Sleepless - A BFB Grimdark

Part Seven - Finders Keepers

"Pencil!" Match called out. She pulled her coat around herself, trying to keep warm from the rain as it poured down. Pencil had left their apartment that morning to talk to Book after Golf Ball came by with the news. Hearing about how wrecked Book was that night really seemed to shake her up. However, Pencil failed to return by that afternoon.

Then a night passed.

Match's worry only grew when Golf Ball and Tennis Ball told her how the workshop was wrecked. Knowing Pencil, she wasn't petty enough to do such a thing, and Book...

Well, Match wasn't sure about Book. But she did know one thing. Something had happened. Something terrible. And Pencil was bound to be wrapped up in it.

Match felt dread seeping into her very soul. It was as if the trees around her were reaching out, begging her to just go home and wait for Two to come back. Her concern for Pencil, however, far exceeded any anxiety she felt. She waded further into the shrubs, trying to keep from getting too wet.

"Pencil! If this, like, is your idea of a joke, then, like, it's not funny!" Match called out. Only the rain answered, its pitter-patter thundering against the leaves above. She wanted to just find Pencil and go home. She muttered as she trudged along, eventually finding a clearing.

"Pence-Pence?" Match called again. No answer. Something about the air here felt...wrong. Match looked around, when she saw something had disturbed the muddy grass in the clearing. Despite her disgust, she crouched down. Footprints! Match stood up and raced after the prints, following their marks in the mud.

"Pencil! Are you down here?" Match called. She reached the edge of a trench and looked up and down it. Its muddy banks betrayed no answer, and the footprints stopped here. Match grew puzzled. Had Pencil fallen in the trench and drowned? Did she walk through it? Following the trench, Match walked on. The anxiety built in her stomach.

A flash of orange caught Match's eye. She looked down in the ditch to see Pencil's sweater, now muddied and soiled. Match gasped.

"Pencil!" Match slid down the trench, no longer caring if she got dirty. She ran over to her friend and pulled at the sweater to find that Pencil wasn't in it. The sweater was torn up and soaked with mud. Match's heart skipped a beat. She continued down the trench, clutching the sweater in her hands. As she went along, she found more of Pencil's clothing.

A shoe.

Her hairpiece.

Clumps of pink hair.

A lump of mud.

Match froze. In front of her was a sizable mound of sludge. Her mind screamed to run, to turn away, but her body resisted. She walked up to the mound. The sound of her shoes squelching in the mud accompanied the thundering of rain. Her hand slipped into the mound, letting the cold, dark, mud engulf her hand.

Something hard.

——

It wasn't long before the contestants were outside the forest, huddled around. A shrill scream echoed out from the woods, and currently, they were discussing who was to go in. The crashing of leaves and branches interrupted them as Match, now covered in mud and hysterical, bolted from the woods, panting.

"PENCIL! IT'S PENCIL!" Match screamed. Her eyes were wide in terror.

"W-What? Pencil? What about her?" Flower asked, the faint remnants of lipstick smeared on her face from when the scream rang out. Match stopped, panting and stuttering. She looked on the verge of tears.

"Give her some space!" Bubble called out. Match finally regained her bearing and wailed.

"P-Pencil's dead! Someone killed her!" She said through bated breaths. Golf Ball thrust herself through the crowd.