Golf Ball was down and out.
The reason why, she'd rather not dwell upon for any longer than 2.763 seconds. It involved a lot of pain, a lot of suffering, a lot of death and destruction. Besides, recalling the past in any shape or form can only ever be a recipe for disaster; it's a fool's errand, making people do a whole lot of nothing instead of actually going anywhere. People do it largely because they want to reminisce about the past, because they want to think about a time that was better than the present moment. What they do not understand, what they *continue* to not understand, is that this is a counter-productive task, a hardship that is endured for absolutely no reason whatsoever. Suffering that is ultimately in vain. For every second that they continue to linger and languish, for every second they think about a better time, a second goes away without surviving and thriving, without being able to build a better time for themselves in the *now*. In the current day. In the time that truly matters. The past may be better, but it does not exist anymore. The present is all there has been, all that is, and all that will ever be. The past may have been the present once, yes, but it is no longer. And it never will be once again. All that remains of the past today are half-remembered memories, visions, illusions. Mere simulacra of what was once real. An infinitely inferior version of the current moment. And that's not even saying anything in regards to the fact that such thoughts can be malleable; events in retrospect can appear to be much more rose-tinted, much better than they really were. If they were to be inexplicably transported back to that past time, if they were dragged back to exactly how everything was in that period they so desired, what are the odds that they would be *truly* satisfied by its manifestation? Reality has a way of playing cunning, cruel tricks. Living beings constantly crave change, desire the novel, demand the new. Upon being brought back to the past, the chances are most likely not in their favor. They may enjoy it for a time; they've conditioned themselves to believe it would, after all. But sooner or later, the dread and monotony will eventually return to them. What was past has become the present once again, and the present is so monotonous, so dreary. It loses its charm, its aesthetic, its wonder and whimsy. And they would soon be driven mad. That's what would happen, most likely. That *is* what's happening, only in tempered form, whenever everyone lies down and thinks of the past. They constantly wonder about the time that has been lost, about what they did that resulted in such a miserable fate, that they lose sight of what possibilities are open to them in the current day. Each and every moment carries the possibility of creating a better, brighter future. Every action they take has a chance of making things better than they were yesterday. And yet, for the most part, the hapless contestants of the Battle for Dream Island refuse to seize that opportunity. They continue to play the same old games, act out the same old stories, willingly submitting to the forces at work, to the hands tugging at the strings behind the scenes. To the voters, random and capricious, malevolent and incomprehensible. The people that have dragged them into 2,763 different miserable scenarios, turning them into the overworked, weary souls that they are now. Do they not see? Do they not see the harm that they cause to themselves?
Golf Ball *really* hated thinking back to the past. Even before all of... *this*, she knew that all it was doing was preventing her from focusing on the present, on the future. There were experiments to conduct, projects to oversee, old artifacts and tomes to uncover, investigate, and reveal to a world lost to the darkness. That sentiment *especially* rang true here; here she was, having just witnessed (well, heard) her house of cards crumble in a matter of minutes, and instead of immediately working to get back to business, she was lying here, mourning and grieving over what was lost. Oh, what woe! The product of her hard work, her many, *many* years of laboring, all destroyed and dissolved with just a single, decisive motion! All that valuable knowledge, all those fascinating trinkets, they were all swept away and thrown into the dustbin of history. Never are they to illuminate them through the valleys of darkness, lead them to a new age of logic and reason! She hated it. She hated every single moment of it. Not just the fact that all her hard work and dedication had been all for nothing, but also the fact that she can't stop thinking about that fact. But what else could she do? The devastation didn't seem to be content with just destroying all she had struggled for; it just *had* to take her down with it as well. That comic mishap wound up striking her as well, rendering her infirm and incapable. She could try her hardest to wriggle and writhe on the floor, but her body just couldn't fulfill the commands of the brain. She couldn't even look down upon herself, assess her pains and injuries, to even get a start on figuring out what to do. It was the final practical joke played on her, yet another wave to crash onto the wet mound that was once her sandcastle. And that's not even to speak of its greatest trick yet! The disaster was enough to harm her severely, to render her helpless and unable to do much of anything. Only the sweet embrace of death could free her from this suffering, this misery. But it would not come. She wanted it to arrive, she wanted it so desperately, but she couldn't even be afforded *that* generosity. She would be forced to remain here, surrounded by her iron tomb, her sarcophagus of failure, for the foreseeable future. How long would she have to wither? There were already a few that came down to see what the ruckus was all about, and they too have suffered a similar fate. Her teammates were *supposed* to look after her, just as they look after each other, but she wouldn't bet on them actually doing so. She was to remain here, for as long as the universe decides, all the while she continued to feel that horrific, agonizing pain. The fact that she couldn't even do anything about it...
Hm?
Though the universe may seem to be unjust and cruel all the time, it does offer a *single* solace, one act of charity that makes persisting in this doomed Earth just that tiny bit worth it. Eventually, *eventually*, all things will come to an end. Death and decay eventually arrives to all. But that certainty can be taken to less extreme measures. Every period of suffering, every bit of hardship and strife, will always have a time of prosperity just over the horizon. Every down has its counteracting up. That also means that every up has its down, but as mentioned before, every down *also* has an up, so it's not really as bad as it initially seems. And indeed, it was so. Golf Ball had persisted so long in this story state, had continued to hold on to life despite the crushing weight of it all. And now, just when all hope seems lost, the world decides to give her that little mercy, that one gift that gave her all the strength to keep going.
Golf Ball had angrily ordered, in typical bozo-brain bossy-bot fashion, that her leg do a kick, one of frustration and anger, to vent out all her pent-up aggression towards the world, a world that cared not about her wants, needs, or desires. She expected that action to be futile, just like all the others; she had already tried this same motion around 2,763 times, give or take, and in every single one her foot wouldn't budge, not even by a single inch. The injuries just seemed to be too great, she reckoned, the pain too much to handle. But the inevitability of the end comes to *all* things, whether it be good or bad. Living beings have tricks for such a scenario as this. It knows that there *will* be a time in which horrible forces come for it, will try to strike it down and turn life into a living nightmare. It knows that such a reckoning would eventually happen, and that there was no use in praying that it did not. Instead of wishful thinking, the body instead responds with a vengeance. First and foremost is the psychological front. A thing is only as powerful as the mind perceives it to be, and the mind perceives that *very* well. if repeatedly subjected to such horrors, such trauma, it will eventually, *eventually* learn to just deal with it. If it occurs frequently enough, the mind will accept it to be ordinary, to be routine. And as soon as something becomes routine, it is effectively dealt with. The creature eventually learns to become accustomed to it, to be rendered numb to its effects. Pain eventually becomes as ordinary of a guest to its life as its exact opposite. Then, there's the physical response. Instead of just keeling over and dying as soon as the slightest injury occurs, the body works overtime in order to repair what was damaged, to replace what was lost. It may be slow, it may be gradual, but it *is* inevitable. So long as the body continues to persist, so long as it does not die, it will continue to cling on. Sure, it only works up to a point; the body is not built to handle something like amputation or decapitation. But so long as the rest of the body remains standing, so long as it has the will to live, it will learn to move on, to live without it. The desire to survive, the desire to make it, is simply too strong. Fortunately for the sport globule, it seemed like her injury was not of that kind. When she did her kick, she would be shocked and amazed to find that it would actually obey. It would be a pathetic, measly effort, but it was *leagues* better than none at all. She'd do it again, checking if it was just a fluke, and the results would be replicated. She did it again, and again, and the kick would arrive all the same. She tried to roll herself around, and she found that she could do so after great effort. Though the odds seemed so stacked against her, though everything still seemed so dreary and miserable, the flame of life continued to burn bright. Golf Ball was going to make it.
Things continued. It continued on for hours. But it was a measure of time that GB could very easily process, very easily keep track of. She was making progress, *real* progress. It was long, it was arduous, it was *very* painful, but she was eventually able to lift herself back up. She didn't need anyone else, she didn't need Tennis Ball, she didn't even need the miracle of death. All she needed was herself, her wits, and her perseverance. That's the wonderful, miraculous thing about hope. Though everything can go against them, though the world can continue to be miserable, so long as there is still someone living out there, so long as they have the motivation to stay alive, there will always be the possibility of a better tomorrow, of a future to be proud of.
Golf Ball took one look at the devastated remains of her Factory, and she'd shake her head in disappointment. She then looked at the unfortunate souls that were with her, that had suffered the same horrific fate, that continued to wither and cry on the floor. Once more, she shook her head. She'd shamble her way over to the stairs, slowly but surely ascending step by step, doing all that she could to see the glorious outdoors once again. It was a long, painful affair, but eventually...
It turned out that outside wasn't faring a lot better than inside. GB would immediately start heading back down, not wanting to
In her haste, she'd accidentally trip and fall down the stairs; with the lack of railings, there was nothing stopping her from rolling and falling into yet *another* world of pain.
