The Wave Wobble Modulator had lost its luminescent glow. The resonance was gone. Any tranquillity that emitted from the device had stopped. It sat dead-still in KD’s hands, who immediately tried to hide it behind their back. Haru frowned and strode up to KD with her hands on her hips, deeply disappointed like a mother with their child.

“KD…” Haru was tapping her foot impatiently.

“Yes, Haru?” KD said, slightly leaned back as though expecting an attack.

“What’s behind your back?”

“My death-dealing hands.”

“And the thing in your death-dealing hands?”

KD stood straight as a stalk, reluctant to admit any guilt despite being caught in the crime already.

With an irritated groan, Brian whipped KD around with his psionic abilities and wrenched the Wave Wobble Modulator from those massive black mittens.

“Oh, that? It… uh… fell from that twisted metal effigy, and I was merely picking it back up,” KD scrambled an obvious lie. Haru kicked them in the knee. “Gah! Fine. I acquiesce. I took the Wave Wobble whatever while you two were dithering about in the bowels of that building.”

Haru pursed her lips, arms crossed.

“I did it for us, Haru. For Atomic Shock III.”

“But I asked you not to!”

“I trusted you, man!” Brian curled his wiry hands into fists. “And now the Brainy Folk have gone berserk!”

“That mistake is solely upon you, my cranially-challenged sapien. For a victory that requires no battle is perfectly valid when I cannot punch you in the face.”

Veins pulsated on Brian’s forehead like a rile of snakes. “That does it. I’m gonna throw you into the sun.”

Haru stepped in. “Whoawhoawhoa! Can’t we just put the Wave Wobble Modulator back into the sculpture?”

“The only thing that’s holding up this campus are their berserk psionic abilities. If we reinstall the Wave Wobble Modulator now, they’ll get knocked out by the pacification field and we’ll fall to our deaths.” Brianrain curled his fists and dug circles into the sides of his head. “I never should have trusted strangers. I should have just kept to myself, or flung them into space,” he muttered to himself.

Haru squinted at Brian. “You’re still normal though.”

“What?”

“Angry, yeah. But berserk? You look pretty calm to me, yo.”

The realisation struck him like a ton of bricks. “You’re right. And the existential thoughts are gone too. But what changed?”

“I think maybe sharing in the burden, you know, the dread, had some sort of positive effect on you,” Haru spit-balled. She was just as clueless.

Brian stroked his chin nonetheless, deep in the synthesis of thought. Before he could voice a conclusion, a great rumble rocked the campus.

The floating plate of earth they stood on shifted erratically. Haru nearly toppled over had KD not caught her. She held onto them tightly. Panes of glass exploded. Bricks started popping loose. Buildings began to bulge out like an inflated milk carton straining with the immense pressure swelling inside. Haru squeezed her eyes shut, anticipating a megaton blast. Her body tensed at the thought of getting shredded apart. The whole island in the sky was on the edge of unravelling into total destruction. When no such explosion came, she opened her eyes.

The Science Department was destroyed, in a sense. Dismantled into steel, brick and glass that was swirling like a shrapnel tornado. At the epicentre was a gang of Brainy Folk, eyes black as night. Dark as an abyss. Haru made the mistake of peering into those orbs of despair and—

she was born to only die

carbon for the grinder

sound and fury to feed the entropy of the universe

advertisement is a lie

meaning is a fabrication

meaning is a lie to comfort the ignorant

she could die and the world would continue spinning

the universe will not blink nor shed a—

Haru was ripped out of the trance. A salvo of rubble was shooting toward her, and KD snatched her away as it chewed up the ground; a table would have halved her had she stood there a moment longer. That sobered her quickly from the drudge of existential dread. Nearly dying tended to do that. She was tossed aside behind an entryway into a building, where Brian was hiding as well.

“Stay here,” KD said. “I shall fix this.”

“No, wait—” Haru tried to stop KD, however, Brian froze her in place as KD launched themself at the shrapnel tornado.

KD soared through the air, this arching cannonball, smacking away any floating debris that whirled their way. They were drawing to the heart of the tornado, arms fanned out for a hug, when the berserk Brainy Folks caught them in midair. It was like a million invisible hands had taken a hold. KD was being pulled from all directions like prey in the jaws of hungry wolves.

A gasp flew out from Haru as she heard them roar with pain. Limbs plied to impossible limits. KD was a rubber band on the brink of tearing apart. She stepped out from cover to help.

“Don’t be stupid. You’ll get torn to pieces,.” Brian said.

Haru threw up her hands. “Well I can’t just watch them die!”

“We don’t know if sharing the burden will work.”

“Please, I have to try,” Haru said with quivering lips. “KD’s my friend.”

He studied the ground with hesitation for a second, then nodded.

The table from the early salvo was retrieved and its legs were parred off, leaving only the top.

“Hop on and hold on,” Brian instructed. Haru did as she was told. “Okay. Good luck.”

While holding onto the skirt of the table top, Haru was jettisoned at supersonic speeds, her cheeks ruffled like a gust over a pond as she shot toward the tornado. The onslaught of wind blasting in her face made her eyes water as they dried, forcing her to squint. Steering the table top was out of the question. She was practically a leaf at the mercy of the tornado once she got pulled into its orbit. Objects banged and bucked and spun the table top. Her glasses flew off from her face. Instinctively, she let a hand go to snatch it back. The mistake bit her instantly as she lost her grip on the table top. Tossing and turning and tumbling, like a delicate meat puppet in a blender of razor blades. Nausea soon followed. She bent and angled and twisted to dodge the debris as best as she could, however, a potted plant smacked her in the stomach and stole the wind from her lungs.

She was winding closer to the epicentre though. She could spot KD in the chaotic flush. They were on the edge of getting torn limb from limb. Puddy in the psionic hands of the berserk Brainy Folks. Pushing through the belt to her gut and the vomit in her throat, she flailed manically like a drowning dog to go deeper into the tornado. Her vision was blurry without her glasses. She aimed for the tack-shaped blobs as much as she could. Speed increased as the orbits shrunk. A blob was growing closer. Hoping that the berserk Brainy Folk had not noticed her, she flared out her arms.

Her body slammed into the unsuspecting Folded creature, and she embraced it with all the inner warmth that she could muster.

“The world can suck sometimes, and that’s okay! At least you have people to weather it with!” Haru shouted into the berserk Brainy Folk’s ear, hoping that her words would reach through, that the burden was shared.

The berserk Brainy Folk turned to Haru. She stared at her with eyes as dark as lumps of coal. Haru prepared to get her limbs ripped off. Then the inky black disappeared, replaced with a tranquil white.

“Whoa... I... feel so much... thank you,” the Brainy Folk said.

Haru smiled so wide and stupidly that her cheeks ached. “Now start hugging everyone, yo!”

A cascade of hugs and kind words spread throughout the berserked brain Folks. Nihilism dispelled from their corrupted souls as light replaced the dark of their eyes. KD was spared from getting torn a sunder, and soon the tornado wound down. The ground had never felt so safe and assured. And though the rampage had ended, another problem rose: the floating campus started to fall from the sky.

The descent from the clouds dropped far too fast, from far too high.

“We need to slow down our descent!” Brian called out to the Brainy Folks.

Haru skittered over to KD, who splayed out on the grass like overplied taffy. She wrapped around their arm. Loose debris flew off the campus island.

KD grabbed onto the stem of a nearby lamplight. “Hold on, Haru!”

“Oh I am, yo!”

The speed of descent climbed to the point where weight was negated. The combined heft of Haru and KD was not enough to stay anchored to the ground as they started to peel away, two balloons tied to the lamplight. Haru mashed her face into KD’s shoulder, gritting her teeth. The howl of landfall was a drop into the roaring throat of a lion. She steeled her body, anticipating a brutal crash.

They slammed back onto the grass with the rest of the heavy items. Breath ejected from her lungs. A million nails pinned them down. Haru could barely lift her pinky. She was glued to the turf. It was like KD sat on her because she struggled to breathe. She was certain of their imminent deaths.

Then, the floating campus jostled gently as it landed back onto earth.

Haru stood shakily like a baby while KD stayed on the ground, still clinging onto the lamplight. She replaced her glasses onto her face. It was like the campus alongside anything loose and untethered such as rubble, benches and bikes were tossed into a box, shaken around and then dumped out. The metal sculpture was gone, uprooted and whisked away during the psionic tantrum.

Brian hovered toward Haru and KD with the Wave Wobble Modulator cradled in his arms.

“Sorry about the campus… and the sculpture.” Haru sheepishly rubbed her arm. “It totally wasn’t cool for KD to take the Wave Wobble Modulator and I take full responsibility for their—”

He tossed the Wave Wobble Modulator at Haru, snapping her into action with a flexive jolt. She lunged forward to catch it, its surprisingly heavy weight extending the sockets of her shoulders.

She eyed it dumbfoundedly, mouth hanging ajar.

“Don’t get me wrong. Your friendo absolutely should have kept their mitts to themself. But that being said, you guys did find a way to solve our dread. Freed our grey matter. So take it. We don’t need it anymore,” Brian said, looking her in the eyes. Calm at last.

The new game console sat on the carpet of the bedroom floor. It brilled to life when the power button was pressed. Haru popped in the game disc for Atomic Shock III, plopped down next to KD on the couch. She placed the joystick controller into KD’s hand and then picked up her own. After the savage wringing, they were taller by a foot and their arms were piles of fire hoses on their lap. Legs remained short though. She hoped they returned to their old form.

“I want you to know, Haru, that I cherish the time that I have with you,” KD said. “I simply wanted to play with you more effectively.”

A toothy grin plastered across her face with aching delight. “Would you like me to show you how to do the corkscrew uppercut again?”

“That would be wonderful.”

And they played Atomic Shock III together.