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Two’s room reeked of sweat, tears and sadness. Food and paper bags from the hotel kitchen were scattered all over the floor, and grease stained the flooring to the point that it’d be difficult to clean perfectly. Those investigating the whiteboard across from Two’s moping had to avoid the trash as if they were nuclear, and picking up after the algebralien’s mess grossed any one of them out to the extreme.
It has been this way since the start of the year, and Two’s state keeps getting worse and worse. The dent they made in the bed’s mattress had sunken down to the bottom of the frame, and it left a very distinct 2 shape, but it’s not like anyone could truly see that cave anyway.
The kind of stillness from the room didn’t come from the near silence, but more from something hollow and empty from Two’s core. Grief had seeped into every crevice of every item of the room, from the ceiling’s microscopic cracks to the fabric of the carpet floor. It’s like the room was holding its breath the same way that the depressed algebralien was.
They lay still, motionless on top of the covers, but they’d taken a corner and huddled it towards their chest up to their face for comfort. It was not wood, but the pressure comforted them to replace the absent feeling of holding Gaty, even if it was not the same texture or warmth than what they’re used to.
The ceiling was much easier to look at than anything else. It didn’t offer much other than the yellow paint that only gave warmth to Two’s soul just a little aside from the covers. The trash was a mess, and it reminded Two of how much of a mess they were themselves. Would’ve Gaty wanted them to be like this? Of course not, but it was all Two could do. The whiteboard to them was filled with gibberish - they couldn’t understand a word Fanny, Ice Cube, Tennis Ball or even Golfball had uttered to their direction. Was it the instability of their mind doing this, consequently affecting their powers, or had the changes of the shift made them unable to understand the language so suddenly? Nothing was clear, and it didn’t seem to be for a while. Everything had fallen apart once Gaty had gone.
Two hadn’t cried in a while, too. The emptiness had left them with nothing. At some point the sadness had accumulated into something heavier, and had turned Two into a creature that didn’t move and didn’t need to. Their best friend was gone. Seemingly erased from existence and only leaving memories in their mind. Gone. Remaining pictures had been ripped apart in a fit of rage and tears, like Two had accepted their fate, and like there was nothing they could do to fix things. It’s like the world had dug into their mind and carved the positivity they had right out. Memories of Gaty were starting to feel more of a sickness than a comfort.
Across the room, Golfball leaned towards the whiteboard on her tip-toes. Her eyes flickered between the scrambled words and distorted images, examining them and calculating any possibility of their true meaning.
“Hm. I feel like these symbols are familiar!” She murmured, but mostly to herself. “These aren’t just random scribbles. There’s words here—scrambled, rearranged! Something’s being hidden from us. I must investigate this thoroughly before I can decode it.”
Fanny stood nearby listening with intent, and her metal body rested against the dresser across from the bed. She kept glancing towards Two. She was more concerned than suspicious. They hoped that One’s presence would be known to the others soon, and there was a worry in her gut that did not leave. She didn’t want Two to be alone, but their sadness was almost pitiful to see, especially when there was nothing she could do.
The whiteboard was clear to Fanny, and she wondered if all of the previous discussions that had taken place in the room were being understood by Two, but she also wondered if all of it was too much for them to process. She didn’t know how an algebralien mind goes through grief.
“Y’know what Golfball…” Fanny said quietly, slightly looking towards Two’s way and then back to GB. “Maybe we should come back to this later.”
She didn’t take her eyes off the board. “If we leave, who knows what could happen to all of this? It’s highly unpredictable.”
“I know! You’re determined,” She said softer, after her pause annd almost whispering: “But Two has not moved an inch, even with you in here! You think they’re gonna listen to you while you’re picking at nothing specific?”
There was a long silence, but eventually Golfball came around with a nod.
She stepped away, “Fine,” and sighed reluctantly. “Maybe I can figure something out without this depressing atmosphere.”
Fanny nodded back, then glanced at Two again. Still motionless. Golfball tagged along with her, and they left the room without uttering another word.
The door clicked shut, and the room went quiet again. It wasn’t long before the whiteboard started to change.
It looked as if the distorted blue ink was melting. It melted towards Two, gravity defying, but Two couldn’t feel anything to this creepiness. They only watched as it twisted and turned to their face. There was a part of them that believed that it would’ve been Gaty, somehow manifesting herself back into “existence” but it was too good to be true. They had no resistance and no fear. Two could only stare and stare.
The ink had turned into something of a familiar shape. A pair of white splashes emerged from the blue and had transformed into large squinting eyes above Two’s face, almost smiling mischievously. But yet again, they couldn’t feel anything. There was no fight.
One had emerged from the whiteboard and started to float down to touch the floor with her eyes closed, smiling. She studied Two’s face, but she suddenly gleamed and began to slowly swirl around in the air above them.
“Hey you!” Her tone was welcoming with a hint of sarcasm. “It’s been a while, huh. Feeling down?”
Nothing left. It was like Two wasn’t even aware of her being there. One got a little annoyed at their unresponsiveness.
“I think I have juuust the thing!” She made a dry chuckle: “Wanna come over to my place?”
The space there shivered. A thin light emerged from the crevice of Two’s bedrotting. It widened, and then turned into a full swirling ellipse. In a flash they were transported to One’s observatory, and One came along with.
The room looked like it had been created from a dream. Blue dragged around its nonexistent walls, and yellow hues lay along the floor. The light didn’t seem like it came from any source, and it only hung mysteriously in the air. Colors that should be so comforting just weren’t in this situation.
There were two pieces of intact furniture, One’s one-seater and the old couch that Two and Gaty used to sit on. It was mangled and destroyed just a little bit, and One’s throne seemed to have gotten worse from the last time she sat comfortably. Whatever happened in the room before Donut seemed like a mystery.
Two hadn’t moved since they arrived. Their body slumped in the seat and they almost were limping to keep themselves sat. Their open eyes were unfocused, staring at the floor. It won’t give them any reason. They only see a colorful haze. One watched them as she slowly tapped her legs against the couch. She hums, but there’s a faint insanity in her eyes.
“Twooo, c’mon!” Her voice was smooth and nervingly coaxing. “You’re here with me now, and that’s gotta be something. Right?”
There was no answer. Not even a blink.
“Not all is lost…” One continued and she leaned forward slightly. “I can bring Gaty back for you. The peace you felt? It can exist again. I just need something from you in return, that’s all.”
Still nothing.
Two blinked, eventually. Not in recognition, their body just remembered how.
One’s illusion of kindness started to crack. The corners of her mouth twitched and her eyebrows grew darker. Her mask wanted to slide right off.
“I pulled you out of that depressing hole…” Her voice had lost its velvety tone. “Nobody else could make you move! You should be grateful.”
Two slipped lower into the seat, and their fingers had gone slack. Were they melting into the couch? The blue-ish algebralien started to laugh dryly at their disposition.
“Say something! Ha! Anything for crying out loud! Is this funny to you?!” she hissed.
If Two was aware at that moment it’d be almost humiliating.
One started to pace around her room, jerkingly. In unpredictable steps, but she kept her distance in check. She kept glancing back at Two, still motionless, disassociating, slumped in the chair like gravity had become too heavy for them to handle. They hadn’t spoken, they hadn’t moved as if they were frozen in time. Sickening.
“You know I’m not trying to hurt you,” One said, but it came out too loud. She realizes this and reassures herself to adjust to something tame and gentle again. “I mean, I could have. I could just take what I want right now! You wouldn’t stop me. Just look at you.”
A slow blink. No reply. Again.
She came in closer to Two, now both at eye level. Her gaze examined their face and she desperately searched for any kind of expression. Something—anything that reminded her of the algebralien she once knew and remembered.
“You used to have stars in your eyes, Two.” She whispered. “Remember the days where we talked like real friends? You held something powerful in you. It was real. Real power. You can do so much, so why are you like this now? Giving it all away? You can’t be serious…”
One laughed, short but really sharp. It echoed through the room and bounced off walls that did not exist.
“I watched you waste it all on peace back then! On… contentment. Ugh, like that was enough for anyone.” Her smile twitched suddenly, but then vanished in an instant to a deadpan. “It’s not enough. It never has been.”
Still nothing. The quiet broke something old and forgotten deep inside One. She got up so fast from her seat that it screeched against the floor. And it screeched louder than what Four could ever dream of doing.
“Say something!! Anything darn it!!” Her voice was filled with lunacy, fury and sorrow. It cracked at the edges. It made One so angry that she’d grabbed a stray book from the destroyed bookshelf and tossed it with all her own power. “I don’t want to take it from you. I want you to give it to me! Choose me! I just know you wanted Gaty to win deep down, haha! Too bad she’s eliminated and no longer here, I guess that’s what you get for getting attached to someone with no value!”
Two still did not move. One stopped her pacing. Her eyes were glassy, almost like something was about to crack. It was threatening.
“You were my friend.” she hushed. “I care about you Two, and I still do, that’s the whole darn problem…”
She eyed Two again, nearly skin-to-skin or eye-to-eye now, just close enough to sense the heat off of Two’s consciously lifeless body. “I can’t hurt you, and I won’t. That’s how much you still matter to me.”
Two twitched, but just a small shift. One noticed and she froze. “Thereee you are! I thought I was talking to an emotionless husk. I know you’re in there.”
They blinked and their pupil looked at One, not as a reflex this time around. Their eyes moved heavy and tired. Two looked, and they really looked for the first time upon entering the room. Hope flickered across One’s face like a match being struck and she’d nearly gasped in astonishment.
“Two,” she breathed. “Listen to me, I really—“
“Stop.”
Dry. Cracked. Two’s voice came out in a hoarse whisper, but it cut through One like a blade. They didn’t move or sit up, and just stared. One shut her mouth between relief and confusion. The green algebralien was flat and drained almost like a dead star.
“You ripped me out when I couldn’t fight back.” Their voice was still quiet and hollow. “You want my power? Just take it. Nothing matters to me anymore. Take over Goiky if that makes you happy for all I care.”
One’s jaw tightened, her eyes nearly looked like they were about to tear up.
It’d been a long time since One saw Two like this. Not through her memories or from the ways she’d observed them, but real, up close. In the same room and breathing the same shallow air. And it wasn’t the version she’d remembered.
Two looked empty and exhausted. Barely upright and just sinking into the chair. Almost powerless. Their body could nearly slide onto the floor. They were limp with no fire or spark left in them. There was a silence that comes after everything else has lost its meaning.
And One stared, she stared and stared. It was like looking at a grave she’d dug by her own actions or looking at a body of her own murder. She remembered the old Two, through a haze, but she knew it was different now, as much as she couldn’t believe it.
Two used to laugh at things without a care, they were more stuck up for themselves. They made peace feel real. Who trusted easily and maybe a little too much. One wanted that version, but not as they were, not as Two wanted to be.
She wanted Two for herself. To create something that fits her own image. Stronger. Brighter. Bright like a new star. Brighter, yet darker, and more useful. A power that matched her soul.
It clearly wasn’t something Two had wanted, and One hadn’t listened. Here Two wasn’t powerful, just a mess. Not useful. Not strong. Yet, they don’t give in to her words. They refused to. One’s thoughts had twisted into something evil and ugly. She felt guilt, but only just a little. She reached for something to say but the silence between them was enough
“I’m not giving it to you, there’ll be nothing left but I’ll still be me. And you’re never getting that part. Ever.”
One stared back, she did not blink. Something shattered inside of her as if her goals did not matter anymore.
“You’d rather disappear into nothingness? Fade into nothing?” She asked quietly, and her voice trembled.
“Go home, One. Leave me alone.”
She jolted away from Two, and squinted her eyes as tight as she could, escaping whatever she was feeling.
“You don’t understand what I could’ve done with it! You, me! What we could’ve been! We could’ve—“
“I’m not yours to have.” Two interrupted.
It broke One, but she didn’t feel angry at all. She sank back into her armchair and the silence grew louder. Her lips trembled and she tried so hard to push her feelings away, though they only grew like a thundering storm. For a long time, neither of them spoke.
Then, One raised her leg and snapped. The thin yellow light returned, warping the space beside Two’s chair. It buzzed faint and sickly, almost like One was the algebralien with weaker powers this time. Almost like it didn’t want to stay open.
“Just go.” Her voice was lifeless. She didn’t look at Two again. But deep down she desperately wanted to. Not even when the portal expanded.
“I hope forgetting people is easy for you.” Two added, almost to themselves. “I hope I disappear like everybody else.”
They stood up, slowly, and made their way into the yellow light. Before stepping through they paused and looked back. This made One wide eyed and return the look in disbelief.
“I never forgot you, that’s the worst thing.” Two exclaimed and turned their head away.
And then they were gone. The portal snapped shut.
One sat alone, shaking in her seat. She stared into the space where Two had been. The dent from their rest was still visible.
She couldn’t look away. Not like this. Not now. There was something in her buried underneath all the need for ambition and hunger. Something that still ached for Two. Maybe it had always been there? Maybe not from the start. It wasn’t love, but it was something close enough for it to hurt the same way. She wanted to keep them close. Make them theirs, but something had grown darker along the way.
One didn’t want Two as they were. Not quiet, not gentle, not small and that’s for sure. She wanted a version that could stand along with her. Someone bright and terrifying, someone strong enough to split the universe and take everything with it. It was a version she believed that Two could be, but only if they’d let go all the soft, useless parts of themselves. The parts One couldn’t entirely understand.
She told herself it was love. That Two would give in, and everything would make sense again. But it wasn’t, not really. Her love didn’t come with conditions. Two’s did. The longer One saw Two fall apart her care turned sour, frustrated and more desperate. But most of that care was only for the power, because you can’t always bring someone old back. You can't make them come back.
For someone who thought she had all the power in the world and only wanted more, helplessness felt like hell. Perhaps companionship was the only power that was missing.