Chapter Text
There was only a singular sound that filled the crushing silence of Astro’s room. The quiet, rhythmic and steady scratching of a pen against paper. Hours had passed since night had fallen and taken over the sky. That same sky splattered with stars that shined so brightly, to give hope and peace to those who gazed up. However, on the inside of Gardenview? That was a different story.
Astro sat hunched at his desk, he was surrounded by a chaotic mess. His desk was littered with papers and a few pens that he’d used then discarded quickly, the bottom drawers decorated and adorned with silly stickers that mimicked the beautiful, yet empty vastness of space. The only light that illuminated the room came from his own body and a strange lamp shaped like a crying sheep. He did not know what the lamb mourned over.
A few dozen crumpled up paper balls had scattered and made the floor cluttered, only a few had successfully been tossed into the garbage bin.
Astro clicked his pen repeatedly, his eyelids growing heavy with frustration and exhaustion. Grabbing the latest paper ball, he tossed it behind him into the bin- but the paper simply bounced off the rim and joined the rest of its kind that’d been discarded carelessly.
With a deep, reluctant breath, he again began to write.
“2/8/2004, 2:43 am, Cosmo.”
He took a second to think. His pen hovered over the paper, his mind trying to grapple what words could possibly make this report easier to put down?
Slowly but surely, he began. The words flowed from his pen like a cold river.
“In my many years of working in the dream realm, of tirelessly attempting to create a safe haven for my fellow Toons to retreat to when the day has come to an end, I’ve come to recognize a few things. I’ve seen patterns that usually have some ulterior meaning that hides beneath the surface of what is shown to me. If a Toon is wracked with anxiety, their dreams often turn to their teeth falling out without a cause. If a Toon is terrified of their future, they dream of spiders. Simple things of course, things I can rationalize and understand.”
The magic that held Astro’s pen flickered for a second and almost fell out of his grasp, barely being saved by that magic reigniting.
“But there’s something I see in one particular Toon's dreams I’ve yet to …fully understand. Yet to rationalize and see its true meaning.”
His throat tightened and he felt like he couldn’t breathe momentarily.
“Dreams about a shadow-like…thing. When I walk into Cosmos dreams I never fail to see one of these shadows, vaguely in the shape of a Toon. It never has any real identifying features. It’s almost like a complete being made of dark flesh, not a real shadow. It watches him from the corners of rooms, peeking around hallways, and even beyond my own sight.” That made Astro’s skin crawl.
Astro knew deep down he knew what the being he was describing meant. It was a stand in.
“This thing… It looked monstrous tonight. Its skin is peeling off in patches, raw blisters bubbling along its neck and chest, and its jaw…it’s broken, hanging off by nothing but skin and flesh that hadn’t been split apart just yet. It’s wrong. And the sounds it makes…”
Astros breath hitched, he stopped that sentence quickly. The memories of Cosmos nightmare, it was so vivid, so real. His body trembled as tears pressed painfully behind his eyelids, threatening to spill.
“The fingers are long, too long. They’re bony, extended and unnaturally thin. They trace up and down…”
Astro stopped there, going stiff and having to stare blankly at the wall. It was getting harder and harder to stop himself from breaking down right there and then. If he hadn’t been using magic to hold and write with the pen, the writing would’ve been unreadable due to his shaking.
He sucked in a sharp breath.
“…Cosmo whenever it comes around, rubbing his shoulders, kissing him on the cheek. Usually it hangs around and Cosmo becomes incredibly uncomfortable, anxious and fidgety. He gets like that sometimes when he’s at dinner…but I have yet to identify the trigger of that. But…”
Here it comes, here was the thing Astro was dreading to even account.
“What I encountered was by far the worst nightmare I’ve ever had to witness. I can only imagine how it felt for Cosmo, to be trapped, to endure, to be…violated. If there is a God, I beg him- please let me forget those screams. They will not stop no matter how much I beg and plead. They echo, looping over and over like a broken record.”
Astro paused, using another short burst of magic to bring his mug up to his lips and sip on the beverage inside. His usual comfort: Coffee with chocolate syrup, sugar and whipped cream on top. It didn’t feel nice, he felt numb. The warmth only doing so much to help him reel from what he’d seen. The mug was set down with a soft clink noise. He wasn’t sure if he was ready to get back to writing, but the report had to be finished.
“In Cosmos' dream he was…trapped so to say. His hoodie had been torn off his body long before I’d gotten to his subconscious. That hoodie laid on the ground ripped into pieces. It was a loss, a loss of his dignity, consent and comfort. Ichor-like tentacles had wrapped around his body tightly, so much that his limbs were beginning to turn gray due to the lack of ichor flowing to them. Almost like…Twisted Sprouts.” No, this couldn’t be what he was thinking. Sprout wouldn’t dare.
A stray tear managed to escape Astro’s eye, it seemed to burn into his flesh before dripping down and landing onto the paper. The stain was a reminder, a mirror of what tore through his mind.
“I heavily regret putting him last on my list of Toons to visit.” Astro whispered to himself yet did not write it down. He reached up with his hand and wiped at his eye, trembling and cursing himself. This was a report- a cold, clinical account of what he’d seen and negated. It was not supposed to hold much, if any emotion.
“Cosmo’s room…well, in truth; I can't call it his room, it was filthy, unkempt. Nothing like what Cosmo would let himself live in. Clothes had been discarded onto the floor, crumpled, worn and dirty. Rotten food sat untouched on his bedside table which attracted bugs that swarmed the walls, crawling over the walls. Though, those were the least of his problems. ”
Astro let out a shaky breath.
He stared down at the half-written paper, this dream did not affect him. He was not the victim.
Despite that internal reminder, his pen still hovered over the next line. He felt a pang of guilt twist in his gut. Writing these words…it was an act of invasion. How could he write down the suffering of someone, someone he CARED about in such a cold, detached way as if he were just a test subject?
“Cosmo’s body,” Astro began to scribble down but he immediately recoiled as if acid had erupted from the pen and down to his skin. The image of Cosmo in such a vulnerable state, horrifying even- it left a bitter, salty taste in his mouth.
Astro grit his teeth and began to furiously write as if his life depended on it. The writing was nearly chicken scratch at that point, he didn’t care. He could revise it later.
“His body was rotten. As food rots, the mold and bacteria begin to take hold of the item…flies are attracted to it and they lay their eggs, their spawn hatch and begin to feast on the already decaying sustenance. Cosmo was being devoured from the inside out, each sob and scream an attest to that. I could see tiny bumps of larvae wriggling beneath his skin and crawling out from open wounds. It was beyond anything I’d seen. In a dream or real. He looked worse than his twisted form.”
Tears fully began to run down Astro’s face, but he just kept going.
“…His vaginal area was swollen and red, a few maggots had been crawling around the labia. I couldn’t bear to look much more for his sake..and my own. The shadow made its way down the hallway, its footsteps heavy and deliberate as if it knew the harm it caused.”
Astro humorlessly laughed. Oh, how he loved being omniscient in the dream realm.
He felt as if he were going to gag from how he was just…writing this down. It didn’t matter that it was a report, what mattered was the absolute disregard if Cosmo wanted this written down, even in a non-biased manner. The pen stopped for a brief second, then kept on.
“Before the door opened- I intervened. I quickly thought of something he’d like..baking with Sprout and I somehow managed to manhandle this nightmare into something much better. The shadow that would’ve appeared on the other side of the door was instead Sprout, and I had managed to repair Cosmo's body to one that was untouched.”
“He had looked down at himself and was dumbfounded by the fact he was no longer rotting, that his room was tidy and no more suffering was coming. However, Cosmo simply rolled with it and came along with Sprout. I made sure to clear his subconscious of that damned shadow for the rest of the night.”
“For the rest of the dream, Cosmo looked dull. As if life itself had been drained from him.”
Astro sighed.
“I guess it had been.”
The Toon’s gaze slowly shifted to the clock on the wall.
3:21 AM.
He sucked in a breath and finished the report with quickness.
“Report finished at 3:21 AM. Sleep has been uninterrupted. However, further monitoring is needed.”
…and for us to talk, Astro thought.
He needed answers.