Not Alone

All Alone

Brown danced without care. 

Here at the bottom of hell, with nothing to do but wait for death, he was determined to rip every last moment of happiness from the stingy hands of fate.

Distantly, he registered a sound.

Clap, clap.

Behind the Speakerwoman, a figure was lit up in purple. For a moment, Brown thought he was looking at the Large TV Man known as Polycephaly, but no such luck... 

It was a strange Skibidi who wore a large TV Screen as a guard for its toilet. He was so tall the top of his oversized head nearly brushed the low ceiling of the prison room, and his face was unsettling even for a Skibidi, for his smug and crafty eyes looked at Brown from above a stitched-shut mouth. Framing his stolen TV-Screen were two long metal tentacles that ended in clawed "hands", both now clapping in sarcastic applause.

"Nice dancing," someone said from behind him. 

Brown and the Speakerwoman looked at each other. There was nothing to say.

A second Skibidi crept forward, this one resembling a smaller version of the old man Titan who had taken Brown captive. He too walked on metal crab legs and had pincers as limbs, but he had no speakers or anything more than a small piece of metal guarding his toilet. He also had a different face from the old man, a much younger one with a beard and a mean smirk.

"It's your lucky day at last, sweetheart," he said, ogling the Speakerwoman from behind his dark glasses. "You've waited long enough. There's a soldier waiting for that body. Time for you to finally become useful."

He reached out one of his pincers and grabbed her wrist. The Speakerwoman swung a punch, but he easily caught her other hand.

Brown lunged forward.

The mouthless Skibidi raised his eyebrows, and his TV screen switched on.

Purple light filled Brown's lens again. This second time, hypnosis didn't feel gentle— it was like being suffocated with purple velvet and drowned in starlit water. His mind screamed at him to move, to fight to rip apart any Toilet who dared to touch his new friend, but his body couldn't seem to hear his commands.

No matter how hard he willed himself to overcome that hateful light, all he could do was watching in helpless rage as the Speakerwoman was led out of the soft purple of the prison room into the harsh yellow of the corridor.

She turned to look at Brown, framed in the door, and raised her hand to give him the briefest thumbs-up. Brown, of course, couldn't make the gesture back, but he prayed that she knew he was thinking it at least. 

The smug little Skibidi with the beard clucked in disgust and pulled both of her arms tight behind her back, shoving her forward. She stumbled, dragging her feet, but barely resisted as she was led away. She had been here far too long.

The mouthless Toilet watched Brown, his eyebrows raised in bemusement, over his hypnotizing screen. Then, in a gesture that filled Brown with poisonous rage, he reached out and gently stroked the top of his camera with one of his claws.

Don't worry, the smug crescents of his eyes seemed to say. You'll be joining her soon enough.

And he glided backwards out of the room— he seemed to have wheels on the base of his toilet— and closed the heavy metal door behind him.

Brown's new friend was gone.

He was alone again.

The Skibidis hadn't even bothered to turn him around to face the screen. They'd just left him to choose between giving up throwing himself on the mercy of hypnosis or just waiting, facing the door until someone opened it again.

He stood up, trembling, and ran the few steps to the door. There was no handle on the inside, just a thin metal seam that was barely perceptible in the gloom. Brown raised his fist and slammed it against that crack, nearly denting the metal of his own hand. Of course, it didn't do anything but hurt , but he raised his fists and bashed  the door wildly, pounding until his whole body ached and he slumped in helpless rage.

All alone. 

Why had Brown always been so afraid to be by himself? Why had he begged for the company of anyone at all, even a killer toilet the size of a skyscraper, rather than endure his own thoughts?

He knew why.

It was because he hated himself. Though he had tried to stand out with his striped tie, and in so many other ways, he had never been anything but a slightly less than ordinary Cameraman, one whose only distinguishing trait was being the butt of joke after joke. One who chased after heroism and love but found only loneliness and laughter at his own expense no matter how hard he tried.

Brown had had enough.

He reached up with one hand and clawed at the inside of the door, which gave way satisfyingly under his robotic fingertips and left five thin metal trails that glittered violet.

His new friend, the only other living agent he'd talked to in days, was on the other side of that door. And he wasn't going to give up on getting her back until he'd ripped his body and mind apart trying.

There was nothing to lose, not anymore, and no one coming to save him.

He was getting out of here. No matter what. No more crying about it. No more waiting for rescue, trying to catch the attention of a world that didn't care about him.

He wasn't going to sit in a cage and wait to be slaughtered. He was going to do whatever it took, anything, to make sure that his new friend didn't end up as a fashion accessory for a Toilet. 

Alone or not.

There was only one person who could get Brown out of this room now.

Himself.

Of course, he had three possible allies, but all of them were held captive by that hateful screen.

The screen, which had no effect over the Speakerwoman, who couldn't see the same way Cameramen did...

Brown reached up and tapped at the glass of his lens with one finger. 

Anything ....

Even if it meant putting his own eye out...

But calming down a little, Brown realized it wouldn't be necessary to blind himself. All he had to do was take off his coat and tie it around his camera. It was awkward, but it cut off his vision, surrounding him in the suffocating fabric of his own signature brown. 

He bent down to take off one of his shoes— sturdy black dancing shoes with nice solid soles, previously owned by an anonymous dead Speakerman, and turned to face the TV wall.

Where had the Skibidis gotten so many TVs from? Surely... no, he wouldn't even let that horrible thought finish itself. They were stolen. It must be something to do with the disappearance of the TV Titan... perhaps, the TV Titan was dead and...

No.

This wasn't the time or the place for morbid wondering. Brown advanced through the darkness, bumping into the outline of another cameraman, who entranced by the screen, had no reaction. He walked forward slowly and carefully until he could hear and feel the crackly static of the giant screen.

Brown reached out and stroked its tingling glass, thinking, just for the most involuntary, fleeting moment, of stroking TV Woman's face.

Then he raised the shoe and struck hard.

The screen was thick and reinforced. The first blow didn't work.

But Brown didn't give up. He slammed the heel of the shoe into the screen again and again, with all the pent-up fury of a lifetime. He beat the glass until his arm felt like it would fall off, and he kept going. And after what felt like forever, he heard a satisfying crack, and then another, and then a shattering that filled the room.

Shards of broken glass rained down on him. 

Behind him, he could hear three figures begin to shift and stand. Brown pulled the coat off his head, turned around and lit his torch.