ONE Human

Part 5: End of the day

(Pearl's POV)

As we saw that Lava Bucket's team only consisted of her and Backpack now, I wanted to be by her side since I knew we were gonna separated eventually, but I was wondering why she didn't tell me if she was okay since she was mumbling not directly saying anything. I still didn't believe what Moldy said to me about her but I also wanted to show Moldy how loyalty could pay off, so I started rolling over to where they were, but I noticed neither of them looked happy, not even close. I then got the impression that they didn't want to talk with anyone right now, so I stopped rolling and that's when Airy came on to tell us the next challenge.

When we got into our teams, our challenge this time was to throw a rock into the tub we were in last challenge, The last team to do so is UFE. Off the bat, Moldy already threw a rock in the tub before the challenge even started, meaning our team was automatically safe when the challenge started. I felt a wave of relief until she grabbed my arm and started dragging me away from the area everyone else was at.

I said to her once she stopped walking "Okay, what did I do that time!?" She then said "I said we'd talk, didn't I?!" I then talked back and said "What is your problem with me being a loyal person? I just want to help her!" She said "Look there's a difference between Loyalty and Smothering! You're in between those two, if your really were loyal, you'd leave her alone to let her do things by herself!" This made me mad and I said "She's a Human! She's not like the rest of us!! You act like she's like me and shouldn't have any kind of help! I'm loyal to her because she's making what little life I've experienced so far more exciting!" She then said "Look, she probably can do it by herself, she'll most likely abandon you when she feels like it! Take a look at what happened to me!" I still didn't believe what she was saying and yelled at her "This isn't about you!! Lava Bucket is going through more than just a mold piece on her head. I don't care what you say, I'm gonna be by her side!!" Moldy then snapped again and said "You know what!? I don't care anymore if you're gonna play this way forever! I don't wanna talk to you again!!" "Good! Neither do I!"

As soon as I said that, Airy made the announcement and said that Lava Bucket's team is UFE again. I immediately panicked and started rolling back to where everyone else was, it took a while but once I made it back mostly everyone was normal and I saw Backpack and Scenty talking about plans for the future, but that's when I noticed Lava Bucket looking out in the distance completely zoned out and it looked like she was about to cry. I went over to Backpack and Scenty and pointed to Lava Bucket and they started looking concerned as well. We went over to her and she didn't move one bit, if anything she looked worse. So Scenty went in front of her and nudged her, calling out her name, that's when Lava Bucket screamed and looked around horrified. I asked her if she was ok and after a few seconds of silence, she ran away sobbing. I feared the worst and rolled after her as fast as I could.

It was now near sunset and I had found Lava Bucket, she was crying Gasoline tears, had her knees to her face and was mouthing something under her breath repeatedly. That's when I knew I had to do something, she was clearly not fine. I went over to her and asked once again if she was okay, but she looked over to me enraged and yelled "GET AWAY FROM ME!" And punched me. She didn't crack me or anything, but I did feel some pain. She then realized what she did and cried a bit harder. I understood that she didn't want to talk to me and I started rolling away. Maybe Moldy was right, she seemed to not need my help, maybe I'm the problem. I then saw Backpack heading over, he looked over to me and said "I'll talk with her, you better head back to where your team is." I looked back at Lava Bucket and even though I didn't want to see Moldy again, at the same time, I knew she needed to be away from me.

(Lava Bucket's POV)

I was traumatized by what I saw during the challenge after I heard we had lost. When I was looking at both Backpack and Scenty as they were talking, they both morphed into shapes, I then looked up in the sky and the clouds and sun started doing the same. The triangle clouds were moving towards me and I tried to back away but some laser beams wrapped around me, the voices built up higher than ever, screaming Apathetic in my head along with things that basically stated that I never cared for anyone, as the triangles got closer to me and the wrap got tighter, I was so terrified that I started crying. I didn't know why I was crying gasoline instead of water but that was the least of my problems. Once Scenty pulled me out of my phase, I had no choice but to run away and mouthed Apathetic under my breath since I was starting to believe it at this point and I felt even worse for hurting Pearl about this.

That's when I heard footsteps and someone sat beside me, I looked over after a few seconds and saw it was Backpack. I asked him why he was here and he said "Look, we can tell you're not okay. I know we're gonna separated tomorrow, but I'm here if you wanna talk about anything till then. What's wrong?" More tears shed as I said "I'm a jerk, the apathetic one. Why would anyone want to help me at this point?" He then looked a bit confused and said "You're not a jerk or apathetic, at least not to me. What makes you think that?" I couldn't hide it anymore, I then started talking to him not only about what I saw, but also the dream that I had earlier today and the voices I've been hearing.

Opening up about all of this made me feel more disoriented, but he ended up putting his arm on my shoulder and replied with "I guess these kinds of things have been happening to you too, huh?" As I nodded, he added onto that with "Just to let you know, throughout today you've never been anything close to what these things are telling you. I might not know anything about humans or what you were like, but you've been a great person ever since you got here, you offered to help us with this whole mess and Scenty even told me that you comforted her when she needed it, that's the opposite of apathetic. I promise you, you don't need to be scared of this, or your past. I'll be here for you."

Backpack then held his arms out and that's when I hugged him crying even more. He comforted me more and after a few minutes I started to calm down. Once I let go, I realized it was almost night, knowing what was supposed to happen today, I sighed and said "I most likely missed my graduation by now." He was then curious by what I had said and I explained how I was a graduating collage student before all of this and I even said to him how after that I wanted to become a musician. He then said "Don't worry, these challenges happen so fast, you'll be home before you know it. Scenty put us up for elimination for a good reason, she wants to get us home." I replied with "I know, if I don't make it home this time, I'll continue what we were doing." We both agreed on this and looked out to the night sky. Yes, it was upsetting that one of us will be alone tomorrow, but the good news was the nightmare will be over for one of us and the one who stays will still keep the mission going. We'll just see what the future holds, we'll have to wait till tomorrow.

To be continued