Thirteen objects and several Shimmers did nothing but stare at the two humans for a long time, the pattering of rain against various surfaces filling the silence. Nobody was sure how to react.

Eventually, Golf Ball broke away from the massive staring contest. She instead turned her eyes to Dora. "Why... WHY did you bring this human here?" she questioned, voice strained.

"Why?" asked Pencil incredulously. "We should be asking how! I thought Emwhyaitch was DEAD!!"

" Dadadadadadadadadadadadadadadadada. (Recently, something drew me back to Yoyle City. I was not sure what it was at first, until I found human footsteps. I then spent the past few days tracking down Em.)"

Knife relayed this. "I gotta say, though," he added in afterwards, "I'm... a bit lost on what's going on here. Who is this guy? And why does he look so weird?"

"Knife, Soap..." Test Tube stepped forwards. "Your confusion is understandable, but I'll have to wait until later to explain who exactly he is. There's enough going on as it is."

Dora spoke, drawing everyone's attention again. "Erm, she says, 'You will want to do that now, as it may be a while for Emwhyaitch to wake,'" translated Knife.

As if he had deliberately waited to prove Dora wrong, Em chose that moment to begin stirring. "Dadadada. (Never mind.)"

Slowly, Golf Ball walked up to him, then smacked him on the side of the head with her handless right arm, causing a couple objects and Shimmers to gasp softly. "Wake up!" she demanded.

The human bolted into an upright sitting position, then immediately lost balance as fell over again, not expecting his hands and feet to be bound. "Ow..." Em mumbled. His eyes drifted over to GB, and he stared at her uncomprehendingly for a moment before his brain properly kicked into gear. He froze. "Um."

Dora grabbed him by the collar of his shirt and hoisted him to his feet. "Dadadadadadadadadadada. (I want you to tell everyone what you told me when I found you in Yoyle City earlier today.)"

Perplexed, Knife relayed this, startling Em further. As the human began to quickly glance around the area, Pencil studied him from afar, thinking back to the very first time she'd met him almost three years ago. Back then, he'd seemed happy, healthy, confident... even friendly. (Up until the point where he restrained her and her friends, of course.) Then, after his spaceship had crashed, she got a second glimpse of him before Leafy scared him away. He'd been a little more disheveled, but still mostly all there.

This version of him, however... Pencil had very little reference for what a healthy human was supposed to look like, but Emwhyaitch still didn't fit that picture. His appearance had completely changed. Stubble ringed his chin, and his normally short, neat black hair was down to his shoulders and very choppy, as if cut with old scissors. The clothes he wore were slightly ragged, and his left shoe had a hole at the end. A gauze bandage was wrapped around his upper left arm. And the rain certainly didn't help at all. But what struck Pencil the most was how tired the human appeared. Most of his body language gave off the impression of... something bad.

If she had to describe how he looked in one word, it would be 'beaten.'

Fully oblivious to the woodsicle's observations, Emwhyaitch continued looking about, but the moment he saw the Shimmers, his eyes locked onto them. "Hold on..." he whispered, gaze narrowing slightly. "You all look... familiar."

"Speak up!" GB ordered harshly, stamping the muddy ground in frustration.

Em shook his head to clear his thoughts. The next time he 'spoke,' he mentally projected his words into the minds of everyone present, causing those who hadn't met him before to jump. You. He nodded his chin at the Shimmers. Your markings are very familiar to me.

The Shimmers exchanged bewildered glances until Ruby coughed to get their attention. "Hey. Um... that crashed UFO I mentioned... the one Book and I explored? That... that belonged to Emwhyaitch here."

Belatedly, Em put two and two together. "Oh." Then his eyes widened. "Oh, sh-"

There were half a dozen glowing spears of light at his throat before he had a chance to finish. "HUMAN!!" Prime bellowed. Their eyes were sparking with a mixture of sadness and fury. "As Prime Shimmer, we hereby put you under arrest for crimes against the collective ethereal light! You are sentenced to life in prison on our home planet, and you will never-"

"Woah, woah, woah!" Gelatin ran over with his umbrella, holding his free hand out. "I'm all for drama, but let's all calm down just a tiny bit, okay?"

Prime turned their steely gaze to him, and he suddenly knew what it felt like to be on the Shimmers' bad side. "If you obstruct us from serving justice, you insufferable blob of jello, we will not hesitate to strike you down."

"Hey, uncool!" Lightning shot forward and stuck a finger into Prime's face hole. "Don't threaten Gelly like that!"

As Prime's 'eyes' crossed to stare at Lightning's finger, several Shimmers turned their spears towards him, causing some of the other contestants to complain. "Wait!" Test Tube cried, dropping her umbrella. "Shimmers, please! They don't mean any harm!"

"That's what we thought about Meeple, and look what happened!!" One of the Shimmers made a jabbing motion towards Gelatin. Fan yanked him away just in time. At this, several objects balled their fists (if they had any) and prepared to brawl.

Before they had a chance, however, Dora smashed her fist into the ground next to Emwhyaitch, causing it to crack and making the nearby area rumble. "ENOUGH!!" she shrieked, simultaneously speaking English, Insulavoric, and something that the Shimmers could barely make out as their native language.

Everyone froze, except for Em, who scrambled a few feet away from the point of impact on his backside. Dora retracted her fist from the earth before returning to her usual pose. "Dadadadadada. Dadadadadadadadada. Dadadadadadadadadadadadada. (Cease this meaningless conflict immediately. It is doing nothing but tearing us apart, when we need to be united against the possibility of a larger threat. Even if that turns out to not be the case, there is no reason to fight. Let Emwhyaitch speak, and listen to what he has to tell you.)"

A tense moment passed, in which everybody looked confused. It took Knife a second to remember that he was the translator. "Oh. Right. Um. 'Stop fighting, we should all be allies, listen to the human, etc.' More or less."

Now terrified of Dora, the Shimmers retracted their weapons, some more reluctantly than others. Those with clenched fists let their fingers relax, and Lightning carefully removed his hand from Prime's face. "Sorry," he mouthed. Dora nodded contently before pointing at Emwhyaitch, then at the general crowd. The gesture's intended message was clear: talk.

Em inhaled, gave a resigned sigh, and began. Three years ago, while you objects in Yoyle City were distracted, I freed Seekayaitch from Leafy's restraints. Despite his injured foot and broken arm, we fled, and were barely able to make it out of the city before the incoming neurotoxin bomb killed us.

"Neuro-" Soap threw her hands in the air. "That's it. This is too much for me. I'm going to go see if Mic has recovered from the EMP thingy yet." Exasperated, she rotated on her heels and walked off.

Completely ignoring her, Em went on. But even without the bomb, the purple grass of Yoyleland nearly killed us, as it is extremely toxic to humans. We were lucky to get out of there alive. The next few months was spent living in the wilderness, within a forest not far from here, until we happened to stumble upon a small bunker with its entrance hidden beneath a rock. We knew it must have been human-made, but had no idea from what era.

Recalling something, Eraser thought back to the hide and seek challenge from a couple months ago, where he had come across something just like what Em was describing. It had certainly been useful for the contest. Not wanting to be found by you objects, continued the human, but also not having a way off the planet, we were forced to hide there for a little over... two years? I've started to lose count of the days.

I wanted revenge. Seekayaitch convinced me out of it, but I couldn't stop thinking. Over time, he became... concerned about me. And just two weeks ago, we had an argument. It resulted in him storming out of our bunker, with the excuse that he was going to go forage for more food. And that... He took a shaky breath. That was the last time I saw him.

Golf Ball, Test Tube, and Pencil exchanged concerned glances. "You mean... he's still out there?"

"I don't like the idea of a human on the loose," grumbled GB.

Em shook his head, shaking off several water droplets in the process. You misunderstand. That was the last time I saw him alive. He went silent for a moment. I... three days later, I found him, next to a strawberry bush. It was near the outer border of Yoyleland's toxic grass... I think he forgot to bring a gas mask in his anger... and got too close without realizing... and...

He closed his eyes and let the rain freely pour down his face.

The others were silent. For most of those present to hear Emwhyaitch's laments, recovery had almost always been an option, with constant recovery centers, or MePhone, or Four. And even for the few who had been unlucky enough to go through a time where death could be permanent, they were younger then. The implication of not being able to come back — or never seeing a friend again — hadn't quite ever sunk in. (This did not apply to the Shimmers, of course.)

Now, though... things had changed. Not only had they matured (somewhat), but the situation was drastically different. A normally blue sky that almost never rained had become gray, bordering on stormy. Several people were trapped behind a dysfunctional portal. Recovery no longer worked properly — those who died either vanished within a matter of hours, or acted strange, then vanished. And even if it had, there were no recovery centers, Four was dead, and MePhone had gone MIA.

So despite the fact that everyone hated Emwhyaitch for one reason or another, hearing about his brother's death was immediately sobering. Some objects grew even more distressed as they realized for the first time just how much danger they might be in.

Dora's voice broke into their troubled thoughts. "That's not all, apparently," Knife relayed, the language coming to him more easily now.

Through his tears — or perhaps it was just the rain on his face — Emwhyaitch nodded solemnly. There IS more. You have to understand. When I found C, I was... devastated. Still am. I wasn't thinking straight. He coughed, grimacing. There was something... I thought I could maybe... save him. So a few days after he... died, I set out for Yoyle City. Even with me using the gas mask that we had found in the bunker, I would have died within minutes after entering the city if it weren't for...

"Yes, yes, the neurotoxin bomb that you ordered onto the city," growled Golf Ball in the pause between statements. "Get to the point already. What were you doing there?"

I went there for the void machine. This alone surprised GB back into silence. My only hope was that if I repaired the damage to it, I could perhaps configure it to hold human consciousnesses. Then all I'd have to do is build a recovery center. He hung his head in shame. But I failed. Like I told you so long ago, the memory void doesn't work for humans. I was only shaken out of my fantasies when I searched for our instructions on building recovery centers, and remembered that Leafy had stolen it.

Pencil glared at the human. "You fixed it." Her voice was quiet, but there was a dangerous edge to it. "After all the trouble we went through to destroy the damned thing the first time, you fixed it."

Em didn't even reply with words, choosing to simply give a small nod instead. "Wow." Pencil put a hand to her head. "I keep thinking this day just can't get any worse, and then..."

She trailed off, and her next words came out in a whisper. "Dora, please tell me that's everything."

"Da. (Yes.)"

"In that case," the Prime Shimmer spoke once Knife had translated, "we have some things we'd like to ask this human in private." They made a clicking sound akin to finger snapping, and two other Shimmers floated over and hoisted Emwhyaitch to his feet.

"Wait," blurted Golf Ball suddenly. There were connections somewhere. She was straining to put all the parts together, but some things were still missing. The human could provide her with at least one piece of the puzzle. "One last question."

"One question," Prime allowed.

"Emwhyaitch, when exactly did you repair the void machine?"

He glanced up, giving it some thought. The past few days have been a bit of a blur, but I believe... yes, that's right. It was four days ago, sometime in the afternoon.

There it was. The dates lined up. But more was missing still. A different, somewhat-unrelated piece.

Without warning, a memory popped into her mind and made a small, but terrible, connection. She gestured for Ruby to come over as the Shimmers dragged Em away. "Ruby," she quietly asked once the gemstone was close enough, "where in the spaceship did Book see the youth?"

"In the same room as the void machine," she answered automatically, confirming GB's suspicions. "Book was looking in some sort of cold glass chamber thingy."

Cryogenic storage, perhaps, mused the globule. "What else? You said that Book claimed the egg disintegrated. I need to know exactly what happened."

"Let's see..." A moment passed as Ruby thought carefully. "The glass thing was leaning against the void machine. It looked like it was supposed to be attached to the wall, but I guess the crash knocked it off. And..." She paused again. "See, the void machine had this big glass tube with a bunch of swirly red and black stuff inside, but it was already cracked when Book and I got there. The other thing must have damaged it when it fell."

"Anything else?"

Ruby's expression soured. "Yeah... some of the red stuff was reaching into the... cold... thing. It disappeared when Book broke it, though. After that, she looked into the frosty glass and saw..." She didn't need to finish.

Everything began to fall into place for Golf Ball. The portal breaking. Recovery not fully working. Teardrop's erratic behavior. The crimson pupils of those down in the factory. The Shimmers' description of passing through something unnatural when traveling to BFB's universe. Even the Shimmer's second lost youth. There was a lot of speculation involved, but...

Test Tube glanced down at her dimpled companion. "I know that expression," she spoke. "That's your 'I just came up with a major theory' expression."

"Ridiculous. How would you know?" came the response.

"Because I know you. And also, Fan says I get the same look on my face whenever I have a theory about something, sooo..."

The mention of Fan's name reminded GB of something. She briskly turned to him and asked, "What happened while we were gone? Tell me the most important events."

"Oh. Let's see, umm..." Fan began to think back. "First, David escaped the EXIT and used Black Hole to kill some of us. That was a few days ago. Then Four went somewhere, and when he came back, he killed a bunch of us... aaaaaand that's basically it."

"Details, I need details. Did you notice anything else unusual about David and/or Four, something that could have prompted their behavior?"

"They... uhhhhhh... oh!" Fan snapped his fingers. "Yeah, they both had glowing red eyes! I don't know what that's about. Also, Four sounded super distorted. I mean, he often does, cause he's, y'know, Four, but it was only while killing us, and..."

He trailed off, realizing he was rambling. "That checks out, unfortunately," muttered GB. After another few seconds of thoughtful silence, she looked up, blinking the rain out of her eyes. Her expression was grim. "There is a distinct possibility that we are all in a LOT more trouble than we thought."

Test Tube and Fan exchanged worried glances as Golf Ball gestured for Pencil to get closer. The globule huddled them together. The gears in her brain were turning fast, fast, fast, calculating all the variables and working hard to think, theorize, hypothesize about anything and everything related to the situation they were all in. "Fan, I'm aware that you are missing an abundance of information, but for now I just need you to stay quiet and listen. We can tell you everything later. Understand?"

Fan made the action of locking up his mouth and throwing away the key. "Ruby," GB continued, turning her attention back to the jewel, "are you absolutely, one hundred percent positive that you're remembering what you told me just now correctly? As well as Book's claims about the Shimmers' youth?"

"Yupperdoodles!"

"Hm. Alright." She thought for another moment. "I have a theory."

Test Tube grinned and was about to comment on her predictability, but the smile melted when she saw the glare on her friend's face. "This is no laughing matter, Test Tube," growled GB. "You remember everything Tennis Ball and I told you about IDFB?"

"Yes..."

"Well, think about it." She looked in the Shimmers' direction. "The dimension that the Light Shimmers passed through. Prime described it as 'unnatural.' As something that's 'wrapped around our universe,' and 'intertwined with a virus.' That description is so incredibly specific that it cannot POSSIBLY be anything other than Evil Leafy and the dead zone."

The others just gawped at her (with the exception of Fan, who was only looking more and more confused by the second.) "H... how?" whispered Pencil. "I mean... the description, it- it matches, but... how?"

"Like I said, I have a theory. To put it simply, I am proposing that Evil Leafy may be using the strength of the deceased Shimmer youth, or its 'lifeforce,' to have several objects corrupted simultaneously."

Once again, she was just met with stunned looks. "That's... quite a claim, Golf Ball," Test Tube said carefully. "For starters, how do we even know for sure the egg's consciousness is in the dead zone? Shimmers function far differently from us objects, so it's more than likely that they aren't compatible with the dead zone." She remembered something else. "Plus, didn't you say everyone else was 'ejected' from there after the void machine was damaged sufficiently?"

"I can back everything up. But you will all need to be quiet and listen closely." Inhaling deeply, GB started to explain. "According to Ruby/Book, back in IDFB, some energy from the void machine was leaking into where Seekayaitch and Emwhyaitch kept the lost Shimmer youth. The egg crumbled after the dead zone's connection to our world was cut, but it could have been dead before that. I believe it is not entirely implausible that the energy from the void machine could have... absorbed the youth's energy."

"Now, as Test Tube said, the physiology of Shimmers are probably completely different from ours; therefore, there's a chance their consciousness wasn't ejected with everyone else's. As far as we know, it's been trapped there with the consciousness of Evil Leafy since we fled the city. Nearly three years ago..."

Ruby tilted her head like a confused puppy and opened her mouth to speak, but Golf Ball held up an arm to stop her. "I'm not done yet. From what Seekayaitch told us that night, destroying the void machine wouldn't destroy the dead zone itself; in theory, it would only cut its connection to our universe. Which worked — Bubble hasn't remembered returning there when dying ever since. But the zone still existed. As far as I can tell, it was completely inaccessible... until four days ago."

"The portal," blurted Fan, breaking his vow of silence. "It was killing objects who went through it! Do you think that's because of this... dead... thingy?"

GB nodded. "I do. I'm fact, I'm extremely certain that the precise time Emwhyaitch repaired the void machine — which would have also re-established the dead zone's connection to us — was sometime after the contest started that day. Perhaps the lack of a connection is what protected the portal until now? And this is where the Shimmer's lost child factors into this equation. Assuming that I'm correct on that matter, Evil Leafy's power only grew after acquiring the egg's energy. Between BFDIA 5c and the evacuation of Yoyle City, it took her over four years to acquire control over Bubble's mind/the rest of the dead zone. And now, she seems to be able to overtake objects instantly..."

Silence from her companions followed for several seconds. A short distance away, the other survivors of Four's brutal attack could be heard interacting with the Shimmers, the two groups trying to get to know one another. Some of them were playing with the little one. And all the while, rain relentlessly drenched everyone without an umbrella, the clouds in the sky ever-so-slowly growing darker.

"This..." Pencil let out a harsh, forced laugh. "This is all... a lot to take in. And it sounds like a lot of speculation."

"You're telling me," muttered Fan, gripping his umbrella tighter. "I don't even have context for what you guys are talking about."

Sympathetic, Test Tube patted his back. "Like we said, I promise to explain everything later, Fan. But for right now..." She turned her attention back to GB. "I have a question, Geebs. Your theory about my portal doesn't entirely make sense. We... we've opened it dozens of times now. Every morning, so that the others can move through the two competitions as they please... why would the dead zone only affect it now?"

"I already explained this, it's because Emwhyaitch didn't-"

"I get that, he didn't repair the void machine until recently. But..." She struggled to put her ideas into words. "The... the Shimmers said that... there's just empty space between universes. That to get from one to the other, you have to... pass through that void." Still confused, she gestured at the door. "We've been passing through it for months now. Each of us must have crossed over at least a HUNDRED times. So why aren't we corrupted? Shouldn't every object here be controlled by Evil Leafy?"

Fortunately, Golf Ball had a possible answer. Unfortunately, she had to resort to a strange method to get her point across. "To build upon the Prime Shimmer's unorthodox analogy," she began, rolling her eyes, "perhaps the slime curtain, aka the dead zone, has been... open, all these years. And Emwhyaitch has recently... drawn it closed." She groaned. "I hate that metaphor."

"You sound a little like Fanny," Ruby giggled.

"Have you guys been able to get in contact with anyone in the IIverse?" wondered Pencil. "Our phones haven't really been working well since we left."

Fan shook his head. "I was able to talk to Blocky on the 2nd, but our connection was weak. Since the 3rd, it's just all been static."

"So we have no idea what's going on over there..."

"...and they have no idea what's going on over here."

Golf Ball looked longingly at the lone door guarding Test Tube's portal behind it. "If only we could go through..."

"You know that's not an option right now, GB." Testy stepped in front of her. "We can't enter it, and I can say with 100% confidence that none of them will be walking through that door anytime soon."

Something creaked. A wave of dry heat washed over her back briefly before it was cut off by the sound of a door slamming. Her friends, as well as all the other objects on the plains, were staring at something behind her in disbelief. She turned to see Fanny meeting everyone's gaze with a steely, red glare. "What?" Fanny growled.

TT facepalmed. "I've got to stop saying that."

GB's theory has more holes in it than a slice of Swiss cheese