(it's back!! new chapter y'all!! a bit of a shorter one, but still. i haven't written in a while, so there might be some mistakes and the phrasing might be wrong)

It had taken quite a while to get Knife and Trophy off her back - about a month - but Test Tube had managed it.

Right now, she was sitting on the rooftop of Hotel OJ. She hadn't taken off her lab coat in weeks. Winter was fast approaching, catching the leaves in its cold grip. But Test Tube's surroundings weren't the only things that were affected.

Nowadays, she didn't quite know what to do with herself. She spent her days roaming Hotel OJ and her lab, sometimes joining the others in watching Inanimate Insanity Invitational, but always in silence. She wasn't even sure if she had the ability to speak anymore. Perhaps her vocal cords had grown too used to silence.

She felt like she was just waiting for something to happen.

Well, she was.

And, as she had mentioned before, Knife and Trophy had freed her from their watch, so her days of waiting were over.

Her legs cracked as she rose again, weak from her lack of exercise. She descended the stairs, attracting many odd looks from the other objects. Test Tube had seen her reflection a couple of times, and other than looking completely awful, she always had this distant, wide-eyed look in her eyes. Her guess was that that look had been replaced by one of determination. She could almost hear their voices already: "Where are you going?" "Test Tube, you're looking unusually happy!" "ARE YOU GONNA KILL AGAIN?!"

There it was. She had wondered when her paranoia would strike.

But she had other things to focus on.

Test Tube slowed down her pace for just a moment as Knife and Trophy passed her. They were bickering about something so they barely noticed her, but she still needed to be extra careful now that they had even more reason to believe she was the killer. She rushed out of Hotel OJ and slammed the correct combination into the vending machine, swiftly returning to her lab and hurrying down the halls.

Today was it. Today was it. She could feel it.

"No more- no more pain, no more loneliness, no more horrible nightmares-" Test Tube whispered to herself, her footsteps growing quicker and lighter as flashes of the future flooded her mind. Her lab coat trailed behind her - like a superhero's cape, like the wings of a bird, like-

She didn't have time to think about anything else. She couldn't waste time on admiring small things like the way the sun shone through the windows, at least not like she used to. Right now, she had one thing and one thing alone on her mind: resurrection.

It had been hard to collect Salt and Pepper's remains, but she had her ways. Honestly, she didn't quite remember what she had done - a lot of her tasks were done on autopilot as other things constantly occupied her brain.

Her hands shook in anticipation as she shifted a ladder to a tall bookcase, grabbing a box labelled "remains." Only a few pieces of Lightbulb were left, along with Salt and Pepper and the yellow ribbon that had decorated her casket. Despite the pieces of glass that sliced her hands, she couldn't help but grab the ribbon and feel the texture.

It reminded her of warm, happy Lightbulb. It reminded her of how things were before.

Quickly, quickly, quickly, she poured the remains into the machine, listening to it clink and clank and break and watching the flashes of reflected light disappear into the darkness. She frantically typed out her friend's name and hit enter. This time, Test Tube was wiser than before, so she put on her welding mask and stepped back as the machine worked.

Deep down, she had already accepted that it wouldn't work. The dread started to creep into her head once the whirring noises of the recovery machine at work began to slow down. She prepared herself for another horrific crack, this time maybe joining her friends in the afterlife.

Honestly, she hoped so.

Here, there was nothing left for her. She was a lonely, paranoid serial killer with a make-believe machine in her creepy underground laboratory. Tears began to form in her eyes as the fact that resurrection was nearly impossible hit her.

However... something strange occurred.

The whirring noise came to a stop as the locks clicked and the door slowly opened. It looked empty of course, but... Test Tube swore that she had coded it to only open if the recovery was a success.

But there, in all her warm, glassy, orange glory, was Lightbulb.

Test Tube flinched and took another step back, backing into the wall as Lightbulb approached. She blinked again, still in disbelief at the sight, before removing her welding mask to get a better look at her formerly deceased friend.

She seemed... off. She was unusually tall, her legs long and her body outstretched. Her glass had thin cracks in it and the metal part of the lower half of her body looked as if it had been haphazardly mushed together, like if melting ice cream had suddenly turned to metal. There was a distant look in her eye, and her face lacked emotion - she didn't seem alive, despite standing there right in front of Test Tube. She looked like her life had been claimed by dehydration instead of a car accident. If Test Tube weren't shocked at the fact that she had resurrected the dead, she'd probably marvel at how the lightbulb hadn't crumbled from malnutrition yet.

Lightbulb reached one of her freakishly skinny limbs out toward her, her hoarse voice blessing Test Tube with words.

"Where... where am I?" She stared at her own hands in awe. "Who am I? What is this... thing I'm doing, and why can I understand it?"

"Speaking? You're... speaking?" Test Tube seemed equally as shocked as... whoever, or whatever the bulb in front of her was. What had gone wrong? She used glass from Lightbulb, why hadn't it transferred over her consciousness? Maybe it didn't work like that? She'd have to study this creature more.

"Lightbulb" continued to look around, pausing at specific objects and wincing once she stared into the bright lights above. "Don't look at those", Test Tube corrected.

"Why?"

"Because they're bright, they hurt your eyes", the scientist grumbled.

The bulb stumbled forward. Walking seemed to be a natural instinct for her, but she couldn't quite wrap her head around how it worked. All Test Tube could do was continue to stare in awe, running quiet calculations and noting observations in her head.

"Where am I?" Lightbulb tried again, tracing her hand along a table. She didn't seem... alive. She didn't seem like her usual bubbly self. Her face lacked any and all expression, as did her voice and mannerisms.

Test Tube cleared her throat and stood up straight. She'd have to go with the assumption that Lightbulb had lost her memory. Perhaps she could awaken something in the object and help her remember? "I am Test Tube. I'm a scientist, and I've discovered a way to bring the dead back to life. You are Lightbulb. You... died in a car crash a while ago, along with your two friends, Fan and Paintbrush. Using your remains and the machine behind you, I've resurrected you. I plan to-"

Crap, what was she gonna say?! She hadn't planned for any of this to happen, especially not Lightbulb coming back with a wiped mind!

"... keep you in my lab until you're in stable condition."

Lightbulb glanced back to the machine before turning around and meeting Test Tube's gaze again with her cold, empty eyes.

"So, what you're saying is... I had a life before I woke up?" She curiously cocked her head to the side, and for just a split second, she looked similar to the happy bulb that she was before.

Before all of this.

Slipping back to reality and ignoring the strange phrasing, Test Tube responded. "Yes. You competed in two seasons of the reality show Inanimate Insanity. You were team captain of Team Epic and The Bright Lights. I joined the show during season two, as did Fan- y'know what? I'll put on the show for you, you'll probably remember more then. Come with me."

With a slight smile on her face, Lightbulb whisked away along with Test Tube down the hallway and to a different room. Test Tube opened her laptop, much to the confusion and wonder of Lightbulb, and after a long while of answering questions, Lightbulb began to watch the start of season two.

And... something seemed to click behind her eyes.

As soon as she got a taste of her deceased self's personality, a smile appeared on her face, and she mumbled along to the lines that she spoke in the show.

Needless to say, Test Tube was overjoyed. A warm, proud feeling filled her body as she watched Lightbulb regain her identity and memories. She could already see herself, walking into Hotel OJ and showing off her friend, explaining to the shocked crowds how she had managed to do it and how she would revive the others. And she could see herself, cuddled up with her resurrected best friends, watching movies as winter despoiled the outside.

However, despite the happy bulb seemingly making progress and returning to her actual self, Test Tube couldn't quite shake that horrific thought in the back of her head:

This wasn't Lightbulb.

[word count: 1568]