Alternate Battle for Dream Island

ABFDIA 9a: Long

Another day, another round of more of the same.

Once again, Tennis Ball could do nothing but watch, for hours upon hours, as Teardrop continued on her seemingly-futile quest to look for an exit, to look for answers, to look for *anything* that might just calm their nerves and bring peace to these hectic souls. His eyes would remain glued to the screen(s) as the drop wandered from place to place, second by second, moment to moment. Perhaps what they were looking for was just around the corner, or maybe the one after that, or perhaps the one after *that*. Over and over again they'd build their hopes up, only for their dreams to be destroyed right before their very eyes as they were given nothing more but yet more depressing hallways and barren corridors. More of the same. Always. Every single time. Attempt after attempt, nothing changed. Nothing got better, nothing improved.

TB and TD thought about quitting. Probably did so many times over, at this point. It just seemed like the most sensible option; to just lie down and accept fate seemed to be 2,763 times better than... *this*. They 'talked' about it every once in a while, but after each and every single discussion, they'd find themselves utterly unable to let go, unable to move on. They just couldn't. They just *couldn't*.

The universe was often quite humorous, quite funny, quite mischievous. Tennis Ball knew that better than anyone, and so did Teardrop, to some degree. Every single major moment in the history of creation all had to do with a fluke, something that seemingly had an effectively zero chance of occurring, but would happen on its own as if nothing was amiss, as if that was the way things were intended to go. Something was created out of nothing, a collection of inanimate matter spontaneously became animate, a speaker box randomly fell down from the sky and declared that they were to Battle for Dream Island. Every single event was decided by an innumerable number of factors, each one able to change the outcome in any number of unpredictable ways. TB could watch the exact same experiment conducted in the exact same way 99 times and see nothing new, but then the next time he tries it there's suddenly a massive explosion. *Every* single moment had the potential to be different, every instant had the chance to be extraordinary. And if they missed it, if they turned away at *just* the wrong time, there was no telling when the next opportunity would arise.

It was a long, drawn-out, *painful* game of anticipation. They could be here for a second, a minute, an hour, a day, a week, a month, a year, a decade, a century, a millennium, and beyond. They could do the same thing over and over, once, twice, a dozen times, a hundred, thousand, 2,763 times. They could go through all that, and *nothing* would happen, nothing at all. Then in their final attempt, their last one before throwing in the towel, the whole world could be upended, turned upside-down. And there was no way to know for certain unless they were there for every single moment.

Every single moment.

Continuing to watch Teardrop on the cameras, Tennis Ball's mind would once again start to drift. He thought back to the days when he and Golfy would stand perfectly still for hours and hours, do things just like this, all in the hope that some experiment of theirs would *finally* give them the result they wanted. Sometimes it did, sometimes it won't, but the only way to know is to conduct it and see.

He must've reminisced on that 2,763 times at this point; a never-ending reel of film constantly playing in his head, a movie that he continuously inspected for every single minute detail, exactly like how an obnoxious person would. It wouldn't really make much sense in hindsight. As Golf Ball had drilled into his head ages prior, the past is past, and all that matters is the know. But that saying never sounded quite right in his head. The past is the past, sure; it's long gone, only persisting in the form of malleable memories in their minds. But if those recollections are to be believed, the past is also where they get *all* their information on *anything*. Everything they knew now was the product of countless endeavors and experiments, done by countless others throughout all of history. They had that to thank for their careers and escapades now, for setting them on the right path of intellectualism and common sense. But, according to the team tyrant's logic, *surely* their efforts would be irrelevant to them now. They're long dead, whereas the spheres are still here. Surely, *surely* that's a contradiction of some sort, something that Golfy would detest?