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There was a suspicious lack of requests to create alliances. There had been for a while now.
Which, at first Book assumed it was probably because Pencil was laying low, waiting for everything to blow over. Sure, she’d seen Pencil for a few challenges, but then suddenly Pencil was just… gone.
No, she did not like Pencil. She hated Pencil. Yet she still was a bit uneasy with the sudden lack of her.
Asking around yielded no results; sometimes she was asked why she cared, and… she didn’t know. Even if she did find Pencil, she still would not want to talk to her. But she didn’t like that Pencil had disappeared. But she didn’t like Pencil. But she didn’t like her vanishing. It made her head hurt whenever she tried to think about this and got caught in that kind of feedback loop, so it was easier to just not think about it, to answer with “I don’t know” when asked why she’s concerned about Pencil’s whereabouts.
She had considered the possibility that Pencil might have died and nobody recovered her, and that’s what brought her to now, walking to the recovery centre, to recover… Pencil. If she was dead, that was. Otherwise… she didn’t know what she’d do if it didn’t work. Ask Two to see if they could find Pencil for her…?
There was also the problem of having to deal with Pencil if she recovered her. Book did not want Pencil taking this as some kind of indication they were on good terms again, or that she wanted anything to do with her or her alliances.
When she got to the recovery centre she hesitated on entering Pencil’s name—there were endless possibilities of what could happen, and that small fact paralysed her; she didn’t even have any reason to suspect anything bad, it was just the ambiguity and possibility. The unknown.
If anything, Pencil was the equivalent of that cat in a box with the radioactive flask. Book was the observer; she did not know if Pencil was alive, and had simply run off to wherever, abandoned the competition entirely, or if she had been dead the entire time she was missing.
If she opened the box, and Pencil was alive, she wouldn’t have to deal with her immediately, but she would have to deal with not knowing where she was; she could be anywhere at this point. If she opened the box, and Pencil was dead, well… unlike the theoretical cat, this would instead just mean she had to tolerate Pencil for the time being.
It didn’t help she still had no real reason behind why she wanted to see if Pencil was okay, other than some gut feeling. Pencil was… insufferable, with the alliance thing, to put it very mildly. She didn’t need Pencil taking Book recovering her as a sign that Book wanted anything to do with her. This was… this was a one time thing.
“I can’t keep stalling myself…” Book muttered. All these hypotheticals were meaningless so long as she didn’t cross this bridge, and see what was on the other side.
P-E-N.
Pen. Not Pencil, but still part of her name, and also the name of another contestant.
C.
Two more letters. Two more, then she could get this over with.
I-L.
She had the key to open the box right in front of her. All she had to do was open it, see what was inside.
She pressed the button on the recovery centre, and…
Nothing came out.
Oh. So she wasn’t dead, then. She was somewhat relieved, but that also meant she had to go… find Pencil… great.
She glanced at the screen and noticed it… it said ERROR.
“What does that mean?”
Was… that just what it said when someone was alive and you tried to recover them?
She remembered when Tree was still alive and his teammates tried to recover him. The centre just dispensed nothing, it didn’t say ERROR.
So why did it…?
Well, she was a recovery centre manual book, too, so maybe she could just reference herself and see what the problem was!
“ERROR” MESSAGE WHEN ATTEMPTING RECOVERY
THIS CAN HAPPEN WHEN YOU TYPE IN THE NAME OF AN INDIVIDUAL THAT DOES NOT EXIST.
What?
That… couldn’t be right. Why… what… there had to be another reason for this. She tried to search through herself for anything at all that could explain this.
Error messages, error messages… they all seemed to be caused exclusively by attempting to recover someone who “didn’t exist.” But… that didn’t make sense, Pencil still very much existed. If her existence was erased, surely everyone else’s memory of her would also be gone, or something like that. Did she… did she make a typo somewhere??
P-E-N-C-I-L.
Go.
ERROR.
“What do you mean error?!”
P-E-N-C-I-L.
Go. Go. Go.
ERROR.
Book slumped against the recovery centre. Was Pencil just… dead forever? What happened to her? Was it a consequence of her almost destroying the timeline? It just didn’t make sense. It didn’t make any sense.
She had to ask Two about this, or… or someone. Anyone who would know something.
She stumbled over to the hotel numbly. The same thought repeated in her head, that this didn’t make sense. This didn’t make sense. It didn’t, it really didn’t.
X was hanging around outside and waved at her when she passed by, but she didn’t acknowledge them. She was still trying to process what was happening.
“Hiii, Book!”
Okay, maybe ignoring him was being rude for no reason. She looked up at him and waved back.
“Uh, hey there…”
She tried to smile, but her expression dropped again after she got that pitiful greeting out.
Her gaze drifted and she noticed a pencil X was holding. She shivered. She didn’t need to be reminded any more about… that.
Maybe she stared for too long, because X hid it suddenly.
“Oh.” Book said. That was all she could really say, she wasn’t sure what else to say. She looked away, “I… uh… sorry.”
“It’s okay!” X chirped, and brought out the pencil again, “this is just my… uh… well it’s Pencil! Or was… I just wanted to make her happy.”
She flinched but figured she probably missed an “a” between those two words. Actually, was she even listening? She kind of zoned out and her focus was entirely on the pencil. What did they even say?
“H…uh? I wasn’t listening, sorry, what’d you say?”
“This pencil was Pencil!”
It was what.
“It… what? That… that pencil you’re holding… that was… that was Pencil?”
Was. Death was always such a nonissue when you could simply be recovered if you died. The idea of dying permanently never even crossed anyone’s mind.
“Pretty much!”
Why was he so cheerful about this? Why was he… why didn’t X care about what they’d done? Did they even comprehend what they did to Pencil?
Book took a deep breath.
“X… why did you do that?”
Was it also true that Pencil said that she would be happier like this? Why would she say that?
“Uhh, she wanted me to do this.”
Book stared at the pencil—Pencil? Or what was left of her. Pencil, the pencil. She hated Pencil, why was she so upset?
“I…” she took a step back, “I’m sorry, I need a moment.”
She walked back a few more steps, then took off, and X held onto the pencil, Pencil, as he did before, as he always would.
Book just needed to get away from this. She needed time to think. She needed an escape.
She hated Pencil. She hated Pencil so much. Pencil was gone, shouldn’t that make her happy?
It didn’t. It didn’t bring her any kind of joy.
She felt a horrible kind of grief welling up inside of her, over Pencil. Over Pencil.
Pencil. Pencil. Pencil.
She wouldn’t have to deal with being accosted and asked to form an alliance, she wouldn’t have to deal with Pencil continuously trying to talk to her.
So why was she upset?