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“It’s just like, weird! Ever since the competition started Pence-Pence has been so strange.”
“Well, maybe she’s worried about getting out? Dream Island does sound pretty cool…”
“So?” Match threw her hands up in exasperation. “When she gets worried she doesn’t stare off into the distance and mutter under her breath! She doesn’t talk about whoever Book and Ruby are! She doesn’t freak when I try to talk to her!”
Match looked down at the grassy floor with a sigh. Beside her, Bubble nervously fidgeted. “Well… has something else happened?”
“It’s the craziest thing! We were just talking like usual about Flower freaking out, and then Pencil just gets this look.” Match doesn’t think she could forget it if she tried. All the fear of a cornered animal on her best friend’s face, like she couldn’t possibly believe Match was in front of her right now. “She blew it off really quick, but it can’t be nothing if she’s that shaken up. Every time I talk to her she always finds something else to do!”
The sounds of Firey and Coiny loudly arguing about something drift up from a hill nearby. Needle chases down Pin to slap her for calling her needy, and Blocky has a wide grin on his face that Match has learned to recognize as a sign of an incoming prank. Everything is the same, save for Pencil. She sits alone by a tree, tearing clumps of grass out of the floor. Match can’t quite make out her face from this distance.
“Maybe she doesn’t want to be friends with me anymore..?” It’s been an insecurity she’s been harboring ever since Pencil’s behavior started. She was never mean to Match, but there was a kind of distance that hadn’t been there before. Had she done something wrong and just didn’t know about it?
“Don’t be silly, Match. You and Pencil have been friends for ages! She would never.” Bubble nudges her in the side, careful not to put too much force in case she pops. “We’ve got some time before the next contest. Why not try to talk to her now?”
“Yeah. Yeah! I’m sure this is all one big misunderstanding.” Match stands up and stretches, ready to go. “Thanks, Bubble!”
“Bye, Match!” Bubble waves goodbye as she turns and begins to walk over to Pencil.
Even with that, her fears don’t go away so easily. It’s more than Pencil being a little spacey sometimes, it’s the fact that she has this uncanny knowledge of some things. While everyone else had crowded around the Announcer with awestruck eyes, Pencil lingered in the back. She didn’t seem surprised when it turned out that the balance beam challenge only lead to the forming of teams either. The only time she did react was whenever a contestant got eliminated, tensing up and backing away as if the scooper would come alive and snatch her up next.
That wasn’t even touching on her cryptic words. Pencil would cut herself off sometimes, but Match managed to catch the words ‘four’ and ‘Book’ or ‘Ruby’. She said the last two with fondness, but the first was more hesitant, bordering on loathing. Other friends would come up in conversation, right? And if this four thing was what caused Pencil to start acting so weird, Match didn’t like it one bit. Still, Pencil would never say, even when Match poked and prodded. It felt as if overnight a giant chasm had ripped between Pencil and the rest of the world, and Match had no idea what could bridge it.
There was no way it was just worry about being voted out. As if Pencil was nearly as unlikeable as someone like Flower or Snowball! Really, Match didn’t get it. Pencil was confident and smart, practically born to be a leader and she let everyone know it. This recent behavior didn’t make sense, and it was Match’s duty as her best friend to snap her out of whatever weird funk she was in. Coming to a stop by the tree, Match gives her friendliest smile. “Like, hey, Pence-Pence!”
Pencil looks up, her hands stained green from the crushed up grass on her hands. Upon seeing the color, she scowled even further, hastily wiping it off. “Hey, Match.”
“So… what are you doing?” Match sat down next to her, beneath the shade. In the distance, Bubble gave her an encouraging thumbs-up.
“Nothing. Just thinking.” Pencil watched as a ladybug crawled up her hands. While she was nowhere near Flower levels of squeamish, Pencil wasn’t exactly the fondest of insects. “Match, I’ve got a question for you.”
“Oh yeah?” Again with the questions. Golf Ball had once had a whole phase where she liked asking people their thoughts on ethical dilemmas and recording what they picked, although given her chosen field of subjects Match was sure she gave up halfway. Pencil had started doing something similar. What would you do if you had the chance to win unlimited power? If you were stuck somewhere for ages, what would be the first thing you did when you got out? If you made a mistake… how far would you go to fix it?
“Mhm. This one’s going to be a bit long, so bear with me.” Pencil held her hand in front of her face, watching as the ladybug continued to scuttle. “Imagine that you get separated from all of your friends for a really long time. Years, unable to reach them, and while you do make some new friends while you’re trapped, you get separated when you escape.”
A deep, shuddering sigh left Pencil’s mouth. Shivers raced across Match’s body. “And you get out, and you see them again. And it’s been years, Match, years of you and the others in those endless halls, running and hiding from someone who could kill you in an instant but would rather keep you trapped. So you run to them. You have so much to say, but right now you aren’t really think of that. You just want to hold them. Make sure they’re real.”
Pencil’s eyes were hollow, staring at the horizon as if looking at something only she could see. Match wanted to inch away but Pencil’s words had her anchored to the ground, unable to tear her attention away for even a moment. A breathy laugh slips out unwillingly. “And?”
“And they hate you. They hate you with every fiber of their being. They won’t even look at you.” Pencil crushed the ladybug, leaving a mangled mess of red and black dust behind. “So fine. Who needs them? Not you. All you want is to win, because with that victory comes the assurance that you’ll never be trapped again.”
That wasn’t how Pencil talked. It was a stupidly obvious observation, but that wasn’t how Pencil talked. Not like this, with a razor’s edge poking through every word, all of these riddles and traps- was Match dreaming or something? Was this all just a really long nightmare? Her eyes…
Pencil’s voice softened. “But then you find out that you can fix things. That you can go back and make sure that you never get trapped in the first place, never make your friends hate you, never have it happen at all.”
Match felt a horrible, horrible pit open in her stomach. Just like that, the bitterness was back.
“It isn’t so easy, of course. Nothing ever fucking is for you, and you mess up more shit-“ Pencil dragged a hand over her face. Match realized that Bubble was still watching, taking a couple tentative steps towards them. “And then it isn’t just your friends who hate you, it’s everyone. Everyone wants you gone, and they wouldn’t give a second thought if you were just sent back to the E.X.I.T, hell, they’d probably be pleased to see you get punished! So your only hope is immunity. You keep going no matter what, you tear everyone apart for it and then…”
Abruptly, Pencil fell backwards, looking up at the sky. Match didn’t move, staring down at her. A low, tired laugh fell from Pencil’s mouth. “And then you get another chance to go back, and all you have to do is leave everyone behind and give up this tiny, tiny bit of power you have from killing everyone. And sure, the person you’re giving it to is an unstable freak who certainly isn’t going to use it for anything good, but who cares? They all hate me anyway.”
“I don’t understand. Pencil- Pencil, I don’t hate you, I never could-“ Match shook her head furiously, as if it could dislodge the words that had crawled down her ears. Hot tears began to spill from her eyes. What was going on? This wasn’t real, it couldn’t be real…
Pencil smiles sadly. “You will, Match. It’s okay, though. You won’t remember this in a bit. I won’t bring it up again, I just needed to get it off my chest now. I’m sorry. Book was right, huh? I really am selfish.”
With that, Pencil pushed herself off and began to walk away. What? She was going, just like that, after whatever the hell that was? “Wait, Pencil-“
“Match, are you okay?” Bubble was by her side in an instant, grabbing Match by the shoulders. “What did she say? Did she hurt you?”
“No, no, Bubble, let me go, I need to see her-“ Match tried to pull herself out of Bubble’s arms. Distantly, she was aware that she was making a scene. People stopped their games and conversations to stare, but all Match could see was Pencil slowly getting further away. “Please, I-“
I-
I-
I-
“Yeah, I know, she was so surprised.” Match bounced excitedly, beaming as she watched Pencil smile back.