I flinched when Nina's grip around me tightened, and the girl again buried her face into my chest as Liu and Jeff slowly carry out ClockWork's bloodied corpse from the room.

I look away, knowing that if I saw her body again I'd be sick. ClockWork was one of my good friends—I couldn't bare to see her like this.

The other killers were all silent besides the younger ones who were crying and sobbing by the scene. "What happened to her!? What happened to her!??" Sally kept repeatedly screaming while holding her face with her nails seemingly digging into her ghastly features; her eyes were wide and she looked to be in a complete state of shock.

Puppeteer quickly grabbed Sally and hugged her tightly, trying to calm her down while resting his head on hers. "Can't Nurse Ann do something? EJ...?" Lost Silver trembled.

"ClockWork's gone...I can't save her now," EJ uttered, a slight choke in his usual steady voice.

Liu and Jeff gently placed ClockWork's body down on the ground and backed away with their heads lowers while the rest of us warily looked on. There were large gashes visible all over her body exposing some of her inner organs mixed in with the excessive amount of blood.

I noticed that much and quickly turned away again. LJ stepped up and threw a large sheet over her, fully covering her body.

Everyone looked on in a deathly still silence, then after a few moments Jeff began to growl and I see his fists tightening at his sides, "Whoever did this is gonna fucking PAY! Which one of you bastards did it!?"

Next thing we all knew, he had flipped his knife out and started pointing it around as if that would help a damn thing. "Come, come clean. It was you, wasn't it Red!?"

"Hwa—NO, of COURSE not!!" Red screamed, appearing flustered.

"Did that fire way back when fry your brain too!?" I shout, moving myself from Nina and standing before Glitchy Red defensively, "You can't just go around accusing random people without proof, shithead!"

Jeff scowled at me and kept his knife out for a while before slowly putting it away and crossing his arms, turning his head away. I couldn't be too upset with him—this affects all of us tremendously.

While the others continued to mourn though, I started to grow curious about the appearance of ClockWork's wounds. They did look pretty familiar, the way the cuts were made. There was really only one type of weapon that could've done something like this....

"No. Fucking way," I mutter under my breath, coming to a possible realization. I keep it to myself because I don't want to start an uproar. I play it off as if I've had enough, watching my deceased friend and move away from the others, heading down the hallway. I step up to the one door at the end.

"Toby," I start knocking, then I hiss closer to the door, "(Y/N)!?"

I grab the handle, but it wont budge no matter how much I try it. Shit.

I heard back to the others and scan the group for Cody, but he's not gathered there. Come to think of it, most everyone was there except a few key faces that I know would rush out on an emergency like this.

I run to Cody's room and open his door. Gone. I look back to the others and look to see who else is missing. BEN.

I hurry to the green rascals room and nearly burst open his door. I'm met with a cluttered mess—but a mess that stands out compared to the usual sight that was his pigpen of a room.

There was a huge part of the carpet that was soaking wet and a huge pail alongside an empty bottle of bleach and ammonia was toppled beside the mess. Looking to his huge TV, the screen was completely broken from the frame, and to my horror, I see what looks like BEN lurched over the frame. His body was all blackened, mixed with loud colors that you'd find on a broken device.

"Benjamin, Benjamin no..." I utter out, running over to him and pulling his body out the TV. I drag him into my lap and hold his head in my arms. "Wake up, you annoying little brat. Come on BEN," I whisper in disbelief at his complete unrecognizable face. His whole face was blacked out with a few streaks of random color here and there.

I hold him tightly in my arms for a while, trying to keep it together and buck up. This isn't the time to mourn—I need to find out what the hell is going on here and who did this.

I swear to god if it was actually that Toby lookalike freak...

I shake my head and gently remove BEN from my lap, laying him on the floor. I'm not going to tell the others yet—things will surely break down into chaos and false accusations will arise if I reveal what happened to BEN right away.

After a moment of thinking hard, It's then that I remember something extraordinarily useful...

꧁BEN, one random evening a long time ago꧂

"Hey fuckwads, I created this new chip thing, alright? Sooo, in the case I ever, ya know, kick the bucket or anything? Which is totally never gonna happen, I mean, how can you kill something that's already dead, right?? Hah, anyway, in the very unlikely incident that I die, I re-uploaded a copy of myself and my consciousness to this chip. All you've gotta do is hook it up to a computer with a flash drive and wait for it to load up! Then, I'll come back like nothing ever happened! That's cool right? I worked 2 whole years on this thing!"

It was then that BEN Drowned realized that no one at all was paying attention to him, not even SlenderMan. And all Jeff did was flip him off. BEN clenched his fists, livid, "Fine! If you guys won't listen to me, I guess I'll be dead forever because you cunts are too preoccupied to even listen to me, and you won't know how to bring me back if needed!"

"BEN, can you get the laundry out of the dryer," Slender asked, not once looking up from his newspaper. "And when you're done, come sweep up Grinny's hair ball. This shit is massive," Glitchy Red added with a large smirk. BEN stared at everyone in silence for a while before turning and storming off, furious.

Little did he know, one pasta did listen closely to everything he said.

꧁Back to the present꧂

I immediately start rummaging through BEN's room, searching up and down, high and low for the flash drive with the chip he created. Thank god I remembered when he told us this thing existed. If it weren't for me listening to him back then, BEN would more than likely be gone forever.

"BEN you ducking pig, how do you live like this?!" I hiss, throwing aside more boxes and unneeded shit aside, looking frantically for the drive.

I move over to his desk and start searching through the drawers, then I look into his file cabinets...in which he just stuffed extra gaming controllers.

I feel like giving up but I don't because BEN's life could be saved, and even though he could be an annoying little brat, he was still one of us and I'd be damned to not save his life.

After tireless searching, I finally find the familiar object; a green little flash drive with a mini stick figure Link printed on it with a poorly scribbled smiley face. I grab it up and snatch BEN's laptop off his bed, quickly opening it up and turning it on while sticking in the flash drive.

I click on the file and watch with building nerves as the file starts loading up.

Is this really gonna work? How could something like this even work? I get BEN can travel through electronics and stuff but he's still a ghost...how can he actually pull this off when—

I jump when the computer screeches "DONE!" at me, and the next thing I know, a familiar bush of blond hair starts to emerge from the screen. My eyes widen behind my mask as his head pops out and he lets out an exasperated breath, then his arms are gripping the sides of the laptop fighting to pull his whole body out.

I grab his arms and help by pulling until his whole body was freed from the screen, and BEN toppled onto me, panting heavily. "B-BEN!" I shout, wrapping my arms around him. BEN continued to pant for a while, then he slowly lifted up his head to face me. "J-Jane....." He uttered, yet his voice sounded etched with deep pain.

"Ohmygosh it actually worked. You're alive again! God Ben, tell me what happened..."

"I-I-It...." BEN's dark eyes were widened more than usual; he looked completely shocked, broken by whatever had happened to him. "T-T-Toby....he-he....Toby..."

More blood than usual started to flow from his blotted-out eyes and he appeared to be crying now. "Does—Does Toby hate me!? What—what—what the fuck did I do!??"

BEN suddenly breaks down in my arms and I sit up, rubbing his back gently. I say nothing, because I know all well that that wasn't no damn Toby.

"There there BEaN. Trust me when I say Toby does not hate you. I'm gonna put an end to all of this, okay?"

"Jane—Jane don't leave me please...I saw the blood on him before he came to me...he's gone mad..."

"...Just trust me, BEN. Stay in here, got it?"

I gently push BEN off my lap and leave him on the floor, shaking and grabbing at his hair. I look at him and sigh before quickly stepping out of his room and shutting the door. Out in the hall, everyone was still gathered around Clockwork, mourning her in silence. I head to my bedroom and quickly shuffle under my pillow until I've grabbed what I wanted.

I pull out a handgun with my name painted in white letters on it and start loading it up. I was really saving this baby for Jeff, but now I know of a little shit who probably needs it even more than him.

"I shouldn't have went soft on them. I shouldn't have even let them live!" I hiss at myself, feeling tears starting to trail down my face.

Once loaded, I take the gun and I start heading downstairs, my mind set on gunning down the sonuvabitch as soon as I see them.

"(Y/N)!!! Come out you fucking bastard! I know what you did! How could you!!?"

I start searching the downstairs area up and down for the Toby look-a-like, but they were nowhere to be found. Just great, they may have ran off and left the mansion...

As if that's gonna stop me.

I'm not giving up the hunt until they're dead.

As I'm heading for the front doors, I notice I forgot to check the basement. I keep my gun raised as I kick open the door and start slowly descending down the steps.

I noticed the dull glow of the basement's light which signified that someone down there. I quickly shuffle my way down the rest of the steps and point my gun into the main area.

Sure enough, I see someone with their back to me, rummaging through the large chest that held some of the mansion's most deadly arsenal. I couldn't really tell the full features because of how dull the light was, but I knew someone that wasn't supposed to be there was here, and I uncontrollably start seething and bark out in anger.

"(Y/N), you COWARD!!"

The rummaging stops.

I keep my gun raised and place my finger on the trigger. "Turn around so I could see your filthy shit-eating-face. You're not Toby."

I step closer, but this is when I realize the figure at the chest slowly turns around and raises themself to their full height. I didn't even need much light to know exactly who was standing there.

"Jane...this is such an unfortunate situation..."

"S-Slender...? Were you down here this whole time? What are you—"

My words are abruptly cut off when I feel the sharp tear of a blade ripping through my back, and I immediately fall forwards, gasping and panicking as I see my own blood quickly staring to pool around me. The excruciating pain I felt quickly spread through the rest of my body, and it was so much to the point I could barely bring myself to speak. I feel the blood coming up my throat and rip my mask off, my eyes darting madly all around me.

I can hear loud, menacing footsteps descending down the creaky stairs from behind me; then I see the bottom of some boots step over my head and they turn around to face before me.

I barely lift my head and look up seeing none other than Toby...

—No. (Y/N).

"I'm sorry Jane," (Y/N) said plainly; I couldn't see their expression behind Toby's facial gear that they were wearing, but I could guess that their demeanor didn't match at all with their fake-ass apology.

My vision was starting to get blurry as I fight trying to keep myself alive, my mind swirling with questions, anger, sadness...

I see the blurry form of SlenderMan come up behind (Y/N) and stand there, seemingly looking down on me too.

"S—S-Slender...." I stammer, feeling my body beginning to shut down on me. "W-hy...?"

...What's happening?

Why is Slender standing with (Y/N), watching me die?

Did he do this?

What's going on...?

What's...

What's......

Wha...

......

I can't...believe...this is...the end...