Chapter Text
A warm pastel yellow draped against the surfaces of the white and crimson furnished house. Lamps on every desk, each unattended to by the home’s occupants as they illuminated the room like day, despite the inky blackness waiting outside each lazy curtained window. A gentle, cold breeze brushed through an aperture near the entrance, dancing around each obstacle before engulfing itself around something it could not avoid.
An animatronic as warm as the lights laid on the ground without movement, his coffee colored limbs curled up against his stomach as if the involuntary slumber he was in caused anguish. His expression was tight, twitching in restlessness as he began to stir. His legs relaxed from being pulled up to his chest, now sprawling out as they mindlessly tried to feel more comfortable. Instead, this brought a spark of consciousness that rippled into pure panic.
The withering man shot up to a sit with a second wind for life, sharp gasps ripping into his artificial lungs. His hand darted to his chest, clutching it to ease his beating heart while sweat dripped from his face. His eyes were wide, threatening tears that never promised to fall. Instead, they stalked his lower eyelids, waiting for reality to give them another reason to spill. That reason did not come.
His hand loosened from his chest, slight hitches in breathing came with his recognition of calmness, seeing the still room that was familiar to him moments before…”moments”? Minutes? Maybe it had been hours. His eyes lazily followed the room with ghostly hallucinations of himself walking through each room just a while before everything had gone to shit. When he focused on the last place he stood, he realized he was sitting in the very same spot.
Without hesitation, his head snapped to his left where the windows sat. This was where the space in dimensions were, a ripple he had grown to sense like second nature. It was no longer there. He couldn’t feel the stitching of reality where it once was, and it pulled his expression downward with disappointment.
“Damn it, ´must have gotten smart.” He muttered under his breath, his teeth gritting with defeat. Truly, he probably shouldn’t try to trespass into that pocket dimension again, he had met the fatal consequences already.
His head suddenly jerked forward with a hiss escaping him, a sudden spike of pain bled through his systems, and his hands latched onto the root of the problem. The back of his head was throbbing, like he had just gotten the most botched lobotomy in the world. It burned throughout the metal and wiring, yet nothing felt damaged, and his systems reported no abnormalities…but that was the issue, nothing was said to be wrong. He knew that damn Sun had put something in his skull, and his systems couldn’t even figure out what. It was like having a virus stir inside of you for years before symptoms occur, but these symptoms were making themselves known. Aching soreness, sudden fatigue, his eye bags felt much heavier than before, which said a lot.
Amidst his thoughts, his theories and ideas, his left hand had placed itself back on the wooden floor, and caught a thin-paper material in between two of his fingers, as small as a coupon. Eyes followed with the touch, slowly picking up the rectangular, crumpled-up piece of paper. He knew for a fact this wasn’t here before.
He unfolded the wrinkles with curiosity with his mechanical fingers, his right hand still tending to the back of his head. His eyes squinted to read the scratched up print plastered in caramel and red colors. It showed candles and drinks, strongly resembling a traditional bar, but a little fancier. The text read:
“DRIFTER’S BAR | OPEN THURSDAY 8PM-12PM”
This was only the smaller text under a much larger font that seemed like a foreign language, but nothing like a language on earth. It looked like a bunch of random shapes, but all languages were technically just a bunch of shapes. This was far more geometrical, with a lot less curves than most vernaculars. There was more writing with those same symbols on the bottom, but even the translated version didn’t make much sense to him. They seemed like coordinates, but they were relative to “sections” ,“quadrants”, and something about “The White Lines”.
He sat there for a minute, thinking to himself while his hand continued to push against the back of his head. He was pulled from his thoughts when he saw the lamps around growing dimmer…because the sky was getting brighter. Thursday had come.
“Shit.” He murmured to himself, getting back up to his feet and stuffing the paper into his pocket. The metal family that lived here would likely wake up any time now, and he couldn’t stick around to find out when. He used a nearby wall to keep his balance, his body was much more sore than he initially thought. His grunts lead the sounds of zapping and clicks that came with his arm. There was a small panel that opened up, giving him a transparent, orange screen he could control just with his fingertips. After some scrolling and searching, a portal opened in front of him just a few inches away. He pushed himself off the wall, stumbling through it.
Loud clanking and crashing shot through the portal before it zipped shut, taking the noise with it. The animatronic had fallen against his metal desk, and slumped over onto the ground. The aching in his head and body had become overwhelming, sending him into a nap.