It was a busy night at an arcade. Five friends were celebrating their friend’s first step into adulthood. Their friend who they thought would never take this first step… Eighteen year old Rachel Meirs bought her own house to escape her abusive father. So, as a prize to her first step in buying a house was a fun trip to the arcade.

Rachel, being followed by her friends, excitedly and quietly darted to her favorite arcade machine in the whole arcade; a DDR game where you can import custom music with an USB drive. Her hands shook excitedly, like Hank’s after seeing a large blender in the Madness Combat series.

“Uh-oh. She found her favorite game.” One of her friends chuckled.

Rachel nodded excitedly as she put in arcade tokens and her USB into different slots of the machine, quietly, before choosing one of her favorite songs on her USB; Wake Up, Get Up, Get Out There (Composed by Shoji Meguro, lyrics by Benjamin Franklin(?), from Persona 5)

“Who am I? Am I not unique? Maybe I’m not here at all-” were the words that came out of the machine's speakers

Those lyrics rang in Rachel’s mind. “Who am I… Who am I?” Rachel quietly reminded herself of who she was and who her friends were…

Rachel Meirs, an 18 year old female, was always nervous to do stuff on her own… that’s how she is. She’s always quiet and reserved… The simple things were often the biggest moments of her life. Especially when she got her pet dog, Axl, a certified service animal. However, her father was not proud of Rachel when she got Axl for emotional support. For many years, Rachel had dealt with her abusive father, who often physically abused her. The worst thing he would do to her is take her anxiety medications from her, and refuse to give the medications she needs. Ever since an incident, she started to carry around her medications in her favorite vest. All of her friends compare her to a rainbow turtle, hiding in a grey shell. She liked that analogy.

Trent Zanis, a 35 year old male, was the one who encouraged Rachel to start doing her now normal habits. To Rachel, Trent is a more of a father than her own father. Trent has done more good things in her life than her father, such as giving her money to buy her own house. He knew the torture she was going through. Trent wanted to protect her so bad… So he turned that wish into reality.

Barbara Seekuh, a 16 year old girl, was another one of Rachel’s friends who got Rachel out of her shell. Barbara, however, learned some tricks from Rachel herself. While Barbara is very boisterous, mainly with her voice, Rachel has taught Barbara that it’s okay to also be very quiet too. She, Ruth, and Trent have been the only people to see Rachel’s true colors, only for them to be hidden by that grey, emotional shell of hers.

Ruth Eule, a 17 year old girl, who was one of the first people to see Rachel’s true colors, during an unexpected sleep over at the younger one’s house. Ruth really cares about Rachel’s mental health and knows Rachel better than anyone else. With that said, Ruth knows Rachel’s tendencies… especially the bad ones.

Kyle Sudas, a 15 year old boy, has been a huge fan of Rachel’s skills in musical instruments, especially in piano. He once got Rachel playing various video game music and saw her give the biggest grin while playing piano. That was his proudest moment and the closest thing he’s seen to Rachel getting out of her shell. He tries too hard to get Rachel to show her true nature, but maybe… maybe tonight he gets to see that?

Rachel happily tapped her feet on the arrows of the large DDR game pad, looking very energetic and starting to giggle a bit. Her dog, Axl, stood by Barbara as the young woman played the rhythm game.

“Hey Trent, can we race against each other in Motor Racer III?” Kyle asked, bored of watching Rachel playing DDR. Trent looked at the young boy before looking back at Rachel. “Well…. One of us has to keep an eye on Rachel…” Trent replied.

“I CAN!” Barbara shouted excitedly, as she jumped up and down like an excited child, who couldn’t wait to open presents on Christmas.

Barbara’s shouting startled Rachel, who finished her song, as she gasped and covered her ears and ducked. She hated when Barbara shouted. Ruth replied in a tone that comforted Rachel. “Barbara and I can keep an eye on Rachel.” She reassured Trent.

Rachel glared at Barbara as she huffed, doing her impression of Sanford from Madness Project Nexus “I don’t need a baby sitter!”

Trent sighed, as he explained to Rachel “Rachel, I don’t want Daren to come find you and do you any harm. We’re not babysitting you, we’re protecting you… like…” Trent took a second to find a good analogy for Rachel, before smiling and looking at Axl “Like how Axl protects you.”

Her voice softened as she now sounded like herself, as she looked at Trent’s chest “Like how Lilly protects Nebby?”

Trent smiled and chuckled. “Yes, like how Lilly protects Nebby.”

Rachel looked at Trent’s face as she gave a soft grin and said, quietly “pew pew!” (She was making the sound Cosmog makes in Pokemon SM/USUM)

Trent smiled as he looked at the girls. “We’re going to play Motor Racer III” He told the three.

The girls acknowledged it as Rachel went onto the next song, EXPURGATION. She looked at her friends and said with a wink “I hope my fat doesn’t fall off my head.”

Confused, Barbara and Ruth gave each confused looks, not sure what she meant by that…. Whatever. It was Rachel slowly coming out of her grey turtle shell.

After Expurgation was done, Rachel went to turn to her friends to offer them a turn on DDR, but noticed that the girls were talking to some people she didn’t know. She quickly returned to her quiet secluded self and chose her last song, Nerves (from Smoke ‘Em Out Struggle).

When her song ended, she had finished her three uses of her token, (if I recall correctly, on arcade versions of DDR, you have three uses per token) So she took out her flash drive, when the machine told her to, and looked at her friends, who were still chatting away with the strangers.

At this point, Rachel was thirsty. She didn’t want to sound rude and interrupt her friend’s chatter, but she couldn’t walk up to the area where they had drinks and such. The arcade had a huge sign on their door that said that their soda machine broke. The only thing Rachel could do now was go to the next door gas station and buy herself a drink. Without saying a word, Rachel wandered out of the arcade, telling the lady at the desk she would be back soon.

Outside the noisy arcade came the tranquility of the night. Rachel loved the quiet city noises, as she took a deep breath and sighed heavily. She started to walk to the gas station next door.

But as she got into the dark corners of the arcade, she felt something cold and hard hit her in the back of the head, rendering her unconscious…

“Uh…. We should tell Trent that we lost her.” Ruth said, as she grabbed Barbara’s wrists and started to drag her to the bike arcade machines, where Trent and Kyle said they were going. Barbara quickly revolted against that idea.

“No! NO! NO!”

“Barbara! It’s better if we tell the truth!” Ruth explained, continuing to literally drag the younger, but taller, girl across the arcade. Ruth had to tell Trent ASAP.

“You lost Rachel?!” Trent shouted, worriedly at the girls. Ruth and Barbara both nodded sorrowfully, as Axl looked around for his missing owner. Trent sighed, as he looked at the kids. “Barbara, Ruth, check every possible area for where Rachel might be. Kyle, we’re going to go ask any employees if they’ve seen Rachel. Maybe someone saw her last.”

“And if we can’t find her?” Barbara asked, as she was internally panicking.

“Use that code word we use whenever we’re in trouble.”

“Got it!” Ruth said with a nod, as she and Barbara both ran off to some of the possible arcade machines Rachel might be at.

Rainbow. The code word for “I’m in trouble.” What started out as Rachel parroting an Undertale AU Multiverse comic (With the original quote being that Error Sans was calling Ink!Sans a ‘Rainbow a**h***’) became their code word for “help.”

She was scared. Where was she?

’okay. One step at a time.’ She thought to herself.

’Step 1. Make sure hands aren’t tied.’ Rachel couldn’t feel anything restraining her hands or legs, which gave her freedom to do whatever she wanted to do with them.

’okay… step 2… feel my way around’ Rachel felt the area around her… starting to get an understanding where she was, when the room around her moved violently, and she went flying into something cold and metal… She realized she was in a car, more specifically the trunk of a car. The car started moving again and she knew exactly how to plan her escape.

She felt her way around the ceiling of the trunk, thinking to herself. ’escape lever… escape lever… es… nuthin’ sus. Escape le- ah-ha!’ Rachel grabbed onto the lever and pulled on it tight, causing the trunk to fly open. This was a bad move…

The car suddenly stopped and the sudden stop launched the young woman out of the car and rolling into a patch of grass not far from the car. Her head throbbed with pain. She felt like her favorite character from her equally favorite fanfic. Only there wasn’t a 25 foot monster trying to eat her. But now was not the time to be thinking about fanfics.

Rachel weakly got up, feeling pain in every inch of her body. She hissed in pain as she tried to force her body to move ’I just…. Have to find… help…’ She quietly encouraged herself. She looked around; trying to find the car she got out of, but couldn’t find it. She then started to limp away from the scene.

She noticed a building far off in the distance. Maybe she could reside there?

“The lady at the front counter said that Rachel had gone to the local gas station, but when we called, Rachel wasn’t there.” Kyle explained.

That’s when Axl started barking and darted out the door, dragging Barbara with him. When they got outside, Axl was sniffing at a spot on the ground, before sitting and whimpering. Trent, now concerned about Axl’s behavior, took a closer look at the ground… his eyes widened…

Blood… Probably Rachel’s blood.

“Everyone, get inside. Now.” Trent shouted. Obediently, the kids ran back inside the arcade, confused but knew something bad is going on. Trent pulled out his phone from his pocket and dialed 911. “Hello? I found blood and… we have a missing person who might be in extreme danger…”

Pain slowly filled her mind as she reached a red truck near the building. She was starting to feel tired from the pain her body was in. Rachel sat next to the truck as she started to cry. Her sobs were loud enough for someone to hear them. She didn’t care. She was tired, lost, confused. She hated this sudden change.

She laid on the ground and curled up, trying to hum Expurgation. There was one part of the song that she tends to howl to. Which she did, letting out a loud and pained howl. She quickly covered her mouth with her hands. It felt like that howl took all that remaining energy she had as she started to close her eyes.

Voices quickly filled the quiet air, as Rachel fought against the heavy weight of her eyes. Fuzzy figures stood before her.

’oh… hello there…’ She thought to herself before losing against the battle between her heavy eyes. ’I guess I’ll just take a nap now… good night.’