The alarm lights blared throughout the cold halls of Site-118, bathing everything in an oppressive red glow.
Hollow steps rang out across the metal floor as site security officers ran to and fro, carrying guns as their token black armor glinted in the red light. Screams could be heard in the distance. Desperate requests for help echoed through the endless chambers. Roars echoed too, deafening as they passed; though they were few and far between.
Siggy heard none of that, however.
She was asleep.
Siggy was always asleep, ever since the doctors thought that she needed to sleep.
Siggy was a good girl. When they put her under, she closed her eyes and slept like she was told to.
When she drifted off, her room was beautiful and colorful, the normally white walls covered in drawings and posters that she made herself. It was her home, the doctors said, and she thought it was the best home ever.
When she woke up, the first thing that Siggy noticed was the darkness.
She couldn’t see a darn thing, and not even her night light was on. She didn’t see her posters, or the white walls, or her drawings, or any sign of the doctors. It seemed as if the doctors decided to make it night.
Siggy didn’t like the night.
“Lumina.” Siggy whispered, and instantly the tip of her finger glowed with a bright light, enough to illuminate the room.
There she saw her drawings, her posters, her night light- just as she left it. The doctors didn’t touch a thing.
But what she noticed right after that was the silence.
There was always music in Siggy’s home. She wanted it that way. The good doctors said “Why not?” and decided to put a radio in her home, just like she wanted.
The radio was on the stool next to her bed, and she used her non-lighty hand to touch the on button like she always did.
No music came out.
And all of a sudden, Siggy felt terrified.
“Hello?” She called out, looking around and using her lighty hand to look for anyone that may have been there. “Docs? I’m scared. Can you please turn the lights on?”
No response. Only the deafening silence answered her.
Siggy moved off her bed, slowly inching towards the mirror that she always used to dress up like a witch. She knew the doctors watched her there. Lana the Doctor said so. Lana was a clever girl, and she trusted her.
She wished she had the teddy bear Lana gave her now. The doctors took it away right before she went to sleep.
She knocked on the mirror.
“Hello? Doctors? I’m done with my nap. Can you please turn the lights on?”
She waited for a few moments. Nothing responded.
“Please? Even if it’s just the night light and the radio. I’ll be a good girl, I promise!”
Nothing answered.
She shined her lighty hand at the mirror to try and see through it, but it did nothing but shine the light back in her eyes.
Her lips were quivering, but she tried to keep them still. She was a brave girl. A very, very brave girl.
Her head turned to the door at the end of her home. The doctors always came through there whenever they had to ask her questions, but when she tried to get out, it was always locked.
She shook away the memory. The doctors said she was very bad for trying to do that. She didn't want to think about it.
She hesitated.
But they weren’t here, were they?
Siggy inched closer to the door, and stretched out her non-lighty hand to give it a push.
With a slow creeeeeeakk, it opened into a dark dark hall.
She stepped out, her legs shaking. “Docs? Doctors?”
The halls echoed her voice, but nothing else answered.
It was there and then that she realized that she needed to come out. And if she needed to come out, she needed her tools.
“Summonus Hattius.” Siggy whispered to herself, and suddenly a large purple hat landed on the soft tufts of her blonde hair. “Summonus Wandus.” She whispered again, and a wand appeared in her non-lighty hand.
“Okay, here goes.” She muttered to herself, as she continued out into the hall. "Hello? I’m right here! Please come get me!”
She took a step.
“I’m scared.” She muttered, incomprehensibly.
Slowly, she walked down the hall, using her lighty-hand to light the way forward.
“Hello?” She said, as she passed the dark cafeteria.
“Hello?” She said, as she walked by the door of the secure lockers.
“Hello?” She said, as she began to emerge into a big hall.
Nothing answered. Nothing wanted to.
The big hall that Siggy entered was too dark for her lighty-hand to shine the way forward, so she muttered another spellword under her breath.
“Lumina Brightenia.”
In an instant, her lighty-hand grew to shine across the entire room, allowing her to see her way through.
And what she saw scared her more than anything else in the whole world.
Doctors were laying in pools of their own blood. Black splotches dotted the floor. Grown-ups in black and shining armor were in pieces all across the room, like they were dolls that something had torn apart.
She froze. She felt her heart beating quickly, faster than anything she'd experienced before. She felt something painful rise up in her throat, but she forced it down.
"H-h-hello?" She said. Her voice was quivering. She wanted to run.
But she was a brave girl.
"A-anyone there?"
Then, in the far distance, something big and black and with a shiny head and one black glass eye turned to look at her.
"I am." Said the voice, light and sinister. "Boo!"
Siggy screamed with all her might and ran away, as fast as her legs can take her.
She ran past the secure lockers and the cafeteria and a million other rooms until she came to the room that was her home. She rushed in and slammed the creaky door behind her, leaping in to her bed and pulling the covers over her head.
Siggy realized she had lost her hat as she ran, and her wand was broken into two as she held it in her hand. She didn’t care. She just wanted the doctors to come back and make everything normal and safe and happy again.
Was she a bad girl? Did the doctors decide to leave her behind so that the big monster with the one black eye can eat her? She was a good girl, why would they do that? Why?
Then she heard heavy steps down the hall, and suddenly all her thoughts went silent.
She held her breath.
She stopped shaking.
She waited.
The door opened.
Creeeeeeaaaaaaak, it said.
Siggy’s heart was beating fast.
Please don’t come here. She thought. Please don’t eat me.
Tears were running down Siggy’s face. She didn’t want to die. She didn’t want to die. None of her spells could save her and she didn’t want to die.
Then she felt a heavy hand touch the blanket over her face.
And in an instant, the covers were thrown off her and the dead eyes of a bloody doctor with maggots crawling out of his skin looked at her.
“BOO!” The corpse shouted, and Siggy screamed louder than she had ever screamed before.
An idea came to her head in that instant, and she chanted with all her might “LUMINA BRIGHTIA!”
A brilliant flash lit up the room, staggering the corpse, and Siggy took the choice to run.
But a large thing blocked the door, stopping her from escaping.
“Hey, woah kid, calm down.” A kind voice said in front of her.
Siggy ran the other way, back to her bed.
"Did I scare you really bad? I'm sorry." A moment of hesitation followed. "I'm friendly, really. Don't you worry."
He sighed.
“Hey kid. Can you open your eyes?”
"No!" Siggy said, tears running down her cheeks. "You'll eat me if I do!"
"Eatcha? No, silly. I just wanted to scare ya! Open your eyes, you'll see."
Siggy stayed silent for a moment, then opened one eye.
"Lumina smallia." She whispered, and again her finger brightened.
In front of her was a seven foot tall monkey with a metal helmet, adorned, strangely, with two long antennae and a large, black and circular glass obscuring its face from view.
It was the monster she found in the big hall.
Siggy screamed.
Instantly the monkey put its arms out in an ineffective attempt at trying to calm her down. “I’m not gonna eat you, for fuck’s sake, don’t worry. I just wanted to scare you a bit, come on.”
Siggy looked back at him with wide eyes. “You just wanted to scare… me?”
The monkey put its hairy arms on either side of his waist. “Yeah. I’m a scary guy, ain’t I?”
“…Yeah.”
“That’s what I do best, the docs told me.”
At the mention of doctors, Siggy’s face instantly perked up. “The doctors told you?”
The monkey scratched his head. “Well, I don’t call them doctors, really, but the docs, yeah.”
Siggy scooted a few inches away, and placed her knees up to her chest as she sat. “Did… did you see the doctors? I need to tell one of them something.”
“The docs?” He scratched his head. “Only the dead ones. Just got out of my cell a few months ago, see. Wasn’t around to see what went down ‘round here.”
“What… went down?” Siggy said the words like they were foreign- which to her, they were.
“Yeah, like, what happened. Something killed ‘em.” He looked at her, then put his arms up, moving his fingers in an effort to scare her. “Probably still arouuuuund-“
Siggy screamed.
The monkey’s hands went down immediately. “Okay! We’re not doing that anymore.” He looked down at her intently. “Adults are nice to scare and all, but kids… kids scream too much apparently.”
It was at that point when he realized that she was crying.
“And… and they cry. Shit. I’m sorry.”
An hour later, the monkey and Siggy sat on the bed of the home, three feet away from each other.
Siggy was practically attached to the wall, knees hiked up to her chest, tear trails evident down her cheeks.
The monkey had his hands both placed properly on his lap, as he looked away from the girl right beside him.
It was at that point that he realized that this was what the docs meant by “awkward”.
He attempted to break the ice. “So uh… what’s your name?”
The girl looked back at him, silently.
He nodded back. “Okay!”
He sighed. “…Okay.”
“Uh… docs raised you huh? Same as me?”
She nodded again.
“Can’t you speak? You spoke earlier dintcha?”
She nodded.
“Agh for fuck’s sake, I can’t be the only one talking in this fucking room.”
Silence reigned.
Then, she finally spoke. It was a whisper, barely audible, but he could hear it.
“Lana said good girls shouldn’t cuss.”
“C-cuss? What’s a cuss?”
Siggy looked at him with those wide green eyes, and put her lips up to her teeth. “Like the fffffff- word.” Then she put her tongue up to the roof of her mouth. “And the shhhh-“
“Ah, fuck! And shit!”
Siggy’s voice went up by several magnitudes of volume. “Don’t cuss!”
The monkey put both his hands up in a conciliatory gesture. “Right! Right, sorry. I… don’t know your uh… things, much.”
Silence reigned again.
“How’d you look like that?” Siggy said.
The monkey looked back at her, puzzled. “Hmm? Looked like what?”
“Like the dead doctor.”
“Ah, the dead fucking doctor g-“
She shot him a dirty look.
He raised a pointer finger, then immediately lowered it. “Ah. Sorry.”
He drew his legs up to the surface of the bed. “Well, it’s my job to scare people. Woke up once in the cell the docs put me in, and it’s been my calling ever since.”
“But how can you do… that? The shape-changing thing?”
“I can just do it. I can be anything-“ His face turned back into the rotting corpse. “See?”
Siggy’s eyes widened.
He turned back, and sighed.
“I… see you didn’t like that.”
Siggy shook her head.
“Well uh… that’s enough for me! How ‘boutcha? You have that wand in your hands, you dropped that wizard hat, and you just about near blinded me with them words of yours.” He leaned in. “You a witch or some’in?”
She nodded. “Something like that. The doctors said I could cast whatever spells I want, and they’d teach me the words to do it.”
The monkey leaned in further, interested. “Wait one fu… second. You’re an actually real, I-swear-ta-Gahd witch?”
Siggy brought up her broken wand, then she muttered a word. “Fixiomimus.”
With a growing green glow, the wand knotted itself together. Its two broken halves rose, then the place where it snapped started to mend and bond like nothing ever happened.
The monkey crossed his arms. “Gahddayum. That’s some impressive sh- tuff.”
Siggy smiled, her eyes glowing with a genuinely happy light.
The monkey smiled behind his helmet. “Yeah, that’s the spirit. Ya got a good smile, witch girl. Keep smiling, it’s kinda nice to see.”
She smiled even wider. “You know, for a monster, you’re kinda nice.”
He crossed his arms even tighter. “That’s nice, little girl. Thanks.”
He cleared his throat. “Anyhoo, I’ve been trying to find a way outta here for the past few months. Hadn’t had any fahki… hadn’t had any luck.”
Siggy’s eyes lit up. “What did you see? Did you see any doctors?”
He shook his head. “Nah. Only dead ones.”
“How about Lana?”
He cocked his head to one side. “Lana?”
Siggy bit her lip at his reply, then spoke again.
“And monsters?”
“Lots of ‘em. They couldn’t see me, though. I know when I’m not wanted with those kinda folk.”
Siggy took a few seconds to digest the information, before speaking again. “Why… why do you want to get out?”
The monkey laughed. “Because it’s sh… crappy in here, that’s why! Full of dead folk and angry monsters. Not the best place to be in, I’d say.”
He shot her a look. “You wanna come with me?”
“C-come with you?”
“Yeah.”
“Where?”
“Outta here. Outta this little hellhole.”
Siggy bowed her head.
A few moments passed.
“You’ll keep me safe? From the monsters?”
“Yeah, ‘course. It’s gonna be you and me against this entire basement full of horrors.”
"And you won't scare me anymore?"
"I swear." He smiled from behind his helmet. “’Cause we’re friends, right? Best friends?”
Siggy nodded, and smiled. “Best friends. Yeah.”
The monkey stood up, walked to the door, looked both ways, and looked back at Siggy. “It’s clear.”
“You can see in the dark?”
“Yeah, part o’ my powers, you see.” He smiled again, and beckoned. “Come ‘ere.”
“Wait.” She said, before muttering something to herself. A moment later, a bright source of light emanated from her pointer finger.
She turned to her right and took the radio right off the stool, tucking it deep within her clothes.
Siggy then shuffled off the bed and slowly walked towards the monkey, a smile on her face.
The monkey looked at her. “Ah, by the way, before we go,” He knelt down to place his head at her level. “What’s yer name, witch girl?”
She took a step closer. “Siggy. Siggy Ste… stefanssdahttur…”
“Heh, alright Siggy Stefanssdat'r. My name’s…”
He stopped for a moment, his head paused in thought.
Siggy tilted her head forward in a gesture for him to proceed. “You don’t have a name.”
The monkey felt himself go red underneath the helmet. “…Nah.”
“I’ll give you a name instead!” Siggy put her pointer underneath her chin for a moment as she thought, then jumped in excitement.
“RoboMonkey!”
The monkey snorted. “Ro… RoboMonkey?”
“Yeah. ‘Cause you kinda look like a robot under that helmet. And you’re a monkey.”
The monkey laughed hard, his bellowing laughter echoing down the cold and empty halls. “I kinda like it, witch girl. RoboMonkey it is.”
He looked to his left, and found something on the floor.
"What is it?" Siggy said, inquisitive.
Robo stooped over, taking something from the ground, and then raising it over Siggy's head.
In that moment, Siggy felt something soft and familiar land on her hair. It was her witch hat. The witch hat that she thought she lost.
"I thought I lost this." She smiled, looking up. "Thank you. "
"No problem, kid. Think of it as something in return for the name."
He put his large hand around hers. Siggy’s hand practically disappeared under the fur and muscle.
“Now let’s go on an adventure right outta here.”