ethan was mad as hell now. although earlier he had been sitting on the toilet having a laugh at his situation, he finally realized that this whole thing was a mess. chris stole his daughter and unintentionally made him have to fight monsters in this village, and now two of his fingers were gone. literally what the hell... well, while he was mentally rambling on about how mad he was, he came upon a door with a strange lever next to it. he had to stop being mad for a second and decided to try to pull it.
"Oh grand, ANOTHER local here to ruin my day?" said some random ass voice. ethan whipped around.
"...who are you," he asked. the man he saw looked like a hobo... and maybe even a bit of a homo. no, now wasn't the time to think about that kind of thing.
"don't get it twisted luv, i ain't saying you're a local as in someone from Here. i mean you're like... you're a normie, basic, bland," the man continued.
"don't care and don't remember asking, frankly speaking," ethan mumbled.
"okay, be an anti then. watch this."
ethan didn't do anything because he was really out of it. this ominous man started sticking metal to him and crap but ethan, being himself, just yelled and screamed.
"shut up little twink man, i have to show you to miranda and the others now."
after a bit, ethan regained consciousness and discovered he was being dragged around on some cryptic chain. despite ethan being slender, the cryptic man dragging him around seemed to be having a Lot of trouble. actually, it was probably because this freaking guy tossed a bunch of stupid metal on him. when he noticed ethan was awake, he turned around and gave him a malicious smile... not good.
"don't worry, we're almost there. feel free to complain All You want but i am so not paying attention, i'm too busy streaming BTS songs," the guy said. it almost seemed like he was just talking to himself for entertainment. ethan passed out again because to be honest there was something strangely relaxing about being dragged along like this.
he awoke to see some scary doll in front of him. "holy shit what the fu— oh, okay, it's just a doll," he said.
the doll moved around though so ethan's heart rate spiked up. he heard other people Conversing but couldn't even see who the hell it was because some other mysterious being manifested before him. because this guy got a bit too close to ethan, the little doll thing started yelling at it.
"bruh go away, an ugly beast like you could never impress a twink like him," the doll said. this made the other one hobble away sadly but ethan was too freaking confused about what was going on to care about its feelings. "GUYS LOOK, he's awake now :)" the doll continued.
"how.. did you say the smiley face out loud," ethan coughed.
though the doll ignored his question, it kept screaming until frightening hobo-man from earlier yelled at it.
"do you ever shut the hell up you insolent worm, us grown ups are TRYING to have a chat here," he hissed.
for whatever reason, hobo-man was arguing with this gigantic milf. they appeared to be discussing what to do about ethan himself. he didn't really pay attention because they were Bickering but there was a sudden pause. the cryptic woman in the front of the room went silent and then turned to hobo-man.
"heisenberg, that twink is your responsibility. no, don't kidnap him and take him to your house already, make him work to prove that he can be yassified," the woman said.
the tall lady closer to him got up and huffed a sigh in protest. "mother miranda what... that's SO unfair, heisenberg doesn't even know what the hell to do with a man like that. he's too rough and grimy, i think a lovely woman like myself should be in charge of getting him prepared for the madness to come."
"stupid freaking LOCAL wouldn't even know what to do to begin with. anyway, don't be a sore loser and accept that you got got. i, being the chad i am, was bound to win anyway," 'heisenberg' said. ethan was starting to learn their names.
"guys what's going on," ethan said meekly. he didn't bother trying to be rude because these people looked big and intimidating. any wrong word and they could very easily snap him like a twig. nobody replied to him directly since they were too busy fighting and arguing.
"alcina enough, i already chose heisenberg to mess with him a bit. you can see him later if he escapes from whatever the hell karl's got lined up," 'miranda' said blankly. she seemed just... fed up. ethan understood; if he had to deal with people arguing like this all the time, he'd be acting the same way. hold up, Why on earth was he sympathizing with this random woman who probably had nothing but malintentions towards him...?
heisenberg approached him with a type of cool swagger. ethan was not impressed but felt nervous again. this was definitely not going to be good.
"okay little man, i'm going to see if we can yassify you by putting you through my own special show," heisenberg said.
"okay wait, what the fuck is yassification," ethan asked. these new slang terms were too much for him to keep up with.
"it's... well..." heisenberg started. he thought for a moment on what to say. "okay so you're a normie right. like you don't watch those memes that you think look 'weird' and you don't listen to anything that's not either dad music or top of the charts shit unless someone else makes you listen to it."
ethan became a bit self-conscious. "is that a problem? i just don't know what's funny about those other memes or whatever. and for the record, ed sheeran isn't that bad," he said with a huff.
heisenberg didn't even know what to say. ed sheeran? nahhh... this was going to be hard. he didn't even bother to finish defining what 'yassification' was.
"right... i'm going to ignore that and just make you run around til you're either dead or sore or something. if you don't get crunched up then the real fun begins, hehehe~" heisenberg said.
he (practically) shoo'd ethan away and made him hop into a cryptic hole in the ground. the only freaking lights were the horrible lanterns hung up on the walls. he had no clue what was going on but he just ran around like a chicken with no head trying to avoid the lycans and other scary things he couldn't identify. if this was those guys' idea of fun, he hated it; he so greatly preferred watching tiktoks and hgtv home renovation shows than doing whatever This was. but really, was now the time to reminisce about TV? he avoided the monsters until this big ugly one appeared before him. this guy swung around some big tool until ethan fell into a Conveniently Placed Hole and slid down for a while. he popped out and was lying on the ground... man.
eventually he managed to just make all the madness Stop and, despite being in a near death situation for the billionth time, grabbed some pocket change he saw in the rubble. after exiting through the stupid gate he was kidnapped from in the first place, he was finally free. he wandered around for a bit and encountered something absolutely tantalizing — a carriage.
"where the hell did a carriage come in from," he said softly.
the doors swung open and a jolly fellow appeared. "oh, greetings Mr. Winters," he said.
"hi... who are you," ethan asked. although he was a bit mysterious, this guy seemed chill. wait, maybe this man was too chill?
"just call me the duke. look, i'll be honest, i already know your lore. you're just trying to find your daughter and like, go back to your normal life, right? i admire that so i'm going to help you out. bewarned though, the people you were just 'interacting' with are going to make your life weird... maybe even 'dank'," the duke said. he paused and looked at ethan with a grin.
"I think that really says a lot about our society... and yet, we participate in the madness of it all, don't we? well anyway, if you need anything like food, materials, guns, whatever, i'm your guy. just hit me up," the duke continued.
ethan nodded and felt content for a moment. he now had at least one friend in this horrible twisted world... after trading in oddities he discovered and purchasing some more Useful things, ethan turned and headed into the foreboding castle that loomed over him and the duke. he did not have a good feeling about this at all.
"damn, this place has some good decorations. i really like the vibes," ethan said out loud. he suddenly had an idea that hit him like a bag of bricks. he ran out of the castle and went to the duke again.
"oh, mr. winters, you're already back...? i figured it'd take a bit, what's wrong?" the duke asked.
ethan had Ran back so he was a bit out of breath. "do you... have like, a mobile charger. like one of those portable charging blocks or...?"
the duke hummed in thought and started rifling through his goods. "yes, here you go. if you have an instagram, you can give me a shoutout and i'll give it to you for free. by the way, i'll even let you connect to my hotspot."
ethan stared at him incredulously and turned his head to the side like some kind of dog. "what do you mean, 'your hotspot'?"
"huh? mr. winters, please. it's 2021, do you really think we're that cut off from the rest of the world? oh, i do apologize for being curt, but... we have phones, internet, wi-fi, all that stuff. it's just that we aren't as, well, dependent on that kind of thing as you americans seem to be," the duke explained.
so thus began ethan and the duke's instagram partnership. ethan started charging up his phone and walked back into the castle, feeling a lot better. he walked around until he sensed something malicious, maybe even a bit sneaky.