Weekly Update - Tumblr Posts

Curiosity Killed... the Dog?

*an update 1/2*

OK monsters, I'm finally back on schedule! (Let's see if I can keep ot up 🥴)

Today, we're going to have 2 uploads! This is the first one. You can read it on ...

WTTPD

FFN

Ao3

Dokuga is still giving me an error message 🤦‍♀️

As always, I hope yall enjoy!

Be on the lookout for not one, but TWO new updates to Curiosity Killed... the Dog? later today!!!

*wip, still needs 3rd round of editing*

Curiosity Killed... the Dog?

Time for our weekly update!!!!!

You can read it on

Ao3

FFN

WTTPD

Recommendations

So... at this point I think I've read every COMPLETE, CANON, ENGLISH, MULTI-CHAPTER story (Sesesskag obv) on A03. I've been at it for years 🤣

Now I feel like rereading stuff but idk what to read. I find myself falling back on the same few stories ...

Snow Angel

Only Human

Windows on the West

Fallen Angel

Convival

Second Alliance

A Mikos Peace

The Flower Girl

& A Blue Ribbon

These are my fallback books. Granted there are a few in @sereia1313 multichapter collection that will be added to thus list once they're done. Also I Can Hear You & Dear Sesshomaru by @ladydanitar will be pit on the list once finished.

So here's the problem...

I want to read, but I don't feel like reading any of my fall backs, and nothing is popping out to me.

There us one story I remember reading once. There was some exhibitionism going on in it, but it was a decent story. Really spicy lol 🔥.

There's one scene where Sesshomaru... does... Kagome on a balcony in front of a crowd of people. Another time a council member walks in on them doing the deed & they just keep going while Sesshomaru tears him a new one. I also believe in the same story they get it on 3x in their travels each time either naraku koga or inuyasha see them & Sesshomaru knows it.

No idea the name of this story...

Another one I read is kind of messed up but interesting... Kagome accidentally seals Sesshomaru & when she releases him she's flooded with his (extremely) trumatic childhood memories. His dad basically trades him as a means to stop a war.

Or...

I kind of want to read something long. I'm not in the mood for grape-y turned love atm.

Maybe a slow burn? Friends to lovers? Traveling with Sesshoumaru? Funny or Akward Sesshomaru? Even modern day post Canon would be nice. (As mentioned, Fallen Angel is one of my all time favorites.) Heck, even a drabble series...

Does anyone have any recommendations??? After the week I've had, I just want to get lost in a good sesskag story for a bit on my day off before I have to adult again. 🙃

*side note, I'll be updating a bonus chapter to CKTD later today*

My phone broke. I lost a LOT of data for cktd. Updates will be on hold about 3 weeks while I try to get another phone.

Curiosity Killed... The Dog?

Just a quick check in because I've gotten several messages asking... I still haven't gotten my phone so no updates yet. I have, however, been writing.

I don't currently have access to the 3 chapters I had ready to publish (why I'm waiting on my phone) because my PC is a POS & I'm on a borrowed phone currently. BUT...

I already have 3 more chapters ready to edit then publish & am working on 2 more. So once I get my new phone, I'll have several updates ready for y'all.

I'm gonna guess it'll be by the 20th that I start the uploads & I'll most likely mass post 3-5 chapters since y'all had to wait.

Anyway, thank you to everyone who's waiting patiently.

Guess what...

My new phone will be here this weekend!!!

You know what that means right?

NEW UPDATES!!!

Curiosity Killed... The Dog will have several chapters posted on Monday night to make up for this whole months missing chapters.

I also received a msg on A03 that chapters 8-11 are uploaded weird. I'll work on getting those fixed & an extremely grateful for the person who brought it to my attention.

I'm super excited to get this story going again!

Curiosity Killed... The Dog?

After an unfun 2 weeks without a phone... I've got a new one!!! Figured I'd start y'all off with an extra long chapter for the wait. You can read it on...

A03

WTTPD

FFN

I'll be updating all the chapters to dokuga on Monday.

Preview:

As soon as Kagome had gone down the well, Sesshomaru began his assault. A quick turn to the left had Inuyasha dodging a swipe of claws and he realized he let his thoughts get away with him. He needed to focus.

"Why the Miko remains loyal to you, when you can't show the same courtsey is beyond this one." Sesshomaru had been waiting for this. His disgrace of a half-brother had built up quite the list of offenses toward the Miko, and while she wasn't inclined to put the whelp in his place... Sesshomaru had no problem with it. In fact, he reveled in it.

Curiosity Killed... The Dog?

Chapter 21 is up! Read it on Ao3, FFN, & WTTPD

Preview:

"Your lack of discipline is astounding." Sesshomaru's voice snapped him out of his musings just to piss him off more. "This One wonders how you managed to keep your humans alive."

"You sayin I can't protect my pack?" Sure he could use some training, but it's not like he was a novice! He'd been fighting pretty much every day of his life just to survive. What the hell did Sesshomaru know?!

"You have proven in the past to be unable to keep alive those in your care. It is not completely out of the realm of possibility that the same fate should be fall your current humans."

Curiosity Killed... The Dog?

Update time!!! I don't even remember writing this tbh 😅, pretty sure it was one I wrote after a day or two of no sleep lol. Anyway, I hope y'all enjoy it. We're gonna call it a ramble chapter.

The next update after this will be a long chapter with some action in it!

Anyway check it out on Ao3 FFN and WTTPD

Preview:

She would never be as good as Kikyo. Inuyasha had made it VERY clear over the years that, in his eyes, she simply didn't compare. Kikyo was powerful, skilled, beautiful, poised...

Kagome was loud, untrained, brash, and too educated for the men of that time to appreciate. She was an oddity no matter where she was. In the past, she was the oddly dressed Miko that knew too much and spoke strangely. In the future she was a liar who had everyone convinced she was disease ridden and an awful student.

Once, when she was a naive fifteen year old child, she thought that she would make a life with Inuyasha by her side. But as the years went by she learned that she could never hold his heart. He has given it away fifty years before she ever showed up in his life.

Curiosity Killed... The Dog?

It's time for this week's update!!! Tried my hand at a little action scene. Let me know what you guys think of it! 💬 🤔

You can read it on Ao3 WTTPD or FFN

Preview...

Without stopping to think of the consequences, Kagura let loose a flurry of wind attacks, hoping one would cut that smirk right off of her smug little face. "Stop this Kagura! I have no idea what you're even talking about!"

"LIAR!" Finally one of her attacks hit. Kagura relished in the painful scream that ripped through the Miko's throat. It was almost as satisfying as the scent of her blood in the air.

Soon, Kagura would eliminate her once and for all and once she was gone, nothing would stand in the way of her gaining that which she desired only less than her freedom itself.

Curiosity Killed... The Dog?

See end for preview...

So this week's update is almost done. Unfortunately, next week's update may be a little late. I'm in the process of switching jobs after being forced to deal with some... unacceptable & at times illegal things at my previous job.

I'm going from getting home at 4am to going into work at 4am. And since I'm still getting better job offers, there's a possibility I may not stay at my rebound job. It's not something I think I'll enjoy doing long term. So it'll possibly be yet another schedule change.

Needless to say, my brain is not braining.

On top of that, my roof is being redone, my attic being rebuilt, & insulation put in my house this week. The workers are awesome, but they were here 14 hours a day ahead of schedule so I'm exhausted. 🙃

That's not including the random stressers this week...

2 of my kids are in high school. Yesterday there was a 💣 threat. Today there was an active 🔫 threat. (Everyone is safe & no threat was found)

I had a double blow out the day before my youngest son's birthday, causing us to have to delay celebrating till idk when because I had to fix my car.

My husband's dog (who's already old and sick) got a REALLY nasty skin tear right on his spine that we think caused nerve damage. So we now have to get the money together to get him put down, per vet recommendations (we've seen 4).

BUT on a good note...

My son, who's never played baseball in his life, made the freshman varsity baseball team!! (I'm so happy for him but the price tag is worse than football was 🤦)

So ya... All in all, I've got a LOT going on. The goal is to get Choices pt 2 up on Saturday, then the other two chapters updated in two weeks. Here's a sneak peek at the next chapter!!!

~~Preview~~

While the children continued to discuss their growing worries, a sudden shift in the wind caught Sesshomaru's attention. It was an unnatural shift that made him narrow his eyes in contemplation. After a few minutes of focusing his senses he heard it.

The Mikos screams.

Without a word, Sesshomaru stood and rushed toward the bone eaters well. The scent of the Miko's blood began to waift through the air and Sesshomaru let out a growl of irritation.

He should've gone and waited at the well. He KNEW Inuyasha was unreliable and that once he took off, he probably wouldn't show back up on time. He KNEW the Miko had just as many enemies as she has friends. Enemies that would seize the chance to catch her alone and off guard. Not only was her life in danger, her secret could be exposed! Sesshomaru wasn't so naive to dismiss the possibility of devastating consequences should someone learn of her true origins. The chaos that would ensue should time travel be proven a reality was unimaginable.

He had to hurry. He needed to set things right. It was his fault she was in trouble because he stupidly depended on the half-breed to keep his word. After what felt like an eternity, but was more likely two or three minutes, he made it to the clearing. He knew he needed to be prepared for the Miko to be injured... But what he saw as he walked through the trees had him seeing red.

Curiosity Killed... The Dog?

I forgot to make a post about this week's update 🥴

It's an EXTRA long chapter because there will NOT be an update this coming Saturday. (My new job decided to schedule me 9 days straight 🤦 I will not be off until Sunday of NEXT week) So there's not going to be much time for writing this week.

But as you can see, the romance & action are about to pick up. We are still on schedule to get this story done by December, so I'm happy.

Anyway, please lmk what y'all think! Multiple POVs & fighting scenes aren't my strong suit, but I gave it my best effort!

>>>>>>>>💜<<<<<<<<

On a random note ... Anyone have any recommendations for a book or series to read? Not FanFics, but actual books (or graphic novels). Subjects I'm interested in are: Feudal Japan, Witchcraft/Magic, Cryptids/Mythology, Viking Era, and/or Native Americans (pre colonization)

Genres I enjoy: Horror, Mystery, Psychological Thriller, Adventure, Drama (I prefer romance to be the sub plot unless the story is very well written)

Booktok keeps circling back to the same 6 series😑

>>>>>>>>💜<<<<<<<<

Anyway... You can read the newest chapter on Ao3, FFN, or WTTPD

>>>>>>>>💜<<<<<<<<

Preview:

Icy cold splinters of fear worked their way down her spine and her instincts, as weak as they were, were screaming at her to run. A predator had just arrived.

With dread creeping into the place her heart should have been, Kagura slowly turned her head just enough to visually verify what she already knew. She recognized that aura the moment it brushed against hers. She also recognized the fury and possessiveness laced within it.

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. 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.