At the end of today's episode, Two looked around and found that all of their contestants had died.
It was bound to happen at some point. Any good episode of the Battle for Dream Island couldn't end without having at least injured or maimed a character or two. The competition had been going on for years now, had distorted and twisted the morals and beliefs of each and every single one of the dozens that originally joined in just for some fancy island, and as a result had created a vast assortment of contestants that were more than willing to do *whatever* it took to make their way up the top of that proverbial staircase, to be the one that actually won *something*, instead of just having it taken away from them at the last second. An episode just wasn't complete without someone rushing over to a recovery center, or panicking about their dead teammates, or yelling at someone that had done a little recreational murder. That was just part of the formula. The status quo. The episode begins, there's a bit of interaction between the characters, Two then appears, does Cake at Stake, then the contest of the day begins, there's action, there's drama, there's intrigue, there's Needle continuing to be a completely irrelevant character that doesn't get any thought and consideration, then two teams eventually lose, they're up for elimination, the algebralian tells the nameless, soulless viewers to vote, and that would be that.
One or two had to die before an episode could *really* be considered to be good. Oftentimes, it was more than that. There have been quite a few episodes where the contest doesn't end *until* a team or two had died off completely. As such, there was a tiny, but very much present probability that at some point, given that the BFDI stretched on for long enough, that there was a contest so outrageous, so asinine, so *violent*, that it wound up with every single one of them lying on the ground. It just seemed like the natural status quo. The competition could only push them so far. Something *had* to give, and there wasn't really much of an option as to who would get the short end of the stick.
After Two finished their passionate spiel about making one's vote count and all that, they anxiously waited around for *somebody* to come over and ask if the cameras had stopped rolling, if they can *finally* get a moment to themselves, a brief reprieve from all the suffering and agony. But even after waiting for a good long while, absolutely no one would arrive with any inquiries.
"Oh, uh..." The number nervously chuckled. "This is awkward. Maybe I just forgot to bring them back. No matter!" They'd snap their fingers, expecting everyone to return in an instant, and... nothing. Nothing at all.
"Hmph." They'd then proceed to teleport themselves to a variety of locations, all the corners of the world that had been unfortunately graced with their presence to be the venues of today's special episode. Every single location had been trashed, each one having been ravaged by a team that was dedicated to *nothing* but their own survival. The signs of their existence were certainly there, but not a spot of life was to be found.
"Oh dear."
Two returned to the grasslands, once again doing a sweep around the place to *really* make sure, and finally had to confront that uncomfortable truth: everyone was dead. *Everyone*. Well, the ones that failed to debut, the contestants of that other show (assuming Four hadn't gotten to them first), and all the other inhabitants of Goiky, the world, and the universe were still alive. But they don't matter. Just like Needle. The contestants of the Battle for Dream Island, the ones that had all eyes turned to them, had perished. That's... unfortunate.
Not.
There *was* a reason as to why everyone had developed such a strange reaction to death. For most of history (the history that could still be uncovered, anyway), it was something to be afraid of. Something to be *mortified* by; in fact, that word itself comes from their terrible reaction to death, according to Golf Ball and anyone who bothered to listen to her. But nowadays, the object's reactions to death are nonchalant at best and outright *ecstatic* at best. Such neutrality and positivity towards death had existed before, but it was never to such an absurd degree.
