i wanna feel lethal on the inside, i wanna read american psycho again

> Dave: Follow the path.

Prior to finding the signature on the wall, you had indubitably doubted the presence of any life whatsoever that could have been with you on your level. The yellow rooms had a sort of air about them, and although they seemed incredibly artificial and man made, it felt dead. The air was still, and you felt like your sudden appearance in the world was a disturbance in the force, something this world wasn't used to. Your existence there felt primitively incorrect.

You are not used to people. You grew up isolated, only going outside to steal food because your Bro never got you more when you ran out, so you had to supply it yourself. You don't have money, and you're not entirely sure of how much your Bro has due to your nervous sweating and throat closing up when you tried to ask, so you resorted to theft. People were often the enemy for the insignificant amount of time you would spend with them. You didn't want them to see you, or be next to you, or even breathe the same air beside you because that could get you caught and your Bro taught you well that being caught will get you absolutely nowhere but on the roof by yourself, nursing a concussion and several bruises and slices on your arms and abdomen. People are the enemy, he taught you.

There are some exceptions, though. The internet never stopped you from seeing people or talking to them, in fact, it encouraged you to do so. The movies you watched, the games you played, the friends you eventually made. They all showed you that people aren't so bad. A little flawed, yes, but really not that bad in the grand scheme of things. At least not in real life. You started to see the difference between humans as a whole from, you will admit, an older age than you guessed you were supposed to, but it still happened. You never ended up hating people, but you honestly never ended up liking them either. You like your friends(including Obama), of course, but that's really it.

You'd never expected yourself to have so much desperation for any signs of life until now. You hadn't realized until it happened, until you had stumbled upon something that wasn't random and too familiar at the same time, that you, Dave Strider, are devastatingly lonely in this game. You've never felt anything like it before. It tugged at you like a tether attached to your chest, the urge to see movement and hear the shifting of someone that distinctly isn't you. At the apartment, you at least had Bro. He's an asshole, but him being there was a small comfort that you had never known you needed until that moment. You still have your friends' voices blasting through your headset, but it's not consistent enough. They've lost the energy to talk, save for Jade sometimes, and even then it's rare that anyone responds except you. It's not the same as having someone there, in the same building as you. It's a shit ton more lonely, now that you think about it, because you're pretty sure that there's no exit to any of these levels.

You and your friends have been looking for an exit for three days relentlessly, and you've come across nothing. Until now. Because there's a person here, somewhere with you, and they might know something about how to get out. The thought that they might have already gotten out crosses your mind, but you shut it down. The pen the person used wasn't faded in any way at all, so it had to have been recent. At least, that's what you're telling yourself.

Those three words burned into your brain like a hot branding iron on your forehead. You took three hours of your valuable time, when you could have been looking for an exit, memorizing it. The color of the pen, how thick the strokes were, the handwriting, the way that the writer practically ingrained it into the wall with how hard they were writing. You stored it all in a mental file called "graytext.png" in comic sans, and you named it because what the fuck else were you supposed to do with this totally massive joke opportunity. Putting ".png" after the name of a file in your head has got to be one of the funniest fucking things you've ever done. Or maybe you're just losing it. Either way, you'll never know.

Afterwards, you took out your phone and took a picture of it just to be safe. You haven't used your phone at all because, despite the various outlets scattered around this place, you didn't have a charger on you when you fell. Which you try not to berate yourself for, given that you didn't know you were gonna be spawned into a completely different world that day, but you can't help your thoughts from wandering. So you've been saving the charge for relevant things, like this. This is extremely relevant, and definitely not because of how pathetically lonely you are, you tell yourself.

You continued walking again, more motivated than when you got here, when you took a right then a left and saw another marking on the wall. It's kind of embarrassing how overjoyed you got, but you don't blame yourself. In the same gray, angry pen, it read:

THIS IS WHERE I'M GOING, I GUESS.

Followed by a continuous, monotone line. It stood out starkly against the yellow, polka dot wallpaper, and after days of nonstop, assaulting lemon, on your sore eyes, this was a welcome difference.

You suppose you should be on high alert and on the lookout for anything else out of the ordinary as you quickly follow the line. You put your headphones on.

"Hey guys, you're going back in my sylladex. I'll check in when I usually do." Rose, who you're surprised even had the energy to respond with water sloshing tiredly in the background, grumbles an "alright." Jade doesn't say anything, but you know she heard you. John is probably out right now. You quickly captchalogue what's left of your friends' voices and put all your senses at 100%. It's exhausting and overstimulating, but it'll be worth it, you think as the line changes course from one wall to the other.

You walk like this for a while. Sometime in the middle, right after you gave your hourly check in, the pen started fading and the abrupt end was extended by a thick, black marker. Damn, this person was prepared.

You follow the marker the same as you did the pen. You speed walk, and realize that without the guidance, this would have taken multiple days to travel. You're glad that they took the time to document their path, because otherwise, you wouldn't have gone this way at all. It was all pointless circling and fucked up directions, and it disorients you so bad that you really have no clue where you are anymore. You stop paying attention to the directions they went about an hour in, realizing that it was all too confusing and useless to keep stored in your brain.

At the latter end of Jade's sleeping time, you find your motivation and patience wearing thin. Your pace has slowed to a regular walk, and though your senses are still on top of things, it feels like you're moving through molasses. You guess it has been a loaded day, so you decide to look for a corner under the line. You take a left past a wall with a wavy pattern and freeze.

In a corner next to an outlet, underneath the thick, black line you've been following like a dog on a leash for the past two hours, is something you've never seen before. The first thing you notice is that it has a relatively humanoid shape, and is curled up in a ball. Likely sleeping, you immediately think, then disagree with yourself because there's nothing assuring you that this thing(guy-?) can sleep at all. The next thing you notice is two, bright orange horns that stand out aggressively against its black and gray clothes. And then, you see gray skin tinted with undertones of red poke out from its sweater and thick, dark hair, and you recognize the first as hands and the second as ears. But... gray skin? You recognize the faint rise and fall of breathing from its chest and you swing back behind the wall as fast as you can, heart pounding in your ears.

What the fuck.