The Doll (Undertale!Spamtenna AU)
Just slipping this in here, I haven't planned out this story beyond major beats, but I really like this intro, so I wanted to share it. Feedback much apprecie.)
Summary: A scrapyard-dwelling mailman finds a television set in the trash. It turns on a little too much.
My name is Spamton G. Spamton. I’m writing to you in the hopes of procuring funding for my delivery business, in exchange for a spot on our priority list of promotions.
If you’d consider this offer, I’d be most thankful.
Spamton crumbled up the paper and tossed it amongst the mound surrounding him.
He’d be lucky to find something to eat today, let alone a sponsor for his non-existent business.
He was a monster trapped in the underground like everyone else, if you didn’t already have something going for you, chances were you never would.
And that was Spamton’s luck. A mailman with no mail to deliver, scavenging scrapyards for parts, money, food, anything.
And of course no one was going to lend him help, not after his shenanigans with that demon. The thing that had turned him into a goddamned puppet.
Now he didn’t even have that. Just an empty bag, a stupid hat, broken glasses, and a reputation as a voodoo doll. He was a puppet, not a doll, thank you very much.
Spamton grumbled quietly to himself as he scavenged. Looking for something to hook his media player to. It was pretty outdated, but, what else could he expect from the trash?
The mailman caught a glare in the distance. Light from the yard lamps bouncing off something smooth.
He’d passed by this area many times, but never noticed it before. Probably because he didn’t need it before.
Spamton’s instinct told him to dive for it. Plastic peg legs clattering over, he took as close of a look as he could from the trash heap's base:
A little box Television. Looked like a CRT model, but it was small, no bigger than Spamton’s own head. Its screen was busted in, segmented to large greenish shards– not how a CRT normally breaks but ok– Two lengthy golden antenna crinkled on their perch, like a broken crown. If he could get that thing to work, he could finally use his media player, see what was on the CDs and VHS he’d found lying around, and hopefully sell them for something of actual value.
Eyes brightening with a renewed, but probably short-lived spark of hope, Spamton made his way up the mound of trash. As he got closer he noticed that it wasn’t lodged into the side on the hill, but rather resting on top of a little headless doll body.
At first notice, it looked like a plush, dressed in a rather bland, muddy/maroon? suit with a loose, barf-colored tie, a dress shoe missing. It’s joints, however, were sharply angled, some degraded patches in its cloth revealed rotten wood beneath. It had no hands, it’s coat was weirdly too big for it, and seemed newer than the rest of it.
Who wants to bet that thing’s haunted? Spamton joked to himself. But he was one to talk.
Finally reaching the T.V. Spamton hooked his ball-jointed fingers into its grooves. He wasn’t expecting that when he moved it, the doll body would move as well.
He yanked his limbs back with a frightened yelp, a few rats fleeing from the shadows and making the mailman nearly tumble down the side of the heap. If Spamton had a SOUL it would have leapt right out of his stupid little body.
But, luckily, he caught himself. The doll didn’t jump up and eat him. It, along with the T.V, slumped over. Dead.
He groaned to think that the TV was just a toy this whole time. Just his luck.
Too frustrated to let it go that easily, the mailman climbed back over, tapping his digits carefully against the doll’s "head", pressing against it to listen.
Hollow with quite a bit of structure inside. Tilting it to and fro, he found it had all the right ports to connect to his player. So it was probably a real monitor at least, if he could just detach it….
Spamton pulled out a small flashlight from his pocket and gleaned at the neck joint , surprised to find a rather complex assembly of hydraulics and wiring running between the body and the T.V.
Okay, as long as he could turn it on, that’s all that mattered right?
Spamton looked for a power cable first, patting down its back until his digits hooked around something sticking out from the split of its coat tails. He followed and pulled at the line, overlooking its gnawed-on section for the intact three-pronged end.
Spamton retrieved a portable powerbox from his bag, plugging it in eagerly before hitting the power button on the TV’s front panel. Several seconds went by and nothing happened. He pressed it again. Zilch. A predictable disappointment settled onto the mailman’s shoulders.
Or Binstop. Just his luck.
For a normal TV he may have bothered a little more.
For this freaky wood-robot hodgepodge? Not today.
Calling it quits, Spamton moved to unplug the creepy doll, when he felt a physical jolt through the cable. Once again feeling his heart pick up, he held the powerbox away from him, noting the T.V head following its movement.
Two mortified screams rang out as the power cable burst into flames.