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“...So you SURE these would be good decorations?”
“I mean, yea! Not like anyone else has the same taste a good chunk of us share..”
Liyswi rolled her eyes at Collagen’s answer, adjusting the cartoony skull ornament on the tree that had been put in The Quarters - its life-filled appearance a sore thumb amongst the rot and death this place carried. She thought for a moment, swearing she was forgetting something before it struck her - they needed the star!! How could she FORGET that???
She jumped down, dropping and rolling as she hit the floor - coming to a stop in front of Collagen’s feet. He “blinked”, though due to having no eyelids, his eyes simply just..swirled. After getting up and dusting herself off, she spoke. “You, uh…brought the star, right? The most important part of the tree, right?”
“...Wait.”
“Collagen.”
“Oh. Uh. Uh Oh..!”
“Collagen did you forget the star.”
He scratched the back of his head, nervously grinning - through Liyswi’s done-for expression, he knew she was not the happy fellow with his little mishap. “I…may or may not have left it in my room, whoops.”
That reply made her facepalm, both of her hands going into the void that sat in-place of where her switch would be. “Offff course. Wonderful.” she rested one of them on his shoulder, though the motion was by no means joyful, “Do you happen to have your card on you? That way I don’t have to drag you up there again-”
“Yea! Yea!! I have it on me-”
He shifted through his jello, pulling out the card and plopping the now-slightly-messy item into her waiting palm. “It…should still work even if it's covered like that, ha!” he grinned, Liyswi staring blank at the item before shuffling to the elevator, unwilling to take the stairs this time (not that she could at the moment, the stairwell was blocked at the moment from debris that came from an explosion caused by one of Basketball's experiments.)
The object hit the button for the 4th floor, waiting for the elevator to come down for her ride - deciding to lean up against the nearby wall and stare into the distance to waste time. As she waited, she saw…well, what was basically a normal sight here. A giant roach scuttled across the wall next to her, a small collar present on it - which made her perk up.
“..Oh, it’s just you.”
She reached out a hand to let the bug crawl into, bringing it up closer to see better. It was one of Titarumm’s weird pets - this one being Mortis the Roachy (that's what she called them, anyways). She put it back down, watching as it scuttled away to another room - just in time for the elevator to come down. The glitchy jingle made her jump a bit, whipping around to see what was going on - only to realize how embarrassing it was that the damn elevator was what spooked her.
“I should..really talk to the Announcer about changing that…” she grumbled as she entered, the doors ccccreaking shut as if they were old bones. As it steadily rose up, an old tune crackled through the speakers - she vaguely recalled it being made by Book a long time ago, and it was obvious given how, uh…off it sounded. She was very obviously better at music now, but some of her earlier songs were extremely rough.
The doors slid back open, snapping her out of her thoughts as Liyswi stepped out onto the floor, looking back at the card to remember where Collagen’s room sat. “So it should be right around…” she muttered, crossing a corner as she walked - finally coming to a stop in front of his door. He…always had a knack for decorating, much like a few others who lived here - various stickers slapped onto the doors front, the age on some of them VERY apparent.
She reached the card up to the card-scanner, pressing where its chip was against the surface. It took a bit longer to actually register it, unlike last time…which made her start to get concerned until a beep emitted from it, and the door slid open.
The room was dim, yet many of its lights came from the various science lamp-type objects that littered the messy place. A mass of forks sat across from his bed, some of them rusted, some of them looking like they were completely fresh - obviously having been snatched from the cafeteria. She placed the card aside for a bit, digging through one of the smaller item piles that rested within the room, making sure to not cause too much damage to some of the more fragile ones.
It felt gloomy here - which was not a shocker by any means considering what the chunk of land this entire place rested on looked like. She sighed as she finally pulled out the star that was going to be used for the tree - being bigger than both of her hands combined (though it wasn’t that heavy, thankfully). Liyswi made sure to close the door back up this time - pausing to take a good look outside before she headed back down.
It…was snowing. A very common occurrence here due to how cold it got - watching as snowflakes landed onto the glass as her thoughts swwwirled, much like a raging snowstorm. She, ah, hadn’t really got to play in the snow before - always being too frightful of what ifs and all that.
As she looked into the reflection of the star, a small smile slid its way onto her face.
Maybe..
Maybe she could start now.