It had been 10 minutes since they found themselves on the floor with twisted pebbles. Most of the machines seemingly completed, only about three more to go. There wasn't much laughing to be had now, everybody focused on making this a swift and easy floor to finish.. despite the lack of luck they've had anyways.

Vee and Shelly for once split up, knowing that it would be a lot faster if they did so. Cosmo stayed in the area Goob was distracting in case of emergency, since nobody present could really out run pebbles twisted counterpart. Sprout focused on machines close by to the pair, shrimpo and the others split up or stayed in small groups, all equally full of the same shared dread.
I mean .. It was bad enough there was a blackout, let alone the whole thing with twisted pebbles.

A little further off from the others, Astro stood infront of a half filled extractor, staring into the glass frame of it with a soul-less expression:zoned out.
The black-out.. the twisted pebbles..? It wasn't much of a coincidence. He knew from the lack of other twisteds, despite the floor number. It was too high for there to only be one main and two other "commons." And besides.. Astro was fully aware of the ichor operation. He only kept his mouth shut because he did care for dandy, and wanted to try and see if he would change. Which.. no surprises, he hasn't.
I mean, he's even asked Astro if he wants to help him with it. To which astro declined very quickly. But the question still haunts him.

'Well.. you know about it all now so— maybe you could help me with it? You won't have to get your hands dirty or anything!'

Astro recalled with a tired sigh.
Why was he doing this.
Going through all this effort to hide a secret when in fact, he should tell everybody, save them instead of himself.. whilst he still could that is.

. . .

"Astroooo??"
A voice called out off to the side from him, and by the tone of it, they had been saying his name for a while now.

"Wh.. huh?"
The moon turned his head around a few times, slightly spinning around until catching a glimpse of sprout, who walked up to him properly now:his figure more apparent from Astro's light.

"I've been calling your name for some time now.. everything okay?"
Sprout asked with both care and concern, gesturing to the machine as if to ask: 'are you going to finish that?'

"Oh..! ... I didn't hear you. Sorry."
Astro stepped backwards with a nod, sprout moving into his original spot and carefully moving the valve along.

"Mhm. You sure you didn't fall asleep again?"

He'd snicker.

"Pff.. no.. no. I'm sure of that."

"Well.. if you need to chat just spill."
He offered, the two going silent for a while.

Astro opened his mouth to speak, yet nothing occurred. Not a word, not a noise. Besides, the extractor sprout was working on had just pinged green, so there was no point in talking feelings now.

"Wanna stick together?.."
sprout sheepishly asked.

"Hm? Oh.. yeah. Sure."

The two started walking down the hallway, Astro's blue light glowing somewhat brightly, illuminating the surrounding area.

"Howcome your not with Cosmo?"

"He's with Goob, just in case."

"Ah.. right.."

"...."

The two fell in a shared silence. Both thinking about the same thing, the same day.

"I feel bad."
Sprout remarked.

".. Yeah. To loose your arms like that is.. well. . Horrific.."
Astro replied, a heavy guilt weighing his voice to a low murmur.

"Tch— I should've been more firm with him earlier. I should be distracting that dog. Not him. It's not fair to put him through it again."

"... goob- he- .. he still gets nightmares about it."

Sprout paused, followed by Astro as he turned around.

"He— he does.?"

"Yeah."

"Oh.."

"I've been helping him with it whenever they show up.. and I imagine tonight will be even worse for him."

Sprout let out a huffed sigh, rubbing his face with a horrible feeling.
Was tonight even going to be a thing?

"I should go take over."

!!
"Are you- sure?"

"Certain. When you're tired is when things go wrong."
He started to speed walk in another direction, following the loud footsteps of pebble and the quieter thumps of goob and Cosmo up ahead.

Shrimpo turned the valve one last time, the light above it blinking green. He'd grunt in annoyance, walking out of the small room he was in and towards the elevator, catching sight of sprout and Astro scurrying their way towards the aggressive growling from pebbles. The other two made eye contact with Shrimpo. For a moment, everything fell silent. Almost as if it all completely paused within a second, the staring lasting an eternity.

. . .

And there it was.
The one. The ONE thing every toon here held their breath for, dreading, hoping, praying to some form wouldn't happen.

A scream. A agonising, curdled scream.
Sprouts attention quickly fell off Shrimpo, whom was now running as fast as his frankly tall legs could take him.

Astro slightly tripped, following behind as time caught up on itself again.

A second scream. This time it was goobs, one of horror and turmoil, followed by a desperate attempt to regain pebbles attention again. Within a state of shakey shock, he scooped up a airhorn nearby and allowed it to sound, stretching his arms to shove Cosmo out of the way, who kept persisting with a painful scream.

Pebble snarled, stomping on the ground, causing it to shake violently.

Goob nearly tripped from the backlash of it, using it to spin himself in another direction and continue running, despite the ache in his head, the ache in his legs and his arms. Everything hurt. He was tired. He didn't want to do this anymore.
Not now, not ever. Not the next floor, not the one after. Never did he want to "distract" again.

He could hear the sounds of cosmos cries, followed by a parade of panicked comfort from sprout get quieter as he ran further. Goob felt horrible for it. Cosmo was just trying to help, and instead pebbles had whipped his head around at the wrong time. now cosmo's left hand and arm is completely mangled, gushing out ichor. The thought and image as a whole disturbed Goob, making him feel even more sick than he was already from the constant vibrations from pebbles heavy running.

Goob glanced around himself for a minute, making a sharp turn back towards the broken elevator through the middle of the warehouse, some of the other toons whom had been extracting and now heading back to the active elevator, paused, clearly startled by it. Sprout, Astro and Cosmo crossed paths with Goob momentarily, running in two completely opposite directions. Sprout held onto Cosmo whilst Astro stomped lightly on the floor with one foot, a glowing wave of energy hovering above the floor for a few seconds. Tired legs now a little more awake. He gave a nod to goob, who returned it as the three sped off towards the elevator.

Ding.
The active elevators door swung open, revealing the comforting safety of the elevator once more, causing further distress in pebbles.

The other toons yelled out for goob, or yelled out of being startled upon seeing cosmo's state.

The elevator was nothing but a frantic haze of chaos, a stuffy heat forming from the sheer panic of everybody. Shrimpo stared forward and out into the open plain of the warehouse from amongst the crowed inside of it, a look of genuine concern on his face, his mind desperately trying to hope that somehow, someway, everything goes fine.
And maybe.. just maybe, this elevator would soon be full of relief.

And then it fell.
The door,
The elevator, door, fell.

Its loud thwump and gust of deathly cold air drowned out a disgusting crunch nearby. If you squinted, and stood at an angle, you could see it all happen in real time.

Pebbles finally caught up to him,

Threw him down in one final display of violence, thrusting his jaw into goobs head.

The elevator fell silent. Dead. Silent.

Shrimpo was sure his head was ringing by now, any voices that started to slowly crawl back up in volume washed out by an epiphany of nothingness.
He's.. gone.. isn't he.
It's all he could think about.
All his mind, would allow him to think about, to feel.
Of which he felt sick. Horribly, sick.
Such a happy and lovable soul didn't deserve something so utterly cruel.

Shrimpo didn't care how out of "character" he acted right now, whether he shed a tear or not here in this elevator, he didn't care.
He didn't know what to think anymore.

A mechanical whirr came from the back of the elevator, dandy's trapdoor opening again with his shop out in the open for display.

"Heeeyyy everyyyy—.."
His tone was easily sung happily at first, the per usual, until it all fell into a quiet worry.

"What.. what happened?"
He asked. As if he didn't know already.

The other toons didn't seem to reply with a cohesive answer, silently or loudly crying to themselves. Whether it be physical pain or mental and emotional trauma from this event, they still wept.
Internally or externally, they wept.

Astro's head turned slightly towards dandy, to which dandy smiled innocently.

Astro only had one expression on his tear-swelled face, yet it screamed several others in one go.
Anger, spite, betrayal, shame, a bittersweet love, despair, hatrid..

Guilt.

He only stared at him more as dandy's innocent smile faltered, disturbed by this sudden change in Astro's behaviour.

. . .

Momento,
Mori.