Processing the Aftermath

ORANGE - import self;

It was about a week later when Orange and Yellow found Alan browsing his Facebook feed.

Yellow glanced at the laptop in his arms. "You think he will agree?"

Orange pulled himself into the browser window. "I think so. He probably wants to know too."

He waved, and Alan, noticing them, brought up an Adobe Animate window. They climbed in.

[Hey, what's up?]

[I need to ask a favor. Will you be here in about two hours?]

[sure, what do you need?]

[I'd like to talk with the other stick figure. The black one with powers that we met a week ago. Yellow figured out how to reverse-engineer the cursor application from here. Would you be able to bring me back, like you did last time, in about two hours?]

[sure sounds good]

Yellow said, "Tell Alan to check his Downloads folder for 'Animator Combat Tool UI'. He should be able to launch the application from there when it's time."

Orange relayed the information and Alan nodded from beyond the screen. [Thanks Yellow. How are you going to get there?]

Orange felt embarrassed that he hadn't thought of that. But Yellow smirked, theatrically tapped a key, and what looked like a glowing popup menu appeared on the right end of the taskbar.

Orange grinned. "You always think of everything."

Yellow smiled but sobered quickly. "I know you want to talk to him alone, but be careful out there. Green will be upset if you don't show up to the next build battle."

Orange lightly punched Yellow's shoulder. "I'll be fine." He didn't mention that he was glad the four of them were staying here. If he lost them again...

He patted Yellow on the back, waved to Alan, and ran through the portal into the strange white nothingness.

***

This was his third time going through this tunnel, but Orange thought he would never get used to the strange feeling it gave off. There was a wind that was neither hot nor cold; it felt like he was falling sideways while upside down; there was the strange sense that parts of him were lagging behind or slightly ahead of the rest.

He hoped he was going to the right place. Yellow said that he had located the shack by the sea cliffs again, but couldn't locate their mysterious friend. Orange hoped that the stick would be somewhere close by.

He thought back to that day. It had haunted his sleep for the last week. Dark Lord with his glitching blades. The cursor disappearing in a sea of writhing crimson. Red, sprawled on the ground, unraveling... Green, then Blue, then Yellow falling to the ground, dark stains spreading... the pain, blinding pain as he saw the blade through his own torso, the sharp rock in his back that felt like fire... Dark Lord flying away, sneering, as Orange sunk into nothingness...

In reality, Orange had woken up to find his friends miraculously, wonderfully, somehow actually alive around him...

In his nightmares, he had woken up in a sea of viruses and Dark Lord standing over him, holding the glitching blade to his throat.

The others had said that they found themselves standing on the same cliff overhang with the black stick figure, and that the cursor had found Orange at the shack. The black stick figure had actually bowed to him and said, "Thank you. You did what I could not." Orange still couldn't figure out what that meant. That stick figure also seemed to know Alan. Alan had mentioned meeting other stick figures...