SOTF Archive/SOTF Classic

The walls bleed a cheery mauve, a bit crusty at the seams. It’s familiar in the same way a hole in the wall is- there’s a certain element of sketchiness, but it’s at the same time a familiar foreboding. You’ve been here before, perhaps in a long-lost childhood memory. The birthday you can’t recall with the friends you don’t remember having and the aunts and uncles you’re uncertain about in hindsight. Maybe they were creepy and their smiles weren’t genuine.

The air reverberates with the technicolor noise of arcade machines- wall to wall this is certainly the most generically, comfortably unsettling of playrooms you’ve ever been in. Cleaner than a Chuck E Cheese by some unfathomable degree- almost too clean, in that. You can never quite find the source of the noises, because whenever you turn a corner into a new row of ticket-spewing games and machines you find that the little basketball hoops are abandoned, the air hockey pucks sit unused, and the pinging and crashing of winners and prizes is always just the next row over.

You can find almost any one of those quirky, over loud, over eager games if you search with an open mind. Not so cozy seats in front of the racing game steering wheels, advertising a scant few tokens as cost. Fake plastic guns a good deal lighter than the real deal, attached by cord to the machines whose screens you can pretend to shoot at for a chance at beating the bevy of high scores all belonging to a certain anonymous styling themselves as ASS. There’s bumper car halls next to laser tag. Strength tests next to agility.

All child friendly, probably.

To get tickets and tokens you must seek out the far front of the windowless hall, or what your instinct seems to automatically guide you to as ‘the front’. Thin pale imitation carpet turns to equally questionable quality tile alternating various bland shades of washed out pastel.

A long counter occupies one wall, with enough room behind it for the happy customer friendly employees that are not on duty and never seemingly will be. You never manage to figure out how it works. You get tokens. You bring tickets. You win prizes, abundant on a set of parallel shelves behind the counter as they are not abundant in quality. The giant stuffed teddy bear takes up space more than it draws the eye. The toy gun claiming realistic noises when shot seems flimsier than the box it came in. This all happens in some unattended to part of your conscious, as if it is not a particularly important or relevant aspect of your visit to this place.

Opposite the counter exists a seperate room, a small buffet, far brighter than the arcade area, washed out in sterile fluorescent. Wall booths on all sides, a few islands worth of generic foodstuffs you could have been served at any 2 AM hole in the wall- certainly not particularly homely, but filling, energizing. Much as you can’t remember the taste, you probably crave the calories if all the options of games have worn you down. A few television sets are mounted on the walls at various easy angles- from almost anywhere in the room you don’t need to stress out your own neck much, to see what's being shown.

A familiar sight. You just left that place, likely in a rather violent way. You wondered what they were going to do without you. Hardly looks like family friendly entertainment. It might be best if you avoid this room unless you’re really that hungry.

The front doors are thoroughly opaque, somehow impossible to see through despite ostensibly being glass panes and metal frames. It’s something like fogged up, but even more peculiarly vague than that. There’s some kind of light on the other side. You’re not sure where it goes.

You know when you leave through those doors, you’re never coming back.

… Oh, and of course, there’s a ball pit to be had. It’s also hidden away in the mess of the grand arcade room, tucked into a corner and stretching from floor to wall with rigging that keeps children safe for all the few moments until they realize they can climb it. The soft plastic balls are familiarly rainbow in color, all the primary colors and a few secondary for flavor. You wonder how deep the pit could be. It looks like it hasn’t been disturbed for quite some time.

Busy as this place is, you and your friends seem to have it all to yourself. There’s a lot to do, and all the time in the world to do it with.

The basketball flew with the agility of Jason Statham and the grace of Michelle Rodriguez as it sailed through the air, rolling on the rim before falling in right at the buzzer and the crowd went wild.

Nah, just joshing. It hit the lip but bounced away with the crushing disappointment of getting like no points in this round, though it's not like Abel really expected anything different. At least he got a ticket or two as a pity prize that slowly added to the ponding mass of tickets blobbing up behind him.

He didn't know how long he was here, or let alone all by himself save for the attendants who occasionally showed up but were so unremarkable he thought they were a part of the wallpaper a couple of times. There were no clocks anywhere, and the light that was past the frosted glass was so glaringly bright he could only stand to look at it for a couple of seconds like it was the goddamn sun. He tried counting the minutes and hours, but after 4 or so he just gave up.

That was a while ago, but it should've been at least night by now, right? It didn't make sense. None of this made sense.

He remembered the bus. He remembered talking to Jonah before suddenly getting really tired. He remembered Ms. Garcia getting her brains blown the fuck out.

But after that.... nothing. It was like he just woke up here, took the wrong turn at Albuquerque or something. Anytime he tried to remember past that his head just hurt, so he just gave up.

He wasn't gonna worry about it. That's what he kept repeating to himself to keep from going insane under the florescent lighting and electronic fiesta blasting at all hours.

He was just gonna focus on winning that big ass bear.

"Abel?"

Yeah, okay, yeah, Liberty died, and yeah it hurt, it really really fucking hurt, and it sucked, but if this was the afterlife, and Abel was here, then holy fuck she had something to apologize for before things got too awkward to even mention it, however eternities in the future that could be. Maybe he didn't even remember it, maybe he wouldn't even consider it too much of an issue considering that he knows and so does she that they're dead and it doesn't matter, but she needed to apologize for it before things got too weird.

"Hey, Abel?" Liberty asked again.

"Remember Swiftball, when you threw up on my shoes so I took your weed brownies?

"I'm. um.

"Sorry. About that."

Someone called Abel's name. He turned around and caught a glimpse of a girl standing a couple of feet away before returning to the basketball game.

And then he did a double take. Just stared her over with basketball in hand as she went off on something about Mikki's party and throwing up which he vaguely remembered but-

He wasn't alone. Or he really was going crazy creating people out of thin air. Hah hah.

He had to make sure. Had to make sure Bert was real.

He dropped the basketball, it thudding on the immaculate flooring before rolling away and converging with the mountain of tickets. He walked over slowly, stammering incoherent yet silent words.

One hand outstretched, gently but firmly gripping Bert on the shoulder.

This was real. She was real. She was real! He wasn't alone!

He pulled her into a hug, slightly awkward because of the height difference. But he didn't care, even as his eyes started tearing up.

He wished it was Jonah. Or Amber. Or Andy. Or Gina. Or Faith. Or Matt. Or Mike. Or Mikki. Or Larry. Hell, he'd even take Max.

But it was someone. It was someone real. Abel wouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth.

Dante thought about his sisters.

He'd spent a lot of time in the Chuck E Cheese in Chattanooga. Not really when he was a little kid, like when you were supposed to be going to Chuck E Cheese, because his family couldn't afford to go and when his friends had birthday parties he usually had to stay home and help his family with things. But when he got a little older and his sisters got invited to those birthday parties he took them whenever he could, cause Papa was always busy with work and Mamma was always busy with the babies, and he wasn't much of a chaperone especially when he went to things with Vee and she was like 7 and he was like 9, but he felt grown up and important anyway, and he was happy because his sisters were happy, even when he got to be too old to play in the play area and he mostly was suppposed to just smile and wave at Bea while she went down the big slide.

They probably wouldn't like it as much, here. It was too quiet. Only Bea was young enough for it now, anyway. They'd gotten so big when he wasn't looking.

They were gonna be older than him one day.

That was weird.

He'd woken up in the ball pit and decided not to go anywhere, because the ball pit was kinda relaxing in a weird way, like being in a pool alone when the sun's out, just floating on your back. Also because when he moved he had a killer headache and he figured if he stayed still for a while it'd go away eventually. He wasn't really sure if it was a real headache, or if he was just remembering a headache so bad that the memory hurt, and it felt like maybe he shouldn't dwell on that too hard?

He remembered everything.

He should probably be having a crisis of faith right now or something since if this was the kingdom of heaven he was gonna feel pretty ripped off but hey. Hey, it was okay. It was one of those things, like the headache, and like the other people who might be here, and like his sisters growing up without him, it was one of those things. He just had to not think about it.

The ball pit was cool, but it was kind of freaky how he couldn't find the bottom even when he tried to stand up straight.

She wasn't sure if what she was seeing was true or if she was in a feverish dying dream that she had mustered up in her final moments of living. Her hand instantly moved up to her stomach as she still felt something there and then she remembered that she had really died because of a mistake that she had made. She couldn't go back and it pained her to have left so many people that she cared about behind.

But she knew that everything was going to be okay.

Was it really going to be all okay? Maybe if she believed for as long as she could; she could make that thought positive and real.

Violet's eyes fluttered and blinked a few times as she turned her head to the side to see Abel embracing Liberty into a hug and she found herself smiling warmly at the scene. She didn't think that it would be her place to interrupt their happy moment and she wandered off to look around for a while. Being able to seeing other people that she knew was tugging at her heartstrings and she felt something wet on her cheek, feeling a lump in her throat.

A tear.

She wiped it away with her hand quickly, not wanting anyone else to see her like this. Was there anyone else here? It felt empty with just the other two that she had seen and she found herself walking around more aimlessly and lost than she ever was before. She noticed that there was a ball pit that she had almost missed seeing and she paused as she saw that there was actually someone in it. She looked more closely and she stepped forward towards the ball pit.

"Dante...?"

It took a bit before he noticed her, consciously. Like she was waking him up from a long, vivid dream. That was okay. She had no idea how long he had been here, or, rather, how long he felt like he had been here, but she had just arrived fairly recently. Liberty didn't yet know how time passed in this place, or what it would do to her the longer that she stayed.

The basketball hit the floor with a thud, and suddenly Liberty felt a lot less forgiving. Was he really angry at her? Was he going to try to hurt her, after they were both dead? Was there such a thing as double death? Liberty didn't want to be the one to find out, but there was nowhere she could go, and nothing she could do. Abel was a lot bigger and faster than her. If she tried to run, he'd catch her. It was on pure instinct, then, that she took a step backwards. Distress crept across her face.

A hand on her shoulder. He had her. The other foot went backwards, despite how increasingly pointless it was to try and run at this point. Liberty looked up at his face just in time for Abel to pull her in and try to suffocate her, and she tried at first to pull away and not double die and get the heck over to the ball pit or hide behind a ticket machine or something when she realized that this wasn't her being suffocated or squished and it actually felt kind of nice and wait was Abel crying or was she crying or were they both crying because despite how on guard she had been just moments before she didn't realize how badly she needed a hug after having her face caved in.

So she returned it.

It felt good.

Interesting place to have a birthday party. A lot to do, but awfully cramped in. Camila wasn't too inclined to fritter away time on the games yet. Much as she had infinite time to, a fact she was neutrally aware of.

The islands in the buffet were stocked with grease onto grease- pizza, nuggets, hot dogs, burgers, chips. Gelatin brand gelatin. The token salad stuffs here and there. All very gringo. Camila wasn't hungry. She idly assumed she'd never particularly feel that urge again, however long she wandered these halls before being compelled to shuffle along to whatever waited on the other side of the doors of what she could only assume was purgatory.

She was watching the televisions. That was a place she no longer belonged- those were friends that she no longer shared a commonality of being alive with. She watched because she momentarily wanted to, not because she had any particular reason to. Idling her time away. Felt strange to be so aimless. She supposed she could set herself a goal at some point, at least, maybe trying for high scores on all the machines or something.

She observed Claudeson a moment longer. Shrugged off the questionable turn of character, shrugged off the role her own insect-hive of a corpse played in the world of the living. Irrelevant. She moved on, briskly striding away from the worst of the cloying fried batter smell.

She didn't recognize most of the pretty lights and sounds she passed, had no reason to. A game was a game was a game, arbitrary rules, little applicable to the harshness of reality, of business to be done. She carried herself with ease, one foot before the other in a bouncy cadence. No need to be at edge, until proven otherwise. She wandered, as of yet not seduced by the promise of tickets and prizes.

The mesh cage of the ballpit was equally as non a factor, until she noticed at least one familiar face. Floating on the sea of soft and mute colors. Almost like swimming, in a way.

The dull pink color rushed to her face by the apples of her cheeks fairly quickly, and she didn't mind that. She genuinely felt the smile she wore on impulse, and had no qualms about showing it.

"Dante." Camila jumped onto the rigging that hemmed the ballpit in, casually looping her fingers through and hanging by a literal thread. Petty, but it felt good to have the wherewithal to so casually exude energy once more.

"Ciao," Dante called out in return to the girl who'd appeared at the edge of the ball pit. Violet, right? There were two Violets. Both of them were very uninterested in him, so he honestly didn't remember which one this one was. If that mattered. Which, like, of course it mattered, they were totally different people, just cause he didn't know them didn't make them not important. It didn't make it not sad, that she was here. It didn't mean she didn't have a family, back home, somewhere, friends. People who were sad.

It was weird to think about? Like he was trying really hard not to think about so that didn't help much, but. He thought maybe it was better to just act normal, like himself, but that felt wrong, like he'd be making fun of her somehow. But being all serious or mournful or whatever also felt pretty weird seeing as he was floating in a sea of plastic balls at the moment. He thought of some small talk stuff to say and opened his mouth to say them but they just stuck to the roof of his mouth like peanut butter.

He wondered what had happened to her but he didn't really wanna know.

"You, uh..." he started, and then stopped. "This place..." He stopped again.

Then someone else was there, and a smile formed on his face before he really realized it.

"Camila."

It was bad, right? He should be sad she was there. Right? The smile should have gone right off his face, then, probably.

But being sad wasn't gonna help anyone, he realized. They were safe now, right? They were safe, and this whole thing was silly, and they were together, and that was enough, or it could be if they let it. He'd only really known her for a day, but that was okay. You didn't need a long time to really know someone. Sometimes you just knew. She was enough, at least, to remind him who he was. Violet might have thought he was making fun of her, but Camila would understand.

Overthinking was a bad look on him, so Dante just let the words that came to mind come out.

"I kinda wish you weren't here but I missed you anyways." He blinked. "Even though it uh, hasn't been that long? Has it? I dunno."

He sat up and let himself sink a little bit. The pit supported his weight well enough that he could basically swim in it.

He kicked. A phantom pain for a second, and then nothing.

A short distance away from Dante, something stirred in the depths of the ball pit.








"...The fuck?" Andy said as he emerged head and shoulders out of the plastic balls.

It felt like days since Abel last touched another person. He missed it, even if it was with a practical stranger like Bert. But he wasn't alone anymore.

He wiped his head on his arm, tear-soaking the sleeve before looking up and seeing some Asian girl with glasses giving him a mean mug at the end of the aisle. She must've noticed he saw her too, since she immediately fled.

Oh. Okay. Maybe he should've thought twice about how A) there was a chance there was more people and B) how snatching a girl and forcing her into a hug would've looked.

He gently pushed Bert back, one hand still on her shoulder.

"I'm sorry," he half-heartedly chuckled, sniffling and rubbing his eyes with the back of his free hand. "I just... I thought I was the only one here."

And then his grip tightened somewhat, his eyes looking directly through Bert's.

"You know what's going on?"

So, this was what Chuck E Cheese looked like?

Blake was never really an expert on what a restuarant for kids was meant to look like. Never really had the time to go there when he was younger, with his parents being officers and all. Considering who they were marketed to, he could wager a guess and say that it would be unpleasant for him, with screaming and unruly children. Once he had the chance to look around after he woke up a couple minutes ago, however, he was surprised at how seemingly empty this place was, except for an employee from time to time. He tried talking to one of them, asking about where he was, but the worker just ignored him and focused on fixing one of the arcade machines. Real helpful, he was.

On one hand, it was kind of nice, being the first in line for the games and not having to deal with any headaches. On the other hand, though, he was starting to get worried. The...whatever this place is called couldn't be closed for the night, he likely would've been kicked out otherwise.

Oh yeah, and there was that part where he got fucking poisoned.

He ran his hand down his face just at the thought of it. She played him like a fool. She saw an opportunity and she grabbed it with both of her hands. In hindsight, he should've saw it coming from a mile away. If some people got a gun or knife assigned to them, there was a good chance that someone would have an ace up their sleeve like she did.

But it's too late now.

Letting out another long sigh, Blake continued to walk around and get his bearings. If he was going to be here a while, he could at least find a board telling him where everything was. Assuming this place has that of course.

A few more minutes of searching led him to turn another corner, where he saw two figures in the distance. Looking at one of them, he unconsciously raised his eyebrow. There was something familiar about them, but he can't make out their face. Deciding to get a closer look, he walked towards them. It's probably another employee talking about something with their co-worker, but...

Once Blake was near them, it was clear who they were and he spoke.

"Abel? Bert?"

Violet noticed that there was another girl who had approached them as Dante was saying something to her and she realized that it was Camila. It seemed like she shouldn't interrupt Dante and Camila as they seemed like they were close and Violet took a step to the side of the ball pit. She didn't want to get involved in something so personal between friends and she wasn't sure if she should stay-

Violet's eyes widen a little as she saw Andy popping out of the ball pit and she would have giggle if this wasn't a confusing situation and that she knew that that meant Andy was also.... All of them here were gone. But this place was.... What was it? A place where they could see each other one last time? She didn't want to continue to think about it and she knew that she had to do something for Andy.

"Hey, Andy. Need a hand getting out of there?" She asked politely with a small, friendly smile as she took a step into the ball pit and her foot sunk a little bit into the pit. She didn't really mind and she held out a hand towards where Andy was. "This must be very confusing, right? Yeah.... It is...."

She hoped the smile was genuine. Realistically she couldn't be sure. His coming to terms with his life after the fact, that was his own business.

All she could do was selfishly enjoy the light in his eyes. It looked good on him.

"I've been here a while," she recanted. She reached back into her memory, which was as nebulous a realm as groggy morning breath. "Not sure how long. Haven't seen anyone else yet." The lights and sounds blurred together after a while- on either side of death's door. She might have still been bleeding out from a spent bullet washing in her leaking bile. Here and now and for all eternity.

"We all going to end up here, you think? A kid's parlor's appropriate, honestly."

Camila casually began to scale the mesh that kept the balls from spilling out onto the floor and rolling into every unreachable nook to be found. Her weight dragged on the ceiling-high mess of knotted net, but it held firm. She ascended a few inches, casually. Stability was of little concern to her, all the sway to the left and right and other dizzying directions amused her more than terrified. What was there left to be afraid of- a question with no discernible answer.

She violently jerked to the left, her foot kicked out and found a new safer perch.

"Who are the other two, though? I'm assuming you know for sure since I don't."

"What's going on?" Liberty repeated, tilting her head quizzically, "well, for starters, we're all dead."

There was no denying that. Liberty had clear, vivid memories of the island. When she was. Where she was. What she heard on the announcements, Abel's name among the fallen. Her presence, here, after being fucking bodied by Quinn. The afterlife was a shitty Chuck E. Cheese. She could vibe with that. Playing crappy skeeball until she wanted out and went through the doors and vanished into the great nothingness of the beyond. Making out in the ball pit. Eating bad pizza. Maybe they had some mascot costumes?

"Quinn killed me, on like, day three, and I think you were also killed, because we were on the island, or something, and I definitely heard your name on the announcements."

Liberty heard a voice behind her, and turned. Blake Davis, speaking words. Asking if it really was, in fact, her.

"In the fle—well, uh, in the spirit?" she said, stumbling over her words.

"Oh, and, uh, I think I'm going to go by Liberty again. Which means like, nothing. But, ah, it just, Bert was alive, Liberty is dead, you know."