The world fell into complete darkness, and stayed that way for nearly five minutes. Then, a bright light shone from the sky. It was the moon, but it wasn't glowing how it should. It blazed through the sky like a spotlight, casting harsh shadows rather than shining softly in the virtual sky. The trio and Page shook their heads as the fuzz pulled away from their brains. Yellow stared out the window in utter confusion and Duck shrieked at the sight of Page.

"N- no shh shh, it's okay they're..." Red shot a glance at Page who simply gave him a nod of confirmation. "They're okay, they helped us." They'd actually come through for them... He threw a quick, grateful look at the object before continuing. "D'you know what's going on here?" he asked.

The object ruffled their hair in thought. "My best guess is that Roy reset the world. I dunno what you did to make him do that, but whatever it was must've been pretty huge."

"The machine..." he murmured to himself. A thought then struck the teen as he took in the darkened surroundings. "Oh my god... you're okay..." He clasped his hands to his mouth and practically tackled his still shaken little brothers. His body shivered as he held them close to his slowly beating heart. "You're okay..."

He could feel Yellow staining his hoodie with tears and Duck practically clawing into him as he held on tight.

Page awkwardly sidled in. "Uh, I hate to break up the family reunion, but we should probably make a run for it..."

Yellow wiped his eyes. "Wh- why?"

And to answer his question, an ear-piercing alarm blared through the virtual world. The spotlight moon started roaring around and around, in search of someone to take hold of. Page took that as their cue to get the hell out of there. They grabbed a chair and smashed open the window, crawling onto the sill and launching themself forward into a head start. Red watched, frozen in panic for a moment before following suit and waiting on the ground. He caught Yellow as he hopped out and waited for Duck.

"Come on, we gotta go!"

The 10 year old stood paralyzed on the sill. "I can't- I can't- I-"

"Yes you can!" Yellow encouraged. "You'll be okay, I promise!"

Duck swallowed and haphazardly lunged into Red's arms. The two of them fell backwards but were quickly pulled up and into a run by their much stronger little brother. Holding on to Duck's hand, Red sprinted after Yellow up the hill and into the woods.

The moon angled itself against the trees but couldn't shine directly in, giving them a slightly safer shot to wherever the hell they were going. They'd never run far enough to see where the world ended, but now was a good a time as any.

Duck heard loud stomping noises and whirled his head around to see the food gang storming after them, hot on their tails. "LOOK OUT!" he cried.

Red didn't even have time to jump into defense or run to the side. Pete the Steak had already blew past him with Sally riding on his shoulders. The freakish object's remaining teammates were scrambling through the forest with a look of absolute terror in their eyes. The trio paused and turned around all the way to see the rest of the teachers fleeing in fear.

Tony was bursting along the forest floor, using his extra arms that they didn't even know he had to boost himself in any way he could. Larry had lost his apparent drunken stupor and was now determinedly weaving his way through the trees, followed closely by Shrignold. Red flinched as Colin rounded out the end of the group on his short but sturdy legs and the trio continued their flee into the woods.

It was a bizarre feeling, running in terror with the people that had tormented them for months on end. But they weren't all too different from them while they were like this. They were just as scared and feral and wild as the children had become. The kids didn't like how natural it felt to run next to these monsters as the moonlight shone through the foliage. They didn't like how the teachers weren't hindering each other, and some even tried to help. They didn't like how Larry noticed Colin trailing behind and grabbed him by the wrist or how the food gang was working in synchronization like they were close friends. And they certainly didn't like the looks that some of the teachers gave them. Because they weren't angry or excited or condescending, they were just sad.

Red skidded to a halt as he spotted Page waiting in the distance and he held on tight to his brother's hands. As the rest of the group slowed to a stop, he approached the incorrupt object and what appeared to be an infinitely tall metal wall, held together with nails and screws.

"What... what is this?"

"I dunno... I don't..." Page's face contorted into anxiety as they were stuck with the potentiality that there wasn't actually a way out. Then the four of them were distracted by a very robotic voice screaming in frustration.

"I'M NOT STAYING HERE ANYMORE! I CAN'T DO THIS!" wailed Colin as he slammed himself against the wall. The action startled the whole party, partially because he actually talked and partially because it actually caused a dent in the wall. But then again, they didn't know he was a robot. The short object twisted his hand into the computer mouse and jabbed and scraped at the metal, desperately trying to pull it apart. After a few moments, they spotted a slight glow from behind the wall, a glimpse of freedom perhaps.

Pete nodded to his teammates and dropped Sally to the ground. The gang moved in unison as they started tearing at the wall, trying to carve into it and pull it back. The trio gaped at the teachers one by one starting to tear into the wall with all their might. Joining in, the children worked with Page to help pull back a slowly weakening sheet of metal.

A chill crawled up Yellow's spine and he turned his head back towards the house.

"He's coming... ROY'S ON HIS WAY!" he shouted to the odd group. The desperate carnage of the last obstacle to freedom grew more and more frantic as the light of the moon grew ever closer. Until finally, a break was made.

Page and the trio finally pulled back the sheet, and a hole large enough to fit through was formed. Before anyone could say anything, Page was already out.

Red bit his lip and hoisted his brothers into his arms. "If this is really it, we're all going together..."

And they stepped through the hole in the wall.

...

When they woke up in their old apartment, Page was already gone. Red and Duck only remembered this broken down mess of a room from when they first arrived into the family, but Yellow recognized it well. Before they had much of a time to reminisce though, the other teachers burst through. Or rather, appeared out of nothingness.

First, the food gang materialized. Pete almost immediately took to smashing down one of the walls and ushering his team through and out the building. He hesitated and gave a very disturbing glance at Duck before jumping off the third story that the apartment was on to follow them.

Then Tony and Larry burst out. Tony shoved the smaller object to the ground and manically took in his surroundings before crawling on the wall, to the ceiling and out the hole in the wall, laughing in a panicked manner. Larry simply shook his head, adjusted his hat, and threw himself out the building.

By the time Shrignold showed up, the trio had subconsciously backed themselves into a corner and huddled up. The butterfly man rolled his neck and snapped around to look hungrily at the trio, as if he wanted to stab them but didn't have the time. He sighed and drew forth his wings to fly into the night like a g-rated vampire.

Last and arguably least, depending on who you're talking to, Colin appeared in the room. Instead of running away immediately, he also stared down the trio. In particular, he looked at Red with a completely indecipherable expression before stepping backwards and tossing himself out the building. With all of the teachers accounted for, the brothers undid their tight blanket of self protection and took a closer look at the machine they'd all been living in for the past two years.

"We... we're out..." Duck clenched his fists around his stomach. "We're alive!" he laughed.

Red looked at him sadly as he touched the stitches embedded in his neck. No. They weren't alive. Not really. They were only here because they got lucky and-

"Hey guys, what day is it?" asked Yellow.

"Uh... I don't know," Red replied. "It was kinda hard to keep track of time. I think it's sometime in December?"

"N- no what year is it?"

"...2011? Why?"

Yellow dragged the two of them over to the date flashing on the machine.

19/06/16

"What? No, that- that can't be right. It's just broken is all," Duck said mostly to calm himself.

Red ran over what he remembered about the fucked up time. "No... Page said... oh no..." How the hell... They really had lost five years to the lessons, without even knowing it.

Something snapped inside of Red's chest, and it all came crashing together. Everything that had happened to them, to him, to his little brothers, it wasn't any of their faults. It had never been. It was always Roy. It was always Roy who had hurt them, even before this. It was Roy who brought those monsters in, it was ROY who made them suffer, it was Roy who killed them and it was ROY who experimented on them. And now, it would be Roy who would pay.

Red didn't notice the tugging on his sleeves as he ran over the facts. That monster of a human, someone who was worse than all the teachers combined, was still in the machine. And the machine was breakable. He didn't realize he was raising his arms in the air until he knew it was what needed to be done.

Red slammed his fists against the metal and glass casing of the machine, scattering shrapnel all over the floor. The other two pulled away as he reeled his arms back to crash into the sides of the prison again. He screamed in pure, genuine rage for one of the few times in his life as his hands raked through the wires underneath the casing. He didn't feel his fingers snapping or his throat growing hoarse under the pure adrenaline and joy and cathartic fury he felt as the machine fell apart piece by piece. And he couldn't stop himself from preparing to ram his skull against it in the blindness of it all. So his brothers stopped himself for him. Red felt himself fall backwards as two pairs of tiny hands pulled on his clothes and he crashed against the splintered wood floor. His fuzzy vision melted into clarity and he gazed lucidly at the pile of scrap he'd left behind.

And the children cried alone in the apartment. No more parents, no more home, no more safety, no more sanity, no more pulse. They'd lost everything they could have possibly lost and more.

But they still had each other. In the end, that was all they had ever needed.

...

~Epilogue~

Perhaps you may be wondering what happened to everyone after the story ended. Well, you're lucky that I want to tell you. Or maybe unlucky. It doesn't matter.

The teachers all moved on to lives with varying degrees of difference.

Page had elected to get a name change to something less troubling, to avoid danger in the future. They had been trapped in a digital hell after performing acts of torture and escaping death one too many times for their liking. And they liked the opportunity to see their father again.

Tony had gained a new zest for life after his little date with death. He realized that even through all his longevity, he was still technically mortal, and he should really live life to its fullest. And so he spent the rest of his days committing various murders and wrongdoings until he was executed in the 2500s for crimes against object and humankind. His last words were "I've spent my time well."

Shrignold continued to serve under Malcolm as his loyal aspect, using his beautiful stolen body as the perfect host. Unfortunately, due to the unfortunate circumstances surrounding Micheal, the body began to decay and after a year, he was left with nothing but a skeleton. As cool as that was, Shrignold resigned himself to waiting in Malcolm's consciousness until his next beautiful host came around.

Colin decided that enough was enough, and that he would hunt down his creator to find out why he was abandoned, why he was unfinished, and why his existence was essentially pure suffering. When he finally found Test Tube again, she didn't recognize him at first. When she did, she was simply disgusted, and refused to answer any of his questions. He didn't have it in himself to kill her.

Pete and his gang returned to the Food Family and continued to serve under their orders for about a month and a half. But the whole, watching his found family die and committing death thing, really stuck with Pete and so, one mysterious day, a riot appeared to break out at the Food Family, and the gang was suspiciously gone. He just hoped there was still a chance for normalcy after everything he'd done, even though he didn't think he deserved it.

Larry continued to destroy his body without any actual consequences until one random night he was hit by a car and struck with a sudden desire to fix his awful situation. And so he poured himself into finding a way to reverse object corruption. It had never been done before, but rumors say that he's making progress.

As for the trio, they'd managed to find an abandoned house in a neighborhood that didn't seem too keen on letting three children roam the streets. They discovered things about themselves, tried to move on with their lives, and keep each other safe. They promised to never let something like this happen again.

And every year on father's day, Yellow would sneak into the old apartment and look at the broken machine. He didn't know if Roy could hear him or not, but he would tell him everything. About how much better things were, about how wrong he was, about how cruel he had been, and about how strong Yellow had become.

And Roy drifted in his own personal hell for all eternity. An infinite abyss of nothingness, where he could hear and see the outside world, but never reach it.

And all was right again.