Chapter Text
The first thing you see when you pry your aching eyes open is yellow. It’s oddly bright and piercing, so you shut your eyes again. It does nothing to relieve your splitting headache, but as you wake up more, you recognize the soft buzz sound of overhead lights and the smell of damp carpet. Not just the smell, you think as you hold back a gag and shudder at the feeling of moisture sinking into your clothes.
Despite your brain still screaming at you not to, you open your eyes again to figure out just where the hell you are. Your vision swims and you prop yourself up with your elbow. You try your best not to cringe at the feeling of your sleeve soaking in stale water and squint as you attempt to look around for a second time.
Okay, you severely underestimated how f*cking yellow this place is. Even the wallpaper, which you realize takes on a different pattern for each wall, is littered with shades of beige and mustard and other yellow looking colors you can’t quite name, making up designs that pull an odd sense of nostalgia from you. The moist carpet you lay on is darker, probably due to the water fossilized inside of it, but still light enough to keep its identity as a yellow. The ceiling is equipped with those cheap, rectangle shaped, fluorescent lights that you’ve only seen in movies and shows. Mostly in hospital rooms, actually, but those lights were harsher and brighter than any of these could even dream of being. These are musty and dim, and you think if you figured out how to dismantle one, there would probably be mold on the inside, too. And the structure of it, god, it is something else. Each room, opening, and threshold seems randomized and/or artificially placed there, and you wouldn’t admit this to anyone but it kind of makes you want to hurl.
You mutter a “what the f*ck,” under your breath and look down to assess yourself. You still have everything you came here with, including the sh*t in your sylladex and your… sh*t, your shades! You whip a hand up to your face to find your glasses, but come up empty handed. That’s why those damn lights are so bright.
You scan the floor for anything of note and find your shades just a few feet away. How you didn’t notice them before is beyond you, but your shoulders sag in relief as you stretch your arm out for them and haphazardly place them on your face. The relief is instant, and you can finally see without having to squint at everything like an old f*ck.
With your newfound vision, you prop yourself up with the wall that was behind you when you fell(specifically the wall littered with a ‘w’ looking, vertical brick design) and force yourself up. It doesn’t take much effort, but your vision spins, and you lean heavily on the wall. But it’s chill. Nothing you haven’t dealt with before, probably just a minor concussion from the fall.
Wait. The fall? You look at the spot on the ceiling above where you were previously sprawled out on the floor. There’s nothing there but tiled ceiling. Where the f*ck did you fall from?
Putting that and the fact that you are totally freaking out aside, you observe the (really f*ckin’ dirty, like oh my god someone needs to vacuum here or something)floor again and see your sh*tty headset a couple steps away from where your shades were moments before. You push yourself off the wall, careful to not faceplant when you start getting dizzy again, snatch them, and lean back to your spot.
You aren’t planning to put them back on, only to captchalogue them and move on, but as you hold them, you hear familiar voices leaking from the speakers. Without being plugged in. You find this slightly(very) suspicious, but put them on immediately.
“-been mostly walking around and exploring whatever is near me. I don’t wanna get lost, everything here is so weird.” You hear John’s voice blast from the speaker and you could almost cry. Thank god for dollar store headphones with sh*tty dollar store speakers that don’t confine the noise to strictly your ears.
Jade starts agreeing with him, but you interrupt her. “Guys?”
“Dave!” John and Jade both practically yell through the foam material. “Holy sh*t, man, where did you go?”
“Yeah, sorry about that, my earphones got knocked off on the way here.” You pause. “Er, speaking of ‘here,’ where in the everliving f*ck am I? And, while we’re on that same topic, where are you guys?”
Jade answers this time. “We actually don’t know! Well, I have an idea, but me and John are in completely different places based on each other’s descriptions, and I’m assuming you are, too?”
“I think I’m in the embodiment of the color yellow.” There’s a pause from the other line, and the lights above you hum gratingly in its place.
“Yyyyeah, no. I don’t think either of us are near you,” You hear her sigh, “as frustrating as that is.”
“Damn. You said you knew something about where we are, though?”
“Yeah, umm,” you can hear the hesitation in her voice and you involuntarily raise an eyebrow. Then you put it back down, because that was probably the stupidest thing you’ve ever done in your whole life. She can’t even see you, dumbass. Get a grip. “So don’t get mad, but this is probablydefinitelyactuallyapartofthegame.” You feel your eye twitch. “Sorry,” she squeaks out.
You ignore how your jaw clenches, and just completely ignore what she said altogether(because you are actually kind of pissed right now, but you don’t need anyone to know that) because something propels itself to the front of your mind.
“Where’s Rose?” You definitely do not sound panicked in any way, shape, or form.
“Oh, she’s asleep. We heard her snoring before, not sure why she would fall asleep now of all times though!” John laughs into your ears, and the tension you were holding eases a little.
“She prolly hit her head on the way down.” You rub your temple absentmindedly. “Hell knows I did,” you mumble.
“Oh no! Are you okay?” Jade worries. “Yeah, just a small headache and a little dizziness. I’ll be fine.”
“Well you’d better be! The game will start any minute now.”
“How do you know that?”
“I dunno,” you roll your eyes at him, “just a feeling, I guess.”
Jade and John fall into easy conversation again, and you can tell Jade is walking around by the shuffling of her skirt in the background, but John is oddly still. You wonder if he thinks the same about you.
You put the conversation on the back burner, now that you know your friends are safe. Rose’s safety is dubious, but you suspect she’s fine. She usually is, anyway.
The room you’re in is simple, and looks kind of like a sample of what you assume the rest of the place looks like. The only difference that you can concur, though, is that this room is smaller and has three full sized walls. The one across from you has a threshold as high as the ceiling(about 8 feet, you think) and as wide as about three doors could stand across. Maybe three and a half doors. You don’t know, you’re kind of spitballing here.
You’re positive you haven’t seen anything like it. The only thing that this place is slightly reminiscent of is an old-timey house’s wallpaper, like from the 60s or something. Through the space in the fourth wall, you can see several other walls that end up forming poorly shielded rooms. It gives you a weird feeling, and you think that it’d be really f*cking easy to get lost in here. You decide to check back into the conversation by asking a question.
“What do you guys’ spaces look like?” You won’t lie, you’re pretty curious.
“Err, well, I think I’m in a school or something. I’m a little too afraid to go out of the room I’m in, though.” John chuckles weakly. A school? That’s… strangely lucky. “Are there any people there?” You find yourself asking and hoping for a certain answer, but you’re not sure which one you’re wanting. “Nope, not that I know of.” You frown. “It’s been dead quiet since I got here. A little eerie, but I think I would be a little more scared if there were people here with me. You know?”
“Yeah, I get that. Jade, what about you?” You can still hear her walking about.
“I think I’m in a castle! There’s just one hallway with a bunch of doors, though, so I’m trying to find another one. I’ve seen windows around, but the only thing I can see out there is clouds.” You recognize the click of a door opening and closing on her end. “Huh. Cool.” A school and a castle? That’s nothing like where you are.
Your thoughts are halted as you hear Rose groan from the other end of the call.”
“Rose?” You hear yourself say along with the other two. “You alright there?”
“Despite my growing headache, I am quite alright.” Her tone is gruff, and upon further inspection you hear water sloshing.
“Where'er you?” Your accent slips out for a second, and she pauses. You give her a minute to gain her bearings.
“I… would like to know the same thing myself.” You snort.
“Tell me about it, sister.”
Not a beat after those words leave your mouth, a ding echoes throughout your ears, just about bursting your eardrums with it’s volume being amplified through the other three people playing the game with you. A pop-up screen shows in front of you along with the ding, translucent blue, and it clashes with the background. It has text on it, you realize, and once you read it, you can’t help yourself from saying: “What the f*ck.”
[Welcome to SBURB!
Your session has began. If you appear to be stuck in any way, we will send hints to you in order to help nudge you along. You have three lives.
Happy playing!]
