#yeah thatll work

It's the happiest either of them have seen Scenty through the whole competition.

From where Liam and Bryce both sit, they can hear her cheering. After all the times Stone has stopped her team from being up for elimination, she finally has a way out.

But she's just so, so hopeful, because the viewers would certainly be on her side. They'd take her home, and she could leave this place behind. She could leave the unsettling geometry, ominous figures, and all-powerful voices who don't care about the lives of those they harm all in the past. This was certain to her. After all, she was the one who has asked to leave the most. Even her own teammates were vouching for her.

(Neither Bryce nor Liam would ever find issue with this. They want to go home too, yeah, but they're all being subjected to ONE; it'd be hard to accuse her of any selfishness or her teammates of any bias in a situation like this.)

It's the fact that she is so hopeful, though, that makes Liam look away and Bryce go quiet. Her excitement was loud and blatant, and though she was turned away from the both of them, it could be heard in the increasing thickness of her words that she's crying, at least a little.

All of this twists at something in Bryce's chest, as he just stares. It's far from panicked, but his breaths nonetheless feel shallow. Liam altogether tries to ignore her joy. It feels cruel to him. It feels unfair, and he doesn't want to see, and just the happiness in her voice makes him feel distant from the Plane.

They both just stay there, sitting in the pointed grass, because her hopes are so high. It really is the happiest either of them have ever seen her- though that doesn't mean much here. In her place, both of them would be just as excited. If they told her of Stone's message, that excitement would be completely crushed. Crushed with the ease of a wooden stake-

Then again, if she doesn't go home this elimination, would that be worse? Would telling her after only serve to make her spirits even worse, with her not only having to deal with the horrors of the Plane, but also the fact that her friends, the only people here from the same world as her, had kept something that important from her? Would she even care?

Scenty's cheering had died down by now. Her team had huddled together further, no doubt trying to make the most of their time with her. They all seemed to have grown close quickly through the competition. She'd moved to rest the back of her candle against Tray, allowing Bryce to read her expression better from where his team of three sits. Liam still stares only ahead of himself. With everything that's happened, a moral dilemma is far too complicated for him to even consider thinking about.

She's smiling, and she looks calm, though she occasionally wipes at her eyes. The relief is obvious in her posture. Her teammates talk casually and quietly amongst each other, Scenty piping in with a now worn, but still happy voice every now and then. 

All Bryce can think about is Stone's message, and that if the eliminations truly are random, then out of all of the contestants up for elimination, she doesn't have great odds of leaving. But she's still so happy, and if she does end up stuck here long, isn't it better for at least some of it to have been spent not afraid, and not desperate, but content?

Really, it doesn't feel like anything is the right decision here. No matter what, the situation is terrible, and no amount of sparing emotions or being honest will change that. Frankly, neither Bryce nor Liam could probably even bring themselves to tell her anyway, no matter what the “correct” decision is, the weight of Stone's message still weighing on their own minds, as well, keeping them both at a loss for much. Learning just how helpless everyone here was was never going to be something that would settle well. The text box’s clicking hadn’t gotten either of them to budge much, and they definitely wouldn’t now, Scenty’s words leaving its own mark that rivaled that of the message itself.