Was there a sadder sight than an empty restaurant?
True to her word, Crypto managed to temporarily close all Major Chicken chain restaurants in the Evermarsh agglomeration, and Temple Alley’s one was no exception. A paper sheet behind the door warning visitors of an ‘exceptional closure’ warded away all hungry visitors and poultry addicts.
With the other teams too busy tracking down Tarantulas, it fell on Matthew’s crew to clean up this mess.
“What was that, Maruki?” John asked out of the blue as the trio finished checking their supplies. “At breakfast?”
“You waited all day to ask me that?” Matthew replied. He could tell the question had been bothering John since then.
“Yes, because now you can’t weasel your way out of a conversation,” John replied with a smirk. “It was that or cornering you in your room, and too many people at the dorm think we’re screwing already.”
The sneaky little bastar—wait, wait. “There are people who think you’re gay for me?” Matthew scoffed. “As if I wouldn’t aim for anything better!”
“I admit I feel a bit concerned too,” Kari said before blushing a bit. “I mean about the breakfast part, not the private dorm life gossip, obviously…”
Matthew scratched the back of his head. He guessed he couldn’t bullshit his way out of this one. “I want to say it’s nothing, but… I get the feeling it’s important.”
“Is it connected to what you asked me earlier?” Kari guessed. “If my Key has ever acted on its own?”
This gal was too smart for her own good. Matthew pondered whether or not he should tell his teammates the full truth—part of him simply didn’t wish to dig up painful memories—before deciding that they deserved to know. They had stuck with him through thick and thin, and if he had indeed encountered a Dungeon years before the first recorded sighting, then it might change many things going forward with the Association.
“I think my Key is messing with my memory,” Matthew confessed. “I don’t remember things I should.”
He quickly gave them a rundown of his adventures inside his Sentimental World, including the hole-riddled memories. Matthew expected Kari to complain about how deep he buried his homework in his subconscious, but his friend simply frowned in concern for his well-being. Even John looked a bit disturbed by his tale.
“That’s awful,” Kari said once Matthew finished. “Have you told Mr. O’Connor?”
“Not yet,” Matthew replied. “I wasn’t sure if I had really forgotten anything until I asked Maggie. It’s the first time my Key went haywire like this as far as I know."
“You forget the obvious possibility,” John said. “That you willingly did this to yourself.”
Matthew scowled at the remark. Truth be told, he had already considered the possibility before excluding it. He could see himself erasing stuff linked to the incident, but not childhood stuff. “I don’t think I would have wanted to forget those specific memories.”
“Maybe not intentionally,” John conceded. “But memories work by association, Maruki. Knowing what a disaster of a human being you are at the best of times, I find it likely that you simply took out a lot more than you intended.”
That… that was mean, but plausible.
Matthew had been suffering from PTSD episodes related to the Mall since the incident, which usually triggered headaches. He used to take medicine for them until the Doc and his old psychiatrist helped him process his trauma. A knot formed in Matthew’s stomach the more he considered the implications.
Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.
What if he had a memory hole to thank for his fast recovery instead of introspection? What would that say about him?
“Your Key works both ways, no?” Kari inquired. “Have you tried closing the holes?”
Matthew sighed in defeat. “I made an attempt last night, and woke up with a headache for my trouble.”
Kari crossed her arms, her mind now deep in thought. “I wonder if there’s a spell that could help you remember…”
“What bothers me is that phantom door part,” John said, his hand stroking his chin. “When did you become a Crawler, Maruki?”
“December 2019,” Matthew replied. As far as he knew, he had experienced one of the first Dungeon cases. Monsters didn’t even exist back then. “I got trapped in a room for a full day until my Key manifested.”
John’s jaw tightened. “And how old were you when that invisible door incident happened?”
“I think I was eight back then,” Matthew confirmed. “My parents bought me my piano for my eighth birthday, February 28th, 2015. My old friends and I started playing music together afterwards until half of us got bored and moved on.”
“So this memory took place over four years before you became a Crawler.” The timeline puzzled John somehow. “It could have been the first manifestation of whatever Dungeon that entrapped you.”
Kari shot the idea down. “A Dungeon requires at least a victim a month to sustain itself. People would have reported over fifty missing people around Matthew’s house.”
“And the Dungeon that gave me my powers trapped me in my bedroom,” Matthew added. “Our band recorded in the living room one floor below. A Dungeon couldn’t have reached me there unless it was already a stage two or three.”
John nodded to himself. He had clearly reached a grave conclusion of his own. “We need to investigate this more thoroughly in the future.”
“Aww…” Matthew smirked. “You’re concerned about me?”
“This is serious, Maruki,” John replied with a frown. His tone took Matthew aback. “You were already one of the world’s first Crawlers when Dungeons appeared in 2019. Don’t you see what this means if you’ve encountered one of them years earlier?”
Kari’s eyes widened as something clicked in her head. “That would make Matthew’s Dungeon the first case on record!”
Matthew’s heart skipped a beat. He hadn’t considered that. “Wait, you honestly think I could’ve encountered the first Dungeon ever?”
“It’s too early to say,” John stated bluntly. “We don’t know if you indeed encountered a Dungeon’s entrance, or simply hit a wall and wiped the associated embarrassment from your memory.”
Matthew pouted. “I’m not that irresponsible.”
“I don’t think Matthew is that bad either,” Kari replied, supporting him. “We should discuss the subject with Mr. O’Connor when we can.”
“That’ll have to wait for our respective hunts to conclude first.” John rolled his shoulders. “Ready?”
Matthew and Kari nodded. They kicked open the Dungeon’s door and stepped inside immediately. Reality shifted until Evermarsh transformed into a chicken-themed castle surrounded by moats of oil and a vast illusory expanse.
Matthew’s Doom Sense was quickly triggered once they walked across the bridge. “There’s danger ahead,” he warned his teammates. “I think the Dungeon realized that we aren’t customers.”
“Makes sense,” Kari said. She quickly grabbed her rapier. “We damaged it last time and the standby team has since evacuated the hostages.”
John growled in annoyance, a gun finding its way into his hands. “We’ll have to fight our way to the core.”
They advanced cautiously forwards, with Kari and Matthew going first while John followed closely behind. They quickly found the drive-thru counter empty, with its animatronic waiter nowhere to be found. The restaurant’s entrance turned out to be deserted as well. Matthew knew that the standby team had already evacuated the Dungeon’s earlier victims, but the utter absence of monster waiters wore on his nerves.
“Maybe they learned how to chicken out from Tarantulas?” Matthew asked in an attempt to lighten the mood, though he knew it was unlikely. Mindless monsters had no sense of preservation.
“Or they’re regrouping and picking their weapons,” John stated. “Orange Dungeons usually arm their monsters.”
Kari suddenly paled. “Matthew, I… I have a question about Major Chicken.”
“Yes dear?” Matthew asked, since he knew everything there was to know about the subject. “Which one?”
“Stop me if I’m wrong, but…” Kari cleared her throat, her skin suddenly whiter than chalk. “Isn’t Major Chicken an American fast food chain?”
Yes, what did that–
Oh.
Oh…
Oh no…
Matthew’s Doom Sense spell buzzed in the back of his skull, and he quickly heard a noise coming from the kitchen. Its doors snapped open to reveal a slew of poultry-themed animatronic monsters out for blood.
They all had guns.
“The chickens have guns!” Matthew shouted in alarm.
His team barely had time to duck into cover before the restaurant erupted in a hail of lead and fire.
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