Chapter Text
Such is the way of man, to be born, then to live however they like, and then to die in a trench. Once their body’s dead, they’ll be forgotten, replaced by another man. And every time, the cycle repeats. Over, and over, and over, and over.
And over. And over, and over, and over, and over, and over...! If only there was a way to just... cut this cycle short.
Sasha Rozhdenstvenski had a few reasons to cut it short. Yes, his father was excellent. His mother was excellent. His two sisters and his cat were also excellent. But shit, strike him down if he wasn’t absolutely tired of the stuff going on!
Picked up from an orphanage by an Ukrainian father and a Jewish mother when he was a month old, Sasha lived in a small town in Russia. During primary school, he was absolutely decimated by his bullies to the point of getting his head almost stuffed in toilet water. When the war between his home country and Ukraine occurred, his family escaped by car all the way to Italy, barely surviving with their dog (who later died at the age of 8, but that’s beside the point).
Sasha then went through middle school, trying to learn Italian to the best of his ability. This is around the time he got bullied AGAIN, either for being ugly, or being gay, or just being weird. Even when he tried isolating himself, he kept getting picked on in every way possible. After entering high school, Sasha vowed to never take shit from someone else again.
But guess what??? More bullying! Yippee! Maybe it wasn’t as bad as it was before, but it still hurt. Hurt so bad, especially coupled with the absolute hell that was puberty and rebel against family. But he did, you know, vow to not take shit from others. He promised to never be put down agai-
Tink!... tink- CRASH!
“Все хорошо?! (Everything alright?!)” Yulia, his mother, yelled from the other side of the apartment.
“Да, да, нормально. (Yeah, yeah, okay.)” Sasha replied.
He was trying to wash the dishes and his fingers slipped and he broke a mug.
Cool.
Right before his 15th birthday.
This stupid fuck.
It was the 14th of July, right before said birthday. Sasha had agreed with his family to go to a Japanese all-you-can-eat buffet, and then get some bubble tea with his older sister, Anastasia. His older-er sister, Oksana, lives in Poland, so she can’t do much to celebrate other than sending gifts and “happy birthday” messages.
Thinking back, their family was pretty lucky, even if they had to go through a lot to get to that point. Anastasia is currently working at a beauty salon and their mother, Yulia, is a hairdresser for personal clients. Their father, Lubomir, used to work at a construction site before finding a better job: something related to tourism.
Sasha’s unemployed, though. He doesn’t know what Oksana was up to. They weren’t too close, after all.
Sasha started with the usual: sliding the kitchen door closed to prevent their cat from coming in and stepping on one of the shards, sweeping them up, throwing them out... pocketing one of the shards. After all was said and done, Sasha finished the dishes, put everything away, and went back to his room.
Said room wasn’t.... too special. A wall was right next to his right. In the far corner was a wardrobe, and next to it was a bunch of shelves, hosting a lot of random stuff and trinkets Sasha owned. Looking away from the wall and towards the left, on the opposite side, there was a high mirror attached to the wall, where he could see his body, a window, a desk with his laptop, and a fan. And, to his very left, there laid his bed. It was big. It was pretty comfortable.
But it smelt like shit, honestly.
Sasha always had hygiene problems. Forgetting to shower was one of them. He commonly ended up straight up stinking before someone told him to shower. It was one of the reasons he was being bullied. Sasha’s mind still accepted that it was purely his fault, even if he just wasn’t being taught correctly as a kid.
But whatever, that’s nothing but an excuse. Sasha thought to himself.
Other than forgetting to shower -of all fucking things in the world- he also forgot to sweep his floor a lot. The slippers that he wore picked up a lot of dirt? dust? coming from wherever, and walking around spread it throughout the house.
But soon there was gonna be another thing across his floor.
Sasha stared at his reflection in the mirror. He was very pale. There was a bit of tan on the sides of his arm, but it looked more like a bunch of deceased skin cells that he couldn’t wash off. He had some pretty fancy white slippers. Going up and ignoring the hairy pale ass skinny ass legs, Sasha was adorned with beige shorts and a white dress shirt, mostly because he didn’t have much else to wear at home.
His face... Oh, his face. Ew.
His mouth was tightlipped. Sasha’s cheeks were slightly puffed up above the lips, with acne and postacne littered across them. His eyebrows were fixated in a way that made him look like he was constantly pissed at somebody. His eyes were weird, appearing to change color depending on the lighting. Sometimes they were brown, sometimes blue, but usually they were gray. That’s what Sasha went with.
His hair was puffed up, not too long but not too short, with bangs that covered his forehead. Just the way he liked it.
Sasha traced his neck, looking for that specific artery. Was it on the left or the right?... Whatever, he didn’t care. Sasha reached into his pocket, taking out the mug shard he took for his own. He traced the pale blue ceramic and its sharp edges.
Just slit your throat already.
There it was again. That voice in the back of his mind, telling him to crash out for once. Telling him he doesn’t mean anything to anyone. Telling him to kill himself and cut the cycle short. Sasha raised the shard, grazing it against his neck.
He was scared.
He wanted to do it, but he was scared.
Just like the coward that he is.
Just like the useless, needy coward that he is.
Sasha turned his head, using the mirror as reference, and placing the edge of the shard behind his neck. His breath quickened. Just do it, he told himself. Do it and you’ll suffer no more. He suddenly began thinking about his family. About his online friends. Maybe he could just live some more, live to see his friends flourish and abandon their own urges.
But every time Sasha says something to encourage them, he just keeps being a hypocrite. He never listened to his own advice because why should he?
He slowly pushed the shard into the back.
Sasha couldn’t help but wince at the spark of pain he received. He could already feel the blood beginning to trickle down. But it wasn’t enough. Not at all. Sasha looked at his scarless arms. He never tried cutting himself because he’s a coward. It was stupid to do only because he’s a coward.
...
He gripped the shard - and slit his throat.
Sasha didn’t see well even with the mirror, but from the side, red began splurting out, covering the room in blood. He immediately felt light headed, trying to catch his balance as his breath hitched.
His father, Lubomir, used to tell him that when there’s an injury like that, Sasha had to stick his finger in the wound to block the bleeding. But one, that’s weird as fuck, and two, Sasha was trying to commit suicide. So why should he?
Sasha fell to the floor, a loud thud echoing in his eyes. The floor, as he predicted, was covered with his own blood. It smelled like metal.
Even if he goes to hell after this, at least he’ll never see his “classmates” ever again.
It hurt. So fucking bad...
Sasha felt like he was laying on an incredibly soft mattress. He couldn’t exactly feel his body, but it was so... warm. His head felt like it was hanging on a string, though.
Didn’t he just fucking kill himself?
“Hellooo~!”
Sasha immediately threw his arms up, flinching when they actually met with a strange, wet body. He yelped, throwing it off to the right and revealing the sort- (THUD!) of bedroom- (“OW!”) that he was inside.
Well, not exactly bedroom: it was similar to some experiment chamber in a laboratory. The bed that Sasha was in was small, stationed at the center of the wall opposite to a door. He could see a camera staring straight at him. But something else that was staring right at him made Sasha forget about whatever happened in between dying and getting here.
To his left was something rather than someone, Sasha would describe it. It’s tall enough to reach the ceiling and still have to stand in a hunched position. Its body was primarily pitch black, covered in a tattered, purple robe, with multiple holes to allow five sets of some weird tentacle-like appendages to flow freely.
The head was... even stranger. It was like there was something censoring it, in a way. It’s like a 2D sprite, always facing the camera no matter what. It was diamond shaped, pitch black again, separated from the body, floating. It had a white circle “drawn” on it, with a black dot in the very middle. The circle didn’t move, but the dot shivered. Is that its eye? Sasha assumed.
“Ohh, yeah, yeah, that’s my eye. Look.” The entity suddenly called, with a somewhat deep and echoing voice. It began shifting around; the dot. It went to the very edges of the circle as the entity seemed to drag its eye to the peripherals and roll it around.
That’s so fucking weird!
“What the fuck are you???” Sasha recoiled, backing up on the bed. His hands were still slimy from whatever he just threw off.
“Calm down, for the love of [REDACTED]!” The thing spoke, waving its limbs around. “I don’t bite, I can’t even do that. You even pushed off my coworker.”
“Your- coworker?”
Sasha flinched again as a figure got to their feet from the right. Feet would be questionable, however. It had a somewhat human head, pulsing between a mix of black and purple, with two white slits as eyes, similar to a snake, and what was hopefully a mane of smooth hair adorning the back of the head and down the neck. (and nothing else...? where the hell is he??)
Neck would also be questionable. The “neck” connected into some type of body, comparable to a slug or a really big snake. It was long. It had scales, going from purple to pink to white as it neared the tip, which had a sort of tail made out of five flaps closed together. The sides of the body had tons of seemingly pitch black suction cups on the bottom and tons of small pairs of hands.
“WHAT THE FUCK?!!”
“Oh my godd, bruh, hold your slugs!” The snake-like figure retorted. Its voice was much more friendly compared to the- the bigass tallass dude on the other side, even if it was still echoing really weirdly. “Take a chill pill or something. Welcome to the void sea, dude!”
Sasha could tell with whatever that snake was.
“No, you can’t.” The tall figure popped up again, slightly condescending.
“Will you stop reading my- thoughts?! I, ghk-!” Sasha tried to breathe in. He was panicking at this point, this fucking failure of a... homo sapien, folding in. But there was no air. There was nothing, really.
“Hey.” The snake lowered itself to Sasha’s eye level. “Hey, er... Sasha! You don’t need air, stop trying to breathe!”
But humans are hardwired to breathe, are they not? They take in oxygen all their life, breathe it out, and then take some more, over and over, until the cycle stops.
Until the cycle stops... Sasha suddenly thought about the moment he passed out on the floor of his bedroom, bleeding from his own wound. That moment when he couldn’t breathe, even if he tried to. Sasha, with his newfound body in the “void sea”, whatever that meant, tried not to breathe.
After all, he didn’t need to breathe at all. All he needed to do was just to fade away, and die. So why is he here? Why is he not dead, even if unable to breathe?
“[MAJINnn], you hear this??” The snake called to the other entity. They can read my mind, huh. Sasha decided to ignore that and just focus himself.
His chest tightened.
...
Okay. Okay, I’m- not breathing anymore. Cool. I don’t need to.
“Alright, now you guys tell me where I am and who you are.” Sasha barked out. He was still scared of living without breathing for the first time, like a hydrophobic child who just learned how not to sink in water.
“Have you calmed down? Good, don’t do that again.” The taller entity spoke. “So like you heard my name is [MAJINnn], Splittered Enormity, one of the higher-ups here at VoidCorp and your sponsor.” They point to their ‘coworker’. “That’s [>/<], Emptied Glorified German Shepherd and your new supervisor because he’s attached.”
“Haii!” [>/<] waved its tail. “Nice to meet you, Sasha!”
Sasha, in response, stared into the white slits on [>/<]’s head. “That’s a weird ass name.”
“Weird ass na-” [>/<] repeated, raising an eye-brow-. “Mom, he just insulted me!”
“MOM??”
“Ugh, [>/<], it’s whatever, Sasha’s here for the first time. Calm down.” [MAJINnn] tries to quiet her child(???), before turning to Sasha. “And yes, mom. That’s my adoptive child.”
“You sound more... like a guy, though?” Sasha tilts his head.
“Technically, I’m trans.”
“Oh. ...Uh, sorry-”
“And don’t turn your head like that, you still have that wound from that stunt you pulled!”
“Huh?!” Sasha’s hands went up to his neck, feeling the peeled off, dried skin hanging. So that’s why my head felt like that??
“But it’s whateveerr!” [>/<] dismissed Sasha’s worries, again. “You aren’t gonna be dead for much longer!”
Sasha stood still to not mess up the “injury” more, instead side-eyeing [>/<] as best as he could. “...What?”
“Ah yes, yes, let me explain our purpose with you here,” [MAJINnn] began speaking once more, leaving [>/<] to settle down and wait. “We at VoidCorp specialize in displaying the wildest shows you can ever think of, by taking humans that have just died and placing them into another world, and having them run around freely. We guarantee that you will have your own ID, job and shelter, no rent to pay!”
“THIS IS AN ISEKAI???” Sasha panicked.
“Yes, yes, yes!” [MAJINnn] clasped her limbs together in excitement, suddenly getting way more excited. “Of course this is an ‘isekai’, as you lower beings say! That’s exactly what we do here! Where do you wanna go then, hmm?!”
“[MAJINnn], be careful, you’re intimidating him...” [>/<] complained, analyzing Sasha as he began sweating.
I can choose where to go...
“I- er- ughk!” Sasha stuttered. He didn’t exactly want to go back to living again, right after having ended his previous life. “Throw me wherever! I don’t, like... care! Y’know?! Just do anything, it’s whatever!”
[MAJINnn] and [>/<] thought the response over. What the fuck was up with this kid? They thought in sync, but it was pretty clear that Sasha was just suicidal. After all, again, he killed himself. He didn’t want to live at all.
...
But the show must go on! They can’t just take this kid and throw him back into the rubbish!
“... I understand.” [MAJINnn] nods, turning to her son. “Alright, [>/<], I have a favor to ask you.”
“Yesss?” [>/<] perks up, its slit-eyes slightly widening.
“When I send Sasha, be his guardian angel or whatever, okay?”
Instead of complaining, [>/<] was definitely excited to be given a favor like that. Whether it be because it’s gonna go to another world likely for the first time, seeing as it did not appear to be a ‘higher-up’ or a ‘sponsor’ like its mother, or because it just likes Sasha a lot.
“YAYY! Of course, [MAJINnn]!!” [>/<] waved its tail around, clearly happy about its mother’s request. “Where are we going, where are we going?!”
“Ah, hold on...” [MAJINnn] took out a stack of papers from under her robes, grumbling as she moved them around, searching. Sasha held on with bated breath, before the entity perked up with a hum. “What do you think about... the Inpherno, [>/<]?”
Sasha paused. That’s... a Roblox game. He doesn’t even play it anymore because he was banned on his main and fucking muted on his alt, he’s just there for the lore! Atleast he’s gonna have an advantage... “Void yeah!!” [>/<] shivered.
“Alright, Sasha, lay down and close your eyes.” [MAJINnn] commands, her voice becoming more serious. The boy listened. “Let me show you why I’m a higher-up here... Oh, and [>/<], do the same.” The snake hummed. Sasha could hear a thud as [>/<] laid down.
...
Oh shit, he was falling!
Sasha tries to open his eyes, but he’s met with darkness. He didn’t even see his body anymore. He could feel how the air began to hit his back, the soft fabric from before having been vaporized. Sasha tries to reach out, but it doesn’t hit anything.
He could hear how [>/<] yelped, both out of surprise and excitement, as the two fell down, their vision futile...
~
“Guhh...”
The first thing that Sasha did after waking up was to reach for his neck and take his first breath of fresh air on this planet. The second thing was opening his eyes to an apartment in... somewhere, he wasn’t too sure. He pushed the blanket off of himself only to get hit by a strangely intense wave of cold.
Sasha yelped, immediately putting the warmer blanket back on and wrapping it around himself as he sat up. The room he was in was very small, smaller than his bedroom back on Earth. There was a bed in the corner of a wall with a window with its shutters closed. On the adjacent walls there was one wardrobe, a table with a chair, and a small shelf. No computer though.
The walls were painted gray, the furniture its natural colors of wood. On the opposite wall, an open door revealed a bathroom to the left and a kitchen to the right, as well as the front door past both entrances. This was basically just a hotel room. But the biggest offender of all was the closed cardboard box, sitting on the floor. It was small enough to be able to be picked up, and big enough to host a potential child inside.
Sasha stood up, still rolled up in his blanket. He crouched down and took out a hand to- Oh fuck, he’s white now! Like, white white! He looked the hand over: basically just his earthly hand, but paper white and adorned with small, nipped claws. Probably because I liked munching on my nails back at home, Sasha wondered. But who cares?! I’m an inphernal now!
The boy locked back in. He reached out another hand, hovering over the flaps of the cardboard box, when suddenly-
“HAPPY 15TH BIRTHDAY!!” [>/<] suddenly popped out from the box, waving its new humanoid arms around in celebration. Sasha recoiled back onto the mattress with a scream.
[>/<] was very different compared to its previous form in the void sea. It was smaller, first of all, and its body was pulsing between black and dark purple. Its face was now adorned with two dots in the middle of it, below the slit-eyes, which were likely nostrils. Sasha could see two scaled appendages growing out of the back of where its skull would be, similar to antennas if they were really big and long.
Its body was now much more humanoid than before, having everything from a proper neck down to a waist before transitioning into a thinner version of its voidsea-ian tail, including the five-flapped tip. Interestingly, [>/<] was floating on a body of purple (again) water, which appeared to go down endlessly, deeper than the cardboard box would allow.
“WHAT THE FUCK??”
“Happy birthday!!! You were passed out for enough time to turn fifteen years old! Congratulations!!”
Following that revelation, Sasha took [>/<] out of the box, allowing it to wrap its wet tail around his arm to be held up, much to his dismay. Sasha carefully went out of the excuse of a bedroom and into the bathroom, looking at himself in the mirror.
“Oh. Oh my god.”
Sasha was met with an inphernal the same height as he was on Earth. He now had short, red horns similar to Sword’s but slightly longer and more round, like Slingshot’s horns. Sasha was paper white, pale even for the Inpherno’s standards, his body being covered by the gray blanket, but he could feel how he was wearing the same clothes he died in: white slippers, dress shirt and beige shorts. I should change out of these before I go out into the cold, Sasha considered. He was more confused about why [>/<] wasn’t showing up in the mirror.
“Only you can see me, you know!” [>/<] immediately replied. “I can still show up though... I’ll actually get my colors back, like this!”
[>/<] materialized in front of the mirror. Its body didn’t get any changes, but you could see its scales better and the tail went through that pink to white gradient again. “I suggest not using this in public, though...” [>/<] spoke, its voice becoming softer as if a real person was speaking instead of some void monster. “But if you want me to do something, I’ll listen up! I’m your guardian now, after all!”
“Oh right,” Sasha recalled, staring at [>/<] from the mirror. “Your mom asked you.” He paused. “What’s your name again?”
“Uh... call me whatever you want!” The snake laid its head on Sasha’s, who flinched.
“...What about your title?” Sasha murmured, feeling whatever slime [>/<] was covered in drip down his head.
“Emptied Glorified German Shepherd.”
“Weird. But...” Sasha thought about it. “...I’m calling you Eggs for short from now on.”
“Whaat?” [>/<], or rather Eggs, called. “I can’t stand eggs!”
“Well me neither, thank you, that’s only an acronym of your title!”
“Oh, so you hate me now?? Wowww, okay, sureee...”
“YOU KNOW DAMN WELL THAT’S NOT WHAT I MEANT-”
“Whatever, byee!” Eggs dematerialized in the mirror, even though it was just to hide from the public, and- oh, it’s actually gone. The hell? Sasha glanced around the bathroom to see where the hell did that slug go.
“By the way you can just use he/him for me,” Eggs called out from the bedroom, making Sasha back out of the bathroom and look inside. "That's the closest thing to you humans!" The cardboard box was now closed. Looks like Eggs can always return there. Sasha responded: “Uh, sure, of course!”
Sasha’s eyes, however, drifted to a pair of earphones atop the bathroom sink. He approached them, picking them up. They were white and wired, with that remote control thing attached, equipped with what seemed like a mic and... a wheel? Sasha picked the earphones up, scrolling the wheel around. It’s precise but not sensitive, at least not to him. Sasha could feel how easily you can accidentally scroll the wheel way past your intended point, like it was joystick drift, but he could manage it like he was used to it his whole life.
Is that my gear? Sasha thought. ...A pair of fucking earphones??? What do they do?! Since he didn’t know how to desummon gears, he just pocketed them.
Sasha made sure the box with Eggs inside was closed as he hastily changed into better clothes, ready to go outside: baggy jeans wrapped up inside black winter boots. He was equipped with a green turtleneck underneath a white jacket with a fur hood. Sasha wasn’t sure if it was a good fit or not, but it’s whatever. Sasha goes up to the window, opening the shutters to meet-
“I’M IN BLACKROCK?!!” Sasha yelled out, causing the hidden-mode Eggs to pop out of the box behind him. He was staring into a tight street, snow and apartment complexes literally everywhere he looked. He suddenly thought back to [MAJINnn]’s words: “We guarantee that you will have your own ID, job and shelter, no rent to pay!” Did he have a job in... Blackrock? Hopefully not at KORBLOX Administration, that would be absolute bullshit!
Sasha dug around in his apartment, with Eggs watching his every move, before finding a folder filled with documents. Apparently, Sasha Rozhdestvenski was no more, replaced by some dude named Earphones, confirming his suspicion about his gear. 15 years old, born on July 15th, residing in Blackrock. After finding his ID, Sasha soon found documents relating to his job.
“...I’m so cooked.”
“Huh? What is it?” Eggs crawled over, looking down at the document in Sasha’s hand. It turned out Sasha has been placed into a high-paying job at... KORBLOX Administration, well fuck, okay. But the thing that especially made Sasha straight up shiver was that he had to be a lab assistant for-
“I don’t wanna work for fuckin’ Subspace!” Sasha threw his hands up. “I don’t wanna be poisoned by some shit, come on, [MAJINnn]!”
Eggs giggled at Sasha's frustration. “Guess that's your b-day present!” He mocked the now-inphernal. “Speaking of presents, I'm gonna think what to give you after you come back from your shift…”
“Ughh, do I have to work today? What time is it?” Sasha complained, digging into his pockets for a sign of any mobile phone. When he couldn't find it, Eggs popped up again: “7:21 in the morning, Monday, dunno what date it is but it's probably autumn?”
“How do you know allat?” Sasha pressed.
“The time at the void sea actually corresponds exactly to Inpherno's!” Eggs clapped his hands together, looking proud for having that knowledge. “And also, it says righttt here-” He pointed out one of the papers in Sasha's hands. “-that your first shift will be on Monday and then… uh, ‘the superiors will decide your fate’? You were hired on Saturday.”
What the hell does that mean? Sasha couldn't help but ask inside his head. My fate? And I existed- no, this body existed before I got here?? Was this [MAJINnn] again?! He hoped that she didn't do anything embarrassing while using Sasha's new body. After all, he wouldn't even know what happened, let alone if something's happened at all!
“You gotta be at the administration by 8, by the way,” Eggs continued. “You got… half an hour! I'll show you where to go!”
“Huh…?” Sasha perked up at Eggs even knowing where the KORBLOX Administration was. “You-?”
“Yeah, yeah, don't flatter me~!” Eggs waved its tail. “I've been down to the Inpherno a couple times…”
After hearing about Eggs’ multiple visits, or at least the fact they happened, Sasha froze up, a certain monster's words entering into his mind once again. The ones about ‘displaying the wildest shows you can ever think of’... So basically filming? Recording? Broadcasting to an audience?
An unknown dominance took over his mind as Sasha mulled over things that he shouldn't have remembered now, of all times. What happens if that audience gets bored? The audience full of other weird, slimy monsters, all with different personalities and tempers and powers? Suddenly, Sasha was scared. -It hasn't even been an hour and he's already afraid of disappointing somebody.-
Sasha's overthinking and zone-out could not be interrupted by Eggs clearing his throat. “And, y’know, since you're new to this world, I'll be your guide for a while!”
“Nah, it's whatever, don’t stress yourself.”
“...What??”
It was now Eggs’ turn to be confused as Sasha immediately turned down his offer, seemingly opting to probably lose his job by just not coming, since Sasha had no clue where the workplace was. The inphernal even had the audacity to tell Eggs to ‘not stress himself’?
“Do you- wanna find it yourself??” Eggs tried to guess what could possibly be going on in Sasha's mind to reject something literally necessary to have a good starting point.
Sasha glanced away, his face scrunching up awkwardly. “Uhm…” He fiddled with the side of his face, where the fringes of his hair would lay above the ears.
Truthfully, Sasha didn't want the audience he was thinking of to be bored, not at all. The potential pressure of countless eyes gazing upon him, the hero of the story (what he seemed to be in his eyes, at least), waiting to be entertained began driving Sasha to do… less than preferable things, to satisfy that very audience.
But that’s a fact which he wanted to hide, which he was embarrassed of talking about, enough that not even Eggs could hear with his mind reading.
“Bah, let's go, I'm packing your things.”
Eggs, being the good guardian he was supposed to be, rematerialized into his colored form, using it to collect all papers related to Sasha's new identity and work and stuff them into a folder, handing the gooey mess of a bright pink plastic to Sasha. (The goo would just evaporate under the sun, anyway, so there wasn't anything to worry about.)
Sasha reluctantly pocketed the folder into the inside of his jacket as Eggs continued. “We'll worry about a phone later, I can just tell you the time whenever you wanna hear it! Okay, follow me now.”
Eggs went back into hideout, slithering over to the front door of the apartment and failing to open it despite his new humanoid hands. Sasha was forced to walk over and open it himself, allowing Eggs to slide through first before going through.
Neither of them noticed the camera placed in the halls of the complex.
“Do we have a key?” Sasha questioned, looking around. Eggs, in response, notes the ‘Welcome Home’ carpet right next to the front door. He gently lifts it, reaching a hand under the carpet, and, with a jingle, taking out a ring with two keys on it. One, the bigger of the two, was probably for the apartment itself, and the other, smaller key was thus to enter into the complex.
Sasha stared.
“Do... people usually do that?” He questioned, taking the keys right out of Eggs’ hands.
“I ‘unno, I don’t live on Earth! Or Inpherno!” Eggs called. He didn’t seem too troubled by Sasha’s bluntness.
“I can tell!”
Sasha wanted to ask how the hell did Eggs have to materialize to collect the papers but not to lift up a rug. Nevertheless, the snake went down a flight of stairs, Sasha following suit, before the duo reached the lobby, seeing as their apartment was placed on the second floor. They left the complex before being hit with the absolute whiplash that was the Blackrockian climate outside.
It wasn’t snowing that much at the time. The snowflakes glided down gracefully onto the cement, almost indistinguishable from others like them. Sasha stepped forward with a crunch of the snow. Past him, many other inphernals were walking wherever they needed to go. Sasha could see the variety of outfits, horns, faces and even gears as he watched the citizens go past him, not even batting an eye because why should they even care about this fucking excuse of a living being?
Sasha could suddenly see Eggs slithering onto the wall of the complex, not seeming to care about the laws of gravity. The slug waved one of its humanoid arms forward, gesturing Sasha to follow, who trailed behind him as Eggs crawled. That ability of the slug’s to just hide from others is gonna be so useful.
“Where...?” The inphernal called. He didn’t wanna speak to Eggs in public, knowing someone would probably jump him for talking to the air. That sounds exaggerated, but this is Blackrock for fuck’s sake!
“Oh, we’re going to this district’s metro station!”
Sasha flinched at Eggs’ casual response, beginning to panic as he looked around the streets. Why the fuck would he-?! The inphernal sighed, acting like he definitely wasn’t worrying his ass off that somebody would go to investigate who the hell has a voice like that, looking down at the floor and humming positively after a pause. Sasha tried to remember the way as Eggs hopped from building to wall to cement, across the street, then to another wall, when eventually the two reached the metro station itself.
Sasha looked up at the screen above him, reading the timetable. The next train would be in around one minute.
He sat down on the edge of one of the emptier benches. The metro was pretty busy at this time, seeing as work hours were about to start in less than twenty minutes (7:42 AM). It was filled mostly by older civilians with more desaturated horns, though not to the point of being gray, of course. Eggs coiled up on the cold floor next to Sasha. The inphernal wanted to free his spot for the slug, but then somebody else would just plop down right on Eggs, so Sasha didn’t do anything.
He also didn’t really care too much.
“Number 72,” the intercom called from above. “Arriving.”
Most of the inphernals around Sasha and Eggs stood up, going up to the edges of the metro as a bullet train whizzed past everybody, slowing down. Eggs allowed himself to wrap around Sasha’s shoulders, the latter trying to ignore the snake as much as possible before stepping in once the doors slid open.
Sasha immediately plopped down on a free seat next to a window as the train was filled up with people. Eggs decided to instead slide off and plant itself right on the window sill, blocking a bit of the light, but still allowing Sasha a small view. He could see how some of the light passed through Eggs’ back, making it look like he’s glowing inside. Sasha chuckled.
“Whatcha laughing at, huh??” Eggs immediately calls, feigning injury. Sasha looked away, ignoring the snake. “Y’know people can’t hear me right? Oh wait, I didn’t tell you that... uh, sorry! Hehe~”
Sasha relaxed. You could have told me way earlier!!! He yelled with his mind.
“I forgottt, calm downnn...” Eggs whined in response.
The now-inphernal sighed, looking out the window, seeing the scenery whizz past, forming a blur of gray, blue and white. He would have to pretend like he actually did an interview, like his name is actually Earphones, like he even knows what his gear does!...
Eggs could feel (and hear) Sasha’s dismay, offering a bit of comfort. “I’m sure you’ll do fine at your shift, there’s no way it can go that wrong!”
“Just do your job, dammit.” Sasha whispered, trying not to direct the attention of others.
“...Hm?”
“You’re a guardian.” The inphernal continued. Do your job.
“Aight!”
Eggs looked away, silencing himself. Sasha wasn’t sure if Eggs was offended by that, but it’s whatever. It’s just some dude he met like, less than two hours ago, maybe? He closed his eyes, telepathically trying to order Eggs to wake him up when they’ll have to get off.
Sasha dozed off.
{[: PLAY OPENING THEME ==> Impostor Syndrome :]}