Chapter Text
Charlie bolted down the stairs, taking a moment to catch his breath. Maybe shouting out insults and making fun of your attacker whilst being pursued wasn’t the best idea, but, oh well. He knew it didn’t matter, because he was almost there.
“I hope this works..” he muttered, reaching the bottom of the steps. His pace didn’t slow, and he didn’t look back. He kept advancing, heading straight for the lab.
The first thing he noticed when walking into the lab was that the place was completely wrecked. Now, Charlie didn’t know too much about technology, but that didn’t seem all that good for such a powerful machine.
Well, if worst came to worst, they would just both die a little early.
The sun had risen, meaning he had already made it to day 100. That was it—but he felt the need to make one last move, leave his mark. He didn’t want his friends to have to endure any more of this hell. He needed to get rid of their biggest problem.
Said biggest problem was previously chasing down Charlie, attempting to chop his head off (mostly just for brain-eating purposes). Right now, he was distracted by one of his comrades—one of his zombie brethren. He seemed to freeze up—maybe he was fighting back? No, he was long gone. Tommy had been pushed out a while ago.
Charlie took the time he had to try and fix up a bit of the machine. He picked up a piece of the lever to the machine that had fallen off, and jammed it into place.
“Hey-“ Charlie started, turning around and immediately jumping at seeing how close Tommy had gotten. Apparently, the kid could be pretty quiet whenever he chose.
“Now. Any last words?” The zombified teenager asked, a sick grin plastered on his face as he raised his spear.
“Yeah.” Charlie said, with much more confidence in his voice than there was before.
It was now or never.
But, why not say a cool line before you go out? Couldn’t hurt.
Charlie dug back into his memory to make sure he got the line right.
“If this goes right..” he continued, “You shouldn’t feel a thing.”
Tommy went stiff. Fear filled his eyes as he watched Charlie push down on the lever.
“Uh-Oh.”
Charlie mumbled his last few wishes, praying that it would work.
He pulled the lever.
And then there was everything at once, yet nothing at all. He screamed as he felt every bit of him in pain, and it only became louder from confusion as he felt nothing at all. Visions blurred past him, but all of it was the void.
It gave him a headache that lasted for a few minutes after he was pulled back into reality.
Charlie gasped in the new, fresh air, looking around frantically. Tommy and him had fallen to the ground. In all fairness, traveling across different worlds and rushing past realities that aren’t yours is pretty good at making you lose your balance.
Tommy looked around as well, no longer focused on Charlie.
“Where the fu-“ he stopped himself, only to stutter out a few more incomplete questions.
They both waited a moment, taking it all in. There was a hoard of zombies approaching in the distance. Tommy was near a ledge, and under that was a pit of lava.
Charlie stood up, dusting himself off. Tommy didn’t follow. He stayed put, staring down at the dead grass. Charlie watched him for a moment, noticing how.. quiet things were.
Tommy reached out his hand to look at it, a look of.. guilt? Fear? Confusion? ..A look of something on his face.
“Do I take damage here?” He asked quietly, sounding like he was on the verge of tears.
As if he would actually cry. Charlie had seen him try and pull stunts like that before, and he wasn’t living his last moments getting tricked by some zombie kid.
So, Charlie tested it. He kicked Tommy in the shin. At seeing Tommy recoil—a clear sign of pain—he grinned. Not only that, he laughed.
“YEAH, BABY, BACK TO WHENCE YOU CAME!” He yelled out, pushing Tommy in with his trusty mace.
Tommy barely even fought back as he tried processing what was happening.
The only thing he could do was scream as Charlie shoved him into the lake of lava.
“..And I don’t mean England,” Charlie added on calmly, turning around as Tommy burned to his death.
He looked back at the crowd of Zombies, a sudden intense feeling of exhaustion washing over him.
“..Guess that’s it, huh..?”
“Okay, remember. One hour. You’re just looking around for now, not collecting anything. We don’t know what this place could have. We have to—“
“—Be careful! I know!” Tommy rolled his eyes. “Geez, Condi, you’re so annoying with all this. I can take care of myself, y’know. You’re not the only proper scientist here.”
“You’re good at your job, I’ll give you that,” Condifiction said, putting his arms behind his back. “But you don’t take many things seriously. This needs to be one of the things that you don’t mess around on.”
Tommy frowned. Usually his lab partner was more fun to hang out with. Well, at least they wouldn't have to worry about the project for too much longer.. right?
“Yeah. I got it, big man.”
Condi had checked literally every last detail of everything involved, then double checked. He then triple checked the most important bits. Tommy took a nap for most of that time out of boredom.
But now, they were ready. They were finally going to test the Deus Project.
“Remember, the button on your belt brings you right back. Or, at least.. it should.”
Tommy stepped up to the lever off to the side of the machine. Condi was hidden behind some protective glass, just in case the machine malfunctioned and blew everything sky high. It was always a possibility with these two scientists’ work.
“Thanks for the heads up. I’ll test out once I’m in a real bad situation, seems foolproof,” Tommy said sarcastically, almost making Condi call off the whole thing. They were too far in, though, and in all honesty, Condi was a little impatient. His life’s work was right in front of him. He couldn’t turn back now.
Also, Tommy was a thing. That kid never second guessed himself, never went back on anything.
Tommy barely hesitated to pull the lever once he finished talking. As uninterested he seemed in it all, it was still quite exciting. He was probably the first person to do this. Like, ever. That was a cool thing to think about.
Well, it seemed pretty cool in the moment. Could you really blame him?
Tommy smiled as he thought about it. His last moments in control really had to be like this, huh? And he couldn’t even get a cool last line.
Not like it would be written anywhere. Still, would’ve been nice to die knowing you had something to say that made it all worth it.
His whole body felt like it had touched a hot stove. It was horrible, but he knew it would be over in just a few moments.
He couldn’t breathe. Yeah, his lungs were most definitely burning. How fun.
He had never really thought about death by lava before, but he had expected it to be a little different. He expected to slowly get burned alive as he sunk into the fiery pit of doom, but, nope. He was practically just laying on top of the dense liquid, slowly burning, finding out about new ways that he was dying. Organ failures in several areas, everything catching fire….
He coughed out what he meant to be a sigh, but turned into a long, painful exhale that would most likely last for the rest of his life.
As his vision slowly disappeared and he lost his consciousness, something collided with a now exposed bone of his. His nerves had burned a while ago, so he didn’t notice it at all, but he would have taken a small bit of comfort in the fact that the one remnant of Condi he had left hadn’t burned. Condi had given it fire resistance, for whatever reason.
Well, none of that mattered now.
Tommy was dead.