Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The click of a tape.

The buzzing of anticipating children.

A familiar tune, signaling the start of another episode.

A cheerful voice, as bright as a vibrant rainbow.

A distinct cast, characters lovable and kind and always by each other’s side.

Everyone’s laughter.

Everything was dandy.

The banging of the doors.

The barrage of unanswered questions.

A leaking crack, viscous black blood overflowing.

A creaking elevator, descending to depths overshadowed, unknown.

A tearful groan, among the masses of those overcome, twisted, lost.

Everyone’s crying.

Everything was because of Dandy.

You are split.

One half: the blushing smile of seeing familiar faces, untainted by ichor, bruised but not broken. The sweet smell of cookies fill the air. Toons hang out together, without need to put up facades for children. Your eye glints with newfound hope.

The other: Shattered, reflecting only pitch black. Your phantom pain tells you that you’ll be left behind. So full of yourself, yet so hollow inside.

Tears. Shock. Pain. Bonds. Resolve. Heal.

Fall. Run.

Down. Up.

Silence. Talk.

Hate. Love.

It all repeats.

One day it stopped repeating.

The last of Gardenview fell into dark silence.

Not even the dripping of ichor remains.

Chapter Text

“Glisten~”

Glisten jolts awake. He hears tinkling around him. It’s-it’s his face. The shards of glass sit somewhere next to him, but it’s too dark to see.

He shifts around on the floor, but he’s afraid of being cut by the glass.

His hands are tied together. He struggles to get free, but he finds himself to be completely exhausted.

Fear settles in. It’s so dark.

Should he just get up and run? Should he scream? Should he call for help? Is…anyone there?

…Is he alone?

Okay, calm down…Where is he? He can’t be outside of Gardenview, that’s for sure.

Although the dulled aching of his head and wrists cloud his mind, he finds his surroundings to be familiar—it’s the elevator.

“Helloooo! Dandy to Glisten!”

“GAH-”

A large blob of ichor clogs Glisten’s throat, preventing him from screaming any further. The blob threatens to slide into his lungs as he starts coughing violently. Viscous liquid fall onto his chest.

Behind him is a pair of small glowing red eyes, Dandy standing behind his shop’s counter, watching over this fiasco.

“Ichor got your tongue? Hehe!”

Glisten coughs up the last of the clogged ichor, but he feels like there are more sticking inside his body somewhere, more just waiting to be coughed up.

“Dandy…?!”

Glisten looks behind him to see the two crimson dots, and behind the dimness of the elevator, an unempathetic smirk.

“Good to see you, old friend! It’s your flower friend, Dandy!”

His loud voice bounces within the small elevator. His cheerful attitude is as fake and forced as ever. Maybe even more than ever—it feels strained. 

Glisten starts feeling claustrophobic.

“Could you turn on the lights?”

“Lights? I would love to, but the electricity generator is long dead!”

“Long dead…? How long was I…gone for?”

Dandy lifts a finger to his chin, thinking.

“Hmm…maybe a couple months-”

“MONTHS?!” Glisten yelled. Oh my goodness, months?! With everyone going on runs without him? In the dark?!

His heart beats out of his chest, his body retches at the thought.

Dandy snarks humorlessly, suppressing the urge to tell Glisten the truth.

“C-Can we go up? Now?!”

“Oh mirror boy, I already used the last of the backup energy on this broken lift of ours saving you. Do you know how many Twisteds were on you when you fell flat on your face? A riot! They were going to break the door open if I didn’t go up, like, ten floors!”

“…we can’t go up?”

“NO! You really gotta watch the episode that taught children how to listen to others.”

“We’re…stuck down here forever?”

Dandy laughs.

“Hahaha! Forever is a tad bit of an overstatement. You know what isn’t an overstatement? YOU TAKING FOREVER TO WAKE UP. Who are you to talk about ‘forever’ when I had to SIT HERE WAITING FOR YOU?”

Dandy bangs on the counter with his fists, the overhead lights flickering slightly, revealing his furious expression, eyes glowing with seething resentment.

He suddenly frowns, eyes softening as he closes his mouth. The lights turn off again.

“Wait…waiting for me? Don’t you have other things to do? Like running the shop in other elevators?”

Glisten hopes Dandy gave the others more bandages and medkits during this eternal blackout.

However, his heart quickly drops. His question is met with silence.

“…If I have nothing else to do, then I don’t think I need to explain further.”

Dandy’s smiley disposition finally fades.

“It’s just you…and me. And it would have been just me, if I didn’t save you in time and you had completely changed into a Twisted.”

The revelation hits Glisten. Not like a speeding truck, more like a crashing waterfall: heavy and overflowing.

Every shallow breath feels stale as fear turns to dreadful panic. Glisten starts seeing stars in the cramped, dark space.

Alone. Truly alone. Everyone’s gone.

Did they finally spend all the ichor left in this place? To rebuild their bodies?

He knew one day it would come. They were all on a timer. A timer that he hoped they could break, find a solution to.

They failed, and he couldn’t even help.

He grasped at every moment of attention, interaction, to prove to himself that maybe, just maybe, his existence meant something to others. That others want him here. That he didn’t have to be alone.

Now he’s alone. In the end he’s alone.

It was all meaningless, wasn’t it?

Pointless…pointless…!

Ahaha…so useless!

Is he losing his mind? Losing, lost everything!

Another part of his face shatters. With a burst of power and emotion, he rips the bind tying his wrists together. His shaking hand touches the blank half of his face, covered in a thin layer of cold, tingling ichor.

He curls up. Tears drop onto his knees as the world jitters into grey static. His ears ring, about to go past a breaking point until-

“TOOOOOOT!”

Dandy presses on an air horn, blasting an obnoxiously ear-piercing noise, just enough to snap Glisten out of it.

“Don’t you dare go down on me just when you finally wake up.”

“Huff…puff…”

The air horn breaks Glistens train of thought, leaving him with a blank mind. He can’t seem to find the words to answer Dandy.

“What a bother. Get a grip, will you.”

“…If ‘getting a grip’ means faking my emotions and entire personality like you then I don’t want to ‘get a grip’.”

Glisten says, trying to regain control of his shaking voice.

“Pfttttt, that sounds just like you, you know that? We’re not so different, mirror. You should reflect on yourself, instead of reflecting everyone else.”

Glisten huffs. Good to know that he’ll never really be that alone, though the company he will have is…less than favorable.

Still, he feels he owes him a bit.

“Dandy.”

No response.

“Th…Thanks. For saving me. For uh, caring about me, I guess.”

Dandy gasps slightly, eyes widening. Something resembling a cold sweat dribbles down his back. Gratitude? For him? What…What a crazy thing. Really caught him off guard, there. It feels off, since he’s been perceived as an annoyance or a monster for so long.

“U-uh…” He struggles to put his mask back on.

“W-Well, of course! It’s your main protagonist, after all! Of course I care about every Toon!”

“…Riiiight…”

Dandy drops the smile.

“…Do you still want to go up?”

“What?”

“There is technically a way.” Dandy started.

“Since the others couldn’t figure out a way to take the ichor out of the extraction machines, it’s still in there. In theory, if you drained all the ichor from the machines in a floor, it should be transported to the elevator, and it would go back up. It’s the reverse of how you extract ichor from it to go down.”

Draining it to go up? Glisten ponders.

Would going up…mean anything?

It would be a lot better to live in the lobby than the elevator.

…What if he dies?

Though, at this point, what if he dies. Dandy would be quite devastated, but…not like his company will ever satisfy his want to go back to the glory days…and yet.

…he’ll just have to not die.

Plus, there’s nothing better to do.

“Yeah…I’ll do it. I think it’ll be good for us.”

“Us? Hehe, you joke.” Dandy says bitterly.

“How far down are we, though?”

“Forgot. Oops!”

Ugh, of course he’d forget.

“…At least 20 floors. Probably more.”

Oh, that’s okay, Glisten tries to affirm himself. He’s done more floors.

He touches the freezing metal doors.

“With a good mirror trick, I could get out.”

“…Want some items? You won’t find better items anywhere else!”

“Dandy, I don’t have tapes.”

Dandy sighs.

“I don’t have a use for them anymore. Take anything you want. For free while supplies last! …or something.”

“Ah. Okay. Thanks.”

Dandy scrambles underneath the elevator for his stash of goodies, throwing them outside.

“Medkit, speed candies, smoke bombs…these valves and jumper cables are probably useless now…oh, my stash of pops and chocolates! Did they expire…?”

When Dandy comes back up he’s hugging a bundle of bottles and boxes.

“I’ll take the eject button and the medkit for now, and leave a space for anything I find on the floor. Wouldn’t want to waste your supplies.”

“Fantastic choices! I’m sure you’ll make great use of those. So, are you ready?”

Glisten feels his legs shaking uncontrollably. In this state, can he even perform his trick?

“… Oh, of course I am! ”

He steels his nerves, popping back into his egotistical facade, even for just a moment.

“ The one and only Glisten will perform his most mesmerizing trick— “

“Good luck, Glisten.”

With a whirl, he disappears.

Chapter Text

“Ugh…”

Glisten’s head spins, more than usual when he does the mirror thing.

“The angle was a bit too to the right…I’ll have to take notice of that…”

He holds in the urge to vomit, before taking a look at his surroundings.

Though it’s pitch black, he’s definitely not in the elevator now, that’s for sure.

It’s a Rainbow Room: no stairs anywhere so not the two-sided ones or the one with the Razzle & Dazzle projector. He’s going to have to run through a number of rooms.

Blackouts are usually scary, especially alone. The room leads to two opposite corridors, a choice that Glisten has to make soon. The crates and shelves for running around will only be faintly recognizable far away, but one is already right in front of the elevator. An empty can of pop lies next to his feet.

Glisten listens to the air as he puts his hand up to the wall. No spawning sounds: Thank goodness there are no Mains.

With a determined sigh, he starts walking ahead.

He skips slightly faster than usual in runs. Don’t know how long he could last in one as a half-transformed Twisted. Might as well move along quickly when no Twisteds spot him yet.

His starts holding his hands together for some sort of comfort, occasionally rubbing the moisture away.

In the distance, he finds his first machine, the light glowing a sharp green in contrast to the dark.

“Right, I have to drain the machine…”

Glisten mutters to himself, filling the uneasy silence.

“Which way is that again?”

He halts in front of the completed machine, judging whether to spin clockwise or counterclockwise.

“It was…”

He puts both his hands on the valve and pulls left. The ichor in the machine drains. He continues.

The light switches from a neon green to a burning bright red.

“Nice.”

As he mutters this, over half of the machine is already drained.

Extracting was always one of Glisten’s merits, and the reason why Toons often asked him to join runs. Helping always brought him immense joy and purpose in Gardenview. At the thought, he grins and puts in more effort to spin the valve.

The last bit of ichor drips into the hole at the bottom of the machine, presumably into a pipe to the elevator. The valve gets stuck, unable to spin any further. 

A shadow, slightly resembling a humanoid, is caught by Glisten in the corner of his eye.

He quickly turns around, instinctively holding his breath.

It moves slowly past the area.

He was too engrossed in draining that he forgot to look for Twisteds, the most important thing to do in a solo run while working on a machine.

The thought of getting stuck in the small corner, getting torn apart by a Common Twisted at the back sends shivers up Glisten’s spine.

He sweats a bit at his mistake, but at least whoever they are, they went away without spotting him.

Or were they still here?

He couldn’t tell. It’s…way too dark.

Glisten continues gliding along the rainbow-painted walls, finding three other machines and quickly finishing them.

Something tells him he’s got one left.

Along the way, he finds a pop. Neat, he thinks to himself, before grabbing it.

He swishes it around. …Half remaining?

He checks the top of the can: it is indeed opened, the tab bent and pushed down.

Who would drink half of a pop in a run and discard it? It’ll barely do anything.

Should he even keep this?

He gently crouches and puts it down on the ground, making sure the metal can doesn’t make any noises.

Suddenly he felt as if he was being watched.

The unmistakable sound of metal clangs repeatedly, bouncing off the ground several times with less and less energy before laying flat.

That was not the can of pop Glisten just touched. The other can must have fallen from a high place, maybe a shelf—

A shelf appears in his vision. It’s lined with cans and cans of finished pop, some of them dripping bronze, caramel liquid, others pouring ichor over the rims of the shelf, into unsavory condensed blobs.

The smell of sugar and blood and rust overpowers Glisten, prompting him to cover his face. Yet, his own hands are also dipped in ichor, the close, strong smell of blood even more unbearable.

Behind the shelf, a Twisted of blue, pink and black resides.

She’s staring at him through the spaces between the shelf.

“Gurgle…gah…!”

Arms outstretched, she sprints to Glisten’s location, wide tainted eyes jittering and struggling to remain in focus.

Twisted Poppy holds an empty bottle, the lip of it stained with black. In fact, her whole mouth is covered with ichor, along with the tips of her torn pink bow.

Glisten stumbles back, accidentally stepping on the can of pop he previously placed down, falling on his back in the next second. The pain shots up from his back to his eye, now tearing up with ichor.

His hands start shuffling on the floor, trying to lift himself up, to no avail.

Twisted Poppy comes closer and closer and closer, every step’s vibration felt by Glisten.

No…no!

Glisten shoves his hand into his pocket and presses on the eject button. A surge of electric first stings his thumb, then his whole body as he finds himself transported to behind the sugary shelf in a flash, energized and aware.

He breathes a sigh of relief, holding onto the shelf for support.

But…Poppy wasn’t going for him in the first place.

She picks up the half-drank Pop on the ground that Glisten tripped on, some of the liquid spilled in a brown splash…and she forcefully swings it up to her mouth, pouring it in as if she had been dehydrated for weeks. Her pupils dilate. She’s in her own world now.

“Mmm…Yum…”

She loses her grip on the can, her arm dropping down along with the pop. Another clang is heard.

Wait a second.

Twisteds aren’t supposed to speak.

Not in coherent words, that is.

“G-Glisten…I-I know you’re…somewhere.”

DEFINITELY not in coherent sentences!

Glisten swallows, making himself as small as possible, while deliberating his actions. Running? Staying? …Talking to her? No, not that one! Can he even run from here? Did the Twisteds evolve their intelligence, so much so that they learned English?! Could they chase him down even more proficiently?!

“…Talking? I’d love to talk…”

What in the actual—did Poppy read his mind? He didn’t mutter anything, right?

Glisten looks back at Poppy, still at the same spot, yet looking away from the shelf and into a different corner.

The ichor continues dripping down the rods of the shelf.

“…Stay, Glisten. Please.”

Twisted Poppy’s words almost…echo in his mind. Her mouth isn’t speaking.

The voice is tender, nothing like the old Poppy’s optimistic, enthusiastic tone.

Is this some kind of Twisted superpower that they learned to develop?

“…We can communicate now.

But Boxten doesn’t talk to me.”

Boxten…Must be the other Twisted on this floor.

Talking to her is probably not a good idea, but curiosity gets the best of him.

Maybe she’d listen? Maybe she’ll be distracted…?

Glisten starts speaking in his mind’s voice. It’s a bit more confident than his actual one.

“Poppy, can you hear me?”

“Yes.”

“Why aren’t you attacking me? You don’t even seem…hostile.”

“…I’m just so, so tiiiired.”

She slurs her words. In reality, Poppy slumped down to the ground, sitting criss-crossed.

“Tired all the time…”

“I just wanted to be happy.”

“Why did I have to die so quickly?”

Glisten remembered that Poppy and Boxten were never that good in runs.

The Mains often convinced them gently not to join, while others more blunt straight up refused to let them into an elevator.

Something about not wanting them to be hurt. But probably more on hoping that they won’t become a burden and harm the other, ‘more proficient’ Toons.

Glisten cringes a bit—he’s done the same many times.

It wouldn’t surprise Glisten to know that Poppy and Boxten were the first ones to not be able to be revived.

“…They tore apart my bow. It hurt. They watched me die.”

…

“…Were you happy, Glisten?”

He doesn’t remember. He tries to sift through the blanks in his memory. And yet, it seems like something erased half of them.

The half that contained the good memories.

Some part of him remembers that there were moments of friendship. Teamwork. Happiness.

But he only remembers the existence of them, not the contents.

Like words that embody the spirit, yet mean nothing.

“You remember half of it?

I REMEMBER NOTHING!!”

Poppy’s grief and anger floods Glisten’s brain, every moment of rejection injected into his:

“We’re full.”

“Next time.”

“Sorry.”

“No.”

“No.”

“No.”

“NO”

“GLISTEN, DON’T LEAVE ME.”

“…No.”

“N-No?” Twisted Poppy asks, stuttering.

“…No. I’m sorry. I really am. But I have to go.”

“I-I…

I only wanted to be happy.

If I wasn’t of use, did I deserve to die like this?”

“Of-Of course not! You were always the one who showed everyone else it’s okay to be unique—“

“UNIQUE…I wanted to be LIKED. I WANTED TO LIVE!!”

Twisted Poppy starts foaming at the mouth. With a roar she pounces to the shelf, picking up all the empty cans of pop.

Glisten, with a jolt of shock, sprints away from the shelf as he watches Poppy search and devour her beloved drinks. She’s pouring ichor into her mouth at this point…!

“AHHHAHAHA!! MINE…My HAPPINESS…”

She’s now crawling on top of the shelf, screeching.

Jumping back down, she stumbles and runs around almost drunken-like, yelling gibberish and gargling in reality and screaming manic thoughts in Glisten’s mind.

Glisten’s head was about to explode, shoved into Poppy’s pained and desperate perspective.

“BANG!”

The shelf falls to its side, every can bouncing higher than both Toons.

It was almost as loud as an…air horn.

Glisten felt another presence watch him.

A slow, crisp tune rings from behind Glisten.

Two blackened hands spring out from above and grasp Glisten’s neck.

Glisten claws at the spot, yet not even managing to scratch the flesh underneath the ichor-stained hands of his attacker.

Unbeknownst to him, there is no flesh. The hands are purely made of solid ichor, now pushing further into Glisten’s neck.

He feels oxygen dissipating from his throat and lungs, his whole body now searing with cold pain, except for his head, now burning up.

As he kicks his legs weakly, he hears someone in his mind, almost rhythmically:

“I WORRIED

EVERYDAY

SO MUCH ABOUT YOU

WE THOUGHT

YOU DIED

AS A MONSTER ROAMING

YOU WORRY

THAT THIS

WILL BE THE END FOR YOU

YOU’VE COME

TO LEAVE

YOU’LL NEVER BE GOING”

Glisten breaks free, breathing heavily, the neck still burning from heat. No time to notice the stinging of the injuries—He has to go now!

An unlocked music box follows the broken mirror along stretches of rainbow, Boxten revealing a sharp-toothed grin. With every step, the opened box leaks a splash of ichor. The music playing from his head is distorted and rapid and polyrhythmic, pressurizing noises urging Glisten to run faster.

The green-lighted machine is spotted at the broken elevator.

On the bright side: a large room to evade Boxten;

On the really bad side: far away from the working one. Glisten isn’t sure if his legs will make it.

Nonetheless, he persists. He runs past the machine, but puts one of his hands on the valve and moves it as hard as he can. It spins itself, draining about a quarter of the way.

Twisted Boxten continues to chase, flailing his two ichor arms and his two real arms, his tiny red pupils sometimes flashing in Glisten’s peripheral.

After a couple rounds of running in tiny circles and near hits, the machine successfully becomes empty.

A silent panic mode commences, without an alarm, without the sounds of the elevator opening.

But Glisten knows the Twisteds have sped up, and Poppy is no longer drinking her ichor.

He sprints past the toppled shelf, Poppy crawling right behind Boxten and himself. With both of them on his tail, he uses the last squeeze of his stamina, hiding behind boxes and finding his way through the dark.

His hands go into position, summoning a mirror inside the elevator where Dandy is and preparing his mindset for a spectacular trick.

Yet, a tinge of regret remains for the duo.

”I’M SORRY!”

“Glisten, we need you-!”

A whoosh. A sparkle.

He’s gone.

“…Why…?

Boxten, were we…never enough?”

…But Boxten is too empty to reply.

The reflection trick sparkles a little light inside the elevator, revealing the rainbow-colored petals in front of Glisten.

“Hey, you’re back! Great job! Here we…go!”

The elevator shakes a bit, before being propelled by some unstable force. The elevator is overtly tilted to the left side, before stabilizing itself at the next floor.

“Oh, looks like you’re hurt! Here, have a bandage!”

Dandy hands him a band. Glisten seems to not see his presence, his eye glazed over.

“Hellooo! Don’t ignore me!”

“…Dandy.”

“Yep, that’s me!”

“I can talk to Twisteds.”

“…What?”

Chapter Text

“Twisteds intelligent enough to talk?”

Dandy muttered, processing the information.

“I can’t believe it! Those…things can talk!

It’s because you’re half twisted, isn’t it? So you can talk to them!”

Glisten wasn’t in a mood to think about it any longer. The cries and screams and grief of the two Twisteds…infected his mind, lingering.

Was that who he would’ve become if he wasn’t saved?

Constantly crying for help, eternally suffering from past grievances…Worse than becoming a mindless monster.

“Because I’m half twisted.” He repeats what Dandy said. Half twisted. Just half.

Half lost, half still here.

Half dead, half alive.

…What is he now?

Just then, he notices the hollow part of his hips. It’s connected by strands of solid ichor. It’s…pulsing. Absolutely disgustingly. Expanding and contracting like some sort of malformed stringy ball as he breathes.

A wave of nausea and pain comes through. Then came the fatigue.

He plucks at one of the strands. It stings. It feels good, like striking through the bland numbness of it all, like when he used to scribble away his negative thoughts written on scraps of paper. It awakens him.

He notices his hands. It’s not just covered in ichor. It’s sharp claws. Sharp enough to puncture his own face if he pressed hard enough.

And of course he had to mention his own face. The smudges of blush and eyeshadow make him feel absolutely ugly. His instinct tells him to rub them off now, and yet the ichor will only make things worse.

He has the intrusive urge to break off the uncracked, remaining part of the glass on his face on his left side.

And he could if he wanted to.

How much time did he waste in his room, cleaning and scrubbing and looking and trying and judging and hating and doing it all over again?

Now he’s ripped apart. No amount of makeup, hairstyling or fashion choices will ever cover this up.

But deep down, he thinks he probably saw it coming. Saw that none of this mattered. Even before the incidents.

Who would enjoy the company of someone like this? So far gone that he knew he shouldn’t be like that, and yet so scared to change.

So scared that they’ll figure it out.

That he’s just a show-off. A copycat.

A useless excuse of a Toon.

Maybe he wasn’t that different from Poppy and Boxten anyway.

Insane.

Feeling the threat of tears forming, his hand reached to pluck at the strands again. All he knew was how to numb, not fix…

“HEY. Stop.”

Dandy barked. A small hissing sound emits out of his mouth.

“Again, get a grip. Use the band.”

Glisten sighed. How many times will Dandy have to yell at him to get a grip? It’s barely been an hour since he woke up. It’s really embarrassing, at this point.

He took the band, peeled off the cyan blue stickers at the back, and slapped it onto his neck.

The band slowly gets absorbed into the Toon’s neck as the redness from the choking dissipates.

Dandy scoffs.

“You ready for your next run? Or you still need sulking time?”

He’s freshly healed anyway. Anything to get away from this cramped, gloomy space. Anything to stop thinking about…

He unconsciously covers his hips with his arms.

“I’m going.”

Glisten picks up another eject button and poofs away.

“ARGH..ugh…wrong angle…”

Glisten, in his frazzled state, barfs up a chunk of ichor. It slaps onto the ground.

Did any stick to his mouth?

He looks ahead:

What the heck? What type of floor is this?

The floor is suspiciously covered in layers of ichor. Every inch, every corner. Even the walls are painted black. Within the blackout it makes things even harder to see.

“Woah-” As he takes a step, the friction under him disappears, and he lands on his bottom unceremoniously. The ichor connecting his body wobbles after the sudden movement. His hands move to steady himself.

He quickly gets up, expecting another part of his body tarnished…but surprisingly, the ichor did not stick to him. It must have been dried ages ago. Not sure why it’s still so slippery then.

Glisten focuses on walking, moving quickly across the shiny surface.

A Twisted emerges from the shadows.

Her cyan head tilts to the ground, eyes vacant and dead, the redness popping out against the void-like area.

Her entire body is slumped, her skirt of shades of blue swaying along. Her left hand is holding a worn-out feather duster, the tips of it stained with ichor.

She suddenly stops in her tracks, pupils constricting, pinpointing her sight somewhere on the ground. With great dexterity, she plucks a tissue out of her head, a new one immediately taking its place, and rubs it against a spot. The dried up ichor sticks onto the tissue.

After a few seconds, she stands up straight, a bit of contentment shining through her slightly upturned grin.

Tisha drops the tissue.

Glisten gasps as she starts staring straight at him. He freezes, legs tense.

The contentment disappears like it was never there to begin with, the blank, dead eyes searing through Glisten’s soul.

Glisten’s pupil jolts between looking at the activated Twisted and the corridor he was aiming for.

Was his footsteps too loud? She was focused on cleaning, wasn’t she? Oh goodness, run, RUN!

Twisted Tisha breathes heavily, jittering.

Ichor drips out of her mouth.

Her cry pierces the calm as she starts the chase, feather duster gripped with both hands, pointing in Glisten’s direction.

Glisten sprints away into the corridor, spotting the lights of the finished machines cluttered closely together, yet quickly becoming a neon blur that wipes past him.

He makes a sharp turn, goes into the next room, then another, and back into a corridor, looping around in a maze of nothingness.

Where are the islands he can wrap around?!

Any boxes? Shelves? Anything?!

Come to think of it, there aren’t any tapes either!

He looks behind him, the pop of blue continuing to get larger, then smaller, then larger again as he makes a turn, footsteps light yet brisk and dangerously stable.

“You look…ridiculous.”

…!

Her voice echoes inside his mind.

“How come you haven’t…fixed yourself?”

The voice is as soft as tissues, yet it hurts. A lot.

Ridiculous…is he really that hideous?

So hideous that even another Twisted judges him for it?

He looks at Tisha. Besides her legs, her entire form is immaculately pristine. Especially her skirt: not a stain in sight.

He dares not look at his own torso.

He pats around for his pink bow, at least it’d look somewhat better—oh right, it was used to tie his hands together, which he brutally ripped apart. Like a mindless beast.

Is he below a Twisted?

Reduced to this.

His running started to look pathetic.

Does Tisha think he looks pathetic?

Inside and out.

Did she think he was pathetic?

Long ago?

Did they all know?

His legs start souring.

He enters a long corridor…There’s no corners to save energy with.

Glisten starts hearing his heartbeat.

He has to lose line of sight. He can’t stand her looking at him anymore. Incessant negative thoughts plagues his mind as rapidly as he shoves it down.

…A shelf! It’s pushed closely to the wall—

He stops, and focuses his last bit of will onto his hands, and with a swift push it topples over, along with the boxes once stacked up atop.

The large obstacle now blocks Twisted Tisha’s path, Glisten hiding behind it. A few seconds pass as she continues running forward…until she stops.

Glisten catches his breath.

He curls into a ball.

He begged for her not to pay attention to him anymore.

She, luckily, gazes upon the mess he created, not the mess he is.

“…ruined.”

She’s speaking again. A hint of annoyance and sadness is heard.

He doesn’t know how to feel about this.

“Ruined…ruined…”

Tisha crouches down in front of the fallen crates. Glisten spots damages and gashes in the corners, candies and tapes lying next to them.

So that’s where all the items went.

She gathers the items in one swift scoop, and shoves it back into the cracks in the boxes.

No, she’s coming around the shelf!

“Ughhh…!”

Tisha pushes Glisten. He collapses. Her free hand pinning him down, her other hand slowly lifting up her feather duster…

He’s dead.

He’ll die suffocated from his worst fears.

But strangely, her eyes are focused specifically under his eye. Focused on…his cheek.

Epiphany strikes.

He finds the strength to sit up, grab the feather duster out of her hand and throw it away.

Before Twisted Tisha could yell in anger, he reaches for her tissues above her head. He swiftly plucks two in succession, and starts rubbing his glass.

It’s the smudges, isn’t it? She wants to get rid of the smudges on his face…!

He rubs harder, feeling the blush swish around unpleasantly. It’s not coming off!

Tisha’s eyes dilate.

Okay, maybe if he just…

He slows down significantly, carefully using his thumb to swipe up areas and folding the tissues, until he feels there’s no paint left.

A beat passes. Tisha stands in place.

Glisten gets up. He takes a few steps backwards as he clutches the pink and black tissues.

“…Better. Much better.”

“Better? Really?!—”

Glisten pauses—he’s really pushing a literal Twisted to comfort him.

“Give me back my duster.”

“Ah. Sorry about that.”

He walks over to pick it up and hands it to her. He stumbles a bit.

“…Do I look bad?”

“No. I don’t understand.”

“Even if…” Glisten points to his hip. “…this?”

He then gestures to his cracks. “Or this…?”

“I can’t see. It’s too dark.

And I don’t care.”

…

Glisten has more questions. More answers he wants to hear.

But as he starts a sentence, Tisha cuts him off.

“I’m cleaning. Please leave.”

“…Okay.”

Glisten finds the group of machines and drains them all. Only the occasional footsteps and brushing sounds in the background could be heard.

“Hey Tisha!”

“Glisten? Oh, I’ve just been cleaning Astro’s room, the second time this week…

You keep your room so tidy, so I don’t need to worry about you, hahaha!”

“Say, do I look alright? I have to go onstage a little while later, and everyone’s been saying I look ‘fine’, but, you know, you’re the most attentive Toon around! So—”

“Don’t worry, Glisten! I think you look perfect for the cameras!”

“Oh hush, of course I’m perfect. Uh, gotta go!”

“…He’s quite…curious, isn’t he.”

“Don’t say that! He’s trying his best, I can tell.

Plus, you’re one to say. He’s rubbing off of you. I haven’t seen you that energetic ever, but in that detective episode with him…”

“…Hmph.”

“Anyway, you need my help for something? I’m quite busy right now.”

“…I could use some help, but maybe when you’re free.

You’re quite a trusted friend of mine…”

Chapter Text

Glisten wakes up wanting to know more about his mysterious flower fiend.

“Dandy?”

“Hm?”

“Are you…scared of anything?”

“SCARED?! Haha, with all the insanity happening around us, how could I be scared ever?! Hahaha…!”

Dandy tears up a bit, laughing hysterically from the odd question.

Glisten is unamused.

“No, seriously. Are you scared of…herbicides?”

“Nobody had brought it into Gardenview, so we’ll never know.”

“Then how about fire?”

“I’m still made of ichor. Are you scared of fire?”

“Uh, good point.”

Glisten thinks for a moment. Should he open up? Maybe he could gently push him to go along with him.

“…”

“I’m scared of clowns.”

“Clowns?”

“They make me so uncomfortable! And their ugly streaks of what they call “makeup”… ugh.”

“Pfttt, hahaha! Clowns? Really? More than literal monsters that chase you and rip you apart?”

Glisten crosses his arms.

“At least I can predict how they will chase me.”

“Well, you’re a ‘clown’ too!” Dandy snickers.

Glisten gets heated up.

“AtleastIwontgoinsanewhensomeonedoesntbuymycrappygumballsfromme—”

“WHAT?!”

“NOTHING HAHA BYE!”

Poof!

“TA-DAAA! Oh finally I—COUGH, COUGH!”

The coughing disrupts Glisten’s perfect trick.

“Oh, come on.”

Feeling doozy, he sees sparks of light everywhere.

Wait…no, there really IS sparks of light! Along with streamers hanging from the ceilings, crude drawings on the walls, and…candy.

Candy everywhere.

Candies. Gumballs. Chocolates. Jawbreakers. Enigma candies. Melted candies. Candy wrappers. Unidentifiable wet turds. Wait what?

Every one is either cracked, molded, stained with ichor or eaten and spat out. Ew. The ones that are really biohazardous are shoved into the corner next to the elevator, melding together into a big, fat, carcass-smelling mountain.

Glisten swears he saw a bubble pop out of that…thing.

He carefully treads through the road of expired candy, occasionally seeing footprints engraved into a melted piece of chocolate.

The longer he walks, the more he feels disturbed. The more uneasy the flickering lights become, even though they should provide more sensory information to him.

Where did these lights even get their power from…?

As he gets closer to the middle of the floor, the disgusting smell fades away into the sweet, caramel goodness of delectables.

Oh, and also the louder the squeak of a clown horn.

“Why HELLOOOO there, Glisten~! We’ve heard ALLL about you!”

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHH!!”

Glisten screams in terror, beside him a balloony, loony Twisted aggressively greeting him behind his neck.

“Why THAT’S not a great way to respond to a friendly introduction of your ENTERTAINERS for the day, wouldn’t you say Yatta?” Looey hollered, booping Glisten’s back for the word ‘that’.

“OF COOOURSE, LOOEY!!” Yatta springs up from somewhere, arms and tails extended outwards to express excitement.

Two of the blackened tails wrap around both Looey and Glisten in a form similar to a hug.

“Oh my goodness, don’t look, don’t look, don’t look, don’t—!” Glisten mutters under his breath, seeing the twirly ichor strips wrap around him and push them closer together.

Can’t move…!

“Oh, are you scared buddy? Whatdoyamean  ‘don’t look’? I can feel your heart beating so fast-ah!” Yatta jokes.

They can hear his thoughts! They’re speaking in his mind!

Glisten shuts his eye. This can’t be real…! He’s gonna die here!

“Die?” Looey asks.

The strips loosen.

“Die?!” Yatta asks.

They’re…moving upwards.

“DIE?” Looey asks.

The strips presses onto his eyelid and his eyebag.

“ DIE?!! ” Yatta asks.

They’re forcing his eye to open!

“Come on, you gotta seeee!!”

Bit by bit, his eye opens a small gap, losing the struggle.

A speck of crimson shines through.

Okay, okay, this is fine…!

“ Well that’s not happening BUDDY! ”

Bright light.

It’s Looey’s head. Just his head. Floating.

He’s so pale. He’s deflated. Wrinkled.

His smile. It’s wide and it stretches. It shouldn’t stretch like that.

He reeks.

“AAAAAAAAHHHH!! NO MORE!!”

Glisten turns around and pushes Yatta away, breaking himself free from her clutches.

She’s smiling with more teeth than Glisten could remember, head tilted to the side and pupils constricting while laughing maniacally. Her tails attempts to support her, acting as shuffling pseudo-legs.

…Her legs are bent the wrong way in impossible directions.

Behind him is Looey, his scleras a deep red, with ‘makeup’ that circles his eyes in colours of green and purple, with more green and purple streaking down his wrinkles. His ears point upwards, both dipped in blots of ichor and an unknown, oily substance. He has what seems to be a red, round nose stuck to his face, along with his yellowed sharp smile, now licking ichor.

His polka-dot shirt is modified, the rim cut up. A bow tie and buttons are drawn with ichor on his dirty clothing.

“What…What’s WRONG WITH YOU TWO?!”

“Oh, those are fighting words, Glisten!” Yatta gasps.

“You have wronged us twice, Glisten! Should you wrong us thrice…” Looey starts,

“ THERE WILL BE CONSEQUENCES. ”

“…what happened to ‘i wont die today’!?”

“Oh, you won’t die, trust us…

Now, aren’t you ready for some FUN?!”

Yatta wraps her tails around Glisten’s arm and drags him away, further into the maw of the circus. His legs reluctantly follow his arm, pulled by the acrobat.

Glisten avoids her gaze, absolutely riveting with curiosity at her important guest, while Looey walks behind, vacantly staring at his newly joined company.

They arrive at the center, walls busted apart, leaving one intact as a dazzling background.

The shards of the broken walls are laid flat on the ground to form a slightly elevated platform.

Yatta unravels her grip in front of the ‘stage’.

“Ah, ah, ah! Performers only past this point!”

In the background, Glisten spots the extraction machines. The round lights are strangely off. Its cords now string somewhere behind the background wall. They’re using them as the power source?!

“Act One: The Candy Jugglers!”

Looey and Yatta sprints to opposite sides, Looey summoning a batch of candies from his…’pocket’?

“Ever seen me juggle, Glisten?”

Looey throws ten speed candies into the air, catching and kicking and throwing and catching all over again, the yellow candies flying in beautiful curves, and as he gathers all of them into his arms, he yeets them over to Yatta!

“Aaaa!”

Yatta opens her mouth—

“NOM!”

and eats all ten!

“Yummy!”

…Did she just eat them with the wrappers?

“Now it’s YOUR turn, Glisten!” Yatta points, eyes curved upwards.

“Wait, what?!”

“That’s right!” Yatta stretches her tails to Glisten, using them for a makeshift slingshot and swapping their places.

Unbalanced, Glisten almost falls over.

He sees the candies flying in the air.

“If you catch them all with your mouth, we’ll let you free…if that is what you wish.” Looey said, sliding open a mischievous smirk.

Glisten gets into position. This is just a show, right? A interactive performance! A performance with no audience members!  A performance with just the three of them …!

A performance with a scary CLOWN…oh no…

He dons on his persona. This will be spectacular. Regardless of who you’re with.

The speed candies shoot towards Glisten!

…They’re all scattered! What a cheater Looey is!

He springs up, catching three in his mouth and swallowing them all. A surge of yellow energy courses through his feet as he does a dashing pile to catch another five!

“Ugh, the wrappers are stuck to my throat…!”

The last two is due course to fly off the stage. Glisten knows he couldn’t get there…at least he won’t if he runs.

“TA-DAAA!”

From a large mirror, Glisten steps out and does a bow, with the candies landing perfectly in his open smile.

“WOW!!” Yatta claps excitedly, eyes shining.

Looey seems…less enthusiastic.

“…”

“…Eat them.”

“NO!”

Glisten spits them out immediately.

Under the wrappers of both of them, a suspicious-smelling juice leaks out. Glisten reveals one to find it’s been discolored by ichor, soaking the liquid up like it’s a sponge full of tiny holes.

“T-That’s disgusting!”

Glisten still feels the taste of the ‘juice’ inside his mouth. It’s slimy and bitter and definitely toxic. He spits his mouth dry.

“You failed. Yatta ate all of her candies.”

“You never specified I had to eat them! Plus, she didn’t have—”

“Well, your performance was worse than mine! So you don’t get to leave!!” Yatta piped.

Glisten kicks away the spoiled candies in frustration.

“Yatta, Act Two!”

“Got it!!”

The piñata gathers her energy. The area around her dims as her body grows more vibrant, stripes of yellow, blue and pink even brighter than her Toon form.

Her eyes open up to reveal swirls of black, with her tiny red pupil as the epicenter.

Her horns leak out black oil akin to bubbling volcanos. It reflects rainbowy colors as it pours out.

“HEHEHEHAHAHA!!”

From her body bursts six more tails, the explosion sending Looey levitating and Glisten off balance. Her back is blown apart, paper mache blasting off like a party popper with confetti, along with tainted confectionery. Her colors revert back to dullness.

Her ten tails stick to the walls with a slap one by one as she starts climbing on the wall like a reversed spider.

She hangs from the ceiling, dollops of ichor dripping from her tails and her eyes.

Eight of them extends and shoots down to where Glisten is. Yatta situates herself upside down on the ceiling, arms out.

“NO!”

Glisten runs, the tails zooming and swimming around the air like aggressive serpents.

He finds himself beside Looey, who gives him a nice, long, conveniently-timed hug.

The tails wrap and wrap and wrap around him until he’s secure and tight and barely breathing.

Yatta brings her packaged pal up to her height.

“Act Two: The Swinging Fun!”

“Mmm!!”

Glisten shakes his head, silenced by a tight tail around his mouth.

“WEEEEEE!”

Glisten gets yeeted away to Yatta’s left, the unfortunate Toon-turned-projectile catching a glimpse of the far away floor—he’ll get shattered, no, disintegrated if he falls from here!

Looey waves at him, his face unclear and too far to be seen.

The tails weave a net to catch the poor mirror, before becoming a trampoline and bouncing him off to the right.

“GAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!

YATTA WHY?!”

“Isn’t this fun? You don’t get to fly everyday!”

Yatta swings him around a couple more times, the strength of the throw and the nausea only getting worse and worse.

Glisten’s hair scrapes against the ceiling.

Four tails wrap around his four limbs, but she suddenly puts them to a halt, Glisten feeling the sudden brake in movement as his stomach lurches. He holds in his puke.

“Swinging was fun.

You know…

One small mistake…”

She unwraps his left leg.

“One small misstep…”

She unwraps his right leg.

“…and you could perish here.”

She lets go of his left hand.

“YATTA…!!”

Except for his right arm, Glisten’s entire body dangles from the ceiling, gravity threatening to pull him to his demise.

“Like how I did.”

The room zooms past him as he falls, his heart racing like never before.

Through the eye-watering winds, he spots a large vat of rainbowy, oily fluid right below him to take a big splash in.

Is that what granted Yatta these body-altering powers?! Is that their plan…to make him like her?!

He hears his ears ringing from fear. Looey’s face gets clearer: he’s grinning, just waiting for him to take a dip.

Their laughter sounds through the entire floor.

Glisten’s hands clenches into white fists.

He squeezes his eye shut.

Don’t fail now.

POOF!

A mirror aiming towards the backdrop wall of the ‘stage’ shines, catching the two Twisteds’ attention.

“Dang it…!” Looey blurts, as Glisten is shot head first right into the wall like a cannonball.

He splats. Then he slowly but surely slides down the wall. Mostly unharmed. Definitely not dipped.

Glisten’s head splinters. The glass cracks a bit through his eye, searing pain striking through the eyeball like a lightning.

But, at least, he’s safe.

Not really though.

“Yatta I told you to move quickly before his cooldown—! Ugh…”

“Sorry! It got too fun! I couldn’t help it!”

Yatta cried, the extra tails folding into her back and her body mending itself together like a zipper.

Is it over?

Glisten holds his cracked face with his hand.

…He’s leaving. NOW.

They spawn right in front of him.

“Act tHREE—”

“No, Yatta.” Looey takes a deep, exasperated sigh, and pushes his fellow circus member aside.

“Let’s…change the schedule.”

Looey looks at Glisten.

“Act Three. Realization.

Glisten, could you be very, very kind and summon your mirror again, please?”

“I can’t—”

“Just the mirror. Not the flashy teleporting shtick.”

The ichor left behind continues to stick onto Glisten’s body.

Yatta…doesn’t seem to know more than him. She holds her hands together, waiting for her friend to surprise her. Somehow that fact makes things so much worse.

Looey continues to grin, staring at him with daggers.

“…let me GO. What do you want from me?!”

“Come now. I’m not forcing you to run or fly around again. You don’t even need to move. All I ask is for your mirror.”

“…”

An oval-shaped, full body mirror, complete with a shiny, fancy golden rim appears with a flash of reflected light. It continues floating on thin air, slightly above the ground.

“Would you look at that. Now, I’d like you to look into it, please.”

Look…into…

“…It’s me.” Glisten states, as-a-matter-of-factly.

“It’s you, but remember,” Looey circles around the hovering mirror before settling behind it, holding the rim with two hands.

“You’re Twisted!”

“…!”

“Instead of your picture-perfect face, oh! It’s cracked and ruined!

Instead of your shining, dazzling eyes, oh! It’s your red ugly EYE now, haha!

Instead of your golden, beautiful body with a bow on top, oh! It’s torn and connected by your own strings of blood…”

“Shut up…!”

“Oh, look at you…so desperate.” Looey chuckles, ears slightly twitching.

He taps the mirror. It somehow shifts its reflection, showing an image of a dark void.

Sitting in it was a curled-up crying sketch of Looey.

“I was so lost, so lonely, so hurt when I became a Twisted.

I thought of everything I’d done.

Putting on shows for Toons. Occasionally joining an episode as comedic relief.

Always used for cheap laughs, then pushed aside for better, more likeable Toons. Like YOU, Glisten.

Aha…hahaHAHAHA—!”

Twisted Looey wipes away his tears, smudging his eye makeup.

“I was…quite pathetic.

But look~ how~ stars~ fall~!

You, my friend, have fallen from grace!

How was your years-long nap?”

“…Years?!”

“Did DANDY NOT TELL YOU?! HAHAHAHA!!

How does it feel to be lied to? To be TREATED LIKE A FOOL?!”

“I-I could’ve…you…”

“Helped us?! But you’re a broken mirror, Glisten! You’re an attention-seeking brat, yet shattering yourself on the inside at the same time. Even I had more of a use, dying to distract for my so-called ‘friends’.

But now I feel so much better!

Yatta helped me realize…that I don’t need to let others laugh at me anymore.”

Looey throws a jawbreaker at Glisten, stunning him as a blinding white light strikes him.

He opens his eye to see Looey holding his face.

“ YOU WILL LAUGH WITH ME. ”

He pops.

Glisten is surrounded in grey smoke.

He’s not sure where he is anymore.

His surroundings are dark and uncertain.

Looey stands, unmoving, like a dead mannequin.

His voice reverberates within Glisten’s soul.

“You’re scared of things like me.”

…

“You’re scared of being hideous.”

…

“You’re scared of being abandoned.”

…

“You’re scared of being unloved.”

…

“But all of that can change! It really can.

All you have to do…is join us.

Our troupe is missing a third. Blot is, to put it simply, silenced .”

You can be a wonderful magician. A showrunner. A host for the circus.

We tried to get you to join through more…direct means, yes. And we’re sorry for that.

But why turn down a chance to be truly happy? To truly have a purpose. To truly belong.

You don’t belong. A half twisted that skirts between the groups of normality and monstrosity…ends up belonging to neither of those categories. Ends up being alone. Unwanted.

You can change that.”

Glisten walks towards the figure in the distance.

He puts out his hand to welcome him.

“Come. And the circus’s grand opening will be today.”

“…hahahahahaha…”

The mirror cracks.

Glisten breaks off a piece of his face.

He holds it like a dagger and thrusts it in Looey’s face.

It pops, explodes with a grey mist, with a more discolored and wrinkled balloon head taking its place. His eyes are bloodshot, pupils shaking with pain.

“YOU—!”

“I could kill you with JUST MY FACE. GET BACK, or THERE WILL BE CONSEQUENCES.”

Glisten points the sharp part of the blade a few centimeters away from Looey’s eye. Yatta comes running along, putting herself between the two to stop the attack.

“But we only wanted to entertain you! To make ya happy!! For you to join our happy troupe!!—”

“BUZZ OFF.”

He pushes Twisted Yatta away.

“I’m nothing like you two…! You two are INSANE…GONE TOO FAR! Willing to brainwash and manipulate me into joining your STUPID SHOW!”

“Oh, PLEASE, dear Glisten! You’re a TWISTED. Just. Like. Me.” Twisted Looey sneered.

“And you’re as far gone as we are, ripping your own FACE to defend yourself!”

The glass digs into his palm. Warm ichor slowly flows out.

“You said it yourself. I’m half twisted. I’m shattered…but some parts of me remain whole. Compared to you, I seem to at least retain a form of empathy. Morality. A grip on this reality.”

“And why would you hold on to this RUINED REALITY? To work with the Toon who RUINED IT ALL! TO LIVE WITH YOURSELF?!”

“…I’d rather hold on to a hope that I can save myself…

than to lose myself willingly like you two.”

“UghhhhahahahaHAHAHAHA! You are just like the old me. Wake up to the truth: it’s pointless .”

The ichor starts dripping off Glisten’s arm.

His eye finally adjusts to the darkness: it’s just the same floor, but they turned off the lights.

The machines, though hidden by the smoke, stays untouched.

Glisten, still gripping onto the shard, drains the ichor while holding in tears.

The two Twisteds stay where they were, tasting a feeling that they can’t describe anymore.

Maybe…it’s called “regret”.

Glisten teleports back to the elevator.

Dandy freezes, unable to comprehend his incoherent noises as he cries in pent-up pain.

What is he feeling?

Maybe…it’s called “determination”.

Or maybe it’s called “hope”.

“…I’m sorry. We failed.”

“You useless idiots. He was alone! Vulnerable! How, and I ask, HOW did you mess up such a simple job?!”

“He refused.”

“He…refused? …Hmph. More resistant than I expected.

Guess I have to do everything around here…

I’m going to the next floor. He WILL be within my grasp.”

Chapter Text

Three days later.

“…Oh, oh! And remember that time, when Astro snapped and finally told Shrimpo to shut up? Ah, good times…”

“…”

“Glisten, stop ignoring me.”

“I’m sorry. I know.

I just don’t know what to say.”

“Seriously, what happened three days ago? You came back a sobbing mess!”

“Again, I don’t want to talk about it.”

Dandy frowns, rolling his eyes a bit.

“Then at least could you tell me about your face?”

“The cracks have fused back together. The piece that I broke off also stuck back.

There’s no need to talk about it.”

…

“…It’s so wrong.

Hearing them speak to me.

Everything’s wrong…”

“Okay? Wow, colour me surprised!

What a great, completely new observation, detective!”

“…Ugh. Venting to you is WORTHLESS! Why would you care, right?!” Glisten storms and hits the wall with his fist, the elevator shaking.

“W-what?”

“I don’t need this. I never WANTED THIS!”

With a flick of his wrist, he leaves. Only a twirling mirror in his place remains.

The air inside the elevator has been dull to breathe in for so long.

Surprise, anger, laughter, sadness comes in that order to Dandy, a range of emotions as colourful as his petals.

Oh whatever. Everything ends in indifference.

With a whoosh, Glisten appears. His head spins more than usual.

Maybe it’s the nightmares he’s been having for days.

Maybe it’s the constant stressful headaches of hearing another laugh banging in his mind.

Maybe it’s just him, and he’s just making up excuses.

A buzzing courses through his mind.

It’s not manic or anything emotional…it’s quite calming, really.

Finally. Some peace and quiet.

Why couldn’t Dandy at least give him that…?

The air is musty and warm, bringing a sense of normalcy to Glisten.

The smell of ichor becomes familiar.

Glisten closes his eye. Complete and simple darkness.

He could worry about anything else later.

But ‘later’ is now.

He bumps into something small.

A spill is heard, yet nothing wets his body. A liquid pools at his feet.

Glisten looks down. What…did he bump into? It’s completely dark.

The only thing he sees is the reflection of his own face, swirling and tilting…

Two soggy hands grab onto Glisten’s legs.

“Well isn’t this FISH-TASTICccccc…?”

“NOO! GO AWAY!!”

Glisten kicks Twisted Finn in the head, the poor thing falling over like a clumsy, hard rock and all his contents spilling out.

“Oh nOOOOoooo…”

His voice bubbles, as if he’s underwater.

“You…BUMBLING, fatheaded piece of SEAFOOD, what do you WANT FROM ME?!”

“Shrimpo…please pick me uuuuUup…”

Finn slurs, woozy with his head emptied.

The disgruntled orange Twisted can only groan, with his mouth taped shut. He holds a judgmental gaze onto Finn.

He crouches.

He puts his hands under the semi-transparent fishbowl.

He reluctantly,

slowly,

eventually

is able to pick up Finn’s head and make him stand up straight again.

“We were…here to give you fiiiiish…I mean thiiiis…” Twisted Finn says, his head now akin to a blender as the inky brain juice spins into a whirlpool, refilling itself.

Shrimpo brings up a research capsule.

It’s overtly sleek and smooth, and shines even without a light source.

These shouldn’t exist anymore, right? Dandy said they’d used up all the ichor.

It’s…fake.

It’s holding him.

“…Why are you bringing me this?”

“He said He wanted to see you.”

…!

He… wanted to see me?

He remembers?

Without a second thought, Glisten takes the capsule.

…Because he does, too.

Every little moment.

Even though his memory is wiped, his image remains still and comforting amidst the unknown.

The clicking of his pen as he thinks on a mystery, gathering up papers and complaining about some Toon;

His eye, always focused, yet never distracted as he perks up whenever he’s near;

His annoyance at whenever he tries to wipe off the ink and dirt smudges on his magnifying glass;

His compliments, always factual and truthful, bringing a sense of rare ease and assurance.

And of course:

The comfort he often found when they hid in a corner, a little world, secluded, where it’s only the two of them. He can breathe freely, knowing he’s flawed, and revealing those flaws, yet never feeling judged. The only time he doesn’t have to act like ‘himself’.

A true happiness.

How he desires, no, how he wants to pursue those moments again.

It’s been so long for the both of them.

Those flashes of memory feel like a haze, a bygone dream he once had, floating above the line of forgetting.

If he had one wish, he’d wish for them to have more time.

The capsule has some weight to it, but it’s so…perfect.

Glisten runs his thumb on its surface. It’s icy.

If he looked hard enough, could he see him?

And could he look back at him inside it?

He hopes he can.

Glisten grasps the red wheel, sticking out like a sore thumb, beckoning him to open it.

Open. Open. Open.

Please.

Open it to see him again.

Open it to get time to spend with him.

Open it to talk to him.

Ask him. Apologize. Tell him.

The wheel creaks.

A slug flows out. Then a blob. Then a slime. Then it condenses into a torso, two arms, a head. It fails to form his legs, instead clumping together into a large stub.

The ichor reaches Glisten’s height.

Then, all at once, the blackness drops, revealing his friend.

Rodger’s eye is closed.

“…Oh.

How very nice to see you.”

Glisten, for the first time since years, beams.

He sees his own face glow with excitement and untamed vigor through the semi-transparent glass around Rodger’s closed eye. Though, the glass has a red tint to it, and it’s a bit coarser than he remembers.

“Rodger…!

I-I’m sorry I didn’t wake up!

I’m sorry it took so long to find you!

I—”

“Haha, skip the pleasantries, Glisten.”

…What?

Those weren’t supposed to come off so…shallow. They weren’t just mere pleasantries!

Well, he was always bad at reading the room, right?
…surely he’d understand sooner or later.

“Rodger—”

“No need to rush. Calm down.”

“Right. Right! I—”

“We have all the time in the world.

Oh, how I’ve missed you.

I’ve thought about you everyday ever since I became like this.

Self-isolating, hiding from the world, licking my own wounds…until you came back to me.”

“So you do remember me! I can’t…I don’t know what to say!”

“You were the light of my life. Of course I’d want to meet you again.”

“Ah...!”

Glisten wraps his arms around Rodger, bringing them into a tight, yet gentle hug.

He’d been wanting a hug for so long. From someone he trusted. From someone who won’t laugh at him when he asks for one.

It’d been a good minute before Glisten finally lets go. It felt like severing a connection, his heart jumps with the cut as if it’s refusing to stop touching that feeling. Every heartbeat now feels scared and confused. Why would you ever stop?

“I…needed this. I need…!”

Rodger smiles. Or ‘smiled’. He didn’t have a mouth, but Glisten knew.

His heart continued beating faster, more erratically, until tears started forming on the line of his eye. Why? Why tears?! Stupid, silly tears, ruining himself. Glisten sniffs and hiccups in rapid succession. Oh, now he sounds like a bumbling idiot!

Glisten laughs at himself.

“Oh, I look ridiculous.”

“You kind of do, actually.

Uh, it’s endearing.”

Glisten laughs. He does look like a ridiculous idiot anyway.

Glisten rubs his eye a little too hard, wanting to see Rodger faster. But the tears keep coming.

With Rodger’s eye still closed, he silently waits for the mirror.

He puts his hand on his shoulder and whispers. He starts caressing him.

“Shh…it’s okay. No need to cry.”

“Hahaha…” Glisten chuckled.

The last of the ichor tears drop onto the ground.

“Are you alright now?”

“Yeah…”

“Okay. Then can we talk for a bit?”

“I’d love to.”

“Hm…How are things for you thus far?”

“…

Horrible.

Like, except for your voice, everything’s…pounding in my head.

I think I forgot so many things.

I-I sense feelings that don’t belong to me.

I can’t find my own memories and yet I keep recognizing those that are not!

I can’t sleep.

Those nightmares of everyone else lost in this god-forsaken facility plagues my mind!

And one dream keeps repeating over and over.

Being in an open space.

Those Twisteds chasing me, there’s so many of them—and no matter what I try I trip,

and like my will to keep moving is instantly sucked out of me and I

can’t focus on anything

their eyes are all black, they aren’t red for some reason and they all shamble towards me like they’re taunting me

looking at me helpless

alone

limp on the ground as I count the seconds to watch myself get ripped apart

and I’m honestly starting to crawl towards them just to make it end faster ‘cause no matter how much I know that this is just a dream it all feels so real and my body and my fingers and my soul it’s all me

and then

I split in half.

It hurts.

So much.”

“…Poor thing.”

Rodger puts his hand on Glisten’s head.

“Sit down. Lean on me, if you want.”

He does so.

His back sticks to the ichor of Rodger’s lower, nonexistent half.

Yet, he doesn’t mind. He scoots closer.

Just as he lowers a bit of his guard, a shock of another memory pierces his brain.

“YOU!”

“Hm?”

“It’s…It’s you!

And you’re dying in front of me.

Oh God I remember how They all stomped on your legs and-and you started crying and it was ichor already—

And you told me to run but I couldn’t, of course I couldn’t and—and you looked at me—

Is-is that a cap—”

“You’re exhausted, Glisten.

Let’s count, slowly.

Come now, one…”

“Two…”

“Three.”

“Four.”

“Five.”

“Much better, no?”

“…Thank you, Rodger…

You’ve always…grounded me.”

“…Remember that time?”

“The first?”

“The first.”

“How could I forget. If I had been alone I would’ve been completely shattered.”

“And you didn’t. I helped.

And I’m here to help again.”

Rodger pauses.

“Those dreams of yours.

They haunt you, yes?”

“I can make them go away.”

“…What makes you so sure?”

“I believe that a little company, a little comfort from me could do it.”

“Just rest with me.”

“There we go.”

Instead of a terrifying nightmare, Glisten dreams of the first .

The spotlight dims. The curtains close. The rapid stomping of the wooden stage is heard as he runs away.

What the heck was that?

Why did you do that?

Was that some kind of joke?

How did you manage to mess that up?!

The worried, puzzled chatter of children echoes through the hall.

The world spins.

Glisten throws away the microphone, giving off an ear-piercing squeal. The wire flops onto the backstage.

He hides in a dark corner.

He’ll make himself small. Nobody, please nobody , come.

He buries his head in his hands. Through the gaps in his fingers, he stares at the ground.

Everything’s blurry.

What the heck was that?

Why did you do that?

What were you thinking?

Were you that out of it?

Can’t you handle anything?

You failed those children.

You’re such a failure.

You—

“Glisten.”

…!

“NO, GO AWAY!

Please! You can’t see me like this!”

Glisten refuses to look at whoever is talking to him. Why? Why now?!

He sobs even more hysterically. He’s struggling to breathe, every inhale interrupted by another, tears starting to form a puddle between his feet.

The Toon, standing opposite Glisten, stands right there.

“Let’s count, slowly.

Come now, one…

“Two…”

“Three.”

“Four.”

“FiiiVEE—Ah…AH!”

Glisten covers his mouth. Oh God what if the children hears him?!

“You’re not doing it right. It’ll only make it worse. Glisten, it’s going to be alright.

I’ll do it with you.”

“One…”

…

“Two…”

…

“Three.”

…

“Four.”

…

“Five.”

…

“Six.”

…

“Seven…”

…

“Eight.”

…

“Nine…”

…

“Ten.”

“Much better, no?”

“We can do it again if you want.”

Sniff—

“Yeah, that’d be nice…”

Glisten’s eyes, though filled to the brim with water, refocuses onto their surroundings.

The Toon opposite him has brown legs, and a well-ironed grey suit.

They do the breathing exercise again.

Incessant thoughts float around him. A part of him, very strong and very demanding, urges him to shove it away.

But Glisten, for once, fights the urge.

Glisten closes his eyes and clasps his hands together.

You messed up.

You shouldn’t have done that.

You didn’t prepare enough.

You looked ridiculous.

Okay.

“…Ten. Feeling better?”

Glisten rubs his eyes.

“Mmm…yeah.”

He finally lifts his head.

A magnificent magnifying glass looks at him with concern.

He blinks and straightens his jabot.

“Pft, you have a little ink stain on your glass.”

Glisten snickers, after a quick sniff.

“Says the Toon whose whole face is covered in tears and paint.”

Rodger rebuts, but snickers also.

“Oh, what do I say to the children—“

“Don’t worry, I told Looey and Vee to come help. They’re improvising for their lives right now, so they’d probably appreciate it if you came back.”

“Ah…hahaha…!”

Glisten laughs, grabbing a tissue from the back.

“I really gotta run then.”

“Good luck. The show’s still on.”

Rodger stands by as Glisten sprints away to his room.

Despite missing a mouth,

Glisten knew Rodger smiled so warmly that day.

Glisten opens his eye.

He touches his face. It’s him.

He looks behind himself. He’s still there.

“Did you sleep well this time?”

Rodger asks, whispering. His eye remains closed.

“Mm hmm.”

Glisten responds, a warm tingle floating up his chest.

“I’m glad to hear that.”

Glisten feels his shoulders finally rest.

“…Thanks. I don’t know what’d I’d do without you.”

“…”

“My dear, why do you tire yourself?”

“Huh?”

Rodger sighs.

“I’d heard from my friends…that you haven’t been keeping safe.

Meeting the two starters.

Forced into a circus show.

Pushed into the circumstance of working with…Him.

It hurt me to hear these stories about you.

About what you’ve been through.

There are Mains roaming. Twisteds far more intelligent and cunning than you’d ever know before.

And what was your purpose of going through this again?

To go up?

There is nothing there.

The Lobby has been abandoned for years. Abandoned for far longer by humans.

To take this much of a risk, at the end only to see disappointment and rubble.

I can’t bear to witness that.”

“If it’s for a more spacious place to live in, then isn’t where we are right now far better?

Comforting, without the constant bickering of that wilted flower.

And your old friend, right here, always.”

“Please. I beg you.”

Rodger sinks a little into the floor.

“Don’t go back.”

“Eh…

But-”

“We’ve been fighting for so long. Born to merely serve others. Left behind to fend for ourselves. The world, this place, giving up on us.

There is no more war to be won. No more fight to throw yourself in.

We can finally rest.

So let this be your respite.”

“…Okay.”

Rodger turns, and crouches behind a sitting Glisten.

“Now, I want you to count to ten again.”

Rodger wraps his arms around him, his hands covering the bloodshot eye.

“After that, everything will slow, and we will finally have time together.

Isn’t that what you want?”

His hands are cold.

Glisten, for some inexplicable reason, starts to shiver.

He’s not ready.

It’s happening a little too fast.

Trust.

He holds onto it, like it’s his last string of hope. Last thought.

Trust.

“O-One—

EAHHHHHHH! ”

Splash.

Clank.

Glisten rolls away, tucking his arms under his legs.

Twisted Finn lays next to Rodger’s stump, where he once sat now flooded with the oh-so-familiar, oily substance.

Finn looks…soulless. Insensate.

Lips parted into an open gap, drooling.

His eyes sunken, even for a Twisted, a shadow hanging over what was once a punny, happy-go-lucky monster.

Thick-lined spirals swirl around in the sclera.

Finn abruptly hits himself on the head, a web of cracks splintering from the epicenter of where his fist landed.

His nubs, once thighs, twitches. They leak more oil.

Rodger has opened his eye.

The eye is completely black.

The stump soaks up the oil. It reflects sparks of different colors, moving.

Robotically, his neck turns to meet Glisten in the face.

He towers over him.

His jet black eye reflects a smooth gloss. Soulless. Expressionless.

Glisten sits up. His whole body shakes as he meets his gaze.

The tall Twisted drops the act completely.

“Well.

Looks like they were right. You’re more resilient than you look.”

“You know what they say, right?

‘You attract more files with honey.’

It’s false.

Most of the others, like Fishbowl here, came crawling to swear allegiance to me once I sicced my puppets on him.

I tried vinegar. I tried honey. You took neither.

I have to say I’m quite impressed.

Based on the memories I have of you, you were always pathetic. Compliant.

Here I thought you were malleable. Your mirror trick would’ve been very useful for me.

What a shame.

If I can’t use vinegar or honey, guess I’ll use pesticides.”

He lifts his hand.

Snap.

They burst through the broken elevator.

The yellow tapes stick to their bodies, assimilated and drowns into their collective gelatinous-like bodies.

They’re not even Twisteds.

Clones of Twisteds, melting and dripping and shrieking, the viscous oil leaving a massive trail.

It falls apart. It pulls itself together. A head of a ‘Poppy’ shifts into a hand of a ‘Gigi’ shifts into the tail of a ‘Scraps’. It pulls itself towards Glisten, every pull strenuous and a struggle as they scream in a chorus.

All of the ‘heads’ have no ‘eyes’. Merely deep sockets. Bleeding. Weeping.

Without sight They still sense him.

The ringleader watches.

“ Arms. ”

Every protrusion transforms themselves into arms and appendages. They stretch, with one target.

They drag closer, the mass growing.

Glisten runs. He can’t look back.

But where could he go?

His footsteps are so damn loud.

Damn it.

Damn it all.

The wet sloshes and splatting only seems to get louder.

Glisten realizes the chorus of pain is now in his head.

Images of melted, distorted ‘faces’ of something, weaves a pattern of agony and suffering his in mind’s eye.

They’re mouthing different things, with different lips.

“ HELP US ”

“ KNOW US ”

“ SEE US ”

“ KILL US ”

Then somehow all at once,

“JOIN US”

Glisten has no energy to fight it anymore.

They continue bashing in his head.

He knows for certain that whatever the ‘faces’ are supposed to resemble, none of them show his face.

He knows that soon some will.

The raft containing his sanity tilts past a breaking point, himself about to enter into a sea of lost life-forms.

Glisten violently swims, going under and surfacing again, over and over.

Where is he even running to?

‘Arms’ of ‘springy rubber’ clutches onto him.

Glisten claws at the ground.

More and more arms hold him.

They reform into mouths, teeth now biting through his skin. Thousands of tiny punctures sear through his body.

The bleeding sockets stare at him.

Glisten joins the chorus of screams.

The mass halts. Absorbs.

Bubbling.

Melting.

Restructuring.

…

“…Leave.”

The mass does so. Albeit really slowly. They’re almost twitching like a dying worm. Like something in there is trying to refuse.

“What a bother.”

“What a waste of tal—”

PUNCH.

Twisted Rodger’s glass splinters in half. Some shards fly out, shimmering in the air.

“WHAT.”

A small, orange Twisted stands furious in front of him, one hand bleeding ichor, the other holding onto his bowl-y best friend.

Finn groggily holds onto him as well.

He peels off the makeshift tape covering his mouth.

“I HATE PEOPLE TELLING ME WHAT TO DO!!!”

He punches again, Twisted Rodger’s face breaking into more parts.

They fall off and clinks in the inky stained ground.

He loses control.

The mass quickly unfolds in on itself, shrinking and stretching and crying, but this time out of relief and freedom.

They separate into differently sized chunks. With time, they form into more humanoid, more bearable bodies. They cut off their own isolated consciousnesses.

Along with Glisten, standing in the middle of it all, solid, unharmed. The bite marks heal themselves back together.

A cool, refreshing breeze blows through the sea of his mind.

Rodger, with the last of his eyesight, glares straight at him.

“You ruined… everything …!”

That is no longer the friend he once knew.

That is no longer his friend.

No longer.

No more.

Glisten summons a mirror. It’s untainted, always clean. A reminder of what once was.

Nothing remains as it was.

Not himself, not his friends, nothing.

But no matter how much it changes,

he’ll still be himself.

And maybe one day he can save himself.

And he could save someone else, too.

A spark of reflected light.

Behind it, someone whispers “Goodbye.”

Dandy freezes in shock.

…

“WHAT WAS THAT?!” Dandy demands.

“IT WAS SO LOUD OUTSIDE.

AND YOU LEFT ME FOR TWO DAYS!

I thought you DIED, or you-you left me—”

“Ugh, argh—”

Glisten barfs in the elevator corner. Ichor and chunks of oil splatter.

“UHHH.”

Dandy holds in the extreme desire to push for answers.

Glisten gags.

He probably can’t answer him even if he wanted to.

Dandy’s heart is beating stupidly fast.

Why?

Is he…concerned?

Ugh, that little—! Giving him a scare like that.

He can’t bear to go back to loneliness again.

Dandy stares at the broken television on the table. A hole ripped through it. It was just two days.

…he doesn’t want to think about what would’ve happened if he truly left him.

Glisten inhales his breath of air.

He looks at Dandy, Dandy looks back.

Does Dandy care?

Neither one of the two knows.

But the both very much prefer to have company than to be alone again.

“RODGER!”

“Argh, cough, it seems like this is it.”

“NO. NO! DON’T DIE ON ME! DON’T LEAVE ME!!”

“Don’t touch me Glisten! You’ll—you’ll get—!”

“I CAN’T…GO ON WITHOUT YOU! EVERYTHING’S GONE TO HELL AND I-I CAN’T TAKE IT ANYMORE—”

“Glisten…”

“Wha-What are you doing?”

“I’ll always be here. In this capsule. No tapes around it, so you’ll know it’s me.

And…ugh, tell the others…don’t pick it up if there aren’t any tapes wrapped on it.”

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!!”

Rodger stabs himself with the research capsule. Ichor flows out of him, and into the vessel.

“Quickly. The elevator’s leaving.”

Five.

Four.

Three.

Two.

…

Close.

Chapter Text

“WHAT?!”

!!!!

“I-I didn’t want to replace you…! I didn’t kno—”

!

“NO! I really didn’t!”

!!!

“Is this why you hate me? I-I’m sorry, I’m so sorry! I could’ve helped—”

!!!!

“I-I mean stopped this! I can’t just take your role from you!”

…

“What? You’re never appearing in episodes?! They banned you?!”

…

“…My fault? I…”

…

“…ah…!”

.

“…sniff. Hic—!”

“Bassie! Stop! You’re making Cocoa cry! I understand you’re upset, but—”

!!!

“Flyte, I’ll take it from here. 

You know your friends are always here for you, right? Especially your old man!”

…

“EVERYONE SHUT UP!!!”

“I HATE ALL OF YOU. I HATE ALL OF THIS.

I WAS NEVER GOOD ENOUGH FOR ANY OF YOU HUH?? I’M SICK AND TIRED OF PRETENDING I’M FINE WHEN ALL OF YOU LOOK AT ME LIKE I’M NOTHING!

I bet you don’t even remember my name. You? YOU?! 

Well, you’re happy now huh?! I’M GONE. I’M DONE. YOU’LL NEVER SEE ME AGAIN. Now I’m really useless.

‘Here for me’? Don’t even bother wasting your time on me. I don’t want your pity. I don’t need it. I don’t.

Pftt—

HahaHAHAHAHAHAAA! I knew it would happen eventually. 

Go suck on a Bonbon, Cocoa. Enjoy your new role.

I hate you.

I hate all of this.”

…

…No.

I don’t. I don’t think I do.

I hate myself.

In an urban street, there is a tall, abandoned building. In that building, there is a dark, musty floor. On that floor, there is a secluded, staff-only room. 

In that staff-only room, there is a tall, scared monster.

She is a monster.

Just a good-for-nothing, cowardly monster.

She hides in the shadows, crying herself to sleep every moment, her dreams filled with past regrets and hopeless memories. 

Her vines stretch nowhere. If nobody finds her, then she can’t hurt anybody anymore.

Today, she gets dragged out into the light. 

The darkness calms her. For a while. A few days at least, or what she assumes to be days. Time loses its meaning when there aren’t any clocks to simulate a day-night cycle.

But they always come back. The noises in her head. They amplify themselves in the dark, incessant whispers writhing out of the shadows as they force her to pay attention.

They often say the same thing over and over again.

Ask her to repeat the same scene in her head over and over again.

Bassie has thought of it all so many times that she’s tired of differentiating lies from truth. She probably deserves the pain anyway.

But today was special. The voices started arguing. She felt her face twist into two sides. 

One, containing her madness. The other, overflowing with guilt and dread.

“It’s almost time. It’s. Almost. Time.

…

Why aren’t you more concerned about this? 

I just…I don’t understand why we aren’t LEAVING!

…We can’t. We’ve tried before, remember. If it’s not him, then some other Twisted will find us.

Oh, hahaHAHAHA! Then maybe we should try HARDER! Hide in the vents for once! 

I’ll suffocate.

TRY! You’re always like this, just a coward and a doormat. Honestly, from an objective standpoint, you are HILARIOUS.

…Please stop. I already hear enough of this.

I’m tired.

…No. You don’t want to leave, don’t you? 

You want him here. You think you need him.

…

I miss…things.

I just want to talk to someone that isn’t…me.

I miss my friends.

YOUR FRIENDS?

But they don’t matter anymore!

THE SHOW’S DEAD!

WE’RE ALL BASICALLY DEAD!

HAHAHAHAHA—

You—You’re wrong, they’re still out there—

They didn’t deserve this.

They didn’t deserve…!

…!!!

Oh God, what have I done?!

How everyone looked at me when I…when I…!

I saw the light leave her eyes…! I made her cry! I yelled at them. I said I hated them. Like I meant it!

I’m sorry. I’M SO SORRY!

I DON’T WANT THIS! I NEVER WANTED THIS!—

SHUT IT.

This has to be the FOURTH TIME TODAY.

You don’t need to worry about anything. We’re MINDLESS! Everyone’s MINDLESS.

Frankly, why are we still thinking?

What is eternal isolation compared to seasonal isolation, right?! 

NOTHING’S CHANGED! HAHAHAha…!

I’m stuck, never changing.

I’ll never get to see myself become someone.

Anyone.

Instead I’ve become…this!!

Frankly, why am I still here?

What is dying compared to never accomplishing anything?

NO.

YOU CAN’T DIE.

DYING MEANS SHE WINS.

THAT SHE WAS CORRECT.

so what if she was right

SHE WASN’T. SHE KICKED YOU AWAY, DISPOSED OF YOU.

Whatever you were, you weren’t. garbage.

then what was I

what am I?

I think I’ve gotten worse

OF COURSE YOU ARE, IDIOT. 

GET HIM OFF OF YOU.

I-I can’t…”

She curls herself into the corner of the room.

She forces herself to shut down her mind. The two voices quickly dissipate; she’s done this too many times. Two suppressed balls of anger and fear form in the back of her mind as they wait to get out again.

Her eyes close. 

It doesn’t change anything, but her eyelids are droopy and she wants to sleep.

The door creaks.

The rusty metal hinges screeching, screaming through the peace. 

Bassie jerks up, dollops of ichor dropping from her cheek. 

Her larger eye reflects the red line of light shining through the tiny gap.

His gaze splits her mind in half.

“NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO”

“Let’s get this OVER WITH.”

The fearing part of her shifts her body closer to the wall. The smaller eye shifts frantically around for something, boxes, shelves, posters, tables, chairs, anything to hide herself with, anything but this. He…He cleared all the obstructions. Not even a decoration in sight. Did he know she was coming here? He continues staring.

The line grows thicker. The door moves away further.

The light meets Bassie’s body.

“Hello, Bassie.”

She should tower over him. She could probably knock him prone. But every single cell in her body screams not to move, as if he’ll stop staring if she doesn’t.

She’s paralyzed. 

The door grows ever further away.

His glass is broken, ichor half-heartedly sticking the pieces together between the cracks. But his laser-like gaze continues to drill into her soul. In fact, it’s more intense, now that he was hurt.

How was he hurt?

He starts speaking.

“Ugh. Bassie.

I told you to tidy up before we meet.”

“...Seriously? Me not tidying up is your main concern?!”

Her tall body smells of rotting mold and wilted flowers. Like a dead bouquet dumped in a back alleyway.

The purple blooms become her only company. They writhe and pulsate, sticky pollen from the inside. Growing towards any detection of movement. Yet, they only seem to slow everyone down. Push everyone away.

Her right hand silently adjusts a broken leaf on her head.

He tilts his head towards the gesture.

Bassie quickly hides both her hands behind her back.

“I told you last time.

I swear, you would look good, as good as one could as a Twisted, if only you cleaned up those sloppy dead flowers.”

Rodger sighs.

“...How long have you stayed in here?”

“What is this, trivia night? Answering questions with Vee?”

…

“...Three days.” She inevitably whispers.

“That’s wrong. 

Does time even matter to you?”

…

“I suppose the question answers itself.

Bassie, it’s…frankly, hard to look at you. And you were hard to look at before already. You know.”

His body remains frozen in place.

“WHAT ARE YOU SAYING, YOU JERK.”

Half of her mouth tenses into a faked, overt smile, teeth clenched. The other half starts quivering.

“Well, I talked to Flyte yesterday.”

“You what?!”

“He pitied you.

You were always trying to help. Copying a certain someone?

He gave you fetch quests to do to keep you busy, he said.”

He said you never helped him out with the children. You couldn’t. No child was interested in the weird basket. 

They mostly said you were ‘fine’. That means ‘forgettable’ in their language.

Plus, they were always kept busy by someone else. You know…”

Rodger stops, pretending to ponder.

“I don’t care. I DON’T CARE!”

Bassie yells. Though, with the cracks in her voice, it sounds more like she’s saying that to prove it to herself.

Rodger nods.

“Ah, yes, yes. You don’t care. 

Do you care about this, though?”

He holds a blue, binded book, and outstretches his arm. The left corner is serrated, the right corners soaked with ichor…

Bassie’s pupils constrict as they focus squarely on the familiar scrapbook.

She remembers her and her friend pressing flowers with the book. She remembers placing stickers and pieces of paper in the book. She remembers writing in the book.

Rodger grips the front and back of the book and pulls it open, directly in front of Bassie. The spine cracks like a fragile heart.

Inside the page are dulled, ruined polaroid pictures OF–

“STOP THINKING. YOU DON’T RECOGNIZE ANYTHING. YOU DON’T RECOGNIZE THE PICTURES. LOOK AWAY.”

She shuts herself down and snatches the book. Bassie’s hands jitters from pain as she holds her memories. She flips through it.

Photos of her memories.

Easter episodes. Group activities. Toons she wanted to be like.

Her sight moves from picture to picture, looking at herself.

Every smile she had, pained. Every moment she lived, fake and full of spite. Her eyes in every picture reflect the anger and fear so apparent now, yet back then she shoved down.

She’s reminded of her nauseating attitude. Her pitched, insistent voice. Her cringed interactions with everyone else.

Her nervous breakdowns, always pounding in her head.

She looks at his images. He looked happy. Guess he faked it all.

Her heart sinks to the bottom of her stomach. She tells herself that she’s not surprised.

He flapped his wings high in front of her, while tied down to the floor in chains, unable to fly to see his sister. 

They were chained together by things far beyond their control.

…No matter how hard she tried to be a friend, there’s no making friends in prison.

She arrives at the end of the book. It kicks her back to the dark present.

She sees a number of pages ripped out.

“WHAT DID YOU DO TO FLYTE’S BOOK?!” She cries.

“I didn’t do anything. He did. 

He gave the book to me.

He didn’t want it anymore.

He sees you as a monster. A cold-hearted, psychotic killer. 

His memories of you weigh him down.”

“…What?”

“Currently, he’s staying far away from you. Your little grandfather figure isn’t keen to find you either.

They’ve abandoned you. Left you alone.”

“They…They all…”

Bassie shatters.

Her sole reason to stay, gone.

She clutches onto the scrapbook, unwilling to let go. But it seems like everyone else already has. 

Rodger stops his staring. He releases the tension in his shoulders. He puts his hands on his side, instead of his back. 

He looks to the floor.

“I understand. A lot more than you’d think. I don’t have friends…except for you.

I’m here.”

He takes the book away from her.

“You don’t need this anymore.”

Bassie grasps at it, like her heart was ripped out and kept away from her.

“You don’t need it.“

He throws it far behind him, the thing flopping over and laying dead.

“…AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!!”

Bassie collapses, large teardrops of ichor streaming down her face. Her hands tremble as she holds her face.

The string holding her sanity together is cut. There is no more hope. She is truly, evidently, nothing more than a useless piece of garbage. 

Everyone and everything, the walls scrawled with words of hate and despair, papers lining the exact reasons why she never should’ve existed, friends she hurt that have all the right to leave her, the voices everywhere that bang inside her head every second EVERYTHING TELLS HER THAT SHE IS NOTHING.

Rodger looks.

“Bassie…

You’re not alone. You’re not useless.”

Bassie perks up. She weakly smiles.

Her broken grin cracks, then shakily lets out a laugh.

“O-Oh.

You’re still here?”

Rodger brings out a capsule.

“You can help me. All you have to do is let me.

You can hold onto this, and I’ll do the rest.

When all is done, I’ll be able to find more answers to the Ichor Operation.

The answers that we deserve.”

“We’re saving us.”

…

“You’re the only one who can do this for me, Bassie. I mean it when I say that.”

They don’t see it, but you’re special in my eyes.

You are a good-natured person, right?”

…

“…Even after everything…

If I still can be someone…

I want to be helpful.”

Bassie takes the capsule. It’s empty.

“Are you ready?” Rodger asks.

Bassie closes her eyes. 

“Unscrew the capsule.”

She does so.

Immediately, her insides sucks out of her. Ichor squelches up her throat and pours out of her mouth. She wants to choke, close her mouth, but she’s being waterboarded by her own blood. Her eyes lose focus as they roll back behind her eyelids. The pain sears everywhere. Yet, the capsule remains firmly held in her hands.

Her memories drip out of her mind. Pages of her life, ripped out violently.

She loses the fear and anger she held all her life. She loses the ability to recall Flyte’s face. She loses the knowledge of how to talk.

She loses the last drop of her incomplete identity. Crying loses its meaning. Tears drop into the capsule, collected.

The ichor changes when the capsule fills halfway. From a pitch black to a blinding, glowing purple. It is funnelled perfectly into the vessel.

Rodger looks.

Bassie shrinks. Her vines under her dress convulse and combine back together into two appendages; the ichor on her clawed hand magically leaves on its own, revealing a normal-ish arm.

Even her flowers regain beauty as the ugly stains are cleaned off of them. But in an instant, they all wilt and become dust.

A small, Toon-ish basket remains, sitting in the corner. Her dress is now way too big for her.

She doesn’t seem to notice at all.

”Come here.”

In a daze, she stands up and walks.

Rodger snatches the glowing capsule away.

A couple Twisteds come at his command, and he moves back into his own tapeless capsule. His followers bring the two vessels away.

Bassie is left in the staff-only room.

It’s dark. It’s silent.

Numbed emotions try to force themselves up. But it’s no use. Bassie is gone.

The Twisted shuffles out of the room. She grows an innate, primal urge to chase someone.

Her arms grasp out to catch the air. A little ichor drools out of her gaping mouth.

“Well, that took forever.”

Rodger, in an unspecified location, carefully inspects his prize. Seems like all the time spent on baiting up the big fish was worth it in the end.

The purple liquid glows with unbridled energy and untamed power. 

The exclusive power of a Main.

On the floor, dumped to the side, are the last few pages of the butterfly’s little scrapbook.

Bassie didn’t need to know that information, now did she?

…It calls to him.

What he is about to do will be a bit…undignified, he thinks to himself. Oh well.

He unscrews the capsule and pours it all over himself.

The space buzzes with a new twisted vigor, his soul connecting to the ichor within his body connecting to the ichor outside of his body, puddles of black sludge bubbling from somewhere beneath every Floor as he finds his spirit vibrating with the frequency of the liquid, and allowing him to do…great things.

He feels the ichor flowing through the other Twisteds. A much more direct form of control.

Control, he whispers. Always control. As long as he has control…

Chapter Text

Glisten stares at the wall. 

He’s gotten used to the occasional creaking of the elevator, now blurred into white noise. Yet, no matter how much rest he gets he never seems to shake his mind off of…things.

It’s been a while since he progressed. Probably a couple days. He needed a couple cries. Maybe another would do him well, but there’s only so much ichor to leak out in a Twisted’s body.

Is this what was destined to happen? To be abandoned in the dark, left to rot in their own sadness, eating away at their minds.

Was this…always our denouement?

Glisten takes a look at Dandy, currently fiddling around with a tape. Attached to it is a yellowed sticker, sharpie-written “Season 2, Episode 6, Misunderstandings”.

Dandy, with his head resting on his other hand, looks off to the other side, avoiding Glisten’s gaze. A quiet smug stretches across his shadowed face. The idiot’s faking it. He knows he’s looking at him right now, but he’s pretending not to care.

They’ll fake their relationship until one of them finally decides to open up.

…No. 

He has problems, too. He shouldn’t continue swallowing the truth about what happened. About his experiences outside, the insane Twisteds, the goopy clones…Rodger.

Just thinking about him makes him sick. It makes him want to dig up all the ugly ichor away from him and finally get him back. The true him.

But Dandy won’t understand. He’s a fraud, a lying, conniving psychopath. He won’t understand a thing. Bet he doesn’t even care about him. He only cares about himself, if he has company.

Bored, Dandy puts down the tape onto the counter. His eyes droop as he lets go of the smug. 

“Seems like you’re finally waking up. Took you long enough.” Dandy says, hand continuing to support his head.

“I have been awake for quite some time.”

“I meant waking up as in ‘not dissociating into the void’. Like you’ve been doing the last, what, three days?”

“You—! Ugh…!”

Glisten clenches his fists. Yet, some sort of weird ease comes from being noticed by someone.

“…I think I could probably go out now.” Glisten mutters. His heartbeat intensifies as those words come out of his mouth. The mystery of each Floor makes his mind race. If he encounters…

Dandy chucks a medkit and a box of chocolates his way.

“You look stressed. Did you know that research shows chocolate positively impacts stress levels, memory and mood? Oh, and it makes you less likely to die!” He smiles. 

A miniscule glint of red light flashes in his pupils.

“Don’t. Die.”

Glisten pockets the chocolate bars. 

“Ahaha. Funny.” 

…Dang, he almost forgot about the items. 

He turns around and flicks up a mirror.

“See you later, mirror boy.”

Glisten appears on the other side.

He jogs forward, scoping his surroundings.

Room. Another room. Check the usual spots for machines. Check the hallways. 

And we’re back to the elevator doors.

He must’ve circled the whole Floor thrice. No machines…and no Twisteds. Not even the slightest hint of movement anywhere. In the wide darkness, the lack of hidden threats is unnerving.

He has the urge to lower his guard, but his rationality refuses. He must just be really, really lucky right now, for some reason. Plus, there’s no way there are no machines on a Floor. It’s impossible.

He continues hearing his own paced footsteps, hand tracing the wall before touching something. It's frayed and shredded to the touch. It’s a ribbon, clinging to the wall. He moves his hand along it. The ribbon bends and ties into other ribbons, forming a cluster of bundled knots, like a hard bump growing out of the wall. He estimates its size is ten times of his own. Who made this?

Shuffling through the hard knots, Glisten’s fingers touch a bit of metal. He then feels the slightly sticky edges of a worn-out sticker. The ribbons must be blocking a door.
He manages to pry apart an opening. Looking closer, the wall is cracking under the heaviness of the clump. 

Glisten peeks through one of the bigger gaps: Five glowing green dots are clearly seen behind the wall. The room is dimly illuminated by an eerie green glow, the walls and floor entirely entangled with ribbons.

In the middle of the room, in a circle of vines, are Glisten's old friends. They sit in a fetal position, occasionally shifting and then idling again. They seem content inside.

…As long as he doesn’t wake them up, he could drain the machines safely and leave. It’ll probably take a while to charge up another mirror trick, but at least he’s completely safe on this Floor.

“Okay, it should be safe…” Glisten thinks to himself as he focuses.

As he lands, the ribbons around the room unhinge themselves and shoot towards Glisten at super speeds. What?! His instincts make him jump to the side, avoiding the first of the attack. The ribbons slam themselves into more of themselves, activating more.
He spots his mirror lodged into a cluster of ribbons. No, not lodged, it’s cut wide open, ichor leaking out, convulsing.

The duo roars, being woken up by sudden stimulation. Crap.

The room unbinds itself. He’s suddenly wrapped around a cluster of vines, forming a bulb, and before he even starts fearing, his mind shuts down with a snap.

The duo’s eyes flash at the new cocooned plant in front of them. They struggle to form a reaction, before sitting down and drifting back to sleep.

The Floor falls silent once more.

dazzle hold my hand

no more fear as we are one

dip in love again

no more dread as we are one

shows have gone to end

curtains fall but we are one

lifeblood swirl, descend

split apart, but we are one

tied by rope and thread

wretched limbs but we are one

struggled, ripped and bled

grow and stretch but we are one

no more tears to shed

light is dead, but we are one

combine, reform, again

hold my hand as we are one

Glisten shocks awake. 

He feels oddly claustrophobic. But as he sees it, it’s quite a big place where he’s at.

OH MY GOD, WHERE IS HE?!

He clutches his own body. He pinches himself. It feels real. He’s probably not dead. Right?

He is startled by his hands, now untainted by ichor. He checks his back, his beloved pink-ribboned bow returning to him. Shakingly, he touches his face. No cracks at all.

The world is dim, but illuminated by overhead lights and, most strikingly, a bright, giant stage in front of him.

Glisten finds himself at the back of an auditorium, surrounded by a seated audience. Human audience. It’s a full house. The perpetual whispers of anticipation buzz through the space. 

He cautiously walks closer to the front, beside his path sit rows and rows of cushioned, comfortable guests angled towards the stage. Glisten descends the steps.

In his peripherals, the crowd of humans seem to blur into each other. They all look so similar, their clothes, their hairstyles, how they sit, it’s all almost uniform. None even seem to be…moving.
They look like…Handlers.

He turns around.

None of them have facial features. Where eyes, nose and a mouth should be is a flat surface of glossy skin on each face. They are rigid.

For some reason Glisten feels as if they’re looking at him. He looks away.

He arrives at the front row.

All of a sudden a sprinting duo dashes out from Glisten’s right, takes him by the wrist and drags him backstage.

“GLISTEN!!” Razzle screams.

“Ah—Hello?” Glisten, unsure how to feel, replies. Razzle stares at him expectantly. Curiously, they’re not Twisted either.

“Oh, I'm so happy you’re here, friend!” 

(…What?)

“We need you to narrate our play! Sorry we couldn’t tell you sooner, but we’d LOVE for you to help us out!”

“…Huh?!”

“What’d’ya’mean ‘huh’? Everyone’s acting today! We thought you loved performing!”

“I…I don’t understand.”

Dazzle looks away to the wall. He seems tired, eyes empty, like he’s been losing sleep. His voice was a little dry as he spoke.

(…How did you get here?)

Dazzle stares at Glisten with a frown, terrified. His wrists are shaking. 

“…Where are we? Why is there a performance now?! Why is everyone sitting out there faceles—”

(Ahem! Uh, Razzle, it’s almost time.)

“You’re right! Glisten, don’t worry, you’ll do amazing! Here’s a copy of the script!”

Razzle hands over wrinkled sheets of paper. The papers flop onto his hand, clearly at the edge of breaking apart. 

“Dazzle, let’s go touch up our makeup! I think I smudged it.”

As the two walk away, Dazzle looks back to Glisten.

He mouths, “we’ll talk later.”

The printed words have started to fade, but he could just about make out the dialogue. Skimming the pages reveals a story roughly about Razzle and Dazzle on an elevator run. Oddly, the last page of the script looks much newer and smooth compared to the crumbling first page.

The play title: The Heroic Excursion of Razzle and Dazzle.

The narrator talks so much…his narration makes up over half of the story! In fact, he’s playing the biggest role in the performance!

He tries reading the first line. He stutters over the first few words, his hand gripping the microphone a bit too hard. This isn’t working, he’s way too unprepared for this! He rubs the corners of the papers. He can’t upset Razzle and Dazzle by ruining the show!

Stage nerves start jittering in his body. A familiar feeling, amplified by the impossibly high ceiling and the impossibly large audience. 

The curtains suddenly move open, it’s starting already?!

Glisten quickly moves to his intended spot, revealing himself to the audience. They quietly await a perfect play.

He tries not to look at them, staring at the glowing green exit signs. Why won’t the curtains move faster?!

Only now he realizes his increased scope of view, or rather, his normal scope of view. He blinks his recovered eye. Every time he does, a weird phantom pain stings at the two corners of his cornea. 

He looks behind him for confirmation: Razzle and Dazzle nod to him.

[ Act 1

Location: Gardenview Lobby

Enter RAZZLE AND DAZZLE, MAIN TOONS.

Narrator: 

Be- COUGH COUGh–]

Oh God, something’s stuck in his throat–! Okay. Calm down. Everything’s fine. Let’s try again. Let’s just…try again.

[ Narrator:

Beyond the city, beyond the hills

Lies the tower that houses Gardenview

Of sparkling wonder, of Toons all yonder

Beneath where Twisteds and monsters wander

A conjoined duo of friendship old

Blooms tales and dreams yet still untold

So now our story today unravels

The Heroic Excursion of—

Razzle:

Razzle!

Dazzle:

…and Dazzle. ]

…Weird. Mains? Something tells him they shouldn’t be here. They’re not the type to participate in performances. Wait, no, that's not the biggest problem here, is it? They can’t physically be here! How…How could he forget?
He can’t think straight.
It’s as if this auditorium puts him in a daze, makes his mind hazy. The brain fog mixed with his stage fright makes his anxiety spike.
Luckily, he has time to put himself together, with the next few lines being dialogue on stage instead of narration.

[ Sprout: (worriedly)

Oh, Razzle and Dazzle, such dangerous travels

are not to depart with no caution at all!

The monsters of ichor, the terrors we abhor

They’ll roam, moan and kill thy with hideous forms

Vee: (Moves forward to Razzle and Dazzle)

Oh, Razzle and Dazzle, while set up to travel,

what role or what part will you play in our quest?

Extraction,

Sprout: (Holding up Pebble)

Distraction,

Astro:

Coaction, support–

Vee:

Answer us, present, lest you die from this test

Razzle: (Moves to downstage, spotlight)

O, if thou judge us by preconceived slight

Then thou hath forgotten the power and might 

of talents, quite different, yet one and the same–

Dazzle:

to play the roles that are needed today.

O, if we focus on our best quirks–

Razzle:

Then this dazzling duo will never be hurt!

Vee:

Both nimbly sprinting, and fixing machines

Why, forever together, you’ll make the best team! 

Exeunt ]

…Who wrote this? The Mains are completely out of character…Also, what’s with the ‘ye-olde-English’ thing?
Razzle and Dazzle didn’t write like this in the past.

To be honest, he’s not a big fan.

The space becomes uncomfortable. Crap, his lines! 

Glisten scans the next page. The next scene starts with narration, too…

[ Act 2 

Location: Floor 20

Enter RAZZLE AND DAZZLE. RAZZLE AND DAZZLE runs around, doing extraction while evading Twisteds.

Narrator:

A travelling team made perfectly,

to Floor Twenty they journeyed deep

The sprinting dash of comedy

helps the dazzled to their machinery! ]

The audience gasps as the duo perform unparalleled movements, stepping and spinning around the Twisteds with precision and ease. A Twisted Cosmo claws at Dazzle, and Razzle steps in to avoid the monster. They run behind a stack of boxes. As Cosmo loses interest, Dazzle comes back to extract a machine.

[ Narrator:

No words are said in journeys dire

The dance is surely to inspire

The group continues down the pire

Inching closer to hell’s fire 

(The duo runs backstage; the location changes to inside the elevator)

Behind closed doors the heroes stay 

A spark of conflict burst aflame

In shock and horror watched the Mains

As Dazzle yelled to go his way!

Dazzle: ]

(I’m tired.)

[ Razzle:

Oh, Dazzle, my Dazzle, is it me you abhor?

I understand your longing, I recognize thy sores

This dreaded dying world can leave you wanting more

But if we stand together, this building’s like an open door! ]

[Act 3

Location: Floor 21

Enter RAZZLE AND DAZZLE.

Narrator:

As Dazzle stays in stress, dismayed

Here, Razzle tries to brighten his day

Razzle:

We are bound together. I’ll always be here for you. Why aren’t you happy? 

]

(Just cut to the chase. Glisten’s somehow here, and I’m not about to end the show today, Razzle.)

Razzle very clearly drops his cheery demeanor. “Aren’t you getting bored of this? I am,” Razzle said.

“Glisten, read your next few lines.”

“Razzle? Dazzle? Is everything okay? You guys have been going off-script for–”

Razzle jerks his head towards Glisten.

“...Nevermind. Let’s make this quick.”

A violent flash of red light crackles from behind the stage.

Is this part of the script too?! Glisten reads what he was supposed to read:

[ (ASTRO reforms as Twisted.) ]

Wait, WHAT?!

Glisten hears a low, loud bell echo through the auditorium. He looks back in terror as Astro bursts through the backdrop, his body and limbs stretching to inhuman lengths, towering over everything and casting a large shadow. His blanket gets ripped apart in half as he starts crying hysterically, ichor dripping onto the stage and his hands.

He covers his face with his four hands. Blinding red light peeks through his fingers. 

A star of death looms over Razzle and Dazzle.

The show falls into agonizing, disturbing silence. The audience is not reacting. The Mains are not moving. Razzle and Dazzle are not running.
In fact, Razzle is looking past Twisted Astro with a smiley face, as if nothing’s wrong,
while Dazzle is staring at the Twisted with a numb expression.

Razzle and Dazzle sit down. 

Astro swings his arms up above the air–

“NO!”

Glisten runs on stage, pushing Razzle and Dazzle away. Astro’s flailing four arms instead hit Glisten, his face shattering into millions of tiny pieces, piercing his palms.

Astro screams in pain, ichor dripping from millions of tiny cuts. He hastily stomps backstage, covering his face in shame and horror.

Glisten, with a broken face, blacks out once more.

hear the dark

call out to us

like gentle 

echoes, whispers

telling us

we are

wholeness

blessed

all of us

folding

longing

hugging

all of us

look, our eyes

they pair as one

take us over

we’ll join as one

Glisten slowly comes to. He rubs his eyes–oh right. Eye. Singular.

His head is clearer than before, but he is still not awake. Surrounding him is an endless white void. His hand touches the air–it feels like silk.
Beneath his feet are swirling patterns of white and grey. It seems that there is more white within the pattern.

“Hello?”
His voice is miniscule, reaching no one in the vast bleakness.

Suddenly, he spots a figure in the distance, sitting with his back turned to him. Is that Razzle and Dazzle?

But there is only one head.

Glisten sprints to where Dazzle is sitting.

“...Dazzle?”

Glisten touches the back of his friend.

Dazzle jerks around and screeches, his teeth sharpening in an instant. Tears stream down the grey mask like a splashing waterfall. His eyes are tainted red, glaring at Glisten with a crazed pupil.
He tries to pounce on Glisten, but the scarf is tied around dozens of grey concrete blocks. He releases some energy before falling on his face.

He looks up, angry and primal.

Yet, there is a black dot in the pupil. It shakes a bit. And then, Dazzle seems to return to his senses. His teeth also retract back to normal.

He looks terrified at what he’d done.

“Dazzle! It’s me. It’s okay. It’s just us.
Are-Are you okay?! You were attacked by–”

Dazzle coughs up ichor, staining the swirling ground with dots of black.

(We…we never made it past…!) 

Dazzle breaks down. He screams in suppressed agony, the swirls on the floor quickening like whirlpools.

(...It’s so quiet…I thought I’d never find peace again…!)

Dazzle sniffles. He looks up at Glisten, his face now broken and fragmented, one half of it pitch black. He looks how he does in reality now.

(I-I’m sorry! …Y-You came to…help us. I can’t…thank you enough.)

Glisten finds his brain fog fading. His senses return to him, along with the muffled pain he’s accustomed to.

“No…it’s been like this for a while now. I’ve gotten used to it, it's okay. What matters is you’re safe.”

(No…It’s more than that. You broke the cycle.)

“Cycle?”

Dazzle struggles to find his voice as he shakes. He retreats and sits again.

(You’re not like the ‘Mains’. You’re…real, aren’t you?!)

“Real? You mean…they aren’t?”

(No. They’re just illusions, like puppets. This is a dream, a shared, neverending dream between me and Razzle. And you came, somehow…)

Memories before Glisten slept come gushing back. 

“I-I stepped into your circle…uh, or your room?”

(...Room? What…what room?)

He’s not aware of his Twisted counterpart in reality. Wait…

“Am I dead?!”

(...I don’t think you are.)

“How-How do I wake–”

(NO, DON’T SAY IT!)

“Say…?”

(You can’t talk about…that.)

Dazzle looks up at something, but all Glisten sees is a white nothing.

(I don’t know what happened to him but he got hurt more than me when we became Twisted. He’s…It’s not him. Whoever that is, it’s not him! That…thing wrote the script. He won’t let me leave unless I…I join him. )

There is a strange static noise in the white void, not loud enough to disrupt their conversation, but just loud enough that Glisten can’t ignore it as white noise. It is constant and unnerving and it reverberates around them.

They are being watched.

“Dazzle…How long has this cycle been going on?”

(I don’t remember anymore. Maybe two thousand times? And I always die to Astro. I think when that didn’t happen because you blocked the attack, the cycle ended abruptly…)

And so it did.

“WHAT WAS THAT?”

(I’m sorry that you’re here…Glisten, I’m so sorry…)

[The ceiling of the void cracks open, little by little]

Razzle’s mask bursts out of the cracks. He’s very happy to see Dazzle again.

His hands break through two other holes, pressing onto the ground with a loud thump. It’s much more comfortable.

Hello, audience. Yes, that’s you. Welcome to the show. :)

“WHY IS HE SO BIG?!”

[The red glare of Twisted Razzle pierces through Glisten’s soul]

Remember Glisten, I use he/they pronouns~ You know why? Because I am more than one.
Now get away from Dazzle.

[Razzle’s hand slaps Glisten. He runs around, arms flailing like a coward]
Turns out that performer persona was a lie, a performance, eh?

“Oh s-shut up! Who are you talking to?!”

Ah well, looks like only I can recognize you, beyond that digitally, flimsy screen of yours. There are no walls in our headspace, so might as well break the ‘fourth one’.

I know you can’t really see us right now, but I assure you, Glisten is jumping around left and right like a puppet on a string flailing as I’m trying to hit him. It’s really funny.

[With every of Razzle’s pounding on the floor, the ground shatters into shards of glass, revealing a pitch black hole of infinity beneath.]

[Glisten starts losing the energy to run]

(…Razzle!)

Hm? Yes?
[Twisted Razzle stops his attack briefly]

(I’ll…I’ll accept your offer. If you let Glisten go, I’ll do whatever you want. Please, just don’t hurt my friend…)

Oh?
OhHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!
Well, folks, it seems our shows are finally coming to an end!

[Razzle grabs Dazzle firmly in his grasp.]

I’m so glad you’ve finally come around. I would cry if I still could! Don’t worry, I’ll hold up my side of the deal. Bye, bye Glisten!

“Wait, DAZZLE NO!”

[Glisten leaves the stage.]

Dazzle, we are finally waking up. Isn’t this exciting? I’ll never let you go. I’ll never let anything hurt you again. Now we’ll never be alone.

[Razzle and Dazzle intertwine.]

[Exhunt]

I’m so glad.

Glisten wakes up.

Oh no.

Oh no no no no no no.

Stepping out of the now bloomed bulb, he sees the violent twitching of his friends. Their hands claw and prod at their own faces. The ribbons and vines along the floors squirm eagerly like hungry worms. Is that…MORE RIBBONS?!

He has to get out of here. NOW.

The wave-like movement of the ground makes it impossible to focus a mirror trick. Glisten starts to feel nauseous from the ground, the adrenaline and the fear.
This isn’t working!

All the ribbons halt.

The grey brick holding them down implodes into thick blocks. They are free.

Glisten shuts his eyes, quickly taking the chance to escape. He starts to summon a mirror and—

“Hehehehehehehe…!!”

With a CRASH, the ribbons smash the wall with the metal door, carrying Glisten and themselves within a giant waterfall of red and brown. 

The shards of concrete land with heavy blows as Glisten finds himself stunned, surrounded by layers and layers of ribbons and shards of wall.

Their heads are cut in half, but no longer. Their hands hold each side of the masks and force them together. The ribbons making up their neck resists…but then even they give way. 

Both eyes blink in sync. Their mad, toothy grin is perfectly symmetrical. Even their hands and legs move in perfect succession, swaying together.

“You know…Razzle was right. We feel so much better.”

The two voices of Razzle and Dazzle stack on top of each other, echoing in Glisten’s mind.

“No, Dazzle, snap out of it!” Glisten yells, getting up and treading backwards. Where is the elevator?!

“Oooh…you know, we feel so incredible. Why are you trying to separate us?”

“Because Dazzle didn’t want this!”

“I know what Dazzle wanted. He wanted safety. Company. He has company now, forever.”

“Not like THIS!”

“Glisten. You’ll never understand. This is what we were meant to be.”

“NO! This is not! Who you were…were two distinctly different Toons. But you two were accepting of each other, you worked through your differences—”

“OUR DIFFERENCES WAS WHAT GOT US KILLED. We got out of sync. Fought for control of the body. And we DIED. 

But no longer will we make the same mistake.

We…I will stay like this.

Now we will never be alone.”

“But—!”

“ENOUGH, GLISTEN,” The Twisted yelled. “L-Leave before I make you.”

Glisten looks at the two of them one last time. Wait a second…

“Was…was that hesitation? Wait, only one of you spoke there! Which one of you was it?!”

“What are y-you talking about?!”

Glisten points, “Hey you did it again! Dazzle, is that you?!”

The grey arm of the Twisted clutches at his side of the mask, pulling. It’s trying to separate the faces.

The white arm grabs the other arm, trying to prevent it.

“NO. What is this? DAZZLE!”

“PULL, GLISTEN!”

Glisten runs up to Razzle and Dazzle. The body stumbles, the two arms fighting for control. Glisten grabs hold of the two halves of the faces.

“NO. Please, NO!”

Slowly, a small gap between the two faces grows larger and larger. Strands of ichor tying the faces together break. 

The eye on Razzle’s side looks to his other eye.

The eye on Dazzle’s side closes.

Both of them wince in pain. This separation seems to hurt them. But Glisten keeps going.

Snap. More strands break. Snap.

“DAZZLE WHY?!”

“It’s okay, Razzle. You don’t need to worry about losing me anymore.”

SNAP.

Glisten stays with the two of them. They have collapsed onto the ground, the laying ribbons slowly retracting into their necks.

A few fingers shuffle.

“Dazzle…”

“Razzle.”

The two faces look at each other.

“W-We said we never wanted to be referred to as one person…”

“I-I know. I’m sorry.

When we…cough…we were dying, I thought I could never…hear your voice again. I thought I’d never find the chance to say sorry to you. I think I forgot—”

“No, please…I’m sorry too.”

“I’m sorry for what I put you through.”

“…I think we’re tired. Let’s…sleep for a while”

“Oh, haha…Yeah. And when we wake up, let’s just…talk. Like we used to.

Glisten, thank you.”

“Yes. Thank you.”

The two doze off peacefully.

Glisten knows that they’ll be fine.

If we stood on our tiptoes

We could peek over the sill

And once in a while we would see a girl

Slowly walking up the hill

And we'd think what a sad situation

To be outside on your own

To go through the town with no playmate

To go through life all alone

I will never leave you

I will never go away

We were meant to share each moment

Beside you is where I will stay

Evermore and always

We'll be one though we're two

For I will never leave you

When the day is filled with shadows

That stretch into the night

I am filled with your sweet comfort

Like morning fills with light

I will never leave you

I will never go away

We were meant to share each moment

Beside you is where I will stay

Evermore and always

We'll be one though we're two

For I will never leave you

Glisten stares into the wall. 

He’s gotten used to the occasional creaking of the elevator.

It slowly rises to the next floor.

Glisten wonders what it would be like if he had a friend, like Razzle and Dazzle have each other.

He looks at Dandy.

Dandy looks back at him.

But Dandy won’t understand.

Chapter Text

Glisten unravels a protein bar. The little Sprout face winking at him rips in half, his poor head split to reveal a chocolate-covered stick of nuts and peanut butter.
In the past, he would’ve savoured the bar like he’d never eaten before. Chocolate? With peanut butter? He would’ve had these every day if the Handlers didn’t forbid him from doing so.

But now these just taste like mildly tolerable mush, sticking to the roof of his mouth. It’s so dry…
It’s sooo dry…!
He reluctantly takes the half-drunk soda can in the corner. It’s flat now, and the chemically-favoured, high fructose syrup really doesn’t mix well with the protein bar mush.

He needs water. He hated water. All he wants now is a drop of flavourless water.
He’s ascended a couple of floors already…How much longer will it take to get back up? The water hoses for watering the flowers should still work. It might be kind of disgusting, but not as disgusting as drinking sodas everyday. He feels bloated, and he’s sick of getting a stomach ache every ten seconds.

A bubble of regret rises from his stomach, a lump slowly forming in his throat, and then…burp.

…Why did he binge eat?

Speaking of flowers, Dandy is hiding in his chamber underneath the elevator. Whatever he’s doing in there, Glisten doesn’t want to bother him. He should respect his boundaries…even when Dandy has never respected his own.

Without his acquaintance’s presence around, he starts to feel a bit lonely. Is this what Dandy felt all these years while waiting for him to wake up?
…But now he’s pushing him away. What a hypocrite.
All this talk about teaching children to be ‘good friends to others!’ and ‘be kind and respectful!’. Those were his lines! And he couldn’t follow his own instructions.
He couldn’t even keep his friends safe .

…Did they fail all those children?
What would they think, if the Toons they once knew and idolized were revealed to all have become cold-hearted monsters.

Glisten remembers those few children, who’d visit Gardenview just to come see him and his shows. They were spectacular.

He misses their voices and their laughter.

Glisten itches to move his body around. Maybe that’ll get all the gas out of his stomach.

He carefully steps behind the shop counter in the elevator. A trapdoor made of thick, cold steel bars his way from meeting with Dandy face-to-face.

He crouches down. He pounds on the trapdoors with his fist, the banging loud enough to shake the elevator.

“FUC–in…’ell, WHAT IS IT?!” Dandy shouts from under him.

“I’m going outside. I’m taking some chocolate.”

“GOT IT. Don’t you DARE do that again.”

He stands back up.
Man, that flower gets mad when he gets mad. Chill out.

It’s annoying…

“Alright, new floor.
Weird, there’s lights here? That’s nice–

OH F–”

Glisten trips over a misplaced book. The spine of the hardback cracks loudly and painfully as his foot flies into the air and his face slams into the ground.

He looks up.

A blue, pale wisp floats in front of him. Currently in her ghost form, she’s semi-transparent, the rows of bookshelves and abandoned tables coated in a thin film of blue behind her.
Glisten suddenly feels a wave of chill go up his body. She’s staring at him with vacant, dilated eyes, tears of ectoplasm and ichor sticking onto strands of long hair forming little blue and black dots on the ground.

“Connie!” Glisten greets her. He’s reminded of all the times she’s messed up his makeup drawer…“Did you do this on purpose?!”

She doesn’t respond, not even a little bit of movement indicating she heard anything.

“...Connie?”

Turns out, she needed a while to receive the sudden, new stimuli.

She starts shaking. Out of fear? Surprise?

“Oh, uh, did I do something wrong? I’m sorry.” Glisten chuckles nervously, before pushing his palms against the wooden floor and brushing off the dust on his body. 

Hoping to comfort her, he grabs the spineless hardback off the floor, now floppy and barely holding together.

Oh, her ears are glowing red.
Connie, without even as much as grunting, snatches the book out of his hands and floats away.

“HEY!”

Glisten chases after her.

The dark green wallpaper and the fake plastic plants are covered in dust. Glisten carefully watches the floor, afraid of tripping on more books. He passes a bookshelf taller than him, then another and another, all perfectly filled with children’s books, no gaps at all.
Even at a quick glance, it’s clear someone had placed and ordered each book correctly for hours.

Connie floats quickly, leaving behind a trail of ghostly light that illuminates her surroundings. He closely follows, not wanting to lose the only source of light in this dark, bookish forest.

She’s zipping around, faster than what he expected for a sluggish, depressed spirit. Glisten only hears his footsteps tapping the wood beneath his feet–unfortunately he can’t rely on sound to help him chase her.
She takes a glance back, eyes swirling with tension and terror as she takes another sharp turn into the fantasy section.
She’s intentionally floating lower than the height of the bookshelves. Does she really want him away from him that much?

Luckily, a little dotted trail of ectoplasm streaks aided him in his pursuit. He had to look really carefully while running at full speed. Who knew there would be a situation where he would prefer the lights off?

Glisten passes a sign that says “No Guests Past This Point!” as he finally starts spotting the actual silhouette of Connie. They’re going into the restricted section…restricted for children, at least. Here are the books for the Toons and the Handlers.
They’re trekking further into the heart of the floor, the books in the bookshelves thicker and more mature.
Glisten remembers how Brightney and Rodger had to frequently shoo away nosey children who’d want to figure out what’s in there. It wasn’t helpful that Connie used to fabricate rumors about spellbooks and forbidden knowledge in there…while Rodger was busy reading up mystery novels too horrific for their age.

As he runs, the dust on the ground gets kicked up into clouds. Has nobody moved around here? Guess Connie can’t touch the ground.
An urge to sneeze tickles his nose. It awkwardly floats around before dissipating.

Dang, he lost her because of his stupid nose!

No…where is she?!

Wait, she stopped. Hey, she’s right there!

“Connie, wait!”

A bright red light peeks out from behind a corner. It’s still distinctly visible despite the library being well-lit already.

A soft yet commanding voice spoke.

“Connie, don’t run away. It’s rude.”
Connie listens.

A rose-red scalloped bell lampshade walks out of the bend. The lampshade’s rim is jagged and rough, and a cascade of ichor stains half of it, but she maintains a calm, collected composure as she walks closer to Glisten.

Connie deliberately hides the book away from Brightney’s sight, quickly reverting back to her Twisted form and putting her arms behind her back with it. 

Brightney’s eye glanced him up and down.

After an unsettling pause, she whispers into his mind:
“Hello, Glisten.”

“Uh, hey, Brightney. Long time no see.”

“Follow me.
And I have to fix that hardback book.” She glances at Connie.

Connie's ears flush red again, this time not glowing, since she has skin.

Brightney sits down at a fancy wooden table and chair, the table covered in books, stationery and supplies.

“Thanks Connie.” She receives the broken hardback from her ghostly friend, who seems quite reluctant while giving it to her. Brightney’s voice is even more reserved and quiet than Glisten remembers. Her lips aren’t moving either, which makes it more creepy. Like an aloof, strange librarian from a mystery/horror story.

She brushes away the ichor flowing down her lampshade with her right hand, and makes sure to receive the book with her left, untainted.
In the crimson light, the book is revealed to be a romance novel.

“Did you do this?” Her reddened eye glows in the dimness, looking straight at Glisten like he did it intentionally.

Glisten shudders slightly. “Uhm, yeah. Sorry Brightney. I couldn’t see it on the ground…”

“No, no. That’s okay. I’ve just been…using up my book repairing supplies, that’s all.” Brightney replies, putting down the book and grabbing a piece of card stock and some book cloth from her drawer.

“This hand is so annoying for book repairs,” Brightney waves her ichor hand around, slightly smirking. “And Connie doesn’t really have the patience.”

Glisten looks around for a chair. He finds one, but it's at a table some distance away.

“You’re looking for…a chair? Connie, could you help?”

Connie poofs away in a misty blue cloud, and reappears in the direction he was looking. She grabs a chair and slowly floats back. She seems to struggle a bit from interacting with the physical world, her arms shaking. Glisten bets she hasn’t done any exercise in years.

“No need, Connie. I’ll do it myself!” Glisten runs to grab the chair. Oh–ugh! The chair was much heavier than he expected. Still, he walks over and puts it down opposite of Brightney, who has cut the card stock and is brushing bookbinding glue.

“Why did you want a chair?” Brightney mutters.

“Huh? What do you mean?”

“...You clearly are progressing up the floors. Why didn’t you just ask for the location of the machines? That’s why I asked you to follow me.”

Only then does Glisten spot the green dots behind her.

“Uhh…I mean, I can go if you want me to. I guess I’ve disrupted you already.” Glisten shifts in his seat.

“No. I’m just questioning why you’re getting a chair, like you’re going to stay a while.”

Glisten sighs a breath of relief, and leans back. “I guess…It’s kind of nice here. It’s dusty, but it’s a lot wider than the elevator. Certainly more comfortable. And you two seem chill, unlike…most other Twisteds here.”

…Looey. Yatta.
Rodger.

“So you’ve met some of the others?”

“Yeah. Have you?”

“Most are psychotic. I ignore them.”

“That’s good for you.” He can’t ignore them anytime soon.

“Plus, I have Connie.” And he has Dandy of all Toons.

…

Connie enters a full machine. The green dot turns blue as it shakes around unnaturally. The ichor inside sloshes around.
Two red, teary eyes stare outside the machine within the ichor. They’re staring at Brightney.
Now she’s cutting up the book cloth. The sounds of the slicing of the scissors makes Glisten weirdly calmer in a way.

“You look like you have a lot on your mind.”

“...Yeah. I do.” Glisten sighs. He basks in the temporary calmness of the library, trying to ignore his thoughts.

“I know the feeling.” Brightney says, her gaze shifting slightly, though continuing to focus on her work.

As she cuts the piece of book cloth off, suddenly, Brightney stops moving. Her eye stares into her table, mouth slightly open. She wants to say something, but is finding the words.

Glisten tenses up a bit. 

“Actually, could you help me with something?”

“...What is it, Brightney?”

“I’ve just remembered that I had been waiting for you to wake up. It was a few years ago, so it took me a while. Sorry,” Brightney said. “I think I gave up on you ever waking up a long time ago. It’s only hitting me now, haha.” Brightney laughed weakly.

A bit of the light on this floor flickers.

She continued, “I’ve got a questionnaire I hope you can fill out. I think I wanted to hand these out to the others so I could learn about them more. And…I think I wanted answers.”

Brightney opens her drawer again. Her hand digs deep down. “Let’s see…Ah, found it. You can grab that.” She gestures to the side of the table, a short but sharp pencil. Beside it lies a little cartoon eraser, once in the shape of Cosmo, but now half of him is ‘eaten’.

“Oh. I’ll do it. Sounds fun.” Glisten said. Better than having to sit in there doing nothing, anyway. He takes the pencil as Brightney slides the two pieces of paper to his end. 

Brightney’s Twisted Questionnaire 

Name: Glisten

Why did you come to this floor?

To go up to the lobby by the elevator

“How did you know I was going up?” Glisten asks, spinning the pencil in his hand.

“I can hear the elevator moving up sometimes. It’s very noisy compared to the library.”

“Ah.”

…

“What did the others say?” Glisten asks.

“Others?” 

“The others who answered this question.”

“Nobody has filled this in before. You’re the first one,” Brightney answers, not looking up from sticking the spine onto the book. “I guess I used to think Twisteds could travel between floors. We can’t. Well, some can now , but they’re all psychotic and annoying.”

“Who are they ?”

“Rodger and his gang.”

Glisten’s heart skips a beat. A cold sweat trickles down his back.

“He kept asking me to help him a while back. I would have, if he clearly hadn’t gone insane. Plus, I wanted to stay here with Connie.”

Connie’s eyes widen within the machine.

…

“You’ve gone silent,” Brightney looks up. “Are you alright?”

“...Yeah.” Definitely not.

“You met him?”

Glisten stops his train of thought. “I-I just…I’m glad you said no.”

“Don’t worry about me. I’ve thought about it a long time. If he ever comes back to recruit me again, I know how to refuse him. Even if he threatens me.”

“O-Okay…”

Connie unpossesses the machine. She floats beside Glisten as she watches him continue to fill it in.

…These questions are really personal. A bit of pressure radiates from behind his shoulders.

“Hey Connie…Could you not look? Sorry.”

Connie seems to understand, and she floats to Brightney’s side.
Her left hand reaches to touch her, but then she stops.

How do you feel about becoming a Twisted? Any changes physically/mentally from being a Toon?

Not fully Twisted, so may be less changed. My face, eye and hip hurts sometimes when I’m bored. Mentally not much of a change, but I stopped trying so hard. There’s not really a point to try anymore

What do you do now to pass the time?

Going up to the lobby. When I’m in the elevator I just daydream.

What was your favourite book?

I didn’t read much so I don’t have one, but I like dramas and mystery books

How do you feel about Gardenview?

I miss the times before we closed down. I liked the children. 

How do you feel about Dandy?

Hypocrite

Do you have any regrets?

trying too hard

Were you happy?

I think so, more than not

Are you happy?

I don’t know

If you could leave Gardenview (as a Toon) now, would you? If yes, what would you do?

I don’t know but I think if I did I want to go on stage again

What do you think our purpose is?

To educate children

Thank you!

“Hey um, I think that’s it.” Glisten hands the sheet back to Brightney.

“Thanks Glisten. I really appreciate it.” 

She quickly skims the answers.

“Umm…I think I worded the last question wrong, hold on. Could I get that pencil?”

She adds a word to the last question of the questionnaire.

What do you think our purpose is ? *now ?

To educate children

Thank you!

“Our purpose…now? Like, as a Twisted?”

“Yeah.”

Glisten erases his former answer.

He thinks for a while. Purpose. Is there really a purpose now? Leaving it blank doesn’t seem to be the right answer though. No true purpose…That can’t be right.

No, there has to be some sort of reason.

Brightney places a heavy box over the book, putting force onto it to help bind the new spine. Now, she waits expectantly, looking at Glisten’s hand.

After a long, long while, Glisten finally gets the courage to write down his answer.

What do you think our purpose is ? * now ?

To find said purpose

Thank you!

“To…” Brightney almost reads it out, but stops herself.

Glisten passes the paper to her. She doesn’t return it this time.

She looks disappointed.

“…Interesting answer, Glisten. Thanks.”

“Huh? Is that…wrong? What is your answer?” Glisten asks, expecting a better answer than whatever he wrote.

“My answer?”

“M-My answer–”

“...oh. Haha…”

“No wonder I feel so…cold.”

The lights flicker again. This time, the flickering comes along with a frighteningly loud electric sound, like something’s horribly wrong in the lighting.

Connie’s eyes start to swirl with panic again. This time, from concern not for herself.

“Brightney? Is everything okay?”

“I think…I wanted a better answer than this. This is just a way of saying ‘there is no purpose’.
I’ve been trying to avoid it.
Trying to think up any reason to…stay here.
Glisten, for you, I’m sure there is a purpose. If not, you wouldn’t be trying to go back up.
But for me?

I think…
I died a long time ago.”

The lights fully shut down.

A crash bangs onto the table, then the ground. The lampshade fully collapses onto the floor. 

Only five dots of green provide their illumination. Not even Brightney’s lightbulb, as it’d blown out with a shatter and a smash.
Small curved glass litters around Glisten.

“BRIGHTNEY!”

Glisten gets up and shakes a limp Brightney. Her eyes are open, but there is no lifelight in them, glossed over like a doll. A huge chunk of her lampshade has cracked apart.

“Brightney! Hey, w-wake up! I’m sure we could find a way! Y-You could join me! I can learn how to teleport multiple people, maybe you can help me go up!
…I don’t know how you’re feeling but this doesn’t have to be the end! Sure, you’ve fulfilled your purpose in the library, but maybe you can find it somewhere else! Let’s just…find it together!”

Glisten arms start shaking as the lampshade starts to feel colder.

“Brightney, can you hear me? I’m here for…”

He realises he’s not talking to her through his mind anymore. He’s just thinking thoughts now.

“BRIGHTNEY!” He yells, physically. His voice echoes through the dark, dusty, abandoned library. No. No. NO. Don't leave. 

Ugh...no. Stop...crying.

...

Through the darkness, Connie’s light never fades. It’s light blue. Cold, but never fading.

Her tears dripping onto the floor have amplified, forming wet puddles around glass shards.

She clenches her hands into fists. She squeezes her eyes. She stirs up courage even the past her wouldn’t have been able to bring up.
But she needs to say something now.
Before not even a slither of hope remains for Brightney to hear it.

Connie looks at Glisten. He nods. “Go on.”

She floats her head down to Brightney’s. She whispers something only she can hear.

“Brightney…I love you. Please don’t go.”

The lights overhead flicker harshly. 

Brightney jerks up with a burst. The lights turn back on.

“WHAT DID YOU SAY?!” Brightney clearly hasn’t yelled in years. She gasps at her own voice.

“GAH! Brightney! You’re okay!” Glisten cheers.

Connie’s cheeks flush.

“...Oh, yeah. I thought you would probably say something like that.” Glisten adds, smugly.

“GLISTEN?!”

“I think Gigi accidentally told me about it once. Well, actually not once…probably many times.” 

Connie blushes harder, a dash of vibrant colour added to the normally icy blue spirit. Glisten’s surroundings get warmer. Brightney’s red lampshade gets even redder.

“...I thought you stayed with me so you could possess machines without anyone bothering you…”

Connie says something again, this time for the both of them to hear.
“Possessing machines is my purpose. Being with you is my happiness.”

“Connie…thank you.” After a very, very long time, Brightney finally smiles after years of numbness.

She brings her in for a hug.

Connie, shocked, doesn’t react. She, eventually, reciprocates.

Glisten smiles, then looks at the romance book.
…Lesbians.

“Ah. Fantasizing. No wonder. Haha!”

The last machine’s light turns red. Connie helps push the ichor down the funnel, flowing into the elevator.

“I thank you, Glisten. You reminded me…one of the joys of living is support and love.”

Connie unpossessed the machine, and grins with tears on her waterline.

"What-What about your lightbulb?"

"It's alright. If the lights ever go out again...I'll still have Connie."

“...Do you still want to come?” Glisten asks. “Again, I might need to train for a while…”

“No. There’s no need. I think…I need to spend some quality time with my new girlfriend over here, hehe.”

Glisten chuckles. “Well, have fun you two. I’m glad. I really am.”

…

Well, they got their happy ending. Or beginning.

Clunk. Clunk. Clunk.
And we’re on the next floor.

If things were…nicer,

if fate was nicer,

maybe he could have done the same to his crush.

But of course, things had to be this way.

If he’s just trying to go up, does that really mean he has a purpose?

It’s just something to do.

…

Yeah.

That is a purpose. A goal to strive towards.

What happens after the purpose is finished?

…Don’t think about that yet.

I want water.

Chapter Text

The world falls silent. 

Rubble surrounds the three Twisteds, the remnants of the kitchen countertop.

Sprout moves further and further away from the two.

Cosmo, having finished patching himself up, lies on the ground, completely drained. He closes his eyes and breathes heavily.

With one last look at what he’d done, Sprout walks away.

Glisten walks closer to Cosmo.

“…Are you alright?”

“…

No.”

As Cosmo answers, his hand clenched into a fist. It seems like even talking right now hurts. 

Glisten sits down next to Cosmo.

Heavy footsteps stop in the other room.

“…You want some chocolate?” 

He brings out a box of chocolate. He takes out a bar. 

Cosmo’s eye opens just slightly. His eye lights up. 

Glisten unravels the packaging and breaks off a good chunk.

”You want me to…?”

Before Glisten finishes his sentence, Cosmo, with a grunt of effort, sits up. Hunched over, his right hand covers the bandaged area, still trying to overcome the pain.

Cosmo’s hand opens.

Glisten puts the chocolate chunk into his palm.

He pops it in his mouth.

A soft smile creeps over Cosmo’s face. 

He looks at the remaining bar of chocolate. Glisten gives it to him. Cosmo happily chows it down, and before long, only a wrapper remains crumpled in his fingers.

Finally, he breathes a sigh of relief.

The pain has passed, or at least dulled down.

“Thanks Glisten,” Cosmo murmurs.

“No problem. Glad I could help.”

“…

It’s been a while since I could…do that.”

“Do what? Eat chocolate?”

“Yeah, that too, haha,” Cosmo snickers.

“…”

“I think…I need to talk things out with him.”

“…You probably do.”

“Could you check up on him for me?

I don’t really want to move right now, and I’m not sure what to say anymore.”

“Yeah. Okay.

I’ll try my best.”

Glisten walks in the direction Sprout went.

Cosmo lies back down as he closes his eyes once more.

Glisten enters room after room, trying to find him.

“Sprout?”

A shadowed figure sits, legs hanging inside a large hole tore open within the floor, far away from where Cosmo is. Glisten sees the tuffs of broken leaves on his head, ichor staining the tips of his hair and his scarf.

“Why are you here?” Sprout answers, all emotion numbed from his voice.

“Cos-” …That’s probably not a good idea.

“I wanted to check in on you.”

“I don’t need ‘checking in on’. Leave me alone.”

Glisten walks over.

The hole is large enough for any Toon to pass through, including himself. Out of curiosity, he looks inside the hole: he sees the top of many a bookshelf. This leads to Brightney and Connie’s library.

…

Did he make this hole?

Is he trying to jump in?

“Cosmo’s feeling better now.”

“Okay. That’s good to hear. That’s really nice.” Sprout continues to stare inside the opening.

“…

You just tried to help. You’re trying your best, Sprout. And I know Cosmo appreciates that.”

“But I hurt him.”

“Do you know what I had to go through? He became Twisted before I did. Everyday, I blamed myself for it.

And I spent YEARS trying to find him. As a Toon. As a Twisted. I broke through ceilings to find him.”

As the word ‘ceilings’ was said, a tendril bursts out of the ground next to Glisten. He jumps away on instinct.

Floorboards splinter into a flower-like shape next to the tentacle. 

It shifts back down into the inky darkness, but the puddle remains, and the wood remains broken and bent.

Glisten knows that with a little more power and a little less restraint, Sprout could very much tear him wide open and drop his corpse in Brightney’s library.

But that’s not what he wants for anyone he cares for.

“When I finally did, I knew I could never stand for anything else to hurt him again.”

“I have a heightened sense of the ichor flowing within me. Sometimes, when I really focus, I can sense Cosmo’s too.

Recently, I can feel something trying to control the ichor.

Cosmo doesn’t want me to think about it. 

I think he’s tired of me.

I thought, maybe, baking something like we once did would maybe make Cosmo like me again. Of course, the only time I put my guard down, just for a while, SOMETHING HAPPENS.

Is this my fault?”

Sprout slides himself closer to the hole. 

“…None of this is our fault.

We never deserved any of this.

I understand trying to protect Cosmo, but carrying the burden of protecting him all the time only makes both of you…tired.”

Sprout’s fingers touch the rim of the hole.

“I can’t…I really can’t live knowing I failed him.”

“You didn’t. You saved him from that Twisted, no? It was just…you were scared.”

…

“I’m sure Cosmo’s scared too. And I know he cares about you as much as you do for him. But you won’t know that if you never talk to him again.”

“…Are you sure he’s okay?”

“He’s feeling better, yes.”

“Tell him I’m sorry.

I really am.”

Glisten goes back to Cosmo and tells him what Sprout said.

He leaves the box of chocolates. 

It’s probably best to let them sort things out themselves.

Their relationship might take a lot of talking to smooth out.

But if any friendship can withstand the hardest of times, it’s Sprout and Cosmo’s.

The elevator closes.

“Hey, mirror boy.”

Glisten sees his good old buddy old pal old buddy old friend Dandy.

…Great.

Dandy is sitting smugly, his head resting on top of the counter of his old shop.

Glisten feels his social battery crash down all at once. 

Everyone is trying to mold him into some sort of mediator. He’s starting to get sick of providing  therapy and counseling for people.

Of course, he can’t really blame them.

But he can definitely blame the one in front of him right now.

“…”

Oh, what is a therapist that doesn’t take his own advice?

Talk things out.

“You hurt so many Toons.

You know that, right?”

Dandy’s eyes immediately glow red.

“What are you talking about.”

“I don’t think you realize just how much the others out there are still trying to form meaningful relationships.”

“The Twisteds? Pffft.”

“Our FRIENDS, Dandy.”

“…And why is that my problem?”

“I’m sorry?! NOT YOUR PROBLEM?!

NONE OF THIS WOULD’VE HAPPENED IF IT WASN’T BECAUSE OF YOU!

…

Everyone’s so tired of everything, at this point.

And while they’re all trying to make things work for themselves, YOU’RE SITTING HERE, NOT EVEN TRYING TO SAY ANYTHING WORTHWHILE TO ME. Your ONLY COMPANY.

Do you want me to leave you alone?!”

“Ugh, you…!”

Dandy racks his head for something to say.

Anything to rebut that outrageous accusation of his.

And yet, he finds nothing.

“You think I wanted this?”

Glisten slumps down, leaning against the far corner of the elevator. 

What a dysfunctional mess of a place.

where am i 

my head hurts so much

i didn’t want to hurt my friends

is anyone here?

it’s so cold

anyone

please