How Many Posters (Grocers) Does One County Need? ||| GenLoss AU

why do murderous animals survive?

(Sorry guys, writer's block hit me like a truck, threw me into a river, tossed me off a plane, and smacked me back and forth between two walls)

Also TW:Mention of death, blood, mention of guns, gore(???)

THIS CHAPTER GETS KIND OF DARK AND SORT OF GORY!!!!!! (sorry)

Life
---------------
the existence of an individual human being or animal.

...

Ranboo stood at the intersection with their best friend, their brother, Charlie. Ranboo's nerves were never calm, even when he found the familiar jackets and hoodies, even when they both viewed the woodland animals, even when he stood at a crossroad with Charlie.

Ranboo had every right to be tense, and they knew Charlie was too. They saw the way Charlie would wrap his arms around his stomach anytime he seemed uncomfortable, and they knew why. After what they did, after all that Ranboo had done, he didn't even know why Charlie went back for them. Charlie could've - Charlie should've left without Ranboo - after all, it was their fault he'd...

No, he's still alive, he's still living. Or at least, was given another chance at life..? Charlie had... departed around three times, maybe even more; because while it was debatable on how long they had both been at the Showfall mall, it was no coincidence that the number of "departures" Charlie had endured seemed to correspond with the three stark white highlights in his hair. Or maybe it corresponded with how many "lives" they might have left, like some twisted video game.

If either of those are the case, then why did Ranboo only have one? Have they died already? Or does he only have one life left?

They remembered where they were for a moment, and once again took in their surroundings before noticing something. They had been pulled out of their thoughts by Charlie's hyperventilations - so you could definitely say this worried Ranboo. They held onto his arm, trying not to grab it and spook him, but also trying to make sure he knew Ranboo was there, to make sure Charlie was grounded.

Ranboo leaned over to Charlie a bit and whispered, "Are you okay?" Ranboo watched as Charlie slowly turned to Ranboo with a terrified look in his eyes, and slowly back to a lamp pole he must've been looking at. Curious, Ranboo looked at the lamp pole as well.

It was as if time stopped, and they could almost feel the life draining from the very little of their face that you could see. He was met with himself, his face plastered on a poster - except something was wrong, terribly wrong. Ranboo didn't know why he felt so... unsettled seeing his own face without a mask on, but what they did know is that it felt very, very wrong.

It felt like a small part of the private life they never even knew had been exposed to the world, and he had a feeling that this might've been one of the last private things they had left. Their eyes began to dart around the lamp pole, seeing familiar faces on all of them.

A lot of them had two seperate names on them, and at the top of every poster either said "Streamer" or "Content Creator," sometimes both. Niki, Austin, Ethan, Sneeg, etc, all had posters, as well as other people - Bizly, GoodTimesWithScar, Jaiden Animations, Ted Nivison, Shubble, Quackity, FoolishGaming, Condifiction, Jschlatt, - all whose names and faces rang familiar bells in Ranboo's head, but not as strongly as the cast he and Charlie had been forced to be apart of in the Showfall mall. But even if those were some of the only people he could remember, there were still more posters all over the lamp pole.

Ranboo's grasp on Charlie had loosened as they felt a part of their world shatter - not like that hasn't happened before. They felt just as helpless and frozen as they were when they finally broke out of the illusion, when The Puzzler left that message for him- wait, no, wasn't his name Jerma? It was either that or Jeremy, but Ranboo couldn't tell and didn't even care.