Cigarette?

The Limbos

"So you're here too?" Schlatt asks me, strolling towards me with wobbly steps. He's drinking from a bottle while smoking, and I can smell it all from several paces away. I want to vomit.

"HOW? How are you here??" I demand. He hiccups and shrugs before coming close enough to lean on me with his filthy hands. I'm ashamed to say I still might prefer this to complete isolation.

"Every full moon in the *hic* Overworld, we can cross between limbos." He says before belching and laughing.

I've tried running along the track. It doesn't turn, but I eventually end up here again. I believe him, I think.

"But I've been here for, for, for months, years even!" I struggle to remember the moon my last night alive. Was it full? I can't even remember my house....

"Times funny here. It's about month every day. It moves 29 times faster there from here. So a day there will be a month here. You couldn't have been here for more than 8 months." He says. It's only been a week since my death?

"Unless you haven't come in the last three times or so. I stopped checking. " He shrugs. Oh. So I must have been here a real month, but what seems like years.

"Then what are we waiting for? Let's get out of here!" I proclaim and run for the foggy track, disappearing into the mist.

The fog eventually subsides, and I start to cry from joy. I'm in an earie dark cavern. No more harsh red and blue lighting. The air smells damp. That's new, and I love it.

Schlatt follows, and I walk. This place is an unclaimed limbo. Ghosts have their own versions of limbos and are separate from ours. So, this one is for someone alive.

"This'll be the next one." Schlatt says and takes another swig from his bottle.

"What do you mean?" I question.

"They have a sort of order to them. The next to die always will come first. It's a weird system. If we go the other way, we'll find my limbo and that obnoxious mexicans limbo. This will be the next to dies limbo. After that, it's random." He explains. It sort of makes sense. I wonder who it belongs to. Someone afraid of the dark, perhaps? I notice a marking on the wall. Two shattered hearts, and one that's full and bright. They feel out of place

"Whoever it is has one more *hic* life left." He nods to the hearts. I can't remember who had how many lives. But it still makes me uneasy.

We walk through the limbos. Each is seemingly a personal hell for someone. A tiny island, a collesium, a hall of mirrors, a room of gold, an empty void, a battlefield of ice, a room on fire, an endless feild with a single broken bench on a hill, a sinking ship, the list goes on. Some seem easy to match each to. Others not so much. I look at the hearts, and dread fills me. So many are missing. I don't want to be lonely. But I don't want to bring this on others either.

Eventually we come full circle and I'm in a small mexicsn restaurant. A rather beautiful woman in a white mask with blonde hair is portrayed in portraits everywhere.

Schlatt rolls his eyes and stops me before I can turn a bend.

"He died for his f###in girlfriend, and all the pictures should be *hic* making him depressed,  but he's still a major *hic* simp. Brace yourself." We round the corner, and I see mexican dream. He laughs and waves, aeeming happier than ever. He's baking a cake, A CAKE??? I haven't eaten in months!! Behind him lays a spread out of breads , cakes, and drinks. No sand, but beggars can't be choosers. I fling myself past the simp and attempt to eat a loaf of bread. I find it crumbles to dust in my mouth. But if I pretend, it tastes like sand, so I keep eating.

"Wilbur! How great to see you. Well, it's not so great. Because it sucks for you, Alexa play La Chona, am I right? Aye yai yai, I need to work on my jokes..." He sighs. I keep forgetting this guy exists. And how short he is.

"Howd you die?" I ask, the dust bread unsettling my stomach. They both freeze.

"Amigo, we don't really talk about that. It's a sensitive subject." Qua- I mean, mexican dream- says. Then proceeds to talk for about 4 hours how he died every time. His final death being dream shooting him for trying to visit Tommy, who apparently was in exile again. Although I'm sure it's lifted now. These things can't last long without l'manburg, right? Although it sounds like they're rebuilding.

Apparently, Mexican dreams limbo is the restaurant joiny with a comvience store because that was his dream. To open a restaurant in El Rapids with Mamacita and live peacefully. But he
Is family had tried to forve him into their tradition of OXXO businesses. It's supposed to be a painful reminder, but either he's too dense to understand that, or he's just genuinely happy to have had such little time with her. Can't relate. Sally full on left me for Jared, and I won't get over that. For all this man knows, she's moved on already. Loves overrated. It screws with your head. Not just romantic love, mind you. Fraternal and platonic suck too. Friends turn on you, family betrays you, and you do the same to them. It's just a heartache.

We sit around and enjoy having company before I realize I'm shaking. I couldn't tell you why, really. I'm just nervous, I suppose. Schlatt notices and passes me a small box silently.

I open it to find a dozen cigarettes lined up neatly. I pass it back. I smoked only once before,  back before the festival that got Tubbo killed. It was supposed to calm my nerves, but it made me vomit instead.

"Take one kid; it's not going to get any easier. " He says, refusing to take the package back. I set it down. I'm not going to add addiction to everything going on wrong here.

"So 6 seen everyone else's, what's your limbo?" I finally ask. He smirks.

" I don't have one. I get the pleasure of being in the company of the living. They hate me, so I suppose thats my hell. But I have a room full of cigarettes and cigars, and an endless tap of alcohol of all kinds. Ironically, it gives me heart attacks to using them so heavily,  but we're ghosts. Might as well live death to the fullest." He says and raises a bottle to me.

"Someones awfully sober." I remark. He shrugs.

"It comes and goes if I'm drinking or not. Being a ghost is f###ing weird." He laughs. A ghost. He is one, I suppose, but what am I? I'm...... nothing. That sounds depressing. I mean, I'm not a ghost. I'm solid, I feel pain, I'm real. But I'm not human nor hybrid. I'm not alive or dead, am I? I'm just.... there. Caught in between life and death, the dark and light, reality and nothing.

Eventually, their voices fade away. I finally have found people, but I feel more alone than ever.

1224 words!

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