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The bus lurched and rattled as it rolled over the snowy terrain of Copper-9, protesting against the driver. There were seventeen kids on that bus, and among them were Thad and Lizzy, the ‘popular siblings’ of the school. As of right now, they, along with the other kids, were going on a field trip to a place called Camp 98.7
“What a weird name for a camp,” Rebecca remarked while looking down at her shirt, sitting in the seat beside Lizzy and Thad.
Lizzy rolled her eyes, “Yeah, like ‘outpost 3’ is a normal name for a place.”
Rebecca huffed, “It’s better than ‘Camp 98.7’!”
“Guys, c’mon, can’t we just appreciate the fact we get to go outside when it’s actually safe for once?” Thad chimed in, “Playing in the snow is gonna be so cool. No pun intended,” he chuckled to himself.
Rebecca deadpanned at him, while Lizzy merely shook her head.
“What’s the point of this dumb field trip anyway?” Lizzy continued to complain, crossing her arms and slouching down in the seat.
“Uh… Teach said something about our test grades being too low,” Darren answered.
Rebecca raised her eyebrows.
“Wow, you actually paid attention for once.”
Darren lightly smacked her arm.
“Hey!”
Lizzy looked straight at Thad.
“Then why are you here?”
Thad’s eyelights hollowed, not expecting her to immediately address him. Then he nervously chuckled, rubbing his head, his voice shaking slightly.
“I-I don’t want to talk about it.”
Lizzy raised her eyebrow at him but didn’t say anything more.
Honestly, Thad had found it hard to focus lately. Everything had felt so different ever since the Disassembly drones broke into the bunker. Actually, ever since he’d been grabbed by that… weird eldritch being. He felt more spacey like his mind wasn’t actually there. He just felt different in general, and he could’ve sworn his chest felt… heavier? Is that weird? That’s probably weird. The point is that he felt different. Maybe it was just the repression.
Lizzy let out a gasp and suddenly sat up, which caused him to flinch, realizing he had spaced out again.
“Oh, my robo-god, Thad, the funniest thing happened to Brad the other day,” Lizzy said excitedly, grinning.
Thad’s face lit up with intrigue, ignoring Rebecca’s scoff and eye roll.
As Lizzy told her story, the bus slowly but surely came up to their stop. As if it was timed, just as the bus stopped and the pair were getting off, Lizzy finished her story.
Thad chuckled as he stepped down the stairs and into the snow, looking up at Lizzy as he helped her down as well.
“No kidding!” He said as Lizzy laughed along.
They continued forward, stopping where the rest of the group was.
“Brad may be annoying, but god he can be funny sometimes. Especially when he hurts himself,” Lizzy remarked, adding the last part quietly.
Despite her best efforts, Thad heard it anyway. He shook his head.
“Aw c’mon, don’t do him like that. Just give him some time and he’ll mature. Wasn’t I annoying when I was younger?” He asked.
Lizzy gave him an incredulous stare.
“You? Mister hides-behind-my-sister-at-any-given-chance? No, you weren’t annoying! Well, you were annoyingly shy , but that’s like, the total opposite of what Brad is,” Lizzy reassured, shrugging her shoulders.
“...Alright, that’s fair,” Thad muttered.
“Besides, I don’t think anyone can be more annoying than him,” Lizzy continued, “Well, other than Uzi.”
Thad frowned, “Hey–”
Suddenly, they heard gasps and other various exclaims from their classmates. They looked over to find Braiden and the others backing away from Uzi, fear on their faces. Well, aside from Sam, but that’s normal.
“Speak of the devil,” Lizzy muttered under her breath, crossing her arms. Thad resisted the urge to nudge her, setting his hands on his hips.
“Bite me!” Uzi yelled, pointing at Braiden, “ I asked to go alone! He’s mad at your test scores!”
She pointed up at their teacher, who sat on top of the cabin in a beach chair.
“No year-end bonus? No learning,” The teacher said in his usual, monotone-yet-semi-annoyed tone.
“So we’re just unsupervised?” Braiden asked, moments before two figures crashed down before them.
Thad and Lizzy immediately knew it was just N and V, turning away and continuing their conversation while the rest of their classmates panicked.
“I don’t understand how you can be friends with her,” Lizzy continued with a deadpan look.
“She’s a great person when you get to know her, Liz. Trust me.”
“I’ll believe it when I see it,” Lizzy huffed.
Thad suddenly winced, his vision glitching and buzzing, flicking from green to purple. An intense, horrifying feeling of dread crashed over him like a tidal wave, threatening to throw him to the floor. An even stronger, fierce feeling of eyes staring into his back hit at the same time, stabbing and ripping through his metal casing, grasping at his core and threatening to rip it to shreds.
Suddenly his chest felt restricted, an invisible force putting pressure on him, making it hard to move or even breathing.
Even still, he pushed through. Despite his tense demeanor, he slowly turned toward the source of the feeling. Yet, the moment he looked into the forest, it was gone. His vision stopped buzzing, the burning sensation of dread and paranoia disappearing in the blink of an eye, his body quickly relaxing.
He stared into the forest, confused. What on Copper-9 was that?
“Yo, Thad!” Lizzy called from behind him, snapping her finger in his audials, “Copper-9 to jock-face?”
Thad turned back to her, his eyelights still hollow.
“Oh, sorry Liz. I just, uh…” His eyelights went back to normal as he looked at the ground, rubbing the back of his head, “Thought I heard something.”
Lizzy shook her head.
“I told you. You’ve been hanging out with that purple weirdo too much.”
Thad deadpanned at her and shook his head, turning back to N and V.
“ So no sneaking off to investigate stuff! ” N said with his teeth clenched, hiding his mouth behind his clipboard. It was obvious he was trying to be quiet, but he wasn’t doing a great job at it. Thad couldn’t tell who he was talking to.
N stuck his finger into the air.
“To the bunks!” He chirped.
With that, he turned on his foot to the cabin but stopped before he walked in. He turned back to the campers, who hadn’t moved an inch out of fear, with anxious looks on their faces.
Thad felt bad for him. Then he had an idea. He smiled, putting on a relaxed face, throwing up some finger guns, and walking toward N and V, unknowingly stepping over Trevor’s dead body
“Sounds good, N!” He chirped, then stood beside the disassembly drone, resting his hands on his hips again and looking around at the other campers.
Lizzy threw something to V as she walked over.
“Anything for my bestie!” She called cheerfully, fist bumping her gal pal as she stood next to her, sassily putting her hands on her hips as well.
The campers calmed down with that, looking around at each other. However, their calmness was quickly replaced by fear again as Uzi spoke up.
“Uh- Ye-yeah! They’re kinda like… my friends too?- So— heh- it’s cool.“ She mumbled, though it was obvious she was trying to be louder. Blush marks showed on her face as she glanced around and did a thumbs up. When no one responded, she looked up at her classmates.
They stared at her momentarily before they all turned away in fear and ran to N and V. Thad quickly backed up to avoid getting trampled, while Lizzy just stood there.
Emily took N’s hand in hers, cooing up at him. “You can be our friend, little guy!”
Darren poked at V’s visor. “Poor thing’s defective.”
Thad’s thoughts began to wander, yet another feeling of being watched washing over him, though this time it wasn’t nearly as intense as before. He turned to the forest again, trying to find the source of the feeling. Just as he turned, he saw something – no, some one – dash behind a tree and go deeper into the forest.
Thad’s eyelights hollowed in surprise. Is that one of my classmates?
He turned back to the rest of his classmates, checking to make sure they were still distracted. When he found that they were, he figured they wouldn’t notice if he was gone for a little. He turned back to the forest, running in after that student.
After running for a short amount of time, Thad slowed to a walk, looking around the dense, snowy forest. The wind and snow whizzed past him, howling as it brushed past the leaves and trees. The leaves shook and rattled, laughing at his foolishness. He looked down at the snow and to his surprise, found no footsteps. Confusion began to take over.
“What the…” He spoke out loud, “I could’ve sworn I saw someone... Maybe I just lost them?”
Just as he finished his sentence, he heard a voice. A woman’s voice echoed through the forest and in between the trees, rustling through the leaves and waving in the wind. Somehow, he heard her from all sides, as if she was directly in his audials. Despite this, he couldn’t make out what she was saying. His previous sense of dread crept in once again.
He frantically glanced around the forest, confused and starting to become a little frightened.
Suddenly, the voice began to grow louder and more and more intense, and Thad was finally able to make out what it was saying.
It was his name.
Just as the realization hit him, so did the strong feeling of dread and the eyes burning holes into his back, his vision occasionally glitching from green to purple again. Adrenaline struck through his body, and instead of freezing up this time, he started to run. His legs moved faster than they ever had before in his years of playing football. And yet, no matter how fast he ran, the feeling of dread and panic and eyes burning into his core never went away. At this point, the voice was now screaming his name, hoarse with rage and demonic in tone. It terrified him. Suddenly, his foot caught on a fallen branch, causing him to yelp and fall forward, flat on his face. His not-so-graceful fall seemed to have calmed the dread and paranoia, his vision staying green.
Thad pulled his head out of the snow and looked around, his core still racing. Once he realized he was alone, he sighed and looked down at his hands, a look of concern on his face.
“What is going on with me? This has never happened before.”
He groaned and rested his hands on his lap, looking up at the sky.
“First everything with Uzi and those disassembly drones, and now this? This has been the strangest month ever.”
He got to his feet and wiped himself off of any snow on his clothes. He took another look around and realized–
“Oh no. I’m lost.”
Suddenly, a sharp pain rang through Thad’s head. He let out a pained cry and stumbled back, putting his hands on his head and closing his optics. His audials were buzzing, alarms blasting in his head. He felt his core beat faster and his internal cooling systems whirring in an attempt to start. He suddenly felt warm. Too warm. On top of that, the same, violent feeling of dread crashed over him again, along with the feeling of eyes grasping at his very core, straight through his metal casing. He painstakingly opened his optics again, looking around as his vision flicked between green and purple much more often than before. Every time things would go purple, he could’ve sworn he could see… things. Things that aren’t really there.
“That’s it– N-no more running!” Thad said between clenched teeth, “Who are you? What are you? Wh-What are you doing to me?!”
Another sharp jolt of agonizing pain shot through his head, causing him to gasp and stagger back, hitting a tree. He groaned and forced his optics open again, only to find that everything was purple now. In front of him, only a few feet away, stood another Worker Drone. One that looked an awful lot like Uzi.
The figure before him was taller than he was, only by a few inches from what he could tell. Her hard hat was black, and her hair was purple, the same shade as Uzi’s. Her hair was feathered out the back and swept to the side like Uzi, but she had one small ponytail that came down from her bangs, dangling in front of her strangely blank face. She wore a low-cut, tattered, baggy gray shirt, no shoes, and… gloves for some reason. And– Are those oil stains?! She stood there, in front of him, with her head tilted to the left. There was nothing on her visor, but he could tell by her hand and chest LEDs that her eyes were meant to be purple. Her figure glitched violently, along with the rest of his vision.
“...A…are you…” Thad started, his voice shaking, “Uzi’s… mom…?”
Suddenly, the drone’s visor lit up with a purple hue, but instead of eyelights, all that was on her face was that strange symbol Doll used during prom– Oh no.
Suddenly, she began to laugh hysterically, her laughter echoing throughout the forest and his head. It was loud and grating. As she laughed harder and harder, her jaw came unhinged and fell into the snow with a splatter of oil, revealing billions of sharp, needle-like teeth
Terror struck Thad like a freight train as he shuffled around the tree and took off running. His vision remained purple, glitching violently, making it nearly impossible to see where he was going. Every step made his core beat faster and faster, his coolant systems struggled harder and harder. Pain coursed through his head like a raging river as those faint alarms became loud and unbearable. Everything was so loud. He closed his optics tight to block out the horrible forest, staggering into trees as he struggled to fight against everything. Red warning signs blasted onto his screen, making it even harder to see. He couldn’t even read them. He couldn’t think! Her horrible laughter continued to echo, along with distant screams. He couldn’t tell if they were real or fake.
Suddenly, something hit him. He yelped and fell to his knees, his head throbbing. It was like a memory– multiple of them, all in one.
Some kind of disease — an underground lab — human scientists? — Yellow eyes — claws — screams — cries for help — blood and oil spilled — No–
“NO! These– these memories aren’t mine! Who’s memories are these?! What are you?!” He cried, raising his voice higher than he’d ever raised it before.
Suddenly, everything was silent. Not a single sound was made. There was no echo of his words, no reaction from wildlife, no howling wind or rustling trees. For a moment, everything was still, back to how things were before. There was no aching pain in his head or dangerously warm feeling in his chest. No alarms blaring or warning signals in his face. It was calm. Even his vision was back to being green. He looked down at his shaking hands, then turned them over. His eyelights hollowed.
“Wh… Why… are my hand lights purple?-”
There was a buzzing sound. His vision was purple again. He snapped his head up.
There she was again. The drone from earlier. At that moment, he realized those memories were hers.
She stood in front of him, slumped forward. Slowly, she raised her head and finally spoke.
“You want to know who I am…?” A sinister, toothy grin grew on her face, “Let me show you!” her jaw fell to the floor again and revealed her horrible teeth, the same symbol appearing on her visor. She lunged forward, her hands out to grab him.
Thad yelped and fell, a warning sign appearing on his face
[WARNING! UNAUTHORIZED PERSONNEL HAS GAINED CONTROL. FORCING EMERGENCY SHUTDOWN.]
Thad could barely scream before everything went dark, falling under tainted purple hues.