Experiment 21

32: Out there

"13/5/xx
To those who are concerned,
Which I would assume is all of you. You wouldn't be reading this letter otherwise. Either that, or my brain has finally given in and made me send this to the wrong address. If so, please do not read this letter any further. It does not concern you, and you have no reason to be concerned. Thank you very much.

Now, for those of you who are supposed to be reading this. For once, I regret to inform you of another passing. Subject 2, who was formerly known to all of you as Paintbrush. I can't say that their death was painless, nor can I say it was quick. They all had to watch. I had to watch. I always watch. I'm quite sure that they died of shock rather than anything else. How else doesn't matter. They're dead and that's all you need to know.

You should know my orders by now. There's no reason to revive them, but if you do there's not much I can do about it. I've given up trying to control the outside world. I'm perfectly in control here.

Sincerely, TMK"

I stared down at the letter in disgust as I finished reading. The shocked faces around me only seemed to mirror my internalized horror and rage. Enough was enough, especially when you were faced with that. No one wants to read these stupid letters, but it feels like we get sent one almost every three months. There's no reason for it. We've figured out who she is at this point, she knows who we are, it's stupid. Especially how she still tries to be dignified in her writing. The high and mighty crap got tiring very quickly.

No one said anything for awhile. How could you? You thought you were used to it and then suddenly there's another letter. It's.. horrifying. God I can't imagine how the others are doing down there.. who knows if more are dead and she's just not telling us..? My thoughts were interrupted by Mic hitting herself in the face with one of the clipboards.

"God.. god I'm so stupid! I saw her! I saw her and didn't do a thing! I could've stopped this and I didn't!"
"...Mic please."
"She's not wrong."

My gaze quickly snapped over to Nickel, who had chimed after Suitcase's pleading attempt to try and make her feel better. As far as I knew, it was just us, the Grand Slams, and Taco whenever she felt like showing up. Asking another Bright Light to join us had become extremely difficult to do after Apple became a midnight snack. Nickel's gaze was unapologetic as he sat on top of Baseball, rolling his eyes at Suitcase's remark.

"She had a chance and blew it. She deserves to feel stupid over being stupid."
"We didn't know it was her! We thought it was Taco!"
"And? She's been Buddy Buddy with her for months! She had a cut on our lead and didn't say anything!"
"It's not like she was the only one!"

I heard an agitated interjection begin to start from across the table, before the room remained to tense silence. I'd.. missed a lot, but apparently Knife had known about the whole Mic-Taco alliance for awhile. Which threw off the theory of Taco being behind the whole thing because of her history with everyone else. I wouldn't be against suspecting her, but obviously we knew our culprit now. Tent searching comes in handy when people go missing. We all just sat and stared at the table before Baseball swallowed.

"..so what are we gonna do?"
"What can we do? We tried sending somebody down there and they died! She came up here, and people died anyways! The only answer so far is to just leave them down there to die!"
"Dont you dare fucking suggest that."

I growled, narrowing my gaze at the rooms loudmouth. Nickel only met my gaze with a challenging glare, raising an eyebrow at my response.

"What, you got a better idea?"
"How would you feel if you were stuck down there? For as long as we were? Thinking that help was going to come? Hope is the absolute worst thing you could have. Because then you're crushed again, and again, and again as you watch the life fade from your friends eyes. It happens long before they really die. Having to sit in complete isolation? You really want to leave them down there?"