“F1NN?!” Victor.Xen.Vix.Owner looked upon him with an expression of utter surprise. “How do you see me - what - Gautam promised I wouldn-”
It was F1NN’s turn to be surprised now. “Gautam?! When did Gautam talk to you? Did Gautam hire you, or something?”
Victor.Xen.Vix.Owner looked paralyzed for a moment, but it may have been an illusion because a half a second later, a sort of deprecating satisfaction won over. He gave a bitter laugh.
“I guess you’ll see. There are many things you don’t know about, F1NN.” Victor.Xen.Vix.Owner laughed again.
“Such as…” F1NN tried.
Victor.Xen.Vix.Owner smiled over at F1NN. “Well, just remember- it’s much, much more important than you would ever know.”
And with that, Victor disappeared, leaving F1NN in the room. But F1NN, now knowing that Victor was a part of this whole scheme, knew it had to be nothing good. So he slipped out of the room and began trailing the hallways for the Wasd and Penguin.
And soon enough…
“So, everyone. We have discovered something peculiar regarding the interrogations…” came Penguin’s voice from a room.
F1NN slowly crept towards the room’s entrance, peering in. All the remaining people who weren’t in the group were gathered around them, listening attentively.
F1NN, hearing some murmurs of the people gathered, heard “If it’s about the interrogations, it must be good news. After all, nothing could get worse than this, right? We may be stuck here forever!”
F1NN shook his head. Little did they know things were, in fact, about to become much, much worse. And little did they know FarawayFlame was shaking their head too…
F1NN mused, I could go inside to see what’s going on better, I don’t look that recognizable. So if I keep my head down, then…
F1NN, his mind made up, walked slowly into the room, entering the crowd with his head down. He arrived just in time to hear prookl’s unsettling comment: “There are five secrets in this room five very grave ones, one of them The Closest.”
Wasd and Penguin, speaking up, said, “Well, we have found the Eliminated!”
A wave of murmur swept across the room. “Who?” the crowd collectively gasped.
Penguin leveled an unsettling stare at the crowd. “You are eliminated.”
The crowd began to utter screamed protests. “Us?! How? We haven’t been exposed at all, and we tried to-”
Penguin smiled, her voice taking on a strange monotone reverb. “Well, will be now.”
Amid the clamor of screams and people running, prookl whispers. “I told you. And one of those secrets…is…here!”
And with that, prookl stared at F1NN accusatorily. F1NN stamped on prookl’s foot frantically. “prookl! What are you doing??!”
F1NN and FarawayFlame glanced at each other, quickly understanding they were on the same side. F1NN gave Faraway a whispered queue. And then something deep out of their thoughts, unprompted but deemed necessary, came out of F1NN and Faraway.
F1NN and Faraway said clearly, “And you are the Eliminated.”
One by one, everyone began disappearing, but gradually Wasd, Penguin, and the other Eliminated began to disappear too, slowly overpowering the disappearance of the non-Eliminated. Slowly, too, the disappearing of the non-Eliminated stopped, leaving only the group. “No,” they shouted, in a mangled voice, in a voice that sounded strangely like…
“Gautam???”
But 3RG3R didn’t hear incognitoes’s declaration. Instead he was staring at Wasd…and the message Help conveyed through his eyes. “Just like the letter…” 3RG3R realized…
Things are so much more serious than we thought… They voiced in their heads…everything that happened individually made sense, came together to form a more sinister claim.
And Victor.Xen.Vix.Owner mouthed, “I told you so,” to F1NN.
I FEEL SO HAPPYY