Testing Lightbulbs (Inanimate Insanity)

Testing Lightbulbs

"Can I run some experiments on you?"

I asked Lightbulb. She blinked. Slightly caught off guard.

She tapped her finger to her chin in thought, before blurting out,

"Yeah, that sounds like fun!" She leaped.

"R-really? Great!" I said as she jumped with excitement. I couldn't help but giggle a bit.

I explained what I wanted to do. Nothing big, just observations.

A few weeks ago I noticed when Lightbulb was really excited, the lights would glow brighter. I immediately knew I wanted further research.

She was on board. The idea was simple. I would put her in one of my testing labs, make her feel different emotions, and record the light's reactions.

I put her in the room. It was white and bland, no furniture, just a two way mirror that I would look through and a speaker. I decided to test joy first.

After she got comfortable, I told cheesy jokes, that Fan sent me, into the microphone, over the speaker. I knew they would make her laugh, and they did! The worse the joke, the louder she'd laugh.

As I suspected, the more she laughed, the brighter the lights. Test one complete.

The next test was sadness. Lightbulb told me she had a plan for this one, so I let her take her phone in the lab. Through the mirror I could see she was watching sad animal videos. She cried.

The lights slightly flickered and dimmed. Test two down.

The next test was anger, which was impossible. Every attempt I made just ended up with her laughing at me. My hypothesis is that the lights will flicker, but I guess will never know?

An unofficial test would be sickness. In the middle of our week of experiments, Lightbulb caught a cold. It wasn't life threatening but we had to take a break from the lab.

I was able to record the lights, though! She was wandering the halls, half asleep. Poor girl looked like a zombie, but with the lights, some sorta horror villain. Every light she passed under dimmed dramatically, leaving her in almost total darkness.

The final test was... pain.

The plan was, I would cut her arm and record the lights. I got her consent first, of course. She agreed and we set up the experiment.

I had her sitting on a pillow on the floor, since there was no chairs in that room. I grabbed a knife. It was quite large, could be considered a saw. I walked over to Lightbulb and prepared the knife on her skin.

"Are you ready, Lightbulb.?" I asked her calmly. I noticed she seemed tense but I couldn't blame her.

"Yeah, yeah." She cheered, "Do it quick though, I dont want it to hurt too much." She chuckled nervously.

"Okay..." I readied my blade and began cutting.

I quickly cut her flesh. It began to bleed

"Ow!" She winced, "Ha ha..." I continued cutting.

"Ah! I... t-thought you were only gonna cut a l-little?" I continued to cut, ignoring what she said.

Blood splatter on my face and gloved hands.

"Ow, Testtube!" She cried. She squirmed, trying to push me away but she couldn't.

I continued to drive the sharp knife deeper into her skin. As she wailed, begging me to stop, I looked up at the lights. They flickered sproraticly along with Lightbulb as she flailed.

Before I cut too deep, I eventually came to my senses and stepped away from her. I looked at her, no emotion on my face. She gasped and clinged to her arm. Tears ran down her face, onto her wound, mixing with her blood.

When I realized what I'd done I stumbled over my words, "Oh, golly! I-I-I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, I-" I quickly ran out the door to get bandages.

When I returned, I patched her up and she calmed down.

"I-I'm so sorry, Lightbulb. I got a little... carried away..." I finished wrapping the wound.

"It's okay, Testy. I understand that it was an accident." Her kind words made me feel a little better. She smiled at me, "Oh! And don't worry, I won't tell Painty about this!" She laughed. Paintbrush would kill me if they found out.

Even though I apologized, I kind of lied to her. I did mean to make it clear that I wad gonna cut deeper. That was my fault. But I also meant to cut deeper.

The more pain she was in, the better reaction I would record. I guess that makes me terrible friend. I know...

"Testube..." She broke me out of my trance, with her somber stare. "I don't want to do this anymore."

"Yeah, that's okay. You can go home and we can continue this another ti-" She quickly cut me off.

"No. I don't want to continue this experiment at all, Testy." She spoke sternly but also like she didn't want to hurt my feelings.

"Oh." I didn't expect her to say that. I had to think for a second. "Yeah, no. That's okay. That's okay, we don't have to continue, it's alright." I tried to convince myself that it was okay, more than her.

She smiled at me.

Lightbulb kept her promise and didn't tell Paintbrush what happened. They asked her how it happened, obviously. She told them it was an accident, that she fell into something and I helped fix her up. They believed it.

Lightbulb still has the scar on her arm.

Yay! I did it
I finished my first fic.
Y'know all those experiment au's with Testtube?
Yeah, that's what this based on.

I hope you enjoy it <3