ɪɴ ꜱᴘᴀᴄᴇ ᴡɪᴛʜ ᴍᴀʀᴋɪᴘʟɪᴇʀ (ᴘᴀʀᴛ 2)

ᴄᴜᴛ ᴛʜᴇ ʀᴇᴅ ᴡɪʀᴇ

Alise's heart was racing, their hands were sweating, they had no idea which wire they were supposed to cut- did it even matter?! If the bomb exploded, they were just going to be teleported somewhere else... but would that Bomb Diffuser Mark be fine?!

"Ah screw it-" Alise muttered, all they had to do was get to the next universe in hopes of finding the right Mark, and they couldn't waste any more time here! They extended their arm towards the bomb, keeping their body as far away as possible and cutting the red wire with just a couple seconds to spare. The timer seemed to stop for a moment, and they almost believed they'd actually made the right choice, but when they looked back up at Mark he didn't look so convinced.

"Um..."

Then the bomb went off and Alise lost their senses.

When Alise came to, they found themselves inside a thick, dark forest, they looked around, their ears still ringing due to the explosion, but luckily, they seemed to be unharmed... they wondered if it was the same for that Mark... hopefully all that protective gear was enough to not get him killed...

They walked around the woods for a bit, following a distant light, their mind wandering, thinking about all they'd been through so far. Old Mark's message, that lady stealing their wormhole generator, all of those Marks they'd encountered and ultimately left behind... that narrator...  they felt so tired, they just wanted this to end... it felt like they'd been going at it for decades, and in a sense, they were, considering how they'd lived a long life in their original timeline... only to be thrown into chaos as soon as they passed away.
They wondered where their Mark was right now, they worried that they'd never see him or the rest of the crew ever again- as far as they knew, they were currently several universes away from their original one, how would they even manage to get back to it...?
"I-I can't give up now... there HAS to be a way" they mumbled to themselves as they finally got closer to what looked like a campsite.

As soon as they were close enough, they could see multiple people dressed as boy scouts sitting around a fire... and they all looked like Alise's crewmembers! And Mark was there too! But... something still felt off... that wasn't them... Alise could tell from the way they were staring at them. Not only it wasn't them, but that whole campsite felt off.

"Well howdy, camper! You made it just in time!" Mark spoke up in an unrealistically jolly voice "We're making s'mores, would you care to join us?" he asked as everyone around the fire kept staring at them, smiling from ear to ear.

"I..." Alise was unsure, but at that point, they'd figured it would've barely mattered in the whole picture. That was obviously not the Mark they were looking for, so in their mind they were already trying to find a solution to get out of that universe. From what they'd experienced previously it was simple, really... if they wanted to break the cycle, they just had to do something that nobody, not even that narrator could predict, they just had to come up with something... but in the meantime, they were going to play along, if only for a little while. 
"Sure, why not?"

Scout Tyler immediately handed Alise a stick with marshmallows, and as soon as they sat down, everyone else stood back up and Tyler pulled out a horn, but instead of blowing into it, he let out a loud scream and then added "It's time for the scout's oath!"

Alise got up as well, and tried following along to that, despite their total ignorance of all that regarded scouts. They held up three fingers and recited the oath with them as best as they could, though it was obvious they really weren't fitting in.

Once that was over, everyone sat back down, and Mark spoke up again. "Well, it's gonna be a busy few months for us, so let's kick this camp off with a scary story! You all like scary stories don't you? You lived them... with your parents..."

Well, that got dark quickly.

"What about you, newcomer? Do you like scary stories? We have plenty of those... there's darkness inside all of us, so why not let it out together, here?" Mark asked, staring at them as eerie whispers filled the Captain's ears.

Alise felt like that was a good time to stop playing along, they looked down at their hands briefly and noticed they were still holding the pliers that Bomb Diffuser Mark had given them... why were they still in their possession? That, by all means shouldn't have been possible, usually they couldn't bring objects from other universes into their next one, which meant there must've been remnants of that previous universe somewhere around there... they just had to find them. "Just a second... I gotta do something first..."

They knelt down and surely enough, after some rustling under the leaves, reality distorted for a moment, and they found a strange, loose yellow wire. They paused for a moment, was that really worth it? Would it really have some kind of unforeseen outcome? There was only one way to find out...

They cut the wire and looked back up at the scouts, who all seemed completely dumbfounded.

Then a bomb went off.