#dimensional void

Anna stares down at the water. It’s up to her knees now, the sloshing slowly getting worse. Thunder rolls around her softly.

“Hey! Anna!” Max calls from his platform high above her. “Up here! Are you okay?”

Anna looks up slowly at him. She looks downright miserable. There’s bags under her eyes, and she looks as though she’s been crying. “What did you do?”

“Nothing,” Max says, clearing his throat. “Nothing. I didn’t-“ he sighs, trying to think of how to explain this. “I don’t know,” he admits.

Thunder cracks from within the walls, making Max jump.

Anna stays perfectly still as she watches him sadly.

“We gotta get you out of here,” Max says. “You can’t stay here.”

“You ruined my home,” Anna says, sniffling. “I don’t want to go with you.”

“You don’t have a choice, Anna. It’s either us, or death.”

Anna steps back.

Max can see a drop off behind her. A wave pool, swirling in the middle into god knows where.

“Anna,” he says cautiously, “you need to come with us.”

“Why should I? So you can ruin other people’s homes?”

“Because you can help us fix it,” Max says. “And everyone else’s.”

Anna looks around at her crumbling home. The ceiling is crying, the water fountains are cracking. The storm only grows louder, more violent.

The water pushes her back, closer towards the whirlpool.

“Anna!”

Anna gasps as she stumbles back, falling backwards.

Max snaps out of the dimension, back in just in time to catch her, and back out.

Anna flops out of Max’s arms, hitting the ground with a thud. She shakes, hugging herself. Silent tears get smeared over her cheeks.

“What the fuck did you do to her?” Darby asks, getting in Max’s face the second after he lays eyes on Anna. “You were just supposed to ask for help, not traumatize her!”

“Her world was falling apart, shithead,” Max hisses. “What else was I supposed to do? Let her drown?”

“You can’t just snatch people up, Max, that messes with them.”

“Oh, yeah, like you’d know, you freak of nature.”

Orange crouches down next to Anna as Max and Darby argue. He puts a hand on her shoulder. “You’re gonna be okay,” he says quietly.

“Well you guys aren’t dressed properly.”

Max looks up to see a girl with tall rain boots, a big raincoat, and an umbrella all in light pastel colors.

Orange squints and covers his eyes with his hand. “This is giving me a headache,” he mutters.

“Where are we?” Darby asks, trying to find a spot that doesn’t have him knee deep in chlorinated water.

“Where are we, and who are you?” Max asks, attempting to squeeze out his shirt.

“You’re in the pools,” the girl says with a smile. She holds out her hand. “I’m Anna. You guys should have worn better clothes.”

“We didn’t know we’d land here,” Darby says, glaring at Max.

“Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t know I could access waterpark hell!” Max hisses.

“Can you turn the brightness down?” Orange asks, still uncomfortable.

Anna looks at him and frowns. “Where’s your color?”

“Don’t worry about him, he’s fine, he’s supposed to look like that,” Max waves off. “Do you know how to get out of here?”

“Sure do.” She looks them all up and down. “You really don’t have anything else to wear?”

“No. Please show us the way,” Max asks, exhausted with all the questions.

“Fine.” She rolls her eyes slightly. “Follow me.”

“Are you in here by yourself?” Darby asks.

“Yeah, but it’s fine,” Anna assures. “Sometimes people like you show up, and it’s a little less lonely for a little bit.”

“What if you came with us?” Orange asks.

Max elbows him. “Sorry, he doesn’t mean it. He’s really tired.” He leans in so only Orange can hear when he adds “I’m already trying to get rid of you two, I don’t need more of a problem.”

“Oh, that’s sweet,” Anna says, “but I can’t. Since I’m the only one here, someone has to make sure the water runs.”

As if on cue, the flow of water starts to slow.

Anna’s eyes widen. “Follow me, quickly.”

They all cram underneath a giant metal flower with water spewing from its petals.

“What’s going on-“ Max tries to ask.

“Shh!” Anna closes her umbrella. “Don’t move. Don’t make a sound.”

The water stops moving completely. Nothing is coming down the slides, the waves around them still, and even the flower they’re underneath stops its flow.

It’s calm and peaceful. Too calm and peaceful.

Nobody sees or hears anything, but they can feel the dread of something around the corner.

Finally, after a few minutes, the water starts again.

Anna lets out a sigh of relief. “Okay, come on.”

“Hold on,” Max says, stopping them all. “What the hell was that?”

“Oh, that was just it doing its routine checkup. Nobody’s allowed in here, technically.” She sounds too chipper.

“Okay, but what is it?” Darby asks.

Anna turns and smiles blankly at him. She doesn’t say a word, instead just turning back around with her umbrella up in the air.

She leads them to a small raised platform above the water. They all step up, and in the corner there’s a ladder leading down. “Here we are.”

Orange looks down. “There’s more water.”

“Yep.”

“I thought you said you knew the way out?” Max asks.

“Of this level? Yes.”

“Of this level? How many are there?”

Anna shrugs.

Max groans. “Oh my god, we’re gonna be stuck here forever.”

“You’re the one that got us stuck here, asshole,” Darby says, flicking at Max’s head.

“Dude,” Max says, blinking and rubbing at his eyes, “your face is melting.”

Darby stares at him like it’s obvious. “Yeah? It does that?”

“That is- are you okay? Why is your face melting?”

“I think the better question is, why isn’t your face melting?”

“Faces aren’t supposed to melt.”

“Faces aren’t supposed to be squishy, either,” Darby retorts.

“Excuse me?”

“Why is yours so…fleshy? It’s gross. I hate looking at you.”

Max stares. “Wait,” he says, something clicking in his head, “wait, wait, wait- are you fucking unrestricted?”

“Yep,” Darby pops the ‘p’ like it’s not the most illegal thing Max could’ve ever done.

“Oh my god. I’m going to jail. I’m going straight to fucking multi-dimensional jail for accidentally bringing someone unrestricted with me- what the fuck!”

“You’re not going to jail,” Darby scoffs. “Only if you turn yourself in like a pussy. Just bring me back, and the problem solves itself.”

so mjf is the main character. he’s a guy like us, on this earth, and he’s one of the few people who can just pop into a different universe. despite the name of the au, there is no void- at least, not that ive been able to come up with LOL.

but i figure that there’s a good small population of people born with this power, and he’s one of them. except they all kind of keep it a secret, because if us regular humans figure out there’s ppl who can just fucking pop in and out of our existence, it causes problems. so only people who can travel are allowed to; no bringing outsiders.

mjf knows this, but the problem is that he can’t quite control where he lands yet. i almost wanted to make it to where he just straight up never knew he could travel like that until he accidentally did, but there’s a certain key point that requires him knowing things about all of this.

He usually doesn’t end up anywhere bad, but then he does: right into a universe that’s considered “out of zone” (at least, i think that’s how i referred to it as in a drabble), and that’s where darby is.

darby looks like his whole face and body are constantly melting, but it never gets to a point where anything melts off. think like an optical illusion, almost, where it always resets but so smoothly you can’t really keep track of it.

i figure these out of zone universes are places where if a more normal person gets there and stays too long there, they will either go insane or their body was deteriorate or something fucked up happens. these few and far between places are on lockdown, where no one gets in and no one gets out.

with darby being out, because he accidentally tags along with mjf and is not someone who can transport himself back without help, i almost wanted to make it where darby himself would start to warp reality, but i think i like the idea better where, because they already know what happens when a normal-er person is in that universe, they assume the people in these universes are just as bad/will affect other universes just as bad and thus have them also on lockdown, despite that not really being the case. i think darby would have no affect in other universes, except just freaking people out due to how he looks. but since no one has the data to actually know this, they’re on the hunt for him when they realize his universe has been breached.

along the way, while mjf tries to return him, he runs into a few others who end up following him into more universes.

so far ive only added a few: orange, anna jay, and jungle boy.

orange comes from a universe that’s in black and white, and everything’s very dull in general, including people’s tone of voice. anyone who speaks with infliction can alert authorities, which mjf is NOT trying to do. Orange is the first person they come across.

anna jay comes from like, a pastel waterpark backrooms universe. i figure even outside of her universe, she looks as though she has a sparkly, fuzzy filter on her. she’s definitely dressed to stay as dry as possible, and she talks very calm and smooth. i mentioned an it in her chapter-drabble-thing, and that’s because it’s the backrooms, which are horror based anyways. so why not add an unseen creature? i don’t think it’d ever show itself, and honestly, i think it would be something that either came out of the walls (where some of the water is pouring out) or from the floor.

i think i did do a drabble with just mjf and jungle boy, which is why i included him in this post, but honestly? i don’t know if i want to keep him. obviously, he’d be jungle boy, boy from the jungle, a universe in which humans either never evolved to the point we are now, or they are just incredibly behind us. the reason im not sure about keeping him is because i kind of want a theme, where everyone has something that’s off about their appearance that gives away that they aren’t where they’re supposed to be. orange has no color, darby is melting, and anna has filters on forever. you could argue that jack obviously looks out of place with his little loin cloth and nothing else, but other than that, he looks like a normal guy. he could be a guy from mjfs world that just really like roleplaying as Tarzan. we wouldn’t know! and that’s why I didn’t add him in the last drabble for this au, because I wasn’t sure about keeping him in it. realistically, though, if I kept him, he would be found after darby, before orange and anna.

in an early rendition of this au, i was going to write a part where, contrary to my current ideas, darby WOULD fuck with the world around him the longer he was away from his universe. at some point he would somehow gets transported to a snowy world, on top of a mountain, passed out and nearly dead. the messing with reality part comes in with who saves darby and brings him into his little shack: an older, more worn, modern day jack with a full beard and layers upon layers of clothing. then mjf would find him, with jungle boy, and then jungle boy would disappear, leaving just the older jack, and mjf would probably have a panic attack because he doesn’t know what’s happening anymore and he has no idea how to fix any of it.

that’s all i have to yap about, if i think of anything else it’ll go in a reblog to this post. if you read all the way to the end, thank you for listening to a rambler <3

“Oh my god,” Max says as he stares at his unexpected companion. “You weren’t supposed to follow me!”

Jungle Boy tilts his head with a frown. He chirps at him, and then he’s sniffing the air, frowning more as he follows whatever smell he’s caught.

Max groans. “How did you even come with me? I traveled through like, 23 dimensions, and you were in like, number 5! I think. Or was it 7?” His eyes widen and he groans again when he realizes something: “God dammit, I don’t remember which reality you were in. It’s gonna take FOREVER to bring you back. Shit.”

He finally realizes that Jungle Boy has left the room when he hears a clang from the kitchen. He rushes in, and gasps at the mess; he had knocked over the trash can and was now prodding through all the trash trying to find something. “No! Bad! Stop!” He swats at Jungle Boy like a misbehaving dog.

Jungle Boy decides he’s going to learn to stand up straight in retaliation, and Max quickly backs up, hands up in the air to show he means no harm.

“Hey, woah, buddy,” Max chuckles, “you can’t- you can’t eat out of the trash can, man. That’s gross. I know you’re used to like, foraging and shit, but that is NOT the place to do it.”

Jungle Boy huffs and returns to a crouch, looking down at the mess like it’s the most interesting thing he’s ever seen.

Max sighs with relief. “I guess I’m gonna have to cook you a good, home meal, huh? Or maybe I just teach you the ways of Chipotle.”

Jungle Boy chirps again in curiosity before scooping up some beans off the floor, shoving them into his mouth before Max can stop him.