Charlie looked very much as though he wanted to slap them again, but kept his hands firmly

pressed on the wound, blood still leaking out despite his efforts. Ranboo looked at the knife.

"I'd suggest that you kill me but we both know that dying can't stop Showfall. Nothing can.

This is what I deserve for letting them all die"

Now Charlie really looked like he wanted to slap them.

"You said it yourself. You're not a hero. You're not perfect. You've been dealt a really shitty

life, man, and I don't think I would've done anything different from you. You don't deserve to

die here. You deserve a normal fucking life. And I'm not stopping until you get that. So

please, stop trying to die a hero's death. Just come with me. Live. Please"

Ranboo's face was numb but he knew he was crying.

"I...I killed them, Charlie. If it wasn't for me, they'd be-"

"If it wasn't for Showfall then none of this would've happened. You're not responsible,

Ranboo, none of this is your fault"

Ranboo looked at Charlie, and Charlie looked back. They were both crying. Ratkkuno had

left them silently to check on Sneeg, who still laid in the living room of the cabin.

"How will we know it's real? How are we gonna know it's not all another trick..?" Ranboo

asked in a voice that came worryingly close to being inaudible.

"I don't know, but I won't stop fighting before we know we're free from here. All of us,"

Charlie let the tears fall, his hands too bloodied to wipe them even if he did remove them

from Ranboo's chest.

Charlie wasn't going without them. And Ranboo wasn't letting him stay.

And Sneeg wasn't going until Hetch was dead.

~*~

Sneeg was roused from unconsciousness by Ratkkuno. He wondered how Ratkkuno had

gotten back to this room but it wasn't the most pressing thing on his mind. First he needed to

find Hetch.

"And where do you think you're going..?" Sneeg heard in the distance. There he was. That

voice made his blood boil. He'd heard it when the three escaped for the first time, it was the

man Ranboo had been talking to before they found him with his head crushed. Sneeg

should've caught onto it earlier, but whatever, it was too late for that. If he wanted to do

something he would be doing it now.

Ratkkuno squeaked with concern as Sneeg wordlessly got to his feet, bloodied and bruised,

almost blacking out when he stood up but managing to remain standing. Ratkkuno stood with

him.

"Sneeg, you need to rest for a second, you can't just-" he insisted. Sneeg shot him a glare and

adjusted his hat.

"I'm not resting until this shit is over," he declared, leaving Ratkkuno behind in the cabin.

Outside he saw Hetch facing away from him, looking at Charlie who was holding up an

unconscious Ranboo.

"We're leaving. We're done with your games," Charlie replied. Hetch laughed.

"You're done when I say you're done, Charlie. If you leave now with Ranboo he'll most likely

bleed out and die- I'm the only one here who has the power to fix him," Hetch insisted with a

step towards Charlie. Charlie instinctively stumbled back but a voice called out, causing

Hetch to pause.

"That's bullshit, Hetch. You have nothing to keep them here anymore. Give up," Sneeg

recognised the voice from the radio and turned his head to see what he at first assumed to be

an employee standing with Valkyrat, but a clear crack was in the mask.

"Would you stop talking, Taurus? Can't you see you're ruining the mood?" Hetch complained,

looking between her and Valkyrat, "I indulged your distraction for a little while but we really

must wrap things up. Your attempts to delay the inevitable are just becoming sad, really"

Hetch turned back to Charlie and resumed walking. Before Taurus could speak again, Sneeg

jumped in.

"Hey!"

Hetch stopped.

"Sneeg...it really takes a lot to keep you down, hm?" Hetch turned slowly to face him, the

malice returning to his voice and drowning out the previous droning of boredom.

"I'm here for a rematch, dickface," Sneeg tried to sound serious but he definitely had a

concussion that wasn't doing him any favours.

"Hm, very mature," Hetch commented. Behind him, Sneeg saw Valkyrat scurrying over to

Charlie and helping him carry Ranboo.

"So? You gonna fight?" Sneeg provoked, holding up his fists in a fighting position.

Hetch let out a low laugh, "you know, Sneeg, you seem to have had the most escape attempts

from this mall out of all the stars we've had. I've been told to dispose of you before you get a

chance to succeed, but I'd rather keep you here and challenge myself to break that spirit. So

keep fighting even after you lose here, won't you? I want you to keep me entertained"

Sneeg couldn't stand hearing him drawl on about this bullshit any longer so he charged with a

roar, fists hitting Hetch's face and chest as many times as he could. Hetch followed by

pounding his own fists into Sneeg's chest and shattering his already broken ribs into smaller

and smaller pieces.

Sneeg coughed up blood like his face was colouring book and the only available markers

were red, adding to the line around his eyes and the trail that dripped from his nose that

Hetch had broken earlier. But this wouldn't go like last time. Sneeg wasn't going to end up on

the floor unless Hetch fucking killed him.

Punching and kicking continued, Sneeg seeming to be suffering a lot more than Hetch, but he

was learning where to hit. Punching that mask probably did more damage to his own fists

than Hetch's face, so he started hitting Hetch from the side and revelled in the sight of that

masked bastard stumbling one way or the other. It was always followed by another well-

landed attack on himself, but Sneeg wanted to appreciate the small things, even if the small

things happened to be the person who hurt his friends suffering at his hands.

And after another few punches, to Sneeg's surprise, Hetch fell.

He delighted in seeing the fucker on his knees and couldn't help but gloat, "now fucking beg,

bitch. Beg for me not to break your fucking spine"

Hetch was silent and angled his head down, towards the unconscious employee he had

happened to drop to his knees by. It was the one Sneeg had knocked out himself. Today had

been a violent day.

Sneeg stepped closer, "sorry about your guy. I'm sure he doesn't mind. I dunno if he even

fucking feels pain"

Hetch placed a hand over the mask the employee wore and trailed his fingers across it.

Sneeg's expression twisted in confusion. Did this guy actually care that one of the employees

got hurt? He didn't seem to give a shit about the other one that was torn into pieces a few

metres away. Hetch spread his fingers over the mask.

And was suddenly holding it an inch away from Sneeg's face.

"Remember this?" he asked with a taunting giggle.

Before Sneeg could process it, Hetch had torn the mask from the employee's face and with

his other arm tugged Sneeg close enough to transfer the mask to his face. But he stopped,

holding it just a little bit in front. After all, that was all he needed for Sneeg to remember.

Not to say that he'd ever forgotten that moment by the carousel, but he'd pushed it so far from

his thoughts for so long that being so suddenly confronted by it made his memories feel like

looking into another life. But the hands dragging him along were real, the grasp of the

employees felt so real as they held him to the chair, the mask coming closer to his face,

threatening to take away everything that he was, closer and closer and-

He didn't know how long he had been stood frozen in fear when the mask suddenly clattered

to the floor with four scratches along its surface. Ratkkuno was standing before him, one arm

outstretched from the strike and the other raised to come down upon Hetch's face. And he

lowered that arm with a furious squeal.

Hetch staggered back but still responded to Ratkkuno before Sneeg could adjust to the real

world again. Hetch struck Ratkkuno in the chest, still kneeling on the ground and unable to

aim higher but despite that sending Ratkkuno flying back. It seemed he wasn't as used to

taking a punch as Sneeg was.

But Sneeg grounded himself, and with Hetch before him he wasn't gonna fuck around this

time. With a kick to the face Hetch fell on his back, even that mask failing to dampen enough

of the impact. Sneeg fell down on him, digging his knee into Hetch's chest and delighting in

the grunts he made in return.

"It's over," he declared. For the first time, Hetch seemed like he might've been genuinely

panicking.

"T-this isn't for you to do Sneeg, this isn't what was meant for you," Hetch tried to convince

him.

"FUCK what was meant for me! Are you really so stupid that you think any of us care about

that shit anymore?!" He yelled, getting spit on Hetch's mask.

"You would- you would take this from Ranboo? T-this vengeance, don't they have more

grievance with me than anyone?"

"What the fuck are you on about, you fucking psycho? I'm pretty sure he'll be happy either

way as long as you're fucking dead. That probably goes for all of us"

Metal slid over the floor, landing by Sneeg's side. Valkyrat had kicked the switchblade over.

Hetch glanced down at it in fear as Sneeg picked it up, "no, no! I can't be killed by you!"

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure you can," Sneeg said with an absent stare as he carelessly dangled the

blade by Hetch's throat. Hetch tried to shift under Sneeg's weight to avoid it, but it was futile.

"I-if you kill me, then...then this won't end! The founder will live on, these shows will

continue!"

"I'd still be performing a blessing by ridding this world of your pathetic, pretentious voice,"

the knife drooped closer.

"T-this isn't how it's supposed to go! The hero kills the villain, that's how it should be, you're

ruining it! I'm not to be killed by a fucking side character!" Hetch pleaded.

"You're deranged"

"You-!"

"Oops"

The blade plunged into Hetch's neck. His jaw continued to shift and blood spluttered

irregularly as he continued to try and speak, but all that came out was gargles and whines.

And blood. Sneeg had never been happier at the sight of it.

He remained there, watching, as Hetch squirmed and gurgled and darted his eyes around the

room desperately for something. Sneeg didn't know what he was looking for, but he didn't

think he was gonna find it.

The red fountain puddled on the floor, gradually encircling his head and seeping into the

fabric of Sneeg's trousers. Still he remained. Still he watched as that light faded. And faded.

And was gone.

Hetch lay still.

Hetch was dead.

~*~

The floor was shaking. Ranboo tried to remember- the road trip, the mall, the cabin room...

Hetch. The TV monster. A knife sticking out of their chest.

He jolted and raised a hand to his chest, immediately feeling pain burning from every part of

their body that had moved in the process. Their vision started to adjust and someone gently

lay a hand on his shoulder. Charlie. He was smiling.

Ranboo smiled back.

Then started to cry.

Someone else moved closer as they slowly moved their aching arm to wipe the tears that

wouldn't stop coming despite their best efforts. It was Sneeg, and behind him were the rats,

and...someone else?

Ranboo was ready to freak out, but she saw his eyes widening and spoke to ease his nerves.

"Hey, Ranboo, you've woken up. Are you feeling alright?"

Oh, it was Taurus. Ranboo was a little surprised at first by just how...normal her actual face

looked. They realised they had been asked a question and slowly made out a so-so movement

with their hand. Taurus laughed.

"Yeah, I think we all feel the same..." she observed.

Ranboo looked back across everyone. Charlie was bleeding around the ears from where

Showfall's earpieces must have been removed, and there were bruises and cuts across the

length of his arms, not to mention the thick coating of almost-dried blood on both of his

hands. Sneeg was, to put it lightly, a shitshow. Bruises and cuts in every place they could be,

a stark red line still etched around his eyes and blood dripping from his mouth and nose. The

rats both seemed ruffled, Ratkkuno a little more messed up than Valkyrat, and anywhere

Taurus might've had a wound was obscured by the suit that she still wore, although a long,

since-healed cut was very noticeable down the centre of her face.

Ranboo's face looked the worst, although it would be a while until he saw it. Frayed bandages

over his mouth with two cuts on either cheek, plenty of blood absorbed into the bandages

around their nose and mouth, and a red hand-shaped bloodstain on one cheek. The healing

puncture wounds from the box now seemed to be the least of his worries as his face was

coated in fresh scars, splatters of blood and whatever dark liquid it was that came from the

TV monster, as well as plenty of bruises in every place that they could be. And of course the

centerpiece, the large knife wound in his chest. The wound itself had been bandaged, but

there was no way to hide the pool of blood that seeped into their clothes, leaving only the tips

of their sleeves the colour they were supposed to be.

And despite it all, they were smiling. Each and every one of them.

Ranboo looked around and saw that they were laid down in the back of a truck that had

benches along the sides. They almost took up the entire bench lying down, so everyone else

sat on the bench opposite or crouched on the floor like Charlie.

"Where...are we going..?" Ranboo asked, the words barely coming out as a whisper.

Charlie thought for a moment, but then looked to Taurus to allow her to answer.

"We're headed for the nearest city. I was able to finally shut down the looping illusion of this

road without Showfall's interference, as well as send out a signal to get backup from the

outside, so it won't be long now. We'll find you someplace safe to stay and tie up all the loose

ends. Showfall won't bother you anymore"

Ranboo found it hard to believe. Every time they had thought they were freed, it was another

illusion waiting to reveal itself. But his friends around him, smiling- he knew that wasn't an

illusion. Never in a million years could Showfall hope to recreate those faces, that genuine

joy that influenced him to smile as well.

They were free? They were, at long last.

Ranboo wanted to go out in the sun. Ranboo wanted to run their fingers across the arm of a

couch. Ranboo wanted to play a board game and lose. Ranboo wanted to burn his food and

laugh about it. Ranboo wanted to dance, to learn, to sing, to sleep, to feel.

Ranboo wanted to live.

Chapter End Notes

Wow. Ok so uh. Hello everyone

Before I start getting sappy the story isn't over yet! There's still a little epilogue I wanna

add to wrap things up (although it might be a week until that's released) (and then maybe

I'll have even more plans for this story afterwards but we'll see ;;;;)))))

But anyways, thank you to everyone who's read this fic! Thank you to everyone who

commented, left kudos, or even just had a little laugh at one of the jokes. I appreciate

everyone who's read this story and it's such an accomplishment for myself too for me to

have finished this, I hardly ever get past the first chapter of a story I'm writing but here I

am with a 40k word fic!!! I was probably possessed when I wrote most of this lmao

Thank you again to everyone reading this, I really do feel happy that so many of you

like this silly story. I'm not quite sure how to wrap this up now so uhhh, see you in the

epilogue ;)

Goo goobie

Epilogue

Chapter Summary

The story ends

Chapter Notes

The premise of this epilogue was inspired by a suggestion on one of the first few

chapters so ty for your idea that I am shamelessly stealing :)

I mention crisps at one point apologies for letting the British leak through into my work

/ 3

See the end of the chapter for more notes

"We've managed to find an unoccupied house for all of you to stay in temporarily while we

sort out proper accommodation," Taurus had been explaining to the five of them as the van

pulled into the front drive of a house. It was secluded in a forest, but only five minutes away

from a fairly big town.

"The owners haven't been heard from in about a year so it should be pretty private for the

time being. Of course me and some others will be stationed outside to keep watch, and we'll

only come inside if you allow it. Some medical staff may need to stay with you all within the

house, though, if that's alright?"

She looked at the five of them, but mainly to Ranboo, who was probably going to need

medical staff by their side at all times until things started to improve.

The five exchanged mixed glances, but ultimately nodded. Taurus smiled and continued.

"Alright, I think we've just arrived. I'll show you all around and then leave you to get settled

in," she got up from the bench opposite the one Ranboo still lay on and opened the doors at

the back of the van. It took a moment for all of them to stop wincing at the sight of sunlight

after having been sat in the van for about an hour or two. None of them were particularly

good at keeping track of the time, though.

Charlie and Sneeg carried Ranboo out, despite Taurus' offers for her own staff to carry him to

the house. With some struggle, Ranboo lifted an arm to shadow his eyes and get a better look

at the house.

It was quite clear that the previous inhabitants hadn't been there any time recently. Roof tiles

were falling off, vines were growing up every wall and the gutters were completely clogged

with leaves.

People in hi-vis jackets were moving in and out of the house, carrying random debris out and

carrying various tools in. Taurus had explained that her own squad was likely lost in the

Showfall mission, which she tried not to linger on, but that squad was only part of a bigger

organisation that had been called down to help with necessary renovations on the house.

"I've been told that one of the bedrooms is ready, so we can take Ranboo there first, then take

a look around the work taking place throughout the house"

The other five simply nodded again in response to Taurus, each staring at the house in

wonder and thinking too many things to come up with any kind of verbal response.

One by one they crossed the threshold into the house, Charlie and Sneeg having to shuffle

through sideways to get Ranboo in with them. They stopped for a moment to look at the

hallway they came into and glance at some of the movement upstairs, but Taurus quickly led

them through into the living room as it was much less cramped of a space.

A few more people in hi-vis nodded to Taurus as she entered and left with their tools, leaving

the five standing and taking in the room. It was weird seeing so many people's faces not

being hidden under masks of any kind, but it was a welcome change.

It wasn't a particularly fancy living room, there was a sofa positioned in front of a modest

flatscreen TV and shelves holding anything from books to games to ornaments. The people

who had left seemed to have been working on the socket in the wall near the TV- the

electronics were probably in disrepair after being abandoned for so long.

"...it's nice," Sneeg finally said. Taurus quietly released a sigh of relief.

"I call dibs on the video games," Valkyrat announced.

"Won't stop me from beating you in the racing ones," Ratkkuno teased. Valkyrat huffed in

annoyance- it seemed this was something that had come up between the two of them before.

Ranboo looked over at them and laughed. It was already feeling like a home.

~*~

A few days later, there was an unexpected arrival.

It was the late morning and everyone in the house was gradually waking up. Taurus and the

workers hadn't been in the house since the repairs had finished to give the five their privacy,

but looking through the windows they could still see people positioned outside, sitting on the

porch or talking with one another a few metres from the backdoor. It was calm at the

moment, but these were people who would fight tooth and nail to defend this house from

intruders if ever they needed to.

Sneeg dragged himself to the kitchen to get some cereal. Charlie entered around the same

time and they both gave an acknowledging smile and nod to each other before going about

their business. Charlie left with a bowl of cereal in one hand and liquid food in the other, the

former for himself and the latter to bring to Ranboo. Ranboo was stuck in bed at the moment

and had been sternly told not to leave unless told to. One of several nurses was always in the

room with them to take care of their health, but Charlie would help out whenever he could.

The rats would have been asleep until midday, if it weren't for the sudden and unexpected tire

sounds from outside the bedroom they were sharing. Lazily they both wandered over to the

window to see what was going on, and as they peered down onto the driveway below they

saw an unfamiliar car that had just pulled in.

Taurus and the workers would come and go, but they tended to leave in trucks and park

further up the driveway so as not to disturb those in the house. This, however, was a fairly

small car, that had assuredly pulled up right next to the house. The rats exchanged a glance

and headed downstairs.

Sneeg was also looking out the front windows from the living room when the rats got there.

The three huddled around- although they didn't need to, it was a fairly big window- and

watched as a man stepped out from the car, and looked with confusion at the woman holding

a baton in his direction.

"Stop there- what's your purpose here, sir?" Taurus asked as more workers began to gather

and assess the possible threat.

"I- uh, this is...my house?" he said without much conviction, too busy being confused by the

people gathering to stare him down.

"This house has been unoccupied for approximately a year- might I ask for your name?"

"Yeah, uh, it's Phil- I think I have the paperwork and stuff if you need to see it?" the man

asked with a glance back towards the car. Sneeg noticed that he wasn't the only one, it

seemed the rest of the seats were also full.

"Daaaaaddzzaa, why are there a bunch of people at our house?" came a voice from inside the

car.

"They're probably gonna arrest you because you shot me with a nerf gun," replied another

voice.

"Wha-?! I don't wanna go to jail!"

"Wilbur please stop telling your brother that he's going to jail," Phil replied with a sigh and an

apologetic look to Taurus. Sneeg laughed quietly at just how evident the exhaustion in his

voice was.

~*~

"Alright, we've taken a look through everything, and these do appear to be the previous

inhabitants of this house," Taurus explained to Sneeg and the rats in the living room, as well

as Charlie who was standing in the doorway on the opposite side of the room that lead to the

room in which Ranboo was staying. They had decided it would be easier to have them in the

ground floor bedroom so that he didn't need to go up the staircase, despite him not being

allowed to even leave the bed at the moment.

Taurus was stood in front of the other doorway in the living room, which led to the main

hallway and staircase, through which they could see two adults, two teenagers and someone

who looked somewhere in-between, all of whom were staring at the new inhabitants of their

home in a mix of confusion and concern.

Maybe it was the blood and bandages, maybe it was the rats. It was probably both.

"We can't exactly kick them out of the house they still legally own, despite having been on an

'extended business trip' for a year," Taurus continued, giving a glance to the flustered Phil

when she described the explanation he had given for their long absence. Despite the

absurdity, it did all check out when Taurus and her colleagues had double and triple checked

it. And then quadruple checked it, just to be sure.

"So the adults and I are gonna discuss what to do next. If it's alright with all of you then it

might be better for the three kids to remain in the house while we talk outside," Taurus

suggested. The three "kids" in question seemed to be a little offended by the term used to

refer to them, but didn't voice their complaints.

"...yeah, that should be fine?" Charlie said, looking at Sneeg and the rats for confirmation. All

of them were a little hesitant, but in the end agreed.

"Alright. Is that okay with you?" she then turned to the family standing behind her, but the

decision seemed to already be made. Phil and the older woman next to him nodded, and were

lead outside by Taurus, leaving the three younger men with Sneeg, Charlie and the rats.

Charlie closed the door leading to Ranboo's room, so as to not disturb them or the nurse

sitting at their side.

For a while there was awkward silence, with the two groups standing on opposite sides of the

room. The boy wearing a yellow jumper, who seemed to be around 18, stood defensively in

front of the youngest, who might've been around 15. The oldest one with pink hair, maybe 20

years old, was stood nearby and watched as the youngest poked his head around the one with

the yellow jumper to look curiously at the other four.

"So, are you homeless?" He suddenly asked.

"T-Tommy!" The one in the yellow jumper spun around to glare at the youngest, fearing that

the question might cause offence, but Charlie responded with a laugh.

"I guess. This isn't exactly ours, so..." he waved his hand around the living room.

"We'll probably be out of your hair in a month or so once we find an actual place to stay.

Sorry for making you think we'd broken into your house or something," Sneeg apologised,

realising it wouldn't have been a great experience to find that bloody, wounded grown men

had taken refuge in your house.

The two older kids were definitely apprehensive of the strangers despite the explanation

they'd been given that they were here under witness protection, however the youngest,

apparently called Tommy, seemed unfazed.

"Let's play video games, I'm bored"

"Wait, Tommy-!" the one in the yellow jumper called out again, but Tommy was already past

him and striding over to the TV to grab some remotes. He walked back to the couch, which

Sneeg was currently sat on as Valkyrat perched on the arm and Ratkkuno on the adjacent

floor, with a remote in each hand, one of which he held out to Sneeg.

Sneeg could sense Tommy's two older brothers tensing as he stood so close to the strangers,

but he didn't exactly want to leave him hanging so he took the remote. Tommy happily

plopped down onto the other side of the couch and turned on his remote.

"You wanna do a racing game?" he asked as he scrolled through the profiles and selected

"WIFE HAVER", which Charlie quietly snorted at from the corner.

"Ooh, racing! I'm great at racing!" Valkyrat exclaimed.

"You never finished a single lap when we played yesterday," Ratkkuno pointed out.

"I got through the goal before everyone else!" she defended.

"Yeah. Backwards. On a circular track," Ratkkuno gave her a judging stare. Valkyrat pouted.

"Alright, let's do ace race- wait, Techno, come here! You're so cracked at ace race you've

gotta play!" Tommy begged, looking over at the oldest brother who was still near the door

and looking worriedly at the situation.

"Huh?" he suddenly seemed to be pulled from his thought, "well uh- should we really be

playing ace race right now?"

"It's always the time for ace race," Tommy insisted. Techno looked to the yellow jumper one,

who seemed to be looking at him begging for someone else in the room to be reasonable.

Techno shrugged and turned back to Tommy.

"Yeah, alright then," he yielded and walked over to the couch as the other brother face

planted beside him in annoyance. He leant against the back of the couch as Tommy passed

the remote behind him.

"Should I, uh, be worried?" Sneeg asked as the game began to load. He probably should've

asked how to play.

"Eh, you'll figure it out. Just don't crash," Tommy assured him.

"Nah, you should crash. I'm gonna destroy you either way," Techno threatened jokingly.

Sneeg sank nervously into the couch cushions.

The game began and Tommy tried to give Sneeg some advice to actually give him a chance

against Techno, but he was already halfway through the map when Sneeg had figured out the

controls so there wasn't much hope left to hold onto. The rats also tried to give advice,

despite having never played the game themselves, and ended up causing about half of Sneeg's

crashes.

"Damn, you're shit at this," Tommy commented.

"Jeez, thanks," Sneeg laughed as he missed a jump and went straight into a wall. All of them

seemed to be so caught up in the comically one-sided game that they didn't realise as the

middle brother slowly made his way over to stand by the side of the couch Tommy was on.

He still had the same expression of concern, but he eased up a little seeing how much his

brothers were having fun.

Techno crossed the finish line, after walking towards it slowly to rub some salt in the

wounds, and Sneeg accepted defeat. They were about to go again, Sneeg claiming he could

definitely win now that he knew the controls, when Charlie spoke up.

"Hey, uh, we should probably get each other's names and stuff, y'know?"

"Oh yeah, probably, heh," Sneeg agreed, "I'm Sneeg, these are-"

"Ratkkuno and Valkyrat!" the rats said in sync with a salute, as if they'd been practicing.

"Uh, and I'm Charlie," Charlie finished with a bemused look at the rats.

"I'm Tommy, the coolest one, this is Techno," Tommy pointed to the one behind him with

long pink hair, "who is also cool, and then that's Wilbur. He sucks," he introduced with a final

point towards the middle brother standing by the arm of the chair, who stuttered trying to find

a comeback and subsequently gave up with a dismissive sigh.

"Oh, and also dadza and mumza," Tommy added. Techno snorted.

"Our parents are actually called Phil and Kristin, but...that's what Tommy calls them," Wilbur

corrected.

"Phil is such a boooring name though, dadza is way better," Tommy reasoned.

"Yeah, and it makes you sound like a five year old," Wilbur laughed and Techno nodded his

agreement.

"I-it does not!" Tommy looked flustered, "I am a big man how dare you call me a child"

"I mean...you are a child," Techno pointed out.

Wilbur had to put himself between the two to stop a fight breaking out.

~*~

"So, like, what happened to you guys?" Tommy abruptly asked after Sneeg's 5th loss against

Techno. Valkyrat was sure she could beat him, but Sneeg wasn't convinced and held onto the

remote.

Wilbur shoved him for the insensitive question, which resulted in an exaggerated squeal from

Tommy, but Charlie shook his head and finally walked away from the doorway and over to

the couch.

"It's fine, you guys do deserve some kind of explanation," he sighed, still reluctant to indulge

anything that had happened. He was gradually coming to terms to it, but he didn't exactly

want to dump all the details onto some kids. Although the older two were probably around

the same age as Ranboo, which made him a bit uncomfortable to think about whenever he

looked at them.

"The, uh...the easiest way to say it is that there were some bad people after us who hurt us for

one reason or another, and then we got away. They're not coming after us anymore, though.

The show's over," he explained decisively. Sneeg gave a nod.

"And so did these bad people, uh..." Technoblade paused, struggling to find the right words,

"turn those two into rat-people..?" he tentatively asked with a small point to Valkyrat and

Ratkkuno.

The rats looked up at him and he worried that might've been the wrong question to ask, but

Sneeg shrugged, "we don't really know what the deal with those two is. They're friendly,

though. Just don't let em bite you"

"Hey! I'm not gonna bite anyone!" Valkyrat squealed in offense as the three brothers tried to

inch further away from them.

"Yeah, only joking," Sneeg laughed. Wilbur and Techno laughed too but didn't seem entirely

convinced.

Techno hovered his finger over starting the next game, a question on the tip of his tongue that

he hesitated to voice. With a sigh he decided that it couldn't be worse than the kind of things

Tommy said, so he asked, "was that lady earlier wrong when she told us there were five of

you, or..?"

Charlie glanced to the door and answered, "no, yeah, there's five of us. Ranboo is probably

still resting in the other room, so we don't wanna, you know..." he trailed off, wondering if

Ranboo was asleep or if he could hear them all through the door.

"Oh, shit, do we need to be quieter?" Tommy sounded genuinely apologetic, after all it was

clear he'd been the loudest out of them all.

Charlie hesitated before answering, "well, I guess we could probably keep it down, but we

don't need to whisper or anything"

"Are they...alright?" Wilbur asked meekly. He grimaced at the resulting silence from the four

on the other side of the couch.

"He's healing. We all are. I think as long as we're not where we were before, we're alright.

Whatever apartment or whatever they find for us will be just fine as long as it doesn't have

one of those cold, tiled floors," Sneeg laughed stiffly.

"Hey, I wouldn't mind you guys staying here a bit longer. I can train you in the ways of ace

race," Techno suggested, ignoring the worried glance from Wilbur.

"Yeah, you guys are cooler than Wilbur so it's all good with me," Tommy laughed, ignoring

the offended glance from Wilbur.

"Well I...y..." Wilbur stumbled, unsure. There were a bunch of armed guards outside who

looked pretty authentic so the story they'd been told was probably genuine, but he didn't feel

as comfortable as his brothers letting five strangers live in the same house as them so easily.

Sneeg seemed to understand the look on his face.

"We can understand not trusting people more than anyone at this point, so if you want us to

stay out of your way, it's all good. The last thing any of us wanna do is make you guys

uncomfortable," Charlie and the rats nodded in agreement with Sneeg.

Wilbur bit his lip and looked down, then looked at Tommy. He seemed to be having a lot of

fun with these people. He also looked at Techno, who he could tell with a glance was willing

to beat up anyone who could be a threat to his brothers. He nodded.

"No, it's okay, you guys probably need this house more than we do anyways, but..." he

paused, hesitating to add something, "you do realise we can get four of us on ace race, right?"

Tommy gasped with realisation and Wilbur smiled at him as he ran over to the TV to grab the

other two remotes from the cabinet beneath it. He threw one over to Charlie, who was caught

off guard and almost dropped it, and paused on his way to hand the other one to Wilbur.

"I'll tell dad you threw the remote if you don't give that one to me," Wilbur blackmailed him.

Tommy pouted as he handed the remote over.

"Fine, but I get a go after you," he negotiated. Sneeg ended up handing his remote to a

delighted Valkyrat, claiming he didn't want to end up getting too good at the game, and also

warning Valkyrat not to break it. Ratkkuno helped her to not hold it upside down.

A few minutes later, Phil and Kristin returned from their discussion from Taurus, but went

completely unnoticed as they walked over to the couch and observed seven people around

their couch, watching the screen and shouting a variety of insults and encouragement at each

other, moreso the former, but not with any hostility.

Kristin leant onto Phil's shoulder with a smile and whispered, "I think they can stay." Phil

nodded.

"Yeahh, get fucked, bitch!" Tommy exclaimed as Techno overlapped Wilbur.

"Hey!" Phil suddenly shouted, scaring Tommy enough that he screamed and fell off the

couch.

~*~

The following day, Charlie found himself in Ranboo's room, like he usually did. Ranboo

appreciated the company- there was usually a nurse with him, but he never had much to say

to them.

"So ur back on the couch now?" Ranboo wrote. It was back to the paper and pen after how

much they destroyed their voice in the mall.

"Heh, yeah," Charlie admitted, "but they've got a pretty comfy couch here, so I don't mind.

Sneeg and the rats are in the room with the two beds, and apparently the rats are happy

enough to sleep on opposite ends of the same bed. It's a good thing there were enough spare

rooms so at least none of us are on the floor"

Ranboo nodded.

"What r they like?"

"Uh, overall they just seem like a normal family, which is good. The kids seem pretty close

with one another and the parents are nice. They're happy to let us stay until Taurus can find us

somewhere that isn't already inhabited"

Ranboo had heard some of the commotion yesterday, but had yet to actually see any of the

new arrivals at the house. "Do u think I should meet them?"

Charlie thought for a moment.

"It would probably be good for them to meet you, but...I dunno, Tommy especially might get

a little freaked out by all the bandages"

"The loud one?"

Charlie laughed, "yeah, that's him, he's the youngest. I don't wanna tell him I have stitches,

because then he'd probably want to see them. And then he'd probably throw up when I

showed him"

They both laughed, Ranboo glancing at Charlie's chest. He'd started taking the body armour

off, like right now, but still had it back on at other times.

"Does it hurt?" Ranboo asked on the paper. Charlie looked down and shrugged.

"Well, not really. Sometimes I can feel the stitches which is kinda weird but, y'know, I'm

getting used to them," he gave a comforting smile to Ranboo, who reciprocated it under the

bandages. Charlie could see the expression from his eyes, anyway.

Suddenly there came a knock on the door, which made the both of them flinch despite it

being quite gentle.

"Hey, Charlie, lunch is ready whenever you wanna join us," Phil said through a crack in the

door, glancing through and seeing Ranboo laid next to him. Ranboo gave a little wave.

"Oh, Phil, hey. You can come in, if that's..?" Charlie began, looking for Ranboo for

confirmation, who gave him a thumbs up.

Phil stepped nervously into the room, "uh, Ranboo, was it? How you doing at the moment?"

Ranboo nodded and wrote "Im alright, sorry for taking over ur house"

Phil laughed, "don't worry about it mate, we've got enough rooms for all of you. Do you want

anything in here? I can't imagine it's fun to just be staring at the same room all the time"

Ranboo instinctively went to reply that he was fine, however with the time it took to write

that out he though of something else and erased the previous answer.

"I think taurus said I could try using a wheelchair," which Charlie seemed surprised after

reading.

"Oh, yeah, she did say something about that," the nurse had left to give the two of them

privacy so Charlie got up from his chair, "you want me to go find someone and ask about it?"

Ranboo hesitated before nodding, to which Charlie smiled and left.

Ranboo and Phil sat together for a while, Phil eventually breaking the silence before it

stretched on too long.

"I'm sorry...about everything you've had to go through before this"

Ranboo nodded- they were alright now, and that's all that mattered to them. He had started

trying to see the scars as a reminder of healing and not the pain they began as.

Soon enough Charlie returned with a wheelchair and a nurse behind him to help move

Ranboo onto it. Ranboo would've suggested he just try to walk, but that definitely would've

resulted in beratement from Charlie, and probably the nurse, and maybe even Phil, so they

lowered into the wheelchair without protest.

"Oh, should we, uh, go to get lunch? Everyone's probably wondering where we are, heh,"

Phil suddenly remembered what he had come to this room in the first place to do. Charlie

looked to Ranboo.

"You wanna come with or just hang out in here?" he asked. Ranboo thought for a few

moments and scribbled something down.

"I wanna meet everyone"

Charlie nodded and they all headed to the dining room.

~*~

It was clear that the table wasn't designed for 10 people to be seated around it at once,

however with some rearranging they were able to make sure everyone had a spot. The plate at

the centre had lots of sandwiches, with some bowls of crisps and snacks around it, and a bowl

of salad that most people at the table were trying very hard to ignore. Ranboo had been given

their usual soup box and straw.

"Sorry Ranboo, we would've tried to make something for you if we realised you'd be joining

us," Kristin apologised, sitting across from Ranboo. Ranboo gave a dismissive wave of his

hand as he put the straw through the bandages.

"Charlie, c'mon, at least have some vegetables on your plate," Sneeg, sitting next to Kristin

and across from Charlie, insisted. Charlie grumbled and put a single slice of cucumber next

to his sandwiches.

Kristin chuckled, "seems we're not the only ones with parenting experience in the house

anymore," she joked in reference to her and Phil.

"I guess so," Sneeg laughed, realising he had become a bit of a dad.

Both of the rats were together at one end of the table, with Sneeg and Ranboo at their sides,

while Wilbur and Tommy were at the other end. Phil sat between Tommy and Kristin, with

Techno opposite.

Ran _ Cha _ Tec

Val _ Wil

Rat _ Tom

Sne _ Kri _ Phi

(A table diagram for whatever reason you might want it)

"Daaadddzzaaaa," Tommy began. Phil sighed.

"Wilbur, whatever you're doing, stop it," he commanded with a warning glare at Wilbur.

"I-I wasn't doing anything!" he said while scraping his unusually arranged crisps back into a

pile. Phil swore that he saw them spelling something like 'Tommy sucks' before he did. So

nothing new then.

"Ow-!" Wilbur suddenly exclaimed, "P-Phil, he kicked me!"

Before Phil could even respond, he saw Techno stealing a sandwich from Wilbur's plate

while he was distracted.

"Techno-! Tommy, you- ugh..." Phil put his head in his hands. Kristin gave him a reassuring

pat on the back.

"Boys, we have guests, so try to behave yourselves, alright?" she said with a warning glance.

The boys nodded. Phil looked despairingly at how easily she resolved the situation, but have

Kristin a thankful kiss.

Techno still stole the cucumber from Charlie's plate while no-one was looking. Charlie wasn't

particularly worried about the theft.

"Ranboob, how'd you get so messed up?" Tommy asked all of a sudden. He yelped when

every single person at the table glared at him, besides Ranboo, who was trying not to choke

on his soup while he laughed (and also the rats, who were busy making some strange food

contraption together).

Ranboo tried to make a reassuring noise to everyone at the table and held up, "U shouldve

seen the other guy"

Sneeg laughed and Tommy gave a respectful nod, "yeah, violence is always the answer, that's

what Techno told me"

Phil glanced at Techno, who was trying very hard to avoid eye contact and pretend he hadn't

heard any of that.

~*~

That evening everyone gathered in the living room for a movie night that Kristin had

suggested. They had brought down some beanbags so that nobody would be sitting on the

floor, and despite Kristin's offer to find more the rats were happy to perch on the arm and

back of the couch.

Ranboo was in their wheelchair on one side of the couch, with a beanbag for Sneeg and

Charlie beside them. Kristin and the three brothers were huddled together on the couch and a

beanbag was on the other side for Phil, however he and Sneeg were currently rifling through

the bookcases and looking for movies they could watch.

Phil held up one called monster house and Sneeg pursed his lips.

"Hm...maybe not," he decided, so Phil nodded and kept looking. After a moment Sneeg

asked, "I was wondering...is the pink hair some kind of recessive gene Techno got, or..?"

Phil laughed quietly, "well, it's been like that as long as we've had him, but we don't know if

his birth parents were the same"

"Oh, they're not..?"

Phil shook his head.

"They all came from different families, but once they met in the orphanage they became

inseparable. Kristin and I eventually decided we would take all three of them in, and I'm glad

we did"

Sneeg nodded, "yeah, I can see..."

He looked over his shoulder to the couch everyone was huddled around and saw Tommy and

Wilbur were having another bicker over nothing in particular, whilst Techno watched with

popcorn and Kristin sighed with a loving smile.

"Hey, you guys found a movie?" Charlie suddenly asked, drawing his attention.

"Uh..." Sneeg looked back at the movie he had been considering- into the spiderverse. It

seemed like something fun.

"Wanna watch that one, mate?" Phil asked, seeing Sneeg looking at it.

"Yeah?" Sneeg asked, looking to Phil who gave a thumbs up and started walking back to the

others.

"Alright, everyone ready? You all got enough snacks?" Phil looked at everyone for a nod

before Sneeg handed him the DVD and he put it in. They all got to their seats, Kristin quickly

shushing the brothers before another argument broke out, and the movie began.

~*~

Taurus heard the movie from her position by the front door and decided to move away to talk

with one of the higher ups that was approaching.

"Everything alright, sir?" she asked.

"Yes, I was just coming to inform you that we've found a place that might be suitable for

them to live in. I can come back tomorrow morning if that's a better time to discuss it with

them?"

Taurus paused before she replied, "well, I've been talking with all of them, and Phil seems

quite happy for them to remain here for longer. They all seem quite happy to stay as well"

The man nodded, "alright then, that works too. We'll keep the location we found as a backup

just for now"

Taurus heard all of them laughing at something in the film. She didn't think they'd be needing

a backup, but nodded nonetheless, "alright. Thank you, sir"

"Thank you, Taurus. Enjoy your film," he said with a smirk as he left, to which Taurus

replied with a quiet laugh.

She returned to her position, hearing more laughs and conversation, which was followed with

aggressive shushing. The ambient noise returned to just that of the film as she looked out at

the evening sky. It had been a long time since she'd felt so peaceful.

~*~

Phil was putting the DVD back in its case as Kristin ushered the brothers to bed, Tommy

insisting he hadn't cried at the movie while Wilbur poked fun at him. Charlie stretched before

tip-toeing around Sneeg, who had fallen asleep. Ranboo watched as he grabbed a blanket

from the corner and wandered back over to the couch.

"U dont have to go far to get to bed," Ranboo wrote, which Charlie laughed at but was

careful not to laugh too loud.

"Neither does he, I suppose," Charlie grinned with a nod towards Sneeg, who they were

probably just going to let sleep there tonight.

Phil turned back for a moment as he walked towards the door, "you guys need anything

before you go to bed?"

Ranboo and Charlie shook their heads, and Sneeg seemed happy enough, so Phil nodded with

a smile and closed the door behind him.

Charlie set the blanket down on the couch and looked to Ranboo, "I'll help you into your bed"

Ranboo nodded, knowing Charlie probably wouldn't let him say no. Charlie walked with him

as he wheeled over to the other door.

"So...what are your thoughts on the new roommates?" Charlie asked with a slight laugh.

"Theyre all very nice :)" they wrote as Charlie opened the door for them and greeted the

nurse inside, who'd been writing something out. They had invited him to watch the movie

too, but he'd insisted on remaining in Ranboo's room while everyone else watched it.

Charlie and the nurse lifted Ranboo back onto his bed and Ranboo wrote something out

before Charlie left to go to the couch.

"Thank you"

Charlie smiled, knowing they probably didn't mean it just in reference to helping them into

bed.

"I should be thanking you, Ran. All that time ago you could've left me sat at that

computer...but you saved me"

Ranboo started to tear up as he wrote, "I love you 3"

"I love you too, Ran. Goodnight"

Ranboo waved to Charlie as he shut the door and wiped his tears. Sneeg was still sleeping

peacefully, so Charlie took the blanket from the couch and gently draped it over him.

Charlie lay down on the couch, hands behind his head as he looked up at the ceiling. The

world? They didn't need the world. As long as it was the three of them, the five of them, the

ten of them- as long as they all had each other.

He knew it would be okay.

Chapter End Notes

I guess this is now set in an AU where ace race can be 2 player lmao

And that's that, dear reader! (And you really are a dear reader if you've read until this

point. Thank you so much for looking at my silly words 3)

Or...is it?

You see, this story might not quite yet be done. Yes, the RGB trio and the rats have

found their home, and all is well in that regard. However, I've had some thoughts

regarding Taurus, and I don't think her story is quite yet complete ;)

It will definitely be a while before I post the first chapter of this sequel, but I'm already

excited for what it could possibly be. Here's some clues- she isn't done with Showfall,

and Showfall isn't done with her.

Ik that ppl will probably be less interested in this because it focuses on an OC despite

being in the universe of generation loss, and this is also not a promise that this sequel

will ever actually be made!! I'm very bad with commitments lol

But despite all that I would like to try and work on this next project, and I'd like to hear

some of your thoughts on it! It'll be cool, I swear ;D

And I did get most of my gushing out of the way in the last chapter, but I cannot say it

enough thank you thank you thank you for reading!!! It means the world to me 3

(Extra extra final note, I thought I'd also mention I'm happy for anyone to make any kind

of work inspired by this! That would be very epic and cool)

Alright, that's everything I think. Thanks for reading :)

Edit 28/7/23: THE SEQUEL HAS BEGUN BABYY :D

End Notes

Short paragraphs beloved, more books should use em

I wrote this all pretty much in one go and didn't proofread so please tell me if there are any

mistakes lmao

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