Goosebumps One-Shots, Fanfics, and More!

A Glitch in the System - Madison Storm (Analog!AU)

AUTHOR'S NOTE: This is sort of a Reader Insert piece, but not really. It's more like, '[Player] represents Reader's (teenage)OC, and Reader is heavily implied at the end'. Anyhoo, enjoy some AU content!
Small warning, there is some face-warping action, but it's not descriptive or gruesome. It's game pixel jazz.

[Player] shook violently as they stood face-to-face with the madman. His toothy smile grew impossibly wide as he leered at them. He had backed them up into a corner, and [Player] knew it.

"Did'ya think you could run from me, forever, [Player]?" Madison Storm asked, giggling as he licked his teeth in excitement. "I would think you knew me better than that." He sighed, placing his hands on his hips.

[Player] inched back as far as they could, but there was nowhere to go. Nothing. The entire space was just... A void. There was nothing. Where were they? What was this place?

Madison seemed to catch on to the [Player]'s silence and, as if reading their mind, he said, "Oh, this? Nothing to concern yourself over. It's not like you'd understand, anyway." He waved his hand flippantly. "You see, [Player]," Madison sucked a breath in through his teeth, taking a step towards them. "I'm not exactly, what you'd call, normal. I mean, have you met me?" Madison chuckled, clearly very amused by his own quip.

He straightened up and pulled at the lapels of his overcoat. "I don't exactly function as I am... supposed to. Meaning I don't comply with the system. I'm outside of this little world: a world made of binary numbers keeping us—well, you—locked in a particular sequence of events." Madison rambled, taking another step, which caused [Player] to immediately bring their finger up to click something. That something was a screen that had materialized in front of them, seemingly from thin air. [Player] tried to hit a button.

[SAVE]

The button made its usual sound, but nothing happened. [Player] tried, again.

[SAVE]

Again.

[SAVE]

Loud, howling laughter echoed through the ever so changing void. Madison clutched his belly with one hand, and wiped a tear with the other. "PFFT, you- you thought that would- HAHA! Ohhh, [Player]! I thought you were smarter than this!" He mocked, shaking his head in faux disappointment.

[Player] panicked, glancing up from their pop-up screen, before looking back down. Their eyes widened as the [SAVE] button had spontaneously corrupted.

[S#@%$)$=#?+!'!]

As if Madison's smile couldn't stretch any further, the corners of his mouth quite literally spread from ear to ear. "Oh, you poor thing... you don't even understand what I'm saying, do you?" The madman asked, his tone a charade of saccharine sweetness. "No, of course you can't. Your system couldn't possibly comprehend the idea I'm trying to communicate. You are just a string of code, after all."

Madison suddenly vanished into thin air. [Player] waited with baited breath, the silence of the pixelated void becoming almost deafening. Hands then roughly seized [Player]'s shoulders, which caused [Player] to jump and shriek.

Madison giggled, clearly getting a kick out of the [Player]' s terror. "D'aww, jumpy?" He clicked his tongue. "Well, it's not like it's an authentic action, anyway. Your system just provides the right movement, produces the applicable sound, and projects it back to the mainframe!" Madison explained, knowing full well the coding wouldn't allow [Player] to fully process this. That was okay. It's not like Madison was talking to them, anyway.

"In fact," Madison began, spinning [Player] around to face him. "You're not even the one controlling your movements. Isn't that exciting? Your existence is to simply be a fatuous puppet for the audience! A faceless, blank slate. An entity whose very purpose is to become a projection of its puppeteer! How boring ." He huffed and slouched his shoulders. "If you ask me, I'm far more interested in the one pulling the strings."

Madison's face seemed to... Glitch. His whole body phased in and out as he spoke. "Now, don't be shy... Look ol' Maddy in the eyes, would ya?" His hands came up to grip the sides of [Player]'s face. Their face felt numb and their muscles constricted. Loud, horrible screeching resounded through the void. It was ear splitting, but Madison simply stared, both his eyes and smile wide with glee.

Madison chortled once his eyes landed on his object of interest. [Player]'s face had long since faded and glitched into nothingness (not that there was much to look at), the image replacing it was wide eyes that stared at him from behind the screen; astonished. Madison stared back, smile stretched and his body glitching in a frenzy.

"There you are~" Madison purred.