Bassie's World - Chapter Eight

Instructions

[ Cocoa, 3:14 PM, ??? ] "Go on, boy." I heard Bassie whisper as I opened the door. "Hm? What? Shelly? Cocoa??" Bassie stepped back, confused. "Why are you two here? Did I forget to do something for you? Oh, I swear that I'll have it done soon." "Nope!" I said. "We're here to ask you about some stuff! Uh-huh!" "What stuff?" she scoffed. "I'm not hiding anything at all." Her hands were positioned behind her back, as if she was, in fact, hiding something. "Well, Bassie..." Shelly mumbled. "We, uh, can't believe that... e-evidence says otherwise." "Really, Shelly?" Bassie sulked. "Even you trust this brown bunny over me??" "I'm sorry..." Shelly whispered. "What's this?" I investigated, holding the Dandy's World article in front of her. Immediately, her countenance changed. "THAT'S FAKE!" she growled, jumping at it ferociously. I lifted it up so that she couldn't reach, then cautiously handed it to Shelly, who put it in the pocket of her dress. The basket reformed herself, batting her lashes innocently. "May I please have it?" she coaxed. "I can explain, it's not real." "You can explain without the article, Bassie." Shelly shot back confoundedly. Bassie, clearly startled, began to laugh to herself. "Yes, of course. Uh, you see, a while ago, during Easter, Dandy thought it would be funny to pretend like he was in my place. Uh, he made all these fake articles, and... yeah. I'm not lying, you have to trust me." "Oh, really?" Cocoa hissed. "How about the photographs we saw of Cosmo with 2 legs?" "I- uhm... oh God." Bassie said under her breath. "It's okay, Bassie, you can tell us." Shelly said. She clearly didn't think all of this was actually Bassie's fault. You couldn't really expect her to, they were such good pals! "Fake!" She screeched. "They're FAKE, FAKE, FAKE. Leave!! Please, leave me ALONE!" Black tears dripped from her eyes, which were gradually growing more reddish. "B-Bassie...?" Shelly froze in fear. "What is happening to you? W-why are you so upset...?" "You h-HAVE to go, Shelly... GO!" Bassie yelled. "No, I have to help you! Tell me what's wrong with you, please!" "LEAVE ME BE!" Bassie screamed again, and I noticed that one of her hands had changed, the fingers sharp and spindly, all dipped in a deep, menacing black. She struck it at Shelly, slicing her left side. "Shelly!" I gasped. She fell to the floor, unconscious. [ Shelly, 3:19 PM, Elevator ] I couldn't open it. What happened? ... I was just trying to help. "Good thing you opened that door when you did, Cosmo!" I heard Cocoa say cheerfully. "Yeah, thank goodness." Cosmo said. "Do you think it'll be okay...?" Cocoa said nervously. "I... I don't know." Sprout told her. I heard his leafy hair rustling. He must have been running his hands through it. I wished I could at least watch them talk, but all I could see was intrinsic gray. My left eye hurt so bad, so bad that I couldn't even focus on opening just the other. Although, I had to say my chest and arm hurt more... I couldn't speak, either. I wanted to tell them I only felt the pain, that I didn't know why I made such a dumb choice, and that it was my fault... I felt a fuzzy hand holding mine. It clutched my limp fingers tightly and said to me, "You'll be okay, Shellster." Cocoa, why are you so kind to everybody...? I don't deserve anybody's kindness right now; I'm just being annoying and helpless. "Can you try to heal it?" Cocoa put forward. "Of course we can try." Cosmo languished. "It'll take a while, but Shelly will be alright. Thank goodness that Bassie only hit one of her eyes and not both. I can only imagine how it would feel to go blind by your best friend..." "Haha, wouldn't be my best friend anymore!" Sprout butted in. Honestly, I have to agree. If Bassie couldn't even help herself from injuring me this bad, is she worthy of my friendship? Of course, I used to wonder if I deserved her, but now it's the other way around... eheh. "Well, should we put her in your room, Sprout?" Cosmo said. "Uh, yeah. Sure. I have a spare bed that she can use." Sprout said, beginning to hum a familiar tune. The rest of the walk they took (with me hung around their arms in a certainly tiring fashion) was silent. I heard doors open and close, until I was laid down on a bed. It was soft and warm, thankfully. "Firstly, we have to clean it." Sprout said. I heard a lot of banging and clanging of unknown origin, and then a cold towel began rubbing the wounds. It stinged really bad, but not as bad as it hurt already. The rest of the process was a blur. More weird noises, some indistinguishable chatter between Toons, more or less pain on my eye, and then silence. In a small voice, I heard what sounded like Cocoa whisper, "When will she wake up?" "As far as we know, she may already be awake, but too in shock to respond, or do anything." Sprout said. "Although, if you mean awake as in being able to open her eyes and