CRASH.

A thunder of guilt and regret met her just like the hammer she had brought down upon OJ.

A dark orange color washed over the walls, floor and herself as the former hotel owner exploded into thousands of tiny shards. With her mouth wide open in shock, she tasted the horrifying, considering the context, but still slightly tangy flavor of orange juice mixed with blood. Test Tube stood there, splattered with the fluid, weapon in hand, for what felt like an eternity.

It was then, more than ever before, that she wished she had been in that car accident with the others. Test Tube considered shattering herself on the spot right then and there, but for some reason didn't.

So now I finally have some self-control, when it's me who's in danger instead of my friends. I'm so selfish. I'm nothing but a selfish monster.

Everything felt too broken to fix, and everyone that could've possibly been able to comfort her quite literally were.

All because she couldn't accept the death of her friends.

But... she had gone too far now.

She painfully scooped the glass shards into her arms and inched closer to the recovery machine, slowly climbing the ladder up to the funnel. She poured the bloody, juice-covered mess of what used to be OJ into the machine, wincing as she heard it fall and clink together. Test Tube dusted off her bloody arms as she climbed down the ladder and went to a cabinet. She grabbed some bandages and began to wrap them around her arms, biting her tongue to not shriek out in pain. She collected the shards and metal from the neat black box that OJ had delivered and placed the remains of her once bright and optimistic friend into the funnel.

And now, finally, it was time to meet Lightbulb again.

With tears of pain and joy rolling down her face and blurring her vision, she stepped towards the computer and typed in the name of her friend. "LIGHTBULB_" the computer screen read.

She stepped in front of the recovery machine, watching it work in awe.

But as the buzzing coming from the machine began to speed up, Test Tube felt an increasing pain in her face.

CRACK.

CRACK.

SHATTER.

A bright light shone into her eyes, the faint giggles of a familiar voice echoing somewhere far away. She felt a rush of dopamine as her brain prepared for her death, giving her some sort of closure in her final moments. She began to gradually slip what she could only assume was some sort of afterlife, only to be violently yanked back into life by the most unexpected object of all.

Microphone!

That thieving electronic object hovered above her, along with a few other silhouettes that seemed familiar, but Test Tube couldn't quite remember the names of. Eventually, as the situation seemed under control and Test Tube regained consciousness, most of the others left, leaving only Microphone.

And just as she had begun to settle into her own skin again, she remembered why she was there.

A sharp pain in her face.

A whirring noise coming from a machine.

Hope, for the first time in months.

Lightbulb.

Test Tube rolled over and curled into a ball, beginning to sob, as Microphone grew ever more concerned.

She had failed.

Her mind spun, trying to make sense of everything. There had to be some way to bring Lightbulb back, right? Maybe if... maybe if she went back to the lab and collected what was left of Lightbulb's remains... But then she'd need to murder another object.

She laid there in silence, until Microphone finally spoke.

"What... happened?" she asked in pure shock of how badly Test Tube managed to mess up her experiment this time. Test Tube opened her mouth to explain a few times, but always stopped herself a few moments before she began to speak. She collected her thoughts and confidence for a couple of minutes before finally giving Microphone a snarky answer.

"Why do you wanna know? It's none of your business", she snarled. Test Tube tried to angrily cross her arms, but winced as she was met with the pain of a million little cuts she had gained from the broken glass. Now that she thought about it, she had a few bandages on her face, inbetween her eyes, and the smear of blood and orange juice had disappeared. The tangy smell of OJ still lingered in the air, making Test Tube's heart sink as she remembered her crimes.

She covered her face with her hands, noticing something strange.

Under the bandages, she felt thousands of tiny lines. Small dips into her glass, held together and covered by the band-aids.

Test Tube sat up straight, scaring Microphone, and looked into the closest nearby window.

The first thing she noticed was the sky - it was midday, which meant she had been passed out for around 14 hours. The second thing she noticed was the amount of fluid she contained, and her appearance.

Thousands of tiny cracks reached out from behind the bandages, piercing her heart with fear like thorns from a wilted rose. About half the fluid inside her had been spilled, presumably leaking out through the massive cracks in her face.

She flinched, falling backward and scaring Microphone.

"You were like that when I found you... I tried to scoop some fluid back in, but it didn't work."

Test Tube scowled at Microphone. She recollected her thoughts and hopped out of the bed, inspecting her reflection in the mirror.

Her eyes wide and her heart racing, Test Tube placed her hand on the bandages again, trying to get used to the injury. Of course, there were ways to get back her old appearance: she could have a surgery to weld glass inside the cracks, but that would still leave her with a few scars. It would be dangerous to remove the bandages without having the surgery. The fluid inside her could leak out.

Test Tube thanked Microphone for helping her, left the hotel room, and took the elevator to the first floor.

As the elevator slowly descended, Test Tube began to spiral again.

What if everyone knew what she had done? Test Tube was hit with such an intense wave of guilt and denial over murdering OJ that she forgot about Lightbulb and her friends completely.

On the first floor, she heard the noise of all of the former contestants eating lunch. Their usually loud chatter had become nothing but quiet murmurs; the shock of the recent car accident still lingered.

It was probably best not to talk to anyone.

She placed her hand on the wall, tracing the cracks with her fingers and following it until she reached the exit.

There, beside the doors, was a bulletin board, covered with notes and pieces of paper. One asking to keep the music down during parties, another one asking to- well, actually, most notes were increasingly angrier complaints about the noise.

But behind all those angry notes was a concerning poster.

"MISSING - OJ

LAST SEEN - OUTSIDE HOTEL

DESCRIPTION - GLASS OF ORANGE JUICE

PRESUMED DEAD"

Her eyes widened.

"SPEAK TO KNIFE OR TROPHY IF YOU HAVE ANY FURTHER INFORMATION"

It wasn't shocking. Of course it wasn't; she had killed OJ with her own hands. She was more shocked that the others had given up so quickly, and that out of all people, the two who hated each other most were leading the investigation together. She guessed that the urgency and seriousness of the situation had put their scuffles aside and forced them to work together.

Test Tube opened the exit doors to leave, but was stopped by a rumbling voice.

"Hey!"

The man's words stopped her dead in her tracks, forcing Test Tube to turn around with a totally not suspicious smile. "...Yeeees?" she tried, as gingerly and as sweetly as she could.

There stood Knife, his gaze as sharp and piercing as his blade. After a few moments, Trophy came out from a different room, holding a clipboard and a pen. From the little she could see of his notes, both Knife and Trophy took turns writing on it: one of them had a semi-neat handwriting and only spelled things wrong sometimes, and the other was basically unintelligeble. Trophy tapped the clipboard with his pen, scanned some of the words, and whispered a question to Knife as if he was a toddler that needed help.

"You where the last person to talk to OJ. What happened?" Knife finally asked after a while. Test Tube put on her best act, her expression sinking into a frown and her arms somberly hanging to her sides. After a while, she sighed and crossed her arms, wrapping them around her elbows before finally giving an equally sorrowful answer.

"Well... he brought me the boxes containing the remains of... of my friends..." She sniffed, adverting her gaze, and watched a tiny bit of sympathy creep onto Knife's and Trophy's faces. She continued. "We... talked for a while, and I gave him a glass of water... after that, he left. I resumed my experiments, and, well..." She pointed to the wound in her vial.

"Interesting..." Trophy noted, scribbling something in his clipboard. "Did you... clean that glass? Maybe there was something toxic in it?"

Crap, they're onto me. For a brief moment, Test Tube's expression changed into one of anxiety and fear. But that was all the investigators needed to immediately drop all sympathy and realize something was off. "N-No, I'm sure I cleaned it out beforehand-" She panicked, thinking of an excuse. What if they had seen her lab? It was completely covered in orange juice and blood.

"He tripped. He... he tripped and fell over after drinking it." She let her voice quiver and stared into the distance, putting on an act of just realizing something horrible. "He spilled some of his orange juice and stumbled out... he blamed it on being tired... Oh golly, what have I done?"

That was an extremely fitting question for her current situation.

Test Tube had killed another object, just for the mere chance of bringing her friends back, and just because she felt a little lonely.

She deserved whatever happened to her next.

Knife and Trophy exchanged a sympathetic look, wrote something down in their notes, and left.

Test Tube exhaled a shaky breath, once again crippled by the consequences of her actions. She leaned against the closest wall and sank down, eventually ending up curled up into a ball on the floor.

She was a monster. She truly was. But it was too late to back out now.

Test Tube wiped the tears from her face, dusted her knees off, and mentally prepared herself for what she was about to do to bring her friends back.

(word count: 1745)