Error 408: Request Timeout
Here Be Dragonflies
Stop picking on the poor bastard
Wow, dude’s kind of messed up. “So how’s she evil? You’ve baited your line and it’s just such a tempting worm I’m gonna bite and flop around on your hook for a bit like a mouse with cheese-induced spinal trauma and you can lay on me whether we’re talking Darth Vader evil or Hitler evil. Or Frollo evil, cause dude, not gonna lie, that guy’s just creepy.”
It’d just be perfect if the whole premise of your mission was a lie again. Just fucking perfect, like an elaborate seven-tiered wedding cake with frosting flowers and ribbons and color gradients and happy little middle-American-fairy-tale bride and groom figures on top in formal wear and the bow tie on the tux matches the details of some of the edging and the cake under the icing is light and fluffy and made of shit and rat poison.
Pity the Pitiable Space Cadet
Even if he’s had an utterly deprived life, this redhead doesn’t look as much like a space cadet as the one on the outside. “So, you’re Tcaolin’s champion?”
Something dark and tight passes over his face, and then he glances at you and his eyes don’t match. “She asked me to be. Didn’t cover the fact that she’s evil in the job description, though, so I’m suing for breach of contract.” He blinks. “You’re not dead.”
“Yes I am. You’re still hallucinating.”
He blinks, then looks back at the dead you swimming towards you. “Oh, okay then.”
Be Bruce Willis
He looks a lot more lucid than he did on the other side, except for the fact that his eyes are glued on broiled-Dave and wide in horror.
So you flashstep over and deadpan at him, “No, wait, let me guess: you see dead people.”
He doesn’t look up at you, but blinks a moment. “I feel like you’re making a joke at my expense. I’m just not quite sure what it is.”
Go to the other platform
When you figure out where the other Dave is headed, your stomach sinks. There’s someone else on the platform, huddled and small and improbably redhaired. Did some other you kill him and you’re now double-useless and doomed?
No, that doesn’t seem right. Usually when you have to go back, you die quickly. Thus why you’re always finding your stupid corpse.
Go already
You open the door, and it’s LOHAC again. Awesome. You’ve been to this one before, and broiled-Dave has no attention span. You close your door behind you, because the idea of spillover is disturbing. You spot broiled-Dave out swimming in the magma, still chill despite the heat, and nod to him.
He nods back, and starts a lazy loop towards a different platform.
Come up with a real plan
You need a weapon: obviously you can’t touch the other champion, and the weird powers might be conducted through your sword.
Well, it wouldn’t be awful to hear from people again, Equius aside. You’re pretty sure you never want to hear from him again, or Gamzee’s murderous ass. Talking to Rose, though, maybe even finding a way to meet up with her, that’d be nice. She could hook you up with her freaky grimdark powers from beyond the grave.
But then you wouldn’t be the hero, would you?
You swear, and pace your room. You know that out there beyond your door there are going to be other bubbles, pretty much the frothy flower-scented foam on top of a bubble bath of horrible death. Everyone you need to talk to is out there, if you can get past not wanting to see yourself dead a whole bunch of times.
Go find yourself
From the pile of tissues in the waste-paper basket by your turn-tables, you’ve been ‘finding yourself’ a lot lately. You’re just gonna chill here for a bit, spin something, and try to get your murky thought process going again. Vague plans took half-shape while you were walking, but you’re pretty sure that everything that went through your brain after day three was complete fucking nonsense. Yeah, an Air Force made entirely of magical crows helping you kill everyone is not something you can see happening.
Meet the other champion
You’re in a dream bubble. You’ve been there a while before you notice that you are in your old apartment and remixing Taylor Swift.
Jegus.
What have the horrorterrors been doing to you out here?
You feel fine, as you do every time you come here. The dehydration and near-death don’t transfer, just the additional emaciation from being closer to starving than usual. You take off your headphones and abandon your remix and go on the hunt for other people. Rose might be able to help you figure out what’s going on. Hell, even another you would be someone to bounce ideas off.
Abscond
The door that opened into the hallway now opens onto a platform, oppressive heat gusting over you from the dark sky beyond. This looks almost like a real hell, all heat and clockwork and fire beneath you. You’d feel even worse losing time here, because it seems almost a temple to it.
There’s a boy floating in the magma, burning but unconsumed, and it smells a bit like barbecue. You turn to flee, but your door is gone, dissolved in heat and open space.
Oh. Well. It’s not like you’ve not been stuck haunted by the dead before. At least Heyoka can’t see you as you sit crouched in the middle of the platform, chin on your knees and eyes on the corpse.
