Chapter Text
Every day the Blacksite’s halls change, but the creatures within obey the same rules. Each grueling day takes on a strict routine of learning and applying the counters to each hostile thing in those walls.
You dance that routine well.
Not perfectly—you’d be out and free if you were a perfect thing—but well enough to make real progress. That morning you march into a submarine with three others. You recognize one of their faces, maybe. Something in the way they manage a smile makes you wonder if you’d had a good day together.
The other two introduce themselves when the submarine doors shut, and your name falls strange and half-forgotten from your tongue. The two seem acquainted with each other; friends, maybe. You wonder if they’re prison buddies, or became friends after getting yoinked by Urbanshade.
There are hundreds of expendables. You don’t make much of an effort to get too close to anyone. Sometimes people stop showing up; they stop being revived, you assume. You’re not sure what happens to those ones. Some people stick together. All the faces blend together just as much as the days. It’s harder to focus on your own survival when worrying too much about someone else.
Despite the friendliness of exchanging names, the conversation is lacking as the submarine moves. What is there to talk about? Hobbies from the past? Family? Reasons for incarceration, or worse yet, insistence of innocence? That was just depressing. Urbanshade has wrung you all dry of your social skills.
You replay the last day in your head to keep your mind busy. There was a grand room with a beautiful view out into the open water, and a mangled shark. Now that you think about it, you’re not sure how much time passes between death and revival into a new workday. Time passes, not that it matters.
The submarine breaches. You all step out into the slice of Blacksite, and you take a deep breath of stale air. You may not recognize the people with you well, but they’re all acquainted with how things work.
The entrance is bright, but past the first ten rooms, the Blacksite’s electricity is iffy at best. Your eyes are just barely done adjusting to the dark when the lights flick back on, and then they flicker again, but stay on.
“Anglerfish?” one of your teammates says, half-question and half-warning.
You hesitate. The game of the Blacksite has its rhythm, and you count the seconds after the flickering. They don’t flicker again. The ground quivers, but is it the building settling, or something far away drawing closer?
“False—” someone begins. But you and that half-familiar companion raise your hands to signal for silence. You share a knowing glance, and you wonder if you look just as haunted as them. They look so much older than they should, in that moment. Their cheeks are hollow and eyes sunken and there’s an almost-absence of light behind their eyes that signals they’re anything more than an organism reacting to stimuli.
Under the rush of the endless ocean around those halls, you hear a groan. It starts so low you feel it hum up through your boots and into your bones.
“Chainsmoker,” you say. One of your teammates lunges for the nearest locker when the thumping starts.
You risk waiting, timing your movement, and you glance down the three-pronged hallway. You back up to the lockers against the walls. The rest of the people in the room cease existing to you: You find an empty locker and throw yourself inside.
Out of habit, you hold your breath. Chainsmoker shoots past like a cannonball. The tangled mass of its body whips across the locker and you hold the doors shut from the inside, fingers cramping against sharp metal not suited for it. Your pulse thuds in your ears and you only exhale once it’s gone. The locker feels cramped around you, and you find your hands and the back of your neck sweaty when you stumble out.
One locker hasn’t opened. Purple light leers out at you, and the other two realize just as you do.
You wrench the doors open mechanically and hands reach in alongside yours. The void-mass pulls at the struggling tangle within its hold. You punch one of its eyes. It’s not a strong throw, but no creature appreciates it. Its grip goes slack.
They’re freed, albeit scratched up. It’s not good to be hurt so early on, and you inform them as much, to their displeasure. Their friend slings an arm over them and you all continue. Red soaks into their uniform where the void-mass punctured skin.
About forty doors later, a vent opens.
You know this part of the game, too. It comes just the same as the anglers. As much as Urbanshade hates him, they work with him, and in turn, the Blackside has accepted his presence as part of its bones.
Like clockwork, the first thing that hits you is the smell of diseased fish. It sits heavy in the air. You’ve been here enough times to brace yourself, but your breath hitches involuntarily.
One of the duo lagging behind pulls their shirt up to cover their nose, and masks it as a cough.
“Welcome!” Sebastian Solace drawls. Even slouching, he is towering as ever, and his head sways as he surveys each person in turn as they pull themselves up. “You all know the drill, eh? Holding yourselves together out there?”
His voice is glottal and slow. He has his routines, just like you all. He idly brushes his greasy, hacked-cut hair back behind one of his fins as he watches your group.
You all pool your documents together. He leans low to see what you’ve got, body creaking to support his movement. He is massive. You can’t not think about his leviathan presence over you every second you’re in the shop. His breathing is slow and carefully measured when he gives you a number, but the corners of his beak-lips curl up, betraying his greed.
You all drift to his tail to see the day's inventory. It’s always strange, being so close to this colossal thing, all muscle from the waist down that could kill someone if swung right. You know better. He’s harmless in polite company, and the room is too small for him to move his lower half quickly. Why kill someone with his ill-suited body when he has a gun? You consider a hand-crank flashlight, and glance back to your team for agreement.
“No medkits today?” One of your teammates asks, wry amusement in their tone. The injured one among you looks down at scratches and burns along their arms. They scratch at the back of their hand, where the beast’s digestion ate away at the top layer of skin there.
Sebastian’s tone tips into airy mockery. “Aw, I’m so sorry, but no. Did you get a booboo?”
You roll your eyes and kneel to take the light. As you unclasp it from his tail harness, you get a good look at the irritated scales underneath. His skin is raw and pink. The worst has been bandaged over. You smell the faint sweetness of rot and disinfectant and swallow to clear the taste of it from your mouth.
You could’ve sworn that when you first met Sebastian, he was a more vibrant blue, and did not have those patches of flaky, dehydrated white across his body. Your gaze falls to the floor, where scales have rubbed off him entirely and litter the ground.
The Blacksite is a lonely, sick place. Are his wounds infected? You’ve never lived long enough to know what the environment can do to untreated sores.
“Admiring the goods?” Sebastian asks.
You startle out of your trance and straighten up, flashlight clutched in hand. He holds out a claw expectantly. Your teammate pays with your combined documents. He leafs through, fins flicking in thought as he counts, and nods in satisfaction. Were his hands always so bony?
You, at least, know the sweet nothing of death between expeditions. Sebastian, as far as you know, does not have the luxury of a break.
“What day is it?” you ask.
He looks displeased at your attempt at conversation. “What? Huh? I don’t know, probably…” he pauses then, head tipped up in thought. He taps his chin and his mouth purses shut. “Do I look like the right guy to ask?” he settles on snipping back.
You shrug. “...just wondering.”
“We’ve been here a while,” one of the duo says softly. “Um. I don’t know. Weeks?” And their weary companion nods in agreement.
Sebastian scratches idly at his jaw. Some scales flake off. You catch irritated, raw skin as his head tilts. “Sounds about right. A few weeks. A little over a month, I’d say. Why so curious? Starting to get sick of it?” He grins at the end. “So am I. So hurry up and buy something so I can do what I’m here for.”
How many times have you died? You step back to let the others examine his wares, lost in your own thoughts. A SPR-INT injection is purchased. How many days has it been? How many weeks, really? How long passes between death and revival? Your life isn’t your own.
Eventually your group is done. You wave Sebastian goodbye as you all file out.
“Until next time!” he calls.
You’re placed in front, being the light-bearer. So when the next room lacks power, it is your brave duty to make sure nobody trips and falls into a squiddle.
You march into that dark fearlessly. The squiddles aren’t much of an issue, but it’s now your sole duty to keep an eye out for the others nevertheless. You keep the light down and sway it from side to side slowly, as you pass from room to room, minding obstructions or pitfalls. Which is why you don’t look behind you.
When the screaming starts, you wheel around on your heel—casting a light over a dark looming shape against one wall that writhes in the light—and your light lands on a wall-dweller kicking your injured companion down. Its face plates are open and pulled back to allow its jaw to extend fully.
Your light hits it just as it rips its head upwards, taking a mouthful of gore with it.
It’s over quickly. The wall-dweller is spooked by being seen but the damage is done—it bounds back the way it came on misshapen legs. You follow it with your light for a moment, before letting it fall upon the corpse left behind.
Against your humanity, exhausted relief washes over you. The gouge in the corpse’s throat is new, but the cuts in their clothes aren’t. It’s your injured party member. Your weakest link, gone. It was bound to happen.
And then you feel a dull dread. Your pulse thuds in your throat and you glance up at that poor soul’s friend, shaken.
Friends or not, death is inevitable down here. They look down at the body, and their lip quivers like they want to say something, but they don’t. Past the camaraderie found in the depths, there is a grave weariness. Tension tightens their shoulders but a grim acceptance settles on their face.
There’s nothing else to do. You continue.
Your companion dies four rooms later to a candlebearer.
It’s your fault. You froze when you saw it. Your companion shoved you out of the way, through the door, and they were so close to escaping close behind.
It was not a sacrifice.
They did not want to die.
Anyways. It’s just the two of you, you and one half of a two-person team, now.
You stumble onwards, thrown off your game. The room numbers blur together.
A Painter-hacked turret shoots you in the leg, because of course it does. It hurts to walk.
You offer your light to your teammate. You lag behind. Who’s the weakest link now, you think to yourself.
At about room 70-something, the door opens and you come face-to-face to a long hall. At one side is a window. Something whispers sweetly in your ears.
Across the hall, Painter appears where the door number should be, smiling brightly. Your head’s fuzzy from blood loss and pain, but even with that, you can see its squinty-eyed smile.
There is something in the window, sickly green, meandering closer to the glass.
“Missed you once! Maybe this time it’ll stick?” Painter asks. Your companion swears at it, but it’s already gone, replaced by a timer.
They slam their fists to the door and kick it, but it remains unyielding. You duck your head. You try to close your eyes. It never works with her around.
Your leg burns.
“Look at me,” Eyefestation says. You do. You try not to, and your leg gives out.
You whimper when your knees hit the ground, and double over in pain. You stare at the floor with stinging eyes. Eyefestation hums in displeasure. As if possessed, your head lolls up, burning as you fight it and fail. You look at her.
Her slitted pupils tighten in recognition. She’s killed you before, and so recently, too. She can do it again. Her will pools into you and it burns, worse than your leg. Does it hurt more than last time? You don’t remember.
You’re being grabbed, pulled. You writhe like a worm left behind on a sidewalk after rainfall. Your gaze pulls up to her in all her glory, brilliant and shining.
“You poor thing.”
Something pricks your leg and lighting shoots through your veins. You gasp as if Painter’s shot you again as your mind clears. You cover your eyes with your arm and follow your companion blindly. The door opens and you fall through.
It shuts behind you.
You don’t like Eyefestation.
The air is heavy. SPR-INT sings in your veins, and your heart thunders uncomfortably hard. You take the lead, neurotic on too-much-energy, bounding through door after door with them close on your heels.
For the time being, you are alive.
The adrenaline rush crashes.
In the next room you’re lightheaded and the nausea sets in. The room is vast, a dark void in the middle criss-crossed with bridges. You lean over the rails and catch your breath. The darkness beyond swims, and you shut your eyes tight while the worst passes.
Your companion rubs your shoulder as you pant. You can’t tell if it’s exhaustion or your body keeling over from raw adrenaline. It ebbs away. Everything hurts. Your muscles tighten, crying protest to further movement.
You look down at blood matting your leg and grimace. There’s an unsightly red trail back the way you came. “I’ll live,” you croak. It's a lie, but it's the thought that counts. They squeeze your shoulder, you add a quiet thank you, and shy away from the touch. Your skin tingles; is it from Eyefestation’s radiation, or just nerves?
Can’t stand around forever. You swallow and straighten up. Pain throbs in the back of your skull. You step onto the central bridge, keeping a hand on the railing. Your legs are weighed by lead.
Looking at the pit in the middle of the room makes you dizzy. The lights don’t breach the darkness, and dimly, you wonder what on earth is under it all. Your eyes still burn from Eyefestation, so you blink hard, but it doesn’t help.
The lights flicker. The headache in the base of your skull intensifies. You taste iron on your tongue.
“It’s an angler,” you mutter. The ground hums. “Go.”
Your companion tugs you along and your leg nearly gives out again. You push them. “I’m not lasting long like this,” you point out. Life is all contradictions. Death is the end, but not. You assure your teammate you’re fine in one breath and doomed in the next. You’re delaying the inevitable, you know, because these situations are commonplace in your life now. What a waste of SPR-INT.
They let go and back up. “Sorry,” they say, and bound across the bridge to the next door.
Behind you, a door opens. You brace yourself on the railing and turn to see your death.
Everything in the Blacksite has a counter. You hide in lockers, you be patient and don’t get shot in the knee, you look away.
Even Pandemonium has rules it follows, lines it does not cross unless certain triggers are hit to draw its attention.
You have ticked the box to piss it off royally, for the sin of standing in its line of sight. Its eyes light up.
You do not want to feel those teeth in your flesh. Smoke and biomass billows against the door frame and floor as Pandemonium tears forward. You’ve died to it before, and it hurt the whole time it tore you to shreds.
You hoist yourself over the railings, squeeze your eyes shut, and throw yourself into the dark.
You lose all sense of what’s up and down, but you hope your neck is broken painlessly when you do hit the ground. Don’t you deserve that, at least? Not a throat gouged out by a wall-dweller, not the teeth of an anglerfish, but a quick, painless death after all that stress? You take each breath labored but deep, ready for it to be your last.
Nothing happens.
You fall, and fall, and keep falling. Air rushes by. It’s cold. The Blacksite is frequently slightly chilly, but this has crossed into the realm of a new low. You open your eyes and see nothing. Out of animal reflex you twist in the dark, trying to find which direction you’re falling from. Maybe you'll graze a wall, feel it burn past your fingertips? Wind whistles past your ears.
It’s very cold. That’s all your senses latch onto. You kick out to try turning yourself what you think is upright, and reach out into the dark. The bare skin of your hands stings.
There is something in the dark with you.
Everything in the Blacksite has its counter.
Except for the freak-thing in front of you. He’s standing upright in front of you, no matter which way you contort yourself, tall and slender and impossibly colder than his surroundings. The faintest shade of sickly desaturated green in the black, contrasted only by pallor eyes.
Lopee himself is the counter. You have broken the rules of the game, somehow.
He watches you fall, and moves across nothing toward you. Vertigo pulls nausea up your throat when you attempt to focus on him.
You can count on one hand the number of times you’ve met Lopee. Mr. Lopee, if one is being fancy.
Met, as if you in some detail-bled zone of existence is meeting someone at all. He snaps up those who lag behind and makes sure no expendables fall too far behind. Reaper of those who lag behind and, as you quickly realize, those who slip between the cracks, as well.
He says nothing as he glides-walks forwards. You’re not sure if his legs are moving at all, actually. It’s hard to get a good look at him, but he’s human. Humanoid. One of his eyelids droops and half-covers the eye. Those eyes of his are his brightest features, but are hollow and sunken, like those of a corpse.
There’s nowhere to run, and how would you, and why would you? You know what’ll happen. For the first time, you aren’t blindly looking for a way back through empty halls, or trying to evade him. The only thing that exists here beside yourself is him. Against your better judgement, you open your mouth. Your heart races in your throat, but you find your voice. “Lopee?”
He does not stop. His expression remains unreadable in the dark, and you don’t think it moves when you say his name. It’s so cold, the back of your throat stings. He reaches out with his left hand. A cane is politely hooked over the right.
You don’t fight it. You are an undignified thing. You did this to yourself, after all. He is a stranger, but you know enough to know it’s useless to fight. He’s always caught you before. You let yourself be caught again.
A death-cold hand wraps around your wrist. It is worn and dry.
A wall of sound crashes into you, bright and buzzing like a live wire. The air is sucked out of your lungs. He leans close and light sharpens, too-saturated in the dark, sending a blinding migraine into your cranium. He smiles. It’s a human smile, nothing objectively unnatural about it as it stretches across his face, but the way his lips peel back to flash all his teeth reminds you of an agitated chimp in a zoo.
The white noise reaches a crescendo—
And you collapse to the floor. Solid ground. You gasp involuntarily and sit up, shivering, freezing cold. The hair on the back of your neck stands on-end. The migraine dissipates just as harshly as it appeared.
You’re unharmed. You sit back with a grunt and stretch your wounded leg out, but other than that, nothing hurts. “Hello?” you call.
You’re back in the grand, cavernous room, with the bridges. It’s dark and your head’s still clearing but you know you’re there when you crawl forward and feel the cold metal railings. You use them to hoist yourself to your feet. Your leg stings and a hiss escapes through clenched teeth.
You examine your hands, then your ears and the cartilage of your nose, but you’re fine. He didn’t leave you with a single mark.
This isn’t normal. Not that you've read Lopee’s document to tell you how it’s supposed to go. But every other time you’ve run into him, or more accurately he’s run into you, he burns with how frigid he is. It leaves frostbite on your fingertips and a pain behind your eyes that lingers the rest of the day.
You’re just a bit chilly. And even stranger: You’re alone.
Where is your teammate?
He's supposed to reunite you with your team. So where are they?
You call their name into the dark. Using the rails to guide you, you cross the room and into the next. It’s so quiet, you hear the blood rushing in your ears.
In the next room, you step in something sticky. You look down. The pit swallowed light, so this isn't so bad to see in by comparison, and your eyes adjust.
You’re stepping in what remains of your teammate, gutted out from inside a locker. The doors are clean off their hinges nearby.
Pandemonium doesn’t play nice with lockers. Your gaze slides past the gruesome scene, up to the room beyond, and you step over the remnants of your fellow person without looking back.
You make it another five rooms, and then Painter guns you down, howling laughter all the while.
Your vision fuzzes. Its laughter dies down as you die.
“Oh, that actually got you. Sorry.”