TW: mention of s/h (yep, right off the bat)

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A cold, lone place, away from the rest of the world, oddly spacious, a place meant to invoke fear, and a place I call home.

Or, in other words,

The purgatory mansion.

After the show, Bow offered for Marsh to come along and live there, and she invited me, and by now we'd been living there for a while.

Despite Bow calling the place tacky, and having bad cell service, and calling me anything but my name for the first month of being there, I still liked it there. And it's a mansion, so for the first couple of weeks there I looked around a lot to scout out every room and appliance to see what was there.

The answer was; not a lot.

But we have a walmart close by, so that wasn't a problem. And we also have music, since Dough knows how to play piano, and both Bow and Marsh can sing. Can't say the same for me, but oh well. At least I can draw!

A question I asked a lot when I first got there was if there any other ghosts in the purgatory mansion. Bow kind of avoided the question, but I know the paintings are sentient - whatever that word means - because I saw Bow gossiping to them sometimes.

Sometimes I thought there were definitely other ghosts - I'd hear whispers from wherever sometimes. But I couldn't prove anything, and it wasn't logical - whatever that means - I should really get a dictionary - so nothing happened. It was kind of annoying though, since when I told Marsh about it, she told me to stop waving my arms about and that she hadn't heard anything.

Which was weird, because I could definitely hear people talking. 

Maybe it's because it only happens when I'm by myself...?

Like on i- wait, no, let's not think about that.

Anyway. What even happened today...? I woke up, walked to the kitchen, Bow was typing something on her phone, I got whatever cereal we had, Bow took a photo of me and was weirded out that I didn't put milk in my cereal, I went to the room with all my paper, then I remembered I ran out, and I went here...

Oh, right, paper! For drawing! That's what I was doing!

Dough said there was a printer room somewhere. So there should be paper! Where was it again... fifth door past the mirror to the left or right...? Whatever, I'll check both.

So I went up the stairs, to the left, into the hallway, counted the doors, forgot to count the mirror first, did that, lost track, counted again, and finally, went into the printer room.

A big, yellowed, coffee-stain-smelling black and 'white' printer was in the corner of the room, with paper littered all over the floor and a circular wooden table inbetween the size of a coffee table and a nightstand.

I gasped and my eyes widened in anticipation at the sight of paper, but immediately dulled upon seeing they were all some kind of documents. I had no interest in reading them, and I could barely read anyway, so I just tried to step around them, and failed, because they were everywhere, crinkling a bit too loudly under my feet, until I was able to reach the printer. It was thrice my size in length and only a bit wider than me, but I was able to reach it anyway.

After a bit of messing around with it, I stumbled back a little at a compartment opening.

Paper!

I took some of it out, and flipped it over, smiling that I'd found this much, and-

"Get your hands off me!"

I screamed and dropped the sheet of paper, flinching back a good couple centimetres, slipping on the copius amounts of documents on the floor and crashing backwards on the back of my head and back, wincing slightly from the impact and sitting up.

...The printer? 

The printer was talking to me.

"The hell was that? You looked like a cartoon."

My face changed to one of annoyance.

"Hey!"

"-As I was saying, ugh, you people!"

"What's a people?"

"What were you doing in here, pushing my buttons like that?"

"Getting paper to draw! And I opened a compartment, no button-pushing. And tell me what a people is!"

I picked up the paper

"Person, not people. And that was an idiom, stupid. Also, ask first before you take my paper like that!"

"I didn't know you were alive!"
"..."
"...Can I have some paper?"

"Fine, since you asked so nicely.

"Thank y-"

"APPLE!"

Marsh! My face brightened up upon seeing her.

"Oh yeah! ...What's your name? I'll call you Printy. Printy, this is Marsh. Marsh, this is P-"

"Apple, will you stop talking to yourself already!? You woke me up all the way from the last hallway!"

"Marsh! That's rude! I'm not talking to mys-"

"Imaginary friend, whatever. What are you doing here sitting next to a printer? And with documents on the floor? Just how much did you write?"

"It's Printy, not an imaginary friend. And I didn't do anything!"

"It's a neat thing called sarcasm, Apple. And what the heck do you mean 'Printy'?"

I stood up and gestured towards Printy.

"This is Printy!"

I looked at Printy, and whisper-shouted at them.

"Say something, Printy! Why are you so quiet all of a sudden?"

Marsh looked at me like I'd just confessed to eating a tumour out of a dumpster and recorded it on video to show to children for an April fools prank.

Wait, what? ...Why did we think of that? What's a tumor, even?

"...Apple, you're not funny."

My smile faded, and I looked at her with an eyebrow raised.

She sighed.

"That's a printer."

"And I'm an apple!"

She facepalmed.

"That's an object. Non-talking, non-thinking, non-living. It can't talk to you."

"Well, it did."

She just stared at me in silence for a moment.

"...Well what did it say, then?"

"Well, Printy told me to get my hands off them, said I looked like a stupid cartoon character, told me to ask for the paper, I did, and I got the paper!"

I waved it for her to see.

"...That was a rhetorical question."

"A wha-"

"-A question asked as a joke. You're not supposed to answer it, in short."

"Why ask it then?"'

She sighed again.

"Nevermind... Anyway, what? Your so-called 'Printy' insulted you and made you ask to take some paper...? Who gave you the idea to make this kind of joke...? Because you do not look like a schizophrenic with self-esteem issues."

"...What?"

"Ugh... Just stop making so much noise. ...And stop just standing there!"

"Okay, let me get my paper first..."

She looked bored, but let me do so. When I finally got all the paper, she tugged me and practically dragged me by the wrist back to our room. I almost tripped at first, but then managed to walk along with her normally.

When we finally got back, she sat down in her bed, pulled the covers over her, rolled over to the other side, putting her back to me, and from under the sheets, muttered;

"-I'm going back to sleep now."

I opened my mouth to reply, but then decided not to bother her. 

I didn't feel like drawing anymore, so I went back to the room with Printy.

"Sorry about that."

"You'd better be! What was that!?"

My eyes widened and I just stared at Printy for a second due to the harsh abruptness of the sentence.

"Uh. It was me talking to Marsh...?"

"And ignoring me."

I tilted my head to the side in confusion.

"Uh, no? I introduced you to her. You didn't reply."

"Blaming everything on other people! Real mature!"

I didn't really know what to say. Usually when people insulted me, I pouted and snapped back in annoyance, but now...

...It was different? For some reason? It hurt a bit when they said that... It shouldn't. Should it...?

"...No? I-"

"-Should go give yourself a papercut, bleed out and cry over it!"

My eyes widened in a weird mix of shock, concern and offense. 

"...UH, WHOA? - there..."

I lowered my voice, remembering Marsh was still trying to sleep.

"...What? Wait, no, why would I do that? Isn't that a bad thing?"

"Because you deserve to feel pain. May your body writhe in discomfort and agony and may your every fibre go icy cold and lifeless from the filthy, red excretion."

"Printy, uh, what? You're, um, you're- you're freaking me out a bit, Printy..."

I underplayed that a LOT. I was very alarmed and freaked out.

"Good. You freak others out too, with how you cling to them like you'll be left alone forever if you don't."

...

I had to hold my breath for a moment not to cry from that comment, but managed to huff out the breath anyway and just stand there.

But then it was like they were growling at me, and a really high pitched continuous noise started, and it was like the room started closing in on me, so I ran out the room and rushed over to mine, shutting the door, but not slamming it, for Marsh's sake, and scrambled for the paper. 

I immediately started drawing and drawing and drawing, sketching out what I was thinking of in pencil, before deciding not to halfway and went straight in with crayon, pressing down so hard on the paper the crayon almost snapped.

When I was finally done, my hand hurt a bit from how hard I was holding the crayon, but it didn't really matter.

In the drawing, I was standing next to Printy, and a paper was cutting me. There was supposed to be blood, but there was only one red crayon, so you couldn't tell.

Then I scrunched up and crumpled the drawing into a little ball, threw it at the wall, stomped on it, threw it at the wall again and just stared at it.

"Can you not do that in another room?"

Oh, right, Marsh.

"HhHhh-"

What the-? 

I tried to speak, but it came out as a wheeze.

"Right, sorry..."

What the??? That didn't sound like me at all. 

Marsh noticed it too, and she sat up to look at me with an eyebrow raised as I cleared my throat.

"Uh... Apple? ...You kinda sound like you've been crying..."

I cleared my throat again.

"Ahem... I haven't been!"

She looked at me with a deadpan expression.

"...Ookay, if you say so..."

"No, really!-"

...She'd already rolled back over.

Oh well.

What time was it, anyway?

...Should I ask bow?

I don't know... Later maybe.

So, with that, I decided to climb to the top bunk of our bed and lied down on my back, staring at the ceiling, doing absolutely nothing.

...

What on Earth.

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Well that was one hell of a first chapter huh
I haven't written that much in one go in so long :0
(It's currently 2:37AM-)

word count: 1700 (NOOOO THE 69 IS OFF BY ONE WORD)

Hope ya enjoyed! :D