Chapter Text
“…But Maybe We’re Dying .”
Dreams.
Dreams are weird, aren’t they?
They’re weird because, one second you’re laying in bed, and then another you’ve fallen into a trance, powerful enough to take away your consciousness.
You can tumble through your middle school hallway, like it’s going down instead of on the surface of the earth, you could eat, and eat, and eat, but still never be full, craving, your heart full of greed, your head fuzzy with desire, or you can find yourself in a place, in a time, in your memories, or more specifically, in your junior year of high school, dancing with the one who you let steal your heart.
The latter is where I found myself.
Around me the scene unfolds, the soft waltz music, the shuffle of my footsteps, and the graceful ones of Lou.
I look up at her face, and my heart thumps with yearning.
That’s how I could tell this was only a dream, or a mirage of longing if you must.
If it were real my heart wouldn’t yearn.
It would flutter.
Lou smiles, beautiful as ever, and my wistful emotions tripled in size.
The dancing gets slower as the song does too, the blurs of people around us coming into view, although, they don’t slow down.
Only me and Lou do.
I look back into her eyes, and they sparkle brown and hazel, as they always do.
But something’s off.
The dancing gets slower again, and my feet are barely moving at this point. I feel, odd like I shouldn’t be here, but where else should I be? I’m roused from my thoughts as Lou cups my head in her hands.
Gazing into my eyes, she whispers something unintelligible.
I frown slightly, “what?” I say tentatively.
She says the words again, slightly louder, this time, but I still can’t make out what she said.
My frown lines deepen, as I opened my mouth to ask “what?” Again, but my head snaps to the song of the music changing.
A song I recognized,
A song I love dearly.
Masquerade Suite: Waltz.
It was quite funny to me that although I had quit playing a string instrument years ago, my love for the song I could once play never wavered.
And then the whispering started.
The music picked up, and it went faster, faster, faster, and faster-
On and on in circles we went, the whispers tingling my ears.
I could feel Lou’s breath on my cheek and I wondered if the whispers were real, or if I was just imagining them out of nervousness.
‘Nervous?’ I thought to myself ‘why am I nervous? it’s just Lou…’ my thoughts trickled away as Lou turned my head back towards herself.
And then I knew.
‘She’s going to kiss me’
She did not, in fact, kiss me.
Instead she spun me around and our surroundings changed in a haze of smoke.
We suddenly were in an old subway car, one reminiscent to the ones I had ridden on when I was younger with my parents.
But it was completely empty. Dead of people.
Vacía.
The music of Masquerade Suite: Waltz’s volume amplified.
And the dancing got faster.
We spun, and spun, and spun some more, until I couldn’t tell if up or down was left or right.
And then I saw it.
The hole.
At the end of our train car was a gaping hole the size of a bicycle, which could easily fit a person inside.
I did not want to find out what happened if either of us fell.
And then the whispers decided to come back for round two.
Louder this time though.
And they were coming from Lou.
I turned my head back towards her and shook her.
Nothing.
Just her standing there, waltzing in circles with me in her arms, a blank stare, and the whispering.
And it was then I realized we were dangerously close to the edge of that hole.
“Hey, wake up Lou!” I shook her again “Lou! it’s me! Wake up!”
But she went right on waltzing, and whispering, and holding me tight (which I didn’t quite mind).
Suddenly her hands squeezed my shoulders tightly and she whispered something almost legible.
“Lou…” I said.
And then suddenly I was dangling over the edge.
The only thing keeping me from falling to my death was a weirdly dazed Lou, and that wasn’t much of a help.
Her grip kept slipping ever so slightly, which terrified me.
Because I was terrified of that hole.
“You-…Le-..Me-“ Lou said. I was only able to make out some of the words.
“Lou… if you have something to tell me…?” I murmured
And then Lou snapped back to reality and her gaze was no longer serene.
It was furious.
“YOU LEFT ME YOU-“
But she had taken her hands off of my shoulders, and as I realized what would come next, I cupped my hands around my mouth, and screamed as loudly as I could,
“IM SORRY”
And then I fell into the darkness of the pit, hoping she would be ok. Hoping the one I gave my heart to wouldn’t want me to take it back.
~. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . . ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ .~
I jerked awake, and gasped. “She was- no, that couldn’t have-…?” I mumbled.
“Hmm?” Aspen said as they turned over, half asleep.
“Lou…” I sobbed. May shot up from her position on the ground, and looked around frantically. She then, stopped when she saw me with tears running down my cheeks.
“Oh Veri…” she said scooting towards me. “What’s wrong?” I sniffled.
“I h-had a dream and Lou was there and then a train happened and she was mad and-“ I hiccuped and started crying again, and May hugged me tightly.
“Ok, just take some deep breaths, sounds like you just had a bad dream.”
We sat on the ground like that for a while, with me crying into May’s shoulder, recounting what happened in my dream.
Once I had told her everything, she just patted my shoulder and told me “It’s alright, we all have bad dreams sometimes Veri, don’t worry about it.”
I nodded and we ended up sitting there in silence for a while before May exhaled sharply and said, “Veronica.” We both turned to each other at the same time, and I realized that she was on the verge of tears. “Where the HELL ARE WE?”
I was taken aback by her sudden outburst, and use of “foul language” that I sat there stunned for about a minute before I started laughing.
This was not a laugh that one would laugh if you heard a cheesy joke, or saw one of those dumb cat memes, the laugh I laughed was one that you would be concerned about if I was reacting to something funny. In short, I was going into hysterics, and I was having trouble breathing, my throat was closing up and I couldn’t see anything through all of the tears running down my face.
“I have no fucking idea!” Is what I finally managed to force out, then I immediately started laughing again. I, eventually, got myself to calm down, but not before I had woken Aspen up(they were not very happy about that).
“Why’re you so loud!?” They grumbled while rubbing their eyes. I only shrugged and turned to May, who looked a little bit stunned by all of the laughing that I just did.
“Veri…” May said, but stopped and just wrung her hands. Both me and Aspen turned to her at the same time, but Aspen looked at least ten times more concerned than I felt, which made me feel…something I couldn’t place.
“It said… Gardenview… the sign…? Would- what does that mean…?” I looked at Aspen. Aspen stared back, confused as ever, and mouthed the word “what?” At me. I shook my head at them and turned back to May, who was studying our exchange closely, her brow furrowed.
I sighed sharply and looked up at the stained rainbow wall.
“I’m not… going to be the best at explaining this…” I said.
“So, you saw the sign, correct?” I looked back at May and she nodded, looking nervous. “Well… you know what it’s from.. correct…?” She nodded once more, her eyes widening. “I think… it’s safe to assume that this isn’t a dream, as we can, sadly, feel, touch, taste, smell…” I looked over to Aspen who looked confused about where this was going. “I… Also think it’s safe to say that… It very well could be the game, I mean inspiration has to come from somewhere, right? I mean, wasn’t FNAF based on those murders from Chucky Cheeze?”
Somewhere to the far side of me, I heard either Avery or Blue mutter something about “that theory was debunked… just a game theory!…” and then drift back off into sleep. I rolled my eyes and turned back to Aspen and May.
“Anyways, my point is that most things are based off of real life events and…” I grimaced. “I’m just babbling at this point… eeugh…”
I turned directly to May and stared into her green eyes.
“Yeah. The sign said Gardenview.”
Aspen only got more confused from that because May’s eyes widened and her expression turned manic. “What… does that mean? As in Gardenview? Huh? What’s that?”
Suddenly, a hoarse voice we hadn’t heard yet piped up. “Dandy’s World…” Celeste coughed and continued “Aspen, your brain mustn’t be working. Have you forgotten that the museum from the game we played all the time when we were younger was called Gardenview?” I shook my head at Celeste.
“Blue and Aspen never played as much as we did, but it does raise the question if you even remember any of the game mechanics… eh that’s besides the point.” I trailed off of my thought, a faraway look on my face. I then, promptly shook my head.
“Anyways, the name “Gardenview” comes from Dandy’s World, it’s what the learning institute was called before it got shut down for… unknown reasons. I’m sure the lore is all over and I could look it up on the wiki, but we don’t have service so…” Aspen just got even more confused, their face scrunched up in what looked like an attempt trying to fight a migraine, sneeze, and eat a lemon all at the same time.
“Why… is Dandy’s World stuff down here then?” Aspen said while still making that migraine-sneeze-lemon face of their’s.
“Wow, a bit slow on the uptake huh?” I said dryly. They must have hit their head for sure! My brain said in echo. Or, well maybe not. Aspen was always kinda like this, I just always tried to assume they had 80 different things on their mind at a time.
Celeste just sighed at them and said in her hoarse voice “Stop you” to me. She then proceeded to scoot over to us and join our little ‘talk circle’. “Aspen.” She said commandingly. “Where does DW take place?” Aspen immediately started making their migraine-sneeze-lemon face once more, which I soon came to conclude was their thinking face. Huh. Figures. They then said “Train…place… I think.”
“Subway” I corrected, Celeste then, made a face at me.
“Carry on.” I said, my hands up in a defensive manner. That she did.
“And where are we?” She questioned.
“Train place- uh I mean subway.” Aspen replied. Celeste, then, pointed to the large rainbow bordered doorway, raising her eyebrow and said “So, where does it look like we are?” Aspen just looked stupefied “uhhhhhh huh?” Then silence. I didn’t say anything, waiting to see if Aspen really DID hit their head. Suddenly the built up pressure so tightly woven, snapped in half as Aspen said two simple words.
“Oh shit.”
~. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . . ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ .~
Some time later after we had calmed Aspen down from their freakout (that they should’ve had AGES AGO), and woken everyone up (Avery and Blue weren’t all that happy about that, and Oliver wouldn’t talk to me), we decided to do the only thing we could.
Explore the place that could possibly be from a horror game.
As we walked towards the doorway, Oliver seemed to get in some sort of fight with Avery and Blue.
I couldn’t catch all the details, but it seemed like Avery and Oliver had started arguing about… something, and Blue ended up defending Avery, leading getting her into the argument.
At this point I was too tired to care, me and May were leaning on each other for dear life and I think (I hope) Aspen was showing Celeste how to wrap her bruised elbow in gauze.
But as the rest of us hobbled along, Blue, Avery, and Oliver just kept arguing.
At one point I opened my mouth to complain, but May nudged me and shook her head, I was too tired to disagree or, well, argue, so I just carried on with my shuffling.
“I expected it to have more lights.” I whispered to May as the others fought. She snorted “Me too.” The hall kept getting darker and darker as we pressed on, forcing me, Celeste and Aspen to get out our phones and turn our flashlights on.
All through this, they kept shouting at each other, the noise getting louder as the endless hallway decreased in number of visible light sources. Although, at this point, it was just Oliver and Avery at each other’s throats now, as Blue had stopped somewhere before the last bit of light had disappeared and was now rubbing her temples aggressively, battling a headache. I’m assuming a migraine possibly.
And then I saw it.
Light.
It was faint, but there, maybe 60 feet away, a singular white overhead light in the ceiling. “Look!” I exclaimed pointing at the light while grinning. Almost everyone heard me, their eyes snapping attention to the office light fixture.
Everyone except two.
In the short time that I had seen the light, Oliver and Avery’s argument had intensified into a real fight. As they shoved each other around they had also started knocking around any and all unseen items in their path.
That also ended up making a lot of noise.
When some sort of thing on the wall was knocked off, I met my breaking point. “¡Eh!, you two better quit it before someone gets seriously hurt. I don’t feel like explaining to Faye why you two have more broken bones than el resto de nosotras!”(faye is a friend of ours, and kind of and older sister/mom figure if you know what I mean) I got no response, only a low grunt kinda-sound from Oliver, who I’m pretty sure had been bitten by Avery.
After a few minutes of us standing there in silence, watching them fight, they calmed down. My hands on my hips, I started scolding them, saying “If this place is owned by the government, you two are paying the property damage.”
They just ignored me and glared at each other, arms crossed. After I was done scolding, we stood in silence waiting for one to say something to the other.
Oh Oliver said something alright.
“If Avery wasn’t such a fucking idiot then we wouldn’t have fought!”
That made her snap.
She lunged for him, knocking him off his feet onto the ground, but not before he tripped on something.
Something that echoed with a metallic twang.
As soon as Oliver’s body hit the floor I felt the sick, sweet smell in my nostrils. It smelt like sulfur, artificial cherry and cleaning chemicals all at the same time.
And at that point I knew we were fucked.
Tripwire! My brain said as soon as the smell filled the air. I’d heard about these kinds of traps, wires set in low, dark places where criminals couldn’t see, for them only to find out they were filled with sedatives in the form of gas.
“¡Oh, Dios mío! Cover your nose and mouth!” I exclaimed risking my own safety. But it was all in vain, as I watched my friends drop like flies, one after another, fallen to that sweet sick scent.
I was the last standing, but my eyes were turning watery and the gas was turning my head fuzzy.
Soon I had fallen to my knees, dizzy as the sedative took over my brain and told me to sleep.
Sleep! the drug said. you haven’t in ages! Those nightmare induced dreams weren’t sleep, THIS is true sleep!
“But what about my friends?” My brain replied. They need help!
The drugs sure didn’t care.
“Otra vez no…” I whispered into the dark. More passing out. I had lost track of how many times that had happened in the past few… WHATEVER! I was too half dead to do math right now anyways.
As I was lulled into the daze and promise of rest, I heard the sharp click of boots and a girl’s voice
“Well, I guess that’s something interesting for us to play with.”