Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“GO, GO FUCKING GO -” Cheated screams, yanking on Broken’s arm to get him past the corner faster. The shorter man follows, stumbling and unsteady on his weak leg. The only thing spurring him on seems to be the sound of wet, thumping footsteps behind them. Gurgling moans grate on their ears, and Cheated risks a glance back.

The Wretches, as the journal they had found three levels ago had called them, don’t turn the corner as much as they crash through it, the force of their disgusting bodies crushing the stone and bending the pipes in their wake. Cheated holds back a curse only because he’s too terrified to waste breath.

Further in front of them, Paranoid is booking it down the dark hallway at a frankly astonishing speed. Cheated bares his teeth, exhausted, not in the mood to appreciate it.

Fuck Paranoid and his stupidly long legs. He’s going to leave them behind, isn’t he? It would be the only reasonable thing to do, leave the two weakest links to their gory fate and escape safe and sound. The noises behind them are slowly getting louder. Closer. At this point, he’s all but dragging Broken to get him to move. The other man’s breaths are coming out as wheezing whimpers.

For a hysterical moment, Cheated considers letting go of his hand. Shoving him away. Letting natural selection run its merciless course.

“COME ON! OVER HERE!!!” He’s snapped out of the traitorous thought as Paranoid’s shrill voice cuts through the air like a razor. The taller man is holding open the door of what looks to be an elevator, a button inside already glowing faintly.

It only takes them a few seconds to throw themselves into the elevator, where Paranoid immediately begins mashing the ‘close’ button feverishly. The Wretches approach with terrifying speed, and Cheated squeezes his eyes shut, certain beyond certainty that they weren’t fast enough, that the doors won’t close in time, that he’ll feel jagged claws and teeth tearing his flesh apart at any second -

And then, there is the loud thump of solid flesh against metal doors. The floor shudders, and then begins moving. The wet footsteps and groans have gone silent, and all he can hear are the heaving breaths of three men in a cramped elevator. He dares to take a peek. Paranoid’s eyes are almost bulging out of their sockets, and his lips are pressed together in a thin, pale line. A few of his dark braids are hanging over his face like tassel curtains. Broken is slumped against the wall, ragdoll limp, his narrow shoulders trembling between gasps for air.

Cheated swallows, throat dry, some of the vice tight tension releasing its grip on his heart. Laughs a little, hollow and raspy, but stops when the sound makes his head ache.

The elevator is small, the air warm and a little humid. Silent with anticipation for several long, long minutes. It’s somewhere between a relief and a fresh sense of dread when it comes to a stop and the doors slide open soundlessly.

There is a pause as three pairs of eyes meet in silent argument over who will be the first to step out and brave the unknown. Of course, after a quick round of rock-paper-scissors, Cheated ends up the canary in the proverbial coalmine. Of fucking course.

The level they’ve arrived in looks like a huge ballroom with clean, white marble flooring. A glimmering chandelier hangs from the ceiling, casting tiny prisms of light over the wallpaper and the dozens of doors spread out all around the room. Underneath the chandelier is a single table with what looks like a board game set up, though it’s difficult to make out any details at a distance. Soft jazz is playing from some unseen source.

More importantly, there are no signs of horribly mutated monsters.

He exhales slowly, pretends his hands aren’t shaking. “Looks clear,” he mutters over his shoulder. Paranoid darts out and surveys the room like a hawk. Dashes silently between doors, listening intently at each one, even sniffing the air like a bloodhound before he seems to deem it acceptably safe and rush off to the next. It’s almost funny, but Cheated is too drained to laugh. Broken shuffles up to his side, limping slightly. Slips his hand into Cheated’s, tacky with half-dried blood splatters. He can't be bothered to pull away.

“Twenty-six,” Paranoid reports when he’s completed his lap around the room. There is an edge to his voice that Cheated at this point recognizes as tightly restrained terror, held back and smothered by fraying threads. “Twenty-six doors. The music is louder behind seven of them. Nine are definitely locked. Four don’t have hinges, so I doubt they open. One isn’t a door at all, just a realistic painting. Eight are -”

He trails off, eyes going wide as he stares at the elevator they just came out of.

Or rather, Cheated realizes with a sinking feeling, the elevator which is no longer there. The wallpaper is smooth, perfectly innocent looking as if there weren’t a whole pair of doors there just a moment ago. He can feel his eye twitching.

“Well,” Broken murmurs, fiddling with the strap of his backpack, “we didn’t want to go back to the pipes anyway, did we?”

“It’s still an option that’s been taken away from us!” Cheated growls. Anger is rising in his throat, bitter and familiar. “We’re just - every fucking time we do something, it goes wrong! We have to fight our way through bullshit monsters just to get over some nightmare bridges and into nightmare basements of nightmare skyscrapers, we sit in a random ass car for a moment of peace, pass out and wake up in the middle of trench fucking warfare -” He’s yelling at this point, Broken is cringing away and Paranoid is snarling, but he can’t bring himself to care. “- and who knows what kind of bullshit we’re gonna face here?!”

“Shut up, shut up!!” Paranoid hisses, grabbing his shoulder with sharp nails. “You’re going to attract something, do you want to get us killed?!”

“AND WHAT IF I DO?!”

Paranoid falls silent, stunned. Cheated’s teeth are bared in fury and his breaths are coming out ragged. “What if I want us to just die already?! Everything in this hellhole is out to kill us anyway, why prolong the fucking pain? Hell, why don’t we kill each other before anything else does? Might be less painful to just -”

“Are you insane?! We did not come this far just to give up and die before we even get to -”

“- if you think we’re ever going to be safe here, you’re a fucking -”

“- don’t you dare, don’t you even dare -”

They’re both screaming at this point, uncaring of what might be listening. Paranoid has grabbed Cheated by the front of his bomber jacket and is pulling him up onto his tippy toes, their faces so close they’re almost touching. Cheated’s nails are digging into Paranoid’s wrists, unsure if he wants to push away or hold him in place. There’s a wild look in the taller man’s eyes that almost makes Cheated think he might rip his throat out with his teeth. High off rage and adrenaline, he doesn’t think he would mind very much.

Then, a quiet sniffle breaks the air. “I’m sorry.”

They turn, and tears are rolling down Broken’s face, clumsily wiped away but replaced within moments. “I - this is all my fault, I’ve been -” He hiccups, choking a little on his words, “- b-been weighing you both down. I don’t want to - to die, but maybe you’d survive easier if I wasn’t… if I…”

He trembles before dissolving into ugly sobs. Curls in on himself like a pillbug, his bad leg shaking slightly under his weight. They had accidentally dropped his cane into the void on the bridge between skyscrapers three levels earlier. Might have been a few days ago. Weeks, more probably. Seems like an eternity.

Cheated groans. “Oh, don’t you start with that shit,” he mutters, the roaring inferno in his chest tempered by the cold sting of genuine worry. His head throbs with pain. It almost makes him angrier. “This whole world is fucked up so bad, you couldn’t make it worse if you tried.”

“Nobody’s dying,” Paranoid says, still wild eyed. Shaking; from adrenaline or fear, he can’t tell. “We need to stick together, we can’t be alone here. Alone only leads to madness, and madness leads to…” He trails off, looking vaguely sick.

Cheated remembers what that journal said about how Wretches are created. Remembers hastily scrawled paragraphs about hunger, thirst, sleepless nights and aching loneliness. About bloodshot eyes and dissolving skin. He swallows his nausea and goes to put his arm over Broken’s shaking shoulders. It’s the most genuine comfort he can offer right now. He can tell any words he speaks will come out venomous.

A part of him wants to assure the smaller man that he didn’t mean it, that they’ll get through this hellscape together and that everything will turn out alright as long as they have each other. That they’ll make it back home if they just keep pushing forward.

He’s always hated liars, though.

Chapter Text

Opportunist is happy.

Really, he is.

The plane is warm and cozy, and the seats are more comfortable than any he’s ever seen on flights in the… Frontrooms, were they called? Ah, but the Frontrooms aren’t important anymore, are they? (He’s never getting back anyway.) This is his home now, and he’s grateful for it. So, so grateful.

The path to get to this safe haven had been long and treacherous. He has no idea how long he was stuck in those empty yellow halls with the buzzing lights and disgusting carpets, but it seemed long enough that he logically should have died from dehydration. Clipping through the floor like in a video game with poor collision mechanics only made things worse, and he was thrown head over heels into an infinitely stretching parking garage. It had been cold and wet, and he had gotten blisters from walking with damp shoes for so long.

There had been large crates scattered around at random points. While some of them were empty or filled with trash like broken glass (one had smelled like rotten meat and bodily waste), a few had thankfully contained useful supplies like food and drink, as well as a thin, three-pronged weapon he’s fairly sure was called a sai. Something Japanese. It didn't really matter what it was called, though. He had left it embedded in the flesh of a lumpy monster made of flailing arms and teeth (as he ran for his life). From there, time, as well as the sights around him, had gotten a bit blurry, bleeding together like watercolor paint.

He remembers a freezing cold desert, a dark aquarium where he was chased out by bright, grinning faces attached to nothing, and a landscape of cartoony rolling hills inhabited by incredibly violent stop-motion dolls. There had been more, he is fairly sure, but everything fades into a blur of dread and static whenever he tries to recall details.

(Why can’t he remember)

So, he doesn’t try anymore.

He has no idea how he found himself on the plane, but if he believed in God, he’d call it a blessing from the heavens.

Ha. Heavens. There’s a joke somewhere in there, he thinks.

Anyway, the plane is great! He’s not alone anymore, with many of the seats occupied by blank, faceless people of varying ages and shapes. Neighbouring passengers speak to each other occasionally, but their words are muffled and quiet, and Opportunist doesn't think he’d understand the language even if they spoke clearly. It doesn’t matter what they say, though. They never try to talk to him, and each of his attempts to reach out have been met with nothing but silent, eyeless stares. None of them acknowledged his attempts at cheerful socialization, his pleas for any, any of them to understand his situation, his screams of desperation and rage when he ran down the aisles for hours upon hours and was only met with further aisles and seats whose numbers stretched into the millions -

Ahem. Anyway.

Occasionally, the speakers will crackle with static and a voice will state that the plane is about to arrive at its destination. Which is nonsense, by the way. The view outside the windows never changes - it’s always the same endless expanse of blue, blue sky with a mass of clouds far below. The exit doors will unlock and the seatbelt signs will turn off, but none of the faceless passengers will move.

He’s tried opening the doors more than once, peeked through to see what lies beyond the plane. Once it was the rooms with the yellow wallpaper again (he had wanted to tear it off in strips after a few days there, Gilman might have been on to something). Once it was a dark, dark row of houses with shapes moving in the deepest shadows. Once it was a buzzing server room in awful disrepair. And once, it was a perfectly normal looking city street.

It had been a bright day, a slight chill drifting in through the door with the breeze. The roads and buildings were in good, if slightly worn condition. Trees were planted in those dumb cages on the edge of the sidewalk. He could have sworn he had smelled something like fast food on the air.

It looked normal. It looked familiar. Safe. Opportunist had wanted to go through the door and enter the city so badly it hurt.

But contemplation (not fear. Never fear, he wasn’t afraid, he wasn’t -) had frozen him in place for just a little too long. The door had closed automatically, and the seatbelt signs had lit up softly again.

Nothing to it. He had just gone back to wandering the aisles for a while. Have to keep moving, right? Staying in place for too long will just make you waste away. Muscle atrophy, and all that.

He didn’t think about the figures he had seen turning a street corner just as the door started closing. He didn’t think about their perfectly normal body proportions, matching his own. He didn’t think about the voices he had heard (couldn’t have heard), speaking something European-sounding.

(They didn’t have faces. They couldn’t have. It wasn’t possible that he had made eye contact the split second before the door shut in his face. He was alone, and he would always be alone, and he hadn’t thrown away his final chance to see a human being again -)

But the plane is great. Opportunist is safe.

Opportunist is happy.