Paige paced around their makeshift house, which was really more of a one-room wooden cabin than anything substantial. They knew they needed to do SOMETHING about this, but unsure how to go about it.

Well, technically that wasn't true, they just REALLY didn't want to go through with it. The thought made them squeamish. Still, they'd already made a choice to steal a corpse, no reason to stop their trail of good deeds now. Paige focused their mind on the true intangibility of the world and visualized a pair of scissors made out of binary code. The air warbled for a moment before the instrument appeared in their hands. They sucked in a breath, and jabbed it into their left arm.

Paige winced but pushed through, digging under the hardened ink skin, through the liquid ink blood, and exposed a wire-like string in the center of their arm. This was only to be used for emergencies, and it would only work for certain wounds, but hopefully this was one of them. They snipped a length of the string out of their arm, sewed the skin back together with a needle they spawned, and looked back at the corpse lying on the table.

They were no surgeon, but how hard could it be to sew someone's head back on, right? It was like making a doll.

It wasn't that hard, even if they'd never sewn before, they could still finagle their way to it looking decent after the first two loops. The difficult part was looking at the actual stitches and touching a dead body. He was so cold and... unsettling. Yeah, that was a word for it. Their left arm's pain began to numb as they worked their way around the neck. The rain pounded outside the house and Paige had a feeling that it was Roy's fault. Not long after they had dragged the boy's body into the woods, the storm spiked in intensity. Perhaps he knew someone had moved the corpse. All the better reason to stay home.

Paige finished off the final stitch and snipped the end of the string, tying it off. With any luck, this would work. If it didn't...

...

Red's brain felt... something. It felt... awake. It felt awake? He was awake!

Red shot up, eyes wide and heart pounding. He spun his head around to look at where he was. This wasn't that weird room off to the side! It didn't even look like anywhere else in the house! He found himself on a table inside a medium sized wooden room, decorated only by a bed and a mirror and an object and-

Red stared at the object standing across the room from him. It was the same damn one that had terrorized them the first time. He found himself frozen on the spot, staring into their yellow tinted eyes.

And then they opened their mouth.

"Uh. Hi. It's... me. I'm sure you already know my name cuz Roy said he told you guys. Course he never told me your guys' name but we can get to that. Um, are you... okay? I mean obviously you wouldn't be because you just got decapitated but I meant-"

"WHAT?!"

"Oh, what to what part?"

"I-" Red's eyes widened and he felt his brain pounding against his skull. "Y- you save- I d- R- What happened to me?!" he demanded.

"Well, I'm not quite sure. I'm fairly certain that someone cut your head off. I fixed that but honestly I was lucky that it worked at all."

"Oh my god." He shoved himself off the table.

"I know right? This place just gets weirder and more dangerous by the day."

"Shut up, shut the FUCK up!" He whirled around to shout at them. "I remember your name alright! You're Paige- you- YOU STARTED ALL THIS! You fucking FREAK!" He shoved the object against the table, expecting them to lash out at him. Instead, they simply looked at him with pity. But why?

Red tensed himself for an attack that never came. Paige simply straightened themself back up and sighed, adjusting their papery hair. "You should probably, I dunno, sit down or something. I can't imagine being dead and coming back is terribly relaxing."

The teen's retort caught in his throat as the brunt of the statement hit him. Being dead. He... he actually died. As he backed against the wall, he felt something cold press against his hand and he spun around to face the mirror. Red was confronted with himself, but he didn't quite look right. His skin was much ashier than it was before, his eyes looked duller, and his neck...

He held back bile as he traced his finger over the stitches in his neck. The metallic, wirey string stabbed through his skin and held the two pieces of his neck together. As he touched it, a sickly warmth radiated off of the suturing. He frantically scraped his fingernails against his skin to see if this was real, if he was actually alive. And it hurt like it should but the scratch marks left on his face didn't fade like normal; instead, seemingly dissipating the moment after they appeared.

Red tucked his hands inside his sleeves and reflexively pressed them against his chest, curling in on himself. He thought he could feel a heart beating, but it was so terribly sluggish, it made him shake with anxiety and terror. The boy shot a desperate, horrified glance at Paige, who simply watched in anticipation with crossed arms.

"Wh- why..." he choked out, "did you do this?"

"...I thought it was the right thing to do. Maybe it'd make up for everything I didn't do." They folded their hands behind their back and let their glance fall to the floor.

"The right thing..? Why would someone like YOU care about doing the right thing?" he growled, arms still pressed against his chest and body still shivering.

"What's that supposed to mean? Is it because I was a teacher?" Their voice rose in pitch with their anger. "Well guess what? I didn't agree to whatever the hell that was!"

"Even if you didn't, you're still a monster! How can you expect me to believe you about 'doing the right thing' if YOU'RE CORRUPTED!"

Paige's eyebrow quirked up and they laughed nervously. "Uh- haha, no I'm not?"

"Wh- don't try and lie to me!" He stomped towards them. "You've even got a human na- ...name..."

They glared at the boy. "No, I don't."

"Uh... please tell me your name is Paige... with an I."

"I'm afraid it's not," responded Page with a hint of sass in their voice.

Red awkwardly gestured towards them as he tried to sputter out some sort of reply. Some weird amalgamation of an apology, and confusion, and snark. He didn't have it in him to muster up anything other than an "Oh" in the end.

"I never have been, or will be corrupt, to the best of my ability," stated Page with finality. Red nodded his head, his eyes still jotting around the room. As he opened his mouth to speak, a flash of lightning shot through the sky, startling the two of them. Red walked to the doorless exit of the house and took in the scenery.

"I've been hiding for a few weeks, almost a month I'd say," began Page again. "But I only got this thing finished a week ago."

"...you've been here for a few weeks? But, your uh 'episode' was months ago."

"Hm? I think I can tell the difference between weeks and months."

"No no no, it's definitely been at least..." Red counted on his fingers, "4 months since you barged into our house."

Page sighed. "Look, I don't know. Maybe time passes weird in here."

Something suddenly struck Red. "If that's true..." He shot a terrified glance at the set of houses off in the distance. "What am I doing waiting around here!? I have to go help them!" He burst out the door only to be held back by Page grabbing onto his hoodie.

"What are you doing? Are you trying to get yourself killed AGAIN?!"

"No, I'm TRYING to stop my brother's from getting killed too! If Roy's willing to let me get DECAPITATED I can't imagine him treating the other two any better. And I CAN'T let that happen!" Red tore himself out of the object's grip and glared at them.

"If you go down there now, you'll just die again and I dunno if I'll be able to fix it. You're VERY lucky your wound was something I could stitch!" They pointed accusingly at the boy. "How can you help them if you're dead?"

"How can I help them if THEY'RE dead?!" he cried. "You wouldn't understand, would you? You don't actually care, otherwise you would've done something about this a long time ago." He turned away from them and muttered, "You're just as bad as the rest of them."

Page swallowed drily and looked away. "Fine. Maybe you're right." They retreated to the inside of the house. "Go screw things up again. Don't say I didn't warn you."

Red ignored the slowly shrinking voice of the object as he raced back towards the houses.

...

The rain still poured down from the virtual sky, drenching his hair. As he approached the set of houses, he couldn't help but notice that it looked different than it used to be. There were far more houses, and there was more than one road. The closer he got, the larger the set seemed to grow until it warped into a full neighborhood of near identical houses. His mind raced with what this could mean, none of it good. Then, Red noticed a bright... red telephone booth.

Honestly, he didn't care if it was a trap. Roy already got what he wanted with Red coming to the neighborhood, if it's own existence was any indication. So the teenager stepped into the phone booth, and nervously inputted the number.

Ring... ring... ring...

"Hello?"

Click.

That was Duck's voice! He was still alive! Sure, he'd been cut off, but Red still had time to save his brothers! He couldn't risk heading straight to the house (and he probably couldn't find it anymore) but he could still warn them over the phone.

Ring... ring... ring...

"Hello?"

Click.

Oh for the love of god. This was probably Roy's doing, and just that thought sent a pang through his heart. But he couldn't stop trying.

Ring... ring... ring... ring... ring...

Click.

Nothing. No, no please... He knew that time was distorted a bit, but it had only been a few seconds! He couldn't have- Red inputted the number again.

"I'm afraid you've used up your calls," said a voice that the boy didn't recognize. He startled backwards, falling out of the booth and landing on his back. When he sat back up, the phone booth was gone.

Red's heart pounded as fast as it could feasibly go as he whipped his head around in search of some sort of clue or hint to what he could do. But the neighborhood was barren. There was nothing left to do but search for the house, and he was wasting time just lying in the grass. He jolted to his feet and raced down the slippery sidewalk.

As he rounded the corners and twisting pathways, he found the houses and landscape repeating endlessly, and he was certain that he was lost. But that didn't matter, there was nothing else he could do! His side screamed in agony as he ran and ran and ran through the pouring rain until he finally slipped up. Red crashed to the ground and rolled into the empty, flooded road. He desperately tried to catch his breath as he lay drenched on the asphalt. Rolling himself over to look at the sidewalk again, he noticed something strange about the water flowing down the side of the road. But that couldn't be...

Red dragged himself over to the river of blood streaming past the sidewalk. He held back vomit for the second time today and urged his exhausted body towards the source, a strangely shaped blob of flesh lying in the road.

"No... no, please-"

Red stumbled towards it, and it soon became clear to him that the 'thing' lying in the road, was his little brother.

The teen's breath caught in his throat as he shakily lowered himself to his knees. Duck's torso had been scooped of all its organs, leaving only an exposed and fractured rib cage and a few scrapes of crimson tissue. Blood streamed out of his shut eyes and mouth, pouring down his neck and on to the ground to mix with the rest of the blood and the rainwater. His skin was a pale gray that Red had never seen before and his face was contorted into permanent agony.

"No- please- I-" Red's chest ached as if someone had swung a bat against his ribs and he felt as if he wasn't moving his own body when he lifted Duck into his arms. He choked back a sob, but that didn't stop the tears from pouring out of his eyes. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry- I'm so-" he held back another sob. If he had been faster, or- or smarter about his choices, or if he hadn't upset Roy- or- "Please, I-" His mind raced with desperate bargains that didn't mean anything to anyone. He'd do anything to fix this, anything to- "I didn't- I'm sorry-" He was sorry that he never talked to Duck about how he'd acted. He didn't know whether or not he died hating him, or knowing he really did care about him because he was his little brother and he shouldn't have-

He couldn't hold back the sob this time. He practically suffocated as it wracked his whole body. The boy pulled his brother's corpse closer, because if he let go, then he'd be gone forever. If he took his eyes off of him, he'd never see him again. And he didn't care if this was a trap or a lure or whatever the hell Roy had in store. He didn't care about anything except keeping Duck close to him.

Speak of the devil, and he shall appear. Very familiar footsteps tore through the sound of the pattering rain. Red didn't turn to look at him. He didn't know what would happen if he did. The sound of metal dragging against the concrete sidewalk drew closer. Was he here to finish him off? He couldn't fight Roy. He was too weak, and exhausted, and alone... He couldn't protect Duck, and now Roy was here to make sure he couldn't protect Yellow. He hated that he was crying in front of that monster.

The man circled around him to look Red in the eyes, but the boy didn't grace him with a look. Roy sighed, and silently raised a baseball bat in the air, before swinging it against the teenager's head.