CHOSEN ANSWER: I should've saved him

"I should've saved him," I answered sombrely, my eyes facing the floor and hands swaying in defeat. "If I could... I should've saved both of you. If I had the power to rewind time, I'd go back and fix it, no questions asked..."

CallieMacN sighed. "There's nothing wrong with feeling that way, 8," She reassured me with a comforting smile. "I should've been more careful when the lights went out in the dining room. Maybe then, you wouldn't have to go through such a harrowing experience,"

"It's not like either of you could control it anyway," VicVillon interjected. "Whatever happened, it's neither of your faults,"

Her words renewed my courage. "Right," I nodded. "It's the ones who are behind all this that are to blame. All we can do to honour SkulShurtugal's death is to find who did this to him."

At this, I clenched my fists. "And I swear to achieve this goal, no matter what,"

The two inklings stared at me in amazement and surprise, though their looks slowly turned into ones of gratitude after a few moments. They had encouraging smiles on their faces, almost as if they were mentally thanking me for the sentiment. Beside me, Agent 3 nodded confidently.

*CallieMacN and VicVillon will remember this.

"I hate to break up the girl-to-girl talk you got over there," Etcesona called out, his voice echoing from the other side of the room. He pointed his thumb behind him as he walked towards us. "But Sagaci and I found something pretty weird over here, and you probably should check it out,"

"Define 'weird', Etce," Agent 3 said, tilting her head a little.

"Real weird," The octoling answered in a dead serious tone. "Nothing that we've ever seen before,"

That was intriguing. As we shot knowing looks at each other, the four of us followed Etcesona to a spot near the wall, where Sagaci was kneeling down. At first glance, it appeared as if there was nothing out of the ordinary, unless...?

"Now, I know what you're thinking; it looks like there's absolutely nothing here, right?" Etcesona began before turning to the other octoling with a serious nod.

"But," He continued, his hands moving around the wall as if it was finding something. "If I were to press on this well-hidden button in the wall..."

The minute his hands suddenly sank into the surface, the part of the wall near the ground, exactly where Sagaci was standing, retracted into the ground, revealing a circular patch of darkness beyond the wall.

A hidden tunnel? In a house?

"Holy squid!" I exclaimed before realising my somewhat offensive comment. "Sorry, it's a bad habit that I've yet to break," I immediately covered my mouth in embarrassment.

"It's okay, 8," Sagaci consoled me with a knowing smile. "Etce has said worse before-"

"Hey!!" The mentioned octoling shot a nasty stare at his friend, who was wearing nothing but a cheeky grin on her face. Despite all that's happened tonight, it was good that they're still in high spirits.

Meanwhile, Agent 3 stepped forward to take a closer look at the tunnel, peering in slightly. "A tunnel in a house... That is weird,"

Etcesona kneeled next to her. "Right? I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw this too. And the crazy thing is, the whole process of opening this bad boy made no sound at all..."

"Which would explain why you had tried it earlier and we couldn't hear you..." VicVillon realised, a hand to her chin in deep thought. "We could barely even see that button there, but anyone who knew where it exactly was could easily open that door and leave the room with no one knowing,"

"Hold on a minute," Agent 3 spoke up, holding her hand out for silence. "A hidden door... in a trap that guarantees death... which can be opened from the victim's side... and make no sound at all when activated..." As she connected the pieces of evidence together, I could see where she was going. "Agent 3, you don't think-?!"

"I am," She replied, though she felt hesitant to say anything. "Albeit, I'm not too sure if that could be true,"

Sagaci looked at both of us twice before standing up. "If you're going down the road I think you're going down, I'm gonna have to stop both of you right there,"

"Huh?"

The maroon-haired octoling was adamant. "Skul is NOT a traitor. I've known him for a really long time, and I know that he'd hate to hurt his friends like this,"

Oh dear. I think she's-

"Sagaci's right, and besides!" VicVillon interjected, not letting us speak. "You said that you heard Skul screaming as he died, right? And you saw the orange ink on the ground, too!"

Agent 3 appeared to be both apologetic and angry at the same time. "Hold on guys, you're misunderstanding-"

"HEY!!!"

A loud but not ear-blasting shout reached our ears, directing us to turn to the room beside us. Through the glass panel between us, CallieMacN motioned for us to go over to her. "You might want to check this out. There's another tunnel here too!"

"What?" was all I could mutter as Agent 3 stood up and rushed to CallieMacN's side, turning to me with a thumbs up that there was another tunnel in the other trap room where the pink inkling was trapped...

Two tunnels... with the same trap mechanism in place...

Immediately, I knew what to do. Living in tight tunnels back home before Inkopolis might have proven to be useful after all.

I quickly hurried to the tunnel on my side of the room, squatting before the darkness before me. Though I feared for the worse and had my heart in my throat, I entered the doorway while feeling for the road in front of me with my hands. As I had suspected, the tunnel soon turned right and right again, and it wasn't long before my head was sticking out of the room where CallieMacN and Agent 3 were.

"Just as I thought," I confirmed while everyone continued to stare at me with bated breath. "There's a fork in the road here, between the two doors in each trap room," I explained to the gang, motioning to the small doors in the room. "Plus, there is another tunnel extending from the middle of the fork,"

"Another tunnel?" Etcesona asked aloud. "Where does it lead?"

Beside him, Sagaci placed a hand on his shoulder, fierce determination all over her face.

"Only one way to find out,"

~~~~~~

We have been walking for a while now.

Guided by the strange torches hanging by the wall, we traversed through the tunnel that started from the trap room, the darkness seemingly making way for us as the fire in the torches lit our way. The tunnel was tall enough for all of us to stand properly instead of crawling around like baby cephalopods, but because of the atmosphere, even the spacious walls felt like they were closing in on us, as if they were alive.

"I'm just going to say this right now," VicVillon muttered nervously, hands wrapping her body. "The creep factor of this place has just reached 9000,"

"You're not kidding, Vic," CallieMacN agreed as her eyes darted all over the tunnel, wary of anything that could pop out of nowhere and possibly harm us.

Behind me, even Agent 3 looked worried, her lips curved downward as she glanced at me. "You okay with leading everyone, 8?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," I comforted her before turning my attention back to the road ahead of me. Thankfully, I was beginning to see a bit of brighter light at the end of the tunnel.

Our footsteps hastened as the light grew larger and larger in view. Soon enough, we found ourselves exiting the tunnel and entering a much larger, hexagon shaped room, where every side of the room had another tunnel leading somewhere else.

Before I could read any signs pasted on the walls, we were greeted by the sound of pattering feet. Quick and hasty feet. A runaway?

"Uh, guys?" I said quickly, alerting them to the sound of running figures with a single index finger in the air. As everyone instantly nodded in unison, the sounds got closer...

Slowly, our feet backed away to the tunnel where we came from, all of us huddled together and gradually returning to the darkness. Agent 3 and I kept our eyes and ears open for where the strangers would be running from, only to be met with a very pleasant surprise.

Instead of a bunch of unknown cephalopods, two male inklings ran out of another tunnel, hunching over their legs to catch their breath. One of them sported purple hair in a slick haircut, while the other had pink hair just like CallieMacN, except that it was in a hipster style, as well as a straw boater hat.

No way... It couldn't be-

"Vian? Gab?" Agent 3 beat me to the punch, calling out for the two splatubers aloud. At the sound of familiar names, everyone else began to step out of the tunnel as well, their eyes trained on the two new inklings in the room.

"Huff... huff... Guys?" Viantastic raised his head slightly to be greeted by the sight of his splatuber friends running to him and Gabriel Gaming, embracing each other with hugs and words of relief.

"Oh my cod, how did you get here, Vian?!" VicVillon exclaimed, rubbing her eyes a few times to confirm that they were not tricking her.

"You guys are really here... but how?!" Etcesona demanded, though his facial expression was void of anger.

"We just followed some tunnels... Honestly, I'm just so glad to see you guys okay-!" Viantastic remarked as he gave Sagaci a hug.

After a few moments of calming down, Viantastic and Gabriel Gaming begrudgingly turned towards us, the joy and relief on their faces slowly shifting into sorrow. I was confused; what was going on?

... And if you two are here, then where is Agent 4?

"I'm sorry, Agent 3 and Agent 8," Gabriel Gaming drooped his head sadly. "We... We were investigating some things in the tunnels around the house, and even though we found some really important clues..."

"We... Agent 4..." Despite his attempt, Viantastic could not continue Gabriel Gaming's words and his voice trailed off.

I could feel my heart sinking to the bottom of the Deepsea Metro.

"No," Was all I could say. You have to be kidding me, they have GOT to be kidding me.... right?!

Agent 3's head was facing the ground too, her eyes hidden from plain sight and her arms slumped to her sides in disbelief. The atmosphere amongst the splatubers became grim as well, with some of them gasping in shock.

Agent 4? Sweet Agent 4? Gone? I could barely believe it-

PITTER-PATTER, PITTER-PATTER!

We were all alert and at attention at the sound of footsteps, this time with the noises being louder and quicker, as if a larger crowd were about to enter the room. Our faces were showing nothing but fear.

"To the tunnel, NOW!!" Gabriel Gaming whispered loudly, pointing to a tunnel as everyone booked it. Swiftly but silently, we backed away into a tunnel once more, my heart pounding for what will emerge from those tunnels...

Even in the darkness of the tunnel, I could see what was going on in the hexagonal room. From another tunnel, a few suspiciously hooded figures stepped out and into the light. As soon as they had entered, they formed a circle and began to talk amongst themselves, seemingly not noticing us. There was a dark, malevolent aura emitting from those figures, an atmosphere to them that made me sick to my stomach. I didn't have to take a closer look to understand that these guys mean trouble.

"We faced some of them back in the tunnels," Viantastic whispered to me. "The craziest thing is, one of them looked exactly like Gab and another one looked like Fyrus!"

"Fyrus?" Agent 3 gasped in disbelief. "Isn't he dead?"

"That's what we thought too!" Gabriel Gaming added. "Turns out the guy who looked like me was like, the evil version of me, and the 'Fyrus' we saw was some weird robot. I know it sounds stupid but it's true, I swear!"

Behind me, I could hear Etcesona muttering to himself. "If that Gab looked like you, then how can we be sure that you're our friends?"

Those words burned hotter than fire in my ears. He was right. What if the ones who were with us right now... were not our friends at all...? What if it was another trap like before? As much as I hated to think of it, the thought sent chills down my spine.

"Nevermind that, we gotta show you something, guys," Viantastic continued. "If we can get to the tunnel that we came through, we can make our way back to the Picture Room where we started,"

And risk falling into a trap? Upon realising the same thing as I did, 3 turned to me with a stern look. "8, we can't stay here, we gotta do something..."

Somehow, I feel a sense of foreboding with this choice...

~~~~

~ A DECISION TO MAKE ~

🦋

(Underlined and bold indicates the final answer determined by my Twitter poll)

Follow GG and Vian

Make a run for it

Attack them