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Spoiled Lemon’s concert came to an end with roaring applause from everyone in the crowd. Marshmallow felt as if she could only muster up a few claps, the concert hadn’t been a particularly emotionally compelling experience for her.
As the concert-goers dispersed, the small white confectionary stared into the open sky above. The full moon remained, ever unchanging, alongside the crafted patterns of the stars. The colourful hills, mountaintops and evergreen trees glistened in the bask of the light of the cosmos above, as if the world was lighted up by whatever was up there… being powered, generated…
Had the stars always been that way, Marshmallow thought. The same constellations and arrangements… she thought back to Season 1, and indeed they were the exact same constellations. This did not encourage her feeling of being trapped within the game and she reached out her hand to pick up her drawing from the seats only to realise she was standing in the open field now and the drawing was on the ground.
“What the fuck..?” She mumbled to herself, picking up the drawing of black scribbles. She gazed out and noticed figures receding back into the dark forested areas, she could make out a door and maybe a pickaxe? She recognised them as being concert-goers but… why did they seem so robotic when exiting the grounds…?
She took another look around and found the contestants sleeping across the ground in various spots. The only one she couldn’t exactly find was Test Tube, although that made sense considering the glass container nerd’s… particular state after the last challenge. How can they sleep like this? Marshmallow pondered once more, it was so cold outside.
The chilly winds seemed to lash against her like burning coals, how was she the only one who felt the freezing temperature out at night?
The climate didn’t help with her mood either. She had already felt particularly depressed after… everything that had happened. It seemed like Paintbrush was just too caught up in other things to care about… her.
Those problems still plagued her, the feeling of betrayal and hurt. It didn’t feel the same way that her anger towards Knife did.. it felt more… real, in a way. That she could feel genuine hurt after Apple “betrayed” her. Not just hurt either, it was a complex swirl of emotions. Confusion… sadness… she had finally managed to make friends with someone outside her comfort zone and then…… It felt all too staged, in a way.
She didn’t feel alive the past few days, like it was all a puppet show and she had been controlled by strings of some unseen master.
She took another look at her drawing. The scribbles of black, empty noise that resembled a chair and… Bow. Oh, Bow. Dead, forever. Marshmallow didn’t even know how to feel about something like that.. the concept of death. At the very least, she could meet Bow at..
At.. the Purgatory Mansion. That’s right! She could go there and.. Bow, Bow would listen to her worries, surely. Someone outside the game, not controlled by it. She took a look around to see if MePad, MePhone or even Toilet were anywhere around. But she couldn’t find even a trace of them. Perfect.
She clenched onto the drawing and began running, began escaping. Running away from… everything she had ever known, really. Running away from the guilt, from the fear, from the anger… from all the damn fucking drama and broken friendships. She was running away from it all.
And she’d be damned if she ever turned back.