Bassie's World - Chapter Sixteen

Instructions

[ Vee, 4:32 AM, Sprout's Floor ] More than usual, I felt like I had a goal. It would be rather annoying to have to forcefully wake up that strawberry. Not to mention, if I don't find him quick enough, the 3-hour timer on my helper mode will go off and I'll become an information kiosk again. Sprout will then be the one to find ME! I walked along the red rooms, my footsteps creating sounds of metallic shuffling. If Sprout was awake, he had to have heard me by now. I started opening random doors, not actually knowing where his bedroom was. There weren't any obvious signs of it. The only signs on the doors were the 'Staff Only' ones. And those're actual signs, not clues. 'I swear if I don't find it...' I thought scornfully. Eventually, I came across a door that went into a room that wasn't just computers and buttons and scrapped storyboards. It was somewhat small, but it had a bed with white covers fit for a Toon. I had a feeling it was maybe a medical room, because there were used supplies that were visible on shelves, bandaids and such... I assumed that whoever the room belonged to, it was NOT Sprout, but it IS here, for some reason. That was when I also noticed faint ichor stains on the ground and bed. Yep. Definitely meant for injured Toons. Astro told me about how Shelly apparently had fallen and gotten hurt according to what Sprout told him, so maybe she stayed here? Not unlikely. I closed the door and yelped when I turned around. Sprout was right behind me. "Oh, Sprout. There you are, ha-ha." I said naively. *He's up early.* "What are you doing here, Vee?" "I was going to talk to you about something." "Well, make it quick." He began stamping his foot irritably. "I've planned to make a poundcake with Cosmo later." When I say Sprout is always baking, I mean it. He bakes at least one thing a day! It's insane how he hasn't run out of resources from the deliveries that are now monthly instead of weekly. "I just wanted to ask about Shelly's... injury." He gave me a baffled look for a split second, before he seemingly remembered. "Well?" I pressed. "I don't know why you're already in this version of yourself without me baiting it, but sure, I guess I can tell you. Promise not to leak it to Bassie?" He offered me his pinky. "A pinky promise? We're not children." I wrapped my pinky around his, but in a specifically demurring way. I didn't like such immature methods of promising, but it didn't matter. As long as I got my answer. "I just needed you to promise me that you wouldn't tell her, okay? She probably doesn't even want that incident to be remembered." "Yeah, maybe." I couldn't tell him that I would delete his memories of it later. Knowing how determined and passionate Sprout was, I didn't want to risk him trying to stop me. "Well, uh, we were going to Bassie's floor. Originally, we had planned to find you to get answers, but we couldn't locate you. Our next best bet, although a bit stupid, was Bassie. I had snagged a keycard from a rainbow room a while ago without knowing what it did. It held the code to get into secret rooms, one of them being labeled Dyle. "I didn't know who Dyle was, so I entered the code into the elevator and was met with this giant floor coated in black puddles and posters. I walked up and turned a corner, to see a bed of flowers that looked like Bassie's. I turned back because I heard footsteps that weren't mine, and-" "Hold on, hold on." I put a hand over his mouth. "You're telling me that you just found a keycard that magically had all the codes lying about?" "Well, it wasn't just lying about." Sprout said, packing in a lighthearted chuckle. "I was searching through cabinets and drawers to find... anything, really." "What. Why?" "Because, Vee, unlike you, we actually need food and water to survive. You just plug your tail into a wall and can stay alive." Sprout explained. "I was trying to find anything that we could eat. This was when the shipments had just started to become less often, and I was panicking." "Okay. Fine. Continue your story." He took a deep breath. "So, where was I?" "Leaving Bassie's floor." "Yes. Alright. I left that floor, and later when we couldn't find you, I used that keycard to get us back to that room to locate Bassie instead. And, well, I guess when Cocoa and Shelly spoke to her, she got a bit angry. I don't really understand what Bassie did, but Shelly came back out with a massive claw-wound on her eye." "So, she didn't just fall down the stairs?" "Obviously not!" Sprout rolled his eyes. "Yeah, I get that it's a bit stupid of me to ask after what you just told me, but I had to make sure." Sprout stepped back, letting me exit the small space between him and the door that I'd been forced to remain in. He took the artificial pink flower off of the side of his head and stared at it in his palms. +