He had been in the white room for a long time. A really long time. Like a really really long time if you were being dramatic. He had been alone in the room the whole time, excluding visits from Mr. Stick. He was fed through the slot in the door, his meals consisting of unidentifiable pieces of ‘meat’ and sometimes ‘pudding’. The pudding was his favorite, he got it once a week and it came in three flavors. Chocolate, vanilla, and other. The ‘other’ flavor seemed to be a mix of asbestos and rat poison, but he liked it well enough.

The room he was in was small but quite comfortable, boasting padded floors and walls. There were no windows or beds, but he did have a flickering fluorescent light in the ceiling that cast a sterile light over his room. The room was always quiet and smelled of a captive animal, the quiet sometimes got to the man that resided there and he would hum to keep the quiet away. He was nearly always making noise, because when the quiet came, the voices got louder, and when they started it became hard to quiet them down.

He had begun humming too loudly and Mr. Stick had taken notice, he banged hard on the locked-from-the-outside safety door and yelled, “Shut your goddamn trap you filthy animal! Be quiet or I’ll beat you quiet!”

The man in the white room didn’t like Mr. Stick, he sometimes stole his pudding, so he had started to hum louder, and louder until he broke out into song. “Old Slick John wasn’t so slick, when he fell and tripped on a brick! He tipped and fell down the well, and the brick came tumbling after!” he sang out with glee evident on his grimy face. The screeching sound of a chair being moved sounded out from the other side of his safety door and the door swung wide.

Mr. Stick stepped in gripping his namesake in his right hand with white knuckled fervor. He took a step towards the smiling man and stumbled, he mumbled something under his breath and regained his balance. “C’mere you disgusting ape!” He reached out with his free hand and stumbled towards the laughing man.

The laughing man stepped back as his hand came out, dodging it. He jumped back towards the guard with grace that belied his malnourished frame and flicked him on the nose. This caused Mr. Stick to growl out with animalistic rage, his dull eyes and pudgy face screwing up in anger. He swung out towards the gown wearing man and missed, the man had stepped back again and was laughing even harder now, his voice echoing in the small room.

“Mr. Stiiiick, come on you can do better than that!” he paused to sidestep another swing, “We’ve played the hitting game so many times, how can you still be so bad at it.” the man paused in his movements, “Look I’ll give you one free hit. Come on!”

Mr. Stick took the opportunity to vent his rage as the dirty man spread his arms wide in a beckoning motion. His baton careened towards the man’s stomach with surprising force and crumpled him. The man fell to the floor gasping for air, “Nice.. hit… dumbass…” he took another deep breath as Mr. Stick roared out and started to beat the downed man, the whole while screaming obscenities at him. His breath smelled like cheap liquor and smoke.

The man on the ground smiled while his ribs were broken and the squishy inside bits got bruised, between each meaty thwack he managed to call out advice to the pudgy man, “Swing… overhand… more… force… target… squishy… bits.” he managed to get out before unconsciousness swallowed his mind.

He awoke alone again in his white padded room, the flickering lights illuminating his dirty gown that hung loose over his gaunt frame. He had a clean shaven face with manic yellow eyes, his hair hung in dirty black waves over his head and covered his face. The only part of him that seemed in good repair were his teeth, brilliantly white, and nearly always smiling.

He pushed himself up off the floor, “Good match Sticky Boy! Maybe next time you can hurt me a little!” he wheezed out, fully expecting round two of their game to start. But no angry voice called back, besides the ones in his head of course. He sighed, Mr. Stick’s and his game was one of the only forms of entertainment around here, so without him he was left to the quiet. And that just wouldn’t do.

He started to sing again and rock back and forth on his heels. He stayed like this for a while, clutching his wounds and drowning out the quiet. It wasn’t enough though and one of the ever present voices coiled around his mind, its voice hissing in his ear.

“Why do we allow the pudgy one to hurt usss?”

He shrugged, once a voice addressed him there was no real point in ignoring them.

“It’s more fun that way.” he replied simply.

“Fun? What isss that?” the voice hissed out a question.

He shrugged again, “Something to pass the time, or kill boredom.”

“Fun. Fun. Fun.” it said the word multiple times, as though tasting it, “I like fun.”

“Most people do, and anyways, you're just saying that because I said it’s used to kill boredom.” he chuckled at the voice.

“Why do you laugh? You like to kill asss much asss we do.” the voice replied.

“Nope, nope, nope. Not anymore my stalwart compatriot, the good doctor said that enjoying killing is un-sane. And I am here to be un-un-sane.” he corrected the voice with a nod, putting extra emphasis on the ‘I’, as many of the voices in his head would disagree.

“You needn’t lie to usss, we enjoy tasssty, deliciousss, sssalty blood as much as you do. You have more dangerousss proclivitiesss than I.” the voice paused and seemed to shiver delectably at the thought, “I missss when you would lisssten to us, when you would feed usss. Why mussst we wassste away here? Next time that disssgusting brute comesss in with hisss ssstick, grab him by the neck and bite hisss throat out, ssso that we may shower in hisss blood.”

“Isn’t that a bit much?” he questioned, “And you need to tone down the blood talk, it's gross. Even if it would be delightful to ba- Nope, I am perfectly un-un-sane. I have no feelings on the deliciousness and warmth of blood, even as it washes over you and makes you feel cozy and content. Nope, no feelings at all.” he declared with a nod, staring intently at the blood patches on his disheveled clothing.

“You have no desssire to tear open a flesh sssack and evissscerate it, keeping it twitching and ssscreaming for hoursss asss we used to?” it asked suspiciously.

“Nope, none at all. I am perfectly un-un-sane.” he said through gritted teeth.

“Sssure…” the voice replied, dripping with sarcasm.

“It doesn’t matter if you don’t believe me Spooky, I’m certifiably certifiable. I am one hundred percent fine. I am as right as rain. I am good to go. I am alrighty. I a-” he was cut off with a chorus of voices telling him to shut up, with varying degrees of politeness.

The man was expecting Spooky to say something once the voices quieted down. So when no response came he was a bit confused as Spooky usually at least said goodbye, or told him to end himself, before leaving.

“Spooky? You there buddy?” he asked, again there was no reply. As he was about to call out again something strange happened. A blue box appeared in front of the disheveled man, it seemed to appear out of nowhere and hovered in the air. The box displayed a message in simple black text.

Madness Affinity Requirement Met…

Parsing Summoner…

The box hung there in front of the man, and he noticed something even stranger than the floating hover-box. The light above him was no longer flickering and the dust that was constantly floating about him hung suspended in the air, as though trapped in glue. The blue box didn’t startle him too much, as hallucinations were not the most uncommon thing, for even with all his declarations of un-un-sanity he still had voices in his head and saw things that weren’t there.

While the box wasn’t something he had seen before, it obviously wasn’t something physically there, proven when he reached out towards it and his hand went through it, rippling like water.

“What in tarnation?” he asked, putting on a bad southern accent, “Well I’ll be darned, them gypsies musta’ worked their curse magic on me.” he laughed at his own joke, as unfunny as it was. He was about to laugh off this whole thing, because as far as he knew, floating blue boxes were not a daily occurrence for most folk, when he tried to take a step he found he couldn’t.

His upper body moved fine, shown as he waved his arms around wildly and started calling for Spooky. His flailing stopped suddenly as he looked down towards his legs and saw why they wouldn’t move. Wrapped around each leg was a glistening violet chain, it seemed to shimmer in and out of reality as it slowly coiled its way up his legs.

“What in tarnation again?” he cried out.

The chains were slowly but surely making their way up his legs, and as a soon as one made contact with his waist the box in front of him flickered out of existence. He took a deep breath and started trying to pry the chains off his legs, he didn’t know what they were, or if they were real, but it seemed like the best course of action. As soon as his hands came into contact with a chain every inch of him lit up with nerve flaying agony.

He cried out, while pain wasn’t something he cared much about, it still wasn’t fun to endure. He withdrew his hand from the chain and the pain subsided, the chains had increased their speed and were now wrapped around his abdomen. At the same moment a new box flickered into reality, with a brand new message.

Summoning Process Start...

Transfer Request Sent Awaiting Response...

Response Affirmative...

Transfer Start in 5...

“What!? Transfer!?” he cried out.

4…

The air seemed to be charged with an unknown energy, it eddied and swirled like a river. Coursing and crashing through the air.

3…

“Can I talk to a manager or something? This seems a bit much for me, I’m more of a not doing whatever this is kind of guy.” he said hesitantly.

2…

The energy in the air seemed to converge in one specific point and became visible. It looked like the shimmering above a heat vent, distorting the air. When suddenly a terrific tearing noise sounded out in the small padded cell.

1…

The air itself seemed to be torn apart and a gash appeared in reality. It was ragged and looked like a knife wound, though instead of flesh and blood, it was a dark void that seemed to suck the warmth out of the air. Dark black and red liquid sloshed out of the bottom of the portal, pooling on the ground before evaporating. The air seemed to freeze, and the blood that hadn’t been absorbed into the floor turned to ice.

“I’d really rather stay here. If that’s ok with you Mr. Portal Thing.” the man said.

Either the portal didn’t listen, or it couldn’t hear him. Either way, the chains that were wrapped around his legs crawled the final stretch and coiled around his neck, the chains seemed to come alive like snakes and dragged him towards the portal.

A laugh escaped his lips, “Haha! Bound in chains, just like how I lost my virgi-.” Those were his last words before he was swallowed whole and thrown into the cold dark void, with nothing to do but fall.