Mono walked down the cold, dark, and empty streets of the Pale City. Walking straight down the middle of the road, the darkness surrounding him was almost suffocating with how much is had hidden the path ahead- The moonlight hanging overhead barely gave off any light, and there was a thick white fog creeping in steadily. Making anything that wasn't completely blacked out by the darkness, fuzzy and hard to see.

Usually, Mono would be incredibly nervous going down the road like this. But Mono was on the edge of the city, the more remote parts. Little to no viewers would hang around this area, mostly because of the lack of TVs in this area. Which had allowed him to lessen his guard, would that be a mistake or not only time would tell.

However, going back onto the topic of the population, there was a lack of other kids or even stray animals lingering around these parts either since the place was barren and didn't have any good liveable conditions- There was no food around here, little to no water too. Mono wasn't planning on staying in this area long, just sleep out this foggy night and keep on going in the morning.

And in addition, the young boy was carrying a small backpack full of supplies with him, mostly of food and water but there were a few matches too. So he had all the things needed to stay the night.

He couldn't afford to stay in one place long anyways, he had an important mission to complete; Travelling to the Signal Tower to challenge the Thin Man in order to stop the transmission plaguing humanity. It was a solo mission, he didn't have anyone to help him.

Except for the emotional support of a friend, but they weren't here right now. Mono hadn't gotten a chance to talk to them in a while, Mono hoped they wouldn't think he was intentionally avoiding them when he does get to see them. 

Mono jumped once he heard the noise of something metallic crash against the ground behind him. His heart racing, he spun his head around. His eyes darted from place to place, searching for any threat or danger, but instead, they landed on a fallen metal door.

He eased, it was just the door that fell. He knew it wasn't already like that since he was sure when he walked by it, it was loosely hanging onto its frame hinges.

The door belonged to some kind of apartment building, the complex seeming to go up till the fourth floor. Mono crept towards it cautiously, trying to peer inside the building from a safe distance.

Indoors looked undoubtedly abandoned just from the entry room, from what he could see from his distance the place looked completely ransacked. Short standing cabinets were placed to the left side of the room, the cabinet's drawers had been pulled out completely and thrown onto the floor to be emptied of all its items. A table's top off to the right side of the room was barren with the exception of some old magazines nobody wanted, and even some of the stuffing of some waiting-room couches were ripped out.

Though, Mono thought it could possibly be a location to call it a night. Keeping his guard up, he entered the building; On entry, he could capture the feel of the room immediately. It felt oddly homey, the floors were soft-carpeted and the walls were pale green with a slightly different shade of pale green lining the walls in long stripes.

There was only one light in the room, it was a ceiling light that hung above him. For how old this place looked it was surprising the light bulb hadn't run out of fuel yet.

To his left, there were some ripped and torn couches set against the wall. Next to the couches were long-dead plants, the foliage showing a shade of brown he didn't even know they could turn. Turning over, he looked over to his right side instead.

The right side had a table off to the upper left side of the room. The same one he saw at a distance, just closer. The table had a square pot full of dirt on top of it, no plant or anything. Somebody must've taken it for some reason or they just never got a chance to plant something. Two magazines across from the table from each other sat on the table, both looking damaged and greatly aged.

Straight across from the table was some kind of wooden brown check-in desk. Mono felt like it once had something on top of it, but currently, there was nothing at all. Not even a monitor.

And finally, right ahead from Mono was an arched doorway that led into a staircase that went straight upwards. To the sides of the doorway hung two identical clothes racks. And of course, the racks were empty. It would be expected seeing the condition of the rest of the room.

Mono moved onwards, going up the staircase. While downstairs the lights were working just fine, the upstairs lights were a whole different story as they were all quite dim and dying. Some heavily flickering.

The stairs lead straight into a corridor. The hall was narrow, and not a lot of room. Just barely enough to open up a door and squeeze past it, it would be a nightmare if multiple people were trying to go down the hall at once.

The floors had changed into flecked carpet and the walls transitioned into an extremely pale orange color scheme. Mono didn't know if it was the lack of good lights in the hallway, but everything became so much duller in comparison to the lively color tone of the downstairs.

All the doors in the corridor were an identical dark brown wooden oak color with a yellow doorknob and a white nameplate. Or well, numberplate as there was no name. Just a number. All the doors down the hallway were equal length from each other, advancing down the hallway would lead into another archway leading into a staircase. From Mono's standpoint, it had looked like the staircase split. One side curled upwards to the left while the other side curled off to the right.

Though his attention for the staircase didn't last long after Mono had noticed a cracked-open apartment room door with a visibly busted doorknob to his right. The knob was just barely clinging onto the door, the screws desperately trying to keep it attached.

Mono slowly and cautiously approached the door. Slow and careful, his small hands gripped the door and pushed it open. His eyes searched the room, investigating anything out of the ordinary.

The room was an absolute mess; there was a hanging light that dimly lit the room, the outer frame of the light visibly damaged. There was a scratched-up couch that had a thin blue-ish black blanket draped over half of its length. The couch was also positioned oddly, being in the center of the room at an angle.

The walls had a nice light-gray wallpaper with a pattern akin to a rug's going down the wall in a straight line. However, with its age, the wallpaper was horribly peeling off. Long streaks of wallpaper curling off the wall. And to add on, a concerning factor was that there looked like there were some bullet holes going through the walls.

To the left and right were closed doors. However, they were heavily boarded up by multiple planks. In addition, there were also two hammers in the room both next to different doors. Both of them were incredibly damaged and frail, neither of them looked like they could even survive being picked up.

And lastly, glass shards. Glass shards both large and small dangerously scattered the floor. Inviting a nasty glass injury very easily if one wasn't too careful with their footing. Something definitely went down in the room for it to be this wrecked, but Mono wasn't the one to play detective here.

Now. To a usual kid, the sight of glass shards coating the floor would never make somebody happy. It would make one be fretful or terribly annoyed and cringe at the sight. But Mono, Mono couldn't help but smile brightly at the sheer sight of glass.

What Mono was happy about wasn't the risk of glass on the floor, no, he was excited about seeing his reflection. You see, Mono didn't have a normal reflection. From the moment he had first traveled through a TV his reflection had changed.

Instead of just seeing himself in the reflection, he saw a girl. A pale young girl, one about his age, with raven-black hair and a bright yellow raincoat. Her name was Six. Six didn't act much as his reflection besides appearing in the place of where one should be. She moved on her own, thought on her own, talked to him on her own. It was like they were communicating from another world through a screen.

He considered her his best friend in this cold, unforgiving world. So why shouldn't Mono be excited to see her again? He hadn't gotten time to talk much since the ever-looming threats of viewers kept him quick on his feet and no time to really hang out and talk. Only briefly seeing her in his reflections while being chased down by a grotesque adult.

Mono grinned excitedly, entering the room. He carefully maneuvered around the glass pieces in the apartment, heading towards the couch. Mono had to remind constantly mentally himself to not get hasty as the sight of familiar yellow began making him excited and wanting to go faster.

Eventually, Mono safely made it to the couch. Scurrying onto the soft cushions of the couch and immediately tossing the trash which consisted of empty food wrappers off of the couch to make room for himself.

Mono excitedly looked down at the grass surrounding him, though quickly he noticed Six couldn't quite form properly with his reflection spread out throughout many scattering sources so he climbed down to grab one big glass shard and brought it up onto the couch with him so she could form properly in his just big shard.

The glass shard Mono picked was half the length of his body, he struggled to get it up onto the couch but he managed to do it anyways. Getting comfortable on the couch, he stared at the mirror. Six, as expected, meeting his gaze. Although, not how he expected her to.

Six would always be so happy to see him every time, full of energy and ready to talk for hours. When he smiled, she would always smile back.

But right now, when he smiled she did not smile back as usual. That was his first clue something was wrong, "Hey, Six." Mono greeted.

"Hi," Six said, almost absent-mindedly. Like she was only half-acknowledging him.

"Huh, what are you doing?" He asked.

"I'm talking inside this mirror to you, what else?" Six responded dejectedly, "There's nothing else for me to do in here anyway, it's quite empty besides my screening to you."

"Are you okay? You seem sad today." Mono finally pointed out, sounding quite worried for his companion. Six took in a breath, similar to how a sigh would go but instead of actually sighing she just exhaled. "What's going to happen to me?" Six asked.

Mono blinked, he was confused about what she could possibly mean by that. "What?" Mono voiced his confusion.

"Your mission is to take down the Signal Tower, correct?" Six questioned, Mono nodded in reply. Mono had indeed decided to take on the solo mission of trying to free everyone from the influence of the Signal Tower by destroying the transmission entirely, Six being the one working as the emotional support that he mentioned since she couldn't physically do anything about it. Right now they were so incredibly close, only two days left before they reach the tower and take on the Thin Man head-on. "Yeah, you know this," Mono confirmed.

"Then what's going to happen to me?" Six asked, "I'm a product of the transmission, you got me like an infection from the transmission after traveling through a somewhat damaged TV a bit roughly."

Mono cringed at the word 'infection', he despised whenever she called herself something like that.

Six went on, "You're going to destroy the Signal Tower entirely. Ending the transmission. If you do that, then what's going to happen to me?" Six began tearing up, although it was clear she was trying her best not to cry her emotions were still pushing to the surface. Six began shaking, drawing another breath to speak, "I-, I'm going to die with it, I don't want to die. I like being alive- having a conscience. Or worse, what if my connection with you is cut off but I live? I'll be forever alone in this mirror void till the end of time."

"Six, that won't happen to you." Mono tried to assure, "I won't let it. I'll make an exception in the transmission, or even better- I'll get you out of the mirror so you won't be stuck in it anymore!"

"How?" Six asked, tears streaming down her cheeks now. "I'm not even supposed to exist, I'm like some kind of parasite who took over your normal reflection. I'm a mistake."

"Stop it, I hate it when you call yourself that." Mono said, "You're not a parasite, nor are you a mistake. You were unexpected, sure, but nothing of a mistake."

That didn't seem to affect Six much, she just looked away from Mono. How utterly saddened the girl was tugged at his heartstrings, he wanted to do something. Just something to make her feel even just somewhat better.

Then an idea popped into his head.

"Do you wanna hear a song?" Mono suggested, "You always loved it when I sang."

There was quite a long pause, leading Mono to believe she silently declined the offer. Though Mono picked up on something, Six had mumbled something. It was too quiet to actually hear what she said but she did say something.

"What was that?" Mono asked, "Did you want to hear my song?"

Six nodded, sniffling and shaking. Mono wished this girl was physical so he could hug her because she looked like she needed one terribly. Hugging the glass wouldn't be the same. 

Though Mono was very glad she accepted his offer. She needed to be comforted somehow and this could be it.

Six shakily opened her mouth, "Can-" she paused to sniffle a bit, "Can you sing the one about gardens?"

Mono nodded, "I always loved singing that one." He said, then took a deep breath.

In a calm, steady voice he sang; "If there's one thing I've learned in all my years here, it's that despair is less abundant in those who understand how to plant their hearts in community gardens. You'll be fine, you honeycomb. Who could ever hurt you, who could be so cold? ~."

As Mono recited the lyrics burned in his memory, he also thought about the point Six had brought up. The fact Six could get entirely erased thanks to her being born from the transmission hadn't even crossed his mind. That is quite problematic.

Although Mono felt like he was being really selfish to basically all of humanity that he was planning to save, if he learned that there was no future of stopping the transmission where Six made it out alive and well, he would call off the mission.

For her sake. He couldn't lose her, not the only thing he has left in this world. 

---

2626 words

This fanfiction was based on the prompt given by a two-sentence horror generator AI, this was the prompt; "When I smiled, she did not smile back. Something is very wrong with this mirror."

I plan on starting a book where I write one-shots of prompts given by the horror generator AI like this on my super-secret archive account you'll never figure out with the username of "HELPIMSTUCKINABOX" so good luck finding it suckers LMAOOOOO

btw the song mono sang was community gardens by the scary jokes highly recommend it

I might write a sequel one-shot in here that'll reference the end of the song; "The years have been hard on this lonely heart. If you wanna know the truth, there's no more community gardens." but eh idk depends if you guys would be interested in it.