Welcome to Hypothetical Object Show

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Static had only started to drip from Tire’s eyes when Honey guided CD away. She needs space, she said. This is personal, she wouldn’t want us seeing it, she’d continued. CD had the suspicion that Honey didn’t want her to look, didn’t want her to see. Despite only knowing her for a little while—well, time didn’t actually pass in the mainframe, or it didn’t seem, to at least, so she had no idea how long they’d known each other now—she had already started to think of her as some kind of motherly figure, and she suspected that Honey felt the same. Not that she’d ever admit that, obviously. That’d be showing weakness, and she couldn’t afford to show any of that to her competitors.CD was determined to win, that much was obvious not only to her, but also to everyone she’d interacted with so far. The one question she couldn’t quite answer was… why? Honey and Safety Goggles seemed content to make friends, spend time discussing pointless topics rather than strategies for their team to win. CD, on the other hand, could hardly think of anything other than winning. It was a desperation, an obsession that she couldn’t explain. The reason seemed to be on the tip of her tongue, but melted away when she tried to bring it to mind.Honey’s arm was still on hers, guiding her across one of the hills, away from Tire. She glanced back. The static seemed to be dripping out of her eyes now, tear-like but too thick to be mistaken for it. It fell into puddles on the ground, where it just… sat, not absorbing into the soil.“Hey, woah, y’guys see that?” said Safety Goggles, catching up with the two of them. Her eyes were wide, and she seemed… a little nauseous.Honey sighed. “Yes, and I don’t think we should comment on it. She’s clearly in a vulnerable place right now, we shouldn’t gossip about it,” she said, giving Safety Goggles the Look that CD recognized from all the times it’d been pointed at her.She shrunk a bit, seeming almost ashamed. “Er- um, yeah, my bad,” she said, voice quiet.The three of them stopped walking a while away from Tire and her teammates, where Honey and Safety Goggles struck up a conversation. Just like usual, it was a conversation about nothing in particular. CD absentmindedly, almost cruelly, thought that if a future challenge involved talking as much as possible without actually saying anything of note, their team had it in the bag.They almost had it in the last challenge, anyway. They had been so close to winning, just one object left! And yeah, maybe CD wouldn’t have won the MVP prize, but she’d solved a few riddles! She would have gotten a good number of points! But no, of course, Tire had to steal the spotlight again, just like she had when she first arrived. They’d all arrived at around the same time, but stupid Tire just had to be fashionably late.And, now, Tire got to remember. She got to know her motivation for the game, got to know why she was here. Why she wanted to go back. CD, on the other hand, still couldn’t remember a thing, other than that she had to get back.As they stood in the grass, she heard whispers among the contestants that passed them, contestants who Honey hadn’t dragged out of there the second something scary started happening. She overheard their voices, quiet but sure about what they’d overheard. A sister, a crash. A dead parent. She tried not to listen out of respect (because even if she wasn’t Tire’s biggest fan, she did win the first challenge, which granted her at least a sliver of respect in CD’s book), but it still made her think. Did she have a sibling? Siblings? She felt like she did.“You’re lookin’ awful thoughtful over there,” chuckled Safety Goggles from her side. She thought she heard a mutter of ‘out of character’, but elected to ignore it.She sighed, sitting down in the grass. If she was going to have this conversation, she was at least going to be comfortable while she talked. “Do you guys… ever wonder why you’re here? I mean, like, why you… joined the game in the first place. Why you want to go back,” she said, quietly, unsure of her words even as they came out of her mouth.Honey hummed. “I guess so,” she replied, joining her in the grass. “I don’t think I’ve really thought about that until now.”CD looked at her, surprised. “You- you haven’t thought about it? What about- like, do you not have an inner voice or something screaming at you that you have to get back?” she questioned, confused. It had been almost all she’d been able to think of since she’d opened her eyes, the panicked voice in her head telling her that she had to win, no matter what she had to do, she had to win.Safety Goggles joined the two of them on the grass, eyes slightly concerned. “Uh, yeah, definitely not. Y’good, kid? Has that been happening the whole time?” she said, gently, as if not to scare her off. CD absentmindedly thought that this was the first time she’d ever heard her voice be gentle.She shrugged, trying to think of the best way to phrase it. “I don’t- yeah, maybe?” she groaned, hugging her knees to her chest. “Something in me just feels so… frantic. I don’t really know how to describe it. It’s dumb, just- forget I said anything.”Honey wrapped her arm around her shoulder. “Hey, no, it’s okay! Maybe you just… have more of a reason to get back than the two of us. You do seem younger, so… maybe you’ve got more to live for?” She mumbled. “Sorry, that sounds so morbid!” she laughed.Safety Goggles let out a boisterous laugh. “Oh, what, you saying I don’t have anything to live for? Very nice, Hon,” she chuckled.Honey giggled. “I didn’t mean it like that, you know that!” she said, playfully swatting Safety Goggles on the arm.CD rolled her eyes and started to tune the two of them out, zoning out with Honey’s arm still wrapped comfortably around her shoulder. More to live for… no, that wasn’t quite it. It didn’t feel exactly right, anyway. She sighed, leaning against Honey’s shoulder. No point in worrying about it right now, really, since she wouldn’t find out how she died until the end of the next challenge, at the very soonest. For now, she tried to quiet the frenzied voice in her head, and just… sit.

• Back

The afterlife was unimpressive, now that Compass had a free moment to really look at it. They weren’t sure what they had expected, really. An endless expanse, a beautiful sky that stretched as far as the eye could see, maybe? Whatever they had expected, it wasn’t… this. They hadn’t expected the brightness of it all, they hadn’t expected a replica of what Safety Goggles claims is a city back on Earth, and they, most of all, hadn’t expected… whatever HOST was. Despite the size of the mainframe, and all of its interesting features, it all felt almost like a computer game that was still in development. There were no trees, and other than the city, no landmarks. Just bright green hills and a body of water that, despite appearing to go on forever, felt small, somehow.The water inside the mainframe’s body of water, which was where they happened to find themself at the current moment, was warm. Not ‘tub’ warm, not the hot water Compass could remember if they thought really hard, but definitely not ocean temperature. It was unnatural, but somewhat welcome. They supposed it made sense, really. Crowbar had dubbed the body of water not an ocean, but the “Big Water”. Not a pond, not an ocean, not really any kind of natural water formation, but, well, water that was big.Nothing in the mainframe was natural, to be fair. If Compass shut their eyes tight and tried to ignore the quiet but shrill ringing that seemed ever present, they could almost pretend. Pretend none of this had ever happened, pretend that they were back wherever they came from, where they had more than two limbs and weren’t dead. Pretend they knew their name, their family, where they came from, even pretend they knew their face. But then, the bright, almost fluorescent light of the mainframe would peek through their eyelids (if they could even call them that, really), and they would remember.Compass was in the middle of a session of this, standing in the water and pretending desperately that they were home, when a stray wave from Tire and Crowbar’s fight knocked them over, sending them face down into the water.“Ope, sorry, C!” Crowbar yelled, his shrill voice cutting through the sound of the splashing water. He seemed desperate to assign nicknames to the whole team (despite the short length of their names already), and ‘C’ was his current attempt. If you asked anyone but him, it wasn’t working out very well. On the other hand, it was entertaining him, so Compass was happy to let it be for now.A louder splash. “Crowbar, you dork, don’t splash Compass!” They opened their eyes to see Crowbar face down in the water, with Tire standing over him and holding his head under the water. “Sorry, um, about that,” Tire said, sheepishly.They sat up in the water, shaking off a few of the droplets on their face. “It’s fine, no harm done. I don’t think you really even can do any harm here. Since we’re, uh… dead, and all.” They said, shrugging as best they could without having shoulders.Tire’s eyes glazed over slightly, and Compass immediately realized their mistake. “Er- um, sorry, didn’t mean to… remind you,” they said sheepishly. She had been slightly out of it ever since the whole memory-regaining thing at the end of the first ‘episode’, as HOST had called it. This whole water splashing fight had been Crowbar’s idea, to help cheer her up and distract her. Compass mentally cursed themself for being the one to disrupt the illusion.Tire shook her head, then moved to adjust her hands on Crowbar, who she was still holding underwater. “No, no, it’s fine, really. I like thinking about my sister, anyway.” Crowbar resurfaced and she jumped to shove him back under, laughing the whole while, but it was clear (to Compass, anyway) that her mind was still elsewhere.Compass hummed. “What… was it like?” As soon as the words left their mouth, they regretted them. Nice going, Compass, remind the cool girl about her sister that might be dead! Furthermore, ask her to talk about said sister! I’m sure that’s totally what she wants right now!Tire furrowed her brow. “What was… what like?”Compass blushed. “Um- having a sibling. I don’t… I mean, maybe there’s no inherent feeling that you had a sibling, but I… don’t feel like I ever had one,” they continued.Tire sighed. “It was… like having a best friend that hated you sometimes, but that you were obligated to still spend time with. Cammie was- no, is, my favorite person, even if she drives me nuts sometimes,” she said, eyes unfocused. “I don’t think that I remember everything from my childhood, but I remember her. Maybe that says something about what having a sibling is, I think? They’re someone that you’ll remember when an evil weird scribble being gives you back a limited number of your memories. Because they were that important to you. I think she’s the reason I’ve been fighting so hard to get home. I need to know she’s okay, y’know?” Tire said.Compass smiled. “She sounds… great,” they said, quietly.“She is. ” Tire frowned. “She helped pick out my name, I just… remembered that. When I first came out, she asked me if I’d thought of a name yet, and when I said I hadn’t, she made a whole whiteboard presentation of names,” she chuckled.Compass tilted their head. “Well… what did you end up picking?”Tire smiled. “Mercedes. My name is Mercedes.”They smiled back. “It’s nice to meet you, Mercedes.”Tire had been distracted for too long, and Crowbar was able to slip out of her grasp. He shot up, grabbing her head and shoving her underwater. “Revenge!” he yelled, as droplets splashed onto Compass from where they sat. The two of them started trying to dunk each other under the water, sending even more droplets splashing onto Compass. They didn’t mind, though. If anything, it was entertaining.‘Mercedes,’ Compass thought. ‘A nice name. It suits her.’ Compass wondered briefly if their own name suited them. Would they ever find out? They didn’t have much time to ponder this, however, before being sent face-first into the water again. A hesitant apology echoed from Tire this time, and once Compass recovered, they ran over to push her into the water.There would be much more time to be existential and everything later. For now, though, Compass resigned themself to enjoy themself for a minute. After all, maybe this was all the afterlife they’d ever get.