#polybius au

Y’all remember that Polybius shit? Yeah lol I wrote about it.

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Noah and Cody work the last shift at an arcade. Every Friday night they have to clean up the back room, check up on stocks, all of that good stuff. It was a particularly late night, they had been working overtime, when Cody finds a door after moving a few boxes. It’s a little hard to open it, but it’s not locked, and so he goes inside.

It’s a small room, if he stretches out his arms he can touch both walls with his fingertips. There’s only one thing inside it: an arcade game called Polybius. He’d heard rumours about it, in old game magazines and old dodgy online forums, but he hadn’t thought it was real. It might have just been a replica one of the old store owners had ordered. Still, it couldn’t hurt to test it out.

Cody plugged in the machine and it began to hum gently. Without touching anything, the game began, and Cody rushed to the controls to begin playing. It was a simple game, rendered in late 80’s vector, the puzzles were simple and the controls easy to master.

He got sucked in. Something about the simplistic yet catchy music coming from the machine, or perhaps the flashy visuals on the screen which, although not impressive by modern standards, must certainly have looked spectacular back when the game was created, had him hooked. And it wasn’t letting go.

The door behind him opened. “Jesus Christ, Cody, there you are. I’ve been looking for you everywhere. We were meant to be heading out ages ago.” Cody didn’t respond. “Cody come on. It’s 10pm.”

Noah walked up behind the other boy, growing agitated. “Come on man, whatever you’re doing you can do some other time. It’s not like we don’t slack off during the day shifts anyways.” He rested a hand on Cody’s shoulder, and Cody jumped.

What was a simple action started a chain. Cody accidentally knocked the arcade machine, and it rocked back and forth for a little. The two boys backed away in caution, watching it with vacant looks as it leaned forward, then back, then forward, over and over, until it finally fell onto it’s face. There was a smashing sound, and Cody was quick to cover his ears.

Silence. Then, “What the fuck.” Noah crept back towards the machine, almost like any sudden moves would startle it like a wild cat. There was light coming out from under it, bright, flashing lights. Cyans, whites, yellows, blacks, and pinks of every kind grew bigger and brighter the longer the arcade machine lay down on its face.

Finally, Noah pushed it up (not without some straining and Cody’s help). The screen went white, showing off it’s cracks. The majority were bunched up in the corners, but there was one running right down the centre, splitting the screen in two. That was where all the light seemed to be coming from.

Cody stepped closer to it, his hand stretched out. “It looks... so pretty.” He muttered, almost as if he were in a trance.

Noah’s eyes widened. “Cody, don’t touch it.”

“Why? Look, it’s perfectly fine,” Cody rested his hand on the screen, palm laying flat, “see? No problem whatso-”

The screen began to flash random colours. Cyan, white, yellow, black, pink, over and over. Cody screamed and covered his eyes, the machine letting out violent noises and distorted music.

“Cody we need to leave!” Noah yelled over the noise. He tried to run out of the room, but the more he ran the further away the small door he had come through seemed to be, like he was running in a nightmare. A nightmare. That’s what this HAD to be, this HAD to be a

Everything was silent. It was pitch black. There was nothing. Nothing between their feet. Nothing in their hands. They were nothing. But then, colour. Beautiful, vibrant cyans, whites, yellows, blacks, and pinks, like nothing they had ever seen before. Cody had gotten sucked into video games before. After all, they were a special interest of his.

A new Polybius AU video, "Desiderium", is under way! The entire video is to be 45-50 minutes long but will be cut into two parts, possibly 15 minutes each.