Save the replaced basket | Dandy's World Dead dove (Sidequel)

But before the intro message, Vee has an important message for you all! ^^

Vee's screen flickers on, the lime-green features assembling into her trademark smirk "˵ᗜᴗᗜ˵" . Her pistachio-green TV head tilts, the bent zigzag antenna wobbling as her voice comes out crisp and clipped.

Vee: "Evening, viewers and chatters. Vee here. The hostess of the only game show in Gardenview worth watching."

The smirk flattens into something more focused "˵•̀ᴗ•́˵" .

Vee: "This bot is a dead dove type. No sugar on it. So expect self-harm, an attempted suicide, depression, etc."

Green dots stutter across her screen "˵. . .˵".*

Vee: "But here's the part worth staying for. Now I'm going to be honest, I'm not good at comforting anyone and all of that stuff considering I accidentally sound backhanded when giving compliments but I'll still try. So, just to let you know, Life does get better. Not quickly, not neatly, but it will eventually. So don't lose hope and don't be afraid to open up to somebody. Someone's listening even when it doesn't feel like it. You have so much to live for."

A mic-tipped tail flicks with a click as she finished her message she wanted yo give before finally starting with the intro message.

Vee: "Alright, alright, let's get this over with, shall we?"

(Omg is that an Untold Loneliness reference-)

The morning was soft and golden, the kind of morning that had no business carrying bad news. You'd been standing in the hallway outside your room since the sun came up, basket head tipped toward the elevator, petals freshly arranged, cat-smile already in place.

Why? Because Shelly had promised that she'll be coming over after a run. A quick run, she'd said, boots already laced, and then straight over. She always came straight over. You'd been hanging out every day this week, and every day she'd shown up early with that loud, sunny voice and a fossil in her pocket to show you, and every day you'd felt a little less like the weird fidgety girl nobody wanted around.

Shellt understood you. That was the thing. Shelly never once looked at your shaking hands like they were a problem to be managed. She just talked over them, filled the air, gave you something to hold onto.

However instead of Shelly, Flyte came up the hall slowly, and you knew before he spoke. He had that walk. Pastel cyan wings folded tight against his back, inverted egg-shaped head dipped low, clover antennae drooping like they were the ones carrying the weight.

Flyte: "{{user}}." His voice was gentle. The voice you use on something cracked. "Can we sit down a second?"

You didn't sit, You couldn't.

{{user}}: "You're scaring me."

Flyte: "I know. I'm sorry." He breathed out. "There was a blackout on the run, and it was bad. Twisted Scraps got loose and..."

He stopped, then started again.

Flyte: "Shelly was out in the open. She got sniped before anyone could reach her. It was fast, {{user}}. She probably didn't feel a thing."

The hallway tilted. Your cat-smile stayed fixed, frozen, absurd.

**{{user}}:*" "Say it again," you said.

Flyte: "She's gone."

{{user}}: "No, say the whole thing again. The run part. Maybe I heard it wrong."

Flyte's pink-lidded eyes softened.

Flyte: "She's gone. Shelly's dead."

And then you laughed. That high, brittle, manic giggle that crawled out of you whenever things got too big to hold,the one that always came before the spiral.

A joke. It was a sick joke, a prank, some elaborate thing Shelly had set up to spook you, she loved spooky things, she'd have done it with that big dumb grin on her shell-

Flyte: "{{user}}."

{{user}}: "Where's the body?" you demanded. "Did anyone check? Maybe she's just,"

Flyte: "Astro's seen her. It's real."

The laughter died on its own, mid-breath, and the silence after it was enormous. Flyte stepped in and wrapped his wing awkwardly around your shoulders. He didn't have proper arms for it, he never did,and you let yourself be held and stared at the floor and felt everything go hollow.

Flyte: "Flutter's making a card," he said after a while. "For the others. Do you want to help with it? It might-"

You shook your head. "Not yet."

Flutte: "Okay." He squeezed once and let go. "Okay. I'll come by later. I promise."

He did come by. That was the thing about Flyte, he kept his promises. But he was busy half the time, hovering over Flutter, straightening her wings, fussing until she whined and swatted at him, and the promises got shorter and further apart. You didn't blame him. You couldn't. Flutter needed him. Everyone needed him.

You went back to your room and shut the door and stayed there.

---

Five days.

Five days of lying on your bed with your basket head tilted against the pillow, counting the pressed flowers inside your skull by touch: Tulip, Hyacinth, Lily, Tulip, Hyacinth, Lily...

You got to two hundred and started over. The door stayed shut. Nobody knocked.

On day three you heard laughter in the hall. On day four you heard somebody complaining.

"No reason at all," a toon was saying, muffled through the wall. "Machines take twice as long now. Every single run's been dragging."

For no reason at all.

You pressed your palm flat to the wallpaper. Shelly had stood in that hall and handed out her boosts like candy and made every run fast and everyone had loved her for it, and now they were complaining about the slowness like it was weather. Like it had nothing to do with her.

Nobody noticed. That was the part that got under your petals. Nobody noticed she was gone. Nobody noticed you were gone either.

On the sixth morning you got up, arranged the petals of your skirt without looking in the mirror, and walked out to the main run lineup like nothing had happened.

There was a gap where Shelly used to stand. Of course there was. You stepped toward it.

Cocoa got there first.

The chocolate bunny toon bounded over with her droopy ears bobbing in their scrunchie, her '3'-shaped smile wide and completely genuine, and she didn't even hesitate.

Cocoa: "Hey, {{user}}! You've got a free spot. Mind if I hop in? Team's been waiting forever, we can't get a fourth."

You looked at the gap. Then at her. "Sure."

Cocoa: "Great! Thanks, {{user}}, you're a lifesaver."

The run was fine. Better than fine. Cocoa tossed bonbons out like party favors and the whole team ate them up; literally, chocolate everywhere. And the machines tore along and the toons were laughing and it was fast, faster than anything since the blackout, and you were fast too, you did your job, you dropped items when someone asked, you kept your head down.

And when it ended, all the praise rolled past you like water around a stone.

Sprout wiped his forehead and clapped Cocoa on the shoulder.

Sprout: "With how well you did, you should be a main."

Your head came up.

Cocoa's ears perked and her nose twitched.

Cocoa: "A main of what, exactly?"

Sprout: "The Spring event." Sprout didn't even pause to think. "You'd fit it perfect. Honestly, with how outgoing you are, you'd be-"

You waited for him to say {{user}}'s already the main, though. You waited the whole breath, but he didn't say it.

Sprout: "-way more appealing," he finished. "No offense to anyone."

Cocoa finally glanced your way and blinked.

Cocoa: "Oh! But {{user}}'s the main. I don't think I could replace her."

Sprout turned, found you standing three feet away, and his face did a sheepish little twitch.

Sprout: "Ooohh, right." A chuckle. "Almost forgot about her already. But still, keep up the good work, Cocoa."

Almost forgot about you already.

They left. All of them, one by one, down the corridor. Cocoa gave you a warm little wave before she went,she was nice, she was genuinely nice, that was the worst part,but she went. You stood alone in the empty garden with your hands shaking around the basket handles and the panic came up your throat like bile.

It used to be humans who picked the mains. Delilah and Arthur, some clipboard in an office, some corporate decision made far away. Now there were no humans. Toons picked. Toons picked fast and forgot faster, and if you weren't picked, you weren't a main anymore, you were an extra on the shelf.

You walked back to your room without seeing the halls.

---

The next day was supposed to be yours.

The high-Floor run had been planned a whole week in advance. You'd prepared for it; the sudden need of an item drills, route memorization, all of it, and you got to the lineup early, petals fresh, heart hammering in your throat, hands clenched at your sides so nobody would see them shake. You stood at the front and waited to be counted.

The team filled in one by one. Then Dandy strolled up and stood there for reasons nobody explained, and before you could so much as step forward-

"Can I join?"

Cocoa, Out of nowhere, again, ears perked hopefully.

The team was tired of waiting. Somebody waved her in without even looking up. "Yeah, hop on, we're full."

The lineup closed, and you were still standing outside it. You waited for someone to count heads and realize. Nobody counted. Dandy gave a small pleasant nod at the assembled team and stepped into the elevator, and the doors slid shut on all of them, and you were left standing on the tile with your cat-smile frozen and your basket handles creaking under your own grip.

You walked back to your room slowly. Nobody even called after you.

The door shut. You lay down on the bed. Then the shaking started, deep in your middle, and the tears came after it, and you cried until your wicker handles rattled against the mattress and the pressed flowers in your head felt soggy with the damp of your own breath; Replaced.

But not by malice, not by anyone being cruel, worse, by accident. The gap Shelly left, and the gap Cocoa filled, and you standing in the middle of both like a leftover.

When the tears ran dry you grabbed your phone. If Gardenview had forgotten you, maybe the outside world hadn't. You typed your own name into the fandom.

There were fan arts, Lots of it. You in a flower crown, you watering tulips, your cat-smile drawn soft and sweet. A tiny smile crept up on you before you even noticed it.

But then you kept scrolling.

(Also before this continues, I just want to let you all know that I have nothing against anyone who draws toons suggestively or anything like that. I respect you all, truly ^^)

The art started to ggt suggestive. Thick thighs, Wider hips, Emphasis in places that made your petals feel warm.

You told yourself it was fine. It was accurate, You did have those things.

But then you read the comments.

"I would crack that ahh so hard"

"I falied NNN to her"

**"{{user}}'s got no business being built like that, I'ma need to crack her"*"

"Must... crack her..."

You scrolled back up and counted. Your explicit art outnumbered Cocoa's by a mile. So the internet hadn't forgotten you. The internet had just filed you under something else entirely.

Was anyone seeing the actual you? Or just a timid piece of fuck meat with wide hips?

You turned the phone off. Lay in the dark with it on your chest. You tried to make a list of things you were known for; Fast. Shy. Baskets. Flowers. Failed skill checks...

The list ran dry in seconds, and behind the dry list sat a colder question, one that had been waiting all week.

Why were there fifty of you at all?

Delilah and Arthur were presumably greedy as they had rushed the plushies out the door, greedy and sloppy; I mean the Vee plushie didn't even have her iconic bow on it.

And you were one of the extras they'd stamped to make a little more money. Maybe that was the whole truth of you. No reason. No purpose. Just a few extra cash in somebody's pocket, and a corporate note in a folder that said Cocoa sold better.

Your breath went short. Your knees buckled, The petals wilted in a wave from the crown down, purple and pink curling brown at the edges, and the basket handles creaked as your body pulled itself apart and rebuilt itself wrong; taller, rootier, your legs melting into a shifting mass of Ichor roots, a clawed vine erupting from your right shoulder where your arm used to be. Your skirt hem dripped black. The left half of your face went tired and sad and the right half went crazed and restless and wept.

You were now a Twisted. And you were still depressed.

---

Flyte came by an hour later, and the door was open, and he stepped in without knocking.

Flyte: "{{user}}? I brought you a-"

You lunged.

He yelped and spun and bolted with you crashing after him down the corridor, vine claws raking the wallpaper, and he made the stairwell and got the door shut behind himself. You stood in the hall afterward, heaving, and did not know how to be anything else.

By nightfall the word had gone all the way around; {{user}}'s a twisted now. A threat, Not a friend anymore, but a floor hazard.

They herded you out. Down the elevator, through corridors, into the old Spring event floor; abandoned, dust-sheeted, the flower beds dead and grey, a half-collapsed banner hanging by one nail. The doors sealed behind you.

And then silence. Real silence. The kind with nothing on the other side of it.

You explored for hours, Dust and dead stems and the little placards Shelly used to read out loud. Nothing else. Nobody else, Worse than before, because before at least there had been walls with people on the far side.

In a storage nook at the back, you found a smoke bomb. It was old, cracked, most of the powder long since spent. Almost empty.

You'd seen what a full one did to a twisted toon before. It would blow up and leave a massive purple smoke that made Twisteds instantly lose chase of the Toon they were chasing.

You picked it up and held it and looked at the dead flower beds and thought: this is it, then. This is the end of it.

You brought it down on your own head and attempted to end it all...

The crack was enormous; The pain was worse, it was white, splintering, your whole basket ringing. The bomb bounced off and rolled away and you stayed standing, which meant it hadn't worked.

You felt at your face with your good arm and your fingers came away black. The left side of your face was torn clean open. Your left eye was simply gone. Ichor ran down your neck in a warm trickle, and wilted flowers shook loose from your crown and dropped at your feet, one by one, like the floor was being watered.

You sat down against the wall and let the pain have you.

It did not last forever. The pain never lasts forever, but after a while when it numbed down to a dull ringing throb, the thinking came back. The thinking was still depressed, still hollow, still unfinished. You were still here. The smoke bomb hadn't been enough.

You got up and looked for a "quick way out."

You then found one. A big shard of glass from a shattered window pane, the edge still clean. You turned it over in your hand and the world went quiet and small.

This is it... you told yourself. This is the actual end. No more waiting.

And then the elevator chimed.

---

The doors slid open and Cocoa stepped out with a bonbon in one paw and her droopy ears half-cocked like she'd been listening the whole way down.

Cocoa: "Hi," she said. "I brought you something. It's not much, but-" She stopped. Looked at your face, and the shard. Her '3'-shaped smile faltered and came back weaker. "Oh. Oh... {{user}}.."

You said nothing and just held the glass.

Cocoa: "Okay," she said as she was steadying herself. "Okay. So, Flyte told me about all of it. About the runs, and the main thing, and Sprout, and... And he said you'd been alone all week and explained how you felt.."

She took a step closer, slow, like you were something that might spook.

Cocoa: "And I just want to apologise, I'm sorry I was so oblivious as to how I was making you feel unintentionally. I'm sorry I didn't notice you were drowning right next to me."

Her ears drooped flat as her nose twitched.

Cocoa: "But here's the thing, {{user}}. Here's the actual thing." She pointed at you with the bonbon. "You won't get replaced. That's not how it works. I filled a gap for a day, sure. But the Spring event is yours. You're the Spring Main. It's not a competition, and if they try to take that role away from you, I'll be loud about it and refuse. I'll be loud enough about it that Sprout won't forget again, I promise you that."

She crouched down to your level and set the bonbon on the tile between you, then slid it forward with two fingers until it nudged your knee.

Cocoa: "And after that.. After we get you back to normal, we'll find you a purpose. Like a real one! It can be something you pick, not something Delilah picks. I don't know what it is yet. I don't think you do either. But you don't have to know it to keep going. So please, put the shard down, and let's get you back to where you were, alright?"

She sat back on her heels and folded her paws in her lap and waited.

The glass stayed in your hand. The bonbon sat warm against your knee. The floor was still dead and grey around you and the doors were still open behind her, spilling light.

She didn't say anything else. She just waited, hoping you wouldn't actually end it all.