; streaming among us tonight with some frienddddsss :) also sorry for being gone for so long oops lol

are we just not supposed to ask where she's been wtf

yes actually lol

are you playing with pewds?????

will you marry me

only if its at the medbay scan ;)

of course, anything for my baby

i cant believe you called me your friend omg goals

you're my BEST friend

she got uglier

Madison sat in front of her desktop, camera light blinking from the top of her computer. She fiddled with her rings, staring at herself in the camera image on her screen. She had Among Us open, all she needed to click was "go live."

Although she didn't want to address it, she knew everyone was going to be asking where she had been for the last six months. Deep down, she owed nothing to anyone but she couldn't help but feel bad for leaving everyone in the dark.

If she waited any longer, she would be late, so she sucked it up and clicked the button. Immediately, she had thousands of viewers. Thankfully, the chat hadn't loaded as she spoke into her microphone.

"Heyyyy. I hope everyone is doing well. Tonight I'm playing Among Us, with... uh, people! Honestly, I can't remember who's all playing so I guess we'll find out together... I think I'm going to put my name as "sin" for Madison, ya know," She laughed at her own joke then focused on her computer screen, typing in the game code. The chat began to load messages, scrolling quickly down her screen. "I'm going to close the chat for now, guys, I just need a moment to settle down." She entered the room, hearing everyone speak at once. She kept herself muted as she introduced her viewers to everyone streaming with her. "Okay guys, so looks like we have Rae, Poki, Toast, Sykunno, Lily, Leslie, Yvonne, Peter, and Corpse!... Oh, and me!"

She unmuted the discord call, hearing many peoples voices on top of each other's. She hesitated to speak, and for a second, she regretted agreeing to this at all. She wasn't the most confident in social situations, but she tried to fake her way through it most of the time.

"Hello, Madison!" Rae began, resulting in a stream of "hello's" from everyone in the call. She knew most of them personally from being friends with Rae prior to the stream. "Madison, I don't think you and Corpse have met. Corpse, Madison. Madison, Corpse."

"Hello Madison."

His voice sent shivers down her spine, but she didn't comment on it. "Hi Corpse. Nice to meet you."

The call was incredibly silent. "You're not going to say anything about the voice?" Toast started. Immediately, everyone followed, encouraging her to compliment his voice. She felt like she was being made of, and wanted to cry quickly, but remembered her stream was live and everyone could see her.

Madison was incredibly sensitive to this sort of situation. She knew they weren't intentionally singling her out, but she was new and now she was being made a fool of. She tried to suck it up, for her audience and her friends.

She plastered on a fake smile, "Nice voice, Corpse!" She tried to sound normal, but ended up sounding incredibly sarcastic. Everyone kept laughing, trying to keep this situation as casual as possible, but all she wanted to do was play the damn game and get this over with.

"If you have a problem with it, that sucks for you," Corpse barked back, laughing quietly. She couldn't tell if he was mad at her, because his voice was loud as it is. She flinched back at the sound of it in her ears, and assumed he was angry with her. Everyone kept laughing at her, leaving her with nothing to say. Was this the way they joked? Or was he offended?

"I-I..."

The countdown started at the bottom of her screen, and everyone stopped talking. She saw "IMPOSTER" flash across her screen, her small pink character standing next to Corpse.

Madison had watched some of her friends streams when they played the game, but had never played it herself. She knew relative locations but couldn't pin point exactly where she was and where her tasks were, yet somehow she was supposed to kill people? Not just people, her friends that were practically veterans at this game?!

She took a deep breath. "Okay, so we're imposters with Corpse, we will be fine." She talked to her chat while walking around, trying to get her bearings of where she was. She unintentionally started to follow Corpse, just wanting to see what she was supposed to do. He ran around the map, her following behind closely. "I don't know what I'm doing , guys. When do I kill?"

"I'm going to turn my chat back on, so I can see what you guys say, you're probably smarter than me when it comes to this game. Mods, please do your best." She watched as her screen filled with messages. Most of them were talking about Corpse and her absence. Some of them actually tried to help her with the game. "Okay, so don't follow him." She ran the opposite direction of Corpse, coming out of electrical. "A lot of you say it's good to kill in the Cafeteria, so I'll go there."

Luckily, she found Leslie doing a task in the top right of Cafeteria. She killed her and quickly ran to the vent in the bottom right, hopping in right as the body was reported.

"Okay, so I found the body in Cafeteria." Poki declared. Madison saw that Corpse had killed two people, leaving seven people left in the game. She wondered where the bodies were since they weren't reported.

"I saw Madison go up through storage into the Cafeteria," Corpse said. Madison immediately furrowed her eyebrows, ready to defend herself. "But that was awhile ago, and if you're saying this body is new then I don't think she did it."

She let out a huff, "Thank you, Corpse."

Everyone said their locations, and after no one was blatantly suspicious, the group skipped.

"I'm glad I got imposter with Corpse because he's really good, and I'm horrible." She laughed. Her chat started spamming "simp." "I'm not a simp! I just said I'm glad he's an imposter too. You guys are ridiculous.... He doesn't even like me all that much, based on what happened earlier," she whispered.

She tried to divert attention, as she started to see her chat fill with hate because she said something about Corpse. "I like streaming. I feel like I can actually talk to you guys..."

Another body was reported. After her kills, and Corpse's, there were only five people left in the game. "Okay, so this body is in Admin, and I'm sus of Corpse," Toast announced.

"Why?" She asked. She hadn't spoken a lot in the meetings, just wanting to lay low, but she knew if she could get someone voted off right now, she would win and maybe Corpse wouldn't be upset with her anymore.

Corpse defended himself flawlessly, playing it off like Toast had self reported and was trying to have a big brain play for his next video. His defense encouraged Rae and Sykkuno to vote Toast out. The "Victory" screen showed up as Toast flew into space.

—

Laying in bed that night, Madison was an anxious mess. All her twitter notifications were about how much Corpse Husband hated her.

After doing some research, and listening to some of his music, she understood why he had such a strong and determined fanbase. He had been through a lot, especially in the last two years, and even more so in the last six months. Madison felt selfish to think that he had even given a care about her. Did he even remember what he said? Was it actually worth it to even reach out? He probably didn't care.

No matter how much Madison convinced herself that Corpse was perfectly fine without her apology, all she could focus on was how she needed to send a message to him, a simple "I'm sorry." Now that the idea had come into her head, it wouldn't leave, and she knew that.

She tried to do all of the things her therapist had recommended. She cleaned, and journaled, and planned youtube videos for the next two weeks, yet her anxiety wasn't soothing itself.

"I'll ask Rae what to do," she mumbled to herself. She knew Rae would be honest with her. They had only gotten off the stream about 2 hours ago, and she hoped Rae would be awake.

After the fourth ring, Rae answered. "Hey!" Madison used her Youtube voice with all of her friends. It was easier that way; for them to not see her struggles.

"Hey Maddie, what's up? Is everything okay?"

"Yeah! Um, quick question though..."

"Yeah, go ahead," Rae's voice was enough to soothe Madison.

They had been friends for years, only staying to their own sides of the internet since Madison had started but still talking like sisters. Madison focused mostly on lifestyle videos when she started, the gaming had just recently become a hobby and Rae was nice enough to let her into her own friend group so she would be comfortable. Over Madison's break, she spent most of it with Rae, Imane, and Janet at their house, trying her best to surround herself with good people as a distraction from her own downfall.

"Do you, um, .... you don't think Corpse is upset, right? About the whole voice thing? I just didn't want to make it a big deal, and then everyone started making fun of me-"

"Oh, no! I don't think anyone was trying to make fun of you, I think everyone is just used to girls responding immediately to Corpse's voice for the meme... I'm sorry it made you upset."

"It didn't, though, I just... I didn't word it right and my tone was off. I think I accidentally might have hurt his feelings and I don't know if I should, like, message him..."

It was silent on the other line for a few seconds. "Maddie, if you think it would help you to reach out to him, you should do it for yourself."

Madison sighed. Rae could see right through her, no matter what. "Okay, Rae. I'm sorry for bothering you."

"You never bother me. I love you!"

"Love you too."

Madison sat on her phone for awhile, trying to work herself up to actually typing a message. She followed Corpse on Instagram first, seeing that it said "follow back." She didn't even know he followed her, and felt a little better knowing that.

hey corpse, i just wanted to let you know that

i'm really sorry if i offended you when we

were talking about your voice in the stream ...

i just didn't want to step on any toes or bring

attention to anything. i'm sorry.

message read