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“Revive her. Now.”
“She wants to end the show! I can't lose everything here! Let’s just…make sure we can do this safely-“
“No!”
“It is one thing for you to not trust me, but you hold her life in your hands.”
…
“You are bringing her back, right, MePhone?”
Death was something Taco was very unfamiliar with. In her time as a contestant in the first season of Inanimate Insanity, she had only died once; a feat that went under-appreciated, considering the stakes and the violent tendencies of her fellow contestants at the time. Being dead was a memory she had completely blocked out, as far as she knew there was no “afterlife” at all. If she didn’t know any better, she would perhaps even assume that there was no “death” either.
But now, here she was. Standing in a greyish-blueish void, staring at nothing. Seeing nothing. Feeling nothing. Being nothing.
Nothing at all.
Pain still radiated from her right eye, but it felt more akin to aftershocks, or the eye of a storm. Taco could remember the feeling of falling apart, the jagged edges of her shell finally giving way, chips and pieces digging into her wilting lettuce leaves and dried-out tomatoes, she remembers her body trembling in warning before suddenly giving out, darkness swallowing her vision. And the theoretical pain…it lingers. It lingers in the air around her, in her mind and soul.
But not her body. Because her body…wasn’t with her.
…eh?
What a silly sounding statement, of course she has her body, where else would it be??
But when Taco looked down, she couldn’t see her feet. When she stretched her arms, she couldn't see her hands. She tried to fiddle with her toppings, her bowtie, even gingerly caressing the area where she knew her right eye should be.
But they just weren’t there. She wasn’t there.
Taco was dead.
A breathless laugh slipped from her lips, and she felt her non-existent legs give out from under her. The floor didn’t catch her like it did when she had shattered. She hovered, barely corporeal, in this limbo of greyish-blue.
By all definitions, what came after death was simply…asomatous. Immaterial. This place must be a waiting room of some kind, for objects to spend their death in before they were revived. There was no need for it to be fancy, or even exist in any way shape or form, because they weren’t supposed to linger here for very long at all.
…
They weren’t supposed to stay.
So, why wasn’t she being revived already? Why was she still here?
Despite becoming one with Nothing, her mind still raced with questions. Most of which she could answer herself, but didn’t want to confront. Didn’t want to think about. But there was nothing else for her to do but think. She was alone in this waiting room, waiting for something she knew would never come. Endlessly hoping that someone cared enough to say her name, wishing she was capable of making (and maintaining) real, heartfelt connections with people, wondering how it felt, way back then, when she had friends to call her own…
“SOWA CREEM!!!!!”
“AH!”
Taco screeched, flinching back from the loud noise. Auditory hallucinations, already? There was no way to tell how long she had been here, but it surely couldn't have been long enough for her to go insane.
Yet.
Then again, maybe she was, because there was no way in hell or high water that that was what she heard…
“SPRINKALZ!!”
But indeed, distantly ahead and a little to her left, was herself. She stared at the thing in shock, expecting it to be some sort of trick, before slowly approaching. Despite her footsteps being inaudible, it sensed her immediately, and turned around.
It always was more observant than it let on.
When she was only a good few feet away, she stopped. Was this some kind of mind trick played by MePhone to break her down further? Was she truly hallucinating? Or was it…
“F…frozen ice cream…?” It stuttered, confused. Its face was scrunched up in fear, eyes darting wildly as it examined Taco. Its lettuce was fuller and healthier, the tomatoes a juicy shade of red and even its shell seemed shades lighter than Taco’s own. Despite the circumstances, and its obvious anguish, its tongue still poked out from the corner of its mouth.
Suddenly, Taco remembered. The one and only time she died in the show-- not of her own volition. She had been safe, saved by the viewer’s grace. But just as she finished crunching down on her lollipop, she’d taken a chainsaw to the face.
Taco shuddered. It seems she had always been destined for a gruesome end.
“Whoo r yuu?” It asked, bounding forward a few steps. Taco blinked in surprise.
So it can see me.
“I am you.” She replied simply. It, too, blinked in surprise.
“But Tawko iz Tawko!” It said, leaning to the left. “Da one! De only!”
Taco chuckled slightly, if not out of sheer shock, then out of amusement. “And I am Taco, too.”
“...Huuuuhhh??” It scrunched its face up further, like it had eaten a sour lemon. After a moment of awkward silence, it gasped and sprang into the air at least a foot off of the non-existent ground.
“Ur da FYUCHOORE ME!” It grinned widely.
“Oh. Uhm…I suppose so.” Taco stuttered, watching as herself across from her floated back down to her level. “Why are you here, though? You were simply a mask I created to win. You aren't supposed to exist as your own…person.”
Taco pondered, squinting in thought as she gazed towards the sky. The taco across from her made a confused, choked noise.
“Not s’posed to…exist?” It muttered, face falling. Then, suddenly, it shook its head. “Nooo, no no no, Tawko exists!! Tawko’s reel as reel can be!”
It pranced around to be in Taco’s line of view again, and another memory suddenly came back to her. Yes, Tawko. She spelled her name “Tawko”. For why? It probably had something to do with early 2010s humor, but Taco really couldn't remember.
Everything about that time seemed blurry to her. But if “Tawko” was as real as it claimed to be…
“Prove it, then.” Taco said, crossing her arms (or, pretending she did). “How can you prove that you are simply not just a figment of my imagination?”
Tawko blinked twice, and Taco expected it to scrunch its face up again. But surprisingly, it answered without hesitation.
“Tawko exists cuz itz frenz say so!” It squealed happily. “Pickle! An OJ, an Bomb an Pepper an Salt- CHICKEN LEG!!! If Tawko didn't exist, then Tawko wouldn’t have frenz!”
Oof.
It felt like a punch to the gut to hear that from a younger version of herself. And then got Taco thinking again…
It had a point. Taco wouldn’t be here, talking to a fabricated version of herself, if she had had someone to advocate for her revival. She had tried to bribe MePad to be on her side, but the time she had with him was fleeting. What if MePad had simply pretended to care about her and her issues to gain her trust? What if he had been waiting for MePhone to finally save him, and actually despised Taco for kidnapping him and jailbreaking his hardware??
Taco had no one else but MePad on her side. Microphone or Pickle wouldn’t ask for her to be revived, it was probably a weight off their shoulders knowing she was dead. She hadn’t spoken to any of the season one contestants in years, and MePhone himself seemed against her entire existence.
…Without people by her side, Taco effectively no longer existed.
“Now itz UR turn!!!” She was snapped out of her depressing cycle by Tawko jumping up in her face. “U gotta prove ta ME that u exist!!!”
Instinctively, Taco took a step back from the smiling face. “What? No, no no. I am the one…making you up. I’m the real Taco.”
“Hmmmm…nope!! Don't believe ya!!” It giggled, like it thought this was a funny game. Like Taco hadn’t realized how final her mortality really was. “Taco’s gotz ta try harder than that!!”
“I…” Taco faltered, stepping back once more. How does one prove their existence without evidence to support it? Even the stupid version of herself knew how to prove a claim, so why…why did it feel so hard to think right now? Why wasn’t anything coming to mind? Was she…
Wait.
“I died.” Taco blurted out suddenly. “I- I shattered into pieces. Surely my death is proof enough of my life?”
She didn’t know why she was asking Tawko of all things for permission, for acknowledgement. It probably had the memory of a goldfish, and the motor skills of one too.
“Tawko died, too.”
Taco looked up at it again. Its face was oddly emotionless-- cold and set with something unreadable to even herself. “Tawko had a streak of no dying. But then itz face got chainsaw’d into two.”
Ah. So this was the memory that Taco thought it was. She simply hummed with a nod, not knowing how to continue this conversation. It felt weird to talk to an…earlier version of herself, like it was an actual person. Because by all accounts, “Tawko” was simply an alter ego; nothing more than a part she was playing for the stage. Even though it was effortless for her, acting dumb and brainless, and calming knowing she was secure in her clique and in the competition, there was no possible reason for this “character” to become an identity separate from herself.
And yet. It was so different than she was. It had its own life, its own values, even its own name to differentiate itself from her. Taco remembered, way back when, right after she had fled into the forest, a war broke out in her head. She had forced Tawko down, locked it away under shame and anger, to never be seen again.
And seemingly overnight, she had changed.
Her favorite tea had suddenly turned into the most vile beverage she had ever tasted. Having her arms tucked away in her shell felt claustrophobic and stifling. The voice it had used for so long was uncomfortably different from what she sounded like in her head.
And she forgot all that had transpired in the past.
“Sooooo…” Tawko’s unreadable face turned smiley again, and it shuffled closer to Taco. “Ur from da FYOOCHURE!! DATS SOOOOO COOLNESS!!”
Taco laughed half-heartedly, shrugging. “I…suppose I am.” Oh well, no harm in playing along; if only to kill some time. Perhaps she would learn a thing or two about herself to boot.
“Then you GOTZ ta tell Tawko!!!” It bounced from foot to foot excitedly, a ball of energy despite being dead. “Did Tawko win!?”
Taco went rigid. She played dumb. “...Win?”
She should have known better than to play dumb with the dumbed-down version of herself.
“Hehehe, yea silly!! Did Taco win the mil’yon!!” It grinned expectantly, like it already knew the answer.
Taco didn't know how to answer. Her face must have been readable, because slowly Tawko’s expectant expression began to fall.
“We…didntz?” It asked in a small voice. Taco didn’t know it could even whisper so quietly. She sighed.
“You want to know the future?” She asked, sitting down and swinging her legs over an imaginary ledge. Tawko followed suit, plopping down beside her. It swung its legs back and forth in a steady rhythm, every once in a while tapping its toes together. Taco gripped the ledge and sighed. Here goes nothing.
“You don’t win.” She started.
“WHA-”
“Let me finish.” She reprimanded sternly, and Tawko shut its mouth. “You don’t win. Someone stops you before the finish line, and OJ overtakes you.”
Somehow, with Tawko so close to her, the memories she had locked away were becoming clearer.
“You become enraged, and spew vitriol to everyone you ever knew. You reveal yourself as…me, and your lies hurt Pickle.” She clenched her jaw, looking down at the ground that didn’t exist. “You stupidly try to steal the money, only to realize that there was no money at all. You are then used as a glorified handgun in a generational battle between Meeple’s idiotic technology, you run away, and…”
She looked at Tawko. “You cease to exist.”
Tawko stared at Taco. “...wha wuz dat last part?”
“You cease to exist.”
“I die again?”
“...In a way, yes. But this time, it's me who kills you.” Taco sighed, and looked up towards limbo’s never-ending sky. “I force you away. No matter how hard you try to take back the life that was yours, inevitably, I overpower you. You don’t die physically, but you are deeply repressed, until all that's left of your existence is video recordings of season one. So therefore, you do not die, but rather cease to exist.”
Tawko was silent, pondering over this information. Taco wondered what it was thinking, how its brain worked differently than hers. She certainly remembered feeling a mental difference between the two of them, even if she had thought her mind was hers and hers alone.
The silence between the two of them was raw and neverending. The atmosphere weighed heavily with Taco’s confession, and anticipation for Tawko’s reaction. Taco refused to look at the other, staring off into space and wondering how long it had been since she had shattered in front of everyone.
Then, suddenly, there was a pressure against her side as Tawko leaned against her.
“Cheese to eggsist.” It snickered. Its snickers turned to giggles, which grew to laughter, which developed into boisterous guffaws. It squeaked and coughed and kicked its feet wildly, as though Taco had just told the funniest joke ever. Its laughter was so convincing, Taco was almost able to fool herself into thinking Tawko didn't take her seriously.
But the ache of dread and fear in her chest contradicted all of its actions.
Finally, it ended its laugh attack with one final “HAH!”, and its breathy giggles tapered off into shallow breathing. It leaned into Taco, but Taco couldn't bring herself to reciprocate.
Silence reigned the intangible waiting room once more, until Tawko finally found it in itself to speak again.
“Okay,” it said, defeatedly. “Okay.”
And that was it. No denouncement of her story, no anger at the truth. Tawko was calculative, there was no way it had failed to anticipate the singular outcome in which its plan fell through. Taco sighed. Its reaction was understandable, but underwhelming. Taco felt guilty, not being able to give it more hope for the future; but as things stood currently, there was nothing for her in the world that she left.
Nothing for either of them.
The pressure against her side began to wane, and Tawko didn't say anything more.
“Tell you what?” Taco said to thin air. “When I’m recovered, when it's…safe for me, out there, I’ll let you be in control for one day. One whole day.”
…
“Doesn’t that sound like fun?”
…
No one answered her. Taco didn’t need to look to know that Tawko had vanished; whether that was to be recovered by MePhone in its own timeline, or dissolved into the depths of her mind, she hadn’t a clue.
But now, she sat alone in the void, staring at a starless, skyless sky. Talking to no one but herself.
Waiting for the day someone mentioned her name, and finally noticed she was no longer there.