"Jesse?"
A total of six pairs turned to her.
The blue ones looked away.
"What are you doing?"
She found them sitting on a cliff, overlooking Beacontown.
"I'm running an experiment," they said softly, rubbing a thumb over a broken joystick.
Olivia took a moment and observed the machine behind Jesse, a contraption made of home tools. An SSD sat atop an old television set, the screen displaying an endless string of profiles, each of different people, and the screen switching with every flicker of a different colored fairy light. The string of bulbs hung between the television and a sword's hilt.
In front of Jesse was a spreadsheet. Data filled the tables with each passing second.
Another page.
"What kind?" She finally asked.
"I'm studying behavior."
"Of?"
Jesse was silent for a moment, watching the last of another page fill before turning the sheet. Then, "I'm checking to see if the Generator of Original Entities, subject 6641 base 5 section 0, has any intelligence."
Olivia's brows furrowed slightly. She took a step forward to her friend, who moved no muscle beyond the required. "And if he has intelligence, what kind? Is he stupid? Is he smart? Is he evil? For what cause does he generate life?"
Another page.
"Us?"
The fairy lights lay a rainbow, a vast array of calm, on the darkness. So little was the light, or so loud the opposite, that there was barely a shadow on the wall as the pair were struck by the soft reds and yellows.
Olivia turned back to Jesse as another page was filled. It seemed that more than one world was being monitored, given the rapid-fire population growth.
"What for?"
"There has to be a reason," they said helplessly, "They can't just throw a dice and watch a world burn for one misfire. They can't."
She'd turned away and squinted to see the rest of the cabin, noticing the burnt out pyre, the lid-less chest, and the urn sitting behind the television.
The name seemed to have been scratched out.
Balling her fists, the girl turned back to the child on the floor.
"Jesse, you have to come back."
They sniffed, bringing their knees to their chest and wiping tears as she came closer to them.
"You don't understand!" They cried, and the woman called foul. Jesse had known nobody but their group in the treehouse their whole life; what about them did Olivia notunderstand?
"I can't take it anymore."
"You can't just quit."
"Can't I?!"
The floor shook and lights flickered.
She took a step back when sparks of white flew in front of Jesse.
No more cliff.
No more cabin.
Just an endless abyss of cobwebs and flesh.
Her glowing eyes flickered back to the child.
"You can only go so long before you break," they sobbed softly, "Before you kill your crush. Before you agree to a stupid deal. Before you make a Witherstorm."
A finger twitched.
"I'm no different," was said with a whimper, "I can't, I shouldn't be."
The child's soft cries filled the stagnant air, doing nothing against the suffocating emptiness of the vast dark.
Attempts to get out of it were futile.
Television, SSD, and fairy lights stood beside the curled up figure.
"Honey, there's nothing you can do about that," she said sweetly, "It's out of everyone's control."
"But you, right?!" They said with a sharp turn, laden with frustration fresh from an epiphany, "because of course it was. Of course you did this! You manufactured this, all of it!"
A deafening silence.
Noise.
Purple.
The child crumbled to the floor.
"Are you saying this for me," a step forward, "Or are you telling this to yourself?"
Olivia waited, a moment so long and tension thick, a knife would be unable to cut it.
"I've been starting to do things for me," they said slowly, breathed while trembling on the floor, "This is one of them."
"Are you satisfied?"
Green eyes flew open as white screwed shut.
Jesse looked up at the woman in front of him, fists clutching the fabric beneath.
"Why should I answer to you?"