FIGARO:
The message sat there on the mundane forum post for five minutes as the recipient contemplated, sitting at his work desk without movement, his eyes unblinking at the message. His arms hung low as he sat in his swerving chair, his breathing had slowed to a crawl as he mentally hit himself for finally realizing what was so blatantly obvious of a solution for work exhaustion. He let out a laugh that had filled the empty office room, how much of a cog in the machine he's become in a year and a half away from his siblings.
The man's name, or rather his conspiraterra.net username, was Kinyuki, a round nosed, baby faced, 20 something, and he was office worker for a shipping and receiving company, who's main job was data entry. He had chosen go on the conspiracy nut forum because he and his sister, who lived a city away from him, had joked about a few "weird happenings" that were posted on the site as of the last few months, things that she had said were coming straight out of the old Dungeons and Dragons modules that she had on her ever growing shelf. Kinyuki had initially laughed it off, using the site to keep connected to the closest part of his family, as to not go completely off-the-rails and go postal at the workplace.
Then he had met Figaro, a self proclaimed ladies man in distress, who was utterly convinced that faeries, or feyfolk as he was constantly corrected by Figaro, goblins and other deranged experiments were going on in the world today. The thing that made Kinyuki keep in touch with Figaro was the pictures he constantly posted. They were incredibly detailed posts of every short enemy out of a bestiary, but the breast pics that were posted all over Figaro's profile page were just as convincingly real, so "Kinny" didn't take that as proof of anything. Kinyuki and his sister, FutasticFaun, figured it was some sort of elaborate ARG and they had found out about it before a flood of other people made clickbait analysis videos.
For the past few weeks, Futasticfaun dropped off the site, living her brother with Figaro. Though his online friend got rambly, Kinyuki had really felt that there was a lot of passion in Figaro's work, often siting how he can't always go out, especially at night and doesn't know what to do about the growth on the walls, whether it will burst open with a bunch of overgrown maggots if he hits it with a stick. It was when Figaro talked about himself that made Kinyuki feel like he was more than just someone who believes in ghouls and goblins. Sure, Figaro talked mostly of breasts and what he would do to said breasts when he had finally got a hold of them, but he had gotten into how lonely he feels in the damp, dark room that he found in the place he calls home.
It had struck a chord with Kinyuki, and eventually the two had started talking about more than just conspiracies, to the point that other people in the forum had politely asked them to take the conversation to the "Off Topic" section, as the two had filled it up with idle chatter. Kinyuki was content to keep in contact with Figaro even when his attempt at whatever he was doing had either succeeded or failed, and Figaro was happy to have a friend to talk to about things that interested him, noting that despite Kinyuki not being as cultured in the study of breasts, that he could tell that his friend leaned more towards booty.
Kinyuki brushed back his low-cut, dirty blond hair and rubbed at the thin mustache, smiling at the message. The fact that Kinyuki had spent an entire page worth of venting his frustrations to be given an answer at all spoke volumes about how his friend actually was a human being who actually cared about how his well being.
Figaro wasn't human, but he did still care about his friend a great deal.
:::
Deep within the bowels of a long forgotten stone tower, amidst the thick forests that border the small town of Humble Village, lived a small, pale creature sitting in a worn out wooden chair. It was ovular in shape, with short green tendrils that poked out at both ends, the top end being carefully stroked by a broken comb by one of the bottom tendrils. Two more of the tendrils grew in size as one had poked at a mirror while the other wiped at the one tired eye that had graced its face. The beast yawned, showing more teeth than anything has a right to have in that small of a body, while fixating his eye on the mirror, which didn't show his face, but the website of conspiraterra.net.
This was Figaro's true form, and he didn't want anyone to know that. What would the beautiful ladies in the sports bras and the sun dresses do to him if he had gone into a bar looking like he does? Something straight out of a shonen manga where he gets pummeled rather than titty, that's what...or maybe getting experimented on like his friend Kinny had mentioned. He wouldn't even obsess over them that much he thought, pressing the refresh icon on the page. Figaro smiled, seeing that Kinyuki had sent a private message, asking to join him in conspiraterra's instachat so they could chat faster.
It had been a hard couple of months for Figaro, not knowing how he gotten here or what his world outside the wall were like, all he knew was that the inside of the small study was his only sanctuary from the ugly beasts that he couldn't identify. His only view from the outside world was a weird mirror that he could type words on, giving him the ability to send messages to all sorts of people, including hot girls and his pal Kinny.
He held up the door with more objects today, some of them actually hard to break sticks this time, but he knew that this wouldn't be enough. Even though the creatures would be pretty docile in the day, leaving him time to gather food, they were always antsy at night, and he wouldn't have another incident like the last time. The sound of cawing birds had snapped him from that memory and decided to start chat with Kinyuki.
:::
Kinyuki:
FIGARO:
Kinyuki:
FIGARO:
Kinyuki: < Doubt that there would be any models there :P. A walk on the beach could be nice.>
FIGARO:
Kinyuki: < Yeah. She dropped off the face of the planet. Mom hasn't gotten word about her, and that means she had to have left. Which leaves mom and brother still there.>
FIGARO: < And whats he like?>
Kinyuki:
FIGARO:
Five minutes pass. No answer from Kinyuki. The birds outside the tower get louder, even within the confines of the study.
FIGARO:
Kinyuki: < Yeah, holy shit there are birds outside my office. like a hundred>
The message looked rushed to Figaro, but he kept the conversation going.
FIGARO:
Another minute passes.
Kinyuki:
The picture that Kinyuki sent had started loading up. Figaro felt nauseous all of a sudden, and the birds outside had only gotten louder. When Figaro could finally look at what his friend sent, his one eye twitched. There was an inky black bird with a long black neck attached to the window, having two sets of long spindly legs, each graced with talons that reflected on the light inside of Kinyuki's office. It reminded Figaro of a hybrid of bird and bug, much like the creatures inside the tower, wondering if they were somehow related.
There was a play symbol on the picture, revealing it to be a video, one that Kinyuki had no time to dwell on as he had hastily sent it to Figaro. With an audible gulp, Figaro pressed play on the video. The bird made an awful screeching noise, blending in far too well with the other birds from outside. What was even louder was the sound of the bird monster banging its head against the glass. The only normal voice was coming from what Figaro assumed was Kinyuki, who strung along a stream of swears that he didn't think possible for his well-mannered friend.
The video cut short, and Figaro was left staring at the screen. The cry of birds had hit a fever pitch, but Figaro sat unfazed by the noise. He was at a loss about what to do, wanting to go out and help his friend, but how? Figaro couldn't think of what horrible things could have happened to him, but he couldn't do much about it in his current state, not even knowing where Kinyuki lived. He only hoped that Kinyuki could find a way to contact him, at least to know if he was doing alright.