Nonbinary Character - Tumblr Posts

New profile picture, I'm really proud of how it came out☺️

Zo's new look 💜

Lynn and Zo redesign

Some doodles of the Harmony crew

Using they/them pronouns becomes a joke in my family 😑

Chapters: 10/10 Fandom: 방탄소년단 | Bangtan Boys | BTS Rating: Mature Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Jeon Jungkook/Min Yoongi | Suga Characters: Jeon Jungkook, Min Yoongi | Suga, Kim Seokjin | Jin, Kim Sejin (BTS), Kim Namjoon | RM, Park Jimin (BTS), Kim Taehyung | V, BLACKPINK Ensemble Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - College/University, film school, Film Student Jeon Jungkook, Composer Min Yoongi | Suga, Prostitution, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Gender Issues, Nonbinary Character, Past Rape/Non-con, religious trauma, Foster Care, Self-Harm, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt, Depression, Homophobia, Slurs, Drug Use, random other idols I like, Music, Background Relationships, Slow Burn, Min Yoongi | Suga-centric, Alternate Universe - Namjoon can drive, Violence, Platonic Kissing, various other ships - Freeform, it's college everyone's hooking up, Dissociation, Heavy Angst, Sad with a Happy Ending Series: Part 1 of All your lights are red but I'm green to go Summary:

Basically, Yoongi is a mess. He knows this. His roommate, Seokjin, knows this. No one else knows this. He’s gotten good at hiding his scars, his depression, his increasingly dangerous substance abuse, and his questionable methods of making a living from his friends, even at times from himself. But somehow, fucking impossibly, he’s unable to hide from the new kid, the wunderkind directing major who’s dealing with the social and academic consequences of his outspoken short film.

Okay so now I'm obsessed with making these lol here's one for part 2 of my series

Chasing Outside the Line - Jin tries to save his best friend, and comes to terms with his gender identity (Jin/Namjoon/Jisoo College AU)

You know, I wasn't expecting my first (and hopefully last lmao) most-stereotypically-gay character ever to be a nonbinary (any/all pronoun-ed), morally dark-grey faerie chaos god.

But you know what?

I fucking love them for it.

(The Existence of Magic is an absolute sassy QUEEN and omfg, I wouldn't trade them for the world. They're pretty evil at times, but like,,, omfg. Their charisma. They're like an old-fashioned disney villain. Guys. I want to turn this SUPER SPOILERY late-series outline into a fully-fleshed out scene and share it with everyone. Please help stop me--)

Also @the-letterbox-archives has decided Magic's pronoun is "babygirl" so uh,,, have fun with that knowledge.

Taglist and Existence of Magic snippet beyond!

Redacted: "I'm sure you know of my relationship with Zenebe--" Magic: slowly furrowing one eyebrow and raising the other as high as possible-- Redacted: voice growing uneven: "--and that I--" Magic: drops their eyes to their hand, checking out their long, sharp fingernails Magic: dismissively: "I cannot buy your boyfriend, no matter how--" (gets interrupted; skipping) Magic: gives another combo laugh-scoff-eyeroll as they throw a hand out, beginning to meander back and forth lazily "--as I was saying, I cannot buy your boyfriend from Mulul no matter how many favors you request from me. I cannot take him without either his or Mulul's consent--" Magic: flicking their hand out, turns to face Redacted again "--and he's rejected, as you know, while Mulul is quite attached to that one. He is their trainer. I've asked." Magic: flashes Redacted a sharp-toothed, roguish grin as he looks up at them

Everything taglist: @honeybewrites @the-golden-comet @illarian-rambling @ashirisu @urnumber1star

@48lexr @aalinaaaaaa @thecomfywriter @paeliae-occasionally

Yeein' On That 'Haw Ch. 0-- My Own Personal Dialup

I have to admit, out of all of the places to break into, a museum of vintage technology was possibly the most lame. 

It was late– late enough for the streetlights to be on. I always thought they were ugly. Their yellow hue made the attracted gnats and moths that much more visible, and it cast a gross light onto everything nearby. 

But at the moment, I couldn’t have been more grateful for those ugly lights. If it weren’t for them, I would have had to use a flashlight to disarm the security cameras of this museum. And my partner-in-crime was already becoming antsy and impatient. 

“Seriously, (Y/N)?” The dark-haired girl whined in a hushed tone. “It can’t be that hard to cut a couple wires.” She was bouncing in place, deep brown eyes flitting about the space for movement.

I turned to the younger, taller woman and narrowed my eyes. “Like you’ve ever done this before.” She pointed at the console I was messing with, her voice coming out a bit louder. “Well, if you’re gonna disarm the thing, then get it done already!”

A frustrated sigh left my cold, chapped lips as I turned back to the console. It was a little box attached to a power line pole, and it powered the immediate area. If I could just figure out which button to push, and which wire to cut, the entire museum’s power system would go down, and we could get in and out without a problem. 

“Got it!” I exclaimed, causing the other girl to hurriedly shush me. I shrugged apologetically. There was a brief crackling noise, followed by the sound of several switches flipping inside of the box. The next thing we knew, we were plunged into darkness as all of the streetlights, as well as the few remaining lights left on in the museum, flipped off. 

I stood from my knelt position and squinted, glancing around for any movement. There was nothing aside from my fellow soon-to-be criminal’s anxious shifting. 

“Okay. Let’s get this done and over with.” I whispered, nudging the girl. I could hardly see her, but she nodded hurriedly anyway. We glanced at either side of the empty street before darting across, our dark hoods obscuring us from any curious residents of the nearby apartments from peeking out their windows and seeing us. 

“Violet,” I hissed, grabbing at her shoulder once we had successfully crossed the street. “You scout the perimeter. I’ll get the ladder.” 

Violet only nodded, swallowing her anxiety before rushing to my right. I moved to the left and into an open alley, flipping the lid of a mostly empty dumpster open so I could grab the folded ladder we planted inside. I used what little strength I had to drag it out of the dumpster and onto the ground, where I then pulled it back to the front of the building. 

Just as I was finishing up my business, Violet jogged back around the corner, giving me a thumbs-up. “Help me out with this,” I whispered in her direction. She sped over to help me lift the ladder, propping it up against the museum wall and unfolding it so it reached the second floor. If we were going to have any luck pulling this off, we couldn’t go in through the main entrance. It was padlocked– and if there was one thing I learned from heist movies, it was that breaking a padlock was a surefire way to get found out and arrested. We were going to pry open and jump through a second-story window. I gestured to the ladder with a gloved hand. “After you.” 

My partner-in-crime made a mildly grossed-out face before taking a breath and beginning to climb the ladder. The sound of her heavy boots making contact with the rungs of the ladder made me wince. I really hoped that nobody could hear us. 

She reached the top and slung her legs over one of the rungs, effectively seating herself in a position where she could use her hands. She pulled her backpack off of her shoulders and reached inside, quickly retrieving a crowbar that we had bought from the Home Depot specifically for this. I hate to give Home Depot credit, but they have some nice chandeliers. And crowbars. 

Violet positioned the end of the crowbar at the base of the window to pry it open. Then she paused. She made a panicked, helpless gesture with her free hand before looking down at me on the ground. “It’s caulked shut!” She whisper-yelled. 

“It’s what shut?” I snickered. 

She frowned. I could see her displeased expression, even in this darkness. “I said, it’s caulked shut! Think brick and mortar. There’s no way I can get this open!” 

I placed my hands on my hips, beginning to panic myself. “...Can you try?”

“...Fine,” Violet huffed. She replaced the crowbar where it was before and pressed down on the opposite end, trying to get the caulk to break apart so she could pry open the window. She gave a frustrated grunt of effort, though it didn’t seem that she was making any progress. 

Then, in a moment of weakness, she gritted her teeth and reeled back, swinging the crowbar over her shoulder before slamming it into the glass of the window. It shattered after only one attack, sending glass shards flying into the building and out of the window frame. I watched, slack-jawed, as Violet covered her face with her forearm just in case any stray glass shards came in her direction. 

A moment of silence passed with Violet still seated atop the ladder and my body frozen in place. 

“...I hope nobody heard that,” I mumbled under my breath. Violet anxiously bit the inside of her cheek. “Yeah, me too. C’mon, get up here.”

I only hesitated for one more moment before beginning to climb the ladder. Violet slung her legs back over the rung and pulled herself through the broken window, myself doing the same. 

The museum was… nothing short of boring. It was just a bunch of vintage tech displayed. Typewriters, gramophones, rotary phones, radios… and not a single one in a case. That was why we decided to rob a vintage technology museum in the first place– none of it was in a case, and if it were in good enough condition, it would sell for a pretty penny at a pawn shop or antique store. 

I heard Violet huff before reaching into her backpack and pulling out a folded-up duffel bag. “Alrighty. Get grabbin’. Take whatever you think works or looks pretty enough to brag about to your cousins.” 

“...That’s oddly specific,” I muttered, but didn’t say anything more before I began having a look around. “And hurry,” added Violet, turning to kneel in front of a collection of borderline ancient typewriters. 

We spent the next ten minutes or so appraising various techs, from old keyboards to even older monitors. Then the conversation shifted to who would even buy something like this, which ended with us deciding that collectors and people still clinging to the past would buy something like this. 

I eventually got bored looking at the objects on this floor and gestured to the staircase with the hand that wasn’t holding the duffel bag. “Wanna head up?” 

Violet turned her head to look at me, eagerly nodding. Once we got past the initial break-in, it seemed that her easygoing personality re-emerged. She stood and jogged to meet me, and we then moved up the stairs. 

This floor was more my style. It was lined wall-to-wall with practically ancient arcade machines– pac-man, asteroids, space invaders, even the original Mortal Kombat. I couldn’t help but stare in awe. 

“Alright, forget the robbery, we have enough. I wanna take a peek at these,” Violet suggested. I immediately nodded in agreement. 

It was then that Violet and I’s easily-distractible nature got the better of us. What were we supposed to do? Not look at the awesome collection of arcade machines? To be fair, I was carrying around a duffel bag of incredibly heavy vintage technology, but it wasn’t heavy enough for me to let this opportunity go!

Because the power was off, we couldn’t do much with the machines, but we didn’t want to anyway. We were content with just looking at them. That was, until I was immersed in an anecdote that Violet was narrating to me about how she and her older brother would destroy each other at arcade games, and I saw a flicker of light out of the corner of my eye. 

I turned to face the light, immediately causing Violet to pause. “What is it?” She asked flatly. I pointed at what I was looking at, and she froze. 

One of the arcade machines had turned back on. It was the only source of light in the otherwise darkened room, and it illuminated the dingy yellow wallpaper and grey carpet. Man, this place was a dump.

I had never seen this arcade game before. It had quite a nice casing– one half of the machine was baby blue, the other half light pink. Various colorful characters decorated the sides of the case, all with some sort of old technology for heads. There was a vaguely heart-shaped logo on the marquee resembling two rotary phones, and on top of that were two large words in an attention-grabbing font.

“THE DIALUP.”

“Well, shit, who am I to not investigate something like that?” Violet scoffed before patting my shoulder and yanking me toward the machine. I wasn’t entirely sure why, but I was getting a little nervous. Well, I was nervous before this, but now I was feeling stomach-churningly nervous. 

Violet stood before the machine, leaning over to look at the characters on the sides of the casing. She chuckled and pointed at one in particular– a rather unfortunate-looking fellow with a phone for a head wearing a blue flannel. “Check out this guy. What a loser,” she chuckled. “Who wears a hoodie and a flannel?”

I gestured to my own clothing, which was largely the same. She shrugged. “I rest my case. You got a quarter?” 

My eyebrow raised before I fished around in my pockets, pulling out my only quarter. I knew it would be used for something. Violet snatched it from my hands and immediately inserted it into the coin slot. 

“Dude, no way you’re actually going to play this,” I snickered in disbelief as the title screen appeared on the monitor, accompanied by playful music. “It looks like some sort of terrible dating sim.” 

Violet moved the joystick upward and pressed one of the two buttons on the console, selecting New Game. A dialogue box popped up that read ‘What is your name?’ “Y’know what, just for that, I’m putting your name in,” she said smugly as she used the joystick to type in ‘(Y/N).’ I groaned. “Alright, whatever, but remember that we need to get out of here. We don’t know if anyone heard that glass break.”

Just then, the monitor went black. Violet frowned. “Damn. What a waste of a quarter.” She frustratedly slapped her hand onto the console. “I didn’t want to drown my loneliness in cartoon romance anyway. How was this thing even on in the first place? Didn’t you cut the power?” 

“You’re asking that now?” I chastised her. She shrugged nonchalantly. “I’m a ‘play mysterious cheesy arcade game now,’ ‘ask questions later’ kind of person.” I threw my hands up in a confused gesture. “It wasn’t even your quarter!”

Violet grinned, pressing the back of her pale hand to her forehead. “Oh, I mourn the loss of your quarter, my friend,” she droned in a dramatic, melancholy voice. I groaned loudly but quickly froze when I heard a distant high-pitched sound. 

My partner-in-crime must have heard it too, because she perked up, eyes widening. “Shit. We gotta go. Now!” She cried out just as I realized it wasn’t the whining of an arcade machine– it was sirens. Someone must have heard that glass break and called the police. 

I made a less-than-brave noise and turned to pick up the duffel bag from where I placed it next to the machine. But something caught my eye. The plug on the machine. It wasn’t attached to the wall. It was unplugged. What the fuck kind of voodoo demon bullshit was this?!

Right as I made to turn and get the hell out of that cursed museum, a high-pitched ringing sound attacked my ears. It wasn’t my tinnitus this time– it felt like it was in my head. Something was on the other line, and it wanted me to pick up.

I dropped the duffel bag and cried out in abject agony, gripping the sides of my head in an attempt to make the ringing stop. Before I clenched my eyes shut, I half-noticed the arcade machine flick back on, casting my shadow onto the carpeted floor with pale blue light. I also saw Violet rushing to my side before gripping my shoulders. 

Amidst the chaos, I could hardly hear anything. But what I did hear was Violet shouting at me, asking me what was wrong, what she could do to help. Then she yelled that the police were outside. I didn’t particularly care at the moment– I was on my knees, feeling like I was about to die. It felt like my entire head was melting off. 

I don’t know how much time passed. But I did hear the slamming of a door, which caused Violet to remove her hands from my shoulders. There was yelling and screaming from multiple voices. Some I recognized, some I didn’t. Heavy, departing footsteps. A distant impact. Glass shattering. Gunfire. 

And then there was silence. I could only guess that I had been beheaded– I was only missing the distant feeling of my head rolling across the floor. I never felt my body make contact with the dingy carpet. The blue light of the arcade machine enveloped my vision… and then it darkened.

Yeein' On That 'Haw Ch. 1-- Private Property

Remember that old movie from the late 90s about those weird film students who wandered into the woods like idiots looking for a witch? And the two guys totally took advantage of that to kill that girl dead? I think it was ‘the blunt witch project’ or something like that. That’s probably not it. That sounds like a sketchy old lady weed dealer. Blunt Witch. Maybe once I finally retire to the middle of bumfuck nowhere and wind up living in an alley somewhere I should start a weed-dealing business and call it Blunt Witch. Man, local businesses should hire me. 

Well, maybe if I wasn’t in the middle of the goddamn woods like those weird film students I would have had a better chance at getting hired for my clearly genius business ideas. It was kinda gross in the woods. I kept getting bitten by mosquitos. It was wet and sticky everywhere I went! Even the bush I dove into after seeing a grasshopper was moist! 

The mosquitos would probably have been less of a problem if it was fall or winter. But no, of course I had to go bigfoot-hunting at the beginning of spring, when the mosquitos were actively making more mosquitos. Don’t ask why I have an in-depth knowledge of when mosquitos fuck, you pick things up over the years. 

Microscopic mating aside, I was in the middle of the woods and I felt like I was going in circles. I kept seeing the same weirdly pink trees everywhere I went. Now that I think about it, why was the foliage around there pink? Maybe because they hadn’t shed their Valentine’s Day decorations yet. Whatever, not my problem. But yeah, I was absolutely going in circles. I know that because someone carved the word ‘crungus’ into a tree and I kept seeing it. Unless Little Billy was following me and carving the word ‘crungus’ into all of the trees while my back was turned. 

…Now that I think about it, that was definitely a possibility. Pint-sized prick. 

I had hardly noticed what time it was. The sun had just begun to set, casting a golden hue onto my surroundings. Once I did notice the time, I heaved an exasperated sigh. I would have to sleep in the woods again. Last time wasn’t fun. I still have the swan bite scars. I can’t believe they found me all the way out there… vengeful bastards. 

But there was no way I was getting back to town before nightfall at this rate. I had already been lost for hours, and it didn’t seem like I was making any progress. So I chose a different direction other than the one I had been walking in for hours straight to see if I could find a suitable clearing to hunker down for the night in. I probably passed like seven suitable clearings, but I was completely spaced out, if I’m being honest.  

The sun had sunk low in the sky before I finally snapped out of my half-conscious haze. There was a brief flicker of yellow in my vision. Civilization! Or a nuclear power plant. It was one of the two. I’d take anything at this point. 

I charged through the thinning trees, and when I finally breached the treeline, I was immensely disappointed. The yellow I saw was nothing more than a caution sign. Several caution signs, actually. Most bearing threatening warnings such as ‘I shoot on sight’ and ‘stay away.’ One was just a mediocre drawing of a piss-yellow shotgun plastered onto a tree. 

But there, amidst the slew of warning signs, was my saving grace. A shack. Hell yeah. The thing was covered in moss and mold and was probably infested with raccoons. It also had menacing, apocalypse-esque scrawlings along the walls and ceilings. One that stood out to me was ‘many eyes, always watching.’ People didn’t have eyes here– c’mon, mysterious sign-writer, get a grip. We have optical sensors here.

I shrugged. Hey, how bad could it be? This shack had probably been abandoned for decades now. There may have even been pre-dialup relics buried in there! I wasn’t gonna pass that up. 

The warning signs and paranoid writing were completely ignored as I approached the shack. The steps up to the porch creaked under my weight. As I closed the distance between myself and the shack’s front door, I could have sworn I heard panicked footsteps coming from inside the building. It’s probably the raccoons. I tried the handle. Locked. I prepared myself before ramming my shoulder full-force into the door. Dull pain echoed throughout my arm, stemming from my certainly now-bruised shoulder. Despite my relatively wimpy stature, I made a sizable dent in the wood. Okay, two more and I would be golden. And covered in splinters, but some sacrifices must be made. 

It was then that I heard something clattering on the floor from beyond the door. I briefly paused but shook off my confusion before slamming into the wood once more. I made a bit more progress but winced when I felt that pain again, pulling back and using my other hand to gently press down on my shoulder in an attempt to soothe it. 

Just as I was about to break down the door, a rather concerning sound made me freeze. Something that sounded awfully like the cocking of a shotgun. 

Oh, shit. 

I yelped as the door flung open with a force strong enough to crack loudly. The next thing I knew, I was staring down the barrel of a shotgun close enough to see the scratch marks on its frame. 

My adrenaline spiked, and I frantically ducked to the side, narrowly avoiding the bullet that fired from the firearm’s barrel. The motion caused me to stumble and bend my ankle, sending me crashing onto the rotting wood of the porch. On pure instinct, I turned my aching body and rolled about a foot to my left. And thank whoever was watching that I decided to do that, since another bullet fired a hole right in the wood where my head was not a second prior. 

As much as I’d like to say that I handled that situation like a badass and kicked my attacker in the nards… Well, that would be a bold-faced lie. Instead of that, I screamed like a complete and utter puss. My voice was muffled in my own sound-processors, and it was then that I noticed the high-pitched ringing. I should have expected that– there were two bullets fired right next to my sound-processors. And I have phone tinnitus.

I didn’t think I could dodge another bullet, so I defaulted to my second instinct: pleading for my life. My voice sounded foreign. It was terrified– animalistic, even. “Wait! Wait-wait! Hang on a second!” I lifted my hands to cover my head, pulling my knees upward in a desperate attempt to get some sort of protection. 

My attacker must have sympathized with my cowardice because they halted their shooting to listen to me. After a moment, I lowered my hands from my head to get a good look at this probably psychopath. 

He was tall. And I’m not just saying that because I was on the ground and looking up. This guy was probably a good few inches above six feet tall. The best thing I could compare his build to was a stereotypical plumber– he had that staple midlife crisis body. Round torso, beefy arms– all beneath an… astronaut training suit? Where the hell did this guy get an astronaut training suit? 

Not only that, but he had a paper bag over his head. With a sticky note plastered onto it. And the sticky note had a face drawn onto it. A pissed-off-looking face. I couldn’t help but question the logistics behind that. Did he always wear this pissy bag-face, or did he put that on when I showed up? 

And why was he wearing a cowboy hat? What was with this guy’s fashion sense? I really did feel like I was looking at a video game character. And he was pointing a shotgun at my head. Phone-gods, what a nightmare. Not phone-gods. Regular gods. This place was getting to me. 

But I had to take this opportunity. I tried not to let my confusion show in my body language and took a deep breath, swallowing the growing lump in my throat. I didn’t notice how much my hands were shaking. “Okay. Listen. I’m sorry for bashing your door in. But it was locked. I had to get in somehow.”

I sucked in a sharp breath when I felt the shotgun’s barrel press just above my dial. Then a slightly muffled, mildly annoyed voice emitted from beyond the paper bag. “This is private property, pardner. O’course the door would be locked.”

And he had a country accent? This guy checked all the boxes for a stereotypical yeehaw-man. I don’t know what I was expecting. 

I swallowed before responding to his clarification. “...Riiiight. Well, how was I supposed to know this was anything but an abandoned shack?” 

The yeehaw-man reached into his pocket, causing me to flinch instinctively when he took one of his hands off of the shotgun. He retrieved a different sticky note, which he used to replace the one that was already plastered onto the paper bag. This one had a different face drawn onto it– one that was less pissed, more annoyed. He used his hand to gesture widely at our surroundings. At the warning signs. At the huge yellow piece of paper pasted to the wall next to us that said in bright black letters ‘PRIVATE PROPERTY.’

I grimaced. 

He returned his attention to me, pressing the shotgun somehow harder above my dial. “Gimme one good reason why I shouldn’t shoot ya dead right ‘ere.” 

I hesitated. Honestly, I could hardly think of anything myself. If I were in his position, I would shoot me too. But I had to say something. “Uhh… because you would have to clean up my remains? And… it would be a waste of good ammunition?” 

The space cowboy froze, tilting his head slightly to the side as if scrutinizing my appearance. When he spoke again, his tone had softened slightly to something more inquisitive than murderous. “Huh. I suppose yer right.” 

I deflated in relief when he lowered his firearm, lifting it so he could hold it close to his chest. I laid there for a moment, still processing what had just happened, before performing a frustrated gesture with my arms. “Well, aren’t you going to help me up?”

His response was quick and straight to the point. “Absolutely not.”

“Alright, fair enough,” I groaned in discomfort as I pushed myself to my feet. Yep, he was definitely well above six feet tall. Scary bastard. We stood in silence for a moment while I brushed off the dirt-stained knees of my pants.

“Are you gon’ tell me why you decided it was a good idea t’ intrude on my private property?” The man before me broke the silence, inflection flat and… almost bored. 

I narrowed my metaphorical eyes at him, although I doubted he could see it, considering he had a bag on his head. Wait, how did he know where to aim with that gun of his? Did he have slits in the bag that I just hadn’t noticed? I shook off that question so I could effectively answer his. “Uh… well, to be honest, I was bigfoot hunting–”

“Bigfoot huntin’? That thing ain’t real, pardner.” His words were insistent. 

If I could frown, I would have at that moment. “You never know. Where do you think the tracks come from?” 

He swapped out his sticky note again for a more confused one. It was an… awkward pause in the conversation. “...Other animals. Maybe an escaped ape from th’ Dialtown zoo.”

“Animals don’t escape from the Dialtown zoo, man. Not since… the incident.” I shuddered. 

“Alright then, we agree. Bigfoot ain’t real. Continue.” His voice carried an air of finality that I didn’t feel like arguing with at the moment, so I simply sighed and moved on. 

“...But yeah, I got lost, and it eventually got too late to get back to town. So I was gonna look around for a nice little clearing to set up for the night in, and whaddya know! A shack.” I shrugged. “You can’t blame me for feeling relieved and wanting to get up in there, right?”

“Relieved ‘nough t’ ignore the signs tellin’ ya that I shoot on sight?” The yeehaw man asked flatly. I shrugged. “Well, yeah. I didn’t want to spend the night in a bush. You’d do the same thing.”

He sighed, removing one hand from his shotgun to lift it to his head, where he dragged his hand down the length of the paper bag. I furrowed my nonexistent brows at that. Normally people around here don’t do that since, well, they have technology for heads. 

“Well, now ya know that I’m not acceptin’ visitors. Or guests. Go on, git.” He returned both hands to his firearm, using it to gesture away from the area. I turned, appalled. “You can’t just kick me to the curb! Or… forest.” I paused before shaking my phone head in disbelief. “I’m desperate here, man. Let me stay here, just for the night.” 

All of a sudden, I was staring down the barrel of a shotgun once more. My optical sensors widened as my gaze flickered between certain death and the man before me. He spoke once more, his voice louder and more insistent. “I told ya t’ git. ‘Less ya feel like eatin’ some lead.” 

I visibly deflated. I had almost resigned myself to sleeping in a tree for the night. Almost. I slowly turned to leave, watching the man do the same, before pausing and turning back around. “Just one quick question.”

He audibly groaned and frustratedly turned back around to face me. “If I answer this question o’ yers, will ya leave me the hell alone?” 

I frantically nodded. I had to learn more about this guy. Maybe if I figured out a good talking point, I could eventually convince him to let me inside. “What’s with the bag?” 

I must have touched a nerve because he immediately tensed, his grip on the shotgun tightening to the point that his knuckles turned white. “And what in tarnation makes ya think I’d answer that question?” 

“...Because I’ll leave if you do?” My voice was quiet and inquiring. I knew I was toeing the line of being alive… and pumped full of lead. 

The cowboy-hat-wearing menace sighed reluctantly before answering in a low, hesitant voice. “I ‘ave a head. A regular head.”

I tilted my own, red rotary head. “Regular…?” 

He made a frustrated, helpless gesture with his hands. “That’s right, clueless trespasser. A regular head. One with a face. And eyes and ears n’ such.” 

What the fuck was he talking about? I hadn’t seen a real flesh-head since… well… a while ago. I didn’t think they existed anymore. I… can’t even remember her face. 

I fell into confused silence. He must have sensed my confusion, because he sighed heavily. “I answered yer question. Now git.” He pointed firmly over my shoulder. 

“Waaaaait…” I drawled, holding up a finger to shut him up. “You’re a normie? Living all the way out here? What for? I would have thought you would be a celebrity in Dialtown.” I paused, leaning forward curiously. “...You are from Dialtown, right?”

The man before me tentatively folded his arms, tucking the shotgun under his arm. “I was,” he mumbled indignantly. I gave an intrigued hum. “I see, I see, well, why don’t you tell me all about it.” I reached out to pat his arm, which he swiftly pulled away from. But he didn’t aim a firearm at my head this time. 

“C’monnn, you gotta be lonely out here, right? A little human interaction never hurt anyone.” I gestured to my scrawny form. “And if we’re being honest with ourselves, what harm can I do?” 

He stared at me. Okay, now I was getting a little nervous. This guy was a little more than threatening; he had the silhouette of a pear. A guy like that can make someone nervous. 

I heard a resigned sigh emanate from behind the bag. “Fine. Y’don’t talk, y’don’t touch anything, and y’ especially don’t touch me. If y’do, I’ll ensure that yer belly get’s chock full o’ lead.”

An excited squeak left my speaker as he turned to gesture toward the still-open door. I practically skipped inside and was… immediately disappointed. I don’t know what I was expecting from a dingy shack in the middle of the woods. It was cluttered, though not dirty, littered with old cigarette butts and crates full of non-perishables. There was a small shelf– if you could call it that– with a small collection of cowboy hats right next to a small, dust-stained cot. Again, what else could I have been expecting? 

The thing that grabbed my attention the most was the dartboard hung on the wall. Honestly, it was quite hilarious. It had a photo of Mayor Mingus taped to it. There were darts stuck in the board, most right on the photo’s face. 

“Man, someone really doesn’t like democratically elected representatives,” I said this knowing that Mingus was absolutely not elected democratically. It was so obvious that she rigged the ballot. But hey, what do I care?

“It’s not that,” the man said as he shut the door behind us, barring it with a long plank of wood that rested beside it. “She’s a goddamned, xenophobic varmint is what she is.” 

There was something about the pure hate in his voice that gave me pause. I turned to face him, folding my arms across my chest while he propped his shotgun up next to the door. “Xenophobic? I’ve heard a lot of things about Mayor Mingus, but that’s a first.” I tilted my head. “Care to explain, Mr…?” I made a vague gesture with my hand toward the man before me, prompting him to give me his name. 

“Sargent Norman G. Allen, pardner,” he shared his name with me after a brief hesitation. 

“That’s a mouthful. Can I call you Norm?” 

He tensed for a moment but ultimately sighed. “Fine.” He pointed an accusatory finger at me, and I leaned back slightly to counteract the movement. “But don’t get too used t’ it. Yer outta here by dawn.” 

“Hey! Don’t you wanna know my name?” I placed my hands on my hips as I watched Norm move across the room and toward a small counter across from me. 

“Not particularly,” he muttered. 

“(Y/N). Good to meet you, Norm.” I told him my name anyway. He had to refer to me somehow, and the whole ‘pardner’ thing was getting old real fast.

“...Right.” I wasn’t sure he had entirely processed what I had said. 

I shrugged, returning to my previous activity of looking around the room. I noticed the small table resting in the center of the room, and I pointed over my shoulder at it with my thumb. “Two chairs? I thought you didn’t accept guests.” I chuckled lightly. “Weren’t you going to tell me about your grudge toward the mayor?”

“It ain’t a–” Norm sighed before gesturing with an open palm toward the table. “It’s best if y’ take a seat. We’re gon’ be here a while.”

Yeein' On That 'Haw Ch. 2-- A Hot Cup o' Joe

Before I knew it, I was seated at Norm’s disheveled table, ceramic mug in-hand. The hot liquid inside was quickly heating up the material, making it almost painful to hold. 

“I wasn’t expecting you to have instant coffee on-hand, Norm,” I commented inquisitively. He shrugged, collecting his own mug from the small counter opposite me and leaning up against it. I noticed how he didn’t sit down. “Pays t’ ‘ave somethin’ hot on ya when it gets cold.” He used his free hand to gesture to the miniscule stove against the far wall. “That thing is my only source o’ heat in the winter.” He turned his head to the side in the general direction of the front door. “Got the coffee from some crippled feller who wanted to gimme a ‘housewarmin’ gift.’” He performed air quotes. “Scared ‘im off right quick.”

“Huh. So you’ve been out here for a while, then?” I tilted my head in his direction, choosing to ignore the fact that he presumably pointed a shotgun at a disabled man. And the fact that the disabled man was probably Jerry. Poor guy.

Norm nodded– almost solemnly. “That’s right. Been out ‘ere goin’ on three years.” He lifted his mug to where I assumed his lips were, paused when he remembered the bag on his head, then lowered the mug once more. Ha. Idiot. 

Not like I wanted to drink it myself. Since I got there, I’d hated how the people there absorbed nutrients. Sure, we ate, but I wouldn’t call it ‘eating,’ in the sense of there was a slot in the base of my head that I shoved food into and called it a day. I couldn’t even really taste it. Man, I missed actually tasting things. There was a vague essence of flavor in things, and I could still sense textures, but that was it. 

I hummed in acknowledgement. “I assume that Mayor Mingus has some involvement in you being sequestered in an abandoned shack in the woods.” 

Norm’s grip tightened on his mug. “Ya’d be assumin’ correctly, pardner. That dastardly feline thought it’d be easier t’ exile me than t’ deal with me properly.” 

If I had eyebrows, they would have lifted at that moment. “Mingus exiled you? I didn’t think she did things like that… or that she had the power to do things like that.” I paused to take a steadying breath. “I mean, I can’t say I’m surprised. It’s pretty obvious that she’s one corrupt kitty-cat.”

He scoffed. “Ya can say that again. I swear t’ all the powers that be, once I git my hands on that furry little–”

“Woah!” I interrupted him, holding up a finger. “Don’t finish that sentence. Lemme guess. You’re some kind of ruthless avenger who wants to heal his broken pride and compensate for his lack of action by unnecessarily harming those who have wronged you.” 

He fell into stunned silence. I realized I hit it right on the money and winced. Or I would have, if I had a face. 

Norm cleared his throat. “...I suppose y’ could say that,” he mumbled in a meek voice. 

“Ah, shit, dude, who am I to judge?” I leaned back in my chair and made a wide gesture with my arms. “I can understand why you would want her dead. She’s a corrupt politician who nobody seems to realize is corrupt. Not even that weirdly self-aware guy who lives in a dumpster knows what’s going on with her.” I paused. “Wait… why did Mingus exile you?”

The yeehaw man didn’t answer for a concerningly long time. He only stared at me, as if he were sizing me up. I could feel myself becoming increasingly uncomfortable. 

“Are ya stupid er what?” He finally resumed speaking, causing me to deflate in a mixture of relief and shame. “It’s cuz I ‘ave a head. A normal one, not some…” He pointed with an open palm toward my rotary head. “Plastic box.”

I felt my muscles tense at that comment. I couldn’t blame him for thinking that I have had this thing for a head since I was an infant. But… it still kind of hurt. 

“...Right,” I avoided his gaze for a moment out of discomfort. “So, you’re out here because Mingus doesn’t like people with flesh-heads. That feels almost sort of racist. Classist?... Dial-ist?” I shook my head, hearing the various components rattling about inside. Then I paused. “How do you have a flesh-head in the first place? I thought people around here got their heads replaced when they were babies?”

His sticky note face raised an eyebrow at my phrasing. “It’s a long story,” he didn’t comment on how I was speaking like I was a foreigner in a new country. 

“Well, do I have some good news for you, Mr. Space Cowboy!” I set my mug down on the table, making a soft clattering noise. I leaned forward, placing my elbows on my knees. “We quite literally have all night.” 

Norm stared at me for a long, awkward moment, sticky note displaying a reluctant, narrow-eyed stare. I heard him take a breath before sighing “Fine.”

“Yes! Okie-dokie, space-man, what’s the haps?” I leaned forward even further to the point where I was almost falling out of my chair. 

“Never ask me what th’ ‘haps’ are again.” He pointed a finger in my direction. “And quit leanin’ like that. Yer gonn’ git yerself killed.” I did as he said. I wasn’t going to die before I heard this story. 

Norm took a moment to organize his thoughts before taking a few slow, careful steps in my direction. “The long n’ short of it is that I’m a time traveler.”

I nodded eagerly. “Yeah?”

He paused briefly. “Yer not gonn’ question that?” 

I tilted my head at him. “You wouldn’t believe the shit I’ve gone through, man. Time travel is one of the more believable things I’ve heard in the last couple of years. What’s the context?”

He blinked at me questioningly before continuing. “I used t’ work for NASA back in the days o’ President Crown’s… presidency. Since I had sum experience in th’ Air Force, they stuck me on a special mission.” What kind of backstory was this? How old was this guy? “They sent me int’ a wormhole.”

“Ahh, this is starting to make sense!” I clapped my hands together. “Lemme try to guess what happens next–”

He cut me off with a firm “No,” and I raised my hands in submission. He continued with his story. “Moseyed on int’ the wormhole, came out the other side, n’ everything had changed. Turned out it had been a good sixty years since I left. I landed on Earth, and everyone jus’ casually had phones fer heads. Mingus didn’t like the fact that I was reluctant to git one o’ my own, so she exiled me.” 

I whistled. “Damn…” 

Norm raised a Sharpied eyebrow before sighing. “Yeah. It’s pretty damn tough. I don’t even know if my wife and kids are still around.” There was a melancholy edge to his voice that gave me a sinking feeling in my stomach. If he were in his late twenties when he left– and that’s being incredibly generous– his wife would be in her late eighties or early nineties. If they were any older (which was likely)… the prospects were not looking good. His kids probably all left Dialtown, as kids often do.

I took a sharp breath through my food hole (gods, it’s so gross) and rested a hand above my dial. “I’m really sorry to hear that, man. If it helps, I understand– we’re in sort of similar boats.” 

He closed the distance between himself and the table I sat at to set down his now-cold mug of coffee. “I don’t think y’do, pardner. I’ll bet money that ya didn’t even know quantum jumpin’ was a real thing until jus’ now.”

I draped my arms over the back of the semi-rotted chair I sat in. “Wanna bet?”

“Bet.” His voice became firmer as he folded his arms across his chest. 

A feeling of relief and triumph rose in my chest. I would finally get to tell somebody about what happened without sounding like a crazy person. I cleared my throat. 

“It all started with a very amateur museum robbery with my best bud…

Yeein' On That 'Haw Ch. 3-- Manufacturing

When I finally regained my senses, I felt… very heavy. Like there was a two-ton weight attached to my head. And it was too bright. It wasn’t the same pale blue light of the arcade machine that had enveloped me before I fell unconscious– this was sunlight. I had a pounding headache. 

…What the hell happened? Wasn’t I just in a dark museum with Violet? Maybe we got arrested and I was waking up in a prison yard or something. 

I groaned as I opened my eyes. My vision was fixed on a blue sky with several puffy clouds gently coasting along the horizon. I could see the tips of pine trees on the edges of my periphery. I lifted my hands to rub the sleep from them. However, when I did, I couldn’t find my head. For a moment, I believed that I was just delirious or dreaming.

Beneath my fingers was hard, cool plastic. As I glided my hands around its shape, I noticed that it was vaguely rectangular, with indents and outcroppings of various shapes. One in particular was a circle about the size of my palm where my face would have been. Had someone put a box over my head or something? 

Panicked, I tried turning over so I could push my aching body to its feet. I found that it took much more effort than it usually would. When I finally did turn over and pull myself to a seated position in the grass, my vision spun and swirled like I had just gotten off a bad trip. I closed my eyes to combat the vertigo. It was then that I noticed how strange my eyes felt. Like I was looking through a camera lens rather than… well, my eyes. 

I turned my heavy head around, surveying my surroundings. Like I suspected, a forest. A pine forest to be specific. There was a pile of rotting wood a good fifty feet away, and I noticed that the grass was oddly tinted brown– a similar color to my flannel. 

Why the figgledy fuck was I in the middle of a clearing in the forest? Was I hallucinating?

I hurriedly reached one hand toward my forearm so I could pinch it hard. All that did was make my body hurt in nine places instead of eight. I sighed. 

Okay, time to try to stand. I placed my palms flat on the ground, sucking in a sharp breath when I felt a dull ache shoot through my head. Gods, it felt like legos were rattling around inside my skull. I pushed aside the pain for a moment so I could pull my legs underneath me, rise to my full height… and immediately topple back over. Why was my head so damn heavy?

Alright, new strategy. I looked around and spotted a good enough tree trunk that I could use as support. Slowly and carefully, I crawled over to the fallen tree trunk. Then I placed my hands on it so I could push myself to my feet. 

I almost fell over again like an idiot but managed to catch myself before I whacked my head on the trunk and knocked myself out again. It took several long minutes for me to get used to the feeling of having thousands of pounds tied to my head, but once I did, I immediately screamed for help. 

What else was I supposed to do? I woke up in the middle of the woods after what felt like being beheaded, my friend was gone, and I didn’t think I was capable of finding civilization, let alone walking to it. 

But I received no response to my cries for help. So I would have to figure something out on my own. 

I didn’t know how far into the woods I was, and I watched a lot of video essays about how to survive in the wilderness, so I knew the best first step to take would be to find water. Sounded easy enough. I looked down, stumbling due to the shift of my weight, and found damp leaves. Thank the gods for that. That meant water was nearby… at least, if those video essays were to be trusted. 

I turned around and noticed that the damp leaves stopped about ten feet from me, so that meant water was to my right. Probably. I’m too stupid for this shit. Whatever, I just started walking in that direction and prayed. 

Walking was… an ordeal. It felt like I had a bucket of water taped to my head that was constantly sloshing and slinging me around. But I got the hang of it after around fifteen minutes of walking. At least, I think it was fifteen minutes. It could have been longer. Or shorter. I didn’t even know if I was conscious, to be frank. 

I was thinking about the possibility of lucid dreaming when I finally heard the sound of running water. I practically jumped out of my skin before following the sound. Maybe if I followed the water, I would find civilization. It was a stretch, but it gave me hope. 

After a few more minutes, I finally found a brook. I have never been that relieved to see a body of water in my entire life. Perhaps if I waterboarded myself enough, I would wake up and get out of this forest backrooms level. 

Just as I was about to do just that, though, I panicked. There was a reflection in the water that wasn’t mine. It was distorted, but it was there. I turned around only to find nothing. Then I leaned in closer. 

It was definitely me. That much was certain. But it didn’t have my face. It didn’t have a head. Where my head would have been, there was a… phone. A red rotary phone to be specific. The pale dial didn’t have numbers on it, though, but obscure symbols that looked like pure nonsense. 

I lifted a hand and waved it in front of my face. Sure enough, the reflection matched my movements. 

Yep. That explained the heaviness.

Oh, and, uh.

What the fuck?!

I immediately screamed at the top of my lungs. It was not my proudest moment. My hands clutched at the sides of my head, which was apparently now a phone. I stumbled back and fell straight on my ass like an idiot. I was now completely certain that not only was I awake and aware, but that I was in hell or something like that. 

My screams of terror as a result of my seemingly permanent mutilation eventually died down. It wasn’t necessarily out of self-preservation, but a lack of energy. I didn’t particularly care if some rabid/mutant animal emerged from the trees and devoured me on the spot. I had a phone. For a head. 

What a nightmare. 

I spent a long time seated on the cold forest floor, hands absently toying with the wet leaves scattered around my feet. I don’t know how long I was sitting there, but it was long enough for the sun to dip low in the sky, and long enough for my stomach to begin twisting in hunger. A disconnected tone emitted from my head’s speaker. That didn’t make my situation feel any better. 

Once I returned to full consciousness, my mind raced with questions. How did I get here? Why was I here? How do I get back home? Where was I in the first place? 

Two of my questions were answered out of pure assumption. It was insane, but an idea became clear in my thoughts. Those characters on the arcade machine casing; they had technology for heads, a lot of them having phones for heads. 

Maybe, just maybe… 

No fucking way I got isekai’d into the arcade machine. Just… no way. 

Despite my internal protestations, that seemed to be the case. I didn’t think that was possible. Then again, not many isekai protagonists think their situations are real at first. 

I slowly stood, using a tree as support. I had to find somewhere to sleep. Maybe if I went to sleep, I would wake back up in that museum. I would be arrested for sure, but it would be better than this. I hardly noticed the oddly monkey-paw-shaped tracks in the mud. 

I began to move, following the stream. It was my only hope. 

Yeein' On That 'Haw Ch. 4-- Pardners in Crime

“Waaaaiiitt…” I droned, stopping at a seemingly random point in my story. “Since we’re in such similar boats, maybe we can help each other.”

Norm, who had taken a seat opposite me and clearly just snapped out of some kind of immersed haze, straightened. “Help?” He scoffed. “I don’ need yer help. I can handle my own business.” 

“But that’s the thing, Norm,” I leaned forward so I could place my elbows on my knees. The recently-lit candle’s light glinted off of my plastic phone head. “You can’t. If you could, you would have done something about your exile by now. Mingus would be dead by now.”

He tensed. I got the feeling that I was on the verge of having a shotgun aimed at my head again. I continued, “I can help you get rid of the mayor. And afterwards, you can help me get back to my original timeline. If I got here in the first place, there’s gotta be a way back, right?”

I didn’t care about the lives of anyone here. I knew they were all just characters in an arcade game. So killing the mayor wouldn’t be a problem– it would be like a mission in a Hitman game. 

To be honest, I gave up on my mission to get back to my original timeline after two years of being stuck in that arcade machine universe. I thought if I just tried to forget it, I would get used to living like this and everything would turn out fine. But my thoughts constantly drifted to home– to my family, my friends, the life that I had before. Sure, I was likely a wanted criminal, but it was still home. 

I was about to say exactly that to Norm when he held up a hand. “Care t’ tell me exactly how you would plan on helpin’ me take out the mayor of Dialtown ‘erself?” 

“...I dunno. I didn’t think I’d get this far,” I mumbled, feeling a little embarrassed. “I concocted a plan to rob a museum, but not only was that with a friend, but it all went terribly wrong just because there was a caulked window that wasn’t accounted for.” I sighed audibly. “Surely we can just improvise.”

“Improvise?” The cowboy stood from his seat, appalled. “We can’t jus’ improvise while killin’ a political figure! She has bodyguards, traps, hell, she probably has an entire army at ‘er disposal.”

I chuckled. “I think an army is a little much–”

Norm cut me off once more. “We can’t improvise. It’s too risky.”

A realization emerged through my fog cloud of racing thoughts. “...So you’re saying you’d be cool with me helping you? And in exchange, you’d help me figure out a way to get back to my timeline?”

He fell into deliberative silence, bagged gaze fixed on the wooden floor. I held my breath. Having someone that used to work for NASA– not just that, but traveled through time– helping me find a way to jump timelines would make my job so much easier. A tiny speck of hope flickered on in my mind; an emotion that I hadn’t felt in two years. 

“How d’ya plan on sneakin’ me back int’ town?” Norm’s voice was low and contemplative. “Last time I checked, there’s a bunch o’ posters put up ‘round th’ perimeter of the city with my mug plastered on ‘em. Any passerby would report us instantly.”

I paused for a moment to think about that. I knew almost everyone in Dialtown, but not well enough to get them to smuggle a 6’3” space cowboy into the city in a wooden crate. 

“...We could dig a tunnel? Or… Or put you in a disguise?” I answered his question in an unsure, high-pitched voice. 

He shook his head. “Tunnel t’ where?” 

“Straight to the Mayor’s office, of course!” I was a little louder, more confident this time around. “Or I could threaten the fuckface guy to help us smuggle you into town in a crate. He’s done a lot of embarrassing shit. I’m pretty sure he pissed himself when a pigeon got a little too close–”

“No, an’ no. Fer one, like I said, the Mayor has guards.” I opened my mouth and took a breath to respond, but he continued with “an’ ‘er office is on the second floor,” making me shut my mouth. “An’ fer the sake o’ my dignity, I ain’t squeezin’ int’ a crate.”

“Dignity doesn’t matter here, Norm!” I launched up from my chair. “This is a revolution!” 

He shot me a look that spoke of death, and I slowly sat back down. 

“...A disguise, then?” I proposed meekly. I then looked around the room for a potential disguise before pointing at the dartboard with Mingus’ face taped to it. “You could use that. Better yet, tear your stove from the pipes and stick it on your head.”

Norm fell into another long silence, but this time it was out of annoyance rather than contemplation. I took it as a rejection.

I awkwardly cleared my throat. Okay, maybe my ideas were a little stupid. Actually, a lot stupid. Then something smart surfaced in my phone-equivalent of a brain. CPU? Is that it? Whatever.

“The sewers!” I leapt out of my seat. Norm froze. “...Sewers?” He repeated. I nodded enthusiastically. “Surely there’s a manhole somewhere outside of the city that leads into town! If we hop in there in the middle of the night, we can wander around like idiots until we find another manhole that connects to either the subway or Uptown Dialtown.” 

“So, if I’m hearing ya correctly,” Norm folded his arms across his chest. “Ya wanna wade through sewer water like blind rats until we find what we’re lookin’ fer.”

I nodded enthusiastically. “That’s exactly it! I’ve spent a lot of time in those sewers, I’ve probably developed a sixth sense to navigate them. Or I could just take some wild guesses and pray that works.”

Norm lifted his hand to his face so he could exasperatedly drag it down the length of the bag. As he did so, he heaved a sigh. “What ‘ave I got t’ lose?”

When I heard his response, I practically jumped in excitement. I was finally going to do something in this accursed place. I’ve spent the last two years learning everything about the characters that lived in Dialtown, and they were becoming boring. I could never quite keep a friendship with them– it was like I wasn’t meant to know them. It was an ironic existence, considering the fact that this arcade machine was supposed to be a weird RPG dating sim. But no matter how hard I tried, I was always alone. 

Okay, that created a few questions. Who the hell was the POV character for this arcade dating sim, where would I find them, and did they have a personality, or were they meant to be a blank self-insert for the player?

I shook off those questions for the moment. “Alrighty, let’s get crackin’!” I interlaced my fingers so I could crack my knuckles. “Norm, you’re the brains. I’m the braw– actually, you’re the brawn too. I’m the moral support.”

“Wonderful. Jus’ what I needed, another incessant voice yellin’ at me.” Norm muttered under his breath. I… honestly couldn’t tell if he was being sarcastic or not. Even after spending two years in this universe, the lack of facial expressions made it somehow harder for me to read social situations. 

Instead of trying to do that, I just flopped back into my chair. “Let’s do this. What’s the plan?”

Ꚛ

Dawn’s light filtered through the foggy windows of Norm’s shack. I was pacing back and forth across the room, running through our handy-dandy three-step plan in my head while the yeehaw man gathered a slew of items and haphazardly shoved them into a burlap sack. Neither of us had slept, either due to paranoia, not trusting the other, insomnia, or all three. So my vision was slightly blurred, and my body felt heavy. 

“I can’t believe I’m teamin’ up wit’ the likes o’ you.” I heard Norm mumble under his breath. “Y’could be tryin’ t’kill me. Y’could be an assassin er somethin’.” 

I halted my pacing to shoot him an incredulous look. “Norm, I promise, you’re not that important. You were exiled three years ago and haven’t been causing any problems since. Nobody wants you dead.” I flashed a cheeky grin. “...That’ll change soon.”

He froze in the middle of shoving a box of revolver ammunition into his burlap sack and gave me a confused look. 

“We’re trying to kill the mayor. She’s bound to find out and send hitmen after us. It’s basic common sense.” Plus, this is a video game. It’s never that easy, I thought. 

Norm nodded absentmindedly as he tied up the bag. I wasn’t entirely convinced that he was listening to me, but I didn’t particularly care at that point. I just wanted to get out of that dingy shack and get the mayor to die somehow so I could have some chance at getting home. 

Before I knew it, we had left the man’s sorry excuse for a house and ventured out into the great unknown– aka the woods that I knew very well at this point. The trees were still oddly tinted pink, and morning dew saturated the grass. Now that I was looking at the surrounding area from the porch, I spotted the many beartraps that had been placed in the grass. How did I not step in one of those?

I looked at Norm like he was a lunatic. He looked at me in the same way. He must have guessed what I was thinking about because he defensively raised his arms. “Defends against intruders.” When I only continued staring at him, his voice raised in pitch. “I can’t shoot everyone that wanders up t’ my doorstep.”

“Oh, but you had no problem firing at me? Twice?” I folded my arms. 

“No! I didn’t! ‘Cause I thought ya were dangerous!” 

I looked down at my body, then back up at him. 

“... Past tense,” he mumbled. 

Satisfied with his explanation, I nodded and hopped down the rickety steps and into the grass below. I paused before turning in a confused, awkward circle. “Uhhhh… town is…” I looked over at the rising sun. “East… west… um… west!” I pointed in the direction I initially came from. 

Norm slowly nodded, glancing in the direction I was pointing. “Good job. ‘S not like there’s very visible buildins’ that way.”

I ignored him, despite him being right. I lowered my arm and began marching toward the city. Norm followed a good ten paces behind, revolver in-hand. Paranoid weirdo.

Ꚛ

It had been… hours. And Norm hadn’t said a single word to me or anything else. My sound processors were buzzing from the silence. It was to the point where I was grateful for the random forest noises that filled the emptiness. I would have tried to strike up a conversation, but every time I said something, he either pointed the revolver at me or didn’t answer me. It was really awkward.

I had just about given up on having any sort of friendly relationship with this guy when he said something. “Y’said yer from some sort o’ parallel universe, right?” 

I glanced back at him, folding my arms across my chest. Despite my defensive stature, I was incredibly relieved for the distraction. “Uh… yeah? Why?”

He turned his head to the side, remaining vigilant despite holding a conversation with me. “What’s it like?” 

There was a moment of tense silence as I recalled what my life was like before. “Well… nobody had phones for heads, for one. That wasn’t even an idea that anyone had. We, uh… we had phone stores. Like, handheld phone stores. There were phone booths everywhere, since nobody could call people from their heads. People were relatively normal, aside from the occasional crackhead or kiddie-strangler. They didn’t go mugging people on the subway–”

“No muggins’?” Norm nudged a plant aside with the barrel of his gun. 

“That’s not what I said. There were definitely muggings, robberies, murders, shootings– their guns just always had bullets in them. Seriously, who mugs somebody with no bullets in their gun? Depending on the ammo, they’re like fifty cents a pop!” I threw my hands up in disbelief when I recalled how I was mugged on the subway. I had told the knife-headed fellow to just shoot me, and then he told me that he didn’t actually have any ammo. I remembered that I then stared at him in dumbfounded awe until he scampered away. 

“But yeah, that stuff sucked..” My gaze found the forest floor, watching how my boots kicked at piles of dead leaves. “But there were also good things. I remember how I used to hate seeing couples sucking face in the street, but now I honestly kind of miss it. People can’t exactly suck face when there’s no face to suck. I remember how my buddies and I would go into photo booths and make dumb faces, because we had those, then put the photos up on our bedroom walls to decorate them.” I sucked in a trembling breath and decided to change the topic to something that wouldn’t make me cry. “And God himself didn’t walk among us. It was still a religion based on faith, not fact–”

Norm held up a hand to stop me. “Hol’ on. God don’t walk among us, pardner.” 

I slowly turned to meet his bag-shrouded eyes. “You sweet, summer child. God is a shoeless, mostly-shirtless, basketball shorts-wearing hobo with a tv for a head that only displays a dog with a waffle in its mouth. And he knows all. We had a beer together. Which I paid for, obviously.” 

“Pardner, I am a God-fearin’ American; y’won’t trick me with this rabble. Y’did not have a beer with God.” His hand found his heart, and I could have sworn I heard an eagle screech somewhere in the distance. I blinked. Or I would have, if I had eyes. 

I turned ominously, facing away from him. 

“You shall see, Norman. You shall see…” I paused. “Probably. I feel like he always shows up where he’s not wanted.” Norm lifted a hand to pinch the bridge of his nose, but he realized once again that he couldn’t do that with a bag over his head. “This is gonna be a looooong walk.”

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. 7-- Finger Guns!

“So yeah, Bigfoot directed me into town, hijinks ensued, and now we’re here,” I summarized. Of course I was omitting 99% of the two years I’d lived in Dialtown since, but he didn’t need to know that. 

“That has gotta be th’ stupidest thing I ever ‘eard, pardner,” Norm interrupted me. “What’d I tell ya about bigfoot? It ain’t real.”

I huffed exasperatedly. My hands were slowly becoming calloused with the force with which I was grabbing the rungs of the ladder. How tall was this thing? How far had we ascended? “Well, how did I live through the swan attack, then?” I muttered indignantly.

“I’m jus’ sayin’, y’said y’were feelin’ pretty, uh… out of it, right?” He asked, confirming my story’s details. “Maybe y’just… imagined it?”

I metaphorically frowned, feeling a flare of annoyance in my chest. “I can’t tell if you’re calling me crazy or a liar.”

I heard Norm sputter nervously for just a moment before speaking again. “No, ‘m not callin’ ya either. But bigfoot don’t exist, pardner, there’s nothin’ I can do about that.”

There was a brief pause in conversation while I furrowed my phone-eyebrows. He totally thought I was crazy. That didn’t feel good. When I spoke again, I was a bit quieter. “Agree to disagree, then.”

The remainder of our journey up the ladder was completely silent, save for our breathing and the sounds of our shoes hitting the rungs. 

Eventually, Norm came to a sudden stop, huffing gratefully. “Finally,” he muttered under his breath. “A manhole. Lemme get this open.”

As he lifted the manhole cover from its place in the ceiling, I made the grave mistake of looking down, only to find an entire abyss beneath us. I couldn’t even see the bottom of the ladder. I sucked in a short, fearful breath and shot my gaze back upwards, trying to forget what I just saw. 

Norm finally got the manhole cover off and pushed it to the side with a grunt of effort. He mumbled unintelligably before climbing up the remainder of the ladder and out of the sewers. I followed soon after.

I was met with the sight of what seemed to be the backroads of Dialtown– what we considered the slums. Ramshackle houses and shops lined the worn asphalt, which was not wide enough to fit any cars. 

I took a deep breath, inhaling the sweet smell of crystal meth. Yep. This was Dialtown, baby. 

“Alrighty,” Norm said with a relieved sigh. “Outta th’ sewer and int’ th’ fire. Won’t get that smell outta my clothes fer years.” 

I found myself grinning at him, placing my hands on my hips. “I lived down there for like, a year, you’ll be fine.”

He briefly furrowed his eyebrows before shaking his head. “Well, y’know the way ‘round here. How d’we get t’ the Mayor’s office?”

I hummed in consideration, turning in a circle to get my bearings. I didn’t quite recognize the area– I tried my best to avoid this part of town. The Dialtown Mob operated out of here, and while I had learned first-hand that they were certainly not at all dangerous, I still liked to avoid them just in case they… I don’t know, put a whoopee cushion on my chair. 

“I’m… actually not sure,” I responded in a high-pitched voice. “I don’t come around here often. The Mob hang out here a lot, and I like avoiding minor inconveniences.” I turned to face Norm, lifting my hands in a helpless gesture. 

“Well,” he began, pulling his revolver from its holster “We won’t have any problems, far as I’m concerned. Yer safe.”

Wow. Alright, uh, okay. 

I metaphorically blinked away my sudden brain fog and took a breath. “Gotcha,” I said airily. “Should we just set off in a random direction, then?” 

“Or,” Norm lifted a hand as if I were overlooking the most obvious thing in the world, “we could ask fer directions.” 

“Hah!” I exclaimed, throwing my phone-head back. “Directions? In Dialtown? You really are an old soul.” I shoved my hands in my pockets. “Nobody knows their way around. I don’t think the people that were born here know how to get anywhere. It’s why everyone takes the subway.” 

The cowboy frowned, but sighed in resignation before lifting a hand to gesture over my shoulder. “Lead th’ way, then.”

I happily did so. As a matter of fact, I seemed to be the one leading him everywhere, despite him having the gun. Weird. I had only lived here two years, when he had lived there for like, his whole life. But sixty years ago. Wild. 

We wordlessly traversed the rinky-dink streets of Dialtown for a good few minutes. It seemed we were making good progress– but, of course, something had to happen. I couldn’t catch a break. 

When my internal GPS told me to turn a corner, I turned into a darkened alley occupied by a bunch of trash cans, old newspapers, and wanted posters. The scent of something dead filled the air, and I unconsciously hoped it wasn’t a human corpse. I passed a small doorway, followed shortly by Norm, when I suddenly heard the shuffling of movement directly behind me. 

I made to turn around, but was halted by the sensation of something cold and sharp pressing against the back of my shirt. I froze. Two Brooklyn-accented voices, sounding nearly identical, spoke at once, but said different things. 

“Youse in the wrong part o’ town, bozos!”

“Hands in the air, bozos!”

I turned my head to look over my shoulder, only to be met with the sight of two strangely-dressed men. They were both clad in purple velvet suits that looked like they were pulled straight out of the Party City packaging. The one closest to me, the one pressing the tip of a blade into my back, had a gun for a head, the one farthest from me having a knife for a head. The latter seemed somewhat familiar to me, but I couldn’t quite remember why. 

Norm seemed to be in a similar predicament to me, though his seemed a bit more dire. The knife-headed man wielded a strangely fancy-looking handgun with silver engravings on the barrel, and had it aimed at the back of Norm’s neck. Norm had his hands lifted in a pacifying gesture, and the look on his face was nothing but frustrated. All my brain seemed capable of thinking was “Ruh roh.”

The man pointing a knife at my back hurriedly turned me around, gripping my upper arm so he could brace the blade against my throat. I made a sharp intake of breath through my metaphorical teeth. Ruh roh again. He spoke, sounding annoyed. “C’mon, bro! We agreed that it was ‘you’re in the wrong part o’ town!’ ‘Hands up’ wouldn’t make any sense unless we both had guns!” 

The knife-headed man behind Norm sagged. “But, bro, we do have guns! The both of us! Yours is just… your face.” 

The gun-headed one fell silent. “...Touché, bro.”

Norm finally spoke up, seeming ten times more irritated than before. “An’ jus’ who th’ hell are you two?” He made no movements to get away from the firearm pressing into his neck. 

I felt the gun-headed one perk up behind me. The two mobsters seemed to take that as an opportunity to perform some sort of rehearsed introduction. They declared in perfect unison “Why, we’re Shooty and Stabby, the deadliest crime duo Dialtown has ever seen!”

I made a face before muttering “Who are you, fuckin’ Team Rocket?” 

The blade of the knife pressed harder into my throat, but didn’t even begin to break skin. I found that a little odd. The gun-headed one spoke behind me, “Last time I checked, you’re the one with a knife t’ your neck, bozo! I’d watch that mouth!” 

“I don’t have a m–” I plainly began before the knife pressed even further into my skin. I took that as a sign to shut the fuck up. 

“Hang on,” Norm gained a confused expression. “Which one o’ y’all is Stabby and which one is Shooty?” 

The mobsters completely ignored his question, much to my chagrin– I wanted to know too,-- instead informing us of their agenda. The knife-headed one spoke up first with “You two bozos are plannin’ to take out Mayor Mingus! She gave us direct orders to bring youse back alive and well!” 

The gun-headed one spoke next, shrugging. “Not sure why ya need to be alive, but hey, we’re getting paid either way!”

I shot a confused look in Norm’s direction. He gave me the same look. How the hell did these absolute lunatics catch wind of our plan? It had hardly been two days since we made it! We weren’t even sure what we were doing! 

The gun-headed one continued, nudging my arm with his free hand. “So just follow us to the patented Mayor Mingus Chevrolet and we can make this nice and easy, eh?” 

“Chevrolet?” I spat. “Really? Out of all the brands of car she could lend you, she gave you a Chevrolet? Does she even really care about you guys?” It was a weak attempt at beginning a negotiation, but it was all I had. Norm seemed to notice my attempt and made a face. 

The knife-headed one tilted his head. “O’ course she doesn’t care about us! But hey, we’re still gettin’ paid!” The mobsters roared with laughter. 

I stared at the man threatening Norm with a gun. Why did he look so familiar to me? The ridiculous suit, the dull knife-head, the fancy-ass handgun–

Wait just a phone-goddamned minute. 

“Wait! Aren’t you the guy that tried mugging me on the subway a while ago?” I pointed accusatorily at the knife-headed one, causing the blade to shift against my throat. 

The knife-headed one froze immediately and tensed, seeming to be scrutinizing my appearance. “Red phone-head, weird flannel and hoodie combination, bad posture–huh! I might have mugged ya, bozo!” His voice took on a giddy edge. “What a coinkydink! Small world, eh?” 

I fell silent, staring at him like he was the dumbest motherfucker in the universe. I looked at Norm and spoke flatly, “Norm, he doesn’t have any ammo, just shoot him.”

The cowboy paused, a taken aback expression settling on his sticky note. “...What?”

“I do too!” Exclaimed the knife-headed mobster, jolting where he stood. “Tons of ammo! And the dangerous kind!” 

“The fuck do you mean, the dangerous kind?” I questioned in a high-pitched voice. 

“It means they’ll kill ya, bozo!” The gun-headed one chimed in. 

I sighed exasperatedly and returned my attention to the knife-headed one. “If you have ammo, then shoot him.”

“‘Ey!” Yelled Norm, seeming frustrated once more. 

“No can do, bozo,” said the mobster, “gotta get youse to Ms. Mayor alive.”

“Then shoot him in the leg or something. It’ll make it easier to transport him, right?” I leaned in. “Go on, do it. Shoot him. You know you want to.”

There was an agonizingly long pause as I watched the two mobsters communicate silently. I could tell from their body language that I had taken them off-guard and the shit was about to hit the fan. 

Norm took this as an opportunity to lower his hand to his holster and retrieve his revolver, which he promptly lifted to aim in my direction. It looked like he was aiming at me. 

“Norm, what–” I started to question him before he pulled the trigger, practically deafening me with the sound of the bullet whizzing out of the muzzle. 

The gun-headed one lurched backward, taking the knife with him, and cried out in pain. I immediately whirled around and took a few steps back to create some distance between us. Had I been shot? It sure looked like he had been aiming at me. I looked down at the mobster’s hand to find that he had dropped the knife, and there was a bullet lodged in his skin. 

“You-Youse assholes! You shot me in the hand! This is my knife-holding hand!” He shouted at us, using his not-shot hand to grip the other. He was bleeding everywhere. 

I was completely shocked. How had Norm managed to shoot this guy’s hand without killing me in the process? Was his aim that good?

I hardly noticed the knife-headed one charging past me to help his partner, grabbing his hand to look at the wound. “Shit, bro, we gotta get you back to the Mayor, stat!” He pointed to the end of the alley. “Quick! To the patented Mayor Mingus Chevrolet!” 

The two of them turned and began running away from us. The knife-headed one turned and shook his not-bullet-afflicted fist at us. “We’ll get youse bozos! I swear on the Brooklyn Dodgers–”

“That’s Los Angeles, you fuckin’ losers! It was Brooklyn like seventy years ago--” 

They were gone. Lost to the sweet embrace of the patented Mayor Mingus Chevrolet. Poor bastards. 

I sagged. Good lord, why did I agree to do this? I just had a knife to my neck, and Norm–

I hadn’t noticed Norm approaching me from behind so he could lay a hand on my shoulder. I tensed. “Y’alright?”

There was something in his voice that sounded genuinely concerned. I didn’t think he was the kind of person to like… care about people. It felt strangely comforting.

I turned to face him, looking up at his bag-face. His eyes were averted, fixed on something to his right. “Yeah, I’m good. Didn’t think you were such a good shot.”

“Ya’d be surprised how years of free time an’ swarms o’ house flies can train a man’s aim,” he explained. 

We looked at each other for a moment. I looked at his hand, which remained on my shoulder. He seemed to have forgotten he had put it there and swiftly retracted it. 

Norm cleared his throat and tucked his hands behind his back. “Shall we continue?”

“We shall.” I turned to face the direction we came from. I did not want to go in the same direction as those two loser mobsters. If I could even call them mobsters. I was thankful for my position in front of Norm as we walked. He couldn’t see how confused I was. He had literally almost put a shotgun shell through my phone-head when we first met, and just now he saved my life from literal mafia members. And I found him admirable for it. What the hell was going on? I shook my head, hearing the components inside rattle. We had a pussycat to assassinate, and I’ll be damned if I wasn’t going to pull it off.

Yeein' On That 'Haw Ch. 8-- The New Kid in (Dial)Town

Once we were free of those weird mobsters, getting through the rest of the area was a breeze. Since it was practically the middle of the night, not many people were out and about. The only people we passed were either drunk or high off their balls and posed no problem to us. Even if they did, I’m sure Norm would have dealt with them efficiently. 

I noticed the way the shorter, suburban-style houses and shacks slowly morphed into staggeringly tall, urban buildings. Then the area became more recognizable; I spotted the familiar bank and the movie theater that I never went to, though I often found myself curious what movies were like in a world where everybody had phones for heads. I would have gone to see a movie, but the first time I walked in there, the kid working the concessions counter kept calling my head ‘groovy’ and ‘radical’ to the point of it being excessive. Oh, and I got harassed by a vengeful spirit, so that discouraged me from returning. 

The streets were empty, save for the occasional homeless person or rabid raccoon. One of them talked to me once. A raccoon, not a homeless person. It was kind of crazy. I can’t quite remember what he said, but I think it was some kind of cryptic message foretelling the arrival of some ancient God. And no, I had not consumed any nectar… that I knew of. 

“Welcome to Uptown Dialtown, Mr. Allen,” I turned to face Norm, who made a face at the way I referred to him. “Where the air smells like crystal meth, and the crystal meth smells like… actually, nevermind.” I waved my hand dismissively. “I’ve never actually smelled the crystal meth.”

“Damn.” Norm’s Sharpied eyes were wide with what seemed to be awe, scanning his surroundings and taking it all in. “This is Uptown Dialtown? This place has gone t’ shit.”

“Yeah, it does that,” I winced. “I have good news and bad news.”

The cowboy turned to me with a confused expression. He gestured for me to go on. 

“The good news is that Mingus’ office is close by. The bad news is that we’re in Uptown Dialtown. This place sucks ass, and we also might meet God, which is never good.” I looked around skeptically, analyzing our immediately area to see if the dogman I spoke of was nearby. He wasn’t. Thank–... I will not be finishing that statement. Might summon him or something.

Norm scoffed cynically. “I don’t think so, pardner. God lives up there,” he pointed to the darkened sky with the hand that wasn’t holding a revolver. “We won’t be meetin’ him tonight. At least, I hope we won’t be.”

I shrugged. “Alright, Norm. Alright.”

There was a brief pause before Norm spoke once more. “Where to?”

I sucked in a small breath through my teeth. “Probably the subway. I don’t feel like walking the fifteen minutes it takes to get there.” I didn’t allow him the time to object to taking the subway, marching in the direction of the nearest station entrance. 

It didn’t take long to get to the station. We descended the gross concrete stairs to the platform and checked to see if anyone was looking before hopping the turnstile. Our only witness was a stray cat, which I immediately threatened to get it to swear that it wouldn’t tell. It promptly scratched at my phone-face and sprinted away. I’m pretty sure Norm thought I was a psychopath. 

Regardless, we had some time before the train to Downtown Dialtown would arrive. The trains ran 24/7 for some odd reason, but that was none of my business. I just wanted to get out of there before Rat Hour hit. 

We stood in silence for a few moments before Norm broke it. “...Say, (Y/N), I’m not cut out fer this, am I?” 

My metaphorical eyebrows lifted in shock. “Damn, dude, that’s a deep question. And out of nowhere, too. What prompted that?”

He shrugged. “‘m not sure. I s’pose it jus’ dawned on me that I’ve been doin’ literally nothin’ fer th’ several years it’s been since I jumped int’ the future.” He took a breath. I noticed his reluctance to look at me. “I had a life before. I did bricklayin’, joined th’ Airforce, worked fer NASA… I even got int’ the good graces o’ th’ President himself.” A solemn expression crossed his bag-face. “Now look at me. I’ve been hidin’ away in a shack fer years, threatenin’ anyone who came t’ my door.”

I fell silent for a moment, looking down at the grimy tile floor. When I spoke, my voice was quiet and contemplative. “Well… you’re not doing that anymore, are you? Once Mingus is dead, you’ll be able to get back to your life. Minus the wife, of course, but–” I winced. Probably shouldn’t have brought up the dead wife. 

Norm didn’t seem to notice my insensitive mentioning of his late wife. He continued, “‘m not sure I can go about life as I did before. Everythin’s so… different. Everyone’s got phones fer heads, even you.”

I frowned– or I would have, if I didn’t have a phone for a head. “Hey, this wasn’t my choice, I kinda just… spawned in here like this.”

“But still,” Norm interjected, “I won’t be accepted here. That’s jus’ the truth o’ it.” His voice became more intense as he folded his arms in front of his chest. “‘m not sure if I can even go through with this plan o’ ours. Once we do get rid o’ th’ cat, what then? I run off somewhere remote where I won’t be discriminated against? I won’t even be able t’ enjoy the fruits o’ my labor.”

I looked up at him. “Once we’re done murdering Mingus, we need to find a way to get me back home, remember? What you do after that, I’m sure it won’t be too bad.” The words felt foreign from my own speaker. They didn’t feel…right. 

“Look, pardner. I got no idea how we’re gonna find ya a way back to… wherever y’came from. I dunno how long it’ll take us. I jus’ know it won’t be long enough.” That last part was mumbled, but I still caught it. I raised an eyebrow and began to question it, but he kept talking. “Yer one o’ the few people left in this godforsaken town that talks t’me like I’m a human bein’. Maybe it’s cuz ya had a human head once. But I dunno what I’ll do without ya, pardner.”

I felt my stomach flip. He cared about me. I don’t know what it was, but I did feel like I connected to him more than the other NPCs in this universe. I felt allowed to connect with him. Deep down, I knew it was only because we supplied each other something we were deprived of, but I felt lucky to know him. 

“Thanks, Norm,” I borderline whispered. “That means a lot.” 

It was all I could say. I always felt I never said enough in situations like those, but right then, I felt like I had too much to say. But I said none of it. The train was approaching anyway. 

But something had been bothering me. I narrowed my metaphorical eyes at Norm’s American flag cowboy hat before reaching up to lift it from his head. He seemed completely taken aback, even almost offended. I carefully rotated the hat and placed it back on his head. He looked at me like I was completely insane. I shrugged. “It was on backwards.” 

It may have been my imagination, but I could have sworn what little skin I could see of Norm’s neck reddened in embarrassment. 

We boarded the train in content silence. As I expected, the train car was completely empty aside from the occasional rat or cockroach. Standard train protocol, y’know. We didn’t sit down, since neither of us trusted the cleanliness of the seats, but we did hold onto the grab rails for safety’s sake. 

“Hey, uh, hey Norm?” I broke the silence with an inquisitive but mildly amused tone. 

Norm hummed in acknowledgement, turning his head to look at me rather than the roach in the corner. 

I stifled a torrent of snickers that threatened to leave my speakers. “...Is-Is your middle name Gaylord?” 

He immediately became furious, sticky note displaying an aggravated expression. His hands gestured wildly. “My middle name ain’t Gaylord! How many times do I need t’ say this t’ people?!” 

Soon enough, the train began approaching the Downtown Dialtown station. I was relieved– the scent of black mold on that train was becoming atrocious. I turned to Norm once more. “Okay, what’s the plan? We haven’t really come up with how exactly to assassinate Mingus.”

The space cowboy paused to think about my question. “We could always use ya as a distraction while I go ‘n pump ‘er full o’ lead.”

I tensed. I’m not good at distractions– I’m far too awkward for that. I would end up accidentally spilling our whole plan to whoever was guarding the Mayor’s office. It seemed Norm picked up on my hesitation and began proposing a different plan. “How about we break in? Reinforced glass can’t be that difficult ‘t break.”

As I was about to bring up an idea of my own, I noticed the train’s movement become rather rickety. That was odd– Dialtown’s trains were straight ass, but the tracks were fine. At least, they were most of the time. It seemed Norm noticed it too. “Y’feel that?”

I nodded slowly, gripping the rail a little harder. “Probably just some turbulence or something. We’ll be fine, we’re almost–”

There was a distant crashing noise. I froze. Norm froze. My voice became more high-pitched. “Okay, yep, not fine. Get your gun out.”

The cowboy was happy to oblige, retrieving his revolver from its holster and holding it at the ready. I had no weapon, but I brandished my boney fists the best I could. Norm gave me a look. I shrugged. He shook his head. I lowered my fists. 

Not long after Norm pulled his gun from the holster, there was yet another crashing noise, followed by a damn near inhuman screech. When did I sign up to be Doom Guy and conquer the souls of the damned? What the shit?

Before I could even process what had happened, a massive hole opened up in the ceiling of the locomotive right above my head. Dust and pieces of shrapnel went scattering about and I found myself screaming as I saw a silhouetted figure rocketing toward me from the ceiling. Norm damn near tackled me out of the way and pushed me back, shielding me with his body. Alright, okay. Keep it together. 

I peered over Norm’s shoulder to find a person standing at a whopping almost five feet tall, clad in a blue hoodie, neon green basketball shorts, and straight-up twinkle toes. He had a purple phone head and seemed completely unphased by the fact that he just slammed through a train car’s roof unharmed.

…Little Billy. 

“Oh, come the fuck on!” I shouted from behind Norm. I don’t think I’ve ever sounded more pissed off. 

“What’s up, bozos?!” Called Little Billy in his nasally, obnoxious ass voice. I noticed the cowboy in front of me tense. 

“Good Lord, not another one o’ those mobster fellers,” he muttered indignantly. “And it’s a youngin’? Those varmints ‘ave reached a new low.”

I opened my mouth to object, but Little Billy beat me to it. “Nuh-uh! I’m not in the mob! I’m something much worse.” 

When Norm glanced back at me, concerned, I sighed heavily while resting my hand on my dial. “Yeah, he’s worse.”

The cowboy leaned in to whisper to me, “But he’s jus’ a kid.”

Little Billy interjected, somehow hearing Norm despite his whispering. “Yeah! I’m a kid! That means I can get away with all kinds of absolutely diabolical shit!” 

Norm’s sticky-note jaw dropped and he turned to face Little Billy once again. “Who taught y’that kind o’ language?” 

The child jutted a thumb toward his chest. “Me, duh! I came up with most of this ‘language,’ bozo!”

Norm shook his head. “Good Lord, what ‘as this world come t’?”

“But anyway, we got bigger fish to fry!” Billy exclaimed, kicking aside a fallen piece of shrapnel. I flinched as it sailed past Norm and I and slammed into the wall of the train. Speaking of, it was steadily slowing down– just a few more seconds and we could book it. 

I raised my hand and asked “Hey, Little Billy, how did Mingus figure out what we were doing?

Billy shrugged. “Cameras.” The child continued, “I kinda suspected you two would be able to deal with Shooty and Stabby. They’re dumbasses. But me, I have the power to perform an evil monologue.”

As Billy continued yapping, the train finally came to a stop. I nudged Norm. “We have to run. We won’t be able to fight this little shit, not even with a gun. He’s probably rigged this whole car with explosives.” 

Norm looked at me skeptically and mumbled back to me, saying “I believe ya. I ain’t shootin’ a kid anyway.” He slowly holstered his revolver. 

I moved to bolt out of there, but I noticed that the doors hadn’t opened automatically like they were supposed to. I hurriedly turned to Billy and interrupted his villain monologue. “What the fuck did you do to the doors, you little shit?!”

He halted his yapping and sagged. “I glued ‘em together with silly string, bozos! No escape for you!” 

There was a brief moment of awkward silence as Norm retrieved his revolver from its holster, slowly aimed it toward the window on the sliding door, and cocked it. Billy looked at the gun, then at Norm, then at me. I stepped out of the line of fire. 

Norm fired at the window, cracking it enough for me to elbow the hell out of it and shatter it completely. Thank phone-christ for my long sleeves, because I definitely would have had some glass shards in my elbow otherwise. Norm ran up to me and assisted me in climbing out of the window, all while Billy watched in silence. 

Soon enough, we had made it out of the train car and were booking it toward the stairs out of the station. I glanced over my shoulder to find Billy following at a leisurely pace. Why was that more menacing than it would be if he were sprinting after us?! 

“Norm, jesus christ, we gotta find a place to hide or something! It’s only a matter of time until he starts hurling grenades at us!” I cried in a winded voice. 

“Grenades? How did this kid git ‘is ‘ands on grenades?” Norm called back. 

“I dunno, man, it’s Little Billy! He’s an enigma!” 

That was all I said before we reached the stairs, sprinting up them as best as we could. The streets of Downtown Dialtown weren’t as empty as Uptown’s, but still rather barren nonetheless. It was mostly occupied by hookers and homeless people. 

I honestly had no idea where I was going. I did frequent Downtown more than I did Uptown, but my mind was fogged by adrenaline and I wound up turning into a random alley. I skidded to a stop in front of a dumpster, getting an excellent idea. “Norm, get in the dumpster.”

Norm made a disgusted face. “...What?”

I lifted the lid of the dumpster and gestured for him to climb inside. I reasoned in a sing-song voice “Good place to hiiiide.”

Making violently confused gestures with his hands, Norm approached the dumpster and placed his hands on its rim before hoisting himself up and inside. I heard his body thud when it made contact with the bottom of the dumpster and took it as a sign that the container was mostly empty. 

I mimicked his motions, giving the alley a once-over with my optical sensors just to make sure Billy didn’t see us climb inside. Then I pulled myself into the container. Once inside, I knelt and pulled the lid closed. I let out a sigh of relief, mostly unphased by the scent of garbage and other such substances. “Okay. I guess we just hang out in here until we figure he’s gone.”

Norm only nodded. I didn’t know how long we would be here. I noticed a fearful energy filling the air, and it was already becoming stifling.

Yeein' On That 'Haw Ch. 9-- Interlude: 10-80 In Progress

“(Y/N)! (Y/N), shit, dude, what’s goin’ on? You okay?” 

I knelt by my friend’s side, hurriedly placing a hand on their shoulder. They were screaming in agony, clutching the sides of their head and frantically digging their fingernails into their skin. Seeing them like this made me sick to my stomach. But we had to go! The police were practically up our asses at this point! I sucked in a trembling breath and leaned in to speak to (Y/N). “Dude, we gotta skedaddle like, now– the police are outside!” 

When they didn’t respond, I stood to my full height and cursed under my breath. What was I supposed to do? I couldn’t just leave them here to die, be arrested, or both! But I also didn’t want to be arrested. Then this whole thing would have been for nothing. The sirens were only getting closer. 

I frantically looked around for somewhere to hide, only to find nothing. I could hear my heart pounding in my chest, and in my panic, I reached down to my hip to retrieve my pistol. I had purchased it in a ‘why-not’ moment right before we were supposed to do this break-in. I didn’t think it would actually come in handy. With some quick thinking, I dragged (Y/N) to their feet and wrapped my free arm around their torso, using my pistol-occupied hand to point the firearm at the side of their head. They already seemed to be mostly unconscious, if not entirely knocked out, so they probably wouldn’t mind. 

Then I waited. I heard officers searching the building while I tried to calm my racing heart. The next thing I knew, several officers were charging through the door to the arcade-cabinet-filled room I was in. 

Before the officers could even see me, I took a deep breath and called out in my loudest, most ‘I-mean-business’ voice. “Don’t move a goddamned muscle or I’ll blow their fuckin’ brains out!” 

The officers’ guns immediately trained on me. Three of them. I saw one of them lift their walkie-talkie and mumble “10-32, 136” into it. I took another breath, forcing my expression to be blank. My eyes darted about the space, and I realized that I was relatively close to the window. I just had to get a little closer, and maybe I could jump out. 

But I had to distract the police. I didn’t actually have any intention of shooting (Y/N), but I had to pretend like I did. I opened my mouth to speak, but one of them interrupted me. “Lower your weapon!” He cried, his own aim not even faltering. Oh, how I wanted to point my firearm at him, but then they would certainly shoot me dead. I resisted the urge to commit first-degree murder and continued speaking. “No way I’m gonna put this thing down! You’ll riddle me with bullets if I do!” As I was speaking, I slowly crept closer to the window. 

“You won’t be shot, Violet,” that same officer spoke once more. I couldn’t stop my eyes from widening just slightly. They already knew who I was. Whoever reported a break-in to the police must have recognized me from somewhere. He continued, “We just want to talk with you.”

“Bullshit!” I yelled, causing their grips to tighten on their weapons. “As soon as I lower this gun, you’ll fucking kill me! Either that, or maim me so bad I can’t walk to the squad car!” Just a few more steps…

“You have two choices here,” began the officer, “You can either set the hostage free, or–”

Out of seemingly nowhere, the arcade machine from before lit up and bathed the room in a blue glow. Before I could properly process what happened, (Y/N) was gone, leaving me with no hostage, and no leverage. Well, shit. 

I darted toward the window just as the officers opened fire. They must have had stormtrooper aim or something because I managed to dive through the glass without being shot in the face. It would have been really embarrassing if the glass was reinforced, but thankfully, it wasn’t. The building was ancient. 

The glass shattered upon impact, sending me careening out of the window and plummeting toward the ground below. Maybe I should have thought this through. I was on the third floor!

Thankfully, my fall was broken by the awning covering the door to the museum, which I rolled off of before landing on the concrete below. It softened the blow, but my body was still severely battered and covered in a myriad of tiny glass shards. One officer had been stationed at the entrance to ensure that I didn’t try to escape, but it seemed that my sudden landing caught her off guard enough to allow me time to stand and grab hold of the pistol that I had dropped when I fell. 

In a moment of desperation, I pointed the pistol at the officer with the intent to shoot. My finger was literally pressing on the trigger. One of her hands was drifting near her own holster, the other poised in front of her. She had a wide-eyed, terrified look on her face. I hesitated for a moment– the biggest mistake of my life. She began to speak: “You don’t understand what you’re doing here. Put the firearm down–”

I pressed down on the trigger, clenching my eyes shut. The trigger simply didn’t press down all the way, making a dull clicking sound. I opened my eyes and glanced up at the officer, then back down at the pistol.

…The safety was on. 

I could only yell as she swiftly retrieved her own firearm from its holster and pointed it at me, immediately letting off two rounds in my direction. I bolted to the side and nearly fell over in the process. I cried out in pain upon feeling the skin and muscles in my side tear– I had been shot. Grazed, sure, but I had been shot. 

I darted behind one of the unoccupied squad cards and glanced down at my now actively bleeding bullet wound. It looked pretty nasty, but nothing I couldn’t deal with. I took a few steadying breaths and peered over the top of the car. The female officer was quickly approaching the vehicle, along with a few others who had left the building in pursuit of me. Shit, dude, I was a criminal. I was in too deep to back off now. I checked my pistol and flicked the safety off before aiming it over the roof of the car and letting off a few shots, one bullet lodging itself into the shoulder of an officer. 

Once I had stunned the group of police, I dropped into a half-squat position and frantically yanked on the door handle. It opened. Fuck yeah. 

I hurriedly climbed into the squad car and shut the door, finding the keys still in the ignition. Dumbass cops! At this point, they deserved for their car to be stolen. I turned the key and the engine roared to life. I instantly shifted it into drive and took off, ducking down just in case a stray bullet pierced the window or windshield. I heard gunshots clanking off the exterior of the vehicle and prayed to whoever was listening that it wouldn’t implode. An irrational fear, but a fear nonetheless.

Listen, I was panicking. I understand that stealing a squad car is like, the worst thing to do when fleeing police, but I was terrified! My friend had vanished, and I was alone and running away from the police! I even turned the sirens and lights on like a dumbass. But I must admit, it felt a little rad to just speed through traffic with everyone getting out of my way, though. 

When I finally got out of the range of the officers’ guns, I straightened my back and adjusted the mirrors, my chest heaving with panicked breaths. As I glimpsed myself in the rearview mirror, I noticed how wrecked I looked. My skin was covered in little cuts and spattered with blood, my eyes were wide and frantic, and I noticed an undertone of pure terror in my expression. It took all of my effort to flatten my expression into something neutral– if I was going out, I wasn’t going out scared. I didn’t even know where I was going until I reasoned with myself that I should get out of the city and to somewhere remote. There was an abandoned gas station just outside city limits that I could hide out in for a while.

There were a few moments where all was quiet aside from the loud sound of the sirens and my heavy breathing. I hurriedly buckled my seatbelt with one hand. Safety first, goddammit!

My mind finally processed what just happened– (Y/N) disappeared. Like, full-on vanished right in front of my eyes. Did I hallucinate that? No, I couldn’t have; the officers saw it too. They vanished when the room flashed with that blue light– the same blue light we saw emit from that strange arcade machine earlier. Did that have something to do with it? Was it a haunted machine or something? I shook my head. Be realistic, Violet. You literally stole a police vehicle and they’re bound to start chasing you down anytime soon. 

Just as I thought, I heard a second pair of sirens begin screaming their way toward me. I checked my mirrors and spotted the second squad car tearing down the highway, their lights illuminating the crowds of people walking down the sidewalks of the city. Shit, that’s right. I had to avoid hurting anyone not involved. Even when I was fleeing the police, I had to obey traffic laws the best I could. Christ. 

I cursed and slammed my foot on the gas, coming up to an intersection and veering the wheel to the left. I heard the rubber of the tires squeal as they skidded on the asphalt. I managed to make the turn safely despite the other cars on the road, which felt fucking awesome. 

Unfortunately, the squad car followed me. In my mirror, I noticed the officer in the passenger seat mumbling orders and codes into his walkie-talkie. Shit. I’d watched enough cop shows to know that they were probably anticipating my destination and laying spike mats on the main roads. Good to know– take off-roads!

I wasn’t too familiar with the layout of the city, as I had only lived there for a couple years and most of my time was spent traveling between work and home, but I did know that there were a shit ton of ways to get out of the city. I veered the vehicle to the right to take another turn, then rapidly made a sequence of turns in an attempt to confuse the police or lose them completely. It didn’t work, and I only scared myself. 

I’m not entirely sure how long this went on. No matter what I did, I couldn’t seem to lose the other squad car, and two more joined them in their pursuit after some time. It was becoming increasingly difficult to evade them as they kept splitting up and taking different roads. I did know that I was getting closer and closer to city limits, though. 

Then, just as I was about to exit the city entirely, I made a sudden left turn to get out of the way of a spike mat and found myself in a crowded street. A gasp fled my throat as I was suddenly tearing down a street toward a crosswalk filled with pedestrians. I had to make a decision– get caught and arrested, or commit vehicular manslaughter?

I glanced to my sides and found that there were buildings on either side. Fuck! There’s a reason I only shot that officer in the shoulder: I couldn’t kill somebody, let alone uninvolved passersby. My thoughts ran rampant, seemingly having thousands in the breadth of less than a second. Maybe if I was able to turn the vehicle all the way around and start heading the way I came, I could backtrack and find another way out. I jolted the wheel all the way to the left, turning the car around as fast as I could. 

My high speed was my downfall. The vehicle was going too fast to control the turn, causing the back wheels to hit the median. I felt a horrible lurching feeling in my stomach as the passenger’s side of the car lifted and began to rotate. In a tiny moment of luck, since I had managed to turn the car around, I didn’t go flying into a building. I also avoided hurting any pedestrians. But the thing is, the car fucking flipped. 

Before I could properly process what was going on, I was upside-down with my seatbelt pinning me to the seat. The roof of the car slammed against the road, which immediately dispensed the airbags. I heard a dull crack sound from somewhere in my chest, followed by what felt like pins and needles in that area. I think the windshield and some of the windows either cracked or shattered completely because there was glass everywhere. Honestly, it’s a complete blur. 

When my adrenaline-numbed mind returned to reality, panic flooded it. I could feel the dulled ache of several fractured or broken bones: definitely my clavicle as a result of the airbags, maybe a couple ribs, and I think something in my pelvis. As soon as the adrenaline wore off, I would be in a fuckton of pain, so I had to act quick before the police got their hands on me. I’m nothing if not committed. 

I reached up and unbuckled my seatbelt, causing my broken, battered body to tumble onto the ceiling of the car. I most certainly hit my head hard enough to leave a bruise, coaxing a pained grunt from my lips. I put all of my mediocre strength into pushing aside the airbag and opening the car door before crawling out of the vehicle, my hands finding the shattered glass that had scattered along the road. It hurt like a bitch, but I gritted my teeth against the pain and hauled myself to my feet. I looked up to find several officers charging in my direction. I cursed and turned, immediately regretting it when my pelvic bone screamed in pain. I winced but ignored it, beginning to run in the opposite direction. 

The police were, obviously, much faster. 

Without even being given the chance to surrender, I felt something hit my back. I grimly realized that it was a person. They took me to the ground, causing my chest to slam onto the glass fragments that littered it. A wheeze was forced out of my body when I hit the ground, and I writhed insistently in an attempt to escape the officer’s grasp, managing to elbow him in the face before he snatched my wrist. 

“You have the right to remain silent– anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law,” came a somewhat winded male voice from behind me. Hey, at least he read me my rights. He seized my wrists in one hand and shoved them against my back, pulling a strained groan from between my teeth. I only struggled for one more moment before I noticed another officer wielding a pistol brandishing it above my form. I went limp. There was no use resisting this any further. I felt the cool metal of handcuffs lock around my wrists just as I noticed the pool of my own blood coagulating underneath me. 

I closed my eyes and rested my cheek against the cold, glass-decorated asphalt. My memory ran through the events of the last several minutes and I swiftly tried my best to calculate the possible charges with what little legal knowledge I had: armed robbery, posession of a firearm, wounding an officer, taking somebody hostage with a gun, resisting arrest, posession of stolen law enforcement vehicle, crashing said law enforcement vehicle, endangering passersby– at least five years in prison. God. Fucking. Damn it. 

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. 11-- God Among Men

Once Norm and I had left the alley, it all seemed to be smooth sailing. Every once in a while, I heard him grumble about my decision to keep the trigger, saying how it was dangerous and we didn’t know what it did and blah blah blah yeehaw blah blah. I was pretty out of it at that point and just wanted to go home. I’m pretty sure we hadn’t slept in like, a day, and I needed my naps, man. I was a sleepy human being.

The streets of Downtown Dialtown seemed less real by the second. I never quite saw this world as being real, because it wasn’t– it was a bunch of code inside of an arcade cabinet. But as I continued to live in it, I found myself becoming attached to it– the way it looked, its funky characters, even my own appearance, I started to not mind it. As much as it upset me that the game’s code didn’t allow me to get too close to the NPCs, I had tried to make it home. But right then, as I walked those empty streets with Norm, it suddenly appeared as it did to me when I first arrived here: flat. A screen. 

I felt a sudden presence to my right as Norm picked up his speed so he could walk at my side. His grip remained firm on his revolver. “Yer walkin’ slower. What’s rattlin’ ya?”

I couldn’t help but hesitate. Even if he knew he was a video game character, he never seemed to mind that. I assumed he took our realities as separate universes, not that he was a smaller being who only existed in a digital space. He had always taken it well. But the thing is, I didn’t want him to feel as if his world weren’t even real to me. I didn’t want him to know that I thought of him as only a character in a video game. 

I thought of how he spilled his thoughts to me back in the subway, and I no longer hesitated. It was unfair of me to keep secrets from him when he so readily told me his. “Nothing here means anything to me, Norm,” I began. “To me, it’s nothing but a bunch of code. Sure, it may feel solid, but it’s just… flat. I know nothing here is actually real, and it really messes with me. I can’t form meaningful relationships with anything.” I looked down at the ground, watching my sneakers as I walked. “Not even with you. I understand that you care about me, and it feels really nice to know that, but… my brain knows that you aren’t real.”

There was a long bout of silence. I didn’t look up at him– I couldn’t. If I did, I might have cried. And I didn’t want to leak any kind of fluid from my phone-head right then. 

Norm finally said something to break the tense silence, his voice taking on a tone I had never heard before from him. It was quiet and heavy, like a dense fog. I couldn’t quite tell if it was sad, angry, or an attempt at maintaining his stoic appearance. “That’s all I am t’ya?”

I immediately stopped dead in my tracks, turning to face him and looking up at his bag-face. His expression was blank. “No, no! I-I just…” I paused, trying to figure out what I should say next. “You’re… you’re… have you ever– uh…” I shook my head to clear it of fog. “Like a pet! You know how like… you love a pet as much as anyone else, but you know it’s gonna die, like, way before you, and you know it’s not as sentient as you, and–”

“I’m like a pet now?” Norm interjected. Now he sounded mildly upset. “That’s how ya think o’ me? Somethin’ t’ be coddled an’ taken care of? ‘Cause I ain’t capable o’ takin’ care o’ myself, right?” 

I frantically shook my head, hearing a panicked edge creep into my voice. “No! You-you don’t understand, Norm, you’re–”

“Because I’m not real, huh?” He interrupted me once more, taking an almost aggressive step forward. I countered it with a step backward. I could hear something new in his voice as it became louder: hurt.  “I ain’t capable o’ feelin’ real emotion. That’s it, right? That’s what ya think? ‘Cause I’m code, huh?” He leaned into my face, practically hissing his next words, “Well, I’ll tell ya what this lump o’ code ‘s feelin’ right now. I’m feelin’ pretty goddamn betrayed.”

His words rang in the air like a funeral toll. My heart sank to my shoes, and I looked down at them as if to try and find it. Norm straightened his back and returned to his full height. Silence blanketed us. 

“I’ll show ya what some NPC is capable of, since y’think yer so special. I’m goin’ after Mingus myself,” Norm spat before turning away from me. “Don’t follow me.” I noticed how hard he was holding his revolver– his knuckles had turned white. I extended a hand to try to get him to wait, but he was moving before I could grab him. 

“Norm, wait, please just let me explain–” I found that my voice had dampened to barely a whisper, and it trailed off before I could even try to say anything else. My feet felt as if they were made of lead. I could only watch him go, my vision blurring with the saline water built into my head that functioned as tears. 

Just as I was about to curl up into a ball right there in the middle of the sidewalk, I heard a high-pitched whistle from directly behind me. I whirled around, trembling, only to find fucking God. “Maaaan, that was rooooughhh,” he slurred.

“Damn it, why can’t I catch a break?!” I cried out, voice cracking with emotion. 

“‘Ey, calm down, I’m just a transfixed audience member,” he said, pulling on the edges of his open shirt as if they were suspenders. “I dunno what soap opera you guys were rehearsing, but that was good.”

“It wasn’t a soap opera, you fuckin’ dick! That was real!” I yelled at him, taking a step closer. I covered my phone-face with one hand, trying to wipe away the makeshift tears. 

The tv-screened man only stared at me for a moment, dumbfounded expression on the dog on the screen’s face before speaking again. “...Ohhhhh! Well, sucks to be you.” He made to leave, only for me to stop him. I had nobody else to talk to. I needed advice. 

“Hey, homeless man, I… really need help,” I mumbled reluctantly. 

He looked at me, confused, for just a moment before turning back around to face me completely. “That’s new, but okay, I guess. I can eat garbage at a later date, if my calendar allows.”

I didn’t question his garbage-eating, only looked down at the ground so I wouldn’t have to look at him while I spoke. “That yeehaw-man, I don’t know how to feel about him. I’m kind of, like, from another universe where this is a video game, so none of you feel real to me. I don’t even know why I’m allowed to get so emotionally close with him.”

God nodded along, humming thoughtfully as if he were listening. I knew he definitely wasn’t. “So you’re from one of those parallel realities, hmm, I see.”

I looked at him weird for a moment before continuing. “Right. Well, I told him this, and he kinda… freaked out. We were gonna murder Mayor Mingus, but now he’s gonna go try to do it alone, which will probably get him killed.”

The homeless man looked at me, dumbfounded once again, only to slap himself in the face. “Oh, you two are the ones I’m supposed to bring to Mingus alive!” He scoffed. “Whoopsie.”

“Come the fuck on, man, why is everyone in this damn city hunting me down?!” I shouted in pure, abject frustration. 

“Yo, broski, I’m not gonna getcha just yet. I think I have a solution to your little dilemma.” God made a face that communicated to me that he was absolutely, soul-crushingly high on something. Probably nectar. “Y’just gotta be there at the right time and the right place, preferably with a lil’ kiss. Lil’ kisses make everything better.”

I paused, looking at him like he was an idiot. “...A lil’ kiss? Really? I don’t even have lips! You didn’t give us lips, God!” 

“You’re ignoring the first part, homeslice.” He restated his previous advice, holding one of his calloused, mysteriously-stained fingers in the air. “Be at the right place at the right time.”

“What does that even mean? You’re just confusing me even more!” I complained. 

“Ahhhh, you’ll get it eventually.” He cracked his knuckles. “Anyway, I’m gonna snatch you up now.”

“...What?”

And just like an arcade machine being unplugged, everything went black.