Chapter Text
Silver Spoon watched in horror as the contestants ran in fear. One side, Balloon ran into the beast and a flash came over him. On the other side, there was Baseball trying to keep things together.
But out of the corner of his eye was the worst sight she could’ve seen. Candle being overwhelmed in the corner, her snowy white wings trying to shield her from the outside world. He had never seen her so scared before, and her heart tugged, telling his instincts to go comfort her, even when she himself was stressed.
As she started running towards her, the beast was practically on his tail. Maybe it was on her, maybe it was on Candle. Either way, the beast was after them. And as Silver shouted Candle’s name as he grabbed her-
The siren sounded. A flash overwhelmed Silver. She was still holding Candle, but she felt… cold. Naturally cold. As he looked down at Candle, she gasped in fear. Candle’s wings fell aside, limp, and so was her body. Most horrifyingly, her face… it was gone, instead replaced by the words “Wants To Feel Needed” .
The beast got her.
Tears formed in his eyes as she quickly bearhugged Candle’s corpse, crying into her shoulder. As he mourned the loss, she heard the loud siren blaring behind him and she just had to look over his shoulder, her small ears pinned back and his eyes wide with fear. The beast lunged at her, a bright flash overwhelmed her, he swore she saw the dark words “Thinks He’s Worthless ” appear for a split second, and the next-
It was dark.
Silver was gasping for air before noticing Candle’s corpse being gone from her tight embrace. The next thing he noticed was how her arms weren’t filled in and it was instead outlined in white. He looked down on herself and not only was the white outline applied to his body, but also that she was floating, kind of like how he was after activating her Golden Glow during the III finale.
His fluffy tail flicked and wrapped around to her stomach, the fluff pressing against his abdomen. Something was wrong. She should be dead. Gone. Was this the Afterlife? Heaven? Hell? Purgatory? Whatever this place was, Silver was very confused. Probably a side effect to the flash the beast caused before he wound up here.
Her ears and eyes, which he only now realized were ringing and blinded respectively, slowly became clear as she heard someone calling his name. When her vision cleared (which did clear before his hearing somehow), she saw Paintbrush floating over him, her name escaping their lips yet Silver Spoon could barely hear. Though what seemed to catch his interest was the fact that, despite their entire body being not filled with color and outlined in white, Paintbrush’s eyes were still the amber they adorned when they were alive. They still had white outlines, it was just that everything else wasn’t filled in with color for some reason, not even their small antlers.
Paintbrush gripped onto their shoulders and any neck floof that got caught between their hands, their ears flicking a little. “Silver, can you hear me?” was the first thing Silver could hear fluently, and she just silently nodded, his tail falling back behind her.
Paintbrush sighed. “Good. What… happened?”
“I don’t know.” The words escaped his lips and her mind was still fuzzy from the light, but he continued. “I saw Candle die in front of me and then this bright flash came over me a-and-”
“It got to you, didn’t it?”
“ It? What is this ‘It’ you’re speaking of?”
“MePhoneX. MePad quickly explained to us who were hiding in the mansion about this model of MePhone that was quickly killing everyone. But not just killing. Apparently it was also deleting us too.”
“From reality? Why?”
“I don’t know. Do you?”
How could Silver forget? Yes. Yes she did. He was there when MePhone4 told them the truth. That everyone and everything they’ve known was just made because he wanted someone to play his game. Silver Spoon felt conflicted on telling Paintbrush, but since they’re both apparently dead -dead, she might as well.
“MePhone4 created us and everything around us for Inanimate Insanity, a-and apparently Cobs didn’t like it so much.” That was all he had to say to get a reaction out of the artist. They stared at her in horror and he felt their grip tighten.
“I’m not lying either,” she quickly added. “He told us that before… the massacre.”
“There was a massacre at the Hotel…?”
“Y-yeah… I assume everyone didn’t survive… The beast deleted us all…”
Paintbrush slowly pulled away, their eyes wide, their face shocked. Silver frowned, looking concerned for the artist, but soon Paintbrush just shook their head.
He still felt concerned even as Paintbrush adjusted their hair. That’s when she noticed, out of the corner of his eye…
Candle. Floating. Unconscious.
She flew right on over to her and gently took her close. Unlike moments before his deletion where she had no face and words writing out her flaws instead replacing them, she had her face. Her lips. Her nose. Her closed eyes. She felt happy that she was okay. But something told him that she should wake her up. An idea flashed through his head as Paintbrush flew up behind her, watching as he silently contemplated the idea.
"This is gonna look corny, isn't it?" Silver said, not looking at Paintbrush as he let go of her lower back and gently tilted Candle's head up. "But... perhaps a kiss could wake her up?"
"Dude, why kiss her while she's unconscious?" Paintbrush asked, feeling a bit weirded out but not stopping him. Maybe he's just in denial.
"Because why not. I'd do anything to get her awake."
And Silver gently leaned forward and kissed Candle gently on the lips. Paintbrush half-expected nothing to happen, but then suddenly... her flame sparked and she gently lifted a hand up to Silver's cheek.
Silver was so shocked that he pulled away and watched as Candle blinked her amber eyes for a little bit. She was obviously feeling dazed, but that was not Silver's main concern. No, he was more-so worried about her in general. Her snow-white wings flapped a little as she floated a bit aways from Silver.
"What... what happened?" Candle asked. And that was all it took for Silver to fly over and hug her. After the whiplash passed, he just gave her a vague answer like she would always do.
"We're all okay now."