Emptying (N/A)

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Golf Ball was hard at work down at the Factory.

She always was, of course. The Battle for Dream Island was, is, and likely always will be, to put it mildly, an incredibly massive mess. From the very beginning it just didn't make any sense: a speaker box fell out of the sky, a machine far beyond their comprehension, a device that they had absolutely no clue about, and then they decided to just... follow its directives. Do whatever it says. They decided to Battle for Dream Island, and from then on it was just one big, painful, downward spiral. Everything that's been thrown at them to keep the competition 'interesting', anything that any sane person with any sort of common sense or basic logic would call completely insane, they've just accepted as if they are completely normal, everyday facts and observations around the world. Those that get eliminated from the competition get thrown into some metal box, or weak trembling fortress, or some alternate dimension, and that's just *fine*. Why they don't just decide to let them do whatever they want (as long as they don't interfere with the still-remaining contestants, of course) is a silly question that isn't worth discussing or thinking about for any more than 2.763 seconds. Actually, it's worth thinking only for stretches of time that are even *less* than that. All sorts of revelations and mysteries about their world, about the greater forces at work, continually get revealed, but they get brushed aside in favor of whatever challenge is going on in this episode. That's *fine*. That's completely okay.

It was all complete and utter madness, and Golf Ball knew it from the very start. She only made the fatal mistake of joining all those years ago because everyone else did; she continues to insist that it *isn't* peer pressure, but rather she was so utterly baffled by their universal acceptance of this new status quo that she *had* to stick around in order to figure it out. To figure out why *this* was considered an okay situation to be in would answer... a *lot* of questions about these contestants. Why they keep jumping from action to ill-conceived action, why they only ever think about themselves, why they can't plan for the future, why they can't do *anything*. Anything of note, that is. The fact that everyone was so willing to get themselves stuck in something that is very clearly bound to be this massive, miserable, untenable mess answers quite a few questions about the nature of these... *creatures*, and at the same time also asks quite a few more. What made them this way? How, and why? Was it natural, a practical joke crafted by the forces of nature and the cosmos out of pure random chance, or was it something deliberate? It wasn't out of the question, after all, that the speaker boxes, or algebralians, were pulling *some* strings behind the scenes, causing them to become more tolerable of such an inane idea. She's seen them do plenty of worse things. *Far* worse.

So many years have now been spent doing research in this vital field, and yet Golf Ball still felt like she was no closer to the big answer, to the grand revelation that would finally bring some sense to this nonsensical little world. The world remains so chaotic, and she remains so busy. GB was still alive, still in the game, and still in a team where most of her alleged teammates hate her guts. She had to juggle *that* alongside her precious scientific work, or else she would end up losing both. She could either end up being absorbed into Two or whatever, being sent into whatever pocket dimension they were using, and *maybe* could spend her time trying to work out what that place is, how it works, and how to escape it. *Or*, she could end up like the... others. Like Bell and Bomby, like Barf Bag and

Golf Ball froze.

She wanted to continue her work on *that* subject. She really did. But like most of her efforts throughout her life, the universe just wasn't cooperating. The world was providing *just* enough clues and evidence, leaving enough breadcrumbs to pressure her into continuing to follow the trail, and yet it never reveals enough for her to actually get *anywhere* in her studies. It's clear as day that there's *something* going on in the Battle for Dream Island. It's a show being broadcast to who-knows-who in who-knows-where, with hosts that are capable of doing *literally* anything else with their lives, and with contestants that should surely, *surely* know better if they wanted to live so badly. All the signs were there, visible to anyone with even a modicum of reason. But what does any of it even mean? Why do they do such things? Why not do *literally* anything else? Over a decade of intensive, exhausting work, and yet she was still no closer to any sort of answer, any sort of resolution. It remained the single greatest unsolved riddle in her mind, something that followed her wherever she went, ominously taunting and mocking her for being too *dumb* to figure it all out.

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