It was October, the leaves had started to fall, everyone was preparing for Halloween, and Test Tube hadn't left her lab in two weeks.

Ever since Inanimate Insanity had ended, since everyone forfeited, and begun a new season, paranoia had been stirring in Test Tube's mind. Mephone 4 wanted nothing to do with them after what had happened during the last competition, so he couldn't recover her teammates if something happened. She had gone as far as to install cameras in Hotel OJ, and was now constantly monitoring everyone, including while they slept.

What if Paintbrush got mad and burned the hotel down? What if Fan got caught up in a fight and torn to shreds? What if Lightbulb fell off her bed while sleeping and shattered?

And if any of this happened, what if I was too late to save them?

All these questions and more bounced around in her head constantly, making her lose sleep and sanity.

Her usually neat handwriting was shaky from the insane amounts of coffee she had consumed to keep herself awake as she wrote down the locations that her friends visited the most and what was most dangerous about them. Irresponsible cooking in the kitchen, sharp objects in multiple of their rooms, a pool that was a drowning hazard for those who couldn't swim, et cetera. She angrily tapped at her vial, trying to get her panicked mind to come up with solutions for these problems. Eventually, she threw the pen at her wall in anger, and watched it bounce back down and onto the table, rolling forward and stopping at her notebook. A smear of ink and multiple small dents, along with a messed-up pen were the consequences of her actions.

I'll fix that later. I've got more important things to do.

She suddenly rushed to her computer, having a mini panic attack while her brain flipped through the possibilities of what could've happened, only to quickly realize everything was fine as she looked through the footage. She checked her more important friends - Paintbrush, Fan, Lightbulb - one last time before going back to look at her calendar.

On the few days where "SAVE FRIENDS" wasn't written, "SEE FRIENDS" was.

Test Tube exhaled a shaky breath and sat down to take a break for the first time in months, tears forming in her eyes as she wondered if the others were like her and worried as much as she did. But as she finally started to relax, she made her first mistake: looking around the room.

Knocked over books, pens, vials and notebooks were everywhere. She had even somehow managed to knock down an entire bookshelf without noticing.

Everything was dangerous, everything could kill her, even her own insides! The acidic fluid inside her could spill at any moment, hurting herself and those around her. She needed to find a solution - she needed to pour it out and shatter herself, then build a better, indestructible body and of course clean up the shattered glass, but then maybe-

"Uh... Tube?"

Lightbulb had gotten into her lab.

Her nonchalant expression turned into an increasingly scared and concerned one as she looked around the lab. She lit up, which made Test Tube realize the lights had been out for however long she had been down there. For a split second, her friend smiled a nervous smile as she spotted Test Tube, but then went back to just concerned as the scientist spoke.

"Lightbulb!" she exclaimed in surprise, smiling awkwardly.

"Test Tube, jeez, what happened here, dude?" Lightbulb asked as she cautiously approached her friend. Only when she felt the warmth wash over her as Lightbulb pulled her into a hug did she realize how cold it had been in the lab. "I was gonna ask if you wanted to go trick-or-treating, but I guess we have more important things to do."

"No, no, I can clean up later. I've just been, uh- busy. We can go trick-or-treating." She smiled even wider as she looked down at the floor to make sure neither of them would step on any broken glass.

"Cool. I got an awesome costume I wanna show off." Lightbulb chuckled to herself. "I'm surprised I could get you away from your science stuff this easily."

They joked around in the lab for a bit before leaving.

Back at her computer, however, one of the cameras switched off.

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