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When Bacon opens his eyes, he expects to be dead.
Not that it would make sense, overall, to be both dead and able to open his eyes, but that certainly would make more sense than where he finds himself instead. Then again, nonsense has become the new normal.
“Well, well, well,” says Spoke, dressed in a suit and leaning gleefully against his podium. “It looks like our contestants have finally woken up!”
The fact that this is another of Spoke’s machinations settles it. This is real, and it’s going to be hell.
At the podium to his left is Planet, and to his right stands Jaron. Both of them also appear to be blinking around, though Planet does see him looking and gives him a shrug. They don’t know what’s happening either, then.
Last Bacon remembers, it was the end of the world, the Wormhole consuming and corrupting all that was left. He remembers bright lights crawling across the ground at high speeds, consuming everything in their wake, reaching him and then—
Well, then he’s here, in a dark room illuminated by neon lights and bright white stripes. Spoke is across from the trio, dressed in a suit neon and colourful for the occasion. Everyone else who had, moments ago, been in the apocalypse with them appear to be gone.
“What kind of death game have you put us in this time?” Bacon asks, when he’s at least comprehended his surroundings. “You know, it’s really not fun when you’re already cheating.”
“Yeah,” Jaron agrees. “It really doesn’t take skill to slash kill us whenever you want. You should fight us one on one or something.”
Spoke’s eyes spark, the admin abilities he stole glitching in and out momentarily as they settle in their unfamiliar host. It only makes him look more terrifying, really; Bacon is half-worried he’s going to explode and take the whole room down with him.
“Don’t worry, guys! I’m not here to kill you.” He pauses, cocks his head. “Well. Maybe I’m here to kill you a little bit, but not for long! We’re playing a game, and killing you would be no fun for that, don’t you think?”
Bacon’s already exhausted and they haven’t even started. “The game already doesn’t sound fun.”
“Aw, you’re not even giving me a chance?” Spoke says, making an exaggerated sad face. “But I went to all this effort of building us a nice room and everything! And look—” He turns to the far wall and throws a hand out to gesture at its blank face. It’s where an audience would usually be, Bacon thinks, but currently there’s neither cameras nor people there. “Our audience!”
All three contestants glance over. Bacon can sense the others having the exact same thought as him.
“There’s no audience,” Planet says, pointing out the obvious. “What are you talking about, dude?”
“It’ll all make sense soon enough,” Spoke tells them, before slamming his hands on the podium. “Now, let’s begin! Introducing our three contestants: the greatest detective since literally anybody else, Jaron!”
“Ah!” Jaron manages, before the sound of sudden damage hits and he dies on the spot.
“Our favourite guy who can’t even play the game we live in very well, Bacon!” Spoke continues, as though nothing has happened. “And—”
There’s no more warning than that before the familiar feeling of a command death hits Bacon too, and the room falls sharply back into darkness.
“Welcome back, welcome back!” Spoke grins widely right as Bacon opens his eyes again. “Are you ready to play?”
“You said you weren’t here to kill us,” Planet says accusingly. When Bacon looks at them, they’re frowning and patting at their sleeves, clearly just as unnerved by the unnatural death. “What was that? Now we’re all down to two hearts!”
“Are you really?” Spoke asks.
Bacon stops to check his heart count. Sure enough, all three hearts remain, despite the fact he’s positive they all just died.
“See? You can stay in the game now and you get to die as many times as I need!” Spoke looks positively smug, leaning forward against the podium again excitedly. “It’s really all in the benefits of ascending to being an admin — I can make myself and you all immortal forever! We can keep playing, and playing, and playing, and play—”
“We get the point,” Bacon interrupts, already annoyed. “You’re murdering us over and over and calling it a game. What’s the point here?”
“The point is fun!” Spoke declares, almost too loudly. “That’s what we’re here for, Bacon!”
Bacon opens his mouth to argue and is overtaken immediately by that tingle of a command once again. The world flickers out before he even realises he’s been killed again.
The other two are staring at him. Spoke is still grinning, wide and wild.
“Aren’t you having fun?” he asks.
“Obviously not,” Bacon grits out.
“That’s such a shame,” Spoke says, rocking back on his heels, “because I definitely am. But — hmm…” His eyes widen dramatically. “Which of you should get our first challenge?”
He clicks his fingers as if he’s suddenly had an idea, and the room seems to shutter for a second. Behind him, the trio’s names appear on a screen that had previously been so dark it had blended into the wall, and beside each one appears a number.
“Let’s put it up to a vote!” he declares. “Each of you can choose one person you think should get to kick off this contest. What do you think?”
“That’s a terrible idea,” Planet says, and actually sounds like he’s seriously thinking about the logistics of this. “What if we all vote for each other and tie?”
Spoke laughs, eyes sparking again. “Do you think you will?”
Their podiums glitch once, then again, before a set of signs and pens appear on each. A sinking feeling appears in Bacon’s chest as he looks down at his own, still blurry around the edges as it attempts to secure its place in reality. He absolutely does not want to vote any of his friends into doom; even more, he doesn’t want to find out if they’d vote for him.
“You have to put down a name,” Spoke says, after a minute passes and none of them pick up their pen.
“Do we?” Planet challenges. “What are you going to do if we don’t?”
The air goes cold. Spoke’s face wipes itself blank. “Then all of you lose.”
It takes a moment for the seriousness of the threat to register. Then — hand heavy — Bacon goes to lift his pen.
“There we go!” Spoke cheers the moment he does, and a wave of firework rockets appear and shoot into the air, exploding in technicolour right behind him. Spoke doesn’t seem affected — immortality and invulnerability would do that, Bacon figures. “Let’s go, Bacon!”
The world vanishes, and Bacon—
—reawakens to the pen on the podium again. He’s starting to understand the gimmick here.
The others seem to have also started to write something, so he’d better get to it either way. Bacon wonders if it’s his name they’re writing.
It must be, he thinks. He’s always sort of been the one who dies most, this game clearly not an exception to that trend. They’ll both be voting for him. Once again the sacrifice — his vote won’t matter at all.
That doesn’t mean he can’t vote.
Still, he can’t vote Planet. He can’t. He sets down Jaron’s name instead, and can only hope the others understand.
The moment he’s done writing, the sign vanishes from under his hand. Before him, Spoke raises his hand and all three appear there.
“Let’s have a look, shall we?” he says, sounding far too gleeful. He spins to the screen and begins to read off each score as it appears. “For Planet, we have one vote.”
The number one appears by Planet’s name, right as Planet respawns. Was that who Jaron voted for? Bacon couldn’t see that happening, really.
Spoke continues, “For Bacon, we have no votes.”
Bacon braces for death and—
—it’s strange how quickly he’s getting used to this.
“Ooh, you’re safe, hm?” Spoke continues, making very direct eye contact with him
Realisation sinks in. He can feel two sets of eyes on him.
“And finally, for Jaron, we have two votes. Perfect, we have a winner!”
With that, a jolly theme tune starts to play, and the neon lights flash merrily. A bright white spotlight shines on Jaron, who’s now also fresh off a respawn, so bright the particles in the air around him become visible. Spoke does a little dance as the contestants turn to each other, Bacon resolutely not looking at either of his friends.
“You didn’t vote for yourself?” Jaron hisses over at him.
“That’s clearly the only fair strat,” Planet agrees from his other side. “Why did you vote Jaron? Come on, dude.”
It might be Jaron who is currently lit up by the spotlight, but Bacon feels like it’s him the room is focused on. He thought they couldn’t vote for themselves, he reasons. They’d all lose if he’d done the same.
Justify it to himself as much as he tries, though, the regret still begins to eat at him. It’s an unspoken betrayal; they’re meant to stick with each other through everything. They’re definitely not meant to doubt each other after all they’ve been through — he’s let the paranoia eat at him too much.
This stupid game show just stresses him out. That’s all it is. It has to be, at this point.
“I’m sorry,” he manages. “I didn’t… I didn’t know you guys would—”
“Are you ready?” Spoke cuts in. He teleports over to the space right in front of Jaron’s podium, resting his elbows on it as if to speak conversationally to him. “I’ve got a great surprise planned for you!”
“Don’t do this, Spoke,” Planet speaks up, sounding a little desperate. “Jaron’s literally done the least against you, this isn’t. Let me take the first round instead, come on.”
Spoke tuts. “You should’ve won the vote, shouldn’t you, hmm? Well, if there’s no more complaints…”
“There are more complaints,” Bacon argues, though fruitlessly. “I take back my vote. I’m voting myself, let me—”
“Too late!” Spoke sings. “You’ve given the audience something really juicy, I can’t thank you enough! With that, let’s start our very first round…”
The lights go down, and Bacon buries his head in his hands.
Spoke set the ball rolling, and Bacon missed the chance to stop it in its tracks. Wherever it goes now, it will be entirely his fault.