DHMIS - reworked

AU description (-)

First of all, hi!

If you came from my last book, welcome back to hell! You're gonna be stuck here forever!

I decided to make an entire new book for my new au, because the last books layout was getting wayy too chaotic for my taste. And don't get me wrong, i love chaos, just not when it comes to the layout of certain things.

Before i copy and paste my au here, reminder that requests are open! I most likely won't do ships about my own interpretations of the freaks, but if you want one about yours just let me know (please keep in mind that my version of the trio are siblings, so no ships between them).

Tw for mentioned self harm, cults, living in a simulation and the questionable morals or the teachers

Anyways, here's the new au!

So, for starters: the most important location in most of my stories is the House. The House is a gigantic building, made out of different colored wooden squares, seemingly carelessly stacked on top of each other. Each resident of the house has a different colored square, aside from the trio, who share a room, and the kitchen crew, who all sleep in the basement.

The House is made up of 5 floors: the basement, in which the kitchen crew sleeps, the main floor, which contains the living room, dining hall, game room, study and kitchen, the first floor which contains the rooms of the trio, Sketch and Tony, the second floor, which contains the rooms of Lucy, Colin and Gilbert, and the attic, where Lamp and Shrigbold sleep.

( I would show a picture of the house, but my procreate died and I lost all of my progress :()

Next to the house is the vegetable garden, LOADS of flowers (+ a small patch dedicated to some not all too legal plants) and a small garden shed.

But the most important feature to the house is the bell.

The bell is a…bell. Surprising, I know. It's pretty big, about the size of a fish bowl, golden colored, and it hangs from a wooden post near the edge of the clearing where the House is located. A rope is attached to the clapped (i had to Google what it was called lol), leading all the way into the dark woods surrounding the place.

You see, the inhabitants of the House aren't there because they want to, it's because they can't leave. They're all still trapped in the simulation made by the Machine, and Roy wants to keep a close eye on them, in case any of them try to do anything stupid. They can't leave through the woods either, it'll eventually just loop back to the clearing. Shrignold can't fly anymore, and BB can't take anyone with him, so they have no choice but stay where they are, hoping that Roy won't bother them too much.

However, once every few days (it's a bit difficult to keep track of time when it's June 19th everyday), a passageway will open in the forest (it's what the bell is for; it'll start ringing when the trees start moving), leading to a small, unnamed town none of the inhabitants recognize. The town has a mall, a roller skating rink, a couple of bars and restaurants, a cinema, a zoo and a small neighborhood, mostly existing out of apartment complexes and small bungalows. Whenever the forest opens, they take some money with them and go shopping at the mall for necessities and anything else they want, or sometimes visit one of the other spots the town has to offer.

And, if they run out of money, the trio pick up small jobs for a day and the teachers start robbing people.

Now, the interesting thing about the forest opening, and with that the town itself, is that it's only open for a day. If they all try to stay there longer, they'll eventually black out and wake up back at the house, the forest closed again. But what's even more interesting is that no matter how big of a scene the teachers cause (they accidentally lit the entire mall on fire once because they forgot lighting 500 pieces of fireworks inside wasn't the best idea), none of the town's citizens will remember them next time. The main theory the group has is that the town is stuck in a time loop, just like they are, except the citizens don't keep their memories from the previous days. As for the destruction that the group (read: the teachers) caused, Roy most likely resets the town every time the group visits.