Larry absentmindedly stared out the window of the speeding car. It was rather dusty in here, and the seats were all torn up. There wasn't any point in wearing the frayed seatbelt either. He'd been riding in it for hours on end and he was quite uncomfortable with this whole situation. After having sobered up unnaturally quickly thanks to his strange, corrupted, body, he had time to think about what he was doing. But could he really be held responsible for the decisions of Drunk Larry? Haha. That man was never the murderer. Ahaha... He'd much rather be back at his home town.

"Excuse me? Mr. Roy sir? How long until we get to your house?"

"A few more hours," the unsettling older human muttered.

"Mm."

Larry lay down on the seats, feeling some sort of mystery mold on his ink skin. How DID he get to this point in his life? Sleeping in the back of a strange man's car on his way to torture a seven-year-old, as the said strange man had explained. What a bizarre set of circumstances for someone like him to end up in...

He knew the answer of course, he just didn't like to think about it. That's why he drank after all. Without the ability to, he quite literally could not stop thinking about it. Never stop thinking about it.

...

"What, don't you believe me?"

"Well why would I?" Lampy retorted. "It just sounds like a REALLY shitty lie." What kind of idiot would just stab themself cuz their friend told them to? He'd heard his friend try to pull a lot of stupid pranks on him before, but this was just unbelievable in every sense of the word.

"No no, come on! I have a real good reason to this time, you gotta trust me!" the teenage boy giggled. "I researched it really well!"

Lampy raised an eyebrow in complete disbelief. Research? What kinda nonsense was he saying now? "Oh did you now? What scientific backing do you have for me stabbing myself in the eye?"

"Okay okay but this is actually really cool. This is something only you can do, cuz you're an object. You ever heard of corruption?"

Lampy flinched slightly. "Y- yeah I've HEARD about it. The word at least. I dunno what it means though... Is that really what you're trying to do to me?"

"Well yeah! It'd be cool to have a friend that can live forever and be mutated and maybe have powers or some shit. I mean, think about all the stuff you could get away with hahaha!"

"But I don't know how to get corrupted. And what if I don't want to?"

"Why WOULDN'T you want to?! There's literally no reason not to! As for actually getting there, they say you have to do something really bad, like killing someone, but-" the boy giggled his freakish laugh again- "I think I found a loophole!" he sang. The human then pulled a pair of embroidery scissors out of his shorts pockets. A pit that had been growing in Lampy's stomach suddenly amplified in size. "If you do something really bad to yourself with the INTENTION of being corrupted, then it should totally work."

What was he saying? This was stupid.

Wasn't it?

But... it was terribly enticing. Being immortal. Having special abilities? It would hurt so much, but what if it was worth it? It would be fun. It would be fun.

Lampy was feeling sleepy. Maybe that's why he agreed. Maybe he just wasn't thinking properly. Or maybe that was just an excuse. Lampy's hands shook. He wasn't quite so sure about this. He'd only be corrupt because he did this, it's not like he wanted to murder anyone or something silly like that. In all honesty, it was an easy trade off when you looked at things objectively.

His friend handed him the scissors. They were very pretty. He didn't like that one bit, but at least they were clean. He couldn't imagine putting a pair of dirty scissors right on his open eyeball.

"This is going to be GREAT! I promise."

Hahaha

"Right."

It was so close to Lampy's eye. His friend was giggling. Shivers traveled through his whole body. It was so close. It was so so so so so close. This was a good idea. This was a good idea. Right as me made the movement towards his eye, the human spoke. But it was a second too late for him to react.

"Haha, JEEZ I can't believe you really went that f- WHAT THE FUCK?!"

Lampy jabbed the scissors into his left eye, twisting it and plunging it deeper and deeper. He didn't even mean to make them dig in so deeply, but the words were startling. He felt a burning sensation oozing through his skull; it was an unbelievable amount of pain. He jolted the scissors out of his eye as fast as he could and tossed them on the ground, heaving and holding back tears.

"AHAHAHA WOAAAAH! I didn't think you'd actually go through with it! I was just fucking kidding dude, you can't actually use a loophole! Good lord you're gullible-"

Lampy's head was swimming and he bent over, on the verge of vomiting. The words floated around his ears without entering his head. It hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it-

"Aw come on dude, this isn't anyone's fault but yours so quit crying. You look like a baby. I mean honestly, how could you even believe something like that?"

Because corruption WAS real. That IS what happens when you get corrupted. You just lied about the loophole. You just lied. You just- AGH- It hurts it hurts it hurts-

There was something sickening in him though. When he finally started hearing his friend's voice. It was thick and warm and permeated his veins. There was definitely a way to resist it, to push it back down and make it go away, and part of Lampy wanted to do that. But most of him just wanted to let it out. His limbs were shivering. He inched his head around painstakingly slow, until he was facing his friend. That warm feeling was turning into one of icy shock, as if his soul had been plunged into a bucket of ice water after being boiled alive. Something felt intrinsically right about what he was about to do even if a part of him still wanted to stop it. Even if it wasn't right, that part wouldn't have been able to stop him. It was too late. If he went through with this, if he let the sickening sensation win, he really WOULD be corrupt.

Larry the Lamp got what he wanted.

He slowly rose to his feet and took a step forward. A strange liquid was flowing out of his eye.

He lunged for-

..

The transformation happened quicker than he expected. As soon as the human stopped breathing, his limbs darkened from deep black-blue to a pure black. It felt like he was boiling. Why was his eye still leaking?

In his opinion, the prank went over pretty well. After all, he got corrupted. He was immortal now, he would probably get more mutated as time went on. That's what he wanted, was it not? What a winner he was. Things were going over so terribly well for him. He would love this sensation forever, for as long as he existed. He would love it as much as he deeply despised it.

...

"We're here."

Larry jolted up. Finally, a place to get some booze. As long as he could keep it in his system, maybe this job wouldn't be so hard after all.