To Save Us All
chapter 18~
"What does it mean, 9?" asked 7, hoping for an answer, looking over to 6 with a confused smile.
"I don't know my purpose. My message was 'To Save Us', but how can I save myself? It doesn't make sense!" 9 cried frustratedly, balling his copper hands into fists and pressing them hard into his optics, as if it would physically help him.
"Coming." said 6, his single shy word meaning everything to 9. The youngest's attention was converted to 6, every fiber of him listening. And 6 never felt so respected in his life.
"What? W-what's coming, 6?" 9 asked, pleading for 6 to be able to word it.
"Beast, monster, run!" cried 6, his hands shaking suddenly as he fell to his knees on the floor. Everyone gaped in shock as 6 began to scratch at the wooden floor, his pen nibs fingers searching for something to draw on.
6 was having a vision.
F immediately sprinted all the way back to the desk room 9 remembered from the first time he came here with 7. F flew, her springed feet giving her the momentum and speed she needed to complete the task, and only ten seconds later she came sprinting back with paper and her paints. She gave them to 6, who now scrabbled at the paint like it was what kept him alive. He immediately stuck his entire hand in the paint bucket, mixing up the colors a bit. F didn't seem to mind, she was actually rubbing 6's shoulder's, like she knew how much it hurt.
She must have been through this before. She knew 6, more than even 9 now.
"Ah!" 6 screamed, his pain ringing through the room, leaving everyone who heard it sympathetic. 6 was now painting a weird blob on the roll of paper F had brought out, shaped like something 9 knew all to well. After several seconds it became clear.
6 was painting the BRAIN.
The artist had never used color before, unless he had time travled and had done this with F before like 9 thought, but now 6 was using the bright ugly red for the huge unmistakable eye, capturing the hate within the paper. 1 and 8, who had never seen the BRAIN, gasped in horror as they finally saw the hate in the BRAIN's glare.
6 screamed in pain again, and F rubbed his shoulder's gently, trying to relieve at least some of it. 6 visably relaxed at her touch, though he was still trembling from the extreme pain coming through with his vision.
6 then collapsed onto her, and the twins ran from their place behind a shocked 7 to comfort him as well. Everyone thought 6 was done, but 9 and F. They saw the fear in his eyes as a new vision soon took the horrible one's place. 6's hand was still on the paper when 7 began to pick him up, to bring him to a bed she was sure the stitchpunks had.
"Wait!" 9 said as he saw 6's finger twitch. 7 stopped, noticed what 6 was doing, and lowered him down to the paper again. 6's hand took off like a rocket, giving so much detail to the little figure now in front of the BRAIN, arms wide open.
Like a sacrifice.
9 looked over the figure 6 was drawing and saw to his surprise that it looked like...
"7?" he asked, his confused gaze moving up to the warrior who still held 6 in her arms and was bent low so he could paint her in his picture of terror.
"Save Yourself." said 6, his hands twitching as his picture finally came to a close, and his body went limp. 7 stared in shock at her doom and shook her head, handing 6 over to F's open arms. F seemed more than capable of carrying her friend as she walked over to the desk room, to lay him down. The twins, C, D, and B all followed her, to make sure 6 would be OK.
7 fell to her knees in front of the picture, running a shaking hand over it.
"What does it mean?" she asked, for the first in 9's many time traveling weeks sounding terrified.
And 9 didn't blamed her. No one did. Not even 1.
"I think I know but... I hope I'm wrong." said 9, studying the picture.
"He never drew anything like this before." said 1, coming over to examine the vision sketch as well.
And for once, 7 was too confused and scared to glare at him.
"That's because he didn't know until now." said 5, "He used to draw pictures of the talisman and the Cat beast but recently he stopped drawing. And then this..."
"No I think he knew this would come," said 9, adding his two cents to what was now becoming a meeting. The others looked at him to continue, though they were confused. "Think about it. He just stopped drawing altogether, and told me he had to wait for F... I think he knew something was coming, and that it was important, but he didn't know what. And he needed F to do it."
"6 seems to know a lot more about F than we do." said B, surprising everyone. He had just been with 6 in the desk room. "I'm guessing F would be the same?"
The elder came to sit down, making everyone unconciously form a circle.
"I think so, yes." said 9, "Will 6 be alright?"
"Oh of course, my boy," said the inventor with the B written on his face. "He'll be up and running in no time. Just got a little exhausted, the poor fellow."
"Is he asleep?" asked 7, also concerned for 6, even if he seemed to predict her death. It was her nature, one of her purposes.
"Yes, and he's being taken care of, my dear, no need to fuss." smiled B, putting a comforting hand on 7's shoulder. 7 looked back to the picture and didn't seem to feel his comfort. She was numb with confusion and terror.
7 had been terrified before, 9 knew it- you couldn't live in the emptiness, battle horrific machines three times your size, live to tell the tale, and not ever experience great fear- but she was usually more composed than this. She hardly ever showed her fear, especially in front of 1. Then again, she had actually seen the BRAIN, and what it did to 2, and 9 knew he would be terrified if 6 had painted him on the paper with the BRAIN on it. But 7 was the defender, it felt so wrong to 9 to see her scared.
"There is indeed a reason to fuss!" said 1 to B, who looked up with a raised eyebrow, his optics turning downwards, confused. "If one of your own was painted by a prophet, sacrificing themselves to a horrible creature, you wouldn't be so cheery as you are now! 9 is right! We have to figure this out before it's too late!"
7 looked up and smiled, not able to express how she felt. 9 smiled and almost laughed out loud at how happy he was. 1 finally belived him! 1 finally trusted him! They were finally together on this!
B lowered his gaze. "That's not entirely true, 1." he said, getting up and walking over to the desk room.
1 looked from 9 to 7 and back to 9, trying to hide his apparent embarassment, "Well, then."
"Thanks 1." said 7, standing to put a hand on his shoulder. At first 1 frowned, but he soon softened into a smile.
B came back with a piece of paper splattered with paints, the style 9 could tell as F's- the brushstrokes weren't anything like 6's mad sratching and clawing at the paper. This picture held no pain.
But it did hold something sinister.
The painting, even though draw by a different artist, was exactly the same as 6's vision sketch. The brain, though more deatailed in color, was glaring at a dark figure, holding their arms out like they were sacrificing themselves.
"Is that-?" said 9, squinting at the paper to see the details already bursting from it.
"G?" 7 finished, taking the paper in her hands.
B nodded, "We think so, he's the only one of us who has that dark material, though it is in the same position as you on 6's own drawing."
9 thought he knew what this was.
"But- there aren't details on this. If it was G maybe we would see his knife, or his cape. It's just a figure without detail! It could still be 7!"
"How could this be 7?" said B, turning the paper towards himself to study it closer, as if he'd missed a vital detail.
"Well she's in the same position, and it seems to me like F just... couldn't see who it was standing there at the time. Maybe if you asked her now she would tell us."
"She's busy with 6 right now, maybe later. But you could be right, 9." said B, nodding and rolling the paper up, as if it had been hidden somewhere so C and D couldn't see it.
B left for the desk room, limping just the slightest bit.
9 tore his gaze from B, who reminded him so much of 2, and looked to 6's sketch of doom.
"So what does this mean, 9?" asked 1, looking down at the paper still on the floor.
"6 is trying to warn us. I think he knows something incredibly useful. He knows what going to happen." 9 looked to the desk, where he could now see 6 laying on a risen bed through the cloth door. F was holding his hand and sitting on a book next to him, resting her head on his stomach and closing her optics peacefully.
7 followed 9's gaze and smiled, walking forward into the room- forgetting that 6 had just drawn her sacrificing herself to the BRAIN- to get a better look at the cute scene.
"I think she likes him." she said, noticing that everyone else who was already in the room was giving them space and sitting in the opposite corner, occupied with their interests.
9 looked around, and suddenly felt at home, like the only thing the desk room was missing was a fireplace and hot choclate...
How did he know what those things were?
7 walked over to F and sat down next to her, talking in a low voice happily, but quietly so 6 wouldn't wake up. 9 doubted 6 could wake up even if someone made enough noise, he had just passed out.
"Voice." said C, tugging on B's arm. The way C said "voice" seemed like it was a combination of two voices.
Then 9 remembered: C and D didn't have voices of their own, they had to record other's voices in syllables, so they could speak.
"Voice." repeated C, tugging harder on B's arm. The inventor seemed used to this behavior and looked up from a contraption he was working on with E, and that 5 came over to study lovingly.
B turned to C after finishing screwing a bolt in.
"OK." said B, "What do you want me to say?"
C smiled and pulled B over to a small book 9 vaguely remembered seeing somewhere. Emily's Diary.
C pointed excitedly to a word 9 couldn't crane his neck far enough to see and said, "Voice." again and again.
"OK, OK! Calm down C!" the old inventor chuckled. He seemed to study the page a little before turning to C and looking right into her optics. "Ready?"
C's golden optic seemed to focus on something, and he pressed a hidden button on it. C nodded.
B very calmly said into her vocal recorder, "Love."
9 raised an eyebrow curiously, coming over to the scene only he had really payed attention to.
C's golden optic blinked and she pressed the button again. B's voice repeated when C mouthed the word.
"Love." said C, in B's voice.
"Good, is that all?" asked B, making sure C didn't want anything else. C shook his head happily and ran off, presumably to show D, who was with E, asking for another syllable. B walked back to his invention, smiling at E who was being bugged by both of the otherwise mute stitchpunks.
"Excuse me," 9 said, genuinely fasincated with what he'd just seen. "How do you do that?"
B looked up from his work and turned to 9. "Do what, my boy?" he said kindly.
"How do they capture your voice like that? And why do they need that syllable?"
B smiled knowingly, as if remembering the first time he had been asked by C and D for his "voice".
"They record it, with a memory chip in their golden optics. Our creator tried to make them use his voice, because he thought it would feel more like him, but instead he made them able to just record syllables, not entire voices. You know, there may still be some syllables in their memory that are recorded directly from our creators voice. Like..." the inventor thought a bit, 9 hanging on his every word just because it was his nature to want answers.
"Oh!" said B, loud enough to capture 5's attention. "Maybe the 'aw' syllable will have it, if they haven't updated the recording... Or maybe 'la' because our creator liked to sing a lot and well..." the inventor trailed off, thinking to himself.
9 smiled and looked to 5, who had joined in listening. The two friends exchanged a smiling glance, trying their best not to laugh at the old man's rememberance.
"And as to the syllabel, well we never know until they use it." said B thoughtfully. "I personally think they looked it up when they saw F and 6 over there, the two lovebirds..."
"How do they love each other?" asked 9, looking over to F and 6, noticing that 7 wasn't there anymore and F seemed to be asleep. "Sure they could have time traveled and seen each other, but-"
"My boy," said B, his optics becoming even more kinder and his voice growing softer, "If there's one thing I remember about love, it's that it's unpredctable and works in mysterious ways. Think about it."
And with that, B turned back to his work, and 9 somehow didn't feel like asking more questions.
9 felt a hand on his shoulder. A warm, gentle, sincere hand that seemed to reach into 9's very soul. Before he turned, he already knew it was 7.
"Everyone's already here, and we're all safe. Let's just wait until morning to uncover the rest of this mystery. 6 and F are the only one's who seem to know what's going on and what we should do, and they're asleep."
9 looked into her optics, captured by her beauty, "Sure, 7. What did you say to F?"
"Oh, nothing." she teased, walking over to the twins to start up another conversation.
But 7 wasn't entirely correct, not everyone was there.
2 was still haunting 9's mind.