Chapter Text
~ Approximately 20 Years Ago ~
The smell of artificial roses swirled through the warm, luxurious atmosphere of the recently built Color Café. This late in the night, its only inhabitants were the mansion’s servants.
“I appreciate your assistance, but I can take it from here,” Swatch, the recently appointed head-butler, insisted. He watched his fellow swatchling with an amused look as they finally relented, always eager to help.
“Have a good night, Boss!” They bid Swatch farewell, cheerfully taking their leave into the secluded servant halls with a quick bow. The click-clack of their shoes calmly faded away as Swatch resumed the task at hand, now alone.
The tables were scrubbed, the dishes were washed, the windowsills were dusted, the floors were mopped, the kitchen was sanitized—there was only one chore left to do, really. He saved the most dreary for last.
Swatch gingerly pulled the garbage bag out of its bin by the straps and swiftly tied it with expert precision, then repeated the same calculated steps with the other two. Once all the trash was taken out, he would finally be free to close for the night.
They had a pretty busy day today, and the fullness of the garbage bins reflected that. Still, the bags were no match for the mansion's well-built servants, and Swatch effortlessly carried the bags with him as he approached the servant corridors.
Due to the Color Café's proximity to the mansion entrance, it was quite far away from the dumpsters; her Majesty would not allow such an eyesore anywhere near public view. Additionally, her Majesty would surely be appalled if Swatch carried garbage through her prestigious halls, hence the discrete tunnels they took instead. The vast system of hidden halls allowed servants to freely travel throughout the labyrinthine mansion without disturbing guests. An innovative system indeed.
Though, Swatch found them a little drab. They were repetitive and easy to get lost in if one hadn't spent their whole life working under Queen. Perhaps they should request some directional signs; there were bound to be plenty of new folk looking for work now that the crisis was over and reconstruction had started.
That'll have to be a goal for tomorrow, he thought. It was getting quite late, and Swatch couldn't wait to join the other swatchlings in their shared quarters. No offense towards Her Majesty, but their rooms were far more inviting than these dull, purple hallways.
Their confident stride brought them towards their destination quickly. Swatch set the garbage bags onto the uneven floor, bringing his attention to the weathered door in front of him. After a little bit of searching through their many keys, Swatch placed the correct one into the lock and turned it with a satisfying click.
The back door squeaked angrily as Swatch pushed it open. As an area guests were never brought to, the mansion's back doors weren't in the best shape, though still perfectly functional.
The door's screech faded, and he was greeted by the fresh night air and distant sounds of the city, muffled by the mansion's looming presence. Swatch bent down to grab the bags, but paused when a new sound graced their ears.
It started with the subtle sound of crinkling plastic, but was abruptly cut short by the metallic thud of a dumpster lid. As Swatch turned around, he heard an awful scraping sound, like forks being dragged across a baking sheet. Then, silence.
Confused, Swatch left the door frame and cautiously stepped out onto the concrete floor. Presumably, the sound came from in or beside the dumpster, and seemed to have come from something alive.
“Hello?” Swatch called out, waiting for an answer.
Nothing responded.
They're probably just being irrational. It was almost certainly a maus looking for a late meal.
Swatch resisted shuttering at the thought. Even if he wasn't as terrified of the vermin as his coworkers, he wasn't exactly fond of maice. They were a bit too invasive and dirty for his liking, and not something he wanted to risk being, ugh, touched by.
Well, this maus was outside the mansion, so they technically wouldn't have to deal with it, right?
“You win this time, little maus,” Swatch said playfully, trying to hide their squeamishness at the thought of having to deal with the little pest. They turned back towards the doorway.
“H-HEY! NnN not A mO-mu-mauz!” a tiny indignant voice responded. Startled, Swatch whipped back around, but there were still no visible signs of life.
“Hello?” He asked, once again. Swatch slowly stepped forward. The voice had been high pitched, stumbling over every syllable…oh dear, that wasn't a child, was it?
“S-Stay Aaway!” They heard the voice again as they got closer to the dumpster. Swatch heeded their instructions, returning to the doorway. Now that he was paying closer attention, he realized that the darkner's voice was bitcrushed, as though they were sick. His concern only grew.
“May I ask what you're doing behind the mansion?” Swatch questioned the darkner. He really hoped they weren't a child—He didn't know how to or want to deal with that.
“I DoNT—I donT kNooow! WhERe? WaNT to…too gO home! So HunNngry….soo o cold…” they croaked out, voice deteriorating into static. Swatch's composure cracked a little. Yes, this was most definitely a child, a child who was probably sick, and cowering next to a dumpster.
Swatch's first thought was that this kid had most likely been displaced by the crisis. Adults were almost always the ones targeted, and many children had recently lost one or both of their parents. But, it had been over a month since the crisis ended, and this kid should've been taken into foster care already.
“What's your name, little one?” Swatch asked, trying to fish for information. The best they could do is get this mysterious child into the mansion so the authorities could take care of it.
“I dON’t KnooW w,” they squeaked out. What? Surely they had a name, didn't they? Swatch had just barely started their position as manager; they were not equipped to deal with a situation like this.
“That's…okay,” Swatch said. “We have food here in the mansion. And, it's very warm in here,” he suggested. There was a slight shuffling sound accompanied by a few more little scrapes against the concrete.
“NO!! CaN't!” They responded after a long pause of deliberation.
“Why not?”
“CAn't!” The darkner repeated, as though that clarified anything at all. Swatch was running out of ideas, and increasingly afraid the presumably homeless orphan was going to run away if he pushed them too hard.
“Is there anything I can help you with, little one?” Swatch glanced around at the open door, the empty street, and the dumpster the child was hiding behind as the silence grew. It took a while before he got an answer.
“Do Uu kNow we-WhEre 3vryone GONe?” They finally squeaked out.
“Pardon, Who?” Swatch said. Were they asking about their family?
“3veRy0n3!!” They said again, voice barely recognizable. “A-4rE-aRe Th3y rE e re#11 y..”
“…[dead…?]”
Swatch froze. That wasn't the child's voice. It was still a child's voice, in perfect clarity, and entirely unlike the shrill, nausally, and staticky voice they had been listening to.
The entire past year's worth of safety PSA's flicked through their mind. Stay in groups. Don't go out late at night. Never, under any circumstances, follow a disembodied voice, no matter what it promises, no matter how convincing it seems, no matter how painful its screams sound.
Computer worms. Sadistic man-eating mimics that hunted with stolen voices. Disgusting parasites that hijacked the host's brain while feeding on their insides, spreading as fast as a disease. A living nightmare that had never been seen on such a scale in the entire World Wide Web's history.
But, they were eradicated more than a month ago. Cyber City had finally triumphed, though at the cost of catastrophic losses of life and infrastructure. This couldn't be a computer worm, because Swatch would already be dead if it was.
He took a step toward the dumpster, then another.
“HeY! STay aWAy! STAY AWAY!!” The darkner desperately screamed. With such a long stride, Swatch only needed to take another step before they leered around the dumpster, finally catching a glimpse of what they had been speaking too.
Large glowing eyes stared up at them, accompanied by a pointed nose and dozens of tiny needle-sharp teeth. The thing produced an awful screech, assaulting Swatch's ears as it frantically scrambled away on far too many little clawed legs. A hairy white tail lashed behind its thin body as it skittered across the pavement, almost immediately swallowed by the darkness of the night.
Silence.
What? How? This shouldn't be possible. City officials had waited until long after the last reported sign of activity to declare the parasites extinct; there was no conceivable way they could miss one. But, there was no mistaking it. That was a living, breathing computer worm.
It was tiny, easily less than the length of their arm, and only a couple centimeters at its widest point. A maus probably weighed more than it. In a way, they had been speaking to a child, if worm larvae could even be counted as that.
Swatch took a deep breath, stepping away from the dumpster once more. They finally retrieved the three garbage bags from the doorway, and dropped them into the dumpster. Swatch spotted the morning's bags, which were chewed open, revealing a combination of plastic wrappers, wet coffee grounds, and cold ham cubes. Swatch let the lid shut with a decisive thud.
He returned to the door, double checking that it was locked properly. The obvious next step was to report what he had found, but Swatch doubted it would go anywhere. It was as frivolous as trying to find a single line of code in between millions more.
They'll still make a report, but, until it killed someone and could be traced, it would be as useless as a rumor. The best case scenario was that it died before it could get any bigger.
Its horrible eyes were still burned into Swatch's brain as they walked back through the corridors. What had it been planning? He knew these things were deceptively smart, but what could it have even gained from pretending to be a sickly child?
…Was it even pretending? It probably was alone, hungry, and cold. It really did have no family left, no species left. And, it had spoken with an actual voice, not mimicked clips, no matter how staticy it sounded.
Swatch dismissed their concern. It was a child, yes, but it was also a manipulative, carnivorous parasite. Anything it said was a lie, and it should have died with the rest of its insidious kind.
They feel no sympathy for it, and any other darkner would feel the same. No one would ever love something as vile as a computer worm.