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Vee knew hacking into the computer files was wrong, but she didn’t have anything else to do in this godforsaken building. Recently, one particular file had caught her eye. It was heavily encrypted, to the point that she, even with her automated hacking skills, was taking months to figure out what was in there. She spent all of her free time trying to crack into this file until today…
It finally opened for her. After months of it racking around in her head, she had finally got it to open and reveal its contents. She shifted through the contents of the file, mostly boring reports she couldn’t care less about, but then she came across something that caught her eye. It seemed to be some sort of map, and she decided to head over to the nearest printer to get a better look at it. She was right about it being a map, but it was a floor she had never seen before.
They had been trapped in this place for over two decades now. What more was there to discover?
She knew one person who would be excited to see this, so much so that she took her printed map and began walking over to her room.
Brightney. One of Vee’s girlfriends. She had a book club every other evening. Despite only having three attendees, it was one of the livelier events in this place, and Vee didn’t mind observing them every now and then. Besides Brightney, Vee and Astro were pretty good friends. Razzle and Dazzle were a bit of a different story. Apparently, the comedy mask would usually sleep during most book club meetings, but he would talk Vee’s ear off if she was there. This seemed to annoy Razzle, as it meant the tragedy mask had a harder time focusing on whatever he was reading.
Maybe this map would spice things up a bit in the usually boring book club. Besides, Vee had no doubts that they were running out of books to read.
“Brightney,” Vee called out, knocking on the door of her girlfriend’s room. The book club had already started, and all attendees were sat on beanbags in the corner.
“Oh, Vee,” Brightney stood up to greet the television, “Have you decided to join us this evening?”
“Actually, I have something for you…and maybe the book club if you wanted to spice things up in here,” Vee explained, handing over the map.
Brightney took the map and examined it. She wasn’t familiar with the floor it was portraying, but she wouldn’t say no to an adventure, especially since she didn’t go on any ichor or supply runs that day. However, it wouldn’t be fair for her to make a decision like this without consulting the rest of the book club, so she put the map down on the floor in front of them and asked the other toons what they thought of it.
“I’m down to do something other than sitting here listening to you guys read.” Razzle grinned.
“What if there’s something dangerous down there?” His twin shifted nervously, more apprehensive about the mysterious floor.
“I’m sure we’ll be fine.”
“If you say so…What do you think, Astro?”
“Uhm, I’m not sure…” Astro was taking as close of a look as he could at the map, “But… it wouldn’t hurt to look, right? I mean, we’re a group of…at least four. Wait, are you coming with us…Vee?”
Vee stood there, considering Astro’s proposal. On one hand, this is something she wanted Brightney to explore with the rest of the book club, a group she was not a part of. However, she was curious as to what was in that mysterious floor. Then, as she shifted through some of the files in the back of her head, she realised she had a file noted as “elevator code”. She figured it was important and, given that she was the only one with access to this file, agreed to go with them.
With that, the group headed into the elevator, Vee pressed the buttons in accordance with the code in her system, and they were off.
Astro couldn’t shake the feeling of a pit forming in his stomach as the elevator descended to the mysterious floor Vee had shown them. Sure, he was somewhat curious about what was down there, but there was an unidentifiable dread looming over him that seemed to grow the lower they went down. He didn’t know what made him so nervous, but he decided to ignore it so as not to ruin the mood.
However, he was reminded that he wasn’t too good at hiding his own anxieties, as Dazzle, at the very least, began to take notice.
“Astro…” The tragedy mask started, looking concerned, “You know we’re here if anything happens, right?”
“Of course…thank you.” He replied, pulling his blanket tighter over his shoulders. The reassurance wasn’t too effective on him, but it was still nice to know he had people who cared about him with him.
The elevator finally dinged as it arrived at their destination. The door opened to reveal a seemingly abandoned laboratory with vials and syringes scattered about the place and ichor stained into the concrete floor. There were also several pieces of merchandise from the gift shop. Pieces being literal in this instance, as jigsaw pieces and parts of headbands were haphazardly strewn about.
Vee and Brightney led the rest of the group out of the elevator, using Vee’s screen and Brightney’s bulb as a sort of flashlight. It wasn’t particularly dark, but it was dimmer than most floors, to the point where even Astro’s blue glow was slightly visible.
A capsule of ichor rolled towards them without an obvious origin. Everyone stepped back, afraid in case it was a Twisted Rodger in disguise, but it did look like a normal capsule.
“Oops, silly me!” A familiar voice came from the shadows. Dandy soon stepped into view, bending down to pick up the capsule he had dropped.
“Dandy?” Vee gave him a puzzled look. Of all toons, she wasn’t expecting him to be here.
“The one and only!” The flower smiled, “Boy, I’m glad I’m not the only one here anymore. You guys wanna see what I’ve been doing here?”
“Uuhh, suuure.”
Dandy led the group over to a desk. It had various letters and other items covered in ichor, making them illegible. In the centre of the desk was a packet of trading cards. Dandy opened this packet and removed one with Flutter on the cover. He then took a syringe full of ichor that was sitting beside it and plunged it in.
The group watched as the trading card came to life as a clone of Flutter right before their very eyes. The clone stayed normal for a few moments before it started screeching, seemingly in pain, as it began to transform. Before long, the once normal Flutter clone had transformed into a twisted version, which Dandy quickly shooed out of the laboratory.
“Heh, sorry about that,” The flower giggled nervously, “They’re just like me, but I can never figure out how to stop them from changing so quickly…or how to change them back.”
“W-what…” Astro looked at Dandy with wide, almost tearful eyes, “What do you mean by that? What do you mean they’re just like you?”
“What do you mean you don’t know, Astro? You…you’re my best friend. I’ve told you everything, haven’t I?”
“Not this. What’s gotten into you? Y-you know we’re not our twisteds, right? That’s what we have to remind each other.”
“…you really don’t realise the truth, do you, Astro?” Dandy almost seemed to be in disbelief.
“I still don’t know what you’re talking about!” Astro was full-on crying by now. He was so confused about this whole thing, and the longer this went on, the more scared he got.
“Astro, please, just let me explain…”
“Astro!” Vee called him from the elevator’s entrance, “Let’s go! We’ve already seen the place.”
Astro looked back to Dandy, who was seemingly begging him to stay. He had a decision to make – stay with Dandy and find out the truth or leave and stay in the dark for however much longer.
He didn’t think his brain could handle any more information. He had just found out there was a new floor they hadn’t seen before, and now Dandy was making twisteds? This was all too much.
It was all too much.
“I’m sorry, Dandy,” Astro said before running over to the elevator. He didn’t want to look back to see whatever look was on his best friend’s face.
“Astro! Wait!” Dandy reached out to his friend to grab hold of him, but barely missed as the elevator door closed right on his face, almost severing his outstretched hand.
Alone again, Dandy collapsed onto the floor crying. How could he be so stupid and not tell Astro about this? He wasn’t like them, and he knew that, but he didn’t know how to explain it to them. It was all his fault they were in this situation, starting with curiosity, then turning to vengeance and finally, grief. That’s why he did this. He didn’t mean for it to turn out like this.
“Don’t worry, Astro,” Dandy put his hand on the cold metal door, “I’m sure I’ll explain it to you…one day.”
Astro sat in the corner for the entire elevator ride. He was still in total shock over what he just witnessed, and his heart was still racing from adrenaline.
He couldn’t believe he just left Dandy there. He couldn’t believe he abandoned him like that. Guilt, among other emotions, crashed over him in waves as he sat there. He wanted to cry so badly, but nothing was coming out. It felt like he was too overwhelmed to do anything but sit with his blanket over his shoulders and knees up to his chest.
The elevator dinged, a sign that they were back at the toon rooms. Yet, Astro couldn’t bring himself to move, like he was paralysed or glued to the floor. He heard Brightney and Vee discussing what they were going to do about their recent discovery, but he was too tired to focus on their exact words.
Why did he leave Dandy there?
“Hey…” Astro snapped out of it to look up at Razzle and Dazzle, the latter of whom was talking to him, “We’re going back to our room now. Would you like to come with us? The two of us can talk about astronomy…”
“Oh…sure. That would be nice.”