BEYOND 3A: BloodRed and ScaleBlack

The Sixty-Fourth Feather: In The Corner, Under a Painting

Back to Zoe, Jake, and Ziggy. Those three were perched up at a corner where their differing gravities could let them get close to one another, exchanging small talk to pass the time. Zoe was curled up, knees in front of her face, and said: "Out of everything, I didn't expect the afterlife to be this boring. At least burning for all eternity sounds like a more compelling way to repent."

Jake: "Bark. (Again, we are not dead.)"

Ziggy: "But at this point we might as well be, there's nothing but walls and paintings to see."

Jake: "Bark. (I'll figure out a way to get us out of here. But right now I need to gather my thoughts and theorise about the true nature of this place.)"

Ziggy: "Good for you, science man, but I doubt our need for a plan."

Jake: "Woof? (Are you saying that in the sense that our escape will come to us or in the other, more hopeless sense?)"

Ziggy: "Take it as you may, I ain't here tryna play."

Zoe: "Come on, guys, there's no point in all of this! Hell wouldn't be so feared if it was escapable!"

In a moment of weakness, Jake lost his temper and screamed at the top of his lungs, thinking: "Would you shut up already about hell?! We! Are! Not! Dead! We are not! If you want to keep living that delusion, then stay here all you want! I'll find the way out and then we'll see whether or not you speak the truth!"

Zoe: "A-Ah! What's wrong with him?!"

Ziggy: "That dog's mad as hell, that's what he's tryna tell."

Zoe: "Oh, I'm sorry... I'll stop..."

Once he calmed down, he let out a soft whimper, apologising internally: "Ugh, I'm sorry for yelling at you. I feel like I'm losing my mind in this art box."

Zoe: "...Sigh..."

Jake: "Woof?"

Zoe: "...I miss my mom... You reminded me of her when you shouted at me... she used to get frustrated with me a lot. The last thing I remember was an argument I had with her. I ran away in a fit of rage and ignored her as she chased after me, demanding me to come back... No, now that I call back to it, I realise it was more like begging. Only a few mere moments before disaster struck, I saw a meteor falling down on the soccer stadium. Next thing I knew, I was on a tree, several branches penetrating my body. The impact must've sent me flying, heh... I wonder why only the stadium was destroyed... Anyhow, there were multiple giant Corruptions wrecking buildings and stomping everything in sight. It all happened so fast that I couldn't fully process it. Even if I could, I wouldn't have been able to, because all of the quakes caused by them only planted me deeper into the branches and left me to bleed. Then... I woke up in this strange place with you two! That's why I believe this is the afterlife."

Ziggy: "Alright, I'm down to clown, I'll write that shit down, write a song about it, produce it, sing it, bring it!"

Zoe: "Well, that's my side of things... Got anything you wanna share?"

Jake: "...(No.)"

Ziggy: "I got nothing interesting to weave, yo boy's just tryna leave!"

Zoe "Oh, come on! We can't just stay here and watch the fire in silence! Aren't you the ones trying to not give in to hopelessness?!"

Jake: "...Woof. (... Well, I mean, I am not very comfortable discussing this with strangers. I have not even told these things to my best friend, whose head I've yet to find.)"

Ziggy: "Same here, nothing to hear."

Zoe: "Agh! You guys are the worst! At least stop me from ranting if you're not going to do the same! Screw this, I'm going to the bathroom."

Frustrated by them, she walked away to the women's restroom and stared at herself under the flickering light of an almost broken lightbulb.

She talked to her reflection in the mirror: "...How much time passed since then? I don't look like myself... I became much taller, my haircut changed, and there's this... annoying itch in my neck... This isn't really hell, right? I can't tell... Things aren't lining up like they should be... How come they get to have clothes while I'm stuck with them buck naked under a single oversized hoodie? I don't know what these strangers might do to me while I'm asleep, so I want to stay away from them, but then again, they're the only ones with a chance of finding our way out... Huh? What am I saying? This is hell, it's not meant to be escapable... That green guy smashed a hole through a wall and ended up on the other side of the museum... Other side... Other side!"

At that moment, Zoe had an eureka moment. She exclaimed: "Hold on! What would happen if we smashed ALL of the walls?!"

Immediately, she sprinted back to those two and told them about her idea. Ziggy commented: "Yeah, that could work out, maybe that's our way out!"

Jake: " Woof. (An interesting hypothesis, but it is as interesting as it is dangerous. We do not fully understand how the physics of this place work, thus we cannot accurately predict how it will react to that plan.)"

Zoe: "Great! Sounds like we're on the same page!"

Jake: "Woof. (We are not.)"

Zoe: "Alright big guy, get to work!"

Jake: "Bark! (I am the only one with enough manpower to do that and I demand that you both think about this harder!)"

Zoe: "Chop Chop!"

Jake glanced at Ziggy and saw him shrugging his shoulders, as if to say: "We don't have any better plans, so just do it."

Reluctantly, Jake unwillingly transformed into his combat form and started wrecking the walls available to him while the other two did whatever they could do to help. Ziggy stood next to a wall, which was the ceiling, and scratched it with his fingernail, allowing himself to hear and mimic the sounds, enabling his powers to affect the surface and send every layer of it flying around in wavy, jittering patterns. And as for Zoe, she just kept hitting the walls with a marble bust statue she picked up. This went on for nearly half an hour until all that was left was a single platform, and because of the destruction they caused, gravity returned to normal and all three of them were on the same surface. The remaining environment surrounding them became infinitely more bizarre, it appeared as though they were in a gold-coloured void on a single small platform and in the far distance, they saw themselves repeating infinitely in every possible angle, like countless mirrors reflecting more countless mirrors. Zoe said with discomfort in her expression: "Well, uhh... Of all the things, I didn't expect this..."

Jake: "Bark! Bark! (Okay, what are we supposed to do now?!)"

Ziggy: "What're we supposed to do now? The only way I see right now is down."

Zoe: "...I don't know, I didn't think things would turn out like this. It became more like what I pictured Limbo would be like...Well! Let's jump down!"

Jake: "Bark!? (What?! You can't be serious!)"

Zoe: "You can't just expect us to stop now, right?! Either we jump, or we spend the rest of however long it'll take for us to starve to death here on this twelve by twelve platform!"

Ziggy: "That little homunculus is right, this might be the answer to our plight."

Jake: "...Sigh...(Corna, wait for me.)"

And with that, Jake destroyed the one remaining piece of the museum and they all fell down into oblivion.

Sixty-Fourth Feather:

Plucked