Duck stood frozen outside the kitchen door. Yellow patiently waited inside for him. But he couldn't go in. He couldn't.
Red had been missing for the whole month in between "episodes," and he knew something horrible had happened. His big brother wouldn't just abandon them; he KNEW he couldn't do that to them. Roy had said nothing on the matter and just ignored him every time he asked about it. Yellow clearly gave up on asking all together, but he didn't get it. Of course he didn't. He couldn't. He was too young, too sweet, too innocent to understand why this was so suspicious. It's not like he'd ever had to see anyone die before.
Duck would've cursed at himself for being so jaded at 10 if he actually knew any swear words. He wished he'd paid more attention to Red. He would have, if he knew he wouldn't see him again...
Duck felt a familiar presence behind him and turned to see Roy waiting in the shadows. The tall, freakish man emptily gestured to the brightly lit kitchen. The little boy hesitated for a moment before letting something spill out of his mouth.
"I don't wanna go in there! I wanna see Red again!" he shakily whined and stamped his foot.
Roy's eyebrow twitched and he replied, "Don't worry. You will soon."
With that, he shoved Duck into the kitchen.
...
"Hmm. Something's different!"
The drawing changed.
"Yes, something's... missing."
They didn't look happy in that picture. Did they ever look happy? He thought they did but maybe he was just remembering wrong. The line mocked his stress and worry.
"Hmm."
"Is it... this guy?"
A childlike object absentmindedly drummed on a pair of cans with some spoons. He noticed the duo staring at him awkwardly and fumbled with his makeshift drumsticks.
"Are you hungry?" screamed another child object out of nowhere. The two of them startled at her sudden bursting from the cabinet. "You look to be a bit hungry!"
"No!" Yellow went off script. He was just so sick and tired of this sorta thing.
"Doo do doo doo, lots of people get hungry-" she awkwardly filled in.
"That's your body! Hungry comes from your body." A disgustingly tall creature appeared seemingly from the walls and wrapped his pure black, stick-like arm around Duck. God, this was so wrong. How did they ever get into this situation. What is life like for normal kids?
"Get off me."
"But your body! It musta havta be healthy!" He jabbed a fork into Duck's chest. It wasn't sharp by any means but it didn't make it less unsettling. For a second, the boy considered how it wouldn't technically be cannibalism because they weren't the same species. Then he mentally chastised himself for thinking of such gross things. Then he ran back through his thought process for the last two minutes, too distracted to notice anything until the weird meat creature wrapped his arm around him again. He half expected him to put him in a chokehold but instead he started awkwardly dancing.
"What?"
Yellow was quickly engrossed in the event. Duck supposed his brother didn't quite yet have the mental fortitude to stay angry at such a falsely joy scenario. Then he made fun of himself for using such unnecessarily long words even though it was his own thoughts that no one else could hear. Then he was distracted by a ringtone.
Everyone turned to the phone on the wall that he was certain wasn't there before. The teachers wore an expression he'd never seen any of them use. He didn't like how genuine it looked.
Duck hopped out of his seat and reached for the phone, his heart pounding out of his chest for no reason.
"Hello?"
His wrists really hurt. The boy's eyes blinked open to a brilliant light surrounded by a dark, clinical room. He'd only been to a hospital once before, but this was what he remembered it feeling like. Before his breathing even had the chance to freak out, he found himself back in the kitchen.
"See the body is like a special house, with hair, blood, and organs in the different rooms! Oh look there's mister bladder in the basement." The creature laughed as if he was trying to hide something disgusting underneath it. "Now food goes in through the chimney—mouth—and goes from room to room, greeting the different organs!"
"Hello!"
"Now the good, healthy food is very nice and polite to the organs! And so is invited to stay. For the party! Yay! But the bad, not healthy foods are VERY RUDE. And must leave through the cat flap."
"Rude!"
A million thoughts rushed through Duck's head in a second about how incredibly stupid that all was. Of course, he thought, all of these lessons have been rather stupid but there's just been so much empty space for him to think about it and- ah, he was getting distracted again. "That doesn't make sense-"
"Doo do doo doo do!" The little girl shoved a fork in his face and awkwardly gestured to the creature before he nervously joined in.
And then the damn phone rang again.
"Hello?"
"What's that, a tasty snack!" Wh- where the heck did the SANDWICH come from?! WHY IS MY LIFE SO DIFFICULT, he mentally screamed. "You don't wanna go and eat a snack like that!"
"Greedy, to eat all that! You'll end up with your gums all gray!" That reflection did NOT even look like him, what kinda scam were these freaks trying to pull? WHY WAS HE SUDDENLY SO CRITICAL OF THE LESSON, THEY'D ALWAYS BEEN THIS STUPID he realized.
But why was he realizing it now? Duck hated this, he probably wouldn't feel like this if Red was here. He wanted RED, nothing made sense without him. The trio needed to be complete! Without him, he felt so alone and focused on everything else because he knew Yellow wouldn't focus on it so he had to do it for him but now everything looked so two dimensional and why hadn't he-
"Yes but- something's... wrong!"
"Exactly! How do we know which foods are the healthy ones to eat?"
"Well that's easy!"
Duck whined as his brain felt on the verge of exploding. I'm not built to deal with this, man! He quoted mentally even though there was no one to hear it.
"The food groups can easily be sorted into the simple health shape!" NO SHUT UP YOU'RE WRONG WHY IS THIS SO WRONG. "Choosing plain looking foods like bread, cream, white sauce, and Aspic, keep the body ticking over just nicely." The creature poured a gross slime into a diorama of a human. "Isn't that right?"
He couldn't stay here anymore, he needed Red, he couldn't stay here without him, he needed to go and hopefully Yellow would follow him but he just couldn't take it in right without the extra person. He feebly muttered out an "I need to go" because he was honestly too focused on thoughts to talk properly.
"But wait WHAT'S THIS!?" she screamed in his face.
"Fancy, show-offy foods like cooked meats, fruit salads, soil foods, and YOLK." "UGH"
"These foods will clog up the body with unnecessary detail." The creature shoved the diorama to the ground. "Oh look, it's all broken and on the floor."
Duck felt someone slam their hand on his shoulder and he flinched back so wildly he would've cringed at himself if he was watching. The little boy spun to see ANOTHER object flailing it's stupid arms in his face and trying to reach him and saying nonsense words and he couldn't stop the protests from leaving his mouth even though he KNEW they were off script.
BUT HE DIDN'T CARE ANYMORE!
"I CAN'T DO THIS ANYMORE!"
As the world flicked to black, the last thing he saw was Yellow reaching towards him with a terrified expression.
...
His wrists hurt.
There was some sort of muffled beat going on in the background but it was overcome by the strange beeping sounds. It was like the barcode scanner at a grocery store. His vision was fuzzy and it wouldn't readjust like normal.
The top of his right arm twinged, like someone had injected a shot in him.
As Duck's eyes finally adjusted to the light, he spotted the blurry outline of another tall object and it's deep, slow laughter.
It was colder than normal. Where were his socks, and his jacket... Why couldn't he really feel anything...
Why was there something red streaming down in front of his eye...
He tried to pull himself into existence and little by little, the numbness filling his body drained out of the tips of his fingers. Then his head, and his legs. And finally, his torso.
Duck snapped his head forward before it was promptly slammed back against what felt like a hard metal table. His forehead was throbbing and he realized there was a strange cut on it, with blood streaming down his face. He glanced at his arm and noticed a puncture on it, so he was probably right about the shot assumption. Then he looked at his torso and it was like all the pain being held back by whatever was injected into him burst through a dam.
He dry heaved at the sight of his digestive organs being strung out of him by the gloved hands of some unknown object. Either the shock or the darkness concealed their face but Duck didn't care. He couldn't even bring himself to scream, opting to frantically squirm as the wildly intense pain shot through his whole being a thousand times a second. He slammed his fists against the table weakly yet frantically, jerking against the restraints and he bit down his lip so hard trying to hold back the scream and bile that he bit through his own skin, tearing out a chunk of flesh. His mouth started to bleed and it poured down his neck, onto his shirt which he barely recognized as a medical dress. He let out a choked cry and realized his throat was burning. He gagged as he accidentally swallowed his own blood, causing some of it to flow into his lungs. He hacked up the blood again and the violent coughing caused his already exposed and pressured ribs to crack right in front of his eyes. Salty tears were waterfalling out of his eyes but he didn't even notice through all the blood already on his cheeks. The object tugged on his intestines and wrapped them up inside a bowl and shoved his liver in its mouth and he didn't understand how he was still alive but he knew it wouldn't last long. He didn't want to die like this. It wasn't fair! He couldn't do this, he had to be there for Yellow, he couldn't-
This wasn't how he wanted to go out. He had imagined he'd live a decently long life and get to make friends and see new places and leave this nightmare behind. He thought he'd just die of natural causes. Duck senses were growing duller, and he thought about what he'd be doing if he was adopted by someone else. It didn't hurt anymore but he still saw the sickly green light of the room and the motions of the object. His eyes were really heavy.
Duck hoped Yellow would be okay. That he'd be able to get out before something bad happened to him too.
But his last hope was that Red hadn't died as painfully as he did.
...
Yellow's entire body was stuffed. It wasn't an exaggeration, or a turn of phrase; it was genuinely stuffed. It was as if someone had shoved the mystery meat not just into his stomach, but in between his bones. His brain was pounding against his skull and only grew worse with the ear grating sound of the telephone.
He was tempted to pick it up.
But he couldn't really move, and it soon silenced. His eyes grew wet as he stared at his dirty plate. On some level, he knew what happened. Duck went missing, and that green color was exactly like his hair. But, it wasn't possible. It was just an illusion. Like the rest of it had been. He'd come back with Red soon. They were off doing something else, and R- his dad didn't need them to attend the lessons anymore.
He tried to drag his body off the chair and toppled off it onto the carpeted ground. He was still crying and his entire body felt like collapsing in on itself. He felt like a baby. A pathetic, lonely, stupid baby that couldn't do anything for itself, and couldn't do anything to help it's brothers.
They were so smart and brave and he... wasn't. That's probably why he had to stay here. That's why his dad made this happen. That's why his dad hadn't killed him but h̷͔̖̻͎̲̦͖̣̋ę̸̭̘̦͌͂ ̵̢̞̲̟͉͖̭̤̪͈̬̱̯̋͋̽̈́̓́͋̃s̸̝̳̜̤̣̮ͅh̵̥̱̗͔̻̬̞̫͔̠̄̈̂̅͗̈́͊͘͜͝o̴̡͉̺͎̩̗̼̦͔̙̔̋͆͊͋̍͠͝ư̴̡̠͍̗̯̯̩̫̥̹̱͔̦̰̌̆̾͛͝l̶̢̨̻͇̠̫̗̣̭̺͍͙̘̫̗͐ḋ̶͍̄̌̇̃̄̾͊ ̸̲̱̱̖͕̱͙̼̹͈͖̦̪͍͆̅͐͂͆̊͐̆̂̎̆̂͜h̵̢͍̮̦̙͔̲̭͉̗́̍͂̿̈̂̅͜͜ͅa̶̡̡̡̯̤̳̘͙̜̺͇̯̩̲̓͆̌̍̃͑̈́̾͊̓͝ͅv̴̧̢̫̯̫͉̳͇̯̣̯̲̔͠ẽ̴̢͇͍͇͙͉̠̞͙̩̃̈́͋͛̄͌͜͝͝ͅ.
"It's time for bed."
Yellow felt his body being dragged out of the room. It was so deceptively gentle. Like the rain he soon heard pounding against the roof.