Camp Murder (Inanimate Insanity)

Chapter 8 - Hangin' Out

"Lightbulb!"
Fan screamed until his throat was sore.
The group had disbanded to search the clearing; there was no signs of Lightbulb yet.

Fan couldn't help but get a twistingly painful gut feeling that something was off- though he prayed it was just empty anxiety.

The search could've lasted seconds, minutes, hours- days!
At least, that's what it felt like. Only ten minutes into the search he began to feel dread creeping up his spine; a crushing loneliness he hadn't felt before.

Every grassy corner could hide a murderer ready to snatch him away or, worse yet, a body.

Fan shook his head, red hair falling in front of his eyes. His own fears weren't important- Lightbulb was.

He began to yell again. "Lightbulb! Please don't do this, it's not funny!"
"Fan?"
He spun on his heel. Lightbulb stood unharmed, daisy chains strewn over her arm. "You good buddy?"
Fan cried, "Lightbulb! Don't do that, you almost gave me a heart attack!" But his relief pushed away any negative emotions.

Before they knew it, the two were in a tight embrace; Lightbulb mildly confused but happy nonetheless.

"Where...is...Light...bulb..." a voice panted through the shrubbery. Test Tube crashed to the ground, wheezing with effort. Leaves jumped up into the air around her.

'She's really unfit.' Fan observed.

"I found her," the redhead said, pulling Test Tube to her feet. "She was making daisy chains."
Lightbulb shrugged with feigned innocence. "My bad!"

"Where are Paintbrush and Tissues? I haven't seen them." Test Tube inquired, still mildly out of breath.
Fan began to walk towards an opening in the trees. "Probably off hanging each-other."
He broke through a barrier of twigs, Test Tube and Lightbulb following suit.

"Oh."

A tall pine tree loomed above the trio, dead and crumbling at the core. Bronze pine needles scattered over the ground like snow. Long, thick branches reached out from every angle of the tree, but one seemed off.
Part of the branch swayed in the wind, inches off the floor.

Except it wasn't a branch. It was a body.

Ivy hooked itself around the neck of a lifeless victim, but their face didn't show signs of horror or pain.

Tissues.

His eyes were shut lightly. His lips were slightly parted and a recent glob of snot dripped off his chin. It was as if he were sleeping, but suspended above the ground- and dead.

"Oh...jeez." Fan began to shake.
"That's.-" Test Tube couldn't hide the quiver in her voice. "-horribly ironic."

Tears slid down Lightbulb's freckled cheeks. Her lip quivered and her big eyes were grief-stricken.
She wailed, "Nooooo...snot boy..."

Fan forced himself to look at the hanging body. It was an interesting sight- a simple and clean job, as if there wasn't a single struggle.
"Um...maybe he did it himself?" Fan suggested, the idea calming him in a morbid way. "It just looks like this was a single-person effort."

Test Tube was beyond eluded.
"Wh- Why, though? What an injudicious way to go."
Fan shrugged. "I guess his 'condishawn' wore him down so much that he just...cut the line."

As much as the pair would like to believe that, something told them that there was a more sinister meaning behind this death.
Test Tube observed, "I don't think he did it himself. See this ivy? Obviously you can't do that whilst dangling off the ground."

Fan frowned at having his authority tested. "He could've jumped."
"He didn't!"
"How do you know?"
"Because!" Test Tube whipped around to face Fan, accidentally snapping the tangle of ivy and sending the body hurtling to the floor. She inhaled shakily.
"Because it would've been impossible for the ivy to hold his weight."

Silence hung in the air like thick smoke, choking and silence-inducing. Fan slid his phone out of his pocket and drew his attention away from the body to type.

"...Oh, um. Okay." Test Tube reached for the crumpled body on the floor but couldn't bring herself to touch it. She'd disrupted it enough when it had fallen.

Fan slid his phone away with a sigh. He trudged through the damp pine needles to get to Test Tube and hooked his hand on the crook of her arm.
"Come on, Test Tube, let's just go! I don't...want to see it anymore. Please."

Through the sleeve of her sweater, she felt the other shaking in an almost violent manner. His face was pale and his eyes sunken, almost as if he were the corpse and not Tissues.

Though she couldn't understand not wanting to investigate the body, Test Tube complied. "Ok, I guess."

Lightbulb had long since exited the clearing without the other two's knowledge. She sat near the shrubbery where her and Fan had reunited and rubbed her raw eyes with a dirty palm.
The blonde's mind could not wander anywhere else but the hanging corpse just meters away.

Fan and Test Tube exited the clearing, wordless. Lightbulb raised to her feet and followed, daisy chains crumbling in a shaking fist, petals dampened by the tears fresh on her cheeks.

Answerless questions filled Fan's mind as the trio walked, threatening to spill. Test Tube's words played over in his mind like a broken record.

'She's right,' he thought. 'This was definitely a murder.'