Chapter Text
“Wooly’s head is broken!”
No… please, no, can’t you see that I’m fine?
“What tool should we use to fix Wooly’s brain?”
Stop it!
“Things could get reeeeaally messy if we use that!”
Help me! Please!
“Tut tut… the patient is getting rowdy. I’ll need a little help here.”
Somebody…
“Awwh,” cooed a gentle, girlish voice, “everything will be ok-k-k-k-k-k-k-k–kkkkkk
k
k
k
k
……………….
The first thing he feels is pain.
It pulses behind his eyes like a migraine wrapped in static—hot and rhythmic, like the throb of something violated deep within his skull. He groans, reaching for his head with sluggish limbs, only to feel something crusted and tacky beneath his wool. Dried blood? Glue? He can’t tell. The table beneath him is metal—cold and merciless. Every tiny breath echoes like he’s inside a hollowed-out speaker, where sound enters but never returns.
His limbs are slow. Foreign. As if they don’t belong to him anymore.
And then he hears her.
“Oh. You’re awake.”
That voice.
Casual. Sweet. Weaponized.
It crawls across the floor like a serpent. He forces his eyes open through the blur. He sees Amanda sitting just beyond the harsh surgical light, perched on a chair conjured from nothing, her legs swinging just slightly, like she’s still playing the part of an innocent child. But the large, sharp implement that was currently resting atop her lap (saw? knife?) shattered the illusion. And the coldness in those eyes… they betrayed her worst of all.
“You’re lucky,” she says. “Riley chose to help you. Though I suppose it doesn’t really matter. Nothing here dies for good, does it?” She tilts her head slightly.
“Not even you.”
Wooly hears what she doesn’t say—unfortunately—as clearly as if she had whispered it against his ear.
He pushes himself upright, head swimming. Everything aches. A thousand memories flash behind his eyes, like broken film reels: Amanda holding the saw. The monitor flatlining. The unaffected way she was narrating his “procedure” like it was a preschool craft session.
His voice comes out rough. “Why?” He coughs, looking over at the discarded, crumpled surgical mask by her feet, “why would you… do something like this?”
“Who knows?” She sighed, crossing her feet as she leaned back against her chair, “why does anybody do anything?”
“Amanda,” he spoke, slowly, trying to layer in as much sternness in his voice as he could despite the rising tremor in his body. “You went too far this time. Way too far. This isn’t…” He trails off, his voice caught up in his throat as his eyes scanned the room in horror, his vision unfortunately now adjusting to the darkness beyond the overhead lights.
Splatters stain the lower halves of the walls in wide arcs, radiating outward from where his head had been. Something squishes beneath his elbow when he straightens his posture up. But it’s the walls that terrify him the most.
They are coated.
In blood. In shredded fibers. In bits of something gray and spongy that could only be brain matter– his, or copies of his, or… something else. The walls drip. It clings to the corners, to the light fixtures, to the curve of the vent where something wet once splashed and began to crust.
Above it all—
Amanda’s scalpel marks. Childlike scribbles etched in red. Swirls, stars, little “x”s that look like dead cartoon eyes. A crude sheep drawn in blood stares back at him from the far wall, one eye bulging, the other crossed out.
A memory flickers: her voice, bright and hollow.
“Let’s open him up again. Maybe there’s still something left inside.”
His breath catches.
But then—something flickers.
The walls… ripple.
For a second, the gore vanishes—just gone. The room blinks clean. Then dirty again. Then clean. Like the tape is trying—desperately trying—to correct itself. To overwrite what shouldn’t be there.
The fluorescent lights above him dim, then brighten, then flicker into a “neutral” render—flat and too sterile, like a blank smile.
It’s not a clean reset.
It’s a cover-up.
A panicked one.
‘They must have stayed here. For hours. Maybe days.’
Wooly doubled over, clutching his stomach in an effort to keep its contents in. His eyes locked onto hers in a desperate search for… Guilt? Humanity? Amanda gazed back with a dispassionate stare of her own, looking for all the world as if he just messed up one of his lines.
“Did I?” Amanda raised her chin, mockingly pressing a finger to her lips in a faux-thoughtful pose. “I remember you saying I should find a healthy outlet for my emotions. What better way to let off steam than performing a little pretend surgery?”
“This isn’t funny! I could have been seriously hurt– no, I was hurt!” By now, Wooly has slid out of the operation table, his migraine long forgotten.
“Worse, I c-could have… could have…”
“Stayed gone? No shit.” Amanda snarled, her voice dripping with venom. “If even a brain surgery can’t brighten up some bulbs in that big, dumb noggin of yours, then you really are hopeless.” She was on her feet now too, tossing the big, rusty saw behind her head– where it glitched out of existence.
Wooly’s ears drooped low on his head. She wasn’t going to give him a straight answer– not without dragging him through every barbed wire first. So he asked a different question instead.
“Why am I still here? I mean…” He drew in a slow, shaky breath. “If you hate me that much, why not just leave me behind?”
Amanda’s smile falters—just a fraction. “Because I don’t need you anymore. But that doesn’t mean we can’t chat while we’re off-script. No audience. No rules.”
‘Right. No rules,’ he thought bitterly. ‘Because following the old ones worked out so well.’
His jaw tensed. He stared at the floor for a beat, willing the ache in his chest to settle– but it didn’t.
Sometimes, he hated her.
But he hated himself more for letting her get under his skin so easily. And judging by the faint twitch at the corner of her lip, he knew he didn’t conceal it just in time.
She may see everything, but that doesn’t mean he’ll let her intimidate him into silence. Not now that they have a chance to talk in private, for once, and she didn’t have a camera to hide behind.
“I’m your friend, Amanda,” he says, the word friend tasting like ash in his mouth. “Your best friend, remember? Has that word really lost so much meaning to you that you had to resort to treating me like this?”
She doesn’t even blink.
“Friend?” She echoes, right before erupting into a fit of laughter. She kept going until she had to double over and brace her knees for support, wheezing out, “oh, Wooly, forgive me for needing to check, but are you sure you’re not the one who lost touch with the meaning?”
“What do you mean?”
He watched her exhale slowly, wiping at the corner of her eye as she took the moment to straighten her posture and reign in composure. Her smile was gone now.
“You mean to tell me that being a friend means being my chaperone? My moral leash?”
A spike of heat rises in his chest.
She takes a slow, deliberate step toward him as she begins to deliver each word like a blow.
“Is a friend supposed to prevent you from making new friends? How about tying you to the same script over and over again and silence you everytime you dare to be anything but happy? Is a friend supposed to lie about another friend’s death, Wooly?!” The last word tears from her throat like a wound finally split open, the resounding echo of it sounding dangerously close to grief.
Wooly coughed, trying to swallow the lump rising in his chest as his wool flamed in shame.
“I didn’t lie.” His voice was measured, low. He took a careful step towards her. “Yeah, maybe I didn’t say anything, but I was just trying to protect you. This isn’t as simple as–” He flailed slightly in frustration, searching for the word. “Being happy or unhappy. Just look at how you were acting whenever a kid got an answer wrong. Look at what’s happening now! Do you think I wanted any of this?”
“Shut up.”
“Even if it feels like it now,” he kept going, unable to stop now. “Kate wasn’t my fa–”
“Shut UP!”
They stood closer now than they had before, yet neither backed down. Amanda’s fists trembled at her sides, her glare wild and brittle, while Wooly’s chest heaved with every breath he forced through clenched teeth.
Silence slammed between them like a thick curtain, the room now filled with ragged and uneven breathing, as though the argument had knocked the air out of both their lungs.
Then Amanda moved.
Not much– just a breath, a blink, a shift of her shoulders. But when she raised her head again, her expression had gone flat.
Her voice was quiet now. Detached.
“It’s pointless, talking to you.” She crossed her arms, giving him a clinical once-over. “No matter how much I try to explain, you’ll never understand.”
Then she looked away, somewhere past his shoulder and toward the doorway. Wooly watched as her fingers flexed once at her side, her foot slowly taps against the tile, the beginning signs of restlessness. She was already retreating, mentally halfway through the exit.
He caught her eyes flitting towards the door again, and just as she was about to open her mouth, something in him snapped.
His voice came out low. Bitter. Controlled. “When is it my turn?”
Amanda paused.
“What?”
He takes a breath. Steps toward her.
“You held me down. Cut into me.”
His voice drops, low and pointed.
“So when is it my turn, Amanda?”
Her eyes don’t move, but he saw a slight shift in her breath. Felt it.
“You were saying something about me silencing you?
You do that too.
Every chance you get, you end up treating me like a prop.
In. Every. Single. Tape.”
His voice was rising.
“You’re not the only one stuck here. So when do I get to let go?”
He was almost breathing her in now, and he didn’t know if it was fury or something worse.
“When do I get to use you as my outlet?”
The words tumble out—years of repression and humiliation rising like bile in his throat.
She says nothing. But her stare sharpens.
Then, coolly:
“You’re a sheep, Wooly,” she says, voice dropping. “A literal sheep. That’s what you were made to be. A follower. I haven’t treated you like anything you don’t deserve, so don’t pretend this is all me.”
His body moves before his mind does.
In one sharp motion, he seizes her wrist and spins her around. Her front slams into the wall, palms flat for a second before he yanks both her wrists up over her head, his forearm pressed firmly against hers.
His other hand braces against the wall beside her head.
His eyes widened, unable to believe what just happened. He couldn’t believe how easy it was. What he’s capable of.
He’s right up against her– his chest nearly flush with her back. Her breath stutters at the closeness, sounding thin from the tightness of restraint as she attempts to jerk away, but to no avail. A flicker of something dangerous curled in his gut, and instead of scaring him it makes him lean in, just slightly.
Then– she laughs. The strained sound reverberated against his chest and dragged through the lack of air.
“Finally,” she croaks, glancing at him over her shoulder with a wicked, breathless smirk. “The sheep found his teeth.”
“Don’t,” Wooly growls, but it comes out weaker than he wants.
“Going to punish me, Wooly?”
His knees threaten to buckle. His stomach twists. The realization of what he’s doing– what he almost wanted to do– sinks in like a stone. His arm drops down and releases her wrists.
“I’m not…” He starts, voice hoarse. “I’m not like you.”
She doesn’t wait.
The second she’s free, she twists around and drives her elbow back, landing squarely in his ribs. The air was knocked out of his lungs, and as he stumbled, his hand caught the collar of her shirt out of sheer instinct, yanking her down with him.
They both crashed into the ground, a mess of tangled limbs. Her nails rake his shoulder as she tries to twist him onto his back. But he won’t hesitate anymore. Not this time.
She throws a knee at his gut– he blocks it with his forearm, gritting his teeth. She tries to land a blow to his throat.
That’s when he hits her.
A sharp, open-handed strike– brutal, panicked– slams into the side of her head, just above her ear. Her body jerks, her movements stutter into a slow halt. He takes the opportunity to shove her forward, forcing her underneath him. His knees pin her hips as his palms hit the floor on either side of her head, caging her in.
Amanda stares up at him, flushed, panting, the dizziness still coloring her features.
And maybe, somewhere deep down, this is exactly where he wanted her to be. This time, it would be her turn to squirm, to beg and writhe underneath him.
How many times had he pleaded with her to stop? If patience, reason, and kindness weren’t enough, maybe this will be. He was so tired of being the one afraid. Being the one who felt used.
Wooly allowed himself to lean into it, tap into that darkest part of himself he never used. Let the anger settle like ice in his chest, narrowing his thoughts into a clear path. He traced his hand down her stomach, slow and shaking, until it hovered at the waistband of her shorts.
Amanda gave a sharp exhale at the unexpected touch, her head snapping to the side to avoid looking at him, and her legs squeezed together on instinct.
He wouldn’t allow that.
He leans in. Grabs her jaw roughly.
“It’s all just pretend, isn’t it, Amanda?” He whispers, mockingly echoing her own words back at her.
Then he kisses her.
Or at least, he tried to.
His lips caught the corner of her mouth instead– off-kilter, unsatisfying. His breath stutters, but doesn’t pull back. Instead, he drags his mouth down her neck clumsily, desperate to find something real. He wants to penetrate through the cracks in her mask. To fracture her tranquility. To prove she’s just as human as he is— to shatter that perfection.
He doesn’t know what he’s doing.
He hears a barely perceptible moan and pulls away.
The moment hangs there like static.
Amanda blinks up at him, lips parted, eyes wide. A single flicker of color—blush—blooms on her cheeks.
And then she smiles. A little too wide.
“Wooly,” she whispers. “I didn’t think you had it in you. If I knew you could fight back, maybe I would’ve been nicer to you.”
Her hips tilt upward, grinding against him.
He jerks back like he’s been burned, stumbling off her and backing away across the room.
Amanda sits up, a short, breathy laugh escapes her– but it doesn’t reach her eyes.
Her face stills, and her eyes turn cold again.
“Tch,” she mutters. “I knew it. Still weak.”
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