A Horrid Trek Through Reality : Alternative
Chapter 1 : Everyone's Fanta, I Woke Up On A Shrink Couch and Then I Met Not-Tony-Friggin'-Stark...
Joey immediately woke up and his eyes darted around his room, he noted the AC Bucket was full again and that some bastard was still turning off the AC and promptly went to the bathroom for his morning ritual, looking at his pitiful self with an audible frown.
Mop of black hair that he'd never brushed since he lost those things, Sunken black eyes that'd mirror his freckled dirty face whenever he focused on it, his bruised, dried lips that he could never fix even with plenty of water and crooked teeth that made him look like a gremlin, a short 4'7 gremlin that had stunted growth, ears that was almost deaf because of neglect and failing eyesight that the privilege of being able to see in the middle of the night clearly being loss over time.
He sneered at himself through the mirror and wiped his face with water from the sink faucet.
Going downstairs to tell one of the housekeepers about the AC bucket, he realized when he was downstairs.
Nobody was there, not even his adorable cinnamon roll bear dogs, instead there was unnatural, silence abound.
It was investigation time and he was friggin' scared, it reminded him of that one ARG that was about some woman named Mary and something about her monsters, but screw it, he was a child and circumstances called for a possibly insensitive investigation.
So, the first order of business was to check the windows all over the house to see if someone, something or anything sentient was outside his walled home, and he checked and double-checked to make sure his eyes didn't fail on him. But nothing came out of the window search. Zilch. No dogs, No humans, No Sentient Being and no supernatural or blue box appearing out of nowhere even.
Damn.
So, he opted to move to Plan four-hundred and-cough-second order of business he meant, and it meant he was going to search the rooms downstairs still and the backyard halfheartedly, mostly because it reeked of inhumanely disgusting scents that somehow existed because of humanity and because he could only check by opening the door like Google Street View.
And he did, it began, and ended in Kool Aid Man bursting through the wall and giving him neon Kool Aid.
He was joking of course.
He hated Kool-Aid with passion, and more for Kool Aid Man and neon lighting.
With that he meant Nada Nada mi, there was no one, not even the mysterious hut in the backyard contain the allegedly human disaster housekeepers Jay and Tim.
It was unnerving to find no one In the usually empty but still busy home he lived in, it was starting to get to him, and he didn't like it.
The only things he found around the first floor of the house was some weird orange-y slime in the first-floor bathroom, he spray washed it with the showerhead and some other patches of the same orange-y slime in the backyard too. He water hosed them too. And there was more, in the dog pen, where his four sweet cinnamon roll fluffy dogs lived in.
He didn't know how to deal with that, so he left it alone, for now.
He felt like maybe his step-father…no, his mother wouldn't allow animal experimentation much less Con to do that, it would just rip his already dysfunctional family a new reason to fall apart at the seams and a reason to make his mother's second marriage fail.
He grunted and perished that though immediately and decided to ditch investigation for the second floor, and instead make himself some sugar-free hot cup of cocoa and watch some videos about MLMs.
The absolute silence was getting to him, and he didn't want to become the crazy nutjob of the family because of being left alone for weeks with nothing but canned foods, a microwave and no wi-fi.
Last time it happened, it wasn't very…pretty.
Geh.
He was getting too absorbed in his thoughts too many times this day, so he got himself pumped up with going to the kitchen and humming nonsensical things.
He filled the iron kettle, flicked it on, left it to boil, and began doing the next step of making sugar-free cocoa.
Actually, bothering to do it, he began shoving powdered milk down the 1# Brother mug he stole from the cupboard, filling it halfway and shoving some powdered chocolate over the powdered milk with his skinny hands that reminded him of his grandmother's weak, saggy arms….damn it! He was thinking too much! Focus, Focus!
He grunted as soon as the iron kettle's switch flicked off by itself as a natural mechanism, he grabbed a spoon and shoved it into the mug and mixed the powder before grabbing the iron kettle by the handle and dumping the boiling, hot water into the mug to the brim.
He was careful in mixing in the mug, he didn't want a repeat of the Burning Everything In The Kitchen IncidientTM.
You know how to cook, she said. Cook anything on the stove, she said!
He was getting annoyed just by remembering that, and ditched remembering it in favour of bringing the hot cocoa upstairs to his bedroom quickly.
Ah, but he couldn't. Why? Because peace, it seems, didn't want to exist for him.
And why didn't peace want to exist for him? His dear to god parents were banging one door over like some raunchy teen-drama neighbors!
He felt that his intervention was very much needed so he could enjoy the wee morning. He wanted to act selfish for once. He was already a doormat at high school, and transferring that to his home didn't bode well for him. He already had a lot to deal with, and thinking about it made the skin of his body, shiver.
And so, he turned around and walked to the last door in the eerie hallway, staring at the odd shrine propped up in the middle of it, and avoiding it thereafter, and arrived in front of the door where he could hear much more clearer.
Now, he wasn't actually very sure if his parents were even banging, because, the sounds coming from the room sounded something or someone falling over again and again and other things breaking and shattering. It sounded someone was getting murdered inside of there.
And it concerned him. It very much made him feel concerned on whatever the hell was going inside there. He crossed his fingers and wished himself luck before turning the door knob and there he saw as he stood there, something straight out of the depths, no, from the very deep depths of hell itself.
The room-, it was burning, everything in sight was falling apart, you name it.
And his parents, oh dear god. They were made and molded into pure, burning nightmare fuel, they were so unrecognizable that the way he only knew they were his parents was because of the clothes they wore, the melting and burning clothes that looked like it melted like candle wax, and he knew that burning didn't work that way.
And the pain, the immense pain, he saw in the eyes of what was left of his parents anymore, it was forever ingrained in his head. And they looked, looked at him.
And the moment they looked at him, they crawled towards him so pitifully.
He could see the inner workings of whatever's left of them, their red beating, heart, their burning intestines that caught on fire, their exposed and melting skulls and brain, their body, the legs, they were turning into orange puddles mixed with blood, and they were approaching him, and he connected the dots.
He was the last one left alive in the house.
A hand grabbed onto one of his legs and he looked down, it was what was left of his mother, holding onto his leg with her scalding hand.
Out of reflex, he ganked her with the cup of cocoa and smashed it on her head.
She screeched an unholy screech that was so loud it would've made him cover his ears, but he didn't.
His ears were already feeling deaf from the moment he entered this unholy room.
He kicked her in the face, and her stomach exploded with acid, practically spilling it over the floor.
She collapsed onto the floor and turned into a puddle of orange slime of stomach acid and hot cocoa.
It wasn't very pretty, and it didn't help that it wasn't, and it crossed the line and finally made him vomit something all over himself, it was blood.
Blood?
He looked at his hands and saw it as the truth sinked in for him, he was dying, and he was going to experience whatever the hell his parents went through, as they were both thoroughly dead and his step-father fell through the window and hit one of the cars his family owned moments earlier, it was ironic.
And he was starting to feel that his legs were numb and wobbling.
He didn't know what to do.
He.
He wasn't prepared, he never was.
And so, he whipped his body around and left the burning room. The house was starting to fall apart from the spreading fire and everything made of wood was making it worse. He was already hearing the blaring sound of ambulances approaching his house and made his way to his room, past the bathroom and grabbed his laptop with his skinny, melting hands and knew it was stupid and selfish of him to grab his laptop and try to go downstairs and save himself, but what else is there to save? Nothing.
He was still alive, and chose to pick up his slack and hugged the laptop and turned to the stairs and went down, he felt he was becoming shorter every minute he wasted and more sick of his life he did it. It was worthless and ultimately reckless to do it. But the only thing he bonded more was his brother, who he never saw since 2 years ago and his half-broken laptop.
He reached the bottom stairs, feeling shorter and burning and saw 2 firefighters bust through the front door right at that moment. He felt relieved, and knew he was saved, and approached them quickly.
He didn't hear what they were saying, but they looked horrified at the sight of him, the same look he had when he had seen what his parents turned into. He didn't care anymore.
But then he realized he could feel his heart beating much clearer than ever in his life and felt one of his ribs melt right there, and his eyes, they were starting to feel uneven.
He still didn't care, he was being escorted, no laid into something white as his laptop was taken away like it was some worthless toy.
IT WAS HIS AnD hIS AlOnE.
He felt one of his eyes fall out of one of his eye sockets as he attempted to reach for it, but he kept being kept down by the doctors like some rabid German Shepard.
nO.
He dIDn'T wAnt tO lOse It.
hE DiDn'T WaNt To LoSE i-
"Sir, Jonathan Manson Hale is DOA."
"Oh. Such a shame to lose a patient like this again, but it looked like he didn't have a chance to survive and function normally after that anyway. Tsk Tsk. And everyone said that the Hale family could live through anything, it seems that tale was highly exaggerated. Ah man, Their third son couldn't even survive the Mitchett Plague, and their older sibling, Christian Yaneza Hale who went missing 2 years ago after the discovery of a cult worshiping Cthulhu and said to be one of the sacrifices by a caught cult member and yadda, yadda, you know the rest of history."
"Not really, but Sir-"
"He was also a shame, he was the best detective in this shit city and probably could have helped us with the Mitchett Plague to be honest, he was like, Batman-Level Detective, without the shit backstory and the Batman crap though…."
"Sir, the deceased patient is evaporating."
"Well shit."
And on June 11th , 2020, Jonathan Manson Hale died.
His cause of death was the Mitchett Plague and by way of burning and melting alive.
Nobody knew who caused the fire that day, but some was suspected that their neighbor or one of the former cult members who worshipped Cthulhu caused it.
And so, the Hale Family ended….
…or did it?
===K u p o===
His eyes snapped open as he found himself laying down on something, not melting to death, going insane, losing his beloved laptop to those crummy bitches and breathing fine.
He laid there still on whatever he was laid on before sitting upwards and checking himself, finding that his hands weren't bony or melting, and that he wore clothes he'd never put on before, but he knew where they were from, very well.
A white trench coat that had 2 iconic small golden pins on its greyish collar? Check.
A red and white patterned sweater that was similar to what a familiar memetic man wore? Check.
White winter boots with sloppily tied laces? Check.
He checked the length of his hair and thanked silently whatever benevolent being that did this was spared from his annoying behavior because the state of his body wasn't altered into a female's, but for now, he also noted, that he was sitting on a chair for people with shrinks and shortly realized, Shouldn't I be traumatized because of what happened earlier?
"Oh yes, you should be indeed." Echoed a familiar masculine voice.
He immediately turned his attention to wherever that voice came from and found it was a small speaker attached next to an elaborately detailed wooden door with the Ouroboros symbol on it directly in front of him.
He visibly hesitated and asked knowing it was a stupid question, "Are..you God?"
Inhumane, Screeching laughter came from the speaker.
"God? God? That's just hilarious! It's a deliberate title for things like those of your kind can't understand and stands firmly next to the word Ineffable but for a different reason, Ha!"
His brows furrowed at that, getting a feeling that whoever on the speaker was lying spectacularly, bullshitting or maybe truth by omission. He didn't know, but he wanted to frankly call bullshit.
"..what about the…snake door? is the snake on it going to," he motioned his hands at it. "become alive and, become a shrink magically here? Because it could happen, and I look like I'm in a room where a shrink's gonna appear." He looked at the wooden door with the Ouroboros symbol with suspicion.
Whoever on the speaker was speaking, hesitated at the words spoken and coughed.
"Yes…that, unfortunately I'm no Wizard so, no half-snake shrinks, Lucifer incident last time I tried." Their voice shivered at that.
"But! that door is important, and I encourage you to go through it my c-friend, it will lead to a hallway with an elevator that is waiting for you to arrive, it shall let you go to where I am and there, I await your Presence, Jonathan Manson Hale." Immediately after that, the small speaker began melding into the wall itself like clay.
He had a blank face that could've been mistaken for a child's drawing after an inordinate amount of silence after the speaker melded into the wall.
. . .
He stood up and began punching the shrink chair he was sitting down on as a way to make the innate frustration of being here disappear until his hands became numb whenever he shoved it in ice before this event happened.
After that, he picked up his slack and opened the Ouroboros Door and just like the man on the speaker said, there was a classy hallway with black lanterns on each side of the wall and at the end of it was the ElevatorTM.
Although the hallway was a little weird due to constant music or more accurately the worping noises of the TARDIS on loop he heard while walking relatively quickly towards the ElevatorTM, but that didn't matter anymore, he was already in the elevator and realized he would rather take a fish-boat than a nausea-inducing elevator trip.
The general emotions he was feeling about this situation was this was either a secret kidnapping with LSD involved so the victims hallucinates while being kidnapped by the mafia, or he really did experience intense trauma that he repressed very well with a wall to protect his general sanity and everything else before he could go insane.
Oh, he also felt weirdly triumphant for feeling taller than he should be when he stood up and walked into this nauseating elevator. Being proud for having your growth stunted was a weird thing he used to have pride in because most of his family was shorter than him, the middle, middle child, but then high-school obliterated that sense of pride by having most of the students he met there being taller than him.
He was like some Hobbit or something damn it, he hated being the small man!
But for now, he just had a single objective for now, meet whoever was behind the speaker and ask logical questions to get their own curiosity snuffed off temporarily, or if things weren't going to be civil, the alternative option was to try to get back to the Elevator very quickly or stun them to hold them off until he had enough time to call the police and-
Someone began clapping slowly as the Elevator door slid away and he stepped outside to see where he was and, it honestly came out of the left field.
Because he was fairly sure he was in the building where the Avengers are in the films cause' of the immense awesomeness of how it looked.
And because Tony-friggin'-Stark was there too. Sitting on the weird long couch.
How was Tony-friggin'-Stark actually here and how did he recognize he was not Robert Downey Jr. in disguise?
Because damn did he look cooler than Robert Downey Jr. and because of the Arc Reactor, that looked even cooler than the films.
"Damn." He gasped.
"Damn indeed." Tony-friggin'-Stark said with a grin, standing up from the couch and walking over to him with a wave. He was in a friggin' cool suit that he never saw in any of the films.
"Ar-Are you really here, as in here-here, as in the real friggin' Tony-friggin' Stark?!" He asked with amazement.
Tony-friggin' Stark..frowned?
Frowned?
"Nope." Not-Tony-friggin'-Stark said.
Oh.
"I'm the man-manning the speaker, and the one who wants your Presence here, my friend. Now take a seat on the counter and let's talk." Not-Tony-friggin'-Stark grinned wide enough that it didn't belong on their face at all.
Oh, friggin' hell this is probably some…higher evil being thing or something even worse.
He gulped nervously and walked up to bar counter and sat down on it, the feeling of his trench coat engulfing his legs becoming comforting and slightly calming his sense of incoming dread and possibility of ceasing to exist.
Not-Tony-friggin'-Stark clapped their hands. "Since I already know your name, I shall introduce myself as, The Ineffable. It's a simple name that gets straight to the point, much more accurate than the name "Iron Man" for a dubbed "superhero" ." The Ineffable air-quoted with a scoff. He still felt he was being slightly bullshitted here, maybe he should call it Bullshit-Sense.
"Anyhow, the introduction semantics are done. I'm going to give you an Ơ̴̢̜͎̭̞̙͚͓̗̙͛̇͐͒̍̋̀̿͊̓̈́͑̚͘̕͝f̴̡̢̭̹̖̳̱̜̣͕͓̙̳̫̳͉̦͙͇̭͚̗̱͉̼͙͎͕̪̻̲̿̃͂̔̎͜͜ͅf̸̨̨̢̛͕̯̰̹̞͉̮̱̓͂̏̓͋́̀̀͌̑̈́̓̀̑͆͐́͌̇͌̌̕͠͝͝e̸̢̨̝̭̗̜̝̻̝̱̹̺̖͚̩͉̒̌͋̍̋̋̊̑́͋͊͊̒̂̚ͅr̷̡̢̢̙̜̟̰̣̺̣͕͕̻̭͕̫̲͎̦̯̠͖̗͇͙̰͚͖̠̲̠̹͎̳̯͍̟̖̰̭̲̱̋̽̃̏̇̾͐̾̀̎̑̌͆̊́̓̈̎̚͜͝͝͠ͅ , I'll give you a slightly simplified rundown of it, but before that, any questions asked?" It asked.
He hesitated. "Uh, is this like, s-similar to a demon's contract? I heard it kind of exists only myth-wise and thatitalsomightbemadeupbycultists.."
The Ineffable looked very disgusted at the mention of it, pinching the bridge of their nose. "No! The Demon's Contract does exist, but it's absolutely only done or used by the most desperate, pathetic, cowardly and degenerate beings of your kind. I absolutely despise those type of things and more-so the Demons themselves, they're the lowest of the lowest, losing their Grace of Heaven because of.."
It hand waved that off, feeling a headache coming.
"..Never mind. I'm just rambling now, I know you most likely don't have any questions left for now, correct?" It narrowed its eyes at him. He did have many, many questions about its rambling, but decided to focus on the supposedly more important thing to ask.
"Not really, just last, last question, are you like, an…Eldritch Being?" His voice cracked at that, losing his faux-calmness that he had during the whole talk.
"I am indeed an Eldritch Being, the words slide riiight off the tongue, glad you noticed." It's chuckle echoed.
"Though, I'd hate to be mistaken for a meager Demon, hah! I'd wonder if you thought I was a Demon of all things, wonder what might have happened if you did…" It grinded its teeth at that while attempting to smile at him.
"Huh." He deadpanned, having no idea to react to that other than maybe screaming and kicking its shin to escape this thing.
The Ineffable coughs into its hands, the hate for Demons disappearing momentarily. "Returning to the Ơ̴̢̜͎̭̞̙͚͓̗̙͛̇͐͒̍̋̀̿͊̓̈́͑̚͘̕͝f̴̡̢̭̹̖̳̱̜̣͕͓̙̳̫̳͉̦͙͇̭͚̗̱͉̼͙͎͕̪̻̲̿̃͂̔̎͜͜ͅf̸̨̨̢̛͕̯̰̹̞͉̮̱̓͂̏̓͋́̀̀͌̑̈́̓̀̑͆͐́͌̇͌̌̕͠͝͝e̸̢̨̝̭̗̜̝̻̝̱̹̺̖͚̩͉̒̌͋̍̋̋̊̑́͋͊͊̒̂̚ͅr̷̡̢̢̙̜̟̰̣̺̣͕͕̻̭͕̫̲͎̦̯̠͖̗͇͙̰͚͖̠̲̠̹͎̳̯͍̟̖̰̭̲̱̋̽̃̏̇̾͐̾̀̎̑̌͆̊́̓̈̎̚͜͝͝͠ͅ I mentioned earlier, It involves this," It pulled out a rather thick folder out of its suit and placed it on his lap.
He stared at the thick folder with contempt before picking it up from his lap and opening it.
At first sight of the content, he whispered a slight curse. "Friggin' Christ."
But he kept flipping the pages and after a while, after reading it all he stopped looking.
And Joey looked up from the folder and squinted his eyes at The Ineffable with exasperation.
"Damn. Handing me an olive branch here? No catch, Mr. I'm-Ineffable? Because if there is I'm gonna guess as best-case scenario there's a shitty NDA hidden in here or some very weak blackmail."
It opened and closed its mouth and had a very concerned look in its eyes with skewed priorities in tow.
"Are you sure you are a child? Because if you aren't…this is going to be my worst decision in decades so far, and Sherrinford is going to never live this down." It muttered that so quietly, it sounded like some married husband whose wife would gossip and never live whatever happened, down.
"Ha! No." He deadpanned.
"I'm a child. I just kind of…became mature like this, I'm still a little piece of shit still though," It gave an amused look at that, crossing its arm like some mother.
"But back to this…You're handing me an olive branch aren't you?"
"I think you're using the olive branch term here wrong, I don't need peace, I already have peace in my life, Hale." It snapped back at him.
He winced before apologizing.
"Ah shit. Sorry, sorry I'll just…get along with signing this thing," He sighed.
"but I'll double-check it since I can't remember most of it now, my attention span is all over the place sometimes." He muttered and began flipping through and closely reading the thick pages of the folder.
It sighed and gave a pat to the shoulders to him. "I'll accept your weakly formed apology for now, but, I'll give you advice." It clapped it fingers and there appeared, next to where he sat, a fully functional coffee-maker with an already full cup of coffee, it picked it up and sipped, and put it down on the counter, crossing its fingers.
A buzzing sound was starting to close in the building and a door to the balcony opened from outside, and there stood…something.
Instead of a human head, it had impossibly large red bug eyes on a disgusting and drooling wasp head on a human body in a business suit with mantis claws that dripped of drying but recent blood.
And it approached to where he and The Ineffable where currently.
It bowed in front of The Ineffable and squinted its eyes at them, scratching its chin with its sharp mantis claws. "Z-Zatch is the reason you need of Drigger, Benevolent Lord Starkenh?"
"He who hesitates.." Starkenh began with an inhumane smile on his face, staring at Drigger with unhinged glee.
Drigger tilted its wasp head at Starkenh's unhinged glee. "Be-Benevolent Lord Starkenh?"
"..gets crushed into tiny specs of dust!"
"Starken-!" Before it could finish it's warning, it stilled with its widened bug eyes and turned to dust onto the floor with his fleeting life ended with a single snap from Starkenh.
It left nothing but its clothes.