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Pencil was… well aware how disliked she must be right now. Not just “must be,” how much she was hated. For almost destroying everything. Maybe they had a point in hating her for that. Though, the more she thought on it, while in the moment it felt right, was it really worth the dirty looks she was given now every time she walked by someone?
She’d absolutely ruined her relationships with… everyone. Lovely.
Book and Ice Cube definitely wouldn’t want to talk to her, not even be near her anymore. Pencil found that everything was better whenever she wasn’t present. So, bar challenges, she did her best at avoiding the others. It wasn’t like anyone cared, nobody thought of her and missed her, if anything they were glad she wasn’t around.
Pencil did get an unexpected visitor one time, while she was sulking by herself. It was X, who she couldn’t for the life of her figure out why they wanted to be around her.
The first time, she was snarky.
“You…why are you here? Don’t you know I’m the one who almost killed everyone? Almost destroyed everything?”
“Um, I don’t know, I just, uh, wanted to sit somewhere quiet, and you’re always alone, so I…I hoped you wouldn’t mind.”
She didn’t have anything to say. She didn’t want to admit how lonely she was, either, that she did enjoy their presence. Anyone was something, something was enough for her right now. Even though X wasn’t talkative, most likely because she wasn’t, so he didn’t want to annoy her or anything like that, she still enjoyed this small amount of company.
Her usual company would have been Match. Pencil missed Match. But would Match still want to be with her if she was here to see what Pencil had done? Maybe they were better off separated; at least then Match wouldn’t have to know. For now, at least.
X joined her again, and she didn’t comment. It was peaceful just being alone (well, alone, if you ignored X), far, far away from the others. Which, they were probably really enjoying themselves right now. The world without her was just a better one, wasn’t it?
If… if she, Pencil herself, was the problem, maybe the only way to rectify everything wasn’t in apologies or trying to mend her relationships. Maybe it was just solving the problem. Removing the problem.
But, another problem was recovery. Sure, it was probably going to be another Leafy situation—who would want to recover someone like her? But there was still a chance she could be recovered by anyone, and that made death a band-aid solution. What other choice did she have, then?
She just… exhaled. She was stuck, she honestly didn’t want to just keep going with this burden of her own actions, but if she died she could just be recovered, and if she just ran off—recovery was one thing, but you can’t recover someone who’s still alive—Two could probably find her easily. Lose-lose situation, nobody would want to hear her out on an apology, she couldn’t even give them the courtesy of never having to deal with her again.
Really, all she “had” in terms of people who could tolerate her was X, so it seemed. If he didn’t like her, it didn’t make sense for him to go out of his way to sit with her.
With nothing else to lose, she decided to strike up some kind of conversation with X, and hope that they wouldn’t immediately leave her. She missed talking, talking with Match, talking with anyone, but now nobody wanted to talk to her, not even during challenges. She felt so, so out of place in a competition she was voted into joining.
“So, uh… have… you ever wanted to disappear, X?”
X shifted around, debated on a response, then said, “I… don’t think so?”
“Ah,” Pencil hummed, “I do. I wish I could just… not even die, because if I died I could be recovered, but… be erased entirely, I guess.”
“Why…would you want that?” They sounded genuinely concerned, something she found a bit funny—who cared about her? The idea someone could still look at her and pity her was unthinkable.
“Haven’t you… didn’t you see what happened? You were there, weren’t you? I… I was more focused on winning, the… the universe itself was almost… destroyed. All because of me. My selfishness. Now, nobody likes me, and I doubt anyone would care if I was gone,” her voice lowered to a whisper as she continued, “maybe it would be better that way.”
“Oh…”
It wasn’t much of a response, but she was lucky to have anyone to talk to, so she didn’t care what they said, as long as they would listen.
X looked more like he was trying to decide if he wanted to say something or not. Pencil didn’t rush him; again, having anyone was a blessing.
“Would it… make you happier if you were gone?”
“Honestly?” Pencil’s expression was unreadable, “I think it’d be better than me being here.”
“So you… want to be gone, then.”
“Yes?” She didn’t really understand where X was going with this.
X played with their hands idly, continuing, “I can… if it would make you feel better, I could help you with that.”
“Huh?”
All she could manage was a noise of confusion. Were they going to kill her? She supposed she wouldn’t mind, even a thousand deaths were not even close to what she deserved, anyway.
“Well, I can’t recover people, but…the one time I tried, I kind of… did the opposite.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, I still don’t know what you mean.”
“Uh… it’s what you wanted! Getting… or, uh, going away and not coming back.”
“So you’re basically saying you can permanently kill me.”
“I…yeah,” X deflated.
Pencil thought on this offer, while X tried to excuse themselves; “I’m not really supposed to do this, and I kind of only found out by, uh, accident, but… if it would make you and everyone else happier, I think I could do it! I don’t… like seeing people upset.”
Pencil made her decision and stood up.
“You can kill me,” she said—and it still felt a bit weird to say, not the first time she’d willingly be killed, but it would be her last, “but… what’s going to happen to me?”
She thought of Four’s lasers, and… the… EXIT, oh, she didn’t want to be trapped in some dark room forever if she died. She grabbed X suddenly, desperately, “I won’t go back to the EXIT or anything like that, right? Right?”
“No,” and this one word filled her with so much relief, but she still had slight apprehension at what might come next, “I… well, I don’t know what’s going to happen to your, uh… conscious…ness, I kind of… assumed it goes away?”
The idea of ceasing to exist was slightly terrifying, a primal fear at the back of her mind, but the idea of continuing to exist in this current state wasn’t any more appealing.
“Your… body, though, it’ll just, uhhh… well. You’re a pencil, so… you’d turn into… a pencil. A… normal-sized one.”
Honestly, not that bad. Maybe losing consciousness would be like going to sleep, and this would be a good rest, a long, hopefully indefinite rest.
“That’s fine, just do it.”
X stepped back. They looked a bit uneasy, but…
“I’m, uh… gonna do it now.”
…can’t he just get it over with already? She was ready to die, there was no need to stall.
With slight hesitance, they made a motion with their hand. Pencil felt herself slipping away, almost like she was slipping out of her own body; losing all feeling, sensation, everything, and then the remaining awareness she had, her bundles of thoughts, her existence, slowly disintegrating. It was like… sand crumbling in her hands, though she no longer had hands. She was nothing anymore, but she didn’t really care. This vacuum embraced her as much as she embraced it, becoming a small piece of “nothing,” part of one larger void of “nothingness.”
This was… she didn’t mind spending an eternity this way, part of the abyss itself. She wasn’t anything, but managed to be something. Indestructible energy and matter simply converted into another form. There was no “Pencil” anymore, but surely nobody would mind that much. Whoever “Pencil” had been was no longer something of much importance to her. All she was now was all she would ever be anymore; nothing.
X was left with a pencil. Pencil was well and truly gone, reduced to a regular pencil. Orange, HB 2, with a pink eraser cupped by a grey metal, and a sharpened tip. There was no indication that this pencil had ever been anything special, and, really they didn’t understand how she could be happy like this—if she could feel anything anymore, but, as long as it made her happy, they guessed it was fine. Making people happy was… nice. It made them feel good.
X also recognised he couldn’t just leave her—it—what was left of her—the pencil, laying here. He decided to himself, he would take good care of… her, it, this pencil. Whichever she might have preferred to be.
Remembering TPOT, as he walked back to the hotel, made him realise with a start—what would Two do if one of their contestants was just… gone? He did this to make Pencil, and everyone else she mentioned, happy. How could he make Two happy if Two was upset by this? Would it be worth making Pencil upset to make them happy if they wanted her to come back? Or… could they just pick one of the others who almost joined instead?
X cradled Pencil, the pencil, in his hands. She, it, was so fragile. Vulnerable. Someone could snap it in half, destroy her if they wanted. X decided at the very least they should make sure that it, she, was safe. This was the least he could do for her, it.
There was no more Pencil anymore—if someone tried to recover her, he knew it wouldn’t work. She couldn’t be recovered by algebrarian or by recovery centre, it would yield nothing. If that upset someone, X hoped he could help, just without upsetting Pencil.
Maybe they didn’t need to say anything at all, though, judging by how Pencil had talked. If nobody wanted her around, and nobody would care if she was gone, they couldn’t think of any situation where they’d need to say anything at all. This prospect upset him a bit, that people could be so heartless as to not care about someone’s death, but the fact they’d made Pencil happy at least, in her final moments and beyond (it was still hard to tell), was enough for them for now.