A Never Ending Nightmare (Little Nightmares X Male Reader)

Prologue

Those bloated fingers would soon find another morsel. Vermin were drawn to the kitchen, drawn to see the chef. Duo had seen enough of it. Sometimes, he had seen far too much.

Crawling through the dark, suffocating vent, Duo kept his movements slow and deliberate, each inch forward taken with the care of someone too familiar with danger. Behind him, the girl in the yellow raincoat followed, her presence a silent shadow. The faint rustle of her hood brushing against the walls was the only sound she made. They were both searching, always searching—for safety, for warmth, for something human amidst the madness. Yet, all they ever seemed to find was fire.

At the end of the vent, Duo squinted through the gloom, his fingers reaching for the cold metal grille. He pressed his palm against it, gave a firm push, and the rusty grate fell with a loud clang that echoed through the emptiness below. Wincing at the noise, Duo cursed under his breath. Silence was survival in this place, but noise was inevitable. As the metal clattered to the ground, it stirred the shadows around them, unseen things listening, waiting. Duo's gaze swept the darkened room. The only source of light came from a small, flickering fire in the center.

Around it, a group of children sat huddled together, cloaked in oversized garments, their faces gaunt, reflecting the same desperation Duo had grown so accustomed to. Each child wore a different color, as though they'd plucked their clothing from a forgotten pile of lost lives: one boy in red, another in dark green, another boy in beige, and a girl in light green. But one of them—one girl—stood apart. She wore a tattered white cloak, and something about her, about the way she hunched near the flames, sent a shiver down Duo's spine. Her figure was unnaturally large, her back twisted like the gnarled branches of a dying tree. She barely seemed human, a lumbering creature trying to pass as one of them. Her posture was monstrous, her hunch grotesque, like a nightmare pulled from a forgotten fairy tale. Beauty and the beast, Duo thought grimly. Only without the beauty.

The fire illuminated a mere sliver of the room, leaving everything beyond its small circle of light swallowed by thick, impenetrable darkness. The air felt heavy, oppressive, as though something unseen loomed just beyond the fire's reach, watching. Waiting. The girl in the yellow raincoat pushed past Duo, her hood brushing against his cheek. Her presence, usually a quiet one, now felt oddly intrusive, but he let her move forward, not bothering to stop her. His honey-brown eyes followed her as she peered into the circle of light. Duo's shoulders tensed as he scanned the room, his instincts prickling. He had learned to trust his gut in this world of shifting shadows. The children by the fire turned toward them. Eyes, wide and dark, reflecting something deeper than fear. Recognition flickered across the face of the boy in the red cloak.

"You!" the boy called out, his voice sharp, almost accusatory. He wasn't looking at Duo. His gaze was locked on the girl, his expression filled with something unreadable—fear, maybe. Resentment. Duo didn't know. Didn't care. Not anymore. Not after what the girl had done.

Duo dropped out of the vent and landed softly beside her, the sound of his feet meeting the floor muffled by the overwhelming silence. His brow furrowed as he took a cautious step forward, but before he could move any further, the boy in red rushed over, grabbing both Duo and the girl's hands, yanking them toward the fire with startling urgency.

"Get down!" the boy hissed through clenched teeth.

Duo barely had time to process the words before something moved in the darkness behind them. A slick, wet sound—like flesh sliding across damp stone—echoed through the room, followed by a sudden, violent snap. Duo turned just in time to see a black, slimy tentacle slither out from the shadows, its tendrils reaching for them with eerie precision. It lashed through the air, missing Duo by mere inches, before retreating back into the dark, as if testing the waters, waiting for the next opportunity to strike.