It appears that Nihil is not responding to my Nihil-only chat; however, the show must go on. I am granting you and YOU ALONE access to the @NIHIL post on Inkwell.

TOP!

“No, don’t touch that-”

“YEET!”

Atlantis yeeted a bottle at her brother. He narrowly dodged it - and luckily so, because its new target, a rainbow-speckled tree frog, grew a foot-high layer of grey wool.

“Woops.” Atlantis shrugged sheepishly. 

Today, the eight guests were on a field trip to the labs - and a wondrous one it was; they would arrive at a lab door, admire it, and then leave! Outside the schmooze lab, for instance, Wren was nitpicking the cedar flakes when a large BOOM was heard. Green ooze began to leak out of the room, and the guests fled to their current location: The Lardquid lab.

Estella sighed. “I would appreciate it if you refrained from touching anything else, Miss Atlantis. We’re only to be here until the mess is disposed of, and we shall then be on our merry way to examine the other labs within White Oak.”

“Is it, like, physically possible for you to speak normally?” 

Nyx and Apollo were studying a plant with purple and white blooms, as well as black berries.

"Hey!" Wren snapped while scribbling on a clipboard, “Don’t touch that!”

“W3 kn0w, w3 kn0w,” Apollo waved her off, “w3’r3 just l00k1ng.” He turned back to a plant with purple and white blooms, as well as black berries. “1 w0nd3r wh4t it 1s?”

“Judging by the flowers,” Nihil ambled over to the two, “Hemlock. Adults can consume eight leaves before being paralyzed and dying slowly and painfully. Although,” She pointed to a purple flower, “This appears to be monkshood, whic produces wolfsbane. The poison seeps very quickly into the ungloved hand...wait, those berries are belladonna. Ten of those and you’re a goner.”

“That’s correct, Miss Nihil!” Estella smiled, “It’s actually a mix of all three breeds, created by our very own Wren, and named the Ebellawollock-”

“How did you find that out?”

Wren’s posture was strong, but her shoulders were tense and the clipboard hid her chin.

“Whaddya mean?” Nihil cocked her head; her tone hadn’t changed.

“I said.” Wren stomped forward, drawing the board closer and her shoulders higher, “How did you find that out?”

Nihil stared at her, visibly confused, before stating, “I read a book on it. You curious about poisons? I’ll show you the book.”

“Why, then?”

Nihil’s face went from confused to inscrutable.

“Why did you feel it was necessary to search that up?” Wren straightened up. “Why were you so interested in poisons that you needed to read a book about it? Why didn’t you search on the internet, where your history would be recorded? Why were three books on poison never checked out, but have been missing for two days? Why, Nihil? Why?” 

Nihil’s gaze remained emotionless. “What?”

“No, Nihil,” Dusk shot back, “‘What’ to you. Specifically, what the heck?!”

“I was curious about poisons.”

“0k4y, y3ah,” Apollo snapped, “but why?”

“For the same reason Naomi,” she jammed a thumb backwards, where the AE in mention jumped, “is interested in whatever-the-heck. She just is!”

“But why poison?” Kanib asked.

“Yeah,” Alex agreed - even the scientists were getting a bit riled up, “Isn’t it convenient that you got into poison while a murderer is running loose-”

“-Who has used poison before!” Naomi blurted, then slapped a hand over her mouth. 

“Wow. Okay.” Nihil chuckled, “You guys are serious. Huh. These murders have done a number on your logic. One minute, you’re trying not to fall asleep during the world’s worst tour, and the next, you’re ganging up on one of your friends and taking the side of some scientist who-BOO!” Wren shrieked and quivered behind her board. “Can’t sleep at night without a night light.”

“Hey!” numerous guests and scientists alike scolded her for making fun on night lights(which are really cool, so don’t feel bad if you have one.)

“Miss Nihil,” Estella stepped forward, “I do agree that the evidence my assistant has presented is less than sufficient for an investigation. However, if you truly are up to something, I can assure you that this evidence will be found, and the repercussions of lying about a sinister plot are much harsher than if you told the truth. In addition, the investigation will no doubt disrupt the daily doings of your fellow guests. I don’t believe you are hiding anything, but if you are...save us the trouble and come clean.”

Nihil said nothing. Then, she rolled her eyes.

“You’ll never use ten words,” she shuffled in her hoodie’s pocket, “When a hundred will do.” She brought out a thumb-sized vial of clear liquid. “Cyanide. Ya happy?”

The crowd gasped.

“Hold on, hold on,” Nihil waved them off, “Let me explain. I am not a murderer, save for a couple of bugs here and there. It just so happened that I was on the right walk at the right time, the time being 4:02 P.M, on the day before La-Crosse died, when this very vial fell out of the pockets of a specific someone. Again, hold your gasps, people, I’m not finished. I assumed that in order to convict the vial’s owner, I would need more evidence. So, I decided to research various murder methods; asphyxation, drowning, you catch my drift. Wren was right on one thing,” Nihil patted the girl’s head, “ I didn’t research or properly check out books so that no one could track me. My research had one purpose: to discover behaviors that the murderer exhibited before a murder, creating evidence. I didn’t expect, however,” She gave a stink eye to her fellow guests, “That you folks didn’t need evidence.

Nihil chuckled. “I suppose I ought to apoligize to you, Miss Estella. I always thought you were the one misleading us. As it turns out, the true traitor was…” She pointed accusingly at Judas.

“Apollo!”

The room was completely quiet.  The scientists stopped working. The liquids stopped bubbling.The machines stopped whirring.

Then, one guest shoved their elbow just the right way. 

“AUGHHHH!” Nihil screeched in utter agony. A bottle of Fizz-Melt salts crashed onto her head, and the sight was horrifying. 

Nihil groaned and clutched her head. Her heart was beating, beating, beating beating beating beatbeatbeatbeat her time was almost up. Her vision was blending together, but she could make out one figure, the very figure she had sought out since the beginning, right next to her. So, she grappled onto the boy’s ankles and yanked him onto her body. He toppled and struggled ferociousy, but the elixir had already spread.

“APOLLO!” Nyx bounded towards the boy, but Dusk held her back.

“Nyx, it’s not worth it!” She grinded her teeth as Nyx wrangled ferociously, “You don’t want that stuff on you, and there’s nothing you can do to save him!”

Nyx stopped. “N...nothing?”

Dusk soothingly whispered in her ear as the others shut their eyes. 

“Get them out of here!’ Estella ordered the lab workers, “We don’t know what other reactions they’ll have!”

Wren and Estella hugged the wall as the scientists haphazardly obeyed. Papers were scattered, tables were overturned, many, many, MANY explosions took place. In a matter of seconds, the lab was reduced to a wasteland. Wren grappled onto Estella’s coat. Neither of them spoke a word or dared to shift their gaze from...it.

“I’m so scared, Estella.” Wren finally choked out. Her voice was so soft, so quiet, so...the woman couldn’t put a finger on the word. She hesitated, then placed a hand on Wren’s head instead.

“I know, sweetie.” she whispered in an equally soft voice. She felt Wren’s grip tighten and the weight of her shaking head. The chemical fires burned with a vicious ferocity, but maybe, just for now, Estella Opafru could focus on the (metaphorically) liquidifying girl for once. So she did. For a long, long, long time. Isn’t it a shame, I wonder, that the one time these two can finally connect, their entire world is crashing down?

In this tranquility, the word faded into Estella’s conscious:

Young.

“Nyx?!”

Nyx swung her mini backpack to her chest and slapped a finger on the septapi’s lips. “Shh!”

Two shaking violet tentacles and a pea-sized head peeked out. “Where am I? What’s going on?” 

“Don’t ask me how I know, but you’re in serious, serious danger. Now c’mon-”

Nyx tried to shove her into the bag, but the tiny CAPTCHA held her ground.

“Kanib-” Nyx hesitated.“ Listen, I can’t have you out in the open. If the murderer sees us-”

“Just keep the zipper open, okay? I’ll scrunch down,”

Nyx sighed, but realized that Kanib wasn’t going to compromise. The smaller companion popped down like a weasel; Nyx slung the bag over her shoulder and bolted. Left, right, left, right, straight. The slapping of her sneakers against the hardwood. The blood pounding in her ears. Sweat trickling onto the floor. Eyes darting around the hallways. Left, right, left, right, straight. Her legs ached, oh how they ached, every breath hurled towards the walls seemed to slam a sledgehammer on her calves. They screeched at her like unholy demons, but she did not dare stop, for even more terrifying than her thighs catching flame and slowly burning her to a crisp was the fear that - 

Clink.

Nyx’s shoes skirted across the floor, just like in the cartoons. She didn’t have to turn around. The owl-like stare searing the back of her neck said enough. They cocked their weapon, and every screw, every gear, every molecule of metal cracking into place was like 

A thousand tiny needles flying into her soul. Was it a pistol? No, not in a million years. A pistol couldn’t have that many parts, parts that crackled like barrels of bones in a deadly earthquake. Maybe it was a sniper rifle; that would explain the heat on her neck, so slight, yet burning with the rage of a thousand suns.

All of a sudden, the heat faltered. The slightest, tiniest, single degree, but it spoke volumes. Kanib wasn’t here. There was only Nyx. Sure, Nyx thought, they could kill her, but what was the point? Nyx had no one - and what’s more, she was made to believe that her only companion’s life was on the line, only to find out that he was a killer! Nyx was in anguish, and that was exactly what they wanted. All Nyx had to do was wait. Then, she could save herself and Kanib, and...see all her friends again. 

All around the merry-go-round

The thought tore her heart in two, yet fueled it with the coziest fire.

The monkey chased the weasel. 

How long had it been since she felt their warm embrace? How long, she wondered, since she spoke of her undying love?

The weasel thought 

Tears streamed down her cheeks.

‘twas all in fun.

She couldn’t wait to go home.

Pop! Goes the weasel.