Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It was late at night, OJ had already fallen asleep next to him, but Paper couldn’t do the same. Something was bothering him, his thoughts were going fast, he was thinking of killing Pickle. After all, what would be so wrong with putting a guy like him out of his misery anyway? The urge was getting stronger every second, irresistible, the only things that would pass through his mind would be only related to his need to do something like this. Such a crime, so horrible, maybe even downright unforgivable… But it’s not as if that type of thing would stop anybody in a state like this. The safety team wasn’t available at midnight, they were all asleep, dreaming away in their beds, blissfully unaware of the sin that was about to be unleashed.

Paper got up from his bed, attempting to be as silent as can be with his footsteps. He walked down to the kitchen in Hotel Hoot, grabbing a knife and relishing in the feeling of the cold metal against his fingertips. Even when so many, possibly even tons of second thoughts filled his head, nothing was convincing enough to stop him now. He walked into Pickle’s room, holding the aforementioned knife. Paper held it up high, stabbing Pickle multiple times with it, as if it was nothing but a good old hobby.

Pickle juice splattered through the room, staining Paper’s limbs with green, gory patches.

And with that, one life was taken.. When the safety team wasn’t there. Nowhere to be found, asleep somewhere else, where they’d never, ever know what happened that night…

Paper walked his way back to the kitchen to clean the knife, and wash his hands. He forgot his anti-allergy medicine, making it painful as if he was getting stabbed with tiny needles all over his arms and hands, but he couldn’t afford to make any more noise than he already was. He then proceeded to make his way back to his room, unable to go back to sleep. He was excited. Thrilled to keep going through with this murder thing, and maybe even test some things he’s thought of before. Paper grabbed his notebook from the counter, a pen from OJ’s pen holder, and he started writing in it, words that would soon meet their fate;

“Sneak into Test Tube’s laboratory.”

“Make lemonade.”

Chapter Text

It was early in the morning, about 5:00 AM, approximatedly thirty minutes after OJ woke up. Paper opened his eyes and blinked the sleep out of them, and as usual, wasn't greeted with the warm embrace of his lover that he typically fell asleep to. He checked the time on his phone, the aforementioned hour showing on he screen. Paper put the phone down on his desk, grabbing his notebook again just to re-check what he'd wrote in order to make sure that nothing he remembered was wrong. At the reassurance that he would do this as perfectly as his boyfriend managed his responsibilites, he brushed his teeth and got up from his bed, opening the door of him and OJ's bedroom, leading to the hallway.

He made sure his footsteps were quiet, just so nobody could hear him. Paper didn't usually wake up at this hour, but it was the same for most other contestants in the room. Between Pickle's death and now, it was a two or three hour time frame, he was already preparing this early. Nobody had noticed Pickle's dead body at the moment, since almost nobody was awake and the idiot didn't have any roomates who could've woken up to his screams. Paper walked out of Hotel Hoot, and went to Test Tube's laboratory somewhere near. He sneaked inside the place, aware that nobody was watching, and nobody could see this happen. He looked around the place, trying to find any random thing he could use to kill somebody else, since he didn't exactly have any concrete plan. After all, he'd barely ever been in here before. He didn't really know the place or what was in it, much less remember whatever he's seen in here back then. After a while of looking, he found it.

Experiment 627.

The same exact substance that was used to put YinYang back together in season two, episode three. It had a sticky note on it, all that had been writen on it was;

"This is a copy of the experiment that was used to de-separate YinYang. Handle cautiously and under NO CIRCUMSTANCE give it to a singular object. If there is no other subject, this could cause IMMEDIATE DEATH, an object cannot be conjoined with itself."

This was perfect for Paper, just what he needed to get his way sneakily enough. He snatched the tube containing the substance being careful enough not to drop it, and took it back to Hotel Hoot, making his way into his room and hiding it inside his nightstand's drawer.

The day went on as calm as it could be but just for a few more hours, which was until about 2:00 PM. A message that Paper feared would be announced was broadcasted to the entire hotel.

"ATTENTION EVERYBODY! Soap just found Pickle dead in his own room! If you have anything that could help even in the slightest, please report everything to the safety team if you have any information on this case, any help would be highly appreciated by everyone. We believe this may have been a suicide, but there is no proof that could help us at the moment." Suitcase's voice sounded somewhat panicked.

Almost everybody who was in the living room with him gasped, and what Paper immediately heard was chatters, whispers, muttering… Paper's throat felt like it was closing in, his stomach dropped, and he felt it on his chest. What if he hadn't hidden this well enough? He could lose everybody he knew, not just his friends, but his son, and his beloved husband, OJ. The voices felt louder every second, until Bomb interrupted his anxious thoughts.

"P-P-Paper? Are you okay..?" Bomb asked, seemingly a bit concerned at the sight of Paper being so frozen at the broadcasted message and obviously avoiding eye contact as usual.

"Oh- Yeah! I'm alright, just- uh- Shocked, is all…" Paper attempted to pretend as if he was really that sad for Pickle's death, but a bit of guilt started to wash over him, which he blocked out and ignored immediately.

Bomb looked at him for a few seconds, seemingly analyzing him before walking away with an even more worried and upset expression on his face. Bomb couldn't be blamed for feeling like this, Pickle was a close friend of the guy.

But that wasn't to worry about.

Paper got some bigger stairs from the storage room and carried them out of the hotel to get some lemons from the nearby trees, grabbing as much as he could until he got tired and would probably fall and hurt himself if he kept going. He went back to carefully wash the lemons, just to make sure they weren't dirty before making this. He'd finally learnt not to put uncut lemons into a blender with sugar, and unlike last time he made lemonade, he actually cut them in half to squeeze the juice and took out the seeds, combining it all with sugar and ice, one of the cups laced with Experiment 627 that Paper had gotten earlier, and cinnamon. Lots of cinnamon. Just to hide the blue substance's smell and its color. He put all the cups of lemonade in the fridge, except the special one which he put on the counter, just to wait until the chaos was a bit more lightened up and to offer it to somebody. This was his plan, until Lightbulb came into the kitchen.

"Ooh! What'cha cookin' flatboy?"

"Just.. lemonade…" Paper got nervous, but he immediately chose who his official second victim was bound to be. He then asked Lightbulb;

"Do you… Want some..?" He lightly smiled, noticing that nobody was in the kitchen at that time.

"Sure thing! I love lemonade!" Lightbulb exclaimed before taking the lemonade.

She took a few sips out of the drink before becoming light-headed, and falling to the floor as her blue glass hit the ground. Paper uncontrollably let out a small giggle, and left the room with a smile on his face.

It felt oddly pleasant, murder really was his thing. And maybe he was a natural at it, who knows? Just not that well hidden this time, but he was quick to suppress any panic that came from what he'd just done. He went back to his room, Paper sat on his bed and thought; "What if I did something more useful with my power, though..? Like kill someone who me or someone I loved found annoying?"

He had the perfect idea of who, despite not even holding so huge of resentment, she was ignorant of him, and was absolutely horrible to the person Paper loved most. He wrote about this on his notebook, before hearing a horrified scream from the kitchen.

Chapter Text

The scream was borderline deafening, Paper immediately recognized who it was from. Microphone was the one to do so, of course, ear-piercingly loud even from such a distance, from somebody so loud. He wrote in his notebook quicker, his handwriting getting more scrawled by the second, before setting it down and impulsively running downstairs to the kitchen, despite knowing what all the fuss was about. When he went down he saw the aforementioned Microphone, terrified out of her wits, and Paintbrush standing there shocked, looking down at the body with their eyes that were now devoid of any emotion whatsoever.

Paper glimpsed the Lightbulb's dead body again as earlier, and took a deep breath just to avoid showing any positive reaction to the mess that could alert anyone. He though of getting closer to the corpse, but instead took a few steps back, he wasn't giving much attention to what anybody was saying, instead the attention went to doing everything he can just to avoid seeming suspicious of such an atrocity. He watched, holding back a smile as Pepper rushed to take Lightbulb to the hospital, but Paper knew that she wouldn't make it, Lightbulb was most likely already gone. Forever, and, of course, not to come back anytime soon. Paper was somewhat confused, why was Salt not there? Surely, she would show up to take anyone to the hospital since it was usually done by two people, but she wasn't there. And suddenly, Paper remembered, Salt had been somewhat sick for a few days. Of course she didn't show up! Seems like his plan could change, keeping in mind that Salt was most likely in her own room at the moment and would be for a while. Maybe he didn't have to lure her anywhere, keep that idea for another object. Just get something and kill her, it shouldn't be quite hard to do.

He felt more like procrastinating this one, maybe to wait until things are a bit over before striking again. Paper went to his own room to watch some TV, flipping through the channels. All just political stuff, things he'd already heard about, History Channel… Until he just decided that nothing on was eye-catching at the moment and just went out of his way to turn on whatever random cartoon he was the most interested in at the moment.

He re-watched some of its episodes for two hours, in other words, until 5:00PM which is when he started to get a bit tired and hungry. He then realized he hadn't eaten in, like, all day. This is the type of stuff that Silver Spoon would do, but this time Paper actually didn't realize, unlike Silver who does this intentionally. Paper felt even more hungry after realizing this, so he went down to finally make himself a meal. It wasn't common for him to forget about meals to this level.

In the kitchen, he made himself a quick ham and cheese sandwich and quickly ate it. Wasn't the most filling thing he could take, but it was pretty neat. As soon as he finished eating, he heard an announcement from the speakers in Hoot, OJ's voice as recognizable and charming as usual, yet a hint of fear in his voice.

"Everybody, line up right outside of the hotel. Lightbulb is dead. This message will also be informed to the residents of the mansion, we need to question everyone, and don't be slow coming here."

Paper knew what this was. He had to come up with an excuse fast, thoughts rapidly racing through his mind. What if they found out? What if his excuse wasn't good enough, and he ended up a main suspect? Paper could get caught red-handed, literally and figuratively. It was like OJ's words were repeating through his ears over and over again, each time more distorted. He quickly snapped out of it and just accepted he could just say he was in him and OJ's bedroom watching TV, since that was what he was just doing right after killing Lightbulb.

He took a sip of cold water from the sink and attempted to get himself to stop taking so much fright from nothing but this, it was already likely that he would be believed no matted how bad his excuse was. Nobody saw him as the type of person to enjoy doing something like this, not even himself. It was fun, though. Paper found killing fun. He liked it, at least from the surface view of his own emotions. Paper walked outside of Hotel Hoot and stood in line. He saw how people were being taken behind Hoot to be questioned, OJ and Suitcase were the ones taking the job of doing that, OJ being somewhat observant and Suitcase being quite the important one to the safety team as a whole. It was surprising that they didn't have Test Tube questioning anybody, since she was the most smart and observant of all. It's like she didn't even matter to any of this, although she probably would have to do something pretty soon, but it was great if no one thought of having her help because that would pose a huge threat to Paper's fun. More and more people were being taken behind the hotel to be asked important questions such as "Where were you?" or anything stupid like that.

"Microphone, you said you found the body, right?"

"I choose to believe you, but if there's anything you noticed or you'd like to say, tell me." Suitcase spoke to Microphone, who still seemed very afraid, answered;

"I know that Paintbrush most likely didn't do any of this. They came there at the sound of my scream and they were in the room next to the kitchen right before. I noticed that there was shattered glass on the floor, but not Lightbulb's glass, since she was blue, and there was a puddle of what makes me assume she was drinking something."

"Alright. You're trusted, but know that you can still be suspected of."

"Understandable."

"Okay. Fan, what were you doing at the time of the murder?" OJ asked firmly.

"Well- I don't know at what exact time it happened but- So, like, I was in my room for most of the day and only went down at about 12:00PM to have lunch when I had recently woken up and I was, like, making fanfiction and updating my blog and doing stuff online for the rest of the day while Test Tube spent time in her lab. I specifically posted on Tumblr about one of my new theories on Five Nights At-"

"Hey- Hey! What are you doing?" Fan asked, noticing that OJ had turned on his phone.

"Okay, yeah. You're safe, I checked your blog to make sure."

"Trophy, could you just do this one thing for me?"

"What about you tell me what you were doing at the time of the murder?" Suitcase asked, knowing how Trophy was.

"I was at the restaurant almost the entire day, I woke up at eleven in the morning and came to work late."

"I'll most likely be asking at least two other restaurant workers about that. A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do, I can't fully trust you either way."

"Hey, Maraschinos. I really don't wanna make ya feel bad or anything. I know you didn't do anything, but I really have to ask everyone this question. What were you doing at the time of the- uh-" OJ spoke to the Cherries, kneeling down to be more at eye level with his son.

"I was hanging out with YinYang before this.." The Cherries answered, a clearly frustrated tone. Probably from a mix of reasons.

"My apologies. I'm not trying to treat you like you're still a kid. I'm just- worried for your safety, is all. And I know you're probably a bit scared too. I mean- I know you're almost eighteen, all grown up, but I still worry. If you aren't feeling so great, you're free to talk to me."

"Okay, dad.." They still seemed pissed off, but probably a bit less frustrated after hearing that.

OJ gently gave them a small, quick headpat.

"Balloon?" Suitcase spoke to Balloon in a softer tone.

"..Yeah?"

"It's alright, you were with me for a while. I know it's all safe."

This type of stuff went on for a bit more, until OJ turned to Paper, it was his turn. OJ held Paper's hand as he took him behind Hoot to question him.

"..Hey." OJ greeted Paper.

"I didn't do anything, I swear-!" Paper responded panickedly.

"No, no- Don't worry! I trust you, I just haven't seen you much today, honey. Where were you?"

"I was- I was watching TV in our bedroom since I didn't have much to do!" Paper spoke quite fast, suspiciously agitated to be saying the truth, but OJ wouldn't take it as suspicious when it came from his hsuband.

"It's alright, calm down. Deep breaths, Paper. Deep breaths. We'll get this all sorted out."

Surprisingly enough… Even if Paper was horrible at lying, OJ believed everything he said. Paper blushed slightly as his husband pulled him into a light hug.

People were questioned and some were seen as more suspicious than others, but Paper didn't even get to raise an eyebrow because of how biased his husband was. This was a great advantage for him, though. His plans to strike again later resurfaced after the questioning was done, and keeping in mind that Pepper was probably still busy, the same for everybody… Paper walked his way to Salt's room, light footsteps and subtly smirking while analyzing the hallways to make sure nobody was actively around there. He gently opened the door to Salt's room, only to spot her comfortably sitting in her bed with her phone on, the lights turned off. Another murder, on the same day? Well, not much of a problem with that one.

"Hey, Salt! Do you want me to get you some water?"

"..What?" Salt was surprised that Paper, of all people, was visiting her while she was sick.

"I heard you got sick, would you let someone help you a bit..?"

Salt seemed a bit iffy about Paper showing up to help her while sick of all things, but she guessed that it didn't mean much. As she checked her nails like any mean girl, she answered him;

"Okay, I guess. Do whatever you want."

So Paper did, in fact, do whatever he wanted. To put his newfound skill in murder into something more useful, such as making not only his husband's life better, but probably everyone's along with it. Despite hating her, he didn't exactly want Salt full on dead before, but now he realized that it might even be a huge benefit for some people. So he went to the storage room, grabbed a baseball bat, and ran to Salt's room in a swift manner, hoping that nobody would notice him carrying a weapon. He opened the door again, still only Salt in the room, going over to Salt.

Paper raised the baseball bat like it was an important award or some kind of amazing creation.

"Paper! What are you do-" Salt almost asked, but let out a short yell as Paper swinged the bat at her, before she was completely knocked out. Paper kept going, to make sure she's dead, to kill her, to shatter her to pieces, swing after swing every single time more fierce and violent, as if Salt was nothing but some raggedy doll you could throw around, but no, she was another living object like him. Maybe not living anymore, because her shards of glass as sharp as needles on every edge were now splattered across the floor, and so were her salty insides. Paper noticed that a lot of her glass and insides stayed on the bed too, though. Which technically meant they weren't too dirty, so he impulsively grabbed a grain of salt from what was left of her, and popped it into his mouth. It wasn't really tasty, Paper couldn't exactly enjoy salt by itself, but he felt even more of a rush as he tasted it despite it not being much. He laughed, trying to be quiet but somewhat failing at that. He just hoped nobody heard, that's all. It felt amazing, to kill someone even more brutally than everybody else, it wasn't even that Salt "deserved it". It was just fun. Paper did it for fun, yes, her bad actions were mixed into the reason for it, but he especially enjoyed the fun of it. The rush he got as he murdered somebody, so violent and… Thrilling. Paper loved how this felt.

But Paper had to leave the crime scene quick just to not get caught and make the suspicions of him lower, he wiped some glass and salt that got on him off, he happily left the room and closed the door, walking back to him and OJ's room where he'd probably spend the rest of the day in since there wasn't much to do anymore, even though the body would probably be found later at night when Pepper went to sleep. He gently opened the door to him and his beloved husband's room, only to find OJ laying on their bed with his cork on, Paper's eyes sparkled in excitement.

"Did you finish work earlier than usual today..?!" Paper asked in surprise.

"Yep! Just for you, we can cuddle now~!"

"You didn't have to!"

Paper laid on their bed with OJ, ready to cuddle after a long day.

A long day for OJ in the sense of the way that there's been so many murders, and nobody really knows how to handle it well, not even him.

And a long day for Paper in the sense of the way that he had to do so many murders.

They cuddled for a while, talked for some time, and were just generally in the peaceful presence of each other. These calm and lovely moments went on until exactly 9:43PM, when Suitcase opened the unlocked door to their room and Suitcase agitatedly stated;

"I really dunno what you two are doing right now, but you have to see this."

OJ immediately got up, immediately knowing that something happened… Again.

"I'm sorry Paper- We can do this later." He got up and immediately followed Suitcase behind to Salt's room as Paper trailed behind them, where Pepper was crying on her knees, and the remains of Salt were just where Paper had left them.

"The killer is striking fast, we need to increase the safety protocols by a lot more. The safety team might not get a second of sleep, but none of this can be a coincidence." Suitcase declared.

Paper saw Pepper in that state. Fuck, he didn't think that it would hurt Pepper… Even though he was close to her, he didn't think of it. Paper kneeled down next to Pepper, in an attempt to comfort her even though Paper didn't really feel much guilt or regret for what he's done anyway.

"..Hey. Are you alright..?"

Pepper didn't speak, she just stopped making noise as she cried, tears still rapidly streaming down her face. Paper realized that he was most likely not gonna be able to get her to speak, Salt was the most important person in Pepper's life even if she was nothing but a mere follower to the girl who he just killed. Paper just gave Pepper a gentle hug, they stayed like that for a while as Pepper went back to ugly crying as loud as she could, now in the arms of the closest friend she had remaining. That closest friend, the same person who killed the girl who Pepper felt was worth her entire life.

Her entire life.

Pepper couldn't live without Salt.

Chapter Text

The blaring sounds of Paper's alarm clock pierced the chill morning atmosphere as he rubbed the remainders of sleep from his eyes, 5:00 AM, the time brightly displayed on the aforementioned clock. As with every other day, he hadn't woken up to his lover's embrace. As always repeated, this was not the usual thing. Paper quickly got up from his still cold yet comfortable bed, repeating his usual morning routine with nothing special. He went downstairs in an attempt to look for what to do, since there wasn't anything he had planned out, whether it be for another murder or any other, admittedly more normal, activity.

The Hoot lobby was blanketed with an eerie silence and that same atmosphere felt heavy, he sat on the couch and stared at the ceiling still bored and still holding that weird feeling that the place confusingly emitted.

Paper's memory was somewhat rough today, but he could still remember what he did yesterday, albeit Salt was gonna die one day eventually, it was early. Maybe even too early, not even given a second chance… Or a millionth chance, after the millions of those that she'd been given over the many years.

Lightbulb, who was unfortunately still defeatable despite the blu-ray's power. Pickle, who already, one hundred percent had it coming soon with his very obvious mental state…who despite being Paper's close friend, Paper somehow couldn't generate a spark of hope for him back then, nor as much guilt for murdering him without now. He had simply put Pickle out of his misery, lifted him out of his dark pit of despair albeit in a rather twisted manner, right?

A rush of guilt washed over Paper again, though. What a ruthless, cold-hearted murderer he was, wasn't he? But this of course didn't matter. His victims had had friends, maybe even lovers, but nobody was real so it didn't matter; they were nothing but doodles made by a once innocent child. Paper felt alive, so why would nobody else? But-

Paper brushed off the stinging pain in his chest again, probably there from fear, denying it and shutting off any thought related to it. He let out a giggle, yet not even he could tell whether it was fake and a way of convincing himself that murder didn't have its negatives or if it truly was genuine. At the same time, Paper wanted to fill people's expression with fear as he ripped off their limbs or took a violent bite out of their flesh. He wanted it to be like a garden of people's fright, for no reason other than a longing to heartlessly entertain himself at the expense of others' suffering. Not like it was easy to tell whether that was a hefty price or not.

The guy had no plans for today, so he got up from the couch and happily skipped to the MePad Mansion through the small forest to visit the residents of said place. As he walked in, steps as light as himself making contact with the dirty welcome carpet, he noticed Knife and Suitcase talking while they sat on the stairs.

"..Hey?" Paper asked, reasonably confused on why they were awake this early yet still waving.

Knife got slightly startled, Suitcase simply said "Oh, hi Paper!" from there as she playfully "elbowed" Knife, inviting Paper to sit with them.

So Paper walked next to them and sat too.

"We were talking about-" Knife elbowed Suitcase the way she did to him earlier, but a bit less playfully.

"Hey-! What was that for?" Suitcase asked Knife. "Anyways, we were talking about Pickle's death." Suitcase continued her sentence as Knife looked at her, seemingly offended at the fact that she clearly did not get his signs that it was a conversation between them

"Oh!" Paper started to get a little sweaty around the edges. "..Okay!"

Knife raised a suspicious eyebrow at Paper, while Suitcase didn't really mind it.

"Anyways, I haven't talked to you in a while. ..How have you been doing?" Suitcase asked Paper.

"Oh, no worries, uh.. I'm alright!"

"..Really? You don't seem like it, if you want to vent about it or anything you can talk! Just part of safety, that's just what Knife was doing to me a second ago!"

Knife really seemed like he wanted to get out of here right now.

The silence got awkward for a little while, making Paper anxious, but as thoughts started to fill his head even more, thoughts similar to the ones from earlier, Knife spoke;

"So… why are you up so early?"

Paper lightly gasped. "Well-! I could ask the same for you!" He responded without thinking, getting defensive maybe too fast as he realized how suspicious that sounded.

"How easy do you think it'd be to sleep when you can barely even feel the things around you?"

"..Okay, fair."

"You didn't answer my question, though."

"I was- I just woke up early!" Paper was stupid and did that same thing again.

"Alright, I guess." Knife responded to Paper's very clearly suspicious answer, and it was already obvious that the aforementioned ghost sensed something was wrong here.

The room got awkward again.

..It was probably gonna keep going on like this for a while, or at least until Paper left. After a while of conversation very important to character development, Paper stated, speaking quicker than he should;

"Okay I gotta go back to the hotel now- uh- See y'all..!"

He left without bothering to wait for his goodbye to be returned.

He walked with quite fast steps back to the hotel as he reasonably doubted how good he was at this, because Paper did this horribly and probably raised a lot of suspicion, but mainly from Knife.

There wasn't much time to complain, though. It was most likely going to start raining soon, so he had to get inside quick and stay in there for a while.

Paper got to Hotel Hoot and flopped right onto his bed, absolutely exhausted from whatever that conversation was.

Chapter Text

…Or maybe she could.

It was about 3:00 AM, just an hour and a half before OJ woke up. Pepper had been laying awake all night, thinking of Salt, the way she saw the dead body of her best friend, the dead body of who she's loved most forever.

But Pepper had made up her mind years ago, and she knew exactly what the answer to a situation like this would be, no matter what happened, no matter if they weren't the same anymore, no matter what realization she would come to.

She couldn't think clearly, she could hardly think at all. Pepper was nothing but a clone of somebody else, made out of words and letters, made out of some kid's desire to follow his dreams, and sure, there was nothing wrong with that, but… Pepper was made to depend on Salt. There was no way she would recover from something like this. Not a single string of code embedded into her artificial brain would ever let her heal.

She saw her dead body, it smelled like condiment, like salt, it smelled salty. it looked like a mess. There was glass everywhere, even when Pepper avoided the glass of those floors, it felt like her whole body was being stabbed with it, disgust, anger, regret, guilt, and the denial of grief, all mixed together at once.

She laid in her bed as soft wind from her open window hit her face, feeling every spark of air that hit her body as sharp needles piercing her skin, her glass, deep into her condiment and what made it run.

Pepper got herself up from her bed, her shaky hands and legs felt like they were being dragged down to hell by the floor yet not even there at the same time, no moment has felt less real than this one, but it really would happen, her hands going down to her knees just to make sure they were stable before Pepper started walking.

She already felt like part of a trash can, about to be thrown to the dumpster fire. How she yearned for the ability just shake every single thought off her head, the ways that she said her name, the ways she talked to her in… All of it was gone now. All of it. God, she felt like her code was made exactly for this, her still unsteady yet stable enough to walk legs felt like they were dragging her outside, walking to the kitchen as the glowing stars up there watched from afar, without eyes, as nothing but a ball of fire. They would never feel the pain that tore through Pepper's heart, but they wouldn't feel the joy of having a beloved BCFF by their side either.

So. Was it really worth it?

Pepper reached into the counter, feeling around as all she could see was…

Her sight was normal, but her mind felt as if it wasn't processing the fact that there was anything in front of her very well.

She grabbed the first big kitchen knife she laid her eyes upon, and contemplated it, wondering how what it would feel like when it was pierced right through her body. It had certainly been cleaned; probably from Soap considering the quality. The blade was shiny and well-polished, sharp and just great enough to end an object like her.

Nausea from feeling anxious, the place smelled like any other kitchen, it just smelled like food. Food, like salt, salt dropping from an open wound, and without a single thought of a note, without a single taste of another day, not even to see how it would be like without Salt,

Pepper dug the knife through her glass, bits of, well, pepper dropping to the tiled floor at once.

She didn't care whether she'd hit a lethal spot or not, yet something inside her hoped for her own survival, something felt it was blooming like flowers, a tiger or a butterfly, a lotus flower that quickly had its petals removed one by one. The pain struck her worse than the needles of air in itself, that part of her felt like it exploded, parts of the explosion escaped, parts of it stayed inside, but Pepper was not going to take it this way anymore, yet even then, self-control was never the complete picture.

She quickly took the knife out of her body, making it bleed more, and the worst action she could have gone for as a doctor herself. Shame, shame, shame, her heartbeat immediately felt as rapid as it could be, fuck, fuck, fuck, shit, shit, shit, shit, cunt, cunt, cunt, what a fucking cunt she had to be. The violent words that bounced around her grief-riddled mind only made her face feel hotter and heavier, stained by tears that had been going in and out of meeting her cheeks all night were coming back once again, heavily. Pepper just wanted to relieve the knot in her stomach now, she punched the hard floors as her hand started to hurt, but she had to get to the hospital and help herself fast.

The clock was ticking, and Pepper's life was what was at risk most at this very moment. Pepper was too scared to check further as to the exact place where she had stabbed until she actually got to the hospital, out of fear the mere sight of the wound would make her pass out.

She tried to get up, to no avail and to realize her legs would obviously feel weaker if her condiment is coming out this way. Pepper put the best of her energy, she had to crawl as fast as she could to the hospital but not too fast because then it would only make her worse, an arm covering one side of the deep stab wound and another helping her move, the grass felt sharp and like shiny kitchen knives stabbing her to the core, painful grunts and heavy breaths both uncontrollable and somehow in an attempt to prevent herself from screaming and waking everybody else up, her slow and unsteady body from guilt, regret, denial, and a wounded self in every single way possible, was making its way to the hospital.

It wasn't that far, but it certainly wasn't the closest thing.

Pepper saw in the distance. a pink and red silhouette and its nearby purple bushes, she had reached her desired destination of the hospital, condiment like some sort of grey milkshake kept and kept falling off no matter how much she tried to cover the spot and her painful, powerless body was feeling weaker by the second, vision getting more and more blurry, each second more colorful and grey, and as her hands were reaching the door, and as she was so close yet so far…

Pepper's body went limp, and what was left was nothing but a trail of condiment and a transparent pepper cellar with a hole in its glass and barely anything in it.

After dying for someone else, the sight of her mutilated corpse would certainly scar another object for life.

So selfish, yet selfless at the same time.