In Memoriam - An Unus Annus Fanfiction

15.11 - 11/15: Unus Annus/Cooking with sex toys

»Come on!« The man in the white suit screamed, holding open the door. Another man, in a black suit, sprinted down the hallway towards him, closely followed by a mechanical humanoid crawling on the wall. A claw shot out from underneath the white cloth that had been draped over it, missing the man's head by mere inches.

He ducked and jumped forward, sliding through the open door. The man in the white suit slammed it shut and locked it. From outside, loud, angry screeching was heard.

Both of them leaned against the wooden door, hoping that the window wouldn't break. The animatronic beast scratched against it, her sharp nails leaving trails in the glass. It was their luck that this realm worked differently than the normal world. A door, once closed, could not be broken, unhinged or destroyed.

The man in the white suit looked around in the room. It was small and messy. The floor was littered with books and papers. The whole place had an old-timey feel to it, and he could hear a faint music. Although he couldn't recall from where he knew it, it gave him a sense of calmness. He grabbed a chair off the ground and put it beneath the door handle. Finally, some safety.

Meanwhile, the man in the black suit had walked over to the solid ebony desk, on which a single computer stood. It was an old machine, a grey box with a large monitor next to it. Without much hope, he gave the ON button a push. Much to his surprise, the machine came to live with a whirr, and the screen flickered with a green light.

»Annus, come look!« He exclaimed. The man in the white suit hurried through the cramped room, knocking over a pile of books in the process.

Both of them stared at the screen with wide eyes. Two videos played alongside each other. To anyone else, it would have looked like normal let's-plays. Unus and Annus however saw a ray of hope on the screen.

»It's us!«
»Who we used to be, anyway.«
Unus jerked his head up, eyes beaming with joy. »Do you know what that means? With a working computer, I might be able to reestablish the connection between us and our bodies!«

»How long will it take?« The man in the white suit asked. Although his voice was calm, he could not hide his excitement.
»A few minutes at most,« Unus responded, pulling the keyboard towards him.

He typed away, writing line for line of code. There wasn't any time to waste. They hadn't noticed what the two of them were up to yet, and he prayed that it would stay that way.
While Unus was typing, Annus decided to examine to books a little closer. As he had guessed, all of the pages were blank. The books were merely a facade, just as everything in this world was.

He decided to take a peek outside. The animatronic was nowhere to be seen. The hallway however was currently doing a slow clockwise motion. Oh, how much he hated this non-euclidian world.

From behind the computer, Unus was mumbling to himself. »Come one baby, just one message... Don't do that... wait nevermind, keep doing that.« Annus positioned himself behind him, looking at the green lines of text. »You close?«

Triumphantly, Unus hit enter. »We have a connection! I've managed to sent a small message to them. It's more of an idea than it is words, but they'll figure it out.«

Suddenly, the screen flickered and turned black. »No!« The man in the black suit screamed at the machine. But as machines do, it did not care about his frustration. However, it came back alive a few seconds later, displaying a set of numbers. 365:00:00:00

The two stared at the screen as the clock began to count down.
»What did you do?«
»I don't know! I didn't do that!«
Both of them flinched as they heard a static crack, followed by an all to familiar voice.

»Hellooo, my lovelies.« Despite it's cheerful tone, the voice was cold as ice. »Seems like you have found a little hole you thought you could slip trough. How naughty of you. Sadly we won't let you do that. Do you see the clock? As soon as it hits zero, you guys will be deleted. Erased from existence!«
Another voice joined in, this one sounding deep and distorted. »It pains me to see you go like this. Really, it does. But you don't leave us another chance. So, while you're entrenched in that little bird cage of yours, why not enjoy the view? We aren't monsters, after all. «

The screen flickered back to the videos of the two streamers. Both of them seemed do be unaware of what was happening. »Enjoy the show,« the deeper voice said with a slight chuckle. Then, there was silence.

»Fuck!« Annus threw a bunch off papers and books from the desks surface. »We were this close to breaking through!«
Unus tapped his shoulder with his hand. »They shouldn't celebrate too early. I'll find a way out. We have a whole year, after all.«

»If they don't get bored and decide to Thanos snap us out of experience.« Annus added sarcastically.
»You're always so negative. Go and catch some shuteye. I'll keep watching the screen.«

The man in the white suit mumbled something inaudible, grabbed a chair off the floor and sat down. »Tell me if something happens.«
Unus gave a thumbs up, and Annus leaned back. At least they were somewhat safe in this room. Not having to run and hide all the time was a nice change of pace.

He was awoken a few hours later by Unus shaking his shoulder. »Annus, wake up, you have to see this.«
At this point, Annus was so used to sleeping with one eye open that he had no problems with being fully awake instantly. They walked over to the screen, and for the second time today, he couldn't believe what he saw on there.

»Are they... «
»Cooking with sex toys? Yeah.«
The man in the white suit leaned forward, examining the screen in disbelief. »Did your message fry their brains?«
Unus shook his head. »The message has nothing to do with this. It reached them, by the way. And so did the clock. One year they'll create content together, meaning they'll be close to each other almost all the time. All we have to do is find an opening, and then we can finally get out of here.«

Annus looked at the clock. There were 364 days left. It couldn't be that easy, could it? One year was plenty of time to get through to their original selves.

Of course, back then he couldn't even imagine the difficulties they were going to face over the course of this one year.

Thanks for reading the first chapter of my story! By the way, check out Memento Vitae on YouTube, it's an Unus Annus inspired channel whose mod team I am proud to be part of. We have a lot of fun making vids, so feel free to check us out and leave a sub if you want to!