So, that brings us back to the first few paragraphs of Chapter 33. Me and Biologist were standing side by side, panicked as all hell, in total disbelief that I kinda maybe just killed my best friend?

“A-Alright Mina, I’m sure there’s something we can do. Don’t panic.”

“I’m not panicking. But you have like, three minutes before I have a total breakdown. I should be good ‘till then, though.”

“Firstly, that strike definitely eviscerated her heart. There’s no CPR-ing that back.”

“Mhmm, yes, seems that way.”

“You used some magic a few seconds ago to get your striped sword out of somewhere. Do you know any magic that might help in this situation?”

“Isn’t that more your domain?”

“Hmmm… I do want to try something…”

Biologist walked over to Bunny’s splattered corpse and took a look into the gruesome, gaping hole I bore through her slender chest. She silently dropped the purple gooey creature into it, with the same demeanor a child might pour a few drops of water down an anthill to see how they react.

The amorphous purple blob expanded to fill its container like a liquid, fully stopping the bleeding. It seemed to even be forming mock-veins and tissue to connect to the damaged veins and tissue of her chest cavity. It interested me a bit at how it formed the larger sections first, and then iterated through itself to form more detailed connections. Without a doubt, this creature understands human anatomy. This could really work!

And, of course, just as I had that optimistic thought—splat.

The purple thing was launched right out of her chest onto the ceiling, like one of those toy stomp-rockets. It must have been close, but I guess that’s not exactly what it was for.

“Alright Biologist, T-minus one minute before I start screaming and bawling my eyes out.”

“Uhhh… Okay, okay, if neither of us can do anything, maybe Rose can?”

A familiar voice echoed down the twists and turns of the vacant back-hallways.

“Maybe Rose can what?”

“Rose! Big problem! Mina just accidentally killed Bunny! It’s not her fault, she was just trying to protect me, and I-”

Rose turned a corner and saw us. She waved nonchalantly, dragging something on a rope behind her. Whatever it was, it was heavy enough to make her sweat.

“Could you guys help me pull this up?”

“Uh, sure, what is—”

I was stopped cold mid-sentence by the sight in front of me. Attached to the end of Rose’s rope was a Bunny corpse. The rope was looped around her waist, and the rest of the rope was pulling along… another Bunny corpse. That one was pulling another, and that one another, and another… They were all roped together in a gorey train. It was a sight grim enough to make even Biologist cringe. There were now seven dead Bunnys, right in front of us. (Eight, if you count the one we killed).

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Oh.

And all of them were wearing camo jackets and ripped up jeans.

My body relaxed a little. It seems my subconscious realized what took my frontal lobe a bit longer to grasp.

“If all those Bunny clones are wearing her usual clothes…”

Biologist understood exactly where I was going.

“...then that means the one we killed probably isn’t the real Bunny?”

Our faces lit up with relief and joy. We grabbed hands, hugged, shed some tears, and laughed like hell. (Did she also feel like doing these things, or was she just indulging me?)

“Okay, if you guys are done acting like my dad when his football team wins, I could really use some help getting these carcasses out of the way. Bunny hardly even looks like she weighs a hundred pounds dripping wet, but they add up fast. Good thing they’re not Mina corpses.”

“You really want to crack jokes in front of someone who just killed her best friend in cold blood?”

“Best friend?”

Rose’s head perked up a bit. Oh shit, maybe that was a careless thing to say. Maybe Rose thought she was my best friend… Wait, now’s not the time to be worrying about elementary school level social issues.

“Anyways, what the hell are you doing with all those?”

“Oh, just moving all of your best friends out of the main floor of the mall. The other best friends of yours get agitated when they see them, so this should calm them down. Or are you mad at me because I killed so many of your best friends?”

“Come on Rose, now’s not the time to be worrying about elementary level social issues!”

(Hey, I liked the way that sounded in my head earlier, might as well re-use it.)

Biologist interrupted, thankfully.

“Did you kill all these yourself? How? And why?”

“None of these are real. They’re all fake Mina’s best friends. I only killed them because they got aggressive.”

“How come they’re all wearing the same outfit she always wears? The ones we saw walking around were wearing all kinds of crazy outfits.”

“That’s the strange part: when you kill one of MIna’s best friends, her clothes revert back to these. No matter what Mina’s best friend was wearing when you killed her, it’ll shift back to this in the blink of an eye.”

“So the clothes are important…”

Biologist gracefully ambled over to our dead Bunny, the only one that wasn’t tied up in rope. She took off the camo jacket and inspected it all over. Then she started taking off her shirt and her jeans—”

“Well, look who’s getting to see her best friend naked! Or perhaps she’s already more of a special friend?”

Rose was taunting me, and I would have made some clever quip in retaliation if it wasn’t for the fact that my back was turned completely away from everything going on because it was too embarrassing.

I’ll just let them finish while I play with my phone.