UnderHappened

9 - Slow music

What happened?! WHAT JUST HAPPENED?!?!

Finn doesn't respond. They're too busy listening to the music, their mouth a round "o" of shock. Music surrounds them, pulsing through the Underground, through their blood, through the snow. Slow, dark music. Not slow and dark in the way a sad song is meant to be slow and dark, but slow and dark like a happy song that has been purposefully slowed down to reveal a deeper, darker meaning.

Finn?? FINN?!?!

"Time... time restarted again," Finn finally manages, distracted.

Again? This... this has happened before?  The dummy sounds scared and confused.

"Yeah... don't... don't you remember?" Finn frowns. "It happened back when I first found you..."

No, I don't. The dummy sounds frustrated now, with a hint of anxiety. What's going on? Are you okay?

"Yeah, I just... I hear it now."

What? The music?

"Yeah."

The dummy is silent for a moment.

You realize what this means, right?

"Not really."

You and I... we've formed a Connection, somehow. You can hear the music of the Underground, when humans aren't supposed to be able to. And I remember... this. Whatever it is. The time jump.

This sounds rather ominous to Finn. They wave and greet the camera like they did before, then turn and set off down the path once again.

"So... all monsters can hear this?"

Yeah. Usually, it's bright and cheerful music. Beautiful music, different in each part of our world. We can block it out if we want to.

Finn thinks for a moment.

"It's the murders. They're interfering with it," they decide.

That could very well be true, the dummy agrees. We monsters are very in tune with our environment. Pun NOT intended, it adds hastily.

Finn laughs, and the duo continues on, doing everything it did before - moving the sticks to the side of the path, crossing the bridge, passing by the lamp and the checkpoint station, and finally reaching the clearing and awakening the piles of dust.

Except... there's six of them, this time.

It's the demon. They used the time jump to go back and kill more monsters, the dummy says bitterly, and Finn can't find any arguments against that idea. They shiver. If that's true, then the demon - the other human child - can't be very far ahead.

The sixth pile of dust transforms into another bird, this one bigger and pale green instead of blue, wearing a wicked set of shades. As soon as it's fully materialized, hops to its feet and rushes to the blue bird, Drake.

"SNOWY!! You're okay!! - I mean, yo, dude, there you are," he breaks off awkwardly.

"Chill, dude, I'm fine," Drake mutters, still dazed.

The fluffy dog makes its way over to Finn, but they refuse the urge to pet it and just pat it lightly on the shoulder. Its head still rises a couple of inches, but at least it doesn't go soaring away. Finn then approaches the group of newly resurrected teenage monsters, determined to take the initiative this time.

"We are all in grave danger," they inform them, quoting some random movie they watched once about two years ago.

That's strange. The music's faster.

Finn didn't notice it at first, but they notice now: the music has definitely changed, sped up just the tiniest bit. They grin to themselves, knowing that nobody can see it under the mask, then focus their attention back on the monsters.

"Snow joke," Drake agrees weakly, causing the green bird to break into loud, hearty laughter.

"You guys need to find somewhere to hide where you can stay safe," Finn pushes anxiously.

"Safe?" The green bird breaks out of its laughter to stare at them. "We just came back from the flipping dead, bro. There's no way I'm hiding and cowering somewhere when I can do that."

"Well... but don't you want to keep Snowy safe?" Finn asks, causing Drake to stiffen - "nobody calls me that.." - and the green bird to look perplexed. "All of your friends were just murdered. You don't want them to go through all that again?"

The bird actually appears to be considering this, which surprises Finn. "Yeah, well... they can hide. I'm gonna go beat that dirty sucker till they can't stand no more."

Finn shrugs. "Suit yourself. But that homework isn't going to eat itself."

"Homework??  Where," the bird growls, immediately on the offensive.

"At your house."

"THAT'S NOT ALLOWED. C'mon, guys, we're going to go trash some paper," the bird yells, scuttling away. Drake and the three Icecaps look at each other and shrug, then follow after him.

"Thanks," Drake adds to Finn as they pass. "We'll keep him safe. Don't worry about it."

Finn nods, and soon they're left alone in the clearing with the dummy and the dog, who doesn't appear to be going anywhere.

That was... hilarious.

"I agree," Finn laughs, then glances at the dog. "You should really go find somewhere safe, too."

The dog just stands there, panting, staring at them with its cute puppy face.

Finn shrugs and turns around, studying their surroundings. Besides the path that they came out of before, there's a path leading to Finn's left, and a path leading straight ahead. The path to Finn's left just seems to lead straight to an underground river, however, so Finn chooses the path ahead and starts walking. They don't have time to explore. They have a demon to stop.

They look back a couple paces down the path to see the dog still standing in the same place, staring at where they used to be.

He's fine, the dummy says quickly.

The trees down this path have changed from giant, leafless trunks to squat little snow-covered conifers, packed closely together and about the height of the garage door back at Finn's house. Finn breathes in their scent as they crunch down the path, the smell of pine needles and winter. They remember their mom lighting candles around the holidays to fill the house with this scent, the fresh scent of the woods. It's so much better in real life than a candle could ever be.

They reach another, smaller clearing a little ways on, where they find a small structure that looks a little like the previous guard station, but which is built completely out of cardboard. Finn takes a moment to admire it - it looks exactly like the fort they once built for themselves out of an empty refrigerator box - and notice a note pinned to the side, written in a grand, scrawling handwriting whose author doesn't seem to know that lowercase letters exist.

"You observe the well-crafted sentry station," Finn reads aloud. "Who could have built this, you ponder... I bet it was that very famous royal guardsman! (Note: not yet a very famous royal guardsman.)" 

They blink at the note, then laugh. "This guy's awesome."

Uhhh, Finn? It's another camera...

Finn starts, then peeks behind the cardboard structure. Sure enough, there's a camera there, blinking red like the other one. Finn waves at it, then quickly makes their way out of the area.

They don't like being spied on.