Yeein' On That 'Haw Ch. 10-- Breaking And Entering Or Dumpster Diving?

Yeein' On That 'Haw Ch. 10-- Breaking and Entering or Dumpster Diving?

Once I finished assuring Norm that we wouldn’t be in this dumpster for long, I turned around to see if there were any, like… treasures I could fish out of the filth. Maybe if we found some C-4 in this dumpster, we would be able to counter Billy. There were some old banana peels, some burger wrappers, a couple paper cups and–

…There was a man in the corner. 

I immediately began screaming. What else was I supposed to do? There was a man curled up in this dumpster!

Well, I guess I was also technically in the dumpster, but I didn’t know this guy’s intentions. I hardly noticed over my own terror when the unknown man also started screaming. Norm turned around, expression disgruntled, and slammed a hand over my speaker. “‘f you don’t shut the hell up!”

I silenced myself, and the man’s screams died down shortly after. We stared at each other wordlessly for a time. Hang on a second, I recognized this guy! This was the guy I almost witnessed the murder of!... Actually, does it count as murder if it’s a swan? I like to think so. We were in similar boats, him and I. He just dealt with it… far more frequently. I also thought his entire being was funny. Like, he had a bandy-aid on his forehead that read ‘fuckface.’ That’s hilarious! Couldn’t quite remember his name, though. 

Norm immediately pointed his revolver at the man– not quite intending to shoot, but ready to if need be. “Who’re you?” He began.

The fuckface guy lifted his arms in a terrified gesture of submission, pressing himself farther up against the dumpster’s wall. “R-Randy! Randy Jade! Please– Please don’t shoot me!” His flip-phone-head’s screen flickered frantically between various colors, expressing panic. He seemed fucking terrified of Norm, though I could tell it wasn’t just because he had a gun. Now that I got a better look at him, myself and this guy were dressed pretty similarly: hoodie, flannel, some worn jeans– the only difference was the color scheme, of which he wore cooler-toned colors like blue and grey. Fit his overall vibe, honestly. Oh, and the bandages on his hands. Those were pretty wack. 

“Hang on, Randy Jade? The Randy Jade?” I took a step closer to the cowering man. “Like, phone-sex hotline Randy Jade?”

Wow, this was becoming better by the second. I had seen this guy around, but never quite made the connection that he was the same guy with the cheesy-ass introduction on the phone-sex hotline. I never imagined they could be the same person!

Both Norm and our newly-met friend froze. Norm looked at me with his most confused expression yet. “...Y’call phone sex hotlines?”

I paused. “Oh, right, uh,” I waved my hand dismissively. “For funsies. I thought it was funny that there was a phone-sex hotline in a city full of phones. Irony, y’know? I’m a curious person.”

Randy extended a meekly accusatory hand in my direction. “Are…Are you the person that heard my introduction and just… started laughing? Continuously? Until I hung up?”

I snickered at the memory. His introduction was ridiculous! “Yeah, that was me.”

“Oh.” I could practically hear the frown in his voice as his head lowered to look at the floor. “That really hurt my feelings.”

I suddenly felt overwhelming pity for this poor man. But now I was confused– why was he in this dumpster? Oh well, Norm still had a gun pointed at him, I might as well ask. “Say, Randal, what’re you doing in this here dumpster?”

“I live here!” Randy exclaimed, and immediately regretted it. He quieted down. “M-My jobs don’t really pay the bills, so I pay Bunny to let me live in his dumpster.”

Well, he gave us a location, so that was good. Outside Bunny’s Burgers. Christ, I hated that place. The burgers were dry as all hell, and always undercooked. I gestured to Norm to lower his firearm, which he did. “We’re good, Norm, he’s about as dangerous as a cold, wet sock.” Randy did not object to my analysis of his dangerous tendencies. Though, despite Norm having lowered his revolver, the poor man still seemed absolutely petrified of him.

“Does that technically mean we’re breakin’ an’ enterin’?” Norm mumbled to me. 

I paused. I actually wasn’t sure. “Nahhh, I think it just counts as dumpster diving. Not as illegal,” I whispered back to him. I returned my attention to the cold, wet sock of a man before us. “Randy, you’re cool with housing criminals for a little bit, right?”

Randy tensed. “Uh, well, I–”

I cut him off. “Great! We won’t be long.”

I turned to peek out of the little cracks in the dumpster’s walls. I could hardly see anything, but I’m pretty sure there was no Little Billy in the alley. I bit the inside of my cheek in contemplation, trying to think of a way out of this situation. Billy surely knew exactly where we were via some… magical child abilities, probably. We definitely couldn’t fight him, so we had to lose him somehow. 

“Any ideas?” I heard Norm mumble to my right. 

I slowly shook my head. “No. I don’t think so.”

“Well, I got one,” he continued before leaning in closer. He lowered his voice to say “We could always use that destitute feller over there as a distraction. Get ‘im t’ talk t’ the little varmint.”

I paused to contemplate his proposition. I looked at Randy. He did seem like prime Billy bait. If there was one thing I knew about Little Billy, it was that he loved tormenting people with too little self-respect to fight back. I tilted my head. “Huh. That’s not a bad idea,” I commented incredulously. “But how will we get him to do it?”

“I-I’m right here. I can hear you,” a slightly-offended Randy interrupted my thoughts. “What are you guys even running from?”

I didn’t answer his question, only approached to attempt a negotiation. “Randy, buddy,” I laid a hand on his shoulder, probably catching seven different contagious diseases (rabies included) as I did so. I felt the sad, sad man recoil under my touch. “We need you to do us a little favor.” Yes, speaking to him like he was a feral animal was my intention. He probably thought himself as one, anyway. “You like being a good person, right?” 

Randy didn’t notice that I was actually asking him a question until I stared at him expectantly. “Uh… y-yeah, I guess so.” He tried removing my hand from his shoulder, but I only squeezed harder.

“I thought so. Well, now’s your chance. You can actually do something for someone instead of sitting around like a limp, sweaty noodle.” A smile crept into my voice, but not onto my phone-face. “Doesn’t that sound nice?”

“Wh-What are you trying to make me do?” Randy asked. “I’ll do a lot, but there’s certain things I’ve had enough of!” He glanced at Norm. “I’ve dealt with enough cowboys at work that I don’t think phone-hell or heaven will let me in. I think I’ll just be stuck in a wild west style saloon for eternity.” He visibly shuddered. I couldn’t help but briefly question that in my mind, but decided not to talk about it. Norm looked mildly offended.

“We just need you to distract someone, Randy. It shouldn’t be that difficult, just make some crazy noises until we get away. Sound agreeable enough?” I lifted my hand from his shoulder, much to his relief. 

The swan-wrangler fell silent, gaze fixed on his tattered sneakers. “I’m not good at distracting people. I just kind of blend into the background,” he admitted. 

“Not when you’re screaming! You’re good at that, right? You do it a ton.” I lifted my hands in a somewhat motivational gesture, then glanced back at Norm to see if I was doing a good job. Norm only shrugged. 

There was another moment of awkward silence while Randy contemplated my proposition. He was taking a little too long to decide for my tastes, so I gestured to the yeehaw-man behind me. “Oh, and he has a gun. So you kinda have to do what we say.”

That seemed to do it. Randy tensed once more and frantically said “Okay! Okay, I-I’ll do it. Jeez.” I heard him add under his breath, “Why have I had a gun pulled on me thrice this week?” 

I decided not to question that last bit and retracted from Randy’s personal space. “Great! Now we just gotta wait until Billy inevitably shows up–”

“He’s outside,” interjected Norm, his bag pressed against a crack. “Better git on over here, kid.”

I nudged Randy, who hurriedly stood and awkwardly shuffled his way to exterior wall of the container, lifted the lid, and vaulted out. I stooped over to peer through a crack, just as Norm was. We both watched in stunned silence as Randy attempted to strike up a conversation with Billy, who immediately informed him of the grenade he had slipped into his pocket. 

While Randy panicked and fished said grenade from his pocket, Norm lifted the lid of the dumpster, jumped out, and then helped lift me out of it soon after. Thankfully, Randy had used some common sense and gotten Billy to turn his back to us. We began booking it to the end of the alley so we could get the hell out of there. 

Out of seemingly nowhere, Little Billy fucking appeared right in front of us. No, he didn’t like, run up and block our exit, he straight-up apparated. I yelped in shock and skidded to a stop, followed by Norm. 

“Hey, bozos! You should know better!” He vaguely gestured over our shoulders to Randy, who was still holding the grenade (which turned out to still have the pin in it) and seemed just as confused at how Billy blocked our way out. “Guys like him are boring! I need at least some resistance to my torment or it isn’t as fun! That guy doesn’t even have an ounce of self-respect!” I watched as Randy sagged and turned to slink back to his sad-man dumpster. Damn. Poor guy. 

“Jesus Christ, Billy,” I groaned exasperatedly, “Why are you even working for Mingus anyway? Is she even giving you anything?” 

Billy shrugged. “I dunno. Just because.”

I stared at him, dumbfounded. Just because? I guess I should have expected that. It was Little Billy, for phone-christ’s sake. He did all kinds of shit for no reason other than he felt like it. I shook my head to clear it of the confused fog that it was filled with. “Can you just, like… kill us already?”

“Nope! Gotsta keep you alive for the Mayor.” He balled his hands into fists and rested them on his hips in a display of ego. “No death for you, bozos.”

“I swear to Christ, I’m gonna wring your little neck!” I snapped and lunged forward to do just that. Little Billy practically cartwheeled out of the way and held up his hand in a pacifying gesture. I stopped. Man, I really was about to strangle a child. Wow. I heard Norm let out a relieved sigh through his teeth from behind me. 

“Y’know what? I like ya, bozo. You got balls,” Billy mused, not acknowledging the fact that I had just threatened to literally strangle him to death. “I think I’ll leave ya alone. Why not?” He paused for a moment, then perked up. I could pretty much smell the impish grin on his dumbass little phone-face as he reached into his pocket and retrieved a rectangular device from it. 

I fully thought he was about to like… shoot us with a bazooka or something, so I lifted my arms in a defensive gesture. He looked at me like I was the dumbest motherfucker on the planet and gestured confusedly in my direction. “Calm down, bozo, it’s not a bazooka. That’s in my other pocket. You should know this by now.”

I pursed my metaphorical lips. I think my concerns were valid. “Then what the hell is it?”

Billy extended the device in our direction, revealing a walkie-talkie-esque shape with an antenna extending from the top and a big red button in the center like a goddamn cartoon. It was clear what it was: a trigger. For what, I wasn’t sure. “A countermeasure,” the little shit stated, sounding like some sort of mentor in a superhero movie. 

“Alright, vague, but I’ll take it, why not?” I shrugged and extended a hand to receive the trigger. I noticed Norm bristle behind me, and gave him a brief look of concern. His expression remained stoic. 

“I’m gonna vanish from the story now, later, bozos!” Billy exclaimed, using two baby-carrot-ass fingers to salute Norm and I before… literally fucking vanishing. No smoke bomb or anything, he just… disappeared. I frantically looked around, trying to locate the little rat child, but finding nothing but shattered hopes and dreams. 

“...Christ,” I mumbled, resting a hand on my phone-face. “That kid is gonna kill me. Probably. Yeah, he’ll definitely be what causes my death.”

Norm spoke up, taking a place at my side, “Which ‘s why we won’t be usin’ that there trigger.”

I looked at him, confused, prompting him to continue. “Why not?”

After a sigh and some hesitation, he elaborated. “Y’said that kid ‘s basically th’ bane o’ everybody’s existence, right? I don’ trust anythin’ he gives us. We ain’t usin’ that. Might as well throw it away.”

I scoffed incredulously. “We shouldn’t throw it away. If it really is a countermeasure just in case our plan to assassinate Mingus fails– which I’m assuming that’s what he meant– we might very well need it.” I glanced around and leaned in closer to Norm. “As much as it confuses me to believe it, I don’t think Billy would lie about this, and this specifically.”

“And what ‘f it kills us ‘f we use it?” Norm’s voice gained a little bit of volume, which gave me pause. Did he really care that much? I recalled his earlier confession in the subway, and reasoned with myself that yes, he did really care that much. 

I hesitated for a moment. Maybe, I thought, I should just agree with him and throw the trigger away. But my instincts didn’t let me. I just had a good feeling about it– it might have ended up being the thing that saved our asses. Even if Billy supplied it to us. Fuckin’ weirdo. 

“I guess that’s just a risk we’ll have to take, Norm. I’m sorry.” I shoved the trigger into my pocket, being careful not to accidentally press the button in the process. Norm’s expression falled to discontent, and he visibly tensed. I began to worry that I might have pissed him off, but he would just have to deal with it. 

“Fine, you win.” He pointed an accusatory finger in my direction. “But ‘f we die when usin’ that, I’m blamin’ you.”

“You would have blamed me anyway, so I’m alright with that,” I half-joked while turning to face the end of the alley. “Let’s… find the cat, I guess.”

Norm sighed, beginning to follow me once more. “Love seein’ th’ enthusiasm.”

Yeein' On That 'Haw Ch. 16-- What Is This, The Notebook?

Before I had the chance to properly react, I was yelling as Mayor Mingus practically shot in the direction of the vent I inhabited with a feral yowl. Her claws latched onto the cover and began to tear it off, and as soon as she managed to rip it from the wall completely, I instinctively reared back and kicked her as hard as I could in her dumb cat face. As she fell back to the floor, she managed to get her paws on my ankle and dig her claws into the skin there. This straight-up yanked me from the vent and took me to the ground with her.

The two of us hit the ground with a dull thud, with Mingus, of course, having sprung from my form and landed on her feet. Though it didn’t seem to matter, as she lunged at me before I could regain my bearings.

Adrenaline numbed my senses in exchange for my pure survival instincts. Everything seemed to turn into a blur of claws, fangs, and screaming for a moment until I managed to push away from the feline and gather some distance. She instantly lunged at me once again in an attempt to gain the upper hand, but I rolled to the side and stumbled to my feet before she managed to tackle me again. 

“(Y/N)?” I heard Norm sputter befuddledly from behind me before his voice transformed into one that sounded far more annoyed, almost indignant. “I thought I told y’not t’ follow me here.”

I paused for a second to calm my breathing before turning over my shoulder, annoyed. My voice was warbling and unsteady when I said “Yeah, well, it’s hard to avoid going to the same place as you when I got kidnapped by God himself!” I placed my shaking hands on my hips and leaned forward. “Thanks for protecting me from that, by the way.”

“Why would I protect someone who sees me as nothin’ more than code?” Norm responded. I noticed that his grip was still firm on his revolver. 

“This nonsense again,” I sighed and rested a hand on my dial. “If you would have let me explain earlier instead of interrupting me every time I tried to speak, you would have heard me explain how I felt. But you didn’t, so now we have this predicam–”

I was cut off by Mingus’s high-pitched voice. “Are you serious right now?! Are you truly, utterly, honestly serious right now?!” I turned to face her and found her standing before me, fingers curled into angry fists. “You two are arguing with each other right in front of me?! Do you have no decorum? No decency?”

  “Decency?” I spat back. “You’re trying to kill us!” 

“I’m aware of that, you reality-hopping parasite!” She cried. “It is so unbelievably rude to interrupt somebody in their attempts to do anything!” 

“Rotary-Christ almighty, I’m starting to realize why you want her dead, Norm,” I glanced back at the cowboy, who was still poised to attack. “She’s a complete and utter bitch.”

“Even ‘f I’m still utterly pissed at ya, I can agree with ya on that.” I heard an ounce of hilarity creep into his voice beyond the bag-face. 

I couldn’t avoid snickering. Mingus must have heard it, because she seemed to become even more tense and frustrated. With a gutteral yowl, she dove forward to tackle me to the ground, but Norm beat her to the punch. He took a step forward and used his non-rifle-bearing arm to push me out of the Mayor’s line of attack. He let off a bullet, briefly deafening me and causing my phone-tinnitus to act up. Though, strangely, Mingus was in too close range to be shot. Norm missed. She still backed off, clutching her ears in pain. 

“Norm, I swear to Phone-Christ, you’re going to deafen me!” I practically screamed at him before throwing up my hands in a confused gesture. “What happened to Mr. ‘I don’t miss?!’” When I quoted his earlier words, I artifically deepened my voice and mimicked his southern drawl. 

“She was two inches from slaughterin’ ya and yer upset that I missed?!” Norm snapped back, which was honestly fair enough. I was panicking, man, I say things that I regret when I panic. 

Mingus regained her bearings and lunged for Norm, and, likely due to my accidental distraction, managed to swipe at him with her claws and slice open the arm of his training suit. I heard no audible reaction come from him, which I found slightly odd, but his free arm did reach over to clutch at the open wound. When he lifted his hand, it came away coated in a fine layer of fresh blood. I couldn’t hold back the anxious gasp that fled my throat– I was instinctively worried about him despite the fact that it was just a surface level wound. 

Norm reared his newly injured arm to the side and swung it forward, cracking the revolver’s barrel against the side of Mingus’ head. I winced at the sight, and Norm backed away to try to get to shooting distance. Mingus stumbled backward, disoriented. But she had returned to her battle-ready state before I got the chance to get at her with my knife. It was a miracle I hadn’t stabbed myself on accident yet– I wasn’t sure how I was going to get an attack in on Mingus without hurting myself. 

Expectedly, Mingus had the reflexes of a particularly vengeful feline, and had dove toward Norm before he got the chance to let off a bullet in her direction. She used the fact that his revolver-wielding arm was injured and grabbed onto the site of the scratch, pulling a sharp intake of breath from Norm and using the momentary distraction the pain brought to shove him back. His heels caught on the edge of the royal purple rug that rested in the center of the room and caused him to trip and fall backward onto the ground, dropping his revolver in the process.  

…Well, shit. 

Mingus stalked over to the dropped firearm and kicked it pretty damn hard across the room, far out of Norm and I’s reach. Shit again. My better instincts kicked in and I took several steps forward to attempt to attack the Mayor with the knife I stole from her kitchen. Maybe if I stole her attention for long enough, Norm could get up and grab his gun before I was torn to shreds. 

I raised the knife to about shoulder level and pushed it in on Mingus’s neck– a poor choice of site to try and stab, but I was really only half-committed to killing her at this point. In response to my poorly-aimed attack, Mingus ducked to the side and lunged forward, wrapping her arms around my torso to take me to the ground with her. On impact, the knife fell from my hands and clattered across the floor. Triple shit. Additionally, I was reminded of what happened with Little Billy earlier when the strange trigger he gifted us launched out of my pocket and skidded along the ground. 

Now that I thought about it, Billy did say that the trigger was a ‘countermeasure’ in case things went wrong with Mingus…

I had to get at that big red button. 

Before Mingus could use her claws to tear me apart, I flung my arm out and grabbed at the trigger. But Mingus was faster, slamming one clawed hand onto my forearm and pinning it to the ground. Her claws dug into my skin, drawing blood. I could only wince as she paused to speak to me, voice mildly winded and filled with pure menace. “That’s one of Little Billy’s ‘toys,’ isn’t it? I should have known better than to place my trust, my confidence, in that little brat!” She leaned in closer, close enough to where I could smell the caviar on her breath. “Once I’m done tearing you to bits, I’m going to hang your remains from this building like they’re Phone-Goddamned Christmas lights, you snivelling, hideous, troglodyctal parasite!” She punctuated each insult with a slice to whatever skin she could find, drawing more blood and creating gratefully numbed markings. 

As my adrenaline levels dropped slightly, my ability to think reasonably returned to me. It never quite sunk in that I could die there, in that world. Time passed and changed people just like in the reality where I was from, and I was not exempt from harm just because I wasn’t originally from there. A question arose in my mind: what exactly would happen if I were to die there? Would I return to my original reality? Or perhaps I would just… cease to exist; a jumble of code deleted from the files. 

A gunshot rang in my sound processors, and relief flooded my senses. Norm got his revolver back while Mingus was distracted attacking me. I felt warm blood spray over my phone-face, and I heard the cat woman let out a strangled gasp. I took the opportunity to reel back and kick Mingus in the chest, sending her tumbling away from me and allowing me to get to my feet. I lifted a hand to wipe the mixture of my own and the Mayor’s blood from my phone-face. My gaze shot downward to find Mingus clutching her bleeding shoulder. 

“Hoooly shit!” I exclaimed, looking up to find Norm, firearm still extended in front of him. He seemed relieved, but there was an unmistakable hesitancy in his body language that was throwing me for a loop. Why didn’t he just shoot her in the head? She wasn’t moving that much. Was he… rethinking his choice to kill her?

Well, shit, I wasn’t going to give up because he was hesitating! I wanted to get the hell out of this place and go home! I looked down at the ground and realized that the knife I had dropped was practically across the room, leaving Little Billy’s trigger closer to me and, therefore, the better option to go with at that moment. I lunged forward and snatched it off the ground before backing far away from the kneeling Mingus, who seemed to be in some form of shock for the moment. As much as she seemed to forget it, she was still mortal, and still very shoot-able. 

After only a brief pause to contemplate my life’s decisions, I practically slammed my thumb against the big red button on the trigger. 

And nothing happened. 

Not at first, anyway. Just as I thought Billy had utterly fucked us over just to get a prank in, I began hearing a distant high-pitched beeping. It seemed to be following a steady rhythm. And I knew immediately what I had done: I had rigged Town Hall to explode. 

“Oh, shit, I fucked up, Norm!” I whirled around to face the space-cowboy, who had become infinitely more tense once I had grabbed the trigger with the intention to press it. “The place is gonna blow! We gotta get out of here!” 

“Y’don’t ‘ave t’ tell me twice, pardner,” Norm hastily responded. I relaxed slightly; he was back to calling me pardner. He must have forgiven me at least a little bit for calling him an NPC. He turned and began to bolt from the entrance hall with me in tow. 

But of course it wasn’t going to be that easy. It was never that easy. When I began to run, I felt something wrap around my wrist. I glanced down and grimly noticed that Mingus had stumbled over to me and snatched my wrist, which she promptly used to sling me to the ground. When I landed, I spotted a flash of metal in her hand, and immediately panicked when I realized that she had picked up the knife I dropped. 

“I don’t think so!” She cried, sounding no less confident in her abilities than earlier. She hurriedly knelt and lifted the knife above her head, then plunged it  downward with the intent to stab me in the chest. With my half-decent reflexes, I managed to grab her wrist and use what strength I had to stop the knife in its course. “You won’t be the death of Paw-paw’s vision! I will absolutely, completely, unquestionably never allow that!” 

Okay, I’m going to be completely honest, because I’m an honest person. I kind of felt sympathy for Mayor Mingus in that moment. She just misinterpreted her grandpa’s intentions with his town, and by Phone-God, she wanted to help his dream come true, even if he had been missing for years. She just didn’t want his labor to be fruitless. The thing is… she was doing it all wrong. And actions have consequences. 

I felt rustling in my breast pocket. I could only guess what it was before my pocket tore open, and a furry blur about the size of my fist was launching from its containment. I then recalled what I had put in that pocket: Spunch. My boy Spunch was trying to save me from being stabbed by a murderous cat lady! The rat latched onto Mingus’ face, causing her to lurch backward, screaming, though she kept her grip on the knife’s handle. I used this opportunity to scramble backward, though wasn’t able to get to my feet before I was deafened by another gunshot, courtesy of Norm, who had stopped and turned to help when Mingus pounced on me. 

I clenched my optical sensors shut and covered my sound-processers, willing their ringing to stop. Literally, my head was ringing. Because it was a phone. When I re-enabled my optical sensors, I was met with the sight of Mingus, blood actively flowing from her lips and a fresh bullet wound right to the heart. She said nothing, only stared blankly ahead, seemingly in shock. I looked around frantically for Spunch, finding that he had landed on the ground. Immediately, I leaned over and picked him up, shoving him back in my pocket while muttering probably unintelligible hogwash about how thankful I was for this rat’s existence. Then I turned and ran. 

This time, I was able to make it out of the building and down the front steps of Town Hall without any problems. My mind was racing; we just killed the Mayor, and now Town Hall was going to explode, immolating her body and everyone left inside. We were straight-up killers. But hey, we had done what we went there to do, and now Norm was going to help me get back home. 

The two of us made it a safe distance away from Town Hall, and I keeled over to catch my breath. Then I was overwhelmed by a sudden sense of tension in the air– painfully awkward tension. I looked up at Norm, who seemed to be in a similar situation. I took a breath in and managed to croak out “Uh… so, we’re alive–”

I was interrupted by an earth-shuddering impact, sending me stumbling and forcing me to grab onto a nearby light pole to prevent falling over completely. I looked up to find that Town Hall had, in fact, exploded, sending pieces of shrapnel and debris flying our way, though thankfully not injuring us any more than we already were. The warmth from the explosion washed over me and I briefly wondered how painful it would be to have my plastic phone-head melted. Were there nerve endings in there? I answered my own question; there were definitely nerve endings in the phone-heads, which opened a whole new can of worms that I didn’t feel like addressing at that moment. 

Silence blanketed the two of us as we mutely watched Town Hall burn to the ground. Strangely enough, I found that I was feeling… regret. Gentle regret, the kind that was barely recognizable until it leaked through the cracks in your mind. I wasn’t entirely sure where it came from– I had already acknowledged the fact that I hardly felt anything toward the NPCs in this world. Though, at that moment, I felt vague sympathy toward those I condemned to a flaming death. 

I swallowed thickly and turned to face Norm, whose sticky note had donned a mildly grim expression. “So… how do you feel? Your arch-enemy is dead, and any paperwork proving your exile is probably completely gone, so you can do whatever you want now.” 

He remained silent. Eerily so. I leaned in closer, tilting my head to the side. “...Norm?” I began in a meek tone. “Are you… okay?” 

I heard him take a breath and let it out slowly. “No,” he mumbled. “No, oddly ‘nough, I don’t feel okay.” He averted his gaze as he holstered his revolver. “I feel like I should be more satisfied now that th’ Mayor’s gone, but…” He turned to look at me, expression numb. “That felt dirty, (Y/N). I can’t help but feel like we made a mistake.”

I felt my stomach sink to my shoes. I thought the bad feeling I was getting was because of existential dread. Had we actually fucked up? That couldn’t be it. I had done what I was directed to do! My gaze fixated on the ground. “You do?” I muttered. 

Norm only nodded solemnly. “I thought getting rid o’ her would make me feel better ‘bout what happened before, but…” He sighed. “I s’pose I was wrong.”

Silence washed over us once again. My head was pounding– I could barely think. I could feel my heart racing. We did all of this for nothing? Norm didn’t even feel slightly better now that Mingus (and likely her entire posse) was dead?

“Well, pardner, I ain’t one t’ go back on my end o’ deals– it don’t matter how I feel about this.” He sank to a seated position on the curb. “I jus’ need t’ think about how t’ get ya back home.” He said it in such a resigned tone that I honestly felt bad for him.

I didn’t respond. He was still concerned with getting me back to my original reality, even if I hadn’t quite fixed his problem. My thoughts returned to that moment in the subway, when he told me, albeit hesitantly, that he cared about me. We were kindred spirits, in a way, both dropped into a time and place that we weren’t familiar with and forced to get used to it. He was the first, and only, NPC from this game that seemed to form a bond with me. And I realized just then that I had a special kind of connection with this ridiculous space cowboy. 

“Norm,” I began, voice contemplative. “What if, and hear me out for a second,” I extended both hands in his direction as if to placate him. “I didn’t go back home.” When he didn’t say anything, only stared at me cynically, I heightened my volume and talking speed. “Okay, listen, I’m probably a wanted criminal back home for reasons you already know, and one of my only friends is probably dead. There’s nothing left for me there.” I said it with an almost broken resignation, one that caused Norm to deflate. “Here, even though it’s not where I’m originally from, I have a decent place to live, no criminal record (which will probably change soon, but still,) and… well, you. And don’t take this the wrong way, but you really need human connection. Ya feel me?” I slowly sat down on the curb next to him. 

The yeehaw-man had stopped looking at me, but turned to face the inferno that was once Town Hall. His expression was one of vague disbelief. A long, tense moment passed while he processed this information. Then he spoke, though his voice was softer this time. “Y’mean that?” 

“You know it,” I assured him. “Even if my head is a phone, I wasn’t a huge fan of my human flesh-face anyway. I’m not missing a ton.” 

“Bullshit,” Norm leaned back slightly, turning to look at me, appalled. “I could jus’ tell y’were gorgeous. Don’t lie t’me.” 

I couldn’t stop the heat from rising to my phone-face. Luckily, that heat didn’t manifest into anything visible. Normally, I would have responded with a joke, but I found myself incapable of thinking of anything humorous. What the hell was happening to me? Why did I suddenly care so much about what he thought of me? Why did everything suddenly feel so… fuzzy?

“Hey, uh… Norm?” I pulled my knees into my chest and wrapped my arms around them anxiously. “By the way, I… wanted to apologize. For what I said earlier. About you being an NPC.” I watched as he visibly tensed, and spoke faster to try and relieve him of it. “Wait, let me explain! Since I got here, nobody has been willing to tolerate my presence for more than, like, a day. Fuckin’ Bigfoot saved my phone-goddamned life and he still runs when he sees me! I thought it was the code or something preventing me from forming bonds with people, but… I know that can’t be true now. Because you’ve stuck with me this long, and I think something might have changed. Inside of me, I mean.”

As I was speaking, I felt like my brain was lagging behind my speaker. The words were just kind of falling out of me, some much to my shock. I didn’t think I could be so genuine. And while I poured my heart out to this video game character, there was something… different in the way I was communicating to him. There was an earnest sound to my voice that I have never heard in it before this. And I realized right then and there, that I had accidentally fallen in love with a fucking fictional cowboy. 

But that didn’t stop me from continuing. As I recognized my own feelings, that earnest energy in my voice only amplified more. “It’s really weird, because I didn’t think I was capable of feeling this way toward anyone here, then you point a fucking shotgun at my face and suddenly I have a consistent companion. You were so willing to hear my story and help me get back home even if I sounded like a phone-goddamned lunatic, and you were always willing to protect me when things got rough. You dealt with my nonsense and tried to understand my perspective on things even if you didn’t agree with them. So, I guess what I’m trying to say is… well, I really appreciate you, Norm. You’re different, y’know? And I didn’t realize just how starved of human companionship I was until you came along and filled the void. So… thank you.”

As soon as the words had left my speaker, I shrunk back in on myself. I didn’t know how he would receive it. He was only staring at me, sticky note devoid of emotion. When he spoke, he sounded completely overwhelmed. “I… I don’t understand, what are y’tryin’ t’ tell me? I’m tryin’ t’ figure out how t’ react.” 

I felt my stomach flip upside down in a mixture of embarrassment and annoyance, which promptly bubbled to the surface. “I’m trying to say that I love you, you fuckin’ dumbass!” I sounded like I was on the verge of tears.

Norm didn’t get the chance to react. Or, more like I didn’t see him react. My heartbeat paused, and my vision swam with iridescent patterns as if I had just been tossed into an oil spill. I made a rather embarrassing noise and clutched the spinning ground beneath me to prevent myself from keeling over. I heard Norm say something along the lines of “What th’ hell is happening?” And that made me realize that it wasn’t just me this time. The ground was lurching beneath us, sending debris tumbling about and the surrounding buildings crumbling. 

My heartbeat resumed its normal pattern and I managed to grab the nearest light pole to use as leverage. I yanked myself to my feet. “What the fuck is happening?” I choked out as Norm rose to his full height, also using a light pole to keep his balance. “Norm, did we break something?” 

“I didn’t do nothin!’” He called out in response, sounding shaken and confused. His free hand rested on his revolver, but even he seemed unsure as to what he was going to do with it. 

The world shook once more and I screamed as a large fragment of black plastic slammed into the ground, threatening to flatten me. I looked up to perhaps discover the source of the shrapnel, and found that a piece of the sky was missing, a strange, shimmering material in its place. The sky was literally falling, Chicken Little style. What. The. Fuck. 

I heard a brief rumbling noise emerging from behind me, and I only managed to glance back before Norm grabbed me, slinging me to the side and out of the way of the falling building that nearly slaughtered me. He handled me with a newfound care that only intensified the burning emotion in my chest. Once the building hit the ground with an ear-shattering impact, the material seemed to explode with pale pixels that scattered about the earth. It had seemingly melted, glitching and falling apart. Something had happened outside of the arcade machine. This world was coming apart at the seams. 

“We ‘ave t’ get outta here,” Norm started, sounding hardly frightened. 

I turned to face him, realizing that he hadn’t removed his hands from my shoulders, and shot back with what little air I could manage “I think the save file is glitching out or something! Where the hell are we gonna go?!”

Norm paused, then shook his head. “I… I don’t know.” 

I felt my heart stop briefly. We didn’t know what to do. This world was going to collapse, and us along with it. And just as I was finally getting used to it! 

“Well, we can’t stay here! Run!” I cried out and began doing just that, charging as fast as I could away from the crumbling buildings. Norm followed closely behind with the intention to use his body to shield me from any stray debris. 

I’m not entirely sure how long we were running. It’s all pretty blurry– my brain had seemingly begun to malfunction along with the world, and I began finding it increasingly difficult to perform basic tasks. Just the action of forcing my legs to move was enough to mentally exhaust me. All I know is that, eventually, we found ourselves in the park. Trees had fallen and melted into the ground, the pond was no longer occupied by swans, and any and all of the park’s occupants had vanished. 

Norm yanked on my arm to stop me, and I whirled around to face him. His expression, try as he might to hide it, betrayed his fear. “(Y/N),” he muttered breathlessly. “We can’t run from this.” 

Once again, I felt my heart lag. If I wasn’t erased with the rest of this world, I would surely die of a heart attack or something. I fell into silence. Oh, well. If I was going to die here, at least I would die alongside the one person that I cared about. We wordlessly stared at our destroyed surroundings for a moment before Norm spoke once again, sounding nonchalant. “Did y’wanna hear my answer?” 

I turned my phone-head to face him. “...What?”

“Y’said ya loved me, right? Did y’wanna hear my response?” 

I began to panic. I meant what I said to him, but now, the fear of death was replaced by the fear of rejection. I swallowed thickly. We were about to die anyway. “...Yeah. I do.”

He didn’t look back at the crumbling world around him. Only at me. I felt my body begin to fall apart to join my mind. “I feel th’ same. I love ya, (Y/N), as much as it confuses me t’ say it, I might as well.” 

I nodded solemnly. “I was worried you’d say that,” I replied, staring down at the ground. “Now I’m going to wonder what life would have been like if we weren’t about to be eradicated. I can’t even kiss you or anything, my head is a phone.” I don’t think I’ve ever said that with as much pure frustration as I did then. 

Though, at that moment, it seemed that the universe finally had some sympathy. My world lurched once again, and suddenly I felt incredibly light. I almost tipped over completely when I turned my head to look back at Norm, whose bag-face now wore an utterly shocked expression. “...What?” 

“Yer… yer head. It’s…” He paused, pointing to my head. I lifted my hands and touched my face, finding… a face. Eyes, lips, a nose. He scoffed. “Knew it.”

My breathing picked up speed as I looked back up at Norm. I didn’t have time to question the perfect timing of this glitch, I just had to do something about it before we died. “Alright, you’ve seen my real face, now it’s your turn.”

He didn’t question what I meant, but he certainly hestitated, though not for long. He nodded, and I took that as permission to lift my arms to the sides of his head, carefully remove his hat, and then lift the paper bag from his face. 

I was not shocked by his appearance. He seemed wholly embarrassed, which I wasn’t expecting, but he certainly looked exactly how I had unconsciously pictured him to. Because he hadn’t exactly had societal expectations about his appearance looming over his head for a couple of years, he wasn’t the most well-groomed, but I literally could not have cared less at that moment. I gently placed his hat back on his head. “Huh,” I grunted, “I dunno what I was expecting. Of course you have five ‘o’ clock shadow.” 

 Norm made a disgruntled face, one that brought a smile to my newly-returned lips. “I don’t know what I was expectin’, neither. Y’look just as tired as I thought you’d look.” 

“Phone-gods, man, we’re about to die, just shut the fuck up already,” I grinned lightheartedly before lifting my hand, grabbing a fistful of his suit, and yanking him down to my height. 

I’m not exactly sure how to describe what happened to me when I kissed him for the first time. I’m not really good with words, you know that already. All I know is that it was a welcome distraction from the voidal white light that was swiftly closing in around the both of us. 

And it was beautiful. 

Yeein' On That 'Haw Ch. 5-- Tunnel of Lové

A startled yelp fled my throat as I frantically ducked under the large disk of metal that threatened to decapitate me. “God almighty, man, be careful with that thing!” I yelled at Norm, who had hurled the manhole cover in my direction either in a botched attempt to murder me or due to lack of spatial awareness. 

He shrugged. “Yer fine. Y’ducked.” 

I threw my hands up at his audacity. “And what if I hadn’t?! I’d be dead!” 

“Y’have a hard head. Ya’d be fine.” He said nonchalantly as he dropped to a knee, gazing down into the darkened tunnel. 

My metaphorical jaw dropped. What. An. Asshole. 

After a moment of simply staring at him, Norm looked up at my astonished form. He tilted his head. “What?” When I didn’t respond, he sighed and pointed at the opening beneath him. “Git in th’ hole.”

All previous transgressions were forgotten immediately for the sake of comedy. I snickered briefly. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” I joked in my best ‘seductive’ tone which was, unsurprisingly, not seductive at all. We had been traveling together for an entire day now, so of course I was comfortable with making dirty jokes. We were about to be tunnel buddies, after all!

Norm paused for a moment, obviously clueless, before tensing. He was speechless for a fraction of a second before he pointed at the hole once more, this time more firmly. He was louder. “Git ‘n the damn sewer!” He sounded exasperated; a point of pride for me, honestly.

I jokingly raised my arms in a display of resignation before approaching the manhole. I knelt and began climbing down the rusted, creaking ladder. It was obvious that this hadn’t been used in a long time. The sounds of my boots hitting the metal rungs echoed throughout the expanse of the hallway below. When I hopped off of the ladder, I was immediately met with the cold, uncomfortable feeling of water seeping into my shoes. Wonderful. Love that. I totally wasn’t about to throw up. 

Soon after I landed, the expected stench of the sewers attacked my nostrils. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be, but that’s likely because I had spent a brief period of time practically living down there. It was probably going to be worse for Norm. 

Speaking of Norm, he followed shortly after me, audibly groaning in discomfort at the atmosphere of the tunnel. “Good gravy, ‘m startin’ t’ regret this.”

I turned to him with a look of disbelief. “...Good gravy?”

He sighed. “Jus’ git movin’.”

My arm lifted so I could give him a painfully inaccurate salute. “Sir, yes, sir!” I turned back around and began marching through the tunnel. “Just imagine it’s one of those shitty tunnel of love things they used to have at carnivals.”

Norm made a disgusted face. “I think ya jus’ made it worse. Thanks.”

“I’ll be here all night, my good sir,” I said flatly. “That’s me job, after all.”

We began our unfortunate trek through Dialtown’s sewers. I don’t remember exactly when Norm pulled the flashlight from his belt, but I do remember him accidentally blinding me with it, so that was fun. How does that even work? I had optical sensors, I didn’t even have retinas! That place confused me to no end.

All was silent for the majority of our journey, save for the occasional creaking of a pipe or dripping of muddy water. There weren’t even any insects or rodents to scare the shit out of us– that I thought was strange. Normally there were rats down there. I couldn’t help but wonder if they were afraid of Norm. He was different, after all; large, imposing, didn’t have tech for a head. I was sympathetic for the rats because I get scared of paper bags sometimes too. 

I snapped back into reality when I noticed a familiar-looking design on the wall. The brick surface had been chipped away at and borderline destroyed. Charred rat carcasses littered the floor. And there, haphazardly written on the wall in glow-in-the-dark red spray paint, was the word ‘CRUNGUS.’

An astonished gasp fled my throat. “Norm! Norm, we’re almost there! This is Billy territory!”

“This is what territory?” His volume had lowered to fit the echoing tunnels, and I noticed how his free hand began to linger near his holstered revolver. 

“Little Billy!” I lifted my arms slightly and turned to face him. “Wait… you don’t know who Little Billy is.” I grinned. “Oh boy, this is gonna be fun.”

The cowboy became visibly more nervous. “Fer some unknown reason, I feel like ‘fun’ in this context‘s not my definition of th’ word.”

I shrugged. “Guess you’ll find out soon enough.” I pointed at the graffiti. “This means we’re somewhere close to the center of Dialtown. Probably. We just need to find another manhole leading out of here.”

“The climb up is gonn’ be tough,” Norm began, prompting me to raise a nonexistent eyebrow in his direction. He elaborated, “D’ya ‘ave any idea how many slopes we’ve gone down? Th’ ladder up is gonn’ be long as an inbred’s nose at this rate.”

I made a phone-face at his comparison, but shook off my confusion in exchange for determination. “Well, we can’t exactly go back now. It doesn’t matter how long the ladder is, we’re climbing it!” I turned to face ahead of me and glanced over my shoulder at the space cowboy. “But you’re going first.”

He furrowed his eyebrows. “What fer?”

I snickered briefly and made a vageuly accusatory gesture with my hands. “Look bucko, if you wanna get an eyeful, you’ll have to try harder than that.”

Norm froze and stared at me wordlessly for a good ten seconds before deflating. “Fair ‘nough.”

We continued our destitute march through the sewers, trying our best to ignore the surely biohazardous water making our socks all soggy. Sure, I had lived down there for a time, but that didn’t mean my violent sensory issues had gone away. At one point, I stopped dead in my tracks and slowly lifted a finger to point at a broken pipe. The yeehaw man behind me pursed his lips and began to question me, “What–”

I flailed my hands in his direction to get him to shut the hell up. I whispered in the most quiet, almost reverent voice I could force out of my receiver. “...A rat.”

Sure enough, there was, in fact, a rat sitting atop the pipe. It seemed to be rummaging around for any kind of biohazard it could consider edible. Norm audibly sighed, prompting me to give him a dirty look. I didn’t want him to scare the rat away!

“Yer not gunna do what I think yer gunna do, are ya?” He whispered in his quietest voice which was, unsurprisingly, not very quiet. He was a very loud man. 

“I swear to gosh and golly gee, Norman, it will be mine,” I hissed before beginning to creep my way toward the errant pipe and, thus, the rat. 

At one point, my boot got caught on a stray stone at the base of the sewer water and caused it to make a rippling noise. I froze. The rat jolted and turned as if to run, but stopped as if to make sure what it heard was real. I just needed to get a little closer. And then, my dumbassery proved to be quite useful. 

I dove forward and grabbed onto the rat, squeezing it within my palms. It immediately began squirming and screaming at me, rearing back as if to bite me, but I loosed one of my hands from its body and pinched its jaws closed. I turned to face Norm with a manic look on my phone-face. “He’s mine now, Norman. His name is Spunch.”

Norm only looked at me, bag-face conveying an expression that seemed to be a mixture of disgust, awe, respect, and ‘what-the-fuck.’ 

I hurriedly shoved Spunch into one of the pockets on my hoodie and zipped it most of the way closed, allowing him a small hole to breathe and peek out from. He continued to squirm around inside of the pocket, which was an… interesting experience. I shoved my hands into the pockets of my jeans and metaphorically grinned. “Let’s keep movin’, shall we?”

The space cowboy seemed to be transfixed, staring at the writhing mass through the fabric of my shirt. “Why did–” he began, only for his voice to crack. He paused, embarrassed, before continuing. “What th’ hell did y’do that fer?”

“Friend.” I stated matter-of-factly.

“O-kay…” Norm responded. 

“And attack rat in case of emergencies,” I added. 

He paused once more before laying a hand on his holster. “This is fer emergencies. Not an… ‘attack rat.’”

“But… tactical rat unleashing.” 

He groaned in frustration before shaking his head. “Let’s jus’ go.” 

And so we did. We kept moving, searching for a ladder out of the sewer. It didn’t take too much longer– after rounding a corner, we found what we were looking for: an exceedingly long ladder. I approached the rusted ladder before widely gesturing to it. “Ladies first.” 

Norm frowned but ultimately approached the ladder. At least he didn’t yell at me for calling him a lady. He began climbing up, and I followed soon after. 

We continued climbing the ladder for a while in silence, the only noises being the sounds of our shoes echoing off of the rungs. After some time, Norm spoke. “Y’cut yer story short.”

I blinked, my dial spinning once in confusion. “...What?”

“Yer story. From last night. Y’didn’t tell me what happened after y’left the forest.” I couldn’t see his bag, but I could imagine he was rather flat-faced.  “Oh! Right,” I felt a little flattered. He wanted to hear more about me. “Well, I didn’t think I would make a new friend that day. Nor did I suspect that friend would be so… well, to put it frankly, hairy.”

Yeein' On That 'Haw Ch. 6-- [Rapidly Approaching Monkey Noises]

I was still grappling with my current situation as I began following the stream toward who knows where. My strides were long and unsteady, and I occasionally had to grab onto a nearby tree to keep myself from tipping over and smashing my newly phone-head open on the ground. 

My thoughts continued to run rampant. Was I really conscious? Was I in a coma? Why did I hear gunshots right before I blacked out? Did Violet get gunned down along with me, and I was reincarnated in the arcade machine? If so, is she in here with me? Maybe it was just an act of divine intervention. Actually, no, that was stupid. 

The sounds of the brook thankfully muted most of my less sane thoughts, but they couldn’t silence my worries about what I was going to do when night fell. For all I knew, there could be monsters that come out at night in this strange reality I have found myself in. Or worse, some eldritch creatures or shadow clouds. I made a vague plan that involved maybe climbing a tree and tying myself to a branch to prevent falling out of it– Hunger Games style. At least then I would be safe from most predators. 

Speaking of the Hunger Games, I was beginning to get a little peckish. Hauling my own head around on my shoulders had proven to be quite the workout, and that along with hiking through the forest had caused me to begin working up an appetite. But I don’t eat a ton, so it shouldn’t have been hard to track something down. 

…It was, in fact, hard to track something down. I only wound up finding a small bush of red berries. I couldn’t tell if they were poison berries or not, but I decided to have a go at eating them anyway. I know, stupid. But I came across a problem: I had no mouth. I didn’t even know if I could eat. If I could eat, then I didn’t know how. I supposed I would have to go hungry until I figured out how to eat things with a phone for a head. I shoved the berries into my pocket for safekeeping. Yes, gross. 

Eventually, the sun completely disappeared below the horizon, and I felt my anxiety spike. I really didn’t like the dark– I had like six different night lights in my bedroom back home. Oh, how I longed for the sight of my delicious night lights. I debated starting a fire, but if there was one thing I’ve learned from horror movies and games with forest settings, it’s that fires attract bad guys. So I supposed I was stuck with my crippling terror of the dark for the night. 

I glanced around, squinting as best as I could to adjust my eyes– optical sensors?-- to the darkness and approached one of the strangely pink-tinted trees. I felt around for any handholds before carefully climbing the length of the tree. It was significantly more difficult to do so than it was back home– mainly because of the several pounds of phone strapped to my head! 

I made it to a rather sturdy branch and slung my leg over it, effectively seating myself and leaning my back against the trunk. I sighed in a mixture of relief and exasperation while I processed the day’s events. My head was a phone, I probably died in a museum robbery, and now I was in a seemingly alternate universe with no friendly faces or society in sight. On top of that, I was probably about to die in these pink-tinted woods! That was somehow worse than dying in regular-tinted woods. 

Even worse, I was bored. I didn’t have any sketchbooks or pencils with me, nor did I have my phone– my cell phone– so I couldn’t lose myself in Flappy Bird for hours until I felt tired enough to somehow doze off in this tree. I supposed I would just have to use my thoughts to entertain myself until I was tired. It was too dark and I didn’t know enough about the area to keep traveling at night. 

I’m not sure exactly how much time passed. It could have been hours, minutes, maybe only a few seconds. The moon didn’t tell me much. I was just grateful for the fact that there even was a moon in this universe. Regardless, after an indeterminate amount of time, I began hearing noises. What sounded like several sets of footsteps and… squawking? Like… of birds. Hey, at least I knew birds existed. Maybe I could hunt them down for, like… makeshift wings or something. 

I glanced over the side of the branch I rested on, using what little light the moon provided to see if I could find the source of the squawking. It sounded pretty close, so I assumed that I could. I was met with the sight of a pack of three birds– white ones, waddling along and honking as they went. Honestly, they looked so unbelievably stupid. But here’s the thing: they had fucking paper shredders for heads. What the fuck?!

Based on my limited knowledge of birds, without seeing their heads, I assumed they were either geese or swans. I couldn’t quite tell from this height. That confused me– didn’t those birds hang out at ponds? What were they doing in the middle of a forest? Maybe there was a pond nearby. Hey, maybe that meant I was close to a park or something! I felt a glimmer of hope surface in my phone-head. I still couldn’t get over that, man. 

My only issue was these birds. If they were geese, I could probably walk right past them as long as I didn’t get too close. If they were swans, though… I had a problem. Swans are mean little bastards. They’ll break your legs for looking at them wrong. But hey, I still wasn’t sure if I was dreaming, so I thought I might as well take a gamble. 

I leaned over the edge of the branch and cupped a hand around my lips before making a gentle honking noise. Don’t look at me like that, it seemed like a good idea at the time. You gotta see it from my point of view– if I honked at the birds, and they were geese, they would probably just look at me funny and move on. If they were swans, they would instantly rip me to shreds, no pun intended, and I would be free of this phone-hell. It was a win-win!

I could have sworn I heard these birds’ necks snap as they turned to look up at me. I froze. They froze. They honked in perfect unison. 

Then they were practically screaming, making terribly aggressive noises as they instantly took off and fuckin’ ascended into the tree just so they could violently begin attacking me. Okay, they were swans! Great! Fuck! 

I’m not even sure what happened– it was a complete blur of screaming, flailing, and feathers that I hardly noticed when I fell out of the tree. It was kinda rad, honestly. That was, until the swans followed me and continued attacking me. Now that I thought about it, dying from being torn apart by swans was not how I wanted to go. So I began fighting back! I think I hit them once or twice. My memory was too blurred by adrenaline to properly retain any of this. 

Then, just as I thought my tombstone would say “Herein lies (Y/N), mauled by avian pond dinosaurs, RIP in pieces” I heard a distant crashing sound. The swans halted their ripping and tearing and looked up, only to squawk threateningly before scattering and waddling away. 

I literally thought I died there. But when I opened my (metaphorical?) eyes, expecting to see either a white void or a very handsome man welcoming me to Hell, I wasn’t expecting to see a goddamn gorilla. Well, kind of a gorilla. It had a handheld camera for a head. It looked vaguely curious as it looked down at my bloodied and battered form. 

Okay, be honest, what else could I do here but scream? It was a monkey! Monkeys are mean! They kill people just for funsies! I wished the swans would have just finished me off. 

Startled, the gorilla creature made a grunting noise before jolting back a few feet. I scrambled to a seated position, still screaming, before my back hit the trunk of the tree that I just fell out of. It’s a miracle my spine didn’t break or something. 

After a moment, my screaming died down, and the gorilla and I only looked at each other. Hang on, why was this gorilla bipedal? And why did it have a semi-human body? Two things could be happening here. Either this was just how gorillas were in this reality, or I had just become a bigfoot truther. I hoped it was the latter. 

I swallowed a mixture of saliva and blood before carefully pushing myself to my feet, phone-head components rattling about as I did. The gorilla posted up, seeming tense and… almost frightened. We stared at each other wordlessly for a moment before I lifted a hand to wave at the creature. “Um… hello.”

The monkey gave a startled grunt before darting backward another few feet, as if to run. I extended both hands in a somewhat calming gesture. “Hang on, hang on!” I frantically attempted to soothe the creature. If it wasn’t trying to kill me to death, then maybe I could try taming it. Maybe I could get a monkey mount. 

It halted its movement, tilting its camera-head confusedly for a moment. I then remembered the berries in my pocket and slowly reached inside to retrieve them. I don’t know what I was thinking– if they were poisonous, then I might have either killed the gorilla or made myself its enemy. But I wasn’t quite thinking right– I was bleeding out and recovering from a swan attack. 

It took a few good moments of coaxing, but I managed to get the creature close enough to extend my hand to it. It leaned forward, sniffed the berries, and instantly devoured them by shoving them into a hole at the base of its head. I thought it ate my hand along with the berries at first, but it didn’t. Once it finished literally decimating those berries, it looked at me expectantly for more. I shrugged. “No more. No more berries. I think.” I checked my pockets. “Nope. No berries.” 

The creature deflated disappointedly. I winced. “Yeah, I know, it sucks. At least now I know they weren’t poisoned… and that there’s a– hang on,” I tilted my chin upward and felt along the base of my head and, sure enough, there was a small slot there. I assumed it was for food. Gross. 

I was shocked that this monkey thing was sticking around. If it was friendly, then… maybe I could get a tactical monkey companion. But I had to figure out exactly what it was first. It seemed to have some form of linguistic ability, so I cleared my throat and gestured to myself. “Me, (Y/N),” I nodded enthusiastically, watching as it matched my movement. I pointed at it. “You, gorilla?” 

It shook its head insistently. Christ, what was I getting myself into? I swallowed and tried again. “You… big…foot?” 

This creature immediately nodded aggressively, pounding on its chest with enough force to shake the ground beneath my feet. Holy shit. I was interacting with bigfoot, a literal cryptid, and he had saved me from being mauled to death by savage pond dinosaurs! Good lord, maybe this arcade machine wasn’t so bad after all. 

I laughed incredulously, the high-pitched sound causing Bigfoot to jolt slightly. “No fuckin’ way, dude,” I began, resting a hand on where my forehead would be. “Okay, Bigfoot, can you point me toward society? People, perchance?” 

Bigfoot tilted his head for a moment before I gestured to myself. “More like me. People. Humans.”

He nodded and pointed vaguely to the east, and I enthusiastically gripped his free hand to shake it. Christ, I was shaking hands with Bigfoot. He tensed. “Thank you, Bigfoot! You don’t understand how rough I’ve had it, man, it’s been insane–”

Without warning, Bigfoot made a frightened noise and yanked his hand away from mine before turning and booking it further into the woods. I didn’t chase him, because I knew he could rip me apart if he chose to, but a part of me couldn’t help but feel disappointed. I met Bigfoot, he gave me directions, and then he ran away. Oh, well. I had my directions. I turned and began marching to the east, my wounds still actively bleeding and my head still actively a phone. 

I was still afraid of the dark, though. Fuck. 

Yeein' On That 'Haw Ch. 13-- Okay, But Is It Really Terrorism?

When I finally returned to consciousness, there was no merciful brief moment of confusion where I wondered what exactly happened. I immediately remembered what had happened before this– I severely fucked up talking to Norm, making him hate me, and when I confided in God, he told me some weird shit about lil’ kisses then proceeded to ‘snatch me up.’

Now, where the hell was I? 

I didn’t hesitate to re-enable my ocular sensors and have a look around. My senses were immediately assaulted by bright colors– mainly royal purple– and several mildly unpleasant scents that I couldn’t quite place. I sat up and glanced downward, finding that I had been slouched back in a somewhat oversized mauve leather armchair. I was immediately hit with a wave of confusion; why hadn’t I been restrained? Did my captors decide that I was too wimpy to even think about trying to fight them? Or perhaps there was a deeper reason that I was too groggy to think about at that moment. 

When my vision finally focused, I realized that I wasn’t alone. There, seated across from me behind a mahogany desk that had been painted with a purple varnish, was Mayor fucking Mingus Crown. Clad in her signature royal purple flight-attendant-ass uniform and tiny top hat, wielding her egotistical cane.

And, of course, I began screaming like a dumbass. She was just sitting there! Looking at me! What else was I supposed to do? 

“Ahh, my ears!” The Mayor began, lifting her gloved hands to cover said ears. “Shut up! I have the super-hearing of a feline, you know that!” 

My frightened screaming slowly died down, and I immediately adjusted myself so I wasn’t awkwardly hunched backward in this chair. I instinctively checked my clothing for wrinkles before remembering that this was Mayor Mingus I was dealing with. She was a corrupt politician that probably served as a main antagonist in the arcade game I was stuck in. This was a bad guy that Norm and I had been trying to assassinate. I didn’t have to look good for a bad guy. 

Once the Mayor realized that my screaming had halted, she delicately lowered her hands to rest in her lap. The movement carried the grace of a feline– as was expected. “Ah, finally,” she sighed in her sickly sweet voice. “You’re right on time, by the way. I was afraid I would have to postpone my meeting, but I don’t! Excellent– quite fortuitous.”

“You’ve been… expecting me?” I croaked in that embarrassing voice that everyone has when they wake up from a damn good nap. “I was unconscious.”

“Yes, you were.” Mingus nodded, pompously folding her fingers together upon the surface of the desk. “And you awakened right on time. So I applaud your purr-functory punctuality.”

I felt the urge to raise a nonexistent eyebrow. I didn’t know what the word ‘perfunctory’ meant, but it was probably unrelated to my punctuality. Knowing Mingus, it was probably just an excuse to put emphasis on the ‘purr’ part of that word’s pronunciation. Fuckin’ cat. I decided not to question her intentions with having me here, reasoning that she would reveal that to me soon enough.

“Anyway, if I may begin tonight’s festivities, we have much to discuss,” Mingus leaned forward ever so slightly, sliding her chair in to get a fraction closer to me. 

“Can’t you, like, make this room smell less like piss first?” I questioned, gesturing widely to the room. The scent was getting distracting– I didn’t care how rude it was to interrupt her when she began talking business.

I saw one of her eyes twitch. “No,” she responded, voice filled with barely-concealed frustration. “No, I cannot. And for the record, that did not come from me! I would never do my… business in my own office! That would be completely preposterous!” 

I tilted my head curiously. That was kind of an oxymoron. Okay, so we were in her office. That was good to know.“Then where did it come from?--”

“Regardless!” The Mayor interrupted my line of questioning with a grand gesture of her arms. “Business! We have business to discuss!” 

I decided not to bring up the fact that she said she didn’t do business in her office. “Right, well, can’t you get it over with? I have… I have shit to deal with.” My mind wandered to Norm. He was surely either on his way or already here, depending on how long I had been unconscious. It couldn’t have been that long… right? Either way, I had to make things right with Norm. As much as I had faith in his abilities, I didn’t think he could take out Mingus by himself, especially when I was practically a captive now. They had leverage. That was, if he even cared about me anymore. I sagged at the thought. 

“I can assure you, this will be easy, quick, and painless.” Mingus’ tone darkened into something mildly threatening. “Unless you turn it into something contrary to that.”

More big words that I didn’t know the meaning of. Great. 

Mingus continued, “Well. Let me begin. You are (Y/N), correct?” She gestured pointedly at me. 

I hesitated for a moment, having genuinely forgotten my name for a moment, before nodding. 

“Good, good. For a moment, I thought that imbecile had fetched the wrong individual.” She sighed momentarily. “And you, along with an exiled citizen that I can’t quite recall the name of at this present moment, were planning on taking my life. Is my synopsis accurate?”

I rolled my metaphorical eyes. I still couldn’t believe they had cameras fucking everywhere. They knew about our plan practically before we did. There was no point in denying it. I nodded about as moodily as an angsty teenager. 

“Wonderful. And you failed. Color me unsurprised.” Mingus snickered, politely covering her cat lips with a hand. “Forgive me. Anyway, and now you are here. And I have a proposition for you.”

Ohhh, boy. This was the part where I was offered an ultimatum, and I had to either take it or die. Or Norm died. Or we were both, like… experimented on or something. I let out a tense exhale through my metaphorical teeth. “And what’s that?” I tried putting on my best unaffected voice, but I must admit, I was terrified. As much as it was undeserved, Mingus had power, and a lot of it. 

She giggled in her airy voice. “Well, if you join me and my… congregation, and assist us in our endeavors, then I will allow you and that cowboy fellow to live. He will be returned to his previous state of exile, but you will both be left alive and unharmed. Doesn’t that sound ideal?” She leaned back in her plush armchair and rested her patented Mayor Mingus cane across her lap. 

I hesitated. As much as I hate to admit it, I thought about taking her deal. Now that I had been ‘snatched up,’ they had leverage against Norm, and there was no way he could deal with it on his own. If he could have, he would have done it already instead of stewing in a cabin for three years. 

Mingus was becoming impatient with me. I could see her fingers tapping rhythmically on the desk, and I heard a sigh leave her. I wanted to yell at her to give me a damn second to think, but I was afraid she would rescind her offer and like… shoot me. Listen, I didn’t know what she had in that desk of hers! 

After what felt like ages, the Mayor spoke up once again. “Just hurry up and decide already! I don’t have all day! Are you taking my offer or not?” 

I panicked. “But why me? Why not just kill me? Why not choose literally anyone else to be in your little League of Villains? That seems smarter.” 

“Firstly, it’s not a… ‘League of Villains,’” Mingus stated plainly. “It’s a city council. Filled with the most influential people to help me create the perfect city that my Paw-paw, the best Mayor and President this country has seen, would be proud of.” She turned one of the framed photos on her desk to reveal an old polaroid, one with former President Callum Crown front and center, surrounded by the then-inhabitants of Dialtown. 

“Secondly, I see all. I hear all. I know all, you little puny thing.” There was something akin to a smile in her voice, but nothing present on her face. “Don’t think I don’t know where you really come from. Having a human from a parallel universe would be an unparalleled asset!” She gestured widely around the room. “Since you are from a place where The Dialup didn’t occur, you can tell me exactly where that world’s governments went wrong, and exactly how to fix it so we can have the best of both worlds! Literally.” She leaned forward, her feline eyes fixed perfectly on mine. Her pupils were wide with wonder. “Doesn’t that sound incredible? This can be the perfect rendition of Dialtown, all because of you.”

I must say, she drove a hard bargain. Norm would be safe, and I could help make this world a better place, regardless of if it was actually real. 

But… if there was one thing I knew about Callum Crown, after hearing about him from Norm and after learning about him throughout the two years I had been here, it was that he valued being genuine. He valued what was real, not what was forced upon his people. Mingus had the complete wrong mindset… and I think that was the lesson she had to learn. 

“Mingus, I don’t think you understand what President Crown strove towards,” I began, and was immediately met with a sour, annoyed expression on Mingus’ face. I had to tread carefully. “I’ve tried studying the history of this place– not to much avail, if I’m being honest, but still– I know some things about Callum Crown. He wanted everyone in Dialtown to live their true lives, unaffected by whatever molds society or government tried to impose on them. And you’re, well… you’re basically trying to force everyone into the square hole right now.” I paused, making a strange, vague gesture with my hands. “Do you get what I’m saying?”

Mingus was silent. Her gaze was fixed downward, at the photo of her grandfather. Sorry– paw-paw. Gods, that’s dumb. Cat puns. Christ. 

“How dare you?” She suddenly stood from her chair, causing me to flinch where I sat. I knew right then that I had severely fucked up. “You think you know more about my dear paw-paw than me, his granddaughter? Who do you think you are?” Her gloved hands gripped her cane as if she were about to start swinging, and I noticed that she had begun to tremble in anger. “That’s it! All bets are off! I’m going to take out that cowboy friend of yours, and as soon as I’m done with him, I’m going to rip you to shreds myself!” 

I hardly noticed that I had stood and begun backing away from her. She was scary when she was mad. I suppose that made sense– she was the Mayor. And probably the main antagonist, so I should have expected her to be scary. 

Mingus huffed and turned away from me, striding past me and approaching the lavender, wooden double doors to her office. “You’re staying right here! I won’t be long.” 

With that, she flung open the doors and marched out, closing them behind her. I didn’t even bother chasing her for fear of causing her to kill me right then and there. I heard a lock click, followed by her rescinding footsteps. 

All was quiet. The perfect level of noise to contemplate my life’s decisions and how badly I fucked up. And I fucked up pretty badly. Just then, as I was staring at the closed doors to Mingus’ office and wondering how to get out of this situation, I noticed the edges of my vision begin to blur and resemble static. I blinked, trying to get it to go away and assuming that it was just one of the side-effects of having a phone for a head, and found that it persisted. 

I lifted a hand to rub at my eyes, only to feel a sudden lurch in my heartbeat. It didn’t stop, per se, but… lagged? Confused, I curled my hand into a fist and gently pounded on my chest where my heart was. 

Strange. That had never happened before. Sure, plenty of weird things happened occasionally around here. I was in an arcade machine, after all. Glitches were bound to happen. But it had never directly affected me– I assumed that it was because I wasn’t part of this world. Was something happening outside of the arcade machine– in my original reality– that was causing me to glitch out? Maybe the machine was finally breaking down or being consumed by dust. 

I shook my phone-head. That probably wasn’t the case. Either way, I had bigger fish to fry. I had to find a way out of here, and a way to stop Norm from being murdered by a cat. Shit, that sounded insane. Whatever. I began pacing the room to concoct a plan.