Chapter Text
Taco padded away from the new mansion. Her vocal cords burned from crying, singing, and then crying even more. She hadn't even known it'd be possible to produce this many tears. She didn't dare look back at where she was walking away from, she needed fresh air; a walk, and now.
Taco trekked upon the grass, cold wind biting at her ankles and fingertips. The sky was pitch black, excluding the light of very few stars and a crescent moon hanging far above. Was the moon even real? Were the stars, too, a lie artificially created? Like her? Taco broke into a run, trying to shake the thought away, wind whipped past her ears, which had merged with the inner monologue chanting hateful sayings. She felt as if she'd ran forever, there was no sense of distance besides the weird egg-shaped hills and the mansion, which was but a hazy shape in the distance now, so she couldn't tell how far she ran.
When she turned back around to her original direction to start walking; maybe a trot, she saw it.
She choked on her own spit and forced back a cry, shouting out his name: Mepad.
He wouldn't be able to hear it.
She was greeted with an appearance the polar opposite of the Mepad she knew. Flat down on the ground, gray; dull screen instead of the lively shade of fuchsia she'd known the past few days. The cold-colored grass, tinted with yellow swayed back, and then forth, making contact with the left side of his frame, then the other. She kneeled to examine his screen, shattered with the point where it all started apparent. There was a hole in the bottom right side of him, deep. It managed to pass almost completely through him, broken wires and snapped circuits were exposed.
Taco tried to resist the lump in her throat begging to be let out, clawing at her like a dog eager to be released from its kennel. Her legs gave way, soon did her yells. She hit the ground with a soft thump, calming in contrast to the begging cries she screamed. She didn't care that her throat hurt, she screamed as loud as she could out of the unconscious hope that his screen would somehow flicker on, he'd sit up, and he'd reassure and comfort her.
"Please, Mepad. Please!" Taco squeezed her eyes shut so hard to the point where abstract visions and shapes taunted her, dancing, gliding around her field of view. Taco brought an already soaked fist to her shell and wiped the tears away, opening her eyes and tugging on the lettuce inside of her shell, trying to feel something other than soggy tears streaming down her sockets.
She shook Mepad's lifeless body with a sniffle, coaxing him to function again.
"You-- You can hear me, right?"
She sobbed, her vision blurred and doubled.
"You'll wake up! You'll be fixed!"
Taco lodged him against a rock, his legs limp, and she gave the widest, most awkward hug she could, face first. Her arms weren't long enough to curl around his screen and onto his backside, but this was the best she could manage.
She'd stood up on a stone for minutes, just hugging the dead body. When she pulled back shards of glass stuck in her arms, drawing blood, but it was the least of her concerns. She stared at her pitiful self through the reflective, broken surface and let out a whimper of despair. Her shell and arms were stained with oil.
'Blood, sweat and tears' was the usual saying, except for the oil soaking her skin told differently: Blood, sweat, tears and oil.
"Wake up, Mepad."
Taco's voice was hoarse from all of the ugly crying, barely more than a whisper.
"Plea-he-hease..." Her voice trailed off into a pleading cry, gasps for air weaved in between her phrase.
Mepad was dead, it hurt. Taco felt like she was the one being stabbed at the moment. She could sense what the katana would've felt like, the agony the puncture would have brought, the cries she would've let out.
"Taco?" A quiet voice whispered, too quiet for a tone to be distinguished.
"Mepad?" A glimmer of hope shone through her teary eyes and her delusional reply. Once she spun herself around, she felt crushed by the fact that it was instead, Microphone.
"O-Oh."
She pushed the liquid away from her eyes with her wrist, trying to gather herself despite the clear signs she was unstable and trembling.
"Hey, no need to stop crying. It's not like I couldn't hear you on the way here." Mic comforted, "I hear everything." She then, elbowed Taco with a wink. Taco didn't take the joke well, and looked down, legs in a criss-cross-applesauce position and elbows on knees, hands on her cheeks while the crestfallen look remained.
"It's going to be alright, really." Mic laid a hand on her shoulder, scooting closer.
"Maybe we could bring him to Test Tube, she could probably help fix him up!" She let out empty words of reassurance, desperate to help Taco. She only responded with a shake of her head.
It's going to be alright, really.
The recent words echoed in her head.
Would it really be alright?
Microphone stood up, chuckled and offered a hand.
"C'mon, let's get you cleaned up. You look like a victorian child who just got back from her shift at the coal mine."
Taco took Microphone's hand and sorrowfully glanced back at Mepad's body before walking off into the cold night.