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It was strange. The robot itself wasn't what was so terrifying. It was just an object. A copy of another robot he knew fairly well. Tall, but not much taller than his own height. No facial features to scowl or glare- its movements, slow. Choppy. Almost cartoonish. Like those big boxy robots on old television.
It was almost mocking.
No, it wasn’t the appearance that was so terrifying it was something else. An uncomfortable unexplainable feeling. Just being near it drew dread and terror out of you. Evoking the animalistic urge to flee. Poison. Maybe that was close enough to explain it. Being near it was like breathing in poison. It was not the fear of death but the fear of no existence at all.
He’d never known there was a difference before.
His hotel once a haven, the most important thing to him, could do little to ease his fear. He now felt trapped inside of it. The room was red. It had never been red before.
OJ had pressed himself against the wall. He could feel his glass straining, threatening to shatter if he didn’t calm down. His breaths came out as sputtery and short. Panicked. He tried to look for a way out. Everywhere he looked it seemed to follow.
He tried to look for Paper but the mass of red and black appeared, like a phosphene always there. Even, if he closed his eyes.
It took a clunky step towards him. Its limbs looked heavy, and each step made the robot shudder. The glass couldn’t hear it move over the blaring of the sirens that bled into his ears– but each step shook him. No one else seemed to react. It was slow. Lethargic, it knew its victim wouldn’t get away. There was no rush. One of its limbs, posed by its sides, began to twist and it went out to reach him. Then it finally touched him.
It did not strike out at him, its claws did not dig into him. It did not press until the glass crunched and cracked. It was just a touch. That was all it took for OJ’s vision to blink out. The red that had painted his entire vision suddenly went white. He convulsed and choked. Slipping forward without control of his limbs. He should have collapsed right into his pursuer, instead, he seemed to float through it.
Enveloped in the feeling of cold. He quite liked the cold. It felt natural, and suppose it was for a sentient glass of juice- but this was difference. The type of cold you felt upon being plunged into icy water. Your entire body going into shock. But worse. So, so much worse.
He must have blacked out because when he came to he wasn’t in the same spot. It was gone, and he was away from the spot he’d cowered in. It still felt weirdly cold, but at the same time, he could almost say he felt no temperature at all. He was standing in front of Bomb, still shaking. How had he gotten here?
He ran his tongue against his teeth, wetting his mouth; afraid his voice would come out raw after screaming like that. He didn’t seem to feel it. “Bomb,” He asks, his voice still shuddery and afraid. “Did you- you saw that didn’t you?”
Bomb stepped forward, and OJ gasped as the Object stepped right through him. His vision wobbles then clears again. What.
“Paper, are y-y-you alright?”
“Is this my fault?” Paper’s voice replies to Bomb after a period of silence. OJ hasn’t turned around to look at him, but he doesn’t need to to recognize his voice. “He was looking right at me, did you see that? He looked right at me and begged and I didn’t move.”
“W-we all froze! How i-is- how was anyone supposed to r-r-react to that?”
When OJ finally musters the courage to turn around. He finds he doesn’t need to move his limbs- rather he just floats- of course float… he’d floated through it before-
He looks down at his body. It’s in front of him now. Empty of liquid and life it lies motionless on the floor. Oh. So he had died. It hadn’t felt like it.
He wills himself closer to the pair. Paper had sat down beside his body. His hand hovered over him like he was afraid to touch him.
The glass doesn’t know where he goes after that. Sometimes he exists, sometimes he doesn’t. He has no control over it. No memory of what happens around him when he’s out of it. Maybe he should be more scared of that, but there’s enough for him to be scared of that after a while it just forms into a feeling of nothingness.
He does, notice, that when he does come to it’s always around Paper. It almost feels intentional, but maybe not…
There weren’t many objects left in the hotel.
It surprised no one in the hotel when Paper took the role of leader. It was partially his hotel after all– if only not by name.
OJ tries many things to get Paper’s attention. When his voice gets nothing he tries to touch things. Paper spends any free time he gets in OJ’s old office. Reorganizing the papers and pens without reason. A distraction, OJ feels.
There’s a bookshelf behind the desk, and OJ tries to grab at the books and knicknacks. His hands phase through things now. Like touching water. Forming around him, without actually changing shape at all. Still, he tries. He claws. He concentrates. Pushes. Shouts. Begging his hands to make contact with anything. The books don’t budge.
He tries a few times to touch Paper. Puts his hand gently on the paper object’s head, or lays his hand on his. Waits with a breath he doesn’t need to take any more for Paper to react at all. Anything.
Paper never does.
He retreats the feeling of panic and frustration bubbling up in his glass. His glass shouldn’t have temperature to it anymore, but his juice still bubbles like its overheating.
It feels like a joke. He attacks the desk, claws and kicks at anything he can reach. Nothing budges. He doesn’t exist.
After another unknown amount of darkness, he searches the back of his mind for more poltergeist stereotypes. He decides he’ll try messing with the lights. Unsurprisingly, his hands phase through the light switches. So do the bulbs, which he can now float up to reach. Yet, he can feel the buzz of electricity when he passes through it. The closest he’s gotten to touching anything physical. So he keeps trying.
With enough concentration, he gets the lights to flicker. Just a flicker. They blink on and off, startling Paper who’d been in the room pacing in circles. He looks up at the light, whines annoyed then goes back to pacing. It all happens so quickly OJ can’t even celebrate the fact it worked.
OJ lets out a frustrated groan, throwing his hands up in exasperation despite no one being around to see or hear it.
How was that supposed to communicate anything?! He tries over and over to replicate the event but even though he feels like the frustration should definitely, be enough to trigger something the lights remain on. With a feeling of dread, he begins to wonder if it had been a coincidence. Maybe he really was lost to this world, no point of contact.
Would he just be stuck like this? Blinking in and out of consciousness until he either never appeared again or lost feeling?
He just wants someone to talk to again.
It’s very lonely.
He spends the rest of his time there talking to Paper to no response.
He’s given up trying to get someone's attention. Decides to just follow Paper.
He realizes Paper doesn’t look much better than him.Paper kept things in order, substituted his role as caretaker. A bitter reminder. OJ had never seen the robot again, but the group had discovered it wasn’t unstoppable.
It could only lock onto one target at a time, and refused to touch those outside of its directive. If you blocked it long enough it would leave. Just until it decided to come back and try again.
Paper looked stressed. The once soft white notebook paper crinkly and worn out. OJ had observed on occasions when Paper was alone. Most of the object’s time in private was spent hiding and sniffling tears, that he would try to quickly wipe away so as to not bleed the ink on his page. He hears a few times Paper talking about him.
It breaks the glass’s heart that he can do nothing to comfort him, yet at the same time he guiltily is relieved he’s not been forgotten. They both speak to eachother, despite both believing the other can’t hear. He sits close to Paper, responds and pretends he’s heard.
It’s night once. Paper sits on watch. No one is allowed to sleep long. OJ has no idea how long its been, it could be hours or days, but this is the first night he’s encountered.
Paper looks even worse.
He remembers so horribly how Paper had tried to speak to him before he’d died. He’s heard in the rants where Paper thinks he’s alone that Paper blames himself for arguing before it happened. It’s his fault, partially, that Paper was feeling like this.
The object couldn’t even grieve him properly. Paper was the caregiver now, a role he’d inherited from OJ. He was around to comfort when the others felt lost. No one was around to comfort him.
“I’m sorry.” OJ says, sitting next to him. “I’m not even around anymore and you’re still suffering because of me. I wish… I wish you had told me earlier how you were feeling.” He laughs bitterly, “No, I’m always doing that. Blaming others. I wish I hadn’t been so self-absorbed that I hadn’t even noticed it. I was just excited you know, I didn’t– I never meant to hurt you. You were such a good friend, it was us against the world and I ruined that.”
“I never would have had any of this without you.”
There’s no response. Of course, there isn’t.
“I just want to be seen by you again- and you’ve been going all this time without me seeing you.”
Tears that shouldn’t exist drip off his glass. He claws at the carpet, can’t feel the itch of it like he should. “What’s the point of this? Why am I still here if I can’t even do anything?”
“Is this karma?”
“Some sick joke?”
“Why am I being tortured like this? I was self absorbed not a monster.”
“I was a good friend wasn’t I?”
He doesn’t remember getting up to pace around, but he collapses to the floor. Feeling sick. He was going to be stuck like this forever wasn’t he? His glass strains in a way it shouldn’t. He shudders. He feels his consciousness going out, like it always does after a certain amount of time.
Before it does the room flashes once with red light. He thinks he sees recognition on Paper’s face before he’s gone.