Work Text:
“WE CAUSED TOO MUCH DAMAGE!”
Pencil thought of Golf Ball as a drama queen who overreacted in way too many situations, but that day, those words the scientist yelled continued rushing through her mind.
Her thoughts got quick and sudden. They became too much for her. Her eyes were fixated on the crack above her that slowly got bigger and sucked the world up towards it.
She didn’t look back to her team, but she heard them panicking. It only added to her own fear. She wasn’t just going to die.
She was going to stop existing.
She was going to stop existing, and she still had so much to say and to do. She was going to stop existing, and she was going to do it alone, without her friends, and only with this team she cursed herself every day for choosing.
Someone grabbed onto her arm with enough strength to leave marks. Even with all the shock, Pencil could tell who it was by the softness of the hands and the tight grip and the breaths coming from beside.
“Pencil.” Pillow only called out her name, but that single word and its quiet, fearful, threatening tone sent a chill down Pencil’s spine. Pencil barely knew Pillow. She knew how much of a murderous sadist she was and how violent she could be. Pencil had lived that last part herself just a few moments before, but she wasn’t scared of the idea of her ripping her up to shreds. In fact, she may just as well prefer it now, rather than continue feeling that sense of dread and terror.
“Pencil.” She called out her name again, this time more desperate. “We’re all going to die, Pencil.”
Pencil didn’t respond. She didn’t look at her. Her gaze slowly lowered from the crack to the entrance of Dream Island that stood upon her. Gold that shimmered in many colors as the crack swallowed the world, and yet, she could see everyone inside having fun, not caring about anything.
She could see herself from ten years ago, laughing with her best friends. Her best friends whom she wouldn’t be able to say goodbye to.
They crossed eyes for a moment. And it was just a moment, because the other Pencil immediately left to go follow Match and Bubble wherever they went.
Right. They went for ice cream that time.
”We’re all going to die, Pencil!” Pillow said it again, as if she wished for her to hear and reflect and hate herself in her last moments. She reached out another arm and used it to hold that same arm with the same strength. Her voice was now one of pure despair. Her words were meant to be expressed as if she were angry, but more so, they sounded like they came from a terrorized little child. “We’re all going to die, and it is all your fault!”
It was all her fault indeed. She wanted to gain it all back, and this is what it cost her. It was going to cost her everything. This was it. There was no turning back. Because of her.
The world shook and the sky fell. The floor below them was forming cracks and threatening to fall apart at any moment. Just then did Pencil finally move her head just slightly enough to look at the girl.
She looked like what she had never been. So scared, sad, and hopeless. Tears streamed down her face. Her whole body shook at the same rhythm as the world did. Anyone would’ve thought that she’d embrace eternal death and erasure of existence happily, but what Pencil was seeing now would prove all those people wrong.
“This is all your fault!” Pillow cried and sobbed, refusing to let Pencil go. “This is all, ALL YOUR FAULT!”
Pillow dropped to her knees and sobbed on Pencil. She dragged her hands down, fully leaving Pencil’s arms covered in scratches.
Pencil didn’t bother moving anymore. She felt the world shaking harder. She felt everything destroying itself.
It wasn’t until the whole ground broke into pieces that then broke into smaller ones, until she almost lost her footing and fell into an endless void, that she actually looked back at the rest of her team. They all held each other with their eyes closed and faces full of fear, and yet, they seemed comforted to at least know they weren’t dying alone.
The only one holding Pencil was someone who simply wanted her dead and gone. And she screamed and hid her face on her body, repeating the same words she had been saying before.
As if it even mattered anymore.
Pencil eventually fell to her knees as well. Tears flooded her eyes and dripped down her face. The floor continued to break below her. They were both stuck on a small, floating white island. She could still hear the laughter from the other side.
Eventually, it shattered.
And Pencil fell, with the other object still holding onto her. At this point, it felt as if she was looking for her comfort. She had stopped scratching and biting and screaming. She just cried.
They both fell into the nowhere. It looked colorful yet empty. It was so full of everything yet held nothing. It was an endless mix of glitching, static, pitch black, and a mix of people, objects, reminders, wishes, memories, times, and places.
Things that were all about to disappear forever. Nobody would remember that this place was a thing, and nobody would recall the reality show that was once the big thing of the world. Nobody would ever recall that there was once a world full of emotions and events, and it would all be forgotten for eternity.
She continued falling. She didn’t even notice when Pillow disappeared. She looked for her around, resisting the static that slowly took her over. She found nothing. Not even the rest of her team remained.
Pencil’s expression went blank. Her heart ached, and her brain continued generating words she wanted to say even if there was nobody else to say them to. She was alone. She was dying alone. She only wrapped her arms around herself strongly and shut her eyes. Pillow wasn’t with her anymore. Nobody was with her anymore. She was all alone.
And she fell, and she felt herself falling, until she didn’t feel herself anymore at all.
Death was always quick. She just felt pain for a second, then saw, felt, and thought only of a black void before plopping back to the ground from the machine.
This wasn’t death, or at least didn’t feel like it. Upon death, she still was. She couldn’t do anything, but she knew that she still was.
But she wasn’t anymore. She stopped feeling. Stopped thinking. Stopped existing. Pencil was actually nothing anymore. Nothing more than a contestant that would’ve been forgotten by whoever remained, even though there likely was nobody else, because everyone else stopped being as well.
There was nothing anymore. There was no such thing as existing anymore.
And then, there was. Pencil began to feel. She began to think. And she felt and thought too much all at once as it all came back to her in one exact moment. She saw blue, blue, blue, and then light shining through closed eyes.
When she opened her eyes, she saw the sky. She felt soft grass below her body and wind flying above her face. She slightly pulled herself up, only enough to see the same horizon she always saw when she looked out of her room’s window.
She was back. Everyone was back, lying on the ground just outside the hotel.
Once again, she was Pencil, and they were themselves. Almost as if nothing had happened.
Pencil stood up quickly, falling to her side immediately afterwards. Her body was still getting used to being real again. She got up once again, trying to gain her balance, and she looked at the other teams as their members woke up slowly one by one.
And as they did, they began to celebrate, to hug one another, to cry on their friend’s shoulders, and to say all the thoughts they didn’t get the chance to say before.
Pencil just watched them, alone.
A startled Golf Ball rushed past her to get to Tennis Ball. A shaken-up Donut asked if everyone was alright, knowing that nothing and nobody was alright after everything. A shocked Winner got carried off the floor by Yellow Face, and they both began to cheer and laugh as well.
Pencil continued to watch, with nobody by her side.
Until she felt a hand grip her leg. Tightly.
And when she looked down to see who it was, she was startled yet unsurprised.
She was still lying down as she watched her with her single pink eye, her hand remaining on her leg, and—just like Pencil—nobody accompanying her.
She wasn’t smiling. She wasn’t angry.
She just was. Just like Pencil.
And if it weren’t for the sounds of happiness surrounding them, their presence would only be one of silence, one of unsolved tension that might never dissipate.
Neither of them said anything, and nobody else said anything to them.
This was all their fault.
This was all her fault.