Hermitcraft Randomness - S7 Oneshots

Laughter - Scar x Grian

(WC: 1770
Category: ANGST. All caps.
Ship type: Platonic
Warnings: Panic attacks, repeated death, hallucinations, swearing, injuries/blood, general horrifying stuff that I'm honestly scared of what have we done-

Honest to god, this is the most horrifying thing I've ever helped write. And I blame athena363636.

Most of this was written in a late-night haze for both of us, but Athena came up with the idea and I absolutely loved it. In fact, we loved it so much that we wanted to publish it and share Scar's agony and terror with all of you! :D

This story is equally written by me and Athena. We also edited some stuff so it flows better but other than that, this is the original late-night writing we did. Enjoy!)

Scar opened his eyes slowly, finding himself in a dimly lit room. He could barely see anything. This place didn't look familiar--had someone played a prank on him? It was probably Grian, if so.

"Hello?" he called out. His voice echoed around the room. "Grian? This isn't funny."

He started wandering around, trying to find a door or some way to get out. But after feeling around for a bit, he couldn't find any. Scar reached for his pickaxe, then frowned when he found his inventory empty. Had Grian somehow taken all of his stuff? His friend wouldn't take a joke this far--he'd reveal himself soon.

But after a bit, nobody came. Scar started to get worried.

The room he was in was deathly silent--no sounds of wind blowing, water running, anything-- all he could hear was his own breathing, gradually getting faster and faster as his mind crept to the worst possible conclusions.

Then, a light flicked on. Then another, and another, and another. Dozens of screens lit up around a bewildered Scar, who rubbed his eyes and blinked in the blinding light. It took a moment for his vision to adjust and focus, but he managed to gain his bearings and looked around slowly.

Colors flew across the screen as he did, pixels lining up to form the smiling face of- Grian? And--it was like a recording of this afternoon from Scar's point of view, helping Grian on his mansion build. Smiling and laughing like everything was normal, and it had been, but what...

"Grian, what's going on...?"

The recording paused right as the words fell from his mouth. It was a shot of Grian laughing, eyes twinkling and arms half-raised in amusement. Scar stared up at the screen and took a tentative step forwards, in spite of himself.

Jagged lines cut across the cheerful image, shattering it into splinters of a picture. Scar immediately fell back again, scrambling away as he thought he could hear two people...laughing? Not Grian and him, not even anyone he knew. Just faint, strange laughter ringing through the playback.

As he scooted away from the screens, the giggles seemed to grow louder. "Grian!" He shouted, or at least tried to--his voice came out in a weak rasp. "Grian, stop it! This isn't funny."

But something told him this wasn't Grian anymore. No, this was something more.

Scar whipped around, starting to panic from all the screens. The glitching was still happening--each screen was black and white, and had only one thing on it.

:D

Then even that glitched out, replacing the emoticon with the classic blocky technical error visual.

The laughter was growing every second--louder and louder, at an uncontrollable volume, the voices, laughing and laughing--pounding in his head, filling his thoughts--the laughter was all he could think about--all he could hear--