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“HEY GUYS LOOK AT WHAT I HAVE!” Eraser announces, running into the room. Pen perks up at the sound of his voice, and everyone else looks up, including Golf Ball.
Immediately, the whole room explodes in groans, minus Pen’s little woo. Golf Ball finds herself intrigued, and looks up.
Eraser is standing in front of the door, leaning on the wall, holding out a concrete statue with the numbers 67 on it. His smug smile insinuates that she should be pissed off, but she has no idea why.
Once the groans quiet down, Golf Ball speaks up. She has no problem asking questions - the thing is she almost never has questions as she knows almost everything.
“Uh, what does that statue mean? Why does everyone seem so aggravated by it?”
Tennis Ball looks at her, confused. “Golfie, do you mean to tell me that you don’t know what 67 means?”
“No. It’s just the prime number after 66.”
Tennis Ball sighs, rubbing at the bridge of his nose. He opens his mouth, but before anything can come out of it, a cackle comes out of Eraser’s mouth.
“Oh, a new soul to infect with this brainrot, huh? Well, Golf Ball, I have one word for you.” Eraser marches forward, shoving his face into hers. “Six. Seven.”
“Those are two words,” she says, and he laughs.
“Oh, you really don’t know do you?”
“No. What does it mean?”
Eraser leans back, smirking. “It doesn’t.”
“Wait, what?”
“67 means nothing.”
“That’s impossible. Everything has some sort of meaning.”
Puffball sighs and snaps her fingers to get Golf Ball’s attention. “I hate to tell you this, but it doesn’t. It literally stems from a song.”
“Nope. Everything has a meaning, even if it’s just a meme.”
Fries looks up. “Nope, it’s just a meme.”
Golf Ball slams her hands down and gets up. “I refuse to believe that! I will find a meaning!”
As she storms away, she faintly hears Eraser laugh and say, “oh, this will be fun.”
Golf Ball grabs her coffee cup and tries to take a sip from it, before realizing there’s nothing left. Shit.
It’s 3 A.M. Everyone will be pissed if she leaves her room to go grab another coffee. But, fuck it, she’s paying for like half of the whole place anyway. She has her rights.
The floorboards creak under her steps as she tiptoes to the coffee machine, and turns it on. It makes an obnoxious noise that she chooses to ignore and hope the others will ignore, then dispenses brown goodness.
She almost reaches for the milk, then decides that some black coffee is needed right now. She goes back to her room and shuts the door.
Her computer is wide open, almost 67 tabs worth of research on 67 there. In front of her is her notebook, where she’s writing notes on 67.
From what she can find, it’s just from a song. There’s also a person who is called “Mason 67”. But nothing seems to fully correlate. From her point of view, it just seems like something people say for the fun of it.
But that can’t be true. It can’t. Everything must have a meaning.
And when she falls asleep, face on her desk, at 6:07 A.M., the last thing she thinks is everything must have a meaning.
“Golfie?” Golf Ball hears, and she’s spurred out of her sleep. She glances at the clock, seeing that it’s 9:13. Shit. Thirteen minutes after she’s usually awake.
Panicked, she glances at Tennis Ball, who’s standing in the doorway, looking concerned. “Hey, sorry, just a little tired!”
“Golfie… did you pull an all-nighter?”
“What? Nooo…”
Tennis Ball comes over, looking at her messy notes and open tabs of research. “Wow… this 67 thing really got to you, huh?”
Golf Ball looks at him, desperation and tiredness pooling in her stomach. “It must have a meaning!”
“But does it have a meaning? C’mon, you’re one of the smartest minds of our generation. If you can’t find it, no one can.”
“B-but then why is it so big?”
“Because it doesn’t have a meaning. Listen to me, there is no meaning. You can’t drive yourself crazy over it. That’s the appeal.”
“Mmm. I guess I may get it? I wanna ’eep.”
“Then sleep. You’ll understand when you wake up.”
Golf Ball’s face falls forward, and hits the table. She feels Tennis Ball carry her to the bed, then she loses all consciousness.
And when she wakes up, she looks at her research, and realizes it all has no meaning.